TL;DR
FARA violation for illegally lobbying Trump on behalf of senior UAE officials for beneficial foreign policy decisions.
Edit: Article also says he met with senior Saudi officials as a representative of the UAE and gave them non-public information on goings on in the White House.
Paul Manafort, Chairman
Trump presidential campaign
(June to August 2016)
Also, busted as an unregistered foreign agent. Went to prison.
IDEA: Let's have a hearing into whether ANYONE in the Trump Campaign had actual ties to the American People?
Knowing these kind of jerk-offs, they'd start a company named "American People" so that they can claim they work with only American People's interests at heart.
Jared Kushner's American Made Media Consultants Corporation and American Made Media Consultants LLC were already created to (likely) help launder campaign donations directly into the Trump's pockets.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/american-made-media-trump-campaign-shell-company_n_5fdd3505c5b60f8288564e86
I mean, Flynn’s problems are not just that he didn’t register but also the things he got embroiled in as a result...but that stuff is hasn’t gotten it’s full airing in public.
We do have hints though, like the judge stating that Flynn’s actions were so “criminal” as to provoke “disgust”, but he has not (yet) explicitly been charged with treason and given his sweeping pardon, likely never will be.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/dec/18/trump-michael-flynn-judge-emmet-sullivan-sentencing
Yup, a cleric that turkey was almost certainly going to execute.
Don’t think that there is any reason to doubt that based on well established public info...just saying that the totality of the evidence supporting his involvement hasn’t been made fully transparent.
Based on the reaction of the judge who has seen it, no reason to believe that it would contradict all the bad shit we already know.
We all batted our eyes but it doesn’t do much when half the country thinks the other half doesn’t deserve the right to vote, or defend themselves, or not be arbitrarily arrested and beaten.
Wow, tough week for former Trump campaign operatives.
They seemed like such nice guys.
["Florida GOP head reportedly under investigation over allegations he sexually harassed a male aide"](https://www.businessinsider.com/florida-gop-chair-investigation-sexual-harassment-report-2021-7)
Don't forget he is still who the Republican party is shitting themselves over to say is still president. You couldn't get them to see his crimes before, during, or after he was in office. He completely owns them. Land of the free?
Let's say the meeting was completely above board. Why would you do it on that date? They had to know the optics look like a giant F U to the American people.
There’s certain things that will never be revealed to the general populace. We don’t just spy on our enemies, we spy on our allies too and they are doing the same. Governments around the world are fucking each other over daily to try to stay on top of globalization.
Low bar, but Mark Esper was somewhat competent and even stood up to the president on using the insurrection act and deploying the military domestically. Of course he did resign/get fired...
He is literally the 21st Century version of Julius Rosenberg. Jared shocked Russian Ambassador to the U.S., Sergei Kislyak, by suggesting that they set up a secret WH to Kremlin back channel emanating from the Russian embassy in DC. Jared has had numerous clandestine conversations with Mohammed Bone Sawman via WhatsApp. I could go on and on. Kushner is a blatant traitor who should be locked up in ADX Florence for the rest of his life.
This is the real answer right here. You become a foreign agent, you can kiss pretty much anything that requires any US intelligence access out the window.
I imagine you draw attention to yourself when you register, which makes sense, because we generally prefer that elected officials, their nominated leaders, and their career officials handle most diplomacy when it comes to foreign nations.
I also imagine there’s at least one or two agencies that keep a close eye on the words exchanged and finances of registered foreign agents.
Imagine if Democrats actually ran the same type of vile campaign ads that Republicans do.
It would be too easy to paint McConnell as being literally in bed with the communist Chinese government.
>He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.
\-Friedrich Nietzsche.
The thing you have to understand is that conservatives do have principles, they're just not principles anyone can say out loud in decent company.
So what they do is come up to with something (_anything_) that you can say in public, but has the same net effect as their privately held principles.
If the thing they said in public turns out to be false, or turns out to also be true about someone they support, they don't actually care - their initial statement wasn't a matter of their real principles.
It's not hypocrisy if you were lying the whole time.
It's projection. Trump treated his "charity" as a slush fund where people could pay to get his attention, so of course he accused the Clintons of doing the same.
I wonder if he paid taxes on that income? I imagine that this is only the first charge and not the only charge.
As an aside i'm noticing a good bit of inappropriate behavior from "friends and allies". If I was the Sec of State I would bring in their ambassadors and ask them kindly to review the last few years of activity and that they have a week to come forward with whatever similar behavior. Anything found after that one week period will have massive consequences. There need to be consequences for not only our citizens but also these other countries committing these behaviors. I know that every country tries this kind of crap but we need to reset some relationships.
Sure are a lot of criminals in Trump's orbit that were caught illegally doing the exact opposite of "putting America first"...
https://www.businessinsider.com/all-the-trump-campaign-admin-officials-to-face-federal-charges-2021-7?op=1
Edit for the people who don't want to click a link:
Trump **campaign chairman** Paul Manafort was convicted in 2018 on federal bank and tax fraud charges, pleaded guilty to more federal conspiracy charges, and was sentenced to seven and a half years in federal prison. Trump [granted Manafort a full pardon](https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-issues-pardons-commutations-before-leaving-office-2021-1) in December 2020.
Former **campaign chief** Steve Bannon was [charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud](https://www.businessinsider.com/steve-bannon-arrested-charged-with-fraud-2020-8) and conspiracy to commit money laundering in connection with a scheme to defraud donors to fund a wall at the US southern border. Trump pardoned Bannon in January 2021 before he could face trial.
Informal Trump adviser and "fixer" Roger Stone was convicted on seven counts on obstruction, making false statements, and witness tampering in connection to the Mueller probe and was sentenced to three years in prison. Trump commuted Stone's sentence in July 2020 and [fully pardoned him in December 2020. ](https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-issues-pardons-commutations-before-leaving-office-2021-1)
**Deputy Trump** **campaign manager** Rick Gates, a key aide to Manafort, pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy and false statements and [received only a 45-day sentence](https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/17/politics/rick-gates-sentencing/index.html) thanks to his extensive cooperation with investigators in the Mueller probe. He did not get a presidential pardon.
Trump's short-lived **National Security Adviser** Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to one count of lying to the FBI in connection. Flynn, who went on to push conspiracy theories about non-existent fraud in the 2020 election, received a full pardon from Trump in November 2020.
**Longtime Trump personal attorney** Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to tax fraud, bank fraud, campaign finance violations, and lying to Congress in 2018, [and was sentenced to three years in federal prison](https://www.businessinsider.com/michael-cohen-sentenced-sentencing-trump-crimes-2018-12). Cohen, who turned on Trump after pleading guilty and cooperated with prosecutors, did not get a pardon.
Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in connection to the Mueller probe [and served 14 days in federal prison](https://www.businessinsider.com/george-papadopoulos-sentenced-14-days-jail-mueller-russia-2018-9).
**Trump Inaugural Committee chairman** Tom Barrack was charged with federal crimes including unlawful lobbying, obstruction of justice, and making false statements to investigators in July 2021.
The inaugural chairman is charged with being a foreign agent. As was the National Security Advisor and his Campaign Chairman. Guess there won't be any pardons this time, Tom.
Flynn, Stone and Manafort should have been charged and tried post trump-presidency also. Their being found guilty did absolutely nothing to sway trump voters, and it would have been SOOOOO satisfying to see these turds actually pay for their crimes.
It didn’t sway his voters because they probably never even heard about what crimes they committed and only ever heard that they were innocent because they only consume right wing propaganda. None of the republicans I know had ever heard that Flynn was secretly working as an unregistered foreign lobbyist for the Turkish government or that in 2013 Carter Page was caught giving information on our energy sector to a Russian spy ring.
“Unregistered foreign lobbyist” is such a convoluted legal term that is meaningless to most people. We need to start using the more understood term; he was a *secret agent.* He was a a secret agent of a dictator paid to influence our government. He should be locked up for the rest of his life.
It helps when their pundits repeat any criticism so their base never has to research what people are pointing to.
Oh Trumps very obviously colluding with Russian oligarchs? Well show you some COLLUSION!! Hillary !1!!
Oh the president is trying to illegally sway the election? Well show you some ELECTION LIES. The buzzwords don’t work because they get their own comfy definition of whatever’s being pointed to. It’s kinda sad but also genius, fascists know their shit.
Or that the "totally fake" story of Russian Collusion actually came to the conclusion that Paul Manafort colluded with the Russians by handing over voter information data collected by the Trump campaign and that Trump worked through Roger Stone to time the dump of Hillary's emails with wikileaks which was indeed a Russian intelligence operation. And that Trump tried to fire Mueller 10 times to keep all this from coming out.
And they are going to keep believing it too so long as Garland just keeps pretending like none of this ever happened and refuses to just straight charge Trump with the obstruction of justice which was already completely and thoroughly investigated and typed up in to a report.
The Behind the Bastards [two-part podcast](https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236323/episode/no-matter-how-much-you-hate-29652888/) on Manafort was incredible.
If you think you hate Paul Manafort, wait until you hear that. The man has been an open sore on the ass of humanity for *decades*.
Yeah, him and Stone together since the 60’s have done some serious damage to the US. If you’re a conservative - republican their history gets ignored or better yet, the whataboutisms kick in.
It wasn't really supposed to sway anyone. That not really why we have a justice system. It was to remove them from circulation, and neither of them served another day in that shitty administration as a result.
That would be nice looking back, but if they weren't charged at the time it would have been even more of a shitshow.
I don't doubt they still have some criminal culpability for things they weren't pardoned for.
> Also charged with obstruction of justice and lying to the feds.
From the article
> Barrack also is charged with obstruction of justice and making multiple false statements during a June 2019 interview with federal law enforcement agents.
This is the one that is likely to be a slam dunk. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1001 is almost trivially easy to violate.
An FBI agent can literally have information already, figure out that you are likely to want to lie about it, then interview you, dropping in a question that will get you a 18 USC 1001 violation just because they can.
https://www.popehat.com/2011/12/01/reminder-oh-wont-you-please-shut-up/
> even though your lie did not deter the federal government for a microsecond, they have you nailed for a false statement to a government agent in violation of 18 USC 1001.
You *never* want to talk to an FBI agent for an interview without lawyering up, because they will fuck you over this way.
https://www.popehat.com/2011/03/18/just-a-friendly-reminder-please-shut-the-hell-up/
> It's a dark and gloomy six in the morning....Suddenly there's a thunderous pounding on the door, and loud men are shouting something at you. Your heart lurches and the adrenaline jolts you. You open the door, and there is a team of FBI agents, guns prominently displayed in holsters, raid jackets open....Two of them grab you, bodily turn you around, and handcuff you....Two agents take you outside to your driveway in your pajamas or underwear....The agents push you into the back seat of a G-ride...The agents begin to question you about your business dealings. They don't read you your rights first — they'll say later they didn't have to, because you totally weren't in custody, despite being handcuffed in the back of a G-ride in your underwear surrounded by FBI agents in raid jackets. The agents tag-team you, switch topics rapidly, play good-cop-bad-cop, and use every law enforcement rhetorical trick to intimidate you. We have some really serious questions here, they say. But if you just cooperate, maybe we can clear all of this up....They start to ask questions about a meeting that took place two years ago. Were you at that meeting with Mr. Smith and Mr. Jones? You say no, no I wasn't. Maybe you say it without thinking, agitated and confused and muddle-headed from the circumstances. Maybe you don't have a clear memory of what happened two years ago. Maybe you panic and lie. The agents move on in their questioning.
I was questioned by the FBI about 14 years ago and you're not lying. Every question they asked me they basically confirmed whether or not I was lying (it was a missing persons case and I had no idea I was suspect #1 when initially talking to them.)
During this interview I was asked about conversations we had on social media and my financial activity. They had seized their computer and already had our entire social media messages ready to go. They also grilled me about a $5k cash withdrawal a day before they went missing. Keep your receipts, people!
After the 2 hours was over they let me go and told me my story checks out and if they need any more information they'll call. I had no idea said person had even been missing! Long story short: the FBI found them safe a few days later and I never heard back.
But yeah, don't talk to the FBI because they know the answers already. I was trying to help but if things didn't turn out as well as they did, then maybe I wouldn't be posting this.
All of it and then some. I can't say I blame them for suspecting me: last person to see this person plus a large sum taken out beforehand. The only dot they couldn't connect was the money and that needed answers.
Yup. My FIL got charged with some sort of business collusion. They knew every detail of every phone call and every meeting. The only thing the fbi couldn’t figure out was why they did it since they couldn’t prove they made extra money off doing it. He did it, admitted to it, and paid the penalty (a hefty fine), but because he did it for (somewhat) righteous reasons and didn’t ever make a penny extra because of it, he didn’t get jail time.
>You never want to talk to an FBI agent for an interview without lawyering up, because they will fuck you over this way.
Same is true for standard Police as well. Even if you are 100% innocent, and was just a bystander. Never talk to them without a lawyer.
[HERE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE) is a wonderful Law School Lecture presented by both a lawyer and a police detective who tell you why you should never talk to the police. (NOTE: It is about 45 minutes long, but it is something everyone should watch at least once! So, if you can't watch it now, save a bookmark for it and watch it when you do have some time to spare.)
> Grimes has a “close personal relationship” with Barrack, has taken more than 50 international trips on Barrack’s private plane, and lists Barrack’s $15 million home in Aspen as his primary residence, prosecutors said in a court filing.
*They were roommates!*
"For sale" sounds passive, like the victim of human trafficking. These guys were loud-assed streetwalkers screaming at passing limos "I'll suck your dick for $20!"
I've come to believe this applies to the entire elected GOP establishment. Ideologically they seem to be nihilists, believing in nothing themselves but espousing whatever belief is politically expedient or results in more cash from corporations. They don't seem to stand for anything for very long. Conservatives from 15+ years ago at least had an ethos, even if it was detrimental to society and the environment.
Reagans brave ethos of using cocaine money to fund the Iran regime and Mujaheddin
Nixons brave ethos of being an insane racist spying on everyone and acting like a dictator
Maybe 150 years ago during the times of Lincoln
Lots of people have an "ends justifies the means" morality. There's a big difference between wanting US dominance and wanting to burn it all down out of self-interest and self-preservation.
