So if I followed the story, it as GRU (Russian intel) that hacked his phone. Dutch intel then recruited a spy from GRU that handed over the data.
In any case, Kushner - and rightfully so - could not obtain a security clearance the first time around, due to massive debt. But it was overruled / waived by higher ups.
I've worked in intel, and Kushner seems like the textbook example - a cautionary tale - on the type of person you do not want to grant anything of importance.
Honestly it sort of blows my mind that the US has a system decisions by security professionals can simply be overruled.
"Dutch government hacked into Jared Kushner's phone" is accurate.
The GRU double-agent proved that the GRU had compromised Kushner's phone. Subsequently, Dutch intelligence themselves independently attempted to hack Kushner's phone.
"In The Hague, the MIVD hacking team tried to reverse engineer the Russian penetration of Kushner’s iPhone." [...]
"The Dutch team had been trying to pick the phone’s door lock, so to speak, when it occurred to them that the Russians may have found an unlocked window to gain entry instead. Their hypothesis was correct. By early 2018, the MIVD had found a vulnerability in the iPhone that gave them access." [...]
"when Kushner used the phone, they could see his screen. Almost as soon as they got inside, the intelligence service began capturing every image of Kushner’s screen as he used it, filing their own cache of surveillance on their internal computer servers."
Also (edit):
The part of the story I actually care about is two governments hoarding an iphone zero day, and using it to secretly hack iphones. I condemn it.
Digital privacy is important to me. I think that all humans should have it. Feel free to disagree. Jared Kushner is a human.
So again, I condemn this extrajudicial activity, which undermines the digital security and privacy of everyone.
The U.S. spent years explaining to the world that nothing is extrajudicial that happens to non-Americans outside of the United States. So please explain how this activity of the MIVD broke any Dutch laws.
I agree with you but by this time we know that this has become business as usual. I mean the U.S lead the way: Spy anyone including friends and allies. Find what they talk with their mother as well, maybe it would serve the orange pumpkin well in a negotiation.
Becoming a public servant means you should have fewer privacy rights compared to the average person because of the outsized power and influence a public servant has. All the info that Kushner hid should have been in the security clearance form that he was exempted from.
Kushner's behavior undermined the world far more than this phone hack.
> Digital privacy is important to me. I think that all humans should have it. Feel free to disagree. Jared Kushner is a human.
This isn't about the privacy of one individual human. This is about the security practices of a politically exposed person and the information they have access to.
Any high profile, high security clearance individual must have top-notch security. Any information gleaned or stolen from them can have enormous repercussions.
Submitting yourself for security clearances involves signing up for these investigations. Either he did so and regrets it, or he took a job that absolutely requires that he did, but he didn't.
Neither. He just do not give a shit, because he is Trumps family and as such, he does not have to give a shit. Practically speaking, he is very much above any law and there is whole party dedicated to keeping that way for him.
It's strange to me, as it appears that in the US it apparently doesn't matter if any charges have already been filed. In my country a pardon can only be given to someone, who was already sentenced - there was even some controversy when a couple of years ago the president gave out a pardon before the legal process concluded. As a PhD in law he should have known this made no sense.
USA won't extradite their war criminals. Look how
desperately Trump tries to fight down The Hague
criminal court. They have a LOT of dirt to cover
up here. I mean, just take the bombing of a school
with girls in Iran - is that not a war crime? And
that's just one of many more examples one could
give; Trump denying data to Ukrainians via Starlink
means he supports Putin's genocide.
Iran is actually fair game since it doesn't want to be part of the ICC. The same was true for Iraq and Afghanistan. There are no rights without obligations.
However, this isn't the case with Palestine, which is why Netanyahu has problems - and obviously Putin as well.
> the US has a system decisions by security professionals can simply be overruled
Also a problem in the UK (Boris Johnson with Lord Lebedev).
Unfortunately I think it does have to sit somewhere on the elected side. A situation where the permanent state can overrule elected representatives unconditionally isn't great. But what really ought to happen is an open court case; you cannot have public policy decisions made on the basis of secret intel in a democracy. That gives you the Iraq war.
If you’ve got some sort of stain on your résumé so bad that you can’t get even get a job flipping burgers you can always fall back on a career in politics.
It does? You're talking about a country that tells its civil servants to say "Super Intelligence" in stead of "Artificial Intelligence" [0], because... It's just so Super.
Came across it here [1]: "Per Executive Order 14434, federal agencies are now using "Super Intelligence" (SI) in place of "Artificial Intelligence" (AI). You may see both terms across NIH content during this transition."
> Honestly it sort of blows my mind that the US has a system decisions by security professionals can simply be overruled.
Without commenting on the merits of Kushner, I don’t understand your comment about “professionals.” Security professionals, like lawyers or accountants or any other professional, are advisors, not final decision makers. Obviously the civilian government retains the final say.
