Tag: Politics

Daily Check-In 08/22/2018

Wednesday, August 22, 2018.

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

Manafort

Now that Paul Manafort is a convicted felon, let’s take a moment to enjoy the fact that he has ANOTHER trial in less than a month, and that he might be retried on the ten counts that ended in a mistrial.

Good times.

 

COHEN

It’s not clear whether federal prosecutors knew in advance that Cohen would implicate Trump, but if they had any reason not to believe him, they were obligated not to permit Cohen to lie to the judge. Because they didn’t, we know that his statements were consistent with the other evidence in their possession.

So Cohen wanted to publicly reveal that Trump directed him to commit crimes. The implication of his statement is obvious — it is a crime to direct someone else to commit a crime. And Cohen is not done. His attorney Lanny Davis told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Tuesday night that Cohen is willing to provide information to Mueller about a possible “conspiracy to collude” with Russia and whether Trump “knew ahead of time” about computer hacking.

…

Tuesday’s statement by Cohen was a jiujitsu move that evaded Trump’s disinformation campaign, and it might not be the last such move. More evidence of crimes that don’t fit Trump’s narrative could weaken the resolve of Trump’s base, or cause some high-profile Republicans to break with the president. Or a Democratic victory in November, along with a stronger PR campaign by Democrats on corruption and impeachment, could ultimately sway enough Republicans to make a difference.

I could probably spend an entire weekend tearing apart everything that we know about Cohen, and I’d really like to, but here’s the TL:DR; (Too Long, Didn’t Read) version.

Trump is fucked.  He’s so fucked, that it is almost mathematically impossible to quantify the level of fucked he’s at, and it’s only going to get worse.  Michael Cohen can link everything together.  EVERYTHING. The hush money payments, the money laundering, the espionage and treason, the mob shit, the charity crimes, ALL OF IT.  Cohen was Trump’s right hand man for more than a decade.  He handled all of the details.

And now the feds have all of it, and Cohen is talking.

 

IMPEACHMENT AND INDICTMENT TALK

Impeachment

 

Indictment

 

Resignation

 

ATTACKS ON THE ELECTION

 

TRUMP THE RUSSIAN ASSET

 

TRAITOR TOTS

Duncan Hunter

 

FIGHTING BACK

The first denial that Donald Trump knew about hush-money payments to silence women came four days before he was elected president, when his spokeswoman Hope Hicks said, without hedging, “We have no knowledge of any of this.”

The second came in January of this year, when his attorney Michael Cohen said the allegations were “outlandish.” By March, two of the president’s spokesmen — Raj Shah and Sarah Huckabee Sanders — said publicly that Trump denied all the allegations and any payments. Even Cohen’s attorney, David Schwartz, got in on the action, saying the president “was not aware of any of it.”

In April, Trump finally weighed in, answering a question about whether he knew about a payment to porn star Stephanie Clifford, who uses the stage name Stormy Daniels, with a flat “no.”

It’s now clear that the president’s statement was a lie — and that the people speaking for him repeated it.

 

So now it’s confirmed, as a matter of legal record, that President Donald Trump organized a scheme to violate federal election laws. He directed his longtime personal attorney to pay at least one woman for silence. That attorney got the money by lying to a bank to get a home-equity line of credit.

It’s a matter of legal record, too, that Trump’s campaign chair was a huge-scale crook. Despite his desperate financial straits, he volunteered to work for Trump for free—and Trump accepted.

These two cases complete the beginnings of the story. They are not the story in full. The Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort cases are like the first rocky outcroppings a ship passes as it makes landfall. They are examples of the kind of people willing to work for Trump—and the way that those people carried on their business. They indicate why one of Trump’s sons would write “I love it” when offered stolen information about the Hillary Clinton campaign by a purported representative of the Russian government, how so much doubtful money flowed into the Trump Organization after 2006, and why Trump dares not publish his tax returns.

 

IMMIGRATION

 

COLD WAR 2.0

Davis was a fixture on Wednesday morning’s TV news programs, sitting for at least five interviews that aired before 9 a.m., including all three network morning shows — NBC’s “Today,” ABC’s “Good Morning America” and “CBS This Morning.”

He told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that Trump’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland, was a “significant turning point” for Cohen in deciding to turn against the president, Cohen’s attorney said Wednesday. Cohen, who has worked alongside the president and his family since 2006, went through an “evolutionary” process before taking the plea deal he formally accepted on Tuesday, Davis said.

“Helsinki was a significant turning point, as he worried about the future of our country with the president of the United States aligning with somebody who everybody in his intelligence community who he appointed, including [Director of National Intelligence] Dan Coats, said that Putin interfered and tried to help Trump get elected,” Davis said. “And Trump is the only one left denying that. And that shook up Mr. Cohen.”

Earlier this summer, Trump met face-to-face with Russian president Putin in Helsinki, meeting one-on-one and then with aides. Those meetings were followed by a bilateral press conference where Trump seemed to accept Putin’s denials that Russia was not behind a campaign of cyberattacks aimed at interfering with the 2016 U.S. presidential election, apparently taking the word of the Russian president over that of the U.S. intelligence community.

 

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

FIXING THE INTERNET

 

SCOTUS

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

ELECTION 2018

 

ENVIRONMENT

 

PROGRESS IS PROGRESS

 

RUMOR MILL

 

That’s it for Wednesday.  After Tuesday’s events, this entry is a little light.  That, and my arm hurts, which makes typing a little slower.  Fuck it, I’m tired.

I updated The Indicted to include Cohen, Hunter, and Collins.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Daily Check-In 08/21/2018

Tuesday, August 21, 2018.  Just another Tuesday.  Nothing crazy happened today…

Oh, what was that?

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

The Manafort Tax Trial: Day 16

MANFORT FOUND GUILTY ON 8 COUNTS

Paul Manafort, former Campaign Manager for President Donald J. Trump, was convicted of 8 felony counts covering tax evasion, filing false forms for the IRS, and not reporting foreign bank accounts on his taxes.  The jury was hung on the remaining 10 counts, and the judge declared a mistrial for those counts.  It is not clear yet whether or not the government will decide to pursue those ten counts in another trial.  Manafort is scheduled for another trial in September.

