Any thoughts on Comey's testimony about Russia?

I didn't listen to or watch the hearing today, but I read as much as I could afterward, and these parts were interesting.

What do you think?

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/08/full-text-james-comey-trump-rus...

… BURR: Do you have any doubt that Russia attempted to interfere in the 2016 elections?

COMEY: None.

BURR: Do you have any doubt that the Russian government was behind the intrusions in the D triple C systems and the subsequent leaks of that information?

COMEY: No, no doubt.

BURR: Do you have any doubt the Russian government was behind the cyber intrusion in the state voter files?

COMEY: No.

BURR: Are you confident that no votes cast in the 2016 presidential election were altered?

COMEY: I'm confident. When I left as director I had seen no indication of that whatsoever.

BURR: Director Comey, did the president at any time ask you to stop the FBI investigation into Russian involvement in the 2016 U.S. Elections?

COMEY: Not to my understanding, no.

BURR: Did any individual working for this administration, including the justice department, ask you to stop the Russian investigation?

COMEY: No.

… BURR: Okay. When did you become aware of the cyber intrusion?

COMEY: The first cyber — there was all kinds of cyber intrusions going on all the time. The first Russian-connected cyber intrusion I became aware of in the late summer of 2015.

BURR: And in that time frame, there were more than the DNC and the D triple C that were targets?

COMEY: Correct, a massive effort to target government and nongovernmental, near governmental agencies like nonprofits.

BURR: What would be the estimate of how many entities out there the Russians specifically targeted in that time frame?

COMEY: It's hundreds. I suppose it could be more than 1,000, but it's at least hundreds.

BURR: When did you become aware that data had been exfiltrated?

COMEY: I'm not sure exactly. I think either late '15 or early '16.

BURR: And did you, the director of the FBI, have conversations with the last administration about the risk that this posed?

COMEY: Yes.

BURR: And share with us, if you will, what actions they took.

COMEY: Well, the FBI had already undertaken an effort to notify all the victims, and that's what we consider the entities attacked as part of this massive spear-phishing campaign so we notified them in an effort to disrupt what might be ongoing, and then there was a series of continuing interactions with entities through the rest of '15 into '16, and then throughout '16, the administration was trying to decide how to respond to the intrusion activity that it saw.

BURR: And the FBI in this case, unlike other cases that you might investigate, did you ever have access to the actual hardware that was hacked, or did you have to rely on a third party to provide you the day that that they had collected?

COMEY: In the case of the DNC, and I believe the D triple C, but I'm sure the DNC, we did not have access to the devices themselves. We got relevant forensic information from a private party, a high class entity, that had done the work but we didn't get direct access.

BURR: But no content.

COMEY: Correct.

BURR: Isn't content an important part of the forensics from a counter-intelligence standpoint?

COMEY: It is but what was briefed to me by the people who were my folks at the time is that they had gotten the information from the private party that they needed to understand the intrusion by the spring of 2016.

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I found interesting and would value your thinking on:

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/08/full-text-james-comey-trump-rus...

… COTTON: Let's turn our attention to the underlying activity at issue here. Russia's hacking of those e-mails and the allegation of collusion. Do you think Donald Trump colluded with Russia?

COMEY: That's a question I don't think I should answer in an opening setting. As I said, when I left, we did not have an investigation focused on president trump. But that's a question that will be answered by the investigation, I think.

COTTON: Let me turn to a couple statements by one of my colleagues, Senator Feinstein. She was the ranking member on this committee until January, which means that she had access to information that only she and Chairman Burr did. She's now the senior Democrat on the FBI Committee, which means she had access to information that many of us don’t. On May 3rd on the Wolf Blitzer show she was asked “Do you believe you have evidence that in fact that there was collusion between Trump associates and Russia during the campaign? She answered not at this time. On May 18th, on the same show, Mr. Blitzer said, “The last time you came on this show I I asked if you had seen any evidence that Russia had colluded with the Trump campaign." You said not at this time. Has anything changed since we last spoke? Senator Feinstein said no, it hasn’t. Do you have any reason to doubt those statements?

