Category Archives: DOJ, DC and inside the Beltway

Pelosi’s Official Statement on the 2020 SOTU Address

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Pelosi Statement on State of the Union Address

February 4, 2020
Press Release

Washington, D.C. – Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued this statement after President Trump delivered his State of the Union Address:

“We are always hopeful when a President makes a State of the Union address.  We welcome any opportunity to extend the hand of friendship to find common ground on behalf of the American people.  The issue of major concern to most Americans is health care.  Tonight, House Democrats brought scores of guests to the State of the Union who have powerful health care stories, whether it is families with pre-existing conditions, families struggling to afford the prescription drugs they need, or families relying on Medicaid even though they have private insurance.  We had been told the President would have a positive message on health care.

“However, President Trump’s address tonight gave no comfort to the 130 million Americans with pre-existing conditions or the families struggling to afford the prescription drugs they need.  Once again, President Trump was not truthful about his actions in court to destroy pre-existing condition protections.  Once again, President Trump pulled his punch on his promise to negotiate for lower prescription drug prices, which House Democrats delivered with the Elijah E. Cummings Lower Drug Costs Now Act, H.R.3.

“Next week, when the President presents his budget, the American people will see the stark reality of his agenda.  A federal budget should be a statement of our national values, and the President has sadly shown that he does not value the good health of the American people.  Democrats continue to urge the President to abandon his assault on seniors and families and to join us to deliver real progress in lowering the price of prescription drugs and making the bold investments needed to rebuild America’s infrastructure in a green and modern way.

“The manifesto of mistruths presented in page after page of the address tonight should be a call to action for everyone who expects truth from the President and policies worthy of his office and the American people.  The American people expect and deserve a President to have integrity and respect for the aspirations for their children.

“Americans were uplifted by the positive message and vision for progress for all communicated by Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Congresswoman Veronica Escobar of Texas.  In the election, Democrats ran and won on a pledge For The People: lower health care costs, bigger paychecks, clean up corruption in government.  And we will continue to be relentless in our pursuit of progress for hard-working families across America, For The People.”

***

Speaker Nancy Pelosi ripped into President Donald Trump in a private meeting with Democrats Wednesday, just hours after the two jousted in a silent sparring match during his State of the Union address.

Pelosi, addressing her caucus Wednesday morning, said she felt “liberated” after defiantly ripping up Trump’s speech for the world to see, tearing up each page as she stood behind the president after he concluded his annual address.

“He shredded the truth, so I shredded his speech,” Pelosi told House Democrats, according to multiple sources in the room. “What we heard last night was a disgrace.” More here.

*** Facts are stubborn things lil Miss Nancy….

  1. In the first paragraph of Nancy’s official statement, she refers to ‘pre-existing conditions and the costs of prescription drugs and that Trump gave ‘no comfort’.

This is what President Trump said:

A good life for American families also requires the most affordable, innovative, and high-quality healthcare system on Earth. Before I took office, health insurance premiums had more than doubled in just 5 years. I moved quickly to provide affordable alternatives. Our new plans are up to 60 percent less expensive. I have also made an ironclad pledge to American families: We will always protect patients with pre-existing conditions — that is a guarantee. And we will always protect your Medicare and your Social Security.

The American patient should never be blindsided by medical bills. That is why I signed an Executive Order requiring price transparency. Many experts believe that transparency, which will go into full effect at the beginning of next year, will be even bigger than healthcare reform. It will save families massive amounts of money for substantially better care.

But as we work to improve Americans’ healthcare, there are those who want to take away your healthcare, take away your doctor, and abolish private insurance entirely. One hundred thirty-two lawmakers in this room have endorsed legislation to impose a socialist takeover of our healthcare system, wiping out the private health insurance plans of 180 million Americans. To those watching at home tonight, I want you to know: We will never let socialism destroy American healthcare!