8 out of 18 might not sound great, but it’s actually pretty good news.  We’re not talking about a QB’s completions and attempts stat line, we’re talking about a jury coming to a unanimous decision on whether or not Paul Manafort committed these crimes.  And he did.  1 guilty verdict out of 18 would make him a convicted felon.  8 guilty verdicts still makes him a felon.

Also, he’s still looking at about the same punishment for 8 as he is 18.  It will be up to the judge to determine the exact punishment, but the sentencing guidelines only require a preponderance of guilt, not guilt proven beyond a reasonable doubt.  If Judge Ellis feels that there is sufficient evidence that Paul Manafort committed the other 10 crimes, those will be taken into account during his sentencing.

 

Flynn

In even more bad news for Trump, Michael Flynn’s sentencing has been pushed back… again.  This could mean several things, but the consensus is that he’s cooperating with the Special Counselor and still providing him with valuable information.  Of course, we made the same assumption about Papadopoulos, and look how that worked out (Daily Check-In 08/17/2018).

 

McGahn

Every time Trump worries about a lawyer screwing him over, an angel gets their wings.

 

Steele Dossier

The former MI6 officer Christopher Steele has won a legal battle in the United States against three Russian oligarchs who sued him over allegations made in his dossier about the Trump campaign and its links with Moscow.

The oligarchs – Mikhail Fridman, Petr Aven and German Khan – claimed that Steele and his intelligence firm, Orbis, defamed them in the dossier, which was leaked and published in early 2017. The Russians own stakes in Moscow-based Alfa Bank. All are billionaires.

On Monday, a judge in the District of Columbia, Anthony C Epstein, upheld a motion by Steele to have the oligarchs’ case thrown out. Epstein did not determine whether the dossier – which Donald Trump has repeatedly dismissed as “fake” – was “accurate or not accurate”.

But the judge concluded that it was covered by the US first amendment, which protects free speech. He ruled that the oligarchs had failed to prove a key part of their case: that Steele knew that some information in the dossier was inaccurate, and had acted “with reckless disregard as to its falsity”.

The ruling is a piece of good news for Steele, who has maintained silence in the face of a mountain of abuse from Trump and his enraged supporters. This month, the president called Steele a “lowlife” on Twitter and described the dossier as “phony”, “discredited” and paid for by “Crooked Hillary”.

More good news coming from this investigation.  I wonder if anything else happened today…

 

 

COHEN PLEADS GUILTY TO 8 FELONY COUNTS

Michael Cohen, formerly the personal attorney to Donald J. Trump, and until June (Daily Check-In 06/20/2018) the Deputy Finance Chair of the Republican National Committee, pled guilty to 8 felonies in Federal Court in Manhattan.

The Defendant
1. From in or about 2007 through in or about January

2017, MICHAEL COHEN, the defendant, was an attorney and employeeof a Manhattan-based real estate company (the “Company”). COHENheld the title of “Executive Vice President” and “Special Counsel”to the owner of the Company (“Individual-1”).

2. In or about January 2017, COHEN left the Companyand began holding himself out as the “personal attorney” to Individual-1, who at that point had become the President of the United States.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Fuck you, President Individual-1.

That’s just the opening two paragraphs of the indictment.  Let’s see where this goes from here.

The indictment includes the following charges:

  • 5 counts of Evasion of Assessment of Income Tax Liability for tax years 2012 through 2016.
  • 1 count of False Statements to a Bank to get his Home Equity Line of Credit increased, which he then used to pay off Stormy Daniels.
  • 1 count of Causing an Unlawful Corporate Contribution for the Karen McDougal payoff.
  • 1 count of Excessive Campaign Contribution for the Stormy Daniels payoff.

The first 5 counts are him not paying over a million dollars in back taxes.  Charge 6 was lying to a bank to get the money to pay off Stormy Daniels.  An argument could, and likely will be made by the Right Wing Media, that the first several counts were because Cohen was a slime ball and these weren’t tied to the campaign.  That argument requires a lot mental gymnastics, and I’m not that limber.

Counts 7 and 8 are where things get REAL interesting.  Let’s start with Count 7.

42. From in or about June 2016, up to and including inor about October 2016, in the Southern District of New York and elsewhere, MICHAEL COHEN, the defendant, knowingly and willfully caused a corporation to make a contribution and expenditure, aggregating $25,000 and more during the 2016 calendar year, to the campaign of a candidate for President of the United States, to wit, COHEN caused Corporation-1 to make and advance a $150,000 payment to Woman-1, including through the promise of reimbursement, so as to ensure that Woman-1 did not publicize damaging allegations before the 2016 presidential election and thereby influence that election.

Cohen worked with Corporation-1 AMI, owners of the National Enquirer) to pay off Woman-1 (Karen McDougal). (Daily Check-In 01/12/2018, Daily Check-In 03/16/2018, Daily Check-In 03/22/2018).

44. On or about October 27, 2016, in the Southern District of New York and elsewhere, MICHAEL COHEN, the defendant, knowingly and willfully made and caused to be made a contribution to Individual-1, a candidate for Federal office, and his authorized political committee in excess of the limits of the Election Act, which aggregated $25,000 and more in calendar year 2016, and did so by making and causing to be made an expenditure, in cooperation, consultation, and concert with, and at the request and suggestion of one or more members of the campaign, to wit, COHEN made a $130,000 payment to Woman-2 to ensure that she did not publicize damaging allegations before the 2016 presidential election andthereby influence that election.

Cohen made an illegal campaign donation to Individual-1 (Trump), with the knowledge of multiple people on the campaign, paid Woman-2 (Stormy Daniels) so that she would keep quiet about an affair her and Individual-1 had years earlier.  This was done specifically to help Individual-1 during the election. (Daily Check-In 02/14/2018, Daily Check-In 01/12/2018).

That was just the indictment.  Cohen’s testimony while under oath was even more damning.  When asked to describe the events in his own words, he said that he made this  payment AT THE INSTRUCTION OF THE CANDIDATE.  When the judge asked Cohen if he knew this was illegal, he said yes, and that he still did it at the instruction of the candidate.

Holy shit.  That, ladies and gentlemen, is the beginning of the end of the Trump Presidency.  From this moment on, he is personally tied to felonious behavior executed at his instruction by people working for him.

Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States of America, is as of this moment an unindicted co-conspirator of a criminal investigation.

By the way, Cohen’s lawyer said that Cohen has a lot of things that Mueller would love to hear, and that there is no way that Cohen would accept a pardon from Trump.

I wonder if anything else happened today…

 

TRAITOR TOTS

Duncan Hunter indicted on using campaign funds for personal use

Really?  Another fucking indictment?

When this story broke, I had to check a few places just to make sure this wasn’t some kind of joke or hoax.  It’s like “what else is going to happen?”

Duncan Hunter, Republican representative from CA-50, was indicted along with his wife Margaret for using more than $250,000 of campaign funds for personal expenses.  They lived WAAAYYY out of their means, and used the campaign donations as their own piggy bank.

Duncan is the son of former California congressman Duncan Hunter, who also represented the same district for many years.  It was his father who helped get his donors to support his son.

If the story of a congressman getting indicted for shady white collar crimes, Chris Collins was arrested a couple weeks ago. (Daily Check-In 08/08/2018). Collins and Hunter were the first two members of Congress to endorse Donald Trump and formed the Trump Caucus.  Seriously, these two men were the first to endorse Trump for POTUS, and they’re both indicted within 2 weeks of each other.

Naturally, Duncan blamed his campaign manager for this fraud, and has so far refused to step down from his re-election bid.  I give it a week or two before he feels the need to suspend his campaign so he can “spend time with his family.”

 

TRUMP THE RUSSIAN ASSET

The President of the United States is now, formally, implicated in a criminal conspiracy to mislead the American public in order to influence an election. Were he not President, Donald Trump himself would almost certainly be facing charges. This news came in what must be considered the most damaging single hour of a deeply troubled Presidency.

On Tuesday morning, it was still possible to believe that Trump’s former campaign chair Paul Manafort might be exonerated and that his longtime attorney Michael Cohen would only face charges for crimes stemming from his taxicab business. Such events would have supported Trump’s effort to portray the Mueller investigation as a “witch hunt” perpetrated by overzealous partisan prosecutors. By late afternoon, though, Cohen, the President’s longtime adviser, fixer, and, until recently, personal attorney, told a judge that Trump explicitly instructed him to break campaign-finance laws by paying two women not to publicly disclose the affairs they had with Trump. At precisely the same moment, Manafort was learning of his fate: guilty on eight counts of bank and tax fraud, with the jury undecided on ten other counts.

The question can no longer be whether the President and those closest to him broke the law. That is settled. Three of the people closest to Trump as he ran for and won the Presidency have now pleaded guilty or have been convicted of significant federal crimes: Michael Cohen, Paul Manafort, and Michael Flynn. The question now becomes far narrower and, for Trump, more troubling: What is the political impact of a President’s criminal liability being established in a federal court? How will Congress respond? And if Congress does not act, how will voters respond in the midterm elections?

Almost.  This trial was about Manafort not paying his taxes.  The trial that starts next month gets into collusion.

 

Clearances

 

ATTACKS ON THE ELECTION

 

FIGHTING BACK

 

IMMIGRATION

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

TRADE WAR AND ECONOMY

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

Journalist April Ryan said in a new interview that the White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders should cover the costs for Ryan’s security detail amid death threats from people who are critical of her coverage of the Trump administration.

“I’ve had some people wait for me outside the White House,” Ryan told The Hollywood Reporter. “There is a concern now. I mean, I’ve had death threats, I’ve had craziness, so I have a real concern.”

“Do I have a bodyguard?” Ryan said. “Yes, I do. Am I paying for it? Yes, I am. And, I think [Sanders] should have to pay for it, especially if she’s stirring it up with her boss.”

“I did not sign up for this. I was just doing a job,” Ryan, the White House correspondent for American Urban Radio Networks, added.

Ryan said months ago that she received death threats after she asked Sanders if President Trump had considered resigning.

“They’re angry. I’ve been getting death threats and we’ve been calling the FBI and I mean, I put one on social media and this is real,” Ryan said at the time to CNN, where she is a contributor.

 

FIXING THE INTERNET

 

SCOTUS

 

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

Omarosa

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

Trump has surrounded himself with Wall Street alumni “who have behaved with weapons-grade venality … and Master of the Dick affects. They were there … only for the tax bill. Nothing else ever mattered to any of them.”

The Trump administration has been “a hotbed of remarkably obvious pay-to-play and crony capitalist game-playing. How obvious? Think 1970s Times Square hooker on the corner obvious … The degree to which this president has monetized the presidency for the direct benefit of himself, his soft-jawed offspring, and his far-flung empire of bullshit makes the Teapot Dome scandal look like a warm-up act in the Corruption Olympics.”

I listened to this book last week, and I highly recommend it.  Rick Wilson has a way with words and phrases that I am honestly jealous of.

For a moment, I thought that maybe, just maybe, this was the beginning of a local upswell of Republicans who wanted to put the corruption aside and reclaim their conservative values, and I was hopeful for a moment.  Then I finished the sentence.  Nope, just a bunch of racist assholes who don’t think anyone darker than a latte should be in this country.

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

Washington –Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is targeting Russian actors’ efforts to circumvent U.S. sanctions.  This action was taken pursuant to authority provided under Executive Order (E.O.) 13694, “Blocking Property of Certain Persons Engaging in Significant Malicious Cyber-Enabled Activities,” as amended, and as codified by the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), to designate two entities and two Russian individuals in order to counter attempts to evade U.S. sanctions.

“The Treasury Department is disrupting Russian efforts to circumvent our sanctions,” said Steven T. Mnuchin, Secretary of the Treasury.  “Today’s action against these deceptive actors is critical to ensure that the public is aware of the tactics undertaken by designated parties and that these actors remain blocked from the U.S. financial system.”

As a result of today’s action, all property and interests in property of the designated persons subject to U.S. jurisdiction are blocked, and U.S. persons are generally prohibited from engaging in transactions with them.

