Category: Michael Novakhov – SharedNewsLinks℠

Donald Trump can be seen as a Russian asset, though not in the traditional sense of an active agent or a recruited resource, an ex-FBI deputy director who worked under the former US president said.

Asked on a podcast if he thought it possible Trump was a Russian asset, Andrew McCabe, who Trump fired as FBI deputy director in 2018, said: “I do, I do.”

He added: “I don’t know that I would characterize it as [an] active, recruited, knowing asset in the way that people in the intelligence community think of that term. But I do think that Donald Trump has given us many reasons to question his approach to the Russia problem in the United States, and I think his approach to interacting with Vladimir Putin, be it phone calls, face-to-face meetings, the things that he has said in public about Putin, all raise significant questions.”

McCabe was speaking to the One Decision podcast, co-hosted by Sir Richard Dearlove, a former head of MI6, the British intelligence service.

The conversation, in which McCabe also questioned Trump’s attitude to supporting Ukraine and Nato in the face of Russian aggression, was recorded before the debate in Philadelphia on Tuesday, in which Trump made more controversial comments.

Claiming Russia would not have invaded Ukraine had he been president, Trump would not say a Ukrainian victory was in US interests.

“I think it’s in the US’s best interest to get this war finished and just get it done,” he said. “Negotiate a deal.”

Claiming to have good relationships with Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the Ukrainian president, Trump falsely said his opponent, Kamala Harris, failed to avert war through personal talks.

The vice-president countered that she had helped “preserve the ability of Zelenskiy and the Ukrainians to fight for their independence. Otherwise, Putin would be sitting in Kyiv with his eyes on the rest of Europe, starting with Poland.”

In one of the most memorable lines of the night, Harris added: “And why don’t you tell the 800,000 Polish Americans right here in Pennsylvania how quickly you would give up for the sake of favor and what you think is a friendship with what is known to be a dictator who would eat you for lunch.”

The candidates were not asked about recent indictments in which the Department of Justice said pro-Trump influencers were paid to advance pro-Russia talking points.

McCabe was part of FBI leadership, briefly as acting director, during investigations of Russian interference in the 2016 election and links between Trump and Moscow. Trump fired McCabe in March 2018, two days before he was due to retire. McCabe was then the subject of a criminal investigation, for allegedly lying about a media leak. The investigation was dropped in 2020. In October 2021, McCabe settled a lawsuit against the justice department. Having written The Threat, a bestselling memoir, he is now an academic and commentator.

Speaking to One Decision, McCabe said: “You have to have some very serious questions about, why is it that Donald Trump … has this fawning sort of admiration for Vladimir Putin in a way that no other American president, Republican or Democrat, ever has.

“It may just be from a fundamental misunderstanding of this problem set that’s always a problem. That’s always a possibility. And I guess the other end of that spectrum would be that there is some kind of relationship or a desire for a relationship of some sort, be it economic or business oriented, what have you.

“I think those are possibilities. None of them have been proven. But as an intelligence officer, those are the things that you think about.”

Saying he had “very serious concerns” about the prospect of a second Trump term, McCabe said he would always be concerned about Russia’s ability to interfere in US affairs.

He said: “Their desire to kind of wreak havoc or mischief in our political system is something that’s been going on for years, decades and decades and decades.

“Their interest in just simply sowing chaos and division and polarization. If they can do that, it’s a win. If they can actually hurt a candidate they don’t like, or help one that they do like, that’s an even bigger win.”

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A magazine reporter has revealed she was allowed to inspect Donald Trump‘s recently shot at ear during an interview, saying it was ‘normal and incredible and fine’.

A 20-year-old gunman attempted to kill the former president on July 13 at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, only to graze Trump’s ear, which was left bloodied.

New York Magazine reporter Olivia Nuzzi made the ear inspection when she profiled Trump in Florida a few weeks after the shooting but couldn’t help remarking upon the condition of Trump’s ear.

Trump tapped the spot where he was shot, which led Nuzzi to write: ‘An ear had never appeared to have gone through less’. 

‘The particular spot that he identified with his tap was pristine. I scanned carefully the rest of the terrain. It looked normal and incredible and fine’, she added.

