Эхо Рашагейта

[tijd]

События семилетней давности - путинская атака на американские выборы 2016 - стали стираться из коллективной памяти, но в новостях появляются напоминания о них.

Чарльз Макгонигал, бывший высокопоставленный сотрудник ФБР, который в октябре 2016 возглавил отдел контрразведки в нью-йоркском отделе ФБР, был арестован в январе 2023. Ему предъявлены серьезные обвинения в работе на Олега Дерипаску в нарушение санкций.

FBI Director James B. Comey has named Charles McGonigal as the special agent in charge of the Counterintelligence Division for the New York Field Office. Mr. McGonigal most recently served as the section chief of the Cyber-Counterintelligence Coordination Section at FBI Headquarters.
Mr. McGonigal entered on duty with the FBI in 1996. He was first assigned to the New York Field Office, where he worked Russian foreign counterintelligence and organized crime matters.
https://www.fbi.gov/news/press-releases/charles-mcgonigal-named-special-agent-in-charge-of-the-counterintelligence-division-for-the-new-york-field-office

CHARLES MCGONIGAL, 54, of New York, New York, and SERGEY SHESTAKOV, 69, of Morris, Connecticut, are charged with one count of conspiring to violate and evade U.S. sanctions, in violation of the IEEPA, one count of violating the IEEPA, one count of conspiring to commit money laundering, and one count of money laundering, each of which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. SHESTAKOV is also charged with one count of making false statements, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/former-special-agent-charge-new-york-fbi-counterintelligence-division-charged-violating

Charles McGonigal agreed to help Fokin's daughter obtain an internship in 2018 with the New York Police Department. McGonigal told a supervisor he wanted to recruit Fokin as a double agent. pic.twitter.com/1pMlXh7jUC
- Seth Hettena (@seth_hettena) January 23, 2023

Связным между Дерипаской и Макгонигалом с его сообщником Сергеем Шестаковым выступал сотрудник СВР Евгений Фокин ("Agent-1" в обвинительном заключении).

Уровень коррупции потрясает сам по себе, но многим комментаторам это также напомнило о роли Дерипаски в событиях 2016 года (в частности его связи с Килимником и Манафортом) и о до сих пор не выясненной роли "Трампландии" ( нью-йоркского отдела ФБР) в помощи Трампу на выборах. Хорошо известно, например, что именно утечки из этого отдела подтолкнули директора ФБР Коми на печально известное письмо в Конгресс, но неизвестно, кто именно занимался этими утечками. Мы также не знаем, кто именно в ФБР послужил источником для печально известной статьи "Investigating Donald Trump, F.B.I. Sees No Clear Link to Russia", опубликованной во время судьбоносного Хэллоуина и что именно произошло во время встречи агентов ФБР с Дерипаской в Нью-Йорке в сентябре 2016.



Из показаний бывшего генерального прокурора Лоретты Линч о разговоре с Коми: "he said it’s clear to me that there is a cadre of senior people in New York who have a deep and visceral hatred of Secretary Clinton". Из показаний самого Коми: "I knew that there were leaks coming-- or appeared to be leaks about criminal investigation of the Clintons coming out of New York."

Одним из кондуитов для утечек служил Руди Джулиани. По совпадению или нет, с Джулиани была близка любовница Макгонигала, через связь с которой он мог попасть как под угрозу компромата, так и под внутреннее расследование ФБР.

The FBI agent's mistress was also a friend of this guy https://t.co/uQol4uxhT6 pic.twitter.com/5fAdqvVe8u
- Bill Grueskin (@BGrueskin) January 27, 2023

Неизвестно, скоро ли мы ли узнаем что-либо новое про события из 2016. Между тем отчаянную попытку пересмотреть историю предприняло уважаемое издание Columbia Journalism Review, которое специализируется на анализе американской журналистики. Длиннющая статья в четырех частях "The press versus the president" пытается представить Трампа невинной жертвой заговора прессы в целях оклеветать его в связях с путинской Россией https://www.cjr.org/special_report/trumped-up-press-versus-president-ed-note.php Статья полна передергиваний, привычных в сочинениях путиноскептиков, и написана одиозным журналистом Джеффом Гертом, который во время его работы в New York Times печально прославился раскручиванием скандала Whitewater, который оказался пустышкой, но в итоге привел к импичменту Билла Клинтона.

