German Intelligence Also Snooped on White House

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is famous for the terse remark she made after learning her mobile phone had been tapped by the NSA. "Spying among friends, that isn't done." As it turns out, Germany was spying on America too, even targeting the White House.


By Maik Baumgärtner, Martin Knobbe and Jörg Schindler

The chapter is only a few pages long, but it addresses a potentially explosive suspicion: Did Germany's foreign intelligence agency, the BND, spy on its most important partner, the United States, in the past? 


For Chancellor Angela Merkel's government, the answer is clear. The BND has never spied on the United States, members of both the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) and their government coalition partner, the center-left Social Democrats, are fond of saying, quoting former BND President Gerhard Schindler. And if it was true, then it was only a "coincidental capture" of data, that has since been deleted.

After three years of work, the German parliament committee of inquiry investigating NSA spying on Germany will release its final report next week. It will also contain a chapter drafted by the coalition on "findings about EU and NATO partners." The committee, the draft version of the report states, had no doubts about the statements made about the U.S.

But it should.

Documents that SPIEGEL has been able to review show that the BND, until a few years ago, actually had considerable interest in the United States as a target of espionage. The document states that just under 4,000 search terms, or selectors, were directed against American targets between 1998 and 2006. It is unknown whether they continued to be used after those dates.

The German intelligence agency used the selectors to surveil telephone and fax numbers as well as email accounts belonging to American companies like Lockheed Martin, the space agency NASA, the organization Human Rights Watch, universities in several U.S. states and military facilities like the U.S. Air Force, the Marine Corps and the Defense Intelligence Agency, the secret service agency belonging to the American armed forces. Connection data from far over 100 foreign embassies in Washington, from institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Washington office of the Arab League were also accessed by the BND's spies.

The entries also prove the existence of a top-secret anti-terror alliance between Western intelligence services, including those of Germany, the United States and France. SPIEGEL already reported back in 2005 on the elite unit, which is named Camolin. The papers now show several BND selectors were "Camolin-related."

It's Unlikely Spying Was Unintentional
 

Also on the selector list were lines at the U.S. Treasury Department, the State Department and the White House. Were they really all just "coincidental capture" as the former BND head claimed? Was it just an oversight?

That's unlikely.

Germany's foreign intelligence agency does not comment publicly on its operations. The BND's current president, Bruno Kahl, who has been in office for just under a year, is only willing to point to the future. "The question of who the BND is permitted to surveil, and who it cannot, will not only be the subject of a stricter approval process in the future, but also more ambitious controls."

It also remains unclear just how extensive was the U.S. data captured by the BND -- or what it contained. But it does help to explain why the German government remained so reserved initially when revelations about the NSA's spying first emerged. People either knew or likely suspected that their own service had been just as unscrupulous in monitoring its closest partners. In light of the documents, the efforts by the chancellor's office to come to a so-called no-spying agreement with the Americans now appear to have been a farce. The truth is that the Germans were snooping far more extensively than they ever wanted to admit.

Originally, the parliamentary inquiry committee had been tasked with investigating cooperation between Germany's BND and the NSA. The investigation was launched in response to the revelations about the NSA spying on Germany that were exposed by whistleblower Edward Snowden. But in October 2015, it emerged that the BND, even absent a request to do so from the U.S., had conducted extensive spying on its partners in the European Union and NATO. As the papers relating to the selectors show, nearly every foreign embassy in Berlin had been monitored. When the news emerged that the NSA had surveilled her own mobile phone, Angela Merkel said, "spying among friends, that simply isn't done." Looking back from today's perspective, it's clearly a hollow statement.

Spying on the British Library
 
But how forthcoming was the intelligence service with the members of parliament sitting on the inquiry committee? And what did their work achieve? Ultimately, the parties on the panel proved unable to agree. The closing report includes two different assessments -- one from the coalition parties in government, and another from the opposition.

For their part, the Christian Democrats and the SPD claim that the new BND law passed recently "takes the correct and necessary action from the substantiated evidence, even before the end of the investigation." But opposition parties claim that the new rules are insufficient and even go in the wrong direction.

And so it is that, after 134 meetings of the investigative committee, decisive questions remain unanswered. Questions such as why the BND, which is actually supposed to be hunting terrorists, weapons dealers and money-launderers, is so interested in academic institutions like the British Library. One of its lending sites had been on the list of surveillance targets since the early 2000s.

Join The Intercept in Documenting the Conflicts of Interest of Hundreds of Trump Appointees

By

Lee Fang, Nick Surgey

 

The Trump administration has faced a growing clamor over the glaring conflicts of interest of many of its high-level appointees.

