Ray McGovern

By Josephine Wolff, Slate, May 9 2017

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2017/05/09/the_fbi_is_harder_to_trust_on_the_dnc_hack_because_it_relied_on_crowdstrike.html

Ray comments: This is step in the right direction, but Ms. Wolff apparently is unaware of WikiLeaks’s publication of Vault 7, part 3, to connect the dots and understand how this apparently went down.  The New York Times published stories, based on original CIA documents, on Vault 7, parts 1 and 2, but avoided like the plague publishing anything about part 3 (which WikiLeaks published on March 31).

 

In a word, even perceptive folks like Ms. Wolff may not realize that the motto of the New York Times has changed to: “ALL THE NEWS THE CIA SAYS IS OKAY TO PRINT.”

 

After reading the original CIA documents in Vault 7, part three, Ray concluded – and started pointing out – that easily-connected dots lead to John Brennan (probably in connection with Hillary’s people and perhaps including the unsavory Crowdstrike – itself of ill repute – itself) as the likely hacker, using the capabilities of the ‘MARBLE” program revealed in Vault 7, part 3, to leave behind the “tell-tale” Cyrillic to blame the Russians.  This has worked famously – at least up till now – large because educated folks still seem to believe the NY Times operates under the old motto.

 

And “highly respected” Comey behaved the way he did because he was in on the CIA/NSA/FBI operation, in Ray’s view.  Could he not have gotten the proper authority to get access to the DNC computers, if he really wanted to?  Hard to believe that he could not.

 

Ray is getting a little frustrated; he gets zero reaction (pro or con) to his piecing together of the evidence.  Please let him know what you think.

 

Here’s the meat of Josephine Wolff’s article:

“When will the Fake Media ask about … why the DNC wouldn’t allow the FBI to check their server or investigate?” President Trump tweeted on Sunday at 4:15 a.m. … there’s actually an interesting question worth revisiting. … Why wouldn’t the Democratic National Committee allow the FBI to check their servers during the investigation of the DNC breaches during the 2016 election?

The DNC maintains there’s a simple answer to this question: According to the group, the FBI never asked to see their servers. But FBI Director James Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee back in January that the FBI did, in fact, issue “multiple requests at different levels” to the DNC to gain direct access to their computer systems and conduct their own forensic analysis.

Instead, whether because they were denied access or simply never asked for it, the FBI instead used the analysis of the DNC breach conducted by security firm CrowdStrike as the basis for its investigation. Regardless of who is telling the truth about what really happened, perhaps the most astonishing thing about this probe is that a private firm’s investigation and attribution was deemed sufficient by both the DNC and the FBI.

That’s not meant as an insult to CrowdStrike … But it’s one thing to trust tech companies to provide email servers and cloud storage and quite another to rely exclusively on them to collect and analyze evidence of a major security incident attributed to a foreign national government.

Good security companies … can certainly, at times, provide useful assistance to law enforcement investigations—but when they end up essentially doing law enforcement’s job for them, as seems to have been the case with the DNC breach, it becomes exceedingly difficult to know whom to trust and whether to take the results of that investigation at face value. In fact, the president made this point himself, in a Jan. 5 tweet about the FBI investigation, back when he apparently believed the DNC’s version of events: “So how and why are they so sure about hacking if they never even requested an examination of the computer servers? What is going on?”

Knowing who conducted a breach investigation is particularly important when it comes to international cyber conflicts because just about everything the government tells us about those conflicts we are expected to take on faith. Consider the declassified summary of the Intelligence Community’s assessment of “Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections.”

The DNC breaches feature prominently in that summary but, more to the point, the primary rationale readers are given for why they should believe that the Russian government meddled in the U.S. election is because the FBI, CIA, and NSA believe that to be the case. We are given very little actual detail about what happened or how the incidents were traced to Russia specifically, while we are treated to numerous statements along the lines of: “We assess with high confidence that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election” or “We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump. We have high confidence in these judgments.”

Of course, there are many reasons the Intelligence Community might have decided not to reveal any actual evidence for these claims. But in the absence of that evidence, whether or not you believe their conclusions rests entirely on your confidence in the judgment and investigative abilities of the FBI, CIA, and NSA. And if the evidence that they’ve used to level major accusations at a foreign government comes not from agencies of the U.S. government or direct law enforcement investigations, but rather from private sector firms like CrowdStrike, then the “high confidence” of the government counts for very little.

The DNC breach is not the only incident attributed to Russia in the Intelligence assessment summary and it’s likely that some of the others were directly investigated by the government. But even so, this conflation of government- and industry-gathered evidence without clear distinctions makes it harder to take the agencies’ assessments at face value.

