TAKE A LOOK AROUND YOU BOY, IT'S BOUND TO SCARE YOU BOY

CNN’s David P. Gelles has noticed an interesting trend.  He’s counted the references to “witch hunt” in Donald Trump’s tweets for the past year.  Between May 2017 and March 2018, witch hunt references averaged 3 per month, and that included a brief spike (6) last July in the wake of revelations about Don Jr.’s Trump Tower meeting with Russian spies.  Then the number jumped to 9 in April, 20 in May, and 22 this month as of June 23rd.   Something appears to have the mad emperor rattled.

Of course, part of this bluster is simply agitprop, a component of the Trump regime’s last-ditch gamble to delegitimize the Mueller investigation.  But #NeverTrump Republican Rick Wilson offered another perspective via Twitter on Thursday morning.  Since the week’s news has been pretty depressing, I thought I’d share my lightly edited compilation of his tweetstorm as a pick-me-up.  A couple of notes on acronyms.  SIGINT means signals intelligence, which includes intercepted communications between known spies and criminals, as well conversations they may have with civilians. SIGINT on Russia is gathered and shared among the intelligence communities in the U.S., Europe, and elsewhere.  IC means intelligence community.

Rick Wilson: “You know what the Trump fluffers are ignoring, yes? They don't want to ask the first causes question, and it's pretty clear why. The origins of so, so, so many counterintelligence operations start with SIGINT.”  

“This wasn't some political hack job. This was a rising wave of information reaching various points in the IC and trickling UP the chain, not some top-down "Get Trump" operation.  When you, your family, your private attorney, your most senior (and junior) campaign staff, business partners, and associates are ass-deep in contacts with people tied to Russian organized crime, Russian intel, and Russian oligarchs (but I repeat myself), it's going to show up.”

“As we've discussed, the FBI, DOC, IC, and FISA court ain't playing beanbag. They don't just say, "WHOA, Trump's a flaming dickbag! Let's subvert our oath and violate the law to screw him!" The Fox crowd uses the asymmetry of what the FBI/DOJ/OSC is forbidden to reveal (yet) to draw this lurid, stupid portrait of an evil Deep State conspiracy for the credulous, the slow, and the willfully mendacious who know better.”

“With all the contacts, associations, meetings, business deals, money, and hard intel that the Russians were attacking our election that *caused* the attention the Trump, if you think the system should have sat quietly and done nothing, allow me to propose a gedankenexperiment.  Substitute "Clinton" and "Muslim" and tell me you wouldn't want the FBI to *do its damn job*”

“I've said this from the very, very start. The IC has a royal flush, or damn near it. The fact that you haven't seen it yet is evidence of discipline, not absence.  All this show, and bluster, and hair-tearing flim-flam from Team Trump is their usual disservice to the rule of law. Steady on.”