Official claim that Putin "aspired" to help Trump was based on four pieces of evidence, all bogus, even "ridiculous," according to long-suppressed report just released by DNI Tulsi Gabbard
I wish that progressives cared. But they do not-- you could have pictures of Brennan, Obama, Comey et al. taking literal gunshots at Trump and they wouldn't care. They believe that they are fighting fascism, which for them means "opposition to open borders." And they believe this fight should be carried out by "any means necessary." Find me ONE progressive who has apologized for believing in the Russiagate lunacy, and who has repudiated the currently-constituted Democratic party as a result of seeing the light...
I can confirm this. As a musician, I have contact with a lot of progs. They have too much invested to open their eyes. Even a few moderate Democrats and Republicans still bury their heads in the sand.
It’s actually far worse than this, and more complex and multi-faceted. Here’s the abbreviated version:
The very top elites, Comey, Brennan, Clinton etc. the major players know how much money was being funneled via clandestine channels from USAID and other sources. This money was going mainly one way- to the left, as DOGE and other recent reports and documents show. Even if not all of them knew, it only takes one powerful person to A) see these funds as a protest/influence/election meal ticket. I really do think this is what inspired it all, because it’s the only thing that makes sense.
They all know he’s not a fascist. They all know he’s not a threat to democracy. They all know he’s not a racist or a nazi. He’s an absolute cunt of a human being and I think MAGA people have misplaced their faith and hope in him, but the point is all the rhetoric was manufactured. So the only thing that makes sense as to why they would gamble their careers on him not winning would be something existential. You know, like losing a major source of funding that has fueled a lot of their success until recently.
The real tragedy though is that a LOT of people believed all this shit without requiring hard evidence. The reasons are variable. Some are sycophants and will believe anything “celebrities” or “elites” say as a proxy for getting status scraps from their tables. Some of them truly detest Trump’s crude and boorish manner to the extent that they wouldn’t care how unfairly he’s been persecuted with impeachments, lawfare, encouraging people to assassinate him- all of it.
These people will never be convinced because their moral righteousness absolves them of any impetus to find out what is actually the truth.
So really, from my perspective,
Democrats gaslit their constituencies so ferociously and consistently that the division that has been created cannot be undone.
What does this leave? Courts. That’s it. Everything now hinges on lawsuits, indictments and long legal battles. The truth is the real casualty though, because roughly 1/3 of the polity has cast it aside like a 4 week old fetus after a memorable but regretful Tinder date.
One thing’s for sure though, just as if the orange douche had been pink misted by Crooks’s bullet, if the black prince is indicted and convicted, we’re all in for a rough ride- one that the debutants, sycophants, and soft, pudgy urban dweller yuppie class is not remotely prepared for.
07/23/25: "Because, as we ALL know, 20 million illegal aliens invaded Germany in 1931-32 and Hitler had had no right to put them all in concentration camps!" (sarcasm).
Well there's functionally no difference between being put in a holding facility on your way to Mexico and being put in a sealed shower with zyklon B pumping out of the shower heads.
07/24/25: My goodness! I had no idea that Hitler was exporting his illegal aliens to Mexico! (sarcasm, directed at all the lunatics yelling "Hitler!" in 2025).
That’s the point isn’t it? The broken TDS hive mind sees any tactic whether it’s ignoring or denying factual reality, rioting or violence “by any means necessary” as acceptable. Because otherwise they would be allowing the Orange Hitler to “destroy (their) democracy” so any tactic is good, virtuous, important and justifiable. That’s why I’ve said to those who want(need) the crazy democrats to accept what Tulsi is reporting, it’s never going to happen. They have made themselves irrelevant by virtue of their implacable anger, hostility and resistance to factual common sense matters. In fact if indictments and convictions occur and they riot and become violent these will be great republican campaign videos and more grist for the mill.
I think this sums up the entire situation and the defense Obama's team will use. Per Matt's release yesterday:
"The same thing happened when members of the group objected to the Steele material, saying it didn’t meet even “basic tradecraft standards.” When confronted on this point, Brennan reportedly said, “Yes, BUT DOESN'T IT RING TRUE?”
Matt is not a Republican, nor has Matt switched to any party - Matt describes himself as politically homeless which means right now in 2025, he regards the GOP as equally unworthy of trust as the Dems.
Nearly 3/4 of the adult American population refuse to identify as Republican. An equal number refuse to identify as Democrats - getting the message? 43 percent openly embrace their declared status of Independent. https://news.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx.
Casting the GOP as the good guys demonstrates a complete ignorance of the most powerful forces opposing Trump - the corrupt establishment GOP at the state, local, and national level. Trump's fiercest opponents are GOP (and Dem) pols/pigs and their tools in government who are outraged that Trump is temporarily curtailing their normal unfettered access at the public trough. Trump 1.0 AND 2.0 are constrained by GOP forces allied with Dems to fuck Trump and the American public at every opportunity, exactly as Tulsi declared, while all the while grinning and cosplaying MAGA to sucker partisan rubes who believe a declared political label carries some sort of value.
"Progressives" are exhibit A of this form of self-delusion. They're powerless tools of the rich and powerful who use cultural issues to suppress and control speech and thought - at the behest of GOP and DEM scumbags entrenched in power at every level of the US government. Course, suckers are born every day, so don't expect the insecure to grow a set of balls anytime soon.
"Trump's fiercest opponents are GOP (and Dem) pols/pigs and their tools in government who are outraged that Trump is temporarily curtailing their normal unfettered access at the public trough."
I used to track those Gallup polls when they were monthly just to get a snapshot of where the electorate stood each month outside the MSM spin. They were very good as indicators. Sadly, they stopped publishing the monthly snapshots, it looks like they're subscription only now.
What Matt is now is a protector of Billionaire Pedoes. He believes the Epstein files are all BS attacks on his Poor Abused Trump.
Matt is s pro Gaza Concentration Death Camp.
Matt is Pro Zionist CHANGING the definition of Anti Semitism to mean Anti Zionism.
You know why I believe he supports these things? Cuz the LIVE BROADCAST OF STARVATION of children is going on in Palestine. And Matt is talking about how Russiagate was a big FRaud. DUH. I knew that waaaaay back when Aaron Mate FIRST reported on it YEARS AGO!!! This is not new or news other than a distraction from Matt's new cause... along with the Walt the FAKE "Half Gypsy."
No one with an ounce of Gypsy blood would be Pro Genocide, the way Walt is... and now Matt, by his DEAFENING SILENCE.
You have children, Matt.
You see the starvation in Gaza and your impulse is to DISTRACT away from the children EATING SAND.
DISTRACT away from the Pedophile Protecting President.
That is who Matt Taibbi is now.
Making the Repub Boomer feels safe & smug, now that Russiagate has "finally" been exposed.
Well, since you've appended your measured remarks re: Matt to my comment, I certainly hope you'll treat me, my wife, our kids, my mother-in-law, our neighbors, most of my extended family and friends and just about everyone we know with the same binary intolerance you display here.
Nobody I know ever discusses Palestine, or Gaza, in private or public because we know that broaching the topic is seen as an invitation to receive abuse from people who've never been in the ME, lived in communities outside the US, or have demonstrated any willingness to do what most anti-Israel folks expect the Israelis to do - which is get the fuck out of the former Ottoman province of Palestine.
I'll take you seriously after you sell off all your own shit, give it to the local native community in your region - (do you even know the name of the former occupants of the land your forefathers stole?), and fuck off back to wherever your forefathers and mothers came from before your family decided to cross the Atlantic to build a new life in the blood of the native peoples who occupied North America for most of the previous millennia.
You won't because while you've got a lot to say about what other people should do AND say: actually practicing what you preach never ever enters that tiny, fucked-up little mind of yours.
Until you do, please consider this a polite invitation to F.O.
I would note - the land stolen here was actually stolen multiple times over the millennia. With no group of people holding it very long as the "native Americans" fought over it savagely among differing tribes with as much ferocity as the religious wars in central Europe - and probably more. So no one has a right to anything they cannot hold.
Of course, I did enjoy the put down of the silly commentator. They had it coming.
To the opening comment that resulted in your being abused by Mr. Silly, I think it is important to realize there are probably three groups in play - maybe four. Perhaps you take the remnant of the GOP that Trump has not captured (and they are shrinking fast as the McConnell wing is in the process of getting gutted) as well as traditional old guard democrats. Call them the DC insiders. They hate Trump with a passion because they realize his goal is the end of their gravy train.
Then there are the new radicals, the Jacobin's of our day. The new Marxist/Communist front of which the Squad belongs and the wave of big city mayors who are working to completely destroy their cities. Minneapolis and NYC are getting ready to join Chicago in that endeavor. Much to sunbelt State's joy. Especially Texas. They have lots of energy, and media wise have more support than they deserve, which means their political support is based on success in concentrated geographic areas. They have a tendency to turn adjacent areas varying shades of red in revulsion to their stated beliefs.
Then there is the disaffected - which Trump currently leads. Many don't personally care for his act. He is a NYC real estate mogul with all the brashness you would expect which doesn't play so well everywhere else. But they hate the DC insider group - wishing to see many of them hanging from the nearest lightpost. And the Marxist new democrat radicals scare the shit out of them. The question will be what happens when Trump fades from the scene. If Vance will be his torch bearer, and the bearer of Trump's reform movement, will his much less aggressive manner help to expand the group of the disaffected? Will that get more buy in from the group of disaffected independents who are angry and scared but are uncomfortable with Trump's style?
WTF sort of nonsense is this? Why don't you go back to watching TV and stay out of what is almost a rational conversation regarding the discovery of lies and spooks playing Mad Libs with information weaponized to railroad Trump into the klink?
This is just another stupid complaint assuming what Taibbi does or does not think or believe about whatever pet issue is grinding someone's gears, in this case the lunacy in the desert.
How about one story at a time? That's never enough for people looking for champions for their pet issues.
I am also incensed over Gaza, but your attacks on Matt here are totally out of line. Matt is not trying to cover for anything; he is just continuing to cover a story he first covered all those years ago -- along with Aaron Mate, Glenn Greenwald & a few others.
Your smug assertion that Matt wants to make "Repub Boomer(s)" feel safe is just idiotic.
Also, this statement is totally false: "Matt is Pro Zionist CHANGING the definition of Anti Semitism to mean Anti Zionism." Matt has denounced this nonsense more than once.
Honestly, if you don't appreciate Matt's work, then why are you here?
True - it is a war zone, due to the attack launched by Hamas, which is the governing body of Gaza. There is a way to end all of this, but Hamas refuses to unconditionally surrender. So the fighting will continue until they do, or there is no one left of them to fight.
War is hell, not to be entered into lightly. People who shout genocide are unserious people in need of instruction and education and as such have nothing to add to the discussion, outside of a reminder that the US education system sucks at their job.
Whether you accept the "g" word or not, there has been a systematic starvation of Gazan civilians, announced in advance by Yoav Gallant, and abetted by Israeli Settlers blocking aid, while IDF looks on, bored. Israel's latest means of "fighting" is to fire tanks and rifles at starving people lining up to receive aid.
We have all been witness to Israel's repeated targeting of schools, hospitals, refugee camps, ambulances, and aid workers..
The whole world is watching what Israel is doing, and your lies will never change that.
Manner and degree vary. You think the GOP are onboard with forcing peace on Ukraine, or ending the Atlantic Council plan to "decolonize" Russia? Ukraine has 13 trillion in natural resources that "rightly" belong to US corporations - Russia has 75 trillion.
You think you're living an age where anything but cash matters? Trump is temporary - pay for play is permanent. Pols on both sides understand the math who's paying for their next palace, or bigger yacht, or plane. The taxpayer.
That’s it in a nutshell. Even the Free Press is treating it like old news; nothing worth worrying about. But the MSM is unbelievably quiet on what literally may be the most explosive story in the history of the country.
Bari Weiss (Columbia University) was hired by the New York Times. The New York Times hires Ivy League elites whose worldview aligns with the Times's worldview.
Yeah, she was hired for being slightly more to the right (the same reason the pre-Bezos Washington Post hired Jennifer Rubin), but crucially that meant on the right of *that limited part of the spectrum that the New York Times deems legitimate.*
Which turns out to be pretty Left and neo-consevative. Recall that most neo-consevatives had very Lefty backgrounds, until they realized that the Left was too undisciplined to be effective, and too anti-war to embrace imperial wars to make the Middle East safe for Our Greatest Ally.
Expecting Bari to be anything other than a "cool wine Aunt" neocon is like expecting a fish to tap dance. It's just not in her training or experience, but more importantly it's not in her nature.
To Bari and the other neocons, Brennan and Comey and Obama are "the adults in the room" and Trump is the spoiled rich fratboy wearing a MAGA cap backwards and creating chaos. So *of course* in the back rooms leading off the corridors of power, the adults need to slap Fratty McFratboy down. For Bari, that's not anything to report on, that's just another Tuesday at Columbia University.
What Bari and most of the other Ivy Leaguers don't get (and haven't, since the Ivy League inception of the CIA and its inept fight against "Communism") is that the super smart, extensively educated, from the best families and New York society pages People Like Us aren't infallible, and in fact make huge mistakes with names like "Advisors in Vietnam", "WMDs in Iraq", and "2008 Lending Crisis and Bank Bailout."
Huge mistakes for which they are awarded political and academic sinecures, Pulitzers, millions of dollars, and Medals of Freedom, huge mistakes that regular middle class American families pay for in blood and treasure and sons returning to Dover Air Force Base in flag-drapped caskets.
To Bari, Trump is an unserious clown who needed to be slapped down or leashed by The Smart Set (forgive me, HL Mencken). To MAGA, Trump is a repudiation of elites who have spent sixty years profiting greatly by leading America off a cliff.
Interesting that others are picking up on The Free Press.
I like some of the writers over there, but I never could pull the trigger on a subscription. Came close a couple times, but in the end I didn't think there was an editorial commitment to truth.
Its performance this past week -- sitting on this story for 3 days and then finally trotting out Eli Lake to poo-poo it -- seals the deal.
Yeah, I jumped right in to support Bari after the NYT debacle, but they have drifted back towards “NYT-lite” as somebody put it. If not for TGIF on Fridays, I’d be out.
07/23/25: The Free Press is a sham; entirely corrupt and would be delighted to become the New New York Times where all the fraudulent practices of the old NYT would be continued without so much as a flutter of an interruption. Bari Weiss is a wolf in sheep's clothing. All she did was abandon a sinking ship, and somehow this was interpreted as a virtuous act of conscience. Bullsh*t.
The "news" available on Yahoo, Instagram, Tik Tok, etc. is 100% sourced from legacy outlets. Drudge was compromised a long time ago. Luckily Rogan and most of the podcasters are awake to this nonsense.
I left the party at the millennium, but still mostly voted for them. '08 was my last year of that for top of the ticket. Since then, its been 3rd party or write in, and last year sat it out. I've never voted R top of the ticket.
Let’s assume these are your heartfelt beliefs. What have you done( comments don’t count) about any of the issues troubling you. e.g. Have you taken a sand eating Gazan child or family into your home?
And it seems to me you are deliberately deflecting, with more unfounded assertions, from the NEW revelations as to how top Obama admin officials manipulated the intel to continue the fantasy to undermine the Trump admin, and by extension, the will of the voters.
There might be some perjury here too, because after all, nobody is above the law. Or does that not interest you?
my sense is that these Unelecteds don't believe in anything but making money for themselves and having power. anyone who threatens their income and power is an enemy. Fascism doesn't matter, democracy doesn't matter. They wag the dog and like it that way. They'll fight anyone who tells them they can't.
I’m an old school lefty who was appalled by this entire fiasco. Thought HRC was the worst candidate they could run in 2016. I was proved right in that she couldn’t defeat an even worse candidate.
HRC is a former Goldwater Girl who has never moved beyond the ludicrous anti-Russian Cold War and had(has) an irrational hatred of Putin - who is certainly no angel but no worse than various right wing puppets we’ve graced the world with through the years. Of course he would make some moves to contribute to her defeat. But his “meddling” was not on the level of the USA’s meddling which placed Boris Yeltsin in power after the breakup of the Soviet Union.
But this mess doesn’t translate to the GOP not being as corrupt as the Dems. I hate Trump and his ilk.
Agree but wonder why you think Putin preferred Trump. He always said the opposite. He said with HRC he knew what he was dealing with, whereas Trump was dangerously unpredictable.
"HRC is a former Goldwater Girl who has never moved beyond the ludicrous anti-Russian Cold War and had(has) an irrational hatred of Putin" ...
It's kind of amazing how even people who dislike Hillary keep framing their analysis entirely based on the Russia Russia Russia hoax.
In 2008 Obama and Hillary explicitly campaigned on 'resetting' relations with Putin who they claimed W was needlessly antagonizing over an invasion (Georgia back then). It's pretty clear in hindsight that Obama needed Putin to help broker his Iran nuclear deal, and Hillary obviously viewed Russia as a fertile opportunity for lots of grifting. Of course Putin didn't play along with her scheming so she soured on him. I think it took Obama a bit longer to come around to supporting the Russia Russia Russia narrative but I suspect he eventually realized that unless Trump was held in check he was going to undo Obama's plan to enable the Iranians to get a nuke at the first opportunity.
There was never anything ideological about Hillary's (or Obama's) claim of Russian election interference. It was purely a political attempt to steamroll Trump.
The original Progressives were Republican... I am a liberal, but today, in this climate? I'm a conservative according the definitions. None of my views have changed in 50+ years, but the slide has sure gone left.
Cheers Brook. I think the comment above mistakenly hyper-focuses on the opinions of talking heads and/or strangers online. Imo there's every reason to think (and hope! lol) that this will cause some nontrivial number of people to realize they misplaced their trust.
Maybe even more importantly - it needs to be out there so that, moving forward, anyone who learns about this stuff for the first time has a fighting chance against having the wool of "received wisdom" pulled over their eyes. The WMD fiasco is a great comp in that respect as well. Imagine learning about Iraq for the first time in a version of 2025 where no one ever pulled that thread.
I know, seriously, the idea that the current Democratic party with their Romney-esque “abundance” branding has anything to do with true leftism is such a joke.
As Taibbi writes about this scandal, today’s NYT “breaking news” headline is: “Bondi warned Trump he is in the Epstein Files.” Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!
I'll name 2: RFK, Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard. NY Mayor Eric Adams will be next. Besides them, there must be more. I read that a survey of Trump rally attendees in 2024 found that over 20% were registered Democrats.
They care. They want this to go away. Some of them are having to lie about it or justify the unjustifiable, and they don’t enjoy that, because most of them are not sociopaths. Second, they see themselves as morally superior, and they don’t like to have that challenged. It’s driving them crazy, and we should absolutely keep it up for as long as possible. Meanwhile, some impression of culpability seeps through the bubble to confuse the true believers. Outside of the bubble, people get angrier. So, cheers
So this December 9, 2017 ICA was requested by President Obama, and he actually accepted it? So he spouted lies about the Russia Hoax AKA Crossfire Hurricane knowing there was nothing to back him up.
So the “Resistance” and TDS were created out of thin air. And America lost its respect for the Office of the President, and it was a TOP DOWN job. Hopeless change.
Well, I have a slightly more optimistic case. The GOP eventually repudiated the Neo-Con wing of their party— there was no purge, not exactly, but opponents/critics of the neo-cons are in charge. One could imagine something similar happening on the left… but it hasn’t even begun to happen. All of the Democrats who recognize the seriousness of the Russia collusion hoax have left the party…
Your generalization is rather offensive. I am did believe not that Trump was a Russian asset, but that Russia interfered with the elections. Now, this report comes out, which I am planning to read. Have you read it. I am, trying to get to the truth, and if so happens that I was wrong, I have no qualms about apologizing.
The fault is mine, but I was arguing with one about ivermectin vs clot shots last night. They never stop believing the initial lie - no matter how much data comes out to refute it - smugly repeating the propaganda they ate up initially. “None are so blind as those who will not see.”
Because MK Ultra has long-since shown the power of control through TV broadcasting and also why stations like CNN and MSNBC stay on. People that watch are addicted to what they believe. Viewers that have left no doubt have found podcasts spewing the same hate editorialism but with more credible lies.
If any Democrats are having trouble defining what a real woman is….a quick tune in to today’s presser would give you two of the finest examples of womanhood the Good Lord ever placed on Earth.
07/23/25: Thank you. I'd forgotten about that. She's doing something that I cannot recall anyone else in WDC doing in decades:
Telling the truth about what she uncovered AFTER GETTING IT UNCOVERED, and letting the chips fall where they may (I'm certain that others have done this, but I can't recall their names, and in any case, the scale of what she's doing is gargantuan compared to the good deeds of this nature done in the past).
And possibly unique: She's not motivated by revenge. She's serving her country, admirably, by revealing who the prevaricating villains have been.
I do not see her actions as vengeful either. This is more about setting the record straight and separating the villains from the law-abiding, the righteous from the self-righteous. If one loves his or her country, they will want an honest recording of its history. Now the courts can have their shot at it.
If the DNC had a shred of honesty within their little cabal, they would have held an honest-to-goodness primary and allowed Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. rise to the top.
07/28/25: The irony of a Lincoln telling the Democrats... (!)
Agreed. The self-proclaimed Defenders of Democracy pushing a Tammany Hall, smoke-filed-room candidate that no one wanted in 2020 and who got a free ride in 2024. Social promotion at its finest.
My immediate thoughts - the numerous stories suggesting, if not stating, that Trump lacked confidence in Tulsi and that she was kept out of meetings and her advice was being ignored, WERE ALL BS. The Deep State knew she was working on this and hoped to tarnish her before these document dumps started.
You're earning your place in history, Matt - raising your game both in terms of quality and analysis. No matter what the short term outcome, folks in the future who want to understand this wild time will turn to you, Walter, and others to get a snapshot of what life today is like. Many thanks!
PS. As someone who spends a lot of time checking footnotes and dates, I'm reasonably sure that very few of the "informed" ever bothered to get to the level of granular detail that Tulsi and her team are producing - we've discovered she's a true national treasure.
07/23/25: "As someone who spends a lot of time checking footnotes and dates..." And people ask me in condescending tones of voice why I date these posts (!).
07/23/25: Matt, you've been looking at all this for years now. How is it possible for you, or anyone, at this point to still be capable of being "shocked"? I don't think that the following is true, but you'll have --- if it hasn't happened already --- people intemperately accusing you of being "irresponsibly [right word?] naive."
Agreed! Plenty of folks in power are now fully in the frame. They know that Tulsi and her team have documents far more damning to come. What a horror show - for all us.
There's a reason the "TACO" slur continues to go viral... If Tulsi is, in the end, hung out to dry by Trump/Bondi the way they did on Epstein, it will be yet another important message from TPTB, who have have been laughing at us for over two decades. "We are an empire now..."
Certainly as important as when Joe Biden continued to hold office for 7 months (without invoking 25th Sec 4) after his dementia was both exposed live *and finally acknowledged by MSM*.
Now let's talk about Robert Mueller, who clearly determined that this was all nonsense almost immediately, yet kept his "investigation" open for TWO YEARS so that the Deep State would have a pretext for ignoring Trump's presidential authority.
Federal institutions spent most of a duly-elected president's term acting like he wasn't legitimate, undermining and even openly rebelling against his orders. All the while Mueller gave everyone in Trump's orbit a bureaucratic colonoscopy, ultimately nailing a staffer or two so that left-wing America could triumphantly exclaim (as a coworker of mine proudly did in the office) "Is it still a witch hunt when they find actual witches?"
Yes, Sean. It's still a witch hunt when you claim that Trump is Putin's Manchurian candidate and come away with cold case tax evasion charges for Paul Manafort.
I always felt terrible about the Gen. Flynn lynching. I knew nothing about him before Trump was elected, but there was a good interview with him (before January, I believe) on Morning Joe -- back when I still watched.
07/23/25: Mueller did such a good job of demonstrating how useful an upright dementia patient in a three-piece suit can be, Biden's nomination in 2020 as the Dem candidate was in the bag.
LOL, who would have guessed that we'd go from Colbert's "truthiness" joke to actually using it as a basis for undermining the duly elected President of the United States?
One interesting thing I noted while doing my deep dive -- the CIA assessment that was leaked immediately after the 12/9 Obama meeting was completed BEFORE the meeting. This article was published 12/10:
"Citing anonymous officials briefed on the issue, the Post says the CIA shared its findings with senators in a closed-door briefing last week, saying it was now "quite clear" that Russia's goal was to tip the presidency in Trump's favor:"
---
This means that when Obama demanded his new narrative, it was already completed and Obama knew what it was. This is why the FBI suddenly dissented to the proposed PDB on 12/8 -- the fix was in.
My opinion: Trump and his team have gamed this out to the end. After the evidence becomes overwhelming and the mainstream press is forced to report this, I’m guessing that Trump will hold a press conference wherein he will provide a recitation of what was found, how it affected him personally and the country at large, and that his plan is not to prosecute but rather, introduce legislation in September to ensure that this never happens again. Trump has too much he wants to accomplish for the USA in the next 3&1/2 years and this issue is certainly not high on that list. He wants to Make America Great and to execute on the plan that he and his team have been working on while in exile waiting for Biden to die.
Excellent comment! With respect, I disagree completely re: Obama "knew." I don't think Obama knew much in terms of detail about anything, simply because as you correctly note - he'd already settled on the conclusions of the report irrespective of the quality of the evidence, which I suspect is your meaning.
Obama, it seems has a keen understanding of sports and probably has a very detail-oriented approach to handicapping. But, as the "refs" had already been commanded to "fix" the outcome, and with the plan to get Flynn out of the way in place, does anyone think Obama, or any other bad actor, actually cared about factual accuracy?
Your timeline is interesting and I agree that at least two of the main bad actors understood early (very early) that all this crap had to be suppressed no matter the cost.
I'm open to the idea that Russiagate 2017 was simply a cover-up of all the FBI sloppiness through 2016. Thx for your great work!
Perhaps it would be more correct to say "He already knew what the conclusions were" and simply didn't care if the intelligence used to make those conclusions were lies or not.
Yes, yes. But what do we say to the Chris Cuomo's of the world, who believe the DNC hacks in June 2016 establish Russia's guilt and preference for Trump? That's what he emphasized repeatedly on his show the other night. He -- along with every other Clinton supporter in that election -- could not care less about specific intelligence reports.
I'm asking seriously, in the hopes of deprogramming my family. (And they don't want to hear about Seth Rich.)
On a more serious note, I think it's hilarious when you think that somebody telling people what you're up to automatically makes them for the other guy.
But the problem with the DNC email leak isn't that they were fake emails, it's that they were real! The DNC REALLY WAS screwing Bernie in the primary.
Yes indeed. They embarrassed the Clinton campaign by revealing the not-so-democratic machinations of the Democratic Party. Qui bono? Trump. That is the basis of the story which Cuomo and millions of others believe. In this telling, Obama and co. were already convinced of the obvious and were trying to come up with sound evidence to support it. That they failed to produce it and got fed BS by a retired MI6 agent attests to the limitations of our agencies, not a refutation of the plot. It does not negate the story.
So what is the story regarding the DNC email leaks?
To the extent we can trust anything, the transfer rate seems to suggest somebody with physical access to the machines. Hillary had a ton of haters in the party (one of the reasons Bernie got so much traction to begin with, he was the only other choice in the primary).
If I had been granted access to emails proving the RNC was out to screw Ron Paul in 2008 and 2012, I would have published them so fast it would make your head spin -- so I can understand why a disgruntled member might leak the documents.
This is why I'm trying to think about this in terms of stories, as Walter Kirn would. What can fill the gap left by a dearth of written correspondence and recorded testimony? Not much. Mere speculation, mostly. So let us speculate about the motivations of the characters involved. For example, what do Russian hackers want in this world? According to 60 Minutes they want to make money by ripping off American casinos:
That's a piece from last year about a Russian-affiliated hacker network called Scattered Spider, which managed to use ransomware to extort $millions from MGM Grand and Caesars in Las Vegas. The interviewed security expert called them sophisticated "crooks," ie thieves.
Are these the same sort of people who hacked the internal DNC email servers in June 2016? Perhaps. But why would they? Qui bono? Not them directly. Would they have even known who Bernie Sanders was? Did Putin? Who still cared, months-after-the-fact in October 2016 when it was officially blamed on the Russkies, besides Hillary Clinton's faction within the DNC?
"You're a fucking hack who parroted the narrative until you weren't useful, now you want to pretend to be a neutral party but we see through your transparent bullshit."
The saddest part is that the vast majority of the Democrat voter base won't care, won't believe any of it and will continue to support the people leading them astray. Then again, that isn't all that different from the Republican voter base.
The sad thing is no one on the left will change their minds based on this evidence. They're too wedded to their belief that Trump is an existential threat to democracy.
There are a lot of people who won't change their minds about anything if they've invested a lot of verbiage taking a stance. But at a certain point, most of them will leave a sinking ship. I'd point to the Lia Thomas/trans situation, which the left once championed and now avoids like the plague.
I used to call myself a yellow-dog democrat. I was an active member of my state's executive Committee and even attended D. state conventions.I turned away when they did bad deeds thinking it was for the greater good. The Twitter Files revelations stopped me in my tracks. Solid truthful reporting can change a mind. And there are several I know who had the same experience. Also MT's reporting on banks made him a trusted writer. His IMUS spots. It was very difficult to convince IMUS.
07/23/25: Thank you, Kathleen. Matt should retrieve all of these IMUS (I assume you're referring to the radio shock jock) interviews and have them available for viewing on his website.
Yes, IMUS (1940-2019). I was living in the Tampa area when the mortgage crisis destroyed so many peoples' financial capacity. Matt on IMUS was the only journalist sorting it out. IMUS was always brusque and confrontational and it was unusual that he listened so carefully to MT and asked good questions. If an investigative reporter could stop IMUS from his usual bellicosity and make him listen--that says a lot.
MT was writing for Rolling Stone then and this article cut through the details. it was so complicated (like MT's post, today). RS is paywalled but you can tell the topic from the title. 𝐓𝐚𝐢𝐛𝐛𝐢 𝐨𝐧 𝐈𝐦𝐮𝐬: 𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐌𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐩𝐚𝐥 𝐁𝐨𝐧𝐝-𝐑𝐢𝐠𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐑𝐨𝐛𝐛𝐞𝐝 𝐀𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐁𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬
07/24/25: ANYONE that could get Imus to be quiet is a hybrid Saint-Merlin. A strange pattern: After getting torpedoed (and how!) by the 1974 recession, somehow, after that, I was never once seriously affected by the subsequent recessions (1982, 1990, 2008), although I did have the interesting experience of working in a bank that the 1990-91 recession had torpedoed (after the blokes did it to themselves with vastly foolish real estate wing-ding transactions).
However, we were never faced with layoffs, which I'm certain made it inevitable that the bank would be seized and merged into two other banks in 1997, three years after I'd had it and decided to puff on a hookah pipe for the rest of my life. Be well, and if you'd like a good book, see if you can get a used hardcover copy of "Such Interesting People" [A Memoir of A Chicago Journalist], by Robert J. Casey [1890-1962]; The Bobbs-Merrill Company ("The Cornwall Press Inc." 2nd Printing 1943 hardcover). Much mirth!
Yep. Talked to a few of them. I say: please tell me you don’t still buy into the Russiagate thing? They only respond with vague mumbling. They know it is BS but can’t go against their indoctrination. They have no facts so they mumble and change the subject.
That or "yeah some small part of it was disproven, but most of it is still true". Which then requires you litigate every single little point or they won't accept that indeed "most of it" was not true.
I don't know what it's like in your mind, but two things can be true at the same time. There is absolutely no question the Trump is an existential threat to democracy. How can anyone with an ounce of awareness deny this, we have concentration camps now, we have the military deployed illegally and unconstitutionally in American cities, we have violations of constitutionally guaranteed rights of due process taking place by the hour all over this country as white supremacists work to recreate America as an ethno-state. All the while ignoring judicial rulings literally left and right and subverting congress's control of the budget.
And it is also true that Russia gate was a manufactured issue from the beginning fomented by the Clinton election cabal to explain away their embarrassing loss.
so when district, appeal, circuit, and supreme courts all across the country rule that those things are all constitutional and appropriate under the law, that means they are unconstitutional?
Thanks for making me laugh really hard. I have to admit though that the empathetic part of me feels quite sad for you. Your level of detachment from reality is beyond absurd, the amount of effort it takes to maintain that detachment is enormous and ongoing, the consequences on your mental health from being so detached from reality are horrendous, and the toxic Hitlerian world you choose to occupy can only injure the mental health of the people who love and care about you. You fit the definition of a Loyalist 58 and it's heart breaking.
The detention centers like alligator Alcatraz meet every single standard of concentration camps as defined in international law. That you are in denial speaks volumes about your intellectual acuity, none of it good.
Douglas, I appreciate your using your real name (correct?). The "camps" you mention will meet every single standard of modern prison accommodations currently in the U.S, including AIR CONDITIONING. That you refuse to acknowledge the weaponization of OUR government (Deep State) against actual U.S. citizens (including attempted assassinations) speaks volumes about YOUR intellectual acuity, partner. If we could speak face to face (assuming you're not a deep Deep State plant) I think we could agree to disagree? But maybe not.
It’s so obvious that Obama ordered this lie and his minions did their job to make the lie reality.
The MSM will never report 1% of what Matt just wrote. Their narrative is already set. This is nothing but weaponizing the judicial branch against Trump’s political opponents and the delegitimization of the intel agencies. Any conviction will be talked about how wrong this is. The MSM will never own their failure and will double triple down with even more lies.
The MSM will probably continue to deny and obfuscate when Comey and Brennan are "in the dock." But they can't stop us from enjoying that entertainment.
It's even worse: The lie was already "ready" before that 12/9 meeting, and Obama knew it. The CIA was holding closed-door briefings with Congress using their "new" assessment BEFORE the Obama meeting.
Citing anonymous officials briefed on the issue, the Post says the CIA shared its findings with senators in a closed-door briefing LAST WEEK, saying it was now "quite clear" that Russia's goal was to tip the presidency in Trump's favor:
It was obvious from the beginning that the Russiagate conspiracy theory was so loopy that it would have gotten its proponents laughed out of The John Bitch Society in 1962 "Hey! Get a load of these guys...."
Basically, QAnon for liberals.
It is also abundantly obvious from the timing of these releases that Trump is seeking a distraction from Epstein.
Oh bologne. Epstein thing IS a distraction from all Trump is trying to accomplishy and if it had anything to it, why wasn't it released in the last four years? Absurd.
There's not going to be that much to it anyway. If it had incriminated Trump, they would have released it even if it hurt other Democrats. And I doubt there is anything they can prove about most of these people.
There isn't going to be anything that revealing. He would have blackmailed people verbally, not put that crap in writing. It also sounded like most the hard evidence of what they had in the Maxwell case if not all, was technically with adults. It's just not going to have as much stuff as people think.
Epstein almost certainly wasn't even the one doing the blackmailing OR holding on to the evidence. He was the fun party guy who got the info and passed it along.
If there wasn't anything in the Epstein Files, why was Leon Black forced to resign as chairman of the Museum of Modern Art and as CEO of Apollo Capital (owners of Yahoo, Harrah's, Jacuzzi and other brands) in 2021?
His crime was that he gave Epstein $158 million for tax advice. Why would he fork over $158M to Epstein for tax advice?
Epstein wasn't really a tax advisor. For one thing, he wasn't an attorney or working for an attorney, so any consultations with clients would not be subject to attorney client privilege.
For another, there aren't any tax strategies or loopholes not known to the profession as a whole. As you alluded, who pays $158M for tax advice?
Does anyone consider that Trump just may be embarrassed at being associated with Epstein early on? I think that Trump is building his legacy (against supernal odds, yes) and does not like even a hint that he was friends with such a disgusting person.
Possibly. But he's doing all this great newsworthy stuff and Democrats are using this to ignore it all. That's what he's most pissed about. There is nothing that will bury Trump in it, but he doesn't want the next three years consumed with this idiot crap that can't be proved: Democrats' favorite stuff, things that can't be proven. They just claim it and repeat it often enough the lies become real to their crazy supporters.
IMO they were scared shitless that Trump was going to find out exactly what they were up to. (Alfa bank scandal, spying on Trump, falsifying documents to justify bogus investigations.)
I think Trump has known about all the Democrat/Deep State shenanigans all along. He knew there was nothing he could do until he had his people in place. Case in point…he told us the Biden laptop was real. EVERYBODY knew it was real. But there was no one in position to do anything about it. Trump was surrounded by back stabbers. Bill (CIA) Barr as the chief law enforcement officer? Give me a break.
Bill Barr who was ag when Epstein was arrested and in jail and suicided. Whose dad Donald Barr was head of the dalton school and gave young college dropout Epstein his first job teaching math to high schoolers of nyc’s elites.
Cuz dems are in the files as well. DOH that's why Trump was campaigning on releasing the files without ever truly intending to because he knew he was front and center. Try thinking a little before posting embarrassing gibberish. This is a bipartisan Child molestation Issue And it is extraordinarily likely that Politicians on both sides of the aisle Are being blackmailed By Zionists, this explains The continuing support for genocide despite the overwhelming rejection of it by the citizens of Western countries.
Thank you for that explanation. No need to insult, my point is valid. The Democrats were willing to impeach Trump for Jay walking … but if you’re correct that if both Dems and Republicans or titans of industry or heads of Wall Street are guilty, then prosecute them.
"Genocide delusions..." nevermind that literally every single solitary human rights organization in the world agrees with me along with the vast, overwhelming majority of world citizens and a majority of Jews. I guess we're all delusional but the guy ignoring mass slaughter of innocent men, women and children sees reality clearly. Go back under your rock,you're beyond reprehensible.
1, Did you ever realize that the people of Gaza elected Hamas?
2. Did you ever wonder why Hamas built tunnels under schools and hospitals and loaded them with arms, missiles, and hostages?
3. Did you ever wonder what Hamas was trying to accomplish on Oct. 7?
4. Did you ever think about what happened and still happens to the delivered aid to the Gazans.
5. Did you ever wonder where all of these weapons provided to Gaza came from?
6. Did you ever wonder why the Hamas leaders lived in luxury apartments in Qatar while their constituents were being bombed and starved? Just some very simple questions that you don't appear to care about. All you can think of is Genocide. Congratulations. "Beyond reprehensible" is a compliment, coming from someone with your intellectual capacity.
I remember Trump campaigning on releasing the long held Kennedy files, and MLK. I heard someone ask about Epstein, and Trump agreed. But he wasn’t campaigning on that simply because there’s a huge difference between our President,. RFKj’s father, MLK, and Epstein!
If you are excusing or covering for Barry the magic Kenyan in his treason that Tulsi exposed for God and all the world to see, it doesn’t take a lawyer any more than it takes a biologist to identify a person’s sex. You Dems are so dim.
Epstein has been settled in the courts and there it will stay. It was one of the files requested when Trump was campaigning on transparency. Tulsi is working on MLK now. Then RFK, and finishing up jFK. No one needs to see Epstein per the Courts.
Great reporting, Matt and exactly why I’m a paid subscriber - thank you! You’ve always been a clear and rational voice on this story and the details that explain the entire despicable episode.
I hope Gabbard holds bits and pieces back so when Obama and his minions make statements to the press, she can drop contradictory receipts the next day continuing to reinforce their dishonesty. Overall, a very sad affair that held an elected president back and poisoned discourse in the country to this day.
Worse, the report says the FSB had details of “secret meetings with multiple named US religious organizations, in which US State Department representatives offered — in exchange for supporting Secretary Clinton — ‘significant increases in financing’ from Department funds and ‘the patronage’ of State in dealing with ‘post-Soviet’ countries.”
Wait... what?? Gonna need some follow-up on this. What "religious organizations" could this be referring to? Some powerful rogue papists? Rastafarians? Would it be a religion that also has a lot of crossover with a state that we ally with? Need to hear more about this.
You think Catholic charities are looking for "significant increases in financing’ from Department funds and ‘the patronage’ of State in dealing with ‘post-Soviet’ countries."?
I hope you're right but certainly wouldn't assume it. I think if they were disposed to tell us more about it they wouldn't use this vague terminology in the first place.
I dunno, but i do remember Hillary missing some event in '16, and the response was that she was meeting with 100 Black pastors in Philly. I just googled "hillary 2016 100 black pastors philly" and got a lot of links.
It's funny I brought this up to a friend and he mentioned the same. That doesn't seem to be the most obvious answer to me tho, given their interest in dealing with post-soviet countries.
... I think it might be a kinda/sorta consideration if the intelligence was 2018, 2019 ... Ukraine in 2016 was firmly in the hands of Biden/Nuland choices ... no, I am considering whether the Azerbaijan/Armenian conflicts a little closer to home were worrying the Russians ... it's interesting to note Azerbaijan kicked out USAID in 2024 ...
I wouldn't be surprised if that list contains a bunch of the mission-happy evangelists who always love new territory to build concrete bunkers for Jesus in. My god, how the money rolls in!
Edit to add, many of them support a certain state for their own reasons. See- red heifers...
We know the FBI spied on and worked with local law enforcement to infiltrate and subvert the civil rights movement, the black panthers, Malcom X, MLK... we know that political parties have operatives who will do nefarious things to protect their candidates (Watergate)… we know about Iran-Contra and the lying to congress to divert funds and provide arms… we know that the administration in 2001 into 2002 and all its different intelligence apparatuses lied about the evidence relating to WMD's in Iraq. Liberals and progressives use these as rallying cries for how awful the government is. And I happen to agree. But that same group of people cannot accept that the same government and its agencies filled with career bureaucrats, trained and mentored by the people before them, could do the same to Trump or manufacture the evidence surrounding Trump. Because orange man bad. The cognitive dissonance is astounding.
"Well Steve, NPR can now confirm that the biggest victims of the CIA malfeasance are in fact marginalized trans Honduran undocumented migrants of Color...."
“As of September 2016, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) had Democratic National Committee (DNC) information that President Obama and party leaders found the state of Secretary Clinton's health to be ‘extraordinarily alarming’ and felt it could have ‘serious negative impact’ on
her election prospects. Her health information was being kept in ‘strictest secrecy’ and even close advisors were not being fully informed.”
Hmmmm, hiding a presidential candidate's health problems...why does this sound so familiar?
They not only hid non compos mentis Joe’s cognitive deterioration they peddled complete lies about his non existent mental capabilities. Sharp as a tack!
I wish that progressives cared. But they do not-- you could have pictures of Brennan, Obama, Comey et al. taking literal gunshots at Trump and they wouldn't care. They believe that they are fighting fascism, which for them means "opposition to open borders." And they believe this fight should be carried out by "any means necessary." Find me ONE progressive who has apologized for believing in the Russiagate lunacy, and who has repudiated the currently-constituted Democratic party as a result of seeing the light...
I already read one Pearl Clutcher comment “ Obama was doing it to protect us from King Donald”..
Exactly. It was justified! We were trying to stop Hitler before he came to power!
Please tell me you’re being facetious…..
I can confirm this. As a musician, I have contact with a lot of progs. They have too much invested to open their eyes. Even a few moderate Democrats and Republicans still bury their heads in the sand.
It’s actually far worse than this, and more complex and multi-faceted. Here’s the abbreviated version:
The very top elites, Comey, Brennan, Clinton etc. the major players know how much money was being funneled via clandestine channels from USAID and other sources. This money was going mainly one way- to the left, as DOGE and other recent reports and documents show. Even if not all of them knew, it only takes one powerful person to A) see these funds as a protest/influence/election meal ticket. I really do think this is what inspired it all, because it’s the only thing that makes sense.
They all know he’s not a fascist. They all know he’s not a threat to democracy. They all know he’s not a racist or a nazi. He’s an absolute cunt of a human being and I think MAGA people have misplaced their faith and hope in him, but the point is all the rhetoric was manufactured. So the only thing that makes sense as to why they would gamble their careers on him not winning would be something existential. You know, like losing a major source of funding that has fueled a lot of their success until recently.
The real tragedy though is that a LOT of people believed all this shit without requiring hard evidence. The reasons are variable. Some are sycophants and will believe anything “celebrities” or “elites” say as a proxy for getting status scraps from their tables. Some of them truly detest Trump’s crude and boorish manner to the extent that they wouldn’t care how unfairly he’s been persecuted with impeachments, lawfare, encouraging people to assassinate him- all of it.
These people will never be convinced because their moral righteousness absolves them of any impetus to find out what is actually the truth.
So really, from my perspective,
Democrats gaslit their constituencies so ferociously and consistently that the division that has been created cannot be undone.
What does this leave? Courts. That’s it. Everything now hinges on lawsuits, indictments and long legal battles. The truth is the real casualty though, because roughly 1/3 of the polity has cast it aside like a 4 week old fetus after a memorable but regretful Tinder date.
One thing’s for sure though, just as if the orange douche had been pink misted by Crooks’s bullet, if the black prince is indicted and convicted, we’re all in for a rough ride- one that the debutants, sycophants, and soft, pudgy urban dweller yuppie class is not remotely prepared for.
I’m a musician too and it’s the same
It's true... it's all right here..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ly1cPYSqgR4&ab_channel=TheBabylonBee
If you speak German…” Genau”.. exactly.
Ja. Ganz genau!
07/23/25: Thanks. I missed that one when it was first published.
A quick perusal of Mr. Tribe’s profile will assure you that he is.
07/23/25: "Because, as we ALL know, 20 million illegal aliens invaded Germany in 1931-32 and Hitler had had no right to put them all in concentration camps!" (sarcasm).
Well there's functionally no difference between being put in a holding facility on your way to Mexico and being put in a sealed shower with zyklon B pumping out of the shower heads.
07/24/25: My goodness! I had no idea that Hitler was exporting his illegal aliens to Mexico! (sarcasm, directed at all the lunatics yelling "Hitler!" in 2025).
The level of depraved indifference to illegal conduct is why this Country is lawless in many States and the District of Columbia………………………
obama had to become a fascist to protect us from DJT? yeah, sounds about right.
Right, cousin to “ we have to use undemocratic means to save our Democracy”
Just like the DNC had to shut down primaries and suppress 3rd party candidates to “save democracy”
And their voters just let them do it!
Of course! Because Trump! That's all they need in order to justify virtually anything. Oh how the sheep have been brainwashed.
...and have become the wolves their sanctimony strives to destroy.
Literally this meme:
https://ibb.co/dwXgQmRL
That’s the point isn’t it? The broken TDS hive mind sees any tactic whether it’s ignoring or denying factual reality, rioting or violence “by any means necessary” as acceptable. Because otherwise they would be allowing the Orange Hitler to “destroy (their) democracy” so any tactic is good, virtuous, important and justifiable. That’s why I’ve said to those who want(need) the crazy democrats to accept what Tulsi is reporting, it’s never going to happen. They have made themselves irrelevant by virtue of their implacable anger, hostility and resistance to factual common sense matters. In fact if indictments and convictions occur and they riot and become violent these will be great republican campaign videos and more grist for the mill.
They are going through stages of grief. First denial, then justification…
Exactly ... it's not really lying if it's a noble lie.
Or as George Costanza said, "It's not a lie if you believe it".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vn_PSJsl0LQ
I think this sums up the entire situation and the defense Obama's team will use. Per Matt's release yesterday:
"The same thing happened when members of the group objected to the Steele material, saying it didn’t meet even “basic tradecraft standards.” When confronted on this point, Brennan reportedly said, “Yes, BUT DOESN'T IT RING TRUE?”
Any sain Democrat has already switched parties.
What remains is poisoned.
Like Tulsi
And RFK,Jr.
07/31/25: And "nameless" millions of others.
Matt is not a Republican, nor has Matt switched to any party - Matt describes himself as politically homeless which means right now in 2025, he regards the GOP as equally unworthy of trust as the Dems.
Nearly 3/4 of the adult American population refuse to identify as Republican. An equal number refuse to identify as Democrats - getting the message? 43 percent openly embrace their declared status of Independent. https://news.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx.
Casting the GOP as the good guys demonstrates a complete ignorance of the most powerful forces opposing Trump - the corrupt establishment GOP at the state, local, and national level. Trump's fiercest opponents are GOP (and Dem) pols/pigs and their tools in government who are outraged that Trump is temporarily curtailing their normal unfettered access at the public trough. Trump 1.0 AND 2.0 are constrained by GOP forces allied with Dems to fuck Trump and the American public at every opportunity, exactly as Tulsi declared, while all the while grinning and cosplaying MAGA to sucker partisan rubes who believe a declared political label carries some sort of value.
"Progressives" are exhibit A of this form of self-delusion. They're powerless tools of the rich and powerful who use cultural issues to suppress and control speech and thought - at the behest of GOP and DEM scumbags entrenched in power at every level of the US government. Course, suckers are born every day, so don't expect the insecure to grow a set of balls anytime soon.
"Trump's fiercest opponents are GOP (and Dem) pols/pigs and their tools in government who are outraged that Trump is temporarily curtailing their normal unfettered access at the public trough."
a.k.a. the Uniparty and Deep State
I used to track those Gallup polls when they were monthly just to get a snapshot of where the electorate stood each month outside the MSM spin. They were very good as indicators. Sadly, they stopped publishing the monthly snapshots, it looks like they're subscription only now.
Yet that 43% of declared Independent voters still can't pull off an electoral win?
What Matt is now is a protector of Billionaire Pedoes. He believes the Epstein files are all BS attacks on his Poor Abused Trump.
Matt is s pro Gaza Concentration Death Camp.
Matt is Pro Zionist CHANGING the definition of Anti Semitism to mean Anti Zionism.
You know why I believe he supports these things? Cuz the LIVE BROADCAST OF STARVATION of children is going on in Palestine. And Matt is talking about how Russiagate was a big FRaud. DUH. I knew that waaaaay back when Aaron Mate FIRST reported on it YEARS AGO!!! This is not new or news other than a distraction from Matt's new cause... along with the Walt the FAKE "Half Gypsy."
No one with an ounce of Gypsy blood would be Pro Genocide, the way Walt is... and now Matt, by his DEAFENING SILENCE.
You have children, Matt.
You see the starvation in Gaza and your impulse is to DISTRACT away from the children EATING SAND.
DISTRACT away from the Pedophile Protecting President.
That is who Matt Taibbi is now.
Making the Repub Boomer feels safe & smug, now that Russiagate has "finally" been exposed.
Sad.
Well, since you've appended your measured remarks re: Matt to my comment, I certainly hope you'll treat me, my wife, our kids, my mother-in-law, our neighbors, most of my extended family and friends and just about everyone we know with the same binary intolerance you display here.
Nobody I know ever discusses Palestine, or Gaza, in private or public because we know that broaching the topic is seen as an invitation to receive abuse from people who've never been in the ME, lived in communities outside the US, or have demonstrated any willingness to do what most anti-Israel folks expect the Israelis to do - which is get the fuck out of the former Ottoman province of Palestine.
I'll take you seriously after you sell off all your own shit, give it to the local native community in your region - (do you even know the name of the former occupants of the land your forefathers stole?), and fuck off back to wherever your forefathers and mothers came from before your family decided to cross the Atlantic to build a new life in the blood of the native peoples who occupied North America for most of the previous millennia.
You won't because while you've got a lot to say about what other people should do AND say: actually practicing what you preach never ever enters that tiny, fucked-up little mind of yours.
Until you do, please consider this a polite invitation to F.O.
Great response Paul
I would note - the land stolen here was actually stolen multiple times over the millennia. With no group of people holding it very long as the "native Americans" fought over it savagely among differing tribes with as much ferocity as the religious wars in central Europe - and probably more. So no one has a right to anything they cannot hold.
Of course, I did enjoy the put down of the silly commentator. They had it coming.
To the opening comment that resulted in your being abused by Mr. Silly, I think it is important to realize there are probably three groups in play - maybe four. Perhaps you take the remnant of the GOP that Trump has not captured (and they are shrinking fast as the McConnell wing is in the process of getting gutted) as well as traditional old guard democrats. Call them the DC insiders. They hate Trump with a passion because they realize his goal is the end of their gravy train.
Then there are the new radicals, the Jacobin's of our day. The new Marxist/Communist front of which the Squad belongs and the wave of big city mayors who are working to completely destroy their cities. Minneapolis and NYC are getting ready to join Chicago in that endeavor. Much to sunbelt State's joy. Especially Texas. They have lots of energy, and media wise have more support than they deserve, which means their political support is based on success in concentrated geographic areas. They have a tendency to turn adjacent areas varying shades of red in revulsion to their stated beliefs.
Then there is the disaffected - which Trump currently leads. Many don't personally care for his act. He is a NYC real estate mogul with all the brashness you would expect which doesn't play so well everywhere else. But they hate the DC insider group - wishing to see many of them hanging from the nearest lightpost. And the Marxist new democrat radicals scare the shit out of them. The question will be what happens when Trump fades from the scene. If Vance will be his torch bearer, and the bearer of Trump's reform movement, will his much less aggressive manner help to expand the group of the disaffected? Will that get more buy in from the group of disaffected independents who are angry and scared but are uncomfortable with Trump's style?
Interesting times ahead.
Cheers!
WTF sort of nonsense is this? Why don't you go back to watching TV and stay out of what is almost a rational conversation regarding the discovery of lies and spooks playing Mad Libs with information weaponized to railroad Trump into the klink?
This is just another stupid complaint assuming what Taibbi does or does not think or believe about whatever pet issue is grinding someone's gears, in this case the lunacy in the desert.
How about one story at a time? That's never enough for people looking for champions for their pet issues.
Oh, FFS.
I am also incensed over Gaza, but your attacks on Matt here are totally out of line. Matt is not trying to cover for anything; he is just continuing to cover a story he first covered all those years ago -- along with Aaron Mate, Glenn Greenwald & a few others.
Your smug assertion that Matt wants to make "Repub Boomer(s)" feel safe is just idiotic.
Also, this statement is totally false: "Matt is Pro Zionist CHANGING the definition of Anti Semitism to mean Anti Zionism." Matt has denounced this nonsense more than once.
Honestly, if you don't appreciate Matt's work, then why are you here?
There is no genocide in Gaza
True - it is a war zone, due to the attack launched by Hamas, which is the governing body of Gaza. There is a way to end all of this, but Hamas refuses to unconditionally surrender. So the fighting will continue until they do, or there is no one left of them to fight.
War is hell, not to be entered into lightly. People who shout genocide are unserious people in need of instruction and education and as such have nothing to add to the discussion, outside of a reminder that the US education system sucks at their job.
Whether you accept the "g" word or not, there has been a systematic starvation of Gazan civilians, announced in advance by Yoav Gallant, and abetted by Israeli Settlers blocking aid, while IDF looks on, bored. Israel's latest means of "fighting" is to fire tanks and rifles at starving people lining up to receive aid.
We have all been witness to Israel's repeated targeting of schools, hospitals, refugee camps, ambulances, and aid workers..
The whole world is watching what Israel is doing, and your lies will never change that.
Agreed. They simply are noise.
Total BS.
If you want to read about Gaza, check out Grayzone, or Antiwar.com.
That's what I do.
In the meantime, there is no reason to smear Matt -- or any of the rest of us.
How is Trump 2.0 “constrained by GOP forces”?
Manner and degree vary. You think the GOP are onboard with forcing peace on Ukraine, or ending the Atlantic Council plan to "decolonize" Russia? Ukraine has 13 trillion in natural resources that "rightly" belong to US corporations - Russia has 75 trillion.
You think you're living an age where anything but cash matters? Trump is temporary - pay for play is permanent. Pols on both sides understand the math who's paying for their next palace, or bigger yacht, or plane. The taxpayer.
Or oblivious to any news other than what’s spouted by legacy media.
That’s it in a nutshell. Even the Free Press is treating it like old news; nothing worth worrying about. But the MSM is unbelievably quiet on what literally may be the most explosive story in the history of the country.
The Free Press is NPR without the dulcet voices.
They are every bit as bad as the NYT and NPR now.
07/23/25: WORSE. They pretend to be an alternative to the American Deep State Pravda media.
Bari Weiss (Columbia University) was hired by the New York Times. The New York Times hires Ivy League elites whose worldview aligns with the Times's worldview.
Yeah, she was hired for being slightly more to the right (the same reason the pre-Bezos Washington Post hired Jennifer Rubin), but crucially that meant on the right of *that limited part of the spectrum that the New York Times deems legitimate.*
Which turns out to be pretty Left and neo-consevative. Recall that most neo-consevatives had very Lefty backgrounds, until they realized that the Left was too undisciplined to be effective, and too anti-war to embrace imperial wars to make the Middle East safe for Our Greatest Ally.
Expecting Bari to be anything other than a "cool wine Aunt" neocon is like expecting a fish to tap dance. It's just not in her training or experience, but more importantly it's not in her nature.
To Bari and the other neocons, Brennan and Comey and Obama are "the adults in the room" and Trump is the spoiled rich fratboy wearing a MAGA cap backwards and creating chaos. So *of course* in the back rooms leading off the corridors of power, the adults need to slap Fratty McFratboy down. For Bari, that's not anything to report on, that's just another Tuesday at Columbia University.
What Bari and most of the other Ivy Leaguers don't get (and haven't, since the Ivy League inception of the CIA and its inept fight against "Communism") is that the super smart, extensively educated, from the best families and New York society pages People Like Us aren't infallible, and in fact make huge mistakes with names like "Advisors in Vietnam", "WMDs in Iraq", and "2008 Lending Crisis and Bank Bailout."
Huge mistakes for which they are awarded political and academic sinecures, Pulitzers, millions of dollars, and Medals of Freedom, huge mistakes that regular middle class American families pay for in blood and treasure and sons returning to Dover Air Force Base in flag-drapped caskets.
To Bari, Trump is an unserious clown who needed to be slapped down or leashed by The Smart Set (forgive me, HL Mencken). To MAGA, Trump is a repudiation of elites who have spent sixty years profiting greatly by leading America off a cliff.
An excellent takedown of Weiss and TFP. She's not a serious journalist and incapable of being either nuanced or objective.
Exactly why I canceled my subscription several months ago. Don’t miss it.
07/23/25: Amen!
Interesting that others are picking up on The Free Press.
I like some of the writers over there, but I never could pull the trigger on a subscription. Came close a couple times, but in the end I didn't think there was an editorial commitment to truth.
Its performance this past week -- sitting on this story for 3 days and then finally trotting out Eli Lake to poo-poo it -- seals the deal.
No sale.
Yeah, I jumped right in to support Bari after the NYT debacle, but they have drifted back towards “NYT-lite” as somebody put it. If not for TGIF on Fridays, I’d be out.
TGIF is the worst! Smug self satisfied justifications for their upper east side viewpoints.
And all the smug self satisfied readers at the end posting all the 'fabulous' places where they are TGIFing!
07/23/25: The Free Press is a sham; entirely corrupt and would be delighted to become the New New York Times where all the fraudulent practices of the old NYT would be continued without so much as a flutter of an interruption. Bari Weiss is a wolf in sheep's clothing. All she did was abandon a sinking ship, and somehow this was interpreted as a virtuous act of conscience. Bullsh*t.
The "news" available on Yahoo, Instagram, Tik Tok, etc. is 100% sourced from legacy outlets. Drudge was compromised a long time ago. Luckily Rogan and most of the podcasters are awake to this nonsense.
"Drudge was compromised a long time ago."
Sadly so. :(
👍👍
I’ve left the Democrats, but I’ll be damned if I ever head over to the pedo-hiding Republicans. They’re both vile and evil
Independent is fine.
Sweatpants are comfortable too.
I left the party at the millennium, but still mostly voted for them. '08 was my last year of that for top of the ticket. Since then, its been 3rd party or write in, and last year sat it out. I've never voted R top of the ticket.
Russiagate is as old a story as There weer Never any WMDs in Iraq.
Thats all Matt oes now.
DISTRACT away from yhe Pedoe Protecting President and his Team.
BOTH TEAMS of the Uniparty are Pedoe Protectors and AIPAC/CUFI Stooges.
✌️
Are you typing with your toes?
Let’s assume these are your heartfelt beliefs. What have you done( comments don’t count) about any of the issues troubling you. e.g. Have you taken a sand eating Gazan child or family into your home?
"Russiagate is as old a story"
And it seems to me you are deliberately deflecting, with more unfounded assertions, from the NEW revelations as to how top Obama admin officials manipulated the intel to continue the fantasy to undermine the Trump admin, and by extension, the will of the voters.
There might be some perjury here too, because after all, nobody is above the law. Or does that not interest you?
Maybe not any and all have switched yet...or if they have it is to Independent.
And Donald J. Trump hisself! Please don't forget he was once a Democrat too!
🎯
my sense is that these Unelecteds don't believe in anything but making money for themselves and having power. anyone who threatens their income and power is an enemy. Fascism doesn't matter, democracy doesn't matter. They wag the dog and like it that way. They'll fight anyone who tells them they can't.
well…i’m a “progressive” who never believed it in the first place.
also blew the whistle on Daily Kos’ absurd Russia fear-mongering planning meeting: https://www.brookhines.com/p/neoliberals-glamping-in-death-valley
i’ve long ago disowned the label “progressive.” i’m just an old lefty who’s determined to do her own thinking.
I just say I'm an 80s liberal. The Democrat Party has gone Stalinist.
I’m an old school lefty who was appalled by this entire fiasco. Thought HRC was the worst candidate they could run in 2016. I was proved right in that she couldn’t defeat an even worse candidate.
HRC is a former Goldwater Girl who has never moved beyond the ludicrous anti-Russian Cold War and had(has) an irrational hatred of Putin - who is certainly no angel but no worse than various right wing puppets we’ve graced the world with through the years. Of course he would make some moves to contribute to her defeat. But his “meddling” was not on the level of the USA’s meddling which placed Boris Yeltsin in power after the breakup of the Soviet Union.
But this mess doesn’t translate to the GOP not being as corrupt as the Dems. I hate Trump and his ilk.
Agree but wonder why you think Putin preferred Trump. He always said the opposite. He said with HRC he knew what he was dealing with, whereas Trump was dangerously unpredictable.
"HRC is a former Goldwater Girl who has never moved beyond the ludicrous anti-Russian Cold War and had(has) an irrational hatred of Putin" ...
It's kind of amazing how even people who dislike Hillary keep framing their analysis entirely based on the Russia Russia Russia hoax.
In 2008 Obama and Hillary explicitly campaigned on 'resetting' relations with Putin who they claimed W was needlessly antagonizing over an invasion (Georgia back then). It's pretty clear in hindsight that Obama needed Putin to help broker his Iran nuclear deal, and Hillary obviously viewed Russia as a fertile opportunity for lots of grifting. Of course Putin didn't play along with her scheming so she soured on him. I think it took Obama a bit longer to come around to supporting the Russia Russia Russia narrative but I suspect he eventually realized that unless Trump was held in check he was going to undo Obama's plan to enable the Iranians to get a nuke at the first opportunity.
There was never anything ideological about Hillary's (or Obama's) claim of Russian election interference. It was purely a political attempt to steamroll Trump.
Why did Obama want Iran to have nukes? Sorry if this is a naive question. Also what sort of grifting was HRC planning on vis a vis Russia?
Why did Obama want Iran to have nukes? Sorry if this is a naive question.
The original Progressives were Republican... I am a liberal, but today, in this climate? I'm a conservative according the definitions. None of my views have changed in 50+ years, but the slide has sure gone left.
I'm pretty much with you on all these points.
Cheers Brook. I think the comment above mistakenly hyper-focuses on the opinions of talking heads and/or strangers online. Imo there's every reason to think (and hope! lol) that this will cause some nontrivial number of people to realize they misplaced their trust.
Maybe even more importantly - it needs to be out there so that, moving forward, anyone who learns about this stuff for the first time has a fighting chance against having the wool of "received wisdom" pulled over their eyes. The WMD fiasco is a great comp in that respect as well. Imagine learning about Iraq for the first time in a version of 2025 where no one ever pulled that thread.
I know, seriously, the idea that the current Democratic party with their Romney-esque “abundance” branding has anything to do with true leftism is such a joke.
to me it’s like giving in to a temper tantrum throwing toddler….
I’d love to be a Democrat again…. But not at this rate,, not anytime soon…
Lord Julius, sadly your spot on. I'm waiting for the response: "But...but..most of the Steele dossier was true!" Crazy.
As Taibbi writes about this scandal, today’s NYT “breaking news” headline is: “Bondi warned Trump he is in the Epstein Files.” Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!
07/23/25: Any chance Epstein was murdered so that they could blame it on Trump, who was president at the time of the event?
I'll name 2: RFK, Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard. NY Mayor Eric Adams will be next. Besides them, there must be more. I read that a survey of Trump rally attendees in 2024 found that over 20% were registered Democrats.
Fetterman is not likely to shift but I'd add him to the possible list.
Remind me how Fetterman votes.
They care. They want this to go away. Some of them are having to lie about it or justify the unjustifiable, and they don’t enjoy that, because most of them are not sociopaths. Second, they see themselves as morally superior, and they don’t like to have that challenged. It’s driving them crazy, and we should absolutely keep it up for as long as possible. Meanwhile, some impression of culpability seeps through the bubble to confuse the true believers. Outside of the bubble, people get angrier. So, cheers
So this December 9, 2017 ICA was requested by President Obama, and he actually accepted it? So he spouted lies about the Russia Hoax AKA Crossfire Hurricane knowing there was nothing to back him up.
So the “Resistance” and TDS were created out of thin air. And America lost its respect for the Office of the President, and it was a TOP DOWN job. Hopeless change.
True, but there are plenty of normies who can still change sides.
this is why it would be folly to continue sharing a country with them. its like sleeping in bed with a poisonous snake.
Well, I have a slightly more optimistic case. The GOP eventually repudiated the Neo-Con wing of their party— there was no purge, not exactly, but opponents/critics of the neo-cons are in charge. One could imagine something similar happening on the left… but it hasn’t even begun to happen. All of the Democrats who recognize the seriousness of the Russia collusion hoax have left the party…
Your generalization is rather offensive. I am did believe not that Trump was a Russian asset, but that Russia interfered with the elections. Now, this report comes out, which I am planning to read. Have you read it. I am, trying to get to the truth, and if so happens that I was wrong, I have no qualms about apologizing.
The fault is mine, but I was arguing with one about ivermectin vs clot shots last night. They never stop believing the initial lie - no matter how much data comes out to refute it - smugly repeating the propaganda they ate up initially. “None are so blind as those who will not see.”
Because MK Ultra has long-since shown the power of control through TV broadcasting and also why stations like CNN and MSNBC stay on. People that watch are addicted to what they believe. Viewers that have left no doubt have found podcasts spewing the same hate editorialism but with more credible lies.
Who are these “Deep Staters” and people among the R’s fighting her? Is it Susie Wiles? Lindsey Graham, Tom Cotton?
Is there a constituted Democratic party currently?
Much satisfaction seeing Tulsi get a little payback for HRC smearing her as a Russian asset.
If any Democrats are having trouble defining what a real woman is….a quick tune in to today’s presser would give you two of the finest examples of womanhood the Good Lord ever placed on Earth.
07/23/25: Thank you. I'd forgotten about that. She's doing something that I cannot recall anyone else in WDC doing in decades:
Telling the truth about what she uncovered AFTER GETTING IT UNCOVERED, and letting the chips fall where they may (I'm certain that others have done this, but I can't recall their names, and in any case, the scale of what she's doing is gargantuan compared to the good deeds of this nature done in the past).
And possibly unique: She's not motivated by revenge. She's serving her country, admirably, by revealing who the prevaricating villains have been.
I do not see her actions as vengeful either. This is more about setting the record straight and separating the villains from the law-abiding, the righteous from the self-righteous. If one loves his or her country, they will want an honest recording of its history. Now the courts can have their shot at it.
If the DNC had a shred of honesty within their little cabal, they would have held an honest-to-goodness primary and allowed Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. rise to the top.
07/28/25: The irony of a Lincoln telling the Democrats... (!)
Agreed. The self-proclaimed Defenders of Democracy pushing a Tammany Hall, smoke-filed-room candidate that no one wanted in 2020 and who got a free ride in 2024. Social promotion at its finest.
Also her placement on the terrorist watch list more recently.
My immediate thoughts - the numerous stories suggesting, if not stating, that Trump lacked confidence in Tulsi and that she was kept out of meetings and her advice was being ignored, WERE ALL BS. The Deep State knew she was working on this and hoped to tarnish her before these document dumps started.
Much more of a real thing than I would have thought. Kind of shocked by what I'm hearing
Louis Sebastien Mercier (forget the Wiki reference) - https://digitalcommons.bucknell.edu/bucknell-press/96/
You're earning your place in history, Matt - raising your game both in terms of quality and analysis. No matter what the short term outcome, folks in the future who want to understand this wild time will turn to you, Walter, and others to get a snapshot of what life today is like. Many thanks!
PS. As someone who spends a lot of time checking footnotes and dates, I'm reasonably sure that very few of the "informed" ever bothered to get to the level of granular detail that Tulsi and her team are producing - we've discovered she's a true national treasure.
07/23/25: "As someone who spends a lot of time checking footnotes and dates..." And people ask me in condescending tones of voice why I date these posts (!).
07/23/25: Matt, you've been looking at all this for years now. How is it possible for you, or anyone, at this point to still be capable of being "shocked"? I don't think that the following is true, but you'll have --- if it hasn't happened already --- people intemperately accusing you of being "irresponsibly [right word?] naive."
Because he, by his own admission, was a huge Obama fan bitd.
07/28/25: I thank the Lord that I wasn't in the same frame of mind.
Agreed! Plenty of folks in power are now fully in the frame. They know that Tulsi and her team have documents far more damning to come. What a horror show - for all us.
07/23/25: You hit the nail RIGHT on the head. Thank you.
"Trump lacked confidence in Tulsi"
There's a reason the "TACO" slur continues to go viral... If Tulsi is, in the end, hung out to dry by Trump/Bondi the way they did on Epstein, it will be yet another important message from TPTB, who have have been laughing at us for over two decades. "We are an empire now..."
Certainly as important as when Joe Biden continued to hold office for 7 months (without invoking 25th Sec 4) after his dementia was both exposed live *and finally acknowledged by MSM*.
Now let's talk about Robert Mueller, who clearly determined that this was all nonsense almost immediately, yet kept his "investigation" open for TWO YEARS so that the Deep State would have a pretext for ignoring Trump's presidential authority.
Federal institutions spent most of a duly-elected president's term acting like he wasn't legitimate, undermining and even openly rebelling against his orders. All the while Mueller gave everyone in Trump's orbit a bureaucratic colonoscopy, ultimately nailing a staffer or two so that left-wing America could triumphantly exclaim (as a coworker of mine proudly did in the office) "Is it still a witch hunt when they find actual witches?"
Yes, Sean. It's still a witch hunt when you claim that Trump is Putin's Manchurian candidate and come away with cold case tax evasion charges for Paul Manafort.
Muller never read the Muller report or knew what was going on.
He may have been the DNC's inspiration for Biden 2020.
Mueller’s final public testimony was embarrassing. His lack of familiarity with his own report showed that he never been more than a figurehead.
I always felt terrible about the Gen. Flynn lynching. I knew nothing about him before Trump was elected, but there was a good interview with him (before January, I believe) on Morning Joe -- back when I still watched.
I would love to see him get a chance at vengeance. Like as special counsel investigating Obama.
My goodness: it’s a wonder you didn’t go blind watching that “show”
His life was derailed for 4 years, because he trusted the FBI. He was in the IC too.
07/23/25: Mueller did such a good job of demonstrating how useful an upright dementia patient in a three-piece suit can be, Biden's nomination in 2020 as the Dem candidate was in the bag.
LOL, who would have guessed that we'd go from Colbert's "truthiness" joke to actually using it as a basis for undermining the duly elected President of the United States?
“doesn’t it ring true?”
https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/truthiness-meaning-word-origin
One interesting thing I noted while doing my deep dive -- the CIA assessment that was leaked immediately after the 12/9 Obama meeting was completed BEFORE the meeting. This article was published 12/10:
---
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/12/10/505072304/cia-concludes-russian-interference-aimed-to-elect-trump
"Citing anonymous officials briefed on the issue, the Post says the CIA shared its findings with senators in a closed-door briefing last week, saying it was now "quite clear" that Russia's goal was to tip the presidency in Trump's favor:"
---
This means that when Obama demanded his new narrative, it was already completed and Obama knew what it was. This is why the FBI suddenly dissented to the proposed PDB on 12/8 -- the fix was in.
It had to be wired well in advance of the 12/9 meeting.
Now we know for sure.
Yep. It wasn't an honest request to look into the facts, it was an excuse to trot out (and then leak) the pre-written narrative.
They continued to do this through Trump's entire first term.
And even into Biden’s term as well.
That means the conspiracy is ongoing, keeping the statute of limitations open.
*crosses fingers*
🤞🤞
My opinion: Trump and his team have gamed this out to the end. After the evidence becomes overwhelming and the mainstream press is forced to report this, I’m guessing that Trump will hold a press conference wherein he will provide a recitation of what was found, how it affected him personally and the country at large, and that his plan is not to prosecute but rather, introduce legislation in September to ensure that this never happens again. Trump has too much he wants to accomplish for the USA in the next 3&1/2 years and this issue is certainly not high on that list. He wants to Make America Great and to execute on the plan that he and his team have been working on while in exile waiting for Biden to die.
Excellent comment! With respect, I disagree completely re: Obama "knew." I don't think Obama knew much in terms of detail about anything, simply because as you correctly note - he'd already settled on the conclusions of the report irrespective of the quality of the evidence, which I suspect is your meaning.
Obama, it seems has a keen understanding of sports and probably has a very detail-oriented approach to handicapping. But, as the "refs" had already been commanded to "fix" the outcome, and with the plan to get Flynn out of the way in place, does anyone think Obama, or any other bad actor, actually cared about factual accuracy?
Your timeline is interesting and I agree that at least two of the main bad actors understood early (very early) that all this crap had to be suppressed no matter the cost.
I'm open to the idea that Russiagate 2017 was simply a cover-up of all the FBI sloppiness through 2016. Thx for your great work!
Perhaps it would be more correct to say "He already knew what the conclusions were" and simply didn't care if the intelligence used to make those conclusions were lies or not.
Yes, yes. But what do we say to the Chris Cuomo's of the world, who believe the DNC hacks in June 2016 establish Russia's guilt and preference for Trump? That's what he emphasized repeatedly on his show the other night. He -- along with every other Clinton supporter in that election -- could not care less about specific intelligence reports.
I'm asking seriously, in the hopes of deprogramming my family. (And they don't want to hear about Seth Rich.)
On a more serious note, I think it's hilarious when you think that somebody telling people what you're up to automatically makes them for the other guy.
But the problem with the DNC email leak isn't that they were fake emails, it's that they were real! The DNC REALLY WAS screwing Bernie in the primary.
Yes indeed. They embarrassed the Clinton campaign by revealing the not-so-democratic machinations of the Democratic Party. Qui bono? Trump. That is the basis of the story which Cuomo and millions of others believe. In this telling, Obama and co. were already convinced of the obvious and were trying to come up with sound evidence to support it. That they failed to produce it and got fed BS by a retired MI6 agent attests to the limitations of our agencies, not a refutation of the plot. It does not negate the story.
So what is the story regarding the DNC email leaks?
To the extent we can trust anything, the transfer rate seems to suggest somebody with physical access to the machines. Hillary had a ton of haters in the party (one of the reasons Bernie got so much traction to begin with, he was the only other choice in the primary).
If I had been granted access to emails proving the RNC was out to screw Ron Paul in 2008 and 2012, I would have published them so fast it would make your head spin -- so I can understand why a disgruntled member might leak the documents.
Word^
This is why I'm trying to think about this in terms of stories, as Walter Kirn would. What can fill the gap left by a dearth of written correspondence and recorded testimony? Not much. Mere speculation, mostly. So let us speculate about the motivations of the characters involved. For example, what do Russian hackers want in this world? According to 60 Minutes they want to make money by ripping off American casinos:
https://youtu.be/lEwC1tN2jb8?si=vPXFuCB4spJfLtnp
That's a piece from last year about a Russian-affiliated hacker network called Scattered Spider, which managed to use ransomware to extort $millions from MGM Grand and Caesars in Las Vegas. The interviewed security expert called them sophisticated "crooks," ie thieves.
Are these the same sort of people who hacked the internal DNC email servers in June 2016? Perhaps. But why would they? Qui bono? Not them directly. Would they have even known who Bernie Sanders was? Did Putin? Who still cared, months-after-the-fact in October 2016 when it was officially blamed on the Russkies, besides Hillary Clinton's faction within the DNC?
"They're just questions, Leon."
"You're a fucking hack who parroted the narrative until you weren't useful, now you want to pretend to be a neutral party but we see through your transparent bullshit."
"And btw, your brother is a piece of shit."
Use Matt’s article, and tell them that Matt voted for Hillary. If their minds can’t open to that, they’re done for.
The saddest part is that the vast majority of the Democrat voter base won't care, won't believe any of it and will continue to support the people leading them astray. Then again, that isn't all that different from the Republican voter base.
And that is why we be fucked.
The sad thing is no one on the left will change their minds based on this evidence. They're too wedded to their belief that Trump is an existential threat to democracy.
There are a lot of people who won't change their minds about anything if they've invested a lot of verbiage taking a stance. But at a certain point, most of them will leave a sinking ship. I'd point to the Lia Thomas/trans situation, which the left once championed and now avoids like the plague.
I used to call myself a yellow-dog democrat. I was an active member of my state's executive Committee and even attended D. state conventions.I turned away when they did bad deeds thinking it was for the greater good. The Twitter Files revelations stopped me in my tracks. Solid truthful reporting can change a mind. And there are several I know who had the same experience. Also MT's reporting on banks made him a trusted writer. His IMUS spots. It was very difficult to convince IMUS.
07/23/25: Thank you, Kathleen. Matt should retrieve all of these IMUS (I assume you're referring to the radio shock jock) interviews and have them available for viewing on his website.
Yes, IMUS (1940-2019). I was living in the Tampa area when the mortgage crisis destroyed so many peoples' financial capacity. Matt on IMUS was the only journalist sorting it out. IMUS was always brusque and confrontational and it was unusual that he listened so carefully to MT and asked good questions. If an investigative reporter could stop IMUS from his usual bellicosity and make him listen--that says a lot.
MT was writing for Rolling Stone then and this article cut through the details. it was so complicated (like MT's post, today). RS is paywalled but you can tell the topic from the title. 𝐓𝐚𝐢𝐛𝐛𝐢 𝐨𝐧 𝐈𝐦𝐮𝐬: 𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐌𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐩𝐚𝐥 𝐁𝐨𝐧𝐝-𝐑𝐢𝐠𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐑𝐨𝐛𝐛𝐞𝐝 𝐀𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐁𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬
𝐁𝐲 𝐌𝐚𝐭𝐭 𝐓𝐚𝐢𝐛𝐛𝐢. 𝐉𝐮𝐧𝐞 𝟐𝟏, 𝟐𝟎𝟏𝟐
07/24/25: ANYONE that could get Imus to be quiet is a hybrid Saint-Merlin. A strange pattern: After getting torpedoed (and how!) by the 1974 recession, somehow, after that, I was never once seriously affected by the subsequent recessions (1982, 1990, 2008), although I did have the interesting experience of working in a bank that the 1990-91 recession had torpedoed (after the blokes did it to themselves with vastly foolish real estate wing-ding transactions).
However, we were never faced with layoffs, which I'm certain made it inevitable that the bank would be seized and merged into two other banks in 1997, three years after I'd had it and decided to puff on a hookah pipe for the rest of my life. Be well, and if you'd like a good book, see if you can get a used hardcover copy of "Such Interesting People" [A Memoir of A Chicago Journalist], by Robert J. Casey [1890-1962]; The Bobbs-Merrill Company ("The Cornwall Press Inc." 2nd Printing 1943 hardcover). Much mirth!
Yep. Talked to a few of them. I say: please tell me you don’t still buy into the Russiagate thing? They only respond with vague mumbling. They know it is BS but can’t go against their indoctrination. They have no facts so they mumble and change the subject.
That or "yeah some small part of it was disproven, but most of it is still true". Which then requires you litigate every single little point or they won't accept that indeed "most of it" was not true.
Pat Riley should have trademarked “Threat to Democracy” like he did “3-peat”. Big money in that jargon.
We’ve witnessed a lot of existential threats to democracy, or more aptly put, our Democratic Republic.
I don't know what it's like in your mind, but two things can be true at the same time. There is absolutely no question the Trump is an existential threat to democracy. How can anyone with an ounce of awareness deny this, we have concentration camps now, we have the military deployed illegally and unconstitutionally in American cities, we have violations of constitutionally guaranteed rights of due process taking place by the hour all over this country as white supremacists work to recreate America as an ethno-state. All the while ignoring judicial rulings literally left and right and subverting congress's control of the budget.
And it is also true that Russia gate was a manufactured issue from the beginning fomented by the Clinton election cabal to explain away their embarrassing loss.
Thanks for the summary of today's MSNBC broadcasts!
Now THAT'S funny!!
Concentration camps. Lol.
There are treatments for TDS. You should consider pursuing them.
so when district, appeal, circuit, and supreme courts all across the country rule that those things are all constitutional and appropriate under the law, that means they are unconstitutional?
Don’t bother.
Thanks for making me laugh really hard. I have to admit though that the empathetic part of me feels quite sad for you. Your level of detachment from reality is beyond absurd, the amount of effort it takes to maintain that detachment is enormous and ongoing, the consequences on your mental health from being so detached from reality are horrendous, and the toxic Hitlerian world you choose to occupy can only injure the mental health of the people who love and care about you. You fit the definition of a Loyalist 58 and it's heart breaking.
“Concentration camps”!! Oh my! You need real help.
The detention centers like alligator Alcatraz meet every single standard of concentration camps as defined in international law. That you are in denial speaks volumes about your intellectual acuity, none of it good.
Douglas, I appreciate your using your real name (correct?). The "camps" you mention will meet every single standard of modern prison accommodations currently in the U.S, including AIR CONDITIONING. That you refuse to acknowledge the weaponization of OUR government (Deep State) against actual U.S. citizens (including attempted assassinations) speaks volumes about YOUR intellectual acuity, partner. If we could speak face to face (assuming you're not a deep Deep State plant) I think we could agree to disagree? But maybe not.
https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/immigration-alligator-alcatraz-concentration-camp-rcna216874
Satire or are you retarded?
E have no concentration camps
It’s so obvious that Obama ordered this lie and his minions did their job to make the lie reality.
The MSM will never report 1% of what Matt just wrote. Their narrative is already set. This is nothing but weaponizing the judicial branch against Trump’s political opponents and the delegitimization of the intel agencies. Any conviction will be talked about how wrong this is. The MSM will never own their failure and will double triple down with even more lies.
The MSM will probably continue to deny and obfuscate when Comey and Brennan are "in the dock." But they can't stop us from enjoying that entertainment.
It's even worse: The lie was already "ready" before that 12/9 meeting, and Obama knew it. The CIA was holding closed-door briefings with Congress using their "new" assessment BEFORE the Obama meeting.
So it goes back even farther in time.
Yep. This article was written on 12/10, the day after the Obama meeting:
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/12/10/505072304/cia-concludes-russian-interference-aimed-to-elect-trump
Citing anonymous officials briefed on the issue, the Post says the CIA shared its findings with senators in a closed-door briefing LAST WEEK, saying it was now "quite clear" that Russia's goal was to tip the presidency in Trump's favor:
Thanks for that link anonymous sources is code word for we just make this shit up
The intel agencies were carefully staffed and are going nowhere. Neither is the DOJ.
It was obvious from the beginning that the Russiagate conspiracy theory was so loopy that it would have gotten its proponents laughed out of The John Bitch Society in 1962 "Hey! Get a load of these guys...."
Basically, QAnon for liberals.
It is also abundantly obvious from the timing of these releases that Trump is seeking a distraction from Epstein.
Oh bologne. Epstein thing IS a distraction from all Trump is trying to accomplishy and if it had anything to it, why wasn't it released in the last four years? Absurd.
I don’t even care for Trump but I believe what you say to be true
There's not going to be that much to it anyway. If it had incriminated Trump, they would have released it even if it hurt other Democrats. And I doubt there is anything they can prove about most of these people.
Certainly if somebody happens to be on the list, he’s not automatically guilty. Except in this modern era of cancellation.
Rather, if there were nothing to the Epstein Files, they could have told us in 2019.
There isn't going to be anything that revealing. He would have blackmailed people verbally, not put that crap in writing. It also sounded like most the hard evidence of what they had in the Maxwell case if not all, was technically with adults. It's just not going to have as much stuff as people think.
You know this how? Epstein just had his mansion wired for video, because?
And if Epstein really did mostly restrict his extracurricular activities to "barely legal" girls, the DoJ could not have told us this in 2019?
Epstein almost certainly wasn't even the one doing the blackmailing OR holding on to the evidence. He was the fun party guy who got the info and passed it along.
Most likely.
Yep to the highest bidders.
If there wasn't anything in the Epstein Files, why was Leon Black forced to resign as chairman of the Museum of Modern Art and as CEO of Apollo Capital (owners of Yahoo, Harrah's, Jacuzzi and other brands) in 2021?
His crime was that he gave Epstein $158 million for tax advice. Why would he fork over $158M to Epstein for tax advice?
Epstein wasn't really a tax advisor. For one thing, he wasn't an attorney or working for an attorney, so any consultations with clients would not be subject to attorney client privilege.
For another, there aren't any tax strategies or loopholes not known to the profession as a whole. As you alluded, who pays $158M for tax advice?
Does anyone consider that Trump just may be embarrassed at being associated with Epstein early on? I think that Trump is building his legacy (against supernal odds, yes) and does not like even a hint that he was friends with such a disgusting person.
I kind of think that. I think DJT is starting to focus on his library. Libraries make anyone better.
Possibly. But he's doing all this great newsworthy stuff and Democrats are using this to ignore it all. That's what he's most pissed about. There is nothing that will bury Trump in it, but he doesn't want the next three years consumed with this idiot crap that can't be proved: Democrats' favorite stuff, things that can't be proven. They just claim it and repeat it often enough the lies become real to their crazy supporters.
I don’t think he’s thinking about anything from 30 years ago. Trump Corp may have built some real estate…
if there is anybody who DGAF what anybody thinks about anything, for absolute sure it is trump.
IMO they were scared shitless that Trump was going to find out exactly what they were up to. (Alfa bank scandal, spying on Trump, falsifying documents to justify bogus investigations.)
I think Trump has known about all the Democrat/Deep State shenanigans all along. He knew there was nothing he could do until he had his people in place. Case in point…he told us the Biden laptop was real. EVERYBODY knew it was real. But there was no one in position to do anything about it. Trump was surrounded by back stabbers. Bill (CIA) Barr as the chief law enforcement officer? Give me a break.
Yep. Remember that Trump tried to declassify the CH documents at the end of his first term, and the swamp just ignored him.
https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/presidential-actions/memorandum-declassification-certain-materials-related-fbis-crossfire-hurricane-investigation/
Bill Barr who was ag when Epstein was arrested and in jail and suicided. Whose dad Donald Barr was head of the dalton school and gave young college dropout Epstein his first job teaching math to high schoolers of nyc’s elites.
The FBI confirmed that the laptop was legitimate 11 months before the 2020 election.
Uranium One
But why Feral Finster is Trump deflecting? If he was diddling young girls, the Dems would have buried him with that long ago…
1. I didn't say Trump was.
2. Israel would get mightily butthurt at having sources and methods exposed. Not to mention its blackmail material disappearing.
Thanks… but it is what Dems and legacy media are implying
And?
Trump certainly is not acting like someone who is seeking transparency here.
you mean besides
* declassifing a ton of the files,
* uncovering the files that were hidden by some fbi supervisor in NY,
* who he promptly fired for hiding them,
* ordering his attorney general to release everything, and
* trying to get the court to release the grand jury files?
Keep deflecting.
I’m admitting I’m stumped. And I always find your comments very insightful but often above my pay grade 😉
Thank you for the kind words. I try to call balls and strikes, not argue for team or tribe.
That said, I have my suspicions.
Cuz dems are in the files as well. DOH that's why Trump was campaigning on releasing the files without ever truly intending to because he knew he was front and center. Try thinking a little before posting embarrassing gibberish. This is a bipartisan Child molestation Issue And it is extraordinarily likely that Politicians on both sides of the aisle Are being blackmailed By Zionists, this explains The continuing support for genocide despite the overwhelming rejection of it by the citizens of Western countries.
Thank you for that explanation. No need to insult, my point is valid. The Democrats were willing to impeach Trump for Jay walking … but if you’re correct that if both Dems and Republicans or titans of industry or heads of Wall Street are guilty, then prosecute them.
Don't waste your time Mrs. Mc. Poor little dougie boy is just happy he could work his moronic Zionist hate and genocide delusions into the conversion.
so depressing, thanks
"Genocide delusions..." nevermind that literally every single solitary human rights organization in the world agrees with me along with the vast, overwhelming majority of world citizens and a majority of Jews. I guess we're all delusional but the guy ignoring mass slaughter of innocent men, women and children sees reality clearly. Go back under your rock,you're beyond reprehensible.
1, Did you ever realize that the people of Gaza elected Hamas?
2. Did you ever wonder why Hamas built tunnels under schools and hospitals and loaded them with arms, missiles, and hostages?
3. Did you ever wonder what Hamas was trying to accomplish on Oct. 7?
4. Did you ever think about what happened and still happens to the delivered aid to the Gazans.
5. Did you ever wonder where all of these weapons provided to Gaza came from?
6. Did you ever wonder why the Hamas leaders lived in luxury apartments in Qatar while their constituents were being bombed and starved? Just some very simple questions that you don't appear to care about. All you can think of is Genocide. Congratulations. "Beyond reprehensible" is a compliment, coming from someone with your intellectual capacity.
I remember Trump campaigning on releasing the long held Kennedy files, and MLK. I heard someone ask about Epstein, and Trump agreed. But he wasn’t campaigning on that simply because there’s a huge difference between our President,. RFKj’s father, MLK, and Epstein!
Epstein Epstein Epstein
Gaza Gaza Gaza
Racism racism racism
Russia Russia Russia
Hitler Hitler Hitler
Fascist fascist fascist
Immigrants immigrants immigrants
Trump trump trump trump trump trump trump trump trump trump trump
Marsha Marsha Marsha
😂😂
😂
Deirdre, you seem to have caught Joe Biden's stutter! Or is it that you work in the Department of Redundancy Department? 😂
Squirrel! Squirrel!
Where?! WHERE?!?!
Pizza! Pizza!
Full on TDS right there. You are an accomplice to treason after the fact Begone.
O goodie! An amateur lawyer.
If you are excusing or covering for Barry the magic Kenyan in his treason that Tulsi exposed for God and all the world to see, it doesn’t take a lawyer any more than it takes a biologist to identify a person’s sex. You Dems are so dim.
I had a feral cat for a while until it went mad and we had to put it down.
Don’t let a black cat cross your path
is not a superstition
it is instructions.
Epstein has been settled in the courts and there it will stay. It was one of the files requested when Trump was campaigning on transparency. Tulsi is working on MLK now. Then RFK, and finishing up jFK. No one needs to see Epstein per the Courts.
QAnon is the right-wing version of the Democrat Party.
Great reporting, Matt and exactly why I’m a paid subscriber - thank you! You’ve always been a clear and rational voice on this story and the details that explain the entire despicable episode.
I hope Gabbard holds bits and pieces back so when Obama and his minions make statements to the press, she can drop contradictory receipts the next day continuing to reinforce their dishonesty. Overall, a very sad affair that held an elected president back and poisoned discourse in the country to this day.
👏👏 Brilliant. Set the trap, let the traitors walk right into it and SNAP!
The Andrew Breitbart technique
Worse, the report says the FSB had details of “secret meetings with multiple named US religious organizations, in which US State Department representatives offered — in exchange for supporting Secretary Clinton — ‘significant increases in financing’ from Department funds and ‘the patronage’ of State in dealing with ‘post-Soviet’ countries.”
Wait... what?? Gonna need some follow-up on this. What "religious organizations" could this be referring to? Some powerful rogue papists? Rastafarians? Would it be a religion that also has a lot of crossover with a state that we ally with? Need to hear more about this.
I'm going to guess Catholic Charities is on that list
Yup. They enriched themselves helping "migrants".
You think Catholic charities are looking for "significant increases in financing’ from Department funds and ‘the patronage’ of State in dealing with ‘post-Soviet’ countries."?
And other NGOs who just had their funding cut.
@DemonDeacon- I was thinking the same thing. I’m assuming that they’re on it, and we may be hearing more about this in the future.
I hope you're right but certainly wouldn't assume it. I think if they were disposed to tell us more about it they wouldn't use this vague terminology in the first place.
Possibly but for now, I’m going to attempt to stay positive.😉
Russicrucians?
I dunno, but i do remember Hillary missing some event in '16, and the response was that she was meeting with 100 Black pastors in Philly. I just googled "hillary 2016 100 black pastors philly" and got a lot of links.
It's funny I brought this up to a friend and he mentioned the same. That doesn't seem to be the most obvious answer to me tho, given their interest in dealing with post-soviet countries.
I know, it doesn't really jibe. If it was African or Caribbean countries it would make more sense.
... could just as easily be post Soviet places like Azerbaijan ... Kazakhstan ... and a crossover of another religion ...
Idk, maybe Ukraine? And maybe a closest ally of ours who has a weird obsession with Ukraine because of historical ties?
... I think it might be a kinda/sorta consideration if the intelligence was 2018, 2019 ... Ukraine in 2016 was firmly in the hands of Biden/Nuland choices ... no, I am considering whether the Azerbaijan/Armenian conflicts a little closer to home were worrying the Russians ... it's interesting to note Azerbaijan kicked out USAID in 2024 ...
Sure I don't have any more info than you so possibly. But the tensions that eventually bubbled up into Putin's invasion didn't start in 2018.
...no ... in an ever expanding/contracting world of spheres of influence, I don't expect it did .,,
...would it be of any value to note that the Jehovah Witnesses took Azerbaijan to the European Court of Human Rights in 2017? ...
I wouldn't be surprised if that list contains a bunch of the mission-happy evangelists who always love new territory to build concrete bunkers for Jesus in. My god, how the money rolls in!
Edit to add, many of them support a certain state for their own reasons. See- red heifers...
Interesting your mind goes to evangelicals and not the religion breeding the red heifers for occult rituals.
Anything to get the end times kicked off, amirite?
Thanks, I hate it
We know the FBI spied on and worked with local law enforcement to infiltrate and subvert the civil rights movement, the black panthers, Malcom X, MLK... we know that political parties have operatives who will do nefarious things to protect their candidates (Watergate)… we know about Iran-Contra and the lying to congress to divert funds and provide arms… we know that the administration in 2001 into 2002 and all its different intelligence apparatuses lied about the evidence relating to WMD's in Iraq. Liberals and progressives use these as rallying cries for how awful the government is. And I happen to agree. But that same group of people cannot accept that the same government and its agencies filled with career bureaucrats, trained and mentored by the people before them, could do the same to Trump or manufacture the evidence surrounding Trump. Because orange man bad. The cognitive dissonance is astounding.
Those people were bad guys, and Trump is also a bad guy, so they're on the same team. That's the logic.
Yes, Quentin, but remember that dissonance hurts the head. they want this to stop, like yesterday. And it’s not gonna.
Thanks Matt, but I have already seen comprehensive coverage of this story in the NYT, WSJ, WaPo, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, The View, etc, etc. HA!!!!
Maybe you need to join this group?
https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?
I did see a NYT article about it. That's something at least.
Catherine Herridge's report is crystal clear -- got it in my email. May I say that such clarity is horrifying!
I'll check it out. Thanks.
Waiting with bated breath for NPR to delve deeply into an alleged conspiracy at the highest levels of the US Intelligence community.
(Queue the silence.)
🦗🦗🦗🦗
> for NPR to delve deeply...
"Well Steve, NPR can now confirm that the biggest victims of the CIA malfeasance are in fact marginalized trans Honduran undocumented migrants of Color...."
“As of September 2016, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) had Democratic National Committee (DNC) information that President Obama and party leaders found the state of Secretary Clinton's health to be ‘extraordinarily alarming’ and felt it could have ‘serious negative impact’ on
her election prospects. Her health information was being kept in ‘strictest secrecy’ and even close advisors were not being fully informed.”
Hmmmm, hiding a presidential candidate's health problems...why does this sound so familiar?
They not only hid non compos mentis Joe’s cognitive deterioration they peddled complete lies about his non existent mental capabilities. Sharp as a tack!
And to add to the insult, the Russians are the more believable. I'll take SVR's word over Clinto or Biden any day.
Feinstein, Clinton, Biden
Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko,
Two things that can never surprise: That American government acts criminally; and that there is never accountability for any of it.
Name me a government that hasn’t acted criminally.