Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

Whistleblower exposes real 2016 US election meddling

By Kit Klarenberg | Al Mayadeen | August 5, 2025

On July 30th, the ODNI declassified damning evidence from a US intelligence community whistleblower. They attest to being aggressively – but unsuccessfully – pressured by superiors into signing off on the infamous 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment, which expressed “high confidence” Russia interfered in the previous year’s Presidential election to ensure Donald Trump’s victory. Their testimony indicates senior US spy agency officials not only well-knew the ICA’s findings were bogus, but consciously ignored and suppressed far more compelling evidence of widespread, non-Russian meddling in the vote.

The whistleblower is a US intelligence veteran who from 2015 to 2020 served as Deputy National Intelligence Officer, at the ODNI-overseen National Intelligence Council. They specialised in “cyber issues”, including “cyber-enabled information operations”. Prior to the 2016 vote, they led the production of an ICA on “cyber threats” to US elections, at the order of Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, for which they were “commended”. They were then tasked by the outgoing Obama administration to assist in the 2017 ICA’s production.

That assessment purported to expose “Russian activities and intentions” in the Presidential election. The whistleblower’s role was to investigate alleged attempts by Moscow “to access US election-related infrastructure”, as “reporting suggested many Russia-attributed IP addresses were making connection attempts that the [US intelligence community] could not explain the purpose of.” However, an official – name redacted – subsequently “directed us to abandon any further study of the subject,” on the basis it was “something else.”

For the whistleblower, the “abrupt dismissal of the study effort” raised significant concerns about the true nature and source of the “Russia-attributed cyber activity.” They suspected their superiors were attempting to conceal how state or non-state actors closer to home may have been engaged in “Domain Name Service (DNS) record manipulation”, to falsely ascribe cyber meddling efforts to Moscow. Their anxieties only multiplied when superiors rebuffed their attempts to include references to “other nations’ efforts to influence the 2016 Presidential election” in the 2017 ICA.

The whistleblower’s “professional judgment… was multiple nations were seeking to shape the views of the US electorate,” and therefore influence their voting preferences. This assessment was based not only on relentless negative media coverage of Trump in allied countries, including Britain and other “NATO partners”, but the “interception of electronic communications from members of [Trump’s] incoming Presidential administration.” The source of this interception is redacted. So too is the identity of an official who repeatedly demanded the whistleblower conceal this from the National Security Council.

‘Tradecraft Standards’

The ICA’s release on January 6th 2017, 11 days prior to Trump’s inauguration, ignited a media frenzy over the President-elect’s potential ties to Russia, and the Kremlin’s purported role in installing him in the White House. The New York Times dubbed the document a “damning and surprisingly detailed account” of Moscow’s “efforts to undermine the American electoral system.” The Washington Post boldly described it as “a remarkably blunt assessment”, and “extraordinary postmortem of a Russian assault on a pillar of American democracy.”

In reality, the ICA offered zero evidence to support its bombastic headline conclusions. It was claimed “full supporting information on key elements of [Russia’s] influence campaign” was “highly classified”. Bizarrely, much of the Assessment’s content focused instead on the output of Russian media – both for domestic and international audiences – with no relevance whatsoever to the 2016 election. This included RT America coverage of topics including police brutality, fracking, and “alleged Wall Street greed.”

The whistleblower records how when they learned the ICA was so heavily dependent on a “simplistic treatment” of “English language Russian media articles”, they expressed “substantial concern” over the “legitimacy” of the Assessment’s “analytic tradecraft”. They moreover “could not concur in good conscience based on information available,” and their “professional analytic judgement,” of a “decisive Russian preference” for Trump’s victory, as concluded by the ICA. The whistleblower thus refused to sign off on its findings.

This was not well-received by a senior US intelligence official, name redacted. Leading up to the ICA’s release, they sought to harass and suborn the whistleblower into endorsing the Assessment. After multiple failed attempts to bully the whistleblower to “abandon” their “tradecraft standards” and simply “trust” there was “reporting you are not allowed to see,” which “if you saw it, you would agree,” the official strongly implied the whistleblower’s subsequent promotion was contingent on their agreement.

When this approach didn’t work, the “visibly frustrated” official fulminated, “I need you to agree with these judgments, so that DIA [Defense Intelligence Agency] will go along with them.” This prompted discussion between the pair about the DIA’s “supposed trust” in the whistleblower, and “the necessity” of them proving their “bona fides” as an intelligence community officer “by doing what it took to bring DIA on board as an additional [intelligence] Agency signing on to the 2017 ICA.”

Refusing to compromise on “standards, tradecraft, and ethics”, the whistleblower defied his superior’s direct order “to misrepresent my views to DIA.” While unexplored in the declassified file, the official’s desperation for the DIA to endorse the ICA is understandable. In September 2020, it was revealed the entire US intelligence community had no “confidence” in the Assessment. In fact, then-CIA director John Brennan personally wrote the report’s incendiary conclusions, before selecting a coterie of his close Agency confidantes to sign off.

Many US intelligence analysts conversely assessed Russia favoured Hillary Clinton’s victory, and viewed Trump as a potentially dangerous “wild card”. As such, creating the false impression of US intelligence community unanimity over Brennan’s concocted conclusion was of paramount importance to the CIA chief. In the end, only the Agency, FBI, and NSA publicly endorsed the ICA’s findings. Even then, the NSA – which closely monitors communications of Russian officials, and could therefore detect any high-level discussions about the 2016 election in Moscow – merely expressed “moderate confidence”.

