Where to begin? When I was on the job, we had intel analysts who could draw up what are called I-2 charts with all the suspects so that we could make sense of who was related to who and how. If you remember the movie “The Usual Suspects”, we would have a chart with names and lines drawn from one suspect to another.
Sample of an I2 Chart
Unfortunately, I’m no longer on the job and I was never particularly good at I2 charts. I relied on the analysts a bit too much for that.
So, I was forwarded an X twitter video of this guy Jason Goodman (who runs Crowd Source The Truth) that had Goodman talking to Andrew Giuliani, the son of former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and was giving Giuliani what sounded like a tin foil hat conspiracy theory of what was behind the lawfare of the current Trump trial.
I’m actually not that interested in the trial. As I’ve heard others comment and have repeated myself, trials are won or lost at Voire Dire (jury selection). Back during the OJ Simpson trial, long before I joined the Border Patrol, I was working in an office with a lot of people of different nationalities. One drop dead gorgeous German Fraulein went around the office just after the trial started and asked if we thought that OJ was guilty or innocent and, separately, how we thought the jury would rule. I told her that OJ was guilty, but that it would likely be a hung jury. At the time, I thought the evidence was overwhelmingly against Simpson, but all he needed was one holdout for a hung jury, and there were more than enough blacks on the jury to give him that.
I would add that studies have shown that fathers tend to be more protective of daughters and mothers tend to be more protective of sons. The black females on the jury would feel protective of OJ. Marcia Clark seemed to think that because of the high rates of domestic violence in the black community, black women would feel righteous vengeance against OJ. How wrong she was.
Back to the office, the beautiful German Fraulein found that about 30% thought he was innocent and 60% thought he was guilty. She did her survey again after the trial. As I recall, no one changed their opinion. It was like there had never been a trial. Those that thought he was innocent used portions of the trial they liked to argue his innocence (the gloves didn’t fit), and those who thought he did it (the blood, the low speed Bronco chase) ignored evidence like the gloves that didn’t fit their narrative.
Years later, I would serve as an alternate on a jury and though I was released rather than have to render a verdict, it confirmed my low opinion of the average American juror.
That’s my way of saying that Trump doesn’t stand a chance of an acquittal in a section of the country that voted 87% for Biden. A significant portion of that other 13% probably voted for Jill Stein. There is hardly a single Republican there and what Republicans live in Manhattan are more likely the Neocon variety who never met a war they didn’t like (as long as somebody else’s kid fights it).
You can read my original article on the Trump trial here.
Back to Jason Goodman’s video. He tells Andrew Giuliani about a guy named Felix Sater and how Sater is connected to Michael Cohen. Journalist Goodman says that Felix Sater was an FBI informant for lawyer Andrew Weissmann. So, who are these first two? Lawyer Andrew Weissmann has his own Wikipedia entry, but let’s face it, Wikipedia has a left wing bias about everything. Weissmann was known as Mueller’s “pitbull” during the Russian Collusion Delusion. Weissmann previously took down Enron through dubious means, and after Enron, he took down the auditing firm of Arthur Andersen. Sounds like a noble prosecutor until you hear that the Supreme Court unanimously reversed his convictions of the Arthur Andersen executives. Despite the acquittals, the damage was done and Arthur Andersen was out of business. Weissmann didn’t just do this to Arthur Andersen, he also sent four Merrill Lynch executives to prison, only to have their convictions also overturned by a federal appellate court. Read about it here.
With a terrible track record like that, you would think that Andrew Weissman would be risking being debarred. Or, that he would have a sense of shame. Nah, not to these moral crusaders who believe they are doing the lord’s work as the use lawfare to destroy everything they don’t like. Weissmann is now a professor at NYU and a legal analyst for MSNBC.
OK, so Weissmann is the former lead prosecutor on Mueller’s Special Counsel Office and Assistant United States Attorney who is willing to use questionable legal tactics to get his way. Weissmann wasn’t able to use his strong arm tactics to get Trump, but he was able to get the liar Michael Cohen. So, who is Felix Sater?
