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Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
@shellenberger
Jun 2, 2024 • 5 tweets • 5 min read • Read on X
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Ever since Donald Trump emerged as a presidential contender nine years ago, America’s most esteemed scholars and journalists have argued that he was violating democratic norms. Trump, they said, was ignoring the stabilizing, unwritten rules and values of American politics. This was evident in his vulgar language, vilification of immigrants, criticisms of the press, lack of cooperation with the intelligence community, and refusal to accept the 2020 election results.

But the Democrats’ relentless effort to imprison Trump has undermined the rule of law, faith in the criminal justice system, and democratic norms more than anything Trump has ever done.

According to multiple credible sources, President Barack Obama’s Director of the CIA, in the summer of 2016, illegally mobilized foreign spy agencies to target 26 Trump advisors to claim, falsely, that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin controlled Trump.

Then, in January 2017, after Trump had been elected but before he took office, the U.S. Intelligence Community falsely claimedthat Putin had favored the election of Trump when, in reality, the intelligence showed that Putin favored Hillary Clinton.

After taking office, current and former US government intelligence operatives and Democrats falsely claimed that Russian disinformation on social media had resulted in Trump’s election and worked with the Department of Homeland Security to censor social media platforms.

None of this is a defense of Trump. He uses extreme and inflammatory rhetoric, particularly about immigrants, that I strongly disagree with. He was wrong to deny and try to change the results of the 2020 elections. And I think people are right to fear that, if he were re-elected, he could weaponize the government to exact revenge on his political enemies.

But that fear is further proof of the danger of Democrats weaponizing the government. Democrats went far beyond anything Trump did when it came to abusing their political power. After the Supreme Court ruled that Biden could not legally forgive student loans, he did so anyway. By contrast, Trump did not violate any Supreme Court rulings.

It’s true that Trump has criticized judges, journalists, and intelligence agencies, but why is that a bad thing? We have a separation of powers for a reason.

As for the intelligence agencies, they broke the law multiple times in targeting Trump. As for the news media, they deserve criticism for losing the public’s trust after lying about everything from the origins of Covid to the efficacy of the Covid vaccine to the Russiagate hoax.

Or consider the prosecution of Trump for supposedly taking and holding onto classified documents. It’s not obvious that Trump put national security in greater danger than Biden. There is evidence that the Biden administration worked with the National Archives and Department of Justice to demand the confrontation. And there is the possibility that the raid was motivated in order to recover documents related to the Russiagate hoax.

And the abuse of the court system by Democrats in an effort to incarcerate Trump and keep him off the ballot is far more of a violation of norms than anything Trump ever dreamed of.

The recent felony conviction of Trump for falsifying business records relies on the idea that he misclassified campaign payments. Democrats say, “Nobody is above the law,” which is true. But Democrats are wrong to ignore the fact that prosecutors are constantly making choices about whether to pursue certain cases over others. Indeed, Hillary Clinton was found to have mislabeled payments related to the Steele dossier during her 2016 campaign, and she was never prosecuted. The Federal Election Commission (FEC) merely fined Clinton and the Democratic National Convention (DNC)) for this misconduct.

In fact, everything about New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s recent conviction of Trump is abnormal. For starters, Bragg campaigned on the promise to prosecute Trump. He turned the misdemeanor of falsifying business records into a felony by tying it to election interference. The case was so weak that both the Department of Justice and the former DA refused to prosecute it.

The judge in the case donated to Biden and his daughter is the president of a Democratic Party fundraising firm whose clients include Rep. Adam Schiff, who led the Russiagate hoax. The judge told the jurors that they didn’t need to agree on what crime Trump intended to commit by falsifying records.

The case confused even legal experts. “At the start of closing arguments,” wrote legal scholar Jonathan Turley, “most honest observers were still wondering what the prosecutors were alleging as to the crime that Trump was allegedly concealing with the falsification of business records.”

Even CNN’s top legal scholar, Elie Honig, who is also a former colleague of Bragg, said the trial violated norms. “Prosecutors Got Trump But They Contorted the Law,” explained Honig in New York Magazine. “The charges against Trump are obscure and nearly entirely unprecedented,” he said. “In fact, no state prosecutor— in New York, or Wyoming, or anywhere — has ever charged federal election laws as a direct or predicate state crime against anyone for anything. None. Ever.”

All of this is a radical change from the ideals of the Democratic Party just a few years ago. In the 1970s and 1980s, Democrats fought to restrict and reform the intelligence community so that it would stop spying on American citizens for their political activities. Democrats defended a high standard for free speech, including the right of Nazis to march through neighborhoods of Holocaust survivors. And since the 1990s, Democrats have raised the alarm about the abuse of prosecutorial power and elected progressive prosecutors, including Bragg, to reduce prosecutions of nonviolent crimes.

Today, Democrats are pioneering new ways to weaponize the government....
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References:




In the video above, I erroneously said, "New York Times Magazine" when referring to a New York magazine article by @eliehonig. (The text is correct). Here is the article:

nymag.com/intelligencer/…
Examples of what I mean by "extreme and inflammatory rhetoric."

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Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
Feb 13
The @NYTimes today notes that in one Epstein email there is "peculiar combination" of "pizza" and "grape soda."

In truth, on at least five occasions, Epstein’s urologist, Harry Fisch, uses the words “pizza” and “grape soda” in strange ways.

In making this observation, I am not endorsing any theory about what the words mean.

However, I think the author @DraperRobert should have noted that there are at least five and more likely at least six mentions of pizza and grape soda, and that in one case, the words appear to be about sex, since they come after discussion of erectile dysfunction pills.

Here the cases:

1. “After you use them, wash your hands and let’s go get pizza and grape soda.”

Their text messaging exchange begins with Epstein emailing Fisch to request Stendra, a fast-acting, second generation erectile dysfunction drug that was designed for "greater spontaneity."

The "them" Fisch is referring to are clearly the pills.

Then, in separate messages, Fisch writes:

2. “What time do you want to get pizza and grape soda tomorrow?” 

3. “Pizza and grape soda… Nough said”

4. “Pizza and grape soda tomorrow for lunch?”

5. “First we get a slide of pizza with grape soda… Then the pop tart” to which Epstein replies, “Wow.”

6. And someone whose name is redacted, but is almost certainly Fisch, as he is sending an attached document from “Veru-Equity” which is Fisch’s company, appears to make clear that he is using a coded phrase when he writes, in an email to Epstein,” Let’s go for pizza and grape soda again. No one else can understand.”

I encourage people to read the messages themselves. In no case did I get the feeling that they were actually talking about pizza and grape soda.

Of course, it is easy to see things that aren't there, and so there is some non-zero possibility they are really into pizza and grape soda.

But if it's all a terrible misunderstanding then, given that the story is now in the New York Times, Fisch should be glad to clear up what they were talking about.

I emailed Fisch at several of his email addresses on Wednesday and did not heard back. The Times says it did too.

I believe it is reasonable that authorities should ask to interview Fisch to understand what it was that they were discussing.Image
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I encourage people to read the emails in their full context and share your thoughts. They are easy to search for and find here:

jmail.world

Here's Fisch's Veru company:

verupharma.com/contact-us/

Below is the full message exchange that includes the reference to Stendra.

Here's a reference to the "spontaneity" claim:

withpower.com/guides/viagra-…

And here's the NYTimes story:

nytimes.com/2026/02/12/us/…Image
Here is the evidence that Epstein used code words and that "shrimp" is one of them.

There has still not been a proper investigation of the Epstein Files. That needs to happen. The American people are right to not let this go.

Read 5 tweets
Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
Feb 12
Not all references to food in the Epstein Files are code words, but some definitely are, including references to "shrimp," as I explain here. We need an independent investigation and real reform as our Intelligence Community is operating outside of civilian control.
The recently released Jeffrey Epstein files neither reveal a conspiracy to traffic underage girls to powerful men, nor a relationship to the Intelligence Community (IC), nor a client list, according to some in the media and online. None of the hundreds of CDs, videos, and photographs showed men with young women, notes the Associated Press. And the FBI “found scant evidence the well-connected financier led a sex trafficking ring serving powerful men,” notes AP.

