Category Archives: FBI

Trump Admin Imposes More Sanctions on Iran

Posted on by

I can think of a few that are missing, but this is a good start.

Primer: For context on Iranian activities/ Azadeh deplaned, exited customs and collected her bags. Suddenly, according to Azadeh, she was encircled by five agents of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard (IRGC), who informed her of her arrest on national security grounds. Her belongings were confiscated. She was handcuffed, blindfolded and pushed into the back seat of a car, where a female IRGC agent forced her to rest her head in the agent’s lap to avoid detection. “Where are we going?” Azadeh asked, as they sped through Tehran. “Evin Prison,” her captor replied. And here began Azadeh’s months-long nightmare in the fetid dungeons of the Islamic Republic. Read more here. (It is a must read)

Barbaric attack on Iran’s political prisoners draws ... photo

Washington – Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated two Iranian entities for committing serious human rights abuses on behalf of the Government of Iran, as well as three leaders of one of these entities, the Ansar-e Hizballah organization.  Additionally, OFAC designated an entity that has operated information or communications technology that facilitates monitoring or tracking that could assist or enable serious human rights abuses by or on behalf of the Government of Iran.  Finally, OFAC designated two individuals for engaging in censorship activities that prohibit, limit, or penalize the exercise of freedom of expression or assembly by citizens of Iran, and one individual for acting for or on behalf of an entity engaged in such censorship activities.  These designations come in the wake of recent protests by the Iranian people and the regime’s subsequent brutal crackdown.

“Iran not only exports terrorism and instability across the world, it routinely violates the rights of its own people.  The Iranian regime diverts national resources that should belong to the people to fund a massive and expensive censorship apparatus and suppress free speech,” said Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin.  “Those who speak out against the regime’s mismanagement and corruption are subject to abuse and mistreatment in Iran’s prisons.  America stands with the people of Iran, and Treasury is taking action to hold the Iranian regime accountable for ongoing human rights abuses, censorship, and other despicable acts it commits against its own citizens.”

Today’s actions target the Iranian regime’s repression of its own people and the suppression of their freedoms of speech, expression, and peaceful assembly.  As President Trump emphasized in his May 8, 2018 announcement of his decision to cease the United States’ participation in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the United States will not allow Iran’s malign behavior to go unchecked.  These actions show a desire to hold malicious actors accountable for their actions even as they try to hide from international scrutiny.

Ansar-e Hizballah and Associated Individuals

OFAC is designating Ansar-e Hizballah for its role in serious human rights abuses in Iran.  Additionally, OFAC designated three individuals for acting for or on behalf of the organization. Ansar-e Hizballah was designated pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13553 for being an official of the Government of Iran or a person acting on behalf of the Government of Iran (including members of paramilitary organizations) who is responsible for or complicit in, or responsible for ordering, controlling, or otherwise directing, the commission of serious human rights abuses against persons in Iran or Iranian citizens or residents, or the family members of the foregoing.

Ansar-e Hizballah has been involved in the violent suppression of Iranian citizens and has collaborated with the Basij to violently attack Iranian students with knives, tear gas, and electric batons.  The Basij Resistance Force was designated pursuant to E.O. 13553 on June 9, 2011 for committing serious human rights abuses in Iran.

An organization supported by the Iranian regime that harasses and attacks the Iranian people, Ansar-e Hizballah has been linked to acid attacks against women in the city of Isfahan.  Multiple women who were not dressed in accordance with the regime’s standards had acid thrown at them, severely injuring them and creating a climate of fear.

Abdolhamid Mohtasham is being designated pursuant to E.O. 13553 for acting for or on behalf of Ansar-e Hizballah.  As a founding member and key leader of the group, Abdolhamid Mohtasham plays a significant role in overseeing the group’s actions.  He has threatened to use Ansar-e Hizballah to patrol Iranian streets and attack women whom he deems to be unvirtuous.

Hossein Allahkaram is being designated pursuant to E.O. 13553 for acting for or on behalf of Ansar-e Hizballah.  In 2011 the European Union sanctioned Hossein Allahkaram for co-founding and leading Ansar-e Hezbollah, noting that under his leadership the group used extreme violence during multiple crackdowns on student protestors.

