“One of the participants in the operation against Mr. McMaster, Barbara Ledeen, said she was brought on by someone ‘with access to McMaster’s calendar.’”
Does she still work for @ChuckGrassley/Senate Judiciary comm GOP?
“When confronted with details about her involvement in the McMaster operation, Ledeen insisted that she was merely a messenger...she passed the message to a man she believed to be a Project Veritas operative.” The plan was to try to honeytrap the then US national security advisor
piece further down reports that Ledeen retired from the Senate this year.
Would the FBI ever investigate something like this? a bunch of US operatives trying to entrap the US national security advisor with a woman they were paying for that purpose?
“One woman living at the house, Anna Khait, was part of several operations against various targets, including a State Dept employee.” nytimes.com/2021/05/13/us/…
Re NYT Barbara Ledeen/Project Veritas orchestrating op v McMaster, this shows Barbara Ledeen writing Flynn’s then attorney Robert Kelner in Dec. 2018 passing message from Derek Harvey. Flynn’s attorney reported the message to DOJ & said not responding
The reported Ledeen-involved operation to entrap & remove the US national security advisor McMaster occurred just a few months before Giuliani involved operation to remove the US ambassador to Ukraine, reportedly under current investigation, & which led to Trump’s 1st impeachment
And which is reportedly being investigated to see if it was secretly conducted on behalf of unidentified paid foreign interests
Looks like Khait deleted the tweet of her and Patrick Byrne among a group together on Sunday. Here are screenshots of the tweet and the photo. Remembered this morning that Byrne reportedly also had a relationship with Russian agent Butina and reportedly reported on it to FBI.
“As the negotiations over the chip exports continued, some WH officials noticed that Sacks had an ally in Witkoff, who was seen as a valuable supporter for the U.A.E., because he had Mr. Trump’s ear…
The Emiratis floated an even bigger request.
“US special envoy Steve Witkoff misunderstood Putin's statements & took them for a concession. .. 1/ unn.ua/en/news/trumps…
“He interpreted Russia's required ‘peaceful withdrawal’ of Ukrainians from Kherson & Zaporizhzhia as an offer of a ‘peaceful withdrawal’ of Russians from these same regions, reported BILD. 2/
“‘Witkoff doesn't know what he's talking about,’ a Ukrainian official stated. According to the publication, representatives of the German government share this assessment.”
🧵Iran Dep FM Ravanchi to NBC: “As long as there is no act of aggression being perpetrated by the United States against us, we will not respond again,” Takht-Ravanchi said when asked if more was to come.
“We are for diplomacy” & “we are for dialogue,” Ravanchi. But the US gov’t needs “to convince us that they are not going to use military force while we are negotiating. That is an essential element for our leadership to be in a position to decide about the future round of talks.”
“Our policy has not changed on enrichment,” Ravanchi said. “Iran has every right to do enrichment within its territory. The only thing that we have to observe is not to go for militarization.”
🧵Reporter: Mr. President, what's your reaction to the intelligence reports saying that the Iranian nuclear sites were only partially devastated, not entirely?
Trump: Well, …the report said it could have been very, they don't know.
Trump: I mean, if they did a report, I could have Pete [Hegseth] talk to it, because his department did the report. They really don't know.
I think Israel is going to be telling us very soon, because Bibi is going to have people involved in that whole situation.
Trump: We hear it was obliteration. It was a virtual obliteration.
When you take a look at the ground above, don't forget, the flame is all underground.
🧵Former State Dept official Dan Benaim: It seems like a moment for humility…. But it strikes me that there's so much more that we don't know than what we do know, including the very basics of the battlefield damage assessment.
Benaim: “It seems to me that despite some triumphalism, there's no once and for all solution here to the Iranian nuclear program, and we shouldn't expect one off airstrikes to eliminate the Iranian nuclear threat.”
Benaim: “One thing that I should say when it comes to regional integration, and the prospects for the region… in talking about perceptions of Israel,…is Gaza.
🧵Ken Pollack: First point, we don't know what the American strike accomplished. we've heard the initial briefings.
I did look at the satellite photographs of Fordo. There are a couple of holes, & it's clear that the surface Earth has shifted.
But I find it very difficult to tell what the extent of the damage that was done to Fordo,
And quite frankly, I am going to be surprised if the US intelligence community has a really good read on what happened to Fordo.