Latest news with #ElectionInterference
Free Malaysia Today
2 days ago
- Politics
- Free Malaysia Today
Moldovan president warns of Russian interference in September vote
Maia Sandu has been a vocal critic of Russia, particularly since the start of the Ukraine war. (EPA Images pic) CHISINAU : Moldova's pro-European president Maia Sandu today accused Russia of seeking to meddle in the September national elections, warning that Moscow was planning 'unprecedented' action to 'get its people into the next parliament'. Sandu, a vocal critic of Russia, in particular since the start of its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, has repeatedly accused Moscow of political interference in the former Soviet republic that lies between war-torn Ukraine and EU and Nato member Romania. Fears of Russian meddling have been looming large as Sandu has been steering Moldova toward official EU accession talks that started in June 2024. 'The Russian federation wants to control Moldova from the fall and is preparing an unprecedented interference in the September elections,' including by vote buying and illicit financing through cryptocurrencies for which '€100 million' have been earmarked, Sandu told a press conference today. The head of state, who won last year's re-election, detailed the plans Moscow has allegedly put in place ahead of the vote. Sandu said the Kremlin was planning to launch 'information manipulation campaigns' and cyber attacks, and organise paid 'violent' protests, while also looking to exploit traditional religious structures. She accused the two main opposition forces of taking advantage of Moscow's purported plans to deprive her centre-right Action and Solidarity Party (PAS) of its parliamentary majority. Sandu was referring to people affiliated to fugitive pro-Russian politician Ilan Shor, who she said was leading a 'criminal group' that was aiming to destabilise the country by protests and 'creating networks of vote buying'. Furthermore, she called out the Russian-financed 'sovereignist' force that promotes Euroscepticism and the subordination of the country's interests to those of Moscow. Lastly, 'the moderate pro-European electorate' was being targeted in a bid to sow doubt among it, including by sabotaging the electoral process overseas. 'All these projects are coordinated from the same command point' in Moscow, she said. According to a recent poll, Sandu's PAS is currently leading with 39% support, followed by the pro-Russian opposition Socialist party at 14.9%. However, about 30% of citizens say they are still undecided. Earlier this year, police said that more than 140,000 people in the country of 2.5 million are being investigated over a cash-for-votes scheme during the last presidential election. In the past, authorities have accused pro-Russian media and activists of disseminating disinformation in Moldova, with scores of outlets and Telegram channels being shut down. Sandu criticised Telegram for not responding to reports regarding voter corruption on its platform.
CNN
23-07-2025
- Politics
- CNN
Gabbard releases more Russia documents to accuse Obama of ‘manufacturing' intelligence
National security Russia Donald Trump Tulsi GabbardFacebookTweetLink Follow One day after President Donald Trump accused former President Barack Obama of treason over the intelligence assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 election and sought to help Trump, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard declassified a highly sensitive congressional report she claimed was more evidence of a 'treasonous conspiracy.' The release of the redacted report, written during the first Trump term by Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee, was the latest step in a multi-faceted effort from Gabbard and other Trump allies to attack the FBI's Russia investigation and the intelligence community's assessment on Russian election interference. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced Wednesday evening that the Justice Department was creating a strike force to assess the evidence released by Gabbard and 'investigate potential next legal steps which might stem from DNI Gabbard's disclosures.' Speaking from the White House podium on Wednesday, Gabbard stopped short of accusing Obama of treason, deferring to Justice Department lawyers. But she alleged that 'the evidence that we have found and that we have released directly point to President Obama leading the manufacturing of this intelligence assessment.' 'They knew it would promote this contrived narrative that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to help President Trump win, selling it to the American people as though it were true,' she said. Gabbard insisted the Russian goal in 2016 was to sow distrust in American democracy — not to help Trump, a key judgment of the 2017 assessment that Republicans have long challenged. But her claims that the Obama administration 'manufactured' the assessment are not supported by the newly redacted House report — or CIA Director John Ratcliffe's own review of the intelligence assessment, which he released earlier this month. Ratcliffe's review argued the assessment that Russian President Vladimir Putin 'aspired' to help Trump win the 2016 election should not have been a so-called high confidence judgment, which indicates