Felix Sater is a real piece of work. In talking with Andrew Giuliani, Goodman says that Sater was an informant for the FBI. Goodman says that Weissmann mentioned Felix Sater thirteen times in his book. I presume the book Goodman is mentioning is “Where the law ends: Inside the Mueller Investigation.” Great title, it’s sort of like what someone said about the Washington Post putting “Democracy dies in darkness” on their front page. “It was nice of them to put their mission statement on the front so everyone knows where they are coming from.” Likewise, Weissmann is burning down the village in order to save it. Where the law ends is when Andrew Weissmann shows up and tries to destroy it so he can have his way.
Sater is a Russian Jew who immigrated to the United States at age 8. He started working on Wall Street at age 18. “In 1991, he smashed a margarita glass in a bar and used it to stab a commodities broker in the face, causing the man to need 110 stitches”. For that, Sater got 15 monthis in prison and lost his ability to work as a Wall Street broker. In 1998, Sater was convicted of fraud for a pump and dump scheme he did with the Russian Mafia (the Russian Mafia is heavily Jewish).
As for journalist Jason Goodman’s claims that Sater was an informant for the FBI, those appear to be true. From Wikipedia, “Sater agreed to assist the FBI and federal prosecutors as an informant on organized crime.” This may have kept him out of jail in 1998. Sater did work for the Trump organization. I’ll let you read up on him on the Wikipedia page. Take it with a grain of salt as Wikipedia is a far leftist outfit, but Trump does appear to have known him if only loosely. “During Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, Sater worked with Michael Cohen, former attorney for The Trump Organization, to broker a deal to build a Trump Tower Moscow, asserting to Cohen that he could boost Trump’s election prospects through his Russian contacts.”
So, Sater and Cohen both knew each other for certain. I’m not about to sit down and read Weissmann’s book on how he ended the law, but I will take Jason Goodman’s word that Sater is mentioned thirteen times in the book. Journalist Goodman claimed that Weissmann denied knowing Sater when Goodman questioned Weissmann at a public lecture Weismann was giving at NYU. Hopefully, someone has video of that because (if true) Weissmann almost certainly lied. Sater’s name had come up in the Russian Collusion Delusion because of Sater’s ties to Russia. It was a far fetched link to try to muddy the Russians as somehow being able to magically sway the American electorate into voting for Trump.
Goodman asserts that Michael Cohen is an FBI informant (like Sater) and that this whole thing with Stormy Daniels was an orchestrated set up to get Trump. I think that’s a little bit of a farther set up to make. It would require an FOIA or some such thing to see if Cohen is now serving as an informant, or, source for the FBI.
One way or another, the fix is in for this trial. The judge would never allow evidence of Michael Cohen being an informant into testimony. Trump is going to have to appeal it, and his prospects in liberal New York with an appeal don’t look good. He’ll have to be able to appeal it to the Supreme Court for him to have any chance of being exonerated.
If Andrew Weissmann really did deny knowing Felix Sater, then that is really weird. Even the far left Mother Jones could prove the two knew each other.
One other person that Goodman mentions is Norm Eisen. Eisen is another lawfare warrior, a lawyer going after anyone he disagrees with politically. Supposedly, Eisen is one of the architects behind all the lawfare against Trump. The plan is to tie up Trump in court so badly, Trump cannot do anything.
P.S. Going back to the first article I wrote for The Washington Pundit, a technique possibly pioneered by Joseph Goebbels was to throw out lie upon lie against an opponent. The moment the opponent has had a chance to answer one of the charges against him, you are already having him answer another charge against him. People will say to themselves that the opponent must be guilty of something, otherwise, why were there so many stories about them? The same goes for this lawfare. The trials don’t just tie Trump up in court and cause him all sorts of legal troubles. Yes, it keeps him off the campaign trail. Perhaps more importantly, the shallow American voter will look at the trials and say to themselves that there must be something wrong with Trump, otherwise, why are there so many trials going on against him?
Yes, I previously also pointed this out in “Some Thoughts On The Current Indictment” which was about Trump’s Florida trial.
20 year veteran of the U.S. Border Patrol. Author of "East into the Sunset: Memories of patrolling in the Rio Grande Valley at the turn of the century".
Master's Degree in Justice, Law and Society from American University.
Grew up partly in Europe.
