The Former Trump Presidency Thread

[Jaymann]

Try fixing climate change you dolt.

[hepcat]

Jesus Christ, when did he start listening to Morrisey and cutting himself?

Maybe it was last night after Time magazine named Biden and Harris as the Person of the Year 2020? That had to sting.

"Melania, Barron won't let me borrow his Paramore album!"

[pr0ner]

Trump is giving federal employees Christmas Eve off this year, and Twitter is so polarized that people are in flame wars with each other about it. Sigh.

[Alefroth]

This is the first lame duck execution in 130 years.

[malchior]

Breaking news coming across the wire that Barr resigned. Wow. These guys went too far for Barr to not be in the way. That's insane.

[El Guapo]

Did they go too far for Barr, or is Barr taking the last high profile moment to get off the ship before it wrecks?

[Skinypupy]

Good lord, the projection in that letter is blinding.

Will be interesting to see he tries to pull off something cagey with (one can only assume) an even more willing toadie AG with under 4 weeks remaining in office, or if he simply slinks off to Mar-A-Lago next week and continues his wailing from there.

[Jaymann]

Remember Barr is the creep who shielded Agolf from the Mueller Report. History will not be kind.

[Holman]

Did they go too far for Barr, or is Barr taking the last high profile moment to get off the ship before it wrecks?

Barr has been a bad actor since the 1980s. If he's bailing, it's to protect himself, not to do Good for once.

I think it's safe to assume that something terrible is coming from DOJ and that Barr would rather enjoy his retirement than be implicated.

[Jaymann]

Did they go too far for Barr, or is Barr taking the last high profile moment to get off the ship before it wrecks?

Barr has been a bad actor since the 1980s. If he's bailing, it's to protect himself, not to do Good for once.

I think it's safe to assume that something terrible is coming from DOJ and that Barr would rather enjoy his retirement than be implicated.

Agolf is likely demanding they arrest Biden. Would be laughable if it wasn't so scary.

Edit: Or it could just be a cheap way to steal headline on the day Biden wins the electoral college.

[malchior]

I'm pretty sure we'll hear that Trump was upset that Barr didn't deliver him Hunter or Biden's head. As usual this is just Trump lashing out once someone isn't useful to him.

[Jaymann]

The resignation letter reads like Agolf allowed him to resign rather than be fired, if he would give some lip service to Agolf's conspiracy theories.

[Alefroth]

Did they go too far for Barr, or is Barr taking the last high profile moment to get off the ship before it wrecks?

Barr has been a bad actor since the 1980s. If he's bailing, it's to protect himself, not to do Good for once.

I think it's safe to assume that something terrible is coming from DOJ and that Barr would rather enjoy his retirement than be implicated.

I can't see Rosen doing something that was beyond what Barr would do.

[hepcat]

Then trump will fire him and hire Barron. If Barron doesn’t do what he’s told, he’ll fire him AND make him go to his room without supper.

[malchior]

Then trump will fire him and hire Barron. If Barron doesn’t do what he’s told, he’ll fire him AND make him go to his room without supper.

That'd be real father son moment - the first time Trump has been involved in any of his kids' lives.

[$iljanus]

Then trump will fire him and hire Barron. If Barron doesn’t do what he’s told, he’ll fire him AND make him go to his room without supper.

Or he’ll hire his dream pick, Ivanka.

[Paingod]

3 in 56 years and then 9 in under 6 months. With more scheduled before he is done.

I take it to be him dabbling in legal methods of actually washing his hands with blood. Most people try hard to avoid it or wash it off. He wants to dip his hands in up to the elbows before he's not allowed to anymore. Power trip.

[Jaymann]

3 in 56 years and then 9 in under 6 months. With more scheduled before he is done.

I take it to be him dabbling in legal methods of actually washing his hands with blood. Most people try hard to avoid it or wash it off. He wants to dip his hands in up to the elbows before he's not allowed to anymore. Power trip.

What? I can legally kill brown people? Get on it! The Proud Boys are gonna love this.

Uh, sir, some of them are white...

Bah, collateral damage, I saw that in a movie.

[Kraken]

There goes the neighborhood: Mar-a-Lago neighbors tell trump to live elsewhere.

Neighbors of Mar-a-Lago, President Donald Trump’s private club in Palm Beach, Fla., that he has called his Winter White House, have a message for the outgoing commander in chief: We don’t want you to be our neighbor.

That message in a demand letter was delivered Tuesday to the town of Palm Beach and was addressed to the U.S. Secret Service, saying Trump lost his legal right to live at Mar-a-Lago because of an agreement he signed in the early 1990s when he converted the storied estate from his private residence to a private club. The legal maneuver could force Palm Beach to publicly address whether Trump can make Mar-a-Lago his legal residence and home, as he has been expected to do, when he becomes an ex-president after the swearing-in of Joe Biden on Jan. 20.

The contretemps sets up a potentially awkward scenario, unique in recent history, in which a former Oval Office occupant would find himself having to officially defend his choice of a place to live. It also could create a legal headache for Trump because he changed his official domicile to Mar-a-Lago, leaving behind Manhattan, where he lived before being elected president and came to fame as a brash, self-promoting developer. (Trump originally tried to register to vote in Florida using the White House in Washington as his address, which is not allowed under Florida law. He later changed the registration to the Mar-a-Lago address.)

In the demand letter, obtained by The Washington Post, an attorney for the Mar-a-Lago neighbors says the town should notify Trump that he cannot use Mar-a-Lago as his residence. Making that move would "avoid an embarrassing situation" if the outgoing president moves to the club and later has to be ordered to leave, according to the letter sent on behalf of the DeMoss family neighbors, who run an international missionary foundation.

[LordMortis]

Could you be my?!? Would you be my?!? Won't you go live someplace else?

[LawBeefaroni]

There goes the neighborhood: Mar-a-Lago neighbors tell trump to live elsewhere.

the letter sent on behalf of the DeMoss family neighbors, who run an international missionary foundation.

Yeah, ok.

Turn on him once he's done and dead.

[Jaymann]

Texas would probably let him live at The Alamo. Maybe he can commandeer a wildlife refuge.

[Isgrimnur]

Given that Louis Tussaud's Waxworks is right across the street, I doubt that he would find the neighborhood to his liking.

[Jaymann]

Given that Louis Tussaud's Waxworks is right across the street, I doubt that he would find the neighborhood to his liking.

Why do you think he built the wall in San Antonio?

[Jaymann]

Garry Kasparov
@Kasparov63

The best confirmation that Putin is responsible for this hacking attack on the United States is that Trump hasn’t said anything.

[LordMortis]

Garry Kasparov
@Kasparov63

The best confirmation that Putin is responsible for this hacking attack on the United States is that Trump hasn’t said anything.

https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-do ... 2fe4755973

Sanctions, a time-honored punishment, can have even more bite and will almost certainly be weighed by Biden. President Barack Obama sanctioned Russian intelligence services after the 2016 election interference and expelled Russian diplomats. The Trump administration and Western allies similarly expelled diplomats over Moscow’s alleged poisoning of an ex-intelligence officer in Britain.

Exposing Kremlin corruption, including how Russian President Vladimir Putin accrues and hides his wealth, may amount to even more formidable retaliation.

“This isn’t just a tit-for-tat or hacking back into their systems,” Mendelson said. “It’s, ‘We’re going to go for what you really care about, and what you really care about is the funds that are stashed, and revealing the larger network and how it’s connected to the Kremlin.’”

This is my instinct. Expose the money and freeze the assets in that US can freeze.

[GungHo]

I see the value in sanctions of course, but if this hack ends up being as serious and devastating as it sounds like it may, we might need to do more than sanctions and deportation.
Those don't seem like they had too much of an affect on Russia's appetite to continue effing with us.
I do not envy Biden; his is going to be a very difficult presidency.

[Holman]

He’s not even hiding it.

It’s so nuts that the POTUS is literally a traitor.

Trump’s own Secretary of State condemned Russia for the attack this morning. It’s Putin’s victory lap and Trump is still terrified to say anything against him.

[malchior]

It's crazy and you can tell that the actual national security types are....beyond disturbed at the moment. I had the luxury this week of going to various non-classified briefings online. There is no other proper way to describe this than it was essentially a cyber '9/11'. 18000 companies were exposed. Most of the government agencies. We have heard zero classified networks but I don't buy it. I expect classified networks were breached to some extent this year. We don't even know how many organizations had backdoors installed. I will personally probably spend the next few years helping companies find related intrusions and deal with this. We expect that this was the biggest computer crime in history. And Trump is silent. He is compromised. He has to be. Nothing else makes sense anymore. There is btw a near zero chance this was China. Unless the Chinese were framing the Russians and it was perfect and untraceable.

[Smoove_B]

So what's the unofficial take on this then? It's Russia's last attempt to get information under their asset when they know there won't be any repercussions?

[malchior]

So what's the unofficial take on this then? It's Russia's last attempt to get information under their asset when they know there won't be any repercussions?

