CIA Director Mike Pompeo said in an interview with the BBC on Monday that he expects Russia to try to meddle in the 2018 midterm elections. The director of the CIA expects Russia will try to meddle in the 2018 midterm elections:
“I have every expectation that they will continue to try and do that,” Pompeo told BBC reporter Gordon Corera. “But I’m confident that America will be able to have a free and fair election (and) that we will push back in a way that is sufficiently robust that the impact they have on our election won’t be great.”
Pompeo also told the BBC that, despite some cooperation on anti-terrorism efforts, he views Russia as an adversary, stressing that they are still trying to influence the US and Europe.
Despite the fact that the U.S. is still under cyber war attacks from a hostile Russian government, Putin’s Puppet in the White House on Monday refused to impose new sanctions on Russia that Congress had overwhelmingly approved. Trump Administration Won’t Impose Sanctions on Buyers of Russian Arms:
The Trump administration announced Monday that it had decided against imposing any sanctions on countries that buy Russian military equipment, saying that a new law was already deterring billions of dollars in such purchases.
The law required that sanctions be imposed against large purchasers of Russian arms, but it granted exceptions for a variety of reasons. The administration explained the exceptions it was citing to members of Congress in a classified briefing on Monday.
“We estimate that foreign governments have abandoned planned or announced purchases of several billion dollars in Russian defense acquisitions” since the enactment of the law in August, said Heather Nauert, the State Department spokeswoman.
Defense deals are often years in the making, so last year’s law, called the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, is only just beginning to have an effect, an administration official said.
Congress overwhelmingly passed the law in response to intelligence that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election in the United States. But the legislation presented the Trump administration, which opposed its passage, with a conundrum because crucial American allies and partners, such as India, Turkey and some Eastern European members of NATO, continue to buy military equipment from Russia.
The administration’s rejection of sanctions on Monday disappointed critics, who worried about continued Russian influence.
Peter Harrell, a former sanctions official in the Obama administration, said that it was “clearly disappointing” that the Trump administration refused to impose sanctions “on the same day that C.I.A. Director Mike Pompeo said that Russia will target the 2018 midterm elections.”
“If they want these sanctions to truly have a strong deterrent effect,” Mr. Harrell said, “they needed to release a stronger statement today, and they needed a few scapegoats to sanction to send a message that the administration is serious about enforcement.”
In opposing the sanctions law, the Trump administration argued that it needed flexibility to pursue a more collaborative diplomacy. But many members of Congress, worried about Mr. Trump’s apparent admiration for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, wanted to take away his power to suspend sanctions on his own.
Russia has an election coming up in March, and Trump’s pal Putin had his nominal political opponent arrested on Sunday, another reason to impose new sanctions against his autocratic criminal regime. Top Putin opponent urges Russia protesters to act ‘for yourself and your future’:
Russian police detained a top opponent of President Vladimir Putin today as thousands of people around the country protested against a lack of competition in presidential elections planned for this spring.
Alexey Navalny, an anti-corruption campaigner who has become Russia’s most prominent critic of Putin, was seized and dragged violently into a van by police as he tried to join one of the protests that he had called for in central Moscow.
“I was detained,” Navalny tweeted in Russian from inside the police van. “It does not matter … You don’t go for me, but for yourself and your future.”
Navalny also tweeted a video of his arrest and photos from the protests.
Late on Sunday, Navalny tweeted he had been released by police without any charges being filed, but his lawyer, Olga Mikhailova, told Reuters that he would have to face court at a later date. Almost 300 people were reported to have also been detained during the protests, that nonetheless passed off with fewer arrests than at previous rallies.
The protests, which had been expected in 100 Russian cities, were called by Navalny after he was blocked from the election that is scheduled for March and in which Putin faces no substantial opposition.
In response, Navalny has called for a boycott of the vote. Today’s protests were meant to back the proposed boycott while also tapping into discontent around official corruption and economic malaise. The protests were the first major demonstrations since Russia’s election campaigning began.
People joined demonstrations from Murmansk in the far north of Russia to the port of Vladivostok, which is seven time zones away. Protests ranged in size from dozens to several hundred people.
In many locations, the protesters were braving blisteringly cold temperatures; one of the coldest sites was in the far eastern city of Yakutsk, where it was 49 degrees below zero.
At least 290 people were detained during the protests, according to OVD-Info, a group that monitors arrests.
The U.S. should be doing whatever it can to support the opposition to Putin’s autocratic criminal regime.
UPDATE: Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), the ranking member on the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said on Twitter this morning, “Congress voted 517-5 to impose sanctions on Russia. The President decides to ignore that law. Folks that is a constitutional crisis. There should be outrage in every corner of this country.”