I can’t imagine it’s any different in any European country. I’m fully willing to believe that in say the Netherlands, the civilian government is smart enough to listen to the advice of professionals. But surely there is no special legal status that makes professional judgments final decisions over that of elected or appointed officials?
Yes, Europe has also corrupt places and officials. OP might be from less corrupt place, the one where you dont get to overrule security professionals just because you want to.
> recruited a spy from GRU that handed over the data.
Isn't that kinda bad for their health? Polonium intake is unhealthy.
I'm not an American so don't take this the wrong way, but Jared's response to the tweet, that the story is fabricated because of how complicated it is and VanityFair disclosed no evidences, should be considered as well.
> Isn't that kinda bad for their health? Polonium intake is unhealthy.
I believe the current modus operandi is to offer a window.
On a serious note: plenty of people were surprised that Navalny returned to Russia. I suspect that after his poisoning it became clear Putin and his cronies wanted him dead, so he chose to give them the judicial spectacle they wanted so that they would at least spare his family.
> Dutch intel then recruited a spy from GRU that handed over the data.
Dutch intel can think that happened, or not. It is independent from if that is true. The whole thing equally sounds like a setup using the Dutch to launder the story.
Which is also entirely independent from any stories of this sort in the media being true one way or another.
> I've worked in intel, and Kushner seems like the textbook example - a cautionary tale - on the type of person you do not want to grant anything of importance.
As an outsider, ever since I learned some things about the trump family and kushner ten years ago, he always stood out for me as the most interesting and dangerous character of the lot. Always in the background, never front and center, always making high stakes decisions, wielding power of large amounts of money, sitting in more important meetings than trump (in my opinion). Literally whenever anything happens regarding trump's/usa/global issues, I always ask myself, where is kushner, where is he involved? He gives me the same feeling as observing a young putin from 30 years ago, same power dynamics at play. Interesting person nonetheless.
And let's not forget, he was stupid enough to end up with massive amounts of debt despite his network, his education and his starting capital. Once the USA was stupid enough to elect Trump, every foreign agency must have had him in their crosshairs.
“Kushner’s counsel, however, said Kushner did not make any agreements or arrangements with leaders or officials in foreign countries that were not agreed to by the President of the United States and in the best interests of the United States.”
This is all categorically untrue and besides, I had permission.
Why wouldn't they? Only a deeply stupid world leader would carry their phone with them all the time, or conduct any sort of business on it.
My understanding is that the current crop of politicians is terrified of FOIA requests, and so pushes as much to their phones as possible. You can't FOIA many of the apps on there.
This is a cowardly practice. These officials are either overtly cowards, or they are too stupid to understand that their phones are targets for foreign intelligence agencies.
The 2 "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" books (mostly the second one) by Perkins do a good job of describing the relation between the US and the Saudis.
Why should we be warned. It's pretty much widely known that the entire Trump administration is compromised. That details may be salacious goes without saying.
It's over for the US they will never wake up no matter how bad things get. It's so comically bad you'd imagine the so called well-regulated militia would have intervened by now
That was Trump's 'magic', somehow appearing that he related with those types. Probably mostly accidentally because of his limited vocabulary, resulting in a very basic style of communication, in combination with only seeing the way the world works at a first-order effects level.
The "so called well-regulated militia" hasn't been a real thing in the USA since shortly after the "founding" of the nation (if it even existed then). The closest thing (maybe) might be the National Guard, but these day they're clearly mostly just puppets for the rich and powerful.
Well-regulated militia is the National Guard. Note the term well-regulated. They’re military personnel that belong to the states, but still operate alongside the regular force. What do you mean by puppets?
I'm interested in seeing the chaos of a republican party with all the ideas of power that Trump has given them, but without any of them having the godhead position that Trump has in order to keep the rest of them in line. There will be a bunch of wannabe Trump's, and all the puffery that goes with it, but without the large supportive entourage. It will be infighting like never before seen.
And if the Democrats don't do an absolutely stellar job of trying to fix things, and making life at least seem better for most of the US voting public, then an entirely chaotic Republican party could still get back in.
... and that's saying nothing of the possibilities for repeats of Jan 6th come midterm results or the 2028 election.
> And if the Democrats don't do an absolutely stellar job of trying to fix things, and making life at least seem better for most of the US voting public, then an entirely chaotic Republican party could still get back in.
Pessimistically, this is my expectation. The Oligarchy has become so out of hand, i.e. corporate-government-media collusion. The Dems are doing the same "Win at all Costs" so we can "Dominate those who think differently" thing. We The People have to take the reins back.
Excellent story, the bigger picture IMO is that Jared is being thrown out to the wolves. Not sure by who. Preparation for when/if house/senate flips? Also why would the Dutch intelligence expose Kushner and thus Trump? Trump will be on their case very soon.
