Deep State

Editor's Choice: 2020-23 News & Views

This archive of assassination, regime change and propaganda news and commentary excerpts significant news stories and commentaries regarding alleged work by those involved with sinister efforts to subvert normal democratic procedures.

The materials are arranged in reverse chronological order backwards in time. They focus heavily on current news arising from the 1960s murders of President John F. Kennedy (shown in a file photo), his brother Robert F. Kennedy (RFK), and the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (MLK). Although conventional wisdom is that the deaths were solved long ago and hence of little but historical importance our contention is that close study reveals a Rosetta Stone of lost history that makes current events far more understandable.

Much of that research probes what are known as Deep State activities, which are covert and often illegal activities by powerful private figures working with allies in government, often connected to security bodies, in ways unaccountable in the ostensible leaders. This section (originally using the term "Deep State" before the term was co-opted by the ultra-right to create public confusion) includes materials on such other covert activities as government-connected regime change, false flag attacks, propaganda, spy rings, blackmail, smuggling, election-rigging and other major "crimes against democracy" (in the description of historian Lance deHaven Smith). 

The top section shows excerpts since the beginning of the calendar year.  Below at far bottom also are links to the Justice Integrity Project's multi-part and separate "Readers Guides" to the JFK, MLK and RFK assassinations containing notable books, films, archives and commentary. Included also are several reports regarding other alleged political murders of prominent international leaders, or attempts. Correspondence should be sent to this site's editor, Andrew Kreig.

• 2020
• 2019
• 2018
• 2017
• 2016 

Editor's Note: Excerpts below are from the authors' own words except for subheads and "Editor's notes" such as this.

Index: Deep State News, Revelations, Commentary

 2020-21-22-23

December

Dec. 4

New York Times, Opinion: It’s Time to Fix America’s Most Dangerous Law, David French, right, Dec. 4, 2023 (print ed.). There is a land mine embedded in the United States Code, one that Donald Trump, if re-elected president, could use to destroy our republic. But it’s not too late for Congress to defuse the mine now and protect America.

I’m talking about the Insurrection Act, a federal law that permits the president to deploy military troops in American communities to effectively act as a domestic police force under his direct command. In theory, there is a need for a well-drafted law that permits the use of federal troops in extreme circumstances to maintain order and protect the rule of law. The Insurrection Act, which dates back to 1792 but has since been amended, is not, however, well drafted. And its flaws would give Trump enormous latitude to wield the staggering power of the state against his domestic political enemies.

These flaws are especially relevant because Trump and his allies are keenly aware of the act’s provisions and have long expressed interest in its use. Trump has publicly regretted not using more military force to suppress riots in the wake of George Floyd’s killing in 2020, there were suggestions that he utilize the act as part of his plot to steal the 2020 election, and now there are reports that Trump might invoke the act on the first day of his next term, to suppress demonstrations, to control the border or both.

Moreover, these reports have to be read in the context of Trump’s latest public pronouncements. He has declared many of his domestic political opponents to be “vermin.” His campaign has promised that his critics’ “sad, miserable existence” will be “crushed.” And he has specifically told his followers, “I am your vengeance.”

Some version of the Insurrection Act is probably necessary. After all, from the Whiskey Rebellion to the Civil War to Trump’s own insurrection on Jan. 6, we have seen direct, violent challenges to federal authority. But any such authorization should be carefully circumscribed and subject to oversight. The authority granted by the act, however, is remarkably broad, and oversight is virtually nonexistent.

The Insurrection Act contains a number of provisions, and not all are equally bad. For example, the first provision, 10 U.S.C. Section 251, provides that the president may deploy troops “upon the request of [a state’s] legislature or of its governor if the legislature cannot be convened” in the event of an insurrection. There is no unilateral presidential authority under this provision; the president’s power is activated only by a state request.

But the act gets worse, much worse. The next section takes the gloves off, giving the president the ability to call out the National Guard or the regular army “whenever the president considers that unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion against the authority of the United States, make it impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States in any state by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings.” Note the key language: “whenever the president considers.” That means deployment is up to him and to him alone.

The section after that does much same thing, again granting the president the power to “take such measures he considers necessary” to suppress “any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination or conspiracy.” This broad grant of power makes the Insurrection Act far more immediately dangerous than many other threatened Trump actions, such as prosecuting political opponents and transforming the federal work force. Judicial review can blunt many of Trump’s worst initiatives, but there’s no such obvious check on the use of his power under the act.

You might wonder why the Insurrection Act hasn’t presented much of a problem before now. It’s been used rarely, and when it has been used, it’s been used for legitimate purposes. For example, it was used repeatedly to suppress racist violence in the South during the Reconstruction era and the civil rights movement. Most recently, George H.W. Bush invoked it in 1992 — at the request of the governor of California — to assist in quelling the extreme violence of the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles.

That historical restraint has been dependent on a factor that is utterly absent from Trump: a basic commitment to the Constitution and democracy. Previous presidents, for all their many flaws, still largely upheld and respected the rule of law. Even in their most corrupt moments, there were lines they wouldn’t cross. Trump not only has no such lines but also has made his vengeful intentions abundantly clear.

There is still time, however, to take this terrible tool out of Trump’s potential hands. The Insurrection Act has not always been so broad. In its earliest versions, the president’s power was much more carefully constrained. But Congress expanded the president’s power after the Civil War, in part to deal with racist insurgencies in the defeated Confederacy.

It’s time to rein in the excesses of the act. In 2022, Elizabeth Goitein and Joseph Nunn from the Brennan Center for Justice submitted a comprehensive reform proposal to the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. The proposal would narrow and carefully define the circumstances in which the president can deploy troops, provide for a congressional review and approval process and enable judicial review of claims that the legal criteria for deployment were not met. It’s a proposal worth adopting.

I’m not naïve. I recognize that it will be difficult if not impossible for any reform bill to pass Congress. Mike Johnson, the speaker of the Republican-led House of Representatives, was a central player in Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election. Many of Trump’s congressional allies share his thirst for vengeance. But it’s past time to highlight this problem in the federal code. It’s past time to strip unilateral authority from the president.

Dec. 3

The Intercept, Netanyahu’s goal for Gaza: “Thin” population “to a minimum,” Ryan Grim, Dec. 3, 2023. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, above, has tasked his top adviser, Ron Dermer, the minister of strategic affairs, with designing plans to “thin” the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip “to a minimum,” according to a bombshell new report in an Israeli newspaper founded by the late Republican billionaire Sheldon Adelson.

The outlet, Israel Hayom, is considered to be something of an official organ for Netanyahu. It reported that the plan has two main elements: The first would use the pressure of the war and humanitarian crisis to persuade Egypt to allow refugees to flow to other Arab countries, and the second would open up sea routes so that Israel “allows a mass escape to European and African countries.” Dermer, who is originally from Miami, is a Netanyahu confidante and was previously Israeli ambassador to the United States, and enjoys close relations with many members of Congress.

The plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza of Palestinians faces some internal resistance from less hard-line members of Netanyahu’s cabinet, according to Israel Hayom.

Israel Today and other Israeli media are also reporting on a plan being pushed with Congress that would condition aid to Arab nations on their willingness to accept Palestinian refugees. The plan even proposes specific numbers of refugees for each country: Egypt would take one million Palestinians, half a million would go to Turkey, and a quarter million each would go to Yemen and Iraq.

The reporting relies heavily on the passive voice, declining to say who put the proposal together: “The proposal was shown to key figures in the House and Senate from both parties. Longtime lawmaker, Rep. Joe Wilson, has even expressed open support for it while others who were privy to the details of the text have so far kept a low profile, saying that publicly coming out in favor of the program could derail it.”

To underscore how absurd the refugee resettlement plan is, the de facto Houthi government in Yemen claimed an attack today on a U.S. ship as well as commercial vessels in the Red Sea.

Back on October 20, in a little-noticed message to Congress, the White House asked for $3.495 billion that would be used for refugees from both Ukraine and Gaza, referencing “potential needs of Gazans fleeing to neighboring countries.”

“This crisis could well result in displacement across border and higher regional humanitarian needs, and funding may be used to meet evolving programming requirements outside of Gaza,” the letter from the White House Office of Management and Budget reads. The letter came two days after Jordan and Egypt warned they would not open their borders to a mass exodus of Palestinians, arguing that past history shows they would never be able to return.

Washington Post, Israel’s assault forced a nurse to leave babies behind. They were found decomposing, Miriam Berger, Evan Hill and Hazem Balousha, Dec. 3, 2023. A nurse at al-Nasr hospital was caring for premature babies. Then he faced the most difficult decision of his life.

The nurse in the besieged hospital was caring for five fragile babies. Infants, born premature, their parents’ whereabouts after a month of war unknown. Now he faced the most difficult decision of his life.

It was the height of Israel’s assault on northern Gaza last month, and al-Nasr Children’s Hospital was a war zone. The day before, airstrikes had cut off the Gaza City facility’s oxygen supplies. Israeli tanks had surrounded the hospital complex, and the Israel Defense Forces were calling and texting the doctors, urging them to leave.

But ambulances couldn’t safely reach al-Nasr to transport the wounded, and doctors refused to leave the facility without their patients.

The five premature babies were particularly vulnerable. They needed oxygen, and medication administered at regular intervals. There were no portable respirators or incubators to transport them. Without life support, the nurse feared, they wouldn’t survive an evacuation.

Then the IDF delivered an ultimatum, al-Nasr director Bakr Qaoud told The Washington Post: Get out or be bombarded. An Israeli official, meanwhile, provided an assurance that ambulances would be arranged to retrieve the patients.

The nurse, a Palestinian man who works with Paris-based Doctors Without Borders, saw no choice. He assessed his charges and picked up the strongest one — the baby he thought likeliest to bear a temporary cut to his oxygen supply. He left the other four on their breathing machines, reluctantly, and with his wife, their children and the one baby, headed south.

“I felt like I was leaving my own children behind,” said the nurse, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect his privacy. “If we had the ability to take them, we would have, [but] if we took them off the oxygen they would have died.”

New York Times, Israel’s Military Expands Evacuation Orders in Southern Gaza, Vivian Yee, Iyad Abuheweila and Ameera Harouda, Dec. 3, 2023. The U.S. has increasingly stressed the need to limit civilian harm as Israel turns its focus to the enclave’s south.
Confusion and fear gripped much of southern Gaza on Sunday as Israel’s military ordered more residents to clear out and fighting there intensified.

The Israeli military’s latest evacuation orders appeared to be setting the stage for a ground invasion in the south since hostilities started again after the collapse of a weeklong truce with Hamas. They evoked similar orders given by the Israeli military before it invaded northern Gaza in late October. But the announcements were prone to change with almost no notice, leaving many Gazans confused and with little time to flee.

The list of areas had swelled from 19 the previous morning to 34 on Sunday, all clustered southeast of the city of Khan Younis. The Israeli military marked each on a map of Gaza that divided the territory into nearly 2,400 “blocks,” advising residents to pay attention to Israeli announcements about whether their block was being evacuated.

Some families whose homes and shelters were not included in the initial evacuation areas announced by Israel’s military, and who had thought they would be able to stay put, said they had later received recorded calls ordering them to leave.

Many people under evacuation orders had already been displaced at least once before, forced to leave northern Gaza when the fighting and the airstrikes began. Now they found themselves once again at a loss for where to go in an already overcrowded area under threat of bombardment.

“I cannot overstate the fear, panic & confusion that these Israeli maps are causing civilians in Gaza, including my own staff,” wrote Melanie Ward, head of the humanitarian organization Medical Aid for Palestinians, on social media, adding that “people cannot run from place to place to try to escape Israel’s bombs.”

Hospitals in the south were also under pressure. A team from the World Health Organization visited a hospital in Khan Younis on Saturday that was three times over its capacity, according to the agency’s head, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

“Countless people were seeking shelter, filling every corner of the facility,” he wrote on X. “Patients were receiving care on the floor, screaming in pain.”

The Israeli military’s evacuation map showed big orange arrows directing people toward already-overflowing shelters or what it called the “humanitarian zone” in Al-Mawasi, an agricultural area toward the Mediterranean Sea.

But it was not clear whether the zone provided sufficient supplies or shelter, with some Gazans who fled there describing little awaiting them and no visible presence of humanitarian aid.

The idea of “safe zones” in Gaza, as was envisioned for Al-Mawasi, is opposed by the United Nations. Last month, U.N. agencies and other groups said they would not participate in setting up any such zones in Gaza.

Here’s what we know:

• The Biden administration has increasingly stressed the need to limit civilian harm as Israel turns its focus to the enclave’s south.
• Many Gazans who were already displaced are under orders to move again.
• The U.S. defense secretary cites urban warfare risks as Harris warns against relocation.
• Released hostages give Tel Aviv protesters hope for those left behind.
• A university president was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza, Palestinian officials say.
• Gazans again find themselves in dire straits, searching for safe areas and food.

Dec.  2

World Crisis Radio, Strategic Commentary: In unfriendly act towards sole ally USA, butcher Bibi re-starts Gaza bloodbath despite efforts of Biden, Blinken, & Burns to make ceasefire into a permanent armistice, Webster G. Tarpley (right, historian and commentator), Dec. 2, 2023 (133:52 mins.). Netanyahu brags to supporters of his ability to manipulate and dupe US public opinion;

Netanyahu, Gallant, Smotrich, Bengvir & Co. bitterly insisted on endless war until Biden shut down Bibi’s impossible conditions; Next task is to render ceasefire permanent, with abundant humanitarian aid, followed by release of all hostages on all sides;

When messianic Israeli warmongers demand resumption of bombing & killing, they must face the veto of US, EU, Arab League, &

State Department readies travel ban for armed fascist settlers of the Smotrich-Ben Gvir faction seeking US visas; Save the next rejection slip for Netanyahu!

US, UK, EU should fast track an Emergency International Peace Conference on the model of Madrid 1992 to enact a solution based on two sovereign states;

US media omit the late Henry Kissinger’s implication in the 1977 demise of Italian PM Aldo Moro; Moro’s widow said Henry had threatened her husband; Kissinger’s China card has boomeranged into today’s greatest threat to future of US; He presided with Nixon over the August 15 1971 wrecking of the Bretton Woods currency system, triggering decades of parasitical speculation; The 1971 Tilt crisis, which threatened to expand an Indo-Pakistani war into a US-USSR nuclear confrontation while 3 million died in Bengal; His role in Vietnam, Cambodia, Chile, the 1973 Kippur War; His brief interlude advising the JFK White House; How he set the stage for the Watergate Plumbers; The passing of a cynical nihilist and Spenglerian pessimist;
June 1990: Secretary of State James Baker reads the riot act to shifty, duplicitous Israeli PM and Netanyahu/Likud precursor Shamir over his refusal to start a peace process with Palestinians-a memorable example!

November

Nov. 30

Washington Post, Opinion: A Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable. We should stop pretending, Robert Kagan, right, Nov. 30, 2023. There is a clear path to dictatorship in the United States, and it is getting shorter every day. So why is everyone behaving like normal?

Let’s stop the wishful thinking and face the stark reality: There is a clear path to dictatorship in the United States, and it is getting shorter every day. In 13 weeks, Donald Trump will have locked up the Republican nomination. In the RealClearPolitics poll average (for the period from Nov. 9 to 20), Trump leads his nearest competitor by 47 points and leads the rest of the field combined by 27 points.

The idea that he is unelectable in the general election is nonsense — he is tied or ahead of President Biden in all the latest polls — stripping other Republican challengers of their own stated reasons for existence. The fact that many Americans might prefer other candidates, much ballyhooed by such political sages as Karl Rove, will soon become irrelevant when millions of Republican voters turn out to choose the person whom no one allegedly wants.

For many months now, we have been living in a world of self-delusion, rich with imagined possibilities. Maybe it will be Ron DeSantis, or maybe Nikki Haley. Maybe the myriad indictments of Trump will doom him with Republican suburbanites. Such hopeful speculation has allowed us to drift along passively, conducting business as usual, taking no dramatic action to change course, in the hope and expectation that something will happen. Like people on a riverboat, we have long known there is a waterfall ahead but assume we will somehow find our way to shore before we go over the edge. But now the actions required to get us to shore are looking harder and harder, if not downright impossible.

The magical-thinking phase is ending. Barring some miracle, Trump will soon be the presumptive Republican nominee for president. When that happens, there will be a swift and dramatic shift in the political power dynamic, in his favor. Until now, Republicans and conservatives have enjoyed relative freedom to express anti-Trump sentiments, to speak openly and positively about alternative candidates, to vent criticisms of Trump’s behavior past and present. Donors who find Trump distasteful have been free to spread their money around to help his competitors. Establishment Republicans have made no secret of their hope that Trump will be convicted and thus removed from the equation without their having to take a stand against him.

Robert Kagan, a Post Opinions contributing editor, is the author of “Rebellion: How Antiliberalism Is Tearing America Apart — Again,” which will be published by Knopf in May.

Washington Post, U.S. stops helping Big Tech spot foreign meddling amid GOP legal threats, Naomi Nix and Cat Zakrzewski, Nov. 30, 2023. Anthony Faiola, Stefano Pitrelli and Louisa Loveluck, Nov. 30, 2023. The federal government has stopped warning Meta about foreign influence campaigns amid a legal campaign against the Biden administration’s communication with tech firms.

The U.S. federal government has stopped warning some social networks about foreign disinformation campaigns on their platforms, reversing a years-long approach to preventing Russia and other actors from interfering in American politics less than a year before the U.S. presidential elections, according to company officials.

Meta no longer receives notifications of global influence campaigns from the Biden administration, halting a prolonged partnership between the federal government and the world’s largest social media company, senior security officials said Wednesday. Federal agencies have also stopped communicating about political disinformation with Pinterest, according to the company.

The developments underscore the far-reaching impact of a conservative legal campaign against initiatives established to avoid a repeat of the 2016 election, when Russia manipulated social media in an attempt to sow chaos and swing the vote for Donald Trump.

For months, researchers in government and academia have warned that a barrage of lawsuits, congressional demands and online attacks are having a chilling effect on programs intended to combat health and election misinformation. But the shift in communications about foreign meddling signals how ongoing litigation and Republican probes in Congress are unwinding efforts once viewed as critical to protecting U.S. national security interests.

Misinformation research is buckling under GOP legal attacks

Ben Nimmo, chief of global threat intelligence for Meta, said government officials stopped communicating foreign election interference threats to the company in July.

That month, a federal judge limited the Biden administration’s communications with tech platforms in response to a lawsuit alleging such coordination ran afoul of the First Amendment by encouraging companies to remove falsehoods about covid-19 and the 2020 election. The decision included an exemption allowing the government to communicate with the companies about national security threats, specifically foreign interference in elections. The case, Missouri v. Biden, is now before the U.S. Supreme Court, which has paused lower court restrictions while it reviews the matter.

The shift erodes a partnership considered crucial to the integrity of elections around the world — just months before voters head to the polls in Taiwan, the European Union, India and the United States. Ahead of the 2024 U.S. presidential race, foreign actors such as China and Russia have become more aggressive at trying to exacerbate political tensions in the United States, while advanced artificial intelligence allows bad actors to easily create convincing political propaganda.

Sen. Mark R. Warner, the Democratic chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said “legal warfare by far-right actors” has led to a dire situation.

“We are seeing a potential scenario where all the major improvements in identifying, threat-sharing, and public exposure of foreign malign influence activity targeting U.S. elections have been systematically undermined,” the senator from Virginia said in a statement.

Mississippi 'Goon Squad' Suspects: Top row: former Rankin County sheriff’s deputies Hunter Elward, Christian Dedmon and Brett McAlpin; bottom row: former deputies Jeffrey Middleton and Daniel Opdyke, and former Richland police officer Joshua Hartfield. All pleaded guilty this year to federal and state charges (Photo by Rogelio V. Solis via Associated Press ).

New York Times, Investigation: How a ‘Goon Squad’ of Deputies Got Away With Years of Brutality, Brian Howey and Nate Rosenfield, Photographs by Rory Doyle, Nov. 30, 2023. They barged into homes in the middle of the night, then held people down while they beat them, witnesses said. For years, signs of the violence in Mississippi went ignored.

For nearly two decades, a loose band of sheriff’s deputies roamed impoverished neighborhoods across a central Mississippi county, meting out their own version of justice.

Narcotics detectives and patrol officers, some who called themselves the Goon Squad, barged into homes in the middle of the night, accusing people inside of dealing drugs. Then they handcuffed or held them at gunpoint and tortured them into confessing or providing information, according to dozens of people who say they endured or witnessed the assaults.

They described violence that sometimes went on for hours and seemed intended to strike terror into the deputies’ targets.

In the pursuit of drug arrests, deputies of the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department shocked Robert Jones with a Taser in 2018 while he lay submerged in a flooded ditch, then rammed a stick down his throat until he vomited blood, he said.

During a raid the same year, deputies choked Mitchell Hobson with a lamp cord and waterboarded him to simulate drowning, he said, then beat him until the walls were spattered with his blood. That raid took place at the home of Rick Loveday, a sheriff’s deputy in a neighboring county, who said he was dragged half-naked from his bed at gunpoint, before deputies jabbed a flashlight threateningly at his buttocks and then pummeled him relentlessly.

The string of violence might have continued unchecked if not for one near-fatal raid in January.

According to a Justice Department investigation, deputies broke into the home of two Black men, Michael Jenkins and Eddie Parker, shocked them with Tasers and threatened to rape them. Deputy Hunter Elward shoved the barrel of a gun into Mr. Jenkins’s mouth, not realizing a bullet was in the chamber, and pulled the trigger. Mr. Jenkins was grievously injured, the incident was thrust into the national spotlight, and in August five deputies and a police officer pleaded guilty to criminal charges.

But an investigation by The New York Times and the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting at Mississippi Today reveals a history of blatant and brutal incidents stretching back to at least 2004.

Nov. 25

World Crisis Radio, Strategic Commentary and Reform Agenda: “This is a Biden ceasefire,” Webster G. Tarpley (right, historian and commentator), Nov. 25, 2023 (143:37 mins.). Top Israeli official official gives all credit for armistice and hostage release to US President, MSNBC reports!

Netanyahu, Gallant, Smotrich, Bengvir & Co. bitterly insisted on endless war until Biden shut down Bibi’s impossible conditions; Next task is to render ceasefire permanent, with abundant humanitarian aid, followed by release of all hostages on all sides;

When messianic Israeli warmongers demand resumption of bombing & killing, they must face the veto of US, EU, Arab League, & civilized world; Concerns about Hamas bigwigs are legit & can be handled by Mossad’s well-known traditional methods of targeted assassinations by highly trained hit teams and countergangs as frequently seen over decades; Never forget that some 60 hostages alleged by Israel have already been slain by relentless IDF carpet bombing; Where are the Americans?

Grave danger now is provocations to sabotage ceasefire carried out by armed fascist settlers in West Bank areas; World public opinion must press for immediate convocation of an Emergency International Peace Conference with agenda of lasting armistice, world humanitarian mobilization, two-state solution, economic reconstruction & development;

Fratricidal progressive sectarians in US must turn away from irresponsible rhetoric; As Biden notes, starting with nothing but demands for ceasefire might never have produced such progress as has been attained; Arab-Americans & youth foolishly threatening to desert Biden next year must also contemplate Trump’s likely program of giant concentration camps, massive deportations, & endless anti-immigrant raids, with Moslems & Arabs obviously among priority targets; RFK will be nothing but a spoiler & otherwise irrelevant, and is anyway backing Bibi to the hilt;

Extensive think-tank planning underlines that crushing MAGA fascist dictatorship will be on the ballot next November; Persons of good will must fight it out for freedom on this line over the next twelve months; Failure to support Biden at this rendez-vous with destiny will disgrace anyone’s biography, as per Friedrich Schiller’s 1786 prophecy ”World history is the world court”!

The parable of Palestinian diplomat Issam Sartawi (1935-1983) and the terrorist countergang Abu Nidal, the precursor of Hamas.

Nov. 22

Lee and Marina Oswald (far right) and their child with Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Romanovich Zieger and Eleanor Zieger. Warren Commission Exhibit No. 2628. Photo credit: National Archives

WhoWhatWhy Podcast, Conflicting Memories of Two ‘Friends’ of Lee Oswald, Jeff Schechtman, Exclusive interviews with two who knew Lee Oswald, offering unique insights into the enigmatic figure linked to JFK’s assassination.

As part of the WhoWhatWhy special series commemorating the 60th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, we bring you exclusive interviews with two individuals closely connected to Lee Oswald. Offering contrasting perspectives, these interviews shed light on Oswald’s complex character and his place in the tragedy of Kennedy’s death.

First, we hear from professor Paul Gregory, a research fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and an expert in Soviet and Russian economics. Gregory’s unique connection to Oswald began in Texas in 1962, following Oswald’s return from the Soviet Union with his Russian wife, Marina. Gregory’s insights are further detailed in his book The Oswalds: An Untold Account of Marina and Lee.

We also speak with Ernst Titovets, a Minsk-based medical doctor and neurosurgery professor, who said he befriended Oswald during his Soviet sojourn. Titovets’s memoir, Oswald: Russian Episode, opens a rare window into Oswald’s life in the USSR and provides a critical analysis of the Kennedy assassination investigations, weighing official narratives against his personal experiences.

These are intimate accounts, providing sharply contrary insights into the enigma of Lee Oswald through the eyes of some of those who interacted with him in a critical period — the several years before he allegedly shot Kennedy.

• Interview with Paul Gregory:
• Interview with Ernst Titovets:

About the JFK Assassination Series

This series was inspired by an ongoing project of WhoWhatWhy Founder and Editor-in-Chief Russ Baker to produce a definitive, meticulous, book-length investigation of Kennedy’s death. Click here for the introduction to the series. To read the other articles in this series, go here.

If you have information to bring to our attention about any aspect of the JFK assassination — or are with the media and interested in covering or reproducing our work or inviting Mr. Baker to appear on a program — please click here. If you would like to be on a mailing list to receive news of the book, click here. To sign up for WhoWhatWhy newsletters, click here.

Nov. 21

Then-President Trump, center left, talks to Chief of Staff John Kelly at veterans gathering on May 29, 2017 (Washington Post photo by Matt McClain).

Washington Post, Many former Trump aides say he shouldn’t be president. Will it matter? Josh Dawsey, Nov. 21, 2023 (print ed.). Critics are grappling with how they can puncture Donald Trump’s candidacy in 2024, whether they should coordinate and whether their voices can affect the race.

John F. Kelly, the longest-serving chief of staff in President Donald Trump’s White House, watches Trump dominate the GOP primary with increasing despair.

“What’s going on in the country that a single person thinks this guy would still be a good president when he’s said the things he’s said and done the things he’s done?” Kelly said in a recent interview. “It’s beyond my comprehension he has the support he has.”

Kelly, a retired four-star general, said he didn’t know what to do — or what he could do — to help people see it his way.

“I came out and told people the awful things he said about wounded soldiers, and it didn’t have half a day’s bounce. You had his attorney general Bill Barr come out, and not a half a day’s bounce. If anything, his numbers go up. It might even move the needle in the wrong direction. I think we’re in a dangerous zone in our country,” he said.

No president has ever attracted more public detractors who were formerly in his inner circle. They are closely watching his rise — cruising in the GOP nomination contest and, in most polls, tying or even leading President Biden in a general election matchup — with alarm. Among them are his former vice president, top military advisers, lawyers, some members of his Cabinet, economic advisers, press officials and campaign aides, some of whom are working for other candidates.

Among their reasons for opposing a second Trump term, they cite the 91 criminal charges against him, his attempts to overturn the 2020 election, his false claims of election fraud, his incendiary rhetoric in office, his desire to weaponize the Justice Department, his chaotic management style, his likely personnel choices in a second term, and his affinity for dictators.

Interviews with 16 former Trump advisers — some of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss their former boss — show they are grappling with how they can puncture Trump’s candidacy in 2024, whether they can or should coordinate with one another and whether their voices will even matter.

New York Times, Trump’s Dire Words Raise New Fears About His Authoritarian Leanings, Michael C. Bender and Michael Gold, Nov. 21, 2023 (print ed.). Former President Trump is focusing his most vicious attacks on domestic political opponents, setting off fresh worries among autocracy experts.

Donald J. Trump rose to power with political campaigns that largely attacked external targets, including immigration from predominantly Muslim countries and from south of the United States-Mexico border.

But now, in his third presidential bid, some of his most vicious and debasing attacks have been leveled at domestic opponents.

During a Veterans Day speech, Mr. Trump used language that echoed authoritarian leaders who rose to power in Germany and Italy in the 1930s, degrading his political adversaries as “vermin” who needed to be “rooted out.”

“The threat from outside forces,” Mr. Trump said, “is far less sinister, dangerous and grave than the threat from within.”

This turn inward has sounded new alarms among experts on autocracy who have long worried about Mr. Trump’s praise for foreign dictators and disdain for democratic ideals. They said the former president’s increasingly intensive focus on perceived internal enemies was a hallmark of dangerous totalitarian leaders.

Scholars, Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans are asking anew how much Mr. Trump resembles current strongmen abroad and how he compares to authoritarian leaders of the past. Perhaps most urgently, they are wondering whether his rhetorical turn into more fascist-sounding territory is just his latest public provocation of the left, an evolution in his beliefs or the dropping of a veil.

“There are echoes of fascist rhetoric, and they’re very precise,” said Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a professor at New York University who studies fascism. “The overall strategy is an obvious one of dehumanizing people so that the public will not have as much of an outcry at the things that you want to do.”

Mr. Trump’s shift comes as he and his allies devise plans for a second term that would upend some of the long-held norms of American democracy and the rule of law.

These ambitions include using the Justice Department to take vengeance on his political rivals, plotting a vast expansion of presidential power and installing ideologically aligned lawyers in key positions to bless his contentious actions.

New York Times, Court Signals It Could Keep Trump Election Case Gag Order, but Narrow It, Alan Feuer and Charlie Savage, Nov. 21, 2023 (print ed.). A federal appeals court panel is considering how to balance former President Trump’s free-speech rights against the need to protect people involved in the case.

A federal appeals court in Washington appeared to signal at a hearing on Monday that it would keep in place at least some version of the gag order placed on former President Donald J. Trump in the criminal case accusing him of plotting to overturn the 2020 election.

But a three-judge panel of the court left open the possibility of adjusting the terms of the order or even narrowing the scope of the people covered by it, including by potentially freeing Mr. Trump to attack Jack Smith, the special counsel overseeing the federal cases against him.

The trial judge, Tanya S. Chutkan, imposed the gag order in October in Federal District Court in Washington. It forbid Mr. Trump to publicly maligning any prosecutors, potential witnesses or court employees involved in the case.

But Judge Chutkan explicitly permitted Mr. Trump to criticize the Justice Department, President Biden and herself. She also allowed him to maintain that the prosecution itself was a partisan retaliation against him.

Mr. Trump swiftly appealed, with his lawyers arguing that the order was the “essence of censorship” and infringed on his First Amendment rights in the midst of a campaign — one in which he has repeatedly complained that the cases against him are political persecution. The appeals court has suspended the gag order while it weighs the challenge.

At the hearing, the three judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit pushed hard at the argument that Mr. Trump’s social media posts should enjoy absolute protection under the First Amendment as examples of “core political speech.” They questioned whether the posts could in fact be something very different: examples of “political speech aimed at derailing or corrupting the criminal justice process.”

The judges also suggested that a gag order could be imposed on Mr. Trump as a “prophylactic” measure of protecting people involved in the case from threats or acts of harassment that had not yet occurred. The panel cited a longstanding “dynamic,” reaching back to the 2020 election, in which Mr. Trump has mentioned certain people in his posts who later suffered intimidation from others.

“As this trial approaches, the atmosphere is going to be increasingly tense,” said Judge Brad Garcia. “Why does the district court have to wait and see, and wait for the threats to come, rather than taking a reasonable action in advance?”

Each of the three members of the appellate panel assigned to the case was nominated by a Democratic president: Judges Patricia Millett and Cornelia Pillard were both Obama appointees, as was Judge Chutkan to the district court. Judge Garcia was appointed by President Biden.

D. John Sauer, a lawyer for Mr. Trump, countered that events three years ago were insufficient to meet the standard for gagging Mr. Trump now. He argued that it would be an impermissible “heckler’s veto” to bar Mr. Trump from speaking freely amid an election on the rationale that his remarks “might someday inspire some random third party” to make threats.

There are few legal guideposts directly on point to the issues raised by the Trump gag order fight. Past Supreme Court cases that have addressed gag orders have focused on lawyers or reporters, rather than defendants. And they have generally centered on keeping juries from being tainted by information about trials rather than on preventing threats and harassment that could jeopardize the integrity of the criminal justice process.

Complicating matters further, Mr. Trump has blurred the lines between his criminal cases and his presidential campaign, using court appearances to deliver political talking points and employing public remarks to assail his prosecutions.

The appellate judges appeared to be seeking a way to balance protecting the integrity of the election interference case and the people involved in it while preserving Mr. Trump’s rights to respond in public to denunciations by his political adversaries or critics. Some of them are likely to be witnesses against him in the case — such as former Vice President Mike Pence.

Underscoring the legal difficulties, the arguments ran far longer than the time they had been allotted. The plan had been that each side would get 20 minutes, but the panel kept grilling Mr. Sauer for nearly four times that. Its questioning of Cecil Vandevender, a lawyer working for Mr. Smith, went on for nearly an hour.

Nov. 19

New York Times, More Advertisers Halt Spending on X in Growing Backlash Against Musk, Kate Conger and Tiffany Hsu, Nov. 19, 2023 (print ed.).  Warner Bros. and Sony have joined other companies in pausing spending on X, formerly Twitter, over Elon Musk’s endorsement of an antisemitic post.

More major advertisers have paused their spending on X, the social media service formerly known as Twitter, as the backlash continued over Elon Musk’s endorsement of an antisemitic conspiracy theory on X.

The entertainment company Warner Bros. and Sony have joined other prominent brands in halting their spending on X. IBM cut off its advertising on X on Thursday, while Apple, Lionsgate, the entertainment and film distribution company, and Paramount Global, the media giant that owns CBS, all paused their ads on Friday.

The spending freeze comes as X has fought to win back advertisers who were wary of spending on the platform after Mr. Musk took it over a year ago and said he would loosen content moderation rules. Major brands tend to be cautious about placing their ads next to posts with offensive or hateful speech.

Mr. Musk, who bought Twitter in October 2022 and renamed it X, drew scrutiny this week after replying to a post on X that accused Jewish people who are facing antisemitism amid the Israel-Hamas war of pushing the “exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them” and supporting the immigration of “hordes of minorities.”

“You have said the actual truth,” Mr. Musk replied. Jewish groups said that Mr. Musk’s message boosted a conspiracy theory known as replacement theory, which claims that Jews have organized nonwhite immigrants to replace the white race. The concept was embraced by Robert Bowers, who killed 11 worshipers at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018.

Mr. Musk’s statement drew condemnation from the White House on Friday. Andrew Bates, a White House spokesman, said in a statement that it was “unacceptable to repeat the hideous lie behind the most fatal act of antisemitism in American history at any time, let alone one month after the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust.”

Mr. Musk lashed out at advertisers who had pulled their dollars from X on Friday, and threatened legal action against Media Matters, a left-wing advocacy organization that said it found antisemitic content on X and highlighted advertisements for Apple, IBM and other brands that appeared alongside posts touting Hitler and the Nazi Party.

In a post on Friday night, Mr. Musk said, “The split second court opens on Monday, X Corp will be filing a thermonuclear lawsuit against Media Matters and ALL those who colluded in this fraudulent attack on our company.”

X said that the research strategy used by Media Matters to discover the advertisements that ran along antisemitic content was not representative of how regular people use its platform. The organization followed accounts that posted the content, then refreshed the X timeline until ads appeared, X said in a blog post. Only one of the nine posts highlighted by Media Matters violated its content moderation rules, X added.

In a statement, Joe Benarroch, the head of business operations at X, said, “50 impressions served against the content in the article, out of 5.5 billion served the whole day, points to the fact of how efficiently our model avoids content for advertisers.” He added, “Data wins over allegations.”

Media Matters said that it would defend itself from litigation by X. “Far from the free speech advocate he claims to be, Musk is a bully threatening a meritless lawsuit in an attempt to silence reporting that he even confirmed is accurate,” said Angelo Carusone, the president of Media Matters. “Musk admitted the ads at issue ran alongside the pro-Nazi content we identified. This is like getting mad at a mirror because you don’t like the reflection. If he does sue us, we will win.”

Washington Post, Antisemitism was rising online. Then Elon Musk’s X supercharged it, Elizabeth Dwoskin, Taylor Lorenz, Naomi Nix and Joseph Menn, Nov. 19, 2023. After neo-Nazi protests in Charlottesville, white supremacists were confined mostly to fringe websites. Musk’s purchase of Twitter changed that. In the weeks following the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, Twitter user @breakingbaht criticized leftists, academics and “minorities” for defending the militant group. But it wasn’t until the user spoke up on behalf of antisemites that he struck a viral chord with X owner Elon Musk.

The user blamed Jewish communities for bringing antisemitism upon themselves by supporting immigration to the United States, welcoming “hordes of minorities” who don’t like Jews and promoting “hatred against whites.”

“You have said the actual truth,” Musk responded. Soon, @breakingbaht had gained several thousand new followers — and the antisemitic conspiracy theory that Jews are causing the replacement of White people was ricocheting across the internet once again.

Antisemitism has long festered online, but the Israel-Gaza war and the loosening of content moderation on X have propelled it to unprecedented levels, coinciding with a dramatic rise in real-world attacks on Jews, according to several monitoring organizations.

Since Oct. 7, antisemitic content has surged more than 900 percent on X and there have been more than 1,000 incidents of real-world antisemitic attacks, vandalism and harassment in America, according to the Anti-Defamation League — the highest number since the human rights group started counting. (That includes about 200 rallies the group deemed to be at least implicitly supporting Hamas.)

Factors that predate the Gaza war laid the groundwork for the heightened antisemitic atmosphere, say experts and advocates: the feeling of empowerment some neo-Nazis felt during the Trump presidency, the decline of enforcement on tech platforms in the face of layoffs and Republican criticism, even the 11-day war between Israel and Hamas in 2021, which gave rise to harsh criticism of Israel’s actions and sustained antisemitism online.

But Musk plays a uniquely potent role in the drama, disinformation specialists say. His comments amplifying antisemitic tropes to his 163.5 million followers, his dramatic loosening of standards for what can be posted, and his boosting of voices that previously had been banned from the platform formerly known as Twitter all have made antisemitism more acceptable on what is still one of the world’s most influential social media platforms.

Musk’s endorsement of comments alluding to the great replacement theory — a conspiracy theory espoused by neo-Nazi demonstrators in Charlottesville in 2017 and the gunmen who killed people inside synagogues in Pittsburgh in 2018 and Poway, Calif., in 2019 — brought condemnation from the White House and advertising cancellations from IBM, Apple, Comcast, and Disney, among others.

Late Friday, Musk was unrepentant: “Many of the largest advertisers are the greatest oppressors of your right to free speech,” he tweeted after word of the cancellations spread. He did not respond to an emailed request for comment.

Joan Donovan, a former research director at Harvard University’s Shorenstein Center who now teaches at Boston University, included Musk in what she described as “a strata of influencers … who feel very comfortable condemning Jewish people as a political critique.”

“In moments where there is a lot of concern, these right-wing influencers do go mask-off and say what they really feel,” she said.

The Israel-Gaza war also has given new life to prominent Holocaust deniers who have proclaimed on X, Telegram and other platforms that the Hamas attacks that left hundreds of Israelis dead were “false flags.” The #Hitlerwasright hashtag, which surged during the 2021 war, has returned, with Memetica, a digital investigations firm, tallying 46,000 uses of the phrase on X since Oct. 7. Previously, the hashtag appeared fewer than 5,000 times per month.

The Center for Countering Digital Hate, a nonprofit focused on online extremism and disinformation, identified 200 posts that promoted antisemitism and other forms of hate speech amid the conflict. X allowed 196 of them to remain on the platform, the group said in a report.

Nov. 18

World Crisis Radio, Strategic Commentary and Pro-Democracy Action Agenda: Biden White House condemns Trump’s threat to destroy “vermin” adversaries as lethal threat to American freedom! Webster G. Tarpley (right, historian and commentator), Nov. 18, 2023 (162 mins.).  Echo of Hitler’s rhetoric finally breaks media reluctance to condemn MAGA fascism;

Outburst follows raving threats to suspend Constitution, deploy Department of Justice to indict political adversaries, impose citizen’s arrest of prosecutors, and exact ”retribution”; 60 years after Dallas assassination, recalling Weimar pattern of defeated putschists morphing into the political assassins of the Consul Organization;

Over 75 think tanks, law firms, and quackademics prepare plans for replacing constitutional government with MAGA dictatorship; Likely measures include activation of Insurrection Act on January 20 2024, end of Civil Service system, government packed with MAGA hacks and cretins, killer austerity and deregulation, no birthright citizenship, no XIV Amendment, sweeping and continuous anti-immigrant raids, giant concentration camps, mass deportations, and unitary executive under Gleichschaltung of centralized control, including states; Garland and Wray must get ahead of this conspiracy by launching a task force investigation NOW!

In summit with Xi, Biden successfully implements One War at a Time strategy to keep Xi out of Ukraine (the central issue now) and away from Taiwan; Weakened Chinese dictator faces demographic cliff, labor shortage, bankrupt real estate sector, youth joblessness, slowing growth, exit of factories, declining foreign investments, reduced growth rate; Military communication promotes deconfliction to rule out war by miscalculation; Anti-fentanyl efforts can mitigate deadly opioid epidemic;

Ukraine liberates more territory on east bank of Dneiper River, keeping initiative by opening new path to free Crimea; 48% of Russians said to want an end to war; Russian draftees prepare protest demonstrations for Sunday, November 19;

Sec Def Austin warns Israelis not to provoke wider war with Hezbollah and Iran, alluding to Netanyahu’s notorious plan to embroil US in conflict; Israel threatens to bomb all of Gaza, despite assurances to refugees; Allegations of secret terrorist HQ under Shiva Hospital remain wholly unproven as Gaza death toll nears 12,000, including 5,000 children; Israeli opposition leader Lapid issues his first call for Netanyahu to step down as prime minister, marking a watershed; Macron of France calls for CEASEFIRE in Gaza;

Soution to crisis requires a ceasefire to enable an Emergency International Peace Conference to launch humanitarian aid, postwar reconstruction and development, and the two-state solution with an independent sovereign state under the Palestinian Authority as demanded by Biden;
Billionaires deploy phalanx of third-party fakers to replicate Weimar landscape of forty political parties against Biden to elect Trump and end democracy!
Breaking: Fani Willis requests August 6 start date for Georgia RICO election interference trial; MAGA lawyers howl!

Nov. 16

From left: Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr.; Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr.; Robert F. Kennedy; and John F. Kennedy in 1939 (Boston Globe photo via Associated Press).

New York Times, How R.F.K. Jr. Has Turned His Public Crusades Into a Private Windfall, Susanne Craig, Nov. 16, 2023. The causes Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has championed have brought him admiration, criticism — and tens of millions of dollars.

In 2021, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. earned more than $500,000 as the chairman and top lawyer at Children’s Health Defense, the nonprofit organization that he has helped build into a leading spreader of anti-vaccine falsehoods and a platform for launching his independent bid for the White House.

The compensation was almost three times as high as the amount paid to the organization’s president, but it was not Mr. Kennedy’s biggest source of income. Neither was his family’s fabled wealth. Instead, most of his earnings around the same time came from law firms — a total of $7 million for lending them his name, connections and expertise to sue major companies.

Throughout his long public life, Mr. Kennedy has cultivated an image as a man committed to a greater good, the blessing and burden of belonging to one of America’s most storied political families. Whether cleaning up rivers as an environmentalist or railing against the purported dangers of inoculations, he has said he is driven by his family’s legacy of civic duty and sacrifice.

He built his presidential run around similar themes, even as his cousin dismissed the campaign as a “vanity project” and other relatives disavowed his beliefs. On the trail, Mr. Kennedy has delivered a populist message of anti-corporate rhetoric and debunked science while invoking a powerful lineage: his uncles, former President John F. Kennedy and Senator Ted Kennedy, and his father, Senator Robert F. Kennedy.

“RFK Jr. began a career of public services as soon as he passed the NY State Bar,” reads one of the top lines on his campaign website.

In a 2018 book, he credited his mother, Ethel, for instilling important values. “She tried to give us the sense that we mustn’t be satisfied with ‘making a big pile for ourselves and whoever dies with the most stuff wins,’” Mr. Kennedy wrote. “Our lives, she taught us, should serve a higher purpose.”

But an examination of Mr. Kennedy’s finances by The New York Times, including public filings and almost two dozen interviews as well as tax returns and other documents not previously made public, showed that while he appears to believe in the causes he champions, they have also had a practical benefit: His crusades, backed by the power of his name, have earned him tens of millions of dollars.

Mr. Kennedy inherited many things from his family — a charismatic presence, a gift for public speaking, a place among the nation’s elite — but not necessarily the kind of money that would support a life of both altruism and the trappings of wealth he seems to enjoy, The Times found. His grandfather, Joseph P. Kennedy, poured a fortune into trust funds for his descendants, helping to support the political ambitions of his sons. But Mr. Kennedy came into a relatively modest portion.

Behind much of his public career has been a relentless private hustle: board positions and advisory gigs, side deals with law firms, book contracts and an exhausting schedule of paid speeches, once upward of 60 a year by his own count.

While most people have to work, Mr. Kennedy did not always settle for the six-figure salary he was earning in positions with nonprofits. For decades, he has entwined his loftier missions with opportunities for enrichment. In addition to his salary at Children’s Health Defense, for instance, he stands to profit personally from lawsuits, including against the pharmaceutical giant Merck over a common vaccine for children.

When Mr. Kennedy was still best known as an environmentalist, he met Alan Salzman, an investor in clean technology companies, and was intrigued: Mr. Kennedy wanted to find alternatives to carbon-based energy, “which I think is the biggest enemy to American democracy and the environment,” he said in a 2012 deposition reviewed by The Times.

“And I also saw it as an opportunity to make some money for my family,” he continued.

Mr. Kennedy would earn millions of dollars over at least eight years from work connected to Mr. Salzman’s venture capital firm, VantagePoint, including promoting a project that other environmentalists opposed.

In an interview, Mr. Kennedy said that he was proud of giving his family a good life while promoting his causes.

“I have been able to use the various gifts I’ve been given — education, the contacts and the value of a name that a generation in my family put a lot of effort into enhancing and retaining its value,” he said. “I’m grateful that I’ve been given those gifts and that I am able to do well by doing good.”

His campaign said in a statement that he had “never put a need or desire to make money ahead of his values and moral compass.”

Recently, Mr. Kennedy’s presidential bid has gained some traction. In a poll conducted last month by The Times and Siena College, 24 percent of voters in battleground states said they would support Mr. Kennedy in a theoretical matchup between him, President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump, the leading Republican candidate.

In the campaign, Mr. Kennedy has cast himself as an heir to his family’s mystique. Yet what has at times looked from the outside like the glamorous life of a dynastic prince has occasionally been underwritten by others.

Wealthy friends were behind the purchase of the home Mr. Kennedy used on the family compound on Cape Cod, records show. He had an arrangement with a major environmental nonprofit group to pay for his children to accompany him on work trips, and he accepted a free Lexus as part of a promotional event for green vehicles.

“The Kennedys’ wealth is inextricably intertwined with people’s impression of the Kennedys — and that isn’t a surprise when you think their grandfather amassed one of America’s biggest fortunes when his kids were young,” said Fredrik Logevall, a historian at Harvard who is writing a two-volume biography of John F. Kennedy.

“But two generations later,” Professor Logevall said, “some family members have more of the money than others.”

A Grandfather’s Wealth

Joseph Kennedy’s estate, widely believed to be valued at roughly $500 million when he died in 1969 (about $4.2 billion in today’s dollars), was left largely in trusts for his descendants.

Robert Kennedy had been assassinated the previous year while running for the Democratic nomination for president. He left half his estate to Ethel and divided the remainder equally among his children, according to documents filed in Manhattan Surrogate Court. But after an expensive campaign, he died with heavy debt, and more than half of his estate went to pay it off.

New York Times, Investigation: Behind Rise of Catalytic Converter Crime Rings, Walt Bogdanich, Isak Hüllert and Eli Tan, Nov. 16, 2023 (print ed.). Recycling catalytic converters costs less than mining the ore. But it carries a risk, as Stillwater discovered after paying more than $170 million for used ones, many of them stolen, according to an indictment handed up this spring on Long Island that implicated the mine. Stillwater was not charged and denied knowing the devices were stolen.

The indictment is an outgrowth of a billion-dollar epidemic of catalytic converter thefts that has not only disabled vehicles but also involved dozens of shootings, truck hijackings and other violence. Replacement devices are often hard to get and can cost $1,000 or more.

Despite public attention on the thefts, little has been known about where the stolen metal goes, who benefits or why stopping the thievery has proved so difficult.

An examination of business records and social media posts, as well as interviews with more than 80 officials on three continents who have ties to the industry, showed that the stolen devices pass through middlemen, smelters and refineries in the United States and overseas. Along the way, their provenance becomes opaque, leaving beneficiaries of the thefts with plausible deniability and little incentive to stop them.

During processing, the metal is blended with legitimate supplies from mines and scrapyards, The New York Times found, before being sold primarily to companies that make catalytic converters for automakers, as well as pharmaceutical companies for cancer and other drugs, military contractors for weapons production, and banks for their precious-metals trading desks, among others.

By then, it is nearly impossible to separate what’s legal from what’s not.

A cycle chart describes a repeating process: Metals come from mines and used catalytic converters; the metals are processed and sold to auto suppliers and other companies; catalytic converters are stolen from vehicles and sold to recyclers; stolen and legally recycled converters are commingled and sold to refiners.

Banks provide short-term financing to process the metals, while other lightly regulated lenders, sometimes called “shadow bankers,” step in when the big banks won’t, Mark Williams, a former Federal Reserve Bank examiner, said in an interview.

Quantifying the thefts is difficult, and estimates vary widely. About 6 percent of the 12 million catalytic converters recycled each year are believed to have been stolen, with the rest coming from scrapyards and other legitimate sources, according to Howard Nusbaum, administrator of the National Salvage Vehicle Reporting Program, a nonprofit group that works closely with law enforcement.

Nov. 13

Proof, Investigative Commentary: A Trump Attorney’s Shocking Proffer to Prosecutors Opens a Major New Front in the Federal January 6 Investigation: Members of Congress, Seth Abramson, left, Nov 13, 2023. A fired thirty-something traffic-court lawyer (shown above) brought on by the former President of the United States as a key player in his coup plot has just materially changed the stakes of feds’ January 6 probe.

The New York Times reports that there were twenty White House Christmas parties in December 2020. The largest of these parties, per the Times, were held on December 11, December 14, and December 16 of that year.

Why do these parties matter? Because ABC News had issued a bombshell report that includes details of the proffer Trump attorney Jenna Ellis—a fired traffic-court lawyer—made to prosecutors in Georgia, where she recently pleaded guilty to the felony of Aiding and Abetting False Statements.

According to Ellis, top Trump adviser Dan Scavino told her at one of the White House Christmas parties in December 2020 that hen-President Trump had no intention at all of leaving the White House—or of leaving the office of the presidency—in 2021, despite having by then lost all his legal challenges to the 2020 presidential election.

And why does what Scavino said to Ellis at a Christmas party matter? Because on December 21, 2020—just before Christmas Day, but almost certainly after all the major White House Christmas parties—Dan Scavino attended a key meeting in the Oval Office with then-President Trump and at least twelve far-right members of Congress.

Scavino has repeatedly risked federal imprisonment to avoid telling anyone what was said in that meeting. (DOJ later shocked Congress by refusing, without any explanation, to indict Scavino or another meeting attendee, former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, for ignoring their valid January 6 federal subpoenas.)

Besides Mr. Trump and Mr. Scavino, the members of Congress known to have been at the White House for at least three hours on December 21 are (with asterisks added to mark any former members of Congress, and wedges added for then-members-elect):

Members of Congress (Past or Present) Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL)* Rep. Jody Hice (R-GA)* Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA)^ [video of Greene post-meeting here] Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX)* Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC)* [then Chief of Staff] Rep. Brian Babin (R-TX) Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD) Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-AZ)* [retiring] “a handful of others [who] dialed in” [per Cassidy Hutchinson testimony] “possibly [people] from the White House Counsel’s office” [per Cassidy Hutchinson testimony] (emphasis added).

Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary: Russia's invasion of legislatures around the world continues sowing chaos in governance, Wayne Madsen, Nov. 13, 2023. The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) has had monumental success in employing its influence operations, disinformation seeding, and other propaganda programs, which are aimed at co-opting members of legislatures and parliaments around the world, to embrace policies favored by Moscow.

These active measures include cutting off military and other aid to Ukraine, opposing Western sanctions against Russia, and supporting withdrawal from NATO and affiliated programs like the Partnership for Peace.

Astoundingly, Russia’s program of co-opting legislators and political parties has enjoyed its greatest successes in the United States and Canada. Russia exercises control over small but crucial blocs of U.S. Senators and Representatives, Canadian Members of Parliament, and even Members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. There are well-established factual reports concerning Russian intelligence’s co-option of national elections in Western democracies, including the 2016 Brexit referendum in the United Kingdom and the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Nov. 12

Forbes, Trump Compares Political Foes To ‘Vermin’ On Veterans Day — Echoing Nazi Propaganda, Sara Dorn, Nov. 12, 2023. Former President Donald Trump pledged to eliminate political extremist groups that “lie, steal and cheat on elections,” calling them “vermin” during a speech Saturday and in a Truth Social post commemorating Veterans Day—echoing a term Nazis often used in antisemitic propaganda to dehumanize Jews, equating them to parasites who spread disease.

Trump made a “pledge” to “root out the Communists, Marxists, Fascists, and Radical Left Thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country” in a Truth Social post Saturday “in honor of our great Veterans on Veteran’s Day.”

Trump accused the groups of doing “anything possible to destroy America, and the American Dream,” adding that “the threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous, and grave, than the threat from within.”

He repeated the phrasing at a rally in New Hampshire later Saturday, referring to “the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country” and declaring “the real threat is not from the radical right, the real threat is from the radical left.”

The former president’s incendiary rhetoric invokes a term frequently used by Nazis to dehumanize Jews, including a 1939 quote attributed to Hitler: “This vermin must be destroyed. The Jews are our sworn enemies,” he told the Czech foreign minister, according to historical accounts.

New York Times, In Veterans Day Speech, Trump Promises to ‘Root Out’ the Left, Michael Gold, Nov. 12, 2023 (print ed.). The former president said that threats from abroad were less concerning than liberal “threats from within” and that he was a “very proud election denier.”

Former President Donald J. Trump, on a day set aside to celebrate those who have defended the United States in uniform, promised to honor veterans in part by assailing what he portrayed as America’s greatest foe: the political left.

Using incendiary and dehumanizing language to refer to his opponents, Mr. Trump vowed to “root out” what he called “the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.”

“The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous and grave than the threat from within,” Mr. Trump said Saturday in a nearly two-hour Veterans Day address in Claremont, N.H.

Mr. Trump accused Democrats and President Biden of trying to roll back his efforts to expand veteran access to health care, causing soaring inflation, pushing the country to the brink of World War III, endangering the troops in Afghanistan and of lying and rigging elections.

He also promised to care for America’s veterans, reviving a hyperbolic claim that he made throughout his 2016 campaign that Democrats “treat the illegal aliens just pouring into our country better than they treat our veterans.”

And he said he would divert money currently earmarked “for the shelter and transport of illegal aliens” to instead provide shelter and treatment for homeless military veterans.

• Washington Post, Trump says on Univision he could weaponize FBI, DOJ against his enemies
• New York Times, Sweeping Raids, Giant Camps and Mass Deportations: Inside Trump’s 2025 Immigration Plans, Charlie Savage, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan

Nov. 11

World Crisis Radio, Strategic Commentary and Pro-Democracy Action Agenda: In Ohio, Kentucky, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, voters confirm in actual elections -- not polls! -- that Biden and Democrats are on track to crush MAGA fascism and stabilize constitutional government! Webster G. Tarpley,  right, historian and commentator, Nov. 11, 2023 (142:14 mins).  In Ohio, Kentucky, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, voters confirm in actual elections-not polls!-that Biden and Democrats are on track to crush MAGA fascism and stabilize constitutional government!

Corporate pollsters continue to use bankrupt and corrupt Red Tsunami methods to brainwash, disorient, demoralize, gaslight, deceive, and manipulate electorate in service of finance oligarchs, who are their owners; No more credence for such polls! Objective reality always preferable to radical subjectivism;

New York Times poll fiasco does yeoman service for Wall Street plutocrats who hate Biden as advocate of progressive taxation, unions, regulation, social safety net, and civilized progress; Lester Holt of NBC suggests that polls are metaphysically real, while real-world vote tallies are misleading! How much payola has been at work in failed and inaccurate polls of 2018, 2020, 2022, and 2023?

Strike wave supported by Biden is winning victories for workers, raising real wages, and bringing the globalization era to an end!

Trump announces plans to activate Insurrection Act on Inauguration Day for violent suppression of mass demonstrations to resist his odious dictatorial rule; A grotesque menagerie of monarchists, fascists, and assorted Nietzschean crackpots furnish ideology for MAGA incendiaries;

Pressure for ouster of Netanyahu is approaching critical mass as his failure to free hostages adds a new dimension of fiasco to his responsibility for October 7; Eminent diplomat Yossi Beilin endorses opposition leader Yair Lapid as replacement for Bibi capable of leading nation into two-state solution for peace;

Gaza death toll exceeds 10,000 as calls for ceasefire multiply worldwide; Arab governments warn US of dire political consequences;

Biden wants a multi-day bombing pause and the two-state solution, but Bibi is fighting to stay out of jail; In Tokyo, Blinken tells G-7 US demands no forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza, no use of Gaza for terrorism, no reoccupation, no blockade or siege, no reduction of territory;

Deputy Premier of NATO and EU home base Belgium calls for sanctions against Israel for war crimes, including probe by International Criminal Court;

MAGA chaos in House as government shutdown is less than a week away: Bungling MAGA Mike fails twice to pass appropriation bills owing to conflicts inside GOP caucus;

Insane voices from inside a dying party: Scott wants attack on Iran, DeSantis talks like Duterte, Haley wants to exhume the full neocon endless war program;

105th anniversary of World War I armistice recalls wisdom of Lincoln’s great maxim of One War at a Time.

Nov. 9

The seven-member Warren Commission, led by Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren (shown at center left) and including its chief counsel, presents its report in 1964 on the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy to President Lyndon B. Johnson (shown at center right).

New York Magazine, Secrets of the JFK Assassination Archive:  How a dogged journalist proved that the CIA lied about Oswald and Cuba — and spent decades covering it up, Scott Sayare, Nov. 9, 2023. In 1988, in an elevator at a film festival in Havana, the director Oliver Stone was handed a copy of On the Trail of the Assassins, a newly published account of the murder of President John F. Kennedy.

Stone, right, admired Kennedy with an almost spiritual intensity and viewed his death on November 22, 1963 — 60 years ago this month — as a hard line in American history: the “before” hopeful and good; the “after” catastrophic. Yet he had never given much thought to the particulars of the assassination. “I believed that Lee Oswald shot the president,” he said. “I had no problem with that.” On the Trail of the Assassins, written by the Louisiana appellate judge Jim Garrison, proposed something darker. In 1963, Garrison, below, had been district attorney of New Orleans, Oswald’s home in the months before the killing. He began an investigation and had soon traced the contours of a vast government conspiracy orchestrated by the CIA; Oswald was the “patsy” he famously claimed to be. Stone read Garrison’s book three times, bought the film rights, and took them to Warner Bros. “I was hot at the time,” Stone told me. “I could write my own ticket, within reason.” The studio gave him $40 million to make a movie.

The resulting film, JFK, was a scandal well before it came anywhere near a theater. “Some insults to intelligence and decency rise (sink?) far enough to warrant objection,” the Chicago Tribune columnist Jon Margolis wrote just as shooting began. “Such an insult now looms. It is JFK.” Newsweek called the film “a work of propaganda,” as did Jack Valenti, the head of the Motion Picture Association of America, who specifically likened Stone to the Nazi filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl. “It could spoil a generation of American politics,” Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote in the Washington Post.

Critics objected in particular to Stone’s ennoblement of Garrison, whose investigation was widely viewed, including by many conspiracy theorists, as a farce. And yet some of the response to the film looked an awful lot like a form of repression, a slightly desperate refusal to acknowledge that the official version of the Kennedy assassination had never been especially convincing. One week after the assassination and five days after Oswald himself was killed by nightclub owner Jack Ruby, President Lyndon Johnson convened a panel of seven “very distinguished citizens,” led by Chief Justice Earl Warren of the Supreme Court, to investigate. Ten months later, the Warren Commission concluded that Oswald, firing three shots from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository, had killed Kennedy entirely on his own for reasons impossible to state. Notwithstanding JFK’s distortions — “It’s a Hollywood movie,” Stone pointed out — the film noted quite accurately that the Warren Commission seemed to be contradicted by its own evidence.

In a famous courtroom scene, Garrison, played by Kevin Costner, showed the Zapruder film, the long-suppressed footage of the shooting, rewinding it for the jury as he narrated the movement of Kennedy’s exploding cranium — “Back, and to the left; back, and to the left” — which suggested a shot not from behind, where Oswald was, but from the front right, in the direction of the so-called Grassy Knoll, where numerous witnesses testified to having seen, heard, and even smelled gunshots. (Stone had offered the role of Garrison to Harrison Ford and Mel Gibson, who both passed, but Costner, the very symbol of wholesome Americana, was actually the more subversive choice.) In another courtroom scene, Garrison appeared to dismantle the “single-bullet theory,” according to which the same round had been responsible for seven entry and exit wounds in Kennedy and Texas governor John Connally — an improbable scenario made all the more so by the alleged bullet itself, which was recovered in near-pristine condition. The simplest explanation would have been that all those wounds were caused by more than one bullet, but this would have meant either that Oswald had fired, reloaded, and again fired his bolt-action rifle in less than the 2.3 seconds required to do so or, more realistically, that there was a second shooter.
President Kennedy’s limousine shortly after he was shot. The Grassy Knoll is visible in the background. Photo: APTN/AP Photo

Three of the seven members of the Warren Commission eventually disavowed its findings, as did President Johnson. In 1979, after a thoroughgoing reinvestigation, the House Select Committee on Assassinations officially concluded that Kennedy “was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy.” But such findings seemed not to penetrate. “In view of the overwhelming evidence that Oswald could not have acted alone (if he acted at all), the most remarkable feature of the assassination is not the abundance of conspiracy theories,” Christopher Lasch, the historian and social critic, remarked in Harper’s, “but the rejection of a conspiracy theory by the ‘best and brightest.’” For complex reasons of history, psychology, and politics, within the American Establishment it remained inadvisable to speak of conspiracy unless you did not mind being labeled a kook.

Stone ended his film in the style of a documentary, with a written text scrolling beneath John Williams’s high-patriotic arrangement for string and horns, that deplored the official secrecy that still surrounded the assassination. Large portions of the Warren Report, Kennedy’s full autopsy records, and much of the evidence collected by the HSCA had never been cleared for public release. When JFK came out in December 1991, this ongoing secrecy quickly supplanted the movie itself as a subject of public scandal. Within a month, the New York Times was editorializing, if begrudgingly, in Stone’s defense. (“The public’s right to information does not depend on the integrity or good faith of those who seek it.”) By May 1992, congressional hearings about a declassification bill were underway. Stone, invited to testify before the House, declared, “The stone wall must come down.” CIA director Robert Gates pledged to disclose, or at least submit for review, “every relevant scrap of paper in CIA’s possession.” “The only thing more horrifying to me than the assassination itself,” Gates said, “is the insidious, perverse notion that elements of the American government, that my own agency had some part in it.”

The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 mandated that “all Government records related to the assassination” be provided to the National Archives and made available to the public. The historian Steven M. Gillon has called it the “most ambitious declassification effort in American history.” It has done little to refute Gates’s “insidious, perverse notion.” On the contrary, for those with the inclination to look and the expertise to interpret what they find, the records now in the public realm are terrifically damning to the Warren Commission and to the CIA.

Among the first visitors to the JFK Assassination Records Collection was Jefferson Morley, then a 34-year-old editor from the Washington Post. Morley had made a name for himself in magazines in the 1980s. He helped break the Iran-Contra scandal for The New Republic and wrote a much-discussed gonzo essay about the War on Drugs for which he’d spent an evening smoking crack cocaine. By that time, he’d become Washington editor of The Nation. He drank with Christopher Hitchens, with whom he was once deported, after a gathering with some Czech dissidents, by that country’s secret police. “He was a little out there,” a colleague at the Post recalled. “But you want some people like that in the newsroom.” Morley had read about the Kennedy assassination for years as a hobby, but it never occurred to him that he might report on it himself. “I never thought I had anything to add,” he told me. “Until 1992.”

Jefferson Morley, right, has become known as one of the most sober-minded assassination researchers. He spent so much time looking at CIA documents that he adopted the same filing system.

I visited Morley in Washington in September. He is now 65 and somewhat more demure than his younger self, if still combative, with a sweep of gray hair, a high brow, and a sharp nose that together lend him a vaguely avian aspect, an impression heightened by his tendency to cock his head quizzically, like an owl, and speak into the middle distance. We met at the brick rowhouse that he still shares with his second wife, with whom he is in the midst of a divorce. She will keep the house, and Morley was not yet certain where he would go, but they agreed that he could stay through “the coming JFK season,” as he put it. His small office is there, as is his personal file collection, three decades of once-classified records culled from the National Archives and stored in worn banker’s boxes, tens of thousands of photocopy sheets arranged chronologically and, in duplicate form, by subject matter. “If you use what we’ve learned since the ’90s to evaluate the government’s case,” he told me, “the government’s case disintegrates.”

Morley, the author of three books on the CIA and the editor of a Substack blog of modest but impassioned following called JFK Facts, has made a name for himself among assassination researchers by attempting to approach Kennedy’s murder as if it were any other subject. “Journalists never report the JFK story journalistically,” he said. Early on, when Morley was still at the Post, editors would frequently ask, “What does this tell us about who shot JFK?” “I have no idea!” he responded. “I have to have a fucking conspiracy theory?”

He did not set out to make a career of the JFK Act, but the declassification process has taken longer than expected. At the urging of the CIA and other agencies, President Donald Trump twice extended the original 2017 deadline. In 2021, President Joe Biden pushed it to 2022 before extending it once again. At least 320,000 “assassination-related” documents have been released; by one estimate, some 4,000 remain withheld or redacted, the majority belonging to the CIA.

Morley’s serious interest in the assassination had begun in the early 1980s, prompted by Christopher Lasch’s attack on the conspiracy taboo in Harper’s. (He’d helped edit the essay.) He began to read the available literature. Some of the “conspiracy” books were highly suppositious, in his view, but some he found to be impressively thoughtful, documented, even restrained. Sylvia Meagher’s 1967 critique of the Warren Commission, Accessories After the Fact, based on a close reading of the commission’s report and its appendices, was particularly influential. She is shown at left. The report “didn’t hang together,” Morley said, “didn’t make sense on its own terms.”

In 1992, during passage of the JFK Act, he was hired by the Washington Post to work for “Outlook,” the paper’s Sunday opinion section, an outpost of impertinence and boundary-testing in an otherwise buttoned-down newsroom. By Morley’s recollection, he pitched a piece about the JFK archive during his job interview. “They didn’t realize all these records were coming out, they weren’t really paying attention, and I was on the ball,” Morley said.

Morley visited the new archive after work, prospecting for stories, and began contacting researchers of the assassination to ask for guidance. Among them was John Newman, a U.S. Army major who had spent 20 years in Army intelligence and written a widely praised history of Kennedy and Vietnam. Newman, who also served as a consultant on JFK, was then at work on a book about Oswald and his connections to the CIA.

The possibility of such a tie had been floated since almost the moment Kennedy was shot. The mutual detestation between Kennedy and the Agency, especially after the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion, was widely known in Washington. It is a measure of the paranoia of the era, and also of the Agency’s reputation for lawlessness, that on the afternoon of his brother’s murder, Robert Kennedy summoned the director of the CIA to his home to ask “if they” — the CIA — “had killed my brother,” Kennedy later recalled. (The director, John McCone, said they had not.) The Agency assured the Warren Commission that, prior to the assassination, it had had no particular interest in Oswald and almost no information on him whatsoever. This had always seemed implausible. Oswald was only 24 when he died, but his life had been eventful. He had served as a radar operator in the Marine Corps, stationed at an air base in Japan from which the CIA flew U-2 spy missions over Russia; had then defected to Moscow, where he told American diplomats that he planned to tell the Soviets everything he knew; had been closely watched, if not recruited, by Soviet intelligence services; and had then, in 1962, after more than two and a half years in the USSR, returned, Russian wife in tow, to the United States. One would think the CIA might have taken somewhat more than a passing interest.

Early on, Newman had photocopied the entirety of Oswald’s pre-assassination CIA file at the archive and brought it home. Morley came often to study it. “I had read something that said, you know, they only had five documents on him,” Morley said. “And it was like, ‘No, there were 42.’”

Whatever mystique may attach to it, the CIA is also a highly articulated bureaucracy. Newman encouraged Morley to focus less on the documents themselves than on the attached routing slips. “When you start getting into spy services, everybody lies,” Newman told me. “And so how do you know anything?” The answer was “traffic analysis.” Even if the information contained in an intelligence file was false, Newman believed an account of how that information flowed — who received it, in what form, from whom, when — could be a reliable source of insight.

CIA officer George Joannides, right, a key figure in the CIA's anti-Cuban activity and efforts to thwart investigations into the JFK Assassination. cover-up of its actions, according to extensive FOIA litigation and cutting-edge reporting by Jefferson Morley.

Via cryptic acronyms, the Agency’s routing slips recorded precisely who had been receiving information on Oswald in the period leading up to the assassination. “It was, when you saw it, a lot of people,” Morley recalled. “I just remember being in John’s basement and thinking, Oh my God.” A large number of senior CIA officers at the Agency’s headquarters had evidently been tracking Oswald, and tracking him closely, since well before November 22, 1963. “The idea that this guy came out of nowhere was self-evidently not true,” Morley said. “That was a door swinging open for me.”

Nov. 4

World Crisis Radio, Strategic Commentary and Pro-Democracy Action Agenda: In outrageous affront to American ally, Netanyahu scorns Blinken’s call for humanitarian bombing pause! Webster G. Tarpley, right, historian and commentator, Nov. 4-5, 2023 (146: 34 mins.). With 9,000 dead Palestinians, US can no longer tolerate IDF atrocities;

Settler fanatics Ben Gvir and Smotrich rule in Jerusalem, but Israel is bound by UN Charter, UN Declaration of Human Rights and Geneva Conventions; US political ground shifting rapidly in favor of Gaza ceasefire as Durbin, Murphy, and Sanders demand bombing halt;

Biden reportedly sees at most a few months of political survival for defendant Bibi, resented by voters for his dictatorial plans and abject intel and military debacles; US eyes Gantz, Lapid, and Bennett to form next government;

After Oct. 7, Biden’s goals had to be avoiding mass deportations of Palestinians into the Sinai and Transjordan deserts or the use of nuclear weapons, while maintaining alliances intact; Priority now to increase humanitarian deliveries, save hostages and free foreign citizens from Gaza captivity;

Fourteenth Amendment embodies Lincoln’s New Birth of Freedom and the Second American Revolution; It must be applied to remove Trump from all state ballots across the nation for blatant MAGA insurrection;

Tlaib and other fratricidal ultralefts foolishly want to punish Biden for Gaza tragedy: their tactics help only Bibi’s friend Trump, whose hostility to Palestinians is sinister and limitless; No calamity coming out of the Middle East can exceed the threat to humanity posed by a Trump-MAGA dictatorship in US, so vote accordingly;

MAGA Mike’s theocratic attack on the Gelasian foundation of western civilization in the distinction between political-military and spiritual and political-military powers i.e. between church and state; Security alert: with such a figure two heartbeats away from the Presidency, pay special attention to reports that MAGA campaign slogan is now ”Come retribution,” the Confederate code word for the plot to assassinate Lincoln!

October

Oct. 29

Proof, Investigative Commentary: From Start to Finish, Major Media Got the Tragic al-Ahli Hospital Blast Exactly Right. Seth Abramson, left, Oct 29, 2023. It Now Looks Like the Munition That Hit the Hospital in Gaza— Causing a Massacre—Indeed Came From Israel.

Media critics and mea culpas from some outlets aside, a journalistic analysis of how media reported the tragedy at the al-Ahli reveals lessons—not errors—as well as the likely truth of what happened.

Israel has quietly tried to build international support in recent weeks for the transfer of several hundred thousand civilians from Gaza to Egypt for the duration of its war in the territory, according to six senior foreign diplomats.

Israeli leaders and diplomats have privately proposed the idea to several foreign governments, framing it as a humanitarian initiative that would allow civilians to temporarily escape the perils of Gaza for refugee camps in the Sinai Desert, just across the border in neighboring Egypt.

The suggestion was dismissed by most of Israel’s interlocutors — who include the United States and the United Kingdom — because of the risk that such a mass displacement could become permanent. These countries fear that such a development might destabilize Egypt and lock significant numbers of Palestinians out of their homeland, according to the diplomats, who spoke anonymously in order to discuss a sensitive matter more freely.

The idea has also been firmly rejected by Palestinians, who fear that Israel is using the war — which began on Oct. 7 after terrorists from Gaza raided Israel and killed roughly 1,400 people — to permanently displace the more than two million people living in Gaza.

More than 700,000 Palestinians either fled or were expelled from their homes in what is now Israel during the war surrounding the creation of the state in 1948. Many of their descendants are now warning that the current war will end with a similar “nakba,” or catastrophe, as the 1948 migration is known in Arabic.

An intensive, comprehensive, ten-day curation and macroanalysis of reliable major-media reports from the around the world—including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Australia, Spain, Israel, and Qatar—reveals, with high confidence, that the munition that struck the al-Ahli Hospital in northern Gaza on October 17, 2023 was fired from Israeli territory by Israeli forces.

Data regarding casualty counts (both killed and wounded) following the explosion was substantially reliable when and as it was released by the Palestinian Ministry of Health (PMH), an entity that has for years been relied upon by the international community—including governments, NGOs, major-media outlets, and subject-matter experts. In contrast, following the tragedy at al-Ahli the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) engaged in what appears in retrospect to have been a systematic campaign of deceit that included false casualty counts, doctored evidence, mistranslations, the omission and even obfuscation of inculpatory evidence, gross misinterpretation of multimedia, and disingenuous or even offensive rhetoric.

While the precise origin-point of the killer munition in this case remains unknown, all extant data points at either a Tamir interceptor missile with an 11kg warhead fired from a confirmed Iron Dome installation less than two miles east of Nahal Oz, Israel, or a 155mm artillery shell from a self-propelled howitzer fired from Nahal Oz itself. Nahal Oz is a kibbutz that is under a mile from the border between Gaza and Israel.

All of the foregoing is substantiated by videos (corporate-media and citizen-journalist), audio (corporate-media and citizen-journalist), time-stamp analyses, geolocations, Doppler readouts, forensic analyses of trace evidence, testimonial evidence, and repeated patterns of conduct by the principals involved in the event.

Media critics in the West are factually wrong in opining that U.S. major media “took the word of a terrorist group” in its coverage of the al-Ahli tragedy. In fact, U.S. media coverage of the event was careful, measured and correct—honoring the best traditions of professional journalism despite an environment in which news consumers wanted hard questions answered with ease. Major media was hampered by misinformation and in some cases disinformation fed to it by the IDF, as well as other actions taken by the IDF to ensure that its false narrative about the October 17 explosion at al-Ahli Hospital would triumph in the court of public opinion.
Introduction

For years I taught journalism at an R1 flagship public research university, University of New Hampshire, so compiling an after-action report on a major breaking news story isn’t new to me. But it’s not something I’ve done here at Proof before, and it’s certainly not something easily or lightly done when the story in question involves the deaths of scores or even hundreds of civilians, many of them women and children.