COMEY: I don't doubt that the Senator Feinstein understood what she said. I just don't want to go down that route anymore because I'm — I want to be fair to President Trump.I am not trying to suggest something nefarious but I don't want to get into the business of not to this person, not to that person.

COTTON: On February 14th the New York Times published the story, the headline of which was “Trump campaign aides had repeated contacts with Russian intelligence.” You were asked if that as an inaccurate story. Would it be fair to characterize that story as almost entirely wrong?

COMEY: Yes.

COTON: Do you have — at the time the story was published, any indication of any contact between Trump people and Russians, intelligence officers, other government officials or close associates of the Russian government?

COMEY: That's one I can't answer sitting here.

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He said they never examined the DNC servers and took Crowd Strikes word for it. Crowd Strike is the private contractor that works for the DNC. Why would I believe the guy who let Hillary skate because she had no intent when intent is not required by law? Why would I believe anyone who refuses to investigate and prosecute the fraud that stole the primary from us and Bernie. Russia didn't write the Podesta or DNC emails. Russia didn't purge voter rolls in AZ or NY. Bernie won, and we all watched it.

I wish I could embed this, but I can't. I'm on my phone. Sane Progressive takes on Bernie, Draft Bernie, the People's Conf, jimmy Dore, and a whole lot more. She is so on target about our elections and why we lose, and it doesnt have a GD thing to do with Russia.

it is approx. 1 hour long. Worth it when you have time.

Draft Bernie Strategy Jimmy Dore Interview Highlight Why We Fail

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

@dkmich thanks, didn't see the rant she's referring to but I thought it was just crazy me melting down on those recent TJDS videos, they seem all-in on keeping the hamster wheel going. Really appreciate her speaking up right now. Cheers.

Torches of Freedom
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Yes We Can
Make America Great Again
Fearless Girl
Political Revolution
etc.
...

Outreaching for the DNC? Priceless!

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@eyo I've kind of tuned him out for about a month. Even though I tend to agree with him more often than not, I've grown a little weary of his style, especially when he asks a guest a question and then rants them into an answer.

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Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.

@Dr. John Carpenter thanks for asking about that, I feel chatty so here's my take: There's a coalition being led by a guy who worked for Bernie's primary campaign. He is young and full of energy and ready to draft Bernie to suck what little life is left out of the D party in order to become the New D party as far as I can tell.

For me it takes too much cognitive dissonance to hold both thoughts. The appointed Outreach Director for the Democratic National Committee, currently tasked to GOTV and campaign, out raising money right now for D-Value "revolutionaries" all around the country. That guy is somehow going to do a 180 and become what his democratic words say, instead of what the oligarchy actually produces?

Nope, maybe the millenials have a magic wand to make the MIC disappear, that would be great but not probable. What I can imagine is Bernie going third party in order to siphon off enough votes for the Ds to win again. Because that is exactly how James Carville and Tad Devine helped neoliberals retain power in Bolivia 2003, splitting a three-way race instilling fear through violence, and brainwashing the masses with focus-groups.

Ever see the original "Our Brand is Crisis" documentary? I saw it about three times, it's a piece of work, the consultants are disgusting. I hope I'm wrong, I hope The Sane Progressive is wrong, but I don't thinks so. I think she's right, we need to make our own better world to live in, fuck electoral politics it is pwned by the oligarchy death merchants, why would they ever concede any election ever again? Except for show. Trump was a mistake, it shoulda been Clinton but oops, more pablum to the masses stat! lol

peace

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@eyo @eyo Your thoughts about Bernie siphoning off votes mirrors mine.

I have not watched "Our Brand is Crisis", but I'm adding it to my to do list!

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Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.

@Dr. John Carpenter about the version, here is the one I saw. Not the George Clooney remake, that one I never did see.

peace

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Alligator Ed's picture

@eyo

What I can imagine is Bernie going third party in order to siphon off enough votes for the Ds to win again. Because that is exactly how James Carville and Tad Devine helped neoliberals retain power in Bolivia 2003, splitting a three-way race instilling fear through violence, and brainwashing the masses with focus-groups.

