Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I can’t take this shit today. I just can’t.

I’m only here for the duck photos.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Verified, but limited!

Not all heroes wear capes.

Almost as fun as hiking the Appalachian Trail

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

What fresh hell is this?

Where tasty lettuce and good mustard aren’t elitist.

It’s not even safe to go out and pick up 2 days worth of poop anymore.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

All your base are belong to Tunch.

We need fewer warriors in public service and more gardeners.

We survived Breitbartpocalypse!

I did not have this on my fuck 2020 bingo card.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn – Nancy Pelosi

Let there be snark.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

The house always wins.

Consistently wrong since 2002

You are here: Home / Politics / America / Rudy Giuliani Is Being Run By Russia’s Intelligence Service: The US Department of the Treasury Designates Rudy Giuliani’s Source, Andrii Derkach. a Longstanding Russian Agent

Rudy Giuliani Is Being Run By Russia’s Intelligence Service: The US Department of the Treasury Designates Rudy Giuliani’s Source, Andrii Derkach. a Longstanding Russian Agent

by | 114 Comments

This post is in: , , , , , , , ,

Rudy Giuliani Is Being Run By Russia's Intelligence Service: The US Department of the Treasury Designates Rudy Giuliani's Source Andrei Derkach Is a Longstanding Russian Agent

(Photo of Rudy Giuliani and Andrii Derkach Reviewing “Evidence Against VP Biden” Posted on Derkach’s Facebook Page)

Today, the US Treasury Department placed sanctions on Ukrainian member of parliament Andrii Derkach. And while that would itself be news, of a kind, the real news is the designation and descriptor that the Treasury Department used to described Derkach (emphasis mine):

Treasury designated Andrii Derkach (Derkach) pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13848 for his efforts to influence the 2020 U.S. presidential election. Derkach, a Member of the Ukrainian Parliament, has been an active Russian agent for over a decade, maintaining close connections with the Russian Intelligence Services. Derkach has directly or indirectly engaged in, sponsored, concealed, or otherwise been complicit in foreign interference in an attempt to undermine the upcoming 2020 U.S. presidential election. Today’s designation of Derkach is focused on exposing Russian malign influence campaigns and protecting our upcoming elections from foreign interference. This action is a clear signal to Moscow and its proxies that this activity will not be tolerated. The Administration is working across the U.S. Government, and with state, local, and private sector partners, to make the 2020 election secure.

“Andrii Derkach and other Russian agents employ manipulation and deceit to attempt to influence elections in the United States and elsewhere around the world,” said Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin. “The United States will continue to use all the tools at its disposal to counter these Russian disinformation campaigns and uphold the integrity of our election system.”

From at least late 2019 through mid-2020, Derkach waged a covert influence campaign centered on cultivating false and unsubstantiated narratives concerning U.S. officials in the upcoming 2020 Presidential Election, spurring corruption investigations in both Ukraine and the United States designed to culminate prior to election day. Derkach’s unsubstantiated narratives were pushed in Western media through coverage of press conferences and other news events, including interviews and statements.

Between May and July 2020, Derkach released edited audio tapes and other unsupported information with the intent to discredit U.S. officials, and he levied unsubstantiated allegations against U.S. and international political figures. Derkach almost certainly targeted the U.S. voting populace, prominent U.S. persons, and members of the U.S. government, based on his reliance on U.S. platforms, English-language documents and videos, and pro-Russian lobbyists in the United States used to propagate his claims.

More at the link.

What the Treasury Department’s press release does not say is who, exactly, Mr. Derkach is partnered with in his activities against the United States as a Russian Intelligence Services officer. We know the answer to that because Derkach and his American accessories have been very up front about their activities. Derkach’s two main partners in his endeavors, which The Department of the Treasury has now stated unequivocally are the endeavors of the Russian Intelligence Services, are Rudy Giuliani and Chanel Rion, the far too credulous reporter from One America News Network (OANN).

From The Washington Post (emphasis mine):

Dec. 5, 2019 at 5:45 p.m. EST
Add to list

KYIV, Ukraine — President Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani met Thursday in Ukraine with one of the key figures working to build a corruption case against Hunter Biden, the Ukraine lawmaker said, after posting Facebook photographs of himself with the former New York mayor.

Andriy Derkach said he pressed Giuliani on the need to set up a joint U.S.-Ukraine investigation into corruption in Ukraine at the meeting in Kyiv. Derkach also vowed to set up an anti-corruption group in the Ukraine parliament.

Giuliani did not make any immediate public comments on the meetings in Ukraine.

But in tweets hours later, he drew connections between future U.S. aid and investigations by Ukraine into former vice president Joe Biden — issues that are already at the center of the impeachment inquiry.

Giuliani tweeted that U.S. assistance to Ukraine on anti-corruption reforms could face a “major obstacle” until the “conversation about corruption in Ukraine” is resolved. Giuliani alleged “compelling” evidence of criminal misdeeds by Biden, but gave no specifics.

