Steele's Dossier Report About Alfa Bank -- Part 2

Part 1

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For the sake of convenience, I will use the expression "the Alfa Bank suspicion" for the idea that there was some communications between Alfa Bank and Donald Trump in relation to the 2016 Presidential election race.

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In relation to the Alfa Bank suspicion, here are some key dates:

About September 9, 2016
Sergei Millian’s Russian-American Chamber of Commerce used the Alfa Bank server (Pages 274-275; Page 119, Footnote 259)

September 14, 2016
Christopher Steele completed Dossier Report 112

September 19, 2016
The FBI's Crossfire Hurricane team officially received its first Dossier reports (80, 94, 95, 100, 101, 102) (Page 100)

September 19, 2016
Michael Sussman briefed FBI General Counsel James Baker

September 23, 2016
Steele briefed DOJ Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr (Page 274)

October 11, 2016
Steele briefed State Department Assistant Secretary Kathleen Kavalec (Page 117)

November 2, 2016
The FBI thought there could be an innocuous explanation (Foer)

November 6, 2016
The FBI's Crossfire Hurricane team received Report 112 from Baker, who had received it from a Mother Jones journalist (Page 119, Footnote 259)

Early February 2017
The FBI concluded that there were no links between the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank

The Horowitz report summarized Steele's September 23 briefing of Ohr as follows (Pages 274-275; Page 119, Footnote 259):

... Steele also discussed allegations that an Alfa Bank server in the United States was a link between Russia and the Trump campaign; that Person 1's Russian/American organization [Sergei Millian’s Russian-American Chamber of Commerce] in the United States had used the Alfa Bank server [two weeks] earlier in September [i.e., on about September 9] ...

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Among Steele's Dossier reports that are available to the public, only Report 112 mentions Alfa Bank. Report 112 does not say anything at all about the US election, in particular about Trump, or about a Russian/American organization using an Alfa Bank server.

Here is the end of the series of Dossier reports that are available to the public:

Report 101, dated August 10, 2016

Report 102, dated August 10, 2016

Report 105, dated August 22, 2016

Report 111, dated September 14, 2016

Report 112, dated September 14, 2016

Report 113, dated September 14, 2016

Report 130, dated October 12, 2016

Report 134, dated October 18, 2016

Report 135, dated October 19, 2016

Report 136, dated October 20, 2016

There is a significant gap between Report 105 (August 22) and Report 111 (September 14). Within that gap, on about September 9, Millian’s Russian-American Chamber of Commerce used the Alfa Bank server.

There is another significant gap between Report 113 (September 14) and Report 130 (October 12). Within that gap, Steele told Ohr on September 23 that the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce had used the Alfa Bank server.

During both those gaps, Steele surely wrote more Dossier reports about the Alfa Bank suspicion, and all such reports were delivered promptly to the FBI Counterintelligence Chief.

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Continued in Part 3

The Continuing Disappearance of Dossier Report 96

Below is a list of the first 12 of the Dossier reports that have become available to the public. 

1) Report 80, dated June 20, 2016

2) Report 86, dated July 26, 2015 (twenty-fifteen)

3) Report 94, dated July 19, 2016

4) Report 95, undated, but apparently written in late-July 2016

5) Report 97, dated July 30, 2016

6) Report 100, dated August 5, 2016

7) Report 101, dated August 10, 2016

8) Report 102, dated August 10, 2016

9) Report 105, dated August 22, 2016

10) Report 111, dated September 14, 2016

11) Report 112, dated September 14, 2016

12) Report 113, dated September 14, 2016

According to the Horowitz report, the first time when FBI Headquarters received any of those Dossier reports was on September 19, 2016. That delivery comprised just six Dossier reports -- 80, 94, 95, 100, 101, and 102 (Horowitz page 100). On that date, therefore, the series included a particular four-report gap -- Reports 96, 97, 98 and 99. On some later, unknown date, Report 97 too was delivered to FBI Headquarters.

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In this blog, I have speculated that all these 12 reports (except Reports 80 and 86) were delivered unofficially to the FBI Counterintelligence Chief promptly after their publication dates. For example, Report 94 was delivered to that Chief within a few days of its publication date -- July 19 -- but its delivery was not recorded according to FBI procedures. Report 94 was delivered officially -- recorded according to FBI procedures -- on September 19. On that official delivery date, however, the Counterintelligence Chief already had possessed the report unofficially since mid-July.

The reason for the abnormal delivery of Dossier reports was to enable the FBI to deny its knowledge of some of the reports.

For example, Steele finished writing Report 94 (and assigned that number to the report) on July 19. Within a few days, that report was delivered to the Counterintelligence Chief, but that delivery was not recorded according to FBI procedures.

By a different delivery method, Report 94 was delivered on July 28 to the Chief Division Counsel FBI New York Field Office (NYFO) -- not to FBI Headquarters. This delivery to the NYFO was recorded according to FBI procedures. On July 28, therefore, the FBI could no longer deny that the FBI -- in particular, the FBI NYFO -- had received Report 94, but it still could deny that FBI Headquarters had received it. (When the NYFO received any Dossier reports, the NYFO simply hid them in a safe until further instructions were received from from FBI Headquarters.)

Later, in mid-September, someone decided that the current situation allowed Report 94 to be delivered officially to FBI Headquarters. This belated delivery was recorded in accordance with FBI procedures on September 19. From this latter date forward, FBI headquarters would have to acknowledge that it had been informed about Report 94.

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The delivery of Report 97 was different. Like Report 94, it was delivered to the Counter-intelligence Chief promptly and unofficially. However, Report 97 was not delivered to the NYFO. Therefore, the FBI created no record at all that Report 97 had been delivered to any FBI office at all. Officially, Report 97 was delivered to the FBI the first time on September 19. Until that latter date, the FBI avoided creating any record indicating any FBI knowledge of the existence of Report 97.

I speculated in a previous blog article that the FBI might be more embarrassed by Report 97 (than, for example, by Report 94), because Report 97 indicated that Christopher Steele was obtaining information from sources with inside knowledge about Trump's election-campaign staff. In particular, Report 97 claimed to be based partially on reports from "a Russian émigré figure close to the Republican US presidential candidate Donald Trump's campaign team". That phrase -- which eventually might cause the public to suspect that the FBI was collecting information from inside Trump's campaign staff -- might have caused the decision in July 2016 to not send Report 97 to the NYFO.

By mid-September, however, the situation had changed. Now the FBI Headquarters was trying to overcome objections to its application for a FISA warrant in order to collect information about Trump's supporters. Therefore, FBI Headquarters now had to receive officially some Dossier reports. In particular, Reports 97 now seemed to FBI Headquarters to be more useful than problematical. After all, the Russian émigré reported the following (emphasis added):

Speaking in confidence to a trusted associate in late July 2016, a Russian émigré figure close to the Republican US presidential candidate Donald TRUMP’s campaign team commented on the fallout from publicity surrounding the Democratic National Committee (DNC) e-mail hacking scandal. The émigré said there was a high level of anxiety within the TRUMP team as a result of various accusations levelled against them and indications from the Kremlin that President PUTIN and others in the leadership thought things had gone too far now and risked spiralling out of control.

Continuing on this theme, the émigré associate of TRUMP opined that the Kremlin wanted the situation to calm but for ‘plausible deniability’ to be maintained concerning its (extensive) pro-TRUMP and anti-CLINTON operations. S/he therefore judged that it was unlikely these would be ratcheted up, at least for the time being.

However, in terms of established operational liaison between the TRUMP team and the Kremlin, the émigré confirmed that an intelligence exchange had been running between them for at least 8 years. Within this context PUTIN’s priority requirement had been for intelligence on the activities, business and otherwise, in the US of leading Russian oligarchs and their families. TRUMP and his associates duly had obtained and supplied the Kremlin with this information.

