You guys have to watch this Patrick Byrne guy, never seen anything like it

[vacuum]

This guy is unfiltered and just releasing the FBI's raw sewage out on the public airwaves.

I don't see how he can be allowed to give another interview after this.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgUjecJtcOY

[old steel]

Arkancide weekend coming up?

Then again, sometimes the subconscious mind just knows what it knows and blurts something out.

If he is covering his ass, he is way panicked about doing it.

Interesting comment about the AG.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=650&v=d50j_WJEzgU

[old steel]

Boom!


https://twitter.com/lisamei62/status/1164734764743573510

[Horn]

You guys slow?

[Horn]

Oh here is the Patrick Byrne thread.

I'm curious as to how he just kinda lumps the Clinton clan in there as a target also, without any notes on how targeted.
Nobody bothes to ask.

[monty]

been wondering that myself

:|~

[monty]

Boom!


https://twitter.com/lisamei62/status/1164734764743573510

more interesting information in this twitter thread

https://twitter.com/almostjingo/status/1164729997212311552?s=21

[monty]

Patrick Byrne and Maria Butina


http://youtu.be/Q6LgR0lAMGs

https://youtu.be/Q6LgR0lAMGs

[osoab]

It about time you started it Horn.

I say the dude has a car wreck or plane crash before the end of the year.

[monty]

Royston Potter on Patrick Byrne


http://youtu.be/9p1iT56SjfM

https://youtu.be/9p1iT56SjfM

[old steel]

So where did he vanish to?

A billionaires hidy hole?

[monty]

More on Patrick Byrne & Maria Butina

https://trump-russia.com/2019/08/18/the-ceo-of-overstock-has-more-to-say-about-maria-butina-the-fbi-and-don-jr/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

The CEO of Overstock Has More to Say about Maria Butina, the FBI … and Don Jr

6 days ago

https://i0.wp.com/trump-russia.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/overstock-696x398.jpg?resize=696%2C398&ssl=1
Maria Butina with Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne

Editors note: After I published my Q&A with Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne (https://trump-russia.com/2019/08/18/the-ceo-of-overstock-has-more-to-say-about-maria-butina-the-fbi-and-don-jr/) about his relationship with Maria Butina and the FBI, I sent him a link. He responded with additional comments to expand upon and clarify some of the things he said, so I am reposting the entire Q&A with Byrne’s additional comments indicated in bold.

Not long ago, I had an email exchange with Patrick Byrne, the CEO of Overstock.com, about his relationship with Maria Butina, the Russian gun-rights activist who was sentenced to prison after she tried to set up an back-channel between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.

Byrne told me three high-ranking officials (whom he calls “X,Y, and Z”) in the Obama administration directed him to “resume a romantic relationship” with Butina. He says the Russia investigation started when he contacted the FBI (which he refers to as the “Men in Black”) about Butina in July 2015. Byrne says he has a “non-standard relationship” with the FBI.

I have concerns about Byrne’s credibility, as I noted in a previous post (https://trump-russia.com/2019/07/20/time-to-put-a-lie-about-felix-sater-to-rest/), and I’ve tried, with limited success, to verify his claims. What I’ve been able to confirm is that Byrne and Butina did meet in July 2015, they had a brief romance and they kept in touch until Butina’s arrest three years later.

I spoke to Butina’s attorney, Robert Driscoll, on Sunday, by phone from Tallahassee, Florida, where he was visiting his client in prison. Driscoll has long suspected Byrne was a government informant, but it wasn’t a major focus of his efforts. In a letter last month to the Justice Department, Driscoll noted the government had “flatly denied” his speculation that Byrne was a government informant (https://trump-russia.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Butina-Letter-Regarding-Overstock-CEO-Patrick-Byrne.pdf).
He now says believes that Byrne was passing information about his client to the government.
The Justice Department declined my request for comment, although, interestingly, my email was routed to Peter Carr, former spokesman for Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office. Carr is now with the Office of Professional Responsibility, which will be handling any investigation into Byrne’s claims.