“What was odd, the source said, was that the money in the account—hundreds of millions of dollars—had come from a bank in Azerbaijan. Most importantly, Kushner appeared to have transferred significant amounts of money from the Dubai account to other individuals, including a warlord, a mercenary, and a one-time hit man,” Cole wrote.
Looking at it myself that is inaccurate. It seems like GRU hacked the phone first and then Dutch intelligence did the same thing. See my comment above.
Every government spies on every other government with every available tool. Even allied ones. (Especially Israel, because it has a really good spy agency)
Various sources also claim that Dutch intelligence deployed or was involved with deploying Stuxnet in Iran.
In 2019, it was reported that an Iranian mole working for Dutch intelligence at the behest of Israel and the CIA inserted the Stuxnet virus with a USB flash drive or convinced another person working at the Natanz facility to do so.
As a Flemish person I can attest that the Dutch have outstanding engineers. So if their intelligence agency has a proper budget, they definitely have a nice pool to select from.
Flanders has not been a part of the Netherlands for almost 200 years and was only ever really part of it for 15 years (It's the Dutch speaking part of Belgium).
The real question is: is he going to sue Vanity Fair? If not, he can say all he wants on X, but the message is clear; Vanity Fair's evidence apparently holds up.
Hasn't that already been the case for a while now though? Seems like you get in trouble with the law, you gotta prove your innocence, and you're treated as guilty until you do (and suffer some consequences still even after proving your innocence, just for having been "in the system" in that way).
Worse yet, the "media" these days gets away with bloody murder compared to the way things used to be before the Internet. It's all about maximum outrage and division these days, because that "engagement" is what sells advertising space. Convicted by the media is almost as bad as convicted by the "Justice" system. Either one can totally ruin lives.
We live in a country founded by colonial aristocrats who viciously sniped at each other in the local paper. The constraints on speech control and proclamations about guilt are for the government, not the governed.
It is strange though that you are lamenting this state of affairs for Jared Kushner, of all people. He will be pardoned, and will not lack for invites to New York soirees just because he took bribes from blood-soaked US allies.
I mean this sincerely, what prompted you to comment on this case?
> It is strange though that you are lamenting this state of affairs for Jared Kushner, of all people.
100% not the case at all. Honestly, my comment is more an expression that I've lost all faith in the "Justice" system entirely. I have zero hopes that any truth or justice will come out of this situation, as I firmly believe that at this point that humans are far more anti-social than social creatures, and we've allowed the system of "civilized" society to break down to a dangerous degree. We're basically "cooked" as a species. Just haven't admitted it to ourselves because we're too busy playin' the game our overlords have set by the rules they made up. They want us divided and at each other's throats so that we aren't laser focused on them and the problems they created for us all.
> He will be pardoned, and will not lack for invites to New York soirees just because he took bribes from blood-soaked US allies.
Sadly, I'm just about 100% sure you're right about that.
> I mean this sincerely, what prompted you to comment on this case?
Honestly, what prompts me to comment on anything anymore. It's not as if my one voice has ever held any power. I've seen this mess coming for years and been ridiculed every time I try to say anything about any of it. It's wasted energy to even bother trying to talk about anything to anyone these days, yet for some stupid reason I keep opening my mouth. Guess I'm just an idiot. Bought into the whole "humans are social creatures" BS and now I'm pretty much broken, having discovered the hard way that "the law of the jungle" is the only law humans actually believe in.
Not quite. USA first amendment makes winning a libel case almost impossible, especially against established media. UK is on the other end of the spectrum - there probably would be slam dunk.
So usually in the USA the smarter move is just to wait for the thing to fall off from the news cycle instead of creating news fodder every day with a trial.
I understand he is a billionaire and transfer of money from different banks around the world is axiomatic for him, but why would he be involved in payments involving assassins I think more tangible evidence is needed.
Anyone directly connected to trump has lost the presumption of innocence until proven guilty standard of common law. That group has been proven guilty, with no retribution, so many times it's statistically more likely they actually did something far worse than whatever is being alleged.
Seriously, how, with a straight face, can you even attempt to excuse these stains on history?
If you wait for more tangible evidence for the presidents daughters husband who has no business in government but is operating at an extremely high level doing foreign negotiations between waring countries... You will never get it in a timely fashion. For obvious reasons.
Our now former allies aren't making this public to smear some guy they met at a party they don't like. They are warning the world that the us is an oligarchy and rule of law is dead.
If he's telling the truth, then I would do the same.
If he's lying, then it might work, I would also probably do the same.
The interesting thing here is that two publications allowed the journalist to call Kushner "corrupt". This means that the lawyers would have seen compelling evidence that would mean one of two things:
1) Kushner wouldn't take them to court, because he would have to settle out of court in an expensive way
2) Kushner, if he were to take court action, would not win civil case.
