Can We Keep the Republic? Democratic Deliberation Following the Mar-a-Lago Raid

by Jason Ross

[Print version of this article]

Aug. 25—The Aug. 8 raid of Mar-a-Lago, former President Donald Trump’s Florida home, raises crucially important issues respecting the ability of Americans freely to deliberate on the future of the nation. Can the people decide who will represent them in the White House, or is that a decision to be made by a Department of Justice run amok, in conjunction with British intelligence?

Reporters breathlessly repeated that the “unprecedented” raid, in which dozens of federal agents rifled through Trump’s records, necessarily must have been predicated on an enormous threat and unassailable evidence of wrongdoing. An article in Politics Insider says that “a pile of evidence must have backed up the warrant authorizing the search.” CNN wrote that there must have been “probable grounds to believe a crime had been committed.” And what was the crime? Trump’s wrongdoing has been variously described as withholding records from the National Archive, the improper use of “classified documents relating to nuclear weapons,” or violations of the Espionage Act (see “The Espionage Act: British Imperial War Policy as ‘Law’,” by Paul Gallagher, in this issue of EIR). Prosecution under the Espionage Act would put Trump in the company of such whistleblowers as John Kiriakou, Thomas Drake, Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, and Julian Assange.

Democratic former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said of the raid that the Justice Department

must immediately explain the reason for its raid and it must be more than a search for inconsequential archives, or it will be viewed as a political tactic and undermine any future credible investigation and legitimacy of January 6 investigations.

At an awkward press conference Aug. 11, Attorney General Merrick Garland confirmed that he had authorized the pursuit of a search warrant and that the Department of Justice would move for its publication. But on what basis? As of this writing, a Federal magistrate in Florida has ordered the publication on Aug. 26 of a redacted version of the affidavit upon which the warrant was based.

It is worth recalling the quality of evidence supporting the affidavits on which “Russiagate” investigations were premised (Carter Page as a Russian spy, etc.), and thus to take a beyond-skeptical view of whatever supposed evidence for the warrant does get published.

On Aug. 22, Trump struck back, his attorneys filing a lawsuit demanding the court appoint a special master “to protect the integrity of privileged documents” taken in the raid. The filing objects to the warrant’s provision that materials in the proximity of, but not actually falling under the conditions of the warrant, could be collected. And it claims that although the Justice Department has informed Trump’s legal team that (presidential) privileged documents were taken during the raid,

the Government has refused to provide any information regarding the nature of these documents. Only an evaluation by a neutral reviewer, a Special Master, can secure the sanctity of these privileged materials.

What the Jan. 6 Committee Is Not Investigating

The context for the raid is obvious: Trump is a likely candidate, indeed the likely front-runner, for the 2024 presidential election, and this is only the latest stunt in six years of lawfare being conducted against him, including Russiagate, two impeachments, and the selective Jan. 6 investigation taking place in Congress.

The January 6 Select Committee, devoted to painting Trump as the leader of an insurrection against democracy itself, has studiously avoided several unsolved mysteries surrounding the events of Jan. 6. Two among these are the participation of FBI or other law enforcement or intelligence operatives before and during the events at the Capitol; and the mystery of the pipe bombs “discovered” at the headquarters of both the Republican and Democratic parties at almost precisely the moment that the Capitol restricted area was breached.

FBI Involvement

In the Summer of 2020, the FBI patted itself on the back for foiling plans to kidnap and potentially murder Michigan Gov. Christine Whitmer. Among the 14 individuals who allegedly plotted the “kidnapping”—and the planned overthrow of the state government—at least five are known to have been undercover agents or Federal informants. During one van ride to scope out Whitmer’s vacation house, three of the five people in the van had a relationship to the Federal government! What’s more, following the arrest of those plotters who weren’t Federal agents or informants, the then director of the Detroit FBI Field Office, Steven D’Antuono, was given a promotion, announced by FBI Director Christopher Wray, to head the Washington, D.C. Field Office.

The supposed mastermind of the Whitmer Plot, Adam Fox, had been kicked out of his girlfriend’s house and was living temporarily in the basement of the vacuum-cleaner store owned by his friend and employer. It was from this storage space without running water that Fox, accompanied by his two dogs, supposedly hatched a plan to shake Michigan, which would require the purchase of thousands of dollars in explosives and other supplies.

As a matter of fact, the plot was not initially designed to kidnap Whitmer; it was, according to the DOJ’s indictment, to “storm the Capitol building” in Lansing, Michigan!

All told, FBI operatives played numerous important leadership roles in the plot:

• The “explosives expert,” from whom the plotters were to purchase bombs, was an FBI agent;

• The head of transportation for the militia outfit was an FBI agent;

• The head of security for the militia was an FBI informant;

• At least two FBI informants were active participants in the initial meeting to plan the storming of the Capitol in Lansing.

