The untouchables

 

About that whistleblower complaint against Tulsi Gabbard

The whistle-blower report was based on a telephone intercept provided to the N.S.A. from a foreign intelligence service.

[...]

Because the intelligence report mentioned Mr. Kushner, Ms. Gabbard provided the information to Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff, according to people briefed on the events.

[...]

The whistle-blower report was drafted last May, while the Trump administration was deliberating about a strike on Iran. At the end of June, the military bombed Iranian nuclear sites on Mr. Trump’s orders.

Mr. Kushner has subsequently helped lead negotiations between the administration and Iran over Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs and its sponsorship of terrorism across the Middle East. He also has business interests in the Middle East and in other parts of the world.

The episode has led to clashes over how to interpret the mention of Mr. Kushner in the discussion and whether Ms. Gabbard was improperly seeking to keep the intelligence from being distributed within the intelligence community.

[...]

The names of Americans, particularly senior U.S. officials, are usually redacted from accounts of intelligence intercepts, a process called masking.

The foreign nationals were discussing Mr. Kushner, but some officials who have read the underlying intelligence or been briefed on its contents downplayed the significance of the references to him.

  NYT

They would, wouldn't they?

The foreign nationals, they said, were commenting on Mr. Kushner’s influence with the Trump administration.

I have no doubt they were.

The intercept also included what officials described as “gossip” or speculation about Mr. Kushner that was not supported by other intelligence. Some senior officials said the information was demonstrably false. While the whistle-blower believed that information should be circulated, the N.S.A.’s general counsel, Ms. Gabbard and the intelligence community’s inspectors general disagreed.

Officials declined to describe the gossip, saying that revealing it would expose the source of the information.

The complaint, the investigation of the complaint and the underlying intelligence all remain classified.

[...]

Some officials who either read or were briefed on the intelligence report said that had Ms. Gabbard not moved to restrict access to the report, it would have been quickly forgotten as one of many that recount foreign officials trying to figure out who has influence with Mr. Trump.

Probably true, but that could depend on what was reported.

A heavily redacted copy of the inspector general’s report was provided to Congress. Ms. Gabbard’s office redacted Mr. Kushner’s name, citing executive privilege.

[...]

Ms. Gabbard had previously pulled back and then restricted access to another N.S.A. intercept. That intelligence report involved an intercept of a call between Nicolás Maduro, then the Venezuelan president, and Richard Grenell, Mr. Trump’s envoy. Names of U.S. officials recorded in intelligence intercepts are supposed to be masked, and Ms. Gabbard argued the N.S.A. had failed to properly conceal Mr. Grenell’s identity. Mr. Grenell was negotiating with Mr. Maduro on Mr. Trump’s orders.

"I'd like you to claim Venezuela interfered with the 2020 election and is planning to interfere in 2026 and 2028."

How long before the whistleblower is investigated by Bondi?  Probably happening now.

What in the world?

 

WSJ article

So, let the whistleblower testify to a Congressional committee (that includes Democrats, needless to say).

So, is it related to the tag of "Russian Asset" she's been getting for at least a couple years, coming up again after being seen sneaking around the raid of the Fulton County, Georgia, election office?  

Allison Gill and Andy McCabe speculate in their most recent podcast on the Gabbard in Georgia incident:  In 2020, Trump wanted to use the military to seize voting machines but was told the only way he could legitimately do that is if there was foreign interference in the election - something various investigations and accounts verified didn't happen.  Now, recently, he kidnapped Nicolas Maduro and has him over a barrel so Maduro could be induced with threats and/or offers to "admit" Venezuela was indeed interfering in the 2020 election, as some Trump lackeys were claiming back then.  Gabbard's appearance in the raid on Georgia election offices puts the smell of national security on it.  Seems complex, but not out of the realm of possibility.  

A simpler explanation for her appearance there is she knows she's falling out of favor with Trump and has been sidelined in the administration, and showing Trump she's on board with the 2020 stolen election might put her back in his good graces.

Still, the Gill-McCabe scenario can't be easily dismissed.

UPDATE 03:10 pm:

Take over voting in at least 15 places.  How are you going to "nationalize voting" in anything fewer than 50 states?

