17-09-2019, 07:27 AM
(This post was last modified: 17-09-2019, 07:51 AM by Tom Scully.)
Opinions depend on when the bearer chooses to apply cut off times, although I concede activity of 2010 is not predictive of activity
performed by Assange in 2016 - 2017. I did not introduce the term, Muellergate" in this thread, I am responding to it and opinions associated with it.
Assange would have been droned by Obama/Holder if opportunity had presented itself.
[FONT=&]Obama, in the JFK tradition, kept republican Bob Gates on, as Def Sec.... Near the end of 2010, Gates summed up the "fallout" of the Manning/Assange
releases.:
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performed by Assange in 2016 - 2017. I did not introduce the term, Muellergate" in this thread, I am responding to it and opinions associated with it.
Quote:https://newrepublic.com/article/154910/t...ames-comey
How Trump's Justice Department Screwed James Comey
The inspector general's report strains mightilyand unconvincinglyto condemn the former FBI director for his memos about the president.
By MARCY WHEELER
August 30, 2019
...his report could have been a review of why the Justice Department's chain of command never found a way to stop Trump's repeated efforts to influence investigations in ways that violated Justice Department rules and guidelines. The report's revelation that someone handed over a full copy of those memos under whistle-blower protection suggests it probably should have. Of course, that report could only have reviewed the failures of the attorney general and his deputies in the Russia investigation, when in fact the violations were caused by the presidentsomeone the inspector general has no jurisdiction over. Instead, after significant public pressure from the president and reportedly private pressure from his lackey Attorney General William Barr, the report instead faultsComey for trying to do something about it.Comey may well be guilty of retaining memos that constitute official records. But to make that case, the inspector general would first have to establish that it is part of the FBI director's official duties to let the president interfere in ongoing investigations. Needless to say, it has not done that.
Instead, the report provides compelling proof that Comey is a hypocrite and a grandstander, while dodging the critical question of what the Justice Department can do in the face of the president's ongoing efforts to dismantle the protections on its investigative integrity.
Marcy Wheeler is an independent journalist who covers national security and civil liberties
Quote:https://beta.washingtonpost.com/politics...story.html
Through email leaks and propaganda, Russians sought to elect Trump, Mueller findsBy Shane Harris,
Ellen Nakashima and
Craig Timberg
April 18, 2019 at 6:54 p.m. EDT...
On Oct. 3, (2016) WikiLeaks sent another message to Trump Jr., asking "you guys" to help disseminate a link alleging candidate Clinton had advocated using a drone to target WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Trump Jr. replied that he already "had done so" and asked, "What's behind this Wednesday leak I keep reading about?" WikiLeaks did not respond.
On Oct. 12, several days after WikiLeaks began publishing emails hacked from Podesta's account, WikiLeaks wrote him again, saying it was "great to see you and your dad talking about our publications. Strongly suggest your dad tweets this link if mentions us..." Two days later, Trump Jr. tweeted the link....
Quote:https://www.emptywheel.net/2018/12/04/th...e-release/Obama/Holder were aware there was no legal rationale for indicting Assange related to his distribution of the Manning material in 2010. Trump "attorney" William Barr is arguing out of both sides of his mouth, for lack of a less embarrassing strategy.
THE YEAR LONG TRUMP FLUNKY EFFORT TO FREE JULIAN ASSANGE
[FONT=&]December 4, 2018/82 Comments/in 2016 Presidential Election, emptywheel, Mueller Probe, WikiLeaks /by emptywheel[/FONT][FONT=&]The NYT has an [/FONT]unbelievable story[FONT=&] about how Paul Manafort went to Ecuador to try to get Julian Assange turned over. I say it's unbelievable because it is 28 paragraphs long, yet it never once explains whether Assange would be turned over to the US for prosecution or for a golf retirement. Instead, the story stops short multiple times of what it implies: that Manafort was there as part of paying off Trump's part of a deal, but the effort stopped as soon as Mueller was appointed.....
[/FONT]....[FONT=&]The story itself which given that it stopped once Mueller was appointed must be a limited hangout revealing that Manafort tried to free Assange, complete with participation from the spox that Manafort unbelievably continues to employ from his bankrupt jail cell doesn't surprise me at all.[/FONT][FONT=&]After all, the people involved in the election conspiracy made multiple efforts to free Assange.[/FONT]
[FONT=&]WikiLeaks [/FONT]kicked off[FONT=&] the effort at least by December, when they sent a DM to Don Jr suggesting Trump should make him Australian Ambassador to the US.[/FONT]....
...[FONT=&]Weeks later, Hannity [/FONT]would go to the Embassy to interview[FONT=&] Assange. Assange fed him the alternate view of how he obtained the DNC emails, a story that would be critical to Trump's success at putting the election year heist behind him, if it were successful. Trump and Hannity pushed the line that the hackers were not GRU, but some 400 pound guy in someone's basement.[/FONT][FONT=&]Then the effort actually shifted to Democrats and DOJ. Starting in February through May 2017, Oleg Deripaska and Julian Assange broker Adam Waldman tried to convince Bruce Ohr or Mark Warner to bring Assange to the US, using the threat of the Vault 7 files as leverage. In February, Jim Comey told DOJ to halt that effort. But Waldman continued negotiations, offering to throw testimony from Deripaska in as well. He even used testimony from Christopher Steele as leverage.[/FONT]
[FONT=&]This effort has been consistently spun by the Mark Meadows/Devin Nunes/Jim Jordan crowd feeding right wing propagandists like John Solomon as an attempt to obstruct a beneficial counterintelligence discussion. It's a testament to the extent to which GOP "investigations" have been an effort to spin an attempt to coerce freedom for Assange.[/FONT]
[FONT=&]Shortly after this effort failed, Manafort picked it up, as laid out by the NYT. That continued until Mueller got hired.[/FONT]
[FONT=&]There may have been a break (or maybe I'm missing the next step). But by the summer, Dana Rohrabacher and Chuck Johnson got in the act, with Rohrabacher going to the Embassy to learn the alternate story, which he offered to share with Trump.[/FONT]
[FONT=&]Next up was Bill Binney, whom Trump started pushing Mike Pompeo to meet with, to hear Binney's alternative story.[/FONT]
[FONT=&]At around the same time, WikiLeaks released the single Vault 8 file they would release, followed shortly by Assange publicly re-upping his offer to set up a whistleblower hotel in DC.[/FONT]....
......[FONT=&]Those events contributed to a crackdown on Assange and may have led to the [/FONT]jailing[FONT=&] of accused Vault 7 source Joshua Schulte.[/FONT][FONT=&]In December, Ecuador and Russia started working on a plan to sneak Assange out of the Embassy.[/FONT]
[FONT=&]A few weeks later, Roger Stone got into the act, telling Randy Credico he was close to winning Assange a pardon.[/FONT]
[FONT=&]These efforts have all fizzled, and I suspect as Mueller put together more information on Trump's conspiracy with Russia, not only did the hopes of telling an alternative theory fade, but so did the possibility that a Trump pardon for Assange would look like anything other than a payoff for help getting elected. In June, the government finally got around to charging Schulte for Vault 7. But during the entire time he was in jail, he was apparently still attempting to leak information, which the government therefore obtained on video.[/FONT]
[FONT=&]Ecuador's increasing crackdown on Assange has paralleled the Schulte prosecution, with new restrictions, perhaps designed to provide the excuse to boot Assange from the Embassy, going into effect on December 1.[/FONT]
[FONT=&]Don't get me wrong: if I were Assange I'd use any means I could to obtain safe passage.[/FONT]
[FONT=&]Indeed, this series of negotiations and the players involved may be far, far more damning for those close to Trump. Sean Hannity, Oleg Deripaska, Paul Manafort, Chuck Johnson, Dana Rohrabacher, Roger Stone, and Don Jr, may all worked to find a way to free Assange, all in the wake of Assange playing a key role in getting Trump elected. And they were conducting these negotiations even as WikiLeaks was burning the CIA's hacking tools....[/FONT]
Assange would have been droned by Obama/Holder if opportunity had presented itself.