This isn't Bolivia and we don't grow many bananas here. If Bernie splits from the Diumbocratic party he will draw some Republican votes, but not many. He may even gain many independent votes. But I think the main losers will be Dems because only their hardcore will remain, just as most hardcore Republicans will stay on the red team. Abandonment of the D party will not be overcome by divide and conquer.

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@Dr. John Carpenter

It is hard to take. Same is true with Lee Camp. Wish Camp would do less funny and more straight. He does a good interview.

Dore, unlike TYT which is all about Justice Democrats, thinks the Dem Party is beyond redemption. However, he does buy into the Bernie myth that the Sane Progressive so adeptly destroys. If one is truly non-partisan, one has to admit that Bernie turned out to be the best of the best "lesser of evil" candidate that we had. I think the Sane Progressive want Dore and the Draft Bernie movement to acknowledge Bernie's clay feet. Maybe Bernie is not the best one to lead a true reform movement. If you didn't listen to her video, you should. There is no denying the points she makes about why we always lose.

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

@dkmich Yeah, that's the other reason I've moved away from JD. I really think it's time for progressives who are not progressives in name only cough..TYT...cough to let Bernie go. He was a good first step, but it's obvious to me he has no intention of leading and his foreign policies (and buying in to the Russia nonsense) really don't put him that far from the mainstream Dems he's allegedly independent from. People say no one else is stepping up to take over, but I'd counter that with Bernie still filling that space, there isn't room for anyone else.

Anyway, my two cents, which I know people disagree with. I'll watch the Sane Progressive's video as soon as I can.

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Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.

snoopydawg's picture

This is the only statement that should carry any weight.

BURR: Are you confident that no votes cast in the 2016 presidential election were altered?
COMEY: I'm confident. When I left as director I had seen no indication of that whatsoever.

See? He said that not one vote was altered by the Russians. That should put this ridiculous subject to rest. We have been told over and over that Russia interfered with the election. We haven't been told that they ONLY TRIED to interfere with the election. Big, big difference.

As to this

BURR: What would be the estimate of how many entities out there the Russians specifically targeted in that time frame?

COMEY: It's hundreds. I suppose it could be more than 1,000, but it's at least hundreds.

Where is the proof to back up his statement? They have had to retract their statement that all 17 intelligence agencies have confirmed that Russia interfered with the election, when it's only 3-4 agencies that say it now.

As to the rest of the interactions, dkmitch said what I'm thinking. gulfgal has said many times that the DNC is a private company and this is like going to war because someone might have tried to hack my email account.
Sane Progressive

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

@snoopydawg

I was in bed reading on my phone. It won't give me the embed link. Any how, I got up to put in my two cents.

It is all kabuki. Comey is deep state. He is loyal to it, and the role he plays in it. I'm sure he thinks he's an upstanding public servant. His leak to the NYT was a "good" leak. Think he'll be prosecuted and exiled for leaking? Hell no. He's one of them. They do the crime but not the time.

What haven't they handed over to the private sector? When profit-driven, private contractors are the government, why would I believe anything my government says?

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

snoopydawg's picture

@dkmich
Of course Comey is part of Deep State. As another writer stated, it's a soft coup. Once Trump has done what he is supposed to do, he's toast.
The biggest concern though is that this is a distraction from what they are doing in regards to the health care bill, and their heinous tax cuts for their masters. This might be part of their false flag attempt to get people behind their upcoming war with Russia.
Nope, Comey is not going to be prosecuted for leaking information. It's okay when it fits their narrative.
And blaming Hillary's loss accomplishes these two things. The democrats don't have to address that because of their actions since Clinton's triangulation they have left their base behind. And this keeps the DNC, Seth Rich's murder and the DWS letting a Pakistani organization off the public's radar.

Good question about what else they have turned over to the private sector? There are at least 800 private contractors spying on us against our constitution. The military used to do many of the things that private contractors are being paid to do. But what should have us in the streets is that a private mercenary contractor was allowed to attack peaceful protesters, let their dogs bite them, and allowing them to spy on them and collude with the police and telling them how to control the protesters. I would like to know who hired and paid Tiger Swan?

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SnappleBC's picture

@snoopydawg You, apparently do not know what the Democrats mean when they say "interfered". They mean, "Russia told us the truth about some things and we got pissed." Their righteous indignation doesn't depend on election tampering. It's just as simple as, "Someone on RT said something which caused people to mistrust the US government." It doesn't matter if that thing is true.

Yes, in their warped little world view it is much better that our own politicians lie to us than Russian politicians tell us the truth.

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A lot of wanderers in the U.S. political desert recognize that all the duopoly has to offer is a choice of mirages. Come, let us trudge towards empty expanse of sand #1, littered with the bleached bones of Deaniacs and Hope and Changers.
-- lotlizard

@SnappleBC
pretty much sums up what their premise is:

... in their warped little world view it is much better that our own politicians lie to us than Russian politicians tell us the truth.

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Oldest Son Of A Sailor's picture

@SnappleBC
Russia Election Interference
Screen Shot 2017-06-09 at 1.40.24 PM.png

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"Do you realize the responsibility I carry?
I'm the only person standing between Richard Nixon and the White House."

~John F. Kennedy~
Economic: -9.13, Social: -7.28,

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

@SnappleBC And some people saw the truth, despite Dem efforts to draw away attention by getting the Access Hollywood tape released the same day, and having the 'Russia interfered with the election' report released the same day. As if that wasn't bad enough, now Hillary has been going around blaming the media for the fact that anything was covered from the Wikileaks email releases, and claiming that Trump or someone from his campaign actively worked with the Russians to determine which emails were most damaging and when to release them for maximum effect. She is utterly delusional and thinks that the public is buying everything she says.

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Liz

@lizbeeo thanks, there is so much disinformation out there it helps to just go to the source documents, and then decide for yourself what it looks like. Stop listening to everyone else spin it, at least read the summaries: https://wikileaks.org/vault7/

Then there is this I was going to post in Open Thread but it's all connected.
Dutch-Russian cyber crime case reveals how the police taps the internet
long article ends with:

To be or not to be arrested
The latter seems to be one of the reasons that, after the hack of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in 2016, the US government put Bogachev on a list of sanctioned individuals. Besides that, his malware was also responsible for stealing over 100 million USD from American organizations. However, Bogachev is still at large, probably because he is useful for Russian intelligence operations.

For the Dutch police team there was another unpleasant surprise: Sergei Mikhailov, the FSB officer who had become such a familiar face for them, was suddenly arrested in December 2016 - according to Russian press reports because he and Kaspersky expert Ruslan Stojanov had leaked information to US intelligence.

Nobody knows whether this is true or where Mikhailov is now, but the cooperation between Dutch police and the Russian FSB continues.

somewhere earlier this paragraph made me LOL because acronym overload. jhfc

The cooperation with the Russians dates back to September 2007, when the head of THTC attended a conference in the Russian city of Khabarovsk, at which CIA, FBI, Mossad, BND and other agencies were present. The head of THTC was able to create a connection to the FSB and their deputy head of the department for cyber crime, Sergei Mikhailov, became the liaison for the Dutch police and would regularly visit the Netherlands.

earworms galore, thanks
The Jackson 5 - ABC

can't believe that still gets me up outta the chair. go michael! woo

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@snoopydawg

Ummmmm, American interests are hacking everybody's emails.

Can we please go to war against public/corporate 'intelligence' companies spying on everybody and globally destroying everyone's 'national security' by creating/exploiting computer/phone/'smart appliance' device vulnerabilities which enable any capable criminal to hack into our personal/medical/banking/credit card/identity stuff online, hold our systems hostage or use them for criminal enterprises such as DDOS attacks?

