SO I GUESS IT'S A FIRM "NO" ON THAT PARDON, THEN?

ASSANGE DROPS NUCLEAR BOMBSHELL

Per RawStory (and countless others):

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange claims President Donald Trump dangled a pardon through a Republican lawmaker if he agreed to cover up Russia’s involvement in 2016 election hacking. 

Assange’s lawyer Edward Fitzgerald told a London court Wednesday that former Rep. Dana Rohrabacher had passed along the offer in exchange for testimony that Russia had nothing to do with DNC leaks — and the allegation shocked legal experts and other social media users.

The expected, Trump-style "I barely even know the guy" non-denial denial popped up less than 24 hours after the story of his criminal perfidy first broke. 

Watch where this story goes, how it builds and breaks, because I have a feeling it's going to be one of those predictive stories that foretells how the rest of the dominoes will fall, or whether they will fall at all.

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.

SENATE VOTES TO ALLOW IMPEACHED PRESIDENT* TRUMP TO SERVE OUT TERM

You know what today's Senate "acquittal" of Donald Trump most reminds me of? The concept of jury nullification as it was practiced in the Deep South during Jim Crow, where juries would refuse to convict White people for crimes committed against Black people, no matter how awful the crime, or how obvious the guilt. 

That, my friends, is what the Republicans just did. Make no mistake. Today, the one-time Party of Lincoln stand exposed as the moral equivalent of, and the heirs apparent to, history's weakest, most pathetic ghosts.

THREE EXAMPLES OF SERIOUS TRUMP CORRUPTION IN KAZAKHSTAN ALONE

Incredible work on this beat by the incomparable Rachel Maddow, as usual. You're going to want to stick with it until the very end, because the climax features a real ironic corker of a journalistic flourish that you're just gonna love.

PS - I know this story is from January 2018, but a lot of the (blistering, absolutely damning) information contained within it was new to me, and it's just so well presented (Maddow's occasionally irritating voice notwithstanding), that I just had to share it with y'all.

NEVER FORGET WHAT YOU ALREADY FORGOT

WHO'S WHO IN TRUMP'S LATEST SNAFU

SUGGESTED READINGS 29/01/2019

Buzzfeed gets a lot of guff for being the people who helped bring us such anti-journalistic horror-shows as "listicles", which feature such information-free topics as plastic surgery "did they or didn't they" reports and sideboob galleries. But over the last few years, they've really been upping their game. Case in point, Hannes Grassegger's report on The Unbelievable Story of the Plot Against George Soros, sub-titled "How two Jewish-American political consultants helped create the world's largest anti-Semitic conspiracy theory", which begins:

The glass tower that houses George Soros’s office in Manhattan is overflowing with numbers on screens, tracking and predicting the directions of markets around the world. But there’s one that’s particularly hard to figure out — a basic orange chart on a screen analyzing sentiment on social media. 

The data, updated regularly since 2017, projects the reactions on the internet to the name George Soros. He gets tens of thousands of mentions per week — almost always negative, some of it obviously driven by networks of bots. Soros is pure evil. A drug smuggler. Profiteer. Extremist. Conspiracist. Nazi. Jew. It’s a display of pure hate.

The demonization of Soros is one of the defining features of contemporary global politics, and it is, with a couple of exceptions, a pack of lies. Soros is indeed Jewish. He was an aggressive currency trader. He has backed Democrats in the US and Karl Popper’s notion of an “open society” in the former communist bloc. But the many wild and proliferating theories, which include the suggestion that he helped bring down the Soviet Union in order to clear a path to Europe for Africans and Arabs, are so crazy as to be laughable — if they weren’t so virulent. 

Soros and his aides have spent long hours wondering: Where did this all come from? 

Only a handful of people know the answer.

How's THAT for an opening that grabs you by the balls? And in case you were wondering, YES, the questions raised therein get answered, and YES, Grassegger names names. In fact, if anything, it's almost too detailed, leaving no stone unturned and no box unchecked in its exhaustive exploration of the evidence assembled to back up the thesis presented. This means that the article takes a while to read, which automatically reduces its potential readership by, like, half, right off the bat. 

This is unfortunate, because it's so well researched, articulately argued, and meticulously laid out, that I believe it is ESSENTIAL READING for anyone hoping to achieve an accurate big picture take on our current political moment. This includes the rise of the New Fascist International(e) on a global scale, and the absolute helplessness of those previously dominant, consensus-dependent political structures that are currently supposed to serve as our bulwark against these types of ideological attacks and incursions.

So, whatever your politics, I urge you to read and absorb this article. It's well worth your time. It's one of those articles that you're going to want to clip and save so you can refer to it and share with others.

***

So, did you hear the one about the "transparency" organization that sent out emails to various media outlets featuring a list of topics NOT to report on? I refer, of course, to Wikileaks, and the missive in question is apparently very real... and very ridiculous., listing 140 statements that they believe SHOULD NOT BE PUBLISHED! These statements, which they call “false and defamatory”, are pretty much all about their cult-like figurehead, founder, and spiritual leader, Julian Assange. Check it out:

Among the assertions that WikiLeaks labeled “false” or “defamatory” were allegations that Assange had ever been an "agent or officer of any intelligence service” or has close ties to the Kremlin or Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

"There is a pervasive climate of inaccurate claims about WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, including purposeful fabrications planted in large and otherwise 'reputable' media outlets," the email read, according to Reuters. 

