Pam Bondi is Trump’s second choice for AG of the United States – she is another iron-clad sycophant explained in this NBC
News headline story:
“AG pick Pam Bondi past vow: Prosecute the bad prosecutors who indicted
Trump”
Current and former DOJ Department officials fear that Bondi, a
longtime Trump loyalist, will not hesitate to carry out his push to investigate
his enemies.
In 2013, Florida AG Pam Bondi’s office faced a decision: whether to join a NY AG’s investigation into
Trump University, where students paid up to $35,000 for business classes that
critics claimed were fraudulent. Trump
lost the case and paid $25 million in settlement to former students.
Despite receiving complaints of exploitation from students,
Bondi and then-California AG Kamala Harris both declined to join the investigation. Both had received
political donations from Donald Trumpand denied that the funds
influenced their office’s decision.
Since then, those two have followed polar opposite political
paths. Harris attacked Trump in the 2020 and 2024 elections and painted him as
a business fraud and threat to democracy and he lost in 2020 but he won re-election in 2024.
Bondi spent the last
decade defending Trump and attacking those who investigate him. Now, if
confirmed by the Senate, Bondi is set to become Trump’s AG.
A central question is whether Bondi will follow through on
vows she made in television interviews to investigate what she called
out-of-control federal prosecutors and FBI agents, saying: “The DOJ the
prosecutors will be prosecuted, all the bad ones,” Bondi said on Fox
News last year after Trump was indicted in GA on charges of trying to
overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Bondi called the prosecutors part of the “deep state” and
said: “The investigators will be investigated.”
She was spreading a false conspiracy theory that DOJ
prosecutors and FBI agents were part of a secret cabal trying to undermine
Trump, and without citing evidence, she said that since they were no longer
“...hiding in the shadows ... they can all be investigated.”
Current & former DOJ officials expressed mixed reactions to Bondi, whom Trump picked to be AG after
Matt Gaetz withdrew from consideration over child sex charges, etc.
The DOJ officials said they view Bondi as a much more
favorable pick than Gaetz because she had a long career as a local prosecutor
and FL AG.
At the same time, they see her as a Trump loyalist whom they fear
will not hesitate to carry out his push to investigate his enemies. One recently
departed senior DOJ official said: “Members of special counsel Jack Smith’s
team are very concerned and talking to lawyers they said we would expect her to
do exactly what Trump wants her to do.”
The Washington Post citing two individuals close to
Trump’s transition, reported that Trump intends to fire Smith and the
entire team that helped Smith indict Trump on federal charges of mishandling classified documents and attempting to
overturn the 2020 election results, and they also reported that Trump expects
the DOJ to investigate his long-discredited claims of widespread fraud in the
2020 election.
Trump’s last AG, William Barr, was dismissive of Trump’s
claims of election fraud in 2020 and declined to launch DOJ investigations into
them, citing a lack of evidence. After publicly stating that there was no evidence of widespread fraud, Barr resigned.
When Trump tried to appoint Jeffrey Clark, a DOJ official who supported his false 2020
fraud claims, as acting AG a half dozen senior DOJ leaders threatened to
resign, and instead three days later, on January 6, 2021, rioters stormed
the Capitol to block the certification of the 2020 defeat of
Trump by Joe Biden.
Bondi, in the meantime, supported
Trump’s claims of voter fraud and a rigged and stolen election.
She even traveled to Philadelphia and held news conferences where she
promoted false claims of widespread ballot fraud and insisted the election had
been stolen from Trump, saying at the rallies: “We know that ballots have
been dumped. We’ve heard that people were receiving ballots that were in fact dead,
and is was happening all over the country.”
Background on Bondi:
She also served as a defense lawyer for Trump during his first impeachment,
claiming the president was being unfairly investigated. She is currently a partner at the lobbying firm Ballard
Partners, where she chairs its corporate regulatory compliance practice,
according to the firm’s website.
Dave Aronberg, the
state attorney for Palm Beach County, Florida, told The Washington Post that Bondi will be much
better for the DOJ than Gaetz, adding: “She is hands-on and she is also
loyal to her co-workers, meaning she’s not going to try to push anyone out
because they are a Democrat or a career prosecutor who is apolitical. She
believes in the rule of law.”
