The answer to the question is NOTHING

What do you think the Republicans will do about this?

FBI Spied On Fox News, Recorded Phone Call Between Fox Exec And George Papadopoulos, New Texts Show

Tristan Justice

New text messages released Thursday show FBI officials spied on a Fox News executive over the course of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation that targeted President Donald Trump as a secret Russian agent who illegally stole the election from Hillary Clinton in 2016. 

The FBI surveilled and recorded a phone call between former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos and an unnamed vice president at Fox News, according to a text message sent to fired former FBI official Peter Strzok just weeks before Trump was inaugurated as president in 2017.

Agents were targeting former Trump campaign foreign policy advisor George Papadopoulos, who later pleaded guilty to making false statements to FBI agents during the Russian collusion investigation. The FBI used the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA, as a legal pretext to investigate and spy on Papadopoulos, as well as former White House National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, and former Trump affiliate Carter Page.

“I know you’re not point on this anymore, but [George Papadopoulos] got a call from the VP at Fox News yesterday, who advised that the government was conducting ‘checks’ on him a few months back,” an unidentified individual whose name is redacted in the report texted to Strzok on January 12, 2017. “I haven’t listed to the exact audio, but I’m guess[ing] that’s the FARA checks that we did with DOJ on our 4 main guys; especially given the article that you pushed yesterday.”

Neither the individual who sent the message to Strzok nor the Fox News executive was named in any of the text messages released on Thursday by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc. Strzok was fired from the FBI in 2018 after text messages surfaced showing that he used the Russia collusion investigations as an “insurance policy” to get rid of Trump in the event he became president. The FBI named its investigation of Papadopoulos “Crossfire Typhoon.”

Because the Obama DOJ never received a warrant to spy on Papadopoulos, it is likely that the FBI used a so-called National Security Letter to spy on Papadopoulos and Fox News. By using a National Security Letter, a demand sent to telecommunications firms to provide communications information about a specific federal target, Obama’s DOJ and FBI were able to avoid legal requirements to receive a court-approved warrant to secretly spy on an American citizen.

Papadopoulos did not respond to The Federalist’s request for details about the phone call.

The Obama administration previously targeted former Fox News Washington Correspondent James Rosen in 2010, falsely claiming the Fox reporter was a potential terrorist co-conspirator in order to track Rosen’s movements, telephone records, and personal e-mails. According to Fox News, the Obama White House even seized records containing the phone numbers of Rosen’s parents over the course of the federal inquisition into Rosen. The Obama DOJ falsely accused Rosen of violating the Espionage Act, suggesting that he was a traitor to the United States in order to get access to his phone calls and e-mails.

Although members of the corporate media repeatedly claimed that Trump’s criticism of journalists on Twitter constituted a violent attack on the First Amendment and the free press, no corporate media outlets have criticized the Obama administration for secretly recording phone calls with a cable news network executive without even bothering to seek a warrant.

The answer to the question is NOTHING

This is like the 10th story I've read on hacking involving Russia and China this month

 

Microsoft says it found malicious software in its systems

Gotta love this:

In a statement, President-elect Joe Biden said he would "elevate cybersecurity as an imperative across the government" and "disrupt and deter our adversaries" from undertaking such major hacks.

”Elevate cybersecurity”... This is coming from the same guy whose son took his computer to a repair shop with all the Bribem's incriminating evidence on it which hopefully puts an end to his presidency before it even starts.

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BTW... You would have thought a guy with his brains would never allow this to happen:

By Joseph Menn

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp said on Thursday it found malicious software in its systems related to a massive hacking campaign disclosed by U.S. officials this week, adding a top technology target to a growing list of attacked government agencies.

The Redmond, Washington company is a user of Orion, the widely deployed networking management software from SolarWinds Corp which was used in the suspected Russian attacks on vital U.S. agencies and others.

Microsoft also had its own products leveraged to attack victims, said people familiar with the matter. The U.S. National Security Agency issued a rare "cybersecurity advisory" Thursday detailing how certain Microsoft Azure cloud services may have been compromised by hackers and directing users to lock down their systems.

"Like other SolarWinds customers, we have been actively looking for indicators of this actor and can confirm that we detected malicious Solar Winds binaries in our environment, which we isolated and removed," a Microsoft spokesperson said, adding that the company had found "no indications that our systems were used to attack others."

One of the people familiar with the hacking spree said the hackers made use of Microsoft cloud offerings while avoiding Microsoft's corporate infrastructure.

Microsoft did not immediately respond to questions about the technique.

Still, another person familiar with the matter said the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) does not believe Microsoft was a key avenue of fresh infection.

Both Microsoft and the DHS, which earlier on Thursday said the hackers used multiple methods of entry, are continuing to investigate.

The FBI and other agencies have scheduled a classified briefing for members of Congress Friday.

The U.S. Energy Department also said it has evidence hackers gained access to its networks as part of the campaign. Politico had earlier reported the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which manages the country's nuclear weapons stockpile, was targeted.

An Energy Department spokeswoman said malware "has been isolated to business networks only" and has not impacted U.S. national security, including the NNSA.

The DHS said in a bulletin on Thursday the hackers had used other techniques besides corrupting updates of network management software by SolarWinds which is used by hundreds of thousands of companies and government agencies.

