HoltesThoughts: The Real Scandal at the FBI

Trumplandia Scandal

Someone has called this the Trumplandia Scandal. Apparently the NY City branch of the FBI had a significant cohort of ruthless Trump Supporters centered around a colorful assemblage of working and retired Cops and FBI Agents. This scandal is ongoing, because these same agents are attacking the FBI for a whole host of made up and real crimes. The Perps in the Trumplandia scandal are almost a whose who of scoundrels, corrupt FBI agents, and maybe even blackmailers and crooks. As a result the Inspector General investigation started by FBI Director Comey before he was fired may be as important to understanding Trumpland corruption as what they did with the Russians.

Trumplandia

The Trumplandia term dates to leaks coming from the New York Office of the FBI, first reported in the Guardian and "The Hill" just before the election. They reported that:

"The FBI is “Trumplandia,” according to an agent who spoke anonymously to The Guardian newspaper."

Actually, most of Trumplandia was concentrated in the New York Field office. That anyone in the FBI would be so prejudiced, misogynist and racist that they'd manufacture evidence is itself a scandal. The FBI prides itself on objective investigations.

But there were Partisans in the FBI who were so authoritarian and deluded that they apparently did. Back in November 2016 The Guardian reported (just before the Election!):

"multiple sources within the FBI say that deep antipathy toward Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and anger that FBI Director James Comey did not bring charges against her this summer have motivated leaks that could damage her presidential campaign."

Actually, it looks like the motivation was Partisanship not a devotion to law enforcement. But these are people who are deluded and saw:

"Clinton as the “antichrist” and are supportive of Trump."

Okay, they see Clinton as the antichrist, but how does that justify illegal behavior? They were leaking allegations about Clinton. Most of which turned out to be lies, so there was something deeply demented and delusional in them "leaking". But then those who see Hillary Clinton as the Anti-Christ are literally on a witch hunt and not sane. (which is probably why Trump calls investigations of him a Witch Hunt -- just a little projection there!)

“...The reason why they’re leaking is they’re pro-Trump,” the FBI agent told The Guardian.

And the reason that Comey reopened the Clinton Email investigation is that apparently they were also blackmailing both Comey and Andrew McCabe with threats of leaking information that would embarrass them. It came down to an FBI that had divided loyalties.

“There are lots of people who don’t think Trump is qualified, but also believe Clinton is corrupt,” the source said. “What you hear a lot is that it’s a bad choice, between an incompetent and a corrupt politician.”

Except that Trump turns out to be both corrupt and incompentent. But you can't expect people who see the world in terms of the AntiChrist and Witches to reasonably evaluate reality. but way back in July 2016, some members of the FBI weren't thinking straight. The October Guardian Article maintained that:

"According to the report, the tensions boiled over in July when Comey declined to recommend charges against the Democratic presidential nominee for possibly mishandling classified information through her use of a private email server to conduct government business, according to the FBI agent."

So there is evidence that Trumplandia Agents blackmailed Comey into reopening the investigation!

"Comey last week sent a letter to congressional committees notifying them that the FBI was looking at new emails uncovered in a separate investigation that could be related to the Clinton case."

Which apparently was engineered to elect Trump. I personally believe that the claims that Hillary was "the Antichrist" or a witch, were BS. These people had a nasty purpose.

Who's Who in Trumplandia

Conspirators

The known Conspirators in Trumplandia are:

Rudy Giuliani — was boasting before Comey's announcement that he had an October Surprise coming! He was the face of Trumplandia
Erik Prince — Is the pirate who used to run Blackwater and is standing up private armies around the world and where he can within Trumplandia. The man wants to be the Trump's Black Shirts General. He used every opportunity to defame Obama, Hillary, or Democrats in particular. And he spent years attacking them and anyone associated with them. He was one of the people claiming that Hillary was running a child sex ring in a Pizza place in Washington DC. He was after Huma Abedin, claiming she was a Muslim spy. He is one of those quys for whom no conspiracy is too absurd to spread. And he's also one of those people who is part of the fake Christian Right. Erik Prince linked Hillary & Bill to the Sex Offender Jeffrey Epstein, who is also linked to Trump himself. But there is a strange tunnel vision to the folks living in Trumplandia.
Michael Flynn — spread much of this hoax, often in speeches where he had the crowds shouting "Lock Her Up." He's pled guilty now on other matters and is trying to avoid being locked up.
True Pundit — The True Pundit (@True_Pundit) troll account shares lurid stories supposedly from active duty and retired FBI Agents. It is connected to the @thomas1774paine troll Account and the True Pundit Website (https://truepundit.com/) . These people,

Flying Monkeys and Minor Actors

Hugh Galyen
Walter Wright
Peter Strzok — This is both the guy who wrote the letter that made Comey reopen the Clinton investigation and the guy who exchanged malevolent emails bashing everyone from Hillary & Obama to Trump.
Michael Tabman — writes a blog where he confesses that the FBI prejudices against the Clinton's date back to the 90s. He also defends the FBI and notes that Trump is railing against Republicans for doing their job [https://michaeltabman.wordpress.com/]

There are more names to put in this list. But it is getting late and this is enough to cover the subject in brief.

Patsies and Victims

Hillary — the conspirators consistently claim that Obama, Hillary or other Democrats are conspiring against them, engaging in criminal behavior. But really the more evidence points to them, the more they try to deflect. So most of their claims are simply deflection and scapegoating.
Weiner — Anthony Weiner is in Jail for being a creep and sharing his creepiness on the internet "sexting". I'm not sure the details. He earned the sentence. His Wife Huma Abedin is more a victim of Weiner and the Republicans than Hillary is. The New York Office also put her on trial for the crime of working for Hillary, being Muslim and marrying Anthony Weiner. I hope things work out for her. I'm disgusted with Weiner. I hope he gets a job as a defense Attorney when his prison sentence is over.

Lies and Exaggerations

The tool for Trumplandia was Weiner's laptop. After the election Newsweek reported that everything on the laptop was a duplicate. However, Prince's imagination expanded on Weiner's laptop. On November 4th 2016 Prince claimed:

“[NYPD] found a lot of other really damning criminal information [on Weiner’s computer], including money laundering, including the fact that Hillary went to this sex island with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Bill Clinton went there more than twenty times. Hillary Clinton went there at least six times,”

In the hands of the Right Wing Echo machine (InfoWars, Fox, Breitbart, etc...) this led to someone shooting up a Pizza Shop that allegedly held Podesta's children. In a non existent basement. But Prince imagined all this based on lies told him by someone, who probably was an FBI Agent assigned to the Weiner Case. But Prince also confessed in that article, that they used this supposed material to blackmail Comey.

“The amount of garbage that they found in these emails, of criminal activity by Hillary, by her immediate circle, and even by other Democratic members of Congress, was so disgusting they gave it to the FBI, and they said, ‘We’re going to go public with this if you don’t reopen the investigation and you don’t do the right thing with timely indictments,’”

So an active Agent or Policeman at One Police Plaza was feeding this information to Trump Operatives and RW news organizations.

“I believe—I know, and this is from a very well-placed source of mine at One Police Plaza in New York—the NYPD wanted to do a press conference announcing the warrants and the additional arrests they were making in this investigation, and they’ve gotten huge push back, to the point of coercion, from the Justice Department.”

These lies had a kernel of facts in that Jeffrey Epstein is a convicted Sex Offender (and long time associate of Donald J. Trump). But it doesn't look like any of that stuff was on Weiner's computer. These lies resonated with Salt of the Earth people who are convinced that Obama is the Devil and Hillary is a witch. But they also resonated with progressives, reformers and people who might otherwise have voted for Hillary.

Inspector Horowitz, Denouement 7/18/2019

When I wrote this in February 2018 I wrote:

When Trump blasted his Inspector General. It may be because Inspector Horowitz is getting ready to release the result of his investigation into the Trumplandia Affair.

But what ended up happening is that Horowitz divided his investigation into 2 parts. The Trumplandia portion was kept secret, and at this point is probably buried either in an archive or deep sixed into an incinerator. But Horowitz did release the portion dealing with Strzok, McCabe and others, and that report was used to terminate them from their jobs. Essentially he and other career FBI officials caved.

The first investigationconcluded that Comey, Strzok and Page sometimes used personal emails to communicate with each other. And they criticized Strzok and Page for improper communications. This enabled Trump to make sure that Strzok was fired, that McCabe was denied his retirement.: https://www.justice.gov/file/1071991/download
They then did a deep dive into Strzok and Page's personal relationship and fired them:: https://oig.justice.gov/reports/2018/i-2018-003523.pdf

Horowitz, instead of protecting FBI integrity, proved to not have much backbone. Strzok, Comey and McCabe made mistakes and errors of judgments which left them vulnerable. But things like the Trumplandia affair are still being covered up.

The good news, is that the relationship between Trump and Epstein, which the Trumplandia folks sought to deflect from by yelling about the Epstein Bill Clinton connections, is finally coming out to view.

Notes:

I'm writing this post for the same reason I've written other posts on Trump Russia; to keep the names straight by writing them down. I'm good at seeing the general picture. But I'll get the names mixed up or forget them unless I write them down. Others are doing a good job of covering this. This is still a draft, even as I update it more than a year and half later!

Everyone except the Congress.