The National Intelligence Bulletin is a weekly look at national security, domestic systems disruption, the risk of failing critical infrastructure, and threats to social, political, economic, and financial stability in the United States. This report is available each week for National Intelligence subscribers.
In this National Intelligence Bulletin… (4,811 words)
- InFocus: The Case to Take Down a Sitting President
- ‘Critical vulnerabilities’ discovered in software used by Schneider Electric
- Cybersecurity experts say industry not doing enough to protect itself from hacks
- Most Russian troll activity on Facebook in 2016 aimed to divide Americans over race, religion
- Rise in MS-13 recruitment being blamed on DACA policy
- ICE enforcement surge in Midwest nets 78 arrests of illegal alien criminals
- Oakland Mayor sued for tipping off illegal aliens to ICE raid
- Justice Department inspector general discovers lawbreaking in Clinton email case
- Trump has had many successes but division, partisanship keeps many from seeing them
- States leading the way in protecting election systems
- Gas price increases over the summer likely to wipe out most tax cut savings
- Americans continue to worry about retirement
- And more…
InFocus: This week’s been full of bombshell developments for the FBI and Just-us Department. Most recently, the DOJ’s Inspector General released to select government officials the initial findings of an inquiry into the Clinton server scandal, in which the IG found fault with how FBI officials, including former director James Comey, handled the Clinton investigation. It’s not clear whether or not he will refer anyone for prosecution (the draft apparently contains no referrals), however, according to a Wall Street Journal source, there will be at least one referral in the final version. The report will apparently be made available for the public in three or four weeks, and then the IG is expected to release a third report; this one on the FBI’s handling of the Carter Page case and their interactions with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court.
Mainstream media outlets this week chided President Trump’s “claims” and “accusations” that his campaign was spied upon by the FBI, yet several investigative journalists report that these accusations are true. (They are no longer allegations!) Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) reported that the FBI did indeed have a source placed within the Trump campaign to specifically spy on George Papadopoulos and Carter Page, although other information outside that scope could easily have been reported. In addition, the FBI dispatched senior officials to London, under the code name Crossfire Hurricane, to interview the Australian ambassador who alleged that Trump campaign officials knew of election meddling ahead of time. The verdict is still out on whether or not that is true. And there are still other accusations that former CIA director John Brennan was also involved in authorizing related Agency activity during this period. That information is still pending release, according to sources.
What we’re clearly seeing, development by development, is an attempt by FBI and DOJ officials to protect Hillary Clinton and go after candidate Trump and some of his campaign officials. This week, Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani said that Mueller told his office that the Mueller team would not indict President Trump, as the office could not indict a sitting president. That doesn’t meant that the Mueller team won’t refer Trump for prosecution if he’s found to have broken the law, however, it does appear that Mueller’s case against the president is falling apart.
We all remember the Mueller indictments of 13 Russian nationals and three companies earlier this year, which made headlines as proof that Russia meddled in U.S. elections and conspired, either with or without the cooperation of the Trump campaign, to get Trump elected. Earlier this month as his team readied for the first hearing against the indicted Russian companies, Mueller requested a delay because the defense team’s discovery requests included specific information about the prosecutor’s evidence. The Mueller team objected, saying that the Russians’ defense team may have just wanted the evidence without the intent to actually show up in court. The judge in that case rejected the request and accused the Mueller team of engaging in “pettifoggery”. (I had to look that one up; it means a “trivial quarrel”.)
Regardless of the outcome of the Russia indictments, the evidence is stacking up that FBI officials repeatedly lied about their intent and activities (deputy director Andrew McCabe, according to an IG report, lied four times to investigators — the same crime Gen. Mike Flynn was nailed on and which may not have even been a lie at the time); exhibited bias and “a lack of candor,” did not follow through on prosecuting the Clinton server scandal; and were involved in the surveillance of Trump campaign officials, the reports of which were briefed to the Obama administration, and which preceded the creation of the Steele dossier (June to December 2016), which was financed by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee, which later became the basis for the FISA court warrants to spy on Page and potentially other U.S. citizens, which are being used to discredit, undermine, and allege Russian collusion by the Trump administration. I will carefully suggest one possibility here and acknowledge that there exists no publicly known proof, but the preponderance of the evidence could suggest that the Trump campaign may have set up from the start.
