Category: Audio Posts: Selected Articles

We have finally reached Election Day 2024. October alone seems to have lasted roughly 1,000 days. But what was the vaunted “October surprise,” that news event that may have changed the election’s result?

It’s hard to say when the single most outrageous political candidate of the modern era is running for office. Still, let’s look at what the events that most influenced this race.

Trump chickens out of “60 Minutes” interview

After attacking Vice President Kamala Harris and saying she was too afraid and not mentally competent enough to do sit-down interviews, Donald Trump ran faster than a chicken at a fox’s dinner table from a “60 Minutes” interview. Harris did the interview and nailed it. How badly scared was Trump? Almost a month later, he sued CBS for $10 billion, saying the editing of Harris’ interview amounts to “election interference.”

The Madison Square Garden rally

Nothing encapsulated the MAGA movement quite like the bigotry on display at Trump’s Bund-style rally in New York City’s famous Madison Square Garden. At the event, far-right comedian Tony Hinchcliffe hurled racist “jokes” about Blacks and Latinos, at one point referring to Puerto Rico as “a floating island of garbage.”

The blowback from the event has lasted, insulting an entire block of voters. The hateful display was so beyond the pale that even some Republican racists, like Florida Sen. Rick Scott, distanced themselves from the event.

Trump says a well-known critic of his should face a firing squad

This past Thursday, when former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, a major Trump critic, came up during a Q&A with former Fox New host Tucker Carlson, Trump said, “She’s a radical war hawk. Let’s put her where the rifle’s standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, okay? Let’s see how she feels about—you know when the guns are trained on her face.”

This indefensible statement was made worse when Trump surrogates attempted … to defend it. (They did very poorly, to say the least.)

Trump’s “enemy from within” statement

During a mid-October interview, Trump said that the people he considers the “enemy from within” are more dangerous than foreign adversaries in Russia and China, and he would consider deploying federal military forces against them. It was such a frightening statement that Fox News attempted to whitewash during its interview with Harris by trying to pass off a separate clip as the original statement.

Trump wished he had Nazi generals

On Oct. 22, The Atlantic published an article in which sources told a story of Trump admiring Adolf Hitler’s generals, saying, “I need the kind of generals that Hitler had. … People who were totally loyal to him, that follow orders.” This article, along with one in The New York Times, also featured retired Gen. John Kelly, the longest-serving chief of staff in Trump’s White House, spoke about Trump’s admiration for dictators and correctly said Trump met the definition of a fascist.

Trump reminds everyone he is garbage

This one is multipronged.

First, in an attempt to distract from his racist Madison Square Garden rally, Trump staged a media stunt where he struggled to open the door of a garbage truck before taking questions and pictures while sitting in the passenger seat.

But also, despite the impending election, Trump and the GOP struggled to hide their misogyny. Whether it was the fury with which conservatives responded to the suggestion that a woman might have her own opinions of Trump as president, or Trump telling women he would “protect” them “whether the women like it or not,” Trump and his party could not stop themselves from proving, time and again, how little they think of women and women’s rights.

Maybe there is no one surprise, and maybe with someone like Trump one can never be surprised at how monstrously low he can sink.

If I missed any, please feel free to throw them in the comment thread below!

Donald Trump’s return to the White House as the 47th president of the United States comes at a critical time for the South Caucasus region, as Georgia remains highly polarised after the controversial re-election of the pro-Russian Georgian Dream party, and as Armenia and Azerbaijan seek to finalise a historic peace deal.

Trump’s victory has raised both hopes and concerns in Yerevan. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan was quick to congratulate Trump on his victory, expressing his hope to “work together”  on the strategic partnership between the two countries, but many in the region are worried that the transition of power in Washington could significantly decrease US involvement in the ongoing peace process with Azerbaijan. 

Pashinyan’s extensive message to Trump, however, was notably positive and optimistic. Pashinyan emphasised the “unprecedented” improvement in the two countries’ relations in the past years, hoping that the trend will continue under Trump’s presidency. Pashinyan praised Trump personally, saying that he is confident that Trump’s “rich experience, knowledge and abilities will best serve to ensure the well-being of the American people, promote the interests of the United States, and strengthen the global role of the United States”.

