Showing posts with label tweet storm. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tweet storm. Show all posts

Monday, September 24, 2018

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.

  • 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 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.

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

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

  • 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: 

Sunday, December 10, 2017

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.


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.


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).

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.

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."

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."

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.

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.

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.

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

Monday, November 27, 2017

JASMIN MUJANOVIC ON THE NEW YORK TIMES' NAZI PUFF-PIECE

Political scientist Jasmin Mujanovic's Twitter take on the recent controversy over at the NYT is pretty on-point, so I thought I'd share it with y'all here as another Tweet-storm post. That existential crisis he's referring to? I call it the rise of the New Fascist International, and I hope to give a full accounting of my theories about this in the very near future. - Jerky

The NYT Nazi fluff text is only further proof that, at a fundamental level, large segments of the US intelligentsia do not appreciate the existential crisis now facing their republic. In short, they’re not actually concerned — and they really should be.

You can only really write pieces like that if you’re convinced that the violence which these extremists represent, and engineer, will never touch you. Likely because you’re white, wealthy, and mobile and they’ll probably target vulnerable, static “minorities”.

The form is very familiar to me from the Balkans. It was rampant during the 1990s: Karadzic gave interviews to Western media every other day, there’s hours of footage. In the meantime, he was murdering thousands. But hey, dead Bosnians are so “other” and his English was great.

Now the fascists are in the US, they’re in the UK, they’re in the EU and sober ur-journalists roll their eyes at the alarmists who tell you that the normalization of extremism, illiberalism, and violence never ends well — not even in established democratic regimes.

But trust your gut: trust that sick, queasy feeling you’ve had for months, trust your anxiety, and trust the fear you see in your neighbors eyes. All is not well, and everything won’t be OK. Not unless both ordinary citizens and responsible politicians act today.

Don’t go down the road where the normalization of hate speech leads to (more) deaths and then tit-for-tat reprisals. That’s when the wheels truly fall off and no think people piece will help then. And we’re too close to that as it is. 

Closer than the NYT can admit. 

/xx

Sunday, November 26, 2017

EPIC ERIC GARNER TWEET STORM RE: FBI & TRUMP/RUSSIA

Eric Garland is one of the most must-read voices on Twitter. His take on the AP bombshell re: the FBI "failing" to inform targets of Russian hacking is essential, and I concur with him 100% on every point. - Jerky

<ANALYSIS> 

The AP just revealed that throughout this year, it's been doing counterintelligence work. Here's what I think it means.

1. This was no average failure by the FBI. NatSec officials and politicians were hacked by a foreign power in an election year.

Not only did they apparently let this slide, they also downplayed the risk to the Clinton campaign - while an element in FBI then reopened the "emails" case on Clinton.

Sidenote/forecast: almost every Trump/Alt-Right talking point against Hillary covers for Trump.

"Her emails" = Russia's hacking emails 
"Crooked" = We're actual gangsters 
"It's rigged" = We're rigging it 

Now ask yourself what Pizzagate was.

Back to analysis: 

2. That AP had to chase this story down *months later* explains why we were caught off guard by this attack.

If there was an organized attempt to conceal this Russian hacking effort from @Comey, then it would be tough for him to brief Obama.

This could explain why it took until the last weeks of the campaign to perceive the full gravity of the situation.

And, then agents at FBI reopen the Hillary email case with only days to go. Chaffetz tweets it out. Credits the DIRFBI.

Note that the day after Mueller is appointed, Chaffetz announced he'd be leaving Congress early, exactly like nobody ever does.

Yeah, THIS fucking asshole...
It's probably safe to say that Chaffetz - who tried to obstruct this case - had a nasty conversation with someone.

3. If FBI Counterintel was obscuring the emails, perhaps there were other failures as well.

And if that failure to investigate, analyze, and report was widespread, then Comey and Mueller have been SPRINTING to catch up.

That the investigation has taken ONLY a year before indictments would then be a Herculean, if overdue, task.

4. We should never get pantsed like this again in our lifetimes.

5. The rest of the story is going to make people angry enough, I suspect, to provide ample motivation to do better. 

</ANALYSIS>



Monday, September 25, 2017

TWEET STORY BY SETH ABRAMSON

Over on Twitter, Seth Abramson has put together a thread that I think summarizes what a great many people are feeling today vis-a-vis the current international multi-front crisis. I suspect many of you will find it as compelling as yer old pal Jerky did. And so, here it is... - YOPJ

This is a thread about Donald Trump. If what it says conforms with how you feel, I hope you'll consider sharing it with others.
  1. We need to never again discuss this man with respect to policy—it's become more than clear in 9 months that he holds no policy positions.
  2. So if you support Donald Trump because of any view you claim he holds, I don't ever want to hear from you again. The man holds no views.
  3. There is no position Donald Trump has ever taken that he has not, at some point in the past or present, taken the opposite position to.
  4. We mustn't ever discuss this man as someone "challenging the system" or any similar bromide. His White House is the most corrupt ever.
  5. Not one story of honorable conduct has emerged from this White House. Instead, it's been lies, deception, corruption, graft, propaganda.
  6. But the most important thing is this: this is the first U.S. president to systematically and willfully terrorize his own populace daily.
  7. His changeability is intended to keep us anxious and on guard. In fact, he's admitted publicly, many times, that this is a tactic of his.
  8. His corruption is equally studied: his business model has always been "get away with what you can," and that's exactly how he's governed.
  9. He saw that he had a GOP Congress—and knew that his worst-case scenario was not getting re-elected to a job that he never really wanted.
  10. That's why he hasn't eliminated his conflicts of interest, delivered on his promises, "drained the swamp," acted as any kind of leader.
  11. His presidency is a criminal enterprise designed to enrich his family and give him the attention his father clearly denied him as a kid.
  12. He has no beliefs, no ambitions, no morals, no principles, no guidelines, no plans, no expectations. He simply needs to sow chaos daily.
  13. What Trump knows better than most is that America is a chaos machine—you feed it and it spits out attention, headlines, sometimes money.
  14. I want to be very clear here: Donald Trump is a toxic human with a toxic public presence and—worst of all—he wants to poison his people.
  15. His reign will go down not just in U.S. history but human history as a reign of uncommon cruelty in the democracies of this millennium.
  16. It's *more* than that he'll go down in our history as the worst president we'll ever have—he'll go down as one of our greatest villains.
  17. Benedict Arnold tried to betray America for a prior sovereign—Trump is trying to *torture* a nation that was good to him his whole life.
  18. Have you noticed a change in your mood since January? I mean a change you can't seem to escape? Anxiety, anger, fear, confusion, doubt?
  19. The most ubiquitous man in your nation is trying to poison you daily—because it gives him power—and no one's stopping him from doing it.
  20. I'm not using hyperbole: you're under attack. A deliberate, unprovoked, systematic, and—yes—evil attack. And it's working. We're losing.
  21. When humans are endangered, confused and hopeless, there are certain things we turn to—all of which Trump is deliberately stealing away.
  22. Our fight or flight instinct—which Trump activates—can be quelled if we're given respite, which is why Trump ensures we have no respite.
  23. That's why his tweets—which are intended to terrorize, and *do*—come in a daily barrage of needless conflict, warmongering, and cruelty.
  24. He must never stop tweeting, because his tweets now activate our culture in a way so *inescapable* that we're almost like his prisoners.
  25. You think he's attacking North Korea in his tweets? No—he's trying to terrorize *you*. The NFL? You. Segments of America? No—all of us.
  26. When humans are confused, we seek the stability of truth, trusted institutions, neighbors. He's destroying those anchors systematically.
  27. "Fake news" isn't about getting re-elected—it's about controlling your fight-or-flight instinct by giving you no safe harbor in "truth."
  28. Every institution we like or trust, he's undermined. The media. Government. Unions. Hell—even the NFL. Veterans (when he feels like it).
  29. He's enabled by the GOP—but he's no Republican. He wants to destroy any politics or politician whose world he's not at the center of.
  30. He's a malignant narcissist, and his *only* ambition is to spread his toxicity nationwide in whichever ways feed his perverse pathology.
  31. If you're a Trump voter, by all means laugh it up. You'll be caught in wars, recessions, and international collapse like the rest of us.
  32. He has 35% support because Americans love to be right/see fools suffer—and Trump voters think they're on the right side of the equation.
  33. Time will show that we were all the fools—and whatever temporary satisfaction the Right got from annoying the Left wasn't worth America.
  34. Because the last thing—of the three I mentioned—humans look for in a crisis is hope, and he's systematically taking *that* away as well.
  35. We don't have hope future elections will be fair. We don't have hope our government is working in our interests. We don't have hope...
  36. ...we can trust and love our neighbors and they'll trust and love us back. And we don't have hope things will start to make sense again.
  37. But only a fool fails to see that the pain and suffering that comes from having a madman as a leader is soon coming for every one of us.
  38. Things are going to get very bad. And many fools will say, "Well—that's America." And America *is* deeply flawed. But we weren't *this*. 
  39. One in every few generations in the West, a leader arises *so vile* that he can draw out the evil from his population and weaponize it.
  40. Trump is *not* Hitler. There was only *one* Hitler. But Trump is the *sort* of Hitler that America in 2017—at its very worst—can breed.
  41. Everything evil a man can do to a country like this, at a time like this, in a span of four or eight years, Donald Trump will try to do.
  42. He'll try to make the vulnerable live in fear. He'll position himself as unreviewable by the media and government. He'll sow confusion.
  43. And when his crimes are uncovered—and he's been a villain and criminal his whole adult life—he'll try to stoke violence to save himself.
  44. Trump is the most dangerous American of all our lifetimes—he's so dangerous we can't fully apprehend the danger or how to respond to it.
  45. He's an actually evil presence that hangs over your life—and the life of a nation you love—every single day. And he may be unstoppable.
  46. Is there any reason to trust future election results—now that we know Russia is hacking/interfering and Trump's doing *zero* to stop it?
  47. And is there any reason to think the damage Trump has done to our political system can be solved in just a single American generation?
  48. And as he plunges us deeper into our Longest War and tries to start World War III in Asia, can we be certain lasting doom isn't ahead?
  49. My point: there is only one fight in America today that matters, because all other fights are ultimately a direct corollary to this one.
  50. If we want to save ourselves—and our country—Trump must be legally, peacefully and transparently removed from a position of power. ASAP.
PS/ It's OK to finally indulge the idea that everything is as bad as you think it is if hitting rock-bottom gives you the courage to FIGHT.

Sunday, August 27, 2017

PHOENIX NEW TIMES JOE ARPAIO TWEET-STORM

What follows is an epic Tweet-Storm by the Phoenix New Times newspaper, which you should probably read in context, but if you don't have time, this ought to do the trick. - Jerky

We've been covering Joe Arpaio for more than 20 years. Here's a couple of things you should know about him...

He ran a jail that he described as a "concentration camp."

Prisoners there died at an alarming rate, often without explanation.

One of his jailers nearly broke the neck of a paraplegic guy who had the temerity to ask for a catheter.

One time, as a publicity stunt, he marched Latino prisoners into a segregated area with electric fencing.

Here's a couple of other examples of what went on in his jails:

"Arpaio's Jail Staff Cost Ambrett Spencer Her Baby, and She's Not the Only One"

"109 Degrees of Incarceration"

He ran an ongoing "mugshot of the day" contest on the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office website.

He arrested New Times reporters for covering him. We won a $3.75 million settlement for that one.

Under him, the MCSO failed to investigate hundreds of sex abuse cases, many of which involved children.

But he somehow found time and money to send a deputy to Hawaii to look for Barack Obama's birth certificate.

Oh, and one time he staged an assassination attempt against himself? That was weird.

In 2013, a federal judge confirmed what literally everyone in Phoenix knew: he'd been racially profiling Latinos.

So naturally, he hired a PI to investigate the judge and his wife.

He also kept on profiling people, which is why he got charged with contempt of court (and was found to be guilty AF)

He also tried to destroy some of the hard drives containing material that was supposed to be turned over the court.

By 2015, his fondness for racial profiling had cost the county more $44 million. On top of, you know, ruining lives.

He also paid millions to settle lawsuits like this one, where deputies stood by as an inmate was brutally beaten.

Because this is the Old West or something, he had a "Sheriff's Posse." One member got arrested on child porn charges.

His office was responsible for countless fiascos like this botched SWAT raid, where deputies set a puppy on fire.

So, yeah, that's who Trump just pardoned. You can read all our coverage of Arpaio over the years here.

Sunday, July 2, 2017

TWEET STORM FROM AUTHOR JARED SEXTON

Author Jared Sexton took to his Twitter account to discuss the origins of Trump's recent, somewhat disturbing Tweet, in which an old video of himself on a wrestling show is altered in such a way as to show him physically attacking an embodiment of CNN. It's funny, right? Ha-ha. Not coming from the President of the United States of America it isn't. And not coming from where it came from. Read on to see what I mean. Oh! But first, here's a short take from CNN and Carl Bernstein (which includes the video in question, in case you haven't seen it yet). - Jerky
  • Been going through the history of the guy who made that meme Trump sent out. It's all just overtly ugly, racist, sexist rhetoric.
  • These are the people who make up the alt-right, and the ones who are powering Trump and feeding off him.
  • Everything they say either further racism or promotes unthinkable violence. They openly fantasize about killing people.
  • Trump's continued endorsement only fuels this fantasy. They talk all the time about wanting a civil war, about killing liberals.
  • This isn't just internet boasting. This is the beginning of something really, really, REALLY bad. And Trump is adding to it daily.
  • If you don't believe it, go spend some time on Reddit. It's seething with this stuff and the people are unhinged. It won't stay there
  • This is already spilling over into the real world, in Portland, in Berkeley. It's not going to stop there.
  • These people are confusing the real world and the online one, and that violent rhetoric is going to find an outlet.
  • We're in a lot of trouble. There are sick, sick people coalescing and they're being emboldened by the President of the United States.
  • This isn't paranoia. This isn't being a snowflake. We're staring into the abyss here, and the abyss is staring back.

Tuesday, June 20, 2017

SETH ABRAMSON TWEET STORM

Journalist Seth Abramson used his Twitter account to unleash an epic Tweet storm laying out his argument that Trump is already circling the drain, and that Mueller and Co are basically just tying up the loose ends, dotting the i's and crossing the t's. I've collected that information here, for ease of use and reference. Enjoy! - JERKY


(THREAD) We DO have PROOF Trump and Russia colluded. This thread PROVIDES it. Please read and RETWEET so we can end the no-collusion canard.

(1) In counter-intelligence, the term "coordination" is used to describe what laypeople now discuss as "collusion," so I use that term here.

(2) The Washington Post reports the FBI is investigating whether "coordination" was achieved between Trump and Russia via financial crimes.

(3) The assumption of this Washington Post report is that if Trump received Russian money during the campaign, he "coordinated" with Russia.

(4) This link to the WP confirms financial coordination would be "collusion." That is NOT what this thread is about.

(5) I link to the WP to *establish* that transfers of money between Trump and Russia during the campaign would be considered "coordination."

(6) The reason Trump-Russia money transfers in the campaign constitute "coordination" ("collusion") is because *Russia was at war with us*.

(7) Homeland Security experts agree that cyberwar is a modern form of war, and in 2016 Russia *unilaterally waged war* on the United States.

(8) The case for Trump-Russia coordination is *very easy* to make—it begins with *when* Trump learned Russia was waging cyberwar on America.

(9) We know that, at the *latest*, Trump himself learned that Russia was *at war* with the United States during the last week of July 2016.

(10) On July 26, 2016, in a major national news story, NBC reported "Experts Are Sure Russia Hacked" U.S. systems.

(11) (You'll note the difference between the Twitter headline and the *actual* headline; click on the link to see, "Experts Are *Sure*...")

(12) We know Trump read NBC's report because the *very next day* he gave a *nationally televised press conference* on the very same subject.

(13) In his big press conference, Trump said Russia "probably" had engaged in cyber-war against the United States.

(14) (As you see from the Twitter headline, Trump went *further* and said he also *hoped* it was true Russia was cyber-attacking America.)

(15) Trump's admission (a) he believed Russia was at cyberwar with America, and (b) *hoped* it was, *shocked* the American political system.

(16) It's easy—in hindsight—to forget Trump's July 27, 2016 pronouncement was *not* just national news but considered *infamously historic*.

(17) But *equally* important was that the *Trump campaign* was *well aware* how big a problem Trump's statement was—which know in two ways.

(18) First, and most importantly, that was the *last major press conference Trump gave during the course of the 2016 presidential election*.

(19) Consider that: a man whose attorneys, friends, family and staff can't get him to shut up on Twitter *stopped giving press conferences*.

(20) And he *stopped giving press conferences* at a time he needed to give them to get attention *and* media *wanted* to give him attention.

(21) The second remarkable thing Trump did was that he publicly *reversed course* shortly thereafter. As we know, Trump *hates* to do this.

(22) Trump saying Russia "probably" was hacking U.S. systems meant (legally and otherwise) that he believed it to be "more likely than not."

(23) After Trump and/or his aides pulled him from *all future press conferences*, he suddenly began to express doubt about Russian hacking.

(24) Suddenly Trump's position—even as the IC became *more and more certain* in its assessment—was that *anyone* could've done the hacking.

(25) But America never forgot his "probably" or "I hope" and *disbelieved* that Trump would then become *less* sure as the IC became *more*.

(26) If you're reading this, I hope you will agree that all I've done here so far is relate American history as it happened. No conjectures.

(27) Another mere fact is this one: AG Jeff Sessions testified under oath that he discussed sanctions with Sergey Kislyak in September 2016.

(28) Sessions also made clear—under oath—that he didn't discuss hacking with Kislyak at that meeting. He only discussed sanctions with him.

(29) So for instance, we could *not* say that Sessions was negotiating with Kislyak to drop sanctions *if Russia stopped hacking America*.

(30) No—what we know, from Sessions, is he engaged in negotiations over the dropping of sanctions against Russia with no such preconditions.

(31) To review: July 27, Trump accepts Russia is likely at war with America; weeks later he lets Sessions talk sanctions (no preconditions).

(32) Note that Sessions, in hours of testimony, couldn't remember a *single* key detail about his *three meetings* with Kislyak. Except one.

(33) The *one* detail Sessions *chose* to recall on Kislyak—and *repeated* in *both testimonies*—is the September meeting was "contentious."

(34) Why did Sessions go to such *extraordinary* lengths—even contradicting his own "meeting amnesia"—to establish the tone of one meeting?

(35) Here—for the first time in the thread—I move from *fact* to the sort of *circumstantial evidence* the FBI uses in criminal cases daily.

(36) The reflexivity shown by Trump and Sessions on *two issues*—Russian hacking and the September meeting—suggest a consciousness of guilt.

(37) It's *shocking* that *weeks* after Trump admitted Russia was *at war with us* he let his *top foreign policy aide* negotiate sanctions.

(38) So: a) Trump would *want* us to think he doubted Russian hacking, b) Sessions would *want* his September meeting to seem *contentious*.

(39) Fortunately for Trump, he kept repeating *so often* that he doubted the IC analysis on hacking that we *forgot* he first *accepted* it.

(40) Fortunately for Sessions, he broke protocol by taking no notes, then *not reporting* his meeting, then committing *multiple* perjuries.

(41) So investigators must determine what Trump and Russia negotiated with respect to sanctions by some other means. And—good news—they can.

(42) FBI investigators now know Trump's transition was engaged in ongoing sanctions negotiation w/ Russia and committed felonies to hide it.

(43) Mike Flynn risked *more than a decade in prison* to try to hide from the federal government that Team Trump was negotiating sanctions.

(44) And Trump risked *aiding and abetting Flynn* by *not* firing him for weeks. Why? To keep Flynn on his side—to keep him from squawking.

(45) Even in (finally) firing him, Trump a) underscored that Flynn was a "good man" and b) wouldn't say he fired him over lies *to the FBI*.

(46) FBI investigators also know Trump planned to—*as one of his first acts in office*—drop all sanctions on Russia.

(47) Trump's plan to drop sanctions was—*yet again*—*without preconditions* and at a time our IC *confirmed* unilateral Russian aggression.

(48) Indeed, Trump's plan to drop sanctions *without preconditions* was at a time Russia's behavior toward the United States had *worsened*.

(49) Trump's plan to drop sanctions on Russia *without preconditions* constitutes a transfer of *hundreds of billions of dollars* to Russia.

(50) To transfer hundreds of billions of dollars to an enemy currently waging war upon you—*without preconditions*—constitutes coordination.

(51) And *all* the evidence we have right now underscores Trump was negotiating dropping sanctions during the campaign *and* the transition.

(52) And Trump's *own televised statements*—-plus his later attempts to cover them up—confirm he *knew* Russia was waging war upon America.

(53) The media may assume that collusion *only* occurs when money flows from Russia to Trump—the FBI makes *no such mistake*, be sure of it.

(54) Trump used his top NatSec/FP aides—Sessions and Flynn—to negotiate dropping sanctions on Russia without preconditions in a time of war.

(55) The FBI does not *need* proof that the Russians paid Trump, because it already *has* proof Trump made long-term plans to *pay Russia*.

(56) The FBI doesn't *need* proof Team Trump gave intel to the Russians, as Trump merely needed to *know* what Russia was doing. And he did.

(57) During the campaign and transition Trump plotted with Sessions and Flynn to provide material aid and comfort to an active US adversary.

(58) That that illegal aid and comfort was contingent upon Trump being president didn't even need to be said, because it was *self-evident*.

(59) The moment Sessions and Flynn confirmed they negotiated dropping sanctions in a "hot" cyberwar—without preconditions—we had collusion.

(60) There's no doubt whatsoever that Trump, Sessions, and Flynn thereby offered inducements to Russian hacking *as it was happening to us*.

(61) Note—the evidence I've presented thus far is only a *fraction* of the evidence the FBI has on this issue. I'll let you in on some more.

(62) *Public reports* from late July 2016—when Trump was learning about Russian cyberwar on America—confirm *many* steps taken on sanctions.

(63) The next tweets in this thread are *all* based on widespread—even ubiquitous—national news reports from July 2016. Feel free to Google.

(64) At the RNC, Trump's #2 foreign policy aide—J.D. Gordon—negotiated sanctions with the Russians then lied to the national press about it.

(65) Prior to Gordon's lie, Trump's Campaign Manager—Paul Manafort—lied to the national press about whether Trump was negotiating sanctions.

(66) In his first Congressional testimony, Trump's top foreign policy aide—Sessions—perjured to hide that he too met with Russia at the RNC.

(67) The fact Sessions had *already* discussed sanctions with Kislyak in late July belies his claim their September meeting was contentious.

(68) The FBI couldn't fail to miss this M.O.—Trump's top NatSec/foreign policy aides lie to Americans, Congress, and the FBI *on sanctions*.

(69) Moreover the FBI knows a) all negotiations lacked preconditions, and b) all negotiations occurred when Trump knew about Russia hacking.

(70) Republicans have used *disinformation* to convince the media and its viewers that coordination/collusion requires "hacking assistance."

(71) Republicans also use *disinformation* to convince the media and its viewers that coordination/collusion requires Russia *paying Trump*.

(72) The FBI is *investigating* hacking assistance—how did Russian bots micro-target competitive U.S. districts?—but they *needn't* find it.

(73) The FBI is investigating Russian payments to Trump associates via money laundering—per The Washington Post—but they *needn't* find it.

(74) And what the FBI *certainly* doesn't *need* to find is the Dick Tracy-like "smoking gun" the GOP is, like mob-movie fanboys, demanding.

(75) Criminal investigators—and I was one—know the coordination *most* likely to work, and stay hidden, is the *simplest* sort of collusion.

(76) If media wants to keep saying "no evidence of collusion yet!" it needs to educate itself on what international collusion can look like.

(77) Instead they rely on quotes from pols—but of *course* pols will wait for a smoking gun that'll convince *everyone*. Why shouldn't they?

(78) As long as the possibility of a Dick Tracy-like "smoking gun" remains out there—and it very much does—pols can stay "mum" on collusion.

(79) But journos and social media users should say clearly and unambiguously that we *have* evidence of collusion and now seek *even more*.

(80) And if the *media* would start researching *coordination via sanctions* we might get lots of *new* information we don't *already* have.

(81) So the next time someone says to you, "There's been a year of investigation and no proof of any collusion!" you should simply say this:

(82) "We have REAMS of evidence Trump's team committed MULTIPLE CRIMES to give Russia sanctions relief in exchange for continued cyber-war."

(83) Then go further: "EVERY REVELATION in the Russia probe—on Sessions, Flynn, Manafort and Trump—CONFIRMS collusion via sanctions relief."

(84) When those of us who don't want to see America run by an autocrat concede the collusion question to friends and family, America loses.

(85) So *fight for your country* by telling anyone who'll listen that we *know* Trump colluded with Russia. And show them this thread. {end}

(PS) This thread uses "war" to mean "cyberwarfare." The analyses here presume *only* a known hostile actor—not a formal declaration of war.

(PS2) A US person/entity materially aiding/abetting a hostile foreign actor engaged in cyberwarfare against America is coordinating by law.

(PS3) Pre-election assurances the US would drop sanctions on Russia—without conditions—at a time America was under cyber-attack are illegal.

(PS4) All that's needed is for a person to know the future transfer of billions they're promising is to a foreign power engaged in cyberwar.

(PS5) The evidence we have *now*—from public reports, Congressional testimony and Trump's own statements—confirms all elements of collusion.

(VIDEO) Many videos—like this BBC one—cut off Trump's next eight words: "Let's see if that happens—that'll be next."