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Former Spies Agree: OF COURSE 'But Hunter Biden's Emails!' Is A Russian Op, You Morons
You guys, we know.
The reviews are in, and Rudy Giuliani's attempted 11th hour ratfucking of Joe Biden — a fantastical and ridiculous story of Hunter Biden spilling his deepest darkest secrets by taking his laptop for repair 3,000 miles from his house and leaving it there FOREVER, at which point the laptop repairman exposed its contents not to the FBI but to Rudy Giuliani — is pretty much a dud.
And as Politico reports, spies agree! More than 50 former intel types, from former CIA directors like Michael Hayden and James Clapper, down to former career officials, have signed a letter saying that BUT HUNTER BIDENS EMAILS!1!!1 is a Russian intelligence op, they are pretty sure. These are people who have served all kinds of presidents, including Donald Trump.
They explain:
The arrival on the US political scene of emails purportedly belonging to Vice President Biden's son Hunter, much of it related to his time serving on the Board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma, has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.
We want to emphasize that we do not know if the emails, provided to the New York Post by President Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, are genuine or not and that we do not have evidence of Russian involvement — just that our experience makes us deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case. If we are right, this is Russia trying to influence how Americans vote in this election, and we believe strongly that Americans need to be aware of this.
The former officials go on to explain why they are so sure. For one, this is Russia's playbook. Hack stuff, then dump it somewhere. In 2016, they dumped it through WikiLeaks. Now they're dumping it into Rudy Giuliani's maw-hole, because he's very Hungry Hungry Hippos for Russian disinformation.
Hell, thanks to impeachment, we know that while Trump was extorting the leader of Ukraine to gin up fake Joe Biden scandals for him, Giuliani was in Ukraine palling around with people who have been assessed to have ties to Russian intelligence, looking for fake Biden scandals for Trump. His Ukrainian buddy Andrii Derkach was literally just sanctioned by the Treasury Department as a Russian agent, and in August National Counterterrorism and Security Center Director William Evanina specifically mentioned Derkach in his report of ongoing Russian attacks on the 2020 election.
We also know Russia hacked Burisma a while back, as the officials point out.
We know ALL THIS.
The former spies note two other things:
According to the Washington Post, citing four sources, "U.S. intelligence agencies warned the White House last year that Giuliani was the target of an influence operation by Russian intelligence."
In addition, media reports say that the FBI has now opened an investigation into Russian involvement in this case. According to USA Today, "…federal authorities are investigating whether the material supplied to the New York Post by Rudy Giuliani…is part of a smoke bomb of disinformation pushed by Russia."
That's right, the FBI is investigating this as a Russian disinfo operation, and the Trump White House was told and did not care.
So let's review. Spies say if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a Russian attack. Trump errand boy Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe says it's TOTALLY not a Russian op, and he's just really credible. Rudy Giuliani says it's 50/50 he was working with Russian spies, and he doesn't care either way.
Which brings us to another interesting thing that happened this week at Bill Barr's Justice Department.
You see, one of the things we've been noticing on the internet ever since Rudy Giuliani made his dump is that people seem really confused about how this can be a Russian op. After all, it's just emails from a laptop, right? (A laptop nobody has been able to see.) The laptop was found in Delaware, which can't even see Russia from its house!
Barr's Justice Department unsealed indictments on Monday of six Russian spies from the GRU, specifically the same military intelligence team that attacked the 2016 US election, for hacking, among other things, the 2018 Winter Olympics, the power grid in Ukraine in 2015-2016, and the 2017 French election. But wait — didn't Barr drop charges earlier this year that had been brought by Robert Mueller against the Russian troll farmers who attacked us in 2016? He sure did. That's why we find this interesting.
We don't want to get into the weeds of the new indictments, but rather focus on the French part of it, because of how the election attack that's happening right now seems quite a bit like what Russia did to France in 2017, which makes the timing of this indictment very curious to us!
Briefly, just before the French election — like just a couple days before — Russia posted all these hacked emails from Emmanuel Macron's party. Thing is, only some of the emails were real. Others were forgeries made to look like real emails. ( Sloppy ones. ) Sound familiar, like maybe kind of like Hunter Biden's laptop that nobody has actually seen? Could whatever SMOKING GUN Giuliani claims to possess have been created by literal actual Russian spies connected to the Russian agents who have been feeding him dirt? The fuck you say!
(Remember how Senate's Dumbest Republican Ron Johnson and Fox News idiot Maria Bartiromo were wildly speculating this weekend about how MAYBE HUNTER BIDEN LAPTOP GOT CHILD PORN ON IT? Yeah.)
It might have worked in France, except for how France does this thing America should do, where its media goes into blackout mode in the 24 hours before any major election. So the Russian attack didn't gain much purchase with French voters, and Macron kicked the fascist Marine Le Pen's ass. (There's way more to it than that, but that's the general parameters.)
So we just find it interesting that the Justice Department — Bill Barr's Trump Justice Department — is taking action against Russian military intelligence specifically for this election attack in 2017 in the French part of Not-America. Sure, those Russians will never enter an American courtroom, but it sure does seem to put something on the record that seems to suggest that we see you, Russia . Maybe Barr's bro-mance with Trump really is on the skids. (Not for nothing, but Trump demanded Barr appoint a special counsel to look into Russia's/Giuliani's made up facts about Hunter Biden just this morning.)
The Washington Post reports:
Although officials said Monday's indictment was not a specific warning to Moscow to avoid interfering in this year's election, they said it serves as a "general" warning that such activities are not deniable.
"Americans should be confident that a vote cast for their candidate will be counted for that candidate," [Assistant Attorney General] Demers said.
Huh. Well, we don't trust Trump appointees at Bill Barr's Department of Justice any further than we can throw them, obviously, but all of this surely is very interesting.
Strap in for the next two weeks, kids, it's gonna be hell.
[ Spy letter / Washington Post ]
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Former Spies Agree: OF COURSE 'But Hunter Biden's Emails!' Is A Russian Op, You Morons
He's sure not Spartacus
I don't tweet; I weed.
There are those who think they can spew hatemongering and bullpucky without consequences. Left alone, they get more aggressive and more belligerent, and getting their bull horn cut off is a bit of a reality check, and trust, they need it.
I just search and nuke 'em. I hit report: Bye. Memes are best, because the twitter crawlers aren't as adept at picking up on them. Plus, if the text has a '?' or pretends to be 'joking' or starts with IMHO, Twitter will back off. But a suggestion of vengeance, or putting up a fight? Anything Q? Bye.
Another east spot is anti-vaxxies, or covid hoax statistic/claim: they get the hardest ban.
Pro-tip: A quick look to check if the followers and following are the same number, and if yes: don't get bothered, it's a russky bot. You can still nuke 'em, but better to move on to bush-whack the real humans leaving their hateful manure.
And because I am the worst, I always go back after a week or two, and I hit them again. And then one more time, and then they can't come back at all.
Another fun trick is if the are claiming to be an army vet, I send a linky to the 'stolen valor' people. Works like a charm and shuts those lying poseurs up fast.