Assange"s Twitter Account Mysteriously Deleted, Reappears Hours Later

Update: as of 9:30am ET, the @JulianAssange accounts has returned, although it appears to be a truncated or restored one, which shortly after its reappearance shows just over 1,000 followers.

A "returned" Assange tweeted the following cartoon.

pic.twitter.com/NpZOWzpwhQ

— Julian Assange ???? (@JulianAssange) December 25, 2017

* * *

Julian Assange"s Twitter account was mysteriously deleted on Christmas Eve, leaving perhaps the most important witness in the Trump-Russia investigation cut off from the rest of the world while he sits in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. 

Attempting to access Assange"s Twitter account results in the following message:

This page only appears when an account has been deleted, not suspended - by either Twitter or the account owner. 

It wasn"t clear whether the account was suspended or deleted by Twitter or Assange himself -- or why or for how long. Twitter wasn"t commenting

This tweet by the WikiLeaks Task Force - an official WikiLeaks handle, suggested that people shouldn"t jump to conclusions, as "haters and conspiracy theorists rush to post the usual attention seeking rubbish," before wishing everyone a Merry Christmas.  

Julian"s account disappears, so haters and conspiracy theorists rush to post the usual attention seeking rubbish. Ah, Twitter.

Merry Christmas, people.https://t.co/oCBOW2Tc5L pic.twitter.com/GmdXG36Xt3

— WikiLeaks Task Force (@WLTaskForce) December 25, 2017

The official Wikileaks Twitter account was still live but wasn"t mentioning the Assange account.

According to CBS, an account purporting to be an alternative Assange account was claiming Twitter had deleted his official one ahead of a blockbuster story he"s preparing to break. There was no confirmation that Assange was authoring that alternative account -- and that account has now been suspended by Twitter.

Meanwhile, Journalist Charles Johnson - who traveled with Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) to London to meet with Assange in August, posted the following on Facebook after Assange"s Twitter account went down: 

Moreover, on December 1, WikiLeaks" official account tweeted "Merry Christmas from @WikiLeaks" with an embedded video referencing perpetual war, and the hashtags #Yemen #Libya #Iraq #Syria #Pakistan #Afghanistan #Somalia #Ukraine

Merry Christmas from @WikiLeaks https://t.co/lmsmphuH2Nhttps://t.co/cGRnpjx6O8https://t.co/PkYqIcOZJW #Yemen #Libya #Iraq #Syria #Pakistan #Afghanistan #Somalia #Ukraine

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) December 1, 2017

Some have suggested that the events are part of some Christmas-linked plan, although so far there has been no confirmation. 

The account deletion comes on the heels of a break-in last Monday at the Madrid office of WikiLeaks lawyer Baltasar Garzon"s, in what police described as a "very professional" operation. Garzon told El Periodico and Ser magazine "They had not taken what they have been looking for," and client security "has not been affected," however police are analyzing his computer equipment to determine whether any files were taken or copied. 

Hours after the break-in, Julian Assange published a tweet calling a Jimmy Dore video "Brilliant" - prominently featuring Assange"s interview with a Dutch television host in which the WikiLeaks founder strongly implies that slain DNC IT staffer Seth Rich was the source of emails published by WikiLeaks during the 2016 election.  (Assange clip at 21:30)

During the clip, Assange can be seen nodding his head in response to a question about Rich:

In August, Congressman Dana Rohrabacher travelled to London with journalist Charles Johnson for a meeting with Assange, where Rohrabacher said the WikiLeaks founder offered "firsthand" information proving that the Trump campaign did not collude with Russia, and which would refute the Russian hacking theory.

Rohrabacher brought that message back to Trump"s Chief of Staff, John Kelly, to propose a deal. In exchange for a presidential pardon, Assange would share evidence that would refute the Russian hacking theory by proving they weren"t the source of the emails, according to the WSJ. 

“The possible “deal”—a term used by Mr. Rohrabacher during the Wednesday phone call—would involve a pardon of Mr. Assange or “something like that,” Mr. Rohrabacher said. In exchange, Mr. Assange would probably present a computer drive or other data-storage device that Mr. Rohrabacher said would exonerate Russia in the long-running controversy about who was the source of hacked and stolen material aimed at embarrassing the Democratic Party during the 2016 election.”

 

‘He would get nothing, obviously, if what he gave us was not proof,’ Mr. Rohrabacher said.

When Trump was asked in late September about the Assange proposal, he responded that he"d "never heard" of it, causing Rohrabacher to unleash on John Kelly, who he blamed for blocking the proposal from reaching the President, Rohrabacher told the Daily Caller: 

“I think the president’s answer indicates that there is a wall around him that is being created by people who do not want to expose this fraud that there was collusion between our intelligence community and the leaders of the Democratic Party,” Rohrabacher told The Daily Caller Tuesday in a phone interview.

 

“This would have to be a cooperative effort between his own staff and the leadership in the intelligence communities to try to prevent the president from making the decision as to whether or not he wants to take the steps necessary to expose this horrendous lie that was shoved down the American people’s throats so incredibly earlier this year,” Rohrabacher said.

Contributing to the notion of deep-state interference, CIA director Mike Pompeo referred to WikiLeaks as a "hostile intelligence service" in April, calling Julian Assange "a fraud, a coward hiding behind a screen" for exposing information about democratic governments rather than authoritarian regimes. This quite the ironic statement, considering Pompeo used leaked emails from WikiLeaks as proof "the fix was in" against President Trump. 

Mike Pompeo was sharing Wikileaks documents on his Congressional Twitter account less than a year ago pic.twitter.com/cl5P6vnXSE

— Jessica Schulberg (@jessicaschulb) April 13, 2017

 Let"s also not forget Donald Trump proclaiming "I Love Wikileaks!" less than a month before the 2016 election.

So Julian Assange - ostensibly the most important witness in the Russia hacking investigation, offered to prove that Russia was not the source of the leaked emails in exchange for a pardon. This proposition was conveyed through Rep. Dana Rohrabacher to White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, who Rohrabacher says never allowed the deal to reach Trump for consideration.  Months later, WikiLeaks attorney Baltasar Garzon"s office was raided in a "very professional" operation which is being labeled an attempted robbery. Hours after the break-in, Julian Assange tweets a Jimmy Dore video containing his own strong implication that Seth Rich was the source of the leaked emails, and six days later his Twitter account is gone. 

That said, tweets directly from the WikiLeaks urge not to jump to conclusions.

Assange"s account deletion also comes on the heels of several new Twitter rules rolled out on December 18, which many feared was the beginning of a "purge" of conservative accounts over user behavior both on and off the platform. The rules are aimed at people who associate with hate groups that "use or promote violence against civilians to further their causes" - however nothing Assange has done comes close to fitting that description.

So did Julian Assange delete his Twitter account - and if so, why? Was this yet another rogue Twitter employee lashing out on their last day, as was the case with President Trump"s temporary account deletion in early November? Or did Twitter delete the account of one of the most important figures in the 2016 election. 

Assange Blasts Clinton's "Constant Lying" Over Claim Wikileaks Is "Subsidiary Of Russian Intelligence"

Julian Assange accused Hillary Clinton of “constant lying” and displaying a “cold creepiness” after the former US presidential candidate accused Wikileaks of being a front for Russian intelligence during interviews with British and Australian media last week, Russia Today reported.

Clinton, who has sat for interviews with media outlets in several different countries over the past week as the global leg of her book tour for “What Happened” began, described the organization that Assange founded as part of a “concerted operation” between Russia, Wikileaks and “people in the United States” – likely an oblique reference to the Trump campaign.

“It is not just her constant lying,” Assange tweeted on Monday. “It is not just that she throws off menacing glares and seethes thwarted entitlement.”

