
By "Vilifying" SVR Victim Julianne Smith, Kash Patel Establishes Precedent to Share the Epstein Files
Kash Patel and Pam Bondi said they wouldn't release details about what Trump knew about Ghislaine Maxwell stealing girls from his spa, recruiting one into a sex slavery, because such disclosure would not be "appropriate or warranted." But Kash adopted radically different rules last week when he smeared SVR victim Julianne Smith with his release of the Durham classified annex.

Donald Trump's Parallel Ghislaine Maxwell and Vladimir Putin Problems
As Trump attempts to look strong in the face of Vladimir Putin's intransigence on Ukraine, consider the twin pillars of compromise Putin has on him.

John Ratcliffe and Kash Patel -- and Durham Himself -- Committed the Crime John Durham Was Hunting
The unsealed Durham annex provides evidence that John Brennan and the CIA weren't discussing a Hillary Clinton plan to frame Trump. They were instead discussing an SVR to frame Hillary. And he spent four years pursuing that lie.

MattyDickPics Taibbi Doesn't Like When Charlie Savage Takes Away His Russian Spy Toys
Matty Dick Pics Taibbi claims it doesn't matter that the emails on which he has built a nine-year grift are manufactured, because he'll keep conflating "real" for "true" anyway.

Days After the FBI Announced an Investigation, Russian Spies Deliberately "Put More Oil into the Fire"
Joke's on us! Nine years into this influence operation, that phrase, "put more oil into the fire," a phrase that someone at the FBI should have recognized as a Russian idiom at least five years ago, is still ripping the country to pieces.

FBI Thwarted an Investigation into How Russians Injected Disinformation in the Steele Dossier
The same analyst who introduced John Durham to the SVR collection also discovered that Christopher Steele's network had been compromised before Steele delivered his first dossier report.

In a Desperate Bid to Survive His Latest Fuck-Up, FBI Director Kash Patel Desperately Clings to Propaganda
Kash Patel is so desperate to fix his latest fuck up (revealing that the entire Durham investigation was built off Russian disinformation) he made to cover up his earlier fuck up (stoking an Epstein scandal that implicated his boss in uncomfortable ways) that he is openly clinging to dumb Federalist propaganda, in the process seemingly adopting the belief that Trump only won in 2016 with Jim Comey's interference.

Fridays with Nicole Sandler
We talked about Ghislaine Maxwell and Emil Bove.

How John Durham and Chuck Grassley Covered Up Getting Ass-Handed by Russia
John Durham (with Chuck Grassley's help) tried to obscure that on the same day as the Russian spy report that drove his entire investigation, Russian spooks discussed seeding conspiracies about "dark forces."

BREAKING: Right Wingers Believe Jim Comey Threw the 2016 Election to Trump and Jim Jordan Must Go to Jail
If you believe it's a crime for a political ally to gin up FBI noise about a foreign hack during an election -- the most that John Durham's purported Clinton Plan substantiates (and he falls far short of substantiating that) -- then you believe Jim Jordan should go to prison.

The Real Squeeze Inside Trump's Brazil Tariffs
Trump excluded orange juice -- a crucial breakfast staple -- from yesterday's tariffs on Brazil, but not coffee -- possibly an even more crucial breakfast import. By doing so, he'll moot a lawsuit filed two weeks ago challenging his capricious attack on Brazil.

Constitutional Cope in the Time of Texas Hold'em
There are really better ways to fight fascism than focusing on what magical ponies we'll ride if we "win." But if you're going to do that, consider what would need to happen to actually reverse the tide.

Trump's Emergency Emergency
Donald Trump says it risks the national security of the United States if Brazil subpoenas Xitter.

Trump Might Pardon the Sex Trafficker Who "Stole" His Spa Girls and Other Details of the Cover-Up
Trump is so mad that Ghislaine Maxwell "stole" his girls and turned at least one of them into a sex slave that he's saying the same thing about pardoning her that he did about pardoning Paul Manafort and Roger Stone before he rewarded them for lying to protect him.

Ten Years Ago I Warned Republicans Had Few Means of Limiting the Damage Trump Would Do
Ten years ago today, I observed that Republicans had "few means of controlling [Donald Trump] and even fewer to limit any damage he might do if provoked." In those ten years he set out to -- and made significant progress on -- destroying the country, all to punish people he now calls "the Enemy from within."

With Emil Bove's Confirmation, Trump Hones His Criminal Protection Racket
Emil Bove's confirmation to a lifetime appointment on the Third Circuit hones Trump's criminal protection racket in a bunch of ways, both by rewarding those who engage in abuse for him and by punishing those who don't.

A Dossier Steal: HPSCI Expertly Discloses Their Own Shoddy Cover-Up
Most of the HPSCI Report complaints about the Steele dossier object that the Intelligence Community Assessment did not include details the committee itself discovered much later. But as with the main part of the report, their OWN silences -- about Paul Manafort, about Oleg Deripaska -- are the real story.

Did Trump Just Confess He Learned about Virginia Giuffre before Jeffrey Epstein Recruited Someone Else at Mar-a-Lago?
Trump's latest explanation for why he cut off Jeffrey Epstein some time after 2004 -- that Epstein stole an employee, Trump told him to stop, and then Epstein did it again -- would be a damning confession if that first employee was Virginia Giuffre.

Trump to Rupert: If You Show Me Yours, I Won't Show You Mine
Donald Trump says he needs to depose Rupert Murdoch in his lawsuit right away in case the WSJ owner kicks the bucket before this case actually gets around to discovery.

The EU Trade Deal: Playing for Time
The purported trade agreement between the EU and US doesn't address how much VOS Selections -- the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging Trump's tariffs -- will have to pay to import wine from at least eight EU countries, over a hundred days after they challenged Trump's tariffs for being capricious.