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Reality Winner Sentenced To More Than 5 Years For Leaking Info About Russia Hacking Attempts (nbcnews.com)
A former government contractor who pleaded guilty to leaking U.S. secrets about Russia's attempts to hack the 2016 presidential election was sentenced Thursday to five years and three months in prison. From a report: It was the sentence that prosecutors had recommended in the plea deal -- the longest sentence ever given for a federal crime involving leaks to the news media -- for Reality Winner, the Georgia woman at the center of the case. Winner was also sentenced to three years of supervised release and no fine, except for a $100 special assessment fee. The crime carried a maximum penalty of 10 years. U.S. District Court Judge J. Randal Hall in Augusta, Georgia, was not bound to follow the plea deal, but elected to give Winner the amount of time prosecutors requested. Winner, 26, who contracted for the National Security Agency, pleaded guilty in June to copying a classified report that detailed the Russian government's efforts to penetrate a Florida-based voting software supplier. Further reading: How a Few Yellow Dots Burned the Intercept's NSA Leaker.
Is that her name?
(Beside which, the NSA has really bad security.)
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Here's hoping -- she's a national treasure and deserves a good, cushy job after being railroaded for doing her civic duty and reporting election fraud to the media.
Here's also hoping for a pardon for her from the "Orange Orangutan's" successor.
3 years might be sooner.
That's like someone saying that someone deserves death for violating their oath to the Mafia. There are more important things than an oath to a criminal organisation.
Brilliant sarcasm!
I'm all for sloppy seconds but I don't want to be the caboose on the train running her ass.
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No reductions for Federal time unless she claims she's a drug addict and does that program. Otherwise she'll serve all of it (although the last few months might be in a halfway house)
Because the documents she leaked showed nothing unusual. The Russians! meddling involved supporting and financing more Hillary causes than Trump.
Here's also hoping for a pardon for her from the "Orange Orangutan's" successor.
3 years might be sooner.
If so, then Pence will get to run as an incumbent.
Likely twice.
Seriously - imagine Trump without the baggage. 4% economic growth, record low black unemployment? Trump's got better approval ratings than Obama did at this point despite all that crazy incompetent Trump baggage. And Obama won reelection pretty easily. The current likely front-runner for the Democrats in 2020 - Elizabeth Warren - just fatally blew off her own foot, meaning the Democrat primaries are going to be a shitfest of who can run the farthest to the left. Imagine how well the, "Our hard-core socialism will return the US to the stagnation of the Obama years!" candidate that comes out the Democrat convention is going to fly outside of "progressive" circles...
Do Democrats really want to impeach Trump?
Here's also hoping for a pardon for her from the "Orange Orangutan's" successor.
So you're all in for Mike Pence? Good to know. I can already see the memes spreading from this brilliant decision by progressives.
Om, nomnomnom...
FIFY
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
Here's hoping -- she's a national treasure and deserves a good, cushy job after being railroaded for doing her civic duty and reporting election fraud to the media.
No, you don't get to misuse classified information just to score political points.
(Well, unless you are already a major Democrat politician.)
That information should have already been public.
There are legal contracts and illegal contracts. The contract she agreed to was a legal one, enforceable by legal means. A contract with the Mafia isn't not a legal contract, nor is it enforceable by legal means. But you knew this.
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WHAT election fraud? None has been shown, and President Obama stated such, emphatically, well after the election. Seriously, the ONLY fraud going on here is the belief there is a Trump/Russia connection. NOTHING has been shown. There's been a few convictions and plea bargains related to tax issues from years ago - and nothing from the Trump campaign. Nothing.
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Since we know now that The Russians! stole the election from Hillary she has to be the nominee again. Anyone opposing this or standing in her way is working with Putin too. She'll definitely win in 2020 now that we're aware of The Russians! conspiracy.
#HerTurnAgain2020!!!
...yet
Like Gandhi, MLK, and Malcolm X too...
I'm still pissed at The Intercept. Their incompetence in handling the original documents is what blew their source. No one is going to leak to them now if they just turn around and give all the incriminating evidence to the government. They really should have known better.
