Category Archives: China aggression

Is there Anything the Chinese Wont Steal?

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In Iowa corn fields, Chinese national’s seed theft exposes vulnerability

ARLINGTON, Iowa (Reuters) – Tim Burrack, a northern Iowa farmer in his 44th growing season, has taken to keeping a wary eye out for unfamiliar vehicles around his 300 acres of genetically modified corn seeds.

Along with other farmers in this vast agricultural region, he has upped his vigilance ever since Mo Hailong and six other Chinese nationals were accused by U.S. authorities in 2013 of digging up seeds from Iowa farms and planning to send them back to China.

The case, in which Mo pleaded guilty in January, has laid bare the value — and vulnerability — of advanced food technology in a world with 7 billion mouths to feed, 1.36 billion of them Chinese.

Citing that case and others as evidence of a growing economic and national security threat to America’s farm sector, U.S. law enforcement officials are urging agriculture executives and security officers to increase their vigilance and report any suspicious activity.

But on a March 30 visit to Iowa, Justice Department officials could offer little advice to ensure against similar thefts, underlining how agricultural technology lying in open fields can be more vulnerable than a computer network or a factory floor.

“It may range down to traditional barriers like a fence and doing human patrols to making sure you get good visuals on what’s occurring,” Assistant Attorney General John Carlin, head of the Justice Department’s national security division, said when touring Iowa State University.

But agriculture sector executives say fences and guards are not feasible, due to the high cost and impracticality of guarding hundreds of thousands of acres.

Tom McBride, intellectual property attorney at Monsanto — one of the firms whose seeds were targeted by Mo — said it safeguards its genetically modified organism (GMO) technology by protecting its computers, patenting seeds and keeping fields like Burrack’s unmarked. Monsanto says it is not considering physical barriers like fences or guards.

The FBI and the U.S. Justice Department say cases of espionage in the agriculture sector have been growing since Mo was first discovered digging in an Iowan field in May 2011. Over the past two years, U.S. companies, government research facilities and universities have all been targeted, according to the FBI.

Although prosecutors were unable to establish a Chinese government link to Mo’s group, the case adds to U.S.-China frictions over what Washington says is increasing economic espionage and trade secret theft by Beijing and its proxies.

A U.S. law enforcement official told Reuters the agency looked for a connection between the Chinese government and the conspiracy carried out by Mo.

“In cases like this, we can see connections, but proving to the threshold needed in court requires that we have documents that the government has directed this,” the official said. “It’s almost impossible to get.”

A Chinese embassy spokesman in Washington, Zhu Haiquan, said he did not have detailed information on the Mo case but that China “stands firm” on the protection of intellectual property and maintains “constant communication and cooperation” with the U.S. government on the issue.

On his visit to Washington last September, President Xi Jinping reiterated China’s denial of any government role in the hacking of U.S. corporate secrets.

Mo, an employee of Chinese firm Kings Nower Seed, pleaded guilty to stealing seed grown by U.S. firms Monsanto, Dupont Pioneer and LG Seeds.

Prosecutors say he specifically targeted fields that grow the parent seeds needed to replicate GMO corn. The FBI says it suspects he was given the location by workers for the seed companies, but did not charge any employees.

DuPont Pioneer and LG Seeds declined to comment for this story.

Mo, whose case was prosecuted by the Justice Department as a national security matter rather than a simple criminal case, now faces a sentence of up to five years in prison. Five others charged in the case are still wanted by the FBI and are believed to have fled to China or Argentina. Charges were dropped against a sixth Chinese suspect.

NATIONAL SECURITY

The number of international economic espionage cases referred to the FBI is rising, up 15 percent each year between 2009 and 2014 and up 53 percent in 2015. The majority of cases reported involve Chinese nationals, the U.S. law enforcement official told Reuters. In the agriculture sector, organic insecticide, irrigation equipment and rice, along with corn, are all suspected to have been targeted, including by Chinese nationals, the official said.

Mo Hongjian, vice president of Kings Nower Seed’s parent company, Beijing Dabeinong Technology Group, declined to comment on the case or on the company’s connection with the Chinese government.

The parent firm is privately owned, but says it receives government money for research in “science and technology.”

China bans commercial growing of GMO grains due to public opposition to the technology and imports of GMO corn have to be approved by the agriculture ministry. Still, President Xi called in 2014 for China to innovate and dominate the technique, which promises high yields through resistance to drought, pests and disease.

In January, a Greenpeace report found some Chinese farmers are illegally growing GMO corn whose strains belong to companies including Monsanto, Syngenta and DuPont Pioneer.

Monsanto, which supplies Burrack’s seed, said it can block foreign groups who request to tour their lab and learning center in Huxley, Iowa. For the past few years, Monsanto says it has run its own background checks on Chinese delegations that ask for a tour, and, if they are approved, boosts security to be sure they do not steal anything or take pictures.

In Washington, U.S. senators have called for a review of the $43 billion deal by state-owned ChemChina to buy Swiss seed group Syngenta, which generates nearly a quarter of its revenue from North America.

Acquiring GMO seed and successfully recreating a corn plant would allow Chinese companies to skip over roughly eight years of research and $1.5 billion spent annually by Monsanto to develop the corn, the company says.

Burrack’s farm itself was not targeted by Mo, though he grows the Monsanto parent seed that the Chinese national was digging for. Burrack grows the corn in two fields in front of and behind his house where he can watch them, a small part of his 2,800-acre farm.

He said he is told by Monsanto where and when to plant the parent seed, but has never been told to keep what he is planting a secret.

“What no one seems to understand is that they’re stealing from people like me,” Burrack said. “They’re stealing the research that farmers pay for when they buy Monsanto seed.”

Navy LTC Accused of Spying and Prostitution

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Navy Officer Accused of Spying for Foreign Power Held Secretly for 8 Months

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The amphibious assault ship USS Boxer transits the East Sea during Exercise Ssang Yong 2016 on March 8. It’s been revealed that a U.S. Navy officer accused of spying was held in secret for eight months.

The redacted charge sheet is here.

By Jeff Stein/Newsweek: A U.S. Navy officer accused of spying for an unidentified foreign power was secretly arrested last summer in an espionage investigation that is ongoing, authorities said Saturday.

The heavily redacted charge sheets say the unidentified officer gave secret information “relating to the national defense to representatives of a foreign government.” But the four-page document does not say exactly what information was provided, or for how long a period it was provided, how the information was transmitted or which nation it was provided to.

The multiple charges of espionage and attempted espionage, made public only on Friday, suggest the accused officer was under surveillance by Navy counterespionage agents for an extended period of time. The officer was arrested “about eight months ago,” according to a U.S. official who asked for anonymity in exchange for discussing some details of the case.

The name of the officer, a lieutenant commander who was assigned to a sensitive maritime patrol and reconnaissance group, is being withheld from the public “out of respect for the ongoing investigation” and the privacy rights of the accused, said the official.

The official did not rule out the possibility of further arrests in the case, which is being jointly pursued by both the FBI and Naval Criminal Investigative Service, or NCIS. The officer is being held in the Naval Consolidated Brig in Chesapeake, Va.

 

The officer’s unit “provides airborne anti-submarine warfare, anti-surface warfare and maritime intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance operations from planes such as the P-8A Poseidon, P-3C Orion and unmanned MQ-4C Triton,” according to the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot newspaper. The command of the Maritime Patrol and Reconnaissance Force is headquartered at Hampton Roads Naval Support Activity in Norfolk, “although it’s not clear whether he was stationed there,” the paper said. The unit has wings at Jacksonville Naval Air Station in Florida, Whidbey Island Naval Air Station in Washington state and Marine Corps Base Hawaii.

The Navy’s charge sheet said the officer is accused of three counts of attempted espionage, three counts of making false official statements and five counts of communicating defense information “to a person not entitled to receive said information.” It also said the officer provided a false address when he was on leave “rather than the actual foreign destination,” and failed to report contacts with foreign nationals.

The Navy also accused the officer, “a married man,” of procuring prostitutes ”on divers occasions” and having sex with “a woman not his wife,” a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, or UCMJ.