OANN trumpeted their own, and their correspondent Chanel Rion’s, involvement.

Rion has her own issues, which I won’t get into here, but quite simply she is the poster girl for the counterintelligence concept of MICE: Money, Ideology, Compromise, and Ego. Rudy Giuliani is definitely one of the poster boys for MICE! He’s constantly chasing money to maintain his lavish lifestyle and pay alimony; his ideology has been all over the map for years, but basically comes down to whatever benefits Rudy Giuliani; he’s carried on multiple affairs and tries to keep them secret and he’s constantly chasing shady security consulting contracts in the post-Soviet states and the Middle East, so there’s a lot of compromising information on him out there; and his ego is ginormous!

What the Treasury Department makes clear today in their press release announcing the imposition of sanctions on Derkach, is that both Rudy Giuliani, who is the President’s personal lawyer, and Chanel Rion, who is one of his favorite reporters, have both been compromised by a Russian Intelligence officer and are being used by him to interfere in the 2020 US election to the benefit of Russia. It is important to keep in mind that both Giuliani and Rion most likely believe that they are using Derkach, not being used by Derkach, though the reality is the direction of control runs the other way. The Russians have watched and assessed exactly what bait they needed to use to attract Giuliani and Rion, as well as others like Congressman Nunes and his catspaws Derek Harvey and Kash Patel, the latter of whom is now embroiled in the new DHS whistleblower allegations just as he got himself wrapped up in the Ukraine phone call when Nunes placed him on the National Security Staff during 2019. All of these people are convinced of their own superior intelligence and the righteousness of their cause and they are desperate to be important and be world changing figures, which makes them ripe for manipulation and easy to control.

It also means that the cornerstone of the President’s impeachment defense was supplied by the Russian Intelligence Services via Derkach to and through Giuliani as the President’s pro bono personal lawyer and Rion and her reporting. And which is also being used by Senators Johnson, Grassley, and Graham in their attempts to use their Senate committees to dirty up VP Biden prior to the election.

Rudy Giuliani – America’s Mayor, Mr. a Noun, a Verb, and 9-11, the first name in cybersecurity, coveter of the position of Secretary of State, and the President’s pro bono personal lawyer – is being run as an asset by Andrii Derkach, a US identified Russian Intelligence officer who is overseeing an ongoing, active measures campaign to subvert the 2020 US election to the advantage of Russia in a war that Putin believes Russia has been fighting against the US since at least 2014. Rudy Giuliani has betrayed his country. Rudy Giuliani is currently acting against the United States on behalf of Russia’s Intelligence Services. Rudy Giuliani is a clear and present danger to the safety and security of the United States.

Obligatory:

Rudy Giuliani Is Being Run By Russia's Intelligence Service: The US Department of the Treasury Designates Rudy Giuliani's Source Andrii Derkach Is a Longstanding Russian Agent

Open thread!

 

 

Reader Interactions

114Comments

  3. 3.

    J.

    So is Rudy Simon Bar Sinister or is Derkach? And who is Underdog in this scenario? (Chanel Rion is no Sweet Polly Purebred.)

  4. 4.

    Adam L Silverman

    @J.: Given that Rudy looks like Bar Sinister, that should answer that question.

  6. 6.

    Jay C

    Fascinating stuff, Adam: even if it “merely” provides documentation and background data for what has long been suspected – even if only going by “Internet rumor” for about a year now.

    But what I find most interesting, is that Treasury is announcing the sanctions and “outing”: Derkach as a Russian asset – I thought ALL of Trumpworld was supposed to be lined up on the same page re Russian influence in the election(s), and on the G in general: i.e. HOAX!! FAKE NEWS!!! NO COLLUSION!!! etc…

     

    And PS: I wonder how this will impact the supposed “October Surprise” AG Barr is said to have planned for some late pre-election news cycle, i.e. hysterical BS about “Corrupt Joe” and “Corrupt Hunter: in some vague-but-sinister-sounding “Ukraine Scandal”…??

  8. 8.

    Cheryl Rofer

    In other words, it’s (checks calendar) Thursday.

    Seriously, it’s good that Treasury is doing this. Still a few professionals left. One of the complaints I was going to make in my now long-outdated post on the agencies and Russian interference is that they are giving us no specifics. This is specific, and it is news we all should know.

  11. 11.

    Gin & Tonic

    Just posted on this downstairs, but Mr. Big Shot Front-Pager has to go ahead and make a whole production.

    So, yeah, thanks for highlighting this. As I said, at least some parts of the Executive Branch appear to be functioning.

  12. 12.

    mrmoshpotato

    Ahhhh, concrete evidence that Ghouliani is also the Kremlin’s bitch.  Oh the times we live in.

    Good on ya, Hillary haters!

  14. 14.

