Thank Guccifer 2.0 it’s Friday
by Tom Sullivan
Washington was abuzz Thursday with news that:
a) the Dow Jones industrial average dropped 700 points on fears of a Donald Trump-driven trade war
b) Trump’s national security advisor H.R. McMaster was out
c) Ambassador John Bolton was in as Trump’s third national security adviser
After the Dow plunged yesterday on fears of a trade war, there is no telling what chaos the appointment of noted shooting-war hawk Bolton as national security adviser might produce today. Bolton is known for wanting regime change in Iran and for advocating a first strike on North Korea.
In repsonse to the Bolton announcement, Watergate whistleblower John Dean cheerfully tweeted, “We’re all going to die…”
Trump appointed Michael Flynn as his first national security adviser after warnings Flynn was compromised by Russia. Flynn resigned after only 24 days and pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his Russian contacts.
The departure of McMaster as national security adviser was another in a breathtaking list of staff turnovers in the Trump White House. MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow has been keeping a growing list displayed on her set. If nothing else, it is another Trump campaign promise fulfilled. He said he would build a wall.
Virtually lost in the Beltway churn was news that special counsel Robert Mueller’s team has taken over investigation of Guccifer 2.0, the hacker who took credit for providing Wikileaks with emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee. The Daily Beast reported last night that the “lone hacker” has been identified as a Russian military intelligence officer:
While it’s unclear what Mueller plans to do with Guccifer, his last round of indictments charged 13 Russians tied to the Internet Research Agency troll farm with a conspiracy “for the purpose of interfering with the U.S. political and electoral processes, including the presidential election of 2016.” It was Mueller’s first move establishing Russian interference in the election within a criminal context, but it stopped short of directly implicating the Putin regime.
Mueller’s office declined to comment for this story. But the attribution of Guccifer 2.0 as an officer of Russia’s largest foreign intelligence agency would cross the Kremlin threshold—and move the investigation closer to Trump himself.
Through an IP address masking slip-up, investigators tracked Guccifer 2.0 to “a particular GRU officer working out of the agency’s headquarters on Grizodubovoy Street in Moscow.” As opposed to “somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds,” as Trump alleged during a presidential debate.
It is likely, however, that the DNC hack was carried out by other individuals. The Washington Post reports, “FBI agents had zeroed in last year on five or six individuals they believed worked for Russia’s military spy agency, the GRU, and hacked the DNC, according to one individual familiar with the case.”
While The Daily Beast’s report does not name specific individuals behind Guccifer 2.0, blogger Marcy Wheeler suggests two added last week to the list of GRU officers sanctioned for the DNC hack: Sergei Afanasyev and Grigoriy Viktorovich Molchanov. Wheeler writes:
Both would actually be (very) experienced officers — they are 55 and 62. And both include very interesting “as of” dates identifying the last point when our intelligence officials identified their positions: February 2017 and April 2016, respectively.
The latter is of particular interest, as it came during the period when Guccifer 2.0 was setting up his infrastructure. But the government doesn’t know a ton about this guy — they know his birth year, but not his birth date, and possibly not even his passport information.
Trump’s firing of former secretary of state Rex Tillerson came one day after his public condemnation of Russia for the chemical attack against former Russian spy living in England. McMaster’s ouster follows his call last week for further punishment of Russia for its complicity in “Assad’s atrocities” in Syria.
No pattern. No pattern.
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