Ominous Turns 🤡 😱 ✡️🌻😱 🤡

Retribution Report:  In what the Wall Street Journal described as an ominous turn in Trump’s revenge campaign, early Friday morning the FBI raided the home of John Bolton.  For a little over a year during Trump 1.0 Bolton served as National Security Advisor.  Earlier in his career he served as George W Bush’s Ambassador to the UN.  Though Bolton is frequently criticized for his extremely hawkish views, few outside of Trump’s immediate circle even those who intensely dislike him for his views, believe that he was storing any top-secret documents at his home, the alleged reason for the raid. Instead, it’s widely understood that Bolton is being targeted by Trump who has been known to store boxes of purloined documents in his bathroom.  During his first term Trump tried to put the kibosh on Bolton’s memoir “The Room Where it Happened,” largely because that book criticized him.  The Bolton book ultimately was published, and the highly articulate Bolton has continued to criticize Trump.  One indication that the raid was all about revenge and retribution was that in an unprecedented move FBI Director Kash Patel tweeted “NO ONE is above the law…@FBI agents on mission.” Making it clear that he was all in on the raid VP Vance, who is competing with Secretary of State Rubio for Trump’s future presidential endorsement, retweeted Patel’s post.  Trump claimed that he “had intentionally avoided learning about the raid beforehand” before going on to say of Bolton "He is not a smart guy. But he could be a very unpatriotic guy. We're going to find out.”  Spoiler alert, Trump knew, and the raid was all about placating him while diverting attention away from the Epstein mess. In other retribution news, Trump has ramped up his attacks on Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, saying he’ll fire her if she doesn’t resign.  He wants her out so he can appoint a replacement who will vote for the multiple large interest-rate cuts he covets and also because she’s a Black woman.  Keeping with the theme of targeting people who don’t push the MAGA line, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth fired the head of the US Defense Intelligence Agency, Lieutenant General Jeffery Kruse.  It’s widely believed that Kruse was fired because of the DIA’s preliminary assessment that the US strikes on Iran only set back Tehran's nuclear program by just a few months.  For her part, Director of National Security Tulsi Gabbard who has been accused of getting much of her intelligence from conspiracists and Kremlin related sources, is cutting the US intelligence service by 40% because who needs unbiased intel when you can just go with your gut or your “overseas” friends? To cap off the weekend, Trump went on a Truth Social tirade last night calling for NBC and ABC to have their licenses revoked, something about them being biased against him.  During Trump 1.0 that would have been a laughable statement but given how he’s been extorting and winning concessions from other news networks his threat should be taken seriously.   

Epstein Chronicles:  The DOJ released the tapes of Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche’s two day “interview” of Jeffrey Epstein’s partner in sex crimes Ghislaine Maxwell.  Surprise, surprise, the convicted Maxwell, who was indicted for lying to the FBI, claims that she never saw Trump do or say anything questionable with anyone and most definitely not with any underage girls. Of course,  Maxwell also asserted that she had been wrongfully charged and convicted and that her good friend Epstein never did anything wrong either. She also said that she never saw President Clinton do anything wrong and that despite Trump’s claims that Clinton had been to Epstein’s island hideaway dozens of time he hadn’t.  Maxwell’s comment regarding Clinton and the island are confirmed by flight logs not that you’d know that if you only read or watched Trump friendly news outlets. Commenting on Maxwell’s interview,  former NJ Governor Chris Christie said yesterday on ABC that “she might as well have said the man who can pardon me has never done anything wrong. The man who can pardon me has always been wonderful." Trump who continues to say that he has the authority to pardon Maxwell and likely will pardon her before leaving office, assuming he ever does,  lashed out at Christie, and is now threatening to reopen the investigation into Bridgegate, the scandal that snarled traffic entering the George Washington Bridge back when Christie was Governor.  The irony is that Christie and those reporting to him, were accused of closing entrance lanes to the bridge to punish local Democratic officials, the retribution strategy that Trump is now following on steroids. Christie emerged from that scandal with his reputation tarnished but ultimately wasn’t held accountable though one of his underlings pleaded guilty and two others were convicted and jailed before having their convictions overturned by the Supreme Court.  In other Epstein news, the DOJ released a trove of related files on Friday but, and it’s a big but, little of what they released was new as most of it had already been publicly shared. Lastly, Virginia Giuffre’s family plans to release her posthumous memoir “ Nobody’s Girl:  A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice” in October. Guiffre who worked at Mar a Lago before being recruited by Maxwell to become one of Epstein’s victimized girls committed suicide in April. Maxwell of course claims she did not recruit Guiffre and that Guiffre who received a large settlement from England’s Prince Andrew related to his participation in Epstein’s crimes, was a liar.   

More Militarization: The National Guard soldiers wandering the streets of Washington DC are now carrying arms.  According to the NY Times they are also arresting people for minor offenses and then up-charging them for federal crimes to artificially inflate the value of their presence. It’s reported that Trump plans to send troops to Chicago shortly, is threatening to do the same to New York, and is considering withholding infrastructure funding from Baltimore if Maryland Governor Wes Moore doesn’t welcome them with open arms. None of this is normal, we are not supposed to look and act like a third world dictatorship.   

#BringThemAllHomeNow