Over 130 legislators in this chamber have endorsed legislation that would bankrupt our Nation by providing free taxpayer-funded healthcare to millions of illegal aliens, forcing taxpayers to subsidize free care for anyone in the world who unlawfully crosses our borders. These proposals would raid the Medicare benefits our seniors depend on, while acting as a powerful lure for illegal immigration. This is what is happening in California and other States — their systems are totally out of control, costing taxpayers vast and unaffordable amounts of money. If forcing American taxpayers to provide unlimited free healthcare to illegal aliens sounds fair to you, then stand with the radical left. But if you believe that we should defend American patients and American seniors, then stand with me and pass legislation to prohibit free Government healthcare for illegal aliens!

This will be a tremendous boon to our already very-strongly guarded southern border where, as we speak, a long, tall, and very powerful wall is being built. We have now completed over 100 miles and will have over 500 miles fully completed by early next year.

My Administration is also taking on the big pharmaceutical companies. We have approved a record number of affordable generic drugs, and medicines are being approved by the FDA at a faster clip than ever before. I was pleased to announce last year that, for the first time in 51 years, the cost of prescription drugs actually went down.

And working together, the Congress can reduce drug prices substantially from current levels. I have been speaking to Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa and others in the Congress in order to get something on drug pricing done, and done properly. I am calling for bipartisan legislation that achieves the goal of dramatically lowering prescription drug prices. Get a bill to my desk, and I will sign it into law without delay.

With unyielding commitment, we are curbing the opioid epidemic — drug overdose deaths declined for the first time in nearly 30 years. Among the States hardest hit, Ohio is down 22 percent, Pennsylvania is down 18 percent, Wisconsin is down 10 percent — and we will not quit until we have beaten the opioid epidemic once and for all.

Protecting Americans’ health also means fighting infectious diseases. We are coordinating with the Chinese government and working closely together on the Coronavirus outbreak in China. My Administration will take all necessary steps to safeguard our citizens from this threat.

We have launched ambitious new initiatives to substantially improve care for Americans with kidney disease, Alzheimer’s, and those struggling with mental health challenges. And because the Congress funded my request, we are pursuing new cures for childhood cancer, and we will eradicate the AIDS epidemic in America by the end of the decade.

Almost every American family knows the pain when a loved one is diagnosed with a serious illness. Here tonight is a special man, someone beloved by millions of Americans who just received a Stage 4 advanced cancer diagnosis. This is not good news, but what is good news is that he is the greatest fighter and winner that you will ever meet. Rush Limbaugh: Thank you for your decades of tireless devotion to our country. Rush, in recognition of all that you have done for our Nation, the millions of people a day that you speak to and inspire, and all of the incredible work that you have done for charity, I am proud to announce tonight that you will be receiving our country’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. I will now ask the First Lady of the United States to please stand and present you with the honor. Rush, Kathryn, congratulations!

As we pray for all who are sick, we know that America is constantly achieving new medical breakthroughs. In 2017, doctors at St. Luke’s hospital in Kansas City delivered one of the earliest premature babies ever to survive. Born at just 21 weeks and 6 days, and weighing less than a pound, Ellie Schneider was born a fighter. Through the skill of her doctors — and the prayers of her parents — little Ellie kept on winning the battle for life. Today, Ellie is a strong, healthy 2-year-old girl sitting with her amazing mother Robin in the gallery. Ellie and Robin: We are so glad you are here.

2. Fascinating how much Pelosi overlooked in the SOTU speech where the President mentioned the child tax credit, the one trillion trees initiative, religious liberty (Nancy is always prayerful, so she should have stood and applauded this one) and the Artemis program.

3. The Democrat caucus led by Nancy wanted some positive statements to encourage national unity. Here is what President Trump said:

The American Nation was carved out of the vast frontier by the toughest, strongest, fiercest, and most determined men and women ever to walk the face of the Earth. Our ancestors braved the unknown; tamed the wilderness; settled the Wild West; lifted millions from poverty, disease, and hunger; vanquished tyranny and fascism; ushered the world to new heights of science and medicine; laid down the railroads, dug out canals, raised up the skyscrapers — and, ladies and gentlemen, our ancestors built the most exceptional Republic ever to exist in all of human history. And we are making it greater than ever before!

This is our glorious and magnificent inheritance.

