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Tag: us intelligence community
Espionage Act: Trump And Teixeira Both Suspected Of The Same Crimes

Espionage Act: Trump And Teixeira Both Suspected Of The Same Crimes

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Airman First Class Jack Teixeira, 21, was charged yesterday on two counts of violating federal espionage laws: one count under 18 US Code 793, for unauthorized gathering, transmitting, or losing national defense information, and one count for violating 18 US Code 1924, unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material.

Donald Trump has been under investigation for violating both statutes in his theft and mishandling of classified documents by keeping them in an insecure storage room at his palatial estate in Palm Beach, Mar-a-Lago.

Teixeira received a top-secret clearance to handle so-called S.C.I., or Sensitive Compartmented Information, in his job as a computer network technician for the 102nd Intelligence Wing of the Air National Guard in Massachusetts. Several documents marked “Top Secret S.C.I.” were found by the FBI in Trump’s office when they searched Mar a Lago last August.

The New York Times reported that Teixeira is under investigation for “using his security clearance to search ‘for classified reporting regarding the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment of the identity of the individual’ who leaked the documents.” That would appear to be a violation of obstruction of justice statutes by attempting to interfere with the investigation of the crime by the FBI.

It has been previously reported that Trump is under investigation by Special Counsel Jack Smith for violating the same statute against obstructing justice. And this week it was reported that Smith brought witnesses before the grand jury in Washington to ask them about Trump showing classified information to unauthorized individuals after he left office. One of the documents Trump aides were questioned about was a classified map that Trump reportedly showed to aides or others on an airplane, and separately to a journalist writing a book.

Smith is also looking into reports that Trump ordered aides to bring him boxes of classified documents to go through after he received an FBI subpoena for all classified documents in his possession. The investigation includes suspicion that he may have removed documents from the boxes and took them with him when he departed Mar-a-Lago for his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey last May.

There were photos in the Daily Mail of Trump aides carrying boxes similar to the ones used to store the classified documents at Mar a Lago onto the plane Trump flew to New Jersey. Special Counsel Smith and his investigators are said to be operating on the assumption that Trump may still have classified documents he has not turned over to the government.

That a former president and a 21-year-old Airman First Class in the Air National Guard who shared racist and antisemitic memes on the Internet are both under investigation for committing the same crimes involving the Espionage Act tells you all you need to know about the state this country is in today.

Lucian K. Truscott IV, a graduate of West Point, has had a 50-year career as a journalist, novelist, and screenwriter. He has covered Watergate, the Stonewall riots, and wars in Lebanon, Iraq, and Afghanistan. He is also the author of five bestselling novels. You can subscribe to his daily columns at luciantruscott.substack.com and follow him on Twitter @LucianKTruscott and on Facebook at Lucian K. Truscott IV.

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Schiff Says CIA, NSA Withhold Relevant Documents From Congress

Schiff Says CIA, NSA Withhold Relevant Documents From Congress

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

On ABC’s This Week, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff confirmed a grim report that surface last week: The nation’s top intelligence officials are pushing Congress to cancel their usual annual testimony to Congress on the nation’s top national security threats because they don’t want to publicly contradict Donald Trump’s false intelligence claims.

“Unfortunately, I think those reports are all too accurate. The intelligence community is reluctant to have an open hearing, something that we had done every year prior to the Trump administration, because they’re worried about angering the president,” Schiff responded.

It isn’t an idle concern, from intelligence officials. Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats was forced out of his position shortly after confirming to Congress that despite Trump’s claims to the contrary, the U.S. had no evidence Iran had an active nuclear weapons program. Trump had a public meltdown, which is a now-daily occurrence, and Coats was given the boot; in the latest degradation of this nation into a kleptocratic and autocratic state, government officials are now reluctant to testify in public about the true dangers facing the nation because if their pronouncements do not match Dear Leader’s political claims, Dear Leader will mark them as personal enemies.

Schiff’s follow-up, if possible, sounded worse: He also asserted that this nation’s intelligence agencies are now also withholding documents pertaining to the impeachment charges now filed against Trump.

“And I’ll say something even more concerning to me, and that is the intelligence community is beginning to withhold documents from Congress on the issue of Ukraine. The NSA, in particular, is withholding what are potentially relevant documents to our oversight responsibilities on Ukraine, but also withholding documents potentially relevant that the senators might want to see during the trial. There are signs that the CIA may be on the same tragic course.”

While Rep. Schiff was intentionally opaque on what Ukraine-related documents were being withheld from lawmakers, there does seem to be a new effort to withhold documents that the agencies had originally been expected to produce. Politico reports an unnamed Intelligence Committee “official” as saying: “Both the NSA and CIA initially pledged cooperation, and it appears now that the White House has interceded before production of documents could begin.”

