Last Call For One Cell To Another

In Detroit, ICE is now using Stingray cell tower devices to listen in and hunt undocumented immigrants as the Trump regime's reign of fear continues.

Federal investigators are using a cellphone snooping device designed for counter-terrorism to hunt undocumented immigrants amid President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, according to federal court records obtained by The Detroit News. 

An unsealed federal search warrant affidavit obtained by The News is the first public acknowledgment that agents are using secret devices that masquerade as a cell tower to find people who entered the U.S. illegally, privacy and civil liberty experts said. 

The secret device was used in March by a team of FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Metro Detroit to find Rudy Carcamo-Carranza, 23, a twice-deported restaurant worker from El Salvador whose only brushes with the law involve drunken driving allegations and a hit-and-run crash. 

The use of the cell tower simulator comes amid the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown and attempt to temporarily ban travel from six Muslim-majority nations.
The cell-site simulator device, known as a Hailstorm or Stingray, tricks nearby phones into providing location data and can interrupt cellular service of all devices within the targeted location. Federal investigators are required to obtain a judge’s approval to use the device.

“While the warrant does ensure a modicum of judicial oversight, it is troubling to see the government using invasive surveillance technology on the streets of America to grease the wheels of the Trump administration’s deportation machine,” said Nathan Wessler, staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s Speech, Privacy and Technology Project. “This is the first warrant I have seen specifically showing ICE’s use of a cell-site simulator in an immigration enforcement operation.”

It's the first warrant.  It will not, of course, be the last.  And the next generation of cell phone tower spoofing devices, called Hailstorm, are easily portable.

The Hailstorm technology from Florida-based defense contractor Harris Corp. is believed to be an upgrade of Stingray. Cell-site simulators, in general, are suitcase-sized contraptions that can be installed in cars or planes to track nearby phones. 

Harris sells the device to police agencies and requires them to sign nondisclosure statements. Oakland County, like other agencies, obtained Hailstorm using money from a U.S. Department of Homeland Security grant. 

Homeland Security also lets local law enforcement agencies pay for the devices using terrorism prevention grants. 

Michigan State Police has owned the device for about a decade, according to documents obtained by The News. The equipment, originally designed for military and intelligence agencies, was upgraded in 2013, and an internal memo indicates it was used three years ago on 128 cases ranging from homicide to burglary and fraud, but not terrorism. 

Federal investigators, meanwhile, were not required to obtain a search warrant to use the device until September 2015. That’s when the Justice Department implemented a new policy requiring a judge’s approval. 

Under the Justice Department policy, all data from targeted cellphones must be deleted immediately after the device is located. Under the policy, Stingrays cannot be used to collect emails, texts, contacts or images during an investigation. 

There is no similar policy governing local law-enforcement agencies in most states, said Shahid Buttar, director of grassroots advocacy for the nonprofit digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation. The group is committed to defending civil liberties and privacy in the digital age.

How long before that 2015 DoJ directive requiring a warrant to use Hailstorm vanishes thanks to Jeff Sessions?  How long before that becomes standard practice for ICE raids?

Yeah, I know that Obama came up short on tech and civil liberties sometimes, but this stuff in the hands of Trump should terrify everybody.

Russian To Judgment, Con't

It's Friday news dump time while Trump is winging his way to Saudi Arabia this afternoon, and both the NY Times and Washington Post are ending the week of Trump/Russia stories with a bang.

So far we know that former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and former Trump National Security Adviser Mike Flynn are under investigation for ties to Russia, but what about anyone currently in the Trump regime being under investigation?  The Washington Post says "you'd better believe it."

The law enforcement investigation into possible coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign has identified a current White House official as a significant person of interest, showing that the probe is reaching into the highest levels of government, according to people familiar with the matter. 

The senior White House adviser under scrutiny by investigators is someone close to the president, according to these people, who would not further identify the official. 

The revelation comes as the investigation also appears to be entering a more overtly active phase, with investigators shifting from work that has remained largely hidden from the public to conducting interviews and using a grand jury to issue subpoenas. The intensity of the probe is expected to accelerate in the coming weeks, the people said. 

The sources emphasized that investigators remain keenly interested in people who previously wielded influence in the Trump campaign and administration but are no longer part of it, including former national security adviser Michael Flynn and former campaign chairman Paul Manafort. 

Flynn resigned in February after disclosures that he had lied to administration officials about his contacts with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Current administration officials who have acknowledged contacts with Russian officials include Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, as well as Cabinet members Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

So which one of these folks is under investigation?  I'm hoping it's Sessions, but it makes a lot more sense if it's Kushner or Tillerson, both of whom have direct business ties to Russian interests.