DESIGNATED ENTITIES AND INDIVIDUALS

The individuals and entities identified below are being designated based on the actions they undertook for Divetechnoservices, a Russian entity sanctioned on June 11, 2018 pursuant to E.O. 13694, as amended, for procuring a variety of underwater equipment and diving systems for Russian government agencies, to include the Federal Security Service (FSB).  The FSB was sanctioned on December 28, 2016, pursuant to E.O. 13694, as amended, and on March 15, 2018, pursuant to CAATSA Section 224.

Vela-Marine Ltd. was designated pursuant to E.O. 13694, as amended, for having attempted to act or purported to act for or on behalf of Divetechnoservices.  As of July 2018, Divetechnoservices utilized Vela-Marine Ltd. in an attempt to circumvent U.S. sanctions.

Marina Igorevna Tsareva (Tsareva) was designated pursuant to E.O. 13694, as amended, for having acted for or on behalf of Divetechnoservices and Vela Marine Ltd.  Tsareva has worked as an Import Manager for Divetechnoservices and attempted to help Divetechnoservices circumvent U.S. sanctions through Vela-Marine Ltd.

Anton Aleksandrovich Nagibin (Nagibin) was designated pursuant to E.O. 13694, as amended, for having acted for or on behalf of Divetechnoservices.  As of July 2018, Nagibin was a Divetechnoservices’ employee involved in helping the company attempt to circumvent U.S. sanctions.

Lacno S.R.O. was designated pursuant to E.O. 13694, as amended, for having materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services in support of, Divetechnoservices.  As of May 2018, Lacno S.R.O., which is based in Slovakia, attempted to facilitate a payment for over $20,000 on behalf of Divetechnoservices.  As of April 2018, Divetechnoservices planned to utilize Lacno S.R.O. to purchase equipment.

Identifying information on the individuals and entities designated today.

 

ENVIRONMENT

Perhaps the summer of 2018 will be remembered as the one that foretold the cataclysm. Maybe the cataclysm has already arrived. Nearly every day, there is some new bulletin about a raging wildfire or a ferocious typhoon or a biblical flood. Often, it’s buried by news of a Presidential Porn Star Payoff, or a tape from Omarosa. But it’s still happening.

The American West is still on fire, even if we refuse to pay attention—except when the president is doling out moronic advice on how to deal with it. Large portions of Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent spent the summer drowning in floodwater. Greece, too, spent the month of July on fire. Europe fried in a heatwave, as portions of the British Isles recorded their highest-ever June temperatures, Sweden had its hottest July in 260 years, and the temperature in Siberia ticked up to 90 degrees.

It’s in that vein that Tuesday’s news arrives, a startling report in The Guardian that even the portion of Arctic ice that scientists have long thought the most secure has already begun to falter:

The oldest and thickest sea ice in the Arctic has started to break up, opening waters north of Greenland that are normally frozen, even in summer. This phenomenon – which has never been recorded before – has occurred twice this year due to warm winds and a climate-change driven heatwave in the northern hemisphere … The sea off the north coast of Greenland is normally so frozen that it was referred to, until recently, as “the last ice area” because it was assumed that this would be the final northern holdout against the melting effects of a hotter planet.

While the most immediate worry around melting ice is rising sea levels that will endanger coastal communities, there’s growing concern among scientists that it will also fuel feedback loops that accelerate warming. For instance, ice is lightly colored and reflective. But as it melts, it reveals the darker-colored land or ocean water below. Those surfaces will absorb more heat, accelerating the rate at which nearby ice melts and sea levels rise. As the permafrost melts in Siberia and elsewhere, it will release methane—a gas that does not linger as long in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide but is about 30 times more powerful in trapping heat.

 

ELECTION 2018

Pennsylvania state Sen. Scott Wagner, the Republican candidate to unseat Gov. Tom Wolf (D) in the Keystone State, joked Friday that the Russian government would help him win this November.

In a recording obtained by the Pennsylvania Democratic Party and provided to HuffPost, Wagner is heard cracking the joke to a crowd in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania.

“By the way, the Russians are going to help me with Tom Wolf,” Wagner says, prompting a round of laughter and applause from the audience. “If I have to use Paul Manafort, I will.”

 

PROGRESS IS PROGRESS

 

MY FAVORITE HEADLINE OF THE DAY

 

 

RUMOR MILL

 

That’s it for Tuesday.  I don’t have a clue where we go from here.  This is one of those historic, game-changing days.  I see a few paths, but none of them are set, and all of them end with Trump out of office by 2020, if not sooner.

If the Republicans in Congress weren’t corrupt shits that are complicit in their own crimes against this country, we would see impeachment proceedings begin by the end of the day.  Hell, even in a special session, Paul Ryan would put out a press release saying that the first thing that Congress should do when they return in September would be to debate Articles of Impeachment in the Judiciary Committee.  That would the be best-case scenario for the Republican Party.  Get Trump out of office before the elections, know that you’re going to take a pounding in the polls but get ready for a fight in 2020, and hope Mike Pence doesn’t shit the bed as a President.

They won’t do that.

Instead, I don’t think they’ll do anything until the Mueller report on Obstruction of Justice is complete, and even then they’ll pussyfoot around the subject.  They’ll do whatever they can to keep Trump in the White House until after the congressional session ends and the next Congress is sworn in.  It’ll be around that time that major damaging information about Mike Pence will come out, and by that point both the President and VP will be looking at Impeachment or Resignation.

It’s a long shot, but I wouldn’t be too surprised to see President Nancy Pelosi by mid-2019.   That’s how fucked up this timeline is.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Daily Check-In 08/20/2018

Monday, August 20th.

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

The Manafort Trial, Day 15

On day 15, the jury stayed a little later, which made everyone trip over themselves in thinking that a verdict was imminent.

Nope.

The jury is still deliberating this case, and will continue on Tuesday.

 

McGahn

Donald Trump has a credibility problem, but so do the media. A case in point is the weekend story that White House counsel Don McGahn has cooperated with special counsel Robert Mueller. Let’s try to navigate through this Beltway Hall of Mirrors.

The thesis of the New York Times story is that Mr. McGahn cooperated in a way that could hurt Donald Trump in order to protect himself and because he doesn’t trust the President. This fits the media narrative that Mr. Trump is covering up his collusion with Russia and his obstruction of justice, and thus Mr. McGahn must be scrambling to save himself.

