I forgot how horrible Sandy Berger was

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I forgot how horrible Sandy Berger was

Postby Kurt » Wed Aug 10, 2022 8:17 pm

US Deputy National Security Advisor and Chief National Security Advisor under the Clinton Administration.

Didn't sell Amoco stock when the White House ordered him to do so to avoid conflict of interest. They settled that he made a mistake but had no criminal intent (He was a lawyer and likely knew what he was doing and also likely knew how to negotiate a settlement)

Waited 15 months to pass on evidence that Chinese Espionage had obtained US designs for Nuclear Warheads. The Department Of Energy briefed him and expected him to tell the President and others but he didn't until 15 months later. He later went to work for the Stonebridge Group to "work to expand US markets in China" but likely vice versa. And The Albright Group where he did the same thing but with Madeline Albright as his boss.

Clinton nixed an investigation and so Lamar Alexander had to push the DOE to do their own investigation but his efforts lead to nothing (he was likely on to "something")

And in 2003 he stole classified documents from the National Archives relating to 9/11 and the Millennium Attack Plots of 2000 and he was charged in 2004 and convicted in 2005 after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor. It was not full on espionage since they were copies of Archived documents and not originals. If they were originals he might have died in prison.

Anyway, it looks like Trump took originals.

I don't believe those toilet photos at all though, but I do remember he was warned / asked to return them and he did not (most likely letters from Kim Jong Il).

So now people are calling for Civil War.

I know how horrible Trump is but totally forgot how horrible Sandy Berger was.

Fun Fact: President John Tyler's widow, Julia, was impoverished after her brother sued to be sole possessor of the Gardiner inheritance so she sold documents from the Tyler presidency. That is one reason why Presidents get pensions now.
She was also really angry about Slavery Ending. So she always flew a confederate Battle Flag and one time Union Soldiers had to be commanded not to burn down her plantation in 1868. Her son Lyon Tyler is the direct source of "States Rights" as the reason for the Civil War being fought. So every Neo Confederate who claims it was a just war but a lost cause gets that from pamphlets he published. His son, John Tyler's grandson (Born 1790 and president from 1841 to 1845) is still alive at age 94.

So basically one of the most seething Neo Confederate who ever lived (would have been Jefferson Davis' VP had he lived a few months longer) is the reason for the Search Warrant. The pension made it illegal to take documents from the term as president.
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Re: I forgot how horrible Sandy Berger was

Postby vagabond » Thu Aug 11, 2022 2:12 am

Was waiting to see who was going to post first ;-)

Have heard the name but no recollection of this person (I was a bit young at the time). Wikipedia quotes good ole Nancy though:

"Sandy Berger", Nancy Pelosi said in 1997, "was the point-man at ... Hogan & Hartson ... for the trade office of the Chinese government. He was a lawyer-lobbyist."

Lol.

I like your part about him being a lawyer and probably knowing what he was doing. Seems a lot of these folks run in the same circles and have similar pedigrees.

Re Trump fun this week:

DOJ’s June Mar-a-Lago Trip Helps Prove 18 USC 793e

The Likely Content of a Trump Search Affidavit

And of course, there's all the speculation on who snitched.

You'd think after decades of criminality they would be better at crime. Then again, maybe it doesn't matter when you always get away with it.
"If you were born near someplace called "The Erg of ____" you lost the lottery." - Kurt the Wise

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Re: I forgot how horrible Sandy Berger was

Postby Tarkan » Thu Aug 11, 2022 2:21 am

Gold ' ole Sandy Burglar? That guy was a riot. Exfiltrated the classified documents by tearing the pages and stuffing them in his socks.

Andy McCarthy had a good piece on the Trump raid in NRO. The stated reason is that Trump illegally retained classified material. Which is weird, since Trump, as President, was an OCA and could literally declassify stuff with a written statement & signature. Furthermore, Trump has a SCIF at Mar-a-Lago and former Presidents are typically allowed a fair amount of leeway on the stuff they take, and typically still receive classified briefings after they leave office. And suddenly the Democrats and the DOJ and the FBI care about classified info, when in 2016 they clearly did not, given that Clinton's entire staff was given blanket immunity even after they failed to turn over all classified info (i.e., Huma Abedin and the 20,000 or so Clinton emails stored on Anthony Weiner's laptop) and after they destroyed evidence.

Normally this is something that would be handled by DOJ lawyers and Trump's lawyers, but I guess someone in the Biden admin thought raiding Trump's' place at 6 am in the morning with 50 FBI agents was the better play. McCarthy thinks they are fishing for Jan 6 smoking guns, and since they "know" Trump "illegally" is in possession of classified info, it's sufficient to get a warrant signed by the judge who used to be Jeffrey Epstein's lawyer. Pelosi made a statement how this proves no one is above the law, but this merely proves that no Republicans are above the law (well, Mitch McConnel's wife appears to be, and John Roberts illegal adoptions seem to be fine). Quite a few Democrats and their apparatchiks do actually appear to be above the law.