Michael T. Flynn, President Trump’s former national security adviser, is currently under investigation for his failure to report $45,000 in fees for a speech given in Moscow to RT, the Russian state media outlet. The billionaire investor Carl Icahn has been criticized for serving as an informal and unpaid adviser to Trump, including on areas in which Icahn has a direct financial interest.
What’s more difficult to track, however, are the conflicts of interest of lower-level appointees — the personnel who execute Trump administration policy on a day to day basis.

To shed light on these appointees’ backgrounds, The Intercept and the Center for Media and Democracy have requested the Office of Government Ethics Form 278, the standard financial disclosure document, for hundreds of Trump officials. We have now received over 150 of them and compiled them in a public Google Documents table, and will be adding more as they arrive.
As seen below, we have begun examining these appointees’ previous lives in the D.C. swamp, including stints as lobbyists and trips through the industry-government revolving door.

We invite readers to join us in combing through the pasts of these appointees, as well as informing us of any officials whose disclosure forms we have not obtained. Many appointments are made without announcements and are not identified on the relevant agency websites.

We will credit you if we use any of your work in future stories. We can be contacted by email at lee.fang@theintercept.com (encryption key available here) and nick@prwatch.org, or via Twitter at @LHFang and @NickSurgey. Instructions for communicating with The Intercept anonymously and with additional security are available here.

The documents show numerous potential conflicts of interest:

Anthony DeMartino, appointed as deputy chief of staff to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, previously consulted for defense contractor Palantir, helping the firm cultivate “government relationships,” according to his ethics disclosure. DeMartino’s consulting work was conducted through “SBD Advisors,” a firm with ties to high-level military officials. Former Defense Secretary Ash Carter previously worked for SBD Advisors, and its current advisory board includes retired Adm. Michael Mullen, the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President Barack Obama. The Defense Department did not respond to a request for comment.

Anthony DeMartino

Office of the Secretary of Defense Deputy Chief of Staff

Form 278

Travis Scott Fisher and Daniel Simmons, two appointees at the Department of Energy, previously worked for the Institute for Energy Research, a pro-fossil fuel think tank founded by oil and gas billionaire Charles Koch. The Department of Energy is deeply involved in the approval of liquified natural gas export projects, a field in which Koch’s business has deep involvement. The Department of Energy did not respond to a request for comment.

Travis Scott Fisher	Department of Energy Assistant to the Secretary	Form 278
Daniel Simmons	Department of Energy Assistant to the Secretary	Form 278

In other cases, Trump officials appear to have failed to follow the instructions for Form 278, which state that filers must name any source that paid more than $5,000 for their services. This is designed to force attorneys and lobbyists to disclose their significant clients.

Nathan Miller, appointed as a senior adviser to the Small Business Administration, is a former corporate lobbyist at a company called Public Strategies Washington. According to the required lobbying disclosure forms, Miller and other PSW staff met with Senate officials on behalf of clients including Bain Capital, Lockheed Martin, and Liberty Mutual last year in return for payments to his firm far over $5,000. However, none of these clients are listed in Miller’s presidential appointee disclosure form. Carol Wilkerson, the spokesperson for the SBA, sent us the following statement: “Utilizing our normal review processes, we have determined that appropriate disclosures were made with respect to Mr. Miller’s New Entrant OGE 278e Report.”

Nathan Miller

Small Business Administration Senior Adviser

Form 278

Anthony Pugliese, a senior White House adviser to the Department of Transportation, previously worked as a state-based lobbyist in Pennsylvania. Pugliese’s state lobbying disclosure shows clients including John Deere and Luxottica Retail North America. But Pugliese’s federal ethics disclosure reveals no client information. The Department of Transportation press office did not respond to a request for comment.

Anthony Pugliese

Department of Transportation Senior White House Adviser

Form 278

 Michael Egan, appointed as the special assistant to Department of Defense White House liaison, previously worked for the Boston Consulting Group. Egan lists three consulting clients but does not disclose their identities, instead writing “Not specified” and the city where each client is headquartered. The Defense Department did not respond to a request for comment.

Michael Egan

Department of Defense Special Assistant to the White House Liaison, OSD

Form 278

Justin Schwab, a senior attorney appointed to the Environmental Protection Agency, initially only listed his former law firm Baker Hostetler and did not disclose any clients. After being contacted by reporters, Schwab refiled his disclosure, revealing that he previously worked for Southern Co., a major utility that is directly affected by the Clean Power Plan climate change regulation. “We decline to comment,” wrote Enesta Jones, EPA spokesperson, when reached for a response.

