The list of people and entities getting requests for documents, etc. just came out and Sam Nunberg is on it.
This is one of the stipulations and unfortunately it only goes back to Jan 1, 2015.
(f) Any contacts, direct or indirect, from January 1, 2015 to January 20, 2017 between or involving the Russian Federation and its officials, agents, intermediaries, and/or instrumentalities and any of the following: Donald Trump, the Trump Campaign, the Trump Organization, Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, Michael Cohen, Michael Flynn, Jeff Sessions, Jared Kushner, Thomas Bossert, Roger Stone, Jerome Corsi, George Papadopoulos, Carter Page, Konstantin Kilimnik, K.T. McFarland, and/or Erik Prince.
Jerome Corsi and Roger Stone are on the list and are long time talk radio regulars but they have other issues. I don’t know if any of those other names are involved in the radio business. Limbaugh and Hannity aren’t on this list but Limbaugh just took the day off and it’s possible some of the others named are involved in producing or managing or ‘feeding’ them.
Limbaugh has led the effort to attack investigators, get Trump critics fired and attacked, and has attacked the ‘deep state’ since the sparsely-attended inauguration. They have already polluted a lot of jury pools.
From “Operation Trump”, by Gabriel Sherman April 3, 2016, here’s a quote from Nunberg :
Throughout 2014, the three (Roger Stone, Michael Cohen, and Sam Nunberg) fed Trump strategy memos and political intelligence.
“I listened to thousands of hours of talk radio, and he was getting reports from me,” Nunberg recalled.
What those reports said was that the GOP base was frothing over a handful of issues including immigration, Obamacare, and Common Core. While Jeb Bush talked about crossing the border as an “act of love,” Trump was thinking about how high to build his wall. “We either have borders or we don’t,” Trump told the faithful who flocked to the annual CPAC conference in 2014.
Why would cheapskate Trump pay for anyone to listen “to 1000’s of hours of talk radio unless someone told him it was important?” If he didn’t pay for it directly from Trump funds, how did he pay for it?
It’s amazing no one has asked Nunberg about this considering how many times he’s been on MSNBC.
Why wouldn’t Trump pay friend Limbaugh for his help in the primaries versus GOP establishment?
It wouldn’t be Trump’s style not to enlist his friend and neighbor Limbaugh in helping him beat Rubio and Bush in the primaries. Limbaugh tried to look objective but was always talking about Trump, making excuses for him, attacking his critics, and dissing Bush and Rubio on immigration.
If Stone has used talk radio since the 2000 election and he and Trump were using Russian help why wouldn’t it be coordinated with Limbaugh and Hannity?
Limbaugh provides sanitized transcripts of his show to help keep other talk radio hosts and GOP politicians and media on the same page so it’s unlikely Nunberg listened to a lot of Limbaugh unless they were really stupid. So who were they studying and in what states?
Most of the national talkers follow the Limbaugh lead in interpreting news and events. The most logical reason for listening to that much talk radio might be to get a flavor of issues talked about in different states.
In a Washington Post piece a Russian talked about working for a trolling operation in late 2014.
You got a list of topics to write about.
There is no way the Kremlin would go through all this trouble without doing their homework. They wouldn’t rely on Russian trolls to make stuff up.
Why wouldn’t the Kremlin piggyback years of talk radio repetition?
Anyone familiar with Republican talk radio repetition would recognize significant overlap with Russian troll memes.
Talk radio has been around longer than social media and is a classic propaganda medium with various advantages over TV and other media. Why wouldn’t they be calling shows like the GOP think tanks do? Why not figure out which hosts read emails from ‘listeners’?
All they had to do was figure out how to feed Limbaugh, whether he knew or not, and they could control a lot of messaging on 1500 radio stations. Are any of his major sources on that list?
Does Putin have kompromat on Limbaugh?
Is there any payola with Russian laundered money going on? Didn’t Hannity’s relationship with Cohen involve real estate?
Breitbart got started in about 2007, about the time Limbaugh started breaking with the ‘establishment’ GOP. Did the Kremlin take over the Breitbart blog as it started competing with MIC- friendly Drudge as a conduit to talk radio? Hello, Steve Bannon?
