IMPORTANT: Knowingly

[berni_mccoy]

The WH issued a statement following the latest Mueller indictments highlighting the word Rosenstein used in his Press Conference: "Knowingly". Not that it didn't happen. Not a denial... but a reiteration that the Trump campaign didn't knowingly work with Russian Military to hack the election (see: https://www.vox.com/2018/7/13/17569144/white-house-mueller-indictment)

Rosenstein was careful with his wording: he said the indictment did not allege that Americans knowingly worked with Russian military to hack the election. That leaves open a lot of room for further indictments to allege such a thing.

So let's look at the possibility of the Trump campaign knowingly working with Russia to hack the election.

Some may remember this forgotten story from 2016. The indictment released on Friday is a reminder, particularly to the timeline. A server in Trump Tower was setup to specifically receive communications from systems in Russia. This was uncovered by the very cybersecurity firm called out in the indictment on Friday who was responsible for helping unwind what happened to the DNC, Hillary Campaign and DCCC servers. The investigation into those systems turned up communications from Russia directly to Trump servers. Not just servers in Trump tower, but to servers specifically setup by the Trump organization.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/cover_story/2016/10/was_a_server_registered_to_the_trump_organization_communicating_with_russia.html

In late July, one of these scientists—who asked to be referred to as Tea Leaves, a pseudonym that would protect his relationship with the networks and banks that employ him to sift their data—found what looked like malware emanating from Russia. The destination domain had Trump in its name, which of course attracted Tea Leaves’ attention. But his discovery of the data was pure happenstance—a surprising needle in a large haystack of DNS lookups on his screen. “I have an outlier here that connects to Russia in a strange way,” he wrote in his notes. He couldn’t quite figure it out at first. But what he saw was a bank in Moscow that kept irregularly pinging a server registered to the Trump Organization on Fifth Avenue.

More data was needed, so he began carefully keeping logs of the Trump server’s DNS activity. As he collected the logs, he would circulate them in periodic batches to colleagues in the cybersecurity world. Six of them began scrutinizing them for clues.

*snip*

The researchers quickly dismissed their initial fear that the logs represented a malware attack. The communication wasn’t the work of bots. The irregular pattern of server lookups actually resembled the pattern of human conversation—conversations that began during office hours in New York and continued during office hours in Moscow. It dawned on the researchers that this wasn’t an attack, but a sustained relationship between a server registered to the Trump Organization and two servers registered to an entity called Alfa Bank.

*snip*

The parties were communicating in a secretive fashion. The operative word is secretive. This is more akin to what criminal syndicates do if they are putting together a project.” Put differently, the logs suggested that Trump and Alfa had configured something like a digital hotline connecting the two entities, shutting out the rest of the world, and designed to obscure its own existence. Over the summer, the scientists observed the communications trail from a distance.

There is much more interesting info at the link to the original article, but I will leave this post with this: Correlate the timeline of hacking from the indictments released Friday to the timeline and amount of communication traffic between Russia and Trump systems as shown in the graphic below (from the article). Then remind yourself that Mueller already knows this and observe how Trump behaved today.

[calimary]

1. Stunning. Just stunning.

My most astute spouse was pointing this out just yesterday. He said first they say it didn’t happen. Then they say they had nothing to do with it. Next, he said, they’ll say they didn’t know they were doing it.

Wonder what bullshit talking points they’ll come up with from here on?

Sweet God in Heaven, I cannot wait for the next round of indictments (now widely suspected to include Americans). I CANNOT wait! I’ll bet there are a few surprises, and at least a few more NON-surprises.

[berni_mccoy]

7. I don't think there are any talking points left...

Even Republicans are tired of defending it:

Link to tweet

[calimary]

9. Well, well, well. When did HE get religion?

Eyes wide open now, 'eh dude?

We'll have to see.

[BigmanPigman]

2. No collusion my ass!

[Botany]

3. "A server in Trump Tower was setup to specifically receive communications from systems in Russia."

"The researchers quickly dismissed their initial fear that the logs represented a malware attack. The communication wasn’t the work of bots. The irregular pattern of server lookups actually resembled the pattern of human conversation—conversations that began during office hours in New York and continued during office hours in Moscow. It dawned on the researchers that this wasn’t an attack, but a sustained relationship between a server registered to the Trump Organization and two servers registered to an entity called Alfa Bank."

And didn't Trump pick a lawyer who worked with Alfa Bank to work @ the DoJ?

[berni_mccoy]

10. Yes he did and Senate confirmed along party lines.

[peekaloo]

4. Ah, so his projection today on "servers" now makes sense.

Got Dam!

[berni_mccoy]

11. I just heard his rant about the servers... wtf?!?!

[Lucinda]

5. KNR

[uponit7771]

6. Yep, picked up on that the second they put it out ... they know they're screwed

[berni_mccoy]

8. Either they are extremely forgetful or they do not care

that what they are doing is in plain sight.

[greyl]

12. kick nt

[peekaloo]

13. Kick