I don’t think Trump supporters appreciate just how close his campaign was to being completely wrecked. The ongoing leaks were bad enough, but if the extent of the investigation into his campaign had been fully known by the public before the election, the allegations alone would have probably sunk his campaign. And if the Mueller team fails to refer President Trump for prosecution, given the exhaustive nature of the FBI investigation to find any reason to hang Trump politically, then we can say that President Trump is simply innocent. I can’t tell the future, but I would be surprised if President Trump is referred for prosecution for collusion, and I don’t think that’s going to happen. From the sounds of it, the Mueller team is investigating the white collar side of the Trump campaign and there still exists the possibility that Mueller will recommended charges against the president for obstruction of justice, although that does seem to be a long shot at this point.
What I still find dubious is the Department of Justice and their refusal to hand over documents relating to the investigation. At first the FBI had lost thousands of text messages between two of their agents, Strzok and Page, and only after an investigation was the IG was able to find them. The DOJ has been withholding evidence from senators, as well, even going so far as to risk being in contempt of Congress. Additionally, JudicialWatch, a watchdog organization led by Tom Fitton, has repeatedly filed lawsuits against the DOJ and has since been able to recover dozens, maybe hundreds, of pages that were previously “lost” or unknown to exist. For instance, last year the FBI said that no documents existed regarding the tarmac meeting between Loretta Lynch and Bill Clinton. A JudicialWatch lawsuit forced the FBI to then find 29 pages of documents that actually did exist about the event. Another JudicialWatch lawsuit forced the DOJ to recognize the existence of previously unreported Clinton server emails, some of which were turned over to JudicialWatch completely redacted because they contained classified information! Other emails reportedly show collusion between State Department officials and Clinton Foundation staff, with regard to U.S. foreign policy and Clinton Foundation initiatives. That’s a lot of feet dragging, covering up, and sweeping under the rug. If turnabout is fair play, then where there’s the smoke of collusion against President Trump, there’s fire.
According to an Economist/YouGov survey, sixty-one percent of Republicans, twenty-five percent of independents, and seven percent of Democrats believe the president is being framed by the FBI. [source] Survey figures about heavily politicized issues are always lopsided, which shows just how split Americans are on politicized issues. My concern is the continued politicization of government bodies, and specifically I’m thinking about two things.
The first is the loss of faith and trust in public institutions because that causes problems of perceived legitimacy, which will certainly cause more political and social instability. In an extreme scenario, the Taliban in Afghanistan exploit the legitimacy of the Afghan government by establishing a shadow government of shadow governors and shadow district leaders, who play havoc with U.S. attempts to stabilize the country.You may be familiar with the “Alt-office” trend that exploded shortly after the Inauguration, where government employees started Twitter accounts under handles like Alt-EPA, Alt-USDA, Alt-NASA, among others, to report on in the inner-workings of the transition and the incoming Trump staff policies. These were and are members of the “resistance” movement working to grind the gears of the Trump administration inside the government. (There were numerous legitimate alt-accounts which published information contrary to what Trump administration officials were putting out, although the hugely popular “Alt-White House” account turned out to be a fake.)
And the second thing is the continued politicization of public institutions, which could worsen under the some circumstances, to unfairly target political opponents and gain an unfair advantage (e.g., the IRS targeting of conservative groups during the Obama administration). Either of these developments will contribute to political division and instability. And, of course, my longer term concern — perhaps in 2020, 2024, or beyond — is the return of the same radical, Leftist progressive or socialist agenda that wins back the Congress and the White House. That’s the one I fear will justify the means to achieve the ends of ensuring that another Trump-style candidate can never win, and perhaps those ends would even extend to a mainstream conservative president. That’s certainly a worst case scenario, but given what we’ve seen in the attempted take down of a sitting president, it has to be on the radar. – SC
Priority Intelligence Requirements
PIR1: What are the new indicators of systems disruption and threats to critical infrastructure?
PIR2: What are the new indicators of potentially disruptive social, cultural or political conditions or events?
PIR3: How are state and federal agencies preparing for domestic conflict, emergencies, or other instability?
