@hightor,
hightor wrote:
blatham wrote:That's a really good, concise breakdown.
I thought so as well. It's laid out well and it's full of citations and links. Yet the Trump supporters here have no difficulty rejecting a narrative which hasn't really changed and has only gotten more substantiation since the story first broke.
First Graff's propaganda piece in Wired:
In the wake of the Nunes memo, Resistance soldiers in the media have been scrambling to conduct damage control. This article is little more than an attempt to rally any among the troops whose morale of commitment to The Truth may be flagging.
The ostensible intent of this screed is to outline the Known Knowns concerning the Mueller investigation, presumably as a public service to those who may be confused or misguided by GOP efforts to change the subject and marginalize Mueller and his investigation.
In reality it is not only an attempt to mischaracterize the status and results of the investigation thus far, it is an effort to make the case through speculation, presumption, biased opinion and innuendo that Trump associates and Trump himself is guilty as hell of criminal and corrupt activity. You, blatham and the Junior Mounties all admire it so much because it succeeds in its attempt and it is that, and not the truth, which you so fervently desire.
WARNING TO ALL MEMBERS: This is going to be a lengthy and detailed response because such is what is required to counter this disgraceful propaganda piece masquerading as legitimate journalism. If you find lengthy posts tedious, this is a good time to avail yourselves of the "thumbs down" feature to remove it from your screen and spare us whiny lamentations about lengthy posts. Considering that a number of you reflexively thumb down each and every post I contribute, regardless of length or content, you should be quite familiar with the process. Thank you
Let us begin with Graff's incoherent opening:
Quote:PRESIDENT TRUMP CLAIMED in a tweet over the weekend that the controversial Nunes memo “totally vindicates” him, clearing him of the cloud of the Russia investigation that has hung over his administration for a year now.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
In fact, if anything, the Mueller investigation appears to have been picking up steam in the past three weeks—and homing in on a series of targets.
Now someone might ignorantly accept that Graff has outlined an extensive series of
known knowns about the Mueller investigation, but even the assumptions and guesses he is attempting to pass off as
known facts don’t make a reasonable case that Trump himself is guilty of anything and so, irrespective of what the actual impact of the Nunes memo may or may not be, there is nothing in this screed that supports the assertion that Trump’s claim that he has been
‘totally vindicated’ by Nunes couldn’t be
‘further from the truth.’
If Trump had declared that the memo has effectively put the brakes on the investigation, Graff might have something of a point and his personal impression that the investigation has been
‘picking up steam’ would have a rational connection to an assertion that Trump was way off base with his comment, however even if Graff’s impression that Mueller’s pace has accelerated of late is accurate it would provide us with no insight as to what the results of the investigation might be.
Graff clearly assumes Trump is personally guilty of some crime or malfeasance, and his assumption encompasses Mueller nailing him on it. If Trump claiming he has been vindicated couldn’t
‘be further from the truth,” then the
‘truth’ must be that he is not only guilty but that he will be found guilty. This is something we currently
know ? If so, Mueller needs to step harder on his accelerator! Why is he dithering with additional activity when we all
know Trump is guilty? Gosh, Graff isn’t trying to suggest Mueller is padding his bill is he?
Unless they have access to one or more investigators or investigation files, no one outside of the investigation, including Graff,
knows that Mueller is
‘homing in on a series of targets,' but, again, even if this is true it doesn’t support the notion that Trump being vindicated couldn’t
“be further from the truth.” Right off the bat, Graff tips his hand and gives his readers a taste of the gruel he is going to repeatedly feed them every step of the way through this screed:
What Graff wants to believe is the equivalent of known fact.
After introducing us to his patently dishonest methodology for shedding light on the investigation, Graff lets us know what two important questions he intends to answer with his article:
Quote:“What are the known knowns of the Mueller investigation, and where might it be heading?”
(emphasis added)
Anyone and everyone can offer us their opinion on
‘where the investigation might be heading,’ (and thus far it seems like everyone has) but if Graff is to be worthy of the praise he’s received in this forum his answer to the first question is what counts.
‘What are the known knowns? “ This shouldn't mean:
"What are Garret Graff’s interpretations, speculations, guesses and fantasies?” His promise is clear:
“I am going to tell you what the facts are thus far.” If there’s another way to reasonably interpret what he wrote, I’d love to learn of it.
It would have been astonishing if Wired published an article in which the author is lying or mistaken about every aspect of a subject and while Graff comes awfully close to this dubious achievement, he does get it right about the investigation being
large. It involves a very large staff and is costing a whole lot of money, but so what? These are common characteristics of all of these special investigations and since they are supposed to address very important questions, their size and cost are not necessarily a valid argument to make against them (as some have) but neither do these characteristics necessarily guarantee that any one of them is being properly run or will arrive at the truth. So yes, we all
know the investigation is large and complex. We also know that the majority of Mueller’s staff is male and white and that any report issued will be written in English. We know that most of the staff’s time will be spent during daylight hours, and that during the investigation they will eat meals and excrete waste. Some will watch TV and all will sleep at one time or another. These are all
known knowns, but what do they tell us? What does the fact that the investigation is ‘large’ tell us? If Graff
knows, he hasn’t shared it will us in this article, but as we will see as we move along, he needs all the actual
known knowns he can manage to gather (regardless of relevance) if the ostensible purpose of the piece isn’t to literally be a total farce.
Graff purports to get to the meat of the
known knowns when he breaks out the five
known investigative angles.
Preexisting Business Deals and Money Laundering
I’ve reread this section several times in an attempt to find the series of concisely laid out
facts so admired by you eh-beth and blatham, but all I can find in terms of
known knowns is that Paul Manafort and Rick Gates have been indicted. This no small thing (particularly, I’m sure, to Manafort and Gates), but it is pure speculation to assert
“it (investigation of this angle) almost certainly will continue to bear further fruit” unless Graff has inside knowledge of the investigation that he is not sharing with his readers. Likewise Gates
‘appearing’ to be heading toward a plea deal is not a
known known.
“Gates has entered into a plea deal with Mueller” would be, but of course, Graff can’t state that because it hasn’t happened. Similarly,
expecting a so-called “superseding” indictment is not the same as
knowing one has been filed.
(At this point I’m quite sure the argument is being formulated in the minds of those who are considering a response to this post that I am nit-picking, slicing the baloney too thin or a similar metaphor that I am viewing this article through too limited and rigid a prism, but those who might be, need to keep in mind that it was Graff who invited this level of scrutiny and his disingenuous MO of attempting to represent opinion and speculations as known facts demands it. Opinion pieces are fine, but the premise if this screed is that there are known knowns that strongly support Graff's opinions. Without them this is nothing but propaganda)
Quote:“Mueller’s team is believed to have amassed more than 400,000 documents in this part of the investigation alone.”
Believe? By whom? The two unnamed savants who seem to be familiar with every single thing happening in DC and upon whom the MSM has increasingly relied upon for their reporting whenever the Gumpian mystery men claim to have
known knowns which they very much want to reveal?
Quote:“There have also been reports—largely advanced through intriguing reporting by Buzzfeed—about suspicious payments flagged by Citibank…”
Oh, Buzzfeed…the outlet that published the unverified, outrageously salacious Steele Dossier that was paid in part by the Clinton Campaign and built with help of agents of the Russian government? You know I bet Buzzfeed obtained this information from the same two familiars who are leading people like Graff to believe that Mueller & Co have amassed 400,000 documents on business deals and money laundering.
I am going to be accused of redundancy but it bears repeating that regardless of how reliable a journalist's sources are (and we've seen throughout the development of this story that many are not) what they claim on the phone or in an email does not represent verified factual information and do not fall under the heading of
Known Known
KNOWN KNOWN COUNT THUS FAR:
Two
1) The Mueller investigation is large
2) Manafort and Gates have been indicted
Everything else has been speculation, presumption, expectation or opinion.
Russian Information Gathering
It’s nice of Graff to explain that when he speaks of
“hacking of the election” he is “actually talking about
unique and distinct efforts, with varying degrees of coordination, by different entities associated with the Russian government” I’m sure that he and other soldiers of the Resistance never meant to imply that “hacking of the election” meant, in it’s entirety or as one of the “unique and distinct efforts,” the invasion of computers used to collect and tabulate individual votes and then the manipulation and falsification of the voting data, and are, in fact, greatly dismayed by the fact that anyone ever thought that this is precisely what they meant.
It’s also interesting that he has decided to limit the “hacking of the election” to efforts by entities associated with the Russian government. I guess it’s another
known known that entities associated with a foreign government other than Russia’s or, for that matter, a domestic group or organization made absolutely no attempts to “hack the election.” As we all know countries like China, North Korea or Iran would never attempt anything so dastardly! But wait a minute, in his very next sentence Graff throws out speculation about
“Trump campaign’s data team, Cambridge Analytica” coordinating these efforts! So is Russian government involvement required before the term “hacking the election” can be properly used, or has Graff made the prodigious leap to considering Cambridge Analytic, for all intents and purposes synonymous with the Russian government? (
This is really a stunningly outrageous comment and if I was the CEO of Cambridge Analytica I would have my legal team looking into the feasibility of file a libel action against Graff)
Putting aside the pathetic and ineffectual nature of the social media campaign allegedly perpetrated by these bots and trolls, where is the
known known here?
“Possibly with the coordination of…” “Presumably these so-called active measures were conducted by or with the coordination of…” Sure doesn’t sound like Graff
knows of any facts in this regard, but he sure wants his readers to accept his presumptions and speculative possibilities as being based on
known facts.
Quote:“The extent to which these social media efforts impacted the outcome of the election remains an open question…”
And will forever remain open because there is no evidence that it did and it can’t be proven that it didn’t, which is just fine with Graff and his pals, because this way they get to keep bringing out the
Russian Bogey Bot to alarm voters and smear ideological opponents.
Quote:“…but according to Bloomberg these social media sites are a “red hot” focus of Mueller’s team, and he obtained search warrants to examine the records of companies like Facebook. In recent weeks, social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter have begun working to notify more than a million users they suspect interacted with Russian trolls and propaganda.”
(emphasis added)
“Red hot!” Oooohh…that sounds serious. It’s not entirely clear here about whether it is a
known known that Mueller obtained search warrants to examine the records of social media companies, or this is simply what has been
reported by Bloomberg based on what unnamed sources familiar with the investigation told them. I have to believe if there is a public record of these subpoenas Graff would have been certain to reference it.
Of course, the fact that Mueller is looking at Facebook’s records is proof of nothing more than he is conducting a thorough investigation. If the Russians engineered a social media campaign designed to meddle with our election, no matter how pathetic it was, we should know about it and appropriate steps taken in response to it, like kicking diplomats out of the country and imposing sanctions…oh, wait, we already did that.
We should also know if social media platforms like Twitter or Facebook accepted any sort of revenue for working with certain entities to obtain a wider audience for their propaganda. I have a FB page that is separate from my personal one that I use to post photographs and articles relative to several collections I have which my general “friends” would probably grow bored with. It is open to anyone on FB, but I’ve done nothing to promote it. Yet FB is forever offering to “boost” my posts to reach a wider audience…for a nominal fee of course. I can certainly imagine them doing the same with a page or pages dedicated to criticizing a political figure. What does Graff think about that? We don't know because he is too busy assuming that Mueller's focus is entirely on determining that Trump & Associates worked with the Russian bots and trolls to meddle with the election. I'd bet good money that the Legal Depts of Twitter and Facebook have not taken such a blithe view of Mueller's "red hot" interest.
KNOWN KNOWNS THUS FAR:
Four
3) The Russian’s Internet Research Agency is known colloquially as “the Russian troll factory.” (Hey even if it’s known by that moniker only by Graff and his colleagues it constitutes a
known known just like the fact that Mueller's staff have all been eating and taking dumps during the investigation
4) I'll give Graff the
known known that Facebook & Twitter are notifying thousands of customers that they may have come into contact with trolls and bots. Not because I have see the factual proof of it, but because it seems like the perfect inane CYO move their Legal Depts would recommend as a preemptive response to charges that they aided and abetted Russian meddling in our election.
Active Cyber Intrusions
Quote:Separate from the trolls and bots on social media were a series of active operations and cyber intrusions carried out by Russian intelligence officers at the GRU and the FSB against political targets like John Podesta and the DNC.
I’m not convinced that we can be certain that the hacking of the Podesta and DNC email accounts were conducted by Russian intelligence officers, but I can't make an argument that the hackers who were responsible were not in some way associated with the Russian government either as contract workers or garden variety cybercriminals who sold or traded the purloined email to the Russian government. I think Graff is trying to gild the lily with the ominous assertion that the culprits were intelligence officers (they don’t have any grunt hackers?) but it’s one of the least of his sins. I’m content with agreeing that it is a
known known that the Russian government was involved in the email hacking.
Quote:We know that Russian intelligence also penetrated Republican networks, but none of those emails or documents were made public.*
I applaud the editors at Wired for correcting the mistake of Graff in asserting the RNC mail server was also hacked, but it’s very interesting to me that they felt the need to footnote the fact that they corrected an article before it was published. I’m not sure what it means, but it’s interesting. In any case, that little
known known was found to be not so by Graff’s own editors. I suppose I could be accused of being too suspicious of Graff, but given the entirety of his screed I feel confident that his inclusion of this factoid was intended to imply not that the Russian hackers didn’t find anything scandalous on the RNC server, but that since the RNC backed presidential candidate was in cahoots with the Russian government it chose not to leak anything it found. See how this works? If I were Graff I would be implying that my speculation on his intent along with the fact of the editing of this single comment was not only part of the
known known universe about Garret Graff but could be relied upon to draw conclusions about him and his character.
Quote:This thread of the investigation may also involve unofficial or official campaign contacts with WikiLeaks or other campaign advisers, like Roger Stone, as well as the warning—via the Australian government—that former foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos appeared to have foreknowledge of the hacking of Democratic emails.
Here we go again with the use of that most definitive and certain of terms, “may.” Furthermore just what does Graff mean by George Papadopoulos (“GeoPap” for the sake of time and space) having foreknowledge of the hacking? Considering how ready willing and able Graff is to interpret comments in a way that supports his bias, I should feel no compulsion to avoid doing the same with his, but that would be disingenuous. It does appear that GeoPap may have had knowledge of the hacking before the email began showing up online, but one could easily read Graff’s comment to mean he thinks GeoPap knew about the hacking before it took place. In other words, he had been given advanced knowledge of the plot. If so, he would be just about the only person on earth who believes such a thing. In any case, there remain numerous unknowns about GeoPap and his knowledge of the e-mails including where he obtained it from and what he did with it. All things considered it is likely that he received the information from a Russian operative trying to lure Trump campaign staff with promises of “dirt” on Hilary Clinton. I would be amazed if they didn’t try the same ploy with members of the Clinton campaign staff. What is also not known is the significance of GeoPap in terms of the Mueller investigation and Graff, despite his promise, provides no insight on this question.
Graff comes through with another verifiable
known known: Michael Flynn and GeoPap both pled guilty to lying to federal investigators, but do we know what lies they have admitted to? It’s not in the least surprising that a 30-year-old novice like GeoPap would get caught in lying to the FBI. You would think by now that people under investigation (and particularly by a special prosecutor) would realize this is one of the oldest tricks in the book and that no matter their demeanor or what they tell someone, they already have solid verifiable answers to at least 50% of their questions, but are asking them to catch the subject in a lie which is the crack they need to break the individual open. You would also think that most people would hesitate to give full credence to anyone who puts themselves in a position where they need to please investigators with information that might seem valuable because they were caught lying in the first place.
Everyone should note though that he did not plead guilty to conspiracy, collusion or treason; in part because collusion is not a crime, but also because the Mueller team did not have evidence that he was guilty of any other crime. (Here I should qualify that it
appears Mueller didn’t have such evidence. I suppose it’s possible that they did but that they didn’t want to tip their hand to it by arranging a plea deal based on other charges. I doubt such is the case, but it’s possible).
Clearly, the significance of the plea deal that Graff would like to promote is the notion that ever since it was cut, GeoPap has been spilling his guts on the whole sordid and treasonous affair and he will a star witness in the trials of Trump officials and supporters. Hardly a
known known.
Quote:Bringing criminal charges against these individuals (members of “Fancy Bear” and “Cozy Bear”) would be consistent with the practices established over the past five years by the Justice Department’s National Security Division, which indicted—and in some cases even arrested—specific government and military hackers from nation-states like Iran, China, and Russia.
Great! Given that the Mueller investigation was initiated as a counter-intelligence measure, this would certainly be a fine result if they can identify the culprits. I doubt there will be real teeth to these charges even if the individuals are found guilty but it will be something. Despite my intense skepticism about the actual impact of the Russian’s shenanigans in this election, it’s not something we can afford to dismiss. It’s certainly possible that the next time they try something they will prove a lot more effective. Our government does indeed need to protect our democratic institutions from infiltration by any foreign government and particularly those which can be considered hostile to our interests: Although they don’t all share the same level of capability to do damage, Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, Cuba, and Venezuela are at the top of that list. If and when we catch any of them attempting to harm us in this way we should take appropriate counter-measures that will deter them from trying again.
While the integrity of our election process is clearly critical there is no reason to ignore possible infiltration and/or the manipulation of our other democratic institutions: Our military, our legislative bodies, our courts, our primary and secondary educational systems, and our press and news media. If one or more of these nations is willing and capable of hacking our election process to undermine our democracy, why would they stop there? If sowing discord and mistrust was a goal of the Russian hacking of the election, one can easily argue that they could be as or more successful (and much more easily so) in hacking our school system and news media, however is anyone, either in the FBI or the investigative press, pursuing that possibility? Of course not, and it isn’t because the notion that there are Russian or Chinese bots, trolls, agents or good old-fashioned spies making mischief in our schools and new media is utterly outlandish, it’s because to a great degree the people working in these institutions are liberals, and any pursuit of foreign influence within bodies of liberals would be immediately denounced as McArthyism.
KNOWN KNOWNS THUS FAR
The count is now at five
5) Although I don’t think it is quite as clear as Graff suggests as to precisely which individuals were responsible for the hacking of the Podesta and DNC email servers, I accept as a
known known that they were associated in some meaningful way with the Russian government. I acknowledge that some individuals (who are not deluded) maintain that this has not be verified, but I believe it has been.
I'm going to end this post here. I'm not sanguine about there being any interest in my views on the article an given that it is my intention to address it in detail, this is a time-consuming effort. Obviously, I know what I think about Graff and his article so I don't need to post my opinion for my benefit alone. If there is any indication that anyone has an interest in my concluding my critique, I will do so, otherwise, I have other fish to fry.
