Thursday, February 16, 2017

US intelligence community operating under presumption Russia has "ears" on the Trump team

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/2/12/1632962/-US-intelligence-community-operating-under-presumption-Russia-has-ears-on-the-Trump-team
"The American intelligence community is quite certain that the Donald Trump campaign was aided, whether knowingly or not, by a Russian government-sponsored espionage and propaganda effort aimed at boosting Trump's chances for the presidency. The Trump campaign was staffed with so many Russia-linked figures that newspapers took to designing charts to show them all, from Paul Manafort to Carter Page to Michael Flynn. The new Secretary of State comes to the role from a position orchestrating an oil deal between his company and Russia so massive that, if sanctions preventing it are lifted, it would reshape the Russian government's own finances for years to come. The intelligence community knows of contact between Trump staffers and the Russian government before the inauguration. The intelligence community verified that despite Trump adviser Michael Flynn insisting he did not discuss the hacking-related sanctions imposed by the Obama administration on the Russian government with a Russian official, he in fact did. The intelligence community has now verified parts of the infamous and salacious "dossier" on Trump-Russia ties, though not the most alarming and damning bits. And the American intelligence community is now operating under the suspicion that the new White House may include, somewhere within its top ranks a Russian mole."