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Tag: election 2020 lies
Epstein and Ruemmler

What Today's Epstein Testimony May Reveal About Foreign Election Interference

Today, regretful Jeffrey Epstein pal and former superlawyer Kathy Ruemmler appears before the House Oversight Committee as the members look into the powerful network the international sex trafficker cultivated. Tomorrow, President Donald Trump will address the nation to warn about “foreign interference” coming for America’s elections - an obvious ploy to pave the way for grabbing ballots, posting troops at polling places and whatever other anti-democratic plots he and his henchman - like Steve Bannon - have planned for our midterms.

The two events don’t look connected on the surface. But, actually, they are.

The Epstein files reveal that Ruemmler, Epstein and Bannon were mutually obsessed with the Mueller investigation into foreign interference into Trump’s 2016 election win and one of its shadiest actors.

Among Ruemmler’s clients after her stint as President Obama’s chief legal counsel was a man named George Nader. Ruemmler represented him as he became a cooperating witness in the Mueller investigation into Russian efforts to help the Trump 2016 campaign.

Nader, a Lebanese-American businessman, was a kind of free agent in the foreign influence campaign that boosted the TV reality show star into his first presidency. His name appears more than a hundred times in the final Mueller report in connection with both Russian and Middle Eastern efforts to influence the Trump campaign.

Nader is also now a convicted pedophile serving a ten year prison sentence, but a decade ago he was a key actor in multiple foreign influence ops aimed at helping Trump, involving Gulf oil monarchies, Israeli social media manipulators and, yes, Russians.

Nader’s exploits were once newsworthy and well-covered; but, the avalanche of absurdity and menace that is the Trump Two-era has buried him in the memory hole. Ruemmler’s client, though, was of intense interest to Epstein and Bannon. And the DOJ Epstein files reveal that Ruemmler was feeding both of them information about Nader and the Mueller investigation, as this text indicates.

Nader’s role in Trump-Russia actually came around the inauguration in January 2017, when Nader helped arrange and attended a meeting in the Seychelles between mercenary and Trump supporter Erik Prince and Kirill Dmitriev, a Russian sovereign wealth fund executive with close ties to Putin. Mueller’s team would later regard the meeting as a potential attempt to establish a secret back-channel between the incoming Trump administration and the Kremlin.

During the Mueller investigation, newly minted best buds (more on their affairs here and here) Bannon and Epstein were laser focused on Nader. They call him “George” or, when Epstein mentioned him to Bannon, “your boy George.” At the time, Epstein was connecting Bannon with the Gulf monarchs he had spent several years cultivating.

And Kathy Ruemmler - who Epstein bragged was his feminist “arch-defender” - was the insider who kept them up to speed on how “George” was faring with the Mueller investigators. The following string of their relevant communications could open a worthy line of inquiry at the Oversight Committee today — if for nothing else than to remind Americans of the depth and breadth of the foreign influence operations that helped Trump get elected in 2016.

In April 2018 Epstein first mentioned Ruemmler’s Nader connection to Bannon writing, “as you know Kathy is Nader s counsel. She s very busy [sic]”.
Four days later, he texted Bannon: “Kathy coming now to download” followed a few hours later he updated with “Im sittin here with Kathy rummer. If you have any questions [sic]”.
A few weeks later, Bannon texted Epstein: “Just got summoned to Abu Dhabi for meeting with mbz for Monday night.” A few days later, Bannon was making plans to meet with Dubai billionaire Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem — then chairman and CEO of global logistics giant DP World, now a disgraced Epstein john. Epstein texted Bannon: “you are going to have FUN”; to which Bannon replied: “I’m here @ least thru Sunday —- need to close this” [sic].

Around the same time, May 2018, The New York Times exposed a secret Trump Tower meeting Nader had with Donald Trump Jr. in the summer of 2016, where Nader pitched him on the UAE and Saudi princes wanting to help Trump win. According to the Times investigation, mercenary contractor Erik Prince put Nader together with the squirrelly scion to tell him of the princes’ aim. Nader also brought along Joel Zamel, whose Israeli company employed former intelligence officers who specialized in “collecting information and shaping opinion through social media” according to the Times. Zamel reportedly provided an “elaborate multi-million dollar proposal” for a social media “manipulation effort” to get Trump elected. (After Trump was elected, Nader paid Zamel $2 million – for reasons never made clear)

Two days after the article, Epstein wrote to Bannon: “Going to get more complex , - Susan Rice is one of the ‘when did she know? She is represented by the same lawyer as your boy, Nader - Kathy Ruemmler.”