the intelligence community's level of certainty, and it took issue with some of the analytic procedures underpinning the assessment. But Ratcliffe's review found that 'the overall assessment was deemed defensible.' The House report — which involved intelligence so sensitive it was kept in a so-called 'turducken,' or a safe within a safe, at CIA headquarters — took a similar stance on the key judgment that Russia sought to help Trump, arguing that the assessment made analytical leaps based on relatively thin sourcing and failed to weigh contradictory intelligence highly enough, but neither argued that it was 'manufactured.' Still, the release of the House Intelligence Committee review, led by former Rep. Devin Nunes when now-FBI Director Kash Patel was a top aide, was a long-sought victory for Trump — in large part because it pushes back against a similar review conducted by the GOP-led Senate Intelligence Committee in 2020, which found the intelligence supported the conclusions that Putin interfered to help Trump and there were no 'significant tradecraft issues' in the preparation of the assessment. Gabbard's decision to publicize the report when multiple predecessors had declined to do so, including Ratcliffe during Trump's first term, comes at a moment when her standing within the Trump administration had been in question. In June, Trump publicly undermined Gabbard's assessment on Iran's nuclear capabilities and she was absent from at least one major national security meeting to discuss Israel and Iran. CNN reported at the time that the president viewed her as 'off-message.' Democrats accused Gabbard of jeopardizing intelligence community sources and methods by releasing the report. 'The desperate and irresponsible release of the partisan House intelligence report puts at risk some of the most sensitive sources and methods our Intelligence Community uses to spy on Russia and keep Americans safe,' Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a statement. 'And in doing so, Director Gabbard is sending a chilling message to our allies and assets around the world: the United States can no longer be trusted to protect the intelligence you share with us.' One Democratic congressional source said intelligence agencies were still in the process of proposing redactions to the document ahead of its release, but that Gabbard declassified the report Wednesday before the process had been completed. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence did not respond to a request for comment. A former senior US intelligence official said they were alarmed by some of the material in the report that remained unredacted, warning it could alert Moscow to how intelligence was collected and potentially endanger sources. The report includes an explanation from the classified assessment that some judgements are based on a human intelligence source with secondhand access for several specifics, including Putin's order to pass collected material to WikiLeaks, Putin's views on Hillary Clinton, and details about 'specific, planned Russian Foreign Intelligence Service efforts.' 'It should also scare the crap out of any source we have who reports on politically inconvenient subjects,' the intelligence official said. 'If I were them, I'd be going dark about now.' In 2017, the US extracted from Russia one of its highest-level covert sources inside the Russian government. Trump and his allies in Congress have sought to release the House Intelligence Committee report for years now. The material that was being scrutinized was so sensitive that the CIA would only let congressional staffers view it at CIA headquarters, requiring their work stay locked up at Langley. The committee brought in its own safe for its files — which became known as the 'turducken' — that remained locked away at the CIA during the Biden administration. It's not clear whether the full extent of the classified House Intelligence Committee report was redacted, declassified and released on Wednesday. In the lead-up to the 2020 election, Trump allies pushed Ratcliffe, who was then the director of national intelligence, to release a redacted version of the report. But Ratcliffe ultimately did not so do amid strenuous objections from CIA and NSA officials, who warned it would damage sources and methods and US relationships with allies. Instead, the report was part of a large collection of documents brought to the White House in the final days of the first Trump administration, which were redacted so they could be declassified and released. The redacted documents were not ultimately released before Trump left office in 2021, though he did so in March. But an unredacted copy of the documents — including the highly sensitive intelligence that was redacted from what was released Wednesday — went missing and was apparently never found. US intelligence officials scrambled to assess the potential damage of the binder's contents becoming public after it went missing at the end of the first Trump administration, according to a source with direct knowledge of the events. There are hints at why the intelligence agencies were so concerned with the report in the declassified version released Wednesday. The report includes redacted lines that detail what signals intelligence the assessment had relied upon, as well as what Putin