I always said he was not a billionaire. All his properties are leveraged to the hilt. He has cash flow, but no net worth. Those nuclear secrets may have been a key part of his plan to flee the US: trade the secrets for a huge pile of cash and live like a king in exile somewhere without an extradition treaty.
Thank you Lucian for your insight and pursuit of the truth. Just when we think Trumpworld could not get any worse this happens. Keep on truckin’ my friend.
So far, nothing from Republican supporters of the toddler-in-chief? Do they believe it plays well to voters that they excuse (and therefore support) his treasonous behavior at this unspeakably unpatriotic level? The mind boggles.
I am afraid they will defend anything he does and that could be ANYTHING. Shocking. But he has already moved to get ahead of the story by saying they went to plant evidence. True Believers have Trump Devotion Syndrome , the familiar TDS charge, but replacing "derangement." What would it take for the devoted to turn on him? Too frightening for them to think about it. They're sticking. Trump's bowing and scraping to Putin during the Helsinki press conference was one of my saddest days as an American and good heavens, I'm not one of those America Firsters. The private conference afterward you mention, Lucian, with Putin's interpreter signing a nondisclosure agreement, also shocked. What's the limit for his hiding every action in plain sight? I don't think there is one. He's an expert in creating the martyred victim.
I posted a similar conjecture on my FB page. Trump wanted treat these documents like an overdue library book; hold onto it long enough and nobody will either know that it's there, or care enough to chase it down. Obviously, none of those jerkoffs who worked in the West Wing had the wits and the courage to tell Trump he could go to jail for taking those documents out of the white house and down to Florida along with his baggage.
Now Trump is faced with the likelihood that the documents subpoena and receipt will be made public, the Republicans and Trump's unhinged mob of loyalists' 48 hours of screaming their lungs out expressing outrage over the FBI intrusion suddenly seem like Wiley E. Coyote suddenly finding himself running off a cliff, and now suspended in mid-air. and now about to takea very long and hard fall. MAGAhatters are having to face the new reality that Trump may very well have placed America's nuclear deterrent at risk for foreign espionage and counter-deterrence. Even mild-mannered Republican fellow travelers like the New York Times columnist David Brooks thought it necessary to warn Democrats about the shitstorm that Merrick Garland 'created' by going rogue was about to damage their midterm election prospects.
That hyperventilating partisanship shut down immediately when word came out via The Washington Post that these sought-after documents likely involved nuclear weaponry. All of a sudden, the FBI were heroes, and Republican loudmouths were now hiss-whispering to anyone who would listen to cool it with their demands that Merrick Garland make public his siezed cache of booty that the FBI hauled away from Mar-a-Lago earlier in the week. The reason: AG Garland's legal jujitsu, if by publicly disclosing the nature of the documents recovered might very well reveal just how deeply Trump's behavior had compromized American nuclear weapons security. Congressional insiders may have been shocked into silence, but their ignorant voter base still doesn't get it, nor do they want to pay attention.
Trump released a press statement that he would 'not oppose' AG Garland's announced plan to release those search warrant documents. Trump had the power to release both the search warrant and the inventory receipt the FBI gave him before they departed Trump's Mar-a-Lago property. Publishing that would have undoubtedly brought at least some of Trump's supporters to their senses. On MSNBC, Michael Steele, former RNC Chairman, offered a highly entertaining interpretation of Republicans newly-found reticence to blow horns and beat drums amplifying their faux grievances and victimhood. I wasn't the least bit surprised.
The lawfareblog and justsecurity website have been edging towards this type of theory --- stolen documents with valauable secrets for cash --- from the jump, and it's mostly contributions from attorneys with years of experience in national security law.
Probably they also have some extensive background observing and analyzing Trump's character (or lack thereof) formed in the last few years, or since he first emerged on the national scene.
This is one part of the Trump character, but another aspect is his aversion to stating directly what he wants done, in the mode of a gangster, a mob boss. This may turn out to be a difficult case to make as far as any prospective sale of secrets to a foreign power, so the eventual charges may all be process crimes, or crimes that only rely on Trump's intentional taking of these documents, considered as in themselves to be illegal acts.
While I have no doubt whatsoever that Trump is capable of wide and deep evil and skullduggery, one thing is clear: he reads nothing, so someone would have to read the documents to him and/or be the one who vets the documents, advises and then hands them to Trump. Trump is incapable of discerning what is written on a page or understanding it. Someone has to be his partner in this if these docs are about nuclear secrets. He's a dangerous moron who would be even more dangerous if he had a brain.