    West of the Rockies

    And none of this will keep one idiot from voting for the Idiot King.  Snacking on babies, you say?  Shitting atop The Resolute Desk?  Having sex with Ivanka on a stack of bibles?  Meh…

    BUT… if this leads to post-election indictments and convictions, then hooray!

  15. 15.

    WereBear

    Almost finished, can’t recommend too highly:

    Are the contradictory ideas in the compartmentalized minds of authoritarian followers truly so sealed off that even conspicuous inconsistency goes unnoticed? This was tested in a study in which subjects responded to ten statements at the bottom of a survey page, turned the page over, and then responded to ten other statements that were the opposites of the ones they had just answered. For example, “A government should allow total freedom of expression, even if it threatens law and order,” and then on the next page, “A government should only allow freedom of expression so long as it does not threaten law and order.” High RWAs showed a tendency to say “Yes” and “Yes,” thus rejecting an idea they endorsed just a minute earlier. They had “turned the page,” so to speak.
    — Authoritarian Nightmare: Trump and His Followers by John W. Dean, Bob Altemeyer

  16. 16.

    lowtechcyclist

    It is important to keep in mind that both Giuliani and Rion most likely believe that they are using Derkach, not being used by Derkach, though the reality is the direction of control runs the other way.

    That’s how it works with MICE.  Slartibartfast warned us.

  17. 17.

    trollhattan

    Dear lord, please keep RBG with us, we’ve been very, very good. Amen.

    By Bailey Aldridge

    [email protected]

    President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced an updated list of his potential nominees for the Supreme Court if he’s reelected in November.

    The president announced the list during a news conference at the White House. Among the 20 potential nominees were Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, and Tom Cotton, R-Arkansas.

    “Together we will defend our righteous heritage and preserve our magnificent American way of life,” the president said of the nominees.

    He went on to call them “outstanding people.”

  19. 19.

    Gin & Tonic

    @mrmoshpotato:

    concrete evidence that Ghouliani is also the Kremlin’s bitch

    For anyone who paid attention to the places Rudy went or the people he met with when in Kyiv, this was established long ago.

  20. 20.

    pacem appellant

    I’m a little confused about Rion’s connection the Derkach and Giuliani. Is she providing cover for their interference?

  21. 21.

    patrick II

    Andrii Derkach and other Russian agents employ manipulation and deceit to attempt to influence elections in the United States and elsewhere around the world,” said Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin.

    Mnuchin is probably unhappy someone is horning in on his throw the election via disabling the U.S. Post Office scheme.

  22. 22.

    Roger Moore

    @Jay C: 

    But what I find most interesting, is that Treasury is announcing the sanctions and “outing”: Derkach as a Russian asset – I thought ALL of Trumpworld was supposed to be lined up on the same page re Russian influence in the election(s), and on the G in general: i.e. HOAX!! FAKE NEWS!!! NO COLLUSION!!! etc…

    What this shows is that the Deep State continues to function in their never-ending war against Trump.

  23. 23.

    Adam L Silverman

    @trollhattan: Next week he’s signing an executive order declaring her deceased so he can nominate her replacement and McConnell can confirm that replacement as an October surprise.//

    And before someone argues with me, after all we’ve seen, would you really put it past those two to try something like that?

  24. 24.

    MattF

    So… how long before certain unnamed Treasury officials have an encounter with the underside of a bus?

  27. 27.

    patrick II

    Rudy Giuliani; he’s carried on multiple affairs and tries to keep them secret

    He must have a good sense of humor.

  28. 28.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    Shouldn’t the pic be Boris Badenov, not Simon Bar Sinister?

    (Friends in the SCA taught me Simon’s name is a bit of a joke – the bar sinister (in heraldry) indicates illegitimate birth (i.e., a bastard).)

    Um. Not that I’m complaining; mostly I’m just bragging of minor expertise in old cartoon trivia.

  29. 29.

    Gin & Tonic

    @pacem appellant: She hosted an entire program on OANN to present the Russian point of view. I didn’t watch, but caught a few snippets via people I follow on Twitter. She’s either the world’s most credulous dupe, or else she’s a clear asset of the other side.

  36. 36.

    divF

    “Andrii Derkach and other Russian agents employ manipulation and deceit to attempt to influence elections in the United States and elsewhere around the world,” said Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin.

    How did this public announcement make it past Trump ?

  37. 37.

    germy

    An Intrusion

    Morality put her toe into international politics and it was promptly chopped off.

    “A thousand thanks,” said Diplomacy, with an engaging bow; “we will keep it in memory of a most distinguished honor.”

    And Morality has limped a little ever since.

    (Ambrose Bierce)

  38. 38.

    Roger Moore

    @LongHairedWeirdo:

    the bar sinister (in heraldry) indicates illegitimate birth (i.e., a bastard).