Meanwhile, the NY Times comes in this afternoon with this blockbuster that not only did Trump blab classified info to the Russians, he blabbed his secret master plan to fire Comey to end the investigation into his visiting friends as well.

President Trump told Russian officials in the Oval Office this month that firing the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, had relieved “great pressure” on him, according to a document summarizing the meeting. 

“I just fired the head of the F.B.I. He was crazy, a real nut job,” Mr. Trump said, according to the document, which was read to The New York Times by an American official. “I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.” 

Mr. Trump added, “I’m not under investigation.” 

The conversation, during a May 10 meeting — the day after he fired Mr. Comey — reinforces the notion that Mr. Trump dismissed him primarily because of the bureau’s investigation into possible collusion between his campaign and Russian operatives. Mr. Trump said as much in one televised interview, but the White House has offered changing justifications for the firing. 

The White House document that contained Mr. Trump’s comments was based on notes taken from inside the Oval Office and has been circulated as the official account of the meeting. One official read quotations to The Times, and a second official confirmed the broad outlines of the discussion.

Apparently the fact that Trump fired Comey to try to stop the FBI probe into Russian collusion really was the worst-kept secret in the world last week.

So at this point we have yet another account of Trump's true intent in firing James Comey was to stop the FBI's investigation into Trump's Russia ties, and we know that somebody currently in Trump's inner circle is a key subject in that investigation.

We'll find out who that individual (or individuals!) are pretty soon would be my guess.

Drip drip drip comrade Don.

The FOX And The Hounds (And The Turtle)

As I pointed out yesterday, FOX News Channel founder and serial assaulter of women Roger Ailes died yesterday from a fall in the home at age 77, and while Ailes was definitely one of the primary assholes responsible for the Age of Trump, he's also one of those responsible for the Age of Mitch as Ailes was the man who gave McConnell his first Senate win with this now famous campaign ad.

In September 1984, McConnell, then the Jefferson County judge-executive, the top elected official in Kentucky's most populous county, was polling 40 points behind his opponent, Democratic Sen. Dee Huddleston. That is, until he hired Ailes.

In his autobiography last year, McConnell called it "one of the smartest moves I made."

"I was happy he agreed to do it. I sure needed help." McConnell wrote in "The Long Game."

The arrangement gave birth to one of the most successful political ads of all time.

Ailes and McConnell needed to find a way to exploit Huddleston's biggest weakness: his tendency to not show up for work.

One night while watching TV, Ailes saw a dog food commercial and got an idea.

They hired an actor named Snarfy to play a Kentucky farmer and found some bloodhounds, prized as hunting dogs in Kentucky.

In the ad, Snarfy and the dogs go off in search of Huddleston in places where he was giving paid speeches instead of casting votes in the Senate. Snarfy and the dogs searched city streets, by the pool and on the beach for Kentucky's missing senator.

"Our job was to find Dee Huddleston and get him back to work," the narrator said.

The ad closed with a pitch to "switch to Mitch" as one of the dogs barked twice.

Kentuckians loved it.

"On the trail, people began to approach me, to shake my hand and comment on how funny they'd found the ad," McConnell wrote in his autobiography. "This momentum was just what I needed."

That November, as Ronald Reagan coasted to a landslide presidential victory, McConnell won his first Senate term by 5,000 votes.

Ailes told McConnell he'd never seen anyone come from that far behind and win.

"I think it can be argued that if not for Roger Ailes, the political history of Kentucky and the United States would be a lot different," said Al Cross, director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues at the University of Kentucky and a veteran journalist.

Indeed, how different would things be right now if McConnell had lost that race in 1984 and he had stayed out of politics, and Ailes's credibility as a political operator had been shot to hell?

We'll never know, but man, it was just 5,000 votes.  Our country has hinged on fewer than that in many a contest.

StupidiNews!

• Facing massive questions at home, Donald Trump will escape Washington for his first foreign trip including stops in Saudi Arabia, the Vatican, and Israel.
• Sweden says it has dropped rape charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, but UK officials still say they would arrest him if he leaves London's Ecuadorian Embassy.
• Iranians go to the polls today as reformer President Hassan Rouhani is running for reelection against hardline fundamentalist Ebrahim Raisi.
• Brazil is once again being racked by political crisis as President Michel Temer now faces major corruption allegations just a year after replacing impeached former president Dilma Rouseff.
• The FCC voted 2-1 to scrap net neutrality rules completely, a move that critics say will lead to consumers having to pay extra for access to specific internet sites.