‘Something Else’

The whistleblower’s testimony indicates they were surprised the FBI expressed “high confidence” in the 2017 ICA. They were aware “as recently as September 2016,” the Bureau had “pushed back” against suggestions “of Russian intent to influence” the Presidential election, believing “such a judgement would be misleading.” The whistleblower notes the FBI “altered its positions… without any new data other than the election’s unexpected result [emphasis added] and public speculation Russia had ‘hacked’ the vote – a scenario [the US intelligence community] judged simply did not occur.”

They were furthermore shocked to learn years later disgraced former MI6 spy Christopher Steele’s ‘Trump-Russia’ dossier was a core component of the “highly classified” material, upon which the ICA’s dynamite conclusions heavily relied. It was their understanding the ODNI viewed the dossier at the time “as non-credible sensationalism”, the Office’s chief, James Clapper, considered it “untrustworthy”, and Steele’s ludicrous claims “had never been taken seriously” by US intelligence more widely.

The whistleblower’s grave, myriad anxieties about the Assessment’s construction led them to approach a variety of US government oversight agencies, including the Intelligence Community Inspector General, with what they knew. Despite receiving acknowledgement they “had witnessed malfeasance”, the whistleblower was stonewalled, and their evidence never appears to have reached any relevant authority, let alone been acted upon. Given the explosive nature of the whistleblower’s insider testimony, ominous questions abound over why they encountered such resistance – and where the non-Russian interference they identified truly emanated from.

The whistleblower’s account of being tasked to investigate alleged Russian hacking of “election-related infrastructure” the US intelligence community found inexplicable, only to be told to leave it alone as it was “something else”, is particularly striking. There are several explanations for this activity, all of which point to concerted attempts to falsely concoct the narrative of Russian election interference for malign purposes. For example, in September 2016, Hillary Clinton-connected lawyer Michael Sussmann approached the FBI, claiming to possess explosive evidence of Trump’s collusion with Moscow.

The material comprised DNS logs, supposedly indicating the Trump Organization used a secret server belonging to Russia’s Alfa Bank for back-channel communications with the Kremlin. This was fed to the media, and excitedly reported by certain liberal outlets prior to the election. However, The Intercept rubbished the trove, given the DNS records supplied couldn’t “prove anything at all, and certainly not ‘communication’ between Trump and Alfa,” meaning “no one… can show that a single message was exchanged between Trump and Alfa.”

An alternative may be the Department of Homeland Security was responsible for targeting election infrastructure. In December 2016, The Wall Street Journal reported an attempted hack into the state of Georgia’s voter registration database traced back to a DHS IP address. The incursion came at a time the Department was lobbying for election systems to be regarded as “critical infrastructure”, therefore making their protection part of the agency’s formal purview.

On January 6th 2017, the same day the ICA dropped, DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson jubilantly announced he had designated “election infrastructure” part of the agency’s already vast domestic spying remit. He acknowledged “many state and local election officials… are opposed to this designation.” It was certainly a good day to bury bad news – and assist the CIA and Clinton campaign in furthering nonsense conspiracy theories about Russian attempts to “hack” the 2016 Presidential election, therefore hopefully invalidating its “unexpected result”.

August 5, 2025 Posted by | Deception, Russophobia | , , , | Leave a comment

Ghislaine Maxwell and Michael Townley

By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | July 29, 2025

Why am I convinced that Jeffrey Epstein was part of the deep state — that is, with Mossad, the CIA, or both? Simply because of the plea bargain he received in 2008. In my opinion, there is simply no way that wealthy, prominent, influential men could have pressured a U.S. Attorney to give Epstein that plea bargain. The plea bargain was so super-sweet that there is only one entity that would have had the power to secure it — the same entity that I have long contended is actually running the federal government — the national-security establishment, which consists of the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA.

Keep in mind that U.S. Attorneys are not like state District Attorneys. U.S. Attorneys don’t have to answer to the voters. Although they don’t have lifetime appointments, like federal judges do, their term in office is essentially the same as the president. They are very powerful people within their particular jurisdictional realm.

The U.S. Attorney in Miami had Epstein dead to rights. Any federal prosecutor could have easily secured multiple convictions against him for sexually trafficking many underage girls. A federal judge would undoubtedly have sent him to prison for the rest of his life.

Instead, he managed a super-sweet plea bargain in which he was permitted to plead guilty to a relatively minor prostitution charge in state court, not federal court. He served out a 13-month jail sentence and in the county jail, not the state penitentiary. He was also permitted to leave the jail every morning and return at night. And his co-conspirators were shielded from prosecution in Florida.

Again, in my opinion, only the national-security branch of the federal government wields that much power. Ever since the Kennedy assassination, nobody in the federal government — including the executive, legislative, and judicial branches — has dared to buck the deep state.

It is my opinion that that the deep state is looking for a way to secure Ghislaine Maxwell’s early release from prison. If Epstein was, in fact, part of the deep state, it is a virtual certainty that she knows it. But my hunch is that the deep-state officials have assured her that they will manage to get her an early release from prison, so long as she keeps her mouth shut and doesn’t reveal Epstein’s deep-state connection.

Why would they let her serve any time? After all, she’s now been in prison for 5 years. Because sometimes the deep state loses control over events. For example, it was obviously able to control Epstein’s prosecution in 2008 but lost control when federal prosecutors in New York indicted him again in 2019. Epstein, of course, is now dead, but Maxwell is still very much alive. She got convicted in federal court in New York for her role in facilitating and participating in the sexual abuse of underage girls by Epstein. She received a sentence of 20 years. Compare that to the 18-month sentence that Epstein himself received with his super-sweet plea bargain.

