- What Backlash? Facebook Usage Jumped After Cambridge Analytica Scandal
Not unlike the stock itself, it looks like Facebook users “bought the dip” on using the social media platform after the Cambridge Analytica scandal: the backlash that we were warned about for Facebook as a result of this scandal never happened.
In fact, Facebook usage numbers were actually higher for April 2018 – the month that the scandal had the most impact and news coverage.
As Business Insider reported, the movement for consumers to delete their Facebook accounts simply never took hold. Data provided by Goldman Sachs stated that Facebook‘s unique users on mobile devices were actually up 7% in April 2018, at the same time that the scandal was in its heyday.:
Facebook weathered the worst of the storm and usage actually increased, according to a client note from Goldman Sachs, citing ComScore figures. In other words, the #deleteFacebook backlash never really arrived.
Goldman Sachs said Facebook’s US unique users on mobile rose 7% year-on-year to 188.6 million in April, when the scandal was biting hard. Time spent on Facebook also went up. The graph below says it all.
As you can see above, the company actually wound up gaining usage according these newly released figures. This seems to prove that the cash generating social media giant made its way through “its biggest crisis” without even ruffling its feathers.
The company had announced also that it was purging more than 583 million fake accounts related to “Russian interference” recently, but Deutsche Bank noted that this purge also didn’t seem to have an effect on audience reach:
And there’s more good news for Facebook. Deutsche Bank said its advertising system checks had shown that the purge of 583 million fake accounts following Russian interference in the US election has had “little to no impact on audience reach.” It produced a graph revealing that ad targeting across all demos has actually grown.
“We note that this data represents audience reach across properties, not strictly tied to core Facebook, but we suspect they are cleaning up fake accounts across the board and view this as a broad indication that ad reach across Facebook continues to grow,” Deutsche Bank said.
As you may recall, after the Cambridge Analytical scandal broke, there was no shortage of analysts and pundits on television, including Tesla uber-bull Ross Gerber, who exclaimed on CNBC that “it’s all over”, “its going to be much worse than you’re seeing” and that Facebook “had allowed their platform to be a gutter for so many evil things”.
“Trust me, this is just the tip of the iceberg here,” he told CNBC on the first day Facebook was down about 7%.
Business Insider continued, echoing that “other research” showing trust in Facebook had been lost has ultimately been proven inaccurate, at least as it relates to both the stock and Facebook overall usage:
The findings, coupled with a full recovery in Facebook’s share price, completely undercut other research, which suggested that people’s trust in Facebook has nosedived since mid-March, when whistleblower Christopher Wylie first helped reveal that 87 million users had their data compromised by Cambridge Analytica.
As companies that generate $27 billion plus in operating cash per annum will tend to do, Facebook shelled out to launch a full court press PR campaign and went on the defensive, running apology videos on national television alongside of other disgraced companies, like Wells Fargo, doing the same. It worked. As a result, Facebook’s share price recovered in little time. Since then, the stock had dipped to near the $150 level but has promptly made its way back up to “pre-crisis levels” near $185 again, where it is today.
The Business Insider article notes that this should give Zuckerberg momentum during his upcoming testimony with EU lawmakers, which will take place next week:
The figures will give Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg confidence as he prepares for a crunch week, in which he will be grilled by top EU lawmakers. He will be questioned on privacy, fake news, and regulation by European Parliament’s political leaders.
But then Zuckerberg has already suggested that Facebook has seen little impact from Cambridge Analytica in terms of user engagement. He told Congress an immaterial number of users deleted their accounts as a result of the scandal.
We’re sure this “grilling” won’t have any tangible effect on Facebook going forward, similar to the way Zuckerberg’s testimony in the U.S. had no effect. There were some analysts who accurately prognosticated that his congressional testimony would do very little, as most congressional testimony tends to not produce any results and is simply a forum for political grandstanding.
In the meantime, Cambridge Analytica got the worst of the scandal – and recently filed for bankruptcy, as was reported 5 days ago by Bloomberg:
Cambridge Analytica, overwhelmed by a scandal over how it harvested data from Facebook to influence the last U.S. election, filed for bankruptcy in New York.
The U.K.-based political consulting firm, which had already said it would cease operations and wind down in its home country, listed liabilities of $1 million to $10 million. The Chapter 7 petition to liquidate U.S. affiliates — including SCL Elections Ltd., and SCL USA Inc. and SCL Social Ltd. — was signed by board members Rebekah Mercer and Jennifer Mercer, daughters of former New York hedge fund manager Robert Mercer whose family backed Donald Trump presidential campaign and helped reshape American conservative politics.
