Thread by @SethAbramson

(MAJOR BREAKING NEWS and THREAD) A just-released intel document bolsters the case that Trump should have been charged with aiding and abetting the Kremlin's preelection computer crimes. I analyze the document and its content in the thread below. I hope you'll read on and retweet.

1/ First, here's the link to the document—a partially redacted and clearly incomplete summary of the August 17, 2016 counterintelligence briefing Trump received alongside Mike Flynn and Chris Christie. What's not in the document is as revealing as what is: politico.com/f/?id=00000173…

2/ Understand the context in which Trump received the briefing. In late 2013 he'd been in regular contact with Putin's builder—Aras Agalarov—and regularly discussed his policy views at a time the Kremlin knew he'd be running for POTUS. Trump then went into business with Agalarov.

3/ As part of Trump discussing his policy plans in Moscow, he met with many Kremlin agents he knew to be Kremlin agents, such as Putin's banker, his building permits man, and his builder. Trump wouldn't shut up about his policy views. He'd decided to run for POTUS a year earlier.

4/ Trump's Letter of Intent to do, with Agalarov, the biggest deal of his life—Trump Tower Moscow—was active, per Agalarov, through early 2017, ending only with Trump's inauguration. Trump regularly shared policy plans with Agalarov and Agalarov told him they pleased the Kremlin.

5/ In 2015, now-candidate Trump entered into negotiations—through Michael Cohen, whose tell-all book Trump is now trying to block through DOJ actions just ruled illegal—with another Moscow businessman. Once again he was told his policy plans were part of what made him attractive.

6/ Every public statement Trump has made about his 2013 negotiations with Moscow businessmen, and every public statement Trump has made about his 2015 negotiations with Moscow businessmen, have been lies. In three years of research I found no honest recitation of events by Trump.

7/ Beginning in mid-2015, Michael Flynn—also at the August 2016 briefing—entered into a secret deal to work with Russia, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, and Israel. The deal would see Trump carrying through on his plan to end Russia sanctions. Flynn was then Trump's top NatSec adviser.

8/ During the course of this secret work Flynn met with Russia's U.S. ambassador—an intelligence agent—and then met Putin himself face-to-face. Both events happened in December 2015, when Flynn was a Trump NatSec adviser. Flynn stayed in regular contact with Russia's ambassador.

9/ So as primary voting in the 2016 election began, both Trump *and* Flynn were working on business deals that required and benefited from Trump having a very specific national security policy with respect to Russia that—critically—he and Flynn had communicated to Russian agents.

10/ At the end of March 2016, just after hiring as a key campaign aide a man known as "Putin's man in Kyiv"—Paul Manafort—Trump learned, from his new NatSec aide George Papadopoulos (who'd worked, like Flynn, with the Carson campaign) that the Kremlin wanted a new secret conduit.

11/ All this is absolutely essentially to understanding Trump's August 17, 2016 briefing.

12/ In March 2016 Papadopoulos told Trump that he—Papadopoulos—was in touch with the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which wanted a secret backchannel to the campaign. Trump—like Papadopoulos' fellow NatSec adviser Flynn—was pursuing deals in Moscow and let his aide proceed.

13/ From April to June, Trump's NatSec team met repeatedly with Putin intelligence agent Kislyak to share details about Trump's policy plans. Every single meeting was covered up and then lied about, even in subsequent testimony to Congress. And then the "June 9 meeting" happened.

14/ At the June 9 meeting, the *top three men in Trump's campaign* met with a self-described Kremlin agent *in Trump's home* (Trump Tower) to discuss (a) Trump's policy plans and (b) the removal of sanctions on Russia. Documents were exchanged that sought to aid Trump's campaign.

15/ Throughout this period, Trump and members of his family were in contact with Kremlin agent Agalarov, who kept telling Trump that his policy plans were being met with great approval by power brokers in Moscow. Trump knew—and Flynn knew—this was good for their respective deals.

16/ Roger Stone had learned by April 2016 that WikiLeaks was planning to play a major role in the election by releasing stolen campaign documents. Trump was speaking regularly with Stone at the time. He spent summer 2016 ordering his aides to acquire the stolen Clinton documents.

17/ Trump knew, before his August 2016 briefing, that his agents—on his orders—were reaching out to parties in Moscow to see if they could acquire the stolen docs (illegally, of course). Trump was daily lying about his past contacts with Kremlin agents and what he'd said to them.

18/ Trump also knew his aide Papadopoulos was in contact with Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. And that his aide Cohen was in contact with the Kremlin. And that he was in contact with Putin agent Agalarov. And that his advisers were secretly meeting with intel agent Kislyak.

19/ With that in mind, here's what the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Counterintelligence Division communicated to Trump in his August 2016 briefing—which he attended with Mike Flynn, his top NatSec adviser despite Trump studiously never formally naming him to his NatSec team.

20/ ITEM #1 (FBI): You may "already" be "a target of a Foreign Intelligence Service."

ITEM #2: "You will be"—if you're not already—"a target of a Foreign Intelligence Service."

1 of the 2 Foreign Intelligence Services most discussed by the FBI with Trump that day was Russia's.