Finally, the émigré said s/he understood the Kremlin had more intelligence on CLINTON and her campaign but he did not know the details or when or if it would be released. As far as ‘kompromat’ (compromising information) on TRUMP were concerned, although there was plenty of this, he understood the Kremlin had given its word that it would not be deployed against the Republican presidential candidate given how helpful and co-operative his team had been over several years, and particularly of late.

In mid-September, FBI Headquarters foresaw a need to use this information in order to obtain a FISA warrant. Therefore, FBI Headquarters belatedly arranged for Report 97 to be received in accordance with FBI procedures. Keep in mind, though, that the Counterintelligence Chief actually had received Report 97 already in July.

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Reports 96, 98 and 99 remain mysterious to the present day. The only facts that might be deduced about those three reports is their approximate dates.

* Report 96 must be dated between July 19 (Report 94) and July 30 (Report 97).

* Reports 98 and 99 must be dated between July 30 (Report 97) and August 5 (Report 100).

Now I have come across a clue to the date of Report 96. I learned recently that journalist Jane Mayer -- who had interviewed Steele at length -- mentioned in an article that Steele had published an article dated July 26, 2016. Mayer's article was titled Christopher Steele, the Man Behind the Trump Dossier, and it was published by The New Yorker magazine on March 5, 2018. The relevant paragraph (emphasis added):

On July 26, 2016, after WikiLeaks disseminated the D.N.C. e-mails, Steele filed yet another memo, this time claiming that the Kremlin was “behind” the hacking, which was part of a Russian cyber war against Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Many of the details seemed far-fetched: Steele’s sources claimed that the digital attack involved agents “within the Democratic Party structure itself,” as well as Russian émigrés in the U.S. and “associated offensive cyber operators.”

Since Dossier Report 95 is not dated, the report dated July 26, 2016 must be Report 96. Although Report 96 never has become available to the public, Mayer apparently was told something about it by Steele himself.

If Mayer's summary of Report 96 is correct, then that report's huge problem for the FBI is its indication that some Democrat officials ("agents within the Democratic Party structure itself") had participated in the supposed hacking of the Democrat National Committee's computers in the spring of 2016. Therefore, Report 96 might be extremely damaging to the FBI's efforts to blame such hacking on an imaginary collaboration between Russian Intelligence and Donald Trump. For that reason, the FBI has kept Report 96 secret to the present day.

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The dating of Report 96 to July 26 indicates that undated Report 95 was written between July 19 (Report 94) and July 26 (Report 96).

I speculate that still-unavailable Report 96 elaborated on Report 95, which has become available to the public. Report 95 includes the following passage (emphasis added):

... Source E, acknowledged that the Russian regime had been behind the recent leak of embarrassing e-mail messages, emanating from the Democratic National Committee (DNC), to the WikiLeaks platform. ....

In the wider context of TRUMP campaign/Kremlin co-operation, Source E claimed that the intelligence network being used against CLINTON comprised three elements. Firstly there were agents / facilitators within the Democratic Party structure itself; secondly Russian émigré and associated offensive cyber operators based in the U.S.; and thirdly, state- sponsored cyber operatives working in Russia. All three elements had played an important role to date. ...

I speculate that the still-unavailable Report 96 provided a detailed elaboration of Report 95's accusation the the Russian regime had accomplished "the recent leak of embarrassing e-mail messages" with the collaboration of a network that included "firstly, agents / facilitators within the Democratic Party structure itself; secondly Russian émigré and associated offensive cyber operators based in the U.S."

Steele's Dossier Report About Alfa Bank -- Part 1

On September 19, 2016, Michael Sussman met with FBI official James Baker to inform that the Russia-based Alfa Bank seemed to be in secret communication with Trump Tower.

Five days earlier, on September 14, Christopher Steele had issued his Dossier Report 112 about that bank's owners -- which Steele spelled as Alpha Group.

There are hundreds of thousands of large businesses in Russia. There was no obvious reason why this particular Russian business -- Alpha Group -- had occupied Steele's attention, time and effort during the first half of September 2016. Nothing in this Dossier report seems to be related to Donald Trump or even to US politics.

It seems that Steele had been assigned to write a report urgently about Alfa Bank, but he could not find anything interesting to write about the bank itself. Rather, he could concoct only some insinuations about various Alpha Group officials who were alleged to be involved in some corrupt relationships with Vladimir Putin.

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The report's text :

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: KREMLIN-ALPHA GROUP OPERATION (SEPTEMBER 14, 2016)

Summary

- Top level Russian official confirms current closeness of Alpha Group-PUTIN relationship. Significant favours continue to be done in both directions and FRIDMAN and AVEN still giving informal advice to PUTIN, especially on the US

- Key intermediary in PUTIN-Alpha relationship identified as Oleg GOVORUN, currently Head of a Presidential Administration department but throughout the 1990s, the Alpha executive who delivered illicit cash directly to PUTIN

– PUTIN personally unbothered about Alpha’s current lack of investment in Russia but under pressure from colleagues over this and able to exploit it as lever over Alpha interlocutors

Detail

1. Speaking to a trusted compatriot in mid-September 2016, a top level Russian government Official commented on the history and current state of relations between President PUTIN and the Alpha Group of businesses led by oligarchs Mikhail FRIDMAN, Petr AVEN and German KHAN. The Russian government figure reported that although they had had their ups and downs, the leading figures in Alpha currently were on very good terms with PUTIN. Significant favours continued to be done in both directions, primarily political ones for PUTIN and business/legal ones for Alpha. Also, RIDMAN and AVEN continued to give informal advice to PUTIN on foreign policy, and especially about the US where he distrusted advice being given to him by officials.

2. Although FRIDMAN recently had met directly with PUTIN in Russia, much of the dialogue and business between them was mediated through a senior Presidential Administration Official, Oleg GOVORUN, who currently headed the department therein responsible for Social Co-operation with the CIS. GOVORUN was trusted by PUTIN and recently had accompanied him to Uzbekistan to pay respects at the tomb of former president KARIMOV. However according to the top level Russian government official, during the 1990s GOVORUN had been Head of Government Relations at Alpha Group and in reality, the ‘driver’ and ‘bag carrier’ used by FRIDMAN and AVEN to deliver large amounts of illicit cash to the Russian president, at that time deputy Mayor of St Petersburg. Given that and the continuing sensitivity of the relationship, and need for plausible deniability, much of the contact between them was now indirect and entrusted to the relatively low profile GOVORUN.

3. The top level Russian government official described the PUTlN-Alpha relationship as both carrot and stick. Alpha held ‘kompromat’ on PUTIN and his corrupt business activities from the 1990s whilst although not personally overly bothered by Alpha’s failure to reinvest the proceeds of its TNK oil company sale into the Russian economy since, the Russian president was able to use pressure on this count from senior Kremlin colleagues as a lever on FRIDMAN and AVEN to make them do his political bidding.

14 September 2016

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When Steele finished his Report 112 on September 14, none of his Dossier reports had been officially delivered to FBI Headquarters.

According to the FBI's official story -- told in the Horowitz Report -- Steele had begun delivering his Dossier reports on July 5, 2016, to FBI official Michael Gaeta, who was based at the US Embassy in Rome, Italy. Then Gaeta sent the reports to the FBI's New York Field Office (NYFO), where they were stored by the NYFO Chief Division Counsel, who did nothing with them. 

Not until September 19 -- the very same day that Sussman met with Baker -- were the first six Dossier reports officially delivered to FBI Headquarters in Washington DC. These six reports were 80, 94, 95, 100, 101 and 102. In other words, the delivered reports did not include Report 112, which Steele had finished four days earlier.

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In my previous blog articles about Gaeta, I have suggested that his Rome Embassy position -- in which he supposedly worked for the FBI Legate -- was a cover for his real assignment, which was to report secretly to the FBI Counterintelligence Chief. Gaeta actually sent all the Dossier reports immediately and directly to the FBI Counterintelligence Chief. Gaeta sent just a few of the Dossier reports to the NYFO as a plausible-deniability ruse about what he actually was doing -- which essentially was collecting dirt in Europe about Trump.

In mid-September, however, a decision was made within the FBI's top leadership to end this ruse. More specifically, a decision was made to begin sending the Dossier reports officially to FBI Headquarters. Report 112 still had not reached the NYFO office, so that particular report was not included in the first reports that were delivered to FBI Headquarters on September 19.

However, the FBI decision-makers had been told that Steele already had completed one report about Alfa Bank and intended to write more such reports. From now on, Gaeta would send Steele's reports immediately and directly to FBI Headquarters, which would officially log the reports in and then disseminate them widely to Intelligence analysts. Information about Alfa Bank and Trump had to be analyzed and developed by the US Intelligence Community with maximum efficiency.

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Continued in Part 2

Yuri Shvets and FBI Counterintelligence -- Part 2

My previous post, Part 1 concluded as follows:

... I speculate that [Yuri] Shvets managed to bring his family into the USA on his own resources in early 1994. At that time, he intended to make a career as a free-lance writer. However, the rejection in his initial request for political asylum in April 1994 compelled him to reveal himself to the FBI in April 1994. Following that revelation, he was granted political asylum in May 1994, but agreed to provide all his knowledge to the FBI Counterintelligence Division.

Now in this new blog post, I will describe Shvets's information that was valuable to FBI Counterintelligence.

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About 45 pages (89-134) of of Shvets's book Washington Station is about his conversations with a fellow KGB officer named Valentin Aksilenko. When they talked in Moscow in about 1986, Aksilenko told Shvets how he had recruited a secret agent in 1979 while being stationed as a KGB officer in Washington DC. 

Valentin Aksilenko

The agent -- called "Bill" in Shvets's book -- was a Peruvian immigrant, about 40 years old, living in Washington DC. Aksilenko happened to become acquainted with Bill at a protest against US policies in El Salvador. Bill invited Aksilenko to his home and subsequently told him that he worked as a janitor cleaning the offices of some think-tanks that studied national-security issues. Bill had begun to collect various documents that he found in these offices. Bill offered to provide such documents to Aksilenko.

The garbage can turned out to have a pot of gold on the bottom. Bill began delivering material on military and strategic issues that would have been designated top priority by any intelligence service. ....

Bill generally delivered such a huge volume of documents that there was no way they could all be sent over to Moscow. Valentin selected the most interesting papers ....

As he perused Bill's material, Valentin never failed to marvel at ow lackadaisical the American system of classified record-keeping was. ...

... thanks to his effort, the KGB obtained an enormous amount of information on the following Pentagon projects:

* The MX missile, from the design stage to the shot drawings ....;

* air-, sea- and land-based cruise missiles, particularly the Tomahawk;

* the latest-generation single-warhead Midgetman missile;

* The Trident SLBM, designated for the new generation of US submarines;

* the latest strategic bomber, initially designated as a "penetrating bomber," but subsequently renamed the Stealth bomber;

* AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System) and NAVSTAR systems;

* anti-aircraft missile complexes;

* analytical reports on war games and staff exercises ...;

The [Soviet] intelligence analysts were amazed at the volume and quality of the material delivered by Bill. They simply could not understand how documents of that kind had ended up in the trash can. ...

To put things into proper perspective, in 1982, Bill's documents accounted for over 50 percent of the overall volume of information in that category [military-strategic information].

In the book's 45 pages about Aksilenko's collection of information from Bill, Shvets writes in much detail about how Aksilenko evaded the efforts of FBI counterintelligence to surveil Aksilenko's espionage activities.

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In his book, Shvets writes much about KGB's discovery of the treason of two officers -- Colonel Vitaly Yurchenko and Major Sergey Motorin -- which caused turmoil in the KGB during Shvets's time in the "Washington Station".

In general, Shvets knew a lot about many matters that were extremely interesting for FBI Counterintelligence. In 1994 he wanted to settle in the United States with his wife and children and was impoverished. In his situation, he surely told FBI Counterintelligence at least everything that he later wrote in his book. 

Already in 1994, FBI Counterintelligence was using Shvets's manuscript to investigate indications that various Americans were working for Russian Intelligence:

Guided by the unpublished book of a former Soviet spy, the FBI is urgently looking into whether the KGB recruited a Carter administration official to steal secrets for Moscow, law-enforcement officials have revealed.

The central accusation is that the American official, after leaving government service, worked secretly for the KGB, the Soviet counterpart to the CIA. He is said to have seduced the daughter of a CIA employee and to have pressured the employee into supplying him with tidbits of classified information, which he then passed on to Moscow.

The FBI still does not know if these events happened, and some officials are skeptical. But the FBI has taken the accusations seriously enough to have assigned several agents to investigate them, racing against the deadline of publisher Simon & Schuster.

The publisher plans to put the story, along with other tales of Cold War espionage, on bookstore shelves next month [May 1994]. ...

FBI officials are privately worried that disclosures prompted by the book might compromise their investigation, which remains far from complete. Officially, however, the FBI had nothing to say about the investigation. ...

... in February 1993, Valentin Aksilenko, a former senior KGB official who in the early 1980s helped manage North American espionage operations for the Kremlin, went to the lobby of Moscow's Radisson Hotel, a gathering place for entrepreneurs eager to cut a deal with Moscow in the post-Soviet era.

His errand: a social meeting with an American businesswoman, Brenda Lipson, who had befriended Aksilenko on one of his Washington tours when the KGB official was working under the cover of a commercial attache to the Soviet Embassy.

Fluent in Russian, she established her own business, East-West Services Associates, in 1992 and began a series of business trips to the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. It was she who sought Aksilenko, Lipson said in an interview last week.

Talking there in the crowded lobby in a scene that might have come straight from the John Le Carré spy novel The Russia House, Aksilenko confided that he had been a spy and that he was "so glad to be out of intelligence."

As they were about to part, he dropped his bombshell: He asked her help in publishing a novel "written by a friend." The friend was Shvets.

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Shvets is a very intelligent, credible and admirable person who knew much that was very valuable to FBI Counterintelligence. That is the main concept that I am trying to communicate here. In 1994, FBI Counterintelligence believed practically everything that Shvets said about Russian Intelligence.

A couple decades later, FBI Counterintelligence likewise believed practically everything that Shvets alleged about Russian Intelligence recruiting of Donald Trump.

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To be continued

The NYT Special Section About the January 6 Event

On August 15, The New York Times published a special section about the riot that took place at the Capitol Building on January 6, 2021. I read that section yesterday, and I now have a much better understanding of that riot. 

Therefore, I no longer think that the Ashli Babbitt incident was staged to some extent. 

Maybe you can read that section in a library. Online versions are here and here, but you might have to jump through some hoops to view them.

Some Answers to My Questions about the Babbitt Incident

This post follows up My Questions About the Ashli Babbitt Incident.

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When and by whom was the furniture barricade constructed?

On April 14, 2021, the United States District Attorney's Office of the District of Columbia published an article titled Department of Justice Closes Investigation into the Death of Ashli Babbitt (called below "the investigation article"). That article includes the following passage (emphasis added):

... Ms. Babbitt was among a mob of people that entered the Capitol building and gained access to a hallway outside “Speaker’s Lobby,” which leads to the Chamber of the U.S. House of Representatives. At the time, the USCP  [US Capitol Police]was evacuating Members from the Chamber, which the mob was trying to enter from multiple doorways. USCP officers used furniture to barricade a set of glass doors separating the hallway and Speaker’s Lobby to try and stop the mob from entering the Speaker’s Lobby and the Chamber, and three officers positioned themselves between the doors and the mob.

I interpret this passage to mean that USCP officers constructed the barrier after a decision had been made to evacuate Members from the Chamber. In other words, the barrier had not been constructed during, say, the preceding night or morning. I would like my interpretation to be confirmed. 

I would like to know also whether similar barriers were constructed at other of the multiple doorways.

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Why was the SWAT team not stationed in front of the portal?

Why did the four officials leave the portal?

Why didn't the SWAT team stop the attack on the portal?

The investigation article continues (emphasis added):

Members of the mob attempted to break through the doors by striking them and breaking the glass with their hands, flagpoles, helmets, and other objects. Eventually, the three USCP officers positioned outside the doors were forced to evacuate.

As members of the mob continued to strike the glass doors, Ms. Babbitt attempted to climb through one of the doors where glass was broken out. An officer inside the Speaker’s Lobby fired one round from his service pistol, striking Ms. Babbitt in the left shoulder, causing her to fall back from the doorway and onto the floor. A USCP emergency response team, which had begun making its way into the hallway to try and subdue the mob, administered aid to Ms. Babbitt, who was transported to Washington Hospital Center, where she succumbed to her injuries.

What I called the SWAT team was actually called a USCP emergency response team.

I interpret this passage to mean that a decision was made that the USCP officers positioned at the door were not able to stop the attack on the doors and so they were told to evacuate because a USCP emergency response team was coming to subdue the mob.

While that team was advancing, Babbitt was shot, and so the team stopped to deal with her.

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Why didn't the gunman come out into the empty corridor ?

This question remains unanswered. I think the (USCP?) officer should have come out into the corridor and confronted the protesters face-to-face. Furthermore, he should have fired a warning shot.

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Why did so little blood come out of Babbitt's neck wound?

An anonymous commenter wrote under a previous post:

... [Babbitt was a] very small woman, wearing a rather thick backpack that covered her back, it is possible the shot was not through-and-through (the bullet lodged against a bone) or that the bullet exited into her backpack. The blood we saw streamed from her front. She had on a winter jacket, so that could have kept down any spatter from the front. ...

That explanation is plausible. Perhaps the bullet and most of the blood ended up in the backpack.

I remain puzzled by the assertion that the bullet entered Babbitt's left shoulder, because I do not see a wound there. Look for yourself on the Wooz News video beginning at 19:36.

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What is the legal status of Rufio and Yellow?

Why was Babbitt carried downstairs?

Why was Babbitt wearing a back-brace?

These questions remain unanswered.

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When was Babbitt obviously dead?

I don't make a big deal out of this question. The guy who claims he saw an effort to resuscitate Babbitt an hour after the shooting might simply be mistaken. Perhaps the person he saw was some other person who had been injured.

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I now am largely satisfied that the Ashli Babbitt incident was not staged.

However, I remain very skeptical about our government leaders, especially in the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Quite a lot of such leaders believed and still believe that Donald Trump is a secret agent of Russian Intelligence. Therefore, those leaders have felt morally justified to use dirty tricks to ruin Trump and to ruin also his associates and supporters.

Such a dirty-tricks operation was Robert Mueller's Special Counsel investigation, which was led and staffed largely by Trump-hating FBI officials. That particular operation's real purpose was to lure President Trump into an obstruction-of-justice situation that would enable Congress to impeach and remove Trump from his elected position.

Mueller's operation failed, but malicious and devious efforts efforts to ruin Trump and his supporters have continued to the very end of his Presidency and to the present day. In this situation, many citizens think it's quite plausible that FBI officials collaborated with other Trump-hating government officials to stage the Babbitt incident.

My Questions About the Ashli Babbitt Incident

When and by whom was the furniture barricade constructed?

The furniture barricade behind the portal

What was the reason to expect an attempt to break through this portal?

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Why was the SWAT team not stationed in front of the portal?

Since an attempt to break through that portal was expected, why was the SWAT team not stationed in front of the portal? Why was the SWAT team downstairs? Who decided where the SWAT team would be? What caused the SWAT team to come up the stairs to the portal?

How many such SWAT teams were in the Capitol?

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Why did the four officials leave the portal?

Four officials were standing in front of the portal.

The Wooz News video calls the four officials Vetter, Cop 2, Fredo and S.A.M. They stood in front of the portal for a while, but them moved to the right wall. 

The four officials move from the portal to the right wall 

The four officials stand by the corner of the portal and right wall

The four officials move away from the wall corner

Then Vetter, Cop 2 and Fredo walked down the stairs.

Vetter, Cop 2 and Fredo walk downstairs

Who decided where the four officials would be and when and where they would move? What caused their movements away from the portal?

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Why didn't the SWAT team stop the attack on the portal?

The SWAT guys stay on the stairs

The SWAT team came up the stairs, and the three officials went down the stairs. However, the SWAT team stayed on the stairs and did not advance to the portal, which was being attacked by unarmed civilians. Why didn't the SWAT team seize control of the situation and stop the attack?

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Why didn't the gunman come out into the empty corridor ?

The gunman shoots across empty corridor at Babbitt

Why didn't the gunman walk out into the empty corridor and confront the unarmed civilians face-to-face? Why did the gunman feel compelled to remain hidden in the door and to shoot across the empty corridor at unarmed Babbitt?

What did the gunman expect Babbitt to do after she jumped from the window into the empty corridor? Did the gunman consider that Babbitt intended merely to clear away some of the furniture barricade and unlock the doors from the corridor side?

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Why did so little blood come out of Babbitt's neck wound?

No blood visible on the wall where Babbitt had been shot

Was there any blood splatter on the wall next to the place where Babbitt was shot through her neck? If not, then what is the explanation? If there was blood splatter on the wall, then what does that indicate about the bullet's trajectory from the gun through Babbitt's body? What was the bullet's path through Babbitt's body? Was the bullet found, and if so, then where?

Why was there so little blood on the floor where she lay?

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What is the legal status of Rufio and Yellow?

Yellow hands helmet to Rufio

Rufio uses helmet to break windows

The Wooz News video points out that one man ("Yellow") gave a helmet to another man ("Rufio"), who used the helmet to break through the windows. These two men are seen without masks.

Yellow

Rufio agitating the mob

Rufio using the helmet to break the windows

Rufio also helped Babbitt climb up into the window.

Who are "Yellow" and "Rufio"? What steps have been taken to prosecute them? If no such steps have been taken, then why not?

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Why was Babbitt carried downstairs?

Babbitt being carried downstairs

Why was Babbitt carried downstairs with her wounded neck angled downwards? Why was she not moved downstairs on an elevator? If she was obviously dead, then why was her body not left on the lobby floor so that the crime scene could be studied properly?

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Why was Babbitt wearing a back-brace?

Back-brace around Babbitt's abdomen

Stunt actor wearing a Blood-Squib Rig FX 

Babbitt was wearing a back-brace that looks just like the back-brace on on a Blood-Squib Rig FX, which is used to eject blood from actors in movie stunts? Why was Babbitt wearing a back-brace?

Why was her body not covered with a sheet when the above photograph was taken?

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When was Babbitt obviously dead?

If Babbitt was obviously dead a few moments after the shooting, then why were resuscitation efforts displayed to the public more than an hour after the shooting? Exactly when was the determination made that she was obviously dead?

I've changed my mind about the Ashli Babbitt incident

During the past two weeks, I have published many posts arguing that Ashli Babbitt was not shot and killed in the Capitol building on January 6. Today I  watched three videos -- this and this and this -- that changed my opinion. I had not watched them until today. I have deleted my previous posts on the subject.










I now understand that the people in the lobby were not a select group of actors. 

I understand much better that people near the portal were breaking through the central doors and windows violently when Babbitt climbed up into the right window. 

Now I think that Babbitt indeed was shot and indeed did die. 

Anyone who has been convinced by the Wooz News video but has not watched the above three videos should watch them. Some such people might change their minds, as I have done.

---

Some aspects of the incident continue to puzzle me -- for example:

* The absence of blood splatter on the right wall and the small amount of blood on Babbitt immediately after the shooting.

* The decision by the four officials to move from the front of the portal to the right wall and then down the stairs.

* The ineffective actions of the SWAT guys.

However, I expect that such puzzling aspects eventually will be explained satisfactorily.

Yuri Shvets and FBI Counterintelligence -- Part 1

For sure, FBI Counterintelligence believes former KGB Major Yuri Shvets's allegations that the KGB arranged Donald Trump's trip to the Soviet Union in 1987. Shvets's reports to the FBI are a big reason why the FBI thinks that Russian Intelligence controlled Trump.

=======

Yuri Shvets's autobiography Washington Station, published in 1994, begins with these paragraphs:

Soon after I resigned from the KGB in September 1990, I started to work on a book based on my experiences as a spy. Since my former bosses at the KGB were watching me closely, I decided to write a novel to avoid prosecution for revealing state secrets. My novel, however, consisted largely of true facts about recent KGB efforts to recruit U.S. citizens.

When the book was finished, I started to look for potential publishers. I could not publish my novel in Russia; even though the Soviet Union had collapsed, the KGB remained as powerful as before. So in February 1993, I walked into the Moscow office of the Washington Post and gave the Post an interview. This interview helped me to find my literary agent in America, and in April 1993 I came to the United States to meet with publishers and negotiate a possible book contract.

Since my publisher was going to be based in the United States, I no longer had to disguise my book as a novel. And in fact, all the U.S. publishers I met with were interested in knowing about my actual KGB experiences in Washington and Moscow.

I returned to Moscow to write my book. My former bosses at the Russian intelligence service were becoming increasingly alarmed even though they believed I was still writing a novel. My application for a new foreign passport was denied, and I was told that I was under an eight-year ban against travel abroad.

In September 1993 I crossed the Russian border illegally and came with a draft version of my new book as an immigrant to the United States.

A few pages later, Shvets begins to tell about his spying experience:

One evening in late April 1985, I arrived in Washington, D.C., with my wife and two sons as a correspondent of the Soviet news agency Tass. I was thirty-three, could speak English, French, and Spanish, and was somewhat ambitious, even though I had already realized that in my country ambition was a recipe for misery.

At that time very few people know that, in fact, I was a KGB officer attached to the First Chief Directorate (external intelligence). My position as a journalist was a convenient cover.

About five years and four months later, on September 12, 199, Shvets resigned from the KGB.

Yuri Shvets

The cover of Shvets's 1994 book

Shvets was born in 1952. In 1980, he graduated from Patrice Lumumba People's Friendship University, in Moscow, which was attended by many foreigners. He majored in international law.

From 1980 to 1982 he attended the Soviet Union's Intelligence Academy, and from 1982 to 1985 he worked in the KGB First Chief Directorate's North American Department.

From April 1985 to April 1987, he worked as an intelligence-collector (under a journalist cover) at the KGB's "Washington Station". During those two years, his wife and two sons lived with him in Alexandria, Virginia.

Then he was rotated routinely back to the KGB's North American Department in Moscow. That is where he resigned in September 1990.

After that resignation, he apparently worked as a journalist in the Soviet Union. His autobiography Washington Station does not not say anything about his post-KGB journalist work.

The book Washington Station does not say how he left the Soviet Union illegally in September 1993. I assume that he left with his wife and sons.

(I vaguely remember meeting Shvets for a few minutes about twenty years ago, when he gave me a little help on a Russian-translation job that I was doing for the US Justice Department. In our conversation, he mentioned that one of his sons played on a local high school's football team.)

In his book, Shvets does not say whether he ever collaborated with a US Intelligence service during or after his KGB years. In particular, he does not say whether the US Government helped him and his family to escape from the Soviet Union in September 1993. However, the book gave me the impression that that he managed to escape before he began any such collaboration.

He applied for political asylum in the USA in April 1994, and his initial application was denied. He appealed and then was granted political asylum in May 1994. From that sequence of events, I suppose he began to provide information to the FBI during April or May 1994.

=======

The book Washington Station does not say anything about Donald Trump or anything related to Shvet's recent allegations against Trump. Shvets does not say anything about any KGB activities in New York.

=======

In about the second half of 1985, Shvets recruited a married couple as informants. The husband was John Helmer, to whom Shvets gives the pseudonym Martin Snow in the book and to whom the KGB gave the code name Socrates. The wife was Claudia Wright, to whom Shvets gave the pseudonym Phillis Barber in the book and to whom the KGB gave the code name Sputnitsa (a Russian word meaning "female companion").

Wright came to the KGB's attention because she wrote many articles that were "virulently anti-American". Shvets arranged to meet Wright, who then introduced him to her husband Helmer. Both Wright and Helmer were Australian leftist journalists based in the USA. Shvets introduced himself to Wright and Helmer as a Soviet journalist, which Shvets indeed was.

Of the two, Shvets's more important informant was Helmer. (Wright was becoming incapacitated because of a neurological disorder.) The Wikipedia article about Helmer includes the following passage:

Born and raised in Australia, Helmer graduated in political science from Harvard University in the United States, and worked in the White House as an aide of President Jimmy Carter.

He published several books on military and political topics, including essays on the American presidency and on urban policy in the US and essays on Greek, Mediterranean and Middle Eastern politics and foreign policy. Since 1989 he has published almost exclusively on Russian topics.

He was married to Australian journalist and foreign correspondent Claudia Wright who died in 2005.

He was allegedly recruited by the KGB in the 1980s (according to the claims of Yuri Shvets) and left to live in Russia permanently. However, Victor Cherkashin claims that Helmer was unaware that Shvets was a KGB officer, and that Cherkashin himself called Shvets off. Later, after Shvets' concerns attracted controversy, Cherkashin confirmed that Helmer was not an agent.

Helmer has been based in Moscow since 1989 and, from there, has worked for The Australian Financial Review, The Australian and other newspapers.

Although Helmer allegedly had occupied some unspecified position in President Jimmy Carter's White House staff, Carter had left the White House in January 1981 -- more than four years before Helmer met Shvets.

Helmer seems to be merely a free-lance journalist during his collaboration with Shvets. While Shvets was stationed in Washington, his relationship with Helmer essentially was a Soviet journalist and an Australian journalist sharing news tips with each other. The only remarkable aspect of this relationship was that Shvets was a Soviet spy -- not merely a journalist -- and therefore was very secretive about meeting with and obtaining information from Helmer and Wright.

The most important information that Helmer provided to Shvets was some early indications about the US attack on Libya in April 1986 and about the the Iran-Contra deal, before it became public in November 1986.

=======

After Shvets rotated routinely from Washington to Moscow in April 1987, the KGB brought Helmer and Wright to Moscow, where (according to Shvets) Helmer was formally recruited to become a witting agent. Although Cherkashin denies that Helmer did become an agent, I believe Shvets's account.

At that time, Wright was very incapacitated by her neurological disorder, and both Wright and Helmer were impoverished free-lance journalists. Helmer agreed to become a Soviet agent largely for monetary motives. Helmer was hoping that Michael Dukakis would win the 1988 Presidential election and then would appoint Helmer again to a position on the White House staff. In the meantime, though, Helmer was just a desperately impoverished free-lance journalist with a very sick wife.

The last part of Shvets's book is largely about his futile efforts to convince his KGB superiors that Helmer eventually might turn out to be a valuable agent. Shvets's frustration in this effort was a major cause of his decision to quit the KGB in September 1990. In general, Shvets felt that his intelligence-collection for the KGB might provide valuable information to Mikhail Gorbachev, whom Shvets admired and supported.

However, Shvets's hopes about Helmer's potential intelligence value seem, in retrospect, to be futile. The skepticism of Shvets's superiors about Helmer's reliability and potential value seems to be well justified.

Having read Shvets's book, he impressed me as a dedicated, intelligent, energetic and well-meaning KGB official, who sincerely wanted to help Gorbachev to reform the Soviet Union. However, Helmer was a useless agent, and so the KGB leadership's evaluation of Helmer was wiser than Shvet's own evaluation of Helmer.

=======

I speculate that Shvets managed to bring his family into the USA on his own resources in early 1994. At that time, he intended to make a career as a free-lance writer. However, the rejection in his initial request for political asylum in April 1994 compelled him to reveal himself to the FBI in April 1994. Following that revelation, he was granted political asylum in May 1994, but agreed to provide all his knowledge to the FBI Counterintelligence Division.

I perceive that in recent years Shvets has speculated recklessly about Donald Trump being targeted and controlled by Russian Intelligence. In this regard, I hope that Shvets himself will refute -- or at least refrain from -- such reckless allegations about Trump, a legitimately elected US President.

======

Shvets interviewed on BookTV about Washington Station in 1995

Shvets and Craig Unger on BookTV about the book American Kompromat

======

Continued in Part 2

Michael Gaeta and FBI Counterintelligence -- Part 12

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11

=======

In the third week of April 2016, an unidentified FBI offical requested the computer logs of the DNC (Democratic National Committee). Then on April 29 he initiated a conference call in which he informed a DNC computer expert and lawyer Michael Sussman that the FBI suspected that the DNC system was being hacked by Russian Intelligence. In the days following that conference call, Sussman arranged for the CrowdStrike company to examine the DNC computers. In that examination, CrowdStrike found computer viruses that allegedly had been created by Russian Intelligence. Those viruses were removed from the DNC computer, which then was rebooted on June 12, 2016.

The fact that the DNC computer was rebooted -- after the computer viruses had been removed -- on June 12 was not public knowledge, but it seemed to be known by some people in Eastern Europe. A person who called himself "Guccifer 2.0" and claimed to be a Romanian hacker who had planted the computer viruses on the DNC computer stated in an interview on June 21 that the computer had rebooted on June 12. According to US Intelligence, however, Guccifer 2.0 was really Russian Intelligence. If so, then Russian Intelligence knew that the DNC computer had been rebooted on June 12.

In either case -- either Guccifer 2.0 or Russian Intelligence -- activities on the DNC computer were known abroad because of a computer virus on the DNC computer. After that virus had been removed, however, the fact that the DNC computer was rebooted on June 12 nevertheless was known by someone in Eastern Europe or Russia.

=======

In this series of blog articles, I have argued (begin reading about this in my Part 9) that the computer virus -- although perhaps indeed created by Russian Intelligence -- really was planted on the DNC computer by an American who enjoyed some administrative access to the computer. In particular, I have speculated that the culprit was an employee of the NGP VAN company, which managed some data bases on the computer. I have speculated further that the culprit's motive was to collect information that the DNC was helping Hillary Clinton unfairly against Bernie Sanders in the primary election races that were underway until the party convention in mid-August 2016.

Such a culprit would know as part of his normal work that the DNC computer was rebooted on June 12. That knowledge did not come from any computer virus. Rather, it came from his routine personal involvement in the administration of the DNC computer system.

=======

If Russian Intelligence indeed had nothing at to do with the hacking of the DNC computer -- beyond the fact that Russian Intelligence had created that particular virus several years previously -- then what was the basis of the FBI's suspicion that Russian Intelligence was hacking the DNC computer in April 2016?

For example, there was no intercepted communications from or to Russian Intelligence indicating such hacking. There was no secret agent within Russian Intelligence reporting secretly to US Intelligence that Russian Intelligence was hacking the DNC computer. 

In the third week of April 2016, an unidentified FBI official requested the DNC computer logs. Subsequently, on April 29, 2016, that same unidentified official initiated a conference call in which he informed a DNC computer expert and Michael Sussman that the FBI suspected that the DNC system was being hacked by Russian Intelligence. Sussman, an expert cybercrime lawyer in a law firm that served the DNC, subsequently arranged for the CrowdStrike company to study the DNC computer. In that study, CrowdStrike found the computer virus, which allegedly had been developed by Russian Intelligence.

Based on that finding, the FBI subsequently launched a years-long hysteria that Russian Intelligence was meddling -- with the collaboration of Donald Trump's campaign staff -- in the USA's 2016 election. The FBI's hysteria has poisoned US politics -- and US-Russia relatons -- from 2016 to the present day.

So, what was the basis of the the FBI's suspision? Who was the FBI official who contacted and warned the DNC in April 2016?

=======

A couple months later, on July 5, Michael Gaeta, an FBI official based at the US Embassy in Rome, flew to London in order to get one short report from an Englisman named Christopher Steele. This report is so-called "Report 80" of Steele's so-called "Dossier". Although Gaeta supposedly got Report 80 on July 5, the report was not delivered to FBI Headquarters in Washington DC until September 19, 2016. In the meantime, Report 80 was stored in the office of the Chief Division Counsel in the FBI's New York Field Office.

That is the yarn that the FBI has told the public through the report published by FBI Inspector General Michael Horowitz in December 2019. I myself think that several FBI officials deceived Horowitz's team about the delivery of Steele's report to FBI Headquarters. I hope that the truth eventually be told to the public, despite the FBI's persistent stone-walling.

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That first report in Steele's Dossier is numbered 80, because it was the 80th report that Steele had delivered to the company Fusion GPS -- one of Steele's several clients. Steele had begun selling his reports to Fusion GPS in 2015 or in some earlier year. Specifically, Steele had sold 79 reports to Fusion GPS before July 2016, when he gave #80 to Gaeta in London.

It's likely that Steele had given some -- or many or even all -- of those 79 reports also to Gaeta well before July 2016. Furthermore, it is likely that Gaeta had sent any such reports promptly and directly to the Counterintelligence Division of FBI Headquarters.

If so, then it's likely that the FBI suspicion in April 2016 -- that Russian Intelligence was hacking the DNC computer -- was based on a still unknown Steele report that the FBI Counterintelligence Division had received via Gaeta from Steele in April 2016.

=======

This is the conclusion of this series of articles.

Michael Gaeta and FBI Counterintelligence -- Part 11

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10

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On June 21, 2016, the character Guccifer 2.0 arranged to be interviewed, by means of e-mail, by a journalist named Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai (aka "Motherboard"). In that interview, Guccifer 2.0 provided a plausible explanation of how he had hacked the Democratic National Committee (DNC) computer system, beginning in the summer of 2015 and ending on June 12, 2016, when the computer system had been rebooted.

Although Guccifer 2.0 purported to be a Romanian, I speculate (see my Part 10) that he actually was an American employee of the NGP VAN company, which maintained some databases on the DNC computer system. In his NGP VAN position, he enjoyed some administrative access on the DNC computer system.

It was not actually in the summer of 2015 that this NGP VAN employee "hacked" that system. Rather, it was sometime during the period from April 15 to May 2, 2016 (dates explained in my Part 10) that he used his administrative access to place onto the DNC system a computer virus. He did so in order to collect files that would reveal the DNC's partisan support of Hillary Clinton in her primary-election race against Bernie Sanders. The computer virus had been developed by Russian Intelligence, but he had obtained it from an inadequately protected CIA collection of foreign computer viruses.

CrowdStrike found the computer viruses on the DNC computer system and removed them by June 12, 2016. After the viruses had been removed, CrowdStrike rebooted the system. If so, then how did Guccifer 2.0 (or Russian Intelligence) know that the system was rebooted on that date?

======

Here is the interview's relevant passage, where the reboot date is specified:

Motherboard:
Tell me about the DNC hack. How did you get in?

Guccifer 2.0:
I hacked that server through the NGP VAN soft [software], if u understand what I’m talking about.

Motherboard:
So that was your entry point, what happened next?

Guccifer 2.0:
I used 0-day exploit of NGP VAN soft [software] then I installed shell-code into the DNC server. it allowed me to intrude into DNC network. They have Windows-based domain architecture. then I installed my Trojans on several PCs. I had to go from one PC to another every week so Crowdstrike couldn’t catch me for a long time. I know that they have cool intrusion detection system. But my heuristic algorithms are better.

Motherboard:
When did you first hack them?

Guccifer 2.0:
Last summer [2015].

Motherboard:
And when did you get kicked out?

Guccifer 2.0:
June 12 [], when they rebooted their system.