So there things stood until this week, when Byrne’s story took on a life of its own. Overstock issued a press release (http://investors.overstock.com/news-releases/news-release-details/overstockcom-ceo-comments-deep-state-withholds-further-comment) in which Byrne announced, “I am the notorious ‘missing Chapter 1’ of the Russian investigation.” (The company’s stock fell more than 30 percent on the news.) On Thursday, The New York Times followed up with a story (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/15/business/overstock-paul-byrne-maria-butina-affair.html)on Byrne’s claims.

I believe people need to hear what Byrne told me — this guy is the CEO of a publicly-traded company, after all — so here goes:
Q. You met Maria Butina at Freedom Fest in July 2015.
A. Correct.
Q. You began dating shortly thereafter.
A. No. We had an intellectual discussion for 90 minutes. She knew all about me already.
She told me there was a circle in Russia of about 150 liberals, from across the Russian power structure, including the oligarchs. They watched my videos on liberalism. They know about my relationship with Milton Friedman. They discuss things I say and write.

I should make clear that Maria is an unusually impressive young woman. Chosen for a school for which 30 brainiac children from across Russian get selected each year. Graduated No. 2 in her class. Super-conversant on the history of liberalism, from the Greeks to Locke and Jefferson. Knows U.S. history and the Constitution better than about 99 percent of millennials. Also, the Greater Moscow Power Lifting Champion (or something like that). I have taught at the university level (teaching fellow at Stanford, visiting prof at Dartmouth), known a lot of smart young people, and she is pretty remarkable. She came across as far more adult and capable than a typical 26-year-old should.

She also told me that General Mikhail Kalashnikov had started a gun rights group in Russia [Право на Оружие (http://ongun.ru/) — Right to Bear Arms]. But the main function of the group was really to be a club for liberals. “Believe it or not, Dr. Byrne, General Kalashnikov was a liberal, too!” Maria told me.

And he had selected he had selected her to lead it.

“Do you know what this means in our culture, Dr. Byrne, that a man like General Kalishnikov would select a 23-year-old female, to lead such a group?” Maria asked me.
She mentioned that there are 50 oligarchs who run Russia, but seven who really run Russia, and that she, Maria, was well known to four of them. She mentioned that she might end up president of Russia someday. Or that at least there were people grooming her for that.

She took care to explain that they were loyal Russian people, “President Putin is our president, no one is talking about anything inappropriate,” she said.

But they wanted to discuss liberalism, and what a post-Putin age might look like in terms of U.S.-Russian relations.

I’m sensing that this may seem odd to you. It’s no so odd for me. Especially since I started being called this kind of stuff (https://www.wired.com/2014/02/rise-fall-rise-patrick-byrne/). But even before blockchain. But I already sense that you are one of those guys who rolls his eyes a lot, so I’ll stop there.

They had sent her with a message for me to come to Moscow to speak on Bitcoin, then go to the Altai Mountains to a resort that would be shut down for three days so I could meet with 40-45 people from across the Russian power structure — government, oligarchs — to discuss liberalism, John Stuart Mill, Hayek, and global relations, and what a post-Putin age might look like.
We parted after meeting that day in Vegas, her stipulating that we would text to make future arrangements and that she would be texting me under the guise of us having a romantic relationship.

I reported that night to my clearance authority (where I once kept a low level clearance due to some minor advisory work I do in foreign policy).

I gave a description of the situation and wanted to know:


May I introduce her to some senior thinkers in the foreign policy establishment (My hope was to Yenta her in to talking to some senior thinkers in the foreign policy establishment whom I know through the Council on Foreign Relations. I thought she would be interesting for someone to spend an afternoon talking to, and perhaps her dreams of a back channel for peace might ring a bell with someone.)
Is it OK if I travel to Russia on her invitation?
Or should I cut her out of my life as being a security risk?

I learned later that my report “sent up a flare over Washington” that very night. July 2015: That is when the Russian investigation started, not July 2016. That is the big coverup.

I got contacted by Men In Black (I do not like using the acronym “FBI”). They were unclear, but seemed to suggest that I should learn more then they would decide, but were not sure. It went back and forth for two months.

Meanwhile, Maria was writing me, asking me to Moscow, then Montenegro, then Rome, Paris, etc. Watching my YouTube videos on liberalism. Pretending to be fall in love.

