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Don’t Make the Same Mistake with Iran that Denialists Made with Russia

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I read the book by Aaron Zebley, James Quarles, and Andrew Goldstein on the Mueller investigation. Regarding the investigation itself, there were no new details. Where the book does break new ground is in describing the discussions with Trump’s attorneys and DOJ officials, especially with regards to the debate about whether to subpoena Trump. I’ll return to those details in a follow-up.

But I want to point to something they said in their afterward. They describe that Barr’s treatment of the report helped sow doubt about the import of the Russian attack on US democracy in 2016.

Perhaps the most significant casualty of Barr’s handling of the report was the truth about Russia’s attack on the United States during the 2016 election. The Russian government interfered in our democracy in sweeping and systematic fashion. Those are the first substantive words of our report. This statement is beyond dispute, and yet many in America do not know that, and still others deny it.

As detailed in volume I of our report, Russian operatives working for the Internet Research Agency visited the United States in 2014 to gather intelligence for what they called “information warfare” against the United States. They returned to Russia and—sitting at their desks in Saint Petersburg—planned and advertised rallies to support Trump at specific US locations, invited Americans to attend, provided banners for Americans to wave, and then handed off logistical responsibilities for the events to real Americans. The goal of these activities, along with their yearslong campaign of false-name social media accounts, was to further divide Americans and cause them to think and behave in particular ways—including at the voting booth in 2016.

Meanwhile, Russian military intelligence hacked into email accounts belonging to the Democratic team supporting Hillary Clinton in 2016, and then dumped emails and other documents they had stolen at specific times during the campaign to harm Clinton and bolster Trump. The Russians also leveraged WikiLeaks to release the stolen information, and, like the Russians, WikiLeaks timed its releases to favor Trump’s candidacy.

While these operations were underway, Russian government officials and their proxies reached out to multiple Trump campaign officials. George Papadopoulos was one example. A month after Trump appointed him as a foreign policy adviser in March 2016, Papadopoulos received word about a Russian government offer to assist the Trump campaign through the anonymous release of information information damaging to Clinton—“dirt” in the form of “thousands of emails.” This offer coincided with the Russian military’s then secret hack-and-dump operation.

It is beyond dispute that the Russians interfered in the 2016 election to support Trump—that was no hoax. They worked to secure his win. Our investigation of this work was no witch hunt.

[snip]

It has not seemed to matter, for instance, that our hack-and-dump indictment, which was backed by financial, email, and other records, demonstrated irrefutably that the Russian military executed this operation. Three days after the indictment came out, Trump dismissed it all in a press conference in Helsinki, Finland, after Putin—standing a few feet to Trump’s left—told him, “It’s not Russia.” Trump and his advocates declared it all a hoax, taking Putin’s word over the plain facts. And millions of Americans have taken this as truth, siding with Kremlin propaganda over the US Department of Justice.

We are now heading into another election. Russia interfered before, Russia is emboldened, and Russia is interfering again. Bob described Russia’s actions as one of the most serious attacks on democracy he has seen in his career—chilling words from the person who helped lead America’s fight against terrorism following the 9/11 attacks. As he put it in his 2019 testimony, the Russians are interfering in our democracy “as we sit here, and they expect to do it during the next campaign.”

I’ve obviously written a lot about this. It’s the central focus of the Ball of Threads podcast that LOLGOP and I are doing.

I fear that, because of the polarization Trump has deliberately stoked, many lefties are doing the same thing that Trump’s MAGAts did with Russia: treat credible allegations that Iran is targeting him, both for hacking and assassination, as a hoax.

Regarding the hacking, as happened in 2016, it is not just the Intelligence Community (one, two) attributing the hack in real time. Both Microsoft and Google have described the operation. As I explained repeatedly regarding the 2016 Russian attack, big American tech companies have a similar kind of global reach as the NSA, and when someone uses their infrastructure to target someone, they have both the tools and an independent incentive to get the attribution right. There’s really no reason to doubt the attribution, from three of the entities with the best global reach in the world, that Iran targeted Trump’s campaign.

Regarding Iran’s attempt to assassinate Trump, there’s also no reason to doubt that. While the case against Asif Merchant, whom DOJ accused of trying to solicit a variety of operations targeting Trump, does rely on undercover FBI employees posing as wannabe hitmen, the underlying tip — from the guy Merchant allegedly asked for help recruiting a hit team — appears to be organic, just someone calling the cops. Plus, the effort bears certain resemblance to the effort to solicit assassins for John Bolton, arising from the same motive of revenge for the Qassem Soleimani killing.