The question now becomes that if she is confirmed: “Will she keep
her public promise that prosecutors will be prosecuted, and, if she declines to
prosecute the prosecutors for political reasons, will she be forced out by
Trump like other AGs before her for not being loyal to him.”
A former DOJ official
who worked during the first Trump administration said that he did not know
Bondi well but that he did know Trump, saying: “I think whoever he picks is
bound to be loyal to him first and foremost. That’s the key test for him. I
don’t expect him to pick someone who will be honorable and loyal to the
Constitution above him.”
My 2 Cents: Add Pam Bondi to the Trump list of unfavorable choices
for the highest legal position in the land that of AG of the United States.
She like all the others is
a loyalist who would have to bow to Trump’s his every wish and keep their
promise like she has made to go after and “prosecute the prosecutors” who went
after and indicted Trump.
Bondi like so many others
are sycophants glued to Trump and not to the office they might get... the rule
of law it seems does not apply to him ergo it will not apply to them, either.
The Constitution be damned
we only serve Dictator Don, at least it appears to be the way of this cabinet is
being developed and filled – and that is not good for democracy by any standard,
or for our future.
Super outstanding article from LAWFARE
in part about Kashyap “Kash” Patel as Director of the FBI – (edited and formatted
with key parts to fit the blog) with this headline from the original article):
Patel or anyone can’t
consent to impeachable abuses and then object to impeachable abuses. Without
going into a whole lot of details, let’s just say that Patel believes that the
FBI needs to be redone root and branch.
Indeed, Trump has never made the
slightest pretense of believing that law enforcement should be apolitical — not
even when he named Patel to be FBI director.
In his statement on Truth Social, Trump explicitly
mentioned that Patel “played a pivotal role in uncovering the Russia,
Russia, Russia Hoax, standing as an advocate for truth, accountability, and the
Constitution.”
Trump will have to remove FBI
Director Christopher Wray and replacing him with Patel in order to commit these
abuses. He makes no attempt to hide it.
Patel, for his part, has similarly been nothing but explicit about what
he wants to do. The Washington Post compiled this
helpful montage of video clips of what he has said about going after
journalists: “We’re going to come after the people in the media who lied
about American citizens who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections. We’re
going to come after you, whether it’s criminally or civilly. We’ll figure that
out. But yeah, we’re putting you all on notice.”
In other words, a president-elect who has been explicit and
consistent for the past nine years about going after his political opponents
and critics using federal law enforcement has decided to remove the FBI
director (one he appointed, by the way) and replace him with a man who has been
similarly explicit about his plans to pursue the president-elect’s political
enemies, protect him from investigations, and go after journalists.
That’s the
first key element of the Patel Paradox.
When Trump talks about going after the “enemy within” and he
specifically mentions Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi, this is pure political
retaliation — and nothing more elevated than that.
When he talks about investigating Liz Cheney or larding the
FBI and DOJ Trump loyalists, there is no “reform” at issue. There is just
revenge for political opposition and professionalism — and building an
institution capable of delivering that revenge.
Elements in building a law enforcement cadre to maliciously
target with selective investigation and prosecutions one’s political opponents
and critics is not merely a garden-variety abuse. It is a textbook impeachable
abuse. Trump in his candor about his aspirations in announcing his intention to
commit offenses a reasonable Congress would find impeachable.
This brings us to the second paradox. Senators have a veto. They
know who Patel is; they know who Trump is; and, they know precisely why Trump wants
to oust Wray in favor of Patel. There is no resolution of the Patel
Paradox. You can’t consent to impeachable abuses and then object to impeachable
abuses.
Trump and Patel have left senators no plausible deniability.
Because they are not, in fact, talking about reform. The arsonists are
promising only arson. They just spell it with an “r.”
My 2 Cents: The original article
is intact at the link above and here.
Trump’s “Dictator Only on Day One” (PBS report is here) and my related posts can be
seenhere and here
and several other links therein, and boy oh boy, it’s gonna be one helluva awful
horrible sickening day, too.
I truly fear for our national
survival and way of life for the first time ever in my entire adult life.
