WikiLeaks announced Friday it is prepared to pay $100,000 for any tapes of conversations between President Donald Trump and former FBI Director James Comey. The message was sent out from its Twitter account just hours after Trump sent out his own tweet apparently warning Comey not to leak information to the media because of tapes he has of their meetings.
Update: U.S. lawmakers ask Trump to turn over any Comey tapes. Background on Comey's firing.
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Wikileaks Offers $100,000 Bounty for Trump Tapes
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(Score: 2) by kaszz on Tuesday May 16 2017, @09:25PM (10 children)
Can Trump decline the request from U.S. lawmakers to turn over any Comey tapes?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by ikanreed on Tuesday May 16 2017, @09:38PM (5 children)
Yes, in several ways.
1. These are, with only 2 exceptions that I know of, members of the minority party demanding the tapes. Until such time as republicans with integrity exist(try a cemetery?), they couldn't even pass a vote to act on these demands.
2. Legal precedent regarding what the president has to turn over to congress as evidence and when is complicated, mostly created by Nixon over the course of watergate. The umbrella term for those complications is "executive privilege."
3. To quote another disgraced president that Trump has eerie similarities to "John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it!" There's no established process for raiding the fucking whitehouse for evidence. It would be a tremendous constitutional crisis if he refused, but it could still happen, and what enforcement body actually answers to congress?
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Wednesday May 17 2017, @01:00AM (4 children)
> It would be a tremendous constitutional crisis if he refused
It would make more sense to accept, then to prevaricate and finally hand over an incomplete set, then to prevaricate some more and finally destroy any real evidence of anything.
> what enforcement body actually answers to congress?
Presumably it would go to the judiciary to enforce?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 17 2017, @02:31AM (1 child)
No, the judiciary decides if a law should be enforced or not. It's the executive branch which does the enforcement and the President is at that top of that branch.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 18 2017, @10:24AM
So you say 'conflict of interest, the P is recused when involved' as happens /everywhere else in society/ maybe?!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 17 2017, @02:35AM
Judiciary does not enforce. Judiciary adjudicates. Stalin said "how many divisions does the Pope have?" Judiciary is like the Pope.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 17 2017, @08:24AM
You mean like Hillary, right?
(Score: 2) by BK on Tuesday May 16 2017, @11:13PM (3 children)
Certainly he can for now. A committee can subpoena things. Individual congressmen can't.
It's worth mentioning that nobody has confirmed that conversations are, or are not, taped at the WH. I doubt DJT installed a new recording system... if there was a system, BHO's staffers would presumably leaked its existence by now. Still, interesting to contemplate.
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 17 2017, @12:24AM (1 child)
I doubt DJT installed a new recording system...
That's an empty assumption.
Back in the days of LBJ and Nixon a recording system was big, complicated and required staff to manage.
Now you can record days of conversations on a device the size of a tie-tack.
And yeah, Turmp uses scotch tape instead of tie-tacks, [esquire.com] but the point remains that the effort required is trivial. Trump could have been doing it all by himself if he wasn't such a technophobe. It doesn't require wiring up the oval office, just putting an innocuous paper-weight on his desk or a pen-shaped recorder in his suit pocket.
BTW, Turmp has a history of deleting records in direct defiance of court orders. [newsweek.com] So if they exist, there is a good chance he's gonna delete them rather than hand them over.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday May 17 2017, @02:47PM
If only he had used duck tape instead, then we could laud him, right?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday May 17 2017, @04:18AM
History about to repeat itself? ;-)
(Score: 5, Informative) by ikanreed on Tuesday May 16 2017, @09:48PM (2 children)
But almost exactly as this article hit the front page of SN, the NY Times report there's a memo that specifically documents that Trump asked Comey to end the Flynn investigation [nytimes.com]
Though I recognize the way that memos about conversations are essentially formalized hearsay, it's still pretty fucking damning, when it's on record with the FBI from months ago.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday May 17 2017, @12:05AM (1 child)
FT(Above):
The memo was part of a paper trail Mr. Comey created documenting what he perceived as the president’s improper efforts to influence a continuing investigation. An F.B.I. agent’s contemporaneous notes are widely held up in court as credible evidence of conversations.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 17 2017, @01:56AM
In case you are curious, that is allowed under F.R.E. 803(1), (5), (6), or (8), depending on the circumstances, and 805.
(Score: 2) by Sulla on Tuesday May 16 2017, @10:21PM (9 children)
Well, wikileaks is obviously a Russian front and nobody can prove otherwise. If they do, then they are a Russian plant. Based on this information:
1. Offer bounty on Trump tapes
2. Whitehouse leaker turns over tapes
3. Russians know who leaker is
4. Trump now knows who leaker is
5. ???