At 63 years old, Ghislaine Maxwell has no interest in serving out her entire 20-year prison sentence. After five years in prison, she undoubtedly wants out. My hunch is that she is pressuring the deep state to get her a pardon or a commutation. The implicit threat, of course, is that she’ll disclose what she knows if she isn’t released. Killing her would be an option but would obviously be very problematic, especially given Epstein’s “suicide.” Thus, it is my conviction that the deep state, right now, is putting big-time pressure on President Trump for a pardon or commutation for Maxwell.

A similar thing happened with a deep-state operative and murderer named Michael Townley. Townley is the guy who personally installed the bomb that killed former Chilean official Orlando Letelier and his American assistant Ronni Moffitt in 1976. Townley inserted the bomb in Letelier’s car, which exploded when Letelier and Moffitt were on their way to work in Washington, D.C.

Let me emphasize something important: Townley was a cold-blooded murderer. And this was not the only murder in which he was involved. He was also involved in the murder of the former head of the Chilean armed forces, Gen. Carlos Prats. He was also a key figure in Operation Condor, which arguably was the biggest state-sponsored assassination ring in history.

The mainstream consensus is that Townley was not a U.S. deep-state operative. The consensus is based on the fact that the CIA and Townley denied that he was one of its operatives. Moreover, there have never been any CIA records revealing that Townley was a CIA operative.

But there is one big problem with reaching a conclusion on that basis: The CIA lies. Everyone knows that the CIA lies. Recall, for example, CIA Director Richard Helms committing perjury in sworn testimony before Congress. Recall the sweetheart plea bargain he received that permitted him to plead guilty to a misdemeanor, for which he received a fine. Recall how he was honored by CIA personnel when he returned to CIA headquarters.

Or consider the lies regarding CIA official George Joannides — lies that continued until just recently when they were uncovered. Consider that the CIA gave Joannides a medal for his lies.

Don’t forget also the CIA’s destruction of its MKULTRA files and, more recently, its torture videotapes. If the CIA destroys records, it can also alter, modify, and create records that deliver a false narrative.

We do know that Townley made contact with the CIA and sought employment. The official story is that the CIA rejected him. Thus, Townley ended up going to work for the Chilean deep state after the Pinochet coup in 1973 that the CIA had helped bring about. Specifically, he went to work for a secret Gestapo-like agency called DINA, which was responsible for arresting thousands of people for the “crime” of being socialists, torturing them brutally, raping them, executing them, or permanently disappearing them.

The head of DINA was a Chilean deep-state operative named Col. Manuel Contreras. There is something important to note about Contreras: He was also a paid asset of the CIA.

So, the CIA helped to bring about the coup. The coup leaders established DINA, which rounded up innocent people, tortured or raped them, and executed or disappeared them. DINA’s head was a paid asset of the CIA. Michael Townley went to work for DINA. Perhaps it’s worth noting what CIA asset Contreras stated about Townley: “He was never a DINA agent … instead, a CIA agent since February 1971.”

While most everyone has concluded that Townley wasn’t also working for the CIA, I myself have absolutely no doubts that Townley was a CIA operative. On what do I base my conclusion? Primarily on his plea bargain. Like Jeffrey Epstein, Townley received a super-sweet plea bargain that, in my opinion, only the deep state could have gotten for him.

Remember: This guy had murdered two innocent people on the streets of Washington, D.C. He should have received a sentence of life without parole. Instead, he was permitted to plead guilty to conspiracy to murder and then was sentenced to serve only 10 years. But get this: He was released after having served only 5 years. And get this: He was released into the Federal Witness Protection Program, whereby the feds secured new identities for him and his family so that they could restart their lives anew. To this day, no one except a few feds knows where Townley is living because the federal government continues to protect this cold-blooded murderer. How weird is that? Not weird at all if Townley was, in fact, a U.S. deep-state operative?

To my knowledge, there is no public record of the federal prison in which Townley served those five years, but I have no doubts it was a “Club Fed” — that is, one of the nice, comfortable federal prisons rather than a high-security penitentiary for convicted murderers. In fact, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Townley was given the same type of arrangement that Epstein was given with respect to being able to leave the prison every morning and return at night.

So, why did Townley even have to serve 5 years? Because sometimes things get out of the control even for the deep state, and someone has to pay the price. Epstein had to serve 13 months in jail. Townley had to serve 5 years in prison. Ghislaine Maxwell has had to serve 5 years in prison.

But I have no doubts whatsoever that Ghislaine Maxwell will not be serving out her 20-year sentence. The deep state is too powerful, and the deep state can’t afford to let her talk. My opinion is that Ghislaine Maxwell will be receiving a pardon or a commutation before President Trump leaves office.

August 5, 2025 Posted by | Deception, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

Russian Intel Warns of UK Plan to Stage Tanker Incident

Sputnik – 04.08.2025

British intelligence agencies are planning to involve NATO allies in launching a large-scale crackdown on the so-called “shadow fleet” carrying Russian oil, the press bureau of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) said on Monday.

“According to information received by the SVR, British intelligence services are planning to engage NATO allies to carry out a massive sweep of the ‘shadow fleet’. London’s idea is to trigger such a campaign with a high-profile incident involving one or several tankers. The plan envisions staging a major act of sabotage, the damage from which would allow them to declare Russian oil transportation a threat to global maritime navigation,” the statement said.

According to the SVR, this would give the West free rein in choosing methods of counter-action.

“In the extreme scenario, this could mean detaining any ‘suspicious’ vessels in international waters and escorting them to NATO member-state ports,” the statement added.

The plan envisions staging a major act of sabotage, the damage from which would allow the transportation of Russian oil to be deemed a threat.

