Lunatic Fringe (thanks Red Rider!!)
I know it’s been a while since my last blog. In my non-blog life I am a high school track coach, and this is “crazy” time. But I’m back today, so let’s get crazy!!
Louise Mensch has “all of the answers” in regards to Trump, Putin, and the Russian takeover of the American Presidency (her theory, not necessarily mine.) She has an odd background for a “ground-breaking” reporter on an American crisis. Born in England, a former Conservative Member of Parliament, she moved to the US to be with her children and husband Peter Mensch who runs “Q Prime” a band management group (Metallica, Red Hot Chile Peppers, Smashing Pumpkins.)
She made her reputation in Parliament with her sharp questioning of the Murdochs (Fox News) in the British media phone hacking scandal. After she resigned from Parliament and moved to the US, she went to work for “Heat Sheet” on online political “news” journal owned by the Murdoch’s News Corp.
She broke into the Trump story with a November 2016 story stating that the FBI had been granted a FISA warrant for activity between the Trump Tower server and two Russian Banks. This warrant would cover anyone with connections to these servers, thus perhaps including Donald Trump himself. While at the time the story seemed fantastical, and in fact was denied by the New York Times, later research by other organizations (BBC, the Guardian) seemed to back her claims.
Since that time she had developed a comprehensive theory of a multiple year attack by Russia on the United States, which include the claims that there are Russian “moles” in the National Security Agency that influenced and aided Edward Snowden in his massive data breach of US secrets. She sees all of these actions (Snowden, email hacking, election involvement, subversion of senior American government officials) as one plan orchestrated by Russian President Putin. She no longer writes for “Heat Sheet” though she continues to be employed by News Corp. She blogs about the Trump crisis at her website patribotics.blog. Her comprehensive theory of the crisis is further explained here:
I can’t prove that she’s wrong: but it’s difficult to prove that she’s right either. She has attempted to develop a “roadmap” for the current crisis, and much of her early work has proven to be accurate. It doesn’t mean that it’s all correct: but it does give pause.
Christopher Steele, the author of the famous “Trump Dossier” (including Golden Showers) is another Englishman whose work has had a dramatic impact on the current crisis. Steele, a former British intelligence agent, was commissioned first by opposing Republicans and later by Democrats to develop a report of Trumps’ activities regarding Russia. It was the revelation of this document (wholly unsubstantiated by outside sources at the time) that began the Trump crisis. And again, while large portions are still unsubstantiated, significant pieces have been documented.
As Bob Woodward of Watergate fame pointed out at the White House Correspondents Dinner on Saturday, reporting is about putting a story together piece by piece, and not getting ahead of the substantiated facts. He and Carl Bernstein look back to the years it took them to piece together (along with many other reporters) the Watergate scandal that brought down the Nixon Presidency.
Deep Throat stamped his foot. ‘A conspiracy like this…a conspiracy investigation…the rope has to tighten slowly around everyone’s neck. You build convincingly from the outer edges in, you get ten times the evidence you need against the Hunts and the Liddys. They feel hopelessly finished – they may not talk right away, but the grip is on them. Then you move up and do the same thing at the next level. If you shoot too high and miss, then everyone feels more secure. Lawyers work this way. I’m sure smart reporters must, too. You’ve put the investigation back months. It puts everyone on the defensive – editors, FBI agents, everybody has to go into a crouch after this.’
Louise Mensch may be on the “lunatic fringe” of the Trump investigation. It doesn’t mean she’s wrong, it just means she’s shooting too high. Christopher Steele wasn’t worried about an investigation, he was just writing an opposition research report. In the end they may both be road maps to nowhere, or they may show the direction of this Constitutional crisis.
