Evaluating Dutch Claims to Have Hacked Russia's 'Fancy Bear Hackers of the DNC'

By James The Russian Analyst

Dutch Accounts of Plucky Intelligence Successes That Sound Too Good to Be True --
Because They Are...Why Would SVR Put a Top Secret Hacking Facility in the Most Touristy and Foreigner Foot Trafficked Part of Moscow Next to the Kremlin?

“In the Summer of 2015, Dutch intelligence services were the first to alert their American counterparts about the cyberintrusion of the Democratic National Committee by Cozy Bear, a hacking group believed to be tied to the Russian government. Intelligence hackers from Dutch AIVD (General Intelligence and Security Service) had penetrated the Cozy Bear computer servers as well as a security camera at the entrance of their working space, located in a university building adjacent to the Red Square in Moscow.

Over the course of a few months, they saw how the Russians penetrated several U.S. institutions, including the State Department, the White House, and the DNC. On all these occasions, the Dutch alerted the U.S. intelligence services, Dutch tv programme Nieuwsuur and de Volkskrant, a prominent newspaper in The Netherlands, jointly report on Thursday. This account is based on interviews with a dozen political, diplomatic and intelligence sources in The Netherlands and the U.S. with direct knowledge of the matter. None of them wanted to speak on the record, given the classified details of the matter.”
— https://nos.nl/nieuwsuur/artikel/2213767-dutch-intelligence-first-to-alert-u-s-about-russian-hack-of-democratic-party.html

THE FACULTY OF JOURNALISM BUILDING AT THE M.V. LOMONOSOV MOSCOW STATE UNIVERSITY, FOUNDED ON THIS DAY JANUARY 25 IN 1755. MSU (PRONOUNCED BY RUSSIANS AS 'M-GOO') ALSO HAS A FACULTY OF PSYCHOLOGY NEARBY, WHERE PRESUMABLY IF THE DUTCH REPORTS ARE TO BE BELIEVED, A SMALL ARMY OF RUSSIAN HACKERS WERE STEALING THE DNC'S EMAILS

The 2 1/2 year old Dutch intel is released, as we've reported here at RogueMoney, at a time when the RussiaGate narrative is floundering back in the U.S. The FBI's declaration that it lost five months of texts between the FBI's ranking Russian counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok and his lover, an attorney for the Bureau Lisa Page, have angered GOP members of Congress. The House Democrats led by the perpetually accusing but never proof of Russia collusion producing Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) are promising to release their own memo 'debunking' the four page document prepared by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) and his Intel Committee staff. Schiff insists the four pager is full of inaccuracies and false accusations against the FBI, and has insisted together with Sen. Dianne Feinstein, citing the Dem-neocon #Hamilton68 agitprop project, that 'Russian bots' are promoting the #ReleasetheMemo hashtag. However even the Democrats propaganda rag The Daily Beast had to admit, citing sources inside Twitter, that most of the hash tag's spread has been homegrown, the result of pissed off 'deplorables', tired of the media and Democrats #MuhRussia BS (including the latest claim that Trump almost fired Mueller, but was talked out of it by his lawyers, as if that's a shocker).

Employing #Hamilton68's 'so and so is retweeting something ergo they must be linked' standards of 'logic' is tempting, especially when observing #NeverTrump er neocon scumbags like Rick Wilson claiming other European intelligence services besides the Dutch have dirt on Trump and the Russians. In reality the St. Tatiana's Day 'coincidence' is likely more of a tell than the pressing need for the three letter agencies to deflect from the online and public groundswell to release the Nunes memo detailing DOJ/FBI FISA abuses -- actions like spying on Trump campaign volunteer and Russophile Carter Page, which were justified to a FISA court in the name of countering Russian intelligence activities.

The Global Cold War 2 Context for the Latest 'Revelations' of Russian Hacking Perfidy

Although it's entirely possible that the publication date of the Dutch reporters was moved up in response to messages to their editors to bolster the (wildly flawed and to date never supported with declassified evidence) January 2017 U.S. intelligence assessment pushed by the Clapper/Brennan/Comey troika, the broader international context is growing Anglo-American deep state pressure on Russia ahead of the March 2018 elections and hosting of the World Cup. Since President Trump's decision announced several weeks ago to ship Javelin anti-tank missiles to the U.S./NATO propped up government in Ukraine, we've seen:

1. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, usually thought of as a moderate on Russia in light of his oilman and business background in the country, declaring an open ended (and flagrantly illegal under international law) occupation of eastern Syria. While Russia was not explicitly named in the announcement, with the focus on countering Iranian influence in the country, the Cold War 2 implication is Washington demanding an occupation zone in the country opposite the Russian presence, as if Syria were Germany after WWII with to the victors going the spoils. Except unlike in the aftermath of that global conflict, Washington has no legal basis whatsoever for its troops presence in the country and its occupation plans remain greatly complicated by the military intervention of a third party, namely its soon to be former NATO ally in Turkey.