We are Americans. We are the pioneers. We are the pathfinders. We settled the new world, we built the modern world, and we changed history forever by embracing the eternal truth that everyone is made equal by the hand of Almighty God.

America is the place where anything can happen! America is the place where anyone can rise. And here, on this land, on this soil, on this continent, the most incredible dreams come true!

This Nation is our canvas, and this country is our masterpiece. We look at tomorrow and see unlimited frontiers just waiting to be explored. Our brightest discoveries are not yet known. Our most thrilling stories are not yet told. Our grandest journeys are not yet made. The American Age, the American Epic, the American Adventure, has only just begun!

Our spirit is still young; the sun is still rising; God’s grace is still shining; and my fellow Americans, the best is yet to come!

Thank you. God Bless You. God Bless America.

'Pelosi disgraced herself': GOP outraged by Pelosi ripping ...

*** So, where is this manifesto of lies Speaker? You tore pages where real people, real names, real events were printed. You struck at the heart of benevolence and ‘God’s grace is still shining’.

By the way, it could be that Pelosi broke the law by ripping the speech document. She tore the official House copy that contains the presidential signature and seal. 18 U.S.C. 2071 (b)

(a)

Whoever willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, or destroys, or attempts to do so, or, with intent to do so takes and carries away any record, proceeding, map, book, paper, document, or other thing, filed or deposited with any clerk or officer of any court of the United States, or in any public office, or with any judicial or public officer of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.
(b)

Whoever, having the custody of any such record, proceeding, map, book, document, paper, or other thing, willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies, or destroys the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both; and shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States. As used in this subsection, the term “office” does not include the office held by any person as a retired officer of the Armed Forces of the United States.
Kevin McCarthy, the House Minority Leader went to the White House today, had the President print off another copy of the SOTU speech, sign it, seal it and McCarthy delivered it to the Clerk of the House.

Brace for More Political Plotting Impact

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The question now is will Speaker Pelosi approve yet another impeachment inquiry operation against President Trump now that the president has been acquitted in the Senate trial on both articles of impeachment.

Listening to Congressmen Schiff and Nadler, they tell us that investigations will continue placing emphasis on future testimonies of former White House Counsel Don McGhan, former White House National Security Council advisor John Bolton and the court decision on the matter of full release of Trump’s tax returns. Further, BuzzFeed, CNN and the House have issued subpoenas for documents held sequestered by the Mueller investigation team.

In short, there is more going on with regard to the resistance movement against President Trump.

Are there counter-measures to possibly stop this constant political adventure? The short answer is yes.

There are many ramps that can be taken if not all. Senator Lindsey Graham pledged continued investigation into all things Biden. Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani is at work on all things Biden, Ukraine and operatives in Washington DC. There are also a few key Senators, namely Grassley and Johnson that are requesting documents from the National Archives, travel documents, electronic communications and other evidence as they relate to the meeting(s) in the Obama White House that hatched the operation on protecting several within his administration relating to Ukraine, Biden and other DNC personnel and diplomats.

Rand Paul Puts Up Billboard On Floor Of Senate With Eric ...

Indeed there are other real key items underway including Senator Rand Paul pursuing Eric Ciaramella. It appears he is not going to let up and rightly so.

There is the case involving former FBI officials, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. Then we cannot overlook the most awaited case that U.S. Attorney John Durham has in his sphere, investigating all things related to Crossfire Hurricane, the dossier, the DNC, Hillary Clinton, Perkin Coie, Marc Elias and foreign interference.

We may soon know more as to the roles Victoria Nuland, John Kerry, Susan Rice, Ben Rhodes, James Comey, Loretta Lynch had during this almost forgotten nightmare.

