National Security

For our 4th of July, North Korea celebrates with a missile test

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On January 2, 2017, with a threat from North Korea that it might soon test an intercontinental ballistic missile, President-electcDonald Trump tweeted that “North Korea just stated that it is in the final stages of developing a nuclear weapon capable of reaching parts of the U.S. It won’t happen!”

The tweet came to be seen as a “red line” for North Korea and set up a potential test of Trump’s credibility.

North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un bided his time and decided to send America a birthday present for our Fourth of July. North Korea Says It Has Successfully Tested ICBM. Red line crossed. Your move, Twitter troll:

North Korea said on Tuesday that it had successfully conducted its first test of an intercontinental ballistic missile, claiming a milestone in its efforts to build nuclear weapons capable of hitting the mainland United States.

The announcement came hours after a launch that the United States military said sent the missile aloft for 37 minutes. That duration, analysts said, suggested a significant improvement in the range of the North’s missiles, and it might allow one to travel as far as 4,000 miles and hit Alaska.

In initial statements, the United States Pacific Command and the State Department described the weapon as an intermediate-range missile rather than an intercontinental ballistic missile.

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Update: The ‘Flynn factor’ to Trump-Putin campaign collusion

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The Wall Street Journal followed up its reporting on Friday night with another installment. GOP Activist Who Sought Clinton Emails Cited Trump Campaign Officials (sorry, pay wall article).

Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo provides the details and some further analysis from a source for the story. This Is Big:

As you may have heard, this evening The Wall Street Journal published a major follow-up to its story from Thursday which described the work of a GOP money man and oppo research guy, the late Peter W. Smith, who was trying to get hacked emails from Russia and held himself out to be in contact with disgraced Trump advisor Michael Flynn. On its face, the big new break in this follow-up story is a new document from Smith. The document is from what is described as a package of recruiting materials Smith was using to enlist cybersecurity talent in his operation. The document listed key officials in the Trump campaign. These were apparently people Smith claimed he was in touch with or working with, though precisely how or why they were mentioned is not entirely clear.

Here’s the key passage from the Journal article …

Officials identified in the document include Steve Bannon, now chief strategist for President Donald Trump; Kellyanne Conway, former campaign manager and now White House counselor; Sam Clovis, a policy adviser to the Trump campaign and now a senior adviser at the Agriculture Department; and retired Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn, who was a campaign adviser and briefly was national security adviser in the Trump administration.

A few caveats are in order.

From the Journal reporting at least it is not totally clear what Smith intended by listing these people. It’s also possible that Smith was freelancing. There are lots of people in the orbit of major campaigns puffing up their connections to top players. The Journal article has Bannon denying any knowledge of Smith. Conway says she knew Smith from GOP politics over the years but was never in contact with him about this.

That’s the story as presented in the Journal.

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Donald Trump’s policy of appeasement towards Russia, a dereliction of his basic duty to defend the country

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Earlier this week there was little reported but important testimony by former U.S. Ambassador to NATO Nicholas Burns to the Senate intelligence committee in regard to Russia’s hacking of European elections.

Here is a good highlights summary from the  American Bridge PAC. Trump’s Unwillingness To Act On Russia Is A “Dereliction Of The Basic Duty To Defend The Country”:

Here are six must-see moments from today’s hearing:

WATCH: No doubt Russia attacked our election

AMBASSADOR NICHOLAS BURNS: There is no doubt about Russia’s systematic campaign to undermine our 2016 presidential election, the Montenegrin, Dutch, French and German elections this year. And Russia’s seeking to diminish the confidence that the citizens of all these countries have in their democracies.

WATCH: It would be a mistake for Trump to weaken or veto sanctions on Russia

AMBASSADOR NICHOLAS BURNS: I hope the House of Representatives will back, and not dilute, in this sense the very strong Senate sanctions bill against Moscow that you passed by a 97-2 margin two weeks ago. In my view, it would be a great mistake for President Trump to veto such a bill. And with our long national two-century debate about the separation of powers in mind, I do think that Congress, it’s time for the Congress, and not the President, to lead the American response to Russia’s cyberattack on the United States. The President has shown that he’s unwilling to act against Russia. And that is why the Congressional Review provision in your Senate bill makes eminent sense so that the administration cannot ease or lift the sanctions on Russia until Putin’s attacks on our democratic elections have ceased, and until he’s met the provisions of the two Minsk agreements on Ukraine and Crimea.

