“There was a treasonous conspiracy in 2016,” US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard alleged in a July 18 press release, “committed by officials at the highest level of our government.”

If the timing of that release, which revisits the “Russiagate” hoax, feels opportunistic/propagandistic, that’s because it is.

The walls seem to be closing in on US president Donald Trump as he unsuccessfully seeks to distract attention from his once … close … friendship with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Meanwhile, Gabbard completed her transformation from opportunistic political gadfly to fully compliant junior Trump propagandist last month when she reversed her (true) claim that the US intelligence community doesn’t believe the Iranian regime is trying to develop nuclear weapons to support Trump’s claim that it is.

The best distractions, though, are factual distractions. All we’re really getting in Gabbard’s latest document dump is confirmation of, and details on, things we already knew to be true, but those details and confirmations are worth having.

We’ve known, for years now and beyond reasonable doubt, that “Russiagate” was simply an after-the-fact attempt on the part of the Democratic Party establishment and its allies in the federal bureaucracy to shift blame for Donald Trump’s “surprise” victory in the 2016 presidential election away from themselves and their candidate.

Hillary Clinton simply COULDN’T have lost because she was among the most universally loathed individuals in America politics, or because she ran a lazy and ineffectual campaign. There had to be some other reason, and the reason they settled on was “Russian influence.”

Their efforts came to even less than naught: Not only was the story never credible, but it gave Trump gallons of the “victim” cred he so thrives on. Now he’s returning to the well for another bucket full of accusations, probably true ones, to pour on the heads of his Epstein-obsessed pursuers.

I doubt it will work, but again, the more information we have on the Russiagate hoax the better. Exposing these machinations makes future attempts to put over such hoaxes less likely.

BUT!

No, the Russiagate hoax, while certainly a conspiracy, was not “treasonous.”

The term “treason” gets thrown around a lot by Republicans and Democrats alike to describe each others’ actions, but it’s a word with a specific legal meaning laid down in Article 3 of the US Constitution:

“Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.”

Treason is a crime of war. The US  has not legally been in a state of war since December 31, 1946 (when Harry Truman signed a presidential proclamation declaring the end of World War 2).

That’s why the only successful US treason prosecutions SINCE World War 2 have been for actions taken DURING World War 2. It was literally impossible to commit treason against the United States in 2016 (and it’s literally impossible to do so right now).

By all means, learn from these disclosures — but don’t let hype about “treason” distract you from demanding the truth about the Trump-Epstein relationship too.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

On July 21, the US National Archives made more than 250,000 pages of documents relating to the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.  publicly available.

The records don’t include wiretap recordings, etc. taken during the years of FBI surveillance prior to his killing — those are under court seal until 2027, and the King family and others claim there’s not a whole lot of “there” there in the newly released tranche.

At the same time, however, the family and advocates claiming to represent the family’s interest in privacy — and in protecting Dr. King’s reputation — object to the release.

So … why now, all of a sudden, instead of just waiting for the 2027 unsealing of much more?

Reverend Al Sharpton hit the nail on the head in an MSNBC interview. “This is clearly a distraction …. Let me get this right: “You can bring files out that’s been under seal since ’77, that were not even supposed to be released now … but you can’t bring out files on Epstein? … anything to try to distract.”

The sole and entire reason for this release, at this moment, is to try to “change the conversation” away from inquiry into the relationship between US president Donald Trump and convicted child molester Jeffrey Epstein. That’s it. That’s all.

But that doesn’t mean the files shouldn’t have been released.

If there are false claims in the files, those claims can be contested, but the King family’s desire that their patriarch not be dishonestly insulted — or honestly shown to have not been the saint he’s been turned into over the last half-century — doesn’t outweigh the public’s interest in the life and death of a public figure.

Personally, I’m a “transparency fundamentalist” — I don’t agree that governments should be allowed to keep anything secret, ever, for so much as a minute, let alone for decades on end. They claim to work “for the public.” In what universe does the employee get to hide job-related information from the boss?

But even those who approve of “classified information,” “sealed court files,” and other tools government uses to avoid disclosure should be able to admit that keeping the public in the dark for 57 years is beyond ridiculous.

The US government still treats some information from World War 2 as “classified,” and it was only in 2011 that the last information from World War 1 was “declassified.”

The General Accounting Office claims that key documents from the 1947 “Roswell Incident,” which many believe involved the crash of an extra-terrestrial craft, are missing or could not be located.

At least two grand jury testimonies from the prosecution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg remain sealed 72 years after their executions for espionage.

We shouldn’t allow government get away with withholding information on Epstein, King, or anything else.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

On July 17, the Wall Street Journal published an exposé by Khadeeja Safdar and Sadie Gurman, detailing a racy — and, in context, rather damning — 2003 birthday message from real estate developer Donald Trump to financier Jeffrey Epstein, who later allegedly killed himself while awaiting trial on charges of sexually trafficking minor girls.

Trump followed his usual crybully playbook: Deny everything, scream “fake news!,” issue clearly false statements (“I never wrote a picture in my life”) to make the story sound implausible, sue for some ridiculous amount of money ($10 billion).

While I tend to distrust “scandal” stories in “mainstream media” outlets, those very predilections on Trump’s part make this particular story more, rather than less, credible.

Would the Journal have called those predictable consequences down on its own head without ensuring it could justify every comma in the story? I doubt it.

Would the Journal‘s owner, Rupert Murdoch, have allowed publication if he wasn’t convinced himself? Murdoch’s Fox News has already paid out nearly $800 million for making false PRO-Trump claims about the 2020 presidential election, with another $3 billion still on the line. He’s a very rich man,  but he’s been burnt on this kind of thing before and likely learned his lesson.

So: The story’s claim that Trump gifted Epstein a doodle of a naked woman, accompanied by a note averring that “we have certain things in common,” to the “age” of “enigmas,” and to shared “secrets,” will likely stand up in court, if it ever gets there. And the Journal and Murdoch probably wouldn’t have published the story if they weren’t willing to go there.

“What did the president know,” US Senator Howard Baker (R-TN) asked during the Senate’s hearings on the Watergate affair,  “and when did he know it?” He’s also reported to have informally mused that “it is almost always the cover-up rather than the event that causes trouble.” We know how that all came out, of course.

One big difference between Watergate and this affair is that Nixon went down over, basically, refusing to let his underlings take the fall for the initial burglary.

There’s no one Trump won’t throw under the bus without a second thought, and there probably wouldn’t BE a scandal if Pam Bondi, Kash Patel, and Dan Bongino hadn’t busked for their administration jobs on, partially, claims that they’d bring out the whole truth on Epstein.

Would a few ritual human sacrifices adequately propitiate the gods of public opinion and legal process this time? Well, maybe. How many “ladies and gentlemen … we got him” moments has Trump already preempted or survived?

On the other hand, I can’t help but wonder if the naked lady in the doodle is Brünnhilde, and whether she’s about to sing.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY