Supergrifters

Christmas grifts from the Trump family.

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

UPDATE 04:01 pm:  And a great Xmas sentiment to follow up the offer to pray:

Merry Christmas.  Go to hell.

And this asshole doesn't even know it's "in Jesus' name."  Jesus! These Christian grifters.

Fake Christians.

The Iranian hack of Trump's campaign

Some new developments came in yesterday regarding the reported hacking of Trump campaign documents by (it is alleged) the Iranians. According to the Washington Post, one of the phishing attempts looks to have succeeded in compromising the account of Roger Stone, Trump’s longtime friend and adviser. Stone is rather famously a practitioner of dirty tricks. And so there is some irony in him now being caught in this sordid affair. Also—we can save you the time—he was quite invested in the tranche of Hillary Clinton emails that were unearthed by Russian actors in the 2016 election.

  Bulwark

The FBI and other investigators probing the apparent hack-and-leak of Trump campaign documents, which Donald Trump has blamed on Iran, suspect that the hackers were able to compromise the personal email account of longtime Republican and Trump operative Roger Stone.

[...]

The hackers used access to Stone’s email account to try to break into the account of a senior Trump campaign official as part of a persistent effort to access campaign networks.

  MSN

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

Roger Stone under investigation again

The Capitol Police are investigating remarks made by pro-Trump political operative Roger Stone discussing the assassination of two prominent House Democrats. A source told Mediaite the FBI is aiding with the investigation.

Last week, Mediaite published an audio recording of the comments, which were made weeks before the 2020 election in a conversation between Stone and his associate, former NYPD cop Sal Greco, about Reps. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) and Eric Swalwell (D-CA). “It’s time to do it,” Stone told Greco. “Let’s go find Swalwell. It’s time to do it. Then we’ll see how brave the rest of them are. It’s time to do it. It’s either Swalwell or Nadler has to die before the election. They need to get the message. Let’s go find Swalwell and get this over with. I’m just not putting up with this shit anymore.”

[...]

Stone has adamantly denied making the comments — even after the audio was published by Mediaite. The infamous political operative claimed the audio was “poorly fabricated AI generated fraud all because I am loyal to [Trump]”.

  Mediaite

Yeah, right.

Unless he gets elected, Trump can't pardon Stone this time.

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

When will Roger Stone be behind bars?

I assume Jack Smith will charge Stone and any others involved in plotting the insurrection once Trump's trial is over. But since Trump commuted Stone's sentence when he was convicted of obstruction, witness tampering, and lying to Congress by Mueller's Russia probe, it will have to involve separate crimes. I feel certain Stone would fight any charge as double jeopardy, even though Smith's charges would be for plotting the insurrection. Smith would win that one, but it will be a long battle, no doubt. 

Weeks before the 2020 presidential election, infamous political operative Roger Stone sat across from his associate Sal Greco at a restaurant in Florida.

At the time, Greco was an NYPD cop working security for Stone on the side. Their conversation, at Caffe Europa in Fort Lauderdale, focused on two House Democrats for whom Stone harbors particular animosity, Jerry Nadler and Eric Swalwell.

In audio of the conversation obtained exclusively by Mediaite, Stone made threatening comments about the two lawmakers.

“It’s time to do it,” Stone told Greco. “Let’s go find Swalwell. It’s time to do it. Then we’ll see how brave the rest of them are. It’s time to do it. It’s either Nadler or Swalwell has to die before the election. They need to get the message. Let’s go find Swalwell and get this over with. I’m just not putting up with this shit anymore.”

A source familiar with the discussion told Mediate they believed Stone’s remarks were serious. “It was definitely concerning that he was constantly planning violence with an NYPD officer and other militia groups,” the source said.

[...]

Stone was convicted of obstruction, witness tampering, and lying to Congress in the Mueller investigation. Prosecutors sought a nine-year prison sentence for the longtime Republican operative, but Trump’s Justice Department reportedly intervened to impose a less severe sentence. Stone’s sentence was eventually commuted by Trump days before reporting to prison.

The intervention from the Justice Department prompted Aaron Zelinsky, the prosecutor and Mueller deputy who led the case against Stone, to recuse himself from the case in protest. Mediaite reported last week that Stone was caught on tape in December 2020 urging Greco to “punish” Zelinsky.

“He needs to be punished,” Stone told Greco in the audio. “You have to abduct him and punish him. That has to be done. It will be easy to abduct him because he is a weakling.”

Stone denied making those comments, claiming they were generated by AI.

[...]

Greco did not deny the comments.

[...]

Greco, who acted as security for Stone and was with the operative during the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol soon after the 2020 election, was fired by the NYPD over his association with Stone.

  Mediaite

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

Wherever there's political sleaze, you'll find Roger Stone

UPDATE 08/19/2023:

They eat their own - part whatever

And...

C'mon, Roger, Lindsey is those things, but you're at Mar-A-Lago, so we know you have.  Also, look in the mirror and meet yourself.  

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

UPDATE:  And...

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.

They always end up eating their own

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

Well then

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

...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.

Sad!

You think he can make enough to pay his lawyers?

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

Proud Boys lieutenant pleads guilty to seditious conspiracy

Jeremy Bertino, 43, of Belmont, N.C., agreed to cooperate with the Justice Department against Tarrio and four other Proud Boys leaders with ties to influential Donald Trump supporters Roger Stone and Alex Jones. The Proud Boys defendants are set to face trial in December on charges including plotting to oppose by force the presidential transition, culminating in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

[...]

Bertino had a place in the inner circle of Proud Boys leaders.

[...]

Bertino was convicted in 2004 of first-degree reckless endangerment in New York state, a felony, and sentenced to five years of probation with a period of local jail time, according to court filings.

[...]

In plea papers, Bertino said Proud Boys leaders “agreed that the election had been stolen, that the purpose of traveling to Washington, D.C., on January 6, 2021, was to stop the certification of the Electoral College vote, and that the [Ministry of Self Defense] leaders were willing to do whatever it would take, including using force against police and others, to achieve that objective.”

He admitted that at least two days earlier he received encrypted chat messages indicating that members of the Proud Boys leadership group who called themselves the Ministry of Self Defense “believed that storming the Capitol would achieve the group’s goal” and would require using violence.

[...]

Bertino’s testimony could implicate [Proud Boys leader Enrique] Tarrio, a former aide to GOP strategist Stone, and co-defendant Joe Biggs, a former employee of Jones’s online Infowars show.

[...]

Stone remained in contact with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in Florida and in Washington in the weeks leading up to the Jan. 6 attack, coordinated post-election protests and privately strategized with figures such as former national security adviser Michael Flynn and “Stop the Steal” organizer Ali Alexander.

[...]

Stone also communicated via encrypted texts after the 2020 election with Tarrio as well as Stewart Rhodes, the founder and leader of a second right-wing extremist group, the Oath Keepers, accused of playing an outsize role in planning for and organizing violence at the Capitol. Rhodes was on trial Thursday on seditious conspiracy charges in the same courthouse where Bertino pleaded.

[...]

Tarrio and Rhodes were part of a Signal chat group titled F.O.S. — or Friends of Stone, and the pair met in an underground parking garage next to the Capitol the evening before Jan. 6 with leaders of two pro-Trump grass-roots groups.

  WaPo

Closer and closer.

Jesus these people

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

There are tapes

More documentary evidence.

Weeks before the Capitol attack, top Republican political activists Roger Stone and Ali Alexander identified the January 6 congressional certification as the final chance for Donald Trump to attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

[...]

As Stone and Alexander mounted their political operation, their activities were recorded by two conservative film-makers in the post-2020 election period and in the weeks before January 6.

The access meant the film-makers, Jason Rink and Paul Escandon, captured footage of the leaders of the Stop the Steal movement and their interactions with top Trump allies, according to a teaser for the documentary titled The Steal.

In following Stop the Steal, the film-makers’ project documented key moments in the timeline leading up to the Capitol attack, including an “occupation” of the Georgia state capitol in November, and rallies in Washington that almost seemed like dry runs for January 6.

They also caught on camera public and private moments at Stop the Steal events. Among others who appear in the documentary are the House Republican Paul Gosar, former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, and Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

[...]

[P]arts of the footage reviewed by the Guardian make The Steal Movie seem like a detailed account of the behind-the-scenes efforts to stop Biden from becoming president.

[...]

The House January 6 select committee emailed a letter earlier in January asking to review the footage, but a lawyer for Rink declined the request, citing the need to maintain journalistic independence and fears the content would leak from the inquiry.

House investigators did not ultimately pursue the matter after the lawyer indicated he would litigate a subpoena; unless film-makers have said they would only turn over footage in response to a subpoena, the panel has generally avoided that route.

[...]

The question about the footage, however, recently resurfaced inside the select committee, days after former Trump aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified under oath that Trump ordered his then chief of staff to call Stone on the night before the Capitol attack.

Stone has denied that the call took place, just as he has denied that he had anything to do with the events of January 6. He declined to cooperate with the select committee in an interview, asserting his fifth amendment right against self-incrimination.

[...]

The activities of Stone with respect to stopping Biden’s certification is of interest to January 6 investigators since he had close ties to leaders of the far-right Proud Boys and Oath Keepers groups that stormed the Capitol and have since been indicted for seditious conspiracy.

Many of the key moments for the Stop the Steal movement, managed by Alexander but ultimately controlled by Stone, according to sources familiar with how they worked in practice, were captured on tape by Rink and Escandon’s film crew.

  Guardian

Add this to the Alex Holder documentary, Unprecedented.

The film-makers are also understood to have captured some footage the day before and the day of the Capitol attack, including discussions between Stone and Alexander, as well as the fate of the “Stage 8” rally that Alexander had planned on January 6 yards from the Capitol.

Stone never went to the Save America rally at the Ellipse where Trump spoke, after a dispute over VIP passes, according to people familiar with the incident. He also never went to the planned Stage 8 rally on the East Front of the Capitol and instead left Washington in a hurry.

That sounds like Stone. The Snake.

Also, that "teaser" for the documentary looks pretty lame.

Jesus, these people

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

It's Sunday

Good news and bad news

The good news is another Oath Keeper pled guilty on seditious conspiracy charges. The bad news is another Oath Keeper pled guilty on seditious conspiracy charges.

A second member of the Oath Keepers facing a seditious conspiracy charge for his role in the Jan. 6 breach of the Capitol pleaded guilty Friday and is preparing to cooperate with prosecutors.

Brian Ulrich, one of 11 Oath Keepers facing the gravest charges to emerge from the Jan. 6 attack, pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy and obstruction of Congress’ electoral vote-counting session. He follows Joshua James, an Oath Keeper who provided personal security to Roger Stone, who pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy last month.

  Politico

I'm glad they're getting these assholes to admit and cooperate, but I'm afraid what's going to happen in the end is that the Oath Keepers are going to get all the blame, and once they're prosecuted, the administration and congressional criminals involved will be off the hook.

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

Irony is still dead

Roger Stone appeared before the Jan 6 Investigation Committee

Ready for the top shits