Lastly, Hamid Ostad is being designated pursuant to E.O. 13553 for acting for or on behalf of Ansar-e Hizballah.  Hamid Ostad, who founded the Mashhad branch of Ansar-e Hizballah, was implicated in a mob attack against the Saudi Arabia Consulate in Mashhad.

Evin Prison

OFAC is designating Evin Prison pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13553 for being a person acting on behalf of the Government of Iran (including members of paramilitary organizations) who is responsible for or complicit in, or responsible for ordering, controlling, or otherwise directing, the commission of serious human rights abuses against persons in Iran or Iranian citizens or residents, or the family members of the foregoing.

Prisoners held at Evin Prison are subject to brutal tactics inflicted by prison authorities, including sexual assaults, physical assaults, and electric shock.  Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) maintain permanent wards in Evin Prison where they hold political prisoners.  And while senior regime officials regularly downplay the torture and abuse that occurs in Evin Prison, the abuse of prisoners, including political prisoners, continues once sham inspections into the prison conditions end.

Iran’s MOIS was designated pursuant to E.O. 13553 on February 16, 2012 for committing serious human rights abuses in Iran.  The IRGC was designated pursuant to Executive Order 13553 on June 9, 2011 for committing serious human rights abuses in Iran.

Hanista Programming Group

OFAC is designating Iran-based Hanista Programing Group pursuant to E.O. 13606 for having operated, or having directed the operation of, information and communications technology that facilitates computer or network disruption, monitoring, or tracking that could assist in or enable serious human rights abuses by or on behalf of the Government of Iran.

Hanista Programing Group is responsible for creating and distributing alternative versions of the popular messaging and social media application Telegram that facilitate the Iranian regime’s monitoring and tracking of Iranian and international users.

Hanista Programing Group developed two social media applications called Mobogram and MoboPlus and embedded malicious content in them that facilitates the monitoring and tracking of Iranian citizens.  This monitoring and tracking functionality could assist or enable serious human rights abuses by the Government of Iran, including the IRGC and MOIS.

Designation of Two Iranian Regime Officials for Censorship Activities

OFAC is designating Abolhassan Firouzabadi and Abdolsamad Khoramabadi pursuant to E.O. 13628 for having engaged in censorship or other activities with respect to Iran that prohibit, limit, or penalize the exercise of freedom of expression or peaceful assembly by citizens of Iran, or that limit access to print or broadcast media.

Abolhassan Firouzabadi is responsible for the Iranian government’s efforts to block social media applications like Telegram and to force Iranians to use state-run applications that are monitored by the regime.  As the Secretary of Iran’s Supreme Council of Cyberspace, Abolhassan Firouzabadi heads the country’s top Internet policymaking body and oversees the regime’s attempts to censor speech and media.

The Supreme Council of Cyberspace was designated pursuant to E.O. 13628 on January 12, 2018.

As the Secretary of the Committee to Determine Instances of Criminal Content, Abdolsamad Khoramabadi has overseen the filtering and blocking of political content during elections.  In 2017, Abdolsamad Khoramabadi tasked the Basij to lead the regime’s crackdown on cyber activity, and claimed that the country had thousands of monitors to report violations of websites and social media networks.

The Committee to Determine Instances of Criminal Content was designated pursuant to E.O. 13628 on May 30, 2013.

Designation of the Director of Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB)

Lastly, OFAC is designating Abdulali Ali-Asgari pursuant to E.O. 13628 for acting for or on behalf of IRIB.

Abdulali Ali-Asgari is the current Director General of IRIB and has acted on behalf of the organization, including representing the organization in international for a.

The IRIB was designated pursuant to E.O. 13628 on February 6, 2013 for restricting or denying the free flow of information to or from the Iranian people.  IRIB was implicated in censoring multiple media outlets and airing forced confessions from political detainees.

As a result of these actions, all property and interests in property of the persons designated today that are in the United States or in the possession or control of U.S. persons must be blocked and reported to OFAC, and U.S. persons are generally prohibited from engaging in transactions with such persons.  In addition, foreign financial institutions that knowingly facilitate significant transactions for, or persons that provide material or certain other support to, the individuals and entities designated today risk exposure to sanctions that could sever their access to the U.S. financial system or block their property and interests in property subject to U.S. jurisdiction.

Identifying information on the individuals and entities designated today.

