For the purpose of this look at the "Russian Scandal", I'm going to make an assumption. It is that everyone, who has spoken on the matter thusfar, is simply telling the truth about their role and their actions in the scandal.
The Sources and Collectors of Information
From the information I could glean from the Internet's public sources in a few hours, I could see there were two primary collectors of information: Russia, Vladimir Putin, and WikiLeaks, Julian Assange. On the other side of the "equation" there were the sources of information: the Democratic National Committee computers (DNC) and the GMail.com email account of John Podesta (Hillary Clinton's primary campaign advisor). There were obviously others who learned of the information later, but without control of the entire content, these people were always limited to what the primary collectors wished to distribute. And, lest it be forgot, the original ex-filtrators could also have been selective to serve their own purposes. That is important because selective 'leaking' is important for shaping an image of the whole.
The Information Conveyors
Who were the inside ex-filtrators who had "legal access" to the information, as former UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan and recent supporter of WikiLeaks, Craig Murray has said? He has also said the ex-filtrators of information from GMail and from the DNC are different people!
It should not be too difficult to have master lists of those who had "legal access" to these information sources. The lists may be large, but they would have to be finite.
Craig Murray has also said that he received the information from intermediaries, rather than the initial ex-filtrator. How does he know this? How does he know the information was not hacked from the DNC or GMail by the one person with whom he spoke?
Murray also said, or implied, that the death of DNC computer and information system specialist, Seth Rich, may have been done by someone who thought Rich was leaking DNC information and wanted to stop that. He hasn't said that it is clear how anyone would know about this activity, but he clearly said the motive might be to prevent damage to the Clinton campaign because so much money had been invested in its success.
It has also been said that Rich was (perhaps) on his way to the FBI for a meeting to reveal misdeeds of the Clinton campaign on the night he was murdered (at 4am on the streets of Washington, D.C.). Is it possible Rich wanted to disseminate the information to not only WikiLeaks, but the FBI? What is the evidence of that?
If it was true Rich was headed to the FBI, then there is possibly someone at the FBI who had knowledge of that and was waiting to meet him. That list may be long, but it too cannot be infinite. It is also possible there was no specific person Rich intended to meet or that this speculation was incorrect and Rich was on his way home. As he was shot and killed he was on the cell phone with his girlfriend. She should be able to clarify to some extent what he had planned to do that night.
If Rich was NOT the originating ex-filtrator, then it must have been someone within the DNC who trusted him. That list must be somewhat shorter than those who had "legal access" to DNC data.
The person who gave Craig Murray GMail information may not be known, but that too would be someone trusted by the original ex-filtrator who had "legal access" to the GMail information and that list is not infinite.
Guccifer 2.0
Possibly parallel to Murray's conveying of information to WikiLeaks is the story about Guccifer. Guccifer is a "handle" the intelligence community (IC) believes is used by individuals of the Russian military intelligence unit (the GRU). The only individual one-on-one conversation with that identity I have seen was with the long-time friend of Donald Trump and long-time political operative Roger Stone. But, that was after WikiLeaks had released information Guccifer claims to have hacked and their Twitter conversation didn't seem to indicate any other involvement of Stone. The IC which investigated the hacking of the DNC, claims there is sufficient evidence in that to point to Russian government hackers. Some other people claim it is not sufficient, and that other intelligence organizations could have done the hacking and left that trail of false evidence.
However, it is clear that after Guccifer 2.0 announced they had done the hacking (6/15/16) and published some of the DNC documents, Seth Rich was killed (7/10/16) and WikiLeaks published 19,000 DNC emails (7/22/16). Did Guccifer 2.0 pass the information to WikiLeaks? Julian Assange said the Russians are NOT sources for the information WikiLeaks has published. Continuing my blind belief they are telling the truth, I can only say that if the information Guccifer published does not overlap with what WikiLeaks published, it may be quite easy to believe WikiLeaks was simply getting information from their source at the DNC (via Craig Murray and other intermediaries). That means that probably Guccifer did hack the DNC and did publish some documents, but that what they did with the other documents isn't known. If they were a GRU outfit, they passed them on through the Russian government for whatever purposes Vladimir Putin had in mind.
Perhaps incidental and not very importantly, Roger Stone had his contact with Guccifer 2.0 and claims to have had "communications" with Julian Assange via a Libertarian-leaning journalist who frequently traveled between America and the U.K. He won't reveal that person because Stone doesn't want to lose them as an information source. Was that "journalist" Craig Murray? Could there have been someone else Murray informed about the information he was conveying to WikiLeaks? The list of journalists living in America, but frequently traveling to the U.K. during the time period in question should not be very long.
Who Else Was Told?
This raises a question of whether someone who knew of the leaking of information to WikiLeaks was also selling information and/or a description of the contents of that information to Stone or others without telling Julian Assange. It may help us to also understand how former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani was informed about information to be released which would hurt the Clinton campaign. Whether he received knowledge of the leaks from Murray, a journalist, Stone, or someone else Stone told, isn't known. But, the list of these Republicans who were close to both the Trump campaign and Stone or to Murray would be a relatively short list. It has to also be noted that Stone was in the past a business partner of Paul Manafort who for a few months was the Trump campaign manager. It is hard to imagine that Stone would know something useful to that campaign and would not have told (perhaps sold) that knowledge to Paul Manafort and the campaign. It fits with the history of Stone's career that he traffics in information and so-called "dirty tricks" to assist Republican campaigns (going back all the way to Richard Nixon's presidential campaigns).
Other Sides of this Story
How did the Russians use the information they got from the DNC hack?
Which American state voter databases were hacked (perhaps by Russians) and how was the information used?
Did the Trump campaign (run by Paul Manafort or others) with some aid from Cambridge Analytics have access to the voter database information and use it to target voters in key states?
