America seems to have lost all true allies. Once the world police, the US has been expected to “save” democracies worldwide since the First World War. The US pledges more to NATO than any other member and has gifted Ukraine endless supplies to protect Europe from “Russian aggression.” Yet, a new poll states that Europeans would not want to back America in a war against China.
Six thousand people were surveyed from Austria, Bulgaria, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, and Sweden. Only a quarter of respondents said they’d “like their country, or Europe, to take America’s side,” while 62% would like to remain neutral. Around 43% said China is a “necessary partner” to the EU, and they must “strategically cooperate” with Beijing. Bulgarians were the most likely to side an alliance with China (8%) and/or consider the nation a “necessary partner” (58%). Swedes were the most willing to support the US, with 26% calling China an adversary. About 31% of Poles also said they would side with America if they were to go to war with China.
What will happen to America’s allies when China becomes the more strategic trading partner? American politicians have destabilized our economy and are attempting to steer away from capitalism. Countries will be lining up to sell to China, and not the US.
In the end, it does not matter. The people are never permitted to vote on whether or not we go to war. Most of us, regardless of nationality, simply want peace. We all want to have enough to live comfortably, which is not an option during wars. They ask us to sacrifice, but for what? Our politicians create conflict and send the people, who never had a say in the first place, into battle to die.
If China enters Taiwan, the world will erupt into chaos. The neocons have been waiting for that very moment to justify a new war. Every NATO member nation would be required to fight China. A Gallup poll from February showed that 65% of Americans wanted to support Ukraine against Russia, but they likely do not realize what it entails. We are not merely giving Ukraine supplies; we are preparing for a worldwide battle. In the end, the people are merely cannon fodder and I hesitate to show any support to a politician who believes war is the only option for conflict resolution.
Posted originally on the CTH on June 11, 2023 | Sundance
I have been reviewing interviews, looking at discussion, and some of them I will share in the next few articles. However, for a solid representation of the state of our current dynamic, as it relates to the targeting of President Donald J. Trump, this interview below is a solid outlook from the detractors.
CBS News legal analyst Rikki Klieman and CBS News investigative correspondent Catherine Herridge join “Face the Nation” to discuss what’s in the indictment — and what it means for Trump. [Transcript Here]
Before getting to the video, it’s valuable to see Rikki Klieman representing the interpretation of the media outlook toward the indictment handed down by Special Counsel Jack Smith. It is also valuable to see CBS’s Catherine Herridge represent the defenders of the institutions, from the outside vulgarian personage of Trump.
Klieman buys the Lawfare narrative completely, including the framework of classified documents as opposed to documents containing classified markings. She sells the Lawfare outline as gospel and makes all assertions from that position. Herridge looks at how the bureaucracy responds to Trump, including how the institutions hold power of determination higher than a President of the United States.
As Bill Barr said emphatically earlier today, “The documents do not belong to Trump,” continuing with “The documents belong to the government who created them, not the man for whom they were created.” So sayeth the defender of the omnipotent Dept of Justice. This is where a sharp intellectual knife to cut through the chaff and countermeasures is needed, and notice no one brings up the visible and practical deconstruction point.
If the documents did not belong to President Donald J. Trump, then why did the government dump them in the parking lot of the White House and tell him to deal with them?
If the documents belonged to the government, and not to the man for whom they were created, then why did that same government give them to him and force him to take them to a location of his choosing? Can you see the obtuse argument fall apart when simple pragmatic questions are raised?
The institutions are presented, by the sellers of the Lawfare narrative, as higher than the authority of the President of the United States. This is how ridiculous our government has become.
Institutions are not omnipotent entities; they are buildings and networks full of people who facilitate processes that are an outcome of policy. Those buildings and offices are not the government. The elected politicians who we send to Washington DC are not subservient to the processes, norms and morays they determine within the bureaucracy that the politicians are in charge of.