The importance of reviewing major-media reporting on the explosion at the al-Ahli Hospital in northern Gaza a week ago goes well beyond the harrowing nature of the event itself. The way in which media, and Western media in particular, succeeded or failed to adequately cover one of the single bloodiest events of the seventy-five-year history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict presents for working journalists like me (and for that matter, current or former journalism professors like me) a dilemma that isn’t going to go away and so must be addressed now—not merely as an after-action report, but as a guide for the future.

This said, none can doubt that the al-Ahli blast, even taken in isolation, warrants all the ink that has now been spilled reporting it—as well as all the reporting about the reporting about it.

Oct. 28

World Crisis Radio, Strategic Commentary and Reform Agenda: Netanyahu’s wanton aggression in Gaza is now greatest threat to Biden’s re-election, and thus to future of US and world! Webster G. Tarpley, right, historian and commentator, Oct. 28, 2023 (129:51 mins.). UN General Assembly demands immediate, durable, and sustained humanitarian truce by large majority; US humiliated as part of minority of 14 in embarrassing defeat for Blinken’s misguided diplomacy; Thoughts and prayers not good enough;

Biden must veto further Israeli attacks and blockade in the name of some 20 US hostages and 600 Palestinian Americans he is pledged to protect, lest they needlessly perish; Hamas claims 50 hostages already slain by bombing;

IDF escalates attacks from air and land; Deed done in dark of night with no phones, no internet, no visibility; Iran issues threats and warnings; 82% of Americans are wary of Bibi’s war; Israelis now 50-50 on more attacks;

Tragic history of strategic blank checks, featuring German Kaiser’s infamous blank check to Austria-Hungary in July 1914, which played a key role in triggering World War I with 20 million dead;

Palestinian dead near 8,000; For danger of wider war, watch Israeli border with Hezbollah/Lebanon and Strait of Hormuz;

Dear Abby’s grandson wants to challenge Biden in New Hampshire; RFK Jr.’s backers attempt to rehabilitate appeaser of fascism and coward Joseph P. Kennedy as peace angel and precursor of his illustrious grandson;

What fresh hell: Meet austerity ghoul MAGA Mike Johnson, the sinister fanatic who is now just two heartbeats away from the presidency! Trump legal defense front disintegrates as Meadows joins anti-Don defectors;

Bidenomics generates stunning 4.9% rise in GDP; Labor renaissance continues with UAW contract for 25% wage hike, cost of living escalator, thanks to political strike support!

If Biden is not sure of Palestinian death count, fire White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients, responsible for managing intelligence flow to President!

Oct. 27

New York Times, The Consequences of Elon Musk’s Ownership of X, Steven Lee Myers, Stuart A. Thompson and Tiffany Hsu, Oct. 27, 2023. Dozens of studies of the platform formerly known as Twitter have shown a similar trend: an increase in harmful content during Mr. Musk’s tenure.

Now rebranded as X, the site has experienced a surge in racist, antisemitic and other hateful speech. Under Mr. Musk’s watch, millions of people have been exposed to misinformation about climate change. Foreign governments and operatives — from Russia to China to Hamas — have spread divisive propaganda with little or no interference.

Mr. Musk (shown above in a file photo) and his team have repeatedly asserted that such concerns are overblown, sometimes pushing back aggressively against people who voice them. Yet dozens of studies from multiple organizations have shown otherwise, demonstrating on issue after issue a similar trend: an increase in harmful content on X during Mr. Musk’s tenure.

The war between Israel and Hamas — the sort of major news event that once made Twitter an essential source of information and debate — has drowned all social media platforms in false and misleading information, but for Mr. Musk’s platform in particular the war has been seen as a watershed. The conflict has captured in full how much the platform has descended into the kind of site that Mr. Musk had promised advertisers he wanted to avoid on the day he officially took over.

“With disinformation about the Israel-Hamas conflict flourishing so dramatically on X, it feels that it crossed a line for a lot of people where they can see — beyond just the branding change — that the old Twitter is truly gone,” Tim Chambers of Dewey Square Group, a public affairs company that tracks social media, said in an interview. “And the new X is a shadow of that former self.”

• Going Deep With Russ Baker, Investigative Commentary: Time to Deal with Elon Musk as Chaos Agent #1, Russ Baker, founder of WhoWhatWhy, Oct. 15, 2023

Oct. 24

Fani Willis, left, is the district attorney for Atlanta-based Fulton County in Georgia. Her office has been probing since 2021 then-President Trump's claiming beginning in 2020 of election fraud in Georgia and elsewhere. Trump and his allies have failed to win support for their claims from Georgia's statewide election officials, who are Republican, or from courts.

New York Times, Jenna Ellis, Former Trump Lawyer, Pleads Guilty in Georgia Election Case, Richard Fausset and Danny Hakim, Oct. 24, 2023. Ms. Ellis agreed to cooperate fully with prosecutors as the case progressed against the former president and 15 remaining defendants.

Jenna Ellis, right, a Trump lawyer who pleaded guilty, was closely involved in efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Jenna Ellis, a pro-Trump lawyer who amplified former President Donald J. Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud as part of what she called a legal “elite strike force team,” pleaded guilty on Tuesday as part of a deal with prosecutors in Georgia.

Addressing a judge in an Atlanta courtroom, she tearfully expressed regret for taking part in efforts to keep Mr. Trump in power after he lost the 2020 election.

Ms. Ellis, 38, pleaded guilty to a charge of aiding and abetting false statements and writings, a felony. She is the fourth defendant to plead guilty in the Georgia case, which charged Mr. Trump and 18 others with conspiring to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Mr. Trump’s favor.

Ms. Ellis agreed to be sentenced to five years of probation, pay $5,000 in restitution and perform 100 hours of community service. She has already written an apology letter to the citizens of Georgia, and she agreed to cooperate fully with prosecutors as the case progresses.

Prosecutors struck plea deals last week with Kenneth Chesebro, an architect of the effort to deploy fake Trump electors in Georgia and other swing states, and Sidney Powell, an outspoken member of Mr. Trump’s legal team who spun wild conspiracy claims in the aftermath of the election.

The charges fall into several baskets. Several of the individual counts stem from false claims of election fraud that Giuliani and two other Trump lawyers made at legislative hearings in December 2020. Another batch of charges concerns a plan to vote for a false slate of pro-Trump electors. A third raft of charges accuses several Trump allies of conspiring to steal voter data and tamper with voting equipment in Coffee County, Ga.

Late last month, Scott Hall, a bail bondsman charged along with Ms. Powell with taking part in a breach of voting equipment and data at a rural Georgia county’s elections office, pleaded guilty in the case.

Fani T. Willis, the district attorney in Fulton County, Ga., obtained an indictment of the 19 defendants in August (shown above) on racketeering and other charges, alleging that they took part in a criminal enterprise that conspired to interfere with the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.

Ms. Ellis, unlike the other defendants who have pleaded guilty, asked the court to let her give a statement. She cried as she rose from the defense table and said, “As an attorney who is also a Christian, I take my responsibilities as a lawyer very seriously.”

She said that after Mr. Trump’s defeat in 2020, she believed that challenging the election results on his behalf should have been pursued in a “just and legal way.” But she said that she had relied on information provided by other lawyers, including some “with many more years of experience than I,” and failed to do her “due diligence” in checking the veracity of their claims.

“If I knew then what I know now, I would have declined to represent Donald Trump in these postelection challenges,” Ms. Ellis told Judge Scott McAfee, right, of Fulton County Superior Court. “I look back on this experience with deep remorse. For those failures of mine, your honor, I’ve taken responsibility already before the Colorado bar, who censured me, and I now take responsibility before this court and apologize to the people of Georgia.”

In March, Ms. Ellis admitted in a sworn statement in Colorado, her home state, that she had knowingly misrepresented the facts in several public claims that widespread voting fraud had occurred and had led to Mr. Trump’s defeat. Those admissions were part of an agreement Ms. Ellis made to accept public censure and settle disciplinary measures brought against her by state bar officials in Colorado.

Though she is still able to practice law in Colorado, the group that brought the original complaint against her, leading to the censure, said on Tuesday that new action would be coming.

“We do plan to file a new complaint in Colorado based on the guilty plea, so that the bar can assess the matter in light of her criminal conduct,” said Michael Teter, managing director of the 65 Project, a bipartisan legal watchdog group.

Ms. Ellis’s new misgivings about Mr. Trump and his refusal to accept his election loss were evident before her plea on Tuesday.

Last month, on her Christian broadcasting radio show, she called Mr. Trump “a friend” and added, “I have great love and respect for him personally.” But she said on the show that she could not support him politically again, because he displayed a “malignant narcissistic tendency to simply say that he’s never done anything wrong.”

Politico, As Trump glowers, Michael Cohen takes the stand against him, Erica Orden, Oct. 24, 2023. Cohen,shown above left in a file photo, testified that Donald Trump directed him to “reverse engineer” the value of Trump’s assets to inflate Trump’s net worth.

Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s onetime loyal aide turned vocal antagonist, took the witness stand Tuesday to testify against Trump in a $250 million civil fraud trial, telling the judge that the former president ordered Cohen to falsify financial documents.

In measured tones, Cohen testified that when he worked for Trump as his lawyer and fixer, Trump directed him to modify documents that represented Trump’s net worth so that they reflected the number Trump desired.

“I was tasked by Mr. Trump to increase the total assets based upon a number that he arbitrarily elected,” Cohen said, “and my responsibility, along with [former Trump Organization CFO] Allen Weisselberg, predominantly, was to reverse engineer the various different asset classes, increase those assets in order to achieve the number that Mr. Trump had tasked us.”

As Cohen delivered that testimony, Trump, who was seated at the defense table, grew red in the face and shook his head. Trump didn’t look at Cohen as he entered the courtroom, but as Cohen spoke on the witness stand, Trump trained his eyes on him and either crossed his arms or leaned forward over the defense table.
Trump calls Michael Cohen ‘a proven liar’ ahead of testimony

Cohen didn’t look at his former boss as he testified, instead directing his attention entirely to the lawyer from the New York attorney general’s office who was questioning him.

Cohen is one of the central witnesses in Attorney General Tish James’ case against Trump, which accuses him, his adult sons and his business associates of inflating his net worth in order to obtain favorable terms from banks and insurers.

Cohen’s testimony Tuesday marks a fresh front in his efforts to take down Trump after years of defending him. That defense ended five years ago, when Cohen pleaded guilty to federal campaign finance crimes that he and federal prosecutors said Trump directed him to commit, and Cohen began speaking publicly about his former boss as a coward and a “con man.”

Washington Post, Opinion: The Black prosecutors taking on Trump know what they’re up against, Paul Butler, right, Oct. 24, 2023 (print ed.). The former president pulls his racist tropes out of an old and deep American well.

Black prosecutors are having a moment in America.

Of the three prosecutors who have charged the former president of the United States with crimes this year, two of them — Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and Fulton County, Ga., District Attorney Fani T. Willis — are African American. On top of that, Letitia James, New York’s Black attorney general, is pursuing a civil fraud case with the potential to crush the Trump Organization.

These are historic cases, and the race of the people bringing them shouldn’t matter — except it clearly matters to Donald Trump, who has lambasted them all using racist dog whistles.

To be sure, as my Post colleague Aaron Blake has catalogued, the former president harbors no love for any investigator or prosecutor focused on him. But Trump reserves a particularly race-inflected venom for the Black government lawyers who threaten his liberty and wealth.

He called Bragg a “Soros-backed animal” and James a “political animal.” Quite a word, that. His nickname for James is “peekaboo,” which rhymes with a racist slur.

Trump never stops with the tropes. He lied that Willis was in a relationship with an alleged gang member she is prosecuting. In an email after Trump’s indictment in Fulton County, his campaign said that Willis came from “a family steeped in hate” and highlighted the fact that her first name is Swahili. Trump repeatedly attacks Bragg, Willis and James as “racists.”

Trump lawyers Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani hawking their false claims that they could prove election fraud caused Democratic nominee Joe Biden's presidential victory in 2020.

Washington Post, Analysis: It’s actually worse to overturn an election you know your side lost, Philip Bump, Oct. 24, 2023 (print ed.). Donald Trump wanted to make something very clear over the weekend: Attorney Sidney Powell, who last week pleaded guilty to charges filed against her in Fulton County, Ga., was not his attorney.

It’s a dubious claim, one that deserves the skepticism we should always apply to flat statements of fact from the former president. Powell was introduced with others as “representing President Trump” and “representing the Trump campaign” during the Rudy-Giuliani-hair-dye news conference in November 2020 (shown above) and cited attorney-client protections in response to an inquiry from Axios a few months later. Reporting has indicated that Trump not only appreciated Powell’s efforts to elevate false claims about election fraud in the weeks after the election, but also considered appointing her as special counsel to conduct some sort of investigation.

What Powell did that was problematic for Trump was that she was embarrassing. Her performance at that news conference was bizarre. Her inability to present any evidence despite the friendly urgings of Fox News spurred the channel to publicly chastise her failure to do so. In November 2020, Giuliani distanced the campaign from her; yet less than a month later, Trump was flirting with that special counsel appointment.

Contrast that with Kenneth Chesebro, another Trump lawyer who entered a guilty plea last week in Fulton County.

Over the weekend, his attorney, Scott Grubman, appeared on MSNBC to discuss the termination of the case against his client. Host Katie Phang noted that Chesebro had at one point been described as the “architect” of the effort to introduce alternate slates of electors in states Trump lost. Grubman disputed that, but also wanted to make another point clear.

“Mr. Chesebro never believed in the ‘big lie,’” he said of the false claim that Trump won the 2020 contest. “If you ask Mr. Chesebro today who won the 2020 election, he would say ‘Joe Biden.’”

But note that what Chesebro was “trying to do from a legal standpoint,” per Grubman, was shift the results of the 2020 election in favor of someone that he thought lost.

That is … not good.

Oct. 21

World Crisis Radio, Historical Commentary and Reform Agenda: Biden’s visit to Israel is act of statesmanship designed to ward off regional war, nuclear war, and domestic autogolpe, salvaging what can be salvaged to avoid the worst, Webster G. Tarpley, right, historian and commentator, Oct. 21, 2023 (132 mins.). Biden tells 22 million Americans that 2-state solution is necessary, Gaza occupation must be avoided and laws of war respected;

US once again the arsenal of democracy; Must avoid US mistakes of post-9/11; $106 billion in aid for Israel, Ukraine, border, and Taiwan; $100 million in humanitarian aid for Gaza, where partial lifting of blockade is expected for weekend;

Current administration is indispensable defense against fascism foreign and domestic;

How to hug Bibi so tightly he can’t follow warmonger demagogues Smotrich and Ben Gvir; Problems of weakened post-Arab Spring leaders dealing with mob rule in the Arab street; Loss of Abbas-Biden summit a tragedy;

Not clear how small Hamas or Islamic Jihad Qassam or Katyushka/Grad rockets could create the atrocity of Episcopal Hospital in Gaza; Publish the evidence and appoint an independent international commission if you want credibility; NBC recalls Israel’s tradition of lying about atrocities; Truce and end of blockade remain fundamental;

Lesson of Yom Kippur 1973, when nuclear war danger emerged just 18 days after fighting started is end the fighting before it spreads; We are now 15 days into current emergency; Cease-fire now!

In early outing against invaders, US ATACMs delivered to Ukraine destroy 25 helicopters in Berdiansk and Luhansk;

More news from inside a dying political machine: GOP congressmen enraged by death threats from backers of MAGA hooligan Gym Bag Jordan; he faces increased defections and is dumped as candidate by GOP caucus after third ballot; No MAGA fanatic can be tolerated just two heartbeats from presidency and no ally can trust him;

House rules are not a suicide pact: replace parliamentarian and/or reform rules to pass the June budget deal and emergency military aid; Try a discharge petition;

Trump’s legal defense front collapsing as Sidney Powell, Chesebro, and Michigan fake elector cop pleas to testify against Don; NY Justice Engeron, right, slaps MAGA boss with $5k fine, more to come over intimidating court personnel; Who will be next to defect from kamikaze mission?;

Will Gaza become the Sarajevo of the twenty-first century?

Oct. 16

Going Deep With Russ Baker, Investigative Commentary: Time to Deal with Elon Musk as Chaos Agent #1, Russ Baker, right, founder of WhoWhatWhy, author and  media critic, Oct. 15-16, 2023. Musk (shown above in a  file photo) may pay a big fine for willfully spreading lies — but the human cost in lives cannot be calculated.

The media has played into the image of Elon Musk as a loveable, wacky, brilliant guy.

This past week, it seems that the media, which has waffled for years, suddenly settled on just how bad and dangerous golden boy Elon Reeve Musk actually is.

As with Donald John Trump, the media screwed up big time, helping hype the brand, which in turn enabled Musk’s amassing of a far greater fortune and power. The merits of the companies he bought or started, while significant, have been far exceeded by the amount of hagiography heaped upon him.

Now, like Dr. Frankenstein, they regret their creation. And no wonder. Not only is Musk basically a destructive narcissist — he’s also a disinformation kingpin, a danger to domestic tranquility, to national security, and much, much more.

The evidence is voluminous, and may be familiar to you. Yet the details are well worth reviewing because, cumulatively, they show the evil purpose at hand.

“I Still Don’t Know What They’re Talking About!”

On October 10, in rapid response to disinformation Musk was putting out about the Hamas-Israel conflict that had just exploded, Thierry Breton, a commissioner with the European Union and author of the Digital Services Act (passed in 2022 to regulate social media content for the protection of the public), fired off a letter to Musk. He warned him that failing to moderate fake news on X could result in a fine of 6 percent of X’s revenues — or even an EU blackout of the social media platform altogether.

The fake news includes disinformation about the Hamas attack, including the posting of misrepresented and repurposed old images, and “military” footage that actually came from a video game. 

As he routinely does, a la Trump, when confronted about the bogus information pervading every inch of his site, Musk asks, in effect, “Huh?”

In response to the EU’, Musk feigned ignorance: “Please list the violations you allude to on X, so that the public can see them.”

Oct. 14

World Crisis Radio, Weekly Strategic Commentary: Gaza War must be immediately ended by ceasefire before the conflict spreads! Tell Bibi to cool it! Webster G. Tarpley, right, historian and commentator, Oct. 7, 2023 (127 mins.). This is lesson of Kippur War of October 1973, when Egyptian moves to end Sinai occupation took the world to the brink of thermonuclear World War III between US and Soviets!

Biden, Blinken, and Austin must impose respect for Geneva Convention and laws of warfare, which are compulsory for all nations;Israeli ultimatum to evacuate 1.1 million Palestinians to south Gaza is tantamount to genocide and must be rescinded, while lifting blockade on food, water, fuel, and medicine for 2.4 million people!

Blinken meets Palestinian Authority President Abbas in Amman; Bibi has for years built up Hamas crazies to sabotage moderate and constructive PLO;

US government must make 600 Palestinian-Americans and c. 20 US hostages in Gaza top priority; Smotrich doctrine of cruelty and contempt for lives of hostages must be formally repudiated;

Netanyahu is dishonest, devious intriguer who has long sought to dupe US into catastrophic war with Iran; Bibi is obsessed with preventing peace settlement, including Palestinian state under Abbas and PLO; Bibi has sacrificed national unity to stay out of jail; He is pro-Trump, anti-Biden, and utterly unprincipled; His aggression is a threat to Biden’s re-election!

Last week’s war crimes by Hamas terrorist killers are rapidly being eclipsed in infamy by this week’s war crimes by Netanyahu; International anarchy could supplant the UN Charter and Geneva Conventions to the advantage of aggressors Putin over Ukraine and Xi over Taiwan;

Bibi’s planned Gaza bloodbath will enrage Arab public opinion across the world, impelling Iran to unleash Hezbollah against Israel with 100,000 fighters and 150,000 missiles; Netanyahu will then demand US unleash catastrophic war (possibly nuclear) against Tehran; Putin and Xi will pick up the pieces; Israel bombs Damascus and Aleppo airports, skirmishes with Hezbollah:

Netanyahu’s failures of intelligence and readiness have decimated his base of support: 24 IDF battalions were deployed on West Bank to repress PLO, but only 6 battalions defended against Hamas;

On Friday evening Oct. 7, IDF and Shin Beth execs got signs of suspicious activity by Hamas, but decided NOT to put the Gaza front on alert (Axios); On Saturday, Norm Ornstein tweeted that Netanyahu had danger signals but did nothing; Late Friday night, Israeli intel monitored an upsurge of Hamas chatter and sent an alert to Israelis near Gaza, but no action ensued-Israeli relied on Bibi’s high-tech superfence, which proved fatally vulnerable to drone attack (NYT); Hamas conducted public dress rehearsal of destroying a border gate and attacking nearby towns and IDF posts, which was posted Sept. 12 (The Hill); Based on data from Israel, US intelligence issued three warnings of possible Hamas escalation between Sept. 28 and Oct. 6 (CNN);

Netanyahu’s quest for dictatorship via the courts had created a powerful mass movement for his ouster during 2023; He may have reasoned that a only shocking defeat and war emergency might help him retain power; This was the approach of France’s Marshal Petain, who used military defeat by Nazis to create the Vichy fascist dictatorship in May-June 1940;

Will Gaza become the Sarajevo of the twenty-first century?

New York Times, Analysis: Past Is Prologue in the Republican Speaker Fight, Carl Hulse, Oct. 14, 2023 (print ed.). The current chaos is not the first time Republicans have found themselves rocked by a vacancy at the top.

The House speaker had been unceremoniously dumped by colleagues unhappy with his performance and overly optimistic political predictions. Those who would typically be considered next in line had made too many enemies to be able to secure the necessary numbers to take his place. The House was in utter chaos as bombs fell in the Middle East.

Today’s relentless Republican turmoil over the House speakership has striking parallels to the tumult of 1998, when House G.O.P. lawmakers were also feuding over who would lead them at a crucial period.

Then as now, personal vendettas and warring factions drove an extraordinary internal party fight that threw the House into chaos. The saga had multiple twists and turns as Republicans cycled through would-be speakers in rapid succession — just as the G.O.P. did this week. And in the end, they settled on a little-known congressman as a compromise choice.

It’s not clear how the current speaker drama will end; Republicans left Washington on Friday after nominating their second candidate for speaker of the week, Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, with plans to return on Tuesday for a vote but no certainty that he could be elected.

Back in 1998, Republicans moved swiftly to fill their power vacuum in just one day, unlike the present situation, where they have let unrest fester for more than a week while struggling to overcome deep internal divisions and anoint a new leader.

“That was pretty chaotic,” said Representative Harold Rogers, the Kentucky Republican who was already a veteran lawmaker at the time and is now the dean of the House as its longest-serving member. “But it didn’t last very long.”are eyeing impeachment charges of bribery and abuse of power against President Biden. But so far, they have struggled to provide proof of wrongdoing.

Both dramas began when a Republican speaker lost the faith of some key colleagues. Hard-right Republicans precipitated their party’s current crisis by forcing out Representative Kevin McCarthy of California from the speaker post as punishment for working with Democrats to avert a government shutdown. Twenty-five years ago, Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Georgia Republican whose closest allies were turning on him, announced he would not run again for speaker.

Mr. Gingrich, whose scorched-earth tactics had returned Republicans to the majority in 1995 after four decades in the minority wilderness, was finally burned himself after predicting Republican gains in that November’s elections, only to lose seats.

Representative Richard K. Armey of Texas, who held the same majority leader position then as Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana does today, was a potential replacement, as was Representative Tom DeLay, the powerful No. 3 Republican whip who was also from Texas. But both had political baggage likely to keep them from the top job, and Mr. Armey faced a fight just to remain in the No. 2 slot.

Neither even bothered going through the motions of seeking their party’s nomination, as Mr. Scalise did successfully on Wednesday — only to discover quickly that he lacked the support to be elected, leading to his abrupt withdrawal.

“Both of them were toxic, and they knew it,” Fred Upton, the recently retired moderate Republican from Michigan who was in the House at the time, said of Mr. Armey and Mr. DeLay.

Sensing an opportunity, Robert Livingston, an ambitious Louisiana Republican who commanded a solid bloc of supporters as chairman of the Appropriations Committee, jumped into the speaker’s race and cleared the field. He won the Republican nomination without opposition in mid-November.

Mr. Livingston went about setting up his new leadership operation as Republicans plunged ahead with the impeachment of President Bill Clinton growing out of his relationship with a White House intern. Many Republicans believed the impeachment push had cost them in the just-concluded election, but pursuing Mr. Clinton was a priority of Mr. DeLay, whose nickname was the Hammer, and he was not one to be deterred.

Then Saturday, Dec. 19, arrived, with the House set to consider articles of impeachment even as Mr. Clinton had ordered airstrikes against Iraq over suspected weapons violations — an action that Republicans accused him of taking to stave off impeachment.

Mr. Livingston, who had not yet assumed the speakership but was playing a leadership role, rose on the floor to urge Mr. Clinton to resign and spare the nation a divisive impeachment fight. But Mr. Livingston himself had acknowledged extramarital affairs a few days earlier to his colleagues. Democrats began shouting “no, no, no” as he spoke.

“You resign,” shouted Representative Maxine Waters, Democrat of California. “You resign.”

To the amazement of everyone present, Mr. Livingston did just that, saying that he would set an example for the president and that he would not run for speaker. The House was stunned as lawmakers absorbed the news — similar to the surreal atmosphere last week when it became clear that Mr. McCarthy would be removed as speaker after hard-right Republicans moved to oust him and eight of them joined Democrats in pushing through a motion to vacate the chair.

Oct.  13

 Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) leaves the House chamber after being voted out as speaker on Tuesday in Washington (Washington Post photo by Jabin Botsford).

Politico Magazine, Analysis: Republican Chaos Has Conservative Media Fuming. It’s Their Fault It Happened, Brian Rosenwald, Oct. 13, 2023 (print ed.). Brian Rosenwald is director of the Red and Blue Exchange at the University of Pennsylvania, senior editor of Made by History, and author of "Talk Radio’s America: How an Industry Took Over a Political Party That Took Over the United States."

Talk radio and Fox News hosts created the political incentives that fueled Kevin McCarthy’s ouster and today’s speakership drama.

Rep. Matt Gaetz is a “POS demagogue” for orchestrating the ouster of Kevin McCarthy from the speakership, a man who “repeatedly” lied to conservatives and, perhaps worst of all, is the “favorite Republican of the Democrat Party and their media.” Harsh words from conservative talk radio and cable news host Mark Levin.

Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade recently laid into another one of the GOP mutineers, Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.), to start off a stunningly confrontational interview: “You were one of the eight. Speaker McCarthy had 96 percent approval rating. But that wasn’t good enough for you. Do you feel good enough about your vote?”

And then there was Jeanine Pirro announcing twice that she was “furious” on Fox’s The Five, adding, “You’ve got the Republicans going out there and showing how dysfunctional they are as Matt Gaetz is engaging in fundraising.”

But the truth is that angry conservative media hosts have only themselves to blame for McCarthy’s downfall and the disarray currently facing House Republicans.

The leaders of conservative talk radio and cable news have spent years assailing GOP congressional leaders — including McCarthy — and they are largely responsible for turning far-right rebels like Gaetz into stars. Going back to the 1990s, conservative media created the political ecosystem in which torching and targeting Republican leaders is good politics on the right. And they’ve ensured that the next speaker, whether it’s Steve Scalise or someone else, will face the same poisonous incentive structure that took down McCarthy.

Oct. 9

Washington Post, As false war information spreads on X, Musk promotes unvetted accounts, Joseph Menn, Oct. 9, 2023. Information researchers said that the new outbreak of violence between Israel and Hamas is an early test of how the revamped X conveys accurate data during a major crisis.

As false information about the rapidly changing war between Gaza Strip militants and Israel proliferated on the social media platform X over the weekend, owner Elon Musk, shown aboce,  personally recommended that users follow accounts notorious for promoting lies.

“For following the war in real-time, @WarMonitors & @sentdefender are good,” Musk posted on the platform formerly called Twitter on Sunday morning to 150 million follower accounts. That post was viewed 11 million times in three hours, drawing thanks from those two accounts, before Musk deleted it.

Both were among the most important early spreaders of a false claim in May that there had been an explosion near the White House. The Dow Jones Industrial Average stock index briefly dropped 85 points before that story was debunked.

Emerson T. Brooking, a researcher at the Atlantic Council Digital Forensics Research Lab, posted that @sentdefender is an “absolutely poisonous account. regularly posting wrong and unverifiable things … inserting random editorialization and trying to juice its paid subscriber count.”

The War Monitor account has argued with others over Israel and religion, posting a year ago that “the overwhelming majority of people in the media and banks are zionists” and telling a correspondent in June to “go worship a jew lil bro.”

Information researchers said that the new conflict was an early test of how the revamped X conveys accurate data during a major crisis, and that the immediate impression was poor.

“Anecdotal evidence that X is failing this stress test is plentiful,” said Mike Caulfield, a research scientist at the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public. “Go on the platform, do a search on Israel or Gaza — you don’t have to scroll very far to find dubious or debunked information.”

Oct. 8

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and others testify on censorship and free speech before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Weaponization of the Federal Government. Photo credit: C-SPAN

Politico, RFK Jr.’s Ultimate Vanity Project, David Freedlander, Oct. 7, 2023. How a deep sense of persecution and a taste for conspiracy have coalesced into a campaign about censorship that matters to almost no Democratic voters.

The Bowery Hotel on the Lower East Side of Manhattan is the place where Hollywood stars and rock royalty stay when in New York. Courtney Love, Rihanna, Taylor Swift and Kendall Jenner have all been spotted at one time or another traipsing past its heavily lacquered and dimly lit lobby.

Sitting on the highest floor one Wednesday in May, out on the terrace off his penthouse hotel room and using the arms of his eyeglasses to stir a ginger-lime-pear-and-celery green juice that was brought up by room service is Robert F. Kennedy Jr., son of the late New York senator, environmental lawyer, vaccine skeptic and then surprisingly strong challenger to Joe Biden for the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination.

Kennedy is building his campaign around the argument that the American people in 2023 are being systematically gagged by their government and their handmaidens on social media and in the mainstream press.

The air was heavy; Kennedy and I had spoken a few weeks before, and it ended badly. The man has an almost inhuman ability — or compulsion — to talk, and he called me one Sunday afternoon as he was hiking in the canyons behind his Brentwood, California, home. More than two hours later, he was asking if I agreed with him on the threat government censorship had on American life. As I wracked my brain to think of concrete examples of the federal government actually prohibiting or punishing people for speaking, he took my silence for acquiescence.

“I can tell you are not troubled,” he said. “To me, that is just really shocking. I thought you were supposed to be a journalist.”

In order to change the subject from my failures as a reporter and as a human being, I asked him if he remembered where he was during the afternoon of Jan. 6.

“What do you think is more dangerous,” he responded. “The censorship by the government of Americans who disagree with its policies or Jan. 6?”

I tried to point out that there really is no government censorship as commonly defined — that the government neither really coerces nor threatens private citizens or businesses. As for his complaint that the government sometimes flags information on social media platforms as incorrect, after which those platforms remove certain posts, I suggested that presumably the government has as much right to flag suspect content as any other entity, that no one was being killed or imprisoned for their statements or their views and that in fact there were more avenues to reach more people now than ever before. I said that not only did people die on Jan. 6 but a mob tried to murder a sitting vice president and members of Congress in a bid to disrupt the lawful transfer of power, but Kennedy cut me off.

“Jan. 6 was an attack on a building,” he said. “And we have lots of layers of government behind that building.”

Kennedy has built his campaign around this argument: that the American people in 2023 — perhaps the most lavishly platformed population in any society in human history — are being systematically gagged by their government and its handmaidens on social media and in the mainstream press. For Kennedy, censorship isn’t just about punishing speech, or even pressuring opponents into silence. It also means decisions by private actors — including those who control social media and the press and other gateways to public debate — who limit what can be said on their own platforms.

Like many people from both the right and the left who rail against censorship, Kennedy’s views on the matter tend to align with his political incentives and don’t particularly cohere. He talks a lot about the need to express himself on social media, but little, for example, about limits some school districts are placing on books in their library or what college professors can teach. Still, it is this question of censorship, even more than his widely discredited anti-vaccine work, or arguments against Covid-era public health measures, or his long and estimable career as an environmental lawyer, or his equally long crusade against a government which he says is willfully deceiving the people it claims to serve, that is the true cornerstone of his run for president. This is so because it is the thing Kennedy talks about that he has enfolded everything else within. What is the debate around vaccines, after all, if not a debate about who gets to say what where, and what kind of information has the imprimatur of truth and science associated with it?

The problem for him is that no one much seems to care. When we spoke in April, Kennedy was a novelty act, someone who, after half a century as an activist and author and repeated entreaties to run for office, had finally jumped into politics. For a moment, it looked as if Kennedy would make a dent. He was polling as high as 20 percent in some polls — higher, he liked to point out, than Ron DeSantis — and was generating media buzz and a lot of attention, especially from the type of Silicon Valley edgelords who were recently part of a cohort thought to be the progressive vanguard in American politics, and who, it should be said, have more influence on what is permissible on social media than probably anybody else.

Now, some five months later, Kennedy, left, is still a novelty. Polls show that Biden could have been vulnerable to the right kind of primary challenge, but Kennedy has never attempted that kind of primary challenge. He has managed to squander a healthy chunk of that early polling bump, settling just under 15 percent. And he appears set to bolt the party that has been synonymous with the Kennedy family and launch an independent bid, arguing once again that the powers that be — in this case the Democratic National Committee — are effectively silencing him again by not scheduling any debates with the incumbent president, and rigging the game against him by backing Biden instead of acting as neutral arbiters in the process.

Former Trump National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, anti-vax activists Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Charlene Bollinger, and longtime Trump ally and advisor Roger Stone, left to right, backstage at a July 2021 Reawaken America event. The photo was posted but later removed by Bollinger, who has appeared with Kennedy at multiple events. She and her husband sponsored an anti-vaccine, pro-Trump rally near the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Bollinger celebrated the attack and her husband tried to enter the Capitol. Kennedy later appeared in a video for their Super PAC. Kennedy has repeatedly invoked Nazis and the Holocaust when talking about measures aimed at mitigating the spread of COVID-19, such as mask requirements and vaccine mandates. Kennedy, who has announced a presidential campaign for 2024, has at times invoked his family’s legacy in his anti-vaccine work, including sometimes using images of President Kennedy.

And so Kennedy has become every conservative pundit’s favorite Democrat (in part, although Kennedy seems not to acknowledge this, because he is taking on an incumbent Democrat) — hosted by the likes of Tucker Carlson (“He is the only guy talking about the First Amendment,” Kennedy says of him) and Bari Weiss, invited by Republicans to testify to Congress in a hearing this summer about the federal government censoring Americans on social media (“We appreciate your willingness to fight for the First Amendment,” said Republican chair and Donald Trump attack dog Jim Jordan) and boosted by Steve Bannon and others in Trump’s orbit (“I would go on his podcast if my wife would let me,” Kennedy told me).

But even as Kennedy attempts to broaden his reach as an independent, there is little indication that this is an issue that ranks at all among the concerns of most voters. (In fact, most Americans agree the government and social media companies should restrict false or violent information online.) Crime and the economy are still the top two issues for most voters, a fact that Kennedy mostly just shrugs at.

“It is part of my job to remind Americans about what is important in this country,” he told me. And if, after they are reminded of his crusade, they just sort of shrug? Well, “they ought to care,” he said. “That is one of the missions of my campaign, to make censorship important to people.”

He unleashes a torrent of stats and information about the pandemic far too fast to permit any kind of fact-check, threads together vast conspiracies of government figures doing the bidding of their corporate pay-masters, says that Vitamin D supplements are superior to the Covid shot, insists he has been proven right by everything (“Tell me one thing I got wrong,” he says) and can’t believe how you have been fed lies about the cover-up involving the conspiracy to kill both his father and his uncle.

“Everything you are saying is wrong. The evidence is so voluminous, you just don’t know about it, and you really need to ask yourself why that is,” he said to me when we first spoke in April. “All you are doing is repeating the narrative that is, of course, supported by the New York Times. You are walking around in a sleep state right now.”

This feeling, that he wasn’t being properly heard and considered, and that so-called experts were dismissing him, is not a new one for Kennedy. In 2014, Kennedy wrote a book titled Thimerosal: Let the Science Speak, which picked up on an argument Kennedy made in a 2005 article co-published in both Salon and Rolling Stone which alleged that childhood vaccines caused autism. The article was so error-ridden — including by vastly overstating the amount of mercury in vaccines, conflating ethylmercury with methylmercury, misattributing quotes and getting basic factual details wrong — that it received five major corrections within days of publication, and in 2011 was retracted entirely by Salon, which could no longer stand by the piece.

The reviews didn’t slow down his reach; Kennedy published six books in the eight years after Thimerosal was released, including a defense of his cousin, Michael Skakel, who was convicted for the 1975 murder of his Greenwich, Connecticut, neighbor. (Kennedy fingers two teens of color from the Bronx as the real killers, saying they were “obsessed” with the neighbor’s “beautiful blonde hair,” and daring the men to sue him if they were wrong; they say they do not have the money to mount a suit. Skakel was released in 2013 when a judge ruled that his lawyer had not provided an adequate defense. In 2016, the state Supreme Court reinstated his conviction, then reversed itself again in 2018.) Much more recently, and more sensationally, he published The Real Anthony Fauci, which even a sympathetic reviewer in the conservative Claremont Review of Books found so wrong on its facts and contradictory in its claims as to be entirely without merit, a book that “will be of very little use to future historians, except as an example of the strain of extreme paranoia that is an ineradicable, but not admirable, part of human nature in response to crisis.”

Even Kennedy’s booting from Instagram was at best an only partial cancellation. He was still publishing books, after all, still selling them on Amazon and still giving speeches. He was even still on Twitter and Facebook. No matter. He was now a member of the Rebel Alliance, linking arms with all those cast out from polite society, to say nothing of Democratic Party politics, the True King of Canceled Mountain preparing to exact revenge on those stuffed shirts who kicked him into the wilderness in the first place.

It was this experience, as much as anything that had happened to him previously, that has powered Kennedy’s presidential campaign. Over the last several years, there has been an explosion in an alternative ecosystem of content that caters to those with the very specific views on public health, the pandemic and censorship that Kennedy has. He told me that much as John F. Kennedy used the then-new medium of television to boost his presidential campaign, he intends to do the same with this still-nascent form of social media. In this sense, he says, getting kicked off Instagram was a blessing.

When reviewers panned his earlier books, and magazines retracted his articles, Kennedy said those who did it were misinformed, and in some cases, were in league with powerful forces determined to suppress the truth, but what he didn’t say was that he was being “censored.” It took Covid for that.

Prior to Covid, tech companies had been reluctant to restrict who could say what on their platforms. Threats made by users with smaller followings were dealt with more harshly than when threats were issued by, say, the president of the United States, under the guise that statements by the latter at least had news value. It is hard to remember now, but before 2016, tech companies were seen as havens of progressive politics, their users skewed left, and the platforms themselves were seen as vehicles of democratization, pluralization and openness.

An attempt by Russia, a foreign adversary, to use those platforms to elect Trump made its leaders skittish about their commitment to open debate. It isn’t cutting tech billionaires and the platforms they operate an unfair amount of slack to imagine that in the midst of a global pandemic, the goal of balancing the desire for free speech and a vigorous exchange of ideas ran up against a need to not have people with large platforms recite information so wrong that it could not only kill people but could leave society grappling with a pandemic longer than it needed to.

This is not slack that Kennedy is willing to cut them, however, and it is not slack that they are willing to cut themselves. Some of Kennedy’s most prominent supporters are the people who made billions on building those platforms and who now echo Kennedy in his complaint of them, among them Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, current X owner Elon Musk, Facebook executive Chamath Palihapitiya, who in 2017 said the social media site was ripping society apart, and David Sacks, an early investor in PayPal, Facebook and Twitter who now says that the tech companies hold too much power in American life.

Kennedy’s take is similarly schizophrenic. On the one hand, censorship is the greatest threat facing the republic; on the other, YouTube, Apple podcasts, X, Instagram and the like are private companies, and he says, are free to kick him off anytime they want. When I asked him if platforms had the right to remove Alex Jones, which they did in 2018 for glorifying violence, inciting hatred, bullying and hate speech after Jones had spent years calling for the harassment of Sandy Hook families as crisis actors, Kennedy said he didn’t know anything about it. “For what? What did he say?”

As for Tucker Carlson, who was repeatedly accused of encouraging acts of violence against specific people, Kennedy said, “I am not familiar with that. I don’t agree with everything Tucker says by any means, but by the way he had the biggest audience on TV, and he was the only guy talking about the First Amendment.”

What about Russia using social media platforms to hack the 2016 election?

“I don’t know. What is your take on it? Wasn’t a lot of this sort of debunked in the Durham Report? I can’t speak with any authority about it. I haven’t delved into it.”

And what would a President Kennedy do if a foreign adversary attempted a similar attack on our election again?

“I tell you what you don’t do, what you don’t do is censor,” he said. “The solution to bad information is more information. Everybody knows that they are being censored and that the government is trying to hide information from them, so they stop trusting in anything,” he said. “You can point to information and you say, ‘This is a sworn enemy of ours and they are trying to rig the election.’ You say, ‘Mr. Trump, will you please disavow that?’”

And if he doesn’t?

“Well then, that’s fine,” he said. “That’s his problem if he refuses to acknowledge it.”

Oct. 7

World Crisis Radio, Weekly Strategic Commentary: With fall of Qevin, MAGA death rattle grinds on amid orgy of chaos and anarchy! Webster G. Tarpley, right, historian and commentator, Oct. 7, 2023 (130:32 mins). Republican Party has no platform or unifying ideology and thus stands for absolutely nothing, leaving it a mere battlefield for rival gangs;

Democrats should ready a rapid maneuver to secure 6-8 GOP votes to install Hakeem Jeffries as Speaker on a reform program;

US public will not tolerate a Speaker who voted for Trump’s coup, enabled pedophiles, or supported white supremacy groups; Mobilize XIV Amendment NOW to stop Trump as Speaker of the House today and presidential candidate later;

Origins of Gaetz’s pseudo-reforms: single-subject spending bills are straight out of Confederate Constitution of 1861; Motion by a single member to oust Speaker recalls the practice of exploding the Polish parliament, when one disgruntled petty nobleman could veto a law or even send everyone home for a few years;

Models of extinction for political parties in US history:

For degenerate plutocratic Federalists, end came through New England secessionism after the 1815 Hartford Convention; Monroe enabled an Era of Good Feelings as Federalists collapsed and disappeared;

Whigs disintegrated after splitting over the odious Fugitive Slave Law in the Compromise of 1850 and losing the 1852 election with Winfield Scott;

Xenophobic Knownothings evaporated after losing the 1856 vote with Filmore over Douglas’ squatter sovereignty and the Kansas-Nebraska Act; The 1857 Dred Scott decision and the rise of the Republicans completed the rout;

MAGA GOP spreads chaos in House with Gaetz and the anti-Ukraine clique, in the Senate with Tuberville’s sabotage of miliary personnel, and in the Supreme Court with the corruption of Thomas, Alito, and others;

Voting rights, abortion, gun control, Ukraine, student loan debt, immigration, public health, minimum wage, the social safety net, public education, low-income housing, law and order: whatever your issue, real solutions must always include liquidating the Republican Party!

Breaking: How will RFK Jr. and Cornel West respond to Russia’s latest war crime, the massacre of Ukrainian civilians at Hroza? Will it be more appeasement?

 Oct. 6

Documents being stored at indicted former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago complex in Florida according to a Department of Justice indictment unsealed on June 9, 2023 (Photo via Associated Press).

New York Times, Trump Is Said to Have Revealed Nuclear Submarine Secrets, Alan Feuer, Ben Protess, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, Oct. 6, 2023 (print ed.). Soon after leaving office, former President Trump is said to have shared information with an Australian businessman, a billionaire Mar-a-Lago member.

Shortly after he left office, former President Donald J. Trump shared apparently classified information about American nuclear submarines with an Australian businessman during an evening of conversation at Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence in Florida, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The businessman, Anthony Pratt, a billionaire member of Mar-a-Lago who runs one of the world’s largest cardboard companies, went on to share the sensitive details about the submarines with several others, the people said. Mr. Trump’s disclosures, they said, potentially endangered the U.S. nuclear fleet.

Federal prosecutors working for the special counsel, Jack Smith, learned about Mr. Trump’s disclosures of the secrets to Mr. Pratt, which were first revealed by ABC News, and interviewed him as part of their investigation into the former president’s handling of classified documents, the people said.

According to another person familiar with the matter, Mr. Pratt is now among more than 80 people whom prosecutors have identified as possible witnesses who could testify against Mr. Trump at the classified documents trial, which is scheduled to start in May in Federal District Court in Fort Pierce, Fla.

Mr. Pratt’s name does not appear in the indictment accusing Mr. Trump of illegally holding on to nearly three dozen classified documents after he left office and then conspiring with two of his aides at Mar-a-Lago to obstruct the government’s attempts to get them back.

But the account that Mr. Trump discussed some of the country’s most sensitive nuclear secrets with him in a cavalier fashion could help prosecutors establish that the former president had a long habit of recklessly handling classified information.

Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary: Trump's treason, Wayne Madsen, left, author of 24 books and former Navy Intelligence officer, Oct. 6, 2023. House Republicans eye Speaker's chair for Trump. That's not the chair he should get!

According to ABC News, after leaving office, Donald Trump disclosed Critical Nuclear Weapons Design Information (CNWDI) on the number of nuclear weapons carried by U.S. submarines, as well as acoustic intelligence information on how close U.S. submarines can approach Russian submarines without being detected.

As a former Integrated Undersea Surveillance System warfare specialist in the Navy, I can attest to the seriousness of Trump's damage to national security.

And here is a reminder of what fate has awaited such treasonous action in the past (a fate urged on in this case by Trump's one-time lawyer, Roy Cohn, shown in a later photo with Trump via Getty Images).

September

Sept. 30

World Crisis Radio, Weekly Strategic Commentary: MAGA faction sinks into abyss of collective insanity, with party extinction fast approaching! Webster G. Tarpley, right, historian and commentator, Sept. 30, 2023 (148:38 mins.). Trump horrifies nation with call to execute Gen. Milley for disloyalty to him; First session of Comer’s impeachment probe dissolves amid guffaws;

Biden speech at McCain Library is clarion call for the defense of constitutional democracy, with direct attacks on MAGA boss: ”Trump says the Constitution gave him the right to do whatever he wants as president”;

President sets new aggressive tone for coming year of campaigning; Biden now joins FDR as the two most pro-labor presidents in US history; At Milley’s retirement, Biden slams Tuberville’s ”outrageous” sabotage of military promotions; In farewell to arms, Milley joins in stressing Constitution as touchstone of American life, noting that American soldiers swear oath neither to a dictator nor to a ”wannabe dictator”;

Looming expropriation of fraudulent oligarch could have ramifications in many directions; Voters should brace for further tantrums;
As shutdown looms, 21 crazed House sectarians torpedo McCarthy’s short-term spending bill with 30% spending cuts, demanding even more killer austerity; Trump wants shutdown to promote chaos, paralyze courts, and smash the state;

MAGA on the wrong side of history: violent reactionary anarchists seek to roll back modern state into dark ages oligarchy, aborting process that began in Italy in 1300s; UAW President Fain starts long-overdue discussion of class as auto workers fight for labor rights;

Breaking: WaPo reports anti-McCarthy putsch plot by MAGA extremists to install Majority Whip Tom Emmer, seen as more likely to deliver killer cuts

Sept. 29

Politico, Musk ousts X team curbing election disinformation, Clothilde Goujard, Sept. 29, 2023. The announcement comes after EU digital chief Vera Jourová criticized the social media company over rampant falsehoods on its platform.

Elon Musk, above, the owner of X (formerly Twitter) said overnight that a global team working on curbing disinformation during elections had been dismissed — a mere two days after being singled out by the EU's digital chief as the online platform with the most falsehoods.

Responding to reports about cuts, the tech mogul said on X, "Oh you mean the 'Election Integrity' Team that was undermining election integrity? Yeah, they’re gone."

Several Ireland-based staff working on a threat-disruption team — including senior manager Aaron Rodericks — were allegedly fired this week, according to tech media outlet The Information. Rodericks has, however, secured a court order halting disciplinary action over allegedly liking tweets critical of the company, according to Irish media.

Vice President Vera Jourová this week warned that EU-supported research showed that X had become the platform with the largest ratio of posts containing misinformation or disinformation. The company under Musk left the European Commission's anti-disinformation charter in late May after failing its first test.

Jourová also urged tech companies to prepare for numerous national and European elections in the coming months, especially given the “particularly serious" risk that Russia will seek to meddle in them. Slovakia will hold its parliamentary election on Saturday. Poland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands will also head to the polls in the coming weeks.

X must comply with the EU's content rules, the Digital Services Act (DSA), which requires large tech platforms with over 45 million EU users to mitigate the risks of disinformation campaigns. Failure to follow the rulebook could lead to sweeping fines of up to 6 percent of companies' global annual revenue.

Sept. 27

The late financier, sex trafficker of underage victims, companion and advisor to the powerful, and philanthropist Jeffrey Epstein is show in a collage with scenes from the island in the Caribbean he owned before his death in prison

Washington Post, JPMorgan agrees to $75 million settlement over ties to Jeffrey Epstein, Aaron Gregg, Sept. 27, 2023 (print ed.). JPMorgan Chase will pay $75 million to resolve a lawsuit with the U.S. Virgin Islands alleging it facilitated disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking operation.

The banking giant admitted no wrongdoing under the terms of the settlement, a large portion of which will be distributed to charities. It also sets aside $10 million to support mental health services for Epstein’s survivors.
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“This settlement is a historic victory for survivors and for state enforcement, and it should sound the alarm on Wall Street about banks’ responsibilities under the law to detect and prevent human trafficking,” USVI attorney general Ariel Smith said in a statement.

Smith also said JPMorgan agreed to “implement and maintain meaningful anti-trafficking measures,” which includes a commitment to elevate and report suspicious activity in the future.

Sept. 26

New York Times, Judge Finds Trump Inflated Property Values, a Win for N.Y. Attorney General, Jonah E. Bromwich and Ben Protess, Sept. 26, 2023. The decision will simplify the path for Attorney General Letitia James, who has accused former President Trump of overvaluing his holdings by as much as $2.2 billion.

A New York judge ruled on Tuesday that Donald J. Trump persistently committed fraud by inflating the value of his assets, and stripped the former president of control over some of his signature New York properties.

The decision by Justice Arthur F. Engoron, right, is a major victory for Attorney General Letitia James in her lawsuit against Mr. Trump, effectively deciding that no trial was needed to determine that he had fraudulently secured favorable terms on loans and insurance deals.

Ms. James has argued that Mr. Trump inflated the value of his properties by as much as $2.2 billion and is seeking a penalty of about $250 million in a trial scheduled to begin as early as Monday.

Justice Engoron wrote that the documents in the case “clearly contain fraudulent valuations that defendants used in business.”

While the trial will determine the size of the penalty, Justice Engoron’s ruling granted one of the biggest punishments Ms. James sought: the cancellation of business certificates that allow some of Mr. Trump’s New York properties to operate, a move that could have major repercussions for the Trump family business.

The decision will not dissolve Mr. Trump’s entire company, but it sought to terminate his control over a flagship commercial property at 40 Wall Street in Lower Manhattan and a family estate in Westchester County. Mr. Trump might also lose control over his other New York properties, including Trump Tower in Midtown Manhattan, though that will likely be fought over in coming months.

Justice Engoron’s decision narrows the issues that will be heard at trial, deciding that the core of Ms. James’s case was valid. It represents a major blow to Mr. Trump, whose lawyers had sought to persuade the judge to throw out many claims against the former president.

In his order, Justice Engoron wrote scathingly about Mr. Trump’s defenses, saying that the former president and the other defendants, including his two adult sons and his company, ignored reality when it suited their business needs. “In defendants’ world,” he wrote, “rent-regulated apartments are worth the same as unregulated apartments; restricted land is worth the same as unrestricted land; restrictions can evaporate into thin air.”

“That is a fantasy world, not the real world,” he added.

The judge also levied sanctions on Mr. Trump’s lawyers for making arguments that he previously rejected. He ordered each to pay $7,500, noting that he had previously warned them that the arguments in question bordered on being frivolous.

Repeating them was “indefensible,” Justice Engoron wrote.

Mr. Trump still has an opportunity to delay the trial, or even gut the case. Mr. Trump has sued Justice Engoron himself, and an appeals court is expected to rule this week on his lawsuit. But if the appeals court rules against him, Mr. Trump will have to fight the remainder of the case at trial.

Sept. 25

New York Times, Analysis: The Wrecking-Ball Caucus: How the Far Right Brought Washington to Its Knees, Carl Hulse, Sept. 25, 2023 (print ed.). Far-right Republicans are sowing mass dysfunction, and spoiling for a shutdown, an impeachment, a House coup and a military blockade.

When it comes to his view of the United States government, Representative Bob Good, a right-wing Republican who represents a Virginia district that was once the domain of Thomas Jefferson, doesn’t mince words.

“Most of what Congress does is not good for the American people,” Mr. Good declared in an interview off the House floor as the chamber descended into chaos last week. “Most of what we do as a Congress is totally unjustified.”

Though his harsh assessment is a minority opinion even among his Republican colleagues, it encapsulates the perspective that is animating the hard right on Capitol Hill and, increasingly, defining a historically dysfunctional moment in American politics.

With a disruptive government shutdown just days away, Washington is in the grip of an ultraconservative minority that sees the federal government as a threat to the republic, a dangerous monolith to be broken apart with little regard for the consequences. They have styled themselves as a wrecking crew aimed at the nation’s institutions on a variety of fronts.

They are eager to impeach the president and even oust their own speaker if he doesn’t accede to their every demand. They have refused to allow their own party to debate a Pentagon spending bill or approve routine military promotions — a striking posture given that unflinching support for the armed forces has long been a bedrock of Republican orthodoxy.

Defying the G.O.P.’s longstanding reputation as the party of law and order, they have pledged to handcuff the F.B.I. and throttle the Justice Department. Members of the party of Ronald Reagan refused to meet with a wartime ally, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, this week when he visited the Capitol and want to eliminate assistance to his country, a democratic nation under siege from an autocratic aggressor.

And they are unbowed by guardrails that in past decades forced consensus even in the most extreme of conflicts; this is the same bloc that balked at raising the debt ceiling in the spring to avert a federal debt default.

“There is a group of Republican members who seem to feel there is no limit at all as to how you can wreck the system,” said Ross K. Baker, a professor of political science at Rutgers University. “There are no boundaries, no forbidden zones. They go where relatively junior members have feared to tread in the past.”

• New York Times, Biden, Warning Trump Could ‘Destroy’ Democracy, Moves Past G.O.P. Primary
• New York Times, With a Huge Lead in the Polls, Trump Is in Rarified Territory

Meidas Touch Network, Analysis: Trump Vows to Ban All News Media That Doesn’t Praise Him, Brett Meiselas, Sept. 24-25, 2023. Donald Trump continues to tell us his fascist intentions should he be reelected. Will the mainstream media finally listen?

Donald Trump launched into his most overtly fascist assault on the First Amendment in a Sunday night tirade, promising that he will remove from the airwaves any news media that is not friendly towards him should he be reelected as president of the United States.

Trump specifically took aim at NBC News to make his point t (ironically, NBC is the network that employed and elevated Donald Trump during The Apprentice days, shown above in a publicity photo from the show), writing that the network “should be investigated for its ‘Country Threatening Treason.’”

Trump then made his intentions crystal clear:

“I say up front, openly, and proudly, that when I WIN the Presidency of the United States, they and others of the LameStream Media will be thoroughly scrutinized for their knowingly dishonest and corrupt coverage of people, things, and events. Why should NBC, or any other of the corrupt & dishonest media companies, be entitled to use the very valuable Airwaves of the USA, FREE? They are a true threat to Democracy and are, in fact, THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE! The Fake News Media should pay a big price for what they have done to our once great Country!”

Washington Post, As possible shutdown nears, a disconnect between political rhetoric and budget reality, Jeff Stein and Marianna Sotomayor, Sept. 25, 2023 (print ed.). Lawmakers in both parties have called for getting serious about the rising federal debt. The shutdown fight ignores its key drivers.

Time is running out for Congress to prevent a government shutdown, as Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) tries to defuse the demands of ultraconservatives in the House who are demanding aggressive spending cuts.

When lawmakers return Tuesday, both the House and the Senate will try different tactics to fund the government past the fast-approaching deadline — each looking to jam their preferred legislation through the other chamber in a risky game of brinkmanship. Current spending laws expire on Sept. 30, so the government will shut down at 12:01 a.m. on Oct. 1 without action.

U.S. braces for costly government shutdown in eight days

In the House, the GOP majority failed several times last week to reach consensus on a short-term funding bill, known as a continuing resolution. Most of the conference says they want to avert a shutdown, but a small group of far-right members who oppose a short-term extension have blocked that option. So Republicans will try to pass some separate bills that would fund the government for the full fiscal year.

The Senate will begin work on its own short-term spending bill on Tuesday, aiming to send it to the House by the weekend with hours to go before a shutdown starts — where it would probably have enough votes to pass, but only with support from Democrats, a red line for many in the GOP.

But while the far-right rebels in McCarthy’s caucus say the rising national debt is such a threat that it’s worth forcing the government to close down in pursuit of spending cuts, the uncomfortable fiscal reality is that most of what is driving federal borrowing to record levels isn’t even up for discussion this week.

Conservatives want to pare federal discretionary spending back to 2022 levels, which would mean cutting more than $100 billion from agency budgets each year.

That’s a lot of money, but hitting the goal would require severe cuts to a small portion of the federal budget — mostly programs that provide services like education, medical research and aid for families in poverty. The government’s biggest annual expense, though, and the main projected drivers of U.S. debt, are the retirement programs Medicare and Social Security. The United States spends more than $6 trillion every year. McCarthy’s caucus is tying itself in knots over how to make cuts from domestic discretionary spending, which accounts for less than one-sixth of that total.

Looking at it another way, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects that the annual federal deficit is expected to rise to nearly $3 trillion per year by next decade, up from roughly $2 trillion this year. If the conservatives in the House GOP get everything they’re seeking now, that number could drop to about $2.8 trillion per year.

“The people back in my district, they’re tired of the way this town works,” said Rep. Elijah Crane (R-Ariz.), who joined other conservatives in the last week to stymie McCarthy’s attempts to move spending bills. “They understand there’s no appetite to spend money we don’t have, and they expect me to do whatever I can to stop it, and to change how we do business. It’s not always the most comfortable thing.”

But the disconnect between the political rhetoric about the shutdown and the reality of the budget math underscores how little lawmakers are doing to try to rein in the long-term federal spending imbalance. Without a deal, the federal government will shut down, hurting economic growth and leading to the suspension of a wide range of essential public services.

Meidas Touch Network, Analysis: Trump Directs House GOP to Shut Down Government and Blame Biden, Ben Meiselas, Sept. 24-25, 2023. This is Trump’s second directive to compliant House Republicans via his social media posts

Donald Trump has issued his latest order to House Republicans: shut down and refuse to fund the United States government and then blame President Biden for the catastrophic fallout.

On September 20, Trump issued his first directive to compliant House MAGA Republicans, telling them that a “very important deadline is approaching at the end of the month” and “this is the last chance to defund these political prosecutions against me.”

In his latest post, Trump orders the House GOP: “UNLESS YOU GET EVERYTHING, SHUT IT DOWN.

Trump goes on to say that Republicans shouldn’t worry about the damage that will be caused to the country, as he claims President Biden will get blamed for it. Trump also tells House Republicans not to listen to Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell if he wants to make a deal with Democrats, because Trump says McConnell is “weak” and “dumb.”

MAGA Republicans in the House continue to take their orders directly from Donald Trump and do whatever he says. They have followed his directives, bringing the country to the brink of a catastrophic shutdown.

New York Times, As Trump Prosecutions Move Forward, Threats and Concerns Increase, Michael S. Schmidt, Adam Goldman, Alan Feuer, Maggie Haberman and Glenn Thrush, Sept. 25, 2023 (print ed.). As criminal cases proceed against the former president, heated rhetoric and anger among his supporters have authorities worried about the risk of political dissent becoming deadly.

At the federal courthouse in Washington, a woman called the chambers of the judge assigned to the election interference case against former President Donald J. Trump and said that if Mr. Trump were not re-elected next year, “we are coming to kill you.”

At the Federal Bureau of Investigation, agents have reported concerns about harassment and threats being directed at their families amid intensifying anger among Trump supporters about what they consider to be the weaponization of the Justice Department. “Their children didn’t sign up for this,” a senior F.B.I. supervisor recently testified to Congress.

And the top prosecutors on the four criminal cases against Mr. Trump — two brought by the Justice Department and one each in Georgia and New York — now require round-the-clock protection.

As the prosecutions of Mr. Trump have accelerated, so too have threats against law enforcement authorities, judges, elected officials and others. The threats, in turn, are prompting protective measures, a legal effort to curb his angry and sometimes incendiary public statements, and renewed concern about the potential for an election campaign in which Mr. Trump has promised “retribution” to produce violence.

Given the attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters on Jan. 6, 2021, scholars, security experts, law enforcement officials and others are increasingly warning about the potential for lone-wolf attacks or riots by angry or troubled Americans who have taken in the heated rhetoric.

In April, before federal prosecutors indicted Mr. Trump, one survey showed that 4.5 percent of American adults agreed with the idea that the use of force was “justified to restore Donald Trump to the presidency.” Just two months later, after the first federal indictment of Mr. Trump, that figure surged to 7 percent.

Sept. 23

World Crisis Radio, Weekly Strategic Overview and Reform Agenda: Campaign by corrupt Wall Street media to foment Democratic defeatism refuted by election returns! Webster G. Tarpley, right, historian and commentator, Sept. 23, 2023. Surveys of scores of 2023 state-level special elections show Democrats overperforming recent results by 8% to 10%; Tired demagogy of inflation and Biden’s age falls flat with voters: UNH-CNN poll shows Biden leading Trump 52% to 40% in New Hampshire, with 94% of Democrats committed to voting for Biden;

Garland’s duty is to defend US government against going fascist assault, not to curate his own inflated reputation for rectitude; Indictment of Hunter Biden reeks of dirty politics of both-sidesism Garland could stop if he wanted to;

Biden pledges vital ATACM missiles and $325 million to Zelensky; White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients must now assure rapid delivery; Ukraine hits Russian naval HQ for Crimea in Sevastopol; Is Russia on verge of a new warlord era?

After demanding end of US Constitution and pledging to have DoJ arrest opponents, Trump orders House MAGAts to paralyze government and stop his prosecution by Feds; reactionary anarchists rush to obey; Qevin sabotages support for Kyiv, but Ukrainian APCs are now operating south of Surovikhin line; Putin continues to bet everything on Trump’s return to power;

Ramaswampy, left, demands scrapping of XIV Amendment, fruit of Union sacrifice in Civil War; Haley and Scott spearhead GOP scab attack on striking UAW; Don’t be a chump for Trump, no matter what he promises;

Musk probed by Senate committees over taxes and his Starlink sabotage of Ukraine’s defense measures in occupied Crimea; The erratic billionaire says he wants a modern American version of Lucius Cornelius Sulla, the bloody-handed leader of the oligarchical party in the late Roman Republic c. 80 BC, who started and won a civil war, becoming the gravedigger of the republic; What are we to make of this strange remark?

Sept. 16

World Crisis Radio, Weekly Strategic Overview and Reform Agenda: Biden, "Friend of Labor," delivers best and most class-conscious economic policy speech since FDR in the New Deal, Webster G. Tarpley, right, historian and commentator, Sept. 16, 2023 (155::23 mins.). 25% minimum tax on billionaires sought in “Donald Hoover Trump” statement of Bidenomics!

President supports UAW strike against selected Big Three plants in Michigan-Missouri-Ohio, noting that record profits must lead to record contracts; He sends Secretary of Labor Julie Su and White House adviser Gene Sperling to Detroit to promote fair solution; Sen. Peters walks picket line; Biden backs union view that auto executives must share the bounty reflected in their salaries of $20 million per year plus;

Anti-tax hysteria of oligarchs explains much of absurd anti-Biden propaganda by corrupt corporate media;

MAGA GOP revealed by impeachment and shutdown demands as moribund anti-Constitution gang of extreme right-wing anarchists intent on destroying US government; Hurry them down the path to oblivion trod by the Federalists c. 1820;

Best legal experts agree: NEVER in recorded judicial history of US have federal courts prosecuted inaccurate statement on gun purchase papers as a stand-alone felony; Weiss indictment of Hunter Biden represents sleazy prosecutorial misconduct as triple jeopardy and selective, vindictive, and malicious accusations; case is politically motivated overkill in service of MAGA; Comer’s ”whistleblowers” are disgruntled misfits;

Jack Smith asks Judge Chutkan to stop Trump’s slanders and threats to judge, prosecutor, jurors, and court officers in upcoming January 6 election interference trial;

Is White House chief of staff Jeff Zients filling the bill? Questions multiply;

New Axis of Aggression formed by weakened Putin and Kim, with Xi as silent partner and all striving to restore Trump to power to wreck US and NATO; Zelensky to visit Washington; German Foreign Minister Baerbock slams Putin and Xi; Sanctions vs Russia are working; Thrust towards Tokmak gains ground, with Russian supply line almost within range; Ukrainians destroy two major Russian warships, smaller patrol craft, naval repair facility, ball bearing plant, and high-priced S-400 air defense system; Top officials in China and Russia keep disappearing; Chechen pro-consul Kadyrov gravely ill;

Happy New Year to those celebrating Rosh Hashanah!

Sept. 9

World Crisis Radio, Global Strategic Overview: Putin is betting everything on a second term for Trump, meaning that he will interfere in US election more than ever before. So, get ready! Webster G. Tarpley, right, historian and commentator, Sept. 9, 2023 (137:04 mins.). Russia is already spreading confidential information about Atlanta trial over the dark web; Prigozhin had confirmed that Russia has meddled, is meddling, and will meddle in US democracy, validating Mueller Report despite MAGA lies;

Ukrainian forces advance south towards Tokmak on road to Sea of Azov, a point at which artillery interdiction of Russia’s east-west rail and road supply line will become feasible;

Musk, brazenly usurping exclusive presidential powers over foreign policy, cut off Starlink access last year to sabotage Ukrainian attack on Russian Black Sea fleet that would have prevented missile slaughter of civilians and kept grain supplies moving; Vigorous application of Defense Production Act and Logan Act is urgent;

CNN sample for latest anti-Biden poll contained 60% Republicans, raising myriad suspicions;

As her price for funding government, MAGA pasionaria MTG demands impeachment of Biden, defunding DOJ, no Covid vaccine or masks, and betrayal of Ukraine to appease Putin; Tuberville cripples US chain of command; Our nation can dispense with such disloyal opposition;

MAGA GOP dissolving into Texas-style warring factions and lack of funds; Jack Smith is following the money; Pro-Trump dupes reduced by 700 years of jail time exacted from January 6 insurrectionists;

Breaking: Mark Meadows bid to move his RICO case to federal court rejected by federal judge, sinking his hopes for immunity; White House has no role in administering state elections; Trump & Co. options for evading Fani Willis dwindle!

Sept. 4

Going Deep With Russ Baker, Investigating The Ramaswamy Two-Step: Selling Corporate Greed as Anti-Woke Gospel, Russ Baker, right, Sept. 4, 2023. Vivek Ramaswamy should not be allowed to play with matches — or our future.

It is not too early to sound the alarm regarding what may be the driving motivation behind the GOP’s rapidly rising star, Vivek Ramaswamy, below left, who is still a longshot but whose numbers are way up.

Let’s start with what the suddenly-so-public political candidate said during the first GOP presidential debate — a bald statement that is absolutely incorrect and incredibly dangerous: I’m the only candidate on stage who isn’t bought and paid for, so I can say this: The climate change agenda is a hoax. The anti-carbon agenda is the wet blanket on the economy ... And so the reality is, more people are dying of bad climate change policies than they are of actual climate change.

Of course, none of that is true. So why would Ramaswamy, who does not appear to be completely ignorant or deranged, say such a thing? Surely, lust for power is one motive for a man on a mission to curry favor with the MAGA masses — along with many of today’s would-be “leaders,” especially those who have never worked in public service for even one day in their lives.

But this is mainly about the other historically important motivator of amoral behavior: greed.

What I say below has been said, in varying ways, by others. But it’s surely time to bring what has been brewing behind the scenes to the foreground — making transparent the deep cynicism of this man and those whose interests he serves.

This is not some sideshow. This is our survival we’re talking about. For a random example, see this article about how wildfires in the Mediterranean — fueled by record-breaking heat not anticipated until 2050 — are devastating the region.

Ramaswamy — whose family is “Brahmin, the highest caste in the Hindu hierarchy” — originally made his money in biotech, in large part with a pump-and-dump stock scheme involving a failed Alzheimer’s drug. But in the last several years he seems to have hit on a perfect formula for further enrichment.

• What if he could promise right-wingers in charge of public and private money that they could realize a better yield and stay true to their beliefs by opting out of “socially responsible investing?”
• What if he could tap into the cultural pushback against the empowerment of people of color, women, the LGBTQ+ community, etc., and against the drive for equality and humanistic and humane policies in government and industry?
• What if he could introduce a way for conservatives in government to decouple from everything they disdain as “woke”? What if that easy-to-understand, “populist” appeal could be harnessed to a more complex, less sexy effort to rid corporations of their societal obligations?
• What if it could be launched by providing state and local officials a way to get off the train headed to ESG — environmentally and socially conscious investing (Environmental, Social, Corporate Governance)?

With more and more state and local offices held by movement conservatives, this would have a natural appeal. It could offer a clever new way of revitalizing an old, failed effort by the dirty industries to extend their lives and further enrich their owners and enablers.

The average MAGA voter does not want to think about something as complex and weighty as climate change, and so Ramaswamy’s assurance they can just sit back, surrounded by their favorite screens and distractions, hits home.

Vivek Ramaswamy is unlikely to be the GOP nominee. But the entire situation is, with Trump’s indictments, fluid. And even if Ramaswamy’s not the nominee this time, he now has a powerful platform on which to build this dangerous new movement — so we’d better start paying attention.

Sept. 1

Mother Jones Magazine, A New Rudy Scandal: FBI Agent Says Giuliani Was Co-opted by Russian Intelligence, Dan Friedman and David Corn, right, Sept. 1, 2023. The whistleblower says his probe of Giuliani’s ties to suspected Russian operatives was thwarted.

It was big news when Rudy Giuliani, once hailed as America’s Mayor, was indicted last month by a district attorney in Atlanta for allegedly being part of a criminal enterprise led by Donald Trump that sought to overturn the 2020 election results. Giuliani was back in headlines this week when he lost a defamation suit filed against him by two Georgia election workers whom he had falsely accused of ballot stuffing. Giuliani’s apparent impoverishment, caused by his massive legal bills, and even his alleged drinking have been fodder for reporters. But another major Giuliani development has drawn less attention: An FBI whistleblower filed a statement asserting that Giuliani “may have been compromised” by Russian intelligence while working as a lawyer and adviser to Trump during the 2020 campaign.

That contention is among a host of explosive assertions from Johnathan Buma, an FBI agent who also says that an investigation involving Giuliani’s activities was stymied within the bureau.

In July, Buma sent the Senate Judiciary Committee a 22-page statement full of eye-popping allegations, and the document leaked and was first reported last month by Insider (after a conservative blogger had posted it online). According to Buma’s account, Giuliani was used as an asset by a Ukrainian oligarch tied to Russian intelligence and other Russian operatives for a disinformation operation that aimed to discredit Joe Biden and boost Trump in the 2020 presidential race. Moreover, Buma says he was the target of retaliation within the bureau for digging into this.

The FBI declined to comment on Buma’s claims.

Buma’s revelations may only be the start. A source familiar with his work tells Mother Jones that other potential FBI whistleblowers who participated in the investigation involving Giuliani have consulted the same lawyer as Buma and might meet with congressional investigators in coming weeks. That attorney, Scott Horton, declined to comment.

Giuliani faces a heap of legal and financial problems, including those felony charges in Georgia. He is also an uncharged co-conspirator in the federal case in which Trump was indicted for his efforts to retain power after losing the 2020 election. He has been sued by a former assistant for rape. And apparently Trump has not helped the supposedly broke Giuliani cover his legal bills, though the former president did agree to headline a fundraiser for Giuliani.

Still, Buma’s statement suggests that Giuliani has been lucky to avoid deeper trouble over his attempt during the 2020 race to deploy made-in-Ukraine disinformation to sully Joe Biden.

It is widely known that Giuliani tried mightily to unearth and disseminate dirt on Biden in Ukraine—particularly regarding the unfounded allegation that as vice president Biden squashed an investigation of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company for which his son Hunter was a director. This smear campaign led to Trump’s first impeachment and resulted in a federal investigation into whether Giuliani violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Prosecutors ended that probe last year.

But Buma’s allegations that FBI and Justice Department officials blocked his efforts to investigate these Giuliani activities and the work of suspected Russian agents who may have influenced the former New York City mayor could spark a new dust-up on Capitol Hill. As Republicans keep trying to gin up a controversy over the Bidens, Burisma, and other matters, Buma’s statement reinforces the case that this supposed Biden-Ukraine scandal was egged on or orchestrated by Russian intelligence. And it contradicts the narrative pushed by Trump and his defenders that the FBI and Justice Department have been in cahoots with Democrats.

Giuliani’s role in Trump’s coup attempt and his string of public humiliations may overshadow the Ukrainian chapter in Giuliani’s downfall. But, according to Buma and various US intelligence findings, Giuliani apparently was a dupe—a useful idiot—for suspected Russian operatives and propagandists. And the bureau, Buma says, investigated this—until it didn’t.

Buma’s statement highlights Giuliani’s relationship with Pavel Fuks, a wealthy Ukrainian developer, who in 2017 hired Giuliani and paid him $300,000. Fuks once told the New York Times that he had retained Giuliani to lobby in the United States for the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, where Fuks then lived. Giuliani has denied that he was paid to lobby for Kharkiv, insisting he only provided advice regarding security to the city. And Fuks has changed his tune. Through a spokesperson, he told Mother Jones that Giuliani’s work was limited to advising the city.

In his statement, Buma says that the FBI assessed Fuks to be a “co-opted asset” of Russian intelligence services, meaning a person who Russian intelligence used to advance its goals. Buma’s complaint does not name a specific Russian intelligence agency, but a person who spoke to agents involved in this investigation says that the FBI believes Fuks worked for the FSB, the successor to KGB. All this raises the possibility that Giuliani, a former Republican presidential candidate who became a close adviser to Trump, received a large payment directly from a Russian asset.

Buma alleges that Fuks has carried out various tasks for Russian spies, including laundering money for them. Fuks also reportedly paid locals to spray-paint swastikas around Kharkiv in the weeks before Russia’s invasion. Buma says Fuks did so to bolster Vladmir Putin’s claim that the invasion aimed to achieve the “de-Nazification of Ukraine.”

Fuks denies these claims. “Mr. Fuks has never cooperated with Russian intelligence,” his spokesperson says.

Buma maintains that his investigative work led to Customs and Border Patrol in 2017 revoking Fuks visa for travel to the United States and that the FBI assessed that Fuks constituted “a national security threat,” a finding that caused Fuks to be placed on an organized crime watch list. Buma also says that he sent the Treasury Department a recommendation that the United States sanction Fuks. To date, the US government has not done so.
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Ukraine has sanctioned Fuks, and it is reportedly investigating him for fraud and tax evasion. Fuks now lives in London, according to recent media reports.

In his statement, Buma says that he developed suspicions that Giuliani, through his relationship with Fuks, was “compromised by the RIS,” meaning the Russian Intelligence Services. That is a striking claim—an allegation that Russian spies may have obtained influence over a top adviser to the US president.

It’s a new piece of information to add to a pile of public indications that Giuliani left himself wide open to manipulation by Russian agents, while he was dredging Ukraine in search of derogatory information about Hunter and Joe Biden.

Giuliani has previously asserted that his work for Fuks ended before he joined Trump’s legal team in April 2018. And Fuks’ spokesperson also says that Fuks’ dealings with Giuliani finished in 2018. But Buma suggests that Fuks may have maintained an indirect connection to Giuliani by hiring in 2019 Andriy Telizhenko, a former low-level Ukrainian diplomatic official, to mount a public relations effort for him in the United States. Buma says that a source told him that Fuks retained Telizhenko to help him “establish contacts with US politicians.” Telizhenko went on to work with Giuliani, feeding him information on the Bidens.

Telizhenko, in a recent interview with Mother Jones, maintained that his work for Fuks and his contacts with Giuliani were unrelated.

But Telizhenko’s interactions with Giuliani raise serious questions about whether this Trump adviser, wittingly or not, played. a part in a covert Russian operation to discredit Biden. In 2021, the Treasury Department sanctioned Telizhenko for promoting Russian “disinformation narratives that U.S. government officials have engaged in corrupt dealings in Ukraine.” Telizhenko denies advancing disinformation or aiding Russia. He says the sanctions resulted from an FBI informant making false claims about him.

Giuliani’s efforts in Ukraine placed him in contact with several Ukrainians since sanctioned for allegedly assisting Russian disinformation efforts. The most prominent was Andriy Derkach, the son of a former KGB officer and then a Ukrainian legislator, who supplied Giuliani with unsubstantiated information about the Bidens’ supposed activities in Ukraine. After making a trip to Ukraine in the summer of 2020, Giuliani told the Washington Post that he kept in touch with Derkach and called him “very helpful.”

Trump’s Treasury Department sanctioned Derkach in 2020, calling him an “active Russian agent for over a decade.” In March 2021, a declassified report issued by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said that Putin in 2020 signed off on a Russian intelligence effort to use proxies to feed prominent US individuals “influence narratives” aimed at hurting Biden’s campaign and helping Trump. The report cited Derkach, asserting that Putin “had purview” over his activities. Though the report did not name him, Giuliani was obviously one of the Americans the ODNI believed had been manipulated by the Russians. Last year, federal prosecutors hit Derkach with criminal charges for his alleged attempts to evade sanctions.

In his statement, Buma says he investigated Giuliani’s use of “funds he collected from political influencers to travel and conduct a series of interviews with former Ukrainian officials”—a reference to Giuliani’s campaign to gather opposition research on the Bidens. But he adds that “Giuliani was himself never considered a subject” of that part of his probe, which focused on “foreign organized crime figures and intelligence service assets or agents who chose to deal with him.”

Giuliani has admitted to meeting Ukrainians subsequently cited by the US government as Russian operatives. But he has defended his actions by arguing he had to deal with questionable people to seek information on what he has referred to as alleged Biden crimes. (No evidence has surfaced to prove Biden acted improperly in Ukraine to help his son.)

Buma reveals in his statement that he also probed whether Russian operatives or assets were involved in a 2020 Giuliani effort to make a film about Hunter Biden’s business activities in Ukraine and elsewhere. As Mother Jones reported, the GOP activists behind this venture noted in legal documents that they were considering seeking foreign financing for the film. The anti-Biden film was to include commentary from Konstantin Kulyk, a former Ukrainian prosecutor who Treasury sanctioned in 2021 for working with Derkach to spread “fraudulent and unsubstantiated allegations” about Biden. That is, this project was to feature information from sources who the US government later deemed were connected to a disinformation campaign linked to Russian intelligence.

Giuliani played a key role in trying to line up investors for the movie. His lawyer, Robert Costello, denied that Giuliani solicited money from foreign investors. The investors Giuliani did help find were two brothers, David and Kable Munger, who own a large blueberry producing company in California and have donated generously to GOP candidates. The movie never came close to being made, and people involved in the endeavor told Mother Jones the project was disorganized and incompetently managed.
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The Mungers recently sued two GOP activists involved in producing the film, Tim Yale and George Dickson, along with a company they formed. Giuliani was not named as a defendant in the suit. The Mungers say that Giuliani helped persuade them to invest $1 million by saying that they would receive a share of the film’s profits. The brothers also claim that Yale and Dickson told them the movie would be “more profitable than Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11.” Giuliani, Dickson, and Yale also said, according to the Mungers’ lawsuit, that they possessed “smoking guns” revealing Joe Biden was corrupt.

Giuliani and his colleagues possessed no such material. The Mungers allege that Dickson and Yale stole their investment. In a text message to Mother Jones, Yale insisted that the lawsuit is “total hogwash.” He declined to comment further. Dickson did not respond to requests for comment.

Giuliani, according to the lawsuit, was paid $300,000 for his participation in the film project. A lawyer and a spokesperson for Giuliani did not respond to requests for comment.

Buma’s disclosures spell new trouble for Giuliani. They further implicate him in a covert Russian operation to tilt the 2020 election toward Trump. They also raise the possibility that Giuliani was protected by FBI officials. (After the 2016 election, the Justice Department investigated whether Giuliani had improper contacts with FBI agents during that race regarding the bureau’s investigation of Hillary Clinton, and it found no evidence Giuliani had been leaked information.) Buma’s statement offers an investigative roadmap for inquiries that could soil Giuliani’s already tarnished reputation. But the down-and-out Giuliani may get lucky: With all the controversy and scandal swirling about him, there just may not be much room in the Giuliani coverage for the allegation that he was a puppet for Putin

Sept. 1

World Crisis Radio, World Strategic Analysis: Ukrainian ground forces advance south towards cutting vital Russian supply line from Donetsk to Kherson and Crimea! Webster G. Tarpley, right, historian, commentator, Sept. 1, 2023 (131 mins.). Despite wretched defeatism of controlled corporate media, defenders register ”notable progress” against invaders over last 72 hours; Large Russian anti-tank ditch now within striking distance south of Robotyne; West Point Professor Jan Kallberg writes that ”victory is closer than you think”; Time to deliver armored vehicle launched assault bridges to Kiev;

Neoliberal ideologue Larry Summers freaks out over Bidenomics, says he’s ”profoundly concerned by the doctrine of manufacturing-centered economic nationalism that is increasingly being put forth as a general principle to guide policy,” in contrast to policies of Clinton and Obama; Summers doesn’t like compulsory labor standards built into federal funding, and views offshoring of 10,000 US factories as a golden age;

For Labor Day, White House proposes raising eligibility wage level for overtime pay rates to $55,000 per year;

If he wants to fight immiseration and despair, singer Oliver Anthony should support Biden’s anti-globalization revolution in trade and industrial policy, the only detailed reform plan that goes beyond crass platitudes;
State officials across US are evaluating throwing Trump off their presidential ballots based on XIV Amendment’s section 3, participation in rebellion;

Success of US system requires constitutional democracy with due process and representative government; But a rising standard of living is also indispensable, in line with FDR’s dictum that needy people cannot be free people; Biden gets it;

Conviction of Trump would deprive Putin of any hope of prevailing in Ukraine through US betrayal of Kyiv; defeat of Putin can dissuade Xi from aggression while isolating North Korea and Iran;

Getting right with Lincoln at the start of a decisive world historical year.

84 years ago, Hitler attacked Poland under cover of Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, starting World War II in Europe.

August

Aug. 27

Going Deep with Russ Baker! Investigative Commentary: The Scary Truth About the GOP Candidates and Their Appeal, Russ Baker, right, founder of the investigative site Who, What W,hy and author of the best-selling Family of Secrets, Aug. 27, 2023. What the Fox debate revealed about hatred, fear and race.

Note: As I was preparing to publish the essay below, with its discussion of race and the GOP, a young white man attempted to enter the campus of a historically black college in Jacksonville, Florida, but was turned away by a security officer after refusing to identify himself. He then went to a nearby discount store, where he shot and killed three black employees. “This shooting was racially motivated, and he hated Black people,” said Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters.

It’s hard to contemplate what follows without considering the impact of GOP rhetoric on impressionable people like the perpetrator.

It’s been a few days now since the first GOP debate on August 23, and pretty much everyone has already weighed in with their performance assessment. The spectacle had an average of 12.8 million viewers, which, without their star, Trump, was a larger than expected audience.

Me, I’m still wrestling with a notion I couldn’t get out of my mind.

It struck me as emblematic of larger issues that, while discussed endlessly, never result in clarity: the kinds of people who want to lead us, how they present themselves — and what all this says about their voters and advocates.

Each contender seemed to be auditioning for the role of apex predator — although they sometimes inadvertently morphed, however briefly, into a different, less alarming guise.

Aug. 26

World Crisis Radio, World Strategic Roundup and Activisim Recommendations: Twilight of Trump, Webster G. Tarpley, right, historian, commentator, Aug. 26, 2023 (129:41 mins.). In Atlanta, MAGA boss is arrested for fourth time as mindless corporate media keep raving that indictments only make him stronger! Three Trump co-defendants allege he ordered their misdeeds, foreshadowing flipping to come;

Activating Fourteenth Amendment ban on insurrectionists holding federal office rapidly gains prestigious bipartisan support from scholars and elected officials; Need legal action now by states to banish Don from ballot well before primary voting starts in January 2024;

Prigozhin, right, ends as homicidal monster and his top staffers fall victim to assassination by Putin’s secret police; Wagner mercenary units, Putin’s Foreign Legion, decapitated and in disarray; Prigozhin’s epitaph is statement admitting that there was no NATO threat to Russia on eve of February 2022 invasion -- an embarrassing fact for Mearsheimer, Chomsky, RFK Jr., Wagenknecht and other avid appeasers;

Ukrainian forces capture Robotyne on road to Melitopol and Sea of Azov, widening the breach in the first Russian defense line; Repeated strikes on Moscow and targets inside Russia; Debate on how many axes of attack are optimal;

BRICS may be viewed as a pressure group, a propaganda agency, a school of rhetoric, a brand of nostalgia, or a photo op, but they are incapable of joint action: no joint currency to challenge US dollar and no moral standing as they support the butcher of Ukraine, who is making them starve;

GOP debate shows absolute depravity of this moribund party; 60 years since Martin Luther King’s ”I have a dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial; Trump’s rogue’s gallery photo depicts cornered kingpin snarling into the abyss.

Aug. 22

 Ultra-right Republican dark money legal powerbroker Leonard Leo is shown above.

The five most radical right Republican justices on the Supreme Court are shown above, with the sixth Republican, Chief Justice John Roberts, omitted in this photo array.

Politico, D.C. Attorney General is probing Leonard Leo’s network, Heidi Przybyla, Aug. 22, 2023. The Federalist Society co-chair and ex-Trump judicial adviser has utilized nonprofit groups to collect more than $1 billion for conservative causes.

Washington D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb is investigating judicial activist Leonard Leo and his network of nonprofit groups, according to a person with direct knowledge of the probe.

The scope of the investigation is unclear. But it comes after POLITICO reported in March that one of Leo’s nonprofits — registered as a charity — paid his for-profit company tens of millions of dollars in the two years since he joined the company. A few weeks later, a progressive watchdog group filed a complaint with the D.C. attorney general and the IRS requesting a probe into what services were provided and whether Leo was in violation of laws against using charities for personal enrichment.

David B. Rivkin Jr., an attorney for the parties in the investigation, said in a statement that the complaint “is sloppy, deceptive and legally flawed and we are addressing this fully with the DC Attorney General’s office.”

The news of the investigation comes as the nonprofit that was a subject of the complaint quietly relocated in recent weeks from the capital area to Texas, according to paperwork filed in Virginia and Texas. For nearly 20 years the nonprofit, now known as The 85 Fund, had been incorporated in Virginia.

Gabe Shoglow-Rubenstein, Schwalb’s communications director, declined to confirm or deny the existence of the probe, including whether the attorney general took any action in response to the complaint.

Schwalb, who took office in January, has a background in tax law and served as a trial attorney in the tax division of the Department of Justice under President Bill Clinton.

Best known as Donald Trump’s White House “court whisperer,” Leo played a behind-the-scenes role in the nominations of all three of the former president’s Supreme Court justices and promoted them through his multi-billion-dollar network of nonprofits. Trump chose his three Supreme Court picks, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, from a list drawn up by Leo. More recently, Leo was the beneficiary of a $1.6 billion contribution, believed to be the biggest political donation in U.S. history.

He is also the co-chair of the Federalist Society, the academic arm of the conservative legal movement, for which he worked in various capacities for decades while building his donor base.

While Leo grants few interviews, in mid-July he was featured in a two-part podcast with the Maine Wire, a conservative news organization. Asked why he’s become a “lightening rod for criticism,” Leo cited his commitment to “defend the Constitution” and spoke about the “long history” of dark money in U.S. politics.

Aug. 19

World Crisis Radio, Global Strategic News Roundup & Action Recommendations, To get peace, lock him up: If Trump is jailed, Putin’s last hope for conquest will be gone, likely bringing Ukraine war to an end! Webster G. Tarpley, right, historian, commentator, Aug. 19, 2023 (129:41 mins.). Fani Willis’ landmark fourth indictment of Trump and 18 accused RICO accomplices hailed as most aggressive prosecutorial response to the shameful chapter of January 6; Clear potential exists for GOP extinction; Justice delayed is justice denied;

Judges must impose zero tolerance for death threats to courts, juries, and witnesses, no matter who the perpetrator;

Biden joins with leaders of Japan and South Korea at Camp David to proclaim new tripartite Pacific Charter to deter CCP, DPRK, and Russia;

Trump wants to postpone answering January 6 charges until April 2026, otherwise known as the Twelfth of Never;

WaPo showcases defeatist voices on Ukraine offensive from inside Pentagon: They may be holdovers from the Kashyap Patel-Gen. Charles Flynn era; US must expedite delivery of ATACMs and F-16s to interdict Kerch bridge and four other spans, cutting supplies for invaders; Convoys with NATO escorts on Black Sea are needed at once to guarantee grain shipments to stop genocide in Africa;

Prof. Robert Reich brands Trump as worse than authoritarian: ”He is a fascist!”; Attention to class nature of fascism in supporting oligarchy proves essential;

Breaking: Trump attorney Cheseboro identified at Capitol on January 6, linking insurrection dupes with MAGA bigwigs; Don plans to snub GOP’s Milwaukee primary debate on Wednesday and instead play softball with Tucker Carlson; NBC News reports Trump will surrender at Fulton County jail next Thursday or Friday

Aug. 15

Trump lawyers Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani hawking their false claims that they could prove election fraud caused Democratic nominee Joe Biden's presidential victory in 2020.

Proof: Exclusive Report: An Annotated List of the 30 As-Yet Unindicted Georgia Co-Conspirators in the Just-Released Trump Indictment in Fulton County, Seth Abramson, left, Aug 15, 2023. The 98-page indictment just announced by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis contains 30 unnamed co-conspirators identified by number. Proof reveals, for the first time, who these people are.

Introduction: “Open-source intelligence” (OSINT)—that is, reliable public records, including major-media reporting and government reports—allows us to identify nearly all of the thirty Donald Trump co-conspirators Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis declined to indict (or name) in her recent 98-page indictment of Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows, John Eastman, Kenneth Chesebro, Jeffrey Clark, Jenna Ellis, Mike Roman and eleven less-well-known individuals.

Note that Trump, Giuliani, Eastman, Clark, and Chesebro together comprise four of the seven individuals identified explicitly or implicitly in the recent indictment Jack Smith brought in Washington, D.C. on behalf of the Department of Justice’s Office of the Special Counsel. The three other Trump-affiliated persons listed above are facing indictment—thus, a last-chance opportunity to cooperate with both state and federal prosecutors and investigators—for the very first time.)

Some of these thirty individuals will likely be indicted at some point in the future, either in the State of Georgia or elsewhere. But others may not have been indicted or even named because they’re currently cooperating individuals or have done enough to indicate that they one day might be that prosecutors are holding off on indicting them.

What is clear, however, is that these names could matter just as much as the names of the nineteen individuals who were indicted as Trump’s Georgia co-conspirators.

Why?

(1) First, because thirty is more than nineteen.

(2) Second, because some of the thirty unindicted co-conspirators may well have been selected for non-indictment because they’re already cooperating.

(3) Third, because by definition some of the thirty unindicted co-conspirators may have been more tangential to the Georgia Conspiracy, which means—for a few of them—they were more central to other components of Trump’s post-election crimes.

(4) Fourth, these thirty unindicted individuals are as or more interesting than the nineteen for the simple reason that they remain an unknown—a mystery. And it seems everyone loves a mystery.

Indeed, given how many coup foot-soldiers and coup plotters have now been indicted, the idea that the list of infamous individuals not yet indicted or listed as unindicted co-conspirators—men and women like Steve Bannon, Peter Navarro, Cleta Mitchell, Ginni Thomas, Roger Stone, Donald Trump Jr., Kimberly Guilfoyle, Ali Alexander, Alex Jones, Christina Bobb, Kash Patel, Cindy Chafian, Bianca Gracia, Garrett Ziegler, Michael Flynn, Lindsay Graham, Ted Cruz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Andy Biggs, Paul Gosar, Scott Perry, Tommy Tuberville, Louie Gohmert, and others—are all going to go unindicted (even as some surely will, as some surely didn’t commit any identifiable crime for all their unethical conduct) has now become a non-starter.

There simply can be no doubt that many, many more indictments—both superseding and otherwise—are yet to come. The list of unindicted but now-identified Trump co-conspirators below is certainly a great place to start in imagining what direction the January 6 investigation(s) might head in next.

Seth Abramson, shown above and at right, is founder of Proof and is a former criminal defense attorney and criminal investigator who teaches digital journalism, legal advocacy, and cultural theory at the University of New Hampshire. A regular political and legal analyst on CNN and the BBC during the Trump presidency, he is a best-selling author who has published eight books and edited five anthologies.

Abramson is a graduate of Dartmouth College, Harvard Law School, the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and the Ph.D. program in English at University of Wisconsin-Madison. His books include a Trump trilogy: Proof of Corruption: Bribery, Impeachment, and Pandemic in the Age of Trump (2020); Proof of Conspiracy: How Trump's International Collusion Is Threatening American Democracy (2019); and Proof of Collusion: How Trump Betrayed America (2018).

Aug. 12

U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, left, and his billionaire friend and benefactor Harlan Crow (file photos).

World Crisis Radio, Weekly Strategic Summary: Broad united front of anti-dictatorship forces wins Ohio referendum against MAGA extremist power grab!  Webster G. Tarpley, right, historian, commentator, Aug. 12, 2023 (126 mins.). Eyes of world turn to Atlanta in expectation of Fani Willis’ indictment of Don, Rudy, and fake presidential electors next week; Legal issues are key part of anti-fascist resistance of our time, and momentum is on side of democracy;

In January 6 case, Judge Chutkan issues protective order to prevent threats to witnesses, jurors, and the cause of justice; Smith wants trial to start on January 2, 2024 and last 4-6 weeks;

Ever fixated on his own vanity in the face of MAGA attacks, craven dawdler Garland names Trump appointee Weiss as special counsel against Hunter Biden after five years of fruitless fishing expedition culminating with Trump-deployed Noreika; Time for Garland to depart!

Clarence Thomas got 38 free vacations, a yacht cruise, and 26 private jet junkets from a quartet of reactionary billionaires; Judge Cannon also enjoyed largesse of pro-Trump court fixers; Federalist Society honchos advance self-evident reality that XIV Amendment violators like Trump are forever barred from holding federal office, with no criminal trial necessary;

Musk uses Starlink to cripple an ally and assist an enemy state, meaning he is usurping U.S. foreign policy in defiance of Logan Act; Defense Production Act is needed to correct his depravity;

Ukraine disables Russian warship and oil tanker; Moscow hit repeatedly by drones; Kyiv wants humanitarian corridors for grain shipments on Black Sea, and NATO should provide minesweepers and escort vessels; Germany pledges highly effective Taurus stealth cruise missiles; Bridges into Crimea interdicted;

Tyrant Xi gropes for panic button as China enters deflationary spiral accelerated by crushing real estate debt; Exports down 12%, while youth unemployment grows; Communists blame U.S., escalate provocations against Taiwan, and silence demands for stimulus; Biden wisely bans U.S. capital investment in Beijing’s military-industrial complex!

Aug. 10

Proof, Investigative Report: DOJ and the NYT Say the First January 6 Coup Memo Was Written in November 2020. They’re Wrong, Seth Abramson, left, Aug. 10, 2023. The first coup memo appeared in October 2020—and this “October Memo” informed the November and December 2020 Chesebro memos and John Eastman’s December memos. How do we know? From the men themselves.

On November 18, 2020, the New York Times reports, attorney Kenneth Chesebro wrote a memo about the possible use of alternate electors by the 2020 Trump presidential campaign in Wisconsin. On December 6, 2020, Attorney Chesebro wrote a far broader memo about such electors potentially being a key to Donald Trump remaining in the Oval Office.

Three days later—on December 9, 2020—Chesebro wrote yet another such memo. By the end of the month, Chesebro’s fellow Trump legal adviser, John Eastman, had spilled an enormous amount of words both in writing and in in-person discussions pushing precisely the same ideas that Chesebro had earlier articulated. Both Chesebro (Co-Conspirator 5 in the Trump January 6 indictment) and Eastman (Co-Conspirator 2 in that indictment) now face the prospect of significant legal jeopardy for their various “coup memos,” even as the authors of other documents deemed coup memos appear not the be on Department of Justice Special Counsel Jack Smith’s radar at all.

The New York Times Wades In

In a series of recent reports by Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter and now book-published Trump biographer Maggie Haberman, the Times tells readers that the three Chesebro memos mentioned atop this Proof report were the “earliest” indications from within Trumpworld that a so-called “fake elector” plot was afoot.

That is untrue.

Moreover, this inaccuracy could be damaging to the current prosecution of Trump by the Department of Justice’s Office of the Special Counsel, as these Times reports, so lauded and repeated by other major-media outlets, have had the following key effects:

• Cementing the false idea, among not just American voters but also apparently Jack Smith and his attorneys and investigators, that the “fake elector” plot was wholly a post-election one;
• cementing the false idea, among not just American voters but also apparently Jack Smith and his attorneys and investigators, that the plot emerged from the fringes of Trumpworld and slowly moved toward its center; and
• cementing the false idea, among not just American voters but also apparently Jack Smith and his attorneys and investigators, that individuals with enormous power and cultural capital within Trumpworld were in no way involved in the plot when they may well have been.

And more broadly—given that Attorney Smith and his team have so far, at least in public filings, focused almost exclusively on the “fake elector” plot and (in more recent days) Trump’s possible fundraising crimes while ignoring the extension of his conspiracy to the civilian leadership at the Pentagon and the use of Sidney Powell and her agents to advance (via false federal affidavits regarding supposed foreign election interference that Jason Funes told Congress resulted from “blackmail” and “force[d]” testimony) the pro-martial-law plot known as the Waldron Plot—the recent New York Times reporting gives federal investigators no foothold whatsoever to understand this video of one of the architects of January 6, top Trump adviser and convicted criminal Steve Bannon.

Seth Abramson, shown above and at right, is founder of Proof and is a former criminal defense attorney and criminal investigator who teaches digital journalism, legal advocacy, and cultural theory at the University of New Hampshire. A regular political and legal analyst on CNN and the BBC during the Trump presidency, he is a best-selling author who has published eight books and edited five anthologies.

Abramson is a graduate of Dartmouth College, Harvard Law School, the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and the Ph.D. program in English at University of Wisconsin-Madison. His books include a Trump trilogy: Proof of Corruption: Bribery, Impeachment, and Pandemic in the Age of Trump (2020); Proof of Conspiracy: How Trump's International Collusion Is Threatening American Democracy (2019); and Proof of Collusion: How Trump Betrayed America (2018).

Aug. 5

World Crisis Radio, Strategic Commentary: Trump’s arrest is decisive victory for US Constitution over forces of totalitarian dictatorship!  Webster G. Tarpley, right, historian, commentator, Aug. 5, 2023 (136:44 mins.). Reuters-Ipsos poll shows Trump would lose about half of his GOP supporters if he is convicted of a felony or imprisoned; So house arrest will not be enough; Defeatist blather about indictments making Don stronger is inspired by owners of controlled corporate media;

American voters have the right to know before Election Day whether likely GOP candidate is officially a criminal; Judge Chutkan signals a rapid process;

Fani Willis is ready to go with RICO charges against MAGA vote fraud clique; Georgia case offers vital insurance policy against possible self-pardon by Trump;

Putin’s only hope of salvaging his genocidal aggression vs Ukraine is a second term for Trump designed to cut aid to Ukraine, wreck NATO alliance, and reduce US to satellite of Kremlin butchers;

AG Garland dithered for 18 months on prosecuting Jan. 6 bigwigs, accumulating dangerous delays which Smith must strive to overcome; Garland is demoralizing drag on Biden’s re-election and should be replaced;

Archer testimony against Hunter Biden, touted by Comer and Gym Jordan, falls flat as a diversionary GOP nothingburger;

Ukraine deploys sea and air drones, crippling large Russian amphibious assault ship in Novorossisk, seen listing heavily and now run aground to prevent sinking; oil tanker hit; new explosions on Kerch Strait bridge; RFK Jr. PAC garners $10 million from two reactionary plutocrats for efforts to counter Biden!

Aug. 1

Washington Post, DEVELOPING: Jan. 6 grand jury probing efforts to overturn 2020 election issues indictment, Devlin Barrett, Spencer S. Hsu, Perry Stein and Josh Dawsey, Aug. 1, 2023. Trump indicted on four counts, including obstruction and conspiracy. Indictment is the first to emerge from special counsel Jack Smith’s probe of the underpinnings of the Jan. 6 riot and the campaign to reverse Joe Biden’s victory.

A grand jury investigating the efforts of former president Donald Trump and others to overturn the results of the 2020 election has returned an indictment, though the document remained under seal and it was not immediately clear who was charged, or with what alleged crimes.

Reporters observed a prosecutor with special counsel Jack Smith’s office and the foreperson of a grand jury that has been active for many months examining the events surrounding Jan. 6 deliver the indictment Tuesday evening to a magistrate judge in federal court in Washington, D.C.

• Read the indictment here.

That grand jury panel gathered Tuesday, and left the courthouse in the afternoon.

The indictment could mark a major new phase in Smith’s investigation of the former president and his aides and allies, coming nearly two months after Trump and his longtime valet were indicted for allegedly mishandling classified documents and scheming to prevent government officials from retrieving them.

Trump, who has pleaded not guilty in the documents case, denies all wrongdoing related to the 2020 election as well. He announced on social media on July 18 that his lawyers had been told he was a target in the election-focused probe.

Smith, shown above, was tapped in November to take charge of the both high-profile investigations, after Trump launched his 2024 presidential election campaign and Attorney General Merrick Garland — an appointee of President Biden — concluded that an independent prosecutor should oversee the probes.

Indictment is the first to emerge from special counsel Jack Smith’s probe of the underpinnings of the Jan. 6 riot and the campaign to reverse Joe Biden’s victory.
A state grand jury in Fulton County, Ga., is also considering whether to file broad charges against Trump and his lawyers, advocates, and aides over their efforts to undo the 2020 election results. A decision on that front is expected in August, although previous plans to announce a charging decision have been delayed. Michigan and Arizona are also investigating aspects of the efforts to block Biden’s victory in their states.

Washington Post, Michigan Republicans charged in connection with 2020 voting machine tampering, Patrick Marley and Aaron Schaffer, Aug. 1, 2023. A Michigan grand jury charged a former state lawmaker and a losing candidate for state attorney general as part of an investigation into the improper acquisition of voting machines.

A Michigan prosecutor charged a former state lawmaker and a losing candidate for state attorney general Tuesday as part of an investigation into the improper acquisition of voting machines.

Special prosecutor D.J. Hilson since last year has been looking into efforts by a group of conservatives to persuade election clerks to give them voting machines as they attempted to prove the 2020 presidential election had been wrongly called for Joe Biden over Donald Trump. The group never turned up any proof, and courts in dozens of cases across the country ruled that the election was properly decided.

Former attorney general candidate Matthew DePerno (R) was charged with improper possession of a voting machine, conspiracy to unlawfully possess a voting machine, conspiracy to gain unauthorized access to a computer system and willfully damaging a voting machine, according to Hilson. Former state representative Daire Rendon (R) was charged with conspiracy to unlawfully possess a voting machine and using false pretenses with the intent to defraud, he said. Both were arraigned Tuesday and released.

July

July 29

World Crisis Radio, Commentary With Weekly Strategic Overview and Civic Agenda, Webster G. Tarpley, right, author and historian, July 29, 2023 (147:47 mins). As January 6 indictment watch continues, long awaited Ukrainian counterattack advances towards Melitopol, Mariupol, and Bakhmut, putting Putin’s Crimean supply line in danger.

Smith adds additional defendant and new MaL charges against Trump for ordering deletion of security camera footage and showing off top secret document; Georgia indictments loom; Trump hurls scurrilous threats at prospect of incarceration; Navarro talks of civil war, blames Dems;

Like Stalin in June 1941, Putin froze during first hours of Prigozhinshchina; mercenary boss shows up on sidelines of Russia-Africa conference in St. Petersburg; African client states reduced from 45 to an unhappy 20 as Russian Black Sea grain blockade triggers starvation in developing sector; Biden had 50 guest nations last year; Token grain delivery promised to 6 of the most subservient countries, but diplomatic fiasco goes on with demands to respect existing grain deal;
NATO should increase grain exports through port of Reni on Ukrainian bank of Danube; Time for escorted convoys from Odessa through territorial waters to Bosporus and open sea;

Xi rebuffs Kerry, repeats his intent to escalate carbon emissions until 2030, making a mockery of predictions by climate scientists;

Fed concedes there is no recession as Wall Street grudgingly acknowledges landmark success of industrial strategy aka Bidenomics, marking beginning of the end for neoliberal Washington consensus; Next step is breaking Wall Street control of Fed;

In US visit, Italian premier Meloni supports NATO military aid to Ukraine and turns away from Chinese Belt and Road debt trap; History can be guide to current events, provided the history be real and not diluted!

July 25

Wayne Madsen Report,  Investigative Commentary: Is Opus Dei behind Ron DeSantis's far-right politics? Wayne Madsen, left, author of 23 books and former Navy intelligence officer, July 25-26, 2023. It is an international organization that is so secret it refuses to publish membership lists. This shadowy cabal has infiltrated the upper echelons of government, business, and religion with operatives intent on furthering the cause of fascism.

It may count at least four members of the nine-member U.S. Supreme Court in its ranks, as well as dozens of members of the U.S. Congress. Contrary to how this group was dramatized in the film “The DaVinci Code,” its members do not wear cowls while hiding in the shadows but are adorned in expensive business suits. This group, the Roman Catholic order known as Opus Dei, is perhaps the greatest threat to democracy the world has seen since Nazi Germany.

Headquartered at 73 Viale Bruno Buozzi in Rome, Opus Dei was founded in 1928 by Spanish priest, Josemaría Escriva, right,. Opus Dei, which has been derisively nicknamed “Octopus Dei,” became the religious underpinning for General Francisco Franco’s Falangist movement, which espoused fascism in Spain and, through Falangist agents aided by Opus Dei priests, around the world. Opus Dei would not have become a worldwide order espousing fascism had it not been for Popes Pius XII, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI, all of whom promoted the order within the hierarchy of the Catholic Church. In 2005, Benedict ordered a statue of Escriva erected within St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. Before he was elevated to pontiff as John Paul I, Albino Luciani, while Cardinal-Priest of San Marco in Rome, used the term “radical” to describe Escriva.

It was Archbishop of Washington, DC, John McCloskey, left, the former director of Opus Dei’s Washington headquarters – masked as the Catholic Information Center (CIC) on K Street -- who helped greatly expand Opus Dei’s influence in the nation’s capital. McCloskey was also the first Opus Dei official charged with sexual misconduct. In McCloskey’s case, it involved a woman during his time as CIC director. McCloskey presided over several conversions to Catholicism by leading Washington politicos and pundits, including Newt Gingrich, Robert Novak, Larry Kudlow, Sam Brownback, Blackwater mercenary firm founder Erik Prince, and Bernard Nathanson, the latter a gynecologist and co-founder of the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws (NARAL) who became a leading anti-abortion activist.

Opus Dei is believed to count among its most ardent supernumeraries and other lay supporters Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife, the extremist Republican Ginni Thomas; Trump Attorney General William Barr and his “Russiagate” special counsel John Durham; Trump White House Counsel Pat Cipollone; Trump’s former acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney; the author of the infamous anti-abortion Hyde Amendment, the late Representative Henry Hyde of Illinois; the late Solicitor General and failed Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork; former Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania; and most disturbing, Leonard Leo, the head of the far-right Federalist Society that has served as a virtual employment agency for right-wing judges, including Supreme Court Associate Justices Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, as well as Thomas and Chief Justice John Roberts. All but Gorsuch are Catholic, but he was raised as one.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and others testify on censorship and free speech before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Weaponization of the Federal Government. Photo credit: C-SPAN

WhoWhatWhy, Going Deep Investigative Commentary: RFK Jr.’s Panel of Health Hoaxers, Hucksters & Hustlers, Russ Baker, right, July 26, 2023. The question is, what are they really selling?

Although he subsequently sought to deny it, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. really did say that wacky stuff suggesting that COVID-19 was bioengineered — targeted at specific ethnicities and races, while sparing others (those supposedly being spared were Chinese and Ashkenazi Jews.)

He tried to squirm out of it, claiming he never said it, but those words will not go away. To wit, they have already settled into the fertile soil of a neo-Nazi website.

So where does he get such material? Who are his sources? And how well is he able to evaluate them? That, we don’t know. What we do know is that a pretty strange group of self-anointed experts harboring extreme views on COVID-19, and more broadly on public health, are part of his brain trust.

One such person is Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, an early promoter of the theory that COVID-19 is a bioweapon designed to spare Chinese and Jewish people — almost exactly what Kennedy later claimed publicly, although she may have only confirmed ideas he already had.

Tenpenny is quite the character. She has shared numerous antisemitic claims on social media, including Holocaust denial and praise for the notorious forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,

In early 2022, she claimed Jews were using the Ukraine conflict to distract the world from a meeting in Europe about pandemic preparedness.

Kennedy will have a hard time disassociating himself from Tenpenny and her beliefs, given that she is right next to him in the image below for Kennedy’s June 27 “Health Policy Roundtable.”

Virtual Health Policy Roundtable tweet. Photo credit: Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. / Twitter

Let’s take a closer look at Tenpenny, who Kennedy says is “leading this movement against vaccines,” and a brief look at the others.

Kennedy’s Brain Trust

Tenpenny has claimed that vaccines leave people magnetized. This was her proof:

They can put a key on their forehead. It sticks. They can put spoons and forks all over them and they can stick, because now we think that there’s a metal piece to that.

She explained this — as an “expert witness” — to lawmakers in the Ohio House at a hearing in favor of a bill that would prevent businesses and government from requiring proof of vaccination. A nurse tried to demonstrate the phenomenon, with embarrassing results.

Tenpenny also claimed that vaccines interface with 5G cellular towers, and that “we’re trying to figure out what it is that’s being transmitted to these unvaccinated [sic] people that is causing health problems.” She also spread the idea that vaccinated people “shed” — leading at least one private school to instruct immunized teachers to stay away from unvaccinated students, claiming they could develop menstrual irregularities and other reproductive harm, merely from interacting with them.

Tenpenny, author of the book Saying No to Vaccines, is an osteopath, a type of doctor deploying a holistic approach to disease — but with no expertise in magnetism, epidemiology, virology, immunology, or infectious disease. The Center for Countering Digital Hate said she is one of the top 12 spreaders of COVID-19 misinformation.

July 22

World Crisis Radio, Trump indictment watch in wake of Smith warning letter, with January 6 charges possible next week and Fani Willis of Atlanta poised to indict for RICO!  Webster G. Tarpley, right, author and historian, July 22, 2023 (139:45 mins.). US 2024 vote will be binary referendum on fascist dictatorship and descent into savagery or constitutional government and progress of civilization; Challengers and third parties are pure negatives;

US warns of Russian false flag attacks on grain ships in Black Sea after Putin kills UN grain shipment deal and bombs food export facilities; NATO should protect sea lane along Romanian, Bulgarian, and Turkish coasts from Odessa to Danube to Bosporus for safeguard of world food supply;

Russia-Africa gathering in St. Petersburg brings African leaders together with Russians responsible for malnutrition and starvation in their nations;
Putin banned from BRICS in late August as would-be anti-western bloc gives up on launching attack on dollar;

Desperate MAGA hooligans Gym, Marge, and Chuck run wild with fantastic charges about Hunter Biden; RFK Jr. alleges that any criticism or editorial neglect of his crackpot views is tantamount to censorship; MAGA federal judges in Fort Pierce, Amarillo, and Monroe show need for reform of entire judiciary, not just Supremes;

MAGA think tanks ready plans for liberticide oppression by ”unitary executive”; What might be the horrors of Trump’s second cabinet?

Michigan AG Nessel indicts 16 Electoral College imposters, with Arizona and Georgia soon to follow; 84 fake electors/MAGA leaders could now face charges across seven critical swing states;

De Santis’ Florida education hacks allege benefits from slavery, which was instead an unmitigated disaster of primitive accumulation and destruction of economic value incapable of surviving without conquest;

Breaking: Monmouth poll shows Biden leading Trump 47%-40%; Presence of Manchin-Huntsman wrecking ticket still leaves Biden ahead of Trump by 40%-34%; 63% see Trump unfavorably; half would definitely not back him in 2024

July 18

Trump Defense Secretary Mark Esper, shown in a file photo at right with then-President Trump, has published a harsh assessment of Trump's willingness to break law and other norms to retain power and punish his perceived opponents.

New York Times, Trump and Allies Forge Plans to Increase Presidential Power in 2025, Jonathan Swan, Charlie Savage and Maggie Haberman, July 18, 2023 (print ed.). Former President Trump and his backers aim to strengthen the power of the White House and limit the independence of federal agencies.

Donald J. Trump and his allies are planning a sweeping expansion of presidential power over the machinery of government if voters return him to the White House in 2025, reshaping the structure of the executive branch to concentrate far greater authority directly in his hands.

Their plans to centralize more power in the Oval Office stretch far beyond the former president’s recent remarks that he would order a criminal investigation into his political rival, President Biden, signaling his intent to end the post-Watergate norm of Justice Department independence from White House political control.

Mr. Trump and his associates have a broader goal: to alter the balance of power by increasing the president’s authority over every part of the federal government that now operates, by either law or tradition, with any measure of independence from political interference by the White House, according to a review of his campaign policy proposals and interviews with people close to him.

Mr. Trump intends to bring independent agencies — like the Federal Communications Commission, which makes and enforces rules for television and internet companies, and the Federal Trade Commission, which enforces various antitrust and other consumer protection rules against businesses — under direct presidential control.

Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary:The international Plot to attack democratic legislatures, Wayne Madsen, left, July 17-18, 2023. Current law enforcement and judicial investigations in the United States, Brazil, Germany, and other countries point to a coordinated effort by far-right political parties and politicians – backed by anti-democratic dictatorships in Russia, Saudi Arabia, and – to a lesser extent, China -- to physically attack legislatures in order to bring about fascist rule. The threat to democratic legislatures has not been this severe since the 1930s, which saw a Nazi-led arson attack on the German Reichstag in Berlin in 1933 and the siege by fascists of the French National Assembly in Paris in 1934.

The analysis being undertaken by WMR will present the links between the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Congress, the January 2, 2022 arson attack on the South African Parliament, and the January 8, 2023 attack on the Brazilian Congress had more in common than occurring during the month of January. These attacks were closely linked to a vast network of fascist movements backed by far-right political operatives within the U.S. Republican Party and similar parties and organizations in North and South America and Europe.

The arson attack on the South African Parliament had similarities to the 1933 Reichstag fire. Although a mentally ill black man, Zandile Christmas Mafe, was charged with the arson and later confessed to the crime, it turned out that he had links to far-right South Africans who supported the parole of Janusz Waluś, the convicted Polish assassin in 1993 of Chris Hani, the General Secretary of the South African Communist Party and chief of staff of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC).

WMR will also point to far-right attacks on the Macedonian Parliament in 2017 and the South Korean National Assembly in 2019 that may have served as rightist dry runs on future attacks in Washington, Cape Town, and Brasilia. We will also address failed attempts by the far-right to attack legislatures in Germany, Canada, and New Zealand.

Shadowy dark money, the sources for which include Russian oligarchs, anti-democracy and “libertarian” billionaires, and right-wing foundations, has supported groups targeting democratic legislatures that are also known as the “peoples’ houses.” The international nature of the fascist movement to neuter legislatures centers around the activities of Donald Trump propagandist and accelerationist agitator Steve Bannon and other fascist apparatchiks, including Brazilian Deputy Eduardo Bolsonaro, the son of former President Jair Bolsonaro. Eduardo Bolsonaro’s fingerprints are found on both the January 6th insurrection in Washington and the January 8 insurrection in Brasilia this past January 8th. Acceleration is a term applied to far-right movements that are attempting to bring about fascist rule through civil strife. The accelerationist blueprint includes attacks on legislatures. Accelerationist rhetoric often invokes such historical events as the 1605 Gunpowder Plot to blow up the British House of Parliament in London and assassinating King James I, the storming of the Bastille in Paris on July 14, 1789, and the February 27, 1933 Nazi-backed arson attack on the Reichstag in Berlin.

The network of far-right anti-vaxxers, neo-Nazis, white nationalists, and other right-wingers responsible for the failed attempt to storm the Reichstag would continue to advocate for the storming of legislatures. In fact, there had already been a successful security breach of a legislature, that of Michigan in Lansing. On May 1, 2020, several armed protesters, some brandishing semi-automatic weapons, occupied the Senate and the House of Representatives. The gun-wielding protesters attempted to intimidate lawmakers who were debating Covid lockdown measures in the state. The protest was led by Michigan United for Liberty, a group that was connected to several other far-right organizations in the United States. Among those who occupied the legislature in Lansing were individuals later arrested and convicted in a plot to kidnap and assassinate Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer and seize control of the state government.

The Reichsbürger plotters also planned acts of violence to overthrow the Federal German government. The conspiracists included a former member of the far-right Alternative for Germany party (AfD), members of the former East German Stasi secret police, and former members of the German special forces, the KSK. The head of the coup plot was Heinrich XIII Prinz Reuss zu Köstritz, a minor German noble.

There were links between the Reichsbürger coup plotters and the QAnon movement in the United States, the Russian government, anti-vaxx zealots like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had stoked up the German far-right, including members of AfD and Generation Identity, in an August 29, 2020 speech at the Victory Column in Berlin. Kennedy Jr.’s speech was just hours prior to the attempted storming of the Reichstag building, Kennedy, who shamelessly attempted to invoke the spirit of the famed 1963 West Berlin speech of his uncle, President John F. Kennedy, said to the delight of the German far-right that “today Berlin is again the front against totalitarianism.” He added that the “surveillance state,” “5G phone networks,” and Covid-19 lockdowns were part of some diabolical international grand conspiracy. Recently, Kennedy claimed that Covid-19 had been genetically-engineered to spare Jews and Chinese, more pabulum for the global far-right conspiracists.

Kennedy’s current vanity campaign to capture the Democratic presidential nomination is not only supported by Bannon and his global network of fascists, including Chinese expat multi-billionaire Guo Wengui, currently in jail in New York awaiting trial on federal fraud charges, but also wealthy high-tech figures like Twitter and PayPal investor David Sacks, former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, and former Facebook executive Chamath Palihapitiya. Sacks, like far-rightist Twitter owner Elon Musk, is a native of apartheid-era South Africa. Palihapitiya was born in Sri Lanka. Peter Thiel, Musk’s one-time business partner and past major donor to Republicans, is a native of Germany who grew up in apartheid South Africa and South West Africa. The presence of uber-wealthy Chinese, white South Africans, Sri Lankans, Russians, as well as influential Indians, Britons, and Germans among the upper echelons of the global far-right, is a stark indication that the “deep state,” the bane of the far-right, is actually far-right itself and much more global and influential than the progressive left.

Those who fear the world stands on the same precipice of a worldwide fascist takeover have a reason for such concern. Not since the 1930s has there been a coordinated attempt by fascists to attack the instruments of democracy. Their first target has always been the chief symbol of democracy, legislatures elected by popular suffrage.

July 17

President John Kennedy delivering his iconic "Peace Speech" at American University in June, 1963.

New York Times, Biden’s ‘Final’ Order on Kennedy Files Leaves Some Still Wanting More, Peter Baker, July 17, 2023 (print ed.). President Biden finished a review mandated in 1992. While a majority of files related to John F. Kennedy’s assassination are public, some remain redacted.

On June 22, 1962, an intelligence official drafted a memo summarizing a letter intercepted between Lee Harvey Oswald and his mother. The memo was made public long ago. But for 60 years, the name of the letter opener was kept secret.

Now it can finally be told: According to an unredacted copy of the memo released recently by the government, the official who intercepted Oswald’s mail for the C.I.A. in the months before President John F. Kennedy was assassinated was named Reuben Efron.

And that means — what, exactly? A tantalizing clue to unraveling a complicated conspiracy that the government has sought to cover up for decades? Additional proof that the C.I.A. knew more about Oswald than initially acknowledged? Or a minor detail withheld all this time because of bureaucratic imperatives irrelevant to the question of whether Oswald was the lone gunman on the fateful day?

The mystery of Reuben Efron, who has been dead for three decades, may never be resolved to the satisfaction of some of those dedicated to studying the assassination. Thirty years after Congress ordered that papers related to the killing be made public with limited exceptions, President Biden has declared that he has made his “final certification” of files to be released, even though 4,684 documents remain withheld in whole or in part. Going forward, agencies will decide any future disclosures that may be warranted by the passage of time.

The president’s certification, issued at 6:36 p.m. on the Friday before the long Fourth of July holiday weekend, when it would not draw much attention, has frustrated researchers and historians still focused on the most sensational American murder of the 20th century. But they suffered a setback on Friday when a federal judge refused to block Mr. Biden’s order.

Jefferson Morley, the editor of the blog JFK Facts and the author of several books on the C.I.A., said the belated identification of Efron indicated that intelligence agencies still had something to keep from the American public.

“If they hid this guy’s name for 61 years and they’re still hiding other stuff, I would say they’re still hiding sources and methods around Oswald,” Mr. Morley said. “Why else did the name remain secret for 61 years? The C.I.A. is trying to slam the door now, and Biden’s gone along with this.”
The Biden Presidency

July 15

World Crisis Radio, Weekly Strategic Summary and Action Recommendations: Biden in the ascendant at home and abroad, with most successful NATO summit ever and Sweden on the way to membership, Webster G. Tarpley, right, author and historian, July 15, 2023 (131:59 mins.)  3% inflation as triumph of Bidenomics; $72 million raised in second quarter.

Ukraine gets security guarantees from G-7 powers plus immediate deliveries of cluster munitions and French SCALP missiles; ATACMs and more Harpoons still needed; Erdogan placated by substantial concessions from US;

Putin’s New Time of Troubles unfolds with post-Prigozhin crisis of Russian military chain of command: 30 flag officers disappeared, arrested, interrogated, or killed including ”General Armageddon” Surovikin, ”Butcher of Mariupol” Mizintsev, Popov; deputy invasion commander Lt. Gen. Oleg Tsokov, slain in Berdyansk; Submarine Captain Stanislav Rzhitsky assassinated; Dire warnings against Putinism by Gens. Ivashov and Savostyanov confirmed;

Ukrainian forces defend Orikhiv salient against Russian attacks, keeping open path south towards Melitopol, the key to cutting land corridor towards Crimea and severing supply line of the invaders;

US needs an adequate strategic culture to protect voters against the demagogy of defeatism and appeasement;

How finance oligarchs promote irrationalism as self-defense against challenges to their power: the case of the existentialist Albert Camus, cited by RFK Jr.

July 13

Ilene Proctor Global Public Relations, Book Announcement: 9/11 From Dust To Deceit, From Bush To Butchery, From Trump To Treachery, Ray McGinnis, below right, July 13, 2023. Unanswered Questions: What the September Eleventh Families Asked and the 9/11 Commission Ignored. 

Unanswered Questions is a brutally persuasive book for those who want answers to the real origins of the Afghanistan war. This Ray McGinnis book digs deeper and hammers harder for the unvarnished truths. 

For twenty years the United States government has shielded Saudi Arabia from legal action by families of the victims of the attacks of Sept. 11. In 2020 Attorney General William Barr and the acting Director of National Intelligence, Richard Grenell, argued before a judge that revealing anything about “Saudi connections to the 9/11 plot would imperil national security… and that even its justification for that secrecy needed to remain asecret.” Barr told the judge, releasing documents “would reveal information that could…harm…state secrets...”
Many families wondered how American national security would be imperiled by 9/11 families suing the Saudis? How could details of possible Saudi complicity in the attacks embarrass the United States government, or harm the nation? Are there classified documents that point not only to Saudi complicity, but to the United States itself?

Some families are hopeful that President Biden’s September 3 Executive Order on Declassification Review of Certain Documents Concerning the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001, will clear the air. But others worry what “certain documents” will be declassified? Will there be other documents kept sealed, possibly harming American national security or implicate the US government. Jersey Girls Kristen Breitweiser and Lorie Van Auken have said they are suffering from PTBS – Political-Betrayal Syndrome.

July 12

Associated Press via New York Post, Investigation: SCOTUS judges likely would break ethics rules that cover officials in other branches of gov, Staff Report, July 12, 2023. The Associated Press submitted over 100 public records requests to public schools and institutions that the Supreme Court has visited over the years.

In a monthslong inquiry, which included reviewing tens of thousands of pages of documents from more than 100 public records requests, the Associated Press has examined what happens behind the scenes when Supreme Court justices travel to colleges and universities for lectures and other events.

The AP learned the identities of donors and politicians invited to events with justices, details about the perks that have accompanied the school visits and information about how school trips have helped advance books sales.

Some of the key takeaways:

Book sales

The documents reveal how university visits are a convenient way for justices to sell their own books. That’s especially true in the case of Justice Sonia Sotomayor, above, a prolific author who has kept the court’s most active travel schedule over the past decade, according to the records reviewed by the AP.

Emails and other documents show that Supreme Court staff members have been directly engaged in facilitating book sales by asking schools how many copies they want to buy and by helping to arrange the purchase of mass quantities.

At a 2019 event jointly hosted by the Multnomah County Library in Oregon and Portland Community College, a Sotomayor aide told organizers that “250 books is definitely not enough” for a program with an expected 1,000 guests in which people would be required to have a copy to meet the justice for a signing after the event.

Michigan State University purchased 11,000 copies to be distributed to incoming first-year students. When Clemson University in South Carolina worried that 60 copies might be too many for Sotomayor to sign, a staffer reassured the school that “most institutions order in the ranges of 400 and up.”

And before a scheduled visit to the law school at the University of California, Davis, for the 2018 commencement, the court staff pitched the school on signed copies of her books in connection with the event.

In a statement, a Supreme Court spokesperson said that staff members work to follow judicial ethics guidance and that “at no time have attendees been required to buy a book in order to attend an event.”

“Schools have occasionally invited Justice Sotomayor to take part in a program in which they select a book for an entire school or a freshman class, and the Justice gives a book talk,” the statement said. “When she is invited to participate in a book program, Chambers staff recommends the number of books based on the size of the audience so as not to disappoint attendees who may anticipate books being available at an event, and they will put colleges or universities in touch with the Justice’s publisher when asked to do so.”

A lure for money

Supreme Court justices insist that they cannot and do not participate in fundraising events. But the emails obtained by the AP show that the court’s definition of a fundraiser — an event that raises more than it costs or where guests are asked for contributions — excludes much of the work that typically goes into persuading a wealthy donor to cut a check.

That’s given schools wide latitude to court rich patrons.

For instance, ahead of a 2017 event with Justice Clarence Thomas, right, officials at McLennan Community College in Texas worked with the prominent conservative lawyer Ken Starr and his wife, Alice, to craft a guest list designed to reward school patrons and incentivize future contributions. In an interview, Starr’s widow called it “friendraising.”

In an email planning the event, the executive director of the college’s foundation wrote that she had thoughts about whom to invite “mainly because they are wealthy conservative Catholics who would align with Clarence Thomas and who have not previously given.”

Thomas isn’t the only one whose status as a justice has been leveraged by schools eager to capitalize with donors. Before Justice Elena Kagan, below left, visited the University of Colorado’s law school, one official suggested a “larger donor to staff ratio” for a 2019 dinner with her, emails show. Another event organizer said the organizer was “open to suggestions about which VIP donors to cultivate relationships with.” A school spokesperson said the attendees weren’t asked for any donations connected to the event.

One official said it was hoped the events, which included donors, would “ultimately generate resources” for the university’s Humanities Advancement Board, which played a lead organizing role. As university officials devised a guest list, an alumni relations official wrote: “When you say $1M donors, please be sure to include our corporate donors at that level, too.”

In a statement, a court spokesperson said it “routinely asks event organizers to confirm that an event at which a Justice will speak is not a fundraiser, and it provides a definition of ‘fundraiser’ in order to avoid misunderstandings.” The spokesperson said justices have occasionally declined to attend events even after being told expressly that they were not fundraisers.

Political commingling

Visits to universities are promoted as academic in nature, but they also have facilitated encounters between justices and elected officials.

Months after he was seated on the Supreme Court, Justice Neil Gorsuch, left, attended an event at the University of Kentucky with then-Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, right, hosted by a center to study the judiciary named after one of McConnell’s closest friends, a former federal judge.

In 2020, after teaching a weeklong course at the University of Florida’s law school, Thomas extended his stay in the state to attend a gathering of the regional branch of the Federalist Society, where he was introduced with effusive praise by Gov. Ron DeSantis, with whom he also had a private dinner.

Thomas also attended a private dinner during a visit to the University of Texas at Tyler that was sponsored by a group of donors to then-Rep. Louie Gohmert. Six years later, Gohmert would spearhead a lawsuit that sought to empower Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the outcome of the 2020 presidential election that Donald Trump lost.

A court spokesperson said: “Justices exercise caution in attending events that might be described as political in nature, following guidance in the Code of Conduct which cautions judges against engaging in political activity. Merely attending an event where an elected official might also be in attendance — such as several of the events described in your email — does not necessarily render the event impermissibly political in nature.”

No ethics code

Some of the conduct revealed by the AP likely would run afoul of ethics rules that cover officials in other branches of government as well as lower federal court judges.

July 8

World Crisis Radio, Weekly Strategic Overview: Supreme Court is not a court, but a modern version of the Committee of Public Safety (1792-1795) in the French Revolution! Webster G. Tarpley, right, author and historian, July 8, 2023. Committee boss Robespierre was called The Incorruptible, while many of today’s justices are thoroughly corrupt; Markey bill for four new justices plus a strict ethics code are just the beginning of needed measures; 2024 Democratic campaigns must demand rollback of unpopular decisions on abortion, gun safety, affirmative action, and voting rights; Time for minority to break Roberts lockstep; The absurdities of the website designer case; In outrageous overreach, another MAGA federal judge bans administration contact with social media firms;

NATO summit starts next Tuesday July 11, and should invite Ukraine to join once fighting stops, while redoubling military support; Richard Haass and pro-appeasement elements from Council on Foreign Relations–the Wall Street State Department–held April secret meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov, violating US pledge not to discuss Ukraine without Ukrainians; Meeting also indicates pre-Prigozhin Russian weakness; CFR cannot comprehend how war could end through internal Russian political collapse, despite examples of World War I in February1917 and Afghanistan 1989;

RFK Jr.’s New Age campaign evokes myths of pre-1963 Golden Age, The Fall as mystical loss, and the corrupt fallen world; Paradise was Camelot, the Fall was JFK’s assassination, and the fallen world is ours of today; RFK’s campaign offers the Messianic vehicle for Paradise Regained, but should he fail, the last battle (aka Armageddon) looms; Close parallels with MAGA belief structure;

RFK’s radical subjectivism poses question of whether presidential choice depends on competence to govern, or whether a candidate’s role is to minister to the emotional needs of the base, confirming their frustrated beliefs about history, science, etc.; RFK not a Democrat.

July 6

JFK Facts, Commentary: How Many JFK Documents Remain Secret? Jefferson Morley, July 6, 2023. About 4,000 but the Mary Ferrell Foundation says we don't have a precise answer.

After President Biden’s June 30 announcement on JFK files, reporters have been calling the Mary Ferrell Foundation asking for basic some basic information. The National Archives claims that 99 percent of JFK files have been released but thousands remain redacted.
People want to know.
• Is the 99 percent figure accurate?
• How many JFK files did the president release?
• How many remain secret?
• How many documents is the CIA still sitting on? 

“That 99 percent figure is a throwaway number that sounds impressive to some audience perhaps,” said foundation president Rex Bradford in an email to the New York Times.
He went on:

My best guess is that the number of records with redactions is more like 4,000 or so, based on a number NARA [National Archives and Records Administration] put out earlier. But you’re right that there’s no way of verifying, no list of record numbers, no metadata update to allow it to be computed. Not to mention things like records and whole agencies which don’t even appear in the master spreadsheets of metadata nara has online. So it’s pretty mysterious where we’re at after what appears to be the “final drop.”

Bradford is the creator and webmaster of MaryFerrell.org, the internet’s largest collection of searchable JFK records. The foundation has posted these records and incorporated them into the JFK Database Explorer, an essential tool for journalists, students, and scholars interested in the events of November 1963.

July 3

Going Deep with Russ Baker, Commentary: When the Reptilian Brain Drives the Political Bus, Russ Baker, right, author, commentator and founder/publisher of the investigative project WhoWhatWhy, July 3, 2023. Politicians like Trump — and, more recently, RFK Jr. — have mastered what it takes to tap into your reptilian brain.

Five percent of the people think; 10 percent of the people think they think; and the other 85 percent would rather die than think.

— Thomas A. Edison

The constant obsessing with Hunter Biden — as if this man matters, given the very real threats our society faces — what is that actually about? Well, more than mere tribalism or confirmation bias on the right. It’s symptomatic of a deeper and broader illness.

To find the answer to this mystery, we need to lift the lid on the human skull — and have a look at the wiring inside. By “wiring” I refer to a specific feature of anatomy that may provide at least part of the explanation: the reptilian brain. Carl Sagan described it well:

Deep inside the skull of every one of us there is something like a brain of a crocodile … which evolved tens of millions of years ago. … It is a major source of our moods and emotions. … On the outside, living in uneasy truce with the more primitive brains beneath, is the cerebral cortex [that part of the brain that thinks rationally]; civilization is a product of the cerebral cortex.

So, our civilized selves live in “uneasy truce” with our more primitive selves, an internal battle within each of us.

As a longtime analyst of historical and political events, I’m well aware of the odiousness of many establishment figures and policies. I’m also exquisitely sensitive to the dangers of co-opting carefully researched and extensively sourced work to support irrational and highly tendentious conclusions about life-and-death issues.

I see this phenomenon when I perpetually receive links to the same passed-around article or video from a range of people who insist that if I would only consider with an open mind the views of this or that self-proclaimed expert, I would come to see that everyone on the “other side” is dead wrong.

At first blush, these articles often make a kind of sense, at least on the surface, which is exactly why they achieve some degree of resonance. Yet, those buying into them seem oblivious to the wealth of other studies that have produced contradictory results.

Today, while the hard right and hard left are pounding the table — the world is going up in flames.

July 1

World Crisis Radio, Weekly Strategic Overview: “Not a normal court!” Corrupt and hated Supremes declare total class war on US Constitution and American people! Webster G. Tarpley, right, author and historian, July 1, 2023 (155:55 mins.). Outrageous rulings against abortion rights, gun safety, affirmative action, and student loan debt relief foreshadow extinction of MAGA fanatics in 2024!

Biden suggests adversity as admissions enhancement criterion less likely to be attacked by plutocratic Supremes, hinting at greater role for socioeconomic class;
Defense of crushing debt burden on Millennials and Gen Z is found nowhere in Constitution, and violates General Welfare clause and Natural Law generally; Action under Heroes’ Act struck down, but Higher Education Act or other statues may permit another try for debt relief in near future;

”Bidenomics” is shorthand for successful Hamiltonian dirigism and industrial policy to replace failed and discredited free trade, free market trickle-down economics and neo-liberalism; US has best GDP growth, lowest inflation, and most robust job creation in G-7;

• But in RFK’s grotesque world, Biden is blamed for high court’s student debt fetish because he has not neutralized MAGAts! In News Nation town hall, RFK condemns US as provocateur leaving no alternative but invasion of Ukraine for peace-loving Putin, who supposedly acts in good faith; RFK breaks own Carteresque promise to always tell the truth; demands completion of Trump’s Wall and sealing of border, with immigration reform unattainable; Gun control and ban on AR-15s are impossible without consensus-also a Utopia; He won’t pledge to back Dem nominee and won’t criticize Trump; Obscurantist on public health, but wants legalization of psychedelics; RFK unworthy of debate and unfit for presidency;
• Russia enters new Smuta, the Time of Troubles c. 1590-1620 when at least one third of population perished; Reports allege preparations for Putin assassination during motorcade crossing of Moskva River bridge en route to suburban palace;
• Top Russian generals Surovikin and Gerassimov not seen in public, with Prigozhin nowhere to be found; Speculation about Putin’s doubles; US Army ATACMs ballistic missiles likely to be delivered to Ukraine;
• Reasonable people must stop misnomering and euphemizing fascists and fanatics as ”conservatives”; Conservatives value precedent, tradition, custom, norms, and protocols, but today’s Supremes hold these in contempt; A distant sample of real jurisprudence: If Goverment policy on vital questions affecting the whole people is irrevocably fixed by Supreme Court decisions made in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions, the people will cease to be their own rulers, having resigned their Government to that tribunal.-Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural, March 4, 1861 in Washington DC.

June

June 24

Going Deep with Russ Baker! Daniel Ellsberg: Remembering a Gentle Giant, Russ Baker, right, author, commentator and founder/publisher of the investigative project WhoWhatWhy, June 24, 2023. A few things you might not know about the Pentagon Papers whistleblower.

The last time I saw Dan Ellsberg (shown above in a University of Massachusetts photo) was at a journalism conference a few months back. I was there and he was on the screen remotely.

It was just him, and his fellow whistleblower Reality Winner, speaking with the attendees about what it’s like to take great risks in service of the public good.

Although the audience was journalists, who have been important allies of Ellsberg throughout his life, he was, characteristically, blunt. He criticized our tendency to use sources and discard them. Because of the authenticity and heartfelt nature of the critique, it seemed like everyone took what he said as true. Personally, I couldn’t help but roar my approval.

That was April 29. He knew he only had a few months left at most because of his fast-spreading pancreatic cancer. By June 16, he was dead.

****

Dan Ellsberg first came on my radar when I was a child, long before he was well known as the nation’s most famous whistleblower from the unprecedented Pentagon Papers case, in which he’d smuggled out of the Pentagon a massive report showing that the government was lying to the public about how the costly and bloody Vietnam War was going.

Growing up in Los Angeles, I attended the same experimental elementary school as his children. His daughter, Mary, was my classmate.

One day, for “show and tell,” Mary brought a beautiful doll from Vietnam. As I recall, she said something like, “My dad is a secret agent in Vietnam.”

It was a long journey, from gung-ho Marine and intelligence analyst to peace campaigner.

World Crisis Radio, Weekly Strategic News Overview with Reform Agenda: Insurrection of Wagner mercenary army in Russia: Will the Russian front in Ukraine now collapse, possibly leading to fall of Putin? Webster G. Tarpley, right, author and historian, June 24, 2023 (120:39 mins.). Prigozhin claims his forces were hit with missiles by Shoigu and Gerassimov, causing heavy losses; Kremlin forced to issue denial on state television; Wagner HQ raided; Prigozhin claims he is approaching Rostov-on-Don at the head of a Wagner column;

Civil war may be near: Armored personnel carriers and tightening security on Moscow streets including at Kremlin and State Duma (parliament) and Rostov in southern Russia; FSB (KGB) issues indictment of Prigozhin, urges Wagner troops to arrest and detain him; Deputy Army Commander Surovikin tells Wagner to end uprising, but will other generals and units join?

Denying Putin’s theory, Prigozhin says there was no need to invade Ukraine in February 2022, accuses defense ministry of corruption and war profiteering; the Wages of Aggression;
How appeasement, defeatism, and anti-semitism ended the political career of of US Ambassador to London Joseph P. Kennedy in 1940;

How Garland, Monaco and Trump backers in the FBI delayed investigation of January 6 for a year and more; From ”Where’s the FBI?” to DC field office boss d’Antuono’s ”I’m not serving subpoenas on the frigging Willard” about infamous January 6 war room;

Instability in Russia confirms New Time of Troubles (1598-1603); Another precursor: 1682 mutiny of Streltsy (archers) regiments against Peter the Great: Boyars and army commanders lynched on charges of corruption;
Wall Street’s anti-FDR intrigue in 1933-1934 is called Morgan coup, not just Business Plot;

Breaking: Russia complains Ukraine is exploiting Prigozhin rebellion by attacking Bakhmut-Artyomovsk, where Wagner has left front lines.

June 21

Washington Post, ProPublica asked about Alito’s travel. He replied in the Wall Street Journal, Paul Farhi, June 21, 2023. Questioned about an undisclosed fishing trip hosted by a GOP billionaire, the Supreme Court justice instead shared his rebuttal in a rival media outlet — before the investigative journalists could publish their scoop.

Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., shown above in a file photo, took issue with questions raised by the investigative journalism outlet ProPublica about his travel with a politically active billionaire, and on Tuesday evening, he outlined his defense in an op-ed published by the Wall Street Journal.

Yet Alito was responding to a news story that ProPublica hadn’t yet published.

Alito’s Journal column, bluntly headlined “ProPublica Misleads Its Readers,” was an unusual public venture by a Supreme Court justice into the highly opinionated realm of a newspaper editorial page. And it drew criticism late Tuesday for effectively leaking elements of ProPublica’s still-in-progress journalism — with the assistance of the Journal’s editorial-page editors.

An editor’s note at the top of Alito’s column said that ProPublica reporters Justin Elliott and Josh Kaplan had sent a series of questions to Alito last week and asked for a response by Tuesday at noon. The editor’s note doesn’t mention that ProPublica hadn’t yet published its story — nor that Alito did not provide his answers directly to ProPublica.

June 18

Going Deep With Russ Baker, Investigative Commentary: If Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Were President, How Safe Would We Be? Russ Baker, right, author, commentator and founder/publisher of the investigative project WhoWhatWhy, June 18, 2023. A dream for some, a nightmare for others.

Since I published what so far is a series of five columns exploring RFK Jr.’s positions and claims, almost the entirety of the media, it seems, has jumped in, each offering another variation on why you wouldn’t want this guy anywhere near the White House. Most have stuck to a general recitation of his well-cataloged history of controversies, and the pros and cons of having the Kennedy name.

There are certainly some pros. First off, we should all remember the Robert F. Kennedy Jr., shown above, of his early years. When he was not engaging in foolhardy personal behavior, he was trying to be a good citizen, doing praiseworthy work to promote environmental consciousness and oppose large corporations’ subversion of government oversight, among other good deeds.

That was then; this is now. He seems to have changed, in many ways, and not for the better. He’s hardly the only person who has gotten worse — much worse — over the years. Sadly, the debasement of lofty principles and the degradation of the discourse is a trend.

Still, I’ve seen few media drill-downs into his core beliefs, or detailed scrutiny of the claims he’s made that are either scientifically dicey or simply false — which has thus far been my principal focus.

And there’s something else I haven’t yet seen: a rumination on what it would actually be like if he, against all odds, actually won.

June 17

World Crisis Radio, Weekly Strategic Overview and Reform Agenda: Twice-indicted Trump faces gauntlet of more charges and trials that will end his reign as sentimental favorite of GOP, Webster G. Tarpley, right, author and historian, June 17, 2023 (134:10 mins.).  Defendant is incorrigible, demands return of papers; Slow disintegration of Trump political machine ongoing as backlash against MAGA boss builds on Hill & among presidential field; Vigilance and scrutiny needed to deter lawless actions by Florida district judge now handling case; Legal positivism remains curse of US judiciary;

Michael Cohen theorizes that scattered document hoard and copies could be used to extort US government and escape punishment;

MAGA insiders’ clique plans totalitarian perversion of US justice and police agencies if their man ever returns to power;

Ukraine launches offensive phase with reconnaissance and battlefield shaping probes; Invincible Russian hypersonic missiles prove highly vulnerable; Melitopol axis will be crucial; Milley sees ”steady progress” in arduous battles; Gen. Hodges says main offensive will entail spearhead of three or more armored brigades; Beware voices of defeatism and appeasement backed by Kremlin;

The pathos of African leaders deprived of grain visiting Kyiv under rocket fire from the criminal aggressor Putin who tell Zelensky ”both sides” must sacrifice for peace;

Biden’s Pacific diplomacy in high gear: Blinken en route to China, Modi of India expected in Washington; Sullivan of NSC meets with Japanese, South Korean, and Philippine reps in Tokyo;
China’s Xi is failing on multiple fronts: population is shrinking & workforce aging, foreign companies and research teams departing, economy and exports slowing, and regime’s only answer comes as threats to India and Taiwan;

Weissman sees 100% certainty of additional federal criminal charges against Trump!

New York Times, A Year After Dobbs, Advocates Plan to Fight for Access to Birth Control

New York Times, A Year After Dobbs, Advocates Plan to Fight for Access to Birth Control, Sheryl Gay Stolberg, June 17, 2023. After Justice Clarence Thomas cast doubt on whether the Constitution affords a right to contraception, advocates are preparing for state-by-state battles.

One year after Justice Clarence Thomas said the Supreme Court should reconsider whether the Constitution affords Americans a right to birth control, Democrats and reproductive rights advocates are laying the groundwork for state-by-state battles over access to contraception — an issue they hope to turn against Republicans in 2024.

The justice’s argument in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the case that overturned Roe v. Wade and the right to abortion, galvanized the reproductive rights movement. House Democrats, joined by eight Republicans, promptly passed legislation that would have created a national right to contraception. Republicans blocked a companion bill in the Senate.

Now, reproductive rights advocates are pressing their case in the states. Even before Dobbs, some states had taken steps to protect the right to contraception, by either statute or constitutional amendment; 13 states and the District of Columbia currently have such protections, according to KFF, a health policy research organization.

This month, the movement seemed on the cusp of victory in Nevada, where the Democratic-controlled Legislature passed a bill, with support from a handful of Republicans, that would have guaranteed a right to contraception. But on Friday, Gov. Joe Lombardo, a Republican, quietly vetoed the measure. Proponents of codifying such a right saw Nevada as a test case.

June 11

Going Deep, Investigative Commentary: Fog of War: A Whole New Scenario for Nord Stream Bombing? Russ Baker, right, June 11, 2023. Very little can be taken at face value — not documents, not claims, not supposedly trustworthy sources.

The finger-pointing about the destruction last year of Russia’s Nord Stream natural gas pipelines is getting pointier. And, by my reading, the matter grows yet more intrigue-filled.

As you may recall, in my column of March 4, 2023, I expressed skepticism about Seymour Hersh’s exclusive and highly controversial report from a purported intelligence insider — who stated that the bombing was a United States government operation. Since then, The Washington Post has reported that, no, it was actually a Ukrainian operation.

Having covered the machinations of intelligence apparatuses and White Houses on highly sensitive matters for many years, I’m naturally wary of all these scoops. It’s just as likely that we’re all missing larger agendas that are in play.

The truth, whatever it is, may not be known for years — if ever. However, I want to propose the eminently logical possibility that, in fact, it was a Ukrainian operation, but one helped, on a highly deniable basis, by the United States.

This would be, for both players, a win-win: The US helps Ukraine, keeps away from any sort of direct conflict with Russia, and Ukraine gets seen, eventually, and despite its denials, as a decisive, capable, and muscular entity that the world — and Russia — better not underestimate.

June 10

World Crisis Radio, Historical Commentary: Trump indictment makes June 8-9 a glorious rebirth of freedom in fight to prevent fascist dictatorship in 2024! Webster G. Tarpley, right, author and strategic reformer, June 10, 2023 (120 mins.). Trump charged with 37 criminal felony counts in greatest reckoning of his lifetime; charges include illegal retention of 31 documents in violation of 1917 Espionage Act, conspiracy to promulgate false statements, obstruction of justice, and dissemination of secrets as papers were shown to random visitors; Hapless body man Walt Nauta also accused;

US national security and armed forces imperiled owing to lawless hoarding of state secrets; Majority of damning evidence comes from Don’s own lawyers and employees in form of emails, texts, tapes, and memos;

VI Amendment considerations of venue have dictated transfer of case to south Florida, but role of pro-MAGA renegade judge Aileen Cannon is threat to United States and must be rejected;

South Florida federal bench runs rocket docket along lines of Alexandria, Virginia-which could deprive Don of his most potent weapon of delay;

Orgy of whataboutism in reactionary media cannot hide Trump’s lack of any elements for a coherent defense in face of overwhelming evidence; Will he attempt a plea bargain in extremis, including ending his White House bid on model of Agnew in 1973?

Putin has staked his hopes of conquest on Trump’s second term; So, as Trump’s chances decline, the power of Russian aggression also diminishes;

The essence of globalization has been the catastrophic ascendancy of the predatory financier oligarchy over the modern nation state; The current twilight of globaloney is likely to enhance the role of the state! Indictments met by mass indifference, with no spontaneous riots or general strikes to protest, protest, protest!

June 9

The warrant authorizing the search of former president Donald Trump’s home said agents were seeking documents possessed in violation of the Espionage Act.

New York Times, Justice Dept. Unseals Indictment Against Trump, Alan Feuer, Maggie Haberman, William K. Rashbaum and Ben Protess, June 9, 2023. Federal prosecutors unsealed the indictment Federal prosecutors unsealed the indictment laying out the government’s case against former President Donald J. Trump on Friday, detailing their allegations that he mishandled classified documents after leaving office and obstructed the government’s efforts to reclaim them.

Jack Smith, the special counsel who is bringing the case, made a brief statement to the press on Friday at his office in Northeast Washington at 3 p.m., his spokesman said. laying out the government’s case against former President Donald J. Trump on Friday, detailing their allegations that he mishandled classified documents after leaving office and obstructed the government’s efforts to reclaim them.

The indictment gives the clearest picture yet of the files that Mr. Trump took with him when he left the White House. It said he had illegally kept hold of documents concerning “United States nuclear programs; potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attack; and plans for possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack.”

The indictment names one of his personal aides, Waltine Nauta, as a co-conspirator who assisted in obstructing the investigation into the former president’s retention of sensitive defense documents at his resident and resort in Florida.

Prosecutors presented evidence that Mr. Trump shared a highly sensitive “plan of attack” against Iran to visitors at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J. in July 2021 — and was recorded on tape describing the material as “highly confidential” and “secret,” while it admitting it had not been declassified.

In another incident in Sept, 2021 he shared a top secret military map with a staffer at his political action committee who did not have a security clearance.

The filing includes many pictures of what appear to be bankers’ boxes, some containing highly sensitive national documents, which were haphazardly moved by Mr. Nauta and other aides at Mr. Trump’s behest. Some of the boxes appear to be sagging — and on Dec. 7, 2021 Mr. Nauta found that one of the boxes had toppled and spilled its contents on the floor.

The files that splayed on the carpet included the designation “SECRET/REL TO USA, FVEY” — which meant that they were meant to be seen by officials from the U.S., U.K. New Zealand and Australia with high-level security clearances.

Mr. Trump is expected to appear in Federal District Court in Miami on Tuesday afternoon. Judge Aileen M. Cannon is scheduled to preside over that initial hearing, according to people familiar with the matter. It was not clear whether Judge Cannon, who was criticized by a higher court for handing Mr. Trump a series of unusually favorable rulings during the early stages of the investigation, would remain assigned for the entirety of the case.

Washington Post, Trump charged in secret documents case, He is the first former president to face federal criminal charges, Devlin Barrett, Perry Stein and Josh Dawsey, June 9, 2023. The charges include willful retention of national defense secrets, obstruction of justice, false statements and conspiracy, which carry the potential of years in prison if he is found guilty. Trump will appear in federal court in Miami for an arraignment on Tuesday.

Former president Donald Trump said Thursday night that he’s been charged by the Justice Department in connection with the discovery that hundreds of classified documents were taken to his Mar-a-Lago home after he left the White House — a seismic event in the nation’s political and legal history.

A seven-count indictment has been filed in federal court naming the former president as a criminal defendant, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a case that has yet to be unsealed. The charges include willful retention of national defense secrets, obstruction of justice and conspiracy, which carry the potential of years in prison if Trump is found guilty.

Washington Post, Live updates: Trump, indicted over classified document handling, must appear in federal court, Kelsey Ables, Adela Suliman and John Wagner, June 9, 2023. Trump, who is the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, will appear in federal court in Miami for an arraignment on Tuesday at 3 p.m.

Former president Donald Trump is expected to be arraigned in federal court in Miami on Tuesday in connection with a criminal investigation that found hundreds of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida after he left the presidency.

