One of the strange side effects of being Reddit's Foremost Authority on Everything was that strange and wonderful people popped out of the woodwork. A biowar expert went to lunch with me because he thought I might know something about how his uncle died. A guy I met through Reddit Travel Jet Blue ended up interrogating extraordinarily rendered Afghans on Diego Garcia. A guy popped up and made exactly one comment, exactly once, to contradict my quote of Trevor Paglen on the prospective number of classified aircraft as implied by the heraldry. And a dude once approached me to discuss his experience as a security guard at Yodefat. Walk with me. Pretend you're Mohammed Bin Salman, recent conquerer of Saudi politics. You've let the CIA know you run this town by chopping one of their operatives up in to little bits. You're attempting to drag your nation out of the stone age And petroleum experts have been calling your peak oil since 1998. You're trying to take Saudi Aramco public, but it's just not quite worth what you're pushing it to be worth. The whole universe is shaping up into a post-oil economy. Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum You're a forward-thinking traditionalist, a patriot but not a nationalist, an idealist but not a dreamer, and the last time a Muslim nation attempted to build a reactor, it went poorly. But lo and behold, circumstance and kismet align to drop a peach in your lap. A reminder - Jared comes from criminal stock. And family loyalty doesn't count for shit in his universe. Let's not discount Jared Kushner's one questionable accomplishment - the Abraham Accords. He was tasked with "solving the middle east" and by damn under his watch, a plane actually flew from Riyadh to Tel Aviv. And then somehow? Six months after Trump leaves office? Bin Salman gives him two.billion.dollars. I don't know if there are juicier nuclear secrets in the world than a clear-eyed assessment of the Israeli nuclear program. They're rumored to have around 80 warheads but officially? They got none. If I'm Mohammed bin Salman, and I've got one chance to get a clear assessment of the nuclear capabilities of Israel, I am going to move heaven and earth to use my assets to the fullest before they expire. And if I'm Jared Kushner, I'm easily motivated by $2b, and I have no loyalty whatsoever to my country, my government or my inlaws. And if I'm Jared Kushner, I'm 100% positive I can get away with it.“My grandfather rode a camel, my father rode a camel, I drive a Mercedes, my son drives a Land Rover, his son will drive a Land Rover, but his son will ride a camel.”
The witness-tampering charge arose from Kushner's act of retaliation against William Schulder, his sister Esther's husband, who was cooperating with federal investigators against Kushner. Kushner hired a prostitute he knew to seduce his brother-in-law, arranged to record a sexual encounter between the two, and had the tape sent to his sister.
...Are you doubting the veracity of my story? But yes, obviously, that is by far the most logical explanation. Is Jared living in SaudiLand yet? Seen here, in grey - Places to spend $2 billion: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d0/United_States_extradition_treaties_countries.PNG My pick for runner up is a NoKo nuclear defense assessment. Trump just wanted the NoKo assessment docs to browse through alongside his Love Letters to Kim Jong Un. To set the mood. Who actually knows (yet at least), these people are fucking insane. OH did you see that recent interview where Kushner is like "I've been trying to exercise more, because I think technology will make me live forever". Typical technocrat dumbass shit. I wonder if Trump was complicit. Maybe someone mixed the original top secret docs in with Trump's personal effects as a frame job. Either way, all of the freelance national security people tweeting like nuts the last few days think that this leak to the WaPo last night probably came from Trump's defense and/or allies. But it also puts additional pressure on that batshit crazy district 11 judge, Cannon. Not that she'll flinch. If it turns out that the Jewish son-in-law Trumpists would point to and say "No, no, see, Trump can't be anti-semitic!" sold out Israeli state secrets... I mean, of course. Of course that's probably what happened. And if you're right? This would be one of the biggest geopolitical scandals in modern American history, no?