    This is a common mistake.  The correct heraldic term is bend sinister, not bar sinister.  A bar is a horizontal stripe, which can’t favor either the right (dexter) or left (sinister) side of the shield.  A bend is a diagonal stripe, which can be either dexter (from upper right to lower left) or sinister (from upper left to lower right).

  42. 42.

    patrick II

    Mnuchin gave us a September surprise.  I am wondering why, and if Trump knew about it beforehand, and what his tweets are going to look like in the next day or so (No Giuliani is telling the truth about Hunter, I knew about the virus, but not really; soldiers are brave men, not suckers).

    Normally I wouldn’t wonder why — it’s their job.  But in the present context, one has to wonder.

  43. 43.

    Chip Daniels

    Its like a stupid version of Tinker Tailor, where Bill’s Twitter account posts pictures of him meeting with Karla.

  46. 46.

    germy

    YIKES.

    As The Atlantic "Trump Hates Vets" Hoax goes down in flames, ANOTHER manufactured scandal is gasping for dear life…

    Behold, Watergate Woodward's backpedal of shame… gently wrapped and packaged by colleague. Brought to you by Bezo's pet megaphones at WAPO. https://t.co/XfIyafjEby

    — Chanel Rion OAN (@ChanelRion) September 10, 2020

    I knew this whole “Woodward Tapes” story would fall apart. OAN told me so.

  50. 50.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    @Roger Moore: I’d heard both; a web search supported “bar sinister” and, face it, Underdog writers probably didn’t research heraldry, if they chose the name for that reason.

    That said, I’ll remember what you’ve said if I ever have to delve into heraldry :-).

  52. 52.

    Jeffro

    @Geminid: Is Mnuchin speaking about this?  I got the impression that this was carried out without him knowing about it (or else he would have quashed it)…but upon reflection, I kinda just “assumed” that w/o any evidence.

  53. 53.

    Miss Bianca

    OK, who had Mnuchin as “Trump Official Who Actually Sort of Takes His Job Seriously” on their 2020 bingo card? Anyone? It sure wasn’t me!

  55. 55.

    Barbara

    @germy: 
    I was thinking this morning that Jeff Bezos must be wishing he could have more sworn enemies like Donald Trump — someone whose abject incompetence and failure has probably done more to enhance the bottom line of Jeff Bezos than any single event since Amazon’s IPO.

  56. 56.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Rudy looks like Bar Stool – the stuff Davy Crockett used to step on in the woods.

    IMO Goombah Ghouliani needs to downsize his residential accommodations – to the trunk of a Coupe de Ville at the bottom of the East River. Che vergogna!

  59. 59.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Roger Moore: @LongHairedWeirdo: Bar is the ancient farsi word for son/son of. It’s why Jews have bar mitzvahs, not ben mitzvahs, because the name for the ceremony came when they were in Exile in ancient Persia. The character’s name should be interpreted as Simon the son of Sinister.

  60. 60.

    Roger Moore

    @LongHairedWeirdo:

    “Bar sinister” is heraldically incorrect*, but people have been using it since Sir Walter Scott, so it’s not going anywhere.

    *Or possibly just a misspelling.  In French heraldry, the same diagonal stripe is called a “barre”, so a “barre sinister” would be the proper French term for a bend sinister.

  61. 61.

    Danielx

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I truly hope RBG has good – no, excellent – security measures in place. I’d guess the chances are better than average that if Trump publicly mused that things would be better with her out of the way, one or more nutcase supporters would take it as a suggestion/edict.

  65. 65.

    Cheryl Rofer

    Y’all – If someone else said this, I missed it and apologies.

    Treasury does sanctions. That’s part of their job, no other agency’s. And Mnuchin is Treasury Secretary. And yes, he seems actually to be doing his job, at least some of the time.

  69. 69.

    Bill Arnold

    @Adam L Silverman:

    And before someone argues with me, after all we’ve seen, would you really put it past those two to try something like that?

    You freaked me about a bit when you first mentioned those scenarios. :-)
    Might be worth having some firebrand surrogate talk about temporarily revisiting Marbury vs Madison until the Democrats can pack the Supreme court.

  70. 70.

    MomSense

    I guess I shouldn’t be shocked That this is happening out in the open, but I do find the impunity with which they betray the country completely shocking.

  72. 72.

    Searcher

    As an aside, how many “personal lawyers” does Trump have?  Does he have too many, or should I really be looking into getting myself a couple?

  73. 73.

    Gvg

    And remember, he ran for President before Trump did. I am not sure he wouldn’t have been worse. And Biden’s quip ended his run.

  74. 74.

    piratedan

    Adam any thoughts on the IC notice that dropped yesterday on the specific Florida jurisdictions that were hacked/penetrated by the Russians… does this act as the potential first breadcrumb that the election was really stolen? I get the feeling that Trump didn’t mind the grift from running for office and has found the office, once he got there an opportunity for even bigger grift, is it possible that Putin told him to run and then double-crossed him by getting him elected?

  75. 75.

    Kay

    Alongside this political mission, Perry and his staff at the Energy Department worked to advance energy deals that were potentially worth billions of dollars to Perry’s friends and political donors, a six-month investigation by reporters from Time, WNYC and ProPublica shows. Two of these deals seemed set to benefit Energy Transfer, the Texas company on whose board Perry served immediately before and after his stint in Washington. The biggest was worth an estimated $20 billion, according to U.S. and Ukrainian energy executives involved in negotiating them.

    They’re all so incredibly corrupt. This level of corruption is unsustainable. It’s not just terrible for democracy, it also makes a bad joke out of market-based competition.
    For each one of these sleazy Trump deals where they gave one of their friends or cronies special treatment, there are other companies that were shut out because they didn’t grease the palms of the Trumpists.

  77. 77.

    Kay

    Smithfield Foods has been fined $13,494 for its failure to mitigate worker exposure to the coronavirus, the first such meatpacking company sanction imposed by OSHA during the pandemic.
    Nearly 1,300 Smithfield employees tested positive for the coronavirus, 43 workers were hospitalized, and four workers died between March 22 and June 16, according to inspection documents.

    OSHA is now a corrupt joke too. Shut it down, clean it up and start over. Too corrupt to function.

  78. 78.

    catclub

    @Gvg: And remember, he ran for President before Trump did. I am not sure he wouldn’t have been worse. And Biden’s quip ended his run.

     

    Ghouliani?  Not only  Biden. The whole GOP primary voter bloc. plus the more he campaigns the less popular he is.

  80. 80.

    Ruckus

    @Kay:

    They don’t go for a good return, because that might not work and the return isn’t big or fast enough. They are smash and grabbers. They don’t care about positive, they care about tomorrow at most, and nothing more.

  81. 81.

    The Pale Scot

    Adam, is it possible to get around the “it’s not treason if war isn’t declared” by declaring war against some minor Soviet satellite? Don’t prosecute the war, but roll up all the networks Vlad has emplaced. Hang ’em quickly “they were properly fed, and then properly shot” after squeezing them for all the connections like those fellow travelers Nune, Graham, and McConnell. If we can’t hang those three, I’ll settle for confiscation of all their assets and exiled to a central Florida trailer park

  82. 82.

    Adam L Silverman

    @piratedan: The bottom line up front is that what is alleged in the DHS whistleblower complaint is exactly what I do if I were trying to run this op. I’ve written about it here at Balloon Juice before, actually at the same time as the link below in my post here on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s first volume of its Russia report, but here’s a column I wrote on it last August for what was my paid gig until the pandemic screwed up the economy.

    thinking-security-the-senate-select-committee-on-intelligences-report-on-russian-hacking-of-us-election-systems

    Last week the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Senator Richard Burr (R-NC) proprietor, issued the first volume of a five-volume report on Russia’s active measures campaign and interference in the 2016 U.S. election. This first volume focused on and is entitled, Russian Efforts Against Election Infrastructure.

    The key takeaway is that the Russians were able to penetrate and infiltrate by hacking. This was a planned cyber operation on election systems in all 50 states. However, it did not alter any votes. This is a very significant finding as the previous reporting on the Department of Homeland Security’s conclusions was that the Russians had hacked into 29 or 33 state election systems, but did not alter any votes. And the finding of not altering any votes is how much of the reporting and analysis of this new report was framed. The Russians got in, looked around, did not change any votes, and got out.

     

    I think that not changing any votes is both the wrong metric and focus. If I were the Russians, or anyone else looking to make trouble by cyber-infiltration of election systems in each state, I would not be trying to adjust votes cast or tallied. Instead, my focus for the operation would be to mess with the voter rolls and voter registrations.

    Specifically, I would want the cyber operators to change a middle name or initial here and adjust an address or a zip code there. They would also be changing male to female and female to male on some registrations. If you do several thousands of those in the right states, electoral districts and precincts, you do not have to do anything to actual voting tallies and results.

    Instead, you have ensured that people will either be required to vote provisional ballots, which may not be counted or turned away entirely. If you do the targeting in the states where the leadership has decided to take action on voter registration fraud, using the much-criticized crosscheck or related/similar programs, the programs will do the work for you.

    The outcomes in the 2018 Florida gubernatorial and senatorial elections, as well as Georgia’s gubernatorial election, were very close. The ability to adjust a couple of thousand registrations, so voters either run afoul of crosschecks or other purging programs. Or force enough voters to either vote on a provisional ballot or be turned away and never vote because of the hassle of fixing things on election day. This provides one the ability to change the outcome of a close election without doing anything to actual votes cast.

    My real and ongoing concern regarding the reports of Russian hacking into state election systems over the past two years is something I suspected they were doing as far back as 2016. My other real fear is for election integrity as we approach the 2020 election. Unless someone has a reason to go looking, the errors I have described in the previous paragraph would just be assumed to be human error.

