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https://www.yahoo.com/news/fbi-became-target-russian-disinformation-010008047.html

In their final encounter during the transition following the 2016 election, Donald Trump’s incoming national-security adviser surprised Barack Obama’s outgoing national-security adviser. Susan Rice writes in her memoir that the Michael Flynn she was dealing with had nothing in common with the firebrand she had watched leading a “lock her up” chant against Hillary Clinton at the Republican National Convention a few months earlier. Flynn, a retired general and the former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, was respectful and subdued, eager for her advice. When Rice extended her hand and wished him the best of luck, Flynn asked her...

Rep. Adam Schiff has been squealing a lot lately, bellyaching about the Justice Department dropping the case against Michael Flynn and, miraculously, standing by those House Intelligence Committee interview transcripts, insisting to this day they “richly detail evidence of the Trump campaign’s efforts to invite, make use of, and cover up Russia’s help in the 2016 presidential election,” when even James Clapper said he saw no direct empirical evidence of the sort.Bloomberg Opinion’s Eli Lake has been reading through the transcripts and says it’s obvious why the Republicans on the Intelligence Committee called for Schiff to step down as chairman.

Moments ago, the special counsel released Michael Flynn’s “Statement of the Offense.” This document lays out Flynn’s crimes in far greater detail than the short “information” released earlier today. It’s important to state this clearly as possible — the statement contains no evidence of collusion with Russia to influence the presidential election. Instead, it amplifies the fact that Flynn apparently lied about contacts that were lawful and appropriate.First, the statement says that the day after President Obama announced sanctions in response to Russian efforts to interfere with the 2016 election, Flynn called a “senior official of the Presidential Transition Team...

A leaked memo appears to undermine significant details in a new book from a witness to the embassy attacks. But its alleged author tells The Daily Beast he didn't write it. The debate over the Obama administration’s actions before and after the attack on the U.S. mission was reignited following an Oct. 27 60 Minutes report featuring an interview with Morgan Jones Controversy over Jones’s interview and book reached a high pitch on Oct. 31 when The Washington Post published details of an incident report allegedly written by Jones that contradicts the account in his book and reveals his real...

It appears that Mike Cernovich, who earlier this week wrote that Trump's national security advisor, Gen. H.R.McMaster, was planning on sending as many as 150,000 troops to Syria, may have been right again. According to Bloomberg commentator Eli Lake, who has now made a habit of confirming Cernovich "conspiracy theories" (he did so previously with the Susan Rice scoop), Trump may be on the verge of escalating the proxy war in Syria by sending anywhere between 10,000 and 50,000 troops on the ground, and - if Cernovich is indeed correct - as much as three times more. Per Lake, after...

On Tuesday, Joe Scarborough took The New York Times to task for downplaying revelations that former Obama administration National Security Adviser Susan Rice reportedly requested the unmasking of Trump campaign officials — and he may have a point. In an April 3 piece titled, Trump Tries to Deflect Russia Scrutiny, Citing ‘Crooked Scheme’ by Obama, the paper of record only included the Rice news within the broader story of Trump deriding former president Obama, writing: {..snip..}

Susan Rice, former President Barack Obama's national security adviser, reportedly requested on several occasions the identities of "masked" U.S. persons in intelligence reports linked to President Trump's transition and campaign. The revelation contradicts Rice's past comments on March 22, when she claimed she knew "nothing" about the intelligence reports. White House lawyers discovered Rice's dozens of requests last month, during a National Security Council review of the "government's policy on ‘unmasking' the identities of individuals in the U.S. who are not targets of electronic eavesdropping, but whose communications are collected incidentally," Eli Lake of Bloomberg reported Monday, citing U.S. officials....

So desperate to discredit a bombshell Bloomberg report that former Obama National Security Adviser Susan Rice sought to unmask Trump transition officials caught up in intelligence surveillance, on Monday afternoon, MSNBC host Katy Tur outrageously suggested that simply reporting on the story was helping Russia “undermine our democratic institutions.” During the 2 p.m. ET hour, Tur talked to the journalist who broke the news, Bloomberg View columnist Eli Lake, and tried to dismiss his reporting by conflating it with a blog post from a conspiracy theorist: “Eli, the same details from your report appeared last night in another report by...

