nance, malcolm USN

---

AN BADASH 9 25

In a fiery declaration, President Donald Trump announced he is designating "antifa" a terrorist organization. Some experts say he lacks the authority to do so and will struggle to enforce such a move — while others warn it could give him sweeping license to target groups or individuals he disfavors.

“I am pleased to inform our many U.S.A. Patriots that I am designating ANTIFA, A SICK, DANGEROUS, RADICAL LEFT DISASTER, AS A MAJOR TERRORIST ORGANIZATION,” Trump wrote on social media on Wednesday evening. “I will also be strongly recommending that those funding ANTIFA be thoroughly investigated in accordance with the highest legal standards and practices. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

As many have noted, antifa is not an organized group. It simply means “anti-fascist,” or “anti-fascism.”

But Trump has taken the step anyway. Here’s what some experts say.

IFrame Content

BBC News reports that some legal experts have called into question Trump’s legal authority to declare antifa a terrorist organization.

“The existing rules do allow the government, specifically the State Department, to make a list of ‘foreign terrorist organizations’ which makes it a crime to give funds or other ‘material support’ to those groups.”

“But the key word here is ‘foreign,'” BBC notes, “and those experts we have spoken to pointed out that free speech rights under the US constitution’s first amendment would limit Trump’s ability to ban – or restrict funding for – domestic movements like antifa.”

Rumen Cholakov, an expert in US constitutional law at King’s College London, “told us that if the government were to use its powers against them in the US their actions would be ‘potentially susceptible to constitutional challenges’ in court for violating these rights.”

Professor David Schanzer, director of the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security at Duke University, told BBC Verify, “Under the First Amendment, no one can be punished for joining a group or giving money to a group.”

Meanwhile, other experts have also weighed in.

Attorney and MeidasTouch editor-in-chief Ron Filipkowski observed, “Since antifa is now designed as a terrorist organization it will be interesting to see how they determine who is a member and how they prove it is an organization.”

Politico senior legal affairs correspondent Kyle Cheney noted, “Trump says he’s designating ‘antifa’ a terrorist group and launching a probe into finding of antifa activities. The FBI has long said antifa doesn’t really have a centralized structure or leadership.”

U.S. Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-NY), an attorney, told CNN Wednesday night that “there is no antifa organization.”

He added, “the point” is that Trump is “using the Charlie Kirk murder as a pretext to go after people that he disagrees with. He, on the very night of Kirk’s murder, you will remember, accused the left of committing the murder — when the murderer had not even been caught or identified. This is all a pretext, and it’s a shame, I think … that Charlie Kirk actually stood for free speech. And instead, they’re using his memory to attack free speech.”

Political scholar Dr. Michael Mackey issued this warning: “‘Antifa’ is an artifact of Russian information warfare and the Kremlin-sponsored MAGA cult. No such entity exists in American civil society. Trump is owned by Putin.”

Intelligence and foreign policy analyst Malcolm Nance, a terrorism expert, said, “You cannot designate an idea as a terrorist group.There is no organization called ANTIFA. There is no leadership or funding path. There is no membership.”

“What he is doing is setting the stage to designate ANY American as a terrorist,” Nance alleged. “That’s Fascism.”

CBS News national security coordinating producer Jim LaPorta, an award-winning journalist, wrote: “It’s unclear how Pres. Trump could designate a group inside the U.S. as a domestic terrorist group. The U.S. does not have a federal crime of domestic terrorism. Additionally, it’s been understood that the Govt. would run into 1st and 4th Amendment issues.”

But those hurdles aside, experts are still issuing warnings.

Olga Lautman, a Senior Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), an expert on Russia, and creator and co-host of the Kremlin File podcast series, expressed concern.

“So Trump is designating antifa as a terrorist organization,” she wrote. “Problem is he thinks all Democrats are this so called antifa. He is following Russia’s playbook step by step to crush opposition. Hope everyone wakes up.”

