Who Needs Intelligence Sharing?

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On January 27th, an AP story appeared on the news website Military.com with the headline “Intelligence Sharing by the US and Its Allies Has Saved Lives. Trump Could Test Those Ties.” On the surface, it reads like one of those analysis pieces that come out when the White House changes from one party to the next, with the added twist of knowing what the first Trump administration was like.

The Associated Press spoke with 18 current and former senior European and U.S. officials who worked in NATO, defense, diplomacy or intelligence. Many raised questions and concerns about Trump’s past relationship with America’s spies and their ability to share information at a time of heightened terror threats and signs of greater cooperation between U.S. adversaries.

The importance of trust

The U.S. and its allies routinely share top-secret information, be it about potential terror threats, Chinese cyberattacks or Russian troop movements. America’s closest intelligence partners are New Zealand, Australia, Canada and Britain, and it often shares with other nations or sometimes even adversaries when lives are at stake.

[snip]

Cooperation particularly between the U.S. and the U.K. is “strong and robust enough to withstand some turbulence at the political level,” said Lord Peter Ricketts, former U.K. national security adviser and current chair of the European Affairs Committee of the upper chamber of the British Parliament.

However, any strong intelligence relationship is underpinned by trust, and what if “trust isn’t there?” Ricketts said.

Ricketts’ question is no longer a hypothetical. This is the reality faced by intelligence services who in the past have been friendly with the US intelligence community. The AP put out their story on January 27th, and that seems like years ago. Today this reads like a warning.

The takeover of USAID that has played out this past week is *not* just a battle over who runs offices in DC. The bulk of USAID’s staff work overseas, alongside their local partners. When phone calls from these overseas missions back to DC go unanswered, and when US staffers abroad are told to stand down, all those local partners are going to get very, very nervous, and not just because their paychecks stop. They’re going to talk to others in their government, trying to find out what it going on. At the same time, they will be providing input (either directly or indirectly) to their own country’s intelligence service, as their spooks add it to whatever they are learning from elsewhere. In the US, folks worry about those who are losing their jobs; overseas, these fights will result in people dying, like those who don’t get the clean water, medical care, or disease prevention measures like malaria nets. Those other countries are watching with horror the stories of Musk’s minions breaking into sensitive databases, over the objections of trusted career people, and wonder what of their own information is now in the hands of a privateer, and if the same this is (or will be) going on at the CIA, DIA, and other US intelligence agencies.

I guarantee you that all these other countries are watching the battle over USAID much more carefully than folks in the US.

Or look at the targeting of General Mark Milley, widely respected by his counterparts among our allies and within their intelligence services. OK, Biden pardoned him to protect him, but Trump withdrew his security clearance, and also his personal security detail. On January 29th, newly confirmed Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth launched a process to investigate Milley, seeking to strip him of at least one star, cut his retirement pay, and punish him further. Given what the US attorney for DC is doing by going after DOJ attorneys for investigating the rather noticeable break-in of the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, it’s not hard to imagine that Hegseth’s henchmen will be rather thorough in their work and ruthlessly push aside anyone who gets in their way.

Now imagine you are a member of a foreign intelligence service — perhaps the head, or perhaps a mid-level staffer whose specialty is the US. You see the USAID invasion. You see the public decapitation of the FBI. You see the targeting of career DOJ officials. You see Hegseth paint a target on the back of Milley (and others, like John Bolton and John Brennan). You see all this, much of it in the bright light of public reporting. You hear more from your contacts, who paint more detailed pictures of these purges and fights. You see all this, and you ask yourself two questions, over and over again.

1) Are the things we shared with the US intelligence community in the past safe from being revealed in public, and thus causing us harm?
2) Can we trust the US intelligence community with information we might share with them in the future?

Given what we’ve seen over the last week, the answers to these questions are becoming more and more clear: 1) no and 2) no.

I haven’t talked to those “18 current and former senior European and U.S. officials who worked in NATO, defense, diplomacy or intelligence” to whom the AP spoke. The AP headline was hypothetical – “Trump could test those ties” – but now on February 3rd, it’s real. Trump has been f’ing around with those intelligence service ties, and he’s about to find out what happens.

The short answer is becoming clear, as Trump’s vision of America First becomes America Alone.

 

 

The Whole World is Watching, Trump Edition

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A Pile of Doozies, waiting to be signed

There are some real doozies among the executive orders that were signed yesterday. As Marcy noted, the pardons were certainly among them. There is also the irony of opening up ANWR for drilling once more and exploiting Alaska’s environmental resources, while at the same time stopping the offshore continental shelf leases to wind farms,

with due consideration for a variety of relevant factors, including the need to foster an energy economy capable of meeting the country’s growing demand for reliable energy, the importance of marine life, impacts on ocean currents and wind patterns, effects on energy costs for Americans –- especially those who can least afford it –- and to ensure that the United States is able to maintain a robust fishing industry for future generations and provide low cost energy to its citizens.

I guess Alaskan fish and the Arctic Ocean are on their own.

There is also an EO giving now-Secretary of State his marching orders:

Section 1.  Purpose.  From this day forward, the foreign policy of the United States shall champion core American interests and always put America and American citizens first.

Sec. 2.  Policy.  As soon as practicable, the Secretary of State shall issue guidance bringing the Department of State’s policies, programs, personnel, and operations in line with an America First foreign policy, which puts America and its interests first.

“And don’t you forget it, Little Marco!” was apparently deleted from the final version that was signed.

It’s not just Americans watching all this play out on Day One. Around the world, the heads of intelligence services of friends and foes alike were no doubt watching as well, to see what was just campaign rhetoric and what Trump actually followed through on with action. The EO that really made me sit up and take notice and most certainly caught their attention was this one:

The Executive Office of the President requires qualified and trusted personnel to execute its mandate on behalf of the American people.  There is a backlog created by the Biden Administration in the processing of security clearances of individuals hired to work in the Executive Office of the President.  Because of this backlog and the bureaucratic process and broken security clearance process, individuals who have not timely received the appropriate clearances are ineligible for access to the White House complex, infrastructure, and technology and are therefore unable to perform the duties for which they were hired.  This is unacceptable.

Therefore, by the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, I hereby order:

1.  The White House Counsel to provide the White House Security Office and Acting Chief Security Officer with a list of personnel that are hereby immediately granted interim Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS/SCI) security clearances for a period not to exceed six months; and

2.  That these individuals shall be immediately granted access to the facilities and technology necessary to perform the duties of the office to which they have been hired; and

3.  The White House Counsel, as my designee, may supplement this list as necessary; and

4.  The White House Counsel, as my designee, shall have the authority to revoke the interim clearance of any individual as necessary.

The introduction blaming the Biden administration for screwing up the process for getting security clearances is a red herring. This EO is straight up slamming the FBI for not immediately giving clearances to his favored people back in 2017. But beyond that . . . wow.

Do you remember how things began for Trump in 2017? As I wrote in 2022, when the FBI executed a search warrant on Mar-a-Lago seeking (and finding) missing very sensitive national security documents, Trump had a history of shoddy security practices dating back to the very beginning of his first administration.

On May 15, 2017, a disturbing story hit the news:

President Donald Trump disclosed highly classified information to Russia’s foreign minister about a planned Islamic State operation, two U.S. officials said on Monday, plunging the White House into another controversy just months into Trump’s short tenure in office.

The intelligence . . . was supplied by a U.S. ally in the fight against the militant group, both officials with knowledge of the situation said.

H.R. McMaster categorically denied it, and as the story unfolded over time, McMaster was lying through his teeth. The unnamed ally was later revealed to be Israel, who had a mole inside an ISIS cell. And Trump blithely blew the cover of that Israeli asset by bragging to Lavrov.

Shortly after this meeting (at which Trump also bragged about just having fired James Comey), US intelligence officials made a bold move. From CNN:

In a previously undisclosed secret mission in 2017, the United States successfully extracted from Russia one of its highest-level covert sources inside the Russian government, multiple Trump administration officials with direct knowledge told CNN.

A person directly involved in the discussions said that the removal of the Russian was driven, in part, by concerns that President Donald Trump and his administration repeatedly mishandled classified intelligence and could contribute to exposing the covert source as a spy.

The decision to carry out the extraction occurred soon after a May 2017 meeting in the Oval Office in which Trump discussed highly classified intelligence with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and then-Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. The intelligence, concerning ISIS in Syria, had been provided by Israel.

This was the opening act of the Trump presidency. From the very beginning, intelligence officers worried about how Trump handled classified information. Our intelligence officers worried, and so did the intelligence officers of our allies, as they asked themselves some version of the question “Will Trump say something or do something that will get us killed?” In a completely different way, so did the intelligence officers of our adversaries. If Trump were to rashly reveal something he learned about the capabilities of our adversaries, it could have disastrous consequences for those countries and their leaders, as the reaction to the revelation could easily spiral out of control in unforeseeable ways.

And the damage was done.

Fast forward to today, and imagine you are the head of the German Bundesnachrichendienst, the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, the Israeli Mossad, or any of the intelligence agencies with whom we regularly share intelligence. This EO says that Trump is giving a six-month waiver to the background check requirement. What could possibly go wrong?

Now imagine you are the head of the intelligence service of an unfriendly country. How large is your smile?