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Agreed, there has been a lot of talk, but fuck all actual evidence. Fake news apparently only applies when it does not suit main stream media.
There are three kinds of falsehood: the first is a 'fib,' the second is a downright lie, and the third is statistics.
Just like Comey, Clapper, Brennen, Hillary too.
Om, nomnomnom...
Those who break the law in civil disobedience, need to be ready to do the time, it's part of the being a martyr gig. But doing time doesn't make your crime civil disobedience or you a martyr.
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Like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton.
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No, while the NSA can be frustrating there are legitimate reason why a lot of information like that is classified and should not be leaked. Most notable is that once it was leaked that the NSA knew of the spear phishing attacks then Russia will change their tactics. But if the NSA knows about the attacks then they can counter them, monitor it to make sure nobody falls for it, and/or even use it as a channel to "leak" misinformation to the "enemy".
Espionage at the international level is far more complex and thought out then many of us assume. What I don't get is why they keep using contractors. You'd think after Snowden they would bring in and train servicemen/women instead of contractors.
....and tip off the hackers that you are on to them? You don't know much about espionage do you.
love is just extroverted narcissism
Here's hoping -- she's a national treasure and deserves a good, cushy job after being railroaded for doing her civic duty and reporting election fraud to the media.
No, you don't get to misuse classified information just to score political points.
(Well, unless you are already a major Democrat politician.)
I'm ambivalent about this.
On the one hand, leaking classified info should be punished. I agree, and that part is fine.
Also, her intent wasn't "civic duty", it was apparently hatred of the president.
On the other hand, James Comey did *exactly* the same thing as Reality Winner, for *exactly* the same reasons, and hasn't been charged and got a book deal out of it. (Comey admitted to doing the leaking under oath. No need to cite here, it was in all the news and google is your friend.)
It's one of those "don't agree, but defend your right to do it" things. The law is nothing if it's based on social class. Either Comey should be charged, or Reality Winner should go free.
I don't think it's likely, but President Trump *should* pardon Reality Winner. Whistleblowers serve an important check on the workings of government, and should be encouraged within reason.
Prosecutors don’t work by telegraphing their case on Twitter to tweak the news cycle and indulge in their narcissism.
They work strategically. They grind people down into positions where crying “uncle”, confessing and trading info on bigger fish is the easy way out. I’m not saying it’s pretty, I’m just pointing out how things work.
Remember that they are professionals. Your guy is a spoiled trust fund brat surrounded by hacks and grifters.
But you go keep crying “the sky isn’t falling!”
be careful... reality bites.
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I haven't been following this story. What exactly did she leak and why was it classified? Did the leak reveal NSA methods and capabilities? Aside from this, what harm would revealing Russian espionage efforts to the public? It makes them look like the shit that they are and gives people and organizations a heads-up about possible threats.
Have gnu, will travel.
Read what I wrote, and not what you wish I wrote. There is nothing pointing to any Russia/Trump collusion now, is there? Nothing. Are you going to always jump to guilty unless proven innocent, or accept the facts as they are today - nothing there at all.
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Like Aldrich Ames, Robert Hanssen, and Jonathan Pollard.
You'd think after Snowden they would bring in and train servicemen/women instead of contractors.
The military expects you will not stay long at any particular post. You get your assignment, complete it, and move on to another assignment. The military does this because their main goal is fighting wars, not intelligence gathering. The various billets just round-out your knowledge but you're primarily there to shoot people.
For something like the NSA, this is pretty bad. Because it takes quite a while to build up the expertise they need, and the servicemen/women rotate out too quickly. So they use contractors because they can stay in the same position for many years.
You could argue that they should use civilian government employees, since they too can stay in the same position for many years. But that runs into a big problem: pay. There's a formal pay scale for government employees, and it caps out very far below what an NSA contractor can make in the private sector (even if they were not working as a government contractor).
Raising the pay scale means raising it across the entire government, so that's not a good option. There is a way to have exceptions to the standard pay scale, but they're not easy to push through and having something the size of the NSA operating almost entirely on exceptions is not workable. So now we're down to requiring Congress and/or OMB creating a separate pay scale for computer professions that is significantly higher than the normal one for computer professionals. Which, aside from the massive bureaucratic hurdles in doing that, would result in a lot of non-computer-professional government employees trying to switch their classification to this pay scale so they can get paid more.