Prosecutor Who Unraveled Corruption in Boston Turns to C.I ... source

Without any real media notice due to impeachment operations is that John Durham brought on a new well respected criminal attorney, Sarah Karwan. Her specialty is financial fraud, money laundering, public corruption and national security/cyber crime. The status is unclear at this point in the investigation relating to Kevin Clinesmith, the former FBI lawyer that altered a document used in the FISA warrant applications on Carter Page. A great deal of evidence was brought forth in the Horowitz Inspector General report and it is noted that IG Horowitz is collaborating with the Durham team and the Senate team led by Lindsey Graham. We cannot forget several others under scrutiny including Stephan Halper, John Brennan and James Clapper. Where is Joseph Mifsud? Only John Durham knows as there is testimony from Mifsud or about him acquired by Durham during Durham’s travels to Italy.

Who really needs to brace for impact? Nancy, Adam, Gerry, Barack, Joe……

Suspicious Facts Behind the Iowa App

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Remember when Hillary Clinton said nobody liked Bernie Sanders?

Remember when Hillary Clinton claimed Tulsi Gabbard was a Russian operative?

As the country waits for the first caucus results from Iowa, there are some very suspicious details behind this reporting app that you, the reader should know. Caucus chaos may have been human error with coding or possibly all purposeful….you be the judge as you read on.

Iowa Caucus Rules Change Could Produce Three Winners

The Iowa Democratic Party declined to allow officials at the Department of Homeland Security to vet the app intended to tally the votes during Monday’s botched first-of-the-nation caucuses. (remember when the Hillary presidential campaign refused FBI access to server log-ins due to foreign cyber penetrations)

Troy Price, the chair of the Iowa Democratic Party, said in a statement on Tuesday morning that officials have “every indication” the app was not hacked, noting the systems were tested by independent cybersecurity consultants prior to the caucuses on Monday. But, he said there were “inconsistencies” in the results, the underlying cause of which was “coding issues.”

*** Iowa Democratic Caucus Results Delayed by Technology ...

The app, according to several news reports, was developed by the secretive for-profit tech firm Shadow Inc., which has ties to and receives funding from ACRONYM, a Democratic digital non-profit organization. Shadow’s CEO is Gerard Niemira, who worked on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.

“State campaign finance records indicate the Iowa Democratic Party paid Shadow… more than $60,000 for ‘website development’ over two installments in November and December of last year,” HuffPost reported late Monday. “A Democratic source with knowledge of the process said those payments were for the app that caucus site leaders were supposed to use to upload the results at their locales.”

Shadow has also been paid for services by the Nevada Democratic Party and the presidential campaigns of former Vice President Joe Biden and former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, according to Federal Election Commission filings.

Democratic Party officials kept the details of the app as well as Shadow’s involvement hidden from the public ahead of the Iowa caucus. But as Monday night wore on and frustration with the delayed reporting of the caucus results boiled over, journalists began scrutinizing the new technology and its developer more closely.

The New York Times, citing anonymous people who were briefed on the app by Iowa Democratic Party officials, reported that the app was hastily constructed in just two months and “not properly tested at a statewide scale.”

In a statement released in the early hours of Tuesday morning, ACRONYM spokesperson Kyle Tharpe attempted to distance his group from Shadow’s technology.

“ACRONYM is an investor in several for-profit companies across the progressive media and technology sectors,” said Tharpe. “One of those independent, for-profit companies is Shadow Inc., which also has other private investors. We are reading confirmed reports of Shadow’s work with the Iowa Democratic Party on Twitter, and we, like everyone else, are eagerly awaiting more information from the Iowa Democratic Party with respect to what happened.”

***

An app created by a tech firm run by veterans of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign is taking heat for the unprecedented delay in reporting Democratic caucus results from Iowa. The company wasfounded in 2017 “to educate, inspire, register, and mobilize voters,” according to its website. Shadow started out as Groundbase, a tech developer co-founded by Gerard Niemira and Krista Davis, who worked for the tech team on Clinton’s campaign for the 2016 Democratic nomination.

Niemira had previously worked at kiva.org, a nonprofit that makes loans to entrepreneurs and others in the developing world, and Davis had spent eight years as an engineer at Google. ACRONYM’s founder and CEO is Tara McGowan, a former journalist and digital producer with President Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign.

There were signs of trouble with the app even before Monday night. Opportunities to train on the app in advance of caucus night did not bode well, Grennan said.

“They had all these issues,” he said. “We were supposed to be getting invitations to use it. The invites would never arrive.” The communications he did receive were confusing, he said.

When the big night came, Grennan, who was running the caucus site at Grinnell College, said the app appeared to be working as he input results, but he couldn’t tell with certainty.

“I kept getting kicked off,” Grennan said, adding that the app would reset if stopped part-way through. He decided to call the party’s hotline with a question, but after nearly half an hour on hold, he gave up. “I’m 90% sure it went through [on the app.] I’ll have to work under the assumption that if it’s not there, they’re going to call me.”

Among Shadow’s clients is Pete Buttegieg’s presidential campaign, which paid $42,500 to the firm in July 2019 for “software rights and subscriptions,” according to disclosures to the FEC. A spokesman for the campaign says the payment was for a service used to send text messages to voters. The campaigns of Joe Biden and Kirsten Gillibrand, who withdrew from the race last year, also made smaller payments to Shadow. More from the LATimes.

The Hack of the UN was a Secret

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A secret espionage hack actually. 40 servers; 400GB of data; administrator accounts; out of date cyber protections systems

Building A and Flags, The United Nations Office at Geneva ...  UN/Geneva

Leaked report shows United Nations suffered hack UN/Vienna

GENEVA (AP) — Sophisticated hackers infiltrated U.N. networks in Geneva and Vienna last year in an apparent espionage operation that top officials at the world body kept largely quiet. The hackers’ identity and the extent of the data they obtained are not known.

An internal confidential document from the United Nations, leaked to The New Humanitarian and seen by The Associated Press, says dozens of servers were compromised including at the U.N. human rights office, which collects sensitive data and has often been a lightning rod of criticism from autocratic governments for exposing rights abuses.

Everything indicates knowledge of the breach was closely held, a strategy that information security experts consider misguided because it only multiplies the risks of further data hemorrhaging.

“Staff at large, including me, were not informed,” said Geneva-based Ian Richards, president of the Staff Council at the United Nations. “All we received was an email (on Sept. 26) informing us about infrastructure maintenance work.” The council advocates for the welfare of employees of the world body.

Asked about the intrusion, one U.N. official told the AP it appeared “sophisticated” with the extent of damage unclear, especially in terms of personal, secret or compromising information that may have been stolen. The official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity to speak freely about the episode, said systems have since been reinforced.

Given the high skill level, it is possible a state-backed actor was behind it, the official said. “It’s as if someone were walking in the sand, and swept up their tracks with a broom afterward,” the official added. “There’s not even a trace of a clean-up.”

The leaked Sept. 20 report says logs that would have betrayed the hackers’ activities inside the U.N. networks — what was accessed and what may have been siphoned out — were “cleared.” It also shows that among accounts known to have been accessed were those of domain administrators — who by default have master access to all user accounts in their purview.

“Sadly … still counting our casualties,” the report says.

Jake Williams, CEO of the cybersecurity firm Rendition Infosec and a former U.S. government hacker, said the fact that the hackers cleared the network logs indicates they were not top flight. The most skilled hackers — including U.S., Russian and Chinese agents — can cover their tracks by editing those logs instead of clearing them.

“The intrusion definitely looks like espionage,” said Williams, noting that the active directory component — where all users’ permissions are managed — from three different domains were compromised: those of United Nations offices in Geneva and Vienna and of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

“This, coupled with the relatively small number of infected machines, is highly suggestive of espionage,” he said after viewing the report. “The attackers have a goal in mind and are deploying malware to machines that they believe serve some purpose for them.”

The U.N. is known to have been trying to patch its myriad IT systems for years, and Williams said any number of intelligence agencies from around the globe are likely interested in infiltrating it.

The hack was not severe at the U.N. human rights office, said its spokesman, Rupert Colville. “We face daily attempts to get into our computer systems,” he said. “This time, they managed, but it did not get very far. Nothing confidential was compromised.”

Clearly concerned that word of the hack could have a chilling effect on people reporting human rights violations to it, the office said in a statement issued later that it wanted to “assure all concerned parties” no sensitive information was compromised.

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said earlier Wednesday that attack was “serious,” compromised “core infrastructure components” and was contained. T he earliest activity appeared to have come in July and was detected in August, he said in response to emailed questions. He said the world body does not have enough information to determine the author but added that “the methods and tools used in the attack indicate a high level of resource, capability and determination.”

Dujarric noted that the U.N. “detects and responds to multiple attacks of various level of sophistication on a daily basis.”

Peter Micek, general counsel of the digital civil liberties nonprofit AccessNow, said U.N. leadership made a “terrible decision” from an information-security standpoint by denying staff information about the breach.

“It’s best practice to alert people, let them know what they should look out for (including phishing attacks and social engineering) and inform them of what steps are being taken on their behalf,” he said.

Otherwise, you are compounding the threat, and a missed opportunity for a teaching moment becomes an example of “intransigence and obfuscation, which is unfortunate,” said Micek, who works with U.N. human rights workers to shore up their cyber-defenses.

The internal document from the U.N. Office of Information and Technology said 42 servers were “compromised” and another 25 were deemed “suspicious,” nearly all at the sprawling Geneva and Vienna offices. Three of the “compromised” servers belonged to Human Rights agency, which is located across town from the main U.N. office in Geneva, and two were used by the U.N. Economic Commission for Europe.

The report says a flaw in Microsoft’s SharePoint software was exploited by the hackers to infiltrate the networks but that the type of malware used was not known, nor had technicians identified the command and control servers on the internet used to exfiltrate information. Nor was it known what mechanism was used by the hackers to maintain their presence on the infiltrated networks.

Security researcher Matt Suiche, the Dubai-based founder of the cybersecurity firm Comae Technologies, reviewed the report and said it appeared entry was gained through an anti-corruption tracker at the U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime.

The report mentions a range of IP addresses in Romania that may have been used to stage the infiltration, and Williams said one is reported to have some neighbors with a history of hosting malware.

Technicians at the United Nations office in Geneva, the world body’s European hub, on at least two occasions worked through weekends in recent months to isolate the local U.N. data center from the i nternet, re-write passwords and ensure the systems were clean. Twenty machines had to be rebuilt, the report says.

The hack comes amid rising concerns about cyber espionage.

Last week, U.N. human rights experts asked the U.S. government to investigate a suspected Saudi hack that may have siphoned data from the personal smartphone of Jeff Bezos, the Amazon founder and owner of The Washington Post, in 2018. On Tuesday, the online civil rights sleuths at Citizen Lab published a report on the attempted hack of the T he New York Times’s bureau chief in Beirut, Ben Hubbard, about the same time by a Saudi-linked group.

The U.N. human rights office is particularly sensitive, and could be a tempting target. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet and her predecessors have denounced alleged war crimes, crimes against humanity and in places as d iverse as Syria, Venezuela, Myanmar and Saudi Arabia.

Richards, of the U.N. Staff Council, complained of uncertainty over the safety of U.N. networks. “There’s a lot of our data that could have been hacked, and we don’t know what that data could be,” he said.

“How much should U.N. staff trust the information infrastructure the U.N. is providing them?” Richards asked. “Or should they start putting their information elsewhere?”

The Detailed Iran Coverup of Ukraine Plane Struck by a Missile

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(AP) — A leaked recording of an exchange between an Iranian air-traffic controller and an Iranian pilot purports to show that authorities immediately knew a missile had downed a Ukrainian jetliner after takeoff from Tehran, killing all 176 people aboard, despite days of denials by the Islamic Republic.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy acknowledged the recording’s authenticity in a report aired by a Ukrainian television channel on Sunday night.

In Tehran on Monday, the head of the Iranian investigation team, Hassan Rezaeifar, acknowledged the recording was legitimate and said that it was handed over to Ukrainian officials. A transcript of the recording, published by Ukrainian 1+1 TV channel, contains a conversation in Farsi between an air-traffic controller and a pilot reportedly flying a Fokker 100 jet for Iran’s Aseman Airlines from Iran’s southern city of Shiraz to Tehran.