“The UK intends to time the attack to maximize its media impact and use it to pressure Donald Trump’s administration. The goal is to force Washington, against its own national interests, to adopt the harshest possible secondary sanctions on buyers of Russian energy resources, portraying them as ‘indirect culprits of the tragedy,’” the SVR emphasized.

London allegedly plans to assign the execution of these anti-Russian attacks on tankers to Ukrainian security forces.

“Their predictably dirty work and inability to ‘cover their tracks’ are seen by the British as a guarantee of their own impunity. An international investigation would place responsibility either on Russia or – at worst – on Ukraine, similar to the sabotage of Nord Stream,” the SVR statement said.

According to the report, London’s scenario involves engineering an “accident” with an “undesirable” tanker in one of the world’s narrow maritime chokepoints, such as a strait, creating grounds for NATO countries to conduct an “emergency inspection.”

“The British are working through two potential casus belli. The first is to stage an accident with an ‘undesirable’ tanker in a narrow maritime passage. The resulting oil spill and blockage of the waterway, London believes, would give NATO states ‘sufficient’ justification to establish a precedent for ‘emergency checks’ of vessels, ostensibly to verify compliance with maritime safety and environmental regulations,” the SVR noted.

August 4, 2025 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism | | Leave a comment

The CIA Built Hundreds of Covert Websites. Here’s What They Were Hiding

By Alan Macleod | MintPress News | August 1, 2025

The CIA didn’t just infiltrate governments; it infiltrated the internet itself. For over a decade, Langley operated a sprawling network of covert websites that served as global spy terminals disguised as harmless blogs, news hubs, and fan pages.

Beginning in 2004, the CIA established a vast network of at least 885 websites, ranging from Johnny Carson and Star Wars fan pages to online message boards about Rastafari. Spanning 29 languages and targeting at least 36 countries directly, these websites were aimed not only at adversaries such as China, Venezuela, and Russia, but also at allied nations, including France, Italy, and Spain, showing that the United States treats its friends much like its foes.

Covert Soccer Blogs and Cracked Passwords

Gholamreza Hosseini is a former CIA informant. In 2007, the Tehran-based industrial engineer contacted the agency and offered to pass them information about Iran’s nuclear energy program. His CIA handlers showed him how to use IranianGoals.com to communicate with them. Iranian Goals was a Farsi-language website that appeared to be dedicated to local soccer news. However, what appeared to be a search bar at the bottom of the home page was actually a password field. Typing the correct word into it would trigger a login process, revealing a secret messaging interface. Each informant had their own webpage, designed specifically for them, to insulate them from others in the network.

It seemed like an ingenious idea. However, Hosseini and the other spies were soon detected, thanks to some sloppy mistakes in Washington, D.C. An Iranian double agent revealed to the authorities their unique website, and some basic detective work led to the uncovering of the entire network.

The CIA purchased the hosting space for dozens, perhaps hundreds, of these websites in bulk, often from the same internet providers, or the same server space. That meant that the IP addresses of these websites were consecutive, akin to housing each informant in adjacent properties on the same street.

Thus, if you looked at neighboring IP addresses, you would see similarly designed websites and could easily put two and two together. Even with some relatively basic online searches, Iranian authorities were able to identify dozens of CIA-run websites. From there, they simply waited to see who would access them.

The Iranian Intelligence Ministry claimed that 30 individuals were arrested and a further 42 CIA operatives were identified. Some websites, such as IranianGoalKicks.com, FirstNewsSource.com, and Farsi-NewsAndWeather.com, can still be accessed through the Internet Wayback Machine. A complete list of known CIA webpages can be found here.

Hosseini spent more than nine years in prison and was released in 2019. He has received no support from American officials, who have not even contacted him since his arrest. The U.S., however, continues to attempt to overthrow the Iranian government, sponsoring high-profile opposition figures and hijacking domestic protest movements. In June, it also carried out airstrikes on nuclear facilities across the country.

Spying on Allies and Adversaries Alike

The network of websites spanned a wide range of topics. Few would guess that Rasta Direct, a website dedicated to the relatively niche religion of Rastafari, had anything to do with U.S. intelligence. The CIA also created Star Wars Web, a fan page for the sci-fi franchise, and All Johnny, a page dedicated to late-night legend Johnny Carson. Sports, gaming and news blogs, however, were the most common topics for fake websites.

These websites served as cover for informants, offering some level of plausible deniability if casually examined. Upon close inspection, however, few of these pages provided any unique content and simply rehosted news and blogs from elsewhere, linking to already available resources.

Informants in enemy nations, such as Venezuela, used sites like Noticias-Caracas and El Correo De Noticias to communicate with Langley, while Russian moles used My Online Game Source and TodaysNewsAndWeather-Ru.com, and other similar platforms.

However, a vast network of informants in allied countries, such as France, Spain and Italy, was also uncovered, using financial news, mountaineering, and running websites to pass on vital information to the CIA.

Germany was another country Washington actively targeted. In 2013, it was revealed that the U.S. had been bugging the cellphone of Chancellor Angela Merkel for over a decade, sparking a major diplomatic rift. One year later, in 2014, Germany detained one of its own intelligence officials after catching him spying for the United States.

The Collapse of the CIA’s China Network

China, however, remains a top target for the CIA. The organization maintains an extensive network of informants across the country, who, when the network was active, used platforms such as eChessNews.com and SportsNewsFinder.com to transmit information back to the United States.

But, as in Iran, Chinese authorities began to dismantle the network. Starting in late 2010, the spying network was systematically dismantled by officials, likely using similar tactics to those of the Iranians. Unlike Iran, however, China simply executed those operatives. It is believed that the CIA lost around 30 informants in the purge. The affair is considered one of the worst intelligence failures in the agency’s nearly 80-year history.