The timing of the elections is particularly crucial for Armenia, as Joe Biden’s administration has become increasingly involved in the process in the past year. The improvement that Pashinyan mentioned in US-Armenian relations in the “past years” took place during the Biden presidency, with the two countries’ relations switching to “strategic partnership” from “strategic dialogue” earlier this year. 

Trump’s election campaign did explicitly mention Armenia, as the US-based diaspora were potential voters. His promises regarding Armenia were direct and populistic, pledging to “protect persecuted Christians, work to stop violence and ethnic cleansing, and establish peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan”.

US-Armenian community leaders did not support any candidate, unlike previous years, explaining their neutrality by the lack of clarity on the issues regarding Armenia and the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict from the presidential candidates. The leaders of the nationalist Hay Dat committee, however, remained hopeful that they could possibly advocate for sanctions against Azerbaijan, the release of Armenian prisoners. 

In the election, Trump’s opponent Democrat Kamala Harris won 54% of the votes in California, where most Armenian-Americans live, including in Los Angeles, which has over 150,000 Armenian residents. 

Trump’s promises for Armenia were seen as empty by many in Yerevan, as the Trump administration was in power during the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan in 2020, with no particular focus on the region and little to no action during the war that ended with a devastating defeat for Armenia. 

Some see Trump’s comeback as a chance for Azerbaijan to minimise Western involvement in the Caucasus and achieve a deal with Armenia with maximum benefits for Azerbaijan. Russia, which has been backing Azerbaijan in recent years, also has warned against a “hasty” peace deal, complaining about the US government’s increased desire to finalise the deal before Biden’s departure. 

Trump’s return could also complicate Armenia’s regional relationships. His potentially more constructive approach toward Moscow might ease some regional tensions, but his harder stance on Iran – one of Armenia’s crucial neighbours and economic partners – could create new challenges. Trump’s strong pro-Israel position and potential alignment with Azerbaijan in anti-Iranian initiatives might further complicate regional dynamics for Armenia. In the meantime, any potential Russia-US rapprochement would further complicate Armenia’s foreign policy shift towards the West and the European Union. 

US pollsters are under fire for the third presidential election running for failing to foresee Donald Trump’s emphatic ballot box triumph that will propel him back to the White House.

Having seriously underestimated Trump’s support in the 2016 and 2020 elections, polling agencies trumpeted a recalibrated methodology for 2024 that was meant to more realistically reflect his standing while restoring their own credibility.

Instead, pollsters are now being called on to explain a broad range of surveys that showed the two candidates essentially deadlocked both nationally and in battleground states in a race that was deemed too close to call.

Compounding the embarrassment, many polling experts in the final days before election day predicted a narrow electoral college victory for Kamala Harris, who was foreseen by some as just about eking a win in a majority of the seven swing states: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada.

In fact, Trump has won five of the states at the time of publication and was leading in Nevada and Arizona, which had yet to be called.

Standing out was a poll published at the weekend by the Des Moines Register that purported to show Harris with a three-point lead over Trump in the Republican stronghold state of Iowa – supposedly fueled by widespread outrage among women voters over the restriction of abortion rights.

The poll, carried out by J Ann Selzer – an Iowa pollster widely renowned among her peers for reliability – fed Democratic hopes of a groundswell of support among female voters that could potentially carry over to neighboring Michigan and Wisconsin.

Selzer vouched for its findings even while Trump’s campaign dismissed it as a “fake poll” and “a clear outlier”.

“I’ve been the outlier queen so many times,” Selzer, whose polling correctly foretold Barack Obama’s triumph in the Iowa caucuses in 2008, told the New York Times. “I’m not jumpy.”

Actual events proved the poll to be a dud. Iowa was called for Trump early, and with nearly all the votes counted on Wednesday, he led by an emphatic 55.9% to 42.7%.

Rick Perlstein, an award-winning historian who has written several books chronicling the rise of American conservatism, lamented the role of polling in modern elections in a series of posts on X.

“Iowa called for Trump. Polling is a very compromised enterprise. It would be great to see people start ignoring it,” he wrote on Tuesday evening.

In a later post, he wrote: “One of the trippy things about the polling enterprise is [the] fraught relationship they have with traditional journalism, complaining of their breathless coverage that does not understand polling methodology, but also soliciting that coverage for business purposes.”

The criticism was joined by Allan Lichtman, a historian at American University who forecast a Harris victory based on a system of 13 “keys” he had used to correctly predict the outcome of 11 of the past 12 presidential elections.

“Unlike Nate Silver, who will try to squirm out of why he didn’t see the election coming, I admit that I was wrong,” Lichtman wrote, adding that he would assess his method and the election in a live broadcast on Thursday.

Silver, a pollster who founded FiveThirtyEight, made Harris a marginal favourite hours before polls opened, but had written two weeks earlier that his “gut” favored Trump.

The pollsters’ discomfiture was also highlighted by online betting companies, who claimed they had more accurately predicted the result than self-proclaimed professionals with decades of experience in the field.

Five companies – Betfair, Kalshi, Polymarket, PredictIt and Smarkets – gave Trump a better-than-even chance of winning on the eve of polling day, the New York Times reported. As polls closed on Tuesday, their odds in favour of his winning shot up.

Polymarket boasted that it had “proved the wisdom of markets over the polls, the media, and the pundits”.

“Polymarket consistently and accurately forecasted outcomes well ahead of all three, demonstrating the power of high volume, deeply liquid prediction markets,” the company posted on X.

Tarek Mansour, the chief executive of Kalshi, put it more succinctly. “Polls 0, Prediction Markets 1,” he wrote.

Read more of the Guardian’s 2024 US election coverage

• How to watch Kamala Harris’s concession speech

• Trump wins the presidency – how did it happen?

• With Trump re-elected, this is what’s at stake

• Tracking abortion ballot measures

As Donald Trump prepares to return to the White House in January, he continues to face a barrage of legal actions against him.  Syracuse University law professor Gregory Germain has been following the criminal and civil cases.

In this article, Prof. Germain summarizes the status of all of the cases and discusses what happens next. If you’d like to schedule an interview, please contact Ellen James Mbuqe, executive director of media relations at ejmbuqe@syr.edu.

Criminal Cases

1. Falsifying Business Records, New York Law.  Trump has been convicted and is scheduled to be sentenced for a Class E felony for falsifying business records in the criminal case brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, and pending before Judge Juan Merchan.  He faces potential prison time in the case.
2. Election Interference, Georgia Law.  Trump has been indicted in Georgia by District Attorney Fani Willis for election interference.  The case has been mired in controversy following revelations that Willis had an affair with special prosecutor Nathan Wade.  Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee allowed Willis to continue with the prosecution if Wade resigned, which he did, but the case has been derailed by an appeal from Trump and the other defendants.
3. Classified Documents – Federal Law.  Trump has been indicted by Special Counsel Jack Smith on federal charges for stealing, retaining, and making false statements about classified documents that he took from the White House after losing the 2020 election.  The case was assigned to District Judge Aileen Cannon, who was appointed by Trump, and was reversed by the 11^th Circuit Court of Appeals for earlier rulings improperly taking jurisdiction and appointing a special master during the investigation of the document theft.  Judge Cannon dismissed the charges against Trump on a technicality, by finding that Jack Smith’s appointment under the Department of Justice’s special counsel regulation, and the regulation itself, violated the appointments clause of the Constitution.  Cannon did not give the government an opportunity to remedy the election clause deficiency, such as by appointing a Senate approved United States Attorney to supervise the case.  Cannon’s decision is on appeal to the 11^th Circuit Court of Appeals.
4. Election Interference – Federal Law.  Trump has been indicted by Special Counsel Jack Smith for election interference in the 2020 election.  The case was delayed because of controversy concerning the standard for presidential immunity.  The trial court and the D.C. Circuit ruled that a former president has no immunity for crimes committed while in office.  The Supreme Court reversed that in Trump v. United States, ruling that a president has broad immunity for actions taken even in bad faith and for personal gain broadly connected with his official duties.  Prosecutor Jack Smith has attempted to limit the indictment to address the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling, but serious immunity questions remain.  The case is pending before Judge Tanja Chutkan, a Barack Obama appointee.