Justin Schwab

EPA Senior Adviser

Form 278

 

Trump condos worth $250 million pose potential conflict

Nick Penzenstadler , Steve Reilly and John Kelly , USA TODAY 

A USA TODAY investigation discovered that anyone could potentially buy multimillion dollar condos from President Trump. The investigation reveals the most complete picture yet of the staggering inventory and value of Trump-owned real estate. USA TODAY

LAS VEGAS — President Trump’s companies own more than 400 condo units and home lots whose sale could steer millions of dollars to Trump, a USA TODAY investigation has found.

USA TODAY spent four months cataloging every property Trump's companies own across the country. Reporters found that Trump’s companies are sitting on at least $250 million of individual properties in the USA alone. Property records show Trump’s trust and his companies own at least 422 luxury condos and penthouses from New York City to Las Vegas, 12 mansion lots on bluffs overlooking his golf course on the Pacific Ocean and dozens more smaller pieces of real estate. The properties range in value from about $200,000 to $35 million each.

Unlike developments where Trump licenses his name to a separate developer for a flat fee, profits from selling individual properties directly owned by his companies ultimately enrich him personally.

Trump has never disclosed a complete, unit-by-unit inventory of his companies' real estate holdings or sales, nor is he required to do so by federal law. Trump says he's separated himself from his businesses, but the trust set up in January is run by his sons. Trump is the only beneficiary and can withdraw funds at any time.

The volume of real estate creates an extraordinary and unprecedented potential for people, corporations or foreign interests to try to influence a president. Anyone who wanted to court favor with the president could snap up multiple properties or purposefully overpay. They could buy in the name of a shell company, making it impossible for the public to know who was behind the sales.
The potential for conflicts is exacerbated by Trump's refusal to release his tax returns or fully separate himself from his businesses, breaking with precedent set by presidents going back four decades. Since Congress passed the Ethics in Government Act in 1978, all six presidents from Carter to Obama established blind trusts or limited investments to assets like mutual funds. Trump has not.
The president is exempt from most conflict-of-interest laws that apply to others working in the federal government. He is not required to disclose when units sell or who bought them.

He is barred by the Constitution from receiving gifts from foreign governments or officials. Trump’s assessment that the ban doesn’t apply to market-rate transactions is debated in lawsuits and among ethics experts.

Regardless, it may be impossible for the public to even know who is behind purchase because the rules governing real estate transactions allow for shell companies to make purchases without disclosing who actually paid the money.

“Anyone seeking to influence the president could set up an anonymous company and purchase his property,” said Heather Lowe, director of government affairs at Global Financial Integrity, a D.C.-based group aimed at curbing illicit financial transactions. “It’s a big black box, and the system is failing as a check for conflicts of interest.”

Since Election Day, records show Trump companies have sold at least 14 luxury condos and home-building lots for about $23 million. Half were sold to limited liability companies. No names were listed in deeds, obscuring buyers’ identities.

Since launching his White House bid, Trump’s companies have sold at least 58 units nationwide for about $90 million. Almost half of those sold to LLCs.

That doesn’t count Trump's ownership of millions of square feet of some of America’s priciest office and retail rental space in Manhattan, Chicago and San Francisco.

Buyers and renters of Trump properties include companies or individuals tracing to addresses in at least a dozen countries.

The White House refers business inquiries to the Trump Organization, where four separate executives and spokesmen declined to answer specific questions.

Bobby Burchfield, an attorney hired as an independent ethics reviewer for Trump Organization business deals, wouldn’t answer specific questions about transactions.

Trump attorneys have argued that profits from individual real estate sales would route through a maze of Trump subsidiaries and eventually become mixed in a larger pool of undifferentiated money in the president’s trust. That, they say, makes a direct conflict from an individual sale more difficult to imagine. They do not consider sales of U.S. real estate to foreign investors as “foreign deals."
Those in the business of selling Trump-owned real estate say business is up.

“I get a lot more phone calls now that he’s the president,” said Shari Sanderson, a real estate agent that sells units in the Las Vegas hotel-condo tower.

A mysterious bulk buyer

A couple of weeks before the Republican National Convention, a Las Vegas financial firm filed paperwork to found Milan Investment Limited in Nevada.

Days later, the newly minted company went on a buying spree. Milan spent $3.1 million over four months to buy 11 luxury condos in a shimmering golden tower near the Strip that Trump owns with friend and casino mogul Phil Ruffin. Trump Ruffin LLC collected the last of the money weeks before Trump was elected.

Milan Investment tracks back to what appears to be an incorrect address, the strip mall office of a financial services firm.