Since then, the U.S. spying network in China has been severely diminished. Earlier this year, the CIA changed tack, publicly releasing two videos encouraging disaffected Communist Party officials to spy for them in exchange for money and the prospect of a new life in America.

“As I rise within the party, I watch those above me being discarded like worn-out shoes, but now I realize that my fate was just as precarious as theirs,” the narrator says in one. “Our leaders’ failure to fulfil repeated promises of prosperity has become a well-known secret… It’s time to build my own dream,” he says in another.

The CIA instructs would-be traitors to download the Tor Browser and contact the CIA via its website. While Tor is marketed in the West as a privacy tool, a previous MintPress News investigation revealed that it was created with funding from the U.S. government by a company with ties to the CIA. Last year, Washington passed a $1.6 billion bill to finance anti-China propaganda worldwide.

Weaponizing Apps and Platforms

This is not the only time that the U.S. national security state has created fake web platforms in order to stoke regime change around the world. In 2010, USAID—a CIA front organization—secretly created the Cuban social media app, Zunzuneo.

Often described as “Cuba’s Twitter,” Zunzuneo rocketed to prominence. The app had been designed to offer a reliable and affordable service, undercutting the competition, before gaining dominance and slowly disseminating anti-government messages to the island.

Then, at a given time, Zunzuneo would urge users to join protests coordinated by the U.S. in an attempt to foment a color revolution on the island.

In an effort to hide its ownership of the project, the U.S. government held a secret meeting with Twitter founder Jack Dorsey to encourage him to take it over. It is unclear to what extent, if at all, Dorsey contributed to the project, as he has declined to comment on the matter. In 2012, Zunzuneo was abruptly shut down.

Infiltrating Journalism and Big Tech

While the 885 fake websites were not established to influence public opinion, today, the U.S. government sponsors thousands of journalists worldwide for precisely this purpose. Earlier this year, the Trump administration’s decision to pause funding to USAID inadvertently exposed a network of more than 6,200 reporters working at nearly 1,000 news outlets or journalism organizations who were all quietly paid to promote pro-U.S. messaging in their countries.

Oksana Romanyuk, director of the Ukrainian Institute for Mass Information, warned that nearly 90% of her country’s media outlets rely on funding from USAID to survive. A survey of 20 leading media organizations in Belarus revealed that 60% of their budget came from Washington. In Iran, more than 30 anti-government groups came together for a crisis response meeting, while in Cuba and Nicaragua, anti-government press resorted to soliciting donations from readers.

The CIA has also successfully infiltrated the largest and most popular social media networks, giving the agency substantial control over what the world sees (and does not see) in their news feeds.

Facebook has hired dozens of former CIA officials to run its most sensitive operations. Perhaps the most notable of these individuals is Aaron Berman.

As the platform’s senior misinformation manager, Berman ultimately has the final say over what content is promoted and what is demoted or deleted from Facebook. Yet, until 2019, Berman was a high-ranking CIA officer, responsible for writing the president’s daily security brief. It was at that time that he jumped ship from Langley to Facebook, despite appearing to have little relevant professional experience.

Google, if anything, is even more saturated with former spies.

A MintPress News investigation revealed that dozens of former CIA agents hold top jobs at the Silicon Valley giant. Among these is Jacqueline Lopour, who spent more than ten years at the agency working on Middle East affairs before being recruited to become Google’s senior Intelligence, Trust, and Safety manager. The role gives her considerable influence on the direction of the company. This form of state censorship is how the agency prefers to shape the internet today.

The CIA continues to maintain a vast worldwide network of informants. Today, they use custom-built apps such as Tor or Signal to communicate. If they are caught by their own countries, they will likely be left to their fate, like Hosseini was. Being a spy or a stool pigeon for the CIA is as perilous as ever.

August 2, 2025 Posted by | Deception | , , , | Leave a comment

Hamas rules out giving up arms unless ‘independent, sovereign’ Palestinian state established

MEMO | August 2, 2025

The Palestinian resistance group Hamas said Saturday it will not give up its arms unless an “independent, fully sovereign” Palestinian state is established, Anadolu reports.

The statement came following reports by the Israeli daily Haaretz citing a recording attributed to US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff: “Hamas has said that they are prepared to be demilitarized.”

“We are very, very close to a solution to end this war,” Witkoff is also heard saying, according to Haaretz.

“Commenting on reports by some media outlets quoting US envoy Steve Witkoff as saying the movement expressed willingness to disarm, we reiterate that resistance and its weapons are a national and legitimate right as long as the occupation continues — a right recognized by international laws and conventions,” Hamas said in a statement on Telegram.

The group added that such rights “cannot be relinquished except with the full attainment of our national rights, foremost being the establishment of an independent, fully sovereign Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.”

Witkoff met families of Israeli hostages in Tel Aviv on Saturday, as hundreds rallied to demand a ceasefire deal that would secure their release from the Gaza Strip, Israel’s Haaretz newspaper reported.

Witkoff’s visit, his third to Hostage Square since the war began, came shortly after Palestinian groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad released footage showing two emaciated Israeli captives, Evyatar David and Rom Braslavski, prompting renewed outrage.

On Friday, Witkoff visited an aid center in southern Gaza operated by the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

Diplomatic merchandise: Exploiting the issue of Palestinian recognition

He said the aim was to give US President Donald Trump “a clear understanding of the humanitarian situation and help craft a plan to deliver food and medical aid to the people of Gaza.”

The visit comes amid mounting criticism of US-Israeli coordination in Gaza, particularly regarding the group’s distribution model, which Palestinians say serves as a tool for displacement under the guise of humanitarian relief as well as a “death trap” for many Palestinian aid seekers, with over 1,300 killed since May while waiting for relief supplies.