Yet lost in the resulting tempest is a crucial fact that appears to contradict this spin: Mr. Trump had to waive executive privilege for Mr. McGahn to cooperate with Mr. Mueller.

Mr. McGahn is not Mr. Trump’s personal attorney, so attorney-client privilege isn’t at issue. But as White House counsel Mr. McGahn represents the Presidency. He is a careful enough lawyer to advise Mr. Trump that agreeing to answer Mr. Mueller’s questions would waive executive privilege. And the Times reports that Mr. McGahn’s attorney, William Burck, said on the record that Mr. McGahn cooperated only after Mr. Trump waived any privilege claim.

This in turn meant that Mr. McGahn would have to answer all of Mr. Mueller’s questions. Once privilege is waived, Mr. McGahn couldn’t decide to answer, say, what Mr. Trump told him about Attorney General Jeff Sessions but refuse to discuss the President’s state of mind when he fired James Comey at the FBI. Without invoking privilege there is no legal basis for Mr. McGahn to refuse to answer a question.

This isn’t what you’d expect if Mr. Trump is leading a coverup. Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton fought extensive legal battles with prosecutors over executive privilege. Mr. Clinton invoked privilege to block aides Bruce Lindsey and Sidney Blumenthal from testifying to Ken Starr’s grand jury.Yet when Mr. Trump doesn’t invoke privilege for his White House counsel, he gets no credit.

Could it be that Mr. Trump let Mr. McGahn cooperate with Mr. Mueller because he felt he had nothing to cover up? This is precisely what Mr. Trump tweeted Saturday: “I allowed him and all others to testify – I didn’t have to. I have nothing to hide.”

Because Mr. Trump makes so many false statements, this claim is also assumed to be false—though legal logic and the public evidence suggest that in this case it may be true. Keep in mind that Mr. Trump’s lawyers cooperated extensively with Mr. Mueller for months, turning over tens of thousands of documents—also without claiming executive privilege.

In recent months, as the Mueller probe has dragged on, Mr. Trump has turned to denouncing it as a “witch hunt.” His lawyers now fear that letting the President talk to Mr. Mueller’s team, as Mr. Trump has said he wants to do, could be walking into a perjury trap. This is a rational fear, but the lawyers are still negotiating with Mr. Mueller.

Mr. McGahn has been one of the President’s most effective advisers—notably on judicial nominations. But some in and outside the White House resent his influence and might want to portray him as undermining Mr. Trump. The bottom line is that readers should remain skeptical about what is reported about Mr. Mueller’s probe, waiting to see the evidence he actually produces.

 

Papadopoulos

 

The Russian Escort.  No, the other one.  No, the other other one.

We mentioned her back on Daily Check-In 03/13/2018.  Looks like she’s working on a deal with Oleg Deripaska to get out of jail, and not end up the victim of a Russian Heart Attack.

 

Butina and Bolton

One piece of information that might have fallen through the cracks in the past month was John Bolton working on an Pro-Russian Gun Rights video with none other than Maria Butina. (Daily Check-In 07/16/2018, Daily Check-In 07/18/2018)

That’s right, the National Security Adviser worked with a Russian Spy to create propaganda.  Yet he still has a security clearance?

 

 

RUSSIAN ATTACKS ON THE ELECTION

Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit, which is responsible for the company’s response to email phishing schemes, took the lead role in finding and disabling the sites, and the company is launching an effort to provide expanded cybersecurity protection for campaigns and election agencies that use Microsoft products.

Among those targeted were the Hudson Institute, a conservative Washington think tank active in investigations of corruption in Russia, and the International Republican Institute (IRI), a nonprofit group that promotes democracy worldwide. Three other fake sites were crafted to appear as though they were affiliated with the Senate, and one nonpolitical site spoofed Microsoft’s own online products.

The Senate did not immediately respond to requests for comment late Monday.

This is interesting.  While the first headline makes it sound that the Republicans were attacked, too, it goes deeper than that.

The two organizations are pro-democracy and anti-authoritarian, which means they are anti-Russia.  APT28 attacked anti-Russian organizations.

The hackers successfully infiltrated the election campaign computer of David Min, a Democratic candidate for the House of Representatives who was later defeated in the June primary for California’s 45th Congressional district.

The incident, which has not been previously reported, follows an article in Rolling Stone earlier this week that the FBI has also been investigating a cyber attack against Hans Keirstead, a California Democrat. He was defeated in a primary in the 48th Congressional district, neighboring Min’s.

David Min lost the primary for the 45th Congressional District, in Southern California.  Last week, it was reported that Dr. Hans Keirstead lost his primary for the 48th (Daily Check-In 08/15/2018).

Both men had earned an endorsement from the California Democratic Party.  Both were facing Republican incumbents.

If I had to take a guess, this list of endorsements will contain the names of other people targeted by Russians.

 

COHEN

 

TRUMP THE RUSSIAN ASSET

The executive order to which he referred was promulgated by President Bill Clinton and later amended in 2008. It sets out a process that, if followed by the administration, could take years to play out, Zaid said.

It requires, with a major escape hatch to be sure, that those facing revocation shall be provided, among other things:

A “comprehensive and detailed . . . written explanation” of the decision.

Notice of their right to be represented by a lawyer at their own expense.

The chance to request “any documents” and reports . . . “upon which a denial or revocation is based.”

A “reasonable opportunity to reply in writing, and request a review” of the decision.

A right to appeal to a “high level panel” appointed by the head of the relevant agency, presumably the CIA in Brennan’s case.

An opportunity “to appear personally” and present materials before “an adjudicative or other authority.”

The same process would apply to all those threatened by Trump with security clearance revocation if indeed the president followed through.

But “Trump is unlikely to go down this path because it affords far too much due process for his taste,” as Bradley P. Moss, a partner in Zaid’s firm, wrote in Lawfare in July.

“It would require civil servants at the respective agencies [of those losing their clearances] to sign off on the paperwork. I can say with a reasonable degree of confidence,” Moss wrote, “that those civil servants would not put their names on a document moving to revoke someone’s security clearance for nothing other than bad-mouthing the president on television or writing a book.”