The owner, Thomas Sullivan, said he never heard of Milan Investment but said a federal “regulatory” agency visited his office in person asking similar questions. He declined to identify the agency.
“We’re completely in the dark,” Sullivan said. “We don’t know if it was a mistake, or they used our address for some reason, but we aren’t associated with them.”

On the deeds from Milan’s purchases, Eric Trump signed for the sellers. An accountant signed for the buyers, and deeds do not identify any people behind Milan.

USA TODAY tracked corporate, loan and property records across Nevada, Texas and Canada to tie three names to Milan Investment.

In Nevada, where rules let anyone form companies without identifying the owners, Milan’s officers are listed as Jun Xu and Qi Huang with an address at an office suite on the outskirts of Las Vegas.
Additional documents underlying the sale give two more addresses, both million-dollar condos in Vancouver, for Xu and Huang. Canadian records indicate they own both and hold a license to rent one. The records list Xu as a “businessman” and Huang as a “housewife.”

USA TODAY contacted every phone number and address found for Xu and Huang in two countries. Reporters also contacted every business associate identified in Nevada public records as having worked with the company or assisted with the condo buys, trying to reach Xu and Huang or find out more about them. Xu and Huang have not responded.

One more name tied to Milan is Chen Huang of Sugar Land, Texas, who signed loan documents “on behalf of Jun Xu and Qi Huang” when they borrowed money using the Vegas condos as collateral. Phone numbers for Chen Huang in Texas were answered but disconnected after a reporter identified himself.

Most Nevada real estate and legal professionals who handled deals would not answer questions. A lawyer who reviewed paperwork for the lender, Michael Wixom, said only, “We file the UCC paperwork and represent the bank locally. It’s all consistent with Nevada state law, and it’s not unusual to not know the name of the owners.”

Reporters sent questions about the identity-obscuring real estate sales to a public relations firm representing Trump in New York, the Trump Organization’s marketing vice president, its vice president of sales in Las Vegas and Eric Trump. None of the inquiries was answered.
The deal in 2016 makes Milan Investment the third-biggest investor in the Vegas building, behind Trump’s own company and Hilton Hotels, which owns 311 of the condos.

Kathleen Clark, a government ethics expert and professor at Washington University School of Law, said there’s a strong argument for requiring disclosure of anyone buying real estate from the president.

“They’re doing it through Trump companies, but nevertheless, if it’s going to benefit the president, I think the public has a right to know who’s paying the president,” Clark said. One solution: making the president subject to the same rules as other public officials.

Who's buying from Trump?

USA TODAY’s review of sales of Trump-owned real estate found dozens of transactions during and since the campaign involving buyers who have business in or connections with foreign countries, or are shielded by purchasing under the name of an LLC. None of the recorded sales prices appeared, on the surface, to be outside market value.

In February, businesswoman Xiao Yan Chen bought one of the president’s penthouses at Trump Park Avenue in Manhattan for $15.9 million, according to city records.

Chen is founder and managing director of Global Alliance Associates, a New York City firm described on its website as “a boutique business relationship consultancy for U.S. companies seeking to establish a presence in mainland China.” She could not be reached for comment.

A few days before Trump’s inauguration, a two-bedroom condo on the 55th floor of the Las Vegas tower sold for $639,000. The buyer of Condo No. 5507 is identified in deeds as Fashion Drive, a New York company named for the street below and formed days before the purchase.

The only real person named in company's corporate filings in New York is Ivan Antonevich, a Ukrainian-educated pain doctor who did not reply to interview requests. It’s unclear whether he owns the condo, represents the buyer, or something else happened.

As part of a federal crackdown on criminals using real estate to hide illicit cash, title insurance companies in a handful of U.S. cities must gather identity information and report all-cash deals above certain amounts to the government. Industry insiders said the opacity of most shell company real estate buys is for practical, legitimate reasons.

“Privacy is a big driver of the LLCs, whether it’s celebrities protecting their privacy or foreign dissidents hiding assets from an oppressive government or law enforcement officers worried about their safety from criminals,” said Steve Gottheim, senior counsel at the American Land Title Association.

Some investors in the Vegas building were easy to track down and willing to talk. One New York couple set up a company, SNJ Properties, to buy a unit in December. SNJ is owned by Susan and John Irwin of East Islip, N.Y., who bought a second condo in the building for vacation and as an investment. They said it didn’t have much to do with politics.

“I’m a big fan of his, but the fact that Trump is president didn’t influence our decision,” said John Irwin, who owns Irwin Construction. Irwin, who met Trump at the hotel once, said he doesn’t worry about other people’s blind purchases of Trump’s real estate. “It doesn’t bother me. He’s a businessman, and that’s who we elected.”

