Daily Check-In 01/30/2019

Daily Check-In

Daily Check-In 08/13/2018Wednesday, January 30, 2019

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

Deza and Stolen Docs

In October 2018, one or more actors made statements claiming to have a stolen copy of discovery produced by the government in this case. The subsequent investigation has revealed that certain non-sensitive discovery materials in the defense’s possession appear to have been altered and disseminated as part of a disinformation campaign aimed (apparently) at discrediting ongoing investigations into Russian interference in the U.S. political system. These facts establish a use of the non-sensitive discovery in this case in a manner inconsistent with the terms of the protective order and demonstrate the risks of permitting sensitive discovery to reside outside the confines of the United States.

…

In short, Mueller is arguing that if non-sensitive information has been used in attempts to discredit his investigation, how much worse would things be if sensitive information was shared that “identifies sources, methods, and techniques used to identify the foreign actors behind these interference operations.”

“Unwarranted disclosure of that information overseas, in a country adverse to this litigation, would allow that country and actors in that country to learn of these techniques and adjust their conduct, thus undermining U.S. national security interests, including investigations into the conduct of those foreign actors,” he said, noting that there is no incentive for these foreign actors not to act in bad faith.

“The Court would have no ability to enforce compliance with the other provisions in the protective order by the ‘officers and employees of Concord Management and Consulting LLC’ because those individuals are not subject to the jurisdiction of the Courts,” Mueller said. “And Concord’s proposed order would apply to every piece of sensitive discovery in the case, including sensitive discovery containing personal identifying information and sensitive discovery implicating national security interests.”

I can’t say that I’m completely surprised by this development, but holy shit.  This is a big development, and shows just some of the lengths that the Russians are willing to go to to derail Mueller.

Concord Management is the company indicted alongside the IRA and Russian Troll Fram. (The Indicted). The company was the only entity from that indictment that responded in court, and they proceeded to go nuts, asking for everything from all work the CIA has ever done to trying to get the case thrown out because reasons.

Something that’s been bandied back and forth in these legal fights was Concord’s lawyers at Reed Smith argued that all evidence should be given to their client as part of discovery.  Remember that the Discovery Process is the part of a legal battle where the defense gets to view the evidence against them and build a defense.  Earlier this year, Mueller gave Concord’s lawyers access to non-sensitive documents and evidence.  Shortly thereafter, someone with a Russian IP address contacted a reporter and told them they had the Mueller documents.  The reporter forwarded that info to Mueller’s team, and what they saw was shocking.  The link led to a “unique folder structure” not used by Mueller’s team but known to them.  The documents inside were mostly junk files, with some stuff edited to make it look like Mueller had nothing.

There’s only two ways that the troll got their hands on this info.

  1. Reed Smith gave them direct access.
  2. Reed Smith gave Concord direct access, and Concord gave the troll access.

Either way, someone’s in some serious trouble.

 

Stone

 

Meeting Putin

 

NRA

From TDB:

A former NRA president hoped to win access to Vladimir Putin on a trip to Moscow, according to an email from one of the trip’s organizers. That organizer, Republican operative Paul Erickson, also said the trip could have “enormous diplomatic consequences.” The email, sent in November 2015 and reviewed by The Daily Beast, came just months before the Kremlin’s election meddling went into full gear.

In the email, Erickson wrote that an official with the Russian Central Bank had made a tantalizing, though tentative, offer to former NRA president David Keene: an interview for his newspaper with Russian President Vladimir Putin. At the time, Keene was the opinion editor for The Washington Times, a conservative newspaper. He had previously helmed the NRA, and he maintained close ties with its top officials. And he was one of the small group of people on the trip.

From the ABC article:

The December 2015 trip, which involved meetings with senior Kremlin officials, has attracted increased scrutiny in the wake of the arrest and guilty plea of gun rights activist and alleged Russian agent Maria Butina, who was involved in planning the trip. After months of silence on the matter, the NRA’s outside counsel William Brewer told The New York Times that NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre “was opposed to the trip” and even prohibited staff members from joining the delegation out of concern that it would be perceived as officially sanctioned.

Emails sent by NRA officials before the trip, as well as photos taken during the visit, offer greater detail about the organization’s role in arranging the excursion.

In one email, an NRA employee appears to help Butina make travel arrangements for a delegation that included former NRA president David Keene, future NRA president Pete Brownell, NRA fundraiser Joe Gregory, NRA benefactor Dr. Arnold Goldschlager and his daughter Hilary, Outdoor Channel CEO Jim Liberatore, and prominent NRA advocate and Trump campaign surrogate David Clarke, then the sheriff of Milwaukee County.

So, we have the former President of the NRA trying to gain access to Vladimir Putin, and a group of NRA bigwigs going on a trip to Moscow during a presidential campaign.  The same campaign where they spent unprecedented amounts of money for the GOP after they moved to a Pro-Russian stance.

 

Deripaska

 

WikiLeaks

 

 

COHEN, NEW YORK, AND THE OTHER LAWSUITS

 

SHUTDOWN & IMMIGRATION

 

TRUMP THE RUSSIAN ASSET A.K.A INDIVIDUAL-1

Putin

 

Biglyest Brain

 

TRAITOR TOTS

 

CONGRESS & ELECTIONS

 

Voting Rights

Once again, the turtle says the quiet part out loud.

If your only defense against making it easier for people to vote is that they would vote against you, you are the problem.

 

FIGHTING BACK

 

RIGHT WING TERRORISM & WHITE NATIONALISM

 

SCOTUS & COURTS

 

#METOO & WOMEN’S RIGHTS

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

FIXING THE INTERNET

Apple and Facebook have never gotten along, but this ups their acrimony to a whole new level.

Facebook used their internal development certificates to push a tracking app aimed at teenagers to trick them into spending money.  This is a blatant violation of the Apple Store guidelines and the Apple Development rules.  In response, Apple turned off Facebook’s ability to distribute and ultimately develop iOS applications.  This shuts down their in development apps and internal beta apps.

I don’t know how much longer this will go on, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see this go either way.  They could agree to a quick fix, or they could escalate this into a full-scale digital war where Apple removes all of Facebook’s apps from their devices.  It shouldn’t get that far, but at this point in the timeline, I wouldn’t be surprised either way.

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

TRADE WAR, HEALTH CARE, & ECONOMY

 

Eat the Rich

 

The Foxconn Con

This is what happens when we give public money to large corporations: they fuck us.  Wisconsin already gave Foxconn $4 billion, and they won’t see a penny of that. That could have gone to infrastructure, schools, pension funds, health care, or to developing the local economy, but now it’s wasted.

Get ready to hear a whole bunch of Wisconsin GOP members claiming that they have to cut social programs because of this.

 

STUDENT ISSUES

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

PRIESTS & RELIGION

 

ENVIRONMENT & SCIENCE

 

THINKING AHEAD

 

Schutlz

 

IN OTHER NEWS…

 

RUMOR MILL

 

That’s it for Wednesday.  Thursday’s looking like it’ll be a weird one.  Ben Carson has a photo op with someone he shouldn’t, we see more stuff about the NRA trip to Moscow in 2015, and the class war continues.

Thursday might be a little short or different.  It’s still very cold here, and the kids are sick.  That makes it difficult to spend as much time researching as I’d normally spend.  I’ll have something up, but not sure how in-depth it will be.

I’d like to write a story about this emerging battle between the billionaire class and the progressives.  I want to stay neutral in any story about those groups, but it’s very hard for me to do so.  I grew up in the world of Reagan, where the rich were treated as special and the poor as useless.  I’ll go into more detail later on, but I’m worried that anything I write about that subject will be tainted by bias.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Published by noneofthisisnormal

Published

2 thoughts on “Daily Check-In 01/30/2019”

  1. *posts decrying horrible racists that attacked Jussie Smollett, pretending that it is representative of Trump supports*
    *Makes no sound when obvious hoax is revealed*
    Shocked!

    Like

    Reply

    1. Thanks for the comment, Kyle.

      As far as why I hadn’t reported on any possible hoaxes surrounding Jussie Smollet, there were no credible stories backing up the hoax story that I came across until late last week. All of the articles that I saw traced back to poorly sourced stories from RWM sites like Daily Caller or Freedom Wire.

      This isn’t the first time that a hoax could have occurred, and it won’t be the last. If Jussie lied about this, he’s an asshole and caused a lot of potential problems.

      Like

      Reply

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