PIR4: What are the new indicators of systems disruption and threats to the economic or financial industry?
PIR1: What are the new indicators of systems disruption and threats to critical infrastructure?
‘Critical vulnerabilities’ discovered in software used by Schneider Electric
Researchers from cybersecurity firm Tenable have discovered that critical infrastructure is vulnerable to attacks thanks to a flaw in several software tools utilized by Schneider Electric, a global firm offering technologies in energy management and automation. Tenable researchers found the zero-day exploit as energy management officials and government authorities scramble to protect critical infrastructure from devastating, society-changing attacks on power grids, water treatment facilities, manufacturing and financial sectors. A zero-day exploit is an attack that exploits a previously unknown security vulnerability; a zero-day attack is sometimes defined as one that takes advantage of a security vulnerability on the same day that the vulnerability becomes generally known. The vulnerabilities were discovered in Schneider’s InduSoft Web Studio and InTouch Machine Edition. The former is a suite of tools providing automated building blocks which lead to the development of human-machine interfaces, as well as Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems. The latter is a software toolset used to develop interfaces for web browsers, tablets, and smartphones. There is concern that if state-sponsored or criminal cyber-actors exploited the flaws, they could cripple power plants completely by exposing multiple systems to attack as they moved throughout networks. Schneider has since patched the flaws, but there is a concern other software suites could be vulnerable. [source]
Cybersecurity experts say industry not doing enough to protect itself from hacks
A just-released annual report based on a survey of 579 cybersecurity experts found that a majority of them do not believe critical infrastructure managers who oversee security for power grids, water, oil, transportation, financial and other sectors are doing enough to prepare for eventual attacks. The report notes that 85 percent of those surveyed expect their country to be subjected to a major critical infrastructure attack within five years. Just 49 percent of cybersecurity experts at organizations with 1,000 or more employees are aware of how many devices they control that are connected to the Internet. That figure climbs to 70 percent at small and midsize organizations, leaving fully 30 percent of those surveyed unsure of how many devices they control are Internet-connected. “More than ever, devices with IT are being integrated into operational technology,” Dewan Chowdhury, founder and CEO of MalCrawler, a security software company that protects industrial-control systems, said. “But when it comes to security architecture, [when they’ve said] ‘Let’s make this thing connect to the Internet,’ did they consider security design? Ninety-nine percent of the time, the answer is no.” [source] Analyst comment: A universally accepted belief throughout the cybersecurity community is not if a major attack will occur against a nation’s critical infrastructure, but when. In addition, most experts think that operators either don’t think it can happen to them or that they think they have a lot of time to find solutions. Neither of those assumptions is true.
PIR2: What are the new indicators of potentially disruptive social, cultural or political conditions or events?
Most Russian troll activity on Facebook in 2016 aimed to divide Americans over race, religion
Though Russian troll farms did not, in sum, purchase a great number of fake ads social media giant Facebook during the 2016 election cycle in an attempt to inflame passions and influence election outcomes, many pages they created aimed to divide Americans along racial and religious lines. Over half the Facebook ads Russian troll farms bought were tied to race, according to an American media analysis of some 3,500 ads published by House Intelligence Committee Democrats recently. What’s more, as the election drew closer, the more race-related ad purchases were made. Of the 3,500 ads published, some 1,950 made disparaging references to race and were seen about 25 million times. About 25 percent of the ads dealt with crime or policing, but they, too, often had a racial undertone. “When you’re stoking fear to get a negative action directed at a targeted population based on race, and when a foreign nation uses that fear to subvert and undermine democracy, that’s become a serious problem,” Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP, said. “It’s a warning for technology companies and corporations that private citizens have entrusted with their privacy to receive factual information.” [source] Analyst comment: It’s interesting that Democrats would complain the loudest about race-baiting Facebook ads from Russians or anyone else; the party generates much of its political support by portraying minorities as constantly being under assault by a ‘racist’ white majority. It’s no wonder the Russian trolls picked up on this theme. And there’s little wonder why they’ll revert back to it this coming election and beyond.
