John Solomon Confirms Todd Blanche is FAR More Abusive Than Jack Smith

John Solomon is preying on his credulous dupes again, posting documents — pen register reports targeting Susie Wiles — from the investigation into a criminal who attacked the seat of government and stole boxes of classified documents. Solomon is falsely claiming those documents are at all unusual. And sure enough, the same people clapclapclapping about the Jim Comey investigations (including Solomon himself) are wailing about techniques far less intrusive than Todd Blanche has used, repeatedly, with Comey. In reality, yesterday’s documents show: - Jack Smith did not engage in the kinds of abuse that Todd Blanche repeatedly has on the Jim Comey investigations. - Susie Wiles’ role coordinating the cover-up was much more active than we knew. - Susie Wiles was spending a lot of time speaking to journalists at a time when Trump’s flunkies were accusing Jack Smith of leaking to the press. - Susie Wiles was doing very little on the election at the time. - These PRTTs include a tremendous amount of detail that will be useful for impeachment. The backstory to the pen register and the rationale for it dates to August 2022, several months before Trump declared his candidacy. According to the indictment, Susie Wiles vetted witnesses to Trump’s document theft to find out if they were “loyal” before paying legal fees out of the PAC money she controlled. 91. Just over two weeks after the FBI discovered classified documents in the Storage Room and TRUMP’s office, on August 26, 2022, NAUTA called Trump Employee 5 and said words to the effect of, ” someone just wants to make sure Carlos is good.” In response, Trump Employee 5 told NAUTA that DE OLIVEIRA was loyal and that DE OLIVEIRA would not do anything to affect his relationship with TRUMP. That same day, at NAUTA’s request, Trump Employee 5 confirmed in a Signal chat group with NAUTA and the PAC Representative that DE OLIVEIRA was loyal. That same day, TRUMP called DE OLIVEIRA and told DE OLIVEIRA that TRUMP would get DE OLIVEIRA an attorney. As it became clear that Trump was closely monitoring — and possibly even coaching — witness testimony in his stolen documents case by dangling free legal representation, Jack Smith got a pen register on Wiles (who was in charge of dispensing the cash) to track the panics that resulted after certain events occurred. These are actually very revealing documents, which I will unpack in more detail later. They include: February 22-24, 2023 PRTT: This PRTT report came on the same day as Chamberlain Harris deleted her LinkedIn account that showed that, immediately before her first internship in the White House, she did a trip to St. Petersburg. In the days before, the story broke of how Molly Michaels had ordered Harris to copy an entire box of White House calendars, including classified information, which she loaded to the cloud. Trump recently gave Harris an unlawful $45,000 gift. This PRTT shows texts with an undisclosed number texting Wiles repeatedly. It also seems to track phone traffic surrounding an interview, possibly Wiles’ own, with Jack Smith’s team. It’s unclear what Wiles told prosecutors about her role paying for legal representation, but the superseding indictment would also confirm that Trump showed Susie Wiles a classified document in August or September 2021. Wiles would have been a witness that Trump not just stole classified information, but unlawfully disseminated it too — precisely the kind of recipient of classified information (including journalists) that Trump has routinely targeted this term. March 10, 2023 PRTT: This report shows how Wiles would call one or another lawyer (I need to reconfirm these IDs but I believe they remain very significant in Trump’s world) then Trump, then the lawyers again. March 24, 2023 PRTT: These come from around the time of the first interview of Yuscil Taveras, the computer guy who would (after he obtained his own lawyer) explain how Walt Nauta tried to get him to delete surveillance footage. Whether current Associate Attorney General Stan Woodward ethically represented Taveras in his first interview became a heated issue in October 2023. The treatment of Taveras went right to the heart of the cover-up, which was partially charged in the superseding indictment. April 26, 2023 PRTT: This report was specifically focused on whom Wiles spoke with surrounding an April 7 interview (but not, apparently, grand jury appearance) she had with Jack Smith’s team. It shows: - Both Trump and at least one Trump lawyer were calling Wiles in advance of the interview. - A Secret Service Agent who had been interviewed on April 5 spoke to Wiles at some length. - At a time when Steven Cheung was accusing Jack Smith of leaking to the press, Wiles was spending long periods on the phone with major journalists. May 25, 2023 PRTT: This report appears to have tracked Susie Wiles’ calls immediately after Jack Smith gave notice he was going to charge Trump. It describes: On 19 May, 2023, the Special Counsel’s Office informed the FBI Washington Field Office of correspondence with retained counsel for Former President Donald Trump that same day. WFO [redacted] and [redacted] reviewed PR/TT data for facility [redacted] associated with Susan Wiles to document WILES’s telephonic communication with FPOTUS Donald Trump’s attorneys and members of the 45 Office on and around 19 May 2023. Multiple outlets reported that week that the investigation was done and started reporting on Trump’s attempt to preempt it. The calls were really interesting. For example, Wiles was on a virtual call for 45 minutes while key lawyers and Trump himself tried to call her. And Wiles herself called one of Trump’s Presidential Records Act lawyers — so someone like Pat Philbin or Pat Cipollone, someone who represented another of Trump’s lawyers who met with the FBI right at the beginning of this investigation, not long after that call. Another lawyer for a witness called her days later. And while on the day of the communication, Wiles wasn’t returning the calls she got from the press (and also John Solomon) she did in the days after. As noted above, by the end of the week the press knew Trump was about to be be charged, and stories started preempting the most damaging part of Trump’s crimes. Donald Trump’s cover-up of stealing hundreds of classified documents included over a dozen lawyers. But it also included the head of his PAC, Wiles. She played a role in the cover-up before Trump declared his candidacy. And