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The Robert Mueller Investigation

Hugo Stiglitz

By Hugo Stiglitz
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Anastasis

Anastasis 23479

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Just now, Degenerate Gardner said:

Indeed skepticism is healthy and warranted if not always welcomed.  So is keeping in mind that we passed through the looking glass a while back, and that there's literally nothing these desperate traitors wouldn't do to save their own skins.

Like send the double agent marine into the kremlin museum as a sacrifice to orchestrate a bail out situation for their inside girl Butina. 

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Goredho
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Just to make sure I have the alternative facts straight...  Our government -- but I'm guessing only the deep state part of it --- is now guilty of torturing a poor, naive Russian exchange student who

Incredulity
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liberals suddenly being terrified of Russia and manic for election integrity is just pure comedy gold.

Chooky
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I don't believe for a moment that any of this is entertaining to you.  I think it gives you a bit of anxiety knowing that your best weapon against a group who you despise is a bumbling fraud as a busi

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Hugo Stiglitz

Hugo Stiglitz 23367

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(Reuters) - The United States is demanding the immediate return of a retired U.S. Marine detained by Russia on spying charges, and wants an explanation on why he was arrested, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Wednesday.

Speaking in Brasilia the day after Brazil's new president Jair Bolsonaro was inaugurated, Pompeo said the U.S. government hoped to gain consular access to Paul Whelan within the next few hours following his arrest in Moscow.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-usa-espionage-pompeo-idUSKCN1OW0VI

 

I’m sure this will go nowhere.

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triplehorn

triplehorn 2664

Posted
Posted
16 hours ago, WhatTheBuck said:

Do you know how different it is to steal emails from a hacked device than it is to plant them there? Without the FBI being able to tell? They're not individual files and there's more info on each than the text you see when you read them. 

If the Russians planted emails on Weiner's laptop, that would far exceed the hacking they've been accused of so far. That's a lot more sophisticated than just stealing someone's password through a successful phishing expedition so you can read their email. If the Russians did that, the FBI knows and we'll hear about it. We should've already heard about it. 

I think Captainant provided a more complete response than I could about computer logistics.  If you haven't noticed, Russian hackers are very skilled in the dark arts of criminal theft, fraud, and deception.  They are "independent" actors, yet also serve Putin with acts that overlap with Russian military intelligence directives.  In exchange, they are offered a safe haven free of prosecution for their international crimes.  There is nothing I would put past them in terms of technical ability for hacking, spearphishing, and malware engineering.

Re "Without the FBI being able to tell?" : that was never the goal. 

We've already got numerous examples mapping out Russian malfeasance related to our election derived from digital forensics.  The linchpin is the ability to tie it to Trump campaign actors, i.e. them knowingly using and capitalizing on the illegal acts while aiding and abetting the Russian cyber crimes.  We already know Trump Co believes they did nothing wrong if they incorporated information stolen by Russian hackers into their complex and timed attack plans.  Same thing here.  They would see no wrongdoing if Russian hackers spearphished Weiner or used malware to tie him to Hillary emails, then told Rudy or aligned actors "where to look."  It's not proven, but it is consistent.

Re "If the Russians did that, the FBI knows and we'll hear about it. We should've already heard about it" :

Rudy Giuliani, Mike Flynn, and Laura Trump all revealed foreknowledge of the October surprise.  I agree the FBI would long since know about outside meddling to tie Weiner's laptop to Hillary emails.  I disagree that we should've already heard about it based on the stature of the individuals who displayed foreknowledge of it.  I'm sure you've noticed that there is a ton of information under seal in what is an investigation into sprawling coordinated criminality, i.e. conspiracy to defraud the US.

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WhatTheBuck

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16 hours ago, Captainant said:

Not totally disagreeing with you, but most email clients support exporting/importing individual emails as .eml files. If they got password access to their office365 (Microsoft's managed cloud office, including email), it would simple to add emails to an inbox through importing the .eml files. And if they had a local client running on their laptop syncing their local inbox with their cloud inbox (which is pretty typical), it would automatically end up on the laptop completely inoccuously and in a low impact manner. 

Fucking ITsec best practices man. They'll really open you up to a deep dicking if an antagonist knows what they're doing. 

2,800 emails according to the Newsweek article. Abedin didn't dispute that they were her emails, she just said she didn't know how they wound up on her husband's laptop. 

I don't want to delve into a big long post about this because there's no evidence to support the notion that the Russians hacked either Abedin or Weiner. I'm not saying it's not possible to plant data on someone's computer, I'm saying we have no evidence that it happened with Weiner nor anyone else hacked by the Russians. 

They'd have to get access to Abedin's mailbox to get her emails. If they're planting them on Weiner's, they'd have to hack him too. If they're not actually emailing them from her to him, they'd have to spoof all the header info to make it look like she sent them to him. The FBI could subpoena the logs of any server the emails supposedly passed through between hers and his to see if there were corresponding matches.

I don't know how long it took to forward 2,800 emails, but presumably it took place over days, maybe weeks. Would they be imported in a batch all at once or over the course of days or weeks? Wouldn't that be logged? Might Weiner see them? What if he told his wife he received them and she said she never sent them? Then the jig is up. If they're getting on Weiner's laptop by syncing with a cloud account then they had to hack into the cloud account and plant them there. 

It's a pretty complex proposition. One that, if it happened, I don't think would escape the notice of the FBI. I'd think we'd have heard something about it by now. If it did happen, we'll hear about it eventually. 

There's also the very real possibility that Abedin is simply lying. That happens sometimes in politics. 

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atomheartbevo

atomheartbevo 89735

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36 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

There's also the very real possibility that Abedin is simply lying.

My first thought was either she wanted a copy of the emails on another machine, or she was lazy and setup an account so she could check it on any device in the house, or Weiner simply copied her account/password and wanted to read the emails. 

None of these require hackers or a degree in MIS.  They do require somebody being lazy and/or careless, both of which apply to Abedin and her ex.

I saw this kind of stuff when I worked at a large tech company, just without the national security implications.  Executives who thought they were above the rules and wanted their email, etc. on personal machines, etc.

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Captainant

Captainant 27682

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32 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

2,800 emails according to the Newsweek article. Abedin didn't dispute that they were her emails, she just said she didn't know how they wound up on her husband's laptop. 

I don't want to delve into a big long post about this because there's no evidence to support the notion that the Russians hacked either Abedin or Weiner. I'm not saying it's not possible to plant data on someone's computer, I'm saying we have no evidence that it happened with Weiner nor anyone else hacked by the Russians. 

They'd have to get access to Abedin's mailbox to get her emails. If they're planting them on Weiner's, they'd have to hack him too. If they're not actually emailing them from her to him, they'd have to spoof all the header info to make it look like she sent them to him. The FBI could subpoena the logs of any server the emails supposedly passed through between hers and his to see if there were corresponding matches.

I don't know how long it took to forward 2,800 emails, but presumably it took place over days, maybe weeks. Would they be imported in a batch all at once or over the course of days or weeks? Wouldn't that be logged? Might Weiner see them? What if he told his wife he received them and she said she never sent them? Then the jig is up. If they're getting on Weiner's laptop by syncing with a cloud account then they had to hack into the cloud account and plant them there. 

 It's a pretty complex proposition. One that, if it happened, I don't think would escape the notice of the FBI. I'd think we'd have heard something about it by now. If it did happen, we'll hear about it eventually. 

There's also the very real possibility that Abedin is simply lying. That happens sometimes in politics. 

I think you’re overestimating the difficulty to get into cloud accounts of people who have terrible security practices. I’m not arguing that it’s what happened, I’m saying that it’s really fucking easy and it would be difficult to track since it would appear to be normal behavior. Are there logs tracking virtually everything? Yes. Is it easy to parse through those to find aberrant behavior? Fuck no. It would have to be something you were actively looking for, especially if they’re able to utilize some basic track covering steps, like signing into the service through a proxy connection or VPN to appear that you’re coming from their IP or proximity physically. 

Just don’t dismiss it out of hand as super difficult - it’s not. Digital security is a joke in most enterprises, never mind personal security. Especially considering how much we know about how inept that entire campaign was at security best practices. And how much those sort of attacks are Russia’s bread and butter. 

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Anastasis

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Posted
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40 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

I don't know how long it took to forward 2,800 emails, but presumably it took place over days, maybe weeks.