Headline article from AlterNet with
more scary PROJECT 2025 stuff from Trump and his House MAGA GOP crazies led by
Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson (R-LA) - very concerning headline:
“House passes bill 'giving
Donald Trump unlimited authority' to target political enemies”
Thanks to the Republican-controlled House of
Representatives, Trump may now have an extra tool at his
disposal to effectively destroy any organization that mobilizes against him. One pushing this is the author of the above PBS quote (Stephen Miller – a true MAGAS Dufus & Trump ass-kisser)
The Intercept reported that H.R. 9495 — also known as the “Stop
Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Ac” — passed the House by a vote of 219-184.
All the no votes
were from Democrats, although 15 joined the Republican majority in supporting the bill including top names: Reps. Colin Allred (D-TX); Yadira Caraveo (D-CO); Henry Cuellar (D-TX); Tom
Suozzi (D-NY); and Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL).
If the bill becomes law, it would allow the U.S. Treasury
secretary to deem any nonprofit a “Terrorist supporting organization and strip
them of its tax-exempt 501(c)(3) status, that would effectively make it
impossible for that group to remain operational.”
H.R. 9495 could feasibly be used against some of
the groups that vocally opposed Trump during his first administration,
like the ACLU; the Human Rights Campaign; the NAACP; Planned Parenthood; and
the Southern Poverty Law Center among others.
It could also potentially be used against nonprofit news outlets
like ProPublica; Mother Jones; the Texas Tribune; the Center for Investigative
Reporting; and of course ABC; CBS; NBC; CNN; PBS and most print media: WashPost;
NY Times: Chicago Tribune; LA Times; plus Radio and TV outlets; but not FOX or MAGA friends.
Then add in the 3-ring circus ring masters of Trump; Musk; and
Ramaswamy and their growing lunatic gang of crazy unqualified and mostly
criminally-linked nominees to totally implement PROJECT 2025 and AGENDA “47”and also seen here to gain what? “Doing away
with our Constitutional democracy for this lunatic asylum where the inmates are
in charge. Sadly no name or label comes to mind except M.D.T.S. that replaces
USA as: “MAGA Disunited Trump States.”
From the “Project
2025” Plan for Trump to govern from are the below 10 key points were summarized
from Trump’s spring interviews with Time magazine title: “If He Wins,” April 30, 2024 published inRaw Story by John
Stoehr, the editor of “The Editorial Board.”
1. “…build massive migrant detention camps and deploy the
military at both at the border and inland.”
2. “…let GOP-run states monitor women’s pregnancies and
prosecute those who violate abortion bans as criminals.”
3. “…withhold funds appropriated by Congress for more tax
cuts.
4. “…fire U.S Attorneys who don’t carry out Trump’s prosecution
orders.”
5. “…give pardons for every one of his supporters accused of
attacking the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 (more than 800 of whom have
pleaded guilty or been convicted by a jury that he calls hostages and
patriots).”
6. “…might not come to the aid of an attacked ally in Europe
or Asia if he felt that country wasn’t paying enough for its own defense."
7. “…gut the U.S civil service system in effect since Teddy
Roosevelt’s implementation.”
8. “…deploy the National Guard to American cities as Trump sees
fit.”
9. “…close the White House pandemic-preparedness office.”
10. “…staff his administration with acolytes who back his
false sustained assertion that the 2020 election was stolen (Note: Trump is the first President who
never conceded losing).
My 2 cents: All the above
and links therein and now the daily “Name that nominee” Trump sh*t show with
only on ending like that for Former Rep. Matt Gaetz; then Pete Hegseth;
then Tulsi Gabbard the Propagandist, then anti-vaxxer
RFK Jr., then on to Linda McMahon (She BTW lied about having an education degree; she did not have any degree, and still does not have one and therefore should not even be nominated) – all 5 of some sort of nasty sexual assault
and/or Putin-style propaganda, or just outright liars.
Not a very good list of
nominees considering the offices at DOD, AG, HHS, Education, and Intelligence and all the other key positions in our government. Trump always picks losers... a fact.
As noted above Trump is
taking a wrecking ball to all that we have stood for as a great nation and
world leader since 1776 – and smashing to dust and for what?
Hell who knows for
sure except it seems for a hardcore, mean and nasty conservative country that
no one knows just to please and appease one man: Trump the First Tyrant and let’s
make sure he’s the last, too. Right now voter regrets are running red hot I honestly
believe.
(1st: Gen. Milley & others may be Court-Martialed)
Afghanistan FiascoAugust 26-30, 2021
(2nd:Afghans trying to flee anyway possible)
Shocking story from NBC News with this sick and unprecedented headline:
“Trump transition
team compiling list of current and former U.S. military officers for possible
courts-martial”
Trump wants to nail all the officers involved in the
chaotic 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, even though independent
reviews have blamed both Trump and Biden while GOP only blames Biden.
The Trump transition team is compiling a list of senior
current and former U.S. military officers who were directly involved in the
withdrawal from Afghanistan and exploring whether they could be court-martialed
for their involvement, according to a U.S. official and a person familiar with
the plan.
Officials working on
the Trump transition are considering creating a commission to investigate the
2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan, including: (1) gathering information
about who was directly involved in the decision-making for the military, (2) how
it was carried out, and (3) whether the military leaders could be eligible for
charges as serious as treason, the U.S. official and person with knowledge of
the plan said the person with knowledge of the plan said and added: “They’re
taking it very seriously.”
The Trump transition
team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Matt Flynn, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense
for counter-narcotics and global threats, is helping lead the effort, the
sources said. It is being framed as a review of how the U.S. first got into the
war in Afghanistan and how the U.S. ultimately withdrew.
BELOW ARE THE FACTS AND HISTORICAL TIMELINE VIS-À-VIS THE ORIGINAL TRUMP
DEAL AND THE REASON BIDEN CHANGED IT BASED ON KEY RESEARCH.
Below clearly stated
is the rational reason early on about the chaos during the Afghanistan pullout
– that shortly thereafter, and how and why President Biden got it on track …
think of the details below explained in common sense and logical rational
military thinking reported
on here from the SLATE story
with this headline (excellent report by Fred Kaplan. My key emphasis are noted in RED)
the subject:
“We
Now Know Why Biden Was in a Hurry to Exit Afghanistan”
The GOP does not want to talk about this part of the that moment
in September 28, 2021 Senate hearing on the withdrawal from Afghanistan when it became clear why
President Joe Biden decided to get the troops out of there as quickly as
possible.
That moment came when
General Mark Milley, Chairman of the JCS, explained why he and the other Service
Chiefs all agreed that we needed to pull out by August 31 – based on the
Doha agreement, which former President Trump had signed with the Taliban in
early 2020, which had NO participation by the Afghan government, and which required
a total withdrawal of all foreign forces.
Milley testified that if U.S. troops had stayed beyond August, then the
Taliban would have resumed the fighting and, in order to stave off the attacks adding:
“We would have needed 30,000 troops and
would have suffered many casualties.”
Milley also testified that
he, all the Joint Chiefs, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, and other officers had
all advised President Joe Biden to keep 2,500 U.S. troops in Afghanistan beyond
the August 31 deadline.
Milley added that the difference would be: “That those remaining troops wouldn’t be attached to or given any military
mission, instead they would transition to a diplomatic mission. It was extremely
unlikely that the Taliban would have observed the semantic distinction.”
In the Taliban’s eyes, the
remaining 2,500 U.S. troops would be seen as 2,500 U.S. troops, regardless of
their “diplomatic or military label.”
The fighting would have been
fierce.
Milley said the Taliban would resume more fighting, as Milley said
they would, and Biden would then have been faced with two horrendous choices:
“(1) To pull out while under attack, or
(2) Send in another 30,000 American troops.”
Some
historical-psychological perspective is worth noting. In the first nine
months of Barack Obama’s presidency, the generals were pushing for a major
escalation of the war in Afghanistan — an increase of 40,000 troops — and a
shift to a counterinsurgency (AKA: “Nation-building” strategy).
Biden, who was then vice
president, was alone in suggesting an increase of just 10,000 troops, to be
used solely for training the Afghan army and for fighting terrorists along the
Afghan-Pakistani border.
As Obama recalls in
his memoir, Biden urged the new and relatively inexperienced president
not to be “boxed in by the generals” saying in essence: “Give them 40,000 troops now, and in 18
months, they’ll say they need another 40,000 to win the war.”
Mr. Obama later acknowledged that Joe Biden
was right.