21/ ITEM #3 (FBI): "[The Russian] Foreign Intelligence Services want information pertaining to political, economic, energy, technology and military policy/plans of the U.S." These intel categories were *exactly* the categories of intel Trump and Flynn had provided Kremlin agents.

22/ Trump provided this sort of intel to Kremlin agents *after* he decided to run for POTUS but *before* he announced and *after* he announced but *before* the briefing. His aides were *right then* working their Russian contacts to cut a deal—he and Flynn said nothing to the FBI.

23/ ITEM #4 (FBI): "The first ['way the Kremlin deploys intelligence officers'] is through the official diplomatic
presence at their embassies, consulates and establishments in the US. IOs are deployed using diplomatic cover."

Remember all Flynn's *secret meetings* with Kislyak.

24/ ITEM #5 (FBI): "As an example, Intelligence Officers will purport to be an official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but in fact their real position is an IO."

Trump had been told the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs was using his aide Papadopoulos as a secret conduit.

25/ ITEM #6 (FBI): "The second method of deploying
intelligence operatives to the US is through non-official cover or NOCs. NOCs can businessmen..."

Remember all the secret contacts with Kremlin-connected businessmen Trump had by then had—and was publicly lying about to America.

26/ ITEM #7 (FBI): The FBI told Trump and Flynn that if NOCs were contacting the Trump campaign, the FBI would "need some forehand knowledge [from the campaign or other intel sources] regarding who or what to look for."

Trump and Flynn stayed deadly quiet here, adding nothing.

27/ ITEM #8 (FBI): The FBI told Trump that it had a number of active cases of Russian IOs working in the US to conduct *precisely* the sort of work within the campaign Trump and Flynn knew Kislyak, Agalarov, and Papadopoulos' Russian MFA contacts were pursuing.

He said nothing.

28/ Sorry... did I say Trump said "nothing"? Not exactly true. In the midst of an effort—coordinated by Trump and Flynn *specifically*—to receive stolen property from Russian hackers, an effort ongoing *during the briefing*, here's what Trump told the FBI about him and computers:

29/ "Yes, I understand it's a dark time. Nothing is safe on computers anymore. We used to lock things in a safe in a room, now anyone can get in. My son is ten years old. He has a computer and we put a codeword on it. Within ten minutes he broke the codeword..." {cont.}

30/ "...and we needed to put another one on the computer. Kids are genius."

That's what he said.

That's what a guy running a secret effort to receive stolen computer files from known Kremlin agents said *to the FBI* about Russian computer crimes. Think he aimed to deceive them?

31/ Meanwhile, Michael Flynn—then in the midst of *a secret deal involving Russian sanctions, US nuclear tech, and his boss (Trump's) "plans" for US policy*—bragged to the FBI "I did SIGNINT" and quizzed them on whether they knew more about the FBI than him.

Yeah, he really did.

32/ I'd add that Trump not only misled the FBI about his own knowledge of computer security issues, but *also*—I can't believe I'm writing this—asked, "Are the Russians bad?"

Yeah, he did. That's how badly he wanted to project innocence. He asked a question like a third-grader.

33/ (Apologies for the typo; I meant SIGINT, not SIGNINT. Typing too fast will do that.)

34/ Flynn has the gall to try to *change the subject* from Russia to focus on "HVEs" ("homegrown violent extremists"), i.e. "lone wolf" Muslim terrorists inspired by a call to jihad.

He tells Trump—in front of the FBI briefer—the FBI is so focused on IOs, it can't focus on HVEs.

35/ So while Trump plays dumb and reveals *none* of what he knows, Flynn acts smart and tries to *change the subject* to Muslims... while *also* revealing *none* of what he knows. These two men have urgent intel for the FBI and they aren't just withholding it—they're *hiding* it.

36/ ITEM #9 (FBI): "You need to be mindful [in seeking to avoid providing Russia with HUMINT] of the people on your periphery: your staff, business associates, friends..." Remember: Flynn (staff); Papadopoulos (staff); Agalarov (friend and business associate). Trump says nothing.

37/ So Trump is being told that he's already been recruited to provide the Kremlin with HUMINT, and what's *already happened to him* is being described to him in great detail, but—though this is the FBI he's speaking to—he doesn't just *not* come clean, but *actively* dissembles.

38/ ITEM #10 (FBI): The FBI gets explicit. "Individuals [cf. Papadopoulos] will also be targeted for recruitment due to their access to you. That does not mean IOs will not make a run at you [cf. Agalarov/Kislyak]. They'll send their IOs in diplomatic cover, businessperson[s]..."

39/ The FBI was *describing to Trump exactly what had already happened to him in minute detail over and over*.

They must have been *waiting* for him to say *something*. To tell the truth. They must've been *floored* that Flynn—a retired U.S. soldier—also wouldn't reveal himself.

40/ By this time, per THE GUARDIAN, the US intel community had received intelligence from *seven*—not a typo—allied intelligence agencies that Trump agents were having secret meetings with Kremlin agents. Can you imagine what the briefers thought as Trump and Flynn stayed silent?

41/ ITEM #11 (FBI): The FBI tells Trump, "You will be targeted for sensitive and personal information about you."