On Substack, Lautman expanded her warning.

She pointed to White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller’s remarks on Monday, after the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

Calling the “radical left” a “vast domestic terror movement,” Miller said: “With God as my witness, we are going to use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, Homeland Security and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle and destroy these networks and make America safe again for the American people.”

“It will happen, and we will do it in Charlie’s name,” he vowed.

“Where have I heard this before?” Lautman said of Miller’s statement. “In Russia, where the Kremlin seizes upon every terrorist attack, bombing, protest, or act of violence (some of which they carry out in false flag operations) to justify new crackdowns, laws, and the systematic destruction of any semblance of independent opposition.”

Lautman continued her stark warning, writing, “what makes the current moment in America so perilous is how closely it now echoes this Soviet/Russian script, with the killing of Charlie Kirk already being transformed from an individual crime into the cornerstone of a supposed vast conspiracy of leftist violence — again, without evidence — a pretext for sweeping crackdowns that will not stop at violent actors but extend to protesters, grassroots organizers, and the infrastructure that sustains them.”

“Groups like Indivisible and MoveOn, platforms like ActBlue, that fund Democratic candidates,” she predicted, “will all be recast as pipelines of extremism, stripped of their democratic role.”

---

NO LNX

Only one thing is going to stand in Trump's way — and he knows it

Thom Hartmann April 28, 2025

It didn’t happen in some shadowy back alley or under the cover of night.

It happened in broad daylight — in the heart of an American courthouse.

Federal agents, acting without even the decency of a signed warrant, stormed into Judge Hannah Dugan’s courtroom on Friday morning and dragged her away like a common criminal. No warning. No legal process. No respect for the law she had spent a lifetime upholding.

But they made sure the cameras were there, so America could see what they were doing. Because this was not about justice. This was about terror.

This was a warning shot aimed directly at the beating heart of America’s judiciary:

“Fall in line — or you’re next.”

In that moment, the world’s oldest democracy lurched closer to the edge of authoritarian rule. In that moment, America became a little less free — and a lot more like the nightmare Vladimir Putin always hoped we’d become.

The FBI arrested Judge Hannah Dugan last Friday without even having a legal arrest warrant; this is as outrageous and police-state illegal as an administration can get.

And Pam Bondi’s performance Friday — after her federal agents swarm-raided this county judge — wasn’t staged for the general public.

The real audience was a very small, select group: America’s judges.

Their message is very simple: “P--- us off, judges, and you could end up in prison, too.”

Trump has already pacified the Article I branch of government — Congress — and now he’s in the process of pacifying the Article III branch, the Judiciary.

There are only 3 branches to our government: cowing both Congress and the nation’s Judiciary will leave only the president in charge of the entire country under all circumstances in all ways.

Nothing and nobody else will be able to stop him, short of a military coup (and he’s already decapitated the senior leadership of the military) or unending demonstrations in the streets (demonstrators who may soon face live ammunition).

That is called dictatorship. Real dictatorship. Vladimir Putin-style dictatorship where you are punished for the smallest deviation from orthodoxy and can find yourself in prison or sued into bankruptcy if you dare speak out in public.

It appears more and more every day that Putin is Trump’s mentor, if not his handler. Trump is doing everything he can, with help from a South African billionaire, to destroy the historic American infrastructure (which has been an example for the world for 250 years) and turn us into the newest member of the dictators club, joining Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Belarus, Hungary, North Korea, and the rest of the fascist and authoritarian world.

To get there, now that they’ve pacified every single Republican member of Congress (most recently, Don Bacon criticized Trump’s schizophrenic tariffs; a day later he started talking about retiring), they only have to seize control of the Judiciary, and then nothing except We The People will stand in their way.

Nothing. Will. Stand. In. Trump’s. Way. Except We The People. And he knows it.

Look at the striking parallels between Putin’s strategies and Trump’s actions:

From installing Trump’s loyalists in the military and the federal police agencies of the Department of Justice and FBI, to his open threats against freedom of the press, to the GOP’s efforts to rig elections and purge voters, Trump’s subversion of US democracy looks eerily familiar.