Trump, who is again seeking the Republican presidential nomination, has been indicted on seven charges, people familiar with the matter told The Washington Post, including willful retention of national defense secrets, obstruction of justice and conspiracy. Trump has denied any wrongdoing.

Washington Post, Trump can still run for president in 2024 after being indicted twice, Perry Stein, March 30, 2023, updated June 8, 2023. Though a former president has never been convicted of a crime, even that wouldn’t bar Trump from running again. And some advisers think the indictments could be a good thing for his campaign.

Even a guilty verdict in either of the cases pending against him would not disqualify Trump’s bid for office, according to Anna G. Cominsky, a professor at New York Law School, or keep him from serving if he were elected.

“There are actually not that many constitutional requirements to run for president,” Cominsky said. “There is not an explicit prohibition in the Constitution in respects to having a pending indictment or even being convicted.”

2016 Republican Presidential nominee Donald J. Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton during their third debate in 2016 at a time they were accusing each other of being a "puppet" following many weeks in which Trump and his allies led rallies chanting "lock her up" regarding Clinton.

New York Times, Indictment Brings Trump Story Full Circle, Peter Baker, June 9, 2023 (print ed.). Former President Trump assailed Hillary Clinton for her handling of sensitive information. Now, the same issue threatens his chances in the 2024 election.

There was a time, not that long ago really, when Donald J. Trump said he cared about the sanctity of classified information. That, of course, was when his opponent was accused of jeopardizing it and it was a useful political weapon for Mr. Trump.

Throughout 2016, he castigated Hillary Clinton for using a private email server instead of a secure government one. “I’m going to enforce all laws concerning the protection of classified information,” he declared. “No one will be above the law.” Mrs. Clinton’s cavalier handling of the sensitive information, he said, “disqualifies her from the presidency.”

Seven years later, Mr. Trump faces criminal charges for endangering national security by taking classified documents when he left the White House and refusing to return all of them even after being subpoenaed. Even in the what-goes-around-comes-around department of American politics, it is rather remarkable that the issue that helped propel Mr. Trump to the White House in the first place now threatens to ruin his chances of getting back there.

The indictment handed up by a federal grand jury at the request of the special counsel Jack Smith effectively brings the Trump story full circle. “Lock her up,” the crowds at his campaign rallies chanted with his encouragement. Now he may be the one locked up if convicted on any of the seven reported counts that include conspiracy to obstruct justice and willful retention of documents.

The indictment is the second brought against the former president in recent months, but in many ways it eclipses the first in terms of both legal gravity and political peril. The first indictment, announced in March by the Manhattan district attorney, charged Mr. Trump with falsifying business records to cover up hush money to an adult film actress who alleged that they had a sexual tryst. The second is brought by a federal prosecutor representing the nation as a whole, the first in American history against a former president, and concerns the nation’s secrets.

While Mr. Trump’s defenders have tried to brush off the first as the work of a local elected Democrat concerning issues that, however unseemly, seem relatively petty and happened before he took office, the latest charges stem directly from his responsibility as the nation’s commander in chief to safeguard data that could be useful to America’s enemies.

Republican voters may not care if their leader slips money to a porn star to keep quiet, but will they be indifferent about impeding authorities seeking to recover clandestine material?

Perhaps. Mr. Trump certainly hopes so. The Manhattan indictment only seemed to boost his poll ratings rather than hurt him. And so he immediately cast the latest indictment as part of the most extravagant conspiracy in American history, one that in his telling seems to involve a wide range of local and federal prosecutors, grand jurors, judges, plaintiffs, regulators and witnesses who have all lied for years to set him up while he is the one truth teller, no matter what the charges.

“I never thought it possible that such a thing could happen to a former President of the United States, who received far more votes than any sitting President in the History of our Country, and is currently leading, by far, all Candidates, both Democrat and Republican, in Polls of the 2024 Presidential Election,” he wrote on his social media site, making multiple misleading assertions in a single sentence. “I AM AN INNOCENT MAN!”

New York Times, A Times investigation went inside Mar-a-Lago, where thousands partied near secret files. (From 2022), Anjali Singhvi, Mika Gröndahl, Maggie Haberman, Weiyi Cai and Blacki Migliozzi, Dec. 15, 2022. A Times investigation shows how Donald J. Trump stored classified documents in high-traffic areas at Mar-a-Lago, where guests may have been within feet of the materials.

Mar-a-Lago is the primary home of former President Donald J. Trump. It is also a private club reserved for 500 members and a venue for parties and fund-raisers that are frequently attended by hundreds of people at a time.

New York Times, These are some of the charges Mr. Trump faces, Charlie Savage, June 9, 2023 (print ed.). Taking a look at what the prosecutors may have to prove to a jury. A grand jury has charged former President Donald J. Trump with a total of seven counts, according to two people familiar with the indictment.

While the precise details of all the charges are not yet clear, the people familiar with the matter said the charges include willfully retaining national defense secrets in violation of the Espionage Act, conspiracy to obstruct justice, and making false statements.

Here is a closer look.

New York Times, Republicans in Congress are decrying the indictment, vowing retaliation, Luke Broadwater, June 9, 2023 (print ed.). House Republicans reacted with outrage on Thursday night to the federal indictment of former President Donald J. Trump, vowing to use their majority in Congress to fight the Justice Department.

“WITCH HUNT,” was posted on the Twitter account of the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee within minutes of news of the indictment becoming public.

The chairman of that panel, Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, has used his perch to attempt to pressure the Justice Department over what he views as unfair treatment of Mr. Trump. Mr. Jordan this week sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland demanding unredacted documents concerning the investigation of the special counsel, Jack Smith.

“It’s a sad day for America,” Mr. Jordan said in a statement on Thursday. “God bless President Trump.”

Members of Congress have no power to stop criminal charges, but they can attempt to interfere with prosecutors through their legislative powers, such as issuing subpoenas, demanding witness interviews or documents, restricting Justice Department funding and using the platform of their offices to attempt to publicly influence the case.

Several Republicans who are closely allied with Mr. Trump said, without evidence, that the indictment was an attempt to distract from their investigation into President Biden’s family, including his son Hunter’s business dealings. They made clear that they would target federal law enforcement in retaliation.

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, said the case against Mr. Trump was a “stain on our nation that the F.B.I. and D.O.J. are so corrupt and they don’t even hide it anymore.” She added, “We must win in 2024. We must beat these sick people.”

Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida and one of Mr. Trump’s closest allies, predicted that the former president would prevail against the charges, and that his rivals would be imprisoned.

“This scheme won’t succeed. President Donald Trump will be back in the White House and Joe Biden will be Hunter’s cellmate,” Mr. Gaetz wrote on Twitter.

It was the second time this year that House Republicans rallied to Mr. Trump’s defense after he was charged criminally. In April, Speaker Kevin McCarthy pledged to use the investigative powers of the House to hold Alvin L. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, “accountable” after Mr. Trump was charged in New York with 34 counts of falsifying business records.

New York Times, Judge Appointed by Trump Will Oversee Case, at Least Initially, Alan Feuer, Maggie Haberman, William K. Rashbaum and Ben Protess, June 9, 2023. Judge Aileen M. Cannon, right, who Mr. Trump appointed to the bench in 2020, is scheduled, for now, to preside over his first appearance in Federal District Court in Miami.

The Justice Department took the momentous step to file criminal charges against Donald Trump after an investigation of his handling of classified files; Mr. Trump’s indictment will be initially overseen by a federal judge who has been criticized for handing him unusually favorable rulings.

Former President Donald J. Trump’s criminal indictment on charges stemming from his handling of classified documents will be overseen — at least initially — by a federal judge who a higher court criticized for handing him a series of unusually favorable rulings during the early stages of the investigation, according to five people familiar with the matter.

The judge, Aileen M. Cannon, who Mr. Trump himself appointed to the bench in 2020, his final year in office, is scheduled, at least for now, to preside over the former president’s first appearance in Federal District Court in Miami on Tuesday, the people said. But it was not clear whether Judge Cannon would remain assigned for the entirety of Mr. Trump’s case.

Judge Cannon’s involvement was earlier reported by ABC News.

While judges are typically given cases by a random process, it is also customary to hand incoming matters to judges who have dealt with related ones.

Last fall, Judge Cannon presided over an unusual and highly contentious legal battle between the Justice Department and Mr. Trump’s lawyers over whether to pause the documents investigation so that an outside arbiter could review thousands of records seized by the F.B.I. from Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s private club and residence in Florida.

Ruling for Mr. Trump, Judge Cannon effectively froze a significant portion of the government’s inquiry, barring prosecutors from using the materials seized from Mar-a-Lago for any “investigative purpose” connected to the case against Mr. Trump until the work of the arbiter, known as a special master, was finished.

An appeals court sitting in Atlanta ultimately overruled Judge Cannon, scrapped the special master’s review and allowed the investigation of Mr. Trump to resume unhindered.

In a sharply critical decision, a three-member panel of the appeals court said Judge Cannon never had the proper jurisdiction to intervene in the case and order the review. The court also chided her for stopping federal investigators from using the files seized from Mar-a-Lago, saying there was no justification for treating Mr. Trump differently from any other target of a search warrant.

“It is indeed extraordinary for a warrant to be executed at the home of a former president — but not in a way that affects our legal analysis or otherwise gives the judiciary license to interfere in an ongoing investigation,” the court wrote.

the Trump drama play out without commenting, convinced that it is better they be seen as governing. Biden is about to leave the White House for a daylong visit to North Carolina, where he will visit a community college for an event on workforce training and, later, the Army base Fort Liberty, where he will meet with service members.

Washington Post, Trump charged in secret documents case, Devlin Barrett, Perry Stein and Josh Dawsey, June 9, 2023 (print ed.). Former president, shown above in a file photo and the first ever to face federal criminal charges, posts on social media that he must appear in court in Miami on Tuesday,  The former president posted on social media that he must appear in court in Miami on Tuesday.

Former president Donald Trump said Thursday night that he’s been charged by the Justice Department in connection with the discovery that hundreds of classified documents were taken to his Mar-a-Lago home after he left the White House — a seismic event in the nation’s political and legal history.

Several Trump advisers confirmed the charges. Trump, who is the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, said he has been summoned to appear in federal court in Miami on Tuesday at 3 p.m. A seven-count indictment has been filed in federal court naming the former president as a criminal defendant, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a case that has yet to be unsealed.

The charges include illegal retention of government secrets, obstruction of justice and conspiracy, according to people familiar with the matter. It is the second time Trump has been criminally charged since March, when he was indicted in state court in New York on 34 counts of falsifying business records related to hush-money payments from 2016. Trump, who has denied wrongdoing in both cases, is the only former president ever charged with a crime.

“I have been indicted, seemingly over the Boxes Hoax,” Trump posted on social media site Truth Social. He claimed he was being treated unfairly. “I never thought it possible that such a thing could happen to a former President of the United States,” he said in a screed that ended: “I AM AN INNOCENT MAN!”

A spokesman for special counsel Jack Smith, who has been running the investigation since November, declined to comment.

The charges cap a high-stakes investigation that began in early 2022 and slowly built steam over the summer, until FBI agents conducted a court-ordered search of Trump’s home in early August which turned up 103 classified documents, even after Trump’s advisers had claimed they had conducted a diligent search in June for such papers and handed over all they could find.

In the months since that raid, investigators have been gathering evidence to determine whether the former president deliberately set out to obstruct law-enforcement efforts to recover the top-secret material at his Florida home and private club.

Much of the investigation centered around the actions of Trump and his closest advisers following a May subpoena from the government for the return of all documents with classified markings. Witness and videotape evidence gathered by the FBI indicated that Trump may have sought to keep documents, despite having turned over some material to authorities in response to the subpoena.

The Warning, Steve Schmidt compares recent attacks on Donald Trump from former Vice President Mike Pence and former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, June 8-9, 2023. Steve says that Christie's direct style is more likely to impact Donald Trump's ability to be the Republican nominee, which is important for the future of democracy.

June 8

The Warning, Steve Schmidt compares recent attacks on Donald Trump from former Vice President Mike Pence and former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, June 8-9, 2023. Steve says that Christie's direct style is more likely to impact Donald Trump's ability to be the Republican nominee, which is important for the future of democracy.

June 7

Justice Department Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, left, and former President Donald Trump, shown in a collage via CNN.

The Independent, Investigative Report: Prosecutors ready to ask for Trump indictment on obstruction and Espionage Act charges, Andrew Feinberg, June 7, 2023. The Independent has learned that prosecutors are prepared to ask grand jurors to vote on charges as early as Thursday

The Department of Justice is preparing to ask a Washington, DC grand jury to indict former president Donald Trump for violating the Espionage Act and for obstruction of justice as soon as Thursday, adding further weight to the legal baggage facing Mr Trump as he campaigns for his party’s nomination in next year’s presidential election.

The Independent has learned that prosecutors are ready to ask grand jurors to approve an indictment against Mr Trump for violating a portion of the US criminal code known as Section 793, which prohibits “gathering, transmitting or losing” any “information respecting the national defence”.

The use of Section 793, which does not make reference to classified information, is understood to be a strategic decision by prosecutors that has been made to short-circuit Mr Trump’s ability to claim that he used his authority as president to declassify documents he removed from the White House and kept at his Palm Beach, Florida property long after his term expired on 20 January 2021.

That section of US criminal law is written in a way that could encompass Mr Trump’s conduct even if he was authorised to possess the information as president because it states that anyone who “lawfully having possession of, access to, control over, or being entrusted with any document ...relating to the national defence,” and “willfully communicates, delivers, transmits or causes to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted or attempts to communicate, deliver, transmit or cause to be communicated, delivered or transmitted the same to any person not entitled to receive it, or willfully retains the same and fails to deliver it on demand to the officer or employee of the United States entitled to receive it” can be punished by as many as 10 years in prison.

It is understood that prosecutors intend to ask grand jurors to vote on the indictment on Thursday, but that vote could be delayed as much as a week until the next meeting of the grand jury to allow for a complete presentation of evidence, or to allow investigators to gather more evidence for presentation if necessary.

A separate grand jury that is meeting in Florida has also been hearing evidence in the documents investigation. That grand jury was empaneled in part to overcome legal issues posed by the fact that some of the crimes allegedly committed by Mr Trump took place in that jurisdiction, not in Washington. Under federal law, prosecutors must bring charges against federal defendants in the jurisdiction where the crimes took place.

Meidas Touch Network, Breaking: DOJ Prepared to INDICT Trump as Meadows Makes STUNNING Move, June 7, 2023. MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on the breaking news that Special Counsel Jack Smith is ready to indict Donald Trump as early as this week and that Mark Meadows, the former Trump chief of staff shown above in a file photo, has agreed to plead guilty to several federal charges as part of a deal he has already received for limited immunity in exchange for his testimony.

June 3

World Crisis Radio, Weekly Strategic Roundup and Pro-Democracy Commentary: In masterpiece of statesmanship, Biden steers US away from abyss of chaos and default fomented by MAGA extremists! Webster G. Tarpley, right, author and historian, June 3, 2023 (113:51 mins). Failure of Trump’s policy of default reflects growing weakness of Republicans and isolation of extremist ”Freedom Caucus” fanatics; Jeffries and Schumer keep Dems largely unified in support of Biden-Qevin bill except for some ultra-left defections;

Majority of GOP senators vote against bill lifting ”debt ceiling” for 2 years, showing that their party is a chaos agent incapable of governing;
Newly revealed July 2021 tape of Trump brandishing classified Iran war plan to discredit Gen. Milley leads Weissman to call ”game over” for former guy and expect indictment within two weeks; Talk of Espionage Act grows;

Fani Willis may expand Georgia case against Trump to include companies hired by his campaign to prove vote fraud in swing states but who found none; RICO allegations could loom; Ominous pattern of reverses for former guy on legal front;

Drone attacks on Moscow suburbs and Krasnodar oil refineries plus border attacks by anti-Putin Russian militias indicate start of Ukraine counterattack; Blinken in Kyiv warns against ”Potemkin” cease fire or peace deal with Putin; At European summit in Moldova, Macron backs NATO membership for Ukraine; Pressure on Turkey to approve Swedish membership before July 11 NATO summit.

 Going Deep with Russ Baker, Investigative Commentary: More Indications RFK Jr’s Anti Vaccine Claims Have Little Basis, Russ Baker, right, June 3, 2023. Russ Baker, founder and publisher of the investigative site WhoWhatWhy, is a longtime media critic, investigative reporter and researcher on historical topics, including as author of the best-selling "Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, America's Invisible Government and the Hidden History of the Last Fifty Years."

At a time when disinformation and narrow-mindedness are at an all-time high, the last thing we need is a purported “reform” candidate who contributes to the mess.

Although COVID-19 numbers are down in the US, they are soaring in China — and we know well enough from history that as goes China, so may go the rest of the world. Therefore, it’s not a good time to just thank our lucky stars and move on. And that means we still need to achieve consensus on the threat and what to do about it.

Most people believe that the medical and scientific establishment did the best they could with an unanticipated emergency, that they made mistakes but learned along the way.

And most people remember how it was. Not so long ago, hospitals were bursting at the seams with patients deathly ill with COVID-19. As soon as one died, another was brought in. Freezer trucks were parked outside the hospitals, containing piles of bodies with nowhere to go for burial. Victims of other emergencies — car accidents, heart attacks, strokes — were being sent away in ambulances driven by desperate EMT workers who didn’t know where to go next. The public was crying out for a vaccine.

But not everyone seems to remember why a COVID-19 vaccine became necessary. There’s a small but loud minority who seem to have forgotten.They’re the base for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential campaign, which drew 20 percent of Democratic voters in a recent CNN poll. He almost certainly can’t win, but he can be a potent factor, and maybe a distraction at an inflection point in what is shaping up as an epic battle for the future of America and the world.

As noted in previous columns, I find Kennedy (shown above and at left) a bit slippery in terms of what he says about COVID-19 and vaccines. That seems a glaring deficiency given that Kennedy is ostensibly running to mitigate a lack of forthrightness and honesty among politicians.

I’ve also noticed, based on comments from his supporters, that their skepticism about the trustworthiness of the US medical establishment often extends to the US establishment in general — which they accuse of nefarious meddling in almost everything, including the endless tragedy in Ukraine.

They are infatuated by the notion that Kennedy will “unwind the empire” — as if at this particular point in history, when US power is receding, that is nevertheless more urgent than solving climate change and ensuring that humanity survives.

They lecture me, they chastise me, they say I have lost my way, or perhaps am a traitor and covert operative for big pharma, and some explicitly grouse that I was never the critical-eyed investigative reporter and resolute truth-seeker they thought I was.

So for my own sanity I’ve had to hit the mute button quite a bit lately. To be totally frank, the more I look into their assertions the more I conclude these folks don’t actually know what they’re talking about.

I also am increasingly identifying a sort of core gene, an almost reptilian-brain instinct from being in the trenches so long against an admittedly flawed US system and “empire” — a perspective so calcified and lacking in open-mindedness that all situational discernment and fair-mindedness is out the window.

It’s the Left version of a disease sweeping the country. Mindset drives everything. As a result, like Fox and Newsmax viewers, these Bobby Kennedy Jr. acolytes trust a small set of “sources” that they actually know little about.

As noted, I’ve explored many of Kennedy’s claims on various subjects, and found them to be shoddy or downright incorrect. But his supporters — much like Trump’s — will forgive almost anything, due to some “larger principle.” I’ve actually seen some writing off gross mischaracterizations as, “Well, nobody’s perfect.”

Still, they continue to send links, and videos, and articles, dismissing the millions of scientific and healthcare professionals with whom they disagree. But I keep remembering the old saying: “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” And they don’t present such evidence — not even solid ordinary evidence, let alone extraordinary. Before I put a pin in this topic, I will briefly discuss one final request, which comes from a friend of long standing.

Former Trump National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, anti-vax activists Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Charlene Bollinger, and longtime Trump ally and advisor Roger Stone, left to right, backstage at a July 2021 Reawaken America event. The photo was posted but later removed by Bollinger, who has appeared with Kennedy at multiple events. She and her husband sponsored an anti-vaccine, pro-Trump rally near the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Bollinger celebrated the attack and her husband tried to enter the Capitol. Kennedy later appeared in a video for their Super PAC. Kennedy has repeatedly invoked Nazis and the Holocaust when talking about measures aimed at mitigating the spread of COVID-19, such as mask requirements and vaccine mandates. Kennedy, who has announced a presidential campaign for 2024, has at times invoked his family’s legacy in his anti-vaccine work, including sometimes using images of President Kennedy.

 NOTE: This week RFK Jr. excitedly tweeted that Fox News had made a documentary about him, and Elon Musk has offered him a one-on-one discussion on Twitter. The Republicans cannot wait to inflict him on Biden. Those who care neither about the accuracy of his COVID-19 claims nor about the consequences of his candidacy as a lobbed grenade in a moment of great peril must bear some personal responsibility for where this all could go. As someone just wrote to me on Twitter, “I wonder when critical thinking died in this country.”

May

May 27

World Crisis Radio, Commentary and Advocacy: House MAGA fanatics strive for US default and national bankruptcy to trigger world economic depression, weaken Biden, and enable Trump’s 2024 push for dictatorship! Webster G. Tarpley, right, author and historian, May 27, 2023 (131:03 mins.). MAGA ideologues from Trump to Chip Roy demand cataclysmic default;

It is past time for Biden to announce a return to Constitutional government in the form of the Fourteenth Amendment, setting aside the illegal debt ceiling based on the vestigial 1917 Liberty Bond Act, which Congress intended to accelerate borrowing during the World War I emergency; The post-1974 federal budget law is its own ceiling and its own floor, telling the president exactly what to spend; If default occurs, GOP fantasies of paying bondholders and stiffing pensioners will be ruled out as a line item veto and by the anti-Nixon Impoundment Control Act, so no ”prioritization.”

The many misfortunes of Il Ducetto;

Right-wing anti-Putin Russian militias mount large-scale raid into Belgorod, signalling start of new edition of Russia’s Time of Troubles (1598-1613);
Warmer weather in southern Ukraine brings season for military operations;

Time for a drastic upvaluation of the Lincoln-era Radical Republican Thaddeus Stevens, the architect of the greenbacks, the Thirteenth Amendment, and the Fourteenth Amendment-which is the key to the current crisis;

The Succession series, a realistic portrait of the depraved oligarchs dominating a Hobbesian society during late globalization: An owl of Minerva for this moribund era, marred mainly by dialogue of relentless banality and obscenity;

In defense of Amanda Gorman and her inauguration ode, a fine American document of patriotism, optimism, and unity;

Ukraine and default are iambic, not trochaic! Breaking: Ukraine’s National Security & Defense Council Director Danilov tells BBC everything is ready for counterattack; says Wagner is redeploying.

May 26

New York Times, Oath Keepers Leader Is Sentenced to 18 Years in Jan. 6 Sedition Case, Alan Feuer, May 26, 2023 (print ed.). The sentence for Stewart Rhodes was the longest so far in the federal investigation of the attack and the first issued to a defendant convicted of sedition.

Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the far-right Oath Keepers militia, was sentenced on Thursday to 18 years in prison for his conviction on seditious conspiracy charges for the role he played in helping to mobilize the pro-Trump attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

The sentence, handed down in Federal District Court in Washington, was the most severe penalty so far in the more than 1,000 criminal cases stemming from the Capitol attack — and the first to be increased for fitting the legal definition of terrorism.

It was also the first to have been given to any of the 10 members of the Oath Keepers and another far-right group, the Proud Boys, who were convicted of sedition in connection with the events of Jan. 6.

For Mr. Rhodes, 58, the sentence was the end of a tumultuous and unusual career that included Army service, a stint on Capitol Hill and a law degree from Yale. His role as the Oath Keepers’ founder and leader thrust him into the spotlight and will now send him to prison for what is likely to be the better part of his remaining days.

At a dramatic, nearly four-hour hearing, Judge Amit P. Mehta chided Mr. Rhodes for seeking for years through his leadership of the Oath Keepers to have American democracy “devolve into violence.”

“You, sir,” Judge Mehta went on, directly addressing the defendant, “present an ongoing threat and a peril to this country, to the Republic and the very fabric of our democracy.”

As the hearing opened, prosecutors urged Judge Mehta to sentence Mr. Rhodes to 25 years in prison, arguing that accountability was needed for the violence at the Capitol and that American democracy was on the line.

Kathryn L. Rakoczy, one of the lead prosecutors in the case, told Judge Mehta that Mr. Rhodes had been calling for attacks against the government for more than a decade and that his role in the Jan. 6 attack was part of a longstanding pattern.

The Oath Keepers leader, Ms. Rakoczy said, exploited his talents and influence to goad his followers into rejecting the results of the 2020 election and ultimately mobilized them into storming the Capitol in two separate military-style “stacks” in a violent effort to keep President Donald J. Trump in office.

“It is conduct that threatened — and continues to threaten — the rule of law in the United States,” she said.

Ms. Rakoczy also noted that Mr. Rhodes had shown no remorse for undermining the lawful transition of power and continued to advocate political violence. Just four days ago, she said, Mr. Rhodes gave an interview from jail, repeating the lie that the election had been marred by fraud and asserting that the government was “coming after those on the political right.”

“It’s not going to stop until it’s stopped,” Mr. Rhodes said during the interview, adding that the country needed “regime change.”

As if to prove the government’s point, Mr. Rhodes — in an orange prison smock and his trademark black eye patch — gave a defiant address to the court, blaming the news media for demonizing the Oath Keepers for leading the Capitol attack. He also compared himself to the Soviet-era dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and to the beleaguered main character in the Kafka novel “The Trial.”

“I am a political prisoner,” Mr. Rhodes said.

The hearing opened a week of sentencing proceedings for eight other members of the Oath Keepers who were convicted at two separate trials — in November and January — of charges that included not only seditious conspiracy but also the obstruction of a congressional proceeding to certify the 2020 election. One of Mr. Rhodes’ deputies, Kelly Meggs, who once led the group’s Florida chapter, was set to be sentenced later on Thursday.

The process for sentencing all the defendants began on Wednesday, when some police officers and congressional staff members testified about the horror they experienced on Jan. 6.

Several spoke through tears on the witness stand, describing lasting symptoms of post-traumatic stress and survivor’s guilt, particularly after many of their colleagues resigned and some died by suicide in the months after the attack.

“I am an introverted, depressed shell of my former self,” said Harry Dunn, a Capitol Police officer who encountered members of the Oath Keepers in the Capitol rotunda. When Mr. Dunn referred to the officers who were injured on Jan. 6 as “real oath keepers,” he shot an angry glance toward Mr. Rhodes and other members of the group in the courtroom.

In court papers filed this month, prosecutors dwelled on the importance of severely punishing Mr. Rhodes and his subordinates, stating that the acceptance of political violence was on the rise in the United States and that lengthy prison terms were needed to serve as a deterrent against future unrest.

“As this court is well aware, the justice system’s reaction to Jan. 6 bears the weighty responsibility of impacting whether Jan. 6 becomes an outlier or a watershed moment,” the prosecutors wrote. “Left unchecked, this impulse threatens our democracy.”

In court on Thursday, prosecutors persuaded Judge Mehta to increase Mr. Rhodes’ sentence by arguing that his repeated calls for violence against the government and his plan to stage an arsenal of weapons outside Washington in case of an emergency on Jan. 6 should be punished as an act of terrorism.

“This wasn’t blowing up a building,” Ms. Rakoczy said. But “organizing an armed force” and advocating “bloody civil war” came “pretty close,” she said.

The government had asked to apply the terrorism enhancement in four previous Jan. 6 cases, but judges — including Judge Mehta — had denied the requests each time.

From the outset of the hearing, Mr. Rhodes’ lawyers — Phillip Linder and James L. Bright — were constrained in their efforts to ask for leniency, unable to fully claim that Mr. Rhodes was remorseful or no longer presented a threat to the government, knowing that his stemwinder statement to the court was coming.

May 25

Richard “Bigo” Barnett in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office on Jan. 6, 2021. Mr. Barnett was sentenced to more than four years in prison on Wednesday, May 24, 2023 (Agence France-Presse photo Saul Loeb via Getty Images). 

New York Times, Jan. 6 Rioter Who Reclined in Pelosi’s Office Given Sentence of More Than 4 Years, Alan Feuer and Zach Montague, May 25, 2023 (print ed.). Richard “Bigo” Barnett, who was pictured with his foot on a desk in the speaker’s office, had been convicted of eight crimes for his role in the attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters.

On Arkansas man who became notorious for putting his foot on a desk in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office during the attack on the Capitol by supporters of President Donald J. Trump was sentenced on Wednesday to four and a half years in prison.

The man, Richard “Bigo” Barnett, was found guilty at a trial in January of eight criminal offenses, including interfering with law enforcement during a civil disorder and obstructing the certification of the 2020 election that took place at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

After deliberating for less than three hours, a jury in Federal District Court in Washington rejected Mr. Barnett’s testimony that he had ended up in Ms. Pelosi’s office suite while looking for a bathroom and that the 950,000-volt stun gun he was carrying that day was not working.

Prosecutors argued during the trial that Mr. Barnett, 63, arrived at the Capitol “prepared for violence” and intending to stop Mr. Trump from leaving office after losing the 2020 election.

In court papers filed before the sentencing hearing, prosecutors accused Mr. Barnett of seeking to profit from his case by selling autographed photos of himself leaning back with his foot on a desk in Ms. Pelosi’s office and by considering seeking copyright protections for an obscene note he left Ms. Pelosi that day, reading in part, “Hey Nancy, Bigo was here.”
Understand the Events on Jan. 6

On Wednesday, prosecutors sought to emphasize the lasting scars inflicted by the rioters. They cited Emily Berret, a staff member for Ms. Pelosi who recalled that of eight colleagues who were trapped inside the speaker’s office when the mob first overwhelmed the Capitol, six exited public service shortly thereafter.

Prosecutors also accused Mr. Barnett of lying several times in testimony during his trial, adding that he showed “brazen disrespect for every form of authority he encountered.”

“Barnett recognizes no authority but himself and is willing to do ‘whatever it takes’ to get what he wants,” the prosecutors wrote, “even if it requires harming others, stealing or breaking the law.”

Just before issuing the sentence, Judge Christopher Cooper said he was dismayed by the way Mr. Barnett had sought to cash in on his notoriety.

“You’re 63 years old; you’re too old for this nonsense,” he said. “But for better or worse you have become one of the faces of Jan. 6, and I think you enjoy it.”

Mr. Barnett was among the first defendants arrested in connection with the Jan. 6 assault and quickly became one of the best-known rioters, along with figures like Jacob Chansley, the so-called QAnon Shaman, who stormed the building in a horned helmet and was later sentenced to 41 months in prison.

Mr. Barnett has also frequently and vocally criticized the Justice Department for overreaching in its efforts to investigate the Capitol attack. He has also accused the police officers who defended lawmakers that day of instigating the assault on the building by using what he has described as excessive force.

His lawyers, Jonathan Gross and Bradford Geyer, had asked Judge Cooper to sentence Mr. Barnett to only one year in prison and to give him credit for the nearly four months he spent behind bars before his trial. The lawyers said in court papers that Mr. Barnett still believed the police used a “disproportionate response” during the attack.

“Mr. Barnett is outspoken about his political views and has attended dozens of rallies in his life, but was always peaceful, never violent,” the lawyers wrote.

More than 480 people have been sentenced so far in connection with the Capitol attack, and about 275 are serving at least some time in prison, Justice Department officials say. The terms have ranged from a high of 14 years to only days behind bars.

May 24

Justice Department Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, left, and former President Donald Trump, shown in a collage via CNN.

Proof, Investigative Commentary on The Trump Trials, Vol. 15: New Indictments Now Expected; NYC Criminal Trial Date Set; a Finding of Sexual Abuse and Defamation, Seth Abramson, left, May 24, 2023. This new Proof series—authored by a longtime criminal defense attorney and leading Trump biographer—will unpack recent events in the historic trials of disgraced former president Donald Trump.

Department of Justice Special Counsel Jack Smith is said to be wrapping up the significantly easier part of his two-part remit—the Mar-a-Lago stolen documents probe—and according to the Wall Street Journal, Donald Trump and his lawyers expect the former president to be indicted. You can read about this here.

Apparently Trump and his counsel are now so certain he’s about to be indicted—potentially for Obstruction of Justice but maybe also, now, given the evidence Smith has that Trump well knew that he could not legally take the documents, under the even-more-serious Espionage Act—that they have made an extraordinary request to meet in private with Attorney General Merrick Garland.

This request is certain to go nowhere, as it would constitute unprecedented interference by Main Justice in the work of one of its special counsels (albeit just the sort of interference Trump eagerly sought from his own DOJ when he was president) and because it includes in its sole paragraph a wholly baseless claim that the famously independent and nonpartisan Smith is in fact some sort of Democratic Party operative, but it does underscore that if Trump were still President of the United States this would be the moment that he’d fire Smith in the same way he repeatedly tried to fire Robert Mueller during the Trump-Russia investigation.

What is so stunning about the current situation is that with Trump already under dozens of felony indictments in Manhattan; with the near-certainty that he’ll soon face federal felonies in D.C. for stealing (and possibly seeking to profit from) classified documents from the White House; with Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis apparently planning to indict Trump in August on state felonies; with Smith currently widening rather than narrowing down his second-stage federal criminal investigation into Trump (the one involving January 6); and with Trump himself making sure that his Sexual Abuse and Defamation trial will continue to be in the news for the rest of this year and next (see below), we’re looking at a presidential candidate who’ll be in more civil and criminal legal trouble by far than any candidate in American history.

Indeed, as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis readies himself to announce his candidacy tonight (Wednesday, May 24, 2023) in a Twitter Spaces event with white supremacist Elon Musk, it is clearer than ever before that DeSantis does not expect to beat Trump so much as expect him to eventually be forced out of the 2024 campaign by outside forces.

May 20

World Crisis Radio, Commentary and Advocacy: Biden must ride groundswell of legal and political support for Fourteenth Amendment to end MAGA debt ceiling extortion forever! Webster G. Tarpley, right, author and historian, May 20, 2023 (130:51 mins). Eleven Senate Democrats urge Biden to master crisis using 1868 measure that outlaws default, the fruit of vast sacrifices to save the Union;

House discharge petition reaches 210 signatures, eight short of the 218 needed to force a floor vote; What’s wrong with renegade Maine Democrat Jared Golden?; Contact GOP congressmen to urge them to put the nation over their moribund party and sign up;

AOC shows that Qevin [Kevin McCarthy, with the QAnon preface] does not have the votes to pass any budget deal through House due to extremist defections, but would need an unreachable 50 to 100 Dems to maintain fiction that he is Speaker; Democrats’ clean bill would need fewer than 10 votes from GOP, so who needs Qevin?;

At Hiroshima G-7, Biden meets with Quad, okays allied F-16 training program for Ukraine; Patriot missiles from three nations help defend Kiev airspace;

Poll gives Biden 7% general lead over Trump; Don at top of ticket would cut 5% from downballot;

Weakness on applying Fourteenth Amendment could complicate Biden dealings with despots Putin and Xi, who respect only power, not formalities;

Self-styled tough guy Chris ”Sit down and shut up” Christie to declare for White House with promises to attack Trump; DeSatanis is eclipsed;

Breaking: Erratic MAGA extremists return to default negotiations with White House after six-hour psychotic interlude!

Going Deep with Russ Baker via WhoWhatWhy, Investigative Commentary: Coming to Grips With the Anti-Vaxxer, pro-RFK Jr. Worldview, Russ Baker, May 20, 2023. While looking everywhere for the deep state — you might fall down a sinkhole.

My recent columns on Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 's presidential candidacy and his views on vaccines have provoked many comments, both public and private, from those who feel Kennedy is the Man of the Hour — an honest broker calling out the fundamental rottenness of the system writ large.

I especially appreciated a tweet I got from one of those people, @ImJustDebi. She wanted to explain why she doubts (I assume she means why she has doubts about vaccines, and anything that the medical and scientific establishment says about COVID-19 and other matters):

Things that made me doubt... JFK, Iran Hostages, coming ice age, Iran Contra, acid rain, Desert Storm, Whitewater, ozone layer, 9/11, Iraq war, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, GMO, Chemtrails, climate change, COVID.....

Debi honestly summed up the mindset of a vocal and, to all appearances, growing minority in the United States (and elsewhere).

The following comments are not about Debi, whom I don’t know, but about people like Debi whom I do know.

These folks have concluded — from partial and sometimes complete cover-ups involving many major historical traumas — that basically the establishment cannot be believed at all, about anything, ever.

Some of the issues Debi cited, like chemtrails, are classic speculative theories that discount plausible, less sinister explanations. Others, such as the failure to investigate the true motives for US mideast wars under two presidents Bush, come with evidentiary backing. It’s a very mixed bag, but in the hands of someone prone to confirmation bias and given to broad generalizing, it can be dangerous.

From this fundamental doubt about… almost everything have emerged such toxic myths as the belief that no one died at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

And “doubt” may be the wrong word here, because many have no doubt. I wish they did. No, what they seem to have is absolute, dogmatic certainty.

It starts with real things and disappointment, alienation, and mistrust around them — then gradually the mind hardens, the filter turns on, and more and more events become “things to doubt.”

In any case, Debi represents a worldview. And once one accepts this premise without any critical thinking, then of course Robert F. Kennedy is the one truly honest man, and therefore what he says about public health is the one real truth. Everything else is a lie or a coverup.

How many of these people ever confirmed — on their own — what various studies on viruses and vaccines have proven or not proven? Or even what studies exist?

Many seem to accept a distorted if not completely discredited set of facts — from a cherry-picked set of articles.

This will, alas, leave me open to the howls of those who insist they have “studied the literature” and have reached the conclusion that the pro-vax studies were all rigged. (Of course, this generalization is built on the fact that some of them were, as is always true of studies, flawed.)

They say that quality anti-vax studies have been censored and unfairly pilloried. These folks may present as sophisticated, and can spout all kinds of impressive-sounding facts and figures — but from a limited number of their own questionable studies.

In the end they still are working from a place of deep and all but immutable skepticism and distrust. I know quite a few such people — who come off smart and discriminating and hard to dismiss but still wind up cherry-picking their way to the same place.

And those of us who basically trust fact-based data about science and medicine — along with millions of workers in those fields with first-hand knowledge — good, decent people doing the best they can — are all considered by RFK Jr.’s followers to have lost clarity or perspective on the nefariousness behind so many things.

The establishment media typically dismisses the mindset of people like Debi by quoting (and this comes up like clockwork) historian Richard Hofstadter’s remarks about the paranoid tendency within America.

I am not sure I agree it is pointless paranoia. There’s certainly some basis for skepticism. But those who turn doubt into a fetishistic mind-set — without a fact-based openness to considering each matter on its merits and to weighing alternate, plausible explanations for the same phenomena — are damaging the public marketplace of ideas so necessary to democracy.

***

I have focused considerable effort and time over the years researching what is referred to as the “deep state.” In the process, I have acquired a bit of insight on this subject.

Some understand that this is not a static thing but rather a political-science concept that needs to be reanalyzed in each epoch. Those who do not understand this — or choose not to — it seems to me are often constitutionally disposed to dislike everything about the establishment, from the Pentagon to the medical profession, and they feel betrayed when they see someone who they thought was in their camp turn out to be more agnostic and inclined to view each case on its specific merits.

The term “deep state” was hijacked by Roger Stone and Donald Trump and it worked very well to convince those who deny all nuance and require a simple black and white dogma to explain a complex world, including in many cases buying that there was some omnipotent “cabal” directing everything.

In fact, the deep state was and is a concept (originating in Turkey) that relates to a consensus among a constituency within institutions — shared values and goals and, sometimes, methods. In the 1950s and 1960s, the Cold War and business interests united many of these people.

Today, what Trump and his acolytes call the “deep state” is a very different beast. It does not necessarily embody the same narrow-minded ruthlessness in pursuit of goals that often benefited a narrow class of individuals.

But both the “old,” documented deep state and the current one — if we can even identify a group to which that applies today — have played not only a troubling but also a salutary role in our country.

That is, the deep state has sometimes served as a steadying influence for society, rejecting extreme ideological swings that could tear the country apart. When Trump said that deep state elements in the CIA, Pentagon, etc. were against him, what he was actually talking about was the justifiable concern that Trump was some combination of a self-serving force for chaos and a willing cooperator with the enemies of America — as well as violating basic tenets of American democracy.

The deep state has also been a source of historical memory, and in some ways a nonpartisan force for order; and, if it can be said to still exist, its concern about the harm posed by Trump and his band of reckless deregulators and foreign policy buffoons was one such example.

So it’s complicated, as most things are.

When RFK’s disciples complain that the Pentagon — the Pentagon! — had a role in developing vaccines, they see a sinister, nefarious force up to no good.

I, on the other hand, see the military as one of the country’s largest institutions for handling responses to threats to public safety, and having the infrastructure and processes to help other governmental agencies not up to a crisis of this magnitude.

Does the Pentagon’s role necessarily portend some kind of military takeover? Of course not. For one thing, any large public health emergency necessarily concerns an organization responsible for the lives of millions of people. Having done (and continuing to do) investigative reporting on the military-intelligence complex, I understand that the Pentagon — and similar institutions — serve the established order, and indeed have an odious track record on many things. But they also do indispensable work.

And this is where the RFK-anti vaxxer worldview disappoints most. The critique vilifies many governmental and private sector institutions and, seemingly, entire professions — challenging anyone who trusts them.

Do these people not want a doctor to see them when they need it? Do they not trust hospitals to have the life-saving know-how when they are gravely ill? Do they not count on the government to reliably issue Social Security checks? Did they not attend universities and understand that, despite the obvious limitations, these institutions host an enormous amount of essential research that underpins many of the advances benefiting us all?

One commenter from the RFK Jr. School of Doubters wrote:

Russ, for the life of me I don’t understand why anyone, and especially we critical thinkers, give credence to the “official LI(n)ES” of the corrupt Machiavellian minions of the #nefariousNewWorldOrder’s seemingly murderous eugenicists.

We have to find ways to discuss what is going on in the country without making the divide greater and the parties even more confused, and therefore easier to manipulate.

Condemning the entire medical science and public health establishment as conspirators in a plot, and the science that underpins it as inherently corrupt — rather than sometimes fallible — is just stunningly simplistic and obviously does great harm. It’s time to push back at this lunacy.

May 18

U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, left, and his billionaire friend and benefactor Harlan Crow (file photos).

New York Times, Why the Supreme Court Is Blind to Its Own Corruption, Randall D. Eliason, right, May 18, 2023 (print ed.). Mr. Eliason is the former chief of the fraud and public corruption section at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia.

The scandal surrounding Justice Clarence Thomas has further eroded the already record-low public confidence in the Supreme Court. If Chief Justice John Roberts wonders how such a thing could have happened, he might start looking for answers within the cloistered walls of his own courtroom.

Over more than two decades, the Supreme Court has gutted laws aimed at fighting corruption and at limiting the ability of the powerful to enrich public officials in a position to advance their interests. As a result, today wealthy individuals and corporations may buy political access and influence with little fear of legal consequences, either for them or for the beneficiaries of their largess.

No wonder Justice Thomas apparently thought his behavior was no big deal.

He has been under fire for secretly accepting, from the Republican megadonor Harlan Crow, luxury vacations worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, a real estate deal (involving the home where his mother was living) and the payment of private school tuition for a grandnephew the justice was raising. Meanwhile, over the years, conservative groups with which Mr. Crow was affiliated filed amicus briefs in several matters before the Supreme Court.

That sounds like the very definition of corruption. But over the years, many justices — and not just conservatives — have championed a different definition.

The landmark case is the court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. A five-justice majority — including Justice Thomas — struck down decades-old restrictions on independent campaign expenditures by corporations, holding that they violated the companies’ free speech rights. It rejected the argument that such laws were necessary to prevent the damage to democracy that results from unbridled corporate spending and the undue influence it can create.

The government’s legitimate interest in fighting corruption, the court held, is limited to direct quid pro quo deals, in which a public official makes a specific commitment to act in exchange for something of value. The appearance of potentially improper influence or access is not enough.

In dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens accused the majority of adopting a “crabbed view of corruption” that the court itself had rejected in an earlier case. He argued that Congress has a legitimate interest in limiting the effects of corporate money on politics: “Corruption operates along a spectrum, and the majority’s apparent belief that quid pro quo arrangements can be neatly demarcated from other improper influences does not accord with the theory or reality of politics.”

Citizens United opened the floodgates to unlimited corporate spending on behalf of political candidates and to the influence that spending necessarily provides. But the decision didn’t come out of nowhere: The court has often been unanimous in its zeal for curtailing criminal corruption laws.

In the 1999 case of United States v. Sun-Diamond Growers of California, the court unanimously held, in effect, that it is not a violation of the federal gratuities statute for an individual or corporation to have a public official on private retainer. The court rejected a theory known as a “status gratuity,” where a donor showers a public official with gifts over time based on the official’s position (that is in contrast with a more common gratuity, given as a thank you for a particular act by the official). The quite reasonable rationale behind that theory was that when matters of interest to the donor arose, the past gifts (and hope for future ones) might lead the official to favor his or her benefactor.

That actually sounds a lot like the Crow-Thomas relationship. But the court held that such an arrangement is not unlawful. The gratuities law, the court ruled, requires that a particular gift be linked to a particular official act. Without such a direct link, a series of gifts to a public official over time does not violate the statute, even if the goal is to curry favor with an official who could act to benefit the gift giver.

In the wake of Sun-Diamond, federal prosecutors increasingly turned to a more expansive legal theory known as honest services fraud. But in Skilling v. United States, the court ruled that theory is limited to cases of bribes and kickbacks — once again, direct quid pro quo deals. Three justices, including Justice Thomas, wanted to go even further and declare the statute that prohibits honest services fraud unconstitutional.

The court proceeded to limit its “crabbed view of corruption” even further. In the 2016 case McDonnell v. United States, the court held that selling government access is not unlawful. Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia and his wife, Maureen, accepted about $175,000 in secret gifts from the businessman Jonnie Williams, who wanted Virginia’s public universities to perform research studies on his company’s dietary supplement to assist with its F.D.A. approval. In exchange, Mr. McDonnell asked subordinates to meet with Mr. Williams about such studies and hosted a luncheon at the governor’s mansion to connect him with university health researchers.

A jury convicted the McDonnells on several counts of corruption. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit — hardly known as a bastion of liberalism — unanimously affirmed the convictions. But the Supreme Court unanimously reversed, holding that the things Mr. McDonnell did for Mr. Williams did not qualify as “official acts” under federal bribery law. Selling official access may be tawdry, the court held, but it is not a crime.

Those who think Justice Thomas may be guilty of corruption may not realize just how difficult the court itself has made it to prove such a case. Now only the most ham-handed officials, clumsy enough to engage in a direct quid pro quo, risk prosecution.

Viewed in light of this history, the Thomas scandal becomes less surprising. Its own rulings would indicate that the Supreme Court doesn’t believe what he did is corrupt. A powerful conservative with interests before the court who regularly provides a justice with vacations worth more than his annual salary is, as the court said in Citizens United, merely the “appearance” of potential corruption. In the court’s view, the public has no reason to be concerned.

But the public clearly is, and should be, concerned over the ability of the rich and powerful to purchase access and influence unavailable to most citizens. Unfortunately, Citizens United is here to stay without a constitutional amendment or an overruling by the court, neither of which is very likely.

But it’s still possible for the rest of the country to move past the court’s naïve and inadequate view of corruption. Congress could amend criminal corruption laws to expand their scope and overturn the results in Sun-Diamond, Skilling and McDonnell. It could increase funding for enforcement of the Ethics in Government Act and increase the penalties for filing a false financial disclosure form (or failing to file one at all). Beefed up disclosure regulations could make it more difficult for officials to hide financial interests and could make it clear there are no disclosure exceptions for enormous gifts of “personal hospitality,” contrary to what Justice Thomas claims he believed. And Congress could pass legislation like the proposed Disclose Act, to require transparency regarding who is behind political donations and spending.

Congress so far has shown little interest in passing such reforms. But that’s where the remedy lies. It’s time for Congress to act.

In his Citizens United dissent, Justice Stevens observed, “A democracy cannot function effectively when its constituent members believe laws are being bought and sold.” That’s exactly how it now appears to the public — and that applies to Supreme Court justices as well as to politicians.

Randall D. Eliason is the former chief of the fraud and public corruption section at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia and teaches white-collar criminal law at George Washington University Law School. He blogs at Sidebarsblog.com.

 Washington Post, Senate Republicans blast judge during hearing over Clarence Thomas’s 2011 ethics review, Tobi Raji, May 18, 2023 (print ed.). Senate Republicans clashed Wednesday with a federal judge, right, who voiced concerns about the transparency of a 2011 ethics review of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas during a judiciary subcommittee hearing.

Sen. John Kennedy (La.), the subcommittee’s top Republican, slammed the hearing as being part of a “perpetual political carousel” that makes him “want to gag” and questioned Judge Mark L. Wolf's credibility as a witness.

“For the last dozen years, a lone federal judge, who is with us today, has been obsessed with complaining that the judicial conference got it wrong,” Kennedy, left, said in his opening remarks. “Judge Wolf wasn’t getting his way from the head of the judicial conference or from Chief Justice Roberts himself.”

Several Democrats, including Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee who sat in for Wednesday’s hearing, came to Wolf’s defense, arguing that the hearing is not a “witch hunt” but an attempt to “rescue the reputation of the court.”

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), right, chairman of the subcommittee that oversees the federal courts, convened the hearing after new reporting revealed that Wolf had expressed concerns more than a decade ago about how a committee of federal judges was handling a review of complaints alleging that Thomas had flouted financial disclosure rules. The financial disclosure committee ultimately concluded that Thomas had not willfully committed any wrongdoing.

Wolf, shown at left in a file photo, took issue with the transparency of the review. “The manner in which the Judicial Conference has interpreted and implemented the Financial Disclosure statutes has been shrouded in secrecy,” Wolf wrote in his opening statement.

Wednesday’s hearing is Whitehouse’s latest attempt to examine the inner workings of the federal courts’s policymaking body following new revelations about the high court’s longest-serving justice. “Congress has a role in making sure that our courts are administering federal ethics fairly and as intended. If they aren’t, we need a robust record of what has gone wrong and what new laws might be needed to fix it,” Whitehouse said in his opening remarks.

When a justice or judge is accused of falsifying or omitting information from their financial disclosure report, the Judicial Conference’s Committee on Financial Disclosure launches a probe that could culminate in a referral to the attorney general.

Bloomberg News revealed this month that Wolf believed the judicial conference, of which he was a member at the time, couldn’t exercise this authority because the financial disclosure committee hadn’t informed the conference what those complaints were.

Thomas was under fire in 2011 for not disclosing his wife’s employers and travel paid for by Dallas billionaire Harlan Crow.

The revelations drew condemnations from Democrats and court transparency advocates, who pressed the judicial conference to investigate Thomas. The late Rep. Louise M. Slaughter (N.Y.) and 19 other Democrats signed a September 2011 letter asking the judicial conference to refer the matter to the Justice Department.

The conference referred the complaints to the 16-member financial disclosure committee, which was chaired by Judge Bobby R. Baldock at the time and then by Judge Joseph McKinley, the chief judge of the western district of Kentucky, who succeeded him later that year. The committee is responsible for ensuring compliance with the Ethics in Government Act.

Wolf, who said he hadn’t seen the 2011 letters, criticized the committee’s failure to share information about the allegations with the conference.

“This concerned me because the issues raised by the letters were serious,” Wolf wrote. “Such information would have afforded me and the other members of the Conference the opportunity to discuss and decide whether there was reasonable cause to believe Justice Thomas had willfully violated the Act and, if so, to make the required referral to the Attorney General.”

The financial disclosure committee cleared Thomas and, instead, opted to amend its internal process for reviewing ethics complaints.

Now after a justice or judge is accused of violating financial disclosure rules and a member of the committee has reviewed the accusations made against them, a referral is made to the subcommittee on compliance. The subcommittee reviews the allegations and the reviewing judge’s findings, and issues a recommendation to the full committee about whether to accept that judge’s assessment. The financial disclosure committee must also now report the number and nature of the complaints — as well as the action taken — to the full conference.

The committee will follow these steps when reviewing complaints about Thomas.

Whitehouse and Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) asked the judicial conference to refer Thomas to Attorney General Merrick Garland for an investigation after ProPublica revealed last month that Crow took Thomas on lavish vacations and purchased three properties in Savannah, Ga., from him and his relatives for about $133,000, including the house where the justice’s mother lives.

Thomas did not disclose the transaction on his annual financial report, which requires disclosure of any sale or purchase of property over $1,000. He also did not report the trips with Crow.

Since then, new reporting has revealed that Conservative judicial activist Leonard Leo paid Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, wife of Clarence Thomas, tens of thousands of dollars in consulting work through a nonprofit. Additional ProPublica reporting has revealed that Crow also paid the tuition of the justice’s grandnephew for two private boarding schools.

If the body has “reasonable cause” to believe Thomas willfully ignored ethics rules, it will vote to refer the matter to Garland. Ten votes are needed for a referral.

 Washington Post, Opinion: Two GOP senators smear a witness to defend Clarence Thomas, Ruth Marcus, right, May 19, 2023 (print ed.). Mark L. Wolf has spent his career fighting against corruption and for the rule of law — as a public corruption prosecutor, as a federal judge, as a crusader against international kleptocracy. For that, at a hearing on judicial ethics this week, he was rewarded with some of the most shameful treatment in memory by a pair of Republican senators seemingly more intent on smearing the messenger and defending Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas than on exercising their constitutional oversight responsibilities.

The episode says far more about the reflexively partisan nature of the current Congress and the character of the senators — John Neely Kennedy of Louisiana and Mike Lee of Utah — than it does about Wolf.

As a young lawyer during the Ford administration, Wolf served as special assistant to two iconic figures, both Republicans — then-Deputy Attorney General Laurence Silberman, later a federal appeals court judge, and Attorney General Edward Levi — as the department struggled to recover its bearings after the Watergate scandal.Wolf led the public corruption unit at the U.S. attorney’s office in Boston, securing more than 40 convictions, including of officials close to Mayor Kevin White, a Democrat.

Named to the federal bench by Ronald Reagan in 1985, he exposed the FBI’s use of organized crime figure James “Whitey” Bulger as an informant and how it protected Bulger and an associate as they committed murder and tipped Bulger off so that he could flee when he was about to be indicted. Now a senior judge, Wolf, 76, has campaigned for creation of an international anti-corruption court. As it turns out — and this was the subject of his testimony before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee — Wolf was also briefly a thorn in the side of the Judicial Conference of the United States a dozen years ago, during an earlier ethics episode involving Thomas. At the time, Wolf was serving on that policymaking body of the federal judiciary, which reviews, or is supposed to review, financial disclosure reports by federal judges, including Supreme Court justices.

The Post's View: What Congress can do, right now, about Justice Thomas

To call the operations of the Judicial Conference opaque is an understatement. When I asked a few weeks back for the names of the judges, past and present, on the financial disclosure committee, I was told that was not public information. (It was released this week in a letter to Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who chaired Wednesday’s hearing.)

Wolf’s experience, first reported by Bloomberg News’s Zoe Tillman, was similarly frustrating. In 2011, the Judicial Conference received complaints that Thomas had violated financial disclosure laws by failing for years to identify the sources of income received by his wife, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas. The justice, who had previously reported such information, said he had misunderstood the filing instructions and amended years’ worth of forms. Other stories and complaints followed, including about Thomas’s relationship with conservative donor Harlan Crow — sound familiar? — and whether he had failed to report travel and hospitality provided by Crow and the Federalist Society.

So, Wolf began to ask questions, and stir up trouble: Why were members of the Judicial Conference not informed of the complaints or their disposition? How did the financial disclosure committee determine that Thomas’s conduct did not trigger a referral to the Justice Department under the terms of the Ethics in Government Act? (The law provides that the conference “shall refer to the Attorney General” when there is “reasonable cause to believe” the judge “has willfully failed to file” required information.)

The powers that be put Wolf off. He kept pushing. In the end, the Judicial Conference simply waited Wolf out — his term expired before the matter could be raised at a meeting.

As Wolf explained in his prepared remarks, “It is unfortunately relevant to consider these events today. The [Ethics in Government] Act only performs its vital function if the Conference understands and properly performs its role. I believe that in 2011 and 2012 it did not.” Despite allegations from Congress and the public, the financial disclosure committee “did little to nothing for at least a year.” Its process was “opaque,” failing to disclose the allegations and its response to other members of the conference.

Finally, Wolf said, the committee applied “the wrong standard,” deciding for itself whether Thomas’s violations were willful rather than whether there was a “reasonable cause” to refer the matter.

Maybe that’s right, maybe not. But it seems like a reasonable, and important, point to consider — if you were a lawmaker weighing whether the existing financial disclosure and other ethics rules need to be revised.

This turns out to be a big “if.” Kennedy and Lee came out swinging — at Wolf. Their goal wasn’t to discuss ethics, it was simply to discredit the messenger, at any cost.

Kennedy dismissed Wolf as “a lone federal judge ... obsessed with complaining” about Thomas but himself guilty of ethical missteps. He cited discredited information placed in the file of an FBI informant that Wolf, as a federal prosecutor, had leaked evidence to organized crime. He asserted that Wolf had engaged in a “highly unethical move — that’s an understatement” when he declined to recuse himself from a death penalty case after moderating a panel that included a professor who later became a witness in the case. He asserted that Wolf had behaved improperly when he wrote an opinion piece endorsing a code of conduct to cover Supreme Court justices. “Is Judge Wolf planning on launching a super-PAC next?” Kennedy asked.

And then he left the hearing room before listening to a word of Wolf’s testimony. It takes some gall to hurl these accusations at a federal judge and not stick around to hear his response.

Lee then took up the cudgel. “I am concerned by the tone and tenor of this hearing,” he said. “It feels an awful lot like a political witch hunt, which may be in the process of being aided and abetted by a member of the judiciary.”

Greg Sargent: Finally, a bipartisan response to the Clarence Thomas fiasco emerges

When Wolf suggested that Lee’s father, former solicitor general Rex E. Lee, with whom Wolf served in the Ford administration, “would have been very disturbed by the matters that I’ve addressed,” Lee exploded. “Seriously, you’re here attacking a member of the United States Supreme Court on grounds that are frivolous … and you have the audacity to come in and invoke the memory of my late father?” Lee said, raising his voice. “Shame on you, sir.”

Wolf kept his cool. “Some people I respect advised me not to do this … that I would be subject to various unfair attacks,” he said as the hearing drew to a close. “I did it because so many of my colleagues on the bench are deeply disturbed themselves. … So many of us worked so hard to give integrity to the ideal of impartial, equal justice under law, and now that ideal is imperiled.”

Ethics shouldn’t be a partisan issue. I’ve spoken to numerous federal judges, Democratic and Republican nominees alike, and none of them are comfortable with the extent of the benefits that Thomas accepted from Crow.

Much as Kennedy and Lee want to peddle their “everyone does it” line, everyone doesn’t. Other justices have amended their disclosure forms, but Thomas is unique in having to do so repeatedly, only after being called out, and in his pattern of claiming to have misunderstood reporting requirements with which he initially complied.

Wolf’s point, made without hyperbole or insinuation, was less focused on Thomas than on a flawed process that seemed designed to shield the justice’s conduct from appropriate scrutiny. That this observation would expose him to such unhinged attacks suggests how much Republicans fear what a real investigation would uncover.

Republican House Congressman George Santos (R-NY) is shown above in both an official photo and a mug shot.

New York Times, House Republicans Stall Effort to Kick George Santos Out of Congress, Michael Gold, May 18, 2023 (print ed.). Democrats tried to force a vote to expel Mr. Santos, a Republican of New York who was indicted last week. But Republicans pushed the matter to the House Ethics Committee.

House Republicans on Wednesday repelled an effort by Democrats to force a vote on expelling Representative George Santos of New York, who was charged last week in a 13-count federal indictment covering wire fraud, unlawful monetary transactions, stealing public funds and lying on financial disclosures.

Republicans voted along party line — 221 to 204, with seven Democrats voting “present” — to refer the resolution to expel Mr. Santos to the House Ethics Committee, which has been investigating Mr. Santos’s finances and campaign activity for months.

The measure to expel Mr. Santos, introduced by Representative Robert Garcia, a Democrat of California, was unlikely to succeed in the House, where it would have required a two-thirds supermajority to pass. Republicans hold a majority so thin that Mr. Santos’s vote remains crucial, reducing the political incentive for them to support his ouster.

Indeed, by delaying the vote, House Republicans — including some who have called on Mr. Santos to resign — avoided having to commit to a firm position on his behavior. But their actions also may be construed as a tacit endorsement of Mr. Santos’s remaining in Congress as he faces ethical and legal inquiries.

Washington Post, Analysis: The curious question of the alleged $2 million pardons, Philip Bump, May 18, 2023 (print ed.). The allegation comes in a lawsuit filed this week by Noelle Dunphy, a woman who worked for former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani from 2019 until 2021. It reads as follows:

“[Giuliani] asked Ms. Dunphy if she knew anyone in need of a pardon, telling her that he was selling pardons for $2 million, which he and President Trump would split.”

If she did, the allegation continues, she should “refer individuals seeking pardons to him, so long as they did not go through ‘the normal channels’ of the Office of the Pardon Attorney” because those communications would otherwise be subject to Freedom of Information Act requests.

This is a serious claim that, given the implications for former president Donald Trump and his bid for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, is worth considering in the context of what we know.

Dunphy’s lawsuit spans 70 pages, most of which articulate a slew of other allegations about Giuliani. It’s an escalation of a complaint issued in January, asking for $3.1 million in unpaid wages, punitive damages and legal fees, among other things. The new suit, though, goes further. Now seeking $10 million, it includes detailed allegations of abuse and harassment by Giuliani that are walked through on a nearly day-to-day basis.

In a statement to reporters, Giuliani’s attorneys said that their client “unequivocally denies the allegations raised by Ms. Dunphy,” in addition to attempting to cast doubts on her credibility by including a pejorative quote from a former boyfriend.

It’s worth noting that in addition to screenshots of alleged text message exchanges between Giuliani and Dunphy, the lawsuit also includes numerous references to conversations between Dunphy and Giuliani having been recorded. That allegedly includes a recording of Giuliani consenting to being recorded by Dunphy (though New York, where most of the alleged interactions occurred, requires only that one party consent to being recorded). It also allegedly includes Giuliani making disparaging comments about Jewish, Black and Hispanic people.

But back to the allegations about the pardons.

The allegation that Giuliani was offering pardons for $2 million has been made before. In January 2021, shortly before Trump left office, the New York Times reported that former CIA officer John Kiriakou had been “told that Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani could help him secure a pardon for $2 million.” Kiriakou rejected the request, but an associate worried about the legality of such an offer tipped off the FBI. Kiriakou was not granted a pardon.

The Times’s report on the small economy that sprung up around Trump’s pardon process spurred a request from Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), right, to the Justice Department.

“I am writing with grave concern following recent reports that President Trump intends to issue as many as 100 pardons in his final day in office at the same time that his close associates have been selling access to the President to those seeking clemency for thousands of dollars and potentially far more,” Krishnamoorthi wrote to acting attorney general Jeffrey A. Rosen. A representative for Krishnamoorthi’s office told The Washington Post on Wednesday that he didn’t believe the congressman had received a response — in part because the letter was sent on Jan. 19, 2021, the day before President Biden’s inauguration and Rosen’s departure.

The letter also referred to another investigation into the pardon process revealed in a court filing the previous month.

“The Justice Department is investigating a potential crime related to funneling money to the White House or related political committee in exchange for a presidential pardon, according to court records unsealed Tuesday in federal court,” CNN’s Katelyn Polantz reported in December 2020. Polantz pointed to details in a heavily redacted court document.

It suggests that, in reviewing material collected from a number of electronic devices, investigators found emails suggesting “a related bribery conspiracy scheme, in which [redacted] would offer a substantial political contribution in exchange for a presidential pardon or reprieve of sentence.” Note that this is different from what’s alleged about Giuliani; here, the court filing notes, the promise was for “anticipated future substantial political contributions.”

 Washington Post, Opinion: Millions flowed to Biden family members. Don’t pretend it doesn’t matter, Jim Geraghty, May 19, 2023. Let’s assume that, as President Biden’s fans insist, there’s no evidence of lawbreaking in the deals that had foreign companies paying more than $10 million to Biden family members during and after Biden’s years as vice president.

And no doubt, the House Oversight Committee led by Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) has its own preconceived narrative that Biden is on the take from all kinds of shady characters. An indictment of bribery or corruption would require proof that, at some point while in office, Biden acted or influenced a U.S. government policy decision to benefit one of those companies, and the House Oversight Committee, so far, does not have that proof.

Yet we’re still left with a motley collection of odd and unsavory figures sending a lot of money through a lot of companies to a lot of members of the Biden family, with little explanation why. Comer contends that bank records confirm more than $10 million in payments, run through at least 20 businesses, mostly limited liability companies, to the president’s son Hunter Biden; the president’s brother, James Biden; James’s wife, Sara Jones Biden; Hallie Biden (widow of Joe Biden’s son Beau, who died in 2015); Hunter’s ex-wife, Kathleen Buhle; Hunter’s current wife, Melissa Cohen; and, as Comer noted, “three children of the president’s son and the president’s brother.”

Just what goods or services did all those Biden family members provide to those companies?

Why did Gabriel Popoviciu, a businessman convicted of bribery in Romania and relatedly investigated by British authorities pay as much as $1 million that ended up in Biden family accounts? Does anyone believe that Chinese energy tycoon Ye Jianming in 2017 gave Hunter Biden a 2.8-carat diamond, estimated to be worth up to $80,000, as a gift out of the pure goodness of his heart? Ye disappeared from public view in 2018 amid a Chinese corruption crackdown.

President Biden voluntarily releases his tax returns and other financial disclosure reports that are required by law. But members of elected officials’ families are not required to disclose anything, leaving a very easy way for any deep-pocketed individual or institution to purchase a friendship with someone who has the politician’s ear.

Maybe it’s entirely coincidental that so many foreign entities just happened to give large amounts of money and gifts to Biden family members, and no one involved ever believed, promised, insinuated or suggested that Joe Biden would ever return the favor.

What the House Oversight Committee report reveals is a larger and more complicated version of Hunter Biden’s ludicrously remunerative “work” for Burisma Holdings, the Ukrainian oil and natural gas company from 2014 to 2019. Hunter Biden had never worked in the oil or natural gas industry, and yet Burisma reportedly paid him up to $83,000 per month until his father left office, all without Hunter ever needing to travel to Ukraine. One Burisma official told Reuters in 2019 that Hunter Biden was a “ceremonial figure” at the company.

Confronted with the Comer committee’s report, Democrats scream, “What about Ivanka Trump’s trademarks in China, or Donald Trump and Jared Kushner profiting from Saudi investors?” And they’re right to object. We don’t elect leaders to the presidency — or the vice presidency — so that their relatives can cash in with foreign business executives. The sordid intermingling of personal financial interests with U.S. government policy is absolutely fair game in the 2024 presidential election.

Jim Geraghty is National Review’s senior political correspondent, where he writes the daily “Morning Jolt” newsletter, among other writing duties. He’s the author of the novel "The Weed Agency" (a Washington Post bestseller), the nonfiction "Heavy Lifting" with Cam Edwards and "Voting to Kill," and the Dangerous Clique series of thriller novels.

May 17

Author and investigative reporter Seymour Hersh (photo via Tablet).

Medium, Opinion: The Sad Downfall of Seymour Hersh, Jeremy Fassler, May 17, 2023. Note: I originally wrote this piece in June 2018 for The Daily Banter upon the publication of Sy Hersh’s memoir, "Reporter." In the wake of his unacceptable reporting about Ukraine, I am republishing it here with some slight revisions.

Throughout his career, Seymour Hersh has been a crusading investigative reporter, exposing such stories as the My Lai Massacre in the Vietnam War and the abuses at Abu Gharib. With his memoir Reporter being released today, he finds himself once again in the news as journalists sing his praises. However, as they appraise his life’s work, they must take into account how, over the past decade, Hersh has grown increasingly conspiratorial and untrustworthy in his reporting, adopting bizarre theories that threaten to seriously compromise his legacy.

The first major sign of trouble came in 2013, when Hersh wrote “Whose Sarin?,” an article absolving the government of Bashar al-Assad for that summer’s chemical weapons attack in Ghouta, near Damascus, killing hundreds of Syrians and nearly bringing the United States to military action. Although a UN report on the attack laid the blame at Assad, Heresh argued that the real perpetrators were an Al-Qaeda spinoff group called Jhabat-al Nusra, citing anonymous military officials as his sources. In a follow-up article in 2014, he cosigned blame for the attack to the government of Turkey, which experts quickly debunked.

Sadly, Hersh has not let go of his Syria trutherism. Last April, after the U.S. launched missiles in retaliation to Assad’s chemical weapons attack in Khan Shaykhun, he wrote in the German paper Die Welt that, according to anonymous military officials, the initial attack was a collaboration between the Syrian Air Force, the Russians, and Washington, and the targets were not innocent Syrians but Jihadist leaders. When Guardian reported George Monbiot asked him for the coordinates of the bombing site, Hersh dodged the question.

Hersh’s conspiratorial beliefs went mainstream in 2015 when he published “The Killing of Osama bin Laden” (later released as a book) in the London Review of Books. The 10,000-word article, which had been rejected by The New Yorker, argued that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) kidnapped bin Laden in 2006, locked him up with funding from the Saudis as leverage against Al-Qaeda, and sold him to the United States in exchange for increased military aid and a “freer hand” in Afghanistan. Instead of flying the Navy SEAls into the Abbottabad compound via helicopter, raiding the promises, and killing bin-Laden with a double tap, Hersh claimed a courier let the SEALs in and allowed them to shoot the world’s most famous terrorist multiple times.

As with any conspiracy theory, a number of variables contradict Hersh’s reporting. For example, assuming that Hersh is correct — and he claims he’s correct, despite offering no supporting documents — why would the U.S. drop Pakistani cooperation in Afghanistan in subsequent years? Why would the intelligence materials brought back from Abbottabad be made up, as he says they are, even though Al-Qaeda’s second highest-ranking member says they were real? And why would Pakistan even invite the U.S. to participate in a phony raid at all? Why not just kill him themselves? Hersh has never provided satisfactory answers to any of these questions, trusting his primary source, an anonymous retired senior intelligence official who supposedly had knowledge of the plan.

This is a large red flag with Hersh’s reporting. While anonymous sources are essential in journalism, Hersh over-relies on them, taking their word at face value without properly vetting them. In fact, ex-military and intelligence officials, or “cranks,” are often the worst kinds of anonymous sources, as Jamie Kirchik called them in this article responding to Hersh’s bin Laden reporting:

“Cranks are an archetype of the intelligence world…obsessive, frustrated idiot savants who perceive themselves as stymied by the paper pushers…who don’t have the courage to come out and tell it like it really is. Such people are naturally drawn to a reporter like Hersh, a crusading writer who ‘gets it,’ who sees the world in the same conspiratorial tones they do, where dark, shadowy forces manipulate global events.”

Hersh, a member of the Vietnam generation who learned the hard way not to take the government’s justifications for war at face value, may have good reason to identify with these sources. After all, identifying the crimes of the U.S. military brought him renown. But after nearly 50 years of exposing these illegalities, he can no longer tell the difference between a solid scoop and a conspiracy that has no business being in the news.

This leads us to the story of Seth Rich, a former DNC aide who, in the summer of 2016, was murdered in a botched robbery. Conspiracy theorists on both the far right and the far left argued that Rich, a disgruntled Sanders supporter, had been murdered by the DNC for leaking their emails to Julian Assange. The conspiracy when so far that Rich’s family sued Fox News for manipulating the investigation of their son’s murder into an unbelievable series of claims, one of which said that a suppressed FBI report proved he leaked the emails. Nobody apparently saw this report, except for an anonymous intelligence official who spoke to — you guessed it — Seymour Hersh.

In a conversation with Fox News reporter Ed Butowsky, Hersh said that his source told him Rich had shared the emails with Assange via Dropbox, and even shared them with friends “in case anything happens to me.” Hersh later denied having spoken to anyone at the FBI about the report, nor having seen it with his own eyes. But while believing that Seth Rich leaked the emails to Assange is bad enough, it’s this next quote from his talk with Butowsky that consigns Hersh to the loony bin:

“I have a narrative of how that whole fucking thing [the Russia investigation] began. It’s a Brennan operation, it was it was an American disinformation and fucking the fucking president, at one point when they, they even started telling the press, they were back briefing the press, the head of the NSA was going and telling the press, fucking cock-sucker Rogers, was telling the press that we even know who in the GRU, the Russian Military Intelligence Service, who leaked it. I mean all bullshit.”

One of America’s greatest investigative reporters doesn’t believe the Russian plot to interfere in the election was real. But why should he? Hersh not only ignored the Russia story in 2016, he actually abetted the enemy. That summer, at the Washington D.C. Newseum, he introduced a documentary by filmmaker Andrei Nekrasov attacking martyred Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, the namesake for the Magnitsky Act, as a liar. Hersh was still at it by the time Trump was inaugurated, when he attacked the media for taking the intelligence community’s word on the story at face value, and offered sentiments that would make Susan Sarandon blush:

“The idea of somebody breaking things away, and raising grave doubts about the viability of the [two] party system, particularly the Democratic Party, is not a bad idea.”

Well, the system is shook up now: 4600 dead in Puerto Rico, a Supreme Court that ruled in favor of small businesses discriminating against gays, and a “zero tolerance” policy at the border separating children from their families and locking them in cages, but at least Hersh got his wish. Whether or not he comes to his sense remains to be seen, but given how he’s entrenched himself on the fringes, it seems unlikely.

We need great investigative journalism now more than ever, and Reporter will make readers nostalgic for an age of journalism that no longer exists. Unfortunately, the book’s main character no longer exists either, as Hersh has devolved from a truth-teller into, like the anonymous sources he relies on, a crank.

Jimmy Fessler is freelance writer and journalist with bylines: in the New York Times, The Atlantic, Mother Jones, etc. Co-author of "The Deadwood Bible"with Matt Zoller Seitz.

May 15

Washington Post, Durham report sharply criticizes FBI’s probe of 2016 Trump campaign, Devlin Barrett and Perry Stein, May 15, 2023. The long-awaited report on how the government probed Russian interference in the 2016 election seems likely to fuel, rather than end, partisan debates about politicization within the Justice Department and FBI.

Special counsel John Durham, right, has issued a long-awaited report that sharply criticizes the FBI for investigating the 2016 Trump campaign based on “raw, unanalyzed, and uncorroborated intelligence” — a conclusion that may fuel rather than end partisan debate about politicization within the Justice Department and FBI.

Durham was appointed in 2019 by President Donald Trump’s attorney general, William P. Barr, to re-examine how government agents hunted for possible links between the Trump campaign and Russian efforts to interfere in the presidential election. The report, coming almost four years to the day since Durham’s assignment began, will likely be derided by Democrats as the end of a partisan boondoggle, while Republicans will have to wrestle with a much-touted investigation that didn’t send a single person to jail.

Many of the details of FBI conduct described by the Durham report were previously known and had been sharply criticized by the Justice Department’s inspector general, which did not find “documentary of testimonial evidence of intentional misconduct."

Durham goes further in his criticism, however, arguing that the FBI rushed to investigate Trump in a case known as Crossfire Hurricane, even as it proceeded cautiously on allegations related to then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

Durham’s report finds the FBI failed to live up to its standards, and failed “to critically analyze information that ran counter to the narrative of a Trump/Russia collusive relationship throughout Crossfire Hurricane is extremely troublesome.”

The FBI’s handling of key aspects of the case was “seriously deficient,” Durham wrote. He concluded that the bureau failed in its responsibility to the public, causing “severe reputational harm” to the FBI. Durham said that failure could have been prevented if FBI employees hadn’t embraced “seriously flawed information” and had followed their “own principles regarding objectivity and integrity.”

Barr personally asked foreign officials to aid Durham probe of FBI, CIA activities

In particular, the report notes that while the FBI gave Clinton’s team a defensive briefing when agents learned of a possible evidence by a foreign actor to garner influence with her, agents moved quickly to investigate the Trump campaign without giving them a defensive briefing.

Palmer Report, Opinion: Donald Trump’s highly touted “Durham probe” just crashed and burned into a pile of nothing, Bill Palmer, right, May 15, 2023. Donald Trump spent quite awhile publicly insisting that the “Durham probe” was going to prove that everyone from the FBI to the Democratic Party criminally conspired to rig the 2016 election against him.