Hamas on Thursday denounced the visit as a “propaganda stunt” aimed at deflecting global outrage over what rights groups and UN officials have described as Israel’s systematic starvation campaign.

Since Oct. 7, 2023, at least 169 Palestinians, including 93 children, have died of hunger-related causes, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

Rejecting international calls for a ceasefire, the Israeli army has pursued a brutal offensive on Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, killing more than 60,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children.

Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.​​​​​​​

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.

August 2, 2025 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

The real Russiagate scandal blows away Watergate for crimes and treason by U.S. establishment

Strategic Culture Foundation | August 1, 2025

So the hoax is finally officially acknowledged. “Russiagate” – the mainstream narrative, that is – is now described by American intelligence chiefs as a fabrication that was concocted to overturn the results of the 2016 U.S. presidential elections.

Tulsi Gabbard, the current Director of National Intelligence (DNI), and CIA director John Ratcliffe have both accused former President Barack Obama of engaging in a “treasonous conspiracy” to subvert the constitutional process. It’s not just Obama who is implicated in this high crime. Other former senior officials in his 2013-17 administration, including former DNI James Clapper, CIA director John Brennan, and head of the FBI James Comey, are also implicated. If justice is permitted, the political repercussions are truly earth-shattering.

The potential impact is not confined solely to the violation of U.S. laws and the democratic process – bad enough as that is. The Russiagate scandal that began in 2016 has had a lasting, damaging effect on U.S. and European relations with Russia. The frightfully dangerous NATO proxy war incited in Ukraine, which threatens to escalate into a full-scale world war, was fueled in large part by the hostility generated from the false claims of Russian interference in the U.S. elections.

The allegations that Russian President Vladimir Putin oversaw a subversion campaign against the 2016 U.S. election and colluded with Donald Trump to get him elected were always specious. The scandal was based on shoddy intel claims to purportedly explain how Trump defeated his Democrat rival, Hillary Clinton. Subsequently, the scandal was hyped into a seemingly credible narrative by U.S. intelligence chiefs at the direction of then-President Barack Obama as a way to delegitimize Trump’s incoming first-term presidency.

Years before the recent intelligence disclosures, many independent journalists, including Aaron Maté, and former intelligence analysts like Ray MacGovern and William Binney, had cogently disproven the official Russiagate claims. Not only were these claims false, they were knowingly false. That is, lies and deliberate distortions. Russia did not hack emails belonging to the Democratic National Committee to discredit Clinton. Clinton’s corruption was exposed by a DNC internal leak to Julian Assange’s Wikileaks whistleblower site. That was partly why Assange was persecuted with years-long incarceration.

A large enough number of voters simply despised Clinton and her warmongering psychopathy, as well as her sell-out of working-class Americans for Wall Street largesse.

Furthermore, Moscow consistently denied any involvement in trying to influence the 2016 U.S. election or attempts to favor Trump. Putin has said more than once that Russia has no preference about who becomes U.S. president, implying that they’re all the same and controlled by deeper state forces. Laughably, too, while Washington accused Moscow of election interference, the actual record shows that the United States has habitually interfered in scores of foreign elections over many decades, including those of Russia. No other nation comes close to the U.S. – the self-declared “leader of the free world” – in sabotaging foreign elections.

In any case, it is instructive to compare the Russiagate farce with the Watergate scandal. Watergate involved spying by the White House of President Richard Nixon against a Democrat rival in the 1972 election. The political crisis that ensued led to Nixon’s resignation in disgrace in 1974. The U.S. nation was shocked by the dirty tricks. Several senior White House officials were later convicted and served time in jail for crimes related to the affair. Nixon was later pardoned by his successor, Gerald Ford, and avoided prosecution. Nevertheless, Watergate indelibly disgraced U.S. politics and, at the time, was described as “the worst political scandal of the 20th century.”

Subsequent cases of corruption and malfeasance are often dubbed with the suffix “gate” in a nod to Watergate as a momentous political downfall. Hence, “Russiagate.”

There are hugely important differences, however. While Watergate was a scandal based on factual crimes and wrongdoing, Russiagate was always a contrived propaganda deception. The real scandal behind Russiagate was not Trump’s alleged misdeeds or those of Russia, but the criminal conspiracy by Obama and his administration to sabotage the 2016 election and subsequently to overthrow the Trump presidency and the democratic will of the American people. Tulsi Gabbard, the nation’s most senior intelligence chief, has said that this amounts to “treason,” and she has called for the prosecution of Obama and other former senior aides.

Arguably, the real Russiagate scandal is far more criminal and devastating in its political implications than Watergate. The latter involved illegal spying and dirty tricks. Whereas, Russiagate involved a president and his intelligence chiefs trying to subvert the entire democratic process. Not only that, but the U.S. mainstream media are also now exposed for perpetrating a propaganda heist on the American public. All of the major U.S. media outlets amplified the politicised intelligence orchestrated by the Obama administration, claiming that Russia interfered in the election and that Trump was a “Kremlin stooge.” The hoax became an obsession in the U.S. media for years and piled up severe damage in international relations, a nefarious legacy that we are living with today.

The New York Times and Washington Post, reputedly two of the finest exponents of American journalism, jointly won the Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for their reporting on Russiagate, the official version, that is, which lent credibility to the hoax. In light of what we know now, these newspapers should be hanging their heads in shame for running a Goebbels-like Big Lie campaign to not only deceive the U.S. public but to subvert the democratic process and poison international relations. Their reputations are shredded, as well as those of other major media outlets, including ABC, CBS, CNN, and NBC.

