trump’s Insurance Policy Conspiracy Theory
Oct 6, 2019 21:31:22 GMT
lucyg, t2x, and 1 more like this
Post by Deleted on Oct 6, 2019 21:31:22 GMT
CNBC
So this popped up on the catch all thread. And it’s crazy enough, IMO, to warrant its own thread.
From CNBC..
“Trump seized on a conspiracy theory called the ‘insurance policy.’ Now, it’s at the center of an impeachment investigation”
“An anonymous post from March 2017 on the far-right 4chan message board teased a conspiracy theory that would eventually make its way to the White House.
Russia could not have been the source of leaked Democrat emails released by Wikileaks,” the post teased, not citing any evidence for the assertion.
The post baselessly insinuated that CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm that worked with the Democratic National Committee and had been contracted to investigate a hack of its servers, fabricated a forensics report to frame Russia for election interference. The 4chan post was published three days before then-FBI Director James Comey testified before Congress about Russian interference in the 2016 election.
And that was how it started. That post is the first known written evidence of this unfounded conspiracy theory to exonerate Russia from meddling in the 2016 election, which more than two years later would make its way into the telephone call that may get President Donald Trump impeached. (Federal law enforcement officials have repeatedly made it clear that Russia unquestionably did meddle in the election.)
In the years that followed the original 4chan post, at least three different but related conspiracy theories would warp and combine on the fringes of the internet, eventually coalescing around Ukraine’s supposed role in helping Trump’s 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton.
Ukraine wasn’t originally part of the theory, but in July, Trump floated CrowdStrike’s name during a call with the president of Ukraine as just one piece of a convoluted conspiracy accusation. That phone call is now at the center of a congressional investigation and impeachment inquiry into whether the president abused his power for political gain.
“I would like to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say CrowdStrike … ” Trump said on the call, according to a White House summary. “I guess you have one of your wealthy people. ... The server, they say Ukraine has it.”
To even people who have followed these theories closely, Trump’s call felt detached from any sense of logic.
“It’s a whole new mountain of nonsense,” said Duncan Campbell, a British digital forensics expert who investigated the original claim about CrowdStrike.
This omnibus conspiracy theory has been frequently referred to on far-right blogs, Fox News and recently by the president as the Democrats’ “insurance policy,” a reference to the supposed setup as a way to impeach the president if Trump were to win the election.
Though all the individual theories have been debunked, each has contributed elements that have been cited by the president, as well as his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.
Beginning months after Trump’s inauguration, conspiracy theorists have pushed this fanciful and unsubstantiated narrative in which the Democratic National Committee framed Russia for its election interference in 2016 and later covered up its false accusation with help from then-Vice President Joe Biden and officials in Ukraine.
In the conspiracy theory, impeachment proceedings recently pursued by House Democrats were always the DNC’s endgame, effectively a cash-out on the “insurance policy.”
Trump has repeatedly referred to the “insurance policy” by name in tweets and in remarks on the White House’s South Lawn.
“This is a study of Russia. Why didn’t they invest in the insurance policy? In other words, should Hillary Clinton lose, we’ve got an insurance policy,” Trump said in front of the White House on May 30. “Guess what? What we’re in right now is the insurance policy.”
Although Trump has often brought up various conspiracy theories, there had been little indication that the president had taken aggressive action on them. That changed last month, when the White House released the summary of a call with Ukraine. The subsequent release of a whistleblower complaint further confirmed that the ardently pro-Trump conspiracy theories that have percolated on the far right for years had reached the highest echelons of power — and influenced the decision-making of the president.
NBC News tracked these various threads in an attempt to understand how they evolved and how they eventually reached the president.”
Part 2 to follow...
From the transcript of the Ukraine call
”The President: I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike... I guess you have one of your wealthy people... The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation. I think you're surrounding yourself with some of the same people. I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it. As you saw yesterday, that whole nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named Robert Mueller, an incompetent performance, but they say a lot of it started with Ukraine. Whatever you can do, it's very important that you do it if that's possible.”