For the time being, Mark Zuckerberg looks to continue being “the golden child” – escaping what has arguably been his most prominent scandal to date with little to no repercussions. This should help keep his schedule wide open so that he can continue to prepare for his presidential bid.
- The Emerging China-Iran-Pakistan Alliance Is Directed Decidedly Against The United States
Authored by Lawrence Sellin, op-ed via The Daily Caller,
In a January 10, 2018 Daily Caller article titled “China May Have Just Brokered An Iran-Pakistan Accommodation,” I outlined the extensive diplomatic and military initiatives underway in the past year to foster reconciliation between Iran and Pakistan, orchestrated behind the scenes by China.
That strategy supports the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China’s blueprint for global hegemony. It is a development plan, a program of infrastructure projects and a network of commercial agreements designed to link the world directly to the Chinese economy through inter-connected land-based and maritime routes.
As French Asia expert, Nadége Rolland noted, BRI is soft power projection with an underlying hard power component, a comprehensive China-centered economic, financial and geopolitical web with far-reaching, cascading consequences affecting American national interests. It is not just resource acquisition or utilization of China’s industrial over-capacity, but projects specifically designed to ensure economic and, in parallel, military dominance.
As China expands commercially, the Chinese military, in particular its navy, will advance concomitantly to protect China’s growing economic empire, as did the British in an earlier era. Chinese intent is to gain access to a number of harbors and airports to create a chain of mutually-supporting military facilities.
China’s plans to expand its naval footprint in Pakistan have accompanied signs of increasing military cooperation between Tehran and Beijing over the last several years.
In June 2017, Iranian warships joined a Chinese naval flotilla conducting exercises in the Persian Gulf. The Chinese ships also made an official visit to the Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas after having earlier docked in Karachi, Pakistan. One Chinese military affairs expert, speaking at the time, said China was poised to increase its military presence in the Middle East to support BRI and would involve itself more in the affairs of the region.
Chinese efforts towards Iran-Pakistan cooperation have also borne fruit. In recent months, there has been a flurry of agreements in trade, defense, weapons development, counter-terrorism, banking, train service, parliamentary cooperation and — most recently — art and literature.
Secret security-related discussions among the Chinese, Pakistanis and Iranians military officials have been ongoing for at least a year. Early this March, for example, sources reported a nighttime meeting held at the Iran-Pakistan border near the strategic Pakistani port of Gwadar.
A major stimulus for those discussions has been the planned construction of a Chinese naval base on Pakistan’s Jiwani peninsula, immediately west of Gwadar near the Iranian border, a report confirmed here and here. It is not just its proximity to Iran, but that the Iranian navy is building one of its most sophisticated intelligence collection facilities right across the Jiwani Bay in Pasabandar, Iran. Combined, they would have enormous strategic significance.
A China-Iran-Pakistan alliance would have sweeping ramifications for U.S. foreign policy. For starters, it would render our current efforts in Afghanistan untenable, most likely provoking an American exit under conditions dictated by the Chinese and Pakistanis. It would initiate the beginning of an anti-access, area denial strategy against the U.S. Fifth Fleet in the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea region, similar to what the Chinese have attempted to implement against the U.S. Pacific Fleet in the South China Sea. Even the mere contemplation of such an alliance could give the Iranians considerable leverage in the face of American sanctions.
Nevertheless, China’s expansion will inevitably expose geopolitical vulnerabilities, which can be employed to thwart its plan for regional domination.
Strategic disruption of Chinese ambitions would involve traditional diplomatic dexterity and power projection capabilities of containment policy, coupled with covert measures exploiting nation-state conflicts, the Sunni-Shia divide, ethnic separatism and the splits among Islamic extremist groups — all features present in the region.
- Beijing Warns New Stealth Fighters Will Conduct Patrols In Taiwan's Airspace
Beijing has once again hinted that its new J-20 stealth fighter jets will conduct patrols around, or above, Taiwan’s airspace to pressure the island nation to reunify with China.
The warning message recently announced by Wang Mingliang, a Chinese military strategist with the China National Defense University during special programming on China Central Television program about Taiwan.
“J-20s can come and go at will above Taiwan,” said Mingliang, adding that Taiwan was frightened about “precision strikes on the leadership or key targets.”
