A "Five Star" mystery: Saudi Arabia, Brexit, Trump and election fraud. Plus: The Comey "tape"

This investigation in the Irish Times examines a very strange affair involving Northern Ireland and Saudi Arabia. The author of that piece, Fintan O'Toole, probably doesn't know that his research links up to a mystery which captured my attention some twelve years ago, when this humble blog focused on the possibility of fraud in the 2004 presidential election.

Before we get to the US connection, we must summarize the Irish Times story.

In recent days, you may have read about the far-right Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland, because that's the group with which Theresa May must strike a deal if she wants to stay in power. (Her chances are starting to look bleak.) The DUP is pretty obnoxious, as this site makes clear: They are pro-creationism, anti-abortion, and very anti-gay.

The DUP is also also very, very pro-Brexit. In fact, they funded a pricey ad campaign in favor of Brexit. Strangely, those ads appeared in publications outside of Northern Ireland.

That campaign cost a lot of money, leading Fintan O'Toole to ask: Where did the DUP get the funds?

It turns out that the money came from a strange Scottish group called the Constitutional Research Council, headed by one Richard Cook. But that organization seems to have been a cut-out (as was the DUP itself).

The real funders were Saudis.

What they found is that Richard Cook has a history of involvement with a very senior and powerful member of the Saudi royal family, who also happens to have been a former director of the Saudi intelligence agency. In April 2013, Cook jointly founded a company called Five Star Investments with Prince Nawwaf bin Abdul Aziz al Saud. The prince, whose address is given as a royal palace in Jeddah, is listed on the company’s initial registration as the holder of 75 per cent of the shares.

Prince Nawwaf, who died in 2015, was no casual investor. He had been Saudi minister for finance, government spokesman and diplomatic fixer before becoming head of intelligence. His son, Mohammed bin Nawwaf, has, moreover, been the Saudi ambassador to both the UK and Ireland since 2005. When Five Star was set up in 2013, Prince Nawwaf was 80, had suffered a stroke and used a wheelchair. It seems rather remarkable that he was going into business with a very minor and obscure Scottish conservative activist.

"Five Star"...! That name rang a bell. Where had I heard it before? Suddenly, it all came back...

2004 and all that. Unless you've been reading this blog for a very long time, you may not know that I was once transfixed by the allegations of election fraud in the 2004 election. Like many others, I became convinced that electoral hugger-mugger occurred in Ohio.

In a series of posts published in late 2004 and early 2005, I looked into some rather bizarre claims concerning an entity called "Five Star Trust," which allegedly played a role in swinging the election to Dubya. The Trust, it was said, was funded by the Saudis, who (as most people know) had deep connections to Bush.

I'll soon give links to those old pieces on the Five Star Trust. First, a word of warning: My posts linked to the work of a writer named Wayne Madsen, toward whom I once had a very naive and trusting attitude. In 2004, his reputation was not so reeky as it later became; Madsen was a former NSA employee who had appeared on ABC's Nightline, Marketplace and 60 Minutes. Why shouldn't I quote a man with such an impressive resume?

Unfortunately, Madsen made increasingly wild accusations without bothering to cite evidence. Behind the scenes, Madsen proved to be an opaque and bizarre individual.

Fellow blogger Brad Friedman (who has led the fight against computerized voting) was also intrigued -- for a very brief period -- by Madsen's "Five Star" claims. Brad soon became so infuriated with the way Madsen did business that he decided never to say another good word about the man. Other semi-mainstream publications developed a similar "hands off" attitude.

For years, my standard line on Madsen was this: "He's right about half the time, and I'm never sure which half is which." After a while, even that assessment began to seem too generous.

In 2008, I wrote a series of posts which argued (based on public sources) that Barack Obama may have been on "Company" business during his mysterious 1981 trip to Pakistan. (Here, here and here.) Madsen pilfered my work without crediting me. He then sensationalized the evidence and jammed it into a rather terrible book called The Manufacturing of a President, 90 percent of which is paranoid flotsam and jetsam unrelated to the work's ostensible subject.

As you might imagine, I now have little reason to speak well of Wayne Madsen, whose claims have grown ever more inane: He says that Obama is both gay and Kenyan-born, and that Israel attacked the USS Cole. Naturally, he has found a home on Alex Jones's radio show. From ABC News to Infowars: A sad trajectory indeed.

(A sudden thought just hit me. Do you think that former NSA man Wayne Madsen could be one of Louise Mensch's "sources" within the intelligence community? Boy, that would explain a lot.)

Have I given enough caveats and apologies? I believe I have. Here, then, are the links to my previous "Five Star" posts dealing with the mysteries of the 2004 election. Start here, then go here, then go here. Although my posts quote Madsen, I also offer some original research.

From the first post (November 26, 2004):

Madsen goes on to say that money for the operations was funneled through a Saudi-linked financial entity based in Houston called Five Star Trust, which was also apparently used to fund both Bush and Bin Laden.

Other monies came from carefully-hidden Enron loot stashed away in the Cook Islands...

I've tried some preliminary Googling on Five Star Trust (which is also spelled "5 Star Trust"). One citation goes to a court case listed here, involving one Marion Horn, Jr., a.k.a. "J.R. Horn," a one-time Republican candidate in Kentucky later convicted of wire fraud. (Also see here and here.) From what I can tell, the guy received a ridiculously attentuated sentence -- 18 months -- for a serious crime (one commentator mentioned the figure of "$1B") committed while on parole for a similar offense.

Much of the above information came by way of the Diligizer Board, which seems to be a clearinghouse for information about shady operators in the financial world. On one page they take a brief look at an accused security fraudster named Howard E. Liner -- and just look at what pops up:

He claims to be directly involved with VP Chaney and running actually the FED program. Mr. Liner pretends to be a former JAG and Military attorney. They are connected to Noir Intertrade, who shall be the commitment holder! They also mentioned the 5-Star Trust, the worlds richest trust with TRILLIONS (sorry forgot to ask the currency!!) on the account in Credit Suisse and UBS.

Hmm. Did he just say trillions? It that's true, the allegation of Saudi involvement may well have substance.

By the time I wrote my final post in this series (January 4, 2005), I had already become disenchanted with Madsen. He connected the Five Star Trust to a DC-based Christian cult called The Fellowship, the subject of a famous book by Jeffrey Sharlet. The "Fellowship" angle has no discernible evidence to back it.

That said, I can't help but wonder what happened to Marion Horn. His 2004 connection to the Five Star Trust parallels, in some ways, the later linkage between Scotland's Richard Cook and the current incarnation of Five Star.

While traipsing through my earlier pieces, I stumbled across this 2005 post, which quotes some work done by Daniel Hopsicker on a firm called Triad, which was run by Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi (whose recent death I should have noted in these pages.) The following quotation from the Hopsicker story may seem to take us far from the Five Star mystery, but bear with me: I promise to bring us back on course.

Was Adnan Khashoggi a principal in a company which has been counting the votes of American servicemen overseas? Answer: highly likely.

Both Election.com, and Triad, the election company cited for causing most of the problems in Ohio, should receive close scrutiny for evidence of Khashoggi involvement.

While there has been no suggestion of it anywhere in the media, the name "Triad" was used extensively by Khashoggi at exactly the same time (the early 80's) and in exactly the same place (Palm Beach, Florida) as the "Triad Governmental Systems" involved in Ohio's current election "difficulties."

There's much of else of interest in that 2005 piece. For current purposes, let's focus on the following:

Election.com should be examined for the invisible hand of the Saudi financier and CIA “fixer.”

News reports stated Election.com was owned by an offshore Saudi front company in Bermuda consisting of five unnamed Saudi billionaires, until scrutiny forced a sale to Accenture, the remnants of the disgraced and disbanded Arthur Anderson, the accounting firm which made Enron possible.

Five unnamed Saudi billionaires...?

Could that be the origin of the "Five Star" nomenclature? I can't prove it, but the idea makes a lot of sense.

The obvious questions: Why would five Saudi billionaires surreptitiously involve themselves with the 2004 American election (and perhaps earlier elections)? Why would the same Saudi interests care about promoting Brexit in 2016? What's in it for them?

The Prince. The Irish Times story quoted above connects the current "Five Star Investments" to Prince Nawwaf bin Abdul Aziz al Saud, the former head of Saudi intelligence. That name has appeared in these pages before. From a post published on August 26, 2016:

Now let's turn to a little-noticed piece titled "Wealthy Muslims helped Donald Trump build his empire":

Saudi princes: Prince Mutaib bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, a former minister in the Saudi government, and member of the Saudi royal family, reportedly lives in a floor-through Trump Tower apartment. Other former Trump property tenants include Prince Nawaf bin Sultan bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud, a Saudi royal family member who owned a 10,500 sq. foot (975 sq. meter) condo at the Heritage at Trump Place that went on sale this year for $48.5 million.

Trump has long had strong connections to Saudi Arabia. Most people forget that the Saudis were the ones who bailed out Donald Trump when he nearly went under.

Saudi billionaire Prince Al-Waleed Bin Talal said he twice saved US presidential candidate Donald Trump from bankruptcy, describing him as a “bad and ungrateful person”.

In an interview with Turkey’s Hurriyet newspaper, the prince said he bought Trump’s hotels after they were acquired by the banks which demanded he repay his debts.

The yacht he used to come to Antalya, southwest of Turkey, is one he bought from Trump when he was threatened with bankruptcy.

That yacht, by the way, is the one made famous by previous owner Adnan Khashoggi, and by the movie Never Say Never Again.

Now let's visit this New Yorker piece for more on the Trump/bin Talal relationship:

This latest tweet battle with Trump refers to the Prince’s investments in troubled Trump properties. The first of these transactions took place in 1991, when, according to Businessweek, bin Talal bought Trump’s huge yacht the Trump Princess from creditors, for eighteen million dollars. At the time, Trump’s Atlantic City casinos were heavily indebted; he also put his airline, the Trump Shuttle, up for sale.

The second deal came in 1995, when bin Talal and a partner, a Singapore hotels company, paid hundreds of millions of dollars to take control of The Plaza, on Fifth Avenue, from Trump. A Times story at the time said that the buyers had agreed to “pay part, or all, of Mr. Trump’s $300 million mortgage on the hotel, guarantee interest payments on Mr. Trump’s Plaza debt and spend $28 million to renovate part of the hotel.” Trump, the article said, was “under heavy pressure because of more than $115 million of guarantees he has given on the Trump Organization’s debt, and because of his recently announced attempt to raise $250 million to expand his casino investments.”

The prince is not just any Saudi oligarch: He was the finance minister of that nation and is rumored to represent other Saudi business interests. He is the second biggest investor in Fox News.

Interestingly, Saudi princes were investing in Trump at the same time they were (allegedly) throwing money at a fellow named Osama Bin Laden. Why were the Saudis dealing with a guy like Trump? And why did they treat him as a demi-deity during his recent visit to Saudi Arabia?

Here's the final paragraph from my 2016 post:

Yes, Saudis have donated to the Clinton Foundation -- but the Foundation is a charity, from which the Clintons derive no profit. Trump's hotels in Jeddah are serious business. Talk about a conflict of interest! Most Americans are not even aware that Trump has substantial investments in Saudi Arabia. You know damned well that if the Clintons had made such investments, our news media would remind you of that fact every single day.

Congress and the mainstream media have spent a great deal of time and effort trying to uncover Trump's strange relationship with Putin's Russia -- and properly so. On June 16, 2016, this humble blog was the first online publication to outline a "Putin-Trump" theory.

But Russia is not the full story. We also have to look at Saudi Arabia. Evidence suggests that Saudis have meddled in Brexit. Moreover, evidence suggests a consortium of five Saudi billionaires have played a very covert role in certain American elections -- and they may even have started as early as the 1980s. Strangest of all, they came to the rescue of Donald J. Trump in the 1990s. Why? You got me!

You can't dismiss this post as a "conspiracy theory," for one simple reason: I don't pretend to have anything like a proper theory. At this stage, I'm just trying to formulate the right questions.

Elsewhere: In previous posts, I have sided with those who argue that Trump probably does have "tapes" of his conversations with James Comey. My argument is based on a photo of Trump in the Oval Office with a digital voice recorder on his desk, and on the fact that Trump has been known to record surreptitiously his business meetings. Besides, NSA head Mike Rogers is clearly in Trump's corner, and the NSA scoops up everything.

However, Trump biographer Tim O'Brien says that Trump has falsely claimed to record conversations...

“He’s said this over the years to reporters when they go into the Trump organization, ‘I just want to let you know that I’m taping you right now,'” O’Brien noted. “And he said it multiple times during my interviews with him. He said that into my own tape recorder when I recorded our interviews.”

“But when he sat down for the deposition, my attorney said, ‘Mr. Trump, do you have a taping system?'” he recalled. “And he said no. And [my attorney] said, ‘Why did you say this to Mr. O’Brien.’ And he essentially said, ‘I wanted to intimidate him.'”

Perhaps. But one should also keep in mind that Trump may have been in a state in which it is illegal to tape someone without his permission.

We're screwed. Here's why.

If this were one of the popular blogs, I'd feel obligated to wear a fake smile as I assure liberals that Trump will face impeachment any day now.

(Remember when liberal bloggers assured everyone that Hillary had the election in the bag? Remember when anyone who made the contrary prediction was damned as a Republican infiltrator?)

Any blogger who wants to be loved must join the growing brotherhood (Alle Menschen werden Brüder) of anti-Trumpists who keep telling each other that impeachment is mere days, mere hours, mere minutes away. I wouldn't be surprised to hear dear Louise say that impeachment has already taken place in secret, the Supreme Court having decided to replace Trump and Pence with their Earth 2 counterparts.

One of the virtues of unlovability is that I can play the role I was born to play -- that of the grumpy old pessimist who tells you things you don't want to hear. Some see the glass as half-empty and some see it as half-full; the grumpy old pessimist sees but a few drops of water quivering on the brink of evaporation, the last drops of water on a parched and dying planet, and he tells you that soon, all too soon, we shall all be crawling across the desert floor, croaking in agony at the pitiless heavens as we face the void of infinite despair.

And that's my act. Thanks for coming, ladies and gentlemen. I'll be playing another show at 11:00.

Here's why impeachment is unlikely, even if Trump's popularity sinks below the 30 percent mark (which many pundits now proclaim to be Doom Point, even though Yeltsin bounced back after his approval rating hit 9 percent).

1. Trump will soon install his toady as FBI Chieftain. His pick will, of course, be compromised, even if his background seems superficially appealing. I don't need to know more about Christopher Wray; it is enough to know Trump.

Never forget: Only the FBI has the resources to do actual knocking-on-doors investigation. That's what the I in FBI stands for.

2. The DNI, the Director of the CIA and the head of the CIA are all Trump's puppets. Any prominent enemy of Trump must be whistle-clean, because the boys and girls who work for Mike Rogers have been listening in to every telephone call and computer message. Moreover, the malchiks and devotchkas working for Spetssvyaz, the Russian version of the NSA, have also been listening in to every telephone call and computer message. (Fun fact: We don't know the name of the head of that agency. Here's a picture of their headquarters.)

Never forget: Modern tech makes it possible to create kompromat where none exists. (See previous post.)

3. Tory power has been diminished in the UK, but Cambridge Analytica (staffed largely by Tories) remains in full force. Right now, the manipulators are busily turning Jim Comey into Hillary II. They'll keep throwing shit against the wall until the shit sticks. Comey, Hillary, Podesta and Obama are all more likely to see the inside of a jail cell than is Donald Trump.

Never forget: Hillary was the most popular woman in America before the smear campaign kicked in.

4. Trump can -- and probably will -- replace Robert Mueller.

One of President Donald Trump’s attorneys on Sunday wouldn't rule out the possibility the president would fire the special counsel appointed to look into his campaign’s potential ties to Russia.

Robert Mueller was appointed by the Justice Department last month to investigate Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential election. And on Sunday, ABC's George Stephanopoulos asked Trump attorney Jay Sekulow whether the president would pledge not to interfere or order the attorney general to fire Mueller.

“Look, the president of the United States, as we all know, is a unitary executive,” Sekulow said on ABC’s “This Week.” “But the president is going to seek the advice of his counsel and inside the government as well as outside. And I'm not going to speculate on what he will, or will not, do.”

Translation: Trump will fire Mueller. Cambridge Analytica will no doubt initiate its anti-Mueller smear campaign any day now. Perhaps they'll plant kiddie porn on his computer or his Twitter feed. You should also expect the BernieBots to spew Mueller-hate from stage left. (Has the spew started already? I haven't checked out H.A. Goodman's YouTube channel lately.) (Here's an early attempt.)

5. You know that scenario we keep hearing about -- the one in which FBI agents squeeze the underlings to make them rat out Mr. Big? The one in which the good guys take down Trump the same way they take down the Mafia?

That tactic won't work in this case.

Why not? Because Don Corleone doesn't have the power of the pardon and Trump does. Article II, section 2 of the Constitution says that the president "shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment."

Let's say (hypothetically) that Roger Stone has been caught doing something illegal. (Of course, he never would do anything illegal. Perish forbid! We are simply pursuing a hypothetical scenario.) Let us further say (hypothetically) that the feds tell Stone: "We'll reduce the charges if you testify against Trump."

Why on earth would Stone take that deal? He knows that Trump can hand out pardons the way you hand out candy on Halloween. As Trump cements his position as America's Czar, he will be in a position to promise his loyalists substantial cash rewards. The money will go directly into foreign bank accounts, free of taxation. That's how Putin does it.

But but but (I hear you saying) the Constitution says "except in cases of impeachment." Nobody is going to impeach Roger Stone or Paul Manafort or Michael Flynn. And without squealing underlings, nobody is going to impeach Donald Trump.

The problem is in our Constitution, a document written in the days before organized crime. The Founders simply did not anticipate a Trumpian level of corruption and shamelessness.

When that key fact finally sinks in, when the sheer hopelessness of our situation becomes apparent to all, left-wing dunderheads of the BernieBot ilk will no doubt offer the same remedy that they've been offering since 1980 and perhaps earlier: "We need a new Constitutional convention!"

Oh, right.

C'mon, think about it: Just who do you think will go marching into that convention hall to rewrite all this country's most basic rules? Do you think it'll be Bernie Sanders leading an army of college-aged hipsters and vegetarians and Rastafarians and wiccan feminists and Groovy Flower People? Seriously, is that how you think it's gonna go down?

Ain't gonna happen, silly-billies. The people marching into that secret chamber will be Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell and Steve Bannon and various Cato-ites bought and paid-for by Robert Mercer, Sheldon Adelson and the Kochs. (And Alex Jones and H.A. Goodman will stand outside the hall and say "It is Good.") These are the people who will rewrite the Constitution for the sole purpose of bringing it in line with the Gospel According to Ayn Rand.