So this popped up on the catch all thread. And it’s crazy enough, IMO, to warrant its own thread.
From CNBC..
“Trump seized on a conspiracy theory called the ‘insurance policy.’ Now, it’s at the center of an impeachment investigation”
“An anonymous post from March 2017 on the far-right 4chan message board teased a conspiracy theory that would eventually make its way to the White House.
Russia could not have been the source of leaked Democrat emails released by Wikileaks,” the post teased, not citing any evidence for the assertion.
The post baselessly insinuated that CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm that worked with the Democratic National Committee and had been contracted to investigate a hack of its servers, fabricated a forensics report to frame Russia for election interference. The 4chan post was published three days before then-FBI Director James Comey testified before Congress about Russian interference in the 2016 election.
And that was how it started. That post is the first known written evidence of this unfounded conspiracy theory to exonerate Russia from meddling in the 2016 election, which more than two years later would make its way into the telephone call that may get President Donald Trump impeached. (Federal law enforcement officials have repeatedly made it clear that Russia unquestionably did meddle in the election.)
In the years that followed the original 4chan post, at least three different but related conspiracy theories would warp and combine on the fringes of the internet, eventually coalescing around Ukraine’s supposed role in helping Trump’s 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton.
Ukraine wasn’t originally part of the theory, but in July, Trump floated CrowdStrike’s name during a call with the president of Ukraine as just one piece of a convoluted conspiracy accusation. That phone call is now at the center of a congressional investigation and impeachment inquiry into whether the president abused his power for political gain.
“I would like to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say CrowdStrike … ” Trump said on the call, according to a White House summary. “I guess you have one of your wealthy people. ... The server, they say Ukraine has it.”
To even people who have followed these theories closely, Trump’s call felt detached from any sense of logic.
“It’s a whole new mountain of nonsense,” said Duncan Campbell, a British digital forensics expert who investigated the original claim about CrowdStrike.
This omnibus conspiracy theory has been frequently referred to on far-right blogs, Fox News and recently by the president as the Democrats’ “insurance policy,” a reference to the supposed setup as a way to impeach the president if Trump were to win the election.
Though all the individual theories have been debunked, each has contributed elements that have been cited by the president, as well as his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.
Beginning months after Trump’s inauguration, conspiracy theorists have pushed this fanciful and unsubstantiated narrative in which the Democratic National Committee framed Russia for its election interference in 2016 and later covered up its false accusation with help from then-Vice President Joe Biden and officials in Ukraine.
In the conspiracy theory, impeachment proceedings recently pursued by House Democrats were always the DNC’s endgame, effectively a cash-out on the “insurance policy.”
Trump has repeatedly referred to the “insurance policy” by name in tweets and in remarks on the White House’s South Lawn.
“This is a study of Russia. Why didn’t they invest in the insurance policy? In other words, should Hillary Clinton lose, we’ve got an insurance policy,” Trump said in front of the White House on May 30. “Guess what? What we’re in right now is the insurance policy.”
Although Trump has often brought up various conspiracy theories, there had been little indication that the president had taken aggressive action on them. That changed last month, when the White House released the summary of a call with Ukraine. The subsequent release of a whistleblower complaint further confirmed that the ardently pro-Trump conspiracy theories that have percolated on the far right for years had reached the highest echelons of power — and influenced the decision-making of the president.
NBC News tracked these various threads in an attempt to understand how they evolved and how they eventually reached the president.”
Part 2 to follow...
From the transcript of the Ukraine call
”The President: I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike... I guess you have one of your wealthy people... The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation. I think you're surrounding yourself with some of the same people. I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it. As you saw yesterday, that whole nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named Robert Mueller, an incompetent performance, but they say a lot of it started with Ukraine. Whatever you can do, it's very important that you do it if that's possible.”