The NGP VAN employee thus revealed a secret hacking route on the DNC computer system. Perhaps he himself had discovered the route during his own work on the DNC system. Perhaps he learned about it from CrowdStrike's findings. A real hacker -- in particular, a Romanian hacker or a Russian Intelligence hacker -- would not reveal such a hacking route so gratuitously.

The NGP VAN employee revealed this hacking route in order to deflect any further investigation that might eventually discover himself as the actual culprit who placed the virus on the computer system.

======

Russian Intelligence never had anything to do with hacking the DNC computer system. Russian Intelligence had developed the computer virus that CrowdStrike found on that system. However, that computer virus was in the possession of the CIA, and it eventually came into the possession of a NGP VAN employee, who put it on that system for his own political reasons.

The non-involvement of Russian Intelligence in the placement of the virus on the DNC computer system has many ramifications in the following events. Since the CIA and FBI believed mistakenly that Russian Intelligence was involved, those two organizations foolishly whipped up a stupid hysteria about Russian meddling the the USA's 2016 election and an even stupider hysteria that Trump and some of his supporters were collaborating with Russian Intelligence.

======

Since Russian Intelligence had nothing to do with the placement of the virus on the DNC computer system, then the FBI did not have any true information that Russian Intelligence was hacking the DNC computer system. Keep in mind that in the third week of April 2016, an unidentified FBI official requested the DNC's computer logs and that on April 29, this same FBI official initiated a conference call in which he informed a DNC computer expert and Michael Sussman that the FBI suspected that the DNC system was being hacked by Russian Intelligence.

What was the basis of that FBI suspicion? The only basis was the false reporting that FBI Counterintelligence was receiving from Christopher Steele.

=======

Concluded in Part 12

Michael Gaeta and FBI Counterintelligence -- Part 10

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9

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In Part 9, I speculated that computer viruses were placed onto the DNC's computer server not by Russian Intelligence, but rather by American computer experts who supported Bernie Sanders. Part 9 began as follows:

In 2015 and 2016, a company called NGP VAN provided the software that controlled the voter database of the Democrat National Committee (DNC). On the morning of December 16, 2015, NGP VAN launched a modification of that software.

On that same morning, Josh Uretsky, a member of Sanders' campaign staff, exploited a bug in the modification and thus accessed some database files that belonged to Hillary Clinton's campaign staff. Uretsky instructed three fellow members of Sanders' campaign staff how to exploit the bug. Then those four Sanders staff members accessed and downloaded data from Clinton's database files for about 45 minutes. Within about four hours of the modification's launch, the improper exploitation of the bug was discovered and stopped.

That incident was followed by a sequence of actions:

* The DNC restricted the Sanders campaign staff's use of the DNC server on December 17, 2015.

* The Sanders campaign staff filed a lawsuit against the DNC on December 18, 2015.

* The Sanders campaign staff served the lawsuit to the DNC on March 24, 2016.

* The DNC was allowed to initiate legal discovery processes against the Sanders campaign staff.

* The DNC terminated its lawsuit on April 29, 2016.

In regard to that sequence, I speculated:

For some Sanders-supporters, the fact that the DNC now was examining and searching the Sanders campaign staff's files aggravated resentments that the DNC was treating Sanders unfairly. In contrast, Clinton's campaign staff was not being examined and searched.

During the discovery process, the political circumstances were that from March 22 through April 9, 2016, the DNC conducted eight primary elections, and Sanders won seven of the eight elections. Specifically, Sanders won in Idaho, Utah, Alaska, Hawaii, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming -- and lost only in Arizona. Sanders' supporters felt that Sanders' campaign might be on the verge of passing Clinton decisively in the primary election race.

Perhaps a Sanders-supporter with the necessary computer skills decided that the time was ripe to discover information inside the Clinton campaign staff.

If such a Sanders-supporter indeed did decide to discover such information, then a key action occurred on March 19, 2016, when there was a successful phishing of the e-mail account of John Podesta, the chairman of Hillary Clinton's campaign staff. That phishing occurred five days before the Sanders campaign staff served the lawsuit to the DNC on March 24 -- the last legal day to serve the lawsuit.

=======

Let's imagine the perspective of the hypothetical Sanders-supporter computer expert on March 16, 2016. On the previous day, March 15, Clinton had defeated Sanders in five primary elections -- in Florida, Illinois, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio. However, in the following days (through April 9) Sanders was favored to win (and did win) primary elections in seven states -- Idaho, Utah, Alaska, Hawaii, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming. Sanders still had a real chance to defeat Clinton in the primary race.

In such circumstances, however, the Sanders campaign staff had to serve its lawsuit on the DNC no later than March 24. Beginning on that day, the DNC would be able to initiate a legal discovery procedure against the Sanders campaign staff. If the DNC did discover any information discrediting or incriminating the Sanders campaign staff, then the DNC surely would share such information immediately with the Clinton campaign staff. In such circumstances, the Sanders-supporter computer expert felt morally justified in initiating his own secret "discovery procedure" against the DNC and against the Clinton campaign staff. One of the first actions in this secret "discovery procedure" was the phishing of Podesta on March 19.

Another eventual action in this secret "discovery procedure" was to place computer viruses onto the DNC server in order to collect information about the DNC. I speculate that the Sanders-supporter computer expert did so between April 15 and May 2 2016. (I will explain those two dates below.)

I speculate further that he used computer viruses that apparently had been developed by Russian Intelligence. As I told in my Part 9, the CIA had collected a so-called "arsenal" of foreign computer viruses but had lost its exclusive control of this arsenal. Therefore computer viruses developed by Russian Intelligence were available to the Sanders-supporter computer expert, who put them onto the DNC computer in late March 2016 during his own secret "discovery procedure".

Later, those computer viruses were found by CrowdStrike, and that finding eventually enabled the FBI to argue falsely that Russian Intelligence was meddling in the US elections in 2016.

======

CrowdStrike investigated the DNC computer system twice.

1) CrowdStrike investigated that system in regard to the Uretsky affair. This investigation took place sometime between December 16, 2015 and April 29, 2016.

2) CrowdStrike investigated that system in regard to the FBI's suspicion that Russian Intelligence had infiltrated the system. This investigation too place between May 2 and June 14, 2016.

The second CrowdStrike investigation began as follows.

On the late afternoon of Friday, April 29, 2016 -- the very same day when the Sanders campaign staff terminated its lawsuit that had been caused by a Sanders supporter's hack of the DNC's computers -- an unidentified FBI official conducted a conference call with two people:

1) an unidentified DNC staff member who managed the DNC computer system

2) Michael Sussman, a computer-security expert employed by the Perkins Coie law firm, which provided legal services to the DNC.

The FBI official discussed with them the FBI's suspicion that Russian Intelligence was hacking into the DNC computer system.

During the following weekend, April 30-May 1, Sussman called Shawn Henry, a CrowdStrike manager. Sussman arranged with Henry that CrowdStrike would study the alleged Russian Intelligence hack of DNC computers. Thus, the second investigation began on May 2.

I speculate that the first investigation ended by April 15. I say so because that FBI official contacted the DNC computer manager in about the third week of April 2016 (i.e. April 17-23) to request the DNC's computer server logs. I speculate that the FBI's request was prompted at least partially by the conclusion of CrowdStrike's first investigation.

Since CrowdStrike apparently did not find any allegedly Russian-Intelligence computer viruses on the DNC system during the first investigation, the computer viruses were placed on the DNC system during the interval between April 15 and May 2, 2016.

(Keep in mind that I can only guess that the first CrowdStrike investigation ended on April 15, 2016. If the actual date ever is revealed, then I will be able to correct the interval.)

========

CrowdStrike's second investigation ended by June 14, 2016, since on that day The Washington Post published an article about that investigation's findings. Essentially, the second investigation found computer viruses that were attributed to Russian Intelligence.