was being told and how it was obtained. The House document provides one of the most detailed glimpses to date into the raw intelligence relied upon by analysts to produce the 2017 assessment — but one that is impossible to compare to the Senate review that reached the opposite conclusion on the judgment that Putin was aspiring to help Trump. Much of the documentation for that panel's reasoning remains classified. The House report accuses Obama administration intelligence leaders of relying on thinly sourced and uncorroborated intelligence to conclude that Putin preferred Trump, while alleging that the assessment suppressed intelligence that Putin did not care who won and that Russia's intelligence services allegedly possessed damaging information about Clinton that was not released before the election. The January 2017 assessment does note there was a disagreement on the level of confidence in that assessment: the CIA and FBI had high confidence, and the NSA had medium confidence. But the GOP report argues that the conclusion was flawed, based upon previously unpublished intelligence reports, including three that were 'substandard.' One report, based on a single human source the House panel said was biased against both Trump and Putin, contained a claim that Putin was 'counting' on Trump's victory, according to the committee. That claim was interpreted in different ways by different analysts but was ultimately used to reach the 'aspire' judgment, the report said. 'One scant, unclear and unverifiable fragment of a sentence from one of the substandard reports constitutes the only classified information cited to suggest Putin 'aspired' to help Trump win,' the report states. The Ratcliffe-led CIA in its review found that the 'aspire' judgment was 'plausible and sensible, but was an inference rather than fact sourced to multiple reporting streams,' noting that it also rested on an assessment of 'the public behavior of senior Russian officials and state- controlled media, and on logic.' It said that the assessment authors had properly interpreted the sentence fragment. The report also details what US intelligence knew about Russian intelligence material collected on Clinton that was not released before the election, including allegations about her health, which Republicans wrote 'would have created greater scandals' than the hacked materials from John Podesta released by WikiLeaks. Republicans questioned why this information wasn't released if Russia was trying to help Trump (CNN was unable to confirm the origin or veracity of any of the allegations). CNN reached out to Clinton aides for comment. The GOP report criticizes the assessment's inclusion of the infamous and discredited dossier written by British intelligence official Christopher Steele, which was paid for by the Clinton campaign and alleged coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign. A summary of the dossier was included as an annex in the January 2017 assessment, after CIA officials objected to including it in the report itself. The intelligence analysts who prepared the report told the Senate Intelligence Committee the dossier played no role in the analysis of Russia's interference. Special counsel John Durham, who was appointed by then-Attorney General Bill Barr during Trump's first term, spent four years investigating a wide range of topics, including potential wrongdoing by the FBI and intelligence community during the 2016 post-election period. He never accused any US officials of any crimes related to the 2017 intelligence assessment,
Daily Mail
18-07-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Obama behind 'treasonous conspiracy' to take Trump down in 2016 with Russia hoax explosive docs claim
Intel chief Tulsi Gabbard released a trove of explosive documents from the last weeks of the Obama administration - saying it unmasks a 'treasonous conspiracy' against Donald Trump. Gabbard released a 114-page document on Friday she says shows the Obama administration was aware that there was no threat of Russia 'directly' manipulating the vote in 2016. She's now calling for an investigation into and potential criminal prosecution of anyone who took part – which may include ex-President Barack Obama and James Comey, the former FBI director. The documents revealed insider discussions among top Obama officials about Russia 's much-debated role in the 2016 U.S. elections. Although many of the documents are highly redacted or completely blacked out, they show conversations among favorite Trump targets including former intel chief James Clapper as officials debated how to describe Russian election activity. The documents found that there was 'no indication of a Russian threat to directly manipulate the actual vote count through cyber means.' But Gabbard says the documents show that Democrats chose to ignore that - or even promote the opposite narrative - to try and take down Trump. That would make it another facet of what Trump and Gabbard have described as the 'Russia hoax' – Democrats and perceived enemies working to frame then-candidate Trump unfairly for now-debunked theories he was working with Russia to interfere in the election. The Obama team 'politicized intelligence' as part of what Gabbard calls a 'years-long coup against President Trump.' In addition to railing against 'Russia, Russia, Russia' as one of many 'witch hunts' against him orchestrated by the Democrats, Trump for years has fumed about the discredited 'Steele dossier,' which became part of a counterintelligence investigation during the campaign. Gabbard said in a blistering statement accompanying the document release: 'Their goal was to subvert the will of the American people and enact what was essentially a years-long coup with the objective of trying to usurp the President from fulfilling the mandate bestowed upon him by the American people.' 