WATCH: If Trump continues to refuse to hold Russia accountable it will be a dereliction of his duty to defend this country

AMBASSADOR NICHOLAS BURNS: It is his duty, President Trump’s, to be skeptical of Russia. It is his duty to investigate and defend our country against cyber-offensives, because Russia’s our most dangerous adversary in the world today. And if he continues to refuse to act, it’s a dereliction of the basic duty to defend the country.

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The ‘Flynn factor’ to Trump-Putin campaign collusion

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Michael Flynn is at the center of the Trump-Putin campaign investigations by the FBI, the Special Counsel, and congressional committees.

Earlier this year his lawyer publicly asked for an immunity deal for Flynn to “tell his story,” and there has been widespread speculation that Michael Flynn has turned on Donald Trump and is now cooperating with the FBI on Russia investigation. This has not yet been confirmed.

Keep this possibility in mind, however, with the Wall Street Journal’s breaking news story on the first direct evidence of collusion between Russian hackers and Michael Flynn, a senior advisor to the Trump campaign, through a GOP intermediary. GOP Operative Sought Clinton Emails From Hackers, Implied a Connection to Flynn (sorry, pay wall article).

Steve Benen provides the details from the WSJ report. Collusion questions grow louder in Trump, Russia scandal:

As Donald Trump’s Russia scandal has evolved, one of the key questions is whether the Republican presidential campaign cooperated in some way with our adversary’s attack on the American election. It is, of course, a matter of ongoing investigation . . . this line of inquiry took an important turn with this Wall Street Journal article.

Before the 2016 presidential election, a longtime Republican opposition researcher mounted an independent campaign to obtain emails he believed were stolen from Hillary Clinton’s private server, likely by Russian hackers.

In conversations with members of his circle and with others he tried to recruit to help him, the GOP operative, Peter W. Smith, implied he was working with retired Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn, at the time a senior adviser to then-candidate Donald Trump.

So, what we have here is a Republican operative, Peter Smith, who assembled a team in the hopes of obtaining Hillary Clinton’s emails. Smith and his team reached out to people they believed to be Russian hackers, affiliated with Russia’s government, because Smith and his cohorts thought these hackers may have stolen the materials.

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Russian cyber war, Trump appeasement

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TIME magazine continues its excellent reporting on the Russian hacking of the U.S. election in 2016. Election Hackers Altered Voter Rolls, Stole Private Data, Officials Say:

The hacking of state and local election databases in 2016 was more extensive than previously reported, including at least one successful attempt to alter voter information, and the theft of thousands of voter records that contain private information like partial Social Security numbers, current and former officials tell TIME.

In one case, investigators found there had been a manipulation of voter data in a county database but the alterations were discovered and rectified, two sources familiar with the matter tell TIME. Investigators have not identified whether the hackers in that case were Russian agents.

The fact that private data was stolen from states is separately providing investigators a previously unreported line of inquiry in the probes into Russian attempts to influence the election. In Illinois, more than 90% of the nearly 90,000 records stolen by Russian state actors contained drivers license numbers, and a quarter contained the last four digits of voters’ Social Security numbers, according to Ken Menzel, the General Counsel of the State Board of Elections.

Congressional investigators are probing whether any of this stolen private information made its way to the Trump campaign, two sources familiar with the investigations tell TIME.

“If any campaign, Trump or otherwise, used inappropriate data the questions are, How did they get it? From whom? And with what level of knowledge?” the former top Democratic staffer on the House Intelligence Committee, Michael Bahar, tells TIME. “That is a crux of the investigation.”

Spokesmen for the House and Senate Intelligence committees declined to comment on the search for stolen data.

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