Rise in MS-13 recruitment being blamed on DACA policy
Congress’ continued inability to effectively deal with the DACA (Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals) policy that President Obama implemented and President Trump is attempting to overturn is leading to a surge in illegal border crossings and a rise in the number of young recruits to the notorious MS-13 gang. Because DACA in effect remains national policy as the Trump administration battles opponents of rescinding it in court, it serves as a beacon for especially young migrants to sneak into the U.S. — especially when combined with lax internal immigration enforcement policies and lighter sentences for younger criminals. In regions close to Washington, D.C. — like Northern Virginia and eastern Maryland — MS-13 gang membership is rising, for both boys and girls, the latter seen as the ‘Americanization’ of the gang. According to Northern Virginia Regional Gang Task Force Executive Director Jay Lanham, 80 percent of the gang recruits are from high schools and middle schools. Why? “MS-13 often target young recruits because if they are convicted, they often face light jail sentences due to their age.” [source]
ICE enforcement surge in Midwest nets 78 arrests of illegal alien criminals
Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested 78 criminal aliens and other immigration violators during a six-day operation in five Midwestern states that ended late last week. Arrests were made in the following states: Iowa (25), Nebraska (25), Minnesota (15), South Dakota (10) and North Dakota (3). Of the 78 arrested, 62 had criminal convictions. Seventy-two men and six women were arrested; they range in age from 20 to 64 years old. Those arrested during this operation are from the following nine countries: Mexico (35), El Salvador (15), Guatemala (11), Honduras (10), Ethiopia (2), South Sudan (2), Kenya (1), Ivory Coast (1) and Sudan (1). Nine of those arrested were immigration fugitives. Thirty-one others illegally re-entered the United States after having been previously deported, which is a felony. Depending on an alien’s criminality, an alien who re-enters the United States after having been previously deported commits a felony punishable by up to 20 years in federal prison, if convicted. Those arrested were picked up for having committed these crimes: assault, arson, rape, sex assault on a child, solicitation of a child, domestic assault against a child, prostitution-hiring a child age 13-16, felony theft, felony forgery, prostitution, manufacturing false documents, identity theft, hit and run, distributing a controlled substance, driving while intoxicated (DUI), drug possession, indecent exposure, domestic assault, illegal sale of a weapon, criminal impersonation, possessing drugs with intent to sell, burglary, malicious prosecution, illegal re-entry after deportation and witness intimidation. [source] Analyst Comment: The Trump administration’s immigration enforcement efforts continue to get pushback from Democrats in city, state, and federal office, making the issue particularly divisive and explosive for a segment of the population. To that end, U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., has introduced legislation that would require ICE and other immigration enforcement agencies to report the number of immigration stops they make — a pointless bill that is designed mostly to harass the agencies. It has zero chance of passage, but the fact that she is even introducing it speaks to the issue of immigration as one that is increasingly divisive.
Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf sued for tipping off illegal aliens to ICE raid
Staying with the politically divisive issue of illegal immigration, Libby Schaaf, mayor of Oakland who tipped off her community to a secret pending ICE raid earlier this year — much to the ire of the Trump administration — is now being sued by an organization favoring stricter enforcement of immigration laws. The Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI) filed suit Monday seeking to force the city to hand over documents related to Schaaf’s decision to tip off illegal aliens to a major enforcement action in February. The group’s executive director, Dale Wilcox, said, “We’re tired of these state and local jurisdictions who are thumbing their nose at our duly enacted immigration laws.” He added: “I think [the documents are] going to expose [Schaaf and her staff] radical open-borders philosophy and how … [Schaaf] has been scheming with the chief of police. She has mentioned in news reports about conversations she’s had with her chief of police over tipping off illegal aliens. She’s been quite brazen. She’s actually said she’s willing to go to jail to defend criminal illegal aliens.” [source] Analyst comment: We’ll be watching this one as the case moves forward. It will be interesting to see how it turns out — whether a local elected leader can be held legally liable for essentially aiding and abetting illegal immigrants.