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

from The Hill. Sorry Dems, Comey's words to weak to impeach Trump. I didn't read the story but the headline was good enough for me.

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Is Comey as naive as he comes across?

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

snoopydawg's picture

@dkmich
Hillary did intend to break the law the second she decided to use her private email server. The reason why she did that was to hide them from a freedom of information act and so that Chelsea could have access to it while she was running the Clinton foundation. Huma Abedin disclosed that information when she was deposed by judicial Watch.
She was told by Obama to keep Sydney Bluementhol out the state department, but she hired him for her foundation and even though he didn't have the security clearance to read or send classified information from Libya and Haiti. That was intentionally breaking every security law on the books. When he stole classified information from the NSA, she removed his name from the header and sent it on to Obama. He also knew that Hillary was using her private email server. What did he do? Not a damn thing.
Judicial Watch recently released more of her emails, and she hadn't turned them over after she said she had sent all of them.
I wish that MsGrin was still writing essays on this.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

@snoopydawg I'm not a lawyer and I'm only following what's dribbled out as much as I can, but you've summed the "intent" up nicely.

And why has the issue of Bumenthal been so covered up? Why didn't Obama do anything about that? It's no secret he has no love for Sid. I'd really like to know why he just turned a blind eye to that situation, because AFAIK, he seemed to have found out that was going on and did nothing.

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Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.

mimi's picture

@dkmich

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@dkmich
I don't know, but he sure slid his head up Mueller's ass repeatedly with his breathless admiration. Didn't Mueller participate in the cover-up of 9/11? Wasn't he one of the drum bangers for the Iraq invasion? 911

Mueller is as deep state as they get.

The other part of Comey's testimony that bugged me was how he became rapt with joy describing our "democracy" and how the US is STILL that "shining light on the hill". I guess when he doesn't have his head up Mueller's ass, it occupies his own.

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Deja's picture

@gustogirl

I guess when he doesn't have his head up Mueller's ass, it occupies his own.

Thanks for that!

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Big Al's picture

and they'll solidify a certain false narrative while supposedly focusing on something else. In this case, the sheeple will think the focus is on Trump and his ties to the Russians while all the lies Comey just told about Russian election interference will go into their tiny pea brains further making them believe the Russians are our enemy. This is all very slick theater. In the end, Trump will still be president, Comey will be gone and the lies about Russia will have been further ingrained into the public consciousness.

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Wink's picture

@Big Al
for a 2nd term in 2020. And, if Her Highness runs again (thinking third time's the charm) (if she's not yet in jail), then the Trumpster wins again - and the 47% might better look for property in Arizona.

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the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

Deja's picture

@Big Al

In the end, Trump will still be president, Comey will be gone and the lies about Russia will have been further ingrained into the public unonsciousness.

I was once part of that crowd, I'm sad to say.

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Wink's picture

@Deja
2000 election where the Supreme's determined the winner. Was my wakeup call. "Hey, idjit, wake the F* up and pay attention. Your pockets are being picked."

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the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

mimi's picture

clouded. I guess that's the intent. Where are Trump's tapes? Why are they not leaked? If the Russians did something harmful to the US electoral process, I guess it's because the US electoral process is so bad that it allows for outsiders to mess with it.

Oh, yes, I think McCain should be sent into a nursing home. He is senile and it's a disaster that Congress can't get rid of people who just simply lose their mental capacities due to age.

Clouds everywhere I look. Fog is dense. Time to stop reading and listening. Otherwise it's like "Move on, nothing to see here".

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snoopydawg's picture

In perhaps the most stunning section of former FBI Director Comey's testimony today, he detailed his interaction with then Attorney General Loretta Lynch about his specific language about the Clinton Email "investigation."

~~snip~~

Under questioning by panel chairman Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC), Comey said that he was uncomfortable with the unexpected meeting Lynch had with former President Bill Clinton on an airport tarmac last year. Comey said that meeting convinced him that the independence of the investigation was tainted with regard to the Justice Department and led him to go public with the bureau's findings on Clinton.