Likewise, as Gen. Milley was advising President Biden to
keep 2,500 troops in Afghanistan, even while acknowledging that another 30,000
might be needed if the Taliban resumed fighting.
It’s easy to imagine President
Biden’s thinking: “They’re trying to
box me in, just like they did before, just like they’ve always done since the
Vietnam War,” (which BTW was raging when Biden first entered the Senate in
1973 and has shaped his views on war and peace ever since).
THE NBC NEWS STORY NOW CONTINUES:
It is not clear, though, what would legally justify “treason”
charges since the military officers were following the orders of President Joe
Biden to withdraw all U.S. forces from Afghanistan.
Further,
the 2022 independent review by the Special IG
(Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction) blamed both the Trump and
Biden administrations for the chaotic U.S. withdrawal in 2021.
More Historical
Facts: Trump first reached an agreement with the Taliban in 2020 to withdraw
all U.S. forces from Afghanistan, roughly 13,000 troops, and release 5,000
Taliban fighters from prison.
The Biden administration then completed the
withdrawal and badly overestimated the ability of Afghan government forces to
fight the Taliban on their own.
Now, Trump’s choice for Defense Secretary is FOX News personality Pete Hegseth, who has
criticized the withdrawal, saying the U.S. lost the war and wasted billions of
dollars.
Hegseth wrote in his book: The War on Warriors the following: “The next president of the United States needs
to radically overhaul Pentagon senior leadership to make us ready to defend our
nation and defeat our enemies. Lots of people need to be fired. The debacle in
Afghanistan, of course, is the most glaring example.”
Hegseth goes on to call
the withdrawal a “humiliating retreat” and says leaders at the Pentagon were
not held accountable for the deadly attack at Abbey Gate, which killed 13 U.S. service
members and roughly 170 Afghan civilians. Nor were they held accountable for a
subsequent U.S. airstrike in Kabul that officials thought would kill the
Islamic State group leader behind the suicide attack but instead killed 10
innocent Afghans, including seven children.
Hegseth continued: “These generals lied. They mismanaged.
They violated their oath. They failed. They disgraced our troops, and our
nation. They got people killed, unnecessarily. And, to this moment, they keep
their jobs. Worse, they continue to actively erode our military and its values
— by capitulating to civilians with radical agendas. They are an embarrassment,
with stars still on their shoulders.”
The transition team is looking at the possibility of
recalling several commanders to active duty for possible charges. It’s not
clear the Trump administration would pursue treason charges, and instead could
focus on lesser charges that highlight the officer’s involvement.
Speaking to NBC News days before the 2024 election, Howard
Lutnick, one of the two advisers leading the transition, said: “Trump learned after his
first administration that he had hired Democratic generals, and he would not
make that mistake again.”
Former officials who worked in Trump’s first administration
have said they advised Trump against policies they thought would weaken U.S.
national security, such as withdrawing U.S. troops from Syria.
They also advised him against actions that they thought
might violate the Constitution or inflame tensions domestically, such as
deploying active-duty U.S. troops to quell protests after the 2020 police
killing of George Floyd.
My 2 Cents: The Trump
nominees thus far and now this one in particular ups the ante on insanity even
more so just like this quote often attributed to Albert Einstein: “Insanity is
doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” But,
Einstein did not say it or originate it, either.
ORIGIN: The quote was
originally attributed to a fictional character named Jane Fulton in Rita Mae
Brown's 1983 book “Sudden Death.”
THE ACTUAL CREDIT: The
quote is actually credited to sociology professor William Bruce Cameron, who
included it in a 1963 textbook and a couple of articles.
Einstein wasn't associated
with the quote until the mid-1980s, but carries more weight, I suppose?
Now with Trump today
wanting to go after and nail officers re: the Afghanistan debacle, why not go
back to the U.S. withdrawal in VN that gave North Vietnam the entire country.
Or, go back to our own
Civil War with President Lincoln and famous Generals and their decisions?
That my friends is true
insanity don’t you think?
I say again, the facts matter always, but apparently not in
MAGA world?
Read carefully the key extracts from SALON here below and believe it or not – the truth always wins in the
end no matter our opinions otherwise – the truth must prevail:
KEY PARTS FROM ARTICLE HEADLINE:
“Trump's Big Lie and
Hitler's Big Lie: Is this how America's slide into totalitarianism begins?”