He’s taking pages directly from the autocrat’s handbook.

Trump has openly quoted and praised autocrats like Putin and Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán, who has presented his leadership in speeches to the GOP and CPAC as a model of an “illiberal” state.

Trump’s not hiding his admiration for dictators; he’s flaunting it. And now he’s putting the final stages of their script into action.

Trump’s movement toward authoritarianism follows “a known playbook. It’s unfolded in many other countries,” as journalist Anne Applebaum notes. “These are democratically elected leaders who characterize themselves or describe themselves as deserving of no opposition. So I am the true Hungarian, or I am the only real American.”

In a mere matter of weeks into his presidency, Applebaum says, Trump and his allies “have managed to push America into that space somewhere between (no longer) democracy and full-scale autocracy.”

The speed is shocking, but it shouldn’t be surprising. It only took Hitler 53 days to completely end democracy in Germany. Others, like Lukashenko, Orbán, Putin, Mussolini, Duterte, El-Sisi, and Erdoğan took longer (none longer than two years), but you could argue that Trump has been working at this project for 9 years now.

Harvard professor Steven Levitsky, who studies how democracies slip into authoritarianism, warns that we’re heading toward what experts call “competitive authoritarianism”: regimes that “constitutionally continue to be democracies” with regular elections and legal opposition, but where “systematic abuse of power tilts the playing field against the opposition.”

Make no mistake about what’s happening: Trump and his allies are methodically working through a four-step process to establish complete autocratic control, which will turn America into a one-man dictatorship.

Terrorize Congress: Trump’s already largely succeeded here. Republican lawmakers now march in lockstep with his agenda, afraid to oppose him even when their consciences scream otherwise. The V-Dem Institute already warns that Trump’s actions are “extremely worrying” for American democracy.

Terrorize the Media: Trump has, as The Washington Post writes, “relentlessly attacked the free press, another pillar that allows democracies to stand above authoritarian regimes,” as political scientists have noted. “He has echoed the worst dictators in history, calling journalists the ‘enemy of the people.’” With help from Elon Musk and other billionaires, he’s creating a media and social media environment where truth itself is under assault. And last week his administration threatened to arrest journalists and charge them with treason, an offense for which they could be executed.

Terrorize Judges and Lawyers: What we witnessed Friday with the raid on a county judge and the arrest of a retired judge earlier in the week is just the beginning. The final step in this process will be intimidating the Supreme Court, and if Trump’s minions can first terrorize the entire federal judiciary, it will be much easier to terrorize members of the Court itself, just like Putin and Orbán have done. This follows dangerous cracks in democracy’s pillars that experts have been warning about.

Terrorize Citizens: Once the above institutions are captured and there’s no more Constitutional opposition to Trump, the final phase begins: crushing individual dissent through fear, persecution, and potentially violence. This is the playbook Malcolm Nance detailed in his work analyzing Putin’s strategies to undermine American democracy and has already started against immigrants and student visa holders. If history tells us anything, American citizens will be next.

Most of this is already in place; time is running out fast.

Trump and his fellow fascists know their time is running out because elections are coming in a handful of months and their popularity is already crashing. They are at maximum power right now, and it is already beginning to decline.

This is another reason why they are pushing so hard to frighten judges, so they can implement the final destruction of any Constitutionally-based opposition to Trump’s one-man rule.

If Trump can consolidate authoritarian rule as quickly as some other historical dictators did, the complete (albeit hopefully temporary) end of American democracy could happen very rapidly, possibly even in the next few weeks or months. The window for action is closing fast.

But there’s still hope, because we’re still We The People. As long as our protest movement continues to grow and demand a stop to the damage Trump and Musk are doing to our democratic republic, we may be able to slow or even stop this anti-American cabal and reclaim our republic.