… turning over an entire law enforcement investigation to the private sector is a serious mistake. Companies have very different agendas and motivations from those of law enforcement agencies—companies want to raise their own profiles, satisfy their clients, and draw new customers, while law enforcement agencies aim to identify criminals and hold them accountable. Especially when the government is going to justify an accusation by urging citizens to trust its judgment, it matters that they have actually conducted an investigation themselves and drawn their own conclusions based on a first-hand examination of the available evidence.

So if the FBI didn’t ask for access the DNC’s servers out of laziness or negligence, it certainly should have. And if the DNC denied them that access for fear of being embarrassed by what they might find, or because they had more faith in CrowdStrike than the FBI, then it served only to undermine confidence in the ultimate results of the investigation and give the impression of having something shameful to hide. Neither the DNC nor the FBI should have been satisfied with an investigation that did not involve the FBI conducting a first-hand look at the compromised systems. And all of us should be concerned about the seeming acceptance of both parties to let a private company singlehandedly carry out an investigation with such significant political consequences.

By Ray McGovern, June 25, 2017

Intel Behind Trump’s Syria Attack Questioned

Famed investigative Journalist dissects the chemical event in Syria’s Idlib Province on April 4 and Trump’s impulsive order to fire cruise missiles two days later – never mind that he was told the event was not caused by Syria dropping a chemical weapon.  Hersh writes about how Trump’s yes-sir generals supported “retaliation,” lest they anger the President and lose their jobs.  No profiles in courage here.

https://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/article165905578/Trump-s-Red-Line.html

and

https://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/article165906452/The-Fog-of-War.html

Danger:  It is left to the Russians to figure out which is worse: a President controlled by “his generals,” or a reckless President (Trump) who shoots first, and asks later for “his generals” and national security adviser to fill in behind with a concocted legend to “justify” the shooting.  With Russia threatening to target aircraft flying in Syria west of the Euphrates, Putin may also choose to shoot first, and ask later who ordered the aircraft into the air – the President, or “his generals.”  Hold onto your hat.

Ray will be writing tonight on Hersh’s typically well-sourced, groundbreaking article, for which he could not find an outlet in English. Even the London Review of Books turned him down this time.  They were happy to let Hersh keep the money, lest they be “vulnerable to criticism for seeming to take the view of the Syrian and Russia governments when it came to the April 4 bombing in Khan Sheikhoun,” according to Hersh.  For, as is well known, if the Russians and Syrians say it, it cannot be true!  And if you agree, you are a Russian puppet.  Quid est veritas?

Whether it was seeing the dead babies on social media, or an attempt – successful, it turned out – to boost his approval ratings and show he is not “in Putin’s pocket,” Trump did not wait.  VIPS sent did send him this memo on April 11 — https://consortiumnews.com/2017/04/11/trump-should-rethink-syria-escalation/ and it turns out to have been among the first – perhaps the first – to get it right, as corroborated now by Hersh.  But there is little reason to believe VIPS memos actually reach Trump.  And, in this case, he clearly was not interested in anything that might have made him think twice, or even once, before — or even after — shooting.

http://www.spreaker.com/user/radiosputnik/report-on-putins-instructions-for-u-s-el

June 23, 2017 (19 minutes)

Michael Maloof joined him.

June 20, 2017 (eight minutes)

An article that should be required summer reading:

 

Understanding Russia: the Continuum of History

By Yameen Khan (edited by Pepe Escobar)

http://thesaker.is/understanding-russia-the-continuum-of-history/

Put Yameen Khan’s article on your reading list.  Too bad we cannot pry Mad Dog Mattis away from reading classical Greek poetry long enough to expose him to this highly readable short course in Russian history.  Mattis would be able to learn things like this: Homer wrote his epic poetry on the Trojan War 2,000 years before the Slavs in central Europe created, with the help of two priests from Macedonia, a written language able to record their own epic poetry and rich oral tradition; and that Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey were composed 2,500 years before there was anything resembling a united “Russia.”

This is one side of Russian history that is helpful to understand.  In other words, there was a pressing need to play catch-up ball vis-à-vis Russia’s European neighbors, who escaped more than two centuries of what the Russians call the Tatar Yoke – not to mention the repeated invasions from the West after the Russians finally beat back the Golden Horde.

Perhaps even more relevant, though, is the modern history of Russia, which has shown the Russians to be a brave, proud, talented people.  They have weathered the storms that the most recent millennium threw at them and have demonstrated how astonishingly good they are at playing catch-up.  Knowing something of this historical record, of the prism through which Russia looks at external dangers, and what happens when “exceptional” empires overreach might conceivably help the ignoramus political and military hacks and pundits of the U.S. Establishment.

Khan’s short article does a good job of showing how Kremlin leaders look at U.S. efforts to encircle and destabilize Russia, and how – if history is any guide – those efforts are doomed to fail.  What’s new, of course, is that this time cockroaches may be the only animal life left on this planet, if common sense does not prevail.

