On Credico and Stone and Hillary’s Purported Libya Email

WSJ has an underreported story revealing that Roger Stone emailed Randy Credico seeking specific emails from Wikileaks in September 2016.

Former Trump campaign adviser Roger Stone privately sought information he considered damaging to Hillary Clinton from WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange during the 2016 presidential campaign, according to emails reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

The emails could raise new questions about Mr. Stone’s testimony before the House Intelligence Committee in September, in which he said he “merely wanted confirmation” from an acquaintance that Mr. Assange had information about Mrs. Clinton, according to a portion of the transcript that was made public.

In a Sept. 18, 2016, message, Mr. Stone urged an acquaintance who knew Mr. Assange to ask the WikiLeaks founder for emails related to Mrs. Clinton’s alleged role in disrupting a purported Libyan peace deal in 2011 when she was secretary of state, referring to her by her initials.

“Please ask Assange for any State or HRC e-mail from August 10 to August 30–particularly on August 20, 2011,” Mr. Stone wrote to Randy Credico, a New York radio personality who had interviewed Mr. Assange several weeks earlier. Mr. Stone, a longtime confidant of Donald Trump, had no formal role in his campaign at the time.

I say it’s underreported for two reasons: as presented, WSJ doesn’t really explain why this is news. It doesn’t show that the emails were responsive to HPSCI’s request, a point made by Stone’s attorney in the story and not refuted by Adam Schiff. Furthermore, Credico claims he never really asked Julian Assange for any emails (which may be one of the reasons Stone’s lawyer deems the exchange unresponsive). Schiff claims that this exchange suggests Stone was misleading at best in his testimony.

Adam Schiff (D., Calif.), the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, said the emails hadn’t been provided to congressional investigators. “If there is such a document, then it would mean that his testimony was either deliberately incomplete or deliberately false,” said Mr. Schiff, who has continued to request documents and conduct interviews with witnesses despite the committee’s probe concluding earlier this year said.

But for reasons I’ll explain, I think Stone may have been technically correct in his statement.

Another way the story is underreported is because WSJ doesn’t explain — or even consider — what emails Stone might be talking about, a silence that has led sloppy readers to assume these are a reference to known hacked emails.

The email may be a reference to emails believed by some to be hacked!

But absent any explanation what the emails are, they should be assumed to be the emails released by State in response to Jason Leopold and others, which Wikileaks only curated. There are several that might fit Stone’s criteria, including some of the ones based on intelligence from Sid Blumenthal that drove the nutters crazy.

That said, the withheld emails may be newsworthy for reasons WSJ doesn’t lay out.

First, consider the fact that as part of Don Jr’s SJC interview, he was asked about people who may have been involved in the Peter Smith effort to find Hillary’s deleted emails, from Russian hackers if need be. The last person included was Stone.

Q. Did you or anyone else make any effort to obtain Hillary Clinton’s e-mails?

A. No.

Q. Did you or anyone else ever receive Hillary Clinton’s e-mails other than something that might have been publicly published ?

A. No.

Q. Do you know who Peter Smith is?

A. No .

Q. Were you aware of Mr. Smith’ s efforts to obtain Hillary Clinton’s  e-mails?

A. I don’t recall knowing Peter Smith. So I’m not aware of his efforts. Who was he?

Q. There’s been public reporting on him. So it’s in the press.

A. Okay. I haven’t seen it.

Q. Do you know if any of the following people made any efforts to obtain Secretary Clinton’s e-mails. Michael Flynn?

A. I don’t know.

Q. Steve Bannon?

A. I don ‘t know.

Q. Kellyanne Conway?

A. I don’t know.

Q. Sam Clovis?

A. I don ‘t know.

Q. Carter Page?

A. I don’t know.

Q. Roger Stone ?

A. No idea.

We shouldn’t necessarily make that much of the fact that Stone appears on this list, both because no one on it has been confirmed to have been involved in Smith’s efforts, and because he’d be the most likely person to be involved in any case. Nor do I make too much out of the fact that Don Jr answered differently on Stone — “no idea” — than the “I don’t know” he offered for everyone else.

That said, this does seem to confirm Stone is among the people alleged to be involved in the effort.

The Peter Smith operation is something Stone assiduously avoided addressing in his statement to Congress.

