(Remember, this re-posting of articles on the Mueller Report is in response to what former Trump DOJ spokesperson Sarah Isgur said on ABC’s This Week on Sunday. THIS IS WHAT SHE SAID:"The SCO was charged with investigating whether the Trump campaign criminally colluded with Russians to influence the 2016 election. They did not find sufficient evidence to bring charges—that’s exonerating. My larger point was that Trump didn’t care—hence the acts of obstruction!"
BACK TO THE ANALYSIS:
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(Any words that are colored RED represent portions of the Transcript that were BLACKED OUT,
AND COULD NOT BE READ.WORDS LIKE "INVESTIGATIVE TECHNIQUE" OR "HARM TO ON GOING MATTER", ARE NOT MY CREATION, BUT WERE PLACED OVER BLACKED OUT AREAS.)
As you go through the MUELLER REPORT, there is one very important detail that must be acknowledged: IT IS THE STORY OF TWO INVESTIGATIONS. Why do I say this? BECAUSE CONCLUSIONS DRAWN WERE NOT ARRIVED AT BY THE SAME PROCESS,WITH JUST ONE AGENCY, DEPARTMENT OR INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBLE FOR EVALUATING EACH EVENT, AND THE VALUE OF THE CORRESPONDING EVIDENCE.
WHAT DO I MEAN? CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING EXCERPTS, TAKEN
DIRECTLY FROM THE TEXT. (IN ITALICS)
The Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion. Evidence of Russian government operations began to surface in mid-2016.
As set forth in detail in this report, the Special Counsel's investigation established that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election principally through two operations.
First, a Russian entity carried out a social media campaign that favored presidential candidate Donald J. Trump and disparaged presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
RUSSIAN SOCIAL MEDIA CAMPAIGN.
(HERE ARE SOME EXCERPTS FROM THE BODY OF THE TEXT.)
Internet Research Agency (IRA) carried out the earliest Russian interference operations identified by the investigation. A social media campaign designed to provoke and amplify political and social discord in the United States.
- The IRA was based in St. Petersburg, Russia, and received funding from Russian oligarch Yevgeniy Prigozhin and companies he controlled. Pri ozhin is widely reported to have ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. HARM TO ONGOING MATTER.
- The campaign evolved from a generalized program designed in 2014 and 2015 to undermine the U.S. electoral system, to a targeted operation that by early 2016 favored candidate Trump and disparaged candidate Clinton.
- The IRA later used social media accounts and interest groups to sow discord in the U.S. political system through what it termed "information warfare."
-
Second, a Russian intelligence service conducted computer-intrusion operations against entities, employees, and volunteers working on the Clinton Campaign and then released the stolen documents.
RUSSIAN HACKING OPERATIONS.
(HERE ARE SOME EXCERPTS FROM THE BODY OF THE TEXT.)
At the same time that the IRA operation began to focus ·on supporting candidate Trump in early 2016, the Russian government employed a second form of interference: cyber intrusions (hacking) and releases of hacked materials damaging to the Clinton Campaign. The Russian intelligence service known as the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Army (GRU) carried out these operations. In March 2016, the GRU began hacking the email accounts of Clinton Campaign.
In March 2016, the GRU began hacking the email accounts of Clinton Campaign volunteers and employees....the GRU hacked into the computer networks of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and the Democratic National Committee (DNC). The GRU stole hundreds of thousands of documents from the compromised email accounts and networks. Around the time that the DNC announced in mid-June 2016 the Russian government's role in hacking its network, the GRU began disseminating stolen materials through the fictitious online personas "DCLeaks" and "Guccifer 2.0." The GRU later released additional materials through the organization WikiLeaks.
The presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump ("Trump Campaign" or "Campaign") showed interest in WikiLeaks' s releases of documents and welcomed their Potential to damage candidate Clinton. Beginning in June 2016, HARM TO ONGOING MATTER forecast to senior Campaign officials that WikiLeaks would release information damaging to candidate Clinton. WikiLeaks' s first release came in July 2016.
Now, the Investigation into the above 2 categories provided enough evidence to the committee that
made them confident in drawing definite conclusions, and in some cases, filing Criminal Charges. I will cover these in more depth at a later time, but there is one more category to cover. What you read below may seem to be a part of the RUSSIAN HACKING OPERATION...