    We have examples of some of them in the news reporting on errors made in voter registration. For instance, the New York State Board of Elections announced in December 2017 that they had accidentally and unintentionally registered Jared Kushner as female on his voter registration. This is not the only example of this happening somewhere in the U.S. As far as we know, they are examples of human error made without malice by officials handling voter registration information.

    The same thing has also happened with middle initials or having a number flipped on an address or zip code. Similarly, these types of errors would also make it possible, where districts and precincts border each other, to direct voters to the wrong precinct on election day. You may recall that this happened in the last Virginia state election. The Republican candidate won by 10 votes, but 26 voters in his district were sent to vote in the neighboring and wrong district. From what was reported this seems to be solely human error, but will we always know for sure?

    The real concern regarding Russian, or other hostile foreign actors, hacking into electoral systems is whether they have or will adjust voter registrations and voter rolls. Not the votes cast or vote tallies to influence the outcome of an election. The reality of these Russian cyber operations targeting electoral systems in all 50 states may make it impossible to know when an election has to be certified if errors were unintentionally made by those entering the registrations or intentionally made by a hostile foreign actor.

    One of the major complications is that if the cyber operators doing the infiltrating know their business, it will be tough to differentiate deliberate manipulation from human error. Typos and keystroke entry errors for information on registrations happen every day. I do not know what that error rate is county to county and state to state across the country. I do not know if anyone does.

    So one of the real concerns is how do you distinguish the actual signal of a cyber operation to manipulate voter registrations and the voter rolls to influence an election from the everyday noise of human error? What the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s report delineates is the creation of an electoral ‘wilderness of mirrors’ to borrow James Jesus Angleton’s phrase. It creates a reality that we may never be able to know the actual outcome of close elections in very competitive states and districts. This creates a huge political legitimacy problem, which is exactly what Putin wants.

  83. 83.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Kay: The level of corruption is, in fact, non unsustainable. It is actually the default throughout history in what we would call the west and in the US and the states and municipalities within the US.

  84. 84.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Kay: @catclub: It’s a fraction of what Smithfield made by actually ramping up production, which is what put its employees at risk, so it could divert more product to its export markets outside of the US while people in the US were facing food shortages at the grocery store.

  85. 85.

    Kay

    @catclub:

    It makes me so sad. That is the worst work in the world. Why even fine them? It’s an insult to the dead workers. I suppose they had to do something to cover their ass, and levying this tiny fine checks the box.

    Just to add insult this injury, this posh, pampered nepotism hire ran the shitty, low quality OSHA effort during the pandemic. People who do actual hard work were at the mercy of this Federalist Society stooge:

    United States Secretary of Labor Eugene Scalia defended OSHA’s measures to protect workers during the COVID-19 pandemic, saying the administration’s critics are obscuring what the agency has accomplished.

    They don’t even compete for the jobs. They’re born into privilege and then they get everything handed to them. Low quality hires out of our low quality permanent ruling class.

  86. 86.

    Adam L Silverman

    @The Pale Scot: My argument, as you know and which I’ve been consistently saying since April 2016 here on the front page and in comments, is we are at war with Russia. Frankly if a hostile foreign power’s leader, his military, diplomatic, and intelligence leadership, his allies and surrogates in that country’s legislature, and his state backed news media surrogate have been saying that they are at war with the US and, as far as they are concerned, the US is the aggressor, then we’re at war. When your enemy tells you what they’re thinking, listen to them.

    I just had my most recent professional assessment on this, specifically what is war in the 21st Century, what is war’s character and characteristics as these change, while it’s nature is largely enduring and timeless, published a month ago at The Cipher Brief. Here’s the link, but a warning it’s paywalled (sorry):

    https://www.thecipherbrief.com/article/china/getting-to-the-left-of-boom-in-21st-century-warfare

  87. 87.

    piratedan

    @Adam L Silverman: ty…. so it changes the focus from we can’t trust our elections, which gets a very panicked response and further scrutiny to a small-ball style penetration where you target key elections, screw up a significant number of registrations, maybe even a few GOP ones to cover your ass but make them predominantly Dem ones to give “the House” an edge…, so you can go back to that well and do it again with a reduced factor of possibly getting caught.

  88. 88.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    @Adam L Silverman: Thanks for the info. As is often said, the *best* way to learn something on the internet is not to ask a question, but to post something wrong.

    (I still suspect that “Bar Sinister” would be a great way to slip in “an actual bastard” as a joke, and might have been the inspiration for the name – but I’m happier for having learned some interesting stuff today.)

  89. 89.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    @catclub: Hee! And now, given how many Jewish people worked in TV, you’ve caused me to realize I probably missed my guess, and it probably was “the sinister son, Simon.”

    I’m glad there’s at least a bit of a pleasant diversion in a thread telling us that “you thought it was bad, well it’s as bad as you might have imagined, and probably worse”.

  90. 90.

    Adam L Silverman

    @piratedan: Yep. And by the way, Professor Emeritus Richard Scher, who was a colleague at UF and was the subject matter expert on Florida elections and election law for a very long time until he retired where he’s still the subject matter expert, but he’s retired, wrote a book on how to steal an election after the 2000 mess. And this was also his conclusion for how to best and most easily do so. I had completely forgotten about the book when I wrote the column until a friend from grad school, who was one of Richard’s students and is a campaign professional in Florida, reminded me of it last year.

    https://www.amazon.com/Politics-Disenfranchisement-Hard-Vote-America-ebook-dp-B004C0562Q/dp/B004C0562Q/ref=mt_other?_encoding=UTF8&me=&qid=1599769806

  91. 91.

    Adam L Silverman

    @LongHairedWeirdo: My guess, given I was a wee tyke when the show was on, is that it is a multi-reference joke among the writers. So it is Simon the Son of Sinister, but also Simon who is a bastard, but also Simon the Son of Evil, because of the synonymity of sinister and evil, etc, etc, etc. Given the time period, my guess is there were a lot of drugs being imbibed by the writers.

  92. 92.

    MomSense

    @Kay:

    I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. How is it possible that they don’t even bother to hide the corruption and traitorous activities?  And don’t get me started on the GOP members of Congress.  Not only do they refuse to do anything about it, but many of them repeat known Russian disinformation.  I’m even retroactively furious at all the a Republican patriotism shaming and Cold War scolding.

  93. 93.

    Adam L Silverman

    @MomSense: Something the President learned long ago from his father, as well as Roy Cohn: our system is not set up for people, especially elite and/or notable people, to brazenly commit criminal acts in public and when called on it say “So what?”.

  95. 95.

    MomSense

    @Adam L Silverman:

    With the caveat about news gathered from twitter, even blue check marks, apparently trump said in his presser today that if the Woodward tapes were so bad they would have been reported to the authorities.

  96. 96.

    The Pale Scot

    @Adam L Silverman:

    My intention is to get around the “it’s not treason if the US hasn’t declared war” trope. Wartime puts different rules in place. The threat of execution would have these cosplay masters of the universe shitting in their pants. If Russia came apart (again), I think Vlad and friends would launch,  all those Politburo guys who assaulted Berlin and know what total war means are gone. Just like the Great Depression generation who know what extreme widespread deprivation are gone. Shit can always get worse. I don’t think that a country with the GNP of Texas can maintain an overwhelming nuclear threat, but I’ve watch Threads. We so need savvy diplos and politicians today that are in short supply. God save Ireland USA us all

  97. 97.

    Adam L Silverman

    @MomSense: I watched it. He actually said that Woodward should’ve reported him to the authorities.

    What was interesting was that as he was trying to tap-dance his way through an answer to Jon Karl’s question, where Karl flat out stated he was a liar and had lied to the American people and wouldn’t be bullied off of it by the President, I was watching the market tickers. About a minute into the answer the indexes – Dow Jones, S&P, and NASDAQ – all started dropping. I hadn’t been paying attention to them before that, so they may have been running on the down side all day or all afternoon, but the Dow went down over 400 points as he meandered angrily through his answer to Karl.

  98. 98.

    Adam L Silverman

    @The Pale Scot: I’m not a lawyer and I do not play one here, so I can’t really answer if the constitutional threshold is met for what Giuliani is doing and that he will continue to do. I can tell you as someone who is a specialist on war – what it is, the different types, has deep expertise with low intensity war, which is pretty much everything below interstate war (think revolution through terrorism) – that my professional assessment is that we are at war with Russia. And that in the 21st century we better get used to the fact that the character and key characteristics of 21st century war and warfare is to conduct it without using much, if any at all, military power the way we understood war was undertaken in the 20th century.

  99. 99.

    Kay

    @MomSense:

    Giuliani sold out because he needs the money. He must be amazingly bad with money. He’s been profiteering off 9/11 since 6 months after it happened and all he has is bad debt.

    He can’t even make it as a traitor/grifter. He sold out and all he has to show for it are huge mortgages on tacky properties.

  100. 100.

    The Moar You Know

    trump said in his presser today that if the Woodward tapes were so bad they would have been reported to the authorities.

    @MomSense:  Well, President Woodward has had his hands full.

    We are right back at “I take no responsibility at all”.  That’s the only time in the last four years he’s been honest with the American people.  The ONLY time.

    Does Woodward not telling the public the day he heard those words out of Trump’s vile butthole mouth make him a monster?  Yeah, it does.  No question.  But it does not make him responsible.  Which Trump is desperately trying to do.  Find anyone else he can blame for killing a quarter-million people.

  102. 102.