####

Chinese Spy Networks in Britain and United States

Posted on by

The agents are thought to have handed over secrets while still in service for France’s external DGSE intelligence agency, similar to Britain’s MI6 and America’s CIA, Ms Parly told CNews television. The third person – believed to be the wife – has been indicted for “concealment of treasonable crimes” and placed under “judicial control”, meaning judges keep close tabs on her pending trial. More here.

France arrests two spies for passing secrets to China photo

France has confirmed the arrest of two French intelligence officers who are accused of spying for the Chinese government. It appears that the two officers were captured and charged in December. However, their arrests were not publicized at the time, because French counterintelligence officials wanted to avoid alerting more members of a possible spy ring, which some say may include up to five French citizens. It was only last Friday, a day after French media published leaked reports of the arrests, that the French government spoke publicly about the case.

France’s Minister of the Armed Forces, Florence Parly, told France’s CNews television on Friday that two French intelligence officers were “accused of extremely serious acts of treason” against the French state. The two officers had been charged with delivering classified information to a foreign power”, she said. Parly added that the spouse of one of the officers was also being investigated for participating in acts of espionage on behalf of a foreign country. When asked to identify the country that the two officers are accused of spying for, the minister refused to respond. But the Agence France Presse news agency cited an anonymous “security source”, who said that the two intelligence officers were being suspected of spying for China and that they had been captured following a sting operation by French counterintelligence officers.

French television station TFI1 said on Friday that both spy suspects are officers in the General Directorate of External Security (DGSE), France’s primary external intelligence agency. The station added that at least one of the two suspects was stationed at the embassy of France in Beijing when French counterintelligence became aware of the alleged espionage. According to some reports, the two suspects had retired from the DGSE by the time they were arrested, but committed their alleged espionage while still in the service of the spy agency. French government officials have refused to provide information about the length of the alleged espionage or the nature of the classified information believed to have been compromised. Additionally, no information is available about whether the two alleged spies were working in cooperation with each other. The BBC asked China last week about the arrests in France, but the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it was not aware of the incident.

*** As a reminder, the United States has it’s own Chinese spy network. Jerry Chun Shing Lee was charged with aiding China dismantle a U.S. informant network in China in exchange for money. He has plead not guilty.

a man smiling for the camera © Provided by South China Morning Post Publishers Limited

It was this past February that FBI Director Chris Wray provided testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee that Chinese spies have fully infiltrated U.S. universities. Additionally, China continues to gain access and in many cases successfully, of U.S. technologies and intellectual properties through telecommunications companies, academia and most especially with joint business adventures.

China has launched an ‘all society’ approach to gain access to intellectual property and some universities are pushing back on the warnings put forth by Director Wray as there are an estimated 400,000 Chinese students studying in the United States, many attending cash strapped colleges.

China Annexed the DPRK, C’mon Admit it, China is an Adversary

Posted on by

Primer: The Fiscal 2019 NDAA includes impose a ban on technology products from Chinese firms such as ZTE and Huawei. Yet, North Korea has it courtesy of China.

And:

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) is issued this advisory to further alert financial institutions to North Korean schemes being used to evade U.S. and United Nations (UN) sanctions, launder funds, and finance the North Korean regime’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and ballistic
missile programs.

Private companies in China are not private at all. The Chinese state holds at least some stock and often a larger voting block. Private Chinese companies invests all over the world including Venezuela, United States, Britain as well as regions such as Latin America and Africa.

You can bet most of those companies in North Korea are actually owned by the Chinese State.

China does bad things and yet no world leader publicly states that fact nor declares China is an adversary while China has declared the United States as an adversary. President Xi, the now eternal ruler quotes a dynasty cliche ‘Tǒngzhì yīqiè zài yángguāng xià’, translation is rule everything under the sun.

So now we have ZTE: ZTE, once the scourge of U.S. authorities for its violations of Iran sanctions, has become a key source of evidence about North Korea’s use of the American financial system to launder money, said the people, who gave details about the confidential investigations on the condition of anonymity. Federal investigators have been poring through data supplied by ZTE to find links to companies that North Korea has used to tap into the U.S. banking system, the people said.

Using evidence from ZTE, prosecutors on June 14 filed a case seeking $1.9 million held in six U.S. bank accounts in the name of China’s Mingzheng International Trading Limited. Prosecutors allege that Mingzheng is a front company for a covert Chinese branch of North Korea’s state-run Foreign Trade Bank. Between October and November 2015, Mingzheng was a counterparty to 20 illicit wire transfers in violation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, according to prosecutors.