But anyone paying attention knew the Durham probe would find nothing, because there was nothing to find. The entire thing was based on incoherent conspiracy theories cooked up by Trump and his fellow loons.

Sure enough, John Durham’s final report has been released today, and it’s completely toothless. Actually that’s too generous of a word to describe it. According to his own report, Durham found literally nothing. He failed to land a single conviction against anyone for any alleged crime. In the end he’s presented no evidence of any criminal behavior on the part of anyone.

It’s almost hilarious that Durham is trying to cover his own tracks by baselessly “concluding” in his final report that the FBI never should have launched the Trump-Russia probe to begin with. That’s certainly not a legal finding or even a valid prosecutorial conclusion. It’s just conspiracy theory gibberish, indistinguishable from what some right wing nutjob might post in a Twitter thread.

May 13

World Crisis Radio, Nihilist Trump endorses catastrophic Treasury default as best way to extort killer budget cuts! Webster G. Tarpley, right, author and historian, May 13, 2023 (138:38 mins.). Biden eyes Fourteenth Amendment to maintain US government solvency and reserve currency role of dollar in world where there is no viable alternative to greenback; President encouraged by shift of Prof. Tribe of Harvard to embrace 1868 provision as path out of crisis; Tribe predicts MAGAts will lack standing to get case before Supremes, eliminating problem of prolonged litigation;

Dimon of JPMorgan warns that markets will panic well before cash is exhausted; Austin and Milley forecast Chinese and Russian strategic efforts to exploit default;
Trump held liable for $5 million worth of sexual battery and defamation in New York; Santos indicted on 13 federal counts; Expulsion of Long Island mythomaniac would cut Qevin’s pro-default majority to three votes;

CNN New Hampshire town hall repeats 2016 media favoritism for Trump by corporate bigwigs; Malone, Zaslav, and Licht push network to right; Fact checking top prevaricator would require a Truth Squad panel on stage, not just one moderator; Many recent polls are suspect due to oligarchs’ hatred of Biden policies on unions, re-regulation, and taxation of plutocrats and corporations; Granite State GOP voters not suited for key role in primaries;

Kremlin hysterical as UK gives Kiev Storm Shadow 500km cruise missiles, allowing interdiction of Kerch Bridge; Pentagon confirms Patriot missile downed Russian hypersonic rocket; Zelensky says more ammunition is needed to start offensive; Wagner mercenaries pushed back over a mile inside Bakhmut;

Immigration and population growth are the demographic key to defeating the challenge of China, a nation whose population is now declining; US deserves policies that reflect this basic truth; Durbin: Illinois needs farm workers!

Breaking: MAGA fanatic Chip Roy threatens Biden that using Fourteenth Amendment to shut down Republican deficit blackmail will cause party to ”blow crap up” in ”open warfare” against ”unconstitutional” provision of Constitution!

May 12

American Oversight, American Oversight Receives Indication That Durham Investigation Has Closed, Staff Report, May 12, 2023. John Durham’s Politicized Investigation — And William Barr’s Role in It.

On Friday, the Department of Justice dropped a key objection to the release of more than 4,500 pages of documents related to the Durham investigation, the Trump-era inquiry into the origins of the FBI’s probe of the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia.

The DOJ had previously withheld the records claiming that their disclosure would interfere with an ongoing law enforcement investigation. Instead of filing an anticipated brief that would have defended the withholdings, the department withdrew its assertion of the “ongoing investigation” exemption — strongly suggesting that the Durham investigation has been closed.

The reversal was announced in a motion filed in the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit American Oversight brought in August 2019 to compel the release of documents related to the Durham inquiry, including communications between Durham and senior Justice Department officials and any communications Durham or DOJ officials may have had with the Trump White House or Congress.

Statement from American Oversight Executive Director Heather Sawyer:

“The Durham investigation remains an alarming example of former President Trump’s weaponization of the Justice Department for his own political ends. Tasked with proving Trump’s allegations of a ‘deep state’ plot against him — and given nearly four years and millions of taxpayer dollars to do so — Durham found no wrongdoing. It’s long past time for the American people to see the full extent of the inquiry’s work and its influences and we look forward to the release of these records.”

American Oversight first requested the records in June 2019, after then Attorney General William Barr had instructed Durham to initiate the politicized investigation of the roots of the inquiry into potential ties between Russia and Trump’s 2016 campaign. That original FBI inquiry ultimately led to the larger investigation headed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

Lawyers for the Justice Department had previously argued the government could properly withhold more than 4,500 pages of records and one voicemail audio recording responsive to American Oversight’s requests under the FOIA exemption designed to protect ongoing investigations.

The New York Times reported in January that, after four years, the Durham inquiry was winding down “without uncovering anything like the deep state plot alleged by Mr. Trump and suspected by Mr. Barr.” Records previously obtained by American Oversight through the litigation revealed that Barr met frequently with Durham in the period directly after the Mueller investigation ended — 18 times in seven months — raising questions about potential political interference.

Palmer Report, Opinion: The Durham probe just ended with a whimper, Bill Palmer, right, May 13, 2023. The Durham probe just ended with a whimper. When Bill Barr appointed John Durham to investigate the “origins” of the Trump-Russia investigation, there was a ton of excitement about it among Trump supporters, and a ton of fear and loathing about it from anti-Trump people.

We were supposed to believe that this Durham probe would somehow magically hand Trump the ability to remain in office forever, or allow Trump to con voters into reelecting him in 2020, or something like that. But at the time it seemed pretty clear that Barr was merely appointing Durham as a way of appeasing Trump, who is and always has been so clueless about how politics works, he actually thought Durham could magically help him.

Now it’s reported that the Durham probe has officially closed. It ended up having zero impact on the political or legal landscape, just as we all knew it would. It didn’t change a single mind. It didn’t hand Trump or the GOP a single talking point it could use to change a single mind. This probe was never magically going to help Trump. These people simply do not have magical powers – and the demise of the Durham probe is merely the latest reminder of that.

May 9

Associated Press via Washington Post, Oath Keepers' Rhodes seeks leniency in Jan. 6 sentence, Alanna Durkin Richer, May 9, 2023 (print ed.). Lawyers for Stewart Rhodes, above, the Oath Keepers founder convicted of seditious conspiracy in the attack on the U.S. Capitol, say he doesn’t deserve any more time behind bars when he’s sentenced this month, according to court papers filed Monday.

While the Justice Department is seeking 25 years in prison, defense attorneys are urging the judge to sentence Rhodes to the time behind bars he has already served. Rhodes, of Granbury, Texas, has been locked up since his arrest in January 2022.

Rhodes is expected to be sentenced on May 25 after his November conviction in one of the most serious cases brought so far in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack. Prosecutors accused Rhodes of being the architect of a plot with his extremist followers to forcibly block the transfer of power from President Donald Trump to President Joe Biden.

Prosecutors built their case around dozens of encrypted messages and other communications in the weeks leading up to Jan. 6 that showed Rhodes rallying his followers to fight to defend Trump and warning they might need to “rise up in insurrection” to defeat Biden if Trump didn’t act.

Rhodes, who took the witness stand at trial, has insisted there was no plan to attack the Capitol and said the Oath Keepers who did so acted on their own. His attorneys say they plan to appeal his conviction.

In their filing, Rhodes’ attorneys told the judge that all of Rhodes’ writings and statements were “protected political speech.”

“None of his protected speech incited or encouraged imminent violent or unlawful acts, nor were any likely to occur as a result of his speech,” they wrote. “In particular, nothing Mr. Rhodes wrote or published concerned the direct prevention of the transfer of power between then President Trump and President-elect Biden.”

His attorneys cited Rhodes’ military service — Rhodes joined the Army fresh out of high school and served nearly three years before he was honorably discharged in January 1986 after breaking his back in a parachuting accident.

They also rejected the portrayal of the Oath Keepers as an extremists group, and noted that its members helped provide assistance after Hurricane Katrina and other events.

“Much as the character of those within the Oath Keepers has been misconstrued and mischaracterized by others, so too has their history and actions,” they wrote.

Rhodes was convicted of seditious conspiracy alongside Florida Oath Keepers chapter Kelly Meggs, while three of their co-defendants were cleared of the rarely used Civil War-era charge. Those three, however, were convicted of other serious crimes. Four other Oath Keepers were convicted of the sedition charge in a subsequent trial.

Prosecutors, in their filing, described the Oath Keepers’ actions as “terrorism,” and told the judge that a harsh sentence is critical to deter future political violence. They wrote that Rhodes believes he has done nothing wrong and “still presents a threat to American democracy and lives.”

Leaders of another far-right extremist group, the Proud Boys, were convicted of seditious conspiracy last week for what prosecutors said was a separate plot to stop the transfer of power. Those convicted in that case include former Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio.
Oath Keepers' Rhodes seeks leniency in Jan. 6 sentence
local

Washington Post, U.S. seeks 25 years in prison for Rhodes in first Jan. 6 sedition case, Spencer Hsu, May 6, 2023. Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and four others are set to be the first sentenced for seditious conspiracy in the Capitol breach.

Washington Post, Six months after midterm losses, election deniers mount new efforts, Matthew Brown, May 9, 2023 (print ed.). Candidates who denied the results of the 2020 election are considering runs for different offices and building political power ahead of 2024.

In the 2022 midterm elections, an unprecedented number of Republican candidates denied or cast doubt on the results of the latest presidential election, spread false conspiracy theories about the nation’s voting systems and, in many cases, questioned the legitimacy of American democracy itself.

While a majority of them won, nearly all of the highest-profile candidates lost in what was seen as a national rebuke of the movement.

But losing did not seem to deter many of them.

Six months later, many are considering a return to the campaign trail or continuing to build popularity and power in conservative circles.

“They may have lost an election, but they gained a platform,” said Joanna Lydgate, CEO of States United Action, a nonpartisan group that advocates for protecting U.S. elections and tracks election deniers. “We’re starting to see some of these defeated candidates seeking power outside of government, and they’re still pushing lies and conspiracy theories about elections. So we have to stay vigilant.”

In the 2022 midterm elections, an unprecedented number of Republican candidates denied or cast doubt on the results of the latest presidential election, spread false conspiracy theories about the nation’s voting systems and, in many cases, questioned the legitimacy of American democracy itself.

While a majority of them won, nearly all of the highest-profile candidates lost in what was seen as a national rebuke of the movement.

But losing did not seem to deter many of them.

Six months later, many are considering a return to the campaign trail or continuing to build popularity and power in conservative circles.

“They may have lost an election, but they gained a platform,” said Joanna Lydgate, CEO of States United Action, a nonpartisan group that advocates for protecting U.S. elections and tracks election deniers. “We’re starting to see some of these defeated candidates seeking power outside of government, and they’re still pushing lies and conspiracy theories about elections. So we have to stay vigilant.”

Here’s a rundown of what some of the highest-profile election-denying candidates have done since the midterm elections:

Kari Lake, shown in a photo by Gage Skidmore, lost her race for Arizona governor, refused to accept the defeat and is now eyeing a run for the U.S. Senate seat held by Independent Kyrsten Sinema.

One of the breakout right-wing stars of the 2022 midterms, Lake narrowly lost her bid for Arizona governor to Democrat Katie Hobbs, who took office in January. Lake challenged the outcome in state court, claiming widespread irregularities. The Arizona Supreme Court has refused to hear the majority of Lake’s claims and sent one part of her challenge to trial court for review.

Despite her loss, Lake is now a powerhouse in the party. She is considered a top contender for the Republican nomination for Senate in Arizona, a bid that excites the party’s base but worries strategists who fear she cannot win the highly competitive seat.

May 8

Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts arrives before President Joe Biden delivers the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress at the Capitol, Feb. 7, 2023, in Washington. Roberts has declined a request from the Senate Judiciary Committee to testify at a hearing on ethical standards at the court, instead providing the panel with a statement of ethics reaffirmed by the court's justices. (AP pool photo by Jacquelyn Martin.)

Politico, Chief justice must implement strong ethics code, Sen. Dick Durbin says, David Cohen, May 8, 2023 (print ed.). Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin on Sunday called on Chief Justice John Roberts to create a strong “code of conduct” for the Supreme Court.

“History is going to judge him by the decision he makes on this. He has the power to make the difference,” the Illinois Democrat said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Durbin, left, was speaking in response to the latest reporting by ProPublica about what Texas megadonor Harlan Crow has provided Justice Clarence Thomas over the years, including private-school tuition for a relative of Thomas’. (Thomas was the legal guardian of his relative.) Other news organizations have reported of ethical issues involving Thomas and other current members of the nation’s top court.

“I keep calling on Chief Justice Roberts to make a move and say something and solve this problem,” Durbin told host Jake Tapper. “He has the power to do it for the Roberts Court. But other justices can speak out as well.”

Durbin also said “everything is on the table” but didn’t offer any solutions that Congress could undertake on its own to impose policies on ethics for the nation’s highest court. But he said a strong policy is definitely needed to rebuild the court’s credibility.

“We need to change the image of this court. At this point it is at the lowest ebb in history,” Durbin said.

• New York Times, Opinion: The Polite Disdain of John Roberts Finds a Target, Jamelle Bouie
• Associated Press, Supreme Court on ethics issues: Not broken, no fix needed
• Washington Post, Opinion: The aggrieved Justice Alito points fingers but offers no proof, Ruth Marcus
• New York Times, Investigation: How Scalia Law School Became a Key Friend of the Supreme Court, Steve Eder and Jo Becker
• Washington Post, Analysis: What’s next after today’s Supreme Court ethics hearing?  Tobi Raji, Leigh Ann Caldwell and Theodoric Meyer
• Alliance for Justice (AFJ), Advocacy: How To Police a Court That Won’t Police Itself, Rebecca Buckwalter-Poza

Politico, 8 false Trump electors have accepted immunity deals, lawyer says, Kyle Cheney, May 8, 2023 (print ed.). The new revelation is the latest sign that a Georgia prosecutor is advancing her investigation into Donald Trump’s bid to subvert the 2020 election.

Eight Republican activists who falsely claimed to be legitimate presidential electors for Donald Trump have accepted immunity deals from the Atlanta-area district attorney investigating Trump’s bid to subvert the 2020 election.

Kimberly Debrow, a lawyer for the false electors, revealed the arrangement — reached last month — in a court filing Friday, opposing a bid by District Attorney Fani Willis, above left, to disqualify her from representing the large group.

It’s the latest indication of Willis’ advancing investigation, which she recently revealed could result in charges — possibly against Trump himself and a slew of high-profile allies — as soon as July.

New York Times, Opinion: Tucker Carlson’s Dark and Malign Influence Over the Christian Right, David French, right, May 8, 2023 (print ed.). On April 25, the far-right network Newsmax hosted a fascinating and revealing conversation about Tucker Carlson with Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, one of America’s leading Christian conservative advocacy organizations.

Perkins scorned Fox News’s decision to fire Carlson, and — incredibly — also attacked Fox’s decision to fire Bill O’Reilly. These terminations (along with the departures of Glenn Beck and Megyn Kelly) were deemed evidence that Fox was turning its back on its conservative viewers, including its Christian conservative viewers.

What was missing from the conversation? Any mention of the profound moral failings that cost O’Reilly his job, including at least six settlements — five for sexual harassment and one for verbal abuse — totaling approximately $45 million. Or any mention of Carlson’s own serious problems, including his serial dishonesty, his vile racism and his gross personal insult directed against a senior Fox executive. It’s a curious position for a Christian to take.

Similarly curious is the belief of other Christians, such as the popular evangelical “prophet” Lance Wallnau, that Carlson was a “casualty of war” with the left, and that his firing was a serious setback for Christian Republicans. To Wallnau, an author and a self-described “futurist,” Carlson was a “secular prophet,” somebody “used by God, more powerful than a lot of preachers.”

Other prominent Christian members of the American right applauded Carlson’s “courage” or declared — after The Times reported that Carlson condemned a group of Trump supporters for not fighting like “white men” after “jumping” an Antifa member — that Carlson did “nothing wrong.” Rod Dreher, editor-at-large at The American Conservative, said, “I hope Tucker Carlson runs for president,” and a “Tucker-DeSantis ticket would be the Generation X Saves The World team.”

I’m going to pause now and confess that I was once naïve. I was especially naïve about human nature. As a much younger Christian, I’d read stories of unholy violence and hatred unleashed in Jesus’ name in religious conflicts of even the recent past and think, “Thank God that’s over.” I felt comfortable in my Christian conservatism. My conservatism reflected my best effort to discern the policies that would contribute to justice and human flourishing, while my Christianity hovered over everything, hopefully (though not always, I must confess) infusing my public engagement with humility and kindness.

After all, isn’t “love your enemies” a core Christian command? The fruit of the spirit (the markers of God’s presence in our lives) are “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control,” not Republicanism, conservatism and capitalism.

But the temptations — including the will to power and the quest for vengeance — that plagued the Christians of the past still plague the Christians of today. These temptations can plague people of any faith. If you infuse an issue or set of issues with religious intensity but drain a movement of religious virtue, then profound religious conflict — including violent conflict — is the inevitable result. Indeed, we saw religious violence on full display when a mob stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and it is no coincidence that one of Carlson’s most mendacious projects was his effort to recast the Jan. 6 insurrection and its aftermath as a “patriot purge.”

The great tragedy is that a moment of dangerous national polarization is exactly when a truly Christian message that combines the pursuit of justice with kindness and humility would be a balm to the national soul. A time of extraordinary social isolation, where people report less companionship, less time with friends, and less time with family, is exactly the time when a healthy church community can be a beacon of inclusion and hope.

May 6

World Crisis Radio, Weekly Strategic Overview and Advocacy Recommendations: With baby drones hitting Kremlin, a civil war of violent factional conflict breaks out in Moscow amid the gathering gloom of Ukraine defeat! Webster G. Tarpley, right, author and historian, May 6, 2023 (134:02 mins). Russian deputy foreign minister Ryabkov shrieks that Putin’s bandit regime and US are on edge of “abyss of open armed conflict”; Former Russian Foreign Minister Kozyrev compares drone caper to 1933 Reichstag fire, blames FSB/KGB for incident designed to augment repression and tyranny;

Only defeat is an orphan: Mercenary terrorist boss Prigozhin–himself a suspect in drone affair– denounces Defense Minister Shoigu and General Gerassimov, the commander of the Ukrainian front, blaming them for bad logistics of “shell famine” in Bakhmut; Prigozhin claims Wagner casualties are up 500% because of sabotage in Moscow, and issues dubious threat to retreat from Bakhmut after Russian VE Day on May 9 unless ammo arrives;

White House analysis shows MAGA budget default would trigger depression with 8 million jobs lost and 45% dive by stock market; Insolvency would ruin achievements attained from Civil War to World War II, leaving reserve currency void that no other nation can fill;

Sen. Tester warns of MAGA clique actively seeking to shut down borrowing by bankrupting this nation; Even corrupt corporate media begin to understand that default is unconstitutional and illegal;

Asked on Friday if he is ready to end MAGA default blackmail by invoking XIV Amendment imperative to respect solvency of national debt, Biden responds ”I’ve not gotten there YET.”

Special counsel flips Trump staffer from Mar a Lago in classified documents probe; More on the “Quid pro Crow” scandal of Clarence Thomas’ blatant corruption;

RFK Jr. endorses pro-appeasement compendium of myths on Russian history and politics;

US default would brook comparison only with the British insolvency of September 1931, whose consequences included Great Depression and the Second World War!

With baby drones hitting Kremlin, a civil war of violent factional conflict breaks out in Moscow amid the gathering gloom of Ukraine defeat!

In an image released and annotated by the U.S. Justice Department, Peter Schwartz, circled in red, carried a wooden tire-knocker on Jan. 6, 2021 at the U.S. Capitol.

New York Times, Jan. 6 Rioter Gets 14 Years for Police Attacks, Longest Sentence Yet in Inquiry, Alan Feuer and Zach Montague, May 6, 2023 (print ed.). A Pennsylvania welder who attacked police officers at the Capitol with a chair and then chemical spray was sentenced on Friday to slightly more than 14 years in prison, the most severe penalty handed down so far in connection with the events of Jan. 6, 2021.

At a hearing in Federal District Court in Washington, the man, Peter Schwartz, 49, joined a growing list of people charged with assaulting the police on that day who have received stiff sentences. Until now, the longest sentence in a Jan. 6 case had been the 10-year term given to Thomas Webster, a former New York City police officer who was found guilty last year of swinging a metal flagpole at an officer at the Capitol.

The sentence could presage more long prison terms to come. In a separate case on Friday, prosecutors recommended 25 years in prison for Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the Oath Keepers militia, who was convicted of seditious conspiracy in November along with one of his lieutenants. The prosecutors said holding Mr. Rhodes accountable at his sentencing hearing, scheduled for May 24, would be essential to preserving American democracy. His punishment, they said, could help decide whether “Jan. 6 becomes an outlier or a watershed moment.”

In the case of Mr. Schwartz, who went to the riot armed with a wooden tire knocker, prosecutors had asked Judge Amit P. Mehta for a sentence of 24 years and six months in prison — more than twice Mr. Webster’s sentence. While Judge Mehta declined to go that high, he said that his decision to issue a term of 170 months was necessary given Mr. Schwartz’s substantial history of violent offenses, and lack of remorse for his actions.

“There are not many who have come before this court with a criminal history like yours,” Judge Mehta said.

Mr. Schwartz was convicted at a trial in December of, among other acts, three counts of assault with a dangerous weapon, one count of interfering with law enforcement officers during a civil disorder and one of obstructing the certification of the election, which was taking place inside the Capitol on Jan. 6.

April

April 30

Ultra-right dark money fund-raiser Leonard Leo, center, a major provider of funding for the Federalist Society and other influencers on judicial appointments and decision-making (New York Times photo by T.J. Kirkpatrick).

New York Times, Investigation: How Scalia Law School Became a Key Friend of the Supreme Court, Steve Eder and Jo Becker, April 30, 2023. George Mason University’s law school cultivated ties to justices, with generous pay and unusual perks. In turn, it gained prestige, donations and influence.

In the fall of 2017, an administrator at George Mason University’s law school circulated a confidential memo about a prospective hire.

Just months earlier, Neil M. Gorsuch, below left, a federal appeals court judge from Colorado, had won confirmation to the Supreme Court seat left vacant by the death of Antonin Scalia, the conservative icon for whom the school was named. For President Donald J. Trump, bringing Judge Gorsuch to Washington was the first step toward fulfilling a campaign promise to cement the high court unassailably on the right. For the leaders of the law school, bringing the new justice to teach at Scalia Law was a way to advance their own parallel ambition.

“Establishing and building a strong relationship with Justice Gorsuch during his first full term on the bench could be a game-changing opportunity for Scalia Law, as it looks to accelerate its already meteoric rise to the top rank of law schools in the United States,” read the memo, contained in one of thousands of internal university emails obtained by The New York Times.

The five most radical right Republican justices on the Supreme Court are shown above, with the sixth Republican, Chief Justice John Roberts, omitted in this photo array.

By the winter of 2019, the law school faculty would include not just Justice Gorsuch but also two other members of the court, Justices Clarence Thomas, below right, and Brett M. Kavanaugh — all deployed as strategic assets in a campaign to make Scalia Law, a public school in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, a Yale or Harvard of conservative legal scholarship and influence.

The law school had long stood out for its rightward leanings and ties to conservative benefactors. Its renaming after Justice Scalia in 2016 was the result of a $30 million gift brokered by Leonard Leo, prime architect of a grand project then gathering force to transform the federal judiciary and further the legal imperatives of the right. An ascendant law school at George Mason would be part of that plan.

Since the rebranding, the law school has developed an unusually expansive relationship with the justices of the high court — welcoming them as teachers but also as lecturers and special guests at school events. Scalia Law, in turn, has marketed that closeness with the justices as a unique draw to prospective students and donors.

The Supreme Court assiduously seeks to keep its inner workings, and the justices’ lives, shielded from view, even as recent revelations and ethical questions have brought calls for greater transparency. Yet what emerges from the trove of documents is a glimpse behind the Supreme Court curtain, revealing one particular version of the favored treatment the justices often receive from those seeking to get closer to them.

April 29

Former Trump National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, anti-vax activists Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Charlene Bollinger, and longtime Trump ally and advisor Roger Stone, left to right, backstage at a July 2021 Reawaken America event. The photo was posted but later removed by Bollinger, who has appeared with Kennedy at multiple events. She and her husband sponsored an anti-vaccine, pro-Trump rally near the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Bollinger celebrated the attack and her husband tried to enter the Capitol. Kennedy later appeared in a video for their Super PAC. Kennedy has repeatedly invoked Nazis and the Holocaust when talking about measures aimed at mitigating the spread of COVID-19, such as mask requirements and vaccine mandates. Kennedy, who has announced a presidential campaign for 2024, has at times invoked his family’s legacy in his anti-vaccine work, including sometimes using images of President Kennedy.

Going Deep with Russ Baker, Investigative Commentary: How Robert F. Kennedy Jr., His Presidential Candidacy and Vaccine Views, Help Trump, Russ Baker, right, best-selling author, media critic and founder of the investigative project WhoWhatWhy, April 29, 2023. Will Roger Stone’s Trump-Kennedy “dream ticket” come true?

I have mixed feelings about Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the recently announced challenger to President Biden for the 2024 Democratic nomination. But not evenly mixed feelings.

On the positive side, he is one of the very few members of the Kennedy family willing to risk saying what others in the family will not: Key people in charge of investigating the deaths of his uncle and father, John and Robert, consistently failed to pursue meaningful leads that contradicted the official story.

Bobby Jr.’s willingness to endure a broad range of risks for talking about that topic impressed me, and led me to look at what else he has said, including his bracing critique of the military-intelligence-industrial complex.

Unfortunately, the good news ends there. It’s one thing to recognize real conspiracies and another to embrace all kinds of disinformation in keeping with his preconceived ideas, which are not supported by fact.

Which takes us to RFK Jr.’s views on public health.

His outspoken positions and continuous leadership of the anti-vaccination movement are a huge blot on his overall record. Because it’s such a striking and profound departure from evidence-based logic, I think it instantly disqualifies him as a presidential candidate.

In upcoming columns, I’ll take a look at the claims Kennedy has publicized regarding vaccines.

This country faces too many complex challenges and perils to turn the presidency over to someone who lacks good judgment on a subject as important as this. He shouldn’t be president, and even his spoiler role is a bad and terribly dangerous idea — given the overall stakes.

None other than the villainous Steve Bannon, a longtime Trump adviser, spent months trying to convince RFK Jr. to run. Bannon is expert at generating chaos, and he’s found the perfect vehicle.

Meanwhile, Roger Stone has proposed a “dream ticket” — Trump and Kennedy, together. Yes, this is actually happening. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see where this is headed. It’s obviously not good for the country, not good for humanity. Now is the time to speak up to head off potential disaster.

World Crisis Radio, Weekly Strategic Overview and What You Can Do About It: 2024 campaign kicks off with confrontation over MAGA plan to force US default! Webster G. Tarpley, right, author and historian, April 29, 2023 (117:30 mins.). Seeking to extort killer austerity in federal budget, Qevin McCarthy manages to pass a budget resolution demanding 22% cuts in Medicaid, veterans’ benefits, student loan debt relief, IRS modernization, and Social Security/Medicare administration; Large areas of discretionary spending would be crippled;

XIV Amendment makes default on US public debt unconstitutional and illegal, meaning there can be no debt ceiling; Biden must order Yellen to maintain the normal schedule of Treasury securities auctions to make sure that public debt is kept solvent and fully funded, with all legal obligations paid on time-and without reference to treasonous antics of MAGA-Tea Party clique in House;

Negotiations with terrorists and hostage takers are contrary to US policy in any case;

Pence testifies for 7-8 hours before Jack Smith grand jury; Trump rape trial resumes Monday; July-August may be prime time for Fulton County indictments;
Widow of Putin mentor and St. Petersburg Mayor Sobchak warns that Kremlin dictator has lost his mind; Harbingers of Ukraine offensive multiply;

Nebraska and South Carolina reject draconian abortion bans; Supremes stall on medication abortions; Roberts snubs invitation to appear before Senators as Supreme Court corruption scandal widens;

Recalling the massive historical achievements of U.S. Grant (the future president is shown at right in a photo by Matthew Brady), born April 27, 1822.

April 27

Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts arrives before President Joe Biden delivers the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress at the Capitol, Feb. 7, 2023, in Washington. Roberts has declined a request from the Senate Judiciary Committee to testify at a hearing on ethical standards at the court, instead providing the panel with a statement of ethics reaffirmed by the court's justices. (AP pool photo by Jacquelyn Martin.)

Associated Press, Supreme Court on ethics issues: Not broken, no fix needed, Jessica Grfesko, April 27, 2023. The Supreme Court is speaking with one voice in response to recent criticism of the justices’ ethical practices: No need to fix what isn’t broken.

April 22

Washington Post, Trump touts authoritarian vision for second term: ‘I am your justice,’ Isaac Arnsdorf and Jeff Stein, April 22, 2023 (print ed.). The former president is proposing deploying the military domestically, purging the federal workforce and building futuristic cities from scratch.

Mandatory stop-and-frisk. Deploying the military to fight street crime, break up gangs and deport immigrants. Purging the federal workforce and charging leakers.

Former president Donald Trump has steadily begun outlining his vision for a second-term agenda, focusing on unfinished business from his time in the White House and an expansive vision for how he would wield federal power. In online videos and stump speeches, Trump is pledging to pick up where his first term left off and push even further.

Where he earlier changed border policies to reduce refugees and people seeking asylum, he’s now promising to conduct an unprecedented deportation operation. Where he previously moved to make it easier to fire federal workers, he’s now proposing a new civil service exam. After urging state and local officials to take harsher measures on crime and homelessness, Trump says he is now determined to take more direct federal action.

“In 2016, I declared I am your voice,” Trump said in a speech last month at the Conservative Political Action Conference and repeated at his first 2024 campaign rally in Waco a few weeks later. “Today, I add: I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.”

Trump’s emerging platform marks a sharp departure from traditional conservative orthodoxy emphasizing small government, which was famously summed up in Ronald Reagan’s first inaugural address: “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” Trump, by contrast, is proposing to apply government power, centralized under his authority, toward a vast range of issues that have long remained outside the scope of federal control.

Experts called some of Trump’s ideas impractical, reckless, self-defeating, potentially illegal and even dangerous. Some of Trump’s specific proposals are admittedly underdeveloped, such as a plan for building futuristic cities from scratch on unused federal land, which has been compared to projects in repressive regimes such as Saudi Arabia.

World Crisis Radio, Weekly Strategic Summary & What You Can Do About It: To defeat fascism and Sino-Russian aggression, US needs Biden for President in 2024! Webster G. Tarpley, right, author and historian, April 22-23, 2023 (132:25 mins.). If Biden is going to declare his candidacy for president this coming Tuesday then that's a golden opportunity for people to put aside the illusion of Third Parties, more or less dubious, more or less manipulated, and all really suicidal for the future of the United States.

This is now crunch time. This is the crisis. This is where you got to show who you are world historically and Biden gives you more than enough to make a commitment in his direction, clearly. And that's what I ure people to do. This is what makes sense for the moment is full support for Biden, enthusiastic support. Be glad you have such a person. Let's hope it last through the coming

We need another crushing defeat for Trump and his MAGA hooligans, fanatics and sleazebags. We've had enough of that. The United States may not be able to stand another term of Trump as the chief executive, especially in the full vendatta mode, the full revenge mode, which is all he has to offer. Notice that overall his speeches come down to "Me, Me and my losses. I'ved been treated unfairly." Yeah, unfairly.

This is now intolerable. This is now the central point of world history along with the Ukraine war at the moment, which is now closely linked because you've got Trump a notorious appeaser. We should send him an umbrella of the type [Neville] Chamberlain carried at the 'Munich Sell-Out Conference' where Hitler was given Western and Central Europe by Chamberlain and [Édouard] Daladier (left). You've got to make sure this doesn't happen.

Fortunately, the pocess of stopping Trump is working. 80% of Democrats are already committed to support President!

Dominion’s $788 million out of court settlement wisely avoids corrupt and hostile Supremes, who are eager to facilitate defamation cases by oligarchs against the press; Abby Grossberg’s tapes further expose Fox madhouse; Running scared in shadow of corruption chaos, Supremes cave 7-2 to keep abortion pill available for now;

Trump goes on trial Tuesday in New York civil action brought by E. Jean Carroll; Fulton County DA Fani Willis grants immunity to an Electoral College imposter; Jack Smith, left, calls Trump insider Boris Epshteyn to testify;

Problem Solver and Governance Republicans make McCarthy’s odious Freedom Caucus-style budget blackmail and extortion possible; Time to focus opprobrium on 18 MAGA enablers in Biden districts and other vulnerable Republicans to prevent catastrophic default at all costs; President must not meet privately with Qevin, who can be counted on to lie about any talks to dupe his own caucus;

WaPo reports Russian documents revealing Kremlin plot to join German ultra-left peacenik faction with xenophobic/nostalgic Alternative for Germany to wreck public and military support for Ukraine; Moscow’s methods remain the same as they were when Stalin helped Hitler seize power!

Trump lawyers Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani hawking their false claims that they could prove election fraud caused Democratic nominee Joe Biden's presidential victory in 2020.

New York Times, Testimony Suggests Trump Was at Meeting About Accessing Voting Software, Richard Fausset and Danny Hakim, April 21, 2023. A liberal-leaning group highlighted testimony to the Jan. 6 panel that described Donald Trump attending a meeting about the plan in December 2020.

Former President Donald J. Trump took part in a discussion about plans to access voting system software in Michigan and Georgia as part of the effort to challenge his 2020 election loss, according to testimony from former Trump advisers. The testimony, delivered to the House Jan. 6 committee, was highlighted on Friday in a letter to federal officials from a liberal-leaning legal advocacy group.

Allies of Mr. Trump ultimately succeeded in copying the elections software in those two states, and the breach of voting data in Georgia is being examined by prosecutors as part of a broader criminal investigation into whether Mr. Trump and his allies interfered in the presidential election there. The former president’s participation in the discussion of the Georgia plan could increase his risk of possible legal exposure there.

A number of Trump aides and allies have recounted a lengthy and acrimonious meeting in the Oval Office on Dec. 18, 2020, which one member of the House Jan. 6 committee would later call “the craziest meeting of the Trump presidency.” During the meeting, then-President Trump presided as his advisers argued about whether they should seek to have federal agents seize voting machines to analyze them for fraud.

Testimony to the Jan. 6 committee from one aide who attended the meeting, Derek Lyons, a former White House staff secretary and counselor, was highlighted on Friday in a letter to the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation from Free Speech for People, a liberal nonprofit legal advocacy group. Mr. Lyons recounted that during the meeting, Rudolph W. Giuliani, then Mr. Trump’s personal attorney, opposed seizing voting machines and spoke of how the Trump campaign was instead “going to be able to secure access to voting machines in Georgia through means other than seizure,” and that the access would be “voluntary.”

Other attendees offered similar testimony to the committee, which released its final report on the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol in late December. Among those involved in the Oval Office discussion were two prominent pro-Trump conspiracy theorists: Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser, and Sidney Powell, a lawyer who spread numerous falsehoods after the 2020 election and who also discussed Mr. Giuliani’s comments in her testimony.

April 15

World Crisis Radio, Historical Commentary and Activism: Trump faces multiple envelopment by criminal and civil actions already grinding down his base dupes, Webster G. Tarpley, Ph.D., right, author and historian, April 15, 2023 (132:20 mins.). MAGA attacks on abortion plus orgy of gun violence paint Trump candidates into corner of desperate unpopularity for 2024; 6-week law could doom deSantis; Social explosion looms;

Legal positivism gone wild empowers one ignorant yokel Trump-appointed judge to cancel the entire FDA process and over 20 years and 4 million treatments with mifepristone; Don’t let epitaph of Constitution become ”Died of fascist judges”;

France’s Macron lives up to his title of ”President of the Rich”: he panders to Putin and China as ordered by Paris bankers, while imposing brutal pension austerity on working people;

UK defense ministry warns that classified documents published by Teixeira come replete with many inaccuracies; Moscow Marge leads GOP hooligans in glorifying leaker, aka JackTheDripper of Thug Shaker Central; The recent mirrors of Tuchashevsky and Operation Splinter Factor;

Russia’s Yavlinsky of Yabloko Party is demanding end to Ukraine genocide and end of Putin’s rule, refuting the western vatniki (Kremlin stooges) who whine for arms embargo and appeasement;

April-May 1864: Grant’s Overland campaign starts with coordinated attacks by all Union armies, ending Civil War within less than a year;

Once again: Tell corporate media to stop misnomering and euphemizing fascists as ”conservatives” !

New York Times, Six Takeaways From Trump’s New Financial Disclosure, Michael C. Bender, Eric Lipton, Matthew Goldstein and Ken Bensinger, April 15, 2023 (print ed.). In a 101-page filing, Donald Trump revealed lower-than-expected values on his social media company and sizable bank loans.

Former President Donald J. Trump provided the first look at his post-presidency business dealings on Friday with a new personal financial disclosure. Though light on specifics, the documents filed with the Federal Election Commission revealed lower-than-expected values on his social media company, two additional hefty bank loans and a new income stream for former first lady Melania Trump.

The former president filed his disclosure after requesting multiple extensions. He had been warned that he would face fines if he failed to file within 30 days of a March 16 deadline.

The financial disclosure shows cumulative income from January 2021 to Dec. 15, 2022, as required by the Federal Election Commission, and the value of assets as of December 2022, according to a person familiar with the documents.

Here are six takeaways from the 101-page filing.

Trump’s social media company takes a valuation hit. The disclosure valued the parent company of Truth Social, the former president’s social media platform and personal megaphone, at between $5 million and $25 million. That reported value for the parent company, Trump Media & Technology Group, was considerably less than the potential $9 billion valuation for the company when it announced a merger in October 2021 with a cash-rich special purpose acquisition company called Digital World Acquisition Company.

The estimate reflected the current value for Mr. Trump’s holding and was not an attempt to price the assets after a potential estimate, a person familiar with the filing said. Still, the intrinsic value of Trump Media is considerably less than he had hoped for when he launched the company in early 2021.

The merger deal has been held up by dual investigations by federal prosecutors and securities regulators, causing the stock of Digital World to tumble from a high of $97 a share to its current price of $13.10 a share. Still, if the deal is ever completed, it will bring at least $300 million in badly needed cash to Trump Media and potentially increase Mr. Trump’s paper wealth by a considerable amount. And Mr. Trump stands to get 70 million shares.

Trump’s online trading cards show underwhelming early sales. Late last year, Mr. Trump announced a foray into digital assets known as NFTs, or nonfungible tokens. Trump Cards, virtual trading cards illustrated with a variety of cartoonish images of the former president, first went up for sale on Dec. 15.

Expectations for the deal — orchestrated by Bill Zanker, a serial entrepreneur who had previously co-authored a book with Mr. Trump and paid him millions of dollars in speaking fees — were high: NFTs had commanded stunning prices in recent years, with one single token topping $22 million in early 2022.

Privately, Mr. Trump had been assured the venture could hit as much as $100 million in sales, but early returns suggested a less spectacular outcome, with analysts estimating less than $6 million in total revenue by early February.

Mr. Trump’s new financial disclosure states that the company he created for the NFT project, CIC Digital LLC, had between $100,001 and $1 million in income. But because the filing cuts off on Dec. 15 — the exact day that Trump Cards began trading — it was unclear how much of the early sales of the NFTs was included.

• Forbes, Trump’s Net Worth Plunges $700 Million As Truth Social Flops, Dan Alexander, April 3, 2023

April 13

Fox News hosts Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and Tucker Carlson, shown left to right, each expressed contempt for the voting fraud allegations they were broadcasting to Fox audiences, according to newly released internal documents obtained as evidence in a forthcoming defamation trial against the network, its owners and personnel.

 New York Times, Landmark Trial Against Fox News Could Affect the Future of Libel Law, Michael M. Grynbaum, April 13, 2023. Jury selection starts on Thursday in Delaware Superior Court, where the proceedings will tackle misinformation and the limits of journalistic responsibility.Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation case against the network will tackle misinformation and the limits of journalistic responsibility.

Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation case against Fox News, which goes to trial in Delaware next week, is expected to stoke hot-button debates over journalistic ethics, the unchecked flow of misinformation, and the ability of Americans to sort out facts and falsehoods in a polarized age.

For a particular subset of the legal and media communities, the trial is also shaping up as something else: the libel law equivalent of the Super Bowl.

“I’ve been involved in hundreds of libel cases, and there has never been a case like this,” said Martin Garbus, a veteran First Amendment lawyer. “It’s going to be a dramatic moment in American history.”

With jury selection set to begin on Thursday in Delaware Superior Court in Wilmington, the case has so far been notable for its unprecedented window into the inner workings of Fox News. Emails and text messages introduced as evidence showed the Fox host Tucker Carlson insulting former President Donald J. Trump to his colleagues, and Rupert Murdoch, left, whose family controls the Fox media empire, aggressively weighing in on editorial decisions, among other revelations.

Now, after months of depositions and dueling motions, the lawyers will face off before a jury, and legal scholars and media lawyers say the arguments are likely to plumb some of the knottier questions of American libel law.

Dominion, an elections technology firm, is seeking $1.6 billion in damages after Fox News aired false claims that the company had engaged in an elaborate conspiracy to steal the 2020 presidential election for Joseph R. Biden Jr. The claims, repeated on Fox programs hosted by anchors like Maria Bartiromo and Lou Dobbs, were central to Mr. Trump’s effort to persuade Americans that he had not actually lost.

Lawyers for Fox have argued that the network is protected as a news-gathering organization, and that claims of election fraud, voiced by lawyers for a sitting president, were the epitome of newsworthiness. “Ultimately, this case is about the First Amendment protections of the media’s absolute right to cover the news,” the network has said.

New York Times, Judge Imposes Sanction on Fox for Withholding Evidence in Defamation Case, Katie Robertson and Jeremy W. Peters, April 13, 2023 (print ed.). Judge Eric Davis also said an investigation was likely into Fox’s handling of documents and whether it had withheld details about Rupert Murdoch’s corporate role.

The judge overseeing Dominion Voting Systems’ lawsuit against Fox News said on Wednesday that he was imposing a sanction on the network and would very likely start an investigation into whether Fox’s legal team had deliberately withheld evidence, scolding the lawyers for not being “straightforward” with him.

The rebuke came after lawyers for Dominion, which is suing for defamation, revealed a number of instances in which Fox’s lawyers had not turned over evidence in a timely manner. That evidence included recordings of the Fox News host Maria Bartiromo talking with former President Donald J. Trump’s lawyers, Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani, which Dominion said had been turned over only a week ago.

In imposing the sanction on Fox, Judge Eric M. Davis, right, of the Delaware Superior Court ruled that if Dominion had to do additional depositions, or redo any, then Fox would have to “do everything they can to make the person available, and it will be at a cost to Fox.”

He also said he would very likely appoint a special master — an outside lawyer — to investigate Fox’s handling of discovery of documents and the question of whether Fox had inappropriately withheld details about the scope of Rupert Murdoch’s role. Since Dominion filed its suit in early 2021, Fox had argued that Mr. Murdoch and Fox Corporation, the parent company, should not be part of the case because Mr. Murdoch, the chair, and other senior executives had nothing to do with running Fox News. But in the past few days, Fox disclosed to Dominion that Mr. Murdoch was a corporate officer at Fox News.

Dominion, a voting technology company, accused Fox and some of the network’s executives and hosts of smearing its reputation by linking it to a nonexistent conspiracy to rig voting machines in the 2020 presidential election. Fox had said that it was just reporting on newsworthy allegations from Mr. Trump, who was then the president, as well as his lawyers and supporters, who told Fox’s hosts and producers that they would prove their allegations in court.

Jury selection starts on Thursday, and the trial is scheduled to begin on Monday. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Dominion would avail itself of the judge’s ruling allowing its lawyers to conduct additional depositions. But it was clear from Judge Davis’s stern reprimand of Fox’s lawyers on Wednesday — and similarly piqued remarks from him during another hearing on Tuesday — that he was losing patience.

The judge told Fox’s lawyers to retain all internal communications, starting from March 20 of this year, that related to Mr. Murdoch’s role at Fox News. That was the date the lawyers submitted a letter to Judge Davis asking that Mr. Murdoch and other Fox Corporation executives not be forced to testify at the trial in person, saying they had “limited knowledge of pertinent facts.” The letter did not mention that Mr. Murdoch was also a Fox News executive.

Judge Davis said he would weigh whether any additional sanctions should be placed on Fox.

He also said he was very concerned that there had been “misrepresentations to the court.”

“This is very serious,” Judge Davis said.

Davida Brook, a lawyer for Dominion, told the court that they were still receiving relevant documents from Fox, with the trial just days away.

“We keep on learning about more relevant information from individuals other than Fox,” she said. “And to be honest we don’t really know what to do about that, but that is the situation we find ourselves in.”

She pointed to one email that had recently been handed over, between Ms. Bartiromo and Ms. Powell on Nov. 7, 2020. In the email, Ms. Powell was forwarding evidence to Ms. Bartiromo that Dominion said was proof Fox had acted recklessly: an email from a woman Ms. Powell relied on as a source who exhibited signs of delusion, claiming, for instance, that she was aware of voter fraud because she had special powers, including the ability to time travel.

“I just spoke to Eric and told him you gave very imp info,” Ms. Bartiromo wrote back to Ms. Powell, most likely referring to Eric Trump, Mr. Trump’s son.

Ms. Brook also played two recordings for the court of pre-interviews, which are preliminary conversations before an on-air interview, conducted by Ms. Bartiromo that Ms. Brook said were received only after they were revealed in legal complaints filed by Abby Grossberg, a former Fox News producer who is suing the network.

In one of the recordings, on Nov. 8, 2020, Ms. Bartiromo asks Mr. Giuliani about Dominion’s software. In it, he admits that he doesn’t have hard evidence to back up the claim that the software could be manipulated, saying it was “being analyzed right now.” When Ms. Bartiromo asks about a conspiracy theory circulating at the time that claimed Dominion was connected to Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, Mr. Giuliani says: “Yeah, I’ve read that. I can’t prove that yet.”

A Fox News spokeswoman said in a statement on Wednesday: “As counsel explained to the court, Fox produced the supplemental information from Ms. Grossberg when we first learned it.”

Justin Nelson, another lawyer for Dominion, told Judge Davis that had Fox Corporation, the parent company, been quicker to share the information about Mr. Murdoch’s role as an officer of Fox News, the universe of documents Dominion could have obtained during discovery from him and other Fox Corporation executives would have been much larger. He also said that Fox might have failed to produce relevant documents.

“We have been litigating based upon this false premise that Rupert Murdoch wasn’t an officer of Fox News,” he said.

National Public Radio (NPR), NPR announced it would cease posting to Twitter after the social media platform labeled the nonprofit "Government-funded Media," David Folkenflik, April 12-13, 2023. NPR will no longer post fresh content to its 52 official Twitter feeds, becoming the first major news organization to go silent on the social media platform. In explaining its decision, NPR cited Twitter's decision to first label the network "state-affiliated media," the same term it uses for propaganda outlets in Russia, China and other autocratic countries.

The decision by Twitter last week took the public radio network off guard. When queried by NPR tech reporter Bobby Allyn, Twitter owner Elon Musk asked how NPR functioned. Musk allowed that he might have gotten it wrong.

Twitter then revised its label on NPR's account to "government-funded media." The news organization says that is inaccurate and misleading, given that NPR is a private, nonprofit company with editorial independence. It receives less than 1 percent of its $300 million annual budget from the federally funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

By going silent on Twitter, NPR's chief executive says the network is protecting its credibility and its ability to produce journalism without "a shadow of negativity."

"The downside, whatever the downside, doesn't change that fact," NPR CEO John Lansing said in an interview. "I would never have our content go anywhere that would risk our credibility."

Elon Musk says NPR's 'state-affiliated media' label might not have been accurate

In a BBC interview posted online Wednesday, Musk, shown above in a file photo, suggested he may further change the label to "publicly funded." His words did not sway NPR's decision makers. Even if Twitter were to drop the designation altogether, Lansing says the network will not immediately return to the platform.

"At this point I have lost my faith in the decision-making at Twitter," he says. "I would need some time to understand whether Twitter can be trusted again."

NPR's Allyn emailed Musk on Wednesday morning asking for "your reaction" to the news organization quitting Twitter.

Initially, Musk didn't respond, but a couple of hours later Musk tweeted out Allyn's email followed with a tweet saying "Defund @NPR." His followers quickly piled on.

NPR is instituting a "two-week grace period" so the staff who run the Twitter accounts can revise their social-media strategies. Lansing says individual NPR journalists and staffers can decide for themselves whether to continue using Twitter.

In an email to staff explaining the decision, Lansing wrote, "It would be a disservice to the serious work you all do here to continue to share it on a platform that is associating the federal charter for public media with an abandoning of editorial independence or standards."

Axios, PBS stops tweeting after Musk adds "government-funded" label, Sara Fischer, April 12-13, 2023. PBS has not tweeted from its main Twitter handle since April 8, following Elon Musk's decision to label the outlet "government-funded news."

Why it matters: PBS joins NPR, another major editorially independent outlet that receives some government funding, in halting its Twitter activity in light of the new label.

NPR said Wednesday it was suspending its use of Twitter after the platform labeled it "government-funded."

Details: Twitter added a "government-funded" label to PBS' main Twitter account last weekend, a spokesperson confirmed.

“We did stop tweeting at that point as soon as we discovered it," a PBS spokesperson confirmed. "We have no plans to resume tweeting."

The label was placed only on PBS' main Twitter handle, not any of the accounts affiliated with PBS, like its local stations or individual shows.

State of play: NPR and PBS are the second and third major outlets to stop tweeting since Musk bought Twitter last fall. CBS news last year paused its use of Twitter temporarily after Musk purchased the platform.

Washington Post, Jeff Bezos isn’t planning Commanders bid, clearing path for Josh Harris group, Mark Maske and Nicki Jhabvala, April 13, 2023 (print ed.). Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has no plans to enter the bidding for the Washington Commanders, a person familiar with the bidding process said Wednesday, potentially clearing the way for a group led by Josh Harris to complete a deal to purchase the franchise from Daniel Snyder.

Bezos, who owns The Washington Post, declined to comment through a spokesperson. But the person with knowledge of the process said Bezos does not intend to bid on the team, and others familiar with the sale process have said they believe Harris’s group would be the favorite to purchase the franchise from Snyder if Bezos does not bid.

It was not clear Wednesday whether an agreement between Harris’s group and Snyder might be close. The Commanders declined to comment through a spokesperson.

Snyder has not notified the NFL and its finance committee that he has reached a deal to sell the team, a person with direct knowledge of the league’s inner workings and the views of the owners said Wednesday. But hopes are growing that a sale could occur in the coming weeks, that person said.

Harris, the owner of the NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers and the NHL’s New Jersey Devils, is estimated by Forbes to have a net worth of $5.9 billion. His investment group includes Potomac, Md., businessman and philanthropist Mitchell Rales and Basketball Hall of Famer Magic Johnson. Rales, the co-founder of the Danaher Corporation, has an estimated net worth of $5.6 billion, according to Forbes.

Harris-Rales partnership gives Daniel Snyder a strong non-Bezos option

Harris’s group and another group led by Canadian commercial real estate developer and private equity executive Steve Apostolopoulos entered competing formal bids last month for the Commanders, people with direct knowledge of the sale process said then. The bid by Harris’s group was for about $6 billion, according to a person with direct knowledge of the process.

April 12

U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, left, and his billionaire friend and benefactor Harlan Crow (file photos).

New York Times, Jet-Setting With Clarence Thomas Puts Spotlight on Eccentric Billionaire, Abbie VanSickle, April 12, 2023 (print ed.). The justice’s connection to Harlan Crow raised questions of whether friendships can be separated from politics and intensified calls for an ethics code.

Shortly after the leak of the draft opinion to overturn Roe v. Wade, Justice Clarence Thomas made headlines last spring when he told an audience in Dallas that the breach might have permanently damaged the court. Less noticed was what he said about his longtime friend, the conservative Texas real estate billionaire Harlan Crow.

As the justice settled into a chair by a fireplace at Old Parkland, a palatial office complex, his interviewer, John Yoo, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, thanked Mr. Crow, the owner of Old Parkland, for making “this wonderful facility available” for the talk.

“I know Harlan hates that,” Mr. Yoo said, a reference to the eccentric and press-averse Mr. Crow’s dislike of praise in public.

“That’s why I wouldn’t say it,” Justice Thomas chimed in, amused. “I’d like to keep that friendship.”

The precise nature of the friendship between the justice and Mr. Crow is under new scrutiny since ProPublica revealed last week that Justice Thomas did not disclose lavish gifts from Mr. Crow, including travel on the billionaire’s private jet, stays at his Adirondacks resort and island hopping in Indonesia on his superyacht.

Although Justice Thomas has said the two have been close friends for decades and the trips were personal, Mr. Crow — a longtime donor to conservative causes whose Dallas home includes paintings by Renoir and a signed copy of “Mein Kampf” — did not meet the justice until he was already on the court. The relationship has raised questions about whether such a friendship can be separated from politics and has intensified calls from Democrats for transparency and an ethics code for the justices.

“The fact that there’s no way to get an independent internal investigation of a justice is how Justice Thomas has been able to get away with all these reporting failures,” said Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, left, Democrat of Rhode Island. “There’s simply no process to look into any of this other than the justice making his own determination.”

Mr. Crow, 73, has since 2006 been a trustee of the Supreme Court Historical Society, a charity that asks for an annual contribution of $5,000 or more to further its mission of preserving the court’s history and educating the public. Mr. Crow is also a trustee of the George W. Bush Presidential Library Foundation and gave $500,000 to a group that ran advertisements to build public support for Mr. Bush’s Supreme Court picks.

Mr. Crow and his firm have not had a case before the Supreme Court during Justice Thomas’s time there, and in a statement to ProPublica said he and the justice and their wives kept the court and politics out of their friendship.

April 8

Former President Donald J. Trump, in a blue suit, sits with his attorneys shortly before arraignment in New York City's state court on 34 felony charges of falsifying business records related to the 2016 presidential campaign season, reportedly involving in part hush money to women (Associated Press photo by Seth Wong).

World Crisis Radio, Historical Commentary and Activism: Trump is now an accused felon as his gaslighting machine and demagogic powers dwindle! Webster G. Tarpley, right, author, strategist, April 8, 2023 (113:15 mins.). Federal courts shred claims of privilege regarding grand jury testimony against Trump by Pence, Secret Service agents, and White House insiders Meadows-Scavino-Miller-OBrien-McEntee-Racliffe-Luna-Cucinelli;

Infamous NY criminal defendant escalates illegal threats against Judge Merchan, DA Bragg, and their families, stubbornly courting imprisonment;

Bitter partisan clashes emphasize urgency of GOP extinction as criminal irrationality of desperado leaders comes to fore; GOP cannot exist without rube bait issues that also render party unelectable;

More crude threats from Beijing as ”Balloon Boy” Xi succeeds in uniting US political forces against his mad quest for world domination; Reports from Kremlin defector and CIA vet depict Putin as fey and isolated paranoid obsessed with avoiding the fate of Qaddafi;

Cliques of Wall Street zombie bankers seek to block Biden’s second term to prevent fair taxation and rational re-regulation; Sinister dark money mobilizing for No Labels Superpac 2023 strategy that could allow Trump or DeSantis to seize power; Anti-vaxxer Robert Kennedy Jr.’s candidacy reportedly encouraged by Bannon to foment chaos;

In Tennessee, the native soil of the Ku Klux Klan, Gestapo methods are on the march in state government;

Time to impeach the lawless Clarence Thomas, whose wealthy cronies ALWAYS have business before the Supreme Court because their business IS the court; Wisconsin voters bar MAGA fanatic from their state supreme court;

Breaking: Rogue Texas MAGA judge runs wild, rolls back 20 years of medication abortion!; A conservative judge would respect precedent, this one tramples on it; This is fascist jurisprudence; To defeat MAGA, STOP EUPHEMIZING AND MISNOMERING THEM AS CONSERVATIVES!

April 6

U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, left, and his billionaire friend and benefactor Harlan Crow (file photos).

ProPublica, Investigation: Clarence Thomas and the Billionaire, Clarence Thomas Undisclosed Luxury Travel Gifts, Joshua Kaplan, Justin Elliott and Alex Mierjeski, April 6, 2023.

In late June 2019, right after the U.S. Supreme Court released its final opinion of the term, Justice Clarence Thomas boarded a large private jet headed to Indonesia. He and his wife were going on vacation: nine days of island-hopping in a volcanic archipelago on a superyacht staffed by a coterie of attendants and a private chef.

If Thomas had chartered the plane and the 162-foot yacht himself, the total cost of the trip could have exceeded $500,000. Fortunately for him, that wasn’t necessary: He was on vacation with real estate magnate and Republican megadonor Harlan Crow, who owned the jet — and the yacht, too.

For more than two decades, Thomas has accepted luxury trips virtually every year from the Dallas businessman without disclosing them, documents and interviews show. A public servant who has a salary of $285,000, he has vacationed on Crow’s superyacht around the globe. He flies on Crow’s Bombardier Global 5000 jet. He has gone with Crow to the Bohemian Grove, the exclusive California all-male retreat, and to Crow’s sprawling ranch in East Texas. And Thomas typically spends about a week every summer at Crow’s private resort in the Adirondacks.

The extent and frequency of Crow’s apparent gifts to Thomas have no known precedent in the modern history of the U.S. Supreme Court.

These trips appeared nowhere on Thomas’ financial disclosures. His failure to report the flights appears to violate a law passed after Watergate that requires justices, judges, members of Congress and federal officials to disclose most gifts, two ethics law experts said. He also should have disclosed his trips on the yacht, these experts said.

Thomas did not respond to a detailed list of questions.

In a statement, Crow acknowledged that he’d extended “hospitality” to the Thomases “over the years,” but said that Thomas never asked for any of it and it was “no different from the hospitality we have extended to our many other dear friends.”

Through his largesse, Crow has gained a unique form of access, spending days in private with one of the most powerful people in the country. By accepting the trips, Thomas has broken long-standing norms for judges’ conduct, ethics experts and four current or retired federal judges said.

“It’s incomprehensible to me that someone would do this,” said Nancy Gertner, a retired federal judge appointed by President Bill Clinton. When she was on the bench, Gertner said, she was so cautious about appearances that she wouldn’t mention her title when making dinner reservations: “It was a question of not wanting to use the office for anything other than what it was intended.”

Virginia Canter, a former government ethics lawyer who served in administrations of both parties, said Thomas “seems to have completely disregarded his higher ethical obligations.”

“When a justice’s lifestyle is being subsidized by the rich and famous, it absolutely corrodes public trust,” said Canter, now at the watchdog group CREW. “Quite frankly, it makes my heart sink.”

Axios Sneak Peek, 1 big thing: Supreme Court fight reignites, Zachary Basu and Andrew Solender, April 6, 2023. An explosive ProPublica investigation into Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' ties to a billionaire GOP donor has triggered a furious response from Democrats, sparking calls for resignation, impeachment and sweeping reforms to the nation's highest court.

Driving the news: For more than two decades, the conservative justice has accepted luxury trips virtually every year from Dallas real estate magnate Harlan Crow without disclosing them, according to flight records, internal documents and interviews with staff.

Thomas and Crow are genuine friends, ProPublica reports, but the extent and frequency of the billionaire's gifts "have no known precedent in the modern history" of the Supreme Court.

By accepting the opulent trips on Crow's private jet and superyacht — and failing to report them on his financial disclosures — Thomas broke long-standing norms and potentially a post-Watergate ethics law.

Why it matters: The vast majority of Democrats already believe the Supreme Court is broken, unrepresentative of the views of most Americans, and captured by conservative and corporate interests.

That trend of distrust was accelerated by the overturning of Roe v. Wade last summer, a landmark decision that has transformed the political landscape.
A record-low 47% of Americans said they have "a great deal" or "a fair amount" of trust in the Supreme Court last year, down 20 points from 2020, according to Gallup polling.

Between the lines: Thomas, in particular, has become a top target of Democratic anger after it was revealed that his wife, conservative activist Ginni Thomas, participated in Trump-aligned efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

What we're hearing: Within hours of the report's publication, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, referred to it as a "call to action" and promised his panel "will act."

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), a member of the Appropriations Committee, floated using the appropriations process to "ensure that the Supreme Court adopts a code of conduct."

Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) revived a progressive call to "expand the court" — an idea that gained steam after Republicans quickly replaced the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 2020, but which is opposed by President Biden.

Reality check: With Republicans in control of the House, any congressional action against the conservative jurist is likely to fall flat.

"Under Republican leadership, it’s not going to happen, I’m afraid," Johnson told Axios of impeachment or congressional censure.
"Based on what I've seen so far from my House Republican colleagues, I think they're going to close their eyes, cover their ears and hope this goes away soon," Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-Md.), a House Judiciary member, told Axios.

New York Times, After Justice Thomas Revelations, Lawmakers Call for Tighter Ethics Code, Zach Montague, April 6, 2023. Clarence Thomas failed to disclose that he accompanied Harlan Crowe, the billionaire and conservative donor, on a series of vacations, ProPublica revealed.

Democratic lawmakers reiterated calls on Thursday to tighten ethics rules for the Supreme Court after a report revealed that Justice Clarence Thomas had accepted luxury gifts from a major conservative donor without disclosing them.

An investigation by ProPublica described how Justice Thomas accompanied the donor, Harlan Crow, a real estate billionaire, on a series of vacations for nearly two decades. The trips included extended stays on Mr. Crow’s yacht, flights on Mr. Crow’s private jet and visits to Mr. Crow’s all-male private retreat in Monte Rio, Calif.

The disclosure early Thursday renewed scrutiny of Justice Thomas, who has long faced questions over conflicts of interest in part because of the political activities of his wife, Virginia Thomas.

No formal code of conduct on the Supreme Court specifically bars the justice from taking the trips mentioned in ProPublica’s reporting. But under the Ethics in Government Act of 1978, justices, like federal judges, must file a financial disclosure each year that lists gifts of more than $415 in avoidance of even an “appearance of impropriety.” The cost of one of the trips with Mr. Crow may have exceeded $500,000, according to ProPublica.

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Lawmakers have seized on the lack of enforceable ethics code governing Supreme Court justices, urging that they be held to standards similar to those in place for members of the executive and legislative branches.

The Senate is considering a bill that would codify that practice, in line with past legislation. And new rules adopted in March now require the justices to report travel by private jet and extended stays at commercial properties including hotels, resorts and hunting lodges.

April 5

Former President Donald J. Trump, in a blue suit, sits with his attorneys shortly before arraignment in New York City's state court on 34 felony charges of falsifying business records related to the 2016 presidential campaign season, reportedly involving in part hush money to women (Associated Press photo by Seth Wong).

New York Daily News, Donald Trump pleads not guilty to 34 felony counts in historic indictment linked to Stormy Daniels hush money probe, Molly Crane-Newman and Larry McShane, April 5, 2023 (print ed.). Former President Donald Trump pleaded not guilty Tuesday to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to Manhattan District Alvin Bragg’s investigation of hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign.

The one-term commander-in-chief entered the plea during an unprecedented and extraordinary hour-long Manhattan court proceeding. Trump, in his trademark blue suit, white shirt and red tie, remained uncharacteristically quiet inside the courtroom and out, uttering just two words.

“Not guilty,” the native New Yorker responded when asked for a plea to the charges.

He entered and departed the state Supreme Court hearing without speaking to the media.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a target of Trump’s venom during the probe, attended the hearing. The ex-president described the prosecutor as an “animal” in one of his social media postings.

“The People of the State of New York allege that Donald J. Trump repeatedly and fraudulently falsified New York business records to conceal crimes that hid damaging information from the voting public during the 2016 presidential election,” Bragg said afterward in a statement.

And Acting Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan, shown above left, asked Trump to “please refrain from making statements that are likely to incite violence or civil unrest.” or “engage in conduct that jeopardizes the rule of law.”

A grand jury investigating Trump indicted him March 30, making him the first former president in United States history to face criminal charges.

Trump did turn to social media before entering the courtroom, recounting how his day was about to go.

“WOW,” he wrote. “They are going to ARREST ME! Can’t believe this is happening in America!

The charges against Trump had remained under seal until Tuesday’s court appearance.

Bragg offered the details once the hearing ended and Trump departed, likely headed for his Florida home in Mar-a-Lago.

The court documents detailed Trump’s $130,000 payoff to adult film actress Daniels 12 days before the presidential election of 2016 to buy her silence over an alleged sexual encounter they had a decade earlier. There was another $150,000 payout through an intermediary to Karen McDougal, a Playboy model who alleged a sexual relationship with the thrice-married Trump.

And there was a new allegation: A $30,000 payout to a Trump Tower doorman who claimed to have information about an out-of-wedlock child sired by the developer.

Porn star Stormy Daniels and former President Donald J. Trump, who allegedly hid hush payments to her via The National Enquirer newspaper during the 2016 presidential campaign to hide their affair from election finance officials and the public.

Washington Post, Here are the 34 charges and what they mean, Ann E. Marimow, April 5, 2023 (print ed.). Trump is charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records under Article 175 of the New York Penal Law.

Read the full indictment of former president Donald Trump

Falsifying business records is a felony in New York when there is an “intent to defraud” that includes an intent to “commit another crime or to aid or conceal” a crime. In this case, prosecutors will have to prove that Trump is guilty of maintaining false business records with the intent to hide a $130,000 payment in the days before the 2016 election to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels to cover up an alleged 2006 affair.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, right, said at a news conference after the court hearing that the alleged scheme was intended to cover up violations of New York election law, which makes it a crime to conspire to illegally promote a candidate. Bragg also said the $130,000 payment exceeded the federal campaign contribution cap.

Under New York law, most nonviolent felonies must be charged within five years of the alleged misconduct. But legal experts say the statute-of-limitations clock could be paused under certain circumstances, including during the period in which a defendant moves out of the state.

Daily Beast, Trump Literally Lists All His Grievances in Post-Arraignment Speech, Brett Bachman, April 4-5, 2023. In a speech addressing his historic arraignment that felt more like a campaign rally Tuesday night, former President Donald Trump started out with a six-minute list of unresolved grievances that culminated with his recent indictment over alleged hush-money payments.

“From the beginning the Democrats spied on my campaign and they attacked me with an onslaught of fraudulent investigations,” he began the speech from his Florida club Mar-a-Lago.

“Russia, Russia, Russia. Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine. Impeachment hoax No.1. Impeachment hoax No. 2. The illegal and unconstitutional raid on Mar-a-Lago. Lying to the FISA courts,” he continued, though he was nowhere near done.

“The FBI and DOJ relentlessly pursuing Republicans. Unconstitutional changes to election laws by not getting approval from state legislators. The millions of votes illegally stuffed into ballot boxes—and all caught on government cameras. And just recently, the FBI and DOJ and collusion with Twitter and Facebook Facebook in order not to say anything bad about the Hunter Biden laptop from hell.”

Just hours after appearing at the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse, Trump jetted straight back to his Florida club, Mar-a-Lago, to deliver the fiery speech.

Despite conservative commentators on Fox News and elsewhere pleading all day for Trump to issue an even-handed, forward-looking address rebutting the unprecedented charges and his vision for the country should he reclaim the White House in 2024, he instead took to rehashing his campaign speech greatest hits: the respect he commanded as leader of the free world, the incredible economy he created (before the COVID-19 pandemic brought it all down), and, of course, his signature exaggerated picture of contemporary America as a lawless hellhole on the verge of total collapse.

“The USA is a mess. Our economy is crashing, inflation is out of control, Russia has joined with China; Saudi Arabia has joined with Iran; China, Russia, Iran and North Korea have formed together as a menacing and destructive coalition,” Trump said. “Our currency is crashing and will soon no longer be the world standard which will be our greatest defeat, frankly, in 200 years.”

After all this, he finally addressed the elephant in the room, bashing Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and all of his contemporaries helming open investigations against the former president.

He even attacked Bragg’s wife for tweeting about the case, and mentioned his daughter’s career as a digital strategist for political campaigns—including Kamala Harris’ doomed presidential bid—as evidence that the local prosecutor was irredeemably biased against Trump and his family.

It was an attack echoed by his son, Donald Trump Jr., earlier in the day.

“I have a Trump-hating judge, with a Trump-hating wife, and a family whose daughter worked for Kamala Harris,” Trump said. “Right out of the old Soviet Union. That’s where we are.”

According to the unsealed indictment first available to the public following Trump’s arrest, the former president faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in relation to two hush money payments he allegedly orchestrated just before the 2016 presidential election: one to former porn star Stormy Daniels to buy her silence regarding their affair, and a “catch-and-kill” agreement with American Media Inc., the parent company of the National Enquirer, to bury a story about another one of Trump’s affairs after the publication had found out about Trump’s indiscretions.

Both were campaign finance crimes already on the books in New York City—after Trump’s onetime lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty for his part in the schemes in 2018.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump appears in a Manhattan courtroom Tuesday on charges stemming from his alleged hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels (Reuters Pool photo by Andrew Kelly).

Another accusation contained in the indictment is that Trump tried to organize a $30,000 payment to a doorman at one of his buildings, who claimed to have information about an illegitimate child that Trump fathered with a housekeeper. The “love child” accusation remains unconfirmed—but the payment is a key element of Tuesday’s charges.

“From August 2015 to December 2017, the Defendant orchestrated a scheme with others to influence the 2016 presidential election by identifying and purchasing negative information about him to suppress its publication and benefit the Defendant’s electoral prospects,” the charging document states.

According to the indictment, Trump attempted to cover up the payments using a number of false record-keeping strategies; duplicate lines in corporate ledgers, checks written from his personal trust and invoices from Cohen for “legal fees,” among other ways.

Trump pleaded not guilty Tuesday—and his lawyers blasted the charges as old news that wouldn’t stand up in court.

"There's nothing,” said Trump lawyer Todd Blanche. “The indictment itself is boilerplate.”

The indictment represents the first serious charges brought against an American president in the country’s history—and comes as Trump faces arguably even more serious legal threats on several fronts.

In just a few weeks, Trump will have to return to Manhattan to face a civil trial—brought by the writer E. Jean Carroll under a new state law—which alleges he raped Carroll in a high-end department store decades ago.

Department of Justice Special Counsel Jack Smith is currently in the middle of two investigations—one into Trump’s attempted 2020 election subversion, and another concerning his hoarding of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago following his departure from the White House.

New York Attorney General Letitia James has also filed a $250 million civil suit against Trump and his company for fraud.

Politico, While Trump’s base rallies, the GOP fractures, Sally Goldenberg, April 5, 2023 (print ed.). At a rally for Trump in New York, the Republicans who didn’t show up said as much about the modern GOP as those who did.

In a Manhattan park that served as a staging ground for America’s deepest political divisions on Tuesday, a Donald Trump impersonator posed for photographs in an orange jumpsuit. Nearby, a man waving a blue “Keep America Great” flag declared, “Trump is a little bit like Jesus.”

“We will rebuild, we will restore and America will be reborn. Mark my words,” one demonstrator shouted into a bullhorn during a rally hosted by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia. He was followed by a woman who likened the indictment of the former president to actions of the Chinese Communist Party.

But if the pro-Trump rally laid bare the intensity of the Republican base’s support for the 45th president, it also suggested its limitations.

While polling, fundraising and public displays of enthusiasm indicate the indictment is emboldening Trump’s MAGA supporters, there is no evidence yet it has helped him expand his political base. In fact, many Republicans have expressed fears it may ultimately damage his prospects with swing voters the GOP will need to win the White House in 2024.

“It is sad that we have a pretty large New York congressional delegation that has failed to show up. We’ve seen the party leadership fail to show up. We’ve seen local elected officials from the state Assembly to the state Senate fail to show up,” Gavin Wax, president of the New York Young Republican Club, said after the rally. “So I think it shows a complete disconnect between party leadership, party electeds and the establishment and the base of their actual party — their actual voters.”

Wax noted two New York congressional Trump loyalists — Reps. Elise Stefanik and Claudia Tenney — hosted a public demonstration of support elsewhere in New York. And newly-elected Rep. George Santos — infamous for lying about some aspects of his identity during his campaign last year — defended the ex-president and lamented that the indictment “cheapens the judicial system” as he walked by the courthouse.

But for others — specifically New York State Republican Chairman Ed Cox — Wax called it “a complete miscalculation on their part to not come out, to not be more strong on this issue.” Trump would appear to benefit in the short term from his legal troubles. A Yahoo News/YouGov poll conducted shortly after the indictment was announced showed Trump running far ahead of DeSantis, his main GOP rival, among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents.

April 4

Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary: We stand at the precipice of Nazi America, Wayne Madsen, left, columnist, author of 22 books (including The Rise of the Fascist Fourth Reich: The Era of Trumpism and the Far Right, shown below), and former Navy intelligence officer, April 4, 2023. The U.S. is now under fascist rule in many Republican-led states.

As Donald Trump today enters a courtroom in New York City to be arraigned on 34 felony counts for business fraud, he makes no secret of his disdain for the law, presiding judge Juan Merchan, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, and the U.S. Constitution.

Trump is actually emulating his hero Adolf Hitler, who, on May 8, 1931, stood in Room 664 of the Berlin Criminal Court building to appear as a witness in a trial of Nazi Storm Troopers, who, on November 22, 1930, had shot up the Eden Dance Palace in Berlin, killing three and wounding 20.

Hitler was incensed that it was Hans Litten, the attorney for one of those injured in the Nazi attack, who was the person who cross-examined him on the witness stand. Litten, a Jewish convert to Lutheranism, set out to prove that it was Hitler who had given the order to attack the dance hall. In many respects, Litten was trying to prove that it was Hitler who was ultimately responsible for the Nazi's acts of violence, something that U.S. Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith could try to prove with regard to Trump and the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

April 2

New York Times, Donald Trump’s Time-Tested Legal Strategy: Attack and Delay, William K. Rashbaum, Maggie Haberman, Charlie Savage and Jonah E. Bromwich, April 2, 2023 (print ed.). Across many court cases over the decades, Mr. Trump has leaned on those tactics. Now facing criminal charges in Manhattan, the attacks have already begun.

Attack. Attack. Attack.

Delay. Delay. Delay.

Those two tactics have been at the center of Donald J. Trump’s favored strategy in court cases for much of his adult life, and will likely be the former president’s approach to fighting the criminal charges now leveled against him if he sticks to his well-worn legal playbook. In fact, his attacks against both the prosecutor and the judge in the case have already begun.

Over more than four decades, Mr. Trump has sued and been sued in civil court again and again. In recent years, he has faced federal criminal investigations, congressional inquiries and two impeachments. He has neither a law degree nor formal legal training, but over the course of that long history, he has become notorious in legal circles for thinking he knows better than the lawyers he hires — and then, very often, fires — and frequently is slow to pay if he does at all.

The former president now faces an indictment stemming from a hush-money payment made to a porn star in the final days of the 2016 presidential campaign. Mr. Trump, who has steadfastly contended he committed no crime and almost certainly will decline any plea deal, will fight the case in State Supreme Court in Manhattan. The battle there will play out in front of the same judge who last year presided over the tax fraud trial of Mr. Trump’s family real estate company — a trial that ended in a conviction on 17 felonies.

The details of Mr. Trump’s defense strategy are still unclear because the specific charges in the indictment against him will stay under seal until his arraignment Tuesday.

New York Times, For Leaders Abroad, the Prospect of a Trump Revival Is Ever-Present, Mark Landler, April 2, 2023. The indictment of Donald Trump has not changed the calculations of world leaders who view his political resilience as inevitable.

Whether foreign leaders view the potential return of Donald J. Trump to the White House with hope or horror, the prospect of a Trump restoration is so deeply ingrained overseas that leaders in several countries have hedged their bets in diplomacy, security and even where they invest their fortunes.

There were few signs that Mr. Trump’s indictment last week on criminal charges in New York has changed those calculations.

Foreign leaders have watched him bounce back from so many disasters, according to diplomats and foreign policy experts, that they now regard his political resilience with something approaching fatalism. This is especially true in Europe, whose leaders spent four years enduring Mr. Trump’s hectoring on a host of issues, including military spending and climate change.

Even if Mr. Trump’s legal woes end his political viability in a way that two impeachments and an election defeat to Joseph R. Biden Jr. did not, many worry that he will be replaced by any number of Trump-like alternatives, of whom the Republican governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, is the most prominent example.

