TBR News January 11, 2019

Jan 11 2019

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

Washington, D.C. January 11, 2019:”The increasing mass anti-government movement in France, the Yellow Vests, have smashed their way into a government ministry in Paris, burned official cars, chased police and minsters to safer places, halted rail and road traffic, caused havoc with national banks and in general, have seriously threatened the sitting government. This movement, which is obviously growing in size and determination, is determined to bring down the Macron government but interestingly enough, is not covered in the main line American media. Why is this? Simply because those in current control do not wish to agitate an American public that is growing increasingly angry with the erratic and damaging reign of President Trump. Loyal supporters of the President, fearful of impeachment, are now approaching the more fanatical right wing and Evangelical Chistiain groups to join forces and take to the streets in defense of the President. There is a round robin document being sent around to these militants that explains that mob fury will convince the laggard Americans that Trump is indeed the ruler. We are trying to get our hands on this so we can publish it.”

 

The Table of Contents

  • 815 false claims: The staggering scale of Donald Trump’s pre-midterm dishonesty No 11
  • Brought to Jesus’: the evangelical grip on the Trump administration
  • What are the End Days? A study in deception
  • The CIA Confessions: The Crowley Conversations

815 false claims: The staggering scale of Donald Trump’s pre-midterm dishonesty No 11

November 15, 2018

by Daniel Dale Washington Bureau Chief

Toronto Star

WASHINGTON—It took Donald Trump until the 286th day of his presidency to make 815 false claims.

He just made another 815 false claims in a month.

In the 31 days leading up to the midterm elections on Nov. 6, Trump went on a lying spree like we have never seen before even from him — an outrageous barrage of serial dishonesty in which he obliterated all of his old records.

How bad have these recent weeks been?

  • Trump made 664 false claims in October. That was double his previous record for a calendar month, 320 in August.
  • Trump averaged 26.3 false claims per day in the month leading up to the midterm on Nov. 6. In 2017, he averaged 2.9 per day.
  • Trump made more false claims in the two months leading up to the midterms (1,176), than he did in all of 2017 (1,011).
  • The three most dishonest single days of Trump’s presidency were the three days leading up to the midterms: 74 on election eve, Nov. 5; 58 on Nov. 3; 54 on Nov. 4.

As always, Trump was being more frequently dishonest in part because he was simply speaking more. He had three campaign rallies on Nov. 5, the day before he set the record, and eight more rallies over the previous five days.

But it was not only quantity. Trump packed his rally speeches with big new lies, repeatedly reciting wildly inaccurate claims about migrants, Democrats’ views on immigration and health care, and his own record. Unlike many of his lies, lots of these ones were written into the text of his speeches.

Trump is now up to 3,749 false claims for the first 661 days of his presidency, an average of 4.4 per day.

If Trump is a serial liar, why call this a list of “false claims,” not lies? You can read our detailed explanation here. The short answer is that we can’t be sure that each and every one was intentional. In some cases, he may have been confused or ignorant. What we know, objectively, is that he was not telling the truth.

  • Oct 23, 2018

“We need people, we have 3.7 unemployment, it’s the lowest number in many years. Overall, probably the lowest numbers as a whole that we’ve ever had. African-American, lowest numbers in history. Asian-American. You look at any Hispanic American. Lowest numbers, best unemployment numbers, and best employment numbers in history.”

Source: Remarks at military briefing

in fact: Trump was correct about African-Americans and Hispanics, incorrect about Asians. The Asian-American unemployment rate briefly dropped to a low, 2.0 per cent, in May — a low, at least, since the government began issuing Asian-American data in 2000 — but the most recent rate at the time Trump spoke, for September, was 3.5 per cent. (It fell to 3.2 per cent for October.) This was higher than the rate in Obama’s last full month in office — 2.8 per cent in December 2016 — and in multiple months of George W. Bush’s second term.

“We have car companies coming in from Japan, brand-new plants going to be announced soon. They’ve already announced some of them. Going to Michigan, and Ohio, and Pennsylvania, and Kentucky, and North Carolina, and South Carolina. Coming all over our country. Florida. And they need workers. And we want people.”

Source: Remarks at military briefing

in fact: Trump has repeated this claim, but there is no evidence of auto companies moving into Florida or North Carolina, neither of which has auto assembly plants, or companies opening new plants anywhere outside Alabama. The Los Angeles Times reported: “The facts: Toyota and Mazda announced in August 2017 that they would jointly build a $1.6 billion assembly plant in the United States and in January said the factory would be in Huntsville, Ala. That is the only new U.S. factory announced by any of the major automakers, said Kristin Dziczek, vice president of industry, labor and economics at the Center for Automotive Research, a nonprofit research organization in Ann Arbor, Mich.”

“We’ve also greatly increased member contributions to NATO so that other countries are starting to pay much closer to their fair share or in some cases, even their fair share. And many of them are absolutely amazed that they’ve been put in that position, but they really have to do that and we’re grateful to them. Last year we took in $44 billion more and this year, it’ll be a number even bigger than that, not from us, but from other countries.”

Source: Remarks at military briefing

in fact: This is a slight exaggeration. NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said in July that the increase was $41 billion, not $44 billion, since Trump took office: “In fact, since President Trump took office, European allies and Canada have added an additional $41 billion to their defence spending.”

“We’ve achieved record funding for the military. Record by a lot; $700 billion last year and 716 billion dollars this year.”

Source: Remarks at military briefing

in fact: This $700 billion military spending bill was not a record even if you ignore inflation. Obama signed a $725 billion version of the same bill in 2011.

“And San Diego — for those of you that are from San Diego — they were begging us for a wall. I said, ‘Maybe we’ll leave it until the end.’ Because they wanted it so badly. They’re strong politically. But I said, ‘Look, let’s get it done.’ And we’ve done a great job with building it, and it’s had a tremendous impact on San Diego.”

Source: Remarks at White House State Leadership Day event

in fact: Trump’s border wall is not under construction, and there is no basis for Trump’s repeated claim that the people or government of San Diego were pleading for a border wall. San Diego city council voted 5-3 in September to express opposition, and even the Republican mayor, Kevin Faulconer, has stated that he is opposed: “Mayor Faulconer has been clear in his opposition to a border wall across the entirety of the U.S. southern border,” a spokesperson said in September. (The board of supervisors of San Diego County has voted to endorse a lawsuit against California “sanctuary” laws protecting unauthorized immigrants, but “this county has taken no action with regard to the wall,” county spokesperson Michael Workman told local news outlet KPBS.)

“We either have a border or we don’t. We need a wall. We’ve put up some of the wall. We do it as fast it comes. The money comes in; we are building.”

Source: Remarks at White House State Leadership Day event

in fact: Construction on Trump’s border wall has not started, and there is no basis for the claim that “San Diego is almost completed.” When Trump has claimed in the past that wall construction has begun, he has appeared to be referring to projects in which existing fencing is being replaced. The $1.6 billion Congress allocated to border projects in 2018 is not for the type of giant concrete wall Trump has proposed: spending on that kind of wall is expressly prohibited in the legislation, and much of the congressional allocation is for replacement and reinforcement projects rather than new construction.

“You know, when I was growing up, we had vocational schools. Today you have community college. I’m trying to say, ‘Well, a community college — what do they teach? English and Latin and — what are they teaching?’ The old days, we had vocational schools…And we’ve gotten rid of vocational schools and we’ve replaced them with community colleges. We need vocational schools. It’s great money. I mean, did you see a recent study came out? They earn more than a lot of the white-collar people that go out and they work behind a desk. They’re doing better. And that’s their ability, and that’s what they want to do. So we have to bring back vocational schools. Use that name. I think it’s a much better name.”

Source: Remarks at White House State Leadership Day event

in fact: Vocational schools and community colleges both existed when Trump was growing up, and both continue to exist today. (American community colleges date back at least to the early 1900s, depending on how you define them.) Contrary to Trump’s suggestion, they are different things. Vocational schools offer practical, technical education to prepare students for a particular occupation; community colleges offer broader two-year courses of study, associate degrees, and a pathway to traditional four-year degree program.

“We have now become the number-one energy source in the world. Can you believe it? In the last little while.”

Source: Remarks at White House State Leadership Day event

in fact: The U.S. Energy Information Administration said in 2017 that 2016 was the fifth straight year the U.S. had been the “world’s top producer of petroleum and natural gas hydrocarbons.” It was crude oil in particular in which the U.S. recently became number-one in the world, according to the EIA, which made the estimate in September.

“It was all dry land. And they said — I said, ‘You must have a tremendous drought going on.’ This is like, three and a half, four years ago. I said, ‘You must have a tremendous drought going on.’ They said, ‘No, we have so much water, we don’t know what to do with it. But they don’t let the water come down to us.’…I know California well. And I see houses, beautiful houses — people are very proud of their house. Their lawn is brown. It’s dead. It’s dying. It’s dead. And they end up taking it out and just have sand in front of their houses. And they have so much water, they don’t know what to do with it. It’s so crazy. And you’re lucky, you have the climate and you have the — and you have the heat. But you have the water. Very few climates have that. Most climates like that don’t have water; you do. You have so much you don’t know what to do with it. It is a disgrace.”

Source: Remarks at White House State Leadership Day event

in fact: California’s last decade has been exceptionally dry. According to the U.S. government’s drought website, 63 per cent of the California population is currently living in drought conditions, 37 per cent more in abnormally dry areas. The site says, “The U.S. Drought Monitor started in 2000. The U.S. Drought Monitor started in 2000. Since 2000, California is currently experiencing the longest duration of drought…which as of November 6th, 2018 has lasted 359 weeks beginning on December 27, 2011. The most intense period of drought occurred the week of October 28, 2014, where D4 (exceptional drought) affected 58.41% of California land.” By any standard, California is not dealing with an abundance of water.

“Just last week, I signed a presidential memorandum to dramatically improve the reliable supply and delivery of water critical to states like California. It’s one of the most ridiculous things. I saw it on the campaign trail, and I saw it numerous times. But I was out in that area — actually with Congressman Devin Nunes, who is a terrific guy, and some of the congressmen that, right now, are out there so happy at what I signed. And I look at these incredible, beautiful fields, and they’re dry. It’s like dry as a bone. And I see hundreds and hundreds of acres as far as the eye could see, and then you’d have a little, tiny, little green patch in the corner. Just beautiful — green. It’s so beautiful. So rich. And I said, ‘Huh, what’s going on? You have this little patch, and then you have all this dry, horrible…’ — really, to me, it was horrible. It was all dry land. And they said — I said, ‘You must have a tremendous drought going on.’ This is like, three and a half, four years ago. I said, ‘You must have a tremendous drought going on.’ They said, ‘No, we have so much water, we don’t know what to do with it. But they don’t let the water come down to us. It naturally flows to us. They won’t let it — they send it out into the Pacific Ocean. Millions and millions and millions of gallons. We have the greatest farmland anywhere in the world, but they won’t give us water. So the only areas are if we take little spots on these massive areas of land.’ I could see it. I’m driving down the highway and I’m saying — after, like, 10 minutes of looking at all this barren — and then a little spot of beautiful. So green. I’ve never forgotten it. And I said, ‘What’s going on here?’ But I assumed it was a drought. They said, ‘No. The government, state and federal, send the water out into the Pacific.’ I believe he said they’re trying to protect a smelt. Little, tiny — which, by the way, is doing very poorly. [Laughter] It’s doing very poorly. Nobody knows what a smelt is. I still don’t know what a smelt is. But it’s doing very poorly. It really is a terrible thing. I said, “So, let me ask you…” And they have a — they have a — like a valve, but massive. Like from a faucet, but massive. And they turn it and the water goes pouring, Elaine, out into the Pacific Ocean, where it means nothing. Like, like a drop. For the Pacific, it’s a drop. For the farmers, it’s like we have more water, more economic development than anything you can do in the state of California.” And: “Because I’ve heard — I don’t know, you people are nodding like you know exactly what I’m talking about. I hear it’s the finest land there is for growing things. But they took away the water. You know, it’s artificial. They took it away. Do you understand? Am I correct?”

Source: Remarks at White House State Leadership Day event

in fact: California’s water is not being “sent” out to the Pacific or artificially diverted away from agricultural users; the water naturally flows to the Pacific, and some of it is diverted to agricultural users. In other words, Trump was suggesting that California was artificially diverting water — “they’ve taken it away” — by allowing it to flow where it naturally flows. “Water in California naturally flows to the sea, the Pacific Ocean. Water diverted from these flows is used extensively for agriculture and cities,” said professor Jay R. Lund, director of the Center for Watershed Sciences at the University of California – Davis.

“We also completed a wonderful new deal with South Korea. This was a deal that the previous administration did. And they promised 250,000 jobs. They said, ‘This will create 250,000 new jobs.’ And they were right — for South Korea, not for us. They produced 250,000 jobs; we got nothing, except loss.”

Source: Remarks at White House State Leadership Day event

in fact: The Obama administration did not claim that the trade deal with South Korea would produce 250,000 new jobs. Neither did anyone else in the Obama administration. Obama said that deal would “support at least 70,000 American jobs.”

“Hispanic American, African-American, and Asian-American unemployment all recently achieved their lowest rates ever recorded in the history of our country.”

Source: Remarks at White House State Leadership Day event

in fact: Trump was correct about African-Americans and Hispanics, incorrect about Asians. The Asian-American unemployment rate briefly dropped to a low, 2.0 per cent, in May — a low, at least, since the government began issuing Asian-American data in 2000 — but the most recent rate at the time Trump spoke, for September, was 3.5 per cent. (It fell to 3.2 per cent for October.) This was higher than the rate in Obama’s last full month in office — 2.8 per cent in December 2016 — and in multiple months of George W. Bush’s second term.