Civil Cases

1. Defamation – New York Law.  E. Jean Carroll recovered an $83,300,000 civil judgment against Trump in Manhattan for defamation.  Carroll claimed that Donald Trump sexually attacked her in a department store in the 1990s, and claimed that Trump’s denials and attacks constituted defamation.  Trump posted a bond and obtained a stay pending appeal, and the case is on appeal.
2. Financial Statement Fraud – New York Law.  New York Attorney General Letitia James, who campaigned for election on promises to “get Trump,” brought civil claims against Trump for disgorgement of gains realized by using an inflated personal financial statement used when seeking insurance policies and obtaining secured claims for his subsidiary corporations from sophisticated lenders.  State court judge Arthur F. Engoron awarded the Attorney General $363,800,000 in damages, which now amounts to over $450,000,000 with interest.  The court also barred Trump and other executives from being officers of a New York corporation, and appointed a receiver to liquidate Trump’s company.  The Court of Appeals granted a special stay pending appeal upon the posting of a reduced $175,000,000 bond.  The liberal 1^st Department Appellate Division raised questions about the propriety of the judgment.

There seems little doubt that the federal cases brought by Jack Smith will be terminated.

Gregory Germain

What happens to the Criminal Cases?

The Department of Justice has issued two detailed memorandum opinions, one in 1973 and another in 2000, discussing a sitting president’s scope of immunity from criminal and civil actions.  In both opinions, the Department determined that a sitting president cannot be indicted, prosecuted or jailed for a criminal claim while in office.  The Department based both decisions on the principles of separation of powers – holding that the indictment, prosecution or jailing of a sitting president would allow one branch of government (the judiciary) to interfere with another branch of government (the executive).  No other executive officers (including the Vice President – a matter of contemporaneous concern for Vice President Spiro Agnew in 1973) would enjoy such immunity.  The opinions apply equally to federal and state prosecutions.

So it’s clear that the federal prosecutions brought by Jack Smith will not continue, even if Trump did not pardon himself or cause Smith to be removed from office and replaced with a loyal alternative.  And there is every indication from Trump that he will attempt to remove Smith or accept his resignation, or more likely will pardon himself.  While the Department has another opinion rejecting the President’s power to self-pardon, the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling stated that a President’s pardon power is unlimited – even suggesting that the corrupt sale of pardons would not affect the validity of the pardons.  So I have no doubt that the Supreme Court majority would uphold a self-pardon.  So there seems little doubt that the federal cases brought by Jack Smith will be terminated.

The President’s pardon power does not extend to state prosecutions.  However, the Justice Department’s separation of powers rulings apply to all criminal prosecutions, state and federal.  Under the Justice Department’s opinion, it seems clear that the state criminal prosecutions must be stayed while President Trump is in office.  There is even an argument under those opinions that the cases must be dismissed, because the opinions held that an indictment of a sitting president that was stayed from further prosecution while in office would interfere with the functioning of the presidency.  The same could be argued for a stayed sentence.  I also have no doubt that the current Supreme Court would agree with the separation of powers arguments made in the Justice Department’s rulings.  In its immunity decision, the Supreme Court adopted the broadest possible view of presidential immunity, and even the dissenting justices expressed concern about politically-based state prosecutions interfering with the functioning of the president.  So in all likelihood, the state criminal cases will be put on hold during Trump’s presidency.  If they try to continue with the prosecutions, or even to impose a stayed sentence, I suspect the decisions will be reversed on appeal.  It is even possible that the cases will be dismissed.

What Happens to the Civil Cases?

The continuation of the civil cases is far more uncertain.  There are two important civil precedents from the Supreme Court:  Nixon v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 731 (1982), and Clinton v. Jones, 520 U.S. 681 (1997).  In Nixon v. Fitzgerald, the Court recognized that the sitting president is broadly immune from liability in civil actions for official conduct, both while in office or afterward.  The case has limited applicability to the three civil actions discussed above, because all of the alleged acts (defamation, falsifying business records, and inflating financial statement) had nothing to do with his official acts, not did the acts occur primarily while he was in office.

The second case, Clinton v Jones, involved civil charges by Paula Jones for alleged misconduct before Clinton was in office and completely unrelated to his official duties.  The Supreme Court held that the civil charges could continue, but that the court would have to make special arrangements from the president’s participation in the action so as not to interfere with the performance of his presidential duties, suggesting that any depositions would have to be taken in the White House, and that the president could not be compelled to testify live).  So the Clinton case suggests that the appeals in the civil cases can continue, because they are unlikely to require President Trump’s personal participation.  If, as I think likely because of legal errors and excessive awards, the civil cases are reversed on appeal and remanded for new trials, the courts on remand would have to be very careful to conduct a fair trial without interfering with the president’s official functions.

