I wonder, is there ANYTHING the Clintons came near to, in their political careers, that they did not corrupt? This is not to excuse the actions of the people they corrupted, who were all adults with agency, but there really is something almost superhuman in their ability to corrupt people and institutions.
There's nothing and I mean nothing that I won't put past the Democrats, Intel leadership and MSM.
What I really am interested in are what Republicans were in the know on all of this and how many are still in office today? Does anyone know if there anyone chasing this information down?
I’d also like to hear Durham sound off on all of this. He clearly had the full picture scoped out but just let the lies, corruption and depravity stand.
Nothing short of him saying that the swamp threatened he and/or his family with assassination will suffice imo.
Other than my guessing that there is essentially nothing unplanned in anything the dude does. He knows what he's saying. Not a dumb guy. Maybe not so much an honest guy, but not dumb.
I'm sorry, but are you serious? After four years of a missing president and now serious documentation of what amounts to nothing less than a seditious conspiracy by his predecessor, do you expect that simple slurs and accusations still work?
Seriously. Tell us about the corruption which is such that you "don't see anything that comes close".
The commotion at the time said Durham, Mueller, Barr and the rest withheld intelligence to protect Trump. They all need to give testimony of navigating a sea of bullshit, under oath, to the American people. This Keystone Cops clusterf&ck is really the best we can do?
Yeah Evan! Why the hell didn't Republicans who knw about these secret documents saying anything? And why the f**k were they secret anyway?
I'm 61 and have always had a healthy skepticism of the government, but shut, the veneer is worn off. I don't know what to think. I don't know, maybe I need a roll of foil to make myself a hat.
1. A LOT of Republicans back in 2016-18 hated what Trump was doing to "their" party, and were happy to see him taken down. They expected that with him gone they could re-claim it.
2. The FBI and CIA and NSA have dirt on EVERYBODY who has dirt to find, and if they were prepared to do what we are now seeing, they were certainly prepared to use that knowledge on anyone who threatened their game. And everyone knew it.
The Republicans are morons. The dem ran circles around them and when they put Trump in their sites, the ones that did not support the Dems plans, cut and ran
The Rs who wanted to bring Trump down are/were part of the Washington Establishment. Trump was an unknown. He wasn't a team player. They wanted to get back to the status quo - even w Hillary at the helm - so they didn't help him out or protect him in anyway.
I think this is correct. Our govt was co-opted by forces that wanted to destroy it and figured out how to pipe fiat cash from deficit spending to NGOs through USAID and other not for profits to fill bank accounts of the relatives of sociopathic congresspeople (who else would do this job in modern times besides power hungry psychos). How else do you explain $20+M net worth for people making $200k/year? I guarantee you they aren’t doing public service out of sense of duty.
My question too Evan. There were many in the Republican Party who disliked Trump and were butthurt over his snatching the GOP nomination from the Bush dynasty. It wouldn’t surprise me at all to find there were a bunch of gutless undermining Republicans seeking schadenfreude from Trump’s relentless Russiagate accusations.
I'd say the complicit Republicans were of the Bush-Cheney-McCain-Romney stripe. Establishment creatures with a big stake in status quo. They repeatedly stabbed Trump in the back during his first term, culminating in Mike Pence's rubber-stamping an obviously flawed election in 2020, and then dozens of Congressional Republicans falling into line behind Pelosi's scandalous J6 "insurrection" fabrication.
Recall Bill Barr’s claim when Trump confirmed he’s running as the shoe in Republican for the 2024 election: “Trump will burn down the Republican Party if he runs in 2024” I believe he said it in an interview with Bari Weis
For me your question goes to - what was up with Jeff Sessions? And what about his deputies in the DOJ? How come they didn't dig up this Brennan briefing, and then ask Comey why he didn't do anything? Then there are the Republican oversight committee chairmen of various applicable committees. Were they all just too busy to do this ground work; were they hoping reporters would do their work for them?
Also, the ONLY SLIM CHANCE anyone on the Left has of being convinced that we were ALL DUPED & LIED TO, is the most SIMPLIFIED CREATION OF A FLOW CHART, color-coded, time-lined, showing the most basic info that we all now know to be FACTUAL. Hard core Dems have completely lost any intellectual ability to process info WITHOUT attaching emotion to it. They need to be told over, & over, & over again, that they were lied to and they continue to be lied to by THEIR OWN!!
It still all comes back to the disgusting part the media played when all this "intel" was being "leaked" to them- not ONE of them had the SPINE to push back, ask questions, ask for Sources, etc.??
All I can say is I’m glad to have lived as a boomer. It’s been an incredible wild ride. I’m also glad to be near the end of the road. The subsequent sold out, compliant, conformist, woke shitheads have fucked things up royally.
I guess I didn’t mean that literally. I’m actually enjoying my life like never before on a personal level. I have a most wonderful wife, two grown and successful children, and two of the most precious grandchildren ever seen. Despite some serious health issues over the years I’m good having beaten heart disease and cancer.
The wisdom I’ve attained through all of the this is the most satisfying thing of all. Us boomers wanted peace and I have finally found it. Who could ask for more?
I'm a Boomer, Karl, but I am a Christian, a burden which carries with it an inescapable forswearing of the seeking of wealth, of power, of sexual profligacy, of unfair advantage, of self promotion.
The Clintons are the quintessence of what the three generations after ours seem to think we all are like. I have a couple of cousins who are archetypal Boomers, loathsome men. Another of my cousins was the dearest man, highly intelligent, a remarkable painter, and yes, also a Christian, which the first two I referred to are certainly not.
That, I think, is most of what makes the difference.
I don't know how old you are, but there was reason for the disgust with their parents which many Boomers had. Greatest Generation and Silent Generation parents often were detached, obsessed with getting ahead financially, drinking and drugging. I attribute a lot of what wrong in 20th century American character to the stress of The Great Depression and World War II. I think it's not a stretch that 50% of the population suffered from what would come to be called post traumatic stress disorder.
Add to all of that the gradual erosion of Christian faith, the Protestants, of whom I'm one, being the principal movers in this, and maybe the surprise should be that so many Boomers turned out as well as they did.
"Resist stereotyping." Typical talk of Boomers exposed to drinking, drugging, money grubbing parents and faith erosion who have forsworn self-promotion.
Words like "Id, hubris, avatars, sad, and failures" have my mind spinning about people born after 1981, the Millennials, and after 1996, Gen Z, and why they might resent Boomers.
Probably because the Millennials on down have a disproportionate number of people who relish self pity, externalizing blame and feeling justifiably angry.
I am a boomer, and I'm certain the boomers are the worst generation of this century. Selfish, materialistic, and willing to do anything to retain power. The Clintons exemplify it to a T. The boomers are disgraceful!
Yeah screw that, I am not taking the blame for the likes of the Clinton’s, Pelosi, Bushes, Carter etc
Nor for the college protestors or Marxists yapping in academia. Or the hippie drug culture!
Although things were simpler then, we also experienced a lot of turmoil. Our president was assassinated under shady circumstances, then Bobby and King. The trauma of Vietnam and the veterans who came home to be spit on. The race riots and the anger of blacks. Straight into watergate where our president resigned after years of investigation. Who do we get to pay for those sins Jimmy fing Carter when the country went into malaise for sure. Gas lines, unemployment, inflation and Iran hostages was a stain on our self respect and exacerbated our feeling of hopelessness. All my uncles lost their jobs when steel mills shut down. We did not feel greedy or selfish or self involved. Reagan helped with a period of hope and successes but manufacturing jobs kept leaving. And the drugs like cocaine were for the jet setting coastal states. Iran contra-there was that.
Then we had the fan boy Bill and Hilliary administration. That is when the democrats got super weird adoring Clinton as too cool and Hollywood had a new status as they hobnobbed like preteen girls at a Beatles concert. The big chill arrived when the counter culture Marxist became middle aged with law degrees and were tenured professors. They dreamed of their self aggrandized college days and became activists on a March through our institutions.
All the while they could not make up their mind on which climate crises was the next catastrophe.
Ice age, ozone, acid rain, nuclear meltdowns, population explosions. Water shortage.
It was all exhausting and not rainbows and unicorns except for maybe the greedy selfish self centered drugged up aging hippies on the coasts with wealthy parents.
We worked hard, saved when we could and did not feel entitled to Oprah’s money.
Boomer/Xer here (born '62) - You nail it with your analysis, but only briefly mention the overarching angst-inducing thing that smothered everything like a radioactive sausage gravy: the Bomb. The threat of the Cold War going hot any moment reverberated right up through Reagan's presidency.
I am so tired of meeting people online who just assume that everyone over 65 is somehow directly responsible for everything that happened since 1970, is filthy rich, disconnected from family, and lacking empathy for anyone younger.
Amen Deidre, shame on us boomers for working hard to give our millennial and Gen X kids better lives. Now we are thanked with their sense of entitlement, their self-centeredness, their disinterest in our stories of how our parents survived the depression and fought in WW II. Sometimes I wish another financial catastrophe would hit, or maybe it will be AI replacing them leaving them unemployed, so they can learn how very fortunate we awful boomers made their lives. Oh, and no, they can’t move back home.
You are, of course, right Maureen. But I will let mine and the Grandkids, and Grand-dogs move back home, if needed. I'm soft like that, and have fears about how frail things are, with our spineless leaders in Congress.
Right there with you. I remember how difficult employment was in the years of 1986-1987 (though there were worse times before that). I was lucky to find employment then, and I remember well the pressure of parental expectations not to live at home after my school years ended. I can't do that to my kids. Life is hard enough. For better or worse I told them I would be their permanent backstop. Thankfully I raised them to have a conscience and to act conscientiously. So far none of them have needed to come back home, yet.
I have to admit, being on the periphery of the hippie drug culture was not all bad. Great music, cannabis from around the world, and hair. Lots of hair, which for many of us is a distant memory. What it helped to spawn, however, has been much less pleasant.
Music was incredible but personally I never embraced the 60s culture. Pot just made me paranoid and high people are boring. All the self righteousness because they protested Vietnam gave us Kent state and the weathermen and the PLO and the Manson family.
I’m certain your idiotic generalization doesn’t apply to the vast majority of that generation. Most people I knew worked hard, put their kids through school and saved for retirement.
Disagree with the word "idiotic" in your comment. What I read was a pretty accurate account of the past 65 years. I grew up working-class, became a college grad, and a draftee. That experience was shared by many of my generation. I learned that nothing is given or gained without effort and achievement. You've redeemed yourself with the last part though.
Trump was born in the same year as Bill Clinton, 1946. Hillary was born in 1947.
Generations are very arbitrary categories and even so reflect broad statistical tendencies in the Zeitgeist, at most. Joe Biden was born in 1943;some say he was an early Boomer, others that he was a late Silent. So what? He is the same despicable person regardless of which arbitrary category you put him in.
Do you see yourself as being like one or both of the Clintons? I always thought that Hilary acted like a lawyer, and have never seen myself as being like her.
If were going to use big words from Freud's 1923 masterpiece, The Ego and the Id, let's learn more. "Freud arrives at his conclusions about the super-ego by combining the idea of internalization with the idea of the Oedipus complex. In early childhood, prior to the Oedipus complex, an individual forms an important identification with the father. This identification is later complicated by the object-cathexis that forms as a result of the mother's breast. The attitude toward the father then becomes ambivalent, for the paternal figure is simultaneously identified with yet perceived as an obstacle. Later, the entire dual-natured complex is taken internally, forming a new part of his ego which has the same moral authority that a parent might have. This seems simple enough, but if the super-ego manifests itself as a father figure, then we cannot ignore the dual nature of the Oedipal father." - Wikipedia
Before he fled Nazi persecution, Freud was treating well-heeled, screwed-up patients in Vienna, so he acquired great wisdom about boys hung up on their moms who didn't like their dads.
Could Boomer hubris derive from comparison with the "veal generations" protected from interaction with the world (and men stuff) by milk carton reading moms?
Freud's "theory," dripping in the snooty trappings of ancient Greek tragedy, demolishes itself. It was 1923 and a traumatized world welcomed even a salve of pure bullshit.
Even a casual inspection showed how Hillary had damaged her face with that phony rictus grin as she pretended to recognize someone in the crowd. Gullible oafs falling for a big shit-eating smile explain how special needs Kamala got so far. "Smiling feces tell lies, they don't tell the truf." - The Temptations
Truly excellent analysis and writing here, Matt! This might be your best piece to date on the topic - tight, focused, fact-filled. Loved it. I've mentioned elsewhere I'll be renewing my subscription to Racket. Wonderful to see a great writer and journalist continue to grow and improve (Thank you family and friends, they must help a lot!) Best wishes!
Don’t know if the boomers are the worst generation per se. If anything, they are too, trusting. it took all of this happening to open our eyes. We can never stop being vigilant that ethics and honor remain the cornerstone of how our country operates. my brother was an officer in Vietnam, highly decorated and ultimately served as a judge. He is gone now, but would be disgusted by this, although not surprised.
If anything, I'd suggest the Baby Boomers' PARENTS - the so-called "Greatest Generation" - deserve a lot more flack and a lot less adulation than they get. It was they who were in the driver's seat, and well-situated enough to stand against their elders, when the slow-motion fascist coup began in 1963. They could've stopped it - but no, they were too conditioned to trust and obey institutions to do what it would've taken to save them.
"In Kurt Vonnegut's fictional religion, Bokononism, a granfalloon is a group of people who share a sense of identity or purpose, but whose connection is ultimately meaningless. It's a "false karass," a term for groups that people mistakenly believe have a deep, shared destiny."
A generation needs to be considered by the zeitgeist they matured in. Additionally, some have cohorts with diverse backgrounds. We noticed that when we were in college during a recession but our siblings had purchased houses while the Moms stayed home with the kids. (Malcolm Gladwell book on this phenomenon.)
Great insight! The intelligence/deep state apparatus developed directly from the OSS and the secret activities of WW2. A response to the communist threat of the USSR that permitted unbelievable amounts of power and secrecy to individuals such as Alan Dulles and J Edgar Hoover. The Kennedy assassinations and Watergate scandal that eliminated Nixon were tremendous wins for the shadow government,demonstrating their control of the reins of power,and immunity from accountability to the public. No doubt Hillary got her start as a apparatchik during her tenure on the Watergate committee.
From my perspective, the current information is a direct continuation of the corruption long ignored by the MSM as they were were enlisted as accomplices in Operation Mockingbird. The glory of the WAPO Woodward/Bernstein years was the template for feeding the self aggrandizing journalists deep state propaganda and control. Funny how the reporters never delved into how they were being manipulated to serve the ends of the cabal. As Matt states, this should be the death bed of many media outlets.
Hillary’s corruption started immediately after becoming First Lady when she used the FBI to smear the people working in the White House Travel Office. She learned she was untouchable and has skated breaking laws ever since.
Travelgate was bad but hardly the start. Contemporaneously, the "raw" FBI files on 900+ people that mysteriously found their way to the personal area of the White House. Just ask Vince Foster... oh, I guess you can't ask him anything.
Before that, Hillary oversaw the operation to intimidate and defame any of the many women Bill had taken advantage of while in Arkansas. Gennifer Flowers, Paula Jones, Juanita Broaddrick, and others.
Back in Arkansas, she was a partner at The Rose Law Firm, the the biggest law firm in Arkansas, with many corporate clients in cases involving the State while her husband was State AG and then Governor.
Remember how she made $100K trading futures?
Whitewater and the McDougalls, where the wife sat in jail for contempt of court for not testifying while her husband died, and Bill pardoned her at the end of his Presidential term.
The rumors of drug smuggling out of the Mena airport, with gubernatorial "protection."
The Clinton Body Count? Dismissed as "conspiracy theory," but given what we know of the Clinton priors, not exactly ridiculous. Again, ask Vince Foster.
at first, the purpose of the Russia hoax was to help Hillary win the election in 2016. What changed when she lost? Who was then in charge, and what was the new objective?
To discredit Trump and everything he was trying to accomplish. He was road blocked constantly and fed bad info, suggestions from his own party people. So yes, many republicans are in on this too. Listen, for those that are either silent or loud, for there you will find them.
Congress definitely hornswollged Trump on the border, telling him they would get around to funding the wall in a separate bill. In fairness, anybody with a business needs cheap illegal labor, at a minimum for cleaning, at a maximum to prevent a crop from rotting in the field. Will cheap labor junkies go away? Doubt it.
They may need it, but they don’t deserve it, and Trump is ready to cave again, talking about special visas for people in agriculture and hospitality. Way to go, Trump. Way to stab the working class in the back AGAIN.
Not just discredit, but to impeach. They assumed there would be enough Rs in the Senate to cross over Jordan and vote to convict. But they didn't count on the fact that the Senate Rs remembered what the Ds did during the Clinton impeachment. So here we are.
Bill...and Barry. The objective was, ultimately, to hobble Trump and the Republican Congress, and to continue the fundamental transformation of the country, which the damned wreckers successfully accomplished.
I agree. To this day, I don't understand why the White House and the intel community "backed [Hillary's] play." (I feel similarly about the cover-up of Biden's cognitive decline.) Many, many people risked their reputations and livelihoods for these utterly self-serving, corrupt, awful politicians. Did they do it to maintain proximity to power? Did Clinton have dirt on them?
I am sure the reasons are many and complicated, but there is a general principal that may be incomplete but is never wholly wrong:
Follow the money, as any good journalist or investigator would tell you. It's all about The Grift. Power and money, and the Power piece is often about access to more Money.
Ideology and personal connections play a part, but you never go wrong by assuming people are corrupt or corruptible when it comes to money and the power to get more of it. Amassing more, or maintaining what they have.
it’s largely forgotten but bill c. did many great things for the country. he stopped the somalia shambles as quickly as possible… smashed big tobacco… basically ended welfare… greatly downsized government… avoided war although he effd up bad with bosnia… balanced the budget
not saying he was a great president , and he was certainly a terrible role model with a trainwreck character, but still… he was virtually the only democrat in history that did any good act whatever and that in itself is remarkable.
Well, you might remember he worked with Gingrich to approve the contract with America leading to a balanced budget prior to midterms in 94. That flipped the house. I would say Clinton was willing to reach across the isle to get things accomplished, which may have been the last time we’ve seen that happen. But he did work to gain Chinas recognition into the WTO which some today think was a mistake.
no prez can have a perfect record, even Lincoln had a couple of blunders.
Look at Trump, he has had a couple of mistakes; he refused to indict hillary, he only fired comey and mccabe strzok and page instead of throwing them in America’s darkest dungron.
Newt Gingrich and the Republican Congress balanced the budget! Not Bill Clinton! The Dems took a shellacking in 94 by Newt's Contract with America (well, Bill did put Hilary in charge of healthcare which gave the Repubs the blowout!) All Slick Willie did was triangulate to the middle and say, Yes, Newt.
actually, Kasich was the most important key to that Congress.
you’re daydreaming that you’re breaking some new ground here but the soil you’re on has been planted so many times that its been near sterile for years. leave it fallow.
Clinton didn’t triangulate to the middle. He started to the right of center, on policy. And he had a lot more to do with the budget than you want to believe. Presidents shape public opinion: no Congress will ever act without it.
You're either deluding yourself or you weren't a voter in the 90s. Of course, Clinton triangulated to the middle per Dick Morris' advice after the 1994 midterms blowout which was due to his trying to govern from the left his first two years. For you not to acknowledge that, you were either not there or in a coma. This is a really spectacular 2000 PBS interview of Dick Morris. I hope you learn something.
bill pissed off zillions of liberals in his first few months in office. he was never progressive about anything (except where he could get rich shorting healthcare stocks by making public announcements for a policy he never talked about again).
he was right of center from the beginning - too center right for his party and he got blown out in his own base. it wasn’t ever about independents, they vote for Perot.
He was responsible for the Somalia shambles. And while the welfare reforms and the balanced budget were good things, the R congress enacted those (but he gets credit for signing them into law). Downsizing government, ahh, no.
"The most significant of these challenges came on October 3, 1993. Aideed’s forces shot down two Black Hawk helicopters in a battle which lead to the deaths of 18 U.S. soldiers and hundreds of Somalis. The deaths turned the tide of public opinion in the United States. President Bill Clinton pulled U.S. troops out of combat four days later, and all U.S. troops left the country in March 1994. The United Nations withdrew from Somalia in March 1995. Fighting continued in the country."
King George is to blame for entering the country, per se, but do you think Clinton would have let those people starve and stayed out in late 1992????
Sorry, but Black Hawk Down, to the extent it was preventable, could have been prevented by Clinton pulling out at any point before 10/3/1993 - as he had been in office since January 20, 1993. Good grief dude, this is BASIC!
george i did a foul deed with the entire episode. i am not a fan of clinton but he got treated like dirt with somalia. it isnt basic at all, it was a shitty thing to do and bush said right up front it was to teach bill how to deal with foreign wars. wtf is that?
Treated like dirt? What are you smoking? He (Bill Clinton, aka: Mr. I loathe the military) had been president from January 20, 1993 until Black Hawk down occurred on 10-3-1993. He could have gotten us out of there at any points over the 8+ months he was in office. Alternatively, he could have haredened our position there. He did neither. If he thought Bush going in there in fall 1992 was a mistake, he could have closed up shop; he didn't. He was commander-in-chief at the time of Black Hawk Down - so it's on him.
Nothing frantic about this, but nice try at gaslighting. And yes, it is just that basic. And btw, you don't get to attribute a quote from bush without showing the receipts. No one is buying what you're selling.
I did look it up. At no point did federal government expenditures decrease during Clinton's presidency. Figures don't lie, but liars figure. Only in the world of a progressive does that chart indicate a massively downsized government.
using government expenditures as a measurement of downsizing is folly. one simple example: it took billions of dollars to downsize military presence in Europe (by a factor of ten). A government expenditure that has saved trillions of dollars since.
If any of the things you say were true, e.g., "saved trillions" expenditures would have at least moved downward at some point other than the great recession and in the aftermath of Covid. You just can't handle the truth. You can't claim you downsized when, despite reducing government employees by almost 500,000 (which you claim but not cite a source) but then you increased expenses elsehere such that net-net expenditures still go up appreciably. Surprisingly, the chart shows that the rate of increase shrank the most during some of the Obama years, to the point where the chart almost looks flat for a few years. Using government expenditures as a measurement is not folly; it's honest. It's hard data, and does NOT in any way support your claims about Clinton.
By closing military bases in California, Clinton f-ed us pretty hard. Proves how addicted America is to the defense budget. Assigning Hillary as Health Czar destroyed stocks but of course she did nothing of substance.
california has arguably been invaded but military bases wouldnt stop that since mayorkis did it.
now the fat ghastly hillz scandal is why nobody in government OR THEIR SPOUSE should be allowed to trade stocks. she shorted healthcare stocks the DAY before bill’s announcement tanked the market in that exact area.
In fairness, we don't blame lizards for eating bugs. The Clinton species was revealed for what it is even before it left its original habitat in Arkansas.
I maintain that the most egregious, in your face, political maneuvers that have played out since 1991 lay at the feet of Hillary - the mastermind (?) - and Bill - the bait.
Yeah, everything they touch turns to anti-matter, doesn't it. As to those with agency, we now must understand that they were either partisan or Never-Trumpers. As well, we must understand how little they thought of their fellow Americans that wanted to vote for Trump - they were happy to try to nullify those voters (and we're right to assume that they agreed with Hillary that Trump's voters were a basket of deplorables). Their ethos is encapsulated in Peter Strok's text message to then lover Lisa Page when she expressed how appalled she was that Trump was on his way to win the election for President "no, no, no, we'll stop him." All these folks in the IC agreed with that. All of them. If they hadn't they would have put a stop to this crap, but instead they winked, nodded, or outright aided the effort. The more I think about all this, the more disappointed I am in Jeff Sessions, the attorney general who recused himself from all of this when he should have been getting to the bottom of it with his subpoena powers. I'm just thoroughly disgusted by all of it.
Sessions was a good man and in ordinary times might have been a good AG, but he was not a wartime consigliere. (Cf, The Godfather.) Of course, Trump, himself, did not seem to fully understand that his enemies wanted him dead, until a bullet hit his ear a year ago.
Great job, and much appreciated. Nice to know that there is still one good old fashioned investigative journalist at large on the planet. Stay gnarly, dude.
I feel like I just wasted my whole day writing up something that looks very similar to this. The only thing that I would (and did, I guess?) add is that while the intercepted Russian emails STRONGLY indicate where we should be looking, they are NOT actual emails from the actual people involved. (Supposedly THOSE emails have been destroyed, and we can guess why.)
These summaries tell us exactly where the smoking gun is, but they are in themselves not the smoking gun.
That said, the fact the IC TREATED them as true and the deletion of the emails STRONGLY indicates the underlying correspondence IS correct. When you put it all together, you get a timeline that roughly looks like:
Late July: The "Clinton Plan" is launched to distract from Hillary's email scandal. Russian spies get wind of this, then the Dutch get wind of the Russians getting wind of it. Instead of investigating, the FBI and the CIA join in on the plot, with the FBI opening up its bogus investigation days later, and the CIA offering its bogus assessment to Obama just days after that.
> Late July: The "Clinton Plan" is launched to distract from Hillary's email scandal. Russian spies get wind of this
But Russians knew much earlier, right? The Russians wrote the March 2016 memo outlining HRC's plan to link Trump to Russia with the help of the special services. The Russians based this memo on info obtained via their access to comms btwn the DNC, exec office of the President, HRC's ppl, etc.
So, if the Dutch are T1 - are you saying they accessed Russian intel around July 2016, which they then delivered to the American IC (iirc the FBI)? Then Brennan found out and made his phone call.
And all of the above is distinct from the access to the DNC servers that resulted in the Wikileaks drop in late July.
"But Russians knew much earlier, right? The Russians wrote the March 2016 memo outlining HRC's plan to link Trump to Russia with the help of the special services."
I think they knew the basic outlines by then, which tracks with the 'swift boat' project in the Podesta emails in late February indicating there's something in the works. In July they got the specifics that we see in the Annex, but more importantly WE get the info that THEY have the specifics. This sort of kicks the whole thing into gear.
The Dutch had access to the intel since (IIRC?) 2014 and lost it as soon as Brennan made that call.
"And all of the above is distinct from the access to the DNC servers that resulted in the Wikileaks drop in late July."
This is the part that still confuses me the most. It SEEMS to be a different part of the same issue (intercepted communications), but it's possible the entirety of these leaks came from that information on the 8 drives. (Meaning the FBI not looking into the material is a part of the cover-up.)
> This is the part that still confuses me the most.
Lol I hear you! Ty for taking the time.
Thinking aloud just now - I wonder if two things are true -
1) That Russian-affiliated group actually did hack the DNC servers, probably first gaining access in 2015 (or earlier), and
2) Assange's source for the DNC leaks was a "DNC insider," who passed him the data shortly after the American IC learned (via T1) that Russian intel had access to all of these comms
At first blush, I realize that sounds kinda far-fetched, but I think it makes a lot of sense a la "the Chicago way" - which David Axelrod described as knowing when to throw a brick through the window at your own campaign HQ.
I think this sequence could explain a bunch of stuff.
1) the CrowdStrike analysis showing Russian access but no data exfiltration - there was access, but it was never exfiltrated because the insider downloaded it locally; the lack of exfiltration also might explain why the T1 intel only references "composites" of actual emails, as opposed to the originals - the Russian intelligence gathering could have been using something like the screenshot method alluded to by Shawn Henry in his House testimony (admittedly I am not tech savvy enough to know if that's plausible or BS)
2) CrowdStrike and the DNC never gave the FBI physical access to the servers because they were worried that Comey, who was known by everyone to be both self-important and self-righteous, might discover how far back the Russian access started (i.e. way before any possible connection to Trump)
3) Pinning the DNC leak on the Russians gave HRC & co. a vastly better centerpiece for "the Clinton Plan" than any of the flimsy connections brought up in the March 2016 memo, and did so at minimal cost - the main takeaway from the DNC leaks was just that the DNC fucked Bernie, which everyone already knew, and was Dem-on-Dem crime to boot
4) This also casts Brennan's phone call in a slightly different light imo, adding a dash of "you better not release anything else"
5) And it makes sense that they didn't - because what's in it for them? I think it seems like the Russians had a pretty decent read on Trump - exposing "the Clinton Plan" and whatever else would probably sink HRC, but it would also force Trump to go HAM against Russian interests from day 1 of his term.
I think some other commenters around Racket may have hinted at something similar - so I make no claim to originality, lol.
I spent most of the night diving into this question, and it looks like the '8 drives' of data we got from the Dutch may include the original emails the Russians, directly tying them into this aspect of the case.
If that's true, the FBI still has (or SHOULD still have) the drives, and 'authenticating' the emails should be a piece of cake.
Here's the best but not only post I found on the matter
If the FBI had the original emails inside those drives and didn't investigate them, burn the whole fucking place to the ground.
"The FBI also obtained intelligence reports discussing purported communications between Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), who was chairwoman of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) at the time, and two different individuals who worked for the Soros Open Society Foundations. The intelligence reports alleged that the Obama administration took efforts to scuttle the investigation into Clinton and protect her candidacy. The DOJ OIG Clinton annex shows Comey, McCabe and Strzok, among others, did not make serious investigative efforts to determine the veracity, or lack thereof, regarding the intelligence reports."
So - I decided just to read this annex, lol. The redactions are pretty annoying, but here are some points of interest:
1) It looks like the 8 thumb drives from T1 were given to the FBI in three "intel drops" - 1-5, 6-7, and 8. T1 also continued providing intel after thumb drive 8 - this intel is referred to as "Post-8" or "Mission Ridge" data
2) Thumb drives 1-5 contained, among other things, "former President Barack Obama's emails"
3) There was, without question, a gigantic, ongoing breach of State Department cybersecurity. Thumb drives 3-4 seem to have been mostly data from State - the OIG report says "[redacted] maintained a cyber intrusion into State for approximately [redacted], which was the reason for the large quantity of State Department data in the collection."
4) The report that the FBI obtained that detailed pressure on Comey from Lynch to end the HRC email investigation was obtained from T1 (in Post-8 data) and it was originally written in Russian
5) The above-mentioned report cited comms between DWS and Soros's foundation; the FBI concluded that, if these comms actually happened, then they were likely stolen from the Atlantic Council
6) Comey told the OIG that he didn't believe the report was credible - but the basis for this conclusion was his subjective assessment that Lynch was not actually pressuring him to wrap up the investigation. Notably, he actually pretty explicitly admits that he thought the underlying communications - i.e. btwn DWS and the Soros ppl - actually happened. Comey told the OIG:
"I want to be clear about this, I had felt no effort to control me, no intervention by the Attorney General. On their face, I didn't find these communications to be credible and that I read them as an effort by Ms. Wasserman-Schultz to assure donors that this is not going to screw up the presidential campaign of Secretary Clinton. And so I didn't find them credible on their face."
So it seems pretty clear to me that Comey believes that the emails upon which these reports were based were REAL - he just thought that they were emails in which DWS lied to potential donors.
All right, well, I'm half through and this is long enough! So I'll put a pin in this comment lol, cheers for the conversation.
> If the FBI had the original emails inside those drives and didn't investigate them, burn the whole fucking place to the ground.
They definitely didn't investigate. It's not known if the original emails are in the drives because the drives have never been comprehensively analyzed. Interestingly - if you are curious about why - that's all in the memo you linked to. Comey was VERY fastidious about issues of executive privilege and such - he was also VERY particular about the incredibly high standard he felt must be met before doing anything that could be construed as "investigating" Loretta Lynch. It all makes for a very, very interesting contrast with his Russia hoax nonsense, leaking emails, etc. etc.
One very last bit - the 8th thumb drive T1 gave the FBI has never even been "opened," lol. It "fell through the cracks" and was just sitting around whatever room in the FBI bldg. I think Matt may have mentioned that once, but I thought it was kinda funny, if sad.
> deletion of the emails STRONGLY indicates the underlying correspondence IS correct
This is 100% conspiracy theory with no proof. I hate the Clintons so much that I stumped for Bob Dole, that a**hat. If you can't do better, then please just stop. We can attack the Clintons on provable grounds and even grounds that Democrats would agree with instead . . .
This seems really, really bad. Like, subversion of the democratic process bad, and not just scummy campaign tricks with media collaboration, either. Also, way worse than Watergate.
The IC meddling in elections? Time for a reboot for the intelligence agencies and prosecution for the leaders.
Karl, it IS far worse. And, Matt, I’m not sure I’d ever describe this as “an idiotic caper” by Hillary. It was Machiavellian, win at any cost evil.
For a PDB (Presidential Daily Briefing) to be scrapped and then presented the way Obama wanted in December 2016 - after the election - from “there was no more than usual Russian interference” to just the opposite and “Trump colluded with Putin” (and then leak that to various media shills) takes this to a whole new level. What may have begun as a move to protect/get Hillary elected by the three letter agencies before the election, afterwards became a soft coup against Trump, a sitting president of the United States - to destroy his presidency - and afterwards to use lawfare to destroy him personally.
Instead, they destroyed once trusted agencies and whatever trust we had in Lady Justice. It’s disgusting and it’s dangerous.
And Trump was right. He was the only thing standing between them and us. They say that “karma is only a b*tch if you are” and I pray karma comes for all of them.
No wonder he has been almost assassinated . If all this is able to reach the surface, and that is a big “IF” because MSM has much to lose and politicians from all walks have much to lose, the government will blow up.
So Hillary framed Trump as a traitor to distract from her illegal email server.
But does anyone think that she wouldn't have framed *any* other convenient target, regardless of their innocence?
Including me or you?
Lends credence to Trump's claim, "In the end, they're not coming after me. They're coming after you — and I'm just standing in their way,"
Seeing Trump relentlessly pursued by lawfare after his first term, that after the secret state failed to kneecap him during his first term, while the judiciary, which was traditionally deferential to any previous executive, has sought to hamstring him during both terms, really shows us that Trump is indeed unlike and treated unlike any other US President.
It shows he's more like us than like the self-sustaining Harvard to K Street to Langley ruling class.
"So Hillary framed Trump as a traitor to distract from her illegal email server."
It's worse than that.
The server was illegal, but so was deleting the emails, and also the fact she was selling favors to people who donated to the Clinton Initiative. The corruption was the reason for the server, the deletion of the emails, and the creation of the fake narrative to deflect.
The real bad stuff was when the Obama, IC and the FBI chose to go all in on the obviously fake story to protect Obama's legacy, and Clinton's chances at winning.
They were talking about 'swift boating' Trump in late February. At that point he was ahead but was far from a lock for the nomination. There's ZERO doubt the target would have shifted to Ted Cruz if he ended up winning.
I found it interesting that that pivotal email came from within Soros' Open Society, that this was long known in certain circles, and that Alex Soros recently married Hillary's right-hand woman, Huma Abedin.
To put on a tinfoil hat, that convenient marriage prevents them from testifying against each other....
Given the age, of Hillary and George, the two of them probably had the richest communications stream.
I think its a marriage "of necessity". I asked before, how do folks like Huma keep getting" passed around the party"? Kind of creepy.
I wonder what their pillow talk is like. Maybe they take turns watching that no one comes in and puts a pillow over their face!! Insert Hillary here or a henchman...
I did not know the details until now, but I realized what was happening once I learned that the Clinton campaign had paid for the dossier that launched all this, which was probably six months into Trumps first term. I’ve lived long enough and paid attention to politics and the players long enough to see what was happening. Everyone knows how vindictive Hillary is. And Bill isn’t far behind, although he has some actual charm. I was actually still a democrat back then. I also wasn’t surprised that the media jumped right into it. Having still read the legacy media pubs through that election cycle, it was blatantly clear they had taken a side long before Trump even won. Even more, they pretty much stopped holding the administration to account in any meaningful way at almost the beginning of Obamas first term. The media absolute fell in love with the guy. And that’s fine, but it made it very easy to do whatever he wanted with complete confidence no one would investigate it. It was the death of the old school media as I had known it. At least for me, they can never recover. You don’t have to like Trump to love the search for truth. You just have to do your job and let things fall as they may. Otherwise, you are nothing more than propaganda. I admire Matt for taking the hard road.
How exactly will anyone here be held to account when I think you can argue the MSM was a willing an active participant in this. Like if you google this story right now a fox video comes up and a few dubious YouTube clips followed by Matt's former employer with the following headline "MAGA's new Russiagate 'Evidence' was likely made up by Kremlin.
So I appreciate Matt (and Walter's efforts) but unfortunately this won't amount to much.
Yeah, I'm with you here, asking the MSM to report honestly on any of this is like asking an accomplice in a major crime to just come in and confess—it will never happen.
And at least with a criminal, you can dangle leniency or clemency, but what incentive would any MSM puppet have to dig into this and reveal that they're pliant stenographers who care only about their place at the Insider's table, despite all the pious PR about "Saving Our Democracy"?
If this story is a fire, expect the MSM/DNC axis to smother it with wet blankets. Being a member in good standing of the DC gilded class means you never have to suffer any consequences for lies and malfeasance—that's why they fight so hard and devote their lives to get inside the gates in the first place.
But the cracks are forming. Trump is suing and winning against the MSM and the Ivys. Bondi is filing subpoenas. Ratings are tanking because either people are waking up or the head in the sand liberals are freaking out and staying in the sand. Whistleblowers are finally being heard and not afraid. The only thing the Dems have now is Epstein and I’m sure that makes them nervous. Someone will eventually cave.
Oh yes, they have been and continue to and it will be spun as if it is just hardball Chicago politics. And they will nitpick details as if that destroys the whole picture like a sleaze ball defense counsel does to discredit honest witnesses on cross examination. Look at how they got Papadopoulos. As Matt joked, he was like 9- but seriously, I worked on a major campaign once. If you are not a paid staffer, you are a nobody. They turned him into public enemy number 1 for forgetting dates.
And, it is human nature "to save your ass", so I fully expect folks to start coming forward and ratting out the rats. The ones who did lying and didnt get compen$ated for it, have sour grapes.
All the NYT subscribers. Their brains are pre-wired not to believe facts if they contradict the party line. Short of mass lobotomy, nothing, no documents release Gabbard undertakes will make a difference in their perception.
If this (or at this point, quite literally any) whole thing is to sway public opinion, then you are right. The sides are far too hardened. They have their own ecosystems.
This cannot be a "court of public opinion" thing. It can only be a "court, like as in jail" thing. I think the present administration knows this, too.
Excellent summary. What about the tarmac meeting between Bill Clinton and Loretta Lynch in June 2016 at the Phoenix airport? If I remember correctly, nobody was supposed to see that, but an alert reported or rabble rouser caught it on camera. The FBI twisted itself into pretzels afterwards trying to explain the innocence of the meeting.
My father's hypothesis was that Bill Clinton really is just a sociable guy by nature; everything I've ever heard about him would support that (I used to have a friend whose mother went to college with him, and she mentioned how every time she saw him around, he'd be surrounded by people) - so if he just happened to see someone he knew and liked, it would make sense if his instinct to engage overrode a far less natural caution of consequences neither clear nor present.
"Hillary Clinton got in trouble being dumb, tried to save herself by doing something dumber, and all of American officialdom backed the play." To which I would add, not only dumb but arrogant and self-entitled.
> If I were the American author of any of those stories and read those intercepts, I’d eat a grenade today.
Matt - do you remember when Glenn Thrush emailed John Podesta the following:
"Because I have become a hack I will send u the whole section that pertains to u. Please don't share or tell anyone I did this. Tell me if I fucked up anything."
He was Politico's chief politics correspondent at the time lol
How many people knew about the plan? When the Russia hoax was launched, most expected Hillary to win. At the time of its initiation, even the perpetrators of the hoax could not have had any idea what a big deal it would eventually become. It was still maybe in the realm of a conventional political "dirty trick". At the time, they could have had no idea what a monster they were creating. Had they known, I suspect they would have been more circumspect about keeping the whole thing very secret from the outset. But the thing grew and grew, and the malefactors like Brennan and Comey had no choice but to keep going in deeper. And lots and lots of people probably knew about it. Was FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok's 'insurance plan' the Russia hoax, for example? So I do think its interesting to remember that at the outset they could have had no idea what a monster the plot would eventually become. Had they known, perhaps they wouldn't have launched it.
Hannah Arendt wrote a book called "the Origins of Totalitarianism" and one of its salient points is whole societies can be guided to believe in myths and fables. She said it starts with the undercutting of the traditional belief system, similar to what Dostoevsky said years earlier. Then people will believe just about anything put in front of them, because they have to believe in something. About all we can do is ride it out.
Arendt had it nailed down pretty well. One of her descriptions of the rise of fascism which really stuck with me was this: “what disturbed us was the behavior not of our enemies but of our friends."
The problem with that position is not understanding that "the traditional belief system" is also "myths and fables."
Have you heard the one about George Washington and the cherry tree? How about Lincoln freeing all the slaves? Both falsehoods we teach all of our children.
Honestly you can't convince people who don't want to be convinced. When I debate such people online, I'm not debating to convince THEM, I'm debating to convince the neutral people reading along.
This doesn't really translate well to off-line situations.
In the Podesta emails, they're discussing the "swift boating" of Trump back in February, so it's bigger than the 'circle of trust' who were given the fraudulent CIA assessment.
On Feb 26, 2016, at 8:35 PM, Joel Johnson <Joel@gpg.com> wrote:
I know you can't look past Bernie and March primaries -- but who is in charge of the Trump swift boat project? Needs to be ready, funded and unleashed when we decide -- but not a half assed scramble.
It's not 99% who believe, but still not good. According to Rasmussen on July 14th, 2025 "42% of Likely U.S. Voters consider it likely that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government to win the 2016 election"
I am amazed how many people type or say something like "oh, I agree, 1000% with what you are saying". The highest you can go is 100%. The lowest is 0%.
If you have all OF SOMETHING, you have 100% of it.
If someone puts out their max effort, then they put out 100%. If for some reason they do better the next time, then they did not put out 100% the first time. I think it is called math or exaggeration..
I do like YUGE as a Trumpian saying, like BIGLY ....
You're right Ken. Steel started out as nothing more than Hillary's dirt. The IC got tangled up fixing problems for her all through 2016, and after Comey fixed her server issue, they were way too deep in it to turn back. It was going to be ok, but they would need to throw the Russians and that Republican congress off her scent, so crank up the Trump/Russia interference story, and throw that Steel report in for good measure. When she lost, they had to take him out quick. Now they had to blast Congress and the American public with "Russian Asset" until midterms. It smelled fishy to a lot of us, but it worked. The next step was to catch Trump or Putin saying anything they could use as proof of collaboration. I'm not surprised that Putin smelled the trap, but how did Trump avoid it? He seems to be a really quick learner!
meanwhile, after he left office, Obama likely attended meetings where coverup tactics were discussed and so Obama, sans presidential immunity, continued being party to the ongoing conspiracy.
I think that's a very good point. The collection of non-government employee "campaign advisors" shooting the breeze around Hillary in 2016 are rarely identified, and so the blame falls on gubmint dept heads like Comey and Brennan, whose reports and congressional testimony are (mostly) filed and available to re-visit years later. The lot of them smacked their lips at this tasty tidbit and furthered the scheme for their own nefarious reasons. As Penitentiary Face Brennan said, "It rings true, doesn't it?" What a bum!
I gotta object to this scurrilous slander. Asserting the entire commercial news business as having "canine incuriosity" is quite unacceptable! Dogs are far more curious as anyone who's owned one knows full well.
I read that phrase to reveal that dogs have absolute obedience to their master.
a perfectly trained dog will ignore everything around them while they are in the show ring. bird dogs will perfectly ignore deer scent. attack dogs ignore everything around them and only await their orders. dogs have absolutely astonishing ability to ignore.
Let’s not underestimate the fact that many regular people, while not knowing the details or being able to articulate clearly how they knew, understood that the Clinton machine was so dirty it was unfit to govern. Think of the power the Clintons collected, and trump still won. I think the Clintons’ ability to parse language so they stayed within the letter of the law blinded them to the fact that people saw through them anyway. I found it interesting that they used not the FBI itself technically but affiliated third parties to do the dirty work of disseminating the lies. That’s the kind of thing the Clintons are known for, and public humiliation is the only way to keep them
in check. Actually makes me optimistic for americas future that they got slapped on the nose so hard. I voted for Clinton in 2016, and I am grateful to all those who didn’t so that I could reflect and begin to understand that I was wrong about many things. On a different note, the value of this story seems to be to reveal to anyone with ears to hear that conservatives’ complaints about a hostile federal govt are completely correct. I don’t know if anyone did anything illegal, but this story just reinforces my belief that at least since Johnson we’ve been going down a bad path politically and that needs to change. The current federal government is a behemoth of workers beholden to Democrats and thus willing to go to any lengths to protect themselves and that party. It will require others to root out the problem and restore some kind of balance to the system. I think the Dems might be in for a generational trip into the wilderness.
In fairness, one didn't even have to understand how dirty the machine was to vote against her. She was just dripping with contempt for the working classes. Most incompetent presidential campaign by a Democrat I've seen in my voting lifetime.
(Giving Biden and Harris a bit of a pass here - because of Covid, Biden got to be locked in the basement. The once or twice they let him out, he called voters names lake "Listen, fat" and "lying dog-faced pony soldier". That should have been the electorate's first clue that many marbles were missing. Harris gets a pass because she only had 3 months.)
Yeah, and the whole basket of deplorables thing was campaign malpractice. You never alienate an undecided voter, by implying that they would become a deplorable by voting for your opponent. Instead you repeat the line that your opponent is deplorable and that you want to be President of all Americans. Her husband knew how to do that, but her? Not so much. Basic stuff.
Which once again begs WHY WAS THIS EVER CLASSIFIED? The rules governing classification are about protecting national security. Those are the rules of course; the reality is - if this would make X-person, or Y-office look bad, then classify it. The entire edifice of classification needs to be ripped apart so that protecting asses isn't the first priority.
I've said id before & I'll say it again, concerning Russiagate, they say people can't be prosecuted due to the Statute of Limitations (SoL) expired. My theory, IF the evidence was hidden via being classified, the SoL clock should not have been ticking. Only after being declassified should said clock start ticking. 🔔🕐
I hope u r sitting when u read this. The reason I, meaning me, can't state what law(s) "they" broke is because I do not have the evidence available to me. That doesn't mean there isn't evidence that points to "their" guilt related to crimes. If such evidence does exist then, theoretically, trials should begin.
If they broke no laws they shouldn't be prosecuted. Unfortunately given today's DoJ, it doesn't seem much, if any better than Biden's, so who really knows?
If not treason, there must be some federal crime you can think of - you know, even like hunting ducks out of season, or without a federal stamp.
Now, there may not be enough evidence to sustain a conviction, but you don't just pile up a bunch of it and look at it and go "oh, there's the crime". I'm thinking the Beria reference flew right over your head.
I never realized people of the curmudgeonly bent suffer from tunnel vision. Let's continue our exploration and expand our view so as to remember back to the days of your youth, the early 1930's. Don't you remember sitting around the wireless listening to news about Al Capone's conviction for tax evasion?
DoJ might begin by looking for treason but after a bit, who knows what they might find? 😎🍺
Funny you mention Capone (I was thinking of him when I read Brennan over on MSNBC). Tax evasion was clearly the least of his crimes - but no Chicago jury would ever convict him.
And WTF was Durham doing? Collecting a big, beautiful paycheck. Bill Barr needs to be brought to task. No wonder Trump hired democrats that were betrayed by their own party. They are like reformed smokers ..very pissed off
I wonder, is there ANYTHING the Clintons came near to, in their political careers, that they did not corrupt? This is not to excuse the actions of the people they corrupted, who were all adults with agency, but there really is something almost superhuman in their ability to corrupt people and institutions.
There's nothing and I mean nothing that I won't put past the Democrats, Intel leadership and MSM.
What I really am interested in are what Republicans were in the know on all of this and how many are still in office today? Does anyone know if there anyone chasing this information down?
You don't hate the media enough - you think you do, but you don't. https://x.com/Evans_Wroten
I’d also like to hear Durham sound off on all of this. He clearly had the full picture scoped out but just let the lies, corruption and depravity stand.
Nothing short of him saying that the swamp threatened he and/or his family with assassination will suffice imo.
Barr too that bagpiping dipshit
If nothing else, that's a heckuva jab!
"Bagpiping dipshit"...that's an instant classic.
Other than my guessing that there is essentially nothing unplanned in anything the dude does. He knows what he's saying. Not a dumb guy. Maybe not so much an honest guy, but not dumb.
Correct. Barr’s no dumbass. His coverup of Hunter’s laptop Exhibit #1.
I agree - Durham's got a story to tell for sure.
that may be true; but I don't see anything that comes close to Trump's corruption and disregard for the rule of law and our Constitution.
Uh. Examples?
I'm sorry, but are you serious? After four years of a missing president and now serious documentation of what amounts to nothing less than a seditious conspiracy by his predecessor, do you expect that simple slurs and accusations still work?
Seriously. Tell us about the corruption which is such that you "don't see anything that comes close".
Please put down the bong and seek professional help.
The commotion at the time said Durham, Mueller, Barr and the rest withheld intelligence to protect Trump. They all need to give testimony of navigating a sea of bullshit, under oath, to the American people. This Keystone Cops clusterf&ck is really the best we can do?
Great question. Greater answer.
Agreed. Gotta wonder if Bongino and Patel are also getting looks, as well.
Yeah Evan! Why the hell didn't Republicans who knw about these secret documents saying anything? And why the f**k were they secret anyway?
I'm 61 and have always had a healthy skepticism of the government, but shut, the veneer is worn off. I don't know what to think. I don't know, maybe I need a roll of foil to make myself a hat.
Likely answers:
1. A LOT of Republicans back in 2016-18 hated what Trump was doing to "their" party, and were happy to see him taken down. They expected that with him gone they could re-claim it.
2. The FBI and CIA and NSA have dirt on EVERYBODY who has dirt to find, and if they were prepared to do what we are now seeing, they were certainly prepared to use that knowledge on anyone who threatened their game. And everyone knew it.
I think the agencies you listed are prepared to CONCOCT dirt on anyone and everyone that gets in their way.
those are questions I’d love to hear answers to
Let’s not forget Devin Nunez, Jim Jordan, chuck Grassley and others!
Good Q on what did the Repubs know. They’re all a-holes
The Republicans are morons. The dem ran circles around them and when they put Trump in their sites, the ones that did not support the Dems plans, cut and ran
The Rs who wanted to bring Trump down are/were part of the Washington Establishment. Trump was an unknown. He wasn't a team player. They wanted to get back to the status quo - even w Hillary at the helm - so they didn't help him out or protect him in anyway.
I think this is correct. Our govt was co-opted by forces that wanted to destroy it and figured out how to pipe fiat cash from deficit spending to NGOs through USAID and other not for profits to fill bank accounts of the relatives of sociopathic congresspeople (who else would do this job in modern times besides power hungry psychos). How else do you explain $20+M net worth for people making $200k/year? I guarantee you they aren’t doing public service out of sense of duty.
My question too Evan. There were many in the Republican Party who disliked Trump and were butthurt over his snatching the GOP nomination from the Bush dynasty. It wouldn’t surprise me at all to find there were a bunch of gutless undermining Republicans seeking schadenfreude from Trump’s relentless Russiagate accusations.
I'd say the complicit Republicans were of the Bush-Cheney-McCain-Romney stripe. Establishment creatures with a big stake in status quo. They repeatedly stabbed Trump in the back during his first term, culminating in Mike Pence's rubber-stamping an obviously flawed election in 2020, and then dozens of Congressional Republicans falling into line behind Pelosi's scandalous J6 "insurrection" fabrication.
Recall Bill Barr’s claim when Trump confirmed he’s running as the shoe in Republican for the 2024 election: “Trump will burn down the Republican Party if he runs in 2024” I believe he said it in an interview with Bari Weis
THAT Republican party deserves to be burned to the ground, and what the Democrats have become is infinitely worse.
For me your question goes to - what was up with Jeff Sessions? And what about his deputies in the DOJ? How come they didn't dig up this Brennan briefing, and then ask Comey why he didn't do anything? Then there are the Republican oversight committee chairmen of various applicable committees. Were they all just too busy to do this ground work; were they hoping reporters would do their work for them?
I’m convinced the Pence neocon Republicans knew all along.
Also, the ONLY SLIM CHANCE anyone on the Left has of being convinced that we were ALL DUPED & LIED TO, is the most SIMPLIFIED CREATION OF A FLOW CHART, color-coded, time-lined, showing the most basic info that we all now know to be FACTUAL. Hard core Dems have completely lost any intellectual ability to process info WITHOUT attaching emotion to it. They need to be told over, & over, & over again, that they were lied to and they continue to be lied to by THEIR OWN!!
It still all comes back to the disgusting part the media played when all this "intel" was being "leaked" to them- not ONE of them had the SPINE to push back, ask questions, ask for Sources, etc.??
Excellent point! I’m sure the Lincoln Project and all the Rhinos like the Bush/Cheny’s we’re hitched to the Clinton wagon train!
They are the Id of the Boomers, the living archetypes of all the promise, hubris, and spectacular failures of this sad generation.
The Clintons are the epitome of corruption but please don’t paint them as avatars of us Boomers.
All I can say is I’m glad to have lived as a boomer. It’s been an incredible wild ride. I’m also glad to be near the end of the road. The subsequent sold out, compliant, conformist, woke shitheads have fucked things up royally.
Kendall, as a boomer, I'm NOT glad to be near the end of the road. But I'll admit it's been an awesome ride . . . so far.
I guess I didn’t mean that literally. I’m actually enjoying my life like never before on a personal level. I have a most wonderful wife, two grown and successful children, and two of the most precious grandchildren ever seen. Despite some serious health issues over the years I’m good having beaten heart disease and cancer.
The wisdom I’ve attained through all of the this is the most satisfying thing of all. Us boomers wanted peace and I have finally found it. Who could ask for more?
Their being the “Id” does leave some wiggle room for decent people among the Boomers. Just not powerful, decent people.
I'm a Boomer, Karl, but I am a Christian, a burden which carries with it an inescapable forswearing of the seeking of wealth, of power, of sexual profligacy, of unfair advantage, of self promotion.
The Clintons are the quintessence of what the three generations after ours seem to think we all are like. I have a couple of cousins who are archetypal Boomers, loathsome men. Another of my cousins was the dearest man, highly intelligent, a remarkable painter, and yes, also a Christian, which the first two I referred to are certainly not.
That, I think, is most of what makes the difference.
I don't know how old you are, but there was reason for the disgust with their parents which many Boomers had. Greatest Generation and Silent Generation parents often were detached, obsessed with getting ahead financially, drinking and drugging. I attribute a lot of what wrong in 20th century American character to the stress of The Great Depression and World War II. I think it's not a stretch that 50% of the population suffered from what would come to be called post traumatic stress disorder.
Add to all of that the gradual erosion of Christian faith, the Protestants, of whom I'm one, being the principal movers in this, and maybe the surprise should be that so many Boomers turned out as well as they did.
Resist stereotyping, please.
"Resist stereotyping." Typical talk of Boomers exposed to drinking, drugging, money grubbing parents and faith erosion who have forsworn self-promotion.
He said "please".
Words like "Id, hubris, avatars, sad, and failures" have my mind spinning about people born after 1981, the Millennials, and after 1996, Gen Z, and why they might resent Boomers.
Probably because the Millennials on down have a disproportionate number of people who relish self pity, externalizing blame and feeling justifiably angry.
I am a boomer, and I'm certain the boomers are the worst generation of this century. Selfish, materialistic, and willing to do anything to retain power. The Clintons exemplify it to a T. The boomers are disgraceful!
I don't like these kind of group guilt generalizations, I have to say.
Thank you, Dave.
I always did like you.
Typical. You must be from a bad generation.
She said "Thank you".
Yeah screw that, I am not taking the blame for the likes of the Clinton’s, Pelosi, Bushes, Carter etc
Nor for the college protestors or Marxists yapping in academia. Or the hippie drug culture!
Although things were simpler then, we also experienced a lot of turmoil. Our president was assassinated under shady circumstances, then Bobby and King. The trauma of Vietnam and the veterans who came home to be spit on. The race riots and the anger of blacks. Straight into watergate where our president resigned after years of investigation. Who do we get to pay for those sins Jimmy fing Carter when the country went into malaise for sure. Gas lines, unemployment, inflation and Iran hostages was a stain on our self respect and exacerbated our feeling of hopelessness. All my uncles lost their jobs when steel mills shut down. We did not feel greedy or selfish or self involved. Reagan helped with a period of hope and successes but manufacturing jobs kept leaving. And the drugs like cocaine were for the jet setting coastal states. Iran contra-there was that.
Then we had the fan boy Bill and Hilliary administration. That is when the democrats got super weird adoring Clinton as too cool and Hollywood had a new status as they hobnobbed like preteen girls at a Beatles concert. The big chill arrived when the counter culture Marxist became middle aged with law degrees and were tenured professors. They dreamed of their self aggrandized college days and became activists on a March through our institutions.
All the while they could not make up their mind on which climate crises was the next catastrophe.
Ice age, ozone, acid rain, nuclear meltdowns, population explosions. Water shortage.
It was all exhausting and not rainbows and unicorns except for maybe the greedy selfish self centered drugged up aging hippies on the coasts with wealthy parents.
We worked hard, saved when we could and did not feel entitled to Oprah’s money.
So no don’t blame us all
Boomer/Xer here (born '62) - You nail it with your analysis, but only briefly mention the overarching angst-inducing thing that smothered everything like a radioactive sausage gravy: the Bomb. The threat of the Cold War going hot any moment reverberated right up through Reagan's presidency.
Well said!
Thank you!
I am so tired of meeting people online who just assume that everyone over 65 is somehow directly responsible for everything that happened since 1970, is filthy rich, disconnected from family, and lacking empathy for anyone younger.
Amen Deidre, shame on us boomers for working hard to give our millennial and Gen X kids better lives. Now we are thanked with their sense of entitlement, their self-centeredness, their disinterest in our stories of how our parents survived the depression and fought in WW II. Sometimes I wish another financial catastrophe would hit, or maybe it will be AI replacing them leaving them unemployed, so they can learn how very fortunate we awful boomers made their lives. Oh, and no, they can’t move back home.
You are, of course, right Maureen. But I will let mine and the Grandkids, and Grand-dogs move back home, if needed. I'm soft like that, and have fears about how frail things are, with our spineless leaders in Congress.
Right there with you. I remember how difficult employment was in the years of 1986-1987 (though there were worse times before that). I was lucky to find employment then, and I remember well the pressure of parental expectations not to live at home after my school years ended. I can't do that to my kids. Life is hard enough. For better or worse I told them I would be their permanent backstop. Thankfully I raised them to have a conscience and to act conscientiously. So far none of them have needed to come back home, yet.
I did that once, during covid. I don’t need to be treated like staff again
I have to admit, being on the periphery of the hippie drug culture was not all bad. Great music, cannabis from around the world, and hair. Lots of hair, which for many of us is a distant memory. What it helped to spawn, however, has been much less pleasant.
Music was incredible but personally I never embraced the 60s culture. Pot just made me paranoid and high people are boring. All the self righteousness because they protested Vietnam gave us Kent state and the weathermen and the PLO and the Manson family.
I’m certain your idiotic generalization doesn’t apply to the vast majority of that generation. Most people I knew worked hard, put their kids through school and saved for retirement.
Disagree with the word "idiotic" in your comment. What I read was a pretty accurate account of the past 65 years. I grew up working-class, became a college grad, and a draftee. That experience was shared by many of my generation. I learned that nothing is given or gained without effort and achievement. You've redeemed yourself with the last part though.
Not all of us. Some are just trying to live their lives. We all knew Clinton types in college and business. All ends justify the means types.
Trump was born in the same year as Bill Clinton, 1946. Hillary was born in 1947.
Generations are very arbitrary categories and even so reflect broad statistical tendencies in the Zeitgeist, at most. Joe Biden was born in 1943;some say he was an early Boomer, others that he was a late Silent. So what? He is the same despicable person regardless of which arbitrary category you put him in.
Don't put me in the same sentence as Clintons, gross.
As if there were no other people in history who were also "selfish, materialistic, and willing to do anything to retain power."
Speak for yourself. I am and know a lot of Boomers and we are nothing like your weird sterotype.
You mean these Boomers were disgraceful, as the rest of us have observed with disgust.
Do you see yourself as being like one or both of the Clintons? I always thought that Hilary acted like a lawyer, and have never seen myself as being like her.
Ok, Boomer!
Taking it a little too far. There’s ALWAYS A FEW BAD APPLES. It’s seems the BAD APPLES fall from the Dem tree😉
Dude! Stop smearing all Boomers just because some were scumbags!
More careful reading reveals intent.
nah. the first president that so-called boomers elected, was Richard Nixon. they voted for Reagan by gigantic margins.
there isn’t really a boomer generation at all, not the way sociologists have tried to portray it. generation jones is a much more valid concept tbh
If were going to use big words from Freud's 1923 masterpiece, The Ego and the Id, let's learn more. "Freud arrives at his conclusions about the super-ego by combining the idea of internalization with the idea of the Oedipus complex. In early childhood, prior to the Oedipus complex, an individual forms an important identification with the father. This identification is later complicated by the object-cathexis that forms as a result of the mother's breast. The attitude toward the father then becomes ambivalent, for the paternal figure is simultaneously identified with yet perceived as an obstacle. Later, the entire dual-natured complex is taken internally, forming a new part of his ego which has the same moral authority that a parent might have. This seems simple enough, but if the super-ego manifests itself as a father figure, then we cannot ignore the dual nature of the Oedipal father." - Wikipedia
Before he fled Nazi persecution, Freud was treating well-heeled, screwed-up patients in Vienna, so he acquired great wisdom about boys hung up on their moms who didn't like their dads.
Could Boomer hubris derive from comparison with the "veal generations" protected from interaction with the world (and men stuff) by milk carton reading moms?
The Oedipal theory does not fit the facts of the case here.
Ya think? The Oedipal theory fit a way to make money from unhappy people in Vienna.
“Id” is actually a pretty small word!
One of the smallest, "I'd" say.
You get a cookie and may be ready for even more subtle humor.
Rene Girard demolishes Frued's OC theory in Violence and the Sacred. You should check it out
Freud's "theory," dripping in the snooty trappings of ancient Greek tragedy, demolishes itself. It was 1923 and a traumatized world welcomed even a salve of pure bullshit.
I'm of this generation, and unfortunately, I can't disagree.
Shouldn't this scandal rightfully be called "Hillarygate"? The entire concoction was intended to distract the public away from her crimes.
"Pantsuit Put-up Job"
👍
It's fun to rejoice in the fact that she has been officially exposed as the psychotic bitch we all knew she was/is.
Even a casual inspection showed how Hillary had damaged her face with that phony rictus grin as she pretended to recognize someone in the crowd. Gullible oafs falling for a big shit-eating smile explain how special needs Kamala got so far. "Smiling feces tell lies, they don't tell the truf." - The Temptations
It is a relief that the scourge of the last decade has been visited upon the guilty who tried to hide in the shadows. Truth will out.
I hope they're all sweating, as they lawyer up.
Says Bill the Big Dog:
"Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name
But what’s puzzlin’ you is the nature of my game"
You leave Mick out of this. Oh, wait...
https://www.infobae.com/resizer/v2/UUFBR7EZMFFADLSFYX33FVCR6Q?auth=057f478facbc4e2013ec0445424ad74b170d04a163f284e1e0c35491f33a6e3e&smart=true&width=992&height=595&quality=85
Truly excellent analysis and writing here, Matt! This might be your best piece to date on the topic - tight, focused, fact-filled. Loved it. I've mentioned elsewhere I'll be renewing my subscription to Racket. Wonderful to see a great writer and journalist continue to grow and improve (Thank you family and friends, they must help a lot!) Best wishes!
Don’t know if the boomers are the worst generation per se. If anything, they are too, trusting. it took all of this happening to open our eyes. We can never stop being vigilant that ethics and honor remain the cornerstone of how our country operates. my brother was an officer in Vietnam, highly decorated and ultimately served as a judge. He is gone now, but would be disgusted by this, although not surprised.
If anything, I'd suggest the Baby Boomers' PARENTS - the so-called "Greatest Generation" - deserve a lot more flack and a lot less adulation than they get. It was they who were in the driver's seat, and well-situated enough to stand against their elders, when the slow-motion fascist coup began in 1963. They could've stopped it - but no, they were too conditioned to trust and obey institutions to do what it would've taken to save them.
The Baby Boomers did indeed, not start the fire.
It is foolish to blame any one generation for anything.
There are evil, selfish people in any generation, who will step on anyone to get ahead.
Of course!
Generation is ultimately (to invoke the wisdom of one WWII veteran) just another granfalloon.
"In Kurt Vonnegut's fictional religion, Bokononism, a granfalloon is a group of people who share a sense of identity or purpose, but whose connection is ultimately meaningless. It's a "false karass," a term for groups that people mistakenly believe have a deep, shared destiny."
A generation needs to be considered by the zeitgeist they matured in. Additionally, some have cohorts with diverse backgrounds. We noticed that when we were in college during a recession but our siblings had purchased houses while the Moms stayed home with the kids. (Malcolm Gladwell book on this phenomenon.)
Great insight! The intelligence/deep state apparatus developed directly from the OSS and the secret activities of WW2. A response to the communist threat of the USSR that permitted unbelievable amounts of power and secrecy to individuals such as Alan Dulles and J Edgar Hoover. The Kennedy assassinations and Watergate scandal that eliminated Nixon were tremendous wins for the shadow government,demonstrating their control of the reins of power,and immunity from accountability to the public. No doubt Hillary got her start as a apparatchik during her tenure on the Watergate committee.
From my perspective, the current information is a direct continuation of the corruption long ignored by the MSM as they were were enlisted as accomplices in Operation Mockingbird. The glory of the WAPO Woodward/Bernstein years was the template for feeding the self aggrandizing journalists deep state propaganda and control. Funny how the reporters never delved into how they were being manipulated to serve the ends of the cabal. As Matt states, this should be the death bed of many media outlets.
Hillary’s corruption started immediately after becoming First Lady when she used the FBI to smear the people working in the White House Travel Office. She learned she was untouchable and has skated breaking laws ever since.
Travelgate was bad but hardly the start. Contemporaneously, the "raw" FBI files on 900+ people that mysteriously found their way to the personal area of the White House. Just ask Vince Foster... oh, I guess you can't ask him anything.
Before that, Hillary oversaw the operation to intimidate and defame any of the many women Bill had taken advantage of while in Arkansas. Gennifer Flowers, Paula Jones, Juanita Broaddrick, and others.
Back in Arkansas, she was a partner at The Rose Law Firm, the the biggest law firm in Arkansas, with many corporate clients in cases involving the State while her husband was State AG and then Governor.
Remember how she made $100K trading futures?
Whitewater and the McDougalls, where the wife sat in jail for contempt of court for not testifying while her husband died, and Bill pardoned her at the end of his Presidential term.
The rumors of drug smuggling out of the Mena airport, with gubernatorial "protection."
The Clinton Body Count? Dismissed as "conspiracy theory," but given what we know of the Clinton priors, not exactly ridiculous. Again, ask Vince Foster.
at first, the purpose of the Russia hoax was to help Hillary win the election in 2016. What changed when she lost? Who was then in charge, and what was the new objective?
To discredit Trump and everything he was trying to accomplish. He was road blocked constantly and fed bad info, suggestions from his own party people. So yes, many republicans are in on this too. Listen, for those that are either silent or loud, for there you will find them.
Many, many Republicans.
I remember how Republican Congress Critters treated Trump during his first term.
They seemed to be sure that he would soon be removed from office over the Russia allegations, and were reluctant to work with him.
Congress definitely hornswollged Trump on the border, telling him they would get around to funding the wall in a separate bill. In fairness, anybody with a business needs cheap illegal labor, at a minimum for cleaning, at a maximum to prevent a crop from rotting in the field. Will cheap labor junkies go away? Doubt it.
They may need it, but they don’t deserve it, and Trump is ready to cave again, talking about special visas for people in agriculture and hospitality. Way to go, Trump. Way to stab the working class in the back AGAIN.
Cheap ag labor also retards adoption of machinery to perform those jobs that nobody really wants.
Not just discredit, but to impeach. They assumed there would be enough Rs in the Senate to cross over Jordan and vote to convict. But they didn't count on the fact that the Senate Rs remembered what the Ds did during the Clinton impeachment. So here we are.
Bill...and Barry. The objective was, ultimately, to hobble Trump and the Republican Congress, and to continue the fundamental transformation of the country, which the damned wreckers successfully accomplished.
doubtless they told themselves it was for for the good of the nation but really they wanted money and power.
And 22 year old interns.
I agree. To this day, I don't understand why the White House and the intel community "backed [Hillary's] play." (I feel similarly about the cover-up of Biden's cognitive decline.) Many, many people risked their reputations and livelihoods for these utterly self-serving, corrupt, awful politicians. Did they do it to maintain proximity to power? Did Clinton have dirt on them?
I am sure the reasons are many and complicated, but there is a general principal that may be incomplete but is never wholly wrong:
Follow the money, as any good journalist or investigator would tell you. It's all about The Grift. Power and money, and the Power piece is often about access to more Money.
Ideology and personal connections play a part, but you never go wrong by assuming people are corrupt or corruptible when it comes to money and the power to get more of it. Amassing more, or maintaining what they have.
Well, they are Lizard people with superpowers.
it’s largely forgotten but bill c. did many great things for the country. he stopped the somalia shambles as quickly as possible… smashed big tobacco… basically ended welfare… greatly downsized government… avoided war although he effd up bad with bosnia… balanced the budget
not saying he was a great president , and he was certainly a terrible role model with a trainwreck character, but still… he was virtually the only democrat in history that did any good act whatever and that in itself is remarkable.
Well, you might remember he worked with Gingrich to approve the contract with America leading to a balanced budget prior to midterms in 94. That flipped the house. I would say Clinton was willing to reach across the isle to get things accomplished, which may have been the last time we’ve seen that happen. But he did work to gain Chinas recognition into the WTO which some today think was a mistake.
absolutely. Contract with America time frame.
no prez can have a perfect record, even Lincoln had a couple of blunders.
Look at Trump, he has had a couple of mistakes; he refused to indict hillary, he only fired comey and mccabe strzok and page instead of throwing them in America’s darkest dungron.
it happens.
Newt Gingrich and the Republican Congress balanced the budget! Not Bill Clinton! The Dems took a shellacking in 94 by Newt's Contract with America (well, Bill did put Hilary in charge of healthcare which gave the Repubs the blowout!) All Slick Willie did was triangulate to the middle and say, Yes, Newt.
actually, Kasich was the most important key to that Congress.
you’re daydreaming that you’re breaking some new ground here but the soil you’re on has been planted so many times that its been near sterile for years. leave it fallow.
Clinton didn’t triangulate to the middle. He started to the right of center, on policy. And he had a lot more to do with the budget than you want to believe. Presidents shape public opinion: no Congress will ever act without it.
You're either deluding yourself or you weren't a voter in the 90s. Of course, Clinton triangulated to the middle per Dick Morris' advice after the 1994 midterms blowout which was due to his trying to govern from the left his first two years. For you not to acknowledge that, you were either not there or in a coma. This is a really spectacular 2000 PBS interview of Dick Morris. I hope you learn something.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/clinton/interviews/morris.html
bill pissed off zillions of liberals in his first few months in office. he was never progressive about anything (except where he could get rich shorting healthcare stocks by making public announcements for a policy he never talked about again).
he was right of center from the beginning - too center right for his party and he got blown out in his own base. it wasn’t ever about independents, they vote for Perot.
He was responsible for the Somalia shambles. And while the welfare reforms and the balanced budget were good things, the R congress enacted those (but he gets credit for signing them into law). Downsizing government, ahh, no.
it was King George I that wrecked the vehicle in somalia.
it’s always congress that writes law, its always presidents that get credit. there’s no doubt bill worked better with republicans than democrats.
he downsized government massively. look it up.
"The most significant of these challenges came on October 3, 1993. Aideed’s forces shot down two Black Hawk helicopters in a battle which lead to the deaths of 18 U.S. soldiers and hundreds of Somalis. The deaths turned the tide of public opinion in the United States. President Bill Clinton pulled U.S. troops out of combat four days later, and all U.S. troops left the country in March 1994. The United Nations withdrew from Somalia in March 1995. Fighting continued in the country."
King George is to blame for entering the country, per se, but do you think Clinton would have let those people starve and stayed out in late 1992????
Sorry, but Black Hawk Down, to the extent it was preventable, could have been prevented by Clinton pulling out at any point before 10/3/1993 - as he had been in office since January 20, 1993. Good grief dude, this is BASIC!
why so frantic?
george i did a foul deed with the entire episode. i am not a fan of clinton but he got treated like dirt with somalia. it isnt basic at all, it was a shitty thing to do and bush said right up front it was to teach bill how to deal with foreign wars. wtf is that?
Treated like dirt? What are you smoking? He (Bill Clinton, aka: Mr. I loathe the military) had been president from January 20, 1993 until Black Hawk down occurred on 10-3-1993. He could have gotten us out of there at any points over the 8+ months he was in office. Alternatively, he could have haredened our position there. He did neither. If he thought Bush going in there in fall 1992 was a mistake, he could have closed up shop; he didn't. He was commander-in-chief at the time of Black Hawk Down - so it's on him.
Nothing frantic about this, but nice try at gaslighting. And yes, it is just that basic. And btw, you don't get to attribute a quote from bush without showing the receipts. No one is buying what you're selling.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FGEXPND
I did look it up. At no point did federal government expenditures decrease during Clinton's presidency. Figures don't lie, but liars figure. Only in the world of a progressive does that chart indicate a massively downsized government.
clinton downsized by almost 500,000 employees.
using government expenditures as a measurement of downsizing is folly. one simple example: it took billions of dollars to downsize military presence in Europe (by a factor of ten). A government expenditure that has saved trillions of dollars since.
If any of the things you say were true, e.g., "saved trillions" expenditures would have at least moved downward at some point other than the great recession and in the aftermath of Covid. You just can't handle the truth. You can't claim you downsized when, despite reducing government employees by almost 500,000 (which you claim but not cite a source) but then you increased expenses elsehere such that net-net expenditures still go up appreciably. Surprisingly, the chart shows that the rate of increase shrank the most during some of the Obama years, to the point where the chart almost looks flat for a few years. Using government expenditures as a measurement is not folly; it's honest. It's hard data, and does NOT in any way support your claims about Clinton.
By closing military bases in California, Clinton f-ed us pretty hard. Proves how addicted America is to the defense budget. Assigning Hillary as Health Czar destroyed stocks but of course she did nothing of substance.
california has arguably been invaded but military bases wouldnt stop that since mayorkis did it.
now the fat ghastly hillz scandal is why nobody in government OR THEIR SPOUSE should be allowed to trade stocks. she shorted healthcare stocks the DAY before bill’s announcement tanked the market in that exact area.
In fairness, we don't blame lizards for eating bugs. The Clinton species was revealed for what it is even before it left its original habitat in Arkansas.
I maintain that the most egregious, in your face, political maneuvers that have played out since 1991 lay at the feet of Hillary - the mastermind (?) - and Bill - the bait.
Yeah, everything they touch turns to anti-matter, doesn't it. As to those with agency, we now must understand that they were either partisan or Never-Trumpers. As well, we must understand how little they thought of their fellow Americans that wanted to vote for Trump - they were happy to try to nullify those voters (and we're right to assume that they agreed with Hillary that Trump's voters were a basket of deplorables). Their ethos is encapsulated in Peter Strok's text message to then lover Lisa Page when she expressed how appalled she was that Trump was on his way to win the election for President "no, no, no, we'll stop him." All these folks in the IC agreed with that. All of them. If they hadn't they would have put a stop to this crap, but instead they winked, nodded, or outright aided the effort. The more I think about all this, the more disappointed I am in Jeff Sessions, the attorney general who recused himself from all of this when he should have been getting to the bottom of it with his subpoena powers. I'm just thoroughly disgusted by all of it.
Sessions was a good man and in ordinary times might have been a good AG, but he was not a wartime consigliere. (Cf, The Godfather.) Of course, Trump, himself, did not seem to fully understand that his enemies wanted him dead, until a bullet hit his ear a year ago.
Great job, and much appreciated. Nice to know that there is still one good old fashioned investigative journalist at large on the planet. Stay gnarly, dude.
@Greg My mistake....it's nice to know there are TWO good old fashioned investigative journalists at large on the planet. :) :) :)
I feel like I just wasted my whole day writing up something that looks very similar to this. The only thing that I would (and did, I guess?) add is that while the intercepted Russian emails STRONGLY indicate where we should be looking, they are NOT actual emails from the actual people involved. (Supposedly THOSE emails have been destroyed, and we can guess why.)
These summaries tell us exactly where the smoking gun is, but they are in themselves not the smoking gun.
That said, the fact the IC TREATED them as true and the deletion of the emails STRONGLY indicates the underlying correspondence IS correct. When you put it all together, you get a timeline that roughly looks like:
Late July: The "Clinton Plan" is launched to distract from Hillary's email scandal. Russian spies get wind of this, then the Dutch get wind of the Russians getting wind of it. Instead of investigating, the FBI and the CIA join in on the plot, with the FBI opening up its bogus investigation days later, and the CIA offering its bogus assessment to Obama just days after that.
The actual emails are very likely on the Anthony Weiner laptop. Held by the FBI since 2018 or 2019.
Now THAT would be something........
Was in a burn box I bet
That would be great corroboration, if it exists.
Why not subpoena the emails and servers used by campaign manager Debbie Wasserman Schultz? And the emails of likely recipients in the IC?
Possible, but it's certain those have already been wiped. These are ends justify the means people, don't forget.
What emails? The 33k or whatever that Hillary deleted?
Oh, those were just recipes and plans for Chelsea's wedding. (sarc.)
Speaking of that, now would be a good time to watch “Weiner” again. Fantastic documentary on this…
> Late July: The "Clinton Plan" is launched to distract from Hillary's email scandal. Russian spies get wind of this
But Russians knew much earlier, right? The Russians wrote the March 2016 memo outlining HRC's plan to link Trump to Russia with the help of the special services. The Russians based this memo on info obtained via their access to comms btwn the DNC, exec office of the President, HRC's ppl, etc.
So, if the Dutch are T1 - are you saying they accessed Russian intel around July 2016, which they then delivered to the American IC (iirc the FBI)? Then Brennan found out and made his phone call.
And all of the above is distinct from the access to the DNC servers that resulted in the Wikileaks drop in late July.
Do I have that right?
"But Russians knew much earlier, right? The Russians wrote the March 2016 memo outlining HRC's plan to link Trump to Russia with the help of the special services."
I think they knew the basic outlines by then, which tracks with the 'swift boat' project in the Podesta emails in late February indicating there's something in the works. In July they got the specifics that we see in the Annex, but more importantly WE get the info that THEY have the specifics. This sort of kicks the whole thing into gear.
The Dutch had access to the intel since (IIRC?) 2014 and lost it as soon as Brennan made that call.
"And all of the above is distinct from the access to the DNC servers that resulted in the Wikileaks drop in late July."
This is the part that still confuses me the most. It SEEMS to be a different part of the same issue (intercepted communications), but it's possible the entirety of these leaks came from that information on the 8 drives. (Meaning the FBI not looking into the material is a part of the cover-up.)
Wish I had a better answer for you!
> This is the part that still confuses me the most.
Lol I hear you! Ty for taking the time.
Thinking aloud just now - I wonder if two things are true -
1) That Russian-affiliated group actually did hack the DNC servers, probably first gaining access in 2015 (or earlier), and
2) Assange's source for the DNC leaks was a "DNC insider," who passed him the data shortly after the American IC learned (via T1) that Russian intel had access to all of these comms
At first blush, I realize that sounds kinda far-fetched, but I think it makes a lot of sense a la "the Chicago way" - which David Axelrod described as knowing when to throw a brick through the window at your own campaign HQ.
I think this sequence could explain a bunch of stuff.
1) the CrowdStrike analysis showing Russian access but no data exfiltration - there was access, but it was never exfiltrated because the insider downloaded it locally; the lack of exfiltration also might explain why the T1 intel only references "composites" of actual emails, as opposed to the originals - the Russian intelligence gathering could have been using something like the screenshot method alluded to by Shawn Henry in his House testimony (admittedly I am not tech savvy enough to know if that's plausible or BS)
2) CrowdStrike and the DNC never gave the FBI physical access to the servers because they were worried that Comey, who was known by everyone to be both self-important and self-righteous, might discover how far back the Russian access started (i.e. way before any possible connection to Trump)
3) Pinning the DNC leak on the Russians gave HRC & co. a vastly better centerpiece for "the Clinton Plan" than any of the flimsy connections brought up in the March 2016 memo, and did so at minimal cost - the main takeaway from the DNC leaks was just that the DNC fucked Bernie, which everyone already knew, and was Dem-on-Dem crime to boot
4) This also casts Brennan's phone call in a slightly different light imo, adding a dash of "you better not release anything else"
5) And it makes sense that they didn't - because what's in it for them? I think it seems like the Russians had a pretty decent read on Trump - exposing "the Clinton Plan" and whatever else would probably sink HRC, but it would also force Trump to go HAM against Russian interests from day 1 of his term.
I think some other commenters around Racket may have hinted at something similar - so I make no claim to originality, lol.
I spent most of the night diving into this question, and it looks like the '8 drives' of data we got from the Dutch may include the original emails the Russians, directly tying them into this aspect of the case.
If that's true, the FBI still has (or SHOULD still have) the drives, and 'authenticating' the emails should be a piece of cake.
Here's the best but not only post I found on the matter
https://x.com/JaapTitulaer/status/1951173424606335119
Edit: This is what the Clinton Annex was about! Grassley released that on July 21. https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/news-releases/newly-declassified-doj-watchdog-report-shows-fbi-cut-corners-in-clinton-email-investigation
If the FBI had the original emails inside those drives and didn't investigate them, burn the whole fucking place to the ground.
"The FBI also obtained intelligence reports discussing purported communications between Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), who was chairwoman of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) at the time, and two different individuals who worked for the Soros Open Society Foundations. The intelligence reports alleged that the Obama administration took efforts to scuttle the investigation into Clinton and protect her candidacy. The DOJ OIG Clinton annex shows Comey, McCabe and Strzok, among others, did not make serious investigative efforts to determine the veracity, or lack thereof, regarding the intelligence reports."
So - I decided just to read this annex, lol. The redactions are pretty annoying, but here are some points of interest:
1) It looks like the 8 thumb drives from T1 were given to the FBI in three "intel drops" - 1-5, 6-7, and 8. T1 also continued providing intel after thumb drive 8 - this intel is referred to as "Post-8" or "Mission Ridge" data
2) Thumb drives 1-5 contained, among other things, "former President Barack Obama's emails"
3) There was, without question, a gigantic, ongoing breach of State Department cybersecurity. Thumb drives 3-4 seem to have been mostly data from State - the OIG report says "[redacted] maintained a cyber intrusion into State for approximately [redacted], which was the reason for the large quantity of State Department data in the collection."
4) The report that the FBI obtained that detailed pressure on Comey from Lynch to end the HRC email investigation was obtained from T1 (in Post-8 data) and it was originally written in Russian
5) The above-mentioned report cited comms between DWS and Soros's foundation; the FBI concluded that, if these comms actually happened, then they were likely stolen from the Atlantic Council
6) Comey told the OIG that he didn't believe the report was credible - but the basis for this conclusion was his subjective assessment that Lynch was not actually pressuring him to wrap up the investigation. Notably, he actually pretty explicitly admits that he thought the underlying communications - i.e. btwn DWS and the Soros ppl - actually happened. Comey told the OIG:
"I want to be clear about this, I had felt no effort to control me, no intervention by the Attorney General. On their face, I didn't find these communications to be credible and that I read them as an effort by Ms. Wasserman-Schultz to assure donors that this is not going to screw up the presidential campaign of Secretary Clinton. And so I didn't find them credible on their face."
So it seems pretty clear to me that Comey believes that the emails upon which these reports were based were REAL - he just thought that they were emails in which DWS lied to potential donors.
All right, well, I'm half through and this is long enough! So I'll put a pin in this comment lol, cheers for the conversation.
> If the FBI had the original emails inside those drives and didn't investigate them, burn the whole fucking place to the ground.
They definitely didn't investigate. It's not known if the original emails are in the drives because the drives have never been comprehensively analyzed. Interestingly - if you are curious about why - that's all in the memo you linked to. Comey was VERY fastidious about issues of executive privilege and such - he was also VERY particular about the incredibly high standard he felt must be met before doing anything that could be construed as "investigating" Loretta Lynch. It all makes for a very, very interesting contrast with his Russia hoax nonsense, leaking emails, etc. etc.
One very last bit - the 8th thumb drive T1 gave the FBI has never even been "opened," lol. It "fell through the cracks" and was just sitting around whatever room in the FBI bldg. I think Matt may have mentioned that once, but I thought it was kinda funny, if sad.
YES! Exactly what I saw when I went through it, too.
The biggest question is when were those drives handed over? (It's blocked out in the report)
IF the #8 drive was handed over in late July, it's the one that likely has the July emails on it -- meaning the FBI already has it.
If the #8 was handed over earlier than that, the July emails would be the "post-8" data, and we have no idea where that is as far as I know.
That last drive having never been looked at. And are we to believe Durham didn't have suboena power to look at it???? Maddening!!
> deletion of the emails STRONGLY indicates the underlying correspondence IS correct
This is 100% conspiracy theory with no proof. I hate the Clintons so much that I stumped for Bob Dole, that a**hat. If you can't do better, then please just stop. We can attack the Clintons on provable grounds and even grounds that Democrats would agree with instead . . .
Luckily there was an entire section of context that you deleted, very obviously so you could claim this is a 100% conspiracy theory with no proof.
The president was briefed on the this intelligence on August 3rd. Provable.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/dni-brennan-notes-cia-memo-clinton
BY THAT TIME, the FBI was already 'investigating' the Trump/Russia Collusion. Provable.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/james-comey-donald-trump-relationship-timeline/
Then just days after that, the CIA -- rather than investigating the ongoing Clinton Plan -- presents the fraudulent "new" assessment to Obama.
We're literally only missing one piece of the puzzle, and we're only missing that piece because of the actions taken by Clinton and her crew.
So yeah, the puzzle isn't complete -- but it's far from a 100% conspiracy theory with no proof.
> here was an entire section of context that you deleted, very obviously so you could claim this is a 100% conspiracy theory with no proof
Oh, fuck off with your unfounded accusations. Bring receipts or it didn't happen.
You apparently know that rule but couldn't bother initially. Because now you link to sources. But even you admit you can't connect all this:
> deletion of the emails STRONGLY indicates the underlying correspondence IS correct
IN FACT, YOU NEEDED TO ALL-CAPS A BIT IN ABSENCE OF EVIDENCE.
.......we're literally commenting on an article that outlines the entire scheme. My bad for not realizing you hadn't read it beforehand.
he just brought receipts and you ignored them.
pretty glaring blunder tbh
They do call him Slick Willie
I have never felt his "Willie" but I don't doubt it, given his history.
Uggh, you just gave me the Willies...
This seems really, really bad. Like, subversion of the democratic process bad, and not just scummy campaign tricks with media collaboration, either. Also, way worse than Watergate.
The IC meddling in elections? Time for a reboot for the intelligence agencies and prosecution for the leaders.
Karl, it IS far worse. And, Matt, I’m not sure I’d ever describe this as “an idiotic caper” by Hillary. It was Machiavellian, win at any cost evil.
For a PDB (Presidential Daily Briefing) to be scrapped and then presented the way Obama wanted in December 2016 - after the election - from “there was no more than usual Russian interference” to just the opposite and “Trump colluded with Putin” (and then leak that to various media shills) takes this to a whole new level. What may have begun as a move to protect/get Hillary elected by the three letter agencies before the election, afterwards became a soft coup against Trump, a sitting president of the United States - to destroy his presidency - and afterwards to use lawfare to destroy him personally.
Instead, they destroyed once trusted agencies and whatever trust we had in Lady Justice. It’s disgusting and it’s dangerous.
And Trump was right. He was the only thing standing between them and us. They say that “karma is only a b*tch if you are” and I pray karma comes for all of them.
No wonder he has been almost assassinated . If all this is able to reach the surface, and that is a big “IF” because MSM has much to lose and politicians from all walks have much to lose, the government will blow up.
PLUS, remember they (Obama directed) bugged the oval office and Trump Tower in 2017! Patel's investigating for Nevin revealed.
very well said.
"Reboot for the intelligence agencies"?
Hell no, they should be DELETED. They're the world's ultimate terrorist network, nothing more.
Worse than CREEP criminals? Tell me more!
So Hillary framed Trump as a traitor to distract from her illegal email server.
But does anyone think that she wouldn't have framed *any* other convenient target, regardless of their innocence?
Including me or you?
Lends credence to Trump's claim, "In the end, they're not coming after me. They're coming after you — and I'm just standing in their way,"
Seeing Trump relentlessly pursued by lawfare after his first term, that after the secret state failed to kneecap him during his first term, while the judiciary, which was traditionally deferential to any previous executive, has sought to hamstring him during both terms, really shows us that Trump is indeed unlike and treated unlike any other US President.
It shows he's more like us than like the self-sustaining Harvard to K Street to Langley ruling class.
"So Hillary framed Trump as a traitor to distract from her illegal email server."
It's worse than that.
The server was illegal, but so was deleting the emails, and also the fact she was selling favors to people who donated to the Clinton Initiative. The corruption was the reason for the server, the deletion of the emails, and the creation of the fake narrative to deflect.
The real bad stuff was when the Obama, IC and the FBI chose to go all in on the obviously fake story to protect Obama's legacy, and Clinton's chances at winning.
Disgusting. Heads need to roll on this.
Yes, and backed by a compliant and complicit “mainstream” media.
They were talking about 'swift boating' Trump in late February. At that point he was ahead but was far from a lock for the nomination. There's ZERO doubt the target would have shifted to Ted Cruz if he ended up winning.
(Yeah, Ted Cruz!)
I don't disagree, but...
... the primary motivation here wasn't to frame the Republican candidate, it was to distract from Hillary's illegal email server.
Presumably she'd have thrown *anyone* under any bus, to get the heat off her.
I think we're in agreeance here.
they would kill and murder, nuke a city, start a war. there is nothing they would not do if they felt they could get away with it.
I found it interesting that that pivotal email came from within Soros' Open Society, that this was long known in certain circles, and that Alex Soros recently married Hillary's right-hand woman, Huma Abedin.
To put on a tinfoil hat, that convenient marriage prevents them from testifying against each other....
Given the age, of Hillary and George, the two of them probably had the richest communications stream.
I think both should be looked at closely.
Excellent point re Huma and recently straight Alex Soros 🙄lol
Two very unattractive individuals. Yish. Not sure they're the best way to carry on the Soros "legacy."
They'll breed like the English royals. It's their duty, don't you know.
I think its a marriage "of necessity". I asked before, how do folks like Huma keep getting" passed around the party"? Kind of creepy.
I wonder what their pillow talk is like. Maybe they take turns watching that no one comes in and puts a pillow over their face!! Insert Hillary here or a henchman...
Huma would have married Seth Rich if he'd been available;-)
lol!
"To put on a tinfoil hat, that convenient marriage prevents them from testifying against each other...."
Brilliant!
I hadn't thought of that, but what an excellent point you make here.
BINGO!
> To put on a tinfoil hat
You didn't say that early enough.
I did not know the details until now, but I realized what was happening once I learned that the Clinton campaign had paid for the dossier that launched all this, which was probably six months into Trumps first term. I’ve lived long enough and paid attention to politics and the players long enough to see what was happening. Everyone knows how vindictive Hillary is. And Bill isn’t far behind, although he has some actual charm. I was actually still a democrat back then. I also wasn’t surprised that the media jumped right into it. Having still read the legacy media pubs through that election cycle, it was blatantly clear they had taken a side long before Trump even won. Even more, they pretty much stopped holding the administration to account in any meaningful way at almost the beginning of Obamas first term. The media absolute fell in love with the guy. And that’s fine, but it made it very easy to do whatever he wanted with complete confidence no one would investigate it. It was the death of the old school media as I had known it. At least for me, they can never recover. You don’t have to like Trump to love the search for truth. You just have to do your job and let things fall as they may. Otherwise, you are nothing more than propaganda. I admire Matt for taking the hard road.
You don’t have to like Trump to love the search for truth. Amen!
Does not hurt to like Trump. He is likable.
How exactly will anyone here be held to account when I think you can argue the MSM was a willing an active participant in this. Like if you google this story right now a fox video comes up and a few dubious YouTube clips followed by Matt's former employer with the following headline "MAGA's new Russiagate 'Evidence' was likely made up by Kremlin.
So I appreciate Matt (and Walter's efforts) but unfortunately this won't amount to much.
Yeah, I'm with you here, asking the MSM to report honestly on any of this is like asking an accomplice in a major crime to just come in and confess—it will never happen.
And at least with a criminal, you can dangle leniency or clemency, but what incentive would any MSM puppet have to dig into this and reveal that they're pliant stenographers who care only about their place at the Insider's table, despite all the pious PR about "Saving Our Democracy"?
If this story is a fire, expect the MSM/DNC axis to smother it with wet blankets. Being a member in good standing of the DC gilded class means you never have to suffer any consequences for lies and malfeasance—that's why they fight so hard and devote their lives to get inside the gates in the first place.
But the cracks are forming. Trump is suing and winning against the MSM and the Ivys. Bondi is filing subpoenas. Ratings are tanking because either people are waking up or the head in the sand liberals are freaking out and staying in the sand. Whistleblowers are finally being heard and not afraid. The only thing the Dems have now is Epstein and I’m sure that makes them nervous. Someone will eventually cave.
The punishment for Apostasy in Legacy Corporate Media is the same as in Islam.
Obviously the liars who were lying then are going to keep lying now.
But today, so many more people are paying attention compared to 2016. There's also much better proof.
Oh yes, they have been and continue to and it will be spun as if it is just hardball Chicago politics. And they will nitpick details as if that destroys the whole picture like a sleaze ball defense counsel does to discredit honest witnesses on cross examination. Look at how they got Papadopoulos. As Matt joked, he was like 9- but seriously, I worked on a major campaign once. If you are not a paid staffer, you are a nobody. They turned him into public enemy number 1 for forgetting dates.
Covid woke up a lot of people.
Including yours truly! Before then I knew the media sucked but I didn't realize we had to completely replace them. Now it's like my mission.
NPR announces a managed shutdown has begun. Seems odd since the media line was "only 10% of their funding comes from the government"?
what did they do with the other 90%?
Hookers and blow?
And, it is human nature "to save your ass", so I fully expect folks to start coming forward and ratting out the rats. The ones who did lying and didnt get compen$ated for it, have sour grapes.
Hard to hit the heart button for that comment, but you're right. Zero MSM coverage, or more likely, propagation of contrary claims.
I know people who will die believing there is a pee tape out there somewhere.
All the NYT subscribers. Their brains are pre-wired not to believe facts if they contradict the party line. Short of mass lobotomy, nothing, no documents release Gabbard undertakes will make a difference in their perception.
I get the impression that a grand jury will have to look at this matter. That’s when it gets really interesting.
If this (or at this point, quite literally any) whole thing is to sway public opinion, then you are right. The sides are far too hardened. They have their own ecosystems.
This cannot be a "court of public opinion" thing. It can only be a "court, like as in jail" thing. I think the present administration knows this, too.
Excellent summary. What about the tarmac meeting between Bill Clinton and Loretta Lynch in June 2016 at the Phoenix airport? If I remember correctly, nobody was supposed to see that, but an alert reported or rabble rouser caught it on camera. The FBI twisted itself into pretzels afterwards trying to explain the innocence of the meeting.
My father's hypothesis was that Bill Clinton really is just a sociable guy by nature; everything I've ever heard about him would support that (I used to have a friend whose mother went to college with him, and she mentioned how every time she saw him around, he'd be surrounded by people) - so if he just happened to see someone he knew and liked, it would make sense if his instinct to engage overrode a far less natural caution of consequences neither clear nor present.
"sociable by nature",
"asshole at heart",
It's not as if those are mutually exclusive (or do you mean to make some sort of reference?).
Damn I feel like this subscription is the best bargain in media.
"Hillary Clinton got in trouble being dumb, tried to save herself by doing something dumber, and all of American officialdom backed the play." To which I would add, not only dumb but arrogant and self-entitled.
I would add "evil"
Criminal.
> If I were the American author of any of those stories and read those intercepts, I’d eat a grenade today.
Matt - do you remember when Glenn Thrush emailed John Podesta the following:
"Because I have become a hack I will send u the whole section that pertains to u. Please don't share or tell anyone I did this. Tell me if I fucked up anything."
He was Politico's chief politics correspondent at the time lol
And when he was caught out, got hired by the NYT.
They always seem to fail upwards.
NYT may not be considered "upwards"....
How many people knew about the plan? When the Russia hoax was launched, most expected Hillary to win. At the time of its initiation, even the perpetrators of the hoax could not have had any idea what a big deal it would eventually become. It was still maybe in the realm of a conventional political "dirty trick". At the time, they could have had no idea what a monster they were creating. Had they known, I suspect they would have been more circumspect about keeping the whole thing very secret from the outset. But the thing grew and grew, and the malefactors like Brennan and Comey had no choice but to keep going in deeper. And lots and lots of people probably knew about it. Was FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok's 'insurance plan' the Russia hoax, for example? So I do think its interesting to remember that at the outset they could have had no idea what a monster the plot would eventually become. Had they known, perhaps they wouldn't have launched it.
And yet…a lot of people just will not believe any of this. They won’t even engage with the material. What do we do with that?
Hannah Arendt wrote a book called "the Origins of Totalitarianism" and one of its salient points is whole societies can be guided to believe in myths and fables. She said it starts with the undercutting of the traditional belief system, similar to what Dostoevsky said years earlier. Then people will believe just about anything put in front of them, because they have to believe in something. About all we can do is ride it out.
Arendt had it nailed down pretty well. One of her descriptions of the rise of fascism which really stuck with me was this: “what disturbed us was the behavior not of our enemies but of our friends."
The problem with that position is not understanding that "the traditional belief system" is also "myths and fables."
Have you heard the one about George Washington and the cherry tree? How about Lincoln freeing all the slaves? Both falsehoods we teach all of our children.
It's the consistency that counts. You should read the book, it goes into all that.
Honestly you can't convince people who don't want to be convinced. When I debate such people online, I'm not debating to convince THEM, I'm debating to convince the neutral people reading along.
This doesn't really translate well to off-line situations.
There will be a large and angry host of believers, it will be more than enough.
Laugh at them.
Fold up your country and try again. The grand experiment has failed, ultimately
What? You apparently don’t know how Americans- patriots roll at all.
Their arrogance gave them a sense of superiority. In their heads they were the 21st centuries' twisted version of "The Untouchables".
They are untouchable, as we see again today.
PERMANENT DEMOCRATIC MAJORITY
Uniparty seems more accurate
In the Podesta emails, they're discussing the "swift boating" of Trump back in February, so it's bigger than the 'circle of trust' who were given the fraudulent CIA assessment.
https://www.wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/56595#searchresult
On Feb 26, 2016, at 8:35 PM, Joel Johnson <Joel@gpg.com> wrote:
I know you can't look past Bernie and March primaries -- but who is in charge of the Trump swift boat project? Needs to be ready, funded and unleashed when we decide -- but not a half assed scramble.
From:jpalmieri@hillaryclinton.com
To: Joel@gpg.com
CC: john.podesta@gmail.com, slatham@hillaryclinton.com
Date: 2016-02-26 23:36
Gee. Thanks, Joel. We thought we could half-ass it. Let's discuss.
It achieved exactly what it set out to achieve. 99% of Americans believe the Russian Collusion Hoax.
The house deals the cards. You can’t beat the house.
It's not 99% who believe, but still not good. According to Rasmussen on July 14th, 2025 "42% of Likely U.S. Voters consider it likely that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government to win the 2016 election"
https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/trump_administration_second_term/most_democrats_still_believe_russian_collusion_helped_trump_win_2016
Obama didn't know when to fold'em
> 99% of Americans believe the Russian Collusion Hoax.
And the other 99% pull statistics out of their asses to show us how smart they are.
> The house deals the cards. You can’t beat the house.
It's not about who's dealing. So far that's two reasons you shouldn't gamble.
99% is my favorite statistic to pull out of my ass, which is why I did it twice in one post.
But, as you are probably aware, 99 1/2% of statistics are pulled out of someone’s ass anyways…
I took the 99% to be hyperbole. It was a YUGE percentage...
If you lead with the 99% then it establishes the expected level of dramatic overexaggeration and lets you get right to the hand waving.
Exactly! 😂😂
Although 42% believing the Russia hoax is bad enough. Almost half! Yikes!
Hopefully the percentage has moved with the revelations over the last couple of weeks. I suspect it hasn't moved much.
99% is not yuge, in some minds.
I am amazed how many people type or say something like "oh, I agree, 1000% with what you are saying". The highest you can go is 100%. The lowest is 0%.
If you have all OF SOMETHING, you have 100% of it.
If someone puts out their max effort, then they put out 100%. If for some reason they do better the next time, then they did not put out 100% the first time. I think it is called math or exaggeration..
I do like YUGE as a Trumpian saying, like BIGLY ....
You're right Ken. Steel started out as nothing more than Hillary's dirt. The IC got tangled up fixing problems for her all through 2016, and after Comey fixed her server issue, they were way too deep in it to turn back. It was going to be ok, but they would need to throw the Russians and that Republican congress off her scent, so crank up the Trump/Russia interference story, and throw that Steel report in for good measure. When she lost, they had to take him out quick. Now they had to blast Congress and the American public with "Russian Asset" until midterms. It smelled fishy to a lot of us, but it worked. The next step was to catch Trump or Putin saying anything they could use as proof of collaboration. I'm not surprised that Putin smelled the trap, but how did Trump avoid it? He seems to be a really quick learner!
meanwhile, after he left office, Obama likely attended meetings where coverup tactics were discussed and so Obama, sans presidential immunity, continued being party to the ongoing conspiracy.
And yet, the government paid Strozk big money. His girlfriend too
Quadruple irksome!!!
I think that's a very good point. The collection of non-government employee "campaign advisors" shooting the breeze around Hillary in 2016 are rarely identified, and so the blame falls on gubmint dept heads like Comey and Brennan, whose reports and congressional testimony are (mostly) filed and available to re-visit years later. The lot of them smacked their lips at this tasty tidbit and furthered the scheme for their own nefarious reasons. As Penitentiary Face Brennan said, "It rings true, doesn't it?" What a bum!
I gotta object to this scurrilous slander. Asserting the entire commercial news business as having "canine incuriosity" is quite unacceptable! Dogs are far more curious as anyone who's owned one knows full well.
Kindly retract this.
I read that phrase to reveal that dogs have absolute obedience to their master.
a perfectly trained dog will ignore everything around them while they are in the show ring. bird dogs will perfectly ignore deer scent. attack dogs ignore everything around them and only await their orders. dogs have absolutely astonishing ability to ignore.
they are positive marvels of incuriosity.
To call them thoughtless curs is an insult to curs.
Let’s not underestimate the fact that many regular people, while not knowing the details or being able to articulate clearly how they knew, understood that the Clinton machine was so dirty it was unfit to govern. Think of the power the Clintons collected, and trump still won. I think the Clintons’ ability to parse language so they stayed within the letter of the law blinded them to the fact that people saw through them anyway. I found it interesting that they used not the FBI itself technically but affiliated third parties to do the dirty work of disseminating the lies. That’s the kind of thing the Clintons are known for, and public humiliation is the only way to keep them
in check. Actually makes me optimistic for americas future that they got slapped on the nose so hard. I voted for Clinton in 2016, and I am grateful to all those who didn’t so that I could reflect and begin to understand that I was wrong about many things. On a different note, the value of this story seems to be to reveal to anyone with ears to hear that conservatives’ complaints about a hostile federal govt are completely correct. I don’t know if anyone did anything illegal, but this story just reinforces my belief that at least since Johnson we’ve been going down a bad path politically and that needs to change. The current federal government is a behemoth of workers beholden to Democrats and thus willing to go to any lengths to protect themselves and that party. It will require others to root out the problem and restore some kind of balance to the system. I think the Dems might be in for a generational trip into the wilderness.
In fairness, one didn't even have to understand how dirty the machine was to vote against her. She was just dripping with contempt for the working classes. Most incompetent presidential campaign by a Democrat I've seen in my voting lifetime.
(Giving Biden and Harris a bit of a pass here - because of Covid, Biden got to be locked in the basement. The once or twice they let him out, he called voters names lake "Listen, fat" and "lying dog-faced pony soldier". That should have been the electorate's first clue that many marbles were missing. Harris gets a pass because she only had 3 months.)
Yeah, and the whole basket of deplorables thing was campaign malpractice. You never alienate an undecided voter, by implying that they would become a deplorable by voting for your opponent. Instead you repeat the line that your opponent is deplorable and that you want to be President of all Americans. Her husband knew how to do that, but her? Not so much. Basic stuff.
"We're going to put a lot of coal miners out of work"
Big up for that one, Mrs. Clinton.
Yup, that was gem arrow in her malpractice quiver.
That too (contempt for normies) but my post was getting long as it was!
Which once again begs WHY WAS THIS EVER CLASSIFIED? The rules governing classification are about protecting national security. Those are the rules of course; the reality is - if this would make X-person, or Y-office look bad, then classify it. The entire edifice of classification needs to be ripped apart so that protecting asses isn't the first priority.
I've said id before & I'll say it again, concerning Russiagate, they say people can't be prosecuted due to the Statute of Limitations (SoL) expired. My theory, IF the evidence was hidden via being classified, the SoL clock should not have been ticking. Only after being declassified should said clock start ticking. 🔔🕐
They can't be prosecuted if you can't state the law they broke. You aren't even meeting the Beria standard.
I hope u r sitting when u read this. The reason I, meaning me, can't state what law(s) "they" broke is because I do not have the evidence available to me. That doesn't mean there isn't evidence that points to "their" guilt related to crimes. If such evidence does exist then, theoretically, trials should begin.
If they broke no laws they shouldn't be prosecuted. Unfortunately given today's DoJ, it doesn't seem much, if any better than Biden's, so who really knows?
If the glove don't fit ...... & time will tell
Well, let's explore it a little. Is this treason?
If not treason, there must be some federal crime you can think of - you know, even like hunting ducks out of season, or without a federal stamp.
Now, there may not be enough evidence to sustain a conviction, but you don't just pile up a bunch of it and look at it and go "oh, there's the crime". I'm thinking the Beria reference flew right over your head.
I never realized people of the curmudgeonly bent suffer from tunnel vision. Let's continue our exploration and expand our view so as to remember back to the days of your youth, the early 1930's. Don't you remember sitting around the wireless listening to news about Al Capone's conviction for tax evasion?
DoJ might begin by looking for treason but after a bit, who knows what they might find? 😎🍺
Funny you mention Capone (I was thinking of him when I read Brennan over on MSNBC). Tax evasion was clearly the least of his crimes - but no Chicago jury would ever convict him.
Same with Obama.
And WTF was Durham doing? Collecting a big, beautiful paycheck. Bill Barr needs to be brought to task. No wonder Trump hired democrats that were betrayed by their own party. They are like reformed smokers ..very pissed off
That last line was great..."reformed smokers". Hilarious!