Trump Stole Documents

At the direction of Vladimir Putin, I imagine …

What if liberals followed the example of the conservatives, and just began to create the reality that “feels right,” instead of confining ourselves to what we know to be true? Imagine how freeing it would be to spread our wings and drop our own conspiracies from that space between earth and thin air. For example …

It was the greatest spy story in the history of the world, Russia getting enough leverage on a President of the United States to instruct him on the classified documents to brazenly steal from the White House and transfer to his Florida residence.The former “Moleigarch” stored them at Mara Lago and reported in to Vladimir, who assured him he could not be charged as a conspirator, as he was innocent of any actual knowledge.

Agents of the Kremlin planned to pick up the purloined documents in what appeared to be Amazon delivery vans, but the FBI swooped in and seized the documents on the last day before the dealine, 90 days out from an election in which the target of the investigation was declaring candidacy. The ex-president’s most promising defense was two upturned palms and a sneer.

Is there hard evidence that Trump stole the most sensitive documents, i.e., the information our enemies would want most, and pay the most for? Not that I know of, but Carl Bernstein told Anderson Cooper on CNN:

“In the view of … one of the senior most intelligence officials throughout the Trump Presidency … it’s virtually impossible … that the FBI and the Justice Department would take this action without knowledge or belief that the materials contained the most sensitive national security information, of real magnitude … that this could not be done unless there was reason to believe that the national security could be grievously injured if these documents got out.”

Meanwhile, the infiltration of the American government with agents of the Russian state continues apace. A loose association of international oligarchs, a Board of Directors, with Putin as the Chairman, has unlimited funds to buy an echo chamber. With the complicity of the Supreme Court, aka, The American Enterprise Institute, money has attained the rights of free speech as corporations have become persons under the law. This process of rule by money has become so efficient that laws are now made out of money.

Imagine if Obama had left Washington with truckloads of the most sensitive national security documents and stored them in his Chicago home. Imagine if he had talked to Putin like they were priest and sinner in a private booth made for this coming to god moment. What if he had tried to disband NATO, blackmailed Ukraine and said he likes to grab women by the pussy because the black ones blanch the white ones turn pink. That is what the right came back with as a model for American manhood.

The Democrats try to keep governing while the Republicans preach against the institutions by which they govern, teach people to hate the government, because the government is the only competition to unbridled plunder. Take a look at what they actually do.

The laws require evidence. You can’t just make shit up. There is a connection between the action, on the ground, and the reconstruction of it as a story. Everything becomes a story. Given the elements of a story, plus means and motive, we can make one up and it will sound plausible because it has plausible elements and emotional appeal.

Is this an accurate reporting of events? It’s as accurate as the Republican side’s reporting of events. These supporters of authoritarian rule, like Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon, do not see it as treason. They are already on the other side, and see it as operations behind enemy lines, inside the institutions of democracy. They are the enemy and they have no interest in facts other than how they can work them into a weaponized narrative.

I can weaponize a narrative also, except I won’t pretend it isn’t a weaponized narrative, constructed from connected dots and spun information.