Nothing to see here.

UPDATE 07:45 pm:  This makes Gill and McCabe's speculations seem even more likely...

UPDATE 02/03/2026:  Further evidence to give credence to Gill and McCabe's speculation.  The Maduro kidnapping wasn't about Venezuela's governance.

UPDATE 02/05/2026:  Allison Gill has written up her speculations in an article she published today.

UPDATE 02/12/2026:  Apparently, the secretive whistleblower complaint has something to do with Jared Kushner.

UPDATE 02/13/2026:

The whistle-blower report was based on a telephone intercept provided to the N.S.A. from a foreign intelligence service.

[...]

Because the intelligence report mentioned Mr. Kushner, Ms. Gabbard provided the information to Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff, according to people briefed on the events.

[...]

The whistle-blower report was drafted last May, while the Trump administration was deliberating about a strike on Iran. At the end of June, the military bombed Iranian nuclear sites on Mr. Trump’s orders.

Mr. Kushner has subsequently helped lead negotiations between the administration and Iran over Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs and its sponsorship of terrorism across the Middle East. He also has business interests in the Middle East and in other parts of the world.

The episode has led to clashes over how to interpret the mention of Mr. Kushner in the discussion and whether Ms. Gabbard was improperly seeking to keep the intelligence from being distributed within the intelligence community.

[...]

The names of Americans, particularly senior U.S. officials, are usually redacted from accounts of intelligence intercepts, a process called masking.

The foreign nationals were discussing Mr. Kushner, but some officials who have read the underlying intelligence or been briefed on its contents downplayed the significance of the references to him.

  NYT

They would, wouldn't they?

The foreign nationals, they said, were commenting on Mr. Kushner’s influence with the Trump administration.

I have no doubt they were.

The intercept also included what officials described as “gossip” or speculation about Mr. Kushner that was not supported by other intelligence. Some senior officials said the information was demonstrably false. While the whistle-blower believed that information should be circulated, the N.S.A.’s general counsel, Ms. Gabbard and the intelligence community’s inspectors general disagreed.

Officials declined to describe the gossip, saying that revealing it would expose the source of the information.

The complaint, the investigation of the complaint and the underlying intelligence all remain classified.

[...]

Some officials who either read or were briefed on the intelligence report said that had Ms. Gabbard not moved to restrict access to the report, it would have been quickly forgotten as one of many that recount foreign officials trying to figure out who has influence with Mr. Trump.

Probably true, but that could depend on what was reported.

A heavily redacted copy of the inspector general’s report was provided to Congress. Ms. Gabbard’s office redacted Mr. Kushner’s name, citing executive privilege.

[...]

Ms. Gabbard had previously pulled back and then restricted access to another N.S.A. intercept. That intelligence report involved an intercept of a call between Nicolás Maduro, then the Venezuelan president, and Richard Grenell, Mr. Trump’s envoy. Names of U.S. officials recorded in intelligence intercepts are supposed to be masked, and Ms. Gabbard argued the N.S.A. had failed to properly conceal Mr. Grenell’s identity. Mr. Grenell was negotiating with Mr. Maduro on Mr. Trump’s orders.

"I'd like you to claim Venezuela interfered with the 2020 election and is planning to interfere in 2026 and 2028."

More conquests for the rich

"Board of Peace"

 

The real reason we don't attempt to protect Gaza

 Expect a Trump Gaza hotel and a Trump Gaza golf course.  On top of the graves of slaughtered Palestinian children.  

UPDATE 12/30/2025:

These two bastards are "helping" Gazans.

Wall Street Journal expose

Well, sort of. The fucking asshats gloated about it to the WSJ. Exposed themselves.

Everything with Trump is "business".  He has no humanity.  Everything is transactional.

He's not the first president to look with greedy eyes on foreign wars.  In fact, Republican presidents before him have even started foreign wars for financial gains.  Don't count him out on that, though.  He's working on it.

This is why we can't have nice things.

STOP FUCKING ELECTING REPUBLICANS.  

The picture that emerges is a remarkable story of business leaders working outside the traditional lines of diplomacy to cement a peace agreement with business deals.

[...]

Three powerful businessmen—two Americans and a Russian—hunched over a laptop in Miami Beach last month, ostensibly to draw up a plan to end Russia’s long and deadly war with Ukraine.

But the full scope of their project went much further, according to people familiar with the talks. They were privately charting a path to bring Russia’s $2 trillion economy in from the cold—with American businesses first in line to beat European competitors to the dividends.

At his waterfront estate, billionaire developer-turned-special envoy Steve Witkoff was hosting Kirill Dmitriev, head of Russia’s sovereign-wealth fund and Vladimir Putin’s handpicked negotiator, who had largely shaped the document they were revising on the screen. Jared Kushner, [whose investment fund, Affinity Partners, drew billion-dollar investments from the Arab monarchies] the president’s son-in-law, had arrived from his nearby home on an island known as the “Billionaire Bunker.”

[...]

For the Kremlin, the Miami talks were the culmination of a strategy, hatched before Trump’s inauguration, to bypass the traditional U.S. national security apparatus and convince the administration to view Russia not as a military threat but as a land of bountiful opportunity, according to Western security officials. By dangling multibillion-dollar rare-earth and energy deals, Moscow could reshape the economic map of Europe—while driving a wedge between America and its traditional allies.

[...]

“Russia has so many vast resources, vast expanses of land,” Witkoff told The Wall Street Journal, describing at length his hopes that Russia, Ukraine and America would all become business partners. “If we do all that, and everybody’s prospering and they’re all a part of it, and there’s upside for everybody, that’s going to naturally be a bulwark against future conflicts there. Because everybody’s thriving.”

  WSJ

Yes, because "everybody" is only interested in business.

Key presidential advisers see an opportunity for American investors to snap up lucrative deals in a new postwar Russia and become the commercial guarantors of peace. In conversations with Witkoff and Kushner, Russia has been clear it would prefer U.S. businesses to step in, not rivals from European states whose leaders have “talked a lot of trash” about the peace effforts.

[...]

A question for history will be whether Putin entertained this approach in the interest of ending the war, or as a ploy to pacify the U.S. while prolonging a conflict he believes is his place in history to slowly, ineluctably win.

Why not both?

When a version of the 28-point plan leaked earlier this month, it drew immediate protests. Leaders in Europe and Ukraine complained it reflected mostly Russian talking points and bulldozed through nearly all of Kyiv’s red lines.

[...]

Poland’s prime minister Donald Tusk offered a pithy summary: “We know this is not about peace. It’s about business.”

[...]

Earlier this year, Exxon Mobil met with Russia’s biggest state energy company, Rosneft, to discuss returning to the massive Sakhalin gas project if Moscow and Washington gave the green light.

Elsewhere, a cast of businessmen close to the Trump administration have been looking to position themselves as new economic links between the U.S. and Russia.

Gentry Beach, a college friend of Donald Trump Jr. and campaign donor to his father, has been in talks to acquire a stake in a Russian Arctic gas project if it is released from sanctions. Another Trump donor, Stephen P. Lynch, paid $600,000 this year to a lobbyist close to Trump Jr. who is helping him seek a Treasury Department license to buy the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from a Russian state-owned company.

[...]

A person familiar with Witkoff’s thinking said the envoy is confident that any settlement with Russia would benefit America broadly, not just a handful of investors.

Sure, Jan.

Witkoff, who hasn’t traveled to Ukraine this year, is set to visit Russia for the sixth time next week and will again meet Putin. He insisted he isn’t playing favorites.

Sure, Jan.

“Ukrainians have fought heroically for their independence,” said Witkoff, who has tried to inspire Ukrainian officials with the idea of soldiers disarming to earn Silicon Valley-scale salaries operating American built AI data centers. “It is now time to consolidate what they have achieved through diplomacy,” he said.

Because they are fighting so fiercely for the chance to be like money grubbing Americans. These asshats can't imagine doing anything for something other than money.

Career officials in the office overseeing sanctions at the Treasury Department have at times learned details of Witkoff’s meetings with Moscow from their British counterparts.

In the days after Alaska, a European intelligence agency distributed a hard-copy report in a manila envelope to some of the continent’s most senior national security officials, who were shocked by the contents: Inside were details of the commercial and economic plans the Trump administration had been pursuing with Russia, including jointly mining rare earths in the Arctic.

Witkoff has worked closely with Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. But Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine, former Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, has been all but frozen out of serious talks, and last week said he is leaving the government.

[...]

American and Russian business leaders were quietly anticipating that Witkoff and Dmitriev would deliver, positioning their companies to profit from peace.

[...]

[Gentry] Beach, [Donald] Trump Jr.’s college friend, was in talks to acquire 9.9% of an Arctic LNG project with Novatek, Russia’s second-largest natural gas producer—which is partly owned by Timchenko—if the U.S. and U.K. remove sanctions on it, according to drafts of contracts reviewed by the Journal.

[...]

Dmitriev and Witkoff meanwhile were chatting regularly by phone about increasingly ambitious proposals. The U.S. and Russia were discussing major agreements on oil-and-gas exploration and Arctic transportation, Dmitriev told the Journal. “We believe that the U.S. and Russia can cooperate basically on everything in the Arctic,” he said. “If a solution is found in Ukraine, U.S. economic cooperation can be a foundation for our relationship going forward.”

Russia dictating conditions to America. We've come a long way, baby.

Witkoff dialed into a videoconference with officials and heads of state from top European allies, and explained the outlines of what he understood to be Putin’s offer. If Ukraine would surrender the remaining roughly 20% of Donetsk province that Russia had failed to conquer, Moscow would forfeit its claim to Zaporizhzhia and Kherson provinces. The European officials were confused. Did Putin mean he would withdraw his troops from Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, as Witkoff was suggesting? Or, more likely, was Putin merely promising to not conquer the thousands of square miles of those two provinces that, after years of bloody fighting, remained in Ukrainian hands? Either way, Ukraine was skeptical about the value of a promise from Putin.

As well they should be.

Witkoff wanted to strike while the iron was hot and hold a summit without delay. Dmitriev was optimistic Witkoff had taken Russia’s sensitivities on board: “We believe Steve Witkoff and the Trump team are doing a great job to understand the Russian position to end the conflict,” he told the Journal, a few days before.

The Aug. 15 summit fell apart almost as soon as it began. Witkoff, Rubio, and Trump arrived on Air Force One, meeting Putin, his longtime adviser Yuri Ushakov, and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Putin launched into a 1,000-year history lecture on the unity of the Russian and Ukrainian people. The two sides canceled a lunch and an afternoon session where they were meant to check through their other issues, like the exchange of prisoners. Witkoff left uncertain where things stood, but hopeful talks would accelerate soon.

[...]

In October, President Zelensky flew to Washington, hoping to secure long-range, U.S.-made Tomahawk cruise missiles. His military wanted to cripple Russian refineries, pushing Moscow to negotiate on better terms.

By the time Zelensky arrived, Trump had spoken to Putin a day earlier and decided not to offer the Tomahawks.

Jared's back

 

UPDATE 10/14/2025:  That didn't last long.  No surprise here.

Abuse of the pardon power

 Add another one to Trump's freed criminals.

Oh, gee, corruption in Trump business

 

Trump 2.0 - One large grift

 

Can't wait till this guy is back in Washington

Could be related to why he was never granted a security clearance.  Of course, Trump issued him one anyway.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

About time

Democrats are increasing their scrutiny of Jared Kushner’s business activities.

Senate Finance Committee chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) asked Kushner’s firm, Affinity Partners, for details about its investors on Wednesday, including the $2 billion it received from the Saudi Arabian government’s Public Investment Fund in 2021.

[...]

A panel that screens investments for the Saudi sovereign wealth fund warned against investing with Kushner, given his inexperience in finance, but the full board, led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, overruled the panel.

[...]

“The Saudi PIF’s decision to invest $2 billion in Affinity so soon after Kushner’s departure from the Trump White House raises concerns that the investment was a reward for official actions Kushner took to benefit the Saudi government, including preventing accountability for the Saudi government ordering the brutal murder of journalist and American citizen Jamal Khashoggi,” Wyden wrote.

[...]

“Mr. Kushner’s limited track record as an investor, including his nonexistent experience in private equity or hedge funds, raise questions regarding the investment strategy behind the seeding investments and lucrative compensation that Affinity received from the Saudi PIF and other sovereign wealth funds,” Wyden wrote.

  HuffPo

You think?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Some post-award analyses

To have a meritorious appeal, you have to preserve a reversible error at the trial level. This is why you hire competent counsel. You need someone who actually knows the rules of evidence and procedure.

Alina Habba had no clue what was occurring throughout the trial. She not only failed to preserve any remote grounds for appeal, like a moron, she repeatedly and unintentionally waived them over and over.

For example, she kept saying "no objection" as exhibits were entered into evidence.

[...]

There's no appeal here. And because people have asked me in the past, no, there is no such thing as an incompetent counsel defense in civil cases. That's for criminal matters.

  Brian Manookian

Yeah, they don't like losers.

Mr. Trump can pay the $83.3 million to the court, which will hold the money while the appeal is pending. This is what he did last year when a jury ordered him to pay Ms. Carroll $5.5 million in a related case.

Or, Mr. Trump can try to secure a bond, which will save him from having to pay the full amount up front.

A bond might require him to pay a deposit and offer collateral, and would come with interest and fees. It would also require Mr. Trump to find a financial institution willing to lend him a large sum of money at a time when he is in significant legal jeopardy.

[...]

Mr. Trump has tapped his political action committee’s coffers to pay for his own legal fees and other expenses stemming from his criminal indictments and civil trials.

Yet $83.3 million eclipses the amount in his political accounts. The verdict on Friday will require Mr. Trump to reach into his own pocket.

Still, if the verdict survives Mr. Trump’s appeals, Ms. Carroll should eventually be paid.

[...]

He has enough cash to cover the verdict in various accounts, a person close to him said. In recent years, Mr. Trump has unloaded several assets, including his Washington hotel, which sold for $375 million.

Yet the verdict on Friday is not the only payout upcoming for Mr. Trump. The New York attorney general is seeking a $370 million penalty from the former president and his family business as part of a civil fraud trial that wrapped up this month.

The judge in that case is expected to issue a decision in the coming weeks.

  NYT

Couldn't happen to a more deserving person.

Or his attorney.  Jesus Christ, this woman.

UPDATE 01/27/2024:

How'd that go for you, beautiful?

P.S.  I expect Jared might come across with Trump's dollar damages.  After all, it's because of Trump that he got $2 BILLION from the Saudis.

UPDATE 

I don't think there is a number big enough to shut him up.  I still think he'll get the money to pay damages from MAGA dupes and Jared, who got $2 BILLION from Saudi Arabia because of his relationship to Trump.

UPDATE 01/28/2024:

I don't think there is a number big enough to shut him up.  I still think he'll get the money to pay damages from MAGA dupes and Jared, who got $2 BILLION from Saudi Arabia because of his relationship to Trump.

Oh my

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) said Thursday that Jared Kushner, former President Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser while in office, “crossed the line of ethics” by accepting a $2 billion investment from the Saudi government in his private investment firm six months after he left the White House.

  The Hill

Has Trump cut ties with Kushner? Because I can't imagine a GOP MAGAt criticizing a family member otherwise.

Comer, however, sought to draw a distinction between Trump’s family business dealings and President Biden’s family’s, which Comer suggested he viewed as more severe.

No doubt, but will that be enough to protect Comer from Trump's nasty bleats?

“What Christie said — it happened after he left office. Still no excuse, Jake, but it happened after he left office. And Jared Kushner actually has a legitimate business. This money [to] the Bidens happened while Joe Biden was vice president while he was flying to those countries.”

Comer has been leading the Oversight panel’s probe into the Biden family and has secured testimony claiming Hunter Biden, the president’s son, leveraged his father’s position as vice president to sell the “illusion of access” to help in his personal business dealings. The panel has not found evidence, however, that President Biden committed any crime.

[...]

Comer defended the probe of the Bidens and insisted the ultimate goal is to change the way Washington works so people cannot benefit from the high-powered jobs their family members have.

[...]

In 2022, the House Oversight panel, under Democratic leadership, launched a probe into the $2 billion investment Kushner secured from the Saudi Private Investment Fund (PIF), which is controlled by the crown prince.

“Your close relationship with Crown Prince bin Salman, your pro-Saudi positions during the Trump Administration, and PIF’s decision to fund the lion’s share of your new business venture — only six months after the end of your White House tenure — create the appearance of a quid pro quo for your foreign policy work during the Trump Administration,” former Oversight Chairman Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) wrote in a letter to Kushner at the time.

You think?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Kushner testified

Hard to believe he doesn't have criminal liability in something.   Two billion dollars from Saudi Arabia as soon as he left the White House seems a bit fishy.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

When does Jared get investigated?

Also, eventually, they eat each other.

Kellyanne Conway, former senior counselor to former President Donald Trump said Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner raked in billions of dollars while serving in the administration.

[...]

Earlier in the day, the House Oversight Committee released a memo stating that relatives of President Joe Biden received $1.3 million between 2015 and 2017 from an associate with ties to China when Biden was vice president and shortly after. Biden’s son, daughter-in-law, brother, and an unidentified member of the family received payments.

[...]

[Fox News contributor Juan] Williams said there is no evidence Biden himself received any money or that there was anything nefarious going on.

“I can’t say there’s any tie,” he said. “What we have is a check to a widow from someone who was paid by the Chinese with no context. We don’t know what this money was for. In fact, the same person had sent checks to her before there was any payment from the Chinese.”

Williams then invoked Kushner, the scion of a real estate tycoon who served as a Trump White House adviser, along with his wife and president’s daughter Ivanka Trump.

“Why don’t you look into things like Jared Kushner getting $2 billion directly from the Saudis after former President Trump bragged about protecting the Saudi prince?” Williams asked.

[...]

Incredibly, Conway conceded that Kushner profited off Trump’s presidency to the tune of billions.

“Well, Jared, of course, is the only person I think who has benefitted in the billions – with a ‘B’ – from the Trump presidency. That’s for sure,” she replied. “But look, I think whataboutism isn’t gonna work here.”

  Mediaite

What about investigating Kushner?  The Democrats should have already started that investigation when they held the majority.  Another party failure.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Meanwhile, in Dominion v. Fox

Proof t[he people running the country’s most popular news network knew Mr. Trump’s claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election were false but broadcast them anyway in a reckless pursuit of ratings and profit] would help Dominion clear the high legal bar set by the Supreme Court for defamation cases. To prevail, Dominion must show not only that Fox broadcast false information, but that it did so knowingly. A judge in Delaware state court has scheduled a monthlong trial beginning in April.

  NYT

New court filing: Rupert Murdoch deposition transcript.

Murdoch not only admitted the hosts were pushing lies about the election, he suggested it was helping Fox make money. [...] One of Dominion’s lawyers asked Murdoch if he could have ordered people like Giuliani and Powell off the air. “I could have,” Murdoch responded. “But I didn’t.”

[...]

He was more explicit as to why when discussing Mike Lindell, the election-denying pillow salesman.

[...]

“The man is on every night. Pays us a lot of money,” Murdoch testified of Lindell. “At first you think it’s comic, and then you get bored and irritated.”

Murdoch said he wants to keep Lindell’s advertisements on the air, and when asked why Fox continues to give Lindell a platform, said, “It is not red or blue, it is green.”

  Rolling Stone

The document also described how Paul D. Ryan, a former Republican speaker of the House and current member of the Fox Corporation board of directors, said in his deposition that he had implored Mr. Murdoch and his son Lachlan, the chief executive officer, “that Fox News should not be spreading conspiracy theories.” Mr. Ryan suggested instead that the network pivot and “move on from Donald Trump and stop spouting election lies.”

[...]

On Jan. 5, 2021, the day before the attack at the Capitol, Mr. Murdoch and Suzanne Scott, the chief executive of Fox News Media, talked about whether Mr. Hannity and his fellow prime-time hosts, Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham, should make it clear to viewers that Mr. Biden had won the election.

  NYT

January 5, huh? Gee, you don't suppose Murdoch and Scott knew what was going to happen on January 6 do you?

According to the filing, Ms. Scott said of the hosts, “Privately they are all there,” but “we need to be careful about using the shows and pissing off the viewers.” No statement of that kind was made on the air.

Dominion details the close relationship that Fox hosts and executives enjoyed with senior Republican Party officials and members of the Trump inner circle, revealing how at times Fox was shaping the very story it was covering.

[...]

At one point, Dominion’s lawyers accuse Ms. Pirro, who hosted a Saturday evening talk show, of “laundering her own conspiracy theories through Powell.” The filing goes on to say Ms. Pirro bragged to her friends “that she was the source for Powell’s claims.” Dominion notes that this was “something she never shared with her audience.”

[...]

Dominion also describes how Mr. Murdoch provided Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, with confidential information about ads that the Biden campaign would be running on Fox.

Do I smell a new lawsuit coming?

The filing on Monday included a deposition by Viet Dinh, Fox Corporation’s chief legal officer, who was one of the many senior executive cautioning about the content of Fox’s coverage.

[...]

When asked in his deposition if Fox executives had an obligation to stop hosts of shows from broadcasting lies, Mr. Dinh said: “Yes, to prevent and correct known falsehoods.”

I wonder if he's still the chief legal officer. Or employed by Fox at all. I also wonder what his legal basis for that opinion is.

“There appears to be a pretty good argument that Fox endorsed the accuracy of what was being said,” said Lee Levine, a veteran First Amendment lawyer who has defended major media organizations in defamation cases. He added that Fox’s arguments were stronger against some of Dominion’s claims than others. But based on what he has seen of the case so far, Mr. Levine said, “I’d much rather be in Dominion’s shoes than Fox’s right now.”

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 09:14 am:

No shit.

More January 6 testimoiny nuggets

Then-President Donald Trump wanted to trademark the phrase “Rigged Election!” days after Election Day in 2020, according to emails provided by Jared Kushner to the House select committee.

[...]

“Hey Jared! POTUS wants to trademark/own rights to below, I don’t know who to see – or ask…I don’t know who to take to,” the email from Scavino reads, according to a transcript of Kushner’s testimony to the committee, which was released by the panel on Friday.

Two phrases were bolded in the email: “Save America PAC!” and “Rigged Election!”

  CNN

WTF??? Did he think he could collect money from people writing "Rigged Election!"? What a freak.

Kushner forwarded the request and discussed it on an email chain that included Eric Trump, the president’s son; Alex Cannon, a Trump campaign lawyer; Sean Dollman, the chief financial officer of Trump’s 2020 campaign; and Justin Clark, a Trump campaign lawyer.

“Guys - can we do ASAP please?” Kushner wrote.

Obviously Kushner is just as insane as Trump here.

Robert Sinners, who worked on the Trump campaign’s Election Day operations in Georgia in 2020 and helped organize the slate of alternate GOP electors there, told congressional investigators that his “intent was never to be aligned with team crazy.”

[...]

CNN previously reported that Sinners emailed the fake electors asking for “complete secrecy and discretion” on December 13, 2020, a day before the GOP electors convened at the Georgia capitol. Sinners told the panel that efforts to ensure Georgia’s GOP electors met in secrecy had more to do with skirting Covid-19 restrictions and avoiding protesters than keeping the elector plan under wraps.

Yeah, that's believable.

The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol met in person Thursday with conservative activist Ginni Thomas, and during her interview, she told the panel that she did not discuss any of the legal challenges to the 2020 presidential election with her husband, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

  CBS

But did she discuss her own - or others' - activities attempting to overturn the election?

Ginni Thomas also denied her husband knew of her texts with former President Trump's White House chief of staff.

[...]

She also told the committee that her husband is "uninterested in politics," and said in her statement, "I generally do not discuss with him my day-to-day work in politics, the topics I am working on, who I am calling, emailing, texting or meeting."

"Generally".

In one of the texts, sent during a press conference pushing election fraud claims that featured Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, Thomas wrote: “Tears are flowing in what Rudy is doing right now.”

In another text, sent on Nov. 24, 2020, Meadows told Thomas that Trump’s post-election legal battles were part of “a fight of good versus evil.” Thomas replied: “Thank you. Needed that, this plus a conversation with my best friend just now. I will try to keep holding on.”

[...]

Thomas confirmed that when she mentioned her “best friend,” she was referring to her husband. But when asked what she and Justice Thomas had talked about, Ginni Thomas said she did not know.

[...]

[Thomas] was asked about some of the text messages she had sent to Meadows after the 2020 election. Thomas said at the start of her testimony that she regretted “the tone and content” of the messages, and expressed frustration at the fact they were made public.

  HuffPo

Oh yeah, that's believable. And I ask you: Do those texts seem a little intimate to you? I don't mean in any sexual context, but like she and Mark Meadows are sharing an awful lot, that they were in constant and close contact during the coup attempt? Would that be a normal situation between a Supreme Court justice's wife and the President's chief of staff? I don't think so.

"I will try to keep holding on."  They're working together, obviously.  And they're NOT relaying information to their partners (Chief Justice and President)?  That's just not believable.  

“My husband often administers spousal support to the wife that’s upset,” she said.

Do all these nutjobs speak of themselves in the third person?

“So I assume that’s what it was. I don’t have a specific memory of it.”

Bullshit. And Clarence Thomas should have been deposed, too.

Thomas said it was “embarrassing” to be confronted with her old digital communications.

“It was an emotional time,” she told the committee at several points.

"Embarrassing".

Thomas deposition transcript 

The national chairman of the Proud Boys took a Dec. 12 tour of the White House, and alarm bells went off inside the Secret Service and among other security officials.

Trump deputy chief of staff Tony Ornato told the Jan. 6 committee last month that Robert Engel — the head of Trump’s Secret Service detail — flagged the visit for him as security officials wondered how they let him slip through the cracks.

“Why didn’t we pick up on his role/membership in the Proud Boys?” one official asked Engel, in an email Engel shared with Ornato.

  Politico

Who gave him the tour?

Ornato also forwarded an article to Engel about the prospect of violence on Jan. 6

But Ornato said he didn’t recall seeing any of this chatter, despite being a point of contact for the security agencies involved, and he said he didn’t recall whether he read the article he sent.

I'm sorry, what?

Ornato also said he didn’t recall the content of a 12-minute call he had on Jan. 6 with Engel, who had been receiving updates about the security situation at the Ellipse, where Trump had begun delivering his speech.

It’s just kind of hard to believe that you don’t recall anything about a conversation when that was going on around the Ellipse and the White House that morning,” an unidentified committee investigator said.

No shit.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Democrats tit-for-tat to Hunter Biden: Jared Kushner

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Uh-oh

In new exclusive footage obtained by The Daily Beast, a yet-to-be-released documentary captured [Trump toady Roger] Stone’s meltdown after learning on President Joe Biden’s inauguration day that he wouldn’t be granted a second coveted legal protection, this time to shield from any Jan 6 legal fallout.

[...]

“Jared Kushner has an IQ of 70. He’s coming to Miami. We will eject him from Miami very quickly; he will be leaving very quickly,” Stone said, while visibly shaking in anger. “Very quickly.”

Stone continued: “He has 100 security guards. I will have 5,000 security guards. You want to fight. Let’s fight. Fuck you.” (The filmmakers remain unsure of who Stone directed this remark towards.)

“Fuck you and your abortionist bitch daughter,” he concluded, referring to Ivanka Trump, according to the filmmaker Christoffer Guldbrandsen who said there was “no doubt” who Stone was ranting about.

[...]

Danish filmmaker Christoffer Guldbrandsen — part of the team that captured the moment for his upcoming documentary “A Storm Foretold” — told The Daily Beast that the tense scene was from inauguration day on January 20th, 2021, and recorded in Fort Lauderdale.

  Daily Beast

Film clip is embedded in the above article. Stone knew he was being filmed.

Stone has threatened to file a $25 million lawsuit against Guldbrandsen and fellow filmmaker Frederik Marbell.

Of course. And if he does (which I doubt - he won't have enough money, and he can't bleed the base for expenses like Trump), he'll lose.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

So, pretty much...yeah, I called  her an abortionist bitch.