This leads me to think that there is more than a shred of evidence, but an awful lot of evidence that he didn't declare what he was supposed to (at best) and at worse laundered foreign cash for his own purposes
After Russiagate that seems like a rather generous allowance to the profession of journalism. They managed a Pulitzer-winning investigation that failed to uncover the eventual truth, which is the whole thing was ginned up out of whole cloth and everyone pushing it would like to move on from that, thankyouverymuch.
Although it is always possible that they've got something worth saying it is also entirely possible that they're just making up a story out of nothing.
The white house recently released reports into electoral interference that showed that the majority of Russian influence was targeted at supporting trump. I assumed that people would notice this massive foot in mouth moment, but it seems people don't actually read the source material, and just claim that it supports their position. Unfortunately, this stance seems to work.
What is going on? How does a government release a report that directly contradicts what they claim they're releasing the report for, and then steadfastly stand by the claims that were disproven by the report they released?
Everyone already made up their minds. People who know Russiagate happened looked at the evidence. People who believe it didn’t listened to Trump’s denials. New evidence won’t cause them to not believe Trump, because the old evidence was sufficient.
As always you can’t logic people out of a position they didn’t logic themselves into.
Journalists (un)covered everything that would be in a Special Counsel report months/years later - in what world is that bad reporting? It's the exact opposite.
I’m not sure where you are getting your sources but the reporting that the Times and Post won the Pulitzer for was validated by both the Mueller report, Congressional investigations and 2 different reviews by the Pulitzer board.
Rather than moving on from this the Pulitzer Board is vigorously defending their decision in court as we speak.
There certainly hasn’t been a retraction. You’ll also note Trump never sued the papers over their coverage.
So if I followed the story, it as GRU (Russian intel) that hacked his phone. Dutch intel then recruited a spy from GRU that handed over the data.
In any case, Kushner - and rightfully so - could not obtain a security clearance the first time around, due to massive debt. But it was overruled / waived by higher ups.
I've worked in intel, and Kushner seems like the textbook example - a cautionary tale - on the type of person you do not want to grant anything of importance.
Honestly it sort of blows my mind that the US has a system decisions by security professionals can simply be overruled.
"Dutch government hacked into Jared Kushner's phone" is accurate.
The GRU double-agent proved that the GRU had compromised Kushner's phone. Subsequently, Dutch intelligence themselves independently attempted to hack Kushner's phone.
"In The Hague, the MIVD hacking team tried to reverse engineer the Russian penetration of Kushner’s iPhone." [...]
"The Dutch team had been trying to pick the phone’s door lock, so to speak, when it occurred to them that the Russians may have found an unlocked window to gain entry instead. Their hypothesis was correct. By early 2018, the MIVD had found a vulnerability in the iPhone that gave them access." [...]
"when Kushner used the phone, they could see his screen. Almost as soon as they got inside, the intelligence service began capturing every image of Kushner’s screen as he used it, filing their own cache of surveillance on their internal computer servers."
Also (edit):
The part of the story I actually care about is two governments hoarding an iphone zero day, and using it to secretly hack iphones. I condemn it.
Digital privacy is important to me. I think that all humans should have it. Feel free to disagree. Jared Kushner is a human.
So again, I condemn this extrajudicial activity, which undermines the digital security and privacy of everyone.
> I condemn this extrajudicial activity
The U.S. spent years explaining to the world that nothing is extrajudicial that happens to non-Americans outside of the United States. So please explain how this activity of the MIVD broke any Dutch laws.
I agree with you but by this time we know that this has become business as usual. I mean the U.S lead the way: Spy anyone including friends and allies. Find what they talk with their mother as well, maybe it would serve the orange pumpkin well in a negotiation.
Becoming a public servant means you should have fewer privacy rights compared to the average person because of the outsized power and influence a public servant has. All the info that Kushner hid should have been in the security clearance form that he was exempted from.
Kushner's behavior undermined the world far more than this phone hack.
Yes, Jared Kushner is a human. A human criminal.
> Digital privacy is important to me. I think that all humans should have it. Feel free to disagree. Jared Kushner is a human.
This isn't about the privacy of one individual human. This is about the security practices of a politically exposed person and the information they have access to.
Any high profile, high security clearance individual must have top-notch security. Any information gleaned or stolen from them can have enormous repercussions.
Submitting yourself for security clearances involves signing up for these investigations. Either he did so and regrets it, or he took a job that absolutely requires that he did, but he didn't.
Kushner was denied a clearance, Trump overruled that decision and brought him into the inner circle of his administration anyway.
Neither. He just do not give a shit, because he is Trumps family and as such, he does not have to give a shit. Practically speaking, he is very much above any law and there is whole party dedicated to keeping that way for him.
[dead]
It blows my mind further that the presidental pardon exists, and he will face zero consequences for any of this.
It's strange to me, as it appears that in the US it apparently doesn't matter if any charges have already been filed. In my country a pardon can only be given to someone, who was already sentenced - there was even some controversy when a couple of years ago the president gave out a pardon before the legal process concluded. As a PhD in law he should have known this made no sense.
On paper, this "check" for this is that people this corrupt don't get voted in. But alas.
Fortunately, the presidential pardon does not extend to the states who can still prosecute crimes. It only works for federal prosecution.
America will need a number of constitutional amendments to counter the last 40+ years, which I hope is peaking this administration.
Nor does it cover extradition.
USA won't extradite their war criminals. Look how desperately Trump tries to fight down The Hague criminal court. They have a LOT of dirt to cover up here. I mean, just take the bombing of a school with girls in Iran - is that not a war crime? And that's just one of many more examples one could give; Trump denying data to Ukrainians via Starlink means he supports Putin's genocide.
Iran is actually fair game since it doesn't want to be part of the ICC. The same was true for Iraq and Afghanistan. There are no rights without obligations.
However, this isn't the case with Palestine, which is why Netanyahu has problems - and obviously Putin as well.
Disapointing to see your factually correct post downvoted.
Somebody must have a very thin skin!
> Kushner could not obtain a security clearance the first time around, due to massive debt
Well, problem solved. He certainly used his new position to get rid of his debt.
He already made hundred of millions under Trump 1 thanks to corruption
I think billions would be more accurate
> the US has a system decisions by security professionals can simply be overruled
Also a problem in the UK (Boris Johnson with Lord Lebedev).
Unfortunately I think it does have to sit somewhere on the elected side. A situation where the permanent state can overrule elected representatives unconditionally isn't great. But what really ought to happen is an open court case; you cannot have public policy decisions made on the basis of secret intel in a democracy. That gives you the Iraq war.
If you’ve got some sort of stain on your résumé so bad that you can’t get even get a job flipping burgers you can always fall back on a career in politics.
It does? You're talking about a country that tells its civil servants to say "Super Intelligence" in stead of "Artificial Intelligence" [0], because... It's just so Super.
Came across it here [1]: "Per Executive Order 14434, federal agencies are now using "Super Intelligence" (SI) in place of "Artificial Intelligence" (AI). You may see both terms across NIH content during this transition."
[0] https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/09/inau...
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo/
I’m only surprised that it doesn’t specify that super has to be in all caps.
All so Trump can say to his feeble followers "I invented that term".
It's like trying to make "fetch" happen by executive order.
It's to pump up .si domains.
> Honestly it sort of blows my mind that the US has a system decisions by security professionals can simply be overruled.
Without commenting on the merits of Kushner, I don’t understand your comment about “professionals.” Security professionals, like lawyers or accountants or any other professional, are advisors, not final decision makers. Obviously the civilian government retains the final say.
I can’t imagine it’s any different in any European country. I’m fully willing to believe that in say the Netherlands, the civilian government is smart enough to listen to the advice of professionals. But surely there is no special legal status that makes professional judgments final decisions over that of elected or appointed officials?
Yes, Europe has also corrupt places and officials. OP might be from less corrupt place, the one where you dont get to overrule security professionals just because you want to.
Yes, Europe has also corrupt places and officials.
> recruited a spy from GRU that handed over the data.
Isn't that kinda bad for their health? Polonium intake is unhealthy.
I'm not an American so don't take this the wrong way, but Jared's response to the tweet, that the story is fabricated because of how complicated it is and VanityFair disclosed no evidences, should be considered as well.
> Isn't that kinda bad for their health? Polonium intake is unhealthy.
I believe the current modus operandi is to offer a window.
On a serious note: plenty of people were surprised that Navalny returned to Russia. I suspect that after his poisoning it became clear Putin and his cronies wanted him dead, so he chose to give them the judicial spectacle they wanted so that they would at least spare his family.
Navalny was very clear why he went back. Here's a reading of one of his final letters, which I highly recommend everyone watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25qEVGqPwLk
His last book was an excellent, yet heartbreaking read.
> Dutch intel then recruited a spy from GRU that handed over the data.
Dutch intel can think that happened, or not. It is independent from if that is true. The whole thing equally sounds like a setup using the Dutch to launder the story.
Which is also entirely independent from any stories of this sort in the media being true one way or another.
> I've worked in intel, and Kushner seems like the textbook example - a cautionary tale - on the type of person you do not want to grant anything of importance.
And copy paste of the above for Trump.
And Musk, and Hegseth, and so many others…
Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence…
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As an outsider, ever since I learned some things about the trump family and kushner ten years ago, he always stood out for me as the most interesting and dangerous character of the lot. Always in the background, never front and center, always making high stakes decisions, wielding power of large amounts of money, sitting in more important meetings than trump (in my opinion). Literally whenever anything happens regarding trump's/usa/global issues, I always ask myself, where is kushner, where is he involved? He gives me the same feeling as observing a young putin from 30 years ago, same power dynamics at play. Interesting person nonetheless.
And let's not forget, he was stupid enough to end up with massive amounts of debt despite his network, his education and his starting capital. Once the USA was stupid enough to elect Trump, every foreign agency must have had him in their crosshairs.
The Dutch hacking Russian hackers sounds like a regular day for them, like last time when they even got access to the security cams in the hackers office: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/01/dutch...
The Dutch intelligence services are world class.
Why wouldn't they? Only a deeply stupid world leader would carry their phone with them all the time, or conduct any sort of business on it.
My understanding is that the current crop of politicians is terrified of FOIA requests, and so pushes as much to their phones as possible. You can't FOIA many of the apps on there.
This is a cowardly practice. These officials are either overtly cowards, or they are too stupid to understand that their phones are targets for foreign intelligence agencies.
Warning you - - - This is a Juicy One ...
https://wallhop.io/https://www.vanityfair.com/story/jared-ku...
The 2 "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" books (mostly the second one) by Perkins do a good job of describing the relation between the US and the Saudis.
Why should we be warned. It's pretty much widely known that the entire Trump administration is compromised. That details may be salacious goes without saying.
But are they really compromised? If everybody owns them nobody owns them?
Honest politician is one that once bought stays bought. Thankfully for the world Trump is dishonest.
It's probably the first time I'm glad to hear about a government hacking into someone's phone.
I feel like the headline here should be different.
GRU hacked Jared Kushner's phone and Dutch intelligence infiltrated them.
Like some kind of spy movie where they catch a spy and give the spy the option to work for them.
Might as well post the actual article: https://www.vanityfair.com/story/jared-kushner-hacked-phone-...
It's over for the US they will never wake up no matter how bad things get. It's so comically bad you'd imagine the so called well-regulated militia would have intervened by now
The people calling themselves "militia" are overwhelmingly in favor of this lot.
That was Trump's 'magic', somehow appearing that he related with those types. Probably mostly accidentally because of his limited vocabulary, resulting in a very basic style of communication, in combination with only seeing the way the world works at a first-order effects level.
And yet having enough reach to be on their radar.
The "so called well-regulated militia" hasn't been a real thing in the USA since shortly after the "founding" of the nation (if it even existed then). The closest thing (maybe) might be the National Guard, but these day they're clearly mostly just puppets for the rich and powerful.
Well-regulated militia is the National Guard. Note the term well-regulated. They’re military personnel that belong to the states, but still operate alongside the regular force. What do you mean by puppets?
In practice as well as in law they are controlled by the federal government.
Only a couple of states actually have their own militia that is independent of federal government.
Yea, those self-styled militia types obsessed with hoarding guns and cosplaying as soldiers were always going to be on the side of the authoritarians.
They may style themselves as militias, but they act like paramilitary forces.
They act like 8 year old boys.
> they will never wake up
I'm on the ground and the conversations are changing. There is significant damage that will take decades to repair, but I do not think it impossible.
We broke the trust with allies on so many levels and you should continue to hedge, because America might not be peaking on absurdity yet...
I'm interested in seeing the chaos of a republican party with all the ideas of power that Trump has given them, but without any of them having the godhead position that Trump has in order to keep the rest of them in line. There will be a bunch of wannabe Trump's, and all the puffery that goes with it, but without the large supportive entourage. It will be infighting like never before seen.
And if the Democrats don't do an absolutely stellar job of trying to fix things, and making life at least seem better for most of the US voting public, then an entirely chaotic Republican party could still get back in.
... and that's saying nothing of the possibilities for repeats of Jan 6th come midterm results or the 2028 election.
> And if the Democrats don't do an absolutely stellar job of trying to fix things, and making life at least seem better for most of the US voting public, then an entirely chaotic Republican party could still get back in.
Pessimistically, this is my expectation. The Oligarchy has become so out of hand, i.e. corporate-government-media collusion. The Dems are doing the same "Win at all Costs" so we can "Dominate those who think differently" thing. We The People have to take the reins back.
[dupe] Discussion on source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50201259
Excellent story, the bigger picture IMO is that Jared is being thrown out to the wolves. Not sure by who. Preparation for when/if house/senate flips? Also why would the Dutch intelligence expose Kushner and thus Trump? Trump will be on their case very soon.
“What was odd, the source said, was that the money in the account—hundreds of millions of dollars—had come from a bank in Azerbaijan. Most importantly, Kushner appeared to have transferred significant amounts of money from the Dubai account to other individuals, including a warlord, a mercenary, and a one-time hit man,” Cole wrote.
