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From Consortium News
By Ray McGovern and *Bill Binney
BRIEFING FOR: The President
FROM: Ray McGovern, former CIA briefer of The President's Daily Brief, and William Binney, former Technical Director at NSA
SUBJECT: Info Your Summit Briefers May Have Missed
We reproduce below one of our most recent articles on "Russia-Gate," which, in turn, draws from our Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity Memorandum to you of July 24, 2017.
At the time of that Memorandum we wrote:
"Forensic studies of "Russian hacking" into Democratic National Committee computers last year reveal that on July 5, 2016, data was leaked (not hacked)by a person with physical access to DNC computer. After examining metadata from the 'Guccifer 2.0' July 5, 2016 intrusion into the DNC server, independent cyber investigators have concluded that an insider copied DNC data onto an external storage device.
Key among the findings of the independent forensic investigations is the conclusion that the DNC data was copied onto a storage device at a speed that far exceeds an Internet capability for a remote hack."
"We do not know who or what the murky Guccifer 2.0 is. You may wish to ask the FBI," we wrote. However, we now have forensic evidence that shows the data provided by Guccifer 2.0 had been manipulated and is a fabrication.
We also discussed CIA's cyber-tool "Marble Framework," which can hack into computers, "obfuscate" who hacked, and leave behind incriminating, tell-tale signs in Russian; and we noted that this capability had been employed during 2016. As we pointed out, Putin himself made an unmistakable reference to this "obfuscating" tool during an interview with Megan Kelly.
Our article of June 7, 2018, explains further:
"Still Waiting for Evidence of a Russian Hack"
If you are wondering why so little is heard these days of accusations that Russia hacked into the U.S. election in 2016, it could be because those charges could not withstand close scrutiny. It could also be because special counsel Robert Mueller appears to have never bothered to investigate what was once the central alleged crime in Russia-gate as no one associated with WikiLeaks has ever been questioned by his team.
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity -- including two "alumni" who were former National Security Agency technical directors -- have long since concluded that Julian Assange did not acquire what he called the "emails related to Hillary Clinton" via a "hack" by the Russians or anyone else. They found, rather, that he got them from someone with physical access to Democratic National Committee computers who copied the material onto an external storage device -- probably a thumb drive. In December 2016 VIPS explained this in some detail in an open Memorandum to President Barack Obama.
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