in that role, she not only played a key role in the cover-up. But she was a communication pivot between lawyers and, apparently, a key source for press stories. As someone involved in — potentially even implicated in — the cover-up of a grave national security crime, it is thoroughly unsurprising DOJ obtained a pen register to see who was calling whom. More importantly, it is far less intrusive than techniques Todd Blanche himself has used, including serial unlawful intrusions on Jim Comey’s attorney-client protected communications (without the kind of judicial process Jack Smith would use to get Evan Corcoran’s testimony). These documents reveal a great deal of corruption. The corruption is all that of Trump and his aides. This is smelling more and more like Watergate, with the WH Chief of Staff in charge of passing out hush money. Suddenly I’m remembering names like G. Gordon Liddy, E. Howard Hunt, Hugh Sloan, John Mitchell, and all the fundraisers from the Committee to Re-Elect the President (known at the time by all as CREEP – talk about an acronym being a bit too on the nose!); WH names like John Ehrlichmann, H.R. Haldeman, and WH Counsel John Dean; campaign folks like Herb Kalmbach; . . . . . . and most of all WH conversations ON TAPE with Nixon talking about paying “goddamn hush money.” For many involved in politics today, Watergate is a story from history; for those of us who remember living through Watergate, it is a vivid memory. This was 1972-74 — pre-internet streaming and pre-cable. In many ways, it played out with regular revelations on the pages of the WaPo (and occasionally the NYT), drawing people in like Survivor, The Bachelorette, Traitors, and a million and one so-called “reality shows” today. In offices every day, over family dinners every evening, and at bars every night, conversation swirled about who would be next to get drawn in, and who would be the last one standing. WH Chief of Staff vetting the loyalty of the bought-and-paid-for minions and in charge of the hush money cash to insure safety for the boss . . . WH and campaign lawyers needing lawyers . . . WH leaks to try playing the press . . . Watergate took two years to play out, from the break-in to Nixon’s resignation. It wasn’t a single Woodward & Bernstein “gotcha” piece that suddenly took down Nixon. It was the result of old-school shoe-leather reporting by a couple of Metro Desk reporters day after day after day. It was the result of dogged congressional and ordinary DOJ investigators, who peeled back the layers of what might have looked like a run-of-the-mill break-in. It was the result of judges doing their jobs, from the District Court in DC to SCOTUS. And it took years. Upon Nixon’s resignation in 1974, President Ford pardoned his predecessor in an effort to put this whole national nightmare in the rear view mirror. He was saying, in essence, that Watergate was a one-off, that couldn’t possibly happen again. Let’s just wake up, and move along in the bright sunlight of the new day. Sadly, it was hardly a one-off. Trump is giving us a sequel, and it’s at least as ugly as story as the original. “I am not a crook.” Richard Nixon press conference November 17, 1973 “Always remember, others may hate you, but those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself.” Richard Nixon farewell address August 9, 1974 Cover-up from the past. Cover-up in the present. Corruption from the past. Corruption in the present. Criminal of the past. Criminal in the present. The hearings that were on TV every day, rotating through the three (at that time) networks. Yeah. Like, actual reality television. My then-Republican mom was so angry that her favorite soap got bumped off the air for the hearings. Then she started listening, and became even angrier. Not at the networks, but at Nixon & Co. History doesn’t repeat but it sure does rhyme and vibe! This context explains so much more especially factoring in the Roger Stone’s, Manaforts, and Trumps are all very interested to establish a history in whIchh Nixon is “proven innocent and a narrative that he was wrongfully forced to resign under the threat of Impeachment. Trump’s Jan 6 results proved he can get away with a lot worse than the equivalent of Watergate – at least so far it has. Like Peterr, I remember Watergate. This is FAR worse. Trump has been backstopped, and given a glide path for his return to power, by the SCOTUS he (arguably corruptly) picked a third of. In the early 1970s, the GOP as we know it now did not exist. Their long, careful consolidation of hegemony over this country, facilitated by those whose wealth exploded in their tender care, took off with Reagan. It hasn’t stopped since. Fifty years ago we *had* institutions. Now, those institutions have been captured by this long project. We who crave democracy must win them back. That wasn’t the case in 1974. This time, there won’t be any hagiographic movie. We are in for a long slog. Susie Wiles should consider what happened to Rose Mary Woods. It might be… Educational. The contemporary parallel to Rose Mary Woods isn’t Susie Wiles. It’s Natalie Harp. Susie is in the H.R. Haldeman role. She’s got actual power, and uses it to defend and promote the president. And Haldeman spent 18 months in federal prison. *That* is what Wiles ought to be thinking about, not fading into history like Rose Mary Woods. If Wiles was acting as a communication channel between Donald and his lawyers, I do not believe any of those communications can be privileged, at least in an attorney-client sense. She is not a lawyer to my knowledge, and is a third party to the representation of Donald by his lawyers. I know he is that stupid, but I’m very surprised his lawyers, bad as they appear to be at times, would willingly engage in such a practice – which arguably constitutes waiver of privilege and malpractice. No wonder they are now trying to investigate the Watergate prosecutions. They’re not trying to investigate the prosecutions — they’re trying to whitewash Nixon’s crimes so they can then whitewash Trump’s. If Nixon can be declared not guilty (but instead the victim of evil Democrats in Congress), Trump believes the country can be convinced he isn’t guilty of his crimes, either. What, if anything, can Wiles be charged with? What, if anything, can Woodward be charged with? What was Bove’s involvement in the cover-up? And most importantly, this is stuff that is public, if under-reported (obviously, thank you for that). What’s the stuff that the young Aileen is hiding in Fort Pierce?