I'm Having Korea Flashbacks.

Specifically to the 2018 Winter Olympics. Held in PyeongChang in the Republic of Korea (RoK/South).

In December 2012 the Republic of Korea held a Presidential Election.

This was a so-called "Change Election." The incumbent Lee Myung-bak had reached his term limit so could not be re-elected. However he wanted his Saenuri Party to continue to rule the country under his designated successor Park Geun-hye. Daughter of South Korean dictator Park Chung-hee.

So Lee Myung-bak decided that there was a threat of foreign interference in the election. Specifically from the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK/North).

This conclusion allowed Lee Myung-bak to task South Korea's equivalent of the FBI - the National Intelligence Service (NIS) - to set up a special cyber unit. This unit was tasked with monitoring Internet traffic surrounding the election and labelling comments supportive of Park Geun-hye's rival Moon Jae-in and comments critical of Park Geun-hye as; "foreign interference" and removing them.

This special cyber unit were successful in rigging the RoK's 2012 election. Park Geun-hye was declared winner over Moon Jae-in took up the office of President in February 2013.

In October/November 2016 this election rigging scandal broke resulting in the impeachment of Park Geun-hye. Just as America was heading into its November 2016 Presidential Election.

That too was a Change Election. Having reached his term limit the incumbent Barack Obama could not be re-elected. However he wanted his Democrat Party to continue to the rule the country under his designated successor Hillary Clinton. Wife of former US President Bill Clinton.

So Barack Obama decided that there was a threat of foreign interference in the election. Specifically from Russia.

This conclusion allowed Barack Obama to task the FBI with setting up a special cyber unit. This unit was tasked with monitoring Internet traffic surrounding the election and labelling comments supportive of Hillary Clinton's rival Donald Trump or critical of Hillary Clinton as; "foreign interference" and removing them.

Barack Obama's special election unit went further than Lee Myung-bak's. Aside from censoring discussion about the election it was also used to spy upon the campaign of the Democrats election rivals and to support Democrat campaign claims of hacking of their computer servers.

Barack Obama's special election failed to rig the outcome of the election. However it quickly morphed into an attempt to overthrow the elected President Donald Trump in the form of an investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

The uncovering of the 2012 South Korean election rigging scandal brought down Park Geun-hye. The subsequent Presidential Election in March 2017 saw Moon Jae-in elected. It fell to him to open the 2018 Winter Olympics.

It almost goes without saying that Barack Obama's claims of foreign interference in the 2016 US Presidential Election and the subsequent Mueller investigation were given short shrift at the games. Both by the hosts and the nations in attendance.

The Opening Ceremony itself was marred by claims of a cyberattack involving a virus named; "Olympic Destroyer."

The Republic of Korea passed copies of this virus to a private US company named; "Crowdstrike." Continuing to be employed by the US Democrat Party Crowdstrike remain the only entity to examine the Democrats servers and remain the sole source of claims of hacking, Russian or otherwise.

Crowdstrike analysed Olympic Destroyer and concluded it was a Russian cyberattack. Much to the amusement of the South Korean programmers who had written the software as part of the Opening Ceremony.

The Opening Ceremony of course featured the lighting of the Olympic Cauldron. The Cauldron the South Koreans had chosen closely resembled one of  "Martian Fighting Machines" from the 1897 novel; "The War of the Worlds" by H.G Wells.

In October 1938 the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) broadcast an Orson Welles radio play of The War of the World's. Listeners believed this to be a genuine news broadcast and America went into a panic thinking it was being invaded by Martians.

This radio broadcast is widely recognised as the biggest Fake News Hoax in American history. Or at least it was until Barack Obama started claiming that America's 2016 Presidential Election was being invaded by Russians.

This very public global criticism of their attempts to rig the 2016 Presidential Election did not go down well with the elements of the US intelligence community responsible.