Or they just use contractors.
As for whether or not that would prevent leaks, service men and women also leak. You mentioned Snowden, but there's also Manning.
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Or at least cut and run to a non-extradition country. There's also something to be said for slapping those in power, then thumbing your nose at them from abroad :D
So when did those 3 leak items of national security, for the purposes of furthering their own agenda? We've already got a pretty clear case on the people I named. And I didn't even toss in Holder, though I should have. It's amazing how people are so suddenly worried on this, when they ignored more egregious abuses in the past.
Om, nomnomnom...
I thought it was about a reality tv show at first. It took me a while to figure out her name was "Reality Winner"
So, because Manafort was a tax cheat for actions he took years ago, we must impeach President Trump?
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And if nothing comes out? Willing to agree there's really nothing there?
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Well Washington lead a terrorist army against the sovereign nation and then became president of all the land.
You don't have much of a perspective of what would constitute treason in 1770, do you?
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And? The collusion you so wish to exist? Anything there? We have extensive Russian collusion with others - including all those in the FBI and the DOJ... What about that?
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Well it should be pretty easy to verify - we'll just look at the logs from the election down in Georgia and..huh
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She was never hired by the NSA. She got her security clearance via the Air Force (as a translator.) She leaked NSA documents because everything is contracted out. In this case, her employer when she got the documents was Pluribus International Corporation.
Also, if she was named that by her parents, you shouldn't blame her. Like 20% of people hate their names, but consider it too hard to change.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
you get civic jobs for selling out. And she didn't score any political points. Nobody who was ever going to vote Trump cared or ever will care about Russian meddling. Donald Trump's performance at Helsinki didn't budge his poll numbers. His tax cut, 83% of which went to 1% of Americans didn't budge his polls. Keeping us in Afghanistan when he promised to leave didn't budge his polls. Supporting DACA (of all things) didn't budge his polls). He praised Chinese President Xi for making himself El Presidente for life and still no drop in the polls. Heck, he said we should take people guns away at one point and nothing, no drop in polls. Can you imagine if Obama had done _any_ of that?
His supporters just plain don't care. There's been several interviews with them were they're presented with two quotes from him that contradict and they'll tell you both quotes are true. He has a cult of personality. If he was a bit more on the ball and a bit more violent we'd be on the way to fascism.
Sorry, I know it's not popular to call out one political party in such exacting terms. We're supposed to say "both sides are bad". But at a certain point it's time to acknowledge that one side is worse. At least the Dems have a wing of their party ("Justice Democrats") who refuse corporate & PAC money... Jeez.
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Ah yes, servicemen/women, like Bradley/Chelsea Manning. How'd that work out for data security?
If Trump were smart, he'd pardon her, possibly at the same time as he does Manafort. Would help his PR a lot. She's harmless and not particularly bright. The PR would help cover the shitstorm of Trump pardoning Manafort.
Challenging a compromised election is more important than arresting the hackers. Sometimes, the public should know -- best to fix the damage instead of exacting revenge. Revenge can be withheld until later.
Look up "good time" -- she'll get 8 months' credit for good behavior, plus 13 months time served, plus some time in a halfway house. Fortunately, she'll be out on the streets after 3 years, give or take a few months. Good!
U.S. imprisons Reality for revealing unwanted facts.
Maybe her "chain of command" were simply good order-followers and unwilling to rock the boat, even if it was in the public interest. Money and tenure corrupt.
Depends how much dirt can be dug up on the Trump administration in the next 2.25 years, and whether a recession will hit and put the economy in the dumper in time for the 2020 elections. A lot can change in a couple years -- a Dem victory in 2020 is very possible.
you are apparently not acquainted with NSA operations or military intelligence. Not surprising, really. People love to sound off on all sorts of things they know nothing about.
The service men/women who work for the NSA are not there primarily to shoot people. True, that is the basic purpose of the military, but apparently you would be surprised to find out what it is really like in a military intelligence unit.