“Something much darker rides along with it. A cold creepiness rarely seen.”

WikiLeaks has a pristine record for accuracy. HRC is not a credible person. The primary cause of her downfall was her own Machiavellian scheme to elevate Mr. Trump ("Pied Piper").

Our last Russian expose was three weeks ago. https://t.co/MGa1z99vVU https://t.co/He4vgLIKBW

— Julian Assange ???? (@JulianAssange) October 15, 2017

Hillary Clinton claimed in an interview with one Australian news program that Assange colluded with the Russian government to obtain and publish emails stolen from the DNC in the lead-up to the 2016 US presidential election.

“Assange has become a kind of nihilistic opportunist who does the bidding of a dictator,” she said.

“WikiLeaks is unfortunately now practically a fully owned subsidiary of Russian intelligence.”

“I think that their intention, coming from the very top with Putin, was to hurt me and to help [then-presidential hopeful Donald] Trump,” she said.

“Our intelligence community and other observers of Russia and Putin have said he held a grudge against me because as secretary of state, I stood up against some of his actions, his authoritarianism,” Clinton said.

“If he’s such a martyr of free speech, why doesn’t WikiLeaks ever publish anything coming out of Russia? You don’t see damaging, negative information coming out about the Kremlin on WikiLeaks,” she added.

According to Clinton, Assange was motivated by a personal dislike of her stemming from her role as secretary of state, when the Obama administration cracked down on Wikileaks after it published sensitive government cables. Of course, Clinton has made similar accusations about Putin, whom she claims developed a hatred for her after she encouraged anti-Putin protests in 2009.  

“I had a lot of history with him because I was secretary of state when WikiLeaks published a lot of very sensitive information from our State Department and our Defense Department,” she said.

For what it’s worth, Assange has repeatedly denied having any connection with Russia, and has even offered to turn over conclusive evidence that Russia wasn’t Wikileaks’ source for the hacked DNC emails – in exchange for a presidential pardon. However, nobody in the administration has considered his offer, according to a member of Congress who’s tried to help broker the deal.

Assange has been in hiding in the Ecuadorian embassy in London since 2011. Even though Sweden dropped sex crime charges against Assange earlier this year, he has remained in the embassy for fear of being arrested by the US for publishing classified material through Wikileaks.  
 

"I Have A Right To Express My Concerns": Fired Google Engineer Will Pursue Legal Action; Assange Offers Job

The computer engineer fired by Google for writing a memo in which he slammed the company"s anti-conservative culture and said women are less suited to certain roles in tech and leadership, is considering taking legal action against the company.

As a reminder, now former Google employee James Damore, caused outrage when he circulated a manifesto on Friday, complaining about Google’s “ideological echo chamber” alleging women have lower tolerance for stress and that conservatives are more conscientious. The chess master, who studied at Harvard, Princeton and MIT and worked at Google"s Mountain View HQ, was fired on Monday after the search giant’s chief executive, Sundar Pichai, said portions of Damore’s 10-page memo “violate our code of conduct and cross the line by advancing harmful gender stereotypes” despite saying in the same memo that Google employees shouldn"t be afraid of speaking their minds.

One day after Google announced the engineer was fired, Damore said he would “likely be pursuing legal action”.

“I have a right to express my concerns about the terms and conditions of my working environment and to bring up potentially illegal behavior, which is what my document does,” he said in an email reported by the New York Times.

In a further email to Breitbart, he reportedly said: “They just fired me for ‘perpetuating gender stereotypes’.”

While liberals were delighted by the decision, others accused Google of hypocrisy as the company is itself currently involved in litigation with the U.S. Department of Labor alleging the company systemically discriminates against women. Google has denied the charges, arguing that it doesn’t have a gender gap in pay, but has declined to share full salary information with the government. According to the company’s most recent demographic report, 69 percent of its workforce and 80 percent of its technical staff are male.

Among other things, Damore argued that “Google’s left bias has created a politically correct mono-culture that maintains its hold by shaming dissenters into silence”. He said: “The distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes, and that these differences may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership.”

In his memo, subtitled “How bias clouds our thinking about diversity and inclusion”, he said he wanted to increase women’s representation in tech without resorting to discrimination.

He complained that “discriminating just to increase the representation of women in tech is as misguided and biased as mandating increases for women’s representation in the homeless, work-related and violent deaths, prisons and school dropouts”. His suggestions included the company making tech and leadership less stressful because “women are on average more prone to anxiety”. His dismissal followed "outrage" in Silicon Valley because Damore sought to explain the gender imbalance in the tech industry as a function of biological difference.

The senior software engineer had worked at Google since 2013 and had previously studied computational biology at Princeton, Harvard and the University of Illinois where he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in 2010 in the top 3% of his class, according to his CV posted online and noted by the Guardian.

On Tuesday, Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, said that he would like to hire Damore, declaring “censorship is for losers”.

1/ Censorship is for losers. @WikiLeaks is offering a job to fired Google engineer James Damore. https://t.co/tmrflE72p3

— Julian Assange ???? (@JulianAssange) August 8, 2017

Writing on Twitter he said: “WikiLeaks is offering a job to fired Google engineer James Damore. Women and men deserve respect. That includes not firing them for politely expressing ideas but rather arguing back.” He added: “I value intellectual diversity and workers rights to not be fired for politely expressing the ‘wrong’ opinion.”

I value intellectual diversity and workers rights to not be fired for politely expressing the "wrong" opinion. https://t.co/Qlqyht8CUA

— Julian Assange ???? (@JulianAssange) August 8, 2017

Damore"s termination also sparked a conservative backlash, with Breitbart and other websites rushing to Damore’s defence. Breitbart quoted an anonymous employee who claimed that “the diversity gospel has been woven into nearly everything the company does, to the point where senior leaders focus on diversity first and technology second.

“For conservative employees, this is obviously demoralising, but it is also dangerous. Several have been driven out of the company or fired outright for sharing a dissenting view.”

Eric Weinstein, managing director of Peter Thiel’s venture capital firm, wrote an open missive to Google asking it to “stop teaching my girl that her path to financial freedom lies not in coding but in complaining to HR”.

More to the matter at hand, legal observers have questioned whether Google has broken employment law by firing Damore.

Dan Eaton, an employment lawyer, in San Diego wrote on CNBC: “Federal labour law bars even non-union employers like Google from punishing an employee for communicating with fellow employees about improving working conditions … California law prohibits employers from threatening to fire employees to get them to adopt or refrain from adopting a particular political course of action.”

He also said” “It is unlawful for an employer to discipline an employee for challenging conduct that the employee reasonably believed to be discriminatory, even when a court later determines the conduct was not actually prohibited by the discrimination laws.”

A spokesman for Google in London declined to comment to the press on the legality of the decision.

Our guess: the most likely outcome will be a multi-million dollar settlement, and in a few months the name James Damore will be forgotten.

Finally, for those who still haven"t read it, Damore"s full memo is below (link):

Ron Paul Rages At Trump: "Assange Is A Hero... Don't Declare War On The Truth"

Authored by Ron Paul via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,

Candidate Trump: "I Love Wikileaks."

President Trump: "Arrest Assange!"

“I love Wikileaks,” candidate Donald Trump said on October 10th on the campaign trail. He praised the organization for reporting on the darker side of the Hillary Clinton campaign. It was information likely leaked by a whistleblower from within the Clinton campaign to Wikileaks.

Back then he praised Wikileaks for promoting transparency, but candidate Trump looks less like President Trump every day. The candidate praised whistleblowers and Wikileaks often on the campaign trail. In fact, candidate Trump loved Wikileaks so much he mentioned the organization more than 140 times in the final month of the campaign alone! Now, as President, it seems Trump wants Wikileaks founder Julian Assange sent to prison.

