TBR News April 1, 2019

The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Isaiah 40:3-8

Washington, D.C. March 31, 2019:”We have just received a notice from a firm that specializes in digging electronic information out of the woodwork. The firm lists several pages of topics, some of which are unbelievable. They are very expensive but one must assume that their data is correct. We are excerpting some of this list and have included their address for those who have the money to learn the truth as, according to the précis, it has never been available before.

• Successor to the NSA ‘Harvest” programs that catalog important overseas telephone calls made via communications satellites.
• In depth information on the DoD’s DISA sytems / VIPER and others
• USIA/Warrentown files
• In depth dossiers on members of Congress. These, the list advises us, consists of medical and financial records.
• A 250 page report on the fake Anthrax scare
• Firms and individuals in foreign countries known to be friendly sources.
• Scanned copies of Governor George W. Bush’s personal correspondence and financial records, now hidden in the George H.W.Bush Presidential Library
• Lists of offshore bank accounts for senior political and military figures
• The so-called ‘Wilson Blvd.’ technical and scientific records
• A report on infiltration and surveillance of all Israeli communications with their embassy and other entities in the United States
• An analysis of a collection of documents relating to homosexual activities on the part of President Trump
• A copy of an FBI report on Edward Snowden’ employment by Russian Intelligence and a compendium of secret documents he downloaded for them from Booz-Hamilton connections

There are many more fascinating offerings but it should be noted that on the list we were sent, prices are very high indeed but approved credit cards, especially American Express, can be used. We have not availed ourselves of this reported service but as it might prove to be interesting to our many readers, especially those with large amounts of cash, we are including the address for your general information: www.spywarelabs.inc and one must apply for an entrance code.

Good hunting!”

The Table of Contents

• Here Are the Other Investigations President Trump Still Faces
• Congress must investigate Trump. But it must also be strategic about it
• The Turnover at the Top of the Trump Administration Is Unprecedented
• When it comes to disclosing sponsors, your Google Assistant may be mute
• Encyclopedia of American Loons
• -Jon Rappoport
• Donna Martonfi
• Larry Pittman
• Ileana Paugh
• Dan Patrick
• The CIA Confessions: The Crowley Conversations

 

Here Are the Other Investigations President Trump Still Faces

March 24, 2019

by  Abigail Abrams

TIME

A summary of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s confidential report to the Justice Department released Sunday said the 22-month investigation concluded without finding evidence of Trump campaign collusion with the Russian government during the 2016 presidential election, nor did it conclude that President Donald Trump committed the crime of obstruction of justice.

Mueller cautioned that his report does not exonerate the President, either.

Trump trumpeted the findings of the report, which recommended no additional indictments, as a victory, tweeting, “No Collusion, No Obstruction, Complete and Total EXONERATION. KEEP AMERICA GREAT!”

However, Trump is not out from under the investigative microscope. There are more than a dozen other investigations and lawsuits looking into the President, his businesses, his family and his associates.

This is not an exhaustive list, as there may be investigations that have not yet been made public, and there are other loosely connected players also being investigated thanks to Mueller’s work. But here are the key legal threats still facing Trump and his inner circle.

Ongoing Investigations

Roger Stone criminal trial

There are a number of ongoing cases that will fall to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in D.C. One of the most prominent is around longtime Trump confidant Roger Stone, who was arrested in January 2019 as part of the Mueller investigation. He was charged with witness tampering and lying to Congress about his communications with WikiLeaks. After he posted about the case on social media, the judge placed him under a gag order. His trial is set for November, and federal prosecutors in D.C. will now handle his prosecution, according to the New York Times.

The hush money investigation

This case is located in the Southern District of New York and focused on payments Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen made on his behalf to women who allegedly had affairs with Trump. Cohen pleaded guilty in August of 2018 to campaign finance violations and other financial crimes, admitting he made payments to Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels to keep them quiet in the run up the 2016 election. In December, he was sentenced to three years in prison.

Prosecutors directly implicated the President when they said in December that Cohen acted “in coordination and at the direction of” Trump. Since then, federal prosecutors reached a non-prosecution agreement with American Media Inc., the parent company of the National Enquirer that was involved in the hush payments. Prosecutors in New York still have an “ongoing investigation” into the campaign finance issues here, and they are reportedly looking into whether the Trump Organization or its executives played any role.

Trump’s inauguration funding

Federal prosecutors in multiple offices have been looking into the record $107 million that Trump’s inauguration committee raised and asking questions about who the money came from, how it was spent and whether the committee gave donors favors or special access.

Last September, Republican political consultant Sam Patten admitted steering $50,000 from a Ukrainian oligarch to Trump’s inauguration committee. FBI agents found more evidence about the inauguration when they were investigating Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer.

Mueller’s office initially looked into potential foreign donations to the inauguration, and now the U.S. attorney’s offices in Manhattan and Brooklyn are both investigating the involvement of foreign money. In February, prosecutors for the Southern District of New York sent a subpoena to the Trump inaugural committee demanding documents about the committee’s spending and donors. Prosecutors in New Jersey and the District of Columbia also sent subpoenas to the committee in separate probes.

Pro-Trump super PAC

Prosecutors in the Southern District of New York have also been looking into potential wrongdoing related to a pro-Trump super PAC called Rebuilding America Now. In December, the Times reported that prosecutors were interviewing people about whether Manafort illegally coordinated with the group while he was running Trump’s campaign, and whether the super PAC had taken in donations from people in Qatar or other Middle Eastern countries. So far, this investigation has not resulted in any indictments.

Trump Organization insurance policies

When Cohen testified in front of Congress last month, he mentioned that the Trump Organization inflated its assets to insurance companies. Days later, the New York Department of Financial Services sent a subpoena to Aon, the Trump Organization’s longtime insurance broker, according to the New York Times. The subpoena asked for all communication between Aon and the Trump Organization, as well as other internal documents and contracts.

The Department of Financial Services is an agency that supervises the insurance industry, so it does not conduct criminal investigations. However, it it found wrongdoing, it could refer that information to prosecutors.

Trump Organization real estate deals

In another inquiry prompted by Cohen’s testimony, the New York attorney general this month began looking into several Trump Organization projects, including a failed attempt to buy the Buffalo Bills football team. Investigators sent subpoenas to Deutsche Bank and Investors Bank about the projects in early March, according to the Times.

Deutsche Bank has been under scrutiny as one of the few financial institutions willing to lend money to the Trump Organizations in recent years. The scope of this investigation is not clear, but the subpoenas requested information about loan applications, mortgages, credit and other financial interactions related to Trump properties in Washington, Florida, New York and Chicago, according to the Times.

The Trump Foundation

The New York attorney general’s office sued the Donald J. Trump Foundation and its directors last year, saying they engaged in a “shocking pattern of illegality.” The Trumps agreed to dissolve the foundation in December, but the suit is still going. The attorney general wants the Trumps to pay millions in penalties and bar him from serving on the board of any New York charity for a decade, while the Trumps are claiming that the suit was politically motivated.

The Trump Foundation is also under investigation for potentially violating state tax laws. This case could lead to a criminal referral, unlike the civil case above.

Trump’s taxes

The New York state tax department said in October it was looking into allegations brought up in a New York Times investigation into decades of Trump’s “tax schemes.” New York City officials have also said they are examining Trump’s tax history.

Trump’s golf club employing undocumented immigrants

After two undocumented immigrants who worked at Trump’s golf club in New Jersey went public in interviews with the Times in December, federal and state investigators started looking into the situation. Lawyers for the two workers said in December that the FBI and the New Jersey attorney general’s office were examining allegations that the Trump golf club hired workers using fraudulent papers. Then in February, Democrats in Congress called for the FBI to fully investigate the situation.

Lawsuits

The emoluments lawsuit

There were questions about whether Trump would personally profit from his position as President even before he entered the White House. In June 2017, the attorneys general of Maryland and Washington D.C. sued Trump, claiming that his D.C. hotel violated the Emoluments Clause of the United States Constitution, which says that no federal official can accept any gift or benefit “of any kind whatever” from any foreign government.

A judge ruled last year that the case could move forward, but Trump’s lawyers have appealed and a federal appeals court that heard the case last week seemed skeptical that Trump was illegally profiting, according to the Washington Post. If the court did rule against Trump, the case could reveal significant information and have big implications for Trump’s businesses.

Michael Cohen’s legal fees

Trump’s former personal lawyer filed a lawsuit in New York state court on March 7 claiming the Trump Organization breached a contract because it stopped paying his legal fees last year. The court filing alleges the organization stopped paying him after it became clear he would cooperate with investigators, and says Trump’s company owes him $1.9 million.

Summer Zervos defamation suit

Zervos was a contestant on the Apprentice and said in 2016 that Trump had sexually assaulted her in 2007. After Trump called her a liar on the campaign trial, and Zervos filed a defamation lawsuit against him in 2017.

Trump’s lawyers have tried to get this lawsuit dismissed, but it is still ongoing. Discovery is currently going on, and the judge in the case has ruled that Trump does have to be deposed. Trump will likely keep fighting the suit, so his deposition is not certain, but it would be a field of landmines, as he would be under oath.

Congress

House Intelligence Committee

Last spring when Republicans controlled the House of Representatives, the House Intelligence Committee put out a report saying that while Russia tried to influence the 2016 election, it was not aiming to help Trump. This contradicted all other U.S. intelligence community findings.

Now that Democrats control the House, Intelligence Committee chair Adam Schiff is diving back into the Russia investigation. He has expanded the probe and plans to investigate not only Russian interference, but also Russian connections to Trump, whether Russians hold any leverage over Trump or members of his team and whether Trump has obstructed justice.

House Judiciary Committee

In early March, the House Judiciary Committee launched a broad investigation into three main areas: whether Trump has obstructed justice; whether there has been corruption such as breaking campaign finance laws or misusing Trump’s office for personal gain; and whether Trump has abused his power through pardons or attacks on the press, judiciary or law enforcement agencies.

House Oversight Committee

This committee, led by Rep. Elijah Cummings, is also looking into a number of areas but the most prominent is its investigation into the Trump administration’s handling of security clearances. Concerns with the process increased in recent months after the New York Times reported that Trump intervened to overrule intelligence officials and obtain security clearance for his son-in-law Jared Kushner. A White House appointee also overruled intelligence officials on at least 30 staffers’ security clearances, according to NBC News. The House Oversight Committee has asked the White House for documents relating to the security clearances and aims to find out why concerns were being overruled.

House Financial Services

Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters chairs the House Financial Services Committee, and she is planning a joint investigation with the Intelligence Committee into why Deutsche Bank was willing to lend money to the Trump Organization when few other financial institutions would do so.

The bank is already under scrutiny from New York prosecutors, and it was fined in the past over a Russian money laundering scheme. Waters has also said in the past that the President, his oldest daughter Ivanka and her husband Kushner are all clients of Deutsche Bank. So these Congressional committees will want to look at whether there was anything illicit going on in the bank’s dealings with the Trump Organization.

House Ways and Means Committee

The House Ways and Means chairman, Democrat Richard Neal, has said he wants to subpoena Trump’s tax returns. Unlike every president going back to Richard Nixon, Trump has refused to release his tax returns since he launched his presidential campaign, which has led many to speculate about their contents.

But now that Democrats control one of the most powerful committees in the House, they are preparing to ask for them. This request will likely not move quickly, but it will be one of the most watched inquiries as things move forward.

House Foreign Affairs Committee

Democratic Rep. Eliot Engel, the committee chairman here, said in January he planned to investigate whether Trump’s business dealings abroad have affected his foreign policy decisions. He also wants to look into whether the President violated the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution.

In March, the House Foreign Affairs Committee joined the Intelligence and Oversight committees in demanding documents and interviews related to Trump’s communication with Putin.

Senate Intelligence

The Senate Intelligence Committee started investigating Russia’s election interference in 2017. Unlike its House counterpart, it issued a report in the summer of 2018 concluding that Russia did interfere in the 2016 election to try to help Trump.A

But its investigation is still ongoing. Given that it has seen fewer scandals than the House version, many have seen this as one of the few bipartisan efforts to look into the ongoing questions around Trump and Russia.

 

Congress must investigate Trump. But it must also be strategic about it

Investigations should be undertaken more with a view to legislating for the future than coming to terms with the past

April 1, 2019

by Laurence H. Tribe

The Guardian

Rarely have the demands of constitutional democracy and the rule of law been in greater tension with the imperatives of progressive politics. Fidelity to the constitution and the primacy of law over naked power call for a determined effort by Congress to unearth the full truth about Donald Trump’s actions leading up to the election, and since assuming office.

Congress has a duty to look into the incumbent president’s offenses in seizing the White House and whether, having arrived at the pinnacle of power, he obstructed efforts to uncover the details of his corrupt ascent and to disclose the many facets of his interference with investigations into those details.

At the same time, one would have to be politically blind not to see that the vast majority of voters care far less about those matters than about kitchen table issues like health care and economic opportunity for this generation and the next. People have become all but immune even to undeniable evidence that Donald Trump is guided not by our national interest but by his own greed for power and by the leverage that hostile foreign nations are able to exert over his decisions. Ironically abetted by the daily barrage of frightening revelations about their leader, Americans have become so eager to move on that they have little patience left for seemingly abstract matters of legal principle and democratic legitimacy.

Yet it would be an inexcusable dereliction of duty for those with responsibility to get to the bottom of our democratic predicament to shut down their inquiries – or even to conduct them out of the full view of the public. There are those in the Democratic party who would prefer to have these investigations recede from center stage. And many Trump supporters remain eager to hang the albatross of endless investigation around the necks of Democrats and to identify the Democratic party more with dwelling in the past than with planning for a better future. But it is unlikely that the House judiciary, intelligence, and oversight committees will be tempted to give either of these groups what they want.

The skillfully drafted 24 March letter by attorney general William Barr was shamefully misleading and provides no reason to drop the investigation into Trump’s wrongdoing. It buried the lede – that the long-awaited report of special counsel Robert Mueller “does not exonerate” the president – in a fog of inconclusive verbiage. And it will long obscure the truth that Trump and his close associates sought the unlawful help of a hostile foreign power in the quest for the presidency, gladly accepted that help while committing serious campaign finance crimes designed to bury stories that might derail his campaign, and have been taking steps ever since to reward the assistance they received, conducting America’s foreign policy in a way that would be inexplicable were it not for Trump’s personal and business interests. Though Barr cannot undo the harm he has done already, he must at least provide the entire unredacted Mueller Report immediately to the House intelligence and judiciary committees, as demanded.

All but the most uncritical loyalists of the president appear to have agreed that the special counsel’s responsibility was to decide whether the president had obstructed justice, regardless of the justice department’s policy regarding the indictment of a sitting president – not to punt on that critical responsibility at the very end. I would like to think in light of Mueller’s reputation as a straight shooter, that he hadn’t intended to leave that issue in the hands of the obviously partisan attorney general.

Rather, I suspect Mueller’s report will support the conclusion that, as with previous such situations, his intent was to leave the obstruction issue to the House of Representatives, as part of its investigation into potentially impeachable offenses. If that is the case, then attorney general Barr’s decision to take the matter out of Congress’s hands was wholly inexcusable. Presumably Congress will probe that decision when Barr testifies in the House shortly. But that testimony will necessarily move the national focus once again to the Mueller report and the issue of possible impeachment – arguably a dangerous distraction from the perspective of those vying for the Democratic nomination to the presidency.

What, then, is to be done by those who recognize both the need to bring a positive political agenda to the fore if Trump’s reign is to be limited to a single term and the need for relentless investigation to inform both Congress and the public at large?

The first step is to recognize that there is no magic way to untangle that Gordian knot. There’s a reason that not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good has become a cliché. It happens to be sound advice. It is undeniable that public investigation into Trump, even if not emphasized on the campaign trail or in political ads, might to some degree undercut the political message of candidates on the stump seeking to topple the incumbent president in 2020. But that political reality cannot be permitted to deter the search for truth.

That said, there is every reason for investigators in Congress and elsewhere to be savvy in their emphasis. The financial entanglements – including unconstitutional acceptance of emoluments from foreign governments and their agents – that are compromising this administration in often hidden ways range far beyond Moscow. They reach such foreign capitals as Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, Doha in Qatar, Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, and Istanbul in Turkey. Unearthing the corrupting influence on Trump, Jared Kushner, and others in the far-reaching swamp surrounding and propping up this president and shaping his policies should be prioritized as a matter of public perception over what will invariably appear to be a rerun of a too familiar movie about the Kremlin, about the firing of FBI director James Comey, and about the president’s many other efforts in plain view to obstruct the inquiry into Russian collusion.

Even though it is a legal fallacy to claim that obstructing justice is no big deal unless the person interfering with a legitimate inquiry is guilty of an underlying crime – just ask Richard Nixon – it has become a political reality in our time. This is a reality that the Barr letter exploited, and one that Congress should take into account in setting its investigatory priorities.

This isn’t to deny the importance of designing new legislation that might be enacted after 2020 to make presidential abuses of the pardon and other executive powers both more transparent and less likely, and to contain foreign intrusion into our electoral processes that the current administration has done nothing to deter. It is, however, to suggest that investigations into obstruction and election interference should be undertaken more with a view to legislating for the future than with a view to coming to terms with the past.

The longer the Trump administration remains in power, the more deeply it will deform the institutions and norms undergirding constitutional democracy. In order to limit this president to a single term in office, little could matter more than to be strategic about deploying the indispensable investigatory weapons available to us, principally through congressional hearings. But to be strategic about the use of those weapons must not come to mean silencing them.

Laurence H Tribe is the Carl M Loeb University Professor at Harvard, where he has taught constitutional law for 50 years

The Turnover at the Top of the Trump Administration Is Unprecedented

March 29, 2019

by Denise Lu and Karen Yourish

The New York Times

Since President Trump’s inauguration, White House staffers and cabinet officials have left in firings and resignations, one after the other. Linda E. McMahon, the head of the Small Business Administration, announced her resignation on Friday.

Staff turnover for senior White House aides is higher than what it was at the same time in previous administrations, according to the Brookings Institution.

And the flurry of changes at the White House and cabinet level is “unprecedented,” said Max Stier, the president and chief executive of the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit organization that specializes in federal government management issues.

“The disruption is highly consequential,” Mr. Stier said. “When you lose a leader, it has a cascade effect throughout the organization.”

A New York Times analysis of 21 top White House and cabinet positions back to President Bill Clinton’s first term shows how unusual the Trump administration’s upheaval was through the first 14 months of a presidency. Nine of these positions had turned over at least once during the Trump administration, compared with three at the same point of the Clinton administration, two under President Barack Obama and one under President George W. Bush.

On several occasions, Mr. Trump has filled newly open positions with officials already in his administration. He chose Mike Pompeo, the C.I.A. director, to replace Mr. Tillerson, and Mr. Pompeo’s deputy, Gina Haspel, to replace Mr. Pompeo. Ms. Hicks, a longtime aide and confidant, took over communications after Mr. Scaramucci’s disastrous tenure. And Kirstjen Nielsen, who now leads the Department of Homeland Security, crisscrossed from that department to the White House and then back again.“There’s a pull to fill from within, but that’s often a bad idea,” Mr. Stier said. “Not only does it create a new vacancy but you’re also not expanding the talent pool. One of the primary leadership challenges is getting information from outside the bubble you exist in.”

Full List of Major Departures

Resignation announced March 29, 2019

Linda E. McMahon

Administrator of Small Business Administration

Ms. McMahon, the former chief executive of World Wrestling Entertainment, is expected to take a position at the America First PAC, the political action committee supporting Mr. Trump’s re-election.

Resigned on March 8, 2019

Bill Shine

Deputy chief of staff for communications

Mr. Shine, a former Fox News executive who joined the White House staff to manage President Trump’s communications operation, resigned to move to Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign.

Resignation announced March 8, 2019

Heather Wilson

Air Force secretary

Ms. Wilson is expected to resign in May to return to academia, according to Reuters.

Resigned on Jan. 5, 2019

Raj Shah

Principal deputy press secretary

Mr. Shah, a top spokesman in the White House press office, left to join a Florida-based lobbying firm.

Resignation announced Dec. 20, 2018

Jim Mattis

Secretary of Defense

Mr. Mattis resigned a day after Mr. Trump announced plans to withdraw troops from Syria.

Resignation announced Dec. 15, 2018

Ryan Zinke

Secretary of Interior

A key figure in the president’s sweeping plan to reshape the nation’s environmental framework, Mr. Zinke will leave his post at the end of the year. His departure comes amid numerous ethics investigations into his business dealings, travel and policy decisions.

Resignation announced Dec. 9, 2018

Nick Ayers

Chief of staff to vice president

Mr. Ayers declined President Trump’s offer to be his new chief of staff and announced that he would leave the administration at the end of the year.

Resignation announced Dec. 8, 2018

John F. Kelly

White House chief of staff

President Trump announced that Mr. Kelly, who had been brought in last year to impose order on the West Wing, would step down by the end of the year. Read more »

Fired Nov. 7, 2018

Jeff Sessions

Attorney general

After months of verbal abuse by Mr. Trump, the president fired Mr. Sessions the day after midterm elections that handed control of the House to Democrats.

Resignation announced Oct. 9, 2018

Nikki Haley

U.N. Ambassador

The departure of Ms. Haley, who had been an early and frequent critic of Mr. Trump, will mean one less moderate Republican voice on the president’s foreign policy team.

 

Resignation announced Aug. 29, 2018

Donald F. McGahn II

White House counsel

Mr. McGahn’s upcoming departure was announced by Mr. Trump on Twitter. Mr. McGahn is a key witness to whether the president tried to obstruct the investigation into Russian election interference.  »

Resignation announced July 5, 2018

Scott Pruitt

E.P.A. administrator

Mr. Pruitt had been hailed as a hero among conservatives for his zealous deregulation, but he could not overcome the stain of numerous ethics questions about his alleged spending abuses, first-class travel and cozy relationships with lobbyists.

Resignation announced June 19, 2018

Joseph W. Hagin

Deputy chief of staff

Mr. Hagin, who previously served for 14 years under Presidents Ronald Reagan, George Bush and George W. Bush, has more experience on the White House staff than nearly any other person in modern times.

Resignation announced April 12, 2018

Maj. Gen. Ricky Waddell

Deputy national security adviser

The White House said Mr. Waddell “will stay on board for the immediate future to help ensure a smooth and orderly transition.”

Resignation announced April 11, 2018

Nadia Schadlow

Deputy national security adviser for strategy

Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster asked Ms. Schadlow to join his staff as a deputy assistant to the president for national security strategy in March. She took over for Dina H. Powell as deputy national security adviser for strategy in January.

Forced out April 10, 2018

Thomas P. Bossert

Homeland security adviser

Mr. Bossert’s resignation coincided with the arrival of John R. Bolton as the president’s national security adviser, and was an unmistakable sign that Mr. Bolton is intent on naming his own people.

Forced out April 8, 2018

Michael Anton

National Security Council spokesman

The White House announced Mr. Anton’s plans to leave the administration the day before Mr. Trump’s third national security adviser, John R. Bolton, formally took his post.

Firing announced March 13, 2018

Rex W. Tillerson

Secretary of State

Mr. Tillerson learned he had been fired when a top aide showed him a tweet from Mr. Trump announcing that he would be replaced by Mike Pompeo, the C.I.A. director.

Resigned March 29, 2018

Hope Hicks

White House communications director

Ms. Hicks, one of Mr. Trump‘s most trusted advisers, announced in early March that she would resign in the coming weeks.

Fired March 28, 2018

David J. Shulkin

Secretary of Veterans Affairs

After weeks of uncertainty, Mr. Trump said he planned to replace Mr. Shulkin with his White House physician, Dr. Ronny L. Jackson, a rear admiral in the Navy.

Resignation announced March 22, 2018

Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster

National security adviser

General McMaster resigned under pressure after it became clear that Mr. Trump wanted him out. He was replaced by John R. Bolton, a hard-line former United States ambassador to the United Nations.

Fired March 16, 2018

Andrew McCabe

F.B.I. deputy director

Mr. McCabe was fired after the Justice Department rejected an appeal that would have let him retire. He is accused in a yet-to-be-released internal report of failing to be forthcoming about a conversation he authorized between F.B.I. officials and a journalist.

Resigned March 16, 2018

Rick Dearborn

White House deputy chief of staff

Mr. Dearborn had been overseeing a broad cross section of departments, including the political department.

Forced out March 12, 2018

John McEntee

President Trump’s personal aide

Mr. McEntee, who served as President Trump’s personal assistant since Mr. Trump won the presidency, was forced out of his position and escorted from the White House after an investigation into his finances caused his security clearance to be revoked.

Resignation announced March 6, 2018

Gary D. Cohn

Director of White House National Economic Council

The announcement of the resignation of Mr. Cohn, Mr. Trump’s top economic adviser, came as Mr. Cohn seemed poised to lose an internal struggle over the president’s plan to impose large tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.

Forced out Feb. 9, 2018

David Sorensen

White House speechwriter

Mr. Sorensen resigned after a news report detailed accusations from a former wife who said he had abused her during their marriage.

Resigned Feb. 9, 2018

Rachel L. Brand

Associate attorney general

The No. 3 official at the Justice Department stepped down after nine months to take a job as the global governance director at Walmart.

Forced out Feb. 7, 2018

Rob Porter

White House staff secretary

Mr. Porter resigned one day after his two former wives accused him in interviews of physical abuse during their marriages.

Forced out Jan. 31, 2018

Brenda Fitzgerald

Director of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Ms. Fitzgerald resigned over troubling financial investments in tobacco and health care companies that posed potential conflicts of interest.

Forced out Jan. 18, 2018

Carl Higbie

Chief of external affairs for Corporation for National and Community Service

Resigned under pressure after CNN surfaced disparaging remarks he had made in the past about black people, Muslims, gays and veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Fired Dec. 13, 2017

Omarosa Manigault Newman

Director of communications for the White House Office of Public Liaison

A former contestant on Mr. Trump’s reality TV show

Resignation announced Dec. 8, 2017

Dina H. Powell

Deputy national security adviser for strategy

One of the most influential women in the Trump administration, Ms. Powell is returning to Goldman Sachs.

 

Forced out Sept. 29, 201

Tom Price

Secretary of Health and Human Services

Mr. Price resigned under pressure after racking up hundreds of thousands of dollars in travel bills for chartered flights.

Resigned Sept. 20, 2017

Keith Schiller

Director of Oval Office operations

Mr. Trump’s longtime aide and former bodyguard decided to leave the White House soon after Mr. Kelly arrived.

Forced out Aug. 25, 2017

Sebastian Gorka

Adviser

Mr. Gorka was forced out shortly after Mr. Bannon left the White House.

Resignation announced Aug. 18, 2017

George Sifakis

Director of White House Office of Public Liaison

Mr. Sifakis stepped down soon after Reince Priebus, Mr. Trump’s first chief of staff, was forced out.

Forced out Aug. 18, 2017

Stephen K. Bannon

Chief strategist

Mr. Trump’s populist chief strategist was pushed out shortly after Mr. Kelly took over as chief of staff.

Fired July 31, 2017

Anthony Scaramucci

White House communications director

Mr. Scaramucci was fired on Mr. Kelly’s first day in the White House. His dismissal came days after he unloaded a crude verbal tirade against other members of the president’s staff in a conversation with a reporter for The New Yorker.

Forced out July 28, 2017

Reince Priebus

White House chief of staff

Mr. Priebus was forced out after a stormy six-month tenure.

Resigned July 21, 2017

Sean Spicer

White House press secretary

Mr. Spicer resigned after telling Mr. Trump he vehemently disagreed with his appointment of Mr. Scaramucci as his new communications director.

Resigned June 2, 2017

Mike Dubke

White House communications director

Mr. Dubke told colleagues he was resigning for reasons that were “personal.”

Forced out May 19, 2017

1. T. McFarland

Deputy national security adviser

Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster pushed Ms. McFarland out after he took over for Michael T. Flynn, Mr. Trump’s first national security adviser. She was nominated as ambassador to Singapore but withdrew her nomination after it stalled in the Senate.

Fired May 9, 2017

James B. Comey

F.B.I. director

Mr. Trump said on national television that he fired Mr. Comey because he was frustrated over the F.B.I.’s investigation into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 campaign and its possible contacts with Mr. Trump’s advisers.

Forced out March 30, 2017

Katie Walsh

White House deputy chief of staff

Ms. Walsh was forced out by Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and a top White House adviser, and other West Wing officials.

Forced out Feb. 13, 2017

Michael T. Flynn

National security adviser

Mr. Flynn was forced to resign amid questions about whether he lied to administration officials about the nature of his conversations with the Russian ambassador to the United States.

 

When it comes to disclosing sponsors, your Google Assistant may be mute

April 1, 2019

by Paresh Dave

Reuters

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – On stage at an investor conference last month, Google’s Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler identified a vexing challenge for the company’s most prized app: its virtual assistant.

Responding to user searches out loud through Google Assistant is not ideal for generating revenue, Schindler suggested.

When results are visible, not merely oral, “you have room for advertising, of course,” said Schindler, whose company grosses an estimated $70 billion annually through ads above search results.

The Alphabet Inc company declined to elaborate on Schindler’s remarks. But Google’s conundrum is one facing several big tech companies whose users increasingly seek help from voice-enabled speakers and gadgets: how to deliver greater convenience while still generating the ad revenue that traditionally has funded free searches.

The question is most acute for Google, which holds the world’s biggest search advertising business.

So far, consumers generally get a brief answer from virtual assistants without the disturbance of ads. And tech companies have not shown how they would include the “Sponsored” or “Ad” disclaimers that regulators in the United States and elsewhere require with paid-for search results.

One Google Assistant feature already is close to violating disclosure rules, according to five advertising attorneys contacted by Reuters. Google contends it is in compliance.

The feature recommends plumbers and other local home service providers without disclosing that the results draw from a curated database mainly composed of companies that joined a Google marketing program.

“It’s not a completely clean recommendation,” said Michelle Cohen, an attorney with expertise in marketing rules at Ifrah Law in Washington, D.C. “If there’s a financial commitment, you’re supposed to disclose it.”

Conversing with assistants is routine for millions of people globally, whether on bedside alarm clocks, car audio systems or even high-end headphones. More than 1 billion such devices have Google Assistant, 100 million Amazon.com Inc’s Alexa and at least 1 billion Apple Inc’s Siri, according to the companies and estimates.

Regulators avoid stifling new technologies, said Richard Lawson, partner at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips and former consumer protection director in Florida’s attorney general’s office. But he said, authorities will still ask, “How do you convey meaningful disclosures?”

At the conference, Schindler said ads on Google Assistant would be more “interesting” when responses are shown on a nearby screen, like a TV, smartphone, laptop or smart speaker with a display.

“Then we’re exactly in the world that we deeply understand,” Schindler said, with moneymaking options “very similar” to traditional search.

The Federal Trade Commission, which regulates deceptive business practices in the United States, has long required search engines to inform users in a “noticeable and understandable” fashion when results are connected to financial relationships. That is why consumers see “Ad” or “Sponsored” labels next to the first few Google results on screens.

New search services that “talk” to consumers are not exempt from “the long-standing principle of making advertising distinguishable,” the FTC said in letters to Google and other companies in 2013.

Consumers often complain to the commission about potential violations, and it prods companies into changing practices by threatening fines if the issues persist.

The FTC has not received complaints about ads on Google Assistant, according to results from a Freedom of Information Act request. And the agency declined to comment on whether it is scrutinizing any virtual assistants, though last year it charged a small search engine for prospective college students that included paid results without warning.

GOOGLE’S CHALLENGE

Google users have come to expect results from any relevant source on the web, except when using specialized tools like Google News or Google Flights that have a narrowed set of sources.

In 2017, Google Assistant adopted a specialty tool, Local Services, which offers only vetted businesses when U.S. users search for domestic help such as plumbers and locksmiths.

Results come from a marketing program, known as Google Guarantee, in which members are licensed, insured and clear of legal issues, according to Google. It refunds consumers up to $2,000 if members botch a job.

Membership is free, but businesses need it to buy Local Services search ads from Google. And guaranteed businesses largely do buy those for queries like “plumber,” Reuters found.

Google gets paid when users contact providers through the ads, which are labeled “Sponsored” on Google.com.

But when Google Assistant responds to “plumber” queries with the same “Google Guaranteed” options, the assistant does not offer any disclaimer or further explanation.

Google said in a statement that the results are not labeled as ads “because Google isn’t paid for these results” when delivered on the Assistant rather than Google.com.

The advertising attorneys said users should be informed that Google Assistant results, even if not paid for, stem from a filtered database in which many businesses landed because they wanted to buy ads.

“Disclosing ‘many of the recommended providers may participate in our referral network’…would be relevant and appropriate,” said Cohen, the Washington, D.C., attorney.

In some cities, Google Assistant includes businesses vetted by partner search services HomeAdvisor and Porch. It does not mention that those services charge some businesses for customer leads.

Disclaimers vary in other types of searches, depending on how they are delivered. Google.com answers “flight to Los Angeles” with upcoming flights labeled as “Sponsored,” and users who click on the label would learn that Google “may be compensated” by some of its data sources.

But Google Assistant’s “Sponsored” label does not link to additional information. On smart speakers, the assistant reads only the lowest price without naming an airline.

It says nothing about sponsors.

Reporting by Paresh Dave; Editing by Greg Mitchell, Marla Dickerson and Julie Marquis

Encyclopedia of American Loons

#1050: Jon Rappoport

Jon Rappoport is a deliriously insane “independent researcher” and blogger. According to his bio, he “has lectured extensively all over the US on the question: Who runs the world and what can we do about it?” For the last decade, however, he has “operated largely away from the mainstream” because, as he puts it, “[m]y research was not friendly to the conventional media.” Indeed. His independent research encompasses “deep politics, conspiracies, alternative health, the potential of the human imagination, mind control, the medical cartel, symbology, and solutions to the takeover of the planet by hidden elites.”

He is, for instance, a germ theory denialist, and in his post “Germ theory and depopulation” (discussed here) he argues that “[i]n general, so-called contagious diseases are caused, not by germs, but by IMMUNE SYSTEMS THAT ARE TOO WEAK TO FIGHT OFF THOSE GERMS” (yes, the capitalization is in the original). Indeed, “GERMS ARE A COVER STORY. What do they cover up? The fact that immune systems are the more basic target for depopulation and debilitation of populations.” The main tool is of course vaccines, which are weapons the nefarious powers that be use to kill off, well, it is a bit hard to see, partially because Rappoport’s post is mostly all-caps from there. At least HIV is a cover story as well.

He has a similar screed on flu vaccines on whale.to if that’s the kind of stuff you fancy reading. It is barely grammatical, but at least he gets his enthusiastic anger across rather well.

Currently Rappoport seems to write on various topics for InfoWars. Recently, for instance, Rappoport and InfoWars dubbed Rep. Tim Murphy’s bill seeking to reform the way the government addresses mental health services a “diabolical legislative package,” since Rappoport thought the legislation would require almost all children to take “psychiatric meds,” and that the bill will ultimately give the federal government “a monopoly of the mind.” Yeah, that’s the way he rolls.

Diagnosis: Hysterically crazy; and his influence is probably not quite as limited as his level of crazy should suggest.

 

#1943: Donna Martonfi

You’re probably aware of backward masking, demon-possessed toys and tales of Satanic cults involving priests and presidents, but there are those for whom such things are all too mundane. Donna Martonfi, for instance, will freely tell you about that time 80-foot tall demons got into her house and swallowed her whole. And then there are these Satanic baby farms she knows about. Apparently the proper response to these stories is to be scared and send her money.

Martonfi – might be pseudonym – runs the website Psalm 40 ministries, where she for instance laments the fact that even Christians won’t recognize that Santa and his elfs are a devious ploy to replace Jesus at Christmas time (“Hark the Harold Angels CRINGE”) is the unintentionally apt title of the article) and how the intrusion of superheroes, who are demonic idols (just look at how “Yoda is a demonic looking creature”; Martonfi would know), in popular culture and everywhere is evidence of the challenges faced by Christianity in the US today, which of course also shows that the end is near. You can also request prayers from her, and Martonfi’s prayers are powerful: from a young age Martonfi “prayed for the sick and they recovered;” she’s also once healed a washing machine and prayed her way out of a $2900 car repair bill. Apparently her broken watch required a bit more effort: to begin with, God did nothing, but after a week or so “[a]gain, I petitioned God, only now I was really serious. I remembered the acronym P.U.S.H. Pray Until Something Happens. I was not going to be deterred.” Eventually, she put away the kid gloves and reminded God of His duties to her: “Dear Lord, I stand on your Word that says that You shall supply all of my needs and dear Lord, I need to know what time it is!” This did the trick, and according to Martonfi her “watch has not missed one second since.” I think the lesson is that you just have to show God who da boss sometimes

It seems that she’s also written an autobiography.

Diagnosis: Despite their content, her posts are mostly grammatical and semi-coherent. They’re completely unhingend nonetheless, and although she’s pretty obscure we suspect that her views are shared by a large enough group of people that they cannot be completely dismissed as harmless fringe delusions.

#2118: Larry Pittman

State assemblies again. Larry G. Pittman is a preacher and member of the North Carolina General Assembly, representing the 82nd district. He is most famous for calling Abraham Lincoln a “tyrant” like Adolf Hitler (Lincoln was “personally responsible for the deaths of over 800,000 Americans in a war that was unnecessary and unconstitutional”), and for being in general sympathetic to secessionist causes, such as co-sponsoring a bill that would allow the removal of the ban on North Carolina seceding from the Union ever again.

What fuels Pittman’s anger with the union? Ah, yes: gay marriage, of course. In March 2017 Pittman also co-sponsored, with Carl Ford, bill HB760 to once again make gay marriages invalid and illegal in North Carolina (he was also a co-sponsor of NC’s infamous bathroom bill), citing the Bible and claiming that any supreme court decision that goes against “the decree of Almighty God” “exceeds the authority of the Court;” that claim, of course, makes you a “theocrat” by definition. Pittman emphasized that North Carolina should uphold traditional marriage “in spite of the opinion of a federal court that had no business interfering.” Though the effort was, of course, an embarrassment to everyone involved (not the least NC district 84 voters), the nullification movement seems to be more popular than those of us to tend to think of other people as default basically reasonable would think.

In 2012, Pittman argued for reintroducing public hangings, starting with “abortionists, rapists, and kidnappers”. He also expressed anger at the ostensibly easy life of death row inmates, arguing that appeals should be limited to one shot, and that making the executions public would cause more appropriate suffering. As a good Christian, he is apparently very annoyed that he is denied the emotional satisfaction of observing other humans being killed in painful ways.

Pittman is also a climate change denialist. In 2012, he issued a statement on the issue alleging that “[o]ur climate runs on a cycle. It goes up and it goes down and the Lord designed it that way. And the main thing that causes global warming is the Earth’s relationship to a big ball of gas that’s burning out there that we call the Sun [which, as everyone knew even by then, is demonstrably false]. And it is the height of hubris for human beings to think that we can have any effect on that.”

Diagnosis: Bloodthirsty, sadistic and paranoid. Not a good combination for people in positions of power.

#2094: Ileana Paugh

Ileana Johnson Paugh is an author, blogger and columnist, who has for instance written for the WND, which is sufficient to establish with some confidence that she is a serious loon. Paugh delivers. In 2013, for instance, Paugh criticized Pope Francis’s commitment to social justice teachings (really a core component of the Roman Catholic Church doctrine, to the discomfort of numerous wingnuts) and tied them to the KGB, no less. So, in her column “Communism and the Pope,” Paugh “traces Francis’ thinking to KGB-influence in S. America”, claiming that social justice is foreign to the teachings of Jesus Christ but instead a “Soviet communist-led idea” that have helped the KGB “infiltrate” the Catholic Church. It’s worth noting that she relies to a large extent on the writings of Ion Pacepa (Paugh, like Pacepa, apparently grew up under communism in Romania).

Perhaps Paugh’s main schtick, however, is Agenda 21 conspiracy theories. She has even written a book, U.N. Agenda 21: Environmental Piracy, where she describes Agenda 21 as a nefarious conspiracy that “has been in the works for decades, spearheaded by environmentalists, foreign individuals, third world countries, and non-profit organizations around the world. In the name of protecting the environment, socialist global governance has been quietly implemented at all levels of government” to mandate “population re-distribution in the name of biodiversity”, brainwashing our kids and “rezone us, resettle us, reduce our numbers, and tax us into the sustainable community described in the Wildlands Project Map.” In short, it is an agenda to control and oppress us all: “Our sovereignty is at stake. We must stop U.N. Agenda 21 before it is too late. Every chapter of it violates our Constitution.” Yes, environmentalism is a depopulation conspiracy.

Of course, Paugh is a hardcore global warming denialist (when you’ve already decided that the UN is an evil conspiracy to oppress us all, you better make the data fit), claiming that the global warming idea “lacks academic rigor” and “intellectual honesty” (Paugh seems to have no scientific background and doesn’t seem to be able to distinguish scientific rigor from stream of consciousness ranting if her life depended on it); instead, it is apparently a conspiracy among scientists to take our money and give control of the world to George Soros (or perhaps, it seems, Maurice Strong).

Her other books are Echoes of Communism and Liberty on Life Support.

Diagnosis: Crazy as they come. That this is standard wingnut fare does not exactly make it any better.

#2091: Dan Patrick

Daniel Goeb Patrick (born Dannie Scott Goeb) is the 42nd and current lieutenant governor of Texas, serving since January 2015, having previously worked for a long time as a radio talk show host (he is largely responsible for launching Rush Limbaugh’s career, for instance) and radio and television broadcaster, before representing the 7thDistrict (and the Tea Party) in the Texas Senate.

Creationism and education

On most issues Patrick supports the populist and deranged versions of the positions you would expect from someone like him (he ran on trying to scare voters with ISIS infiltrating Mexican drug cartels to sneak their way into the US among illegal immigrants – who also are “bringing Third World diseases with them,” for instance). For our purposes, he is particularly notable for being on record as a determined champion of including creationist pseudoscience in the Texas public school curriculum, the Constitution be damned – though a passionate defender of what he imagines the Constitution to say, Patrick is actually no fan of what the Constitution in fact says. (“There is no separation of church and state. It was not in the constitution,” says Patrick.) Instead, Patrick has strong dominionist leanings, claiming that the US is a Christian nation, that politics is about building God’s kingdom, and that America’s policies must be grounded in the Bible; indeed, elected officials must look to Scripture when they make policy “because every problem we have in America has a solution in the Bible.” This is not true. Though he has emphasized that his call for a “biblically-based” policy mindset “doesn’t mean we want a theocracy,” he followed that up by saying: “But it does mean we can’t walk away from what we believe,” which, given the context, pretty much contradicts the previous sentence.

During the LG primaries in 2013, Patrick blasted the school curriculum for teaching evolution (and not also creationism), calling it a form of “political correctness” and linking it to a broader sense of moral decline in America: “The breakup of the family in this country has started when we took God out of the classroom,” said Patrick, who apparently thinks biology is a branch of theology. As he sees it “[o]ur children must be really be confused. We want them to go to church on Sunday, and we teach them about Jesus Christ. And then they go to school on Monday. They can’t pray. They can’t learn about creationism. They must really be confused. And they have a right to be confused because we as Christians have yielded to the secular left and let them rule the day in this country. … When it comes to creationism, not only should it be taught, it should be triumphed. It should be heralded.” At least Patrick is confused, no question, but it’s hardly the schools’ fault.

For the record, the other candidates fpr the 2014 gubernmental election, then Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson and Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples all agreed. “As a Christian, certainly creationism should be taught,” said Staples (why “as a Christian” matters is worth pondering), and Dewhurst agreed: “It’s a fair discussion to expose students to both sides and let them make the decision with the advice and counsel of their parents,” he said, taking a page from the Discovery Institute’s Teach the Controversy campaigns and missing the whole point of, you know, school. Patterson also lamented how the country has removed religious instruction from government institutions such as schools; surely, he is referring to this.

It is worth mentioning that Patrick used to chair the Senate Education Committee, where he promoted creationist teaching materials and fought bitterly against what he delusionally perceived to be “un-American, anti-Christian, pro-Islamic and Marxist” contents of the school curricula (he admitted to not even having read them, of course). But then, when it comes to American history, for instance, Patrick relies on the pseudohistory and fabrications of David Barton, including Barton’s many fake quotes, to justify an alternative (and false) historical narrative. Here is Patrick on sex-ed.

Gay rights

Patrick, a firm defender of bathroom bills, doesn’t like gay people, and has vowed to fight the Supreme Court decision ruling bans on same-sex marriage to be unconstitutional.

Hours after the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting, Patrick tweeted a picture of Galatians 6:7: “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.” Though it was deleted and one of his adviser’s claimed it had been pre-scheduled and therefore didn’t reflect Patrick’s reaction to the shooting, Patrick intervened and emphasized that God’s “word is never wrong,” which sort of suggests that he at least doesn’t mind the rather obvious implication of the tweet.

Miscellaneous

As you’d expect, Patrick is no supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement. In July 2016, with regard to the infamous Dallas protest, Patrick called participants “hypocrites” for running from gunfire when the shootings started, characterizing them as being “anti-police” but still expected the police to protect them once the shooting started. No, he doesn’t really have a clue what the BLM movement is about, but doesn’t care (neither do his voters, of course).  Then he said that concern about police violence is new and must stop. This is not true. He is also no fan of Planned Parenthood, though his attempts to attack them don’t always turn out the way he plans.

With regard (presumably) to climate change, Patrick criticized Obama for thinking that he can change the weather; Obama thinks he can, Patrick claimed, “because he thinks he’s God.He thinks he is the smartest person in the country. He thinks he knows better in Washington what we do in Texas.” As for himself and his own religious beliefs, Patrick apparently also believes that God is speaking through the Duck Dynasty reality TV star Phil Robertson.

Diagnosis: Theocratic conspiracy theorist and staunch anti-science and anti-education activist. A thoroughly frightening guy. Texas, as expected, promptly elected to give him lots of power.

 

The CIA Confessions: The Crowley Conversations

April 1,, 2019

by Dr. Peter Janney

On October 8th, 2000, Robert Trumbull Crowley, once a leader of the CIA’s Clandestine Operations Division, died in a Washington hospital of heart failure and the end effects of Alzheimer’s Disease. Before the late Assistant Director Crowley was cold, Joseph Trento, a writer of light-weight books on the CIA, descended on Crowley’s widow at her town house on Cathedral Hill Drive in Washington and hauled away over fifty boxes of Crowley’s CIA files.

Once Trento had his new find secure in his house in Front Royal, Virginia, he called a well-known Washington fix lawyer with the news of his success in securing what the CIA had always considered to be a potential major embarrassment.

Three months before, on July 20th of that year, retired Marine Corps colonel William R. Corson, and an associate of Crowley, died of emphysema and lung cancer at a hospital in Bethesda, Md.

After Corson’s death, Trento and the well-known Washington fix-lawyer went to Corson’s bank, got into his safe deposit box and removed a manuscript entitled ‘Zipper.’ This manuscript, which dealt with Crowley’s involvement in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, vanished into a CIA burn-bag and the matter was considered to be closed forever.

The small group of CIA officials gathered at Trento’s house to search through the Crowley papers, looking for documents that must not become public. A few were found but, to their consternation, a significant number of files Crowley was known to have had in his possession had simply vanished.

When published material concerning the CIA’s actions against Kennedy became public in 2002, it was discovered to the CIA’s horror, that the missing documents had been sent by an increasingly erratic Crowley to another person and these missing papers included devastating material on the CIA’s activities in South East Asia to include drug running, money laundering and the maintenance of the notorious ‘Regional Interrogation Centers’ in Viet Nam and, worse still, the Zipper files proving the CIA’s active organization of the assassination of President John Kennedy..

A massive, preemptive disinformation campaign was readied, using government-friendly bloggers, CIA-paid “historians” and others, in the event that anything from this file ever surfaced. The best-laid plans often go astray and in this case, one of the compliant historians, a former government librarian who fancied himself a serious writer, began to tell his friends about the CIA plan to kill Kennedy and eventually, word of this began to leak out into the outside world.

The originals had vanished and an extensive search was conducted by the FBI and CIA operatives but without success. Crowley’s survivors, his aged wife and son, were interviewed extensively by the FBI and instructed to minimize any discussion of highly damaging CIA files that Crowley had, illegally, removed from Langley when he retired. Crowley had been a close friend of James Jesus Angleton, the CIA’s notorious head of Counterintelligence. When Angleton was sacked by DCI William Colby in December of 1974, Crowley and Angleton conspired to secretly remove Angleton’s most sensitive secret files out of the agency. Crowley did the same thing right before his own retirement, secretly removing thousands of pages of classified information that covered his entire agency career.

Known as “The Crow” within the agency, Robert T. Crowley joined the CIA at its inception and spent his entire career in the Directorate of Plans, also know as the “Department of Dirty Tricks. ”

Crowley was one of the tallest man ever to work at the CIA. Born in 1924 and raised in Chicago, Crowley grew to six and a half feet when he entered the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in N.Y. as a cadet in 1943 in the class of 1946. He never graduated, having enlisted in the Army, serving in the Pacific during World War II. He retired from the Army Reserve in 1986 as a lieutenant colonel. According to a book he authored with his friend and colleague, William Corson, Crowley’s career included service in Military Intelligence and Naval Intelligence, before joining the CIA at its inception in 1947. His entire career at the agency was spent within the Directorate of Plans in covert operations. Before his retirement, Bob Crowley became assistant deputy director for operations, the second-in-command in the Clandestine Directorate of Operations.

Bob Crowley first contacted Gregory Douglas in 1993 when he found out from John Costello that Douglas was about to publish his first book on Heinrich Mueller, the former head of the Gestapo who had become a secret, long-time asset to the CIA. Crowley contacted Douglas and they began a series of long and often very informative telephone conversations that lasted for four years. In 1996, Crowley told Douglas that he believed him to be the person that should ultimately tell Crowley’s story but only after Crowley’s death. Douglas, for his part, became so entranced with some of the material that Crowley began to share with him that he secretly began to record their conversations, later transcribing them word for word, planning to incorporate some, or all, of the material in later publication.

 

 

Conversation No. 44

Date: Tuesday, October 29, 1996

Commenced: 8:45 AM CST

Concluded:    9:05 AM CST

GD: Good morning, Robert. How is life treating you?

RTC: Well enough, I suppose. Yourself?

GD: Not too badly. I heard from Corson who wants me to come back for a meeting with you and himself soon. He neglected to mention Kimmel for some reason.

RTC: Kimmel will probably be along to subject you to his brilliant interrogative techniques.

GD: Good. That ought to be entertaining. Corson mentioned the University Club.

RTC: Yes. Up on Sixteenth Avenue past the White House. We can have lunch.

GD: Is the food good?

RTC: It’s not the Jockey Club but it will do. Do you have any idea when you will come?

GD: Probably early in December. Willis Carto 1  wants to meet with me over the weekend in DC so we can get together just after that. I’ve been reading over this ZIPPER business and checking various dates out. Fascinating story, Robert, and hopefully it will make a good book. And before you say it, no, I won’t publish until after you’re gone. They were all of them into it, weren’t they?

RTC: Just a few of the top people, actually. We were talking about the Army plot to start a war with Cuba by attacking our planes and setting off a few bombs here. I believe we did talk about this.

GD: Yes.

RTC: Jim Bamford knows all about this. It’s called ‘Operation Northwoods’ and the plans are in the National Archives. I wouldn’t recommend your asking your friend Wolfe about it because he’d run to Langley with his tongue hanging out and then they would vanish without a trace. If you’re going to be here, I’ll give you chapter and verse so you can find them yourself. Oh and one other thing. You mentioned an Army file on top Nazis we used. Wolfe sent it to you?

GD: Yes, I got it from him.

RTC: If I gave you chapter and verse on it, would you confirm?

GD: Certainly.

RTC: Let me just find this…..always putting….here. ‘P&O file 311.5 TS, sections one two and three.’ Dated 1948. Is that the one?

GD: It sounds like it. I’m bad on numbers. Let me pull it out. Take about a minute.

RTC: Go ahead.

(Pause)

GD: That’s it.

RTC: That stupid son of a bitch had no right to give that to you. He’s playing both ends against the middle. When you come back here, could you make a copy and give it to me?

GD: I will do that.

RTC: That man is a rat, Gregory, a sewer rat.

GD: Don’t drag me into it, please. I never solicited it and he sent it to me so I would give him some Müller papers dealing with his employment by your people. Naturally, since I never asked for it, once it came and I read it, I pretended I never got it. This scared yesterday’s dinner out of him because he put his return address on it. He thinks some post office employee will find it and turn it over to the FBI. I think he’s afraid of going to jail.

RTC: He damned well ought to.

GD: Who knows, Robert? He might like it inside the big house. You know what they say, don’t you? If you can’t get a woman get a clean old man.

RTC: (Laughter)

GD: My, and such a lot of Gestapo and SD people, not to mention a few Einsatzgruppen people we transported here, gave new names and ID to and made them GS18s… I think Wolfe wanted me to publish this and embarrass the CIA and the Army. He can’t, of course, so he thinks he is very clever using me as a cat’s paw. And to show you how brilliant an operative he is, the thing came in a NA envelope with his name written above the return address. Is he typical of the type of pseudo-academics you use?

RTC: These are useless attention-craving idiots but useful in their way.

GD: As fertilizer in your garden? You know the old saying that those who can, do, and others teach? Fits them perfectly. I have been running into academics for years. Petty, puffed-up bags of shit who squall and attack each other with their purses over the most trivial things. And, of course, they steal from everyone and then call it research. I might cite the case of Stephen Ambrose, the wonderful historian. He published a book once called a ‘Handbook on German Military Forces.’ Problem was, the book had been published in 1945 by the War Department as TM-E 30-451. Of course it wasn’t illegal to steal it, page by page, because it was public domain, but after I brought this to the attention of his publishers, the next edition had certain credit corrections. He probably blamed it all on his careless typist. You know, I always recommend an Ambrose book because you can get three books for the price of one. Why ever do you use such slugs? I’ll bet that even now, Mortimer Z. Tinsley, PhD, DVM is working on a devastating attack on the Müller book. He probably teaches at some obscure school like Antelope Valley Teacher’s College, in the history department, and his doctoral thesis, which he stole in its entirely, was entitled ‘A History of Fraud in Bulgarian Bar Mitzvahs in the Nineteenth Century.’  He will point out that Müller died in 1945 and my book is fuller of shit than a Christmas turkey. Of course he’s prating about Dr. Heinrich Müller, not Gestapo Müller, but I’ll just bet The New York Times Sunday book section will carry a wonderful review of it. I love that section. They push forward deeply moving books about a black orphan boy raised in Georgia by two vegetarian lesbians and his poignant and deeply moving struggles to become a champion purse snatcher-cum-pimp in Hell’s Kitchen. The sort of silly shit that no one reads but the editor knows the publisher.

RTC: Oh, we do have our stable of weird people working for us. Did I ever tell you about the Pedophile Academy, Gregory?

GD: Are you speaking of Yale, Robert?

RTC: No, no we actually had one down at Camp Peary. Right near Jim Critchfield’s place. I don’t know if you are aware of it but we called it The Farm and it was supposed to be a secret training center for young agents. Anyway, Allen Dulles set up this training center down there for pedophiles. They were in training to seduce, molest and, most especially, photograph the young children of targets. Not only, Allen reasoned, would our graduates have a spanking good time but they could get wonderful action pictures of the wee ones to blackmail their families with.

GD: Sick.

RTC: One could say that. I understand they broke it up when one of the graduates nailed a Deputy Director’s son at a summer camp.

GD: Another boat trip?

RTC: I really don’t know. I heard he had a sudden heart attack. We do those very well, you know.

GD: I am aware. A French doctor invented the drug. The Gestapo used it internally and externally and through Müller, we got it. Is that what you’re talking about?

RTC: I think so.

GD: Müller told me that when he came to Washington, they were tossing people out of windows. Forrestal went crazy and they chunked him out of the sixteenth floor clinic at Bethesda. That’s the special floor where they keep Senators who flip out and run around the Mall in the nude.

RTC: I think it’s more of a drunk tank, Gregory. McCarthy was locked up there for a time.

GD: They should have put him out the window. Müller used to say that this showed no consideration for people passing on the sidewalk below or expensive parked cars. Imagine an overweight official descending ten stories onto your new Packard or worse, on your Christmas shopping wife. Think of the lost gifts, Robert, and you too will weep.

RTC: Gregory, you are a terrible person.

GD: I know that, Robert. I once put angel hair…you know, the spun glass insulation…into my sister’s underwear before a family dinner and she spent most of the time scratching her crotch and other unmentionable body areas right at the table. I told everyone she had crabs and she had to leave the table. I understand her swollen pudenda looked like an eggplant.

RTC: (Laughter) Gregory, you are really very bad. But entertaining.

GD: I know. Anyway, when I come back to see you I have some ZIPPER questions for you.

RTC: Yes, I much prefer a face-to-face. But, my God, not at the University Club lunch.

GD: Of course not.

RTC: If Tom Kimmel ever got wind of what we were up to, he would have my place raided.

GD: Oh my God, Robert, he might find the Swiss Music Box.

RTC: Speaking of that, it seems to be working. At least it scares off all the birds and every time I put it on, the dogs in the neighborhood howl like demons.

GD: Maybe the poor Swiss are soaking their embassy floor with urine. Did you ever think of that?

RTC: It did occur to me. But enough merriment for today. I have to get ready to go to the doctor’s office so I will speak with you later.

(Concluded at 9:05 AM CST)

1 Willis Carto, publisher of the populist Spotlight Washington newspaper, latterly the American Free Press

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Conversations+with+the+Crow+by+Gregory+Douglas