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Archive for April 14th, 2025|Daily archive page

WHEN AL CAPONES REIGN, ELLIOT NESSES BECOME TARGETS: PART ONE (OF THREE)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on April 14, 2025 at 12:10 am

In the United States of Donald Trump, protecting the right to legitimate elections can get you investigated—if not indicted.     

Case in point: Christopher Krebs, who prevented Russian trolls and hackers from sabotaging the 2020 Presidential election.

During the 2016 Presidential race, Russian propaganda played a major role in convincing millions of Americans to vote for Donald Trump. Social media platforms—especially Facebook and Twitter—were flooded with genuinely fake news to sow discord among Americans and create a pathway for Trump’s election.

And where Internet trolls left off, Russian computer hackers took over.

Hillary Clinton won the popular vote—65,853,514 to 62,984,828 for Trump. But in the United States, what counts in Presidential elections is the Electoral College vote.

And there Trump won: 304 to 227

What put him over the top in the Electoral College was the help he got from Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.

Vladimir Putin (2020-02-20).jpg

Vladimir Putin

Putin had good reason to assist Trump: Putin wanted the United States to ditch the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance, which has preserved Western Europe from Russian aggression since World War II. And Trump had often attacked America’s funding of NATO as a drain on the American economy.

As for Trump, he wanted something from Putin: He wanted to be President. For this, Putin could supply monies, Internet trolls to confuse voters with falsified news, and even the hacking of key voting centers.

So notorious was the role played by Russian trolls and hackers in winning Trump the 2016 election that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was determined to prevent a repetition in 2020.

And the point man for this was Chris Krebs, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) run by DHS.

Born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1977, Krebs had received a B.A. in environmental sciences from the University of Virginia in 1999, and a J.D. from the George Mason University School of Law in 2007.

Chris Krebs official photo.jpg

Chris Krebs

Krebs had served as Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Infrastructure Protection, and later worked in the private sector as Director for Cybersecurity Policy for Microsoft. 

In preparation for the 2020 Presidential election, Krebs launched a massive effort to counter lies spread by Russians—and Americans—on social media platforms. As he explained to Scott Pelley during a “60 Minutes” interview aired on November 29, 2020: 

“So we spent something on the order of three and a half years of gaming out every possible scenario for how a foreign actor could interfere with an election. Countless, countless scenarios.”   

What Krebs could not know was that, less than five years later, his dedication to ensuring a free democratic election would put him in the crosshairs of the Justice Department.

A Justice Department under the control of the man defeated for the Presidency in 2020: Donald J. Trump.   

United States Department of Justice - Wikipedia

On April 9, 2025, the White House (i.e., Trump) issued MEMORANDUM FOR THE HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES.

According to Wikipedia: “Donald Trump has made tens of thousands of false or misleading claims, including during his first and second terms as President of the United States. Fact-checkers at The Washington Post documented 30,573 false or misleading claims during his first presidential term, an average of 21 per day.”

So it was fitting that Trump’s memorandum opened with an outright series of lies disguised as an indictment: 

“The Federal Government has a constitutional duty and a moral responsibility to respect and promote the free speech rights of Americans.

“Yet in recent years, elitist leaders in Government have unlawfully censored speech and weaponized their undeserved influence to silence perceived political opponents and advance their preferred, and often erroneous, narrative about significant matters of public debate. 

“These disgraceful actions have taken the form of coercive threats against the private sector — including major social media platforms — to suppress conservative or dissenting voices and distort public opinion.

“Much of this censorship took place during a Presidential election with the apparent purpose of undermining the free exchange of ideas and debate.” 

When Donald Trump makes an accusation, it is nearly always a confession of a crime he has committed or plans to commit.  Thus, the above statements reflect exactly the agenda and practices of both the first Trump administration and the present one.

For example: “Elitist leaders in Government have unlawfully censored speech and weaponized their undeserved influence to silence perceived political opponents and advance their preferred, and often erroneous, narrative about significant matters of public debate.

Trump ordered Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to purge the U.S. Naval Academy Library of books that focus on race, gender, and sexuality, and historical books on racism and white supremacy. These include books on the Holocaust, histories of feminism, civil rights and racism.

Thus, two copies of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf are available for checkout, while Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is not. 

Memorializing the Holocaust, Janet Jacob’s book on how female victims of the Holocaust have been portrayed, is gone. But The Camp of the Saints by Jean Raspail is still on the shelves. A 1973 novel which envisions a takeover of the Western world by immigrants from Third World countries, it has been embraced by white supremacists.