The argument(s) against Donald Trump are akin to a business saying that all work product created during the tenure of employment belongs to the enterprise of the business and not to the employee. If you want to hold that line of thought, fine. However, you then need to reconcile that the business enterprise intentionally gave all the work product to the employee, dumped it in their lap, told them to take it and leave, and then comes back at a later date and says – we now need to review the stuff we forced you to take because some of it might not actually belong to you.
Does this happen anywhere else? Of course not.
The fact that the National Archives and Record Administration refused to take custody of the documents upon the end of the White House tenure, combined with the fact the NARA dumped those documents in the parking lot of the White House for Trump to deal with, is a direct statement the bureaucracy was telling President Trump these are your records. His records – not their records on loan to him.
The Presidential Records Act is the overriding legislative guidance for the flow of work product post term in office. These are essentially document arguments. The fact that NARA together with the Biden administration would weaponize the disposition of documents, they intentionally forced Trump to take ownership of, speaks to an intent within the bureaucracy that is transparently obvious.
Bill Barr’s entire mindset is based on a belief the institutions are of a higher power than the individuals we elect to control them. In essence, the President of the United States is subservient to the bureaucracy. This is nonsense. This is also why former AG Bill Barr was more concerned about preserving the institutions than stopping the weaponizing activity that flows from them.
President Trump could store his “presidential records” anywhere he wants to; they are his records.
Now, watch Klieman obscure the difference between classified documents and documents containing classified markings. Despite her pontifications to the contrary, the indictment is not based around any classified documents. The classification of the documents is technically and factually moot to the ridiculous point the special counsel is making.
[Transcript] -JOHN DICKERSON: For more on the legal implications, we’re joined by senior investigative correspondent Catherine Herridge and CBS News legal analyst Rikki Klieman.
Rikki, I want to start with you.
You have been a prosecutor and a defense lawyer. So what stands out to you, now that you have read this indictment?
RIKKI KLIEMAN: I think what stands out, obviously, is the magnitude of detail in this indictment.
It’s not only that you’re dealing with 31 counts under the Espionage Act, which simply means the unlawful, willing retention of classified information, or even unclassified information that would hurt the defense of the United States and aid our enemies. It’s the detail of a speaking indictment.
We have to remember that much of this indictment, John, is to educate not only ultimately a court and jury, but it’s really to educate the public. Much of this indictment, in terms of the detail, may not even come into evidence, in terms of what’s admissible or not in the course of a trial.
What also strikes me, John, is, the overwhelming detail leaves the Trump legal team with real need to have powerful motions to dismiss, because, if this goes to trial, the way it reads, it’s rather overwhelming for anyone to be able to fight it on the facts themselves.
JOHN DICKERSON: And I want to get to that motion-to-dismiss question in a moment.
But, Catherine, you have been doing reporting about the risk assessment about just what was in these documents. Educate us on that.
CATHERINE HERRIDGE: Well, what jumps out to me, John, is when you go to the section the willful retention of national defense information, by my count, there are 21 top secret documents, and the disclosure of top secret information has the expectation of exceptionally grave damage to national security.
But what out — stands out to me is some of the classified codings, like TK, or Talent Keyhole. You don’t see that very often. That’s about intelligence from overhead imagery. For example, if we’re looking at a terrorist target, do we have such good visibility that we can count the hairs on their head? Can we see what they’re eating for breakfast on their terrorist patio?
Those are capabilities that we don’t want our adversaries to know that we have. And then also Special Access Programs, or SAP, these are highly restricted programs because of the sensitivity of the intelligence and the technology, such as stealth technology, for example.
Think of classified information like the Pentagon. Special Access Programs are these handful of rooms where there are just a limited number of keys to control and restrict access to that information.
JOHN DICKERSON: So it’s not just secret; it’s the top of the — top of the top?
CATHERINE HERRIDGE: Some of these are way beyond top secret, like, I said, Talent Keyhole, when you’re talking about Special Access Programs or SCI, sensitive, compartmentalized information.
These really are the crown jewels of the U.S. intelligence community.
JOHN DICKERSON: Rikki, let me ask you about a part of this indictment which seems to come — which comes from one of the former president’s lawyers.