So during the games - on February 14th (14/2/18) - they 'forgot' to intervene to stop a young man shooting up the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. This resulted in the deaths of 17 students.

Obviously in the midst of such a tragedy suddenly no-one in America was watching what was going on at the Winter Olympics. Through retired agent Kevin Hogg and his son David the FBI teamed up with the Democrat Party to keep this distraction going. Through a series of marches and political campaigns which continue even now.

With the American public distracted Robert Mueller attempted to defend himself at the Winter Olympics. On February 16th (16/2/18) he issued indictments for 13 Russians claiming that they had interfered with the election.

Mueller's claim was met with a robust international response. The intelligence/law enforcement agencies of 31 nations made up of the EU, Israel, Australia and New Zealand made public details on the investigation into the so-called "Dark Web Paedophile" Matthew Falder.

The details of this investigation gave insight into the FBI's competence in cyber investigations. Particularly ones involving Russia.

The FBI had initially detected Falder and found electronic evidence proving him to be Russian. So they concluded he was Russian and stopped the investigation. It was only when these 31 other intelligence agencies took over it was discovered the FBI's electronic evidence proving him to be Russia was fake and Falder was actually British living in the city of Birmingham.

The criticism of what is widely viewed as evidence falsified by Mueller was not limited to just 31 of America's allies. The tech giant Apple used a character from the Telugu language to crash iPhones across India and Pakistan. This served as a reminder of another high profile case where electronic evidence was falsified.

In 2017 Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his family were accused of corruption. As part of the investigation the daughter Maryam Sharif presented electronic evidence which she claimed to prove that she had brought apartments legally. However this electronic evidence was supposedly produced in 2006 but used a Calibri font which Microsoft did not introduce until 2007.

Apart from Pakistan's "Fontgate" as it's known another high profile case in which electronic evidence was falsified is the; "Sledgehammer" case in Turkey.

In 2010 Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused 300+ people of plotting a coup to overthrow him.. The case fell apart when it emerged key pieces of electronic evidence in the 2003 plot had been created on MS Office 2007. Eventually all the electronic evidence was found to be fake and the case was dismissed.

After being savaged by a jury of his peers at the Olympics things then started to get worse for Mueller and his investigation.

In indicting 13 Russians back in February Mueller did so thinking that they would never turn up to trial. So there was no possibility of his claims ever being tested.

In May one of the indicted Russians turned up for trial. Never thinking that there would be a trial let alone preparing for it this prompted Mueller to seek an adjournment in the case. This was refused by the Judge and Mueller is now left trying to delay the start of the trial by slow walking the disclosure of evidence to the defence.

Meanwhile the US Office of the Inspector General (OIG) has been conducting a professional standards investigation into the FBI's handling of the Hillary Clinton espionage investigation in which she kept top secret emails on an unsecured server.

This is important because the lead investigator in that case was an FBI agent by the name of Peter Strzok. For more than a year Peter Strzok was the lead investigator for the Mueller investigation.

The OIG investigation discovered a high number of emails and text messages between Strzok and another FBI agent Lisa Page with whom he was having an affair. The FBI initially refused to hand these messages over to the OIG claiming they could not be recovered. However in January 2018 South Korean tech giant Samsung stepped in and provided the OIG with the messages.

Those messages reveal astonishing political bias on the part of Strzok. 

In one particular exchange on election day Page messaged Strzok; “He’s [Trump] not ever going to become president, right? Right?!” 

To which Strzok replied: “No. No he won’t. We’ll stop it.”  

It was only after Samsung had provided these messages that Mueller finally removed Strzok from the investigation.

On June 14th (14/6/18) the OIG released its report. It recommended that criminal investigations be opened against five FBI agents including Strzok. On June 15th (15/6/18) Strzok was suspended by the FBI and physically escorted from the building.

In response to the OIG investigation the US Congress has held a series of hearings. Lisa Page was subpoenaed to appear before them on Wednesday (11/7/18). However she refused putting herself in contempt.