Justice Department inspector general discovers lawbreaking in Clinton email case
The inspector general for the Department of Justice, Michael Horowitz, has found “reasonable grounds” to suspect the FBI and DoJ under President Obama broke laws during their investigation into Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of classified emails, according to investigative reporter Paul Sperry. In a Thursday tweet, Sperry also claimed that Horowitz has made a criminal referral of the matter to a U.S. attorney that Attorney General Jeff Sessions handpicked to look into other allegations of Obama-era malfeasance, John Huber of Utah. “BREAKING: IG Horowitz has found ‘reasonable grounds’ for believing there has been a violation of federal criminal law in the FBI/DOJ’s handling of the Clinton investigation/s and has referred his findings of potential criminal misconduct to Huber for possible criminal prosecution,” Sperry wrote, followed by another tweet implicating former FBI Director James Comey and former Deputy AG Sally Yates, both of whom were fired by President Trump. “BREAKING: Comey/Yates targeted Gen. Flynn in C.I. investigation a yr BEFORE he communicated w Russian ambassador in Dec 2016 as a transition official–and the trigger was Flynn sitting at same table w Putin at Dec 2015 Moscow event, even tho Green Party’s Jill Stein also at table.” The second tweet appears to suggest that Yates and Comey were looking to trip up Trump’s first national security advisor, former DIA chief and retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn well before he joined Trump’s campaign. It should be noted that Horowitz has already handed the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, D.C., a criminal referral against fired FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, whom Horowitz noted in a previously released report lied repeatedly to federal investigators about leaking sensitive information to The Wall Street Journal. [source] Analyst comment: The implications of all this are staggering. If true, the damage done to both agencies — the FBI and Justice Department — will be intractable, at least for a generation and maybe longer. That’s a big deal because we already live in a time in America when trust in our institutions, including government and the media, is at a historic low. Realizing that the Obama administration actually sanctioned an operation aimed at spying on a rival presidential campaign based on a fabricated narrative will hit tens of millions of Americans especially hard. But it gets even worse. A large plurality of the population will always believe that the Trump campaign was actually guilty of something nefarious, despite there being no evidence to substantiate that belief. This scandal is only going to further divide an already bitterly divided nation that is getting larger, more diverse, and increasingly more difficult to govern.
Trump has had many successes but division, partisanship keeps many from seeing them
From reforming the tax code to bringing unemployment rates down to a level not seen in 18 years, President Trump has had a great many successes thus far in his short presidency, but because tens of millions of Americans are so bitterly opposed to him, they’re not seeing those successes, according to a new analysis. Here’s the nut descriptor of Trump’s opposition: “So now we get the hypocrisy of modern leftists and progressives, their moral superiority and certainty of their entitlement to rule, at the same time they have created a degraded culture of debased hedonism and sordid materialism. It explains the arrogance and hauteur of the progressive politicians who want to limit if not eliminate individual autonomy, religious beliefs, child-rearing practices, traditions of marriage and sex identity, attitudes toward gun ownership, and affection for the nation and the patriotic displays of that love. Attacks on Hillary’s ‘deplorables’ are righteous, and no matter how vulgar and sordid and extreme, they are not only acceptable, but mandatory––as the few Democrats feebly protesting these crude antics are discovering as they are burned at the virtual stake of Twitter, the internet, and Facebook.” [source] Analyst comment: The bottom line of this assessment is that Trump has thrown a huge wrench in a ruling class system of which he no part in creating and which will never accept him as a member. And while his supporters are on his side precisely because of his ‘outsider’ status, we’re seeing that being an outsider in the D.C. ‘swamp’ comes with great consequence as the ruling class pulls out all stops in their attempt to derail or destroy his presidency, at any cost — even if it means tearing the nation apart in the process.
PIR3: How are state and federal agencies preparing for domestic conflict, emergencies, or other instability?