New York Times, Trump’s G.O.P. Rivals, Shielding Him, Reveal Their 2024 Predicament, Michael C. Bender and Maggie Haberman, April 2, 2023 (print ed.). Many of Donald Trump’s potential opponents snapped into line behind him, showing how hard it may be to persuade Republican voters to choose an alternative.

Last week, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, right, took a measured dig at Donald J. Trump by publicly mocking the circumstances that led New York investigators to the former president.

“I don’t know what goes into paying hush money to a porn star to secure silence over some type of alleged affair,” Mr. DeSantis said.

But as soon as Mr. Trump was indicted this week, Mr. DeSantis promptly vowed to block his state from assisting a potential extradition. In a show of support for his fellow Republican, Mr. DeSantis called the case “the weaponization of the legal system to advance a political agenda.”

In the hours after a grand jury indicted Mr. Trump, many of his potential rivals for the Republican presidential nomination snapped into line behind him, looking more like allies than competitors. All passed on the opportunity to criticize him, and some rushed to his defense, expressing concerns about the legitimacy of the case.

The turnaround by some prospective contenders was so swift and complete that it caught even the Trump team off guard. One close ally suggested to Mr. Trump that he publicly thank his rivals. (As of Friday evening, he had not.)

The reluctance to directly confront Mr. Trump put his strength as a front-runner on full display. His would-be challengers have been sizing up political billiard balls for the possibility of an increasingly tricky bank shot: persuading Republican voters to forsake him, while presenting themselves as the movement’s heir apparent.

In one reflection of Mr. Trump’s durability, his team said it had raised more than $4 million in the 24 hours after the indictment was made public by The New York Times.

“There has been a narrative for a while that we could have Trump policies with someone more electable, but the reaction to the indictment showed that power is unique to Trump,” Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said in an interview. “Trump was the leading contender for the nomination before the indictment, and now he’s the prohibitive favorite.”

The closest any possible Republican challenger came to criticizing Mr. Trump was former Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, who told Fox Business Network on Friday that while the yet-to-be-revealed charges might not end up being substantial, Mr. Trump should “step aside” now that he has been indicted.

April 1

New York Times, The Manhattan district attorney’s office criticized top Republicans for trying to interfere in the investigation, Jonah E. Bromwich and Luke Broadwater, April 1, 2023 (print ed.). The letter described as unfounded the three members’ allegations that the investigation was politically motivated.

A day after filing charges against Donald J. Trump, the Manhattan district attorney’s office wrote a letter criticizing three influential congressional Republicans for their efforts to interfere in the investigation into the former president.

The letter was addressed to three committee chairmen who had demanded that the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, left, provide them with communications, documents and testimony related to the inquiry into Mr. Trump.

The office’s letter noted that before being indicted, Mr. Trump had used his social media platform to denigrate Mr. Bragg, and had threatened “death and destruction” if he were to be charged.

“You could use the stature of your office to denounce these attacks and urge respect for the fairness of our justice system and for the work of the impartial grand jury,” Leslie Dubeck, the general counsel for the district attorney’s office, wrote.

“Instead, you and many of your colleagues have chosen to collaborate with Mr. Trump’s efforts to vilify and denigrate the integrity of elected state prosecutors and trial judges,” Ms. Dubeck wrote, describing as unfounded the three members’ allegations that the investigation was politically motivated.

The letter, addressed to Representatives Jim Jordan of Ohio, chairman of the Judiciary Committee; James R. Comer of Kentucky, chairman of the Oversight and Accountability Committee; and Bryan Steil of Wisconsin, chairman of the Administration Committee, repeated portions of an earlier one Ms. Dubeck had sent them, calling the Republican request for confidential information about the investigation unprecedented.

Washington Post, Trump lashes out against judge who will hear his criminal case, Perry Stein and Shayna Jacobs, April 1, 2023 (print ed.). New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, above, left, also presided over prosecutions of the Trump Organization and CFO Allen Weisselberg.

Former president Donald Trump is quite familiar with New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, the judge who oversaw the grand jury that indicted Trump this week and will preside over the criminal proceedings that follow.

Merchan, 60, who has sat on the New York bench since 2009, also presided over the jury trial last year of Trump’s namesake real estate company, which resulted in a conviction in December, and the prosecution of the company’s longtime chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg.

On Friday, the first former president ever charged with a crime lashed out at Merchan on social media, declaring that the judge “HATES ME.”

Merchan “is the same person who ‘railroaded’ my 75 year old former CFO, Allen Weisselberg, to take a ‘plea’ deal,” Trump wrote.

The former president continued: “He strong armed Allen, which a judge is not allowed to do, & treated my companies, which didn’t ‘plead,’ VICIOUSLY. APPEALING.”

Weisselberg pleaded guilty in August to 15 counts including tax fraud, conspiracy and grand larceny and is serving a five-month jail sentence. Trump was not personally implicated in that case.

But on Tuesday, Trump is expected to appear before Merchan for an arraignment hearing in a different criminal matter. His indictment remains under seal, which means the specific charges are not known. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is believed to have been investigating a payment made before the 2016 presidential election to Stormy Daniels, an adult-film actress, to keep her from publicly discussing a sexual encounter she said she had with Trump years earlier.

The judge, who was born in Colombia and grew up in the Jackson Heights neighborhood of Queens, has held various posts as a lawyer and jurist in New York government since the 1990s, including working as a family court judge in the Bronx and as an assistant district attorney in the New York County district attorney’s office. He now works at the New York Supreme Court, a felony-level trial court with branches in each New York City borough and each county around the state.

As part of his portfolio, Merchan oversees a specialized court that gives treatment options and merit-based plea agreements to eligible defendants who are in the throes of mental illness when they commit crimes. The program prioritizes treatment and recovery. Graduates can see their charges reduced or dismissed. 

World Crisis Radio, Opinion and historical commentary: Trump indicted, showing justice still exists in US after all! Webster G. Tarpley, right, author, strategist, April 1, 2023 (113:15 mins.). NY DA Alvin Bragg becomes a national hero by delivering the indispensable indictment in time to save democratic legality; Trump responds with innuendos of violence; Indictment to be read at arraignment next Tuesday at 2:15 pm; Manhattan DA”s action renews tradition of black America as the moral conscience of the nation;

AG Garland’s feckless performance makes his resignation mandatory;

Trump camp may now be decimated by indictments, civil suits and defections; An extinction event for Republican Party looms;

Meddling MAGAt extremists should be halted at the Hudson River, since their attempted sabotage of Bragg’s case has no legal basis; Is Putin offering political asylum?; Kremlin warlord admits that sanctions are disrupting the Russian war economy;

A bad week for oligarchs, from Trump to Netanyahu and beyond; Xi eyes Russian territory beyond Amur and Ussuri Rivers, seized from China during 1850s Opium Wars;

DeSantis attacks full faith and credit clause of US Constitution by refusing to cooperate with transfer of accused felon Trump from Florida to New York if needed; Breaking: In defeat for Murdoch, Delaware judge orders Dominion vs Fox case to trial!

Former Trump White House senior advisors Jared Kushner, center, and Ivanka Trump, Trump's daughter and Kushner's wife, meet with Saudi leader Mohammad bin Salman on the former president's first international trip of his administration, to Saudi Arabia in May 2017. Bin Salman's regime later authorized a $2 billion investment into Kushner's private operations, thereby augmenting the money flows from Middle Eastern royalty into Kushner companies.

New York Times, Kushner Firm Got Hundreds of Millions From 2 Persian Gulf Nations, Jonathan Swan, Kate Kelly, Maggie Haberman and Mark Mazzetti, March 31, 2023 (print ed.). The infusion of money from interests in the two Persian Gulf monarchies reflects the close ties to Middle Eastern countries established by Jared Kushner, former President Donald Trump’s son-in-law.

Wealth funds in the United Arab Emirates and Qatar have invested hundreds of millions of dollars with Jared Kushner’s private equity firm, according to people with knowledge of the transactions, joining Saudi Arabia in backing the venture launched by former President Donald J. Trump’s son-in-law as he left the White House.

The infusion of money from interests in the two rival Persian Gulf monarchies reflects the continued efforts by Mr. Trump and his aides and allies to profit from the close ties they built to the Arab world during his presidency and the desire of leaders in the region to remain on good terms with Mr. Kushner as his father-in-law seeks the presidency again.

The Emiratis invested more than $200 million with Mr. Kushner’s firm, Affinity Partners, two people told about the transactions said. The U.A.E.’s embassy in Washington declined to comment. A Qatari entity invested a similar sum, according to two people with knowledge of that deal. A spokesman for the Qatari embassy in Washington declined to comment.

The investment from the U.A.E. came through a sovereign wealth fund, but the identity of the Qatari investor is unclear. An Affinity Partners official did not respond to an email seeking comment.

Top Emirati officials have a close relationship with Mr. Kushner, forged during the Trump administration. And the Kushner family has previously benefited from Qatari funds. A Qatar-linked company helped bail out the Kushners’ debt-ridden tower in midtown Manhattan, 666 Fifth Avenue, during the Trump presidency.

But despite these relationships, Emirati and Qatari officials were at first reluctant to invest in Mr. Kushner’s private equity fund, at least in part because of the political risks involved, according to people familiar with both governments’ internal deliberations. The Times previously reported that Qatari officials feared they would face unfavorable treatment if they turned down Mr. Kushner’s invitation to invest and Mr. Trump returned to power.

It is not unusual for insiders from both parties to benefit financially from deals abroad after leaving government service, particularly in the Middle East. There is a long history of firms populated by former officials from Democratic administrations signing lucrative contracts with Gulf nations, and there are few laws or ethics guidelines prohibiting it.

But the scale of the investments Mr. Kushner’s venture has received from the Gulf countries — in the range of $2.5 billion — and the timing, coming relatively soon after his leaving the White House, are striking and have drawn criticism from Democrats and ethics experts.

Washington Post, Judge rules that Dominion, Fox News lawsuit will go to trial, Jeremy Barr and Sarah Ellison, April 1, 2023 (print ed.). A judge ruled on Friday that Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News will go to trial next month, notwithstanding motions from both parties requesting that he decide the case in their favor before a jury weighs in.

Delaware Superior Court’s Judge Eric M. Davis denied motions for summary judgment from Fox News and parent company Fox Corporation. He granted some of Dominion’s competing motions while denying other aspects.

“We are gratified by the Court’s thorough ruling soundly rejecting all of Fox’s arguments and defenses, and finding as a matter of law that their statements about Dominion are false,” Dominion said in a statement. 'We look forward to going to trial."

“This case is and always has been about the First Amendment protections of the media’s absolute right to cover the news," Fox said in its own statement. "FOX will continue to fiercely advocate for the rights of free speech and a free press as we move into the next phase of these proceedings.”

March

March 26

World Crisis Radio, Historical Commentary on “Death and Destruction”: Trump courts immediate imprisonment and gag orders with raving threats to Manhattan DA! , Webster G. Tarpley, right, author, strategist, March 26, 2023.  (108 mins.). Paroxysm of demagogy expected at Waco rally on Saturday; Experts warn of stochastic terrorism; Feckless Garland failing to defend rule of law!

Don’s legal strategy for MaL documents crumbles as federal judge cuts through attorney-client privilege based on crime-fraud exception, ordering lawyer Corcoran to testify; In January 6 case, Don’s staffers Meadows, Scavino, Miller, Cucinelli, Ratcliffe, O’Brien, and Luna must tell all;

Beijing’s Trojan horse Tik Tok must be sold to US buyers or seized by feds on national security grounds; Don’t let ultra-lefts give this issue to the GOP; Xi copies 19th century European imperialism;

Biden gets hero’s welcome in Canadian Parliament, pledging that benefits from US economic recovery program will be shared north of border; NORAD modernization will strengthen continental and hemispheric defense;

At summit of the bunglers, Putin degrades Moscow the Third Rome to status of vassal state of the nondescript Beijing; But will this buy him Chinese weaponry against Ukraine?

Marge and her Marginals comfort January 6 riot jailbirds in DC jail;

Macron’s austerity obsession poses threat to a key country of Atlantic Alliance; Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland merge their air forces to hold Putin at bay; EU plans 1 million shells for Kyiv; Marking the 40th anniversary of Strategic Defense Initiative

March 25

Former President Trump faces varied legal and political threats, including an escalating New York criminal investigation into purported campaign finance crimes involving payments in 2016 to hide his alleged affair with porn star Stormy Daniels, shown above left on the cover of her memoir "Full Disclosure."

New York Times, Donald Trump and the Sordid Tradition of Suppressing October Surprises, Jonathan Weisman, March 25, 2023. The payoff to Stormy Daniels that has a Manhattan grand jury weighing criminal charges can trace its lineage to political skulduggery in 1968 and 1980.

Secretive talks in the waning days of a campaign. Furtive phone calls. Ardent public denials.

American history is full of October surprises — late revelations, sometimes engineered by an opponent, that shock the trajectory of a presidential election and that candidates dread. In 1880, a forged letter ostensibly written by James A. Garfield claimed he wanted more immigration from China, a position so unpopular it nearly cost him the election. Weeks before the 1940 election, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s press secretary kneed a Black police officer in the groin, just as the president was trying to woo skeptical Black voters. (Roosevelt’s response made history: He appointed the first Black general and created the Tuskegee Airmen.)

But the scandal that has ensnared Donald J. Trump, the paying of hush money to a pornographic film star in 2016, is in a rare class: an attempt not to bring to light an election-altering event, but to suppress one.

The payoff to Stormy Daniels that has a Manhattan grand jury weighing criminal charges against Mr. Trump can trace its lineage to at least two other episodes foiling an October surprise. The first was in 1968, when aides to Richard M. Nixon pressed the South Vietnamese government to thwart peace talks in the closing days of that election. The second was in 1980. Fresh revelations have emerged that allies of Ronald Reagan may well have labored to delay the release of American hostages from Iran until after the defeat of Jimmy Carter.

The tortured debate over precisely which election law might have been violated in 2016 is missing the broader point — all three events might have changed the course of history.

“There have been three cases at a minimum,” said Gary Sick, a former national security aide to President Carter who for more than two decades has been pursuing his case that the Reagan campaign in 1980 delayed the release of the hostages from Iran. “And if you had the stomach for it, you’d have to say it worked.”

The potential criminal charges against Mr. Trump for his role in the passing of hush money to Ms. Daniels — falsifying business records to cover up the payment and a possible election law violation — may seem trivial when compared to the prior efforts to fend off a history-altering October surprise.

This month, a former lieutenant governor of Texas came forward to say that he accompanied a Reagan ally to the Middle East to try to delay the release of American hostages from Iran until after the 1980 election. And notes discovered in 2016 appeared to confirm that senior aides to Mr. Nixon worked through back channels in 1968 to hinder the commencement of peace talks to end the war in Vietnam — and secure Mr. Nixon’s victory over Hubert H. Humphrey.

New York Times, A Trump Rally Comes to Waco, 30 Years After Its Darkest Hour, Charles Homans, March 25, 2023 (print ed.). For some, it’s no accident that former President Trump will speak in a city where a fiery raid symbolizes government overreach to the far right. Thirty years ago, a fiery federal raid on a doomsday sect turned the city into a symbol of government overreach. Donald Trump will speak there on Saturday, and some supporters — and critics — say it’s no accident.

In the chapel at Mount Carmel, the longtime home of the Branch Davidian sect outside Waco, Tex., the pastor preaches about the coming apocalypse, as the sect’s doomed charismatic leader David Koresh did three decades ago.

But the prophecies offered by the pastor, Charles Pace, are different from Mr. Koresh’s. For one thing, they involve Donald J. Trump.

“Donald Trump is the anointed of God,” Mr. Pace said in an interview. “He is the battering ram that God is using to bring down the Deep State of Babylon.”

Mr. Trump, embattled by multiple investigations and publicly predicting an imminent indictment in one, announced last week that he would hold the first rally of his 2024 presidential campaign on Saturday at the regional airport in Waco.

The date falls in the middle of the 30th anniversary of the weekslong standoff involving federal agents and followers of Mr. Koresh that left 82 Branch Davidians and four agents dead at Mount Carmel, the group’s compound east of the city.

Mr. Trump has not linked the rally to the anniversary, and his campaign did not respond to requests for comment on whether the rally — his first ever in the city of 140,000 — was an intentional nod to the most infamous episode in Waco’s history. And there are other reasons for the former president to open his campaign in Texas, a state rich in electoral votes where he trailed Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida by double digits in a state Republican Party poll late last year.

But the historical resonance has not been lost on some of Mr. Trump’s most ardent followers. “Waco was an overreach of the government, and today the New York district attorney is practicing an overreach of the government again,” said Sharon Anderson, a retiree from Etowah, Tenn., who is traveling to Waco for Saturday’s event, her 33rd Trump rally.

Mr. Pace said he believed it was “a statement — that he was sieged by the F.B.I. at Mar-a-Lago and that they were accusing him of different things that aren’t really true, just like David Koresh was accused by the F.B.I. when they sieged him.”

The Warning with Steve Schmidt, Commentary: How Donald Trump is using the January 6 playbook to incite violence, Steve Schmidt (former Republican and now independent national political strategist, shown above in a screenshot), March 24, 2023 (10:21 min. video). Steve Schmidt breaks down Donald's Trump's latest Truth social post where the former President infers that charging him will lead to "potential death and destruction." Steve describes how Trump uses a similar playbook inciting the riots on January 6th, and condemns the Republican Party for not standing up to Trump.

Washington Post, Trump warns of ‘potential death & destruction’ if he is charged in hush-money case, John Wagner, March 25, 2023 (print ed.). Former president Donald Trump warned early Friday of “potential death & destruction” if he is charged in Manhattan in a criminal case related to alleged hush-money payments to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels to conceal an affair.

The posting after midnight on Truth Social, Trump’s social media platform, was his latest — and most explicit — allusion to violence that could follow an indictment stemming from an investigation led by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D), whom Trump called a “degenerate psychopath.”

Trump wrote: “What kind of person can charge another person, in this case a former President of the United States, who got more votes than any sitting President in history, and leading candidate (by far!) for the Republican Party nomination, with a Crime, when it is known by all that NO Crime has been committed, & also known that potential death & destruction in such a false charge could be catastrophic for our Country?”

In a post on Thursday, Trump criticized those who have called for his supporters to remain peaceful. Over the weekend, Trump urged a “PROTEST” over his potential arrest in the case, which he wrongly predicted would happen Tuesday.

The messages have all had echoes of the days leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by a violent pro-Trump mob. Trump had urged his followers to assemble in Washington that day, saying “Be there, will be wild!” as he pushed to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s win.

Five people died in the attack or in its aftermath, and 140 police officers were injured. The House impeached Trump on a charge of inciting an insurrection; the Senate acquitted him.

Trump has been commenting frequently on the hush-money case as a Manhattan grand jury weighs evidence against him. The panel is not scheduled to meet again until at least Monday, according to people familiar with the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss proceedings that are secret.

March 24

Going Deep with Russ Baker, Investigative Commentary: The Iran Hostages, Carter, Reagan, and Bush: What the NY Times ‘Scoop’ Missed, Russ Baker, right, author, widely published journalist and founder of the WhoWhatWhy investigative project, March 25, 2023. A seemingly stolen election in 1980 led to the US of today, where the richest one percent hold power over the rest of the population.

Recently, The New York Times published an article with a stunning new claim that seemingly verifies a long-alleged plot by Ronald Reagan’s 1980 campaign to prevent Jimmy Carter, below left, from winning reelection.

The fact of the Times publishing the scoop was significant, since the paper has generally dismissed the so-called October Surprise theory, relying on a congressional investigation that I and many believe was a whitewash.

In fact, though I have come to believe there’s enough evidence to conclude that the Reagan campaign did carry out this outrageous and illegal operation, I also have doubts about the new material.

But my big beef is how the Times, following a familiar pattern, presents something in isolation as if completely unaware of, or unwilling to discuss, the much vaster criminality of which it is part. That larger framework is required for anyone trying to understand the political corruption and immorality that has long afflicted America, and the profound consequences still being felt 43 years later.

Carter Election Mystery

The article recounts the story of a former Texas politician, Ben Barne (shown at left in a 2019 photo), who says he accompanied his friend and business partner John Connally, a former Democratic Texas governor turned Republican (shown at right on a 1979 Time Magazine cover), on a trip to the Middle East in 1980. During the trip, Barnes says, they met a slew of Arab leaders. Barnes now says he suspects the real purpose of the trip was to help Reagan steal the election:

Mr. Barnes said he was certain the point of Mr. Connally’s trip was to get a message to the Iranians to hold the hostages until after the election. “I’ll go to my grave believing that it was the purpose of the trip,” he said.

This is a new wrinkle on a topic that has confounded investigators and researchers for decades.

The background: 52 Americans were taken hostage in the 1979 Iranian revolution led by exiled Muslim cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. This was the long-festering blowback from the CIA-orchestrated 1953 Iranian coup d’état, which put the shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, back into power. His puppet government spent two decades torturing and murdering Iranian dissenters. The US media’s nightly drumbeat of coverage about the hostages’ plight reminded audiences of Carter’s complete failure. It was such a hot topic that it led to the launching of the first new network news program in a decade, Nightline with Ted Koppel.

The Reagan campaign was panicked that Carter would succeed in negotiations to get the American hostages released prior to the election — and, some believe, they endeavored to block any deal. Although that is every bit as treasonous as it sounds, we now know that this is not the first time a Republican presidential candidate negotiated against the interests of America to enhance his career. Richard Nixon’s campaign worked aggressively to block Democratic peace negotiations to end the Vietnam War in 1968 for the same reason.

CIA Director William Casey, left, and Vice President George H.W. Bush, below right, President Ronald Reagan portraits published in the Michael Evans Portrait Project in 1985 from the Reagan Library

According to some accounts, William Casey, Reagan’s campaign manager and a future director of the CIA, met with Iran’s representatives in Madrid in July and August of 1980. Then, in October, according to these accounts, Casey was joined by George H.W. Bush, Reagan’s vice presidential candidate and a former director of the CIA, in a Paris meeting with the Iranians, where they nailed a deal to sell arms to Iran if Iran held the hostages until Reagan could beat Carter. Of course, it would have been most unusual for private citizens to meet with any foreign government, let alone one with whom the US was in a de facto war. Most striking, of course, is the purported treachery at the heart of the matter.

Much of the recent Times article is devoted to showing that the paper has an authentic, historic scoop about Carter’s presidency, at a time when the country stands vigil during the 98-year-old’s final days.

I’ll share what insights I can offer here, since I know Ben Barnes, the Times’s source — and since I have some experience investigating the issue years ago. My main objective, though, is to do what I always do: provide missing context.

Part of a Pattern

All the focus on the Reagan campaign and its alleged connivance to gain power misses this point: In many fundamental ways, Reagan was a figurehead president, while George H.W. Bush, the man he beat in a heated nomination battle, was deeply involved with seismic US policy operations, highly sensitive and often illegal covert activities, including, it appears, blocking the hostages’ release.

Connally himself is a fascinating character deserving of more attention, for more reasons than I can give here — including his suppressed assertion that during the Dallas motorcade on November 22, 1963, he and John F. Kennedy, riding together, one in front of the other, were hit by volleys from different shooters.

***

It is impossible to overstate the importance of the “October Surprise” and how things would be different today if Jimmy Carter had been able to get the hostages released.

Many believe the president’s popularity would have surged, and that Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush would never have been elected president and vice president.

Imagine how things might look today if Reagan — the author of today’s “rule by the rich” government — had not unseated Carter.

Among other things, we never would have had Reaganomics, or the entire deregulation movement and major tax cuts for the wealthy. Almost certainly, George H.W. Bush would never have become president, nor his son, George W. Bush. We likely would have had no Gulf War in the ’90s and no Iraq War in 2002 — and, based on various calculations, possibly no 9/11.

For various reasons related to changes in media ownership laws, we probably would have had no Fox News. Environmental policy would have been completely different, and early warnings about climate change would almost certainly have been acted on, at least in part.

We would have a completely different Supreme Court, and therefore a completely different country. Campaign contributions from the rich would have been restricted, changing the face of Congress. Though Buckley v. Valeo had been decided in the 1970s, giving corporate money the status of speech, at least we’d have had no Citizens United decision to weaponize that ruling.

Finally, if “rule by the rich” economics had not been instituted, it’s doubtful that anyone like Donald Trump could have ever entered the White House except as an outré guest.

Instead, the hostages were imprisoned longer, while Reagan and Bush covertly orchestrated Carter’s and Walter Mondale’s departure from the White House.

Of course, if the secret agenda of the Barnes-Connally trip was indeed to conspire with the Iranians to prolong the captivity of the hostages until after the election, this gambit would have been considered treason, a hanging offense.

For decades, people more knowledgeable than I have thought that such a deal took place. Barnes admits that he does not actually know, but a dispositive claim is that on their return, he and Connally met at a Dallas airport lounge with Reagan’s campaign chairman, Casey, who debriefed them on the trip.

Were Reagan’s people worried about losing? Of course. Was the possibility of a hostage release before the election real? Of course. The only question is, just how ruthless, amoral, and ultimately un-American would Reagan’s team show itself to be in their pursuit of electoral victory?

In my research about George H.W. Bush for Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, America’s Invisible Government, and the Hidden History of the Last Fifty Years, I found plenty of evidence of this extraordinary level of anti-American, self-serving criminality – which the Times and other establishment media have gone to great lengths to avoid exploring.

The late journalist Robert Parry, who did extensive research on the October Surprise, received an anonymous tip and found documents in a closet on Capitol Hill. One, by future National Security Advisor Richard Allen, showed discussion about Carter and the hostages, and mentioned Connally and Bush specifically. (Parry’s son wrote about it in a recent article.) The excerpt from Allen’s notes, cited by Nat Parry, reads:

Geo Bush — JBC [Connally] — already made deal. Israelis delivered last wk spare pts. via Amsterdam. Hostages out this wk. Moderate Arabs upset. French have given spares to Iraq and know of JC [Carter] deal w/Iran. JBC [Connally] unsure what we should do. RVA [Allen] to act if true or not.

As mentioned previously, Bush is alleged to have traveled to Paris with Casey to seal an Iranian deal. Whether he took that trip or not, the Allen notes show that he was intimately involved with the issue.

Yet for some reason, the media establishment has seemed unable to really focus on Bush himself or his true role and actual imprint on American history. Conventional popular histories, biographies, documentaries, and “assessments” — though they contain some critical material — are largely admiring in retrospect.

It is all myth.

As my book research showed, when Bush was named CIA director, he was not the intelligence “outsider” presented to the public by the Times and other media. In fact Bush, son of CIA Director Allen Dulles’s close friend and collaborator Prescott Bush, had been inducted into covert CIA work decades earlier, shortly after graduating from Yale, a nursing ground for future CIA employees. While operating undercover as an “oilman,” documents show George H.W. Bush personally involved with a host of stunning and illegal covert schemes (including assassination and domestic intrigue), many still publicly unrecognized today.

By the time Bush became Gerald Ford’s CIA director, a number of disturbing revelations began to emerge in Senate hearings about the extent of the CIA’s unaccountability as well as their illegal and immoral operations worldwide. No one, not even the president, had control of this vast shadow enterprise, a concern voiced by several presidents including Truman, Eisenhower, and especially Kennedy. That Bush — known at the time as a minor, uncredentialed, and undistinguished politician — was chosen to oversee the agency at that very sensitive moment is highly significant and should by now be front and center for understanding that pivotal moment for national scrutiny.

Just as Kennedy kicked a hornet’s nest by firing Dulles in 1961, so too did Carter when, upon defeating Ford, he gave Bush the boot. Although Bush personally lobbied Carter to keep him on, Carter refused. Bush then turned to running for the presidency himself, only to be frustrated by the popularity of media idol Ronald Reagan.

But after Bush managed to convince the Reagan team to bring him on as the vice presidential candidate, he was able to utilize his own vast network of current and former CIA people. If the hostage deal with Iran in fact took place, it would be but one of many stunning criminal acts described in my book and ignored to this day by the establishment media — and even by many in the so-called “alternative media.” (A bit more on that below.)
Ben Barnes Tells a Carter Story

Enter the Times and its Ben Barnes confession. The story centers around the claims of the 85-year-old former Texas politician that he realized in retrospect he might have been part of the larger treasonous effort to foil Carter’s reelection.

I am not surprised that Barnes spoke with the Times and provided them with this story. The “paper of record” is still the most prominent news outlet in the world. The article doesn’t say how its DC-based reporter got the story. Did Barnes, who is not averse to attention and long had a DC lobbying practice, approach the Times? That’s unclear, though the reporter does mention “three paragraphs about Mr. Barnes’s recollections in a 2015 biography of Mr. Reagan,” which lends credence to Barnes’s having told others about the trip before now.

In considering his late-in-life confession, I should note I have known Ben Barnes for years and we’ve spoken on various occasions. He’s a likable guy, though I do have to point out that the Texans I know, and who have also worked with him, describe him, some affectionately, in Texas parlance as a “rogue” and a “first class bullshitter.” Indeed the Times failed to mention that Barnes’s political career ended because of a stock-fraud scandal. Barnes and Connally also did business with some dubious characters.

It’s only fair and good journalism to include that. Instead, the Times wrote,

Mr. Barnes is no shady foreign arms dealer with questionable credibility, like some of the characters who fueled previous iterations of the October surprise theory.

As the Times did note, Barnes helped George W. Bush avoid the draft by getting him bootstrapped into a coveted out-of-harm’s-way slot with the Texas Air National Guard, though this was presented not as a failing but as evidence of his “influence.”

In general, the attempts to verify the alleged Reagan-Bush plot have been stymied by disinformation, and failed House and Senate panels (as has been common with national security investigations over the years) that never get to the bottom of anything.

I — along with colleagues of mine at the alternative paper The Village Voice, including Frank Snepp and Doug Vaughan — spent a lot of time investigating the so-called hostage deal and found that several individuals who claimed to have flown Casey and Bush to Paris and Madrid for meetings with the Iranians (or to have been present themselves) were fabricating their stories.

These individuals could either have been pure con men seeking fame or they could themselves have been part of a deliberate effort to derail inquiries into the deal itself. Hence, we should not let their dissembling influence the investigation of this alleged quid pro quo.

As for Barnes, he has shown in the past that it is best not to take everything he says literally. One example: He once showed up, uninvited, to an Austin party to celebrate my book and raise funds for WhoWhatWhy. From the back of the room, he pronounced the work to be of vital national significance, urged everyone to donate, and announced that he would personally be writing a big check. When, predictably, he never did, one longtime Barnes associate chortled, “That’s Ben for you!”
Then-Vice President George H.W. Bush with CIA Director William Casey at the White House on February 11, 1981. Photo credit: Reagan Library / Consortium News

I still like Barnes and in the ensuing years we have continued to occasionally communicate. I only recount this incident because what he says does need to be taken with the proverbial grain of salt.

He claims he came forward now because Carter, at 98 and in hospice care, deserves to know the truth. I’d like to believe that was his primary motivation. And, like the source mentioned in the Times article, I’ve never known Barnes to outright lie, in spite of his penchant for Texas-style embellishment.
Times Misses Big Flaws in the Story

One serious flaw in the story is timing. The Times quotes Barnes’s basis for concluding that the trip was not purely on Connally’s own initiative:

“It wasn’t freelancing because Casey was so interested in hearing as soon as we got back to the United States.” Mr. Casey, he added, wanted to know whether “they were going to hold the hostages.”

But that doesn’t make sense.

The Mideast trip lasted 24 days, and the duo returned on August 11, though their meeting at the airport lounge with Casey wasn’t until September 10. The Times reporter does not draw attention to that nearly one-month gap between their return and the Casey meeting, and someone reading quickly, and particularly reading Barnes’s quote on the matter, might conclude that Casey rushed to meet them upon their return to hear their urgent information.

If it were so urgent, why would Casey wait an entire month? It sounds more like they went on a trip, a month passed, and then Casey came to Dallas (either to see them or because he was passing through the airport) and they came out to speak with him.

Another problem is that Barnes cannot say for sure that the topic was the hostages. But why wouldn’t he know? He was right there with Connally and Casey. Meanwhile, Casey was alleged to already be in Europe for direct negotiations with the Iranians by July, so it is not clear what the purported Connally-Barnes mission would have accomplished — besides building covert support for the swap among Arab regimes that were not even natural allies of Iran.

Moreover, there is the significant cognitive dissonance in his statement that he has no proof that Connally’s intent was to affect the election — and then, in another breath, claiming he knows this for sure:

“Mr. Connally said, ‘Look, Ronald Reagan’s going to be elected president and you need to get the word to Iran that they’re going to make a better deal with Reagan than they are Carter,’” Mr. Barnes recalled. “He said, ‘It would be very smart for you to pass the word to the Iranians to wait until after this general election is over.’ And boy, I tell you, I’m sitting there and I heard it and so now it dawns on me, I realize why we’re there.”

I also find rather strange Barnes’s contention that he went on this long trip to the Middle East at Connally’s request with no idea of the purpose of the trip. It’s been my impression that Barnes always knew the purpose of what he did, and, a fan of luxury and comfort, he would never take a three-week trip around the Middle East without a very good reason.

The Times does immunize itself by quoting someone who claims no knowledge of the purpose of the trip. The fact that the person quoted is Connally’s son introduces for the Times the face-saving appearance of doubt:

John B. Connally III, the former governor’s eldest son, said in an interview on Friday that he remembered his father taking the Middle East trip but never heard about any message to Iran. While he did not join the trip, the younger Mr. Connally said he accompanied his father to a meeting with Mr. Reagan to discuss it without Mr. Barnes and the conversation centered on the Arab-Israeli conflict and other issues the next president would confront.

“No mention was made in any meeting I was in about any message being sent to the Iranians,” said Mr. Connally. “It doesn’t sound like my dad.” He added: “I can’t challenge Ben’s memory about it, but it’s not consistent with my memory of the trip.”

Nonetheless, if emails I’ve received are any indication, people reading the article generally conclude that the Times nailed a huge historic scoop.

I don’t blame Peter Baker, who seems to be an excellent journalist. It’s not his fault that he ended up with such a hopelessly complex matter. More context was needed, as this sort of byzantine story should be handled by journalists with decades of experience in complicated, subterranean matters and an investigative mindset. Baker’s expertise, in contrast, comes principally from covering the White House and Washington on a day-to-day basis.

And, in fact, there’s still reason to believe, with or without the Times piece and Barnes’s contradictory recollections, that a deal to steal the election did take place.

For that, the Times cites the work of Parry, who, years later, discovered a memo from a lawyer for President George H.W. Bush about the existence of “a cable from the Madrid embassy indicating that Bill Casey was in town, for purposes unknown.” It would be an anomaly for anyone with Casey’s CV to go anywhere for “purposes unknown,” especially during this period.

Will Media Ever Confront Reality?

My aim here is to highlight the poor job major media have done to investigate and expose the true dynamics of power and the actual state of democracy in this country. There’s been too much self-interested caution, and too little support for those who take the time and the risks required for meaningful excavation.

I witnessed the cowardice of the establishment personally. Everyone, from my publisher, the well-respected Bloomsbury, to friends throughout the media, were floored, as I was, by what I discovered missing from prior Bush histories (go here to learn more). Everyone expected the revelations in my book — including previously undiscovered Bush involvement in other presidential oustings, from Kennedy to Nixon — to receive broad attention. Instead, initial invitations by media bookers were quickly all reversed by their superiors.

As for the Times, its lead political book reviewer expressed enthusiasm to my publisher and asked if she could be the first to publish a review. They agreed. And waited. And waited. Not a word ever appeared. (For more on the de facto media blockade that greeted the book, coupled with cheap ad hominem attacks — Family of Secrets nonetheless has become a bestseller — see this.)

Meanwhile, as we’re praising the Times for publishing Barnes’s claims, we would do well to not forget the propagandist role that paper played in launching two wars initiated by two Presidents Bush.

Moreover, the machinations behind the 1980 election evolved from other treasonous acts and spawned still more abuses and constitutional crises that mean little to today’s younger generation and grow foggier for older folks. These include Iran-Contra and the BCCI scandal and the collapse of the savings and loans banks, all of which were connected. And all of which are prequel to our current mess.

What began with an attempt to steal an election was antecedent to the fragmented United States of today, where a small group of rich One Percenters hold vastly disproportionate power, while the rest of the population is estranged, distracted, demoralized, defunded, and set against each other.

How can we expect to solve such systemic problems when the media simply won’t show us factual reality? Won’t tell us what we are actually seeing — and why it is happening?

From 1980 to today, there’s been a war going on between the One Percenters who want it all and the rest of us who just want to live dignified lives in peace and safety. Once we see that this conflict lies at the root of these malignant schemes, everything becomes easier to understand. If we have the courage and tenacity to tell the full story, we can confront the players, and begin to reform the entire system itself.

Azerbaijan. Belarus, whose leader Alexander Lukashenko allows Russian forces to use the country as a staging post for the war, remains a firm ally.

New York Times, A Four-Decade Secret: One Man’s Story of Sabotaging Carter’s Re-election, Peter Baker, right, March 18, 2023. It has been more than four decades, but Ben Barnes said he remembers it vividly. His longtime political mentor invited him on a mission to the Middle East. What Mr. Barnes said he did not realize until later was the real purpose of the mission: to sabotage the re-election campaign of the president of the United States.

It was 1980 and Jimmy Carter, below left, was in the White House, bedeviled by a hostage crisis in Iran that had paralyzed his presidency and hampered his effort to win a second term. Mr. Carter’s best chance for victory was to free the 52 Americans held captive before Election Day. That was something that Mr. Barnes said his mentor was determined to prevent.

His mentor was John B. Connally Jr., a titan of American politics and former Texas governor who had served three presidents and just lost his own bid for the White House. A former Democrat, Mr. Connally had sought the Republican nomination in 1980 only to be swamped by former Gov. Ronald Reagan of California. Now Mr. Connally, shown at right on a 1979 Time Magazine cover, resolved to help Mr. Reagan beat Mr. Carter and in the process, Mr. Barnes said, make his own case for becoming secretary of state or defense in a new administration.

What happened next Mr. Barnes has largely kept secret for nearly 43 years. Mr. Connally, he said, took him to one Middle Eastern capital after another that summer, meeting with a host of regional leaders to deliver a blunt message to be passed to Iran: Don’t release the hostages before the election. Mr. Reagan will win and give you a better deal.

Then shortly after returning home, Mr. Barnes said, Mr. Connally reported to William J. Casey, left, the chairman of Mr. Reagan’s campaign and later director of the Central Intelligence Agency, briefing him about the trip in an airport lounge.

Mr. Carter’s camp has long suspected that Mr. Casey or someone else in Mr. Reagan’s orbit sought to secretly torpedo efforts to liberate the hostages before the election, and books have been written on what came to be called the October surprise. But congressional investigations debunked previous theories of what happened.

Mr. Connally did not figure in those investigations. His involvement, as described by Mr. Barnes, adds a new understanding to what may have happened in that hard-fought, pivotal election year. With Mr. Carter now 98 and in hospice care, Mr. Barnes said he felt compelled to come forward to correct the record.

“History needs to know that this happened,” Mr. Barnes, who turns 85 next month, said in one of several interviews, his first with a news organization about the episode. “I think it’s so significant and I guess knowing that the end is near for President Carter put it on my mind more and more and more. I just feel like we’ve got to get it down some way.”

Mr. Barnes (shown at left in 2019 photo) is no shady foreign arms dealer with questionable credibility, like some of the characters who fueled previous iterations of the October surprise theory. He was once one of the most prominent figures in Texas, the youngest speaker of the Texas House of Representatives and later lieutenant governor. He was such an influential figure that he helped a young George W. Bush get into the Texas Air National Guard rather than be exposed to the draft and sent to Vietnam. Lyndon B. Johnson predicted that Mr. Barnes would become president someday.

See also the related column below, excerpted in our Top Global News section below:

• Emptywheel, Analysis: KT McFarland Likened Trump's Transition Interventions to the Iran October Surprise, Emptywheel (Marcy Wheeler, Ph.D., right, an author and legal researcher who publishes the Emptywheel blog of in-depth legal analysis)

March 23

Ben Barnes, left, with Lady Bird Johnson and her husband, former President Lyndon B. Johnson, in Austin, Tex., on Aug. 29, 1970 (Associated Press photo by Ted Powers). The New York Times reported this week that Barnes revealed to the newspaper that he had played a role, largely unwittingly, in helping Republicans delay the release by Iran of U.S. hostages in 1980 in order to hurt President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, and help the election campaign of Republican Ronald Reagan. President Carter is shown below in a 1980 Associated Press photo telling the American public that a rescue attempt he had authorized had failed, with resulting in U.S. military rescuers' deaths.

New York Times, Former Iran Hostages Are Divided on Jimmy Carter and a Sabotage Claim, Michael Levenson, March 23, 2023 (print ed.). A report about a covert effort to delay their release until after the 1980 presidential election drew anger, resignation and disbelief from the survivors of the crisis.

They are the last survivors of an international crisis that hobbled Jimmy Carter’s presidency and may have cost him re-election. Many are now in their 80s.

With the former president gravely ill in hospice care, some of the 52 Americans who were held hostage in Iran for 444 days are looking back on Mr. Carter’s legacy with a mix of frustration, sadness and gratitude.

Many feel neglected by the government, which has paid them only about a quarter of the $4.4 million that they were each promised by Congress in 2015, after decades of lobbying for compensation, said their lawyer, V. Thomas Lankford. Some endured physical and mental abuse, including mock executions, during the hostage crisis. About half have died.

Last week, their ordeal was thrust back into the news with the account of a covert effort to delay their release until after the 1980 presidential election in a bid to help the campaign of Mr. Carter’s Republican challenger, Ronald Reagan.

A former Texas politician, Ben Barnes, told The New York Times that he had toured the Middle East that summer with John B. Connally Jr., the former Texas governor, who told regional leaders that Mr. Reagan would win and give the Iranians a “better deal.” Mr. Connally, a former Democrat turned Republican, was angling for a cabinet position.

Mr. Barnes, 84, said that he was speaking out now because “history needs to know that this happened.”

He told The Times that he did not know if the message that Mr. Connally gave to Middle Eastern leaders ever reached the Iranians, or whether it influenced them. Mr. Connally died in 1993. Nor was it clear if Mr. Reagan knew about the trip. Mr. Barnes said Mr. Connally had briefed William J. Casey, the chairman of Mr. Reagan’s campaign and later the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, in an airport lounge after the trip.

The account stirred anger among some of the former hostages, while others dismissed his story of election sabotage as not credible. They are a diverse group that includes former diplomats, retired military officers and academics, and members of both major political parties.

“It’s nice that Mr. Barnes is trying to soothe his soul during the last years of his life,” said Barry Rosen, 79, who was press attaché at the embassy in Tehran when it was overrun on Nov. 4, 1979. “But for the hostages who went through hell, he has not helped us at all. He has made it just as bad or worse.”

Mr. Rosen, who lives in New York, said that Mr. Barnes should have come forward 43 years ago, given the decades of speculation about political interference.

“It’s the definition of treason,” he said, “knowing that there was a possibility that the Carter administration might have been able to negotiate us out of Iran earlier.”

A Four-Decade Secret:

But Kevin Hermening, a certified financial planner in Mosinee, Wis., who was a Marine Corps sergeant guarding the embassy, said that he did not believe Mr. Barnes’s account and that, even if it were true, the effort would not have influenced his captors.

“The Iranians were very clear that they were not going to release us while President Carter was in office,” said Mr. Hermening, 63. “He was despised by the mullahs and those people who followed the Ayatollah.”

The Barnes account cast a new light on these long-ago events, troubling David M. Roeder, a retired colonel who was the deputy Air Force attaché at the embassy. Mr. Roeder said that he had repeatedly told his captors that if Mr. Reagan won, they would be dealing with a “much tougher person.”

“I have come to the conclusion — perhaps because I want to — that hopefully President Reagan was unaware that this was going on,” said Mr. Roeder, 83, of Pinehurst, N.C. But, he added, “I gained a great deal more respect for President Carter because I’ve seen what he went through with us in captivity.”

Greg Palast Investigates, Commentary: Reagan’s Treason, Two Bushes and the $23 Million Payoff, Greg Palast, March 23-24, 2023. This week, a Texas pol, Ben Barnes, confessed that he was personally involved—and therefore an eyewitness to–high treason: The Ronald Reagan campaign’s successful secret deal with the Iranian government to hold 52 Americans hostages so that Reagan could defeat Jimmy Carter.

Reagan’s skanky deal worked. In 1980, Carter’s failure to bring home the hostages destroyed his chance of reelection. Reagan, right, ultimately would repay the favor from Iran’s murder-crats with weapons and even, for the Ayatollah Khomeini, a birthday cake from Reagan advisor Oliver North.

The question is, why now? Why did Barnes suddenly blow the whistle on this crime—and a crime it is—four decades late? His cute excuse, reported without question by the New York Times, is that, “History needs to know that this happened.”

Wrong. “History” doesn’t need to know—American voters needed to know about Reagan’s treason before the 1980 election.

So, then, why did Barnes squirrel away the truth for decades? Follow the money.

It’s a money trail that leads to two Bushes who would not have become president if not for Barnes’ silence about Iran—and Barnes’ omertà about another creepy Bush scheme.

In 1999, for The Guardian, I discovered that Barnes, in his previous role as Lt. Governor of Texas, used his political juice to get Congressman George Bush Sr.’s son, “Dubya” into the Texas Air Guard—over literally thousands of far-more-qualified applicants. (Little Bush scored 25 out of 100 on the test, just one point above “too dumb to fly.”)

And so, Dubya, shown at left, dodged the draft and Vietnam.

Barnes hid the truth despite pleas from Texas Gov. Ann Richards, who, in 1994, lost a squeaker of an election too.

In Austin, Texas, I received unshakeable evidence that Barnes was the fixer who got Congressman Bush’s son out of the Vietnam draft. (This, while Bush Sr. was voting to send other men’s sons to Vietnam.)

What did Barnes get for his burial of Reagan’s deal with Iran and Bush Jr.’s draft dodging? Did $23 million do it?

In 1999, I was investigating a company, GTech, which ran both the British and Texas lotteries. Texas had disqualified GTech from operating the state lottery based on strong evidence of corruption. But oddly, the new Governor of Texas, George W. Bush, fired the lottery director who banned GTEch. Then Bush’s new lottery commissioner gave GTech back its multi-billion-dollar contract, no bidding.

Notably, Bush’s firing of the state’s lottery director came two days after a meeting with GTech’s lobbyist—Ben Barnes.

Barnes’ fees from GTech? $23 million.

I wasn’t in the Bush-Barnes little tête-à-tête: the info came from a confidential memo from the lottery director that was well buried inside Justice Department files.

In a civil suit, Barnes supposedly denied any quid pro quo with Gov. Bush. Maybe. A nice payment from GTech to the wronged lottery director sealed Barnes’ testimony from the public.

• Maybe Bush met with Barnes just to reminisce. But if Barnes had the Bush family’s entire political fortune in his pocket, did he really need to remind Dubya of the consequences if the Governor did not take care of Barnes’ client?
• Secretly conspiring with a foreign power to keep Americans imprisoned, secretly negotiating with and providing weapons to a foreign enemy is the definition of treason—and so would a cover-up for cash.
• This was another example, I wrote in The Guardian, how the Bushes turned America into “the best democracy money can buy.”
• I then wrote a book of that title and made a film, Bush Family Fortunes, detailing the Bush Family crime-wave, for BBC Television.

Today, you can download that documentary, Bush Family Fortunes, free of charge. (If you want to throw in a tax-deductible donation, hey, we won’t say ‘no.’ Our nvestigations continue: The cast of characters has changed, but not the crimes.)

And a word about the creeps, cowards and conmen who call themselves “journalists.” Let’s start with a trivia question: Who is Dan Rather? He’s a former TV star and one-time reporter who took my story of Bush’s draft dodging, stuck it on 60 Minutes and, in violation of any sense of ethics and decency, exposed a whistleblower, Texas Air Guard Col. Bill Burkett, a man of inestimable courage and integrity.

Rather’s exposure ruined Burkett. No Texan would sell him feed. His cattle were dying, so he lost his ranch.

Dan Rather was fired by CBS for getting the network in hot water with the Bush White House. Then, by his own admission, Rather agreed to backtrack on the story of Bush the draft dodger in return for a promise of a return to the CBS airwaves. CBS screwed Rather—but that often happens to feckless recreants.

Neither I nor the BBC nor The Guardian retracted a single word of our story of Dubya the Draft Dodger nor the tale of the $23 million questionable payment.

There are zeroes—and there are heroes. The story of Reagan and his “October Surprise” was first busted open by Robert Parry – who also uncovered the Iran-Contra scandal. Instead of getting a Pulitzer, Parry’s career was destroyed. For uncovering too many uncomfortable truths, he was bounced from the Associated Press, Newsweek, Bloomberg, and The Nation.

Parry died in 2018, in journalistic exile.

Greg Palast (Rolling Stone, Guardian, BBC) is the author of The New York Times bestsellers, "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy" and "Billionaires & Ballot Bandits," out as major motion non-fiction movie: "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: The Case of the Stolen Election," available on Amazon and Amazon Prime.

March 19

Trump-supporting former law school dean John Eastman, left, helps Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani inflame pro-Trump protesters in front the White House before the insurrection riot at the U.S. Capitol to prevent the presidential election certification of Joe Biden's presidency on Jan. 6, 2021 (Los Angeles Times

In a now-deleted Facebook post, New Mexico county official Couy Griffin, above, predicted of Inauguration Day at the Capitol, “blood will run out of the building.”

Washington Post, The Jan. 6 investigation is the biggest in U.S. history. It’s only half done, Spencer S. Hsu, Devlin Barrett and Tom Jackman, March 19, 2023 (print ed.). To date, roughly 1,000 people have been charged for their alleged roles in the events of that day. The total could grow above 2,000, and a federal courthouse strains to handle what may be years more of trials.

The city’s federal court system is bracing for many years more of trials stemming from the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, with new charges possible against as many as 1,000 more people.

In recent months, law enforcement and judicial authorities have engaged in discussions to manage the huge volume of Jan. 6 cases without overwhelming the courthouse where pleas and trials are held, people familiar with the matter said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal operations.

“It’s an enormous, enormous case and, by almost any measure, the largest case the Justice Department has ever had,” said Randall Eliason, a former federal prosecutor who now teaches law at George Washington University. “Big criminal investigations that are far less complicated than this often take several years.”

Eliason said that while the riot cases may be about halfway over, there are indications some of the other branches of the investigation — like the false electors scheme or efforts to use Justice Department officials to undo the election results — appear to be further along, because the witnesses now being subpoenaed include some of the most thorny legal matters and the people closest to former president Donald Trump. Those are generally indicators that an investigation is nearing the end of the fact-gathering phase, he said.

“There are a lot of court fights over privilege, and those take time, and you can’t just plow past them and not try to get critical evidence,” Eliason said.

The Attack: The Washington Post's investigation of the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol and its aftermath

Prosecutors are hopeful many will be incentivized to plead to help manage the crush of cases, which already have strained the court in the nation’s capital. A Washington Post analysis of the cases so far shows defendants who seek a trial rather than plead guilty end up getting about a year of prison time added to their sentences.

March 18

World Crisis Radio, Weekly Strategic Overview: Indictment watch for Trump! Webster G. Tarpley, right, author, historian, activist, March 18, 2023 (122:53 min.). On eve of bungler Xi’s visit to Moscow, Putin hit by war crimes indictment and arrest warrant from International Criminal Court in The Hague!

Charges include kidnapping and deporting children from Ukraine into Russia; Vlad’s co-defendant will be Maria Lvova-Belova, Commissioner for Children’s Rights, also implicated in child deportations;

New York City prepares for possible reactions to charges against Trump by DA Bragg; Citing likely crime/fraud exception, DC chief judge opens door to grand jury testimony by Don’s lawyers;

Rolling back deregulation is key to ending ravages of globalization; for US banks, this means ending regulatory capture, banning crypto and derivatives, and instituting a 1% Wall Street sales tax to reduce speculation and promote tangible physical production, including the new arsenal of democracy;

Vast mass of Sargasso seaweed floats toward Florida, just in time to stymie the deSantis election campaign;

A dangerous example of semantic infiltration: helping right-wing extremists, reactionaries, and fascists camouflage themselves as ”conservatives!”

Palmer Report, Opinion and Analysis: Manhattan DA signals to law enforcement that Donald Trump is being indicted. Here comes the serious part, Bill Palmer, right, March 18, 2023. Major news outlets are now reporting that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has met with multiple law enforcement agencies to put the logistics in place for Donald Trump’s criminal indictment. In turn, Trump’s attorneys are putting it out there publicly that Trump intends to surrender himself for processing and arraignment, just like any other criminal defendant.

In other words, this really is happening. We’ve known all along that this was going to end up happening. The pieces have been incrementally falling into place for a very long time in a way that continuously made clear this was going to happen. And recently the pieces have been rapidly falling into place in a way that made clear this was going to happen soon. But now it is happening.

We should take a moment to remind ourselves that this isn’t some movie script. In the movies, story arcs tend to play out in the most dramatically constructed ways possible, complete with a climax that achieves a dramatic peak. In the real world, dramatic arcs are rarely so linearly constructed.

If this were a movie, Donald Trump would refuse to surrender himself, perhaps barricade himself inside his mansion, maybe even embark on a plot to flee the country which would end with the District Attorney chasing him through the airport and catching the cabin door just before it closes. It would happen that way in the movie because it would make for the most dramatic and suspenseful climax, whether it made sense for those characters to be making those choices or not.

In the real world, things tend to be less dramatic and more pragmatic. Even in Trump’s increasingly frantic state, he surely understands that trying to flee the country would result in a harsh life of poverty in a foreign land at best, and (if he gets caught in the act) pretrial incarceration until his trial.

For that matter Trump likely understands that if he forces law enforcement to come and forcibly drag him out of his home – or for that matter if there’s even so much as a whiff in the media about the possibility of him refusing to surrender when ordered – the judge assigned to his criminal case might be less than inclined to grant bail. And Trump knows that right now, the best case scenario he can hope for in life is to be out on bail.

Not that bail is going to be a good situation for him, mind you. Yes, the judge assigned to the case is going to look at his lack of a criminal record, the nonviolent nature of the charges, and the lack of evidence to suggest he’s an international flight risk (Twitter conspiracy theories aside), and likely grant him bail. But that bail may come with conditions. He may be forced to get all of his interstate travel approved. And at some point the judge in the case will surely end up hitting Trump with a gag order preventing him from publicly attacking the District Attorney or even so much as publicly discussing the case against him at all. If Trump violates that gag order, the judge can and will haul him in and assign more harsh bail restrictions or ultimately revoke it entirely.

In other words, the criminal justice system is about to treat Donald Trump like it treats any other criminal defendant who’s under felony indictment and awaiting trial. The judge in the case will own Trump, so to speak. The criminal justice system won’t view Trump as a former President or as a candidate in a future election. It’ll view him as a criminal defendant. The usual rules will apply.

It’s important to keep in mind that Donald Trump, seventy-six years old and having clearly lost a step or three in the cognitive department, is a newcomer to the criminal justice system. In spite of more than half a century of committing crimes, Trump has never been criminally indicted before. Not at the federal, state, or local level. The secret that the wealthy and powerful use for keeping themselves out of prison is that they pull strings behind the scenes to quietly keep themselves from getting indicted in the first place.

But when the wealthy and powerful do occasionally get indicted, their options suddenly become rather limited. They can afford better lawyers than most criminal defendants can. But if the case against you is overwhelming then even the best lawyers won’t dramatically improve your odds of acquittal. And in spite of his supposed wealth, Trump has been employing some of the most inept lawyers imaginable. So he doesn’t even appear to have that working for him.

Let’s be real: no matter how anyone anywhere tries to spin Donald Trump’s criminal indictment, and no matter what anyone’s dramatic expectations might be heading into this, the reality is still that neither side in these things ever has a magic wand. Prosecutors in various jurisdictions didn’t have a magic wand for producing viable indictments any sooner than this. And accordingly, now that prosecutors have taken the time to painstakingly build what appear to be overwhelmingly strong indictments against Trump, he does not have a magic wand for shaking off indictment.

This is not the political arena, where Trump can just bully his way through whatever conflict he’s facing. Nor is this an arena in which being dramatic or entertaining will in any way help you. This is the criminal justice system. It’s an arena that Trump has spent a lifetime working feverishly to avoid having to participate in, because as a career criminal, he’s known better than anyone that the criminal justice system is not an arena that anyone wants to be in or can prosper in. Yet now he’s being forced to enter that arena anyway.

That’s why Donald Trump is already indicating that when he’s indicted he intends to just walk in through the front door and surrender himself for arrest and processing (and yes he’ll be considered “under arrest” whether there are handcuffs involved or not). It’s not the kind of play that Trump wants to make. It’s just that going along with the criminal justice system’s demands, begging for bail, and hoping to find some narrow angle for getting acquitted at trial is the only play he has left. Surrendering voluntarily is not a good move for Trump. It’s just the least bad move. And no matter how he plays it, the most likely outcome is that he spends the final years of his life behind bars.

March 18

Azerbaijan. Belarus, whose leader Alexander Lukashenko allows Russian forces to use the country as a staging post for the war, remains a firm ally.

New York Times, A Four-Decade Secret: One Man’s Story of Sabotaging Carter’s Re-election, Peter Baker, right, March 18, 2023. It has been more than four decades, but Ben Barnes said he remembers it vividly. His longtime political mentor invited him on a mission to the Middle East. What Mr. Barnes said he did not realize until later was the real purpose of the mission: to sabotage the re-election campaign of the president of the United States.

It was 1980 and Jimmy Carter, below left, was in the White House, bedeviled by a hostage crisis in Iran that had paralyzed his presidency and hampered his effort to win a second term. Mr. Carter’s best chance for victory was to free the 52 Americans held captive before Election Day. That was something that Mr. Barnes said his mentor was determined to prevent.

His mentor was John B. Connally Jr., a titan of American politics and former Texas governor who had served three presidents and just lost his own bid for the White House. A former Democrat, Mr. Connally had sought the Republican nomination in 1980 only to be swamped by former Gov. Ronald Reagan of California. Now Mr. Connally, shown at right on a 1979 Time Magazine cover, resolved to help Mr. Reagan beat Mr. Carter and in the process, Mr. Barnes said, make his own case for becoming secretary of state or defense in a new administration.

What happened next Mr. Barnes has largely kept secret for nearly 43 years. Mr. Connally, he said, took him to one Middle Eastern capital after another that summer, meeting with a host of regional leaders to deliver a blunt message to be passed to Iran: Don’t release the hostages before the election. Mr. Reagan will win and give you a better deal.

Then shortly after returning home, Mr. Barnes said, Mr. Connally reported to William J. Casey, left, the chairman of Mr. Reagan’s campaign and later director of the Central Intelligence Agency, briefing him about the trip in an airport lounge.

Mr. Carter’s camp has long suspected that Mr. Casey or someone else in Mr. Reagan’s orbit sought to secretly torpedo efforts to liberate the hostages before the election, and books have been written on what came to be called the October surprise. But congressional investigations debunked previous theories of what happened.

Mr. Connally did not figure in those investigations. His involvement, as described by Mr. Barnes, adds a new understanding to what may have happened in that hard-fought, pivotal election year. With Mr. Carter now 98 and in hospice care, Mr. Barnes said he felt compelled to come forward to correct the record.

“History needs to know that this happened,” Mr. Barnes, who turns 85 next month, said in one of several interviews, his first with a news organization about the episode. “I think it’s so significant and I guess knowing that the end is near for President Carter put it on my mind more and more and more. I just feel like we’ve got to get it down some way.”

Mr. Barnes (shown at left in 2019 photo) is no shady foreign arms dealer with questionable credibility, like some of the characters who fueled previous iterations of the October surprise theory. He was once one of the most prominent figures in Texas, the youngest speaker of the Texas House of Representatives and later lieutenant governor. He was such an influential figure that he helped a young George W. Bush get into the Texas Air National Guard rather than be exposed to the draft and sent to Vietnam. Lyndon B. Johnson predicted that Mr. Barnes would become president someday.

See also the related column below, excerpted in our Top Global News section below:

• Emptywheel, Analysis: KT McFarland Likened Trump's Transition Interventions to the Iran October Surprise, Emptywheel (Marcy Wheeler, Ph.D., right, an author and legal researcher who publishes the Emptywheel blog of in-depth legal analysis)

March 11

World Crisis Radio, Strategic Commentary: Trump invited to testify before Manhattan grand jury as indictment in Stormy payoff case looms! Webster G. Tarpley, right, author, historian, activist, March 11, 2023 (120 mins.). Pillars of MAGA-GOP power splntering: not just four probes of Don, but also crises of CPAC and fundraising, Fox News, NRA, Southern Baptists, Twitter, Congressional feuding, factions, and more;

Even as he starts role as official despot, Xi is dogged by his catalogue of failures: GDP way below fake official 5% claim, with youth unemployment elevated; population shrinking and aging, raising fears of post-takeoff Thermidor against Communists; Bungling covid policy a hecatomb followed by landmark mass protests;

Loss of beachheads in Europe due to Xi’s foolish embrace of Kremlin; Gulf antics are cold comfort! Result is Xi’s demagogic rocket-rattling vs US;

Fall of Putin is key to ouster of many demagogues across world who have endorsed him;

Alt-lefts increasingly act as scribes and stenographers for predatory oligarchs, from Xi & Putin to Don: they ignore Trump White House’s attempt to silence Chrissy Teigen over choice comments vs Don because it’s not a Musk-approved theme!

Media hit new nadir as cynics and trimmers!

March 10

Methane gas leaking from the Nord Stream gas pipelines near the Danish island of Bornholm, Denmark. Photo credit: Danish military.

Going Deep with Russ Baker: Nord Stream Bombing: The Plot Thickens… and Thickens; Norwegian journalist shares his perspective, Russ Baker, right, March 10-11, 2023. In last week’s column, I raised questions about those claiming to absolutely know that the US government was behind the bombing of the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline from Russia to Germany.

People cite that claim as a basis for creating a kind of complicated equivalency between Russia and the US, which is then used to argue for not helping the Ukrainians defend themselves from Russia’s furious assault.

More reasons to question that certitude have emerged since. Here are a few news items of note, and below that, I’ll reprint an email I got from a Norwegian journalist regarding Seymour Hersh’s assertion that the US and Norway worked together to bomb the pipeline.

March 9

Methane gas leaking from the Nord Stream gas pipelines near the Danish island of Bornholm, Denmark. Photo credit: Danish military.

Politico Pro, Who blew up Nord Stream? Charlie Cooper, March 9, 2023 (print ed.). There are lots of theories. They’re all full of holes. Nearly six months on from the subsea gas pipeline explosions, which sent geopolitical shockwaves around the world in September, there is still no conclusive answer to the question of who blew up Nord Stream.

Some were quick to place the blame squarely at Russia’s door — citing its record of hybrid warfare and a possible motive of intimidation, in the midst of a bitter economic war with Europe over gas supply.

But half a year has passed without any firm evidence for this — or any other explanation — being produced by the ongoing investigations of authorities in three European countries.

Since the day of the attack, four states — Russia, the U.S., Ukraine and the U.K. — have been publicly blamed for the explosions, with varying degrees of evidence.

Still, some things are known for sure.

As was widely assumed within hours of the blast, the explosions were an act of deliberate sabotage. One of the three investigations, led by Sweden’s Prosecution Authority, confirmed in November that residues of explosives and several “foreign objects” were found at the “crime scene” on the seabed, around 100 meters below the surface of the Baltic Sea, close to the Danish Island of Bornholm.

Now two new media reports — one from the New York Times, the other a joint investigation by German public broadcasters ARD and SWR, plus newspaper Die Zeit — raised the possibility that a pro-Ukrainian group — though not necessarily state-backed — may have been responsible. On Wednesday, the German Prosecutor’s Office confirmed it had searched a ship in January suspected of transporting explosives used in the sabotage, but was still investigating the seized objects, the identities of the perpetrators and their possible motives.

In the information vacuum since September, various theories have surfaced as to the culprit and their motive:

Theory 1: Putin, the energy bully
Theory 2: The Brits did it
Theory 3: U.S. black ops
Theory 4: The mystery boatmen

The latest clues — following reports on Tuesday from the New York Times and German media — center on a boat, six people with forged passports and the tiny Danish island of Christiansø. Both the New York Times and the German media reports suggested that intelligence is pointing to a link to a pro-Ukrainian group, although there is no evidence that any orders came from the Ukrainian government and the identities of the alleged perpetrators are also still unknown.

Podolyak, Zelenskyy's adviser, tweeted he was enjoying “collecting amusing conspiracy theories” about what happened to Nord Stream, but that Ukraine had “nothing to do” with it and had “no information about pro-Ukraine sabotage groups.”

Meanwhile, Germany’s Defense Minister Boris Pistorius warned against “jumping to conclusions” about the latest reports, adding that it was possible that there may have been a “false flag” operation to blame Ukraine.

The mystery continues.

March 5

  Journalist Seymour Hersh, 2009. Photo credit: Institute for Policy Studies / Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

Going Deep with Russ Baker, Investigative Commentary:Nord Stream Explosion: Plenty of Gas, Not Much Light, Russ Baker, right, best-selling author, widely published media critic and founder of the investigative website and radio show WhoWhatWhy, March 4-5, 2023. Why does the Hersh story — which relies on a single inside source — have so few details of the sort that only an insider would know?

A small but vocal cohort keeps asking me, “Who do you think blew up the Nord Stream,” or more often, “Why don’t you admit the US blew up that pipeline?” One fan of hyperbole even wrote to say that certainly the US did it, and called it “the worst act of terror in history.”

I am well aware of the real possibility that the US was behind the September 26, 2022, explosion. The US has done worse in the past. And certainly, the Biden statement back in February 2022 — warning Russia of possible action to shut down the Nord Stream were it to invade Ukraine (see below) — provides powerful grist for the mill.

But what really bothers me are all the unwarranted assumptions in this case on the part of many: First, that the US is definitely responsible. Second, that this act is morally equivalent to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Third, that this is a reason to bar further US military aid to Ukraine.

The attack on the natural gas pipeline — which happened more than half a year after Russia invaded Ukraine — has receded from the news. But with growing GOP pressure to reduce or cut off funding for the defense of Ukraine, the issue will come up again, perhaps as a core piece of the overall debate.

And more people may be receptive to anything that justifies a reduction of funding, and just the general desire to “move on.” This is exactly what Putin, in my view, fervently hopes will happen, and really the only possible way he wins or even survives politically.

Who Done It?

As a journalist in the agnostic tradition, I believe in being open-minded on the fascinating issue of who done it, and on the equally intriguing question, how do we know?

The US is certainly capable of doing such a thing. However, I don’t know that it bombed the Nord Stream, and neither do those who are so certain it did.

Even Seymour Hersh, who reported that the US is responsible for the Nord Stream explosion, cannot know for sure, although he treats it as a certainty. He says the information is from “a single source with direct knowledge of the operational planning.”

That’s different from knowing. And as Hersh is well aware, news organizations rarely publish stories based on a single source because the risk of error is too high. Click link to read more.

Above is a high-resolution Daguerreotype portrait of President Zachary Taylor, a Southern-born pro-Union former general famed for leadership during at the Mexican-American War, shown at the White House during March 1849, in a portrait by Mathew Brady (Source: Library of Congress).

Salon, Historical Commentary: Did the South assassinate this president to preserve slavery? Forensic scientists say it's possible, Matthew Rozsa, March 5, 2023. Zachary Taylor died in 1850 of food poisoning. Some experts think the culprit was arsenic — here's why

Background: President Zachary Taylor (elected as a member of the Whig Party, had spent most of his career in the military, and it was obvious to the trio of Southern politicians as they confronted him. They were warning their fellow Whig that he needed to abandon his support for America's growing anti-slavery movement. The year was 1850: Taylor, in office for a mere sixteen months, staunchly opposed allowing slavery to spread into the new territories America had wrested from Mexico; and Taylor was equally adamant that the pro-slavery Texas government, which lacked a valid claim to disputed land in eastern New Mexico, should not be allowed to use armed force to seize that territory.

Sensing his stubbornness on these issues, Reps. Charles Conrad, Humphrey Marshall and Robert Toombs informed Taylor that Texas and the South were not just opposed to his policies; they were violently opposed.

For several days thereafter, Southerners grumbled among themselves about impeaching Taylor — the Vice President, Millard Fillmore, disagreed with Taylor and shared their views right down the line — or even seceding from the Union and starting a Civil War. Yet three days later, the entire conversation had been rendered moot: Taylor had mysteriously taken gravely ill after eating cherries and iced milk during 4th of July celebrations. Five days after that, Taylor was dead, and within two months President Fillmore had given the South virtually everything it wanted in a legislative package known as the Compromise of 1850.

If Taylor's death sounds awfully suspicious (and politically convenient) to you, some good news: There are historians and scientists who agree with you. Doctors officially diagnosed Taylor with cholera morbus from eating too many cherries and drinking too much iced milk. His symptoms included severe stomach pains, sharp pains on the side of his chest, vomiting, diarrhea, fevers, sweating, thirst, chills and fatigue. These could very well have meant that he developed gastroenteritis, especially considering the ghastly sanitary conditions in 19th-century Washington D.C.

Yet as forensic scientists are quick to note, these symptoms are also synonymous with arsenic poisoning. Arsenic, a highly toxic element that resembles a metal but which is technically a metalloid, was an easily accessible poison in the mid-19th century; its poisonous properties were widely known.

For more than a century after Taylor's death — long after the 12th president had faded into obscurity — history buffs and forensic science experts alike wondered if there was any way to prove what had really happened to Taylor. One of those scholars was novelist Clara Rising, a former humanities professor who shared her views with Coroner Richard F. Greathouse of Jefferson County, Kentucky. That is where Taylor is buried, and in 1991 his body was exhumed so samples of hair, skin, nails and other tissues could be examined.

March 4

World Crisis Radio, At G-20 in New Delhi, Blinken tells Lavrov to end the attack on Ukraine, Webster G. Tarpley, right, author, historian and activist, March 4, 2023 (109:21 mins.). China’s dishonest peace ploy would freeze and expand Russian invasion force, stop NATO military aid, roll back sanctions unless approved by UNSC, and recognize Moscow’s rule of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia, Kherson, and Crimea; Rump Ukraine east of Dneiper to be de-militarized; Real purpose may be to give Xi a pretext for massive Russian re-armament when his ”plan” is not endorsed;

Former KGB commandant General Savostyanov, an ally of Ivashov, describes Putin as terrified by Ukrainian invasion catastrophe he has singlehandedly wrought, triggering rage of oligarchs stripped of loot by sanctions; Entire country permanently impoverished; Forecast is for autogolpe orchestrated Putin to install a plausible figure seen as less toxic in west, possibly meaning agriculture minister Dmitri Patrushev (45), son of Putin crony Nikolai Patrushev, head of Kremlin NSC; Russia sliding back into developing sector as sanctions bite accumulates;

IMF lets Moscow peddle fake economic stats; Deripaska warns that Russia’s money will be gone by end of year;

On Russian TV, producer Shakhnazarov argues Kremlin must recognize danger of defeat in a disastrous predicament; Useless to imagine that NATO will collapse; Another TV expert says positive outcome for Russia is now ”not possible”; Lavrov treated as a laughingstock by locals in New Delhi;

Department of Justice Civil Division will not defend Trump vs. wave of lawsuits for damages based on his ”incitement of private violence” around January 6;

Extinction process of GOP infrastructure goes on as pro-DeSantis Club of Growth competes with pro-Trump CPAC, and Fox News eyes colossal costs of losing Dominion law suit because they cynically pushed the Big Lie knowing it was a complete fabrication;

February

Feb. 25

World Crisis Radio, Historical Commentary and Strategic Advocacy: Biden scores the greatest US strategic-diplomatic triumph of recent decades — at the expense of the aggressor Putin! Webster G. Tarpley, right, author, historian and activist, Feb. 25, 2023. (117:09 mins.). Kyiv, Warsaw, the Bucharest Nine, and 54 nations in the Ramstein armaments group show the scope of world opposition to the Kremlin butchers;

UN Security Council hears unproven theories on Nordstream pipelines; General Assembly demands Russian forces leave Ukraine by vote of 141 to 7, with 32 abstentions; South Africa should remember Moscow’s food warfare vs. Africa; India’s Modi may seize moment for increased authoritarianism in what was once called the world’s largest democracy;

Putin’s major speech was a collection of threats to oligarchs and nomenklatura, demanding that they repatriate their foreign holdings and finance Russia; Low energy and tepid response;

Clumsy leaks from Fulton County GA grand jury foreperson suggest bad news is imminent for Don and 12 apostles; AG Garland is a threat to Biden’s re-election and must go; Jack Smith subpoenas Meadows, Meadows, and Jarvanka;

FDR’s landmark fireside chat of May 27 1941 explained the forward defense of the western hemisphere to isolationists: ”When your enemy comes at you in a tank or a bombing plane, if you hold your fire until you see the whites of his eyes, you will never know what hit you. Our Bunker Hill of tomorrow may be several thousand miles from Boston.”

World Crisis Radio, Historical Commentary and Strategic Advocacy: After a year of Putin’s criminal assault on Ukraine, Kremlin’s strategy of aggression is in ruins! Webster G. Tarpley, right, author, historian and activist, Feb. 18, 2023. (109:18 mins.) After extravagant Russian losses, mercenary butcher Prigozhin admits that Bakhmut has not been encircled and cannot be taken for months to come;

Appeasers and Quislings from Berlin to Washington march to cut off NATO military aid and validate endless occupation by Putin’s soldateska; At Munich Conference, Macron, Scholz, and Sunac slightly improve their posture towards helping Ukraine; Biden set to visit Poland on eve of anniversary;

’I will wage war, but not declare war’: How Franklin D. Roosevelt set up victory over fascism between the Fall of France in June 1940 and Pearl Harbor; Lend Lease, destroyers for bases, Greenland and Iceland patrols, merchant convoys, wiping out Nazi weather stations, and shoot on sight; Guidance for dealing with Putin in our time!

Feb. 20

World Socialist Web Site (WSWS), The “Rage Against the War Machine” rally: A reactionary political freak show, Jacob Crosse and Joseph Kishore, Feb. 20, 2023. The WSWS is the online publication of the world Trotskyist movement.

The “Rage Against the War Machine” rally held yesterday in Washington, D.C., was a political freak show attended by a motley crowd of several hundred Libertarian Party supporters, neo-fascists, and disoriented and demoralized middle-class individuals without an independent program or perspective. The speeches, many of which were obscenity-laced rants, were pitched to the lowest political level. By the time the event finally dribbled to an end, it had left nothing behind but confusion and a bad smell.

The rally, which was moderated by Angela McArdle of the Libertarian Party and Nick Brana of the “People’s Party,” was sold as an opportunity by the organizers and the speakers to “bring together” the “left and the right” to oppose war. In fact, there was no left-wing perspective; the political direction was provided entirely by the right.

Even on its own terms, the event was an organizational fiasco, with a turnout of approximately 750 to 1,000 people, at most, despite being promoted on Fox News by Tucker Carlson and other right-wing outlets.

The rally featured no less than three speakers from organizations affiliated with the late fascist and anti-Semitic cult-leader, Lyndon LaRouche, right, including his wife, Helga Zepp-LaRouche. A platform was also provided for Jackson Hinkle, a fascist proponent of “MAGA communism,” and Jordan Page, who wrote the Oath Keepers anthem. Page gave an extended “musical” interlude with far-right anti-vaccine advocate and “bitcoin” enthusiast, Tatiana Moroz.

The Libertarian Party provided the main political line of the rally, with the buildup of speakers concluding with Libertarian candidate Ron Paul, below left. McArdle and the “Mises Caucus” of which she is a member is closely associated with the efforts of the Libertarians to orient to right-wing militia groups.

The continuous ranting of the reactionary tropes of right-wing populism gave the event a distinctly anti-Semitic slant. One speaker after the march to the White House declared that the conflict was “a Zionist war against the Slavic people.” McArdle, who promoted the rally last week on Infowars, run by the fascist conspiracist Alex Jones, has invited and defended anti-Semitic speakers to Libertarian Party events.

Pacifist journalist and author Chris Hedges, having evolved politically from warning of the fascist threat in the United States to promoting the unity of left and right, opened the event with a sermon intended to provide benediction for the speakers who would follow.