Mike Cernovich, a journalist who has promoted conspiracy theories and was deemed “fake news” by “60 Minutes,” was the first to break the news that Obama’s former national security advisor Susan Rice made requests to unmask the identities of Trump associates. Cernovich said in his report Sunday that New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman knew about the Rice requests, and “has chosen to sit on it in an effort to protect the reputation of former President Barack Obama.” A New York Times spokeswoman told The Daily Caller, “Cernovich’s claim regarding Maggie Haberman is 100 percent false.” Bloomberg’s Eli Lake confirmed...

Susan Rice, who was former President Barack Obama’s national security adviser, did not respond to a report from Bloomberg columnist Eli Lake that on multiple occasions, she made requests to unmask United States citizens connected to President Donald Trump’s transition team. According to Lake, Rice did not respond to an email seeking comment on the story. The breaking news helps confirm some of President Trump’s accusations that senior Obama officials were involved in disseminating classified information about his transition team to the media, fueling new details about the congressional investigations into Russia’s meddling in the election.

<p>White House lawyers last month discovered that the former national security adviser Susan Rice requested the identities of U.S. persons in raw intelligence reports on dozens of occasions that connect to the Donald Trump transition and campaign, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter.</p>

LINK ONLY per Moderator / Publisher Request.

The current scandal surrounding President Donald Trump’s tweeted accusations that his predecessor wiretapped Trump Tower is proof of what might be called the Salena Zito rule. Zito, of course, wrote the essay in the Atlantic how Trump’s supporters took him “seriously, but not literally,” whereas the press took him “literally, but not seriously.” This is a good way to understand the current state of the investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election and Trump’s wild accusations against Barack Obama. Barring an unexpected turn of events, FBI director James Comey will confirm on Monday before the House Intelligence Committee that...

Only a link: http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-10-15/u-s-airdrop-in-syria-ends-up-arming-the-kurds?cmpid=yhoo.headline

The Israeli intelligence agency Mossad has broken ranks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, telling U.S. officials and lawmakers that a new Iran sanctions bill in the U.S. Congress would tank the Iran nuclear negotiations. Already, the Barack Obama administration and some leading Republican senators are using the Israeli internal disagreement to undermine support for the bill, authored by Republican Mark Kirk and Democrat Robert Menendez, which would enact new sanctions if current negotiations falter. Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee -- supported by Republican Senators Lindsay Graham and John McCain -- is pushing for his own legislation...

There’s one man, some Republicans say, who kept the public from learning about the chemical shells littered around the Iraqi battlefield. He was Bush's most important political adviser. Starting in 2004, some members of the George W. Bush administration and Republican lawmakers began to find evidence of discarded chemical weapons in Iraq. But when the information was brought up with the White House, senior adviser Karl Rove told them to ‘let these sleeping dogs lie.’ The issue of Iraq’s WMD remnant was suddenly thrust back into the fore this week, with a blockbuster New York Times report accusing the Bush...

The Tea Party favorite loves to needle Team Obama. But in an interview, Cruz also reveals a new kind of conservative foreign policy: American exceptionalism without the nation building.One way to understand Ted Cruz’s foreign policy, particularly if you are a Democrat, is through the prism of the social media phenomenon known as trolling. The best trolls are provocateurs. Their language is meant to expose a fallacy or weakness in the opponent’s position as opposed to offering a constructive alternative. In a wide-ranging interview with the junior senator from Texas, there was a lot of trolling. Of Obama’s recent attempt...

Leaders from at least three of al Qaeda’s most virulent affiliates are now in Libya. What are they planning there? In the nearly 20 months since the September 11, 2012 Benghazi attacks, al Qaeda operatives and allied terrorists have flocked to Libya, making the fragile North African country a hub for those seeking to wage jihad from north Africa, current and former U.S. counterterrorism officials tell The Daily Beast. Not only does al Qaeda host Ansar al-Sharia, one of the militias responsible for the Benghazi attacks that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. But U.S. intelligence now assesses...

Chris Hayes discusses the United States considering military action in Syria with former Congressman Tom Perriello, Amy Goodman, host of "Democracy Now!" and Eli Lake, senior national security correspondent for Newsweek and The Daily Beast.