STONE 2

<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">see KGB</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>SEE THREE friends of </b>7 22
</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;collusion</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">see bak 1119</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2 baks 621 = THREE?</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">dutch film crew saw him flee 1/6 b/c of garland doj fear/"dislike"</font></p><div style="font-size: small;"><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jan 6 #7
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">kelly sorelle ID'd jones, ali and roger as --> convergence of diff (militia?) groups
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div style="font-size: medium;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style="font-size: medium;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/these-christians-are-pushing-back-against-roger-stone-and-michael-flynns-toxic-maga-fundamentalism/">https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/these-christians-are-pushing-back-against-roger-stone-and-michael-flynns-toxic-maga-fundamentalism/</a></font></div><div style="font-size: medium;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-size: medium;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div style=""><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: medium;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: medium;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/04/proof-congressional-republicans-subvert-election/">https://www.alternet.org/2022/04/proof-congressional-republicans-subvert-election/</a></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: medium;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: medium;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>a&nbsp;recording made by a disgruntled election conspiracist is the strongest evidence yet that operatives in Donald Trump’s orbit summoned supporters to Washington on January 6 for the express purpose of coercing lawmakers into overturning the 2020 election.</b></font></div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: medium;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">News broke late Tuesday afternoon, whereupon this&nbsp;<a href="https://nyti.ms/3jBVarO" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">bombshell</a>&nbsp;of a story was promptly buried under an avalanche of other news.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: medium;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The main characters aren’t household names, but this story is every bit as important as the earlier revelation that Donald Trump, Jr, was pushing a detailed&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/08/politics/donald-trump-jr-meadows-text/index.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">plan for a coup</a>&nbsp;to his father’s chief of staff before the election had even been decided.&nbsp;<b>And it’s even more important than the late-breaking news tha<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">t Sen. Mike Lee talked up Trump lawyer John Eastman’s plan for&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/15/politics/read-mark-meadows-texts-mike-lee-chip-roy/index.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">a procedural coup</a>&nbsp;in late November.</span></b></font></p><p style="font-size: medium;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 102, 0);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">The star of the secret recording is Jason Sullivan, one-time aide to dirty trickster and longtime Trump confidante Roger Stone.</font></p><p style="font-size: medium;"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Sullivan told the&nbsp;</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Times</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;he was invited to speak by a group of anti-vaccine activists, who were planning a permitted event in the capital on J6.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> (By amazing coincidence, Stone was scheduled to speak at an&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/CCDHate/status/1346894921467363332?s=20&t=3KrNB5xzrAznUD_IoTbpBw" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">anti-vax event</a>&nbsp;on the afternoon of J6, an engagement he missed, for reasons that are surely of great interest to the J6 committee.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">)</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: medium;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The call was made a week before the insurrection.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: medium;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Sullivan repeatedly urged the other callers to intimidate the lawmakers who were meeting to certify the election. He told them they needed to make them feel like the people were “breathing down their neck.”</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: medium;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“If we make the people inside that building sweat and they understand that they may not be able to walk in the streets any longer if they do the wrong thing, then maybe they’ll do the right thing,” Sullivan said.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: medium;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“We have to put that pressure there.”</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: medium;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This recording was made by a woman named Staci Burk, a former school board official turned election conspiracist. Burk filed an anonymous affidavit supporting one of Trump lawyer Sidney Powell’s many election conspiracy theories. Whereupon heavily armed paramilitary operatives calling themselves the&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">1st Amendment Praetorian (1AP)</span>&nbsp;<a href="https://arizonaagenda.substack.com/p/she-spread-election-conspiracies?s=r" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">moved into her home</a>&nbsp;for several weeks, ostensibly to guard her. Burk told the&nbsp;<em>Times</em>&nbsp;a 1AP member joined the call, and she made the recording because the armed men were making her feel unsafe. Members of 1AP were in the capital during the insurrection and members of the group have been subpoenaed by the J6 committee.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: medium;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>This recording partially corroborates previous claims by Ali Alexander, another one of Roger Stone’s associates. He said he schemed with members of the Congress to gather a crowd to pressure lawmakers into overturning the election during the certification ceremony.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: medium;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a video made before the insurrection, Ali Alexander claimed that he and US Reps. Mo Brooks, Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar “schemed up putting maximum pressure on Congress while they were voting.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: medium;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The video circulated on social media but was later deleted. The plan was to “change the hearts and the minds of Republicans who were in that body, hearing our loud roar from outside,” Ali Alexander said.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: medium;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Sullivan call proves there was an inside-outside game on J6.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: medium;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The inside game was the procedural coup devised by John Eastman that was unfolding inside the Capitol on J6 as GOP legislators raised spurious claims of election fraud to overturn a free and fair election.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: medium;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The outside game was the mob deliberately assembled in order to pressure legislators to go along with Trump’s illegal scheme.</font></p><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: medium;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: medium;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div style="font-size: medium;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style="font-size: medium;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">3 22 an doozy plan</font></div><div style="font-size: medium;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/03/roger-stone-install-donald-trump/">https://www.alternet.org/2022/03/roger-stone-install-donald-trump/</a></font></div><div style="font-size: medium;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/03/donald-trump-john-eastman-crimes/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">https://www.alternet.org/2022/03/donald-trump-john-eastman-crimes/</a></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">roger knew</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">trms jamie said judge asked 1/6 comm to weigh in on crimes b/c has to decide if eastman has atty -cli priv, but crime negates</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/10/20/bann-o20.html">https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/10/20/bann-o20.html</a></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">TRUMP COUP?!</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In addition, many of the documents requested by the committee have nothing to do with Bannon’s interactions with Trump. They concern rather Bannon’s interactions with forces that assisted, organized and participated in the coup.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">These include the “Women for America First” political group, which organized the fascist rally outside the White House on January 6; Republican strategist, attorney and frequent guest on Bannon’s podcast Boris Epshteyn; members of the group who attended the January 5 <b>planning meeting at the Willard Hotel (including Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Roger Stone and Trump campaign spokesman Jason Miller)</b>; and other Trump officials, such as Kash Patel, former chief-of-staff to acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller, and Ezra Cohen-Watnick, another Trump loyalist who was appointed to a high-level position in the Department of Defense following the firing of Defense Secretary Mark Esper after Trump’s electoral defeat.</font></font></font></font></font></font></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/06/roger-stone/">https://www.alternet.org/2021/06/roger-stone/</a></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1/6 charges?</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/04/roger-stone-2652623444">https://www.alternet.org/2021/04/roger-stone-2652623444</a></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></font></div><div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A super PAC allied with infamous right-wing dirty trickster and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rawstory.com/2020/02/this-is-not-how-words-work-trump-after-ranting-that-roger-stone-will-be-exonerated/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">convicted felon Roger Stone</a>&nbsp;is threatening to torpedo Republicans' Senate majority if they don't help&nbsp;<a href="http://rawstory.com/2020/11/trump-vows-he-will-never-concede-in-11-pm-conspiracy-filled-rant/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">President Donald Trump steal the 2020 presidential election</a>.</font></font></font></p></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">stone wanted $250K to get him a pardon?</font></font></font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">an 421, also another</font></font></font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></font></font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no twt many</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div>
</div><div>Widespread outrage ensues over Joel Greenberg's confession letter: 'How is Matt Gaetz still in Congress?'</div><div>[U.S. Congressman Matt Gaetz speaking with supporters at an "<b>An Address to Young Americans</b>" event, featuring President Donald Trump, hosted by Students for Trump and Turning Point Action at Dream City Church in Phoenix, Arizona.]</div><div>
</div><div>Bob Brigham and Raw Story April 30, 2021</div><div>&nbsp; &nbsp;</div><div>Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) was buried in scorn and mockery following a bombshell report published by The Daily Beast on Thursday evening.</div><div>
</div><div>"A confession letter written by Joel Greenberg in the final months of the Trump presidency claims that he and close associate Rep. Matt Gaetz paid for sex with multiple women—as well as a girl who was 17 at the time," The Daily Beast reported Thursday evening.</div><div>
</div><div>A copy of the confession letter was obtained by The Beast.</div><div>
</div><div>"On more than one occasion, this individual was involved in sexual activities with several of the other girls, the congressman from Florida's 1st Congressional District and myself," Greenberg wrote in reference to the 17-year-old. "From time to time, gas money or gifts, rent or partial tuition payments were made to several of these girls, including the individual who was not yet 18. I did see the acts occur firsthand and Venmo transactions, Cash App or other payments were made to these girls on behalf of the Congressman."</div><div>
</div><div><b>And Roger Stone also made an appearance in the story.</b></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">"In late 2020, Greenberg was out of jail and in communication with Stone. A series of private messages between the two—also recently obtained by The Daily Beast—shows a number of exchanges between Greenberg and Stone conducted over the encrypted messaging app Signal, with communications set to disappear. However, Greenberg appears to have taken screenshots of a number of their conversations," The Beast reported.</span></div><div>
</div><div>On Twitter, Gaetz was roasted. Here's some of what people were saying:</div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/04/roger-stone-2652623444">https://www.alternet.org/2021/04/roger-stone-2652623444</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">not really tracking him in stop the steal tho ali akbar his creation</font></p><h1 class="widgetheadline h1" style="margin: 25px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 1em; font-family: Helvetica; color: rgb(31, 31, 31); cursor: pointer; overflow-wrap: break-word; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a class="widgetheadline-text custom-post-headline" href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/georgia-senate-2649028790/" aria-label="Roger Stone-allied super PAC threatens to torpedo Senate GOP in Georgia if they don’t save Trump" data-type="text" style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; font-family: " open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" word-break="word-break" break-word="break-word" overflow-wrap="overflow-wrap" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height">Stone-allied super PAC threatens to torpedo Senate GOP in Georgia if they don’t save Trump</a></h1><div class="social-author clearfix" style="margin-top: 10px; color: rgb(31, 31, 31); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 17.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a class="social-authorname" href="https://www.alternet.org/author/brad-reed" data-type="text" style="color: rgb(31, 31, 31); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; overflow-wrap: break-word; font-size: 12px; line-height: 1.4; display: inline; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap; position: relative; font-family: Cabin, sans-serif;">Brad Reed</a>&nbsp;<a class="social-authorname" href="https://www.alternet.org/author/raw-story" data-type="text" style="color: rgb(31, 31, 31); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; overflow-wrap: break-word; font-size: 12px; line-height: 1.4; display: inline; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap; position: relative; font-family: Cabin, sans-serif;">Raw Story</a></div><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body css-listicle-body-2649028790" style="margin-top: 10px; -webkit-box-orient: vertical; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 15px; display: -webkit-box; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); text-overflow: ellipsis; line-height: 23px; -webkit-line-clamp: 3; font-family: Cabin, sans-serif; overflow: hidden; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="body-description" style=""><p style="">A super PAC allied with infamous right-wing dirty trickster and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rawstory.com/2020/02/this-is-not-how-words-work-trump-after-ranting-that-roger-stone-will-be-exonerated/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">convicted felon Roger Stone</a>&nbsp;is threatening to torpedo Republicans' Senate majority if they don't help&nbsp;<a href="http://rawstory.com/2020/11/trump-vows-he-will-never-concede-in-11-pm-conspiracy-filled-rant/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; overflow-wrap: break-word;">President Donald Trump steal the 2020 presidential election</a>.</p></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1120</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/less-redacted-mueller-report-released-on-eve-of-election-day-reveals-more-about-the-dnc-hacks-investigation/">https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/less-redacted-mueller-report-released-on-eve-of-election-day-reveals-more-about-the-dnc-hacks-investigation/</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx twt</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>'Mind-blowing' passages released from unsealed Mueller report on eve of Election Day</b></font></div><div>
</div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Meaghan Ellis November 03, 2020</font></div><div><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp; &nbsp;</font></div><div><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">A newly-released and less-redacted version of Robert Mueller's investigation into the Democratic National Convention (DNC) server hack revealed details about prosecutors' investigation into Julian Assange, WikiLeaks, President Donald Trump's close advisor, Roger Stone, and the decision not to charge them for their involvement.</font></div><div><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Based on the report, although it was confirmed that WikiLeaks leaked the stolen DNC emails back in July and October 2016, and that Stone appeared to have sufficient knowledge of the impending leak prior to the emails going public, "investigators 'did not have sufficient evidence' to prove active participation in the hacks or knowledge that the electronic thefts were continuing," according to Buzzfeed News.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The report also suggested there was no way to indicate that the hack was beneficial for Trump's first presidential campaign.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">"In addition, federal prosecutors could not establish that the hacked emails amounted to campaign contributions benefitting Trump's election chances and furthermore felt their publication might have been protected by the First Amendment, making a successful prosecution tenuous."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Many have taken to Twitter with their reactions to the new release while criticizing U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr for suppressing politically damaging information that could have impacted Trump's presidential campaign.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The president's previous written testimony also appears to clash with the unsealed evidence in the Mueller report. In his written responses, Trump claimed he "could not recall discussing WikiLeaks with Mr. Stone."</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Buzzfeed also offered a side-by-side comparison of both reports to show the distinct differences between the two. In many cases, full passages were suppressed from the previously released version of the report.</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">wi scotus, roger coup</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/the-gop-is-staging-chaos-on-the-way-to-a-coup/">https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/the-gop-is-staging-chaos-on-the-way-to-a-coup/</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">d a wamo</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Two news stories story that almost speak for themselves without the need for commentary.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>First, the 4-3 conservative majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court has made a&nbsp;<a title="bizarre, nonsensical ruling" href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/09/wisconsin-supreme-court-absentee-ballots-green-party.html?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4" target="blank" rel="external nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">bizarre, nonsensical ruling</a>&nbsp;that will throw Wisconsin’s entire election into disarray for no good reason.</b></font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; position: relative; line-height: 1.7; overflow: hidden; background: rgb(245, 245, 245); border: none !important;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.7;"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Then the Wisconsin Supreme Court stepped in. On Thursday afternoon, by a 4–3 vote divided along partisan lines, the court issued a strange, cryptic&nbsp;<a title="order" href="https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/7205779/Hawkins-v-WEC-order.pdf" target="blank" rel="external nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">order</a>&nbsp;that could throw the election into chaos. The conservative majority directed the Wisconsin Elections Commission to turn over a massive amount of information it did not actually have. These justices then halted the mailing of more absentee ballots while they consider nullifying every ballot that has been printed or mailed and forcing the state to start over. Their stunning eleventh-hour intervention could force election officials into an impossible position: either comply with the court’s order or violate both state and federal law.</font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Essentially, the Green Party failed to submit proper documents in Wisconsin. They refused to state reasons, or to seek redress in a timely manner. Then they asked the state at the last minute to place the Green Party on the ballot, anyway, despite the fact that hundreds of thousands of ballots had&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">already</em>&nbsp;gone out to voters.</font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; position: relative; line-height: 1.7; overflow: hidden; background: rgb(245, 245, 245); border: none !important;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.7;"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>A responsible court would have rejected this challenge for two reasons: Hawkins and Walker waited an unreasonably long time to bring it, and it has no plausible legal basis. </b>But instead of dismissing the case, the&nbsp;<a title="infamously irresponsible" href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/05/wisconsin-supreme-court-strikes-down-stay-at-home-order.html" target="blank" rel="external nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">infamously irresponsible</a>&nbsp;court ordered the commission to reveal who has requested absentee ballots, who has been mailed a ballot already, and when these ballots were mailed. It also demanded to know&nbsp;<span style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">who</span>&nbsp;requested the ballots to be printed, implying the existence of some conspiracy to rush them out. In the meantime, the conservative majority effectively shut down the state’s election machinery, suspending the printing of more absentee ballots. Its order suggests that four justices are seriously considering a decision in favor of the Green Party.<b> Such a ruling would compel the state to throw out every existing ballot and begin the entire, grueling, monthslong process anew.</b></font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">There is no plausible rationale for the decision, and no way to implement it in a manner that won’t throw the election into chaos. The Wisconsin Supreme Court was made very well aware of this, and the conservative Koch-purchased majority choose this course of action, anyway. Nor was the cynical Green Party&nbsp;<a title="acting alone" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/wisconsin-ballot-green-party/2020/09/11/797aa4d2-f44a-11ea-bc45-e5d48ab44b9f_story.html" target="blank" rel="external nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">acting alone</a>:</font></p><div class="alt_ad_block true_ad_free story-page-in-content-graph-4" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="alt_ad_msg" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 10px; background: rgb(234, 234, 234);"><div class="header" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 5px 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;">AD REMOVED FOR SUBSCRIBED USER</div></div></div><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; position: relative; line-height: 1.7; overflow: hidden; background: rgb(245, 245, 245); border: none !important;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.7;"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hawkins suggested in an interview that Trump supporters had helped the Green Party ticket with its legal claim before the state Supreme Court. The party’s petition was filed by attorneys from the <b>Milwaukee-based von Briesen & Roper law firm, which has a history of representing Wisconsin Republicans.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.7;"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman">“You get help where you can find it,” Hawkins told The Washington Post when asked whether Republicans had financed the legal action. “They have their reasons and we have ours.”</font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">If the presidential election is at all close, everything may hinge on the outcome in Wisconsin. And if Wisconsin is beset by legal challenges from thousands of voters casting legally received ballots prior to a court order demanding that&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">different</em>&nbsp;ballots be sent, even if those ballots go out later than the legally mandated deadline, you have a recipe for a chaos of litigation that will ultimately only be resolved by Justice Roberts of the Supreme Court.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Meanwhile, Donald Trump’s pardoned felonious close advisor and Russia-Wikileaks conduit <b>Roger Stone just told Alex Jones that Trump&nbsp;<a title="should seize total power in a coup" href="https://www.mediamatters.org/roger-stone/roger-stone-calls-trump-seize-total-power-if-he-loses-election" target="blank" rel="external nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">should seize total power in a coup</a>&nbsp;should he lose the election:</b></font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; position: relative; line-height: 1.7; overflow: hidden; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: none !important;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.7;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Roger Stone is making baseless accusations of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election and is urging Donald Trump to consider several draconian measures to stay in power, including having federal authorities seize ballots in Nevada, having FBI agents and Republican state officials “physically” block voting under the pretext of preventing voter fraud, using martial law or the Insurrection Act to carry out widespread arrests, and nationalizing state police forces.</font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We know that Trump listens to Stone as the closest person he still has in his orbit to&nbsp;<a title="his beloved Roy Cohn" href="https://www.npr.org/2018/01/07/576209428/president-trump-called-for-roy-cohn-but-roy-cohn-was-gone" target="blank" rel="external nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">his beloved Roy Cohn</a>, and cares enough about him to have sprung him out of jail. And he’s recommending this course of action:</font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; position: relative; line-height: 1.7; overflow: hidden; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: none !important;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.7;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Beyond Nevada, Stone recommended that Trump consider several actions to retain his power. Stone recommended that Trump appoint former Rep. Bob Barr (R-GA) as a special counsel “with the specific task of forming an Election Day operation using the FBI, federal marshals, and Republican state officials across the country to be prepared to file legal objections and if necessary to physically stand in the way of criminal activity.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.7;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Stone also urged Trump to consider declaring “martial law” or invoking&nbsp;<a title="the Insurrection Act" href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/insurrection-act.html" target="blank" rel="external nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">the Insurrection Act</a>&nbsp;and then using his powers to arrest Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Apple CEO Tim Cook, “the Clintons” and “anybody else who can be proven to be involved in illegal activity.”</b></font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Even if Trump doesn’t actively take any of these measures–and there is a&nbsp;<a title="great deal of evidence that he might" href="https://washingtonmonthly.com/2020/07/18/expect-trump-to-use-dhs-stormtroopers-to-stop-people-from-voting-and-plan-accordingly/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">great deal of evidence that he might</a>–right-wing groups may well take some of these matters into their own hands.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The context for all of this upheaval is that conservatives know they have lost the argument and the culture. The nation’s greatest problems, from police racism to inequality to climate change to the pandemic itself, simply do not lend themselves to conservative “solutions.” Conservatism itself would have to change to adapt to the moment, and it is unwilling to do so.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Meanwhile, the Right is losing the culture wars, evangelicals are declining as a percentage of the population, and older social conservatives are aging out of the electorate, replaced by young progressives</b>. White supremacists know that whites are declining as a percentage of the population, Black Lives Matter is broadly popular, and the country is also slowly coming to grips with some of the consequences of toxic masculinity. Universal healthcare, taxing the rich and even previously radical solutions like an income floor funded by taxes on Wall Street speculation are increasingly mainstream.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">And finally, they know that the consequence of McConnell’s brinksmanship and Trump’s norm destruction is that Democrats are increasingly unafraid to actually wield power and govern in a way that finally maximizes majoritarian power: eliminating the filibuster, adding states to the union, bypassing the Electoral College, changing the composition and size of the courts, enacting broad voter rights and gerrymandering reforms, and much else. If they do, the conservative movement as it currently exists may not be able to hold national power again–not because the Democrats staged a coup, but rather because they simply undercut the apartheid structures that prevented the voice of the majority from being heard and implemented into law.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The conservative response to all this is to create as much chaos as possible, with a view toward seizing power in a coup–thereby short-circuiting the consequences of failing to secure the legitimacy of popular will.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Republican Party has become the Chaos Party. And it will take all citizen hands on deck to resist them, overwhelm them at the ballot box, and move the country forward in a stable and more progressive direction.</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/gop-operative-says-hes-building-system-to-dispatch-protesters-where-ballots-are-counted/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/gop-operative-says-hes-building-system-to-dispatch-protesters-where-ballots-are-counted/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>r<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">epublican political operative&nbsp;Ali Alexander, who previously went by the name ​</span><a href="https://www.dailydot.com/debug/ali-alexander-kamala-harris/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Ali Akbar</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, is floating the possibility of revamping a 2018 effort to discredit mail-in and absentee voting ahead of the 2020 presidential election.</span></b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</span></font></div><div class="mce-content-body" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"><div class="layout-constrain--narrow" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-width: 47.2222em; padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em; line-height: 1.5;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">​According to a 2018&nbsp;<a title="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/10/29/trump-cernovich-milo-yiannopoulos-richard-spencer-alt-right-2018-221916" href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/10/29/trump-cernovich-milo-yiannopoulos-richard-spencer-alt-right-2018-221916" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Politico report</a>, the night before the 2016 election, ​a PAC advised by Alexander received a&nbsp;<b>$60,000 donation from hedge-fund billionaire Robert Mercer</b>​, the pro-Trump billionaire. Alexander has associated with far-right figures including<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/new-right-activists-pivot-backwards-share-laughs-with-unite-the-right-demonstrator/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">&nbsp;Unite the Right white supremacist attendee Matt Colligan</a>, and made a habit of noting when members of the media he criticizes are Jewish,&nbsp;​<a title="https://observer.com/2018/10/robert-mercer-bankrolled-pac-ali-alexander/" href="https://observer.com/2018/10/robert-mercer-bankrolled-pac-ali-alexander/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">according to</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://observer.com/2018/10/robert-mercer-bankrolled-pac-ali-alexander/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">The Observer.</a></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">In a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.pscp.tv/AliScopes/1rmxPYNWWoVKN" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Periscope broadcast</a>&nbsp;uploaded Monday—viewed 51,000 times as of Friday morning​—Alexander claimed he planned to revamp a November 2018 effort called “Stop the Steal” and create a digital text-messaging database ​that would dispatch supporters of President Donald Trump to places where ballots are being counted​ as well as ​the offices of state ​election officials around the country if their “physical presence is needed.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">” Alexander emphasized that his intention is that the protests would be peaceful and ​suggested that anyone who ​attend​s such protests with intentions of being violent would not be​ considered part of his cause.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">“In the next coming days, we’re going to build the infrastructure to stop the steal,” Alexander said. “What we are going to do is we’re going to bypass all of social media. In the coming days, we will launch an effort concentrating on the swing states, and we will map out where the votes are being counted and the secretary of states. We will map all of this out for everyone publicly and we will collect cell phone numbers so that way if you are within 100 mile radius of a bad secretary of state or someone who’s counting votes after the deadline or if there’s a federal court hearing, we will alert you of where to go.&nbsp;<b>We’re going to bypass all of Twitter, all of Facebook, all of Instagram, OK? We’re going to bypass it all.”</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“We will camp out if we need to​,” Alexander added. ​”We will have tents. We will have water. We will have electrolytes. We will have vitamin D, C, and A. We will have&nbsp;<b>zinc.</b>&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">We will have sandwiches. We will have everything so that patriots can oversee the supposed people in our republic who are tasked with counting our votes, not making it. Counting our votes, not making new votes.”</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Right Wing Watch attempted to reach Alexander by text message and Twitter direct message for comment on this story and in hopes Alexander would produce proof that his claimed database was being built. (Alexander has a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/right-wing-activist-puts-a-price-on-disinformation/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">history of making dubious claims</a>.) We did not receive a response prior to publication.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">One America News Network personality and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.splcenter.org/splc-investigation-far-right-oann-anchor-jack-posobiecs-rise-tied-white-supremacist-movement" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">far-right collaborator</a>&nbsp;Jack Posobiec, who operates in the same digital space as Alexander,&nbsp;<a href="https://archive.is/mNYyb" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">tweeted</a>&nbsp;Monday: “#StopTheSteal 2020 is coming…”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Right Wing Watch&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/roger-stone-is-scheming-another-brooks-brothers-riot-in-florida/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">reported in 2018</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">&nbsp;​about&nbsp;an effort orchestrated against a ballot recount in the Florida race&nbsp;​for U.S. Senate&nbsp;between Republican Rick Scott and Democrat Bill Nelson by associates of GOP operative and self-described “</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-stone/trump-adviser-roger-stone-self-proclaimed-dirty-trickster-guilty-on-all-charges-idUSKBN1XP1VT" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">dirty trickster</a>” Roger Stone.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;In a burst of protests reminiscent of the chaos during the 2000 presidential election recount in Florida, pro-Trump activists from around the country descended into Florida to protest and spread disinformation alleging that recount procedures were part of a Democratic plot to commit voter fraud. That election ultimately triggered&nbsp;<a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/417294-scott-defeats-nelson-in-florida-senate-race-after-bitter-recount-fight" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">two recounts and a wave of legal battles</a>; Scott narrowly defeated Nelson by a fraction of a percent.&nbsp;<b>In 2018, Alexander&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/roger-stone-is-scheming-another-brooks-brothers-riot-in-florida/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">said</a>&nbsp;he was recruiting people experiencing homelessness and ​followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory to fill spots at protests.</b></span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">In this week’s broadcast, Alexander claimed that the election is being&nbsp;<b>“raped and raided”</b>&nbsp;by Democrats​, and accused Republican leaders and pro-Trump voices ​of sitting idle.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">“I’m watching a bunch of grifters, MAGA grifters, pretend like they’re going to stop the steal. Are they going to stop the steal?” Alexander said. “What are these grifters doing online, tweeting, to stop the steal? What have they done in the past? Not a damn thing.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Alexander said his announcements were spurred by comments Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg&nbsp;<a href="https://www.axios.com/zuckerberg-facebook-election-axios-on-hbo-c719ad86-8ab8-43d6-a491-620dc16a3a3d.html" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">made to Axios</a>&nbsp;about his platform’s policies to deter political candidates from declaring a premature election victory</b>. Zuckerberg said that Americans may not know who the next president will be on election night, a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2020/be-patient-on-election-night-2020-counting-the-returns-will-take-time/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">likely scenario</a>&nbsp;due to expected increases in mail-in and absentee voting due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and that Facebook would try to moderate against the organizing of civil unrest on its platform.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">“One of the things that I think we and other media need to start doing is preparing the American people that&nbsp;<b>there’s nothing illegitimate about this election taking additional days, or even weeks to make sure that all of the votes are counted,” Zuckerberg told Axios</b>. “In fact, that might be important to make sure that this is a legitimate and fair election.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The new Facebook&nbsp;<a href="https://about.fb.com/news/2020/09/additional-steps-to-protect-the-us-elections/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">policy statement</a>&nbsp;includes the following measure: “If any candidate or campaign tries to declare victory before the final results are in, we’ll add a label to their posts directing people to the official results from Reuters and the National Election Pool</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.”</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;It also states that Facebook will label content “that seeks to delegitimize the outcome of the election or discuss the legitimacy of voting methods, for example, by claiming that lawful methods of voting will lead to fraud.”</span></font></p><div class="at-below-post addthis_tool" data-url="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/gop-operative-says-hes-building-system-to-dispatch-protesters-where-ballots-are-counted/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; line-height: 1.5;"><div class="layout-constrain--narrow" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-width: 47.2222em; padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em;"><div class="tags" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; border-top: 5px solid rgb(239, 243, 243); margin-bottom: 2em; padding-top: 1em;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; font-weight: 700;">Tags:</span>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/ali-akbar/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Ali Akbar</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/topics/election-2020/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Election 2020</a></font></p></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/hhs-official-who-manipulated-cdc-reports-on-19-has-deep-russian-ties-report/">https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/hhs-official-who-manipulated-cdc-reports-on-19-has-deep-russian-ties-report/</a></font></div><div style=""><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">During Trump’s impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate, Trump denounced the impeachment as “phony” — and he was also highly critical of the Russia investigation.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wkbw.com/news/local-news/caputo-reacts-to-mueller-report-all-the-haters-can-go-to-hell" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Mueller report</a>&nbsp;says of Caputo, “In the spring of 2016, Trump campaign advisor Michael Caputo learned through a Florida-based Russian business partner that another Florida-based Russian, Henry Oknyansky — who also went by the name Henry Greenberg — claimed to have information pertaining to Hilary Clinton. Caputo notified Roger Stone and brokered communication between Stone and Oknyansky. Oknyansky and Stone set up a May 2016 in-person meeting.”</font></span></p></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.wkbw.com/news/local-news/caputo-reacts-to-mueller-report-all-the-haters-can-go-to-hell</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[change story on whether he was at mtg in fla w/ stone and end russ fla guy?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div class="published" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(161, 157, 157); display: inline-block; vertical-align: middle; font-style: italic; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;Apr 18, 2019</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;</span><div class="last-updated" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(161, 157, 157); display: inline-block; vertical-align: middle; font-style: italic; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span class="accent">and last updated</span>&nbsp;<span class="last-updated-date" data-bsp-plugin="Module47602">8:22 PM, Apr 18, 2019</span></div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="Page-body ArticlePage-articleBody" itemprop="articleBody" data-bsp-plugin="Module32418" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 30px; transition: all 0.4s ease 0s; left: 0px; clear: both;"><div class="RichTextArticleBody" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="RichTextArticleBody-body" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) — A local political consultant is speaking out after the release of Robert Mueller's investigation on Thursday.</p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Michael Caputo was called to testify about his role in President Donald Trump’s campaign. Now, Caputo is listed in the&nbsp;<a class="Link" href="https://www.wkbw.com/news/national/countdown-to-the-mueller-report" style="color: rgb(0, 86, 135); text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.4s ease 0s;">nearly 500-page report</a>.</p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“In the spring of 2016,” the report reads, “Trump Campaign advisor Michael Caputo learned through a Florida-based Russian business partner that another Florida-based Russian, Henry Oknyansky (who also went by the name Henry Greenberg), claimed to have information pertaining to Hilary Clinton. Caputo notified Roger Stone and brokered communication between Stone and Oknyansky. Oknyansky and Stone set up a May 2016 in-person meeting.”</p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“He had a very brief meeting with the guy and told him to hit the road,” says Caputo.</p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The meeting listed in the report is the reason that Caputo was questioned by both Robert Mueller and lawmakers in both the House and the Senate.</p><p style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The report points to “contradictory recollections” as to whether Caputo was actually at the meeting, which is something he strongly denies.</span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“The FBI and the Mueller investigation knows for a fact that the meeting was in Florida and I was in Trump Tower in New York City,” says Caputo.</p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">At the end of the day, Caputo says he is ready to move forward.</p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“I really don’t care because I’m completely vindicated and my family is moving on from here and all the haters can go to Hell,” says Caputo.</p></div></div></div></span></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><div class="elleafmedia elleafmedia--sourced-paragraph" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(38, 38, 38); background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><p class="zn-bodyparagraph speakable" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><cite class="el-editorial-source" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-style: normal; font-weight: 700; font-feature-settings: " kern="kern" text-rendering="text-rendering" optimizelegibility="optimizelegibility">washington (CNN)</cite>Conservative political provocateur Roger Stone met in May 2016 with a <b>Russian who offered damaging information about Hillary Clinton in exchange for $2 million,</b> Stone and former Trump campaign communications official Michael Caputo told CNN on Sunday.</font></p></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph speakable" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px; color: rgb(38, 38, 38); background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The meeting was first reported by<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-associate-roger-stone-reveals-new-contact-with-russian-national-during-2016-campaign/2018/06/17/4a8123c8-6fd0-11e8-bd50-b80389a4e569_story.html?utm_term=.899b53d865e8" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(48, 97, 243); text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s;">&nbsp;The Washington Post</a>.</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph speakable" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px; color: rgb(38, 38, 38);"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Stone and Caputo say the meeting was part of a larger effort by law enforcement to set up the Trump campaign, citing records suggesting that the man Stone met with is a Russian national who has claimed to be an FBI informant.</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px; color: rgb(38, 38, 38); background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In letters to House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes obtained by CNN, lawyers for Caputo and Stone say Caputo arranged a meeting between Stone and the Russian man who called himself Henry Greenberg.</b></font></div><ul class="cn cn-list-hierarchical-xs cn--idx-5 cn-zoneAdContainer" data-layout="list-hierarchical-xs" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; list-style: none; color: rgb(38, 38, 38); background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px; color: rgb(38, 38, 38); background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2018/images/06/17/hon..nunes.6-15-18[6].pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(48, 97, 243); text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s;">Caputo's lawyer writes</a>&nbsp;that his client facilitated the meeting through his Russian business partner. Greenberg told Caputo he "had information about Hillary Clinton he wanted to provide to the Trump campaign," the letter says.</font></div><div class="zn-bodyread-all" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(38, 38, 38);"><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Caputo and Stone did not disclose the meeting to congressional investigators, but it has become a focus in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into the Trump campaign, according to the Post.</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the letters to Nunes, the two political operatives assert that they were transparent in their testimony before the committee, despite not disclosing the meeting with Greenberg.</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Caputo told CNN he communicated with Greenberg by phone, and while he recognized that Greenberg had an accent, Caputo "assumed he was a US citizen."</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"It was May 2016," Caputo added. "Nobody was talking about Russia, collusion, etc."</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Caputo said he now believes the Russian who met with Stone was an FBI informant because "the OSC (Office of Special Counsel) knew more about it than I did." He added that it was not until prosecutors informed him that Greenberg was Russian that he learned the man he had spoken with in 2016 was not a US citizen.</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"I was under the understanding that he was an American citizen of Russian descent," Caputo said. "I had no reason to believe that, I just assumed it."</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The letter from Caputo's lawyer states that during his testimony with the House Intelligence committee, he "answered all questions with candor and to the best of his recollection."</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">However, Caputo's lawyer wrote that during his interview with the special counsel, which took place more than a month ago, <b>"his recollection was refreshed regarding one brief interaction with a Russian national in May of 2016."</b></font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"In the course of his interview with the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, this specific contact was not discussed since at the time of this interview, Mr. Caputo had simply forgotten about this brief encounter in 2016," the letter states.</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Caputo's lawyer relayed that he would be willing to brief the committee on the matter.</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In his letter to Nunes,&nbsp;<a href="https://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2018/images/06/17/greenberg.letter.-.6.15.18.final[7].copy.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(48, 97, 243); text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s;">Stone's lawyer similarly called the testimony "entirely truthful,"&nbsp;</a>adding that Stone "feels obligated" to disclose the meeting because of "information brought to his attention after his appearance."</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The letter states Greenberg approached Stone "wearing a Trump MAGA hat and T-shirt and spoke with what was possibly a Russian accent."</b></font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Prior to meeting, Mr. Stone did not know anything about Mr. Greenberg, including his background or nationality. At the meeting, Mr. Greenberg proudly showed Mr. Stone photos of Mr. Greenberg and friends at several South Florida Trump rallies," the letter states.</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Stone's lawyer described the encounter as a "one-time, 20-minute interaction" and stated that Greenberg offered Stone the "non-specific, damaging Clinton information" in exchange for a $2 million payment from Trump, but that Stone declined.</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Stone told CNN he was disclosing the meeting now because "Mr. Caputo only brought this to my attention recently."</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He also said he never discussed the meeting with the Trump campaign, nor anyone else, adding that it was "so ludicrous that I forgot about it."</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">California Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said Stone's testimony "appears inaccurate or deliberately misleading" and that the offer to Caputo "could not plausibly have escaped his recollection." Schiff called for the committee to provide the special counsel investigation with transcripts of their interviews and knocked the Republicans who control the panel.</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"The truthfulness of many of our witnesses has been difficult to ascertain, which is why I have urged the committee to make the transcripts available to special counsel Mueller for a determination whether any witnesses committed perjury before our committee," Schiff said. "The majority's unwillingness to do so demonstrates that protecting the President remains its paramount objective, even when it means shielding witnesses who may have testified before us untruthfully."</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">President Donald Trump's lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, told CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday that he doubts Trump knew about Stone's meeting.</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"I doubt it. I certainly didn't know about it. It's news to me," he said.</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Greenberg, who the Post said sometimes went by the name Henry Oknyansky, had difficulties with the American immigration system, and spent two years in the custody of immigration services before returning to Russia. In 2015 court filings related to his immigration status cited by Stone and Caputo, Greenberg claimed that he worked as an FBI informant for 17 years.</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">However, Greenberg denied he was acting on the FBI's behalf when he met with Stone, according to the Post, and the court filing the newspaper obtained said his work with the FBI halted sometime after 2013.</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The letters from the two political operatives' lawyers mention a text exchange after the meeting with Greenberg and say Stone's impression was that the meetup had been a waste of time and he viewed Greenberg as "a nut."</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The exchange was obtained and published by the Post.</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"How crazy is the Russian?" Caputo asked.</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Wants big &$ for the info- waste of time," Stone replied.</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Caputo then texted, "The Russian way. Anything at all interesting?"</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"No," Stone said.</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">An FBI spokeswoman and a spokesman for Mueller's office declined to comment to the Post.</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">The meeting with Stone reportedly took place a few weeks after former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos was told about Russian dirt on Hillary Clinton and two weeks before senior members of the Trump campaign met with Russian nationals -- including a lawyer with ties to the Kremlin -- in Trump Tower.</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Greenberg initially denied Stone's account of the meeting but later changed his story, giving the Post a brief description of the meeting that matched Stone's depiction in part.</b></font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">While Stone told the Post that Greenberg was alone for the meeting, Greenberg relayed that he was accompanied by a Ukrainian man only identified as Alexei. Greenberg told the Post that Alexei was fired from the Clinton Foundation. He also denied he asked for money, saying played a limited role in the meeting and left it to Alexei to talk with Stone while he sat at a nearby table.</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Stone told CNN he had never heard of Alexei, nor was this person present at the meeting.</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Clinton Foundation also told the Post that they had never hired someone with the first name Alexei.</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A news release from Caputo following the Post story states that in his meeting with the Special Counsel's Office, he "noted the Mueller team knew far more than he did about the Greenberg approach."</font></div><ul class="cn cn-list-hierarchical-xs cn--idx-43 cn-zoneAdContainer" data-layout="list-hierarchical-xs" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; list-style: none;"><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After his meeting with Mueller, Caputo investigated Greenberg, the release said, and he put the information he found into<a href="http://www.democratdossier.org/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(48, 97, 243); text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s;">&nbsp;a dossier</a>&nbsp;online.</font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-right: 0px;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">The disclosure of the meeting comes a month after&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/18/politics/russia-informant-trump-campaign/index.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(48, 97, 243); text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s;">multiple reports</a>&nbsp;that the FBI dispatched a confidential source to speak with at least two advisers to Trump's presidential campaign after the bureau obtained evidence that the aides had ties to Russia. The revelations have prompted&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/18/politics/trump-campaign-informant/index.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(48, 97, 243); text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s;">Trump to accuse the FBI</a>&nbsp;of spying on his campaign and trying to frame him.</font></div></ul></div><p class="zn-bodyparagraph zn-bodyfooter" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.375; color: rgb(38, 38, 38); background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CNN's Clare Foran, Manu Raju and Eli Watkins contributed to this report.</font></p></ul></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">hg had been fbi informant but says not at time to roger mtg; both caputo and roger deny contact w/ russ 9at least roger did) until text msg refresh memories [video cnn]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/heres-what-the-senate-intel-report-tells-us-about-trump-and-roger-stones-39-phone-calls-during-the-2016-election/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/heres-what-the-senate-intel-report-tells-us-about-trump-and-roger-stones-39-phone-calls-during-the-2016-election/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">on&nbsp; August 18, the Senate Intelligence Committee released its bipartisan report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. One of the things addressed in the report is Donald Trump’s phone conversations with veteran GOP operative Roger Stone during the election — and according to an&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/19/us/politics/trump-stone-investigation.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">August 19 article</a>&nbsp;by New York Times reporter Julian E. Barnes, the Senate Intelligence report sheds even more light on those interactions than the Mueller report and Stone’s criminal trial.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Barnes notes that&nbsp;<b>according to court records, Stone and Trump had 39 phone conversations from March-November 2016 — one of which Barnes describes as “an intriguing phone call, on October 6, 2016, to Mr. Trump.”</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">“According to the Senate report,” Barnes explains, “Mr. Stone received a call that afternoon from a number belonging to an aide to Mr. Trump, who regularly used others’ phones to make calls. The topic of the conversation was not known, Senate investigators wrote, but they noted that Mr. Stone was focused on a potential WikiLeaks release.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The Senate Intelligence Committee’s report concludes, “It appears quite likely that Stone and Trump spoke about WikiLeaks."</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">in October 2016, WikiLeaks published hacked Democratic e-mails that had been stolen by Russians.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Barnes points out that in its report, the Senate Intelligence Committee “laid out a range of evidence that Mr. Stone was focused on WikiLeaks. He and Mr. Trump had spoken a few days earlier, on September 29, also on the aide’s phone. Another campaign aide, Rick Gates, witnessed it and told investigators that the two men discussed WikiLeaks. After that call, Mr. Trump told Mr. Gates that ‘more releases of damaging information would be coming.’”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Times reporter also notes that Stone “said the Senate conclusion that he had discussed WikiLeaks with the president was based solely on testimony by Mr. Gates and Mr. Trump’s former lawyer Michael D. Cohen. Mr. Stone called their testimony tainted by agreements with prosecutors to answer their questions.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Stone has insisted that he did not know that people connected to the Russian government were behind the stolen Democratic e-mails&nbsp;</b>that WikiLeaks published in October 2016 — and that he never discussed WikiLeaks with Trump. Barnes, notes, however, “The Senate report made clear that WikiLeaks, at least, ‘very likely’ knew the e-mails were coming from Russian intelligence, and that Mr. Stone knew about the most critical WikiLeaks release before it happened.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Stone is among the many Trump associates who has faced criminal charges: he was convicted of charges ranging from witness tampering to lying to Congress and sentenced to 40 months in federal prison by Judge Amy Berman Jackson, a Barack Obama appointee. But Trump commuted Stone’s sentence in July, saving him from the prison sentence he was about to begin.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Barnes notes that the Senate Intelligence Committee “rejected Mr. Trump’s statement to prosecutors investigating Russia’s interference that he did not recall conversations with his long-time friend, Roger J. Stone Jr., about the e-mails, which were later released by WikiLeaks.”</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the Mueller report, former special counsel Robert Mueller concluded that the 2016 Trump campaign’s interactions with Russians — however questionable — did not rise to the level of a full-fledged criminal conspiracy. And Barnes points out that the Senate Intelligence report does not accuse Trump of lying. But Barnes also points out that the report “laid out extensive contacts between Trump advisers and Russians” and “detailed even more of the president’s conversations with Mr. Stone than were previously known, renewing questions about whether Mr. Trump was truthful with investigators for the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, or misled them.”</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div style=""><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">wapo:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/senate-intelligence-trump-russia-report/2020/08/18/62a7573e-e093-11ea-b69b-64f7b0477ed4_story.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/senate-intelligence-trump-russia-report/2020/08/18/62a7573e-e093-11ea-b69b-64f7b0477ed4_story.html</a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">no lnx</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">National Security</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Trump’s 2016 campaign chair was a ‘grave counterintelligence threat,’ had repeated contact with Russian intelligence, Senate panel finds</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">By</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Karoun Demirjian and&nbsp;</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Ellen Nakashima</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">August 18, 2020</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">
</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">President Trump’s 2016 campaign chairman posed a “grave counterintelligence threat” due to his interaction with people close to the Kremlin</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">, according to a bipartisan Senate report released Tuesday that found extensive contacts between key campaign advisers and officials affiliated with Moscow’s government and intelligence services.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In its report, the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee states that&nbsp;<b>Trump’s then-campaign chair Paul Manafort worked with a Russian intelligence officer “on narratives that sought to undermine evidence that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. election,” including the idea that purported Ukrainian election interference was of greater concern.</b></span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">It found that a Russian attorney who met with Manafort, along with the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., and his son-in-law Jared Kushner at Trump Tower in 2016, had “significant connections” to the Kremlin.&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The information she offered them was also “part of a broader influence operation targeting the United States that was coordinated, at least in part with elements of the Russian government,” the report stated.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>But the panel also concluded that the FBI’s handling of Russian threats to the election was “flawed” and that the bureau gave “unjustified credence” to allegations about Trump’s Russia ties made in a dossier compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele, “based on an incomplete understanding of Steele’s past reporting record.”</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Document: Read the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 election]</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Senate Intelligence Committee’s three-and-a-half year investigation stands as Congress’s only bipartisan examination of Russian interference in the 2016 election. The panel, significantly, agreed that the FBI overestimated Steel’s reliability and that Manafort and other aides exposed the campaign to undue Russian influence.&nbsp;<b>But its leaders were noticeably divided along party lines in how they interpreted the report’s significance, and several committee members — including its&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">acting chairman Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) — endorsed dissenting conclusions about Trump’s own culpability.</span></b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The partisan divisions are a sign that the panel’s tome likely will not put to rest the political wrangling over how seriously to treat foreign interference in U.S. democracy as the country heads into its most divisive election in modern history.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“After more than three years of investigation by this Committee, we can now say with no doubt, there was no collusion,” a group of six panel Republicans, including Rubio, wrote in a statement<b>&nbsp;instead accusing the Democratic Party of coordinating with foreign actors to produce Steele’s dossier.</b></span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“In 2016, the Democratic Party, using a series of arm’s length transactions, hired a foreign citizen to seek out dirt on a political opponent, provided by foreign sources,” the Republicans wrote, attacking the FBI for “sloppy work and poor judgment.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>
</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Five Democrat senators ­— including Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.</b>), the party’s 2020 vice-presidential nominee — asserted the report “unambiguously shows that members of the Trump Campaign cooperated with Russian efforts to get Trump elected.” Referring specifically to their findings on Manafort, the Democrats wrote, “This is what collusion looks like.”</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>The intelligence committee’s vice chairman, Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.), who did not sign onto the Democrats’ dissenting views, noted “a breathtaking level of contacts between Trump officials and Russian government operatives that is a very real counterintelligence threat to our elections,” and he encouraged “all Americans to carefully review the documented evidence of the unprecedented and massive intervention campaign waged on behalf of then-candidate Donald Trump by Russians and their operatives and to reach their own independent conclusions.”</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The committee’s past chairman Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), who oversaw the bulk of the investigation and also steered clear of the GOP’s dissent, struck a position in the middle.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“One of the Committee’s most important — and overlooked — findings is that much of Russia’s activities weren’t related to producing a specific electoral outcome, but attempted to undermine our faith in the democratic process itself,” he said in a statement. “Their aim is to sow chaos, discord, and distrust. Their efforts are not limited to elections. The threat is ongoing.</span>”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Senate panel told Justice Dept. of suspicions over Trump family members’ Russia testimony</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Burr and Warner launched the committee’s probe before Trump’s inauguration in January 2017 and sustained the bipartisan investigation over the following three and a half years, even as other Congressional investigations into the same matter faltered along partisan lines. Since the Senate Intelligence Committee began its probe, former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III also released a 448-page report on Russian interference in the 2016 election — and Trump was impeached and acquitted after Democrats accused him of coercing Ukrainian leaders to interfere in the 2020 election.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Though the committee’s probe covers much of the same turf as Mueller’s investigation, it was different in nature. Mueller was running a criminal probe; the Senate committee was conducting an intelligence investigation — a distinction that helps to explain some of nuanced differences between their conclusions.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">The Senate panel’s probe, which was mostly driven by the committee’s bipartisan staff, included more than 200 witnesses and considered evidence relating to Russian disinformation, Trump’s personal, business and campaign contacts with Russians and the transition period following the 2016 election.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">
</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">At one point, the document all but concludes that Trump aides were duped and manipulated by Russian interests they were too callow to understand.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>“Russian officials, intelligence services, and others” acting in concert with the Kremlin “were capable of exploiting the transition team’s shortcomings,” the report concluded. “Based on the available information, it is possible — and even likely — that they did so.”</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The report also presents a damning portrait of the Trump campaign’s hasty move in March 2016 to assemble a foreign policy team, asserting that it had recruited inexperienced people without thoroughly vetting them and thus potentially exposed itself to Russian influence.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“Ultimately,” the committee wrote, “the foreign policy team exposed the Trump Campaign to significant counterintelligence vulnerabilities.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The committee pointed to Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos, who attempted to secure a face-to-face meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin through “highly suspicious” contacts with people close to the Russian government. Ultimately, investigators concluded, Papadopoulos “was not a witting co-optee of the Russian the Russian intelligence services. The panel also found that while Russia seemed to show an interest in campaign adviser Carter Page, investigators “found no indication that Page had useful Campaign information for the Russian intelligence services to extract, nor meaningful influence for them to exploit.”</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">The committee did find however that</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">&nbsp;Putin personally directed the 2016 hack-and-leak campaign targeting the Democratic Party,&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Clinton campaign. The anti-secrecy group</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">&nbsp;</span><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">WikiLeaks</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">&nbsp;“actively sought and played a key role in the Russian campaign and very likely knew it was assisting a Russian intelligence influence effort,”</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">&nbsp;the report stated, surmising that a Russian military spy agency, known as the GRU, transferred hacked emails to WikiLeaks likely because it offered a more effective platform for publicity than the GRU’s own methods.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style=""><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Yet investigators could not “reliably determine the extent of authentic,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;nonpublic&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">knowledge” Trump’s friend</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 0, 0);"> Roger Stone</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> had about WikiLeaks’s coming releases and shared with the campaign.</span></b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The panel noted that its investigation was hampered by several witnesses’ refusing interviews and to produce documents, citing Fifth Amendment rights that protect against self incrimination. These included&nbsp;</span><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">Stone,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Manafort&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">and Rick Gates,</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;the campaign’s deputy chair at that time. The panel’s request to interview Julian Assange was rebuffed.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">The committee also outright accused Blackwater founder and Trump supporter Erik Prince of stonewalling its investigation, saying that it was “hampered by a lack of cooperation” and that his account of a controversial 2017 meeting in the Seychelles alongside a Russian official was “brief and deceptive.”</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The committee previously released other volumes detailing aspects of its inquiry. Those reports focused on U.S. election security, Russia’s use of social media in disinformation campaigns, the Obama administration’s response to the perceived threat in 2016 and the intelligence community’s joint assessment that Russia had interfered in an attempt to tip the scales in Trump’s favor.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Yet the panel’s effort to maintain a bipartisan approach has not saved it from partisan scrutiny. Last year, the panel came under fire from Senate Republicans after issuing a subpoena for Donald Trump Jr. to come in for a second round of testimony.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">After his testimony,&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Trump Jr</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">. was one of several witnesses that the panel referred to the Justice Department for closer scrutiny over discrepancies between their testimony and that of Gates, the ex-deputy campaign chair who was a key witness in Mueller’s probe.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Earlier this year, Burr stepped aside as panel chairman after coming under scrutiny over stocks he sold in industries hit badly by the coronavirus pandemic. Rubio has been serving as acting chairman in his place.</span></div></div></div></div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" /></font></p><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/did-roger-stone-really-find-jesus"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/did-roger-stone-really-find-jesus</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">nancy leT</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Regardless of what you think about the allegation that Roger Stone was the Trump campaign emissary to Wikileaks, no one would ever claim that he is anything but a despicable person. As the editors of the&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">National Review</em>&nbsp;<a title="wrote" href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/07/an-indefensible-commutation/" target="blank" rel="external nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">wrote</a>, “No one would think of letting Roger Stone anywhere near any serious responsibility, and even the Trump campaign in 2016 had the sense to keep him at arm’s length.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In case you aren’t familiar with his past, I suggest watching the documentary&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Get Me Roger Stone</em>, which is available on Netflix.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But now all of the sudden, Stone has found Jesus. Apparently while awaiting sentencing on his conviction for lying to investigators and witness tampering, he attended a Franklin Graham rally and became a Christian. After Trump commuted his sentence, Stone made an appearance on the Christian Broadcast Network and was interviewed by David Brody.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That was good enough for&nbsp;<a title="court evangelical" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/04/05/why-do-white-evangelicals-still-staunchly-support-donald-trump/" target="blank" rel="external nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">court evangelical</a>&nbsp;Ralph Reed, who&nbsp;<a title="tweeted" href="https://twitter.com/ralphreed/status/1283461338371624960" target="blank" rel="external nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">tweeted</a>, “I am grateful Roger Stone found faith in Christ and is free. His prosecution was an abuse of power. He should never have been charged.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I am reminded of what theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer&nbsp;<a title="wrote" href="https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/423945-cheap-grace-means-grace-sold-on-the-market-like-cheapjacks" target="blank" rel="external nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">wrote</a>&nbsp;about cheap grace.</font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; position: relative; line-height: 1.7; overflow: hidden; background: rgb(245, 245, 245); border: none !important;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Cheap grace means grace sold on the market like cheapjacks’ wares. The sacraments, the forgiveness of sin, and the consolations of religion are thrown away at cut prices. Grace is represented as the Church’s inexhaustible treasury, from which she showers blessings with generous hands, without asking questions or fixing limits. Grace without price; grace without cost!</font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Roger Stone (and Donald Trump) are perfect examples of how a belief in cheap grace sets white evangelical Christians up to be easy prey for con men (<a title="and women" href="https://washingtonmonthly.com/2019/11/07/trump-hires-a-con-artist-to-provide-outreach-to-white-evangelicals/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">and women</a>). All someone has to do is claim to have accepted Jesus as their savior and nothing else is required. Someone like&nbsp;Roger Stone is welcomed into the fold without ever having to name any of the despicable things they’ve done, much less be held accountable. They don’t have to commit to changing their ways or even say that they’ll try to be a better person.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At one point during his interview with Brody, Stone&nbsp;<a title="suggests" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHof2yfUuKM" target="blank" rel="external nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">suggests</a>&nbsp;that he’s already changed because he isn’t interested in seeking vengeance against those who prosecuted and convicted him. That was right before he called them “satanic.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I am personally someone who believes in redemption. But a spiritual encounter with God would, by nature, lead to a period of soul-searching, self-reflection, prayer, and humility—not an interview on national television that provides the opportunity to attack one’s opponents. Even Richard Nixon’s hatchet man, Charles Colson, had the good sense to devote himself to prison ministry after claiming to have found Jesus.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It is not my job to judge the state of Roger Stone’s soul. But I don’t ever want to be part of a religion that welcomes him with open arms—no questions asked.</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">mueller denounce release;<a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/former-mueller-prosecutor-argues-we-can-now-get-the-truth-out-of-roger-stone-once-and-for-all/">&nbsp;https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/former-mueller-prosecutor-argues-we-can-now-get-the-truth-out-of-roger-stone-once-and-for-all/</a></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">he is writing a book tho illegal to profit from crime?</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">serve time delay covid? (not for cohen)</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">rww</font></div><div><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/longtime-trump-ally-roger-stone-i-certainly-hope-q-is-real/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: rgb(239, 243, 243); outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; display: block; padding-left: 40px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Roger Stone: ‘I Certainly Hope Q is Real’</font></a><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px; padding-left: 40px; background-color: rgb(239, 243, 243);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">July 2, 2020 2:23 pm</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/federal-judge-who-sentenced-roger-stone-to-prison-orders-trump-administration-to-turn-over-foiad-ukraine-emails/">https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/federal-judge-who-sentenced-roger-stone-to-prison-orders-trump-administration-to-turn-over-foiad-ukraine-emails/</a></font></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/newly-released-fbi-documents-reveal-extent-of-roger-stones-direct-communications-with-julian-assange-report/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/newly-released-fbi-documents-reveal-extent-of-roger-stones-direct-communications-with-julian-assange-report/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div id="content-container" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">veteran GOP operative and long-time Donald Trump ally Roger Stone, who was sentenced to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/trump-associate-roger-stone-sentenced-3-years-4-months-prison-n1138516" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">three years in federal prison</a>&nbsp;in February for felonies that included witness tampering and lying to Congress, continues to vie for a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/roger-stone-praying-pardon-prison" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">presidential pardon</a>. Meanwhile, FBI documents continue to offer insights on Stone’s past communications with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange: according to&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/ce9a4541f903109079900528d9f0a9e7" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">FBI documents</a>&nbsp;made public this week<b>, Stone asserted in a 2017 direct message via Twitter that if prosecutors came for him, “I will bring down the entire house of cards.”</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Associated Press (AP) is reporting that FBI documents show that Stone sent that message weeks after former FBI Director Robert Mueller was appointed to head the Russia investigation. According to AP reporters Eric Tucker, Colleen Long and Michael Balsamo, the<b> FBI records “reveal the extent of communications between Stone and Assange, whose anti-secrecy website published Democratic e-mails hacked by Russians during the 2016 presidential election, and underscore efforts by Trump allies to gain insight about the release of information they expected would embarrass Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton.”</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">FBI records, according to AP, show that in a direct Twitter message sent in</span><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">June 2017, Stone “reassured Assange that the issue was ‘still nonsense’ and said, ‘As a journalist, it doesn’t matter where you get information — only that it is accurate and authentic.”</span></b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Stone, AP reports, mentioned a 1971 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that paved the way for newspapers and magazines to publish the Pentagon Papers — documents about the Vietnam War that had been classified. The Trump ally, via Twitter, told Assange, “If the US government moves on you, I will bring down the entire house of cards. With the trumped-up sexual assault charges dropped, I don’t know of any crime you need to be pardoned for — best regards. R.”</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Stone, in that message, appeared to be referring to the Swedish government’s sexual assault case against Assange, which was dropped.</font></p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="cp-load-after-post" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /></font><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;" /></div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-align: center;"><div id="lightbox-inline-form-ae0a1a76-b06b-45e5-9d44-8cc41de9ef21" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" align="center"><div id="lightbox-inline-form-b00052c7-64de-4049-944f-8160479112fb" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="survey_container" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/survey-do-you-trust-donald-trump-to-be-honest-during-this-pandemic/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;" /></font></div></div><div><p><a href="https://www.alternet.org/survey-do-you-trust-donald-trump-to-be-honest-during-this-pandemic/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"></font></a></p></div><p><a href="https://www.alternet.org/survey-do-you-trust-donald-trump-to-be-honest-during-this-pandemic/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"></font></a></p><p><a href="https://www.alternet.org/survey-do-you-trust-donald-trump-to-be-honest-during-this-pandemic/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">420 jurors in danger?! judge nix new trial? flipbd</font></a></p><p><a href="https://www.alternet.org/survey-do-you-trust-donald-trump-to-be-honest-during-this-pandemic/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">=</font></a></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/alex-jones/while-praising-roger-stones-newfound-religiosity-alex-jones-casually-mentions-he-has" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;" helvetica="Helvetica" light="Light" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px">Media Matters</a><span style="" helvetica="Helvetica" light="Light" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">: While praising Roger Stone’s newfound religiosity, Alex Jones casually mentions he has beaten people to death.</span></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">note when trump targets, thugswarm or worse follows</font></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/roger-stone/roger-stones-right-wing-media-allies-grasp-straws-attacks-judge-amy-berman-jackson"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.mediamatters.org/roger-stone/roger-stones-right-wing-media-allies-grasp-straws-attacks-judge-amy-berman-jackson</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no docs</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Right-wing media figures who are attacking Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who recently sentenced Trump confidant and friend Roger Stone to prison, either don’t understand the basic mechanisms of the federal legal system or don’t want their viewers to.</b></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>On February 20, Jackson&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/20/politics/roger-stone-sentencing-hearing/index.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">sentenced</a>&nbsp;Stone to 40 months in prison after a jury&nbsp;<a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/roger-stone-found-guilty-counts/story?id=67015102" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">convicted</a>&nbsp;him of seven charges&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">stemming from special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe,</span></b>&nbsp;including lying to Congress, obstructing an official proceeding, and witness tampering. Jackson, however, put a decision on hold about when Stone would report to prison while she considers a motion from Stone’s legal team for a new trial based on a claim that the jury foreperson was biased against Stone.</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A hearing was held on that topic on February 25 and Jackson has yet to rule, though&nbsp;<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/25/judge-rebukes-trump-roger-stone-jury-117442" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">according</a>&nbsp;to Politico she “appears headed toward dismissing the defendant’s motion for a new trial” after Stone’s legal team failed to make a convincing argument. In any case, Trump has signaled that he is receptive to calls from Stone’s right-wing media defenders to issue a pardon that would eliminate Stone’s prison sentence. According to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/02/25/roger-stone-received-fair-trial-attacking-jurors-undermines-our-service/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">Seth Cousins</a>, who served on the jury, the foreperson actually “expressed skepticism at some of the government’s claims and was one of the last people to vote to convict on the charge that took most of our deliberation time.” Cousins also wrote that the foreperson “oversaw a rigorous process, slowing us down on several occasions and advocating for the rights of the defendant.” Still, Stone’s allies and Trump himself have waged a public campaign against the foreperson, including&nbsp;<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/25/judge-rebukes-trump-roger-stone-jury-117442" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">during</a>&nbsp;yesterday’s hearing.&nbsp;</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In addition to attacks on the foreperson, Stone defenders are launching attacks on Jackson herself, including baselessly calling into question her impartiality and even spreading falsehoods about how Jackson would conduct the post-conviction retrial hearing.&nbsp;</b></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">During his February 25 radio broadcast, Fox News host Sean Hannity&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/sean-hannity/sean-hannity-launches-unhinged-attack-against-judge-roger-stone-trial" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">said</a>, “You had a political activist judge running the show, the same judge in the [Paul] Manafort case,”</span>&nbsp;before asking, “How is it these judges, lifetime appointments, they get away with murder?” Similarly, Fox News host Tucker Carlson&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/tucker-carlson/tucker-carlson-calls-judge-roger-stone-case-corrupt-dishonest-and-authoritarian-and" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">scandalized</a>&nbsp;the fact that Jackson “was appointed by Barack Obama” in order to call her “an openly partisan Democrat.” He also said that she is “a disgrace to the judiciary” and is “corrupt, dishonest and authoritarian.”</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It is a basic fact of our political system that federal judges are nominated by presidents who are members of political parties and these judges&nbsp;<a href="https://www.uscourts.gov/judges-judgeships/about-federal-judges" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">serve</a>&nbsp;lifetime appointments “during good behavior.” And it’s a basic fact of life that some criminal defendants will be charged with federal crimes that arise out of political matters, which is what happened in Stone’s case. There is a simple reason that Jackson is presiding over both the Stone and former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort cases. She was&nbsp;<a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/defendants-special-counsels-probe-path-justice-starts-judge/story?id=61083213" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">randomly assigned</a>&nbsp;the Manafort case and it is the standard practice of the federal judiciary system to then give judges any other cases that may have overlapping evidence.</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Prior to being assigned a number of cases stemming from the Mueller investigation, Jackson sentenced a high-profile political figure to prison -- a Democrat -- and arguably showed less leniency than she did in Stone’s case.&nbsp;</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In 2013, Jackson sentenced former member of Congress Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL) to 30 months in prison and fined him $750,000&nbsp;</b>after a jury convicted him of illegally using campaign funds. Prosecutors had&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-crime-jackson/ex-u-s-congressman-jesse-jackson-jr-sentenced-to-30-months-in-prison-idUSBRE97D10B20130814" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">recommended</a>&nbsp;Jackson Jr. spend four years in prison, meaning Jackson sentenced him to 63% of the time prosecutors requested. While&nbsp;<a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/02/19/dojs-reversal-roger-stone-sentencing-worries-prosecutors-judges/4805363002/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">senior officials</a>&nbsp;of the Justice Department&nbsp;<a href="https://www.lawfareblog.com/what-really-happened-roger-stone-sentencing" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">interfered</a>&nbsp;in the sentencing recommendation against Stone, when the sentencing hearing took place, newly assigned prosecutors to the case&nbsp;<a href="https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/483902-prosecutor-defends-initial-doj-recommendation-at-stone-sentencing" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">ended up defending</a>&nbsp;the initial recommendation of seven to nine years. Jackson sentenced Stone to 40 months in prison, or 37-47% of what prosecutors asked for. Stone was&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/roger-stone-sentencing/h_c11aacd6f1780974d7f7b82b0023ec83" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">fined</a>&nbsp;$20,000.</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">False information about how Jackson would conduct the hearing for a new trial was also broadcast on Fox News by its chief legal analyst Andrew Napolitano. During a February 25 appearance hours before the hearing, Napolitano&nbsp;<a href="https://video.foxnews.com/v/6135723464001#sp=show-clips" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">joined</a>&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Fox & Friends</em>&nbsp;and characterized the hearing as “secret” while claiming Jackson “won’t give a reason why” and saying, “You combine secrecy and silence and that is a recipe for&nbsp;<b>totalitarianism.”</b></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The publicly available docket for Stone’s trial shows that wasn’t the case:</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[doc]</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">as&nbsp; the docket text explains, a public hearing and a sealed hearing was scheduled for February 25. After the public hearing, where members of the public could sit in the courtroom, Jackson&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/dsamuelsohn/status/1232380418046951425" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">cleared the room</a>, but said that&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/dsamuelsohn/status/1232382177121329152" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">audio of the hearing</a>&nbsp;would be available in a listening room. The purpose of this move was solely to protect the publishing of the names and physical characteristics of members of the jury, who had been gathered at the courthouse for potential questioning. The public was still free to listen to and evaluate the substance of the hearing. The transcript of the hearing&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/dsamuelsohn/status/1232380625463762945" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">will also not be sealed</a>&nbsp;and will only be redacted in instances of personal information. (In any case, the jury foreperson, who&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/dsamuelsohn/status/1232423026324623363" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">was questioned</a>, had previously publicly identified herself in a social media post, and the media subsequently&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/25/roger-stone-judge-cites-trump-tweet-on-juror-in-hearing-on-new-trial.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">reported</a>&nbsp;her identity.) Jackson also offered a rationale for her decision, contrary to what Napolitano claimed was happening.&nbsp;</font></p></div></div><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">As&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/25/politics/roger-stone-hearing-juror-amy-berman-jackson/index.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">reported</a>&nbsp;by CNN, “Jackson read one of the President's past tweets attacking the Stone jury forewoman, as well as commentary from InfoWars' Alex Jones and Tucker Carlson from Fox News, to a federal courtroom, in deciding to hear testimony from jurors while protecting their identities after Stone asked for a retrial.</span>” Indeed during the trial, Jones’ far-right conspiracy theory Infowars outlet, where Stone previously worked as a show host, led&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/roger-stone/alex-jones-trying-out-identity-potential-roger-stone-trial-juror-help-stones-assistant" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">a campaign</a>&nbsp;to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/alex-jones/alex-jones-threatens-out-jury-roger-stone-trial" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">out</a>&nbsp;juror identities while making&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/alex-jones/alex-jones-vows-release-name-potential-juror-roger-stone-trial" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">disparaging</a>&nbsp;remarks about them. During the trial, Jackson said that those efforts put peoples’&nbsp;<a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/446788513/Roger-Stone-initial-sentencing-memo" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">safety at risk</a>.&nbsp;</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The attacks from conservative media against Jackson are intertwined with Trump’s own attacks against the judge. While the hearing was underway, Trump shared on Twitter a Fox News article about Jackson that Napolitano had tweeted, adding, “A total miscarriage of justice!”</font></p></div></div><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--twitter-tweet paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="field field--name-field-twitter-tweet field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden field__item" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The&nbsp;<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/roger-stone-judge-trial-amy-berman-jackson-president-trump" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">article</a>&nbsp;in question was published on February 22 and in it<b>&nbsp;Trump-supporting lawyer David Schoen&nbsp;</b>argued that Jackson should be removed from the case because at sentencing she offered generic praise of the jury’s work -- the same legal argument that Stone’s lawyers used in a filing that Jackson would&nbsp;<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/23/roger-stone-judge-berman-jackson-117066" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">dismiss</a>&nbsp;days later in a “sharply worded order” that “dressed down Stone's defense team for using the court's docket to air what she said were meritless claims that she is biased against him.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">---</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">related s</font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ean Hannity launches unhinged attack against judge in Roger Stone trial</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">02/25/20</span>&nbsp;</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Inside the right-wing media campaign to rig the justice system in favor of Roger Stone and Donald Trump</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/roger-stone/inside-right-wing-media-campaign-rig-justice-system-protect-roger-stone-and-donald"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.mediamatters.org/roger-stone/inside-right-wing-media-campaign-rig-justice-system-protect-roger-stone-and-donald</font></a></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">namy lnx 2 vid</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Alex Jones' Infowars interfered with criminal proceedings against Stone at every step, and Fox's Tucker Carlson is leading demands that Stone be pardoned</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">WRITTEN BY TIMOTHY JOHNSON</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">PUBLISHED 02/12/20&nbsp;</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Right-wing media outlets, led by Trump allies at Infowars and Fox News, have waged a months-long campaign to interfere with criminal proceedings against Roger Stone. Now that Stone has been convicted of seven felonies and is facing the possibility of significant jail time, his conservative and far-right media defenders are drumming up support for President Donald Trump to pardon him.&nbsp;</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Longtime Trump confidant and friend Stone, who prosecutors argued committed his crimes in a bid to protect Trump, will be sentenced in federal court on February 20, though Trump could issue a pardon at any time. In recent days, Stone’s case has been thrown into chaos, as leaders at the Department of Justice have meddled with the sentencing recommendations of the DOJ line prosecutors who tried Stone in court, resulting in all four prosecutors withdrawing from the case.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CitationVideo by Miles Le&nbsp;</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>After Stone was arrested, he used his Infowars platform to publicly litigate his case</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Stone was arrested in Florida on January 25, 2019, during an early morning FBI raid of his house and subsequently charged with seven felonies related to special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe, including lying to Congress, intimidating a witness, and obstructing an official proceeding. After appearing in court that day and being released on his own recognizance, he made his first media appearance on Infowars, where at the time he was a co-host of the weekday afternoon show War Room. Speaking with conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, Stone denied he had committed any crimes and promised not to testify against Trump, saying, “There’s no circumstance in which I would bear false witness against the president.” (In December 2018, Trump had faced allegations of witness tampering after he approvingly tweeted a purported quote from Stone that said, “I will never testify against Trump.”) Stone also promoted his legal defense fund several times.&nbsp;</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Stone’s immediate run to Infowars made sense.</b>&nbsp;The outlet had already been doing damage control for Stone as it became increasingly apparent he was in legal jeopardy. Infowars had been waging a public relations campaign against former Infowars employee Jerome Corsi in an attempt to pin any 2016 election-related wrongdoing on Corsi -- who at the time appeared to have significant legal exposure from Mueller -- rather than Stone. Part of the pressure campaign involved Infowars warning Corsi not to give inculpatory testimony during a grand jury appearance about Stone’s involvement in WikiLeaks’ dissemination of hacked emails, the issue Stone would later be convicted of lying to Congress over.&nbsp;</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Infowars then became Stone’s public forum to litigate the charges against him.</b>&nbsp;In an appearance four days after his arrest, Stone attempted to explain away the witness tampering charge he was later convicted of. On his show War Room, Stone said he hadn’t encouraged radio host Randy Credico to lie to Congress to prevent him from implicating Stone in a crime, but rather so that Credico’s liberal friends wouldn’t find out he supported Trump and get mad at him.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Stone continued to use Infowars to attack his critics</b>.&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">During the February 8 edition of his show, Stone complained about “leftist retards” talking about his upcoming trial. On February 12, he mentioned<b>&nbsp;CNN commentator Ana Navarro,</b>&nbsp;asking, “What qualifies her other than her ethnicity to comment on anything?” and saying, “Let’s see if she celebrates my acquittal,” before calling her “porquita.</span>” During the broadcast, he also highlighted the role of Infowars in his legal defense, saying, “I’ve told you about the vital role that Infowars plays in the strategy for my defense. If I can’t come here, if I can’t come on The Alex Jones Show, if I can’t come on the morning show with David Knight, if I can’t come on the War Room, then there’s no forum where I can really go to tell people the complete story about what’s going on.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Stone also used Infowars to praise his friend, the president. During the February 18 broadcast of The Alex Jones Show, he alleged that Trump was the victim of a “globalist” coup attempt&nbsp;</span>led by elements in the FBI and DOJ and railed against the special counsel office, which was leading the criminal prosecution against him. Stone also flattered Trump, saying, “If he’s so incapacitated, why do we have 4.8 million new jobs, for example?” He added that Trump is a “leader” who is “keeping faith with the very people that voted for him.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>After Stone was placed under a gag order for posting an image showing firearm crosshairs next to the judge in his case, Infowars picked up the slack</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But Stone also did something on February 18 that would stop him from fighting his legal case through Infowars when he posted an image on Instagram that showed the federal judge overseeing his case, Amy Berman Jackson, next to apparent firearm crosshairs.</span>&nbsp;Stone was already operating under a gag order that prevented him from speaking about his case on the steps of the courthouse where it was being tried, but Jackson expanded the order in a February 21 hearing to prohibit Stone from talking about his case anywhere, with the caveat that he could still profess his innocence and solicit money for his legal defense fund.&nbsp;</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>But Stone’s boss, Alex Jones, picked up where he left off.&nbsp;</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">During a February 25 broadcast, Jones compared Judge Jackson to Hitler and attempted to link Mueller to Jeffrey Epstein.</span>&nbsp;He also echoed language Stone had used on his show, claiming that Stone was being pressured “to bear false witness against the president” and also addressed Trump directly, saying, “And we can talk about how great Trump is all day, but he’s asleep at the switch. Tweets don’t do it, President; protect us.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As Stone’s trial approached, he stopped appearing on Infowars but continued to go right up to the line imposed by his gag order in other public forums. During an April interview with pro-Trump propaganda outlet One America News Network, Stone complained that he was facing “process crime charges,” echoing a right-wing media talking point that had been used to attack the charges against him. In July, Stone again ran afoul of the gag order after Jackson agreed with prosecutors who said some of his Instagram posts counted as disallowed commentary on his case. Stone was banned from using social media as a result of the violation.&nbsp;&nbsp;</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Stone made one exception to his silence on Infowars while he was under gag in the pre-trial phase. In an October 25 appearance, he discussed topics unrelated to his case and made flattering comments about Donald Trump Jr. and Fox News hosts Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Alex Jones and his Infowars outlet attempted to interfere with the trial process in a way that the court said put people in danger</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Stone’s trial occurred in November, and Infowars attempted to interfere on his behalf -- Stone had since officially left the outlet -- throughout the proceedings. During the jury selection phase, Infowars attempted to out the identities of jurors on the trial with the help of Jacob Engels, Stone’s assistant. Amid the outing attempts, in which they named at least two people who were not actually on the jury, Jones attacked the jurors, claiming that they were involved in a setup against Stone. According to a transcript from the trial cited in a Department of Justice sentencing memo, Jackson said that Jones’ actions caused “great consternation among members of the public” and put “the safety of all the people associated with this case, on both sides, and including, possibly, the jurors, at risk.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As the jury deliberated, Stone passed a message through Alex Jones asking Trump to pardon him</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The sentencing memo also mentioned Jones with respect to an incident that occured while the jury was deliberating Stone’s case. During his November 14 broadcast, Jones shared a purported message from Stone in which Stone said, “I appeal to the president to pardon me because to do so would be an action that would show these corrupt courts that they’re not going to get away with persecuting people for their free speech or for the crime of getting the president elected.” Jones then encouraged people to call the White House to demand Stone be pardoned and continued to attack the “libtard jurors.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Video file</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">05:06</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CitationFrom the November 14, 2019, broadcast of Infowars' The Alex Jones Show</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Other right-wing media figures -- and even more extreme right-wingers -- have joined Infowars in campaigning for a pardon for Stone</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Stone was convicted on all counts the next day, November 15. Reacting to the news on air, Jones read an angry text message from one of Stone’s lawyers that said Jones’ broadcast of Stone’s pardon request almost caused Stone to be remanded into custody immediately upon conviction, as the ongoing gag order also prohibited Stone from commenting on his case in public forums through surrogates. Jones defended his conduct by saying he was just “doing what Roger said.” Post-conviction, many other members of right-wing media -- most notably&nbsp;<b>Tucker Carlson on his Fox News broadcast -- publicly pleaded with Trump to issue a pardon.</b>&nbsp;According to reporting from The Daily Beast, sources close to Trump say that “as a platform for pro-Stone messaging,” Carlson’s show “is potent enough that Trump allies who seek leniency for the Stone have specifically sought to appear … in order to get the message to the president” and that Trump watches segments about Stone on the show and discusses them with others.&nbsp;</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Between conviction and sentencing, Infowars’ advocacy for Stone crossed into the territory of<b>&nbsp;violent rhetoric. During a late November broadcast, Stone’s former co-host Owen Shroyer said, “Roger Stone’s fate is our fate</b></span><b>. So if Roger Stone gets thrown in jail and dies in jail, that’s the rest of our fate. We’re all going to die from these left-wing politicos, whether that’s in jail or from a bullet [in] the head.”</b>&nbsp;Stone’s assistant Engels cited the saying “would you rather die on your knees or die fighting standing up?” and Shroyer responded, “<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">We’re not calling for violence. … But let me tell you, when you start to use the government and these bureaucracies against us, and you take away our freedom of speech, and you take away our right to a fair trial, and you take away our right to bear arms, what are we supposed to do? We’re not going to be your d<b>amn slaves.</b>”</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Video file</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">01:33</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CitationFrom the November 26, 2019, edition of Infowars The War Room</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As the sentencing date approached, chaos reigned while high-level DOJ figures interfered in the case</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After an extension, Stone’s sentencing was scheduled for February 20. The latest flashpoint in the case began on February 10, when the DOJ and Stone’s attorneys submitted their sentencing recommendations to the court. While Stone’s attorneys asked for no jail time, the DOJ recommended seven to nine years, garnering a late-night tweet from Trump about the “horrible and very unfair” recommendation. Chaos ensued on February 11 when reports began circulating that the DOJ would issue an amended sentencing recommendation. All four of the federal prosecutors who worked on the initial sentencing memo quit the case (one prosecutor left the DOJ altogether) and an amended sentencing memo calling the initial recommendation excessive was filed with the court. As rumors swirled throughout the day about the modified memo, Fox News’ Sean Hannity said on his radio show, “Something is happening that is very deep. I'm telling you this is a big deal.” Later, he praised the DOJ’s move to amend the memo on his Fox News broadcast.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Throughout Stone’s criminal trial saga, Infowars has repeatedly promoted in videos and articles the catchphrase “free Roger Stone.”</b>&nbsp;In reaction to the initial sentencing memo, Infowars.com published an article criticizing the filing that provided readers with a phone number to call the White House to ask Trump to pardon Stone. On air, Jones purported to share inside information about internal discussions in the White House about Stone’s fate. Jones said that he talked to “somebody this morning who was there inside the White House meetings dealing with” the Stone situation and that Trump would issue a pardon for Stone following the February 20 sentencing. The pardon push was also seen in (slightly) more mainstream conservative media, with Carlson demanding during his February 11 broadcast that Trump pardon Stone.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Video file</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">00:59</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CitationFrom the February 11, 2020, edition of Fox News' Tucker Carlson Tonight</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If Stone is pardoned, he would be the latest beneficiary of a corrupt system in which Trump grants pardons based on what he sees on conservative media</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Stone’s allies are prescient to make the pardon case through conservative media. In November, Media Matters’ Matt Gertz chronicled the “Fox News pardon pipeline” and concluded that “Donald Trump’s Fox News obsession is directly linked to at least nine of his grants of executive clemency.” Despite its extreme character, Infowars has also apparently been previously influential in at least one pardon situation. Former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was pardoned by Trump before he could be sentenced for refusing to comply with a court order that enjoined his racially discriminatory law enforcement practices, credited Infowars with his clemency grant. Appearing on The Alex Jones Show in August 2017, Arpaio praised Infowars as having real influence in getting his story before Trump inside the White House.&nbsp;</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Arpaio’s pardon was granted following months of Infowars public advocacy.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">THE LATEST</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Alex Jones’ Infowars is attempting to profit from the coronavirus outbreak</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">02/29/20 12:46 PM EST</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Passenger from cruise ship where multiple people died of coronavirus tells Fox News that the disease is overhyped</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">02/29/20 12:37 PM EST</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At CPAC, Glenn Beck says the Bernie Sanders “revolution” will lead to “another Holocaust”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">02/29/20 12:28 PM EST</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Fox & Friends agrees with Trump that coronavirus is a “hoax”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">02/29/20 10:51 AM EST</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CNN’s Michael Smerconish: “Can either coronavirus or Bernie Sanders be stopped?”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">02/29/20 10:26 AM EST</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">IN THIS ARTICLE</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Roger Stone</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Roger-Stone-MMFA-Tag.png</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Alex Jones</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Alex-Jones-MMFA-Tag.png</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tucker Carlson</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tucker-Carlson-MMFA-Tag.pngMORE</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">213 COMMENTS</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Related</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tucker Carlson demands Donald Trump pardon Roger Stone</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">02/11/20 9:05 PM EST</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Alex Jones: Source involved in Roger Stone White House discussions says Trump will pardon him after sentencing</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">02/11/20 3:23 PM EST</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sean Hannity on Roger Stone sentencing: “Something is happening that is very deep, I'm telling you this is a big deal.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">02/11/20 4:16 PM EST</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p></div></div></div></div></div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">popped up 10/19 but forget why? manafort <b>ukraine?</b></font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">40 mos</font></p><div class="header-list-style" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h2 class="entry-title grid-title" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; letter-spacing: 1px;"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/judge-in-roger-stone-case-knocks-trump-admin-for-reducing-sentencing-guidelines/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; letter-spacing: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Judge in Roger Stone case knocks Trump admin for reducing sentencing guidelines</font></a></h2><div class="grid-post-box-meta" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 12px 0px 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="author-italic author vcard" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/david-edwards/" title="Posts by David Edwards" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">David Edwards</a>&nbsp;/&nbsp;<a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/raw-story/" title="Posts by Raw Story" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Raw Story</a></span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">February 20, 2020</span></font></div></div><div class="item-content entry-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 18px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Judge Amy Berman Jackson seemed to take a swipe at Attorney General William Barr’s Justice Department over the sentencing recommendations for Roger Stone.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Judge in Roger Stone case knocks Trump admin for reducing sentencing guidelines</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Written by David Edwards / Raw Story February 20, 2020</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Judge Amy Berman Jackson seemed to take a swipe at Attorney General William Barr’s Justice Department over the sentencing recommendations for Roger Stone.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>At a court hearing on Thursday, Jackson addressed the fact that prosecutors had asked for a more lenient sentence for Stone. The judge noted that it was unusual for the government to take the side of the defendant in criminal cases.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And there’s our first mention of a pardon, but not for Stone. Judge notes one sentencing letter was from someone whom Stone sought a pardon for….</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">— Josh Gerstein (@joshgerstein) February 20, 2020</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Wow! Now Jackson getting snarky to those who just weighed in for leniency for Stone. ‘For those of you new to this and work up last week to the fact that the [sentencing] guidelines are harsh …</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">— Josh Gerstein (@joshgerstein) February 20, 2020</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Judge is accusing Ginsberg of double standard. Sometimes wants FBI/Mueller issues considered. Sometimes not. Ginsberg notes that both probes couldn’t find evidence of collusion. (He said any, which is not what Mueller said.)</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">— Josh Gerstein (@joshgerstein) February 20, 2020</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Judge Jackson rules that Stone’s obstruction of justice conviction sentence should be stronger because governmental resources were unnecessarily expended.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">— Darren Samuelsohn (@dsamuelsohn) February 20, 2020</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/the-roger-stone-debacle-is-a-true-crisis-and-the-house-must-force-bill-barr-to-testify/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/the-roger-stone-debacle-is-a-true-crisis-and-the-house-must-force-bill-barr-to-testify/</font></a></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></font></font></div><div><div class="header-list-style" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h2 class="entry-title grid-title" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/legal-experts-shocked-as-doj-lawyers-rebel-against-barrs-new-roger-stone-sentencing-guidelines/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; letter-spacing: 0px;">Legal experts shocked as DOJ lawyers rebel against Barr’s new Roger Stone sentencing guidelines</a></font></h2><div class="grid-post-box-meta" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 12px 0px 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="author-italic author vcard" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/sarah-k-burris/" title="Posts by Sarah K. Burris" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Sarah K. Burris</a>&nbsp;/&nbsp;<a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/raw-story/" title="Posts by Raw Story" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Raw Story</a>&nbsp;</span>&nbsp;<span style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">February 20, 2020</span></font></div></div><div class="item-content entry-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 18px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The new prosecutors in the Roger Stone case still seem to be ignoring the re-write of the sentencing memo, according to those watching the trial unfold.</font></p></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/heres-how-trump-weaponizes-crackpot-ideas-to-maintain-a-firm-grip-on-his-maga-base"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/heres-how-trump-weaponizes-crackpot-ideas-to-maintain-a-firm-grip-on-his-maga-base</font></a></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Here’s how Trump weaponizes crackpot ideas to maintain a firm grip on his MAGA base</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Written by Alex Henderson January 10, 2020</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">If President Donald Trump is reelected in November, it won’t be because the majority of Americans share his views, but because of his ability to fire up his MAGA base, whip them into a frenzy, address their grievances and get them to the polls in large numbers</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">. Trump, journalist Michael Kruse explains in a Politico article headlined “Trump’s Art of the Seal,” knows and understands his audience — and one of the things that has kept that audience excited is his ability to take fringe ideas, get them discussed in mainstream venues and weaponize them.</span></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump has inspired widespread discussion of crackpot conspiracy theories ranging from birtherism (the racist claim that President Barack Obama was really born in Kenya instead of the U.S.) to the CrowdStrike theory — a belief that it was Ukraine, not Russia, that interfered in the 2016 presidential election. It was Trump’s pursuit of the CrowdStrike theory, Kruse explains, that led to him being impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives.</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">During President Barack Obama’s first term, Kruse explains, Trump’s “proto-political operation was essentially a two-man team” consisting of veteran GOP operative&nbsp;</span><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Roger Stone and his protégé Sam Nunberg</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">.</span></b></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">“One of Nunberg’s self-appointed tasks was to help Trump understand what the masses on the right really wanted, and one way he did that was by listening to&nbsp;</font><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mark</font><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Levin’</font><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">s increasingly popular radio show</font><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">,” Kruse recalls. “The people who were tuning in most intently to Levin, Nunberg thought, were the people most likely to vote for Trump if he launched an actual bid.”</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Nunberg, according to Kruse, helped Trump realize that the far-right Tea Party movement was as angry at the GOP establishment as it was at Democrats.</b></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“The Tea Party, in the estimation of Levin and his listeners, didn’t start as a reaction to the liberal outrages of President Barack Obama — it started as a reaction to what they viewed as the inconsistently hardline conservative policies of President George W. Bush,” Kruse observes. “Amnesty for immigrants, for instance? An absolute no-go.”</b></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">As Trump’s movement grew, Kruse notes, it didn’t do so by appealing to conservative intellectuals.</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">“For the better part of the past half-century, Trump, 73, has extracted from an array of similar sources — from the New York Post’s dishy Page Six to the toxicity of Twitter to far-right websites and lowbrow TV — a knack for knowing what people want. Not all people, but many people.”</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Poll after poll has demonstrated that Trump is unpopular with the majority of Americans. But among his hardcore MAGA base, he is still quite popular. And Kruse wraps up his Politico article by describing the stranglehold Trump maintains on the Republican Party in 2020.</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“If Trump began his political ascent as a follower —&nbsp; cannily co-opting ideas that resonated with a certain segment of the electorate — in doing so, he clearly has proceeded to forge a following of his own,” Kruse explains. “He has become a leader of those who are willing to be led in this way, solidifying lockstep support from the agenda-setting base of his party as well as its kingpins and figureheads, who parrot him the way he once did Levin.”</font></font></font></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/01/10/donald-trump-art-of-the-steal-096841"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/01/10/donald-trump-art-of-the-steal-096841</font></a></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">POLITICO</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Trump’s Art of the Steal</b></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">How Donald Trump rode to power by parroting other people’s fringe ideas, got himself impeached for it—and might prevail anyway.</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By MICHAEL KRUSE</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">01/10/2020 05:09 AM EST</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Michael Kruse is a senior staff writer for POLITICO.</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sometime soon, Donald Trump, the third president in the history of the United States to be impeached, is expected to face a trial in the Senate, charged with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Traced back to its roots, this is a crisis entirely of his own creation: He came across a sketchy scrap of information, a debunked piece of Russian propaganda relating to Ukraine, and he saw it as something he could use, to help himself and to hurt an opponent. He latched onto it, pumped it up, and passed it along.</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Anyone wondering how the president could make this kind of mistake has missed something important about Trump’s rise. For as long as he has been in politics—in fact, for longer—he has been a ruthlessly effective practitioner of the art of parroting others’ most provocative, salacious ideas. “There are a lot of people that think …” “That’s what I heard …” “Some people even say …” His gossipy M.O. was a staple of his campaign, propelling his historic victory, but it also has driven the scandal that has consumed his presidency—“I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say CrowdStrike,” he said on the now well-known call last July with President Volodymyr Zelensky.</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If what he was referencing sounded kind of like a dodgy talk radio rant, that’s not an accident. It’s a deliberate tactic, one that Trump was developing, and exploiting, from the moment he first seriously started to consider a run for the White House.</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In the early to middle part of the previous decade, Trump’s proto-political operation was essentially a two-man team—there was Roger Stone, now a felon, and there was Stone’s protégé, Sam Nunberg.</b> One of Nunberg’s self-appointed tasks was to help Trump understand what the masses on the right really wanted. And one way he did that was by listening to Mark Levin’s increasingly popular radio show. The people who were tuning in most intently to Levin, Nunberg thought, were the people most likely to vote for Trump if he launched an actual bid. “Donald Trump,” Nunberg told me, meaning his candidacy, meaning his victory, “would never have happened without Mark Levin.”</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[Billionaire real estate developer Donald Trump, left, walks to the Federal Courthouse in Newark, N.J., with Roger Stone, the director of Trump's presidential exploratory committee Monday, Oct. 25, 1999, for the swearing-in of Trump's sister as a federal appeals court judge. In a prelude to his possible presidential bid, Trump quit the Republican Party Monday and joined New York's wing of the Reform Party setting the stage for a possible presidential nomination battle with Pat Buchanan.</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Donald Trump, photographed in Oct. 1999, with Roger Stone, the director of his presidential exploratory committee, walking behind him. | AP Photo]</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></font></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Nunberg’s frequent emails to Trump, sent via an assistant in Trump’s office and which have not been reported on before, were accounts of the many grievances that animated Levin and his listeners.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> </span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Union members resented union leaders. Republican rank and file loathed Republican elites. The Tea Party, in the estimation of Levin and his listeners, didn’t start as a reaction to the liberal outrages of President Barack Obama—it started as a reaction to what they viewed as the inconsistently hard-line conservative policies of President George W. Bush. Amnesty for immigrants, for instance? An absolute no-go. Trump, Nunberg stressed when we talked, didn’t want to be told what to say, but Nunberg nonetheless made his pitch for him as an insurgent outsider: “</span><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">This is all marketing and </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">you’re a great product … in a new type of market,”</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> he said he told Trump. “Help me help you sell gold to these people that normally buy gold.”</span></b></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Trump started listening to the show.</b></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“He would call me up sometimes,” Nunberg recalled. “‘Oh, did you just hear what Levin said?’”</b></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></font></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">For the better part of the past half-century, </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Trump, 73, has extracted from an array of similar sources—from the New York Post’s dishy Page Six to the toxicity of Twitter to far-right websites and lowbrow TV—a knack for knowing what people want. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Not all people but many people. And not what they say they want, but what they really want. Ostentatious and aspirational glitz. Plain talk to the point of crude talk. Conflict.</span></b></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Employees, executives, aides and others who’ve known <b>Trump well say he’s not a book-reader so much as a room-reader, “sucking in information that he finds valuable,” grabbing “nuggets” that he thinks can help him get what he covets, which is some slurry of wealth, attention, respect and power. “A creature of feel,”</b> the late strategist Pat Caddell described him to me in the summer of 2018, “a visceral stimulus creature”—who could repackage what he took in and sell it back to the hoi polloi.</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2010, for example, he recognized a lightning-rod issue torquing emotions and jumped right in, gleaning buzz for himself with his offer to purchase the site of the so-called “<b>Ground Zero Mosque”—which alerted him to the potential potency of anti-Obama birtherism</b>, which paved the way for his anger-girded, fear-mongering presidential candidacy. <b>Trump is in this way less a thinker and more a megaphone, an amplifier of the ideas of others, the value of those ideas in his mind based not on veracity so much as utility. Which is another way of saying he’s not so much a leader as he is a follower. Perhaps the ultimate follower. Trump is the Follower of the Free World.</b></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[Top: People protest a mosque construction near Ground Zero during a New York City Landmarks Commission vote in 2010. Bottom: A copy of President Barack Obama's long form birth certificate sits on a reporter's lap in the White House Briefing Room on April 27, 2011, after the administration released the document following extended criticism by those who did not believe he was born in the United States.</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Top: People protest a mosque construction near Ground Zero during a New York City Landmarks Commission vote in 2010. Bottom: A copy of President Barack Obama's long form birth certificate sits on a reporter's lap in the White House Briefing Room on April 27, 2011, after the administration released the document following extended criticism by those who did not believe he was born in the United States. | Getty Images]</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“Donald was never a CEO. He was a brand manager—you know, how do I appeal to the masses?” former Trump publicist Alan Marcus told me recently. “It’s like Elmer Gantry. It’s the carnival barker. It’s what every pitchman has always done. Tell the people what they want to hear.”</b></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Taking the information he wants or needs,” former Trump casino exec Jack O’Donnell said.</span></font></font></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Whether it’s true or not,” former Trump Organization exec Barbara Res said.</font></font></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Taking it in. Sending it out. Over and over. Again and again.</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">This, regardless of whatever else it is or means, is a remarkable and undeniable talent: hoovering others’ ideas, making them his, and in doing </span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">so growing a following uniquely his own that far exceeds the size of the even considerable original audience.</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp; </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">AMP</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> It’s what got him elected. In some ways, too, it’s what got him impeached.</span></font></font></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">“There’s no question,” presidential historian Doug Brinkley told me last week. “He just trolls around and looks for weird stories that grab his attention, and he figures, ‘I know the American psyche, and this’ll grab their attention,’ and he throws it out there.”</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But effective as cherrypicking and amplifying the most emotionally and politically useful tidbits has been for Trump throughout his life, it has proved an uneasy fit when practiced from the inside of an office that is supposed to represent the accumulated knowledge and official position of the entire U.S. government. In some sense, the entire impeachment process is a collision between Trump’s magnification of random, unverified rumors and an official regime of fact and process. The outcome will determine more than whether Trump is removed from office. <b>It may well establish a new standard for what our government defines as true.</b></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Speedy with job-site arithmetic but dismissive of academics, whom he considered weak and effete, Fred Trump Sr. of Queens, N.Y., bestowed upon his middle son and eventual heir not just extravagant riches but an anti-elitist, expertise-averse worldview. At New York Military Academy, at Fordham University in the Bronx and then the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, classmates have said, a young Donald Trump was a “disinterested,” skyscraper-doodling student, “loath to really study much,” <b>game to “bluff his way through.”</b></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But the fact that he wasn’t a scholar didn’t mean that he was stupid, according to people who worked with or watched him closely over the decades of his professional existence.</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[Donald Trump (L), owner of the New Jersey Generals of the U.S. Football League, said his league’s $1.32 billion antitrust suit against the National Football League will crack “one of the great monopolies in the is country.” At right is his attorney Roy Cohn.</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Donald Trump and his attorney Roy Cohn in October, 1984. | Getty Images]</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“If he’s willing to listen, he’s a quick learner,” Res said.</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“A quick study,” biographer Gwenda Blair concurred.</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Donald just absorbs, absorbs, absorbs,” former Trump Organization executive Louise Sunshine said. “He can extract so much information from his awareness of his surroundings and of the world around him.”</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Starting in the 1970s, he learned, of course, how to fight dirty and win from his antagonistic attorney and mentor, Roy Cohn</b>.</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b style="">In the ’80s, he learned from Stone</b>, and from watching George Steinbrenner, Ed Koch and Ronald Reagan, too. Steinbrenner, the bombastic owner of the New York Yankees, led as a loner. His secretary frequently could be heard saying, “Mr. Steinbrenner, Trump on line 2”.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Koch won three terms as the mayor of New York in part “by playing the kibitzer,” wrote Martin Shefter, “the brash fellow who has an opinion on everything.” The formula for success, Koch thought, was relatively uncomplicated: Get attention to get votes. “And you can only do that,” he once said, “by being bigger than life. It’s theatrics.” Staging news conference after news conference, Koch packed the way he talked with superlatives, “best this” and “best that.” Reporters joked about having to join gyms just to keep up with him. But he seldom left them wanting for material. He called foes “wackos” and “kooks.” He called the city council “a gaggle of clowns.”</span></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Reagan, meanwhile, won the Oval Office in one way not dissimilar to Koch’s path to Gracie Mansion—by winning over blue-collar, disaffected Democrats, who sought “safety” in the face of the changing, increasingly diverse society surrounding them.</b> Reagan spent the decade blurring the lines between politics and entertainment, wondering at times how anybody could be an effective president without having been an actor first.</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">For Trump, the “visceral stimulus creature,” Steinbrenner, Koch and Reagan provided daily tutorials of sorts. And while his political affiliations were elastic and his overall ideology embryonic, Trump demonstrated early his acumen for tearing pages from proven playbooks and giving them his own signature twists—with blaring full-page newspaper ads in the late ’80s, criticizing American foreign policy and calling for the death penalty for (the innocent) Central Park Five. <b>AA</b></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[Top: At the June 1978 launching ceremony of the new New York Hyatt Hotel/Convention facility that will be built on the site of the former Commodore Hotel are, from left: Donald Trump, Mayor Ed Koch, Gov. Hugh Carey and Robert T. Dormer, executive vice president of the Urban Development Corp. Bottom right: President Reagan shakes hands with Donald Trump at a White House reception for members of the Friends of Art and Preservation in Embassies Foundation. Bottom left: New York Yankees manager Billy Martin, standing, meets developer Donald Trump at Municipal Stadium in West Palm Beach in March 1988. Seated with Trump are his son Donald, 10, with a ball given to him by Martin, and Yankees owner George Steinbrenner.</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Top: At the June 1978 launching ceremony of the new New York Hyatt Hotel/Convention facility that will be built on the site of the former Commodore Hotel are, from left: Donald Trump, Mayor Ed Koch, Gov. Hugh Carey and Robert T. Dormer, executive vice president of the Urban Development Corp. Bottom right: President Reagan shakes hands with Donald Trump at a White House reception for members of the Friends of Art and Preservation in Embassies Foundation. Bottom left: New York Yankees manager Billy Martin, standing, meets developer Donald Trump at Municipal Stadium in West Palm Beach in March 1988. Seated with Trump are his son Donald, 10, with a ball given to him by Martin, and Yankees owner George Steinbrenner. | AP/Ronald Reagan Presidential Library/Getty]</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">And in the ’90s, Trump learned from watching Ross Perot run for president (and lose) and Jesse Ventura run for governor of Minnesota (and win). “The nutty billionaire and the wrestler,</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">” he called them, according to Stone. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">He watched <b>Newt Gingrich weaponize words</b> in the political arena in a new and virulent manner, labeling Democrats “traitors” and “sick,” urging his fellow Republicans to do the same. He watched the rise of<b> partisanship on cable TV, MSNBC on the left, Fox News on the right, and the spiking clamor for conservative talk radio—from 240 all-talk stations in the country in 1987 to 900 in ’92 to 1,130 in ’95. Rush Limbaugh, the trailblazer, the precursor to somebody like Mark Levin, railed away about “feminazis” and “commie-libs”—and his listeners loved it. “He’s saying what I think,” they thought.</b></span></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">And Trump in 2011 seized on what people, some people—misguided, bigoted or both—thought about the country’s <b style="">first black president. The birtherism</b> campaign he began to wage was the distillation of his scattershot but resolute education as the kibitzer, the gossip hound, the insurgent outsider, the nascent politician, the feeder off the fever swamps. The follower.</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“I’m starting to wonder</b> myself whether or not he was born in this country,” he said on Fox News in March of that year.</font></font></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">“He doesn’t have a birth certificate,” he told talker<b> Laura Ingraham</b> two days later.<b> “Somebody told me …”</b></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“A lot of people do not think </b>it was an authentic certificate,” he said on CNN in 2012, long after the White House released Obama’s “long form” birth certificate.</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[Mark Levin speaks, with President Donald Trump behind him, during a ceremony to present the Presidential Medal of Freedom to former Attorney General Edwin Meese, in the Oval Office of the White House, Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2019, in Washington.</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mark Levin speaks during a ceremony at the White House in 2019. | Alex Brandon/AP Photo]</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Was it a birth certificate<b>? </b>You tell me,” he told ABC News in 2013. <b>“Some people say </b>that was not his birth certificate.”</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">That same year, Nunberg arranged for Trump to make his Levin show debut,</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> preparing a memo “to familiarize Mr. Trump with Mark Levin,” he wrote—deploying tried-and-true ways to pique Trump’s interest. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Nunberg emphasized Levin’s ratings history (“In the first 18 months on the air, the program jumped to #1 in the time slot”), the company he kept (considers<b> Sean Hannity “his best friend”), </b>his reach (books Liberty and Tyranny and Ameritopia: The Unmaking of America sold more than a million copies, Nunberg noted), and his compensation </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">(“a reported annual salary of $12.5 million a year”). Nunberg mentioned, too, that what he said on the air often was disseminated on a variety of <b>websites like TheRightScoop.com</b>. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">People, in other words, “some people,” “many people,” “a lot of people,” were listening to what Levin was saying.</span></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Armed with this advance work, the memo as well as the emails, Trump fit in well with Levin.</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> In addition to<b> shilling for the upcoming season of “The Celebrity Apprentice”—“Trace Adkins, La Toya Jackson, Dennis Rodman”</b>—Trump delivered to Levin’s listeners what they wanted—which essentially was … Levin’s ideas, studiously collected by Nunberg, consumed by Trump and regurgitated back to the host.</span></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“If the Republicans are going to win,” Trump said, “they’re going to have to</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> break away from the Karl Roves of the world and, frankly, get more involved—you know, the Tea Party, these people are great. I’ve done some speeches in front of the </b><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Tea Party. </b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">They are great Americans, they love this country, they work so hard, and they have been so mistreated by … the liberal media. … They truly are not treated with proper respect.”</span></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>And he landed especially hard on immigration and any notions of amnesty for undocumented immigrants.</b></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“I watched last night,” he continued, referring to Obama’s State of the Union that year, “as </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Senator McCain and everybody were jumping up and down, you know, applauding—I never saw him move so fast, you know, nice guy, but he jumped up—and was applauding as soon as the immigration became a part of the discussion, a part of the speech.”</span></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Immigration,” Trump said, “will be the next thing, based on what I’m watching.”</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump and Levin wrapped up by exchanging compliments.</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I’m extremely impressed with what you’re doing,” Levin said.</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“You just have a great show,” Trump said. “I’m always listening.”</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“Donald Trump,” Levin told his listeners after Trump signed off.<b> “</b></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>See that, folks? Very solid. Very conservative. To the right of the Republican establishment. Strong supporter of the Tea Party. </b>I’m telling you. I’ve been watching this. I’ve been listening. People have been sending me his tweets.”</span></font></font></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">There was a reason for that. “He’s putting stuff out there,” Nunberg told me of Trump’s tweets at the time, some of which Nunberg was suggesting, “that sounds like Mark Levin.” </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">FEEDBACK </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">LITERALLY</span></b></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the few months before his interview with Levin:</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Donald J. Trump</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@realDonaldTrump</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Obama weak on immigration. All words, no action. He's been Prez 4 years.</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">197</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">6:12 PM - Oct 16, 2012</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Twitter Ads info and privacy</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">987 people are talking about this</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Donald J. Trump</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@realDonaldTrump</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Obama is laughing at Karl Rove & all the losers who spent hundreds of millions of dollars and didn’t win one race, including the big one!</b></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">63</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1:05 PM - Dec 3, 2012</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Twitter Ads info and privacy</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">349 people are talking about this</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And in the few months after:</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Donald J. Trump</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">?</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@realDonaldTrump</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Whether you like it or not, Bush also gave us Obama!</b></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">54</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">8:12 AM - Jun 27, 2013</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Twitter Ads info and privacy</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">190 people are talking about this</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This ear-to-the-proverbial-ground political ramp-up wasn’t limited to Levin and talk radio. It was around this time as well that Trump began to give more and more talks on the pre-presidential hustings, GOP chicken dinners in places like Iowa and New Hampshire.</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>He talked to Pat Caddell about what he was picking up on the trail. </b>“He would put forth his position or his feelings, and he would judge the level of the response to it, and that helped him organize, I suppose to whatever degree it was organized, his views about issues,” Caddell told me in 2018. “Things he said that didn’t go over disappeared. Things that did stayed.”</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Twitter, too, increasingly served a similar purpose.</b></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></font></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“He glommed onto it like it was an oxygen source,</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">” Caddell explained. “And he would tweet what he believed, and people would retweet or answer or whatever, and it was kind of his ongoing focus group.”</span></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“He loved it,” Nunberg said. “He doesn’t trust the political people who do the focus groups.” Instead: “</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">What are we getting the most retweets on?”</span></b></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2014 and ’15—well before Trump came down the escalator and announced his intention to run—<b>Nunberg sent Trump nearly daily updates of snippets of news and possible topics and wordings for tweets. At the tops of the documents he showed the number of Trump’s Twitter followers ticking up</b> (a snapshot from December of 2014: 2,751,488 … 2,753,548 … 2,757,190 …) and the number of days left until the GOP primary debate at the Reagan library and the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primaries ticking down.</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A month into the presidential campaign, after the Vietnam-avoiding Trump insulted McCain by saying he was “not a war hero” and that he liked people “who weren’t captured,” he refused to apologize. That, Nunberg said, partly was because of what he had internalized by listening to Levin. Nunberg told Trump it was going to help him. (It certainly didn’t hurt him.) “He said, ‘Why?’” Nunberg said. “And I said, </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>‘Because our people despise John McCain.</b> They despise the fact that McCain hides behind his military record to shit on Republicans and you can’t criticize him on anything because of his military record. I said, ‘John McCain—he is hated almost as much as Barack Obama on talk radio.’ … I said, ‘He might as well be Barack Obama on talk radio.’”</span></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Talk radio led the way. Trump followed.</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Theoretically, Trump could have changed.</b> As successful as this pattern of behavior had been in the years preceding his run and during the campaign itself—he was, after all, elected president—Trump could have adjusted once he took office, <b>having at his disposal, suddenly and quite unexpectedly, the world’s preeminent intelligence-gathering apparatus.</b> But no—sticking to “that gossip kind of mentality,” said O’Donnell, the casino exec, <b>Trump has continued to mine Twitter, plucking what he wants, “very comfortable with half thoughts,” “always looking for tidbits of information that he can use to his advantage.”</b></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">“He sees the ones that are the most popular,” former Fox News anchor Eric Bolling, identified by Time as someone who speaks regularly to Trump, told the magazine in June of 2018, “and getting the most [of the] zeitgeist, most attention on social media.”</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">And then? The last and most important piece of this by now almost rote process?</font></font></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>“He repeats it,</b></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">” Bolling said.</span></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[BEDMINSTER TOWNSHIP, NJ - NOVEMBER 20: (L to R) President-elect Donald Trump and former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani shake hands following their meeting at Trump International Golf Club, November 20, 2016 in Bedminster Township, New Jersey. Trump and his transition team are in the process of filling cabinet and other high level positions for the new administration.&nbsp;</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">President-elect Donald Trump and former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani shake hands at Trump International Golf Club in New Jersey, days after the election in Nov. 2016. Giuliani would go on to become President Trump's personal attorney. | Drew Angerer/Getty Images]</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>And for as long as he’s occupied the Oval Office, Trump’s been thinking about Ukraine. </b>“Ukraine,” Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said a couple months back, “has always been problematic, from Day One. He’s <b>heard a lot </b>about Ukraine from a lot of people.” He’s<b><u> heard about it, according to reports, from Rudy </u></b>Giuliani, from his <b>favored right-wing media outlets, from Vladimir Putin.</b></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">He started spreading it almost immediately.AMP</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“I heard</b> it’s owned by a very rich Ukrainian,” he said of CrowdStrike, incorrectly, in an interview with The Associated Press in April of 2017. <b>“That’s what I heard.”</b></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Officials have insisted to the president the CrowdStrike conspiracy is just that. He has not heeded their counsel.</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It’s what led to the call with Ukraine’s Zelensky that led to the series of events that led to his impeachment. “The server,” Trump said, “<b>they say</b> Ukraine has it.”</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">“It’s combustible because <b>Trump’s only looking for news stories and information that suits his persona, that build his persona up,” </b>Brinkley, the presidential historian, told me last week. “And by doing that he is following the trolls down an ugly path.”</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">There are those who predict Trump’s tendencies will ultimately undo him. Thomas Bossert, who was Trump’s first homeland security adviser, logged a warning on a Sunday morning </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">last fall</span><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“If he continues to focus on that white whale,” Bossert said of Trump’s questionable Ukraine theory, “it’s going to bring him down.”</span></b></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">But it is hard to see that happening now. It’s virtually assured that Trump’s impeachment will end not with his ouster but with an acquittal by the Republican-controlled Senate. This purported ordeal could even be a boost. In fundraising, and in some polling, it already has been. And come November, he absolutely could win again. And if that happens,<b> Trump in some sense would possess more power than any president ever—subjected to the gravest constitutional check, then given by voters another four years.</b></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">If Trump began his political ascent as a follower, cannily co-opting ideas that resonated with a certain segment of the electorate, in doing so he clearly has proceeded to forge a following of his own. He has become a leader of those who are willing to be led in this way—solidifying lockstep support from the agenda-setting base of his party as well as its kingpins and figureheads, who parrot him the way he once did Levin. </span><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The result: </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">a crescendoing feedback loop, </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">in which followers are leaders and leaders are followers, perpetuating ideas based on what works rather than what’s real.</span></b></font></font></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">“One of the sacred principles in U.S. history has been that presidents are supposed to tell the public the truth,” Brinkley said. “So this is a new kind of Republican that refuses to ever admit culpability or a mistake and is <b style="">willing to destroy not just institutions but fact-based thinking, empirical thinking.</b>” Trump? “He doesn’t care whether it’s true or not true, whether it destroys somebody or not—there’s no morality into it. It’s just a strange, weird bit of information—‘and it helps me, and I’m going to <b style="">propagate it.’</b>”</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></font></font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/alex-jones/alex-jones-presses-roger-stones-smear-campaign-against-fiona-hill" rel="bookmark" class="teaserlink" style="box-sizing: border-box; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; display: flex; outline: 0px;" /></font></font><div class="teasercontent" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; flex: 1 1 0%; flex-direction: column; justify-content: center;"><a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/alex-jones/alex-jones-presses-roger-stones-smear-campaign-against-fiona-hill" rel="bookmark" class="teaserlink" style="box-sizing: border-box; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; display: flex; outline: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></a><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/alex-jones/alex-jones-presses-roger-stones-smear-campaign-against-fiona-hill" rel="bookmark" class="teaserlink" style="box-sizing: border-box; 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background: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; display: flex; outline: 0px;" /><a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/alex-jones/alex-jones-presses-roger-stones-smear-campaign-against-fiona-hill" rel="bookmark" class="teaserlink" style="box-sizing: border-box; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; display: flex; outline: 0px;" /><a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/alex-jones/alex-jones-presses-roger-stones-smear-campaign-against-fiona-hill" rel="bookmark" class="teaserlink" style="box-sizing: border-box; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; display: flex; outline: 0px;"><span property="schema:name" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: normal;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Alex Jones presses on with Roger Stone’s smear campaign against Fiona Hill</font></span></a></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></h2><p class="dateline-compact" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; align-items: center; display: flex; letter-spacing: 2px; text-transform: uppercase;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="dateline-compacttype" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; height: 1.5em; margin-right: 1em; width: 1.5em;"><svg viewbox="0 0 24 24" class="icon icon--article" aria-labelledby="icon-label--article"><font size="4"><use xlink:href="#article" xmlns:xlink="xlink" /></font><font size="4"><font face="Times New Roman"><svg id="article" viewbox="0 0 24 24" /></font></font></svg></span><time datetime="2019-11-25T15:30:22-0500" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">11/25/19 3:30 PM EST</font></time></font></p></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.newsweek.com/roger-stone-reportedly-pleads-trump-through-alex-jones-jury-deliberates-his-fate-please-pardon-1471905" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.newsweek.com/roger-stone-reportedly-pleads-trump-through-alex-jones-jury-deliberates-his-fate-please-pardon-1471905</font></a></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>ROGER STONE REPORTEDLY PLEADS TO TRUMP THROUGH ALEX JONES AS JURY DELIBERATES HIS FATE: PLEASE 'PARDON ME'</b></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">BY CHRISTINA ZHAO ON 11/14/19 AT 8:48 PM EST</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">00:45</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Fox News' Tucker Carlson Wants To Know When Roger Stone Is Getting Pardoned</b></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">POLITICS</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ROGER STONE</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ALEX JONES</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">INFOWARS</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Longtime Trump associate Roger Stone on Thursday reportedly begged President Donald Trump to pardon him through a message sent to InfoWars far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones as the jury deliberated his fate.</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Stone, 68, a former Trump 2016 campaign adviser and longtime Republican operative, reportedly sent a message to Jones asking to be pardoned while being tried in federal court in Washington D.C. over seven charges of lying to Congress about his relationship with WikiLeaks.</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Roger Stone's message is this," Jones said during Thursday's broadcast of Infowars' The Alex Jones Show, "He expected to be convicted. He said, 'Only a miracle can save me now,' that was exact words to me last night and this morning."</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"And he said to me, 'Alex, barring a miracle, I appeal to God and I appeal to your listeners for prayer, and I appeal to the president to pardon me because to do so would be an action that would show these corrupt courts that they're not going to get away with persecuting people for their free speech or for the crime of getting the president elected,'" Jones continued, adding that Stone asserted, "If we don't do that, it will embolden their criminal activity."</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Stone is at the heart of the question of whether Trump's 2016 campaign worked with WikiLeaks or Russia to leak private emails from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton's campaign during the election. Stone and Trump have been friends for over 30 years and if he is convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison. However, Stone could serve a lesser sentence as he is a non-violent first time offender.</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The jury in Stone's criminal trial ended Thursday, the first day of deliberations, without reaching verdict as to whether the political consultant lied to Congress. He has plead not guilty to all seven counts of obstruction, witness tampering and issuing false statements to lawmakers in the House of Representatives during an Intelligence Committee investigation into possible 2016 Russian campaign meddling.</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[RELATED STORIES</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Roger Stone Trial: Charges, Potential Witnesses and What It Means for Trump</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">'Gleefully Defiant' Trump Spoils for Fight, But Will His Playbook Fail Him?]</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Later in the segment, Jones speculated on whether Trump will grant Stone a pardon.</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">"So will the president listen to his cowardly advisers and not pardon Stone because he believes if he does that that somehow validates the Russia connection?" he said. "When this man has not been indicted for Russian connection."</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">He added: "These libtard jurors know damn well he's innocent. But they want to sit there and feel all officious and powerful and send him to prison, hoping for some victory against flyover country that they despite so much, that they're so angry they don't have control of."</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Stone was indicted and arrested in an early morning raid by the FBI in January. The charges stemmed from former special counsel Robert Mueller's length investigation into possible Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Stone previously hosted War Room, an InfoWars show.</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">---</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;Stone, Found Guilty for Obstructing Justice, Faces Decades in Prison</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">roger stone trial begins</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Roger Stone Trial: Charges, Potential Witnesses and What It Means for Trump</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">roger stone instagram john brennan</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Roger Stone Demands John Brennan Be 'Hung for Treason' in Instagram Post</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Roger Stone</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Roger Stone Says He 'Really' Misses Donald Trump</font></font></font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/roger-stone/alex-jones-reads-angry-text-roger-stones-lawyer-you-almost-got-my-client-thrown-jail" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.mediamatters.org/roger-stone/alex-jones-reads-angry-text-roger-stones-lawyer-you-almost-got-my-client-thrown-jail</font></a></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Alex Jones reads angry text from Roger Stone’s lawyer: You almost got my client thrown in jail right after conviction</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jones said he was just “doing what Roger said” by broadcasting a pardon request while the jury was still deliberating</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">WRITTEN BY TIMOTHY JOHNSON</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">PUBLISHED 11/15/19 2:33 PM EST</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Roger Stone and Alex Jones</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump confidant Roger Stone was convicted of seven felony counts, including charges that he lied to Congress and<b>&nbsp;tampered with a witness</b>, in federal court on November 15. Following his conviction, prosecutors argued that he should be immediately remanded into custody because he violated a gag order he is under by passing a public announcement through far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones the previous day. Stone, however, was released by the judge on certain conditions, including an ongoing gag order, as he awaits his February sentencing.</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">During his November 15 broadcast of The Alex Jones Show, Jones read a text message from one of Stone’s attorneys that purportedly said, “Your reporting almost got Roger taken into custody immediately upon the verdicts. The government cited you and argued for immediate imprisonment. Please be cautious about your comments concerning private communications.”</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Video file</font></font></font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/15/us/politics/roger-stone-trial-guilty.html"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/15/us/politics/roger-stone-trial-guilty.html</font></a></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">nyt</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Roger Stone Is Convicted of Impeding Investigators in a Bid to Protect Trump</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mr. Stone, a longtime informal adviser to President Trump, obstructed one of Congress’s Russia investigations and lied to lawmakers.</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By Sharon LaFraniere and Zach Montague</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Nov. 15, 2019</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">WASHINGTON — For decades, Roger J. Stone Jr. played politics as a kind of performance art, starring himself as a professional lord of mischief, as a friend once called him. He tossed bombs and spun tales from the political periphery with no real reckoning, burnishing a reputation as a dirty trickster.</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On Friday morning, a reckoning arrived, the consequence of his efforts to sabotage a congressional investigation that threatened his longtime friend President Trump.</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Mr. Stone, 67, was convicted in federal court of seven felonies for obstructing the congressional inquiry, lying to investigators under oath and trying to block the testimony of a witness whose account would have exposed his lies. Jurors deliberated for a little over seven hours before convicting him on all counts. Together, the charges carry a maximum prison term of 50 years.</b></font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a last-minute bid for salvation, prosecutors said, Mr. Stone appealed to Mr. Trump for a pardon on Thursday, using a right-wing conspiracy theorist who runs the website Infowars as his proxy. Mr. Trump attacked the guilty verdict against Mr. Stone in a tweet on Friday but made no mention of a pardon.</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">To some friends, Mr. Stone’s fatal flaw was that he did not know when the time for gamesmanship was over. “The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about,” he liked to say. But that mantra seemed to ring hollow as Mr. Stone, forced to stand in silence, heard a courtroom deputy read the word “guilty” seven times.</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The impeachment inquiry underway nearby on Capitol Hill overshadowed news of the verdict, but it was nonetheless another setback for the president. Mr. Stone is the sixth former Trump aide to be convicted in cases stemming from the investigation by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And the trial revived the saga of Russia’s efforts to bolster Mr. Trump’s chances of winning the White House just as House impeachment investigators are scrutinizing how Mr. Trump pressured another government, Ukraine, to help with his 2020 re-election chances.</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Prosecutors said Mr. Stone tried to thwart the work of the House Intelligence Committee because the truth would have “looked terrible” for both Mr. Trump and his campaign<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">. </span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">They built their case over the past week with testimony from a friend of Mr. Stone and two former Trump campaign officials: Rick Gates, the deputy campaign chairman, and Stephen K. Bannon, who led the campaign through its final three months and served as a White House strategist early in the administration.</span></font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hundreds of exhibits that exposed Mr. Stone’s disdain for congressional and criminal investigators buttressed the testimony.</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">The evidence showed that in the months before the 2016 election, Mr. Stone strove to obtain emails that Russia had stolen from Democratic computers and funneled to WikiLeaks, which released them at strategic moments timed to damage Hillary Clinton, Mr. Trump’s Democratic opponent. “Every chance he got,” prosecutors said, Mr. Stone briefed the Trump campaign about whatever he had picked up about WikiLeaks’ plans.</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>But he told the House committee in September 2017 that he never described to anyone involved in the Trump campaign his conversations with an intermediary to WikiLeaks.</b></font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The trial called into question Mr. Trump’s own answers to queries from Mr. Mueller. The president, who refused to be interviewed and agreed to respond to questions only in writing, said he could not recall the specifics of any of 21 conversations he had with Mr. Stone in the six months before the election.</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">In one of the trial’s most revealing moments, Mr. Gates recounted a July 31, 2016, phone call between Mr. Stone and Mr. Trump, just days after WikiLeaks had released a trove of emails embarrassing the Clinton campaign. As soon as he hung up with Mr. Stone, Mr. Gates testified, Mr. Trump declared that “more information” was coming, an apparent reference to future releases from WikiLeaks that would rattle his political rival.</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Within minutes of the verdict, Mr. Trump protested on Twitter that it was unfair. “So they now convict Roger Stone of lying and want to jail him for many years to come,” Mr. Trump wrote, though his own administration’s Justice Department prosecuted Mr. Stone.</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">He then listed the names of nearly a dozen favorite targets of his ire, including Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Mueller, the former F.B.I. director James B. Comey and Representative Adam B. Schiff, who heads the House Intelligence Committee. “Didn’t they lie?” he tweeted, and then added: “A double standard like never seen before in the history of our Country?”</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mr. Stone joins a notable list of former Trump aides who either pleaded guilty or were convicted of federal crimes in cases stemming from Mr. Mueller’s work. It includes Mr. Gates; Michael T. Flynn, the former national security adviser; Michael D. Cohen, the president’s longtime fixer; George Papadopoulos, a former Trump campaign aide; and Paul Manafort, Mr. Trump’s former campaign chairman and Mr. Stone’s onetime partner in a political consulting firm.</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Although the counts against him add up to 50 years, the punishment for Mr. Stone, who had no previous criminal record, will almost certainly be far lighter. On the other hand, his multiple run-ins earlier this year with Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who will sentence him on Feb. 6, could work against him. After a series of infractions, including posting a photo of the judge with an image of cross-hairs next to her head on Instagram in February, she banned him from social media.</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After the verdict, prosecutors asked Judge Jackson to put Mr. Stone behind bars, arguing that he had defied her once again by passing the message to Infowars’ Alex Jones, saying, “I appeal to the president to pardon me.” But the judge said it was not entirely clear whether Mr. Stone had disobeyed her and noted that he had complied with her orders in recent months.</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mr. Stone’s lawyers argued that the prosecution’s case was based on speculation and false assumptions about Mr. Stone’s motives. Mr. Stone had no reason to lie in order to protect the president nearly a year after Mr. Trump had won the election, Bruce S. Rogow, the lead defense lawyer, told jurors.</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mr. Stone had simply confined his answers to the strict parameters of the committee’s inquiry, he argued. He also said that even though Mr. Stone had portrayed himself to the campaign as Mr. Trump’s link to WikiLeaks, that was just more of Mr. Stone’s typical braggadocio.</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Much of the trial revolved around relationship between Mr. Stone and Randy Credico, a New York radio host and comedian</b>. The charge that Mr. Stone had tried to block Mr. Credico from testifying to the House committee was the most serious one he faced, carrying a maximum penalty of 20 years. Mr. Credico ultimately asserted his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination and refused to testify to the House committee.</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He testified at the trial that despite the fact he repeatedly urged Mr. Stone to tell the truth, he falsely identified him to congressional investigators as his intermediary with Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks. Previously in their tortured 17-year friendship, he said, Mr. Stone had treated him as his “patsy.”</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In an effort to ward off Mr. Credico’s congressional testimony, the evidence showed, Mr. Stone alternately flattered, bullied and threatened the radio host. At one point, Mr. Stone pretended that he had written a letter to the House committee characterizing Mr. Credico as highly talented and successful.</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At other points, he urged Mr. Credico to “Do a Frank Pentangeli,” referring to a character in the movie “The Godfather: Part II” who gave false testimony during a Senate hearing on organized crime. Borrowing a quote from Richard M. Nixon to a top aide during the Watergate cover-up, Mr. Stone texted Mr. Credico in late 2017: “Stonewall it. Plead the fifth. Anything to save the plan.”</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If he refused to go along, Mr. Credico testified, Mr. Stone promised to retaliate against him and Margaret Ratner Kunstler, a lawyer for Mr. Assange and one of Mr. Credico’s dearest friends. Prosecutors described Ms. Kunstler as a particularly effective “pressure point” with Mr. Credico, an unmarried man with no children and a 34-year history of alcohol abuse.</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">One of Mr. Stone’s most blatant deceptions, prosecutors said, was hiding records of his communications. He told congressional investigators that he and Mr. Credico only spoke on the phone, because Mr. Credico “was not an email guy.”</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">In fact, in the year and a half before Mr. Stone testified, he and Mr. Credico exchanged more than 1,500 emails and text messages, including 72 texts alone on the day of Mr. Stone’s congressional testimony. Because Mr. Stone misled the committee, prosecutors said, investigators failed to pursue promising leads and arrived at inaccurate conclusions in its final report on Russia’s election interference.</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Mr. Credico tried for months to warn Mr. Stone that his lies would catch up to him. Among Mr. Stone’s responses: “Nice try.” “Meaningless.” “So what.”</b></font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></b></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>And, “No one cares.”</b></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">wapo</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx wapo</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Opinions</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Roger Stone believed morality was weakness. His downfall was loyalty to a friend.</b></font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By Morgan Pehme, Daniel DiMauro and Dylan Bank&nbsp;</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">November 16, 2019 at 2:50 PM EST</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Morgan Pehme, Daniel DiMauro and Dylan Bank wrote and directed the 2017 Netflix documentary “Get Me Roger Stone.”</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">They got Roger Stone.</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On Friday, a federal jury found the brazen and unrepentant Republican dirty trickster guilty on seven counts of tampering with a witness and lying to Congress, offenses he committed during the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. In retrospect, it seems inevitable that Stone would get his comeuppance in the end for the decades of damage he has done to the foundations of American politics. But over the 5½ years we spent following him for the making of our documentary “Get Me Roger Stone," Stone never even hinted that he believed his misdeeds would ever catch up with him.</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The cause of Stone’s downfall is the really striking part of the latest chapter in his astonishing story. After decades of smashing norms, he is finally going to prison because of his fidelity to an ideal of friendship that the friend in question likely doesn’t return.</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>For those unacquainted with Stone, whom writer Jeffrey Toobin calls the “sinister Forrest Gump of American politics” in our film, he is a self-described “agent provocateur</b>.” He proudly takes credit for his pioneering role in saturating our elections with negative ads; ushering unlimited outside money into our politics by starting the first super PAC; profiting off of representing brutal Third World dictators’ interests in Washington; and transforming K Street by trampling on the lofty notion that it is unethical for campaign operatives to make money lobbying the candidates they helped elect.</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When Stone first granted us intimate access to him in 2011, he was a down-and-out political operative, more a historical figure than an active player. By the time we concluded filming in 2017, Stone had shocked the world by triumphing in his 29-year-long quest to make Donald Trump president of the United States. The moment seemed like the culmination of a lifelong devotion.</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Stone was the first person ever to suggest to Trump he seek the White House</b>. And though he failed to persuade Trump to run in 1988, Stone became Trump’s closest political adviser and prodded him every four years to change his mind until he finally prevailed in 2015.</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The relationship was defining, at least for Stone. In an interview we conducted for our film, Stone’s first wife, Ann, said Stone and Trump have “been married and divorced more times than I can count.” Her observation reflects both the intimacy of Trump and Stone’s relationship and its volatility. Though Stone laid the groundwork for Trump’s 2016 bid, inevitably Trump and Stone’s mammoth personalities caused them once again to feud; Stone was ousted from the campaign less than two months after its kickoff.</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Being cast to the periphery of a campaign he had dreamed about for decades tortured Stone</b>. He reacted like a jilted lover desperate to be taken back — even after he got his former partner Paul Manafort hired as Trump’s campaign chairman. To woo Trump’s attention, Stone claimed he had a secret backchannel to WikiLeaks and insider knowledge of when it would release information damaging to Hillary Clinton. Our interactions with Stone at that time made us seriously doubt he was communicating with WikiLeaks in any significant way, which turned out to be the case. But the Trump campaign was struggling so badly, it was willing to hear out Stone on the off chance he had the goods.</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The WikiLeaks connection that Stone concocted wound up being his undoing. To maintain the charade and obscure the Trump campaign’s receptivity to his overtures, Stone lied to Congress and threatened his on-again-off-again friend Randy Credico to go along with his clumsy ruse.</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>It didn’t have to end this way for Stone. When he lied to Congress, Stone was appearing on his own volition and could have easily changed his public story to skirt any danger to himself.</b> <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Instead, he provided prosecutors with an easily demonstrable paper trail to convict him of his crimes. All because he apparently wanted to protect Trump and his standing with his old friend.</span></font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Now the question is whether Trump will reward Stone’s decades of fierce loyalty with a presidential pardon. Stone has reason to fear the worst. At a vulnerable moment in one of our interviews, Stone surprised us by rejecting the idea that Trump was one of his closest friends. He said essentially that he was unworthy of the distinction because Trump was better than him, an admission that shocked us given Stone’s titanic narcissism. It also intimated to us that Stone knew Trump did not prize his friendship the way he did.</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That Stone appears to be reduced to appealing to his old friend for a pardon through an appearance by his daughter on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show suggests he may have been right. Roger Stone, a man who believes morality is a weakness, was ultimately brought down by friendship and loyalty.</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Howard Fineman: Roger Stone should be a footnote in history. Instead, his life shows our descent to shamelessness.</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Paul Waldman and Greg Sargent: Roger Stone’s conviction, and Trump’s ugly response, further demonstrate the president’s corruption</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dana Milbank: The Roger Stone clown show is the Trump presidency in microcosm</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Timothy Naftali: How did Roger Stone survive Watergate?</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">David Von Drehle: The knocking of FBI agents must have been music to Roger Stone’s ears</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></font></font></p><div><div class="r" style="margin: 0px; line-height: 1.57; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/roger-stone-trial-set-to-turn-to-alleged-witness-threats-contacts-with-trump-campaign-about-wikileaks/2019/11/08/156e0854-01b0-11ea-8bab-0fc209e065a8_story.html" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/roger-stone-trial-set-to-turn-to-alleged-witness-threats-contacts-with-trump-campaign-about-wikileaks/2019/11/08/156e0854-01b0-11ea-8bab-0fc209e065a8_story.html&ved=2ahUKEwie85aRteDlAhXRKH0KHfxZATYQFjADegQIAxAB" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;" /></font></font></font><h3 class="LC20lb" style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1.3;"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/roger-stone-trial-set-to-turn-to-alleged-witness-threats-contacts-with-trump-campaign-about-wikileaks/2019/11/08/156e0854-01b0-11ea-8bab-0fc209e065a8_story.html" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/roger-stone-trial-set-to-turn-to-alleged-witness-threats-contacts-with-trump-campaign-about-wikileaks/2019/11/08/156e0854-01b0-11ea-8bab-0fc209e065a8_story.html&ved=2ahUKEwie85aRteDlAhXRKH0KHfxZATYQFjADegQIAxAB" style="cursor: pointer; 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text-decoration-line: none;" /><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/roger-stone-trial-set-to-turn-to-alleged-witness-threats-contacts-with-trump-campaign-about-wikileaks/2019/11/08/156e0854-01b0-11ea-8bab-0fc209e065a8_story.html" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/roger-stone-trial-set-to-turn-to-alleged-witness-threats-contacts-with-trump-campaign-about-wikileaks/2019/11/08/156e0854-01b0-11ea-8bab-0fc209e065a8_story.html&ved=2ahUKEwie85aRteDlAhXRKH0KHfxZATYQFjADegQIAxAB" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;" /><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/roger-stone-trial-set-to-turn-to-alleged-witness-threats-contacts-with-trump-campaign-about-wikileaks/2019/11/08/156e0854-01b0-11ea-8bab-0fc209e065a8_story.html" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/roger-stone-trial-set-to-turn-to-alleged-witness-threats-contacts-with-trump-campaign-about-wikileaks/2019/11/08/156e0854-01b0-11ea-8bab-0fc209e065a8_story.html&ved=2ahUKEwie85aRteDlAhXRKH0KHfxZATYQFjADegQIAxAB" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;" /><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/roger-stone-trial-set-to-turn-to-alleged-witness-threats-contacts-with-trump-campaign-about-wikileaks/2019/11/08/156e0854-01b0-11ea-8bab-0fc209e065a8_story.html" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/roger-stone-trial-set-to-turn-to-alleged-witness-threats-contacts-with-trump-campaign-about-wikileaks/2019/11/08/156e0854-01b0-11ea-8bab-0fc209e065a8_story.html&ved=2ahUKEwie85aRteDlAhXRKH0KHfxZATYQFjADegQIAxAB" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;">Steve Bannon at Roger Stone trial says Stone claimed ...</a></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></h3><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font><div class="TbwUpd" style="display: inline-block; line-height: 1.57; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 1px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><cite class="iUh30 bc" style="font-style: normal; padding-top: 1px; line-height: 1.5;">https://www.washingtonpost.com › local › legal-issues › 2019/11/08</cite></font></div></div><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 1.57; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="st" style="line-height: 1.57; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="f" style="line-height: 1.57;">2 days ago -&nbsp;</span>President Trump's former strategist testifies against Roger&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: bold;">Stone</span>&nbsp;in federal court. ... “I know how to win, but it&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: bold;">ain't pretty</span>.” Asked what Bannon&nbsp;...</font></span></font></font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</div><div><b>Bannon says Stone claimed contacts with WikiLeaks</b></div><div>
</div><div>Rachel Weiner,&nbsp;</div><div>Spencer S. Hsu and&nbsp;</div><div>Devlin Barrett&nbsp;</div><div>November 8, 2019 at 6:51 PM EST</div><div>
</div><div>President Trump’s former chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon testified against political consultant Roger Stone on Friday, telling a federal jury that he thought of Stone as the Trump campaign’s liaison to the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks.</div><div>
</div><div>Bannon, a high-profile figure in the Trump campaign and the early days of the Trump administration, told the jury he was appearing only because he had been subpoenaed.</div><div>
</div><div>While Bannon was one of the most anticipated witnesses at Stone’s trial for allegedly lying to Congress about his efforts in 2016 to contact WikiLeaks, he was also one of the briefest, spending less than an hour under direct examination by prosecutors.</div><div>
</div><div>His testimony bolstered the government’s allegations that Stone lied to the House committee investigating Russian election interference when he denied discussing with the Trump campaign WikiLeaks’ release of emails damaging to political rival Hillary Clinton.</div><div>
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</div><div>“He had a relationship, or told me he had a relationship with WikiLeaks,” Bannon said. “It was something I think he would frequently mention.”</div><div>
</div><div>“I was led to believe he had a relationship with WikiLeaks and [its founder] Julian Assange,” Bannon testified, based on Stone’s public statements and conversations going back years.</div><div><b>
</b></div><div><b>Stone and Bannon had known each other for a long time before Bannon joined the Trump campaign in August 2016, and they spoke between a half-dozen and a dozen times between then and the November election, Bannon testified.</b></div><div>
</div><div>Bannon said he discussed WikiLeaks with Stone as Stone was trying to learn more about hacked emails that might tank Clinton’s election run. The emails were stolen by Russian agents and shared with WikiLeaks, which released them at critical points in the 2016 election cycle, according to prosecutors.</div><div><b>
</b></div><div><b>After releases in summer 2016, Stone emailed Bannon, writing that “Trump can still win, but time is running out,” according to a copy of the message shown to jurors.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">&nbsp;“I know how to win, but it ain’t pretty.”</span></b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Asked what Bannon understood Stone’s email to mean, Bannon noted Stone’s claimed WikiLeaks connection and said: “Roger is an expert in the tougher side of politics.<b>When you’re this far behind, you’re going to have to use every tool in the tool box</b>&nbsp;.?.?.&nbsp;<b>opposition research, dirty tricks</b>, the kind of things campaigns use when you need to make up some ground.”</span></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">At one point in October 2016, when an expected revelation from Assange about Clinton emails proved to be a dud, Bannon sent Stone an email asking, “What was that this morning???”</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Bannon, smiling, said on the stand that he sent the message to ask why the much-hyped disclosures did not materialize and also as “a little bit of a heckle; It was twofold.”</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Stone replied that Assange was afraid for his safety but would still end up releasing damaging documents every week</span>.</div><div>
</div><div><b>On cross-examination by Stone’s lawyer Robert Buschel, Bannon conceded that Stone never claimed to him that he had advance access to the hacked emails.</b></div><div>
</div><div>Stone, 67, listened intently, as he has throughout the trial. A longtime confidant of Trump, he has pleaded not guilty, and his attorneys have said any misstatements he made to Congress were unintentional.</div><div>
</div><div><b>Earlier in the day, former radio show host Randy Credico described on the witness stand how Stone urged him not to talk to Congress about their election year conversations. Credico said Stone threatened to damage the career of a close friend and even take away his dog.</b></div><div>
</div><div>Stone is also accused of witness tampering for allegedly trying to thwart Credico’s testimony to Congress. Jurors have seen Stone’s words in texts and emails, but Credico described how he understood Stone’s increasingly angry messages.</div><div>
</div><div>Prosecutors say Stone lied to protect the president when questioned in 2017 about WikiLeaks and the campaign. To keep the committee from unraveling those lies, prosecutors have said, Stone needed Credico to keep quiet and resorted to threats to try to ensure that.</div><div>
</div><div>Credico said in court Friday that Stone influenced his decision not to testify before the committee. “A lot of people played a role,” he said, “Mr. Stone among them.”</div><div>
</div><div>Trial evidence shows Stone texted Credico in April 2018: “You are a rat. A stoolie. You backstab your friends-run your mouth my lawyers are dying Rip you to shreds.” Stone later added: “I am so ready. Let’s get it on.&nbsp;<b>Prepare to die.”</b></div><div><b>
</b></div><div><b>At one point, Stone texted Credico that he would “take that dog away from you</b>,” according to trial evidence.</div><div>
</div><div>Credico said he was “sure” Stone knew how important his<b>&nbsp;therapy dog Bianca&nbsp;</b>was to him when he sent that message. But later when questioned by Stone’s defense lawyer, Credico said he never really feared for Bianca’s safety.</div><div>
</div><div>Credico said he was more concerned about jeopardizing the reputation of his friend Margaret Kuntsler, who did legal work for WikiLeaks and helped Credico land an Aug. 25, 2016, interview with Assange for his radio show. Once, on Stone’s behalf, Credico said he asked her for WikiLeaks’ help finding emails implicating Clinton in an incident in Libya. Kuntsler testified that she ignored the message, but Credico said Stone threatened to falsely name her as his “backchannel.”</div><div>
</div><div>Credico described Stone repeatedly asking him to “do a Frank Pentangeli,” referring to a character from “The Godfather: Part II” who is intimidated into saying at a Senate hearing that he cannot recall information he actually knows.</div><div>
</div><div>The defense has suggested that Stone was asking Credico to use his skills as a comic impressionist to imitate Pentangeli. Credico testified he understood the references as a direction to “throw .?.?. off the House Intelligence Committee.”</div><div>
</div><div>Credico told the jury that directive made no sense because “there’s a ton of photos and text messages. .?.?. If I did a Frank Pentangeli, I would look like a fool.” But Credico said he was worried that if he testified honestly, he might become the victim of “some kind of smear job” by Stone.</div><div>
</div><div>On cross-examination, Stone’s attorney painted Credico as a liar who made Stone believe he had a close connection to Assange. Credico readily admitted: “There were exaggerations, there were lies, there were rebuffs, yes.”</div><div>
</div><div>The defense tried to argue that Credico refused to testify before the House committee not because Stone threatened him but because of his own liberal political leanings.</div><div>
</div><div>“You did not want to be associated with the Donald Trump campaign?” Buschel asked.</div><div>
</div><div>“Absolutely. Would you?” Credico replied, adding later: “I did not want to be connected with Donald Trump at all.”</div><div>
</div><div>A conspiracy of hunches: Roger Stone trial set to start this week</div><div>
</div><div>Roger Stone trial: Day 1 of testimony</div><div>
</div><div>Key witness takes stand in Roger Stone trial</div></div><div><div style="line-height: 17px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/10/heres-why-roger-stones-upcoming-trial-could-deal-a-major-blow-to-trump-at-a-perilous-time/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2019/10/heres-why-roger-stones-upcoming-trial-could-deal-a-major-blow-to-trump-at-a-perilous-time/</font></a></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Here’s why Roger Stone’s upcoming trial could deal a major blow to Trump at a perilous time</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Written by Alex Henderson October 31, 2019</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Ukraine scandal and the U.S. House of Representatives’ impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump have been drawing so much media attention that previous Trump-related scandals haven’t been in the news as much — for example, the looming criminal trial of the president’s long-time associate and self-described “dirty trickster” Roger Stone. But the U.S. Department of Justice hasn’t forgotten about Stone, who will appear in court beginning on Tuesday, November 5. And Stone, journalists David Corn and Dan Friedman report in Mother Jones, could still be problematic for Trump.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Stone is facing federal charges that include obstruction of justice and witness tampering. And when he goes to trial on November 5, Corn and Friedman note, he will also be “facing charges that he lied to Congress about his interactions with WikiLeaks during the 2016 campaign as the organization was publicly disseminating Democratic material stolen by Russian hackers.”</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Explaining what Stone’s trial could mean for Trump, they add: “Though the trial will determine whether Stone tried to bamboozle a congressional investigation, it could answer two bigger questions about the president: did Trump use or try to use Stone as a conduit to WikiLeaks, and did Trump lie to Special Counsel Robert Mueller? The former might not be illegal; the latter could be a crime.”</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Earlier this year, Attorney General William Barr publicly released, in redacted form, former Special Counsel Mueller’s final report for the Russia investigation — and most of the references to Stone in the report were redacted,</b> Corn and Friedman point out, “because his trial was pending.” However, the journalists add that the Mueller Report “contains clues suggesting that the full story of Stone’s involvement in the Trump-Russia scandal goes beyond what’s publicly known — and that it implicates Trump.”</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2016, Democratic e-mails were stolen by Russia hackers and given to WikiLeaks, which published them online — and Stone, in 2016, was in touch with both the Trump campaign and the Russian hacker known by the assumed identity Guccifer 2.0.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Corn and Friedman explain, “If Trump or his senior campaign aides thought Stone was communicating with WikiLeaks — whether or not he actually was — and they were receiving information from him related to WikiLeaks, that would mean they believed then that the Trump campaign had a back-channel contact to WikiLeaks as it participated in the Russian operation. Trump has long shouted there was ‘no collusion,’ but perhaps Trump thought at the time that he and his campaign were colluding. After all, a significant Trump adviser consorting with WikiLeaks at this point could be construed as some sort of collusion.”</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>And as journalist Marcy Wheeler argued on Sept. 6., pre-trial documents indicate that Trump was in closer contact with Stone in 2016 than he told Mueller during the Russia investigation. Trump told Mueller he spoke to Stone “from time to time during the campaign,” but the documents indicate that Trump “spoke to Stone a lot.”</b></font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump denied recalling any discussions with Stone on a number of fronts, saying: <b>“I do not recall </b>discussing WikiLeaks with him, nor do I recall being aware of Mr. Stone having discussed WikiLeaks with individuals associated with my campaign, although I was aware that WikiLeaks was the subject of media reporting and campaign-related discussion at the time.”</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">However, as Wheeler notes, the evidence for the Stone’s trial included seven different phone numbers for Trump — four for him personally and three for his assistants and bodyguard — suggesting they talked quite frequently. And though he didn’t charge the president for any lies, Mueller did indicate in his testimony to Congress that Trump’s answers to the special counsel were not all truthful. Stone’s trial could shed more light on this claim.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s impeachment strategy has clearly focused on the Ukraine scandal, largely leaving aside the Mueller Report. But as Corn and Friedman point out in their Mother Jones article, there is a connection between the two.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“In a way,” the Mother Jones journalists explain, “the Russia affair led to the Ukraine scandal, with Trump pressing the Ukrainian president to investigate — and prove — a nutty conspiracy theory that claimed Moscow did not hack the 2016 election.”</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Stone’s trial, they add, will bring back memories of the Russia investigation at a time when the House will be weighing whether or not Trump’s Ukraine-related activities should result in articles of impeachment against him.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“This trial of a conniving Trump confidante who specializes in the political dark arts will be a reminder of the original scandal of the Trump Administration that has tainted and undermined his presidency,” Corn and Friedman report, “and it could add another big lie — and a possible crime — to Trump’s long record of wrongdoing.”</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">crowdstrike bs:</font></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In truth, Crowdstrike’s findings were never controversial among security experts, and they were later confirmed by FBI agents with access to the same evidence, as well as additional evidence Crowdstrike never had. In October 2018, Robert Mueller indicted 12 GRU officers for the DNC intrusion and hacks targeting John Podesta and the DCCC.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Today the secret server hoax is mostly confined to the very edge of the conservative fringe, though it’s made an appearance in court. Indicted former Trump campaign advisor</span><b style=""> <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Roger Stone</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> has been using the theory to try and get evidence against him thrown out of court, even filing an affidavit written by William Binney</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">, one of the conspiracy theory’s most dogged advocates.&nbsp; Last week the federal judge overseeing Stone’s obstruction of justice case rejected his motion without ruling on the conspiracy theory itself.</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Kevin Poulsen</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sr. National Security Correspondent</font></div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font>

<a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/07/your-regular-reminder-that-mcconnell-abetted-russian-election-interference-and-is-doing-it-again"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2019/07/your-regular-reminder-that-mcconnell-abetted-russian-election-interference-and-is-doing-it-again</font></a>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Running interference for the occupier of the Oval Office, the execrable Rep. Steve Scalise is&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/SteveScalise/status/1147494683272187904" style=" box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">attacking Joe Biden</a>, saying “Russian interference in America’s elections happened on Obama and Biden’s watch.” That’s “irrefutable” he says, pointing to a craptacular 2017&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/video/obama-administration-knew-about-russian-meddling-in-august/" style=" box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">CBS News report</a>&nbsp;from 2017 that vaguely references the “political difficulties” President Obama faced in addressing Russian hacking without once mention Mitch McConnell.</font></p>

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<p style=" box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Those political difficulties were entirely of <b>McConnell</b>’s making. He’s the guy&nbsp;who, in reporter Greg Miller’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/1/18/1827396/-Remember-when-Mitch-McConnell-covered-up-Putin-s-interference-to-elect-Trump" style=" box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">retelling</a>, was fully briefed on everything the intelligence committee knew about Russian interference. He was told that Russia was intervening to hurt Hillary Clinton and help Donald Trump. And McConnell told the CIA, “You’re telling us that Russia is trying to help elect Trump. If you try to come forward with this, I’m not going to sign onto any sort of public statement that would condemn Russian interference. <b>But I will condemn you and the Obama administration for trying to mess up this election."</b></span></font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>McConnell doesn’t have that card to play in the lead-up to the 2020 election, another one that he appears to be just as committed to helping Russia fix.</b><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> As we speak, McConnell&nbsp;<a title="" href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/14/politics/mcconnell-election-security/index.html" style=" box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">continues to refuse</a>&nbsp;to take up legislation to protect the next election, falling back on that old saw, “states’ rights.” His excuse is that “Democrats would like to nationalize everything” and that they “want the federal government to take over the election process because they think that would somehow benefit them.” It does happen to be true that clean elections in which all eligible voters are able exercise their franchise tend to result in Democrats winning. That’s McConnell’s tell right there—he doesn’t want a clean election.</span></font></p>

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<p style=" box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">McConnell also argues that the Trump administration did a “terrific job” in working with state and local officials in the 2018 election and asks, “Where is the applause for that?” That’s in spite of the fact that&nbsp;<a title="" href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/7/24/1782938/-Bipartisan-group-of-21-state-attorneys-general-demand-congressional-action-on-election-security" style=" box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">bipartisan attorneys general</a>&nbsp;were pleading with a then-Republican Congress to give them some help just a few months before the election, alarmed at the threat they knew existed.</font></p>

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<p style=" box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A&nbsp;<a title="" style=" box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">week&nbsp;ago</a>, the Democratic House passed an expansive election protections bill, [zoe?] with mandatory back-up paper ballots and post-vote audits to ensure that elections systems won’t be compromised by hacking. Democrats have got more legislation coming, hoping a barrage of bills will force McConnell to respond to bipartisan pressure to break his blockade. Thus far they haven’t been able to make a dent in his refusal to consider the bills.</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>McConnell’s obstruction might have something to do with the past big campaign donations he’s received from&nbsp;<a title="" href="https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2018/05/08/putins-proxies-helped-funnel-millions-gop-campaigns" style=" box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">pals of Putin</a>&nbsp;and the&nbsp;<a title="" href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/4/24/1852770/-Something-is-really-rotten-in-the-state-of-Kentucky-and-it-s-coming-from-Russia" style=" box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">millions</a>&nbsp;those same Russian oligarchs are pouring into his home state of Kentucky, in the form of capital investment in an aluminum plant.</b> It probably has everything to do with the fact that he’s just about the least popular politician in the nation and that he’s up for reelection himself this cycle, and is&nbsp;<a title="" href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/431002-poll-33-of-kentucky-voters-approve-of-mcconnell" style=" box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">underwater</a>&nbsp;in his home state, with a “razor-thin” lead over a generic Democratic opponent.</font></p>

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<p style=" box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">So, no, Obama and Biden aren’t to blame for Russian interference in the 2016 election. Granted, Obama could have ignored McConnell’s threat and gone ahead with his warnings, but he was well aware of the lengths McConnell would go to to poison the election—he was right in the middle of McConnell’s blockade of the Merrick Garland Supreme Court nomination and knew that there are no depths to which McConnell will not sink. He’ll happily do it again to win.</font></p>

</div>

</div>

</div>

<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></p>

</div>

<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx &nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When Special Counsel Robert Mueller issued the indictment against <b>Roger Stone,</b> a long-time ally of President Donald Trump, he filed it while noting that it was connected to another case: the indictment of Russians who hacked Democratic emails during the 2016 campaign.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Stone has been charged with lying to Congress, tampering with a witness, and obstructing justice.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Stone’s lawyers objected to the assertion that the cases were connected, a motion that could have triggered the case to be assigned to a different judge. But on Friday, Mueller responded to the lawyers’ objections and revealed why the cases are connected:</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In Netyksho, eleven Russian military officers are charged by indictment with, inter alia, conspiring to hack into the computers of U.S. persons and entities involved in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, steal documents from those computers, and stage releases of the stolen documents to interfere with the 2016 U.S. presidential election.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">…</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As alleged in the Netyksho indictment, in 2016, the Netyksho defendants stole documents from the DNC, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and the Clinton campaign chairman. Those defendants then released many of the stolen documents, including through a website maintained by Organization 1. In the course of investigating that activity, the government obtained and executed dozens of search warrants on various accounts used to facilitate the transfer of stolen documents for release, as well as to discuss the timing and promotion of their release. Several of those search warrants were executed on accounts that contained Stone’s communications with Guccifer 2.0 and with Organization 1. Evidence obtained from those search warrants resulted in the allegations that the Netyksho defendants hacked and stole documents for release through intermediaries, including Organization 1, and that Stone lied to a congressional committee investigating, among other things, the activities of Organization 1 regarding those stolen documents.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Here, “Organization 1” refers to WikiLeaks, which published the stolen emails.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mueller also argued that Stone’s actions are part of the same “alleged criminal event or transaction” as those at issue in Netyksho.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He explained that the “criminal conduct alleged in Netyksho was a central focus of the congressional investigation that the defendant is alleged to have obstructed, and therefore the activities underlying the crimes charged in that case are part of the same activities underlying the crimes charged in this case.”</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Since Stone’s lies came up in the context of an investigation the Russian election interference and possible connections to the actions of Americans, the cases are linked.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The defendant’s false statements did not arise in a vacuum,” the filing said.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Reporter Andrew Prokop noted that further discussion of the warrants in question was filed along with the documents, but it was under seal.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></p>

<div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">video essays on the New</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">York Times on Russian</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">disinformation:</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Operation Infektion.</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">(thanks Maggie!)</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">

</font></div>

<div><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/12/opinion/russia-meddling-disinformation-fake-news-elections.html"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/12/opinion/russia-meddling-disinformation-fake-news-elections.html</font></a></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">

</font></div>

<div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">OPERATION INFEKTION: A THREE-PART VIDEO SERIES ON RUSSIAN DISINFORMATION</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">RUSSIAN DISINFORMATION: FROM COLD WAR TO KANYE</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">

</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By Adam B. Ellick and Adam Westbrook</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">

</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">398</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">WATCH: This is a three-part film series. Scroll down and click to play any episode.</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">

</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Russia’s meddling in the United States’ elections is not a hoax. It’s the culmination of&nbsp; Moscow’s decades-long campaign to tear the West apart. “Operation InfeKtion” reveals the ways in which one of the Soviets’ central tactics — the promulgation of lies about America — continues today, from Pizzagate to George Soros conspiracies. Meet the KGB spies who conceived this virus and the American truth squads who tried — and are still trying — to fight it. Countries from Pakistan to Brazil are now debating reality, and in Vladimir Putin’s greatest triumph, Americans are using Russia’s playbook against one another without the faintest clue.</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">

</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">EPISODE 1</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">MEET THE KGB SPIES WHO INVENTED FAKE NEWS</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We reveal how one of the biggest fake news stories ever concocted — the 1984 AIDS-is-a-biological-weapon hoax — went viral in the pre-internet era. Meet the KGB operatives who invented it and the “truth squad” that quashed it. For a bit.</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">

</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Video</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">

</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">EPISODE 2</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">THE SEVEN COMMANDMENTS OF FAKE NEWS</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Pizzagate playbook: same tactics, new technologies. How the seven rules of Soviet disinformation are being used to create today’s fake news stories.</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">

</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Video</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">

</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">EPISODE 3</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">THE WORLDWIDE WAR ON TRUTH</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Governments from Pakistan to Mexico to Washington are woefully unequipped to combat disinformation warfare. Eastern European countries living in Russia’s shadow can teach us how to start fighting back, but only if our politicians decide to stop profiting from these tactics and fight them instead.</font></div>

</div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">

</font></div>

</div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">AN</font></div>

<div>

<p style=" box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign chair was pressured by a Russian oligarch over his debts,&nbsp;<em style=" box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Time&nbsp;</em>magazine&nbsp;<a href="https://time.com/5490169/paul-manafort-victor-boyarkin-debts/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" style=" box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">reported</a>&nbsp;Saturday.</font></p>

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<p style=" box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Former Russian intelligence officer Victor Boyarkin “was a key link” between Manafort and Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin.</font></p>

<div class="advertisement " style=" box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">

<div class="teadsNative" style=" box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">

<p style=" box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He owed us a lot of money,” Boyarkin says. “And he was offering ways to pay it back.”</font></p>

</div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div>

<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">recap overview 2016

&nbsp;</font>

<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-russian-government-used-disinformation-and-cyber-warfare-in-2016-election-an-ethical-hacker-explains-99989"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://theconversation.com/how-the-russian-government-used-disinformation-and-cyber-warfare-in-2016-election-an-ethical-hacker-explains-99989</font></a>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">

&nbsp;</font></p>

<div style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div>

<div style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/why-russian-spies-love-american-universities" style=" text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/why-russian-spies-love-american-universities</font></a></div>

<div style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">

</font></div>

<div style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Under the alias Cynthia Murphy, Russian spy Lydia Guryeva attended Columbia Business School, and ingratiated herself with a&nbsp;<a href="https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2010/06/30/the-russian-spy-ring-and-the-v-c/" style=" text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">key fundraiser</a>&nbsp;for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign. Guryeva’s instructions from Moscow, according to a 2010 FBI complaint, were to “strengthen…ties w. classmates on daily basis incl. professors who can help in job search and who will have (or already have) access to secret info” and to report “on their detailed personal data and character traits w. preliminary conclusions about their potential (vulnerability) to be recruited by Service.”</font></div>

<p style=" margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Now another graduate student at an urban&nbsp;East Coast university,&nbsp;who similarly&nbsp;cultivated powerbrokers and political operatives, is accused of being a Russian spy and taking orders from high-ranking officials in her homeland.&nbsp;<b>Maria Butina,&nbsp;</b>who received a master’s degree in international relations this past spring from American University in Washington, D.C., courted the National Rifle Association’s top guns and sought access to Republican presidential candidates Scott Walker and Donald Trump. She pleaded innocent last week to charges of&nbsp;conspiring to act as a foreign agent.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">If the charges against Butina are accurate, she’s only the latest in a long line of Russian agents to infiltrate U.S. universities. Dating back to the Soviet era, Russian spies have sought to take advantage of academia's lax security, collaborative, global culture, and revolving door with government.</span>&nbsp;Russian intelligence understands that today’s professor of international relations may be tomorrow’s assistant secretary of state, and vice versa. Although cyber-spying and hacking offer opportunities to glean secrets at less personal risk, the traditional strategies of human espionage persist, and sending a spy to school is prominent among them.&nbsp; In that respect, little has changed since 1938, when Semyon Markovich Semyonov became the first Soviet agent to enroll at&nbsp;<span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and made contacts vital to stealing scientific secrets. Or since 1958, when KGB officer Oleg Kalugin entered Columbia’s journalism school. After graduation, posing as a Radio Moscow correspondent at the United Nations, Kalugin attended events at Columbia and reported back on them to Moscow. His report on a speech about U.S.-Soviet relations by Zbigniew Brzezinski, then a Columbia professor and later national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter, earned kudos from the Communist Party’s Central Committee.</span></font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After that, “I went all across the country, from Harvard to Columbia and the West Coast, listening to what people said and reporting it if I thought it was interesting,” Kalugin told me. He rose to head the KGB’s foreign counterintelligence branch before falling out of favor in Russia, moving to Washington, D.C., and becoming an American citizen.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sometimes, Russian agents join the academic community as students or instructors. Of Guryeva and the other nine “illegals” — sleeper agents without diplomatic cover — who&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/29/AR2010062905401.html" style=" text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">pleaded guilty</a>&nbsp;in 2010 to conspiring to act as foreign agents and were swapped back to Russia, seven went to U.S. universities, including Harvard, The New School, and the University of Washington. One taught politics for a semester at Baruch College,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/30/nyregion/30suspects.html" style=" text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">lambasting American foreign policy</a>.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In other cases, agents hold diplomatic posts at an embassy or consulate and forage in nearby campuses for recruits and information. It’s easier, cheaper and less conspicuous for Russian intelligence to enlist a student or professor who can be steered to a federal agency than to lure someone already in a sensitive government position. Exploiting open campuses, spies slip unnoticed into lectures, seminars and cafeterias, where they befriend the computer scientist or Pentagon adviser sitting beside them.</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Butina enrolled in American University’s School of International Service in the summer of 2016, university spokesman Mark Story said. She concentrated in cyber policy and became a research assistant at the university’s Kogod School of Business. With research funding from the Kogod Cybersecurity Governance Center, she and two professors, Mark A. Clark and J. Alberto Espinosa, co-authored a March 2018 paper on “<a href="https://www.american.edu/kogod/research/cybergov/upload/CybersecurityKnowlNetworks_Mar2018.pdf" style=" text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Cybersecurity Knowledge Networks</a>.” (The paper is still on the center’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.american.edu/kogod/research/cybergov/research.cfm" style=" text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">website</a>.) Clark and Espinosa declined comment.</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">University spokesman Story declined to say whether Butina’s involvement with the center raises any concerns, or if the university plans to review her activities. He added that the center doesn’t do classified work and has no contracts with intelligence agencies.The cybersecurity center was founded in 2015 to provide “<a href="https://www.nist.gov/sites/default/files/documents/2016/11/15/sept_19_2016_amer_univ_meeting_minutes.pdf" style=" text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">guidance</a>&nbsp;specifically to boards of directors, senior executives, and other leaders so that they can make informed decisions about cybersecurity.” It has a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/raytheon-partners-with-american-universitys-kogod-cybersecurity-governance-center-300271061.html" style=" text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">partnership</a>&nbsp;with defense contractor<b>Raytheon</b>&nbsp;Co., and was headed from June 2017 to March 2018 by a former lawyer for the National Security Agency.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Raytheon spokesman&nbsp;</span>Michael Doble said, “There is no connection between our support of this respected school and what one of its students may or may not have done.”</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Butina participated in February 2017 in a “<a href="https://www.american.edu/cas/carmel/news/gettysburg-dialog.cfm" style=" text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">weekend of seminars</a>&nbsp;and cultural immersion” in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, which brought together 10 American University students from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Azerbaijan with a dozen students from Gettysburg College to discuss U.S.-Russian relations in the post-Soviet era.&nbsp;<span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Susan Eisenhower — a frequent adviser to businesses and the U.S. Department of Energy, and an expert on foreign policy and national security issues —led the seminars as well as a tour of the Gettysburg home of her grandfather, President Dwight Eisenhower....</span></font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font>

<a href="https://www.alternet.org/meet-12-russians-us-government-indicted-last-week" style=" text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/meet-12-russians-us-government-indicted-last-week</font></a>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>12 Russian officials who were indicted by the Grand Jury </b>of the District of Columbia. It is the fact that these people were indicted that prompted Russian President Vladimir Putin to insist that American President Donald Trump turn over Americans like one of our former ambassadors,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.salon.com/2018/07/20/salon-interview-michael-mcfaul-and-bill-browder-vladimir-putins-most-wanted-men/" style=" text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Michael McFaul</a>, over to his government in order to be interrogated.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The key difference, of course, is that Putin is fabricating charges against McFaul and others like whistleblower Bill Browder, while the accusations against the 12 Russian officials are rooted in serious investigative work. Yet who are these dozen Russians that have been identified by Robert Mueller's investigation?</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">According to the&nbsp;</span><a href="https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/80-netyksho-et-al-indictment/ba0521c1eef869deecbe/optimized/full.pdf?action=click&module=Intentional&pgtype=Article" style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">indictment</a><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, the Russian officials&nbsp;singled out by the government were </span><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Boris Alekseyevich Antonov, Dmitriy Sergeyevich Badin, Anatoliy Sergeyevich Kovalev, Nikolay Yuryevich Kozachek, Aleksey Viktorovich Lukashev, Artem Andreyevich Malyshev, Sergey Aleksandrovich Morgachev, Viktor Borisovich Netyksho, Aleksandr Vladimirovich Osadchuk, Aleksey Aleksandrovich Potemkin, Ivan Sergeyevich Yermakov and&nbsp;Pavel Vyacheslavovich Yershov.</span><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> With the exception of Kovalev, the indictment describes all of these&nbsp;individuals as "GRU officers who knowingly and intentionally conspired with each other, and with persons known and unknown to the Grand Jury (collectively the 'Conspirators'), to gain unauthorized access (to 'hack') into the computers of U.S. persons and entities involved in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, steal documents from those computers, and stage releases of the stolen documents to interfere with the 2016 U.S. presidential election."</span></font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The&nbsp;&nbsp;indictment claims that these individuals hacked the email accounts of staffers and volunteers at Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign by at least March 2016, hacked into the computer networks of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and Democratic National Committee by at least April 2016 and began releasing tens of thousands of stolen emails and documents by at least June 2016, continuing to do so through the month of the presidential election.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And who are they specifically?</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to the indictment,<b> Netyksho is a Russian military officer whose unit (Unit 26165) "had primary responsibility for hacking the DCCC and DNC, </b>as well as the email accounts of individuals affiliated with the Clinton Campaign." Antonov was assigned to that same unit and oversaw a department within it that was "dedicated to targeting military, political, governmental, and non-governmental organizations with spearphishing emails and other computer intrusion activity." Antonov is accused of having "supervised other co-conspirators who targeted the DCCC, DNC, and individuals affiliated with the Clinton Campaign." Badin held the title of "Assistant Head of Department" in that unit and supervised various attacks on the Democratic and Clinton-related targets chosen by the Russian government.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Then there is <b>Yermakov</b>, who the indictment claims was a master of aliases, using "various online personas" in order to engage in a number of hacking operations. These names included "Kate S. Milton," "James McMorgans" and "Karen W. Millen."<b> Lukashev</b> was a senior lieutenant in the Russian military and, like Yermakov, used a number of online pseudonyms, including&nbsp;"Den Katenberg" and "Yuliana Martynova." Lukashev "sent spearphishing emails to members of the Clinton Campaign and affiliated individuals, including the chairman of the Clinton Campaign."<b> Morgachev,</b> by contrast, was in charge of a department at the unit that developed and managed malware, including one hacking tool called "X-Agent," and is charged with supervising the agents who implanted the X-Agent malware on DCCC and DNC computers and then monitored it.</font>

<a href="https://goo.gl/FAVt8c" style=" text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">READ MORE: Donald Trump, Brexit and the Russians: A dangerous turning point in "World War IV"</font></a>

<span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Kozachek</b> is described in the indictment as a lieutenant captain who had been assigned to Morgachev's department within Unit 26165 and employed pseudonyms like "kazak" and "blablabla1234565" in order to do his job. He also "developed, customized, and monitored X-Agent malware used to hack the DCCC and DNC networks beginning in or around April 2016." Yershov, meanwhile, is accused of having "assisted Kozachek and other co-conspirators in testing and customizing X-Agent malware before actual deployment and use." Malyshev, on the other hand, was a second lieutenant whose work for Morgachev's department involved monitoring X-Agent malware that had been implanted on Democratic Party machines. He used pseudonyms like "djangomagicdev" and "realblatr."&nbsp;</font></span>

<span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Osadchuk is a Russian colonel and the commanding officer of Unit 74455, which "assisted in the release of stolen documents through the DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0</span><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> personas, the promotion of those releases, and the publication of anti-Clinton content on social media accounts operated by the GRU." Meanwhile Potemkin was a Russian military officer assigned to Unit 74455 who supervised a department "responsible for the administration of computer infrastructure used in cyber operations. Infrastructure and social media accounts administered by Potemkin's department were used, among other things, to assist in the release of stolen documents through the DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0 personas."&nbsp;</span></font></span>

<span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Throughout the document, considerable detail is given about how various email accounts owned by either the Clinton campaign or other Democratic Party bodies were deliberately targeted by individuals or groups of individuals on this list. It explains how they hacked into these accounts and what they ultimately gained from doing so. Kovalev specifically is accused, among other things, of hacking the website of a state board of elections and stealing information about roughly 500,000 voters "including names, addresses, partial social security numbers, dates of birth, and driver’s license numbers." He is also accused of hacking into the computers of a company that supplied voter registration verification software, targeting "state and county offices responsible for administering the 2016 US. elections" and visiting the websites of counties in states like Florida, Georgia and Iowa in order to find vulnerabilities.</span></font></span>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">It is worth reminding the reader, at this point, of what McFaul told Salon earlier in the week — namely, that </span><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Putin is trying to create a false equivalency between the crimes he ordered committed by Russian officials and the fabricated charges he has created against McFaul and Browder.</span></font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"But let's be clear: What Putin was doing was assigning moral equivalency to a legitimate indictment with lots of evidence against several Russian military intelligence officers for violating American sovereignty in 2016 during the presidential elections, with a completely fabricated, cockamamie story invented by Putin,"&nbsp;<a href="https://www.salon.com/2018/07/20/salon-interview-michael-mcfaul-and-bill-browder-vladimir-putins-most-wanted-men/" style=" text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">McFaul told Salon</a>. "To even, for a moment, give any kind of dignity to what President Putin proposed was not in America's national interest, from my point of view."</font>

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<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/13/us/politics/mueller-indictment-russian-intelligence-hacking.html"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/13/us/politics/mueller-indictment-russian-intelligence-hacking.html</font></a>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/rod-rosenstein-expected-to-announce-new-indictment-by-mueller/2018/07/13">https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/rod-rosenstein-expected-to-announce-new-indictment-by-mueller/2018/07/13</a>/bc565582-86a9-11e8-8553-a3ce89036c78_story.html</font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>A dozen Russian military intelligence officers were indicted Friday on charges they hacked Democrats’ computers, stole their data and published those files to disrupt the 2016 election&nbsp;</b>—<span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;the clearest connection to the Kremlin established so far by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation of interference in the presidential campaign.</span></font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The indictment against members of the <span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Russian military agency known as the GRU&nbsp;</span></b>marks the first time Mueller has taken direct aim at the Russian government, accusing specific military units and their named officers of a sophisticated, sustained effort to hack the computer networks of Democratic organizations and the Hillary Clinton campaign.</font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein announced the charges at a midday news conference. Mueller, as has been his practice, did not attend the announcement. Court records show that a grand jury that Mueller has been using returned an indictment Friday morning.</font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The suspects “covertly monitored the computers, implanted hundreds of files containing malicious computer code, and stole emails and other documents,” Rosenstein said. “The goal of the conspirators was to have an impact on the election. What impact they may have had .?.?. is a matter of speculation; that’s not our responsibility.”</font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The indictment comes days before President Trump is due to meet with Russian President Vladi­mir Putin in Finland. Rosenstein said he briefed Trump earlier this week on the charges.</font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump’s lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani said on Twitter that the indictments “are good news for all Americans. The Russians are nailed. No Americans are involved.” He then called on Mueller “to end this pursuit of the president and say President Trump is completely innocent.”</font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;Who has been charged in Russia probe and why VIEW GRAPHIC&nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The 11-count, 29-page indictment describes in granular detail a carefully planned and executed attack on the information security of Democrats, as Russian government hackers implanted<span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;hundreds of malware files on Democrats’ computer systems to steal information. The hackers then laundered the pilfered material through fake personas called<b>&nbsp;DC Leaks and Guccifer 2.0,&nbsp;</b>as well as others, to try to influence voters.</span></font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>One of their conduits, identified in the indictment only as “Organization 1,” was WikiLeaks, the global anti-secrecy group led by Julian Assange, according to people familiar with the case. The indictment describes WikiLeaks communicating with Guccifer 2.0 to obtain material.</b></font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On July 6, 2016, according to the indictment,<span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;WikiLeaks wrote, “if you have anything Hillary related we want it in the next tweo [sic] days prefable [sic] because the DNC [Democratic National Convention] is approaching and she will solidify bernie supporters behind her after,” referring to Clinton’s rival for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). WikiLeaks explained, “we think trump has only a 25% chance of winning against hillary .?.?. so conflict between bernie and hillary is interesting</span>.”</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">WikiLeaks released nearly 20,000 Democratic National Committee emails on the eve of the convention later that month, providing an embarrassing look at party operations and attitudes toward the Sanders campaign.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[Read the indictment of 12 Russians charged with hacking Democrats]</font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;2:43</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Rod Rosenstein announces indictment of 12 Russian agents</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The deputy attorney general announces the indictment of 12 Russian intelligence agents in connection with hacking during the 2016 election. (The Washington Post)</font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A former Justice Department official who was previously involved in the Russia probe said the charges should serve as a warning for the United States to buttress its election security as Americans prepare to vote in congressional elections in November.</font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The detailed charges in this indictment make it unmistakably clear that the United States faces an aggressive, sophisticated adversary bent on using cyber means to subvert our democratic processes and institutions,” said David Laufman, a former chief of the Justice Department’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section. “Now is the time for unequivocal recognition of this threat by both the executive branch and Congress, and for a unified and well coordinated commitment to confront it.”</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The indictment offers troubling new accusations about the extent of Russian hacking efforts and interactions with Americans.</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">“On or about August 15, 2016, the conspirators, posing as<b><i>&nbsp;Guccifer 2.0,</i></b>&nbsp;received a request for stolen documents from a candidate for the U.S. Congress,” the indictment states. “The conspirators responded using the Guccifer 2.0 persona and sent the candidate stolen documents related to the candidate’s opponent.” The indictment does not identify the candidate.</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">The indictment also describes an online conversation between the&nbsp;<b><u>GRU, posing as Guccifer 2.0,</u></b>&nbsp;and a&nbsp;<b>“person who was in regular contact with senior members of the presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump.”</b></font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">People familiar with the case said that person is longtime Trump adviser&nbsp;<b>Roger Stone</b>. In August 2016, the hacker persona wrote: “please tell me if i can help u anyhow .?.?. it would be a great pleasure to me.”</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Stone’s lawyer Grant Smith said, “It is clear from the indictment issued today that our client, Roger Stone, was not in any way involved with any of the alleged hacking of the 2016 election. As he testified before the House Intelligence Committee under oath,&nbsp;<b>his 24-word exchange with someone on Twitter claiming to be Guccifer 2.0 is benign, based on its content, context and timing.”</b></font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">U.S. officials identified one of the GRU sections that carried out the operations as Unit 26165, which worked out of a building about four miles from the Kremlin. It was responsible for hacking the DNC and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, according to the indictment, which accuses&nbsp;<b>Viktor Netyksho&nbsp;</b>of being the military officer in command of Unit 26165 at the time.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Although the DNC was able to partially kick the Russian hackers out of its system in June 2016, the indictment says three months later, the GRU “successfully gained access to DNC computers hosted on a third-party cloud-computing service” which held “test applications related to the DNC’s analytics,” according to the indictment. The hacker stole that data from the DNC, the indictment said.</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Another group of Russian military officers, Unit 74455, working out of a building that GRU officers referred to as the “Tower,” used fake online personas to spread stolen files, officials charged. The indictment identifies Col. Aleksandr Osadchuk as the commanding officer of that unit.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The indictment also notes an interesting development on July 27, 2016 — the day then-candidate Trump gave a press conference declaring his hope that missing Clinton emails would be found and made public, saying: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.”</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The indictment says “on or about” that same day, “the conspirators attempted after hours to spearphish for the first time email accounts at a domain hosted by a third-party provider and used by Clinton’s personal office. At or around the same time, they also targeted seventy-six email addresses at the domain for the Clinton campaign.”</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Russian Foreign Ministry rejected the indictment’s allegations as lacking evidence and described the charges as a clear effort to derail the Trump-Putin summit in Helsinki.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“It is unfortunate that distributing false information has become the norm in Washington, and that criminal cases are being initiated based on clearly political motives,” the ministry said. Referring to the Mueller investigation, the statement went on: “The question remains how long this shameful comedy that is embarrassing the United States will go on.”</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Rosenstein said the hackers interacted with some Americans in the course of their efforts but noted that those people had not been charged with a crime.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“When we confront foreign interference in American elections, it is important for us to avoid thinking politically as Republicans or Democrats and instead to think patriotically as Americans. Our response must not depend on who was victimized,” he said. “There will always be adversaries who work to exacerbate domestic differences and try to confuse, divide and conquer us. So long as we are united in our commitment to the values enshrined in the Constitution, they will not succeed.”</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mueller and a team of prosecutors have been working since May 2017 to determine whether any Trump associates conspired with Russia to interfere in the election. With the new indictment, his office has filed charges against 32 people on crimes including hacking, money laundering and lying to the FBI. Twenty-six of those charged are Russians who are unlikely to ever be put on trial in the United States.</font>

<font style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">In February, Mueller indicted a group of Russian Internet trolls who worked out of the<b>&nbsp;Internet Research Agency</b>, a company based in St. Petersburg and&nbsp;<b>owned by a wealthy associate of Putin.</b></font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[Russian troll farm, 13 suspects indicted in 2016 election interference]</font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, is in jail in Alexandria, Va., awaiting trial this month on financial fraud charges brought by Mueller but stemming from activities that predated the Trump campaign.</font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mueller’s probe has come under sustained attack from Trump and at a press conference in England on Friday before Rosenstein spoke, the president again labeled the investigation a “witch hunt.”</font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I think that we’re being hurt very badly by the — I would call it the witch hunt,” said Trump as he stood beside British Prime Minister Theresa May. “It really hurts our relationship with Russia.”</font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Rosenstein said of his decision to brief Trump, “It was important for the president to know what information we’ve uncovered because he’s got to make very important decisions for the country. He needs to understand what evidence we have of foreign election interference.”</font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">frum bk:</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">press: hannity and new say no indep media eg CNN</font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">local fox crew said gianforte guilty, but not asked to be on nat'l; rush applaid, 116K$ ON election day 113</font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">russian dis-info 400 ppl, 20m ri8bles (400K$ per mo; 40 rooms0 russian version of FB, made fake ppl on US soc media 115; 100K ads; target 10 m ppl in slected districts and states; msg reached 126M FB users 116.</font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">russia ~ Fr Macron, so vidfeo ell cut hand wash inverted; rebel media posobiec got adv notce of email dump; big overlap betw anti-marcon and pro djt, 18K bots; 118</font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">cernovich pizzagate guy got WH leaks (susan rice unmasked)</font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">trad media tried to be balaced, so any crumb or djt normalcy touted 120</font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">media restriction 1st sign of decline of democ 122</font></p>

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<div><a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2017/9/7/headlines/facebook_says_russian_troll_farm_bought_ads_to_polarize_us_electorate"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.democracynow.org/2017/9/7/headlines/facebook_says_russian_troll_farm_bought_ads_to_polarize_us_electorate</font></a></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On&nbsp;<span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Capitol Hill, representatives of Facebook told lawmakers Wednesday the company unwittingly sold $100,000 worth of advertisements to a Russian company that aimed to polarize the U.S. electorate on issues of gun rights, immigration,&nbsp;</span><span class="caps" style=" box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">LGBTQ</span><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;rights and racism. The company was described as a Russian "troll farm" with a history of pushing pro-Kremlin propaganda. Democratic Congressmember Adam Schiff cited the move as evidence that Russia interfered in the 2016 election.</span></font></div>

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<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/21/world/europe/trump-russian-lawyer-fsb-kgb.html"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/21/world/europe/trump-russian-lawyer-fsb-kgb.html</font></a>

<span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">MOSCOW — The Russian lawyer who met with Donald Trump Jr. last year after his father had won the Republican nomination for president had once represented&nbsp;<a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/russiaandtheformersovietunion/index.html?inline=nyt-geo" title="More news and information about Russia and the Post-Soviet Nations." class="meta-loc">Russia</a>’s top intelligence agency in court, according to at least two public records.</font></span>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The lawyer, Natalia V. Veselnitskaya, who is now at the center of the political intrigue over the Trump campaign’s possible collusion with Russia during&nbsp;<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/topic/person/donald-trump?inline=nyt-per" title="More articles about Donald J. Trump." class="meta-per">Donald J. Trump</a>’s presidential campaign, represented a military unit founded by the Russian Federal Security Service in 2002, publicly available records show.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The service, known as the F.S.B., is the successor agency to the&nbsp;<a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/k/kgb/index.html?inline=nyt-org" title="More articles about KGB" class="meta-org">K.G.B.</a>&nbsp;and was once headed by President&nbsp;<a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/vladimir_v_putin/index.html?inline=nyt-per" title="More articles about Vladimir V. Putin." class="meta-per">Vladimir V. Putin</a>&nbsp;of Russia.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ms. Veselnitskaya insisted after her June 2016 meeting with Mr. Trump’s son was&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/08/us/politics/trump-russia-kushner-manafort.html">first reported by The New York Times two weeks ago</a>&nbsp;that she had no ties to the Kremlin and never worked for the Russian government. A Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, has said Ms. Veselnitskaya “has nothing to do with us.”</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Still, the court documents showing the lawyer’s link to the Russian spy agency, which was first reported by Reuters, are likely to intensify interest in her by American investigators who are examining the relationships between the Trump campaign and Russia....</font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hackers and Hacks</font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Conservatives once called for the WikiLeaks founder to be locked up. During the 2016 campaign, Trump allies, including Roger Stone and Alex Jones, hailed him as a hero for releasing hacked emails from the DNC and Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. (Stone claimed to have “back-channel communications” with the hacktivist during the campaign.) Assange—who has taken refuge in Ecuador’s London Embassy since 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden over rape allegations (the case was dropped in May)—has claimed the source for the hacked messages was not the Russian government. The US intelligence community begs to differ. WikiLeaks’ release of the first batch of Podesta’s emails was curiously timed: It dropped less than an hour after a video clip of Trump bragging about sexual assault went public. Thereafter, the material was released in daily batches—that is, in a manner designed to inflict maximum harm to the Clinton campaign.</font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Guccifer 2.0</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Guccifer was the handle of a notorious Romanian hacker who was sentenced to 52 months in prison in 2016. Guccifer 2.0 is the online persona that surfaced in June 2016 to take credit for hacking the DNC. The persona has claimed to be a lone wolf from Romania, but the intelligence community and outside experts have concluded that Guccifer 2.0 (which direct-messaged with Stone) is almost certainly a front for Russian intelligence. It’s a misogynistic one at that. “I’ve never met a female hacker of the highest level,” Guccifer 2.0 wrote last year. “Girls, don’t get offended, I love you.”</font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">DC Leaks</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The mysterious website and its associated Twitter feed popped up in June 2016. Over the course of the campaign, it published the hacked emails of military and political targets, including Colin Powell, NATO commander General Philip Breedlove, and the campaign staffs of Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham. The people behind DC Leaks, which is no longer active, claimed to be “American hacktivists,” but the US intelligence community reported that the site was a front for Russia’s military intelligence service.</font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump is already guilty in the Russia scandal—here’s the evidence</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>RT and Sputnik</b></font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In its joint report on Moscow’s election meddling, the US intelligence community described RT, the TV network formerly known as Russia Today, as “the Kremlin’s principal international propaganda outlet.” The report noted it “has actively collaborated with WikiLeaks”; Assange hosted a show for the network in 2012. RT also has controversial ties to Flynn, who was paid to speak at a 2015 gala for RT in Moscow and frequently appeared as an analyst on the network. Another Kremlin-supported outlet, Sputnik, spread fake news while boosting Trump and attacking Clinton. In late May, newly elected French President Emmanuel Macron confronted Putin about Russian meddling in the French elections and slammed the two news outlets as instruments of “lying propaganda.”</font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear</font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The shadowy groups are affiliated with different branches of the Russian security apparatus. Cozy Bear has been linked to a variety of cyberattacks against government and corporate targets throughout the world, including a 2015 spear-phishing attack on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. According to CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity firm hired by the DNC, Cozy Bear first targeted the DNC in the summer of 2015. Fancy Bear penetrated the DNC’s network in April 2016, apparently unaware Cozy Bear had gotten there first. The group’s targets have ranged from the World Anti-Doping Agency to the German parliament.</font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">WFB BS?</font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ukrainian Rebel Commander Identified As Russian GRU Military Intelligence Colonel</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Key figure in covert Russian subversion campaign in eastern Ukraine</font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Igor Vsevolodovich GirkinIgor Vsevolodovich Girkin</font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">BY: Bill Gertz &nbsp;ed</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">June 20, 2014 5:00 am</font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A key figure in covert Russian efforts to destabilize eastern Ukraine is working for Russia’s GRU military intelligence service, according to U.S. officials.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Igor Vsevolodovich Girkin, who is currently using the nom de guerre Igor Strelkov, has identified himself in press reports as "defense minister" of the self-proclaimed, pro-Russian "Donetsk People’s Republic. This week he called for Russia to send military aid to rebels in eastern Ukraine.</font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">U.S. officials said Strelkov is considered a leading pro-Russian rebel who is undermining stability as part of a major Russian covert action program in Ukraine.</font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Officials said Girkin is a GRU colonel who was first identified by the Ukrainian SBU intelligence service. Girkin traveled to the Crimea in February and traveled to Donetsk in April. While in the Crimea was a military adviser to Sergei Aksenov, the current head of Russian-occupied Crimea.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He is also a close aide to the so-called Donetsk prime minister, Alexander Borodai, who is also a Russian. Borodai also worked with Aksenov in Crimea, an indication the Russians may be planning a similar annexation in the Donetsk region.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Girkin and Borodai were employed by a Moscow investment firm called Marshall Capital. That company is owned by Konstantin Valeryevich Malofeyev, who has been linked to funding of pro-Russian separatist activities in Crimea and eastern Ukraine.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On Friday, the Treasury Department imposed financial sanctions on Girkin and six other Ukrainian separatists for their role in seeking to destabilize Ukraine.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"The United States will continue to take action to hold accountable those persons engaged in efforts to destabilize Crimea and eastern Ukraine," said David S. Cohen, Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence. "These individuals have all contributed to attempts to illegally undermine the legitimate government in Kyiv, notably by falsely proclaiming leadership positions and fomenting violent unrest."</font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Girkin led the abduction of military observers in Ukraine, and attacked military brigade and stole a large cache of weapons, Treasury said in a statement.</font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Disclosure of GRU activities in Ukraine comes as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, criticized Moscow’s covert subversion.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"The tactic that Russia is using is one I would describe as proximate coercion, subversion, and misinformation," Dempsey told a Senate defense appropriations subcommittee on Wednesday.</font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The strategy is to mass forces on the border and threaten the use of force and employ subversion through surrogates and proxies, along with misinformation to arouse ethnic populations, he said.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"I doubt that there'll actually be a full-blown invasion," he said. "But we've got to be alert to the other tools that [Putin] may use to actually undermine stability, notably in the Baltics and in some of our Eastern European allies."</font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Russia has "lit a fire" in Ukraine that is burning out of control and the country is facing a "very difficult path," Dempsey said.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In London, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Thursday that Russian troops were again building up along Ukraine's eastern border, and Russian forces were seen conducting troop maneuvers nearby.</font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">U.S. officials familiar with intelligence reports said Russian covert action programs have been underway in Donetsk and Luhansk, as well as other areas.</font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The rebels downed a Ukrainian military helicopter on May 29, killing a key Ukrainian general and demonstrating they have advanced anti-aircraft weapons.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The rebels are known to have portable anti-aircraft missiles, anti-aircraft artillery, and armored troop carriers.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The missile that downed the helicopter could not be confirmed as having been supplied by Russia, but other arms found after battles with rebels have revealed they were recently shipped from the Russian military.</font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Intelligence reports also indicate that Russia is sending Russian troops disguised as Ukrainian to support pro-Russian rebels in the region. Rebels have described the Russians as "volunteers," including Cossacks from southern Russia. Similar tactics were used prior to the takeover of Crimea in March.</font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Another indicator of covert Russian forces is the discovery of a unit called the Vostok, or East, Battalion, a well armed group of ethnic Chechen special operations commandos who are fighting with the rebels.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">An earlier Vostok force was set up by the Russian military using ethnic Chechen special operations commandos who specialize in urban warfare and who were led by Russian officers. The unit was dispatched to earlier conflicts in Chechnya and in the battle with Georgia in 2008.</font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Officials identified the border town of Antratsyt, near Luhansk, as a key base for the infiltration of both Russian fighters and weapons.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The newly elected government in Kiev this week offered to halt its military operations against eastern pro-Russian separatists. Newly-elected President Petro Poroshenko offered amnesty to rebels that surrender. The amnesty was limited to rebels that were not involved in capital crimes. Poroshenko also offered to allow Russian fighters to return to Russia.</font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters Wednesday that the plan will only work if the Russian government supports it, something that has not happened so far.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Russia of course must support the peace plan instead of continuing to support the separatists on the ground," she said.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On Tuesday, Psaki said there were reports of renewed Russian troop movements close to the Ukrainian border.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Our concern has been focused more, naturally, on the actions of the Russian separatists and the movement of military tanks and other equipment across the border," she said.</font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Other reports indicated Moscow is covertly delivering arms, including tanks and rocket launchers, to rebels in eastern Ukraine, in addition to the intelligence operatives.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Regarding Girkin, the GRU officer was quoted in a Russian newspaper on Monday as calling for Moscow to send military aid to two so-called "people’s republics," in Donetsk and Luhansk. The eastern Ukrainian cities are strongholds for anti-government rebels.</font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"I am calling on Russia as the commander of the [Donetsk People’s Republic] militia and as a patriot of Russia and the Russian people. It can be considered as an appeal on behalf of the Donetsk militia," he told the Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda.</font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"If Russia does not take prompt and decisive action, they [the Ukrainian Army] will achieve their goal," he told another pro-Russian news outlet. "Several thousand militiamen near the Russian border cannot stand long against powerful enemy artillery and aviation."</font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Girkin said his militia lack funds and supplies. "We can ‘bite' the enemy, attack them from the flank, we can operate through sabotage and reconnaissance forces, but we cannot change the situation only with heroism," he told the pro-Russian LifeNews outlet.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The GRU, acronym for the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Russian General Staff, is playing the key role in Moscow’s efforts to destabilize Ukraine following the military annexation of Crimea earlier this year.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">So far, several GRU officers have been exposed by Ukrainian authorities, including GRU Lt. Col. Kirill Koliuchkin, a naval attaché expelled by Kiev for spying activities.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The European Union in April imposed sanctions on more than a dozen Russian officials, including GRU Director Lt. Gen. Igor Sergun. The sanctions are largely symbolic but including Sergun on the list highlights the key role being played by GRU spies in Ukraine.</font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In addition to GRU operatives in eastern Ukraine, Russia’s Spetsnaz special operations commandos also are engaged in subversion.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mark Galeotti, a New York University professor who writes the blog "In Moscow’s Shadows," stated in a recent post that the GRU has been given new life by Russian covert action in Ukraine.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The service, under Russian President Vladimir Putin, a former officer in the rival KGB, has faced large-scale cutbacks in personnel from 2009 to 2011.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Over 1,000 GRU officers and about 80 GRU generals were dismissed, retired, or transferred to other units, Galeotti stated. The cutbacks were the result of bureaucratic infighting with the civilian foreign spy agency SVR, acronym for Foreign Intelligence Service, and the domestic political police and spy agency known as the FSB, for Federal Security Service.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Galeotti said the GRU is a key element of Russian asymmetric military-political warfare tools. "They are less valuable as straightforward war-fighters and much more so as covert operators and the facilitators of other deniable operations," he said.</font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Not only may the Ukraine conflict help stop–or at least bring a temporary ceasefire to–internecine struggles within the Russian security apparatus, it may well prove the savior of the GRU in its current configuration."</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></p>

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