Last week CNN reported, citing anonymous “intelligence community” sources, that the Trump Administration’s Justice Department was seeking the arrest of Assange and had found a way to charge the Wikileaks founder for publishing classified information without charging other media outlets such as the New York Times and Washington Post for publishing the same information.

It might have been tempting to write off the CNN report as “fake news,” as is much of their reporting, but for the fact President Trump said in an interview on Friday that issuing an arrest warrant for Julian Assange would be, “OK with me.”

Trump’s condemnation of Wikileaks came just a day after his CIA Director, Michael Pompeo, attacked Wikileaks as a “hostile intelligence service.” Pompeo accused Assange of being “a fraud — a coward hiding behind a screen.”

Pompeo’s word choice was no accident. By accusing Wikileaks of being a “hostile intelligence service” rather than a publisher of information on illegal and abusive government practices leaked by whistleblowers, he signaled that the organization has no First Amendment rights. Like many in Washington, he does not understand that the First Amendment is a limitation on government rather than a granting of rights to citizens. Pompeo was declaring war on Wikileaks.

But not that long ago Pompeo also cited Wikileaks as an important source of information. In July he drew attention to the Wikileaks release of information damaging to the Clinton campaign, writing, “Need further proof that the fix was in from President Obama on down?”

There is a word for this sudden about-face on Wikileaks and the transparency it provides us into the operations of the prominent and powerful: hypocrisy.

The Trump Administration’s declaration of war on whistleblowers and Wikileaks is one of the greatest disappointments in these first 100 days. Donald Trump rode into the White House with promises that he would “drain the swamp,” meaning that he would overturn the apple carts of Washington’s vested interests. By unleashing those same vested interests on those who hold them in check – the whistleblowers and those who publish their revelations – he has turned his back on those who elected him.

Julian Assange, along with the whistleblowers who reveal to us the evil that is being done in our name, are heroes. They deserve our respect and admiration, not a prison cell. If we allow this president to declare war on those who tell the truth, we have only ourselves to blame.

Trump: If The DOJ Wants To Arrest Assange, "It's OK With Me"

Having selected several key excerpts from Donald Trump"s lengthy AP interview earlier, we urge readers looking for fascinating yet surreal bedtime reading to give the full, nearly 8,000 word transcript a try, as it contains bizarro excerpts such as this:

AP: You did put out though, as a candidate, you put out a 100-day plan. Do you feel like you should be held accountable to that plan?

TRUMP: Somebody, yeah, somebody put out the concept of a hundred-day plan. But yeah. Well, I"m mostly there on most items. Go over the items, and I"ll talk to you ... (Crosstalk.)

TRUMP: But things change. There has to be flexibility. Let me give you an example. President Xi, we have a, like, a really great relationship. For me to call him a currency manipulator and then say, "By the way, I"d like you to solve the North Korean problem," doesn"t work. So you have to have a certain flexibility, Number One. Number Two, from the time I took office till now, you know, it"s a very exact thing. It"s not like generalities. Do you want a Coke or anything?

AP: I"m OK, thank you. No. ...

Yet what caught our attention was the following excerpt on a topic that has re-emerged in recent days in the aftermath of the spat between Julian Assange and the new CIA chief Mike Pompeo, who last week made it clear Assange"s days as a quasi-free man are numbered. And, as the following exchange between the AP and Trump notes, the president does not harbor any partcularly fond feelings for the man who has been accused of being a Russian plant or spy and crushing Hillary Clinton"s election chances. That, and so much more in the following bizarre exchange:

AP: Jeff Sessions, your attorney general, is taking a tougher line suddenly on Julian Assange, saying that arresting him is a priority. You were supportive of what WikiLeaks was doing during the campaign with the release of the Clinton emails. Do you think that arresting Assange is a priority for the United States?

TRUMP: When Wikileaks came out ... never heard of Wikileaks, never heard of it. When Wikileaks came out, all I was just saying is, "Well, look at all this information here, this is pretty good stuff." You know, they tried to hack the Republican, the RNC, but we had good defenses. They didn"t have defenses, which is pretty bad management. But we had good defenses, they tried to hack both of them. They weren"t able to get through to Republicans. No, I found it very interesting when I read this stuff and I said, "Wow." It was just a figure of speech. I said, "Well, look at this. It"s good reading."

AP: But that didn"t mean that you supported what Assange is doing?

TRUMP: No, I don"t support or unsupport. It was just information. They shouldn"t have allowed it to get out. If they had the proper defensive devices on their internet, you know, equipment, they wouldn"t even allow the FBI. How about this — they get hacked, and the FBI goes to see them, and they won"t let the FBI see their server. But do you understand, nobody ever writes it. Why wouldn"t (former Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John) Podesta and Hillary Clinton allow the FBI to see the server? They brought in another company that I hear is Ukrainian-based.

AP: CrowdStrike? 

TRUMP: That"s what I heard. I heard it"s owned by a very rich Ukrainian, that"s what I heard. But they brought in another company to investigate the server. Why didn"t they allow the FBI in to investigate the server? I mean, there is so many things that nobody writes about. It"s incredible. 

AP: Can I just ask you, though — do you believe it is a priority for the United States, or it should be a priority, to arrest Julian Assange? 

TRUMP: I am not involved in that decision, but if Jeff Sessions wants to do it, it"s OK with me. I didn"t know about that decision, but if they want to do it, it"s OK with me.

And while Trump may somehow not know about the DOJ"s decision to arrest Assange, we are confident he knows that any potential pardon of Assange is long gone. As for Donald Trump "loving" Wikileaks, that was so six months ago.

Julian Assange In Jeopardy As Exit Poll Shows Lasso Winning Ecuador Presidency

It may be the worst possible news for Julian Assange. Or the best, depending on which exit poll of the Ecuador presidential election is right.

With the results of the Ecuador presidential run-off race set to be announced in hours, two exit polls projected two different winners in a tight election in OPEC"s smallest member nation on Sunday evening, sparking celebrations in the rival camps of a leftist government-backed candidate and a former banker. As Reuters reports, the final results could take days to tabulate, the electoral council has warned, in a race that could extend a decade of leftist rule or usher in more business-friendly policies in the oil-rich Andean country.

According to one exit poll, conservative challenger Guillermo Lasso had 53.02% of votes versus 46.98% for government-backed Lenin Moreno, an exit poll by leading pollster Cedatos showed on Sunday afternoon. With Cedatos considered one of the most trustworthy polls, the Lasso camp broke into cheers, with supporters waving flags and honking horns in wealthier northern Quito.

"Today a new Ecuador is born, the Ecuador of democracy, the Ecuador of freedom," Lasso told a crowd chanting: "Lasso President!" in his sweltering coastal hometown, Guayaquil.

Meanwhile, a separate exit poll by Perfiles de Opinion showed Moreno with 52.2% of the vote versus 47.8% for Lasso. Moreno was more measured, telling supporters in Quito: "We have a very trustworthy lead." He urged Ecuadoreans to await final results.

The results will have substantial geopolitical implications, and South America is watching closely to see if Ecuador will follow Argentina, Brazil and Peru in shifting to the right as a commodities boom ends.

But the polarized country is also bracing for potential unrest after a tense campaign. Both candidates have called for their supporters to take to the street and "defend the vote."

The two contenders could not be more different.

Moreno, 64, a paraplegic former vice-president, just missed the minimum threshold to win the presidency in the first round in February, and polls leading up to Sunday"s runoff showed him leading Lasso. Moreno, who has used a wheelchair since being shot during a robbery in 1998, has promised to boost social benefits to single mothers, pensioners and disabled Ecuadoreans while being more conciliatory than the mercurial Correa.