Now consider that on August 10, 2016, Stone tweeted, “Assange, you see has all the @HillaryClinton e-mails @HumaAbedin thought she and @CherylMills erased #busted.” (Thanks to Susan Simpson for noting that Stone’s deleted account can be found and searched on the Trump Twitter Archive site.) That tweet would have fallen right between the time Stone told Sam Nunberg he had been speaking with Assange on August 5 and the time he started chatting via DM with Guccifer 2.0 on August 14. That’s also the timeframe Matt Tait said Smith reached out having already received emails from someone on the Dark Web. 

A few weeks later, right around the time the DNC emails were dumped by Wikileaks—and curiously, around the same time Trump called for the Russians to get Hillary Clinton’s missing emails—I was contacted out the blue by a man named Peter Smith, who had seen my work going through these emails. Smith implied that he was a well-connected Republican political operative.

[snip]

Smith had not contacted me about the DNC hack, but rather about his conviction that Clinton’s private email server had been hacked—in his view almost certainly both by the Russian government and likely by multiple other hackers too—and his desire to ensure that the fruits of those hacks were exposed prior to the election. Over the course of a long phone call, he mentioned that he had been contacted by someone on the “Dark Web” who claimed to have a copy of emails from Secretary Clinton’s private server, and this was why he had contacted me; he wanted me to help validate whether or not the emails were genuine.

When Smith couldn’t validate the emails he had received, he had the hackers themselves forward them to WikiLeaks.

Mr. Smith said after vetting batches of emails offered to him by hacker groups last fall, he couldn’t be sure enough of their authenticity to leak them himself. “We told all the groups to give them to WikiLeaks,” he said. WikiLeaks has never published those emails or claimed to have them.

All of which is to say that, if Stone was involved in this effort, he may have known emails pertaining to Libya (perhaps forgeries written to fit into the known, officially released ones) had gotten forwarded to WikiLeaks as early as August. In which case his nudge to Credico the next month may have been an effort to flush out the emails he believed to be in WikiLeaks’ possession.

Which would mean his response to Congress — that Stone was just looking for confirmation WikiLeaks had materials he thought they did — would be technically accurate.

There’s one other detail of interest in the WSJ story. Credico, like Stone, has not been interviewed by Mueller’s team. And like Stone, absent a direct interview, Credico appears to be trying to make his case in the public sphere.

Messrs. Stone and Credico said they haven’t been contacted by Mr. Mueller’s office, which declined to comment.

[snip]

After earlier asserting his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in the House probe, Mr. Credico now says he is willing to talk with investigators. He said he met on Wednesday with the committee’s Democratic staff members for what he called a limited conversation about WikiLeaks, the 2016 campaign and Mr. Stone.

As Mr. Credico has become more vocal about what he says are discrepancies in Mr. Stone’s account, Mr. Stone has responded with a series of threats, according to emails and text messages reviewed by the Journal.

In early April, in one of those emails, Mr. Stone accused Mr. Credico of serving as an informant.

“Everyone says u are wearing a wire for Mueller,” the April 7 email said. Two days later, Mr. Stone wrote: “Run your mouth = get sued.” Mr. Credico denies being an informant.

It’s possible that Stone was using Credico as a go-between to try to confirm what he already knew, to pressure WikiLeaks to release documents he and his rat-fucking associates had planted there.

Which might make the withheld emails far more newsworthy.

Update: Because there was some confusion, I’ve added more of the Don Jr transcript to make the context clear.

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59 replies
  1. Rusharuse says:

    Rat-fuckers picnic
    Report from CNN tonite that SCO has Stones tax returns/financials . . eye roll, Yeah? But on here do we suspect he was being paid to make the sandwiches and also pay the caterers for delivery? Who’s money? From some foreign land? . . and . . who were them others what baked the brownies??

    • aubrey mcfate says:

      I was hoping to find some commentary on this “extraneous” financial crimes angle they are promoting.

      I’m also waiting, with bated breath, on an analysis on the two “briefings” yesterday. There was such confusion and obfuscation on the subject that it wasn’t until this morning I found out from a hard copy of the Post that Adam Schiff was allowed into the first meeting, not just the second.