While there is a desire on the part of the *army* to move people from post to post there are definitely ways around it and those are definitely leveraged by military intelligence units where you can spend twenty years at the same post. This is kind of like how there are rules about how long a service member can be TDY, but all that really matters is the paperwork that is filed. Some service members are (by preference) on what amounts to permanent TDY. Compared to that, staying at the some post is child's play.
The problem is that service members are paid a lot less, and treated worse, than contractors. There is a lot of incentive to ETS and return to what amounts to the same job but with better pay and hours.
As in the case of Reality Winner, contractors are frequently ex-service members. Same people, but different pay/benefits.
Hopefully, she'll be out in 3 years... A true national heroine, alerting the media of foreign meddling in US elections.
There's a good chance she may pass the Trump family on the way in.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
And if nothing comes out? Willing to agree there's really nothing there?
I'm not a big partisan political fanatic, but it seems to me that the evidence that has already come to light, accompanied by the lies that have already been told, would be more than sufficient to send any Democrat to the gallows.
So I'd have to answer your question with "No." If Congress did their job, what's out there now would already be enough to impeach Trump and the horse he rode in on.
WHAT election fraud? None has been shown, and President Obama stated such, emphatically, well after the election.
He said no voter fraud. That isn't the same as election tampering.
Seriously, the ONLY fraud going on here is the belief there is a Trump/Russia connection. NOTHING has been shown. There's been a few convictions and plea bargains related to tax issues from years ago - and nothing from the Trump campaign. Nothing.
You're right. There's absolutely no evidence out there that Trump colluded with the Russians except the Manafort thing, and the Flynn thing, and the Papadopoulos pleading guilty thing, and the Roger Stone thing, and the Cohen thing, and the Kushner thing, and the Carter Page thing, and the Jeff Sessions things, and the Wilbur Ross thing, and the JD Gordon thing, and the Erik Prince thing, and the James Comey firing thing, and the Russian hacking/Wikileaks thing, and the bro-love between TrumPutin thing, and the Russian propaganda machine favoring Trump thing, and the DJT "I have zero ties to Russia!" thing, and the Eric Trump "we get most of our financing from Russian banks thing", and the Donald Trump Jr. "Our portfolio is made up of a disproportionate amount of Russian money" thing, and the DJT "I sold a $60 million mansion to a Russian oligarch known for money laundering for $120 million that he never once lived in " thing, and the Trump business ties with Putin's favorite sports athlete Fedor Emilianenko thing, and the Trump International Corporation's mysterious private server connection to Alfa Bank, Russia's largest commercial bank thing, and Russians guaranteeing sales of Trump properties so he can get backing thing, and sales of Trump properties to LLCs (who can hide their identity) going from 4% to 70% in the two years leading up to the election thing, and the Special prosecutor being named thing, and the I won't release my tax returns thing, and the Ivanka Trump's vacationing with Putin's girlfriend thing, and the 2013 Miss Universe Pageant in Moscow thing, and the Trump companies business ties to Felix Sater, a criminal felon indicted for stock fraud scheme with the Russian mafia thing, and the FL Group Icelandic hedge fund with massive ties to Putin being heavily invested in Trump Soho thing, and the Rex Tillerson/Exxon ties to Russia thing, and the Russian ambassador at Trump Tower sneaking in and out thing, and part of the dossier being corroborated thing, the Trump tried to roll back Russian sanctions the minute he got elected thing. And the Cambridge Analytica thing. And the Trump advocating for Russia to be allowed into the G7 again thing, And Trump mentioning Russia hacking the DNCs emails the same day they did thing. And the Russians funneling money through the NRA thing, and Trump’s private meeting and subsequent fealty display thing, and the Trump being afraid to be interviewed by Mueller under oath thing, and the stripping people who might testify against Trump and people in his administration of their security clearance thing... Other than that, there's absolutely no reason to suspect anything. [Shamelessly stolen from teh intarwebz.]
Nope, no sig
There are plenty of legal contracts one might have to the mafia, and they are quite happy to prosecute inside the law as well as outside of it.
Do you have a point?
If you hold a legal contract with a member of the mafia, then you are beholden to that contract regardless of whether they are member of the mafia or your sweet grandmother. If they prosecute it outside the law, that's illegal. We all agree. What's that got to do with this case, which is a legal contract prosecuted inside the law?
Are you suggesting that it's okay to break a contract with someone you may think has committed an illegal act? Well, it's not. If you have doubts, go back and read TFA.
What I don't get is why they keep using contractors.
Because people don't like paying taxes and it's cheaper to hire outside, private, specialized firms than staff up within the NSA.
Assuming of course that there's some magical line between contractors and NSA employees that makes it impossible for the latter to leak information ***cough***Snowden***cough**.
It's not only OK, it's commendable to break a contract if keeping it involves covering up an illegal (or immoral) act.
Contracting has so many failures inherent to it. You don't get to fully interview and vet contractors, you're often told to just accept them as-is (at least in the business world). They don't receive the same level of training as actual employees, in regards to safety, security, procedures, etc (and as far as contracting for the military they also aren't subject to the uniform military code of justice, ala the Blackwater embarrassment). Contractors also cost more in almost every case I have seen (other than contracting from overseas), and they are hired despite the cost because they are easier to hire and easier to let go with less paperwork, and they show up in a different part of the accounting books.
Maybe in the NSA case they have to pay more for than for contractors, but so what? Are we really in the situation with our national security that we need to hire the cheapest people out there? It should be obvious you should not hire a cookie cutter IT goon whose only qualifications are a Microsoft Certificate for a serious job at a serious agency.
I am really sick of the attitudes that angels sit on this side of the aisle and demons sit on that side of the aisle. We're all citizens here, not just some of us, and it is not traitorous or immoral to hold diverse political viewpoints. This country is in the most intolerant state I have ever seen it, and I am not young. I lived through the Nixon years, and I remember people from both parties in the same church getting along and being friends with each other, no matter where they stood on the issue. I lived through the Reagan years, and remember Reagan and Tip O'Neil being friends with each other.
Now these days we have the politicis of division - demonize the other side at all costs, refuse to compromise, don't even go to the same D.C. bars. We're headed back to the days when fist fights and duels will occur on the senate floor.
With that stupid name.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
No. Manafort worked for dictators in the past is all. He's not a trustworthy guy, certainly not "great". But it has nothing to do with impeaching anyone, Manafort is just a thing that came up during an investigation. The investigation is not even about Trump, and it wouldn't be about Trump if Trump stopped twitting about it.
The next leader will probably be Putin though...
Emoluments clause violations, for one thing. No room to debate that at all. The Repubs would have screamed bloody murder if Obama had rented golf carts to his own Secret Service detail.... but then, to be fair, Obama was black.
As for the Russia stuff, we'll just have to wait and see what develops. We've been fed a lot of confusing lies about meetings, people, and events that we're told were totally legit. There's plenty of smoke but no fire. It's hard to breathe, and the thermometer on the wall is pegged out at 130 degrees, but I'm sure it's just an A/C malfunction.
Then there's the interesting matter of $50,000 paid out of Cohen's bimbo management fund for "tech services" that no one including the bimbos in question seems to know much about. I guess there was enough cash left in the slush fund to upgrade all his office computers to Windows 10, huh. That must be it.
Maybe it wasn't very clear what I wrote.
It might be sooner for her to get out after serving the 3 years in jail, than to wait until Trump has a successor, as that may be even longer than the 3 years (he might win again if Democrats can't pull their heads out of their arses).
Also note, Miss Winner was not legitimately convicted of anything by a jury of her peers. Instead she was coerced into making a false confession ("plea bargain") by a contemptible kangaroo court.
All convictions where the accused is railroaded into "confessing" are inherently illegitimate. That's some straight up Stalin bullshit that ought have no place in America.
The reason for the first couple of things is because they are employees of the contracting company. The government is hiring that company to provide those services and the people are expected to already have the skills, or the government person is supposed to report that and the company will be fined for not providing service as required.