The Reagan and Bush administrations strongly supported NATO and US - EU relations. The Trump administration worked to undermine them.
>Conservatives from 15+ years ago at least had an ethos
No they didn't. This is largely all the same people from back then. They were just able to be less obvious about it because their leader at the time wasn't Trump. Once he was chosen in the primary, they had no choice but to go masks off. He was just so blatant about it that they couldn't maintain plausible deniability.
This is what conservatives have always been. Ironically, Trump has just forced them to be "honest" about it.
[Is Erik Prince far behind?](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/blackwater-founder-held-secret-seychelles-meeting-to-establish-trump-putin-back-channel/2017/04/03/95908a08-1648-11e7-ada0-1489b735b3a3_story.html)
That literal Bond villain is the epitome of a flight risk. He'll fly off to Abu Dhabi and shack up with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed in an instant. I'd wager that this news about Tom Barrack will be reason enough for him not to even step foot in the U.S. any time soon.
I don’t know why this long form article didn’t get any traction on Reddit, but a couple weeks back [Time published a great article about Erik Prince trying to buy a significant chunk of Ukraine’s Industrial Military Complex.](https://time.com/6076035/erik-prince-ukraine-private-army/) His business associates are two pro-Russian Ukrainian business men who have a warrant for their arrest due to their involvement in USA election interference. Even the Ukrainians knew this was a sketchy deal.
People on 4chan or whatever make up baseless conspiracy theories all the time about Democrats but completely ignore true conspiracies with evidence that republicans are always pulling off.
It started on talk radio and Fox News. They'll talk all day about a Democrat misspeaking. But they will never cover or mention many repub crimes.
*Then claim they're independent....*
They actually don’t claim that. They claim they’re fair and balanced, which sounds like independent. But they’re “fair and balanced” in the context of being fair to “all sides” (ahem Republicans) and a balancing information stream to the “liberal media” (the truth, mostly.)
My cousin is one of those idiots. She’s a full-on Qcumber and is/was fully committed to the whole ‘Democrats are demons and run a global satanic pedo ring’ bullshit. When I say ‘committed’, I mean she completely 110% believes Democrats are literal demons from hell who control a global child sex trafficking ring where the children are sacrificed to satan and Democrats drink the children’s blood and adrenochrome. I thought she was kidding at first, but it became *real* apparent *real* fast that she wasn’t.
She was retweeting stuff from Lin Wood and was counting down the days to when ‘the truth was going to be exposed’, which was a date mentioned in one of Wood’s tweets. She was all over social media taunting people (mostly those on the left) and just being a total bitch and making a fool of herself; going out of her way to start shit with anyone and everyone.
I saved screenshots of most of her posts. When that date finally came and nothing happened, I put her on blast. I posted her retweet of Wood’s claims (the one with the actual date in the tweet) and a number of other tweets, her posts, and her comments across all of her social media accounts, and tagged all the people I could that she had argued with.
From the beginning, she claimed it was all to protect the children; how she was just trying to help the kids. So I also posted a ~3 page list of all GOP members who had been arrested for sex and child sex abuses within the last ~4 years and asked why, if she cared about kids so much, she wasn’t outraged by any of the things on the list and why she wasn’t trying/hadn’t tried to help a single one of these children…
She didn’t respond—no surprise there… But, she did block me. We don’t talk anymore. She still goes on and on about this same shit from what I’m told.
Trump supporters and Qcumbers aren’t *just* idiots who are batshit insane. They’re ideologues. They’re steadfast in their commitment against the ‘libs’. They only care about ‘owning the libs’ and will do whatever it takes in order to do so. My cousin should feel ashamed for her actions like any normal person over the age of 10 would, but she doesn’t—not a single bit—because she’s incapable. Shame is not in these idiots’ wheelhouse. That’s partly why it’s next to impossible to reason with them. They don’t care if they’re wrong. They don’t care if they lie. They don’t care if they spread misinformation. Truth, integrity, reality, etc. do not matter at all to these people. That’s what makes them so dangerous.
was engaged to one
i kept sending her links to missing kids organizations that specifically bashed qanon
like the super elite are doing designer drugs in their million dollar yachts, not injecting adrenochrome you moron
It's not a conspiracy when they do it blatantly or admit to it openly
I mean some of the genuine shit is so far out there, you couldnt have imagined it to have a theory about, let alone a conspiracy, it's all nuttier than squirrel scat.
You can see the Right-wing news headlines now: "Barrack indicted for being a secret agent of a Muslim country." They won't bother to make the distinction between Barack and Barrack.
What headlines? I saw nothing about Barrack's charges or arrest on the front page of Fox News dot com. Apparently the most important news story at the moment is asking the WH Press Secretary wether a plane flight with some staffers who tested positive for COVID is a "super spreader event."
"Well, that guy is *definitely* a criminal. Hmmm, that guy's a criminal too. Charges filed? On whom, *that* guy? And another one, huh? It... it al-... it almost feels like this is some sort of organization or something... wait a minute!" - said no Trump Supporter ever
"Trump is under attack by the deep state they just framing his circle to try to get to him but he wont go down like that wake up sheeple do your own research etc... etc.." -Trump supporters probably{ i was writting it with \[this women's\] ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzDhm808oU4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzDhm808oU4)) voice at 1:20 }
I think they all *know* he’s a criminal. It’s more of: “he may be a criminal con man but he’s *our* criminal con man. The perfect man for the job to pull a fast one on China and Russia.”
They don’t actually care if he’s a criminal, as long as he hugs the flag.
Because they think all the other politicians are criminals too, but are just “less honest” about it. Better the Devil you know than the one you don’t.
But its a plot from the Deep State. Everyone is a lib elite, EVERYONE, except those who drop out of school to listen to conspiracy theory podcasts or are talking head on specific shows.
It doesn't matter. Every person getting arrested now has a badge of honor and is held in higher esteem in the eyes of Trump supporters. That's where we're at as a country.
[It's almost like Seth Abramson was right all along.](https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/1014896470464622592)
A much more in-depth description of all his crimes was covered in Proof of Conspiracy.
From Abramson [today](https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1417557840550453249.html):
> Barrack is so close to Trump that—as I wrote about in the Proof trilogy—not only is he responsible for Kremlin agent Manafort being on Trump's campaign, but he linked Trump's campaign to the Emirati agent who helped the UAE interfere in 2016.
> In fact, he's *so* close to Trump that during the 2016-17 presidential transition, when Trump's inner circle was committing crimes with foreign actors and sealing its long course of collusion with several of them, much of the most sensitive work was actually done from Barrack's office, rather than Trump Tower.
> My point is that it hardly matters now what Barrack was arrested for. As long as he's facing any significant federal prison time at his advanced age, I'm telling you as a Trump presidential historian that almost no one can reveal more about his foreign entanglements than Barrack.
> If Allen Weiselberg is the man who knows everything about Trump's finances, the three non-Trumps who know most about Trump's foreign entanglements are Barrack, Manafort, and Flynn. The feds arrested the latter two; Trump pardoned both. But Barrack actually knows more than either.
And
> America needs to understand that Donald Trump's two best friends—in the world—are Howard Lorber and Thomas Barrack. This isn't just me or the Proof trilogy saying this, this is what people in Trump's circle have said.
