A Thread for the Mueller Investigation Results and Outcomes (Part 1)

The BBQ Pit
5522

I finally had a chance to read the whole indictment. It’s pretty fascinating. There are several places where it describes open-source research done by the conspirators. It sounds like Mueller has access to their internet search history (see below for examples). Now, it could be that the conspirators logged in to the machine running the “AMS panel” or one of the other command and control boxes they ran in the US and did the searches from there. Then the FBI seized those machines and got the search history off them. Or it could be that the bad guys were using Google and the FBI got the info with a subpoena to Google. But, it might be the case that the bad guys were doing their searches from their machines in Russia, in which case they were probably using Yandex. If Mueller has access to their Yandex search records, that would be pretty cool. Yandex is based in Moscow but incorporated in the Netherlands, and it has offices in many countries including the US. If Mueller was able to get logs of what the bad guys were doing whenever they used Yandex…dayum.

Here are the bits that indicate Mueller has some visibility into the bad guys’ internet search history (all snips):

5523

You seem to have made an assertion that is so obvious that you can’t find an example of it. Impressive.

5524

It also has information about what person was logged into their account when things were searched and what time planning began.

From what I’ve read and listened to, it sounds like the NSA had real time access to the GRU computers and that it wasn’t just computer forensics. To publicly give that information is possibly/probably burning those sources and/or methods. Which would mean they think announcing those indictments is very important.

I’ve also heard some talk about how computer access tends to be of an extremely temporary nature so maybe it’s not as big of a deal.

5525

If you read the indictments, you can see precisely what they are being charged with.

Here’s a link to the first indictment, from February:

The Russians cited in this indictment are being charged with:

  1. Conspiracy to Defraud the United States - page 4

**Object of the Conspiracy ** - page 12

  1. The conspiracy had as its object impairing, obstructing, and defeating the lawful governmental functions of the United States by dishonest means in order to enable the Defendants to interfere with U.S. political and electoral processes, including the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

  2. Conspiracy to Commit Wire Fraud and Bank Fraud - page 30

  3. Aggravated Identity Theft - five counts, page 34
    It’s on the Prosecutor to make his case of course, but those are major charges with major consequences - unless, of course, you’re a Republican willing to damage America in order to stay in power.


The second indictment from Friday can be read here - 

https://www.vox.com/2018/7/13/17568806/mueller-russia-intelligence-indictment-full-text

The Russians cited in this indictment are being charged with:

1. **Conspiracy to Commit an Offense Against the United States** - page 1

Object of the Conspiracy [page 25 - note this is different from the first item]

20. The object of the conspiracy was to hack into the computers of U.S. persons and entities involved in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, steal documents from those computers, and stage releases of the stolen documents to interfere with the 2016 U.S. presidential election. 

2. **Aggravated Identity Theft** - page 20

3. **Conspiracy to Launder Money** - page 21

4. **Conspiracy to Commit an Offense Against the United States**

Object of the Conspiracy [page 4]

70. The object of the conspiracy was to hack into protected computers of persons and entities charged with the administration of the 2016 U.S. Elections in order to access those computers and steal voter data and other information stored on those computers. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This indictment covers hacking the DNC's computers, stealing identities to hide their tracks as foreign agents, laundering money to cover their expenses, and hacking state election computers in order to steal voter information.

Republicans, naturallly, responded by starting impeachment proceedings against the person overseeing the investigation which produced these indictments - because Republicans are cool with all those criminal acts, provided they benefit from them.
5526

Crap - I missed a couple Objects of the Conspiracies I meant to include. Oh well, you can find them in the indictment. And you can probably guess what the object of the Money Laundering Conspiracy count is.

5527

Hmmm. Yeah, I hadn’t thought of the possibility that the NSA had access to the GRU computers. I was thinking of the forensic angle because I’m a computer forensics guy by profession. But, it makes sense that the NSA could have had real time access. Which would also mean that Mueller knows a shit ton of stuff.

5528

Nice line of shit there, Comrade.

5529

Because he is strong, like ox.

5530

And he is wrong, like a Fox.

5531

The flop sweat is starting to show.