'Their egregious abuse of power and blatant rejection of our Constitution threatens the very foundation and integrity of our democratic republic,' Gabbard said. 'No matter how powerful, every person involved in this conspiracy must be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, to ensure nothing like this ever happens again,' she said. Several of the documents put out by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) show officials found that Russia either wouldn't try or wouldn't be able to shift the outcome of a U.S. vote. 'Russia probably is not trying to going to be able to? [influence] the election by using cyber means to manipulate computer-enabled election infrastructure,' reads one draft line by the then-deputy director of ODNI. By December 9, following Trump's stunning win over Democrat Hillary Clinton, a document to top intelligence officials tasked them with creating an assessment 'per the President's request' about 'tools Moscow used and actions it took to influence the 2016 election.' Many of the pages the DNI released are heavily redacted Documents show officials crafting a document saying there wasn't an indication Russia could manipulate the vote count 'We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election,' according to a January 2017 report titled 'Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections.' The report then mentioned Russian cyber operations against both political parties. Of the material Gabbard released, one new August 31, 2016 document by an official with their name blacked out states that the 'thrust of the analysis is that there is no indication o fa Russian threat to directly manipulate the actual vote count through cyber means.' That came more than four years before Trump and prominent allies would make claims that voting machine companies and an altered vote were responsible for his defeat in battleground states in the 2020 election he lost to Joe Biden. A September 2, 2016 document features an official asking for a line on Russia's intent to be 'softened.' 'The way it currently reads, it would indicate that we have definitive information that Russia does intend to disrupt our elections and we are uncomfortable making that assessment at this point. We would suggest editing the sentence to read as the following ... "We judge Russia to be the only nation state with the current means and possible motivation to use cyber attack to disrupt the 2016 election or deny political legitimacy to US presidential candidates.' A Sept. 16, 2016 document states that 'foreign adversaries do not have and will probably not obtain the capabilities to successfully execute widespread and undetected cyber attacks.' A copy of the color-printed 2016 intelligence assessment features a map of 'Moscow's efforts to manipulate foreign elections' over a period of 16 years. If features such countries as Ukraine, which it would invade in 2022 after annexing Crimea in 2014, and Belarus, which has been a key Russian ally in the Ukraine war. Gabbard's release says states that Obama administration officials 'leaked false statements to media outlets, including The Washington Post, claiming, 'Russia has attempted through cyber means to interfere in, if not actively influence, the outcome of an election.' Obama's post-presidential office had no comment. 'We are turning over all documents to the DOJ for criminal referral,' wrote Gabbard, a former House Democrat from Hawaii who previously ran for president, left the Democratic Party, and endorsed Trump. It also states that a January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment 'directly contradicted' intelligence community assessments from the previous six months. A chart lists 'possible state-level election network breaches' in the U.S., like one from 2015, when a 'Russian-speaking cybercriminal offered to sell a database containing the personal information of approximately 190 million US persons from 49 states.' A copy of a December draft presidential daily brief assesses that 'foreign adversaries will likely weigh the risk of appearing to influence US elections if caught or implicated relative to any perceived benefit.' It also assesses that new voting technologies 'will increase vulnerabilities and decrease diversity in computer-enabled US election system in the future.' Gabbard's release is the latest move in Trump's second term to turn the tables on top Democratic officials he views as undermining him during his first term. Trump continues to fume about former FBI Director James Comey, who is already under investigation by the Justice Department for potential wrongdoing during the Russia probe. On Thursday, the DOJ fired Maurene Comey, the assistant U.S. attorney in New York who prosecuted Jeffrey Epstein and Sean 'Diddy' Combs.'