You made this same comment already https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50207356
Unsubstantiated story from Vanity Fair.
Hey, according to the Snowden leaks, what’s a little spying among friends?
The actually didn't. The Russians (GRU) hacked Kushner and an agent within the GRU handed over the data.
Looking at it myself that is inaccurate. It seems like GRU hacked the phone first and then Dutch intelligence did the same thing. See my comment above.
Countries don't have friends, they have interests. Spying on allies has always been a thing.
Hopefully Ukraine got a copy to help dealing with those dildos. Dutch could name the file MH17.zip. Money transfers thru Azerbaijan are from russia.
MAGA crowd never sees truth
The typical supporter and typical MAGA politician, well, they’re just not serious people. Too bad they have done so much damage.
Non-Twitter/X version here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50206177
Every government spies on every other government with every available tool. Even allied ones. (Especially Israel, because it has a really good spy agency)
Put Kushner in prison
also see from yesterday:
* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50201259
The Dutch Intelligence services seem to be really good.
I recall they helped the UK during the Falklands War with SIGINT/cryptanalytic stuff
Various sources also claim that Dutch intelligence deployed or was involved with deploying Stuxnet in Iran.
In 2019, it was reported that an Iranian mole working for Dutch intelligence at the behest of Israel and the CIA inserted the Stuxnet virus with a USB flash drive or convinced another person working at the Natanz facility to do so.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_van_Sabben
As a Flemish person I can attest that the Dutch have outstanding engineers. So if their intelligence agency has a proper budget, they definitely have a nice pool to select from.
Any reason you call yourselves Flemish and not Dutch? I always thought Flemish is the language and Dutch the nationality?
Flanders has not been a part of the Netherlands for almost 200 years and was only ever really part of it for 15 years (It's the Dutch speaking part of Belgium).
Dual loyalty.
The scarier thought is that the russian government did not even have to do that - agent Krasnov works for them as-is.
Europeans should not trust any of that team: it is a compromised government.
The irony is that Yuri explained this already in the 1980s:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5It1zarINv0
It was a literal prediction of the KGB seizing power. Putin is from the KGB clique. Gorbachev really should have neutered the KGB totally.
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And the first shown comment is Jared Kushner calling the claims categorically false. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The real question is: is he going to sue Vanity Fair? If not, he can say all he wants on X, but the message is clear; Vanity Fair's evidence apparently holds up.
Guilty until proven otherwise?
We're not in court. And there's plenty of other indicators that Kushner is taking bribes.
> Guilty until proven otherwise?
Hasn't that already been the case for a while now though? Seems like you get in trouble with the law, you gotta prove your innocence, and you're treated as guilty until you do (and suffer some consequences still even after proving your innocence, just for having been "in the system" in that way).
Worse yet, the "media" these days gets away with bloody murder compared to the way things used to be before the Internet. It's all about maximum outrage and division these days, because that "engagement" is what sells advertising space. Convicted by the media is almost as bad as convicted by the "Justice" system. Either one can totally ruin lives.
We live in a country founded by colonial aristocrats who viciously sniped at each other in the local paper. The constraints on speech control and proclamations about guilt are for the government, not the governed.
These are the people that gave us: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarring_and_feathering after all.
It is strange though that you are lamenting this state of affairs for Jared Kushner, of all people. He will be pardoned, and will not lack for invites to New York soirees just because he took bribes from blood-soaked US allies.
I mean this sincerely, what prompted you to comment on this case?
> It is strange though that you are lamenting this state of affairs for Jared Kushner, of all people.
100% not the case at all. Honestly, my comment is more an expression that I've lost all faith in the "Justice" system entirely. I have zero hopes that any truth or justice will come out of this situation, as I firmly believe that at this point that humans are far more anti-social than social creatures, and we've allowed the system of "civilized" society to break down to a dangerous degree. We're basically "cooked" as a species. Just haven't admitted it to ourselves because we're too busy playin' the game our overlords have set by the rules they made up. They want us divided and at each other's throats so that we aren't laser focused on them and the problems they created for us all.
> He will be pardoned, and will not lack for invites to New York soirees just because he took bribes from blood-soaked US allies.
Sadly, I'm just about 100% sure you're right about that.
> I mean this sincerely, what prompted you to comment on this case?
Honestly, what prompts me to comment on anything anymore. It's not as if my one voice has ever held any power. I've seen this mess coming for years and been ridiculed every time I try to say anything about any of it. It's wasted energy to even bother trying to talk about anything to anyone these days, yet for some stupid reason I keep opening my mouth. Guess I'm just an idiot. Bought into the whole "humans are social creatures" BS and now I'm pretty much broken, having discovered the hard way that "the law of the jungle" is the only law humans actually believe in.
