The only person who emailed us today about this was... Paul McKeigue. No one claiming to represent the “Berlin Group 21” did so. So now I would like to know why the “Berlin Group 21” claims they contacted us directly when someone who denies having anything to do with them did.
And we incorporated McKeigue’s denial into our article. He had declined to comment in advance of publication.
And note the “Berlin Group 21” correctly states that a request was addressed to the “journalists”. Indeed, McKeigue emailed both @JettGoldsmith and myself at our personal email accounts. How would the “Berlin Group 21” know that?
This is also curious. Note the similarity in language between the “Berlin Group 21” statement and McKeigue’s email to me. ImageImage
Also interesting: the "Berlin Group 21" has altered its About page. The Group has gone from being "represented" by the following to being "established" by them. ImageImage
.@N_Waters89 with an email from McKeigue to "Ivan" in which McKeigue claims "we are arranging media coverage" for the Statement of Concern he claimed to neither he nor the Working Group (see above) he had nothing to do with.
And here is another one from McKeigue to "Ivan" from January in which he notes that in Germany the Working Group "works" with the only German journalist to cover the launch of "Berlin Group 21" and the "Statement of Concern," according to BG21's Press Coverage section: ImageImage
So McKeigue and the Working Group "arranged media coverage" for an initiative McKeigue now says neither he nor the Working Group had anything to do with after telling "Ivan" Piers Robinson -- the founder of the Working Group -- "coordinat[ed]" the initiative "behind the scenes."
(Actually, one of two German journalists counting von Sponeck's interviewer, who asks a question about BG21.)

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More from @michaeldweiss

20 Apr
NEW: A group of British academics and bloggers sowing disinformation about Syria's use of chemical weapons have coordinated their efforts with four different Russian diplomatic missions around the world, emails show: thedailybeast.com/syria-chemical…
A number of stunning revelations in a three-month correspondence between one of the academics and "Ivan," someone he believed was a Russian spy.

"Ivan" was in reality @CIJAOnline, an NGO collecting evidence of war crimes in Syria, conducting a sting operation.
Professor Paul McKeigue, an epidemiologist at the University of Edinburgh, mapped out his cohort's entire network of disinformation peddlers and their liaisons: Russian officials in The Hague, New York, London and Geneva.
Read 16 tweets
19 Apr
This piece by @TomRtweets is the best anatomy I've seen as to the ongoing dispute between CIA and NSA on the now much scrutinized GRU "bounties" story. And it's conveniently short: washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/inside…
Note that there was no climb-down from the original leaked allegations, as reported correctly in the NYT that NSA had a lower level of confidence in this intelligence than did CIA. ("Moderate" confidence means pretty good, in laymen's terms.)
The fact that this intelligence made it into the President's Daily Brief (Trump's) also suggested it wasn't quite the nothing-burger it's since been portrayed as in the press. Ditto making it into the WH statement on sanctions:
Read 16 tweets
17 Apr
I'm going to watch this tomorrow, but I still can't figure why they had to invent a CIA case officer for Rachel Brosnahan to play. She'd have been perfect as Janet Chisholm, who (to my mind) played a more daring role than Wynne in this op. spytalk.co/p/spytalk-at-t…
You've essentially got MI6's answer to the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel in this character.
There was initially almost no suspicion about Penkovsky, whose cover gig was to meet trade delegations, gallivanting around Moscow with Wynne. Janet, meanwhile, had to do brush-passes in broad daylight, in a Moscow park, with -- checks notes -- three small children and a pram.
Read 4 tweets
17 Apr
So in 2014 the GRU blew up Czech military ammunition destined, via a Bulgarian arms dealer, for Ukraine. Then it twice tried to murder the Bulgarian with a nerve agent, first in Sofia, then on the Bulgarian coast. The puzzle pieces finally fall into place.
Emilian Gebrev had all sorts of other theories as to why the Russians wanted him dead—his arms dealing to Georgia and Ukraine, he believed, was too small-stakes to qualify.
An excellent thread on this breaking news.
Read 16 tweets
15 Apr
So here now, from the White House itself, is the mention of the GRU/Taliban 'bounties' claim. No sanctions levied, but the matter is "being handled through diplomatic, military and intelligence channels": whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/… Image
Note that it isn't much of a revelation that the IC assessed the 'bounties' story with "low-moderate confidence." NSA and CIA always disagreed about this allegation. From NYT, July 2020: ImageImage
And the intelligence wasn't just based on Taliban detainee interrogations. It's next to impossible, for instance, that detainees would have known which specific unit of the GRU was responsible for these payments. Intercepts played a part, as per NYT: nytimes.com/2020/06/30/us/… Image
Read 5 tweets
15 Apr
The U.S. government affirms for the first time that a Russian spy close to Trump's campaign chair in 2016 not only received privileged Trump campaign information but did indeed pass it along to the Russian Intelligence Services. In case you thought Mueller was the last word...
As to which agency Kilimnik worked for, it's almost certainly the GRU. Why? Let's look at his background.
In the mid-90s he taught Swedish at the Military University for Foreign Languages of the Russian Ministry of Defense -- a customary educational pathway for GRU officers.
Read 4 tweets

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