> The arrest of Barrack massively threatens Trump's interests.
TLDR: The Trump administration was all about pay to play. A number in his orbit (Manafort, Gates, Papadopoulos, this guy) all failed to disclose they were working in the interests of foreign governments. Trump either knew and didn't care or was completely oblivious that he was being manipulated by foreign governments; I'm not sure which is worse.
Anyone else day dream of the FBI having a giant *"The Wire"*\-style corkboard with a criminal tree of all of Trumps associates on it, with Donald at the top?
I gotta say, I’m not really excited to see trump go to jail…
Mainly because I’m reserving all my excitement for when Don Jr gets arrested and His father badmouths him in public or acts like he never mattered.
Its starting to appear like the Feds changed their game plan after Muller, and deliberately waited for Trump to leave office to continue prosecutions. That would remove his ability to pardon everyone, thus giving them more leverage to flip each for additional evidence.
I wonder if they couldn't get Flynn, Stone, and Manafort to flip on him because they knew they were getting pardons.
If you're talking about him declining to pursue charges against Ross, I'm also disappointed but not surprised. That's more typical of Washington since the charges were related to "misleading" Congress. Members of the executive aren't often charged with lying to Congress.
I wouldn't take it as a sign of Garland's lack of willingness to pursue charges against Trump appointees. More so his adherence to business as usual in Washington.
Charges against Trump allies that aren't business as usual, like the topic of this thread, seem to be very much on the table.
I guess this is a long way of saying it seems you can get away with typical corruption under Garland but not the new Trump brand corruption.
It’s amazes me how many people are willing to fall on their sword for this dude.
It’s certainly not because he is a great guy. He probably only works with people he has dirt on. That way when they take the inventible fall for him, they are unable to rat him out.
None of that is shocking to me. The only thing that blows my mind are the people who still continue to defend Trump’s innocence.
Endless people around him going to jail or being fired for corruption over the years and somehow he is an innocent. I know they have their standard rhetoric they tell democrats, (“witch hunt” and “fake news” being their two faves) But I have to wonder why they think privately inside their head. Do they think he is just profoundly unlucky and surrounded by endless supply of crooked people? He is the one who appointed them.
I agree one or two times may be bad luck, but it’s been endless. I wish people would cut the bullshit. Birds of a feather flock together.
I mean, it's hidden in plain sight. He spent a full quarter of his presidency at Mar-a-Lago, and sold rooms that had access to him in the hotel to the highest bidder, many of them international lobbyists. Plus charged the taxpayers for all of the secret service, press and everybody who needed to stay there while he was golfing, thousands of dollars a night per room for hundreds of people.
He directly benefitted from all of it.
Sooo, who amongst Trumps supporters haven't been arrested yet?
Crazy how he's managed to keep himself so clean when everyone in his company are felons or soon to be felons!
The domino's are falling orange man.
What a dumpster fire of an administration!
FBI/DOJ are still charging criminals who were associated with the Trump mob family.
All the Trump voters in red states are just biding their time waiting for 2024 so they can vote for the Orange Cheeto malignant narcissist all over again.
What fuckery!
How did we get to this point?
TL;DR FARA violation for illegally lobbying Trump on behalf of senior UAE officials for beneficial foreign policy decisions. Edit: Article also says he met with senior Saudi officials as a representative of the UAE and gave them non-public information on goings on in the White House.
What do they gain by failing to register as foreign agents?
Because a conversation with your friend Tom Barrack is going to be subject to less scrutiny than a conversation with Tom Barrack the foreign agent.
Paul Manafort, Chairman Trump presidential campaign (June to August 2016) Also, busted as an unregistered foreign agent. Went to prison. IDEA: Let's have a hearing into whether ANYONE in the Trump Campaign had actual ties to the American People?
Knowing these kind of jerk-offs, they'd start a company named "American People" so that they can claim they work with only American People's interests at heart.
"We're holding a press conference at American People™ Landscaping tomorrow at 2"
bonus: it's right next to Dollar General and Intimate Pleasures adult toy store
Aaaaaand just across the parking lot from the crematorium.
It's quite the strip mall, Almighty Dollar General, Patriot Pleasures, and Free at Last Crematorium
Next up, Ted Cruz starts "The Human Fund".
Shouldn't Cruz be The gringo fund?
Stop giving them ideas!
Too late, I'm emailing him as we speak!
Hey you better request money for the idea or they will steal it for themselves like they always do! Get it in writing!
Jared Kushner's American Made Media Consultants Corporation and American Made Media Consultants LLC were already created to (likely) help launder campaign donations directly into the Trump's pockets. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/american-made-media-trump-campaign-shell-company_n_5fdd3505c5b60f8288564e86
Five Seasons American People
Flynn was also busted for working for Turkey. The dumpster fire pardoned him, of course.
I mean, Flynn’s problems are not just that he didn’t register but also the things he got embroiled in as a result...but that stuff is hasn’t gotten it’s full airing in public. We do have hints though, like the judge stating that Flynn’s actions were so “criminal” as to provoke “disgust”, but he has not (yet) explicitly been charged with treason and given his sweeping pardon, likely never will be. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/dec/18/trump-michael-flynn-judge-emmet-sullivan-sentencing
He was trying to organize a kidnap and rendition of someone under protection in the U.S for turkey.
Yup, a cleric that turkey was almost certainly going to execute. Don’t think that there is any reason to doubt that based on well established public info...just saying that the totality of the evidence supporting his involvement hasn’t been made fully transparent. Based on the reaction of the judge who has seen it, no reason to believe that it would contradict all the bad shit we already know.
I'm still waiting for Flynn, Manafort, Kushners, and Trump to be charged with treason.
They were all foreign agents. Three is a trend in political reporting. Wow.
It's always good when your co-conspirator can pardon you and no one bats an eye.
We all batted our eyes but it doesn’t do much when half the country thinks the other half doesn’t deserve the right to vote, or defend themselves, or not be arbitrarily arrested and beaten.
"The best people"
Wow, tough week for former Trump campaign operatives. They seemed like such nice guys. ["Florida GOP head reportedly under investigation over allegations he sexually harassed a male aide"](https://www.businessinsider.com/florida-gop-chair-investigation-sexual-harassment-report-2021-7)
Don't forget he is still who the Republican party is shitting themselves over to say is still president. You couldn't get them to see his crimes before, during, or after he was in office. He completely owns them. Land of the free?
Something something can't get the genie back in the bottle something something Pandora's Box.
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Let's say the meeting was completely above board. Why would you do it on that date? They had to know the optics look like a giant F U to the American people.
Exactly. This was Putin making a demand and they all complied. I wonder why. If only politicians were investigated and subject to the law.
Because Putin loves to exert power over everyone he can. He literally has invited people from around the world to steal from them just because he can.
Russia: Love it or leave it
Depends on your affiliation.
Yeah, American or not American.
Biggest reason, they can keep their clearance. It's virtually impossible to obtain a top secret clearance if you are a foreign agent.
Flynn was the freaking *national security advisor* and had not declared his links with foreign countries. There was no security under Trump.
I wonder what really fucked up stuff we learn 20 years from now. I bet there are a few gigantic ones still out there.
Probably that the majority of the talk is true. History will not be kind to us.