UPDATE: The New York Times editorializes, Trump Gives Putin a Pass for Trashing American Democracy: “The bottom line: Mr. Trump has provided Mr. Putin with more reassurance that he has nothing to fear from the president of the United States as he undermines American democracy.”
This is worthy of major protest. Trump appears to be supporting continued Russian interference in our elections. GOP members who refuse to demand sanctions are also complicent with allowing such interference and it appears they expect to benefit from Russian interference. Elections are just months away and Russia and Putin should not have a ha d in who wins this time. Trump’s refusal to impose sanctions shows his guilt in conspiring with Russia and that he is in fact beholden to Putin for his political position. There can be no other reason for his actions in this matter. Trump is a traitor.
Ryan originally denied this happened, then admitted it when told that Lordy There are Tapes:
“”There’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump,” McCarthy (R-Calif.) can be heard saying in a recording of the June 15, 2016, exchange, according to the Washington Post.
“Swear to God,” McCarthy added, while his colleagues reportedly laughed.
House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), who was one of several lawmakers in attendance, asked the people at the meeting to keep the congressman’s comments to themselves.
“No leaks,” Ryan told his Republican lieutenants, according to the Post.
“This is how we know we’re a real family here,” he said.”
Every single Republican is complicit and a traitor.
And Russia is very happy with Trump for being their besty.
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/01/trump-russian-tv-host-celebrates-white-house-refuses-enforce-new-sanctions/
““Seemingly, Trump is ours again,” said Skabeeva, according to Davis’ translation. “So far, he’s being quiet and not supporting the sanctions.””
There’s a tape of Trump doing something naughty somewhere in the basement of the Kremlin.
Paul Ryan is complicit. The Congressional Leadership Fund, a “super PAC” tied to Speaker Ryan, used the materials stolen by the Russians in congressional campaign ads (arguably a felony under the Wiretap Act, 18 U.S.C.§ 2511 (1) (d), Using an Intercepted Communication). Democratic House Candidates Were Also Targets of Russian Hacking (Dec. 13, 2016) https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/13/us/politics/house-democrats-hacking-dccc.html
After the first political advertisement appeared using the hacked material, Rep. Ben Ray Luján wrote a letter to his Republican counterpart at the National Republican Congressional Committee urging him to not use this stolen material in the 2016 campaign.
“The N.R.C.C.’s use of documents stolen by the Russians plays right into the hands of one of the United States’ most dangerous adversaries,” Mr. Luján’s Aug. 29 letter said. “Put simply, if this action continues, the N.R.C.C. will be complicit in aiding the Russian government in its effort to influence American elections.”
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi sent a similar letter in early September to Speaker Ryan. Neither received a response. By October, the Congressional Leadership Fund, a “super PAC” tied to Mr. Ryan, had used the stolen material in another advertisement, attacking Joe Garcia during the general election in Florida.
AshLee Strong, a spokeswoman for Mr. Ryan, said he did not control how the material was used in the ad, although she did not dispute that the material had been stolen as part of an act of Russian espionage. “Speaker Ryan has said for months that foreign intervention in our elections is unacceptable,” she said in a written statement.
At least some Republican players turned down a chance to exploit the material, including Representative Ryan Costello of Pennsylvania, who was running for re-election in a contest where he faced off against Mr. Parrish and was aware of the unflattering material about his opponent that had become public.
“We believed it was neither necessary nor appropriate,” said Vincent Galko, a campaign consultant to Mr. Costello, “to use information from a possible foreign source to influence the election.”
Note: This is a likely reason Republicans are trying to impede Mueller’s investigation. Those who knowingly used materials stolen by the Russians in their campaigns potentially may be charged with a felony.
Complicit it too soft, the word for Ryan is accomplice, same with the rest of the GOP.
Same with the NRA and the Religious Right. And even some on the far left I’m afraid (but mostly on the right).
http://time.com/4696424/moscow-right-kremlin-republicans/
Sheriff David Clark, who dresses himself up like a third world dictator covered in Boy Scout medals and Green Party candidate Jill Stein, the NRA, Russian TV, Ed Schultz, fake Conservative Christian Franklin Graham, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, Alan Gottlieb, Brian Brown from the National Organization for Marriage, and of course, Trump and Dana Rohrabacher, all have ties to Russia, have met Putin, and attended fund raisers with Russians.
Accomplices. Traitors. They all need to turn in their “Patriot” cards and take the American flag off of their websites.
Agree that complicit is to soft and accomplice is way more accurate. Same with colluder and collaborator.
The really scary part about these lowlifes is if they are resoundingly kicked out of office this November they’ll flat out refuse to go. Now there’s the Mother of all Constitutional Crises.