[TMZ]. The thief who swiped a Secret Service agent’s laptop targeted the agent in question and knew exactly what he was after ... law enforcement sources tell TMZ.
Our sources say the thief -- whom they say is a man -- was caught on surveillance video pulling up to the agent's driveway in an Uber at around 3 AM Thursday.
The video shows the man make a beeline for the agent's car, removing a backpack with the computer inside and then walking off. As we reported, the hard drive contained Trump Tower floor plans and evacuation protocols, but the agency insists there was no classified info inside. What kind of professional gumshoe leaves confidential info in their (unlocked?) unattended car?
The thief also made off with a passport and several Secret Service lapel pins.
It's unclear what the thief was looking for if all the content was non-sensitive.
We're told the video is grainy so it's hard to make out the thief's features, but it's definitely a lead. I'd be looking closely at the phone and computer records of the Agent. But that's just me.
The agent's bank accounts and credit history should also be examined.
Posted by: Vast Right Wing Conspiracy ||
03/21/2017 00:00 ||
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#4
Doesn't Uber require a smart phone and credit card? Plus Uber drives often record their customers. Lastly the Uber driver would be a witness. Posted by Airandee
Yes, there could in fact be a trail. I suspect a generous cash transaction however.
More importantly, it would appear Trump Towers is under surveillance of one type or another. Perhaps less time should be spent there.
#8
Setting up a Dead Drop in your own driveway is an interesting twist.
Usually preferred would be a bench or lampost in lovely Ft. Greene Park, but leaving the 'bundle' in your driveway might deflect from you as simply being stupid and not actually subversive.
Leaving one's vehicle unlocked at 3AM (in Brooklyn mind you, not Greenleaf Kansas), and not simply staging a 'smash and grab' to retrieve the item(s), does indicate the latter in my mind.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
03/21/2017 10:00 Comments ||
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#9
Setting up a Dead Drop in your own driveway is an interesting twist.
Genius found in the illogical? Well I mean, James Comey is still the Director of the FBI.
A 'Genius' might have fleshed it out a bit more to make it believable, though. The 'unlocked vehicle' would NOT be SOP for any area resident. The video supposedly doesn't show the guy using a key or anything to enter the car, either.
The idea that a 'thief' simply trolled residential areas, riding in an Uber no less, looking for unlocked vehicles with laptops/passports/lapel pins (with very powerful night vision double plus ultra x-ray binoculars, no doubt) is beyond absurd.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
03/21/2017 10:28 Comments ||
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#11
As I posted yesterday, I don't worry about SS agents who say they won't take a bullet for Trump, but about ones who're more discrete.
#1
So Napolitano relays info he heard from someone who says he heard (what exactly?) it from people who are supposed to be in a position to know?
Oh dear
Posted by: European Conservative ||
03/21/2017 0:19 Comments ||
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#2
It's a bit more coherent than that, European Conservative.
Under intel sharing agreements, GCHQ has direct access to the *content* of communications between US citizens and foreigners. That access does not require a US FISA court warrant.
The allegation is that GCHQ personnel flowed the contents of communications by Trump campaign personnel and perhaps Trump himself back to US investigators.
The connecting dots might be the op info report created by a former GCHQ insider, and to which the FISA court application in October apparently referred. It is highly unusual for a FISA warrant application to be based on a commercially procured report created as campaign opposition material. But if in fact that report was seeded by GCHQ leaks, its use was more understandable.
And of course the publicly quoted portions of that report turned out to be inaccurate on demonstrable facts, such as whether Trump advisors travelled to certain countries and met with certain people.
[Breitbart] California Gov. Jerry Brown asked President Donald Trump on Sunday for federal emergency assistance for the fourth time in just two months since the new administration took office, putting the nascent "CalExit" movement in a difficult position.
While advocates of California secession -- both on the left and operating from abroad -- have hoped to make the case that the Golden State can stand on its own, Brown’s repeated requests for help underline the fact that the world’s sixth-biggest economy is still dependent on the rest of the country.
The latest request, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, asks for money for flood relief, including for repairing the damaged spillways of the Oroville Dam, which nearly failed last month, resulting in the temporary evacuation of 200,000 residents downstream of the dam.
#3
They don't want their money - they want yours...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
03/21/2017 8:00 Comments ||
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#4
While advocates of California secession -- both on the left and operating from abroad -- have hoped to make the case that the Golden State can stand on its own
Doesn't seem so, does it? The problem is that lefties make bad leadership choices and think the piggy bank is unlimited.
#7
CALEXIT is like Hollywood celebs threatening to move to Canada (never Mexico): an unserious temper tantrum with nothing real behind it.
Posted by: regular joe ||
03/21/2017 9:12 Comments ||
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#8
POTUS is busy 1)convincing businesses to stay in the US, 2)create new jobs, 3)cutting deficits, and 4)withholding Federal dollars from sanctuary cities.
Since you are opposed to 1, 2, 3, and 4 appears your request gets an F.
[Wash Times] President Trump was not backing down Monday from his claim that the Obama administration "wiretapped" Trump Tower during the campaigning, despite the FBI director testifying that there was no evidence, said the White House.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer said there were more congressional hearings to come and that all the information about government surveillance of the Trump campaign had not yet been revealed. He also said the president continued to have confidence in FBI Director James Comey.
Still, Mr. Spicer stressed that the hearing earlier Monday, where Mr. Comey testified before the House Intelligence Committee was "one in a series of hearings."
"I think there are a lot of areas that need to be covered," said Mr. Spicer. Mr. Trump has been criticized for leveling the charge on Twitter two weeks ago that President Obama ordered the "wiretapping."
#5
He was monitored, maybe not by the FBI or CIA or NSA but someone in the Obama administration monitored Trumps organization electronically.
Clinton knew too much about Trump's goings on and that is not by accident. Someone in the Obama administration was feeding her classified information.
This dick dance the FBI and the rest of the intel community is performing is obviously contrived. I would broaden the questioning to say "electronic surveillance" and see what happens...and don't let them use the plausible deniability phrase of "to the best of my knowledge"
And then put everyone of the media that publicized confidential information on Trump, etc., in jail, until they sing.
#6
I concur SPOD. I suspect the Secret Service tipped Trump off, he's pretty confident something was going on. The Secret Service could have demonstrated a counter-surveillance 'bug monitor.' They could have observed or detained someone employing a parabolic reflector. Just a couple of guesses.
h/t Instapundit
MSNBC's Joe Scarborough said Monday that President Trump is learning amid falling poll numbers that "Washington always wins" against those who don't play by the rules.
"What Trump is learning here is, what we’ve said before, Washington always wins," argued Scarborough on "Morning Joe."
"You don't play by Washington's rules. The courts are going to grab you. The intel community is grabbing the other leg. The House is going to grab you by the arm. The Senate will grab you by the other arm. And he doesn't seem to realize the more he flails, the more he lies, the more he struggles, the deeper he gets in political quicksand."
[McClatchy] Washington - Federal investigators are examining whether far-right news sites played any role last year in a Russian cyber operation that dramatically widened the reach of news stories -- some fictional -- that favored Donald Trump’s presidential bid, two people familiar with the inquiry say.
Operatives for Russia appear to have strategically timed the computer commands, known as "bots," to blitz social media with links to the pro-Trump stories at times when the billionaire businessman was on the defensive in his race against Democrat Hillary Clinton, these sources said.
The bots’ end products were largely millions of Twitter and Facebook posts carrying links to stories on conservative internet sites such as Breitbart News and InfoWars, as well as on the Kremlin-backed RT News and Sputnik News, the sources said. Some of the stories were false or mixed fact and fiction, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the bot attacks are part of an FBI-led investigation into a multifaceted Russian operation to influence last year’s elections.
Investigators examining the bot attacks are exploring whether the far-right news operations took any actions to assist Russia’s operatives. Their participation, however, wasn’t necessary for the bots to amplify their news through Twitter and Facebook.
The investigation of the bot-engineered traffic, which appears to be in its early stages, is being driven by the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division, whose inquiries rarely result in criminal charges and whose main task has been to reconstruct the nature of the Kremlin’s cyber attack and determine ways to prevent another.
#3
blitz social media with links to the pro-Trump stories
I guess I missed it. Anybody else catch it?
But all the lefties don't need to see it to believe it - they just know it's true!
Posted by: Bobby ||
03/21/2017 7:42 Comments ||
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#4
91% of media coverage of Trump was negative yet he still won. That shows just how bad a candidate Hillary was.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
03/21/2017 11:30 Comments ||
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#5
Are they investigating the blitz of misleading stories about Hillary pushed by the mindless robots in the press? The admitted rigging of the Democrat primaries? The clear election fraud in Detroit?
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
03/21/2017 12:10 Comments ||
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#6
Sounds like projection to me. Anybody remember the pathetic trolls who kept coming to Rantburg trying to convince us all how bad Trump is?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
03/21/2017 12:12 Comments ||
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#7
Who was paying those trolls?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
03/21/2017 12:19 Comments ||
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#9
91% of media coverage of Trump was negative yet he still won. That shows just how bad a candidate Hillary was.
It shows me how irrelevant the media is.
Posted by: regular joe ||
03/21/2017 13:50 Comments ||
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#10
The McClatchy article by AP writer Gerald Herbert reads like he came up with the conclusion first and then wrote the story to support the conclusion.
[Breitbart] Rep. Trey Gowdy, questioning James Comey during a House Intelligence Committee hearing on Monday, appeared to name former President Barack Obama and six of his administration’s top staffers as potential sources of leaks about former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn’s alleged collusion with the Russian government during the 2016 election.
It should be noted that Gowdy did not give evidence for any of the names he raised possibly being the source of the leaks.
The South Carolina Republican first asked the FBI director if former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper "knew the name of the U.S. citizen that appeared in The New York Times and Washington Post?... Would he have access to an unmasked name?"
Gowdy asked similar questions about former CIA Director James Brennan, former National Security Advisor Susan Rice former White House advisor Ben Rhodes, former Attorney General Loretta Lynch and former acting Attorney General Sally Yates.
Finally, Gowdy asked Comey if he "briefed President Obama on any calls involving Michael Flynn."
"I’m not going to go get into either that case or any conversations I had with the president," Comey answered.
#3
The FBI should be pursuing those who leaked the information and other classified bits to the press instead of chasing their tail with this nonsensical Russian probe...me thinks the deep state doesn't want a probe of the leaks but would rather the FBI and other propaganda sources spin their wheels on this smoke and mirrors thing with the Russian involvement
#4
How does Comey have the gall to stay in the FBI after he has disgraced himself before the country and the FBI agents working for him? How can President Trump get rid of him, given how the system is set up? Comey has a 10 year term, so he will theoretically be in there until 2023. He was good buddies with the Clintons, so what do you expect?
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/21/2017 20:12 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Breitbart] California Gov. Jerry Brown asked President Donald Trump on Sunday for federal emergency assistance for the fourth time in just two months since the new administration took office, putting the nascent "CalExit" movement in a difficult position.