She said in her New York Magazine piece that she could spot a small sliver of Trump’s ear that appeared to have been through the shooting describing the mark in almost doubting terms. 

‘An ear had never appeared to have gone through less. Except there, on the tiniest patch of this tiny sculpture of skin, a minor distortion that resembled not a crucifixion wound but the distant aftermath of a sunburn.’

Trump himself was in a somewhat philosophical mood about his wounds.

‘It’s a railroad track. They didn’t need a stitch. You know, it’s funny. Usually, something like that would be considered a surreal experience, where you sort of don’t realize it, and yet there was no surrealism in this case,’ he told Nuzzi. 

‘I felt immediately that I got hit by a bullet. I also knew it was my ear. It’s amazing. And the ear, as you know, is a big bleeder.’ 

Her words appeared to leave room to for liberals’ deranged conspiracy theories regarding the shooting shortly after it took place. 

YouTuber James Klug interviewed the public at Huntington Beach in California to ask them their views on the assassination attempt on Trump.

‘It was a false flag,’ one man told him. He replied: ‘Somebody died and two people were injured, what do you think about that?’

But the man just responded: ‘False flag.’

Another beachgoer said: ‘I thought it was magnificently staged. It was professionally done. It almost looked real.’

He was asked who it could have been staged by and he responded: ‘By Mr Trump of course.’

The man added that the death and injuries were a ‘small price’. ‘It doesn’t matter to Trump,’ he added. ‘Do you think he cares if people die for him to be elected? 

‘Death doesn’t mean anything to Trump.

‘I think that he walked away alive, perhaps a scratch on his ear. Behind the scenes that was all fabricated. 

‘They put a little scratch on his ear, threw a little blood on his face.’

Klug asked: ‘So you think they planned from 130 yards away to shoot off the corner of his ear?

The man replied: ‘They never shot off the corner of his ear. That was all done by the people hanging around him.’

‘I think this whole thing was staged,’ a third man claimed. ‘It could be [Trump] or the other side trying to make a scene.

‘But the fact it only got his ear and he stood up and said America, come on, it doesn’t feel normal. 

‘To me it looks like it was planned. Bless that soul for dying for this cause. I am so sorry for that person’s family. It’s just a feeling.’ 

Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, fired eight bullets at the crowd, striking Trump’s ear and hitting three rally attendees, one fatally. 

The Secret Service’s counter sniper team took out the shooter. They said the male shooter began firing from an elevated position outside the rally grounds before being killed. Two other people were critically-injured by the gunfire. 

Images on social media show the dead gunman laying on top of a beige building about 300 feet north of the stage where Trump was standing when he was shot.

The gunman opened fire from AGR International, a plastic container manufacturing facility. 

Trump was mid-sentence, saying ‘Take a look at what happened’ when the shots began to ring out shortly before 6pm ET, with terrified screams filling the air as he and onlookers dived to the ground.

In the moments after the shooting, voices could be heard screaming ‘The shooter is down’ as Trump dived to the floor and frightened rallygoers screamed with fear. 

The 45th president was seen ducking down with blood coming from his ear. Trump has since issued a statement on TruthSocial detailing what happened to him.

He wrote: ‘I was shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear. I knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin. Much bleeding took place, so I realized what was happening. GOD BLESS AMERICA!’

It had previously been suggested that Trump was struck and injured by a piece of a shattered teleprompter.  

Seconds later, the blood-covered lawmaker pumped his fist in the air to indicate that he was fine, while surrounded by Secret Service agents, before being led away. 

Trump could also be heard repeatedly asking: ‘Let me get my shoes.’  

Realizing their hero was uninjured and that the immediate danger appeared to have passed, the crowd began chanting ‘USA, USA’ as he was rushed away and bundled into a Secret Service SUV. 

The former president quickly moved on from the shooting, appearing at the Republican National Convention’s first night, receiving a hero’s welcome with the ear bandaged. 

Trump’s remarks, made in a social media posting on Saturday night, represent the most overt signal yet that he may not accept the result in November if he loses.

Trump has a history of railing against election officials and raising unsubstantiated claims of fraud when his political fortunes appear uncertain, as they do now in his extremely close race with Vice President Kamala Harris. His comments are his most direct threats made against those who will administer elections this year.

In reality, illegal voting is exceedingly rare. But Trump appears to be replaying his efforts to sow doubt about the voting process ahead of the 2020 election — actions that contributed to the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

“WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again,” Trump wrote on Saturday on his Truth Social platform. “We cannot let our Country further devolve into a Third World Nation, AND WE WON’T!”

Trump, who began his message with the words “CEASE & DESIST,” went on to threaten a wide range of the kinds of people who would face prosecution and prison time, including campaign donors and those involved in administering elections.

“Please be aware that this legal exposure extends to Lawyers, Political Operatives, Donors, Illegal Voters & Corrupt Election Officials,” he wrote, adding that such people will be “sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never seen before in our Country.”

David Becker, who founded the nonprofit Center for Election Innovation & Research, urged the public to reject Trump’s inflammatory language.

“I can’t begin to describe the abnormality and disturbing behavior that would cause a presidential candidate, a former president, to threaten public servants with mass arrest,” said Becker, who previously worked as a lawyer for the Justice Department for seven years.

Several election officials also called threats of violence “unacceptable.”

“Donald Trump will not accept the results of the election unless he wins,” said Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold (D). “This is another step in his campaign to undermine confidence in our elections, which has led to unprecedented threats of violence against election officials.”

A spokesperson for the Trump campaign did not reply to a request on Sunday afternoon for comment on Trump’s post.

On Sunday, Trump doubled down on his baseless claims of election fraud, saying on Truth Social that he expects to win the key swing state of Pennsylvania “by a lot, unless the Dems are allowed to CHEAT.”

Late last month, during a conversation with the conservative Moms for Liberty group, Trump conceded that he lost the 2020 election “by a whisker” — marking one of his most clear public acceptances that he lost the election to Biden. Days later, he once again publicly acknowledged that he did not win the 2020 presidential election, telling podcaster Lex Fridman that he “lost by a whisker.”

In the wake of the 2020 election, Trump and his allies pushed to overturn the election results through phone calls, speeches, tweets and media appearances in six swing states where certified results declared Joe Biden the winner.

Trump most recently began escalating his rhetoric about election fraud when Harris replaced President Joe Biden at the top of the ticket and pulled ahead in some polls. In remarks before the Fraternal Order of Police last week, the former president urged officers to patrol polling places because it would intimidate would-be cheaters.

“I hope you watch for voter fraud,” he said. “Watch for the voter fraud because we win without voter fraud. … You can keep it down just by watching because, believe it or not, they’re afraid of that badge. They’re afraid of you people.”

But while his post on Saturday falsely claimed that there was “rampant Cheating” in the 2020 presidential race, Trump’s efforts to overturn his loss in the last election faltered in multiple courts when his lawyers and allies could not produce evidence of widespread voter irregularities. In nearly four years since, Trump and his allies have failed to substantiate his claims that he lost the 2020 race due to fraud.

In one of those cases, U.S. District Judge Steven D. Grimberg, whom Trump named to the bench in 2019 in the Northern District of Georgia, wrote that the president’s attempt to block certification of Biden’s win in the state “would breed confusion and potentially disenfranchisement that I find has no basis in fact or in law.”

Election officials who are credibly found to have engaged in criminal activities are already prosecuted in the country. Last month, for example, Tina Peters, a former county clerk in Colorado and Trump ally, was found guilty of seven charges connected to allowing a purported computer expert to copy election data from her office as Trump and his allies searched for evidence to prove their baseless claims of election fraud. Another county election official, Misty Hampton of Coffee County, Ga., faces felony charges along with 14 others, including Trump, for their role in trying to overturn the 2020 result.

And, in the years after Trump began baselessly alleging fraud in the 2020 election, some states such as Iowa, Georgia and Arizona have passed laws beefing up penalties for some election-related offenses despite a lack of evidence that elections in their states were run unfairly. In some cases, these new state election laws effectively criminalize election workers’ errors, raising concerns about the possibility of unfair prosecutions like the kind Trump appeared to describe in his post.

Threats and harassment of election workers have skyrocketed since Trump and his allies began denying the results of the 2020 election, amplifying their false claims on television, podcasts and social media. The developments caused a mass exodus of veteran election administrators from their jobs, and prompted scores of election offices around the country to harden their physical workspaces with bulletproof glass, emergency buttons and extensive crisis training.

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson (D), who was directly targeted by armed pro-Trump protesters who gathered outside her home after the 2020 election, on Sunday told The Washington Post that no threats from Trump will dissuade her from performing her duties this election year.

Benson said that her job — and the job of every election official in the country — is to “rise above this noise and focus on continuing to ensure our elections are fair, secure, accessible, and that the results continue to be an accurate reflection of the will of the people.”

Seth Bluestein, a Republican Philadelphia city commissioner, said that every election official he knows “is focused on doing their job well, which unfortunately now also includes preparing for potential threats and violence.”

And Jeff Greenburg, a former director of elections in Mercer County, Pa., said on Sunday that the “continued demonization of election officials is disappointing, disheartening, irresponsible and infuriating.”

“Words matter, and this does nothing but potentially put those dedicated public servants in harm’s way. It has to stop,” he said.

On Sunday, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, a Trump campaign surrogate, minimized Trump’s comments in an interview with NBC News’s “Meet the Press,” saying that the former president was “just putting people on notice” that the country must have “free and fair elections.”

But a Republican official in a battleground state who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk candidly about Trump’s comments found the former president’s post more alarming.

“He sounds like he is losing it,” the Republican official said. “Sad, someone should do something, like replace him as a candidate.”

Toluse Olorunnipa contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON – Wisconsin Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson this week speculated without evidence that the federal government could have been involved in the assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump in July. 

Speaking on the Federalist Radio Hour podcast Thursday, Johnson derided the government’s investigation into the July 13 shooting during which Trump was grazed by a bullet as “almost completely opaque.” He said there is a “grotesque level of corruption” in the federal government and referenced Richard Nixon and the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

“When you don’t know the federal government involvement in the JFK assassination, when you really don’t know what happened with Nixon … that might’ve been the second coup,” Johnson said. “The first coup is you take out Kennedy, the second coup you take out Nixon, and then you take out Trump.”

“To what extent has the federal government been involved in these things?” Johnson said. “We’ll probably never know because there’s a reason you call it the deep state. It’s very deep. It’s very pervasive.” 

The comments from the Oshkosh Republican are the latest in a string of fringe theories that the “deep state” was behind the shooting that wounded Trump and killed a rally attendee. There is no evidence the government was involved in the shooting, and the FBI has said the 20-year-old shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, acted alone before he was shot and killed moments after he fired on Trump.

Investigators have said Crooks had searched online for events from both President Joe Biden and Trump and said he saw the Trump rally in Pennsylvania as a “target of opportunity.” Kimberly Cheatle, the Secret Service director who resigned in the aftermath of the shooting, called the security failures that day the agency’s “most significant operational failure” in decades.

Johnson, the ranking member on the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, in the interview did not provide evidence to back up the speculation. He instead suggested the lack of transparency from federal investigators, from whom he said he’s been unable to get information, has raised questions about the incident. 

“If you were to design an investigation that was specifically wanted (sic) to create suspicion and drive conspiracy theories, you’d go about it exactly the way the FBI and Secret Service and Department of Justice are going about this,” Johnson said.

When directly asked in the interview if he believed the assassination attempt was an “inside job,” Johnson again referenced the security failures, including how Crooks was able to get onto a nearby roof, and Johnson’s inability to get information on the incident. “It was such a spectacular failure that you kind of scratch your head and go, ‘how could that possibly happen?'” he said.

Johnson, who was reelected in 2022 to his third term in the Senate, has espoused similar theories in the past. Last year, Johnson said it was “certainly possible” government agencies were involved in the Kennedy assassination in 1963 and in the same interview called the jail death of the sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein “fishy.”

Asked to clarify Johnson’s remarks this week, a spokeswoman for the senator told the Journal Sentinel Johnson was “saying that the federal government has consistently lied to the American people and kept information hidden from them.”

“They give us very little reason to trust them,” the spokeswoman, Kiersten Pels, said. 

Johnson, Pels said, was not ruling out the possibility federal agencies were involved in the July assassination attempt.