However, I am suggesting in my article here that those viruses actually were placed on the DNC computer system by a Sanders-supporter computer expert who was conducting his own "discovery procedure" against Hillary Clinton's campaign. Furthermore, I am suggesting that that computer expert did so sometime between April 15 and May 2, 2016.

The Washington Post article that was published on June 14 would have informed the Sanders-supporter computer expert that CrowdStrike had found the computer viruses that he had placed onto the DNC system. However, if that computer expert was an "insider" -- if he worked, for example, at DNC or in the Sanders campaign or at NGP VAN -- then he might have been informed a couple days before June 14. (As you will see below, something significant happened on June 12.)

In any case, the computer expert had to deal with the possibility that further investigation might find the actual truth -- that the computer viruses had been placed on the DNC not by Russian Intelligence, but rather by the Sanders-supporter computer expert.

Let's suppose that the computer expert worked at the DNC or at NGP VAN and that his normal access to the DNC system enabled him to simply infiltrate the viruses directly onto the DNC system. In other words, the viruses were not "hacked" onto DNC by phishing or some other such trick.

Let's suppose further that CrowdStrike did find the computer viruses on the DNC system but could not figure out for sure how the viruses infiltrated onto the system. Until CrowdStrike did figure out that mystery, the Sanders-supporter computer expert had to worry that CrowdStrike eventually might figure out the actual culprit and infiltration method.

Therefore, the Sanders-supporter computer expert had to provide to CrowdStrike a plausible explanation of how the computer viruses were infiltrated onto the DNC by means of a hacking trick. Because of his computer expertise and because of his actual experience in working with the DNC computer system, he indeed was able to provide such plausible explanation. To commuicate that plausible explanation to CrowdStrike, the Sanders-supporter computer expert created the fictional character Guccifer 2.0.

=======

The actual person who pretended to be Guccifer 2.0 pretended to be a Romanian hacker. The actual person spoke native English but apparently spoke also Romanian, but not with native skill. (Or he at least was helped by some such Romanian speaker.) Pretending to speak Russian would have made more sense in this situation, but the actual person apparently did not speak Russian adequately.

On June 21, 2016, the character Guccifer 2.0 (i.e. the Sanders-supporter computer expert) arranged to be interviewed, by means of e-mail, by a journalist named Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai. In that interview, Guccifer provided a plausible explanation of how the DNC computer system was hacked.

Why else would this supposed hacker reveal his hacking method to a journalist?

The below interview transcript was published by Yaacov Apelbaum in his superb blog article Who Done It?. There, the journalist is called "Motherboard". I have added the emphasis to the transcript.

========

[Motherboard:] So, first of all, what can you tell me about yourself? Who are you?

[Guccifer 2.0:] i’m a hacker, manager, philosopher, women lover. I also like Gucci! I bring the light to people. I’m a freedom fighter! So u can choose what u like!

[Motherboard:] And where are you from?

[Guccifer 2.0:] From Romania.

[Motherboard:] Do you work with Russia or the Russian government?

[Guccifer 2.0:] No because I don’t like Russians and their foreign policy. I hate being attributed to Russia.

[Motherboard:] Why?

[Guccifer 2.0:] I’ve already told! Also I made a big deal, why you glorify them?

[Motherboard:] Tell me about the DNC hack. How did you get in?

[Guccifer 2.0:] I hacked that server through the NGP VAN soft, if u understand what I’m talking about.

[Motherboard:] So that was your entry point, what happened next?

[Guccifer 2.0:] I used 0-day exploit of NGP VAN soft then I installed shell-code into the DNC server. it allowed me to intrude into DNC network. They have Windows-based domain architecture. then I installed my Trojans on several PCs. I had to go from one PC to another every week so Crowdstrike couldn’t catch me for a long time. I know that they have cool intrusion detection system. But my heuristic algorithms are better.

[Motherboard:] When did you first hack them?

[Guccifer 2.0:] Last summer.

[Motherboard:] And when did you get kicked out?

[Guccifer 2.0:] June 12, when they rebooted their system.

[Motherboard:] And why did you hack the DNC in the first place?

[Guccifer 2.0:] DNC isn’t my first deal.

[Motherboard:] Who else have you hacked?

[Guccifer 2.0:] Follow my blog and u’ll know! I can’t tell u now about all my deals. My safety depends on it.

[Motherboard:] OK, I understand. But why did u target DNC? why are you interested in them?

[Guccifer 2.0:] Lazar began this deal and I follow him! I think we must fight for freedom of minds, fight for the world without Illuminati

[Motherboard:] Lazar?

[Guccifer 2.0:] Marcel Lazăr [The original Gufficer]

[Motherboard:] Ah yeah of course. Did you know him personally?

[Guccifer 2.0:] I can’t answer cause I care for Marcel.

[Motherboard:] Ai vrea să vorbească în română pentru un pic? [You want to talk for a bit in Romanian?]

[Guccifer 2.0:] Vorbiți limbă română? [Speak Romanian?]

[Motherboard:] Putin. Poți să-mi spui despre hack în română? cum ai făcut-o? [A little. Can you tell me about hack in Romanian? How did you do it?]

[Motherboard:] Or u just use Google translate?

[Motherboard:] Poți să răspunzi la întrebarea mea? [Can you answer my question?]

Guccifer 2.0: V-am spus deja. încercați să-mi verifica? [I have already said. try to check?]

Guccifer 2.0: Da [Yes]

Guccifer 2.0: Nu vreau să-mi pierd timpul [I do not want to waste my time]

[Motherboard:] De ce ai pus metadate rusă în primul lot de documente? [Why did you put Russian metadata in the first batch of documents?]

Guccifer 2.0: Este filigranul meu [It is my watermark]

[Motherboard:] De ce nu l-ai pus pe documentele de azi? [Why didn’t you put it in the documents today?]

Guccifer 2.0: Puteți găsi de asemenea alte filigrane în limbă spaniolă. Caută mai bine. [You can also find other watermarks in Spanish. Look better]

[Motherboard:] Sunt confuz de ceea ce spui, filigran, pentru că este mereu în schimbare. Pot să vă rog să-mi explicați în propria ta limba maternă? Așa că este mult mai clar. [I’m confused by what you say, why is watermark changing? Can you please explain to me in your own language? So it is more clear.]

[Guccifer 2.0:] Oare nu știți ce este filigran? [You do not know what watermark?]

[Motherboard:] Eu fac. Dar eu nu înțeleg de ce ai folosit filigrane rusești în unele Docs și nu în altele [I do. But I do not understand why you use watermarks in Russian in some documents and not in others?]

[Guccifer 2.0:] îți voi arăta [I will show you]

[Motherboard:] Please do.

[Motherboard:] De ce faci toate astea? [Why are you doing this?]

[Guccifer 2.0:] Asta e din partea următoare [That’s the next]

[Motherboard:] What?

[Guccifer 2.0:] Am spus deja, e un filigran, un semn special [I have already said, it’s a watermark, a special sign]

[Motherboard:] Do you like Trump?

[Guccifer 2.0:] I don’t care at all

[Motherboard:] кто-то говорит мне, что ты румынская полна ошибок [Someone tells me that your Romanian is full of mistakes.]

[Guccifer 2.0:] What’s this? Is it russian?

[Motherboard:] You don’t understand it?

[Guccifer 2.0:] R u kidding? Just a moment I’ll look in google translate what u meant. “Someone tells me that you are full of mistakes Romanian.”

[Motherboard:] Hai sa-ti pun cateva intrebari, ca sa vad ca esti cu adevarat roman [Let me ask you a few questions to see that you are truly native.]

[Guccifer 2.0:] Man, I’m not a pupil at school.

[Motherboard:] What do you mean?

[Guccifer 2.0:] If u have serious questions u can ask. Don’t waste my time.

[Guccifer 2.0:] Am mult de făcut [I have much to do]

[Motherboard:] Si cat umblai prin reteaua astora de la DNC, mai hackuise si altcineva in afara de tine [When you got into the DNC network was someone else there besides you?]

[No answer]

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Continued in Part 11