I have watched incredulous as the CIA’s blatant lie has grown and grown as a media story – blatant because the CIA has made no attempt whatsoever to substantiate it. There is no Russian involvement in the leaks of emails showing Clinton’s corruption. Yes this rubbish has been the lead today in the Washington Post in the US and the Guardian here, and was the lead item on the BBC main news. I suspect it is leading the American broadcasts also.
A little simple logic demolishes the CIA’s claims. The CIA claim they “know the individuals” involved. Yet under Obama the USA has been absolutely ruthless in its persecution of whistleblowers, and its pursuit of foreign hackers through extradition. We are supposed to believe that in the most vital instance imaginable, an attempt by a foreign power to destabilise a US election, even though the CIA knows who the individuals are, nobody is going to be arrested or extradited, or (if in Russia) made subject to yet more banking and other restrictions against Russian individuals? Plainly it stinks. The anonymous source claims of “We know who it was, it was the Russians” are beneath contempt.
As Julian Assange has made crystal clear, the leaks did not come from the Russians. As I have explained countless times, they are not hacks, they are insider leaks – there is a major difference between the two. And it should be said again and again, that if Hillary Clinton had not connived with the DNC to fix the primary schedule to disadvantage Bernie, if she had not received advance notice of live debate questions to use against Bernie, if she had not accepted massive donations to the Clinton foundation and family members in return for foreign policy influence, if she had not failed to distance herself from some very weird and troubling people, then none of this would have happened.
The continued ability of the mainstream media to claim the leaks lost Clinton the election because of “Russia”, while still never acknowledging the truths the leaks reveal, is Kafkaesque.
I had a call from a Guardian journalist this afternoon. The astonishing result was that for three hours, an article was accessible through the Guardian front page which actually included the truth among the CIA hype:
The Kremlin has rejected the hacking accusations, while the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has previously said the DNC leaks were not linked to Russia. A second senior official cited by the Washington Post conceded that intelligence agencies did not have specific proof that the Kremlin was “directing” the hackers, who were said to be one step removed from the Russian government.
Craig Murray, the former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, who is a close associate of Assange, called the CIA claims “bullshit”, adding: “They are absolutely making it up.”
“I know who leaked them,” Murray said. “I’ve met the person who leaked them, and they are certainly not Russian and it’s an insider. It’s a leak, not a hack; the two are different things.
“If what the CIA are saying is true, and the CIA’s statement refers to people who are known to be linked to the Russian state, they would have arrested someone if it was someone inside the United States.
“America has not been shy about arresting whistleblowers and it’s not been shy about extraditing hackers. They plainly have no knowledge whatsoever.”
But only three hours. While the article was not taken down, the home page links to it vanished and it was replaced by a ludicrous one repeating the mad CIA allegations against Russia and now claiming – incredibly – that the CIA believe the FBI is deliberately blocking the information on Russian collusion. Presumably this totally nutty theory, that Putin is somehow now controlling the FBI, is meant to answer my obvious objection that, if the CIA know who it is, why haven’t they arrested somebody. That bit of course would be the job of the FBI, who those desperate to annul the election now wish us to believe are the KGB.
It is terrible that the prime conduit for this paranoid nonsense is a once great newspaper, the Washington Post, which far from investigating executive power, now is a sounding board for totally evidence free anonymous source briefing of utter bullshit from the executive.
In the UK, one single article sums up the total abnegation of all journalistic standards. The truly execrable Jonathan Freedland of the Guardian writes “Few credible sources doubt that Russia was behind the hacking of internal Democratic party emails, whose release by Julian Assange was timed to cause maximum pain to Hillary Clinton and pleasure for Trump.” Does he produce any evidence at all for this assertion? No, none whatsoever. What does a journalist mean by a “credible source”? Well, any journalist worth their salt in considering the credibility of a source will first consider access. Do they credibly have access to the information they claim to have?
Now both Julian Assange and I have stated definitively the leak does not come from Russia. Do we credibly have access? Yes, very obviously. Very, very few people can be said to definitely have access to the source of the leak. The people saying it is not Russia are those who do have access. After access, you consider truthfulness. Do Julian Assange and I have a reputation for truthfulness? Well in 10 years not one of the tens of thousands of documents WikiLeaks has released has had its authenticity successfully challenged. As for me, I have a reputation for inconvenient truth telling.
Contrast this to the “credible sources” Freedland relies on. What access do they have to the whistleblower? Zero. They have not the faintest idea who the whistleblower is. Otherwise they would have arrested them. What reputation do they have for truthfulness? It’s the Clinton gang and the US government, for goodness sake.