Beyond any specific problems in Gerth's deeply defective work, however, is the question of why the magazine made such an odd choice to fulfill this sensitive task. During his years at the Times, he gained notoriety for two major stories that looked impressive when first published - and then fell spectacularly flat.
In 1992, he wrote a front-page article on Bill and Hillary Clinton's investment in an ill-fated real estate deal known as "Whitewater," which spawned endless news coverage, congressional investigations and a special counsel probe mismanaged by Ken Starr that cost nearly $70 million. The erroneous headline on Gerth's story- "CLINTONS JOINED S & L OPERATOR IN AN OZARK REAL ESTATE VENTURE" - was only the first of many regrettable errors. Multiple investigations failed to confirm Gerth's insinuations of wrongdoing by the Clintons.
In 1999, Gerth and a fellow Times reporter published another bombshell, headlined "BREACH AT LOS ALAMOS: China Stole Nuclear Secrets For Bombs, U.S. Aides Say." The article pointed a finger of suspicion at a Taiwanese American scientist named Wen Ho Lee, who was subsequently indicted and imprisoned - until he was released for lack of sufficient evidence to convict him of espionage. He ultimately pled guilty to a minor offense and received an apology from President Clinton. (The Times felt obliged to publish a note critiquing its own handling of the story after Lee's prosecution failed.)
What brings those episodes to mind is that in both instances, Gerth appeared to be heavily influenced by partisan figures on the Right with agendas that obscured the truth. His chief Whitewater sources were Sheffield Nelson, an embittered Republican businessman who had run against Clinton for governor two years earlier, and Clinton's former Whitewater partner James McDougal, who was both dishonest and mentally ill. His principal source on Wen Ho Lee appears to have been an Energy Department security official named Notra Trulock III, a right-wing conspiracy theorist who was credibly accused by his colleagues of ethnic bias against Lee. <...>
Gerth's latest misadventure, providing tilted alibis for Trump, follows a pattern of decades. It should surprise nobody, especially his now-infuriated former colleagues at the Times. Hailed by the right-wing media, he appears to believe that he is in a position to lecture his fellow journalists. They would do better taking instruction elsewhere.
https://www.nationalmemo.com/whitewater

В 2016 сам Джефф Герт принял посильное участие в спецоперации, пытаясь разметить лживые статьи про Клинтон на основе сливов в Викиликс почты, взломанной хакерами ГРУ.

Gerth also includes a curious, passing disclosure that he approached the Times “on my own about the Clinton family foundation” and was disappointed in the results.
He was referring to a 3,259-word memo focused on Hillary Clinton’s emails, and marked “OTR Background,” which he sent to the Times in 2016.
A sample: “So is Sid a sideshow, or part of the FBI’s big tent, involved in an unofficial or off-the-books policy initiative in Libya?”
Gerth said in an email that the memo was “raw” and needed reporting out, and that he was “stunned that the Times leaked this communication between journalists.”
https://www.semafor.com/newsletter/02/05/2023/media-newsletter-02052023



Странное решение CJR высветило еще один скандал. Выяснилось, что в 2020 это издание в последний момент отказалась публиковать уже готовую к печати статью британского журналиста Данкана Кэмпбелла о путинских агентах влияния в руководстве старейшего прогрессивного журнала The Nation.

It’s true that, even as The Nation has promoted a uniquely defensive stance on Russia, some on the left-including journalists-have joined Trump supporters and the right in pushing pro-Putin information and theories. In June 2014, a group of like-minded commentators met at the World Russia Forum, first on Capitol Hill and then at a reception in the Russian Federation’s DC Embassy, hosted by Ambassador Sergei Kislyak. Cohen spoke alongside James Carden, a writer for the Trump-supporting National Interest. In The American Conservative, he wrote “Vladimir Putin is playing a strong hand well.” After Carden praised Cohen as “the country’s foremost scholar of Russian studies”, Vanden Heuvel hired him as a contributing writer.
At the next year’s World Russia Forum, vanden Heuvel chaired a session during which she accused mainstream media of being “very dangerous for the security of our country.” She described the Washington Post, to which she contributes a weekly column, as “like Pravda on the Potomac-it is a regime change newspaper.” She and Cohen were joined by Gilbert “Gil” Doctorow, an early contributor to Russia Insider, a site that platforms pro-Russian, homophobic, and anti-Semitic propaganda-and a two-time writer for The Nation. Doctorow then penned that Cohen’s “voice and reasoning struggles to be heard” by a wide audience.
Russia Insider, like other pro-Putin and anti-Semitic sites, such as jewworldorder.org, has amplified Cohen’s takes on Russia for radical right audiences and conspiracy theorists, dragging along The Nation’s reputation. “I have been reprinted by the Daily Stormer at least two or three times,” Cohen tells me. When I ask vanden Heuvel about this, she says, “It’s just the way the Internet works.” In January 2018, about three years after she became aware that Nation pieces were being posted on Russia Insider, her attorneys sent a cease-and-desist letter, which she shared with CJR. Vanden Heuvel tells me that Cohen has since parted ways with Doctorow, “largely around the Russia Insider situation,” she explains. “Steve thought that was not sustainable, to say the least.” Still, when I check Russia Insider, the homepage leads with a link to a podcast by Stephen Cohen.
https://bylinetimes.com/2023/02/04/russia-and-the-us-press-the-article-the-cjr-didnt-publish/

Из письма Кэмпбелла главному редактору CJR в августе 2022:

"Two years ago, acting at the very last moment, you blocked from publication a report for CJR commissioned by you and written by me into the role of The Nation magazine in promoting the Russian imperialist agenda of President Vladimir Putin within the United States, as orchestrated by the late Professor Stephen Cohen through the agency of his wife, Katrina vanden Heuvel, owner and publisher of The Nation. That report - “The Nation’s Russia Problem” - was complete, had passed all fact-checking, legal and editorial checks, and was fully committed for publication on 6 August 2020.
Eighteen months later, the savage promotion of the agenda described in my report for you has plunged civilisation into escalating crises and imperilled the world and all our futures. Professor Cohen’s advocacy of the Russian agenda in the U.S. was central to this, as scholars such as Professor Timothy Snyder of Yale have robustly explained. You blocked this being reported, for what others may consider to be unworthy reasons."
https://bylinetimes.com/2023/02/07/who-watches-the-watchdog-the-cjrs-russia-problem/

Его комментарий после выхода статьи Герта, которая была заказана одновременно с тем, как в CJR зарубили историю про The Nation: "The Columbia Journalism Review may now have a Russia Problem."



Теорией заговора о невинно оклеветанном Трампе озабочены не только отдельные представители цеха журналистов. Ей до сих пор занимается специальный прокурор Дюрем несмотря на провалы своего расследования. Проясняются новые детали о том, как бывший генпрокурор Барр, назначив Дюрема, не отстранился от расследования, а активно сам в нем участвовал. Когда Барр и Дюрем вместе летали в Италию, гоняясь за несуществующим компроматом, итальянские правоохранительные органы дали им вместо этого криминальный материал на Трампа. Не ожидая такого поворота дела, Барр передал материал Дюрему для расследования, которое было благополучно замято. Об этом рассказывается в расследовании New York Times.

Interviews by The Times with more than a dozen current and former officials have revealed an array of previously unreported episodes that show how the Durham inquiry became roiled by internal dissent and ethical disputes as it went unsuccessfully down one path after another even as Mr. Trump and Mr. Barr promoted a misleading narrative of its progress.
* Mr. Barr and Mr. Durham never disclosed that their inquiry expanded in the fall of 2019, based on a tip from Italian officials, to include a criminal investigation into suspicious financial dealings related to Mr. Trump. The specifics of the tip and how they handled the investigation remain unclear, but Mr. Durham brought no charges over it.
* Mr. Durham used Russian intelligence memos - suspected by other U.S. officials of containing disinformation - to gain access to emails of an aide to George Soros, the financier and philanthropist who is a favorite target of the American right and Russian state media. Mr. Durham used grand jury powers to keep pursuing the emails even after a judge twice rejected his request for access to them. The emails yielded no evidence that Mr. Durham has cited in any case he pursued.
* There were deeper internal fractures on the Durham team than previously known. The publicly unexplained resignation in 2020 of his No. 2 and longtime aide, Nora R. Dannehy, was the culmination of a series of disputes between them over prosecutorial ethics. A year later, two more prosecutors strongly objected to plans to indict a lawyer with ties to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign based on evidence they warned was too flimsy, and one left the team in protest of Mr. Durham’s decision to proceed anyway. (A jury swiftly acquitted the lawyer.)
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/26/us/politics/durham-trump-russia-barr.html

Goldman: Ted Lieu and I sent you a letter requesting that you conduct an investigation into Durham’s investigation to see if Mr. Barr or Mr. Durham violated any department policies, regulations, or law. Have you reviewed this letter yet? pic.twitter.com/fXPvuk8ots
- Acyn (@Acyn) February 1, 2023

Дэн Голдман, высокопрофессиональный юрист, который помогал Конгрессу во время первого импичмента Трампа, ныне избран конрессменом. Его округ включает Нижний Манхэттен и часть Бруклина. В письме к инспектору Министерства юстиции Голдман указывает на возможные нарушения и призывает к расследованию:

In 2019, Mr. Barr “weaponized” the Department of Justice to pursue the false conspiracy theory that the “deep state” or Hillary Clinton caused the FBI to open an inquiry into ties between Trump and Russia. Your office conducted an independent review of the Russia inquiry and concluded that the FBI’s actions were not politically motivated, that the Steele dossier had nothing to do with the origination of the investigation, and that the FBI had a sufficient basis to open the Russia case. <...>
The Times investigation reveals possible prosecutorial misconduct, abuse of power, ethical transgressions, and a potential cover up of an allegation of a financial crime committed by the former President. Moreover, the Times describes in great detail the extent to which Mr. Barr and Mr. Durham improperly discussed publicly ongoing investigations and misled the American public about what their evidence had uncovered.
We therefore request that you initiate an investigation into whether there was a sufficient basis to open Mr. Durham’s investigation, and whether Mr. Barr and Mr. Durham violated any laws, DOJ rules or practices, or canons of legal ethics.
https://goldman.house.gov/media/press-releases/congressman-dan-goldman-and-congressman-ted-lieu-call-doj-inspector-general

Неизвестно, что из этого всего выйдет, но рассуждать про " weaponization" республиканцам в Конгрессе будет немного труднее. Голдман входит в комиссию по weaponization. Первые слушания состоятся в четверг https://judiciary.house.gov/committee-activity/hearings/hearing-weaponization-federal-government.