The problem is too many military officers don't want to cause a problem and know they will be gone in a short time and civilian managers also will rarely bring up the problem When I have tried to remove contractors I have been told wait until the current contract is over and they will remove the person then and other times I have been told since the contractor is a former military they will just train him.
There is no office that you can file a complaint with and even if there was there is was top officials have a reason to keep all the people because they are needed for a mission that will be happening sometime in the future (maybe).
willaien: "They really burned their source on this one. Admittedly, she should have copied it manually, but still. Any journalist should know better than to directly photograph and post such a document. Never, ever give anything sensitive to the Intercept after this Fiasco."
Consider what was 'leaked', russia hacked voting machines, I suspect the whole thing as a put-up job. Maybe that was the whole point of the excercise, to disuade any legitimage whistleblowers from coming forward. We decoded the yellow-dots being a load of cyber-bullshit.
met with this Russian woman at Trump Tower
Who did that Russian woman meet with before and after the Don Jr. meeting? Oh, that's right, it was Glenn Simpson, one of the co-founders from Fusion GPS, the law firm hired by the DNC and Clinton campaign. The law firm they used to hire an ex foreign agent to talk to Russian spies and come up with a smear dossier on the main opposition candidate. Huh, it's almost as if they were setting up the Trump campaign with bait. How's that for Russian collusion?
There is a scandal here. It's Watergate and McCarthyism mixed into one -- and it's the Democrats with black hands.
Well Washington lead a terrorist army against the sovereign nation and then became president of all the land.
Remember the part where they went as far as petitioning the crown, and were rebuffed repeatedly? This was of course proceeded by the crown attempting to disarm everyone, even though having a firearm was one of the few ways to ensure your safety.
You don't have much of a perspective of what would constitute treason in 1770, do you?
Far better then you apparently. After all, we're talking about national security here. That means people who were in charge of information "of the government" and using it for their own personal ends. None of those people you mentioned did that.
Om, nomnomnom...
Pence is the lesser of two evils. Like Dubya, democrats may not like him much but almost anyone is more honest, less narcissistic and less corrupt than Trump.
Really? So you're saying that Trump is surpassing the corruption of the Obama administration. Can you point me to the part where Trump is using letter agencies to spy on reporters, illegally seize their phone, email, and letter mail. And had a direct hand in using the IRS to go after political opponents. Let's be honest here, if you didn't know a damned thing about what I just said you're politically ignorant of what happened prior to Trump and have no understanding of why he was elected.
Om, nomnomnom...
Yeah people have been saying that since the election, "I don't agree with Pence on nearly anything, but he'd be preferable to this reality TV joke"
For a "reality TV joke" he seems to have accomplished more then the previous administration in under 2 years, while not waffling all over the place being led by opinion polls. Call if whatever you want, but there's a reason why he won. It's the same reason why Doug Ford now runs Ontario(Canada), and why Maxime Bernier left the CPC to form his own party.
Om, nomnomnom...
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All they have is to make fun of her name and to live in denial. They were sure all in for Snowden when they thought the shoe was on the other foot.
It is imperative that we figure out if our election system has been compromised. It does not matter if Donald Trump is guilty or not. But as it appears all of he evidence seems to be pointing to him as at least being complicit in this. Innocent people do not have to hire a team of lawyers to convince others they are innocent.
After all, we're talking about national security here. That means people who were in charge of information "of the government" and using it for their own personal ends. None of those people you mentioned did that.
Mark Felt. Daniel Ellsberg.
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So....investigate the DNC and Clinton campaign!
I agree. Should be another independent counsel. Really, Mueller should have been all over this, but he's been on a witch hunt for Trump..
We have a Republican WH and Congress. Seems this should be easy.
You'd think so, but Sessions recused himself, and there's an establishment that wants to take down Trump. We've already seen the naked bias against Trump, resulting in demotions or firings: Strzok, McCabe, and Ohr spring to mind. It's been nearly two years of deep state thrashing, with a complicit media in constant "Trump/Russia" mode.
It's not only OK, it's commendable to break a contract if keeping it involves covering up an illegal (or immoral) act.
This was exactly my point.