The Beaver Goes Home, Con't

Last month we found out GOP Rep. Jason Chaffetz wasn't too happy being chair of the House Oversight Committee when he didn't have Hillary Clinton as President to harass on a daily basis, so unhappy in fact he that he was not going to run in 2018.  But now that Chaffetz's job involves actually having to deal with Donald Trump's Russia connections, money laundering, obstruction of justice and you know, possible treason it seems that Chaffetz is now bailing completely and hanging it up at the end of next month.

The chairman of the House oversight and government reform committee, Jason Chaffetz, is leaving Congress on June 30, the Utah Republican announced Thursday. 

"As you know, after careful consideration and long discussion with my wife, Julie, we agree the time has come for us to move on from this part of our life," Chaffetz wrote in a letter posted on his social media. "This week I sent a letter to Governor (Gary) Herbert indicating my intention to resign from Congress effective June 30, 2017." 

Chaffetz said last month he was not running for reelection, and then later said he might not finish out his term. He's reportedly eying a position at Fox News after leaving the House.

Chaffetz is head of a committee that is the House's investigatory arm into the Executive Branch. He has started digging into President Donald Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey and the former director's memo saying Trump asked him to drop the investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn. 

This week, Chaffetz sent a letter from FBI Director Andrew McCabe seeking all FBI notes and information on Comey's communications with Trump, and he announced a hearing next week where he's invited Comey to testify. 

There's no indication yet, however, that the former FBI director plans to attend -- and Chaffetz had trouble reaching Comey. 

Rep. Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the panel, has repeatedly clashed with Chaffetz during several investigations, but told CNN that he was "going to miss him" and that he brought a "breath of fresh air" to the committee after it went through some tumultuous times under prior Republican leadership.

Funny how after subpoenaing Comey's memos earlier this week, Chaffetz is now heading home back to Utah and getting as far away from DC as he can.  A nice cushy job as a FOX News pundit seems like the perfect position for him.

My guess is that Chaffetz knows quite a bit about what's coming and doesn't have the guts to handle the coming storm.  He doesn't want to deal with Trump, and definitely doesn't want to deal with Trump voters either.  After all, Utah Gov. Gary Herbert might now want to run in 2018, and Chaffetz might want a career after 2017.  Who knows?

Either way, for Chaffetz to bail now is 100% suspicious...and 100% cowardly.  Never forget that when real government oversight was needed, Jason Chaffetz turned into a chickenshit and ran home.

Most Republicans are cowards though, so no surprise there.

The problem with that is this means our old friend Trey "Benghazi" Gowdy would be chair of the Oversight Committee again.

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) could be the next chairman of the House Oversight Committee — if he wants the job. 

The popular South Carolina Republican and former Select Committee on Benghazi chairman has emerged as the front-runner to replace Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), who made it official Thursday that he would resign from Congress on June 30.

Gowdy, a prominent leadership ally, has been racking up endorsements from colleagues on the Oversight panel and the influential Steering Committee, which will choose the next chairman. The 52-year-old former prosecutor is one of a handful of senior Oversight members who has been calling and texting Steering members about the gavel.

“If Trey runs, he’ll get it,” one Steering Committee member told The Hill.

But Gowdy’s office said the congressman has made no final decision about whether he’ll run. 

“Rep. Gowdy is talking to members in the conference about the qualities they believe are most important for the next Chairman to possess,” said Gowdy spokeswoman Amanda Gonzalez. 

At least two other Oversight members — Reps. Dennis Ross (R-Fla.) and Steve Russell (R-Okla.) — have been reaching out to the 32-member Steering panel. 

The Oversight Committee is stacked with members of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, and several of them said they favored former Freedom Caucus Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) to be the next chairman.

But even Jordan conceded Thursday that it’d be an uphill battle for him to win the gavel given that the Steering group is largely comprised of loyalists to Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.). Jordan had been one of the Freedom ringleaders who pressured then-Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) to resign in 2015, making Jordan persona non grata to some GOP colleagues.

So Gowdy is the frontrunner, but he actually may not get the job.  We'll see.  Hell, who knows where this will all be when June 30 rolls around.

Mortal Coil Shufflling Department Comes For Roger Ailes

Serial abuser of women (and of news) Roger Ailes, former FOX News Channel head and founder, was found dead this morning at age 77.

The death was announced by his family and reported on Fox News Channel. There was no immediate information on a cause of death. 

