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Brits claim U.S. intelligence leaked confidential Manchester bombing evidence

Brits claim U.S. intelligence leaked confidential Manchester bombing evidence

If true, the motive likely was to embarrass Trump, showing how illegal leaking is spiraling out of control and damaging U.S. interests.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/05/24/world/europe/manchester-arena-bomb-materials-photos.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0

If you thought that intelligence community leaks against Donald Trump were okay because Trump was the target, then you don’t understand the problem. Such leaks to the NY Times and Washington Post, among others, are not only criminal, they are contagious.

If accusations being made by the British are true, the leakers in the U.S. intelligence community have revealed to the NY Times highly sensitive information shared as part of a joint terrorism investigation.

It all started when the NY Times ran a lengthy report on the evidence recovered at the scene of the Manchester concert suicide bombing, Found at the Scene in Manchester: Shrapnel, a Backpack and a Battery:

The bomber in the Manchester terrorist attack appeared to have carried a powerful explosive in a lightweight metal container concealed either within a black vest or a blue Karrimor backpack, and may have held a small switch in his left hand, according to preliminary information gathered by British authorities.

The article then goes on to show photos of evidence, including the battery, shrapnel, and remnants of the backpack in which the bomb was contained. The Times summarizes preliminary findings as to the nature of the bomb and how it was constructed:

Certain details of the bomb further suggest a desire by a bomb-maker to reduce the risk of a dud.

The authorities found a mangled Yuasa 12-volt, 2.1 amp lead acid battery at the scene, which is more powerful than batteries often seen in backpack bombs or suicide vests. The battery, used for emergency lighting and other applications, can be bought for about $20.

A possible switch to initiate the explosion, carried in the bomber’s left hand, was also unusual in a suicide device, in that it appears to have contained a small circuit board soldered inside one end.

You don’t need to be a professional explosives and terror investigator to understand that publishing such details so early in the investigation could prejudice the ability to roll up the bombmaker and network. The way in which bombs are constructed often carry forensic signature telltale details that can be traced back to specific groups or even individual bombmakers.

So who leaked to the NY Times?

The British apparently are blaming U.S. intelligence services, who would have been privy to such information as part of joint investigation.

The Guardian reports, Theresa May to tackle Donald Trump over Manchester bombing evidence:

Theresa May will confront Donald Trump over the stream of leaks of crucial intelligence about the Manchester bomb attack when she meets the US president at a Nato summit in Brussels on Thursday.

British officials were infuriated on Wednesday when the New York Times published forensic photographs of sophisticated bomb parts that UK authorities fear could complicate the expanding investigation into the lethal blast in which six further arrests have been made in the UK and two more in Libya.

It was the latest of a series of leaks to US journalists that appeared to come from inside the US intelligence community, passing on data that had been shared between the two countries as part of a long-standing security cooperation.

A senior Whitehall source said: “These images from inside the American system are clearly distressing to victims, their families and other members of the public. Protests have been lodged at every relevant level between the British authorities and our US counterparts. They are in no doubt about our huge strength of feeling on this issue. It is unacceptable.”

https://twitter.com/BBCHelenaLee/status/867491249657454593/photo/1

The Mayor of Manchester expressed his anger in a tweet:

https://twitter.com/AndyBurnhamGM/status/867507912457015296

The British Home Secretary Amber Rudd directly accused the U.S., via The Telegraph:

Amber Rudd has criticised US security services for leaking information relating to the Manchester terror attack with the Home Secretary warning Washington it must not happen again….

Ms Rudd was also asked whether the American leaks had compromised the investigation.

She said: “I wouldn’t go that far but I can say that they are perfectly clear about the situation and that it shouldn’t happen again.”

The Independent provides audio of Rudd.

It’s hard to believe that senior British officials would make public accusations against U.S. intelligence services unless they were highly confident that the U.S. was the source of the leak.

IF someone in U.S. intelligence leaked this information, then it’s likely that the target was not the British, but Trump, to prove that he has no control over his own administration.

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Comments

NavyMustang | May 24, 2017 at 8:53 pm

I’ve worked in Intel for over thirty years. I really, really hope those responsible for this are caught and locked away in a very small cell for a very long time. They are traitors.

The IC has well & truly jumped the shark.

I hope they can ‘fingerprint’ this leak quickly, assuming anyone in the IC cares any more.

Can we please just close down our intelligence agencies? They apparently have no raison d’etre anymore except to attack conservatives (and Republicans by extension) and Trump. How many billions do we spend on these useless agencies, year after year?

    Mannie in reply to rdmdawg. | May 25, 2017 at 9:53 am

    They are not useless, but the CIA ought to go, and not be replaced. Its unique abilities can be farmed out to other agencies. The FIB out to go and be rebuilt from new cloth.