Is that what you want, my progressive-purist friends? Because that is what will happen if we have a new Constitutional convention. Guaranteed.

At this point, a BernieBot is likely to retort: "Okay, then. Time for...revolution!"

My friend: If that's the way you think, allow me to offer a gentle invitation to go fuck yourself with a cactus dildo drenched in Dave's Insanity Sauce. The only people in this country likely to stage an armed revolt are the same people who voted for Trump because Hillary is a witch who eats children in the basement below Comet Pizza.

The people who think that way possess guns. They like guns. They really, really want to fire those guns. With every cell in their bodies, they long for the Day of the Gun. And as they spray machine-gun fire all across the American landscape, they'll be singing a country tune with these lyrics:

Jesus wants you to kill!
Kill the lib-er-ill!
He's not like you or I
And that's why he's gotta die
Kill kill kill kill KILL!

Ever see the last shot of Cabaret? (I caught it on teevee about an hour ago.) That shot perfectly illustrates the only "revolution" likely to take place in America the Beautiful.

Stop kidding yourselves. We're screwed.

Added note: Louise. After writing the above, I decided to check out what Louise Mensch has been saying lately. (For the past week or so, I've been trying to ignore her. It's, like, so over.) Although her undeniable propensity to spew bullshit has caused my crush to fade, her most recent tweet is not without points of interest:

Oh fuck
oh fuck
this is like the end of the Sixth Sense

Oh my God I get it

You may be surprised to learn how rarely I complain when an attractive blonde with a British accent says "Oh fuck oh fuck Oh my God." If I were writing dialogue for Billie Piper, that's pretty much how the whole script would go.

Mensch was reacting to the work of one Dark Wisdom, a twitter-based researcher and musician previously unknown to me. He has been doing some excellent work looking into some of the more shadowy activities of Sberbank.

If you're interested, go here and keep clicking the links. One focus of DW's research is a Russian initiative called the Active Citizen Project, which is allegedly designed to allow the average Russian citizen to think that he is having a more direct voice in the day-to-day decisions of government. It's a way of making the people think they are living in a true, Athens-style democracy, even though the online voting systems are completely in Putin's control. The implication seems to be that something similar may be in store for the US. Not democracy, but an incredible simulation!

The Chairman of the Board of Sperbank is Herman Gref, whose ties with Trump are undeniable. Google "Herman Gref Trump." In particular, see here and here.

A new Comey "tape" theory

I confess it: This post offers a conspiracy theory. Or rather, two related theories.

Unlike Alex Jones, I don't mind admitting that my ideas are in a germinal phase, and that they may soon prove misguided or foolish. I present these theories to you because I'd appreciate your criticisms: You're all wrong, Cannon, and here's why...

All day long, the talking heads on teevee have focused on the alleged Trump "tape" of Jim Comey. Trump has promised to show his cards (as it were) "in the very near future," and he told reporters that they would be "disappointed." Nobody knows what he meant by that word. Would we be disappointed in Comey? Or disappointed to learn that no recordings exist?

As readers know, I lean toward the view that recordings do exist. We know that Donnie has surreptitiously recorded individuals in the past, and we've seen the photo of Trump in the oval office with a digital voice recorder on his desk.

There is also the not-inconsiderable fact that Trump just volunteered to testify under oath. All of a sudden, a man who often seems to be imitating the stars of those "guilty dog" videos is acting like a gambler with an ace up his sleeve, and one or two more aces secreted in his pockets.

Why on earth is Donnie behaving in this fashion? Axios can offer only a couple of hoary political axioms: "The best way to defend is to attack. If you're explaining, you're losing."

The widely held view in Republican circles, according to Axios' Jonathan Swan, is that Trump's aggressiveness undercuts the notion that there are tapes.

That's a counterintuitive conclusion. As far as I'm concerned, a display of confidence indicates that the president does have recordings.

Let's take another look at the wording of the tweet that started it all:

"James Comey better hope that there are no 'tapes' of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press."

Conversations -- plural. At no point does Trump say that he made the recordings.

Mike Rogers runs the NSA, and Rogers proved in his testimony that he is Trump's man. In this context, it may be worth mentioning Rachel Maddow's observation that Rogers made a strange visit to Trump Tower while Obama was still president. I've been saying for more than a year that there is a pro-Trump faction within our own intelligence services.

Yes, it is certainly true that Trump frequently promises evidence which he never produces, as this list demonstrates. Nevertheless, the wording of the "tape" tweet leads me to believe that Trump may actually have something on the former FBI head. As weird as Trump is, he would not threaten a man unless he had something to threaten him with. You can't use a hallucination to intimidate an adversary.

The "tape" is but one of two Comey mysteries that have bedeviled us in recent days. We must also account for...the THING.

As Comey describes it in the statement he prepared for Thursday’s Senate hearing, Trump called him on the morning of April 11 and brought up a matter he’d raised before: What was Comey doing to sell the public on the idea that Trump wasn’t under investigation by the FBI? When Comey replied that Trump should take it up with the leadership at the Justice Department, the president said he would do so, then continued: “Because I have been very loyal to you, very loyal; we had that thing you know.”

Comey claims that he has no idea what all this talk of loyalty signifies. He says that he cannot identify the "thing."

Conventional thinkers would argue that the "thing" was simply the dinner they shared, and that Trump believes that he showed loyalty when he let Comey keep his job. That comforting scenario just doesn't sit right, at least not with me. This is Trump we're talking about. Trump always has something up his sleeve other than his elbow.

All day yesterday, I asked myself: Is there a single narrative which would explain both the "tape" mystery and the "thing" mystery? By midnight, I had cobbled together two different theories.

Theory 1: Comey really does have a secret. The secret could involve adultery (yawn), financial problems, or an uncharacteristic lapse into unethical behavior. The "tape" could be a recording of a telephone conversation during which this secret was discussed. The conversation may have been recorded by the NSA or by GCHQ -- perhaps even the Russians.

Trump showed "loyalty" when he agreed to keep Comey's "thing" secret.

Comey may feel protected, for now. He knows that if the NSA intercepted the conversation, revelation would be illegal. If the GCHQ intercepted the conversation, revelation could cause an international uproar.

Ah, but what about the idea of a Russian intercept? Comey may want to bait Trump into admitting that the Russians spied on his behalf. To prove that Trump colludes with the Russians, Comey may be willing to undergo a certain amount of public humiliation. Sometimes a warrior must fall on his sword.

If Theory 1 is correct, did Comey lie in his testimony before Congress? Not necessarily. He can claim that he left out part of his narrative in open hearings in order to avoid a conflict with Mueller's probe.

Theory 2: Comey is about to be framed. (This theory is both more fun and more frightening.) Let us posit that Trump is using Putin as his model. The question then becomes: WWVD? What Would Vladimir Do? Let's ask it another way: In the past, how has Putin operated against his foes?

We know that his enemies have been arrested for possession of child pornography, which was almost certainly planted.

Old-style kompromat featured doctored photographs, planted drugs, grainy videos of liaisons with prostitutes hired by the K.G.B., and a wide range of other primitive entrapment techniques.

Today, however, kompromat has become allied with the more sophisticated tricks of cybermischief-making, where Russia has proved its prowess in the Baltic States, Georgia and Ukraine. American intelligence agencies also believe that Russia used hacked data to hurt Hillary Clinton and promote Donald J. Trump in the U.S. presidential election, according to senior officials in the Obama administration.

Also see here:

Another tactic of choice involves sex tapes. In 2010, videos of Russian opposition journalists and politicians who had been filmed separately having sex with the same young Russian woman were leaked online. Last year, an opposition political party was damaged when a tape emerged of a married party leader having sex with an aide. Putin has been involved in such operations for years: In 1999, when he was the head of the FSB (the post-Soviet successor to the KGB), Putin reportedly helped then-President Boris Yeltsin to discredit and dismiss powerful prosecutor Yuri Skuratov, who had threatened to reveal which Russian officials were siphoning money to foreign bank accounts. When Yeltsin could not persuade the parliament to fire Skuratov, a video of the prosecutor — or at least a man who resembled him — having sex with prostitutes was aired on television. This all may sound like something out of “The Americans,” but it’s politics as usual in Russia.

Still, some clumsy attempts have backfired: In 2012, a media outlet published a picture of Kremlin opponent Alexei Navalny allegedly posing with exiled oligarch Boris Berezovsky, a Putin nemesis; the caption darkly suggested that forces outside Russia were funding opposition efforts. Navalny then produced the original photo, in which he was actually standing with a different man, and Russians were soon gleefully creating their own doctored images online of Navalny with individuals such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Adolf Hitler and an extraterrestrial.

Kompromat is beautifully flexible. If a story isn’t playing well or if there is too much credible pushback, the perpetrators simply move on without apology or correction. The story disappears abruptly, leaving only confusion or unease in the minds of the audience.

Trump could have been planting the seed for a deception operation when he made those seemingly-bizarre references to "tapes," and "that thing" and the "loyalty" which he has allegedly shown toward Comey.

Jim Comey may have no idea as to what is about to hit him.

Modern technology makes it possible to create a fake "tape" of Comey saying certain incriminating things to Trump, things that the former FBI Director did not actually say. In fact, the technology has existed for more than a decade -- maybe even two decades, as this 2003 Science Daily article proves.

In 2017, we have a consumer-level app called Lyrebird:

Today, a Canadian AI startup named Lyrebird unveiled its first product: a set of algorithms the company claims can clone anyone’s voice by listening to just a single minute of sample audio.