Epstein often joked about Ruemmler and Bannon getting romantically involved, calling Bannon “your boyfriend Steve” in messages with Ruemmler and referring to Ruemmler as “your girlfriend” in texts with Bannon. The three of them met together on several occasions in 2018, during the Mueller investigation, based on the communications.

In an October 2018 text to Ruemmler, Epstein wrote “i think your boy [i.e., Bannon] is going to see george” to which she replied, “Hopefully they stay out of trouble”.

In January 2019, Ruemmler emailed Epstein a Reuters story on NSA cyberspies thwarting enemies of the UAE. In March, Mueller submitted his final report to Attorney General Bill Barr. Six days later, Epstein reported to Bannon: “Girl going to see George on sat in germany.”

Ruemmler’s appearance today on Capitol Hill is, among other matters, an opportunity to remember that Trump’s 2016 campaign was so rife with foreign interference that it kicked off a series of massive, years-long investigations that revealed the real - not the cocked-up Big Lie-connected - threats to American elections. When Trump speaks to the nation Thursday night, he will be flanked by leaders of a gutted and craven national security community looking for proof that the 2020 election was “stolen.” Meanwhile, Americans have all the proof we need that the 2016 election was contaminated with foreign influence. And if the President wants to warn Americans of the ongoing threat, he could start with a confession.

Nina Burleigh is a journalist, author, documentary producer, and adjunct professor at New York University's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. She has written eight books including her recently published novel, Zero Visibility Possible.

Katie Chenoweth is associate professor of French at Princeton University and an investigative researcher

Reprinted with permission from American Freakshow

Roger Stone Touted 'Longtime Friend' Pulte For DNI To Probe 2020 Election

Roger Stone Touted 'Longtime Friend' Pulte For DNI To Probe 2020 Election

On his radio show, notorious political operative and Trump confidant Roger Stone has touted his friendship with acting Director of National Intelligence Bill Pulte, celebrating that he thinks Pulte will use his position to investigate voter fraud and “finally reveal what really happened in the 2020 election.”

In their new book, Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan reported that Stone — once kept at a distance from the White House — has taken a greater role in Trump’s second term in office, including helping connect the president with Pulte.

Most of Trump’s first-term aides despised him [Stone], and he was held at an even greater distance in term one amid the Russia conspiracy investigation. Trump would give Stone—who used the phrase “Stop the Steal” in 2016 and maintained that 2020 was “rigged”—a last-minute pardon in January 2021. But Stone never visited the White House in that term.
Stone’s access changed during the 2024 campaign. Susie Wiles and other top Trump campaign advisors had their own long-standing relationships with Stone. They believed he was smart and saw him as a victim of the same DOJ “weaponization” that Trump had complained about. … The fights and rapprochements between Trump and Stone over forty years were almost impossible to track. But at the end of the day, Trump always came back to Roger Stone. In his second term, he stopped pretending otherwise.

Stone’s counsel was taken up by Trump on a number of occasions — the book reports that he pushed the president to select Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence and “advocated relentlessly” for a pardon of former Honduran president and convicted drug trafficker Juan Orlando Hernández. According to Haberman and Swan, Stone also “squired Pulte around Mar-a-Lago during the 2024 transition.”

Enter Bill Pulte. An heir to a homebuilding fortune, Pulte had come to Trump’s notice in 2019 with some favorable tweets; he was also a Trump donor, and he had later connected with Roger Stone, who squired Pulte around Mar-a-Lago during the 2024 transition. Pulte had his eye on the position of secretary of housing and urban development, but he would ultimately accept the directorship of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), a low-profile office he would turn into a howitzer for Trump’s retribution agenda.

Building on this in-person effort to connect Pulte with the president, Stone has repeatedly used his radio show to promote Pulte after Trump named him to replace Gabbard as acting DNI.

On June 3, Stone called Pulte “extraordinarily capable” and “extraordinarily loyal to President Donald J. Trump” while slamming his critics in Congress as “unqualified to be in public office, in my opinion.” On June 5, Stone described Pulte as a “longtime friend of mine, someone I originally recommended for the job of Federal Housing Finance Administrator.” Stone further attacked Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Susan Collins (R-ME), and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) as “RINOs” for their support of a Democratic amendment which would have barred Pulte from serving as DNI while he also remains head of FHFA.

Stone was also clear about Pulte’s ultimate goal as DNI: Relitigating Trump’s 2020 election defeat with debunked claims of fraud.

