PLANET OF THE HUMANS ~ A REBUTTAL

Turns out the Michael Moore-produced documentary Planet of the Humans is deeply, seriously flawed... almost to the point where one wonders if the filmmakers involved were behaving in good or bad faith.

Seeing as, looking a couple blog posts down, you can see that I was originally pretty gung-ho about the flick--and there's no denying its effectiveness as polemic, particularly with people who, like me, aren't well versed in all the latest matters ecological--I figured I owed it anyone who might have watched it on my suggestion to post a level-headed, fact-based, good faith rebuttal. 

So here's one:

Here's another one, that gets even deeper into the technological and scientific issues:

By the way, while researching a number of rebuttal articles and videos, I also went back and re-watched Planet of the Humans, and I have to say, the second time around, I caught what felt to me like a number of anti-human, even eliminationist rhetorical tropes sneaking into the text, almost as if the filmmakers were angry at anyone working towards making less damaging forms of energy available to the masses because it pushes their preferred (but of course only implied) solution to the problem--an enforced end to global consumer culture, perhaps followed by some kind of mass, rapid depopulation effort--farther down the field. After all, the film begins with the following question: 

"Have you ever wondered what would happen if a single species took over an entire planet? Maybe they're cute. Maybe they're clever, but lack a certain, shall we say, self restraint? What if they go to far? What if they go way, way, way, way, way too far? How would they know when it's their time to go?"

No direct answer is ever given. After viewing the film in toto, however, the implications are obvious.

NYT DOC EXPLORES NEW FASCIST INTERNATIONAL(E) DISINFO OPS

First up, meet the KGB spies who invented "Fake News" (then referred to as "Active Measures") during the final decade of the Soviet Union.

Follow that up with a look at the current state of the New Fascist International(e)'s ongoing multi-pronged worldwide War On Truth.

Now it's time to learn about "Operation Infektion", which explores how Russia came to perfect the art of asymmetrical information warfare, and explores some of the methadologies and philosophies in play.

And, finally, there's this segment on the Seven Commandments of Fake News.

This video series, even though it comes from the mother of all mainstream sources, the New York Times,  offers up significant, high quality food for thought and worthwhile information for the few remaining non-co-opted, serious-minded conspiracy researchers and theoreticians out there who continue to fight the good fight, and who try to be honest with their readers, their co-researchers, and most importantly, with themselves.

It isn't easy these days. In fact, the information contained in the four videos above goes a long way towards explaining exactly why it isn't easy these days, what with the so-called "alternative media" landscape being so heavily targeted for co-option, manipulation and takeover by actual criminal, behind-the-scenes power-brokers who have managed to convince the wooliest sheeple on the Animal Farm that they're the only ones who know what's really going on, because instead of believing everything they see on CNN, the Washington Post or the New York Times, they believe everything they hear on InfoWars.com, or from Lou Dobbs, or from whatever full-blown fascist talking head it is that they get their daily supply of talking points.

Anyway, if you're one of the hundred or so people out there still bothering to check out my blog for some reason, please watch these videos and help to spread the word about them. They're quite good.

GIULIANI COMMEMORATES 9/11 WITH FASCIST VIDEO TWEET

Here's the gang at the Majority Report discussing Mayor Rudy's decision to memorialize the 18th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, by tweeting out one of the most disgusting, next-level totalitarian, masturbatory Right Wing fantasy propaganda porn video that I've ever seen. 

It's almost as if the hateful idiocy of the anti-liberal, anti-progressive, anti-First Amendment propaganda being produced by the New Fascist International(e) is growing more hateful, more bloodthirsty, more downright dangerous with every passing day. I think this one is even worse than that crazy NRA ad that arguably kicked off this whole trend. Remember that one?

No?

Let me refresh your memories:

Actually, now that I've re-watched the NRA vid, I'm not so sure if the vid tweeted out by Giuliani--which is literally a commercial for right-wing casual men's ware--is quite as bad.

So, what do you think? Does Giuliani's "Kill a Hippie for 9/11" pluck the crown off Dana's pretty, pointy head? Or does her murder-happy, absolutely bonkers NRA commercial still reign supreme when it comes to the Far Right mediasphere's boundary-bursting and envelope-pushing media?

YOU be the judge! YOU decide! And while you're doing so, please feel free to nominate any other Krazy Konservative Kommercials you might come across, either down in the comments section, or emailed to me directly! Cheers!

SUGGESTED READINGS

In late June, TIME Magazine published a very succinct and useful report by distinguished legal scholars Barbara McQuade and Joyce White Vance, outlining Eleven Mueller Report Myths that Won't Go Away. I present for you here, first, their brief introduction, followed by the first-listed myth, and the authors' explanation as to why, exactly, it's so bogus:

When we joined other legal experts earlier this month to testify before the House Judiciary Committee regarding lessons from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, it became apparent from the questioning that a number of misconceptions continue to exist regarding Mueller’s findings. The narrative was shaped by Attorney General William Barr, who issued his description of Mueller’s conclusions three weeks before the public saw the full 448-page report. In a letter to Barr, Mueller complained that Barr’s summary “did not fully capture the context, nature and substance” of his team’s work and conclusions, and created “public confusion.” Here is our effort to dispel some of those myths.

Myth: Mueller found “no collusion.”

Response: Mueller spent almost 200 pages describing “numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump Campaign.” He found that “a Russian entity carried out a social media campaign that favored presidential candidate Donald J. Trump and disparaged presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.” He also found that “a Russian intelligence service conducted computer-intrusion operations” against the Clinton campaign and then released stolen documents.

While Mueller was unable to establish a conspiracy between members of the Trump campaign and the Russians involved in this activity, he made it clear that “[a] statement that the investigation did not establish particular facts does not mean there was no evidence of those facts.” In fact, Mueller also wrote that the “investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts.” 

To find conspiracy, a prosecutor must establish beyond a reasonable doubt the elements of the crime: an agreement between at least two people, to commit a criminal offense and an overt act in furtherance of that agreement. One of the underlying criminal offenses that Mueller reviewed for conspiracy was campaign-finance violations. Mueller found that Trump campaign members Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner met with Russian nationals in Trump Tower in New York June 2016 for the purpose of receiving disparaging information about Clinton as part of “Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump,” according to an email message arranging the meeting. This meeting did not amount to a criminal offense, in part, because Mueller was unable to establish “willfulness,” that is, that the participants knew that their conduct was illegal.

Mueller was also unable to conclude that the information was a “thing of value” that exceeded $25,000, the requirement for campaign finance to be a felony, as opposed to a civil violation of law. But the fact that the conduct did not technically amount to conspiracy does not mean that it was acceptable. Trump campaign members welcomed foreign influence into our election and then compromised themselves with the Russian government by covering it up. 

Mueller found other contacts with Russia, such as the sharing of polling data about Midwestern states where Trump later won upset victories, conversations with the Russian ambassador to influence Russia’s response to sanctions imposed by the U.S. government in response to election interference, and communications with Wikileaks after it had received emails stolen by Russia. While none of these acts amounted to the crime of conspiracy, all could be described as “collusion.”