Finally, in September, I sent word to the U.S. government that I was not going to meet Maria again (lest I get in some hassle with the U.S. government) unless I was given the word “Greenlight.” They sent: “Greenlight.”

So I went to meet her for the second time in September 2015 at hotel room in New York City with the idea that we would spend a few days talking, getting to know each other, a possible trip to Russia and the purposes thereof. It was a two-bedroom suite. She arrived first. When I arrived, she made clear immediately (as in, less than three seconds) that she had not been pretending and wanted to make it romantic. I was putty in her hands.

Q. You had done some work for the FBI in the past?

A. I helped the Men in Black twice before.

[Note: Byrne forwarded two links to me. One is a Sports Illustrated story (https://www.si.com/longform/bison-dele/index.html) that discusses Byrne’s friendship with ex-NBA player Bison Dele, who disappeared while sailing in the South Pacific in 2002. The other is a link to his talk about naked short selling and corruption on Wall Street, Deepcapturethemovie.com (http://www.deepcapturethemovie.com/)]

I have also had the honor of playing a tiny, tiny role in three peace events in my life. So again, while Maria’s story may seem odd to you, I know that are times where tiny events lead to something good happening. Like peace. I’ve seen it. I know there are a lot of deep thinkers who argue that Maria had to be a Red Sparrow because they have seen the movie (https://www.foxmovies.com/movies/red-sparrow). You make your own call.

Q. What happened next with you and Butina?

A. I saw her sporadically (every 4-6 weeks?) from September 2015 through March 2016. Initially my estimation was:


66% chance this is an opportunity of some kind. Maybe just getting a chance to preach the gospel of Liberalism and freedom in Russia. Maybe some good contacts. Maybe push the peace ball a couple of yards down the field.
33% chance this is a risk

The Men In Black’s lack of responsiveness or concern was odd.

As the September 2015-March 2016 wore on, my estimation changed. Maria was spending less time talking about John Locke and John Stuart Mill, more time talking about the political circles in which she was swanking around.

She let me know [Alexander] Torshin (https://trump-russia.com/2017/04/05/the-godfather-goes-to-washington/), had told her to focus on Hillary, Rubio, Cruz, and Trump. Whichever of the four won, she was to have a contact in their administration.

[Note: Torshin was the deputy governor of the Central Bank of Russia who prosecutors say was directing Butina’s activities in the United States]
This kind of talk was especially concerning. So the Men in Black’s lack of apparent interest or concern was frustrating to me.
.
Around February, she asked me to fly to Russia, give a talk in St. Petersburg on Liberalism and Bitcoin, then spend an hour with Putin (who would be in town). The Men in Black studied, came back, said it was too dangerous, don’t go, break up with Maria. So I did. (I was also stage four (https://www.wsj.com/articles/overstock-ceo-patrick-byrne-to-take-medical-leave-1460374782?mod=rsswn) of two things at once at the time, and they were on the brink of starting to yank out organs, so I was not going to argue.)

The Men in Black then had me get involved with a corruption case involving a federal official. That ran a couple of months. Something deeply unusual and troubling came out of that experience that led me to wonder if I was involved in law enforcement or political espionage.

On July 1, 2016, they came back and said, “What a mistake we made. Russia, Russia, Russia. We want you to know that the U.S. government never asks something like this but we are here to ask you to rekindle a romantic relationship with Maria. The orders are coming from X, Y, and Z.”


“The USA never, ever does this, but these circumstances are so extraordinary, that you are being asked to do this. We want to remind you that you can refuse.”

And the agents were clearly extremely discomfited and unhappy about the whole thing. But the request came from X, Y, and Z.

[B]The Men in Black are extremely honorable, straightforward men (and women), and there was no leering and rubbing of hands with excitement. They were clearly extremely discomfited. They reminded me several times that I could refuse the request (I suspect they were secretly wishing I would refuse it, in fact). No one would think less of me if I refused it, etc. All that kind of stuff. They were quite uncomfortable about it all. But…. X, Y, and Z were sending the request, and it was their job to communicate it. That is the reason I do not like using the initial “FBI” when explaining this. It seems unfair to them. As far as I could tell, they were hijacked from the top.