Ironically, The Washington Post won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973 for its reporting on the Watergate scandal. The story was made into a best-selling book, All The President’s Men, and a hit Hollywood movie starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman, playing the roles of intrepid reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. Woodward and Bernstein and The Washington Post were acclaimed as the finest in U.S. journalism for exposing Watergate and bringing a crooked president to book.

How shameful and absurd that an even greater assault on American democracy and international relations in the form of Russiagate is ignored and buried by “America’s finest”. That the scandal is ignored and buried should be of no surprise because to properly reveal it would shatter the foundations of the U.S. political establishment and the sinister role of the deep state and its mainstream media propaganda system.

August 2, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Progressive Hypocrite, Russophobia | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli soldier reveals ‘strange order’ to cancel Gaza border patrols on 7 Oct

The Cradle | July 31, 2025

An Israeli soldier stated that he and his fellow soldiers stationed at a military outpost near Gaza received orders not to carry out their usual early morning patrol on the border fence on 7 October 2023, Israeli media reported on 17 July.

During the time the border patrol would have normally been carried out, members of Hamas’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, crossed the fence to attack Israeli army bases and settlements (kibbutzim).

Shalom Sheetrit, a soldier in the Golani Brigade, revealed the directive while giving testimony at a meeting of the lobby for reserve personnel in the Israeli Knesset.

He stated that on the night before the 7 October attack, he and two other soldiers, Yotam Sror and Itamar Ben Yehuda, sat by the battalion radio at the Pega military outpost near Kibbutz Be’eri.

“We were playing on the phone [at 5:20 am] and suddenly a strange message comes from my battalion commander,” the soldier explained, “and what he says on the call is something like this: ‘I don’t know why, but an order was issued that there are no patrols at the fence until nine in the morning.’”

Sheetrit said soldiers from the outpost carried out patrols on the border fence every morning “because you are in an operational battalion and that is part of the matter.”

Hamas fighters attacked the Pega outpost and killed 14 Israeli soldiers there during Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.

When asked if this was why many soldiers at the outpost were still sleeping when the Hamas attack began, Sheetrit stated, “I don’t know how to answer it that way. In our mortar department, there was an alert at dawn, and we woke up. It’s possible that in the patrol departments, they were told not to wake up. I don’t know. I don’t want to just say that.”

Sheetrit stated that the military units based in the Pega outpost were responsible for protecting Kibbutz Be’eri, which was also attacked by Hamas.

“Unfortunately, we were not up to the task. There were dozens against hundreds of terrorists, 25 against 150, and so we couldn’t arrive, unfortunately. I’m far from being a military man who can give answers to questions, the situation hurts me just as it hurts everyone,” the soldier explained.

A major battle took place at Be’eri in which over 100 Israelis were killed.

After the attack began, the Israeli air force deployed Apache Helicopters, tanks, and drones to bomb the kibbutz and the Gaza border nearby to prevent Hamas from taking captives with them back to Gaza.

As a result, Israeli forces burned to death hundreds of Israeli civilians and Hamas fighters in airstrikes in Be’eri and other kibbutzim near the border, as well as at the Nova Music Festival, per a secretive policy known as the Hannibal Directive. The deaths were all quickly blamed on Hamas.

“I tried to ask military personnel why and what happened there. The blood of my friends and the blood of many people in the country was spilled in a huge tragedy, and I tried to understand why it happened and how,” Sheetrit added.

The strange order to cancel routine patrols along the Gaza border adds to evidence that Israeli political and military leaders knew in advance about Hamas’s plan to attack on 7 October – and allowed it to happen to justify the conquest and ethnic cleansing of Gaza and the building of Jewish settlements on top of the ruins of the strip’s soon-to-be-destroyed cities.

Israeli military and intelligence officials ignored many signals on the night before the attack, and in the previous weeks and months, indicating that Hamas was planning a large attack to take captives to exchange for Palestinian prisoners.

Female Israeli soldiers tasked to observe activity on the Gaza border issued multiple warnings to their superiors that an attack was imminent, but they were ignored.

“In hindsight, we could have done a lot of things, we could have listened to the observers, we could have brought up the air force, and these things didn’t happen,” Sheetrit concluded.

“That’s the failure. It’s not a failure of the fighters on the ground, but of the higher levels in the army, of people who went down to Eilat even though we informed them a week in advance that there was intelligence information.”

August 1, 2025 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , | Leave a comment

Iran: West’s ‘ridiculous’ assassination claims cover for Israeli crimes

Press TV – August 1, 2025

Iran has dismissed “baseless and ridiculous” accusations from Western countries claiming that Tehran is collaborating with international criminal groups to carry out assassination plots abroad.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei condemned on Friday the anti-Iran claims made by the United States, Canada and a dozen European states in their joint statement released the previous day.

He said the “blatant blame game” is an attempt to divert public attention from the most pressing issue of the day, which is the Israeli genocide in the occupied Palestine.

“The United States, France, and other signatories to the anti-Iran statement must themselves be held accountable for actions that violate international law, as they support and host terrorist and violent elements and groups,” he added.

Baghaei touched on the unprovoked US-Israeli aggression against Iran in June and Israel’s ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip against the backdrop of active support or approving silence of the 14 Western countries that signed the statement against the Islamic Republic.

He further denounced the accusations as “blatant lies and an escape forward, designed as part of a malicious Iranophobia campaign aimed at exerting pressure on the great Iranian nation.”

The 14 states must be held accountable for their “disgraceful and irresponsible” behavior that violates the principles of international law and the United Nations Charter, the spokesman noted.