Lasso, a 61-year-old former head of Banco de Guayaquil who has campaigned on creating one million jobs in four years, argues that Moreno"s generous social promises risk plunging Ecuador"s economy further into debt. He also accuses the ruling Country Alliance party of covering up corruption scandals, stifling media, and stacking institutions with supporters in the vein of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, a Correa ally. As Reuters notes, Venezuela"s political upheaval cast a shadow over Ecuador"s vote, with Lasso supporters fearing their country could turn the way of the crisis-hit nation.

* * *

But the biggest reason why the presidential election is being closely watched by the international community is that its outcome may seal the fate of Julian Assange.

Lasso, who according to the Cedatos poll is the winner, has vowed that if he wins the WikiLeaks founder’s time in the Ecuador embassy in London will be up. Lasso has said he would “cordially ask Señor Assange to leave within 30 days of assuming a mandate”, because his presence in the Knightsbridge embassy was a burden on Ecuadorian taxpayers.

Meanwhile, Lenin Moreno, has said Assange would remain welcome, albeit with conditions. “We will always be alert and ask Mr Assange to show respect in his declarations regarding our brotherly and friendly countries,” Moreno said.

As the Guardian wrote on March 31 ahead of Sunday"s election, the Australian’s legal team are extremely worried.

“We are obviously very concerned that any candidate would threaten to undermine the protection that the Ecuadorian state has granted Julian,” said Jennifer Robinson, a lawyer at Doughty Street Chambers who is a member of Assange’s UK legal team. “No government should play politics with the granting of asylum. It’s a legal protection provided for under international law, Ecuador has granted that protection, they have recognised him as a refugee, and now they have obligations to protect him whatever happens in the elections.”

Assange’s team are reluctant to be drawn on what legal avenues they might be able to pursue, but he is understood to have instructed lawyers in Quito, while others are looking at whether they may have potential options through the Inter-American and European courts of human rights.

Making matters for Assange worse, British authorities are adamant that, should Assange leave the embassy under any circumstances, he will be immediately arrested and sent to Sweden, which has been seeking to extradite him over an allegation of rape dating from 2010, which Assange denies.

In short, Assange’s best hope in the short term, is a Moreno victory. If that does not happen as at least one poll suggests, international human rights groups might rally in his defence, or WikiLeaks might uncover material to put pressure on Lasso. But according to Arturo Moscoso, an Ecuadorian lawyer and academic, Assange should not expect Ecuadorian public opinion to come to the rescue: “For many it’s a headache.”

 “No organisation, no law and no person can prevent the president from revoking the status of political asylum.” Assange’s asylum was granted by a presidential decree and could just as easily be removed by one, he said.

Curiously, while many have implied Russian "interference" in every major recent geopolitical event, from the Brexit vote, to the US presidential election, to the upcoming elections in France and Germany, few have discussed whether or not the Kremlin would be "manipulating" the results of the Ecuador presidential election, especially since the fate of one of the men rumored to have been collaborating with Putin, Julian Assange, is now on the line and could result in a protracted prison sentence.

Then again, it"s just one exit poll, which as recent events have demonstrated, can be painfully wrong. One person - the founder of Wikileaks - will spend the night praying that it is.

WikiLeaks Holds Press Conference On CIA Hacking, Will Share Hacking Tools With Tech Firms

On Tuesday morning, at the same time that Wikileaks was releasing the contents of "Vault 7" CIA-document dump, it was supposed to hold a press conference, which however was said to have suffered terminal technical difficulties. As a result, Wikileaks delayed it until now, at 9:45am Eastern on Thursday.

Watch it live below:

Readers can submit questions on Twitter with the #askWL hashtag.

One of the notable disclosures is that Assange will share details on the CIA"s hacking tools with the tech industry before releasing them to the general public. The WikiLeaks founder said he has much more detailed information about CIA hacking techniques and will allow tech companies access so they can "develop fixes" before the information is more widely published.

Wikileaks has claimed claims the CIA Center for Cyber Intelligence "lost control of the majority of its hacking arsenal," more than several hundred million lines of code that provide "the entire hacking capacity of the CIA." It has alleged that the archive appears to have been circulated among former government hackers and contractors, one of whom provided WikiLeaks with portions of it. The website says the CIA hacking division involved "more than 5,000 registered users and had produced more than a thousand hacking systems, trojans, viruses, and other "weaponized" malware."

The FBI has launched a criminal investigation into the public release of a document cache, a U.S. official told USA TODAY this week. The official, who is not authorized to comment publicly, said the inquiry will seek to determine whether the disclosure represented a breach from the outside or a leak from inside the spy agency. A separate review will attempt to assess the damage caused by such a disclosure, the official said.

As discussed last night, CIA spokesman Dean Boyd declined to comment vouch for the authenticity of the materials, though he defended the agency"s mission to "aggressively collect foreign intelligence overseas to protect America from terrorists, hostile nation states and other adversaries."" Boyd said the CIA is prohibited from conducting electronic surveillance targeting individuals here at home and "does not do so."

Snowden: What The Wikileaks Revelations Show Is "Reckless Beyond Words"

While it has been superficially covered by much of the press - and one can make the argument that what Julian Assange has revealed is more relevant to the US population, than constant and so far unconfirmed speculation that Trump is a puppet of Putin - the fallout from the Wikileaks" "Vault 7" release this morning of thousands of documents demonstrating the extent to which the CIA uses backdoors to hack smartphones, computer operating systems, messenger applications and internet-connected televisions, will be profound.

As evidence of this, the WSJ cites an intelligence source who said that "the revelations were far more significant than the leaks of Edward Snowden."

Mr. Snowden’s leaks revealed names of programs, companies that assist the NSA in surveillance and in some cases the targets of American spying. But the recent leak purports to contain highly technical details about how surveillance is carried out. That would make them far more revealing and useful to an adversary, this person said. In one sense, Mr. Snowden provided a briefing book on U.S. surveillance, but the CIA leaks could provide the blueprints.

Speaking of Snowden, the former NSA contractor-turned-whistleblower, who now appears to have a "parallel whisteblower" deep inside the "Deep State", i.e., the source of the Wikileaks data - also had some thoughts on today"s CIA dump.

In a series of tweets, Snowden notes that "what @Wikileaks has here is genuinely a big deal", and makes the following key observations "If you"re writing about the CIA/@Wikileaks story, here"s the big deal: first public evidence USG secretly paying to keep US software unsafe" and adds that "the CIA reports show the USG developing vulnerabilities in US products, then intentionally keeping the holes open. Reckless beyond words."

He then asks rhetorically "Why is this dangerous?" and explains "Because until closed, any hacker can use the security hole the CIA left open to break into any iPhone in the world."

His conclusion, one which many of the so-called conspiratorial bent would say was well-known long ago: "Evidence mounts showing CIA & FBI knew about catastrophic weaknesses in the most-used smartphones in America, but kept them open -- to spy."

To which the increasingly prevalent response has become: "obviously."

Still working through the publication, but what @Wikileaks has here is genuinely a big deal. Looks authentic.

— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) March 7, 2017

If you"re writing about the CIA/@Wikileaks story, here"s the big deal: first public evidence USG secretly paying to keep US software unsafe. pic.twitter.com/kYi0NC2mOp

— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) March 7, 2017

The CIA reports show the USG developing vulnerabilities in US products, then intentionally keeping the holes open. Reckless beyond words.

— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) March 7, 2017

Why is this dangerous? Because until closed, any hacker can use the security hole the CIA left open to break into any iPhone in the world. https://t.co/xK0aILAdFI

— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) March 7, 2017

Evidence mounts showing CIA & FBI knew about catastrophic weaknesses in the most-used smartphones in America, but kept them open -- to spy. https://t.co/mDyVred3H8

— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) March 7, 2017

Ecuador's Presidential Front-Runner: "We Will Ask Assange To Leave Our Embassy"

It appears President Correa"s "intention to safeguard [Assange"s] life and physical integrity until he reaches a safe place," is under threat as The Miami Herald reports that Guillermo Lasso, the front-runner in Ecuador’s presidential election, says he intends to evict Assange from that country’s London embassy if he wins the April 2 runoff against ruling party candidate Lenín Moreno.

“We will ask Mr. Assange, very politely, to leave our embassy, in absolute compliance with international conventions and protocols,” Lasso said in an email exchange with the Miami Herald.

Assange took refuge in Ecuador’s cramped London embassy in 2012 fighting extradition to Sweden where he is wanted on sexual misconduct allegations. Assange and his legal team fear that the Swedish charges are a ploy to have him extradited to the United States.

Lasso also noted that Assange had volunteered to leave the embassy if Chelsea Manning, who is serving a 35-year-sentence for giving WikiLeaks hundreds of thousands of secret and confidential U.S. diplomatic cables, were to be pardoned. On his way out of office, President Barack Obama commuted Manning’s sentence, and she will be released May 17. But Assange argued that a commutation wasn’t a pardon and hunkered down at the embassy.

The ruling party’s Moreno has said he would continue Correa’s policy of letting Assange stay at the embassy.

As a reminder, in October 2016, Ecuador cut Assange"s internet access due to his publication of a "wealth of documents impacting the U.S. election." Despite what seems to be the Ecuadorian government caving to political pressure from the Obama administration, the statement takes special caution to reassure everyone that the decision was in response to "sovereign decisions alone" and that Ecuador "does not yield to pressure from other states"....sure, though we do wonder how many drafts John Kerry"s staffers went through at the State Department before finally approving these comments for dissemination.

Here are some key excerpts from the Ecuadorian statement:

"In recent weeks, WikiLeaks has published a wealth of documents, impacting on the U.S. election campaign.  This decision was taken exclusively by that organization."

“The Government of Ecuador respects the principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs of other states. It does not interfere in external electoral processes, nor does it favor any particular candidate."

“Accordingly, Ecuador has exercised its sovereign right to temporarily restrict access to some of its private communications network within its Embassy in the United Kingdom.  This temporary restriction does not prevent the WikiLeaks organization from carrying out it journalistic activities."

"Ecuador, in accordance with its tradition of defending human rights and protecting victims for political persecution, reaffirms the asylum granted to Julian Assange and reiterates its intention to safeguard his life and physical integrity until he reaches a safe place."

"Ecuador"s foreign policy responds to sovereign decisions alone and does not yield to pressure from other states."

Probably just a coincidence? Is the deep state still pulling the strings? One wonders just what Wikileaks may have up its sleeve next... especially as the Obama links to Trump White House leaks and Trump Tower surveillance grow stronger.

Finally, while it may be nothing, we note that Ecuador transferred half its gold to Goldman Sachs in exchange for "liquidity" in June 2014 - that "swap" is due to expire in June 2017...

Ecuador agreed to transfer more than half its gold reserves to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. for three years as the government seeks to bolster liquidity.

The central bank said it will send 466,000 ounces of gold to Goldman Sachs, worth about $580 million at current prices, and get the same amount back three years from now. In return, Ecuador will get “instruments of high security and liquidity” and expects to earn a profit of $16 million to $20 million over the term of the accord.

“Gold that was not generating any returns in vaults, causing storage costs, now becomes a productive asset that will generate profits,” the central bank said in the statement. “These interventions in the gold market represent the beginning of a new and permanent strategy of active participation by the bank, through purchases, sales and financial operations, that will contribute to the creation of new financial investment opportunities.”

Probably nothing, nevertheless it"s clear Assange - rightfully so - is getting increasingly frustrated with his status (and faces more enemies). Remember, Assange"s uncharacteristically emotional remarks last year with Hannity:

"I have been detained illegally, without charge for six years, without sunlight, lots of spies everywhere. It"s tough... but that"s the mission I set myself on. I understand the kind of game that"s being played - big powerful actors will try and take revenge...it"s a different thing for my family - I have young children, under 10 years old, they didn"t sign up for that... and I think that is fundamentally unjust... my family is innocent, they didn"t sign up for that fight."

There is however, perhaps a modest silver lining, as Lasso latter said “we vow to take all the steps necessary so that another embassy will take him in and protect his rights.”

However, as the Miami Herald notes, even if another government were willing to provide Assange shelter, it’s unclear how he would be transferred. In the five years since he’s been holed up in the embassy, the Rafael Correa administration hasn’t been able to figure out how to move him to Ecuador, amid heavy police scrutiny in London.

In The Police-State-Versus-Freedom Arms Race, Freedom Seems To Be Winning

Submitted by John Rubino via DollarCollapse.com,

In the past 48 hours, two stories broke that illustrate how dominant technology has become in the age-old war between freedom and control:

(Wired) – A group of researchers at Ben-Gurion’s cybersecurity lab has devised a method to defeat the security protection known as an “air gap,” the safeguard of separating highly sensitive computer systems from the internet to quarantine them from hackers. If an attacker can plant malware on one of those systems—say, by paying an insider to infect it via USB or SD card—this approach offers a new way to rapidly pull secrets out of that isolated machine. Every blink of its hard drive LED indicator can spill sensitive information to any spy with a line of sight to the target computer, whether from a drone outside the window or a telescopic lens from the next roof over.

————-

(CNN) – Conservative provocateur James O’Keefe is setting his sights on CNN.

O’Keefe said in a telephone interview with CNN on Wednesday that he has “a few hundred hours” of “secretly recorded material” from inside the network. “We’re calling it CNN Leaks,” he said, drawing inspiration from WikiLeaks’ document dumps.

He said “part one” would be published Thursday at about 10 a.m. ET. “This is all legally recorded information,” he said, declining to be more specific.

The first article illustrates the extraordinary – and increasing — power that cutting-edge tech offers governments to watch and otherwise control their citizens. Combine the above relatively-narrow-gauge application with the NSA’s existing ability to monitor pretty much every electronic signal, facial recognition software that can pick individuals out of crowds, algorithms that lip read, and tiny drones that can see without being seen, and the potential result is a police state that’s slicker, subtler and therefore scarier than anything envisioned in dystopian novels like Brave New World or 1984.

But the second story is the counterweight, illustrating how those same technologies are being used around the world to expose the secrets of the powerful. Where Daniel Ellsberg once had to spend months photocopying the Pentagon Papers and physically sneaking them out of his Defense Department office, today all that’s required for a major leak is one disillusioned or otherwise motivated insider with a thumb drive, laptop or smart phone.

In just the past few years, Sony’s emails were hacked and released, to the profound embarrassment of Hollywood; US military misbehavior was exposed by a lowly private named Bradley Manning; the Democrat National Committee’s emails – which exposed collusion between political operatives and mainstream media, among many other things — were published just in time to cost that party the presidency; and of course the great Edward Snowden, an outside contractor for the NSA, exposed the breathtaking illegality of US spying here and abroad.

Every big organization now lives with the knowledge that it’s one leak away from existential crisis — and that there is no fix. Doing big, bad things requires a lot of people with the ability to access and understand what you’re doing. And it only takes one of them with widely-available technology to expose you to the whole world.

With all the issues now dividing people – abortion, Israel, immigration, etc., etc. – this might be the most telling. Do you see Snowden and WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange as traitors or heroes? Because the worlds in which they end up one or the other couldn’t be more different.

