Thread by @DavidCranmerUn1

He campaigned extensively for Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election, and he campaigned in Iowa for Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean just before the 2004 Iowa caucuses. Since the 2016 election, he has continued to campaign against

Donald Trump, calling him racist, sexist, anti-gay, and anti-Semitic, and he compared him to the Nazi police at Auschwitz. Reiner said that Harvey Weinstein is a "bad guy" but Trump is "also an abuser". Reiner serves on the advisory board of the Committee to Investigate Russia.

He and David Frum launched the site in September 2017 with Morgan Freeman warning people that "We are at war" and that Russia has attacked the United States. Others on the committee's advisory board at the time of launch included James Clapper, Max Boot, Charles Sykes,

and Norman Ornstein. Additionally, in early November 2020, the advisory board included Evelyn Farkas, Michael Hayden, Michael Morrell, Leon Panetta, and Clint Watts.[15] Reiner endorsed Hillary Clinton during the 2016 United States presidential election.

Hammer was very fond of Gore, Jr. and, in 1984, under Hammer's guidance, Gore, Jr. sought Tennessee's Senate office previously held by Howard Baker. Hammer supposedly promised Gore, Sr. that he could make his son the president of the United States. It was under Hammer's

encouragement and support that Gore Jr. sought the Democratic Party presidential nomination in 1988. Amtorg Trading Corporation, also known as Amtorg (short for Amerikanskaya Torgovlya, Russian: Амторг), was the first trade representation of the Soviet Union in the United States,

established in New York in 1924 by merging Armand Hammer's Allied American Corporation (Alamerico) with Products Exchange Corporation (Prodexco) and Arcos-America Inc. (the U.S. branch of All Russian Co-operative Society, ARCOS, in Great Britain).

During this formative period, Amtorg was very careful to clear any legal hurdles through the leading New York law firm of Thomas D. Thacher.[5] The main financial consultant and banker for Amtorg at that time was Chase National Bank.[6]
Amtorg was especially useful for the USSR

in negotiating contracts with major American companies such as Ford Motor Company, General Electric, International Harvester, Albert Kahn, Inc., Hugh L. Cooper, Arthur G. McKee (fr.), Freyn Engineering, DuPont de Nemours, Radio Corporation of America, and more than a hundred

other companies during the first five-year plan, taking advantage of the desperate condition of the American economy during the Great Depression. According to some sources, prior to the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries in 1933, Amtorg served as a

front for GRU/OGPU (Soviet intelligence service) operations in the US. During World War II, Amtorg handled the flow of military supplies to the Soviet Union, including armaments, raw materials, food, and uniforms, under the Lend-Lease program.
According to Pavel Sudoplatov, one

of five spy rings targeting the United States for atomic bomb secrets was based in Amtorg in New York City.

As an arm of the Soviet state, Amtorg, at that time located at 355 Lexington Avenue in New York City, was targeted in two bombing attempts, in 1971 and 1976, by members of

the Jewish Armed Resistance, an extremist group affiliated with the Jewish Defense League.
Surrounded by continuing controversy, Amtorg survived the Cold War but did not survive the collapse of the Soviet Union, quietly disappearing in 1998. Its last address was on the 86th floor

of the World Trade Center in New York City. On February 20, 1981, an Aerolíneas Argentinas airliner was guided away by air traffic controllers after radar signals indicated it was on a collision course with the North Tower (1 WTC). The aircraft, which departed from José Joaquín

de Olmedo International Airport in Guayaquil, Ecuador, and was scheduled to land at nearby JFK Airport, was flying at a much lower altitude than regulations recommended. In 1998, the Port Authority approved plans to privatize the World Trade Center, and in 2001 sought to lease

a private entity. Bids for the lease came from Vornado Realty Trust, a joint bid between Brookfield Properties Corporation and Boston Properties,[145] and a joint bid by Silverstein Properties and The Westfield Group.[10] Privatizing the World Trade Center would add it to the

city's tax rolls[10] and provide funds for other Port Authority projects.[146] On February 15, 2001, the Port Authority announced that Vornado Realty Trust had won the lease for the World Trade Center, paying $3.25 billion for the 99-year lease.[147] Vornado outbid Silverstein

by $600 million though Silverstein upped his offer to $3.22 billion. However, Vornado insisted on last minute changes to the deal, including a shorter 39-year lease, which the Port Authority considered nonnegotiable.[148] Vornado later withdrew and Silverstein's bid for the lease

to the World Trade Center was accepted on April 26, 2001,[149] and closed on July 24, 2001

As the collapse of the Soviet Union appeared imminent, the United States and their NATO allies grew concerned of the risk of nuclear weapons held in the Soviet republics falling into enemy hands. The Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) Program was an initiative housed within the

Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA). The CTR program is better known as the Nunn–Lugar Act (really the Soviet Nuclear Threat Reduction Act of 1991) which was authored and cosponsored by Sens. Sam Nunn (D-GA) and Richard Lugar (R-IN). This Act was created in 1986 in a

congressional meeting. According to the CTR website, "the purpose of the CTR Program is to secure and dismantle weapons of mass destruction and their associated infrastructure in former Soviet Union states." An alternative explanation of the program is "to secure and dismantle

weapons of mass destruction in states of the former Soviet Union and beyond". DTRA employs approximately 2,000 civilian and uniformed service members at more than a dozen permanent locations around the world. The majority of personnel are at DTRA headquarters at Fort Belvoir.

Approximately 15% of the workforce is split between Kirtland Air Force Base and the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, and the Nevada National Security Site (formerly called the Nevada Test Site), where they do testing and support the U.S. military's nuclear mission. The

remaining 15% of the workforce is stationed at locations in Germany, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Georgia, Ukraine, Armenia, Kenya, South Korea, Japan, and Singapore. DTRA also has liaisons with all of the U.S. military's Combatant Commands, the National Guard Bureau, the

FBI and other U.S. government interagency partners. In 2005, the Commander, United States Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) was designated as the lead Combatant Command for the integration and synchronization of DoD's efforts in support of U.S. government "Combating WMD" objectives.

It was at this time that the SCC-WMD was co-located with DTRA.[5] The Combat Command designation was changed again in 2017, when responsibility was moved to U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM). In 2012, the SJFHQ-E was relocated to the DTRA/SCC-WMD headquarters at

Fort Belvoir. This centralized the DoD's Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction operations, a move recommended in the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review.[7]
On September 30, 2016, the Joint Improvised-Threat Defeat Agency (JIDA) became part of DTRA and was renamed the Joint

Improvised-Threat Defeat Organization (JIDO) in accordance with the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). In Section 1532 of the NDAA, Congress directed the DoD to move JIDA to a military department or under an existing defense agency.

Jay C. Davis (1998–2001)
Robert P. Bongiovi (2001, acting)
Stephen M. Younger (2001–2004)
Trudy H. Clark (2004–2005, acting)
James A. Tegnelia (2005-2009)[35]
Kenneth A. Myers III (2008–2016)
Dr. Rhys M. Williams (2021–Present, Acting)