Mueller Obtains Search Warrant on Facebook

Facebook sold ads for up to $100,000 each incident. Facebook is expected to send a representative to participate in a panel in a Senate hearing.

It is also important to note Russia Today, now known as RT is to formally register as a foreign agent. Sputnik News may be asked to do the same.

Related reading: FBI investigates Russian government media organizations accused of spreading propaganda in U.S.

  Photo

In part from Newsweek:

The recent news that Robert Mueller obtained a search warrant for the contents of Facebook accounts associated with Russian operatives trying to undermine the 2016 presidential election was a key turning point in our knowledge of his investigation that could transform the scope of the inquiry and the legal strategy of the people in the special counsel’s sights.

Before news of the Facebook search warrant broke, it appeared that Mueller was focused on several discrete areas of inquiry, such as potentially false disclosures by former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort, potential tax charges and alleged obstruction of justice related to President Donald Trump’s firing of former FBI Director James Comey. Mueller’s warrant tells us that the special counsel is closing in on specific foreigners who tried to undermine our democracy, that he’s serious about going after Russian interference and he is far enough along to convince a federal judge that he has good evidence of such a crime. Read the full article here.

Deeper Dive

The Hill: The American public should be furious about the recent revelations regarding Russian manipulation of social media. What the public should not be is surprised. Although exploitation of cyber venues may be a new twist, it is just another chapter in an old story.

For the better part of a century, Russia (including its Soviet predecessor), Soviet proxies, as well as other countries have attempted to exploit wedge issues and social unrest to interfere with U.S. internal politics. These countries’ objectives are likely twofold: driving policies toward a desired outcome and forcing the United States to focus inward, distracting it from international developments.

From the 1930s onward, the Soviet Union and its Russian successor have consistently exploited divisions in American society to Moscow’s advantage. Moscow, starting with its Popular Front strategy in the mid-1930s, has insinuated its proxies into grievance-driven domestic coalitions.

 

These ranged from the Great Depression’s disenfranchised, to the anti-nuclear and pro-peace crowds. More recently, according to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Russia attempted to co-opt populists on both ends of the ideological spectrum by facilitating both the Occupy movement, via the Russian television network RT, and the far right, members of which have looked to Vladimir Putin as an exemplar of traditional values.

In addition to efforts at co-optation of mass movements, the Soviet Union attempted to inflame tensions within American society. In the 1960s, Soviet officials skulked around Capitol Hill, querying offices on a variety of issues including the dynamics of the civil rights movement.

For instance, one official specifically wanted to know about which civil rights leaders had been excluded from a White House meeting. This collection activity probably indicated Moscow’s desire to get smarter on a hot-button topic, which it could then exploit through an “active measures” campaign.

The civil rights issue came full circle when, in 1980, the Soviets surfaced a forgery which purported to show the U.S. government as using the CIA against African-Americans.

Cuba, a Soviet satellite, pursued similar disruptions against the United States. The Cuban government viewed American minorities as a constituency that Havana could incite to create mayhem on U.S. soil. Fidel Castro, himself, suggested that he could prompt a race riot at a time of his choosing.

Furthermore, Cuba arguably attempted to weaponize criminality against the United States when, in 1980, it seeded 8,000 criminals into the Mariel boatlift’s refugee population.

Given Venezuela’s status as a protégé of Cuba, it is hardly surprising that Caracas, under Hugo Chavez, sought to exploit socioeconomic tensions by distributing subsidized heating oil for low-income Americans as a propaganda ploy.

The Soviet/Russian-perpetrated and inspired attempts to exploit divisive U.S. political issues is notable but hardly unique to Moscow and its minions. China, during the 1960s, courted U.S. Maoist-inspired groups, including the Revolutionary Union, that embraced militancy.

More recently, the Chinese government, known for keeping a tight rein on social media, nevertheless seemed to let its WeChat platform off the leash to stir up rallies against the New York Police Department in 2016.

This history of foreign-sponsored disruption suggests that U.S. adversaries and competitors are sufficiently knowledgeable about the tensions within American society to effectively exploit them. The jury is out on whether Washington is paying similar attention.

Both the Church and Pike investigations of American intelligence in the mid-1970s produced skittishness about looking too closely at domestic actors, as indicated by the guidelines issued by Attorney General Levi, in 1976, regarding domestic security investigations.

Such trepidation about identifying dangerous domestic dynamics appears to persist, if the outraged reaction to the Department of Homeland Security’s 2009 report on right-wing extremism is any indication. Is it possible that risk-aversion has become willful blindness?

Social media may be a new front in foreign exploitation of tensions in the United States, but the underlying concept of exacerbating divisions and inciting conflict on American soil is a timeworn strategy.

Although Russia is the perpetrator of current interest, it is not alone in its effort to disrupt American politics through the sowing of dissent and division.

For Washington to anticipate (and, hopefully, deter) future, foreign-sponsored attacks on the public’s perceptions, it must ensure that it is aware of the vulnerabilities inherent to the domestic setting that U.S. adversaries and competitors may manipulate to their advantage.

Darren E. Tromblay served as an intelligence analyst with the U.S. intelligence community for more than a decade and is the author of the forthcoming book, “Foreign Influence on U.S. Policymaking: How Adversaries and Allies Manipulate and Marginalize the American Electorate,”

 

Citizenship for Sale in U.S and EU, the Golden Ticket

In the United States, with a starting number such as $500,000, you can buy a passport and with just a little more you can advance to citizenship under the EB-5 visa program. Swell huh? It has been going on for years and even Senator Dianne Feinstein has an issue with it. So, where is President Trump on the matter? Crickets…..

In February of this year, Senator Grassley and Feinstein introduced legislation to stop the EB-5 abuse.

The EB-5 program is inherently flawed,” Feinstein said in a joint statement with Grassley on Friday. “It says that U.S. citizenship is for sale. It is wrong to have a special pathway to citizenship for the wealthy while millions wait in line for visas.”

Roughly 10,000 EB-5 visas are awarded each year, with more than 85 percent going to Chinese investors in 2014, according to a study by Savills Studley, a real estate services firm. The program, begun in 1990 to stimulate the economy, has turned into a convenient way for wealthy Chinese citizens to become permanent U.S. residents and later bring over their family members. More here.

The Chinese, the Ukrainians and the Russians, all oligarchs are the largest exploiters of the program and most of these oligarchs are corrupt, paying for speedy processes with dirty money.

We know there are multiple investigations going on inside the DC Beltway regarding Russian interference and rightly so. Both Democrats and Republicans have some complicity in foreign collaboration.

In March of this year, this site published an extensive summary of Russian relations with people in the Trump camp as well as with Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer. Few take a look at Secretary Wilbur Ross and his Cyprus connections. Cyprus is a location where abuse and corruption is as normal as breathing. One interesting person is Dmitry Rybolovlev, who happens to know Donald Trump as well as Wilbur Ross.

Beyond paying for a speedy process to obtain a passport or citizenship, there is also yet another method and that is money laundering illicit funds through U.S. real estate purchases where the buyer’s name is not listed if cash is paid. You dont say…..yup. This site published a summary of such activities in July of 2014.

So, while we have examined the issue in the United States and in Cyprus, it is the same for the European Union.

Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs suspected of corruption are among hundreds who have acquired EU passports under the “golden visa” program – a bourgeois shortcut to European citizenship in exchange for cash investments, the Guardian reported Sunday.

A list of recipients seen by The Guardian includes “prominent businesspeople and individuals with considerable political influence.”

The paper claims that Cyprus alone has made over $US 4 billion selling passports to international oligarchs, “granting them the right to live and work throughout Europe,” completely legally.

However, Cyprus is not alone. “The Golden Visa program for Spain, Portugal, Malta, Greece and Cyprus are the most prominent. Bulgaria and Hungary offer residency and citizenship by investment in Europe through government bonds,” the Golden Visa website states.

The BBC reported about this kind of purchasable citizenship three years ago.

“Just like you diversify an investment portfolio, you want to diversity your passport portfolio,” investment expert Christian Kalin, told the BBC.

The list of individuals who have received Cypriot citizenship includes Bashar al-Asad’s cousin, who was previously placed under American sanctions because of allegations he benefited from corruption. It also includes a former member of the Russian parliament and the founder of Ukraine’s largest bank.

According to Global Witness, an international NGO dedicated to exposing global corruption, global visas have the potential to give applicants fleeing persecution a “get out of jail for free card.”

Portuguese MEP, Ana Gomes, said golden visas are an immoral way to grant citizenship.

“I’m not against individual member states granting citizenship or residence to someone who would make a very special contribution to the country, be it in arts or science, or even in investment. But granting, not selling,” said Gomes.

Gomes also questioned the secrecy of obtaining golden visas. If they’re legal, why is it so hard to see who has them, asked Gomes.

The European Parliament will be debating the legality of golden visas in light of the leak, The Guardian reported.

So, for the leaders of respective countries, the definition of citizenship and the spirit of that loyalty means nothing when it comes to money, dirty money.

Perhaps we should be pushing harder for the Grassley/Feinstein legislation at a minimum….what say you?