Mingliang said that the fifth-generation stealth jet is designed to pierce through Taiwan’s air defense identification zone and launch either reconnaissance or assault missions on the island. The military strategist said the stealth fighter could easily take on the “antiquated” F-16s and Mirage 2000s, which are still the backbone of Taiwan’s air defense. In other words, the Chinese strategist said the stealth fighters would reign supreme in any combat operations or dogfight above or around Taiwan.
China Central Television report shows an inside view of a J-20’s cockpit. (Source: CCTV)
Earlier this month, a similar threat was echoed by Zhou Chenming, another Chinese military strategist, who said sea training exercises indicated that the stealth fighters would be sent to Taiwan and the heavily disputed regions of the South China Sea.
“The J-20 drill is another warning message because it went unseen by the Taiwanese air force and these stealth fighters are capable of a precision strike on the leadership,” Chenming said. “The PLA air force jets will enter the Taiwan [air defence identification zone] sooner or later.”
Beijing’s “goal is reunification with Taiwan” and “this is just one piece,” Dan Blumenthal, the director of Asian Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, told Business Insider, adding that cyber, sea, and political warfare are three domains that Beijing would remain dominant in the attempt to reunify Taiwan with the mainland.
Business Insider points out that Taiwan has a strategy to counter Beijing’s stealth fighters: new mobile passive radars and new active radars for their F-16Vs, according to Taipei Times. Taiwan is beefing up its electronic warfare units and advanced missiles, in the hopes to deter Beijing from violating its airspace with stealth fighters.
“It’s exactly what they should be doing,” Blumenthal said. “Just like any country would, they’re going to try to chase [the J-20s] away,” adding that Taiwan’s plan would be effective but that the country still wouldn’t be able to defend its airspace as well as major powers such as the US.
“Taiwan could probably use all sorts of help,” Blumenthal added.
Given that J-20 production is still a small number, it is hard to estimate how many stealth fighters Beijing will have for the next war patrol over Taiwan’s airspace. One thing is certain, the probability of a shooting war between China and Taiwan is growing by the week. As for now, stay tuned for future headlines of J-20s penetrating Taiwan’s airspace…China wants its island back.
- More Police State Surveillance: Courtesy Of The Pentagon
There was an article by Joseph Marks of Nextgov published on 5/16/18 that was neither picked up by the larger news networks nor kept in view for long. The article is entitled The Pentagon Has a Big Plan to Solve Identity Verification in Two Years, and here is a portion of it:
The Defense Department is funding a project that officials say could revolutionize the way companies, federal agencies and the military itself verify that people are who they say they are and it could be available in most commercial smartphones within two years. The technology, which will be embedded in smartphones’ hardware, will analyze a variety of identifiers that are unique to an individual, such as the hand pressure and wrist tension when the person holds a smartphone and the person’s peculiar gait while walking, said Steve Wallace, technical director at the Defense Information Systems Agency.
Organizations that use the tool can combine those identifiers to give the phone holder a “risk score,” Wallace said.
If the risk score is low enough, the organization can presume the person is who she says she is and grant her access to sensitive files on the phone or on a connected computer or grant her access to a secure facility. If the score’s too high, she’ll be locked out.
Amazing. The Pentagon’s technical director omitted much in his quest to act as if such actions are “government streamlining” and occurring matter-of-factly, in the interests of securing information for the government and its contractors.
The problem: if it’s in the software of all the commercial smartphones (the ones bought in the stores), that biometric data will be transmitted by all the phones, not just the contractors to the federal government.
We also know where this is heading. The government will back-door everyone’s cell phones and make tracking and surveillance even more ubiquitous than it is now, and that’s saying something. Read this portion:
Another identifier that will likely be built into the chips is a GPS tracker that will store encrypted information about a person’s movements, Wallace said. The verification tool would analyze historical information about a person’s locations and major, recent anomalies would raise the person’s risk score. The tool would be separate from the GPS function used by mapping and exercise apps, he said. The tool does not include biometric information, such as a thumbprint or eye scans at this point, Wallace said, because DISA judged that existing commercial applications of biometric information are too easy to spoof.
So, they’re telling us up front. GPS tracking will be used to monitor… and store… your movements… deciding if you’re a “risk” by where you go. “Anomalies,” the actions are termed, that “would raise the person’s risk score.”
