Is that what Putin told you? Or is this speculation?
True enough - people have been reveling in sharing ‘information’ about Trump that comes directly from the Kremlin through Steele on behalf of the DNC.
“Source A—to use the careful nomenclature of his dossier—was “a senior Russian Foreign Ministry figure.” Source B was “a former top level intelligence officer still active in the Kremlin.” And both of these insiders, after “speaking to a trusted compatriot,” would claim that the Kremlin had spent years getting its hooks into Donald Trump.”
If sowing distrust among Americans was Putin’s goal, he succeeded in spades among the anti-Trump crowd in swallowing and disseminating this stuff.
How does the evidence that the DNC paid for information from Russians to undermine Trump ignore anything? I’m actually citing facts which are relevant to the supposed campaign by Russians to weaken US democracy.
I, for one, never believe any claim made about Putin or Russia unless I’ve heard it from the man himself. Moreso when he delivers it with that little half-smirk that says “what I am telling you is the absolute truth and you should believe every word.”
“Know” was not the language I used. Putin was head of the FSB, the Russian successor to the KGB, for a little over a year from 1998 to 1999. Who did Putin clearly murder or order the murder of during this time or before? He may have murdered someone directly or ordered their murder, but it certainly isn’t clear. Unlike his time after that when he became president.
Interesting. My statement was that the dossier “was focused on people like Carter Page, Paul Manafort, and Michael Cohen”, and you somehow managed to extract from that that “Manafort and Gates are innocent because they aren’t mentioned in the dossier” and “the dossier […] doesn’t specifically mention Manafort”. Interesting.
Considering this level of confusion on your end, I can’t imagine that any further response would be worthwhile.
Putin was never “head of the KGB”. He retired from the KGB in 1991 as a Lieutenant Colonel to pursue politics.
You could say he was later “head” of the FSB, the organization that the KGB morphed into under the Russian Federation, in the same sense that Trump heads the CIA and FBI, but that’s not how people normally use language.
Putin worked mostly in CI within Russia, monitoring foreign intel officers, and in East Germany. His hints of a life of cloak and dagger derring-do are probably exaggerated.
There’s no reason to worry overmuch about a world leader being tied to an intelligence agency - no one seems to think twice about Bush’s tenure as director of the CIA.
You’re right and I know this, having read the dossier through several times and quoted portions of it in this thread and others. My bad to have not added the words, “you think” in my queries to F-P. Posting While Tired.
I will also apologize to F-P because I did misunderstand what he I thought he was saying in that instance.
However, I think it is a mistake for F-P to draw a conclusion that the charges to date that have been leveled against Manafort and Gates are the only charges those two may face as Mueller’s investigation unfolds – and how much of Christopher Steele’s dossier ultimately proves to be true.
I agree when we’re talking about a world leader being tied to his own intelligence agancies. When he’s tied to foreign intelligence agencies, that’s a whole different issue.
You see no difference between the CIA and the KGB? From a neutral party’s observation point, these two are morally equivalent? Russia, USA, no real difference right?
From a neutral party’s vantage point (for instance, the victims’), is disseminating disinformation, overthrowing governments, torture, blackmail, and political assassination, etc the sorts of things that it makes a great deal of difference whose oligarchs benefit?
You seem to imagine someone who is murdered should be grateful if it’s CIA who’s administering the poison instead of the KGB.