The account I recall indicated that a small portion were forwarded, the majority were synced from a blackberry IIRC.

 

Or maybe the real story is that Carlos Danger was in actuality a Russian agent who used his access via Huma to hack the HRC home server content and devices to his laptop.  He then set up an elaborate ruse of being a fucking pervert by engaging in a series of illicit dick pic text exchanges with underage girls (russian honeypots?), which facilitated planting the emails for discovery by the NYPD investigators looking into sex crimes, and ultimately forced Comey to  write his 11th hour letter which tilted the election to Trump.  Or maybe he was just a fucking degenerate and HRC and Huma  practiced lax security controls over their devices. Nah, had to be Russia. 

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WhatTheBuck

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12 minutes ago, Captainant said:

I think you’re overestimating the difficulty to get into cloud accounts of people who have terrible security practices. I’m not arguing that it’s what happened, I’m saying that it’s really fucking easy and it would be difficult to track since it would appear to be normal behavior. Are there logs tracking virtually everything? Yes. Is it easy to parse through those to find aberrant behavior? Fuck no. It would have to be something you were actively looking for, especially if they’re able to utilize some basic track covering steps, like signing into the service through a proxy connection or VPN to appear that you’re coming from their IP or proximity physically. 

Just don’t dismiss it out of hand as super difficult - it’s not. Digital security is a joke in most enterprises, never mind personal security. Especially considering how much we know about how inept that entire campaign was at security best practices. And how much those sort of attacks are Russia’s bread and butter. 

It's even easier to lie. Absent any evidence to the contrary, Occam's razor suggests that's the most likely explanation. 

If the Russians planted Amedin's emails on Weiner's machine without either of them knowing about it, do you think they could've done it in a way the FBI couldn't detect?

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triplehorn

triplehorn 2664

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Regarding the extradited Russian hacker Nikulin, note this in his DOJ announcement of charges:

 

Quote

The indictment, unsealed today, alleges that Nikulin, accessed computers belonging to LinkedIn, Dropbox and Formspring, each of which has its headquarters in the San Francisco Bay Area.  The indictment further alleges that the defendant accessed the computers without authorization and that he obtained information from the computers.  According to the indictment, the defendant also caused damage to computers belonging to a LinkedIn employee and to Formspring by transmitting a program, information, code, or command.  Nikulin also is alleged to have used the credentials of LinkedIn and Formspring employees in connection with the computer intrusions.  Further, Nikulin is alleged to have engaged in a conspiracy with unnamed co-conspirators to traffic stolen Formspring user credentials.  In all, Nikulin is charged with three counts of computer intrusion; two counts of intentional transmission of information, code, or command causing damage to a protected computer; two counts of aggravated identity theft; one count of trafficking in unauthorized access devices; and one count of conspiracy.

The first bolded part suggests he was involved in something more complex like executing malware, not just hacking in and copying info.  The second bolded part is interesting because it involves co-conspirators.  Note he was charged with Conspiracy at the time of this announcement of charges, and the co-conspirators trafficked Formspring user credentials.  Weiner used Formspring, for one, for sexting. 

Note also that even though the crimes for which Nikulin was charged occurred in 2012-13, he got abruptly nabbed on a Red Notice Czech Rep. on Oct. 5th 2016.  That corresponds with the time that FBI dissecting what happened with Clinton emails "found" on Weiner's laptop might have linked it to Nikulin and co-conspirators - and pounced.  There are reasons he may have not been apprehended sooner, ie he didn't venture outside mother russia, or perhaps he was being tailed and actively being monitored for some time until they decided it was time to snatch him up due to more serious circumstances.  If I'm not mistaken, I don't believe it is specified when his trafficking with co-conspirators occurred.  It certainly could have happened in 2016 during campaign season. EDIT: Conspiracy acts occurred in 2012.

 

 

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triplehorn

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Feds are definitely looking at Nikulin for his possible role in 2016 election attack:

Bloomberg last August:  Jailed Russian of Interest in U.S. Election Probe

 

"A Russian charged with hacking LinkedIn is of great interest in a U.S. probe of election meddling, according to a Justice Department official, even as his own lawyers complain he hasn’t cooperated with them since landing in a California jail in March.

[..]

