Former FBI Special Agent and current Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute Clinton Watts is testifying in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee since the House Republican one is being run by a fucking imbecile who can’t make a decision without the go-ahead from the guy being investigated. Here’s an interesting interaction between Watts and the Intelligence Committee.
Watts: What no one is really saying in this room, which is part of the reason active measures have worked in this US election, is because the commander-in-chief has used Russian active measures at times against his opponents.
On 14 August 2016 his campaign chairman after a debunked—
Senate: When you says “his”, you mean--?
Watts: --Paul Manafort cited the fake Incirlik story is a terrorist attack on CNN and he used it as a talking point. On 11 October, President Trump stood on a stage incited a what appears to be a fake news story from Sputnik News that disappeared from the internet. He denies the Intel from the United States about Russia. He claimed that the election could be rigged—that was the number one theme pushed by RT, Sputnick News, white outlets, all the way up until the election. He's made claims of voter fraud that President Obama is not a citizen that, you know, congressman Cruz is not a citizen. So part of the reason active measures works—and it does today in terms of Trump Tower being wiretapped—is because they parrot the same lines.
"We need to follow the money," Wyden said. He also sought to understand the ties between Putin's administration, Russian oligarchs and Russian crime organizations, saying: "Russia's corruption problem, may be our corruption problem.”
Watts responded that Wyden should "follow the trail of dead Russians," a clear reference to Putin critics who have turned up dead.
You can watch the interaction here.
Here he is saying he isn’t sure he trusts our government to know where they stand on virtually anything.