“A series of lights like … yes, it is a missile, is there something?” the pilot calls out to the controller.

“No, how many miles? Where?” the controller asks.

The pilot responds that he saw the light by the Payam airport, near where the Guard’s Tor M-1 anti-aircraft missile was launched from. The controller says nothing has been reported to them, but the pilot remains insistent.

“It is the light of a missile,” the pilot says.

“Don’t you see anything anymore?” the controller asks.

“Dear engineer, it was an explosion. We saw a very big light there, I don’t really know what it was,” the pilot responds.

The controller then tries to contract the Ukrainian jetliner, but unsuccessfully.

Publicly accessible flight-tracking radar information suggests the Aseman Airlines aircraft, flight No. 3768, was close enough to Tehran to see the blast.

Iran’s Guard Accepts Responsibility for Plane Shootdown

In part from the NYT’s: Around midnight on Jan. 7, as Iran was preparing to launch a ballistic-missile attack on American military posts in Iraq, senior members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps deployed mobile antiaircraft defense units around a sensitive military area near Tehran’s Imam Khomeini Airport.

Iran was about to retaliate for the American drone strike that had killed Iran’s top military commander, Gen. Qassim Suleimani, in Baghdad five days earlier, and the military was bracing for an American counterstrike. The armed forces were on “at war” status, the highest alert level.

But in a tragic miscalculation, the government continued to allow civilian commercial flights to land and take off from the Tehran airport.Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the Guards’ Aerospace Force, said later that his units had asked officials in Tehran to close Iran’s airspace and ground all flights, to no avail.

Iranian officials feared that shutting down the airport would create mass panic that war with the United States was imminent, members of the Guards and other officials told The Times. They also hoped that the presence of passenger jets could act as a deterrent against an American attack on the airport or the nearby military base, effectively turning planeloads of unsuspecting travelers into human shields.
After Iran’s missile attack began, the central air defense command issued an alert that American warplanes had taken off from the United Arab Emirates and that cruise missiles were headed toward Iran.

The officer on the missile launcher near the airport heard the warnings but did not hear a later message that the cruise missile alert was a false alarm.

The warning about American warplanes may have also been wrong. United States military officials have said that no American planes were in or near Iranian airspace that night.

When the officer spotted the Ukrainian jet, he sought permission to fire. But he was unable to communicate with his commanders because the network had been disrupted or jammed, General Hajizadeh said later.The officer, who has not been publicly identified, fired two missiles, less than 30 seconds apart.

General Hajizadeh, who was in western Iran supervising the attack on the Americans, received a phone call with the news.

“I called the officials and told them this has happened and it’s highly possible we hit our own plane,” he said later in a televised statement.General Hajizadeh advised the generals not to tell the rank-and-file air defense units for fear that it could hamper their ability to react quickly if the United States did attack.

“It was for the benefit of our national security because then our air defense system would be compromised,” Mr. Hajizadeh said in an interview with Iranian news media this week. “The ranks would be suspicious of everything.”The military leaders created a secret investigative committee drawn from the Guards’ aerospace forces, from the army’s air defense, and from intelligence and cyberexperts. The committee and the officers involved in the shooting were sequestered and ordered not to speak to anyone.

The committee examined data from the airport, the flight path, radar networks, and alerts and messages from the missile operator and central command. Witnesses — the officer who had pulled the trigger, his supervisors and everyone involved — were interrogated for hours.

The group also investigated the possibility that the United States or Israel may have hacked Iran’s defense system or jammed the airwaves.Senior commanders discussed keeping the shooting secret until the plane’s black boxes — the flight data and cockpit voice recorders — were examined and formal aviation investigations completed, according to members of the Guards, diplomats and officials with knowledge of the deliberations. That process could take months, they argued, and it would buy time to manage the domestic and international fallout that would ensue when the truth came out.

The government had violently crushed an anti-government uprising in November. But the American killing of General Suleimani, followed by the strikes against the United States, had turned public opinion around. Iranians were galvanized in a moment of national unity.

The authorities feared that admitting to shooting down the passenger plane would undercut that momentum and prompt a new wave of anti-government protests.

