Cyber War

Bloomberg: Russia’s cyberattacks on U.S. election were more widespread than publicly revealed

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While Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III was shockingly testifying yesterday that he has received no intelligence briefings on Russian interference into the 2016 presidential election, even though he is a member of the National Security Council, Bloomberg News was publishing its investigative into the matter. Russian Cyber Hacks on U.S. Electoral System Far Wider Than Previously Known:

Russia’s cyberattack on the U.S. electoral system before Donald Trump’s election was far more widespread than has been publicly revealed, including incursions into voter databases and software systems in almost twice as many states as previously reported.

In Illinois, investigators found evidence that cyber intruders tried to delete or alter voter data. The hackers accessed software designed to be used by poll workers on Election Day, and in at least one state accessed a campaign finance database. Details of the wave of attacks, in the summer and fall of 2016, were provided by three people with direct knowledge of the U.S. investigation into the matter. In all, the Russian hackers hit systems in a total of 39 states, one of them said.

The scope and sophistication so concerned Obama administration officials that they took an unprecedented step — complaining directly to Moscow over a modern-day “red phone.” In October, two of the people said, the White House contacted the Kremlin on the back channel to offer detailed documents of what it said was Russia’s role in election meddling and to warn that the attacks risked setting off a broader conflict.

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Right-wing media lays the groundwork for firing Robert Mueller

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One of President Trump’s lawyers on Sunday would not rule out that the special counsel overseeing the Russia criminal investigation could get fired. President Trump lawyer won’t rule out Special Counsel Robert Mueller getting fired:

On ABC News’ “This Week,” attorney Jay Sekulow evaded a direct question about whether Trump would promise not to interfere with the probe run by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

“Look, the President of the United States, as we all know, is a unitary executive,” Sekulow said.

“But the President is going to seek the advice of his counsel and inside the government as well as outside. And I’m not going to speculate on what he will or will not do.”

He added, “I can’t imagine that that issue is going to arise. But that again is an issue that the President with his advisers would discuss if there was a basis.”

“Unitary executive“? We’ve heard this phrase before. The unitary executive theory “asserts that all executive authority must be in the President’s hands, without exception.” Presidential power “must be unilateral, and unchecked.” The phrase “unitary executive” is a code word for a doctrine that favors nearly unlimited executive power, from the twisted mind of Dick Cheney.

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Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III to testify on Tuesday

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Programming Note: Our Confederate Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III will testify in open hearing Tuesday before Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday:

Attorney General Jeff Sessions will testify in an open hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, according to the committee’s leaders.

The hearing will be held Tuesday at 2:30 p.m. ET.

Former FBI Director James Comey testified last week that the bureau had information about Sessions — before he recused himself from overseeing the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election — that would have made it “problematic” for him to be involved in the probe. The former director did not elaborate in public on the nature of the information.

Justice Department spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores said Sessions requested that the committee hearing be public.

“He believes it is important for the American people to hear the truth directly from him and looks forward to answering the committee’s questions tomorrow,” Flores said.

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Support for James Comey’s version of the story

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Former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in an interview with ABC’s This Week that Trump’s alleged effort to dissuade then-FBI director James Comey from pursuing an investigation into former national security director Michael Flynn’s contacts with Russia merited an inquiry.

“I think there’s absolutely evidence to begin a case,” Bharara told This Week host George Stephanopoulos, adding: “I think it’s very important for all sorts of armchair speculators in the law to be clear that no one knows right now whether there is a provable case of obstruction.”

“It’s also true I think from based on what I see as a third party and out of government that there’s no basis to say there’s no obstruction,” he said.

More importantly, Preet Bharara says he was similarly pressured by Donald Trump as former FBI Director James Comey testified under oath. Former U.S. Atty. Preet Bharara says Trump fired him after a series of ‘uncomfortable’ calls:

Preet Bharara, the former U.S. attorney for Manhattan, told an interviewer Sunday that he was fired after a series of  “uncomfortable” telephone calls that made him feel that President Trump might be trying to compromise his independence as a federal prosecutor.

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Robert Mueller is assembling a ‘dream team’ of prosecutors

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For those Tea-Publicans who have abandoned all reason for blind loyalty to the authoritarian personality cult of Donald J. Trump, and who have convinced themselves that their Dear Leader is either a naife who is innocent of any and all wrongdoing, or is above the law, I would suggest you consider the legal team that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is putting together for his investigation. If there is “nothing to see here,” as Trump apologists delusionally assert, Mueller would not be assembling a “dream team” of heavy-hitter prosecutors. He clearly believes that he is sitting on something “yuuuge.”

Politico reports, Everything we know about the Mueller probe so far:

Special counsel Robert Mueller is assembling a prosecution team with decades of experience going after everything from Watergate to the Mafia to Enron as he digs in for a lengthy probe into possible collusion between Russia and President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign.

His first appointments — tapping longtime law-firm partner James Quarles and Andrew Weissmann, the head of the Justice Department’s criminal fraud unit — were the opening moves in a politically red-hot criminal case that has upended the opening months of the Trump White House.

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Mueller brings a wealth of national security experience from his time leading the FBI in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Veteran prosecutors say he has assembled a potent team whose members have backgrounds handling cases involving politicians, mobsters and others — and who know how to work potential witnesses if it helps them land bigger fish.

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