Hedges, along with Max Blumenthal of the Grayzone, Jill Stein of the Green Party, and comedian Jimmy Dore and a few others were there to give a progressive gloss to the “left-right” coalition and legitimize the extreme right. Their principal message was that unity with the fascistic right was permissible and should be actively pursued. Those who oppose collaboration with the right are viewed as political enemies.

The visceral hostility to opponents of “left-right unity” was recorded in various video clips of Hedges and Blumenthal, in conversations before the start of the rally, denouncing the World Socialist Web Site.

This anger against the defense of principled socialist politics erupted in the speech of Dore. He devoted most of his remarks to a thinly-veiled denunciation of the World Socialist Web Site for opposing unity with the fascists.

In the case of Dore, alliance with the right is not only a tactic. It is an expression of his own political views. Dore advanced the position of the far right on the COVID-19 pandemic, denouncing public health measures and vaccines. At one point he declared that “they” want me “to hate my neighbor for the pain I am feeling because of that because they wouldn’t take a vaccine that didn’t work the way they said it did in the first f**king place.” He added, “Eat boosters you mother f**kers.”

At one point, Dore bizarrely asked, “Why are we sending that money to Nazis in Ukraine when we could be funding Nazis here in America struggling to buy eggs?”

Support for the ruling class policy of mass infection, promoted most aggressively by the far right but adopted in essence by the Biden administration, was present throughout the rally. Several denounced the “medical industrial complex” and downplayed the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has killed over 1.14 million people in the US alone.

In an indication of the political outlook of those attending the rally, the largest cheers were for Dore and Ron Paul, including many who cheered for both.

To the extent there was a political perspective, it was provided by Paul, the former Texas congressman. In his headline speech, Paul falsely claimed that by eliminating the Federal Reserve, the US government would be forced to pay its debts and therefore could not fund military expenditures.

In reality, Paul’s program of austerity and debt elimination, if put into practice, would result in the evisceration of every single social welfare program in the United States, which is in fact the aim of the most right-wing sections of the ruling class and the program of the Libertarian Party.

Paul ended his speech with a call for an end to all “regulations,” i.e., minimum wage, social security, medicare and medicaid, child labor and work place safety laws, that “bankrupt the country.”

Individuals linked to the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and who participated in former President Donald Trump’s failed coup were in attendance.

Local journalist Molly Conger photographed Matthew Heimbach, the leading neo-Nazi who helped organize the 2017 rally in Charlottesville. In a podcast prior to the Unite the Right rally, Heimbach called for the extermination of the “international Jew and the local Jew, I don’t care if he runs a f**king bagel shop, he’s got to go.”

Conger also photographed Proud Boy Randy Ireland, wearing a shirt with the phrase “Justice 4 J6,” a reference to the small number of individuals who were imprisoned for participating in Trump’s failed coup.

Perhaps the biggest fraud of all was that the rally was an “antiwar” event. Whatever the denunciations of the “military-industrial complex” and the “war machine,” the main impact of the rally was to politically legitimize and elevate far-right forces that are utilized by sections of the ruling class itself.

As the World Socialist Web Site wrote last week:

In the final analysis, the right-wing pseudo-opposition to war represents a dispute within the ruling class over certain aspects of foreign policy. One can find on the Internet no shortage of ex-military personnel, entirely fascistic in their outlook, who believe that the present war in Ukraine is a distraction from other pressing issues confronting the American ruling class, such as the merciless removal of undocumented immigrants from the United States and preparations for a future war with China.

The role of the “Rage Against the War Machine” rally is not to develop a movement against imperialist war, but to confuse and disorient young people.

The rally itself more than confirmed this appraisal.

Feb. 18

Going Deep, Investigative Commentary: Western and Russian Imperialism: Our Wrongs Don’t Make Putin Right, Russ Baker, right, Feb 18, 2023. The bifurcation of the left reflects a growing lack of common sense and empathy with the actual circumstances faced by ordinary people.

Ever since Vladimir Putin launched his “special military operation” in Ukraine a year ago, many people have expressed frustration with WhoWhatWhy for covering the Russian invasion from the premise that Russia is the problem.

They say we don’t understand the situation. As one old friend and supporter said to me, “It’s complicated.” And some say I’ve forgotten the insights revealed in my own work — on the troubling history of malicious operations by US intelligence and financial elites detailed voluminously in Family of Secrets — and in my early efforts to expose the true (and bad) reasons we invaded Iraq.

But from the very beginning of the Russian invasion, I simply could not understand why some intelligent people I knew, longtime peaceniks and humanitarians, and more than a few noteworthy journalists, had scarcely a word of sympathy for the people of Ukraine. After all, Putin’s genocidal intentions became clear early on — from Putin confidant Vladislav Surkov stating that “there is no Ukraine” to the daily atrocities reported by multiple NGOs.

How can anyone be insensitive to the horror happening over there? Day after day for the past year, the world has witnessed Putin’s scorched earth strategy of targeting civilians, bombing their homes, schools, churches, hospitals, ancient historical sites, crops, and basic infrastructure. Russian troops steal all they can, from small items like wedding rings to millions of tons of Ukrainian grain. They even appear to be draining a massive Ukrainian reservoir.

And from the confirmed testimony of survivors, we learn of sickening atrocities committed by those troops (many of whom Putin mobilized by emptying prisons), including prolonged torture, gang rape of children as young as four and grandparents as old as 85, often in front of loved ones; the shooting of beloved pets as they scrounged for food, as if it were a sport. According to Ukrainian authorities, they even hung animals in trees “for entertainment.”

Most progressives do “get it.” Yet, the holdouts, both here and in Europe, have impacted the discussion, effectively helped Putin, and undermined perception of the facts on the ground.

Which raises the inevitable question: Does their indifference or outright opposition to helping Ukraine have any merit at all? After months of thinking constantly on this topic, I’ll say it: I appreciate the basis for their beliefs — but I don’t think so.

I understand that disagreements like this can sometimes end friendships, and I hope we can all be honestly blunt without that happening. Anyway, here goes.

Left vs. Far Left

Those on what might be called the “ideological left” — those who are against aiding Ukraine — tend to distrust any military or foreign policy initiatives by the US. The idea is that, based on the US’s long history of imperialism, we should default to assuming the worst of intentions when it comes to Ukraine.

To them, it makes no difference what party is in power in the US: It is as if there are no good people in positions of authority, no one able to resist the imperial advance of the military-industrial complex. Thus their refusal to support the effort to help Ukraine.

As for Putin, according to them he had to invade Ukraine, because of the “NATO encirclement” of Russia and the (in their minds) evil threat that the coalition-of-almost-everybody still represents in today’s world. They also point to what could be called a “reverse Monroe Doctrine” — after all, they say, Ukraine is in Russia’s backyard, just as Mexico is in ours. Finally — and certainly no small thing — they also believe that anyone who supports arming Ukraine for self-defense is leading humanity into a nuclear war.

So… If there’s a nuclear war, America and NATO are responsible, not Putin. That’s the line we hear.

Dissonance and Empathy

I would contend that this bifurcation of the left reflects a growing lack of common sense and empathy with the actual circumstances faced by ordinary people — a rigidity that treats with ambivalence or doubt any support for the Ukrainians’ efforts to defend themselves. This kind of skepticism feels both outdated and verging on the paranoid. Crucially, it fails to take into account the continuous changes in everything from the governance of individual countries to shifting alliances and the ebb and flow of global power. In both cases, a failure to pay attention to the changing reality — and the actual facts on the ground — risks millions of innocent lives.

One key difference between the war in Ukraine and the Vietnam/Iraq/Afghanistan wars, which should be obvious to any unbiased observer, is this: Zelenskyy’s government has rallied widespread elements of the Ukrainian population in a heroic and punishing battle against Russia, in contrast to the quagmires that led the US into propping up deeply unpopular and manifestly incompetent governments in Southeast and Central Asia.

The Power of Fear

It’s certainly true that, in assessing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the appropriate response for the West, confronting Russian aggression militarily, even if by proxy, could indeed plunge the world into a series of events leading right to nuclear annihilation.

Fortunately so far, while creeping forward in terms of military aid, the US has not engaged in direct combat in Ukraine. Yet if confronted, we face a set of choices, none of them good: Back down, or don’t back down.

Over the last year, Putin has used the threat of nuclear war several times, specifically to weaken pro-Ukranian resolve; yet while his propaganda has convinced more than a few, there are no signs that Russia has taken steps to prepare for a nuclear conflict.

But Putin’s aggressive behavior since the West effectively acquiesced in his annexation of Crimea (not getting into “Russia’s historic right to it”) should give us pause: Where exactly would we draw the line in opposing naked military aggression, if not Ukraine?

And if Putin keeps succeeding in grabbing his neighbors by force, what message does that send other would-be aggressors, in the Middle East and elsewhere around the world? The canard that all politics, all government is inherently, fatally, corrupt is a counsel of self-validating despair — and a gift to the forces of authoritarianism and autocracy. It also ignores the fact that, of the many countries in the world, the US, even with the tremendous deficiencies and wrongs we cite and endeavor to expose, isn’t — by multiple indices and relatively speaking — all that bad.

Yup, I said it. The critics, by and large, still choose to live here for good reason.

Of course, the how-to of avoiding nuclear holocaust in a world with countless nuclear powers is an extraordinarily difficult problem. But giving carte blanche to bad actors like Putin to kill or ruin the lives of millions in pursuit of their ambitions is hardly the only option.

The majority of progressive-minded Russians are opposed to Putin, repressed by Putin, and totally sympathetic with Ukraine and its plight.

And the notion that it is the only option reflects just how many of us seem truly lost. Here is a tweet to the world from a fellow I’ve known and liked for years:

You insane Dems have launched war on #Russia. To please your biggest donor @georgesoros you risk destroying us in #NuclearWar.

This is from a longtime idealist and activist! I may not agree with George Soros on some issues, but I have always found him to be a man of conscience, and hardly ever eager to see war. (Disclosure: We have never received a penny from Soros or his organizations.)

That this bizarre attitude is increasingly on display, with its concomitantly myopic view of Putin and his reign, is just astonishing to me and, thankfully, to most people.

It’s not that hard to see the truth for what it is. Documented stories of Putin’s police-and-corruption state come in a never-ending stream, even beyond Ukraine, and not just from Western media. Conscientious, brave Russian reporters tell us all the time.

If you pay attention, you will learn about the profound poverty of the nation, especially outside of Moscow. And about the dissidents and journalists who are murdered, seemingly weekly, via curious “falls” out of windows, other kinds of “accidents,” shootings, poisonings, and other means. For details, go here, here, here, here, here. Even an American businessman got the window treatment. Brutalized war protesters are sent to jail for a decade for posting on social media. Russian victims are often named and, if possible, quoted.

Here are only two random items from just this week:

A Russian court has sentenced journalist Maria Ponomarenko to six years in prison for a Telegram social media post about a Russian airstrike.

Olesya Krivtsova is a 19-year-old Federal University of Arkhangelsk student on trial, facing decades in prison for an antiwar instagram social media post.

When versions of this kind of oppression happen to Americans, Palestinians, or folks almost anywhere else, they actually do seem to bother my friends. But I never hear expressions of concern about this oppression with regard to Russia.
Putin Is Russia and Russia Is Putin? Not So!

The defense of Putin’s war from some of these people is, of course, based on a lot of talking points I see, spread widely and presented as certitudes:

Ukraine has to this day a propensity for neo-Nazism or fascism, Jewish president notwithstanding.

Ukraine is inherently corrupt, while Russia under Putin has kept corruption in check, as a professor told me the other day. (Despite decades of documented evidence to the contrary.)

The CIA thwarted the Ukrainian people’s will and overthrew the pro-Moscow Ukrainian government in the country. (Here’s a different view from interested parties in the region.)

The West is driven solely by selfish motives in backing Ukraine. (See the rest of this piece for counter-arguments.)

Putin and his prolific disinformation machine spread these manufactured ideas through state-controlled news outlets, social media, and paid propagandists, including actually creating fake “BBC” reporting(!). Meanwhile, writers I consider to be naive or deluded and historians outside Russia skillfully deploy selected “true facts” or anecdotes in support of highly questionable conclusions.

One of these conclusions appears to be that we can and should give Putin the benefit of the doubt and assume that he actually has “Russia’s” interests at heart. But it seems easy enough to discount that, even without looking into the man’s soul, as former President George W. Bush famously claimed to have done. Putin’s own actions, along with many of his statements, indicate rather his devotion to the Putin and Friends enrichment scheme, or some deranged and dangerous plan (plucked from the 19th century’s Great Power playbook) to “Make Russia Great Again.” Does Putin = Russia any more than Trump = the USA?

In truth, “Russia’s interests” and Vladimir Putin’s objectives seem far from the same thing, even if you leave out the billions Putin and his oligarch cronies have siphoned from Russian coffers since 1999. From the perspective of hard-nosed realpolitik alone, it may actually be good for Russia to get along better with its neighbors. And it may also be true that most Russians do not feel threatened personally by NATO or by Ukraine.

To be sure, the majority of progressive-minded Russians are opposed to Putin, repressed by Putin, and totally sympathetic with Ukraine and its plight. Thousands have close family in Ukraine and know the extent of Putin’s perfidy; some have actually taken up arms for Ukraine. Thousands have fled Russia since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

How can Western naysayers minimize or ignore this large subpopulation opposed to Putin, or suggest that people in the US know better than those actually living in what is in fact a totalitarian state? It’s worth recalling that many who condemn US actions to oppose Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine were themselves protestors against aggressive US war policy in Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, and Iraq. Why can they not relate to Russians’ domestic opposition to Putin and his war?

Furthermore, how can anyone ignore the thousands of conscripted Russian civilians given only hours of training and little combat gear, who are then turned into waves of cannon fodder? Or ignore the thousands of panicked Russians fleeing? The horrible abuses? The soldiers defecting, and other Russians, embarrassed and horrified by what their country is doing, taking action to help the Ukrainians?
One Man

I could go on, but ultimately, there is no getting around the simple fact that one man, Vladimir Putin, who for decades has openly voiced his wish to reinstate the USSR, invaded a sovereign nation and is willing to countenance the death of huge numbers of his own people, let alone even more Ukrainians.

We have to start from there. We have to acknowledge the murderous madness of that. We must show sympathy for innocent people being slaughtered — not just innocents, but badly outnumbered ones, standing up to a vastly superior military power.

Why? Because if we do not start from a position that considers other human beings, how human are we?

This brings to mind one of my friends, an economist, a good guy, who worries about nuclear war and essentially argued, in a conversation with me, that the US should give Putin whatever he wants. The next day, we both happened to be on a group teleconference on an unrelated topic. Once he finished opining, he paused, chortled, and dryly noted: “Spoken like a true economist — notice there are no people in this analysis.”

As I was wrapping this article up, I read Vice President Kamala Harris’s speech in Munich about Russia’s crimes against humanity in Ukraine, and about the need to stand up to authoritarian nations using “brute force.” Exactly. No appeasement.

I also happen to be reading a Budd Schulberg book written in the late 1930s, in which one character explains that a movie studio doesn’t plan to make a screen version of Sinclair Lewis’s novel It Can’t Happen Here — because the English leadership at the time “doesn’t want to make Hitler and Mussolini sore.”

World Crisis Radio, Historical Commentary and Strategic Advocacy: Biden scores the greatest US strategic-diplomatic triumph of recent decades — at the expense of the aggressor Putin! Webster G. Tarpley, right, author, historian and activist, Feb. 25, 2023. (117:09 mins.). Kyiv, Warsaw, the Bucharest Nine, and 54 nations in the Ramstein armaments group show the scope of world opposition to the Kremlin butchers;

UN Security Council hears unproven theories on Nordstream pipelines; General Assembly demands Russian forces leave Ukraine by vote of 141 to 7, with 32 abstentions; South Africa should remember Moscow’s food warfare vs. Africa; India’s Modi may seize moment for increased authoritarianism in what was once called the world’s largest democracy;

Putin’s major speech was a collection of threats to oligarchs and nomenklatura, demanding that they repatriate their foreign holdings and finance Russia; Low energy and tepid response;

Clumsy leaks from Fulton County GA grand jury foreperson suggest bad news is imminent for Don and 12 apostles; AG Garland is a threat to Biden’s re-election and must go; Jack Smith subpoenas Meadows, Meadows, and Jarvanka;

FDR’s landmark fireside chat of May 27 1941 explained the forward defense of the western hemisphere to isolationists: ”When your enemy comes at you in a tank or a bombing plane, if you hold your fire until you see the whites of his eyes, you will never know what hit you. Our Bunker Hill of tomorrow may be several thousand miles from Boston.”

World Crisis Radio, Historical Commentary and Strategic Advocacy: After a year of Putin’s criminal assault on Ukraine, Kremlin’s strategy of aggression is in ruins! Webster G. Tarpley, right, author, historian and activist, Feb. 18, 2023. (109:18 mins.) After extravagant Russian losses, mercenary butcher Prigozhin admits that Bakhmut has not been encircled and cannot be taken for months to come;

Appeasers and Quislings from Berlin to Washington march to cut off NATO military aid and validate endless occupation by Putin’s soldateska; At Munich Conference, Macron, Scholz, and Sunac slightly improve their posture towards helping Ukraine; Biden set to visit Poland on eve of anniversary;

’I will wage war, but not declare war’: How Franklin D. Roosevelt set up victory over fascism between the Fall of France in June 1940 and Pearl Harbor; Lend Lease, destroyers for bases.

Feb. 17

New York Times, Fox Stars Privately Expressed Disbelief About Election Fraud Claims. ‘Crazy Stuff,’ Jeremy W. Peters and Katie Robertson, Feb. 17, 2023 (print ed.). The comments, by Tucker Carlson (above), Sean Hannity and others, were released as part of a defamation suit against Fox News by Dominion Voter Systems.

Newly disclosed messages and testimony from some of the biggest stars and most senior executives at Fox News revealed that they privately expressed disbelief about President Donald J. Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him, even though the network continued to promote many of those lies on the air.

The hosts Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, as well as others at the company, repeatedly insulted and mocked Trump advisers, including Sidney Powell, right, and Rudolph W. Giuliani, in text messages with each other in the weeks after the election, according to a legal filing on Thursday by Dominion Voting Systems. Dominion is suing Fox for defamation in a case that poses considerable financial and reputational risk for the country’s most-watched cable news network.

“Sidney Powell is lying by the way. I caught her. It’s insane,” Mr. Carlson wrote to Ms. Ingraham on Nov. 18, 2020.

Ms. Ingraham responded: “Sidney is a complete nut. No one will work with her. Ditto with Rudy.”

Mr. Carlson continued, “Our viewers are good people and they believe it,” he added, making clear that he did not.

The messages also show that such doubts extended to the highest levels of the Fox Corporation, with Rupert Murdoch, left, its chairman, calling Mr. Trump’s voter fraud claims “really crazy stuff.”

On one occasion, as Mr. Murdoch watched Mr. Giuliani and Ms. Powell on television, he told Suzanne Scott, chief executive of Fox News Media, “Terrible stuff damaging everybody, I fear.”

Dominion’s brief depicts Ms. Scott, whom colleagues have described as sharply attuned to the sensibilities of the Fox audience, as being well aware that Mr. Trump’s claims were baseless. And when another Murdoch-owned property, The New York Post, published an editorial urging Mr. Trump to stop complaining that he had been cheated, Ms. Scott distributed it widely among her staff. Mr. Murdoch then thanked her for doing so, the brief says.

The filing, in state court in Delaware, contains the most vivid and detailed picture yet of what went on behind the scenes at Fox News and its corporate parent in the days and weeks after the 2020 election, when the conservative cable network’s coverage took an abrupt turn.

Fox News stunned the Trump campaign on election night by becoming the first news outlet to declare Joseph R. Biden Jr. the winner of Arizona — effectively projecting that he would become the next president. Then, as Fox’s ratings fell sharply after the election and the president refused to concede, many of the network’s most popular hosts and shows began promoting outlandish claims of a far-reaching voter fraud conspiracy involving Dominion machines to deny Mr. Trump a second term.

New York Times, Guest Essay: It’s Time to Prepare for a Possible Trump Indictment, Norman L. Eisen, E. Danya Perry and Amy Lee Copeland, Feb. 17, 2023. Mr. Eisen, right, is a co-author of “Fulton County, Georgia’s Trump Investigation,” a Brookings Institution report on the Fulton County district attorney’s investigation. Ms. Perry is an author of “Trump on Trial,” a Brookings Institution report on the Jan. 6 committee. Ms. Copeland is a criminal defense and appellate attorney in Savannah, Ga.

“We find by unanimous vote that no widespread fraud took place in the Georgia 2020 presidential election that could result in overturning that election.” With those words, a Fulton County special grand jury’s report, part of which was released Thursday, repudiated Donald Trump’s assault on our democracy.

The excerpts from the report did not explicitly offer new detail on a potential indictment of Mr. Trump or any other individual. But they suggest that, combined with everything else we know, Mr. Trump may very well be headed for charges in Georgia.

We need to prepare for a first in our 246-year history as a nation: The possible criminal prosecution of a former president.

If Mr. Trump is charged, it will be difficult and at times even perilous for American democracy — but it is necessary to deter him and others from future attempted coups.

Fani Willis, left, the Fulton County district attorney, may present the case as a simple and streamlined one or in a more sweeping fashion. Success is more likely assured in the simpler approach, but the fact that the redacted report has eight sections suggests a broader approach is conceivable. In either event, we must all prepare ourselves for what could be years of drama, with the pretrial, trial and appeal likely dominating the coming election season.

Ms. Willis opened her investigation shortly after Mr. Trump’s Jan. 2, 2021, demand that the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, “find 11,780 votes.” The second impeachment of Mr. Trump and the Jan. 6 committee hearings developed additional evidence about that request for fake votes and Mr. Trump and allies pushing fake electors in Georgia and nationally. There is now abundant evidence suggesting he violated Georgia statutes, like those criminalizing the solicitation of election fraud.

The parts of the special grand jury’s report revealed on Thursday only reinforce Mr. Trump’s risk of prosecution. The statement that the grand jurors found “no widespread fraud” in the presidential election eliminates Mr. Trump’s assertion that voter fraud justified his pushing state election officials. We also know that the grand jurors voted defendant by defendant and juror by juror, and set forth their recommendations on indictments and relevant statutes over seven (currently redacted) sections. The likelihood that they did that and cleared everyone is very low. And the fact that the grand jurors felt so strongly about the issues that they insisted on writing the recommendations themselves, as they emphasize, further suggests a grave purpose.

Also notable is the grand jury’s recommendation of indictments, “where the evidence is compelling,” for perjury that may have been committed by one or more witnesses. It seems unlikely that Ms. Willis will let that pass.

She will now decide the next steps of the case. Her statement that charging decisions were imminent came more than three weeks ago. If she does indict Mr. Trump, the two likely paths that she might take focus on the fake electoral slates and Mr. Trump’s call to Mr. Raffensperger. One is a narrower case that would likely take weeks to try; the other is a broader case that would likely take months.

Narrow charges could include the Georgia felonies of solicitation of election fraud in the first degree and related general crimes like conspiracy to commit election fraud, specifically focusing on events and people who have a strong nexus with Georgia. In addition to Mr. Trump, that might include others who had direct contacts with Georgia, like his former chief of staff Mark Meadows and his attorneys John C. Eastman and Rudolph W. Giuliani (who already received a “target” notification from Ms. Willis warning him that he may be charged). Such a case would focus on activities around the execution of the fake electoral slates on Dec. 14, 2020, followed by the conversation with Mr. Raffensperger on Jan. 2, rooting it in Georgia and avoiding events nationally except to the extent absolutely necessary.

Or Ms. Willis could charge the case more broadly, adding sweeping state Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations, or RICO, charges that could still include the impact of the conduct in Georgia but bring in more of a nationwide conspiracy. This would look more like the Jan. 6 investigation, albeit with a strong Georgia flavor. It could additionally include those who appeared to have lesser contact with Georgia but were part of national efforts including the state, like the Trump campaign attorney Kenneth Chesebro and the Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark.

A more narrow case might make slightly more sense: Given the extraordinary circumstances around it, Ms. Willis will surely have her hands full. And it will feature a likely lead defendant who has demonstrated his propensity for legal circuses — coming in the midst of a heated political season no less.

That said, Ms. Willis has a proven propensity for bringing and winning RICO cases. And as we have learned in our criminal trial work, sometimes juries are more responsive to grander narratives that command their attention — and outrage.

Whether it’s simple or broad, if a case is opened, one thing is nearly certain: It’s going to take a while, probably the better part of the next two years, and perhaps longer. We would surely see a flurry of legal filings from Mr. Trump, which while often meritless nevertheless take time. Here the battle would likely be waged around pretrial motions and appeals by Mr. Trump arguing, as he has done in other cases, that he was acting in his official presidential capacity and so is immune.

That challenge, though not persuasive at all in our view, will almost certainly delay a trial by months. Other likely sallies are that the case should be removed to federal court (it shouldn’t); that he relied on the advice of counsel in good faith (he didn’t); or that his action was protected by the First Amendment (it wasn’t).

Even if the courts work at the relatively rapid pace of other high-profile presidential cases, we would still be talking about months of delay. In both U.S. v. Nixon and Thompson v. Trump, about three months were consumed from the first filing of the cases to the final rejection of presidential arguments by the U.S. Supreme Court. In this case, there would be more issues, which would be likely to require additional time. At the earliest, Ms. Willis would be looking at a trial toward the end of 2023. Even on that aggressive schedule, appeals would not be concluded until the end of 2024 or beyond.

Needless to say, this would have a profound impact on the election season. It would feature a national conversation about what it means for a former president to be prosecuted, and it would no doubt have unexpected consequences.

Still, the debate is worth having, and the risks are worth taking. The core American idea is that no one is above the law. If there is serious evidence of crimes, then a former president should face the same consequences as anyone else. If we do not hold accountable those who engage in this kind of misconduct, it will recur.

It would be the trial of the 21st century, no doubt a long and bumpy ride — but a necessary one for American democracy.

Norman Eisen was special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during the first impeachment of Donald Trump. E. Danya Perry is a former federal prosecutor and New York State corruption investigator. Amy Lee Copeland, a former federal prosecutor, is a criminal defense and appellate attorney in Savannah, Ga.

Disgraced InfoWars host Alex Jones, in a dark shirt second from the right, stands next to "Stop the Steal" pro-Trump insurrectionist Ali Alexander at a rally.

Washington Post, Alex Jones is ‘holding firearms’ for Jan. 6 rioters, bankruptcy docs show, Timothy Bella, Feb. 17, 2023 (print ed.). As Infowars founder Alex Jones is facing bankruptcy for damages he owes to the families of victims of the mass killing at Sandy Hook Elementary School, a new filing shows the right-wing conspiracy theorist has been “holding firearms” for those who participated in the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Jones, who owes nearly $1.5 billion to the families after years of saying the 2012 massacre in Newtown, Conn., in which 20 children and six adults were killed, was a hoax, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the Southern District of Texas last December. Jones’s personal financial disclosures were shared in a bankruptcy filing on Tuesday that was obtained by The Washington Post.

In the section of the bankruptcy statement that asks Jones to identify property he owns or controls for somebody else, the right-wing conspiracy theorist described the items he has in limited detail.

“Holding firearms for certain January 6th participants to be provided,” the entry says.

The filing does not state why Jones, who participated in the Stop the Steal rally that preceded the attack on the Capitol, is holding the weapons for the rioters or where they are located.

In addition to the firearms, Jones, 49, lists boats and lifetime helicopter access as part of his personal financial disclosures, records show. Jones reported his gross income in 2021, the most recent year that data is available, as $617,143.02, according to the filing. He reported a gross income of nearly $639,000 in 2020, the filing shows.

The filing says that Jones has reported assets worth an estimated $10 million — significantly less than the $1.4 billion in a Connecticut case and $45.2 million in a Texas case that he owes to the Sandy Hook families in damages. Jones and his legal team have said they would appeal.

Feb. 16

New York Times, Opinion: Under Trump, Bill Barr and John Durham Made a Mockery of the Rules I Wrote, Neal K. Katyal, Feb. 16, 2023 (print ed.). Mr. Katyal is a professor at Georgetown University Law Center, and a co-author of “Impeach: The Case Against Donald Trump.” He was an acting solicitor general in the Obama administration.

The recent revelations about Special Counsel John H. Durham’s investigation of the origins of Robert Mueller’s Russia inquiry paint a bleak picture — one that’s thoroughly at odds with governing law. Those rules, called the Special Counsel Regulations, contemplate someone independent of the attorney general who can reassure the public that justice is being done.

I drafted those guidelines as a young Justice Department official, and there is zero chance that anyone involved in the process, as it was reported on by The New York Times, would think that former Attorney General William Barr or Mr. Durham acted appropriately.

According to the report, Mr. Barr granted Mr. Durham special counsel status to dig into a theory that the Russia investigation likely emerged from a conspiracy by intelligence or law enforcement agencies. That investigation took almost four years (longer than Mr. Mueller’s inquiry) and appears to be ending soon without any hint of a deep state plot against Mr. Trump.

Furthermore, the reporting suggests that the Durham inquiry suffered from internal dissent and ethical disputes as it lurched from one unsuccessful path to another, even as Americans heard a misleading narrative of its progress.

But now Merrick Garland, not Mr. Barr, is the attorney general, and the regulations give him the power to require Mr. Durham to explain himself — and to discipline and fire Mr. Durham if the explanation is not adequate. Right now, there are a plethora of investigations in Washington — in addition to Mr. Durham’s, two special counsels are looking into presidential handling of classified documents, the new Republican House of Representatives has created a “weaponization” of government committee and the new House Oversight Committee is ramping up as well.

At this moment, it is critical for Mr. Garland to use the supervisory powers under the Special Counsel Regulations that govern Mr. Durham to remind Americans of what actual justice, and independent investigations and decision making, look like.

The special counsel regulations say that a special counsel must have “a reputation for integrity and impartial decisionmaking” and that, once appointed, the counsel “shall not be subject to the day-to-day supervision” of the attorney general or any other Justice Department official.

The point of the regulations was to create a strong degree of independence, especially in highly fraught political investigations where the attorney general’s status as a presidential appointee might cause the public to question the appearance of partiality. The appointment of Robert Hur, a former Trump-appointed U.S. attorney, to examine President Biden’s handling of classified documents is a perfect illustration. The special counsel is supposed to be someone who cannot be reasonably accused of laundering an attorney general’s dirty work.

In light of the new reporting, it is hard to view Mr. Durham as anything else. Indeed, no one involved in developing these regulations thought that a prosecutor who has regular scotch-sipping sessions with the attorney general would ever be remotely fit for the job. Yet that was the relationship reportedly developed by Mr. Durham and Mr. Barr, who jetted off to Italy as a team, where they learned of a lead about President Trump and potential criminal acts. Mr. Barr gave that investigation, too, to Mr. Durham, where it appears to have died.

Feb. 11

Justice Department Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, left, and former President Donald Trump, shown in a collage via CNN.

World Crisis Radio, Historical Commentary: World history now depends on defeating the imminent Russian spring offensive against Ukraine, and on charges being brought against Trump, Webster G. Tarpley, Ph.D., right, author, historian and activist, (87:34 mins.), Feb. 10-11, 2023. Putin’s desperate bid to hold on in Ukraine may resemble Ludendorf’s last-ditch offensive of mid-1918, a prelude to collapse.

In the current Time of Troubles, camouflaged pretenders infest the Kremlin as hapless draftees are fed into the meatgrinder of Prigozhin’s human wave assaults; US and NATO must be audacious in deliveries of weaponry after Zelelensky’s visits to London and Brussels;

Trump’s special counsel Jack Smith obtains subpoenas for Pence and ex-NSC Director Robert O’Brien in regard to January 6 coup attempt; FBI finds more classified material at Pence’s Indiana home, but no special counsel so far named by Garland;

Manhattan prosecutor Pomeranz courageously sums up choices for NY DA Alvin Bragg, who must charge Trump no matter what the chances of conviction or else utterly repudiate the rule of law in the United States; Establishment voices still demand fairness for fascists;

Biden SOTU [State of the Union] bears comparison with the best of FDR in 1936; Dramatic achievements of Dems in stark contrast to grotesque escapades of MAGA fascist buffoons; Feckless orchestration of hearings on Twitter/New York Post and weaponization exposes McCarthy clique as bungling amateurs; MAGAt money supply line grievously damaged by defection of Koch and Club for Growth as GOP bigwigs and donors plot to stop Trump; Dems launch effort to expel mythomaniac Santos!

Feb. 4

Julia (Julie) Jenkins Fancelli, Publix heiress and Donald Trump mega-donor.

Proof, Exclusive Investigative Commentary: The Donald Trump “Mega-Donor” From Florida Who Funded January 6 Has Just Given America the Most Detailed Timeline Ever of When and Where Trump’s Coup Plot Formed, Seth Abramson, Feb. 3, 2023. Seth Abramson, left, is a a former criminal investigator and criminal defense attorney whose January 6 research Congress often cites unpacks January 6 evidence many missed.

Part of a Series: The “January 6 Files” Series (2023-)

• Charlie Kirk
• Ginni Thomas, Part I
• Julie Jenkins Fancelli (current entry)

1. Introduction

You’ve probably seen the “How It Started vs. How It’s Going” meme, which tracks the relative sanguinity of the beginning of a given process and how it thereafter descends into chaos. In the case of the 132-page federal testimony of Julie Jenkins Fancelli—the Donald Trump mega-donor who almost single-handedly bankrolled the January 6 White House Ellipse rally and march on the U.S. Capitol—it begins like this (the speaker is a House January 6 Committee investigator tasked with examining Fancelli under oath):

And it does not get better from there.

Fancelli’s reticence in providing even the barest degree of cooperation with the House January 6 Committee is to some degree understandable. After all, even far-right media reports indicate that the Special Counsel recently appointed by Joe Biden’s Attorney General Merrick Garland on behalf of the Department of Justice, Jack Smith, is focusing his investigation on the “money trail” linked to the January 6 coup attempt.

Justice Department Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, left, and former President Donald Trump, shown in a collage via CNN.

And on the very short list of radical Trumpists who funded events on January 6, the Trumpworld figure who appears atop the list—by sheer dollar value—is Ms. Fancelli.

And so it is that we see Fancelli invoking four different federal constitutional amendments to avoid even revealing whether she knows Caroline Wren, an agent of future Trump daughter-in-law and current top Trump adviser Kimberly Guilfoyle, right (who will be marrying Trump’s eldest son Donald Trump Jr.) and someone whose long relationship with Fancelli has already been documented fifty different ways and is a settled fact.

But as was the case with (again) Trump Jr. and Guilfoyle associate—you may be seeing a trend here—Charlie Kirk, who also pleaded the Fifth Amendment, Fancelli revealed much more than she might have intended simply by showing up to be questioned by Congress. Why? Because the many, many questions asked of her by lawyers from the now-disbanded House January 6 Committee comprise a stunning compendium of evidence compiled by the Committee before its investigation ended in December 2022.

This third entry of the new “January 6 Files” series at Proof will reveal, through a long analysis and contextualization of these questions—and perhaps more surprisingly, some sudden abandonments of her constitutional invocations by Ms. Fancelli—how this recently released federal witness transcript must change forever how we think about the following:

• The timeline of the January 6 coup plot;
• the level of involvement the Trump family had in this coup plotting, and its after-the-fact attempts to deny that involvement;
• the consistent pattern of federal Witness Tampering that has marked Trump family attempts to deny its involvement in any coup plotting or fundraising;
• the extent to which the Trump family benefited financially from this plotting and to which Trump himself was aware of the fundraising and logistics work that the plotting entailed; and
• the degree to which this plotting may have helped fund Stop the Steal activities now associated with domestic terrorism.

 Katrina vanden Heuvel, the longtime publisher, editor and owner of The Nation magazine and also wife of Russian studies scholar Stephen Cohen, is shown joining a CSPAN Washington Journal cablecast in 2009.

ByLine Times, Media Criticism: Russia & the US PressThe Article the CJR Didn’t Publish, Duncan Campbell, Feb. 4, 2023. Duncan Campbell, below at right, is an investigative journalist who has covered security, surveillance and politics since the 1970s.

Introduction: Two and a half years ago, the Columbia Journalism Review refused to publish Duncan Campbell’s investigation into The Nation magazine and its apparent support for Vladimir Putin. It is published here in full.

In 2018, Duncan Campbell was commissioned by the “voice of journalism” and “watchdog of the press,” Columbia Journalism Review, to write an investigation into the venerable New York magazine The Nation, and its apparent support for Russia’s territorial ambitions. In 2020, after a full fact check, legal review and edit, the article was cancelled two days before the scheduled publication. In 2022, months after Putin’s full invasion of Ukraine, the CJR again refused to publish the article. Byline Times is publishing the final agreed copy here, and Duncan Campbell will explain what happened in a follow-up article.

The Nation’s Russia Problem
By Duncan Campbell, 15 July 2020

One afternoon, five weeks before Election Day in 2016, on the 21st floor of a tower overlooking Manhattan’s Eighth Avenue, members of The Nation’s editorial advisory board gathered for a twice-annual meeting. Katrina vanden Heuvel—the magazine’s editor, publisher, and owner—invited attendees to hear from a special guest, who had come to warn them that criticizing Donald Trump’s involvements with Russia, or his relationship with Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, could trigger global nuclear annihilation. Vanden Heuvel, who was 56, gestured to her husband, Stephen F. Cohen, then 77, a retired professor of Russian studies. Russia and the United States “were closer to war than at any time since the Cuban missile crisis,” he told the board. He also derided Democrats and American media organizations for “demonization of Russian President Putin.”

Philip Green, a political theorist who had been on the board for forty years, listened with skepticism. Cohen’s theory, “presented with deadly and urgent seriousness,” he thought, appeared to be channeling the paranoia of the far-right. Others felt the same way. But afterward, Green says, “It became the party line.”

Cohen (who died in 2020 and who is shown above) would go on to make the same argument in at least 160 Nation articles; more than a hundred talk radio show appearances; and on Russia’s state-owned international channel, Russia Today (RT). In many cases, his articles were “essentially transcribed radio programs that were unedited and did not go through other editorial filters,” according to Robert Dreyfuss, a Nation contributing editor and investigative journalist. Accusing the Russian government of committing an act of war by hacking the Democratic National Committee, Cohen warned, might mean “the necessity of actual war, conceivably nuclear war, against Russia.” He wrote that “villainizing the Kremlin—without much evidence—is increasing the possibility of a US-Russian war.” Once Trump took office, Cohen branded media investigations of Russia’s involvement with the Trump campaign as “neo-McCarthyism” and “Kremlin-baiting.”

For these critiques, Cohen won praise from outlets such as Fox News and Breitbart, anathema to The Nation readership; soon, he began making periodic appearances on Tucker Carlson Tonight. “Today, in my scholarly, long-term judgment, relations between the United States and Russia are more dangerous than they have ever—let me repeat, ever—been, including the Cuban missile crisis,” Cohen told Carlson in 2018.

Nation employees became uneasy about Cohen’s assertions and who was airing his ideas. “The people who work there, especially the younger staff, are disgruntled about the Russia coverage,” Adam Shatz, a former Nation writer and literary editor, says. A joke began circulating around the office: “We tried to fact check Steve’s pieces but we couldn’t find any facts to check.” (Vanden Heuvel denies that her husband’s work was not checked by normal standards, saying that whether or not something is checked “depends on the complexity of the piece.”)

Some left The Nation or stopped writing for it. Anne Nelson, a former war correspondent now teaching at Columbia University, came to feel that the magazine’s stance on Russia “is destroying a valuable institution on the left.” Subscribers and donors, too, expressed displeasure with The Nation’s Russia pieces. One reader tweeted: “Sounds like the Nation has a pee tape out there somewhere.”

Duncan Campbell is former crime correspondent of the Guardian, former chairman of the Crime Reporters Association and winner of the Bar Council’s newspaper journalist of the year. He has written for the Observer, New Statesman, LRB, Oldie, Esquire and British Journalism Review. He has presented Crime Desk on BBC Radio 5 Live and the Radio 4 documentary "Bandits of the Blitz," has appeared on the Today programme, LBC radio and numerous TV documentaries, and has lectured widely on crime reporting. He is the author of six books including the bestselling "The Underworld" (1994) and an acclaimed crime novel, "If it Bleeds" (2010).

World Crisis Radio, Historical Commentary and Advocacy: Chinese balloon offensive plus Putin’s start of long-awaited Ukraine attack add up to a strategic emergency! Webster G. Tarpley, historian and author, right, Feb. 4, 2023 (120:48 mins.). Russian dictator faces defeat and likely ouster provided that battle tanks and other equipment from NATO countries can arrive soon, so he seeks to retake initiative; Russia violating arms control inspection regime since August 2022;

Are the cabal of pro-appeasement US generals who refused to defend Capitol from armed fascist gangs on January 6 2021 and sabotaged prompt delivery of Abrams tanks the same ones now declining to eliminate balloon device well suited to deploying electromagnetic pulse weapons for nuclear confrontation?

US should respond with serious economic retaliation, while warning Beijing that future intruders will be summarily destroyed;

Chinese Communists dismayed by Washington-Manila accord to re-open US bases closed for three decades; Beijing’s bullying over West Philippine Sea has backfired!

US strategic position vastly enhanced by strong domestic economy with 517,000 new jobs created in January; unemployment at 3.4%, a 53-year low dating back to Nixon in 1969; Biden credited with creating 12.1 million jobs in 2 years, including 880,000 manufacturing jobs; Real wages are rising, with inflation down 6 months in a row, including gas down $1.50 per gallon; Biden’s achievement is now comparable to that of FDR under Lend-Lease in 1941, when joblessness virtually disappeared thanks to defense mobilization;

Zombie bankers stunned by results of Biden’s infrastructure program, inflation reduction policies, and high tech revival under Chips Act; these measures are being felt for the first time;

Globalized, pro-austerity, supply side economic charlatans are doomed by stunning success of Biden’s methods of industrial policy, dirigism, and Hamiltonian protectionism;

For Black History Month, recalling the bankers’ playing the race card of divide and conquer from The 2011 Occupy agitation to the present;
the establishment-backed 1619 study neglects Frederick Douglas and Martin Luther King, who built united fronts across all races, and sneers at Lincoln; Spurious claim that American Revolution was fought to preserve slavery has been retracted, but still distorts the presentation; Origins of the Revolution are in any case located in western Massachusetts in summer 1774, far beyond the reach of the Earl of Dunmore or any royal governor of Virginia!

Feb. 2

Going Deep With Russ Baker, Why We Should Be Wary of Wikipedia, Russ Baker, right, publisher of WhoWhatWhy, author of best-selling Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, America's Invisible Government and the Hidden History of the Last Fifty Years, and longtime journalist and media critic, Feb. 2, 2023 (Part 1 of a Series). Probably the best kept secret about Wikipedia is that its “truths” largely protect the establishment — and that is baked into the formula.

Dear Reader: For many years, the Russ Baker page on Wikipedia has been under a clever and nuanced attack by parties unknown, operating as “editors.” The resulting text subtly questions my work, character, and judgment. The net effect is to give the casual reader cause to minimize or even dismiss my revelations — and me. The consequences of this are almost impossible to overstate, as they impact so many aspects of my life.

As with many things, I have always meant to get to the bottom of this, but just didn’t get around to it — nor have I been sure about what I could or should do about it.

What I found was, for me, hair-raising at times.

I now think it’s worth sharing this with others, as my own experience in the maw of the world’s dominant opinion shaper seems anything but unique.

What follows is a series of articles seeking to understand the phenomenon, and how it affects us all.

***

If you’re like me, and pretty much the rest of humanity, when you want to know something, you Google it. Invariably, at or near the top of the results, is a Wikipedia finding with your answer.

That is an astounding amount of power and influence for Wikipedia.

Wikipedia claims to be the place for us to understand… everything, quickly and simply.

Apparently we trust Wikipedia… why?

For one thing, Wikipedia is a nonprofit.

And it says that: Wikipedia is a place to learn, free from bias or agenda… Show the world that access to independent and unbiased information matters to you." — The Wikimedia Foundation

How does Wikipedia provide this “independent and unbiased” information?

Wikimedia, the foundation that hosts Wikipedia, allows anonymous individuals whose identity it does not know — and whose expertise or agenda it has not vetted — to create its content.

Some of these anonymous editors are relentless about creating negative perceptions of certain individuals and entities — and they are experts at it, rendering their subjects powerless to correct false or slanted information.

This is a serious issue that needs to be addressed and widely discussed. But is it? Not that I can see. I searched Google to see how much this has come out in major media.

I found a 2021 article in The Washington Post, written by Samuel Baltz, “a PhD candidate in political science and scientific computing and an MS student in applied mathematics at the University of Michigan.” He asserted:

Wikipedia is one of the few socially driven websites where, even though anyone can contribute information about breaking news, misinformation is largely suppressed. And Wikipedia’s coverage of current events often directs attention to its pages about ideas in political science, giving readers context for the news…

Wikipedia has developed an impressive record of political and ideological neutrality.

He then goes on to state that it “has serious biases in its coverage.” But what strikes me is that those biases are in the interests of the establishment media like The Washington Post. And, like the fox in the hen house, those media serve as the actual arbiters for whether information on Wikipedia should be trusted.

January

Jan. 31

New York Times, Investigation: At the Supreme Court, Ethics Questions Over a Spouse’s Business Ties, Steve Eder, Jan. 31, 2023. Chief Justice John Roberts’s wife recruits lawyers to top firms, some with business before the court. But her ties have raised ethics questions.

After Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. joined the Supreme Court, his wife, Jane Sullivan Roberts, gave up her career as a law firm partner to become a high-end legal recruiter in an effort to alleviate potential conflicts of interest. Mrs. Roberts later recalled in an interview that her husband’s job made it “awkward to be practicing law in the firm.”

Now, a former colleague of Mrs. Roberts has raised concerns that her recruiting work poses potential ethics issues for the chief justice. Seeking an inquiry, the ex-colleague has provided records to the Justice Department and Congress indicating Mrs. Roberts has been paid millions of dollars in commissions for placing lawyers at firms — some of which have business before the Supreme Court, according to a letter obtained by The New York Times.

In his letter last month, Kendal Price, a 66-year-old Boston lawyer, argued that the justices should be required to disclose more information about their spouses’ work. He did not cite specific Supreme Court decisions, but said he was worried that a financial relationship with law firms arguing before the court could affect justices’ impartiality or at least give the appearance of doing so.

“I do believe that litigants in U.S. courts, and especially the Supreme Court, deserve to know if their judges’ households are receiving six-figure payments from the law firms,” Mr. Price wrote.

In a statement, a spokeswoman for the Supreme Court, Patricia McCabe, said that all the justices were “attentive to ethical constraints” and complied with financial disclosure laws. The chief justice and his wife had also consulted the code of conduct for federal judges, Ms. McCabe said, including a 2009 advisory opinion that a judge “need not recuse merely because” his or her spouse had worked as a recruiter for a law firm with issues before the court.

Mrs. Roberts previously said that she handled conflicts on a case-by-case basis, avoiding matters with any connection to her husband’s job and refraining from working with lawyers who had active Supreme Court cases.

Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois and chairman of the Judiciary Committee, did not address how the committee would respond to Mr. Price, but said in a statement that his letter raised “troubling issues that once again demonstrate the need” for ethics reforms to “begin the process of restoring faith in the Supreme Court.”

Public confidence in the court recently fell to a historic low, polls showed, and Democrats in Congress have called for greater transparency, including stronger disclosure and recusal standards. The Justice Department declined to comment.

Mr. Price and Mrs. Roberts both had worked as legal recruiters for Major, Lindsey & Africa, a global firm based in Maryland. According to the letter, Mr. Price was fired in 2013 and sued the firm, as well as Mrs. Roberts and another executive, over his dismissal.

He lost the case, but the litigation produced documents that he sent to Congress and the Justice Department, including spreadsheets showing commissions attributed to Mrs. Roberts early in her headhunting career, from 2007 to 2014. Mrs. Roberts, according to a 2015 deposition in the case, said that a significant portion of her practice was devoted to helping senior government lawyers land jobs at law firms and that the candidates’ names were almost never disclosed.

“I keep my placements confidential,” she said in the deposition.

Mrs. Roberts, now the managing partner of the Washington office of Macrae Inc., had spent two decades at the law firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, where she became a partner in the global technology group and also focused on talent development. In 2007, she changed careers and soon ascended the ranks of her new industry. Partners at leading law firms in Washington on average make well over $1 million a year, and at the high end, they can be paid over $7 million. Recruiting firms take a large cut from those placements, often equivalent to a quarter of the new hires’ first-year salaries.

The spreadsheets list six-figure fees credited to Mrs. Roberts for placing partners at law firms — including $690,000 in 2012 for one such match. The documents do not name clients, but Mr. Price recalled her recruitment of one prominent candidate, Ken Salazar, then interior secretary under President Barack Obama, to WilmerHale, a global firm that boasts of arguing more than 125 times before the Supreme Court.

Jan. 30

New York Times, Manhattan Prosecutors Will Begin Presenting Trump Case to Grand Jury, William K. Rashbaum, Ben Protess and Jonah E. Bromwich, Jan. 30, 2023. The decision potentially sets the case, tied to Donald Trump’s role in paying hush money to a porn star in 2016, on a path toward criminal charges.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office on Monday will begin presenting evidence to a grand jury about Donald J. Trump’s role in paying hush money to a porn star during his 2016 presidential campaign, laying the groundwork for potential criminal charges against the former president in the coming months, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

The grand jury was recently impaneled, and witness testimony will soon begin, a clear signal that the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, is nearing a decision about whether to charge Mr. Trump.

On Monday, one of the witnesses was seen with his lawyer entering the building in Lower Manhattan where the grand jury is sitting. The witness, David Pecker, left, is the former publisher of The National Enquirer, the tabloid that helped broker the deal with the porn star, Stormy Daniels, right.

As prosecutors prepare to reconstruct the events surrounding the payment for grand jurors, they have sought to interview several witnesses, including the tabloid’s former editor, Dylan Howard, and two employees at Mr. Trump’s company, the people said. Mr. Howard and the Trump Organization employees, Jeffrey McConney and Deborah Tarasoff, have not yet testified before the grand jury.

The prosecutors have also begun contacting officials from Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign, one of the people said. And in a sign that they want to corroborate these witness accounts, the prosecutors recently subpoenaed phone records and other documents that might shed light on the episode.

A conviction is not a sure thing, in part because a case could hinge on showing that Mr. Trump and his company falsified records to hide the payout from voters days before the 2016 election, a low-level felony charge that would be based on a largely untested legal theory. The case would also rely on the testimony of Michael D. Cohen, left, Mr. Trump’s former fixer who made the payment and who himself pleaded guilty to federal charges related to the hush money in 2018.

Still, the developments compound Mr. Trump’s mounting legal woes as he faces an array of law enforcement investigations: A district attorney in Georgia could seek to indict him for his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state, and he faces a special counsel investigation into his removal of sensitive documents from the White House.

Mr. Bragg’s decision to impanel a grand jury focused on the hush money — supercharging the longest-running criminal investigation into Mr. Trump — represents a dramatic escalation in an inquiry that once appeared to have reached a dead end.

Under Mr. Bragg’s predecessor, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., the district attorney’s office had begun presenting evidence to an earlier grand jury about a case focused not just on the hush money but on Mr. Trump’s broader business practices, including whether he fraudulently inflated the value of his real estate to secure favorable loans and other financial benefits. Yet in the early weeks of his tenure last year, Mr. Bragg developed concerns about the strength of that case and decided to abandon the grand jury presentation, prompting the resignations of the two senior prosecutors leading the investigation.

One of them, Mark F. Pomerantz, was highly critical of Mr. Bragg’s decision and has written a book that is scheduled to be published next week, “People vs. Donald Trump,” detailing his account of the inquiry. Mr. Bragg’s office recently wrote to Mr. Pomerantz’s publisher, Simon & Schuster, expressing concern that the book might disclose grand jury information or interfere with the investigation.

For his part, Mr. Trump has denied all wrongdoing and chalked up the scrutiny — as he has many times before — to a partisan witch hunt against him. If he were ultimately convicted, Mr. Trump would face a maximum sentence of four years, though prison time would not be mandatory.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Bragg’s office declined to comment. Mr. Pecker’s lawyer, Elkan Abramowitz did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A lawyer for Mr. Trump, Ronald P. Fischetti, declined to comment, as did a lawyer for Mr. McConney and Ms. Tarasoff.

The panel hearing evidence about the hush money is likely what’s known as a special grand jury. Like regular grand juries, it is made up of 23 Manhattan residents chosen at random. But its members are sworn in to serve for six months to hear complex cases, rather than the routine 30-day panels that review evidence and vote on whether to bring charges in cases of burglary, assault, robbery, murder and other crimes.

Justice Department Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, left, and former President Donald Trump, shown in a collage via CNN.

Palmer Report, Analysis: Donald Trump is now in the process of being criminally indicted by grand juries in three different jurisdictions, Bill Palmer, right, Jan. 30, 2023.  When Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg decided last year not to criminally indict Donald Trump for his Trump Organization financial fraud, it seemed obvious that Bragg was simply trying to avoid being the first to indict Trump, and that he’d eventually indict him on something. After all, Bragg would have zero chance of reelection in Manhattan if he doesn’t end up indicting Trump.

Last week Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis told the court that indictment decisions in her criminal probe against Donald Trump were “imminent.” Now that Willis is seemingly just days away from indicting Trump, it’s perhaps not a surprise that Alvin Bragg is now also in the process of indicting Trump.

Bragg is presenting evidence of Donald Trump’s campaign finance fraud to a grand jury, per the New York Times. Specifically, Trump is being criminally targeted for illegally using campaign money as part of his payoff scheme to keep Stormy Daniels quiet. This is the same Trump criminal plot which previously sent Michael Cohen to prison. So all that Bragg really has to do is show that Cohen was acting upon Trump’s instruction.

Michael Cohen responded to today’s news by retweeting a reminder that he met with the Manhattan DA’s office just two weeks ago. Cohen also retweeted a reporter who stated that campaign finance charges could be the “most dangerous criminal case” against Trump, in terms of landing a conviction.

The public will understandably be wary of Alvin Bragg until he actually indicts Trump, given how badly Bragg has dragged his feet up to this point. But there would be no reason for Bragg to go to the effort of presenting a criminal case against Trump to a grand jury, and leaking to the media that he’s doing so, unless he’s already decided to go through with indicting Trump. Bragg was seemingly just waiting until word came down that the Fulton County DA is now just days away from indicting Trump, meaning Bragg will get to indict Trump second (or third) instead of first.

This all comes after Bloomberg reported roughly two weeks ago that DOJ Special Counsel Jack Smith was just weeks away from critical indictment decisions in his own criminal case against Donald Trump. This means Trump is now on track to be indicted by three different sets of prosecutors, each of which will put him on criminal trial. It’s been tricky to predict the timing, but this was always coming. And now we’re here.

U.S. Justice Failures, Scandals

New York Times, Opinion: Bill Barr’s Image Rehab Is Kaput, David Firestone, Jan. 30, 2023. Mr. Firestone is a member of the editorial board.

Former Attorney General William Barr has spent the last year in a desperate salvage operation for what’s left of his legal and ethical reputation.

During his 22 months in office, he allowed his Justice Department to become a personal protection racket for his boss, Donald Trump, and left prosecutors, the F.B.I. and other law enforcement officials subject to the worst impulses of the president. But then, in his 2022 memoir, Mr. Barr did an about-face, bashing Mr. Trump for lacking a presidential temperament and singling out his “self-indulgence and lack of self-control.”

In the book, he urged Republicans not to renominate Mr. Trump in 2024, accusing the former president of going “off the rails” with his stolen-election claims by preferring the counsel of “sycophants” and “whack jobs” to that of his real advisers. Clearly concerned that history was paying attention, he was even stronger in his videotaped testimony to the Jan. 6 committee, loosing a variety of barnyard epithets and bitter insults to describe Mr. Trump’s legal strategy. He said the president had become “detached from reality” and was doing a disservice to the nation.

The hollow and self-serving nature of this turnabout was always apparent. Mr. Barr never made these concerns public at a time when his dissent would have made a difference. Instead, he left office in 2020 showering compliments on his boss, praising Mr. Trump’s “unprecedented achievements” and promising that Justice would continue to pursue claims of voter fraud that he must have known were baseless.

But if Mr. Barr harbored any fantasy that he might yet be credited with a wisp of personal integrity for standing up for democracy, that hope was thoroughly demolished on Thursday when The Times published the details of what really happened when Mr. Barr launched a counter-investigation into the origins of Robert Mueller’s report on the 2016 Trump campaign’s ties to Russia. The reporting demonstrated a staggering abuse of the special counsel system and the attorney general’s office, all in a failed attempt by Mr. Barr to rewrite the sour truths of Mr. Trump’s history.

It was bad enough when, in March 2019, Mr. Barr tried to mislead the public into thinking the forthcoming Mueller report exonerated Mr. Trump, when in fact the report later showed just how strong the links were between the campaign and the Russian government, which worked to help defeat Hillary Clinton. A few months later Mr. Barr assigned John Durham, right, a federal prosecutor in Connecticut, as a special counsel to investigate Mr. Mueller’s investigation, hoping to prove Mr. Trump’s wild public allegations that the federal intelligence officials had helped instigate the claims of Russian interference to damage him.

Attorneys general are not supposed to interfere in a special counsel’s investigation. The whole point of the system is to isolate the prosecution of sensitive cases from the appearance of political meddling. But the new Times reporting shows that Mr. Barr did the opposite, regularly meeting with Mr. Durham to discuss his progress and advocating on his behalf with intelligence officials when they were unable to come up with the nonexistent proof Mr. Barr wanted to see. (Aides told Times reporters that Mr. Barr was certain from the beginning that U.S. spy agencies were behind the allegations of collusion.)

When the Justice Department’s own inspector general prepared to issue a report saying that, while the F.B.I. made some ethical mistakes, the investigation was legitimate and not politically motivated, Mr. Durham lobbied him to drop the finding. When that effort was unsuccessful, Mr. Barr reverted to his usual pattern of trying to spin the report before it was issued, disagreeing with its finding before it was even out. Mr. Durham then followed up with a similar statement, shattering the clear department principle of staying silent about a current investigation.

The two men even traveled to Britain and Italy together, pressuring government agencies there to disclose what they told U.S. spy agencies about the Trump-Russia connections. That infuriated officials of those governments, who said they had done nothing of the kind, and no evidence was ever found that they had. But on one of those trips, The Times reported, Italian officials gave the men a tip which, people familiar with the matter said, linked Mr. Trump to possible serious financial crimes. (It is not clear what those crimes were, and more reporting will be necessary to reveal the details.) Did Mr. Barr follow protocol and turn the tip over to regular prosecutors in his department for investigation? No. Instead, he gave it to his traveling companion, Mr. Durham, who opened a criminal investigation but never made it public and never filed charges, and when word began to trickle out that a suspected crime had been discovered, he falsely let the world think it had something to do with his original goal.

The Durham investigation, of course, has never presented any evidence that the F.B.I. or intelligence agencies committed any misconduct in the course of the Russia investigation, bitterly disappointing Mr. Barr and especially his patron, Mr. Trump, who had assured his supporters for months that it would produce something big. Desperate for some kind of success, Mr. Durham indicted Michael Sussmann, a lawyer who had worked for Democrats in their dealings with the F.B.I., over the objections of two prosecutors on the special counsel team who said the case was far too thin and who later left the staff.

Mr. Sussmann was acquitted last May of lying to the bureau, and the jury forewoman told reporters that bringing the case had been unwise. Mr. Barr later tried to justify the trial by saying it served another purpose in exposing the Clinton campaign’s starting the Russia narrative as a “dirty trick.” The trial did nothing of the kind, but it did expose Mr. Barr’s willingness to abuse the gratuitous prosecution of an individual to score political points against one of Mr. Trump’s most prominent enemies.

One of the other casualties of this deceitful crusade was the deliberate damage it did to the reputations of the F.B.I., the intelligence agencies and officials in Mr. Barr’s own department. All of these agencies have had many problematic episodes in their pasts, but there is no evidence in this case that they willfully tried to smear Mr. Trump and his campaign with false allegations of collusion. They were trying to do their jobs, on which the nation’s security depends, but because they got in Mr. Trump’s way, Mr. Barr aided in degrading their image through a deep-state conspiracy theory before an entire generation of Trump supporters. Republicans in the House are launching a new snipe hunt for proof that these same government offices were “weaponized” against conservatives, an expedition that is likely to be no more effective than Mr. Durham’s and Mr. Barr’s.

But weakening the country’s institutions and safeguards for political benefit is how Mr. Barr did business in the nearly two years he served as the nation’s top law enforcement official under Mr. Trump. He has a long history of making the Justice Department an instrument of his ideology and politics; when he was attorney general in 1992 during the Bush administration, the Times columnist William Safire accused him of leading a “Criminal Cover-up Division” in refusing to appoint an independent counsel to investigate whether the Bush administration had knowingly provided aid to Saddam Hussein that was used to finance the military before Iraq invaded Kuwait. Under Mr. Trump, Mr. Barr did the opposite, demanding that an unnecessary special counsel do the bidding of the White House and trying to steer the investigation to Mr. Trump’s advantage. His efforts came to naught, and so will his campaign to be remembered as a defender of the Constitution.

David Firestone is a member of the editorial board. Mr. Firestone was a reporter and editor at The Times from 1993 to 2014, including serving as a congressional correspondent and New York City Hall bureau chief, and was executive editor for digital at NBC News until 2022.

New York Times, Opinion: The Durham Fiasco Is a Warning of What’s to Come, Michelle Goldberg,right,  Jan. 30, 2023. Thank goodness Speaker Kevin McCarthy has created a House subcommittee on the weaponization of the federal government!

Last week, The New York Times reported on an outrageous example of such weaponization, the flagrant use of federal law enforcement powers to target an administration’s political enemies. I’m talking, of course, about the John Durham special counsel investigation, which was meant to root out the ostensibly corrupt origins of Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, and quickly came to embody the sins that Donald Trump and his allies projected onto the F.B.I.

Trump’s circle insisted, falsely, that the Mueller inquiry was a hit job that employed Russian disinformation — via the Steele dossier — to frame Trump, all part of a plot cooked up by the Hillary Clinton campaign. Durham seems to have bought into this Trumpist conspiracy theory, and to help prove it, he tried to employ what appears to be Russian disinformation to go after the Clinton camp. More specifically, he used dubious Russian intelligence memos, which analysts believed were seeded with falsehoods, to try to convince a court to give him access to the emails of a former aide to George Soros, which he believed would show Clinton-related wrongdoing.

Astonishingly, The Times found that while Trump’s attorney general Bill Barr and Durham, right, were in Europe looking for evidence to discredit the Russia investigation, Italian officials gave them a “potentially explosive tip” linking Trump to “certain suspected financial crimes.” Rather than assign a new prosecutor to look into those suspected crimes, Barr folded the matter into Durham’s inquiry, giving Durham criminal prosecution powers for the first time.

Then the attorney general sat back while the media inferred that the criminal investigation must mean Durham had found evidence of malfeasance connected to Russiagate. Barr, usually shameless in his public spinning of the news, quietly let an investigation into Trump be used to cast aspersions on Trump’s perceived enemies. (The fate of that inquiry remains a mystery.)

This squalid episode is a note-perfect example of how Republican scandal-mongering operates. The right ascribes to its adversaries, whether in the Democratic Party or the putative deep state, monstrous corruption and elaborate conspiracies. Then, in the name of fighting back, it mimics the tactics it has accused its foes of using.

Look, for example, at the behavior that gave rise to Trump’s first impeachment. Trump falsely claimed that Joe Biden, as vice president, used the threat of withholding American loan guarantees to blackmail the Ukrainian government into doing his personal bidding. Hoping to get Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to substantiate his lies, Trump tried to use the threat of withholding American aid to … blackmail the Ukrainian government into doing his personal bidding. The symmetry between accusations and counter-accusations, in turn, fosters a widespread cynicism about ever finding the truth.

It’s important to keep this in mind because we’re about to see a lot more of it. Now that they control the House, Republicans have prioritized investigating their political opponents. McCarthy has stacked the Oversight Committee, central to the House’s investigative apparatus, with flame-throwing fantasists, including Marjorie Taylor Greene, Paul Gosar and Lauren Boebert. Further, as Politico reported in a “field guide” to the coming Republican inquiries, McCarthy has urged Republicans to treat every committee like the Oversight Committee, meaning all investigations, all the time.

There are going to be investigations into Hunter Biden, and investigations into the origins of the pandemic. There will likely be scrutiny of the F.B.I.’s search of Mar-a-Lago and Biden’s handling of classified documents. And, as my colleague David Firestone on the editorial board put it over the weekend, “Republicans in the House are launching a new snipe hunt” for proof that the F.B.I. and other intelligence agencies were “weaponized” against conservatives.

These all promise to be congressional equivalents of the Durham inquiry. Certainly, most if not all congressional investigations are politically motivated, but there is nevertheless a difference between inquiries predicated on something real, and those, like the many investigations in the Benghazi attack, meant to troll for dirt and reify Fox News phantasms. House Democrats examined Trump’s interference with the C.D.C. during the acute stage of the pandemic. House Republicans plan to look into what the Republican congressman Jim Banks termed the military’s “dangerous” Covid vaccine mandates. There might be an equivalence in the form of these two undertakings, but not in their empirical basis.

It remains to be seen whether our political media is up for the task of making these distinctions. The coverage of Trump and Biden’s respective retention of classified documents offers little cause for optimism. Again and again, journalists and pundits have noted that, while the two cases are very different, there are seeming similarities, and those similarities are good for Trump. This is something of a self-fulfilling prophecy, since by speculating about political narratives, you help create them.

“John Durham has already won,” said the headline of a Politico article from last year, noting his success in perpetuating the right’s fevered counter-history of Russiagate. Of course he didn’t win; he would go on to lose both cases arising from his investigation as well as the honorable reputation he had before he started it. What he did manage to do, however, was spread a lot of confusion and waste a lot of time. Now the Republican House picks up where he left off.

Jan. 28

World Crisis Radio, Historical Commentary: McGonigal arrest focuses attention on nest of pro-Russian, pro-Giuliani Trump supporters in New York City FBI field office, aka “Trumpland,” Webster G. Tarpley

World Crisis Radio, Historical Commentary: McGonigal arrest focuses attention on nest of pro-Russian, pro-Giuliani Trump supporters in New York City FBI field office, aka “Trumpland,” Webster G. Tarpley, right, Jan. 28, 2023 (105:52 mins.). NYC field office holds key to sabotage of initial Trump-Russia inquiry of 2016, the failure of which helped Don prevail in presidential contest;

Scrutiny of Special Counsel John Durham reveals a blatantly political operative with no principles, eager to please Trump and Barr; Durham’s grotesque contortions to procure a conviction to feed the reactionary noise machine at Fox News; Two humiliating innocent verdicts brought back in mere hours; Four years of blind alleys; The Barr-Durham junket to Rome in summer 2019 that yielded no exoneration of Trump, but rather a possible finance scandal against the hotelier!

UK, France, Australia, Netherlands, Germany, Estonia and Poland had reported suspicious contacts of Trump campaign with Russia in 2015-2016; British GCHQ chief personally warned US;

With 15 NATO countries sending almost 100 modern main battle tanks to Ukraine, Biden’s alliance diplomacy continues to pay off!

Jan. 27

New York Times, Investigation: How Barr’s Quest to Find Flaws in the Russia Inquiry Unraveled, Charlie Savage, Adam Goldman and Katie Benner, Jan. 26, 2023. The review by John Durham, right, at one point veered into a criminal investigation related to Donald Trump himself, even as it failed to find wrongdoing in the origins of the Russia inquiry.

It became a regular litany of grievances from President Donald J. Trump and his supporters: The investigation into his 2016 campaign’s ties to Russia was a witch hunt, they maintained, that had been opened without any solid basis, went on too long and found no proof of collusion.

Egged on by Mr. Trump, Attorney General William P. Barr set out in 2019 to dig into their shared theory that the Russia investigation likely stemmed from a conspiracy by intelligence or law enforcement agencies. To lead the inquiry, Mr. Barr turned to a hard-nosed prosecutor named John H. Durham, and later granted him special counsel status to carry on after Mr. Trump left office.

But after almost four years — far longer than the Russia investigation itself — Mr. Durham’s work is coming to an end without uncovering anything like the deep state plot alleged by Mr. Trump and suspected by Mr. Barr.

Moreover, a monthslong review by The New York Times found that the main thrust of the Durham inquiry was marked by some of the very same flaws — including a strained justification for opening it and its role in fueling partisan conspiracy theories that would never be charged in court — that Trump allies claim characterized the Russia investigation.

Interviews by The Times with more than a dozen current and former officials have revealed an array of previously unreported episodes that show how the Durham inquiry became roiled by internal dissent and ethical disputes as it went unsuccessfully down one path after another even as Mr. Trump and Mr. Barr promoted a misleading narrative of its progress.

Mr. Barr and Mr. Durham never disclosed that their inquiry expanded in the fall of 2019, based on a tip from Italian officials, to include a criminal investigation into suspicious financial dealings related to Mr. Trump. The specifics of the tip and how they handled the investigation remain unclear, but Mr. Durham brought no charges over it.

Mr. Durham used Russian intelligence memos — suspected by other U.S. officials of containing disinformation — to gain access to emails of an aide to George Soros, the financier and philanthropist who is a favorite target of the American right and Russian state media. Mr. Durham used grand jury powers to keep pursuing the emails even after a judge twice rejected his request for access to them. The emails yielded no evidence that Mr. Durham has cited in any case he pursued.

There were deeper internal fractures on the Durham team than previously known. The publicly unexplained resignation in 2020 of his No. 2 and longtime aide, Nora R. Dannehy, was the culmination of a series of disputes between them over prosecutorial ethics. A year later, two more prosecutors strongly objected to plans to indict a lawyer with ties to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign based on evidence they warned was too flimsy, and one left the team in protest of Mr. Durham’s decision to proceed anyway. (A jury swiftly acquitted the lawyer.)

Now, as Mr. Durham works on a final report, the interviews by The Times provide new details of how he and Mr. Barr sought to recast the scrutiny of the 2016 Trump campaign’s myriad if murky links to Russia as unjustified and itself a crime.

Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary: What did the Italians tell Barr and Durham about Donald Trump's criminal activity? Wayne Madsen, left, author of 22 books and former Navy intelligence officer and NSA analyst, Jan. 27, 2023. In the fall of 2019, Attorney General William Barr and John Durham, the Special Counsel assigned by Barr to investigate the FBI for wrongly investigating Donald Trump and his 2016 presidential campaign for ties to Russia, flew to Italy to pressure law enforcement there to fess up that they were involved with the FBI in what was falsely called by Trump the "Russia hoax."

Instead of getting the goods on the FBI -- whose top counterintelligence agent in New York at the time was in bed with Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska --Italian law enforcement provided Barr and Durham with information that Trump was involved in a major criminal matter, including suspicious financial dealings. Barr assigned Durham, a pro-Trump shill, to investigate the matter, granting him, for the first time, criminal prosecution authority. Not only did Durham not find any evidence of a "Russia hoax" involving the Democratic Party, 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, or George Soros -- all of whom Durham had under investigation -- but the criminal matter conveyed by the Italians was never acted upon.

WMR had reported on a serious criminal matter involving the car bombing assassination of Maltese journalist  Daphne Caruana Galizia, right, on October 16, 2017 and its possible ties to Trump. Italian intelligence and law enforcement have kept a close eye on Malta ever since the 1970s, when the island country developed close ties with the Soviet Union and Libya. Although Malta is now a member of the European Union, the Carabinieri and Guardia di Finanza (Financial Guard), as well as the Agenzia Informazioni e Sicurezza Esterna (AISE) foreign intelligence service maintain a close eye on Malta, which has become a haven for offshore banking, corporate brass plates, and Russian and other foreign residents who have purchased Maltese passports and established residency in the twin island nation.

Caruana Galizia was assassinated after she had implicated Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, his wife, and top aides in a scandal partly exposed by the release of the Panama Papers. The scandal led directly from Malta to Azerbaijan and, ultimately, to the Trump Organization in New York.

Caruana Galizia was well-aware of Trump's connections to international wealth and political and financial power brokers. During the 2016 presidential campaign, she wrote on her website, "You can't get more establishment than billionaire Donald Trump, scion of an extremely wealthy WASP family. So the real problem is stupidity and malice. But then it always was."

And, as she found out a year later, you can't get more corrupt and murderous than Donald Trump. Whatever the Italians passed on to Barr and Durham about Trump, America's "Mr. Magoo" Attorney General, Merrick Garland, has a duty and an obligation to the American people to make that information public without delay.

Jan. 26

Charles McGonigal, left, former FBI counterintelligence chief in New York, and his alleged ally, Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, are shown in a photo collage.

Byline Times, Investigation: The Steele Dossier, the Indicted FBI Officer & The ‘Most Consequential Investigations in US History,’ Peter Jukes and Caroline Orr, Jan. 26, 2023. Christopher Steele is concerned his dossier on Donald Trump’s Russian connections was held up at the FBI Office whose head of Counter Intelligence has been indicted for working with one of Putin’s most powerful oligarchs.

News that a senior FBI official Charles McGonigal has been indicted for taking payments from sanctioned Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, and then trying to conceal those payments, raises deeply disturbing questions about the investigations he oversaw as head of counterintelligence at the FBI’s New York Field Office during the tumultuous 2016 presidential election,

The case, which is still unfolding, has particularly concerned the former British intelligence officer and Russia expert, Christopher Steele, author of the ‘Steele Dossier’ on Donald Trump and his Kremlin connections which was passed on to the FBI’s New York in the summer of 2016.

Steele told Byline Times that McGonigal had the opportunity to influence both “Trump-Russia and the (re-opened) Hillary Clinton email investigations in 2016, arguably two of the most politically consequential ones in US history.”

McGonigal, who has denied charges of money laundering and violating economic sanctions against Russia, was also a key figure in the FBI’s Cyber-Counterintelligence Coordination Section prior to being tapped to lead the counterintelligence division at the FBI’s New York Field Office a few weeks before the end of the presidential campaign.

Within weeks of McGonigal’s promotion to the new position in early October, the New York Field Office took centre stage as part of a scandal involving alleged leaks that ultimately forced then-FBI Director James Comey to go public with information about the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails barely over a week before Election Day — a decision that radically altered the course of the 2016 campaign and may have swung the election in Trump’s favour.

Although we don’t yet know whether or to what extent McGonigal may have been aware of or involved in these events, the allegation that one of the FBI’s most senior counterintelligence officials — who was tasked with overseeing some of the agency’s most sensitive and top-secret investigations — may have been secretly taking money from the Russian oligarchs he was supposed to have been investigating raises serious questions about his role in a series of events that, more than six years later, remains among the most pressing national security issues facing the United States.

Having worked as section chief for the Cyber-Counterintelligence Co-ordination Section at FBI headquarters during the height of Russian hacking around the looming election, McGonigal was named by the FBI’s then director, James Comey, as special agent in charge of the Counterintelligence division for the New York Field Office on 4 October 2016.

A few weeks later, close Trump ally and former Mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani, started dropping hints on Fox News about information coming from the FBI field office. On 26 October, Rudy Giuliani told Fox News’s Martha MacCallum that Trump had “a surprise or two that you’re going to hear about in the next two days.”

“I’m talking about some pretty big surprise,” he added.

Giuliani went on to boast of his close friendships with retired FBI agents, and though he denied having a role in Comey’s Oct. 28 announcement and the events leading up to it, he also acknowledged that he had “heard about it” from contacts at the FBI.

“I did nothing to get it out, I had no role in it,” Giuliani said in a Fox & Friends interview on 4 November. “Did I hear about it? You’re darn right I heard about it…”

In addition to Giuliani, FBI agents from the NY Field Office also reportedly leaked information to GOP Rep. Devin Nunes. According to Nunes’ own telling, in late September 2016, “good FBI agents” revealed to him — and possibly other congressional Republicans — that they had discovered more of Clinton’s emails on Weiner’s laptop.

Three weeks after the appointment of McGonigal, and in the closing days of the 2016 presidential election, James Comey made the unprecedented decision of announcing that the FBI was reviewing new emails possibly related to Hillary Clinton’s use of a private server due to information from the New York field office. Comey made the announcement in a letter to Congress on October 28, 2016, saying that agents working on “an unrelated case” had turned up new emails and were investigating whether or not the material was significant.