If the election shows anything, it shows that the public does not like politically motivated prosecutions and impeachments.

Gregory Germain

Thoughts on the Future of Politically Motivated Prosecutions

The Democratic Party and its politically motivated government prosecutors also need to reconsider their actions.  If the election shows anything, it shows that the public does not like politically motivated prosecutions and impeachments.  The argument that Trump was a convicted felon backfired, as the public saw him as a victim of biased and politically motivated prosecutions brought in Democratic strongholds.  Now the ball is in Trump’s court to see if he will carry through on his threats to “do unto others as they did unto him.”  If he does carry through on his threats, I suspect his support will quickly fade.

We’re days, maybe hours, before another attack by the Iranians, one that could be worse than the onslaught a month ago. We’re days, maybe hours, before senior officials at the Prime Minister’s Office are grilled in two cases involving security issues.

Against this backdrop, Benjamin Netanyahu chose to fire Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

This was a transparent (and admittedly successful) attempt to distract the media from its investigation into suspicions that minutes of meetings at the Prime Minister’s Office were falsified – meetings on security issues. The announcement of Gallant’s ouster was orchestrated for 7:55 P.M., five minutes before the evening news, because that’s what Netanyahu’s people do best: They dominate the television news.

• Netanyahu is a clear and present danger to Israel. Now defense chiefs face a dire dilemma
• Gallant is fourth defense minister to be fired or resign over disputes with Netanyahu
• Israeli hostage relatives: Gallant’s firing ‘another attempt by Netanyahu to block deal’

On Tuesday the connection between the latest developments was exposed – and it’s terrifying, to a degree we’ve never known. We didn’t know it, but for months Netanyahu has been up to his neck – again – in investigations. The first is the Shin Bet security service’s probe into the theft of a document and its leak to German tabloid Bild.

Even if Netanyahu didn’t know the exact details, it’s hard to imagine that he didn’t fear that at least his people would be investigated. Let’s not even get into the other possibility, the terrifying one: He not only knew but was the mastermind and prepared for an inquiry.

Then there’s the second investigation. In May, Avi Gil left his job as Netanyahu’s military secretary and complained to Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara about a serious crime, the falsification of minutes, after the war broke out on October 7, 2023. (Nadav Eyal first reported this in Yedioth Ahronoth the following July; the public forgot but Baharav-Miara did what she needed to do and sent the police into action.)

Over the weekend, for the first time in history (as journalist Guy Peleg reported Tuesday), police investigators visited the Prime Minister’s Office in order to investigate that office.

Under the radar, a detailed list of all of Bahara-Miara’s actions against the government was sent out to the toxic cogs of Netanyahu’s poison machine. Openly, there was a cabinet meeting in which Baharav-Miara’s role, the target of an ambush, was dictated in advance.

This wasn’t the usual kind of attack by Israel’s ministers, including the prime minister. It was a threat against Baharav-Miara because of the investigation into his office.

“She’s a contrarian, an enemy; deal with it,” Netanyahu ordered, as if he were a mafia don ordering his consigliere to “deal with” a prosecutor. The next day, news of this reached the public and Gallant was immediately fired.

Then the media was told that Gallant’s scalp was only the first and that everyone was a target now – the military chief of staff, the Shin Bet chief, the attorney general. It’s only a matter of time. (As usual, this was denied minutes after the statement was provided.)

Target No. 1: the army commander during a war who, with rare courage and integrity, has striven to defend the military against toxic political influences. Target No. 2: the head of the agency investigating alleged crime in the prime minister’s inner sanctum. Target No. 3: the courageous attorney general who ordered a probe into yet another stinking affair at the most lawless Prime Minister’s Office in the nation’s history.

This affair attests to the complete chaos in the most important place in the country, against the backdrop of the longest and most complex war in the country’s history. This is what a dictatorship looks like, so on Tuesday night, the demonstration on Tel Aviv’s Kaplan Street and elsewhere around the country quickly doubled in size, at least.

Feelings are running high. In a press release accompanying the letter dismissing Gallant, Netanyahu said: “I made attempts to bridge the gaps [with Gallant], but they kept getting wider. They also became known to the public in an unacceptable way, and worse, they became known to the enemy. Our enemies drew satisfaction and greatly benefited from this.”