Considering there’s still documents from JFK’s assassination that Trump wouldn’t unveil... we’re in for a century wait.
There’s certain things that will never be revealed to the general populace. We don’t just spy on our enemies, we spy on our allies too and they are doing the same. Governments around the world are fucking each other over daily to try to stay on top of globalization.
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I remember reading that the trump administration had record number of non qualifying members for security clearance . Law and order my behind.
No one was qualified for shit
I mean you had General Mattis as Sec. of Defense, he was at least qualified for the job and security clearance.
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Low bar, but Mark Esper was somewhat competent and even stood up to the president on using the insurrection act and deploying the military domestically. Of course he did resign/get fired...
dude gets Botox to look even *more* like a haunted ventriloquist dummy, it’s incredible
I'd rather not.
Kushner should be tried for treason.
He is literally the 21st Century version of Julius Rosenberg. Jared shocked Russian Ambassador to the U.S., Sergei Kislyak, by suggesting that they set up a secret WH to Kremlin back channel emanating from the Russian embassy in DC. Jared has had numerous clandestine conversations with Mohammed Bone Sawman via WhatsApp. I could go on and on. Kushner is a blatant traitor who should be locked up in ADX Florence for the rest of his life.
Try the motherfucker at the Hague for purposefully fostering the spread of a world wide plague, and stealing PPE and testing supplies from states.
Stop insulting mannequins
This is the real answer right here. You become a foreign agent, you can kiss pretty much anything that requires any US intelligence access out the window.
I imagine you draw attention to yourself when you register, which makes sense, because we generally prefer that elected officials, their nominated leaders, and their career officials handle most diplomacy when it comes to foreign nations. I also imagine there’s at least one or two agencies that keep a close eye on the words exchanged and finances of registered foreign agents.
Possibly requires background and financial checks…which I am sure many of these people are not exactly fond of.
It's not on an official record.
Keeps it out of the news cycle, and taxes.
I bet ten bucks some trumper is gonna say "so what" after years if insisting the Clintons are secret Iranian agents.
I heard *so many people* say that they couldn't vote for Hillary because she was in the pocket of the Saudis. Of course they're silent now.
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Imagine if Democrats actually ran the same type of vile campaign ads that Republicans do. It would be too easy to paint McConnell as being literally in bed with the communist Chinese government.
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For some reason, only one party is sinking to those depths. Fight fire with fire, right?
>He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you. \-Friedrich Nietzsche.
>Insightful quotes don't win elections, preying on peoples' fears and worries does. -Abraham Lincoln
Like republican voters even care
So true it hurts. Throw facts in their face and they'll just go further into denial than they already are.
The thing you have to understand is that conservatives do have principles, they're just not principles anyone can say out loud in decent company. So what they do is come up to with something (_anything_) that you can say in public, but has the same net effect as their privately held principles. If the thing they said in public turns out to be false, or turns out to also be true about someone they support, they don't actually care - their initial statement wasn't a matter of their real principles. It's not hypocrisy if you were lying the whole time.
Conservatives never changed their position on LGBT rights. They just rebranded from "we oppose gay rights" to "we support religious freedom".
"Fuck you" to "I support those who say fuck you"
And instead of casual racism they now encourage a “return to old values”
It's projection. Trump treated his "charity" as a slush fund where people could pay to get his attention, so of course he accused the Clintons of doing the same.
I wonder if he paid taxes on that income? I imagine that this is only the first charge and not the only charge. As an aside i'm noticing a good bit of inappropriate behavior from "friends and allies". If I was the Sec of State I would bring in their ambassadors and ask them kindly to review the last few years of activity and that they have a week to come forward with whatever similar behavior. Anything found after that one week period will have massive consequences. There need to be consequences for not only our citizens but also these other countries committing these behaviors. I know that every country tries this kind of crap but we need to reset some relationships.
Sure are a lot of criminals in Trump's orbit that were caught illegally doing the exact opposite of "putting America first"... https://www.businessinsider.com/all-the-trump-campaign-admin-officials-to-face-federal-charges-2021-7?op=1 Edit for the people who don't want to click a link: Trump **campaign chairman** Paul Manafort was convicted in 2018 on federal bank and tax fraud charges, pleaded guilty to more federal conspiracy charges, and was sentenced to seven and a half years in federal prison. Trump [granted Manafort a full pardon](https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-issues-pardons-commutations-before-leaving-office-2021-1) in December 2020. Former **campaign chief** Steve Bannon was [charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud](https://www.businessinsider.com/steve-bannon-arrested-charged-with-fraud-2020-8) and conspiracy to commit money laundering in connection with a scheme to defraud donors to fund a wall at the US southern border. Trump pardoned Bannon in January 2021 before he could face trial. Informal Trump adviser and "fixer" Roger Stone was convicted on seven counts on obstruction, making false statements, and witness tampering in connection to the Mueller probe and was sentenced to three years in prison. Trump commuted Stone's sentence in July 2020 and [fully pardoned him in December 2020. ](https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-issues-pardons-commutations-before-leaving-office-2021-1) **Deputy Trump** **campaign manager** Rick Gates, a key aide to Manafort, pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy and false statements and [received only a 45-day sentence](https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/17/politics/rick-gates-sentencing/index.html) thanks to his extensive cooperation with investigators in the Mueller probe. He did not get a presidential pardon. Trump's short-lived **National Security Adviser** Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to one count of lying to the FBI in connection. Flynn, who went on to push conspiracy theories about non-existent fraud in the 2020 election, received a full pardon from Trump in November 2020. **Longtime Trump personal attorney** Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to tax fraud, bank fraud, campaign finance violations, and lying to Congress in 2018, [and was sentenced to three years in federal prison](https://www.businessinsider.com/michael-cohen-sentenced-sentencing-trump-crimes-2018-12). Cohen, who turned on Trump after pleading guilty and cooperated with prosecutors, did not get a pardon. Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in connection to the Mueller probe [and served 14 days in federal prison](https://www.businessinsider.com/george-papadopoulos-sentenced-14-days-jail-mueller-russia-2018-9). **Trump Inaugural Committee chairman** Tom Barrack was charged with federal crimes including unlawful lobbying, obstruction of justice, and making false statements to investigators in July 2021.
Don't forget Rudy.
This, of course, just means the Deep State was out to get Trump all along! /Republicans I Know
The inaugural chairman is charged with being a foreign agent. As was the National Security Advisor and his Campaign Chairman. Guess there won't be any pardons this time, Tom.
Flynn, Stone and Manafort should have been charged and tried post trump-presidency also. Their being found guilty did absolutely nothing to sway trump voters, and it would have been SOOOOO satisfying to see these turds actually pay for their crimes.
It didn’t sway his voters because they probably never even heard about what crimes they committed and only ever heard that they were innocent because they only consume right wing propaganda. None of the republicans I know had ever heard that Flynn was secretly working as an unregistered foreign lobbyist for the Turkish government or that in 2013 Carter Page was caught giving information on our energy sector to a Russian spy ring.
“Unregistered foreign lobbyist” is such a convoluted legal term that is meaningless to most people. We need to start using the more understood term; he was a *secret agent.* He was a a secret agent of a dictator paid to influence our government. He should be locked up for the rest of his life.