"I am profoundly sad and heartbroken to report that my husband, Roger Ailes, passed away this morning," his wife, Elizabeth, said in a statement. "Roger was a loving husband to me, to his son Zachary, and a loyal friend to many. He was also a patriot, profoundly grateful to live in a country that gave him so much opportunity to work hard, to rise -- and to give back." 

Sean Hannity, a prime time host and longtime face of the network, said on Twitter: "Today America lost one of its great patriotic warriors." 

Ailes started Fox News almost from scratch in 1996. With its slogan "Fair & Balanced," the network grew into not just the cable news ratings leader but a profound influence on the right wing of American politics. 

Fox News promoted Republican candidates and causes and relentlessly attacked what it perceived to be liberal bias in the mainstream media and the entertainment industry. 

Ailes was arguably the most powerful man in American media when he suddenly lost his job last summer. Gretchen Carlson, a former Fox anchor, sued him for sexual harassment, and other women came forward to support her claims. Carlson settled with 21st Century Fox, the network's parent company, for $20 million.

Roger Ailes was one of the chief architects of the rise of the current GOP, and of Trump.  He has done incalculable damage to the country and the planet, and his passing is quite literally the least he could accomplish in the wake of his decades-long reign of presiding of his empire of cable news diarrhea.

I'm going to spend the rest of my life believing that his final words yesterday were something along the lines that a special counsel for Trump and Russia would only be appointed "over his dead body" and that his body dutifully complied.

Good job, Roger Ailes's body.  Were that you could have only saved us earlier.

Three Strikes For Mike, Overnight

If all the massive news stories that happened yesterday involving Trump and Russia weren't enough for you, with the appointment of former FBI Director Robert Mueller as special counsel and GOP House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy caught on tape saying he thought Trump was getting paid off by Putin, this morning we have three more separate stories on former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn on the docket, and none of them are good news for the Trump regime in any way.  

First up: from the NY Times that Mike Flynn told the Trump team he was under FBI investigation before he was hired, and Trump hired him anyway.

Michael T. Flynn told President Trump’s transition team weeks before the inauguration that he was under federal investigation for secretly working as a paid lobbyist for Turkey during the campaign, according to two people familiar with the case.

Despite this warning, which came about a month after the Justice Department notified Mr. Flynn of the inquiry, Mr. Trump made Mr. Flynn his national security adviser. The job gave Mr. Flynn access to the president and nearly every secret held by American intelligence agencies.

Mr. Flynn’s disclosure, on Jan. 4, was first made to the transition team’s chief lawyer, Donald F. McGahn II, who is now the White House counsel. That conversation, and another one two days later between Mr. Flynn’s lawyer and transition lawyers, shows that the Trump team knew about the investigation of Mr. Flynn far earlier than has been previously reported.

This means that White House Counsel Don McGahn knew full well that Flynn was dirty, and most of all it makes a giant liar out of the person that Trump had to head hiring for his transition team: VP Mike Pence, who in February said he found out more than two weeks after Trump did that Flynn was under investigation, and that Flynn mislead them on his contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak.  Flynn should have never been hired in the first place, and Pence, as transition head, would have had to have known what Flynn told McGahn about Turkey.

Oh, but it gets worse, specifically on Flynn''s relationship as a paid agent of Turkey and President Erdogan, as McClatchy News dropped this story late last night on Flynn.

One of the Trump administration’s first decisions about the fight against the Islamic State was made by Michael Flynn weeks before he was fired – and it conformed to the wishes of Turkey, whose interests, unbeknownst to anyone in Washington, he’d been paid more than $500,000 to represent.

The decision came 10 days before Donald Trump had been sworn in as president, in a conversation with President Barack Obama’s national security adviser, Susan Rice, who had explained the Pentagon’s plan to retake the Islamic State’s de facto capital of Raqqa with Syrian Kurdish forces whom the Pentagon considered the U.S.’s most effective military partners. Obama’s national security team had decided to ask for Trump’s sign-off, since the plan would all but certainly be executed after Trump had become president.

Flynn didn’t hesitate. According to timelines distributed by members of Congress in the weeks since, Flynn told Rice to hold off, a move that would delay the military operation for months.

If Flynn explained his answer, that’s not recorded, and it’s not known whether he consulted anyone else on the transition team before rendering his verdict. But his position was consistent with the wishes of Turkey, which had long opposed the United States partnering with the Kurdish forces – and which was his undeclared client.