Educate us on the crime-fraud exception, how it’s possible for a prosecutor to have this information. And is that a weakness? Because we know, from our reporting, that this is something that the Trump defense team is going to talk about, is the behavior of the prosecutors.
RIKKI KLIEMAN: We all believe that, when you go to a doctor, that there’s a privilege, that what you say and what your ailments are will remain confidential.
Same thing if you go to a clergyperson. And it’s exactly the same thing. When you go to a lawyer. You believe that, if you are a client, that what you say will never be disclosed to anyone, let alone in the grand jury or court of law. It’s called the attorney-client privilege. It protects all conversations relating to legal advice.
So, how did it get broken? That is, how did a court in Washington, D.C., a judge, and then an appellate court affirm the idea that you could hear, listen, read the notes and the voice memos of a lawyer to testify against his own client?
It’s called the crime-fraud exception. So what the court believed was, the conversations between Evan Corcoran, the lawyer, and Donald Trump were really in furtherance of a crime or a fraud, and he was ordered and forced to testify.
Now, one could say, well, that’s one and done. So now Mr. Corcoran is going to be a witness in this case, should it go to trial. But we have to remember that that took place, that decision, in the District of Columbia. Now we are in Florida. So can it come up to a new judge? Might a new judge decide that it is not admissible at trial? Yes.
Will that hurt the case? Not necessarily. There’s plenty of other evidence.
JOHN DICKERSON: Catherine, I have got two questions for you.
The first is, what happens if you’re just a regular old Joe and you have this kind of information? Legally, what happens to you? What’s happened?
CATHERINE HERRIDGE: Well, as one example, I have contacts who work in the nuclear weapons capability arena.
Let’s say you have a nuclear document, it’s on top of the photocopier, and you walk away, you leave it there. Your clearance is gone. You are out the door. There are immediate consequences.
JOHN DICKERSON: Let me ask you about a number of the president’s defenders.
Well, first of all, we should note, the current president is under investigation by a special counsel.
CATHERINE HERRIDGE: Correct.
JOHN DICKERSON: We don’t know much about that. But Republicans have brought that up in defending the president. They have also brought the case of Hillary Clinton.
You have been looking at that. Give us a sense of the apples and oranges or apples and apples in comparison with what’s on the table here.
CATHERINE HERRIDGE: Well, what strikes me, John, in this indictment is I think the special counsel, Jack Smith, specifically charged willful retention of national defense information in an effort to sort of blunt criticism that these cases may be the same.
If you go back to the summer of 2016, then-FBI Director James Comey said that they found multiple e-mail chains on Hillary Clinton’s private server that she used for government business that contained highly classified information, including these Special Access Programs that we just discussed, but, in his view, it should not be charged because he didn’t feel there was sufficient evidence of intent or willfulness.
Critics would say that even just purchasing the server was an example of intent. And then, finally, you have to look at just the scope of the information and also the timeline. But I think this charging of willful retention really is by design.
JOHN DICKERSON: Right, the facts of the case quite different. But thank you so much for that and for all your other answers.
And, Rikki Klieman, thank you.
And Face the Nation will be back in one minute. Stay with us. (link)
Published originally on the CTH on June 11, 2023 | Sundance
Appearing on Rupert Murdoch’s network Fox News, former Attorney General Bill Barr frame his false construct in the documents case against President Trump.
First, the obvious. Barr is motivated in his position because this is the constructed inflection point against Donald Trump. The severity of his position, the pretending not to know things, the defensive position about the power of government institutions, all of it is expressed in sum and total for one primary purpose; this is the moment they have manufactured to take Trump down. This is the DC Republican moment all preceding moments were designed to support.
Second, on the details. Barr states with emphasis, the “presidential daily brief (PDB) is not the president’s personal document,” it is a document provided for him by the U.S. intelligence community (IC). Worth noting here is a little factoid that runs in opposition to Barr:
WASHINGTON – […] “while through most of its history the document has been marked “For the President’s Eyes Only,” the PDB has never gone to the president alone. The most restricted dissemination was in the early 1970s, when the book went only to President Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, who was dual-hatted as national security adviser and secretary of state.
