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Since when has the CIA gotten so chummy with Russian Spies ...
Since one enthusiastic Russia-booster got selected to the highest job in the land — that’s when.
And the boosting continues, unabated by the murmurs of Democrats, and provided a grand-assisted by the non-stop norm-demolishing whirl-wind — that IS the Trump administration.
Passing on sanctions, Trump goes even softer on Russia than expected
by Natasha Turak, CNBC — 30 Jan 2018
[...]
"Moscow had anticipated a much more aggressive approach from Washington, with Kremlin officials pre-emptively describing the new list as an attempt to interfere with the March presidential election," Daragh McDowell, principal Russia analyst at Verisk Maplecroft, told CNBC in an email.
"Depending on the reaction of the U.S. Congress to the White House's actions, it seems highly unlikely that new economic and political sanctions will be applied on Russia by the U.S. during President Trump's tenure," McDowell said.
Missing deadlines
Monday marked 180 days after the bill's original signing, the deadline by which the Trump administration would have had to impose penalties against entities doing business with Russia's defense and intelligence sectors. The measures varied in intensity, from banning certain export licenses and corporate visas, to prohibiting all bank transfers involving "interests of sanctioned entities" under U.S. jurisdiction.
[...]
This is odd, isn’t it? I wonder why we didn’t hear more about it in the National News? … Or this next block-buster story either ...
The officials who head two of Russia's top spy agencies visited the US last week to meet with CIA Director Mike Pompeo and discuss issues related to counterterrorism, two people familiar with the matter told Business Insider.
[...]
Naryshkin and Korobov are among several Russian officials barred from entering the US under existing sanctions.
[...]
The [Dec 2016 Executive] order sanctioned individuals who were found to be responsible for or complicit in "malicious cyber-enabled activities" that represented a threat to US national security.
[...]
The visit also occurred before President Donald Trump's administration on Monday decided not to impose new sanctions on Russia for its election meddling.
[...]
The GRU was found to be the primary Russian intelligence agency responsible for interfering in the 2016 US election.
And to add insult to National Security injury — guess who was instrumental in seeing to it, that Mike Pompeo got kicked upstairs to his current Russian-spy-Greeter job …
Inside Trump’s freewheeling vetting operation
by Nancy Cook and Andrew Restuccia, Politico -- 11/23/2016
Donald Trump’s process for picking top political appointees is “pretty simple,” says Rep. Devin Nunes, a senior member of the president-elect’s transition team.
When Trump’s aides were scouting for names for a CIA chief, Nunes suggested his colleague, Kansas Republican Rep. Mike Pompeo. Those aides got back to Nunes after the election and asked if he still thought Pompeo was the right guy. Roughly five days later — following an interview in Trump Tower — the president-elect nominated Pompeo to the powerful post. Nunes added that he isn’t aware of any lengthy questionnaire that Pompeo filled out, as is standard with major nominees.
“They asked me who would be the person for the agency, and I said without a doubt that Pompeo would be a great pick,” Nunes, chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, told POLITICO.
[...]
So you could say that:
“… without the dodgy Devin Nunes resume, there would be no Mike Pompeo in the CIA welcoming in Russian Spy bosses; and so by Republican logic — there would be No ‘taking a pass’ on Russian Sanctions implementation either.”
Quid pro Quo.
(QED too.)
Could they make it any easier for Putin to “undermine the US-led liberal democratic order” … and “to undermine public faith in the US democratic process”?
Apparently not.
“It’s high-fives and champagne
cork popping” in the Kremlin this week
(… as the Devin Nunes ‘smoke-screen’ Memo rules the U.S. News roost … and the
Russian bot-directed U.S. social media too.
“They make this too easy.” ...)