Trump eventually would approve the Raqqa plan, but not until weeks after Flynn had been fired.

Ahh, but this story about the Raqqa operation coupled with the NY Times story means that the Trump team knew Flynn was under investigation for his ties to Turkey, and was still allowed to make decisions about anti-ISIS operations involving Turkey anyway.  And that folks, is a serious, serious problem for McGahn and Pence, oh and Trump too.

But what about Russia?  Ahh dear reader, that brings us to Strike Number Three as it turns out Flynn's undisclosed contacts with Ambassador Kislyak happened quite often as Reuters dropped this gem this morning:

Michael Flynn and other advisers to Donald Trump’s campaign were in contact with Russian officials and others with Kremlin ties in at least 18 calls and emails during the last seven months of the 2016 presidential race, current and former U.S. officials familiar with the exchanges told Reuters.

The previously undisclosed interactions form part of the record now being reviewed by FBI and congressional investigators probing Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election and contacts between Trump’s campaign and Russia.

Six of the previously undisclosed contacts described to Reuters were phone calls between Sergei Kislyak, Russia's ambassador to the United States, and Trump advisers, including Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser, three current and former officials said.

Conversations between Flynn and Kislyak accelerated after the Nov. 8 vote as the two discussed establishing a back channel for communication between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin that could bypass the U.S. national security bureaucracy, which both sides considered hostile to improved relations, four current U.S. officials said.

In January, the Trump White House initially denied any contacts with Russian officials during the 2016 campaign. The White House and advisers to the campaign have since confirmed four meetings between Kislyak and Trump advisers during that time.

And this is now the starting point of the Mueller special counsel probe into Trump and Russia.  Flynn is the keystone, looks like.  It's why he was the first thrown overboard.  Cracking him wide open leads to Trump, Pence, and possibly Paul Ryan.  Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein will brief the entire US Senate today on the probe, and folks, I'm betting this is going to start moving quickly here, as if this week's breakneck pace was somehow pokey.

Stay tuned, folks.

StupidiNews!

• A chaotic day of political news on Wednesday gave the stock markets their worst performance in almost nine months as the DJIA dropped 373 points or 1.8% yesterday.
• Soundgarden front man Chris Cornell has died at the age of 52, his family is working with the medical examiner to determine the cause of his "sudden and unexpected" death.
• A new bill before Congress would require the NSA to inform lawmakers and other US government agencies when it intends to use computer exploits for espionage purposes.
• Dutch King Willem-Alexander will be ending his role as an airline "guest pilot" for KLM and will start training to fly Boeing 737s. 
• A new British Medical Journal study finds that the age of a primary care physician has a slight but statistically significant effect on patient mortality rates, particularly for doctors over 60.

Last Call For Killing The Messenger

The Trump regime is now in the "lashing out" phase as the DoJ now says it plans to hunt down anyone who leaks to the press and bury them.

Under intense pressure from the White House, the Justice Department is prepared to aggressively prosecute government officials who leak classified information. Justice Department officials told The Daily Beast that targeting leakers will be a priority during Jeff Sessions’ time as attorney general—a posture that will hearten national security hawks, while concerning advocates of whistleblower protections. 

“As the Attorney General has said, the Department of Justice takes unlawful leaks very seriously and those that engage in such activity should be held accountable,” an official told The Daily Beast. 

On Monday afternoon, the Washington Post broke the news that Trump shared classified information about ISIS with Russian officials. And on Tuesday, the New York Times reported that that intelligence initially came from Israel. Both stories cited anonymous individuals as sources of the information. 

Those stories generated searing criticism for the president, and chaos at the White House. But his allies say the leak is the real story. Breitbart, the far right site formerly helmed by Steve Bannon, has pushed this line enthusiastically. They aren’t alone in that view. 

“The fact that the president shared classified information with a foreign government official, in and of itself, is classified,” a former senior intelligence official told The Daily Beast. “So whoever was trying to burn him for thinking he’s doing something wrong actually is the only one that committed a crime here.” 

That all adds up to massive pressure on the Justice Department to track down and prosecute the officials responsible for the leaks. And the department’s new leadership could be uniquely up to the task.

Rod Rosenstein, Sessions’ top deputy at the Justice Department, is no stranger to leak prosecutions; one of the most high-profile cases he worked on as the Maryland U.S. Attorney was the prosecution of James Cartwright, the former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on charges related to leaking. The DOJ announced on Oct. 17, 2016 that Cartwright had pled guilty to making false statements to federal investigators. Obama pardoned him a few days before Trump’s inauguration, and before his sentencing. 