“The big enchilada, that 2020 election,” Stone argued on June 3. “How is it that 81 million people voted for Joe Biden? How is it that more people voted in the state of Pennsylvania than are registered to vote? … How is it that 300,000 printed ballots that were supposedly mailed in, but had never been folded in half and thus were never mailed, popped in out of nowhere in Georgia, Detroit, and elsewhere, all at the same time?” He further gloated on June 5 that “the intelligence community is particularly hysterical” that Trump said Pulte may “get to the bottom of the truth regarding the 2020 elections,” adding, “If what the president says is true, that Pulte is going to finally reveal what really happened in the 2020 election, you can see why the Democrats are so scared.”

Pulte’s appointment to DNI was widely embraced by prominent election conspiracy theorists, including some who have pushed in recent months for Trump to declare a national emergency and seize “king-like powers” over the midterm elections. On June 10, War Room host and former Trump strategist Steve Bannon called Pulte the “perfect choice to run DNI right now,” suggesting he is there to “get to the bottom of the 2020 stolen election.” Conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec likewise hypothesized on June 17 that Pulte’s opponents are afraid he will expose “some kind of foreign interference or some kind of penetration of those election systems down there in Fulton County,” Georgia, which led to “a massive, massive problem with that 2020 count.”

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters

Pulte's Appointment Of RNC Election Conspiracy Theorist Shows His Hand

Pulte's Appointment Of RNC Election Conspiracy Theorist Shows His Hand

A newly installed top intelligence official in the Trump administration appeared on a so-called election integrity call with leading figures in the election denial movement in 2024, and has been repeatedly praised by the MAGA activist who coordinated the meeting.

The New York Times reported on June 26 that former Republican National Committee official Christina Norton would serve as chief of staff in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence under Bill Pulte, its acting director. From the Times:

Mr. Pulte’s decision to put Ms. Norton in the powerful post is likely to further fuel concerns among Democrats, intelligence officials and state and local election administrators that he intends to focus on hunting for evidence of election fraud at the behest of President Trump.
Mr. Trump has said Mr. Pulte is expected to work on election security matters, prompting fears by some officials that he could try to influence the midterm elections. Other officials expect him to declassify documents related to issues that have preoccupied Mr. Trump, including the inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
While at the R.N.C., Ms. Norton oversaw a poll watcher program that included conservative conspiracy theorists, including Jack Posobiec, who helped spread the false “Pizzagate” stories about child abuse at a restaurant in Washington.

In Norton’s capacity overseeing the RNC’s so-called election integrity initiative, she attended an April 4, 2024, zoom call coordinated by Steve Stern, a right-wing podcaster who regularly convenes such meetings.

Stern has been a central figure in what former Trump adviser Steve Bannon refers to as the “precinct strategy,” a way for grassroots MAGA activists to participate directly in election administration — and potentially undermine the results.

During Norton’s presentation on the 2024 call, she cast doubt on the legitimacy of the 2020 election.

“Certainly, there is no question that in 2020 Democrats and their far-left allies exploited the pandemic to disregard election laws on the books,” Norton said. “States altered their voting procedures in the middle of an election year, in the middle of a pandemic, without time for meaningful adoption of safeguards.” (There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election.)

Stern repeatedly praised Norton over the course of 2024, both before and after Trump’s win, in appearances on Bannon’s War Room podcast. On the day of the April 4 call, Stern said Norton was working “hard on letting the people know that she's really in the game,” adding: “Christina Norton's phenomenal."

Bannon praised Norton’s presence on the call and the emerging “symbiotic relationship” between “new management of the RNC” and outside groups.

In October 2024, Stern appeared on War Room again and claimed Trump won in 2020. “We need to see how these people are going to cheat because he can win the election like he did in 2020 and lose because they're going to bring in all these votes,” Stern said, adding: “Christina Norton is doing a fantastic job."

After Trump’s victory the following month, Stern detailed the close working relationship between Norton at the RNC and his network of so-called election integrity activists.

“Not only did we get out to vote and get out to vote early, but we protected the vote with Christina Norton from the RNC, which took me a lot of time to work with her, but we did it,” Stern said. He added: “I got a gold star from Christina Norton, who we're going to try to get on tomorrow, from the RNC, who helped us so much."

A former U.S. intelligence official told MS NOW that Norton’s appointment “signals as clearly as could be that Pulte has been put at ODNI to misuse the awesome power of the U.S. intelligence community to interfere in the upcoming midterm elections.” Neither Pulte nor Norton appear to have any relevant experience in intelligence or national security.

