If this is true...LOCK HIM UP!

I'll be spending more time writing very, very soon, as soon as I finish a project. Right now, I want to discuss a rather astonishing story which was quickly retracted.

The Republicans (and many BernieBots) have endlessly castigated Hillary for her email servers. Yet the worst "secret" found among those emails was a discussion of plans to congratulate the new president of Malawi, whose elevation to that office was hardly a secret.

For THAT, the Republicans chanted "Lock her up!"

Yesterday, this site published a piece claiming that right after Donnie the mouth received an intel briefing, he blurted out some extremely sensitive information.

Trump attended an intelligence briefing this afternoon in which he was told sensitive information for his own safety and for the safety of Americans. Within hours he was neck deep into one of his classic word salads when he proved Harry Reid and other Pentagon officials right.

In what was the biggest faux pas of his entire political career, Trump accidentally revealed sensitive and classified information about the locations of secret military bases. Trump arrogantly spoke to an audience at a Colorado Springs rally today, when he said that the U.S. should not have to pay rent for its military base in Saudi Arabia.

There’s just one problem with this. There isn’t supposed to be an American military base in Saudi Arabia. This revelation could and should mean huge consequences for Donald Trump, who has called for the arrest and indictment of Hillary Clinton for mishandling of classified emails.

This story originally appeared on a site called Reverb Press. Later, the same publication offered a retraction:

This story was reported based on information from several sources. Upon further review, those sources seem to have come from a single source with unverifiable information. While possible, there is no evidence that we are comfortable with at this time that Donald Trump has received any intelligence briefings before making his comments on Friday. We hereby retract this story. We sincerely apologize for any confusion.

So the question is: Did Benedict Donald actually receive intel briefings? It seems possible that whole idea began with this series of tweets, in which the "briefing" idea emerges as a theory.

Frankly, I think that this theory is still viable. Let me explain my reasoning.

Officially, our base in Saudi Arabia was closed down in 2003. However, back in 2013, close watchers of the news noted a small flurry of stories about a new base in the Kingdom -- a drone base from which the attack on Anwar al-Awlaki was launched.

I wrote about the base back in 2013, based on this piece in The Atlantic, which was based on this piece in the WP. That story in the Washington Post seems to have started it all -- and the WP never gave any hints as to sourcing. It appears that the government asked the Post not to mention the base, and that the Post agreed. The Post reversed this decision only when it learned that another news organization was going to to go with the story.

Here's the thing: The WP report from 2013 said nothing about the paying of rent.

Now, Trump could claim that he learned about the base as I did -- from reading the Washington Post. I doubt that this is the case, because the story appeared for all of one day and received no official verification. As I recall, there was no great controversy about the matter at the time.

Trump is no reader. I doubt that he could even get all the way through an article in the National Enquirer. The man is so ill-read that he doesn't even know what the nuclear triad is. Do you really think that a man suffering from such a short attention span was able to recall a little-noticed piece which the WP published three years ago?

And how the hell would he know about the paying of rent?

I think that it is quite possible that Donnie the Mouth blurted out secret information which he learned during a briefing, and which the government was hoping to keep within the realm of "plausible deniability."

One lawyer's reaction:

If he signed the secrecy agreement already as part of getting the briefing, he could be prosecuted.

Of course, this issue is not to be confused with the growing evidence that Trump has had treasonous dealings with Russia. I wrote about that matter long before anyone else, and I'll have much more to say on that score soon.

It suddenly occurs to me that Trump could have learned about the Saudi base from his Russian pals. That would be even worse. Arguably.

Added note about the RNC convention: I was on "vacation" during the Republican convention, so I did not get a chance to reveal a bit of inside knowledge that I managed to acquire from someone in attendance. 

Remember Ted Cruz' speech, in which he stunningly refused to endorse The Donald? Originally, the speech was meant to conclude with a "kinda, sorta" endorsement.

Ted Cruz was supposed to end with the words: "And now let's all work together to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!" That was Trump's cue to bound on stage.

That was the speech of which Trump approved. Those words were on displayed the teleprompter, where anyone could see them. Cruz simply refused to deliver the socko finish.

Can they really blame Hillary for this? Yes they can. The right really is trying to blame Hillary Clinton for the fact that Russia hacked her presidential campaign, as well as the DNC.

Talk about blaming the victim!