Pretty thorough, not to mention disturbing, stuff. There's also great, revealing material on the flawed logic behind all the various Trumpnik preemptive defense strategies, like the "double jeopardy" gambit, all the way down to the Nixonian "it's not illegal if the President does it" argument. Anyhoo, it's well worth reading. Of, if you're lazy, at LEAST watch this video about the same topic.

***

In a world where the President of the United States of America is capable of tweeting out the above "disinfographic" to his millions upon millions of Social Media followers, despite the information contained therein being totally false, created pretty much exclusively to get "white" people to fear and hate Black people even more than they've already been conditioned to over the last few hundred years, it's a damn good thing there exist organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center (increasingly despised and lied about by the Far Right, the Alt-Right, and now, increasingly, "mainstream" conservatives) fighting the good fight and setting the record straight with contributions like their excellent report, entitled "The Biggest Lie in the White Supremacist Propaganda Playbook: Unravelling the Truth About Black on White Crime". The Executive Summary declares, in part:

The idea that black people are wantonly attacking white people in some sort of quiet race war is an untruthful and damaging narrative with a very long history in America.  

On a Wednesday night in June 2015, a 21-year-old white man walked into a black church in Charleston, South Carolina, and gunned down nine black parishioners taking part in a weekly Bible study group. Dylann Storm Roof sat quietly with the group for about an hour before taking out his Glock pistol and firing 70 rounds, stopping five times to reload. Court testimony revealed that during the shooting Roof said, “Y’all are raping our white women. Y’all are taking over the world.” 

How this horrific violence came to take place traces back to a particularly destructive idea, one as old as the United States itself and rooted in the country’s white supremacy: that black men are a physical threat to white people. The narrative that black men are inherently violent and prone to rape white women, as Roof said during his rampage, has been prevalent for centuries. This idea has served as the primary justification for the need to oppress black people to protect the common — meaning white — good. 

Roof saw himself as a victim standing up for oppressed whites, not as an aggressor. He had a racist “awakening” spurred by online research he did about the 2012 murder of the black high-school student Trayvon Martin. As he wrote in his manifesto, the Martin killing “prompted me to type in the words ‘black on white crime’ into Google, and I have never been the same since that day.” 

Roof’s internet search quickly led him to the website of the white supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens, a group that claims to document an ignored war against whites being waged by violent black people. Google led Roof down a rabbit hole of hate, leaping from one hate site to the next, many filled with “evidence” that black people are pillaging, raping and murdering white people. 

“There were pages and pages of these brutal black on White murders,” Roof wrote in his manifesto. “I was in disbelief. At this moment I realized that something was very wrong. How could the news be blowing up the Trayvon Martin case while hundreds of these black on White murders got ignored.” 

It’s not surprising that a fragile-minded young man who swallowed hate material whole came to see this so-called problem of black-on-white crime as something he had to personally confront. But the resonance of these ideas goes much deeper, infecting the thinking of many prominent people, including public policymakers to this day.

Take then-Presidential Candidate Donald Trump, who in November 2015 tweeted an image that originated from a neo-Nazi account that made exactly the same point as the hate sites Roof was reading. Filled with bogus crime statistics, the graphic Trump tweeted supposedly showed that black people are uniquely violent. The Washington Post found that the data in Trump’s tweet to be false.  

One of the most exaggerated statistics was about the number of white people killed by other white people. Trump’s tweet claimed the number was 16 percent, while the FBI’s data shows it is 82 percent. The tweet also asserted that 81 percent of whites are killed by black people; the FBI number is 15 percent. As the Post concluded, “Trump cast blacks as the primary killers of whites, but the exact opposite is true. By overwhelming percentages, whites tend to kill other whites. Similarly, blacks tend to kill other blacks. These trends have been observed for decades.” 

It’s not just Trump. The far-right ecosystem repeats versions of these ideas ad nauseum. Relying on “statistics” found in a white supremacist tract, the paleoconservative one-time presidential candidate Pat Buchanan wrote in 2007: “The real repository of racism in America — manifest in violent interracial assault, rape and murder — is to be found not in the white community, but the African-American community.” Until very recently, Breitbart news used a “black crime” story tag. 

Misrepresented crime statistics are a main propaganda point of America’s hate movement, and a pillar of white supremacist thinking in the United States. Stormfront, the oldest hate site on the internet, has thousands of pages devoted to the “issue” of black-on-white crime. 

The idea that black people are wantonly attacking white people in some sort of quiet race war is an untruthful and damaging narrative with a very long history in America. White Americans’ unsubstantiated views about the potential of violence from black people was the number one excuse they used to justify slavery, lynching, Jim Crow and various forms of mass incarceration. Never was Klan violence or the lynching of black people by white people ascribed to an inherent white trait. Without the ability to claim oppression of black people as a form of self-defense, racial segregation and white supremacy would be seen for what they are: rank oppression of other people for financial or other benefit. 

The maze of online white supremacist propaganda that Roof entered into is largely no more. Google cleaned up its search results after the Southern Poverty Law Center publicly exposed the problem in a January 2017 video. When black on white crime is typed into a Google search now, the results return legitimate sources of information, such as the FBI’s crime statistics, mainstream news and academic research.

Okay, so I know that's a LOT of information to absorb. But give me a break... it's a big fuckin' topic. That's why you should probably download the full report and read it at your leisure. I mean, just in case you missed the court case that basically removed all doubt about how conservatives/right-wingers/Republicans are pretty much all racist sacks of shit, if and when they think they might be able to get away with it, check out the linked to a Washington Post article by Christopher Ingraham.

***

And, finally for today, the Los Angeles Review of Books has published Tony Fonseca's magnificent career overview of Ramsey Campbell, one of yer old pal Jerky's all-time favorite writers in any genre, who just happens to be an absolute master of the Modern English horror story. After starting off on the wrong foot with a terrible title--"Horror For People Who Don't Like Horror"?! NON-sense!--it quickly gets down to business, starting out with a thorough accounting of Campbell's early ouput:

RAMSEY CAMPBELL IS ONE of the most respected authors of weird and dark fiction in the world. Born in 1946, he began reading Lovecraft at the age of eight and began writing when only 11. As a teen, he submitted Ghostly Tales, a self-illustrated collection of 16 stories and a poem, to a reputable publisher, under the name John R. Campbell. Although the stories were rejected because of their genre, the publisher encouraged Campbell to keep writing (the author’s juvenilia was eventually published in 1987, as a special issue of Crypt of Cthulhu magazine). In 1961, Campbell submitted a story to Arkham House’s iconic author/publisher August Derleth. That story, “The Church in High Street,” appeared in the anthology Dark Mind, Dark Heart (1962), edited by Derleth, under the pseudonym J. Ramsey Campbell. It was Campbell’s first professional publication. 