“They advocated covering it up because they thought the country couldn’t handle more crisis,” said a ranking member of the Guards who, like others interviewed for this article, spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. “At the end, safeguarding the Islamic Republic is our ultimate goal, at any cost.”

That evening, the spokesman for the Joint Armed Forces, Brig. Gen. Abolfazl Shekarchi, told Iranian news media that suggestions that missiles struck the plane were “an absolute lie.”

Why did Iran lie about shooting down the Ukrainian plane ...  source, Aljizeera
On Thursday, as Ukrainian investigators began to arrive in Tehran, Western officials were saying publicly that they had evidence that Iran had accidentally shot down the plane.A chorus of senior Iranian officials — from the director of civil aviation to the chief government spokesman — issued statement after statement rejecting the allegations, their claims amplified on state media.

The suggestion that Iran would shoot down a passenger plane was a “Western plot,” they said, “psychological warfare” aimed at weakening Iran just as it had exercised its military muscle against the United States.

But in private, government officials were alarmed and questioning whether there was any truth to the Western claims. Mr. Rouhani, a seasoned military strategist himself, and his foreign minister, Javad Zarif, deflected phone calls from world leaders and foreign ministers seeking answers. Ignorant of what their own military had done, they had none to give.

Domestically, public pressure was building for the government to address the allegations.

Among the plane’s passengers were some of Iran’s best and brightest. They included prominent scientists and physicians, dozens of Iran’s top young scholars and graduates of elite universities, and six gold and silver medal winners of international physics and math Olympiads.

There were two newlywed couples who had traveled from Canada to Tehran for their weddings just days earlier. There were families and young children.

Their relatives demanded answers. Iranian social media began to explode with emotional commentary, some accusing Iran of murdering its own citizens and others calling such allegations treason.

Persian-language satellite channels operating from abroad, the main source of news for most Iranians, broadcast blanket coverage of the crash, including reports from Western governments that Iran had shot down the plane.

Mr. Rouhani tried several times to call military commanders, officials said, but they did not return his calls. Members of his government called their contacts in the military and were told the allegations were false. Iran’s civil aviation agency called military officials with similar results.

“Thursday was frantic,” Ali Rabiei, the government spokesman, said later in a news conference. “The government made back-to-back phone calls and contacted the armed forces asking what happened, and the answer to all the questions was that no missile had been fired.”
On Friday morning, Mr. Rabiei issued a statement saying the allegation that Iran had shot down the plane was “a big lie.”

Several hours later, the nation’s top military commanders called a private meeting and told Mr. Rouhani the truth.

Mr. Rouhani was livid, according to officials close to him. He demanded that Iran immediately announce that it had made a tragic mistake and accept the consequences.

The military officials pushed back, arguing that the fallout could destabilize the country.

Mr. Rouhani threatened to resign.

Canada, which had the most foreign citizens on board the plane, and the United States, which as Boeing’s home country was invited to investigate the crash, would eventually reveal their evidence, Mr. Rouhani said. The damage to Iran’s reputation and the public trust in the government would create an enormous crisis at a time when Iran could not bear more pressure.

As the standoff escalated, a member of Ayatollah Khamenei’s inner circle who was in the meeting informed the supreme leader. The ayatollah sent a message back to the group, ordering the government to prepare a public statement acknowledging what had happened.

Mr. Rouhani briefed a few senior members of his government. They were rattled.Mr. Abdi said the government’s actions had gone “far beyond” just a lie.

“There was a systematic cover-up at the highest levels that makes it impossible to get out of this crisis,” he said.

Iran’s National Security Council held an emergency meeting and drafted two statements, the first to be issued by the Joint Armed Forces followed by a second one from Mr. Rouhani.

As they debated the wording, some suggested claiming that the United States or Israel may have contributed to the accident by jamming Iran’s radars or hacking its communications networks.

But the military commanders opposed it. General Hajizadeh said the shame of human error paled compared with admitting his air defense system was vulnerable to hacking by the enemy.

Iran’s Civil Aviation Agency later said that it had found no evidence of jamming or hacking.