States leading the way in protecting election systems
Election officials in many states are ramping up cybersecurity of their electronic balloting systems ahead of the 2018 midterms in a bid to thwart potential hacking from Russia and other countries. One of them is the state of Illinois, which Russian hackers targeted in 2016 (though no hacks changed any outcomes). “In a sense, it’s a declaration of war. It’s a cyberwar,” said Steve Sandvoss, executive director of the Illinois State Board of Elections. “When a foreign government attacks your system, obviously you know they are up to no good,” he said. “Elections being a central part of our democracy, being attacked by a foreign government I think everybody in the country should be concerned about that.” Other states are also shoring up their cyber defenses ahead of this year’s elections as well, in anticipation that Russia, primarily, will attempt to hack into various systems. [source]
EMP Commission warns of ‘year-long’ blackout of power, necessities, would kill millions of Americans
Portions of the U.S. would be without power, clean water, food, and modern conveniences and necessities like Internet service and transportation for a year or more due to even the smallest electromagnetic attack on the power grid, warns a newly declassified report from a federal panel. The so-called EMP Commission notes the threat is very real and it puts “modern civilization” in jeopardy. An EMP attack/explosion that took out much of the U.S. power grid would set life back to the 1800s for much of the country. And that new reality would instantly create chaos in which millions — likely tens of millions — of Americans would die, either from starvation or as a result of violence. The report, “Assessing the Threat from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP),” put together by the recently-re-formed commission, notes, “A long-term outage owing to EMP could disable most critical supply chains, leaving the U.S. population living in conditions similar to centuries past, prior to the advent of electric power,” the July 2017 report notes. The Trump administration has declassified three reports on this subject, while seven more await declassification. [source] Analyst comment: Make no mistake, if this were to ever happen life in America as we know it would cease to exist and it may take a generation or more to recover. Meantime, with the United States essentially out of the picture, the world would explode as our enemies would feel immediately empowered to go on the offensive…everywhere. President Trump has made dealing with this issue a priority but as usual not much is getting accomplished thanks to the maddening federal bureaucracy. Federal agencies responsible for planning are fighting over the issue, while the Defense Department — which is factoring in an EMP attack in the Pentagon’s own planning — refuses to share critical information that would help agencies and the private sector better protect themselves. Typical. So the best solution is, of course, to be as prepared, personally, as you can be. And there is never any better time than the present to get started.
State election systems still waiting for security checks
As midterm congressional primaries begin to ramp up with an eye towards the November midterm elections, the Department of Homeland Security is rushing to complete cybersecurity checks on state electronic balloting machines. DHS officials say they have completed checks in nine of 17 states that have requested them; the department has promised to perform checks for any state that makes a request before November. Systems are checked for cybersecurity vulnerabilities, and while generally those are performed by the private sector, DHS has stepped in to help plug any vulnerability gaps, should any be found. In all, 33 states and 32 local election offices currently receive remote cyber-scanning services from DHS to help spot any vulnerabilities early on. So far, two states that have conducted primaries this year are Illinois and Texas; neither has reported any cyber intrusions. [source]
PIR4: What are the new indicators of systems disruption and threats to the economic or financial industry?
Gas price increases over the summer likely to wipe out most tax cut savings
The middle class can’t catch a break even when it’s been handed one. The Republican-led Congress did not accomplish much of President Trump’s agenda in 2017 with the exception of one major piece of legislation: The tax reform bill, which provided tax relief to nearly 85 percent of Americans and all corporations. But now as interest rates rise once again, so too is the cost of gasoline. Prices at the pump have already reached $4 in parts of California and other high-tax regions, but price increases are expected across the country throughout the summer, wiping out much of not all of the tax savings and sopping up with little is left of consumer purchasing power. Oil prices have already risen to $70 a barrel, and as more Americans hit the road for vacations this year — those who still can — demand will only rise, along with prices. Supply is also an issue; Venezuela’s economy continues to tank, hurting that country’s oil production. And conflicts in the Middle East and other oil-producing regions of the world could also dampen output. [source]
Americans continue to worry about retirement
Though there are indications that economic conditions are improving in the country, a large plurality of Americans still working — 46 percent — say they won’t be comfortable financially when they retire, according to a new Gallup survey. That has improved somewhat from the years immediately proceeding the Great Recession, but it’s significantly higher than when Gallup first began tracking the issue in 2002-2004, when 32-36 percent of those surveyed didn’t think they’d have enough money saved for retirement. This means that more Americans are likely to stay in the workforce longer. One spot of good news: 78 percent of those who currently are retired reported they have enough money to live comfortably. Getting to that point, however, seems to be of greater concern. But even then there are caveats. Many who are currently retired are getting pensions that current workers may not get. Also, current retirees are benefitting from a Social Security system that has largely been unchanged for decades, but which is spiraling towards insolvency at present. [source]
