Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #PaulWhelan
Most recents (6)
Glad she’s out safe.
But only the left would think the swap for an American athlete and The Merchant of Death should be celebrated.
#paulwhelan
But only the left would think the swap for an American athlete and The Merchant of Death should be celebrated.
#paulwhelan
"Viktor Bout, in my eyes, is one of the most dangerous men on the face of the Earth," Michael Braun, the former chief of operations for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, told "60 Minutes" in 2010.
Bout helped fuel civil wars across the world by supplying more sophisticated weapons, sometimes to both sides of the bloody conflicts. "If I didn't do it, someone else would," Bout told the New Yorker.
NEW-"Watching the images of Pres. #Putin & #Iran's supreme leader meeting yesterday in #Tehran did not exactly fill me w/nostalgia" @CIA Director William Burns tells #AspenSecurity
But "The reality is Russians & Iranians need each other right now..."
But "The reality is Russians & Iranians need each other right now..."
#BritneyGriner, #PaulWhelan & Marc Fogel are wrongfully detained & in the case of last 2, wrongfully convicted in Russia. Putin will only release them in some sort of swap. We swapped spies in 2010. We swapped Reed for Yaroshenko this year. We should do another swap now. THREAD.1
Viktor Bout is a horrible criminal. #BritneyGriner, #PaulWhelan & Fogel are not. But US diplomats need to weigh realistically costs & benefits here -- abstract principles versus the concrete interests of real Americans. 2/
Bout has been in captivity since 2008. He has a decade or so to go on his sentence. What is the marginal benefit of holding him until the end versus the benefit of freeing these 3 Americans? That's the question. 3/
Interesting RT interview from last month with Vladimir Zherebenkov, lawyer for #PaulWhelan
tellerreport.com/news/--%22surp…
tellerreport.com/news/--%22surp…
.@dfatirl tight-lipped about consular assistance being given to US/Canadian/UK/Irish citizen #PaulWhelan (other than it had been requested and Irish Embassy requested access). Vladimir Zherebenkov says he has met Irish embassy staff: 
Line to date from @dfatirl has been "Embassy in Moscow has requested consular access to an Irish citizen currently detained in Russia after receiving a request for assistance. DFAT will provide all possible and appropriate assistance in relation to this case"
1. #PaulWhelan: Well, well, well. Four passports. Anyone who has ever studied the real CIA knows that they don't run a NOC like that. So who is Whelan? First, when SecPompeo first spoke my method acting training alerted me to his deception. He knows who he is. I'm 80% certain.
2. So this is the theory I'm working with. It's my template into which I will plug the puzzle pieces. This could be 100% wrong and it is unlikely to be 100% right. It is process. Not a result. I look at facts, conditions and motives. Here is where I am today.
3. First as I have posted, Butina has already given up most of what she has. She agreed to polygraphs so the counter-intel @FBIWFO know what is true and what is false. Getting her back may be a PR move for Putin or debriefing (torturing) her would likely find out who she burned.
1. At risk of being one of many to wrongly predict what Mueller is up to, I make this observations based on circumstantial evidence in public record to report that I think something big is coming. First, past four days Trump is shuttered in the White House with just a cell phone.
2. Second, the #SCOTUS CJ Roberts ordered (we presume Mueller's Govt team) to respond to the secret Grand Jury case stay he granted by Dec. 31 at noon. They did it three days early. I think this case may be the Rosneft bribe reported in the Steele dossier. Trump knows if it is.
3. Finally, case I'm watching at SCOTUS that I think may remove Whitaker as AAG is teed up to discuss in conference on January 11. I have reported extensively on this including detailed analysis of legislative history. IMO #SCOTUS must declare Whitaker to be former DOJ employee.