Albania, Austria, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, the UK, and the US alleged in their statement that Iranian intelligence agencies are engaged in attempts to “kill, kidnap, and harass people in Europe and North America.”

August 1, 2025 Posted by | Deception, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Venezuela under information attack: municipal elections and the war against truth

By Lucas Leiroz | Strategic Culture Foundation | July 31, 2025

The municipal elections held in Venezuela on July 27, 2025, were accompanied by yet another coordinated international disinformation offensive. Under the pretext of “defending democracy,” corporate media outlets and Western NGOs heavily invested in attempts to delegitimize an electoral process that was broadly monitored, technically robust, and peacefully conducted.

This strategy is not new. It follows a well-tested guideline used against countries that resist the directives of U.S. foreign policy and its allies. The script is simple: preemptively accuse fraud, fabricate signs of repression, and distort post-election realities — all of it amplified through a digital and traditional media ecosystem fully aligned with geopolitical interests.

This year, however, a central piece of that machinery was dismantled by a rising international actor: the Global Fact-Checking Network (GFCN), a network created to monitor and combat disinformation campaigns. The organization — composed of journalists, legal experts, and international observers — was present in Venezuela during the vote and published an extensive report refuting the main allegations circulated by Western agencies.

Among the most widely spread falsehoods was the claim that opposition parties had been prevented from participating. However, official data from the National Electoral Council (CNE) show the opposite: opposition candidates not only participated but won in 50 out of 335 municipalities — something that would be impossible under any form of institutional obstruction. The truth is that certain radical opposition sectors, for political calculation, chose to boycott the elections and later use their own absence as supposed evidence of exclusion.

Another narrative dismantled was that of the “absence of international observers.” Despite repeated claims of Venezuela’s isolation, more than 1,400 observers from 45 countries were present — including representatives from the GFCN, Latin American organizations, and electoral rights institutes. They reported a calm environment, a notable voter turnout, and full freedom to conduct work. Observers even accompanied the parallel vote counting process between electronic and paper ballots — one of the most advanced audit mechanisms in Latin America.

Videos and images of allegedly empty polling stations also gained traction, suggesting massive abstention. However, the reality — confirmed both by CNE statistics and verified footage — showed a turnout rate of 44%. For a municipal election held amid an economic crisis fueled by international sanctions, this is a significant figure. Many regions saw lines, a festive atmosphere, and broad local journalistic coverage.

The old accusation concerning the so-called “red points” — government-organized social assistance tents on election days — was also recycled. Critics attempt to link these spaces to mechanisms of electoral coercion. But these services — food, medical aid, legal assistance — have existed for over two decades and continuously serve the population. There is no proven link between these activities and vote manipulation, nor has any formal complaint been filed with the CNE on this matter.

These attempts to distort reality have a clear goal: to justify the continuation of illegal sanctions and feed the narrative that Venezuela is under authoritarian rule. The paradox is striking — those who attack the legitimacy of Venezuela’s ballot boxes openly support parliamentary coups, self-proclaimed presidents, and interim governments backed by Washington.

Western coverage of Venezuela does not fail out of incompetence, but by design. It plays a well-defined geopolitical role: to destabilize independent governments, weaken national institutions, and portray Caracas as a hostile player in the Latin American chessboard. By dismantling these narratives with data, direct observation, and objective analysis, networks like the GFCN play an essential role in defending the truth — something that, today, is as strategic as the most valuable resources.

August 1, 2025 Posted by | Deception | | Leave a comment

Canada continues arms transfers to Israel despite official denials: Report

Press TV – July 30, 2025

Canada has continued to supply weapons to the Israeli regime during its genocide in Gaza, contradicting official claims that such exports had stopped, a new investigation reveals.

Published by Arms Embargo Now Campaign (AEN) on Tuesday, newly uncovered shipping records and Israeli regime data show 47 documented shipments of military components from Canadian manufacturers to Israeli weapons firms between October 2023 and July 2025.

This includes over 421,000 bullets, with one shipment of 175,000 in April 2025.

Three cartridge shipments from a Quebec-based General Dynamics facility were also sent just nine days after Canada pledged to block munitions exports. These exports primarily supplied Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest arms manufacturer.

This comes as former Foreign Minister Melanie Joly and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, as well as current Prime Minister Mark Carney, have repeatedly insisted that Canada has restricted arms exports to Israel, this report uncovers.

In March 2024, Canada’s parliament passed a non-binding motion urging the government to suspend further arms sales to Israel.

As pressure continued to mount, in September of last year, Joly announced that the government had not approved any new export permits for Israel since January 8, 2024.

This report, however, unveils the hidden reality behind Canada’s public statements on arms exports to Israel, revealing a systematic deception that has enabled the flow of Canadian-made weapons directly into one of the deadliest military aggressions in modern history.

Canada is currently breaching its own domestic legislation and international legal obligations by continuing to supply arms to Israel amid the ongoing ethnic cleansing and widespread starvation of Palestinians in Gaza.

Several Western countries have continued to supply lethal weapons to the Israeli regime despite the enormous human toll caused by its genocide in the Palestinian territory.

At least 60,034 Palestinians have been killed, mostly women and children, and another 148,870 individuals injured in the brutal Israeli onslaught on Gaza since October 7, 2023.

July 30, 2025 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

FLAWED STUDY CLAIMS ALUMINUM IN VACCINES IS SAFE

The HighWire | July 24, 2025

As industry voices scramble to defend aluminum in childhood vaccines, a new Danish study is held up as “proof” of safety, until you look closer. Exclusions, flawed comparisons, and the lack of U.S. relevance raise serious questions. Is the science settled, or just carefully curated?

July 27, 2025 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Video | | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »