107 Trump’s Espionage is About 2016 not 2020
UPDATE:
https://www.newsweek.com/rick-dearborn-trump-russia-email-654587
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20400848-12th-mueller-foia-release-201030#document/p297/a2003926
Pgs 50- regarding Meadows receving documents from Devin Nunes
https://january6th.house.gov/sites/democrats.january6th.house.gov/files/20220517_Cassidy%20J.%20Hutchinson.pdf
UPDATE:
New: Jay Bratt—the DOJ prosecutor leading the Mar-a-Lago case against Trump—has built a career going after:
– Blackwater contractors
– Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn
– and at least 4 Espionage Act cases https://t.co/lkAyuMt2jF— Sophia Cai (@SophiaCai99) October 24, 2022
Imagine If Maggie Had Reported that Vladimir Putin Dictated Trump’s June 9 Meeting Cover Story?
The more I’ve thought about Trump’s espionage the more clear this has become.
John Schindler’s new post has further crystallized this point in my mind.
FN: Schindler is someone who I’ve had problems with in the past. I made the cardinal mistake of paying for his second, private page; this was a cardinal mistake not just because of the fact I later butted heads with Schindler and he banned me from his page despite me paying for it but because more generally it’s clear in retrospect that this “private Twitter pages” are almost always a ripoff. People say what ever is worth saying on their public accounts-there’s never anything more or at least interesting on a second account.
This became clear to me after not just the Schindler debacle but also Scott Stedman-who at least finally admitted that his second private page wasn’t providing anything new and discontinued it.
He and I seemed not to get along either lol.. For less obvious reasons than Schindler. When I asked Scott for my money back he blocked me-but then later sent the money back. Later he-rightly-discontinued the page. Again in my experience these pages are worthless. Schindler I recall having a weekend when he sent 100 pictures of his dog. It was a very cute dog but in all honestly I’m not trying to pay for that.
My more substantive disagreement with Schindler-as opposed to Stedman where there was no substantive disagreement so far as I could tell-was he had a big problem with my point that we have never had a single Democratic FBI Director in-now-113 years. He was scornful arguing that this didn’t matter as some Democratic Presidents have appointed some of the Republican FBI Directors an argument TBH I don’t find very impressive.
I mean until 2008 there had never been a Black President but no one argued that African Americans should have been fine with that fact as millions of Black voters had voted for White Presidents every cycle.
As for these Dem Presidents it’s true they have also appointed Republicans and this has been a huge self own.
You’d think Obama would want that one back. You’d think so-but you’d be wrong as Obama continued to vouch for his integrity(!) after Comey elected Trump.
This underscores the fact that the Democrats are very good at kicking the ball so long as it’s in their own net.
Then Biden did the same thing again not only did he rehire Wray but it was literally on the first day-Inauguration day- almost his first act as President.
FN: As noted in other chapters, President Joe is good at a number of things-he and his intelligence agencies did a terrific job of correctly telegraphing Putin’s invasion of Ukraine-even if Zelensky himself seemed not to heed the warnings, while Joe did a simply masterful job of putting together a huge European coalition to stand against Putin’s evil war. But one thing he seems to have literally no talent for is firing Trump’s hacks.
Not only did he not fire Wray-who needed to and still needs to be fired-he didn’t even fire Louis Dejoy. Indeed even now James Murray leads the Secret Service-and Tony Ornato has a job.
As for Democratic self owns let’s not even talk about that time Bill Clinton hired Louis Freeh.
FN: For a more recent self own look at the NY Dems redistricting failure.
Contrary to the popular wisdom-by definition contradiction in terms-this is not a story of the partisan Democrats rigging the process shamelessly to their own advantage-that’s the Republican party. If the Dems rigged it in their favor then how did they get Jerrold Nadler vs Carolyn Maloney?
There are many local hacks who are nominal Democrats in NY but in truth they could care less about wether the Dems ever win a race-do you think Suffolk Dem Chairman Richie Schaeffer is up at night thinking about the fact that the Democrats have failed to take back Peter King’s seat in 30 years?
To the contrary it’s not despite Richie Schaeffer but largely thanks to him this is the case.
End FN
In any case Schindler was so incensed over my simple statement of fact that the FBI has never had a Democratic FBI Director that he blocked me-from a feed I had paid to see, underscoring yet another reason paying to see someone’s private feed is a bad deal-if you have an argument they own the remote to the trap door.
After that my feeling was-you know, screw him. I won’t pay to read him again. Yet while his private feed wasn’t worth the price of admission and he and I are clearly never going to be friends, he does sometimes also do good work-no mystery here really, unlike the shock in the Russian fairytale of the woman who had hot and cold from her one mouth, it’s often the case that someone will do some good work but also do some less laudable things.
Schindler has always been something of a curious case going back to his relatively early work on Russian interference and collusion-not sure if he agrees there was collusion exactly though it couldn’t be clear enough in the Mueller Report-and elsewhere.
I mean if Schinlder, you, or Erik Wemple doubt this all I can say is Russia if you’re listening…
UPDATE: Place this below Schindler’s-surreal-invocation of Hillary.
https://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/trump-praises-james-comey-230542
Bad take alert
https://mail.yahoo.com/d/folders/1/messages/AF5wemAF3pfIYvpuWgrhKGra8Js?reason=invalid_crumb
I do agree that the motivation for Trump's criminal espionage is: 2016. And this is why the GOP co-conspirators are all defending him so vociferously-it's a metaphysical point. It's one thing to admit he lost in 2020. What they can't admit he stole 2016 https://t.co/fE8jY6Xyby
— Expand the Court (@ProChoiceMike) August 15, 2022
Maggie Haberman: Heads It’s Only Obstruction, Tails It’s Not Obstruction
Maggie Haberman had a column last week that pissed a lot of people off, in which she wrote 1,600 words presenting what she claimed were “the main possibilities” for why oh why Trump might have stolen Presidential documents.
The only reasons she could come up with were:
- He gets his rocks off looking at important documents
- He thinks he’s Louis XIV
- He has a compulsion to rip up paper
- He was collecting information about friends and foes
It was facile analysis and in two respects probably erroneous.
But it pissed me off less than it did others (at least at first) because I think it is important to remember that Trump’s narcissism explains a significant part of his theft.”
Marcy Wheeler no doubt feels no little sense of vindication lately with all the information we’ve gained on what Merrick Garland DOJ IS doing. As one of those she has derided as “whingers” her position on Garland certainly looks better now than it did a few weeks ago. To be sure I’ve prefaced my criticisms of Garland all along in terms of ‘hopefully I’m wrong’-to the extent that Garland’s recent stronger statements and the discovery of the Espionage investigation into Trump have proven my concerns mistaken then I’m happy to acknowledge it.
FN: As I’ve pointed out in another chapter the one there was one clear time when I was proven correct-alas-and Marcy along with almost the entire conventional wisdom was dead wrong-that Barr would turn out to be a an independent “institutionalist.”
But on Maggie Haberman-both on general principle and specifically on her latest canard of an article-I’m with the others on this one rather than Marcy. Certainly Marcy’s word choice of facile is a very good word both for Haberman’s article and Haberman’s general approach.
Schindler is a tough nut to crack-his writing on Russian interference cum collusion got him a following among the very group he disparages at every turn-“resistance liberals” while much of his work has garnered interest among the anti Trumpers he seems almost anti anti Trump in tendency at times; he seems to have an unfortunate tendency towards false equivalance-yeah Trump is very bad but then so are the Democrats calling him very bad in fact there’s nothing that Trump has done that the Clintons didn’t also do-which if true makes the whole conversation moot in the first place; it’s as if he cuts his own tough analysis of Trump off at the knees by then claiming the Clintons and pretty much everyone else does it too. So why discuss it at all then?
That’s a classic trick of apologists-if “everyone does it” then it doesn’t matter much.
Here Schindler frames it pretty well-pretty much perfectly.
I apologize that I cannot contain my disgust with which the DOJ press corps protected Bill Barr from criticism. But holy shit did that man roll a whole bunch of people playing journalists on the TV.
— emptywheel (synonym: control) (@emptywheel) August 24, 2022
114/ (…or else are fighting in court to keep their communications hidden? Well, they did and are. The coverup is real. Waldron is fighting subpoenas; so is Friess; the list of those pleading the Fifth Amendment or getting their stuff deleted or fighting in court is very long.)
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) August 15, 2022
(📢) BOOK RELEASE — Proof of Coup: How the Pentagon Shaped An Insurrection
The long-awaited fourth book in the NYT-bestselling Proof series; 250 pages; available with a $5 subscription; contains reams of breaking news about Trump and his co-conspirators. https://t.co/LSpjE5qldq
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) August 21, 2022
https://sethabramson.substack.com/p/book-release-proof-of-coup
MORE/ If you’re reading this thread and have no idea what I’m talking about, you’re way behind and need to catch up fast. This PROOF article—free to the general public—will help. https://t.co/Nllp6c72IT
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) August 30, 2022
BREAKING NEWS: After the U.S. Secret Service Promised the House January 6 Committee It Would Compel Employees—Foremost Among Them Tony Ornato—to Testify Comprehensively About What They Saw Trump Do on January 6, Ornato Quits the Service to Avoid Testifying https://t.co/unC4bXvPPc
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) August 30, 2022
Asia Janay Lavarello mishandled a document classified as “secret” & went to prison earlier this year. Trump stole “Top Secret,” “SCI” and “SAP” documents & concealed them from the government for more than a year. Yet, Trump has a tee time tomorrow. Notice any differences? pic.twitter.com/OgSghtSgSX
— Glenn Kirschner (@glennkirschner2) August 28, 2022