On Aug. 22, prosecutors in Washington filed a lawsuit seeking more than $4 million in funds tied to China’s Dandong Chengtai Trading Limited and a network of companies owned by Chi Yupeng, a Chinese national with close ties to North Korea’s military. That same day, the Treasury Department added Dandong Chengtai Trading and several of its business affiliates, as well as Mingzheng, to the sanctions list. More here.

During the negotiations for the talks between Kim Jung Un and President Trump, ZTE was thrown in the mix. Why? China made some demands during recent trade talks. It was just announced that Trump imposed a $1.5 billion fine on ZTE and relayed that to President Xi. More negotiations and the final fine was $1.3 billion and alter the Board members of ZTE, which means that China state cannot have any management or vote. China will skirt that too. How so?

AEI explained it for us and quite well.

One of the substantial challenges in curtailing North Korea’s nuclear program is preventing Chinese companies from doing business with their pals in Pyongyang. Usually, Chinese companies in North Korea operate through networks of shell companies to avoid falling afoul of US and international sanctions. And most of these companies are small in scope and can easily rebrand themselves if caught. Enter Zhongxing Telecommunications Equipment (ZTE), not a small, expendable subsidiary, but instead a large PRC state-owned enterprise (SOE) with over 74,000 employees.

ZTE has transferred US technology to North Korea, supplying the Kim regime with US telecommunications tech that strengthens its defense capabilities by allowing it indirect access to US semiconductors (dual use technology for communications).  For that and other transgressions — including violating US Iran sanctions — ZTE paid a monster fine and entered into an agreement with the US to cease and desist. It was caught violating that agreement and banned from business with the United States as a result.

But President Trump offered China’s state-owned ZTE a lifeline via a May 13 tweet. Apparently, all that it took was for Chinese President Xi to dangle access for US agriculture exports to China in exchange for allowing ZTE to continue to do business with American firms. For what it’s worth, the president denied intending to lift the sales ban, but then followed up to describe a punishment that includes lifting the sales ban.

What’s Donald Trump’s message to Beijing (and Pyongyang and Tehran)? Companies that matter to China’s top leadership can violate US sanctions with impunity. All it takes is the will to blackmail the US and large Chinese SOEs will have carte blanche to supply the rogue regimes of the world.

Remember, Chinese SOEs that do business with North Korea are not motivated merely by profit. Instead, they are motivated by policy directives that originate in the Chinese Communist Party. Historically, China’s position on North Korea has been fairly opaque, yet its continued trade with the regime indicates Beijing has an interest in its wellbeing, in direct opposition to US interests and overall security in Asia.

At the end of the day, President Trump says he wants to cripple North Korea’s nuclear program. If North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un won’t denuclearize voluntarily, the US will have to rely on “maximum pressure,” including aggressive sanctions. Forgiving ZTE for violating US law is yet another example of the US shooting itself in the foot in dealing with North Korea. And probably not the last.

Meanwhile, as North Korea blew up the tunnels leading to the already destroyed nuclear test site, no one has asked where are those nuclear weapons now? No one has mentioned other possible military dimension sites or missile locations. Just as a reminder:

 

 

FBI Working to Stop Massive Russian Malware Network

Posted on by

Sofacy Cyber-Espionage Group Resurfaces with New Backdoors ...  photo

Cisco’s Talos research unit yesterday reported its discovery of VPNFilter, a modular and stealthy attack that’s assembled a botnet of some five-hundred-thousand devices, mostly routers located in Ukraine. There’s considerable code overlap with the Black Energy malware previously deployed in attacks against Ukrainian targets, and the US Government has attributed the VPNFilter campaign to the Sofacy threat group, a.k.a. Fancy Bear, or Russia’s GRU military intelligence service.
Ukrainian cybersecurity authorities think, and a lot of others agree with them, that Russia was gearing up a major cyberattack to coincide with a soccer League Championship match scheduled this Saturday in Kiev as part of the run-up to the World Cup. They also think it possible an attack could be timed for Ukraine’s Constitution Day, June 28th.
The US FBI has seized a key website used for VPNFilter command-and-control, which US authorities hope will cripple the campaign. The Justice Department says that VPNFilter could be used for “intelligence gathering, theft of valuable information, destructive or disruptive attacks, and the misattribution of such activities.”