Trump’s leasable space in cities such as New York, Chicago and San Francisco bring in large sums as well. Commercial space at Trump Tower earned him almost $30 million in 2012, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission to back up a loan Trump took out against the space.
Among the revenue: multimillion-dollar lease payments from the communist government-owned Industrial & Commercial Bank of China.

The Chinese bank’s lease is one of several transactions flagged in a lawsuit against Trump by an ethics watchdog group, alleging Trump violates the Emoluments Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which forbids government officials from taking gifts from foreign powers.

More deals ready to be made

The White House and Trump surrogates have broadly contended that the president is not involved in his business deals and scoff at the idea that a billionaire tycoon could be influenced by individual real estate transactions in the six- or seven-figure range.

The USA TODAY review of publicly available records — including figures provided by the president himself — shows that his individual real estate transactions add up and have substantially driven his income in recent years.

Consider the Vegas tower. In his federal financial disclosure in 2016, the income Trump said he received from the Vegas venture is more than the revenue he reported from all but one of his approximately 500 companies.

USA TODAY’s analysis of the 2016 report indicates Trump’s income includes at least $100 million a year from real estate sales and lease transactions. That number is probably higher because companies’ income is reported in ranges spanning millions of dollars.

Trump and his daughter Ivanka have reported drawing multimillion-dollar incomes from Trump International Realty in recent years. Trump’s financial disclosure reported about $4 million in commissions in 2016, and Jared Kushner’s disclosure reports his wife earns $1 million to $5 million a year in commissions and fees from the firm.

At Trump properties across the country, more deals are ready to be made.

“We’re selling quite a few of those now,” Ruffin said of the partners’ Vegas tower, where he and Trump own 388 condos and penthouses. “It’s picked up, our volume.” Ruffin owns an adjacent lot and is interested in building another tower and casino there, possibly partnering with the Trump Organization.

In total, records show Trump and his family own 32 residential condo units, plus 82 additional smaller units of real estate, including commercial property and storage spaces across New York City. That’s where the biggest money transactions are in the making.

Trump’s realty company lists one of his three-bedroom condos on the seventh floor of Trump Park Avenue for $7 million, touting solid oak floors, handcrafted Italian brass doorknobs, marble baths and “a sleek gourmet chef’s kitchen.” Also for sale: a Trump-owned seven-bedroom penthouse on the 32nd floor. The $75,000-a-month rent gets you “360-degree views of New York City’s stunning landscape.”

At 100 Central Park South, beneath the facade bearing the words “Trump Parc” in gold script, placards recently filled the windows advertising “RETAIL SPACE FOR LEASE.” The rent: $1.3 million a year.

Joanne Podell, the listing agent for Cushman & Wakefield, said that although there has been recent interest, the building’s powerful owner is far less important in attracting tenants as factors like foot traffic and size. “It’s a great location."

Anonymous Leaks to the WashPost About the CIA’s Russia Beliefs Are No Substitute for Evidence

By Glenn Greenwald

The Washington Post late Friday night published an explosive story that, in many ways, is classic American journalism of the worst sort: The key claims are based exclusively on the unverified assertions of anonymous officials, who in turn are disseminating their own claims about what the CIA purportedly believes, all based on evidence that remains completely secret.

These unnamed sources told the Post that “the CIA has concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency, rather than just to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system.” The anonymous officials also claim that “intelligence agencies have identified individuals with connections to the Russian government who provided WikiLeaks with thousands of hacked emails” from both the DNC and John Podesta’s email account. Critically, none of the actual evidence for these claims is disclosed; indeed, the CIA’s “secret assessment” itself remains concealed. 

A second leak from last night, this one given to the New York Times, cites other anonymous officials as asserting that “the Russians hacked the Republican National Committee’s computer systems in addition to their attacks on Democratic organizations, but did not release whatever information they gleaned from the Republican networks.” But that NYT story says that “it is also far from clear that Russia’s original intent was to support Mr. Trump, and many intelligence officials — and former officials in Mrs. Clinton’s campaign — believe that the primary motive of the Russians was to simply disrupt the campaign and undercut confidence in the integrity of the vote.”

Deep down in its article, the Post notes — rather critically — that “there were minor disagreements among intelligence officials about the agency’s assessment, in part because some questions remain unanswered.” Most importantly, the Post adds that “intelligence agencies do not have specific intelligence showing officials in the Kremlin ‘directing’ the identified individuals to pass the Democratic emails to WikiLeaks.” But the purpose of both anonymous leaks is to finger the Russian government for these hacks, acting with the motive to defeat Hillary Clinton.

