Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2

[Rick Plant]

Former CIA director warns GOP is the most ‘dangerous and contemptible’ political force on earth



Experts are warning of the danger poised by the Republican Party as Trump supporters escalate their violent rhetoric as his legal woes mount as he faces investigations in Florida, Georgia, New York, and Washington, D.C.

Edward Luce, an editor at the Financial Times, tweeted, "I’ve covered extremism and violent ideologies around the world over my career."

"Have never come across a political force more nihilistic, dangerous, and contemptible than today’s Republicans," Luce wrote. "Nothing close."

His analysis was retweeted by former CIA Director Michael Hayden.

"I agree," Hayden wrote. "And I was CIA director."

Trump may also be losing political support.

"This afternoon, Alex Jones turned on Trump and said he would support Ron DeSantis in 2024. 'I am supporting DeSantis,' Jones said of the Florida governor while taking issue with Trump pushing the Covid-19 vaccine during his administration," Daily Beast correspondent Zachary Petrizzo reported Wednesday.

Former Mueller prosecutor Andrew Weissmann had questions about Attorney General Merrick Garland's Department of Justice following news about Trump Organization CEO Allen Weisselberg's guilty plea.

"The Weisselberg upcoming plea is fascinating; it gives the DA various new tools with respect to Trump Org and Trump," Weissmann wrote. "But it also caps jail time for the defendant, without full cooperation. But notably some cooperation at the upcoming trial."

Weissmann followed up with a "key question."

"Why is DOJ not investigating Trump, Weisselberg, and Trump Org for federal tax fraud?" Weissman asked. "The Weisselberg state indictment, to which Weisselberg will plead guilty tomorrow, explicitly states that the scheme involved state AND federal tax fraud."

He also had questions about reporting that it was only in May that the DOJ subpoenaed the National Archives for the documents they had provided the House Select Committee Investigating the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol.

"Very glad DOJ eventually issued this [grand jury] subpoena, but the timing and 'me too' nature of it (e.g. 'give me what they asked for') does not inspire confidence that DOJ had done much beforehand on the broader J6 investigation," Weissman wrote.

But Trump was also facing his investigation in Georgia by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who blasted as a lawyer for GOP Gov. Brian Kemp as "wrong and confused."

Watergate figure John Dean said, "Fani is proceeding without fear or favor! This letter tells us much about her: strong and fair."

With so much news, former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance described it as that feeling when "you can't keep all the active criminal investigations looking into the former president straight."

Meanwhile, Trump is reportedly struggling to hire defense attorneys:


Edward Luce @EdwardGLuce

I’ve covered extremism and violent ideologies around the world over my career. Have never come across a political force more nihilistic, dangerous & contemptible than today’s Republicans. Nothing close.

https://twitter.com/EdwardGLuce/status/1557984573354565633


Gen Michael Hayden @GenMhayden

I agree. And I was the CIA Director

https://twitter.com/GenMhayden/status/1560027626626072577


'Comply don't die': MSNBC anchor slams GOP for attacking FBI after 'smug' defense of police brutality



On Wednesday's edition of MSNBC's "The Beat," anchor Ari Melber slammed what he called the "double standard" of Republicans outraged that Trump was subject to an FBI search at Mar-a-Lago after months of refusing to comply with requests to return classified documents — when "they should have just complied" is the go-to defense Republican commentators use to defend police officers who injure or kill Black suspects with excessive force.

"It is a standard piece of conservative refrain," said Melber. "In these clashes over law enforcement and policing, including when people are documented as innocent or did nothing wrong or are facing very aggressive or illegal police treatment, the line we hear over and over is, just follow the officer's commands and comply no matter what." He then showed several clips of right-wing commentators saying this.

"If, in fact, the police officer gives you a command, please exit the car, you should say, yes, officer, no, officer, okay, officer," said Sean Hannity in one clip. "Bad decisions by a cop, but those decisions wouldn't have been made if the perp didn't run away," said Eric Bolling in another. "Just comply. Please, listen," said Kimberly Guilfoyle in yet another.

"Just comply," said Melber. "This frequent conservative claim goes well beyond complying with lawful police requests. The demand is comply first, fully, no matter what. Yes, officer. Make any objections that may come up, presumably, later. And this logic, this argument, this talking point has come from conservatives over and over. So I'm showing you stuff that's on air, but this is in communities around America. Minnesota has a police union representative who in that Daunte Wright case, mistakenly drawing a gun, said they should have complied. And he argued it was the noncompliance that set off the chain of events that led to the death. Houston Police has a union, and they had a similar take when they said, quote, 'Comply don't die. Live to have your day in court.' Those are real examples. And that includes times where police were later found to make mistakes or used excessive force, even on tape."

"But that loud stubborn and often smug lecture comes from national political elites on the right and MAGA leaders and Trump allies all the way down to the police unions: comply," said Melber. "That's when innocent people were beaten or killed. That's the context for the recent legal problems for Trump because, again, this sometimes gets pushed out. There's so much going on and that's why it's our special report right now because I want everyone to understand Donald Trump was given months to comply. But he didn't. And Trump aides who have been given special elite treatment when asked to follow the law and testify have benefitted from that whole different approach. There are Trump officials who partially resisted and there are others, especially for the January 6th Committee, who fully resisted. No compliance."

