Thread by @kate_hammer

#Collusion panel with @carolecadwalla @lukeharding1968 @BylineFest #BylineFest

Carole asks Luke: when did Trump cross your radar?

Luke: summer 2016. When Manafort became campaign manager whom Luke had met in Ukraine who was consultant transforming Yavchenko. What was he doing in Soviet Empire?? He was best connected political lobbist in area. Pre-Steele!

.@lukeharding1968 was investigating Deutsch Bank. DB kept lending even after Trump sued DB for losses arising from #FinCrisis. Dec 2016 Luke met Christopher Steele who said, Follow the Money, Follow the Sex #BylineFest @BylineFest

Luke to @carolecadwalla : why did you start & why did you stick with it?
Carole was writing about #technology in very feature-y way. Went to tech conference in San Fran which was as ridiculous as you’d imagine & she noticed weird stories about #FakeNews , hacking a country

...and editor said: write about #FakeNews & she wondered how Google searches work. She stumbled on horrible search phrases & results. Then she met Jonathan Albright who mapped fake sites to swamp out decent sources. JA said *it’s like a cancer taking over internet.*

*there’re weird companies like #CambridgeAnalytica and they can follow you around internet & microtarget you* - said J Albright to @carolecadwalla & that’s how her work began #BylineFest @BylineFest

KGB were first experts in #FakeNews says @lukeharding1968 Campaign to defeat Thatcher & Reagan. Back in 1987 Russian ambassador wooed Trump. Three decades ago. This followed KGB directive to recruit more Americans: sought narcissists, vain, womanisers, poor at analysis

Trump was foremost exponent of Birtherism & this put him on Kremlin radar says @lukeharding1968

Carole says: Russian disinformation supercharged by #capitalism #SiliconValley

#BylineFestival @BylineFest

.@lukeharding1968 thinks Kremlin conceives war for the mind & about #storytelling. They genuinely believe there’s no such thing as truth. Ultimate relativism. What’s real is what people think. Here is overlap between Putin & Trump. @BylineFest #BylineFestival

.@carolecadwalla : it goes against in our sense of ourselves as rational being. Hard to grasp how propaganda works in you. We were sitting ducks. We were innocence. Russia must have chuckled. #BylineFestival @BylineFest

2007-2011 @lukeharding1968 saw the techniques crude but effective which Trump campaign used to great effect #BylineFestival @BylineFest

.@carolecadwalla coffee with Andy Wigmore. The transcript is a goldmine.

#CambridgeAnalytica legal letters to @ObserverUK - Andy confirmed that they worked for Leave.Eu but CA didn’t need to get paid this was just after Banks met Trump & Golden lift

Andy Wigmore told @carolecadwalla that you just wanna make people very angry or very scared.

@lukeharding1968 also #krompromat we all know this term now. Luke’s apt in Moscow was bugged & Embassy couldn’t do anything but offer a biscuit 🍪

Page 110 in Russian flat on sex bookmarked and left on @lukeharding1968 ‘s bedside table.

Trump clearly terrified by Putin - see Helsinki press conference who is *careening off into traitorous territory* says Luke H

@BylineFest #BylineFestival

.@carolecadwalla says interesting that Mueller’s investigation began in London

<sorry, gotta rest my aching arm>

We need a Mueller here investigating #Brexit says @lukeharding1968

@carolecadwalla says Banks & Trump learning from one another. The responses are v similar. It seems like no one cares.

Carole’s shout out to @PeterKGeoghegan @J_amesp
for their tenacious journalism
@BylineFest

.@lukeharding1968 asks @carolecadwalla : what’s it like to be the woman who wiped $1billion off @Facebook value

Carole says: it was @chrisinsilico

@BylineFest #BylineFestival

Question: you guys are doing the work of the intelligence services. So where the fcuk are the intelligence services???

Answer: put that question to @DamianCollins tomorrow replies @carolecadwalla

Lack of political will, @lukeharding1968 says, moral cowardice

@BylineFest

Question: why can’t we here in 🇬🇧 get a public inquiry?
Question: Banks’ £ donation. Could it be his money?

@BylineFest
#BylineFestival

Public inquiry q @lukeharding1968 we don’t have criminal investigative team capable. Luke tells story re NCA seeing Luke’s data & saying *it’s a bit difficult isn’t it?*
$ - donation smells wrong to @carolecadwalla @ElectoralCommUK investigating Banks’ without expertise or power

Banks not very ideological and several years before Ref he didn’t seem to have much money.

In drunken interview AB said, you haven’t a shred of evidence, including to Qs that @carolecadwalla hadn’t asked

The pressure is in people to put pressure on politicians to put pressure on law enforcement & regulators. - @carolecadwalla @BylineFest #BylineFestival

*i don’t think Andrew Marr understood the story* - fake balance *I do evidence-based reporting so.....if you want someone from the other side then you have to invite a liar....*
😆😂

@BylineFest

Putin takes psychology seriously. He is running certain western leaders the way a KGB handler would an asset - @lukeharding1968

Putin refighting Cold War and this time Russia is winning #BylineFestival @BylineFest

Our job as investigative journalists is to shine a light, says @lukeharding1968 #BylineFestival @BylineFest

.@lukeharding1968 mega-consortiums now confronting transnational problems in cooperative ways. We publish together. We meet together. We help each other. This sharing is one of first pieces of good news these last dark years. @BylineFest #BylineFestival

THIS STORY NEEDS MORE JOURNALISTS ON IT - @carolecadwalla replies (not shouting, I just needed caps)
#BylineFestival @BylineFest *please bring in the professionals - where are they??!*