I'm still amazed that the fact that the DNC law firm of Perkins-Coie had an FBI installed NSA/FISA terminal installed in their offices isn't treated as a major scandal by the media ala Watergate - since it's much, much more pervasive of an eavesdropping tool than a 2nd rate burglary attempt was, but I digress. Sort of. You have to assume that Trump and his family and immediate associates have been under continual FISA surveillance since at least 2016, and maybe earlier, but data collected via FISA isn't admissible in court. So either they know something and are using parallel construction to pin him with it, or they are truly going on a shot in the dark fishing expedition. And if it's just a fishing expedition, then it really is a sad day for the Republic.
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Re: I forgot how horrible Sandy Berger was

Postby Tarkan » Thu Aug 11, 2022 2:23 am

vagabond wrote:Was waiting to see who was going to post first ;-)

Have heard the name but no recollection of this person (I was a bit young at the time). Wikipedia quotes good ole Nancy though:

"Sandy Berger", Nancy Pelosi said in 1997, "was the point-man at ... Hogan & Hartson ... for the trade office of the Chinese government. He was a lawyer-lobbyist."

Lol.

I like your part about him being a lawyer and probably knowing what he was doing. Seems a lot of these folks run in the same circles and have similar pedigrees.

Re Trump fun this week:

DOJ’s June Mar-a-Lago Trip Helps Prove 18 USC 793e

The Likely Content of a Trump Search Affidavit

And of course, there's all the speculation on who snitched.

You'd think after decades of criminality they would be better at crime. Then again, maybe it doesn't matter when you always get away with it.


That's the way a lot of people feel about the Clintons.

Speculation of snitching is probably premature. Trump is almost certainly under continual FISA monitoring.
I'd whore myself out just one more time if I knew who to screw to get out of this grind.
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Re: I forgot how horrible Sandy Berger was

Postby Kurt » Thu Aug 11, 2022 1:13 pm

vagabond wrote:You'd think after decades of criminality they would be better at crime. Then again, maybe it doesn't matter when you always get away with it.


Trump always hid his crime and got penalty reductions the same way Berger did, but Berger was a lawyer who hired lawyers. Trump melded with companies that had access to those very same Lawyers.

Like Trump University...Which was a total Fraud but only a 25 Million dollar fine and restitution.

In order to understand power in the US you gotta understand Schools. There is a "Deep State" but not the one we think of as a mysterious cabal of people who pull the strings but rather as a combination of East Coast Schools (Mostly) and the connections they bring.

Why does the NRA have HQ in New York? Because the Yalies who work there don't fucking want to live in Tennessee. They don't want the hoi poloi coming up and shaking their hands for the work that they do. The regular jackoffs pay their salaries so they don't have to live next to people like that...and more importantly they are in proximity to all the other people in power. Tish James did not go to school with any of them. That is why she fucks these people so hard. She has access to what every other AG had access to but the other AG would discuss the problems over lunch at Elaine's agree on a fine and then get around to rousting black kids for smoking weed on the corner.

Trump hire companies that employed these people. Cushman Wakefield, Deutsche Bank etc. etc. Imagine back in 2009 when the Yalies who worked for Andrew Cuomo's AG office (Cuomo went to decent schools but not connected schools, that was not needed after his dad became Governor) demanding property assessment documents from Cushman Wakefield for the Trump Organization. C-W would have just said "No" over lunch and the AG's office would have said "OK, send us a notice that the documents don't exist" and that would be that after talk about how Biff and Muffy are enjoying their sailing lessons.

Leticia James was Public schools in Brooklyn, Lehman College in the Bronx and Howard University for her Law Degree. Basically everyone knows her but she didn't go to school with any of these people, her attorneys don't work on cases where their classmates are defense counsel and all of a sudden Cushman-Wakefield cannot do anything, the NRA tries to dissolve in New York State and move HQ all because someone is in power who went to school to be a public defender.

To Trumpworld AG James is the Deep State but really she is smashing it, and Trumpworld, Cuomoworld and Clintonworld were all a part of the same structure.
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Re: I forgot how horrible Sandy Berger was

Postby Tarkan » Thu Aug 11, 2022 2:44 pm

Kurt wrote:
vagabond wrote:You'd think after decades of criminality they would be better at crime. Then again, maybe it doesn't matter when you always get away with it.


Trump always hid his crime and got penalty reductions the same way Berger did, but Berger was a lawyer who hired lawyers. Trump melded with companies that had access to those very same Lawyers.

Like Trump University...Which was a total Fraud but only a 25 Million dollar fine and restitution.