But the Epstein Files do, in fact, provide even more evidence than we already had that Epstein trafficked underage girls to powerful men and that he had ties with both the IC and the Justice Department. The Files reveal that Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick misled the public about his relationship with Epstein, which continued years after he had claimed, and included at least one business deal. And they reveal that a powerful UK diplomat, Peter Mandelson, the former ambassador to the United States, illegally shared confidential state financial secrets with Epstein, and appeared in his underwear in at least one photo. The new evidence forced Mandelson to resign, leave the House of Lords, and nearly brought down the Keir Starmer government.

To be sure, there is false and misleading information in the Epstein Files. There may not be any CIA files on Epstein. There appears to be no client list. At least one of the alleged Epstein victims lied. And there is no evidence for some sensational claims. Moreover, there are FBI reports of testimony from clearly unreliable people, attesting, for example, to witnessing mass murder and cannibalism. Some online are view nearly every food reference as a code word for pedophilia or worse, imagining evidence and seeing connections that simply aren’t there.

While there was an investigation, the files make clear that the FBI had a list of co-conspirators with Epstein, who are in the Epstein Files, engaging in behaviors to recruit women to engage in what is effectively prostitution, whom the FBI never investigated.

An FBI employee on July 7, 2019, emailed a colleague to ask, “When you get a chance can you give me an update on the status of the 10 CO conspirators?” The email named “Brunel” and “Maxwell,” references to Jean-Luc Brunel, a French recruiter of fashion models who was under investigation for raping minors, and convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell.

Another FBI document lists all 10 co-conspirators, and they include the foudner of Victoria's Secret, and Epstein’s assistant, Lesley Groff.

We know that Epstein had installed hidden cameras, a surveillance room, and produced hundreds of videos spying on people on CDs and tape.

The CIA so valued Epstein’s attorney, Kathy Ruemmler, the White House counsel for President Barack Obama, that its Director gave her the agency’s highest award. The Director of the CIA under Biden, William Burns, met with, or was scheduled to meet with, Epstein at least three times when he was a State Department official. And, in the 1990s, Wexner and Epstein helped relocate a CIA front organization, Southern Air Transport, from Miami to Columbus, Ohio, where Wexner lived.

Epstein considered using a former “CIA plane to transport prisoners to Guantanamo Bay…called a Torture Plane,” according to Epstein’s pilot, Larry Visoski, in an email.

Ruemmler at one point emails Epstein to say, “Yes, I am really here,” to which Epstein responds, “it looks like a cia drop,” tradecraft jargon for an intelligence exchange.

Epstein, through his lawyer, tried to get information out of the CIA about himself, and the CIA responded, saying it looked and found nothing. But by denying an “open or otherwise acknowledged” affiliation, the CIA legally protected itself from having to confirm or deny covert, unacknowledged, or informal relationships, such as being a confidential informant, a foreign intelligence asset, or a non-official contractor.

These new revelations come at a time when even mainstream news media are reporting on more evidence that Epstein may not have killed himself in August 2019. Noted CBS, “investigators reviewing surveillance footage from the night of Jeffrey Epstein’s death observed an orange-colored shape moving up a staircase” toward his cell. An FBI memorandum describes the fuzzy image as “possibly an inmate.” And CBS reported that “Prison employees interviewed by CBS News said escorting an inmate at that hour would have been highly unusual.”

So what does it all mean? Who was Epstein and what was he doing?

To answer those questions, we need to take a closer look at the code words.

When Nicole Junkermann, an Epstein lover, says “Wow!” after he indicates he might be willing to have a baby with her, Epstein replies, “Is that a code word” to which she replied “No i am surprised.” In one exchange, a woman, ​​whose name is redacted, but is almost certainly Nadia Marcinko (a.k.a., Naďa Marcinková), Epstein’s Slovak-born pilot, asks him to fly with her. He says, “Is that a code word?” And she replies, “I really meant fly… would your answer differ if it were a code word?”