In fact, the sources any serious journalist would view as “credible” give the opposite answer to the one Freedland wants. But in what passes for Freedland’s mind, “credible” is 100% synonymous with “establishment”. When he says “credible sources” he means “establishment sources”. That is the truth of the “fake news” meme. You are not to read anything unless it is officially approved by the elite and their disgusting, crawling whores of stenographers like Freedland.
The worst thing about all this is that it is aimed at promoting further conflict with Russia. This puts everyone in danger for the sake of more profits for the arms and security industries – including of course bigger budgets for the CIA. As thankfully the four year agony of Aleppo comes swiftly to a close today, the Saudi and US armed and trained ISIS forces counter by moving to retake Palmyra. This game kills people, on a massive scale, and goes on and on.
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How do you respond to yesterday’s detailed New York Times article that claims that two Russian hacker groups — “Cozy Bear” and “Fancy Bear” — were primarily responsible for the hacking and leaking?
I don’t trust the New York Times any farther than I could throw their building. Their treatment of the 2016 election was so outrageous that they’ve forever thrown away their credibility and reputation. I say this as a middle-of-the-road voter who has been a daily reader of that publication for more than 30 years.
And I say the same of the Washington Post, of which I have been a subscriber since I moved to the D.C. area 22 years ago. I’m not sure I would call myself middle-of-the-road, however. I voted for Jill Stein this last time. But my main reason for voting for her is that my career as a naval officer gave me an aversion to war, so that I generally vote for the most anti-war candidate.
If it WERE Seth Rich from the DNC who leaked the emails and since he was brutally murdered with no money taken, therefore the murder highly suspect… AND Assange has offered $20k for information leading to his murder, I would TRULY hope that if he WERE that person, his family would allow Wikileaks to divulge all documents that show it was an insider job involving Seth Rich. While Wikileak’s life-blood depends upon receiving information and keeping their sources absolutely confidential, IF that information were true and it takes down the DNC, the CIA, Obama and the WH, Pedesta and the Clintons and beyond, it WOULD be worth it sharing the source.
Seth Rich was my first suspect especially after his murder, and the long list of spurious deaths associated with the Clintons. However, now I am not so sure. If the source ‘is’ a disgruntled DNC worker it is not likely to be Seth because he is no longer with us. Wikileaks never shares its sources as you rightly say, but because of its 100% factual record (what other news reporting outlet can claim that?) and the need to protect this excellent record, the general public may be a long time in getting to know from whom the leak came. However because of its 100% record too it makes commenters like Trowbridge H. Ford, who appears to believe it was Putin and Russia what did it, sound ridiculous. The source is absolutely an insider.
George Orwell’s “political language . . . is designed to make lies sound truthful” is what the U.S. media is made of in 2016, nothing but lies– from the Washington Post, the NY Times, Etc. . . . Without Assange and now Murray, and let’s not forget Hannity, we the American people would be totally duped. I for one, cannot thank the truth-tellers enough. And what is Obama getting ready to do as “punishment” as he said today–for Russia? What is Obama’s motivation for perpetuating the lie that Russia hacked the DNC. Can someone please explain?
CrowdStrike, ThreatConnect, and SecureWorks have all independently verified the attackers as Apt 28 and Apt 29. Two Russian state hacker groups.
This is a brief bit of information just pertaining to John Podesta.
“Independent security contractors have stated that they are absolutely certain that it was Fancy Bear that compromised Podesta. He was part of the 2016 spearphishing campaign against the DNC. Although the DNC had been compromised as far back as even 2015 due to actions by Cozy Bear.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/21/us/private-security-group-says-russia-was-behind-john-podestas-email-hack.html
https://www.secureworks.com/research/threat-group-4127-targets-hillary-clinton-presidential-campaign
https://www.threatconnect.com/blog/fancy-bear-it-itch-they-cant-scratch/
https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/bears-midst-intrusion-democratic-national-committee/
The hackers even specially coded his email into the phishing link that they used to steal his password.
https://twitter.com/lorenzoFB/status/789107544216207361
They even used multiple sources to leak the data. Wikileaks is the most known, but also DCLeaks, which has directly been tied back to Russia. And of course, when asked Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said, “We did not deny this.” But also stated we could not prove they did it. To which to which Josh Earnest responded, “I think a reasonable person would conclude that there is no piece of evidence the United States government could produce that would prompt Sergei Lavrov to admit Russian complicity in these efforts.”
http://www.wsj.com/articles/top-russian-officials-shift-away-from-denying-dnc-hack-1476295233
https://www.threatconnect.com/blog/does-a-bear-leak-in-the-woods/
The previous source for private security firm ThreatConnect also identifies Guccifer2.0 (one of the main people leaking the hacked emails) as running from behind a Russian VPN, and the attack emails originated at a Yandex email server. Yandex, if you are unfamiliar, is pretty much the Russian equivalent of Google. And also all followed the MO of Fancy Bear.”