Then Comey added in later testimony that "Loretta Lynch had appearance of conflict of interest."

I too thought that the Lynch/Clinton meeting was a conflict of interest. Just like the damned Russian propaganda bull needs a special prosecutor, the investigation into Hillary's private email server should have had one too because of their tarmac meeting.
Comey testified that Lynch pressured him on the Clinton investigation

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mimi's picture

@snoopydawg
I want ketchup with that. Thanks.

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Propaganda:
Directed at U.S. Citizens
Fueling significant changes in foreign relations
Deflecting attention away from inappropriate/illegal conduct of the sitting President's party
Influencing the election outcome
Hiding the true face of the duopoly that has subsumed our representative democracy

All of this based on content free assessments proffered by a private IT outfit in the employ of the DNC.

BURR: But no content.

COMEY: Correct.

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Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work for the benefit of all."
- John Maynard Keynes

@ovals49

Hearsay, and from a company on their payroll and the Democratic Party's payroll. Another lol. Comey went from the meeting to his car to immediately type up a detailed report on his "secured" laptop. He refused to prosecute Hillary for not using a secure server, and he leaked. BUT, he typed on a secured laptop.

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

interchangeably, as usual muddying the water. Kabuki and for sure Comey is part of the Deep State.

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Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur

@lizzyh7 This is a point I usually make on this. It drives me absolutely crazy. I'm in IT and they aren't the same thing, even if the results can potentially be the same. There's a difference and I think most people are smart enough to understand it, which is why I think the language misdirection is intentional.

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Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.

that leapt out at me had to do with:

1. the allegations about access to state voter files; and

2. the time period of warning the victims of hacking.

The first part is:

BURR: Do you have any doubt the Russian government was behind the cyber intrusion in the state voter files?

COMEY: No.

BURR: Are you confident that no votes cast in the 2016 presidential election were altered?

COMEY: I'm confident. When I left as director I had seen no indication of that whatsoever.

This appears to back up the NSA document released earlier this week about Russia getting into our state voter infrastructure.

https://theintercept.com/2017/06/05/top-secret-nsa-report-details-russia...

… The top-secret National Security Agency document, which was provided anonymously to The Intercept and independently authenticated, analyzes intelligence very recently acquired by the agency about a months-long Russian intelligence cyber effort against elements of the U.S. election and voting infrastructure. The report, dated May 5, 2017, is the most detailed U.S. government account of Russian interference in the election that has yet come to light.

I think Comey's testimony here is to distract attention from the Pakistani IT specialists and from the multiple lawsuits still pending about irregularities in the 2016 primaries. All of that is now covered by the claim that Russia did it. And, whether it was the Pakistanis or the Russians, no harm was done, so in the case of the Pakistanis, nothing to see here really.

That puts the former Director of the FBI, under oath, stating to Congress that no votes cast in the 2016 presidential election were altered. That takes care of the lawsuits.

The second issue that caught my eye was about the time period involved in warning the many victims of hacking:

BURR: When did you become aware that data had been exfiltrated?

COMEY: I'm not sure exactly. I think either late '15 or early '16.

BURR: And did you, the director of the FBI, have conversations with the last administration about the risk that this posed?

COMEY: Yes.

BURR: And share with us, if you will, what actions they took.

COMEY: Well, the FBI had already undertaken an effort to notify all the victims, and that's what we consider the entities attacked as part of this massive spear-phishing campaign so we notified them in an effort to disrupt what might be ongoing, and then there was a series of continuing interactions with entities through the rest of '15 into '16, and then throughout '16, the administration was trying to decide how to respond to the intrusion activity that it saw.

What is this crap all about? Did they tell "the administration" that it was the Russians at some point? Did they only determine it was the Russians in the summer of 2016 after the DNC contractor claimed it? I find this part of Comey's story really fog-inducing. Is this law enforcement? Or is it political activity? What do you, fellow questioners, make of this?