While most of the Epstein Files emails that use the word “shrimp” appear to refer to the seafood, some appear not to. Someone whose name is redacted emails Epstein to say, “Call Talia, she will give you massage. And she looks better then ‘shrimp’ anyway. And good with Massages.” The person is using shrimp in the context of “massage” which in many emails appears to refer to massage with sex...

x.com/shellenberger/…

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x.com/shellenberger/…Image
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Seems bad:

Read 4 tweets
Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
Jan 31
Calling anti-ICE riots an "insurrection" or "insurgency... poses dangers," says @nytimes. It "legitimizes the use of violence," says a CSIS expert.

Funny, then, how The Times labeled January 6 an "insurrection" and the same CSIS expert called J6 a "terrorist incident."Image
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The Times uses the word "insurgency" rather than "insurrection" for its headline, even though not a single one of the people the article criticizes uses that word. Three use the word "insurrection" and one uses the word "revolution."

Perhaps that's because the Times knows that it led the charge to label January 6 as an "insurrection," and that it is now engaging in flagrant hypocrisy.

nytimes.com/2026/01/31/us/…
Even more disturbing is that the article quotes Seth G. Jones @SethGJones saying, “When you start using the language of warfare and treating someone that has an opposing view as a terrorist or as an insurgent, that legitimizes the use of violence against them."

Well, that's precisely what Jones and his coauthors did in a 2022 @CSIS report, "Pushed to Extremes: Domestic Terrorism amid Polarization and Protest," which labeled January 6 as "the most prominent instance" of a domestic "terrorist incident."

csis.org/analysis/pushe…Image
Read 7 tweets
Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
Jan 29
It was already clear that Alex Pretti was interfering in a law enforcement operation. Now, new @BBC video shows Pretti kicking out the taillight of an ICE SUV and wrestling with ICE agents. His gun is sticking out of his waistband. He screams & spits. He is deranged & dangerous.
In this clip, you can clearly see Pretti refusing to go to ground — just as he refused to do so when he was shot.

Congrats to @thenewsmovement and @BBCNews for their big scoop.
The news media irresponsibly downplayed or didn't properly report on how Pretti was deliberately interfering in a law enforcement operation on the day he was killed.

At a minimum he recklessly waved through traffic on the street and physically confronted ICE, as the image below clearly shows.
I shouldn't have to say this but some people need to hear it: I'm not defending the shooting. It was obviously a mistake. There should be a full investigation and people should be held accountable.

But it is also the case that Democrats, influencers, and the media are getting leftists killed by encouraging them to interfere with law enforcement operations and telling them that they are fighting Nazis.

Pretti showed exceedingly bad judgement in openly wearing a gun as he attacked an ICE vehicle. He showed similarly bad judgement interfering in the ICE operation on Saturday.

Pretti in the new video appears to be in the grip of that very familiar form of derangement.

Here is a link to the full @thenewsmovement video.

I saw some people have been trying to put Community Notes on this video. If you watch it, you will see that it is definitely Pretti, there is no evidence of AI manipulation, and the provenance of the video is known.

youtube.com/watch?v=CRWR13…Image
Read 8 tweets
Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
Jan 25
Most of the debate since yesterday has focused, understandably, on whether the ICE agent acted in what he perceived to be self-defense. Whatever the case, it’s clear that, by encouraging people to interfere in law enforcement operations, the Left is getting people killed. Image
A Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent in Minnesota shot a second person dead yesterday. Most of the debate since then has focused, understandably, on whether the ICE agent acted in what he perceived to be self-defense.

Whatever the case, it’s clear that, by encouraging people to interfere in law enforcement operations, the Left is getting people killed. Videos show both victims, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, impeding law enforcement operations, which progressive nonprofits, Democrats, and liberal influencers have been encouraging for months.

Good drove her vehicle perpendicular to block traffic while her partner taunted ICE officers. Pretti intervened at least twice, first by waving traffic through on the street and again as an ICE officer sought to subdue another person interfering in the operation, triggering the agent to use pepper spray against him.