In order to understand power in the US you gotta understand Schools. There is a "Deep State" but not the one we think of as a mysterious cabal of people who pull the strings but rather as a combination of East Coast Schools (Mostly) and the connections they bring.

Why does the NRA have HQ in New York? Because the Yalies who work there don't fucking want to live in Tennessee. They don't want the hoi poloi coming up and shaking their hands for the work that they do. The regular jackoffs pay their salaries so they don't have to live next to people like that...and more importantly they are in proximity to all the other people in power. Tish James did not go to school with any of them. That is why she fucks these people so hard. She has access to what every other AG had access to but the other AG would discuss the problems over lunch at Elaine's agree on a fine and then get around to rousting black kids for smoking weed on the corner.


The NRA has a HQ in New York because the NRA is largely a fraudulent, grifter organization where the leadership is more concerned with buying expensive wardrobes, and furnishing and renting apartments for their mistresses than they are fighting for gun rights. That's why Wayne LaPierre ultimately pushed out most of the NRA folks that actually gave a shit about gun rights, while at the same time funneling tens of millions of dollars in donations to left-wing law firms to "represent" the NRA in it's legal battles. The thing is, most charities and "grass roots" lobbying organizations are scams where 99% of the money donated goes to salaries and perks of the staff (and usually 99% of that goes to the leadership, not the rank and file). On the left, you have the SPLC doing much the same thing that the NRA does. Pretends to be a civil rights organization, but it's really just a fund raising machine.

The Deep State is a lot more than simply a bunch of Yalies and their country club connections. It's an emergent entity arising out of the bureaucratic managerial class that "runs" the Federal government regardless of what party holds Congress or sits in the Presidency in any given year, their connections in the media, GOP and DNC party bosses, K-street lobbying firms, and the staffs of universities that feed those groups with new people. The values of the Deep State have shifted left over time (8 years of Clinton and 8 years of Bush and 8 years of Obama had their impact), but it's core values are preserving and empowering "the State", and all other values are secondary to that (things like the Constitution). This is why the CIA can get away with spying on Senators and House members with zero consequences, legal or administrative. It's why Senators and House members can get away with enriching themselves legally through insider trading and illegally under the table - so long as they toe the party line when it comes to supporting "the State". It's why John Roberts can get away with illegally adopting kids from Ireland, why Hunter Biden can smoke crack and meth on video with 2 naked prostitutes and arrange insider access to his dad in exchange for money - and no one ever does anything - because Biden and his son are hatchetmen for the Deep State, and haven't yet outlived their usefulness.
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Re: I forgot how horrible Sandy Berger was

Postby vagabond » Thu Aug 11, 2022 4:37 pm

Kurt wrote:In order to understand power in the US you gotta understand Schools. There is a "Deep State" but not the one we think of as a mysterious cabal of people who pull the strings but rather as a combination of East Coast Schools (Mostly) and the connections they bring.

Why does the NRA have HQ in New York? Because the Yalies who work there don't fucking want to live in Tennessee. They don't want the hoi poloi coming up and shaking their hands for the work that they do. The regular jackoffs pay their salaries so they don't have to live next to people like that...and more importantly they are in proximity to all the other people in power. Tish James did not go to school with any of them. That is why she fucks these people so hard. She has access to what every other AG had access to but the other AG would discuss the problems over lunch at Elaine's agree on a fine and then get around to rousting black kids for smoking weed on the corner.


Wait...you're saying the well-of and connected don't have the best interests of the average citizen at heart?! *pearls clutched in shock* :P

I totally get what you're saying and went to a minor version of the same schools myself, know people in the lower rungs of those echelons, etc. I forget who pointed it out, but the bias we come across in places like NYT and elsewhere isn't political, it's class-based given who tends to make up those ranks.

It's also like the 'fun' some of us are having seeing a minor amount of consequences for the wealthy and privileged in this circumstance. Quoting Alex Vitale:

The January 6 attack on the Capitol showed us the deep fissures in the Back the Blue concept trotted out by the right in response to the Black Lives Matter protests of recent years. While conservatives claim to support the police, they do so on a very narrow basis. Police authority is desirable to them only as long as it is solely directed at what they perceive to be suspect classes, including poor people, BIPOC communities, trans people, immigrants, anti-fascists, sex workers, and other marginalized groups. Built into right-wing support for the police is an understanding — grounded in history — that police authority should not be exercised against the powerful classes, including the wealthy, the politically dominant — and white nationalists. This understanding is why many on the right do not view images of “Back the Blue” proponents beating Capitol police with their Trump flags as hypocritical.


-- https://truthout.org/articles/there-are-good-reasons-to-defund-the-fbi-they-have-nothing-to-do-with-trump/

And, as we've seen a lot recently, these mfers are able to dodge subpoenas and court appearances like it's no big deal. What's that saying? "Laws for thee, not for me". This is the stuff that should be enraging the law and order types, but, as pointed out above, criminality only applies to certain people. That is until you get caught up in it. Spending a day at court in the rural South myself for a misdemeanor was an eye-opening experience, to say the least. Not to mention when my community service officer didn't submit my papers (after $300 in fees) and I ended up with an warrant for my arrest out. My experience was insanely small compared to some of the stuff I heard from others in that hot courtroom. Not to mention what we've witnessed in LA and other major cities the past couple years.
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Re: I forgot how horrible Sandy Berger was

Postby Tarkan » Thu Aug 11, 2022 4:49 pm

vagabond wrote:
Kurt wrote:In order to understand power in the US you gotta understand Schools. There is a "Deep State" but not the one we think of as a mysterious cabal of people who pull the strings but rather as a combination of East Coast Schools (Mostly) and the connections they bring.

Why does the NRA have HQ in New York? Because the Yalies who work there don't fucking want to live in Tennessee. They don't want the hoi poloi coming up and shaking their hands for the work that they do. The regular jackoffs pay their salaries so they don't have to live next to people like that...and more importantly they are in proximity to all the other people in power. Tish James did not go to school with any of them. That is why she fucks these people so hard. She has access to what every other AG had access to but the other AG would discuss the problems over lunch at Elaine's agree on a fine and then get around to rousting black kids for smoking weed on the corner.


Wait...you're saying the well-of and connected don't have the best interests of the average citizen at heart?! *pearls clutched in shock* :P

I totally get what you're saying and went to a minor version of the same schools myself, know people in the lower rungs of those echelons, etc. I forget who pointed it out, but the bias we come across in places like NYT and elsewhere isn't political, it's class-based given who tends to make up those ranks.

It's also like the 'fun' some of us are having seeing a minor amount of consequences for the wealthy and privileged in this circumstance. Quoting Alex Vitale:

The January 6 attack on the Capitol showed us the deep fissures in the Back the Blue concept trotted out by the right in response to the Black Lives Matter protests of recent years. While conservatives claim to support the police, they do so on a very narrow basis. Police authority is desirable to them only as long as it is solely directed at what they perceive to be suspect classes, including poor people, BIPOC communities, trans people, immigrants, anti-fascists, sex workers, and other marginalized groups. Built into right-wing support for the police is an understanding — grounded in history — that police authority should not be exercised against the powerful classes, including the wealthy, the politically dominant — and white nationalists. This understanding is why many on the right do not view images of “Back the Blue” proponents beating Capitol police with their Trump flags as hypocritical.


-- https://truthout.org/articles/there-are-good-reasons-to-defund-the-fbi-they-have-nothing-to-do-with-trump/

And, as we've seen a lot recently, these mfers are able to dodge subpoenas and court appearances like it's no big deal. What's that saying? "Laws for thee, not for me". This is the stuff that should be enraging the law and order types, but, as pointed out above, criminality only applies to certain people. That is until you get caught up in it. Spending a day at court in the rural South myself for a misdemeanor was an eye-opening experience, to say the least. Not to mention when my community service officer didn't submit my papers (after $300 in fees) and I ended up with an warrant for my arrest out. My experience was insanely small compared to some of the stuff I heard from others in that hot courtroom. Not to mention what we've witnessed in LA and other major cities the past couple years.


There's very little about the FBI worth preserving. Maybe their child trafficking /anti-child porn teams. But overall, they have institutionally been corrupt and evil from their very beginning, and haven't really improved over time.

The FBI repeatedly tried to get MLK to kill himself / blackmail, etc.

The FBI probably had a hand in the Malcom X assassination.

The FBI HRT shot Vicki Weaver through the face when she was holding a baby.

The FBI facilitated 4 innocent men getting sentenced to prison (and 2 of them IIRC died in prison) instead of Whitey Bulger - who was responsible - because they were using Bulger as an informant. Even after exculpatory evidence became public knowledge, Robert Mueller opposed releasing the info and releasing the men wrongly convicted...just because.

The FBI largely instigated the 1993 WTC bombing. An FBI informant was the one that came up with the idea of the target and the method, and warned the FBI, but, they never got around to rolling up the group until after the bombing happened.

The FBI fucked up the Atlanta Olypmic bombing and keyed on the wrong guy and basically tried to frame him and get him to commit suicide.

The FBI fucked up the anthrax investigation and keyed in on Steven Hatfield, got him fired from his government job, harassed him relentlessly, then oops, not the right guy.

They then keyed in on Bruce Ivins and were able to harass him and his family until he finally killed himself.

The FBI instigated the Curtis Culwell terrorist attack in Garland, TX, and the FBI handler was actually arrested at the scene.

And this is without getting into their overtly political bullshit.
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