There are few descriptors for Trump that enemies and allies agree upon. "Incurious" is one of them. I would be surprised to learn we had much better classified intel on North Korea than is in the public record. We definitely have vastly better satellite photos. We definitely have vastly better signals intelligence. But I doubt North Korea says much over the airwaves besides propaganda, and North Korea does much of their nuclear shit underground. I also don't know who would buy it. Russia probably has a better sense of North Korean capabilities than we do, seeing as they have a vendor-client relationship. ______________________________________________________________________________________________ ...just as an aside - Russia. The former central republic of the USSR. Mighty, monolithic counterpart for 40 years of Cold War. Buying shit from Iran and North Korea. I mean... fuck your Chinese tires. North Korean artillery. Iranian drones. _________________________________________________________________________________________________ South Korea? We've got like 70 years of strategic partnership with South Korea, if we thought they needed to know something, they'd know it. Japan? Japan is so thick with the US that when Toshiba accidentally sold parts that made their way into Soviet subs they apologized. There are diplomatic channels for pretty much anyone we're on vaguely convivial terms with that are totally not worth risking. I think Trump is beyond precedent on numerous fronts. The '90s wouldn't buy the Trump era in a Jerry Bruckheimer film. When Bob Gale modeled Biff Tannen in Back to the Future III, he modeled him off of casino owner Trump because logically, that's all the man had the skill for. And then we had 30 years of grievance politics.
And if you're right? This would be one of the biggest geopolitical scandals in modern American history, no?
Well, he was reportedly most curious about gossip-like intel pertaining to world leaders and how he could use it to socially dominate them, essentially. Although this kinda thing could certainly be used as leverage to, uh, spice up his relationships, especially in the case of the autocrats he routinely worships. He may not have necessarily been trying to sell things, although that's certainly the businessman angle. He could just think having that stuff on hand is very, very cool. But I doubt it. The most interesting take I've heard is that Trump may also plan to blackmail the government by threatening to release top secret intel if DoJ chooses to prosecute. Maybe it's all of that at the same time. The idea of a former president attempting to blackmail the government of the United States out of prosecuting them is peak Trump. I absolutely knew Biff was Trump, but I didn't know I knew yet, you know? And no, Trump couldn't even run casinos without multiple bankruptcies. But at this point, especially with what Alex Jones has been doing with his assets lately, I've long since wondered if Trump was moreso "bankrupt". Watching some in the GOP continue to defend Trump is yet another new low. Most are totally mum about it. There was a TheHill.com article titled "5 GOP members critical of Trump's document handling", and every. single. one of them is out of office and not running again. Eric Trump let Hannity know that his father would NEVER throw documents on the floor haphazardly, like in the staged photo. Yes, Eric, stealing state secrets is only a crime if you leave them on the floor, and all of the drug bust paraphernalia police pose for photos with was found sitting on a table inside the police station. Must be so nice to have such a stupid, stupid base of support. Yeah, fuck Newt Gingrich. I hope the J6 investigation sweeps him up and into a jail cell. Lol yeah right.
Trump has belonged to the Russians since the early '80s. Much like staring at the hole in 9/11 long enough produces a silhouette in the shape of "Bin Laden worked for the CIA and went off-leash", staring at Trump's finances produces a clear outline of "this man's finances have been propped up by the Russian Mafiya since Trump Tower." In other words, Trump's actions are the result of negative enforcement, not positive enforcement. The best explanation for Melania is she's a red sparrow. The GOP is currently in the "who is the leader" phase of the changeover. The problem is Mitch McConnell isn't a figurehead, he's a backroom dealer. Kevin McCarthy is neither - he's a sycophant who goes where the wind blows. McConnell needs someone to work for, McCarthy needs someone to work under, Liz Cheney just said "if you strike me down I will come back more powerful than you can possibly imagine." It's safe to say that the only people left in the GOP are craven opportunists. No one wants to commit to anything until it's clear they can turn it to their advantage. The only people with any clarity right now are the brave ones, and the only ones left are really really stupid. There will come a time when they can all safely bark to the howl of a new leader but right now there's still an outside chance that Trump could come back so they're hanging in the shadows, tail tucked. The remaining task for the Democratic party (and the Republican party of the future) is how to get all the malcontents out of the way and make it stick. If you look at the past six years as a successful coup against the GOP the narrative becomes a whole lot more sensible.