The dates of the alleged espionage, the identity of the foreign spy service—if any—and the foreign nationals involved will not likely be disclosed until and if the Navy prefers court martial charges against the accused.

Adm. Philip S. Davidson, commander of Fleet Forces Command, will weigh the results of an Article 32 investigation, the military’s version of a grand jury, to determine whether a court martial is warranted.

The accused officer could face the death penalty if found guilty of the most serious espionage charges.

Under the UCMJ, a service member is eligible for the death penalty for espionage if found “guilty of an offense that directly concerns nuclear weaponry, military spacecraft or satellites, early warning systems, or other means of defense or retaliation against large scale attack, war plans, communications intelligence or cryptographic information, or any other major weapons system or major element of defense strategy.”

****

InquisitR: A U.S. Navy officer was charged with giving secrets to China and prostitution at the Norfolk Air Station in Virginia. It is believed that Lieutenant Commander Edward Lin gave secrets about vital communications systems, although the Navy has yet to determine how much and for how long.

CBS News reported that the Navy officer charged worked as a flight officer on an EP-3E Reconnaissance, a sensitive intelligence gathering aircraft. Lin is alleged to have given information on the aircraft’s communications system. The information he gave could be used to counter U.S. eavesdropping capabilities.  Additional details here.

The heavily redacted documents released accused Lieutenant Commander Edward Lin of five counts of espionage and attempted espionage, three counts of making false official statements, and five counts of communicating information to a person not authorized to receive it.

Susan Rice, the Quasi CiC, Imposed a Gag Order

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In a recent interview by Bret Baier of three previous Secretaries of Defense a significant response by all three was that the White House does not listen to the military commanders at the Pentagon but rather interferes directly with selected field commanders for political military decisions bypassing the Pentagon completely.

We are seeing for sure this is an accurate description and Susan Rice has been given the responsibility of being the quasi commander in chief. She even went so far as to impose a gag order when it came to the matter of China.

4-star admiral wants to confront China. White House says not so fast

NavyTimes: The U.S. military’s top commander in the Pacific is arguing behind closed doors for a more confrontational approach to counter and reverse China’s strategic gains in the South China Sea, appeals that have met resistance from the White House at nearly every turn.

Adm. Harry Harris is proposing a muscular U.S. response to China’s island-building that may include launching aircraft and conducting military operations within 12 miles of these man-made islands, as part of an effort to stop what he has called the “Great Wall of Sand” before it extends within 140 miles from the Philippines’ capital, sources say.

Harris and his U.S. Pacific Command have been waging a persistent campaign in public and in private over the past several months to raise the profile of China’s land grab, accusing China outright in February of militarizing the South China Sea.

But the Obama administration, with just nine months left in office, is looking to work with China on a host of other issues from nuclear non-proliferation to an ambitious trade agenda, experts say, and would prefer not to rock the South China Sea boat, even going so far as to muzzle Harris and other military leaders in the run-up to a security summit.

“They want to get out of office with a minimum of fuss and a maximum of cooperation with China,” said Jerry Hendrix, a retired Navy captain and defense strategy analyst with the Center for a New American Security.

The White House has sought to tamp down on rhetoric from Harris and other military leaders, who are warning that China is consolidating its gains to solidify sovereignty claims to most of the South China Sea.

National Security Adviser Susan Rice imposed a gag order on military leaders over the disputed South China Sea in the weeks running up to the last week’s high-level nuclear summit, according to two defense officials who asked for anonymity to discuss policy deliberations. China’s president, Xi Jinping, attended the summit, held in Washington, and met privately with President Obama.

The order was part of the notes from a March 18 National Security Council meeting and included a request from Rice to avoid public comments on China’s recent actions in the South China Sea, said a defense official familiar with the meeting readout.

In issuing the gag order, Rice intended to give Presidents Obama and Xi Jinping “maximum political maneuvering space” during their one-on-one meeting during the global Nuclear Summit held March 31 through April 1, the official said.

“Sometimes it’s OK to talk about the facts and point out what China is doing, and other times it’s not,” the official familiar with the memo said.  “Meanwhile, the Chinese have been absolutely consistent in their messaging.”

