Guest Contributor, thedailybanter.com — an hour ago
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Clint Watts Is The Man To Watch
During his testimony [to the Senate Intelligence Committee], former FBI agent Clint Watts did not fuck around when it came to answering how and why we’re in this mess. From Think Progress:
[...] Watts, who is now a fellow at George Washington University’s Center for Cyber and Homeland Security, said, “the answer is very simple and it’s what nobody is really saying in this room.”
“Which is, part of the reason active measures have worked in this U.S. election is because the Commander-in-Chief [Trump] has used Russian active measures at times, against his opponents,” Watts continued.
Here’s a summary — entered into the public record — of Trump himself, and Trumpian Campaign Managers, actively using (echoing, repeating, amplifying) “fake news” stories, planted by Russian sources — to directly attack their political opponent … (these aren’t the only ones, as I recall) ...
Trump “has used Russian active measures at times, against his opponents.”
Aaron Rupar, Journalist, ThinkProgress -- Mar 30, 2017
Watts cited two specific examples from the campaign — one that came from the mouth of Trump’s campaign chairman and one that came from Trump himself.
[...] Manafort suggested the media cover more important things.
“You had the NATO base in Turkey being under attack by terrorists,” Marafort said. [...]
That attack never happened — it was fake news. But as BuzzFeed reported at the time, “several Russian sites [were] quick to report on potential terrorist attacks on NATO bases in Turkey.” Manafort used false information spread by those sites to attack Clinton.
[...]
“This just came out a little while ago. I have to tell you this,” Trump told the audience, reading from a sheet of paper that he said contained the text of an email written by Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal.
“The attack was almost certainly preventable,” Trump read, alluding to Benghazi. [...]
But Blumenthal never wrote that. [ ... as NPR reports ...]
Clint Watts punctuated his Senate testimony today with these troubling warnings, both personal and national in nature:
“I’m going to walk out of here today, I’m going to be cyberattacked, I’m going to be discredited by trolls. My biggest fear isn’t being on Putin’s hit list or psychological warfare targeting me — I’ve been doing that for two years,” he said. “My biggest concern right now is I don’t know what the American stance is on Russia, on who is going to take care of me. After years in the Army and the FBI, working in the intel community — today, I’m going to walk out of here and ain’t nobody going to be covering my back. I’m going to be on my own, and so that’s very disconcerting.”
Truly a sad state of affairs, when the country’s smartest and bravest, can’t even trust their own Govt Leaders anymore — as they continue to (try to) Protect the Nation. Assuming they aren’t summarily “Fired” in the meantime.
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