According to court documents, on Oct. 22, 2021, Poursafi asked Individual A, a U.S. resident whom Poursafi previously met online, to take photographs of the former National Security Advisor, claiming the photographs were for a book Poursafi was writing. Individual A told Poursafi that he/she could introduce Poursafi to another person who would take the pictures for $5,000-$10,000. Individual A later introduced Poursafi to an associate (referred to in court documents as the confidential human source or CHS).

On Nov. 9, 2021, Poursafi contacted the CHS on an encrypted messaging application, and then directed the CHS to a second encrypted messaging application for further communications. Poursafi offered the CHS $250,000 to hire someone to “eliminate” the former National Security Advisor. This amount would later be negotiated up to $300,000. Poursafi added that he had an additional “job,” for which he would pay $1 million.

As I noted in my first post on the Merchant arrest, the Pakistani man took 20 minutes before he let the FBI in to arrest him, meaning he may have had time to destroy evidence. There’s no reason to assume Merchant’s efforts to hire assassins was limited to the NYC source who called the FBI, nor is there reason to assume that Merchant was the only one recruiting assassins.

Indeed, as I keep noting, we can’t rule out that Ryan Routh (who was indicted yesterday and will face trial before Aileen Cannon, and whose son was arrested Monday after the FBI found CSAM at his house while conducting a search presumably related to his father) was recruited by Iran. His sympathy for Iran and his antipathy for Trump were both public, he imagined himself a fighter, and he had international ties from his efforts to recruit fighters for Ukraine. Both the Bolton efforts and the Merchant plot relied on secure digital operational security, and the six phones Routh had in his truck indicate he was communicating in unusual ways, even for — especially for — a person with possible mental illness. And the timing of Routh’s movements — he left North Carolina August 14 and traveled to Florida, scoped out Trump events in August, September, and October, and conducted reconnaissance for much of the month leading up to his arrest — match the planned timing of the Merchant plot. For a variety of reasons (not least that Routh has due process rights and an incentive to flip, if he did have co-conspirators), if the FBI did suspect an Iranian tie, they wouldn’t say more than they already have done, including references to Iran in his detention memo.

In the wake of Routh’s indictment yesterday, the IC briefed Trump on ongoing assassination threats from Iran. And while his comments to Fox — suggesting that Kamala Harris was weak on Iran — were typical Trump garbage, Trump’s Xitter account posted something that — for him — is downright gracious, recognizing the bipartisan support to expand Secret Service funding.

It is perfectly reasonable to call out the double standards of Trump himself, in responding stupidly to the hacking attempt, in ignoring his own role in the stalking of Barack Obama and pretending he has faced unique threats, in media outlets refusing to publish stolen emails.

Trump’s narcissistic behavior is one reason it’s so easy for hostile countries like Russia and Iran to stoke division.

But that doesn’t mean you should make it easier for them, by doubting the word of neutral parties who attest the threat to Trump is real. The Russian attack continues to do real damage, to this day, because the investigation into it led to such polarization. If I’m right about the Steele dossier (Ball of Thread version), some of that was by design, while some of it was the auspicious upside (from the perspective of Russia) of targeting a narcissist. But the result is the same: By targeting Trump, you can elicit the tribalism that damages the US, regardless of Iran’s (or Russia’s) other efforts. A great deal of the polarization in the US, a great deal of the conspiracism on the part of Trump supporters, and therefore a great deal of the extremism, stems from the response to the Russian attack and investigation.

Whether a country backs Trump or wants revenge against him, the goal is the same: to end US hegemony and extend authoritarianism. There are public, rational reasons to believe that Iran really is targeting Trump. There are no good reasons to instead irrationally doubt those public attributions.

Update: In an appearance in North Carolina, Trump said there could be a tie to Iran, and complained that DOJ had not yet broken into the six phones found in Routh’s truck.

Ryan Routh’s Eleven Phones and Two Iran Mentions

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DOJ has submitted a detention memo for Ryan Routh, the man held on suspicion that he was trying to assassinate Donald Trump.

The memo cites a letter, left in a box with a neighbor months ago, that seems to confirm that he was trying to assassinate Trump (and offering six figures to anyone else who would accomplish the task). That same letter describes that Trump, “ended relations with Iran like a child and now the Middle East has unraveled.” The detention memo also cites the passage from Routh’s manuscript that I noted here, apologizing to Iran for voting for Trump.

I am man enough to say that I misjudged and made a terrible mistake and Iran I apologize. You are free to assassinate Trump as well as me for that error in judgment and the dismantling of the deal.

The memo describes a number of other things that suggest an operational security far exceeding that of a mentally ill man seeking glory. As I noted in the earlier post, the phone he had on his person while surveilling the golf course was one for which he had posted the WhatsApp number while Asif Merchant, charged in an attempt to recruit hitmen to target Trump, was still at large on July 10.

But in addition to that phone, Routh had six cellphones in his truck, at least two of which used different carriers, and four more cell phones in the box he left at a neighbor’s. As I mentioned, Merchant provided the informant in that case instructions on acquiring secure phones.

As previous reports described, the license plats on his truck were stolen, and he had two other sets of plates in the truck. One of the phones in the truck had been used to search for directions to Mexico.

Again, it certainly may be that Routh was simply disturbed. But more of this looks like Iran may have been involved.

The Concerning Paragraph in the Ryan Routh Complaint

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Of all the coverage on Ryan Routh — the seemingly unbalanced man who fled Trump’s golf course after being spotted with a gun yesterday — just the NYT (that I’ve seen) notes that Routh’s various statements seeming to express regret about the US’ worsening relationship with Iran.

In one convoluted passage, Mr. Routh vented his anger at Mr. Trump’s dismantling of the Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Iran.

After writing “Iran, I apologize,” Mr. Routh added, “you are free to assassinate Trump” — although he moves freely in the book between addressing his general readers and specific subjects.

Mr. Trump and his allies have long warned about the threat posed by Iran to the former president’s personal safety. In August, the Justice Department charged a Pakistani man who had recently visited Iran with trying to hire a hit man to assassinate political figures in the United States. Investigators believe that those potential targets likely included Mr. Trump.

Most journalists report that there have been two seeming assassination plots against Trump. Not so, if you count Asif Merchant’s efforts to hire a hit man, purportedly to go after Donald Trump. That would be a third.

Unless there’s a tie between Merchant’s efforts and Routh’s.

That’s almost certainly not the case.

Routh seems like someone who keep searching for grandiose meaning in his life.

Still, I keep thinking about this paragraph from the complaint charging Routh with owning a gun as a felon.

Routh was offering a public way to contact him, via WhatsApp, on the phone he had with him yesterday, a phone he seems to have carried on his person even though the gun he had and the truck he drove both had identifying information obscured.

Routh was doing so on July 10, on a day when Merchant remained at large (Merchant was arrested on July 12).

One aspect of Merchant’s planning involved requiring the EDNY informant — whom Merchant believed would help him find a hit squad — to get him a new phone.

On or about June 10, 2024, Merchant met with the purported hitmen, who were in fact undercover U.S. law enforcement officers (the “UCs”) whom the CS introduced to Merchant at Merchant’s request. Merchant advised the UCs that he was looking for three services from them, including killing a “political person.” During the meeting, Merchant presented himself as the “representative” in the U.S., indicating that there were other people he worked for outside the U.S. Merchant told the UCs that he wanted to pay the hitmen in cash through “hawalas”—an informal and unregulated method of transferring money—in Istanbul and Dubai. Merchant also stated that he would give the hitmen instructions on who to kill either the last week of August 2024 or the first week of September 2024, after he returned to Pakistan. Merchant requested that the UCs provide him with a secure cellular phone so they could communicate, and the UCs said they would do so. The UCs also told Merchant that they would be in touch about how much their services would cost.

On or about June 12, 2024, Merchant met the UCs again and obtained the cellular phone from the UCs to use in furtherance of the assassination plot. During the meeting, Merchant agreed to pay the UCs a $5,000 advance payment for the plot. Following the meeting with the UCs, Merchant met with the CS again in furtherance of the plot.

On or about June 13, 2024, Merchant wrote out coded language on a piece of paper that he instructed the CS to copy down and use when communicating with him in the future. Merchant wrote that the word “tee-shirt” would mean a “protest,” which he described as the “lightest work.” The phrase “flannel shirt” would mean “stealing,” which was “heavier work.” The phrase “fleece jacket,” the heaviest work, would mean “the third task . . . commit the act of the game,” indicating murder as previously discussed. The phrase “denim jacket” referred to “sending money.” Merchant told the CS to use the code words only orally on the phone and not to text them. [my emphasis]

So even in the plot the FBI thwarted, Merchant had a plan to set up a dedicated device for his efforts.

Again, I think it most likely that Routh is just a mentally ill person looking to give his life meaning.

But I don’t rule out that Iran tried to find more potential recruits to target Trump. Routh’s public profile would make it clear he wanted to recruit and be recruited, and his beliefs were so quirky, he might well allow himself to be recruited by Iran.

Which is to say, it’s early yet. Routh’s story may well be more complicated than it seems.