"Consequently journalists and publishers have a clear responsibility to carefully fact-check from primary sources and to consult the following list to ensure they are not spreading, and have not spread, defamatory falsehoods about WikiLeaks or Julian Assange." 

The email was labeled “Confidential legal communication. Not for publication."

The ironies basically never stop with this Kremlin stooge!

***

Speaking of Kremlin stooges, it's looking like there are some actual, non-compromised journalistic transparency advocates out there who are willing to go where WikiLeaks fears to tread (for some mysterious, inexplicable reason*). Yes folks, that's right... it's Vladimir Putin's turn in the barrel! That means the most successful organized crime figure of the new millennium -- along with the Russian oligarchs and Kremlin apparatchiks spared by WikiLeaks in the past-- is getting his emails hacked and leaked! Keep your eyes on their Tor site, Distributed Denial of Secrets, and the related Twitter account.

*Actually, it's totally explicable: Wikileaks has long been co-opted by the Kremlin tentacle of the New Fascist International(e) conspiracy

JULIAN ASSANGE IS A LYING SACK OF SHIT

Hey, did y'all hear about how a bunch of Wikileaks documents, including private messages to and from Julian Assange and other co-conspirators, were recently handed over to a number of journalistic outlets by a group of concerned whistleblowers?

You want homophobia, sexism, racism, anti-Semitism? YOU GOT IT!

But even worse than those relatively minor transgressions, it turns out Wikileaks is also staffed by a bunch of lying, hypocritical assholes with numerous political biases, disturbing international connections, and sinister hidden agendas!

Who'd have thunk it?!

I suppose there is a certain delicious irony to be savored, re: Assange and company having often engaged in rhetoric more offensive, biased and "problematic" than most of their many targets have, and far, FAR worse than Hillary Clinton or John Podesta, in terms of their private communications. I’m sure the folks behind the Freedom of the Press Foundation, who cut off what had previously been a generous amount of funding to Wikileaks last year after multiple questions were raised about their methods and ethics, are feeling well vindicated these days.

Shocking absolutely nobody, another thing these DMs reveal is a clearly obvious pro-Trump, pretty much alt-right mindset prevailing among many among most of WikiLeaks' current leadership, with most of the original “true believer” information activists having long been replaced by stealth political saboteurs and professional hatchet-men.

So, basically, if you're looking for a quick and easy way to tell which is the wrong side of any issue to be on, you need look no further than the Twitter feed of the now entirely discredited and hopelessly corrupt Julian Assange (currently on mute, as his Ecuadorian hosts have had enough of his antics), and the various arms of his WikiLeaks operation.

But let’s be honest for a moment, here… you didn’t REALLY need whistleblowers to clue you in to what Wikileaks and Assange have become in recent years, did you? From their decision to back Trump at every turn, even going so far as to join Trump’s war on the media and CNN, to their obviously partisan attacks on the Democrats throughout the 2016 election period,

Wikileaks has been full of shit for a long time now.

Case in point, check out the way they had a shell entity called “Most Damaging Wikileaks”, which they pushed heavy via their social media, purposefully and in bad faith give the absolute worst possible, most literal read of every single email from their ill-gotten trove of John Podesta's personal emails. And the way they blatantly lied about what those emails actually said

For example, check out entry #6, which allegedly proves that Hillary's campaign wants "unaware" and "compliant" citizens. Their interpretation goes: "The Clinton campaign is literally conspiring to keep the population unaware of what is going on, and they admitted it in this email. Very scary ‘1984’ level thinking (group-think). If Hillary is the right choice for president and the truth is on her side, they should encourage their supporters to be aware and do research on both candidates."

Don’t be lazy. Go and read the email in question at this link, then tell me if you think their take on what that email says is accurate... or if Wikileaks has taken someone's disappointed critical words about the sorry state of contemporary political culture and spun that all-too-valid criticism into something unrecognizable… the idea that the person writing those words is, in fact, not just approving of these circumstances, but is literally a MASTERMIND behind them! It would be laughable if people didn’t give Wikileaks so much more credit than their bad faith political games-playing deserves.

Then check out #7, where they say "Top Hillary aides mock Catholics for their faith". Wikileaks claims that "Top Clinton aides, John Halpin and Jennifer Palmieri" -- both of whom are practicing Catholics, by the way -- "mock Catholics for their faith. They complain about the large number of Catholics in prominent positions. ... Palmieri when confronted about this revelation didn’t apologize." They then go on to agree with a number of conservative commentators who, upon reading the emails in question, called for Palmieri to either quit or be fired.

Here's Palmieri’s email. Read it, and you'll see that it's obvious what she was referring to... that specific, socially hardline conservative, anti-Vatican 2, "Opus Dei" brand of angry white country club Catholicism, of the type best exemplified by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and Rupert fucking Murdoch. Nothing Palmieri said was untrue, and only an anti-intellectual snowflake idiot would think it controversial. That Wikileaks counts it as the seventh most controversial "revelation" from their Podesta document dump tells you all you need to know about that morally bankrupt, New Fascist International propaganda outlet.