In saying this, I am not defending the decisions and behaviors of the ICE officers or anyone else. The killings are a tragedy. And there is a worthwhile debate underway over ICE tactics, separate from the specific behaviors of Good and Pretti.

We don’t know what was in the minds of Good and Pretti specifically, but Democrats, progressives, and anti-ICE activists have for years called ICE and the Trump administration fascist and compared them to the Nazis. On January 19, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz called ICE “Donald Trump’s modern-day Gestapo.” Last year, in California, Governor Gavin Newsom signed legislation to block ICE from hiding its identities. The Los Angeles mayor called them a “reign of terror.” And a few days ago, the Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota urged citizens to “put your body on the line” to block ICE protests.

Walz and other Democrats have blocked state and local law enforcement from working with ICE, which has contributed to increasingly risky behavior by anti-ICE activists like Good and Pretti, and thus growing danger to everyone involved. There were no Minneapolis police visible in the videos of the Good and Pretti deaths.

And many of America’s largest progressive cities and states are all openly defiant of federal law, declaring themselves “sanctuaries” that protect illegal migrants from the federal government.

California, New York, Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and others are “sanctuary states”. At the same time, New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland, San Diego, Sacramento, Seattle, Portland, Chicago, Denver, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Madison, Milwaukee, Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, Philadelphia, Washington, Baltimore, Newark, Jersey City, Austin, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Chapel Hill, Durham, Asheville, Tucson, Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Reno, are “sanctuary cities.”

The underlying problem is that for decades, schools, Hollywood, and the media have made clear that we should risk and even sacrifice our own lives to stop fascism and Nazism. And yet neither ICE raids nor Trump are fascist, and it is offensive to compare them to the Nazis.

The Nazis rounded up Jewish citizens and shipped them to death camps. ICE, by contrast, is detaining foreigners who the government believes committed criminal offenses beyond coming to the US illegally. No nation in the world has allowed more people to enter illegally. Nor has any treated them with greater due process than the US is doing.

The American people elected Trump president, like it or not, and the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause in Article VI establishes that federal law prevails over conflicting state or local laws. It ensures the Constitution, federal statutes, and treaties are the “supreme Law of the Land,” binding state courts and governments. The ICE raids may be bad politics, but there is no question that they are constitutional.

While some Democrats and progressives know their language is hyperbolic, half of the individuals surveyed told pollsters last year that Trump is a fascist. Such radical beliefs appear to have partly motivated two assassination attempts against Trump and the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

While the radical Left has for decades called its political opponents fascists, these views were until recently marginal views, even within the Democratic Party. Moreover, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders, and Hillary Clinton all spoke out against illegal migration until 2016. So what changed? Why did so many Americans come to view a democratically elected president and law enforcement operations as equivalent to fascism? What radicalized the Left?

Part of the answer is bad information. Many progressives believe ICE is simply sweeping up hard-working and law-abiding immigrants, and do not know that 64 percent of immigrants detained since Trump took office in January 2025 had criminal convictions or pending charges, in addition to having broken the law by entering and working in the country without a visa.

For some, labeling Trump as a fascist was simply a political tactic and not something they believed. But many others believe it, as the polling data shows.

Many people, both liberals and conservatives, believe progressives like Good and Pretti are acting out of empathy and sympathy for migrants. But if they are, it is purely ideologically driven, not from any real-world understanding of migrant communities. Few of the white progressives protesting ICE have ever spoken more than a few words to much less gotten to know illegal immigrants, even those who work for them as cleaners, cooks, and gardeners, much less come to understand their lives...

x.com/shellenberger/…

Please subscribe now to support Public's award-winning investigative journalism, watch the full video, and read the whole article!

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🎯
Read 18 tweets
Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
Dec 23, 2025
So “60 Minutes” straight up lied. Plus, they could have gone to a White House press briefing or asked Trump after a cabinet meeting or on Air Force One. They chose not to. Totally unethical & irresponsible behavior. @bariweiss was right to hold the piece.
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Almost like there’s a pattern here
Read 4 tweets

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