In a sense we’ve already covered the Tim Thibault story in the comments. Thibault, of course, is the former FBI official (I believe he was most recently an ASAC in WFO) who seems to have been involved in multiple Deep State maneuvers—Crossfire Hurricane, the Hunter laptop, and now the MAL Raid. As a program manager in WFO his involvement in all those cases makes sense. Multiple commenters have suggested—plausibly, IMO—that, while Thibault is clearly a bad guy, at the same time he’s a fall guy for Wray and top people at DoJ. I find that plausible because I don’t accept that a mid level manager can call the shots on such ultra high profile cases without the involvement of higher ups—much higher ups. At the same time, it doesn’t seem entirely plausible that he would simply have been following orders from those higher ups. There’s more to learn here.
All of this "Panic mode" talk about FBI/DOJ reminds me of an exchange between Toby Esterhase and George Smiley in "Smiley's People":
>> Toby Esterhase : George, do me a favor, okay? You want a Hungarian babysitter someday, call me. You go messing around with creeps like Kirov and Leipzig, you better have a creep like Toby look after you. You're an old spy in a hurry, George. You used to say they were the worst.
George Smiley : Oh they are, Toby, they are. <<
When comfortable middle-age FBI/DOJ officials start scrurrying around in a panic, they make mistakes.
They may have already done so, and now they can't get the milk back in the bottle ....
... much like Karla bumping off numerous people trying to contain the scandal created by the inept Oleg Kirov bungling Karla's instructions. It led to the "honey-pot" sting of Kirov by Otto Leipzig in the whore house in Hamburg, in which Kirov sings his guts out to his old pal Kirov after many hours of drunken debauchery, unaware it was all being filmed by Leipzig's pal Kretchmeyer, owner of the Blau Diamond cat-house.
Perhaps one of the whistle-blowers in FBI has tapes/documents similar to Ketchmeyers ... taking higher-ups in FBI/DOJ "over the edge," and now "they can't get back."
While reading comments threads on various conservative sites yesterday I was genuinely surprised to see how many rock-ribbed pro-Trump partisans are falling for the view (shared by Johnson and others) that Thibault is the sacrificial lamb/fall guy. It seems obvious to me that Thibault (who had reached retirement age) being publicly escorted out of the building, and being "reassigned to an unspecified position" (per Just The News) was political theater, all prearranged in advance between Thibault and the masters he was serving.
Are we supposed to believe that the same people who've showed a clear and constant pattern of blatant, and essentially limitless, political bias against Trump in their handling of "politically sensitive investigations" are suddenly getting the vapors because -- oh noes! -- one of their allies provided them with a putative pretext to green-light the juiciest operation of all, one that saw them raid the former president's residence to seize (and undoubtedly pore over) every scrap of his private communications?
They got exactly what they wanted. The information they will have gathered from Mar-a-Lago is a wet dream for them, because even if they have to hand it back they are now likely aware of how much he knows, how much evidence he has, about FBI malfeasance going back five years. But sure, they were simply hoodwinked into a scandalous, unconstitutional, politically biased raid on a former president's residence, after which the "investigation" proceeded apace, all because they were misled by a biased Field Office Assistant Special Agent who acted with political bias.
"Political bias in [the] handling of politically sensitive investigations" (the supposed grounds for Thibault being waltzed from the building) is a dead-accurate description of their MO over the last five years.
The confusion stems from the fact that we are obviously using two very different definitions of "fall guy." I was using the dictionary definition: a scapegoat, a victim who is framed by the true perps, or the authorities, for a crime or scandal.
That's clearly not what's happening here, in that he's not being framed by the people he provided assistance to. I suggest that Thibault was an active participant who, in order to create a mutually desirable end result -- a raid on Trump's residence, and the temporary (cough-cough*) seizure of his records and personal correspondence from throughout the term of his presidency -- agreed to provide a pretext for the raid, and then subsequently participate in an act of political theater in which he would be portrayed as having mislead the perps so that they could make the public case that they only did what they did because he misled them.
To the extent that someone 1) willingly takes the blame in order to help hide the true identity of powerful people responsible for a particular crime or scandal, 2) knows with certainty that he will never be punished to a degree commensurate with the enormous scale of the violation he provided a pretext for, and 3) knows that those powerful people will protect him and ensure that he gets the softest possible landing in exchange for his assistance, he's not the "fall guy" in the sense I was using the term.
Hopefully this clears up your confusion and suspicion that I was making a confusing and deliberately self-contradictory argument for nefarious reasons. It's just a semantic misunderstanding/disagreement about the hard definition of a particular term.
Note that Thibault, who was at retirement age, has been "reassigned to an unspecified position." So....not much of a fall for that guy.
Just heard on WTN Nashville news talk radio that Biden has filed to run for reelection. LOL! His teleprompter spew this Thursday evening should be a real 'uniter' of a speech - to save democracy don't ya know. Can you imagine this walking corpse on the campaign trail after two more years?
There is also reporting that a WH lawyer by the name of Su was in contact with the National Archives prior to the Mar-a-Lago raid, so there is that angle still out there as well.
I do feel this goes back to the Clinton's. There was a book I came across titled "Blowing My Cover" that had PJ O'Rourke's Okey-Dokey on it so I bought and read it. It was about a girl living in San Fran who decided to join the CIA, her entry process and her eventually quitting. In reading it I thought to myself, this girl should not be a CIA Field Operative, period! She quit after 9/11 but before GW went to war, she was one of how many the Clinton's got in? and then there are all kinds of other places for similar people hide in government. We got serious house cleaning.
I read that book. I think you're being unfair to the author. Lindsey Moran is likely the best writer ever to take up the subject of what it's like to actually be a CIA operations officer. She seems to have been quite good at what she did. her anecdote about being refused permission to recruit a source who had information about terrorist activities because he had links to terrorism tells you everything you need to know about what the CIA devolved into under the Clintons. She was opposed to the invasion of Iraq, and her opposition seems to have been borne out by events. (She eventually served there.)
I don't agree with Moran's politics, but her service in the field as an operations officer seems to have been admirable
"Who knows? Perhaps it will also implicate figures in the GOP Establishment. After all, the movement to oust Trump has always been bi-partisan."
I'm attending a fund raiser tonight for John Gibbs, a Trump-supported US 3rd Congressional District candidate who "primaried" Rep. Peter Meijer (who voted to impeach Trump), at which former Speak Kevin McCarthy will be in attendance. I'd love to hear him make remarks about this topic.
I would love for the white hats to come in and make everything right, to supposedly restore our original Republic, etc. But here's what bothers me about this - it has way too much of that fantasy feel. "Don't you worry, we have it all covered." I strongly suspect that this is all psyops, the other side pretending they are the white hats who have it all under control. That is what Q feels like to me, and this takes off even further from there. If they are going to do it all, what do I need to do? Nothing. And then we add in cloning and lizard aliens? Hollywood special effects, largely done on computers nowadays. This is more leftist insanity dressed up like it's a conservative reality. No, it's not. And it also makes us look like tin foil hat wearing lunatics. If you're really conservative Christine, please rethink all this.
The thing is. There is a minor segment of the population (think mainly pussy-hatted, middle aged divorced (or man-prison guard type) harpies and their SJW spawn) that thrive on those BS Trump gotcha stories. It's become like a drug for them, that they will happily destroy every relationship they have to get another 'Orange Man Bad, Now We Got Him' fix. It's become the meaning in their pathetic lives. It's a lot of projection and cognitive dissonance that they are constitutionally incapable of recognizing in themselves. Like it would destroy them if they had to face it or go cold turkey off of it as the latest Trump accusation wears thin, so a new 'get Trump' story is created for their latest fix about once every 3-4 months. And it sells like hotcakes.
All of this "Panic mode" talk about FBI/DOJ reminds me of an exchange between Toby Esterhase and George Smiley in "Smiley's People":
>> Toby Esterhase : George, do me a favor, okay? You want a Hungarian babysitter someday, call me. You go messing around with creeps like Kirov and Leipzig, you better have a creep like Toby look after you. You're an old spy in a hurry, George. You used to say they were the worst.
George Smiley : Oh they are, Toby, they are. <<
When comfortable middle-age FBI/DOJ officials start scrurrying around in a panic, they make mistakes.
They may have already done so, and now they can't get the milk back in the bottle ....
... much like Karla bumping off numerous people trying to contain the scandal created by the inept Oleg Kirov bungling Karla's instructions. It led to the "honey-pot" sting of Kirov by Otto Leipzig in the whore house in Hamburg, in which Kirov sings his guts out to his old pal Kirov after many hours of drunken debauchery, unaware it was all being filmed by Leipzig's pal Kretchmeyer, owner of the Blau Diamond cat-house.
Perhaps one of the whistle-blowers in FBI has tapes/documents similar to Ketchmeyers ... taking higher-ups in FBI/DOJ "over the edge," and now "they can't get back."
Pretty good article explaining how unique the POTUS is in our system when it comes to certain issues--like class/declass.
https://amgreatness.com/2022/08/29/one-giant-problem-with-the-fbis-mar-a-lago-raid/
I wonder...
Was Tim Thibault the one that notified FB of the Russian Disinformation threat of Hunter Biden's Laptop
Was Tim Thibault the one that picked up on the laptop from Rudy Giuliani's emails, that the FBI were watching?
Which is bigger, the FBI Trump Raid, or the FBI FaceBook Election Intervention? Which is more of a threat to the FBI?
While reading comments threads on various conservative sites yesterday I was genuinely surprised to see how many rock-ribbed pro-Trump partisans are falling for the view (shared by Johnson and others) that Thibault is the sacrificial lamb/fall guy. It seems obvious to me that Thibault (who had reached retirement age) being publicly escorted out of the building, and being "reassigned to an unspecified position" (per Just The News) was political theater, all prearranged in advance between Thibault and the masters he was serving.
Are we supposed to believe that the same people who've showed a clear and constant pattern of blatant, and essentially limitless, political bias against Trump in their handling of "politically sensitive investigations" are suddenly getting the vapors because -- oh noes! -- one of their allies provided them with a putative pretext to green-light the juiciest operation of all, one that saw them raid the former president's residence to seize (and undoubtedly pore over) every scrap of his private communications?
They got exactly what they wanted. The information they will have gathered from Mar-a-Lago is a wet dream for them, because even if they have to hand it back they are now likely aware of how much he knows, how much evidence he has, about FBI malfeasance going back five years. But sure, they were simply hoodwinked into a scandalous, unconstitutional, politically biased raid on a former president's residence, after which the "investigation" proceeded apace, all because they were misled by a biased Field Office Assistant Special Agent who acted with political bias.
"Political bias in [the] handling of politically sensitive investigations" (the supposed grounds for Thibault being waltzed from the building) is a dead-accurate description of their MO over the last five years.
The confusion stems from the fact that we are obviously using two very different definitions of "fall guy." I was using the dictionary definition: a scapegoat, a victim who is framed by the true perps, or the authorities, for a crime or scandal.
That's clearly not what's happening here, in that he's not being framed by the people he provided assistance to. I suggest that Thibault was an active participant who, in order to create a mutually desirable end result -- a raid on Trump's residence, and the temporary (cough-cough*) seizure of his records and personal correspondence from throughout the term of his presidency -- agreed to provide a pretext for the raid, and then subsequently participate in an act of political theater in which he would be portrayed as having mislead the perps so that they could make the public case that they only did what they did because he misled them.
To the extent that someone 1) willingly takes the blame in order to help hide the true identity of powerful people responsible for a particular crime or scandal, 2) knows with certainty that he will never be punished to a degree commensurate with the enormous scale of the violation he provided a pretext for, and 3) knows that those powerful people will protect him and ensure that he gets the softest possible landing in exchange for his assistance, he's not the "fall guy" in the sense I was using the term.
Hopefully this clears up your confusion and suspicion that I was making a confusing and deliberately self-contradictory argument for nefarious reasons. It's just a semantic misunderstanding/disagreement about the hard definition of a particular term.
Note that Thibault, who was at retirement age, has been "reassigned to an unspecified position." So....not much of a fall for that guy.
Exactly my reaction.
Or being gently lowered into a yacht to be taken to his retirement villa.
Just heard on WTN Nashville news talk radio that Biden has filed to run for reelection. LOL! His teleprompter spew this Thursday evening should be a real 'uniter' of a speech - to save democracy don't ya know. Can you imagine this walking corpse on the campaign trail after two more years?
There is also reporting that a WH lawyer by the name of Su was in contact with the National Archives prior to the Mar-a-Lago raid, so there is that angle still out there as well.
I do feel this goes back to the Clinton's. There was a book I came across titled "Blowing My Cover" that had PJ O'Rourke's Okey-Dokey on it so I bought and read it. It was about a girl living in San Fran who decided to join the CIA, her entry process and her eventually quitting. In reading it I thought to myself, this girl should not be a CIA Field Operative, period! She quit after 9/11 but before GW went to war, she was one of how many the Clinton's got in? and then there are all kinds of other places for similar people hide in government. We got serious house cleaning.
I read that book. I think you're being unfair to the author. Lindsey Moran is likely the best writer ever to take up the subject of what it's like to actually be a CIA operations officer. She seems to have been quite good at what she did. her anecdote about being refused permission to recruit a source who had information about terrorist activities because he had links to terrorism tells you everything you need to know about what the CIA devolved into under the Clintons. She was opposed to the invasion of Iraq, and her opposition seems to have been borne out by events. (She eventually served there.)
I don't agree with Moran's politics, but her service in the field as an operations officer seems to have been admirable
How long until we hear of Thibault's "suicide"?
This is your best line, Mark:
"Who knows? Perhaps it will also implicate figures in the GOP Establishment. After all, the movement to oust Trump has always been bi-partisan."
I'm attending a fund raiser tonight for John Gibbs, a Trump-supported US 3rd Congressional District candidate who "primaried" Rep. Peter Meijer (who voted to impeach Trump), at which former Speak Kevin McCarthy will be in attendance. I'd love to hear him make remarks about this topic.
I would love for the white hats to come in and make everything right, to supposedly restore our original Republic, etc. But here's what bothers me about this - it has way too much of that fantasy feel. "Don't you worry, we have it all covered." I strongly suspect that this is all psyops, the other side pretending they are the white hats who have it all under control. That is what Q feels like to me, and this takes off even further from there. If they are going to do it all, what do I need to do? Nothing. And then we add in cloning and lizard aliens? Hollywood special effects, largely done on computers nowadays. This is more leftist insanity dressed up like it's a conservative reality. No, it's not. And it also makes us look like tin foil hat wearing lunatics. If you're really conservative Christine, please rethink all this.
I'm starting to think I know you from Sangamore, Nebraska.
Gawd....
The thing is. There is a minor segment of the population (think mainly pussy-hatted, middle aged divorced (or man-prison guard type) harpies and their SJW spawn) that thrive on those BS Trump gotcha stories. It's become like a drug for them, that they will happily destroy every relationship they have to get another 'Orange Man Bad, Now We Got Him' fix. It's become the meaning in their pathetic lives. It's a lot of projection and cognitive dissonance that they are constitutionally incapable of recognizing in themselves. Like it would destroy them if they had to face it or go cold turkey off of it as the latest Trump accusation wears thin, so a new 'get Trump' story is created for their latest fix about once every 3-4 months. And it sells like hotcakes.
My view is that NARA was TOLD to make a referral.
Borrowing this from a cth commenter: "RICO defendants burglarized the plaintiff."