And Nikulin’s defense team -- led by a New York-based attorney seasoned in representing Russians and Eastern Europeans charged with serious crimes in the U.S. -- says Russian officials have shown unusually strong interest in his case, arranging at least once to visit him in jail when the attorneys weren’t present.

[..]

Prosecutors are as eager to find out what, if anything, Nikulin knows about election meddling as they are to get to the bottom of the LinkedIn and Dropbox hacks, said the U.S. Justice Department official, who declined to be identified without authorization to discuss the case.

Federal marshals said that when Nikulin first arrived in San Francisco he physically confronted guards and tried to escape from custody -- and he was shackled for his next court appearance."

 

Again, considering the Feds are very interested in his involvement in an election related act, I think the timing of his apprehension on Oct. 5th 2016 is potentially very significant.  It falls a couple weeks after FBI in NY became *aware* of Clinton emails on Weiner's laptop, but before the eventual Comey letter to Congress on Oct 28th.

The charges for crimes committed in 2012, including referencing unnamed co-conspirators, puts him in jail and under a lot of pressure to cooperate with Feds on what was happening in and around 2016 in the months before the election.

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triplehorn

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My inferences from the two Rudy tweets above: 1) he's scared shitless because he's guilty himself,  2) his personal culpability is known and understood by Mike Flynn.

Recall Rudy was Trump's leading candidate to be Sec. of State, then he wasn't.  Rudy appears to be the one deciding his shift in roles, and you can sense his squirrelly avoidance and fear about something.  Trump's words at the time seem to offer a foreshadowing:

 

Quote

"Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani pulled out of the secretary of state sweepstakes late last month, President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team said Friday, as Trump has widened his search to select the nation’s top diplomat.

"Rudy Giuliani is an extraordinarily talented and patriotic American. I will always be appreciative of his 24/7 dedication to our campaign after I won the primaries and for his extremely wise counsel,” Trump said in a written statement. “He is and continues to be a close personal friend, and as appropriate, I will call upon him for advice and can see an important place for him in the administration at a later date.”

The transition team said that he withdrew on Nov. 29, though aides had mentioned him as one of four contenders multiple times after that date. One transition source said Giuliani continued to be the subject of internal discussions for the job through mid-week.

Giuliani had previously mounted a vigorous public campaign for the post, irritating Trump. On Friday, he explained his decision to withdraw.

“The whole thing was becoming kind of very confusing and very difficult for the president-elect, and my desire to be in the Cabinet was great, but it wasn't that great,” Giuliani said in a Fox News interview. “He had a lot of terrific candidates, and I thought I could play a better role being on the outside and continuing to be his close friend and adviser.”

 

It's always been peculiar how Trump has never attacked Mike Flynn.  And now you have Rudy today making protective statements about Flynn.  Flynn had his hand in a lot, no doubt.  I think Mueller has Rudy by the short hairs over something.

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Jack

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21 hours ago, WhatTheBuck said:

I don't want to delve into a big long post about this because there's no evidence to support the notion that the Russians hacked either Abedin or Weiner. I'm not saying it's not possible to plant data on someone's computer, I'm saying we have no evidence that it happened with Weiner nor anyone else hacked by the Russians. 

They'd have to get access to Abedin's mailbox to get her emails. If they're planting them on Weiner's, they'd have to hack him too. If they're not actually emailing them from her to him, they'd have to spoof all the header info to make it look like she sent them to him. The FBI could subpoena the logs of any server the emails supposedly passed through between hers and his to see if there were corresponding matches.

I don't know how long it took to forward 2,800 emails, but presumably it took place over days, maybe weeks. Would they be imported in a batch all at once or over the course of days or weeks? Wouldn't that be logged? Might Weiner see them? What if he told his wife he received them and she said she never sent them? Then the jig is up. If they're getting on Weiner's laptop by syncing with a cloud account then they had to hack into the cloud account and plant them there. 

 

The Russians would then have to get Weiner to send the dick pics.  Though that would probably be the easy part...

The easiest explanation for how the emails got there, is that she was careless and naive about the trail she would leave.    Maybe her laptop was out of power or she left it at the office and borrowed his.  For most couples and for most jobs, that would be a pretty normal thing to do.  I don't get why so many people just can't accept that as the most logical conclusion. 