Rather, Moss suggested, the administration would be more likely to invoke a “national security” exception in the executive order that eliminates the appeal process. But, Moss wrote, this would require “current agency heads” to sign off on a bypass of due process. And some might not consent.

Trump would then have to claim the “inherent constitutional authority” to revoke the clearances.

That, he wrote, “has never happened before.”

“If the president were to take this unprecedented exercise of his authority . . . it would set up a serious clash of constitutional questions,” Moss wrote, with an unforeseeable response from the courts.

“As the president would say, we’ll just have to wait and see.”

 

TRAITOR TOTS

Rudy

 

FIGHTING BACK

Brennan

Sacha Baron Cohen

Queen of Soul

Avenatti and Stormy

Captain America

 

 

IMMIGRATION

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

TRADE WAR AND ECONOMY

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

FIXING THE INTERNET

 

SCOTUS

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

Pruitt

Zinke

Melania

 

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

Pedophile Priests

 

 

ENVIRONMENT

 

ELECTION 2018

 

RUMOR MILL

Yes, Donald Trump was a confidential informant for the FBI against the mob.  Even though he was helping the mob.  It gets confusing, but he pointed Federal Investigators, led by Robert Mueller, in the right direction to take them down.

 

That’s it for Monday.  This post was a little lighter because of two reasons.  I’m tired, and Tuesday’s looking to be BIG.  I don’t want to give any spoilers, but as I write this, barricades are being set up around the SDNY courthouse and news crews are showing up.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Daily Check-In 08/17/2018

Friday, August 17th, 2018 and the weekend

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

The Manafort Trial

It was a relatively slow day Friday.  The jury has not yet returned a verdict, so they left for the weekend.  It was at this point the screwiness began.

Judge Ellis mentioned that he’s received death threats over this trial, and now has the U.S. Marshall’s Office providing around the clock protection.  He also asked the jury to stay off of social media, but didn’t sequester them.  He did decide to not release the names of the jurors, so at least there’s that.

Of course, the Dotard opened his lardhole and talked about how Manafort was a “good guy” and Manafort’s lawyers thanked him for that comment.  This is borderline jury tampering.

Hopefully the judge in the DC trial will learn from this case.

 

Papadopoulos

Not only did Papadopoulos lie to investigators, the memo says, he lied repeatedly, after the agents informed him that doing so would be a “federal offense” and that the investigation was a matter of great importance. He falsely said “at least a dozen” times that Mifsud told him of Russia’s “dirt” on Clinton in Feb. 27, before he joined the Trump campaign, when in fact Mifsud had reached out to him in March 2016, after he had signed on as a foreign policy adviser to the campaign. (It was, Papadopoulos said, “a very strange coincidence” to be informed of the “dirt” before his association with the campaign.) He also downplayed the extent and subject of his communications with Mifsud and the Russian woman, falsely giving investigators the impression that he did not believe the two to have high-level connections to the Russian government. And when asked if he had met with any Russian nationals—or, amusingly, anyone “with a Russian accent”—he lied and did not tell the FBI of his communications with the Russian close to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Papadopoulos told these lies in a voluntary January 2017 meeting with FBI agents at the Chicago field office, the memo contends. When he met again with the FBI in February 2017, he did not admit that he had misled the agents. Indeed, he sought to further cover his tracks, deactivated his Facebook account—which documented his communications with Mifsud and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs contact—and “obtained a new phone.”

The memo also makes clear that Papadopoulos’s lies were not harmless; they “were intended to harm the investigation, and did so.” Most importantly, his dissembling prevented the FBI from detaining or arresting Mifsud in Washington, D.C., in the winter of 2017. Mifsud subsequently left the United States, according to the memo, and has not returned.

The government has recommended that George Papadopoulos serve 6 months for his reluctance in cooperating with the investigation, and that his lies and actions harmed the investigation.  Good. (Cooperating Witnesses).

This information gives all of us a clue as to what George did, how he was caught, how much he cooperated, and why he’s been acting like he has.

First, it’s time for a mea culpa.  I reported that Papadopoulos was cooperating to large extent based off of the reporting I saw at the time.  That reporting was based off of sources that were either misinformed or exaggerated George’s cooperation.  It’s time to set the record straight.

George Papadopoulos, the former Foreign Policy Adviser to the Trump Presidential Campaign, only cooperated begrudgingly, and only to protect himself.  His assistance was more reluctant that willing.  Even after pleading guilty to lying to the FBI, he’s still trying to play around by withholding information from the FBI, or only trying to confirm information.  His actions also led to “The Professor” Mifsud escaping the country and going to ground in Europe.

I also enjoyed the way the Justice Department called George’s wife a liar.

 

Roger Stone

Why did a super-PAC run by longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone pay nearly $5,000 to the mother of Kristin Davis, the so-called “Manhattan Madam,” in July 2016? This may be a question that special counsel Robert Mueller seeks to answer as he zeroes in on Stone in his ongoing investigation of possible coordination between Trump allies and Russia.

One of the more colorful characters to enter the Trump-Russia scandal, Davis once ran a high-priced prostitution ring and currently splits a two-floor Harlem apartment with Stone, who is the godfather of her son. Last week, Davis appeared before a Washington, DC, grand jury convened by Mueller to answer questions about Stone that she says focused on “whether or not any collusion happened with Russia.”

Over the years, Stone has employed Davis to do web design, schedule his travel, and perform other administrative tasks, but he claims she did not work for him in 2016 and would therefore have no knowledge of any of the subjects Mueller is probing. “She knows of no Russian collusion or WikiLeaks collaboration or any other illegal activity on my part in connection with the presidential election or otherwise,” Stone said in a CNN interview last week. “In the time period that’s most under focus, 2015 and 2016, she was not working for me. She came back to work for me in January of ’17, although I think I paid her in December of 2016.”

…

In the same filings, a California personal injury lawyer, Paul Jensen, said he had established Stop the Steal. Jensen is a longtime Stone associate. In 2007, describing himself as Stone’s lawyer, Jensen released a letter addressed to the FBI in which Stone made a much-cited but never verified claim that he had learned from “a social contact in an adult-themed club” that Spitzer wore knee-length black socks during trysts with prostitutes. The FBI never actually received the letter, the Atlantic reported.