Rosenstein, meanwhile, was unequivocal about his view that Cartwright deserved to do prison time. 

“People who gain access to classified information after promising not to disclose it must be held accountable when they willfully violate that promise,” he said when the plea deal was announced.

Pay attention to this, as the obvious right-wing crusade here will be to attack leakers and the press that publishes the leaks, and for both groups to be exterminated by Trump.

This is the real test of how authoritarian we're going to be under Trump, more than a few times Trump officials have casually mentioned things like "putting journalists in prison" or that America needs the equivalent of the UK's State Secrets Act allowing that to happen.

Don't be surprised if we start going that route, especially the closer we get to finding out the truth on Trump and Russia.  The call to start rounding up reporters will be very loud, and there will be tens of millions of Americans who will want to go along with it.

The rest of us have to be ready to resist.

Double The Breaking, Double The News

Two massive stories breaking tonight, first, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller as a special counsel to investigate Trump's ties to Russia.

The U.S. Justice Department said on Wednesday it appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller as special counsel to investigate possible collusion between President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign team and Russia.

The move followed rising demands for an independent probe of alleged Russian efforts to sway the outcome of November's presidential election in favor of Trump and against Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Pressure has been building on Trump over the Russia issue since his firing last week of FBI chief James Comey, who had been leading a federal probe into the matter.

U.S. intelligence agencies said earlier this year that Russia interfered in the U.S. election.

"My decision (to appoint a special counsel) is not the finding that crimes have been committed or that any prosecution is warranted. I have made no such determination," Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said in a statement.

"I determined that a special counsel is necessary in order for the American people to have full confidence in the outcome," he said.

This would be a massive story in its own right, but it gets even worse for the Republicans this evening as somebody in the GOP leaked a recording from June of House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy telling other House leaders that he believed Putin was paying Trump off.

A month before Donald Trump clinched the Republican nomination, one of his closest allies in Congress — House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy — made a politically explosive assertion in a private conversation on Capitol Hill with his fellow GOP leaders: that Trump could be the beneficiary of payments from Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“There’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump,” McCarthy (R-Calif.) said, according to a recording of the June 15, 2016 exchange, which was listened to and verified by The Washington Post. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher is a Californian Republican known in Congress as a fervent defender of Putin and Russia.

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) immediately interjected, stopping the conversation from further exploring McCarthy’s assertion, and swore the Republicans present to secrecy.

Before the conversation, McCarthy and Ryan had emerged from separate talks at the U.S. Capitol with Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman, who had described a Kremlin tactic of financing populist politicians to undercut Eastern European democratic institutions.

News had just broken the day before in The Washington Post that Russian government hackers had penetrated the computer network of the Democratic National Committee, prompting McCarthy to shift the conversation from Russian meddling in Europe to events closer to home.

Swore them to secrecy...and one of them not only had recorded the conversation but gave it to the Washington Post.  And remember, this happened the day after the Russian hack of the DNC story broke.

More as it comes.

Russian To Judgment, Con't

While the fallout over yesterday's news that fired FBI Director James Comey kept the receipts on Trump pressuring him to drop the federal investigation into former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn piles up, the federal investigation into former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort continues full speed ahead, with NBC News reporting now that Manafort's mysterious real estate dealings have been subpoenaed as the follow the money game presses on.

Federal investigators have subpoenaed records related to a $3.5 million mortgage that former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort took out on his Hamptons home just after leaving the campaign, according to a source familiar with the matter. 

The mortgage document that explains how Manafort would pay back the loan was never filed with Suffolk County, New York — and Manafort's company never paid up to $36,000 in taxes that would be due on the loan. 

In addition, despite telling NBC News previously that all his real estate transactions are transparent and include his name and signature, Manafort's name and signature do not appear on any of the loan documents that are publicly available. A Manafort spokesperson said the $3.5 million loan, which was taken out through a shell company, was repaid in December, but also said that paperwork showing the repayment was not filed until he was asked about the loan by NBC News. 

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is also taking a "preliminary look" at Manafort's real estate transactions, according to a separate source. The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that the Justice Department has requested Manafort's banking records. 

Jason Maloni, a spokesperson for Manafort, said, "Mr. Manafort has not been contacted by any authorities other than the United States Congress and officials responsible for FARA guidance, and he is cooperating with those inquiries."

So a $3.5 million home in the Hamptions, a shell company mortgage, no paperwork, possible tax evasion...yeah, there's nothing suspicious here.  Also note that NY AG Eric Schniederman wants in on this action too, so if the Feds somehow don't break this wide open, you can bet he will.

Again, building a RICO case seems to be the way to go here, the ol' "They got Capone on tax evasion in the end" adage is true for a reason.  Follow the money and the rest comes out.  I'm betting that trail leads to our friends in Moscow.

Very Dark Shadows

So, not only are the hacker collective known as the Shadow Brokers taking responsibility for last week's WannaCry ransomware chaos (gosh, I was correct about who was behind that), they are now promising a monthly attack unless they are paid handsomely. Lawfare's Nick Weaver:

Yesterday I was interviewed by NPR about the Shadow Brokers and their relationship to WannaCry. Overall I think it went well, especially since NPR is very comfortable with answers that start with “we don’t know” and then set out the evidence we do know. But I may have been wrong on one significant thing: I thought the Windows tools were the most damaging the Shadow Brokers have to offer. Today, with the announcement of the Shadow Broker’s Data Dump of the Month club, I may need to eat some crow. 

Recall that the Shadow Brokers are an unidentified actor or group of actors who appears to have penetrated the NSA and then released the stolen information. They have conducted four releases so far: of a 3 year old collection of router exploits that nonetheless included a Cisco zero-day, a similar collection of mailserver exploits, a collection of Windows exploits, and the apparent internal working directory of an NSA operation aimed at gathering intelligence about SWIFT bank transactions in the Middle East. All indications point to this data being legitimate. 

I’m pretty sure that these releases do not derive from a single source. Both the mailserver and router exploits seem to be active working directories because they include notes and other information that should identify the actual source. The SWIFT release, on the other hand, is most likely the internal, Internet-connected workstation of a Texas NSA analyst because it consists entirely of operational notes and an in-progress slide deck detailing the operation. The only release which didn’t include massive pointers enabling the NSA to find the particular source is the Windows exploits. 

And now the Shadow Brokers are back with yet another missive. Although this could be a hoax, assuming it is legitimate, it should raise serious alarm bells. Although I still believe the auction & payment demands are very much theater designed to attract attention, the Shadow Brokers have earned a reputation for honesty about what they’ve obtained. 

Part of their statement is effectively a disclaimer of responsibility for WannaCry. They note that their published directory listing in January resulted in the NSA notifying Microsoft, which in turn released a patch. So by the time the Shadow Brokers released the Windows tools they were no longer zero-days. This disclaimer is fair: All systems exploited were either unpatched or running an obsolete, unsupported version of Windows. 

But the Shadow Brokers’ threat to launch a “dump of the month” service if they aren’t paid is ominous. Again, I think the Bitcoin payment demand is little more than a bit of theater intentionally paired with the amusingly awful English, but what are they threatening to release? It could be, according to them: 

• web browser, router, handset exploits and tools
• select items from newer Ops Disks, including newer exploits for Windows 10
• compromised network data from more SWIFT providers and Central banks
• compromised network data from Russian, Chinese, Iranian, or North Korean nukes and missile programs

Given the Shadow Brokers’ demonstrated willingness to reveal incredibly sensitive NSA material—including tools that even Wikileaks would hesitate to publish because of the damage to benefit ratio—we have to take this threat seriously.

And given the evidence that our good friends the Russians are bankrolling the Shadow Broker operation, I wouldn't hold your breath on seeing that "compromised Russian network data".  The whole problem with the notion that Russia was hardest hit by WannaCry is that the people reporting that are 1) the Russian government and 2) Kaspersky Labs, the anti-virus lab headed by Eugene Kaspersky, former GRU agent and Putin protege.

Ahh but the most successful of Putin's operations was of course our friend Eddie Snowden, who is very busy attacking the NSA these days, and that led to WikiLeaks and now the Shadow Brokers running loose and causing damage.

I'll tell you what, Putin has done more to harm the US than any nuclear weapon could so far.  Expect more of this as the months go by.

StupidiNews!

• The Department of Homeland Security has issued a terrorist threat bulletin, stating that it now believes the threat of terrorist attacks on US soil is the highest since 9/11.
• Filmmaker Michael Moore has announced a surprise new documentary on the rise of Donald Trump called Fahrenheit 11/9.
• Thousands of Greek workers went on strike in Athens on Wednesday demanding an end to the country's plans for additional austerity measures in exchange for EU bailout cash. 
• The largest US airline industry group says that Trump's proposed expansion of a laptop ban on incoming international flights from Europe could cost airlines -- and passengers -- $1 billion.
• VR software company ZeniMax Media is suing Samsung over hardware patents after winning half a billion against VR company Oculus for a similar case.