2. Tillerson in recent days insisting Moscow is to blame for the use of chlorine gas against civilians in eastern Ghouta near Damascus, despite no UN investigation as of yet concluding it was the Assad government and not Al-Qaeda or its 'moderate rebel' allies that released the toxic gas.

3. Kiev passing a law revoking any special status for the Donbass, in explicit violation of the Minsk 2 accords it accepted (to stop the humiliating retreat of its troops from Debaltsevo) in winter 2015, with the encouragement of American special envoy Kurt Volker (himself a former aide to hardcore neocon Russophobic fanatic, Sen. John McCain). This trend, along with the U.S. having already armed the most vicious units of the Ukrainian volunteer battalions such as the Azov Battalion before the Javelin missiles were sent to the regular Ukrainian Army, is more of a gradual escalation than sudden shift in policy.

4. The British Army's chiefs justifying their desperate need for additional funds using the Russian threat, with Russian long range aviation bomber flights intercepted by the Royal Air Force dozens of miles from UK air space being covered hysterically by the jingoistic Fleet Street press.

“Today, Sen. Grassley reiterated his request to the Justice Department to open a criminal investigation of “ex”-British intelligence agent Christopher Steele. Grassley, as well as Nunes, has a memorandum he is pressing to declassify and make public.

Just as Russia-Gate sags, a push for outright war is escalating, instigated by the same British coup crowd, through neo-con/neo-liberal assets. In the latest expression, a new multi-nation entity was formed in Paris Jan. 23, used as a platform to bash Russia: the “International Partnership Against Impunity for the Use of Chemical Weapons.” The Syrian government is accused of using chlorine gas this week. Unfortunately, U.S. Sec. of State Rex Tillerson got in on the act of false accusations, saying that Russia is “ultimately responsible” for chemical weapons attacks in Syria. Moreover, he said “Russia’s failure to resolve the chemical weapons issue in Syria calls into question its relevance to the resolution of the overall crisis.”

It is noteworthy that Tillerson came to Paris direct from London, where last weekend, he met with the inner circles of geopolitics. You see the British hand in the White House over Syria; and in the record of the infamous Christopher Steele—British intelligence operative, involvement in Ukraine, and later, in Russia-Gate.”
— https://larouchepac.com/20180125/truth-oozes-out-russia-gate-fraud-escalate-defeat-british-coup
A British Hand Behind the 'Dutch' Operation That Supposedly Caught the Russians in the Act of Hacking the Democrats and Numerous Other U.S. Institutions?

The fact that the Dutch and British security services have been close for centuries, despite the Netherlands never being formally admitted into the post-war (former British Empire Anglophone nations) 5Eyes club, points to the U.K. being privy to any Dutch operation to catch the Fancy/Cozy Bears in the act if not having GCHQ help run it. It is also the British, not the Dutch, who would most feel the need to justify the intelligence behind the opening of the FBI's counterintelligence investigation against the Trump campaign, and 'debunk the myth' of its origins in the work of their own 'former' MI6 man, Christopher Steele.

From a logical perspective, based on what we know about Russian opsec, even hacking teams using young hackers still attending classes at the Lomonosov Moscow State University would be very unlikely to be 'hidden in plain sight' just off Red Square. For a Hollywood movie the setting is perfect. But for keeping an SVR/GRU campaign to subvert the West through the dissemination of DNC materials that actually came to Wikileaks from disgruntled (if not one murdered) Bernie bro(s) secret, it makes little sense. Last but not least, the story is interesting for what it also omits: any revealing by the Dutch of how the SVR allegedly conveyed the data trove it stole to Wikileaks.

Julian Assange seems to suggest on Dutch television program Nieuwsuur that Seth Rich was the source for the Wikileaks-exposed DNC emails and was murdered.