"At the beginning of 2017, an initiative was launched by a non-partisan think-tank called the German Marshall Fund US (GMFUS) under the name “The Alliance For Securing Democracy” (ASD).
During the Summer, ASD started working on a project they called the “Hamilton 68 Dashboard“, an effort that was presented to the public as a means of monitoring Russian disinformation efforts on Twitter, apparently boosted by research covering a three year period.
Over recent months, the press has reported on what the dashboard identifies as Twitter activity from those ASD have classified as Russian or, at least, involved in Russian influence operations.
Although some in the mainstream press have divulged the association between ASD and GMFUS, hardly anyone has disclosed the affiliations between those running ASD and special interests, or similar connections with the advisory board of GMFUS....
The Alliance For Securing Democracy Advisors
Michael Chertoff
U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security from 2005 to 2009
Chertoff Group co-founder (risk-management and security consulting)
Senior of counsel at the Washington, DC law firm Covington and Burling
Chairman of BAE Systems 2012-2015.
Co-Author of the PATRIOT Act.
Endorsed Hillary Clinton.
Michael McFaul
Apecial asst to president and senior director for Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council at the White House from 2009 to 2012, then U.S. ambassador to the Russian Federation from 2012–14. Senior fellow at Freeman Spogli Institute for Int. Studies. Peter and Helen Bing senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. NBC analyst, WAPO columnist.
Bill Kristol
Weekly standard editor, Facebook fake-news arbiter
Served on the board of the Project for the New American Century (1997–2005) and the Foreign Policy Initiative (2009–17)
Chief of staff to Vice President Dan Quayle (GWB administration)
Endorsed Hillary Clinton
Michael Morrell
Former acting CIA director 2011, 2012-13 and as deputy director and director for Intelligence.
Beacon Global Strategies as a senior counselor since November 2013
Played a central role in the United States’ fight against terrorism and was one of the leaders involved in the location and capture of Osama Bin Laden
Wrote an op-ed in the NYT endorsing Hillary Clinton
Proposed giving weapons to Ukraine in response to alleged hacking of US election.
David Kramer
Former senior director Human Rights and Democracy, McCain Institute for International Leadership
Freedom House – former president. Served 8 years in U.S. Department of State under GWB. Advisory council for GWB Presidential Center’s Human Freedom Project.
On board of directors at Halifax International Security Forum. Worked at CSIS in 90s.
Was reportedly directed to meet with Steele in London by McCain
Was a senior fellow at the Project for a New American Century
International Advisory Council at the Center for European Policy Analysis
In addition, Kramer is a member of the Ukraine Today media organization’s International Supervisory Council.
In 2016 Kramer argued that the Minsk II peace agreement should be scrapped and western sanctions on Russia maintained.
Has spoken out against Obama and Clinton in the past.
Toomas Ilves
Elected president of the Republic of Estonia in 2006 and in 2011
Worked on ICT for the UN
Former Vice president of European Parliament Foreign Affairs Committee
Former Foreign affairs minister and ambassador of the Republic of Estonia to US and Canada
Is World Economic Forum co-chair. Fellow at the Hoover Institution
James Stavridis
US Navy (ret.) commander of European Command and as Supreme Allied Commander, Europe from 2009 to 2013.
Chairman of US Naval Institute Board of Directors.
U.S. Southern Command in Miami 2006–09 and Enterprise Carrier Strike Group, in Arabian Gulf for Op. Iraqi Freedom and Op Enduring Freedom from 2002–04.
Former NATO Commander
Mike Rogers
Former Congressman, officer in the Army, and FBI special agent. Former chair of U.S. House Intelligence Committee as leader on cybersecurity and national security policy, oversaw the intelligence agencies’ $70 billion budget. CNN national security commentator, hosts and produces CNN’s “Declassified.” Chief Security Adviser to ATandT, on board of IronNet Cybersecurity and MITRE Corporation, advises Next Century Corp. and Trident Capital. Distinguished Fellow and Trustee at Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress, Senior Fellow at Belfer Center, Harvard.
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Committee on Energy and Commerce. Introduced CISPA.
Former U.S. chief tech officer for Obama. Previously Google’s vice president and deputy general counsel, and Twitter’s legal director for products. Chairs board of Friends of Global Voices. On boards of WITNESS, the Mozilla Foundation, advisor to the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley, Harvard Business School Digital Initiative, the DNC Cybersecurity advisory board, Refactor Capital, and Albright Stonebridge Group.
Associate at Perkins Coie LLP in 1997 and was named a partner in 2000. Wong represented media clients including the Los Angeles Times, The Walt Disney Company, Microsoft, and Amazon.com before joining Google.
Former White House National Security Council, Department of Defense for the Office of the Secretary and Joint Chiefs of Staff, State Department for the Policy Planning Staff. In 2008, Kori was senior policy advisor on the McCain–Palin campaign. Research fellow at the Hoover Institution. Co-authored “Warriors and Citizens: American Views of Our Military” with Jim Mattis. Teaches at Stanford, contributing editor covering national security and international affairs at The Atlantic, columnist for Foreign Policy magazine, contributor to War on the Rocks.
Contributed to conceptualizing and budgeting for continued transformation of defense practices, the most significant realignment of U.S. military forces and bases around the world since 1950, creating NATO’s Allied Command Transformation and the NATO Response Force, and recruiting and retaining coalition partners for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Julianne Smith
Deputy national security advisor to Joe Biden (2012 to 2013), acting national security advisor to Biden in 2013, principal director for European and NATO policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense in the Pentagon.
Senior fellow and director of the Transatlantic Security Program at the Center for a New American Security.
Contributor to Foreign Policy.
Jake Sullivan
Obama admin national security advisor to Joe Biden, director of Policy Planning at the U.S. Department of State, deputy chief of staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. He was the senior policy advisor on Secretary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. He is now a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Martin R. Flug visiting lecturer in law at Yale Law School.
– Was spoken of as a front-runner for the position of U.S. National Security Advisor under a Hillary Clinton administration prior to her electoral defeat.
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There are quite a few Democratic party figures, people that worked in the state department, people that endorsed Clinton, Foreign Policy publication contributors, people that have worked on the National Security Committee and those with ties to the US intelligence community and NATO.
I can’t speak for others, but personally, when it comes to considering all the affiliations, associations, influences and endorsements – I struggle to see how such a collective can be expected to carry out the role of an impartial arbiter on the topic of disinformation.
While they remain opaque on what they’ve classify as “Russian influence” and “disinformation”, there’s little reason to assume the results of their efforts will inherently be credible.
Twitter contradicting their assertions obviously does their credibility no favors either."
For more information about ASD’s advisors/staff, check out Glenn Greenwald’s Intercept article on the topic."
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