Just happened: Jury Orders Giuliani to Pay $148 Million to Election Workers He Defamed.
On to the outrage du jour:
A binder containing highly classified information related to Russian election interference went missing at the end of Donald Trump’s presidency, raising alarms among intelligence officials that some of the most closely guarded national security secrets from the US and its allies could be exposed, sources familiar with the matter told CNN.
Its disappearance, which has not been previously reported, was so concerning that intelligence officials briefed Senate Intelligence Committee leaders last year about the missing materials and the government’s efforts to retrieve them, the sources said.
In the two-plus years since Trump left office, the missing intelligence does not appear to have been found.
The binder contained raw intelligence the US and its NATO allies collected on Russians and Russian agents, including sources and methods that informed the US government’s assessment that Russian President Vladimir Putin sought to help Trump win the 2016 election, sources tell CNN.
The intelligence was so sensitive that lawmakers and congressional aides with top secret security clearances were able to review the material only at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, where their work scrutinizing it was itself kept in a locked safe.
It gets better.
The binder was last seen at the White House during Trump’s final days in office. The former president had ordered it brought there so he could declassify a host of documents related to the FBI’s Russia investigation. Under the care of then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, the binder was scoured by Republican aides working to redact the most sensitive information so it could be declassified and released publicly.
The Russian intelligence was just a small part of the collection of documents in the binder, described as being 10 inches thick and containing reams of information about the FBI’s “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation into the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia. But the raw intelligence on Russia was among its most sensitive classified materials, and top Trump administration officials repeatedly tried to block the former president from releasing the documents.
We’re getting to the juicy part.
The day before leaving office, Trump issued an order declassifying most of the binder’s contents, setting off a flurry of activity in the final 48 hours of his presidency. Multiple copies of the redacted binder were created inside the White House, with plans to distribute them across Washington to Republicans in Congress and right-wing journalists.
Instead, copies initially sent out were frantically retrieved at the direction of White House lawyers demanding additional redactions.
Just minutes before Joe Biden was inaugurated, Meadows rushed to the Justice Department to hand-deliver a redacted copy for a last review. Years later, the Justice Department has yet to release all of the documents, despite Trump’s declassification order. Additional copies with varying levels of redactions ended up at the National Archives.
But an unredacted version of the binder containing the classified raw intelligence went missing amid the chaotic final hours of the Trump White House. The circumstances surrounding its disappearance remain shrouded in mystery.
The binder didn’t turn up among the documents seize from Mar-a-Lago. CNN goes on to say that Cassidy Hutchinson believes Mark Meadows took the binder home with him. Meadows denies this.
The binder’s origins trace back to 2018, when Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee, led by Chairman Devin Nunes, compiled a classified report alleging the Obama administration skewed intelligence in its assessment that Putin had worked to help Trump in the 2016 election.
The GOP report, which criticized the intelligence community’s “tradecraft,” scrutinized the highly classified intelligence from 2016 that informed the assessment Putin and Russia sought to assist Trump’s campaign.
If Nunes is behind this, I assume it’s junk as far as Russian interference in the election is concerned. But some stuff in it is genuinely hyper-sensitive. The CIA wouldn’t let Republicans handle the documents unless they were kept in a safe within a CIA vault, or a safe within a safe. CIA Director Gina Haspel was concerned release of the documents would reveal sources and methods. Trump nearly fired her because she was opposed to releasing the stuff in the binder.
$148 million! Wow thats over three times what the attorneys asked for! That amount will add fuel to the fire that Stump or any GQP'er can't get a fair trial in DC. I predict Rudy will take a dirt nap long before a dime gets paid! The appeals will last years. If only the GQP could govern as well as they can appeal court cases! As far as the 10 inch Binder, are we suprised? The reprorting comes from CNN which I trust about as much as FAUX. They make it sound like Stump wanted to release the report, but somehow it just ended up getting lost hours before Biden was inaugurated, right I belive that?
Hopefully Rudy will decide to turn in early for his dirt nap. He should go visit the observation deck at the Empire State Building.
You'd think a judgement of that size would shake Rudy out of his MAGA bubble, but instead he burrowed in deeper with claims that he didn't get a chance to present is 'evidence'. Rudy says you can stand him up at the gates of hell and he won't back down.
I have more sympathy for the 95 year old Nazi guard from Treblinka being held to account for his crimes than I do for Giuliani. At least the Nazi didn't have much of a choice in his criminal behavior, Giuliani engaged in his crime with an arrogance and contempt for what he thought were poor helpless blacks. "They were passing around a USB drive like it was a vial of cocaine".
The two election workers should not anticipate getting much of that money. With a bit of diligence, they can make it difficult and expensive for Rudy to try to hide what he has squirreled away. IMO, Rudy is busted now – he quit paying his lawyers. Now he's facing criminal charges in GA and he might finish up with a public defender. No matter how far Rudy falls, he deserves worse than he's getting. But the saga should cause any competent lawyer to think twice about associating with Trump.
Regarding the binder: maybe if the CIA politely asks Putin, he'll return it.
The shoe about to fall is Trump's reply to the USSC regarding Jack Smith's request that the high court rule now because the issue is certain to wind up before them. It looks like the Supremes are predisposed to consider the case because they answered Jack in less than a day by notifying Team Trump to put in their two cents before Dec 20. Trump's lawyers are scratching their heads trying to invent a plausible excuse why this is beneath the notice of the Supreme Court. (This was ALWAYS about delaying the J6 case from happening before the election.)
This isn't about Trump's claim that he's immune from prosecution – not yet. Getting to first base requires the Supremes to agree to HEAR the case. I think we're on base with that this month. Second base is a date to make oral arguments. If the Supremes set that for January, I'll be delighted. (I predict Team Trump will appeal to the court for more time, as if they haven't made the motion to Chutkin already.) Third base will be actual arguments before the court. What I would not give for tickets to that show! RBG will be petitioning GOD for permission to return to Earth so she can ask her questions. But I want to see Trump's lawyer explain how Biden would not have the same immunity that Trump is claiming. We score when the Supremes tell Team Trump they are full of sh^t.
There is no doubt in my mind how the Court will decide. I'm curious if the verdict will be unanimous. And I wonder how quickly they will produce a written decision, probably from Roberts. I think a week after oral arguments. (That's lightning-fast for the USSC.) If the USSC decides by Feb 1, the federal J6 trial should be on for April? (Yeah, start on April Fools Day.) I'm curious if the wording of the decision will cover civil suits Trump has tried to claim presidential immunity covers. That's a couple of civil injury suits related to J6 and the E. Jean Carrol rape damages case at the federal level. Trump wants to delay those and he'll spend money dragging things out if he can.
Trump wants the election to be held BEFORE evidence and testimony related to J6 becomes proven fact, certified by multiple juries in multiple trials. Everone in favor of democracy over the Trumpian alternative wants the election to be conducted by an informed electorate.
You just have to love the people who get on the media who knew Rudy in his day. He wasn't like that when I knew him, they say. No, he was not. But he was not yet that far down the rabbit hole. Not yet under the influence of the Mad Hatter. (or should that be the Mad Hater?) He is so mental, he has no idea how the courts could have made this kind of mistake. There is no indication he has any clue what a wreaking-ball he has turned into and how bad we all need asylum from him and those like him. Back when America was great, we would have had the guys in white coats take him away. Not today. He had power, money, and status, and was free to really turn himself into a human tragedy. What can you say? He fell into bad company. Really bad company.
Rudy is now and always has been an opportunist ass-hat. He turned his ill gotten fame as "america's mayor" after 9-11 into a sham security business that bilked millions of dollars from private companies and governments all over the world. He really seems unhinged nowadays mostly because he has a serious drinking problem, but even before the booze Rudy was a fraud. He's no different than 90% of republican politicians! You can't really believe one lousy word any of them say.
Rudy should'a just left his belt unfastened, he got pantsed. I too expect Ms. Shay and Ms. Moss won't get much if any of the $148 million but they got justice – bigly justice, and they are heroes, good on them!
Duh, I typed their names wrong; Ruby Freeman and Shay Moss. My bad.
OT, James Carville is spoiling for a fight with Mike Johnson:
Johnson is too smart to fight Carville. Will be interesting to see what Carville, age 79, will do about it.
One of the reliable legal talking heads pointed out that Trump may be on the hitlist for Freeman and Moss IF he repeated the claim that they participated in voter fraud in GA within the last year. The jury laid almost 150 on Rudy. Trump hasn't backed down on any aspects of the claim that the 2020 election was stolen. The whole game of re-litigating the claims of fraud as part of Trump's J6 DC defense gets harder if he can't tell specific lies about specific people without opening the gates of a lawsuit each time.
I'm sure Trump's lawyers are pondering this. Trump will want to charge ahead on the assumption that he can intimidate little people into dropping a civil lawsuit BUT 150 million is a nice prize. Not everyone will be scared of the big bad Trump. BTW, the damages that the jury awarded are FAR in excess of what they asked. So this jury sent a signal that it's not OK for the rich and powerful to wage war on ordinary citizens. A component of the conspiracy as GA has described it was an attempt make the attack go away if the two women would admit to voter fraud. The terrorism was not accidental or incidental.
As President, Trump had the power to render the disclosure of super-sensitive information harmless to national security. Didn’t he?
Not surprising the revelation that Trump blabbed sensitive military information to an Australian billionaire was quietly ignored. What did Hunter Biden ever do that was nearly as bad?