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Trump Commends the Deep State; Media Buries That Fact

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The Trump press conference yesterday has left me thinking that goldfish might do a better job of covering this guy than the people currently doing so.

As I’ll describe, after covering it live, many outlets have chosen to bury what a blubbery mess the former President was. Then NYT, which assigned multiple reporters on any given day to repeat, “Joe Biden old,” had taken all stories about the presser off its front page by the time it released the Dead Tree version.

Admittedly, there wasn’t much news.

But there was a piece that I think merits more attention. Trump was apparently asked (the entire presser was set up such that Trump claimed not to be able to hear the questions, and they weren’t picked up on the coverage) whether the FBI had interviewed him as part of the investigation into the Thomas Crooks shooting attempt. He described:

They have. The FBI came to see me about the shooter. Uh, I think they’ve done a very good job. And I think they did a very good job with respect to this other lunatic that they have in custody.

The reference to “this other lunatic” is likely a reference to Asif Merchant, the Pakistani man accused of attempting to solicit paid killers to assassinate Trump on behalf of Iran.

This is newsworthy!

It’s newsworthy, because Trump’s allies in Congress are gunning for Chris Wray regarding the Crooks investigation.

And its newsworthy, because Trump has spent years demonizing the Deep State, only to commend them when they preempt an attack on him.

Nevermind that (as LOLGOP and I laid out in one of our Ball of Threads episodes) almost everyone the FBI first targeted in Crossfire Hurricaine (including Carter Page, George Papadopoulos, Mike Flynn, and Paul Manafort) were, or were attempting to, monetize their access to Trump. Trump was, at first, one of the victims of that investigation too.

If you believe what Konstantin Kilimnik told Paul Manafort in December 2016, Page even went to Russia and claimed to be negotiating on Ukraine on behalf of Trump.

Trump could have viewed himself as a victim of that influence peddling, but his narcissism prevented that.

He undoubtedly does view himself as the victim here, rightly so. And because of that, he’s willing to commend the work the FBI does.

That answer deserves wider coverage, not least so the Trump mob that has been targeting the FBI might tone things down.

Alas, the media wants horserace, and to hell with US democracy and rule of law.

Fleece Jacket: The Assassination Plot against Trump

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Amid all the other excitement yesterday, EDNY revealed the arrest, on July 12, of an assassination plot believed to target Donald Trump. A Pakistani man with ties to Iran, Asif Merchant, pitched someone in the US — referred to only as Confidential Source — in April on what purported to be a clothing import business, with an opportunity to earn $100,000. The complaint suggests that Merchant had reason to believe CS had committed crimes in the past. But when meeting in person on June 3 about the business, Merchant described that the business involved killing.

On or about June 3, 2024, MERCHANT flew from Texas to LaGuardia Airport in New York. The CS picked up MERCHANT from the airport and drove him to a hotel in Nassau County, New York. While at the hotel, MERCHANT told the CS that the opportunity he had for the CS was not a one-time opportunity and would be ongoing. MERCHANT then made a “finger gun” motion with his hand, indicating that the opportunity was related to a killing. MERCHANT subsequently took the CS’s cellphone and put it in a drawer for security reasons, so they could discuss the plan. MERCHANT stated that he would give the CS more details about the plan the next day but that he needed the CS to arrange a meeting for MERCHANT to meet hitmen in New York.

The complaint is coy about when the CS got the Feds involved. But by the next day, the FBI had set up cameras that captured Merchant drawing up his plan on a napkin. And when CS introduced Merchant to people he believed to be hitmen on June 10, they were really undercover Feds.

On June 13, Merchant wrote up a code for CS, describing each of three types of crimes — stealing documents, starting a protest as cover, and assassinating someone — as different kinds of tops, with fleece jacket signifying the assassination.

Merchant must have made last minute plans to leave the country on July 12, because he was arrested even before the FBI wrote up the complaint on July 14 (the Texas docket describing the Houston arrest must still be sealed). Merchant seemed to be recruiting multiple people in the US, so I assume this all remained sealed for a month to provide the FBI opportunity to track down others.

According to the detention memo, Merchant refused to let the FBI in for 20 minutes, so he may have deleted evidence (though not the paper on which he wrote his fleece jacket code).

Notably, when the FBI arrived at his residence to execute the arrest as well as a search warrant for the residence, Merchant refused to exit his residence for approximately 20 minutes after the FBI announced their presence and the search warrant.

Which makes for some pretty eerie timing, given Thomas Crooks’ shooting of Trump on July 13.