6. Profit
Then the Trump people can take care of him the same way they took care of Seth Rich
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday May 16 2017, @10:43PM
Or, the old intelligence analysis(by retired types who say stupid shit for the media, mind you, not the still-classified actual ones) on Assange are accurate and he's a narcissist who feels validation for affecting the outcomes of major world events regardless of whether there's a moral imperative or not.
It's honestly a better explanation for why he so consistently attacked the "presumed" winner in the election than some much more complex "Russians control him through Ecuador inside their embassy in Britain".
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Wednesday May 17 2017, @01:23AM
I thought that it was a sarcastic replay to Trump's sarcastic threatening tweet.
Like if Assange offered 100K for the whereabouts of Saddam's old WMD or some such nonsense.
Either way, grab your popcorn, because the American political power struggle has become full-on catfight.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 17 2017, @03:10AM
Since the goal of the Russians is to destabilize the US they probably would happily have this story played. The whole idea is to undermine the confidence of the US, throw us into internal turmoil the same way we've done so to other countries. They are just thumbing their noses at us right now and happily skipping along to see how far Trump can get before we put on the brakes.
They want Democracy dead, but little do they know this is more likely to improve democracy in the US as a massive percentage of the population cries for a repeal of the electoral college and the implementation of a better voting system.
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Wednesday May 17 2017, @04:40AM (1 child)
I like how you threw in a random reference to Seth Rich. As it happens, Fox news just reported that there was evidence of "email exchange between Seth Rich and WikiLeaks" according to a PI who appeared on Hannity and an unnamed "federal investigator."
Of course, WaPo and CNN immediately moved to smear/debunk (whichever you prefer to call it) this threat to their narrative.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/05/16/slain-dnc-staffer-had-contact-with-wikileaks-investigator-says.html [foxnews.com]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/family-of-slain-seth-rich-says-reports-he-fed-wikileaks-dnc-info-are-untrue/2017/05/16/9b32ef9c-3a46-11e7-8854-21f359183e8c_story.html [washingtonpost.com]
http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/16/media/seth-rich-family-response-claims-of-wikileaks-contact/ [cnn.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 17 2017, @05:25PM
Oooooooh, "appeared on Hannity", huh? That's pretty rich.
You are (ok, you probably are not) aware that Hannity is an entertainment show, not a news show, don't you??? I'll wait until one of the very few respectable REAL news people on Fox starts reporting it.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday May 17 2017, @05:05AM (2 children)
The events of Seth Rich is indeed interesting. It doesn't seem to be about robbing him for values. But he were involved in the DNC that smells rat gigamiles away and the DNC has been found to be involved in nomination corruption. It doesn't take much to suspect something indeed were going on.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 17 2017, @05:24AM (1 child)
Right now Soylentnews has a story submission claiming that the "family" has denied things. Here is what wikileaks has to say about the "family" representative, and it is damning:
https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/763852003093217280?lang=en [twitter.com]
The actual family has not denied anything. (Know any soylentnews editors? We don't need to parrot the DNC's emergency PR spin.)
Everything looks really suspicious: shot in the back, nothing taken but declared a robbery, was talking but then dies in the hospital (a 5% chance for similar injuries who arrive with a heartbeat), FBI grabs his laptop within hours (not normal for a shooting on the street), the DC police are told to stand down from the investigation, in the past 9 years Seth is the only person killed within 1500 feet of that spot, he had enemies (having leaked DNC email to wikileaks), and... here is a particularly relevant email from Podesta, Hillary's campaign manager:
https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/792875315920048128 [twitter.com]
(Score: 2) by Sulla on Wednesday May 17 2017, @05:56AM
Thanks for this. After reading the DNC/Debbie's lawyers testimony in court against that class action I don't understand how anyone can trust the Dem party corporate anymore.
Not that you can trust the Rs either.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 17 2017, @07:55PM
Well you obviously have an invisible 3-eyed magically massless demon on your left shoulder who's named Krzyga't and nobody can prove otherwise.
Proving a negative... fun isn't it?
---
And I realize your post was probably ironic, but irony doesn't translate well in text. And in today's era of partisan induced radicalism and blindness, Poe's Law holds more true than ever.
(Score: 2) by its_gonna_be_yuge! on Tuesday May 16 2017, @10:26PM (9 children)
WikiLeaks announced Friday it is prepared to pay $100,000 for any tapes of conversations between President Donald Trump and former FBI Director James Comey.
Which is a pretty safe bet for an organization with no money.
Safe, because:
a) There are no tapes. It's just more Trump bluff and bullshit.
b) Same as a).
(Score: 5, Interesting) by takyon on Tuesday May 16 2017, @11:04PM (8 children)
WikiLeaks has money:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiLeaks#Financing [wikipedia.org]
Between donations and BitCoins, they probably can spare $100k. But that $100k could be recovered since posting the hypothetical tapes would likely result in an influx of donations.
WikiLeaks likely wins either way with these cute bounties, since at a minimum they get free press, at a maximum they get the material that they wanted, resulting in donations, and offering the bounty could help increase the chances that the leaked material reaches WikiLeaks first rather than some other organization or data dump location.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 17 2017, @01:02AM (7 children)
> WikiLeaks likely wins either way with these cute bounties,
It can backfire. At least it did for me when they pulled that stunt of wink-wink implying that Seth Rich was killed because he leaked something about clinton to them.
It wasn't just the sensationalistic courting of conspiracy, but their disregard for Rich and his family, callously using their tragedy for wikileaks's own self-promotion that still rears its head on a regular basis. [buzzfeed.com] Not unlike loony-right accusations (and tormenting [google.com] of) the parents of sandy hook kids.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Wednesday May 17 2017, @01:28AM (6 children)
We should wait and see. Rich's death smells funny and until the public gets a comprehensive status update and a glimpse at some or all of the evidence, then Assange either knows something or is dangling it in front of them, and that's a good thing tacky or not.
Besides, if there's anything this election did prove, it's that neither side has any dignity -- both sides have devolved to grade-school name-calling and baseball-field rumor-whispering of the kind you'd read about Disney sluts in a trash tabloid.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 17 2017, @01:49AM (1 child)
> then Assange either knows something or is dangling it in front of them,
Read the linked article. Assange explicitly disavowed knowing something after he was shamed.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Wednesday May 17 2017, @02:37AM
One drop of tackiness in a bucket of tackiness, wow, I'm hopping in a frenzy. The American political process can be summarized as a bunch of angry Blacks brawling in a Waffle House, and you no longer know who's punching who and for what reason. We can go back and forth till we're blue in the face and only agree to disagree.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 17 2017, @03:12AM (3 children)
I see you're complicit in this attempt to equalize the two parties. Sorry bub, your friends are still racist white supremacists and you're still an angry internet troll trying to spew your emotional baggage on to everything.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Wednesday May 17 2017, @03:28AM
I may be a racist, but you're a nigger. And we all know niggers can't be psychologists...though they can be good athletes and rappers. Quit your day-job and pick up the ball or the mic, DJ Sambo!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 17 2017, @05:39AM (1 child)
"Sorry bub, your friends are still racist white supremacists "
And you're still a clueless SJW who uses an ad hominem attack because he is too stupid to
think up something better.
I met one of your kind outside a bar the other night. He mouthed off to me and I kicked
his fucking ribs in. He wasn't saying too much after that :-)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 17 2017, @03:03PM
Good for you mate, tell that cuck to siddown!! Libtards just don't know when to quit.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Tuesday May 16 2017, @10:28PM
Offering the money is great and all, but Anonymous already declared war on Trump and his administration promising to bring transparency. I have faith in Anonymous to bring the chaos, and do it just for the lulz. Lulz, as you know, are priceless :)
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Tuesday May 16 2017, @10:51PM
On the week-end I submitted a related story.
/submit.pl?op=viewsub&subid=20202 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by TrentDavey on Tuesday May 16 2017, @10:53PM (3 children)
Do they have to be 8 inch reel-to-reel or can they the newfangled Philips cassettes?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 16 2017, @11:02PM (1 child)
Scotch brand transparent mending tape will do. Anything more is just overkill.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 17 2017, @01:07AM
Argh! I only pretend to be a guy for the day job, and I know more about ties than this idiot!
This is worse than eating pizza with a fork!
I can't even!
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday May 17 2017, @05:14AM
The latest fashion is duct-to-duct tape recorders, it really makes any conversation to really stick.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by jmorris on Tuesday May 16 2017, @11:25PM (13 children)
If Trump is smart he is using his iPhone to record conversations. As has already been firmly established, no power on Earth has the moral authority to even think about looking in one of those things, even when it is a government owned iPhone recovered from a dead terrorist, even when the rightful owner (the city government that issued the phone) gives permission and the Feds have a proper court order. Or does that absolute moral right to the privacy of an iPhone's contents vanish if it is Trump and Apple would fall over itself to hack the President's phone themselves and turn it over... not to any agency of the government, not even Congress but straight to the top, the NYT? I suspect that would be exactly what would happen if Trump tweeted he had stuff on his phone.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by requerdanos on Tuesday May 16 2017, @11:35PM (6 children)
If Trump is smart
That's as far as I got...