“Following the passage of our massive tax cuts and regulation cuts, the unemployment rate has fallen to the lowest level in more than 50 years — 5-0.”

Source: Remarks at White House State Leadership Day event

in fact: The unemployment rate, 3.7 per cent, is the lowest in 49 years, since 1969. We would not count this as false if Trump rounded to “50 years,” but “more than” 50 years is objectively false.

“And we need protection. We have to have a wall. We’ve been building the wall. We started the wall. San Diego is almost completed — the whole area — that whole area of California. But we want to do it quickly. We don’t have to — we don’t want to take years to do it.”

Source: Remarks on water infrastructure and exchange with reporters

in fact: Construction on Trump’s border wall has not started, and there is no basis for the claim that “San Diego is almost completed.” When Trump has claimed in the past that wall construction has begun, he has appeared to be referring to projects in which existing fencing is being replaced. The $1.6 billion Congress allocated to border projects in 2018 is not for the type of giant concrete wall Trump has proposed: spending on that kind of wall is expressly prohibited in the legislation, and much of the congressional allocation is for replacement and reinforcement projects rather than new construction.

Question: “Mr. President, one more thing on the caravan. You had said that there were Middle Easterners –” Trump: “Yeah.” Question: “– in the caravan. Can you explain that? Are you saying there are terrorists in that van at this moment?” Trump: “Well, there could very well be. Yeah. There could very well be. And if you look at –” Question: “But do you know for sure?” Trump: “I have very good information. I have very good information.”

Source: Remarks on water infrastructure and exchange with reporters

in fact: There was no evidence for Trump’s claim of “unknown Middle Easterners” in the caravan of migrants, who were overwhelmingly from Latin America. Trump, Vice-President Mike Pence and other administration officials provided no corroboration for the claim.

“And that all went to creating — Apple, as an example — I was with them — they’re going to be spending $350 billion on building new facilities in the United States, which is something, as you know, from a long a time ago. I’ve been saying it from the beginning. I want Apple to build their plants here. They’re going to spend $350 billion. They’re bringing in $230 billion offshore because of our tax plan.”

Source: Remarks on water infrastructure and exchange with reporters

in fact: Apple is not planning to spend $350 billion on building new facilities. The company’s early-2018 announcement, which used a “$350 billion” headline figure, announced, rather, that its combination of new investments and regular U.S. spending it had previously planned would total $350 billion over five years. It committed to a capital investment of $30 billion over five years – substantial, but not close to the entire $350 billion – and specified that it had previously planned $55 billion in spending for 2018. In other words, Apple was already on pace to spend approximately $275 billion of the $350 billion it described in the announcement, and not necessarily on new facilities.

“I mean, we have the best numbers, literally, we’ve ever had. African-American unemployment, lowest ever. Asian-American, Hispanic American — no matter what category you look at it.”

Source:

Remarks on water infrastructure and exchange with reporters

in fact: Trump was correct about African-Americans and Hispanics, incorrect about Asians. The Asian-American unemployment rate briefly dropped to a low, 2.0 per cent, in May — a low, at least, since the government began issuing Asian-American data in 2000 — but the most recent rate at the time Trump spoke, for September, was 3.5 per cent. (It fell to 3.2 per cent for October.) This was higher than the rate in Obama’s last full month in office — 2.8 per cent in December 2016 — and in multiple months of George W. Bush’s second term.

“If you speak to Kevin Brady and a group of people, we’re putting in a tax reduction of 10 per cent, which I think will be a net neutral. Because we’re doing other things, which I don’t have to explain now, but it will be pretty much be a net neutral. But it will be great for the middle class. It’s going to be a tax reduction of 10 per cent for the middle class. Business will not enter into it. And this will be on top of the tax reduction that the middle class has already gotten. And we’re putting in a resolution probably this week. I think these folks know about it. And Kevin Brady has been working on it very hard, really, for a couple of months. We’ll put that in, and we’ll start the work after the — sometime after the midterms.” And: “But this is in addition to the very substantial tax cuts that the middle class has already gotten. So this will be a 10 per cent. It’s going to be a resolution. Probably introduced this week — the end of the week, or early next week. And Kevin Brady has been drawing it up, actually for a while. We’ve been working on it very hard for a pretty long period of time, okay?”

Source: Remarks on water infrastructure and exchange with reporters

in fact: We do not usually fact-check promises of future action, but there was no sign that Republicans were actually pursuing an additional 10 per cent tax cut for the middle class; Trump suddenly introduced this claim two weeks before the election, with no details attached. We will amend this item if he proves serious.

“We cannot continue to allow ourselves to be duped on military and also duped on trade, with the European Union, as an example. Last year, on trade, we lost $151 billion.”

Source: Remarks on water infrastructure and exchange with reporters

in fact: Including all kinds of trade, the U.S. had a $102 billion trade deficit with the European Union in 2017, according to U.S. government statistics. The $151 billion figure counts only trade in goods and ignores trade in services, in which the U.S. has a significant surplus.

“I don’t like it when, as an example, we’re protecting Europe and we’re paying for almost the entire cost of NATO.”

Source: Remarks on water infrastructure and exchange with reporters

in fact: The U.S. is not paying “almost the entire cost of NATO,” though it does carry a disproportionate burden. According to NATO’s 2018 annual report, U.S. defence spending — on everything, not just protecting Europe — represented 72 per cent of alliance members’ total defence spending in 2017. Of NATO’s own organizational budget, the U.S. contributes a much smaller agreed-upon percentage: 22 per cent.

“…I don’t like it when Germany is paying 1 per cent of GDP for NATO, and we’re paying 4.3 per cent. I don’t like that. That’s not fair.”

Source: Remarks on water infrastructure and exchange with reporters

in fact: The U.S. does not spend 4.3 per cent of GDP on defence. It is spending 3.5 per cent, according to an official NATO estimate, down slightly from 3.57 per cent in 2017.

“I did a great job when I sold them. That’s why I went to Saudi Arabia first. I went to Saudi Arabia on the basis that they would by hundreds of billions — many billions of dollars’ worth of things. And the ultimate number is around $450 billion; $110 [billion] for military. $450 billion. I think that’s over a million jobs. A million to over a million jobs.”

Source: Remarks on water infrastructure and exchange with reporters

in fact: There is no basis for the claim that Saudi Arabia’s business deals with the U.S. will produce “a million jobs.” (The White House did not respond to a request for an explanation from U.S. website Axios.) As we explained in the previous fact check, there is no basis for the claim that there are “$450 billion” in total orders or “$110 billion” in military orders. Trump has increased his jobs estimates from “over 40,000” jobs in March to “450,000 jobs” on Oct. 13 to 500,000 jobs on Oct. 17 to 600,000 jobs on Oct. 19, the day he also introduced the “over a million jobs” claim. Reuters reported: “An internal document seen by Reuters from Lockheed Martin forecasts fewer than 1,000 positions would be created by the defense contractor, which could potentially deliver around $28 billion of goods in the deal. Lockheed instead predicts the deal could create nearly 10,000 new jobs in Saudi Arabia, while keeping up to 18,000 existing U.S. workers busy if the whole package comes together — an outcome experts say is unlikely.”

“I will tell you that Russia and China would love to have that military order (from Saudi Arabia). I mean, I can say it to my Democrat friends, too. I mean, they would love — this is $110 billion worth of military…I went to Saudi Arabia on the basis that they would by hundreds of billions — many billions of dollars’ worth of things. And the ultimate number is around $450 billion; $110 [billion] for military. $450 billion.” And: “I’ve been told by others that they don’t want investment of $450 billion. I think that’s foolish. But there are some that feel that. But I’m going to leave it very much — in terms of what we ultimately do, I’m going to leave it very much, in conjunction with me, up to Congress. And that means Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, and one independent. Right?”

Source: Remarks on water infrastructure and exchange with reporters

in fact: There is no basis for either the claim that the U.S. has $450 billion in business orders from Saudi Arabia or that it has $110 billion in military-related orders from Saudi Arabia. The White House has not explained what Trump has talking about; PolitiFact reported: “Hossein Askari, a business professor at George Washington University, analyzes international trade in the Middle East. He knows of no tally of contracts to back up Trump’s assertion. ‘There is absolutely no such number that could support the $450 billion,’ Askari said.” As for the $110 billion figure, the Associated Press wrote: “Trump’s wrong to suggest that he has $110 billion in military orders from Saudi Arabia. A far smaller amount in sales has actually been signed…Details of the $110 billion arms package, partly negotiated under the Obama administration and agreed upon in May 2017, have been sketchy. At the time the Trump administration provided only a broad description of the defense equipment that would be sold. There was no public breakdown of exactly what was being offered for sale and for how much…The Pentagon said this month that Saudi Arabia has signed ‘letters of offer and acceptance’ for only $14.5 billion in sales, including helicopters, tanks, ships, weapons and training. Those letters, issued after the U.S. government has approved a proposed sale, specify its terms…Trump’s repeated claims that he’s signed $110 billion worth of new arms sales to Riyadh are ‘just not true,’ said Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow at Brookings Institution and former CIA and Defense Department official.”

“I want to see the facts first. Look, Saudi Arabia has been a really great ally. They’ve been one of the biggest investors; maybe the biggest investor in our country. They are doing hundreds of billions of dollars worth of investments and, you know, so many jobs. So many jobs. Thousands and thousands of jobs.”

Source: Remarks on water infrastructure and exchange with reporters

in fact: Saudi Arabia is not even close to the biggest investor in the U.S. According to the U.S. government’s SelectUSA program, which is tasked with promoting and facilitating foreign direct investment, Saudi Arabia was not even among the top 15 sources of foreign direct investment in 2017. Number one was the United Kingdom, number two was Canada, number three is Japan

“Now, he (Michael Cohen) represented me on very small things. He was like a public relations person.”

Source: Interview with the Wall Street Journal

in fact: This is a laughable. Cohen was executive vice-president and special counsel to Trump at the Trump Organization, Trump’s company. While Trump also had other lawyers, Cohen, who described himself as Trump’s fixer, was no mere “public relations person.”

Question: “A lot of people say that tariffs are really the biggest threat to the economy long term.” Trump: “We don’t have any tariffs.” Question: “But you’re saying it’s the Fed.” Trump: “It’s so much nonsense, OK. This is your story. We don’t even have tariffs. I’m using tariffs to negotiate. I mean, other than some tariffs on steel — which is actually small, what do we have? I didn’t put them on the USMCA. We have a trade deal. I didn’t put them on in South Korea. We have a trade deal…But I didn’t put tariffs. Where do we have tariffs? We don’t have tariffs anywhere. I read that today: We’re worried about the tariffs. You know what happens? A business that’s doing badly always likes to blame Trump and the tariffs because it’s a good excuse for some incompetent guy that’s making $25 million a year. But think of it, Michael. We don’t have tariffs. Where do we have tariffs? I’m talking tariffs. I’ll use tariffs. I mean it. I’ve said I was going to put tariffs on European Union cars, right? They came to my office. We made the concept of a deal. We’ll see what happens. But they agreed to a deal that they wouldn’t even talk about. There’s no tariffs.”

Source: Interview with the Wall Street Journal

in fact: Trump has tariffs — on $250 billion worth of Chinese imports, plus tariffs on steel and aluminum from countries including Canada, plus tariffs on foreign washing machines and solar products. His comments were especially puzzling because he had just discussed these tariffs earlier in the same interview.

“The other thing is — this (Michael Cohen legal situation) wasn’t me. This was having to do with the taxi industry or something. But he has — and financing, but nothing to do with me.”

Source: Interview with the Wall Street Journal

in fact: Cohen was executive vice-president and special counsel to Trump at the Trump Organization. Two of the crimes to which he pleaded guilty were directly “to do with” to Trump: campaign finance violations related to hush-money payments intended to silence two women who claimed they had sex with Trump. Cohen alleged that he made the payments “in coordination with and at the direction of” Trump.

“Japan wouldn’t meet with Obama. And they wouldn’t meet with us either. After a few months I said, all right, that’s all right. So I called them up. I said, listen, we don’t have to meet with you anymore; we’re just going to put tariffs on your cars coming in. They were in my office the next day.”

Source: Interview with the Wall Street Journal

in fact: Japan did not refuse to negotiate on trade with the Obama administration: Japan negotiated the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement with the Obama administration. Trump withdrew the U.S. from the agreement.

“Well, I’m not happy with the deal. And if they don’t do the right thing, I’ll put tariffs on the cars. And if they do, there won’t be any tariffs. And tariffs are a great negotiating — now, tariffs essentially ended in 1913….”

Source: Interview with the Wall Street Journal

in fact: Tariffs were not “essentially ended in 1913,” even if you’re only look at the United States. Douglas Irwin, a Dartmouth College professor and author of the books “Clashing over Commerce: A History of US Trade Policy,” “Trade Policy Disaster: Lessons from the 1930s,” and “Peddling Protectionism: Smoot-Hawley and the Great Depression,” among others, said in an email: “Tariffs were reduced in 1913, but not ‘ended,’ although the income tax was also introduced so the share of revenue coming from the tariff fell quite a bit.”

“And the tariffs — you saw what I put out today on the tariffs, I guess, did you see I put out a little social media. We have a lot of money coming into this country, people don’t realize. And ultimately, I’ll use it to negotiate. And if they don’t negotiate a free — don’t forget, they wouldn’t even meet with President Obama, Europe and these other countries. They wouldn’t even meet. You know, the European Union wouldn’t even meet. They said, we are very happy with the deal…they wouldn’t meet with Obama, the European Union.”

Source: Interview with the Wall Street Journal

in fact: It is false that the European Union refused to talk to Obama about trade. In fact, during the Obama presidency, the U.S. and European Union engaged in three years of extensive negotiations on a possible free trade agreement, known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Talks stalled in late 2016, with the U.S. election approaching, amid opposition from factions in key European countries like France and Germany.

Question: “Taxes. Your middle-class tax cut, can you say a little bit about where that came from?” Trump: “This is a resolution. Well, this — I’ve been working on this with Kevin Brady for a long time. And because we’re doing so well — we couldn’t have done this originally. I would have put it into the original bill. But we couldn’t have done it originally because we — you know, we’ve become — I mean, we’re doing really well. The numbers are really good…This would not be for business. Now, this would be in addition, because the middle class did very well with the original bill. I would have put this into the original bill, but at that time nobody thought we would do as well as we’re doing…I just — we’re going to a 10%. No, that’ll be — that’ll be — will be a great thing for the middle class. I think the middle class deserves it. The middle class has been forgotten for many, many years. I call it the forgotten men and women. They came out, and they like Trump. But the fact is the middle class has been forgotten for many years. And what we’re going to do — this would be a resolution, because they’re out, but we’re doing the resolution now.”

Source: Interview with the Wall Street Journal

in fact: We almost never fact-check Trump’s statements about what “will” happen, since these are predictions, not declarations of fact. But we’re making an exception for this one. There was absolutely no chance that there would be a “very major tax cut” prior to November: Congress was not in session at the time and had no plans to come back before the midterm elections on Nov. 6. Nobody else in Republican circles had any idea what Trump was talking about, and the party’s congressional leaders quickly made clear that no immediate tax cut was happening. By all indications, Trump simply made this up for campaign purposes. We will amend this item if he proves serious.

“Iran is not the same country since I took away the — you know, the — you know, it’s a different country…Their economy has crashed. Their currency has crashed. They’re having riots every week, big ones, in every city.”

Source: Interview with the Wall Street Journal

in fact: “Riots every week, big ones, in every city” is a major exaggeration. There have been sporadic protests this year in various Iranian cities, not everywhere and not consistently. As the New York Times reported in an article on the 2018 protests, published before Trump’s remarks: “The protests over the past six months have been relatively isolated, sporadic, scattered and much smaller than the antigovernment demonstrations in 2009, when millions took to the streets.” Hussein Banai, a professor who studies Iran at the international studies school at Indiana University, said in an email: “This is another falsehood by Trump. There have been strikes by syndicates and labor organizations here and there over the course of the last 2-3 years, but not riots. And certainly not every weekend.”

Trump: “I’m going to give Congress — and you have some very interested people in Congress on both sides. You have people that do not want to lose $450 billion worth of investment and you have others that think that we should. I disagree with them. But I think — I think if we do that, we’re hurting ourselves much more than we’re hurting Saudi Arabia. If we cancel $450 billion — don’t forget, you were on the trip, I think — I went to Saudi Arabia.” And: “We agreed to a number of $450 billion. There’s never been anything like that.” Question: “How much of the deal has been done?” Trump: “It’s — it gets done over a period of time.” Question: “Do you know where you’re at?” Trump: “No, but a lot of — a lot of the contracts were handed out that day. And there were letters of intent and different things. But, Michael, it’s a lot. Even if you took it and made it a lot less than that, it’s the largest order ever made.”

Source: Interview with the Wall Street Journal

in fact: There is no basis for either the claim that the U.S. has $450 billion in business orders from Saudi Arabia or that it has $110 billion in military-related orders from Saudi Arabia. The White House has not explained what Trump has talking about; PolitiFact reported: “Hossein Askari, a business professor at George Washington University, analyzes international trade in the Middle East. He knows of no tally of contracts to back up Trump’s assertion. ‘There is absolutely no such number that could support the $450 billion,’ Askari said.” As for the $110 billion figure, the Associated Press wrote: “Trump’s wrong to suggest that he has $110 billion in military orders from Saudi Arabia. A far smaller amount in sales has actually been signed…Details of the $110 billion arms package, partly negotiated under the Obama administration and agreed upon in May 2017, have been sketchy. At the time the Trump administration provided only a broad description of the defense equipment that would be sold. There was no public breakdown of exactly what was being offered for sale and for how much…The Pentagon said this month that Saudi Arabia has signed ‘letters of offer and acceptance’ for only $14.5 billion in sales, including helicopters, tanks, ships, weapons and training. Those letters, issued after the U.S. government has approved a proposed sale, specify its terms…Trump’s repeated claims that he’s signed $110 billion worth of new arms sales to Riyadh are ‘just not true,’ said Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow at Brookings Institution and former CIA and Defense Department official.”

“I want to believe him (Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman). I really want to believe him. They’ve been a very good ally. They’ve been a tremendous investor in our military equipment and other things. They buy tremendous amounts of things from our country. It probably amounts to millions of jobs, you know, a million jobs. That’s a lot of jobs. So I certainly want to believe hi

Source: Interview with the Wall Street Journal

in fact: There is no basis for the claim that Saudi Arabia’s business deals with the U.S. will produce “a million jobs.” (The White House did not respond to a request for an explanation from U.S. website Axios.) As we explained in the previous fact check, there is no basis for the claim that there are “$450 billion” in total orders or “$110 billion” in military orders. Trump has increased his jobs estimates from “over 40,000” jobs in March to “450,000 jobs” on Oct. 13 to 500,000 jobs on Oct. 17 to 600,000 jobs on Oct. 19, the day he also introduced the “over a million jobs” claim. Reuters reported: “An internal document seen by Reuters from Lockheed Martin forecasts fewer than 1,000 positions would be created by the defense contractor, which could potentially deliver around $28 billion of goods in the deal. Lockheed instead predicts the deal could create nearly 10,000 new jobs in Saudi Arabia, while keeping up to 18,000 existing U.S. workers busy if the whole package comes together — an outcome experts say is unlikely.”

 

Brought to Jesus’: the evangelical grip on the Trump administration

The influence of evangelical Christianity is likely to become an important question as Trump finds himself dependent on them for political survival

January 11, 2019

by Julian Borger in Washington

The Guardian

In setting out the Trump administration’s Middle East policy, one of the first things Mike Pompeo made clear to his audience in Cairo is that he had come to the region as “as an evangelical Christian”.

In his speech at the American University in Cairo, Pompeo said that in his state department office: “I keep a Bible open on my desk to remind me of God and his word, and the truth.”

The secretary of state’s primary message in Cairo was that the US was ready once more to embrace conservative Middle Eastern regimes, no matter how repressive, if they made common cause against Iran.

His second message was religious. In his visit to Egypt, he came across as much as a preacher as a diplomat. He talked about “America’s innate goodness” and marveled at a newly built cathedral as “a stunning testament to the Lord’s hand”.

The desire to erase Barack Obama’s legacy, Donald Trump’s instinctive embrace of autocrats, and the private interests of the Trump Organisation have all been analysed as driving forces behind the administration’s foreign policy.

The gravitational pull of white evangelicals has been less visible. But it could have far-reaching policy consequences. Vice President Mike Pence and Pompeo both cite evangelical theology as a powerful motivating force.

Just as he did in Cairo, Pompeo called on the congregation of a Kansan megachurch three years ago to join a fight of good against evil.

“We will continue to fight these battles,” the then congressman said at the Summit church in Wichita. “It is a never-ending struggle … until the rapture. Be part of it. Be in the fight.”

For Pompeo’s audience, the rapture invoked an apocalyptical Christian vision of the future, a final battle between good and evil, and the second coming of Jesus Christ, when the faithful will ascend to heaven and the rest will go to hell.

For many US evangelical Christians, one of the key preconditions for such a moment is the gathering of the world’s Jews in a greater Israel between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River. It is a belief, known as premillenial dispensationalism or Christian Zionism – and it has very real potential consequences for US foreign policy.

It directly colours views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and indirectly, attitudes towards Iran, broader Middle East geopolitics and the primacy of protecting Christian minorities. In his Cairo visit, Pompeo heaped praise on Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, for building the new cathedral, but made no reference to the 60,000 political prisoners the regime is thought to be holding, or its routine use of torture.

Pompeo is an evangelical Presbyterian, who says he was “brought to Jesus” by other cadets at the West Point military academy in the 1980s.

“He knows best how his faith interacts with his political beliefs and the duties he undertakes as secretary of state,” said Stan van den Berg, senior pastor of Pompeo’s church in Wichita in an email. “Suffice to say, he is a faithful man, he has integrity, he has a compassionate heart, a humble disposition and a mind for wisdom.”

As Donald Trump finds himself ever more dependent on them for his political survival, the influence of Pence, Pompeo and the ultra-conservative white Evangelicals who stand behind them is likely to grow.

“Many of them relish the second coming because for them it means eternal life in heaven,” Andrew Chesnut, professor of religious studies at Virginia Commonwealth University said. “There is a palpable danger that people in high position who subscribe to these beliefs will be readier to take us into a conflict that brings on Armageddon.”

Chesnut argues that Christian Zionism has become the “majority theology” among white US Evangelicals, who represent about a quarter of the adult population. In a 2015 poll, 73% of evangelical Christians said events in Israel are prophesied in the Book of Revelation. Respondents were not asked specifically whether their believed developments in Israel would actually bring forth the apocalypse.

The relationship between evangelicals and the president himself is complicated.

Trump himself embodies the very opposite of a pious Christian ideal. Trump is not churchgoer. He is profane, twice divorced, who has boasted of sexually assaulting women. But white evangelicals have embraced him.

Eighty per cent of white evangelicals voted for him in 2016, and his popularity among them is remains in the 70s. While other white voters have flaked away in the first two years of his presidency, white evangelicals have become his last solid bastion.

Some leading evangelicals see Trump as a latterday King Cyrus, the sixth-century BC Persian emperor who liberated the Jews from Babylonian captivity.

The comparison is made explicitly in The Trump Prophecy, a religious film screened in 1,200 cinemas around the country in October, depicting a retired firefighter who claims to have heard God’s voice, saying: “I’ve chosen this man, Donald Trump, for such a time as this.”

Lance Wallnau, a self-proclaimed prophet who features in the film, has called Trump “God’s Chaos Cadidate” and a “modern Cyrus”.

“Cyrus is the model for a nonbeliever appointed by God as a vessel for the purposes of the faithful,” said Katherine Stewart, who writes extensively about the Christian right.

She added that they welcome his readiness to break democratic norms to combat perceived threats to their values and way of life.

“The Christian nationalist movement is characterized by feelings of persecution and, to some degree, paranoia – a clear example is the idea that there is somehow a ‘war on Christmas’,” Stewart said. “People in those positions will often go for authoritarian leaders who will do whatever is necessary to fight for their cause.”

Trump was raised as a Presbyterian, but leaned increasingly towards evangelical preachers as he began contemplating a run for the presidency.

Trump’s choice of Pence as a running mate was a gesture of his commitment, and four of the six preachers at his inauguration were evangelicals, including White and Franklin Graham, the eldest son of the preacher Billy Graham, who defended Trump through his many sex scandals, pointing out: “We are all sinners.”

Having lost control of the House of Representatives in November, and under ever closer scrutiny for his campaign’s links to the Kremlin, Trump’s instinct has been to cleave ever closer to his most loyal supporters.

Almost alone among major demographic groups, white evangelicals are overwhelmingly in favour of Trump’s border wall, which some preachers equate with fortifications in the Bible.

Evangelical links have also helped shape US alliances in the Trump presidency. As secretary of state, Pompeo has been instrumental in forging link with other evangelical leaders in the hemisphere, including Guatemala’s Jimmy Morales and the new Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro. Both have undertaken to follow the US lead in moving their embassies in Israel to Jerusalem.

Trump’s order to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv – over the objections of his foreign policy and national security team – is a striking example of evangelical clout.

The move was also pushed by Las Vegas billionaire and Republican mega-donor, Sheldon Adelson, but the orchestration of the embassy opening ceremony last May, reflected the audience Trump was trying hardest to appease.

The two pastors given the prime speaking slots were both ardent Christian Zionists: Robert Jeffress, a Dallas pastor on record as saying Jews, like Muslims and Mormons, are bound for hell; and John Hagee, a televangelist and founder of Christians United for Israel (Cufi), who once said that Hitler and the Holocaust were part of God’s plan to get Jews back to Israel, to pave the way for the Rapture.

For many evangelicals, the move cemented Trump’s status as the new Cyrus, who oversaw the Jews return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple.

The tightening of the evangelical grip on the administration has also been reflected in a growing hostility to the UN, often portrayed as a sinister and godless organisation.

Since the US ambassador, Nikki Haley, announced her departure in October and Pompeo took more direct control, the US mission has become increasingly combative, blocking references to gender and reproductive health in UN documents.

Some theologians also see an increasingly evangelical tinge to the administration’s broader Middle East policies, in particular its fierce embrace of Binyamin Netanyahu’s government, the lack of balancing sympathy for the Palestinians – and the insistent demonisation of the Iranian government.

Evangelicals, Chesnut said, “now see the United States locked into a holy war against the forces of evil who they see as embodied by Iran”.

In a speech at the end of a regional tour on Thursday, Pompeo reprised the theme, describing Iran as a “cancerous influence”.

This zeal for a defining struggle has thus far found common cause with more secular hawks such as the national security adviser, John Bolton, and Trump’s own drive to eliminate the legacy of Barack Obama, whose signature foreign policy achievement was the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran, which Trump abrogated last May.

In conversations with European leaders such as Emmanuel Macron and Theresa May, Trump has reportedly insisted he has no intention of going to war with Iran. His desire to extricate US troops from Syria marks a break with hawks, religious and secular, who want to contain Iranian influence there.

But the logic of his policy of ever-increasing pressure, coupled with unstinting support for Israel and Saudi Arabia, makes confrontation with Iran ever more likely.

One of the most momentous foreign policy questions of 2019 is whether Trump can veer away from the collision course he has helped set in motion – perhaps conjuring up a last minute deal, as he did with North Korea – or instead welcome conflict as a distraction from his domestic woes, and sell it the faithful as a crusade.

What are the End Days? A study in deception

January 11, 2019

by Frederick Norris

‘Armageddon’ is actually purported to be a battle. According to Pentecostal interpretations, the Bible states that Armageddon will be a battle where God finally comes in and takes over the world and rules it the way it should have been ruled all along. After this vaguely-defined battle of Armageddon, Pentecostals firmly believe that there will follow 1000 years of peace and plenty which, according to their lore and legend, will be the sole lot of their sect and no other.

The actual scene of the fictional battle is referred to by Pentecostals as being clearly set forth in Revelation 16:14-16. It is not. The specific citation reads, in full:

  • “14. For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.
  • “15. Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame.
  • “16. And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.”

This sparse mention of Armageddon has given rise to the elaborate but entirely fictional legend of the Final Battle between the forces of good and evil. There is no mention in Revelations 16: 14-15 whatsoever of Parusia or the second coming of Jesus, the apocryphal Anti-Christ, the Rapture or the many other delightful inventions designed to bolster the Pentecostal elect and daunt their adversaries. These adversaries consist of all other branches of the Christian religion with especial emphasis placed on Jews and Catholics. The Pentecostals also loathe Muslims, Buddhists, agnostics, atheists, and an endless list of anyone and everyone whose views clash with theirs, such as scientists and any academic who views the evolutionary theories of Charles Darwin and Gregor Mendel as anything but tissues of lies.

The Antichrist

The Antichrist is described by Pentecostals as the “son of perdition” and the “beast”!

They claim that this interesting creature will have great charisma and speaking ability, “a mouth speaking great things”.

The Antichrist, they allege, will rise to power on a wave of world euphoria, as he temporarily saves the world from its desperate economic, military & political problems with a brilliant seven year plan for world peace, economic stability and religious freedom.

The Antichrist could well rise out of the current chaos in the former Soviet Union. The prophet Ezekiel names him as the ruler of “Magog”, a name that Biblical scholars agree denotes a country or region of peoples to the north of Israel. Many have interpreted this to mean modern day Russia. It could also be Turkey, Greece, Macedonia, Croatia, Hungary, Poland, perhaps one of the Baltic States or even the lewd and dissolute Socialist Sweden.

His power base will include the leading nations of Europe, whose leaders, the Bible says, will “give their power & strength unto the beast.”

The Bible even gives some clues about his personal characteristics. The prophet Daniel wrote that the Antichrist “does not regard the desire of women.” This could imply that he is either celibate or a homosexual. Daniel also tells us that he will have a “fierce countenance” or stern look, and will be “more stout than his fellows”–more proud and boastful.

Unfortunately, the so-called Book of Daniel was written during the reign of the Roman Emperor Nero, not many decades earlier as its proponents claim, and has been extensively modified by early Christian writers to predict the arrival of their personal Messiah, or Christ, on the Judean scene. The so-called “wonderful” prophetic statements put into the mouth of Daniel are absolutely and wondrously accurate…up to the reign of Nero and then fall as flat as a shaken soufflé afterwards

It is well known that Pentecostals loathe homosexuals, among many other groups not pleasing to them, and would like nothing better than to shove them into a bottomless pit filled with Catholics, rock and roll fans, teenaged mothers, Communists, gun control advocates, Tarot card readers, Christian Scientists, abortionists, Wayne Newton fans, Asians, Jews, African-Americans and Latino Surnamed Hispanics.

The seven year peace-pact (or covenant) that is engineered by the Antichrist is spoken of a number of times in the Bible, and may even have already been signed in secret. The historic peace agreement signed between Israel and the PLO at the White House on September 13, 1993, vividly illustrates how dramatically events in the Middle East are presently moving in this direction eager Pentecostals, awaiting their Celestial Omnibus, will inform anyone who is interested and a greater legion of those who are not.

Under the final terms of the fictional Covenant, Jerusalem will likely be declared an international city to which Judaism, Islam and Christianity will have equal rights. Scripture indicates that the Jews will be permitted to rebuild their Temple on Mt. Moriah, where they revive their ancient rituals of animal sacrifice.

According to modern prophecy the Antichrist will not only be a master of political intrigue, but also a military genius. Daniel describes several major wars that he fights during his 7-year reign, apparently against the U.S. and Israel, who will oppose him during the second half of his reign.

For awhile, most of the world is going to think the Antichrist is wonderful, as he will seem to have solved so many of the world’s problems. But, three-and-a-half years into his seven year reign he will break the covenant and invade Israel from the North.

At this time he will make Jerusalem his world capitol and outlaw all religions, except the worship of himself and his image. The Bible, according to the Pentecostals, says that the Antichrist will sit in the Jewish Temple exalting himself as God and demanding to be worshipped. If this passage, and many others of its kind, actually appears in the King James Version of the Bible, no one has ever been able to find it

It is at this time that the Antichrist imposes his infamous “666” one-world credit system.

It must be said that the Antichrist does, in point of fact exist. He can be seen on a daily basis on the walls of the Cathedral at Orvieto, Italy in the marvelous frescos of Lucca Signorelli. He looks somewhat like a Byzantine depiction of Christ with either a vicious wife or inflamed hemorrhoids .

Pentecostals strongly believe that U.S. public schools “departed from the faith” when in 1963 the Bible and prayer were officially banned. Now, Pentecostals believe with horror, thousands of these same schools are teaching credited courses in “the doctrines of devils”–the occult and Satanism.

Even a cursory check of curriculum of a number of American public school districts does not support this claim but then the Pentecostals have stated repeatedly that they represent 45% of all Protestants in America. The actual number, excluding the Baptists, is more like 4%.

What they lack in actual numbers they more than compensate for by their loud and irrational views so that at times it sounds like the roar of a great multitude when in truth, it is only a small dwarf wearing stained underwear and armed with a bullhorn, trumpeting in the underbrush

Frantic Pentecostals estimated that according to their private Census for Christ there are over 200,000 practicing witches in the United States and allege there are literally millions of Americans who dabble in some form of the occult, psychic phenomena, spiritualism, demonology and black magic. Their statistics claim that occult book sales have doubled in the last four years.

What is seen by terrified Pentecostals as The Occult today is no longer the stuff of small underground cults. They believe that many rock videos are an open worship of Satan and hell that comes complete with the symbols, liturgies, and  rituals of Satanism, and the Pentecostals firmly and loudly proclaim to anyone interested in listening, that “millions of young people” have been caught in their evil sway.

Popular music is termed “sounds of horror and torment” that Pentecostals firmly believe is literally “driving young people insane and seducing them into a life of drugs, suicide, perversion and hell.” It is forgotten now but the same thing was once said about ragtime and later, jazz. If this had been true, perhaps the real reason behind the First World War, the 1929 market crash, the rise of Franklin Roosevelt and the lewd hula hoop can be attributed to Scott Joplin and Ella Fitzgerald.

It is also to be noted that the immensely popular Harry Potter series of children’s books are loudly proclaimed as Satanic books designed to lure unsuspecting children into the clutches of the Evil One. Any sane person who has read these delightful fantasy books will certainly not agree with these hysterical strictures. In point of fact, it would be exceedingly difficult to locate any person possessing even a modicum of sanity who would believe any of the weird fulminations of the Pentecostals.

Outraged Pentecostals now firmly state that in the beginning years of the Twenty First Century, “even the most shameless acts of blasphemy and desecration are socially acceptable.”

“Acts of blasphemy and desecration” sound like human sacrifices carried out on nuns at bus stops during the noontime rush hour or lewd acts with crucifixes performed by drug-maddened transvestites on commercial airlines.

In his weird Book of Revelation the lunatic John of Patmos claimed he foresaw that in the last days the world would turn away from God in order to worship and follow Satan.

Such a prophecy would have seemed believable to previous generations, but not so in our more enlightened and secular humanist day. Hard-core Satanism has been called by rabid Pentecostals noise-makers as: “the fastest-growing subculture among America’s teens”, and the revival of witchcraft & the occult is “one of the World’s fastest growing religions!”

 

The CIA Confessions: The Crowley Conversations

January 12, 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 publications.

 

Conversation No. 51

Date: Saturday, November 30, 1996

Commenced: 11:30 AM CST

Concluded: 11; 45 AM CST

RTC: I was reading over your analysis of the present political and business status and I thought it was interesting. At least I thought your final conclusions were not at all outrageous. But I should caution you against sending such things to Kimmel or Bill. Kimmel would be outraged and Bill will pass this on to Langley because that’s what he does.

GD: None of that surprises me, Robert. I was just stating the obvious. At least it is obvious to me. I suppose if you read history, everything is so compressed and obvious but if you are living it, the end is not always clear. Distance is always important in making conclusions. People don’t like to do this because they want this or that kind of ending so they twist and distort the obvious to suit themselves. When I was writing such reports in the Army, I learned very quickly on not to express attitudes that were opposite of my superiors, no matter how obvious they might be.

RTC: A manifestation of early survival instinct, Gregory.

GD: Yes, why not? No one cares about inconvenient truths but they dearly love convenient lies. But the truth is still there, isn’t it?

RTC: Yes, but we never see it until it’s too late.

GD: The French Revolution was entirely predictable but only if you could stand back from it. Not a revolt of the masses but initially a perfectly reasonable desire for a burgeoning middle business class to gain parity with the great triumvirate: The Monarchy, the Nobility and the Church. Of course the latter trio did not want to share power and the ensuing struggle spilled over and the mob got it. Reasonable beginnings but terrible endings.

RTC: But could have anyone foreseen the end?

GD: Good point. A few but not the ones that mattered. A Polish writer, Bloch, very accurately foresaw the deadly trench warfare of the First World War but at the time he wrote, the great bulk of military theorists had more conventional views so no one heard him. Afterwards, of course, he became famous. At the time, not. The same with my views.

RTC: I must confess, Gregory, that I am a little conventional and predictions of social upheaval, anarchy and economic collapse are a bit alien to me.

GD: Yet you were accustomed to predict such things in other governments you wanted to either replace or destroy. Correct?

RTC: Well, we fomented more than one revolution and collapsed more than one economy but we didn’t predict these things, Gregory, we made them happen. You don’t plan to make a revolution or collapse our economy.

GD: No, I don’t. But if you see a man building a house on the beach, doesn’t it occur to him that a good storm might easily topple it? After all, Robert, the Bible says this but, of course, it’s only common sense.  No empire, and we have an empire now, ever lasted forever. Rome did not and England did not. They rise and they fall. It will be the same with us. After two major wars, we rule. Of course we contested with Russia but since we were better grounded economically, we survived. They may yet come back but it’s not for certain. I see China as our immediate rival but they have uncontrolled capitalism under the control of an aging dictatorship and I would predict that they will shoot up economically and this boom will frighten the leaders. Money creates the desire for power and an empowered mass is very dangerous. And we learned after 1929 that if our marketplace had no controls, it would indulge in peak or collapse on a regular and very destructive basis. Remove these controls would be like blowing up a dam and flooding all the countryside below it. Money for a few and disaster for the rest. Clinton has not encouraged this decontrol but God help us if the right wing ever gets into power. We have all kinds of fiscal dinosaurs waiting in the wings, mating with the lunatics of the religious right and they may yet have their day. Unfettered markets and Jesus in every home, no stores open on Sunday and the Ten Commandments in every classroom. Oh, and not to mention a stake through the heart of the evil Darwin. Nuts. The world is only 6,000 years old and the Grand Canyon was created by Noah’s mythical flood. Action and reaction. If that dismal project comes to pass, there will be a reaction, believe me.

RTC: But your predictions of revolution?

GD: People get bored sometimes, Robert, get tired of taxes and dream of some kind of social paradise where everyone is equal. Who knows what monsters are waiting to be born? But the economy is based on credit and like a Ponzi scheme, credit has its limits. You can only use it so far and no further and if we go too far with our credit cards and loans, the end can be easily seen as the python said as he wrapped himself around the tree.

RTC: Well, it won’t happen during the rest of my lifetime, Gregory. Perhaps in yours.

GD: Probably. We need a Bismarck now but we won’t get him. Democracy is its own worst enemy, Robert. Greed, lack of coordination, corruption, and God alone knows what else. And our national education system is a horror. We are cranking out generations of the illiterate and ill-informed and these know-nothings will eventually get into power. Then we need all the help God can give us. Well, we always get what we pay for, don’t we? Political correctness is idiotic. We should teach our children to question, to evaluate and to analyze, not bleat in their pens like placid sheep. It’s like trying to stab someone with a pound of butter.

RTC: (Laughter) Well, a fat and comfortable public….

GD: Yes, a fat public. Well, it’s only a matter of conjecture, isn’t it? What is it the Bible says? While we are in the light, let us walk in the light for the darkness cometh. Something like that. Enough realistic pessimism for the day, Robert. I recall telling Kimmel, when I found out he taught Sunday school, that he ought to let his little charges read the Song of Solomon and he had a fit. But, I told him, it’s in the Bible so it can’t be wrong. He didn’t see it that way. One dimensional. Never ask questions because you might not like the answers. The truth will not make you free but cause spastic colon. Anyway, I like to speculate, Robert, that’s all. If a dam is leaking, is it wrong to predict a collapse?

RTC: The real estate people down below it would not approve of such sentiments.

GD: No, but they probably live on higher ground.

 

(Concluded at 11:45 CST)

 

 

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