Just as they watched Biden’s new team in 2021, all the foreign intelligence services are watching Trump today. Yes, they are taking note of Trump indicating the US is withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement, and also the World Health Organization. But screwing with security clearances in the White House is on another level.

Little Secretary of State Marco is going to have a lot of work to do, trying to clean up this mess. This kind of thing will turn “America First” into “America Alone,” at least when it comes to sharing intelligence among allies.

And finally, imagine you are a senior person in the CIA, NSA, or another US intelligence agency. Imagine you are an agent in the field, passing sensitive information through your handler back to Langley. How many agents are going to ask to be pulled out? How many agents are going to “go dark” for a time, cutting off the flow of information they had been sending? And how many potential sources are going to rethink any idea of cooperating with US intelligence services, and decide to go to the Germans, the British, or others instead of the US — or decide it’s not worth cooperating with any western country?

The whole world is watching, and it’s not a pretty picture. Unless, of course, you are a certain former KBG agent, who is even more elated today than he was on November 9th.

The Terrifying Complexity of Tech Oligarchs’ Obeisance to Trump

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Perhaps I’m being a pollyanna. But from my perspective — living in Ireland, the lilypad for America’s tech companies, where regulators just ordered Meta to improve its responsiveness to complaints about terrorist content — I’m nowhere near as worried that ABC settled the lawsuit over whether Trump raped or just digitally raped E Jean Carroll as I am that one after another big tech oligarch, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai, and Tim Cook (Trump made a point in his presser today to note Sergey Brin has also come calling), has bent his knee to Trump, to say nothing of Elon Musk dumping $250 million to get Trump elected and then insinuating himself into the Trump family.

This post from Liz Dye and Andrew Torrez explains why, from a legal perspective, the ABC settlement is not quite as scandalous as some are taking it to be. And this Brian Stelter column explains why the timing of it suggests ABC may have had good reason to avoid discovery. All the times Fox has settled lawsuits before Sean Hannity had to sit for a deposition, which is when Fox always settles, were not deemed the end of the world, and this may not be either. It may, instead, simply be the shitty decision of a shitty mega corporation.

To be sure, Trump is going to follow Viktor Orbán’s formula and try to discipline the legacy media into acting as his captive media (as Anne Appelbaum discussed with Greg Sargent). But where have you been?!?! He made great strides in doing that already — building on his successful propaganda about the Russian investigation with distractions about dick pics in lieu of actual reporting on Trump’s alleged crime and corruption. The legacy media has been gleefully playing a useful prop in Trump’s domination reality TV show for years. I’d like them to stop, but cannot force them to figure out how they’re being used.

The obeisance from the tech oligarchs, however, terrifies me in a different way.

Consider how many different issues intersect in the business conflicts of these men:

  • Imports (especially for Apple) that might be subject to tariffs
  • Anti-trust
  • The Artificial Intelligence booming bustlet
  • Moderation & other content issues
  • EU privacy and moderation policy
  • Intelligence sharing and government contacting

Start with the ways that Trump has leverage over these oligarchs: Trump is threatening tariffs that could devastate Apple’s iPhone imports and Amazon’s general imports. Trump’s nominee to lead FCC, Brendan Carr, has threatened to pull Section 230 protection for platforms that moderate content. Biden’s DOJ has taken unprecedented anti-trust actions against Big Tech that Trump could easily reverse. Bezos, especially, is a big government contractor.

Trump has a whole set of carrots and sticks he can use with these oligarchs, even ignoring Trump’s threat to put Zuckerberg in prison for the rest of his life.

Meanwhile, all these men have spent the last few years enshittifying their companies with a commitment to Artificial Intelligence. Not only is Google’s search monopoly under threat in DOJ’s lawsuit, but Google has made its search function utterly useless with shitty AI.

AI was at once a stupid business bet, but also a wicked (and thus far, painfully successful) investment in busting intellectual property and with it white collar employment security, including that of journalists.

Trump’s sidekick Elon Musk has conned Trump into joining the AI cult, so on that issue Trump and the oligarchs see eye to eye, with the Russia’s useful idiot David Sacks appointed to push AI from within the White House.

Now consider how that mix of shared interests and powerful leverage plays out in Trump’s plan to extend fascist power.

We saw how it worked under Musk with Xitter: He bought the platform and then turned the public square into a forum that preferred not just right wing content (which was always true of social media platforms) but fascist content. All the while, Musk was conducting one of the largest ever disinformation campaigns targeting Kamala Harris on Meta. Trump has specifically threatened Google because pro-Trump content doesn’t drown out criticism, which is a danger when people increasingly get their content from YouTube rather than ABC.

That is, these same platforms can and have created gatekeepers between consumers and actual news products, gatekeepers that introduce their own antipolitical if not fascist bias. And Trump wants to magnify that effect.

That’s US focused content. But Musk tested his international reach last summer when he, personally, helped to gin up far right violence in the UK.

As today’s ruling against Meta shows, between privacy rules and content limits, the EU has better tools to combat the spread of fascism via US tech platforms, though they’re far from perfect. Importantly, Musk has treated British legal inquiries as a joke. And JD Vance has explicitly tied US national security policy, including NATO, to moderation policies.

The joint fascist/Russian project would like to break up the EU (or Orbanize it). Fascist parties are increasingly ascendant. And EU data sovereignty which limits hate and violent speech will be under increasing threat.

Especially here in Ireland. Ireland’s recent affluence is built on US tech investment. Indeed, the governing coalition bucked recent anti-incumbent trends in the recent general election thanks in part to taxes Apple was forced to pay, which the Irish government was reluctant to make it pay. Because Ireland is so beholden to those tech jobs, its regulation of US tech companies has only recently approached what the rest of the EU demanded. That gives the tech companies — and by extension, Trump — a special kind of leverage over Ireland. Ireland was already a weak point in European security, but the demands of tech companies could exacerbate that.

Meanwhile, it just so happens that the men bowing to Trump are the key participants in Section 702 spying, one of the most important competitive advantages the US empire has. And that, too, is a point of leverage with Europe. It has always been the case that an Empire’s intelligence projection is a benefit offered to those in its orbit. That’s why European leaders’ complaints about the Snowden disclosures were always muted: they relied on US intelligence to keep their countries safe. A number of recent disclosures about Russian influence operations and sabotage in Europe likely rely at least partly on US intelligence. But Trump has already been talking about cutting down intelligence sharing with Europe, something that would make it far harder to fend off Russian-backed fascist parties.

These oligarchs — every one of them, I’d bet — have long believed their companies supersede the sovereignty of mere nations. Before now, however, they lacked armies to enforce that claim. Trump has at least floated plans that might dramatically change how US tech companies become a kind of toxic platform projecting US power and propaganda.

Trump will continue to sue for defamation like he has always done. ABC caving doesn’t make that more or less likely. Trump will continue to seek other ways to bankrupt the legacy media.

But Trump’s relations with America’s tech giants have the potential to be an altogether new kind of threat, one far more ominous both within and outside the US.

And thus far, it appears the tech oligarchs are playing ball.

Update: Meanwhile, Will Lewis can’t convince any credible editor to work for him and Bezos.

The situation at the Washington Post is so dire that two candidates to run the paper — Cliff Levy of the New York Times and Meta’s Anne Kornblut, a former Post editor — both withdrew from consideration for the top newsroom job over the paper’s strategy, sources involved in the process say.

Why it matters: The Post is scrambling to find a new executive editor, the chair once held by Ben Bradlee, amid shrinking paid readership and revenue. Publisher and CEO Will Lewis, handpicked by owner Jeff Bezos to save the Post, hasn’t impressed the candidates with his vision for the future, the sources tell us.

One person involved in the search told us Lewis’ pitch was foggy and uninspiring.
Zoom in: Levy, who pulled out last week, and Kornblut, whose conversations ended in September, declined to comment. Other candidates include current interim executive editor Matt Murray. But it’s hard to imagine this monthslong process unfolding so publicly — only to end with the same guy in charge.

A few candidates were asked to write six-page memos — a hallmark of Amazon culture — about their journalistic vision for the paper, using AI and how to grow the Post’s audience.

Public domain

The Mixed Emotions of November 9th

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h/t rocksunderwater (public domain)

In Germany, November 9th is a day of very mixed emotions.

In 1923, this was the date on which the “Beer Hall Putsch” took place, a failed violent coup led by Hitler and the Nazis to overthrown the Weimar government. The following April, Hitler was convicted of high treason and sentenced to five years in prison (the bare minimum sentence). While in prison, Hitler was given various privileges, and he wrote the first volume of Mein Kampf. By the end of the year, Hitler was released, and he pivoted the Nazi party to seek power via legitimate means. Ten years later, Hitler had become the Chancellor of Germany.

Fifteen years to the day after the Beer Hall Putsch, in 1938, came Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass. On that night, the German authorities stood by as Hitler’s Storm Troopers and members of the Hitler Youth stormed Jewish businesses and buildings, synagogues and schools, hospitals and homes, breaking their windows and ransacking the property. While the Nazis claimed the violence was a spontaneous reaction to the murder of a Nazi official, it was instead a well-planned attack, thousands of Jews were rounded up and sent to concentration camps, and the Nazis demanded the Jewish community pay a huge “Atonement Tax” of 1 billion Reichsmarks, and any insurance payouts to Jews were seized by the government.