Anomalous (an anomaly) is defined as something “deviating from a general rule; abnormal,” (Webster). Such a subjective assessment could literally be applied for anything outside of normative and fostered “Fisher-Price” conduct: Awake at 7am, breakfast at 8am, work by 9am, lunch 12-1pm, work until 5pm, drive to obtain gas/grocery store/bank, and then home, dinner at 6pm, tv 7-9pm, and go to sleep…repeat ad nauseum.
Anything outside of that basic, predictable “matrix” can be listed as an anomaly to increase your risk-score. This out of the Pentagon, mind you: the embodiment of the Military Industrial Complex warned about by Eisenhower (who ironically played a big part in its creation). It is not unpredictable: the militarization of the police departments, the sprouting of the fusion centers (with PO box addresses and not physical addresses, mind you), the “green light” from the FCC or a blind eye toward “Oath” (the company that gobbled up Yahoo, and forces you to allow it to read your e-mails and access your bank accounts), and other giants such as Google.
The Pentagon used to handle military matters, but the NDAA initiated by Bush Jr. and perfected under Obama redefines the “battlefield” as being the whole world (including the domestic, continental United States). The “War on Terrorism” was created to “justify” military actions against the citizens of the United States, hence to take measures heretofore forbidden under Constitutional law. In the interests of national security, the “protectors” have become the jailers…the police state that is being crafted by the day as the Statists concurrently work on removing all our rights as enumerated under the Constitution. The war is being conducted by the State against the citizens, the new “enemy” against the conformity of globalism and the totalitarian dictatorship that will eventually be complete in the United States.
- Mysterious Booms Across Pennsylvania Triggers FBI Investigation
For the past month, residents in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, have been reporting mysterious booms overnight. However, nobody — not even local authorities — can explain.
Now, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has arrived in Upper Bucks and Lehigh Counties to investigate the nighttime explosions. Springfield Township police say that multiple earth-shaking booms occurred as recent as 4 a.m. on Tuesday, according to KYW-TV.
While federal authorities are circling the region in search of the source, everyone is puzzled at what is causing the explosions.
“I thought that somebody was making a tunnel or space junk fell out of the sky,” said Susan Crompton, who lives in Haycock Township.
“From poachers, gunfire, to explosions to a sonic boom,” said Jerry Hertz of the mysterious sound.
KYW-TV said there had been no shortage of theories among residents, but still, no clear answer of the cause.
“It’s a rumble, it actually like rumbles the ground like an earthquake would happen but with a loud like boom,” Crompton added.
“I’ve been in the military, I’ve got experience with explosives, I was a Navy diver and was definitely not a gunshot,” Hertz said.
Mysterious Booms, House-Rattling Sounds In Pennsylvania Under Investigation By FBI
Since early April, local law enforcement agencies have noticed that all reported booms have taken place between the 2 a.m. and 4:30 a.m.
Crompton and her daughter have heard the booms twice, indicating that it felt like an explosion, as it shook her house.
“It is imperative that we get the information as soon as possible in order to track these events,” said police.
What is even more perplexing, is that another explosion was reported on early Sunday morning in Nockamixon Township. Resident Nick Zangli told the Bucks County Herald “it was one hell of an explosion,” who lives down the street from a 4-foot wide by 1-foot deep cavity, which he alleges opened up after the blast.
Zangli said there was “nothing in the hole, which was filled with water because of heavy rain over the weekend.” Law enforcement came out Monday to investigate the sinkhole but did not respond to any media requests.
Mysterious booms are not just limited to Pennsylvania. There are local media reports from all across America of booms rocking towns from coast to coast. While officials have zero answers to provide their citizens, it is hard to prepare for an event if it is not yet identifiable. Mother nature is knocking and something does not seem right. Have you prepared?
- Visualizing Trump's Trade Flip-Flops On Actual Shipping Routes
Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk,
The bulk carrier RB Eden changed course twice thanks to Trump’s trade reversals. A third time may be in the works.
The Voyage of the RB Eden tracks Trump’s trade policy reversals with China.
The bulk carrier RB Eden was loaded with the grain at Archer-Daniels-Midland Co.’s terminal in Corpus Christi, Texas, and was initially bound for Shanghai. When China announced a 179 percent tariff on imports of sorghum in mid-April, it performed a U-turn in the Indian Ocean, according to vessel data tracked by Bloomberg, and sailed back around southern Africa toward Europe.