I agree that Kushner may be part of the scheme with Saudi Arabia. Follow the money.
Trump is having the worst week of his life. So far.
It’s going to get even worse.
I agree with Lucian. No matter what you expect out of this guy, it always ends up being worse than you expected. He will do absolutely anything for money, including cozy up to the world’s worst dictator, and break any law.
Right now, Lucian and Greg Olear are my two favorite news sources, because both of them are focusing on Trump’s willingness to do anything for money. That is the crux and the foundation of this entire news cycle of Trump legal problems.
Did I or did I not comment that djt's only possible "defense" for possessing nuclear secrets would be to say they were planted? The interval between high points has given him this opportunity: Taegan Goddard (whose https://politicalwire.com/ never misses a beat) reported at 9.22am ET 12 August that in a truthsocial msg, "Trump Suggests Nuclear Documents Were ‘Planted’ by FBI"
"Donald Trump suggests without any evidence that nuclear materials were planted by the FBI during their search of Mar-a-Lago earlier this week."
His options really are narrowing if he's become predictable even to me.
I started to write, "The wait feels like another Saturday Night Massacre watch," but I think Nixon would have been as aghast as any of us at the imaginable-only-in-Hollywood scale djt sets. In a class by himself, our boy. And you're asking the right questions, L.
Russia, or Saudi Arabia, where the big money is and some of it has recently been forked over to trump and Kushner, right out in the open.
… or Qatar or UAE. You nailed it.
I always said he was not a billionaire. All his properties are leveraged to the hilt. He has cash flow, but no net worth. Those nuclear secrets may have been a key part of his plan to flee the US: trade the secrets for a huge pile of cash and live like a king in exile somewhere without an extradition treaty.
But then he would have to give up the rallies and in-person adulation he so thrives on. And he sure as hell wouldn’t be POTUS in exile!
Thanks for keeping with it! I appreciate your updates.
Thank you Lucian for your insight and pursuit of the truth. Just when we think Trumpworld could not get any worse this happens. Keep on truckin’ my friend.
So far, nothing from Republican supporters of the toddler-in-chief? Do they believe it plays well to voters that they excuse (and therefore support) his treasonous behavior at this unspeakably unpatriotic level? The mind boggles.
Even Jim Jordan or Lindsay can’t defend this. Maybe Tucker Carlson?
I am afraid they will defend anything he does and that could be ANYTHING. Shocking. But he has already moved to get ahead of the story by saying they went to plant evidence. True Believers have Trump Devotion Syndrome , the familiar TDS charge, but replacing "derangement." What would it take for the devoted to turn on him? Too frightening for them to think about it. They're sticking. Trump's bowing and scraping to Putin during the Helsinki press conference was one of my saddest days as an American and good heavens, I'm not one of those America Firsters. The private conference afterward you mention, Lucian, with Putin's interpreter signing a nondisclosure agreement, also shocked. What's the limit for his hiding every action in plain sight? I don't think there is one. He's an expert in creating the martyred victim.
We have known for a while that there are no limits. I have New York friends in the construction business who were screwed by him.
They will all find a way, if they haven’t already!
We have to remember that his millions of worshipers actually BELIEVE everything he says!
I posted a similar conjecture on my FB page. Trump wanted treat these documents like an overdue library book; hold onto it long enough and nobody will either know that it's there, or care enough to chase it down. Obviously, none of those jerkoffs who worked in the West Wing had the wits and the courage to tell Trump he could go to jail for taking those documents out of the white house and down to Florida along with his baggage.
Now Trump is faced with the likelihood that the documents subpoena and receipt will be made public, the Republicans and Trump's unhinged mob of loyalists' 48 hours of screaming their lungs out expressing outrage over the FBI intrusion suddenly seem like Wiley E. Coyote suddenly finding himself running off a cliff, and now suspended in mid-air. and now about to takea very long and hard fall. MAGAhatters are having to face the new reality that Trump may very well have placed America's nuclear deterrent at risk for foreign espionage and counter-deterrence. Even mild-mannered Republican fellow travelers like the New York Times columnist David Brooks thought it necessary to warn Democrats about the shitstorm that Merrick Garland 'created' by going rogue was about to damage their midterm election prospects.