    Their former employees should be perpetually banned from government employment, and should have their passports revoked.

    notamemberofanyorganizedpolicital in reply to rdmdawg. | May 25, 2017 at 9:03 pm

    Hear hear!

    Very well put!

Also, we need to consider ending the practice of treating these military attacks like some kind of legal issue, like a bank robbery or something. I’m so tired of hearing words like “investigation” and “defendants” and “jail” and what not for what are straight-up military strikes against soft targets. The way to deal with them is the way to deal with any enemy in war time. You fight them, you capture POWs, and you hang them if they are not wearing a uniform.

    Rick in reply to rdmdawg. | May 24, 2017 at 9:46 pm

    Can’t you shoot them?

    myiq2xu in reply to rdmdawg. | May 25, 2017 at 2:08 am

    If we treat them as military actions then the terrorists are soldiers who when captured have to be treated as prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions.

      snopercod in reply to myiq2xu. | May 25, 2017 at 8:14 am

      Wrong.

      The Geneva Convention requires that the individuals be Uniformed Soldiers, and that those Uniformed Soldiers were engaged in acts that were legitimate orders.

      Non-Uniformed soldiers are excluded (there is a specific definition, if I remember correctly as to what constitutes a “uniformed soldier” which is pretty broad). The terrorists still don’t fit within that description.

      Specific acts against Civilians with no direct military purpose are also specifically excluded if I recall.

      gmac124 in reply to myiq2xu. | May 25, 2017 at 9:08 am

      It’s been awhile since I went over the Geneva convention. (been out for 20 years) If memory serves me correct military personnel not in uniforms are considered spies and have zero protection from the Geneva convention.

      Mannie in reply to myiq2xu. | May 25, 2017 at 9:55 am

      They do not qualify as POWs. They are unlawful combatants. They have forfeit their Geneva and Hague Convention protections. They should be tried by General Court Martial, and disposed of as the Court sees fit, life at GTMO or the noose.

Well, there’s a clear chain of custody on who the Brits let have this, so we can start firing there.

Unless, of course, the segments of British Intelligence who were helping Obama gather intel on the Trump campaign are the ones leaking.

I am all for freedom of speech and freedom of the press, but this is ridiculous.
It’s time to start prosecuting the traitors. We are 8 years behind schedule.

All that is happening is disclosing the depths of the deep state and the protections that they have built for themselves. Once the traitors are identified they will assert multiple layers of federal employee protections. Government employees have protections that function primarily to ensure that the deep state cannot be shaken.
Consider the supposed budget crisis: The supposed cuts deal only with the rate of growth. Any growth means more federal employees, which means more democrat votes, which means more power to the deep state.
It is not extreme to say that this is an existential problem.

Yes, this problem has just moved onto the front burner. Anybody who would leak to the Times would have no compunctions about leaking to the Norks and the Persians as well.

PackerBronco | May 24, 2017 at 11:39 pm

I’m sure there was no intent to do harm, so that’s okay, right? Isn’t that the new standard?

inspectorudy | May 24, 2017 at 11:42 pm

Guess what agency has the power to INVESTIGATE treason? Why it’s the FBI! Who has been in charge of the FBI? Comey. Does this raise the hackles on the back of your neck? Trump knows a lot more than people give him credit for. Why do you suppose he fired Comey while he was in CA? Because his office and all of its computers and files would be there for the DoJ to confiscate. Guess who has all of Comey’s files? The DoJ. Guess who was the investigator into the clinton foundation? James Comey. hillary’s e-mails were nothing compared to the clinton foundation. Who decided to take it upon himself to bypass the AG of the US and make a statement that defied every FBI director’s actions in US history? Comey. This man was and is a clinton defender. He and his brother have defended the clinton’s for many years and he has been caught. He is the sycophant who decided that Mark Rich committed no crimes so that clinton could receive over a million dollars towards his “Library”. Get over any notion that Comey is an honorable man. He is a clinton insider who was counting on her winning and continuing his future.

When I read about this yesterday, my first thought was this is the perfect example of how the media no longer serves it’s intended function. The story wasn’t the name of the bomber, the story was the name of the leaker who was willing to throw the UK under the bus to harm Trump.

    No disrespect intended, Sanddog, but “…my first thought was this is the perfect example of how the media no longer serves it’s intended function”?

    Are you really just understanding how corrupt the ‘media’ is? If so, it’s surprising, but God bless you, at least you got there.

    Milhouse in reply to Sanddog. | May 25, 2017 at 9:00 am

    What “intended function” would that be? Surely you don’t buy into the newspaper industry’s self-aggrandizing myth that it has some special constitutional role, and constitutes a “fourth estate” (never mind that nobody who uses this term seriously can name the first three).

    The newspapers of the 1780s were worse than today’s, constrained only by the fact that they served a better-informed readership so they could usually get away with less.

Not only is the ‘media’ gone, but Fox News is no more. We can blame Murdoch’s two idiot sons.

“Fox News Poll: Trump approval down, voters support special counsel on Russia”
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/05/24/fox-news-poll-trump-approval-down-voters-support-special-counsel-on-russia.html

However: a great opportunity for a network to replace it.

It’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better. But, like any war, that’s the way it goes.

Trump should announce he agrees with May. The hatred of the the third rate spooks we have employed (i.e. Plame) has built up in our system like arteriosclerosis and has become potentially fatal. And that all intelligence sharing by our foreign partners with the USIC should stop until we unf*ck ourselves.

Also put the press on the spot. It’s not like they didn’t play a traitorous role in this embarrassment.

Arminius: the MSM behave like subversives while hiding behind “First Amendment protections”. It’s infuriating how the NYT, WashPo and other leftist news outlets believe it’s their “right” to damage national security interests and partnerships with allied nations by publishing sensitive information, in order to foster an anti-Trump insurgency.

The leakers should be tracked down and punished savagely. Pour encourager les autres.

A friend, who flies at pretty high levels in the DC crowd has started to advocate for the closing of both CIA and FIB, and the banning of their employees from future government employment. They are both too riddled with deep state actors. Both agencies are attempting to overthrow the legitimate government of the United States. As such they detract from, not contribute to, our national security. The FIB should be rebuilt from scratch. The CIA’s unique capabilities should be distributed among our other intelligence services.

Time to sweep with a new broom. But don’t hold your breath. The swamp is full of venomous public serpents.

    notamemberofanyorganizedpolicital in reply to Mannie. | May 25, 2017 at 9:15 pm

    Touche!

    RE: “A friend, who flies at pretty high levels in the DC crowd has started to advocate for the closing of both CIA and FBI…..

“IF someone in U.S. intelligence leaked this information, then it’s likely that the target was not the British, but Trump, to prove that he has no control over his own administration.”

It it not his administration over which he has no control; it’s the bureaucracy. Although nominally under control of the executive, it’s grown into a stand-alone, reportable-to-no-one behemoth. One would think that our free press (ha ha) would recognize the danger of this situation, but they are too busy being The Resistance.

    notamemberofanyorganizedpolicital in reply to Anonamom. | May 25, 2017 at 9:14 pm

    So true.

    This all just proves everything Trump has said since announcing in summer 2015.

    Every real American is even more set against the evil government employees!

    Term limits for all government employees!

So, where is the evidence that any of this information was “leaked” by anyone in US intelligence? The photos appear to be those taken by British authorities as part of the crime scene investigation. The reports cited are all, apparently, initial crime scene reports from British sources. So, again, where is the evidence that this information was leaked by US sources? This information was probably available to a wide range of people, at various levels, within British criminal investigation circles as well as US federal criminal investigative and intelligence services.

This is a prime example of how easy it is to fall into the trap of viewing the world through prejudiced optics. What we have here is information on a criminal act in which the media has a strong interest. In such cases, reporters will attempt to obtain information in a variety of ways. The motivation for providing this information to the news media can be anything from some Machiavellian attempt to embarrass the Trump administration to an official who is tired of his government [British or American] covering up or downplaying Islamic terrorist activities to someone simply looking to supplement his income by selling information to the press. So, watch out for the spin on this, from both sides.

Trump should use this as an opportunity to do a “punishment purge” at certain agencies. Once a dozen or so high-ranking partisans are fired, the cost of leaking will go up considerably, even if the actual leaker dodges the bullet. Remaining partisans would have good reason to encourage great attention to security. Americans would have little sympathy for the howls of outrage.

I believe that this was a shameless attempt by the ” Lettered Agencies,” & the NYT, to try and discredit the Trump Adm., plus take suspicion away from all of these activities of the Islamic State.

    notamemberofanyorganizedpolicital in reply to bobgood1. | May 25, 2017 at 9:12 pm

    But it will not work.

    It is the CIA, FBI, NSA, etc. (all “security agencies”) that are showing they have FAILED totally.

    They are the equal of horses with four broken legs.

The MainSlime media is a law unto itself. They will publish anything that suits their agenda despite any harm they might cause. These Media Owners, Operators and Journalists need to be jailed and their “False” News platforms need to be closed down permanently and replaced by true, honest, unbiased and intelligent reporting of the real news: – not Propaganda to further LeftTard Causes !!!