stalkerzone | Economist Mikhail Khazin suggested that there is a connection between the shelling of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant
and the searches of former US President Donald Trump. In his opinion,
the American leader Joe Biden can be keeping a dangerous secret at the
facility.
According to Khazin, the shelling of the Zaporozhye NPP by the
Ukrainian Armed Forces may be directly related to the scandalous
searches at Trump’s house. The economist admitted that Biden, during the
period of vice-presidency and overseeing Ukraine under Barack Obama,
could have agreed with Ukraine and, possibly, Turkey to facilitate their
receipt of an atomic bomb. For this purpose, uranium enriched much
higher than the standards could be delivered to storage facilities on
the territory of the nuclear Power Plant. Under Trump, the plan could
have been covered up and its documents could have disappeared from the
White House, which seriously alarmed Biden and forced him to conduct
searches of his predecessor after the release of the nuclear plant by
Russia.
“Then a special operation begins, and the Russian army discovers containers sealed by Westinghouse
in a storage facility in Zaporozhye, where highly enriched uranium is
found. Please note that the IAEA experts have already tried to go there
twice, but the UN is blocking this trip. Russia, of course, could have
stolen this uranium, but then go and prove that it was not it who made
the false seal. And if the IAEA commission arrives, it won’t be possible
to get away with it,” Khazin said.
The Biden administration is very afraid of revealing the truth about
the storage facility at the Westinghouse nuclear power plant, so it
blocks any trip there by IAEA experts and tries to wipe the object off
the face of the earth with the hands of the UAF. If the theory is
confirmed, the US president will not be saved from impeachment even by
his Democratic supporters, the expert is sure.
“Somewhere,
Trump may have pieces of paper that were worthless until the
information about this uranium was widely available, but which will
become very expensive if this information gets out. If it turns out that
Biden violated the nuclear non-proliferation Treaty with his decision,
even the Democrats will vote for impeachment, because this is a thing
that the American establishment is terribly afraid of,” Khazin said on the “Interpretation” YouTube channel.
indianpunchline | Meanwhile, from the US perspective, Kiev’s drone attacks on Crimea already serve three purposes.
First,
this is meant to be a blow to the Russian morale. Indeed, Putin’s
towering popularity within Russia has become an eyesore for the Biden
Administration. Putin’s masterly navigation of the Russian economy out
of crisis mode is an incredible feat that defied all logic of power in
the American calculus — inflation is steadily falling (in contrast with
the European countries and the US); the GDP decline is narrowing;
foreign reserves are swelling; the current account is on the plus side;
and lo and behold, the Biden Administration’s so-called “nuclear option”
— Russia’s removal from the SWIFT messaging system — failed to cripple
foreign trade.
Second,
both Washington and Kiev are desperately scrambling for “success”
stories to distract attention. The Times playing up the story speaks for
itself. In reality, Russia’s Donbass offensive has created a new
momentum and is steadily grinding the Ukrainian forces. Within the week,
Russian forces will have encircled the lynchpin of the Ukrainian
defence line, Bakhmut city, which is a communication hub for troop
movements and supply logistics in Donbass. Russian forces have reached
the city outskirts from the north, east and south. The fall of Bakhmut
will be a crushing defeat for Zelensky.
On
the other hand, even after two months after Zelensky promised a
“counteroffensive” on Kherson near Crimea, it is nowhere in sight. Even
his most ardent votaries in the western media feel let down. To be sure,
there is growing disenchantment in Europe.
The
Hungarian PM Viktor Orban, undoubtedly the smartest European politician
today (with an economy registering over 6% growth when the rest of the
continent is mired in recession), told German magazine Tichys Einblick in an interview
last week that this war marked the end of “western superiority.”
Interestingly, he named Big Oil as “war profiteers” and singled out that
Exxon doubled its profits, Chevron quadrupled, and ConocoPhillips’
profits have shot up manifold. (Of course, all three are American
companies.) Orban’s message was clear: America has weakened the EU. This
thought must be troubling many a European politician today.
Third,
Washington has thrown down the gauntlet in a measured way. But there is
no way the war can be brought into the drawing rooms of the average
Americans the way Times says is happening in Russia. Twenty Americans
were killed in Kharkiv two days ago in a high-precision Russian missile
strike, but there aren’t going to be any body bags returning to
Arlington Cemetery; nor does it make headline in the cooperative
American media.
The US
plans to go further up on the escalation ladder. Escalation is the
Biden Administration’s last chance to stall a Russian victory. The
American strategic thinker and academic John Mearsheimer has written
that the risk of a disastrous escalation is “substantially greater than
the conventional wisdom holds. And given that the consequences of
escalation could include a major war in Europe and possibly even nuclear
annihilation, there is good reason for extra concern.”
Moscow’s
preference is to avoid any escalation, since the special military
operation is achieving results. Whereas, it is the US that is in some
visible despair, and in immediate terms, Russia’s plans to hold
referendums in Kherson and Zaporozhye in September must be stalled.
Herein lies the danger.
The US’ current build-up over Zaporozhye
Nuclear Power Plant points toward a hidden agenda to intervene in the
war at some point directly. Kiev’s attempt to arrange a nuclear
explosion in Zaporozhye can only be seen in this light. Moscow seems to
anticipate such an eventuality.
Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu disclosed yesterday
that Russia has begun mass production of Tsirkon hypersonic cruise
missiles and is already deploying them. The US lacks the capability to
counter Tsirkon, which is estimated to be 11 times faster than Tomahawk
with far superior target-penetration characteristics. Shoigu may have
given a stark warning that Russia will not be cowed down if there’s a
NATO intervention in Ukraine.
TASS | The murder of Russian journalist Darya Dugina has been solved,
Russia’s federal security service FSB has said. It was prepared by
Ukrainian secret services. The perpetrator - a citizen of Ukraine
identified as Natalia Vovk - escaped to Estonia, the FSB’s public
relations center stated.
"As a result of urgent detective measures, the federal security
service has solved the murder of Russian journalist Darya Dugina, born
in 1992," the FSB stressed. The special service found that "the crime
was prepared and committed by Ukrainian secret services." Its
perpetrator was identified as a citizen of Ukraine, Natalia Vovk, born
in 1979.
She had arrived in Russia on July 23, 2022, together with her
daughter Sofya Shaban, born in 2010. "On the day of the murder, Vovk and
Shaban attended the literary and music festival Tradition, where Dugina
was present as an honorary guest.
On August 21, after a remote-controlled explosion of the Toyota Land
Cruiser Prado car Dugina was driving, Vovk and her daughter left through
the Pskov Region to Estonia," the FSB said.
To
plot the murder and gather information about Dugina’s lifestyle, Vovk
and her daughter rented an apartment in Moscow in the same building
where the victim lived. To spy on the journalist, the criminal used a
Mini Cooper car. When entering Russia, the vehicle carried a license
plate of the Donetsk People's Republic - E982XH DPR, in Moscow - a
license plate of Kazakhstan 172AJD02, and when leaving - a Ukrainian
license plate AH7771IP. "The materials of the investigation have been
handed over to the Investigative Committee," the FSB said.
They’re excited about the arctic being open for shipping and drilling.
They’re excited about future archeological expeditions to places that will become accessible due to climate change.
Like all the land below the ice in Antarctica.
They’re excited about their investments in farmland and water rights paying off.
They’re excited about water becoming more valuable than oil.
In fact, quite a few large companies are positioning themselves to profit off of “big water”.
They’re excited about Montana becoming great wine country.
They’re excited about the coast line changing and creating more opportunities for development.
They’re excited about public private partnerships for the infrastructure to protect the places they decide to protect.
They’re excited about the opportunities to redesign cities to handle “chronic inundation”, “induced seismicity” and “heat challenged districts”.
These people absolutely see themselves as winners in climate change. They see no reason to stop making profits off the activities that are driving climate change because they see no reason to stop accelerating climate change. They’re looking forward to the world to come.
They might acknowledge that there isn’t as much room for people like us in the future. But as long as they can keep shifting the idea of responsibility to suburban moms and soy eating college activists they’ll be happy to continue funding environmental goals that don’t achieve anything for the environment.
They’ll always be able to find another Greta Thunberg to scold them while looking suitably young and idealistic. And most people will fall for it because they want their actions to mean something. Because who could believe that our leaders know they’re destroying our world and that they don’t care.
caityjohnstone | Wealth
is a zero-sum game, as is its good friend power. The more power
everyone else has, the less power our current rulers would have over us.
This is why so much energy goes into ensuring that votes have as little
effect as possible on the operations of the state and making sure
everything stays the same no matter what the public wants.
Imagine
if ordinary people started having as much influence over the direction
human civilization will take as war profiteers, oil tycoons, globalized
wage slavers and Silicon Valley plutocrats. Imagine if the working class
had enough disposable income to begin funding grassroots political
campaigns, building their own media networks, or even funding think
tanks and NGOs to advance their own interests like plutocrats do today.
Imagine if everyone could afford to work less and relax more, and
finally start learning about what’s really going on in the world.
Wealth is meaningless if everyone is wealthy. Power is meaningless if everyone has power. The kings of our day have a vested interest in keeping everyone poor and powerless, because if everyone is king, then no one is king.
This
is why our status quo systems work the way they work, and this is why
you see a convergence of interests from such groups as corporate
plutocrats, plutocrat-owned politicians and media, the arms industry,
and military and intelligence agencies. These groups all have a vested
interest in preserving the status quo and the ability to put that agenda
in place, so they’ve fallen into a natural, de facto alliance with each
other toward that end.
It’s why we’ve seen a historic upward transfer of wealth
during the Covid pandemic, with billionaires raking in trillions while
ordinary people struggle with unemployment and soaring prices. And it’s
why that transfer of wealth has been happening for decades
since long before Covid. In a system where money is power and power is
relative, a ruling class naturally emerges which needs to suppress the
wealth and power of its subjects in order to continue to rule.
Workers around the world: lost $3.7 trillion in the pandemic Billionaires around the world: gained $3.9 trillion in the pandemic
It's the biggest one-year wealth transfer in history, yet somehow barely anyone is talking about it.
Rulers
do not historically give up their rule voluntarily, so we can expect
this continual pattern of wealth obstruction via wealth extraction to
continue until people get tired of being kept poor and powerless by
those who benefit from their poverty and disempowerment and use the strength of their numbers to force the emergence of a more equitable system. We can also expect our rulers to do everything in their power to prevent this from happening, including propagandizing the public into accepting the status quo and believing that anything better is impossible.
Drastic
change in the not-too-distant future does seem to be inevitable,
though, if only because we’re headed toward environmental collapse or
nuclear winter if we don’t rise to the revolutionary occasion first.
Humanity’s self-destructive patterning is in a race with our better angels, and right now it’s anybody’s race.
aurelian2022 | There’s a pretty solid consensus that the western political class
today is totally incapable, and that it presides over fragile state
systems, that it has itself hollowed out and de-skilled progressively
for the last forty years. Conversely, it is agreed that the West faces
an array of existential problems never seen before, some already with
us, others yet to arrive. Yet there’s been a surprising lack of
reflection on the implications of these two truths together. Let’s peel
away a few scabs, and try to see what’s likely to be hiding underneath.
Almost
everyone who’s not a member of the western political class, or a
parasite upon it, views it with a kind of numb despair. Increasingly
professional in the blinkered and isolated sense, it is increasingly
amateurish in every other. This would matter less if the class were
supported by competent and properly staffed state structures, but that
is seldom the case. Most state services in western countries have been
reduced to shadows of what they once were.
That much is generally
agreed, but there has been little attempt to think about what exactly
the practical consequences are, and how they might complicate, or even
prevent, an effective response to problems caused by climate change,
disease, war, mass population movements, and all the rest. The
conclusion of this essay will be a bit like an Aristotelian syllogism:
western states are increasingly being confronted with massive,
interlinked problems, requiring competent and far-sighted management.
But there is no competent and far-sighted management. Therefore we are
stuffed. I’m now going to try to put a little flesh on these
unattractive-sounding bones.
Let’s start with the biggest
weaknesses of the system. The first is the incestuous and exclusive
nature the political class, Now of course this is not new. The House of
Lords in eighteenth-century England, or the aristocracy at Versailles,
were at least as ingrown and far removed from the concerns of ordinary
people then, as their descendants are today. But in the eighteenth
century there was no question of a notionally representative political
class, theoretically owing a duty to the people: now there is. It’s a
familiar story: the end of mass political parties, the dominance of
politicians without experience of anything outside politics, the capture
of the main western parties by a well-off, culturally homogeneous
professional and managerial class, the triumph of image and discourse
over reality, and the increasing contempt of the political class for the
people who elect them. Beyond valid concerns about corruption and
nepotism, there are two entirely technical consequences of all this,
that bode ill for the political management of even relatively simple
problems, and which will make facing up to the kind of complex crises
that are starting to arise now difficult, if not impossible.
The
first is that fundamental traditional political skills are no longer
needed for career success. Once upon a time, politicians would try to
get elected, and to develop personal and organisational skills that made
that possible. They would rely on large numbers of volunteers for
canvasing and to get the vote out, and on convincing as many people as
possible to vote for them by personal contact and giving speeches. Few
politicians are capable of that today. Rather, success comes from
appealing to an in-group, to positioning yourself well with party
militants, and to getting favourable coverage from certain media
sources. “The electorate” is those who read your Twitter posts. Why does
this matter? Well, it means that when a genuine crisis arrives, such
politicians are incapable of understanding, let alone communicating
with, and certainly not motivating, ordinary people. The epitome of this
type of politician must be Emmanuel Macron, whose attempts to talk
directly to the French people during height of the Covid crisis were so
awful, and so embarrassing, that people hid under the table to get away
from him. Here was a man clearly hopelessly out of his depth, in a
situation where McKinsey was not the solution.
The second is that
genuine ideas are no longer needed either. True, governments are still
elected with notional programmes, but that’s a polite fiction. Politics
is about winning the media battle, looking good on TV, massaging genuine
political issues so that they go away, internal warfare within the
party, and winning the next election. Government “initiatives” are
generally sterile technocratic exercises which take money from those who
have too little already, or give even more to those who already have
too much. When a genuine political crisis arises (Covid, Brexit,
Ukraine) the system finds that it cannot be managed or Twittered away,
and has no idea what to do, other than to try to look good on TV. So it
inevitably panics. With Covid, western governments have effectively
surrendered, and allowed the disease to propagate freely, because they
don’t have the moral or intellectual capability to fight it effectively.
And Ukraine is being dealt with, so far as I can tell, on the basis
that winter isn’t coming this year after all. The result is a kind of
paralysis at the heart of government, where nothing is ever done except
in haste and for immediate effect on one hand, or out of sheer panic on
the other.
Even without forty years of the hollowing out of
state capacity, this would still cause problems. Contrary to myth,
public servants prefer to work for a government that knows what it
wants, and sets objectives (and no, not those sort
of objectives). Most senior figures in western public services have now
spent their careers working in a political culture which is obsessed
with image and with instant effects. There are no rewards any more for
being prudent, for thinking long-term, or for telling the political
class that they are storing up trouble for the future. All this produces
a kind of corruption: the prizes go to those ready to tell the
political class what it wants to hear, and to help them do whatever it
takes to get good media coverage. Good people leave, or just never join.
CTH | It is hard to think the unthinkable – but there comes a time when
there’s nothing else for it. People raised to trust the powers that be –
who have assumed, like I once did, that the State, regardless of its
political flavour at any given moment, is essentially benevolent and
well-meaning – will naturally try and keep that assumption of
benevolence in mind when trying to make sense of what is going on around
them.
People like us, you and me, raised in the understanding that we are
free, that we have inalienable rights, and that the institutions of this
country have our best interests at heart, will tend to tie ourselves in
knots rather than contemplate the idea those authorities might actually
be working against us now. I took that thought of benevolent,
well-meaning authority for granted for most of my life, God help me. Not
to put too fine a point on it, I was as gullible as the next chump.
A couple of years ago, however, I began to think the unthinkable and
with every passing day it becomes more and more obvious to me that we
are no longer being treated as individuals entitled to try and make the
most of our lives – but as a barn full of battery hens, just another
product to be bought and sold – sold down the river.
Let me put it another way: if you have been driving yourself almost
demented in an effort to think the best of those in charge – those in
senior positions in government, those in charge of the great
institutions of State, those running the big corporations – but finding
it increasingly impossible to do so … then the solution to the problem
might be to turn your point of view through 180 degrees and accept,
however unwillingly, that we are … how best to put this … being taken
for a ride.
When you find a stranger’s hand on your wallet, in the inside pocket
of your jacket … rather than trying to persuade yourself he’s only
making sure it doesn’t fall out … it might be more straightforward to
draw the conclusion you’re in the process of being robbed.
Once the scales fall from a person’s eyes, the resultant clarity of
sight is briefly overwhelming. Or it is like being handed a skeleton key
that opens every locked door, or access to a Rosetta Stone that
translates every word into a language instantly understood.
Take the energy crisis: If you’ve felt the blood drain from your face
at the prospect of bills rising from hundreds to several thousands of
pounds while reading about energy companies doubling their profits
overnight while being commanded to subsidise so-called renewables that
are anything but Green while listening to this politician or that renew
their vows to the ruinous fantasies of Net Zero and Agenda 2030 while
knowing that the electricity for electric cars comes, in the main and
most reliably, from fossil fuels if you can’t make sense of it all and
just know that it adds up to a future in which you might have to choose
between eating and heating then treat yourself to the gift of
understanding that the powers that be fully intend that we should have
less heat and less fuel and that in the planned future only the rich
will have cars anyway. The plan is not to fix it.
The plan is to break it, and leave it broken. If you struggle to
think the best of the world’s richest – vacuous, self-obsessed A-list
celebrities among them – endlessly circling the planet on private jets
and super yachts, so as to attend get-togethers where they might
pontificate to us lowly proles about how we must give up our cars and
occasional holiday flights – even meat on the dinner table … if you
wonder how they have the unmitigated gall … then isn’t it easier simply
to accept that their honestly declared and advertised intention is that
their luxurious and pampered lives will continue as before while we are
left hungry, cold and mostly unwashed in our unheated homes.
Here’s the thing: if any leader or celeb honestly meant a word of their sermons about CO2 and
the rest, then they would obviously lead by example. They would be
first of all of us willingly to give up international travel altogether …
they would downsize to modest homes warmed by heat pumps. They would
eschew all energy but that from the sun and the wind. They would eat,
with relish, bugs and plants. They would resort to walking, bicycles and
public transport.
If Net Zero and the rest was about the good of the planet – and not
about clearing the skies and the beaches of scum like us – don’t you
think those sainted politicians and A-listers would be lighting the way
for us by their own example? If the way of life they preach to us was
worth living, wouldn’t they be living it already? Perhaps you heard Bill
Gates say private jets are his guilty pleasure.
And how about food – and more particularly the predicted shortage of
it: the suits and CEOs blame it all on Vladimir Putin. But if the
countries of the world are truly running out of food, why is our
government offering farmers hundreds of thousands of pounds to get out
of the industry and sell their land to transnational corporations for
use, or disuse unknown? Why aren’t we, as a society, doing what our
parents and grandparents did during WWII and digging for victory? Why is
the government intent on turning a third of our fertile soil over to
re-wilding schemes that make life better only for the beavers? Why
aren’t we looking across the North Sea towards the Netherlands where a
WEF-infected administration is bullying farmers off their land
altogether, forcing them to cull half the national herd.
Those Dutch farmers are among the most productive and knowledgeable
in the world, holding in their heads and hands the answers to all manner
of questions about how best to produce food, and yet their government
is so intent on scaring them out of the business that a teenage boy in a
tractor, taking part in a protest to defend ancient rights and
traditions, was fired on by police.
Why do you think it matters so much, to the government of the second
most productive population of farmers in the world, to gut and fillet
that industry? Why? Why have similar protests, in countries all across
Europe and the wider world, been largely ignored by the mainstream media
– a media that would have crawled on its hands and knees over broken
glass just to report on a BLM protester opening a bag of non-binary
crisps. Why the silence on the attack on farming?
en.kremlin.ru |President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Ladies and gentlemen,
Esteemed foreign guests,
Let me welcome you to the anniversary 10th Moscow Conference on International Security. Over the past decade, your representative forum
has become a significant venue for discussing the most pressing
military-political problems.
Today,
such an open discussion is
particularly pertinent. The situation in the world is changing
dynamically and the outlines of a multipolar world order are taking
shape. An increasing number
of countries and peoples are choosing a path of free and sovereign
development
based on their own distinct identity, traditions and values.
These
objective processes are being
opposed by the Western globalist elites, who provoke chaos, fanning
long-standing and new conflicts and pursuing the so-called containment
policy,
which in fact amounts to the subversion of any alternative, sovereign
development options. Thus, they are doing all they can to keep hold onto
the hegemony and power that are slipping from their hands; they are
attempting to retain countries and peoples in the grip of what is
essentially a neocolonial
order. Their hegemony means stagnation for the rest of the world
and for the entire civilisation; it means obscurantism, cancellation
of culture, and neoliberal totalitarianism.
They
are using all expedients. The United States and its vassals grossly
interfere in the internal affairs of sovereign states by staging
provocations, organising coups, or inciting civil
wars. By threats, blackmail, and pressure, they are trying to force
independent
states to submit to their will and follow rules that are alien to them.
This is
being done with just one aim in view, which is to preserve their
domination,
the centuries-old model that enables them to sponge on everything
in the world.
But a model of this sort can only be retained by force.
This
is why the collective West –
the so-called collective West – is deliberately undermining the European
security
system and knocking together ever new military alliances. NATO is
crawling east
and building up its military infrastructure. Among other things, it is
deploying
missile defence systems and enhancing the strike capabilities of its
offensive
forces. This is hypocritically attributed to the need to strengthen
security in Europe, but in fact quite the opposite is taking place.
Moreover, the proposals
on mutual security measures, which Russia put forward last December,
were once
again disregarded.
They
need conflicts to retain their
hegemony. It is for this reason that they have destined the Ukrainian
people to being used as cannon fodder. They have implemented
the anti-Russia project and connived at the dissemination
of the neo-Nazi ideology. They looked the other
way when residents of Donbass were killed in their thousands
and continued to pour weapons, including heavy weapons, for use
by the Kiev regime, something
that they persist in doing now.
Under
these circumstances, we have
taken the decision to conduct a special military operation in Ukraine,
a decision which is in full conformity with the Charter of the United
Nations. It
has been clearly spelled out that the aims of this operation are
to ensure the security of Russia and its citizens and protect
the residents of Donbass from
genocide.
The situation
in Ukraine shows that
the United States is attempting to draw out this conflict. It acts
in the same way elsewhere, fomenting
the conflict potential in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. As is common
knowledge,
the US has recently made another deliberate attempt to fuel the flames
and stir
up trouble in the Asia-Pacific. The US escapade towards Taiwan is not
just a voyage by an irresponsible politician, but part
of the purpose-oriented and deliberate US strategy designed
to destabilise the situation and sow chaos in the region and the world.
It is a brazen demonstration of disrespect for other
countries and their own international commitments. We regard this
as a thoroughly planned provocation.
It is clear that by taking these actions the Western globalist elites
are attempting, among other things, to divert the attention
of their own citizens from pressing socioeconomic problems, such
as plummeting
living standards, unemployment, poverty, and deindustrialisation. They
want to shift the blame for their own failures to other countries,
namely Russia and China, which are defending their point of view
and designing a sovereign
development policy without submitting to the diktat of the supranational
elites.
We also see that the collective West
is striving to expand its bloc-based system to the Asia-Pacific region, like it
did with NATO in Europe. To this end, they are creating aggressive military-political
unions such as AUKUS and others.
It is obvious that it is only
possible to reduce tensions in the world, overcome military-political threats
and risks, improve trust between countries and ensure their sustainable
development through a radical strengthening of the contemporary system of a multipolar world.
I reiterate
that the era of the unipolar world is becoming a thing of the past. No
matter how strongly the beneficiaries of the current globalist model
cling to the familiar state of affairs,
it is doomed. The historic geopolitical changes are going in a totally
different direction.
And, of course, your conference is another
important proof of the objective processes forming a multipolar world, bringing
together representatives from many countries who want to discuss security
issues on an equal footing, and conduct a dialogue that takes into account the interests of all parties, without exception.
I want
to emphasise that the multipolar world, based on international law
and more just relations, opens up new
opportunities for counteracting common threats, such as regional
conflicts and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction,
terrorism and cybercrime. All
these challenges are global, and therefore it would be impossible
to overcome
them without combining the efforts and potentials of all states.
As before, Russia will actively and assertively participate in such coordinated joint efforts; together with its
allies, partners and fellow thinkers, it will improve the existing mechanisms
of international security and create new ones, as well as consistently
strengthen the national armed forces and other security structures by providing
them with advanced weapons and military equipment. Russia will secure its
national interests, as well as the protection of its allies, and take other
steps towards building of a more democratic world where the rights of all
peoples and cultural and civilisational diversity are guaranteed.
We
need to restore respect for international law, for its fundamental
norms and principles. And, of course, it
is important to promote such universal and commonly acknowledged
agencies as the United Nations and other international dialogue
platforms. The UN Security
Council and the General Assembly, as it was intended initially, are
supposed to serve as effective tools to reduce international tensions
and prevent
conflicts, as well as facilitate the provision of reliable security
and wellbeing of countries and peoples.
In conclusion, I want to thank the conference organisers for their major preparatory work and I wish all
participants substantial discussions.
I am
sure that the forum will
continue to make a significant contribution to the strengthening
of peace and stability on our planet and facilitate the development
of constructive dialogue
and partnership.
india.mid.ru |The
opening of the 10th Moscow Conference on International Security took
place at Avangard Centre for Military and Patriotic Education of Youth
within the framework of ARMY 2022 IMTF. Minister of Defence of the
Russian Federation, General of the Army Sergei Shoigu, addressed the
participants of the event:
Ladies and gentlemen!
It is a pleasure to welcome you to the 10th Moscow Conference on International Security.
This conference comes at a time of radical change in global and
regional security. The unconditional dominance of the US and its allies
is a thing of the past. On February 24, 2022, the start of the special
military operation in Ukraine marked the end of the unipolar world.
Multipolarity has become a reality. The poles of this world are clearly
defined. The main difference between them is that some respect the
interests of sovereign states and take into account the cultural and
historical particularities of countries and peoples, while others
disregard them. There have been numerous discussions on this topic
during previous sessions of the Moscow conference.
In Europe, the security situation is worse than at the peak of the Cold
War. The alliance's military activities have become as aggressive and
anti-Russian as possible. Significant US forces have been redeployed to
the continent, and the number of coalition troops in Eastern and Central
Europe has increased manifold.
It is important to note that the deployment of additional NATO Joint
Force formations on the bloc's "eastern flank" had already started
before the start of the special military operation in Ukraine.
NATO has dropped its masks. The aggressive nature of the bloc was no
longer concealed by the wording of the coalition's purely defensive
orientation. Today, the alliance's strategic planning documents enshrine
claims to global dominance. Alliance's interests include Africa, the
Middle East and the Pacific Rim.
In the West's view, the established system of international relations
should be replaced by a so-called rules-based world order. The logic
here is simple and ultimatumatic. Either the alliance's "democratic
partner" candidate loses sovereignty and becomes supposedly on the
"right side of history". Or it is relegated to the category of so-called
authoritarian regimes, against which all kinds of measures, up to and
including coercive pressure, can be used.
Given that the Conference is attended by heads of defence agencies and
security experts from different regions of the world, I would like to
highlight some aspects of the special military operation in Ukraine.
In Ukraine, the Russian military is being confronted by combined
Western forces that run the leadership of that country in a hybrid war
against Russia.
The supply of weapons and military equipment to Ukraine is being
stepped up, and training of the Ukrainian army is being carried out.
Huge financial resources are transferred to maintain the viability of
the nationalist regime.
The actions of Ukraine's armed forces are planned and coordinated by
foreign military advisers. Reconnaissance data is supplied from all
available NATO sources. The use of armaments is supervised by Western
specialists.
NATO's efforts are aimed at prolonging the agony of the Kiev regime.
However, we know for a fact that no one in NATO has any doubt that the
goals of the Russian leadership's special military operation will be
achieved, and that plans to strategically and economically weaken Russia
are failing. The dollar has not reached the ceiling of 200 roubles, as
predicted by the US president, the Russian economy has stood firm.
realclearpolitics | The FBI division overseeing the investigation of former President
Trump's handling of classified material at his Mar-a-Lago residence is
also a focus of Special Counsel John Durham's investigation of the
bureau's alleged abuses of power and political bias during its
years-long Russiagate probe of Trump.
The FBI's nine-hour, 30-agent raid of the former president's Florida
estate is part of a counterintelligence case run out of Washington – not
Miami, as has been widely reported – according to FBI case documents
and sources with knowledge of the matter. The bureau's
counterintelligence division led the 2016-2017 Russia "collusion"
investigation of Trump, codenamed "Crossfire Hurricane."
Although
the former head of Crossfire Hurricane, Peter Strzok, was fired after
the disclosure of his vitriolic anti-Trump tweets, several members of
his team remain working in the counterintelligence unit, the sources
say, even though they are under active investigation by both Durham and
the bureau's disciplinary arm, the Office of
Professional Responsibility. The FBI declined to respond to questions
about any role they may be taking in the Mar-a-Lago case.
In
addition, a key member of the Crossfire team – Supervisory Intelligence
Analyst Brian Auten – has continued to be involved in politically
sensitive investigations, including the ongoing federal probe of
potentially incriminating content found on the abandoned laptop of
President Biden's son Hunter Biden, according to recent correspondence
between the Senate Judiciary Committee and FBI Director Christopher
Wray. FBI whistleblowers have alleged that Auten tried to falsely
discredit derogatory evidence against Hunter Biden during the 2020
campaign by labeling it Russian "disinformation," an assessment that
caused investigative activity to cease.
Auten has been allowed to work on sensitive cases even though he has
been under internal investigation since 2019, when Justice
Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz referred him for
disciplinary review for his role in vetting a Hillary Clinton
campaign-funded dossier used by the FBI to obtain a series of wiretap
warrants to spy on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. Horowitz
singled out Auten for cutting a number of corners
in the verification process and even allowing information he knew to
be incorrect slip into warrant affidavits and mislead the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act court.
trysterotapes |Bacon begins with this highly relevant, relatable point: “when
discords, and quarrels, and factions are carried openly and audaciously,
it is a sign the reverence of government is lost.”3 This briefly touches on a point made over at John Ganz’s Unpopular Front,
namely the liberal fear of “going too far,” trepidation around the
optics of “looking political” that has become associated with Barack
Obama on Russia and Comey on “her emails.” If we follow Bacon’s logic
here, then the liberal tolerance for these kinds
of abuses carries its own dangers, not only of demoralization (when we
witness powerful people committing the worst kinds of crimes openly,
especially in contrast with the Reality Winners of the world), but of a
loss of respect or “reverence of government.” There’s no question that
we live in the kind of world that Bacon describes: various forms of
revolt are at least discussed openly, and until
recently with very little fear of reprisal at least on the MAGA right.
And yet, conditions are not ripe for widespread revolt, for the material
reasons that Bacon discusses next:
Concerning
the materials of seditions. It is a thing well to be considered; for
the surest way to prevent seditions (if the times do bear it) is to take
away the matter of them. For if there be fuel prepared, it is hard to
tell, whence the spark shall come, that shall set it on fire. The matter of seditions is of two kinds: much poverty, and much discontentment.4
No
question: the current conjuncture positively requires Baconian
“discontentment,” and as I have argued elsewhere, the widespread,
systemic sense of disillusionment with the neoliberal experiment
happened first on the “nationalist” MAGA right. But what Bacon says next
clinches the point I want to make
(I)f this poverty and broken estate in the better
sort, be joined with a want and necessity in the mean people, the danger
is imminent and great. For the rebellions of the belly are the worst.5
Translated
into contemporary language, Bacon here is making the (Machiavellian)
point that if leaders of state are concerned with sedition and revolt,
they need to watch out for interclass alliances between those “in the
better sort” and those whose lives are ruined by scarcity and precarity,
the truly marginal and damned. In the end, in other words, we always
come back to the politics of thumos,
belly-politics, the visceral, gut-level reaction to material deprivation
as a primal “danger” to sovereign control over territory and order.6
Bacon’s point that “(r)ebellions of the belly are the worst” is a
warning to those in power, but it should also remind us that the MAGA
phenomenon remains one of relatively comfortable, white, middle-class
men and women. MAGA is an ideology which breaks from neoliberal
globalism, in order to prioritize the values of a heartland petit bourgeoisie.
Newsweek | The two U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the situation tell Newsweek that while some of the intelligence documents might have dealt with nuclear weapons, that was not the main focus.
"Trump
was particularly interested in matters related to the Russia hoax and
the wrong-doings of the deep state," one former Trump official tells Newsweek.
"I think he felt, and I agree, that these are facts that the American
people need to know." The official says Trump may have been planning to
use them as part of a 2024 run for the presidency.
The high-level
U.S. government officials explain that it was not necessarily the
classification level of the documents nor even their subject matter that
investigators were focused on.
But it is accurate to think
about what was retrieved at Mar-a-Lago as two distinct sets of
documents—those that are being openly sought under the Presidential
Records Act and those that formed part of Donald Trump's stash.
"What
we're talking about here is not just documents that the Archives was
seeking to fulfill the provisions of the Act," one of the officials
says. "They were also after some number of documents that they
considered more sensitive, but also documents that they felt the former
president had no intention to return."
The decision to search
Mar-a-Lago was prompted by concern that the documents might be moved as
the negotiations dragged on, or that former President Trump might use
them, revealing secrets or revealing intelligence sources and methods
(including agents on the U.S. payroll or other secrets, such as what was
being intercepted electronically).
The Affidavit, Justice said in their opposition to unsealing
the Affidavit, would reveal "highly sensitive information about
witnesses, including witnesses interviewed by the government; specific
investigative techniques; and information required by law to be kept
under seal."
In laymen's terms, the Affidavit reveals human
sources ("witnesses") and the possibility that "specific investigative
techniques," including information from the intelligence community about
what they believed Donald Trump had, or about surveillance of
Mar-a-Lago, would be compromised.
"I know it is hard for people to
understand that the classification of the documents was not the main
concern per se," says one of the high-level government officials. "It is
Donald Trump's potential law-breaking that is the focus. That applies
to the Records Act stuff. As for his private stash? I don't know what
that material is, but Justice was alarmed that Trump was planning to
keep his possession secret."
"People are too focused on
sensitivity and not the law," says the other official. It is what they
knew (or believed) about Donald Trump's plans that prompted the search
now. The official, who is confident that the search was legally valid,
questions whether it was the smartest move. "We've still got to unpack
all of these terms—nuclear, espionage, classified—so the public
understands. That will be tricky because the issues and technicalities
are in fact extremely complicated."
johganz |“But, John, are you saying we should use the Justice Department politically? With the express purpose of getting rid of someone you don’t like.” Kind
of! As Trump’s intellectual defenders love to remind us, there’s
ultimately no neutral administration of justice, everything is
political, and when you get the state apparatus in your hands you use it
beat up on your enemies and help out your friends. So, in part, these
are their rules. (If you start talking about how you are gonna apply the thought of Carl Schmitt when you administer the state, I may start to get the sense you are my enemy.)
Also,
let’s not play innocent. Historically speaking, the F.B.I. has always
been used “politically:” it was used against Reds, Nazis, Reds again,
the KKK, civil rights leaders, black power leaders, Nazis again etc. A
lot of this was abusive and terrible and you know where my political
sympathies lie, but this was because the political establishment
implicitly or explicitly viewed these groups as threats to the United
States itself. In many cases, they were not. (Yeah, yeah, I know what
you are gonna say, “but J. Edgar Hoover, blah, blah, blah”—The fact is
that Hoover lasted so long because powerful people thought he was useful
and mostly right.) But here is a case where the real deal has come
along: a bonafide domestic threat to the constitution. People these days
are willing to call everything from annoying college students to crummy
D.E.I. consultants “totalitarian threats to democracy” or whatever, but
when a big, fat threat to democracy is standing right there, suddenly
everyone is like, “Well…it’s a little complicated, isn’t it?” No, it
really isn’t. And, in this case, we don’t have to break the law or do
anything underhanded: just actually try to uphold the law for a change
and stop playing little political games around it.
A
political class that can’t defend the constitutional order and the rule
of law is worse than useless: it’s actually conspiring with its enemies.
Trump attacked the very heart of our system of government.
If the system can’t respond to that forcefully it doesn’t deserve to
exist anymore. Let’s stop pretending Trump is anything but a mobster and
a would-be tyrant. In this case, prudence demands action.
Politico | “Part
of the MAGA movement is kind of a ‘fuck you’ to the government
bureaucracy, which you can interpret as the Deep State,” said one former
Trump staffer. “People were really dissatisfied with the transition and
the outcome of the election. This is the last piece of control that
they had [while] in power.”
The
weeks after the November elections were among the more chaotic for a
Trump White House that had been defined by chaos. The West Wing was left
reeling by Trump’s loss to Joe Biden, and the president’s refusal to
concede largely froze the transition process in place.
Some
aides recalled that staff secretary Derek Lyons attempted to maintain a
semblance of order in the West Wing despite the election uncertainty.
But he departed the administration in late December, leaving the task of
preserving the needed records for the National Archives to others. The
two men atop the office hierarchy — then-White House chief of staff Mark
Meadows and Trump — took little interest in it, aides and advisers
recalled. Meanwhile, responsibility for overseeing the pack up of the
outer Oval and dining room, an area where Trump liked to work when not
in the Oval Office, was left to Trump’s assistants, Molly Michael and
Nick Luna, according to multiple former aides.
Trump, Eggleston surmised, was a victim of his own political impulses.
“[H]e denied being defeated so they didn’t really engage in a transition
process because he refused to let it happen,” he said. “So that meant
that they were in a fairly frantic situation as the inauguration day
came.”
For outgoing White Houses, there is
typically a debriefing process about classified documents, and then a
procedure to turn over government phones and computers. But for many of
the last Trump holdouts, that process came after the Capitol riot, a
stunning day of violence which triggered heightened security throughout
Washington. The security obstacles erected around the White House, aides
recalled, created more logistical hurdles for an already exhausted and
hollowed-out staff.
Sloppiness ensued in many
departments. Many staffers seemed more interested in securing copies of
“jumbos” — the giant photos that adorned the West Wing’s walls — than
sorting and packing up their files. Those who stayed focused on juggling
the operational demands of running a country with the political whims
of a president who, until just days before, was trying to cling to
power.
There was, simply, not much care for protocol.
“Compared to previous
administrations of both parties,” conceded a person familiar with the
process, “there was less of a willingness to adhere to the Presidential
Records Act.”
steady | Amid the discussion around the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago and what it
might mean for Trump and the rule of law in America, there is a detail
that I worry isn’t receiving enough attention but that points to a
dangerous reality in the United States today.
It centers on Bruce
Reinhart, the magistrate judge who signed the FBI's search warrant. As
his name became public, he has faced a withering volume of threats from
those who believe Trump should be above the law. In today’s America,
with the MAGA crowd revved up for attack, that was to be expected. But
that attacks were to be expected should not obscure the fact that they
are dangerous. Very. The possibility of their leading to violence should
not be underestimated.
Many of these threats focused on the fact
that Judge Reinhart is Jewish. It got to the point that the synagogue
where Judge Reinhart sits on the board had to cancel Shabbat services:
Antisemitism is on the rise in America, as those who track such
nefarious trends will tell you. It can be found in some form across the
political spectrum, but it has become a particular hallmark of elements
of the Republican Party, especially in the age of Trump.
In the
wake of the FBI search, the New York Young Republican Club resorted to
well-worn antisemitic tropes, for example. “Internationalist forces and
their allies intent on undermining the foundation of our Republic have
crossed the Rubicon,” read their statement, in part. The conspiracy
theory that Trump is being thwarted by a global cabal of “elites” funded
by “George Soros” in ways that will undermine traditional American
“values” represents coded language (and by "coded," I mean as subtle as a
marching band through a library) that is pushing a dangerous line of
attack. Dangerous on a personal level and dangerous for our country as a
whole.
While there are extreme fringe groups who speak bluntly
and declaratively of hating Jews, most American antisemitism is less
obvious. Republican supporters of Trump say they can’t possibly be
antisemitic because Trump’s own son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is Jewish, as
were many members of his administration. They say Republicans have
strong supporters in Israel, including former Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu. They point to Democratic politicians who have been critical
of Israel, or others with ties to more overt antisemites.
All of this is true. But it is not an excuse for what is taking place now.
It
should be noted with emphasis that antisemitism isn’t limited to one
political party or ideology. Furthermore, the Israel issue complicates
the discussion, because criticism of Israel as a country is not
necessarily antisemitic. Many American Jews object to Israeli policy.
But there are also ways Israel is spoken of that clearly cross into
antisemitic language.
kunstler | It should be pretty obvious that the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago was an
attempt to seize evidence likely to be used in former President Donald
Trump’s civil lawsuit in the Southern Florida Federal District Court
against Hillary Clinton and associated defendants in and out of
government for the defamation and racketeering operation known as
RussiaGate — AND in any future criminal proceedings that might grow out
of congressional investigations-to-come against officials past and
present in the DOJ and FBI. The idea is to tie up all those documents in
a legal dispute about declassification so they can’t be entered in any
proceeding.
Over the weekend, independent journalist Paul Sperry reported that
many of the same FBI officers involved in the Mar-a-Lago raid happen to
be subjects of Special Counsel John Durham’s investigation into the
origins of RussiaGate. Have some of them already been hauled into grand
juries? We don’t know. But, with the Mar-a-Lago caper, it looks like the
law enforcement apparatus of the federal government is seeking to
suppress evidence of its own long-running criminal enterprise.
The parallel purpose of the raid was to find — or perhaps plant —
documents that might be used in a scheme to disqualify Mr. Trump from
running for office again. The January 6th show-trial in
Congress has failed to galvanize the country’s attention, and may have
foundered in its attempt to find grounds for a criminal referral against
the former president that would take him off the playing field. So, now
this.
Momentous legal quarrels that arise out of the Mar-a-Lago raid may
evolve into a constitutional crisis that the captive news media can use
as a smokescreen to divert the public’s attention from any balloting
shenanigans going into the November election. At least it will shove any
other issues off-stage in the run-up to the midterm. Is it a
miscalculation?
The choice of going to federal magistrate Bruce Reinhart for the
Mar-a-Lago warrant sure looks crude and desperate. Only weeks ago, he
was presiding over the Trump v Clinton lawsuit. How did that even
happen, given Mr. Reinhart’s role defending Jeffrey Epstein’s associates
— many of them Clinton-connected — in the 2007 sex-trafficking case?
And only after the spectacularly weird act of switching sides from the
federal prosecution team to Epstein’s defense team. Not to mention Mr.
Reinhart’s record of public statements denouncing Mr. Trump. There are
twenty-five other magistrates who rotate their duties in the Southern
District of Florida, why pick him?
It all shapes up as a systematic effort to obstruct justice by the US
Department of Justice. They’ve been doing it consistently since 2016 in
all matters pertaining to Mr. Trump, and it is a big reason that the
country is now viciously coming apart. This is just a continuation of
the same seditious treachery that went on with James Comey releasing his
classified interview memo concerning Mr. Trump to The New York Times
via his attorney friend from Columbia University, Daniel Richman; and
the ensuing dishonest Mueller investigation the leak provoked; and the
Crossfire Hurricane operation run by Peter Strzok, Andrew McCabe, and
Rod Rosenstein; and the illegal entrapment and prosecution of National
Security Advisor Michael Flynn; and the serial misrepresentations to the
FISA court; and the illegal coordinated maneuvers in impeachment #1
between Rep. Adam Schiff, ICIG Michael Atkinson, the National Security
Council, and CIA-agent Eric Ciaramella posing as a “whistleblower”; and
more recently, the mischief around the FBI’s conjured-up Gretchen
Whitmer kidnapping scheme; and the FBI’s role in turning the January 6,
2020, election protests into a riot at the US Capitol.
jonathanturley | In the cult classic, “The Incredible Shrinking Man,” the
character Scott Stuart is caught in a thick fog that causes him to
gradually shrink to the point that he lives in a doll house and fights
off the house cat. At one point, Stuart delivers a strikingly profound line: “The unbelievably small and the unbelievably vast eventually meet — like the closing of a gigantic circle.”
If one image sums up the incredibly shrinking stature of Attorney General Merrick Garland, it is that line in the aftermath of the Mar-a-Lago search.
Two years ago, I was one of many who supported Garland when
he was nominated for attorney general. While his personality seemed a
better fit for the courts than the Cabinet, he is a person with
unimpeachable integrity and ethics.
If there are now doubts, it is not about his character but his
personality in dealing with political controversies. Those concerns have
grown in the past week.
In the aftermath of the FBI’s search of former President Donald Trump’s home in Florida, much remains unclear. The inventory list confirms that there were documents marked TS (Top Secret) and SCI (Sensitive Compartmented Information)
—two of the highest classification levels for materials. The former
president’s retention of such documents would appear to be a very
serious violation.
However, the status of the documents is uncertain after Trump
insisted that he declassified the material and was handling the
records in accordance with prior discussions with the FBI. While the
declassified status of these documents would not bar charges under the
cited criminal provisions, it could have a significant impact on the viability of any prosecution.
I have not assumed that the search of Mar-a-Lago was unwarranted
given that we have not seen the underlying affidavit. Yet in
another controversy, Garland seemed largely reactive and rote in dealing
with questions over bias or abuse in his department.
In his confirmation hearing, Garland repeatedly pledged that
political considerations would hold no sway with him as attorney
general. Yet, in just two years, the Justice Department has careened
from one political controversy to another without any sign that Garland
is firmly in control of the department. Last year, for example, Garland
was heavily criticized for his rapid deployment of a task force to investigate parents and others challenging school boards.
By refusing a special counsel, Garland has removed the president’s
greatest threat. Unlike the U.S. Attorney investigating Hunter Biden, a
special counsel would be expected to publish a report that would detail
the scope of the Biden family’s alleged influence peddling and foreign
contacts.
Likewise, the Justice Department is conducting a grand jury
investigation that is aggressively pursuing Trump associates and
Republican figures, including seizing the telephones of members of Congress. That investigation has bearing on the integrity and the status of Biden’s potential opponent in 2024.
The investigation also has triggered concerns over the party in
power investigating the opposing political party. It is breathtaking
that Garland would see no need for an independent or special counsel
given this country’s continued deep divisions and mistrust.
Then came the raid. While Garland said he personally approved the
operation, he did little to help mitigate the inevitable political
explosion. This country is a powder keg and the FBI has a documented history of false statements to courts and falsified evidence in support of a previous Trump investigation.
jonathanturley |Fox News is reporting
that the FBI seized boxes containing attorney-client privileged and
potentially executive privileged material during its raid Mar-a-Lago.
When the raid occurred, I noted that the legal team had likely marked
material as privileged at the residence and that the collection could
create an immediate conflict over such material. Now, sources are
telling Fox that the Justice Department not only took attorney-client
material but has refused Trump requests for a special master to review
the records.
The request for a special master would seem reasonable, particularly
given the sweeping language used in the warrant. It is hard to see what
material could not be gathered under this warrant.
Attachment B of the warrant has this provision:
“Any physical documents with classification
markings, along with any containers/boxes (including any other
contents) in which such documents are located, as well as any other
containers/boxes that are collectively stored or found together with the
aforementioned documents and containers/boxes; b.. Information,
including communications in any form, regarding the retrieval, storage,
or transmission of national defense information or classified material”
Thus, the agents could not only take an entire box if it contained a
single document with classification markings of any kind but could then
take all boxes around that box.
It is not surprising that dozens of boxes were seized.
Given that sweeping language (and the various lawsuits and
investigations facing Trump), it would seem reasonable to request a
special magistrate. That is why the reported refusal is so concerning.
What is the harm from such a review? The material is now under lock and
key. There is no approaching deadline in court or referenced grand jury.
Moreover, many have accused the Justice Department of using this
search as a pretext. While saying that they were seeking potential
national security information, critics have alleged that the real
purpose was to gather evidence that could be used against Trump in a
prosecution over his role in January 6th riot. I have noted that such a
pretext would be deeply disturbing given the documented history of
Justice Department officials misleading or lying to courts in prior
Trump-related investigations. The continuation of such subterfuge could
be disclosed in a later oversight investigation.
The use of a special master could have helped quell such claims of a
pretextual search. Conversely, the denial of such a protective measure
would fuel even greater concerns.
The refusal to take this protective measures is almost as troubling
as the sweeping language in the search warrant itself. We need to see
the affidavit that led to this search warrant. I am not going to assume
that the search was unwarranted until I see that evidence. However, in
the interim, Attorney General Merrick Garland could have allowed
accommodations for this review to assure not just the Trump team but the
public that the search was not a pretext for seeking other evidence
like January 6th-related material.
The
lawsuit names a wide cast of characters that Trump has accused for
years of orchestrating a "deep state" conspiracy against him --
including former FBI Director James Comey and other FBI officials, the retired British spy Christopher Steele and his associates, and a handful of Clinton campaign advisers.
"Under
the guise of 'opposition research,' 'data analytics,' and other
political stratagems, the Defendants nefariously sought to sway the
public's trust," says the lawsuit, filed in federal court in Florida.
"They worked together with a single, self-serving purpose: to vilify
Donald J. Trump."
Over
108 pages, the lawsuit rails against many of Trump's political
opponents and highlights the grievances that he has complained about for
years. It claims Democrats and government officials perpetrated a grab
bag of offenses, from a racketeering conspiracy to a malicious
prosecution, computer fraud and theft of secret internet data. The
lawsuit asks for more than $24 million in costs and damages.
The suit also contains some factual inaccuracies and some of the same grandiose or exaggerated false claims that Trump has made dozens of times.
The
civil suit alleges that Clinton and top Democrats hired lawyers and
researchers to fabricate information tying Trump to Russia, and then
peddled those lies to the media and to the US government, in hopes of
hobbling his chances of winning in 2016. Trump claims they were assisted
by "Clinton loyalists" at the FBI, who abused their powers to
investigate him out of political animus.
John
Podesta, the chairman of Clinton's 2016 campaign and one of the
lawsuit's defendants, tweeted that part of the suit might be a "hoot."
"Do
you think Trump filed this case with the hope of calling Vladimir Putin
as a character witness? Trump deposition ought to be a hoot," Podesta wrote.
CNN
has reached out to many of the defendants for comment. Some attorneys
for defendants named in the lawsuit were still digesting it on Thursday.
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