Needless to say, Democrats — still eager to make sense of their election loss and to find causes for it other than themselves — immediately declared these anonymous claims about what the CIA believes to be true, and, with a somewhat sweet, religious-type faith, treated these anonymous assertions as proof of what they wanted to believe all along: that Vladimir Putin was rooting for Donald Trump to win and Hillary Clinton to lose and used nefarious means to ensure that outcome. That Democrats are now venerating unverified, anonymous CIA leaks as sacred is par for the course for them this year, but it’s also a good indication of how confused and lost U.S. political culture has become in the wake of Trump’s victory.

Given the obvious significance of this story — it is certain to shape how people understand the 2016 election and probably foreign policy debates for months if not years to come — it is critical to keep in mind some basic facts about what is known and, more importantly, what is not known:

(1) Nobody has ever opposed investigations to determine if Russia hacked these emails, nor has anyone ever denied the possibility that Russia did that. The source of contention has been quite simple: No accusations should be accepted until there is actual convincing evidence to substantiate those accusations.

There is still no such evidence for any of these claims. What we have instead are assertions, disseminated by anonymous people, completely unaccompanied by any evidence, let alone proof. As a result, none of the purported evidence — still — can be publicly seen, reviewed, or discussed. Anonymous claims leaked to newspapers about what the CIA believes do not constitute proof, and certainly do not constitute reliable evidence that substitutes for actual evidence that can be reviewed. Have we really not learned this lesson yet?

(2) The reasons no rational person should blindly believe anonymous claims of this sort — even if it is pleasing to believe such claims — should be obvious by now.

To begin with, CIA officials are professional, systematic liars; they lie constantly, by design, and with great skill, and have for many decades, as have intelligence officials in other agencies.

Many of those incidents demonstrate, as hurtful as it is to accept, that these agencies even lie when there’s a Democrat overseeing the executive branch. Even in those cases when they are not deliberately lying, they are often gravely mistaken. Intelligence is not a science, and attributing hacks to specific sources is a particularly difficult task, almost impossible to carry out with precision and certainty.

Beyond that, what makes claims from anonymous sources so especially dubious is that their motives cannot be assessed. Who are the people summarizing these claims to the Washington Post? What motives do they have for skewing the assertions one way or the other? Who are the people inside the intelligence community who fully ratify these assertions and who are the ones who dissent? It’s impossible to answer any of these questions because everyone is masked by the shield of anonymity, which is why reports of this sort demand high levels of skepticism, not blind belief.

Most important of all, the more serious the claim is — and accusing a nuclear-armed power of directly and deliberately interfering in the U.S. election in order to help the winning candidate is about as serious as a claim can get — the more important it is to demand evidence before believing it. Wars have started over far less serious claims than this one. People like Lindsey Graham are already beating their chest, demanding that the U.S. do everything in its power to punish Russia and “Putin personally.”

Nobody should need an explainer about why it’s dangerous in the extreme to accept such inflammatory accusations on faith or, worse, based on the anonymous assurances of intelligence officials, in lieu of seeing the actual evidence.

(3) An important part of this story, quite clearly, is inter-agency feuding between, at the very least, the CIA and the FBI.

Recall that the top echelon of the CIA was firmly behind Clinton and vehemently against Trump, while at least some powerful factions within the FBI had the opposite position.

Former acting CIA Director Michael Morell not only endorsed Clinton in the New York Times but claimed that “Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation.” George W. Bush’s CIA and NSA director, Gen. Michael Hayden, pronounced Trump a “clear and present danger” to U.S. national security and then, less than a week before the election, went to the Washington Post to warn that “Donald Trump really does sound a lot like Vladimir Putin” and said Trump is “the useful fool, some naif, manipulated by Moscow, secretly held in contempt, but whose blind support is happily accepted and exploited.”

Meanwhile, key factions in the FBI were furious that Hillary Clinton was not criminally charged for her handling of classified information; pressured FBI Director James Comey into writing a letter that was pretty clearly harmful to Clinton about further investigating the case; and seemed to be improperly communicating with close Trump ally Rudy Giuliani. And while we are now being treated to anonymous leaks about how the CIA believes Putin helped Trump, recall that the FBI, just weeks ago, was shoveling anonymous claims to the New York Times that had the opposite goal:

One can choose to believe whatever anonymous claims from these agencies with a long history of lying and error one wants to believe, based on whatever agenda one has. Or one can wait to review the actual evidence before forming beliefs about what really happened. It should take little effort to realize that the latter option is the only rational path.