We have long been told that Congress had, in cases of impeachment, necessarily sweeping oversight powers. Again we are learning that these powers can simply be taken away, so long as sufficient numbers in the president’s own party are willing to sign their own names to that act.

Trump: ‘None Of Your Business’ Whether He Braces Putin On Election Meddling

Trump: ‘None Of Your Business’ Whether He Braces Putin On Election Meddling

Trump still can’t bring himself to forcefully condemn Russian President Vladimir Putin for Russia’s nefarious interference in the 2016 election to help elect Trump.

As Trump departed the White House on Wednesday en route to Japan for the G-20 conference, a reporter asked whether Trump plans to ask Putin not to interfere in the 2020 election.

But rather than answer the question, Trump lashed out at the reporter like a defiant teenager.

“I’ll have a very good conversation with him,” Trump replied. “What I say to him is none of your business.”

Multiple U.S. intelligence agencies, as well as former special counsel Robert Mueller, have unequivocally stated that Russia meddled in the 2016 election in an effort to help elect Trump.

Yet Trump has never accepted that conclusion, still contending that Russia’s attempt to install him as president is a “hoax.”

He also has refused to ever confront Putin in the multiple in-person meetings and phone conversations the two men have had.

In July 2018, Trump held a disastrous summit with Putin in Helsinki in which Trump refused to confront Putin for Russia’s election meddling.

And back in May, Trump had a 90-minute phone call with Putin in which Trump called the Russia investigation a “hoax” and didn’t stand up to Putin’s attacks on American democracy. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tried to excuse Trump’s inability to confront the Russian dictator by saying Trump simply ran out of time on the call.

Given Trump’s childish outburst on Wednesday, Americans who want to see Trump confront the hostile Russian leader shouldn’t hold their breath.

Trump acts like a tough guy, but as soon as he gets in a room with Putin he turns into a feeble wimp.

Published with permission of The American Independent.

White House Aides: Summit ‘Didn’t Go As Planned’

White House Aides: Summit ‘Didn’t Go As Planned’

Reprinted with permission from Shareblue.

Even Trump’s advisers are cringing after his humiliating and disgraceful performance with Putin.

Hillary Clinton rightly predicted that Trump would be Vladimir Putin’s “puppet,” and now, after his humiliating and disgraceful joint press conference with the Russian dictator on Monday, the whole world knows she was right.

That wasn’t the plan, according to U.S. officials, as if Trump ever follows the plan.

The White House wanted him to “push Putin,” the Wall Street Journal reports, thinking that such an unexpected confrontation would somehow surprise the former KGB officer and make Trump “look good.”

“Obviously, it didn’t happen,” a White House official said.

Obviously.

Trump attacked U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies, while standing mere feet away from Putin, as if delivering remarks scripted by Putin himself.

“Putin, now, is the master puppeteer of Donald Trump, the person who is in our Oval Office,” said former CIA Director John Brennan after watching the pathetic display.

“Question for President Trump as he meets Putin,” Clinton tweeted the day before the summit. “Do you know which team you play for?”

Evidently not. “Well, now we know,” Clinton said after the presser.

Everyone who watched the cringe-inducing press conference knows it was a disaster, including Fox News reporters and even the most shameless Trump sycophants.

Disgraced former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, usually so quick to defend the most egregious of Trump’s actions, demanded he “clarify his statements in Helsinki” and blasted the pathetic performance as “the most serious mistake of his presidency.”

To correct that mistake would take a great deal of clarification indeed.

“White House officials openly admitted they don’t know how to respond to questions about Trump’s striking declaration that Putin was ‘extremely strong and powerful in his denial’ of election interference,” CNN reported.

“How bad was that?” one White House aide back in Washington asked. Others apparently avoided answering their phones, trying to dodge any questions altogether.

How bad was it? Really bad. Asked directly about Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election, the supposed American leader repeated Putin’s denials and launched into a tiresome tirade about Clinton’s emails and said he didn’t “see any reason” why Russia would have been involved in hacking our elections.

Never mind that just days ago, 12 Russian intelligence officers were indicted for — that’s right — hacking our election. Trump was briefed on the indictment by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, just as he has been briefed by many members of U.S. intelligence on Russia’s election interference.

But he simply does not believe them, as he made clear while standing beside Putin.

“I have great confidence in my intelligence people. But I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today.”

It was the “but” heard round the world.

Instead of catching Putin by surprise with tough talk, as White House officials apparently — and absurdly — hoped Trump would do, Trump performed exactly as Putin wanted him to.

He undermined his own experts and advisers, insisted again before all the world that Russia is innocent, and even showered Putin with praise for his “incredible offer” to help with the investigation of the intelligence officers who tried to hijack our presidential election.

Incredible is right, though Trump doesn’t realize it. Because, as Clinton so rightly said, he is indeed Putin’s willing puppet. And on Monday, much to everyone’s horror, we got a front-row view of Putin pulling the strings.

Published with permission of The American Independent.