In other administrations, the circle of readers has also included the vice president, the secretary of defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, along with additional White House staffers. By 2013, Obama’s PDB was making its way to more than 30 recipients, including the president’s top strategic communications aide and speechwriter, and deputy secretaries of national security departments.” [Source]
No one is saying the Trump PDB is Trump’s “personal document“, the point is the PDB’s in question -those noted in the indictment- were part of President Trump’s papers, his administration records; able to be reviewed and critiqued by anyone the president would assign, including speechwriters. Barr us making a non-sequitur.
Third, Barr notes the documents created by government officials are different from personal papers of the President. Perhaps technically true, an argument and debate that takes place after all administrations. However, if government owned, why did government officials (NARA) then stack the documents in the White House parking lot for President Trump to take.
Lastly, like all pundits and commentators all weekend, everyone is intentionally pretending not to know the difference between ‘classified documents’ and ‘documents containing classification markings’. The former is not part of the argument, the latter wording is artful Lawfare language.
Posted originally on the CTH on June 9, 2023 | Sundance
Rather than write 10,000 highly specific and legally granular words to deconstruct the Trump indictment, I will share the opinion of others with supporting analysis and add some substance to the issues. Later I will compile all the various points of analysis into one very granular article.
First, it is important to always remember why this indictment is taking place. The DOJ, specifically Lisa Monaco, are continuing the offensive against Trump in large part to cover for the actions of the Obama administration in the originating targeting of their political opposition. Originating Spygate operations (’15-’16), Russiagate (’16-’17), Mueller (’17-’19), Impeachment #1 (’19-’20), Durham (’19-’23) and Jack Smith ’22-present, are all part of one long continuum of weaponized DOJ and FBI operations. The entirety of the effort is to protect the actions taken by the Obama administration. [Note to congress: Questioning Durham this month is defense key #1]
In this interview {Direct Rumble Link} Jeff Clark gives his opinion of the statutory weaknesses that exist in the case as outlined in the indictment. The first two defense approaches will likely be: (1) the Presidential Records Act supersedes the issues of document holding as noted in the use of the Espionage Act. (2) However, if the Espionage Act [Statute 793(e)] has to be defended, the originating issue of “unauthorized possession” will be the second approach heading to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. WATCH:
Granular note, putting aside the fact that classification is irrelevant to the statute being used, within the indictment please notice how the DOJ states 102 classified documents [pg 27], some that were never marked classified as noted in the indictment [count 11, page 30] but defined as classified after DOJ review, were discovered after the Trump affirmation of compliance in July 2022. This is the predicate for the FBI raid. Again, a total of 102 documents were identified as classified by the FBI/DOJ.
They were unable to use classification status as a legal mechanism to attack President Trump; instead, they use the non-production as an evidence enhancement to the ridiculous claim that Trump lied to them (sec 1001); but notice how there are only 31 documents [31 counts] outlined as national defense security issues. This would mean approximately 70 classified documents are memory holed by this special counsel.
70 defined “classified” documents retrieved, no description provided, those documents not a part of any legal contention – they just disappear. I suspect we know what those sets of documents pertained to, and they have everything to do with DOJ and FBI conduct in Russiagate.
CTH has a years-long research library on all of these Trump-Russia investigative issues, including the in-real-time background stories that encompass them, and that library is massive.
If you have a specific question, ask me in the comments section and I will do my earnest best to review and answer.
Tell me what questions you have, and I will do my best.
Be of good cheer, I really don’t think this indictment will past the first defense challenge, The Presidential Records Act.
Posted originally on the CTH on June 9, 2023 | Sundance
Good news, bad news and granular news..
First, the good news.The judge assigned to the Trump documents case is U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon. She is the same judge who handled the lawsuit last year after the FBI raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. Judge Cannon was the judge who appointed the “special master” to review the documents the DOJ was claiming were classified, but Team Trump was contending that definition.