(4) Even just within the leaks of the last 24 hours, there are multiple grounds of confusion, contradictions, and uncertainty.

The always-observant Marcy Wheeler last night documented many of those; anyone interested in this story should read her analysis as soon as possible. I want to highlight just a few of these vital contradictions and questions.

To start with, the timing of these leaks is so striking. Even as Democrats have spent months issuing one hysterical claim after the next about Russian interference, the White House, and Obama specifically, have been very muted about all of this. Perhaps that’s because he did not want to appear partisan or be inflammatory, but perhaps it’s because he does not believe there is sufficient proof to accuse the Russian government; after all, if he really believed the Russians did even half of what Democrats claim, wouldn’t he (as some Democrats have argued) be duty-bound to take aggressive action in retaliation?

It was announced yesterday afternoon that Obama had ordered a full review of hacking allegations: a perfectly sensible step that makes clear that an investigation is needed, and evidence disclosed, before any definitive conclusions can be reached. It was right on the heels of that announcement that this CIA leak emerged: short-cutting the actual, deliberative investigative process Obama had ordered in order to lead the public to believe that all the answers were already known and, before the investigation even starts, that Russia was guilty of all charges.

More important is what the Post buries in its story: namely, what are the so-called “minor disagreements among intelligence officials about the agency’s assessment”? How “minor” are they? And what do these conclusions really mean if, as the Post’s sources admit, the CIA is not even able to link the hack to the actual Russian government, but only to people outside the government (from the Post: “Those actors, according to the official, were ‘one step’ removed from the Russian government, rather than government employees”)?

This is why it’s such a shoddy and unreliable practice to conduct critical debates through conflicting anonymous leaks. Newspapers like the Post have the obvious incentive to hype the flashy, flamboyant claims while downplaying and burying the caveats and conflicting evidence. None of these questions can be asked, let alone answered, because the people who are making these claims are hidden and the evidence is concealed.

(5) Contrary to the declarations of self-vindication by supremely smug Democrats, none of this even relates to, let alone negates, the concerns over their election-year McCarthyite behavior and tactics.

Contrary to the blatant straw man many Democrats are railing against, nobody ever said it was McCarthyite to want to investigate claims of Russian hacking. To the contrary, critics of Clinton supporters have been arguing for exactly that: that these accusations should not be believed in the absence of meaningful inquiry and evidence, which has thus far been lacking.

What critics have said is McCarthyite — and, as one of those critics, I fully stand by this — is the lowly tactic of accusing anyone questioning these accusations, or criticizing the Clinton campaign, of being Kremlin stooges or Putin agents. Back in August, after Democrats decided to smear Jill Stein as a Putin stooge, here’s how I defined the McCarthyite atmosphere that Democrats have deliberately cultivated this year:

So that’s the Democratic Party’s approach to the 2016 election. Those who question, criticize or are perceived to impede Hillary Clinton’s smooth, entitled path to the White House are vilified as stooges, sympathizers and/or agents of Russia: Trump, WikiLeaks, Sanders, The Intercept, Jill Stein. Other than loyal Clinton supporters, is there anyone left who is not covertly controlled by or in service to The Ruskies?

Concerns over Democrats’ McCarthyism never had anything to do with a desire for an investigation into the source of the DNC and Podesta hacking; everyone favored such investigations. Indeed, accusations that Democrats were behaving in a McCarthyite manner were predicated — and still are — on their disgusting smearing as Kremlin agents anyone who wanted evidence and proof before believing these inflammatory accusations about Russia.

To see the true face of this neo-McCarthyism, watch this amazing interview from this week with Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, one of the party’s leading Russia hawks (he’s quoted in the Post article attacking Obama for not retaliating against Putin). When Schiff is repeatedly asked by the interviewer, Tucker Carlson, for evidence to support his allegation that Putin ordered the hacking of Podesta’s emails, Schiff provides none.

What he does instead is accuse Carlson of being a Kremlin stooge and finally tells him he should put his program on RT. That — which has become very typical Democratic rhetoric — is the vile face of neo-McCarthyism that Democrats have adopted this year, and nothing in this CIA leak remotely vindicates or justifies it:

Needless to say, questions about who hacked the DNC and Podesta email accounts are serious and important ones. The answers have widespread implications on many levels. That’s all the more reason these debates should be based on publicly disclosed evidence, not competing, unverifiable anonymous leaks from professional liars inside government agencies, cheered by drooling, lost partisans anxious to embrace whatever claims make them feel good, all conducted without the slightest regard for rational faculties or evidentiary requirements.

Donald Trump’s Many, Many, Many, Many Conflicts of Interest

by Jeff Nesbit

 It’s also unprecedented.