The vessel’s destination was changed to Cartagena, Spain, but according to the data, it never docked. On May 18, China scrappedits anti-dumping and anti-subsidy probe into sorghum. The same day, the RB Eden began sailing back toward the Atlantic. It’s currently bound for Singapore.
Reversal
Saga of the RB Eden
In response to Trump’s sanctions on Chinese telecom giant ZTE, China put huge tariffs on US agricultural goods.
That’s what caused the RB Eden to turn the first time.
Then, just as the RB Eden nearly reached dock in Spain, Trump removed sanctions on ZTE and in turn, China removed tariffs on agricultural goods.
The RB Eden turned around and is headed back to Asia.
Will the RB Eden make it this time?
It’s rather questionable. Trump has again reversed course on China.
Under pressure from Congress, Trump reversed course on ZTE sanctions yesterday, after declaring trade success on Sunday.
If China responds with agricultural tariffs again, the RB Eden will not make it to port in China.
Neither Here Nor There
I made a fitting comment yesterday, unaware of the saga of the RB Eden.
“Trump’s trade policy is like a page from French president Emmanuel Macron. It’s neither here nor there, nor anywhere.“
- Nobel Prize On The Rocks: North Korea Calls Pence A "Political Dummy", Threatens To Call Off Summit
Trump’s Nobel Peace Prize is suddenly in jeopardy.
Just a few weeks after the US president seemed on the verge of a historic diplomatic breakthrough by getting North Korea to open its borders to the world and end its nuclear program, progress appears to have taken a sharp U-turn, and after several rounds of increasingly harsher verbal outbursts, a senior North Korean official called VP Mike Pence a “political dummy”, repeated a threat to call off the planned summit with President Donald Trump and in a flashback to Pongyang’s ICBM launch days, warned that Pyongyang could “make the U.S. taste an appalling tragedy it has neither experienced nor even imagined.”
As the WSJ reports, “in its most direct language aimed at Washington following a recent rapprochement between the two countries, Choe Son Hui, the North’s vice minister of foreign affairs, said if the June 12 talks were called off, the U.S. could instead face off with North Korea in a “nuclear-to-nuclear showdown.“
In other words, the US is almost back to square one in dealing with Kim.
Choe Son Hui, North Korea’s vice minister for foreign affairs In the past few weeks, tensions between North Korea and the United States have once again been rising after Korea refused to meet the United States’ demand of denuclearization, while the reason why Choe called Mike Pence a “political dummy” is in refernce to his Fox News interview earlier this week in which the VP reiterated the administrataion’s insistence on denuclearization for North Korea.
She also criticized the vice president for bringing up Libya in the context of denuclearization—a sensitive subject for North Korea, after Moammar Gadhafi was overthrown and killed in 2011, eight years after giving up Libya’s nuclear weapons. Mr. Pence said the Libya model would only come about if North Korea failed to denuclearize.
Choe’s statement followed “strongly worded statements” last week from other senior North Korean officials aimed at U.S. national security adviser John Bolton and at the South Korean government of Moon Jae-in, who has pushed for dialogue with Pyongyang to avoid a nuclear standoff. The latest outburst also follows yesterday’s meeting at the White House between Trump and Moon, who as the WSJ puts it “have both staked their hopes—and their credibility” on a successful U.S.-North Korea summit, which has been planned for June 12 in Singapore.
However, that summit is looking increasingly precarious, especially after a series of ominously worded North Korean statements: Last week, Pyongyang warned the U.S. and South Korea against conducting joint air force drills, and called on Seoul to muzzle defectors who were questioning the North’s motives in seeking detente. The North also canceled previously scheduled talks with Seoul after the US refused to call off joiont US-South Korean military drills in the region. Then last ago, a senior North Korean official said that Pyongyang wasn’t interested in a summit with the U.S. focused solely on denuclearization and accused Washington of trying to “impose on our dignified state the destiny of Libya or Iraq.”
Trump said in his meeting with Moon on Tuesday that he would call off his summit with Kim if the conditions didn’t work out, and put the odds of it continuing as planned at about 50-50.
“I don’t want to waste a lot of time, and I’m sure he doesn’t want to waste a lot of time. So there’s a very substantial chance that it won’t work out. And that’s OK,” Mr. Trump said.
Still, Trump had expressed hope that Mr. Kim was sincere about wanting to make a big change in policy: “He has a chance to do something that maybe has never been done before,” Mr. Trump said. “If you look 25 years into the future—50 years into the future—he will be able to look back and be very proud of what he did for North Korea, and actually for the world.”