Now the bad news. The DOJ is no longer legally arguing that Donald Trump held any classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. The DOJ is arguing that President Trump held documents vital to U.S. defense security. It’s a farce but that’s their position. The classification status of documents is moot, nonexistent, except to create the predicate for the proverbial FBI nose under the tent.
The DOJ-NSD (that’s Lisa Monaco) got a warrant to look for classified documents, but never intended to use classified documents as a case cornerstone because President Trump had full declassification authority. The DOJ got a search warrant by convincing a judge they were looking for something that wasn’t even a violation of law. That’s why the DOJ would not reveal the probable cause affidavit. The search was built upon a fraudulent pretense. “Classified” is a snipe hunt.
You will notice Jack Smith never discussed “classified documents” in his remarks, and the issue of classified documents appears nowhere except in the indictment as a purposeful lawfare description of documents. The DOJ is not legally charging anything relating to the classification status of the documents. That’s the Lawfare and media banter to create a talking point. The term “classified” is all over the indictment, but as a lawfare adjective only; it’s like using the word “stash”.
The special counsel legal framework is centered around documents the DOJ define as vital to “the defense security” of the United States. EVERYTHING is predicated on 31 counts of an 18 U.S. Code § 793(e) violation. The DOJ defines what is considered a defense document, and that intentionally has nothing to do with classification.
The granular news. You might have heard that two of Trump’s lawyers, Jim Trusty and John Rowley, quit today. The media wants to use their exit as a point to indicate Trump is in legal jeopardy; however, that’s not the case.
As soon as Trusty and Rowley saw their forced testimony was used in the indictment, they had no option except to exit the case. Despite the lawyers providing no damaging information against Trump, the DOJ used language in the indictment to turn Trump’s lawyers into material witnesses. Weissmann’s Lawfare tactic create a conflict, forcing the two Trump lawyers to depart.
WASHINGTON DC – Two of Donald Trump’s top lawyers abruptly resigned from his defense team on Friday, just hours after news broke that he and a close aide were indicted on charges related to their handling of classified documents.
Jim Trusty and John Rowley, who helmed Trump’s Washington, D.C.-based legal team for months and were seen frequently at the federal courthouse, indicated they would no longer represent Trump in matters being investigated and prosecuted by special counsel Jack Smith, who is probing both the documents matter and efforts by Trump to subvert the 2020 election.
The resignations were shortly followed by an announcement from Trump himself confirming that a close aide, Walt Nauta, had also been indicted by federal prosecutors. Nauta, a Navy veteran, had served as the former president’s personal aide and was a ubiquitous presence during his post White House days.
In their place, Trump indicated that Todd Blanche — an attorney he recently retained to help fight unrelated felony charges brought by Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg in April — would lead his legal team, along with a firm to be named later. Trump and his team have liked Blanche, who is expected to play a more elevated, central role. (more)
Weissmann, Eisen and Smith are using lawfare in the indictment to put the interests of Trump and his aide Walt Nauta against each other. Obviously, Nauta would not turn on Trump, so the prosecution made Nauta a target for a federal 1001 charge of lying to investigators and will pressure him throughout the case to take a plea in exchange for testimony against Trump. Nauta is the baseline of the “Conspiracy Elements” which require two or more people. Again, pure Lawfare.
Obviously, Jim Trusty was unaware last night that his forced testimony would be used in the indictment. WATCH:
Posted originally on the CTH on June 9, 2023 | Sundance
I would strongly urge people, especially those who walk the deep weeds, to READ THE INDICTMENT carefully, before watching the remarks by special counsel Jack Smith as delivered today. What you will notice is that 31 of the 37 counts alleged in the indictment are individual counts, one per document, specific to Statute 793(e) which pertains to defense department information.
