“THAT’S BOGUS!” Ray McGovern PWNS Congressman Schiff On Russian Hacking Fairy Tale.

Moxnews.com has put on YouTube, under the above title, the discrete 2-minute segment of Ray’s indiscreet question of Adam Schiff, ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, on January 25.  Those who have not had time to fish that segment out from the longer YouTube version (posted below “Ray Was Face to Face With Adam Schiff”) can access it easily at:

The bogus-ness of Schiff’s answer is shown in the January 17 VIPS Memorandum for President Barack Obama, “A Demand for Russia ‘Hacking’ Proof.”

https://consortiumnews.com/2017/01/17/a-demand-for-russian-hacking-proof/
As senior CIA veteran Milton Bearden has put it, there are occasions when more damage is done by “protecting” sources and methods than by revealing them.

Trump Serious About Torture: Ready to Outdo Bush

Radio Sputnik’s Brian Becker of “Loud and Clear” interviewed Ray yesterday right after reports of an “I-Donald J. Trump-am-tougher-than-George W. Bush-on-torture” draft executive order hit the media.  Actually, the formal title atop the (apparently leaked) draft is:  “Executive Order – Detention and Interrogation of Enemy Combatants.”

https://sputniknews.com/radio_loud_and_clear/201701261050014600-trump-bringing-back-bushs-black-site-torture-program/

(Brian Becker interviews Ray between minute 1:40 and 18:30)

 

Becker recorded the interview at 3:00 yesterday before Trump’s remark to ABC that torture “works” hit the news.  (“Loud and Clear” aired very early this morning Washington time.)  17 minutes gave Ray time enough to fit in a lot of background from memory.  He misspoke saying “Bruce” Ackerman, instead of the Guardian’s Spencer Ackerman, but did connect “Ackerman” to the Guardian.

 

Ray hopes folks will download part three of Ackerman’s four-part unique reporting based on interviews with Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein’s chief investigator, Daniel Jones.  See:  https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/10/cia-senate-investigation-constitutional-crisis-daniel-jones

 

And so, with “tough guys” Bush and Cheney not held accountable for torture and Obama putty in the hands of John Brennan, the stage is set for a “tougher-even-than” guy – President Trump, heir to that undisciplined bullying and craven timidity, to do what he told us he’d do during the Republican primary debate on February 6, 2016:

 

“I would bring back waterboarding … and a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding.”

Ray Was Face-to-Face With Adam Schiff, ranking member, House Intelligence Committee, this morning – January 25, 2017

https://www.c-span.org/video/?422656-1/representative-adam-schiff-discusses-russian-electionyear-hacking

(Segment with Ray and Schiff is from minute 1:14:25 to 1:16:20.)

 

The official Q and A after a panel on “Russian Hacking and U.S. Elections” was greatly shortened this morning at Mrs. Clinton’s most enthusiastic supporter/think tank, the Center for American Progress, so Ray did not get to ask a question during the Q and A.  (The Center, founded by John Podesta and now led by Neera Tanden, has been going all out to blame Mrs. Clinton’s defeat on Russian President Putin, James Comey – anyone but their too-clever-by-half campaign.)

 

But the camera was still running after the formal session and caught Ray asking Adam Schiff, D, California, whether he is claiming he knows more than Obama about the gaping evidence-gap between Russian hacking and WikiLeaks.  Ray referred Schiff to then-President Obama’s words at his last press conference exactly a week ago:

 

“… the conclusions of the intelligence community with respect to the Russian hacking were not conclusive” regarding WikiLeaks.  In other words, the intelligence community has no idea how the DNC emails reached WikiLeaks.  (See: https://consortiumnews.com/2017/01/20/obama-admits-gap-in-russian-hack-case/ )

 

The gravitas displayed at the panel discussion gave superficiality a bad name.  The c-span video is probably worth skimming through, if only for that.  But Ray’s two minutes with Schiff may be worth a fast-forward.

Veteran American journalist and Russia specialist Mark Ames wonders why President Vladimir Putin and other Russians are not angrier at the U.S. than they seem to be, given what Bill Clinton, Wall Street, and Harvard advisers did to take advantage of drunken president Boris Yeltsin and predator oligarchs to hobble the Russian economy and make the very life-span of Russia’s 99 percent much shorter.

 Ames knows whereof he speaks.  He spent a decade reporting from Yeltsin’ and Putin’s Russia, witnessing its transformation from an American “colony” to it’s “number one threat.”  Brava to Telesur’s Abby Martin and Mark Ames for filling in the blanks regarding a critical period in U.S.-Russia relations, about which few Americans are aware.

 

Published on January 23, 2017 (27 minutes)

Ames explains how deeply the US government, along with Western capitalist institutions, cheered, shaped and exploited the Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union, paving the way for the political system they all condemn today.  Everyone can profit from hearing some real history of the immediate post-Soviet period and the U.S. role in it.  Ames was there and on the money – so to speak.

Ray uncovered the 2-minute YouTube video linked below while preparing to speak on panel arranged by the Green Party on January 21 in Washington DC. The other panelists were Sue Udry, Executive Director of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, and Green Party activist George Friday.  Topic: “Civil Liberties & the Security/Surveillance State.  Introducing the short video, Ray offered it as an example of what we are up against.

Here is a link to 2-minute video showing former House Intelligence Committee chair Pete Hoekstra and Ray in heated argument over CIA torture, which Hoekstra knew about, supported, and continues to support.

 

Thanks to a very helpful – but apparently not widely known to raymcgovern.com readers – modality called a SEARCH button on his site, Ray readily found and used the YouTube segment showing former Congressman Pete Hoekstra, R, Michigan in spirited discussion with Ray two years ago, just after the Senate Intelligence Committee investigation released an Executive Summary of the results of its 4-year investigation on CIA torture.  {The investigation was based on original CIA documents from headquarters and the field.  While the executive summary was heavily redacted, the scent of blood does not escape its pages, which include sickening detail on the heinous torture practices “approved” – “rectal hydration,” for example.)

 

Former Vice President Dick Cheney, Department of Justice “lawyers,” and the chairs of the congressional intelligence “oversight” committees (Hoekstra headed the one in the House) all strongly backed “enhanced interrogation techniques” (aka torture – like waterboarding).  Hoekstra, admitted to having been briefed in detail at the time, and sings the praises of the CIA torturers, whom he describes as “heroes.” Ray, in his typically understated way, demurs.

Obama Admits Gap in Russian ‘Hack’ Case

By Ray McGovern, January 20, 2017

Obama Admits Gap in Russian ‘Hack’ Case

NOTE: Alexander Mercouris, Editor of The Duran draws similar conclusions from what Obama said about the missing link to WikiLeaks.  Mercouris includes the long list of inferences and other evidence, and draws on VIPS’ earlier work on the conundrums that continue to linger.  His meticulous analysis includes additional background detail – it is well worth reading.  Below is the title and the link:

Obama implies US intelligence community ‘doesn’t know’ how WikiLeaks obtained DNC and Podesta emails

By Alexander Mercouris (Editor-in-Chief, The Duran)

http://theduran.com/obama-us-intelligence-dnc-podesta-emails-wikileaks-no-information-upon/

 

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D, Hawaii, is on a fact-finding trip to Syria four days after she explained to Fox News’ Tucker Carlson the folly of U.S. support for so-called “moderate” rebels” there.  Gabbard has written a bill to make U.S. support for terrorists – moderate or immoderate – illegal.  She stressed that the effort to stop this counterproductive policy should garner bipartisan support.

 

January 12, 2017 (4 minutes)

 

Earlier, on November 21, Congresswoman Gabbard met with President-elect Donald Trump.  She told Carlson the President-elect was receptive to the message she was bringing on Syria. 

Immediately after President Barack Obama’s January 18 press conference, RT International asked Ray for reaction.  Ray drew attention to Obama’s bizarre admission that “the conclusions of the intelligence community with respect to the Russian hacking were not conclusive as to whether WikiLeaks was witting or not in being the conduit through which we heard about the DNC e-mails that were leaked.”  Huh?  Or Duh.  Ray suggested that the reason WikiLeaks might have been “not witting” might be that it was quite sure it was not a “conduit” for a hack or leak by the Russians or anyone else.

 

January 18, 2017 (seven minutes)

 

Also discussed: the apogee and nadir in U.S.-Russia relations over the past several years, and how the Western-sponsored coup d’état in Kiev on February 2, 2014 can be (at one and the same time) “the most blatant coup in history” (STRATFOR’s George Friedman) and a virtual non-event for U.S. politicians and media.