CISA urged investigators not to assume their organizations were safe if they did not use recent versions of the SolarWinds software, while also pointing out that the hackers did not exploit every network they gained access too.

CISA said it was continuing to analyze the other avenues used by the attackers. So far, the hackers are known to have at least monitored email or other data within the U.S. departments of Defense, State, Treasury, Homeland Security and Commerce.

As many as 18,000 Orion customers downloaded the updates that contained a back door, SolarWinds has said. Since the campaign was discovered, software companies have cut off communication from those back doors to the computers maintained by the hackers.

But the attackers might have installed additional ways of maintaining access, CISA said, in what some have called the biggest hack in a decade.

The Department of Justice, FBI and Defense Department, among others, have moved routine communication onto classified networks that are believed not to have been breached, according to two people briefed on the measures. They are assuming that the non-classified networks have been accessed, the people said.

CISA and private companies including FireEye Inc, which was the first to discover and reveal it had been hacked, have released a series of clues for organizations to look for to see if they have been hit.

But the attackers are very careful and have deleted logs, or electronic footprints or which files they have accessed, security experts said. That makes it hard to know what has been taken.

Some major companies have said they have "no evidence" that they were penetrated, but in some cases that may only be because the evidence was removed.

In most networks, the attackers would also have been able to create false data, but so far it appears they were interested only in obtaining real data, people tracking the probes said.

Meanwhile, members of Congress are demanding more information about what may have been taken and how, along with who was behind it. The House Homeland Security Committee and Oversight Committee announced an investigation Thursday, while senators pressed to learn whether individual tax information was obtained.

In a statement, President-elect Joe Biden said he would "elevate cybersecurity as an imperative across the government" and "disrupt and deter our adversaries" from undertaking such major hacks.

This is like the 10th story I've read on hacking involving Russia and China this month

Report: Palm Beach neighbors don’t want Trump to live at Mar-a-Lago

Next-door neighbors of Mar-a-Lago have a message for outgoing President Donald Trump: We don’t want you to be our neighbor.

Wonder what would have happened had Barry's neighbor said the same?

The Washington Post reported Tuesday that a demand letter was sent to the town of Palm Beach and the U.S. Secret Service to try to keep Trump from becoming a permanent resident at his private club.

There’s some question whether Trump is legally allowed to live at the club because of an agreement he signed in the early 1990s. He’s expected to make Mar-a-Lago his legal residence after he leaves office in January.

In the letter obtained by the Post, an attorney for the DeMoss family says Palm Beach should tell Trump he can’t use the club as a residence and “avoid an embarrassing situation” if the outgoing president has to leave later.

A White House spokesperson, Trump’s local attorney and Palm Beach’s mayor did not respond to requests for comment from the Washington Post. To date, Palm Beach has made no public attempt to prevent Trump from living at Mar-a-Lago or from using it as his legal residence.

But Trump and the town have a long history of disagreements and lawsuits.

Trump made Mar-a-Lago his official home when he registered to vote using that address earlier this year. He previously was registered in Manhattan.

Report: Palm Beach neighbors don’t want Trump to live at Mar-a-Lago

Starting to look like Berlin towards the end of WWII

Comrade de Blasio's New York City

NYC: Diners brave frigid temperatures for a sidewalk meal at The Smith restaurant in East Village on Wednesday night

Pasta Coldbonara

Starting to look like Berlin towards the end of WWII

Trump Ramps Up Attacks on Former Favorite Network: ‘Fox News is Dead’

Got to say it shocked the hell out of me when FOX hired Donna Brazile who CNN  fired for feeding Hillary the debate questions!!!

A few more examples:

The sound of her voice is like fingernails screeching down a blackboard.

Marie Harf worked for the Obama administration. I'm serious she said this during her tenure... ["The ISIS situation is a cry for help what they really need is jobs and we should supply them."]

Trump had a different approach.

Of all of them Cathy Areu was probably the most whacked. She claimed a number of guys at FOX including Tucker and Hannity tried to bonk her. Rather stick my member in a wood chipper! 

She sued and FOX got rid of her. If you ever listen to her speak your first reaction is ...why isn't she in a padded cell?

Well on to the Trumpster just had to get that off my chest:

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President Donald Trump is going in for the kill shot against his one-time favorite network.

In a Wednesday morning tweet, the president bashed Fox News — going so far as to pronounce its demise.

The tweet is the latest example of Trump trying to siphon away viewers from Fox, and push them towards fringe far-right outlets such as OAN and Newsmax. While the latter network has had a ratings uptick in recent weeks, neither has been much more than a blip on the Nielsen radar for Fox News — which remains atop the cable news heap.

[Been watching a lot of Newsmax lately myself. If you haven't seen it you won't believe the number of people who used to work at FOX and a few other networks]

Of course, you can't go anywhere without him.

Yet for all his proclamations of Fox’s demise, the president has — since the election — granted interviews only to that network. Most recently, he spoke with Fox & Friends host Brian Kilmeade this past weekend. He also gave his first post-election interview to Maria Bartiromo. And the president’s tweet immediately followed an interview with his chief spokesperson, White House Press Secretary and Trump campaign adviser Kayleigh McEnany.

Trump Ramps Up Attacks on Former Favorite Network: ‘Fox News is Dead’