Today's Beau

Spoils

A Russian T90A Main Battle Tank, captured in Ukraine last fall, was being delivered - uh - somewhere (?)

I'm not sure how to react to the fact that the truck being used to transport the thing broke down, and now the tank sits at a joint in Louisiana called Peto's Travel Center and Casino.

DOD meanwhile disavowed any knowledge of this weird episode.

The Department of Defense said they had no information on what the tank was doing in Louisiana.

Writing for The War Zone, defense expert Howard Altman speculated the tank may "be intended for some sort of display," though he added: "If it was not imported by the military, exactly how it made it from Ukraine to Peto's parking lot is quite puzzling."

They touch on it in the video, but the extent of the problem with corruption and outright theft in the Russian military throws big shade on everything we've ever had to deal with here.

• As Moscow was spending $3.2 billion on the Russian Navy, Putin's oligarch buddies were spending $4.1 billion on Mega-Yachts for themselves
• Weapons that are supposed to contain explosives, have been shown to contain wood or plastic or rubber instead
• Soviet era radios
• Chinese walkie-talkies
• Cell phones or Garmin GPS in fighter jets

The prevailing thought among the Russian leadership class was that as long as Russia has that big bad nuclear thing going for them, there would never be another conventional war, so there's no need for conventional weapons intended for use in - oh, I dunno - Ukraine maybe?

Conclusion: Lobby to keep funding tanks, and the artillery, and the soldier suits, and then steal as much of it as you can - while you can - because it'll never have to be used, and we need to party.

But - question: The "regular" military is total Swiss cheese because of corruption-gone-wild, so how do they have any confidence that their nuke forces are doing any better?

"The fight is here.

I don't need a ride -

I need ammunition."

-- Volodymyr Zelenskyy

China's Balloon Stunt

Michael Clarke, with a quick look:

And a report on the shoot-down, and a brief overview of a few ramifications:

Interesting how Republicans have been jumping up and down screaming about Biden not taking action, and how this could never have happened with Trump in the White House - except for the inconvenient fact that it did happen - like 2 or 3 times - when Trump was in the White House.

But as soon as it becomes pretty obvious that either it wasn't quite the threat they need us to believe it is, or they start to look a little panicky and idiotic, they just drop it and move on to the next "crisis" in the rotation.

They never ever say, "This seems like a threat to our sovereignty - we should all get together and present a unified front so China doesn't get the idea they can pull this shit whenever they want ..." All they ever do is shit on Biden, or the Pentagon, or the CIA, or the FBI, or your dying Aunt Tillie in Pittsburgh, or whatever the fuck they think they can use to score a few points.

Again?

Jesus H Fuq. Pretty goddamned sloppy.

Can we please stop fucking up the whole State Secrets thing?

It has to be obvious now that several somebodies in various places at various levels of government either aren't paying attention, or are actively fucking with things they're not allowed to fuck with.

Classified Documents Found at Pence’s Home in Indiana

The documents were “inadvertently boxed and transported” to the former vice president’s home at the end of the Trump administration, Mr. Pence’s representative wrote in a letter to the National Archives.

Aides to former Vice President Mike Pence found a small number of documents with classified markings at his home in Indiana during a search last week, according to an adviser to Mr. Pence.

The documents were “inadvertently boxed and transported” to Mr. Pence’s home at the end of President Donald J. Trump’s administration, Greg Jacob, Mr. Pence’s representative for dealing with records related to the presidency, wrote in a letter to the National Archives.

The letter, dated Jan. 18, 2023, said that the former vice president was unaware of the existence of the documents and reiterated that he took seriously the handling of classified materials and wanted to help.

Mr. Jacob wrote that Mr. Pence relied on an outside lawyer after classified documents were found in recent days at the residence and former private office of President Biden. Mr. Jacob also said the lawyer could not specify anything more about the documents because the lawyer had stopped looking once it was clear the documents had classified markings.

The disclosure adds more questions about how classified material is handled at the top levels of government at a moment when Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump are both subjects of special counsel investigations on the matter.

Mr. Trump has been under federal investigation for nearly a year for how hundreds of documents with classified markings, as well as hundreds of pages of presidential records, wound up at his private club and residence, Mar-a-Lago.

Mr. Trump resisted the urging of aides to give boxes of documents with unknown contents to the National Archives. When he eventually turned over 15 boxes, archives officials found hundreds of pages with classified markings. Mr. Trump later faced a grand jury subpoena to turn over any remaining documents, and one of his lawyers wrote a statement saying everything had been turned over. When investigators found evidence that was not the case, the F.B.I. searched his club in August.

Mr. Biden, by contrast, has cooperated since the discovery of documents at his nonprofit offices and then his home. Mr. Jacob, who was Mr. Pence’s general counsel while he was vice president, stressed cooperation in the letter to the National Archives.

Still, aides to Mr. Pence had previously said they were confident that the vice president had not retained any classified documents after he left office.

Hostages

Max Boot is generally an OK guy these days - at least he's kinda rehabbed from his previous wingnut persona.

But just like practically all the other jaw-flappers, he never mentions the possibility that a guy like Viktor Bout may have been turned while he was in US custody, and that Putin needs to get him back in order to figure out whether or not he's some kind of double agent now, &/or to find out how much he told the Americans about Russia's shady deals - and that gives the US a chance to fuck with Putin's head some more, and blah blah blah, and ain't it fun to play this stupid cloak-n-dagger game all the fuckin' time.

I don't know enough about any of it to think I could offer up any kind of guidance.

I only know that nobody knows much of anything about the spy-craft shit, and that includes the spies and the spy masters.

I just think it'd be nice if we could count on our government to go to bat for us without thinking we're all just geopolitical pawns.

Opinion -Max Boot

It’s good that Griner is home. But the hostage bazaar has to close.

I am very glad that basketball star Brittney Griner is back in the United States after having been imprisoned in Russia on trumped-up charges. But I am also very uneasy about the method of her release. In return for her freedom, President Biden agreed to set free Viktor Bout, a notorious Russian arms dealer who was serving a 25-year prison sentence on charges of conspiring to sell weapons to kill Americans.

We need a serious discussion about whether this is the right policy for Washington to follow. Should we be winning the release of those currently detained at the risk of creating more hostage crises in the future?

There is legitimate cause for concern that such deals make us more vulnerable, as Republican critics now charge, but they didn’t start with Biden. President Ronald Reagan traded arms for hostages with Iran. President Barack Obama set free five senior Taliban leaders from Guantánamo Bay to return U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl from Afghanistan. (Obama, however, refused to pay a ransom to the Islamic State to win the release of four U.S. hostages, ordering instead a rescue mission that failed. The hostages were subsequently killed, while many European hostages were ransomed out.)

Now, Biden has chosen to pay a disturbingly high price for Griner’s freedom. It’s not entirely clear why Russian dictator Vladimir Putin wanted Bout back so badly, but he is closely linked to Russia’s military intelligence agency, the GRU. Although it’s been 12 years since Bout was arrested in Thailand and extradited to the United States, he might still have smuggling networks that could be of use to Putin in waging the war in Ukraine.

Besides setting free a dangerous international criminal known as the “merchant of death,” the deal sent a message to the entire world that the United States remains in the business of paying off hostage-takers. That can only encourage more unlawful detentions of Americans.

We need a serious reconsideration of the right policy on hostages. But that’s exactly what we’re not getting. Instead of engaging on the merits of Biden’s difficult decision, MAGA Republicans are displaying breathtaking (if entirely unsurprising) bigotry, cynicism and political opportunism in their desperate desire to deny a Democratic president credit for any achievement.

Eugene Robinson: Trading Brittney Griner for an arms dealer was a good deal

Fox “News” host Tucker Carlson suggested that Griner was set free, and former Marine Paul Whelan was not, because she “is not White and she’s a lesbian.” This is nonsense. It’s a tragedy that Whelan remains in a Russian prison, but if it was so easy to release him, why didn’t Donald Trump get it done while he was in the Oval Office? Whelan has been in prison since 2018.