An Anniversary to Remember

Tomorrow (June 22) marks the 76^th anniversary of Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union.  Think about it.  Does the following “shock and awe” description of the crossing of the Bug River that morning remind you of a similar attack 62 years later?  MSNBC’s Brian Williams would have waxed eloquent at the spectacle on the Bug – as he did two months ago as U.S. Tomahawk cruise missiles streaked toward Syria, and as his media colleagues did on March 20, 2003, as though they were watching celebratory fireworks over Iraq.

Khan quotes historian Paul Carell describing the moment when, at 3:15 AM on June 22nd 1941, the massive “Operation Barbarossa” over a 900-mile front got under way against Russia:

 

“As though a switch had been thrown, a gigantic flash of lightening rent the night. Guns of all calibers simultaneously belched fire. The tracks of tracer shells streaked across the sky. As far as the eye could see the front on the Bug was a sea of flames and flashes. … Beyond the Bug a sea of fire and smoke was raging. The narrow sickle of the moon was hidden by a veil of cloud. Peace was dead.”

The only notable omission from Yameen Khan’s short history is the fact that military and economic help from the United States did much to equip the Soviet forces – for which Stalin was outspokenly grateful.  That assistance helped eventually to overcome the German attacks, at horrendous cost, in battles like the five-month-plus showdown at Stalingrad (August 1942-February 1943).  In that battle, the Soviet army lost more than 1,100,000 killed; the Germans 750,000.

Their 6^th Army destroyed, the Germans lost the initiative in the East and never quite recovered from having been driven back west by they believed were the “inferior” Slavs.  It was the turning point of WWII.  (Many Americans have been led to believe. on the contrary, that the turning point was the Normandy invasion 16 months later.)

In WWII, the Russians and the U.S. were allies against a great evil.  Together – and with the British and French – they prevailed.

You won’t necessarily know the following, if you depend on the New York Times for news, but President Vladimir Putin has tried to re-create that same kind of cooperative effort – this time against the widespread violence touched off by the illegal, misbegotten invasion of Iraq 14 years ago.  President Donald Trump’s expressed wish to work toward a rapprochement with Russia that would enable such cooperation has been thwarted so far by political forces determined to use an artificially demonized Putin to bring Trump down – or, at least, render him impotent.  (Surely, there are enough other reasons – far better anchored in fact – to impeach him.)

Tomorrow’s 76th anniversary of the Nazi invasion of Russia would be a fitting occasion to bring to mind the victorious U.S.-Russian cooperation during WWII, and to recall also that there are still formidable common enemies to fight.  These include not only those who would destroy the Middle East, but also those who would re-introduce fascism into Ukraine, and the arms manufacturers and traders and bankers who profiteer from tension and war.

David Swanson asked Ray onto Talk Nation Radio Monday to discuss the latest escalation in Syria, with the U.S. shooting down a Syrian warplane Sunday and Russia quick to warn it will now target aircraft in Syrian airspace west of the Euphrates.  David and Ray also focused on the Russia-is-the-root-of-all-evil hysteria, the manufactured “evidence” confirming Russian perfidy, and the main reasons why so many otherwise sensible people keep drinking the Kool-Aid.  

June 18, 2017 (29 minutes)

 

Ray points to exceptionally good evidence – suppressed by the New York Times and co-conspirators – showing who it actually was that performed the famous hack-with-telltale-signs into the computers of the Democratic National Committee last year.  (Hint: you don’t have to be a Russian to slip in telltale signs like Cyrillic.)

 

Ray also explains what he believes accounts for former FBI Director James Comey’s malfeasance in telling his “folks” not to bother obtaining physical access to the DNC computers.  Why did he instruct his folks to use the forensics from a dubious commercial firm rather than have them seize the computers and do a proper independent investigation themselves?

 

Tune in.

Three “formers” — Bill Binney (NSA), Coleen Rowley (FBI), and Ray (CIA) spent an hour on Brian Becker’s Loud and Clearlive radio program on June 19.  It was the 5^th anniversary of the day Julian Assange ducked into the Ecuadorian embassy in London to escape attempts by “distinguished” benders-of-the-law to imprison him for some 35 years for spreading some truth around about things like war crimes.

 

http://www.spreaker.com/user/radiosputnik/binney-mcgovern-rowley-wikileaks-and-the

 

To its credit, little Ecuador gave him a safe place to live – and work.  The UN has ruled twice that holding Assange amounts to “arbitrary detention.”  But even if it crossed the mind of UK Prime Minister Theresa May that she may not required to ape Tony Blair in keeping the UK in international-law pariah status, and even if she may wish to give Assange safe passage out of the Ecuadorian embassy, May may be simply unable to summon the courage to ask President Trump “May I?”

 

It is entirely conceivable that a Corbyn government, in contrast, may pay less homage to Washington and more to the UN and international law.  That government may come sooner than anyone may think.

 

The radio discussion focused less on Assange than on the many abuses WikiLeaks has successfully exposed to what Dr. King described as “the natural medicines of air and light … the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion” from which Justice comes.

How disinformation corrupts democracy

 

On June 15, 2017, All Souls Church on Lexington and 80^th and the Big Apple Coffee Party co-sponsored talks by Mark Crispin Miller, Professor of Media, Culture & Communication at NYU, and Ray.  Each spoke for 17 minutes.  A lively Q & A followed, moderated nimbly by Margaret Kimberley of the Black Agenda Report.

 

Ray from start to minute 17:15

Mark Crispin Miller from 17:15 to 35:05

Q and A to end (minute 58:00)

Brian Becker of “Loud and Clear” asked Jim Kavanagh* (Polemicist.net) and Ray to place some context around the dump-Trump campaign now gathering steam – accusing him of obstruction of justice.

http://www.spreaker.com/user/radiosputnik/loud-clear-sprk-361-part-1.
June 15, 2017 (17 minutes – you can begin at minute 1:07)

Obstruction of justice seems to have edged out “collusion” with the Russians, as the preferred path among leaders of a new GWOT campaign, at least for the nonce.  It almost seems as though the leaders of this campaign decided to dust off the earlier-used-but-then-unceremoniously-discarded acronym for the “Global War on Terror,” and morph it into a slogan for their effort to “Get Wid of Trump.”

Mirable dictu, the obstruction charge dominated the Sunday talk shows yesterday and got page-one treatment in the NY Times and Washington Post this morning.  (In contrast, if you’re interested in less important things – like war with Russia – you must turn the pages to A10 in the Times and A9 in the Post to read about a challenge to Russia that matters, the U.S. shoot-down yesterday of a Syrian warplane in Syria.)

Brian Becker led off with the obstruction story, providing an easy lead into what the ins and outs of the issue and the key dramatis personae – former FBI Director James Comey and his old pal and mentor, former FBI Director Robert Mueller – special prosecutor investigating matters in which Comey credibility and future is at stake, since he played a major role in them.  Yes, you read that right.

Since this issue is key – and, thank goodness, susceptible of a common-sense, non-lawyerly approach – Ray rang some changes on that theme during the interview with Becker and Kavanagh, and then again later that day during a panel discussion on Making News/Faking News, sharing speaking chores with Professor Mark Crispin Miller, at an event co-sponsored by All Souls Church, and the Big Apple Coffee Party.  (See next posting.)

Ironic

The following day, Ray found the thrust of his remarks mirrored – and better said – by Byron York of the Washington Examiner, who reports the opinion of a “Hill lawyer”:

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/byron-york-is-robert-mueller-conflicted-in-trump-probe/article/2625638

It’s somewhat ironic, no? I mean, the whole purpose of the special counsel is to have a prosecutor from outside the government and outside of the normal chain of command because inherent conflicts render the Justice Department incapable of handling it. So, now the special counsel is a close friend (mentor/mentee relationship) with the star witness, who by his own admission leaked the memos at least in part to engineer the appointment of a special counsel. Only in Washington. You can’t make this stuff up.

Former FBI Special Agent and Division Counsel Coleen Rowley has observed both Muller and Comey up-close-and personal.  She enjoyed relatively free access to the pages of the New York Times until a couple of weeks ago, when she sent the op-ed editors a draft to which they never replied.  The essence of it can be found at:

https://consortiumnews.com/2017/06/06/russia-gates-mythical-heroes/.  With respect to conflicts of interest, Rowley also notes that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein – like Comey – previously worked for Mueller and that the two are close – posing yet another possible conflict.

When James Comey was nominated to be head of the FBI, the Times did oblige Rowley by publishing an op-ed with specific suggestions as to what questions the Senators should ask him.  That, too, if worth a re-read:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/09/opinion/questions-for-the-fbi-nominee.html

Staying Downtown: Thanks to Catholic Worker hospitality in the Bowery, Ray was again staying in the Bowery – this time in the room where Dorothy Day’s lived and worked.  On Thursday he did the interview by phone from there – thinking all the while about how she identified “the filthy rotten system” as the main problem.  A gutsy woman, Dorothy; I do think her spirit gave me a nudge or two.

 

Such people are often pushed to the margins during their lives, and then named saints once they can no longer cause trouble. When folks would call Dorothy a “saint,” she would reply forcefully, “Do not dismiss me so easily.”  No matter.  The Catholic hierarchy in New York and their friends in the Vatican are hell-bent, so to speak, to canonize her.

 

*(Jim Kavanagh also is a Fordham graduate; his father taught at Fordham Law School at the same time as Ray’s.)