The only court remaining to hold oligarchs to account is the court of public opinion.
A [free, or discounted] pardon awaits every member of the trump family.
Not quite. USA first amendment makes winning a libel case almost impossible, especially against established media. UK is on the other end of the spectrum - there probably would be slam dunk.
So usually in the USA the smarter move is just to wait for the thing to fall off from the news cycle instead of creating news fodder every day with a trial.
I understand he is a billionaire and transfer of money from different banks around the world is axiomatic for him, but why would he be involved in payments involving assassins I think more tangible evidence is needed.
Anyone directly connected to trump has lost the presumption of innocence until proven guilty standard of common law. That group has been proven guilty, with no retribution, so many times it's statistically more likely they actually did something far worse than whatever is being alleged.
Seriously, how, with a straight face, can you even attempt to excuse these stains on history?
If you wait for more tangible evidence for the presidents daughters husband who has no business in government but is operating at an extremely high level doing foreign negotiations between waring countries... You will never get it in a timely fashion. For obvious reasons.
Our now former allies aren't making this public to smear some guy they met at a party they don't like. They are warning the world that the us is an oligarchy and rule of law is dead.
What did you expect him to say? "Yep, you got me, you guys. I did an oopsie. Sorry! I'm turning myself in to, uh, my father-in-law now."
Yes.
In the civilised world, those caught abusing public office resigned.
"Deny, deny, deny" in the face of all evidence is a curioulsy Trumpian move.
I mean why wouldn't he?
If he's telling the truth, then I would do the same.
If he's lying, then it might work, I would also probably do the same.
The interesting thing here is that two publications allowed the journalist to call Kushner "corrupt". This means that the lawyers would have seen compelling evidence that would mean one of two things:
1) Kushner wouldn't take them to court, because he would have to settle out of court in an expensive way
2) Kushner, if he were to take court action, would not win civil case.
This leads me to think that there is more than a shred of evidence, but an awful lot of evidence that he didn't declare what he was supposed to (at best) and at worse laundered foreign cash for his own purposes
After Russiagate that seems like a rather generous allowance to the profession of journalism. They managed a Pulitzer-winning investigation that failed to uncover the eventual truth, which is the whole thing was ginned up out of whole cloth and everyone pushing it would like to move on from that, thankyouverymuch.
Although it is always possible that they've got something worth saying it is also entirely possible that they're just making up a story out of nothing.
The white house recently released reports into electoral interference that showed that the majority of Russian influence was targeted at supporting trump. I assumed that people would notice this massive foot in mouth moment, but it seems people don't actually read the source material, and just claim that it supports their position. Unfortunately, this stance seems to work.
What is going on? How does a government release a report that directly contradicts what they claim they're releasing the report for, and then steadfastly stand by the claims that were disproven by the report they released?
We truly are living in the post truth era...
Everyone already made up their minds. People who know Russiagate happened looked at the evidence. People who believe it didn’t listened to Trump’s denials. New evidence won’t cause them to not believe Trump, because the old evidence was sufficient.
As always you can’t logic people out of a position they didn’t logic themselves into.
That's a horribly defeatist, but unfortunately accurate summary of the current state of the world.
Here's to the changing of the tide.
Well the 2017 prize (one year before) was for the Panama papers. No dramatic consequences for that, either.
Journalists (un)covered everything that would be in a Special Counsel report months/years later - in what world is that bad reporting? It's the exact opposite.
I’m not sure where you are getting your sources but the reporting that the Times and Post won the Pulitzer for was validated by both the Mueller report, Congressional investigations and 2 different reviews by the Pulitzer board.
Rather than moving on from this the Pulitzer Board is vigorously defending their decision in court as we speak.
There certainly hasn’t been a retraction. You’ll also note Trump never sued the papers over their coverage.
In addition to everyone else telling you you're wrong, because you're a persistent Trump shill, I would like to point out that a number of Trump associates did actually go to prison: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...
One of whom pled guilty to lying about the proposed Trump Tower Moscow scheme: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_Tower_Moscow
I wrote a whole comment yesterday to someone else explaining to them how what you said about Russiagate is wrong:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50194105
In short, the facts are:
- Trump's campaign met repeatedly with Russians and lied about it.
- Trump's inner circle took meetings with a Russian spy in hopes of getting dirt and lied about it.
- Russia actually did release dirt to help Trump campaign and lied about it.
- Trump's campaign eagerly accepted that help and asked for more publicly, and Russia obliged.
- Trump's campaign shared internal campaign data with Russian intelligence officers.
- If they could have exonerated Trump they would have, but they couldn't.
These are cold hard facts available in the mueller report and the senate intel committee report, both authored by Republicans.
That’s what the URL links to.
He would be stupid not to. His wife's father is the president. Shit they probably split the money. Why else is he in the role he has lol.