So Remember All Those Times Democrats Said Russia Hacked The French Election? About That… by Caitlin Johnstone June 2, 2017
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Over the course of the last month I have been told dozens of times that the Russian government attempted to manipulate the French presidential election. It comes up every single time when debating establishment loyalists about the unsubstantiated Russiagate conspiracy theory; they speak it as though it is an objective, indisputable fact, because the pundits who tell them what to think have been speaking it as though it is an objective, indisputable fact. Anyone who’s spent any time debating the official Russia narrative in the last few weeks has been on the receiving end of this argument — Putin hacked the US election, and he hacked the French election too. We know for a fact that he hacked the French election, so you’re either an idiot or a Russian shill if you think he didn’t hack the US election. Trouble is, it’s all bullshit. There is literally nothing linking Russia to the hacking attempt France experienced, and there never was.
Michael Tracey ✔ @mtracey Remember when it was taken as a given by self-assured pundits that "Russia" had hacked the Macron campaign servers? https://www.apnews.com/fc570e4b400f4c7d ... ing-Macron … 1:31 PM - Jun 1, 2017 https://storage.googleapis.com/afs-prod ... e/800.jpeg The Latest: France says no trace of Russian hacking Macron ST.PETERSBURG, Russia (AP) — The Latest on President Vladimir Putin's comments Thursday (all times local): 5:30 p.m. The head of the French government' apnews.com
For whatever reason, be it a grudge with America or just good old-fashioned honesty, France is no longer playing along with this particular fabrication. Guillaume Poupard, the head of France’s cyber security agency, told the Associated Press that there was “no trace” of Russian meddling and that the hack of the Macron campaign “was so generic and simple that it could have been practically anyone.”
This is important to keep track of, because the propagandists are about to shift away from this gaping plot hole in the narrative they’ve been spinning for a month, and soon all the brainwashed Democratic neocons are going to be speaking as though it never happened in a creepy display of real-world Orwellian doublethink. So let’s all get very clear on this before the revisionism begins: these people were indeed using the story about Russia hacking France’s electoral infrastructure to bolster their case for the still completely unproven allegation that Russia hacked the Democratic party in the 2016 US election cycle.
Here is Snopes on May 10, calmly assuring its foam-brained readers that many trustworthy US sources attest that the Kremlin was responsible for the hack.
Here is Reuters on May 9 making its trusting audience aware that the US is “increasingly convinced that Russia hacked French election”.
Here is the New York Times on May 8 on how France has defied “Putin’s meddling”, and writing that “The Russian hacking attack intended to disrupt the French election was a reminder that cyberattacks can also be defeated” on May 10.
Here is the CIA-funded Washington Post reporting that “Emmanuel Macron has won the French presidential election, despite yet another Russian intervention in support of a candidate (Marine Le Pen) whose views are decidedly illiberal and pro-Kremlin” on May 8, commenting on how “Putin’s Russia’s meddling in the French election” on May 12, and providing a transcript of multiple Senators promulgating the narrative that Russia hacked the French election at a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Here is The Register saying “Just so we’re all clear on this: Russia hacked the French elections, US Republicans and Dems” on May 9.
Here is Vox still advancing the false narrative a couple of days ago, saying “The fingerprints on the attack implicated Russian hackers; immediately comparisons were made to efforts to undermine Hillary Clinton’s campaign in the final weeks of the 2016 presidential election.”
There are many, many, many more; a Google search of “Russia French election hack” turns up 3.5 million results. This completely false story has been used for nearly a month to add fuel to the anti-Russia fire the mass media propaganda machine has been laboring day and night to keep going.
Again, this was something establishment loyalists brought up over and over and over again over the last month to substantiate their anti-Russia arguments. The intellectually honest thing to do when one of the points you claim to base your position upon collapses is to reevaluate your position, but this will not happen. It didn’t happen when gaping plot holes in the Crowdstrike report surfaced in March, it didn’t happen when Hillary’s “seventeen agencies agree it was Russian hackers” story was ripped to shreds last month when it turned out to have been only three agencies (one of which was the NSA, who got the French election data wrong), and it’s not going to happen now. There has not been one shred of proof presented to the public that Russia actually did the thing that sparked off all this Russophobic hysteria in the first place, and key points of the establishment argument keep collapsing, but these mindless automatons keep marching to the beat of the deep state drummer.
As I’ve been saying a lot lately, America’s unelected power establishment needs to push for regime change in both Damascus and Moscow in order to nail down a large amount of crucial geopolitical influence in some key regions, and they need to manufacture public support for the insane, world-threatening escalations necessary to do that. By constantly spinning Putin as a dangerous criminal mastermind who can dictate outcomes of elections, fill the internet with bots and shills and control the direction of public discourse despite Russia’s relatively tiny economy, the oligarchy is able to keep people sufficiently afraid to stop them from asking if maybe it’s time to start removing NATO troops from the Russian border and stay the fuck away from Syria.
David Swanson wrote a solid piece for Consortium News about how the whole anti-Russia narrative essentially boils down to the mass media repeating unsubstantiated assertions in an assertive, authoritative tone over and over again until people erroneously “assume that at some point someone actually established that it was a fact.”
Well nobody has established it as a fact. Repeating something over and over again as though it is a fact does not make it a fact. Saying it seems like something Russia would do does not make it a fact. Mocking someone who doesn’t believe it’s a fact does not make it a fact. Calling someone who disagrees with it a Russian shill does not make it a fact. For a nation with such an extensive history of using lies, propaganda and false flags to manufacture consent for military escalations, the American power establishment is coming up awfully short on facts. We need to keep pointing at this.
With New D.C. Policy Group, Dems Continue to Rehabilitate and Unify With Bush-Era Neocons by Glenn Greenwald July 17 2017, 7:53 a.m.
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ONE OF THE most under-discussed yet consequential changes in the American political landscape is the reunion between the Democratic Party and the country’s most extreme and discredited neocons. While the rise of Donald Trump, whom neocons loathe, has accelerated this realignment, it began long before the ascension of Trump and is driven by far more common beliefs than contempt for the current president.
A newly formed and, by all appearances, well-funded national security advocacy group, devoted to more hawkish U.S. policies toward Russia and other adversaries, provides the most vivid evidence yet of this alliance. Calling itself the Alliance for Securing Democracy, the group describes itself as “a bipartisan, transatlantic initiative” that “will develop comprehensive strategies to defend against, deter, and raise the costs on Russian and other state actors’ efforts to undermine democracy and democratic institutions,” and also “will work to publicly document and expose Vladimir Putin’s ongoing efforts to subvert democracy in the United States and Europe.”
It is, in fact, the ultimate union of mainstream Democratic foreign policy officials and the world’s most militant, and militaristic, neocons. The group is led by two longtime Washington foreign policy hands, one from the establishment Democratic wing and the other a key figure among leading GOP neocons.
The Democrat, Laura Rosenberger, served as a foreign policy adviser for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and chief of staff to two Obama national security officials. The Republican is Jamie Fly, who spent the last four years as counselor for foreign and national security affairs to one of the Senate’s most hawkish members, Marco Rubio; prior to that, he served in various capacities in the Bush Pentagon and National Security Council.
LAURA ROSENBERGER
Laura Rosenberger is the director of the Alliance for Securing Democracy and a senior fellow at The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF). Before she joined GMF, she was foreign policy advisor for Hillary for America, where she coordinated development of the campaign’s national security policies, messaging, and strategy. Prior to that, she served in a range of positions at the State Department and the White House’s National Security Council (NSC). As chief of staff to Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken and as later, then-Deputy National Security Advisor Blinken’s senior advisor, she counseled on the full range of national security policy. In her role at the NSC, she also managed the interagency Deputies Committee, the U.S. government’s senior-level interagency decision-making forum on our country’s most pressing national security issues. Laura also has extensive background in the Asia-Pacific region, particularly Northeast Asia. She served as NSC director for China and Korea, managing and coordinating U.S. policy on China and the Korean Peninsula, and in a variety of positions focused on the Asia-Pacific region at the Department of State, including managing U.S.–China relations and addressing North Korea’s nuclear programs. She also served as special assistant to Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Bill Burns, advising him on Asia-Pacific affairs and on nonproliferation and arms control issues. Laura first joined the State Department as a presidential management fellow.
JAMIE FLY
Jamie Fly is a senior fellow at The German Marshall Fund of the United States. He served as counselor for Foreign and National Security Affairs to Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) from 2013–17, serving as his foreign policy advisor during his presidential campaign. Prior to joining Senator Rubio’s staff in February 2013, he served as the executive director of the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI) from its founding in early 2009. Prior to joining FPI, Fly served in the Bush administration at the National Security Council (2008–09) and in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (2005–08). He was director for Counterproliferation Strategy at the National Security Council, where his portfolio included the Iranian nuclear program, Syria, missile defense, chemical weapons, proliferation finance, and other counterproliferation issues. In the Office of the Secretary of Defense, he was an assistant for Transnational Threats Policy, where he helped to develop U.S. strategy related to the proliferation of missiles as well as nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. For his work in the Department of Defense, he was awarded the Office of the Secretary of Defense Medal for Exceptional Public Service. Fly received a B.A. in international studies and political science from American University and an M.A. in German and European studies from Georgetown University.
-- Staff, GMF
Fly’s neocon pedigree is impressive indeed. During the Obama years, he wrote dozens of articles for the Weekly Standard — some co-authored with Bill Kristol himself — attacking Obama for insufficient belligerence toward Iran and terrorists generally, pronouncing Obama “increasingly ill suited to the world he faces as president” by virtue of his supposed refusal to use military force frequently enough (Obama bombed seven predominantly Muslim countries during his time in office, including an average of 72 bombs dropped per day in 2016 alone).
The Democrats’ new partner Jamie Fly spent 2010 working in tandem with Bill Kristol urging military action — i.e., aggressive war — against Iran. In a 2010 Weekly Standard article co-written with Kristol, Fly argued that “the key to changing [Iran’s thinking about its nuclear program] is a serious debate about the military option,” adding: “It’s time for Congress to seriously explore an Authorization of Military Force to halt Iran’s nuclear program.”
This is a regime committed to developing nuclear weapons, despite the cost to the Iranian economy and the toll on the Iranian people. Time is running out and the consequences of inaction for the United States, Israel, and the free world will only increase in the weeks and months ahead. It’s time for Congress to seriously explore an Authorization of Military Force to halt Iran’s nuclear program.
Jamie Fly & William Kristol
-- The Obama Retreat, by William Kristol and Lee Smith and Jamie Fly, The Weekly Standard
Fly then went around the D.C. think tank circuit, under the guise of advocating “debate,” espousing the need to use military force against Iran, spouting standing neocon innuendo such as “we need to be wary of the Obama administration’s intentions” toward Iran. He mocked Obama officials, and Bush officials before them, for their “obsession with diplomatic options” to resolve tensions with Iran short of war. The Kristol/Fly duo returned in 2012 to more explicitly argue: “Isn’t it time for the president to ask Congress for an Authorization for Use of Military Force against Iran’s nuclear program?”
Beyond working as Rubio’s foreign policy adviser, Fly was the executive director of “the Foreign Policy Initiative,” a group founded by Kristol along with two other leading neocons, Robert Kagan and Dan Senor, who was previously the chief spokesman for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. That group is devoted to standard neocon agitprop, demanding “a renewed commitment to American leadership” on the ground that “the United States remains the world’s indispensable nation.” In sum, as Vox’s Dylan Matthews put it during the 2016 campaign, “If you want a foreign policy adviser with strong ties to the neocon world, it’s hard to do better than Fly.”
For example, one of his chief foreign policy advisers is Jamie Fly, the former executive director of the Foreign Policy Initiative, which was founded by neoconservative foreign policy insiders Bill Kristol and Robert Kagan. If you want a foreign policy adviser with strong ties to the neocon world, it's hard to do better than Fly.
-- Scott Walker dropping out is good news for Marco Rubio, by Dylan Matthews, Vox.com
When it comes to this new group, the alliance of Democrats with the most extreme neocon elements is visible beyond the group’s staff leadership. Its board of advisers is composed of both leading Democratic foreign policy experts, along with the nation’s most extremist neocons.
Thus, alongside Jake Sullivan (national security adviser to Joe Biden and the Clinton campaign), Mike Morrell (Obama’s acting CIA director) and Mike McFaul (Obama’s ambassador to Russia) sit leading neocons such as Mike Chertoff (Bush’s homeland security secretary), Mike Rogers (the far-right, supremely hawkish former congressman who now hosts a right-wing radio show); and Bill Kristol himself.
ADVISORY COUNCIL
MIKE CHERTOFF
Mike Chertoff was U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security from 2005 to 2009. There, he worked to strengthen U.S. borders, provide intelligence analysis, and protect infrastructure. He increased the Department’s focus on preparedness ahead of disasters, and implemented enhanced security at airports and borders. Following Hurricane Katrina, Chertoff helped to transform the Federal Emergency Management Agency into an effective organization. He also served as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals Judge from 2003 to 2005. He co-founded the Chertoff Group, a risk-management and security consulting company, and works as senior of counsel at the Washington, DC law firm Covington & Burling.
BILL KRISTOL
William "Bill" Kristol is the editor at large of the influential political journal, The Weekly Standard. Before starting that magazine in 1995, Kristol served in government, first as chief of staff to Secretary of Education William Bennett during the Reagan administration, and then as chief of staff to Vice President Dan Quayle in the George H. W. Bush administration. Kristol has also served on the board of the Project for the New American Century (1997–2005) and the Foreign Policy Initiative (2009–17). Before coming to Washington in 1985, Kristol taught government at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University.
MICHAEL MORELL
Michael Morell was acting director of the Central Intelligence Agency in 2011 and again from 2012 to 2013, and had previously served as deputy director and director for Intelligence at the Agency. In his over thirty years at the CIA, Morell played a central role in the United States’ fight against terrorism, its initiatives to halt the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and its efforts to respond to trends that are altering the international landscape — including the Arab Spring, the rise of China, and the cyber threat. He was one of the leaders in the search for Osama bin Laden and participated in the deliberations that led to the raid that killed bin Laden in May 2011. He has been with Beacon Global Strategies as a senior counselor since November 2013.
MIKE MCFAUL
Michael McFaul served for five years in the Obama administration, first as special assistant to the president and senior director for Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council at the White House from 2009 to 2012, and then as U.S. ambassador to the Russian Federation from 2012 to 2014. He is currently professor of political science, director, and senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and the Peter and Helen Bing senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He joined the Stanford faculty in 1995. He is also an analyst for NBC News and a contributing columnist to The Washington Post.
Advisory Council, GMF
In sum — just as was true of the first Cold War, when neocons made their home among the Cold Warriors of the Democratic Party — on the key foreign policy controversies, there is now little to no daylight between leading Democratic Party foreign policy gurus and the Bush-era neocons who had wallowed in disgrace following the debacle of Iraq and the broader abuses of the war on terror. That’s why they are able so comfortably to unify this way in support of common foreign policy objectives and beliefs.
DEMOCRATS OFTEN JUSTIFY this union as a mere marriage of convenience: a pragmatic, temporary alliance necessitated by the narrow goal of stopping Trump. But for many reasons, that is an obvious pretext, unpersuasive in the extreme. This Democrat/neocon reunion had been developing long before anyone believed Donald Trump could ascend to power, and this alliance extends to common perspectives, goals, and policies that have little to do with the current president.
It is true that neocons were among the earliest and most vocal GOP opponents of Trump. That was because they viewed him as an ideological threat to their orthodoxies (such as when he advocated for U.S. “neutrality” on the Israel/Palestine conflict and railed against the wisdom of the wars in Iraq and Libya), but they were also worried that his uncouth, offensive personality would embarrass the U.S. and thus weaken the “soft power” needed for imperial hegemony. Even if Trump could be brought into line on neocon orthodoxy — as has largely happened — his ineptitude and instability posed a threat to their agenda.
But Democrats and neocons share far more than revulsion toward Trump; particularly once Hillary Clinton became the party’s standard-bearer, they share the same fundamental beliefs about the U.S. role in the world and how to assert U.S. power. In other words, this alliance is explained by far more than antipathy to Trump.
Indeed, the likelihood of a neocon/Democrat reunion long predates Trump. Back in the summer of 2014 — almost a year before Trump announced his intent to run for president — longtime neocon-watcher Jacob Heilbrunn, writing in the New York Times, predicted that “the neocons may be preparing a more brazen feat: aligning themselves with Hillary Rodham Clinton and her nascent presidential campaign, in a bid to return to the driver’s seat of American foreign policy.”
The Next Act of the Neocons: Are Neocons Getting Ready to Ally With Hillary Clinton? by Jacob Heilbrunn SundayReview July 5, 2014
Noting the Democratic Party’s decades-long embrace of the Cold War belligerence that neocons love most — from Truman and JFK to LBJ and Scoop Jackson — Heilbrunn documented the prominent neocons who, throughout Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state, were heaping praise on her and moving to align with her. Heilbrunn explained the natural ideological affinity between neocons and establishment Democrats: “And the thing is, these neocons have a point,” he wrote. “Mrs. Clinton voted for the Iraq war; supported sending arms to Syrian rebels; likened Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, to Adolf Hitler; wholeheartedly backs Israel; and stresses the importance of promoting democracy.”
One finds evidence of this alliance long before the emergence of Trump. Victoria Nuland, for instance, served as one of Dick Cheney’s top foreign policy advisers during the Bush years. Married to one of the most influential neocons, Robert Kagan, Nuland then seamlessly shifted into the Obama State Department and then became a top foreign policy adviser to the Clinton campaign.
As anti-war sentiment grew among some GOP precincts — as evidenced by the success of the Ron Paul candidacies of 2008 and 2012, and then Trump’s early posturing as an opponent of U.S. interventions — neocons started to conclude that their agenda, which never changed, would be better advanced by realignment back into the Democratic Party. Writing in The Nation in early 2016, Matt Duss detailed how the neocon mentality was losing traction within the GOP, and predicted:
Yet another possibility is that the neocons will start to migrate back to the Democratic Party, which they exited in the 1970s in response to Vietnam-inspired anti-interventionism. That’s what earned their faction the “neo” prefix in the first place. As Nation contributor James Carden recently observed, there are signs that prominent neocons have started gravitating toward Hillary Clinton’s campaign. But the question is, Now that the neocons has been revealed as having no real grassroots to deliver, and that their actual constituency consists almost entirely of a handful of donors subsidizing a few dozen think tankers, journalists, and letterheads, why would Democrats want them back?
The answer to that question — “why would Democrats want them back?” — is clear: because, as this new group demonstrates, Democrats find large amounts of common cause with neocons when it comes to foreign policy.
The neocons may be migrating back to the Democratic Party and into the open embrace of its establishment, but their homecoming will not be a seamless affair: Duss, for instance, is now the top foreign policy adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders. After spending little energy on foreign affairs as a candidate, Sanders’s hiring of Duss is a sign that he sees a rejection of interventionism as ascendant with the populist element of the party.
He will have allies there from whatever is left of the faction within the Obama administration which willingly took so much heat from the foreign policy establishment for its insufficient aggression toward Russia or other perceived enemies; Sen. Chris Murphy, for instance, has been vocal in his opposition to arming the Saudis as they savage Yemen. But now that hawkish rhetoric and belligerent policies have subsumed the Democrats, it remains to be seen how much of that anti-interventionism survives.
FOR MANY YEARS — long before the 2016 election — one of the leading neocon planks was that Russia and Putin pose a major threat to the west, and Obama was far too weak and deferential to stand up to this threat. From the start of the Obama presidency, the Weekly Standard warned that Obama failed to understand, and refused to confront, the dangers posed by Moscow. From Ukraine to Syria, neocons constantly attacked Obama for letting Putin walk all over him.
Putin Is the New Sheriff in Town by Lee Smith The Weekly Standard October 6, 2015
That Obama was weak on Russia, and failing to stand up to Putin, was a major attack theme for the most hawkish GOP senators such as Rubio and John McCain. Writing in National Review in 2015, Rubio warned that Putin was acting aggressively in multiple theaters, but “as the evidence of failure grows, President Obama still can’t seem to understand Vladimir Putin’s goals.” Rubio insisted that Obama (and Clinton’s) failure to confront Putin was endangering the West:
In sum, we need to replace a policy of weakness with a policy of strength. We need to restore American leadership and make clear to our adversaries that they will pay a significant price for aggression. President Obama’s policies of retreat and retrenchment are making the world a more dangerous place. The Obama-Clinton Russia policy has already undermined European security. We can’t let Putin wreak even more havoc in the Middle East.
Putin Is Expanding His Power in the Middle East — We Must Counter Him by Marco Rubio September 21, 2015 4:00 AM
In 2015, Obama met with Putin at the U.N. General Assembly, and leading Republicans excoriated him for doing so. Obama “has in fact strengthened Putin’s hand,” said Rubio. McCain issued a statement denouncing Obama for meeting with the Russian tyrant, accusing him of failing to stand up to Putin across the world:
Sep 28 2015
STATEMENT BY SENATOR JOHN McCAIN ON OBAMA-PUTIN MEETING TODAY
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ), Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, released the following statement on the meeting between President Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin scheduled for today at the United Nations General Assembly in New York City:
“President Obama's decision to meet with Vladimir Putin is as misguided as it is unnecessary. It plays right into Putin's hands by breaking his international isolation, undermining U.S. policy, and legitimizing Putin's destabilizing behavior – from dismembering Ukraine to propping Bashar Assad in Syria.
That Putin was a grave threat, and Obama was too weak in the face of it, was also a primary theme of Jeb Bush’s presidential campaign:
Jeb Bush @JebBush Obama allows Russia & Iran more influence in Syria & Iraq. Not good for US, Israel, or our moderate Muslim partners http://wapo.st/1Lfn6gA 3:13 PM - Sep 27, 2015 Photo published for Russia’s move into Syria upends U.S. plans Russia’s move into Syria upends U.S. plans Even the limited deployment of Russian troops could decisively shift the battlefield in Assad’s favor. washingtonpost.com
And even back in 2012, Mitt Romney repeatedly accused Obama of being insufficiently tough on Putin, prompting the now-infamous mockery by Obama and Democrats generally of Romney’s Russiaphobia, which they ridiculed as an ancient relic of the Cold War. Indeed, before Trump’s emergence, the hard-core pro-GOP neocons planned to run against Hillary Clinton by tying her to the Kremlin and warning that her victory would empower Moscow:
The Clinton-Kremlin Connection Investigative journalist Peter Schweizer's new report. by Fred Barnes July 31, 2016
A program overseen by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as part of the "reset" with Russia wound up enhancing Russia's military technology and funneling millions of dollar to the Clinton Foundation, according to a new report by investigative journalist Peter Schweizer and the Government Accountability Institute he heads.
Even through the 2016 election, McCain and Rubio repeatedly attacked Obama for failing to take Russian hacking seriously enough and for failing to retaliate. And for years before that, Russia was a primary obsession for neocons, from the time it went to war with Georgia (at the time headed by a neocon-loved president) and even prior to that.
Thus, when it came time for Democrats to elevate Putin and Russia into a major theme of the 2016 campaign, and now that their hawkishness toward Moscow is their go-to weapon for attacking Trump, neocons have become their natural ideological allies.
The song Democrats are now singing about Russia and Putin is one the neocons wrote many years ago, and all of the accompanying rhetorical tactics — accusing those who seek better relations with Moscow of being Putin’s stooges, unpatriotic, of suspect loyalties, etc. — are the ones that have defined the neocons smear campaigns for decades.
The union of Democrats and neocons is far more than a temporary marriage of convenience designed to bring down a common enemy. As this new policy group illustrates, the union is grounded in widespread ideological agreement on a broad array of foreign policy debates: from Israel to Syria to the Gulf States to Ukraine to Russia. And the narrow differences that exist between the two groups — on the wisdom of the Iran deal, the nobility of the Iraq War, the justifiability of torture — are more relics of past debates than current, live controversies. These two groups have found common cause because, with rare and limited exception, they share common policy beliefs and foreign policy mentalities.
THE IMPLICATIONS OF this reunion are profound and long-term. Neocons have done far more damage to the U.S., and the world, than any other single group — by a good margin. They were the architects of the invasion of Iraq and the lies that accompanied it, the worldwide torture regime instituted after 9/11, and the general political climate that equated dissent with treason.
With the full-scale discrediting and collapse of the Bush presidency, these war-loving neocons found themselves marginalized, without any constituency in either party. They were radioactive, confined to speaking at extremist conferences and working with fringe organizations.
All of that has changed, thanks to the eagerness of Democrats to embrace them, form alliances with them, and thus rehabilitate their reputations and resurrect their power and influence. That leading Democratic Party foreign policy officials are willing to form new Beltway advocacy groups in collaboration with Bill Kristol, Mike Rogers, and Mike Chertoff, join arms with those who caused the invasion of Iraq and tried to launch a bombing campaign against Tehran, has repercussions that will easily survive the Trump presidency.
Perhaps the most notable fact about the current posture of the establishment wing of the Democratic Party is that one of their favorite, most beloved, and most cited pundits is the same neocon who wrote George W. Bush’s oppressive, bullying and deceitful speeches in 2002 and 2003 about Iraq and the war on terror, and who has churned out some of the most hateful, inflammatory rhetoric over the last decade about Palestinians, immigrants, and Muslims. That Bush propagandist, David Frum, is regularly feted on MSNBC’s liberal programs, has been hired by The Atlantic (where he writes warnings about authoritarianism even though he’s only qualified to write manuals for its implementation), and is treated like a wise and honored statesman by leading Democratic Party organs.
Mar 28, 2016 Neera Tanden @neeratanden I'm a fan of the Times, but @davidfrum wrote this in December: How the G.O.P. Elite Lost Its Voters to Donald Trump http://nyti.ms/1RvUTQu
One sees this same dynamic repeated with many other of the world’s most militaristic, war-loving neocons. Particularly after his recent argument with Tucker Carlson over Russia, Democrats have practically canonized Max Boot, who has literally cheered for every possible war over the two past decades and, in 2013, wrote a column titled “No Need to Repent for Support of Iraq War.” It is now common to see Democratic pundits and office holders even favorably citing and praising Bill Kristol himself.
There’s certainly nothing wrong with discrete agreement on a particular issue with someone of a different party or ideology; that’s to be encouraged. But what’s going on here goes far, far beyond that.
What we see instead are leading Democratic foreign policy experts joining hands with the world’s worst neocons to form new, broad-based policy advocacy groups to re-shape U.S. foreign policy toward a more hostile, belligerent and hawkish posture. We see not isolated agreement with neocons in opposition to Trump or on single-issue debates, but a full-scale embrace of them that is rehabilitating their standing, empowering their worst elements, and reintegrating them back into the Democratic Party power structure.
If Bill Kristol and Mike Chertoff can now sit on boards with top Clinton and Obama policy advisers, as they’re doing, that is reflective of much more than a marriage of convenience to stop an authoritarian, reckless president. It demonstrates widespread agreement on a broast range of issues and, more significantly, the return of neocons to full-scale D.C. respectability, riding all the way on the backs of eager, grateful establishment Democrats.
Top photo: William Kristol, right, answers a question as Leon Panetta and James Carville watch during a forum titled “The Budget Blame Game” at the Panetta Institute at CSU Monterey Bay in Seaside, Calif. on Monday May 6, 2013.
Hillary Clinton Campaign Was Connected to Russian Government by Dan Wright ShadowProof March 15, 2017
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Russian bank Sberbank has now admitted to hiring a lobbying firm connected to the Hillary Clinton campaign to fight sanctions against the Russian government. The Podesta Group was founded by John Podesta, who served as campaign chairman for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during her 2016 presidential campaign.
According to senate lobbying disclosure forms, John’s brother and current head of the firm, Tony Podesta, was paid $170,000 in 2016 to represent Sberbank to end one of the Obama administration’s economic sanctions against Russia.
Podesta and other lobbyists worked Congress and set up meetings between the Russians and State Department officials to discuss ways to end the sanctions imposed in Executive Order 13660 in response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Sberbank and VTB Capital—the first and second largest banks in Russia, respectively—paid $700,000 for the lobbying work.
The report of paid lobbying by people associated with Clinton campaign comes on the heels of a disclosure by the Russian government that Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak met with advisers to the Clinton campaign during the 2016 election.
While seemingly benign, Ambassador Kislyak’s meetings with Trump campaign officials during the election have proved to be controversial, as Kislyak is considered a “top spy” and recruiter by U.S. intelligence, according to CNN.
Whether Kislyak was able to recruit any advisers to Hillary Clinton to work for Russian intelligence remains unknown.
The recent news stories are not the first time connections between the Clinton campaign and Russia have been revealed. Bloomberg News reported last August that Russian oligarchs allied with Russian President Vladimir Putin made political contributions to Hillary Clinton.
Of Course U.S. Candidates Have Ties to Russia: Money knows no boundaries in the globalized era. by Leonid Bershidsky Bloomberg.com August 1, 2016, 9:55 AM MST
She met him as secretary of state. Photographer: Mikhail Klimentyev/AFP/Getty Images
The attempts by Hillary Clinton's campaign to paint Donald Trump as the candidate of President Vladimir Putin has led to an intense search for the Republican nominee's Russian connections. Not much has turned up. But Russian oligarchs are among the Clinton campaign donors.
Specifically, money came from the family members of Leonard Blavatnik, Oleg Baibakov, and Roman Abramovich—all of whom have an interest in the political system maintained by Russian President Vladimir Putin. They were some of the biggest beneficiaries of Russia’s crash privatization scheme after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The extent to which the Clinton campaign was connected to the Russian government has yet to be fully investigated.
Sberbank confirms hiring Podesta Group for lobbying its interests by TASS Russian News Agency March 09, 2017, 18:50 UTC+3
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"The New York office of Sberbank CIB indeed hired Podesta Group," the company has confirmed
Sberbank confirmed the fact of hiring the consultancy of Tony Podesta, the elder brother of John Podesta, who chaired Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, for lobbying its interests in the United States, press service of the Russian credit institution told TASS on Thursday.
"The New York office of Sberbank CIB indeed hired Podesta Group. Engagement of external consultants is part of standard business practices for us," Sberbank said.
According to The Daily Caller, Tony Podesta was proactively lobbying for cancellation of a range of anti-Russian sanctions against the banking sector. In particular, he represented interests of Sberbank and was paid $170,000 for his efforts.
Dem Super-Lobbyist Podesta Got $170 K to End U.S. Sanctions on Russian Bank by Richard Pollock Daily Caller 03/06/2017, 9:57 PM
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Democrat super-lobbyist Tony Podesta was paid $170,000 over a six-month period last year to represent Sberbank, Russia’s largest bank, seeking to end one of the Obama administration’s economic sanctions against that country, The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group has learned.
Podesta, founder and chairman of the Podesta Group, is listed as a key lobbyist on behalf of Sberbank, according to Senate lobbying disclosure forms. His firm received more than $24 million in fees in 2016, much of it coming from foreign governments, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.
Podesta is the brother of John Podesta, who was the national campaign chairman for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s losing 2016 campaign for the presidency. Former President Barack Obama imposed the sanctions following the Russian seizure of the Crimean region of Ukraine in 2014.
The lobbying campaign targeted Congress and the executive branch, with Podesta and other lobbyists arranging at least two meetings between Sberbank officers and Department of State officials, according to Elena Teplitskaya, Sberbank’s board chairman, who spoke to House aides in August.
The discovery of high-profile Democrats like Podesta being paid lucrative fees for lobbying to lift U.S. sanctions on Russia contrasts with charges from Democrats that President Donald Trump and his key aides are soft on Russia while the Obama administration was tough on Moscow.
Podesta’s efforts were a key part of under-the-radar lobbying during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign led mainly by veteran Democratic strategists to remove sanctions against Sberbank and VTB Capital, Russia’s second largest bank.
The two Russian banks spent more than $700,000 in 2016 on Washington lobbyists as they sought to end the U.S. sanctions, according to Senate lobbying disclosure forms and documents filed with the Department of Justice.
The Podesta Group charged Sberbank $20,000 per month, plus expenses, on a contract from March through September 2016.
Podesta is one of the Democrat’s highest profile lobbyists who enjoys close personal and business connections to former Presidents Obama and Bill Clinton. John Podesta was chief of staff in Clinton’s White House and special counselor in the Obama White House.
Both Sberbank and VTB Capital face severe cash shortages due to plunging oil prices, plus the U.S. sanctions. If the economic sanctions were lifted, however, both banks could legally seek funds from American financial institutions.
“The Democrats are sitting there trying to convince us that the Russians are trying to throw the election to Trump,” a congressional aide who requested anonymity and met Teplitskaya told TheDCNF.
“And then they’re with us here in the House and meeting directly with the administration behind closed doors on the issue of the sanctions. The hypocrisy could not be any richer,” he said.
Joining the Podesta lobbying campaign was David Adams, who describes himself on the Podesta Group website as a “trusted adviser” to Hillary Clinton, serving as her as assistant secretary of state for congressional affairs.
Another Podesta lobbyist was Stephen Rademaker, a former Department of State official in the George W. Bush administration.
The Podesta Group represented Sberbank and its subsidiaries, Troika Dialog Group in the Cayman Islands, SBGB Cyprus Ltd in Nicosia, Cyprus, and SB International in Luxembourg. Troika Dialog also was related to Klein, Ltd., a Cayman Island organization that once funneled tens of millions of dollars to environmental groups to oppose low-cost fracking in the U.S., which was hurting the Russian oil industry.
The Podesta Group represents dozens of foreign embassies in the nation’s capital, as well as many authoritarian regimes like Vietnam, Myanmar and Somalia. The lobbying firm also represents political parties in Moldova and Albania, according to its Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) filing.
A second lobbying shop, the Madison Group also represented Sberbank and received $330,000 from the bank in 2016, according to Senate lobbying records. Two of the three Madison lobbyists working the account are lifelong Democrats.
A third lobbying firm, Manatos & Manatos represented VTB Capital, Russia’s second largest bank, and received $17,500 per month to seek an end to economic sanctions, according to their FARA filings with the Department of Justice.
Andy Manatos was an advance man for former President Lyndon Johnson and assistant secretary for commerce in the Carter administration.
The Sberbank-Podesta relationship goes back many years. Sberbank was the lead financial institution in the Russian deal to purchase Uranium One, owned by one of Bill Clinton’s closest friends, Frank Giustra.
Giustra and Bill Clinton lead the Clinton-Giustra Enterprise Partnership, an integral part of the Clinton Foundation. Giustra has additionally donated $25 million to the Clinton Foundation.
Giustra sought to sell his stake in uranium reserves that included ore deposits in the Western United States, and Hillary Clinton, who as secretary of state, approved the sale. And in one felled swoop, 20 percent of America’s uranium ore was sold to the Russian state atomic agency.
During the pending sale, the Podesta Group represented Giustra’s company and tried to advance the transaction.
(Editor’s Note: An earlier version incorrectly stated that Stephen Rademaker once worked at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips. David Marin of the Podesta Group also wrote in an email, “It’s not in any way clear to me how our publicly disclosed work “contrasts with charges from Democrats.”)
Kremlin spokesman: Russian ambassador met with advisers to Clinton campaign too by Olivia Beavers The Hill 3/12/17 11:08 AM EDT
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Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman said in an interview Sunday that the Russian ambassador who met with Trump campaign officials also met with “people working in think tanks advising Hillary or advising people working for Hillary.”
“Well, if you look at some people connected with Hillary Clinton during her campaign, you would probably see that he had lots of meetings of that kind,” Dmitry Peskov told CNN “GPS” host Fareed Zakaria. “There are lots of specialists in politology, people working in think tanks advising Hillary or advising people working for Hillary.”
Peskov said it is the job of Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak to meet with officials on both sides to talk about “bilateral relations.”
Peskov also defended those meetings, saying they were not an attempt to interfere in the 2016 election.
“But there were no meetings about elections — electoral process … So if you look at it with intention to demonize Russia, you would probably say that, yes, he was trying to interfere in Hillary's activities. But it would be nonsense, because this is not true,” Peskov said.
Peskov also said Putin never voiced support for then-presidential candidate Trump.
“You would probably recall that President Putin, during election campaign, had never answered directly a question about his candidate of his support. He kept saying that we will respect a choice of American people,” Peskov told Zakaria.
Peskov, did however, concede that Putin preferred Trump over Clinton, saying, “If you ask him whether he had mentioned the then-candidate Donald Trump, I will answer, yes, he had.”
Peskov suggested that the Kremlin leader found Clinton hostile toward Russia, while Trump was open to thawing U.S.-Russian relations.
“The candidate Hillary Clinton was quite negative about our country in her attitude and in her program, declaring Russia being nearly the main evil in the world and the main threat for the United States,” Peskov said.
“And to the contrary, the other candidate, Donald Trump, was saying that, 'Yes, we disagree with the Russians ... in lots of issues, but we have to talk to them in order to try to find some understanding.' Whom would you like better? The one who says that Russia is evil or the one who says that, 'Yes, we disagree, but let's talk to understand and to try to find some points of agreement?'” he asked.
Who is Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the United States? by Tim Lister CNN March 2, 2017, Updated 11:29 AM ET
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(CNN)Sergey Kislyak is the diplomat's diplomat -- an envoy of extensive experience whose career spans the Soviet era and that of the Russian Federation.
On his third extended posting to the United States, Kislyak finds himself at the heart of a political firestorm in Washington, his encounters with associates of President Donald Trump under close scrutiny.
First, his dealings with Trump's short-lived National Security Adviser Mike Flynn led to Flynn being fired for failing to be entirely up front about them; now, two meetings with Attorney General Jeff Sessions are causing heat for the Trump administration.
So who is Kislyak, and what is his role in the controversy?
'Effective and experienced'
The former US ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, said recently that Kislyak had held "all the most important jobs in the Foreign Ministry -- except one." Describing him as "effective and experienced," McFaul added: "You're never confused about what country he's representing."
Speaking at a Stanford university event with Kislyak in November, McFaul also recalled "the fantastic lunches at his residence" in Washington.
Sergey Kislyak (left) met twice with Jeff Sessions in 2016 before he was appointed Attorney General in the Trump administration.
Current and former US intelligence officials have described Kislyak as a top spy and recruiter of spies, a notion that Russian officials have dismissed. Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov said that "nobody has heard a single statement from US intelligence agencies' representatives regarding our ambassador," and attacked the "depersonalized assumptions of the media that are constantly trying to blow this situation out of proportion."
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova added sarcastically: "I'll reveal a top secret — diplomats do work, and their job is to establish contacts with people."
Kislyak, 66, trained as an engineer in Moscow and then attended the Soviet Union's Academy of Foreign Trade before joining the Foreign Ministry in 1977, at the height of the Cold War.
Sessions did not disclose meetings with Russian ambassador
His first tour of duty as an envoy to the US was between 1985 and 1989, at the height of then-President Mikhail Gorbachev's efforts to open up and reform the Soviet Union.
Former US diplomats say Kislyak's forte was arms control -- a specialism he pursued after the collapse of the Soviet Union. He was Russia's ambassador to NATO between 1998 and 2003. As Deputy Foreign Minister a decade ago, he led the Russian side in talks with the US on extending and amending arms control agreements, and showed a detailed grasp of the technicalities, according to experts in the field.
Posting to Washington
Kislyak has been Ambassador in Washington for nine years -- an unusually long spell. He arrived shortly before President Obama was elected. And in the early days of his Administration, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton famously presented Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov with the 'reset' button -- designed to herald a fresh start in relations. But for much of the time since, relations have at best been lukewarm and have frequently been worse, especially after Vladimir Putin became President for a second time in 2012.
Kislyak was ambassador when then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton presented Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrorv with a 'reset' button.
In public, Kislyak has been a candid commentator on relations between Moscow and Washington, saying in November that "we are living through the worst time in our relationship" even though the ideological divide of the Cold War was long gone.
There were -- he said -- more things to unite than to divide Russia and the US: the struggle against terrorism, religious intolerance, climate change. But arguments over Ukraine, NATO's expansion into the Baltic states and the imposition of sanctions over Crimea had led to a situation in which "we have learned to live without you and you have learned to live without us."
'Collateral damage'
Kislyak was in the audience at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington last April when then-candidate Donald Trump made his first major foreign policy speech, saying: "I believe an easing of tensions, and improved relations with Russia—from a position of strength only—is possible, absolutely possible."
Kislyak keeps up a regular schedule of public appearances and speaking engagements across the US. In October, he told the Detroit Economic Club that Russia had become an unexpected and unneeded factor in the US election campaign.
GOP FLEES DC, Shuts Down House To AVOID Epstein Vote Breaking Points Jul 23, 2025 Breaking Points
Ryan and Emily discuss the GOP shutting down the House to prevent an Epstein vote.
Transcript
Happy Wednesday. Welcome to Breaking Points. Yep. With Ryan and Emily. That's amazing, right? Uh Emily, by the way, programming note will be in the new media chair at the White House later today asking Caroline Levit something something. We don't want to give anything away. I've got an idea. So, my paper paperback came out yesterday. You should ask Caroline if she has read The Squad and say like, "By the way, it came out in paperback yesterday." So if you've been waiting to get the cheaper version, so this is a good idea for the question itself. I can say right amazon.com paperback out today whatever 1999 however much it costs. Yeah. Tell if she wants to understand how Apac operates in Washington. This would be the book for her. I think they are curious these days. Let's put it that way. They could learn. Um Ryan, I have a gift for you. What you got? All right. So you were gone last week, so I couldn't give it to you. But look at that. This is a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. It's a Turtle Boy shirt. Ride the turtle. Oh, from Turtle Boy. That's from the Turtle Boy merch shop. Well, I went to University of Maryland and their slogan is fear the turtle. That's right. So, there we go. It works either way. You could be walking around the like Rahobath. We had we had a bunch of people angry about that interview. Oh, I saw cuz he's I mean he's kind of crazy. He's a controversial man. Yes, he's a controversial man. Now you can rock his merch. It's the craziness and craziness is putting it lightly perhaps that allows him to be so dogged in some of these cases. Does not mean I endorse everything the man has done. No. Or will do. Nor should you have to endorse everything that he has done or will do in order to interview him on a really important case. And anyway, basically all how this all happened is that I was on his website and I noticed he had a merch shop and I was like amazing. Thank you for this. This is pretty funny. I was like there's there's something there. Amazing. Anyway, well, thank you for that. Oh, my pleasure, Julie. Much appreciated. Yes. Uh, now to the news. I came in to hawk merch and instead I'm leaving with merch. But it was an exchange. Oh, it was a trade. I mean, this is What more could you ask for? Out now in paperback. It's so light. You can take it to the beach. You really can. Everyone know that you're smart. Areite. There. Perfect. You got it. All right. So, we're going to be talking about the latest attempt by Donald Trump to distract from Jeffrey Epstein. Uh this time he's accusing Obama of high treason. The man is off his game. He even said to the fake news media, "You need to focus on this instead of the other thing." He did say it out loud. He's just saying it out loud. The guy has really uh lost his touch. Uh we're going to talk about uh the uh the Democratic autopsy is being conducted among the uh Pod Save Bros and Hunter Biden. Um they're they're working their stuff out. You're gonna you're gonna enjoy this one. Mhm. Um, Microsoft workers uh told their bosses yesterday that they are no longer going to work on Israeli tech. Microsoft uh supplies as Dropsite has has reported in the past uh a lot of the tech for their their AI, their their cloud computing, uh their war machine, and now their workers are standing up and saying we're we're not we're not not doing we're not doing that. Not all workers at Microsoft of course, but a substantial chunk of them. We'll talk about that. We'll also talk about the ongoing uh siege uh the the number of uh people that continue to die of starvation as well as get getting killed at aid distribution sites. Uh I'm going to have a a little look back in the uh at a p piece about the 1990s when a certain prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, who at the time Yeah. He's been in office that long, not continuously, but that long, was alleged to have blackmailed Bill Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky tapes. Yeah. Turns out there's a lot to it. So, you're going to want to stick around for that. Absolutely. We're also going to have uh a a an inmate who served uh basically alongside Jeffrey Epstein and uh when they removed Epstein's cellmate they after he died he went to Martin Goddisfeld's cell. So we're going to talk to Martin Godfeld about what he knows about that correction center what he heard from Epstein's cellmate because missing in this in the reporting this controversy is the voices of the people who were actually in the building. Yeah, cuz there were plenty of people in there. So, let's talk to some of them. And then, uh the wife the the wife of the guy who made the Ice Block app is going to join us as well. All right. She somehow thought that uh she wouldn't be fired by Department of Justice for this. Yeah. Seemed unlikely. We're going to ask her uh we're going to say, "Hey, hey, cool app." As far as I'm concerned, uh but you thought that that was going to be okay. Didn't seem like that would fly. Anyway, can't wait to hear uh from her. A lot to get into. Let's start in the Oval Office yesterday where Donald Trump to the point Ryan just made did kind of say the quiet part aloud which is although let's start with Massie, right? With with the Massie. Well, so basically here's what's happening. Yeah. Let's break it down this way. Um there were efforts among Democrats as we've covered here to and among Thomas Massie uh so Republican couple other Republicans to get a vote done before August recess on the Epstein files. Uh then Donald Trump yesterday also weighed in on the future of the Epstein file. So we can start here with A2. This is Thomas Massie weighing in on Oh, Mike Johnson. Sorry, I'm totally throwing you off, but House Speaker Mike Johnson shut down the floor basically yesterday and said, "We are not um we are not going to take lessons on transparency from the Democrats who covered up for Joe Biden's health crisis." That was the line. Let's roll the clip. The uh House rules resolution sets a good standard and uh requires all credible evidence to be uh released and that's exactly where the White House is. There's no, as I've said many times over the last, as I've said many times, there's no daylight between the White House and the House. You have to allow the legislation to ripen and you also have to allow the administration the space to do what it is doing. president has said clearly and he has now ordered his DOJ to do what it is we've all needed DOJ to do for years now and that is to get everything released. So they're in the process of that. There's there's no purpose for Congress to push an administration to do something that they're already doing. And so this is for political gains. I I'm not going to address anybody individually, but I'll tell you that that some here are much more frustrating than others. There's a small a small tiny handful. Uh but one in particular who's given me lots of conration. I don't understand I don't I don't understand uh Thomas Massiey's motivation. I really don't I don't know how his mind works. I don't know what he's what he's thinking. Thomas Massie could have brought his discharge petition any time over the last four and a half years over the last four years of B administration. He could have done that at any time. And now he's clamoring as if there's some sort of timeline on it. It's interesting to me that he chose the election of of President Trump to bring this to team up with the Democrats and bring this discharge petition. So, do I have some concern about that? I do. Okay. But the timeline is that Attorney General Pam Bondi closed the case a couple of weeks ago. That's basically why this is resurfaced. Uh Ryan, you made this point about Thomas Massie while we were watching the clip. He posted uh a pretty hot Yeah, maybe we can add this in post. He he responded, "Uh, Speaker Johnson, why are you running cover for an underage sex trafficking ring and pretending this is a partisan issue? MAGA voted for this." And in fact, Johnson's own post uh on X about this has a uh community note saying over half of the sponsors of HRES 581 which he is blocking which he is shutting down the house so that there won't be vote on it and this is Massie Kana Massana bill uh the has half over half of the co-sponsors are Republicans. So the effort to paint this as like a Democratic thing kind of falls falls flat in in the face of that. Uh, and yes, to your point, the reason that there's movement now in the White House is because of the public pressure. And separately, if it's the case that uh they're already doing the thing, then it wouldn't be offensive to push them to just do it. Well, yeah, absolutely. And the again, the only reason that this has now become the news cycle every single day is because Pam Bondi came out and said no further disclosures are warranted in the case. And then Trump has doubled down and tripled down on that point. So let's actually u get to this. And then literally they're shutting down the House of Representatives early. Yeah. So that they don't have to vote on this. It's it's incredible. Reading from playbook right now, uh Johnson is joining House business this afternoon. The last votes are scheduled for 300 p.m. and cancelling further action ahead of August res recess in order to quash an effort to force a floor vote that would hasten the release of the Epstein files. Uh, Republicans want to get back to their districts because they think that's this is how they're spinning it. U, but also I think they truly believe this an important time for them to be able to go out and talk about the big beautiful bill and sell it in their districts because obviously it's not pled uh with great popularity since its passage. So, they're really eager a not to have to take their Epstein vote and b to get out of town um and and talk to people. Now, I think some Republicans actually would like to take the vote so that they don't get uh it's it's a talking point when they're back home during August recess. Uh and I asked about a bunch of House Republicans last week about this. Uh and they told me, yeah, they do expect to hear from people in their district about it. So, it's very clear that they know they're going to get these questions and why not just vote? It's not as if, right, it's not as if the Senate's going to pass it tomorrow, right? And so, I don't even understand why Johnson even needs to go to the Met. Like so he put up his own resolution that's pretty toothless. Yes. Uh in exchange for this one to say like don't vote on this on this one that has like actual teeth. Vote vote for this one instead and then we won't vote on that one. Okay. But he did that. What's the difference though? Because it doesn't have teeth if it doesn't pass the Senate. Yeah. Like it it's a symbolic vote either way. So what are you doing? Yeah. Like you you can still be cynical and we know what they're doing. This is the first clip. Uh let's cuz Donald Trump basically put it clearly. Uh this is A1. Let's roll Trump yesterday in the White House. I didn't know that they were going to do it. I I don't really follow that too much. It's uh it's sort of a witch hunt. Just a continuation of the witch hunt. The witch hunt that you should be talking about is they caught President Obama absolutely cold. They tried to rig the election and they got caught and there should be very severe consequences for that. Barack Hussein Obama uh is the ring leader. Hillary Clinton was right there with him and so was sleepy Joe Biden and so were the rest of them. Comey, Clapper, the whole group. And they tried to rig an election and they got caught. And then they did rig the election in 2020. And then because I knew I won that election by a lot, I did it a third time and I won in a landslide. Every swing state won the popular vote. Look, he's guilty. It's not a question. You know, I like to say, uh, let's give it time. It's there. He's guilty. They This was treason. This was every word you can think of. They tried to steal the election. And we have all of the documents. And from what Tulsi told me, she's got thousands of additional documents coming. So, President Obama, it was his concept, his idea, but he also got it from crooked Hillary Clinton. Crooked is a $3 bill. Now, it looks like Adam Schiff uh really did a bad thing. They have them now. Let's see what happens. It's not up to me. It's not up to I stay out of it purposely, but it's mortgage loan fraud. It's a big deal. He defrauded uh banks and insurance companies and the federal government. Okay. So, Ryan, you may disagree with me on this. I think two things are true in this case. It's not just that two things can be true. I think two things are true. that uh the the documents that are being released from Trump's intelligence community so from Tulsi Gabbard uh and then John Ratcliffe a couple of weeks back are important consequential significant scandalous and they are using it to distract very clearly from Trump's bungling and Pondi's bungling both of them of the Epstein case the political fallout because you see Trump put it that way saying directly you should be focused on this witch hunt against me, not the uh witch hunt towards me. Uh right now on Epstein, he basically just calling Epstein a witch hunt. Like bro, yes, he's he's saying that. Yes. Uh and so was much worse than a witch. Yeah, that's for sure. Uh, but this is the the timing of the Gabbard document dump um is very convenient for Donald Trump obviously because it sucks oxygen away from the Epstein story. And also for Gabbard who had been in the doghouse and then yesterday at uh the White House, Trump says she's the she's the best one in the room right now. something like, you know, real pat on the head uh for Gabbard, you know, who's kind of now back in good graces and for tell me if I'm so just for people that aren't following exactly what the revelations are here. Essentially, and you correct me if I'm getting the narrative wrong here. Essentially, throughout the 2016 election, the the intelligence community according to these documents assessed that Russia was not actually trying to um hack into election systems. That's actually contradicted by what Reality Winner leaked because the the intelligence community believed that they tried to get into North Carolina and some other um election systems with some with these fishing expeditions that they found. They didn't they didn't they don't know what they were going to do when they're in there because like often times these foreign actors or hackers will just get in and sometimes steal stuff just just to hang out there in case they want to do something later. In any event, let's say IC is saying they're not trying to change the votes or do anything like cyber hacking around the election. Well, and we do have emails of them saying that, saying that was their belief at the time. That's that's sort of what he's releasing. Yeah. And there's no evidence they did, right? There's that there's that there's that reality winner evidence that they tried. And these documents are after the election, right? So this is December of So Tulsi Gabbard on Friday dumped a bunch of documents um and put them together sort of in this narrative uh framing to show how Barack Obama, this is the contention, Barack Obama uh directed the intelligence community to first enhance its interpretation of what happened between Russia and Trump. Um right. And so it's a a December 9th meeting which includes Clapper, Brandon, Susan Rice, John Kerry, Loretta Lynch, Andrew McCabe, and others. December 9th, 2016 with Obama. Uh then they say there's an email uh to the IC leaders um asking them to create a new assessment quote per the president's request and that's from a clapper's executive assistant uh that details the quote tools Moscow used and actions it took to influence the 2016 election unquote. Now here's where what Democrats are doing is dirty. So they're acknowledging that there's no attempt to kind of hack the election, right? What they're doing is they're redefining what what hack means and what cyber means. Y tools Moscow used and actions it took to influence the 2016 election. What they will eventually find is like a couple hundred,000 worth of Facebook ads, memes. Yeah. Yeah. And they will and like attempts to like uh organize Black Lives Matter rallies that like three people showed up for basically these hamfisted attempts. You could go back and read the 2017 Senate report, these hilariously hamfisted attempts to like uh stoke the anger of boomers over trans issues, BLM, and all that. And so what Democrats would say if they had a legal defense here, they'd say those are cyber attempts, right? That's what they're So they're changing, right? That is cyber. Totally. That is cyber%. But they're playing with your understanding of the word cyber. Yep. The problem for Trump here is that's dirty. Yep. But politics is dirty. Is that illegal? Now, is it uh an assault on the dignity of our democracy? Yes, it is. Is it gross? Is it awful? Yes, it's all those things. It's also pretty standard politics. Like, so that that that's my view at least. I I think and I was uh critical of them the entire time because the other reason that they wanted to focus on Russia is not just to undermine Trump but was to also undermine the Bernie wing of the Democratic party and get in the way of an actual audit of why did we lose. They were using some of the same language to talk about Bernie Sanders and actually Tulsi Gabbard at the time. They were saying Russia boosted Bernie and stuff like that and Tulsi. Yeah. And they were using this Tulsa even this like wink wink nodn nod language about cyber infrastructure and they knew what people thought they meant by that honeymooned in the Soviet Union they used to point out. Yes. Yeah. Which was true. Yeah. Totally true. Also weird. But anyway uh they they knew Burlington had a sister city in the Soviet Union. Still doesn't explain the honeymoon but story is equally entertaining. So oh Burning Man. Um anyway, so to your point, dirty, dirty stuff right now also absolutely being used as a shield to suck oxygen out of the Epstein story. And Donald Trump basically made that explicit yesterday by saying focus over here. Look away from that. Look at this. Um and that's the that's the plan right now. Right. And so the to finish this Gabbard's document says after months of investigation in the matter the facts reveal this new assessment was based on information that was known by those involved to be manufactured i.e. the steel dossier or deemed as not credible? Yes and no. Like is it who who said it was not credible? Like there were some intel assessments that said that the steel dossier wasn't credible there. But then there's lots of like you know feverish lunatics in the IC who are like no we think this there might be something here we're going to investigate. Right. Uh and that's what the IC does anyway. So uh the new documents reveal that Obama directed this. So there's there's an email saying per the president I think it's from Clapper Clapper's team. It says per president's request we're basically coming up with a new intelligence report other than this one that downplays the uh the the confidence that we have that Russia influenced. But your point is ex exactly right. You can you can weigh on your own how much how important you think these documents are, but clearly they're an attempt to distract from what's going on with Epstein. And the problem I think for Republicans here is that, you know, I've spent the last almost decade watching Republicans organize most of their kind of subcultural politics around pedophilia and the idea that there are pedophiles everywhere and that there are these organized sex trafficking rings that are being operated by Democrats and Podesta and Clinton and you know the entire Q phenomenon is you know heavily organized around these sex trafficking rings and it was more maga than the GOP. apparatus, right? MAGA subculture, which is extra interest with Trump. Yes. Right. So, this whole thing that MAGA used to get people worked up over the last seven, eight years that there are these hidden sex trafficking rings run by elites is not going to just be brushed aside because it turns out that Trump was heavily involved in it. Mhm. and and they're not going to look away just because there's some new Russia Gate documents. No, it's pretty funny that we're going to be using uh Russia Gate, both parties will use Russia Gate as a distraction from other things for the rest of our lives. But it's, you know, it's actually I was thinking about this yesterday. Um, it's so depressing because both stories speak fundamentally to the same thing, believe it or not, which is that in the shadows of Republican government, lowercase R, Republican government, democracy, however you want to describe it, um, are these very undemocratic, unaccountable powers operating in the shadows that you have no idea about until 10, 20, 30, 40 years later. were still waiting on JFK documents right now because uh there's just no accountability in the intelligence community and so they're and yet they're exerting so much control over information and policy and all of that. So in some way they're the same story like on that basic fundamental level which is really depressing. Let's let's get to this video of uh to the point Ryan made about this not going away. Here is Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith getting asked uh by Casey Hunt about subpoena power. Would you ever use subpoena power to try to find out more information about Jeffrey Epstein? Well, you may use subpoena powers at any point. Um that is not a common thing that I have utilized within the Ways and Means Committee, but if I felt like that it was a priority for Americans, then of course. But like I said, this has not been something that's been a driving force. But you did use subpoena power with Hunter Biden. Exactly. We have the authority to use it, but that is the only time that I have used it. Epstein is not the priority of everyday American who's working um 9 to5 just trying to put food on their table, clothes in their backs, and gasoline in their cars. That is not their focus. And I don't think their focus was Hunter Biden either, but this is another point where two things can be true. Hunter Biden, important story. Epstein, important story. Trying to put food on your table, important story. And people can care a lot more and rightfully so about putting food on their table, feeding their families, um, and creating a about child sex rings. You you can care. Yeah, we do have room in our hearts and minds for all of these things. And uh certainly people had room for Hunter Biden when inflation was even worse than it is right now. Um so that's not a good excuse. It does show to the point you were making, Ryan, how silly it is. They are not just voting on this. And it seems as though they're not voting on it because of the president not wanting to continue giving an inch, an inch, an inch, and fearing that they'll eventually have to give up a mile and do even more disclosures from the Department of Justice. Right. Yeah. Trump clearly told Johnson, "Don't vote on this." Voting would make it all easier. Yeah. But Trump doesn't care. Even cynically. Yeah. So, the other thing they're g they're doing is bringing Gain Maxwell out. Yes. You can put up uh So, they're they're they're inviting her to testify. Tell us like, "Hey, actually, are you and your dad MSAD agents?" MSAD says you're not. So, I don't know. So, uh, so, uh, Gain Maxwell's attorney, uh, David Marcus told CNN, quote, I can confirm that we are in discussions with the government and that Gain will always testify truthfully. We are grateful to President Trump for his commitment to uncovering the truth in this case." Uh, so it is likely that we'll get to hear from Gain if she makes it to the to the hearing. M um so that that'll be now what like okay she if she says she's not Msad like do we then just wrap this up? But that's the thing like this story it's actually really good for people in power in a sense like it's it's constructed in such a way or it exists in such a way that it's this sprawling network of different threads that you can keep pulling on to distract from never pulling on the big thread that unravels everything. And so you can say, "Okay, we're we're going to go talk to Galain." And you can run out the clock by saying, "We're pulling on this thread." And then taking a really long time to pull it and then you never actually have to deal with everything. So it's it's actually not the worst scandal in the world to have to deal with from like a purely public relations perspective because it's so sprawling that you can say that you'll never exhaust new angles to say that you're looking into basically. Yeah. And it's so easy to run at the clock and delay. So, I mean, that's probably what the next you three years of the Trump administration looks like. Yeah. So, so in order to talk about more about like what Epstein's life in prison was like and the end of his life was like, let's let's bring in uh Martin Goddisfeld, uh, former inmate from MCC. Hey, if you like that video, hit the like button or leave a comment below. It really helps get the show to more people. And if you'd like to get the full show ad free and in your inbox every morning, you can sign up at breakingpoints.com. That's right. Get the full show. Help support the future of independent media at breakingpoints.com.