The law is the lowest bar of morality, in the places where it is even remotely aligned with it. Yes, there are consequences of breaking legal contracts, just as there are to breaking illegal contracts. That's entirely irrelevant, doing what's morally correct anyway is an obligation we all share, and we all shirk ("but it's illegal", "but I have a family", "but I have a life ahead of me", etc.)
I am not sure she made the bar, I think she should have thought about what she had and why she wanted to do what she did before acting, so that she made the right sacrifice for the right reason. If indeed she was just young and idealistic, she should be commended for her spirit, but punished for her sloppy execution. But, going back to the beginning, nothing about law and what is right are related, they are frenemies at best.
You don't get to fully interview and vet contractors, you're often told to just accept them as-is (at least in the business world)
In the government contracting world, the government employee overseeing the contract will let the contracting company know they are not happy with a particular contractor. Which will result in the removal of that contractor.
There's way too much follow-on money at stake for the contracting company to make their government sponsor angry.
They don't receive the same level of training as actual employees, in regards to safety, security, procedures, etc
Contracts typically require the contractors to take more-or-less the same training courses the civilian government employees are required to take.
It should be obvious you should not hire a cookie cutter IT goon whose only qualifications are a Microsoft Certificate for a serious job at a serious agency.
A contracting company that supplied such people to the NSA would be thrown out very, very quickly.
When proposing the contract to the government, it's pretty common to include the resumes of "key" people who will be working on the contract. So if the contract is for something more advanced than basic IT support, the fact that those people are "cookie cutter IT goons" should cause the company to lose the bid for the contract. And even if they win the bid, they won't get any follow-on work when they fail to deliver.
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While there is a desire on the part of the *army* to move people from post to post there are definitely ways around it and those are definitely leveraged by military intelligence units where you can spend twenty years at the same post.
As long as you never want to be promoted again. Which also means you have an up-or-out problem unless you have a sponsor with stars on their shoulders.
A general will get whatever they want when it comes to staffing. But not very many people are that close to someone that high in command.
Mueller is not on a "witch hunt" for Trump.
Yes he is. He stacked his team with Democrats. He's gone further and further afield from what he was initially supposed to investigate. He's gone hard after Trump associates, while soft on Clinton associates like Tony Podesta. He referred Trump's personal lawyer for a criminal investigation, which resulted in his office being raided. He's on a witch hunt.
There's lots of people who wanted Obama out of office for various reasons and he didn't always have a same-party Congress like Trump has.....and yet it was never a debacle to this level.
Indeed, because there was no independent counsel. You have to go back to the Bill Clinton era for a similar level of ridiculousness. Monica Lewinsky = Stormy Daniels.
The simple fact of the matter is Trump is causing this.
Yes, Trump Derangement Syndrome. The establishment hates Trump. A lot of people collectively flipped their shit when Trump got elected.
He's shady, hung around shady people
Just like all other politicians? Do you realize who he ran against? Even Saint Obama has skeletons in his closet (sidenote: that's akin to Trump taking a smiling photo with David Duke).
You can't blame the media
Sure I can. Why the incessant focus on Trump, when the facts show it was the DNC and Clinton campaign engaged in a Watergate scandal combined with McCarthyism? You just can't make this stuff up. We live in bizarro world.
So you can't dispute what I've said. Why am I not surprised.
Om, nomnomnom...
You're right about that, I have no understanding of why a narcissistic, bigoted, women-harassing reality TV star who can't keep his own story straight and questions the "truth" got elected. Strange isn't it?
With that reasoning, it's safe to guess that Obama was elected because racism, in favor of more wars, and illegal non-judicial killings, and running guns used in terrorist attacks. Oh, I'll agree that Trump is narcissistic it's pretty much a requirement to be a CEO, or politician, but you don't seem to have a problem with that in general. Otherwise you wouldn't be making political posts and cheering for a favorite. Bigoted? No, facts don't make you bigoted. It's only in leftwing progressive land, that when you make a statement that's true it's bigoted. Also racist. I'll also bet you'd agree that the WAPO "fact check" on Trump's tweet about South Africa was 100% accurate. Useful tip: It wasn't. Unless of course you're saying that AP, Reuters, BBC, Newsweek, and so on are all suddenly white-supremacist outlets. Women-harassing? You're talking about someone letting you do something because they want something from you. Oh boy. So how's that congressional sexual harassment fund looking these days. You know the one that all democrats voted against opening to the public. Reality TV star sure, you also forgot multi-billionaire with his own international brand. So far Trump's "truth" is far more on key then your last 2 presidents, 3 presidents if you want to really get into it.