...BUT THERE IS ONE MAJOR DIFFERENCE.
EXCERPTS FROM THE BODY OF THE TEXT.
In addition to targeting individuals involved in the Clinton Campaign, GRU officers also targeted individuals and entities involved in the administration of the elections. Victims included U.S. state and local entities, such as state boards of elections (SBOEs), secretaries of state, and county governments, as well as individuals who worked for those entities. 186 The GRU also targeted private technology firms responsible for manufacturing and administering election-related software and hardware, such as voter registration software and electronic polling stations.187 The GRU continued to target these victims through the elections in November 2016. While the investigation identified evidence that the GRU targeted these individuals and entities, the Office did not investigate further. The Office did not, for instance, obtain or examine servers or other relevant items belonging to these victims. The Office understands that the FBI, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the states have separately investigated that activity.
By at least the summer of 2016, GRU officers sought access to state and local computer networks by exploiting known software vulnerabilities on websites of state and local governmental entities. GRU officers, for example, targeted state and local databases of registered voters using a technique known as "SQL injection," by which malicious code was sent to the state or local website in order to run commands (such as exfiltrating the database contents). 188 In one instance in approximately June 2016, the GRU compromised the computer network of the Illinois State Board of Elections by exploiting a vulnerability in the SBOE's website. The GRU then gained access to a database containing information on millions of registered Illinois voters, 189 and extracted data related to thousands of U.S. voters before the malicious activity was identified.
GRU officers INVESTIGATIVE TECHNIQUE scanned state and local websites for vunerabilities. For example, over a two day period in july 2016, GRU OFFICERS INVESTIGATVE TECHNIQUE
for vulnerabilities on websites of two dozen states. INVESTIGATIVE TECHNIQUE.
Unit 74455 also sent spearphishing emails to public officials involved in election
administration and personnel at companies involved in voting technology. In August 2016, GRU officers targeted employees of **** ,a voting technology company that developed software used by numerous U.S. counties to manage voter rolls, and installed malware on the company network. Similarly, in November 2016, the GRU sent spearphishing emails to over 120 email accounts used by Florida county officials responsible for administering the 2016 U.S. election. 191 The spearphishing emails contained an attached Word document coded with malicious software (commonly referred to as a Trojan) that permitted the GRU to access the infected computer.192 The FBI was separately responsible for this investigation. We understand the FBI believes that this operation enabled the GRU to gain access to the network of at least one Florida county government. The Office did not independently verify that belief and, as explained above, did not undertake the investigative steps that would have been necessary to do so.
The Hacking operations that included the following:
- Individuals and entities involved in the administration of the elections.
- U.S. state and local entities, such as state boards of elections (SBOEs), secretaries of state, and county governments, as well as individuals who worked for those entities.
- Private technology firms responsible for manufacturing and administering election-related software and hardware, such as voter registration software and electronic polling stations.
- Employees of **** ,a voting technology company that developed software used by numerous U.S. counties to manage voter rolls, and installed malware on the company network.
- Florida county officials responsible for administering the 2016 U.S. election...
WERE NOT EVALUATED, IN TERMS OF THE QUALITY OF THE EVIDENCE, BY THE OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL COUNSEL.
FROM THE TEXT:
"While the investigation identified evidence that the GRU targeted these individuals and entities, the Office did not investigate further. The Office did not, for instance, obtain or examine servers or other relevant items belonging to these victims. The Office understands that the FBI, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the states have separately investigated that activity."
"The Office did not independently verify that belief and, as explained above, did not undertake the investigative steps that would have been necessary to do so."
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? WHILE THE OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL COUNSEL IDENTIFIED EVIDENCE THAT THE GRU"TARGETED THESE INDIVIDUALS AND ENTITIES", NO FURTHER INVESTIGATION WAS DONE.
WHY?
"The Office understands that the FBI, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the states have separately investigated that activity."
"The Office did not independently verify that belief and, as explained above, did not undertake the investigative steps that would have been necessary to do so."
Well this answers the question: "Who is exonerated by the Mueller Report?"
ANSWER: NO ONE. The Evaluation of the
most important information regarding fraud in
the 2016 election was not part of their
responsibility. They couldn't exonerate anyone
even if they wanted to.
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