Hitler undermined Germany's democracy by
lying about outcome of WWI. Trump and MAGA are constantly lying about the 2020 election outcome.
Thanks to the 2020
presidential election, there is now a convenient way to answer the above truth
premise (in my view at least):
+ Hitler rose to
power because he told a Big Lie about not losing WWI. Millions of people believed that Big Lie
because they held more sinister beliefs; millions more likely didn't believe
it, but weren't willing to denounce it as an outright lie at the time.
+ That same
dynamic is true regarding Trump's claim that Joe Biden stole the 2020 election from him. (Still sustained today by Trump).
It is a Big Lie being embraced to advance a racist,
anti-democratic agenda. Anyone who doesn't stand up to that Big Lie today would
have likely been complicit in Hitler's Big Lie last century.
A lot of prominent Republicans (not all) try to worm their
way around this issue by not quite saying they believe the Big Lie, but
rather that it is somehow validated by the fact that many other people agree
with it.
Two Examples:
First:Shortly before Trump egged on his supporters to storm the
Capitol on January 6, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) argued that America should rely on a white nationalist precedent to
resolve the election (in Trump's favor) because: “Recent polling shows that 39% percent of Americans believe the election
was rigged. You may not agree with that assessment; nonetheless it’s a reality
for nearly half the country.”
Thomas wrote in part: “That an election
free from strong evidence of systemic fraud is not alone sufficient for
election confidence, but that people on the losing side of an
election need the assurance that fraud will not go undetected.”
(Note: My
emphasis highlighted to the two above statements).
Thomas' argument was essentially the same as Cruz's: “Even if there isn't evidence of fraud, if
one side claims the other side might have stolen an election, that's
enough to justify making it harder for the other side to vote.”
Let's call these
things what they are: “Attempts by
Republican officials (again, some not all) to exploit Trump's Big Lie to create
permanent Republican rule, but without quite saying that they agree with the
Big Lie itself. But even if those prominent Republicans (again, some not all) don't flat-out say that the Big Lie is
true, refusing to denounce it, emboldens more people to believe it
— and that emboldens our policy makers to change society based around it.”
My 2 Cents: I felt the above article and subject matter of the Big
Lie used by Hitler and now Trump’s Big Lie were comparable in purpose.
Some readers
may not agree with that, but once Justice Thomas’ 2020 decent is factored in for
that PA ballot case, I find it hard for anyone not be agree.
But, that’s who we are.
Nevertheless the truth must always prevail, right?
MAJOR UPDATE:
As I said before, the growth and use of AI in this election will show some very
nasty stuff, and now, well: Bingo!!! It’s here as seen in the excellent AP article
below (refer to the several links in the article below) proving my prediction
true with examples of Russian disinformation; AI stunts; and now this October
22 AP story headline (AP writer Melissa Goldin contributed to this
report). The original and recent article follows this update:
“Russia is behind viral
disinformation targeting Kamala Harris and now Tim Walz, intelligence official
says”
WASHINGTON (AP) — Groups in Russia created and helped spread viral
disinformation targeting Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz,
a senior U.S. intelligence official said Tuesday.
The content, which includes baseless accusations about the
Minnesota governor’s time as a teacher, contains several indications that it
was manipulated, said the official with the Office of the Director of National
Intelligence (O/DNI).
Analysts identified clues that linked the content to Russian disinformation operations, said the official, who briefed reporters
on the condition of anonymity under rules set by the office of the director.
Digital researchers had already linked the video to Russia,
but this announcement is the first time federal authorities have confirmed the
connection. The disinformation targeting Tim Walz is consistent with Russian disinformation seeking to undermine the Democratic campaign of
Vice President Kamala Harris and now Tim Walz, her running mate.
Russia also
has spread disinformation aimed at stoking discord and division ahead of
voting, officials said, and may seek to encourage violent protests after Election Day.
Two recent examples of disinformation:
(1). Last month, analysts at Microsoft revealed that a viral
video that baselessly claimed Kamala Harris left a woman paralyzed in a
hit-and-run accident 13 years ago was Russian disinformation.