Irish Bookie Takes Bets On Trump's Inauguration Skin Tone; "Burnt Orange" Is A Long Shot At 12/1

Proving you can place bets on just about anything, the Irish bookie, PaddyPower, is making markets on several inauguration-related events ranging from the color of Donald Trump"s skin at the swearing in ceremony to the color of Melania"s dress to the likelihood of Julian Assange and Vlad Putin making an appearance.

Of course, the "Inauguration Skin Color" has drawn a lot of attention with "Tiger"s Eye" and "Deep Saffron" being the clear favorites while "Mahogany" and "Burnt Orange" are the long shots.

Meanwhile, you can also place odds on whether the new President will say a number buzz words and catch phrases during his speech.  We all know that Trump"s slogan of "Make America Great Again" is a near certainty while "Grab her by the Pussy" and "Golden Shower" are understandably long shots at 500/1.

You can also place your bets on inauguration attendees with Hulk Hogan leading the favorites and the Dalai Lama and Bono near the end of the list.  Meanwhile, wagers placed so far seem to indicate that Vlad Putin and Julian Assange are more likely to attend then we would have thought.

Place your bets!

Wikileaks Press Conference Post Mortem: The CIA "Issued A Press Release, Not An Intelligence Report"

Submitted by Stefanie MacWilliams via PlanetFreeWill.com,

Wikileaks announced a 9AM press conference on Monday morning to, quote, “respond to the CIA report on the US election”. Wikileaks readers were asked to tweet questions using the #AskWL hashtag on Twitter. 

The press conference was streamed live from the Ecaudorian embassy in London, via an audio feed on Periscope.

Julian Assange slammed the recent report as a “press release”, stating that only about five pages of the report could be considered substantial content.

“The real question is whether the Russians hacked the Democratic party with the intention of favoring Donald Trump,” Said Assange [Paraphrase].

“Even if you accept that Russia hackers were involved, even if no evidence was presented in the report, what was the intent of those Russian attacks and do they connect to Wikileaks.”

Assange went on to confirm once again that the DNC emails and the Podesta emails were not provided by state actors.

He accuses that the report “deliberately obscures” the timeline of the email leak in regard to the timeframe in which Donald Trump became a serious contender for President. He notes that DNI director James Clapper himself has confirmed that the intelligence community does not know when Wikileaks obtained any of the emails.

Assange also took issue with the conflation of direct vote hacking and the possibility of information which caused a change in public opinion. He asserts that Donna Brazile and other DNC and Hillary campaign officials lied to the public by stating that the emails were “fake” and noted Wikileaks’ ten year accuracy record.

The conference then moved on to answering questions from the Twitter hashtag.

“On a scale of one to ten, how fabricated was the CIA report?”  Assange states that this is an interesting question, since by nature of the report, there is very little accusatory information and most of the content is speculative.

“Your whole premise has been that you don’t know sources and therefore can’t endanger them. Now you say you don’t know your source.” Assange denies that this statement was made, and asserted that the source is not a state party. He clarifies that Wikileaks treats their source information with care and wants to keep that record. He says that depending on the case, they can give more or less information without compromising their safety.

“Is Wikileaks sure that the go-between didn’t get the information from the Russians or a private hacking group on order from the Russians?” Assange stated that “we can’t play 20 questions with sources, for obvious reasons.”

In regards to many questions about “proof of life”, Assange states that it has been a difficult time for him with pressure from many sides, and that he will address the proof of life issue in a Reddit AMA tomorrow morning.

“What is the most important thing we can do before obama leaves office?” Assange states his level of concern with destruction of records across agencies, and states that both Democrat and Republican governments have been guilty of destroying vital information. He asserts that destroying historical documents is a crime against humanity and our shared history. He asks whistleblowers to get ahold of data now and protect it.

“Julian, how are you doing? How is your health? How much longer will you survive in the embassy?” Assange states that “It’s a difficult environment to be in for six years without trial,” and that “On the other hand, I am committed to this work and it gives me engery to continue.”

“What would you say to people who see Wikileaks’ recent activity as an open endorsement of trump?” Assange states that before the election, he released an editorial (presumably this one) on behalf of Wikileaks which answered some of these concerns. He admits they all assumed Hillary was going to win, and goes on to explain that the conflict was mainly against the elite power class. He also asserts that he has concerns about Trump’s administration and calls many of his cabinet choices “poor” with “some interesting ones”. Trump will “loosen up” DC, he says – both positively and negatively.

“Do you think the intelligence report released by the CIA undermines the leak, or is this just growing pains of a major leak like this?” Assange states that Wikileaks like any publisher likes the attention on their materials, and the fact that the DNI report concluded the veracity and accuracy of their documents adds weight to the strength of the leaks. He states the content was what had the biggest impact.

“Is there a future for the FOIA in the present ‘fake news’ attack on the press and freedom of speech?” Assange calls the Freedom of Information Act a “formalized leak system” and states that there is a “hoover dam of information” that is being withheld due to Wikileaks being under investigation by the DOJ.

“Why don’t you explain why it would be hard for Russia to hack the votes. Explain the security, and how easy it would be.” Assange states that the media has put out a lot of misinformation leading people to believe the vote machines and vote counting infrastructure were breached. Though Assange criticizes electronic voting as not secure, he also states that the intelligence community has stated that this sort of hack did not occur.

“Why is there more focus on those who exposed the corruption instead of on the offenders?” Assange specifically notes Fox as one of the few mainstream outlets who actually covered the content – but gives the initial credit to the citizen journalists who found the most important information that was picked up later by broader media.

“Is there any truth to the rumour that W ikileaks had access to rnc data and chose not to leak?” “No, that’s false. Absolutely false.”

“How do you feel about trump cabinet picks that called for the death penalty for Wikileaks whistleblowers?” Assange states that many Republicans and Republican supporters were opportunists, but they were also mislead by the media and specifically the Obama administration that the Wikileaks releases led to the deaths of US soldiers. Assange states that this was proven to be false.

“Why do you think the US  media is recieving intelligence before President Elect Trump?” Assange states that this was a strategic move to ensure the American public was only receiving one narrative, and to make it more difficult for Donald Trump and Wikileaks to respond to the allegations. He states that had they released it on a Friday afternoon themselves, it wouldn’t have had the same effect. Particularly since by releasing it on a Thursday afternoon, including some classified information that was not later released to the public, they were able to further their own narrative. He slams the report once again stating that “This report is not really about facts, it’s about producing something that is not falsifiable and is intellectually bankrupt.”

“Do you believe whistleblowers will be safer in the upcoming administration, or will they continue to be persecuted?” Assange states that he believes they will continue to be persecuted, and that though there are some anti-DC elements of the upcoming administration, Trump will form his own establishment.

“No system of authority likes those who undermine it’s authority.” Said Assange.

On Russian Hacking, The Only Narrative That Matters Is Truth

Authored by Davide Battistella,

Excuse me for wanting to point out the obvious, but sometimes the obvious gets very lost in the web of narratives spun by the master narrator inside the White House. Forgive me, but are we not losing the idea that the only narrative that really matters is that all of the information “LEAKED” was obtained through a simple fishing e-mail sent to John Podesta. See their own words here:

Somehow this has been converted into words like “HACKING” (ps it is not hacking when it involves your own ineptitude or stupidity) into "Russian actors", "digital fingerprints" or any other slew of gobbledyspeak they can come up with for wanting desperately to hide a simple fact: the truth is in the e-mails.

Notice nobody is disputing the contents of the email leaks, they just want to complain about the fact that it was stolen by Russians,  though if the passwords were freely given away it’s hard to call it hacking.

Just to be clear a hack is defined this way.