Meanwhiole, Pompeo who secretly flew to Pyongyang over Easter to meet with Kim and break the ice between the two nations, remained adamant that denuclearization must be part of any deal with North Korea in some capacity despite the country’s refusal to do so. The U.S. has maintained that they will keep military pressure on North Korea until denuclearization is achieved.
So far North Korea does not appear will to make any concessions.
In her Thursday statement published by KCNA, Choe took issue with Pence’s Fox News interview in which he suggested that the North sought the summit meeting with Trump; she called Pence’s words “unbridled and impudent,” and said that “Pence should have seriously considered the terrible consequences of his words.”
“As a person involved in the U.S. affairs, I cannot suppress my surprise at such ignorant and stupid remarks gushing out from the mouth of the U.S. vice president,” she said and added that if the U.S. continues to offend the North’s “goodwill,” she would tell leader Kim Jong Un to reconsider the Singapore summit with the U.S.
“It is the U.S. who has asked for dialogue, but now it is misleading the public opinion as if we have invited them to sit with us,” Ms. Choe said. “We will neither beg the U.S. for dialogue nor take the trouble to persuade them if they do not want to sit together with us.”
And so, with just over three weeks left until the highly anticipated meeting between the two nations, Trump will have to decide whether it will back off its denuclearization demand or take a more aggressive approach with North Korea. If it is the latter, the US will likely end up using the “Libya model”, and instead of winning the Nobel prize, Trump will instead find himself greenlighting a decapitation strike, and potentially launching a new global conflict.
- US Will Blow $700 Billion On Obamacare Subsidies In 2018
While Democrats have continuously griped about how Republican measures to slowly dismantle the Affordable Care Act (otherwise known as Obamacare) will sink their chances of cementing control of Congress in this year’s midterm elections, the US government is now estimating that it will spend $700 billion on subsidies this year to help provide Americans under the age of 65 with health insurance through their jobs or in government-sponsored health programs, according to a report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
The subsidies come from four main categories:
Roughly $300 billion is federal spending on programs like Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which typically help insure low-income people.
Almost as big are the tax write-offs that employers take for providing coverage to their workers.
Medicare-eligible people, such as the disabled, account for $82 billion.
Subsidies for Obamacare and for other individual coverage are the smallest segment, at $55 billion.
Or, as the chart below shows, a plurality of spending goes to Medicaid + CHIP:
While Obamacare initially added tens of millions of Americans to the rolls of the insured, 29 million people will likely go without health coverage for an average of at least one month this year, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
According to Bloomberg, the subsidies in the Affordable Care Act are designed to insulate people from the deleterious impact of premium hikes. The CBO forecast that premiums for mid-range plans will hike by 15% by 2019, and by about 7% annually through 2028.
Several rule changes enacted by the Trump administration have impacted the program more broadly. The non-payment of those subsidies, less enforcement of a rule requiring people to have insurance and limited competition caused insurers to raise their premiums by about 34 percent in 2018, compared to 2017.
That increased the cost of the subsidies to the federal government, according to the CBO.
Thirty-five million Americans could lack coverage by 2028 as rising premiums and the elimination of the individual mandate drive more people to drop coverage.
- Sharyl Attkisson: 8 Signs Pointing To A Counter-Intel Op Deployed Against Trump
Authored by Sharyl Attkisson, op-ed via The Hill,
It may be true that President Trump illegally conspired with Russia and was so good at covering it up he’s managed to outwit our best intel and media minds who’ve searched for irrefutable evidence for two years. (We still await special counsel Robert Mueller’s findings.)
But there’s a growing appearance of alleged wrongdoing equally as insidious, if not more so, because it implies widespread misuse of America’s intelligence and law enforcement apparatus.
Here are eight signs pointing to a counterintelligence operation deployed against Trump for political reasons.
1. Code name
The operation reportedly had at least one code name that was leaked to The New York Times: “Crossfire Hurricane.”
2. Wiretap fever
Secret surveillance was conducted on no fewer than seven Trump associates: chief strategist Stephen Bannon; lawyer Michael Cohen; national security adviser Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn; adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner; campaign chairman Paul Manafort; and campaign foreign policy advisers Carter Page and George Papadopoulos.
The FBI reportedly applied for a secret warrant in June 2016 to monitor Manafort, Page, Papadopoulos and Flynn. If true, it means the FBI targeted Flynn six months before his much-debated conversation with Russia’s ambassador, Sergey Kislyak.