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@Linda Wood

No votes altered doesn't include voter rolls flipped, closed polls and long lines, secret caucus meetings and miscounts, exit polls changed to match whatever numbers they concocted.

Do you mean the DNC lawsuit? None of this even comes close to addressing it. Would you beat on a horse race if the race was fixed? Certainly not if you knew it. That is the position of the Bernie voters. If the race was fixed as we all knew, and the WikiLeaks leaks proved, and the DNC admitted in court, I want my money back. We all want our 270+ million dollars back that we gave to Bernie.

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

@dkmich
I agree with you. It's not the Bernie donors' lawsuit I'm thinking of here, it's the exit polling lawsuit and others like those described here, including some filed by the DNC:

https://ivn.us/2016/06/20/lawsuits-challenge-undemocratic-primary-electi...

Several Lawsuits Challenge Undemocratic Primary Election Practices
by Kaia Los Huertos in Electoral Reform Jun 20, 2016...

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@Linda Wood
it was reported that the FBI had warned the DNC that their system or their communications were insecure, I have had a basic question: how did the FBI know that? Were they monitoring the DNC in a criminal investigation? Were they reporting this information after the NSA had told the FBI about NSA monitoring of foreign hacking attempts?

Yesterday Comey spoke of the bureau's efforts to alert "the adminstration." Why was the FBI in a position to know about the DNC's vulnerability? The entire flimsy fogginess of this narrative is supposedly based on protecting sources and methods. But doesn't that say we have to accept that the NSA or some other security-related agency was monitoring entities who were warned?

OK, but doesn't that mean that the flimsy attribution claimed by CrowdStrike is just a way of protecting the real infiltrator, which could be something described in Vault7?

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-cyber-democrats-reconstruct-idUSKC...

Aug 3, 2016
FBI took months to warn Democrats of suspected Russian role in hack: sources
By Mark Hosenball, John Walcott and Joseph Menn

… It was not immediately clear how the FBI had learned of the hack against the DNC. One U.S. official with knowledge of the investigation said the agency had withheld information about details of the hacking to protect classified intelligence operations.

"There is a fine line between warning people or companies or even other government agencies that they’re being hacked – especially if the intrusions are ongoing – and protecting intelligence operations that concern national security," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The first internal DNC emails alerting party officials to the seriousness of the suspected hacking were sent in late March, one person said. In May, the DNC contacted California-based cyber security firm CrowdStrike to analyze unusual activity on the group’s network...

I guess what I'm concerned about is that if hacking actually happened at the DNC, could it have been a project of Vault7 or another CIA action? If an FBI agent innocently warned the DNC or others, and the DNC did nothing about it, could that have been because they knew they were routinely monitored by the CIA? Could "the administration" also have known and accepted this? And could the Wikileaks leak then have necessitated the invention of a foreign hacker, conveniently Putin?

The huge time differential between when the DNC was warned and when they took it seriously has to mean something. And Comey's characteristic nonchalance about all of this, as if no one could do anything to change the course of events, is so telling. It's like his saying he didn't stand up to Trump because he isn't a strong enough person, or his saying “no reasonable prosecutor” would indict Hillary, as if no prosecutor on this planet would do so without clear proof of "intent." What crap. He didn't stand up to Trump because he was going to continue to drag out these endless "investigations" into evidence-free crimes and hold that conversation with Trump as retribution if Trump fired him. Which is exactly what happened.

I'm going to take these guys at their word:

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-cyber-democrats-reconstruct-idUSKC...

...One U.S. official with knowledge of the investigation said the agency had withheld information about details of the hacking to protect classified intelligence operations.

OK. So that tells me that protecting intelligence operations is more important than protecting the election.

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@Linda Wood
"Village," but good start. The Village (and Villagers) must be protected at all costs. Which is why "Hearings" amount to squat - and why Trump survives all this horse$h!t.

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the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

Wink's picture

@Linda Wood
Somehow the Seth Rich murder is tied to all of this crap. Yet another Clinton dead body.

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the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

@Wink
there is something wrong with this picture.

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