TOP OF THE NEWS:
- Intel chiefs presented Trump with claims of Russian efforts to compromise him (CNN) "One reason the nation's intelligence chiefs took the extraordinary step of including the synopsis in the briefing documents was to make the President-elect aware that such allegations involving him are circulating among intelligence agencies, senior members of Congress and other government officials in Washington, multiple sources tell CNN. What has changed since then is that U.S. intelligence agencies have now checked out the former British intelligence operative and his vast network throughout Europe and find him and his sources to be credible enough to include some of the information in the presentations to the President and President-elect a few days ago."
- Trump Received Unsubstantiated Report That Russia Had Damaging Information About Him (NYT) "The author of the memos is Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer with MI-6, who once served in Moscow. After Mr. Steele retired in 2009, he founded a private firm called Orbis Business Intelligence in London. Former C.I.A. officials described him as an expert on Russia who is well respected in the spy world. Mr. Steele, who gathered the material about Mr. Trump, is considered a competent and reliable operative with extensive experience in Russia, American officials said. But he passed on what he heard from Russian informants and others, and what they told him has not yet been vetted by American intelligence."
- John McCain passes dossier alleging secret Trump-Russia contacts to FBI (Guardian) "The reports were initially commissioned as opposition research during the presidential campaign, but its author was sufficiently alarmed by what he discovered to send a copy to the FBI. It is unclear who within the organisation they reached and what action the bureau took. The former Democratic Senate leader, Harry Reid, has lambasted Comey for publicising investigations into Hillary Clinton’s private server, while allegedly sitting on 'explosive' material on Trump’s ties to Russia. The Guardian has learned that the FBI applied for a warrant from the foreign intelligence surveillance (Fisa) court over the summer in order to monitor four members of the Trump team suspected of irregular contacts with Russian officials. The Fisa court turned down the application asking FBI counter-intelligence investigators to narrow its focus. According to one report, the FBI was finally granted a warrant in October, but that has not been confirmed, and it is not clear whether any warrant led to a full investigation."
- How Spy Agency Vets Read That Bombshell Trump Report: With Caution (Wired) "Taken on its face, the report contains potentially devastating revelations. But those who spent their careers in the intelligence world are reading the report with more tempered skepticism, what ex-CIA analyst Patrick Skinner describes as 'interested caution.' He says he’s neither dismissing the report nor taking its claims at face value, but like other intelligence agency alums WIRED spoke to, called it 'raw intelligence' that would require far more work before it can be considered useful evidence. The fact that both Obama and Trump were briefed on the report in a meeting with the heads of the NSA, CIA, FBI and Office of the Director of National Intelligence suggests that U.S. intelligence agencies at least consider its contents important, if not altogether true, says Susan Hennessey, a former NSA lawyer."
- Donald Trump Blasts 'Fake News' — ‘I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH RUSSIA’ (Breitbart) "'Russia has never tried to use leverage over me,' he wrote on Twitter this morning. 'I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH RUSSIA – NO DEALS, NO LOANS, NO NOTHING!'"
- These Reports Allege Trump Has Deep Ties To Russia (BuzzFeed) "Now BuzzFeed News is publishing the full document so that Americans can make up their own minds about allegations about the president-elect that have circulated at the highest levels of the U.S. government." and How BuzzFeed crossed the line in publishing salacious ‘dossier’ on Trump (WaPo) "In this case, the doubt should have prevailed. News organizations and government officials have known for months that this information, if it can be called that, existed. But despite many attempts, the claims about Trump’s behavior and relationships in Russia could not be verified. It’s never been acceptable to publish rumor and innuendo. And none of the circumstances surrounding this episode — not CNN’s story, not Trump’s dubious history with Russia, not the fact that the intelligence community made a report on it — should change that ethical rule."
NEWS:
- Will Trump Avoid a Constitutional Crisis? (New Yorker) "The Emoluments Clause has never been tested in the courts, but most scholars seem to agree that if Trump doesn’t take the prophylactic approach to his conflicts there is only one other anti-corruption clause in the Constitution available as a remedy: impeachment."
- This new poll has all kinds of bad news for Donald Trump (WaPo) "Quinnipiac is the first high-quality pollster to poll on Trump twice since the election. And while its poll in late November showed his favorable rating rising from 34 percent to 44 percent, that number has dropped back to 37 percent, which is about where it stood for much of the campaign. That’s tied for Trump’s worst favorable rating in a poll since his election. And a majority — 51 percent — now have an unfavorable view of him."
- U.S. seeks 2 year prison term for former vice chair of Joint Chiefs of Staff in leak case (WaPo)
- A breakdown of trust between Donald Trump and America’s spy chiefs (Economist)
TECHNOLOGY:
- The Biggest Security Threats Coming in 2017 (Wired) "Here’s what we think 2017 will hold. Consumer Drones Get Weaponized. Another iPhone Encryption Clash. Russian Hackers Run Amok. A Growing Rift Between the President and the Intelligence Community. DDoS Attacks Will Crash the Internet Again (And Again, And Again). Ransomware Expands Its Targets.
- Will These Technologies Kill Cash Once and for All? (Ozy)
BOTTOM OF THE NEWS:
- Taco Bell is about to go national with chalupa shells made out of fried chicken (Quartz) "Imagine: A chalupa, only with a shell made out of fried chicken instead of a tortilla."
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