In other words, it was Gallant who widened the gaps, leaked information against Netanyahu and played into the enemy’s hands. But oddly enough, Gallant and the people in his office aren’t being investigated by the police and the Shin Bet.

In March 2023, the last time Gallant was fired, it was because he warned of “a clear and present danger to the country’s security” if the government’s effort to weaken the judiciary continued. On Tuesday night, he was fired once again, partly because he thwarted Netanyahu’s plan to let ultra-Orthodox men evade the draft.

When during a war in which hundreds of soldiers have been killed and thousands wounded, Israel’s defense minister is fired for the benefit of a bunch of shirkers in a putrid political deal, it’s a direct blow to the country’s security.

But we’ve gotten used to this. We’ve gotten used to the insanity of a prime minister eroding the country’s security in 1,001 ways, like a spokesman who failed a security check and is now suspected of handling sensitive security matters, like the suspected falsifying of minutes in the first days of the war, like the prolonging of a war in Gaza that’s taking a heavy toll in blood nearly every day, like abandoning the hostages in Hamas’ tunnels as a second winter sets in.

Also, firing Gallant has been the Netanyahu family’s obsession for over a year now. Throughout the war, he has been the main enemy on the social media platforms operated by Yair Netanyahu and the other clones in the cult. Gallant has been targeted more than opposition leaders Yair Lapid and Benny Gantz – and more than bumped-off Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.

It’s quite possible that Netanyahu timed the act in honor of his wife’s birthday. Maybe the only person Sara hates more than Gallant is Gideon Sa’ar, who now has been appointed foreign minister.

And as Sa’ar tweeted on that dramatic night of March 26 last year, when the first attempt to offload Gallant failed: “Netanyahu’s decision to fire the defense minister is an act of madness that reflects a total lack of good judgment. Netanyahu is determined to send Israel into the abyss. Every day he serves in his role endangers Israel and its future.”

Sa’ar sold his soul to the devil in exchange for the cushy foreign minister’s post. Even if he’s not part of the darker scenarios, it’s hard to see how he aligns with the political foundation of Gallant’s dismissal: offering a sacrifice to ultra-Orthodox leaders Yitzchak Goldknopf, Moshe Gafni and Arye Dery and replacing the hand that refused to sign off on the draft-dodging bills.

Gallant’s firm stance on the draft issue reflects a bit of courage in the governing coalition. It might just foil another sop for the ultra-Orthodox community, the so-called day care bill (already on its last legs) and similar legislation in the future.

Sa’ar’s silence is disgraceful. He has a hand in the corrupt deal in which Foreign Minister Israel Katz becomes defense minister and a law has been promised to exempt the ultra-Orthodox from the draft and save the coalition.

Netanyahu’s only real goal is to keep his messianic and racist coalition afloat until October 2026, by when an election must be held. He aims to reach this date after putting together the pieces for another judicial overhaul to secure his reelection.

That’s the aim; damn the hostages, the dead soldiers, the evacuees from the south and the north, the collapsing economy, the unraveling society, the crumbling international standing, and the celebrations in the Arab world over the firing of the defense minister who was a thorn in its side.

Amid Netanyahu’s corruption trial, dramatic security investigations into his office and troops dying in large numbers, Netanyahu fires the defense minister. This is what countless soldiers, including reservists, will have in mind when heading to battle.

Many of them feel that for nearly two years their country has been stolen and driven to collapse. Many of them may soon ask themselves: Who and what are we fighting for? Then they’ll act in accordance with their consciences.

The opposition leaders – Lapid and Gantz, Avigdor Lieberman and Yair Golan – held a press conference. The opposition leader who’s not in parliament, former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, broke his silence Tuesday and declared in a video statement: “We have an insane, sick leadership. Change is on the way.”

Now it’s time to turn words into action.

An alarming deterioration in recruitment standards for the FBI has been exposed in a report delivered to the House Judiciary Committee by an alliance of retired and active-duty agents and analysts. 

Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) requirements pushed by FBI Director Chris Wray have degraded recruitment standards in all areas including “physical fitness, illicit drug use, financial irregularities, mental health, full-time work experience and integrity,” and pose a threat to the FBI’s ability to protect America from harm, say the authors. 

The report cites cases of new agents who are so fat and unfit, they can’t even pass the new relaxed standards for fitness; who are illiterate and need remedial English lessons; who don’t want to work weekends or after hours; have serious disabilities or mental-health issues, and “create drama.” 

The FBI is no longer recruiting the “best and brightest” to be special agents, but selecting candidates based on “race, gender and/or sexual orientation.” 

The alliance of anonymous FBI reformers includes senior former executives and agents from the counterintelligence and counterterrorism branches who warn that today’s FBI “lacks the fortitude and skills warranted to defeat [existential] threats . . . 

“And if the current trajectory of FBI Special Agent recruitment and selection continues — using DEI as the primary and sole measure — our homeland security efforts will be significantly hampered.” 

An increasing number of “lower-quality candidates — described by one source as ‘breadcrumbs’ because they were rejected by other federal law-enforcement agencies” — are applying to become FBI special agents; and are being recruited because they “satisfy the FBI’s priority to meet Diversity, Equity and Inclusion mandates.” 

‘Fewer applying’ 

Flying in the face of Wray’s boast to Congress last year that recruitment numbers are soaring, especially in red states, the report finds that FBI’s special-agent hiring numbers are down, “likely due to the decline in the nation’s trust in the FBI and a corresponding decrease in the number of individuals interested in applying to the FBI for employment.” 

A former senior counterintelligence agent involved with writing the report said controversies engulfing the FBI in the Trump era have had the perverse effect of attracting recruits who want to be “agents of social change versus protecting the country.” 

Recruitment has become “self-destructive” and is setting up the FBI for “generational failure.” 

Another former agent who helped draft the report said: “Why are we funding a new FBI headquarters if you’re hiring second-rate people?” 

The report is written as if it were an official FBI intelligence product, with code names given to sources and sub-sources who anonymously provided firsthand knowledge of FBI recruitment and selection practices.

They include instructors and counselors at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va., application coordinators and assessors from FBI field offices across the country, and supervisors and executives from FBI Headquarters in Washington, DC. 

They reveal a farcical situation with new recruits: 

Veteran supervisor special agent SIERRA 72 disqualified a black female applicant because she was more than 50 pounds overweight using the FBI’s body-fat index and could not pass the physical fitness test.

But FBI HQ ordered SIERRA 72 to push the candidate through the recruitment process. 

Other supervisors say a high percentage of candidates fail the mandatory fitness test, despite the fact that standards have been relaxed.

They “simply quit in the middle of the 1.5-mile run.” 

One veteran agent who works as a recruitment coordinator, codenamed SIER­RA 87, said the drug policy for new agents has been “liberalized to include applicants who had a lifestyle of using drugs.” 

A candidate who “was arrested and fought with police officers” was not disqualified. Nor are candidates with driving-under-the-influence convictions, or people with “documented mental illness.”

Nor are candidates who lie during the recruitment process. 

SIERRA 72 disqualified a special-agent applicant because their only work experience was “working two years as a coffee-shop barista and having a bachelor’s degree in art history.”

But FBI HQ ordered SIERRA 72 to push the applicant through. 

SIERRA 23, a special agent for four years in counterterrorism, observed that most new agents “disappear during the day, go home early, or never want to work late for after-hours operations. SIERRA 23 does not trust most of the agents with his/her life since they have questionable competence, tactical abilities and work ethic.” 

SIERRA 22 said one applicant recently rejected by a local police department and one who was a long-term unemployed “gamer” were pushed through by FBI HQ for non-special-agent positions despite objections from the field office. 

Other recruits have to be given remedial English classes because they are not capable of writing basic reports “in a coherent manner [and] often fail to utilize proper capitalization, punctuation and sentence structure.” 

In one case, training agent SIERRA 11 “advised a new agent that his/her writing skills needed improvement and that the new agent needed to pay attention to detail.”

The new agent complained to the supervisor that SIERRA 11 was “too difficult and expecting too much.” 

A female minority recruit “could not compose a simple FD-302,” the standard FBI interview report,” said SIERRA 79, a criminal investigator of four decades.

“The agent never made a case or wrote an affidavit and had to be pulled along to support investigations [and] could not be trusted in court.”

During the agent’s probationary period, her supervisor went up the chain of command to request that her employment be terminated but was told “we need minority female agents.” 

An FBI-agent recruit “stuttered and appeared to have Tourette syndrome or other tic disorder that hindered [his/her] ability to communicate,” said SIERRA 32, a veteran supervisor at the academy who wondered how this recruit “would function in a high-threat, hostile environment.” 

Ivy League graduates were being hired fresh out of college and placed in high-level positions to do “strategic planning . . . responsible for establishing policy, procedures and goals with counterproductive results.” 

Recruiters are required to host “Diversity Applicant Recruitment” events based on race, gender and sexual orientation.

“Straight white males may not attend. If a recruiter chose not to attend a Pride Parade or fly the Pride flag . . . the recruiter would most likely be removed immediately.” 

The report urges the House Judiciary Committee to order a 90-day audit of the FBI’s recruitment practices, to introduce legislation to strengthen the oath of office for FBI special agents, and to call Director Wray to testify before Congress over whether he is “willfully lying to conceal significant deficiencies” in recruitment or has been misinformed by subordinates. 

A spokesman for committee Chairman Jim Jordan said the panel was evaluating the report: 

“We are thankful that these brave FBI officials have come forward with this report that described some of the ridiculous things happening at the bureau. We will continue to work with these officials . . . so we can further implement the proper legislative changes.” 

The authors want to remain anonymous because those still serving know they will be “crushed” like whistleblowers before them, says one of the authors. 

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Embarrassing photos of Donald Trump may have been taken and confiscated from Jeffrey Epstein’s safe by “Trump’s FBI,” according to a journalist’s latest book on the former president.

Author and journalist Michael Wolff alleged in an episode of his podcast “Fire and Fury” Thursday discussing excerpts of his new book that Epstein would take photos out of his safe of Trump with women at his house in Palm Beach when he previously interviewed him.

“And the young girls are topless, and in some of the pictures, they’re sitting on his lap. And then there’s one I especially remember where there’s a telltale stain on the front of Trump’s pants, and the girls are pointing at him and laughing,” Wolff said.

Wolff went on to add, “And I would say it was likely that they would have been there when the FBI, Trump’s FBI at that point, not to put too fine a point on it, raided Epstein’s house and took the contents of the safe in 2019.”

Wolff detailed the former president’s relationship with Epstein heavily in the podcast episode. He claimed to have “100 hours of Epstein talking about the inner workings of the Trump White House and about his long standing, deep relationship with Donald Trump.”

The journalist claimed that Epstein served as a “key source” for his previous reporting on Trump.

Karoline Leavitt, the national press secretary for Trump’s campaign, said in a statement to the Daily Beast, “Michael Wolff is a disgraced writer who routinely fabricates lies in order to sell fiction books because he clearly has no morals or ethics. He waited until days before the election to make outlandish false smears all in an effort to engage in blatant election interference on behalf of Kamala Harris. He’s a failed journalist that is resorting to lying for attention.”

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Donald Trump has said those who consider him “a friend of Russia” are “sick,” in an interview with controversial far-right commentator Tucker Carlson in Arizona on Oct.31.

“They love to say that I was a friend of Russia. I worked for Russia, I was a Russian spy — these people are sick,” he said.

According to journalist Bob Woodward’s new book, Trump secretly spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin as many as seven times after he left office.

Trump has repeatedly backed and praised Putin and rarely criticized him. He described Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as “genius” and “savvy” in 2022.

Later, Trump blamed President Volodymyr Zelensky and U.S. President Joe Biden for Moscow’s all-out war.

In 2018, Trump accepted Putin’s denial of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election over an assessment from his own intelligence services.

The interview with Carlson comes less than a week before the U.S. presidential election, when Trump will face the Democratic candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris.

On the campaign trail, Trump has repeatedly said he could end Russia’s war within 24 hours if elected president, without elaborating on how he plans to achieve it.

A recent article by the Financial Times (FT) claims that Trump aims to effectively freeze the war and reject Ukraine’s NATO membership in the foreseeable future, at least “until Putin leaves the stage.”

In an interview with Carlson, Trump claimed actions he took related to the Nord Stream 2 pipeline showed he wasn’t friendly with Russia.

Under Trump, the U.S. government  imposed sanctions against Russian companies and the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline from Russia to Germany.

“I killed. Nobody would kill it but me. I stopped it,” Trump claimed.