So yep, you're either politically isolated, or politically ignorant. Need some more help?
Om, nomnomnom...
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Comment removed based on user account deletion
Sure. Mueller, a Republican, military veteran, who served under a Republican administration, deliberately filled his staff with Democrats because he wanted to go after Republicans (Trump).
What part of "establishment" do you not get? Trump's nomination was a hostile takeover of the Republican party. To this day, there are still "never Trump" Republicans.
If this administration felt the need to investigate Podesta or Clinton, they have the power and votes to do so. But they haven't.
You keep forgetting that establishment. Rosenstein was the one who appointed Mueller, and set him after Trump. Do you think he's going to investigate himself?
Everything I stated above is fact
Actually, it's a lot of opinion and disregard for the anti-Trump establishment.
unless you want to start with insane conspiracy theories
*snort* Trump/Russia collusion is an insane conspiracy theory. The DNC and Clinton campaign involvement in initiating and peddling this conspiracy theory is a proven fact. That the FBI agent in charge of both the Clinton email scandal and Trump/Russian collusion was pro-Clinton and anti-Trump is fact. That said agent talked about an "insurance policy" in case Trump got elected is also fact. That the DNC/Clinton lawyer met with the Russian lawyer before and after meeting with Don Jr. is fact. That high-level DOJ employee Bruce Ohr fed info from the Steele dossier into the FBI is fact. That Bruce Ohr's wife was paid by Fusion GPS is also fact. Need I go on? Because I can.
t's impossible to discuss something with a person who doesn't believe basic facts.
Start with yourself.
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If you think the Trump/Russia collusion is an insane conspiracy theory, tell me what this means, straight from Don Jr's own Twitter feed: "This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump" The Russian lawyer they met with was described as a "Russian government lawyer".
Funny how you completely ignore the entire thread, from my initial post on, about how it was the DNC/Clinton lawyers who met with the Russian lawyer both before and after the Don Jr. meeting. The meeting was set up as bait. Any campaign would have accepted dirt on their opposition candidate if it was offered. The collusion was by the DNC and Clinton campaign! It was also the Obama administration that gave her a special exemption to remain in the country.
Yeah, insane conspiracy theory
Yes, the conspiracy theory that was initiated and peddled by the DNC and Clinton campaign. The theory they generated and promulgated by paying an ex foreign agent to talk to Russian spies to produce a "salacious and unverified" dossier on their main opposition candidate, which they then fed to the media and back into the FBI via the DOJ by a high up official whose wife was being paid by the very same DNC/Clinton campaign lawyers that produced the document.
That's the real conspiracy, which you are doing your best to ignore. Fail.
Hahaha, this is the first time I've seen my fake news site linked on Slashdot!
? I didn't like to Media Matters.
Comey never leaked anything classified. Hillary mishandled a bunch of things because of incompetence. I don't have much familiarity with Clapper and Brennan.
We can compare Mark Felt and Daniel Ellsberg to some of these people--notably Snowden. "Criminal" doesn't much mean anything; the question is: is what they did right?
The justice system and the application of law should be for the benefit of society. It should be to redress and rehabilitate, not to inflict procedural maters of punishment.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
NONE of which have ANYTHING to do with Russiagate, you incompetent boob. Manafort is being tried for issues that happened ten years ago and have no connection to Trump. Flynn talked to Russian officials first to ask them for their UN support on a vote for Apartheid Israel, and then to not retaliate in response to American sanctions. And so on.
All you guys have is a Gish Gallop - a rapid series of talking points that fall apart faster than toilet paper in a tornado when subjected to any scrutiny. Just like the Birthers, the Chem Trailers and anti-vaxxers, who quickly spout off billeted list of talking points - but it's all bullshit.