The NSC dictum has had a “chilling effect” within the Pentagon that discouraged leaders from talking publicly about the South China Sea at all, even beyond the presidential summit, according to a second defense official familiar with operational planning. Push-back from the NSC has become normal in cases where it thinks leaders have crossed the line into baiting the Chinese into hard-line positions, sources said.

Military leaders interpreted this as an order to stay silent on China’s assertive moves to control most of the South China Sea, said both defense officials, prompting concern that the paltry U.S. response may embolden the Chinese and worry U.S. allies in the region, like Japan and the Philippines, who feel bullied.

China, which has been constructing islands and airstrips atop reefs and rocky outcroppings in the Spratly Islands, sees the South China Sea as Chinese territory. President Xi told Obama during their meeting at the nuclear summit that China would not accept any behavior in the disguise of freedom of navigation that violates its sovereignty, according to a Reuters report. The two world leaders did agree to work together on nuclear and cyber security issues.

Experts say administrations often direct military leaders to tone down their rhetoric ahead of major talks, but the current directive comes at a difficult juncture. U.S. leaders are struggling to find an effective approach to stopping the island-building without triggering a confrontation.

The NSC frequently takes top-down control to send a coherent message, said Bryan Clark a former senior aide to Adm. Jon Greenert, the recently retired chief of naval operations. While serving as Greenert’s aide, Clark said the NSC regularly vetted the former CNO’s statements on China and the South China Sea.

Critics say the administration’s wait-and-see approach to the South China Sea has failed, with the island-dredging continuing in full force.

“The White House’s aversion to risk has resulted in an indecisive policy that has failed to deter China’s pursuit of maritime hegemony while confusing and alarming our regional allies and partners,” said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, in a statement to Navy Times. “China’s increasingly coercive challenge to the rules-based international order must be met with a determined response that demonstrates America’s resolve and reassures the region of our commitment.”

When presented with the findings of this article, Harris declined to comment through a spokesperson. A spokesman for the chief of naval operations had no comment when asked about Harris’ proposals and whether the CNO was supporting them.

An administration official said the Navy’s operations in the South China Sea are routine and that the administration often seeks to coordinate its message.

“While we’re not going to characterize the results of deliberative meetings, it’s no secret that we coordinate messaging across the inter-agency-on issues related to China as well as every other priority under the sun,” the official said.

The gag order has had at least one intended effect. The amphibious assault ship Boxer and the dock landing ship Harpers Ferry, both carrying the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit, steamed through the South China Sea in late March to little fanfare.

‘The status quo has changed’

Meanwhile evidence is mounting that China aims to build another island atop the Scarborough Shoal, an atoll just 140 miles off the coast of the Philippines’ capital of Manila and well within the Philippines’ 200-mile economic exclusion zone, that would extend China’s claims. Chinese missile batteries and air-search radars there would put U.S. forces in the Philippines at risk in a crisis.

Harris and PACOM officials have been lobbying the National Security Council, Capitol Hill and Pentagon leaders to send a clear message that they won’t tolerate continued bullying of neighbors. Part of the approach includes more aggressive, frequent and close patrols of China’s artificial islands, Navy Times has learned.

“When it comes to the South China Sea, I think the largest military concern for [U.S.] Pacific Command is what operational situation will be left to the next commander or the commander after that,” said a Senate staffer familiar with the issues in the South China Sea. “The status quo is clearly being changed. Militarization at Scarborough Shoal would give [China’s People’s Liberation Army-Navy] the ability to hold Subic Bay, Manila Bay, and the Luzon Strait at risk with coastal defense cruise missiles or track aviation assets moving in or out of the northern Philippines.”

The administration is negotiating rotational force presence in the Philippines that would put the U.S. in a position to counter China’s moves in the region but the focus on the big picture isn’t changing the China’s gains in the here and now, the staffer said.

“Force posture agreements and presence operations are important, but the administration has yet to develop a deterrence package that actually convinced Beijing that going further on some of these strategic-level issues like Scarborough … is not worth the costs.”

Stepped-up patrols and of the South China Sea like the one conducted by the carrier John C. Stennis and her escorts in early March are part of the PACOM response to China, but actual freedom of navigation patrols in close proximity to China’s islands must be authorized by the White House.

The patrols to date have been confusing, critics argue, because they have been conducted under the right of innocent passage. For example, the destroyer Lassen’s October transit within 12 nautical miles of Chinese man-made islands in the disputed Spratly Islands chain, was conducted in accordance with innocent passage rights. Some officials saw that as tacit acknowledgment that China did in fact own the islands and were entitled to a 12-mile territorial sea around them.

During innocent passage, warships are not supposed to fly aircraft, light off anti-air systems or shoot guns — just proceed expeditiously from point “A” to point “B.” All those activities are fair game in international waters.

The lack of a more aggressive response has only encouraged continued expansion, critics say, including the new Scarborough Shoal project, which China seized from the Philippines in 2012.

The Lassen was the first U.S. warship to pass within 12 miles of China’s man-made islands in three years and was followed by the destroyer Curtis Wilbur’s patrol of the disputed Paracel Islands in January. But if the goal of those patrols was to stop China from constructing man-made islands, it has clearly failed, which was noted last month by the U.S. military’s top officer.

“In the South China Sea, Chinese activity is destabilizing and could pose a threat to commercial trade routes,” Marine Gen. Joe Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said at a March 29 speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “And while our exercise of freedom of navigation provides some assurance to our allies and partners, it hasn’t stopped the Chinese from developing military capabilities in the South China Sea, to include on territories where there is a contested claim of sovereignty.”

Administration officials say they’ve been tough on China’s claims, supporting military patrols by U.S. Air Force bombers and Navy ships, as well as sending high-tech military assets to the region, including two more destroyers and the sophisticated X-band AN/TPY-2 missile defense radar system. The U.S. is also negotiating rotational presence for U.S. troops on bases in the Philippines, right on China’s doorstep.

“The idea that we are somehow inconsistent or that we are giving China a free pass just isn’t supported by the facts,” said a U.S. official who spoke on background to discuss internal deliberations.

‘Irreversible’ gains

Harris wants to double down on the close island patrols but conduct them on the assertion they are in international water, sources who spoke to Navy Times said.

Clark, now an analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments who has followed Harris’s strategy, said he thinks Harris is lobbying for more assertive freedom of navigation patrols that include military operations such as helicopter flights and signals intelligence within 12 miles of Chinese-claimed features. Such patrols, Clark said, would make clear the Navy does not acknowledge Chinese claims and that the surrounding waters are international.

“He wants to do real [freedom of navigation operations],” Clark said. “He wants to drive through an area and do military operations.”

Harris is not the only Navy expert raising alarms. Capt. Sean Liedman, a naval flight officer serving as a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, called for the U.S. to take a hard line.

“Failing to prevent the destruction and Chinese occupation of Scarborough Shoal would generate further irreversible environmental damage in the South China Sea — and more importantly, further irreversible damage to the principles of international law,” Liedman wrote in a late March blog post. “It would further consolidate the Chinese annexation and occupation of the maritime features in the South China Sea, which would be essentially irreversible in any scenario short of a major regional conflict.”

Liedman said the Navy should consider taking military actions like disabling Chinese dredging boats to steps to impair the land-reclamation effort.

Failing to stop China’s expansion in the South China Sea into territory also claimed by its neighbors is only heightening the chance of getting into an armed confrontation, said Hendrix, the retired captain.

“The Obama administration has tended to take the least confrontational path but in doing so they created an environment where it’s going to take a major shock to reestablish the international norms in the South China Sea,” he said. “Ironically, they’ve made a situation where conflict is more instead of less likely.”

 

Did China Connect with Hillary’s Email?

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The clue is in the details. Dates matter, events matter and travel itinerary matters. Additionally, Hillary and her team are already attempting to limit the scope of questions during the upcoming and scheduled interrogatories.

Was an Asian government reading Hillary Clinton’s emails in February 2009?

WaPo: I continue to be fascinated by the very early chapters of the Hillary Clinton homebrew email saga. For one simple reason:  the clintonemail.com server apparently didn’t have the digital certificate needed to encrypt communications until late March 2009 — more than two months after the server was up and running, and after Secretary Clinton’s swearing-in on January 22.

Two questions are raised by this timing:  First, why didn’t the server have encryption from the start? And second, why did it get encryption in March, at a time when Clinton should have been extraordinarily busy getting up to speed at State, not messing with computer security protocols?

The simplest answer to the first question is that the lack of a certificate was just a mistake.  But what about the second?  What inspired the Secretary to get an encryption certificate in March when her team hadn’t bothered to get one in January or February?

The likely answer to that  question is pretty troubling.  There now seems to be a very real probability that Hillary Clinton rushed to install an encryption certificate in March 2009 because the U.S. intelligence community caught another country reading Clinton’s unencrypted messages during her February 16-21, 2009, trip to China, Indonesia, Japan, and S. Korea.

 

Thanks to FOIA lawsuits, the State Department has released a few documents from this early period.  They show that Clinton began using the clintonemail.com server as early as January 28, 2009, just after her inauguration.  Other messages from Cheryl Mills used the server in early February.

Even as she kept her homebrew server, Clinton and her staff were fighting to hang on to their Blackberries, just like President Obama. That provoked resistance from the State Department’s top security official, Assistant Secretary Eric Boswell.  On March 2, he sent the Secretary a memo — “Use of Blackberries on Mahogany Row” —declaring that  “the vulnerabilities and risks associated with the use of Blackberries in Mahogany Row [the State Department’s seventh floor executive offices] considerably outweigh their convenience.”

On March 11, at a staff meeting, Clinton seemed to throw in the towel on her Blackberry, telling Boswell that she had read the memo and “gets it.” We know this from correspondence among Boswell’s staff.

But what’s fascinating and troubling is something else in the correspondence.  One staff message says that during Clinton’s conversation with Boswell, “her attention was drawn to a sentence that indicates we [the diplomatic security office] have intelligence concerning this vulnerability during her recent trip to Asia.”

I am struck by the mix of delicacy and insistence in that phrasing.  It seems likely that Clinton’s attention was drawn to that sentence because the intelligence was about Secretary Clinton’s own communications security, something a discreet diplomat would not want to say directly in written communications.  Clinton certainly acted like the intelligence concerned her.  She asked Boswell to get her “the information.”On March 11, Boswell is told by his staff that the report is already on the classified system, and he is reminded that he had already been briefed on it. Presumably he conveyed it to Clinton soon after March 11.

Eighteen days later, Clinton’s server acquires a digital certificate supporting TLS encryption, closing the biggest security hole in her server.

I suppose this could all be coincidence, but the most likely scenario is that the Secretary’s Asia trip produced an intelligence report that was directly relevant to the security of Clinton’s communications.  And that the report was sufficiently dramatic that it spurred Clinton to make immediate security changes on her homebrew server.

Did our agencies see Clinton’s unencrypted messages transiting foreign networks?  Did they spot foreign agencies intercepting those messages?  It’s hard to say, but either answer is bad, and the quick addition of encryption to the server suggests that Clinton saw it that way too.

If that’s what happened, it would raise more questions.  Getting a digital certificate to support encryption is hardly a comprehensive response to the server’s security vulnerabilities. So who decided that that was all the security it needed?  How pointed was the warning about her Asia trip?  Does it expand the circle of officials who should have known about and addressed the server’s insecurity? And why, despite evidence that Clinton was using the server in connection with work in January and February, did Clinton turn over no emails before March 18?

We don’t know the answers to those questions, and they may have perfectly good answers.  But they do suggest that the investigation should be focusing heavily on who did what to clintonemail.com in January through March of 2009.

State Department: Don’t Ask Hillary Aides About Classified Info in Lawsuit

DailyBeast: Lawyers object to any attempt to ask Huma Abedin, Cheryl Mills, and others about how information was handled—and are dead set against Clinton testifying.

Lawyers for the State Department want to limit the types of questions that a watchdog group can ask former aides to Hillary Clinton, and potentially the former secretary of state herself, about her creation and use of a private email system while she was in office.

The department asked a federal judge Tuesday night to grant “limited discovery” to Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group that wants to depose some of Clinton’s closest associates and staffers.

State’s lawyers proposed that the group only be allowed to ask questions about “the reasons for the creation of the clintonemail.com system,” and not about how classified information was handled on the system or any issues related to protecting it from hackers.

The State Department lawyers also indicated that they may object to any attempt to depose Clinton. Judicial Watch hasn’t proposed to depose the Democratic presidential front runner, but has said it wants to interview Huma Abedin, one of Clinton’s closest aides and a personal friend; Cheryl Mills, Clinton’s former chief of staff; Patrick Kennedy, a senior State Department official; and others who were involved in discussions among State Department officials about Clinton’s email usage.

Based on the schedule that both State Department and Judicial Watch lawyers have proposed, interviews with ex-Clinton aides could begin in the weeks heading into the Democratic presidential nominating convention in July.

The questions that State wants to put off limits have been at the center of multiple inquiries by inspectors general and the FBI about how Clinton handled classified information and whether she or her staff violated any laws or rules about maintaining government records. Investigators have found that some of the emails in Clinton’s server contained classified information when they were sent, though she has maintained they were never marked as such.

The lawsuit brought by Judicial Watch is one of dozens by activists and journalists seeking information about Clinton’s private email system, which was run out of a “homebrew” server in her house in New York. It’s unusual, however, in that it’s only one of two cases in which a federal judge has agreed to allow discovery, including potential examination of government documents and interviews with current or former officials.

Judicial Watch brought the suit in an effort to obtain information about the government’s employment agreement with Abedin, a key member of Clinton’s inner circle who simultaneously held four jobs for a six month period in 2012: at the State Department, at the Clinton family’s foundation, in Hillary Clinton’s personal office, and at a private consulting firm with connections to the Clintons.

The group also wants to depose Bryan Pagliano, who reportedly maintained Clinton’s email server. Pagliano has been granted immunity in exchange for his cooperation with FBI investigators, and State’s lawyers asked the judge to prevent Judicial Watch from asking questions about the bureau’s investigation.

Meanwhile, FBI Director James Comey told reporters in Buffalo on Monday that he was in no rush to complete the investigation, which he said could extend past the Democratic and Republican conventions.

“The urgency is to do it well and promptly,” Comey said. “And ‘well’ comes first.”

Clinton said Sunday on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” that FBI agents had yet to contact her for an interview but that she is willing to sit down with them.

The State Department had fought to keep Judicial Watch from conducting discovery at all, arguing that the group sought to expand the question about Abedin’s employment situation “into a far-ranging inquiry” about whether records laws had been broken.

But U.S. district judge Emmet Sullivan expressed his frustration in a hearing last February over the fragmentary way that new revelations and disclosures about Clinton’s email system have come to light. He concluded that discovery, which is rare for cases like this one brought under the Freedom of Information Act, was warranted.

“This is a constant drip, a declaration drip. That’s what we’re having here, you know, and it needs to stop,” Sullivan said, before ordering that limited discovery could proceed.

The lack of a complete explanation for why Clinton had set up a private email system gave rise to “a reasonable suspicion of bad faith” on the part of State Department officials, who may have been trying to thwart transparency laws, Sullivan said. There was no question that senior officials working for Clinton knew she was using a private email server, he noted.

“It appears that no one took any steps to ensure that agency records on Clintonemail.com were secured within the State Department’s record systems” in order to respond to records requests in the future, Sullivan said. “How in the world could this happen?”

At one point, Sullivan asked rhetorically, “Was the system created to accommodate the former secretary? Was the system created to thwart [Freedom of Information Act] compliance?” Until those questions are answered, he said, the court can’t determine whether the government had fully and adequately searched for records in the underlying case.

“We’re talking about a cabinet-level official who was accommodated by the government for reasons unknown to the public,” Sullivan said.

In the other case in which a judge has granted discovery, U.S. district court judge Royce Lamberth ruled last week that “where there is evidence of government wrong-doing and bad faith…”

That case, which was also brought by Judicial Watch, is about government talking points that officials crafted following the attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

 

 

The Looming Military Showdown with Russia

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U.S. F-15s deployed to Iceland

(CNN)Demonstrating its commitment to a “free” and “secure” Europe, the United States deployed 12 F-15C Eagles and approximately 350 airmen to Iceland and the Netherlands on Friday, the Air Force announced.

U.S. aircraft units from the 131st Fighter Squadron at Barnes Air National Guard Base in Massachusetts and the 194th Fighter Squadron at Fresno Air National Guard Base in California will support NATO air surveillance missions in Iceland and conduct flying training in the Netherlands.
The F-15s are not the only package of American fighters being sent to Europe in an effort to deter further Russian aggression in the region.
In February, the U.S. said it will send six F-15s to Finland as part of Operation Atlantic Resolve, which the United States initiated in 2014 to reassure NATO allies after Russian military intervention in Ukraine. These aircraft are scheduled to deploy next month.
Although it maintains a small coast guard force, Iceland is the only country in NATO that does not have a military.
The F-15s are part of the U.S.’s Theater Security Packages, a rotational force used to augment existing Air Force capabilities in Europe, according to the Air Force.
It is also somewhat of a secret that while Russia was taking over yet another country outside of Crimea and Ukraine, meaning Syria, Russia was in fact testing pilots, electronic warfare and newly developed ordnance obscured with the dropping over older and prohibited cluster unguided munitions.
TurkishWeekly: Russia’s engagement in Syria presents an apposite opportunity for the Russian military to test the effectiveness of its modernization program even though its involvement in the conflict is very limited.
 

Some of the modern Russian munitions with modern precision technology include the Kh-25 laser-guided missile and the KAB-500S Glonass satellite-guided bomb. However, these weapons are used in limited numbers, according to the defense consultancy company IHS. A Russian military expert Mikhail Barabanov said “There have been no casualties, the intensity of action is quite high, and new types of weapons — such as satellite-guided bombs, cluster munitions with smart elements, and cruise missiles — have been tested.” Barabanov believes it is still too early to judge the success of the new equipment.

In 2014, Russia has been flying bombers in Northern Europe to likely test NATO’s defense systems and responsive actions by NATO members.
FreeBeacon: Six Russian aircraft, including two Bear H nuclear bombers, two MiG-31 fighter jets and two IL-78 refueling tankers were intercepted by F-22 fighters on Wednesday west and north of Alaska in air defense identification zones, said Navy Capt. Jeff A. Davis, a spokesman for the U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command. Two other Bears were intercepted by Canadian jets on Thursday.
Additionally, Russia has introduced and has been testing a new stealth AMUR 1650 attack submarine. In February of 2016, it was announced by a U.S. Navy Vice Admiral that Russia’s activities are at Cold War levels.
Putin is challenging NATO in Europe and the Obama administration is responding with all the guidance being coordinated by General Breedlove. Europe requires hard military assets and is receiving them while the same goes for the Baltic States.
The possible showdown could come at the time the West is most vulnerable, not only for Europe dealing with a migrant and economic crisis but for the United States when a new president and administration takes over. It worked for al Qaeda just a mere few months into the Bush administration.
Russia is anything but bashful having made this declaration less than a week ago.

Russian Officials: Russia Is Ready To Militarily Answer NATO’s Growing Potential In Europe

MEMRI: In recent days, tensions have risen between the U.S. and Russia over the U.S. decision to increase the budgets and activities of NATO forces in Eastern Europe. Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu has stated that Russia is ready to respond to NATO’s growing potential in Europe. On March 25, 2016, he denounced the upgrade of NATO troops in Europe, in particular near Russia’s borders, thus compelling Russia to react. “NATO continues to build up its military potential in Europe, including in close vicinity to the Russian borders. No doubt, this situation cannot but concern us. We are forced to respond to it,” the minister said.[1]

Shoigu added that in 2016, Russia’s Western Military District will be upgraded with over 1,100 pieces of military hardware, including Sukhoi Su-35 advanced fighter jets, Koalitsiya-SV and Msta-SM self-propelled howitzers, and S-400 antiaircraft missile systems. The District has set up a new 1st Tank Army headquartered in the Moscow area. During 2016, Russia will raise its alert levels and conduct 800 operative and combat training drills to boost the military’s response readiness.[2]  More here.

Add in the emerging threats of Iran and North Korea, the West has a trifecta of a military showdown.