The Russian Angle

Charles Pierce: This, Right Here. This Is Where Obama Choked. – Esquire

They were concerned that any pre-election response could provoke an escalation from Putin. Moscow’s meddling to that point was seen as deeply concerning but unlikely to materially affect the outcome of the election. Far more worrisome to the Obama team

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Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, had plan to ‘greatly benefit the Putin Government’ – Telegraph/AP

President Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, secretly worked for a Russian billionaire to advance the interests of Russian President Vladimir Putin a decade ago and proposed an ambitious political strategy to undermine anti-Russian opposition across former Soviet republics. The allegations,

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Manafort’s Ukrainian ‘blood money’ caused qualms, hack suggests – POLITICO

The texts, posted on a darknet website run by a hacktivist collective, appear to show Manafort’s family fretting about the ethics, safety and consequences of his work for Yanukovych. And they reveal that Manafort’s two daughters regarded their father’s emergence

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Benjamin Wittes: How to Read What Comey Said Today – Lawfare

If there’s anything mitigating the bad news for the White House here, it is that Comey may have also sent subtle signals that the matters under investigation are not principally about the personal conduct of Trump himself. While this is

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Robert Kagan: Republicans are becoming Russia’s accomplices – The Washington Post

The party’s current leader, the president, questions the intelligence community’s findings, motives and integrity. Republican leaders in Congress have opposed the creation of any special investigating committee, either inside or outside Congress. They have insisted that inquiries be conducted by

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John Cassidy: Donald Trump Versus the World – The New Yorker

“By oath, intelligence officials’ first duty is to ‘defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic,’ “ Evan McMullin, the former C.I.A. operative and Republican congressional aide, who ran for President last year as an

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National security adviser Flynn discussed sanctions with Russian ambassador, despite denials, officials say – The Washington Post

The emerging details contradict public statements by incoming senior administration officials including Mike Pence, then the vice president-elect. They acknowledged only a handful of text messages and calls exchanged between Flynn and Kislyak late last year and denied that either

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@Khanoisseur: “Exhaustive, ever-growing Trump-Russia dossier created by @funder turned into easy-to-read format by @Martin_Niemolle” – Twitter

Russia? What Russia? Never Heard of It. From: “Exhaustive, ever-growing Trump-Russia dossier created by @funder turned into easy-to-read format by @Martin_Niemolle https://t.co/Hwn4xzDAYW”

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David Sanger: U.S. Reacting at Analog Pace to a Rising Digital Risk, Hacking Report Shows – The New York Times

It was telling that within an hour of the release of the report on Friday, the secretary of homeland security, Jeh Johnson, declared for the first time that America’s election system — the underpinning of its democracy — would be

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Nick Cohen: Russian treachery is extreme and it is everywhere – The Guardian

In the past, Britain would have looked to the US for support and leadership. Now, and with the worst timing imaginable, at the very moment when Brexit is tearing up our relationship with Europe, Britain has to wonder if America

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