    WaterGirl

    @Kay: Fined a hundred dollars oh my god it’s $10 for each employee that got COVID!

    That math assumes not a penny for the ones that died.

    What a bargain the company got.  Barely a slap on the wrist.

  103. 103.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    he seems actually to be doing his job

    I appreciate and commend you on the intact infinitive (although in all truthfulness, I’m not nearly as fussy about it as I once was).

  104. 104.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Gvg:

    Biden’s quip ended his [Giuliani’s] run.

    Before I die, I would love to shake the hand of the speechwriter who came up with “A noun, a verb, and 9/11.” Still makes me laugh every time I think of it.

  105. 105.

    Captain C

    @divF: I don’t think he (Trump) pays enough attention to notice these sorts of things on his own.  I also wonder if some of Mnuchin’s finance friends who have turned sour on Trump have hinted to him (Mnuchin) that if he doesn’t run a fair game at least, that he’ll be stuck with a ‘pedestrian’ 2-20 Hedge Fund situation after he leaves, rather than whatever sweetheart setup he would normally rate given his positions in Goldman Sachs and as Treasury Secretary.

  106. 106.

    catclub

    @Adam L Silverman: , I was watching the market tickers. About a minute into the answer the indexes – Dow Jones, S&P, and NASDAQ – all started dropping.

     

    not sure on the timing, but the failed mini rescue-bill in the Senate might be a better explanation.

  107. 107.

    catclub

    @The Moar You Know:

    But it does not make him [Woodward] responsible.  Which Trump is desperately trying to do.  Find anyone else he can blame for killing a quarter-million people.

    I think if the press starts asking him who else in his admin knew how bad it was, and when, he will throw them all under the bus.

  108. 108.

    Miss Bianca

    @Kay: What’s that, $10 per affected employee? That’s not even a slap on the wrist – that’s a love tap. Fuckers. You’re right – every federal agency and government department has been infected by TrumpRot.

  109. 109.

    Captain C

    @Kay: I recall reading somewhere in the last couple years that his burn rate is something like $250K per month, between debts, alimony, and lifestyle.

  110. 110.

    Geminid

    @Captain C: Mnuchin probably hopes for a lucrative life after his current gig. He also may be very determined not to go to prison. He may well have been asked to “fix” this problem. I doubt if Mnuchin has any loyalty to trump, and at this point he probably is ready to go anytime, may even want to watch the trainwreck from a distance.

  112. 112.

    Chris Johnson

     For instance, the New York State Board of Elections announced in December 2017 that they had accidentally and unintentionally registered Jared Kushner as female on his voter registration.

    I call Russian jokesters. This is exactly what Adam suggests they’re doing all over the country. If they are in fact as smart as Adam, that would be true and exactly what they’re up to, and given enough data that’s a damn useful strategy that dovetails with existing efforts by Republicans to disenfranchise everyone not a Republican.

    Why Kushner? Because it’s funny, and because the Russians do not respect their patsies. They cannot resist tweaking the noses of these buffoons. The Trumpsters have to always remember who is on the other end of the leash, and (for ego AND self-preservation) never reveal how owned they are.

    And then every now and then, there’s a little joke from those japesters in Russia ‘helping’ them. Oopsy. Boris is so sorry. Poor little Jared. Well, he’s a (Russian slur about female parts) anyway. ho ho.

    As for Mnuchin, the Russians are not the only ones with arrogance and bravado. I don’t know whether Mnuchin is also tied up with the Russians, but it’s important to remember that a lot of the Russian stuff is not coordinated. I just heard about a guy who did a lot of work spreading QAnon propaganda. That is enormously helpful to the Russians, yet other QAnons suspected him and attacked him in myriad ways. The whole point of what the Russians are doing is that it’s not coordinated or top-down: it’s a hydra, it’s a whole mess of people doing harm in their own ways without communication back up the chain.

    In that light, Mnuchin might find some trouble coming his way for his arrogance in thinking he can demonstrate that his personal enemies are the baddies. I think he’ll find that he done fucked up, and his actions were not welcome, and that he is not as independent as he thinks he is.

  113. 113.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Danielx:

    I truly hope RBG has good – no, excellent – security measures in place. I’d guess the chances are better than average that if Trump publicly mused that things would be better with her out of the way, one or more nutcase supporters would take it as a suggestion/edict.

    “Will no one rid me of this notorious judge?”

  114. 114.

    Tehanu

    @Captain C:  It’s like the setup at the Wall Street Journal. The editorial dept. is crazy greedhead land with nothing but lies and propaganda; the actual business reportage is solid because businesses need accurate information to stay in the black, and if they weren’t getting it, the paper would fold in a week. Nobody ever said the 1% were stupid when it comes to money, especially their own money.  So it sounds like Mnuchin got the word that the real bosses want some of the government to work like it should, because it’s in their interest, while the rest of the government can go merrily down the QAnon shithole.

Comments are closed.