2008 Palin
Manafort was McCain campaign cochair. McCain was thinking about Pawlenty and even Lieberman. Limbaugh wouldn’t support McCain, a looming disaster for the GOP convention. Minutes before the start of the Limbaugh show on the Friday before the GOP convention McCain publicly chose Palin and Limbaugh used the announcement to finally support McCain. Did he have prior knowledge of it? At that time Alaska Gov Palin was being courted by Russians re oil and gas.
Tea Party
The Koch brothers gave them bus passes but talk radio and Fox played a big part giving them talking points, publicizing them, and coordinating them. Did the Kremlin use talk radio to help coordinate Tea Party and Republican obstruction and attacks during the Obama administration?
2009 Climategate from Russian-hacked emails
In 2009 Limbaugh started the “Climategate” hoax based on Russian-hacked emails, a development timed to sabotage Obama at the Copenhagen climate talks. Every year we delay on global warming is worth billions to Putin, not just the Kochs.
2011 Defaulting on the Debt
In 2011 Limbaugh spent 2 months trying to get Republicans to force the US to default, something Putin would enjoy more that any US billionaire.
2012 Benghazi
Many of the Trump/Russian-related material used in trolling re Hillary Clinton came out of the 2012 Benghazi ‘embassy’ attack. Talk radio did the heavy lifting repetition re emails, etc. that ties into all this crap we’re dealing with now.
One of the lies talk radio spread required head of PR for the US marines to make a public rebuttal. It was all over national and local talk radio — that Obama and Clinton had prohibited US marines guarding US embassies from carrying live ammo. They were basically encouraging attacks on US embassies. Did that come from the Drudge report, Breitbart, or the Russians?
The entire Hillary email issue related to her using a private server — she knew republicans would try to get her private emails and leak selected items to 1500 radio stations.
Kremlin callers?
Calls to national talkers can reach millions.
Since Republican radio has been shown to use paid callers, why not Kremlin callers instead of Heritage Foundation callers? Automated call screening software might be programmed to advance calls from GOP think tanks. That might be easy to hack but it wouldn’t be a surprise to find out that a Russian company makes good call screening software at a great price…..
Callers play an important part in keeping local talk radio hosts in line with Limbaugh, prompting topics, and suggesting lies, scandals, and violence.
Kremlin emailers?
When the shutdown started I heard the local blowhard read an email from a ‘listener’ who cheered the shutdown, saying government workers were lazy scammers.
How many other local blowhards in states all over the country read the same email, and did it come from the White House, a GOP think tank, or maybe even the Kremlin?
That is the problem of ignoring RW radio.
NOW
The groundwork attack on the “deep state” has already been laid down in the base and started right after inauguration. The base has been inoculated and supplied with ammunition for denial, and the jury pools are being polluted. Teabag Republicans like Rep Jim Jordan continue to repeat the same talking points. The response to the lies should be “Well, that’s what Limbaugh has been saying for 2 years, but….”
The best way to erode Trump’s ability to intimidate GOP senators is to stop ignoring his most important weapon.
Questions that Democrats investigating Trump could ask Nunberg:
- did Trump himself ask you to do that?
- if not, who?
- if it was your mentor Stone, did he give any indication he had done this before?
- how do you know Trump was getting your reports?
- who, in what states, were you asked to listen to?
- did you include Limbaugh’s daily transcripts in your analysis?
- what were you asked to listen for?
- in what form did they want your reports? Paragraphs, lists, talking points, topics?
- who did you give those reports to?
- who ended up with your reports?
- did it get further analysis after yours?
- did the analysis leave the Trump organization?
- was there any mention of Russian involvement?
- was there any mention of social media coordination?
- who paid for that listening?
- how, in what form were you paid?
Dems need to ask Cohen, Nunberg if Trump study of talk radio in 2014 was to coordinate w/Kremlin.
When Gulf Stream stops and Europe freezes will these 88 universities stop supporting GW denial?
Republiconradio.org — for a list of 88 universities supporting 260 Limbaugh stations