As bad as those memories are for Germany, an entirely different memory of November 9th was created in 1989, when after a tumultuous summer, the Berlin Wall came down. JD Bindenagel was the career State Department officer serving as the deputy chief of mission at the US mission in East Germany’s capital of Berlin, and he described it like this in 2019:

On Nov. 9, 1989, there was no sign of revolution. Sure, change was coming—but slowly, we thought. After all, the Solidarity movement in Poland began in the early 1980s. I spent the afternoon at an Aspen Institute reception hosted by David Anderson for his new deputy director, Hildegard Boucsein, with leaders from East and West Berlin, absorbed in our day-to-day business. In the early evening, I attended a reception along with the mayors and many political leaders of East and West Berlin, Allied military commanders and East German lawyer Wolfgang Vogel. Not one of us had any inkling of the events that were about to turn the world upside down.

As the event was ending, Wolfgang Vogel asked me for a ride. I was happy to oblige and hoped to discuss changes to the GDR travel law, the target of the countrywide demonstrations for freedom. On the way, he told me that the Politburo planned to reform the travel law and that the communist leadership had met that day to adopt new rules to satisfy East Germans’ demand for more freedom of travel. I dropped Vogel off at his golden-colored Mercedes near West Berlin’s shopping boulevard, Ku’Damm. Happy about my scoop on the Politburo deliberations, I headed to the embassy. Vogel’s comments would surely make for an exciting report back to the State Department in Washington.

I arrived at the embassy at 7:30 p.m. and went directly to our political section, where I found an animated team of diplomats. At a televised press conference, government spokesman Guenter Schabowski had just announced the Politburo decision to lift travel restrictions, leaving everyone at the embassy stunned. East Germans could now get visitor visas from their local “People’s Police” station, and the East German government would open a new processing center for emigration cases. When an Italian journalist asked the spokesman when the new rules would go into effect, Schabowski fumbled with his papers, unsure—and then mumbled: “Unverzueglich” (immediately). With that, my Vogel scoop evaporated.

At this point, excitement filled the embassy. None of us had the official text of the statement or knew how East Germans planned to implement the new rules. Although Schabowski’s declaration was astounding, it was open to widely varying interpretations. Still dazed by the announcement, we anticipated the rebroadcast an hour later.

At 8 p.m., Political Counselor Jon Greenwald and I watched as West Germany’s news program “Tagesschau” led with the story. By then, political officer Imre Lipping had picked up the official statement and returned to the embassy to report to Washington. Heather Troutman, another political officer, wrote an on-the-ground report that the guards at Checkpoint Charlie were telling East Germans to get visas. Greenwald cabled the text of Schabowski’s announcement to Washington: East Germans had won the freedom to travel and emigrate.

As the cable arrived in Washington, I called the White House Situation Room and State Department Operations Center to discuss the report and alert them to the latest developments. I then called Harry Gilmore, the American minister in West Berlin.

“Harry,” I said, “it looks like you’re going to have a lot of visitors soon. We’re just not sure yet what that rush of visitors will look like.”

We assumed that, at best, East Germans would start crossing into West Berlin the next day. In those first moments, the wall remained impassable. After all, these were Germans; they were known for following the rules. Schabowski had announced the visa rules, and we believed there would be an orderly process. East Germans, however, were following West German television coverage, as well. And, as it turned out, they decided to hold their government to its word immediately.

I headed home around 10 p.m. to watch events unfold on West German television. On my way to Pankow, I was surprised by the unusual amount of traffic. The “Trabi,” with its two-cycle engine and a body made of plasticized pressed-wood, spewing gas and oil smoke, was always in short supply. Perhaps one of the most striking symbols of East Germany’s economy, those iconic cars now filled the streets despite the late hour—and they were headed to the Bornholmer Strasse checkpoint. Near the checkpoint, drivers were abandoning them left and right.

Ahead of me, the blazing lights of a West German television crew led by Der Spiegel reporter Georg Mascolo illuminated the checkpoint. The TV crew, safely ensconced in the West, was preparing for a live broadcast. Despite the bright lights, all I could make out was a steadily growing number of demonstrators gathering at the checkpoint. From the tumult, I could faintly hear yells of “Tor auf!” (Open the gate!) Anxious East Germans had started confronting the East German border guards. Inside the crossing, armed border police waited for instructions.

Amid a massive movement of people, fed by live TV, the revolution that had started so slowly was rapidly spinning out of control. The question running through my mind was whether the Soviet Army would stay in its barracks. There were 380,000 Soviet soldiers in East Germany. In diplomatic circles, we expected that the Soviet Union, the military superpower, would not give up East Germany without a fight. Our role was to worry—the constant modus operandi of a diplomat. But this time, our concern didn’t last long.

When I arrived home around 10:15 p.m., I turned on the TV, called the State Department with the latest developments, and called Ambassador Richard Barkley and then Harry Gilmore again: “Remember I told you that you’d be seeing lots of visitors?” I said. “Well, that might be tonight.”

Just minutes later, I witnessed on live television as a wave of East Berliners broke through the checkpoint at Bornholmer Strasse, where I had been just minutes earlier. My wife, Jean, joined me, and we watched a stream of people crossing the bridge while TV cameras transmitted their pictures around the world. Lights came on in the neighborhood. I was elated. East Germans had made their point clear. After 40 years of Cold War, East Berliners were determined to have freedom.

Bindenagel was elated, the German people were elated (Bindenagel gave more detail in a video interview here, and Deutsche Welle has a host of anniversary articles and interviews here), and the West (broadly speaking) was elated.

A certain KGB agent stationed in East Germany and assigned to work with the Stasi (the East German Secret Police) was most certainly not elated, and grew increasingly frustrated in the weeks that followed. The BBC described the agent’s reaction like this:

It is 5 December 1989 in Dresden, a few weeks after the Berlin Wall has fallen. East German communism is dying on its feet, people power seems irresistible.

Crowds storm the Dresden headquarters of the Stasi, the East German secret police, who suddenly seem helpless.

Then a small group of demonstrators decides to head across the road, to a large house that is the local headquarters of the Soviet secret service, the KGB.

“The guard on the gate immediately rushed back into the house,” recalls one of the group, Siegfried Dannath. But shortly afterwards “an officer emerged – quite small, agitated”.

“He said to our group, ‘Don’t try to force your way into this property. My comrades are armed, and they’re authorised to use their weapons in an emergency.'”

That persuaded the group to withdraw.

But the KGB officer knew how dangerous the situation remained. He described later how he rang the headquarters of a Red Army tank unit to ask for protection.

The answer he received was a devastating, life-changing shock.

“We cannot do anything without orders from Moscow,” the voice at the other end replied. “And Moscow is silent.”

That phrase, “Moscow is silent” has haunted this man ever since. Defiant yet helpless as the 1989 revolution swept over him, he has now himself become “Moscow” – the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin.

For Putin, this was the beginning of the fall of the great Russian empire, and everything Putin has done since was been an effort to restore the greatness of Great Mother Russia, with himself as her leader and savior.

On this November 9th, it is the Germans and West who are worried and Putin who is elated, as Donald Trump prepares to take office. Putin dreams of an end to US military support for Ukraine, a diminished US role in NATO (if not a complete withdrawal from the alliance), and a weakening of the Five Eyes intelligence sharing agreement between the US and the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

On this November 9th, Putin’s dreams are looking closer to becoming a reality.

On this November 9th, Moscow is no longer silent.

Pandora’s Box Opened: Netanyahu’s Double-Tap Fuck-You

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[NB: Note the byline. Portions of this post may be speculative. / ~Rayne]

I wrote a while back about Israel, discussing Israel’s repeated intelligence “failures” as not mere fuck-ups but fuck-yous.

This week’s attacks by exploding electronic devices intended for Hezbollah — attributed to Israel without any denial so far — are yet more fuck-yous delivered using an indiscriminate approach and a double tap.

These fuck-yous blew open Pandora’s box — and then some.

~ ~ ~

On Tuesday nearly 3000 pagers blew up in Lebanon. These one-way pagers are believed to have been distributed to Hezbollah members as a means to bypass Israel’s surveillance of cell phone communications. More than 30 people were killed including children.

On Wednesday during funeral services for persons who died the previous day, walkie-talkies or handheld radios were detonated in Lebanon. 12 more people died and approximately 3000 were injured.

The exploding walkie-talkie attack was the double tap: when persons who escaped a targeted attack gather during a response afterward, a second attack is launched retargeting those same persons. We’ve seen this technique employed by Russia in Ukraine, using secondary attacks to take out first responders aiding the injured and dying in a first attack, or at funeral services for the dead.

It’s a questionable practice; former President Obama had been criticized for its use with drone attacks as double taps may violate the Geneva Conventions and U.S. War Crimes Act of 1996.

But both Tuesday and Wednesday’s attacks may have violated the U.N. Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons regardless of the double tap on Wednesday, as the armed devices constituted booby traps which are prohibited.

These attacks are yet more proof that Israel under Benjamin Netanyahu’s leadership has gone rogue having repeatedly refused to comply with multiple treaties including the Geneva Conventions.

~ ~ ~

This time, though, Israel doesn’t have the excuse that IDF may have made a mistake.

These attacks were premeditated, planned out and executed over months if not years. Front companies were used to obtain components and distribute assembled devices; in the case of the pagers, it’s believed a Hungarian registered firm BAC Consulting may have been a key intermediary between a Taiwanese manufacturer and the ultimate distribution of the devices.

Nonprofit OSINT investigator Bellingcat followed evidence between the pagers and Taiwan electronics firm Gold Apollo, noting that BAC Consulting listed as an employee a “ghost”; this person can’t be traced to any real  human, suggesting strongly BAC is an intelligence front.

The operation’s timeline needs to be fleshed out more fully; it’s not clear whether some actions believed to be related to the operation behind this week’s attacks are intended solely for plausible deniability.

02-MAY-2020 — BAC Consulting appears in Hungarian business records but appears now to have been shuttered the same year.

21-MAY-2022 — BAC Consulting registered as a new company in Hungary, according to Hungarian Justice Ministry records. It was listed as a retailer of telecommunications products, management consulting, jewelry making, and fruit cultivator — a rather odd assortment of goods and services.

The business was not engaged in manufacturing according to a spokesperson for Hungary’s prime minister; they also said “the referenced devices have never been in Hungary,” suggesting BAC acted as a broker or trade intermediary.

XXX-2022 to AUG 2024 — Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Gold Apollo exported exported approximately 260,000 pagers over a two-year timeframe. The majority shipped to the EU and US with no records of pagers shipped to Lebanon during that same timeframe. The company received no reports of Gold Apollo pagers exploding.

SUMMER 2022 — Modified pagers containing PETN-adulterated batteries for which BAC was an intermediary began shipping into Lebanon.

APR-MAY 2024 — A Lebanese security source said the pagers had been imported to Lebanon five months ago.

The pagers may have been imported into Lebanon months ago, but they must have been planned out well before that given the prevailing description of the handheld improvised exploding devices (IEDs).

Acceptance of the pagers must have been worked out far earlier — which brand would the users be willing to use, how would they be distributed without raising questions, what could go wrong tipping off the plot between the time the first pagers were fitted up with explosive PETN and detonators, where could the IEDs be assembled without intelligence leaks, so on.

Which brings us to leaks by a pro-Palestinian hacktivist group Handala whose attacks on websites were first noted by computer security expert Kevin Beaumont back in May this year.

After the pager IED explosions on Tuesday, Handala published information about the pagers’ production claiming they had exfiltrated data from Israeli sources Vidisco and Israeli Industrial Batteries Ltd. (IIB).

Vidisco is an Israeli-based developer and manufacturer of X-ray inspection systems; IIB is a manufacturer of batteries which is 51% owned by Sunlight Group as of February 2023. Both appear to be contractors to Israel’s military. Breachsense indicates both firms were hacked and credentials of employees at both firms were leaked though no customer credentials have been.

Handala’s brief about the data it hacked published Wednesday explained the operation:

The operation of the last two days was a series of joint actions of the Mossad and Unit 8200 and a number of shell companies of the Zionist regime! Handala’s hackers, during extensive hacking in recent hours, were able to obtain very secret and confidential information from the operations of the past days, and all the documents will be published in the coming hours!

The summary of the operation is as follows:

* This supply chain attack has taken place by contaminating the batteries of Pagers devices with a special type of heat-sensitive explosive material in the country of origin of the producer!

* Batteries have been contaminated with these explosives by IIB (Israeli Industrial Batteries) company in Nahariya!

* Mossad was responsible for transporting contaminated batteries to the country of origin of the producer!

* Due to the sensitivity of explosives detection devices to these batteries and the need to move them in several countries, Mossad, in cooperation with vidisco shell company, has moved the mentioned shipments!

*Vidisco company is an affiliated company of 8200 unit and today more than 84% of airports and seaports in the world use X-rays produced by this company in their security unit, which actually has a dedicated backdoor of 8200 unit and the Zionist regime it can exclude any shipment it considers in the countries using these devices and prevent the detection of sabotage! ( The complete source code of this project will be published in the next few hours! )

* Contaminated shipments have reached Lebanon through the use of Vidisco backdoor and after traveling through several countries!

* All the factors involved in this operation have been identified by Handala and soon all the data will be published!

* Handala has succeeded in hacking Vidisco and IIB and their 14TB data will be leaked!

More details will be published in the coming hours

(Unit 8200: Israeli Intelligence Corps group)

Beaumont published a short write-up about Handala’s information dump to date, noting the likelihood that Handala is connected to Iran through IP addresses, their talking points, and the targets of their efforts.

Beaumont also asks:

Are the claims credible?

Handala has not yet provided proof of data exfiltration of these organisations. On reaching out, one company above said they are suffering from “IT issues”.

In prior claims by Handala, they have been credible around victim names.

If the battery claims are credible; it is not possible to assess as no evidence has been provided to date.

I’ll note that Handala’s English is very good, though in the age of ChatGPT it may be generated for clarity to English-speaking audiences.

There was no mention of specifics related to handheld radios by Handala in these early releases and if they were likewise products produced by the same after-market suppliers, specialized modifiers, and distribution network.

Reports indicate some of the radios were made by Japanese manufacturer ICOM though ICOM said the model IC-V82 identified was discontinued a decade ago. As damage to recovered radios displayed blast damage in the battery area, it’s possible the radios were retrofitted with explosives or replacement batteries were manufactured with explosives. Because radios and their batteries are larger than pagers, this would explain the larger blasts associated with the radios.

~ ~ ~

Do read the essay by American researcher and hacker Andrew “bunnie” Huang at the link embedded at the phrase “Pandora’s box” above. Huang is deeply concerned about these attacks relying on handheld electronics:

Not all things that could exist should exist, and some ideas are better left unimplemented. Technology alone has no ethics: the difference between a patch and an exploit is the method in which a technology is disclosed. Exploding batteries have probably been conceived of and tested by spy agencies around the world, but never deployed en masse because while it may achieve a tactical win, it is too easy for weaker adversaries to copy the idea and justify its re-deployment in an asymmetric and devastating retaliation.

…

I fear that if we do not universally and swiftly condemn the practice of turning everyday gadgets into bombs, we risk legitimizing a military technology that can literally bring the front line of every conflict into your pocket, purse or home.

I share this concern,  one I’ve had for over a decade beginning with reports in 2009-2010 of Chinese-made counterfeit electronics ending up in the U.S. military’s supply chain, compounded by reports in 2018 of unauthorized chips added to server motherboards.

Oversight and investigation into these problems were thwarted by geopolitical, intelligence, and corporate interests.

Huang included a nifty visual representation of an electronics supply chain with his essay:

Every point along the supply chain can be breached, whether the items are new or used or refurbished. Huang’s 2019 presentation at BlueHat in Israel on supply chain security looks in detail at the likely points in chip and board production for unauthorized modifications; he doesn’t look far outside manufacturing, though.

What terrifies me is that Israel’s operation revealed far more than supply chains are now threatened. They’ve shown every hostile entity in the world how to wreak massive chaos in ways we haven’t fully imagined.

~ ~ ~

The IEDs have and will continue to attract attention. This week’s double tap attacks made it clear that the proliferation of small electronic devices on which we rely so heavily are the means to destroy both individuals and groups of people.

The information leaked by Handala makes it easy for hostile entities to attempt the same for their own aims.

The attacks have already spurred renewed discussion about onshoring more of our supply chain.

But what concerns me the most is what we’ve learned about the application of X-ray devices in our supply chain and elsewhere.

If Handala could obtain information about this operation — assuming everything revealed so far is truthful and in no way distorted — what other entities may have preceded Handala in breaching Vidisco’s data? How much lead time do they already have toward something similar to this week’s double tap attacks?

If the public and leaked information about Vidisco is accurate, just how badly are U.S. scanning systems compromised? Have we already been allowing Israel  (or other opportunists using Israel’s methods and means) to distribute IEDs inside the U.S.? Have our U.S. tax dollars doled out as aid to Israel paid for both the violation of Geneva Conventions, the War Crimes Act, the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, and now the wholesale compromise of our own national security?

If hostile entities have obtained this same information about Vidisco’s X-ray systems, how badly have our import scanning capabilities been compromised?

If the public and leaked information about Vidisco is accurate and 84% of the world’s airports use its scanning equipment, how badly are our screening systems at U.S. airports compromised?

Imagine for a moment phones and radios on planes containing PETN-adulterated batteries triggered with a single call.

Imagine laptops and tablets triggered with a single remote prompt over onboard WiFi or wireless networks.

~ ~ ~

In June 2017 amid the WannaCry and modified Petya attacks, the Department of Homeland Security and the Travel Safety Administration rolled out heightened security measures including increased scanning of electronic devices.

By the end of July 2017, handling of smaller electronics changed:

… The TSA will now require “all electronics larger than a cell phone” to be removed from carry-on bags and placed in their own separate bin for X-ray screening with nothing on top or below, similar to how laptops have been screened for years. …

At the time the measures appeared to be related to potential threats related to cyber attacks.

Now one might wonder if the changes were intended to increase the use of X-ray screening related specifically to explosives and not just cyber attacks.

We aren’t likely to receive any answers to inquiries about the triggers for these changes.

What we should understand now, though, is that much of this could be performative. The X-ray scanning systems, if tampered with the way they were to admit pagers and radio IEDs into Lebanon, could be absolutely useless for detecting rigged devices.

~ ~ ~

It’s clear we are going to have to rethink our entire screening system at all ports after Netanyahu’s latest fuck-you.

He surely must have known he was opening Pandora’s box when he authorized the detonation of pagers and handheld radios.

I must admit the first thought I had after the initial shock upon hearing about the attacks was this: if Netanyahu had this capability to take out a group of targets this neatly, why didn’t he try this approach with Hamas?

If Netanyahu felt he could expend political capital on violations of international law, why instead is he systematically overseeing the destruction of Gaza’s hospitals, schools, humanitarian aid systems, women and children instead of having neatly excised Hamas in Gaza using these handheld IEDs?

Why? Because fuck you is a likely answer.

Lauren Chen’s Curious Legal Status

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I’m planning (and have already started) a post on how last week’s Russian actions may serve to disrupt Russia’s attempts to tamper in the election more broadly, after which I plan to do a post on the efficacy of this all.

But before that, I want to address two details about last week’s legal actions — the indictment of two RT personnel for acting as unregistered foreign agents and the takedown of a bunch of Doppelganger sites — that people are likely getting wrong.

The first has to do with the legal status of Lauren Chen, the founder of Tenet Media, and how that would impact the investigative techniques used in this investigation.

The other right wing operations with which Chen had affiliations, including Glenn Beck and Turning Point USA, have now turned her into an unperson, removing her from their sites (though her affiliation to them remains on her Xitter account).

But that hasn’t stopped a general right wing panic about the communications the government must have. Many — including Michael Caputo — are insisting that the FBI must have used the FISA to target her.

What Caputo is referring to as “one-hop” may be a misstatement of what DOJ used to do with Section 215 of FISA, obtaining metadata of people two degrees from terrorist suspects overseas. If so, it’s a dumb comment, because the FBI can do all that with subpoenas using criminal process far easier than they can do it with FISA.

Yet that’s common. What people of all political stripes (including many if not most in the privacy community) often ignore is that the FBI can do most of the things they would do with FISA using criminal process, and do it with a whole lot less paperwork and in a way that makes the information far more useful for prosecutions like this one. As I noted here, some of what DOJ showed in this indictment, like content from Chen’s Discord servers and the Google accounts of Konstantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva, would undoubtedly be criminal process, even if they were first obtained via 702 targeting of Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva.

The investigative techniques they would use with Chen would stem from her really curious legal status.

The indictment introduces Chen and her spouse, Liam Donovan, as foreign nationals — Chen, at least, is Canadian — who reside in the US.

Founder-1 and Founder-2 are foreign nationals who reside in the United States. Founder-1 and Founder-2 jointly control and operate U.S. Company-1, and they are the only authorized signatories for U.S. Company-1’s business checking account (the “U.S. Company-1 Bank Account”), which is held at a bank in the United States.

The indictment never describes the visa status of either one. But Tenet — US Company-1 — is a US Company and would be a US person for FISA purposes. Regardless of their visa status, Chen and Donovan’s US residency would prohibit targeting of them using FISA 702, at least so long as they are in the US. If the FBI wanted to use FISA against them, they’d need an individualized warrant.

Things get more interesting, though, when you consider RT’s status in all this.

Let’s work backwards, Matryoshka doll like.

As the indictment describes, Chen and Donovan set up Tenet Media to be a subsidiary of Chen’s Canadian company.

11. U.S. Company-1 is a United States corporation established under the laws of Tennessee. Founder-1 has described U.S. Company-1 as the U.S. subsidiary of Founder-1’s Canadian company, Canadian Company-1;

[snip]

Founder-1 incorporated U.S. Company-1 on or about January 19, 2022, and applied with the Tennessee Department of State to transact business under its current operating name, which Company-1 uses on its website and social media channels, on or about May 22, 2023.

The contracts Chen set up directly pertaining to Tenet had this dual status. She got paid via her Canadian company; the talent got paid via the American one.

25. On or about May 12, 2023, Founder-1 sent an email to Persona-1 in which FounderI proposed that “we … keep the contract between us with my Canadian company ([Canadian Company-1]), but for [Commentator-2]’s contract, it will be through our American subsidiary, [U.S. Company-1].” In a subsequent email on or about May 19, 2023, Founder-1 explained that Founder-1 wished for “my personal payment [to] be under [Canadian Company-1] but the payments for the influencers go directly to [U.S. Company-1].”

26. On or about June 13, 2023, consistent with Founder-1 ‘s proposal, Persona-1 emailed Founder-1 a final “service agreement” that named Founder-1, Canadian Company-1, and U.S. Company-1 as the service providers. The contract provided for a monthly fee of $8,000 for the “first stage,” a monthly fee of $25,000 per month for the “second stage” after signing Commentator-1 and Commentator-2, and additional performance incentives and commissions for “engagements closed with talents.”

As a result, much (though not all) of the funding for Chen, personally, would go through Canada; the funding for the talent went through the US, using a corresponding bank in New York.

a. Starting in approximately August 2023, Founder-1 and Founder-2 typically submitted two invoices each month to Persona-1 on the Investor Discord Channel: one invoice for U.S. Company-1 ‘s expenses, such as its payments to its commentators, and another invoice for Founder-1 and Founder-2’s own fees and commissions. Between in or about August 2023 and in or about June 2024, Founder-1 and Founder-2 invoiced U.K. Shell Entity-I more than $9.3 million for U.S. Company-1 ‘s expenses, which they asked to be paid to the U.S. Company-I Bank Account. Founder-1 and Founder-2 also invoiced U.K. Shell Entity-1 more than $760,000 for their own fees and commissions, some of which they asked to be paid to Canadian Company-1 ‘s bank account in Canada, and some of which they asked to be paid to the U.S. Company-1 Bank Account in the United States.

b. After Founder-1 and Founder-2 transmitted their monthly invoices to Persona-1 on the Investor Discord Channel, Persona-1 typically acknowledged receipt and confirmed payment. Between in or about October 2023 and in or about August 2024, the U.S. Company-1 Bank Account received approximately 30 wire transfers from foreign entities totaling approximately $9.7 million. U.S. Company-1 disbursed most of these funds to its contracted commentators, including approximately $8.7 million to the production companies of Commentator-1, Commentator-2, and Commentator-3 alone. Consistent with Founder-1 ‘s February 8, 2023 warning to Persona-1 that “it would be very hard … to recoup the costs for the likes of [Commentator-1] and [Commentator-2] based on ad revenue from web traffic or sponsors alone,” U.S. Company-1 ‘s foreign wire transfers far exceeded its receipts of advertising revenue. Indeed, the approximately $9.7 million that U.S. Company-1 received from foreign wire transfers represented nearly 90% of all the deposits into the U.S. Company-1 Bank Account from in or about October 2023 to in or about August 2024.

[snip]

43. To deliver funds into the U.S. Company-1 Bank Account, each of U.S. Company-1 ‘s 30 inbound international wire transfers -which totaled nearly $10 million, as set forth above – utilized a correspondent bank in Manhattan, New York.

The stuff that came into the US had cover descriptions that Chen had to have known were false.

42. Contrary to U.S. Company-1 ‘s invoices, which reflect fees for staff and commentators (as well as Founder-I and Founder-2’s commissions), the wire notes of many of U.S. Company-1 ‘s inbound wire transfers ascribe the payments to the purchase of electronics. For example, the wire note for Turkish Shell Entity-1 ‘s $318,800 wire payment to U.S. Company-I on March 1, 2024 read: “BUYING GOODS-INV.013-IPHONE 15 PRO MAX 512GB.”

But that all describes what happened in 2023 and since. What happened before that is really important: As the indictment describes, before the invasion of Ukraine, Chen got paid directly from RT.

Before operating U.S. Company-I for RT, as set forth below, Founder-I and Founder-2 worked directly for RT and its affiliates, including as follows:

a. From in or about March 2021 to in or about February 2022, Founder-I created videos, posted social media content, and wrote articles pursuant to a written contract between Founder-1 ‘s Canadian company (“Canadian Company-I “), and RT’s parent organization, ANO TV-Novosti. This content generally consisted of English-language social commentary. RT directly published some of Founder-1 ‘s paid work, while Founder-1 posted other of Founder-1 ‘s paid work on Founder-1 ‘s personal accounts (without attribution to RT). For example, Founder1 ‘s invoices reflect that Founder-I billed ANO TV-Novosti for approximately 217 videos, of which approximately 209 were published on Founder-1 ‘s personal YouTube channels. Founder 1 also wrote approximately 25 opinion articles that were published on RT’s website, at least 19 of which Founder-1 billed to ANO TV-Novosti. None of Founder-1 ‘s articles disclosed that Founder-1 was paid by RT to write them.

And Donovan got paid by RT and Ruptly until later than that: May 2022.

From in or about October 2021 to in or about May 2022, separate and apart from Founder-1 ‘s contract with RT’s parent organization, ANO-TV Novosti, Founder-2 also worked directly for RT and with Ruptly GmbH, RT’s German subsidiary. Founder-2’s paid work for RT included, among other things, preparing English-language text messages describing news events. During this time, Founder-2 and KALASHNIKOV appear to have had overlapping business contacts: On or about May 18, 2022, a Ruptly GmbH employee sent a Russian-language email to six recipients, including Founder-2 and KALASHNIKOV, requesting that they send their work email addresses to gain account access to Ruptly’s website.

The indictment doesn’t directly allege that Chen and Donovan knew they were (still) working with RT in the Tenet venture. It stops just short of doing so, possibly to protect the full details of what it knows. But it does include proof they knew they were working with Russians pretending to be French.

On or about April 17, 2023, Founder-1 replied, in part, that Founder-1 was “happy to work with the Russian firm.” As set forth below, this “Russian firm” consisted of KALASHNIKOV and AFANASYEVA, who later monitored and directed U.S. Company-1’s activities under the guise of an outside editing firm.

[snip]

27. Despite describing U.S. Company-1 ‘s investor to Commentator-1 and Commentator-2 as “Eduard Grigoriann,” a purported finance professional in Western Europe, Founder-1 and Founder-2 admitted to each other in their private communications that their “investors” were, in truth and in fact, the “Russians” – the same term that Founder-1 and Founder-2 previously used to refer to RT while working directly under contract with RT, as described above.

[snip]

30. Founder-2 also used the Investor Discord Channel to, among other things, submit U.S. Company-1 ‘s invoices to Persona-1, and to press for payment of those invoices. For example, on or about September 11 , 2023, at approximately 8:07 p.m. Central Time, Founder-2 wrote in the Investor Discord Channel: “Today marks two weeks since I submitted the invoice for August. Any idea for the delay? We are signing the large contracts and need to be certain we will get the funding to pay these people.” Persona-1 did not immediately respond. While awaiting a reply from Persona-1, Founder-1 searched for the then-current time in Moscow. Specifically, at approximately 8:50 p.m. Central Time on or about September 11, 2023, Founder-1 searched on Google: “time in Moscow.”

So Chen and Donovan used to work directly for RT, and then just about the time of the Ukrainian invasion, set up shop in the US, allegedly participating in a ruse by which they hid the Russian source of their funding. But the funding went both through a bank in New York to their US subsidiary of the Canadian company, and also to the Canadian company that used to get paid directly by RT.

Here’s where things get interesting. First, after the invasion, Canada banned RT broadcasts.

In or about March 2022, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the European Union, the United Kingdom, and Canada banned broadcasting by RT. That same month, RT also ceased its operations in the United States after major television distributors dropped the network.

Until last week, the US had not yet sanctioned RT, but in their sanctioning documents, they reminded that RT registered as a foreign agent back in 2017.

RT, formerly Russia Today, is a Russian state-funded news outlet that began broadcasting internationally in 2005. In 2017, RT registered as an agent of a foreign government in the United States.

The indictment makes clear that RT itself acknowledges the outlet is funded by the Russian government.

RT is a Russian state-funded and state-directed media outlet. As RT’s editor-in-chief has publicly acknowledged, “since RT receives budget from the state, it must complete tasks given by the state.”

That makes it an agent of the Russian government the agents of which are subject to 18 USC 951, not just a foreign entity covered by FARA.

And the indictment likewise makes clear that RT publicly acknowledged working covertly after the invasion of Ukraine.

For example, on or about February 25, 2024, RT’s editor-in-chief declared, during a Russian television appearance, that “public opinion in the West is changing, very rapidly and very cheerfully,” due in part to RT. RT’s editor-in-chief further explained that, despite being “banished everywhere on February 25” – referring to the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 – RT had built “an enormous network, an entire empire of covert projects that is working with the public opinion, bringing truth to Western audiences.”

Lauren Chen is a Canadian citizen, resident in the US; her US residency should prevent FBI from targeting her in the US using 702 and would require a traditional FISA warrant to target her directly. There are ways she set up her Discord server that may make it susceptible to 702 targeting from the time she added the RT personnel to it.

But that’s not the big issue, in my opinion.

Chen set up this business such that she’d be subject to the laws of and some tax burdens in both Canada and the US. She did that at precisely the moment where the impending invasion of Ukraine made such issues more sensitive. And since then, she has done things that provide some evidence that she’s in on the ruse: that she knows she’s evading some laws or regimes by using corporate and financial cut-outs.

Those things likely provide enough to make her US accounts subject to probable cause warrants.

So Michael Caputo doesn’t need to worry about whether he or his buddies got picked up via FISA. Because the FBI — working in partnership with Canada and other countries through which RT laundered this operation — likely had plenty to conduct an investigation implicating both counterintelligence and criminal matters.

What Caputo and others need to worry about is how much of the content collected as a result FBI has demonstrated probable cause to access.

Biden Administration Negotiates Release of Evan Gershkovich and Others

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As many outlets have been reporting since dawn my time, there has been a massive prisoner exchange between the US, Russia, and five European allies.

President Biden issued this release, emphasizing the import of allies.

Today, three American citizens and one American green-card holder who were unjustly imprisoned in Russia are finally coming home: Paul Whelan, Evan Gershkovich, Alsu Kurmasheva, and Vladimir Kara-Murza.

The deal that secured their freedom was a feat of diplomacy. All told, we’ve negotiated the release of 16 people from Russia—including five Germans and seven Russian citizens who were political prisoners in their own country. Some of these women and men have been unjustly held for years. All have endured unimaginable suffering and uncertainty. Today, their agony is over.

I am grateful to our Allies who stood with us throughout tough, complex negotiations to achieve this outcome— including Germany, Poland, Slovenia, Norway, and Turkey. This is a powerful example of why it’s vital to have friends in this world whom you can trust and depend upon. Our alliances make Americans safer.

And let me be clear: I will not stop working until every American wrongfully detained or held hostage around the world is reunited with their family. My Administration has now brought home over 70 such Americans, many of whom were in captivity since before I took office. Still, too many families are suffering and separated from their loved ones, and I have no higher priority as President than bringing those Americans home.

Today, we celebrate the return of Paul, Evan, Alsu, and Vladimir and rejoice with their families. We remember all those still wrongfully detained or held hostage around the world. And reaffirm our pledge to their families: We see you. We are with you. And we will never stop working to bring your loved ones home where they belong.

WSJ has a very long story about the lead-up to this release, focused on Gershkovich’s mother’s activism.

The Insider has a list of all the people exchanged, which include an assassin, two spies caught in Slovenia, and three people prosecuted in the US.

Readers of this blow will remember Putin associate, Vladislav Klyushin, who conspired with the former GRU hacker who targeted John Podesta in an insider trading scheme.

On September 7, 2023, a court in Boston, Massachusetts, found the Russian businessman Vladislav Klyushin guilty of insider trading and sentenced him to nine years in prison.

Klyushin was arrested in Switzerland in March 2021 and later extradited to the U.S. He was accused of participating in a scheme that involved the illegal use of confidential information for financial gain in the securities market. According to the indictment, the insider trading scheme, orchestrated outside the U.S., generated $93 million in profits for its participants.

Here’s a post I did on how they found Klyushin.

Glenn Greenwald Keeps Bitching about a Law Requiring Notice If You’re Funded by Russian Spies

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The other day, DOJ announced charges in two cases related to FSB efforts to recruit in the US and overseas. Neither set of allegations was entirely new. But what got added to the allegations is of some interest.

Certainly, the fact that American citizens got charged in a Florida case for not disclosing that their political activism was funded, in part, by the FSB, seems to be of interest to Glenn Greenwald. The charges, along with a few overt acts, and the names of two FSB colleagues are what got added to an earlier indictment against the FSB handler, Aleksandr Ionov, filed last July.

Glenn won’t shut up about those charges, making appearances on Glenn Beck and Tucker Carlson’s show so all of them could lie about why members of the African People’s Socialist Party were charged.

The members of the APSP weren’t charged because they disagree with Joe Biden. They weren’t charged because they oppose the war in Ukraine.

They were charged because after one, Omali Yeshiteli, went on an all-expenses paid trip to Russia in 2015, the group started getting funding and completing requests for their FSB handler, Aleksandr Ionov, who ran a front called the Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia. For example, shortly after the trip, Ionov wrote the group and asked them to start a petition against the genocide of the African people in the US so that AGMR could start using it as propaganda. And when Russia needed someone to legitimize the “Donetsk People’s Republic,” in 2020, Ionov contacted the Floridians to publicly do so. And when Russia wanted to protest Twitter’s restrictions on Russian disinformation after the Ukraine invasion, Ionov flew one of the Americans to San Francisco to make it happen.

Russia wanted to be able to point to a certain kind of dissidence in the US, so they paid money to help sustain it. And the Americans didn’t disclose that they knew they were working with agents of Russia.

Glenn thinks only rich people like Tony Podesta should be held to foreign agent laws (Podesta wasn’t charged under a different law, FARA, for hiding his ties to a Ukrainian front group that Paul Manafort set up because he was paid by Manafort, and in any case, Glenn didn’t think much of Manafort’s charges for hiding the ties in real time). Glenn doesn’t think other people should have to disclose if they’re taking money — after they go on trips to Russia and start spouting Russian talking points non-stop from that point forward — from Russian spies.

It’s an interesting cause for Glenn and Tucker — who has his own curious tale about Russian ties — to champion.

Which brings us to the other case.

It charges Natalia Burlinova with attempting to do what Ionov succeeded in doing: getting Americans and others to unwittingly act as agents of Russia by recruiting them through her Russian government backed NGO, Creative Diplomacy, or PICREADI.

Burlinova was sanctioned — along with Ionov — last year, which suggests they may have a tie, perhaps the FSB officer they both report to.

Since she was already sanctioned, which would likely prevent her from traveling in any case, this complaint serves largely as a speaking document, which allows everyone she has had prior association with to understand her ties to the FSB.

For example, the complaint provides a detailed description of a trip she made to the US in 2018 and the emails the American participants sent to Burlinova after meeting with her. It doesn’t provide the content of the emails — but it makes those who sent them aware that the FBI knows what got sent.

Of even more interest is an article a former participant of Burlinova’s event wrote in 2020. Without explaining how he received it, Burlinova’s FSB handler sent it to her and said it’d be a really huge deal if it were published.

On October 30, 2020, the FSB Officer forwarded to Burlinova an article written by a participant in the 2019 Meeting Russia program, which argued that Russian malign influence efforts were actually legitimate uses of state soft power. The FSB Officer commented to Burlinova that the article was a huge result for them and would be revolutionary if printed by a named English-language newspaper in the United States and a named English-language newspaper in Europe.

The complaint doesn’t tell us whether it was published (update: it was this one, which was also posted on Burlinova’s site; h/t Alex Finley). But the description would be plenty for its author to understand that it had been the focus of internal discussion at the FSB.

Both these indictments necessarily focus on the US, but both conspiracies are international. Laying out the charges in the US and arresting anyone that would one day be arrested might something the FBI would want to do before sharing the underlying intelligence with allies.

And some of the details describe the greater international success of this effort. One of Burlinova’s biggest successes, for example, came in seeing two former participants in her yearly event elected to parliament.

On October 5, 2018, Burlinova informed the FSB Officer about two prior participants in another Russian public diplomacy program in which Burlinova had been involved. Burlinova reported that the two prior participants, both of whom resided in a European country, were running for public office. Burlinova stated that these were the results that take years to come into fruition. The FSB Officer responded that this was truly the result for which they were striving and requested that Burlinova provide more information about these prior participants and the election for public office so that the FSB Officer could prepare a report. The two candidates ran for parliamentary positions; one won in that election, and the other was elected subsequently to parliament.

Again, we don’t know which members of parliament these are and in which country, but others in their country likely recognize it.

A report in the WaPo — the timing of which may be coincidental or may explain why DOJ rolled out the charges earlier this week — describes the stakes. It describes the Kremlin’s involvement in the red-brown coalition opposing the Ukraine war in Germany.

The coming together of political opposites in Berlin under the banner of peace had been percolating for months, though the union remains ad hoc and unofficial. But marrying Germany’s extremes is an explicit Kremlin goal and was first proposed by senior officials in Moscow in early September, according to a trove of sensitive Russian documents largely dated from July to November that were obtained by a European intelligence service and reviewed by The Washington Post.

The documents record meetings between Kremlin officials and Russian political strategists, and the Kremlin’s orders for the strategists to focus on Germany to build antiwar sentiment in Europe and dampen support for Ukraine. The files also chronicle the strategists’ efforts to implement these plans and their reports back to the Kremlin. The documents do not contain any material that records communications between the Russian strategists and any allies in Germany. But interviews show at least one person close to Wagenknecht and several AfD members were in contact with Russian officials at the time the plans were being drawn up.

Like the Florida effort, the German one features manifestos written by the Kremlin.

The aim of a new political formation, according to a document dated Sept. 9, would be to win “a majority in elections at any level” in Germany and reset the AfD to boost its standing beyond the 13 percent the party was polling at then. The reset, laid out among the documents in a proposed manifesto for the AfD that was written by Kremlin political strategists, includes forging the AfD into the party of “German unity” and declaring sanctions on Russia as counter to German interests.

[snip]

It is not clear from the documents how the political strategists working with the Kremlin attempted to communicate with members of the AfD or other potential German allies about Moscow’s plans. But soon after the Kremlin gave the order for a union to be forged between Wagenknecht and the far right, AfD deputies began speaking in support of her in parliament and party members chanted her name at rallies. Björn Höcke, chairman of the AfD in Thüringen in eastern Germany, publicly invited her to join the party.

This is the same kind of effort — but much more impactful — as the Ionov one was fostering in the US (though the right wing secessionist described in it as an unindicted co-conspirator, understood to be Louis Marinelli, was not arrested).

And it’s the kind of horseshoe leftist that Greenwald once posed as before he joined up with Tucker full time … most recently to claim these socialists were arrested for their dissidence and not because they were hiding ties with Russian spies.

Update: RFERL did a bunch of interviews with people who attended Burlinova’s program, some who were shocked about the FSB tie, some who were quite blasé about it.

The Michael Flynn Complaint For Damages Against The US

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As commenter David F. Snyder noted yesterday, yes Michael Flynn has filed a complaint for $50,000,000 damages against the US Government for all the perceived wrongs and grievances that he, his unhinged lawyers like Sidney Powell, and rabid MAGA Republicans have been carping about forever. A thread on this started out in Marcy’s “JUDGE UNSEALS DETAILS ON COOPERATING WITNESS IN DOUGLASS MACKEY CASE”, but I am going to bring it here so as to not pollute that post and give people a place to discuss Flynn.

I took a look at the docket for the fledgling case. It is filed in the Middle District of Florida, where Flynn resides. That is the only discernible nexus to MDFL as pretty much all facts, actors and witnesses would be in or about the DC District. Here is the docket entry for the complaint, which was actually filed on March 3, 2023:

NEW CASE ASSIGNED to Judge Mary S. Scriven and Magistrate Judge Christopher P. Tuite. New case number: 8:23-cv-0485-MSS-CPT. (SJB)

The complaint itself is attached to this Rolling Stone article by a detestable SCRIBD (seriously, nobody should ever convey documents by SCRIBD). It is 50 pages long, and I am not wasting my PACER account on it.

Marcy, in the earlier thread, said:

Not only does it not have legs, but if it survives the summary judgment stage (which is unlikely) it may catastrophically backfire on him.

I think that is right, but the case may not ever get that far. It may not even make it to a summary judgment motion, as it may well not make it past a 12b6 motion, which would be the initial attack by the government.

Couple of notes, the complaint alleges compliance with the FTCA (Federal Tort Claims Act), but claims the government never responded. Scriven is a Bush Jr. appointee and Tuite a Trump appointee to the magistrate bench. Sid Powell is noticeably absent from noticed attorneys, but Shawn Flynn, son of Michael’s brother, Gen. Charles Flynn, is listed. That could be interesting if Charles is to be a fact/damages witness, which would kind of be expected.

Very hard to see this matter gaining any real traction given all the facts and rulings against Flynn in the underlying criminal case in front of (now senior status) Judge Emmet Sullivan of DC District.

Three Questions at the Start of an Intelligence Review

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Why? Why? Why not?

There’s been a lot of focus on the narrow legal battles over the documents seized at Mar-a-Lago, but sometimes stepping back to look at the big picture helps bring the conflict into focus. As a legal matter and a political matter, Trump, his lawyers, and his apologists are trying to make the claim that this is just a dispute about documents, like overdue library books. The passion with which the DOJ went after them since receiving the referral from NARA last February, especially the ferocity of the legal arguments and filings over the last two weeks, demonstrates how wrong the DOJ believes that framing to be.

I agree with the DOJ.

The documents are not really what is being fought over — the battle is over the damage  (hypothetical or actual) done to our intelligence services, our national defense, and our broader foreign policy by Trump’s possession of these documents at Mar-a-Lago. The documents are the first puzzle pieces the intelligence community [IC] has to put together, to fill in the whole picture and plan a way forward.

To understand why, let’s parse out what an intelligence review might look like. What follows is not based on any insider sources at the DOJ, ODNI, or any other federal agencies, but on my own experience (long ago) with classified materials and the general experiences of others I know with deeper and more recent work in classified matters, as well as analyzing other cases where classified materials were stolen from the government and passed along to foreign governments.

An intelligence review is designed to look at three things: what got exposed, to whom, and what dangers does that pose to intelligence sources, methods, and broader foreign policy objectives? These are all backwards-looking questions, to understand how this could have happened in the first place. They also serve as the starting point for forward-looking actions, as we and our allies pivot our overt and covert foreign policy approaches in a new context. Think of Klaus Fuchs, a German-born British scientist who passed US and British nuclear secrets to the USSR in the 1940s. A backwards looking intelligence review ultimately identified him as the spy and spotted the flaws in our security procedures, and a forward looking review pivoted the US and British policy toward a world with nuclear powers who opposed each other.

In the current case, the IC review begins with three interrelated questions:

  1. Why did Trump take government documents to Mar-a-Lago in the first place?
  2. Why these documents?
  3. Why not those other documents?

The second and third questions begin to move toward an answer to the first question, so let’s start there. Broadly speaking, I see five possible answers, each of which poses different dangers.

1: Vanity

If this is the answer to that first question, we would expect to find that Trump took documents that made him look good, that pointed to actions that he believed he could claim credit for, or that simply let him feel powerful because he knows stuff very few others know. Think of these as Extreme Presidential Souvenirs. These would be documents that shout to the world, “Look at how great Trump is . . .”

Danger: Simply having documents like this in his possession would likely not be enough for Trump’s ego. Trump’s ego would demand that he show them to others, so that they would know how great Trump is. The level and kind of danger depends on who the “others” are, and who they might have spoken to about what Trump showed them.

2: Fear

In this scenario, the IC review would see that Trump took documents that would help cover up his failures and/or possible crimes, such as a full transcript of the “Perfect Phone Call” with Zelenskyy. These would be documents that whisper in Trump’s ear, “This could get you into trouble. You better hide this . . .”

Danger: These are the documents least likely to be shared by Trump, so in that respect they are safe. On the other hand, they become prime material for blackmail if unfriendly parties realize he has them. Trump’s nightmare is getting a phone call about these documents, threatening to expose the documents to the “wrong” people. “I’d like you to do me a favor, though . . .”

3: Greed

Given Trump’s proclivity to monetize anything he can for his own personal gain, it is hard to imagine that Trump would not be looking at anything that crossed his desk to see how he might make money on it. (“Hmmm . . . I’m doing some traveling? OK, which of my properties are closest, and how much can I charge the Secret Service for staying there?”) Documents that showed him something that would let him make money would be particularly tempting to Trump. Think of this as corporate espionage, or a twisted form of insider trading. Perhaps he received knowledge of foreign government’s as yet unannounced plans to develop certain properties overseas, and figured he could jump in, buy the property first, and then get bought out for a profit. Or maybe he would buy the property next to the future development and cash in when the government project became public and went forward, driving up the value of what he purchased. Perhaps these were not projects led by foreign governments, but by US corporations acting abroad whose plans were picked up as part of a signals intelligence surveillance program aimed at less-than-friendly nations. Documents like this would be calling out to his wallet, telling him “Hey, you can really use this . . .”

Danger: Suppose Trump acts on this information in some way, and the foreign government in question starts wondering “Did Trump merely get lucky in choosing to invest right where our project was going in, or did US spies give him the information?” Questions like that might lead to the exposure of human assets (sources) and signals intelligence capabilities (methods), which in turn could lead to those sources being shut down/arrested/killed, those signals intelligence methods being countered, or either the sources or methods being turned and used to feed false information to the US.

4: Corruption

As bad as #3 is, this scenario is the IC nightmare: Trump took documents that he knows other foreign governments, perhaps some of our greatest enemies, would love to have, and then deliberately passed them along to those governments. It might be to get revenge on Biden and the Dems for beating him in 2020. It might be to sabotage the work of the current administration and cause great public political problems for the Dems, to enable his return to the White House in 2024. It might be that some foreign adversary has compromising information about Trump or holds a private loan to Trump, his family, or his Trump Organization, and that country demanded classified information from Trump in exchange for not revealing the compromising information they hold or for not calling in the loan he could not immediately repay.

Danger: Beyond the damage done to sources, methods, and US foreign policy objectives created by disclosing the classified information in these documents, this scenario is worse. It weakens our relationships with our allies and harms our position in the world, simply by indicating we can’t keep secrets and by making us weaker through whatever is revealed. Should Trump have provided classified intelligence deliberately, it only gives those folks more leverage over Trump, which they would use to push for more information and more favors. Once you’ve turned over classified information to a hostile power, those folks own you forever. “Nice resort you’ve got here. It’d be a shame if anything were to happen to it.”

And it is not beyond the realm of possibility that foreign governments might lean on Trump to use his family to further their goals. “You need to have Jared talk to his friends in the Middle East, and convince them to . . . “

5: Some/all of the above

Trump might have taken some documents to feed his ego, others to hide them, and still others to try to monetize their contents. He might have taken some for his own reasons, and others because he was pressured to do so by hostile powers. The permutations are . . . troubling.

Danger: some/all of the above.

HOW BAD IS ALL THIS? DON’T ANSWER YET . . .

On top of these five possible explanations of Trump’s motives, one other thing is absolutely certain. Documents like those that were seized by the DOJ would have been catnip for the intelligence agencies of other nations. Once word got out that Trump had taken highly classified documents out of the WH (or once folks even suspected he had done so), all manner of foreign spies no doubt became very interested in Mar-a-Lago – much more than they had been during the Trump administration itself. It’s hard as hell to get into the WH and take classified materials, or to plant electronic surveillance devices inside the WH. Mar-a-Lago, on the other hand, is a relative sieve, especially after Trump left office and the security around Trump was much more directed to protecting his person rather than protecting all the stuff around a sitting president. At Mar-a-Lago these days, you pay your membership fee, and walk right in for a grand tour. Whatever the reason Trump chose to take these documents, even if he simply wanted to hold onto them as presidential souvenirs and he does nothing with them otherwise, should foreign agents copy them or steal them from Mar-a-Lago, that’s almost as bad it as it gets for the US.

Danger: Exposing whatever classified information to the prying eyes of our adversaries not only exposes sources and methods of our intelligence services, but provides our adversaries with insight into our strengths and weaknesses, depending on what the intelligence said. It also opens Trump to blackmail, as noted above in scenarios #2 and 4. “Well look what we found at your home. It sure would be terrible if the FBI were to discover that you were so sloppy with security that we were able to waltz right in and take them.”

To sort out the likelihood of each of these scenarios and the specific dangers posed, those conducting the IC review will do a couple of things. First, the leaders of the intelligence agencies are likely going back to the original creators of these documents, to tell them they were found in unsecured locations at Mar-a-Lago, and therefore (a) the creators need to assess what the specific danger would be if this particular document were to be exposed, and (b) the creators should look around to see if they have any signs that these documents had been shared already. The former is to measure the hypothetical damage, while the latter is to assess the likelihood that this is not hypothetical. Did spies suddenly go quiet, or did the quality of their information suddenly become different? Did satellites that used to provide good, regular photos of intelligence targets begin to provide much less good intelligence? All the while, the IC reviewers know that this is likely even worse.

EVEN WORSE? HOW CAN THIS BE EVEN WORSE?

If any of this information came to the US IC through our partnerships with other friendly nations (like Five Eyes or NATO), that means going to the intelligence folks in those countries who trusted us with their secrets and telling them that their trust was misplaced, at least while Trump was in office. They are the folks who need to assess the danger that exposure of this information would create, and who would have to see if there were signs that this information had already been shared. Of course we would promise to do whatever we could to assist them in that analysis, but that’s like telling a shopkeeper that you will help sweep up the shards of all the broken crystal after your kid threw a bowling ball into the display case.

Danger: It’s bad enough if our secrets get exposed, but if we let their secrets get exposed, that’s going to make them less likely to trust us in the future. As I said before, this is why having career diplomat William Burns as head of the CIA was a stroke of genius by Biden, and why Burns and the rest of the IC is no doubt bending over backwards to help Garland get this right, and bending farther over backwards to help our allies get this fixed.

SO HOW MIGHT THIS REVIEW WORK?

This is why the analysis of what was taken and trying to determine Trump’s motive(s) is the starting place. It leads to other critical questions like these:

  • What does Trump’s selection of documents — classified and unclassified — tell us about what is going on?
  • Were the documents tucked away by Trump over a long period of time, or did they all get tucked away in a specific, relatively short time period?
  • And what else was tucked in the drawers, file folders, and boxes next to these classified documents? Are there notes or letters that appear to have been written based on the content of the classified materials?

Depending on what this initial analysis reveals, the reviewers will begin to talk to the counterintelligence people in their agencies, especially if there is some concentration of subject matters or particular time frames involved.

  • Have you noticed any unusual behavior in known foreign agents around those time frames?
  • Was there any unusual signals traffic between foreign agents here and their bosses back home?
  • Were there any new agents who arrived here, who have a particular focus to their work that meshes with the subject matters of the documents Trump took? What actions have they taken?

To dig into all this, the analysts will be looking at other information and also be in contact with the folks in the field who are managing the human sources or electronic surveillance methods, to see what insights they might have. They know that decisions will need to be made about protecting or extracting sources who might be in danger, shutting down electronic surveillance already in place (pull out/relocate bugs and cameras if possible, re-direct satellite orbits, change communications frequencies, reprogramming software, etc.), and otherwise working to replace these sources and methods in some way to avoid further exposure. They hope to restore secrecy to the people and programs, and restore quality to the intelligence that might have been harmed through exposure.

While all this covert review work is going on, the FBI will no doubt be doing an ordinary shoe-leather investigation into the folks who have been going in and out of Mar-a-Lago over the last 18 months after the security of the resort was scaled back to simply protect the former president. They will be looking at guests and staff alike, trying to see what can be learned from videos, logs of visits, work schedules, and in some cases interviews. They will be looking at the White House document handling, especially after December 18, 2020 when the head of the White House Office of the Staff Secretary resigned and no one was named to take his place — even in an acting capacity — until January 20, 2021. They will be doing deeper domestic investigations of any new foreign agents that were identifies by the IC analysts.

And then there’s the investigation that NARA is probably already trying to complete: what other documents from the Trump White House were not turned over?

This is all very time consuming and expensive. You don’t want to do this if it isn’t necessary, but you absolutely have to do it if these sources and methods are likely to have been (or actually were) blown. Only when the Why?, Why?, and Why not? questions have been answered can the forward looking work really begin in earnest.

There’s a lot more that can be inferred about what an intelligence review would contain, but one thing is certain. The panel of judges from the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals and Special Master Raymond Dearie are focused on what Judge Cannon does not want to recognize: this is not a case about misfiled documents, but a national security case in which documents hold the key to assessing the dangers posed and actual damage done to our nation, so that the current government can begin to address it.