Campbell’s first published book was the Lovecraft-tinged The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants (1964), published by Arkham House when he was 18. His collection Demons by Daylight (1973) brought attention to his distinctive style and thematic concerns, and eventually led to a second Arkham House collection, The Height of the Scream (1976). That same year, he published his first novel, The Doll Who Ate His Mother. His second novel, The Face that Must Die (1979), explored dark psychological themes of madness and alienation — themes he would return to throughout his career. He received his first World Fantasy Award in 1978 for the story “The Chimney,” his second in 1980 for “Mackintosh Willy.” His 1980s novels and novellas — The Parasite (1980), The Nameless (1981), Incarnate (1983), The Claw (1983), Obsession (1985), The Hungry Moon (1986), The Influence (1988), Ancient Images (1989), Midnight Sun (1990), and the semi-comic Needing Ghosts (1990) — displayed a newfound interest in switching between the horror, dark fantasy, thriller, and crime genres. 

Campbell hit his stride in the 1990s, publishing his first dark comedy, The Count of Eleven (1991), followed by The Long Lost (1993) and the three novels Campbell fans line up behind when they want to argue for his mastery: The One Safe Place (1995), The House on Nazareth Hill (1996), and The Last Voice They Hear (1998). Campbell has remained prolific, his more recent output including Silent Children (2000), Pact of the Fathers (2001), The Darkest Part of the Woods (2003), Secret Stories (2005), The Grin of the Dark (2007), Thieving Fear (2008), Creatures of the Pool (2009), The Seven Days of Cain (2010), Ghosts Know (2011), The Kind Folk (2012), Think Yourself Lucky (2014), and Thirteen Days by Sunset Beach (2015). Never one to rest on his laurels, he has recently (and incredibly quickly) completed his Three Births of Daoloth trilogy: The Searching Dead (2016), Born to the Dark (2017), and The Way of the Worm (2018). Word has it that yet another novel, The Wise Friend, is due to be published in autumn 2019. 

One of Campbell’s earliest creations was the fictional city of Brichester (of the fictional Severn Valley), around which he constructed an elaborate mythos. He recently returned to the Brichester Mythos in the novella The Last Revelation of Gla’aki (2013). The Three Births of Daoloth trilogy (a.k.a. The Brichester Trilogy, all three titles released by PS Publishing) further develops the cosmic horrors he invented as a young man in The Inhabitant of the Lake. In a 2016 interview with psychology professor and horror author Gary Fry, Campbell explained his motivation for the trilogy: he wanted not only to update the Brichester mythos but also to perfect it, correcting the small mistakes he had made as a young writer. He conceived of the trilogy as a unit, so the series is tightly knit and the vision consistent, even as the story and characters evolve over 60 years. The trilogy is a nod to some of Campbell’s other early influences, such as Arthur Machen, but it was Lovecraft, according to Campbell, who provided the “crucial focus.” In the trilogy, Campbell aims for cosmic terror, calling it “the highest aspiration of the field” because it results in “a sense of awe that can border on the numinous, or more precisely a dark version of that experience.”

Look, I'll probably have more to say about Campbell at some later date, but for now, I'm falling asleep at the computer due to recent bouts of insomnia. In the meantime, you should definitely check out his work, as it is goddamn magnificent. I'm a particular fan of his short works. The anthologies Cold Print (for his Lovecraft-influenced early work), Demons by Daylight, and Dark Companions are all great places to start!

PLAYING CATCH-UP AGAIN... SHOULD I BOTHER?

CNN's Jim Acosta masterfully calls out the rank hypocrisy of President Rotting Pumpkin Face -- as well as the rank hypocrisy of right-wingers in general -- when it comes to their laughable assertions that Representative Ilhan Omar is some sort of horrible anti-Semite. This, over statements no tougher than that which is spoken and written by Jews within Israel, itself, against the dangerously reactionary Netenyahu regime in Israel.

And to think, these right-wingers enjoy fantasizing about how they're the last stand for freedom of speech in the West! It's absolutely fucking ludicrous. Furthermore, it has been my experience that, even though most try to keep it hush-hush, when push comes to shove, self-styled right-wing "intellectuals" more often than not turn out to be closet Holocaust deniers, or else, at they very least, they have some very "interesting" ideas about the (ahem) "Jewish Question".

***

One of the dumbest ongoing debates in the world of politics surrounds the question of "What is more evil? Fascism or Communism?" The debate is idiotic because the answer is obvious. For a number of reasons, Fascism is clearly more evil than Communism, the main reason for this being that while it is possible for evil people to become dictatorial rulers of nominally Communist regimes, the evil of Fascism is baked right into the ideology, itself. It is simply impossible to have a just, fair, or "decent" Fascist regime. No one, not even Stalin, became a Communist because they wanted to do evil, whereas that is the entire point of Fascism.

Regardless of the debate's obvious stupidity, it will likely continue for years to come, and that's because of two reasons. First, because amateur political hobbyists love to compare body-counts (even though that's a tricky proposition, indeed). And second, because amateur political hobbyists have this weird psychic blind spot that prevents them from looking back any farther than the year 1900 for some strange reason.

Which is fortunate for them, because if they ever do decide to play the body-count game without such a fortuitous limiter guaranteeing their parameters lead to foregone conclusions, they'd be faced with the horrible truth that Nazi Party, the Soviet Politburo, and even Mao's Cultural Revolution were all pikers when compared to... the Western European Capitalism and Colonialism Project.

I mean, for fuck's sake, a recent scientific survey has found that the colonization of America, alone, led to such a vast amount of megadeath over a short period of time that it literally caused a mini-Ice Age! Which makes me worry that some gang of overly ambitious multi-billionaires is going to see the linked article and get inspired by it. Can smallpox infected blankets be looming in all our collective encroaching futures?

***

Speaking of right-wingers getting big ideas, check out The Night Wolves, a short documentary about Vladimir Putin's Russian biker militia fighting alongside more traditional troops in the occupied territories of Ukraine.

According to the directors:

The Russian motorcycle club the Night Wolves first made international headlines in 2014, fighting as a paramilitary group alongside pro-Russian forces during the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine. Although the Night Wolves formed as an anti-Soviet countercultural group during perestroika, today they’re sometimes called ‘Putin’s Angels’, having embraced the potent mix of Orthodox Christianity, nationalism, hypermasculinity and Soviet nostalgia that drives the Russian president’s base.

Does any of this sound at all familiar to you? Well, it should. Remember when Trump posed for this ridiculous photo-op? It was only four months ago, when Trump threatened to sic "his" police, bikers, and other "tough guy" supporters on those Democrats who... um... don't like him and oppose his policies, I guess?

Oh well. I'm not saying Trump is copying his hero, Putin, here. I'm just saying it sure fucking looks like it.

VITAL INFORMATION FOR THOSE PAYING CLOSE ATTENTION

Hello, friends!

A few weeks back, in the wake of the admittedly disappointing, premature release of the Mueller Report -- which, just like the recently kaiboshed SDNY investigations into the Trump org's criminal goings-on related to campaign funds being illegally used as hush money for the porn stars and Playboy models Trump was fucking while his line-jumping immigration cheat wife Melania was pregnant with/giving birth to Little Barron Trump, pretty much shuttered operations the day after Trump named his criminal co-conspirator William Barr Attorney General of the USA -- our old pal and undisputed heavyweight Tweet-Lord Seth Abramson put together a Tweet Storm about other, still ongoing investigations into the cabal of shadowy Sinister Forces (alongside the fatally corrupt criminal cult that the GOP has long since become) behind the conspiracy to install President Rotting Pumpkin Face in the highest office of the land.