Peter Strzok did appear before Congress on Thursday (12/7/18) and was torn to shreds. At one point he was asked why the FBI had produced three different versions of the so-called Steele Dossier which was used to conduct surveillance on the Republican Presidential campaign.

Strzok simply refused to answer. As he did not explicitly invoke the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination this appears to put him to in contempt of Congress.

Needless to say that on Friday (13/7/18) morning - ahead of Page's rescheduled testimony that evening - all the talk was of appointing a Special Counsel to investigate and bring charges against Mueller and his team. Including Rod Rosenstein the Deputy US Attorney General overseeing the investigation

The pressure on Mueller and his team has not just been mounting domestically. From Thursday (12/7/18) through to Sunday (15/7/18) President Trump has been on an official visit to Britain.

Britain's big contribution to the Winter Olympics was the March 4th (4/3/18) poisoning of primarily Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, UK.

Sergei Skripal is a Colonel in the Russian GRU military intelligence who spied for Britain. The MI6 officer who recruited Skripal now works for Christopher Steele. The source for the dossier Rosenstein used to conduct surveillance on the Republican Presidential campaign.

Unfortunately Britain is currently governed by a weak, minority government made up of the Conservative Party who have a longstanding reputation for sleaze and corruption. A big donor to the Conservatives is a man named Bill Browder. He gives them huge amounts of money so they will use the apparatus of state in his vendetta against Russian former business associates.

So even before Britain's intelligence services had briefed the government the Conservatives were demanding the Skripal poisoning be blamed on Russia. So it could be used to push ahead with Browder's agenda. Namely the Magnitsky Amendment.

Having blamed Russia the British investigation then became focused entirely on finding just anything to back up the accusation. As a result they did not conduct the investigation and did not identify either the poison or the poisoner. 

This refuasl to look in the right places saw two more people being taken ill close to Salisbury on June 30th (30/6/18). One of whom who has since died.

On Wednesday (11/7/18) British police did finally find the source of the poison - a small perfume bottle. After being told its location by a man who is now strongly believed to be the poisoner.

This news broke on Friday (13/7/18) just as President Trump was meeting the British Queen. As a gift Britain has given First Lady Trump a small, personalised perfume bottle.

On Monday (16/7/18) the Trumps will travel to Finland to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin. Thanks to the Queen's gift they will take with them a replica of the perfume bottle Britain used to poison the Skripals. A bespoke gift designed and manufactured before the police discovered their perfume bottle.

Also on Friday (14/7/18) Nawaz Sharif and Maryam Sharif returned to Pakistan. Where they were promptly arrested and transferred prison having been convicted in the Fontgate case.

As they did back in February Mueller and Rosenstein have again gone on the defensive.

As Trump was meeting the Queen and the Sahrifs were returning to Pakistan Mueller and Rosenstein indicted 12 members of the Russian GRU. Again feeling confident in the fact their claims will never be tested.

The indictments allege that Russian began hacking operations to influence the 2016 US Presidential Election on July 27th 2016 (27/7/18). That date was chosen for specific political purposes.

On July 27th 2016 now President Trump was holding an election rally. During he made an off-the-cuff joke that if the Russians were hacking the election they should try and find all those emails Hillary Clinton deleted.

In chosing that date Mueller and Rosenstein are trying to imply that this was direct collusion between Trump and Russia. Rather how a candidate would use a public speech to collude with a Super PAC.

The problem for Mueller and Rosenstein is why Trump was making that joke.

Two days before, on July 25th (25/7/18) the FBI publicly announced that it was opening an investigation into claims Russia had hacked the Democrat's servers. Claims the Democrats had been making since the start of June 2016.

If as Mueller and Rosenstein now claim if Russia only started hacking on July 27th (27/7/16) they could not have carried out the hacking which occurred before then.

If indeed that hacking ever occurred at all.

17:25 on 14/7/18 (UK date).