***

FBI agents armed with a court order have seized control of a key server in the Kremlin’s global botnet of 500,000 hacked routers, The Daily Beast has learned. The move positions the bureau to build a comprehensive list of victims of the attack, and short-circuits Moscow’s ability to reinfect its targets.

The FBI counter-operation goes after  “VPN Filter,” a piece of sophisticated malware linked to the same Russian hacking group, known as Fancy Bear, that breached the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign during the 2016 election. On Wednesday security researchers at Cisco and Symantec separately provided new details on the malware, which has turned up in 54 countries including the United States.

VPN Filter uses known vulnerabilities to infect home office routers made by Linksys, MikroTik, NETGEAR, and TP-Link. Once in place, the malware reports back to a command-and-control infrastructure that can install purpose-built plug-ins, according to the researchers. One plug-in lets the hackers eavesdrop on the victim’s Internet traffic to steal website credentials; another targets a protocol used in industrial control networks, such as those in the electric grid. A third lets the attacker cripple any or all of the infected devices at will.

The FBI has been investigating the botnet since at least August, according to court records, when agents in Pittsburgh interviewed a local resident whose home router had been infected with the Russian malware. “She voluntarily relinquished her router to the agents,” wrote FBI agent Michael McKeown, in an affidavit filed in federal court. “In addition, the victim allowed the FBI to utilize a network tap on her home network that allowed the FBI to observe the network traffic leaving the home router.”

FBI working to disrupt massive malware network linked to Russia

The FBI is working to disrupt a massive, sophisticated Russia-linked hacking campaign that officials and security researchers say has infected hundreds of thousands of network devices across the globe.

The Justice Department late Wednesday announced an effort to disrupt a botnet known as “VPNFilter” that compromised an estimated 500,000 home and office (SOHO) routers and other network devices. Officials explicitly linked the botnet to the cyber espionage group known as APT 28, or Sofacy, believed to be connected to the Russian government.

Officials said that the U.S. attorney’s office for the western district of Pennsylvania has obtained court orders allowing the FBI to seize a domain that is part of the malware’s command-and-control infrastructure. This will allow officials to redirect attempts by the malware to reinfect devices to an FBI-controlled server, thereby protecting devices from being infected again after rebooting.

Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers in a statement described the effort as the “first step in the disruption of a botnet that provides the Sofacy actors with an array of capabilities that could be used for a variety of malicious purposes, including intelligence gathering, theft of valuable information, destructive or disruptive attacks, and the misattribution of such activities.”

Cybersecurity researchers first began warning of the destructive, sophisticated malware threat on Wednesday. Cisco’s Talos threat intelligence group said in a blog post Wednesday that VPNFilter had infected at least 500,000 devices in 54 or more countries.

The researchers had been tracking the hacking threat for several months and were not ready to publish their findings, but when the malware began infecting devices in Ukraine at an “alarming rate,” they decided to publish their research early.

“Both the scale and the capability of this operation are concerning. Working with our partners, we estimate the number of infected devices to be at least 500,000 in at least 54 countries,” the researchers wrote.

The malware targets home and office routers and what are known as network-access storage (NAS) devices, hardware devices that store data in one, single location but can be accessed by multiple individuals — creating a massive system of infected devices, commonly known as a botnet.

VPNFilter also uses two stages of malware, an unusual set up that makes it more difficult to prevent a device from being re-infected after it is rebooted. The FBI on Wednesday urged individuals whose devices may have been infected to reboot them as soon as possible.

The FBI is also also soliciting help from a nonprofit known as the Shadowserver Foundation, which will pass the IP addresses to internet service providers, foreign computer emergency teams and others to help stem the damage.

The malware is the latest sign of the growing cyber threat from Russia. News of the outbreak comes roughly a month after senior U.S. and British officials blamed the Russian government for coordinated cyberattacks on network devices in an effort to conduct espionage and intellectual property theft.

The U.S. has also blamed Moscow for the global cyberattack known as notPetya that ravaged computers across the globe last summer, calling it the most destructive and costly cyberattack in history.

The code of VPNFilter has similarities with version of another malware known as BlackEnergy, which was used in an attack on Ukraine’s power grid in late 2015. The Department of Homeland Security has linked the malware to the Russian government.

Deep Throat, Deep State and #SpyGate is Old News

Posted on by

C’mon remember the Watergate break-in? Former CIA operatives were part of that. But wait, Nixon himself was being surveilled by the FBI. Anna Chennault, a GOP operative had interesting connections all throughout Asia. Those relationships were of big concern to the FBI and the Bureau was tracking those connections. That was all related to the Paris Peace talks on North and South Vietnam. Due to FBI eavesdropping and collections of diplomatic cables, Lyndon Johnson knew all about Nixon’s subterfuge. Have we forgotten the secret Nixon tapes? Too bad we can’t ask Mark Felt questions, dead men tell no tales.

Using intelligence agencies is an old habit yet Obama appears to have made an art of that exploitation. Obama spied on journalists including James Rosen of Fox News. Obama likely approved of John Brennan’s operation to spy on the senate staffers working on the enhanced interrogation techniques report headed by Senator Dianne Feinstein. Heck, Obama spied on Angela Merkel of Germany. Enter the NSA, they have everything. Edward Snowden proved that right? Not too sure FISA warrants were ever really needed in the first place, think about that.

Spies, informants and operatives come in many forms. They can be staffers, hired ladies, lawyers, lobbyists, policy wonks, people having cocktails at conventions, summits or conferences where business cards are exchanged for later email/phone call follow-up.

It is all old news. Old news and old tactics that get refined to due electronic communications, apps and encryption.

So, how do we know about these activities? Follow the money for starters. Remember the DNC and Hillary law firm, Perkins Coie.

The Obama for America committee paid Perkins Coie around $3 million during the 2012 election cycle, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission, A vast majority of the payments were earmarked for “Legal Services.”

Was Fusion GPS hired by Obama to surveil on Romney for opposition research? Was the media involved? Oh yeah, remember that debate and the advanced questions?  Then of course we have Fusion GPS and Trump.

Okay, this brings us to the current #Spygate and the names bubbling to the surface.

One such name is Stefan Halper. During the presidential transition, Donald Trump’s top trade advisor Peter Navarro, recommended Halper for an ambassadorship. Heck Halper was in the White House Executive Office wing last summer to discuss Asia with particular emphasis on China.

Stefan Halper goes all the way back to the Reagan/Carter days. Oh, wait, even Gerald Ford and George HW Bush were included in Halper’s political history. Is there a difference between spying, intelligence collection and being a political operative? You decide.

There is more, How about Paul Corbin? He was a communist. And yes, he was an campaign operative too. He worked on the John F. Kennedy campaign. There was also ‘Debategate‘.

 

 

Moving on and do NOT hang your hat on Carter Page. Remember the Washington Post editorial board doing an early interview with Trump and a question arose about his foreign policy team? Well, Trump threw out 2 names from the hip, Carter Page and George Stephanopoulos. In fact neither had any quality role in the Trump operation. Another was Zalmay Khalilzad, former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq and the United Nations. Heck Trump never met Khalilzad. He remains a back channel fella with concerns still with Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq. Khalilzad was part of a money laundering investigation in 2014. Could he be an operative too?

Now take a moment and see the issue of Russian operatives and spies in the United States to understand how the FBI tails these people. In 2010, there was a spy swap (10 operatives) that included 2 key people. One such person was Anna Chapman who was assigned to get inside the Hillary State Department operation(s) and she did. The other is Sergei Skripal. He is the former Russian military officer and double agent that Russia just attempted to kill with Novichok, a nerve agent. Then there was this other double agent in New York that was captured in a counter-intelligence operation as a result of spy operations that work out of the Russian Mission to the United Nations.

Are you beginning to understand the other work of the FBI? President Bush expelled 50 Russians, Reagan expelled 55 Soviets and both Obama and Trump have expelled 35 and 60 respectively.

With those facts, does it stand to reason that the FBI rank and file agents are very concerned about foreign operatives in politics and campaigns? There is for sure an argument to be made that informants and plants are not only used by required.

Will we ever know all the puzzle parts to these cases? NO

Is #Spygate a one off with regard to President Trump? NO

Perhaps there is something yet to be discovered in Hillary’s missing emails or Peter and Lisa’s text messages. Hello IG report by Michael Horowitz.

The tactics are tried and true…however, when will the media much less the Republicans call out the abuse of power the Obama administration on all of this? In summary, the Trump administration should fight back and impeach those Obama operatives, what say you?