• Rapidcreek@reddthat.comOP
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    1 year ago

    According to billionaire Anthony Pratt’s account, as described by the sources, Pratt told Trump he believed Australia should start buying its submarines from the United States, to which an excited Trump – “leaning” toward Pratt as if to be discreet – then told Pratt two pieces of information about U.S. submarines: the supposed exact number of nuclear warheads they routinely carry, and exactly how close they supposedly can get to a Russian submarine without being detected.

    • QHC@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Such a weird thing to volunteer, especially for someone that is supposedly a ‘master negotiator’. The hook was set and line was being pulled back. The sell was done!

      It might not be the #1 rule of sales, but pretty close to the top is “once you’ve closed the deal, stop talking”.

      • Rapidcreek@reddthat.comOP
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        1 year ago

        There was a congressman who gleefully told the press on WWII that the Japanese were setting their depth charges too shallow.

        The IJN picked up on this of course and adjusted accordingly. This is pretty much the same if not worse.

        • Artoink@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Andrew May

          It’s estimated his loose lips sank 10 ships and killed 800 servicemen.

          Unrelated, he was convicted of accepting bribes as a Congressman. He gave a lucrative contact to a company with no experience producing munitions, then opened a lumber business and sold that same munitions company excessively expensive crates as the way to receive his kickback. The reason is came to light was because the munitions company produced defective artillery shells that prematurely exploded and killed at least 38 soldiers. Served 9 months before Truman pardoned him.

      • Da_Boom@iusearchlinux.fyi
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        1 year ago

        When it comes to selling shit, trump is pretty good at it… when it comes to keeping shit secret, trump is a walking, secret spilling megaphone.

        But hey, we got some sweet submarines out of it! Thanks guys!

        • orclev@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Trump is really good at selling shit, but anything actually useful not so much. He’s a con artist, always has been. His true calling in life is parting morons from their money, and that’s about it. Although even in that regard he’s had some pretty spectacular failures. He did after all manage to bankrupt a casino, something notoriously hard to fuck up as long as you can do some pretty basic statistics. He’s basically a slimy used car salesman who inherited a lot of money and who half paid attention to the lessons his equally slimy but actually dangerously smart father taught him.

          Fred Trump was a real piece of work, a true slum lord, and far too clever to get caught in the many illegal schemes he had running (mostly tax fraud, but I’m sure he had plenty of other scams going). Donald Trump on the other hand is barely literate, has the attention span of a gnat, and is such a raging narcissist that if his name isn’t mentioned for more than 10 minutes he loses interest and checks out. His military advisors literally sprinkled his name throughout their reports just to get him to read the damn things, something that in retrospect was probably a mistake as we’d all likely be safer if they hadn’t.

          • frezik
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            1 year ago

            He and his family have wiggled out of things before because investigators thought they were too dumb to know they were committing crimes.

  • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    So tired of this asshat having NO consequences for all he’s done.

    And the howler monkeys in his party would actually have this shitead as Speaker? The GOP is anti-American.

  • socialjeffwarrior@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    He should be in jail at this very moment. Every minute that passes and he isn’t punished, makes our justice system more feckless.

  • fox2263@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I don’t think he knows actual real information. Probably spouted spurious info to make him sound good.

    Remember, this is the guy who thought the F35 was actually invisible.

    • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      He had 100s of top secret documents post presidency, and was gleefully waving them around at people. We know some of them were war plans.

      Its also common for presidents to be briefed about some matters after they leave office.

      Messy or mostly wrong, he still likely provided some accurate and dangerous information to a foreign national.

      • GratefullyGodless@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        But, those foreign nationals have to try to figure out what stuff he told them was accurate, and how much was him doing the equivalent of altering weather maps with sharpies.

      • fox2263@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Oh definitely.

        But also…bigly nukes. He knows nuclear. His uncle was nuclear.

        • Doesn’t matter. It is enough for him to say something like

          “we have very smart captains. They are in the south chinese sea, very bright men, they know how to hide a submarine in a trench they told me. I like trenches. My grandfather shot 500 people from a trench every day in WW1. Best men, he won the war for us i’m telling you.”

          For submarines the very information that they are in any specific area is a breach of security.

          • fox2263@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Reminds of that time with the Iran nuclear plant or something and the ultra resolution satellite images and names of spies or something.

    • BeMoreCareful@lemdro.id
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      1 year ago

      This is probably a pretty good point. His mouth and any fact seldom meet.

      A lot of people are saying that.

  • zik@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Sounds like treason to me.

    When’s someone going to have the balls to charge him with it, and then sentence him to death for it?

    • SCB@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Treason is very narrowly defined in the Constitution and Trump will almost certainly never be charged with it.

      As Australia is not a military enemy of the US, treason is absolutely off the table here.

      This is, however, definitely a felony. Maybe he can hit an even 100.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        He didn’t discuss it with Australia, he discussed with an Australian.

        If Trump discussed this with Rupert Murdoch would you make the same argument?

    • bemenaker@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      It’s not treason, it’s espionage, and it still can carry a very lengthy solitary stay in leavenworth.

    • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
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      1 year ago

      Sounds like treason to me.

      Is this Australian businessman a middleman for an enemy of the US? If not, it likely doesn’t meet the standard for treason, but there are other things it should qualify as.

  • hogunner@lemmy.world
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    While this doesn’t excuse this treasonous idiot’s actions, I feel like nobody with half a brain would believe any specifics Trump recalls from memory about anything, let alone classified information.

    “Our subs each contain 3 million nukes, that’s more than any other country. Some people say they hold the most nukes in history even going back hundreds of years. And they can get this close [Trump holds hand up with his finger and thumb an inch apart] to a Russian sub without being seen. It’s true, they’re so quiet you can hear the waves splashing without even seeing them. They could sneak up on you right now as you sit here and you’d never know. Truly incredible, the best at sneaking.”

  • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    So that is super definitely illegal. You leave the office, and the protections it affords leave with you. I hope the DoJ nails him for this, but I really don’t expect them to. Clearly that would be diViSIvE

    • bemenaker@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Even a sitting president cannot just openly tell top secret info to non cleared people. It doesn’t work that way. There are strict rules on handling classified info. A president can’t just declassify stuff on his own. There are still processes that have to be followed.

  • Nobody@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Trump – “leaning” toward Pratt as if to be discreet – then told Pratt two pieces of information about U.S. submarines: the supposed exact number of nuclear warheads they routinely carry, and exactly how close they supposedly can get to a Russian submarine without being detected.

    The first one is bad enough, but the second is legitimately putting members of our armed forces in danger.

    You know, I’m starting to think that having a foreign intelligence asset serve as president for 4 years was a bad idea.

  • zcd@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    Who had “literal treason” on their trump crimes bingo card?

    Edit: I set the bar too low, that’s on me

  • Reality Suit@lemmy.one
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    Biggest threat to democracy today? North Korea? Putin? Nope, it’s the Trump family

    Edit: The threat to democracy was coming from inside the house! Ahhhhh! (Phone call from inside the house ghost story reference)

  • carl_dungeon@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Of course he did. Jesus Christ is anyone surprised about anything this traitorous orange mother fucker did/does?