Within a few weeks, Trump's fixer is in contact with sources in Moscow about a "tape" of Trump allegedly going around Moscow. A sex tape. Trump doesn't tell the FBI.

42/ ITEM #12 (FBI): Remember—Cohen testified Trump knew of the 6/9 meetup between Kremlin agents and his top aides. FBI to Trump: "[Russia] will develop a pattern on where you hold private meetings or discussions. They'll attempt to determine if the location is a meeting room..."

43/ Does Trump tell the FBI about the "private meeting" self-described "Kremlin agent" Natalia Veselnitskaya held in a "meeting room" in the building he lives in? Of course not. Trump stays silent about all of it. Mike Flynn—who met with Kislyak in the latter's home—stays silent.

44/ One confusing line in the just-released intel doc seems to indicate there may have been earlier briefings. It states that the August '16 counterintelligence briefing was offered "in support of ODNI briefings provided to U.S. Presidential candidates and two of their advisors."

45/ I don't know what "in support of" means here. We know there were later CI briefings of Trump in September/October—as Trump aided and abetted (and his family and aides communicated secretly with) an entity they knew was a Russian cutout, WikiLeaks—but were there earlier ones?

46/ The doc, released by Trump's own ODNI, also carefully redacts *any* of the *specifics* Trump was briefed on—the better to ensure he can continue to lie about the briefing and say it was a "defensive briefing" that didn't trigger a legal duty not to aid or abet Russian crimes.

47/ But my god... just what's *in* the heavily redacted report underscores what Trump and Flynn were up to in summer 2016—working with Russia and trying to hide it from U.S. intelligence, thereafter declaring war on U.S. intelligence when it (in the mildest ways) called them out.

48/ If Biden wins, the odds we find out much more of what Trump was told in August 2016 are high. Not everything, of course, but the "political" redactions from this just-released doc—the *BS* redactions, as I think of them—will be removed, and we'll see what Trump knew and when.

49/ For more on the fully sourced facts summarized in this thread, see the 12,000 major-media citations in my books PROOF OF COLLUSION (2018), PROOF OF CONSPIRACY (2019), and PROOF OF CORRUPTION (coming on September 8).

Everything I've written is from the new doc or those books.

50/ It is harrowing to know what these men did before August 2016, and then to see what they *didn't* do—reveal anything about their contacts/deals with the Kremlin—in August 2016, as FBI agents desperate to try to protect America gave them every opportunity to be patriots. /end

PS/ I largely left out of this thread the harrowing August 2016 events detailed in PROOF OF CONSPIRACY (2019). Two weeks before this briefing, at Trump Tower, Trump's son Don approved pre-election collusion with Israel, UAE, and Saudi Arabia. The chances he didn't tell dad? Zero.

UPDATE1/ On the FNC TV program of top Trump domestic policy adviser Sean Hannity, Hannity and his boss have just revealed why they let ODNI leak this document: their claim is that the briefing was used as a *pretext to spy on the Trump campaign*. This is bananas in so many ways.

UPDATE2/ As the thread you've just read underscores, the US intelligence community had sufficient information from *seven* allied intelligence agencies on August 17, 2016, to know that Trump and Flynn's silence in the face of their briefing was evidence of consciousness of guilt.

UPDATE3/ Any intelligence official with the intelligence the USIC had on August 17, 2016, would have considered suspicious in the extreme—and deserving of more investigation—Trump and Flynn's misdirections and failure to inform the FBI about topics of relevance then on the table.

UPDATE4/ Imagine if Trump and Flynn had come clean on August 17, 2016. Imagine if Trump had said, "You know, now that you mention the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs potentially contacting my staff to get access to me, that *exact thing* did in fact happen just 120 days ago!"

UPDATE5/ Had Trump and Flynn come clean about everything I've discussed in this thread, there would've been little reason to suspect that their past actions were deliberately covert. Indeed, an investigator might've indulged the theory that Trump and Flynn had been honest dupes.

UPDATE6/ I'll go further: if Trump and Flynn were *patriots*—not traitors to this country who should both serve life sentences in federal prison—August 17, 2016 would have been the beginning of a months-long course of cooperation with FBI CD. They would have been national heroes.

UPDATE7/ Instead—and keeping in mind that Trump had this document released but only wildly redacted, so we don't know what the briefing said in full—even the preamble to the briefing that we *do* have underscores that Trump and Flynn intended to hide their covert Russia contacts.

UPDATE8/ So I find it astonishingly desperate that Trump would want this wildly redacted document released to slot it into an insane conspiracy theory about the FBI—as in context, it's Trump/Flynn's actions here, not the FBI's, that are historically unpatriotic and incriminating.

UPDATE9/ It is unthinkable that any other politician, or any other general, would be confronted by federal law enforcement with a desperate need to accumulate any/all information on Russian entreaties to U.S. persons, have *reams* of such data, and deliberately try to obscure it.

UPDATE10/ Indeed, this staggeringly counterproductive gambit of releasing a wildly redacted intelligence document—which release has already backfired hard—underscores, if anything, that the Durham probe will be a big nothingburger that Hannity is enlisted to frame as significant.