Is there an "If Trump is as dumb as a box of secondhand rocks" version?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday May 17 2017, @12:15AM (1 child)
That's as far as I got...
Must.....persist....
...he is using his iPhone
Nope! Two for two! [theatlantic.com]
Fuckit, I give up too.
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Wednesday May 17 2017, @02:17AM
I used to joke about how dumb Twitter was.
Now Trump does it for me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 17 2017, @05:41AM (3 children)
Talk all the shit you want, but Trump is a billionaire and you aren't.
And you never will be, you sad loser bitch.
(Score: 1) by butthurt on Wednesday May 17 2017, @10:51AM (1 child)
> [...] Trump is a billionaire [...]
How do you know?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 17 2017, @05:29PM
Maybe he got a peek of those tax returns.
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Wednesday May 17 2017, @11:17AM
Talk all the shit you want, but Trump is a billionaire and you aren't.
Of course, I could make money, win a sweepstakes, win a lottery--while he is as smart as he will ever be, right now.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday May 17 2017, @12:28AM (3 children)
You sound a bit triggered over something. I mean you always do, but this registers as a rather large spike on the ol' butthurt-o-meter.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 17 2017, @01:09AM (2 children)
I wonder how bad he got when he found out hitler had a micropenis and was a meth addict.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday May 17 2017, @02:50PM
If anything I would think he'd be glad there was historical precedent for himself :D
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday May 17 2017, @02:54PM
Probably had corrective surgery and took up the pipe. A true believer is a true believer.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 17 2017, @01:12AM (1 child)
Well, generally it helps when the rightful owners don't delete the copy of the data the management tools made.
At least that's how I'd go about it. Granted, making a huge deal in the press over my own incompetence, trying to strong-arm a company to go against their policies about this kind of thing and work for free, and then making a big display about the capabilities of some Israeli company... no... I still can't even.
I mean, how on earth can you support a government that can strong-arm me and force me to work simply because I manufactured a very secure device....
Folks, jmorris once again demonstrates that right-wing authoritarian followers have absolutely no capacity to feel cognitive dissonance. It's as though they just simply don't have any principles.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 17 2017, @03:16AM
They are ruled by their emotions, thus logic and reason are only used to justify their emotional attachments to such trainwrecks as Trump. Or he's a Russian shill, still feels like a more likely scenario since he rarely devolves into truly angry rants. Just irrational weird talking points.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 17 2017, @02:44AM (3 children)
Trump is allowed to record things. There is nothing to justify anybody getting copies of any recordings. At best, maybe he needs to turn them over to the National Archives when he leaves office.
No, "We hate him and Russia" isn't a proper justification. Mere fantasy that there was a cover-up isn't the required level of evidence.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Wednesday May 17 2017, @05:52AM (1 child)
Well a large part of conversations Trump would have involve classified information. So previously he wouldn't have been allowed to keep a recording of that sort of conversation after he left office, but that is only the written law, the actual 'law' we actually live by was changed so that Hillary Clinton wouldn't have to spend the rest of her miserable existence in prison after it was discovered she had every email sent/received while Secretary of State and hadn't even allowed State or the National Archives to have copies. Then she publicly announced she had erased everything she and her lawyers decided needed wiping. So yes, now Trump could record his life 24/7 and keep it all, and tell anyone who wants access to attempt an improbable act of self procreation.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday May 17 2017, @03:00PM
That is very true, and it is the central and most important reason why we don't let our "friends" get away with crimes, because then it means our enemies will too. Everybody who supported Bush & Cheney thought it was so cute and ballsy when they violated our laws with impunity, but as soon as Obama got in and followed their lead, suddenly it was all "OMG how could this be allowed?!!!" And vice versa. No big deal that Obama could assassinate American citizens or spy on everyone, but now that Trump's the guy in the chair it's the end of the world (TM).
Either we have equal justice under law, or no law at all.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 17 2017, @05:32PM
WOW, you are INCREDIBLY ignorant on this topic, but don't let that stop you. There's at least 40 years of case law, some of it explicitly related to the President, that contradicts you. Actually, YOU contradict the case law, not the other way around. If I were you, I would cut my losses and refrain from talking any more on this topic.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Wednesday May 17 2017, @08:20PM
Next in: Trump sends them a recording of him talking with Comey about how they can make easy money by just recording some random conversation between them and then sending the tape to Wikileaks. :-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.