(2). More recently, a video surfaced featuring a man
claiming to be a former student of Tim Walz’s who accused the candidate of
sexual misconduct years ago.
Private researchers at
firms that track disinformation, including NewsGuard,
already have concluded the video was fake and that the man in the footage isn’t
who he claimed to be. The AP contacted a former employer of the man whose
identity was used in the video. The employer, Viktor Yeliohin, confirmed the
man shown in the video was an impostor.
Some researchers have also
suggested the video may contain evidence that it was created using AI, but
federal officials stopped short of the same conclusion, saying only that the video
contained multiple indications of manipulation.
Officials also said there are no indication that Russia,
China, or Iran are plotting significant attacks on election infrastructure as a
way to disrupt the outcome.
“Exceptionally Long Post re: Disinformation spreader, John
Dougan”
He is former American, but now is a Russian citizen in Moscow see site below
(edited and formatted to fit the blog). Dougan is a traitor and turn-coat
to the nation now serving as a Putin disinformation guru from Moscow.
What a story on Dougan’s ties and efforts to disrupt the
2024 election as a Russian citizen who got there via political asylum in 2016
as a runaway felon from Florida. Amazing story of a very sick man seen the
video – just watch and listen to the video of the site owner, Steven Brill of Dougan broadcast below:
NewsGuard Technologies was founded in 2018 by
Steven Brill and L. Gordon Crovitz, who serve as co-CEOs – they track and ID disinformation
posters like John Dougan.
More info on Dougan:
His emergence as a weapon of the Kremlin’s propaganda war follows a troubled
life in the United States that included home foreclosures and bankruptcy. As a
law enforcement officer in Florida and Maine, he faced accusations of excessive
use of force and sexual harassment that resulted in costly lawsuits against the
departments he worked for. He still faces an arrest warrant in Florida on 21
felony charges of extortion and wiretapping that resulted from a long-running
feud with the sheriff of Palm Beach County.
Dougan is also a former
deputy sheriff in Palm Beach County, FL where he sent voters an email posing as
a county commissioner, urging them to oppose the reelection of the county’s
sheriff.
After a four-year stint in
the Marine Corps, Dougan became that former deputy police officer first in a
small force in Mangonia Park, FL, and then with the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s
Office from 2005 to 2009.
He later masqueraded online as a Russian tech worker with a
pseudonym to leak confidential information in violation of state law, fooling
officials in Florida. He also has posed as a fictional NYC heir he called
Jessica, tricking an adviser to the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office into
divulging improper conduct by the department.
Dougan said in a written response to questions for this
article, in which he confirmed his role in these episodes: “Boy, did he ever spill ALL of the beans.”
His subterfuges were a prelude to a more prominent and
potentially more ominous deception he has been conducting from Russia.
Dougan, 51, who sought and received political asylum after
he fled to Moscow is now a key player in Russia’s disinformation operations
against the West.
In 2016, when the Kremlin interfered in the U.S.
presidential election, an army of computer trolls toiled for hours to try to
fool Americans online.
Today, Dougan may be
accomplishing much of those same tasks by himself, according to U.S. and
European government officials and researchers from companies and organizations
that have tracked his activities since August.
Those groups include NewsGuard,
a company that reviews the reliability of news and information online; Recorded
Future, a threat intelligence company; and Clemson University’s Media Forensics
Hub.
Dougan has built an ever-growing network of more than 160
fake websites that mimic news outlets in the United States, Britain and France.
With the help of commercially available artificial intelligence tools, he has
filled the sites with tens of thousands of articles.
Interspersed among them are also bespoke fabrications that
officials in the United States and European Union have attributed to Russian
intelligence agencies or the administration of President Vladimir Putin.
Dougan’s outlets have been cited or referred to in news
articles or social media posts nearly 8,000 times, and seen by more than 37
million people in 16 languages, according to a report released from NewsGuard.
Two Examples:
1. The fakes recently included a fake San Francisco
Chronicle website that said Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, had
smuggled 300 kilograms of cocaine from Argentina.
2. Another false narrative appeared last month in the sham
Chronicle and on another site, called The Boston Times, claiming that the CIA
was working with Ukrainians to undermine Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.
Dougan, in a series of
text exchanges and one telephone interview with The New York Times, denied
operating the sites. A digital trail of clues, including web domains and IP
addresses, suggests otherwise, the officials and researchers say.