That hyperventilating partisanship shut down immediately when word came out via The Washington Post that these sought-after documents likely involved nuclear weaponry. All of a sudden, the FBI were heroes, and Republican loudmouths were now hiss-whispering to anyone who would listen to cool it with their demands that Merrick Garland make public his siezed cache of booty that the FBI hauled away from Mar-a-Lago earlier in the week. The reason: AG Garland's legal jujitsu, if by publicly disclosing the nature of the documents recovered might very well reveal just how deeply Trump's behavior had compromized American nuclear weapons security. Congressional insiders may have been shocked into silence, but their ignorant voter base still doesn't get it, nor do they want to pay attention.
Trump released a press statement that he would 'not oppose' AG Garland's announced plan to release those search warrant documents. Trump had the power to release both the search warrant and the inventory receipt the FBI gave him before they departed Trump's Mar-a-Lago property. Publishing that would have undoubtedly brought at least some of Trump's supporters to their senses. On MSNBC, Michael Steele, former RNC Chairman, offered a highly entertaining interpretation of Republicans newly-found reticence to blow horns and beat drums amplifying their faux grievances and victimhood. I wasn't the least bit surprised.
forgot about this from,way back.
but it looks relevant now in today's light.
wonder if we'll be seeing flynn's name in this mess now.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/flynn-backed-plan-transfer-nuclear-tech-saudis-may-have-broken-n973021
OH! Would that be worth, say, $2 billion for the tRump clan?
Having spent hours working in side a SCIF over my 20 year Army career, Mar a Lago is not up to spec.
chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://irp.fas.org/dni/icd/ics-705-ts.pdf
Try this one. You will probably need Adobe to read the pdf file.
https://www.wbdg.org/ffc/dod/unified-facilities-criteria-ufc/ufc-4-010-05
This story, even if speculative, should be on pages of major publications. For now it’s a media battle.
The lawfareblog and justsecurity website have been edging towards this type of theory --- stolen documents with valauable secrets for cash --- from the jump, and it's mostly contributions from attorneys with years of experience in national security law.
Probably they also have some extensive background observing and analyzing Trump's character (or lack thereof) formed in the last few years, or since he first emerged on the national scene.
i presume DoJ, FBI, CIA, and all the other alphabet orgs can ask NSA who trump has been talking to
www.inquirer.com/news/columnists/trump-michael-cohen-testimony-hearing-will-bunch-20190227.html
^^^^
This is one part of the Trump character, but another aspect is his aversion to stating directly what he wants done, in the mode of a gangster, a mob boss. This may turn out to be a difficult case to make as far as any prospective sale of secrets to a foreign power, so the eventual charges may all be process crimes, or crimes that only rely on Trump's intentional taking of these documents, considered as in themselves to be illegal acts.
While I have no doubt whatsoever that Trump is capable of wide and deep evil and skullduggery, one thing is clear: he reads nothing, so someone would have to read the documents to him and/or be the one who vets the documents, advises and then hands them to Trump. Trump is incapable of discerning what is written on a page or understanding it. Someone has to be his partner in this if these docs are about nuclear secrets. He's a dangerous moron who would be even more dangerous if he had a brain.
I agree that Kushner may be part of the scheme with Saudi Arabia. Follow the money.
Thanks for today’s updates! We’re all gobsmacked by this news.
Oooh, maybe he sold them to his boyfriend Kim. We know he kept his love letters in his stash in Mar-a-Lago.
Trump is having the worst week of his life. So far.
It’s going to get even worse.
I agree with Lucian. No matter what you expect out of this guy, it always ends up being worse than you expected. He will do absolutely anything for money, including cozy up to the world’s worst dictator, and break any law.
Right now, Lucian and Greg Olear are my two favorite news sources, because both of them are focusing on Trump’s willingness to do anything for money. That is the crux and the foundation of this entire news cycle of Trump legal problems.
Did I or did I not comment that djt's only possible "defense" for possessing nuclear secrets would be to say they were planted? The interval between high points has given him this opportunity: Taegan Goddard (whose https://politicalwire.com/ never misses a beat) reported at 9.22am ET 12 August that in a truthsocial msg, "Trump Suggests Nuclear Documents Were ‘Planted’ by FBI"
"Donald Trump suggests without any evidence that nuclear materials were planted by the FBI during their search of Mar-a-Lago earlier this week."
His options really are narrowing if he's become predictable even to me.
I started to write, "The wait feels like another Saturday Night Massacre watch," but I think Nixon would have been as aghast as any of us at the imaginable-only-in-Hollywood scale djt sets. In a class by himself, our boy. And you're asking the right questions, L.