"Computer hacking refers to the practice of modifying or altering computer software and hardware to accomplish a goal that is considered to be outside of the creator"s original objective. Those individuals who engage in computer hacking activities are typically referred to as "hackers"."

That is completely different from entering an account to which a party freely gave away the password and downloading the data for say an “inbox”.  So don’t confuse hacking with the granting of access through being ill informed.

The reason all of this becomes important is simple, it’s leading the world into potentially very dangerous conflict.  This isn’t something that should be taken lightly and you have to go to the WHY?  Why is it so important to divert people from the contents of the e-mails and point them instead to the way they were obtained.  It’s for war mongering purposes.

The MSM is going right along with it too.  Have we heard nearly as much about the theft and publication of Donald Trumps tax returns as published by the New York Times?

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/02/us/politics/donald-trump-taxes.html

Who is investigating the "hostile actors" from within the IRS who might have illegally stolen, copied and provided documents to the New York Times who then did barley more that what Wikileaks did with the Podesta e-mails.

At least Wikileaks published a pristine, searchable archive, the kind you could search in your local public library. In a crowdsourcing age, it is incredible what can be uncovered in a shot amount of time.

But it is different now.  Wikileaks expects  “professional” journalists to do their jobs, pour through the information and uncover everything from the salacious, the banal and the illegal.  Why did this not happen with the wikileaks, but it was all hands on deck to pour over illegally obtained tax returns of a private citizen. Perhaps MSM credibility is at the heart of the issue? Not sure. 

People consume information differently now and have many outlets to weigh before forming an opinion and that is a narrative busting option.

There remains only one defense, attack the messenger, lie and divert attention. So you can’t dismiss the contents of the wikileaks, you can only call Assange a pedophile, place him under house arrest, tell the world that Russia did the following (and I am following your logic here “intelligence” community/narrative spinners)

1. The Russians sent a phishing e-mail to John Podesta and he responded with his password.


2. The Russians downloaded all the information in his inbox.


3. The Russians found a third party who new Jullian Assange and arranged for that third party to deliver the contents of that archive to wikileaks.


4. Wikileaks released the information day after day and about 120 million and Americans followed that story closely enough that based on that leak (and maybe the DNC one as well) decided that they could not vote democrat in the election.


5. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote but lost the electoral college by losing  key “shoe in” democratic stronghold manufacturing states where jobs have been lost, people are hurting and decided voted for change, not because of those reasons but because somehow Russia managed to release true information to the American public.

While all this was happening President Obama knew about it and told Putin to “cut it out” or you he would be in trouble after the election, after we try some recounts and after we try to intimate the electoral college, but before I leave office. Maybe I will throw in a fake story from the Washington post that Russia tried to hack the power grid on Christmas day in Vermont as well, just to get folks really fired up.

This entire transition process demonstrates a complete lack of class and childish behaviour by the outgoing administration. That is the only way to describe it.  Sore losers who demostrate abolutely no class, no respect for process or really for the American people who democratically elected Donal Trump in a fair process.

Folks don’t get bamboozled, remember, your President told you this when the narrative suited him.

Transcript from TIME

President Obama,

“One of the great things about America’s democracy is we have a vigorous, sometimes bitter political contest and when it’s done, historically, regardless of party, the person who loses the election congratulates the winner, who reaffirms our democracy and we move forward.

That’s how democracy survives because we recognize that there’s something more important than any individual campaign. And that is making sure that the integrity and trust in our institutions sustains itself.

Because democracy, by definition, works by consent, not by force. I have never seen, in my lifetime or in modern political history, any presidential candidate trying to discredit the elections and the election process before votes have even taken place.

It’s unprecedented. It happens to be based on no facts; every expert, regardless of political party, regardless of ideology, conservative or liberal, who has ever examined these issues in a serious way, will tell you that instances of significant voter fraud are not to be found, that — keep in mind, elections are run by state and local officials, which means that there are places like Florida, for example, where you’ve got a Republican governor, whose Republican appointees are going to running and monitoring a whole bunch of these election sites.”

That was on October 19th of 2016.

Here Is The US Intel Report Accusing Putin Of Helping Trump Win The Election By "Discrediting" Hillary Clinton

The farce is complete.

One week after a joint FBI/DHS report was released, supposedly meant to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Russia intervened in the US presidential election, and thus served as a diplomatic basis for Obama"s expulsion of 35 diplomats, yet which merely confirmed that a Ukrainian piece of malware which could be purchased by anyone, was responsible for spoofing various email accounts including that of the DNC and John Podesta, moments ago US intelligence agencies released a more "authoritative", 25-page report, titled "Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections", and which not surprisingly only serves to validate the media narrative, by concluding that Russian President Vladimir Putin "ordered" an effort to influence U.S. presidential election.

Specifically, the report concludes the following:

We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump.

What proof is there? Sadly, again, none. However, as the intelligence agencies state, "We have high confidence in these judgments"... just like they had high confidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

And while the report is severely lacking in any evidence, it is rich in judgments, such as the following:

• We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump. We have high confidence in these judgments.


• We also assess Putin and the Russian Government aspired to help President-elect Trump’s election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him. All three agencies agree with this judgment. 

At this point a quick detour, because the intel agencies responsible for drafting the report then explain how "confident" they are: "CIA and FBI have high confidence in this judgment; NSA has moderate confidence."

What do these distinctions mean?  

• High confidence generally indicates judgments based on high-quality information, and/or the nature of the issue makes it possible to render a solid judgment. However, high confidence judgments still carry a risk of being wrong.


• Moderate confidence generally means credibly sourced and plausible information, but not of sufficient quality or corroboration to warrant a higher level of confidence.

In other words, while not carrying the infamous DHS disclaimer according to which last week"s entire joint FBI/DHS report is likely garbage, the US intel agencies admit they may well be "wrong."  

Going back to the report, we then read: 

• Moscow’s approach evolved over the course of the campaign based on Russia’s understanding of the electoral prospects of the two main candidates. When it appeared to Moscow that Secretary Clinton was likely to win the election, the Russian influence campaign began to focus more on undermining her future presidency.


• Further information has come to light since Election Day that, when combined with Russian behavior since early November 2016, increases our confidence in our assessments of Russian motivations and goals.


• Moscow’s influence campaign followed a Russian messaging strategy that blends covert intelligence operations—such as cyber activity—with overt efforts by Russian Government agencies, state-funded media, third-party intermediaries, and paid social media users or “trolls.” Russia, like its Soviet predecessor, has a history of conducting covert influence campaigns focused on US presidential elections that have used intelligence officers and agents and press placements to disparage candidates perceived as hostile to the Kremlin.


• Russia’s intelligence services conducted cyber operations against targets associated with the 2016 US presidential election, including targets associated with both major US political parties.


• We assess with high confidence that Russian military intelligence (General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate or GRU) used the Guccifer 2.0 persona and DCLeaks.com to release US victim data obtained in cyber operations publicly and in exclusives to media outlets and relayed material to WikiLeaks.


• Russian intelligence obtained and maintained access to elements of multiple US state or local electoral boards. DHS assesses that the types of systems Russian actors targeted or compromised were not involved in vote tallying.


• Russia’s state-run propaganda machine contributed to the influence campaign by serving as a platform for Kremlin messaging to Russian and international audiences.


• We assess Moscow will apply lessons learned from its Putin-ordered campaign aimed at the US presidential election to future influence efforts worldwide, including against US allies and their election processes.

Or, as some have stated, just a regurgitation of already existing opinions and absolutely zero facts.

Some more highlights:

• Moscow’s influence campaign followed a Russian messaging strategy that blends covert intelligence operations—such as cyber activity—with overt efforts by Russian Government agencies, state-funded media, third-party intermediaries, and paid social media users or “trolls.”