"I want to be clear," said Melber. "We're talking about Donald Trump and other powerful, well-connected white people, who have acted like they are above the law and their own past demands are really not about the rules. They are just telling others to comply. And many of those other cases involve regular citizens who don't have political connections, and who are Back and Brown people in America. So this is a documented double standard. Lawless resistance for Trump elites, compliance or violence for regular citizens, and especially regular citizens who are Black and brown.

Watch below:

[Rick Plant]

If you were on Twitter yesterday, then you noticed that the top trending hashtag for most of the day was #LockTrumpUp.

This was the new video that was featured and massively retweeted yesterday. Take a look.


KARMA: Trump MAKES THE CASE for his own IMPRISONMENT

When it comes to Donald Trump, every single speech is a confession. For a long time, the twice-impeached, disgraced former president has made strong statements regarding the mishandling of classified information. Now, his words are coming back to haunt him, as he was caught red-handed stealing some of our nation's most sensitive materials. The new MeidasTouch ad 'Lock Trump Up' uses Trump's own words against him and makes the powerful case that it is time to lock Trump up once and for all.

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

The CIA had to come up with clever ideas to keep Trump from putting classified info in his pockets: report



It has been a little over a week since the FBI executed a search warrant on former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach.

Douglas London, a former senior CIA Operations Officer, who worked with intelligence briefers for the president, explained that they were forced to use "unorthodox" methods for Trump to ensure he didn't put classified documents in his pockets.

"As you know, intelligence briefings for the president have to range a wide array of complex issues," said London. "The key is getting the president's attention. You have to adopt a style that will secure the president's interest and have him focus on the matter. It was hard to do that with President Trump, particularly without trying to compromise the integrity of the product itself. We found he responded very well to images, pictures, videos, that sort of thing."

He explained that the counter to that is that the former president would get "too interested" in the briefing and how he might respond.

"We try to impart those things and sometimes had to use a very catchy-headline approach, which is not really orthodox for us, to get him to focus without him wanting to pull products, such as images, which we would try to include on a tablet, so it was not something he could take — or on large poster size documents, that, again, are hard to put in your pocket."

They would also give briefers some of the questions they thought would be asked and sometimes the questions they'd anticipated Trump would ask would be, "wow, can I have this?"

"But often enough, it was really keeping him on target. There was one particular briefing we had on a sensitive terrorism issue where the president would ride off on a tangent and talk about ordering food or milkshakes in this meeting. So, sometimes the briefers would leverage the conversation to move him off of that, or promised the president we would follow up with him and address his questions," he continued.

He also confirmed previous reports that Trump had an obsession with Osama bin Laden's son, "who wasn't really a target," but was someone Trump recognized, and thus wanted to capture or kill over more serious terrorists. London noted there were also problems with Iran and counterterrorism issues coming from Iran that Trump would latch onto because he was trying to vilify the country.

"But some of his comments to support his vilification would tread closely to information we knew that we didn't want the Iranians to realize we had access to," he concluded.

Watch video in link:

https://www.rawstory.com/donald-trump-picket-classified-info/

[Rick Plant]

Morning Joe calls out GOP senators for provoking the next Timothy McVeigh with lies about IRS agents

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough blasted Republican lawmakers for putting a target on IRS agents' backs with incendiary rhetoric.

The recently passed Inflation Reduction Act allocates nearly $80 billion to the Internal Revenue Service, and some leading Republicans have spread false claims that 87,000 armed agents will be hired target middle-class taxpayers -- and the "Morning Joe" host called out their lies as dangerous.

"If you are an IRS agent, you're far less safe today than you were a couple days ago," Scarborough said. "[Sen.] Chuck Grassley went on 'Fox and Friends' and suggested IRS agents would come with AR-15s loaded to people's homes in Iowa. It's extraordinarily reckless. Kevin McCarthy, the head of the Republican Party in the House, is saying the same thing, spreading the conspiracy theories."

"This is -- you know, this sort of talk is what led to Oklahoma City," Scarborough added. "It's what led to Timothy McVeigh. After it happens, it's too late to pull back and say, 'Oh, let's be responsible,' after it happens."

Scarborough said that sort of talk had already motivated an Ohio man to attack an FBI field office near Cincinnati, which led to his fatal shooting hours later by police, in response to the search warrant executed at Donald Trump's private Mar-A-Lago resort.

"This is, again, this is what we were warming about the inflammatory rhetoric about the search, the legal search," Scarborough said. "We kept warning. Sure enough, a guy tries to break into an FBI office, field office in Ohio, break through the glass with a nail gun, shatter the glass, then go in and slaughter FBI agents with his AR-15. It's too late, Republicans, after the next Oklahoma City happens. That's why I had said, Chuck Grassley, I mean, somebody, maybe Mitch [McConnell] can't say something to Chuck Grassley about this, but somebody in the Republican Party needs to pull back on this, just like Mike Pence pulled back on the radical, reckless talk regarding FBI agents and defunding the FBI and calling them the gestapo."

"Again, I've just got to say this, this doesn't happen just online, contained online with some crackpots," he added. "I've got mainstream Americans, two in the same day, talking about civil war and revolution and overthrowing the U.S. government because IRS agents are coming to their house with AR-15s. i mean, this is the stakes."

Watch the video below:

[Rick Plant]

Manhattan DA may have ‘the sleeper case’ against Trump after CFO’s guilty plea: fraud prosecutor

The lead prosecutor for special counsel Robert Muller's investigation offered an analysis on MSNBC after Trump Organization executive Allen Weisselberg pleaded guilty to fifteen charges on Thursday as part of a plea agreement that will result in a five-month sentence to Rikers Island Prison Complex.

MSNBC's Katy Tur interviewed NYU Law professor Andrew Weissmann, who served as chief of the fraud section at the Department of Justice prior to his appointment to Mueller's team. He had also previously served as general counsel for the FBI.

Weissmann noted Georgetown Law professor Paul Butler had listed the state and federal investigations Trump is known to be facing.

Weissmann said, "I think the sleeper case here is the Manhattan D.A.'s office. You know, I think that it isn't getting enough attention and there are a lot of telltale signs in that case that the Manhattan D.A.'s office is not done with Weisselberg or Donald Trump in the way that it's particularly crafted."

Tur asked Weissmann to, "expand on why you think that this is so intriguing."

Weissmann noted that Weisselberg will have to testify at the Oct. 24th trial of the Trump Organization.

"It seems very, very hard to testify truthfully in that case and not implicate Donald Trump," the former prosecutor explained. "We're not talking about a huge company like Exxon or JPMorgan, we're talking about a small family-owned company and the scheme was so rampant with signatures by Donald Trump himself, I think that he has very reputable lawyers who are going to tell him if you want your five-month deal, you have to be truthful in front of the judge who is ultimately going to sentence you."

"So i think it would be very hard not to implicate Donald Trump," Weissmann continued. "But the second thing that I found really telling is there was no coverage provision here. And what i mean by that is a typical defendant asked the government I will plea to x, y and z but I need to know this is it, I'm not going to get charged again. So what you normally see is the defendant pleading but the government putting on the record that this covers a whole host of potential crimes. In this case what you would have expected to see is something that said that this covers any and all crimes that Allen Weisselberg may have committed as part of the Trump Organization. That was not in there."

"That is not something that — these are such good lawyers that he has, we're not dealing with sort of the run-of-the-mill people that you see in sort of Trump world, these are really first-rate lawyers — they clearly had to have asked of that," he continued. "To me, that is a tell that there is more that the Manhattan D.A.'s office has up their sleeve."

"Time will tell whether I'm right, but it is striking to me that there wasn't that coverage language," Weissmann concluded.

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

Kyle Griffin @kylegriffin1

Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg on the Weisselberg plea: "This plea agreement directly implicates the Trump Organization in a wide range of criminal activity and requires Weisselberg to provide invaluable testimony in the upcoming trial against the corporation."

https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1560378504428093440

[Rick Plant]

'The Feds are just getting started': How Trump faces 'an entirely new situation'



On Thursday, Maggie Haberman of The New York Times took to Twitter to explain why the new FBI investigation former President Donald Trump faces is more serious than anything he's ever dealt with before — even his two impeachments.

"This is an entirely new situation," wrote Haberman. "It’s not clear where it leads, but DOJ was never going to indict a sitting president, Republicans were aligned with Trump during his first impeachment (he was out of office for the second and still most Senate Rs voted against)."

"Several Trump advisers have commented, 'we’ve been here before,'" Haberman added. "But these are different circumstances, even if the outcome is not clear."

Haberman's analysis came in response to a report from POLITICO that a key Justice Department official that the FBI investigation is just in its early stages.

"At Thursday’s proceedings, the Justice Department’s top counterintelligence official, Jay Bratt, repeatedly emphasized that the investigation into the former president’s handling of classified White House records 'is in its early stages,'" said the report. "Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart, who authorized the search on Aug. 5, ordered prosecutors to propose redactions to the affidavit by next week, indicating that he was skeptical of the Justice Department’s arguments to keep those documents under seal. He set a deadline of next Thursday for prosecutors to propose redactions to the affidavit. 'I’m not prepared to find the affidavit should be fully sealed,' Reinhart said."

The investigation concerns boxes of highly classified documents that the former president took with him to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida. Among the documents the FBI searched for are reportedly some containing nuclear weapons secrets.

https://twitter.com/maggieNYT/status/1560384599288594433


Nicholas Wu @nicholaswu12

NEW- Trump demanded answers about the basis for the FBI search of his residence and calling for a swift end to the investigation. Instead, he got few new details about the probe and a piece of unwelcome news to boot: the feds are just getting started.

https://twitter.com/nicholaswu12/status/1560384069548007424