There were, as claimed in the justice department prior court arguments, and again affirmed today in the indictment itself, 100 classified documents located by the FBI and DOJ after the Trump certification of compliance. Of those 100 documents, 31 of them were specifically selected to represent the baseline for the 793(e) charge. Listen to Smith emphasize Defense and Defense Intelligence, and soon you will see why. WATCH:
Jack Smith is relying on 18 U.S. Code 793, a law created in 1948 intended to stop contractors to the Defense Dept from stealing, selling, or copying U.S. defense system secrets, or patents on defense products. [READ THE LAW] The premise of 31-counts [each an individual document] pertain to “National Defense Security.” The subsequent six counts are predicated around the claimed 793(e) violations.
The DOJ is not, repeat NOT, arguing a classified documents case. The entire legal framework is centered around documents they define as vital to the defense security of the United States. EVERYTHING is predicated on this 18 U.S. Code § 793(e) violation:
18 U.S. Code § 793(e) Whoever having unauthorized possession of, access to, or control over any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, or note relating to the national defense, or information relating to the national defense which information the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation, willfully communicates, delivers, transmits or causes to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted, or attempts to communicate, deliver, transmit or cause to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted the same to any person not entitled to receive it, or willfully retains the same and fails to deliver it to the officer or employee of the United States entitled to receive it.
Despite the verbose language in the indictment, a key element of Lawfare, the case is weak. The prosecutors know it. I will explain.
NOTE: Sixty nine documents in a Deep State rabbit hole! ~Sundance
Posted originally on the CTH on June 9, 2023 | Sundance
I am deep in the weeds and assembling notes for outlines to be delivered in the next several articles. However, that said, perhaps the only time Mark Levin’s shouting was tolerable was last night as he responded to the indictment of President Trump. WATCH:
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NOTE: Sixty nine documents in a Deep State rabbit hole! ~Sundance
The anti-religious left originally set their targets on the “Christian extremists” who were ruining America. The far-left originally left Muslims out of the argument because they thought Trump’s refugee ban on Islamic nations would lead to votes for the Democrats. Since everything the woke agenda stands for goes against Islam, the left has turned on the community.
Democrat Kristin Mink, a member of the Montgomery County Council for District 5, criticized Muslim parents who did not want their young children to learn about adult content. “This issue has, unfortunately, does put… some Muslim families on the same side of an issue as White supremacists and outright bigots,” said Mink. “I would not put you in the same category as those folks, although, you know, it’s complicated because they’re falling on the same side of this particular issue.” So now Muslims are ”white supremacists.” Welcome to the club of the hated majority who is hated for simply existed outside the woke narrative.
In this particular instance, Muslim parents wanted the ability to opt out of teaching young impressionable children the LGBTQQIAAP2S+ agenda (yes, that is the acronym now). Mothers protested outside the school. Students joined in as well and said that they wanted to respect their religion. If you watch the video above, the sane parents are visibly upset. The other side is dancing around in rainbow flags completely ignoring the pleas of the parents, many who likely expected better education opportunities in America.
Armenian Americans, predominantly Christian, recently faced the same problem with public schools. The protest turned physical and numerous fights broke out. What would Armenians, who were only recently recognized for the genocide of their people, know about the struggles of the LGBTQQIAAP2S+? You’ll be hard-pressed to claim victimhood to people who may have lost relatives for simply existing.
Here is a teacher from that school in Glendale telling Armenians that they do not understand oppression. “I deal with a lot of the trauma of LGBT youth related to the hetero-normative, Judeo-Christian, patriarchal, imperialist, capitalist system that oppresses them…Armenians talk about the genocide but they received SSI but they don’t want to talk about the indigenous genocide in 1850, and the lack of reparations for indigenous and black people in this country,” the disturbed teacher stated.
OUT OF 2 MILLION ARMENIANS, 1.5 MILLION WERE MURDERED DURING THIS GENOCIDE!!!! But go on and tell us how you’re oppressed for being unable to tell little kids about sex.
The conservative Christians have been under attack for a long time in America. Muslims do not permit others to speak badly about their traditions and values. Christians have become immune to being the hated majority. No one is trying to erase the gay community, but the other side is trying to erase traditional values and religion. Christians and Muslims will unite under this cause to protect children from groomers pushing adult content into the public school curriculum.
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