Now, right-wing commentators who never mentioned Whelan’s ordeal before are suddenly bringing him up to score partisan points. Likewise, Republicans who regularly applauded Trump’s hostage-release deals are expressing concern that, as House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) said, the Griner-for-Bout deal “made us weaker.”

As president, Trump took hostage deals to a whole new level — making them, for the first time, a pillar of U.S. foreign policy rather than a disreputable necessity. He boasted that he was “the greatest hostage negotiator … in the history of the United States,” crassly featured six freed prisoners at the 2020 Republican National Convention, and elevated his chief hostage negotiator (Robert C. O’Brien) to the role of national security adviser.

Trump now has the gall to attack the Griner deal as “one-sided” and a “‘stupid’ and unpatriotic embarrassment,” but he paid a substantial price for many of his own prisoner releases, which involved deals with such unsavory partners as the Taliban, the Iranians and the Houthis in Yemen.

The wheeling and dealing continues under Biden. In addition to Bout, he released a Russian cocaine smuggler in exchange for Trevor Reed, another former Marine held in Russia; an Afghan drug lord in return for Navy veteran Mark Frerichs, who was held by the Taliban; and two relatives of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro who were convicted of drug trafficking for seven Americans held in Venezuela.

All of these deals, however well-intentioned, are, unfortunately, creating inducements to seize more Americans in the future. It’s a vicious cycle that is nearly impossible to break. But we need to try. Biden, while continuing to negotiate for the release of Whelan and others who are currently imprisoned, could announce that in the future all Americans who go to Russia, Iran, Syria, North Korea, Afghanistan and other countries on the State Department’s “do not travel” list are on their own. If they are seized, we aren’t going to give up anything to get them back.

That might sound harsh and hardhearted — and may be politically impossible — but it could actually protect Americans abroad. Perhaps that’s not the right approach. But some course correction is needed if the U.S. government is to stop inadvertently offering aid and encouragement to hostage-takers.

New Day, New Shit

Takeaways from the redacted affidavit used for the Mar-a-Lago search

The largest piece of the puzzle about why FBI agents searched former president Donald Trump’s residence is out: the affidavit submitted to warrant the search. In its full form, this usually sealed document spells out exactly what FBI agents thought was hidden at Mar-a-Lago and what crimes may have been committed. But the version the Justice Department released to the public Friday is heavily redacted.

Here’s what we were able to glean about the investigation — and still have to learn.

1. 184 classified documents, including some top secret, were once at Mar-a-Lago

This affidavit, by definition, was written before FBI agents searched Trump’s clubhouse and took away more boxes of suspected classified information. They are likely sifting through that now. But when National Archives retrieved 15 boxes of official material in January from Mar-a-Lago, they found “a lot of classified records,” according to the affidavit, and flagged the FBI.

A subsequent FBI tally of classified information in those boxes found, according to the affidavit: “184 unique documents bearing classification markings, including 67 documents marked as CONFIDENTIAL, 92 documents marked as SECRET, and 25 documents marked as TOP SECRET.”

That’s an astonishing amount of classified material, legal experts said.

In addition, the FBI believed that the material contained what it calls “national defense information,” or some of the most guarded secrets. (The Washington Post has reported the government feared nuclear secrets were at Mar-a-Lago.)

In addition, the FBI was concerned that the classified information was treated carelessly. The National Archives wrote to the bureau that the boxes it retrieved from Mar-a-Lago contained: “newspapers, magazines, printed news articles, photos, miscellaneous print-outs, notes, presidential correspondence, personal and postpresidential records, and ‘a lot of classified records.’ Of most significant concern was that highly classified records were unfoldered, intermixed with other records, and otherwise unproperly [sic] identified.”

People who have worked at the White House and handled classified documents stress that each document is treated with extreme care; some of the most secret material are returned to a secure room or even a safe after the president or other authorized top officials review it.

“The affidavit confirms that the documents were stored in various locations around Mar-a-Lago and that none of these locations was an approved storage facility for classified material,” said Barbara McQuade, a former federal prosecutor.

2. The Justice Department is suspicious of obstruction by Trump or his allies

“There is also probable cause to believe that evidence of obstruction will be found at the PREMISES,” reads the affidavit. We don’t learn much more than that from this document.

But the affidavit states that the National Archives spent six months in the latter half of 2021 trying to get more documents. And then the FBI got involved. The Post’s Josh Dawsey, Carol Leonnig, Jacqueline Alemany and Rosalind Helderman reported that all this year, Trump resisted handing much of anything over, to the point where his allies feared he was “essentially daring” the FBI to come after them.

Trump was also warned before he even left the White House that taking any official documents with him, let alone national secrets, was illegal under the Presidential Records Act. And even Trump’s attorneys agreed that the former president needed to give the documents back, report Dawsey and Alemany, citing the National Archives’ conversations with Trump’s lawyers.

The Justice Department already released the search warrant that Judge Bruce E. Reinhart signed off on. It was a short document that revealed that the FBI found top-secret information there while looking for evidence of the violation of three potential crimes, including part of the Espionage Act. The affidavit doesn’t shed much more light on that.

3. It’s possible Trump allies were talking to the FBI about all this

Included in the paperwork with the affidavit was a formal notice that the redacted memorandum was being released. In it, the Justice Department writes that the redactions are necessary to protect “a broad range of civilian witnesses.”

“This language suggests that people inside Trump’s former administration, or at Mar-a-Lago, are providing information to the FBI,” McQuade said.

The redacted affidavit itself suggests that the investigation includes detailed monitoring of Mar-a-Lago to find out how many boxes of official material were still there and where they were being stored.

4. What’s missing

We’re not seeing the full affidavit; far from it.

The Justice Department was allowed to pretty liberally ink-out many details of its investigation, because lawyers said this was still in its early stages.

We don’t know exactly what they cut.

But Jack Sharman, a corporate litigator who has been involved in numerous government investigations, said affidavits that get publicly released are usually protective of confidential informants as well as personal identifying information of the informants, or of law enforcement agents, given the threats to law enforcement from some Trump supporters. (The name of the FBI agent primarily responsible for writing the affidavit is withheld.) Also, statements made by witnesses or informants can be redacted. And just about anything having to do with a related investigation or potential subjects or targets is usually cut from these kinds of releases, Sharman said.

5. We still don’t know why Trump wanted these documents

In addition to whether the Justice Department will charge Trump or someone in his orbit with a crime, why all these documents were at Mar-a-Lago in the first place is one of the biggest unanswered questions of this whole thing.

Trump and his lawyers were repeatedly asked to return them. Under requests from the National Archives, a subpoena and visits to Mar-a-Lago from Justice Department officials, they did return some boxes. But much more, it seems, remained in Trump’s possession.

6. The full affidavit is a road map to potential prosecution

An affidavit is essentially a report of all the evidence and witnesses and reasoning for why agents need a search warrant to go through someone’s private stuff. The private home of a former president has a particularly high bar, so this affidavit was likely extremely thorough and detailed.

Attorney General Merrick Garland signed off on it, and FBI agents presented this sworn document to a magistrate judge. The judge agreed that agents convincingly laid out there was probable cause that a crime was committed at Mar-a-Lago by Trump keeping classified documents there, or at least that there was strong potential of evidence of a crime. The search warrant and affidavit mention potential crimes that don’t require information to be classified, though. So simply just taking the material out of the White House and refusing to give it back could be enough for prosecution.

These affidavits are usually kept sealed, because they are a road map for any potential prosecution after the search. But citing the overwhelming public interest, Reinhart ordered the Justice Department to release as much as it could without revealing secrets of its ongoing investigation.

“It’s highly unusual that this is even happening, period,” Sharman said.