Stop the Steal and the Committee to Restore America’s Greatness were closely connected. In April 2016, Stone’s super-PAC gave Stop the Steal $50,000. On July 12, 2016, Stop the Steal donated $63,000 to Stone’s super-PAC.

The Committee to Restore America’s Greatness ultimately reported raising$587,000 in the 2016 cycle, but the group spent just $16,000 on independent political expenditures, buying two pro-Trump billboards. The super-PAC, however, paid more than $100,000 to Jensen’s law firm, which specializes in personal injury cases, for unspecified “legal and accounting” and “consulting” services. Jensen declined to respond to questions. More than $130,000 wentto Citroen Associates for “voter fraud research and documentation” and “research services consulting.” Florida records indicate that Citroen’s president is John Kakanis, a former driver and social media aide for Stone. Mueller has called Kakanis before the grand jury.

The Committee to Restore America’s Greatness also paid $12,000 to a public relations firm, Drake Ventures, that is run by Stone and was registered by his wife. Stone had previously claimed he would not be paid by the committee. Citroen and Drake Ventures share a mailing address in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, with Stone Cold Truth Inc., another Stone business. According to the super-PAC’s FEC filings, the payment to Stone’s PR firm was for “consulting.”

I’m looking forward to reading the Stone Indictment when it comes out.  I think these pieces of information are building to Roger being indicted at first for semi-related sex and financial crimes either at the same time as the Russian actions, or right before.

 

Maria Butina

It’s not known why she was moved, but as it was said when Manafort was moved to that prison, but they do have experience with high-profile prisoners. (Daily Check-In 07/12/2018)

 

Broidy

Elliot Broidy, the former Deputy Finance Chair of the Republican National Committee, is under investigation for his role in trying to end the DOJ’s 1MDB investigation, as well as other various pay to play bribery schemes. ( Daily Check-In 03/05/2018).

Broidy, a former senior member of the Republican Party, resigned from that post after news broke that he was involved in a hush money scheme with Michael Cohen to pay Shera Blanchard  (Daily Check-In 04/16/2018).

 

McGahn

White House Counsel Don McGahn has spent more than 30 hours voluntarily interviewing with Special Counselor Mueller’s team.  That’s a lot of hours, and a lot of talking.

Let me clear something up.  Don McGahn is not Trump’s lawyer, he’s the lawyer for the White House and the Office of the President.  That is a very important distinction.  McGahn’s job is to provide legal guidance for the office and staff, not for the President himself.  McGahn’s work for Trump only extends to his professional role, not past that.  Any talk of McGahn being a “rat” just paints Trump as an even bigger criminal, and will likely be People’s Exhibit 4657986554987.

McGahn has known for a long time that Trump’s lawyers wanted to turn him into a scapegoat.  They basically said as much during their lunch within earshot of the NY Times office (Daily Check-In 9/18/2017).  McGahn also knows a little about history, and knows what happened to Nixon’s White House Counsel.  He does not want to go to prison, especially for this clusterfuck of a White House.

Another thing to note, McGahn’s statements could have been protected by Executive Privilege, but it’s too late for that now.  If Trump tried to exert that now, it would be too late, as everything said for the last YEAR AND A HALF IS ON THE RECORD WITH THE SPECIAL COUNSELOR.

Finally, this story has Maggie in the byline.  The “anonymous source inside the White House” are almost certainly Trump himself.  He calls her up to bitch about what’s going on, she writes it down, works with other journalists to verify or flesh it out into a different story, publish, get bitched at by Trump for “Fake News”, then rinse and repeat.  I’m still not sure whether they have an agreement to hold stories or not, but always question the timing of a Maggie Haberman story, and what else happened that day.  (Daily Check-In 01/25/2018, Daily Check-In 07/26/2018)

 

To be fair, we want the Mueller probe to wrap up because the longer Trump’s in office, the more damage he causes and the longer it will take to fix things.

 

TAPES AND NDA’S

New York Supreme Court Judge Arlene Bluth ruled Thursday that errors in the wording of a nondisclosure agreement between President Donald Trump’s team and a former campaign staffer make it much smaller in scope, thus not preventing the case from going to open court, according to a Thursday Yahoo News report.

The initial lawsuit was filed by Jessica Denson, a former campaign aide who said that she experienced “harassment and sexual discrimination” while working on the 2016 bid. Per Yahoo, she is suing for $25 million for being subjected to “severe and pervasive slander, aggravated harassment, attempted theft, cyberbullying, and sexual discrimination and harassment” at the hands of staffers including Camilo Sandoval, her supervisor then and the current acting chief information officer at the VA.

Campaign lawyers countered by demanding $1.5 million in damages, alleging that she broke the signed agreement by publishing “confidential information and disparaging statements.” They then moved to take the case to private arbitration, claiming that she agreed to that when she signed the contract. As opposed to a normal trial, records from arbitration can be sealed.

Bluth ruled that, due to various wording errors and incorrect phrasing in the NDA, it did not prevent Denson from taking her case public.

This could have far-ranging effects, as the NDA Denson signed seems to be similar to the one Trump uses in the White House and at the Trump Organization, along with his campaign. The ruling could be especially topical, as the Trump administration is currently trying to silence former aide Omarosa Manigault Newman by claiming that she violated the terms of the NDA.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!

 

Former White House aide Omarosa Manigault-Newman reportedly states in her book that she was offered a monthly salary of $15,000 for signing a nondisclosure agreement. Finance records obtained by ABC News appear to back this claim.

According to the network, federal election filings show a number of former Trump aides have received monthly payments of around $15,000. The money comes from either the Trump campaign, the Republican National Committee, or the America First PAC, but it’s not clear if the payments are in exchange for the former aides’ silence.

Those receiving payments—either directly or through firms they manage—include former director of Oval Office operations Keith Schiller, former personal assistant to the president John McEntee, former digital media director of the Trump campaign Brad Parscale, and former director of advertising for the Trump campaign Gary Coby, ABC reports. The salaries are listed for “security services,” “payroll,” “digital consulting [and] management consulting,” and “media services [and] consulting,” respectively.

Omarosa is angling herself as a whistleblower, which will offer her some legal protections.  Plus, with Judge Bluth’s ruling on the limits of the NDA, things are about to get a whole hell of a lot weirder.

 

COHEN

 

TRUMP THE RUSSIAN ASSET

Security Clearances

 

Military Parade

 

 

 

TRAITOR TOTS

Jim Jordan

The Education Department’s Office for Civil rights is investigating how Ohio State University officials handled complaints against a former university doctor accused of sexually abusing athletes, in a case that’s also drawn allegations that a Republican congressman turned a blind eye as Ohio State wrestling coach.

Multiple former Ohio State wrestlers have accused Rep. Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican and former Ohio State wrestling coach, of being among the faculty members who ignored inappropriate behavior by the physician, Richard Strauss. Jordan, a leader of the House Freedom Caucus has denied those allegations, saying: “I never knew about any type of abuse … If I did, I would have done something about it.”

The Education Department confirmed the inquiry on Thursday. “I can confirm that in light of recent allegations made by former students concerning sexual abuse by former athletic team doctor Richard Strauss, OCR initiated a directed investigation on August 8, 2018,” Education Department spokeswoman Liz Hill said.

“This new Title IX investigation will examine the University’s handling of reports of sex-based incidents involving Dr. Strauss, including allegations that University employees knew or should have known about the sexual misconduct and allowed the abuse to continue.”

The federal probe was first reported by cleveland.com.

 

Rudy

Now that Rudy’s passed the Orwell Threshold, I would like to remind everyone that he claims that he was married to his cousin for ten years before finding out she was his cousin.

 

Rand Paul

Rand went full Kremlin.  Never go full Kremlin.

 

 

FIGHTING BACK

Brennan and Security Clearances

 

 

IMMIGRATION

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

Alex Jones

 

TRADE WAR AND ECONOMY

 

CORRUPTION, TRUMP STYLE

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

SCOTUS

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

Dave Wasserman, the Cook Political Report’s House analyst, says the most under-covered aspect of 2018 is that “a blue wave is obscuring a red exodus.” Republican House members are retiring at a startling clip —  a trend that senior White House adviser Kellyanne Conway told me earlier this year was worrying her more than any other trend affecting the midterms.

43 Republican members of the House are leaving.  43, out of the approximately 220 they currently hold.  That’s 43 races without an incumbent GOP candidate in a midterm election that is shaping up to be one of the most important in history.

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday upheld Texas’ campus carry law, delivering another clear victory to the state in a longshot, long-running lawsuit brought by University of Texas at Austin professors opposed to the law.

In July 2016, three professors claimed that a 2015 state law that allows licensed gun-owners to carry concealed weapons into most public university buildings would have a “chilling effect” on free speech in their classrooms. But a federal district judge threw out their case in July 2017, saying the professors didn’t present any “concrete evidence to substantiate their fears.”

Accepting that logic and advancing it yet further, a three-judge panel on the appeals court this week rebuffed the professors’ free speech claim as well as two other constitutional challenges they had made.

Pedophile Priests

See, it’s not just the Catholics that get handsy, the Mormons do it too!!!!

Seriously, it’s not a matter of one religion over another, it’s a matter of abusing a position of trust and power, and the organized reaction against the victims each system executes to protect one of their own.  The game is the same, only the names are changed.  A priest, bishop, scout master, pastor, or teacher uses their position of power to commit heinous crimes, then the organization attempts to silence or discredit the victim and their support network.  They’ll attack them into silence, shun them from their community, and do everything in their power to keep the crimes secret or make people think it’s all a lie.  That’s why things like the #MeToo movement have taken hold.  We’re reaching a breaking point in our society where the victims of these crimes are getting together to speak out against their abusers.

 

ENVIRONMENT AND SCIENCE

 

ELECTION 2018

O’Rourke said, “Texas is one of the most gerrymandered states in the union.”

There are many ways to analyze this question, and depending on the method, the rankings vary a bit. But studies that look at the intersection of geographical compactness and partisan voting history consistently place Texas between fifth and seventh on the list of most gerrymandered states in the nation. Since O’Rourke called Texas “one of the most” gerrymandered states, such studies support his point.

We rate his statement Mostly True.

 

PROGRESS IS PROGRESS

 

RUMOR MILL

As it turned out, though, Smith was neither a former Delta Force soldier or a malevolent CIA operative. In fact, evidence suggests that the Twitter account beloved by Trump haters was in fact operated by Justin Hendrix, a Seattle gamer who regularly made pro-Trump comments online. (Hendrix didn’t respond to The Daily Beast’s requests for comment. He’s not the same person as NYC Media Lab executive director Justin Hendrix, another prominent figure in anti-Trump Twitter).

The @GuardianRover Twitter account was deleted in early August, after one Twitter user hinted that they were closing in on the identity of the person behind the account. Despite the success of Smith’s Twitter account, cracks regularly appeared in his supposed national security bona fides. He regularly referred to the White House as “Whiskey Hotel,” an official-sounding codename that doesn’t appear to have actually existed before it was coined for a 2009 Call of Duty video game. Smith also promoted the debunked idea that ISIS terrorists used digital bullet holes in Call of Duty to communicate with each other.

I’ll be honest, I followed that account for a while, but as with all of the accounts I follow and report on, I remained skeptical of each one, even the accounts that have a strong correlation like Countercheckist or Louise Mensch.  In fact, it was those two that pointed to @GuardianRover not being what he claimed.  There was enough fighting between them to point to something not adding up.  Also, he came off as a bit of a dick sometimes.

I did a quick search through my archives for any tweets I linked to by him, but I couldn’t find anything.  And by quick search, I mean I spent about a minute or two looking.  Nothing obvious came up, but I’m not ruling anything out.

Once again, and I want to stress this, view everything skeptically and critically.  Even me.  Especially me.  Part of my credibility is that I refuse to make any claims without some type of evidence to back me up, and I also refuse to insist that anyone trust me just because I said so.  It is difficult to earn trust, but easy to lose it, and the fastest way to lose it is to abuse it.  If you trust what I write, it’s because I’ve earned it, not because I said so.

We are in a digital battlefield, and some people will claim to be things they aren’t.  I report on some of that battle.  I feel that it’s important, especially as this war progresses.

 

That’s it for Friday and the weekend.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur