LaffyJan 29, 2023

"The McGonigal story is huge, and the NYT still has a lot of explaining to do...

It was the real "October Surprise" - 2016 deceptions that put #Trump in the White House, fueled by #FBI leaks

Knowing now that a top FBI agent went to work for a billionaire #Putin ally, the #NYTimes need to reveal the truth of these stories."

If @willbunch wrote it, you should read it.© And I thread it 🧵 👇 1/...

https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commentary/mcgonigal-russian-oligarch-trump-2016-election-20230129.html

The NYT should tell readers whether it helped crooked FBI agents get Trump elected in 2016

The arrest of a high-level FBI agent on Russia-tied corruption charges raises stunning new questions about how Trump really won in 2016.

The Philadelphia Inquirer
Show threadLaffy

2/ " #Giuliani told Fox that the trailing GOP nom had “a surprise or 2 that you’re going to hear about in the next few days. I mean, I’m talking about some pretty big surprises”...

It was later reported Comey was motivated to make the unusual announcement about the laptop bc he feared leaks from FBI’s NY field office, which..had “a faction of investigators based in the office known to be hostile to Clinton.” Indeed, Giuliani bragged immed after that he had sources in FBI, incl current agents"

Jan 29, 2023 at 7:36pmWeb
Show threadLaffyJan 29, 2023
3/ "This week’s stunning corruption charges against a top FBI spymaster who assumed a key role in the bureau’s New York office just weeks before 2016′s “October surprise” — an agent who by 2018 was known to be working for a Vladimir Putin-tied Russian oligarch — should cause America to rethink everything we think we know about the Trump-Russia scandal and how it really happened that Trump won that election."
Show threadLaffyJan 29, 2023

4/ "Govt allegations against former G-man Chas McGonigal (also accused of taking a lg foreign payment while still on FBI payroll) & outsized American influence of sanctioned-later-indicted Russian billionaire Deripaska — also tied to US pols from Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort to McConnell — should make us also look again at what was really up with the FBI in 2016.

How coordinated was the effort...who were agents behind it? What was the role, if any, of McGonigal.."

Show threadLaffyJan 29, 2023

5/ "As a veteran journalist, I find NYT role in this fiasco— although likely an unwitting one—disturbing. To be sure, 2016 FBI leaks weren’t 1st time major news org has been burned by anon law enforcement sources...

It’s not only that America’s so-called paper of record has never apologized for its over-the-top coverage of the Clinton emails or the deeply flawed story about the FBI Trump-Russia probe. It’s that the Times has shown a stunning lack of curiosity about finding out what went wrong"

Show threadLaffyJan 29, 2023
6/ "Deripaska--aluminum magnate who was the richest man in Putin’s Russia — is turning up in the background everywhere in the ongoing corruption of American democracy. The oligarch’s history of multimillion-dollar business dealings with Paul Manafort — Trump’s campaign manager in the summer of 2016 — is central to the theory of Russian interference, after it was confirmed that Manafort shared key campaign data with a suspected Russian intelligence agent also connected to Deripaska"
Show threadLaffyJan 29, 2023
7/ "It’s becoming clear that tamping down of most explosive parts of Trump-Russia story is greatest case of gaslighting since the Cukor movie dropped in 1944. It’s not just the FBI leaks in NY. We also learned last week about the extraordinary and ethically dubious lengths that Trump’s second attorney general, William Barr, and Barr’s handpicked special prosecutor John Durham, went to to try to prove the FBI was out to sink Trump. That’s the exact opposite of what really happened"
Show threadLaffyJan 29, 2023

8/ "Indeed, the Times noted the only major criminality turned up in the Durham probe was a potentially explosive new charge of financial impropriety — by Donald Trump...

Why does it matter? Trump is no longer president, after all, and America has a lot of other problems, with police brutality and mass shootings currently on the front burner. Yet when it comes to this all-encompassing Trump-Russia scandal, the past isn’t even past."

Show threadLaffyJan 29, 2023

9/ Trump "was campaigning this weekend...“Moscow Mitch” could return as maj leader in same election. And Putin’s obsession w Ukraine... has become a war with dire global implications.

More importantly, this never-ending scandal has demolished our trust is so many institutions — an FBI that seems to have corrupted an election, a Justice Department that covered up those deeds instead of exposing them, and, yes, a New York Times that enabled several lies instead of exposing them."

Show threadLaffyJan 29, 2023

10/10 "The Times can finally apologize for the sins of 2016, expose exactly what went wrong, then reveal the rest, so this kind of disaster never happens again. They owe it to American democracy.

McGonigal, meanwhile, will get a chance to clear his name in court. His lawyer comes from the firm Bracewell LLC, the law firm that was previously known as Giuliani & Bracewell after its onetime name partner, the former NY mayor. Just another coincidence, probably."

Please read the whole column

Show threadJDJan 29, 2023
@GottaLaff be funny to see Greenwald, Taibbi, Mate’ and the rest of the tankies come out and defending the NYT after they call them out all the time. Of course they’d never admit they were wrong.
Show threadLaffyJan 29, 2023
@jag0325 I can't with them.
Show threadpatbJan 29, 2023
@GottaLaff to be fair, it was Bracewell & G for about a nanosecond. And criminals of every stripe need good representation in our system of government. I would not like to be judged by each person I dated. Every lawyer has had clients that make the lawyer “hold their nose.”
Show threadLitzz11Jan 30, 2023
@GottaLaff I recall the New York Times did some very lightweight, tepid, "maaaybe we went overboard" version of an apology but the fact that they gave Maggie Haberman the Trump beat after all that shows they didn't learn their lesson.
Show threadLaffyJan 30, 2023
@Litzz11 All I can think of is Judith Miller.
Show threadIts GregoryJan 29, 2023

@GottaLaff
EXACTLY !
The problem is NOT solved, and it is a problem that will absolutely manifest into a much larger harmful one...

Do NOT sit on this couch !
https://youtu.be/it-0PiV2F9c

Do NOT Sit on This Couch - Zach King Magic

YouTube
Show threadMartha HowellJan 29, 2023
@GottaLaff None of this is the past when the perps are in Congress and leading one of our two political parties.
Show threadJetgirlJan 29, 2023
@GottaLaff everyone, and everything, seems to be tied to Deripaska. Well, every crooked deal, and every crooked person.
Show threadLaffyJan 29, 2023
@lonie6038 Yep, Putin's guy.
Show threadDanetteb2Jan 29, 2023
@GottaLaff the NYT has a long history of that kind of behavior. They are lazy at a minimum and covering up crimes at the worst. A Free press isn’t worth much if it’s working with fascists
Show threadLaffyJan 29, 2023
@Danetteb2 2 words: Judith Miller.
Show threadGaladJan 29, 2023
@Danetteb2 @GottaLaff Anyone remember when the NYT wrote a puff piece about Hitler?
Show threadDanetteb2Jan 29, 2023
@galad @GottaLaff I’ve seen articles on it- wasn’t around at the time 😉
Show threadMartin Vermeer FCDJan 29, 2023
@GottaLaff "likely an unwitting one" - charitable
Show threadLaffyJan 29, 2023
@martinvermeer Very, and Will isn't usually that charitable. He's fair though.
Show threadArt - US Expat in SpainJan 29, 2023
@GottaLaff There were a lot of us back then that had already written off the Times as an institution of credibility. The evidence they were tilting the stories was immense. None of this is surprising now.
Show threadDanetteb2Jan 29, 2023
@GottaLaff oh we def need to scrutinize McGonigal
Show threadScott, present & accounted forJan 29, 2023
@Danetteb2 @GottaLaff We definitely need to scrutinize the two NYT reporters who wrote that Oct 2016 story too.
Show threadA L KatzJan 29, 2023

@GottaLaff The GOP leadership knew in 2016 -before they nominated him - that "Putin pays Rohrbacher and Trump - swear to God!".

That was current Speaker Of The House Kevin McCarthy to a group of GOP leaders on June 25, 2016. He had just left a meeting on Ukraine where he learned that Putin was actively engaged in undermining Ukraine's fledgling democracy. McCarthy walked directly into a meeting of GOP leaders and the first thing he waid was "There's two people I think Putin pays - Rohrbacher and Trump - swear to God!".

No one at the meeting of GOP leaders expressed shock. No one questioned or doubted McCarthy. Rather there was nervous laughter. Then Speaker Of The House Paul Ryan stepped forward and asserted GOP-style leadership. He told the group they weren't going to discuss this topic any further. They were going to keep this terrible secret - that their about-to-be presidential nominee posed a grave national security threat - a secret. As then Speaker Ryan put it: "That's how we know we're family".

Think they didn't know about Paul Manafort's relationship w Oleg Deripaska - or what that might cost them?

We need to stop telling ourselves that Trump "won" anything. How can one "win" an election in America with any sort of help whatsoever from a foreign government?

I agree with you wholeheartedly! We need to brutally honest with ourselves about what happened and who made those things happen. And then we need to do something about it - other than talk.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/house-majority-leader-to-colleagues-in-2016-i-think-putin-pays-trump/2017/05/17/515f6f8a-3aff-11e7-8854-21f359183e8c_story.html

House majority leader to colleagues in 2016: ‘I think Putin pays’ Trump

Speaker Ryan responded: ‘What’s said in the family stays in the family.’ GOP leaders now cast the exchange as ‘an attempt at humor.’

The Washington Post
Show threadニルス・スキニールJan 29, 2023
@Alan @GottaLaff
If we'd had both honest media and an honest 'justice' system, most re-🤮s wld be in jail for treason or sedition.
As it is we'll be lucky if Trump is even indicted.
BTW FBI and rest of DOJ are staffed mainly with McGonigal-like right wingers.
Show threadLaffyJan 29, 2023
@Alan Oh I know. I covered it thoroughly at the time. I remember it well.
Show threadA L KatzJan 30, 2023
@GottaLaff Seems line one of those stories that the press covered - then dropped - but which is about to come around again.
Show threadLaffyJan 30, 2023
@Alan I hope so. There are so many stories that seem like they will merge eventually and become front and center again.
Show threadA L KatzJan 30, 2023
@GottaLaff The arrest of Charles McConigal will open the floodgates. Oleg's Boy can tell us things we don't know about ourselves but need to know right-bloody-now.
Show threadLaffyJan 30, 2023
@Alan I sure hope so
Show threadRoy #BLM Pardee 🇺🇸Jan 30, 2023
@Alan @GottaLaff God I hope so.
Show threadJim HubbellJan 29, 2023
@GottaLaff
A minor point that gets overlooked. If I remember correctly, Comey told select members of Congress about reopening the investigation of Clinton. It was Senator Lee of Utah who blabbed to the press.
Show threadSpicewallaJan 29, 2023

@jimhubbell @GottaLaff

Comey is a creature of the beltway. He had no illusions about the sanctity of a letter sent to politicians. He knew it would be leaked immediately. Writing that letter instead of releasing an official public statement was just a CYA strategy to shield him from responsibility.