The FBI applied four times to wiretap Page after he became a Trump campaign adviser starting in July 2016. Page’s office is connected to Trump Tower and he reports having spent “many hours in Trump Tower.”
CNN reported that Manafort was wiretapped before and after the election “including during a period when Manafort was known to talk to President Trump.” Manafort reportedly has a residence in Trump Tower.
Electronic surveillance was used to listen in on three Trump transition officials in Trump Tower — Flynn, Bannon and Kushner — as they met in an official capacity with the United Arab Emirates’ crown prince.
The FBI also reportedly wiretapped Flynn’s phone conversation with Kislyak on Dec. 31, 2016, as part of “routine surveillance” of Kislyak.
NBC recently reported that Cohen, Trump’s personal attorney, was wiretapped. NBC later corrected the story, saying Cohen was the subject of a “pen register” used to monitor phone numbers and, possibly, internet communications.
3. National security letters
Another controversial tool reportedly used by the FBI to obtain phone records and other documents in the investigation were national security letters, which bypass judicial approval.
Improper use of such letters has been an ongoing theme at the FBI. Reviews by the Department of Justice’s Inspector General found widespread misuse under Mueller — who was then FBI director — and said officials failed to report instances of abuses as required.
4. Unmasking
“Unmasking” — identifying protected names of Americans captured by government surveillance — was frequently deployed by at least four top Obama officials who have subsequently spoken out against President Trump: James Clapper, former Director of National Intelligence; Samantha Power, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations; Susan Rice, former national security adviser; Sally Yates, former deputy attorney general.
Names of Americans caught communicating with monitored foreign targets must be “masked,” or hidden within government agencies, so the names cannot be misused or shared.
However, it’s been revealed that Power made near-daily unmasking requests in 2016.
Prior to that revelation, Clapper claimed ignorance. When asked if he knew of unmasking requests by any ambassador, including Power, he testified: “I don’t know. Maybe it’s ringing a vague bell but I’m not — I could not answer with any confidence.”
Rice admitted to asking for unmasked names of U.S. citizens in intelligence reports after initially claiming no knowledge of any such thing.
Clapper also admitted to requesting the unmasking of “Mr. Trump, his associates or any members of Congress.” Clapper and Yates admitted they also personally reviewed unmasked documents and shared unmasked material with other officials.
5. Changing the rules
On Dec. 15, 2016 — the same day the government listened in on Trump officials at Trump Tower — Rice reportedly unmasked the names of Bannon, Kushner and Flynn. And Clapper made a new rule allowing the National Security Agency to widely disseminate surveillance material within the government without the normal privacy protections.
6. Media strategy
Former CIA Director John Brennan and Clapper, two of the most integral intel officials in this ongoing controversy, have joined national news organizations where they have regular opportunities to shape the news narrative — including on the very issues under investigation.
Clapper reportedly secretly leaked salacious political opposition research against Trump to CNN in fall 2017 and later was hired as a CNN political analyst. In February, Brennan was hired as a paid analyst for MSNBC.
7. Leaks
There’s been a steady and apparently orchestrated campaign of leaks — some true, some false, but nearly all of them damaging to President Trump’s interests.
A few of the notable leaks include word that Flynn was wiretapped, the anti-Trump “Steele dossier” of political opposition research, then-FBI Director James Comey briefing Trump on it, private Comey conversations with Trump, Comey’s memos recording those conversations and criticizing Trump, the subpoena of Trump’s personal bank records (which proved false) and Flynn planning to testify against Trump (which also proved to be false).
8. Friends, informants and snoops
The FBI reportedly used one-time CIA operative Stefan Halper in 2016 as an informant to spy on Trump officials.
Another player is Comey friend Daniel Richman, a Columbia University law professor, who leaked Comey’s memos against Trump to The New York Times after Comey was fired. We later learned that Richman actually worked for the FBI under a status called “Special Government Employee.”
The FBI used former reporter Glenn Simpson, his political opposition research firm Fusion GPS, and ex-British spy Christopher Steele to compile allegations against Trump, largely from Russian sources, which were distributed to the press and used as part of wiretap applications.
* * *
These eight features of a counterintelligence operation are only the pieces we know.
It can be assumed there’s much we don’t yet know. And it may help explain why there’s so much material that the Department of Justice hasn’t easily handed over to congressional investigators.
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