This newest revelation of Bob Woodward’s would blow any other political candidate out of the water, but we are a long ways from “47%” or “Swiftboat” which were credited with sinking the candidacies of Mitt Romney and John Kerry, respectively. We are told that an “October Surprise” meaning an unearthed fact, or perhaps a recorded slip of the tongue, an unintended faux pas, can sink somebody. Let’s see if in fact that’s the case with this October surprise, that Donald Trump was on the phone seven times to Vladimir Putin, as a private citizen, and even provided Putin with COVID testing kits, when Americans were going without. Here’s the set up to this story: First of all, the same morning this scandal breaks, today, Trump is on a phone interview bragging about his relationship with the Russian dictator.
Trump brags about his relationship with Putin hours after bombshell new report that he secretly sent COVID tests to Putin in 2020 while Americans were struggling to get tests: “I got along with him very well” pic.twitter.com/Jr9jTQP2SC
— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) October 8, 2024
Now here is the point of concern. CNN is reporting that a missing binder of raw intelligence data went “missing” under Trump. Maybe it’s in the bathroom with the rest of the boxes at Mar-a-Lago, maybe Vladimir Putin got it, or at least knows its contents. This piece is dated December 15, 2023, but it’s back in the news today.
Washington (CNN) — 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.
That’s how legitimate people do things. You go into a SCIF (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility) which is a windowless room, and examine documents. Cell phones and the like are not allowed.
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.
There you have it once again, Mark Meadows is the linchpin. The binder contained information on the Russian interference into the 2016 election, codenamed “Crossfire Hurricane.” But it’s the raw intelligence on Russia, which was among its “most sensitive classified materials” which Putin would be very interested in. The article goes on to say, “Trump administration officials repeatedly tried to block the former president from releasing the documents.”
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 article goes on, and I recommend reading it in its entirety, but that’s the bombshell here, is that this binder went floating out there somewhere and who knows who has it today, or who has reproduced its contents and given them, or sold them, to whom?
And we are told that this very same person, Donald Trump, could be headed back up to Pennsylvania Avenue, to wreak even further havoc with our government and our way of life.
every day has been an October surprise not surprised so far
Since Trump came down the escalator it’s been one mind fuck after the next. That is true.
I can’t imagine this would surprise anyone, even his supporters. And I struggled using ‘supporters’ instead of something more colorful. I’m so freakin’ tired of this BS. Why is he not doing life for January 6th?
Said missing file may have found its way into the coffin of a deceased wife. Coffin did look somewhat weighty as pallbearers struggled to carry it, to finally rest in a Trump owned golf course. Read this conspiratorial thought as plausible entertainment. A plot of scheming strategic skulduggery. It’s script is written for a main actor whose role is fawning instability, along with a potential for traitorous deeds. An intriguing storyline of significant scheming strategic skulduggery.
If Trump could make money off it he would, I doubt it’s being stored by him anywhere. The Russians will have it, for, by their standards, a surprisingly low price.
I read that she was cremated. Why was it so extremely heavy and why use a casket at all?
I have experience in this area and burying a casket containing cremated remains isn’t common but not rare either. Loved ones might object to the deceased having been cremated but still want to make a display of sorts, hence burying a casket. That there was some heft to it again isn’t all that surprising. A high quality casket can weigh up to 350-400 pounds empty. Trump of course wouldn’t have wanted to pay for even a direct cremation in a stock cardboard cremation container, much less a casket. He’d have been fine with chucking what was left of Ivana into a hole some grounds worker dug in the woods on his golf course! My guess is that the evil spawn from his first marriage decided not to allow such a cheap send-off for mom and kicked in the dough to make it look good.
Not that Trump wouldn’t have buried some stuff in that casket of course. Still, digging one up isn’t easily done without attracting notice. Even at night. Plus if the kids sprung for a sealed vault it too would likely have been of decent quality and breaking one of THOSE suckers open is quite a task. Basically you have to destroy it to get the casket out. So for all those reasons I rather doubt there’s anything juicy in that casket with Ivana’s urn.
Thank you!
” That there was some heft to it again isn’t all that surprising. A high quality casket can weigh up to 350-400 pounds empty.”
Well, that’s all well and good and all, but that much weight should NOT appear to pose a problem for TEN reasonably healthy adult men. (And checking pictures from Reuters, her casket was being handled by as many as ten pallbearers. One picture shows only nine men but that was as they were approaching the hearse.) Typically, one doesn’t ask a person to act as a pallbearer if they cannot physically handle the weight, no matter how much that person might want to do the job.
It didn’t have to be exhumed. The document(s) would have been added before they sealed the casket.
I can see Trump.giggling like the Joker that he finally got rid of the old bitch and also over on her by burying evidence of possible criminal actr. She died in 2022 and Trump was already being investigated.