Here, for your edification, is the entirety of Abramson's Tweet Storm, complete with links, illustrations, and occasional added links and information from yours truly. 

It all started with this Tweet:

(THREAD) BREAKING: The NYT just published the biggest political news since the Mueller Report was published: we now know at least 3 of the federal probes still ongoing post-Mueller—and all involve election interference. I hope you will RETWEET and read on. https://t.co/63YICZkgmz

— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) June 2, 2019

1/ POST-MUELLER INVESTIGATION #1, per the NYT: "Investigators are still examining the campaign contacts of an Israeli specialist in social media manipulation who has worked for Prince Mohammed [bin Zayed of the UAE]."
(NB: I'll list the three investigations, then explain them.)

2/ POST-MUELLER INVESTIGATION #2, per the NYT: "Investigators are still examining...a Lebanese-American businessman [George Nader] who acted as [a pre-election] emissary [for Mohammed bin Zayed of the UAE, also known as "MBZ"].

3/ POST-MUELLER INVESTIGATION #3, per the NYT: "Prosecutors are investigating whether another top Republican donor whose security company worked for the prince [Elliot Broidy, named RNC deputy finance chair post-election by Trump] should legally have registered as [MBZ's] agent."

4/ (The NEW YORK TIMES has also implied that a *fourth* investigation is ongoing—but because the reference to it mentions the "special counsel," I've held off on saying that the TIMES is "officially" reporting it as ongoing. In the next tweet I'll summarize its contours, though.)

5/ POST-MUELLER INVESTIGATION #4, per the NYT (see prior tweet for note): "[Prosecutors] also questioned Rashid al-Malik, an Emirati real-estate developer close to MBZ and...the head of Emirati intelligence. Mr. al-Malik is also close to Mr. Trump’s friend Tom Barrack... (cont.)

6/ ...and investigators are asking whether al-Malik was part of an illegal [UAE] influence scheme, according to two people familiar with the matter." From PROOF OF CONSPIRACY research, I know the key al-Malik intel involves pre-election contact with Barrack—and possibly Manafort.

7/ Those who read this feed know that I've long been saying—and saying, too, that those most fully "in the know" are saying—that the pre-election crimes most likely to implicate Trump and his family involve bribery and aiding and abetting, and *not just Russia* but other nations.

8/ The Mueller Report is a must-read for every American, despite being long and complex. Once you've read it—and this is the hard part—you have to understand that, for all the terrible stuff you just read, it's only a narrow window on a much larger story still being investigated.

9/ The MIDDLE EAST EYE is a London-based British media outlet run by a longtime editor at THE GUARDIAN—one of the most respected media outlets in the United Kingdom. 15 months ago it broke harrowing news of a multinational conspiracy to elect Donald Trump. https://t.co/JhAzwPZWqk

— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) June 2, 2019

10/ Beginning then—in March 2018—journalists around the world began investigating this conspiracy. I know not just because I've written a book about the "Red Sea Conspiracy" but because major-media journalists from all over have contacted me to say they're working on this, too.

11/ There are 3 reasons you've heard little about this:

1. The best reporting on it is in foreign media.
2. Our media consistently "buries the lede" in reporting on the story—as it considers America not ready for it.
3. The story is so complex it's taken over a year to research.

12-19/ I'll now tell you the basic facts of the story that has emerged:

1. Six nations hatched a plot to elect Trump. The plot was hatched in 2015; the nations involved were Russia, Israel, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt. The leaders of these countries were all involved.
2. Three of these six nations—Russia, Israel, the UAE—had infiltrated deep into the Trump campaign by March 2016: Russia through Dimitri Simes; the UAE through Yousef al-Otaiba; Israel through Kushner, Groner, and Birnbaum. The campaign understood the plan these nations had.
3. The plan was simple: historic detentes between the US and Russia and the Sunni Arab Gulf states and Israel; the US drops all sanctions on Russia and Russia agrees to withdraw support for Iran, thus clearing a path for a new Arab-Israeli alliance to remake the Middle East.
4. The Trump campaign became aware of the plan via *many* interlocutors: Kushner; Flynn; Nader; Manafort; al-Otaiba; Simes; Birnbaum; Barrack; others. The plan was seen as a "grand bargain" and sometimes called that—other times it was called "the Middle East Marshall Plan."
5. Russia began operations in what would become the plot (through the GRU and IRA) in 2014, at a time it was in a *massive* new joint investment program with the UAE and there were regular high-level Moscow/Abu Dhabi contacts. The UAE and Russia knew Trump would run by 2013.
6. By March 2016, Russia had become the first nation with a "man in"—Dimitri Simes. (Though you could argue Kushner saw himself as an unofficial agent of Israel prior to that). By April 2016, Israel had a "man in"—via Birnbaum. By May 2017, UAE had a "man in"—with al-Otaiba.
7. Saudi Arabia (whose leader, MBS, is a mentee of the UAE's MBZ); Egypt (whose leader, el-Sisi, is in power because of the UAE's MBZ); and Bahrain (whose leader is basically along for the ride), did not *need* their own agents, as they effectively were using the Emiratis'.
8. The conspirators spent March through July trying to get access directly to the Trumps, though Jared Kushner was conspiring with Simes, al-Otaiba, and Netanyahu's office by late spring. On August 3, 2016, agents of Israel, Russia, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia got to Trump Jr.
9. At that August 3 Trump Tower meeting, both the family and campaign were represented: the family via Don Jr., the campaign via Trump's chief domestic policy adviser, Stephen Miller.

Four nations offered the Trump campaign illegal pre-election assistance; Don Jr. said yes.

20/ I've given you the most basic contours. The full story (at least as I've written it) takes 500 pages and 3,500+ endnotes. It can't be relayed on Twitter. But it is fully sourced, and sourced with the top media outlets in the world (particularly in the US, the UK, and Israel).

PS/ Many may wonder, "What's the connection between the Mueller Report and this?" The answer: Mueller's report is a prequel, following 2 of 7 characters—the US and Russia—in what was, in the event, a full five-act play. It's the TALES OF BEEDLE THE BARD to Rowling's HARRY POTTER.

KEY/
INVESTIGATION #1: Israeli intel expert Joel Zamel offering illegal pre-election aid to Trump's campaign.

INVESTIGATION #2: UAE/Saudi agent George Nader repeatedly meeting the Trump team secretly in last 90 days of campaign.
INVESTIGATION #3: UAE agent Broidy bribing Trump.

NOTE: The thread continues below: https://t.co/sXtxpzrCGe

— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) June 2, 2019

PS2/ I'm *not* one of those who thinks Pelosi is "waiting" for all this to come out—I tend *not* to ascribe much long-range strategic thinking to most politicians. But I'll say that the case for impeachment will be *much* stronger once this evidence is fully in the public record.