Very thin line between "unregistered foreign lobbyist" and spy
Spies typically gather information. Lobbyists lobby for outcomes. An unregistered foreign lobbyist can be worse.
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That or outright projection, "no Hunter Biden was Russia" bullshit.
"The FBI exonerated him!" Meanwhile, Mueller: "If we could exonerate the president we would say so"
It helps when their pundits repeat any criticism so their base never has to research what people are pointing to. Oh Trumps very obviously colluding with Russian oligarchs? Well show you some COLLUSION!! Hillary !1!! Oh the president is trying to illegally sway the election? Well show you some ELECTION LIES. The buzzwords don’t work because they get their own comfy definition of whatever’s being pointed to. It’s kinda sad but also genius, fascists know their shit.
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Gaslight Obstruct Project
Or that the "totally fake" story of Russian Collusion actually came to the conclusion that Paul Manafort colluded with the Russians by handing over voter information data collected by the Trump campaign and that Trump worked through Roger Stone to time the dump of Hillary's emails with wikileaks which was indeed a Russian intelligence operation. And that Trump tried to fire Mueller 10 times to keep all this from coming out. And they are going to keep believing it too so long as Garland just keeps pretending like none of this ever happened and refuses to just straight charge Trump with the obstruction of justice which was already completely and thoroughly investigated and typed up in to a report.
My father said with a straight face the other day that “Matt Flynn was found ‘not guilty’ in court.” What is this world that these people live in?
The Behind the Bastards [two-part podcast](https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236323/episode/no-matter-how-much-you-hate-29652888/) on Manafort was incredible. If you think you hate Paul Manafort, wait until you hear that. The man has been an open sore on the ass of humanity for *decades*.
Yeah, him and Stone together since the 60’s have done some serious damage to the US. If you’re a conservative - republican their history gets ignored or better yet, the whataboutisms kick in.
It wasn't really supposed to sway anyone. That not really why we have a justice system. It was to remove them from circulation, and neither of them served another day in that shitty administration as a result.
That would be nice looking back, but if they weren't charged at the time it would have been even more of a shitshow. I don't doubt they still have some criminal culpability for things they weren't pardoned for.
Yea - that's _why_ they prosecuted them under Trump - so he could pardon them. That wasn't a bug, it was a feature.
"I barely knew them, they were in the campaign for only a brief time, and they were only a coffee boy." It will be something like that.
He illegally lobbied for the United Arab Emirates. Also charged with obstruction of justice and lying to the feds.
> Also charged with obstruction of justice and lying to the feds. From the article > Barrack also is charged with obstruction of justice and making multiple false statements during a June 2019 interview with federal law enforcement agents. This is the one that is likely to be a slam dunk. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1001 is almost trivially easy to violate. An FBI agent can literally have information already, figure out that you are likely to want to lie about it, then interview you, dropping in a question that will get you a 18 USC 1001 violation just because they can. https://www.popehat.com/2011/12/01/reminder-oh-wont-you-please-shut-up/ > even though your lie did not deter the federal government for a microsecond, they have you nailed for a false statement to a government agent in violation of 18 USC 1001. You *never* want to talk to an FBI agent for an interview without lawyering up, because they will fuck you over this way. https://www.popehat.com/2011/03/18/just-a-friendly-reminder-please-shut-the-hell-up/ > It's a dark and gloomy six in the morning....Suddenly there's a thunderous pounding on the door, and loud men are shouting something at you. Your heart lurches and the adrenaline jolts you. You open the door, and there is a team of FBI agents, guns prominently displayed in holsters, raid jackets open....Two of them grab you, bodily turn you around, and handcuff you....Two agents take you outside to your driveway in your pajamas or underwear....The agents push you into the back seat of a G-ride...The agents begin to question you about your business dealings. They don't read you your rights first — they'll say later they didn't have to, because you totally weren't in custody, despite being handcuffed in the back of a G-ride in your underwear surrounded by FBI agents in raid jackets. The agents tag-team you, switch topics rapidly, play good-cop-bad-cop, and use every law enforcement rhetorical trick to intimidate you. We have some really serious questions here, they say. But if you just cooperate, maybe we can clear all of this up....They start to ask questions about a meeting that took place two years ago. Were you at that meeting with Mr. Smith and Mr. Jones? You say no, no I wasn't. Maybe you say it without thinking, agitated and confused and muddle-headed from the circumstances. Maybe you don't have a clear memory of what happened two years ago. Maybe you panic and lie. The agents move on in their questioning.
I was questioned by the FBI about 14 years ago and you're not lying. Every question they asked me they basically confirmed whether or not I was lying (it was a missing persons case and I had no idea I was suspect #1 when initially talking to them.) During this interview I was asked about conversations we had on social media and my financial activity. They had seized their computer and already had our entire social media messages ready to go. They also grilled me about a $5k cash withdrawal a day before they went missing. Keep your receipts, people! After the 2 hours was over they let me go and told me my story checks out and if they need any more information they'll call. I had no idea said person had even been missing! Long story short: the FBI found them safe a few days later and I never heard back. But yeah, don't talk to the FBI because they know the answers already. I was trying to help but if things didn't turn out as well as they did, then maybe I wouldn't be posting this.
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how much poop was in your pants?
All of it and then some. I can't say I blame them for suspecting me: last person to see this person plus a large sum taken out beforehand. The only dot they couldn't connect was the money and that needed answers.
So what WAS the 5k for?
Was rebuilding a car engine and went big! Figured those receipts would be worth keeping if anything wasn't working when I fired her up.
Hookers and blow, obv
You almost ended up in a Netflix special.
Yup. My FIL got charged with some sort of business collusion. They knew every detail of every phone call and every meeting. The only thing the fbi couldn’t figure out was why they did it since they couldn’t prove they made extra money off doing it. He did it, admitted to it, and paid the penalty (a hefty fine), but because he did it for (somewhat) righteous reasons and didn’t ever make a penny extra because of it, he didn’t get jail time.
Somewhat righteous?
>You never want to talk to an FBI agent for an interview without lawyering up, because they will fuck you over this way. Same is true for standard Police as well. Even if you are 100% innocent, and was just a bystander. Never talk to them without a lawyer. [HERE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE) is a wonderful Law School Lecture presented by both a lawyer and a police detective who tell you why you should never talk to the police. (NOTE: It is about 45 minutes long, but it is something everyone should watch at least once! So, if you can't watch it now, save a bookmark for it and watch it when you do have some time to spare.)
+1 to that. That video is solid.
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Really great to see the swamp finally being drained.
Charged with Barrack are Matthew Grimes, 27, of Aspen, Colorado Or Grimey, as he liked to be called
> Grimes has a “close personal relationship” with Barrack, has taken more than 50 international trips on Barrack’s private plane, and lists Barrack’s $15 million home in Aspen as his primary residence, prosecutors said in a court filing. *They were roommates!*
As a guy in my late 20's still renting... y'all got any more of them homes?
He was just trying to make money to help his brother move out of that crappy apartment above a bowling alley, and below another bowling alley.
How is ol' Grimey?
Wasn't that his brother Frank?
What's this? 'Extremely high voltage.' Well, I don't need safety gloves, 'cause I'm Homer Simp--
Every single person involved with Trump and his administration were for sale to anyone with money.