Just months before Jan. 6, 2022, the FBI arrested those perpetrators who were not already agents or informants, supposedly thwarting a plot that had as one of its potential components, a siege on the Michigan State Capitol, and whose plotters included members of one of the militia groups said to be associated with Jan. 6.

Revolver News wrote:

The FBI was able to thwart this on the basis of an astonishing infiltration rate of said groups, involving undercover operatives and informants who had been working in such capacity, just in one tiny Michigan network, for more than seven months. If the government foiled the Michigan Plot, why didn’t they step in to stop the so-called siege on 1/6?

The mystery of the non-arrest of Ray Epps, who was famously captured on video Jan. 5, 2021 calling for the invasion of the Capitol, is compounded by the sympathetic New York Times article about him published in July, and the circulation of easily disprovable claims about him designed to draw attention from those with more merit. (These spoof claims include documentation of calls between his phone and the office of House Speaker Pelosi, and his wife’s employment by the company that owns Dominion Voting Systems Corp.) These false claims about Epps—like those about the 2020 election itself[fn_1]—serve as confetti to discredit those who demand a further accounting of Epps’s involvement with U.S. or other security or intelligence services.

Pipe Bombs

On Jan. 6, 2021, just moments before the perimeter of the Capitol was breached, pipe bombs were reportedly discovered outside the headquarters of the Republican and Democratic Parties.

These pipe bombs were explained as planned diversions, to draw law enforcement away from the Capitol itself, allowing for an easier entrance to the restricted area. Steven Sund, Chief of the Capitol Police, said:

We were dealing with two pipe bombs that were specifically set right off the edge of our perimeter to—what I suspect—draw resources away. I think there was significant coordination with this attack [on the Capitol].

The Capitol Police Inspector General also commented, “If those pipe bombs were intended to be a diversion, it worked.”

Who placed the perfectly located bombs, and why? And why were they discovered (or overlooked) just in time to have their diversionary effect?

Their function as a diversion—police began responding to the RNC bomb at 12:49 p.m., just minutes before the breach of the Capitol’s perimeter—depended on their being discovered shortly before that breach and before the 1:00 p.m. session to certify officially the election of the new President and Vice-President. An astonishing series of events led to this outcome.

Take the RNC bomb, which was “discovered” first. Despite being planted between 7:30 and 8:30 p.m. Jan. 5, according to the FBI, it was first discovered at 12:40 p.m. Jan. 6, supposedly by a random Wisconsin-native D.C. resident who was running an errand. ‘It was right next to the garbage can,” said Karlin Younger in a Jan. 13, 2021 interview with Madison Magazine. “Then I saw a timer that was stuck on the number 20. It was a radial dial.” Through astonishing serendipity, the timer—a standard one-hour mechanical kitchen timer—was discovered at 12:40 p.m. while displaying a 20-minute countdown, lining up with the 1:00 p.m. events at the Capitol!

Who is Karlin Younger? She was not a random resident, but a project manager for First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet Authority), “a public-private partnership between AT&T and first responders to prioritize emergency communications during an attack or disaster,” reports Julie Kelly in American Greatness. A few weeks before Jan. 6, FirstNet landed its largest ever contract with a law enforcement agency—a $92 million contract with the FBI. Is this just a coincidence?

More astonishing than the perfect timing of the discovery of the RNC bomb was the non-discovery of the DNC bomb. Security camera footage released by the FBI shows that bomb being placed at 8:00 p.m., between a bench and a shrub in a small plaza next to the DNC headquarters, just yards from the vehicle entrance to its underground parking. Despite being relatively out in the open, the bomb had to remain undetected for 17 hours, from 8:00 p.m. Jan. 5 until its “discovery” at 1:00 p.m. Jan. 6. If it had been discovered during that 17-hour period, it would have had the opposite effect of a diversion—it would undoubtedly have served to increase security at the Capitol!

So, who failed to see the pipe bomb? The U.S. Secret Service, which conducted a sweep of the DNC headquarters, because Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris went there following an 11:30 a.m. meeting at the Capitol. That’s right; both the building security team and the Secret Service, in its sweep of the building before the visit of the incoming Vice-President, somehow missed the bomb. Does this provide new insight into the Secret Service’s accidental deletion of its text messages from Jan. 6?

Again, according to video footage released by the FBI, the bomb had been planted at the DNC at 8:00 p.m. the previous night. With that footage in hand, surely the person who planted an actual explosive device was found by the FBI?

Don’t count on it! Steven D’Antuono, who had been promoted to assistant director in charge of the FBI’s D.C. Field Office Oct. 13, 2020 following his oversight of the Whitmer kidnapping operation, never made an arrest.