Crowdstirke was paid by the DNC, and all of these assertions that these various claims about Fancy Bear, apt 29, etc. are just assertions. This is NOT actual evidence, and some of it is very strange, when you look at it, requiring us to believe that these ultra-sophisticated Russian hackers didn’t cover their tracks very well at all. Glenn Greenwald just summarized things pretty well:
https://theintercept.com/2016/12/14/heres-the-public-evidence-russia-hacked-the-dnc-its-not-enough/
The fact that Podesta was an incredible idiot for falling for this phishing scam is worth mentioning, I think we can all agree. And in any case, all of this “evidence” is only about the initial hacking, nothing about how Assange is supposed to have gotten the material from the Russkies. And the “evidence” that Putin did all this not just to stir things up but to help Trump is not only non-existent but based on the premise that there is also “evidence” that the Russkies hacked the RNC but chose not to share that. Honestly, that is one of the dumbest ideas I have ever seen!
Oh, well, if Craig Murray and Julian Assange say it, it must be true! /s
Your ego is, amazingly, outgrowing your head.
“The worst thing about all this is that it is aimed at promoting further conflict with Russia. This puts everyone in danger for the sake of more profits for the arms and security industries – including of course bigger budgets for the CIA.”
Funny how this is considered a ‘conspiracy theory,’ but the idea that Russia hacked the election isn’t!
Apologies if this link has already been posted from the Political Insider. It regards greater revelations from Mr Craig Murray about who leaked the Clinton-Podesta emails.
http://www.thepoliticalinsider.com/bombshell-wikileaks-figure-says-insider-russia-hack/?
Well, here’s somebody not only stating that he can “substantiate” Craig’s account, but then later recounts it in amusing terms;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yz_55hRvixw
Why don’t people just come out with the bottom line, which is, what difference does it make? Every thing in the Wikileaks revelations was true and newsworthy, stuff the public had a right to know, and it doesn’t matter if Wikileaks got their information from Russia a democratic inside or Santa Claus.
The real bottom line & real difference it makes, is that it’s a deliberate strategy to ramp-up US-Russia tensions in order to cripple as far as possible Trump’s intention to work in partnership with Russia when he becomes President.
Your right, what motivates those that say Russians “hacked” the election has nothing to do with their claimed concerns. These people are hate filled sour losers that could care less about anything except promoting their liefest agenda. They complain about “fake news” when the truth only matters to them when on rare occasions it coincidentally coincided with their agenda. They would sit around and cheer if the USA went up in flames and will lie, cheat and steal what ever they want to achieve their goal of destroying Trump. There has never been a more hate filled bunch than those that lead and promote Leftest, socialist, communist, social justice, etc.goals
Rather than blaming leftists, you should blame the political center. People on both the far left and the far right oppose the war agenda.
You are so right! Even if they did, it was i9n the best interest of both the US and Russia to calm down after the Red-Button Reset by HRC and Obama. Does anyone in the public realize how close we came us both being incinerated by WW3. After all, some precious little endangered toad somewhere would be incinerated as well as us, and I thought that snowflakes at least cared about precious little endangered toads.
Well, to me I find the rhetoric spewed from Hillary’s mouth and nukes parked near the Russian border were both driving us down a road we will wish we had avoided. I think a better relationship, possible for Putin and Trump, and normalization of relations between our two countries to be a good thing. Hillary’s reset was a disaster. I fully expect to see Pres. Trump discussing Russia, like he does all the time, with the hands spreading gesture, telling us about all of his “Great Friends in Russia”, Putin included. It will be at that moment that I’ll know we all live now in a safer world.
Personally, I equate better relations with Ronny and Gorby arm and arm, waving to the jubilant crowds. As someone who was in high school in the mid 70’s, this single event was the point at which I finally believed that I could possibly die as an old man. I haven’t told many people, but in Dallas in the 70’s my friends and I suspected we would not live past 25, and unfortunately I accepted that. In elementary school, it started with “duck and cover” nuclear attack drills. The youngest voters today don’t understand this fear at all. That feeling was creeping back in the face of possible nuclear annihilation and heightened tensions that Hillary has perpetuated, and seems to wish to continue.
Why in the hell are we putting nuclear weapons so close to the border of Russia? That is insane. What do you think we would say if the Russians placed nukes in Cuba again? I almost feel like Obama/Hillary/CIA/MSM is trying to provoke Putin. I see now a chance for Trump and Putin to work together to make the world a bit safer. So, Hillary, you lost, go home and leave the country alone!
Thank you for clarification! Our government has blind-sided it’s people for far too long & the establishment insiders will be irradicated! War mongers such as HRC’s & BHO’s days are numbered – goodbye & good riddance!
What do the US and UK hope to get out of a war with Russia?
The propaganda blizzard and provocative actions, including those Hillary said she planned to do, can’t lead to any other conclusion.
Are they counting on Putin being more sane than them and not going nuclear?
Do they really think they can carve Russia up into Third World extraction colonies they can loot at will? Or is it all the petrodollar stuff?
This is like all the insanity after 9/11, but the stakes are a lot higher.
I think the powers that be in both the US and the UK fear an economic collapse, and think that a war with Russia — or at least the threat of one — would at any rate distract attention and divert the blame from them, and hopefully even avert the economic collapse. After all, WWII did end the Great Depression, and the Cold War perpetuated prosperity for several decades longer. So they may be victims of magical thinking, and think that the same cure would work again.
For me almost 60 years old Finn this paranoia looks mostly funny but i see it as one mark of cultural and intellectual decline. People read less than before. If they read they likely read just short headlines. Not many can read a book of 700 pages of politics, history, society etc. Instead they more likely watch 25 min Youtube video. Even science is corrupted by growing entertaining. In the final stage we might have to face policy as an arena of stand up comedians. That’s the way things are going. The decline of culture is indeed enormous process and very hard to stop.
A question:
I am running for office and I need someone to manager my campaign. A campaign manager comes to me for an interview. I ask him “How did your last campaign go?”. He answers “We lost big time to an underdog but it wasn’t our fault because….”
Would you hire him?
I don’t understand why once great institutions prostitute themselves and destroy sterling reputations for the sake of the left (progressives, Democrats). Moreover, I fail to see why this is news for any other country’s media to then engage in the same demagoguery? How do they profit from the same lies?
Check into who now owns those media outlets. Hint: They’re not people who expect to make any profit from those outlets.
Apparently whatever evidence there is, it’s not enough to prosecute anybody. Only enough to accuse the Russian government and its President, who “must” have been involved. I think the whistleblower should come forward – right now he or she is letting the Russians take the blame. That’s unfair and dangerous.
At some point will the source of the leak be revealed or have they insisted that they remain anonymous? For security reasons and personal safety, I understand the desire to remain anonymous but is this person willing to step forward at some point. It would prove to all how corrupt and shameless some within the intelligence community are.
corrupt and shameless or cool and brave?
Some interesting details in this vid starring our Blog Host;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGgo7YhybJo
Congratulations, Craig! It looks as if you played a key role in the 2nd American Revolution.Trump was smart. He has a lot of support among the spooks and the brass. I wonder how far he will take it. It looks as if the CIA will get a major haircut, or even the chop. Maybe he’ll break up the 6 US media monopolies. The CIA cancelled the congressional hearing on ‘Russian hacking’. They couldn’t hold a hearing about something that had never happened! Hil(l)arious!
How could CIA get a major haircut when he’s supported by ‘spooks’?
Maybe Trump threw a Beer Putsch and the right people showed up.
Different spooks from the CIA. Flynn was head of the DIA. Very likely NSA people (also in the DOD) played a role in the leaks to Wikileaks.
Factions like the Trump NY Bund?
Trump has united all groups, especially the one issue voters ‘Avoided war with Russia’
Time will tell…
Both the military and the spooks in Washington have been split for about ten years. The CIA seems to be war party/neocon stronghold under Brennan. Trump represents the ‘Second American Revolution’ according to big spook Steve Pieczienik. He’s one of the ‘peace party’. The war party seems to be ruled by George Soros, who is Jacob Rothschild’s lieutenant. Soros called for war on Russia in 2014. In March 2015, there was an attempt at a coup in Moscow and Putin disappeared. Just prior to that Jacob Rothschild had issued a statement to the effect that the geopolitical situation hadn’t been so dangerous since 1945. Several days later, Capt Heather Cole, the officer responsible for transmitting the Trident launch codes, was transferred and has since disappeared. Knowing that his successor was to be a half mad neocon, SecDef Chuck Hagel, had initiated a procedure that allowed the codes officer to abort a launch command. At the same time the Russians rerouted and decoded Cameron’s comms with the Atomic Weapons Establishment. It looks as if the attempt to replace Putin with an Atlanticist like Kudrin, was to be supported by a limited nuclear strike in order to weaken the resolve of the ‘siloviki’..There is plenty of evidence to support this horrifying story, which very few people know about. If Cole did indeed abort a launch order, she may well be dead.
Congress is not happy about the way the CIA dissed them. The CIA is making enemies left and right.
And Turkey is saying the CIA was behind the assassination in Ankara yesterday.