Maybe - there are a lot of possibilities. The fact is we know that it likely was the SVR which is Russia's best hacking team. It is equivalent to the American clandestine offensive operations teams. We've occasionally fired "shots at them" to scare them off attacking the US via targeted cyber attacks to let them know we were in their networks. Some think it might have started as a method to try to establish deterrence. Or maybe payback for sanctions. I think it is the former. I think they hoped to burrow in far enough then we can't attack them without them doing a lot of damage themselves. If they got useful intel in the process it was gravy.

However, there are at least some signs that they started succeeding wildly beyond expectations because we were dealing with the pandemic, election chaos, and led by an utterly traitorous, wildly incompetent President and his brood. Keep in mind, while this was happening the DNI was Grenell whose background in Intelligence was...absolutely nothing. He was completely unqualified for the role and out of his element in that world. In any case, they only got spotted while they were poking around in FireEye. To frame this, they had broken into Fort Knox, possibly driven the gold out under cover of night, and got caught because they were rifling through the desks of the security guards looking to keep an eye on the response effort to see if they got made. And they left hooks potentially in many, many private and public organizations. It is really, really bad.

[Smoove_B]

I'm at the mercy of intelligence / cyber security experts to educate me on all this, but I'm having a hard time trying to come up with a reasonable story here:

“Officials at the White House had been prepared to put out a statement Friday afternoon that accused Russia of being “the main actor” in the hack, but were told at the last minute to stand down”

[Daehawk]

Donald Trump's presidency by the numbers

Tweets, turnovers, appointments, golf days, executive actions, indictments...plus some other stuff. The golf alone is nuts. Almost a 3rd of a year was spent golfing. Overall he golfed an entire year of his Presidency away lacking only 65 days or so. Didn't he complain about Obama golfing?

[Formix]

At the risk of sounding redundant, how is this attack not an act of war? I'm legitimately curious.

[malchior]

At the risk of sounding redundant, how is this attack not an act of war? I'm legitimately curious.

It may very well be deemed so shortly into the Biden adminstration. It should be.

We are still learning about the extent of the attack but it looks like they did damage which is one of the criteria to call it an act of war. That should lead up to begin thinking about a agency re-shuffle and a build out of a robust defensive capability -- including hunt/kill teams to get these guys out of as many critical environments as possible.

[Holman]

At the risk of sounding redundant, how is this attack not an act of war? I'm legitimately curious.

There's a Cold War tradition of treating espionage as something below the threshold of warfare. It was beneficial to both sides to recover spies through diplomacy rather than have them executed.

What we haven't figured out is whether hacking and planting electronic bombs counts as espionage or unconventional warfare.

[Unagi]

In the Information Age, I’d say this is analogous to bombing a few military airfields.

[LawBeefaroni]

In the Information Age, I’d say this is analogous to bombing a few military airfields.

It's absolutely the new warfare. An economic or infrastructure takedown is pretty much the same as a first strike, only without the mutual assured destruction.

[malchior]

What we haven't figured out is whether hacking and planting electronic bombs counts as espionage or unconventional warfare.

There are actually some relatively hard definitions for what constitutes an attack but what has been absent is a willingness to actually follow the definitions and *act* upon them overtly. Many in the Cyber Security community think many of these events go well beyond espionage. For example, the OPM 'hack' saw millions of people's biometrics stolen. There were intelligence and financial impacts. That isn't 'espionage'. That is a theft/attack.

What we are seeing over and over again is that the US has been too divided to stand up for itself against adversaries which are taking advantage of a major gap in our defense. The NotPetya attack on Ukraine had spillover that wiped out 30K devices at Merck and took down Maersk as well causing damage to international trade. And the world just shrugged. In this case it isn't even debatable whether it was an attack, I saw a few contracts in the process of being executed this week in the millions of dollars in Incident Response work. They're technically T&M so that is more a 'max amount' but still it isn't hard to imagine the costs to investigate, contain, mitigate, and recover from this military attack on our country will be in the low Billions of dollars across the many organizations affected over the next few years. Enough is enough. We've got to stand up to this.

In the Information Age, I’d say this is analogous to bombing a few military airfields.

It's worse. It's like a widespread attack on *nearly every airfield*. And in reality, we have to expend resources everywhere whether or not impacted to be sure.

[Holman]

The traditional standard is that it's not war until people die from it. And as long as no one redefines that, everyone will keep pushing preparations as far as they can.

I have to assume that we're doing the same kind of thing in Russia (or were until Trump, anyway). Is there reason to think that's not the case?