This is not a simple two-dimensional scandal!
The Sources and Collectors of Information
From the information I could glean from the Internet's public sources in a few hours, I could see there were two primary collectors of information: Russia, Vladimir Putin, and WikiLeaks, Julian Assange. On the other side of the "equation" there were the sources of information: the Democratic National Committee computers (DNC) and the GMail.com email account of John Podesta (Hillary Clinton's primary campaign advisor). There were obviously others who learned of the information later, but without control of the entire content, these people were always limited to what the primary collectors wished to distribute. And, lest it be forgot, the original ex-filtrators could also have been selective to serve their own purposes. That is important because selective 'leaking' is important for shaping an image of the whole.
The Information Conveyors
Who were the inside ex-filtrators who had "legal access" to the information, as former UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan and recent supporter of WikiLeaks, Craig Murray has said? He has also said the ex-filtrators of information from GMail and from the DNC are different people!
It should not be too difficult to have master lists of those who had "legal access" to these information sources. The lists may be large, but they would have to be finite.
Craig Murray has also said that he received the information from intermediaries, rather than the initial ex-filtrator. How does he know this? How does he know the information was not hacked from the DNC or GMail by the one person with whom he spoke?
Murray also said, or implied, that the death of DNC computer and information system specialist, Seth Rich, may have been done by someone who thought Rich was leaking DNC information and wanted to stop that. He hasn't said that it is clear how anyone would know about this activity, but he clearly said the motive might be to prevent damage to the Clinton campaign because so much money had been invested in its success.
It has also been said that Rich was (perhaps) on his way to the FBI for a meeting to reveal misdeeds of the Clinton campaign on the night he was murdered (at 4am on the streets of Washington, D.C.). Is it possible Rich wanted to disseminate the information to not only WikiLeaks, but the FBI? What is the evidence of that?
If it was true Rich was headed to the FBI, then there is possibly someone at the FBI who had knowledge of that and was waiting to meet him. That list may be long, but it too cannot be infinite. It is also possible there was no specific person Rich intended to meet or that this speculation was incorrect and Rich was on his way home. As he was shot and killed he was on the cell phone with his girlfriend. She should be able to clarify to some extent what he had planned to do that night.
If Rich was NOT the originating ex-filtrator, then it must have been someone within the DNC who trusted him. That list must be somewhat shorter than those who had "legal access" to DNC data.
The person who gave Craig Murray GMail information may not be known, but that too would be someone trusted by the original ex-filtrator who had "legal access" to the GMail information and that list is not infinite.
Guccifer 2.0
Possibly parallel to Murray's conveying of information to WikiLeaks is the story about Guccifer. Guccifer is a "handle" the intelligence community (IC) believes is used by individuals of the Russian military intelligence unit (the GRU). The only individual one-on-one conversation with that identity I have seen was with the long-time friend of Donald Trump and long-time political operative Roger Stone. But, that was after WikiLeaks had released information Guccifer claims to have hacked and their Twitter conversation didn't seem to indicate any other involvement of Stone. The IC which investigated the hacking of the DNC, claims there is sufficient evidence in that to point to Russian government hackers. Some other people claim it is not sufficient, and that other intelligence organizations could have done the hacking and left that trail of false evidence.
However, it is clear that after Guccifer 2.0 announced they had done the hacking (6/15/16) and published some of the DNC documents, Seth Rich was killed (7/10/16) and WikiLeaks published 19,000 DNC emails (7/22/16). Did Guccifer 2.0 pass the information to WikiLeaks? Julian Assange said the Russians are NOT sources for the information WikiLeaks has published. Continuing my blind belief they are telling the truth, I can only say that if the information Guccifer published does not overlap with what WikiLeaks published, it may be quite easy to believe WikiLeaks was simply getting information from their source at the DNC (via Craig Murray and other intermediaries). That means that probably Guccifer did hack the DNC and did publish some documents, but that what they did with the other documents isn't known. If they were a GRU outfit, they passed them on through the Russian government for whatever purposes Vladimir Putin had in mind.
Perhaps incidental and not very importantly, Roger Stone had his contact with Guccifer 2.0 and claims to have had "communications" with Julian Assange via a Libertarian-leaning journalist who frequently traveled between America and the U.K. He won't reveal that person because Stone doesn't want to lose them as an information source. Was that "journalist" Craig Murray? Could there have been someone else Murray informed about the information he was conveying to WikiLeaks? The list of journalists living in America, but frequently traveling to the U.K. during the time period in question should not be very long.
Who Else Was Told?
This raises a question of whether someone who knew of the leaking of information to WikiLeaks was also selling information and/or a description of the contents of that information to Stone or others without telling Julian Assange. It may help us to also understand how former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani was informed about information to be released which would hurt the Clinton campaign. Whether he received knowledge of the leaks from Murray, a journalist, Stone, or someone else Stone told, isn't known. But, the list of these Republicans who were close to both the Trump campaign and Stone or to Murray would be a relatively short list. It has to also be noted that Stone was in the past a business partner of Paul Manafort who for a few months was the Trump campaign manager. It is hard to imagine that Stone would know something useful to that campaign and would not have told (perhaps sold) that knowledge to Paul Manafort and the campaign. It fits with the history of Stone's career that he traffics in information and so-called "dirty tricks" to assist Republican campaigns (going back all the way to Richard Nixon's presidential campaigns).
Other Sides of this Story
How did the Russians use the information they got from the DNC hack?
Which American state voter databases were hacked (perhaps by Russians) and how was the information used?
Did the Trump campaign (run by Paul Manafort or others) with some aid from Cambridge Analytics have access to the voter database information and use it to target voters in key states?
This is not a simple two-dimensional scandal!
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