posted May 27, 2017 01:50 PM            

Former intelligence officials described Jared Kushner's reported attempt to set up a backchannel line of communication with Russia last December that would bypass the US' national security and intelligence apparatus as "off the map," "explosive," and "extremely dangerous."

Trump's national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, said during a press conference on Saturday that, if Kushner did try to set up such a back channel, "I would not be concerned about it."

"We have back-channel communications with a number of countries," McMaster said. "So, generally speaking, about back-channel communications, what that allows you to do is to communicate in a discreet manner."

Scott Olson, a recently retired FBI agent who ran counterintelligence operations and spent more than 20 years at the bureau, agreed that it is not unusual for low-level staffers to work between governments and bypass bureaucracy to exchange views and build consensus in advance of higher-level negotiations.

But what Kushner appears to have done is "substantially different, in two ways," he said.

"First, he is not seeking a back-channel for a low-level staff exchange," Olson said. "He wants high-level direct-contact communication. This is extremely dangerous because it results in verbal (and therefore undocumented and unwitnessed) agreements, which are binding on governments. Free governments do not work this way. They can't. If they do, they are no longer free."

He continued:

"Second, he asked to use a foreign government's communication facilities. This is way beyond a private server. This is doing US government diplomatic business over a foreign government's communication system. It's not an off-the-record conversation. It's a conversation recorded by the opposing party. This shows a staggering lack of understanding of the US and its place in the world. Actually, it shows a staggering lack of common sense. When he negotiates a business deal does he use the other guy's notes?"
Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law and a top White House adviser, was willing to go extraordinary lengths to establish a secret line of communication between the Trump administration and Russian government officials, The Washington Post reported Friday.

posted May 27, 2017 01:52 PM            

This is why you don't hire people with no experience in government to run it:

Jared Kushner and Russia’s ambassador to Washington discussed the possibility of setting up a secret and secure communications channel between Trump’s transition team and the Kremlin, using Russian diplomatic facilities in an apparent move to shield their pre-inauguration discussions from monitoring, according to U.S. officials briefed on intelligence reports.

Ambassador Sergey Kislyak reported to his superiors in Moscow that Kushner, son-in-law and confidant to then-President-elect Trump, made the proposal during a meeting on Dec. 1 or 2 at Trump Tower, according to intercepts of Russian communications that were reviewed by U.S. officials. Kislyak said Kushner suggested using Russian diplomatic facilities in the United States for the communications.
The Washington Post report adds that Michael Flynn was also there.

The New York Times' Nick Confessore told MSNBC's Steve Kornacki, from the Trump team's perspective perhaps their business ties led them to believe the Russians were "deal partners and friends." Confessore concluded, "Totally boneheaded."

"If an American intelligence officer had done anything like this, we'd consider it espionage," former Acting Director of Central Intelligence John McLaughlin told Lawrence O'Donnell last night on MSNBC. "I think to some degree, the Trump administration at these senior levels is being consumed by its own hubris. They must think of themselves as masters of the universe." Their seeming contempt for the institutions of government that carry out the functions of democracy reflects, McLaughlin said, "that sophomoric idea we used to hear about, about deconstructing the administrative state." He asked, as if Trump's people should use those they trust more? The Russians? [timestamp 3:30]

The Post first received the information via an anonymous letter in mid-December. This week, officials who reviewed the letter and spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed that the secret channel portion of the letter was consistent with their understanding of events. This suggests there may be more to come from the letter once the information is confirmed.

Marcy Wheeler wants to know who sent it:
Outside of Flynn, though, it’s not clear many people knew this meeting ever happened, much less what happened in it. The meeting was first disclosed by the New Yorker, following which the White House quickly added (in a story to the NYT) Flynn to the story — suggesting he, and not the President’s son-in-law suggested the communication channel.

[...]

That said, one person who knew about the meeting ahead of time was Marshall Billingslea, who tried to warn Flynn about Kislyak. And his request for the Kislyak profile would have alerted the CIA to his concerns about the meeting.
As Steve Kornacki's guests observed, there may be completely innocent reasons behind the attempt. At every turn, they make decisions that suggests they suffer from, as officials told the Post, "staggering naivete." And yet they went to extraordinary if not paranoid lengths to avoid exposure to U.S. intelligence gathering. The Post concludes:
In addition to their discussion about setting up the communications channel, Kushner, Flynn and Kislyak also talked about arranging a meeting between a representative of Trump and a “Russian contact” in a third country whose name was not identified, according to the anonymous letter.

The Post reported in April that Erik Prince, the founder of the private security firm Blackwater, now called Academi, and an informal adviser to the Trump transition team, met on Jan. 11 — nine days before Trump’s inauguration — in the Seychelles islands in the Indian Ocean with a representative of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Besides the lack of experience and the hubris, another thread runs through the Misadventures of Donald Trump and the people who elected him. It is the notion that we need businessmen running the government.

That evangelicals spend so much time defending the notion of biblical inerrancy from science — to the point of erecting creation museums across the country and building full-scale Noah's ark replicas to somehow "prove" science wrong — reflects how well science has successfully co-opted the thinking of even its fiercest critics from another cognitive domain. The same is true for business. It is so successful and so dominant in our way of life that average citizens and business moguls themselves believe that everything could be and must be operated according to a business model. Even when that is totally inappropriate.

But it's the only thing Trump and his kinsmen know. He's a one-trick pony. When the only tool in your toolbox is real estate, etc. After Trump's first international trip and interactions with key U.S. allies, if that truth wasn't painfully obvious before, it should be now. And that goes for "Tel Aviv" Tillerson too.

People who have devoted their entire lives to making money should leave public service to people with not just the brains for it, but hearts for it as well.

posted July 11, 2017 08:48 AM            

That back channel resulted in the Marxist Messiah, Obama giving the number 1 terrorist state on earth...$150 BILLION and the green light to develop nuclear weapons and ICBMs to deliver them to America...as well as the lifting of sanctions.

posted July 11, 2017 04:26 PM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by Node:
^
Because there is no evidence to back up your claim. One person has made this allegation, he has yet to produce that evidence.

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If you're talking about the Iran Nuke deal the Marxist Messiah, Obama cut with Iran, there's absolutely no possibility of refuting the fact that:

Iran received $150 Billion.

Iran's ballistic missile program..including ICBM missile research and testing got the green light.

Iran..under the terms of the Nuke deal will be able..legally able to produce nuclear weapons a few years into the future...if not sooner.

posted July 11, 2017 04:31 PM            

You have evidence no one else has?

posted July 11, 2017 11:54 PM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by Node:

Again
Because there is no evidence to back up your claim. One person has made this allegation, he has yet to produce that evidence.

You have evidence no one else has?

We are all ears.

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Do you ever know what you're talking about before you start flapping your lips?

"As a result, very shortly, Tehran will receive a financial windfall in excess of $100 billion to help in its efforts to make an already turbulent Middle East even more turbulent."

"The alleged quid pro quo for all this, we are told, is a commitment from Iran to limit its nuclear program for 10 years"

"As Iran continues to violate not only U.N. resolutions but the nuclear deal too by conducting advanced ballistic missile tests of a missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead"
http://www.theblaze.com/contributions/the-realities-of-the-iran-nuclear-deal-and-israels-impending-destruction/

$150 Billion
Ballistic Missile research and testing
Nuclear weapons in the future

posted July 25, 2017 02:46 PM            

Now if Iran is VIOLATING TERMS that is proof that the terms did NOT give them what you claim. And makes them liable to disciplinary action.

posted July 25, 2017 03:16 PM            

2. Iran had no role in 9-11 attack on America. Saudi Arabia did. Not even the Hair of an American Citizen has been harmed by Iran in decades.

3. Iran has no role in attacking any European Country.

4. Republicans and Democrats alike have given more than million Iranians US Visas from 1970s till date.

5. Their core negative according to Neocons is a hawkish anti-Israel policy via support of Hezbollah. Even Hezbollah has not killed any Israeli Civilian in decades. Hezbollah is bad but so is the Israeli Military in Gaza who have made it into a Gulag just to punish a few who support Hamas.

6. Iranian clergy has forbidden the use of Nuclear Weapons as per their religious policy. No other country has made it a religious duty to abhor Nukes.

7. The 150 billion dollars given by Obama was Iran's own money. Obama undid a THEFT.
Obama righted a Karmic Wrong.

8. The Iran Deal is stringent, if they make any weapons grade Plutonium, entire EU and USA can slap crippling sanctions and take Iran decades back.

9. Iran did not attempt to hack the US Elections.

10. Iran did not even fund Ransomware that could cripple Western Financial Institutions in the years to come. Considering so much hatred against them, they have every right to support the crippling of US Institutions like Banks, Wall Street etc. They can host Dark Web Servers, spread drugs by helping Drug Cartels. They do nothing of that sort. They do not even say anything negative to US Leaders unlike the uncouth North Koreans who have actual nukes and actual ICBMs that can destroy US Cities.

Why this kind of naive and brainwashed hatred of a country that should be an Ally of USA and Europe in the years to come?

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Astrology Articles

posted July 25, 2017 04:32 PM            

I suspect karmic fear is our biggest problem with Iran. For decades we have meddled in their politics, commandeered their oil, and scapegoats them for the resentment in the Middle East due to colonial and western pawnbroking there.

posted July 25, 2017 11:43 PM            

Is there any intelligent life there?

posted July 26, 2017 07:06 AM            

NOTHING like that has been done by Iran. The hatred is irrational.

Just yesterday, an Iranian American has joined a top NASA Space Team. Entire US Academia mourned the death of Iranian Field's Medal winner in Mathematics Maryam [from Cancer].

Now China is going all out to invest in Iran as US Policy makers stutter.

Iran is friendlier than Luxemborg as far as Americans are concerned. US Citizen Anthony Bourdain toured Iran without a scratch.