MAR-a-LA-GATE AFFADAVIT UNSEALED

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08.27.2022 12:43AM

Takeaways from the unsealed Mar-a-Lago search affidavit

By JILL COLVIN and NOMAAN MERCHANT@AP NEWS

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department on Friday unsealed the FBI affidavit justifying the unprecedented search of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. While the document released is highly redacted, with many of its 32 pages crossed out in black blocks, it includes new details about the sheer volume of sensitive and highly classified information that was stored at the former president’s Florida beachfront home, underscoring the government’s concerns about its safety.

Here are top takeaways of what the document revealed:

TRUMP HAD ‘A LOT’ OF CLASSIFIED MATERIAL STORED AT HIS CLUB

While the affidavit doesn’t provide new details about the 11 sets of classified records that were recovered during the FBI’s Aug. 8 search of Trump’s winter home, it does help to explain why the Justice Department believed that retrieving the outstanding documents was necessary.

Federal investigators knew months before the search that Trump had been storing top secret government records at Mar-a-Lago, a private club accessible not only to Trump, his staff and his family, but paying members and their guests, along with a revolving door of attendees at various functions, including weddings, paid political fundraisers and charity galas.

The affidavit notes that Mar-a-Lago storage areas, Trump’s office, his residential suite and other areas at the club where documents were suspected to still be kept were not authorized locations for the storage of classified information. Indeed, it notes that no space at Mar-a-Lago had been authorized for the storage of classified information at least since the end of Trump’s term in office.

Yet the affidavit reveals that, of the batch of 15 boxes that the National Archives and Records Administration retrieved from Trump’s home in January, 14 contained documents with classification markings. Inside, they found 184 documents bearing classification markings, including 67 marked confidential, 92 secret and 25 top secret.

The Archives referred the matter to the Justice Department on Feb. 9 after a preliminary review of the boxes found what they described as “a lot of classified records."

THE RECORDS INCLUDED TOP INTELLIGENCE SECRETS

Agents who inspected the boxes found special markings suggesting they included information from highly sensitive human sources or the collection of electronic “signals” authorized by a court under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

The affidavit lists several markings, including ORCON, or “Originator Controlled.” That means officials at the intelligence agency responsible for the report did not want it distributed to other agencies without their permission.

There may also be other types of records with classified names or codewords still redacted.

“When things are at that level of classification, it’s because there’s a real danger to the people who are collecting the information or the capability,” said Douglas London, a former senior CIA officer who wrote a book about the agency, “The Recruiter.” “

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has not responded to calls from Congress for a damage assessment. Sen. Mark Warner, the Virginia Democrat who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, issued a statement in which he once again called for a briefing.

“It appears, based on the affidavit unsealed this morning, that among the improperly handled documents at Mar-a-Lago were some of our most sensitive intelligence,” Warner said.

CLASSIFIED RECORDS WERE MIXED WITH OTHER PAPERS

Some of those classified records were mixed with other documents, the affidavit says, citing a letter from the Archives.

According to Archives’ White House liaison division director, the boxes contained “newspapers, magazines, printed news articles, photos, miscellaneous print-

outs, notes, presidential correspondence, personal and post-presidential records, and ‘a lot of classified records.’” Several contained what appeared to be Trump’s handwritten notes.

Of most significant concern: “highly classified records were unfoldered, intermixed with other records, and otherwise unproperly (sic) identified.”

A president might be given raw intelligence reporting to supplement his briefings or to cover a breaking or critically important matter, said David Priess, a former CIA officer and White House briefer who wrote “The President’s Book of Secrets,” a history of the President’s Daily Brief.

But it would be “unusual, if not unprecedented, for a president to keep it and to intermingle it with other papers,” he said.

“Even though I was prepared for this because I knew the judge would not approve a search based on something minor, the breadth and depth of the careless handling of classified information is truly shocking,” Priess said.

TRUMP HAD REPEATED OPPORTUNITIES TO RETURN THE DOCUMENTS

The affidavit makes clear yet again that Trump had numerous opportunities to return the documents to the government, but simply chose not to.

A lengthy process to retrieve the documents had been underway essentially since Trump left the White House. The document states that, on or about May 6, 2021, the Archives made a request for the missing records “and continued to make requests until approximately late December 2021” when it was informed 12 boxes were found and ready for retrieval from the club.

The affidavit makes clear that the Department of Justice’s criminal investigation concerns not just the improper removal and storage of classified information in unauthorized spaces and the potentially unlawful concealment or removal of government records, but says investigators had “probable cause to believe that evidence of obstruction” would be found in their search.

Trump’s lawyer, in a letter that was included in the release, had argued to DOJ that presidents have “absolute” authority to declassify documents, claiming that his “constitutionally-based authority regarding the classification and declassification of documents is unfettered.” Trump has not provided evidence the documents at Mar-a-Lago were declassified before he left Washington.

TRUMP SAYS HE DID ‘NOTHING WRONG’

Trump has long insisted, despite clear evidence to the contrary, that he fully cooperated with government officials and had every right to have the documents on site. On his social media site, he responded to the unsealing by continuing to vilify law enforcement.

He called it a “total public relations subterfuge by the FBI & DOJ” and said “WE GAVE THEM MUCH.” In another post, he offered just two words: “WITCH HUNT!!!”

In an interview on Lou Dobbs’ “The Great America Show” on Thursday, he said he’d done nothing wrong.

“This is a political attack on our country and it’s a disgrace,” he added. “It’s a disgrace.”

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08.27.2022 06:49AM

BY MICHAEL SALLAH AND JONATHAN D. SILVER, POST-GAZETTE

KEVIN G. HALL AND BRIAN FITZPATRICK, @Pittsburgh Post Gazette

AUGUST 26, 2022

PALM BEACH, Fla. — For a time, Anna de Rothschild boasted of her family roots to the European banking dynasty, donning designer clothes, a Rolex watch, and driving a $170,000 black Mercedes-Benz SUV.

She talked about developing a sprawling luxury housing project on Emerald Bay in the Bahamas, a high-rise hotel in Monaco, and a Formula One race track in Miami, say people who knew her.

A pivotal moment for the woman who was fluent in several languages took place last year when she was invited to Mar-a-Lago, where she mingled with former President Donald Trump’s supporters and showed up the next day for a golf outing with Mr. Trump and Sen. Lindsey Graham among other political luminaries.

Inna Yashchyshyn poses with former President Donald Trump and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., at Mr. Trump’s private golf course just miles from Mar-a-Lago in May 2021.

But the 33-year-old woman was not a member of the famous banking family, and is now a subject of a widening FBI investigation that has delved into her past financial activities and the events that led her to the former president’s home.

“It was the near-perfect ruse and she played the part,” said John LeFevre, a former investment banker who met her with other guests around a club pool.

Mar-a-Lago: the former president’s residence and a private club.

In addition to the FBI, law enforcement agents in Canada have confirmed that she has been the subject of a major crimes unit investigation in Quebec since February

A year before the FBI’s spectacular raid of the former president’s seaside home, the woman whose real name is Inna Yashchyshyn, a Russian-speaking immigrant from Ukraine, made several trips into the estate posing as a member of the famous family while making inroads with some of the former president’s key supporters.

The ability of Ms. Yashchyshyn — the daughter of an Illinois truck driver — to bypass the security at Mr. Trump’s club demonstrates the ease with which someone with a fake identity and shadowy background can get into a facility that’s one of America’s power centers and the epicenter of Republican Party politics.

Those issues have become even more critical after FBI agents seized boxes of classified and top-secret materials two weeks ago from Mar-a-Lago after executing a search warrant on Mr. Trump’s home.

Her entry — multiple trips in and out of the club grounds — lays bare the vulnerabilities of a facility that serves as both the former president's residence and a private club, and highlights the gaps in security that can take place.

“That’s his residence,” said Ed Martin, a former U.S. Treasury special agent who spent more than two decades in criminal intelligence. “She shouldn’t have been in there.”

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project learned that numerous records have been turned over to the FBI as part of the inquiry, including copies of two fake passports from the U.S. and Canada — bearing her photo and the name Anna de Rothschild — and a Florida driver’s license with the same name that shows the address of an opulent $13 million mansion in Miami Beach where she has never lived.

In 2015, Ms. Yashchyshyn became president of United Hearts of Mercy charity, which was dropped by two payment processors because they detected fraud.

Ms. Yashchyshyn said in sworn statements in a legal dispute that she has never used another name and has not broken any laws. In an interview with the Post-Gazette, she said she didn’t know Anna de Rothschild.

“I think there is some misunderstanding,” she said.

She said that she was meeting with FBI agents on Aug. 19 and that passports or driver’s licenses generated with the Rothschild name and her photo were fabricated by her former business partner to harm her. “That’s all fake, and nothing happened,” she said.

Mr. LeFevre and three other guests interviewed for this story said Ms. Yashchyshyn repeatedly told people after entering the palatial Mar-a-Lago grounds that she was a Rothschild “and everyone was eating it up,” he said.

The probe into her activities comes three years after two different women from China — one of them toting two passports and a thumb drive with malicious software — were arrested in separate instances after they entered the club grounds while Mr. Trump was president.

Both were sentenced to less than a year in jail and have since been released with at least one being deported to China last year.

The Secret Service said it could not comment on whether the agency is investigating Ms. Yashchyshyn’s visits to the former president’s home in May 2021, or any other subsequent trips.

“To maintain the operational integrity of our work, we are unable to comment specifically concerning the means, methods or resources used to conduct our protective operations,” said Steven Kopek, a special agent and spokesman, in a statement.

The Secret Service more than likely didn’t run background checks to determine Ms. Yashchyshyn’s identity when she visited the former president’s home, partly because the level of protection drops significantly when a president leaves office, said four former agents interviewed for this story.

In most cases, “they are going to do a level of screening — a hand check” for weapons, said Jonathan Wackrow, a former agent who served on President Barack Obama’s detail. “He still has a full detail.”

But experts say her ability to mingle with members of Mr. Trump’s entourage raises concerns about ongoing security at the private club that continues to host some of the most powerful elected leaders in the country and serves as a storage site for some of the country’s closely guarded secrets.

“The question is was it a fraud or an intelligence threat,” said Charles Marino, a former Secret Service supervisor. “The fact that we are asking this question is a problem.”

Little information is public about Ms. Yashchyshyn, who once worked for a suburban Miami business that specializes in providing pregnant Russian mothers the option to have their babies in the U.S. to gain citizenship, court records show.

But when a bitter court dispute erupted last year between her and a close associate with whom she once lived, the details of her whirlwind trips to Mar-a-Lago and other activities over the past several years began to surface and soon reached the attention of federal agents.

Valeriy Tarasenko, 44, a Florida businessman who was raised in Moscow, said he met Ms. Yashchyshyn in 2014 and allowed her to live in his Miami condo so that she would watch his children when he traveled on business.

They have since parted ways over what he alleged was her abuse of one of his children – accusations that Ms. Yashchyshyn vehemently denies.

He said he has met twice with FBI agents and spoke to them about multiple trips she made to Mar-a-Lago and what he claims were her efforts to make inroads in the Trump family and look for new streams of money.

She used “her fake identity as Anna de Rothschild to gain access to and build relationships with U.S. politician[s], including but not limited to Donald Trump, Lindsey Graham, and Eric Greitens,” he said in a court affidavit in Miami.

Mr. Greitens is a former Missouri governor who resigned in 2018 after allegations of sexual misconduct. He held a fundraiser at a Palm Beach mansion last year where Ms. Yashchyshyn was invited.

Ms. Yashchyshyn, an officer in two Florida companies founded by Mr. Tarasenko — both devoid of any assets — claimed that whatever steps she took to gain money were directed by him.

“[E]very single move that I did, I’ve been told by Valeriy to do so,” she said in a deposition. “[A]fter a few incidents like that, I realized that he’s using me for his lifestyle and for his needs.”

Tatiana Verzilina, left, the former accountant for United Hearts of Mercy, promoted the charity with Ms. Yashchyshyn, but later filed a statement saying it was rife with fraud.

Ms. Yashchyshyn said that at one point when she tried to break from him, he repeatedly struck her. “Over time, Tarasenko became more controlling and aggressive over me,” she said in an affidavit.

“I am the victim right now, that’s all I can tell you,” she said in an interview.

Mr. Tarasenko, who was once detained in Moscow for carrying a police-style baton at a metro station in 1998, denied that he physically harmed her.

In 2015, Ms. Yashchyshyn became president of a Miami charity, United Hearts of Mercy — the same name of a charity founded by Mr. Tarasenko in Canada five years earlier.

The Miami entity was promoted on social media as a vehicle to help impoverished children but was actually a source of illicit funds for organized crime, according to a statement by a certified public accountant for the charity that was provided to the FBI.

After hundreds of thousands of dollars poured into the charity’s coffers two years ago, a payment processor, Stripe Inc., suspected fraud and stopped taking in money for a campaign that was supposed to help families ravaged by the pandemic.

The Post-Gazette emailed more than two dozen of the “donors” from Hong Kong, and every email bounced back, suggesting they were fake email addresses used to trick the payment processor.

At the end of the charity drive, the accountant, Tatiana Verzilina, said she began to get calls from people who she suspected were from criminal groups, threatening violence and demanding the money.

The callers left “voice messages from unknown numbers with accents that if I do not return money, I and my family will be harmed or killed,” she wrote in her statement.

Though the charity was supposed to disclose its revenues to the public because of the amount of funds it took in, it failed to do so. Ms. Verzilina, who is now living in her native Russia, declined to talk about the case.

So far, it’s not clear where the funds went.

The FBI in Miami said it would not comment, but at least three people who live in South Florida said they have been interviewed by FBI agents in the past seven months about Ms. Yashchyshyn’s activities.

One of them, Sergey Golubev, a Russian-born U.S. citizen who was once married to Ms. Yashchyshyn, said they wed in 2011 so she could obtain U.S. residency and stay in the country, but the marriage was only on paper.

“At some point, she needed a permanent green card,” said Mr. Golubev, 48.

He said the FBI told him that agents were looking for her in connection with allegations about something “illegal — cheating people and stealing money,” but he said he didn’t know any details, and was unaware of her activities. He said he lost touch with her after their divorce in 2016.

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08.27.2022 06:49AM

Another person who spoke to the Post-Gazette on the condition of anonymity said a host of records, photos and videos had been turned over to the FBI of Ms. Yashchyshyn, including pictures of her posing with Mr. Trump, Mr. Graham, Donald Trump Jr.’s fiancee, Kimberly Guilfoyle, and Trump campaign donor Richard Kofoed, along with other supporters of the former president.

Mr. Kofoed, 60, who donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the former president’s campaign and had been a frequent visitor to Mar-a-Lago, declined to comment.

He was among the guests who met Anna de Rothschild at Mar-a-Lago and later attended a small dinner with her and others, including Kimberly Guilfoyle and Trump fundraiser Caroline Wren.

Ms. Guilfoyle, 53, whose name emerged in the Jan. 6 hearings after it was revealed she received $60,000 for delivering a speech to protesters on the day of the attack, didn’t respond to interview requests.

So far, the FBI’s questioning appears to hint at a widening criminal probe into a network of people that includes Ms. Yashchyshyn, who traveled under various aliases while mingling with politicians and wealthy businessmen.

She showed up at the U.S. Open in Flushing Meadows, N.Y., last year and the Austrian World Summit in 2019, where her picture was taken with the likes of celebrity rapper Ray J and Italian car designer Horacio Pagani.

“We always thought her grandfather had the money and that he was an oligarch,” said developer Paul Barton, who said his family company paid for her to fly at least three times on private jets to their resort project in the Bahamas.

She was offered a deal to sell their sprawling residential development for $55 million and receive a commission, records show, but no such sale was made.

During their discussions, he said she talked about her involvement in putting up a high-rise hotel in Monaco, a speed track in Miami and a condo project in Canada. “She talked a good game,” he said.

Though law enforcement agents in Quebec acknowledged their own inquiry of Ms. Yashchyshyn, they would not provide any details.

At some point, she met Trump supporter Elchanan Adamker, a New York financial services company founder who travels often to Miami. Mr. Adamker, who declined to comment, invited her to join him for a gathering at Mar-a-Lago, where she arrived in her Mercedes-Benz SUV on May 1.

There’s no indication she met that first day with the former president, who, along with Mr. Graham, was about to launch a $25,000-per-person golf fundraiser to raise money for the midterm elections.

But when the event was held the next day at Trump International Golf Club just a few miles from Mar-a-Lago, she gathered with the former president, who posed with her for several photos. In another frame, she stood alongside Mr. Trump and the South Carolina senator, the three smiling and gesturing with their thumbs up.

Later, a guest joked with her that he would pass the photos onto her for a hefty price. “Anna, you're a Rothschild — you can afford $1 million for a picture with you and Trump,” he said in a video.

Ms. Yashchyshyn then drove some of the guests back to Mar-a-Lago.

Mr. LeFevre, who authored a bestselling book about his years as a Wall Street banker, said several guests at the private club “fawned all over her and because of the Rothschild mystique, they never probed and instead tiptoed around her with kid gloves.”

For her part, she went beyond just dropping the family name, he said. “She talked about vineyards and family estates and growing up in Monaco.”

One frequent Mar-a-Lago guest who spoke on the condition of anonymity said an invitation was sent to Ms. Yashchyshyn to attend a fund-raiser days later for Mr. Greitens in another mansion near Mar-a-Lago and owned by the former president.

Weeks earlier, Mr. Greitens, a former Navy SEAL, had announced his bid for the U.S. Senate with Ms. Guilfoyle as his national campaign chair.

Not until this March did the Trump entourage say they discovered her real identity.

Dean Lawrence, a Florida music creative director, said he met with Trump insiders at Mar-a-Lago, where he said he surprised them with the news.

Dean Lawrence revealed to guests at Mar-a-Lago in March that Anna de Rothschild was imposter.

“It’s just crazy,” said Mr. Lawrence. “Who would have ever thought it would get to this level?”

Mr. Lawrence said the evening started with a dinner that included the former president, Ray J and rapper Kodak Black, who was granted clemency by Mr. Trump on a charge of giving false statements to acquire a gun. Also attending the dinner: Rudy Giuiliani and former New York police commissioner Bernard Kerik.

As the evening progressed, Mr. Lawrence said he struck up conversations with Mr. Kofoed and Caroline Wren, a former national adviser for the Trump campaign, and their talks turned to Anna de Rothschild.

Mr. Lawrence said he became acquainted with her because he was involved in a music company — Rothschild Media Label, where she was the president — to promote singers, including Mr. Tarasenko’s teenage daughter.

Mr. Lawrence told the Trump insiders that she was not the person they thought she was and warned them: “I want to clear something up with you. I want you to know that she has nothing to do with the Rothschilds. Don’t get involved in any kind of business with her.”

As he divulged the information to Mr. Kofoed, who lived in Palm Beach, “his eyes were wide open,” said Mr. Lawrence. “He said to me, ‘That’s exactly who I met. She came to my house.’”

Mr. Lawrence said he then spoke to Ms. Wren, who he said recognized Ms. Yashchyshyn from a photo that he showed her.

Ms. Wren asked to take a phone picture and then “she created a group chat” to warn others, he said.

Ms. Wren, 34, who helped organize the Stop the Steal rally that took place prior to the Capitol insurrection and was subpoenaed by the House committee probing the attack, declined to comment for this story.

It’s not clear how many trips Ms. Yashchyshyn made to the former president’s home, but Mr. Lawrence said she made enough of a splash that members of the Trump entourage recognized her photo immediately.

“She had been there more than once,” he said.

Ron T. Williams, a former Secret Service agent who is now a corporate security consultant, said there are many reasons that Ms. Yashchyshyn may have avoided detection, including the possibility that agents didn’t conduct a background check.

“Should she have been run for a background check — yes,” he said, but that “doesn’t mean it happened.”

A basic check would have shown that no such person exists with the Rothschild name and her 1988 birthdate.

In fact, an online resource devoted to the Rothschild family lists descendants dating back hundreds of years, but the name Anna de Rothschild does not appear anywhere.

Gary McDaniel, a longtime Florida security consultant, said because Mar-a-Lago is not just a private club but Mr. Trump’s home, the level of protection should be elevated beyond the security protocols typically afforded former presidents and also extend to the entire premises.

“I want to know everybody who comes into that facility, their name, date, date of birth,” he said. “And I want them somewhere on a roster because we never know when he is going to walk into that crowd. She should have been on a list” at the “pre-screening level.”

The idea that a person with a fake identity can get into the former president’s estate — even if they’re looking to find investors — “is not OK,” he said. “Who else can get in there? Who is behind that person? It’s just wrong on so many [levels].”

Mr. Marino, the former Secret Service supervisor, said the revelations of her visits to the sprawling estate underscores the challenges that his former agency faces in protecting Mar-a-Lago.

“It highlights the complexities of having a former president living within a larger club, and it’s accessible to [outside members],” said Mr. Marino, who once served on the details of Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

Mr. Lawrence said he was perplexed over why he was the one who was telling Trump insiders about a potential breach, and not the people guarding the former president and his family.

“What I’m trying to understand is how did they allow this?” said Mr. Lawrence. “How could someone keep coming back — at that level? This is Mar-a-Lago.”

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08.27.2022 09:38AM

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@oromagi

These narcissistic, MAGA nut cases and their cult followers { indecent dumb and dumber } need jail time at worst, and at best, some years of re-education on basic moral and decency standards of a civilized society. Actually most if not all of them need both.

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08.27.2022 09:50AM

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@oromagi

Yeah, I also just came across this article on Yahoo news. Interesting.

...." another bizarre security flaw at his Mar-a-Lago home has been revealed — a woman, claiming to be an heiress from a famous European banking dynasty, visited the seaside golf resort on numerous occasions, mingling with guests including Mr Trump.

......The woman, however, was not a wealthy heiress, but instead a Ukrainian born daughter of a truck driver in Illinois, and with an alleged shady background connecting her to charity scams and organised crime.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Organised Crime Corruption and Reporting Project documented the strange and troubling story of “Anna de Rothschild”, the woman who claimed be a member of the Rothschild banking family that charmed her way onto Mr Trump's property and into the power centre of the Republican party.

The paper's investigation has found evidence suggesting Ms de Rothschild is actually 33-year-old Inna Yashchyshyn, a Ukrainian woman who immigrated to the US with her family, and who is now the subject of an FBI investigation that deals both with her alleged false identity and claims she was involved in financial schemes. "...

and as an aside story also on yahoo news Russian Spy infiltrates NATO:

...." A Russian spy posing as a jet-set jewellery designer infiltrated Nato’s naval headquarters in Italy by sleeping with officers stationed there, it emerged on Friday.

The agent - real name Olga Kolobova - became a fixture on the social circuit, targeting Allied Joint Forces Command in Naples, home to the US Navy’s Sixth Fleet.

Under the exotic but false name of Maria Adela Kuhfeldt Rivera, and with a cover story to match, the spy was deployed for almost a decade as a businesswoman and socialite, making extensive connections that reached to the UK and as far as the Middle East.

Glamorous, impeccably dressed and driving an Audi convertible, ‘Maria Adela’ placed herself at the centre of Naples’ international party scene. She was a regular at the annual Nato ball and the US Marine Corps ball and even managed to install herself as secretary of a local charity linked to the Nato HQ.

.....But on Friday ‘Maria Adela’ was unmasked by the investigative website Bellingcat as a spy working for Russia’s GRU foreign intelligence service that tried to assassinate Sergei Skripal by poisoning him with the nerve agent Novichok on the streets of Salisbury in March 2018.

.....Six months later and believing her cover blown, Maria Adela bought a one-way plane ticket from Naples to Moscow and retreated back to Russia. Her close friends in the west have never seen her since.

....Among them was Marcelle D’Argy Smith, the former editor of the women’s magazine Cosmopolitan, whom ‘Maria Adela’ befriended in Malta in 2010 where the journalist had a flat. On Friday, Ms D’Argy Smith was coming to terms with Bellingcat’s revelation that the younger woman she had thought of as a ‘niece’ or ‘goddaughter’ was actually an agent working for Vladimir Putin. "......

FLRW

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FLRW

08.27.2022 02:48PM

“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

― H.L. Mencken

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08.28.2022 03:12AM

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@FLRW

“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

― H.L. Mencken

Yeah we saw some of those, not so pretty inner souls for four years of Trumpet and culminating at USA capitol on Jan 6th 2021.

Oromagi sure knows lot of political stuff, my hats off to his time and efforts to seek out truth and lay waste to the Trumpet cultist false narratives.

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08.28.2022 04:34AM

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@ebuc

Oromagi sure knows lot of political stuff, my hats off to his time and efforts to seek out truth and lay waste to the Trumpet cultist false narratives.

He's copy pasting AP articles for the most part, which I suppose qualifies him as a mainstream journalist these days.

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08.28.2022 12:17PM

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@ADreamOfLiberty

He's copy pasting AP articles for the most part, which I suppose qualifies him as a mainstream journalist these days.

Time and effort, as I stated clearly, and we all learn { knowledge } from what we have researched. I posted some of the same stuff I got off yahoo news n post 6.

..." another bizarre security flaw at his Mar-a-Lago home has been revealed — a woman, claiming to be an heiress from a famous European banking dynasty, visited the seaside golf resort on numerous occasions, mingling with guests including Mr Trump. "

If we post something invalid, then please identify, otherwise your just blowing hot air. :--()

#10

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08.28.2022 04:55PM

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@ebuc

If we post something invalid, then please identify, otherwise your just blowing hot air. :--()

Well whenever oromagi is copy pasting AP he's usually safe from outright falsehoods, they are professional propagandists over there and know exactly how to program an impression without making the claim themselves.

For instance a single line "Here are top takeaways of what the document revealed:" covers the ass, and they can go on for pages asserting things that may or may not be true as far as they know and if ever challenged say "well that's what the FBI said"

It's amazing how useful it is to refrain from investigating anything yourself, that's why they cut all the investigative journalism from their organizations. If you never claim to know anything or claim anything you assert was "pure opinion" that's apparently an airtight defense. Alex Jones need only have said "somebody told me Sandy Hook was a false flag"

That's why you went:

my hats off to his time and efforts to seek out truth and lay waste to the Trumpet cultist false narratives.

No narrative has been laid waste and even if a narrative was contradicted by the assertions FBI people who perceive a witch-hunting FBI are unlikely to consider that a debunking of the narrative.

"The government has investigated itself and found that it did nothing wrong and that everything it does is justified" - ooooh wow, TRUTH!

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#11

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08.28.2022 05:59PM

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@ebuc

Because it's so much easier to mutter disparagingly about those pinko commies at AP News and the FBI than to refute a single fact.

If a presidential election were held tomorrow, 2/3rds of the FBI would sooner vote for Trump than any democratic candidate. Anybody who doesn't know that the FBI is deeply Republican organization does know the first thing about the FBI.

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#12

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08.28.2022 06:22PM

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@ADreamOfLiberty

He's copy pasting AP articles for the most part, which I suppose qualifies him as a mainstream journalist these days.

Call it a reaction to the tendency of folks to link to some totally unaccountable YouTube channel who's only measure of success is clicks and so is motivated exclusively by making you feel some emotion. The AP News does not give a single fuck about what emotion you are feeling, they are accountable to the thousands of news outlets who purchase their stories for the facts alone and they can't afford to get their facts wrong or the customer moves on to Reuters.

No major news outlet leans heavier on AP than FOX because FOX learned long ago that hiring real journalists makes it much harder to serve as the mouth of Trump. FOX is little more than AP News plus anodyne white ladies reading the opinion manufactured for them by right-wing politicians.

I do a little more than just cut & paste. I clean up all the captions and links to other stories and ads and when I'm to lazy I try to reformat the text into with an extra line between graphs for improved legibility. I'm trying to make it so you can absorb the relevant facts in 1 min read rather than sitting through a 30 minute YouTube pundit.

The idea is to start a conversation from a fact-based place rather than starting with off with propaganda and lies and try to correct backwards to truth. When you just link to YouTube, you can claim it says just about anything you want because few enough people are going to sit through the damn thing to fact-check you. With this kind of article, you can word search, etc. and instantly double check whether assertions match the facts.

I can easily see why such practice would make you feel uncomfortable.

#13

Debates: 0

Posts: 2,824

08.28.2022 08:20PM

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@oromagi

The AP News does not give a single fuck about what emotion you are feeling

I doubt that very much.

they are accountable to the thousands of news outlets who purchase their stories for the facts alone and they can't afford to get their facts wrong or the customer moves on to Reuters.

Oh their customers will move on at the first whiff of 'alternative facts' huh? Now why would they do that? The customer of the customer perhaps?

It comes down to just what sort of people you think follow AP vs follow that hypothetical youtube personality.

No major news outlet leans heavier on AP than FOX

and to you this proves what?

FOX is little more than AP News plus anodyne white ladies reading the opinion manufactured for them by right-wing politicians.

Yes they are missing those 'real' journalists like Stelter, Cuomo, Acosta, Lemon, and the greatest journalist of them all Rachael Maddow.

I do a little more than just cut & paste. I clean up all the captions and links to other stories and ads and when I'm to lazy I try to reformat the text into with an extra line between graphs for improved legibility. I'm trying to make it so you can absorb the relevant facts in 1 min read rather than sitting through a 30 minute YouTube pundit.

As long as you feel appreciated...

The idea is to start a conversation from a fact-based place rather than starting with off with propaganda and lies and try to correct backwards to truth.

With that attitude your conversation will necessarily involve only those people who trust your source, which could be your goal; but don't shut the curtains and act surprised there are people on the other side.

I can easily see why such practice would make you feel uncomfortable.

Why is that?

#14

sadolite

Debates: 0

Posts: 2,875

sadolite

08.28.2022 10:54PM

When one does "research" is it customary to also research those things that contradict ones own confirmation bias or only regurgitate only those things that massage ones confirmation bias. First thing I researched was the Presidents power to declassify documents as the President can unilaterally declassify just about any document short of launch codes. "The idea that the President has to get permission from some unelected low level bureaucrat to declassify a classified document is preposterous" This research does not come from any news organization but already published and established govt policy. The President does not answer to the Bureau of Archives, they answer to him.

#15

Debates: 0

Posts: 4,254

08.29.2022 12:25AM

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@ADreamOfLiberty

Dreamer, I think it is waste of time and effort to attempt logical conversation with you. Your a Trumpet cultist and if he goes to jail ---God I hope so--- I dont mind if join him there to be his servant.

#16

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Posts: 2,824

[1] https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/05/05/documents-mar-a-lago-marked-classified-were-already-declassified-kash-patel-says/

08.29.2022 01:59AM

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@ebuc

The other side is saying the same things. When the talking stops and the voting is mistrusted the fighting starts. I would hate to go to war wondering if I could have done my part to prevent it by not cutting people off and dismissing them as beyond the pale.

#17

Public-Choice

Debates: 18

Posts: 1,035

Public-Choice

08.29.2022 01:08PM

According to Trump's legal team, the former President declassified everything he took with him before it left the White House while he was still president. [1] [2]

If this is the case, then none of the information found was classified, since a sitting President can declassify whatever he wants to declassify. [3]

The question remains which side is telling the truth, and without credible documents or a host of eye-witness accounts, we will never know for sure.

Sources:

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/12/us/politics/declassified-documents-trump.html

[3] https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2017/may/16/james-risch/does-president-have-ability-declassify-anything-an/

Topic's author

#18

Debates: 117

Posts: 8,689

08.30.2022 05:42AM

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@ebuc

Dreamer, I think it is waste of time and effort to attempt logical conversation with you. Your a Trumpet cultist and if he goes to jail ---God I hope so--- I dont mind if join him there to be his servant.

I gave him a five minute video showing Georgia election counters packing up the "suitcases" for three minutes while the Georgia Head of Elections and Lester Holt pointed and explained but Dream claimed he could not see it any packing. I think it is like an actual hysterical blindness to any evidence that does not confirm one's bias.

Topic's author

#19

Debates: 117

Posts: 8,689

08.30.2022 06:58AM

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@Public-Choice

According to Trump's legal team, the former President declassified everything he took with him before it left the White House while he was still president.

Bullshit propaganda but also totally irrelevant. This is like Trump talking about "collusion." He gives his followers a red herring to chase far away from the relevant points of law.

If this is the case, then none of the information found was classified, since a sitting President can declassify whatever he wants to declassify.

The FBI is investigating Trump on suspicion of three felonies. None of these felonies have any dependency on the classification status of any of the stolen documents.

(from the NY Times)
The first law, Section 793 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code, is better known as the Espionage Act. It criminalizes the unauthorized retention or disclosure of information related to national defense that could be used to harm the United States or aid a foreign adversary. Each offense can carry a penalty of up to 10 years in prison.
The second, Section 1519, is an obstruction law that is part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, a broad set of reforms enacted by Congress in 2002 after financial scandals at firms like Enron, Arthur Andersen and WorldCom.

Section 1519 sets a penalty of up to 20 years in prison per offense for the act of destroying or concealing documents or records “with the intent to impede, obstruct or influence the investigation or proper administration of any matter” within the jurisdiction of federal departments or agencies.
The third law that investigators cite in the warrant, Section 2071, criminalizes the theft or destruction of government documents. It makes it a crime, punishable in part by up to three years in prison per offense, for anyone with custody of any record or document from federal court or public office to willfully and unlawfully conceal, remove, mutilate, falsify or destroy it.
Trump has committed this felony so often in front of so many witnesses, I'm not sure even he bothers denying it.

The question remains which side is telling the truth, and without credible documents or a host of eye-witness accounts, we will never know for sure.

We can have no doubt that Trump is lying since his arguments are self-refuting. He has claimed that NARA could have collected these docs anytime they wished but we have docs from his lawyers showing that he's been fighting tooth and nail for a year and a half. He has claimed that he declassified everything but he was in possession of some records so secret that declassification is not an option.

The most important question is whether programs and agents have been compromised. After that Trump must answer the question of what he was doing with those documents and the truth of that answer must be interrogated. It sounds like the FBI has informants in Mar-a-Lago and may already know the answer to these questions. I doubt DoJ would have acted unless the answer was quite grim.

#20

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Posts: 4,254