I've rubbed elbows with state reps and senators and they are basically just a bunch of self promoting brown nosers looking for handouts.  I see no reason to assume that it's any different at the federal level and doubt they are any more competent at their job..  

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triplehorn

triplehorn 2664

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2 minutes ago, Jack said:

The easiest explanation for how the emails got there, is that she was careless and naive about the trail she would leave.    Maybe her laptop was out of power or she left it at the office and borrowed his.  For most couples and for most jobs, that would be a pretty normal thing to do.  I don't get why so many people just can't accept that as the most logical conclusion. 

Why would she lie about it ? 

If she did it and it's illegal, I'd expect we'd have heard about it 2 years later.  If she did it and it wasn't illegal, but she lied to FBI about it, she's in deep shit.  Again, haven't heard about it.  

She said she had no idea how they got there.  There is not only nothing to suggest she's been untruthful to investigators, but also there's no apparent problem being truthful to FBI - and she has everything to lose by lying about it.

Rudy, Flynn, and Laura Trump all revealed advance knowledge of the October surprise. 

Meanwhile Trump and Rudy clearly fear a cooperating Flynn and have avoided any appearance of hostility towards him.  Why is that ????  What makes Mike Flynn so unique for Rudy and Donald ???  They're fucked.

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Hugo Stiglitz

Hugo Stiglitz 23367

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Russia is all about the tit-for-tat retaliation.  The Whelan arrest wasn’t necessarily to get Butina back but more of a political statement.

The Russian media has been foreshadowing this kind of move for months which indicates this arrest was more for their domestic audiences than ours.

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DDD Dad

DDD Dad 14344

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1 hour ago, triplehorn said:

While we wait, re the entire floor of the DC Courthouse that got sealed off for that undisclosed hearing the other week over a State owned corporation...

This dude takes a stab that it's Rosneft.  The potential fallout could be explosive:

 

 

Hugo, is that you?

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triplehorn

triplehorn 2664

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19 hours ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Or Alfa bank.

On second reading of that guys thread, he makes an unconvincing case for it being Rosneft.  The meat of it is if it is Rosneft, what kind of jeopardy could their US/international assets be in.  That would spark a white hot conflict with Putin.

 

19 hours ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Russia is all about the tit-for-tat retaliation.  The Whelan arrest wasn’t necessarily to get Butina back but more of a political statement.

The Russian media has been foreshadowing this kind of move for months which indicates this arrest was more for their domestic audiences than ours.

I think the tit for tat as a show for his home audience pretty convincing.  There's some speculation that there are others that Putin could be eyeing for a swap:

Spoiler

 

  China, on the other hand, is cranking it up to 11 13 using hostages to flaunt rule of law:

Huawei is considered a front for large scale Chinese digital spying.  Their CFO in custody in Canada is a_big_deal.

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Gil Bang

Gil Bang 25980

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4 minutes ago, SuingToGetAMessageBoard? said:

How does that work, physically?  Are they like on call?  They are allowed to go about their daily lives as normal but can just be called back to the courthouse at any time Mueller wants a new indictment?

They apply to be grand jurors.  Probably mostly retirees with nothing better to do. 

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NameAlreadyInUse

NameAlreadyInUse 5114

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1 hour ago, Gil Bang said:

They apply to be grand jurors.  Probably mostly retirees with nothing better to do. 

I got jury duty to be on a grand jury.  They told us it would be a 6 month assignment, 2 days a week all day and 1 day a week half day.  They were a lot more lenient about excuses to get out, though.  I was number 12, so I was for sure going to be on it, but the judge let me off because I told him I did a fair bit of work travel.  

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ndawg

ndawg 1242

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18 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

If he doesn't release the hounds within 2 months of the Dems taking over the House, I don't think he has anything.  And then I have to move.

I kinda think his plan is to make sure his team's legal paper trail (indictments, sentencing recommendations, etc.) can lead the House to turn up the heat on Trump and eventually, after public opinion sways enough to turn even the senate, impeach. After impeachment, he can put all the criminals who haven't flipped behind bars, without risking the perception of a deep state coup. The full report may well be sealed for a few decades to shield the public from the shock.

Of course, nothing the House does this year will lead the Senate Rs to turn on Trump, so I doubt 2019 goes according to anybody's plan.

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