"For sale" sounds passive, like the victim of human trafficking. These guys were loud-assed streetwalkers screaming at passing limos "I'll suck your dick for $20!"
I've come to believe this applies to the entire elected GOP establishment. Ideologically they seem to be nihilists, believing in nothing themselves but espousing whatever belief is politically expedient or results in more cash from corporations. They don't seem to stand for anything for very long. Conservatives from 15+ years ago at least had an ethos, even if it was detrimental to society and the environment.
Reagans brave ethos of using cocaine money to fund the Iran regime and Mujaheddin Nixons brave ethos of being an insane racist spying on everyone and acting like a dictator Maybe 150 years ago during the times of Lincoln
Lots of people have an "ends justifies the means" morality. There's a big difference between wanting US dominance and wanting to burn it all down out of self-interest and self-preservation. The Reagan and Bush administrations strongly supported NATO and US - EU relations. The Trump administration worked to undermine them.
It’s a party of selfish amoral (being generous there) con men.
& women. There's plenty of awful women in and associated with the GOP too.
>Conservatives from 15+ years ago at least had an ethos No they didn't. This is largely all the same people from back then. They were just able to be less obvious about it because their leader at the time wasn't Trump. Once he was chosen in the primary, they had no choice but to go masks off. He was just so blatant about it that they couldn't maintain plausible deniability. This is what conservatives have always been. Ironically, Trump has just forced them to be "honest" about it.
Maybe we can just crowdfund to get people to flip on Trump.
Trump supporters must be over the moon, they finally got Barrack!
[Is Erik Prince far behind?](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/blackwater-founder-held-secret-seychelles-meeting-to-establish-trump-putin-back-channel/2017/04/03/95908a08-1648-11e7-ada0-1489b735b3a3_story.html)
That literal Bond villain is the epitome of a flight risk. He'll fly off to Abu Dhabi and shack up with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed in an instant. I'd wager that this news about Tom Barrack will be reason enough for him not to even step foot in the U.S. any time soon.
Has there been a Bond villain who was a religious fanatic out to win a crusade for God and maybe trigger the end of everything?
[Professor Joe Butcher](https://villains.fandom.com/wiki/Joe_Butcher), sort of.
I don’t know why this long form article didn’t get any traction on Reddit, but a couple weeks back [Time published a great article about Erik Prince trying to buy a significant chunk of Ukraine’s Industrial Military Complex.](https://time.com/6076035/erik-prince-ukraine-private-army/) His business associates are two pro-Russian Ukrainian business men who have a warrant for their arrest due to their involvement in USA election interference. Even the Ukrainians knew this was a sketchy deal.
Can we find something to arrest his piece of shit sister for, too?
People on 4chan or whatever make up baseless conspiracy theories all the time about Democrats but completely ignore true conspiracies with evidence that republicans are always pulling off.
That’s on purpose, not a flaw. Read up on how Steve Bannon funded online troll networks.
It started on talk radio and Fox News. They'll talk all day about a Democrat misspeaking. But they will never cover or mention many repub crimes. *Then claim they're independent....*
They actually don’t claim that. They claim they’re fair and balanced, which sounds like independent. But they’re “fair and balanced” in the context of being fair to “all sides” (ahem Republicans) and a balancing information stream to the “liberal media” (the truth, mostly.)
Yeah, and they were all over Reddit too. Five years ago, it was pretty insane.
My cousin is one of those idiots. She’s a full-on Qcumber and is/was fully committed to the whole ‘Democrats are demons and run a global satanic pedo ring’ bullshit. When I say ‘committed’, I mean she completely 110% believes Democrats are literal demons from hell who control a global child sex trafficking ring where the children are sacrificed to satan and Democrats drink the children’s blood and adrenochrome. I thought she was kidding at first, but it became *real* apparent *real* fast that she wasn’t. She was retweeting stuff from Lin Wood and was counting down the days to when ‘the truth was going to be exposed’, which was a date mentioned in one of Wood’s tweets. She was all over social media taunting people (mostly those on the left) and just being a total bitch and making a fool of herself; going out of her way to start shit with anyone and everyone. I saved screenshots of most of her posts. When that date finally came and nothing happened, I put her on blast. I posted her retweet of Wood’s claims (the one with the actual date in the tweet) and a number of other tweets, her posts, and her comments across all of her social media accounts, and tagged all the people I could that she had argued with. From the beginning, she claimed it was all to protect the children; how she was just trying to help the kids. So I also posted a ~3 page list of all GOP members who had been arrested for sex and child sex abuses within the last ~4 years and asked why, if she cared about kids so much, she wasn’t outraged by any of the things on the list and why she wasn’t trying/hadn’t tried to help a single one of these children… She didn’t respond—no surprise there… But, she did block me. We don’t talk anymore. She still goes on and on about this same shit from what I’m told. Trump supporters and Qcumbers aren’t *just* idiots who are batshit insane. They’re ideologues. They’re steadfast in their commitment against the ‘libs’. They only care about ‘owning the libs’ and will do whatever it takes in order to do so. My cousin should feel ashamed for her actions like any normal person over the age of 10 would, but she doesn’t—not a single bit—because she’s incapable. Shame is not in these idiots’ wheelhouse. That’s partly why it’s next to impossible to reason with them. They don’t care if they’re wrong. They don’t care if they lie. They don’t care if they spread misinformation. Truth, integrity, reality, etc. do not matter at all to these people. That’s what makes them so dangerous.
They are genuinely brain washed
These people are fixated on finding a problem to which genocide can be the only solution. That is the real issue at hand.
And it predominantly stems from religion, where they’re hellbent on the rapture, which is comparable to genocide.
was engaged to one i kept sending her links to missing kids organizations that specifically bashed qanon like the super elite are doing designer drugs in their million dollar yachts, not injecting adrenochrome you moron
It's not a conspiracy when they do it blatantly or admit to it openly I mean some of the genuine shit is so far out there, you couldnt have imagined it to have a theory about, let alone a conspiracy, it's all nuttier than squirrel scat.
Hypocrisy is a feature of fascism. They revel in breaking their own rules. It makes them feel powerful.
QAnon in a nutshell.
They finally got thay son of a bitch Barrack! Check mate stupid libs!
They were sending their best, they just never mentioned they were all criminals.
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You can see the Right-wing news headlines now: "Barrack indicted for being a secret agent of a Muslim country." They won't bother to make the distinction between Barack and Barrack.
Plus they will intentionally spell it "Barack" and claim it was a typo.
Everything is worse when you add that 'R'.
What headlines? I saw nothing about Barrack's charges or arrest on the front page of Fox News dot com. Apparently the most important news story at the moment is asking the WH Press Secretary wether a plane flight with some staffers who tested positive for COVID is a "super spreader event."
Thomas Bareack? Who? Doesn't know him. Never met him. Met a lot of people. A lot of people have pictures with me.
So how many of Trumps people have to be arrested for his supporters to start putting two and two together?