A friend in Florida who
has known Dougan for 20 years, Jose Lambiet, also said that Dougan told him in
January that he had created the sites.
Steven Brill, a
founder of NewsGuard, which has spent months tracking Dougan’s work, said:
“He represents a massive incursion into
the American news ecosystem.”
Dougan’s activities from Moscow, where he fled in 2016 one
step ahead of the FL charges, continue to draw scrutiny from authorities in the
United States. For example: Last year, he impersonated an FBI agent in a
telephone call to Brill according to Brill.
Dougan, who acknowledged making the call in a text message
this week, had been angered by a NewsGuard report in February 2023 that
criticized YouTube for allowing videos parroting Russian propaganda about the
war in Ukraine, including some by Dougan himself.
The call prompted an FBI investigation that, according to
Brill, traced the call to Dougan’s telephone in Russia. According to news
reports and his own accounts, Dougan repeatedly clashed with superiors and
colleagues, facing numerous internal investigations.
Earlier, in 2009, Dougan moved briefly to Windham, ME to work
in another small-town police department. There he faced a complaint of sexual
harassment that resulted in his dismissal before he completed his probationary
period.
There also, Dougan started a website called WindhamTalk to
defend himself. The website foreshadowed others he would create, including one
devoted to the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office, PBSOTalk.
In February 2016, PBSOTalk
posted confidential information about thousands of police officers, federal
agents, and judges.
The next month, FBI agents
and local police officers searched his home, seizing all of his electronic
equipment.
Fearing arrest, he made
his way to Canada and caught a flight to Moscow where he sought political
asylum and has been there since.
He was indicted on the 21
Florida felony charges in 2017.
In April 2021, Dougan revived a website called DC Weekly and
published fake articles about the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office.
According to a report in December 2021 by Clemson’s Media
Forensics Hub, the domain and IP address were shared by PBSOTalk and Dougan’s
personal website, as well as two marketing books he wrote in exile and a
security firm he operated, Falcon Eye Tech, which offered “offshore security
monitoring services.”
After Russia’s assault on
Ukraine began in 2022, his site carried articles about the war.
Then, in August 2023, the
site began to publish articles based on elaborate fabrications that the Western
government officials and disinformation researchers said came from Russia’s
propaganda units.
The baseless narratives
included claims that relatives or cronies of Ukraine’s leader secretly bought
luxury properties, yachts or jewelry, and that Prince Andrew, the brother of
King Charles III of Britain, had abducted and abused children during a secret
visit to Ukraine.
Dougan, became a Russian citizen in 2023, and he said in his
messages to the NY TIMES said he now makes a living by selling security devices
he designed for a manufacturer in China.
He denied being paid by
any Russian authorities, claiming he funds his activities himself. While
Dougan’s sites have focused on Russian narratives about the war in Ukraine, the
researchers and government officials say he has laid the foundation for
interference in the unusually large confluence of elections taking place around
the world this year.
From the diplomatic
service of the EU wrote in a report last month, in part: “This suggests a “risk of an expanded
operation scope in the near future, potentially targeting diverse audiences and
democratic systems in Europe and other Western nations for various strategic
objectives.”
My 2 Cents:Once again for “poorly educated that Trump said
he loves” that we all now call MAGA, I hope this reminder of the differences
between “misinformation vs. disinformation”
helps you improve your education level.
Here that refreshment:
Misinformation is information made
or placed by a simple mistake not covertly and not made with malice, intent,
or definite purpose – like a white or bold-face lie.
vs
Disinformationis information purposely placed with the full
intent to cause harm, disruption, distrust, and chaos. In more modern times it
is placed covertly to disrupt or topple established governments, competing political
systems around the globe for self-interests, and for political, military,
financial, or more devious purposes and gain.
The word “disinformation” is
the English transliteration of the Russian word: “дезинформация.”
Thatwordwas
derived from the former KGB’s “BlackPropaganda Department” handbook
that shows how Joseph Stalin coined the term, even giving it a French-sounding
name and falsely claiming it had Western origin, that being a false statement itself.
Precise Russian use of the word began in the now defunct USSR’s “Special Disinformation Office” in 1923.