A few years ago this would have been impossible, but the analytic prowess of machine learning has proven to be a perfect fit for the idiosyncrasies of human speech. Using artificial intelligence, companies like Google have been able to create incredibly life-like synthesized voices, while Adobe has unveiled its own prototype software called Project VoCo that can edit human speech like Photoshop tweaks digital images.

But while Project VoCo requires at least 20 minutes of sample audio before it can mimic a voice, Lyrebird cuts this requirements down to just 60 seconds. The results certainly aren’t indistinguishable from human speech, but they’re impressive all the same, and will no doubt improve over time.

Although Lyrebird recordings are not completely convincing, it is fair to presume that the intelligence services of the United States, Britain and Russia possess software that is far more advanced. The above-cited 2003 article indicates that our spooks had already reached an impressive level of sophistication fifteen years ago.

My critics will say that Theory 2 ascribes more cleverness to Trump than some would consider possible. My response: Never underestimate your foe.

James and the Giant Peach

Yesterday, I said that I'd spend Comey Day watching an old western. The surprisingly appropriate choice was Cattle Drive (1951), in which a 14 year-old Dean Stockwell plays (sweartagod) a 19th century version of Donald Trump, young and snotty and just begging to be slapped. Stranded out west, Dean/Donnie is rescued by no-nonsense ramrod Joel McCrea, who knocks all of the arrogance out of the kid and then teaches him the Cowboy Way.

Basically, it's Kipling's Captains Courageous on the trail. Damned good movie. If only life had imitated art.

At one point, curiosity got the better of me and I tuned into That Comey Show. The former FBI Director was being questioned by John McCain, who could not comprehend that the investigation of Hillary Clinton's emails had reached a conclusion while the investigation of Trump's Russian adventures had not. What a cringe-inducing sight! I could not bear to watch for very long. I've always respected McCain, even though I often disagree with him -- but on this occasion, he just seemed...lost. Can you blame me for switching back to my cowboy movie?

(Seriously, it was very satisfying to see Joel McCrae teach Young Trump how to be a non-asshole. Although McCrae's real-life politics veered right, I don't think he would have had much use for Dorito Mussolini.)

By now I've heard several dozen pundits offer their Comey Day reactions, and I've heard much of the testimony itself. The most jaw-dropping right-wing response originated with Marc Kasowitz, Trump's "default lawyer." (I use that term because nobody else wants to represent that deadbeat). He focused on Comey's admission that he had leaked a memo to the NYT via a friend of his, a law professor at Columbia.

Calling Comey's action "retaliatory," Kasowitz said that "we will leave it the appropriate authorities to determine whether this leaks should be investigated along with all those others being investigated."

However, there is no evidence that the Times quoted from Comey memos before Trump tweeted about possible "tapes" of their conversations in a post dated May 12. The first Times story on the memos appeared May 16.

Naturally, the right-wing media took these words as their cue to go crazy. Jonathan Turley made the closest thing to a rational argument...

Besides being subject to Nondisclosure Agreements, Comey falls under federal laws governing the disclosure of classified and nonclassified information. Assuming that the memos were not classified (though it seems odd that it would not be classified even on the confidential level), there is 18 U.S.C. § 641 which makes it a crime to steal, sell, or convey “any record, voucher, money, or thing of value of the United States or of any department or agency thereof.”

There are also ethical and departmental rules against the use of material to damage a former represented person or individual or firm related to prior representation.

Oh, come off it.

Comey was a private citizen when that memo went public. The memo contained no classified information. His words were his own, just as Trump's tweets are his own or this blog post is my own. Comey was not Trump's lawyer, priest or shrink. His dialogue with Trump -- a meeting which the FBI chief neither sought nor desired -- was not covered by executive privilege.

Are we really supposed to believe that everyone who talks to a president about anything is automatically sworn to secrecy forevermore, even after leaving government service?

Trump felt free to offer the public false and defamatory versions of his interactions with Comey. Are we supposed to believe that Comey has no right to respond? The right seems to think that Trump may shit on whomever he pleases, and that those shat upon must never be allowed to shit back.

Dick Morris has spent untold hours on teevee recounting private conversations he supposedly had with Bill Clinton. (Some of Morris' tales seem downright fanciful, but that's a matter for another time.) Why didn't Turley or Kasowitz complain about that?

When I glance to my left, I see a bookcase double-stacked with political works. From A Thousand Days (1965) to Confront and Conceal (2012), all of these volumes include scenes in which the president speaks behind closed doors. Some of these books were written by people who worked in the White House. Other books quote interviews with former White House staffers, or memos and other documents written by former staffers. Is Jonathan Turley really going to argue that these books should not exist?

The other really insane right-wing defense comes to us via Alan Dershowitz, who seems to think that the president stands above all charges of obstruction of justice. Did Dershowitz sing that song when Ken Starr was running his inquisition? I don't think so.

The Tweetstorm that wasn't. We heard not one word from Trump during the Comey testimony. Uncanny! My mind flashed on the Book of Revelation: And there was silence in heaven for the space of half an hour.  I suspect that the Default Lawyer gave his client an ultimatum: One tweet out of you and you can find yourself another attorney.

Kasowitz claims that Trump never asked Comey for loyalty. If left to his own devices, Blurtmaster Trump might have sent out a tweet undercutting that defense. As I said a couple of posts ago, the man is the God of Blurters.

(BTW: That bit from Revelation always bothered me. It implies the presence of clocks in heaven -- clocks which divide time into 24 hour cycles, just like Earth clocks. But...why?)

What's being hidden? Comey clearly indicated that something massive and shadowy lurks within this scandal. The obstruction of justice issue is important, but Trump would not have tried to manipulate the FBI Director if Russiagate were a mere delusion.

When asked about the Orbis dossier, Comey asked for a closed session. When asked if Trump had colluded, Comey asked for a closed session. Comey indicated that he knew from the start (well before word had reached the publication) that Jeff Sessions had discomforting Russian ties, ties that went well beyond the known meetings with Kislyak; when pressed for more information about that angle, Comey asked for a closed session. When asked for more information about VneshEconomBank, the spooked-up Russian bank linked to Jared Kushner, Comey asked for a closed session. When asked about ties between "Trump people" and the Russian government, Comey asked for a closed session.

And yet the right is pretending that Comey cleared the president.

"The Russia story is now dead and any Democrat who continues to push it will look foolish and insane to the American people."

From Legal Insurrection:

This testimony should spell the death of the Russia collusion claims, as even Chris Matthews acknowledged today. But it’s more than a death of conspiracy theories, it’s an indictment of the attempts to undo the 2016 election results and to undermine the Trump administration’s ability to govern. The “resistance” has been and is based on lies, and represents the true threat to our electoral and representative system.

(Did Chris Matthews say that? He was singing a different tune during Hardball last night.)

I don't know what these screwball Trumpsters are smoking, but it sure as hell ain't tobacco or barbecue. Again: The former FBI Director, when asked if Trump has colluded with the Kremlin, demanded a closed session. That is not a good sign. That one exchange, by itself, has no precedent in American history. In normal times, that exchange would have made headlines around the world.

Bravo, UK! You didn't resoundingly kick out Theresa May, who may be able to hold onto her gig. (Things are still up in the air as of this writing.) But you did upset her plans.

And guess what? The election relied on HAND-COUNTED PAPER BALLOTS.

My fellow Americans: Go thou and do likewise.

Back to Cattle Drive. About 40 minutes in, McCrae wins a horserace, only to discover that young Dean Stockwell, using underhanded means, had placed the other horse at a disadvantage. McCrae returns all of the money he won, making sure that the kid feels every bit of the shame he has earned.

"No satisfaction in winning unless you win fair and square," explains McCrae. "Nobody wants a game rigged in favor of him any more than he wants a game rigged against him."

Don't you think that the world would be a better place if Donald Trump had learned that lesson at the age of 14?

Thing One and Thing Two

In Watergate, the smoking gun tape revealed that Nixon wanted to use the CIA to interfere with an FBI investigation. Nixon used the following words to force CIA Director Richard Helms into compliance: "It's likely to blow the whole Bay of Pigs thing which we think would be very unfortunate for CIA."

In the Trump/Russia scandal, Der Donald wanted Comey to make a public statement exonerating the president. Trump finished this entreaty with these words: "“Because I have been very loyal to you, very loyal; we had that thing you know.”

I have a pretty good idea about what Thing One was. It certainly was not about the Bay of Pigs per se, since that scandal was hardly a secret, and had no connection to Watergate. It is widely thought that Nixon used that phrase as a kind of code for the JFK assassination.

What the hell is Thing Two? And just how had Trump demonstrated "loyalty"?

The speculation here seems insufficient. My gut tells me that Trump must be referring to some as-yet undisclosed secret -- the same secret lurking behind that mysterious tweet in which the president quasi-threatened Comey with "tapes." Comey, for his part, may be betting that revelation of this secret will hurt Trump more than it will hurt the former FBI Director.

Any ideas as to what that secret might be? I suspect that it is something big.

(I may update this post if the Comey's testimony tells us more about The Thing.)

Steele yourself

On CNN a short while ago, Wolf Blitzer quoted a White House spokesperson who offered a reaction to the released transcript of Comey's prepared statement (which the former FBI Director will deliver in person tomorrow). I apologize for not being able to name the spokesperson or to quote his words precisely. To be honest, I was mowing the lawn while listening to the news, and must therefore speak from memory.

Basically, the spokesperson fixated on the Christopher Steele dossier, which I prefer to call the Orbis dossier. The spokesperson said that the dossier had been "debunked" -- and that Steele himself had debunked it!

Really? Where and when and how?

As I see it, we're dealing with three big, basic lies here.

Lie 1: Trump and his supporters to make everyone believe that this investigation is entirely about that dossier. This is ridiculous. Even if Christopher Steele had never been born, Trump and his cronies would be in a lot of trouble.

Lie 2: The Trumpers want people to believe that the dossier contains nothing of interest except for the claim involving prostitutes and urination. Republicans understand the way average working Americans think. Life is tough, and most people don't want to follow complicated stories about money laundering, the oil market and the funding of skyscrapers. Average Americans can focus on stories about sex. The weirder the sex, the more fascinating the story. Thus, the Trumpers want everyone to think that Russiagate is entirely about a pee-pee video which may or may not exist, even though that particular claim constitutes just one page of a 36-page document. Even if the video does exist, Putin will never release it. The world will never see the evidence.

Lie 3: The Trumpers keep saying that the dossier has been debunked. In this instance, they have claimed -- falsely -- that former MI6 man Steele has disavowed his own work. The Republican party line is, as usual, based on a hallucination. While it is true that many statements in the dossier remain unverified, it also true that unverified and debunked are two different concepts. Many statements within that dossier have been verified.

I'm pretty dispirited right now. The leaders of the intelligence community who testified today stonewalled their interrogators, even though (as one admitted) they had no legal basis to do so. We know that Trump demanded loyalty of James Comey, in a scene that calls to mind the famous "baseball" disquisition in The Untouchables. Although Comey refused to say the words that our Thug-in-Chief wanted him to say (and received a response from Trump not entirely unlike DeNiro's demonstration of his skill with a baseball bat), I strongly suspect that Coates, Pompeo and Rogers decided to recite the desired words. Moreover, we may presume that Christopher Wray is willing to say that which Comey would not; were the situation otherwise, Trump would never have picked Wray.

What I'm trying to say is this: We're screwed.

There has been far too much cocksure presumption that impeachment is in the bag. Get real. The Republicans still retain nearly all of the power; when Wray takes over, the only uncontrollable factor will be the special counsel. Mueller probably won't finish until well after the 2018 elections, and even then, he probably will offer no more than a report. If the Democrats controlled Congress, the stonewallers who faced the committee today might well have suffered legal consequences. As things stand, the Trump loyalists can do as they please without fear.

We've been through this before. At the beginning of Iran-Contra, giddy Democrats allowed themselves to think that Reagan could, and probably would, be impeached. We were all so damned naive! After North's testimony, Reagan's popularity increased and public support for the contras topped 50% for the first time. By the time Walsh released his report, even Democrats had stopped paying attention.

A Republican-controlled "investigation" will always degenerate into a propaganda exercise. Right now, Trump's approval rating is low -- but Bill Clinton's number was even worse at a comparable point in his presidency. Clinton went on to win re-election.

Comey and more

Even though CNN has been displaying a countdown clock to James Comey's testimony, I'm not expecting any bombshells. Advance word has it that Comey will not accuse Trump of trying to obstruct justice.

I may be the only person still worried about Dorito Mussolini's strange tweeted threat -- the one that cryptically referred to a taped conversation between Comey and Trump. The tweet implied that this "tape" would make Comey look bad. Trump has a history of secretly recording conversations, and a photo exists of an old-school digital voice recorder on the Presidential desk. Thus, I'm quite willing to stipulate that some sort of recording exists, though of course we are probably talking about an audio file, not a "tape."

Trump is not bright enough to play any games of 11-dimensional chess. He's a thug. I don't think that he would have issued a threatening tweet unless Comey really did tell him something in private that could be considered embarrassing or incriminating. Was that conversation recorded? I don't know. Nevertheless, I am sure (well, kind of sure) that a conversation took place. Dim as he is, Trump must understand by now that he cannot confirm the existence of any secret  recordings without landing himself in Nixon country.

That said: If Comey is compromised, as I think he is, then he is likely to pull his punches when he testifies. That's why I don't expect any game-changing revelations. In fact, I expect the right-wing media to publish stories claiming that Comey "exonerated" Trump.

Let's hope I'm wrong.

We learned yesterday that Comey told Jeff Sessions that he (Comey) did not want to be alone with Trump again. Clearly, the FBI Director feared that Trump would make an unequivocal demand to drop the Russia investigation. (Or perhaps the usurper in the Oval Office has taken to treating everyone the way he treats beauty contest participants.)

I probably will not watch Comey's much-ballyhooed testimony live, for the same reason I could not watch last year's debates live. I'm a man with a weak heart, and these spectacles can be rather nerve-wracking. I find it easier to take in the after-the-fact summaries before dealing with the Thing-In-Itself. When Comey sits in the hot seat, I'll probably pass the time watching old westerns.

If you want live, on-the-fly reactions to Comey's testimony, check out the twitter feed of one Donald J. Trump, a noted bon vivant who will be offering witticisms and droll observations. That twitter feed is where the real bombshells are likely to explode. Trump may even blurt out the Big Damn Secret that he supposedly has on tape.  Donald Trump is a world-class blurter. He is the God of Blurting. If he were an actor, he'd be Blurt Lancaster.

Washington Post reporter Robert Costa told MSNBC on Tuesday that the president would directly respond to Comey on Twitter as the testimony is underway.

“I was just talking to some White House officials this morning and their view is that the president himself wants to be the messenger, his own warrior, his own lawyer, his own spokesman,” Costa explained. “Some outside people, some surrogates will be available.”

“But the president is expected to be tweeting on Thursday in response to Comey, not to stay quiet during the testimony,” he added. “Because he himself wants to be the one driving the process.”

Oh, this should be good. In fact, this should be superb.

Most of you know that four major law firms (including Sullivan & Cromwell) refused to represent Trump because he seems likely to stiff his lawyers and to ignore their advice. Mr. Trump should represent himself. That, too, would be superb.

The real fun may come later today, when NSA Director Mike Rogers drops the promised "bomb" on Trump. We also have reports that Trump may have asked DNI Dan Coates and CIA Director Mike Pompeo to tell Comey not to investigate Flynn and Russia.

Younger people may not realize that a remarkably similar attempt to obstruct justice was captured for posterity on the infamous "smoking gun" tape that ended Nixon's presidency. Even though he knew that the mics were hot, Nixon discussed plans to have CIA Director Richard Helms interfere with the FBI's investigation of the burglary. To be specific: Nixon wanted Helms to tell the Bureau that the break-in was a CIA operation.

(It wasn't. It was committed by Nixon's men, most of whom were "former" Agency guys. So why, you may be asking, did Nixon want Helms to say something that wasn't true? Because in those days, the FBI usually backed off from anything having to do with the Agency. That's probably still the case.)

It's important to note that Helms did not actually do as Nixon requested. In other words, the "smoking gun" tape revealed an unsuccessful plot to obstruct justice. For impeachment purposes, that was enough.

It may also be enough in the case of Donald Trump.

The concept of "pressure" enters into the controversy. Coates, through a spokesperson, has said that he did not feel pressured to interfere with the FBI's investigation.

Nixon, by contrast, did place pressure on Helms -- and a very strange form of pressure it was: Nixon had an aide tell Helms that an investigation of Watergate might uncover the "Bay of Pigs thing." This reference sent Helms into something between a rage and a panic. Most open-minded people who have studied the matter agree with Haldeman's view that "the Bay of Pigs thing" was actually a coded reference to the JFK assassination.

If Rogers, Coates or Pompeo offer testimony indicating that Trump attempted to obstruct justice, the Trump scandal will recapitulate the Watergate scandal, at least in formal terms. However, I also agree with James Clapper's observation that the current crisis is far worse than Watergate.

The 50-year veteran of the military and the intelligence community painted a picture of disconcerting dysfunction in Washington with "assaults on American institutions coming from both external and internal sources" and most strikingly said the Trump-Russia links were much worse than the notorious scandal that toppled former US president Richard Nixon in the 1970s.

"I lived through Watergate. I was on active duty then in the Air Force as a young officer," Mr Clapper said following a speech to the National Press Club in Canberra. "It was a scary time . . . I have to say, though, that I think you compare the two that Watergate pales really in my view compared to what we're confronting now."

Mr Clapper, who is a visiting professor at the Australian National University, also said he hoped US allies and partners would not withhold intelligence from Washington but said he would understand if they did.

There is a theory of Watergate that a far-right faction within the intelligence community deliberately deep-sixed Nixon because Nixon pursued detente with the USSR. In other words, Nixon's scandal, like the current one, was all about Russia.

Here's the difference: In 1972, the far right was horrified by the prospect of better relations between the United States and the Soviet Union. Today, the Alt-Rightists seem to have fallen in love with post-communist Russia, while the left views Putin as a modern fascist.

Finally: Articles of impeachment. Congressman Al Green has already called for Trump's impeachment, as has Maxine Waters. So far, these calls have been mere words. The process of impeachment cannot start until a congressperson proposes a resolution, which will then get sent to the Judiciary committee.

Of course, there's no guarantee that the committee will allow the impeachment to proceed -- in fact, it's very likely that the committee will take no action whatsoever. Nevertheless, articles of impeachment are a necessary first step. We need a congressperson brave enough to start the process.

And that's just what Al Green is doing right now. Bravo!

Why Reality Winner is an American hero

Apologies for my absence yesterday. The big news, obviously, concerns the leak of a classified NSA document revealing that the GRU had used "spearfishing" tactics to hack into the vote counting machines.

We've long had many excellent reasons to deduce that such a hack-attack won the election for Donald Trump. Here are two.

Reason 1: Trump "drew to an inside straight" on election day. The sheer unlikelihood of his win was about as plausible as the theory of two unconnected assassins firing at JFK in 1963. (And yes, that ridiculous scenario appeared in at least one mainstream publication -- either Time or Newsweek; I forget which -- when the HSCA closed up shop.)

Reason 2: Throughout the recount process, Trump's lawyers continually raised objections, often quite silly and petty objections. Any attempt to impede a recount is tantamount to an admission of guilt.

Reasons 1 and 2 are hardly the only indicators of fraudulence. Interested parties should study Brad Friedman's coverage of the recounts.

And now we have an NSA document proving what I surmised at the start.

Election fraud is the only conceivable reason for the GRU to have done what it did. No one can deny that Russia has demonstrated intent to hack the vote, just as no-one can deny that Russia has demonstrated the ability to commandeer the necessary computers. Given the obvious absurdity of what happened on election day, we need no further evidence of Russia's guilt. We already have our smoking gun. If you now say "A smoking gun isn't enough," if you insist on seeing video of the bullet actually striking a vital organ, you are guilty of the fallacy called moving the goalposts.

The leaker of this document was wise to offer it to The Intercept, since Glenn Greenwald can hardly be called a supporter of Hillary Clinton. Many Democrats have come to despise Greenwald. For precisely that reason, his publication was the ideal venue.

At first, I suspected that this disclosure might have some relation to the upcoming testimony of NSA Director Mike Rogers, who reportedly has a "bomb" to drop on Donald Trump. By day's end, however, we learned that the leaker was a 25 year-old contractor in Georgia -- a linguist (fluent in Pashto and Farsi) with the unlikely name of Reality Leigh Winner.

Like Chelsea Manning, Winner appears to have acted purely out of conscience. She was caught rather easily. Only about six people had printed out that particular document, and the FBI was able to determine that she was the only one of the six to contact The Intercept. (I presume that the Bureau learned this information by examining her email metadata.)

Her actions were criminal. No doubt about that.

In spite of that fact -- no: BECAUSE of that fact -- I consider her a hero.

On very rare occasions, excruciatingly harsh circumstances may force one to choose between loyalty to the law and adherence to a higher moral code. To cite the most obvious example, I give you these three names: Miep Gies, Victor Kugler and Jan Gies. They, along with about a dozen other people, helped to hide Anne Frank and her family in that well-known attic. All of these "helpers" were lawbreakers. All were heroes.

This blog displays the symbol of the White Rose atop each page. The left column features a picture of the extraordinary Sophie Scholl, leader of the White Rose resistance movement in Hitler's Germany. Her first leaflet contained these words:

Nothing is so unworthy of a nation as allowing itself to be governed without opposition by a clique that has yielded to base instinct…Western civilization must defend itself against fascism and offer passive resistance...

In following the dictates of her conscience, Scholl felt that she had no choice but to break the law. She was executed in 1944.

I consider her a hero as sublime as Joan of Arc -- who was also a lawbreaker.

So was Rosa Parks. So was Gandhi.

So was Martin Luther King. In his famous letter from Birmingham Jail -- long recognized as a masterpiece of rhetoric -- King writes:

There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience. You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court's decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may well ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all."

Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.

King was right: There are indeed two types of laws, just and unjust. Just as King argued that a law is unjust if it degrades human personality, I would argue that any law is unjust if it protects the subverters of democracy.

Our cup of endurance has indeed run over. Loyalty to a usurper is disloyalty to America.

Ms. Winner may be a criminal, but she is not a traitor. In my view, the true traitors are the five people who saw the same document and did not leak. One day, when reason and democracy are restored, I hope that those five people are named and shamed. They deserve punishment, not Ms. Winner.

We may safely presume that there are many similar documents within the computers of our intelligence community. Any NSA employee -- from the lowliest contractor to Director Rogers -- who has seen this kind of information and maintained silence may be considered Trump's co-conspirator.

When treason enters the Oval Office, the rule is simple: If you see something, say something. Shout something. Damn the consequences.

Yes, secrecy oaths should be considered sacred -- under normal circumstances. Current circumstances are not normal. No oath, no law, no classification stamp can have more importance than these five words: The president is a traitor.   

My father worked with classified materials when he designed components used in the space program. He was a patriotic American who served in Korea and helped us get to the moon. Yet I feel certain that my father would not have maintained silence if he saw a classified document exposing Russian interference in a presidential election. I believe that he would have done the honorable thing regardless of personal consequences.

It will be argued that something like the "Coventry dilemma" may be at play here: Exposing secret information may burn sources and methods. Perhaps so, but isn't that kind of exposure going on right now anyways? It is quite obvious to any thinking person that the Trump administration has compromised our national security. Our moles within the Russian intelligence system have been arrested and led off to grim fates. God only knows what military and defense secrets these Trumpian traitors have already divulged.

Trump has refused to nominate personnel to fill important security positions (including the Assistant secretary for nuclear, chemical and biological defense!).

Trump refused to honor our NATO commitment, thereby furthering Putin's goal of weakening or ending the alliance.

When Sputnik published a story which haughtily demanded that Trump return the compounds in Maryland and Virginia, Trump did as the Russians commanded, just like a dog following the orders of a master who kicks him.

What more evidence do we need? Do not ascribe to stupidity that which is best explained by betrayal.

Let me quote Jack Goldsmith, Harvard professor and founder of the Lawfare blog. I have translated his tweets into conventional prose:

Trump’s actions since January, & especially in last month, take us so far beyond normal that it’s hard to have any faith in Exec branch. In the last month alone he has told many lies, fired Comey related to Russia probe, dissed long-time allies, re-attacked courts, shut out & viciously attacked the press, reacted whole inappropriately to London attack, spilled deep secrets to Russians, called appointment of Mueller by his DAG Rosenstein a “witch hunt,” called honorable former officials liars, etc. etc. etc. Given POTUS’s instability, it is not just courts that have reason to relax presumption of regularity for this Prez.

The impulsive, uncontrolled, ill-informed President infects the legal soundness of everything his administration does. As best I can tell, no President’s actions have ever so adversely affected trust in his administration, including Nixon during Watergate.

Louise Mensch. Her reaction to Reality Winner left me stunned and sickened:

Reality Winner is spying for Russia and leaking to America's enemy Greenwald. Lock her up and throw away the key. @snowden caught

Spying for Russia?

There is absolutely no evidence of this. None. Winner's online history is clear: She genuinely despises Trump. How can a woman who revealed Russia's election hacking be considered a Russian spy? (Besides, a trained agent would have sent the document via Tor or snail mail.)

The CIA used to have a term for the paranoid attitude that Mensch is now displaying: Sickthink.

For the past few weeks, I have struggled to come up with ways to defend Louise Mensch, even after many others had turned against her, and even after so many Menschian "scoops" turned out to be baseless. But this smear of Winner is absolutely unendurable.

Malcolm Nance has strongly hinted that Mensch herself is the "agent," intent on destroying the credibility of the Resistance. I don't know if he is right, but one can point to the following pieces of evidence against Louise Mensch:

1. Her many false claims, always attributed to unnamed "sources."

2. Her pre-election attempts to smear Hillary Clinton.

3. Her ties to Rupert Murdoch.

4. Her membership in the Tory party, which has indisputable ties to Cambridge Analytica.

5. Her refusal to discuss the possibility that a faction within western intelligence aided in the rise of Trump. Cambridge Analytica may indeed have obscure indirect links to Russia, but that firm's ties to British and American intelligence are strong and indisputable. Mensch refuses to acknowledge those ties. Why?

Now Louise Mensch, in defiance of both evidence and logic, has smeared Reality Winner as a Russian spy. If Mensch had simply voiced disapproval or even detestation of Winner's act, we could agree to disagree. But...a Russian spy? Ridiculous. What's next? Is she going to say that Ulysses Grant was the puppet of Jefferson Davis? Is she going to say that Charles I worked for Cromwell? Is she going to say that Alex Jones takes money from the Clinton Foundation?

Hm. I smell something. What's that perfume you're wearing, Louise? Sure seems familiar. It reminds me of the cologne favored by Larry Johnson back in 2008. I got a good whiff of it back then, and I'll never forget the stench. I believe it's called Eau de rat.

Trump: The opera

A few weeks ago, someone on DU asked people to name a great opera villain who closely resembles Donald Trump. At first, I was going to say that Donnie was one of the few real-life malefactors who could rank with Klingsor in Parsifal. On further reflection, I thought: "Nahhh. Trump wouldn't make the cut."

Added note: You have probably already heard about Donnie's latest twitter outrage, but let's note it anyways. After the London terror attacks, Trump offered these sage words:

Mr. Trump targeted Mayor Sadiq Khan of London, scorning him for trying to reassure his people. “At least 7 dead and 48 wounded in terror attack and Mayor of London says there is ‘no reason to be alarmed!’” Mr. Trump wrote.

The Mayor was referring to the increased number of police on the street. He didn't want the public to be alarmed about that.

Breitbart turned to Nigel Farage for commentary, natch. Farage used the occasion to caterwaul about -- of all things, at this moment -- allegations of child sex abuse. If you have a particularly strong stomach, check out the comments appended to the above-linked story. Exposure to that level of raw hate can hit you like a whiff of pure ammonia.

Briefly...

At the moment, most readers know as much as or more than I do about the terror attacks in London. All I can do is express my concern for my friends in the UK. Stay safe. And do whatever you can to assure that this outrage does not devolve into an excuse for bigotry or reactionary politics. No commentator can escape the fact that this attack occurs in close proximity to the coming election.

Our British correspondent b has this to say about Theresa May:

She is fighting this election on a platform of readiness to fire strategic nuclear warheads at foreign countries.

She called the election saying she didn't want the next one to be held around the time of the conclusion of Brexit negotiations. That is absolute bullshit, because the negotiations will take until 2019 and the next election would have been a year later.

Could the real reason be that a major war is in preparation?

That last suggestion goes rather too far, in my view. But the times do require level-headed leaders who revere peace.

Death threats in Iowa. Iowan Kim Weaver, a Democratic congressional candidate, is bowing out of the race -- and for the most disturbing reason conceivable.

One consideration has been raised again by recent events at my home. Beginning during my 2016 campaign, I have received very alarming acts of intimidation, including death threats. While some may say enduring threats are just a part of running for office, my personal safety has increasingly become a concern.

She also cites concerns about her own health and the health of her mother. Understandable. But that reference to death threats -- and "recent events at my home" -- should disturb everyone who loves civilization. The exercise of democracy should not require absolute fearlessness.

There was another factor involved in Weaver's decision:

In an interview with the Des Moines Register on Saturday, Weaver added to that rationale, alleging that the state of Iowa's Office of Long-Term Care Ombudsman, where she is an employee, saw its budget cut this year as "punishment" for her political candidacy.

The office received a $164,000 cut this year — a 12 percent reduction from the previous year.

"I'm feeling guilty that we lost this funding because I'm running for office," Weaver said, adding that she was prepared to take a "voluntary layoff" if the cut requires a staff reduction.

Weaver said she was told by her supervisor of the connection between her candidacy and the budget cut, and that the supervisor, in turn, was told by a state legislator.

Weaver's opponent, Steve King, is a racist. He will almost certainly prevail in Iowa's 4th Congressional District. The spirit of American neo-fascism is alive and well.

Gossip, speculation and a threat

Gossip. Please understand that I have no personal knowledge regarding the truth or falsity of this allegation. I publish the claim here in order to give Melania Trump the opportunity to rectify any possible injury to her reputation.

Melania, this is a serious offer: If you should wish to set the record straight, Cannonfire is completely at your disposal. I will publish anything you write.

This blast of gossip comes to us by way of writer Monica Byrne, who no doubt patronizes Comet Pizza every time George Soros cuts her a check. Byrne has issued a series of tweets which I have translated into conventional prose:

Though I honestly don't know how newsworthy it is?--given that Melania and 45's marriage is obviously dead to begin with. But here it is: word is, for many years, Melania's been having an affair with the head of security at Tiffany's in the Trump Tower lobby. And this seems like the kind of thing that would embarrass him. So: have at.

And I should say right off the bat: no, I can't reveal my source. So I guess this is the kind of leak that's more like a tip. As in: HEY JOURNALISTS WHO INVESTIGATE THIS SORT OF THING: look into it via other channels.

If this claim is untrue, then Monica Byrne needs to apologize. As for the man in that photo -- why, he does not even have the decency to cover his bald spot with a comb-over! Sad.

Melania, I await your response. Only you can expose this Monica Byrne personage for the Soros-funded fake newser that she surely is.

Speculation. Former intelligence officer Malcolm Nance offered an interesting tweet:

How did Kushner know Russian Embassy HAD A SECURE COMMS CHANNEL hidden from US Intel? Perhaps Flynn, exDirector of DIA, told him our limits?

I had raised a similar question in an earlier post. Somehow Flynn and Kushner knew that this channel was beyond the reach of the NSA.

But...wait. Was it?

Remember when the first stories broke about Flynn and Kislyak? At first, we were told that Flynn must have called an unsecured line. National Review pointedly asked to see the transcripts, which never arrived.

Let’s end the intrigue and go to the tape. As late as Tuesday, General Flynn was still denying what is being widely reported as settled fact, namely, that he spoke with the Russian ambassador specifically about “sanctions” imposed by President Obama. Since Flynn knows there is a recording of the conversation, it is a strange thing for him to deny. So is he telling the truth? Let’s find out.

Although I don't often agree with the National Review, the truth is that I'd like to hear that conversation myself.

Newsweek's Kurt Eichenwald then offered a long report on the legalities of the NSA's interception, confirming that the Flynn did in fact discuss sanctions, despite his denials. Eichenwald notes that Flynn's name would have been routinely redacted if the conversation was a mere exchange of pleasantries, but that the discussion of sanctions put everything on a different level.

The question is: Was the former DIA chief really so foolish that he did not think his calls would be intercepted? Or was he speaking on a secure line that he thought was out of the NSA's reach?

I distinctly recall reading a couple of stories which alleged that the latter scenario was true -- that Flynn believed that he was speaking on a completely secure line. Unfortunately, I can't find those stories, even after spending the better part of an hour looking for them.

(Can any of my readers help out? Or is my memory playing tricks on me again?)

Just to keep the timeline clear, the Kushner/Flynn/Kislyak meeting in Trump Tower occurred earlier, on December 1.

I've come up with an odd little theory of my own. I'm not asking you to buy this theory; just take it out for a test drive on the highways of your mind.

Maybe there was indeed a "tapp" in Trump Tower. The "tapp" could well have been perfectly legal, given Trump's many dealings with Russian mobsters. Maybe we know about the Kushner/Flynn/Kislyak meeting by way of that "tapp." Maybe the WP's sources hid the true origins of that information. The WP said that the info came from a report by Kislyak to his masters in Moscow -- but perhaps that claim is not the full truth.

Let's take things a bit further. Despite his impulsive, ill-considered tweet, Trump probably soon came to realize that he would be best-served if he does not confirm the existence of a surveillance operation directed against Trump Tower. Sure, he could whip up a frenzy of hatred against the previous administration -- but that frenzy won't extend beyond his shrinking fan base. The larger public will understand that the FBI, not Obama, would have initiated a surveillance operation, and would have done so only with the approval of a court.

Besides, Obama is no longer a relevant factor in American politics. Trump is relevant. And the Russiagate investigators would all know that those recordings exist. The "tapp" transcripts could be subpoenaed.

It would be Watergate all over again.

For the same reason, Trump cannot confirm that he "taped" his conversations with Comey. (That was another impulsive tweet which hurt Trump much more than it helped.) I'm quite sure that Trump records many of his meetings.

The threat. As noted above, the scandalous Flynn/Kislyak conversations were about lifting Obama's sanctions against Russia. In part, those sanctions involved two Russian compounds, one of which was here in Maryland. Business Insider reports that Trump, upon taking office, was willing to lift the sanctions without receiving anything in return. And now he is indeed giving those two compounds back to the Russians.

Here's the part of the story which you probably don't know: When Trump returned those compounds, he acted under threat. On May 22, the Russian Embassy offered this tweet:

Russia is seeking to return its diplomatic property in #US asap.
Otherwise, we will have to take counter measures https://sptnkne.ws/e28K

I presume that the writer meant "Russia is seeking to return to its diplomatic property..." I also presume that the photo depicts the inside of a meeting hall within one of the two compounds: Note the English and Cyrillic writing.

Sputnik published a more extended version of this threat.

"The Russian side did not deliberately take retaliatory measures, realizing that the US actions were dictated by the petty desire of the Obama administration to slam the door louder before leaving the political arena and lay another mine under the already shattered foundation of bilateral relations so that it ricochets to the newly elected US authorities," he said.

"We hope that we will be able to resolve the situation in a constructive way," Gonchar stated. "Otherwise, we will have to take counter measures against American diplomatic property in Russia, according to the principle of reciprocity. The US side has been notifies about what the measures could be, but it was not our choice."

Trump, in doing as commanded, once more demonstrates that he is Putin's bitch.

Vladimir, let me tell you something about artists...

You've probably heard Putin's belated semi-confession that Russians may have been involved in  hacking our election:

Hackers, he said, “are like artists” who choose their targets depending how they feel “when they wake up in the morning.” Any such attacks, he added, could not alter the result of elections in Europe, America or elsewhere.

Artists, he said, paint if they wake up feeling in good spirits while hackers respond if “they wake up and read that something is going on in interstate relations” that prompts them to take action. “If they are patriotically minded, they start making their contributions — which are right, from their point of view — to the fight against those who say bad things about Russia,” Mr. Putin added, apparently referring to Hillary Clinton.

Wrong metaphor, Vladimir Satanovich.

I used to paint pictures for a living, and let me tell you: I did what I did (usually at the last possible moment) to pay the light bill, not because I woke up in a good mood.

Most artists are illustrators, even the ones considered "fine" artists. The vault of the Sistine Chapel was an assignment; Michelangelo wanted nothing to do with that ceiling, but the Pope had given an order, so whatcha gonna do? The Mona Lisa was a commission. As much as I love Leonardo's portrait of Ginevra Benci, I'm quite sure that the artist wanted to paint it even less than that surly teenaged girl wanted to sit for it. Caravaggio enjoyed drinking, fighting and whoring more than he liked to paint.

Even the artists who don't have patrons or take commissions tend to glom onto subjects or techniques that sell. The marketplace can be the cruelest boss of all. Art for art's sake is rarer than most people think, especially when the artist works on a grand scale.

The manipulation of an American election was an "artwork" on the grandest scale imaginable. And we all know who ordered it up.

Where was Donald Trump on December 1 and 2, 2016?

After re-reading the previous post (which I hope you will check out), a should-have-been-obvious question popped into my head: Where was Donald Trump?

We know that Kushner and Flynn met with Kislyak in Trump Tower on December 1 or 2, 2016. But neither Kushner nor Flynn lived there. The epochal WP report of the meeting does not specify that Kushner and Flynn were the only Americans present. Was Trump present?

December 1 was the date when Trump kicked off his weird "victory rally" tour. Remember that? He began the day in Indiana and then spoke in Ohio. However, it is well-known that he likes to sleep in his own bed even if he has spent the day in other states.

The imprecise date ("December 1 or 2") of the Kislyak meeting suggests that it may have taken place around midnight. Kushner owns buildings of his own, yet the meeting took place in Trump Tower. If the meeting took place within Trump's residence, it seems likely that someone would have had to let the three men inside. In other words, Trump and/or Melania would be, at the very least, important witnesses.

If the meeting took place elsewhere in the building -- where? Paul Manafort lives in Trump Tower. Many crooks and "colorful" characters have addresses in Trump Tower. In the past, the FBI has conducted surveillance on those colorful characters -- legally. 

Where exactly did the meeting take place, and who was present? This information must have been included in Kislyak's after-action report -- the one that was intercepted. There's a reason why the information is being kept from us.

Elsewhere: The FBI has declared Nigel Farage a "person of interest."

Sources who spoke to the Guardian said it was Farage’s proximity to people at the heart of the investigation that was being examined as an element in their broader inquiry into how Russia may have worked with Trump campaign officials to influence the US election.

“One of the things the intelligence investigators have been looking at is points of contact and persons involved,” one source said. “If you triangulate Russia, WikiLeaks, Assange and Trump associates the person who comes up with the most hits is Nigel Farage.

Ah. I can guess where this is going...

The source mentioned Farage’s links with Roger Stone, Trump’s long-time political adviser who has admitted being in contact with Guccifer 2.0, a hacker whom US intelligence agencies believe to be a Kremlin agent.

There he is. The FBI doesn't want Nigel; they want Roger.

This kind of investigation will continue for only a brief while, because Trump will nominate a new FBI head soon. Now is the time for the Bureau to gather evidence -- and then to make sure that  Mueller and the intelligence committees get what they need.

Did Flynn flip?

Although it has one big problem, the Keith Olbermann video embedded above is worth watching. Olbermann addresses a question that a number of people are asking: Is Michael Flynn already blabbing -- privately -- to the Justice Department?

Here's the one big problem: Olbermann misunderstands one key aspect of the WP's bombshell story about the Kushner's "backchannel" meeting with Kislyak at Trump Tower. There is no need to presume that a foreign nation provided the intercept of Kislyak's communication with his bosses back home. I'm pretty sure that the NSA did that job -- after all, spying on Russians (talking to other Russians) is what the NSA is supposed to do.

We know from earlier reports that the Russians believed that their communication system was absolutely secure. It wasn't: No Such Agency was listening in the whole time.

That said, I think that Olbermann raises a good point: The WP might not have gone with this story unless they had confirmation. Who could have given them that confirmation? Michael Flynn was the only other American present -- that we know of.

It's worth noting that, when this WP story broke, Team Trump made no serious attempt to claim "It's all a lie." Since the WP's only source is an intercepted communication from Kislyak to Moscow -- a communication which has never been published -- it should have been pretty easy for the White House to claim: "Fake News! Jared would never do a think like that."

Tellingly, the White House has made no such claim. From the start, they stipulated the reality of the WP's report, although they claimed (unpersuasively) that the backchannel was instituted for benign purposes.

It makes a lot of sense to presume that Flynn has quietly confirmed -- either to the FBI or to some other investigator -- that the Kushner/Kislyak interaction occurred.

Here's an interesting point from the WP's timeline:

Trump transition team members warn Flynn that his communications with Kislyak will be monitored by American intelligence agencies. To impress upon Flynn the risks of cozying up to the Russian ambassador, the team requests a dossier on Kislyak to share with Flynn. It’s now known if he ever read it.

(That last sentence should probably read "It's not known...") For a few more details, let's look at this WP story from May 5:

Flynn was told during a late November meeting that Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak’s conversations were almost certainly being monitored by U.S. intelligence agencies, officials said, a caution that came a month before Flynn was recorded discussing U.S. sanctions against Russia with Kislyak, suggesting that the Trump administration would reevaluate the issue.

That was November. Yet Flynn attended the Kushner/Kislyak meeting in Trump Tower early in December, and kept in touch with the Russian ambassador throughout the month. Flynn must have known that Kislyak would talk with Moscow.

What the hell got into Flynn? He was warned in November: "They're eavesdropping on the Russian ambassador." But that didn't stop him from talking to the Russian ambassador. Why?

I can come up with a couple of answers:

1. Flynn may have had reason to believe that the Russians had devised a communication system which the NSA could not crack. Perhaps when he was head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, someone told him that Russian encryption was ironclad and impenetrable. Perhaps that was true...at the time.

2. Flynn may have presumed that Trump's takeover of the government would insure his safety.

Those two guesses are the best I can come up with right now. You may have ideas of your own; I'd like to hear them. It's fair to presume that there's a big part of this story which we don't yet know.

As you may have guessed, Louise Mensch has taken the "flipping Flynn" story further than anyone else...

Multiple sources with links to the intelligence and law enforcement communities say that Lt. Gen Mike Flynn has turned on Donald Trump, and has already had at least one lengthy interview with the FBI.

General Flynn has not been offered a deal as of yet, these sources say. They indicate that as of this writing Flynn has not been arrested. He would likely be offered a chance to surrender himself, sources report, when that time comes.

Sources with links to the Justice Department indicate that General Flynn has already been indicted. On Twitter, Claude Taylor exclusively reported on May 14th that an indictment against Flynn had been returned by a Grand Jury and that this indictment was sealed. I can further report that Flynn’s indictment is thought to be for his failure to register under FARA, the Foreign Agents’ Registration Act, for his lobbying for Turkey.

A freakin' indictment? Right. I'll believe that when I see evidence. (Why no indictment of Jared for lying on his security forms?) At the moment, the "Flynn flipped" claim seems more persuasive, although proof remains lacking.

For what it's worth, here's another interesting aspect of Mensch's story...

Separate sources with links to the intelligence community confirm our earlier reporting on how Mike Flynn co-ordinated Russia’s propaganda attack on the West on behalf of Trump, giving advice across Europe to far-right parties linked to the Russian state. These include, but are not limited to, UKIP, Marine Le Pen in France and a far-right party in Austria. Flynn regarded himself as a partisan of the Russian state, and his assistance in Russia’s messaging was not limited to hacking the American election, but in trying to boost Nazi ideology and Putin allies right across Europe.

Very intriguing. A lot of people would be outraged by the suggestion that a former DIA head has been converted to neo-Fascism, but I find the idea credible. Mensch's allegation -- though unproven -- ties in with an important point raised by Hillary Clinton in her recent Q&A session.

"The Russians in my opinion could not have known how best to weaponize that information unless they had been guided by Americans."

Mensch believes that Flynn was the one offering guidance. However, more evidence suggests that Kushner was the guide. From an important Forbes piece from last November:

Kushner's crew was able to tap into the Republican National Committee's data machine, and it hired targeting partners like Cambridge Analytica to map voter universes and identify which parts of the Trump platform mattered most: trade, immigration or change. Tools like Deep Root drove the scaled-back TV ad spending by identifying shows popular with specific voter blocks in specific regions--say, NCIS for anti-ObamaCare voters or The Walking Dead for people worried about immigration. Kushner built a custom geo-location tool that plotted the location density of about 20 voter types over a live Google Maps interface.

A week ago, Kos diarist Frank Vyan Walton offered a follow-up:

It seems now that the FEC is going to be looking into whether these tactics weren’t just used by the Trump campaign itself, but whether they’re micro-targeting was mimicked by Russia in their push to get as much fake-news and anti-Clinton propaganda as possible — including sabotaging Bernie Facebook pages — creating an echo effect with the campaigns own efforts, and vice versa.

All of this is even more critical if Kushner was among one of the person in the Trump campaign that former CIA director John Brennan testified today that might have been “coordinating and colluding with the Russians” according to the intel he had received.

“I’m aware of information and intelligence that revealed contacts and interactions between officials and U.S. persons involved in the Trump campaign that I was concerned about because of known Russian efforts on such individuals,” Brennan told members of the House Intelligence Committee.

“And it raised questions in my mind whether or not the Russians were able to gain the cooperation of those individuals,” he added. “I don’t know whether or not such collusion existed. I don’t know. But I know there was a sufficient basis of information to require investigation by the [FBI] to determine whether or not U.S. persons were actively conspiring, colluding with Russian officials.”

It’s seem likely that he’s speaking here of Flynn and Page who clearly have a history of Russia attempting to influence them. Other possibilities are Manafort, Stone, Cohen, Horton and Sater. The inclusion of Kushner, who did join one of the clandestine meetings with Kislyak along with Flynn and has since been named a “person of interest” in the investigation would be very, very serious because of his involvement with Cambridge Analytics.

The meeting at Trump Tower suggests that Flynn and Kislyak were working together quite closely.

Sometimes I think that I'm the only person on the east coast who hasn't yet met Sergei Kislyak. Should I invite him to my birthday party?