Ehhh the thing that doesn't fit the Kushner theory is, unless Trump was complicit, he probably would've given the nuke stuff back when he was subpoena'd earlier this year, or even before that, in January, when they took like 15 boxes back to NARA. Someone could've made copies by then, of course. But still, there were so many other top secret documents in addition to a nuclear assessment. Unless alllllllllll of these docs pertain to the assessment, which is also possible, I guess. Seems like a huge volume of things to frame someone with. Maybe that's why DoJ has subpoena'd the Mar-a-Lago security cam footage? Thank god geopolitics is super stable at the moment. This should be fine! No but seriously I cannot believe how fucking wild this is. Hey and guess who runs district 11, where judge Cannon is currently shitting on our judicial system? Clarence Thomas. Maybe Cannon gets her nails done with Ginni Thomas every other weekend, y'know? Edit: I just realized, now that I'm better at understanding the reactionary mind; Trump probably woke up on January 7th, 2021, read through all the resignations, and thought "Wow... there's almost nobody around the White House but my most hardcore Nazibois. I wonder how many documents are in the average box, and how many boxes fit in a U-Haul". Consciously using the post-J6 chaos to steal state secrets. This guy's crimes nest like hand-carved babushkas all the way down to the sub-atomic scale. Amazing.
Have you read Mary Trump's book? There's a great scene in it in which Mary, age six or seven, sees Donald, all of twenty five years, walk into the kitchen of Fred Trump and family, open the refrigerator, grab a stick of butter and take three or four bites off of it. It doesn't mean anything. It says nothing about the man's political proclivities. But it paints a hell of a picture. The man is a careless, disinterested idiot. He spent his presidency golfing. When he was handed graphics that didn't match his narrative, he drew on them in Sharpie. I used to work in the Fisherman's Terminal. I'd go out and walk during my lunch break, have my sandwich on the pier. A nice Ethiopian guy walked up to me once and asked me if I knew the way to the merchant marine. I said I didn't. He asked me if I was in the merchant marine. I said I wasn't. Then he asked me if I liked to party, and held out a hockey puck of black tar heroin. I've never done heroin. I'll never do heroin. But every now and then I wish I had bought a fucking hockey puck of heroin because then I'd have a hockey puck of heroin. I had a jar of mercury for a while. Why? Because a friend said "I figured you'd want this" and he was right. I'd be lying if I didn't at least partly plan to hang onto the plutonium. If I had a bunch of nuclear secrets? I would go "I wonder if I could keep these just... you know, to have them. Because they're fucking cool." But I'm not a sociopath, and I know I would never ever ever ever ever get away with it, and I know that it's a completely pointless risk, and that's why I don't have a spare puck of heroin in the drawer. I don't eat butter by the stick, let alone someone else's. I doubt Trump acquired a bunch of documents on Jan 7th like an angry ex decamping her boyfriend's apartment. I think he stashed cool shit away for four years and left with all "his" stuff.
Maybe. It might explain one of the excuses he trotted out, which was "Trump had a standing order to declassify anything he took into his personal residence at the white house, and he didn't even have to tell anyone about it". But I've also heard "Well things were just so chaotic after the sixth, before he left office, that no one was able to keep track of things like classified documents". It's probably a bit of both. All I know is we, the people, deserve to know more. As much as we can without compromising state secrets or compromising geopolitical relationships. I dunno where that line will be, but we ain't up to it yet.I doubt Trump acquired a bunch of documents on Jan 7th like an angry ex decamping her boyfriend's apartment. I think he stashed cool shit away for four years and left with all "his" stuff.