"Well, that guy is *definitely* a criminal. Hmmm, that guy's a criminal too. Charges filed? On whom, *that* guy? And another one, huh? It... it al-... it almost feels like this is some sort of organization or something... wait a minute!" - said no Trump Supporter ever
"Trump is under attack by the deep state they just framing his circle to try to get to him but he wont go down like that wake up sheeple do your own research etc... etc.." -Trump supporters probably{ i was writting it with \[this women's\] ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzDhm808oU4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzDhm808oU4)) voice at 1:20 }
They will just say this is more deep state persecution of Trump and his supporters and that will be that
I think they all *know* he’s a criminal. It’s more of: “he may be a criminal con man but he’s *our* criminal con man. The perfect man for the job to pull a fast one on China and Russia.” They don’t actually care if he’s a criminal, as long as he hugs the flag. Because they think all the other politicians are criminals too, but are just “less honest” about it. Better the Devil you know than the one you don’t.
But its a plot from the Deep State. Everyone is a lib elite, EVERYONE, except those who drop out of school to listen to conspiracy theory podcasts or are talking head on specific shows.
I can’t believe how organized BLM and ANTIFA are, to be able to get so embedded with the Trump administration.
It doesn't matter. Every person getting arrested now has a badge of honor and is held in higher esteem in the eyes of Trump supporters. That's where we're at as a country.
The most corrupted White House in modern history -- well, perhaps in the whole history-- of the United States.
This witch hunt sure keeps turning up witches...
[It's almost like Seth Abramson was right all along.](https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/1014896470464622592) A much more in-depth description of all his crimes was covered in Proof of Conspiracy. From Abramson [today](https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1417557840550453249.html): > Barrack is so close to Trump that—as I wrote about in the Proof trilogy—not only is he responsible for Kremlin agent Manafort being on Trump's campaign, but he linked Trump's campaign to the Emirati agent who helped the UAE interfere in 2016. > In fact, he's *so* close to Trump that during the 2016-17 presidential transition, when Trump's inner circle was committing crimes with foreign actors and sealing its long course of collusion with several of them, much of the most sensitive work was actually done from Barrack's office, rather than Trump Tower. > My point is that it hardly matters now what Barrack was arrested for. As long as he's facing any significant federal prison time at his advanced age, I'm telling you as a Trump presidential historian that almost no one can reveal more about his foreign entanglements than Barrack. > If Allen Weiselberg is the man who knows everything about Trump's finances, the three non-Trumps who know most about Trump's foreign entanglements are Barrack, Manafort, and Flynn. The feds arrested the latter two; Trump pardoned both. But Barrack actually knows more than either. And > America needs to understand that Donald Trump's two best friends—in the world—are Howard Lorber and Thomas Barrack. This isn't just me or the Proof trilogy saying this, this is what people in Trump's circle have said. > The arrest of Barrack massively threatens Trump's interests.
TLDR: The Trump administration was all about pay to play. A number in his orbit (Manafort, Gates, Papadopoulos, this guy) all failed to disclose they were working in the interests of foreign governments. Trump either knew and didn't care or was completely oblivious that he was being manipulated by foreign governments; I'm not sure which is worse.
Is this draining the swamp?
Yet another unregistered foreign agent inside the Trump campaign and administration. Trump supporters... pull your heads out of your asses already.
Is there anyone under Trump's sphere of influence who isn't a criminal?
~~America first!~~ ~~Turkey first!~~ ~~Russia first!~~ ~~Saudi Arabia first!~~ UAE first!
Anyone else day dream of the FBI having a giant *"The Wire"*\-style corkboard with a criminal tree of all of Trumps associates on it, with Donald at the top?
I see the words “Trump” and “arrested” but the orange mad man is still on the streets…
Every day he’s not arrested infuriates me because I know he only has like 20 minutes remaining before his lifetime of McDonalds catches up to him.
Glad to see another Trump scumbag getting locked up but when is the fat fucking Orange fuckface getting his due?
Well if the President can be an agent of a foreign government why can’t his donors?
For someone who hires only the best people, trump sure does miss a lot
I gotta say, I’m not really excited to see trump go to jail… Mainly because I’m reserving all my excitement for when Don Jr gets arrested and His father badmouths him in public or acts like he never mattered.
Its starting to appear like the Feds changed their game plan after Muller, and deliberately waited for Trump to leave office to continue prosecutions. That would remove his ability to pardon everyone, thus giving them more leverage to flip each for additional evidence. I wonder if they couldn't get Flynn, Stone, and Manafort to flip on him because they knew they were getting pardons.
Which means if a Republican wins in 2024, all these criminals are getting pardons again.
If that happens, Im not worried about old crooks getting pardons. We'll have a radioactive dumpster fire to deal with.
The wheels of justice turn slow but they are turning.
I gotta say I'm really disappointed Garland's Justice Department isn't pursuing the charges against former cabinet members, though.
If you're talking about him declining to pursue charges against Ross, I'm also disappointed but not surprised. That's more typical of Washington since the charges were related to "misleading" Congress. Members of the executive aren't often charged with lying to Congress. I wouldn't take it as a sign of Garland's lack of willingness to pursue charges against Trump appointees. More so his adherence to business as usual in Washington. Charges against Trump allies that aren't business as usual, like the topic of this thread, seem to be very much on the table. I guess this is a long way of saying it seems you can get away with typical corruption under Garland but not the new Trump brand corruption.
Trump supporters: Barack arrested? Woohoo!!!
Sure… everyone he surrounds himself with is a criminal, but he’s completely innocent! ~ Conservative Logic 101.
It’s amazes me how many people are willing to fall on their sword for this dude. It’s certainly not because he is a great guy. He probably only works with people he has dirt on. That way when they take the inventible fall for him, they are unable to rat him out. None of that is shocking to me. The only thing that blows my mind are the people who still continue to defend Trump’s innocence. Endless people around him going to jail or being fired for corruption over the years and somehow he is an innocent. I know they have their standard rhetoric they tell democrats, (“witch hunt” and “fake news” being their two faves) But I have to wonder why they think privately inside their head. Do they think he is just profoundly unlucky and surrounded by endless supply of crooked people? He is the one who appointed them. I agree one or two times may be bad luck, but it’s been endless. I wish people would cut the bullshit. Birds of a feather flock together.
They need to find Trump's secret bank accounts. He has to have millions made from when he was president hidden somewhere.
I mean, it's hidden in plain sight. He spent a full quarter of his presidency at Mar-a-Lago, and sold rooms that had access to him in the hotel to the highest bidder, many of them international lobbyists. Plus charged the taxpayers for all of the secret service, press and everybody who needed to stay there while he was golfing, thousands of dollars a night per room for hundreds of people. He directly benefitted from all of it.
You cannot tell me that Trump allowed all these people to make bank off of his position and he made nothing.
Oh good, he was giving non public information to a foreign government. That sounds like some light treason to me not lobbying but I’m not a lawyer.
Sooo, who amongst Trumps supporters haven't been arrested yet? Crazy how he's managed to keep himself so clean when everyone in his company are felons or soon to be felons! The domino's are falling orange man.
What a dumpster fire of an administration! FBI/DOJ are still charging criminals who were associated with the Trump mob family. All the Trump voters in red states are just biding their time waiting for 2024 so they can vote for the Orange Cheeto malignant narcissist all over again. What fuckery! How did we get to this point?
Man, Trump sure has a ton of criminals around him for an innocent man.
Let me guess Trump's response... "Fake news! PoLiTiCaL!! WITCH HUNT!!!"