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Trump Turns GOP into a Conspiracy of Dunces The cynical men in Washington and Moscow who are feeding the crazy-eyed, conspiratorial imaginings of the Republican Party base under Donald Trump know what they’re doing.
Daily Beast, 01.30.18 4:59 AM ET
Secret societies, government agents of dubious loyalties, dark cabals who work from shadowy bureaucracies seeking to overthrow the president of the United States, sinister masterminds exercising fell powers to serve a diabolical conspiracy, occult powers that shift the levers of control in mysterious ways–no, it’s not X-Files fan fiction or some modern-day Lovecraft reboot. It’s today’s GOP.
The Republican Party’s head first dive into breathless conspiratorial fantasies in defense of Donald Trump is a brand-defining moment as the Party of Lincoln morphs into the Party of LaRouche.
Listening as members of Congress, the Fox/talk-radio world and the constellation of batshit crazy people drawn to Esoteric Trumpism adopt increasingly baroque theories to protect The Donald isn’t just depressing, it’s tragic. A diseased slurry of fake news, post-Truth Trumpism and Russkie agitprop infects the Republican Party.
It’s an Ebola of wild-eyed MK-ULTRA paranoiac raving, spreading to every organ of the Republican body politic. This loon-centric new world of crazy talk has dissolved the old ideological skeleton of the GOP and reduced it from the Conservative Party of Ideas to the Crackpot Party of Infowars.
Covering up the connections between Donald Trump, his campaign officials and family members with Russia, and this president’s efforts to obstruct justice and derail Mueller will come at a still-untallied cost to our nation, our institutions, and the dignity and reputation of the GOP. It’s going to get worse as Mueller closes in.
Last week, the ridiculous memo crafted by Fredo Nunes (R-Clownshow) and his staffers (is that you, Ezra Cohen-Watnick?) was the subject of hyperventilating conspiracy headlines across right-wing media. While breathless Republicans like Matt Gaetz (R-The Narcissus of Fox News) raced for the cameras screaming that this is a “worse than Watergate” bombshell, this fetid, steaming shitheap of lies, cherry-picked outrage bait for the Fox booboisie, and crayon-scribble was full of tells that it was all Trump, and little truth.
As they voted Monday night to release their version, while denying the Democrats the chance to release their rebuttal, the scam was clear. The first clue is that the memo is being rolled out as part of a PR effort so clumsy, obvious, ham-fisted, and covered in its own drool that it could only appeal to the most deluded Deep State fantasists. Naturally, it has been in more or less constant rotation on Fox News and the fever swamp of pro-Trump fake news sites.
The second problem with the memo is that Team Fredo broke the central rule of politics: underpromise and over-deliver. If the Nunes Grimoire of Eldritch Deep State Perfidy was radioactive and contained evidence of an immediate and existential threat to our democracy posed by rogue FBI agents wielding bogus FISA applications, why won’t Nunes share it with his Senate counterparts? Why won’t he allow the Trump Justice Department to examine it? Why did he whip the intelligence committee to prevent the release of a rebuttal? It’s simple: There’s so little there that no serious person would blow out U.S. intelligence sources and methods to win a political point defending Donald Trump. No one, except Nunes, his cronies and the House leadership who allow his continued depredations on the rule of law.
Make no mistake, Nunes and his co-conspirators don’t believe there’s an actual Deep State conspiracy at the FBI or the intelligence agencies. This boundlessly cynical plot is an attempt to shield Donald Trump not just from Bob Mueller’s Russia investigation, but from any form of accountability or oversight. I have to give them credit their brazen effort.
The coordination between Fox news, the Trump Uber Alles caucus in the House, talk radio, and the online Cray Vortex is rather impressive. In the Best Supporting Hackers role, the Russians chimed in right on cue to amplify the GOP’s message. Call me old fashioned, but I remember when working hand-in-hand with a hostile foreign government to undermine American institutions was called “treason.” The story was falling apart even before the Moron Caucus beclowned themselves with the “Secret Society” theme, since the memo obviously hadn’t done enough to reduce the Republicans in stature and seriousness. Seizing on a single, obviously joking text message, Sen. Ron Johnson took to the microphones to describe the FBI’s alleged “Secret Society” as if he had watched Eyes Wide Shut enough times to memorize it. Fidelio, Ron. Fidelio.
When confronted with the risible absurdity of his claim, Johnson said “informants” had told them about the dark, satanic orgies of the FBI. Within hours, he denied all of it in an embarrassingly clumsy walk back. From the Trump-right obsession with “Q-Anon” as a source of Deep State gibberish to the uncritical acceptance of even the most outrageously absurd rumors, the GOP is becoming defined as a party of conspiracy. It’s is a bad look for a governing party, and it’s getting worse by the day.
When Sean Hannity’s Twitter account briefly went dark Friday night during what appears to be a routine Twitter bot-purge, the Trumpnet lost its collective mind. “Form Submission 1649” led to numerological kookspiracy speculation that would have made Louis Farrakhan proud. I kid you not, whackjobs were saying Hannity’s “1649” tweet was about the year when Charles the 1st was beheaded for treason by Cromwell. Uh huh. Sean Hannity knows about as much about Cromwell and Charles the 1st as he does about string theory.
That’s our world now–one where the real Julian Assange is slipping into the DMs of a parody Hannity account on Twitter, to offer up fresh dirt on Trump’s enemies. If you think Pizzagate was the nadir, take a drive through the online Bedlam of Infowars, Breitbart, Gateway Pundit, or /r/The_Donald, and you won’t have to dig far to discover that Jeffrey Epstein’s time-travel jet took Bill back to 1962 to fake Obama’s birth certificate. You’ll learn that Hillary’s plan to have America invaded by Muslim-lizard mutant antifa supersoldiers is under way as we speak.
Will anyone have the guts to finally reveal that Nancy Pelosi is enslaving teenage girls in an Illuminati mind control temple under the Chrysler Building where George Soros presides over nightly human sacrifices and Hello Kitty cosplay?
Nunes, Meadows, Gaetz, et al. aren’t agents of Russia, though you can’t definitively say that of Dana Rohrabacher. They’re simply protecting Russia’s most precious asset, and are perfectly content to let Russia continue its slow-motion efforts to disrupt our government, our democracy and our values. They’ll take all the help they can get from the Russians if it helps destroy any system of checks and balances that could trouble Trump. It’s an effort to make the firing of Mueller palatable to the nation, to give Trump a get-out-of-jail-free card on obstruction of justice, and to nudge us one step closer to having a strongman, not a president. If our national capacity for outrage wasn’t already spread painfully thin, there would be a run on pitchforks and torches. This moment, for all its superficially ludicrous nature, is an effort to destroy the power of Congress in the execution of its duties as a co-equal branch of government. It’s Watergate’s Saturday Night Massacre, played in a slower tempo and with a more compliant Congress. Nunes and the Trump White House know their effort relies on an audience of people so thick, slow, and gullible that they’ll buy even the most fanciful conspiracy nonsense. Sadly, it’s working. Two men could solve this problem. The first is Paul Ryan. The conspiracy cancer eating his caucus from the inside may originate with Devin Nunes and his merry band of Freedom Caucus allies, but Ryan can and should take action. Obviously, Ryan is trying to keep the White House happy by letting the Whackjob Caucus spread these absurd theories. However, as speaker of the House and as a man who has sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution, Paul Ryan has a moral responsibility stop them. It takes one phone call and one moment of moral and political courage: “Devin. Cut this shit out. Now.” The other person who could act is Rupert Murdoch. Nothing in the current political climate is more vital to Donald Trump’s immunity from political consequence than Fox News. The endless torrent of raw political sewage coming from Fox and Friends, Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and Tucker Carlson comprises the headwaters of a right-wing media ecosystem that feeds the beast. The straight news folks at Fox are under constant siege, while the Mighty Wurlitzer of the rest of the network churns out story after story on that time Hillary personally ordered Seth Rich’s murder while the Awan Brothers gave her a pedicure. With one phone call, Murdoch could put the brakes on the elements in his organization that have configured themselves not to report, educate, enlighten or inform but to proselytize for Donald Trump, no matter the cost to the nation.
The Fox problem is rich with irony. It turns out Republicans don’t mind partisan, agenda-driven journalism. They just want it to be their partisan, agenda-driven journalism. The cynical men in Washington and Moscow who are feeding the crazy-eyed, conspiratorial imaginings of the Republican Party base under Donald Trump know what they’re doing. The cynical media outlets profiting from this campaign of disinformation and dishonesty also know what they’re doing. The men in the Kremlin backing up these efforts with an army of electronic warriors and legions of bots know exactly what they’re doing.
And the Republican base, fed on a diet of weapons-grade conspiracy theories, day-drinking rage, 8chan trolling, and blind defense of Trump? They know the truth, man. They’re woke. They know that all opposition to Trump comes from George Soros, the shape-shifting reptilians, the Deep State, the Illuminati, zombie Bin Laden, the Gnomes of Zurich, and the Freemasons. They know that Bob Mueller is an alien sent from the Sharia-compliant future to impose the New World Order by asking Donald Trump tough questions. Oh, and implanting them all with a brain chip to control their thoughts. #QAnon say so.
Another crackpot Republican fairytale about conspiracies at the heart of the FBI bites the dust: +++++++++++++++++++++++++ Inside the FBI Life of Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, as Told in Their Text Messages Exchanges between agent and lawyer show dedication to bureau–but no hesitation to criticize colleagues and Trump
By Del Quentin Wilber
The Wall Street Journal, Updated Feb. 2, 2018 11:49 a.m. ET
WASHINGTON–In the summer of 2016, FBI Agent Peter Strzok had just wrapped up the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server and was embarking on a probe into Moscow’s interference in the presidential election. As he watched the Republican National Convention and scanned intelligence reports and news stories, he made clear how he felt about his new target: “f*ck the cheating motherf*cking Russians,” he texted in late July. “Bastards. I hate them.”
“I think they’re probably the worst,” texted Mr. Strzok, who had spent years tracking Russian spies and was familiar with their tactics. “F*cking conniving cheating savages. At statecraft, athletics, you name it. I’m glad I’m on Team USA.”
The messages were sent to FBI lawyer Lisa Page, one of thousands turned over by the Justice Department to Congress on Jan. 19 as part of an internal inquiry into how the Federal Bureau of Investigation handled its investigation into Mrs. Clinton. Mr. Strzok and Ms. Page, who were in an extramarital affair at the time, have been accused of bias against President Donald Trump after some previously released emails showed their disdain for the president.
In the new texts, provided to Congress and reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, the pair’s distaste for Mr. Trump re-emerges. After the 2016 election, Mr. Strzok wrote, “OMG I am so depressed.” Ms. Page replied, “I don’t know if I can eat. I am very nauseous.”
Republicans have said the FBI’s handling of the Clinton probe and the Russia investigation, as well as the criticism of Mr. Trump in the couple’s exchanges, indicate bias against the president and have suggested a conspiracy to undermine him.
Mr. Trump said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal last month that he interpreted Mr. Strzok’s messages to Ms. Page as “treason.” Mr. Strzok’s attorney said at the time the president’s accusation was “beyond reckless.”
Texts critical of Mr. Trump represent a fraction of the roughly 7,000 messages, which stretch across 384 pages and show no evidence of a conspiracy against Mr. Trump. Rather, a broader look shows an unvarnished and complex picture of the lives of an FBI agent and lawyer who found themselves at the center of highly charged probes.
They logged long hours and frequently worked on weekends. They seemed dedicated to their jobs but didn’t hesitate to chastise or criticize many others beyond Mr. Trump, including their colleagues and each other. In deeply personal office chatter, they come across as intense, ambitious and unsure of their standing in the bureau.
After serving as the lead agent on the investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s server while she was secretary of state, Mr. Strzok was promoted to deputy assistant director of the FBI’s counterintelligence division.
A longtime spy-hunter, he was tasked with helping supervise the Russia probe. After Robert Mueller was appointed special counsel for the probe on May 17, Mr. Strzok joined his office as its top agent.
Yet, he was ambivalent about taking the job, even if Mr. Mueller’s investigation was one that was certain to end up “in the history books.”
Unsure the investigation would lead anywhere, Mr. Strzok worried that leaving the bureau might harm his chances of advancement, and was concerned he wouldn’t play a key role.
“I don’t know what I want, Lisa,” Mr. Strzok, 47 years old, wrote in a text message to Ms. Page, 38, on May 24. “I don’t want to be anything but the lead agent. And I think even that is going to be a far cry from the inner sanctum of what Bob decides.”
He served in the special counsel’s office about two months before Mr. Mueller learned in July about the disparaging texts and dismissed him. He has since been assigned to human resources at the FBI.
Ms. Page and Mr. Strzok couldn't be reached for comment.
The tranche of redacted texts–which deal with mostly work-related issues, while the set seen in December focused more heavily on politics–covers August 2015 through December 2016, then picks up again in May and June of last year. The Justice Department has blamed the gap on a technical error. The department’s inspector general said it recently recovered those messages and is reviewing them.
Many of the texts reflect their day-to-day workplace trials. Mr. Strzok complained about a top prosecutor, whom Ms. Page agreed was “pompous.” She described another as arrogant. Mr. Strzok said that “I hate” the Justice Department, and dealing with it was “a wild pain in the ass.”
Mr. Strzok raised questions about the initiative of some colleagues, telling Ms. Page in April 2015 that the bureau or prosecutors “will puss out. If I got a quarter of the support [redacted] blindly gives his guys, we might, but we won’t.”
Mr. Strzok and Ms. Page showed in their exchanges dedication to their jobs and uncertainty over their standing in the bureau.PHOTO: JIM LO SCALZO/EUROPEAN PRESSPHOTO AGENCY
He later confided he felt compelled to tell a colleague during a meeting that “I cannot overstate to you the sense of urgency about wanting to logically and effectively conclude this investigation,” an apparent reference to the Clinton probe.
Ms. Page worked in the FBI general counsel’s office and in the office of Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, and was detailed briefly to Mr. Mueller’s office. With her proximity to bureau leaders, she sometimes helped transmit information on behalf of Mr. Strzok to executives.
“I’ll ask you, in front of the D,” she texted one day in May 2016, referring to the FBI director. “‘Pete, I apologize for putting you on the spot, but I know you shared with andy some of the comments you’ve been hearing from folks, I think it would be valuable for the D to know them.’ ”
When Mr. Strzok was unsure where a question was coming from in the FBI’s top ranks, he asked Ms. Page for help: “Your mission, Agent Page, should you choose to accept it…”
“Obviously,” she replied, “I’ll find out what I can tomorrow…”
Though he generally comes across as confident, Mr. Strzok harbored doubts about his abilities. In late June, as the interview with Mrs. Clinton neared, he said he was “spinning in my head about the case.”
The interview needs tweaking, he wrote, and reports “need a fine edit, the summaries need to be written, I need to see what I did wrong or forgot or put off and not do that again and I need to do background for the job application, combination of I’m perfect for the job and not good enough and not going to get it and and and.”
That same month, he suggested the FBI had missed the fact that some Clinton emails were marked with a “c,” meaning they contained classified information. “DOJ was very concerned about this,” he wrote, adding that “they’re worried, holy cow, if the fbi missed this, what else was missed. Which I get, because I had the same worry.”
An hour later that same June day, Ms. Page texted with more news about the Clinton probe: “oh jesus. Have something to tell you.” The FBI interview with Mrs. Clinton, she said, would happen on July 2.
As he was gearing up for that session, Mr. Strzok was also helping edit a statement that FBI Director James Comey would deliver July 5 explaining why he was recommending against charging Mrs. Clinton.
In that statement, Mr. Comey would say Mrs. Clinton had been “extremely careless” in handling classified information; Mr. Strzok urged changing the phrase in a draft from “grossly negligent,” according to people familiar with the matter.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) in November said the editing suggests the FBI was seeking to help Mrs. Clinton avoid legal trouble, since, he added, “gross negligence” could be grounds for a criminal charge.
“I may go insane editing this,” Mr. Strzok texted on June 13, in apparent reference to the statement.
On the morning of the interview with Mrs. Clinton, Ms. Page sent Mr. Strzok good wishes. He replied, “Just got Starbucks, already dealing with issues (all admin, as in, her five attorneys all wanting to drive into [FBI headquarters] separately because of fear of media.” When the interview ended, he texted, “Hey, it all went well.”
As the summer wore on, he transitioned into helping spearhead the Russia investigation. He even joked about potential code names with Ms. Page. He said he would reserve “YUUUGE” as their code for Mr. Trump if they ever opened an investigation of him.
Sometimes Ms. Page and Mr. Strzok got into arguments that became emotional, such as a dispute over an article in The Wall Street Journal disclosing that Mr. McCabe’s wife, who ran for a Virginia senate seat in 2015, had received campaign donations from the Virginia governor, a Clinton ally. Republicans said Mr. McCabe should have recused himself from the Clinton email probe.
After Ms. Page texted a link to the story, Mr. Strzok said he was angry that she asked that he not share it with his colleagues. “IT’S ON THE INTERNET!!!!” he exclaimed. She replied, “WHICH YOU ONLY KNOW ABOUT BECAUSE I TOLD YOU IT WAS THERE.”
In May 2017, after Mr. Trump fired Mr. Comey, citing his handling of the investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s email server, Mr. Strzok and Ms. Page wrestled with whether to join Mr. Mueller’s team. Mr. Strzok overcame his initial reluctance and struggled to convince Ms. Page to do the same.
“You haven’t asked but I think you should go,” he wrote on June 3. “It is an experience unlike any other you’re going to get. Life changing.”
Two weeks later, Ms. Page texted that she was having second thoughts despite the special counsel’s office taking steps “to have me fully integrated” into the team. By June 21, she wrote Mr. Strzok that she was “thinking I might leave” the special counsel’s office. She would soon return to her work at the bureau.
Over the next few days, their relationship appeared to deteriorate. The last text is from Ms. Page, arriving in Mr. Strzok’s inbox on a Sunday morning in late June.
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