A Republican congressman, Jason Chaffetz, leaked news of the letter and misrepresented its content, tweeting that the investigation into Clinton had been reopened. The unrelated case, it was later revealed, was the FBI’s investigation into disgraced former Congressman Anthony Weiner. While examining Weiner’s laptop, investigators discovered that his wife Huma Abedin — a top aide to Clinton — had also used the laptop, which contained emails between Abedin and Clinton.

Jan. 23

Charles McGonigal, left, former FBI counterintelligence chief in New York, and his alleged ally, Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, are shown in a photo collage.

Washington Post, Former senior FBI official accused of working for Russian he investigated, Shayna Jacobs, Spencer S. Hsu and Devlin Barrett, Jan. 23, 2023. Charles McGonigal, a former counterintelligence chief, is charged with money laundering and other counts connected to oligarch Oleg Deripaska.

The former head of FBI counterintelligence in New York has been charged in two separate indictments that accuse him of taking secret cash payments of more than $225,000 while overseeing highly sensitive cases, and allegedly breaking the law by trying to get Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska, left, removed from a U.S. sanctions list, officials said Monday.

Charles McGonigal, 54, who retired from the FBI in September 2018, was indicted in federal court in Manhattan on money laundering, violating U.S. sanctions and other charges in connection to his alleged ties to Deripaska, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. In his role at the FBI, McGonigal had been tasked with investigating Deripaska, whose own indictment on sanctions-violation charges was unsealed in September.

Separately, McGonigal was accused in a nine-count indictment in federal court in Washington of hiding his receipt of $225,000 from a former Albanian intelligence agent living in New Jersey. McGonigal was also accused of hiding foreign travel and contacts with senior leaders in countries including Albania, Kosovo and Bosnia where the former Albanian agent had business interests.

McGonigal’s alleged involvement with Deripaska may impact a significant push by the Justice Department to hit wealthy Russians with economic sanctions for conducting business in the United States, an effort that accelerated last year with Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

The twin indictments are also a black eye for the FBI, alleging that one of its most senior and trusted intelligence officials was taking secret cash payments and undermining the bureau’s overall intelligence-gathering mission.

Through his lawyer, McGonigal pleaded not guilty at a brief court appearance Monday. The lawyer, Seth DuCharme, told journalists that his client "served the United States for decades in positions of public trust and leadership, so this is a distressing day for him, but we’re going to litigate the case in the courtroom.”

Prosecutors alleged that from at least August 2017 and beyond his retirement from the FBI, McGonigal failed to disclose to the FBI his relationship with the former Albanian security official, described as “Person A” in charging papers. He also allegedly failed to disclose that he had an “ongoing relationship with the Prime Minister of Albania,” the indictment said. Since 2013, Edi Rama has served as the prime minister of that country.

In late 2017, authorities charge, McGonigal received packages of cash totaling $225,000 from Person A — the first time, in a parked car outside a New York City restaurant, the next two times at the person’s New Jersey home. According to the indictment, McGonigal “indicated to Person A that the money would be paid back.”

Months later, at McGonigal’s urging, the FBI opened an investigation into an American lobbyist for an Albanian political party that is a rival of Prime Minister Rama, an investigation that used Person A as a source of information, authorities said.

Current and former U.S. officials who know and have worked with McGonigal said they were shocked by the indictments. As a senior FBI counterintelligence official, McGonigal had access to an extraordinary amount of sensitive information, potentially including investigations of foreign spies or U.S. citizens suspected of working on behalf of foreign governments, these people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the work McGonigal did. One former official said that McGonigal had worked with the CIA on counterintelligence matters.

Washington Post, Four Oath Keepers found guilty of Jan. 6 seditious conspiracy, Rachel Weiner, Jan. 23, 2023. The verdict is the the second of three seditious conspiracy cases charged in the U.S. Capitol breach.

Four members of the far-right Oath Keepers group were convicted of seditious conspiracy Monday, joining founder Stewart Rhodes in being found guilty by a jury of plotting to keep President Donald Trump in power by force.

Seditious conspiracy charges are rarely used and even more rarely successful, making the verdict a significant victory for the Justice Department. Of the nearly 1,000 people charged with committing crimes at the Capitol on Jan. 6, only 14 were charged with seditious conspiracy, identified by the Justice Department as not just participants in a violent mob but leaders using brutality to further a political plot. In November, the same prosecution team failed to convict three associates of the Oath Keepers of the crime.

At Rhodes’s trial only he and Florida Oath Keepers leader Kelly Meggs were found guilty of conspiring to commit sedition, while three associates were convicted of less politically loaded felonies that did not require plans to use force. The Oath Keepers verdict — which came after the jury deliberated for about 13 hours — comes as five members of the Proud Boys face trial down the hall on seditious conspiracy charges.

Joseph Hackett, 52; Roberto Minuta, 38; David Moerschel, 45 and Edward Vallejo, 64, were all also convicted Monday of obstructing lawmakers and Congress generally and conspiring to do the same. Hackett was convicted of destroying evidence by deleting it from his devices, while Minuta and Moerschel were acquitted on that charge. Hackett and Moerschel were acquitted of responsibility for damaging the Capitol’s historic Columbus doors.

The Oath Keepers were described by federal prosecutors as armed and dangerous traitors, and by their attorneys as hapless has-beens who stumbled into chaos.

“They claimed to wrap themselves in the Constitution, but they trampled it,” prosecutor Jeffrey Nestler said in closing arguments. “They ignored the will of the people,” he said, but “had the audacity to claim to be oath-keepers.”

U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta allowed all four men to await sentencing on 24-hour house arrest, noting that none of them had prior criminal history or issues on pretrial release.

Richard Barnett sits inside the office of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Jan. 6, 2021 (AFP Photo by Saul Loeb via Getty Images).

Washington Post, Man photographed in Pelosi’s office on Jan. 6 convicted of 8 counts, Paul Duggan, Jan. 23, 2023. An Arkansas man who entered the U.S. Capitol with rioters on Jan. 6, 2021, and was photographed lounging at a desk in then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office suite was convicted Monday of eight federal crimes related to the incursion.

Richard “Bigo” Barnett, who acknowledged leaving a vulgar written message for Pelosi before departing the suite with a purloined envelope bearing the California Democrat’s digital signature, sat impassively as a jury in U.S. District Court in Washington delivered its verdicts.

After eight days of testimony and legal arguments in Barnett’s trial, the panel began deliberating Monday morning and reached guilty findings on all eight counts against him, including four felonies, in less than two hours.

As for potential prison time, the most serious charge in the case, obstructing an official proceeding, carries a maximum penalty of 20 years behind bars. Based on previous prosecutions of Jan. 6 defendants, however, advisory sentencing guidelines used by the court are likely to recommend a much shorter term for Barnett.

He kicked back in Pelosi’s office on Jan. 6. Now he has ‘regrets.’

Although a prosecutor argued Monday that Barnett, who lives in Gravette, Ark., in the Ozarks, should be jailed pending his May 3 sentencing, Judge Christopher R. Cooper allowed him to remain on home detention.

Barnett, a construction company employee in 2020 and an ardent supporter of then-President Donald Trump, was carrying a walking stick equipped with a 950,000-volt stun device when he entered the Capitol with a riotous mob. Congress was meeting that day to confirm Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election despite Trump’s false claim that he had been denied a second term because of voter fraud.

In addition to obstructing an official proceeding, Barnett was convicted of two felonies related to carrying a dangerous weapon during the attack on the Capitol and a felony charge of civil disorder. The four misdemeanors he was convicted of included theft of government property, meaning the empty envelope.

Authorities said the stun device on his retractable walking stick was capable of rendering a person unconscious if held against the skin for 10 seconds.

Legally speaking, it did not matter to prosecutors whether Barnett sat or stood in the House speaker’s deserted office suite. His alleged criminal presence in the Capitol was the key issue in his trial.

But what brought him to viral notoriety was his decision to recline nonchalantly in a staff member’s swivel chair and plunk his left work boot atop the desk.

Like Jacob Chansley, the shirtless so-called QAnon shaman, who roamed the Capitol in face paint and horned headgear during the riot, and another accused trespasser, often referred to as the “zip tie guy,” who scaled the Senate gallery wearing military fatigues and carrying a fistful of plastic handcuffs, Barnett became an avatar of the Jan. 6 mayhem in widely viewed images captured by photojournalists.

Chansley was sentenced to 41 months in prison. The accused “zip tie guy,” identified by the FBI as Eric Munchel, is awaiting trial in U.S. District Court.

Jan. 21

World Crisis Radio, Commentary: Is Garland double-crossing Biden by demanding cautious deference in secret documents case before blindsiding him with a Trump-appointed special prosecutor? Webster G. Tarpley, right, Jan. 21, 2023 (97:55 mins.). Take Care Clause of Constitution makes President — not the Attorney General – the top law enforcement officer of US; This refutes Garland’s absurd claim of absolute metaphysical independence for DoJ as virtual state within a state; January 6 committee hearings shocked DoJ into August MaL search;

Garland’s claim to act based on fact and law only is refuted by his obsessive fixation on his own image and reputation; His rejection by Senate GOP must rank as greatest humiliation of his life, but is he seeking to restore his credit with Moscow Mitch?

If justice delayed is justice denied, Garland is violating the Preamble’s mandate to ”establish justice”;

The Mueller report detailed multiple cases of obstruction by Trump, but Garland has ignored these since January 20, 2021; Garland’s legal aid for Trump against E. Jean Carroll; Ending DoJ non-feasance is key to avoiding default and betrayal of allies simply by enforcing law against insurrectionists;

History of interwar period teaches that fascist movements can be crushed, provided they are confronted quickly!

Jan. 20

Going Deep with Russ Baker, Investigative Commentary: George Santos and Lisa Marie Presley: Media Missed the Story, Russ Baker, right, Jan. 20, 2023. Santos could have been spotted earlier; Presley stories leave out what mattered most: the effects of Scientology.

One of the most odious practices of large news organizations is acting like smaller news organizations don’t exist, even while taking or building on work done by those smaller outfits.

This practice has always been a problem, but many people are unaware of it because large news organizations do, very selectively, credit other news organizations. They do this either because they have sizable or consequential followings, and not crediting them would be noticed and criticized, or because some small news entities are perceived as somehow “hot” and, again, there might be consequences for withholding credit.

I was thinking about this issue the other day when I saw a clause in a New York Times article about resume fabricator Rep. George Santos (R-NY). Mr. Santos, 34, managed to keep almost all of it from the public until after he was elected, when an investigation by The Times independently unearthed the problematic claims documented by researchers and others that they missed.

Of course, the Times deserves credit for its excellent reporting in shedding light on Santos’s web of self-aggrandizing lies. But it was not the first news organization to do so.

As I noted in a previous substack, a small Long Island newspaper, the North Shore Leader, reported dramatic allegations about Santos’s disdain for the truth months earlier. Now, we don’t know whether the Times found that article online or not, though there is no reason they wouldn’t find it; it comes up with any Santos Google search. Most likely, the investigation began with a tip, if not with a mention of the earlier story somewhere else.

Given how powerful the Times is and how “early” it was on this story compared to most news organizations, it is understandable that the Times would continue to press its leading role for credit, perhaps angling for yet another Pulitzer Prize.

But I again want to point out that the questions about Santos were out there for a long time before the election, yet the Times did not publish its bombshell until after Santos had already been elected.

Lisa Marie Presley’s (Un)Timely Death

Journalism has often been slow to critically investigate big names, as opposed to an Average Joe accused by the system of doing something nefarious. That’s true of individuals, and it is especially true of entities known to respond aggressively to critics and news organizations.

Over the years, as I investigated the doings of the so-called Church of Scientology, other journalists professed admiration for what they considered “guts.”

They admitted that they personally wouldn’t touch the topic because of the organization’s reputation for aggressiveness toward anyone, from former members to outsiders, thought likely to air material that made the cultish outfit look bad. Decision-makers at news organizations sometimes explicitly told me it was not a “topic for us.”

And no wonder: Scientology is so aggressive that its leader, David Miscavige, hired two private investigators to stalk his own father, an outspoken critic of his son’s operation. Police who stopped the investigators’ car found weapons in the trunk, including a silencer. In addition, the FBI has probed allegations that Miscavige was involved in sex trafficking, slave labor, torture, and violent beatings of members to insure their obedience. But, as of December 2022, attempts to serve him with a lawsuit have failed because he cannot be found.

Thus, when I saw the bland coverage of Lisa Marie Presley’s recent death, with mostly brief mentions of her embrace of Scientology, I was not surprised.

The fact is that her mother involved her in Scientology circles while Lisa Marie was a child and she lived most of her life “inside.” (Elvis, however, would have none of it. After one meeting at the church, he stormed out, saying, “Fuck those people! There’s no way I’ll ever get involved with that son-of-a-bitchin’ group. All they want is my money.”)

That Lisa Marie and her mother publicly embraced Scientology was a tremendous publicity coup for a highly controversial organization accused by many, including high-ranking defectors, of being a money-hungry cult that preyed on people and inflicted substantial financial, psychological, and even physical damage on them. It has been accused of intentionally dividing families, threatening critics, employing blackmail, and outright brainwashing.

I knew she had some years ago cut ties with the organization after a lifetime inside, and had been quite outspoken about it.

Then I saw a disturbing report noting that she had figured in the criminal trial of another high profile Scientologist, actor Danny Masterson, who has been accused of multiple rapes. In a very troubling — and certainly illegal — action Scientology officials asked Presley to talk an accuser out of testifying; Presley complied. This fact then became part of the prosecution’s case.

Although a judge had ruled against having Presley testify, a new trial was due to start this year, and, this time, her testimony was possible.

And now she is dead....Had she lived, what would she have said at the new trial?

Despite the institutional wariness, some excellent journalism and books have been done on the topic of Scientology, and I doubt most well-informed people need me to lay out the sordid history. However, the media in general have not done enough to highlight how, by targeting big names for membership, Scientology has been able to make itself attractive to thousands, more than a few of whom say they suffered everything from destitution to severe mental health issues. The organization has also taken a ferocious attitude toward those who leave, and assiduously defended those who do not, especially the high-profile ones like Masterson.

One example of the elaborate use that Scientology makes of its stars was Presley’s surprising (and improbable) 1994 marriage to Michael Jackson. News organizations often mention the marriage matter of factly, although it’s hard to believe that any sentient journalist actually believes that the marriage was a true match of soul (or body) mates.

Left out was the fact that the pop singer’s marriage to Elvis’s daughter came on the heels of a string of scandals and legal problems around Jackson’s behavior with underage and even prepubescent male youths.

The marriage gave Jackson a most remarkable PR makeover — but it also benefited Scientology. Jackson was by far the biggest “get” for the church, a bigger icon than its frequently touted endorsers like John Travolta or the late Kirstie Alley, or even Tom Cruise.

I’ve been able to find only one major news organization, The Washington Post, that published actual speculation on the marriage itself and a possible Scientology role.

Jan. 19

Longtime advice columnist E. Jean Carroll, plaintiff in civil suits accusing Donald Trump of rape three decades again and defamation more recently, is show at left in a recent file photo along with Trump.

Washington Post, Trump thought photo of accuser was of ex-wife during deposition, Shayna Jacobs, Jan. 19, 2023 (print ed.). Donald Trump mistook his sexual assault accuser E. Jean Carroll for his ex-wife Marla Maples when shown a photograph from the 1990s in a deposition at Mar-a-Lago last year, potentially undermining one of the common defenses he has used to deny an attack.

Trump, who is being sued by Carroll, an author and advice columnist, for defamation and sexual assault stemming from the same alleged encounter, has repeatedly said Carroll is not his “type,” suggesting an assault could not have occurred because he would not have pursued her romantically.

“That’s Marla, yeah. That’s my wife,” Trump said under examination from Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan, in a new selection of excerpts from the deposition that was unsealed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

Trump’s blunder in a sworn deposition was quickly corrected by his attorney Alina Habba, who told him it was Carroll, not Maples, an actress and singer who was married to Trump from 1993 to 1999.

The top 10 Republican presidential candidates for 2024, ranked

Maples was Trump’s second of three wives and is the mother of Trump’s youngest daughter, Tiffany.

Trump’s lawyer did not immediately have a comment.

The black-and-white photo at issue has been circulating since Carroll made allegations against then-president Trump in 2019, detailing an account in her memoir of a forced sexual act during an encounter with Trump at the Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan in the mid-1990s.

Trump has denied having ever known Carroll, and in response to the photo’s existence, he has said in the past that he was often introduced to people at events that he didn’t know. In the deposition, he said the photo appeared to show him on a “receiving line,” possibly at a charity event, where he met and greeted guests.

New York Times, Support for Trump Is Wavering Among Nation’s Evangelical Leaders, Maggie Haberman and Michael C. Bender, Jan. 19, 2023. Former President Trump, who relied on evangelical voters in 2016, has accused Christian leaders of “disloyalty.” Can he count on them in 2024?

On Sunday, the Rev. Robert Jeffress, a longtime supporter of Donald J. Trump who has yet to endorse his 2024 White House bid, shared the stage at his Dallas megachurch with one of the former president’s potential rivals next year: former Vice President Mike Pence.

The next day, Mr. Trump lashed out at Pastor Jeffress and other evangelical leaders he spent years courting, accusing them of “disloyalty” and blaming them for the party’s disappointing performance in the 2022 midterm elections.

While Pastor Jeffress shrugged off the criticism, others weren’t as eager to let it slide, instead suggesting that it was time for Mr. Trump to move out of the way for a new generation of Republican candidates.

The clash highlighted one of the central tensions inside the Republican Party as it lurches toward an uncertain 2024 presidential primary: wavering support for Mr. Trump among the nation’s evangelical leaders, whose congregants have for decades been a key constituency for conservatives and who provided crucial backing to Mr. Trump in his ascent to the White House.

If these leaders break with Mr. Trump — and if evangelical voters follow, which is by no means a certainty — the result will be a tectonic shift in Republican politics.

“When I saw his statement, I thought, ‘You’re not going to gain any traction by throwing the most loyal base under the bus and shifting blame,’” said Bob Vander Plaats, an influential evangelical activist in Iowa and the chief executive of the Family Leader organization.

Mr. Vander Plaats said that while evangelicals were grateful to Mr. Trump for his federal judicial appointments and for moving the United States Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, many thought that his time as leader of the party has passed given how hardened many Americans’ views of him are. Asked whether Mr. Trump would command support among evangelical leaders as he did in the past, Mr. Vander Plaats, who has criticized Mr. Trump in the past, said, “No way.”

Indeed, recent polls point to some Trump fatigue among Republican voters. But it is an open question whether evangelical voters will abandon him if prominent Christian ministers support other candidates. And Mr. Trump has previously had an ability to cleave various types of conservative voters from their longtime leaders, as he did during his unexpected Republican primary victory in 2016.

Trump advisors John Eastman, left, and Rudy Giuliani speaking on Jan. 6, 2021 at a rally led by then-President Donald Trump outside the White House whereby speakers repeatedly urged the crowd to oppose the presidential vote certification process then pending before the U.S. Congress (File Photo).

New York Times, John Eastman Is Unbowed as Investigations Proliferate, Danny Hakim and Michael S. Schmidt, Jan. 19, 2023. A legal reckoning awaits a chief architect of Donald Trump’s effort to reverse his election loss. But in Mr. Eastman’s telling, he was far from a criminal.

John C. Eastman, a legal architect of Donald J. Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss, invoked the Fifth Amendment more than 100 times under questioning by the House Jan. 6 committee.

But in recently released testimony from the committee’s investigation, other witnesses had plenty to say about him.

Many White House lawyers expressed contempt for Mr. Eastman, portraying him as an academic with little grasp of the real world. Greg Jacob, the legal counsel to former Vice President Mike Pence, characterized Mr. Eastman’s legal advice as “gravely, gravely irresponsible,” calling him the “serpent in the ear” of Mr. Trump. Eric Herschmann, a Trump White House lawyer, recounted “chewing out” Mr. Eastman. Pat A. Cipollone, the chief White House counsel, is described calling Mr. Eastman’s ideas “nutty.”

In the coming months, Mr. Eastman will be facing a legal reckoning. He has been drawn into the criminal investigation into election interference in Atlanta, which is nearing a decision on potential indictments. The F.B.I. seized his iPhone. And the Jan. 6 committee, in one of its last acts, asked the Justice Department to investigate Mr. Eastman on a range of criminal charges, including obstructing a congressional proceeding. For good measure, he faces a disciplinary bar proceeding in California.

Attorney General Merrick Garland, right, announces last week his appointment of a special counsel to investigate the Biden government documents case. Alongside him is John R. Lausch, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. (Al Drago/Bloomberg News).

Washington Post, How the White House strategy on classified documents backfired, Matt Viser, Tyler Pager, Carol D. Leonnig and Yasmeen Abutaleb, Jan. 19, 2023. When sensitive documents began to emerge, Biden aides are said to have tried to defer to the Justice Department, lie low and avoid Trump-like behavior. They got a political firestorm — and then a special counsel.

One of President Biden’s personal attorneys entered the luxurious 10-story office building, so near the U.S. Capitol that its promoters billed it as “the front seat to power,” on a Wednesday last November to begin what seemed a mundane task: clearing out a rarely used office that Biden occupied after leaving the vice presidency.

The attorney, Pat Moore, went through a large closet and found nothing out of the ordinary, a person familiar with the matter said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation. Then he tackled a smaller closet, finding it stuffed with folders, boxes and other political memorabilia, including documents related to Beau Biden’s funeral, drafts of political speeches and boxes of personal books, the person said.

But next, Moore made a surprising discovery: a folder with a cover sheet saying it contained secret government documents. Moore immediately called another attorney and notified the White House Counsel’s Office, which in turn contacted the National Archives, according to two people familiar with the matter.

But if the way they found the classified documents was out of the ordinary, Biden’s lawyers were determined to be sticklers for the rules once it happened, said people familiar with their work.

Those first decisions inside the airy office complex at the Penn Biden Center at 101 Constitution Ave. NW launched a 71-day push by Biden’s team, federal archivists and the Justice Department to make sense of the startling discovery. It culminated in Attorney General Merrick Garland’s decision, to the deep consternation of many in the White House, to appoint a special counsel.

Interviews with people directly involved in the discovery and the subsequent fallout provided new details on the effort to handle the crisis created at the intersection of politics, intelligence and the law. Republicans and other critics say the White House was, at a minimum, slow to seek the truth and level with the public; Biden’s aides say they were simply proceeding cautiously in a sensitive probe and taking their lead from federal investigators.

Jan. 14

World Crisis Radio, Investigative Commentary and Advocacy: Biden and Yellen must prepare to ignore unconstitutional and illegal “debt limit” to prevent US financial catastrophe! Webster G. Tarpley, right, Jan. 14, 2023 (108:38 mins.). Treasury says borrowing authority will be exhausted by next Thursday, January 19, after which only cash conservation, tax receipts, and postponed payments will delay default; MAGAts ready extortion to launch genocidal austerity against American people; But XIV Amendment directs federal government to service the public debt; Yellen can order Treasury auctions to continue;

Following Sweden and Finland, Japan upgrades defense cooperation with US-in this case to ward off China and discourage attacks on Taiwan;

Putin’s cyber-war is prime suspect in UK Royal Mail breakdown plus failures of US and Canadian NOTAMS which disrupted passenger traffic here;

Santos campaign got large irregular contributions from Russian and Chinese sources, suggesting he poses risk to US national security;

McCarthy’s microscopic majority faces attrition if Santos, left, faces justice for campaign finance violations and is replaced by a Democrat, and more so when Jennifer McClellan wins February 21 special election for VA-4 seat held by late Congressman McEachin;

Past scandals provide context for future failures of McCarthy, Scalise (right), and Jordan;

New special counsel Hur is dyed-in-the-wool Republican linked to liberticide Federalist Society;

Garland pursues Fairness for Fascists while preening a non-existent reputation for integrity; Facts, law, but especially his precious public image are his lodestars; He belongs to same sleazy tradition as partisan AGs John Mitchell, Alberto Gonzalez, Sessions, and Barr; Remember Lincoln’s warning to legal positivists that the Constitution is not a suicide pact!

Sen. Murphy recognizes that robust immigration is necessary for US work force to compete with China!

Congressman until proven guilty? Kevin’s strange jurisprudence.

United States Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas (l) with his wife of thirty-five years, Virginia (Ginni) Thomas (r).

Proof, Investigative Commentary: Ginni Thomas Gave the Strangest January 6 Testimony By Far—and in Doing So Revealed Far More Than She Intended, Seth Abramson, left, Jan. 14, 2023. In “The January 6 Files #2: Ginni Thomas, Part I,” an ex-federal criminal investigator and criminal defense lawyer whose January 6 research Congress has cited unpacks January 6 evidence others missed. (Note: This report builds upon Proof’s many prior reports on Ginni Thomas: I, II, III, IV, V.)

Before the January 6 testimony of Ginni Thomas can be discussed as to its specifics, several broader points about her September 29, 2022 appearance before the House January 6 Committee must be established that confirm it as perhaps the strangest—and most suspicious—testimony ever received by the Committee.

These points include the following:

(1) Ginni Thomas lied about her testimony before it began. Thomas initially insisted that she “couldn’t wait” to talk to the House January 6 Committee, as she had nothing to hide. This itself was, apparently, a lie. Within a matter of weeks, Thomas’s attorney Mark Paoletta was attacking the Committee on several fronts, insisting that Thomas would never testify before it and falsely contending that Thomas had no knowledge of any events related to January 6 despite the fact that (by then) it’d been well established by major media that she was in contact with several of the major January 6 coup plotters in the latter half of 2020 as they were in the midst of their illicit plotting.

(2) Ginni Thomas chose as her attorney the former boss of a leading coup plotter. There’s a basically endless stock of high-end lawyers in America who are willing to jump onto a high-profile case, and that includes scores of well-respected conservative lawyers who primarily work in Washington, D.C. So it is truly inexplicable that Ginni Thomas, in the midst of claiming to have no connection to the Trumpist coup plots that encircled D.C. in January 2021, hired as her lead attorney for the most important legal imbroglio of her life Mark Paoletta, a longtime close professional associate of Ken Klukowski—not just one of the leading co-conspirators of John Eastman and Jeffrey Clark in the Trumpist plot to stage a historic anti-democratic coup inside the Department of Justice, but a man who Thomas specifically stood accused of having helped infiltrate the DOJ. Thomas’s choice of attorney alone would have marked her as running in insurrectionist circles, but in fact during her 136 pages of congressional testimony things got even worse—as she admitted to herself being a close associate of Klukowski.

Given that Thomas, right, knew this line of questioning was coming, her voluntary selection of Paoletta to represent her raises an understandable concern that she wanted a trusted and privileged conduit to Klukowski (Paoletta) to ensure that her testimony synched with his. Certainly, as we know from public hearings held by the House January 6 Committee this is a strategy many of the January 6 coup plotters have used: hiring lawyers intimately connected to Trump, his family, his inner circle, and his leading PACs, with formal joint defense agreements or informal information-sharing agreements (sometimes conducted against the will of the witnesses involved in them, such as Trumpworld lawyer Stefan Passantino’s apparent dismissal of his client Cassidy Hutchinson’s demand that he not share attorney-client privileged data with other Trumpworld figures) being used to pass information between conspirators.

Thomas could have avoided this appearance of complicity with leading Trumpist coup plotters, but she decided to indulge it, instead. And that’s not all, unfortunately: her own testimony before the House January 6 Committee, as we will soon see, offers compelling evidence that she herself sought—multiple times, even—to inappropriately make contact with other January 6 witnesses either directly or through her attorney (especially witnesses whose testimony could, based on all the evidence we have thus far, be problematic for her) which would seem to increase the odds that her selection of Klukowski’s friend Paoletta as her lead counsel was indeed a strategic decision.

(3) Ginni Thomas refused to testify under oath. To be clear, a refusal to testify under oath certainly does not equate to an intent to lie, but keep in mind that Thomas and her lawyer had loudly opined that not only did Thomas have nothing to hide from the House January 6 Committee but also that there was nothing of importance she could offer to it. Just so, her status as the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has, as she has at times conceded, opened social and professional doors for her and lent additional attention and weight to her words, so surely the flip side of that must be that if one’s spouse is one of just nine people in the United States who sit atop the nation’s jurisprudential superstructure, one must also (in addition to the myriad perks that come with that status) have some obligation—quite apart from the one Thomas already has from the mere fact that she herself is a lawyer—to respect government investigations enough to want to assist them to the best of your ability.

It is strange that media pundits so often note that Thomas is a partisan without simultaneously noting that she is also a lawyer, a judge’s spouse, a devout Christian, and someone who has worked for years in public service—all identities that would militate in favor of a person who says they have nothing to hide being willing to testify under oath in a duly constituted public inquiry (which the House January 6 Committee surely was).

Ginni Thomas refusing to testify under oath is so complex a legal, political, moral, ethical, and logistical question that it could easily give birth to its own report at Proof. Suffice to say that there is nothing normative, non-controversial, or simple about the decision, especially (again) since it was a decision made on the advice of a man extremely close to a man alleged to be a leading coup plotter.

Seth Abramson, shown above and at right, is founder of Proof and is a former criminal defense attorney and criminal investigator who teaches digital journalism, legal advocacy, and cultural theory at the University of New Hampshire. A regular political and legal analyst on CNN and the BBC during the Trump presidency, he is a best-selling author who has published eight books and edited five anthologies.

Abramson is a graduate of Dartmouth College, Harvard Law School, the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and the Ph.D. program in English at University of Wisconsin-Madison. His books include a Trump trilogy: Proof of Corruption: Bribery, Impeachment, and Pandemic in the Age of Trump (2020); Proof of Conspiracy: How Trump's International Collusion Is Threatening American Democracy (2019); and Proof of Collusion: How Trump Betrayed America (2018).

Jan. 13

Channel Guide, Investigative Report: Discovery’s ‘Gold, Lies & Videotape’ Unravels the Mystery of Victorio Peak, Staff Report, Jan. 13, 2023. New Series!

One family has been fighting for over 70 years to recover what they say is rightfully theirs: a $28 billion treasure buried deep inside a mountain in the New Mexico desert.

Some believe the U.S. government stole the 16,000 gold bars and priceless artifacts, while skeptics claim it never existed. Now, for the first time ever, in this six-part docuseries, the family and its supporters reveal exclusive evidence to prove their case, crack open the mystery of America’s greatest treasure story and reveal the truth of Victorio Peak.

Background research report by Robert Morrow, independent research historian and political advocate based in Austin, TX who befriended through long years of research author John Clarence, whose trilogy The Noss Gold formed the basis for the Discovery Channel series:

If you want to read about the astronomical greed and perfidy of Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and thieving military generals at White Sands Missile Range, this is the place to do it. This fascinating docuseries is running every Friday night during prime time on Discovery and is one of the most popular new editions to Discovery. Click here for schedule and program titles.

Information on John Clarence, the author of The Noss Gold: Born in Forty Fort, a small town in the hard coal region of Pennsylvania, John lived his youngest years there enjoying the benefits of Susquehanna River, the worlds’ longest non-navigable river, 444 miles long with 4 million people living within its watershed. The Susquehanna has another impressive history; above its smooth flowing current towered the longest stone-arch bridge in the world. When his family moved away, he left behind his best friend, Fritz, and his first heart throb, Connie, a wonderful red hair, blue-eye young girl; they were in the fifth grade. As a writer, the move to Las Cruces was the backdrop for the remaining days of his life. He still lives there.

When he arrived in Las Cruces in 2004, he moved into a private residence on Missouri Avenue; the Ova Noss Family Partnership work crew called it the “War Room.” he left there two years later and moved into White Sands Missile Range’s backyard and set up the second “War Room.” The following year he moved back to Las Cruces into the third “War Room” and began an eight-year non-stop writing project on the Victorio Peak treasure saga.

When he finished, he titled the volume, The Gold House, a non-fiction, three-book exposé on government and military corruption in the theft of gold from the Noss treasure. Finally, in 2022, he left for Long Beach, California and worked out of the fourth “War Room” in filmmaker Alex Alonso’s studio repairing video tapes and digitizing more than 55,000 ONFP documents and files. His name is John C. “Jack” Staley. He uses the pseudonym, John Clarence, for his written work, described here.

Washington Post, Opinion: Church Committee aide rips House Republicans: ‘A sad spectacle,’ Greg Sargent, right, Jan. 13, 2023. Because Rep. Jim Jordan is widely known as a statesman of world-historical stature, Republicans have been comparing the new investigative committee he will chair to the Church Committee of the 1970s.

Just as that storied panel exposed rampant intelligence abuses, the Ohio Republican vows his committee will boldly expose contemporary “weaponizing of the federal government” that’s similarly corrupt, lawless and pervasive.

But the analogy doesn’t ring true to a onetime aide to Sen. Frank Church of Idaho, the former chairman of the Senate Select Committee to Study Government Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, which was colloquially named for its chair.

“That is really an absurd comparison,” Loch Johnson, who wrote a book about his experiences as Church’s top staffer on that committee, said in a phone interview. “It’s really a sad spectacle.”

Yet the GOP attempt to reboot the Church Committee tells us a good deal about our current political moment, about the GOP-controlled House’s obvious intention to abuse its oversight function to protect former president Donald Trump and about what’s happened to today’s Republican Party.

Jordan’s committee will examine the executive branch’s “collection of information” on U.S. citizens, “including criminal investigations.” It will have access to highly sensitive information available only to the House Intelligence Committee. Republicans say Jordan’s panel will reveal how “the radical left” weaponized law enforcement against ordinary Americans.

The Church Committee of the mid-1970s actually did uncover extraordinary abuses by intelligence services directed at U.S. citizens — mostly of the left-wing variety. The committee was established after revelations that the CIA had been spying on antiwar activists for more than a decade, and its investigation probed FBI covert actions directed at the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. anti-Vietnam War protesters and many others (though some on the far right were also targeted).

It is widely understood that Republicans on today’s committee hope to paint a similarly lurid tale, this time depicting conservatives as mass victims of jack-booted oppression. But they are unlikely to find anything similar to what left-wing activists actually did experience in the 20th century.

“Driven by ideology and revenge,” is how Johnson, a professor emeritus at the University of Georgia, describes the new GOP committee. He predicts an endless “search for the mythical deep state,” the imagined instrument supposedly used by the left to persecute conservatives inside the MAGA information bubble.

Jordan’s committee will also likely seek to harass and undermine criminal investigations of Trump and even prosecutions of rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. We know this because GOP rage rises to its highest pitch in response to law enforcement activity directed at Trump. The GOP version of the Church Committee has no discernible aim of meaningful reform, but rather seeks to smear in advance what by all indications are legitimate law enforcement investigations into Trump.

“This is a protection operation,” Johnson told me, one designed to “protect the insurrectionists.” Because Jordan and other House Republicans are implicated in the events of Jan. 6, Johnson added, this is really “a self-protection operation.”

Jan. 11

Proof, Investigative Commentary: The Biggest Hole in the House January 6 Committee Final Report Has Been Found—and It Could Hold the Key to All Future Investigations of Donald Trump’s Insurrection, Seth Abramson, left, Jan. 11, 2023. In “The January 6 Files #1: Charlie Kirk,” a former federal criminal investigator and criminal defense attorney whose January 6 research Congress often cites unpacks January 6 evidence others missed.

In “The January 6 Files #1: Charlie Kirk,” a former federal criminal investigator and criminal defense attorney whose January 6 research Congress often cites, unpacks January 6 evidence others missed.

Introduction

The evidence is quickly mounting—after the public release of over a hundred January 6 witness transcripts by the House January 6 Committee in the final hours of 2022—that the plot to storm the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 had its origin in the Turning Point USA “Student Action Summit” (SAS) that was held just four miles from Mar-a-Lago between December 19 and December 22 of 2020.

Hours before that raucous far-right conference began, then-President of the United States Donald Trump—at the time just 72 hours from flying to Mar-a-Lago himself—infamously announced his endorsement of a “big” and “wild” event (which he termed a “protest”) that was slated to occur a nine-minute walk from the Capitol on January 6.

Documentary evidence now confirms that this December 2020 Mar-a-Lago-adjacent summit, which featured Trump himself as well as Trump family members and leading congressional allies, was used to shape the planning, funding, and logistics of a rally and subsequent march in January 2021—a rally and march that in turn helped set off an armed insurrection of a sort not seen in the United States since the American Civil War.

The summit, which brought together far-right radicals from all across the country and even threatened to turn violent—with “angry” and “tense” confrontations between attendees and local officials—was set up by Turning Point USA (TPUSA) founder Charlie Kirk, right.

Speakers at the summit included Donald Trump (by phone), Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, Lara Trump, Donald Trump Jr.’s soon-to-be-fiancée Kimberly Guilfoyle, Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, Trump domestic policy adviser Sebastian Gorka, and Trump foreign policy adviser Tucker Carlson. United States senators Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Mike Lee (R-UT), who would play critical roles as Trump allies during the horrifying events of January 6, also attended and spoke. Many less well-known far-right firebrands, like convicted felon Dinesh D’Souza and author/podcaster David J. Harris Jr.—the latter of whom was in D.C. on January 6, 2021—were also speakers at the summit.

Promotional materials for the several-day event, which was attended by thousands, promised that it would offer “first-class activism training” to all attendees while in turn “organizing” them for future political action. It promised to put these angry, tense, newly organized far-right activists in direct contact with many conservative “political leaders and top-tier activist organizations.”

Seth Abramson, shown above and at right, is founder of Proof and is a former criminal defense attorney and criminal investigator who teaches digital journalism, legal advocacy, and cultural theory at the University of New Hampshire. A regular political and legal analyst on CNN and the BBC during the Trump presidency, he is a best-selling author who has published eight books and edited five anthologies.

Abramson is a graduate of Dartmouth College, Harvard Law School, the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and the Ph.D. program in English at University of Wisconsin-Madison. His books include a Trump trilogy: Proof of Corruption: Bribery, Impeachment, and Pandemic in the Age of Trump (2020); Proof of Conspiracy: How Trump's International Collusion Is Threatening American Democracy (2019); and Proof of Collusion: How Trump Betrayed America (2018).

Jan. 10

Trump Organization’s former Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg arrives to court, Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023, in New York (AP Photo by John Minchillo).

Law&Crime, Ex-Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg Gets Five Months Behind Bars, as Judge Bemoans Sentence Couldn't Have Been 'Much Greater,'
Jerry Lambe, Jan. 10, 2023. "Were it not because I made that promise, I would not be imposing five-month sentence, I would be imposing a much greater sentence," Judge Merchan said in court.

Allen Weisselberg, right, the former chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, will be trading his office in the glitzy Trump Tower for a cell in one of the most scandal-beset prisons in the country after pleading guilty to a series of financial crimes in connection with his work for the former president’s real estate empire.

New York Judge Juan Manuel Merchan on Tuesday sentenced the 75-year-old Weisselberg to five months in prison to be served at Rikers Island immediately. He appeared to dress for that outcome, skipping his usual business suit in favor of a North Face fleece and navy sweatpants.

The judge said that Weisselberg’s testimony at the Trump Organization criminal trial, over which he also presided, gave him pause about the lenient prison sentence he had agreed to hand down in the current case.

“Were it not because I made that promise, I would not be imposing a five-month sentence. I would be imposing a much greater sentence,” Merchan said in court. “Most significantly was the $6,000 payroll payment to Mr. Weisselberg’s wife and the reason I find that so offensive is that it was driven purely by greed.”

Merchan explained how Weisselberg was “earning upwards of seven figures” and clearly “did not need that money.” However, he still “found a way” to make sure that his wife received sufficient payroll income so she could “one day benefit from social security payments she was not entitled to.”

The sentence was previously agreed to by Weisselberg and prosecutors in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office in exchange for the longtime Trump executive pleading guilty to 15 separate criminal charges and testifying against the Trump Organization and Trump Payroll Corp, which were convicted last month on more than a dozen felony charges.

In addition to the time in prison, Judge Merchan also sentenced Weisselberg to five years of post-release probation and ordered him to make full repayment of taxes, penalties, and interest due to New York City and New York State tax authorities totaling $1,994,321.

With good behavior, Weisselberg may be eligible for release from detention in just over three months.

Prior to the Judge Merchan passing the sentence, Weisselberg’s attorney, Nicholas Gravante Jr., asked the court to further reduce his client’s time behind bars, requesting that Weisselberg be permitted to serve the second half of his prison term under house arrest.

“Aside from fact that he’s 75 years old, Mr. Weisselberg has no criminal history. He does have history of military service and has fully accepted responsibility for actions in this case, poses no danger to community, and has already been punished severely,” Gravante said, adding that what his client has had to endured was “unique for this particular case.”

“The publicity in this case has exponentially increased the severity of punishment that he has had to suffer,” Weisselberg’s attorney told the court.

He then spoke about how Weisselberg’s grandchildren “saw their grandfather being led into court” earlier that morning, and said the shame his crimes brought upon his family “causes him more pain than anything else that’s been imposed on him.”

The only individual currently charged in the Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s investigation into the company’s roughly 13-year tax fraud scheme, Weisselberg in August pleaded guilty to one count of second-degree grand larceny, three counts of third-degree criminal tax fraud, one count of first-degree scheme to defraud, one count of fourth-degree conspiracy, one count of fourth-degree criminal tax fraud, four counts of first-degree offering a false instrument for filing, and four counts of first-degree falsifying business records.

Brazilian Coup Attempt, U.S. Ties

Brazilian, Other Fascist Attacks on U.S., Western Legislatures (Graphic via The Wayne Madsen Report).

Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary: We are in a global war on fascism: When will the Biden administration face that fact? Wayne Madsen, Jan. 9-10, 2023. As Ian Fleming famously wrote in "Goldfinger" -- "Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action."

The attack on the Brazilian National Congress, Supreme Court, and the Planalto presidential palace in Brasilia by supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro, dubbed the "Tropical Trump" is beyond coincidence. The attack on Brazil's government institutions is the fourth such major attack by fascist cadres representing a collection of anti-democratic cadres which include neo-Nazi thugs, anti-vaccine conspiracists, fundamentalist Christian extremists, and anti-social malcontents. In August 2020, such a group attacked and almost occupied the German Reichstag building in Berlin.

That was followed by the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol to prevent the certification of electors in the 2020 presidential election. Shortly after the January 6 attack, convoys of Canadian truckers attempted to lay siege to Parliament Hill in Ottawa, forcing the suspension of the regular order of business by the House of Commons and Senate. And on January 8, almost two years to the date since the January 6th attack, Brazilian fascists, aided and abetted by some of the same individuals who were behind the coordination of the attacks in Berlin, Washington, and Ottawa, stormed the government buildings in the Brazilian capital.

If fascist attacks on legislative bodies over the past few years includes assaults or other threatening actions targeting U.S. statehouses and governors' mansions, the insurrection in Brazil would count as the fifteenth such attack by fascists. The far right has also targeted the Legislative Assemblies of Alberta and Ontario and the parliament of the state of Victoria in Australia and New Zealand.

Four major attacks on the national legislatures of Germany, the United States, Canada, and Brazil in two years is enemy action. The enemy, the greatest global fascist threat since the Axis pact of World War II, represents a far-right coalition that includes Donald Trump and his chief political acolytes, including Steve Bannon, Jason Miller, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Tucker Carlson, Elon Musk, and others.

President Biden could take advantage of his current "Three Amigos" Summit in Mexico City with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to announce a global anti-fascist coalition dedicated to eliminate safe havens for fascist seditionists, Florida as but one example, and quick deportations, extraditions, and arrests of those who conspire to overthrow democratically-elected governments. That should happen today, not tomorrow, next week, or next month.

• Update: Bolsonaro coup backer Rep. Mark Green (R-TN) has just been made chairman of the Homeland Security Committee.

Then-U.S. President Trump is shown meeting, from left, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, Vice President Mike Pence and Bolsonaro Press Secretary Fabio Wajngarte (March 7, 2020 photo at Mar-a-Lago via Instagram).

Washington Post, Brazil’s riot puts spotlight on close ties between Bolsonaro and Trump, Michael Kranish and Isaac Stanley-Becker, Jan. 10, 2023 (print ed.). In August 2021, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s son traveled to Sioux Falls, S.D., to meet with some of the most prominent purveyors of former president Donald Trump’s false claims of mass election fraud.

Eduardo Bolsonaro had a dire warning for the group, which included Stephen K. Bannon, Trump’s former top adviser: Brazil’s electronic voting system was “ridiculous” and vulnerable to mass fraud, he said according to a recording of the event.

How Bolsonaro’s rhetoric — then his silence — stoked Brazil assault

The gathering was part of the prologue to events that unfolded in Brazil on Sunday, when Bolsonaro’s supporters stormed government buildings — smashing windows and assaulting police — in a striking echo of the pro-Trump riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Like Trump, Bolsonaro had spent months predicting mass fraud and then refused to concede defeat after losing his October election.

While no evidence has emerged that Bolsonaro or his son had a direct role in the rioting in Brazil’s capital, it is clear that the family fomented anger against democratic institutions — part of a playbook that reflected their deep ties to Trump and those who fueled his own push to cast doubt on American election results.

As Trump endorsed Jair Bolsonaro, right, for reelection, prominent U.S. election deniers made inroads with Bolsonaro’s movement and family, according to interviews and public documents. Eduardo Bolsonaro discussed election fraud with Bannon and lunched with former Trump adviser Jason Miller, while Donald Trump Jr. spoke remotely to a gathering in Brazil last year to push claims that outside forces were seeking to undermine Bolsonaro’s campaign.

In more recent months, Bannon has used his “War Room” podcast to stoke claims of fraud in Bolsonaro’s loss and insist that proof of systematic cheating was at hand. When rioters breached Brazilian government buildings on Sunday, Bannon took to the social media site Gettr to call the pro-Bolsonaro crowds “Brazilian freedom fighters.”

Bolsonaro’s new life as a Florida man: Fast food runs and selfies

The parallels between Trump and Bolsonaro show how an anti-democratic ideology embraced by Trump has been exported abroad and enlisted by foreign leaders and their allies. In addition to Brazil, Trump supporters have forged ties with far-right leaders in Hungary and other parts of Europe. While both Bolsonaro and Trump were ultimately cast out of office, with democratic institutions ratifying the will of voters, the recent turmoil has illuminated how deeply the Trump network has been enmeshed in Bolsonaro’s political world.

Washington Post, U.S. would ‘treat seriously’ requests to revoke Bolsonaro’s visa, Miriam Berger, Emmanuel Felton and Karen DeYoung, Jan. 10, 2023 (print ed.). Former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro arrived in Florida on Dec. 30, 2022 — two days before the inauguration of his opponent, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and nine days before a large group of his supporters stormed Brazil’s capital and tried to overturn the country’s democratic elections.

But his tenure in the Sunshine State, where some analysts believe he’s hoping to stay clear of possible legal trouble back home, could be limited. If he entered the United States on a diplomatic visa, he would have to depart by the end of the month or apply for a different status, the State Department said Monday, amid calls by some lawmakers to extradite the far-right leader.

The United States requires all visitors from Brazil to acquire a visa. But Bolsonaro’s legal status remains murky. Both the White House and the State Department have refused to comment on his visa status, citing the need to protect individual confidentiality.

Bolsonaro was still Brazil’s president when he touched down in Florida, and could have entered on an A-1 visa reserved for diplomats and heads of state. In an apparent tacit recognition that Bolsonaro could be using a diplomatic visa, State Department spokesman Ned Price said Monday that A-1 visa holders had 30 days to either leave or apply for a different visa at the conclusion of their term in office.

“If an A visa holder is no longer engaged in official business on behalf of that government, it is incumbent on that visa holder to depart the U.S., or to request a change to another immigration status within 30 days,” Price told reporters. “If an individual has no basis on which to be in the United States, an individual is subject to removal by the Department of Homeland Security.”

“It’s the responsibility of the individual to take care of it,” he said.

Several Democratic lawmakers have questioned why Bolsonaro has been allowed to remain after his supporters tried to overthrow Brazil’s democratically elected government.

The White House said that while it had not yet received any requests from Brazil regarding Bolsonaro’s “visa status,” it would “treat seriously” any inquiries to review or revoke it.

Politico, Biden to host Brazilian President Lula in February following storming of government buildings, Nahal Toosi and Myah Ward, Jan.10, 2023 (print ed.). The announcement came hours after Biden and his Mexican and Canadian counterparts released a joint statement pledging to support the recently elected leader of the country.

President Joe Biden will host Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, right, widely known as Lula, in Washington in February, the White House announced on Monday.

Biden extended the invitation during a call with Lula following the weekend storming of Brazil’s government institutions, according to the White House. During the call, Biden condemned the rioters’ violence and “conveyed the unwavering support of the United States for Brazil’s democracy and for the free will of the Brazilian people as expressed in Brazil’s recent presidential election, which President Lula won,” the White House said in a statement.

The announcement came hours after Biden and his Mexican and Canadian counterparts released a joint statement pledging to support the recently elected leader of the country, whose predecessor has fueled doubts about his legitimacy.

The statement of condemnation from the three North American leaders came as they attended a summit and as some Democrats called for that predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, to be kicked out of the United States. Bolsonaro is reported to have been staying in Florida after he skipped Lula’s recent inauguration.

Biden administration officials declined to say whether they were looking at kicking out Bolsonaro, but noted that the Brazilian government had not requested it. A Brazilian news organization, meanwhile, reported that Bolsonaro had been admitted to a Florida hospital because of abdominal pains, though that report could not immediately be confirmed. Agence France-Presse later tweeted the same information about the former president’s health and hospitalization, citing his wife.

Unwilling to accept his defeat, Bolsonaro supporters on Sunday stormed Brazil’s presidential, congressional and supreme court buildings. The events echoed the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol by supporters of then-President Donald Trump, a vocal backer of Bolsonaro. Like Trump, Bolsonaro has a strongman style and sought to sow doubts about the election he lost.

Monday’s statement from Biden, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador was terse, but it put the countries’ full support behind Lula.

Jan. 7

World Crisis Radio, Investigative Commentary and Advocacy: Death agony of Republican Party signals long-overdue US party re-alignment! Webster G. Tarpley, right, Jan. 7, 2023. In Pyrrhic win, hollow man McCarthy is finally elected as Speaker of the House on fifteenth [sic] ballot, but exposed as discredited and impotent hack seeking an office stripped of power; MCarthy’s rules package still risks defeat; Obscene GOP spectacle of chaos shocks US allies, offers aid and comfort to Putin and Xi;

Beyond the obvious soap opera, real program of House GOP amounts to genocidal austerity, debt default and national bankruptcy, betrayal of Ukraine and NATO allies, suicidal balanced budget amendment, demolition of Social Security, Medicare, Obamacare, and Medicaid; massive federal job cuts, border fortifications to block legal and illegal immigration, replacement of federal income tax and IRS with brutally regressive consumption tax, drastic defense cuts, ending of foreign aid (including food aid), and police state attacks on Democrats camouflaged by oversight hearings;

Russian secret police veteran Strelkov sees three rival groups contending to oust Putin; Russo-Japanese War of 1904 models how military defeat can trigger crisis of regime in Russia;

Demand for bills limited to one issue only has precursor in Confederate Constitution of 1861; exaggerated power of individual legislators recalls disastrous Polish Diet of seventeenth century;

Given the rampant MAGAt insanity, Biden and Yellen must prepare to ignore the spurious ”debt ceiling” as a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment admonition to pay the US public debt; Payments and Treasury auctions must occur on schedule, with no defaults allowed!

Lessons from Weimar: Hitler’s beerhall putsch of November 1923 failed, but change of tactics allowed him to become Chancellor on second try in January 1933;

Marking the second anniversary of January 6 fascist coup attempt, Biden honors heroes who defended Capitol and administered the 2020 election.

Jan. 5

Trump-supporting former law school dean John Eastman, left, helps Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani inflame pro-Trump protesters in front the White House before the insurrection riot at the U.S. Capitol to prevent the presidential election certification of Joe Biden's presidency on Jan. 6, 2021 (Los Angeles Times photo). 

Washington Post, Opinion: The awful corruption of Trump’s ‘coup lawyers’ demands accountability, Greg Sargent, Jan. 5, 2023. You are probably familiar with the term “mob lawyer.” It might now be time to inaugurate another, similar term: “coup lawyer.”

John Eastman and Rudy Giuliani were instrumental to the plotting and execution of President Donald Trump’s attempt to overthrow his reelection loss, and they corruptly abused their knowledge of the law to that end. Will they ever face real accountability?

Eastman and Giuliani are facing disciplinary proceedings and might even get disbarred. But if they are disciplined on overly narrow grounds — say, for making false statements — it would be a highly insufficient outcome. They should also face professional discipline that declares in some way that their efforts to undermine our constitutional order were central features of their unscrupulous professional misconduct.

Yet good-government advocates are beginning to fear that opportunity will be squandered.

Right now, the state bar in California — where Eastman is licensed — is investigating whether he violated ethics rules governing attorneys. And the bars in New York and D.C. — where Giuliani is licensed — are currently weighing the former New York City mayor’s fate.

In Giuliani’s case, a New York court temporarily suspended him from practicing law for making false statements in court — his lies about the 2020 election — and the D.C. bar appears focused on that charge as well. In Eastman’s case, it is unclear what misconduct the California bar is weighing.

But the option exists for disbarment on a broader basis, according to advocates urging this course of action. In California, New York and D.C., ethics rules provide for sanctions on the grounds of fundamental unfitness for the legal profession and deep contempt for the rule of law. Disbarment decisions should cite both lawyers’ efforts to help Trump subvert democracy as the basis for those violations.

Washington Post, Several documentary filmmakers have made Jan. 6 projects. Getting them released is proving difficult, Elahe Izadi, Jan. 5, 2023. Documentary filmmakers found reluctant subjects, wary distributors, polarization fears — and a long shadow from the hearings into the attack on the Capitol.

Nick Quested watched along with millions of other viewers as the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol doled out revelation after revelation in a series of live televised hearings last year. But for him, some of the findings were less than revelatory.

“Scooped!” he found himself thinking on more than one occasion. “Scooped! … Scooped again!”

A British documentary filmmaker, Quested spent several months following the Proud Boys, which positioned him for an intimate view of the far-right extremist group’s actions during the siege on the Capitol two years ago. His unreleased film is one of more than a dozen recent or in-the-works projects related to the Capitol riot — the kind of world-shaking event, fraught with unanswered questions, tangled narratives, stark human tragedy and startling visuals, that could be documentary fodder for generations to come.

But launching a Jan. 6 documentary right now is proving complicated for many filmmakers and producers. Some of the subjects are still too traumatized to talk about it easily. Some platforms and distributors may hesitate to take on such a project, concerned that the topic has become too polarizing or that it has already inspired too many films.

And then there was the Jan. 6 committee itself, which revealed so many compelling details about the attack through a rich narrative approach worthy of a hit prime-time serial — and, unlike filmmakers, had subpoena power to get certain subjects to talk.

The subtle stagecraft behind the Jan. 6 hearings

One of those, ironically, was Quested, who testified as a witness in the first of the much-watched hearings this past summer and shared some of his film footage in response to a subpoena. Now, as he continues to labor on his project, he prefers not to mull whether the Jan. 6 hearings stole his thunder.

“This is too important to be selfish about your film at this point,” he said. “This is our collective future that we’re discussing here.”

Going Deep, Investigative Commentary: JFK Murder: Evolving Strategies for Damage Control, Russ Baker and Milicent Cranor, Jan. 5, 2023. More revisions upon revisions. What next?

After 60 years, establishment figures are increasingly voicing the belief that government agencies and officials might have at least covered up critical information about the assassination plot to kill President John F. Kennedy. And one major interpreter of history is even going so far as to suggest a key governmental entity took delight in JFK’s demise.

Nonetheless, they’re still behind the curve of public opinion. And even in their new posture, they appear to be playing a game of denial.

Most Americans don’t buy the official story of one disgruntled loner coincidentally securing a job along an as-yet-undetermined presidential motorcade route, then, once the route information was public, deciding spontaneously to bring a rifle and thereby altering the course of history.

And most people who have studied the copious research done over the years are even more sure that it’s hooey. (As was a 1970s panel, the House Select Committee on Assassinations, which concluded there was seemingly some kind of conspiracy involving more than one person). That’s why at least some of us keep on digging.

After Oliver Stone’s movie, JFK, swung public opinion on the issue in the early 1990s, Congress unanimously mandated that the government find and release all documents on the assassination. By 2017, a quarter-century later, all the documents were supposed to be out. But delays dragged on as federal agencies sought more time to review, redact, or outright withhold documents that might somehow breach individuals’ privacy or harm national security.

Still, more documents have slowly emerged, and finally, in December, the National Archives and Records Administration (“Archives”) let loose online another pile of faint, eye-straining documents related to the Kennedy assassination — 13,173 of them. The agency says that pretty much everything covered by the JFK Records Act of 1992 is now out, except a handful of papers protected by other laws involving IRS documents or those protected by rules around judicial proceedings like grand juries.

The commercial media’s reaction to this “final” release was, with one notable exception, pretty much what you would expect.

• Oswald did it alone. Nothing to see here folks, move right along.
• Oswald did it alone. And here’s more proof that he did it.
• Oswald did it alone. The CIA has been hiding things, but for reasons that had nothing to do with the assassination.
• The exception: Oswald alone pulled the trigger — but maybe others were involved.

Setting the Stage

This last version — that maybe others were involved — was speculation on the part of the historian Michael Beschloss, on NBC News Now, a day after the records were released.

Based on our long-term study of how “uncomfortable truths” are managed for public consumption, it is possible that this explanation will be softly promoted to prepare the public for any future semi-revelations, pieced together by savvy and conscientious researchers, that at least in part contradict the conclusions of the Warren Commission, which in 1964 became the formal government pronouncement on the matter.

Beschloss’s role here is important because he seems to have been anointed as one of a long string of go-to interpreters of all things presidential, hence all things Kennedy, hence all things related to the assassination.

It’s hard to overstate the extent to which Beschloss has attained the loving embrace of the establishment.

Here are only a few of his titles, in an untidy pile: trustee of the White House Historical Association and the National Archives Foundation; board member of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History; trustee of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation; trustee of the Miller Center of Public Affairs; a visiting scholar at the Harvard University Russian Research Center; chair of the annual Robert F. Kennedy Book Awards; and… that’s quite enough.

Who could or would ever doubt that anything this man says must be authoritative and settle all disagreements?

He’s hardly alone in fulfilling the system’s longstanding imperative that every single political assassination in US history be seen as the work of lone, or near-lone, lunatics — with nary a possibility of “executive action” by some entity or faction. In other words, the US must see itself, and present itself, as utterly unlike just about every other country on earth, where, when a leader is killed, suspicion immediately turns to powerful elements with a stake in the leader’s removal.

Others only too glad to serve the cause, and receive the professional rewards for doing so, include an army of up-and-coming “reporters” in major news organizations, who themselves are unfamiliar with the massive amount of research done over the years that does not point to the “Oswald presidential assassin” scenario.

For example, take NBC’s White House correspondent, Monica Alba. She made a brief, but remarkably deceptive announcement, just before Beschloss was brought into the discussion. She said that, from these newly released documents, they are now learning, in her words:
... new details about Lee Harvey Oswald’s time in Mexico City and a wiretap that had collected some information about what he had said there in relation to wanting to kill John F. Kennedy.

We have the relevant document on that wiretap, a CIA report on all of the recorded phone conversations by someone claiming to be Oswald with Soviet Embassy personnel — and we read every word of it. Not once does “Oswald” say anything at all about Kennedy, let alone killing him, on those tapes.

The phone calls were all about “Oswald” trying to get a visa to the Soviet Union, and being able to wait in Cuba while it would have been processed.
In this same report, the CIA also expressed doubt that, contrary to what many were saying, Oswald was conspiring with the Russians:

The very openness of his visits and the phone calls speak against any secret role. His trip to Mexico was not itself a secret act; he traveled under his real name or a close variant of it… corresponded with the Soviets through the open mails… (page 18)

Certainly if Oswald had been a Soviet agent in training for an assassination assignment or even sabotage work, the Soviets would have stopped him from making open visits and phone calls to the Soviet Embassy in Mexico after he tried it a couple of times. (page 20)

Beschloss, who spoke immediately after Alba on the same NBC show, praised her brief report — and did not correct it. (Beschloss did not respond to emails requesting comment.)

This Is What They’ve Been Hiding?

Beschloss then went on to provide what seems meant to explain one reason certain documents have been withheld: He actually claims that the former director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, and perhaps others, knew in advance that a so-called Soviet defector would be in the book depository window the day Kennedy would be driven by — and that they did nothing to have him removed.

Beschloss speculates this is possibly because Hoover and his colleagues “hated and disapproved of” Kennedy; and that, if Americans had known all this, they would have had Hoover prosecuted.

This of course is an astonishing claim being made by a major figure, yet it passed without further comment. It also goes to the growing desperation of the establishment to head off at the pass any further movement in the direction of a broader conspiracy.

To fall back on the idea that the head of the FBI either didn’t care whether Kennedy was assassinated or passively hoped that he would be means that the needle continues to move toward acceptance that, as the Rolling Stones sang in “Sympathy for the Devil”:

I shouted out “Who killed the Kennedys?”

When after all, it was you and me

In other words, that the death of political figures has been somehow sanctioned and approved by the leading elements of our establishment, far beyond one person or even agency.

Philip Shenon, a former New York Times reporter and author of A Cruel and Shocking Act: The Secret History of the Kennedy Assassination, echoes this same damage control strategy. He told the BBC:

I suspect there may be information in these documents to suggest that … Oswald was a danger and that he may have talked openly about his intention to kill the president. And the question has always been: did the agencies of government, the CIA and FBI, have some sense that this man was a danger to President Kennedy, and if they had acted on that information could they have saved the president?"

Michael Isikoff, a longtime national security correspondent at Newsweek now working for Yahoo News, takes a more cautious stance of after-the-fact posterior-covering for security failures:

What emerges from this account is not so much a portrait of CIA officials horror-struck that their role in the president’s murder might be exposed but of government bureaucrats scrambling to find details about the accused assassin and cover themselves, no doubt worried that they might be blamed for not paying more attention to him before the murder.

Getting back to Beschloss, he ended his report with another startling remark — his main takeaway from the documents — that it seems less and less likely that Oswald acted alone. But he also said, with great confidence, “Oswald pulled the trigger.”

***

Another thing that is supposed to explain the secrecy — something that, so far, seems to have attracted much more attention than the above: The wiretap operation targeting the Soviet Embassy was a joint CIA effort with the office of the Mexican president, an arrangement that was “highly secret and not even known to Mexican security and law enforcement officials.” Several news organizations — including The New York Times — made much of this.

But no matter what the pundits say in nearly all the stories on the records release, one point stands out above all else: Oswald is always blamed as the one and only shooter.

In a New York Post article on Mary Ferrell, a longtime researcher who died decades ago and after whom a nonprofit foundation dedicated to JFK records is named, foundation founder Oliver Curme is quoted as saying Ferrell “was never able to find ‘the smoking gun’ evidence of whom Oswald might have been working for, or why the US government might have been covering up the assassination.”

And the same point was made in Newsweek, which said Oswald’s involvement with the CIA reignited questions “about whether Oswald truly was alone in his decision to kill the youngest man ever elected president.”

The Fox Factor

Various JFK researchers got a welcome and rare opportunity to present in commercial media.

Tucker Carlson — not usually known as a purveyor of reliable, accurate, and agenda-free systemic critiques — nonetheless surprised longtime researchers with a perspective rare on television. In his opening monologue on his December 15 show, he weighed in unambiguously on the controversy — and then claimed new information from an exclusive source.

Some critical excerpts:

The government’s explanation didn’t seem entirely plausible. And some people started asking obvious questions about it. It was at that point, as Americans started to doubt the official story, that the term “conspiracy theory” entered our lexicon. As Professor Lance DeHaven-Smith points out in his book on the subject, “The term conspiracy theory did not exist as a phrase in everyday American conversation before 1964. In 1964, the year the Warren Commission issued its report, The New York Times published five stories in which ‘conspiracy theory’ appeared.”

Now, today, of course, the term “conspiracy theory” appears in pretty much every New York Times story about American politics. It’s wielded, now as then, as a weapon against anyone who asks questions the government doesn’t feel like answering. But despite 60 years of name-calling, those questions have not disappeared. In fact, they have multiplied with time.

And here’s one of them. In April of 1964, a psychiatrist called Louis Jolyon West visited Jack Ruby in his isolation cell in a Dallas jail. According to West’s written assessment, he found that Jack Ruby was “technically insane” and in need of immediate psychiatric hospitalization. Those are conclusions that puzzlingly no one who had spoken to Jack Ruby previously had reached. … But what West neglected to say was that he was working for the CIA at the time. Louis Jolyon West was a contract psychiatrist for the spy agency. He was also an expert on mind control and a prominent player in the now infamous MKUltra program in which the CIA gave powerful psychiatric drugs to Americans without their knowledge.

Carlson went on to question why so many records are still being withheld, and he quotes a mysterious source:

We spoke to someone who had access to these still hidden CIA documents. … We asked this person directly, “Did the CIA have a hand in the murder of John F. Kennedy, an American President? And here’s the reply we received verbatim. Quote: ‘The answer is yes. I believe they were involved. It’s a whole different country from what we thought it was. It’s all fake.’”

While we have no reason to doubt this answer, the choice of words seems to reflect some hesitancy: “I believe” sounds more like an opinion, based on indirect evidence, rather than an acknowledgement of having seen unambiguous verbal proof. It’s almost as if he’s not really tattling… at all. Although assassination researchers desperate for acknowledgement of the truth from big media were glad to get anything — even from Carlson — the fact is he appears to have oversold the comment. Why would he do that? Was it to seal the deal against the CIA?

As for who this anonymous source is, Jacob G. Hornberger of The Future for Freedom Foundation, thinks he knows who: Donald Trump. Because of what Judge Andrew Napolitano, a former Fox judicial analyst, said in an interview on November 8:

I once had a conversation … with President Trump when he was in the White House. He used to call me all the time. And we talked about everything under the sun. I said, “Are you going to release those documents or not?” And he said to me, “If you saw what I saw, you wouldn’t release them.”

Can you imagine Trump keeping such information to himself? Hornberger, whose libertarian focus invariably leads to highlighting real or perceived government abuses, has an idea why that may be:

One possibility is that the CIA “Hoovered” Trump into continuing to keep the CIA’s decades-old assassination-related records secret. By “Hoovered” I am referring to J. Edgar Hoover, who was a serial blackmailer when he was serving as FBI director. Hoover would acquire personal information about people with the aim of blackmailing them into bending them to his will… If they refused…

If true, this might indicate that Trump, despite his claimed boldness, is just like virtually every other president: afraid to tangle with the CIA.

Jan. 4

Washington Post, Jan. 6 papers detail infighting, ‘chaos’ among extremist organizers, Hannah Allam, Jan. 4, 2023 (print ed.). Newly released documents zoom in on the role of far-right militants and conspiracy theorists.

How do we know that the architects of a pro-Trump rally that spiraled into insurrection were right-wing extremists? They said so themselves, according to newly released witness interviews from the House select committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

But it doesn’t mean they were all on the same page.

Thousands of pages of documents made public in recent weeks portray promoters of the Stop the Steal movement as backstabbing rivals who viewed one another as “crazies,” “extremists,” “nutty,” and “white supremacist.” The documents include a text exchange in which former senior Trump adviser Hope Hicks, while watching the Capitol rioting unfold, lamented, “We all look like domestic terrorists now.”

The behind-the-scenes chaos detailed in the report underlines how the risk of violence that day was known in advance, causing alarm even among some organizers who said they had qualms about working with fellow pro-MAGA factions such as the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, extremist groups whose members later were charged in the attack.

“I don’t think that we should be out there inciting people,” Amy Kremer of Women for America First told the committee of another organizer’s public chant of “victory or death.”

The documents offer glimpses into other aspects of national right-wing organizing: leaders’ proximity to power, a tolerance for violent rhetoric, fierce infighting, and the role of “grifters” who make their living by stoking conservative outrage. The committee traces this mobilization to Trump, going back to a 2015 campaign-trail interview with conspiracy theorist Alex Jones to show how Trump “normalized” the extremist factions that later rallied supporters to march on the Capitol.

Here are five examples of how the latest documents shed light on the militant, conspiratorial movements that have gained a toehold in mainstream Republican politics:

Washington Post, Fact Checker Analysis: Jan. 6 committee yet again debunks Trump claim of 10,000 troops, Glenn Kessler, Jan. 4, 2023.

“The highly partisan Unselect Committee Report purposely fails to mention the failure of Pelosi to heed my recommendation for troops to be used in D.C.”

— former president Donald Trump, in a post on Truth Social, Dec. 22

Trump and his defenders have repeatedly claimed that the violence at the Capitol two years ago would have been prevented if only his order for 10,000 troops had been heeded. We have explored this claim twice before and debunked it, each time awarding Four Pinocchios.

But now the Jan. 6 committee has released its report and dozens of transcribed interviews that provide new details on the meetings in which Trump claims he requested troops at the Capitol.

Trump, in his post, says he made a “recommendation for troops” and that then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) failed to act on it. But the evidence shows Trump did not issue any formal request — so there was nothing for Pelosi to heed. The committee report says it found “no evidence” to support the claim that he ordered 10,000 troops.

Moreover, the committee said that when he referenced so many troops, it was not because he wanted to protect the Capitol. He “floated the idea of having 10,000 National Guardsmen deployed to protect him and his supporters from any supposed threats by left-wing counterprotesters,” the report said.

The report says that Trump brought up the issue on at least three occasions but in such vague and obtuse ways that no senior official regarded his words as an order. Here’s what we know now about his statements at the time:

Justice Department Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, left, and former President Donald Trump, shown in a collage via CNN.

Washington Post, Jack Smith returns to U.S. weeks after becoming Trump special counsel, Perry Stein and  Devlin Barrett, Jan. 4, 2023 (print ed.). Tasked with two Trump-related investigations, the former war crimes prosecutor has returned from Europe, people familiar with the situation said

Washington Post, Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Jan. 6 panel he’s become a political ‘lightning rod,’ Dan Lamothe, Jan. 4, 2023 (print ed.). The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff spoke with congressional investigators about a ‘deliberate attempt’ to smear the military’s general officer corps.

The Pentagon’s top general told congressional investigators scrutinizing the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol that he has become a “lightning rod for the politicization of the military,” decrying critics who have sought to “smear” him and the Defense Department’s other senior leaders.

Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, offered the assessment during a remarkable portion of his discussion with the House select committee in November of that year. The panel in recent days released Milley’s interview transcript along with dozens of other documents as its work drew to a close.

He cited as one example the backlash he faced upon telling lawmakers in separate testimony months earlier that he wanted to “understand White rage,” a statement prompted by Republicans who had criticized leaders at the U.S. Military Academy for allowing cadets to learn about critical race theory. The academic framework centers on the concept that racism is systemic and not just exhibited by prejudiced people.

Milley told the Jan. 6 committee that he is “constantly strung out” along with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and other top officials at the Pentagon. The military, he said, must avoid such fights.

“I think it’s fundamental to the health of the republic that we have an apolitical military,” Milley said in his testimony. “And apolitical means nonpartisan, neither Democrat nor Republican, and we execute the lawful orders of the civilian leadership that’s appointed over us. The key is ‘lawful’ orders, and therein lie some judgment calls.”

Milley addressed a range of issues during the Nov. 17, 2021, interview, including the Pentagon’s response to the Capitol riot, how senior defense officials navigated President Donald Trump’s tumultuous final year in office, and what Milley did to reassure U.S. allies and adversaries after Trump’s refusal to accept the election results culminated in an eruption of violence.

Jan. 3

New York Times, As Jan. 6 Panel Closes, More Evidence Trump Planned to Join Protesters, Luke Broadwater, Maggie Haberman, Alan Feuer and Emily Cochrane, Jan. 3, 2023 (print ed.). One top aide wrote in a note on Jan. 6 that former President Trump had wanted to walk alongside the crowd as it descended on Congress; Since Friday, the panel has released a whirlwind of files, including an adviser’s testimony that Mr. Trump seemed to acknowledge his election loss.

The nation’s top military officer saw the Jan. 6 attack as similar to the “Reichstag moment” that led to Nazi dictatorship. Aides for former President Donald J. Trump saw their future job opportunities slipping away, and predicted being “perpetually unemployed.” Mr. Trump himself saw the push to overturn the 2020 election as a financial opportunity, moving to trademark the phrase “Rigged Election.”

These were among the latest revelations from the House Jan. 6 committee, which released a whirlwind of documents in its final days and wrapped up its work on Monday. Since Friday night, the panel has released several troves of evidence, including about 120 previously unseen transcripts along with emails and text messages obtained during its 18-month inquiry, totaling tens of thousands of pages.

The evidence touched on nearly every aspect of Mr. Trump’s push to overturn the 2020 election. It provided new details about how some of his top allies lobbied for aggressive plans to keep him in power, while others lamented how the dark day of Jan. 6, 2021, had negatively affected their employment prospects.

The panel said it has now turned over an “enormous volume of material” to the Justice Department as Jack Smith, the special counsel, conducts a parallel investigation into the events of Jan. 6.

“Accountability is now critical to thwart any other future scheme to overturn an election,” the committee’s leaders, Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi, and Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming, said in a statement.

In the end, the committee released about 280 transcripts of interviews. Though the panel interviewed more than 1,000 witnesses, only a few hundred sessions took the form of formal depositions or transcribed interviews. Lawmakers said they withheld certain transcripts that contained sensitive information.

Here are some takeaways from the recently released evidence.

Shown above are then-U.S. Reps. Liz Cheney, R-WY, and Adam Kinzinger, R-IL. The photo was accompanied by another showing the incoming and disgraced U.S. Rep. George santos, R-NY, and his campaign supporter U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-NY, who replaced Cheney in Republican House leadership because Cheney was willing to investigate Trump's role as part of her committee work. The photo array was labeled: "A tale of two Republican parties. An honorable one, for now in the wilderness. A dishonorable one, for now in power. Proud to stand with the first, and against the second." (Reported via Twitter by Bill Kristol, Bulwork co-founder and former chief of staff to then-Vice President Dan Quayle, a Republican from Indiana).

Politico, Inside the Jan. 6 committee’s massive new evidence trove, Kyle Cheney, Jan. 3, 2023 (print ed.). The panel's evidence provides the clearest glimpse yet at the well-coordinated effort by some Trump allies to help Trump seize a second term he didn’t win.

The Jan. 6 select committee has unloaded a vast database of its underlying evidence — emails between Trump attorneys, text messages among horrified White House aides and outside advisers, internal communications among security and intelligence officials — all coming to grips with Donald Trump’s last-ditch effort to subvert the 2020 election and its disastrous consequences.

The panel posted thousands of pages of evidence late Sunday in a public database that provide the clearest glimpse yet at the well-coordinated effort by some Trump allies to help Trump seize a second term he didn’t win. Much of the evidence has never been seen before and, in some cases, adds extraordinary new elements to the case the select committee presented in public — from voluminous phone records to contemporaneous text messages and emails.

Trump lawyers strategized which federal courts would be likeliest to uphold their fringe constitutional theories; Trump White House aides battled to keep unhinged theories from reaching the president’s ears; as the Jan. 6 attack unfolded, West Wing aides sent horrified messages about Trump’s incendiary tweets and inaction; and after the attack, some Trump allies discussed continued efforts to derail the incoming Biden administration.

Here’s a look at some of the most extraordinary and important evidence in the select committee’s files.

Proof, Investigative Commentary: Proof Launches Stage 2 of Its January 6 Coverage, Seth Abramson, left, Jan. 3, 2023. Proof’s January 6 reporting—which has provoked lawsuit threats from and texts between key January 6 actors, and often appeared in the U.S. House record—is moving from investigation to evidence review.

Introduction: The first two years of Proof have been a wild ride. This media outlet evolved into a sprawling, 14-section center for curatorial journalism that accrued a readership of 75,000 and became one of the Top 15 political substacks in the world.

It was cited in the successful House January 6 Committee referral of Steve Bannon for criminal prosecution by the Department of Justice. Its reports were entered into the Congressional record during the second impeachment trial of Donald J. Trump. It was the subject of private texts between two of the key event-planners behind January 6, Trump adviser Katrina Pierson and Women for America First capo Amy Kremer.

In 2022, the House January 6 Committee even reached out directly to Proof for aid.

Shortly thereafter, Proof published the fourth book in the New York Times-bestselling Proof series: Proof of Coup: How the Pentagon Shaped An Insurrection. The book tells the story of events so critical to national security, politically sensitive, and (not to put too fine a point on it) historically contingent—because they remain under active federal investigation—that they don’t even appear