      For me this has been the worst week of the regime. It’s the first time I’ve seen the right-wing machine hitting on all cylinders; the non-fake media aren’t actually using the word “Spygate”, but they are all talking about a “spy” used against the Trump campaign. People were laughing at Giuliani a couple weeks ago. I don’t know, getting the FBI and DOJ to brief your client’s lawyer on the evidence against him during the investigation seems a significant advancement of their cause to me.

      And that is what, as a non-lawyer laymen, I find so alarming, and why I check in here. What will Flood, the lawyer, and Goebbelsani, the “lawyer” do with this beyond the propaganda, purging and defamation campaign they’ve already waged against investigators? Two questions, one general: how ambitiously are they going to use this flimsy pretext?; and one specific: how much does the information about Halper (or whatever else they’re getting) actually compromise the investigation (which, to me, already has gone so far that I can see the contours of the indictments)? My last question is more a pathetic plea: since I and everyone else can already see those contours, what’s taking so long? And who will be indicted first?

      • Trip says:

        Releasing the Halper info, already well-known, may not do anything directly to this investigation, but it does set precedent. Just like the precedent set by allowing Flood and Kelly to sashay into a briefing where they have no business being, and where there shouldn’t be a briefing on an open ongoing investigation in the first place. As to assets, who will want to risk their lives in more dangerous scenarios, if later some corrupt political plot will drive their exposure for expediency?  Allies will not have the necessary trust level. It’s biting your nose to spite your face, especially since no wrongdoing was revealed. Just smoke and mirrors.

        • aubrey mcfate says:

          I don’t buy that entirely. Their game is a more short-term one. They’re in real, immediate legal jeopardy. “Precedent” is a pollyannaish way of evading description of the immediate threat of a criminal conspiracy to obstruct investigation of a crime. As for “assets not wanting to risk their lives in more dangerous scenarios”, the GOP will always find assets for the things they want; witness the new head of the NRA. All this talk, for example, about things like “our elections” being endangered bothers me. There’s no “our” or “we”. The integrity of elections for Democrats are endangered, to the benefit of Republicans. We have a problem in this country in that Republicans really viscerally feel it’s not a betrayal of any kind to use Russian intelligence and mafia assets against Democrats because Democrats are not really, after all, American. Not without precedent: the Confederacy did solicit the aid of foreign powers against the United States government.

          You’re right that the long-term danger, an inevitability really, is that the GOP will now use the FBI and DOJ this way, but that seems an incidental benefit, not a premeditated benefit; it’s all gravy. It’s heads-we-win, tails-you-lose with the GOP.

          • Trip says:

            I don’t see how it’s “pollyannish” to describe the destruction of procedure. Of course they are doing it to avoid capture. But the flagrant disregard for rules, once set and accepted, they will only break them down further.

        • earlofhuntingdon says:

          Illustrates an inescapable fact about today’s GOP.  There is no long term, only today.  It does not care about the consequences of protecting itself or the president.  Trump has never cared about anyone or anything he can’t see in the mirror from six inches away.

      • SteveB says:

        It is frustrating for those on the outside of the “briefings” to try and assess the full meaning and import of what has taken place, especially if one is inclined (as I believe all sensible commentors here are) to think it is outrageous to misuse claims of oversight and transparency as tools to undermine an active investigation, and especially one where the President his minions and party affiliates are subjects of it.

        Given that undue exposure of the inner workings of the investigation is one of the issues at stake, inevitably those seeking to uphold the Rule of Law have to resort to referring to norms precedent convention historical practice etc etc in ways that are slightly removed from the hard facts, because the hard facts necessarily remain concealed from view at least for the time being.

        The President et al, unconstrained by any regard for the truth, invent or distort  facts willy nilly to create pretexts for action.

        Thus those on the Rule of law team appear pollyanna-ish in response to active multiplying malignancy.

        However I think there may be reasons to be somewhat sanguine about the meetings yesterday, both in respect of the narrow spygate controvery and the wider issue of the norm busting.

        Schiff has pointed out that the result is that there is no there there on spygate.

        Nunes has been noticeably silent. Ludicrously Conryn has accused Schiff of “leaking classified information”, which just goes to show how desparately disappointed the GoP are by the stunt.

        The messing about concerning the meetings the attendees etc just goes to show that Trump Nunes gang were winging it, and were pushed back against. In so far as this represents a precedent it is a precedent for what not to do and how not to do it.

        That they tried at all shows how desparate and fearful of the investigation they are to have resorted to such tactics.

        They have completely botched this attempt to put into practice the “unitary executive” principle they claim exists and claim to adhere to. If the President can simply issue orders to the AG relating to a current investigation, why didn’t he do it?

        And to the point that next time this President might have learned from this experience and will execute the norm busting maneuvre with greater finesse: any future efforts at interferering (and they will come) are always going to be judged as a continuing course of conduct of which this fiasco was a part.

        • Trip says:

          They have botched it. But the pollyannas screaming bloody murder and reporting it was partially why.
          Trump’s briefing stunt may backfire

          ….In short, Trump trampled on the bright line that has be drawn to prevent the White House from politicizing and corrupting ongoing enforcement and investigative actions. But the press, Democrats and lawyers saw him do it and raised a rumpus. In the end, he would up defusing his own made-up scandal….I don’t mean to suggest that we should take Trump’s stunt lightly. To the contrary, it was among the most serious attacks on the rule of law in an administration that has made attacks on law enforcement into a cottage industry. When this is all done, Trump is gone and reform legislation is contemplated (as was the case after Watergate), putting into statute restrictions on White House interference in ongoing investigations will be a top priority (just as interference with Internal Revenue Service audits became illegal after Watergate).

          https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2018/05/25/trumps-briefing-stunt-may-backfire/

          • SteveB says:

            Absolutely agree.

            Asserting the norms, and complaining as to how an action infringes them is essential.

            As is worrying out loud about the potentially deliterious consequences, harmful precedents etc.

            Norms do not reassert themselves. People have to do it.

            And they have to constantly re-energise themselves to do it : part of the TrumpianSwirl has the purpose and effect of making opponents tired of dealing with all the lies nonesense and infractions.

            Balancing the outrage with some sense of analytical detachment is really really difficult with this lot, but clearly necessary

  2. greengiant says:

    Other time line events. per pseudonymous Adam Carter, Stranahan’s Aug 2, DM to Guccifer 2.0 and Stranahan’s help of Roger Stone’s article about Guccifer 2.0 August 5th 2016 article http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/08/05/dear-hillary-dnc-hack-solved-so-now-stop-blaming-russia/ Note to mention Stone’s buddies Alana Goodman and Sputnik’s Cassandra Fairbanks of Weinergate and CWA fame.
    To be publicly released at some point, where Erik Prince, Giuliani, and Kallstrom got their Hillary will be indicted spam? Modified emails on Weiner’s laptop, modified at NYPD, or just GOP operatives’ spam?
    Just maybe there were no FBI leaks but there was knowledge of what was on the laptop because someones put it there. Perhaps that is why DOJ IG is coming up with nothingburger.on FBI leaks. Here is an FBI leak story. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/1/18/1622036/-Blackwater-boss-Erik-Prince-helped-hack-the-election-for-Trump

    • Avattoir says:

      I’ve harbored a conjecture for a while (may even have posted on a comment on it – last year?), that, assuming it’s true that FBI Main, at least FBID Comey, wasn’t informed that the LEOs who controlled the Weiner/Abedin laptop had reason to believe there were HRC ems on it from when HRC was SoS was because they’d used a forensics tool, standard now for a number of years but even before that available as far back as the late 1990s, that gives LE the ability to exactly copy a hard drive. And not just the currently saved files and active user(s)’s file organization, but remnants of deleted files and early file folders and dividers. But that could have been done within a few days at most, and, depending on how many eyeballs were put on the job, a reasonably good rough analysis could be produced within as little as a few days more – so maybe a week or so in total? to get from ‘I got this potential gold’ to ‘ach, pyrites’.

      Assuming no one were to admit to having performed this forensics, thereafter were the laptop to be passed on in a way that got notice by FBI Main (or, again, at least Comey’s office), it ‘could’ have been passed on with advice of a more preliminary analysis than had actually already been done, because all the forensics would have been performed on the mirrored duplicate of the hard drive, not the laptops actual hard drive (which wouldn’t necessarily even bear any signs of having been mirrored!).
      That’s as far as I’d gone with conjecture before.

      But now on reading this post from sleuth Marcy, and one point within your comment (on which as it happens you’re wrong, but regardless: thnx for making it!), gets me thinking that the delay – the one in getting word of the laptop’s HD’s contents categories and list of file types and file to the attention of FBI Main – may possibly also have been taken up with some consideration for whether and how the hard drive might be ‘salted’ with the sort of emails Marcy’s conjectured about here.

      I’ve heard of this before, with those who have some familiarity with the mirroring forensics but haven’t actually spent enough time with to know what can be done with the tool, and just as importantly, what cannot be done with (I think I myself may well of have guilty of this sort of tech ignorance when I first came into contact with the tool back in the 1990s.).

      And among the latter, would be the salting of the originally seized hard drive with new and fake items. To be clear, it certainly ‘can’ be done, but not in any way where there could be any assurance at all let alone a guarantee of evading detection for having done so, from subsequent use of mirroring forensics.

      And while there are certainly more than enough wild-arse detectives employed in the NYPD, I’d be surprised if even the anti-Hillary types in the FBIs SDNY and EDNY offices would be reckless enough to try to pull that off with a guarantee of it blowing up in their faces.

      In short, I’d not be at all uncomfortable in conjecturing that the idea of salting the HD could have been considered, and might well explain some of the delay; but I can also see why it would be that no one was sufficiently reckless to try and pull it off.

       

      • Trip says:

        I don’t know. Anything involving Giuliani cohorts: I put nothing past them.

        A tiny sampling of his friends:

        Kerik Expected to Accept Prison Term in Corruption Case
        https://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/nyregion/05kerik.html

        James Kallstrom
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Kallstrom

        The FBI. Giuliani. Of Course.
        https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a50306/fbi-email-giuliani/
        Peas in a pod: The long and twisted relationship between Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani
        http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/wayne-barrett-donald-trump-rudy-giuliani-peas-pod-article-1.2776357

        Pirro

        http://gothamist.com/2006/09/28/jeanine_pirro_i.php
        https://www.cbsnews.com/news/love-bug-scandal-rocks-new-york/

      • posaune says:

        I also wonder how many individuals there were who “have to get my own copy of the hard drive.”     Just seems like someone somewhere had to have done that.

      • Bob Conyers says:

        I am not an expert, but my sense is that you’re right that trying to plant evidence on a hard drive would be tough if it were to be  examined by experts. Data on hard drives tends to be allocated in inconsistent clumps, and trying to add something to the middle of the pile tends to leave a lot of traces as other data is touched and shifted, which then need to be cleaned up, rinse, wash and repeat.

        It’s sort of like trying to plant evidence in the middle of an archaelogical dig. The act of burying a fake artifact creates new disturbances which are hard to cover up. Not impossible, but really tough if you are trying to convince investigators to accept an odd result.

      • SpaceLifeForm says:

        Agreed.

        Chain of custody is always an issue. We do not how many mirrors were made, but if I were doing the forensic investigation, the immediate first step I would do is make many multiple mirrors, with at least 3 of those mirrors locked up and sealed, i.e., stored safely, and distributed to multiple secure locations. With documentation that not only says when the mirror(s) were created, but also documentation that describes the procedure followed, and the tools used. Ideally, one would also include the *exact* tools used, preferably multiple copies of the tools on usb keys, that are live bootable Linux. This allows proof in case of a salting operation, which while possible, requires a lot of work and time.

        The tools I would use is a Live Linux USB KEY and the dd command. This way the source drive does not have to be mounted. Mounting a drive is *not* what you want to do. The dd command can read the raw device.

        The dd command is over 30 years old going back to Unix.

        Until Live Booting (not from hard drive) really got going, doing forensics on a hard drive was a pain. Creating a mirror was even more work because one had to open up computer and put in another identical hard drive. And to be forensically safe, you had to boot from floppy.
        Later you could boot from CD, then later DVD, then later USB. CD/DVD are not reliable, so you want USB Key, preferably multiple copies, included with the safely secured mirrors.

  3. SteveB says:

    As ever your work is both helpful and necessary in clarifying important detail.

    Throughout the entire TrumpRussiaCollusion matter there have been multiple occassions on which “ClintonEmails” and “DNCemails” have been confused and/or conflated. Sometimes that’s been accidental, other times it’s been due to willfull efforts to distort or confound the narrative for whatever reason.

    Your beady eye helps us to discern the one from the other.

    • aubrey mcfate says:

      I don’t think “beady” is the word you wanted. Try “gimlet” or, to be more pedestrian, “eagle”.

      • SteveB says:

        Always happy to be corrected on usage.

        Gimlet and eagle, certainly apt as conveying acute observation.

        In UK usage beady eyed  also conveys the sense of the application of critical assesment/reasoning (or indeed scrutiny and supervision) which is what I meant: eg “the trustee keeps a beady eye on the books” (and our version is “I spy with my beady eye,,,”)

        However, I realise that beady eye might in some contexts have the more hostile  or malign connotations of glittering or avaricious which of course is not what I meant.

        As ever I should be more conscious to avoid the traps of division by a common language.

         

        • earlofhuntingdon says:

          Beady-eyed has the more negative connotation.  Eagle-eyed is narrower, referring to sharp vision at a great distance.  The one might notice a bent dime on the pavement in front of 666 Fifth Avenue.  The other might notice a hare amongst the rushes from two hundred feet in the air.

  4. Trip says:

    Thanks for revisiting the Smith saga, Marcy. That was one strange little episode.  If planted, I’d love to see what they conjured up. Are you thinking they are of the faked “pizzagate”variety?

    I’ll add another reason why the WSJ report isn’t being circulated widely: Paywall.

  5. aubrey mcfate says:

    emptywheel,

    If you haven’t already seen it, there’s an A6 story in the Post today about Broidie: “GOP fundraiser claims Qatar hired ex-spies to help target him”. Like other storylines it features the GOP’s through-the-looking-glass cast of villains including “a former CIA operative and a former British spy”.

  6. Trip says:

    I responded to Avattoir with some links, and I can no longer tell if it is in moderation or if it was lost in the ether. My comments sometimes only show up after refresh, and they may come without edit function. This is something new in the last few days.

    • bmaz says:

      Yeah, sorry about that. More than a couple of links in a single comment probably means you get caught in auto-moderation. Which can suck if all your friendly hosts happen to be actually sleeping! Rare that we all are, or gone, at the same time,  but it happens. Your comment freed up now.

      • Trip says:

        Thanks bmaz, I’m cool with that. But in the past, you could see that it was in moderation. Now I can’t tell. The other day I tried to post a comment and it went into the ether, with unmarked 404s, several times, also sometimes with actual 404s. Not sure what changed on my end.

  7. Bob Conyers says:

    One thing I’m puzzling about is why Smith would be so worried about whether or not the supposed stash of emails was legit.

    Since when did Trump care about the truth about walls, birth certificates, or anything else? Why not just give the signal to the mystery men to release them a couple of weeks before the election, and let the fact checkers issue their reports months too late like they always do?

    Was Smith just trying to establish an alibi? Or was something else going on?

    • Trip says:

      Maybe he was in dangerous territory and knew it? He seemed to be actively recruiting, for what, witnesses? Either a sudden last minute case of conscience, or something else, led him to the WSJ reporter and a confession of sorts very shortly before his death. This still leaves me baffled. He sought the reporter out.

    • pseudonymous in nc says:

      If 2016 tells us anything, it’s that genuine-but-mundane emails released piecemeal are more effective oppo work than a small number of potentially explosive ones, because the press devotes huge amount of time trying to summarize anything vaguely interesting while the nutjobs construct hashtag-pizzagate deranged narratives out of them.

      That created a weird dynamic over “the 33,000 deleted emails”, where the ratfuckers believed that they contained the worst they could imagine about Clinton even as the mundane (and yes, less mundane) shit from hacked emails sucked all the oxygen out of the room.

      The domain of “emails that were believed to exist on some hacker’s server and sought desperately sought after, but never identified or released” may turn out to be the most significant of all when the facts come out.

      • orionATL says:

        nice analysis.

        inference and innuendo are great tools for gossip and propaganda.

        and mundane indeed. in addition to some having been retroactively classified, and the highest classified being mundane conversations with nsa about getting a secure phone for clinton when she first came to state.

  8. orionATL says:

    roger r. f. stone says:

    “… “Everyone says u are wearing a wire for Mueller,” the April 7 email said. Two days later, Mr. Stone wrote: “Run your mouth = get sued.” Mr. Credico denies being an informant….”

     

    oh it takes a worried man to make a worried threat, 

    it takes a worried man to make a worried threat,… 

      • orionATL says:

        wouldn’t surprise me.

        is that why he favors those pinstripe double-breasted gangster suits?

    • orionATL says:

      former BRFF friends, credico and nunberg, seem to worry old roger enough for him to attack them in public. why?

      • orionATL says:

        randy credico sounds like a political flake, all over the place in terms of his political loyalty. or maybe he’s just a committed subversive who consorts with whomever can help him get done what he thinks needs doing, a man like like paul corbin:

        https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2018/05/23/stefan-halper-didnt-steal-carters-debate-prep-books-for-reagan-a-democrat-did/?

        (if this story is accurate, glenn greenwald’s on stefan halper is not.)

        • Trip says:

          Hmm, I don’t buy the last sentence about Ray-gun’s morality.  That said, I have no idea what the truth is, obviously the guy writing the WaPo post has political allegiances. On the other hand, Greenwald is not always right.

        • earlofhuntingdon says:

          If the choice were between Credico and Greenwald, it’s not a close call.  I’ll take Greenwald every day of the week and twice on Sundays.

          • orionATL says:

            the choice is between craig shirley and greenwald. credico has nothing to do with this story at all.

            • earlofhuntingdon says:

              That Laura Ingraham is an ardent fan of Craig Shirley I would not regard as enhancing his credibility. He has been a committed Republican operative since he entered college.

              • orionATL says:

                paul corbin was also an operative – left wing, former comm party. perhaps that’s why he and shirley were pals.

                as for unsavory rightwingers like ingraham, you’ll find that in wapo’s shirley story you have to choose between your nomination of ingraham and bill o’reilly, publishing in murdoch’s new york post (with obvious intent to deceive) :

                “… Since Halper’s name surfaced in connection with the Trump investigation, several news sites and hosts, such as Bill O’Reilly (who has gotten things wrong with Reagan before) and Mary Kay Linge at the New York Post, have been reporting, incorrectly, that Halper was involved in and responsible for the so-called Debategate scandal, which rocked the early Reagan administration…”

                in any event, it’s the history i find interesting to read in the light of today’s republican conniption fits over spying, unmasking, and deep states.

                • earlofhuntingdon says:

                  Ingraham, O’Reilly, Murdoch’s Post, and anyone who refers to them as “news sites,” are all much of a muchness.  Not the sources one could credibly use in a peer-reviewed paper.

                  • orionATL says:

                    shirley’s story about corbin-not-halper, thus contradicting greenwald, was in the washington post.

                    • earlofhuntingdon says:

                      And Judith Miller and Jayson Blair were published by the NYT. I was critical of Shirley’s perspective and sources. That the WaPo feels the need to publish him is another matter. Perhaps Bezos is feeling the presidential heat. Then, again, the WaPo is a charter member of the he said-she said brigade. Watergate was a long time ago.

  9. earlofhuntingdon says:

    Noblesville, IN, NE of Indianapolis, school shooting.

    Is it time yet to regulate the sale and use of weapons in America?  Or will Mike Pence drown another school in his hopes and prayers?

    • Rusharuse says:

      Ollie says- it’s the video games and the ritalin. Pence asks jesus for answers and all he’s hearin is crickets. Some people sayin its guns, but that’s only cause there seems to be a gun involved in a lot of these shootings. So, umm, yeah, she’s a bit of a mystery, shit happens I guess!

      • TheraP says:

        Jesus said to read the signs of the times. I’m sure he’d include all the school shootings as “signs” of our times. Also “love your neighbor.”

        I’d say gun control or even better, beating guns into plowshares, would be in order – if you really cared about Jesus or your neighbor – in preference to weapons.

        “Signs of the times” – here’s a link: http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=394273773

  10. Kim Kaufman says:

    Thanks for this. Interesting. Also Marcy on Sam Seder last week – a good conversation about all this.

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