Last Call For Comey's Revenge

As if today wasn't crazy enough, now the NY Times drops this blockbuster that ends the issue on whether Trump was truly obstructing justice by firing now former FBI Director James Comey.

President Trump asked the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, to shut down the federal investigation into Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, in an Oval Office meeting in February, according to a memo Mr. Comey wrote shortly after the meeting. 

“I hope you can let this go,” the president told Mr. Comey, according to the memo. 

The existence of Mr. Trump’s request is the clearest evidence that the president has tried to directly influence the Justice Department and F.B.I. investigation into links between Mr. Trump’s associates and Russia. 

Mr. Comey wrote the memo detailing his conversation with the president immediately after the meeting, which took place the day after Mr. Flynn resigned, according to two people who read the memo. The memo was part of a paper trail Mr. Comey created documenting what he perceived as the president’s improper efforts to influence a continuing investigation. An F.B.I. agent’s contemporaneous notes are widely held up in court as credible evidence of conversations.

Mr. Comey shared the existence of the memo with senior F.B.I. officials and close associates. The New York Times has not viewed a copy of the memo, which is unclassified, but one of Mr. Comey’s associates read parts of the memo to a Times reporter.

“I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go,” Mr. Trump told Mr. Comey, according to the memo. “He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.”

That would be the ballgame if any of this actually mattered to the GOP.  But we will get platitudes and bleating about "concern" and the Republicans will talk tough, but in the end none of them will lift a finger.  The worst of them will simply dismiss Comey's memo as meaningless, which I'm sure will make the FBI and rest of the intelligence community have a fit, but they can't really do anything about Trump either.

Republicans immediately want Comey to testify, and it is there, almost certainly behind closed doors, where this story will die.

Eventually somebody will talk Trump into pulling the trigger on pardons, and that will be it.  What voters will do is anyone's guess.  After all, we elected him knowing full well who and what he was.

We're deep into authoritarian crisis mode now.  Either the GOP acts, or the voters will have to.

I'm not sure either group will even give a damn.

The Blue Wave May Be Here

The latest monthly survey from Public Policy Polling shows some pretty dire news for the GOP and for Trump, as Republicans appear to be on the verge of a blowout in the midterms.

PPP's new national poll finds that Republicans are facing significant backlash over the health care bill that's having the effect of firing up Democrats and putting them in position to make major gains in the House next year. 

Democrats now have a 49-38 lead overall on the generic Congressional ballot, up from 47-41 a month ago. Even more notable though is that among voters who say they're 'very excited' to turn out in the 2018 election, the Democratic lead balloons to 27 points at 61-34. The outcome of lower turnout midterm elections often hinges on which side is more engaged, and Democrats have the clear advantage at this point on that front- 63% of their voters say they're 'very excited' about voting in next year's election, compared to only 52% of Republicans who say the same. 

The American Health Care Act has been a complete disaster politically for Republicans. Only 25% of voters support it, to 52% who are opposed. Even among Republican voters there's only 49% support for the measure, while Democrats (76%) are considerably more unified in their opposition to it. Voters say by a 20 point margin that they're less likely to vote for a member of Congress who supported the AHCA- just 27% say they're more likely to vote for a pro-AHCA candidate, compared to 47% who are less likely to vote for one. 

That's the second poll this month (PPP along with Quinnipiac) showing Democrats with a double digit lead in the generic ballot. Quinnipiac has the Dems ahead by a whopping 54-38% margin in May.

On the PPP side on Trump, for the first time, a plurality now wants him impeached.

Only 40% of voters approve of the job Trump is doing to 54% who disapprove. For the first time we find more voters (48%) in support of impeaching Trump than there are (41%) opposed to the idea. Only 43% of voters think Trump is actually going to end up serving his full term as President, while 45% think he won't, and 12% aren't sure one way or the other. 

Voters are both having buyer's remorse about the outcome of the 2016 election and wishing they could return to the good old days of 4 months ago. By an 8 point margin, 49/41, they say they wish Hillary Clinton was President instead of Trump. And by a 16 point margin, 55/39, they say they wish Barack Obama was still in office instead of Trump.

Last week was brutal for Trump's numbers, and remember these polls were taken before today's revelations about Trump spilling classified info to Russia while meeting with the Russian ambassador and Foreign Minister in the Oval Office, and it turns out hey, the source of that info was Israel.

It will get worse from here.