Fox News
07-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Fox News
Famed ex-'60 Minutes' producer says CBS' Trump settlement will create 'unacceptable' fear for reporters
Award-winning journalist Lowell Bergman believes Paramount Global and CBS' eight-figure settlement with President Donald Trump will spark "unacceptable" fear for "60 Minutes" reporters going forward. Bergman, a longtime producer for CBS' "60 Minutes" whose investigation of the tobacco industry was dramatized in the 1999 movie, "The Insider," appeared on "The Daily" New York Times podcast to offer his take on Paramount Global and CBS settling with Trump. Bergman was played by Al Pacino in the film, which was based on the true story of CBS legal counsel attempting to shut down his tobacco industry report to appease corporate interests. Bergman said last week's decision by Paramount to settle Trump's "election interference" lawsuit makes current CBS issues even worse. "It's nonsense, it's done to intimidate," Bergman said of Trump's $20 billion election interference lawsuit against the network. The lawsuit alleged CBS News deceitfully edited a "60 Minutes" interview last year with then-Vice President Kamala Harris in order to make her appear more articulate ahead of Election Day. Many legal experts and Paramount's own attorneys insisted the lawsuit was meritless, but CBS' parent company settled it anyway. Paramount's controlling shareholder Shari Redstone reportedly pushed for the settlement in hopes of paving the way for Trump's FCC to approve a long-planned, lucrative merger with David Ellison's Skydance Media. "It's not like a case involving tobacco, and the pressure that was coming down... this is the President of the United States, this is without precedent in the history of this country," Bergman told "The Daily." Bergman said the settlement was explained by Paramount Global and CBS in a way to make it appear like a "minor thing," when he believes it could actually have major ramifications. "Anyone working at '60 Minutes' from now on has to worry about what is going to be allowed on the air, at a level that is, how should I put it? Not acceptable," Bergman told the podcast. Bergman is hopeful "60 Minutes" can regain credibility but feels producers and journalists could be hesitant to cause any controversy. "And if the new owners who are coming in, who are going to buy, do not have a long tradition of being in the news business or being respectful of the traditions that it represents, we're at a really grim moment when absurd lawsuits and huge amounts of money come together to damage the public interest," Bergman said. "So, I would say," he continued. "You gotta be a little bit depressed about what the future holds." Fox News Digital has learned that the sum being paid to Trump could reach north of $30 million, with $16 million being paid upfront for his future presidential library, in addition to another eight-figure allocation set aside for advertisements, public service announcements or other similar transmissions, in support of conservative causes by the network in the future. Current Paramount management disputes the additional allocation, and a source familiar with Paramount's current leadership told Fox News Digital only $16 million was sanctioned by the official mediator, and they have no knowledge of any deal Trump made on the side. CBS also agreed to update its editorial standards by mandating the release of full, unedited transcripts of interviews with future presidential candidates. Paramount has defended the settlement. "Companies often settle litigation to avoid the high and somewhat unpredictable costs of legal defense, the risk of an adverse judgment that could result in significant financial or reputational damage, and the disruption to business operations that prolonged legal battles can cause. Settlement offers a negotiated resolution that allows companies to focus on their core objectives rather than being mired in uncertainty and distraction," a Paramount spokesperson told Fox News Digital.
Reuters
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Reuters
US Justice Department investigating former New York governor Cuomo, sources say
WASHINGTON, May 20 (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department is investigating Democrat Andrew Cuomo, a leading candidate for mayor of New York City, over Republican allegations that he lied to Congress about what he did as New York governor during the coronavirus pandemic, people familiar with the matter said on Tuesday. The probe represents another example of what critics say is the Justice Department's readiness to move against President Donald Trump's political rivals. Trump, who has painted past legal cases against him as an improper political use of law enforcement, has in a number of instances called for probes of his foes. Several people familiar with the matter confirmed the Cuomo investigation, which was first reported by the New York Times. A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment. A spokesperson for Cuomo, Rich Azzopardi, said the campaign had not been informed of the probe. He accused Trump and the Justice Department of "lawfare and election interference plain and simple - something President Trump and his top Department of Justice officials say they are against." Cuomo resigned as governor in August 2021, when a report from state Attorney General Letitia James accused him of sexual harassment and other transgressions. Cuomo, 67, denies the allegations. He is seen as the front-runner in the Democratic primary election for New York City mayor on June 24. The winner will challenge current Mayor Eric Adams, a former Democrat who is running as an independent. Adams was once the subject of a federal investigation, having been charged with bribery and fraud, but the charges against him were dropped after he embraced Trump policies on immigration. Last year, a Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee had referred Cuomo to the Justice Department for possible prosecution based on closed-door testimony he gave to the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, the Times reported. "Governor Cuomo testified truthfully to the best of his recollection about events from four years earlier, and he offered to address any follow-up questions from the Subcommittee - but from the beginning this was all transparently political," Azzopardi said in his statement.
