Thread by @allenanalysis

Read this carefully.

Yesterday the Department of Justice arrested a Green Beret named Gannon Ken Van Dyke. He bet thirty-three thousand dollars on a classified military operation he helped plan. He won four hundred and nine thousand dollars. He tried to hide the money. He got caught. Now he is charged with five federal crimes.

That is the headline. That is the news.

I want to tell you what is going to happen next 🧵

When the President of the United States was asked about the arrest yesterday, he was sitting in the Oval Office. Reporters asked him what he thought about an active-duty soldier using classified information to make four hundred thousand dollars on a betting site.

His response, in his own words, was this:

"That's like Pete Rose betting on his own team."

Pete Rose was a baseball player. He was banned from baseball for life in 1989 for betting on his own team while playing for and managing the Cincinnati Reds. For decades, Pete Rose was the most famous example in American sports of a man who broke the most basic rule of his profession.

Last year, President Trump publicly pressured Major League Baseball to take Pete Rose off the permanently ineligible list. They did. The President has said he plans to issue Pete Rose a posthumous pardon.

So when the President of the United States compared a soldier who allegedly betrayed his oath to a man the President himself has championed and plans to pardon, that was not a condemnation.

That was a signal.

CNN reported yesterday that at least two prominent Trump allies have already publicly called for the President to pardon Van Dyke.

I want you to remember this moment.

A soldier was arrested. The President compared him to Pete Rose. Pete Rose was rehabilitated by the President. The President's allies have already started asking for a pardon.

This is how a pardon gets staged.

Step one. The arrest happens. The story breaks. There is public outrage.

Step two. The President signals. He compares the defendant to a sympathetic figure. He says he is not happy. He says he will look into it.

Step three. The base lobbies. Allies write op-eds. Podcasters demand mercy. Donors call. Kash Patel says nobody is above the law, but soft language replaces hard language.

Step four. Months pass. The news cycle moves on. The story is no longer hot.

Step five. The pardon happens. On a Friday night. In a press release dump. With twenty other names on it.

We have seen this pattern before.

This President pardoned the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers. He pardoned the rioters who attacked Capitol Police. He pardoned Steve Bannon. He has pardoned tax cheats and fraudsters and political donors. The pattern is well established.

Now here is the part I want you to sit with.

Van Dyke is not just any defendant. He is a member of the unit that supports Delta Force and SEAL Team Six. He is a master sergeant. He has been on active duty since 2008. The case against him includes classified information, signed nondisclosure agreements, and federal wire fraud charges.

If this President pardons him, the message to every other person with a security clearance in this country is clear.

Steal the secret.

Make the money.

Hide the money.

Hope you do not get caught.

If you do, hope the President likes you.

That is not a justice system. That is a casino. And the President said it himself yesterday in the Oval Office.

When asked about the broader pattern of suspicious trading on his Iran announcements, hundreds of millions of dollars in winnings on a platform his son advises, this is what the President said:

"You know the whole world, unfortunately, has become somewhat of a casino."

He did not say he would stop it.

He did not say there would be more arrests.

He did not say he was outraged.

He just said the world is a casino.

Coming from a man who built his fortune in casinos, who owns part of a casino industry through Truth Social, whose son is on the advisory board of one prediction market and is a paid adviser to its biggest competitor, that is not a description.

That is a confession.

I am writing this so it is on the record.

If President Trump pardons Master Sergeant Van Dyke in the next ninety days, you read it here first. The signal was sent yesterday. The allies are already lobbying. The pattern is well established.

Watch what they do. Not what they say.

Never stop connecting the dots.