One is reminded of Assange's reaction to the Catalan independence referendum in Spain. At the time, he declared haughtily from his cupboard in the Ecuadorian embassy that "the future of Western civilization is revealed" in these movements of breakaway from centralized power structures.

Of course, he doesn't feel quite the same about Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, or any other former Soviet satellite or independence movement that seeks to remove the heel of Putin’s boot from their collective throats. No, these freedom seekers should simply bow down to Putin, and accept that he's gonna carve off chunks of their territory at will. Better him than that despicable Imperial world-eater, the USA, am I right guys? I mean, come on! Everybody knows today’s CIA is worse than Stalin at his scariest, right?

Furthermore, the fact that Russia provides backdoor support to Catalan's independence movement (just as they do to the far right and far left and whatever other destabilizing actors there are in whatever state Russia feels like fucking with at the time) probably has nothing to do with the Russian mob's vast array of interests in the region, right?

I mean, to argue otherwise would be like accusing Assange of being in Putin's hip pocket or something! Totally not true. Total conspiracy theory. Totally not so obvious that a deaf, dumb and blind person could see it.

"Wikileaks... NEVER BEEN WRONG, BRO!!! ZERO EVIDENCE OF RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE, BRO!!! MADDOW IS A MAD COW, BRO!!!"

In closing, I would simply like to point out that Julian Assange deserves every bad thing that is about to happen to him... and worse. Far, far worse. And when it starts, it’s probably going to look a lot like this…

LEAH McELRATH'S TWITTER STORM: PUTIN'S COUP AGAINST AMERICA

Political researcher, commentator, and Twitter superstar Leah McElrath has brewed up a Tweetstorm for the ages. And what great luck for yours truly that her research backs up and dovetails beautifully with my own New Fascist International "conspiracy theory". Just read this tsunami of terrible truth and you'll begin to understand about Alexandr Dugin, Vladimir Putin, Richard Spencer, Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, propaganda, psy-ops, cyberwarfare, the 2016 election, and everything else connected to the Beast that we're facing down in these, the most interesting of times. - Jerky

• Guess who said this was their goal: "the strategic control of the USA...and the refusal to allow liberal values to dominate us."
• Alexandr Dugin is Putin's geopolitical ideological mentor. He outlined a vision for a new Russian Empire. Above is part of his strategy.
• Alexandr Dugin has a Facebook page. Days after the U.S. election, he posted "So. Washington is ours."

• I encourage you to read Dugin's FB page for yourself, while remembering he is literally Putin's idealogical mentor. 
• During the U.S. presidential campaign, Dugin "endorsed" Donald Trump.

Putin's Rasputin Endorses Trump (Weekly Standard)

• Dugin's Facebook page is awash with praise for Trump and celebrations of Trump's win.

• Dugin's (read: Putin's) ideology is a bizarre blend of white supremacy and a geographical emphasis on "Eurasia".

The Unlikely Origins of Russia's Manifest Destiny (Foreign Policy)

• The explicit, literal goal of Dugin's/Putin's ideology is destruction of Western liberalism and destabilization of Western democracies.

• Guess who else besides Putin likes Dugin (and writes for his website)? "Alt Right" founder and darling of Breitbart: Richard Spencer.
• This is Richard Spencer retweeting Alexandr Dugin's tweet featuring an article by Spencer on Dugin's website:

• Richard Spencer's wife is a Russian scholar who has translated Dugin's work to English.

Meet the Alt-Right Spokesman Who's Thrilled 

With Trump's Rise (Rolling Stone)

• Spencer's "Alt Right" neo-Nazi rebrand gained a natl platform on Breitbart thanks to Trump advisor Steve Bannon:

How Trump's Campaign Chief Created an Online Haven 

for White Supremacists (Mother Jones)

• This is a thorough compilation on @dailykos of resources regarding Putin, Dugin, Spencer, Bannon, and Trump:

Everything You Need to Know about Bannon, 

Breitbart and Russia (Daily KOS)

• Key to understanding Durbin/Putin and Bannon/Trump: Their shared ideological goal is restoring white male supremacy a/k/a "TRADITIONALISM".
• Please note: I'm NOT using "white male supremacy" in some sort of race or gender studies buzzword way here. This is their LITERAL goal.
• Under traditionalist ideology, outgrowths of liberalism like sexual/racial equality, reproductive freedom, & same-sex marriage are anathema.
• This is why conservatives Republicans like @davidfrum and @BillKristol speak out against Trump and his ilk. There's an ideological split.
• United in their aversion to multiculturalism and liberalism, these so-called traditionalists reach out to one another across national lines.
• However, while traditionalists might reach out across national boundaries, the reality appears to be Russia has played THE dominant role.
• Much of what we perceive to be American fringe right wing content appears to originate from Russia's Dugin.
• Anti-Muslim fear mongering? Dugin. Anti-liberalism? Dugin. Anti-Soros? Dugin. Satanic pedophile rings? Dugin. Swamp metaphors? Dugin.
• It's as though Dugin threaded his arm right through Steve Bannon's orifices and into Trump's bottom to make the Donald a literal puppet.
• Trump + Breitbart + viral false news written in Balkans & shared on FB + Twitter "alt right" & "alt left" social botnets = destabilization
• Dugin's ideology was spread throughout the U.S. campaign season via a massive Russia propaganda and cyber warfare campaign.
• I'm not saying the United States doesn't have its own native fractures. Racism and misogyny are thickly woven in our cultural fabric.
• In war, you seek to exploit the weaknesses of your enemy. Putin poured *massive* resources into existing U.S. fissures to crack them open.
• That's how I got started down this line of inquiry: I noticed on the DAY AFTER THE ELECTION that the MAGA botnets were gone. Gone. Poof.
• I didn't think to make copies of my block lists beforehand because I didn't understand botnets. I thought even "trolls" were real people.
• Like all vocal Clinton supporters, I was targeted hard over the last year. I blocked hundreds, perhaps thousands, of MAGA accounts.
• When I noticed the MAGA silence the day after the election, I checked my block list. Only a few dozen of those accounts remained.
• When I realized those accounts had been a weapon of either the Trump campaign itself or a supporting entity (i.e. Russia), I began digging.
• A lot of the MAGA/grandma/veteran/Christian/IStandWithIsrael accounts? Botnets. A lot of the Bernie Bro/NeverHillary accounts? Botnets.
• Many Americans on social media during this election thought we were fighting with each other when we were really being targeted by psy-ops.
• To bring this back to Dugin: 1. Internally destabilizing the U.S. weakens us. 2. A weak U.S. is easier to overpower strategically.
• Putting a Putin puppet in office as POTUS? That's the coup de grace. We must do everything legally in our power to stop it. #RESIST
• Adding this by @Russian_Starr to my thread on Dugin and U.S. destabilization: 

Putin Is Hacking Our Faith In America...

And It's Working (Foxtrot Alpha) 

CONTINUING MY HOUSE-CLEANING PROJECT...

Say you’re at a rally and you see a group of mostly white men, dressed alike and walking towards you. It’s a white supremacist group—but which one can it be? Now, thanks to the Topic Magazine article "Decoding the Language of Extremist Clothing", illustrated by Julia Rothman and written by Tasneem Raja, there's a handy dandy reference guide available to help you identify the threat! Whether it be a radicalized gaming knight of Kekistan, or one of the paradoxically disability-collecting chubbos from the Traditionalist Workers Party, this article is a virtual Audubon Society field guide to racist, hateful losers! 

***

In the spirit of knowing thine enemy, you might want to consider reading this rather interesting New York Magazine interview with former White House Trump-whisperer and all-around nasty piece of work, Steve Fucking Bannon. The interview is part of the mag's ongoing exploration of the legacy of the 2008 financial crisis, which includes "a new radical politics on both the left and the right; epidemics of opioid abuse, suicides, and low birthrates; and widespread resentment, racial and gendered and otherwise, by those who felt especially left behind." Be sure to check out the comments section when you're done with the interview! A number of highly intelligent readers make minced meat out of Bannon's arguments, which -- despite seeming somewhat reasonable and maybe even appealing upon first read -- are exposed for the bellowing cant that they are.

***

So you probably remember hearing all the brouhaha last month about "3D printable guns" and the "free speech" controversy about whether or not people should be allowed to post instructions for them online and whatnot. What's a liberty-loving freedom warrior to do?

The first thing to consider, as far as yer old pal Jerky is concerned, is the fact that these "guns" are mostly single-use, and thus, absolute crap. Why go through the trouble of printing a one-and-done handgun when America is already awash in excellent, re-usable firearms?

On the other hand, I've seen a lot of people on the far right corners of Reddit saying that it is every Qanon-believing, Democrat-despising, red-pilled (((establishment)))-hating Kekistani meme warrior's duty to download, then seed, the torrent for said firearm/file.

Well, I don't know about you folks, but it sure seems to me as though putting out a blueprint for a relatively harmless but attention grabbing single-use printable handgun, then sitting around and waiting to see who downloads and seeds those files, would be a great way to locate easy-to-trigger individuals with authority "issues", in order to make any future round-ups of said undesirables more easy and orderly.

So... best to think twice before doing something which I think is probably at LEAST as stupid and potentially self-destructive (if not as fucking disgusting and unmitigatedly evil) as downloading child pornography. 

***

Are you interested in learning The Crazy True Story of Trump Moscow? If so, then you should read the excellent and comprehensive Buzzfeed article, which begins:

All through the hot summer campaign of 2016, as Donald Trump and his aides dismissed talk of unseemly ties to Moscow, two of his key business partners were working furiously on a secret track: negotiations to build what would have been the tallest building in Europe and an icon of the Trump empire — the Trump World Tower Moscow. 

Talks to construct the 100-story building continued even as the presidential candidate alternately bragged about his relationship with Vladimir Putin and rejected suggestions of Russian influence, and as Russian agents worked to sway US public opinion on Trump’s behalf. 

While fragments of the Trump Moscow venture have trickled out — most recently in a report last night by Yahoo News — this is the definitive story of the Moscow tower, told from a trove of emails, text messages, congressional testimony, architectural renderings, and other documents obtained exclusively by BuzzFeed News, as well as interviews with key players and investigators. The documents reveal a detailed and plausible plan, well-connected Russian counterparts, and an effort that extended from spearfishing with a Russian developer on a private island to planning for a mid-campaign trip to Moscow for the presidential candidate himself. 

***

Regular readers of the DDD know that I believe Youtube to have long ago become little more than a Far Right propaganda platform, shoving loads of conservative, alt-right, and even unapologetically fascistic talking points down our collective throats, no matter what you do to get them to stop. I have personally lost count of the number of times I've tried to use their criteria selection interface to try and prevent them from recommending videos by the likes of Sargoon of Arcade, Styxenhammer666, Stefan Molyneux, Jordan Peterson, etc, etc, etc, ad nauseum. But no matter what I do, there's always a "Stoopid Feminist is Stoopid!", or "SJW REKT by LOGIC!", or "BLM is NIGGER KKK!!!" video that manages to slither and slime its way into my recommendations.

With the above in mind, I am very grateful to Rebecca Lewis of Data & Society for doing the research and providing solid evidence to prove that no, it isn't yer old pal Jerky's imagination revving into paranoid overdrive; this is an actual phenomenon. And even though it may have more to do with algorithms than with any vast sinister conspiracy... the results are basically the same.

If you're interested in this topic (and you really, really should be), then you should definitely check out this Guardian article about the study, and then download and read the PDF of the study, itself.

***

If you've read and digested all of the above, and you still have room for more, then how about this article about how AI can tell what your sexuality and political leanings are based solely on facial recognition software, or this article about how researchers have found that smoking marijuana can cause earlier manifestations of serious mental illness, or maybe read this op-ed piece by Rob Tibbets begging right-wing politicians and pundits to stop using his daughter Mollie's corpse as a prop for their anti-immigration propaganda. This, of course, caused a gaggle of upset right-wing commentators (like Candace Owens) to declare that if the Tibbets family was not on board for a Far Right racist crackdown on Hispanics as mass revenge for the murder of their daughter, then their skulls should be used as bricks in Trump’s wall. Such loving people.

TRUMPS NO GOOD, VERY BAD WEEK (OR TWO)

The fallout from the Helsinki summit has been so spectacularly awful for Donald Trump and his cult, it almost feels as though we are approaching a turning point of some kind. Can the American theater of New Fascist International's war on liberal democracy be experiencing the first serious rumbles of the existential doom it so richly deserves?

I probably don't have to go over all the ways in which the summit was a disaster, as I assume most of you follow the news pretty much as closely as I do, and from as wide a variety of sources. Suffice it to say that, for the first time since his election, even his fellow Republicans were aghast at how he (to paraphrase notoriously Trump-skeptic Senator John McCain) "abased himself abjectly before a tyrant" like no President in living memory.

Here's a CNN report that contains McCain's full statement, and further reporting on how other Republicans, including many Trump partisans, reacted to this pathetic, humiliating debacle:

If the Helsinki summit was the only thing that happened last week, it would still have been the worst week of Trump's regime by far... for Trump personally, as well as for his criminal enterprise. But it wasn't the only thing that happened. Not by a long shot.

For instance, there was that whole Maria Butina spy scandal and the related "Kremlin bribing Trump and compromising the entire GOP via dirty cash donations to the NRA" news, which broke just as Trump was boarding Air Force One on his way to Helsinki. That was what you might call a pretty big fucking deal.

Then, the world found out that Trump's long-time fix-it man, Michael Cohen--once a bonafide MAGA cultist who vowed to take a bullet for Trump, but who seems to have flipped once he realized that Trump wouldn't piss on him if he were on fire--was taping their conversations for years, creating a treasure trove of audio recordings... potentially devastating recordings that are now in the hands of the closest thing that the USA has to a superhero, special counsel Robert Mueller. No wonder Stormy Daniels' lawyer (and all around pain in Trump's ass) Michael Avennati can't seem to wipe the satisfied smirk off his handsome face lately.

He's also a professional race car driver!

Cohen flipping has a lot more potential fall-out than just exposing what everybody already knew about the Stormy Daniels case: that Trump did, indeed, cheat on Melania just days after she'd given birth to his son; that he knew all about the hush money payments and ordered them personally; that he lied his ass off about it and tried to hide his tracks via the creation of multiple LLCs (fraud and obstruction and, most likely, serious campaign finance crimes and potential felony tax code violations). It has the potential to expose so much more. Such as the fact that he's gone through the same cycle over and over again, with multiple women--including one we already know of, Playboy model Karen McDougal--some of whom got pregnant and were paid to "take care of it".

Trump with trophy wife, daughter-wife, and Karen McDougal (r)

And then of course there's Cohen's assertion that he was in the room when Trump gave the go-ahead for Don Jr and Jared K to meet with a Kremlin-connected lawyer who had promised to provide some ill-gotten dirt on Hillary Clinton, contradicting two years of the President's constant denials and lies about every aspect of that meeting. No wonder Trump threw one of his patented POTUS Twitter tantrums over the mildest of provocations by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani:

To Iranian President Rouhani: NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE. WE ARE NO LONGER A COUNTRY THAT WILL STAND FOR YOUR DEMENTED WORDS OF VIOLENCE & DEATH. BE CAUTIOUS!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 23, 2018

Look folks, those are only the very biggest of the developments that have come down the pike over the last week and a half or so. I've skipped over a number of important stories, like how Trump laughably attempted to claim that he meant to say "wouldn't" when he said "would" regarding Russian interference in the 2016 election, or his disastrous, slapdash "trade war" tariffs, which have led to his having to cough up a $12 billion dollar deficit bailout to offset the damage being done to farmers by his idiotic policies. There was his attempt to claim that Russia was no longer targeting US elections, his tampering with the official White House transcript of the Helsinki press conference (only corrected after a week of outrage) to hide the fact that Putin confessed to wanting Trump to win the 2016 election (which, when combined with everything else we know, is essentially a confession to election rigging). This particular "gaffe" added a soupcon of bitter irony to Trump's later claim that yes, he believed the Russians might well try to mess with the 2018 mid-terms... but on behalf of DEMOCRATS! Then he invited Putin to Washington, only to have Putin say "No thanks... but you should come to Russia though", a total power play further exposing Trump's bitch-boy status. The list just goes on and on.

But as bad as the Big Picture story of the Helsinki summit was, there was even worse crap tucked away in the details. Those of you who've been following American politics with any degree of depth beyond just the surface stories over the past two years will understand exactly how awful the implications in this unrolled Tweet-storm are, and those of you who don't, should take the time to make it so you do. READ AND GROK!!!

Thread by @DanielBShapiro: "1. IMPORTANT: Among the many outrages in Helsinki, Trump appears to have bought (or been suckered) into providing fuel to Putin's animus for […]"

So there you have it, folks. Only time will tell if this was a bad week for Trump, or for the American experiment, itself.

By the way, if you're active on Twitter and you're a sincere, legitimate Trump fan, and you're a real human being, and not a stage-managed fake persona or a bot, you should probably be aware of the fact that you are in a tiny and dwindling minority, and that you're being made to feel a false sense of 'safety in numbers' because of the huge amount of stage managed fake personas and bots currently polluting social media like meme rats spreading the MAGA plague.

Repent. The End is Nigh.

FOR ANY IDIOTS STILL SAYING THERE'S "NO PROOF" OF A TRUMP/RUSSIA CONSPIRACY

Yet another must-read, must-understand, must-share Tweetstorm from the indispensable Seth Abramson, this time a response to all those alt-right morons who say there's "no evidence" of a conspiracy between the Trump organization and Russian government and criminal elements, and the alt-left tankies who agree with them, because they, too, secretly believe that America belongs on the ash-heap of history, even though they're too chickenshit to say it out loud. - Jerky

(THREAD) From Russian payments to Trump advisors to failing to register as foreign agents working for Putin allies—from perjury to illegal solicitation of campaign donations from the Kremlin—here's a non-exhaustive summary of known Trump-Russia ties. Hope you'll read and share.

#1: In March of 2016, Papadopoulos reveals to Trump—face-to-face—he's a Kremlin intermediary sent to establish a Trump-Putin backchannel (he says Putin is favorably disposed to Trump's candidacy). Trump then and there orders Gordon to coordinate a pro-Kremlin GOP platform change.

#2: In June 2016, Don Jr. knowingly attends a meeting with—and set up by—Kremlin agents. He asks the Kremlin for what he has reason to believe is illegally acquired Clinton material. Afterwards, he (allegedly) tells no one. When caught, he lies about every aspect of the meeting.

#3: In April, July and September of 2016 Sessions meets Russian Ambassador Kislyak in settings in which Russian sanctions are discussed. He holds the latter two meetings *after* it's known Russia is cyber-attacking America. He lies about these contacts under oath before Congress.

#4: Kislyak egregiously violates longstanding diplomatic protocol to attend—as a guest of the Trump campaign—a major Trump foreign policy speech. Having been invited to the speech as a VIP, Kislyak sits in the front row as Trump promises Putin's Russia "a good deal" on sanctions.

#5: Flynn—aided and abetted by Kushner and the full Presidential Transition Team—illegally conducts sanctions and resolution negotiations with Russia during the 2016 transition. When asked about it by the FBI, he lies. When the lies are published, no one on the PTT corrects them.

#6: Carter Page travels to Moscow under the guise of an academic conference—in fact, he meets with top Kremlin officials and top Rosneft executives, speaking with both about Russian sanctions just as the Steele Dossier alleges. When questioned about his activities, he lies on TV.

#7: Trump campaign manager Manafort and Sessions aide Gordon aggressively push to change the GOP platform to benefit Putin under direct orders from Trump. When asked about Trump's involvement, they lie to the media; when asked about their own involvement, they lie to the media.

#8: Shortly after the inauguration, it's revealed that Trump has been holding onto a secret plan to unilaterally drop all sanctions against Russia for months—a plan he's never before revealed, which would *reward* Russia for cyber-attacking America during a presidential election.

#9: When Trump learns the FBI Director plans to indict his ex-National Security Advisor, he fires him—first lying about his reason for doing so, then eventually admitting he did it due to "the Russia thing." Later—in an Oval Office conversation with Russians—he repeats the claim.

#10: In an Oval Office meeting into which no U.S. media are allowed (foreshadowing a meeting with Putin in which no U.S. translators would be allowed), Trump deliberately leaks classified Israeli intelligence to the Russians, who are allies of Israel's (and America's) enemy—Iran.

#11: In late 2016, Kushner and Flynn smuggle Kislyak into Trump Tower to secretly discuss the creation of a clandestine—Kremlin-controlled—Trump-Putin backchannel only a few principals would know about. The men don't disclose the meeting or plan, which would constitute espionage.

#12: In May 2016, Trump NatSec advisor Papadopoulos makes secret trips to Athens to make contact with Kremlin allies. During the second trip, Putin's also there—to discuss sanctions. It's his only trip to an EU nation during the campaign. Papadopoulos meets the same men as Putin.

#13: In 2013, Trump and Putin's developer sign a letter-of-intent to build Trump Tower Moscow—a deal requiring Putin's blessing that only goes forward when Putin dispatches to Trump his permits man and banker. Trump and principals lie about the deal—and events at the Ritz Moscow.

#14: Just before Trump's inauguration, Trump's lawyer Cohen and ex-Russian mobster Sater secretly meet with a pro-Russia Ukrainian politician to help ferry a secret Kremlin-backed "peace deal" to Flynn, Trump's National Security Advisor. All involved then lie about their actions.

#15: After it's publicly revealed Russia is waging cyberwar on America, Trump publicly and in all seriousness invites the Kremlin to continue cyber-attacking America if doing so will result in the theft and release of his opponent's private emails. He never retracts the request.

#16: Trump advisors Bannon, Prince, Flynn, Don Jr., Giuliani and Pirro are involved—to varying degrees—in leaking, sourcing, disseminating, and legitimizing a false "True Pundit" story that seeks to use fraud to blackmail the FBI into indicting Clinton. Russian bots pump it also.

#17: Trump's top advisors—including Manafort, Sessions, Flynn, Clovis, Page, Papadopoulos, Cohen, Sater, Don Jr, Kushner, Prince, Dearborn, Gordon, Gates, Stone and others—lie about or fail to disclose Russia contacts or key conversations on Russian efforts to collude with Trump.

#18: For many months after Trump begins his run, he is secretly working under a letter-of-intent with Russian developers to build Trump Tower Moscow. The deal—brokered by Cohen and Sater—allegedly falls apart only when Putin's top aide won't return an email from Trump's attorney.

#19: In 2008, Don Jr. privately tells investors that "a disproportionate percentage" of the Trump Organization's money comes from Russia—a fact later confirmed by Eric Trump. Trump Sr. then becomes the first presidential candidate in decades to refuse to release his tax returns.

#20: Though he's fully briefed on Russia's cyberwar against America in August 2016, Trump publicly denies it—calling the U.S. intel community Nazis—while accepting Putin's denials he's done anything wrong and proposing the U.S. create a cybersecurity task force with the Kremlin.

BONUS: Though he knows by August 2016 that Russia is committing crimes against America, Trump still lets his top NatSec advisor, Sessions, negotiate sanctions with Kislyak—presumably Trump's plan for a unilateral dropping of sanctions. This is Aiding and Abetting Computer Crimes.

BONUS: During the transition, Trump's son-in-law Kushner secretly meets with Putin's banker—after which discussion the two men disagree wildly as to what they discussed, suggesting that whatever the topic was, it was clandestine. Kushner won't reveal the meeting for many months.

BONUS: Advisors to the Trump campaign, including Trump Jr. and Stone, have contacts with WikiLeaks and/or Russian hackers—the timeline of which conversations dovetails perfectly with consequential changes in behavior by one or both of the parties (including Trump's stump speech).

BONUS: When Acting AG Yates warns Trump that Flynn—his National Security Advisor—has been compromised by Russia, Trump fires her and keeps Flynn on board for 18 days. Either he lies to Pence about what he knows on this or both Trump and Pence lie to America about their knowledge.

PS: People have long asked me for a one-link summary of what we know—which is only a fraction of what Mueller knows—in the Trump-Russia probe. My pinned thread, viewable with a button-click, aims to be that. If you know *anyone* confused by the probe, please share it with them.

***

And here's Part Two, with even more evidence of a coordinated conspiracy. - Jerky

#1: Below is a link to Part 1 of the series, which itemizes 24 discrete Trump-Russia ties. Remember: the ties detailed here are a fraction of what Special Counsel Mueller knows; we mustn't pretend the damning evidence we have is *all* the damning evidence.

(see above)

#2: Trump NatSec advisor Erik Prince secretly traveled to UAE at the command of the UAE's Royal Family so he could have a clandestine meeting *on Russia sanctions* with a top Putin ally—the Russian Direct Investment Fund manager. Prince lied to Congress about all aspects of this.

#3: Trump NatSec advisor Flynn secretly worked with Trump pal Thomas Barrack and Iran-Contra criminal Robert "Bud" McFarlane to lobby Trump to drop Russia sanctions—the better to make money off a deal to bring nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia via Russian-built nuclear reactors.

#4: In 2002, Trump tried to rig the Miss Universe pageant—by leaning illegally on judges—to award the title to Miss Russia, whose two boyfriends at the time were a) one of the top real estate developers in Saint Petersburg, a market Trump wanted access to, and b) Vladimir Putin.