***

And here you thought the worst thing about Trump is that he's the kind of racist piece of shit who goes around telling American citizens, who were duly elected by their constituents to enact needed reforms to the government, to "go back where they came from" if they "don't love" the USA as is, no reforms allowed! This, from the self-same moron who's done nothing but whine and complain about how the USA is an "international laughing stock" (oh, the fucking irony of that!), in the midst of an era of "American Carnage" that "only he" can correct.

BEN SHAPIRO TORN APART LIKE A LOAF OF BREAD BY FACTS AND REALITY!!!

A FOX CHASING ITS OWN TAIL?

MIRROR: SETH ABRAMSON'S INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT TWEET-STORM RE: TRUMP TREASON

If we are fortunate enough to come through the current civilizational crisis unscathed and with our faculties intact, and future historians take it upon themselves to try and piece together precisely how the interlocking network of treasonous conspirators that I have dubbed the New Fascist International could so swiftly and easily hijack the commanding heights of American power, I believe they will find the contributions of Twitter All-Star Seth Abramson to be of paramount importance to their work. I humbly beg you all to read every word of Seth's recent research, to really try and grapple with the full implications of it, even if that means re-considering some of your previous beliefs. I also urge you to share this information with your friends and family. - Jerky

***

(THREAD) It's time to tell the biggest untold story of the 2016 election: how a cadre of pro-Trump FBI agents and intel officers—some active, some retired—conspired to swing the election to Trump. The story involves Flynn, Prince, Giuliani, and others. Hope you'll read and share.

1/ True Pundit is a pro-Trump fake news site that began publishing on June 9, 2016—the day that Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort met with Kremlin agents in Trump Tower to discuss the Kremlin's provision to the Trump campaign of incriminating material on Clinton.

2/ True Pundit would quickly reveal itself as having the same agenda Trump Jr. had when he met with Kremlin agents on the day True Pundit launched: its mission would be to destroy Clinton's candidacy by uncovering incriminating material about her—particularly via her emails.

3/ All articles on True Pundit are published anonymously. The only person publicly associated with the website operates under a pseudonym—"Thomas Paine." (Thomas Paine, a Founding Father of the United States, was instrumental in convincing the colonies to rebel against Britain.)

4/ From June 9, 2016 to June 12, 2016, it seemed clear True Pundit had been started up in a hurry—it published dozens of stories but no original reporting. More than 95% of stories were simply links to other sources, while True Pundit "originals" were two-sentence news summaries.

5/ Many of True Pundit's early news sources were predictable: Breitbart, The Daily Caller, InfoWars, The New York Post, The Washington Examiner, The Washington Free Beacon, Fox News, and The Daily Beast. Breitbart was far and away the most commonly linked-to website at the time.

6/ But True Pundit also, in its first three days, occasionally linked to mainstream news sources like The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, NBC, ESPN, Reuters, The Guardian (UK), The Telegraph (UK), and The Independent (UK).

7/ That said, in its first 72 hours True Pundit also linked to two Russian news sources—RT and Sputnik—an intelligence-oriented site called "Intel News," and several fringe-right publications. A typical link assured readers Clinton would destroy America:

link

8/ Then, on June 12th, 2016, the Orlando nightclub shooting occurred—and it seemed a switch had been turned on. True Pundit had its story. The site meticulously covered Omar Mateen, the 29 year-old from a moderate Muslim family who killed 49 people at an LGBT club called "Pulse."

9/ It's important to know that of the site's first several dozen stories pre-June 12, only one was both a) not a link to another source, and b) more than two sentences. This story—about the July DNC—claimed True Pundit (just 3 days old) had "police" and "security expert" sources.

10/ It must've seemed odd to any readers of True Pundit in those first 72 hours of operation to read that the Philly publication already had *multiple* sources in the Philadelphia Police Department and *multiple* Philly-based "recognized security expert" sources—but so they said.

11/ But Mateen changed everything. Suddenly True Pundit was publishing what it said were original ("exclusive") stories, all of which relied—or claimed to—on FBI sources. Not just one source, but multiple—and not just random sources, but sources close to the Pulse investigation.

12/ The mystery of this was dispelled almost immediately, when True Pundit wrote the following in an "exclusive" on Mateen after the shooting: "True Pundit has folks who worked for the FBI and other agencies on staff." It then claimed to have "unique insight" into FBI operations.

13/ Whether or not True Pundit really had ex-FBI staff, no reader could possibly know. But what was clear was that True Pundit was obsessed with the FBI, had—at a minimum—some basic knowledge of criminal investigation, and was very, very, angry at the current state of the Bureau:

14/ Two things must be noted here: first, that the complaint True Pundit has about the FBI—that it radically underestimates the threat of Islamist terrorism and values HUMINT too little in fighting terrorism—are exactly the anti-terror complaints Mike Flynn has widely publicized.

15/ Second, if True Pundit had told the truth about itself, it meant (a) the very purpose of the website was to give ex-FBI agents an opportunity to complain about the Bureau, and (b) the site's M.O. in doing so would be to use as sources current FBI agents upset with the Bureau.

16/ Keep in mind that, by June 2016, the FBI had already been investigating Hillary Clinton's emails for eleven months—since July of 2015. Indeed, the FBI's investigation into Clinton's emails had begun at almost exactly the same time Donald Trump announced his presidential run.

17/ Keep in mind, too, that True Pundit was launched less than a month before then-FBI Director James Comey announced—on July 5, 2016—that the Bureau was not going to bring charges against Clinton. By mid-June, current FBI agents would've just learned no charges were forthcoming.

18/ Rudy Giuliani would later describe the anti-Clinton elements at the FBI as being, during Summer/Fall 2016, not just "angry" but "boiling," and not just "boiling" but on the brink of "revolution."

True Pundit appears to have been an outgrowth of that.

link

19/ So this is where I point out that there was one *other* story—besides the Omar Mateen story—that True Pundit was positively obsessed with (and doing "exclusive" reporting on, using FBI sources) during its first week: Hillary Clinton's emails and the FBI investigation thereof.

20/ Just 96 hours into its existence, True Pundit was running a *multi-part* "exclusive" on an FBI probe the site's authors' friends in the Bureau were conducting. The reports cited "intelligence sources" with extensive knowledge of the FBI investigation.

link

22/ You have to understand the level of access to current FBI agents True Pundit was then claiming to have: the site, which had started up *less than 100 hours prior*, was claiming to have *exclusive* knowledge of *prior FBI contacts* with the nation's then-most infamous killer.

23/ By June 13, 2016, it was clear that True Pundit was a political outfit: it had quoted from and linked to a Trump press release, and had mercilessly attacked the Democratic candidate for president. Any active FBI agent speaking to True Pundit was—already—a Hatch Act violation.

24/ Here's all the info you need on the Hatch Act.

It applies to the FBI and—while not a criminal statute—a violation of the Hatch Act is a violation of federal law and would get you fired from federal employment immediately (assuming a serious breach).

link

25/ So here's where things get complicated. Beginning in mid-June 2016, True Pundit switches to all original "reporting" and begins publishing longer stories. It is relentlessly right-wing: anti-immigration, pro-Second Amendment, pro-Trump, virulently anti-Clinton and anti-Obama.