The nature of the footage released by the FBI may provide a clue. There are two video cameras covering the plaza where the DNC bomb was left. We see the suspect sitting on one of the two benches from one camera angle; but when he is supposedly placing the bomb, the footage is from the camera that provides a poor view. Where is the footage from the first camera? Why has it not been made available to a public supposedly being exhorted (including by a $100,000 reward) to help identify the suspect?

But there’s more! According to a November 2021 Washington Post article, a December 2020 tabletop planning exercise headed by Dr. Donell Harvin, the head of intelligence for the Department of Homeland Security, included a “young analyst [who] was ready to present a worst-case scenario: Someone could plant an improvised explosive device near the Capitol. With law enforcement distracted, extremists might then band together and attack government buildings, maybe even the Capitol.”

Gosh, imagine that!

According to his profile at Georgetown University, Harvin’s “primary focus is to integrate emergency preparedness ... throughout the National Capital Region.” This is precisely the same field of work as the “discoverer” of the RNC bomb, Karlin Younger.

Do you think the January 6 Select Committee will pursue these questions?

Learning from the Russiagate Fraud?

Will those liars who made absurd claims about Donald Trump being beholden to the Kremlin, ever be held to account for the damage they have done to the democratic process and the reputation and trustworthiness of American intelligence? Will those serial prevaricators who told tall tales and who repeated rumors of devious Russian plots to control the White House, admit their errors and depart the scene of politics and media? Don’t count on it!

“You know, there are real consequences when people go out and trash the integrity of the FBI,” intoned CNN anchor Jim Acosta during a softball interview with Philip Mudd, a former executive of the FBI’s National Security Branch, and now a paid analyst on CNN’s payroll. Russiagate fabulists Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, and James Clapper all appear on MSNBC and CNN. On Aug. 11, Clapper, the former Director of National Intelligence, appeared on CNN to speculate as to what hidden materials Trump had at Mar-a-Lago:

For me, what on Earth was the motivation, for purloining this kind of data, from the White House, into a completely unsecured area, like Mar-a-Lago?… The imagination can run wild here, as to what the motivation might have been. You’ll find yourself almost hoping this was carelessness, and that there wasn’t some more nefarious motivation, here. Was there, for example—and I’m really going out on a limb—some prospect for some kind of sweetheart deal with Putin?

This is the same Clapper who responded to Sen. Ron Wyden’s question at a March 12, 2013 hearing: “Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?” with “No, sir.” He added “Not wittingly. There are cases where they could, inadvertently perhaps, collect—but not wittingly.” We know from the material provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden that this was a lie.

From the distance of years, it should be clear to everyone that the central claims of Russiagate have essentially all been shown to be groundless, with the conclusion that those pushing them from the highest level were promoting what they knew to be lies, to be disinformation.

Countering ‘Disinformation’ and the ‘Myrotvorets’ Kill List

“Countering disinformation” is the new term for censorship, as applied across the new digital commons of social media. After years of disinformation about non-existent Trump-Kremlin links, the Department of Homeland Security was planning to create a Disinformation Governance Board, to be headed by the wacky Nina Jankowicz, who herself wrongly claimed that the Hunter Biden laptop was itself Russian disinformation. Widespread political counter-reactions stopped it.

The Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation published in June a list of 78—later reduced to 72—speakers who promote Russian propaganda, including the present author.[fn_2] The first two-fifths of that list was populated entirely by speakers at conferences of the Schiller Institute.[fn_3] Those listed were attacked as “information terrorists” and “war criminals” by a CCD representative, in a conference whose sponsorship included the U.S. itself. As Scott Ritter notes, this puts Sen. Chuck Schumer in the position of passing legislation that supports political attacks on his electoral opponent Diane Sare, a member of the list.

Although that list was removed from the CCD website, it remains on their Telegram channel, and some of its members have now been included in the Myrotvorets kill list, on which Darya Dugina is featured with “liquidated” written across her image in red letters. Helga Zepp-LaRouche and Harley Schlanger are similarly listed on the Myrotvorets list. The Myrotvorets list is reported to have accumulated nearly 200,000 names since it was started in 2014, and given the difficulties in using its search engine, others from the CCD blacklist may also be on the Myrotvorets hitlist.

The result of U.S./UK/NATO support for the 2014 coup in Ukraine and the use of its territory for a proxy war against Russia, has been to use Ukraine’s institutions to place political opponents on hit lists.

A Republic, If We Can Keep It

In response to a question from a Philadelphia resident on the type of government created by the Constitutional Convention in 1787, Benjamin Franklin is reported to have replied “A republic, if you can keep it.”

Maintaining a republican form of government requires the ability of the citizenry freely to discuss issues of common concern. If political enemies of the Establishment find themselves banned from social media (and that, through the efforts of government boards), investigated or charged by the FBI, or even added to lists calling for violence by “allies”; can the Republic be maintained?

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