#5: In 2003, Trump was saved from bankruptcy by the sudden, miraculous appearance of Russian mobster Felix Sater in his orbit. Sater found Trump new partners and tenants—often, Russians—and they helped make Trump rich again. Trump then perjured himself over whether he knew Sater.

#6: Trump Campaign Manager Paul Manafort was secretly contacting Putin ally Oleg Deripaska during the 2016 presidential campaign, at one point promising him special access to the Trump campaign—and to Trump's thinking on Russia policy—via clandestine "briefings" on those topics.

#7: After it was revealed Don Jr. met Kremlin agents at Trump's house—Trump Tower—at a time Trump was in the building and meeting with Don, Jared, and Manafort on the same topics they met the Kremlin agents to discuss, Trump witness-tampered by writing his son's false statement.

#8: Trump's campaign hired Bannon/Mercer-run Cambridge Analytica to target voters via "psychographics." There's evidence Cambridge Analytica leaked its data to the Kremlin to aid its massive propaganda campaign. Emails *from Cambridge Analytica to WikiLeaks* have been discovered.

#9: *After* it was known Trump's NatSec team had met to talk Russia policy and receive orders from Trump on sanctions, Sarah Huckabee Sanders lied—from the White House—on how many times the team met. She said once—it was three times, plus innumerable group calls and email chains.

#10: Trump National Security Advisor Flynn dined with Putin in Moscow during the presidential campaign—*while he was advising Trump*. He admits they discussed Russia policy. The chances he didn't brief the man he was advising on what Putin said—and what Flynn said back—are *nil*.

#11: Trump selected as Secretary of State a man who didn't want the job, wasn't qualified, and has revealed himself to be as bad at it as anticipated. But Tillerson had one qualification—he's not just a Putin pal, but had received the *Russian Order of Friendship Medal* from him.

#12: During the presidential campaign—while he was a Trump NatSec advisor—Trump's future National Security Advisor Mike Flynn received tens of thousands of dollars directly from Kremlin propaganda network RT. He then lied about it on TV and failed to disclose it on federal forms.

#13: Months ago, both houses of Congress voted overwhelmingly—517 to 5—to impose new sanctions on Russia for its massive election interference campaign (correctly classified as "cyber-war") on the United States. Trump is now protecting Putin by refusing to impose those sanctions.

#14: Three of Trump's top NatSec advisors—Schmitz, Gordon, Page—went to Budapest in 2016. Budapest is the European HQ for Russia's FSB. It was Gordon's sixth trip to the tiny EU nation in recent years; Page admits meeting an unnamed Russian; *no one knows* what Schmitz was doing.

#15: In 2013, the Trumps developed close business and personal ties with the Agalarovs—a Kremlin-linked family of oligarchs who've acted as Putin agents before (including delivering gifts to Trump from Putin). Trump stayed in touch with them throughout the presidential campaign.

#16: Alexander Torshin—a Putin-linked Russian banker and "long-time Trump acquaintance"—met Trump at an NRA conference weeks before Trump announced his run, then tried to set up a secret Putin-Trump meet in May 2016. He then tried to secretly meet Trump at an event this February.

#17: At a time it was *widely known* that the way to reach Trump was to send an email to Hope Hicks—Trump doesn't use email—Russian intelligence did so several times, suggesting they felt Hicks and Trump would be amenable to the contacts. The FBI had to warn Hicks not to respond.

#18: In 2004, Trump bought a Miami mansion no one wanted for $40 million. After making no improvements to either the land or the property and failing to sell it for *four years*, in 2008 Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev—facing no competing offers—gave him $95 million for it.

#19: In 2014, Eric Trump told reporter James Dodson his father got "all the funding he needed" for his golf courses—a big part of his financial portfolio—from Russian banks. Dodson had no reason to lie, but Eric denied it vehemently—underscoring how dangerous that truth would be.

#20: Trump made his Campaign Manager a man who'd been out of politics for years and is known largely not just for working on behalf of Putin allies in Ukraine but having angled for years to do direct propaganda work for the Kremlin itself—outreach which has since been documented.

BONUS: Fears that the Kremlin recorded "kompromat"—blackmail—on Trump at the Ritz Moscow in November 2013 have been stoked by Trump's repeated lies about his trip, his bodyguard's confession it could've happened, and as many as eight witnesses found by the BBC and intel agencies.

BONUS: After Trump's son Don began engaging in a back-and-forth correspondence with Russian front-operation WikiLeaks in September 2016, the Trump campaign responded to WikiLeaks' pro-Trump overtures by inserting praise of WikiLeaks into then-candidate Trump's daily stump speech.

BONUS: The 4 ambassadors Trump invited to the VIP event before his first foreign policy speech (Mayflower Hotel, 4/27/16)—that'd be 4 of a possible 195—all *breached diplomatic protocol to attend* and were all from nations involved in Russia's sanctions-impacted Rosneft oil deal.

BONUS: Trump has repeatedly angled—almost *desperately*—for private meetings with Putin, including orchestrating pretenses for them. Each time they've met, they've exceeded the allotted time for such a meeting by 300% and breached protocol in how the meetings have been conducted.

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