5532

I appreciate your effort at fighting ignorance, but you can only do so much. The person you addressed has stated that the newest indictments were for “not playing nice on Facebook”. A Trump supporting dipshit like that is never going to read your link, or attempt to comprehend what is really happening.

5533

Trolls don’t sweat.

5534

A great point. :slight_smile: And thanks for the laugh!!

5535

a) I live in a hard blue state, so there was no chance of my vote going to Trump no matter how you want to spin the math. My vote had the potential to get the Libertarian party up to 5%, at which point it would receive Federal funding aid in the next election, and that would ideally convince the Republican party to back away from the religious right at least a little bit. As far as doing the world a good deed as one could hope to accomplish in the 2016 election, I am praised by angels for my heroics. So, suck it.

b) Math.

Let’s do the math.

Let’s say that 80% of people are too partisan to make any logical decision when it comes to candidate selection. And now we’ve convinced all those people to go sit in the corner and shut up.

The remaining 20%, during the primaries will be split 50/50 between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. One is too extreme to actually get anything done and the other is a crook. The vote’s a tossup, either one might get in.

In the Republican primaries, the top contenders are Marco Rubio and John Kasich. We’ll say that Rubio takes the win.

Between Rubio and Clinton or Rubio and Sanders, Rubio wins.

The President is Marco Rubio.

Now that’s not my personal vision of joy and happiness, nor do I suspect is it yours, but it’s a still a hell of a lot better than where we are today, and the choices made were all a lot less stupid to get there.

And if you start this process even further back, before the primaries, because I mean every election creates the people who bring up and support the candidates in the next election, instead of going from George HW Bush to George W Bush to Donald Trump - a notable decline in quality - you get the reverse effect. Marco Rubio is followed by someone better because the candidates are being found and endorsed by Rubio instead of Trump, and those who decide to run in the primary are those who think they can win that 20% rather than those who think they can get the rubes to vote for just about anyone, so long as they spin the media hard enough.

I’m not talking about one election. I’m not talking about 2016. I’m talking about asking people to make one hard rule:

If someone is a crook or has ever been accused of it by your side or the other, then don’t vote for them. Just don’t. Now and forever, including 2018.

That one simple rule would make the country a better place. Yeah, sometimes it will mean that the other party will win. But you’re only going to win half of all your elections anyways. If one party figured out a way to do better than that, then the other one would change their party platform to catch right back up. You’re never going to do better than winning half the time.

So don’t bother trying to win elections. Just pick people who are trustworthy and you’ll still win half of every election, but gasp they won’t be crooks! Amazing!

5536

I don’t necessarily vouch for this, but it’s interesting speculation. The always reliable Some Guy On Twitter opines that the Trump administration’s bullying of Ecuador over the UN’s breastfeeding resolution was not about the resolution itself. Instead, it was a message to Ecuador not to cross Trump by evicting Julian Assange from the embassy in London. According to this view, Assange is the linchpin between the Trump campaign and the Russians, and the most recent indictments from Mueller foreshadow a coming indictment of Assange. Mueller will presumably press Ecuador to extradite him. Assange has the goods and will be willing to deal with Mueller, again according to This Guy On Twitter. Trump’s maneuvering over the breastfeeding resolution was a sign to Ecuador that Trump will fuck them every way he can if they let Assange get hauled in to the box by Mueller’s investigators.

I dunno. I can see the logic of this, but of course I have no idea if this is what Trump was trying. The guy who posed this scenario suggested that Ecuador would try to sidestep the problem by turning Assange over to the UK, who would then extradite him to the US. And it appears that the UK and Ecuador are currently in talks for Ecuador to turn Assange over to the Brits. Whether that happens and whether the UK subsequently lets Mueller have him… I guess “we’ll see what happens”, as Trump would say.

5537

Sage, that’s not math, that’s bullshit.

5538

Let’s test it. Don’t vote for criminals or people accused of it. Convince others to not do so either. Let’s see if I’m wrong.

5539

If sage is 92% wrong, and 37% of readers don’t realize it, does that make him 34% correct?

5540

Maybe that’s why they spend so much time under bridges. Keeps them out of the sun and has easy access to cooling water.

5541

Who could the Dems possibly nominate without the Rs immediately labeling a crook? It’s not like they wait until there’s actual, you know, evidence.