It is yet another act in what has become a familiar performance. Lenzi presents himself as a brave whistleblower, unfairly targeted by the Deep State for standing up to corruption. In reality, he’s a serial attention seeker and anti-Trump operative who’s done more to undermine truth and accountability than to uphold it. And now, thanks to Herridge, who has unfortunately chosen to amplify his delusions, Lenzi is once again getting a platform to sell his fantasies.

This is not a matter of political disagreement. Lenzi’s record of disinformation, exaggeration, and sabotage is well documented, not to mention dangerous. We know it firsthand. He personally helped get several of our friends, decent and honest researchers, banned from Twitter. These people’s only offense was to help expose the Russiagate hoax.

We now know from the Twitter Files released by Matt Taibbi in late 2022 and early 2023 that Lenzi contacted Twitter in 2020 demanding the removal of 14 accounts he claimed were Russian-controlled disinformation assets. This was a lie. We know many of these accounts and they were owned by everyday Americans with no foreign ties, just a strong commitment to uncovering the truth about Russiagate, the smear campaign concocted by the Clinton campaign and weaponized by U.S. intelligence agencies.

Even more disturbing is that Lenzi himself helped push the very Russiagate narratives he was trying to shield from criticism. He was a proud supporter of Hillary Clinton, a fact publicly promoted by her campaign in 2016. His claim of being a lifelong Republican who suddenly recognized Trump as a sinister threat was little more than a credibility play. It was a manufactured persona designed to feed his drama-queen bid for attention.

Lenzi’s self-image as a victim doesn’t stop at Russiagate. He also claims to suffer from Havana Syndrome, the mysterious set of symptoms allegedly caused by foreign attacks on U.S. diplomats. Despite never being stationed in Havana, Lenzi insisted he was targeted in Guangzhou, China, and—true to form—blamed the Russians, supposedly because he had once worked for John McCain. He even pledged to donate his brain for scientific study and sued the State Department.

But Lenzi’s most destructive move came when he used his government position to pressure Twitter into banning accounts that criticized the very conspiracy theory he’d helped sell. His email to Twitter was a stew of lies and self-flattery, painting himself as an expert on Russian influence and suggesting that grammatical errors and posts about Ukraine were signs of Russian control. He offered no evidence, and yet Twitter acted.

Many of the 14 accounts Lenzi targeted were terminated. Others suffered algorithmic suppression. One of the better-known accounts targeted by Lenzi was FOIA Fan, a Freedom of Information Act expert who has exposed countless government documents revealing lies, corruption, and cover-ups—not just in Russiagate, but in other areas like the so-called Covid vaccine.

Lenzi also played a role in the fraudulent Mueller investigation, feeding it false information about Konstantin Kilimnik, a Ukrainian political consultant accused—without basis—of being a Russian intelligence agent. Kilimnik had worked with Paul Manafort and also the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv. But Mueller’s team needed a villain, and Lenzi delivered, claiming it was "well known" Kilimnik had ties to Russian intel. That claim, too, was fiction.

When Twitter users like “ThunderStrzok” challenged Lenzi’s fabrications, he demanded they be banned as well. At every step, Lenzi used his position not to defend democracy, but to silence dissent and protect a narrative he helped fabricate.

He tried to keep it all under wraps. In his email to Twitter, he pleaded for his name to remain confidential, citing the "sensitive nature" of his work. That’s a telling detail. If his actions were truly righteous, there would be no need for secrecy. A government official demanding censorship, using an official account and using his position to do so should have no reason to hide. The fact that he insisted on anonymity suggests he was either fabricating his claims to avoid getting caught or that others backing him wanted the whole scheme to stay in the shadows. Whatever the case, these troubling circumstances remain unexplained.

In 2023, former Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell called Lenzi’s censorship crusade “unacceptable,” adding bluntly that “he should be disciplined.” Whether Lenzi was acting on behalf of the State Department or freelancing as a rogue operative, his actions demanded a serious investigation. Instead, it was swept under the rug—a U.S. official weaponizing his position to silence citizen journalists, manipulate social media platforms, and help bury a political scandal. No accountability followed.

Now, against all reason and despite everything that’s been known about him for years, Lenzi is back seeking attention and shockingly, Catherine Herridge has given him a platform. Whether she’s deliberately enabling a serial disinformation peddler or simply been duped, we have to question her motives. But at a minimum, Herridge has shown herself to be naive and careless enough to be hijacked by a notorious drama queen pushing falsehoods.

At a town hall meeting organized by new NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya—a Stanford professor best known for telling the truth on lockdowns and censorship—staffers staged a walkout. Not in response to some inflammatory rant or wild accusation, but because Bhattacharya gently suggested the obvious: that Covid may have come from a lab, and that NIH may have helped fund the research:

“It’s possible that the pandemic was caused by research conducted by human beings,” he said, “and it’s also possible that the NIH partly sponsored that research. I’ve looked at the scientific evidence and I believe it.”

That’s it. No accusations. No demands. Just a statement of scientific consensus—and a painfully moderate one at that. But even this was too much for the bureaucrats whose salaries are paid by you, the taxpayer. They couldn’t handle hearing a plain truth from their own director. So they got up and walked out.

If you want a perfect metaphor for what’s wrong with Washington, there it is.

This wasn’t just a tantrum. It was a rejection of oversight, of accountability, of truth itself. These people weren’t hired to be activists. They’re supposed to be public servants—responsible stewards of a $60 billion budget, more than the GDP of most countries. And yet, they behave like entitled lifers, immune to scrutiny and allergic to change.

That’s the real problem. Washington is packed to the rafters with people just like this: unfireable, unaccountable, untouchable. Try to hold them responsible and you’ll run into a wall of judges, unions, NGOs, and media outrage. The ACLU will sue, Obama- and Biden-appointed judges will block terminations. And an army of bureaucrats will dig in to protect their turf.

What happened at the NIH is a small but symbolic moment. It exposes why reform has failed, and why even Trump’s second term is struggling to move the needle.

The truth is, no one gets fired. No one goes to jail. Nothing changes.

Even Elon Musk, who charged into Washington determined to fix it, now seems ready to walk away. He dismantled bloated departments at X (formerly Twitter), exposed internal corruption, and proved what’s possible when someone with brains and backbone goes to war with a broken system. Over the past four months, he’s poured himself into trying to reform D.C., working around the clock with his DOGE team to root out waste and fight entrenched power. But even he’s now openly suggesting that meaningful reform may be a lost cause. Why? Because every time anyone tries to change anything, the system closes ranks: courts, bureaucrats, media, Democrats, even many Republicans.

Much of the resistance President Trump is now facing in his second term was foreseeable—and in many cases, foreseen. But there was always a supposed failsafe: cut the funding. If the money dries up, the machine can’t run. Yet here too, just like with the bureaucrats, the courts, and the media, we’ve hit a wall—and that wall is Congress. Democrats want to spend more, not less. Republicans still refuse to act. And laws like the Impoundment Control Act make it nearly impossible for a president to cut spending unilaterally. Congress has to act—and Congress won’t.

So we’re left with a federal government that no one can control. A labyrinth of 2.3 million employees, most of them hostile to any reform, deeply embedded in agencies that long ago stopped serving the public. These people don’t care whether Covid came from a lab. They don’t care if the truth gets out. They care about one thing: protecting their empires.

And that’s the ugly truth no one wants to face: the system can’t be fixed. Not through policy. Not through elections. Not even through executive orders. Every lever of power is wired to protect the status quo. If Trump can’t fix it—and he may be our last shot—then the only real path left is collapse.

So what does collapse look like?

The national debt is nearing $40 trillion—over $120,000 for every single American—and rising fast. Interest payments alone now cost more than the entire defense budget. This isn’t sustainable. If the government keeps spending unchecked, the endgame will be a slow, grinding unraveling. For now, the U.S. can keep muddling through. The dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency buys time. The system will continue to absorb the debt through money printing and foreign demand for Treasuries. But over time, as inflation eats away at real incomes and interest payments crowd out the budget, the government will be forced to borrow at higher rates or print even more—fueling a vicious cycle.

Eventually, interest rates will spike. Markets will crash. Entitlements won’t be paid. Pensions will vanish. The guaranteed comforts will disappear. No more secure government jobs. No more endless grants. No more unfireable bureaucrats walking out of town halls like they run the place.

It will be brutal—but it may be the only thing that finally forces change. While no one wants that outcome, Washington keeps proving—day after day—that it won’t change. The NIH walkout wasn’t just a tantrum. It was a warning. These people aren’t listening. They’re not interested. And they will burn everything down before they let anyone fix it.

So maybe the only way out is through. When the money runs out, the delusions will too.

“86” has long been used as slang as a rhyme to “nix” and stands for “get rid of.” The origin goes back to restaurant lingo, but over the years it’s taken on a far more menacing edge. As for “47,” that’s not hard to decode: it refers to the 47th President of the United States, Donald J. Trump.

Now, even if we leave aside how deeply weird this is coming from a former FBI director, it gets creepier still when you realize that May 15—the day Comey posted this—just so happened to be the 8,647th day since September 11, 2001. You don’t need to believe in numerology to understand what’s being implied here. In total, the message was: “8647,” on day 8647 since 9/11. That’s not a coincidence. It’s a threat wrapped in what Comey probably saw as plausible deniability.

After public backlash, Comey issued a statement claiming that he didn’t understand the meaning of the numbers he posted and denied that he was encouraging violence. But the timing, the precision, and the coded messaging all suggest otherwise. In fact, the Secret Service have already visited Comey to ask him about the post, which makes sense not just as a response, but as part of his plan. That visit now functions as a sort of built-in alibi: “Look, I was questioned and cleared.” But of course, nothing has been “cleared.” The message went out, and it remains.

Comey’s May 16th “clarification”

And let’s be honest: nothing will come of the seashell stunt. Not legally. It’s too ambiguous, and Comey knows that. He’s a cunning man. He was counting on ambiguity. He baited the trap, got the attention he wanted, sold some books, and probably had the Secret Service visit already factored into his plan. And yes, he does have a new book out.

This is all part of the same playbook Comey ran in 2017. Back then, he orchestrated his own firing, which he immediately leveraged into becoming the anti-Trump Resistance’s new martyr. Book deals, cable news hero status, and a special counsel probe that paralyzed the Trump presidency—all of it flowed from his move.

But there’s something more important going on here, something bigger than seashells and headlines. The real story, which the media refuses to touch, is that Comey should have been prosecuted long ago, not for cryptic social media threats but for knowingly participating in one of the most dangerous and dishonest political operations in modern American history: the Russiagate hoax.

Comey opened an FBI investigation into the Trump campaign for collusion with Russia, even though he had been explicitly warned that the whole thing was a Clinton campaign smear. We know this because the CIA informed the Obama White House on July 28, 2016 that Hillary Clinton had authorized a plan to link Trump to Russian intelligence in order to distract from her private email server scandal. The information was passed along by CIA Director John Brennan. There’s even a memo.

According to the declassified notes, Brennan briefed Obama and others in the White House about this plan. And Brennan also sent the same intelligence to James Comey. That much is on the record. There’s even reason to believe Comey may have been present in that White House meeting—someone with the initials “JC” was, and the full attendee list has never been officially disclosed.

So let’s be clear: Comey knew the Trump-Russia narrative was manufactured. He knew the Steele dossier was fiction. He knew the Clinton campaign had planted the story. And still, he allowed the FBI to launch a full-scale investigation into soon-to-be president Trump based on lies. And when Trump won the election, Comey doubled down.

He didn't just go along with it. He drove the hoax. He signed the FISA warrants. He oversaw the witch hunt. He publicly feigned ignorance while privately advancing a false narrative. When Congress came calling, he lied again and again.

Which brings us to the point. There is a crime that Comey can and should be charged with. One that is provable. One that falls well within the statute of limitations. And one that, unlike the seashells, he likely hasn’t prepared a defense for.

On September 30, 2020, Comey testified before Congress and claimed to have no recollection of being briefed on the Clinton plan to smear Trump with Russia collusion. Specifically when asked about the Clinton plan, Comey answered: “That doesn't ring any bells with me.” When he was given a chance to change his answer, he insisted it did not ring a bell. That was a lie and we can prove it, since Brennan himself confirmed Comey was given a referral about the Clinton plan.

Comey also denied knowing anything about Igor Danchenko, the so-called “primary sub-source” for the Steele dossier. But Danchenko had already admitted to the FBI on January 24, 2017, i.e. the very same day Comey sent two rogue agents to entrap General Michael Flynn, that the dossier was nothing more than gossip he shared with old drinking buddies. In other words, it was a hoax within a hoax. But instead of blowing the whistle, the FBI buried Danchenko’s admission, paid him hundreds of thousands of dollars, and made him a confidential human source to shield him from scrutiny. Comey claims he knew nothing about any of that. That too was a lie. Another lie he told Congress was claiming he first learned about the Steele dossier in late September 2016. Yet we know Steele himself handed the dossier over to the FBI on July 5, 2016, and it quickly made its way to FBI leadership.

And unlike the seashell post, these are lies that can be prosecuted. The five-year statute of limitations on Comey’s September 30, 2020 testimony hasn’t yet expired. There is still time. The paper trail exists and is now accessible to Kash Patel, the new FBI Director, and Dan Bongino, his deputy. Between them, they have the authority and clearance to retrieve the records proving Comey was briefed about Clinton’s hoax and the Steele dossier, that he knew about Danchenko, and that he repeatedly lied under oath when he claimed otherwise. Comey’s defense—summed up as “I do not recall”—is laughable on its face. But with the right paper trail, it becomes provably false.

But there’s one more catch: if the Department of Justice is serious, they must not charge Comey in Washington, DC, or Northern Virginia. Those jurisdictions are hopelessly compromised. No jury there will ever convict a Democratic official or a Resistance operative. We’ve seen it time and time again.

What should be done instead is exactly what the Department of Justice did with meme-maker Douglass Mackey. He was charged in New York—far from where he lived or worked—on the theory that people in New York might have seen his tweet. If that logic is good enough to jail a guy over a joke meme, it’s good enough to prosecute James Comey for defrauding the entire country.

Just like the Department of Justice forum-shopped for Mackey, the same should be done here. Comey should be charged in a venue where a jury won’t bend over backwards to protect the anti-Trump “Resistance.” That means skipping Washington, D.C. and Northern Virginia entirely. Pick a deep red venue—say, Oklahoma—where the law still applies evenly and where Comey’s lies will be seen for what they were: deliberate, damaging, and disqualifying.

In fact, Comey’s lies infected the global order. The Russia hoax ruined Trump’s first term, poisoned public discourse, and set the stage for the war in Ukraine. If anyone deserves to face legal consequences, it’s James Comey.

Unfortunately, even most Republicans still haven’t grasped the scale of the betrayal. They’re chasing distractions while the statute clock runs out. So don’t waste time. Forget the seashells. Forget the Instagram post. Focus on what matters. There’s still a window to charge James Comey for lying under oath. Use it.

Because if the FBI Director can lie to Congress about the biggest political scandal in decades and walk away untouched, then the system isn’t just broken, it’s beyond repair.

Jeff Carlson on X/Twitter: @themarketswork

Hans Mahncke on X/Twitter: @HansMahncke

Jeff Carlson on X/Twitter: @themarketswork

Hans Mahncke on X/Twitter: @HansMahncke

Jeff Carlson on X/Twitter: @themarketswork

Hans Mahncke on X/Twitter: @HansMahncke

We were the first to report on Chen Ping’s role in 2021, based on publicly available sources like her publications and online profile. That early reporting was later confirmed by a major trove of documents released through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by Judicial Watch, which contained some of Chen’s internal communications with Fauci’s office. And now, a new set of FOIA documents—released under pressure from independent journalist Jimmy Tobias—has brought this story back into focus. Although heavily redacted and largely devoid of new revelations, the emails confirm what’s been clear for some time: NIAID censors are still working overtime to suppress this part of the Covid origin story.

Chen Ping email from April 30, 2025 FOIA release

The documents we do have paint a disturbing picture: Chen raised red flags for years about what was happening at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV)—and those warnings were either ignored or buried. She flagged biosafety failures. She questioned the kind of research NIAID was funding. She alerted Fauci’s office that the WIV was assembling a highly dangerous Ebola virus. She flagged signs the lab was engaged in commercial vaccine development as early as 2018—work that now looks strikingly similar to mRNA vaccine research, applied to viruses the lab itself was creating.

Chen wasn’t a whistleblower in the traditional sense. She was a career bureaucrat doing her job—raising internal concerns, documenting risks, and asking uncomfortable but necessary questions. What makes her story so devastating is not just the content of her warnings, but how her agency treated them: with silence, stonewalling, and at times, outright suppression.

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The now-infamous IC statement declared, “The Intelligence Community also concurs with the wide scientific consensus that the COVID-19 virus was not manmade or genetically modified.” That single line became the basis for years of media and political attacks on President Trump, who had just begun informing the public that the virus originated from a laboratory in Wuhan.

A 2023 tweet (screenshot below) by Ric Grenell—President Trump’s acting Director of National Intelligence at the time the IC statement was released—later confirmed that the IC’s 2020 message wasn’t the result of a neutral fact-finding exercise. It was a political statement that was negotiated, and it misrepresented what the IC knew at the time. In truth, it was a targeted effort to box in Trump, protect Fauci, and suppress the lab origin theory just as it began to gain traction.

The timing of the IC’s announcement was no coincidence. On April 15, 2020, President Trump publicly floated the lab origin theory for the first time. Reporters immediately tried to frame his remarks as conspiratorial, but Trump didn’t back down.

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Fortunately, new evidence has emerged—evidence that not only further vindicates Flynn but definitively proves he was deliberately set up. Even more remarkable, the source of this confirmation is none other than former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe himself.

As we reported previously, the much-hyped release of the Russiagate binder proved underwhelming in terms of major revelations. However, it did succeed in tying off several important loose ends—and Flynn’s case is one of them. Included in the release were McCabe’s contemporaneous notes, which, although much of their content merely reinforced existing knowledge, contained one striking detail that leaves no room for ambiguity. It confirms, beyond any doubt, that Flynn’s set-up was intentional. The detail in question centers on a single phrase: “U.S. sanctions.”

This is not a casual or interchangeable phrase. “U.S. sanctions” is a precise legal term of art—a distinction that is crucial here, as we will explain in a moment.

Those familiar with the case will recall that Flynn was accused of improperly discussing sanctions with the Russian ambassador and then allegedly lying to the FBI about it. Even if one were to ignore the obvious point that an incoming National Security Advisor has every right—indeed, every responsibility—to engage with foreign diplomats, the factual basis for the accusation was false from the outset.

Flynn did speak to the Russian ambassador—but not about sanctions. He spoke about expulsions.

Expulsions refer to the act of kicking diplomats out of your own country. And indeed, in late December 2016, President Obama expelled a number of Russian diplomats. Around the same time, Obama also imposed sanctions on several Russian entities under Executive Order 13757. Sanctions, by contrast, involve measures like asset freezes, restrictions on financial transactions, and bans on U.S. persons or companies engaging with the sanctioned entities. In the White House’s announcement of the measures, the expulsions and the sanctions are discussed separately; the expulsions are even introduced as an additional measure, marked by the word “also.”

In their conversation, Flynn and the ambassador, briefly touched upon the topic of the Russian diplomats whom Obama had kicked out and Flynn very gently suggested that the two sides should not escalate the situation, signaling that a new administration would soon be in place and that matters could be addressed more constructively. This exchange concerned expulsions—not sanctions.

This distinction was—and is—critical, both legally and diplomatically.

In 2020, after a long battle by Flynn’s second lawyer, Sidney Powell, the Department of Justice finally released the transcripts of Flynn’s calls with the Russian ambassador. They confirmed unequivocally that Flynn spoke about expulsions. That disclosure should have ended the matter. Yet many in the media persisted in blurring the lines, either out of ignorance or, more often, willful bad faith. Although rarely stated outright, the media quietly recast expulsions as a subset of some broad, catch-all concept of sanctions—treating it as an umbrella term for any action taken against Russia, rather than recognizing it as what it is, a distinct and specific legal category. This sleight of hand allowed them to preserve the fiction that Flynn had lied. The theory was almost never argued openly. Instead, it lingered as an unspoken assumption, propping up a fake narrative that had already collapsed under scrutiny.

Even today, many otherwise sympathetic commentators fail to grasp the importance of this distinction. Flynn’s defenders have had to wage an uphill communications battle for years against the conflation.

Yet Flynn himself was crystal clear from the beginning. In an interview with the Daily Caller—before he was unjustifiably fired over false claims of lying, which he had demonstrably not done—Flynn made it unambiguously clear that he had done nothing wrong and that his conversation with the ambassador had concerned expulsions, not sanctions: “It wasn’t about sanctions. It was about the 35 guys who were thrown out.” Flynn, a seasoned intelligence and national security professional, understood exactly what he was saying. His distinction between the two terms was deliberate, precise, and legally significant.

And so we come to McCabe.

McCabe’s newly released notes from a February 10, 2017 meeting with Vice President Mike Pence—written a few days before Flynn was fired—show that McCabe explicitly framed the accusation against Flynn as lying about “U.S. sanctions.” This detail is critical. McCabe knew what he was saying. He knew that “U.S. sanctions” had a specific legal and diplomatic meaning, distinct from expulsions. He knew, in other words, that Flynn had not lied—and yet he moved forward anyway. Mueller’s team would later falsely charge Flynn with exactly that, i.e. lying about “U.S. sanctions.”

McCabe Notes of February 10, 2017

The latest revelation leaves no room for alternative interpretations. McCabe understood that Flynn had told the truth—and he chose to lie about it.

Yet, predictably, McCabe was never held to account. The primary reason for this failure lies with Jessie Liu, the Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia at the time, who not only declined to prosecute McCabe for false statements but also shielded the Carter Page FISA leakers and smothered numerous other Russiagate scandals. (As an aside, it is worth noting that the Senate today is fighting over the confirmation of her would-be successor, Ed Martin, a nominee who, unlike Liu, is willing to uphold the law without fear or favor.)

Sadly, the statute of limitations has run out. McCabe will not be criminally charged.

But the historical record is now undeniable. Thanks to the release of these documents, we have conclusive proof that Andrew McCabe was a central architect of the political and legal attack on General Flynn. He didn’t conflate sanctions with expulsions—he fabricated a story about something specific: U.S. sanctions. McCabe knew Flynn had not lied, yet he pressed forward with the pursuit anyway.

Flynn’s integrity was never compromised. It was the rule of law itself that was sold out by those who feared him.

At the very least, history can now record the full truth.

One of the more visible but far from worst examples of how far Harvard has been compromised was when the University placed three undergraduate students on disciplinary probation for protesting the visit of Chinese Ambassador Xie Feng in April 2024. A pro-CCP student who physically confronted and manhandled a protester was not disciplined. Instead, he was, incredibly, given an apology. This of course stands in stark contrast to how Harvard has been handling anti-Israel protesters.

There was also the 2015 incident in which Harvard canceled a long-planned human rights event because it coincided with then–Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust’s visit with Xi Jinping in Beijing. Vice Dean of the Law School, William Alford, later admitted he cancelled the event because he “thought that timing might have an impact on university activity there [China].” Put more plainly, Harvard sacrificed free speech and academic integrity to preserve its cozy relationship with the Chinese regime.

The appalling treatment of student protesters and the broader suppression of dissent are just symptoms of a deeper, decades-long pattern of deference to Beijing.

After Deng Xiaoping commenced his economic reforms, Chinese universities were allowed to reengage with Western academia—and in 1978, Harvard was the first to step through the door. That move was questionable even then, given that only a few years earlier, the CCP had purged its own intellectual class, sending academics to labor camps or rural exile during the Cultural Revolution. Many of them never returned. From there, Harvard’s relationship with China deepened. The university established academic exchanges to promote U.S.-China cooperation, and the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies—founded in 1955 but revitalized in the late 1970s—became a key conduit, hosting Chinese researchers and forging ties with Chinese officials and institutions. These early connections laid the foundation for growing CCP influence, as Beijing quickly grasped that Harvard wasn’t just a global intellectual powerhouse—it was a source of prestige, a pipeline to elite networks, and, increasingly, a useful ally.

A notable milestone was the enrollment of Xi Jinping’s daughter, Xi Mingze, at Harvard from 2010 to 2014 under a pseudonym. Her presence, while discreet, underscored Harvard’s appeal as a training ground for China’s elite and signaled Beijing’s trust in the institution. This symbolic connection enhanced Harvard’s status in China, paving the way for increased financial and academic engagement, often with implicit expectations of reciprocity.

There are many ways China has leveraged its ties to Harvard, and we’ll explore several below. But perhaps the most alarming—and least reported—example is the one involving Anthony Fauci, a case that directly impacted all of us and revealed just how deeply these ties affect our lives.

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Probably the most illustrative moment came from a viral video clip of author and cartoonist Scott Adams, reacting in amazement to the binder’s purported revelation that Barack Obama had known all along the Trump-Russia collusion hoax was a Clinton campaign smear. The problem is, the revelation isn’t new at all. We’ve known definitively since September 2020 that Obama not only knew the Russia collusion narrative was a Clinton campaign smear but that he knew it before the FBI even launched its fraudulent Crossfire Hurricane investigation. In fact, the FBI launched its investigation under false pretenses just days after Obama learned it was a Clinton campaign hoax. The timing is hard to ignore.

Adams’ reaction underlines the bigger issue with the Russiagate binder specifically—and with these kinds of “transparency” events in general. While swarms of poorly informed “influencers” and media outlets rush to push these stories as breaking news, the real story gets buried. In this case, that is the fact that the binder contains no new revelations. It’s mostly a rehash of documents that were already public, sometimes now with fewer redactions, but in other cases—shockingly—with more redactions than before. The rush to declare victory, to proclaim “it’s all finally out,” serves the government’s interests perfectly: they get to keep hiding the real material.

In other words, the binder is a sleight of hand—just as we warned for four years. It doesn’t move the needle, it doesn’t bring us closer to understanding the origins or accountability behind the Russiagate operation.

Almost as big of a scandal as Obama knowing about the Clinton campaign hoax in real time is that the media sat on the story. When then-Director of National Intelligence (DNI) John Ratcliffe released the evidence in October 2020, the story barely made a ripple. Had it been widely, and truthfully, reported then, it could very well have changed the outcome of the 2020 election—and that’s not even factoring in the broader fraud and irregularities from that cycle. But even that’s only part of the scandal.

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Before we go any further, it’s probably worth noting that free trade is something we have not had for a very long time. If ever. Multilateral trade agreements like NAFTA, by their very definition, are not free trade. They are multi-party trade agreements.

A pure free trade agreement is politically hard to come by in the real world because it’s not as easy as just getting rid of tariffs. Issues of corporate tax rates, governmental regulations, and other non-tariff barriers to trade, such as subsidies, licensing requirements, product standards, etc., all need to be taken into account and intrude their way into practical application. Therefore, if we must enter into trade agreements, let’s do so directly with each country on a bi-lateral, directly negotiated basis.

Which is precisely what President Trump is looking to do.

It’s also worth noting that imports, of themselves, are not “bad” and can be highly additive to economic growth. At its most basic level an import is no more than a transaction. It just happens to occur between a buyer and seller who reside in different countries.

The transaction occurs for a reason. Consumers—companies, individuals & governments (theoretically)—look for the best value for their money. This doesn’t necessarily mean the cheapest price. Quality can be a huge factor as well.

Free trade can be beneficial for all parties. And trade deficits are not inherently bad. But long-term, persistent trade deficits are a problem.

A Trade Balance is simply the value of Exports minus the value of Imports:

Trade Balance = Price of Exports * Quantity of Exports – Price of Imports * Quantity of Imports

A Trade Surplus means the Value of Exports exceeds the Value of Imports. A Trade Deficit means the Value of Imports exceeds the Value of Exports.

Let’s look at a simplistic example (intentionally leaving aside currency rates):

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Zelinsky was one of the lawyers on Mueller’s team who harassed, intimidated, pressured, and coerced individuals within President Donald Trump’s orbit in an effort to extract fabricated stories that could be used to falsely suggest Russia collusion and ultimately justify removing Trump from office during his first term. The specifics of the letter demanding Zelinsky’s interview pertain to his role in the prosecution of an ostensibly innocent man, George Papadopoulos, a foreign policy advisor for the Trump campaign in 2016 who was imprisoned as a result of the investigation.

What makes the Papadopoulos case especially significant—and likely the reason it’s being revisited now—is that it serves as a kind of Rosetta Stone for the entire Russiagate hoax. It’s the thread that, if pulled, could unravel the fabric of deceit spun by the Mueller team. The abuses in Papadopoulos’s case are unusually clear and well-documented, making it a strong entry point for exposing broader misconduct. To understand why revisiting his case matters so much—and why it could be a gateway to uncovering the full extent of wrongdoing in the Mueller operation—we need to examine how this one man’s actions, foolish though they may have been, were twisted and inflated into the cornerstone of a fake predicate for one of the most damaging political investigations in American history.

The Papadopoulos case is complex, with many layers of stories and counter-stories, but at its core, it is the story of a naïve and foolish—but ultimately totally innocent—28-year-old who stumbled into a presidential campaign and sought to impress others beyond his capabilities. This is not speculation, as Papadopoulos himself has admitted that as a total rookie among a team of seasoned DC, military, and diplomatic insiders, he saw his only chance at shining by doing something big. The big thing he aimed to do was arrange a meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin during the 2016 campaign. So naïve was Papadopoulos that he failed to realize, first, that such a meeting would have been politically toxic during the campaign, and second, that the campaign— even if it had desired such a meeting—would not have needed Papadopoulos to arrange it. Completely oblivious to these elementary realities, Papadopoulos nonetheless pursued connections with individuals who might connect him to people in Moscow, who, in turn, might connect him to individuals in the Kremlin capable of arranging such a meeting. To anyone with a modicum of common sense, this was a madcap scheme, but Papadopoulos pursued it anyway.

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