The Trump indictments are also an indictment of the entire party and their donors.
The Trump indictments are also an indictment of the entire party and their donors.
The threat to our democracy still exists.
Today’s TAT will be different than planned for a couple of very good reasons. First, I’m not an attorney and there are several, highly qualified experts that are writing on yesterday’s historic, indictment announcement. No one needs my lay opinion regarding the law. The second, is that I would like to put those indictments into a broader perspective regarding the ongoing threat to our democracy. This is a field that I do have expertise in, both on and off of battlefields.
Let’s start with a couple of hard facts that will help frame today’s article.
The indictments, which will undoubtedly bring more for co-conspirators and enablers, are airtight, regarding the veracity of the evidence. I know this for a long list of reasons, as that I have professionally been involved with the threats leading up to the charges, since early 2015.
Not all facts will be public for a host of classified reasons, and which are still evolving. I won’t discuss these for obvious reasons.
The threats that exist will NOT disappear, even if Trump is convicted and sentenced.
Trump is no longer the biggest threat. His party and his enablers, domestic and foreign are still wielding influence, like a sledgehammer aimed at the very foundations of our national principles. With these principles undermined, there is no America. We are a democracy based on laws that protect that democracy.
Congress, who writes the law, is seriously compromised by a GOP that has cowardly succumbed to US, oligarchical and foreign influence peddlers.
The GOP base, or rather the MAGA movement that dominates the party, is still under the influence of professional influencers, foreign and domestic.
The FBI and DHS are still stumbling to find any real solution, to the massive amount of mis/ disinformation that fuels the MAGA crowd. DoD/ Department of Defense and the IC/ Intelligence Community, are impotent as well.
There is more to add but these five will wear out my fingers today. Even with only these, it will be difficult to summarize their complexity easily. Thanks in advance, for your patience.
Okay my friends, let’s start at the beginning.
These indictments, which will undoubtedly bring more for co-conspirators and enablers, are airtight regarding the veracity of the evidence. I know this for a long list of reasons, as that I have professionally and privately been involved with the threats leading up to the charges, since early 2015.
Not all facts will be public for a host of classified reasons, and which are still evolving. I won’t discuss these for obvious reasons.
The threats that exist will NOT disappear, even if Trump is convicted and sentenced.
Although most Americans are focused on the coup attempt alone, the Trump threat is far wider in scope and always has been. A three-and-a-half-year investigation by the SSCI/ Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the most prestigious intelligence committee in Congress, required five volumes to accomplish its mission. It was served by the best intelligence resources available to the US.
Much of its public versions of the five volumes had to be redacted for reasons of classification. This not only demonstrates that the threats are real, but involve sensitive foreign and domestic activities, defined by the IC as threats to US national security. Volume five, the CI (counterintelligence) report is 966 pages and was released in August of 2020. Any honest person reading the CI version will find it alone is damning of Trump, family, senior campaign officials, close associates and yes, the GOP who did and still support Trump’s coup and his close relationships with Russia, oligarchs, etc.
The inroads into the GOP created by and for Trump, by Russian intelligence services and all manner of oligarchs, foreign and domestic, still exist. Yes, this is the conclusion of the bipartisan SSCI. In the years since these investigations began, we now have remarkable clarity regarding this combination of foreign and domestic threats.
Trump is no longer the biggest threat. His party and his enablers, domestic and foreign are still wielding influence, like a sledgehammer aimed at the very foundations of our national principles. With these principles undermined, there is no America. We are a democracy based on laws that protect that democracy.
Once Trump became the candidate in 2016, the entire party, happily and fully embraced his oligarchical and corrupt leadership. Now, like a person infected with malaria, they will never be free of the Trump infection. To this day, the same US and foreign oligarchs, still fund and otherwise support every Trump conspiracy theory. His base, the MAGA movement has not only integrated Trumpism into their identity, but foreign and domestic influencers like FOX, Breitbart, NewsMax, OAN and the endless array of AM radio shock jocks and other media outlets, have taken his and Russian conspiracy theories to new lows.
The same false narratives of a global far-right movement are indelibly integrated into GOP agendas. Most of these points are cruel assaults on our US founding principles and violate the constitution. For any doubt of this, compare the 2022 platform of the Texas Republican Party, the national GOP leadership, Russian Orthodox Christian Nationalism/ racism, Modi’s BJP Hindutva nationalist violence etc. You will find the same overarching narratives and supporting narratives. All are dishonest and destructive to our democracy.
Congress, who writes the law, is seriously compromised by a GOP that has cowardly succumbed to US oligarchical and foreign influence peddlers.
Some oligarchs are not individuals, but organizations. The NRA is a perfect example. Not only were they the bagmen for Russian contributions to Trump and the GOP during the 2016 election, but also were the enablers of Maria Butina’s influence on the GOP, for which she was jailed on DOJ charges.
Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy sold his soul to the MAGA crowd and now has turned the House into a three-ring circus with the MAGA clowns in full control.
The stated agenda under a feckless Speaker, the GOP led House of Representatives reads like an extreme, right-wing National Inquirer. Not one item has anything to do with the lofty principles most Americans are proud of. One excellent example is the persistent drive by McCarthy and the GOP, to either defund or significantly reduce support to Ukraine. This is precisely pro-Putin.
The GOP base, or rather the MAGA movement that dominates the party, is still under the influence of professional influencers, also foreign and domestic.
This is precisely my most prominent field within the national security community. I have learned my profession (mostly OJT/ on the job learning) both in combat zones and in several other areas pertaining to US national security. The US neither understands nor is functionally competent in any ethical influence operation. This means that we fail to protect our citizens from malign influencers, not even Russian, Chinese or otherwise. We do different things but succeed at very few. Also, we haven’t a hope in hell of bringing these things together to be effective. This is how we succumbed to combined Russian and GOP far-right influencers during the 2016 election and especially during the prelude to and during the January 6th, armed insurrection/ coup.
Now retired from the US Army and daily involvement in the national security community, my specialty is the role that narrative plays in human influence. In fact, it is the key role. Without a long essay to explain narrative, I will simply say that it is how humans derive meaning from all they experience and based on their own unique identity. Knowing that identity well confers remarkable and predictable control over audiences.
Analyzing for identity is long, complicated and closely held proprietary knowledge. There are only two ways to know identity and that is 1. know how to analyze for identity or 2. construct it yourself. This is where FOX comes in. They have constructed a Pavlovian GOP identity slowly, for nearly three decades. The identity they have constructed is far-right, not conservative. Leadership of the MAGA dominated GOP in conjunction with foreign influencers like Russia have what the influence profession calls “reflexive control” over the lemmings of the MAGA crowd. Reflexive control is uniquely Russian and has been part of Russian/ Soviet Active Measures for decades.
So long as the MAGA controlled GOP is in charge, they cannot recover their American identity. They live on the fake patriotism programmed into them by Russia and domestic professional influencers, highly paid by US oligarchs seeking favoritism from Congress in order to expand their wealth at the expense of the American people. In short, FOX News has been operating for years in a manner that has for decades, been contrary to true US national values. FOX and their like-minded fake news outlets are a US National Security threat!
The FBI and DHS are still stumbling to find any real solution, to the massive amount of mis/ disinformation that fuels the MAGA crowd. DoD/ Department of Defense and the IC/ Intelligence Community, are impotent as well.
I have written on this topic so often in my career and here at TAT that I feel like I’m screaming into the wind. There are several links throughout this article that reference my deep disgust with big defense contractors, US three-letter agencies and leadership. We are simply unarmed in the field of influence. It was a large part of Russian and GOP success that led up to and sustained Trump’s coup and Russian influence within US foreign policy, none to the advantage of the US at large. Even worse, US citizens continue to pay for this unchanging, critical vulnerability in US national security.
Influence is a human endeavor and DHS and the FBI refuse to talk to the American people about the ever-present and expanding threat to our values, hence our unique American Identity. They hold countless meetings and pay the same tired, failed alleged “experts” that have failed the nation miserably since the end of the Cold War. If you recall, from earlier in this article, the key role that identity plays in “Narrative Warfare.” Rebuilding and sustaining our true US identity is the key to the resilience against “fake news.”
I will add a few links below if you would care to read on this topic:
Combat ineffective, the rusted, broken hulk of US Influence Operations
A lesson about "shaping" the Russian and Ukrainian battlefield.
The US National Security community is incapable of managing mis/ disinformation threats
No more excuses that it's too hard to find truth. (It really isn't)
Dear America, I dare you! - by Paul Cobaugh (truthaboutthreats.com)
Guest article, by Friend and Narrative Strategies Founder, Dr. Ajit Maan (truthaboutthreats.com)
With all that I shared here today and with the large number of links, I have probably already overloaded everyone’s reading list. Still, please at least save this somewhere. The information, experience and knowledge will help to decipher the still existent threat of Trump, MAGA and a wave of global RWE/ Right-Wing Extremism.
Please also remember as the hysterical political posturing begins, you will see many within the GOP rallying the wagons for Trump and RWE. One group of the GOP that particularly spikes my anger, are those elected GOP Congressmen and Senators that are veterans, like my own Congressman, Tony Gonzales of TX 23. They swear a like oath to serve in Congress as they do when they are still uniform, to protect the constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic. Not one of them has stood up for either the constitution or America. No denunciations, no callouts, no votes for our constitutional principles… nothing, nada, not one damn thing.
If we cannot get Americans to reject the MAGA, Russian inspired hordes, our democracy is at serious risk. This is why we must see yesterday’s indictments with a broader aperture we will have solved nothing. I hope and pray that Jack Smith and AG Merrick Garland, prosecute the enablers and financiers who knew, but were complicit. This includes Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy along with their entire representation in congress. Not one of them has the courage to honor their oaths of office. Why should we allow them to be there then? They are part and parcel of a piece I will write in the near future, American Oligarchy.
Until then, my very best for your week,
Paul
“President Joe Biden was spot on last year when giving a speech in Philadelphia.
The soul of America is defined by the sacred proposition that all are created equal in the image of God. That all are entitled to be treated with decency, dignity, and respect. That all deserve justice and a shot at lives of prosperity and consequence. And that democracy — democracy must be defended, for democracy makes all these things possible. Folks, and it’s up to us.”
-President Joe Biden
-Independence National Historical Park
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
-September 1, 2022