26/ It also takes a hard turn into anti-Clinton fake news within its first week—as the story below demonstrates.

link

27/ But here's what you *really* need to understand: the FBI quickly became aware of this website—at the highest levels—and *acknowledged*, internally, that the people behind True Pundit had access to intel from *current* FBI agents.

Even *James Comey* was aware of True Pundit.

28/ And it *matters* that James Comey was (a) aware of True Pundit, and (b) believed they had sources within the FBI.

Moreover, it *matters* that he knew—and he did—that True Pundit was angling for sources *inside* the Clinton probe, and that Comey's deputy thought he had them.

29/ Documents acquired via FOIA requests by (of all organizations) Judicial Watch reveal that Andrew McCabe, Comey's deputy, believed that True Pundit had "heavyweight" sources within the FBI. While Comey was skeptical, he *acknowledged* the sources were *definitely* FBI sources.

30/ When McCabe forwarded a True Pundit story to Comey on October 24, 2016, calling its source on Clinton "heavyweight," Comey demurred, saying "This still reads to me like someone not involved in the investigation at all, maybe somebody who heard rumors."

link

31/ The date here matters, as does Comey's response. This was the week Comey ultimately decided to go to Congress with his decision to reopen the Clinton case—and in using the word "still," we hear Comey's anxiety about the possibility details of the Clinton FBI probe would leak.

32/ It's clear from this email that True Pundit was a source McCabe thought active FBI agents on the Clinton case might consider leaking to, and Comey by no means dismissed that possibility. Why does it matter? Because it was *this* fear of a leak that *led* to The Comey Letter.

33/ The New York Times has written that Comey reopened the Clinton investigation—which decision FiveThirtyEight polling appears to confirm cost Clinton the election—because he felt news of "new" Clinton emails (from Anthony Wiener's PC) was "sure to leak."

link

34/ So, to recap: on October 24, 2016, Andrew McCabe warns his boss Jim Comey that True Pundit has access to "heavyweight" FBI sources—clearly implying *sources within the Clinton probe*. 72 hours later, Comey writes the "Comey Letter" because he's "sure" probe details will leak.

35/ Things are about to get confusing, so let me just step back and say that from mid-June 2016 to October 2016 True Pundit had become a big deal—they were getting regularly retweeted and discussed by right-wing media outlets. Including—by the way—WikiLeaks. (More on that later.)

36/ So while the fact that True Pundit had routinely published fake news was widely known by October 2016, so was the fact that it was run by men who purported to be ex-FBI and who credibly claimed to have FBI sources. The few times they were *right* were when they had FBI intel.

37/ But understand something else: within 60 days of its creation, True Pundit had become a "darling" of the 600 Russian Twitter accounts that routinely pushed anti-Clinton propaganda as part of the Kremlin's interference campaign. And True Pundit knew it.

link

38/ USA Today: "[Thomas Paine] did not deny playing a part in the Russian network's information operation....'we are flattered to be accused of participating in disinformation campaigns for government because as a startup that's the exact time-tested model we've been emulating.'"

39/ While USA Today wouldn't write about True Pundit until August 2017, the time-period of True Pundit's influence they're discussing—Summer/Fall 2016—is when Paine was proudly "participating in a [Russian] disinformation campaign" but *also* causing the FBI real fear over leaks.

40/ So I think this is a good time for you to hear Thomas Paine's voice. Here's a lengthy interview he gave (of course not giving his name or allowing his likeness to be visible, as he knew—and we'll discuss this more shortly—his operations were illicit).

41/ Paine: "We started True Pundit as a way of doing something—instead of sitting around and complaining—when Clinton was running for president. We figured we would get some of the guys from the old band together—[unintelligible]-type guys and some intel guys we all worked with."

42/ So what these ex-FBI and intel guys did is libel Clinton for the 150 days leading up to the 2016 election. What they specialized in was falsely accusing her of crimes. On October 2, 2016, it was that Clinton had tried to order Julian Assange's murder.

link

43/ On September 29, 2016, True Pundit's false claim—immediately echoed, like many True Pundit stories, by RT, the Kremlin-backed TV station—was that there was a criminal conspiracy between Clinton and Facebook (ironic now, I know) to steal the election.

link

44/ In early September 2016, True Pundit claimed, falsely citing NYPD sources—as it often would (and this fact will become important)—that Clinton was wearing an invisible earpiece during a live "town hall" on NBC.

link

45/ As the election approached, the fake news coming from True Pundit often focused on false claims that Clinton had a major medical condition she was hiding. Again, these claims got spread from True Pundit to Russian media—and True Pundit *knew* about it.

link

46/ The same day True Pundit launched its fake news about a Clinton-ordered drone strike on the founder of WikiLeaks, the New York field office of the FBI took possession of Anthony Wiener's computer from NYPD—this was October 2, 2016. Comey knew the FBI was getting the computer.

47/ Unfortunately, the same FBI field office that had been occasionally leaking to True Pundit about the Clinton email investigation over the summer was the one now in possession of Wiener's computer—so when Comey instructed them to see if it had any new emails, they ignored him.

48/ Here's where I have to incorporate the entirety of an article I wrote last December for The Huffington Post about what the pro-Trump agents in "Trumplandia" (the New York field office of the FBI) did when Comey told them to work on the Wiener computer.

link

49/ We now know that Wiener's computer had only duplicate Clinton emails on it. But at the time Comey didn't know that. In fact, that's what he wanted his agents to find out—and IT experts will tell you that it wouldn't have taken long to get a sense that that was the situation.

50/ Instead, Comey's agents *sat* on the computer, doing no meaningful work on it—certainly nothing that would confirm or deny whether it had any *new* (let alone inculpatory) evidence on it. Comey didn't find out his agents had done nothing he'd asked them to until late October.

51/ What the New York field office of the FBI *did* do during that period, along with NYPD, was issue threats—via True Pundit—that it would "leak" the *content* of the emails on Wiener's computer (which content wasn't known, of course, as they had no search warrant to search it).

52/ Comey assumed his agents would do one of the following:

(1) Get metadata from the PC to confirm the emails were duplicates;
(2) ask Abedin or Wiener—both cooperating witnesses—if the FBI could view the emails; or
(3) get a warrant for the emails.

They did *none of these*.

53/ The result was neither NYPD nor the FBI had read the emails on Wiener's PC, but were—according to True Pundit, at least—simultaneously leaking false information to True Pundit about what the content was. They wanted Comey to fear such leaks of false information—and it worked.

54/ On November 2, 2016—a week before the 2016 presidential election—True Pundit published the article below, which is the biggest pile of steaming bullshit dropped on America at any point during the 2016 election season. Every single word of it was false.

link

55/ Immediately—*same day*—Trump's top national security advisor, Mike Flynn, retweeted the article.

Recall that Flynn was receiving undisclosed—*illegally* undisclosed—monies from Russia while advising Trump in the fall of 2015, and dined with Putin in Moscow in December 2015.

56/ Within 48 hours (in other words, as quickly as he could schedule a radio interview) Erik Prince, another Trump national security advisor—who's since admitted to having contact with Mike Flynn during the presidential campaign—spread the fake news via Steve Bannon's Breitbart.

57/ Prince is friends with Bannon—who was then the CEO of Trump's campaign—and just told Congress under oath Bannon was his contact with the campaign before and after the election. Here's audio of Prince spreading the Trumplandia-via-True Pundit fake news:

58/ But the reason you have to *read* the article itself—as odious as it is—is that it contains *explicit threats against Comey* should he not *immediately* indict Clinton:

59/ If you've been following along, you'll see there are two problems here—one, the article was published 6 days after Comey wrote the "Comey Letter"; two, the damaging emails True Pundit and/or NYPD and/or pro-Trump elements at the FBI were threatening to release *didn't exist*.

60/ As to the latter point, it's easily addressed: Jim Comey had *no idea* what was in the emails—on October 27, 2016 *or* November 2, 2016—because the very agents then threatening him via True Pundit *hadn't acquired a search warrant or gotten permission to search the computer*.

61/ The better question is how Comey would've *known* to be afraid of disclosures about the emails being published in True Pundit before the election. And the answer is (a) the McCabe email Judicial Watch uncovered, and (b) statements made by Trump advisors—particularly Giuliani.

62/ But first, understand that that True Pundit article is *exactly*—I mean *exactly*—what Comey was afraid of. Not knowing the content of the emails—because his men had deliberately not done the work to find it—*anyone* could claim NYPD/FBI sources and then lie about the emails.

63/ Comey believed such lies would (a) spread over right-wing media (they did); (b) be amplified by Trump aides (they were); and (c) appear in venues with enough credible connection to the FBI people would believe them and—worse still—he wouldn't know the truth to correct them.

64/ And (d) those lies would then swing a U.S. presidential election, and he'd be blamed for it. And if the FBI "leaks" turned out to be lies—which they were—the FBI would be disgraced and would be blamed for throwing the election to Trump.

So he did the only thing he could do.

65/ The only option pro-Trump traitors within the FBI had left Comey was to (a) re-open the investigate publicly, then (b) promise to get to the truth of the emails on Wiener's PC so swiftly that no one would have time to leak or publish or disseminate *lies* about those emails.

66/ Reports at the time said Comey probably wouldn't be able to check all the new emails before the election—in part because of their number, in part because he had to go through the warrant process—which is why True Pundit, Flynn and Prince all felt clear to go public with lies.

67/ And it's why the CEO of the Trump campaign, Steve Bannon, felt clear to publish those lies via Breitbart.

Then Comey surprised them all by doing the work in one week he'd earlier given an entire team of his agents three and a half weeks (from October 2 to October 27) to do.

68/ Okay, now watch this (especially the last few seconds) and check the date:

69/ 2 days *before* the Comey Letter was sent (so, October 26) Giuliani knew something big was coming—after spending the preceding days saying he had access to *active* FBI agents *and* retired FBI agents (like True Pundit's) who were incensed at Clinton.

70/ First Giuliani said he had access to "active" agents, then he denied it; he said a "big surprise" was coming, then he claimed he was only talking about a new ad campaign. No one believed it—especially given he kept referencing the FBI's anger at Comey.

71/ But now that we know all Trump's most nefarious men—Bannon, Flynn, and Prince, who were all meeting with one another during the campaign—were reading True Pundit, Giuliani's "I heard it from active agents" while *also* claiming "I heard it from retired agents" makes sense.

72/ It makes sense because True Pundit was made up of retired FBI agents speaking to—or claiming to have spoken to—active FBI agents, and the big surprise Giuliani predicted was likely the "news" True Pundit posted and that Giuliani's compatriots then spread throughout the media.

73/ Keep in mind, Giuliani hadn't seen the emails either—no one had, including the NYPD and FBI agents claiming to have seen them—so all he needed to know was that True Pundit, a site he followed and which likely included some retired FBI agents he knew, would be running a story.

74/ And given that *both* McCabe and Comey were aware of TruePundit—who it was comprised of, who they claimed to have access to, and what they were trying to do—the idea those "ex-intel guys" would have communicated their plans to Flynn and/or Prince and/or Giualiani makes sense.

75/ But the key is this: the NYT said Comey re-opened the investigation publicly because he was "sure" information about the new emails would leak. And the reason he thought that information would leak is because he knew about True Pundit and (via McCabe) FBI leaks made to them.

76/ All those leaks were illegal—as Flynn, Prince and Giuliani well knew given their backgrounds. And they equally knew that True Pundit stories were regularly being repeated on Russia media. And Flynn and Prince knew by November 2nd that in fact no one had seen those emails yet.

77/ What all this suggests is coordination between True Pundit, the FBI, NYPD, and members of the Trump campaign to stall the Clinton email investigation just long enough to either (a) force Comey to re-open it, or (b) be able to claim whatever they wanted about the "new" emails.

78/ Remember how I said Bannon's Breitbart was the chief retweeter of and source for True Pundit—along with Russian bots. Remember how I said that Bannon, Flynn and Prince all met during the campaign, and all jumped on the True Pundit story the *second* it came out on November 2.

79/ This has all the hallmarks of a domestic criminal conspiracy—"criminal" because it involves fraud and obstruction of justice. And it involves the Trump campaign and Russian bots and pro-Trump elements in the FBI and NYPD working in concert. So why isn't it being investigated?

80/ Inspector General Horowitz is looking at it, we're told. That's not good enough—not when Trump is stacking the deck by claiming the FBI had a *pro-Clinton* bias, even as he knows it was working in concert with his men. Enough. Let's starting discussing this as a nation. {end}

PS/ There are up to twenty more tweets in this thread. I stopped because I needed to sleep, but there are few more items of great note that I need to add. They're forthcoming shortly. (Hope you'll share the first tweet in this thread in the meantime.)

PS2/ So I wrote about what was happening on the Trump campaign and FBI side of things after True Pundit published its false story about the Clinton emails on November 2nd, 2016. I didn't talk about what True Pundit did at that point—and frankly it's even more alarming to recount.

PS3/ To obscure the fact that its very existence, operations, sourcing, and disinformation dissemination was evidence of a pro-Trump conspiracy between current and former FBI agents, True Pundit did *exactly* what Trump is doing now: alleged a *pro-Clinton* conspiracy at the FBI.

PS4/ And it didn't wait to do this until there was a statement from the FBI or other indication of blowback from its November 2nd article, as of course there wasn't any—not against True Pundit, at least—and the goal of alleging a *pro-Clinton* conspiracy at the FBI was political.

PS5/ So what True Pundit did, in the 4 days before the election, was put on a play of sorts about—if you can believe it—its authors being hunted by pro-Clinton FBI agents. Yes—seriously—hunted. It was a ploy for attention and to falsely underscore the "truth" of its "reporting."

PS6/ Check out these tweets by "Thomas Paine" alleging that his and his compatriots' courage in posting the "real" story of Clinton's emails—again, every single piece of which was false—had led to the whole True Pundit team being hunted like dogs by pro-Clinton forces at the FBI.

PS7/ Not only do these tweets falsely suggest the True Pundit team had to go into hiding pre-election, they also implied an anticipated fake-news coordination with WikiLeaks and that the "truth" of the Clinton emails was *worse* than the fake news True Pundit had already put out.

PS8/ This performance art-like component to True Pundit's November 2nd, 2016 fake-news "bombshell" about Clinton—immediately disseminated via Trump-campaign and Trump-affiliated channels—suggests a level of premeditation to the timing and roll-out of its threats against the FBI.

PS9/ It suggests too that the fake news we're seeing from Trump right now—the idea pro-Clinton FBI agents are secretly maneuvering to suppress the truth about Clinton—is the same one True Pundit was selling (and Trump aides promoting) in the midst of a *pro-Trump* FBI conspiracy.

PS10/ But it gets worse. And it gets worse because Trump won, which fact taught True Pundit that not *only* was its fake-news dissemination via Russian, far-right, and Trump-campaign channels effective, it *also* would continue to have success—specifically—in threatening the FBI.

PS11/ In March 2017, just 48 hours before it was revealed that Mike Flynn had been illegally working as a Turkish agent prior to election day—a revelation that *substantially* ramped up his chances of getting charged by Jim Comey—True Pundit posted a harrowing message on Twitter:

PS12/ Stunning. True Pundit is using the *same* threat (revelation of Clinton emails that don't actually exist) to the *same* purpose (thwarting the administration of justice by Jim Comey) that it used *before* the election—with Trump campaign help—to swing the election to Trump.

PS13/ Note that what "Thomas Paine" is doing is illegal *whether or not his NYPD sources exist*. Just as it was illegal to do the same thing 96 hours pre-election. Just as it was illegal if Flynn, Prince, and/or Bannon know anyone from True Pundit and were coordinating with them.

PS14/ Either Thomas Paine was obstructing justice by issuing credible threats against the FBI if the FBI didn't accede to his demands—and indeed, this probably rises to a level beyond Obstruction of Justice—*or* he was part of a *conspiracy* with NYPD and FBI elements to do this.

PS15/ This is where I remind everyone a) that the animating principles behind True Pundit match those of Flynn and Flynn retweeted True Pundit's November "bombshell" ASAP; b) the nature and timing of Rudy Giuliani's statements suggest a possible connection to True Pundit; and...

PS16/ c) Bannon and Prince coordinated immediately following publication of this "bombshell" to disseminate it via Breitbart. Prince can claim he wasn't a Trump advisor (though he was), but Flynn definitely was, Giuliani definitely was, and Bannon was the *CEO of the campaign*.

PS17/ More broadly, this March 2017 tweet suggests an *ongoing plot*—and ongoing MO—at True Pundit to influence the FBI in a very specific way: to hinder the Russia investigation; to help Mike Flynn; to allege a pro-Clinton conspiracy at the FBI; to distract via Clinton "crimes."

PS18/ Remember: a) Paine won't give his name or let his face be seen—confirming that, as ex-FBI, he knows what he's doing is *illegal*—and b) he's told the media that he was *proud* to have True Pundit be part of a Russian disinformation campaign, and was aware of it at the time.

PS19/ There's no evidence to support Paine's claim he was being hunted by the FBI pre-election, but he certainly *should* be getting hunted by authorities now.

And Flynn, Prince, Bannon, Giuliani, and any other Trump aides who passed on True Pundit stories should be questioned.

PS20/ I want to emphasize that I have only *scratched the surface* of the True Pundit story here. But there's more than enough here to tell any investigator (Horowitz, Mueller, or Congressional) that the timing and coordination of all of this suggests something much larger. {end}

NOTE/ The first step is to check every Paine tweet/True Pundit story against a) events in the Russia scandal/probe, b) public RTs by Trump aides. Don't forget True Pundit was registered as Manafort came on-board (March 2016) and began the day of the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting.

NOTE2/ The second step is to find and question Jason Goodman—see earlier tweet in which Goodman interviews Paine—as it appears possible Goodman knows who "Thomas Paine" is (recall that "Paine" references early in his interview having "private" off-air conversations with Goodman).

NOTE3/ The third step is to get RUDY GIULIANI under oath and ask him questions about his reading of True Pundit and knowledge of *anyone* associated with it. He should also be asked about *any* October 2016 contacts with Flynn, Prince, or Bannon—as well as contacts *before* then.

NOTE4/ The fourth step is to get in contact with McCabe and Comey and ask about True Pundit's stories and threats *or* any stories or threats coming from associated websites or individuals that may have contributed to Comey being "sure" (false) info on Wiener's emails would leak.

NOTE5/ The fifth step is for Mueller to ask his now-cooperating witness Michael Flynn about *all* of this—as Flynn may well be cooperating on certain aspects of the Russia case *without* implicating others in the *domestic* end of the conspiracy that gave Trump the 2016 election.

CONCLUSION/ This is, again, just a scratching of the surface of the story of True Pundit. In the long run, extremely superficial—but enough to get the ball rolling. People have wrongly assumed this end of the story to be disconnected to the Russia probe. It is not. It is central.

DOCS/ Guess what the pro-Trump ex-FBI/IC agents at True Pundit are working on now, America—that's right, *getting Mueller fired and ending the Trump-Russia probe*.

You can be reasonably certainly the president himself has True Pundit bookmarked—as this looks like hand-in-glove.

DOC2/ "Thomas Paine" is now having a meltdown, folks. Largely—it appears—in response to this thread, as he keeps on referencing me and has already accused me of (wait for it) secret Deep State connections.

Yeah, maybe Google me first.

Pay attention, Horowitz, Mueller, Congress.

DOC3/ Here's the FiveThirtyEight analysis suggesting that what this thread is talking about is no more or less than something that was/is a *sufficient* basis for Clinton to lose the 2016 election, if not (not by any means) the *only* reason that happened.

link

DOC4/ Here's an exemplar of how right-wing pubs like InfoWars—the owner of this account is Jones' partner there—publicly associated True Pundit with WikiLeaks in a symbiotic way (i.e. WikiLeaks' RTs of True Pundit bolstered it, even as True Pundit bolstered WikiLeaks narratives):

DOC5/ This Newsline excerpt discusses Judicial Watch's McCabe-Comey emails. Note Comey clearly acknowledges that True Pundit has access to FBI agents—maybe "lower-level" agents spreading "rumors" to True Pundit.

But then—2 days later—Giuliani issued his public warnings/threats.

DOC5-II/ Note the word "still"—implying not only *isn't* this the first October conversation Comey's had with with McCabe about the risk of leaks from the NYC office, but McCabe *clearly* has expressed concerns Comey wants to disbelieve.

Giuliani's threats may have changed that.

DOCS5-III/
10/24: McCabe thinks big leak coming; Comey admits leaks but not in Clinton probe—yet.
10/26: Giuliani widely teases FBI-related October surprise that will swing election to Trump.
10/27: Comey learns his agents betrayed him.
10/28: Comey writes his letter to Congress.

***

Believe it or not, Seth's got a Part Two ready to go already. Keep watching this space for updates! - Jerky