General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsRemarkable thread from Seth Abramson
More than 60 tweets long, and very frightening, but also revealing, and worth the read. Collusion, payoffs, blackmail, more than *100* women, and still continuing with the whining in court these days. THIS explains everything.
Link to tweet
ms liberty
(8,673 posts)leftieNanner
(15,235 posts)How can I read the rest?
Nittersing
(6,430 posts)1/ Ive been covering Donald Trump more or less full-time since the day he announced his presidential candidacy in 2015, so there are things I remember as part of my job that many who follow politics more casually dont and wouldnt.
One is that Trump believed hed lose in 2016.
2/ There were many articles just before the 2016 election and just after it confirming that Trump ran in 2016 to elevate the only thing he really cares abouthis brand. Of course he was *trying* to win and *sort of* even wanted to win, but mainly the run was to raise his profile.
3/ This is why it is not at all surprisingfor all that his supporters are so scandalized by it that they cannot accept that it has been *robustly* proventhat Trump colluded with the Russians in 2016. Just *not in the way that most people think* (or MAGAs choose to engage with).
4/ Because he didnt believe hed win in 2016, Trump crafted a foreign policy agenda that had nothing to do with American interests; it was focused on his business interests. Thats why he had Cohen *negotiating a real estate deal with the Kremlin* throughout the election season.
5/ Thats also why, as the NYT reports, the Trump family responded approvingly to an offer by the Saudi and Emirati governmentsmade at Trump Tower in August 2016to illegally aid Trumps campaign with the aid of Israeli intel experts.
Those were nations Trump did business with.
6/ Thats why Trump hired Paul Manafort, a man he well understood had been working for the Kremlin since 2006, as his campaign manager: he was led to understand that itd please the Kremlin, and Tom Barrack helped him understand it would please Russian allies like the Emiratis.
7/ Thats why his top adviser on Russia was a friend of Putin, Dimitri Simes (who fled the US, and now works for the Kremlin); that was why his top advisers on the UAE were Emirati agents: Erik Prince, George Nader (a convicted pedophile) and Yousef al-Otaiba (UAEs ambassador).
8/ Thats why his top natsec adviser, Flynn, kept meeting with Putin and Putin agents like Kislyak; thats why Kushner and Trumps National Security Advisory Committee held so many pre-election meetings with Kremlin agents.
Trump believed hed lose, but wanted a lucrative loss.
9/ Trump believed his only chance of willingbut it was a two-fer, as itd bring him closer to those he wanted to do business with if he lostwas gaining aid from future business partners (Russia, Israel, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt, primarily) to ruin Clinton with a scandal.
10/ Thats why all the talk inside the campaign in Summer 2016I have written about this extensively in my NYT-bestselling bookswas about finding Clintons emails, maintaining relations with the Kremlin by Manafort passing proprietary data to a known Kremlin spy, meeting with...
11/ ...el-Sisi in a meeting arranged by Steve Bannon and Trumps backchannel to the Kremlin (George Papadopoulos), savaging President Obama for the Russian sanctions Putin was so angry about...it was all preparing for a loss to Clinton, assuming the Russian hacking gambit failed.
12/ To be clear, Trump and his team had nothing to do with the hacking, and no one ever said otherwise. Nor did Trump and his team have anything to do with Russian propaganda, though they happily spread it after-the-fact (which was more or less legal). And no one said otherwise.
13/ The *only* exception to that last sentence was a brief implication in the Steele dossierone of the few things it *definitely* got wrongthat the campaign helped finance the Russian troll farm. That was false; Putin didnt need Trumps money to interfere in the 2016 election.
14/ What people miss about the dossierlargely because no one really read itis that it was actually all about Trump using Cohen and Manafort to maintain good relations with the Kremlin and to advance his interest in real estate deals the Kremlin was dangling.
All that was true.
15/ Again, because Trump thought he was going to loseespecially once DOJ decided not to prosecute Clinton in July 2016, which he believed was his only shot at winning unless damaging stolen info came out about her (which is why he spent July and August obsessed with WikiLeaks).
16/ When the Access Hollywood tape came out in early October, Trump went from near-certain he was going to lose to *certain* he was going to lose. But something else happened: Republican leaders were telling him he needed to drop out of the race altogether, and do so immediately.
17/ People forget how close that came to happening.
And it would have been the most embarrassing event ever to occur to a U.S. politician in U.S. political historythe literal *concession* of the presidency to the opposing party.
It wouldve destroyed Trump in *multiple* ways.
18/ Put aside that it wouldve ended Trumps political career. At the timenot nowhe was minimally invested in that and, post-Access Hollywood, he didnt think he was going to have such a career. The *bigger* issue is that withdrawing from the race would end his business empire.
19/ Trumps money is based on his brand, full stop. If his brand is destroyed, he is. One of many things the dossier got *right* was that after the Access Hollywood tape the Kremlin decided Trump was going to lose the 2016 election and it began preparing for a Clinton presidency.
20/ So at that point, Trump was ruined. No presidency. No future deals with Russia, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. No brand that anyone would respect anymore. He was finished. His life was over in every way that ever mattered to him.
And then he learned a Daniels scandal was coming.
21/ When Hicks describes a crisis situation in Trumps camp in early-/mid-October 2016, that was the crisis. They believed they would lose the election, but *also* believed Trump was going to lose what he really cared about, and his actual reason for entering politics: his brand.
22/ The Russian, Saudi, Emirati, and Israeli pullback from aiding Trump was *real*he looked like a tainted loser there was no reason to do business with.
The Kremlin deal Cohen had been negotiating was dead, and the Saudi-backed AMI was now refusing all catch-and-kill payments.
23/ Trump had had to fire the Kremlin agent Manafort in August due to bad press, which didnt please the Kremlin and is likely a reason Papadopoulos Kremlin backchannel had dissipated by the end of Summer 2016. Trump was alone, about to lose an election, and also lose his brand.
24/ With Manafort gonea man whod advised him voa Roger Stones consulting firm since the 80sand Stone himself long ago fired as an adviser due to (again) bad press, Cohen was the loyalist remaining (and Flynn, but the Kremlin had lost interest in Trump, so he was less useful).
25/ And Republican leaders were telling him to drop out, which would make him a laughing-stock for the rest of his life.
26/ So of *course* it was Cohen, trusted so much hed been negotiating secretly with the Kremlin on Trumps behalf throughout the electionthe crux of Trump-Russia collusion, established in the Steele dossier before being confirmed by Cohen himselfwho came to Trumps rescue.
27/ Cohen wasnt rescuing Trumps electoral chances per seeven burying the Daniels story did nothing to change the fact that GOP leaders, who didnt know about Daniels, wanted him out over the Access Hollywood tapebut rescuing what Trump really cared about: his business future.
28/ Would you believe we havent gotten to the good part of the story yet?
Thats what comes next.
29/ By October 20, 2016, calls for Trump to drop out had diedonly because Trump (buttressed by knowing the Daniels issue had been handled) refused to do so, so there was no point in pushing it.
All sidesGOP leaders, Trump, the Kremlin, everyone but Trump votersknew hed lose.
30/ Had the Daniels story broken, Trump *might well* have been forced to drop out, which would have been the end of his political career, his brand, and him.
Cohen had saved Trumpthough Trump was still planning on stiffing himjust as hed taken the lead on getting Trump all...
31/ ...hed ever really wanted from his candidacy, which was the most lucrative business deal of his professional life (the Trump Tower deal) and continued aid from the only banks in the world that would still lend to him, as Eric Trump had by then conceded: Putins Russian ones.
32/ But by October 20with the Access Hollywood scandal over, the still-secret Stormy Daniels scandal over, Trumps foreign allies having pulled out from aiding him, and Clinton up by a *lot*the simple fact is that Trump was still facing having given up his TV show for nothing.
33/ He was going to lose the election, and by then had realized the Russians, Saudis, and Emiratis had only been interested in him because they thought he could winand he had *literally* developed his *entire* foreign policy agenda *purely* to please them and meet their needs.
34/ He had one card left to play, and it was the same one he had tried to play in Summer 2016.
Not foreign policy*that* had been based on attracting illegal foreign election assistance, which was now goneand not domestic policy, where Trump was barely even a Republican at all.
35/ The only card left was putting Clinton at the center of a scandal. Its likely Trump realized how he could still do so via a series of conversations with his lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who told him that many in the FBI were loyal to him and angry over Clinton not being prosecuted.
36/ His sense that the FBI was willing to aid him would have been buttressed by several indicators:
i. When the NYT asked the FBI in mid-October if it had evidence Trump had colluded with Russia (e.g. in the ways Ive noted), it lied and said it had nonethough it had *so much*.
37/
ii. Another of his lawyers, unscrupulous election-interferer Joe diGenova, had offered his services for free to rogue FBI agents who claimed to be whistleblowers and had gone out to conservative media with their message (which was intended to interfere in the 2016 election).
38/
ii (cont). That message was really no message at all, just illegal election interference in which rogue FBI agents who supported Trump would leak to media internal FBI conversations about a prosecution declination that they would shade with semi-fictional political intrigue.
39/
iii. Giuliani began going on Fox News to start spreading claims that FBI agents had secret information that they were going to reveal about Clinton and the FBI, information Giuliani had either made up, gotten from lying rogue FBI agents, or from fellow Trump lawyer diGenova.
40/
iv. Trump campaign CEO Steve Bannon brought Trump national security adviser Erik Prince on Breitbart for an interview in which Prince lied through his teeth and said NYPD and the FBI had evidence Clinton was a pedophile and murderer (basically, the rankest QAnon bullshit).
41/
iv (cont). Michael Flynn quickly made the Prince interview go viral on social media with the help of Trump Jr. (who had failed in his late summer and early fall attempts to get Clinton dirt from WikiLeaks, just as Flynn had failed to get it from indirect Russian contacts).
42/ Inside the FBI, FBI director James Comey was expressing to his deputy Andrew McCabe that he had concerns these rogue FBI agents were going to destroy the FBIs reputation and cause election interference. He began looking into what had happened with Anthony Weiners seized PC.
43/ It was then that he learned that an FBI field office run by a *since-indicted-and-convicted-Russian-agent* had sat on the PC rather than searching its metadata as Comey had ordered it, which disobedience is *exactly* what had allowed the rogue FBI agents to feed Team Trump...
44/ ...false claims about what was on the computer, *exactly* what enabled Prince to spout his QAnon bullshit and say that that was what was on the computer, *exactly* what allowed Trumps lawyers Giuliani and diGenova to darkly aver some big reveal was about to drop (it wasnt).
45/ When did an FBI office run by a foreign agent make its decision to disobey Comey and not run the Weiner PC metadatawhich wouldve confirmed there was nothing on the PC the FBI didnt know about, and therefore no reason to reopen Clintons case? 48 hours pre-Access Hollywood.
bucolic_frolic
(43,836 posts)NanaCat
(2,087 posts)At their foundation, particularly the stuff about TSF not being serious about running for POTUS and thinking he'd lose.
Neither was the case. He wanted to be POTUS--nobody runs for that office as often as he did without wanting it, his narcissism wanted the attention of the job even more, and he is literally incapable of thinking he could lose, and especially he couldn't lose to a woman.
People keep thinking they can apply the behaviours and 'thinking' of a normal person to him, but he's not normal. His toxic narcissism makes him completely incomprehensible to people unfamiliar with how such people think and operate. He does not and will not do or think the things 'normal' people do. Everyone needs to wake up and face the reality of what he's about.
Hope22
(1,969 posts)usonian
(10,205 posts)Someone who knows how to use threadreader app should post a link to the unrolled thread available to abstainers.
Biophilic
(3,811 posts)littlemissmartypants
(23,093 posts)Link to the unroll at the Threadreader App
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1787543910509666332.html
Transcript definition
https://www.w3.org/WAI/media/av/transcripts/#:~:text=Basic%20transcripts%20are%20a%20text,needed%20to%20understand%20the%20content.
Basic transcripts are a text version of the speech and non-speech audio information needed to understand the content. Descriptive transcripts also include text description of the visual information needed to understand the content.
❤️
Biophilic
(3,811 posts)Next time Ill leave it to the experts.
littlemissmartypants
(23,093 posts)It can be really frustrating when one's trying to look up or search for something and no matter what can't seem to find it.
I know, I've spent too much time myself looking for things with no luck. I don't really like asking for help but I find myself doing it more and more these days.
Maybe having the information will save others wasting precious time and keep them from getting frustrated and possibly giving up on trying.
❤️
littlemissmartypants
(23,093 posts)For future reference
If you want to you can search directly for an unroll of a multi tweet post by clicking on the first words in the tweet, subsequently copying them and searching here...
https://threadreaderapp.com/search
SEARCH THREADS
To find a specific thread, paste the full URL like: https://x.com/threadreaderapp/status/1644127596119195649. If we can't find one, we'll create one!
To find the Twitter thread URL using the Twitter app:
On the Twitter thread, click on or icon on the bottom
Click again on or Share Via icon
Click on Copy Link to Tweet
Paste it above and click "Unroll Thread"!
More info at Twitter Help
Or you can just paste the ID like 1644127596119195649 from https://x.com/threadreaderapp/status/1644127596119195649
FIND AUTHORS
To find the author page, type in their Twitter user name such as @threadreaderapp (with the @ mark)
bucolic_frolic
(43,836 posts)Bookmarked. Instructions appreciated, as some of us could use it.
liberalla
(9,325 posts)ShazzieB
(16,838 posts)I did not know you could directly search for an unroll on the app! I will save these instructions for future reference.
littlemissmartypants
(23,093 posts)unblock
(52,766 posts)Other than the unsupported allegation that he's paid off 100 women. I wouldn't be surprised if we only know about a fraction of his infidelities and sexual assaults, so sure. 100. Maybe more. Maybe less. Who knows. Wouldn't mind seeing some evidence though...
I also had forgotten that more than a few republicans called publicly for him to drop out a month before the election. In retrospect this is mind-boggling.
Torchlight
(3,588 posts)The premise that his 2016 campaign was all along tacking into the wind of defeat is not something I've considered. At all.
Giving another look-see at the big board with that in mind rationalizes (yeah, ironic use of the word in regards to him) some actions he took during the campaign and just afterwards that had been puzzling me (accusing Barack Obama of wiretapping Trump Tower, Scaramuccis shock appointment as White House communications director, asserting Mexico pay for a wall on its border with the U.S., etc).
I never knew it, but he was playing to a tee the political version of Max Bialystock.
jalan48
(13,968 posts)5/ Thats also why, as the NYT reports, the Trump family responded approvingly to an offer by the Saudi and Emirati governmentsmade at Trump Tower in August 2016to illegally aid Trumps campaign with the aid of Israeli intel experts.
bucolic_frolic
(43,836 posts)because no one did the work on Weiner's laptop the way he ordered - promptly. So he was manipulated.
jalan48
(13,968 posts)bahboo
(16,445 posts)and people STILL support the fuck...
MiHale
(9,893 posts)HUAJIAO
(2,427 posts)Hope22
(1,969 posts)HUAJIAO
(2,427 posts)Celerity
(44,193 posts)HUAJIAO
(2,427 posts)bucolic_frolic
(43,836 posts)for what I didn't or couldn't find or figure out how to do!
ancianita
(36,352 posts)to you for Seth, and littlemissmartypants for teaching us how to make use of the threadreaderapp.
bucolic_frolic
(43,836 posts)Returning the favor of your many perceptive posts over these years.
We must all pull together in 2024!!
ancianita
(36,352 posts)peggysue2
(10,914 posts)I knew Trump was bad: petty, vindictive, incompetent, ignorant, etc.
But in this twitter profile?
He's just damn evil, as are his enablers.
onecaliberal
(33,202 posts)dchill
(38,700 posts)...have put themselves at his level. They are just as bad as he is - no exceptions.
Hotler
(11,557 posts)Paralysis continues, by 2020 DOJ becomes paralyzed with fear (no marbles) also.
2023, the orange still walks free and everyday makes harmful threats towards the American people.