Our protesting in the streets and reaching out to legislators may encourage resistance within the media and courts, and might even inspire a handful of Republicans to stand against this wannabe dictator.

When democratic institutions fail, the last line of defense has always been citizens willing to take to the streets. Ukraine provides the most powerful recent example of how a determined populace can rescue democracy from Russian-inspired authoritarianism.

During Ukraine’s Euromaidan protests in 2014, over half a million people joined demonstrations in Kyiv to defend democracy against creeping authoritarianism. Those protests ultimately ended Viktor Yanukovych’s Russia-backed puppet regime (and kicked out its Russian-funded American advisor, Paul Manafort, who later became Trump’s 2016 campaign manager) and became known as the Revolution of Dignity.

Ukrainians stood firm in the streets despite violence and intimidation, and their courage changed history.

Ukraine’s later Orange Revolution similarly empowered ordinary citizens to engage in mass protests, with some lasting continously more than two weeks. This peaceful revolution successfully defended Ukraine’s democratic aspirations against Russian influence and showed the world that people power can overcome autocratic manipulation.

Putin fears democracy, particularly at his doorstep like in Ukraine and the Baltic states. He knows that democracy is contagious, and any spread near Russia, he believes, poses an existential threat to his autocratic rule. That’s why he invaded Ukraine, and that’s why he spent millions on social media trolls to support Trump’s election and his assault on our democratic institutions.

As Ukrainian historian Hanna Perekhoda warns, “If we let Russian authoritarians win, it will mean that the authoritarian forces also in our countries, in the U.S., for example, will grow stronger.”

If this assault on the Courts (and the implied intimidation of all judges including those on the Supreme Court) succeeds, and the media continues to bow down, the only thing left will be us in the streets.

The time for half-measures, “very strong letters,” and polite political disagreement has passed. We are watching in real-time as our 250-year experiment in democracy is being dismantled by a would-be dictator taking his cues from — or, at least, modeling his presidency on — Vladimir Putin.

This is not hyperbole. This is not partisan exaggeration. This is the stark reality facing our nation today. Fascism and dictatorship are at our doorstep.

Just last week, it was reported that Trump has now deported three American citizens, including a child taking cancer therapy.

Not content to just pull student visas and ask them to leave the country, Trump’s goons have been imprisoning students for writing OpEd articles for weeks. And now they’re show-arresting judges.

The arrest of Judge Dugan is not an isolated incident; it’s part a broader strategy to intimidate the judiciary and consolidate power.

When judges are arrested for upholding the principles of due process, the very foundation of democracy is at risk. This moment demands vigilance and action from all who value the rule of law.

The preservation of our democratic institutions depends on our collective response to such unprecedented challenges.

Buckle up, America. Democracy itself is on the line, and if the courts fall, we’ll be its last defenders.

NOW READ: Behind the 60-year Republican plot to destroy American democracy

---

an 1021

Intelligence expert Malcolm Nance spoke to MSNBC about the ways in which the Russian government are able to wage a war against a country without even firing a shot.

Host Maria Teresa Kumar noted that President Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans seem to have taken up the playbook of Russia and created their own propaganda machine. As a Russia propaganda expert, Nance agreed, saying that the plot Russia concocted in the early 2000s, the Gerasimov Doctrine, handed Trump and his team the plan.

Nance explained that it was a tactic Russians used where they combined an information warfare strategy where they flood a country with so much misinformation that a country would welcome an invasion without a war.

"That didn't really happen" in the United States, Nance explained. "What the Russians did in the year 2016 is they created an information bubble in which the Trump campaign was seen as friendly and then, the Trump data team took that information, including stolen information from the Democratic National Committee, and created their own information sphere. Once the Russian bubble was popped after the 2016 election, the Trump team took the ball and ran with it. The Russians barely have to do anything."

Nance explained that the Trump team and their control over conservative television stations like Fox News and OAN enabled them to indoctrinate their own followers into believing some of the most insane things ever crafted, "to the point where they view it."

He talked about a kind of radicalization that gives Trump's supporters the confidence their actions are not only patriotic but that "violence is the only solution and they're carrying out a second Lexington, a second Concord, as your other guests said, 1776 2.0."

"They think they're restoring the United States, despite the fact they are physically attacking the United States, and believe me, the way that ammunition prices went up within the last year on the public market, I think these people really believe they're going to affect the revolution at some point," said Nance.

Earlier in the conversation, Nance addressed Virginia Republican Glenn Youngkin holding up the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol as a "peaceful protest" and treatingitems used in the attack as their own kind of religious relic or a "talisman" as Nance characterized. "As if it's going to give them some connection deeper to Donald Trump."

"It all flies in the face of their own storyline, their story arc in which it was Antifa and Black Lives Matter that carried out the attack," said Nance. "Now, on some signs, we see them actually not only recognizing that they've carried out this event but, as I said in the video, a peaceful protest at the Capitol and now carrying an American flag, which took part in that. It's absolutely disgraceful that any of this is happening. But what you're seeing, it is a strategy by the Republicans and Trump play out where they're now embracing the popularism of that violence."

See his full take in the video below:

https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/propaganda-experts-blast-trump-dni-for-declassifying-unverified-anti-clinton-russian-disinformation

no lnx

Director of National Intelligence, pro-Trump former MAGA congressman John Ratcliffe, has just declassified and released what is being described as "unverified" Russian chatter and "disinformation" that suggests Hillary Clinton may have been in touch with the Russians in an attempt to help her 2016 presidential campaign.

Ratcliffe, just hours before Tuesday night's presidential debate, sent a letter to Republican Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham, who is facing his own major re-election challenge.

The letter claims in 2016 "U.S. intelligence agencies obtained insight into Russian intelligence analysis alleging that U.S. Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton had approved a campaign plan to stir up a scandal against U.S. Presidential candidate Donald Trump by tying him to Putin and the Russians; hacking of the Democratic National Committee."

The DNI's letter then clearly says the intelligence community "does not know the accuracy of this allegation or the extent to which the Russian intelligence analysis may reflect fabrication."

The Director of National Intelligence heads all 17 U.S. intel agencies and offices.

(Ratcliffe's installation as Director of National Intelligence was, according to some, illegal. Congress passed a law requiring the DNI to have prior "extensive national security expertise," which Ratcliffe, like his two predecessors, lacks.)

It took the President's son, Donald Trump Jr., no time to try to weaponize it:

OMG??????JUST DECLASSIFIED: The Russia hoax was Hillary’s plan, and the Obama-Biden White House was briefed on it. https://t.co/ytquclKKg1

— Donald Trump Jr. (@Donald Trump Jr.)1601407501.0

Intelligence experts and reporters are furious that Ratcliffe would declassify and release what they see as unverified Russian propaganda.

Intelligence analyst Eric Garland:

THE RATCLIFFE DOSSIER: Unverified, except obvious propaganda, no tradecraft, and less pee-pee. https://t.co/qLI2fk2lhA

— Eric Garland (@Eric Garland)1601407092.0

CNN national security reporter Jeremy Herb:

The latest declassification from Ratcliffe to Senate GOP: Russian intelligence that the Clinton campaign planned to… https://t.co/Vm55rnROmJ

— Jeremy Herb (@Jeremy Herb)1601406864.0

U.S. intel and terrorism expert Malcolm Nance:

Trump crony Ratcliffe sends a letter declassifying Russian intel report. It’s full of statements intended to look l… https://t.co/QRJRV9YWFq

— Malcolm Nance (@Malcolm Nance)1601407085.0

Politico Congressional reporter Andrew Desiderio:

To recap: The country’s top intelligence official just declassified a Russian intel assessment that he acknowledges… https://t.co/wpdJHhcEQF

— Andrew Desiderio (@Andrew Desiderio)1601405922.0

Democratic strategist Adam Parkhomenko:

Even for Ratcliffe, this is shocking. https://t.co/DDlGSg3sTy

— Adam Parkhomenko (@Adam Parkhomenko)1601406638.0

Former U.S. intelligence officer, current NBC News national security and intelligence analyst Ned Price:

This is less about tonight and more about tomorrow, when Comey will appear before Graham's Committee. Ratcliffe is… https://t.co/NmewLaUnPh

— Ned Price (@Ned Price)1601407273.0

3 bks sim title

plot to betray am

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frR1No8gGZQ

commwealth club 11/19

https://www.thedailybeast.com/jack-posobiec-pizzagate-and-seth-rich-conspiracy-theorist-has-top-secret-security-clearance

no lnx pix twt

Jack Posobiec, Pizzagate and Seth Rich Conspiracy Theorist, Has Top Secret Security Clearance

WAIT, WHAT?!

Members of the intelligence community want the Navy to ‘explain how the f*ck he still has access to classified information.’

James LaPorta

Updated Aug. 17, 2017 9:14AM ET / Published Aug. 16, 2017 8:05PM ET

Jack Posobiec is one of the right’s leading agitators and conspiracy theorists.

He implied there may be a child-sex ring under a D.C. pizza joint run by Democrats. He peddled rumors about the murder of former DNC staffer Seth Rich. He interrupted a supposedly anti-Trump Julius Caesar play, yelling “you are all Goebbels.” He popularized a WikiLeaks campaign against a French presidential candidate. He even tried to sabotage a D.C. protest by holding up a sign that said, “Rape Melania.”

Posobiec did all of this, and more, as a U.S. Navy intelligence officer, apparently while he had one of the military’s highest security clearances. How can a person with a record of spreading disinformation for political reasons be allowed access to raw intelligence?

Posobiec told The Daily Beast his security clearance was put on temporary hold in February while he was in between units and after concerns were raised by his former commanding officer over his Twitter account.

“They told me it was under review, but they didn’t really explain to me what exactly it was for, but my security clearance is only on a temporary hold, it was not suspended by DoNCAF,” Posobiec said, referring to the Department of the Navy Central Adjudication Facility that is responsible for investigating and determining who within the Department of the Navy is eligible to hold a security clearance.

“Yes, I can confirm his clearance was suspended. I don’t have any additional information as to why,” a Navy spokesperson told The Daily Beast following an NBC News report about the suspension.

Though he’s now a reservist, Posobiec maintained one of the highest clearances, known as Top Secret, Secret Compartmentalized Information.

“A clearance holder who has a full-time job in a non-Governmental capacity is still bound by the rules and restrictions that come with holding a security clearance,” national security attorney Brad Moss told The Daily Beast. “Mr. Posobiec cannot ‘turn on’ and ‘turn off’ his obligation to the U.S. Government, even as a Reservist.”

That obligation would include not promoting #MacronLeaks, the Wikileaks-led effort to release 20,000 emails from the presidential campaign of Emmanuel Macron before the French election, Moss said.

“As a matter of policy, clearance holders are not supposed to be accessing WikiLeaks or particularly viewing leaked classified documentation to which they were not otherwise already authorized access,” he said.

Posobiec says he currently serves in an administrative role and does not have regular access to classified material.

“I think [Moss] is completely off-base [regarding his security clearance and WikiLeaks] because I have never once mishandled classified information, I’ve never once tweeted out classified information, I’ve never linked to classified information, I’ve never done anything on duty with classified information that would be seen as mishandling it in any way.”

[RELATED IN POLITICS

Fox News Thought Their Seth Rich Fiasco Would Be Vindicated

The Party of Lincoln Belongs to QAnon Now. Thanks, Donald!]

Posobiec’s military unit, the Joint Reserve Intelligence Support Element Dekalb did not respond to a request for comment.

Posobiec learned about the forthcoming email dump before it was promoted by WikiLeaks when he was the Washington bureau chief for a right-wing Canadian outlet called The Rebel.

Posobiec tweeted links to WikiLeaks on at least three separate occasions, along with screenshots of being on the site from his web browser on his verified Twitter account—an apparent violation of Defense Department policy for members of the U.S. Armed Forces that came in the wake of the Chelsea Manning leaks.

Malcolm Nance, a retired Navy senior chief petty officer and former member of the U.S. intelligence community, said Posobiec “and people like him are a danger because these people are literally a fifth column for Russian intelligence. They have weaponized their contributions and conspiracy theories in the culture war.

“How he can hold a Top Secret clearance working actively in the intelligence community as a known factor in the information operations of the alt-right, which is essentially a war on media reality itself, shows that he quite possibly is one of the greatest security dangers to whatever organization he’s working on.”

More bluntly, Nance called Posobiec a “disgrace to the uniform” and said he wants the Navy to “explain how the fuck he still has access to classified information.”

Posobiec reacted to Nance’s comments by saying people who call his security clearance and service into question are “xenophobic racists.” Posobiec said Nance was referring to his fiancée, who was born in the former Soviet Union.

“It’s disgusting and offensive that he would say something like that about a fellow Navy veteran. There are many people in the military who have wives that are not born in this country and no one is calling their service into question,” Posobiec said, adding he properly reported his fiancee to his chain of command because she is a foreign national.

From Pizzagate to Presidential Retweet

On Nov. 16, 2016, Posobiec, livestreamed a visit to Comet Ping Pong, a pizzeria in Washington, D.C., that right-wing conspiracy theorists claimed housed a child sex-slave ring underground.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen to me,” he said, adding he would do a quick “IPOE,” which stands for “intelligence preparation of the operational environment.”

Posobiec had his friend pre-dial the first two numbers of 911, saying, “He’s ready to dial the last 1.”

Posobiec was kicked out by management for livestreaming and could be overheard saying they received death threats and that Posobiec was spreading false rumors. Posobiec would later ask for “sub-sources” to go in with hidden cameras. He told The Daily Beast that this call for sub-sources was to provide further confirmation that Comet Ping Pong was not engaging in anything nefarious.

In January, Posobiec was caught holding up a sign at an anti-Trump protest that said, “Rape Melania.” Posobiec told The Daily Beast the Secret Service “debunked” this, but the Secret Service did not respond to a request for comment.

Not long after, Posobiec used a one-day White House press credential to ask President Trump about the conspiracy theory that Seth Rich leaked DNC emails to Wikileaks. (Fox News and a local Fox affiliate released a now-retracted report claiming Rich “had contact with WikiLeaks prior to his death.”) Trump ignored Posobiec’s question.

Posobiec has since said he does not believe in the conspiracy theory surrounding Rich and believes he was the unfortunate victim of a crime wave in Washington, D.C.

This past weekend, Posobiec promoted a report from GotNews.com that falsely accused a Michigan man of being the driver of the vehicle that plowed into protesters in Charlottesville, killing Heather Heyer.

“Literally, I was trying to find out about the car crash, who did it and that [the GotNews.com article] was the first article I saw and I accidentally hit the retweet button,” Posobiec told The Daily Beast. “I immediately took it down, once I realized I did, but to say that I helped frame an innocent man is posterous.”

Despite being associated with the so-called “alt-right,” Posobiec said he was invited to speak in Charlottesville but he didn’t return the request.

“I’m not associated with them. They’re white nationalist scum and I condemn their objectives.”

On Monday night, Posobiec’s whataboutism tweet about murders in Chicago was retweeted by Trump and more than 26,000 other accounts.

“Like all good white supremacy conspiracy theorists, the reality of his damage to the naval service and the nation is always an attack on his race,” Nance said. “His very words are reason to remove his clearance and demand he resign his commission. Send him back to the fever swamp of Pepe the frogs.”

—with additional reporting by Ben Collins