Quote:https://www.emptywheel.net/2019/05/24/th...ent-792080
THE LOGIC OF ASSANGE'S EDVA INDICTMENT IS INCONSISTENT WITH MUELLER'S APPARENT LOGIC ON ASSANGE'S DECLINATION
[FONT=&]May 24, 2019/32 Comments/in 2016 Presidential Election, Mueller Probe, WikiLeaks /by emptywheel[/FONT]........
(In comments, this was posted...)
Quote:Terrapinsays:May 25, 2019 at 9:35 pm
[FONT=&]I actually think that Barr chose to have Assange indicted under the Espionage Act for a dual purpose. First, it is questionable whether he can actually be convicted of it and might make the British more reluctant to extradite Assange to the United States (that is, Barr doesn't really want Assange on American soil but he does want to seem like he is ready to throw the book at him). Second, it is designed to intimidate media organizations which disseminate classified information as public interest journalism by effectively criminalizing what has long been a bread and butter aspect of American journalism going back to the Pentagon Papers and even earlier.
Terrapin[/FONT]
Quote:https://archive.org/stream/LundbergFerdi...h_djvu.txt
Ferdinand Lundberg: The Rich and the Super-Rich: A Study in ...
...Any criticism of Presidents Kennedy and Johnson for the nature of their top appointments should face up to this question: Where should they look for Cabinet
officers? Kennedy and Johnson looked for them where Eisenhower looked for them,
and where Roosevelt looked: in the large financial and industrial organizations. These
organizations belong to the wealthy. They are part of their plantation, which in its
broadest sweep is the market place itself.
Experts of greater if not complete independence of judgment are to be had, to be sure,
from the leading universities, and Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy both
drew heavily upon them for certain tasks. But scholars have neither the habit of
command nor is their authority apt to be recognized by men practiced in the arts of
expedient manipulation Plato's men of the appetites. Any president has to look to the
big enterprises, selecting competent men who are least compromised by egocentric self-service. ...
[FONT=&]Obama, in the JFK tradition, kept republican Bob Gates on, as Def Sec.... Near the end of 2010, Gates summed up the "fallout" of the Manning/Assange
releases.:
Quote:https://www.lawfareblog.com/realism-101-wikileaks[/FONT]
Quote:Realism 101 on Wikileaks[FONT=&]
By Jack Goldsmith Wednesday, December 1, 2010, 4:29 AM
Secretary of Defense Gates on the significance of the latest wikileaks disclosures (via SWJ):
[FONT=&]
....[/FONT]Now, I've heard the impact of these releases on our foreign policy described as a meltdown, as a game-changer, and so on. I think I think those descriptions are fairly significantly overwrought. The fact is, governments deal with the United States because it's in their interest, not because they like us, not because they trust us, and not because they believe we can keep secrets.[FONT=&]
[/FONT]
Many governments some governments deal with us because they fear us, some because they respect us, most because they need us. We are still essentially, as has been said before, the indispensable nation. So other nations will continue to deal with us. They will continue to work with us. We will continue to share sensitive information with one another. Is this embarrassing? Yes. Is it awkward? Yes. Consequences for U.S. foreign policy? I think fairly modest.[FONT=&]..
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Peter Janney's uncle was Frank Pace, chairman of General Dynamics who enlisted law partners Roswell Gilpatric and Luce's brother-in-law, Maurice "Tex" Moore, in a trade of 16 percent of Gen. Dyn. stock in exchange for Henry Crown and his Material Service Corp. of Chicago, headed by Byfield's Sherman Hotel group's Pat Hoy. The Crown family and partner Conrad Hilton next benefitted from TFX, at the time, the most costly military contract award in the history of the world. Obama was sponsored by the Crowns and Pritzkers. So was Albert Jenner Peter Janney has preferred to write of an imaginary CIA assassination of his surrogate mother, Mary Meyer, but not a word about his Uncle Frank.