As if on cue, here comes another billionaire group by well-established political control agents in yet another multimillion effort to block President Trump.   This time it’s Koch and his Americans for Prosperity network.

The Koch groups are planning to spend $70 million in their effort to eliminate the support of Donald Trump in 2024.

However, what will be interesting will be to watch how the downstream media networks attack Trump in order to get a piece of the spending allotment.  That’s where knowing where the Koch money flows comes in handy.

First the article:

(New York Times) – The political network established by the conservative industrialists Charles and David Koch has raised more than $70 million for political races as it looks to help Republicans move past Donald J. Trump, according to an official with the group.

With some of this large sum to start, the network, Americans for Prosperity Action, plans to throw its weight into the G.O.P. presidential nominating contest for the first time in its nearly 20-year history. The network spent nearly $500 million supporting Republican candidates and conservative policies in the 2020 election cycle alone.

Two groups closely affiliated with Charles Koch contributed $50 million of the more than $70 million that has been raised. Mr. Koch is a major shareholder in Koch Industries, which contributed $25 million to Americans for Prosperity Action, according to a preliminary draft of Federal Election Commission filings. Another $25 million was donated by Stand Together, a nonprofit he founded.

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I’m not going to say I toldyaso; I’m just smiling.

After a full media cycle of apoplexy and pearl-clutching, which included Andrew Weissmann appearing on MSNBC to declare “It’s the end of Trump,” CBS is now reporting there is no Defense Department memo about attacking Iran – the foundation of the media claims surrounding the leaked audio tapes from Special Counsel Jack Smith.

Worse still, and exactly as CTH previously outlined, despite the claims by CNN about how this audio would be used as the “central element” by the prosecution of Trump, the audio and mysterious memo are not part of the Special Counsel case.

So, why was the transcript of the audio recording used by Jack Smith in the indictment if the audio and nonexistent memo were never going to be used?  Because it’s Lawfare, that’s why.  Everything, yes including the specific language being deployed (ie “documents containing classification markings“), is hype for public consumption.

(Via CBS) – The Defense Department memo on Iran — at the heart of the now-public audio recording that captured a July 2021 meeting with former President Donald Trump — is not part of the 31 counts of willful retention of national defense information charged in special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment of the former president, a source familiar with the matter confirmed to CBS News. 

[…] The document and recording are described in the indictment Smith’s team secured against Trump earlier this month, recounted as an alleged meeting with “a writer, a publisher, and two members of” Trump’s staff, “none of whom possessed a security clearance.”  But according to a source familiar with the matter, Trump was not charged with unlawfully holding onto the Iran-related document discussed in the recording.

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This stuff is really so silly, and lawfare is so entirely predictable, it is difficult for me to remain serious when discussing it.  This is also why serious litigation expert Eric Dublier was so funny in his Concord case briefings against the DOJ and their insufferable Lawfare efforts.

CNN gets a leak of audio from Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, presumably presenting audio of President Trump talking in Bedminster, New Jersey, about the background of Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley lying about Trump wanting to invade Iran. [VIDEO HERE] Essentially, Trump refutes Milley and has papers to back up his side of the story.

CNN claims this audio will be the “Central Focus” of the case against President Trump that eventually “all jurors in the case will hear.” At this point, my laughter is almost unbearable for a multitude of reasons.  Remember, this is a Lawfare operation, which is constructed for one primary purpose, influencing the public.

Putting aside the fact that CNN, and the entire media apparatus already reporting on this nonsense before and putting aside the ridiculous nature of the top-line claims, the audio proves nothing.  It is the sound of President Trump talking about presidential papers that are claimed by the DOJ to be “classified” or “secret.”  Except, beyond the absurdity, there’s a problem that explains why Jack Smith gave CNN the audio.

Despite the grand pontifications and breathless pearl-clutching by the CNN narrative engineers, the audio will NEVER be used at trial – if there is even a trial – which is highly unlikely, because it cannot be admitted into evidence. That’s why Jack Smith gave it to them.  The audio is useless, except for the value in promoting the lawfare narrative engineering effort.

Why?  Because the documents that are claimed to be heard in the audio are nowhere to be found.  That’s right, the DOJ and FBI never found any “classified” or “super-secret” documents as described in the audio.  As a result, the audio represents nothing, a literal nothingburger, because without the documents the audio is inadmissible.

You cannot submit evidence in court of a person talking about documents without the documents the audio is supposedly talking about.  Can you see the issue now?  As a result, the audio is nothing more than President Trump talking about something the prosecution cannot identify or prove.  It’s inadmissible, hence no value, hence the leak.

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I will say it until people understand.  Lawfare is a specially constructed approach to weaponize the judiciary to create narratives for public consumption; it is the abnormal and twisted application of granular legal language, and as a result it requires oddball motions to support it.

The DOJ previously filed a motion for “Special Conditions of Release” to restrict President Trump’s defense from knowing or discussing the super-secret evidence and witnesses the special prosecutor plans to use against him.  The motion was essentially that if President Trump refused the super special terms and conditions of the motion, then Judge Cannon should put him in leg irons in federal prison until he can be tried and convicted.

The special counsel wants everything kept under seal, quiet and invisible to the public so the omnipotent arbiters of justice can appropriately shape the narrative they prefer.

The Jack Smith team cannot have President Trump being all uncontrolled, willy-nilly and making fun of their case, while talking about his targeting in such a manner as their super-secret witnesses would be exposed to such duplicitous snark and horrible influence.

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NBC is out with a new national poll {Article Here} – {Poll pdf Here} showing that President Trump’s lead in the Republican 2024 primary has grown even bigger since the fraudulent and politically motivated indictment by the DOJ.

[ Data Here ]

(via NBC News) – Former President Donald Trump has expanded his lead over Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the rest of the Republican presidential field since Trump’s latest indictment on federal criminal charges, according to a new national NBC News poll.

We all know what the tag-team duos are doing in the 2024 race.  The goal of both election control corporations, the DNC and RNC, is to keep Donald Trump from destroying the system they have carefully created.  The billionaire donors are desperate to maintain the illusion of choice.

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Things are getting spicy in/around Main Justice in DC.  On Friday, Attorney General Merrick Garland and Deputy AG Lisa Monaco denied any involvement interfering with the decisions made by USAO David Weiss regarding the investigation of the Hunter and ¹Joe Biden bribery and tax fraud scheme. However, in response, the IRS whistleblower is now naming additional witnesses to Weiss’s statements.

Through his attorneys, whistleblower Gary Shapley is now naming additional witnesses to the statements of USAO Weiss:

“In an October 7, 2022, meeting at the Delaware U.S. Attorney’s Office, U.S. Attorney David Weiss told six witnesses he did not have authority to charge in other districts and had thus requested special counsel status. Those six witnesses include Baltimore FBI Special Agent in Charge Tom Sobocinski and Assistant Special Agent in Charge Ryeshia Holley, IRS Assistant Special Agent in Charge Gary Shapley and Special Agent in Charge Darrell Waldon, who also independently and contemporaneously corroborated Mr. Shapley’s account in an email, now public as Exhibit 10, following p. 148 of his testimony transcript.

Mr. Shapley would have no insight into why Mr. Weiss’s would make these statements at the October 7, 2022 meeting if they were false.  That Mr. Weiss made these statements is easily corroborated, and it is up to him and the Justice Department to reconcile the evidence of his October 7, 2022 statements with contrary statements by Mr. Weiss and the Attorney General to Congress.”  (source)

Someone is lying, and the whistleblower appears to have all his information well documented and cited.  Mr. Weiss, Mr. Garland and Mrs. Monaco have some explaining to do.

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As previously noted, following the release of explosive testimony and documentary evidence delivered by IRS whistleblowers to the House Ways and Means Committee, the media have been given the green light to begin the Biden removal process.

Some will attribute the shift in corporate media position to a choice made to no longer defend the Biden administration from the transparent and corrupt Joe and Hunter Biden bribery schemes; however, don’t give the corporate suites that much credit.  Instead, look at the House evidence released and remind yourself the mechanisms of the DC media are completely enmeshed with the operational institutions of the DOJ and FBI.  What the media know is that all of the whistleblower evidence is supported by supplemental attribution.

The media’s “sources”, who have direct pipeline contact from the DOJ and FBI into the media executive suites, have told those executives the whistleblower accounts are supported with evidence that is not yet public.  The reality of their inability to hide what is coming is the reason why the media are now positioning to give the illusion of investigative journalism. Examples below:

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If you accept a very specific outlook into the mindset of the Lawfare operatives (Weissmann, Eisen, Berke, McCord et al) as strategic thinkers -the brain trust- behind the Special Counsel Jack Smith prosecution, then you might see the dynamic in this story.

Previously, amid his grand prose and proclamations outlining his spectacular and magnificent legal constructs, wunderkind Jack Smith was so confident in his case he strategically announced he would demand a “speedy trial” in order to preserve the great American democracy.

If you see Lawfare as a narrative construct, the pontification made sense.

However, less than two weeks later, suddenly the ever-confident Jack Smith is reversing his position and asking Florida Judge Cannon to delay the trial.

(Via NBC) – Special counsel Jack Smith has asked the judge overseeing former President Donald Trump’s classified documents case to delay the start of his criminal trial until December.

The request came in a series of new motions filed late Friday by the special counsel.

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon had set a tentative date of Aug. 14 for the start of the trial. (more)

Remember, Lawfare is first and foremost a narrative construct intended for public media consumption.  Lawfare originates from the perspective of an established legal goal, and then all of the activity is structured around supporting that goal.  [A version of find me the man I’ll find you the crime.]

Lawfare is the opposite of following evidence.  In fact, in its purest and most visible form, political Lawfare actually requires the ignoring of evidence.

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The evidence released by the House Ways and Means Committee today is quite astonishing in detail.  In any normal political world, the transcripts, testimony and statements that were released today would destroy the top-tiers of any administration, including the President.

The evidence provided by direct testimony and through transcripts, emails and documents that support the testimony is comprehensive in scope.  The White House and DOJ claimed that US Attorney David Weiss was able to conduct his investigation of Hunter Biden however he needed, but consider this revelation of how much Main Justice intervened to protect Hunter Biden:

“U.S. Attorney of Delaware David Weiss tried to bring charges in District of Columbia around March 2022 and was denied. Weiss sought special counsel status from DOJ in the Spring of 2022 and was denied. Weiss sought to bring charges in the Central District of California in the Fall of 2022 and had that request denied in January 2023.” (link)

It’s not preferential treatment that is outlined in the way the DOJ handles and interfered in the Biden investigation. The evidence outlines something far beyond disparate treatment.  The transcripts for the whistleblower testimony are at the following links:

Whistleblower #1 redacted transcript ~ Whistleblower #1 redacted affidavit ~ Whistleblower #2 redacted transcript ~ Whistleblower #2 redacted supplemental submission ~ June 7, 2023 letter ~

WASHINGTON, D.C. – A Ways and Means Committee executive meeting resulted in a vote to release to the public whistleblower testimony of two different IRS employees who worked directly on the tax evasion case of Hunter Biden. That testimony outlines misconduct and government abuse at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the investigation of Hunter Biden. The allegations point to a steady campaign of: unequal treatment of enforcing tax law; Department of Justice (DOJ) interference in the form of delays, divulgences, and denials, into the investigation of tax crimes that may have been committed by the President’s son; and finally, retaliation against IRS employees who blew the whistle on the misconduct.

Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (MO-08) released the following statement:

“Today, the Ways and Means Committee voted to make public the testimony of IRS employees blowing the whistle on misconduct at the IRS and the Biden Department of Justice regarding unequal enforcement of tax law, interference and government abuse in the handling of investigations into criminal activity by President Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, and retaliation against IRS employees blowing the whistle on this abuse.

“The American people deserve to know that when it comes to criminal enforcement, they are not on the same playing field as the wealthy and politically connected class. The preferential treatment Hunter Biden received would never have been granted to ordinary Americans.

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This is a totally freehand writing for CTH readers, not written with any intent other than our conversation.

For a long time, I have written various forms of an article and deleted it – crumpled it up and thrown it away… because it’s just so hard to write about.

However, an insightful comment by Dutchman today has just pushed me to write it.  Unlike most writing, this is no notes, few citations, just thoughts.

You guys are having a discussion about Larry Hogan’s commentary to CBS News.

In the middle of the discussion, someone writes the familiar and common sentiment about Ron DeSantis, a reasonably decent and good governor, doing his big politically stupid run for 2024.   Dutchman responds:

DUTCHMAN – […] “IMHO, you and others who express your sentiment, don’t REALLY “get it”;

The WHOLE reason DeSantis was the most popular Governor throughout his first term, was a CON;
EVERY action he took as Governor, was a political calculation planned and intended to create the image of “the free State of Florida” and RDS as “Trump lite”.

It wasn’t that “he changed” after getting the $millions, he was ALWAYS terrible at connecting with voters, a terrible campaigner, and he was NEVER MAGA; it was all a “PR.” or advertising campaign to create a totally artificial, and unconnected from reality IMAGE.

And it is that IMAGE that people “fell in love with” and it never existed.

This is important because if people don’t understand this, recognize they were “conned” and understand HOW they were manipulated, they will keep falling for it, every time.

However, once you understand your own vulnerability to being manipulated, accept you need to CHANGE how you view things, THEN you won’t need someone else (like Sundance) to point it out to you, again.

5 minutes of OBJECTIVELY looking at a candidate, will be about 4 1/2 minutes more than necessary, to spot the phonies.” (link)

Perhaps, let me take you back to the spring of 2022 in my thoughts, and show you just how subtle, weird and difficult it is to really understand the nature of this political world we are in right now.  A political world where nothing is what it seems.  I have been inside this research rabbit hole for over a decade, so bear with me.

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