What is astounding about this is that few seem to care—not the 59 million Americans who voted him into office because they wanted an outsider who has never been involved in politics to run the national government, and certainly not the new GOP Congress that will, instead, continue to investigate potential conflicts of interest of the Democratic presidential candidate who lost the 2016 election.

In one of the most shocking U.S. elections in modern political history, Donald Trump has defeated Hillary Clinton.

Trump’s conflicts of interest range from small matters like his investment in a controversial oil and gas pipeline in North Dakota that he may ultimately have to rule on, to large trade issues with China that will affect Bank of China ties to his business organizations that will be managed by his three children.

Presidents are largely exempt from oversight from Congress on matters of financial conflict of interest, and the GOP Congress wouldn’t launch investigations of him regardless. The FBI tilted in his favor in the run-up to the presidential election, so it’s unlikely it will take an interest in this subject either. There isn’t anyone left on the playing field in Washington to investigate any of his potential conflicts of interest.

Trump didn’t release his tax returns during the presidential campaign, and he has shown no inclination to be any more transparent about potential financial conflicts of interest once he becomes president. Despite intense media pressure on Trump to be more forthcoming about his business dealings and how they might intersect with the White House, Trump has simply stonewalled. That isn’t likely to change.

Past presidents have placed their financial holdings in blind trusts and released their tax returns each year to show good faith to the American public. Trump has said he’ll simply allow his children to continue to run his varied financial interests while he’s president, and isn’t likely to allow anyone to scrutinize the inner workings of his many and varied businesses while he’s president.

His campaign personal disclosure form lists more than 500 legal business entities, as well as 21 large financial properties that he says are worth more than $50 million each. Many of the decisions he makes as president will undoubtedly affect those small and large financial interests, yet there is no mechanism that can compel him to be more transparent about how those interests might overlap—and there are no federal investigative bodies either in Congress or his own administration to conduct any meaningful oversight. The media will continue to investigate, of course, but Trump has convinced much of America that the media can’t be trusted.

Take just two examples of how this might work once he’s in office. Trump is a small investor in Energy Transfer Partners, which is one of the business interests behind the Dakota Access Pipeline that has spurred dozens of protests. The decision on the Dakota pipeline could very likely be made from the Oval Office, in favor of his investing partners. It is an obvious and clear financial conflict of interest, but Trump has shown no indication that he will avoid such conflicts—and there is no public call for him to divest his political decisions from such financial interests.

At a larger scale, the state-run Bank of China has a financial interest or stake in at least two of Trump’s large real estate properties. During the campaign, Trump said he would consider trade sanctions on China in an effort to promote American business interests. Should he follow through on those campaign threats, triggering reciprocal actions by the Chinese government, those Bank of China loans to his business interests will be squarely in the crosshairs.

No one—other than the media—has made an issue out of Trump’s potential financial conflicts of interest as president. And in yet another level of bizarre political irony, one of the central elements of Trump’s presidential campaign was a populist demand from his followers to put Clinton in jail for perceived conflicts of interest between the Clinton foundation and her time as secretary of State. “Lock her up” was a central theme of the Trump campaign, one that he often repeated from the podium. But do such potential financial conflicts interest extend to Trump when he becomes president? Apparently not.

The sheer irony of all of this doesn’t stop at the White House, either. The loudest, most vociferous cheerleader at many of those Trump rallies—where his populist movement was demanding that Clinton go to jail for any financial conflict of interest transgressions while she was serving as secretary of State—was former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani. Like Trump, he was a willing and eager political cheerleader for this demand that Clinton be investigated and jailed. Both he and Trump have said they would still consider appointing a special prosecutor to pursue Clinton.

Giuliani is now the leading candidate to become secretary of State in the Trump administration. He has any number of business ties that might come under intense scrutiny should he, in fact, be named to that position.

Giuliani has dismissed the questions of any potential conflicts of interest that might intersect with the State Department. “I have friends all over the world,” he told the New York Times. He’s said his financial dealings, which ranged from contracts with the government of Qatar and the huge Canadian company behind the Keystone XL pipeline to paid speeches to groups with financial interests in countries that he would deal with as secretary of State, aren’t the same as the charges that he and Trump leveled during their “lock her up” campaign tour.

And yet it is precisely the same thing. The question, at least for the foreseeable future, is whether anyone beyond the media will ever show any interest in the subject. Congress hasn’t shown any interest. The FBI isn’t likely to look into it. Trump isn’t compelled by ethics laws to list potential conflicts of interest when he becomes president. So who’s left to conduct oversight?