• We assess Russian intelligence services collected against the US primary campaigns, think tanks, and lobbying groups they viewed as likely to shape future US policies. In July 2015, Russian intelligence gained access to Democratic National Committee (DNC) networks and maintained that access until at least June 2016.


• Russian Propaganda Efforts. Russia’s state-run propaganda machine—comprised of its domestic media apparatus, outlets targeting global audiences such as RT and Sputnik, and a network of quasi-government trolls—contributed to the influence campaign by serving as a platform for Kremlin messaging to Russian and international audiences. State-owned Russian media made increasingly favorable comments about President-elect Trump as the 2016 US general and primary election campaigns progressed while consistently offering negative coverage of Secretary Clinton.

Then here is the direct accusation of Wikileaks:

We assess with high confidence that the GRU relayed material it acquired from the DNC and senior Democratic officials to WikiLeaks. Moscow most likely chose WikiLeaks because of its self-proclaimed reputation for authenticity. Disclosures through WikiLeaks did not contain any evident forgeries.

Oddly enough, there is nothing in the report about the latest narrative change of "go-betweens" linking Putin with Wikileaks, but it has a whole lot of "judgments" on RT...

• RT’s coverage of Secretary Clinton throughout the US presidential campaign was consistently negative and focused on her leaked e-mails and accused her of corruption, poor physical and mental health, and ties to Islamic extremism. Some Russian officials echoed Russian lines for the influence campaign that Secretary Clinton’s election could lead to a war between the United States and Russia.


• In August, Kremlin-linked political analysts suggested avenging negative Western reports on Putin by airing segments devoted to Secretary Clinton’s alleged health problems.


• On 6 August, RT published an English-language video called “Julian Assange Special: Do WikiLeaks Have the E-mail That’ll Put Clinton in Prison?” and an exclusive interview with Assange entitled “Clinton and ISIS Funded by the Same Money.” RT’s most popular video on Secretary Clinton, “How 100% of the Clintons’ ‘Charity’ Went to…Themselves,” had more than 9 million views on social media platforms. RT’s most popular English language video about the President-elect, called “Trump Will Not Be Permitted To Win,” featured Assange and had 2.2 million views.

... and "trolls." And this is where it gets really funny:

• Russia used trolls as well as RT as part of its influence efforts to denigrate Secretary Clinton. This effort amplified stories on scandals about Secretary Clinton and the role of WikiLeaks in the election campaign.


• The likely financier of the so-called Internet Research Agency of professional trolls located in Saint Petersburg is a close Putin ally with ties to Russian intelligence.


• A journalist who is a leading expert on the Internet Research Agency claimed that some social media accounts that appear to be tied to Russia’s professional trolls—because they previously were devoted to supporting Russian actions in Ukraine—started to advocate for President-elect Trump as early as December 2015.

Then there are pearls like this, exposing the Russian "anti-fracking troll army" whose every move is orchestarted by the RT masterminds:

... who are to blame for everything that is wrong with US democracy because they have more YouTube watchers:

One almost wonders: is RT"s audience really that much greater than the that of NBC, ABC, Fox, CBS, MSNBC, CNN etc to overpower all of US media?

That"s rhetorical.

* * *

While readers can make up their own mind about the report, here is Glenn Greenwald"s quick take:

Every time IC repackages its same assertions in a new form, media acts like it"s been proven, even though it - again - includes no evidence: https://t.co/C5yRsZsJbS

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) January 6, 2017

This new report: 1) literally half of it is about RT; 2) contains same assertions made multiple times; 3) includes no evidence for claims.

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) January 6, 2017

It"s shocking how much this report was hyped and how literally no effort was made to include *any* evidence at all, even stuff like this: https://t.co/wvompG6Nyl

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) January 6, 2017

Meanwhile, in Russia:

There is much more in the full report below, although unfortunately, no actual proof (link).

Julian Assange Talks To Sean Hannity: "Big Powerful Actors Want Revenge" - Full Fox News Interview

As previewed yesterday, today at 10pm ET, WikiLeaks" Julian Assange would be interviewed by Fox News" Sean Hannity, in a wide ranging discussion touching most notably on whether or not Russia provided WikiLeaks the hacked Democratic emails - as pointed out yesterday, the answer was a "1000%" no.

For those who are unable, or unwilling to watch, Fox, here is a link to the full interview which will take place over the next hour, until 11pm ET.

Assange"s concluding remarks were uncharacteristically emotional:

"I have been detained illegally, without charge for six years, without sunlight, lots of spies everywhere. It"s tough... but that"s the mission I set myself on. I understand the kind of game that"s being played - big powerful actors will try and take revenge...it"s a different thing for my family - I have young children, under 10 years old, they didn"t sign up for that... and I think that is fundamentally unjust... my family is innocent, they didn"t sign up for that fight."

Full Interview below (starting at 49:08...)

WikiLeaks Hints At Huge Upcoming Revelations: "2017 Will Blow You Away"

Ahead of Jullian Assange"s interview tonight on Fox News with Sean Hannity, in which as we previewed last night the Wikileaks founder will again deny on the record that Russia was the source of hacked Democratic emails, stating that "our source is not the Russian government and it is not a state party", Wikileaks decided to engage in some creative marketing and, on Monday afternoon promised that 2017 will be an even bigger year for leaks than 2016, which saw the whistleblowing site publish thousands of documents exposing the dirty laundry of the Clinton campaign, US political secrets, covert trade deals and private communications from global leaders.

“If you thought 2016 was a big WikiLeaks year, 2017 will blow you away,” WikiLeaks tweeted on Monday, giving no hints as to what may be in store. The tweet, featuring a clip from a Clint Eastwood spaghetti western showdown, also included a link to its website’s donation page so people can help the site “prepare for the showdown.

If you thought 2016 was a big WikiLeaks year 2017 will blow you away. Help @WikiLeaks prepare for the showdown: https://t.co/MsNZhrTzTL pic.twitter.com/wzhFiKjNGI

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) January 2, 2017

2016 was another game-changing for the whistleblowing site, as it delivered a massive trove of documents over the 12-month period. These included over 50,000 emails from John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chair and more than 27,000 emails from the Democratic National Committee, which confirmed the DNC worked against Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, favoring Clinton, and ultimately led to the resignation of then-DNC chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.

The emails relating to the US election rocked the Democratic establishment and delivered a blow to the Clinton campaign in the lead-up to the November election; according to many the Podesta revelations tipped the election against Hillary Clinton. The outcry against the the two sets of releases was so profound, it sparked a global diplomatic scandal between the US and Russia, and as a result of Obama administration accusations that the leaks were orchestrated by the Kremlin, the US expelled 35 Russian diplomats and seized two Russian compounds last week. Contrary to expectations, Putin refused to retaliate in tit-for-tat fashion, instead suggesting he is simply waiting for the arrival of the Trump administration to rebuild relations with the US.

Wikileaks also released more US State Department cables, as well as documents which gave an insight into the US arming of Yemen. Text from the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA) was also revealed.

On Monday, WikiLeaks also confirmed that founder Julian Assange (who some have speculated has been compromised) will take part in a Reddit Ask Me Anything (AMA) on Thursday at 14:00 GMT (9:00 Eastern). The tweet announcing the AMA contained the hashtag ‘proofoflife’, presumably referencing concerns raised by some for the WikiLeaks editor’s wellbeing.

You can ask WikiLeaks" publisher Julian Assange anything live at Thursday 9am EST on Reddit @Reddit_IAmA #AskMeAnything #IAmA #proofoflife pic.twitter.com/ZNVM0xFkss

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) January 2, 2017