Norton also served as Pulte’s top aide at the federal housing agency he oversees. In that role, Pulte has used the agency to target Trump’s political opponents, including New York Attorney General Letitia James and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA).

Bannon has been a major booster of Pulte’s, suggesting that the acting director of national intelligence would “get to the bottom of the 2020 stolen election,” possibly through a theoretical upcoming “task force.” Bannon also supported Trump’s decision to pull the nomination of Jay Clayton to head ODNI in a move that cleared the way for Pulte to take the role in an acting capacity.

Trump has staffed the government with prominent election deniers, including MAGA activist and right-wing media figure Heather Honey, who now works for the office within the Department of Homeland Security that oversees elections.

Update (6/30/26): One day after this blog was published, Bannon praised Pulte’s hiring of Norton as “one of the top election fraud people in all of the RNC to be his chief of staff.” Bannon said Pulte is “signaling where he's going on this,” adding that “my understanding is that there is [sic] going to be real revelations about the stealing of the 2020 election.”

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters

Wisconsin Republicans Appoint Election Denier To Senate Elections Committee

Wisconsin Republicans Appoint Election Denier To Senate Elections Committee

Wisconsin Senate Republicans have drawn backlash for appointing a controversial new senator who sought to delay the certification of the 2020 presidential election results — and signaled an intent to impeach the state’s newly-elected liberal state Supreme Court Justice — as chairman of a committee overseeing elections.

Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg) announced Tuesday that Sen. Dan Knodl (R-Germantown), who was sworn in just last week after winning a special election in April for the Senate District 8 seat, would chair the Wisconsin Senate Committee on Shared Revenue, Elections, and Consumer Protection, according to the Wisconsin Examiner.

“Senator Knodl will bring added experience and expertise to the Senate,” LeMahieu said in a press release. “His appointment will further strengthen the excellent work being done in these Committees.”

Knodl was one of 15 Wisconsin Republican lawmakers and over 100 lawmakers nationwide who signed onto a letter, dated January 5, 2021, urging then-Vice President Mike Pence to hold off on certifying the 2020 election results for ten days, citing “illegalities present in the 2020 election” and “a coordinated and structured multi-state effort to undermine state law protecting election integrity.”

The letter argued that the Constitution permitted battleground states’ legislatures to “[investigate] and [determine] whether the election should be certified, or decertified” — an authority with which they could overturn then-President Donald Trump’s loss on the baseless grounds of rampant election fraud, despite the preponderance of evidence disproving such claims.

“Making sure our elections are fair and accurate should be a bipartisan effort and we should be continually looking to improve our election process.,” Knodl said in a statement Thursday. “It is of utmost importance that every citizen in Wisconsin has confidence in their vote being legally cast and counted correctly.”

Knodl’s victory gave the state GOP a two-thirds supermajority in the state Senate, which could be used to impeach Wisconsin Democratic governor Tony Evers and other elected officials, including Wisconsin judge Janet Protasiewicz, who was elected to the Wisconsin Supreme Court by a landslide on Tuesday, April 4, the day before Knodl won.

In an interview with WISN-TV a week before his victory, Knodl said the “Milwaukee County justice system is failing” and called for local prosecutors and judges, including Protasiewicz, to face scrutiny, Newsweek reported.

“If there are some that are out there that are corrupt, that are failing at their tasks, then we have the opportunity to hold them accountable … up to impeachment,” Knodl said, per NBC News.

“Janet Protasiewicz is a Circuit Court judge right now in Milwaukee, and she has failed,” he continued. When the Republican was asked if he “would support impeaching her,” Knodl replied, “I certainly would consider it.”

The outlet noted it was unclear whether Knodl was referring to potentially impeaching her from her previous position on the Milwaukee Circuit Court or following her election to the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

Senate Minority Leader Melissa Agard (D-Madison) blasted Knodl’s appointment, calling him unfit to oversee the election committee given his signature on the election-subversion letter.

"Senator Knodl actively worked to thwart the peaceful transition of power by signing on to a letter requesting that VP Pence delay the certification of the 2020 presidential election. He does not respect the nation’s longstanding democratic processes and is unfit to chair a committee exercising some oversight of Wisconsin‘s elections," Agard said in a statement.

Knodl said Agard’s comments were “unfortunate” and “immediately sets up an adversarial relationship regarding election oversight,” a matter he said required all hands on deck “to improve.”

“I am uniquely qualified to chair such a committee because of my election reform legislation and my recognition of election irregularities,” he added.

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