Tradecraft

It is commonly accepted in espionage tradecraft that there is actionable information embedded in even the most mundane of "enemy" communications.

From the Youtube transcript of Susan Rice podcast with Preet Bharara

Note: I cut-and-paste directly from the auto-generated, Youtube transcript without attempting to make it more readable. I did that to avoid accusations that I "spun" Susan Rice's words. My comments are at the bottom of this post.

My apologies for how difficult it is to read.

7:30

support them. You know, I I wish we could muster that kind of energy with greater frequency. But but when it comes

7:37

to the elites, you know, the the the corporate interests, uh the law firms,

7:42

the universities, the media, I agree with you, Pit, it it it is not uh it's

7:48

not going to end well for them. For those that uh decided that it was, you know, that they would act in their

7:55

perceived very narrow self-interest, which I would underscore is very short-term self-interest.

8:00

um and you know take a knee to Trump. Um I think they're now starting to realize,

8:06

wait a minute, you know, this is not popular. Trump is not popular. What he is doing, uh whether on the economy and

8:14

affordability or on immigration now is not popular. Uh and that there is likely

8:20

to be a swing in the other direction. And they are going to be caught uh with

8:25

more than their pants down. they're going to be held accountable um by uh

8:31

those who come uh in opposition to Trump um and win at the ballot box. And I can

8:37

tell you PIT, you know, as I talk to leaders in in uh in Washington, leaders

8:43

in our party, leaders in the states, if these corporations think that the Democrats uh when they come back in

8:49

power uh are going to, you know, play by the old rules uh and um you know, and

8:57

and say, "Oh, never mind. we'll we'll forgive you for all the people you've fired, all the policies and and

9:03

principles you've violated, all you know, the laws you've skirted. I think they've got another thing coming

***

10:48

to that, there will be an accountability agenda. You know, companies already uh are are starting to hear they they

10:54

better preserve their documents. They better be ready for subpoenas. If they've done something wrong, they'll be

11:01

held accountable. And if they um haven't broken the law, good for them. If

11:06

they've done the right things, good for them. That also will be noted and and and remembered. But you you know, this

11:13

is not going to be uh a an instance of,

11:18

you know, for forgive and forget. Um the damage that these people are doing is is

11:23

too severe to uh the American people and to our national interest. on some of

11:29

these things that strikes me and I hear totally hear what you're saying with respect to some of the bending of the knee

11:35

people didn't break the law they just caved and and and people are allowed to make bad deals with so for example ABC

11:42

or CBS or other media outlets who settled for a lot of money even though they had very strong and meritorious um

11:50

defenses to a defamation claim probably not something you can do there

11:55

in terms of um legal violation and maybe can shine a light on it and have hearings to sort of expose some of those

12:03

outlets. Is there anything else you think can or should be done with respect to

12:09

the fourth estate um giving Trump a blank check to intimidate them?

12:14

Well, careful media media people are listening and watching. First of all, uh we we ought to lift up

12:20

those that that have not bent the knee and there are those. uh you know I think

12:26

the New York Times and the Atlantic uh even the Wall Street Journal um

12:32

deserve uh you know credit for for standing up um and uh and and among the

12:39

broadcast networks you know NBC has taken a different approach than than CBS um and so I think you know part of this

12:46

is consumers voting with their their feet and their dollars um but it's also

12:51

to examine uh what may lie behind the scenes. On the surface, it doesn't appear uh that one could argue that

12:58

there that laws were broken, but you know, some of the stuff that seems to be going on at CBS is dubious at best. Um,

***

Reasonable speculation

The Democratic party is freaked-out by the evidence that their near-total control of the media is slipping away. While Rice identified several industries that would be punished, Mass Media is the only industry where Rice mentioned specific corporations as future targets.

Rice threatened CBS and ABC with lawfare. Even though the language is passive-third person, she put them on notice that the next Democratic POTUS DOJ will comb through all of the laws on the books to find something to throw at them even though she admits 

"On the surface it doesn't appear that...laws were broken"

If this was a horror movie, the media would be the vain-but-feckless roommate who discovers that her roommate is an ax-murderer.

Stay tuned! Does vain-but-feckless move out? Does she turn state's evidence? Or does she stay in denial "Oh, he is really not that bad" and drift toward the bloody-but-not-inevitable conclusion?