I decided that I had gotten sucked into what was starting to seem a lot more like political espionage than law enforcement. I knew this was all going to end up in front of a jury, or in television, or in the history books, and I did not want to disgrace our country or Maria by carrying out those orders. I would have if I had thought them legitimate. I’ve done lots of stranger things for our country, related to tracking down Brian William’s murderous brother in Mexico, for example but this smelled like skunk, so I decided to do two things instead:


Lie to the feds. I would wine and dine and romance Maria, and give the public perception that we were once again romantically involved. I would blow her away with being this unbelievably romantic gentleman to her. I would report that I was back in the saddle, but all the while 100% NEVER TOUCH HER. I knew I had to be 100% pure on that bright line, so when the day came that it was all unearthed (which I knew would happen), the record would show that actually I had not laid a finger on her. (I understand that she and her lawyer have confirmed to other journalists that I was a total, perfect gentleman to her during that second phase we spent time together).
Set up X,Y, Z for felony charges down the road

Q. You conveyed all of this to the Justice Department, including the name of the three higher-ups in the Obama administration in April 2019?

A. Yes on April 30 I told them all of this, including that the U.S. government had know all about Maria in July 2015 from me, and had known about each of her subsequent meetings (e.g. Don Jr.) before she had them, and had let them all occur.

Q. On May 20, 2016, Butina and Torshin attended the National Rifle Association convention in Louisville, Kentucky and shared a table with Donald Trump Jr. at a private dinner. Is that what you’re talking about?

Editor’s note: In earlier version, Byrne suggested that Butina had made him aware of a possible second meeting between Butina and Don Trump Jr. Butina’s attorney, Robert Driscoll denied that such a meeting took place and, after some back and forth discussions, I gave Byrne an opportunity to revise his answer.

The truth is I am not completely sure, but the answer is, “Most likely.” I will distinguish what I surmise from what I know. And when telling you what I know, I will distinguish between what I know with total confidence, and when I am unusually vague. Please remember that I am somewhat foggy on things come the latter part of March, 2016 and into Spring. Rough time medically.

At some point in the first three months of 2016 Maria spoke of some meeting being arranged/to be arranged with Don Jr. via some of the Republican Party bigwigs with whom she had been schmoozing. In her description, it was to occur in a clandestine manner, it was to occur at a convention of conservatives of some kind, and was to occur somewhere in the South (I vaguely but not confidently remember “Tennessee”). It was not clear how stable or firm a plan it was, but it was clear that she had her Republican big shots working it.

Something I do remember with total clarity, however, is that the Men In Black were completely disinterested and indifferent. I was perplexed: I offered to whisk her off to somewhere exotic instead just to block such a meeting. They consulted then returned with this answer: We’re just going to let it play out. That is when they told me a fib to keep me in check, along the lines of Sometimes when spies come to the U.S. we might just follow them and see where they go, who they meet…. But I knew there is no way they would do that, certainly not meeting the son of the likely presidential nominee. Not in this case. That, coupled with the fact (not yet explained) that I, around about the same time, had been involved in a corruption matter, and it also played out in a way that seemed fishy, made me think…. they were leaving something out.

Since this all blew up, it may surprise you to know, I have often tried to follow news about this as little as possible, so as to keep my own memory fresh for the day the right people asked me for the truth. Eventually that became impossible, but I tried. So it was only more recently that learned from a news broadcast about Maria (which I have generally avoided, frankly) that among the people she met while here was Don Jr. I could not have told you where until today, when I learned it from your question, that she met Don Jr. in a private dinner in May, 2016, with Torshin. (However, that is not completely true: when I saw Maria some year or more later, I believe she confirmed to me she had met Don Jr. I am not sure, and I never asked the circumstances.)

Was that private meeting she was discussing with me in the first three months of 2016, the one that I remembered being a clandestine meeting at a convention of conservatives somewhere in the South, maybe Tennessee, the private dinner that happened in May at an NRA convention in Kentucky? I can’t be sure, but I would think so. The details match up pretty well. Especially if Driscoll has confirmed she only meeting with Don Jr.

Also…. Did I make clear, Maria and I stopped speaking in early April? I was asked to break it off, I was super-sick, and I did. It was only around July 1 (+/- 7 days?) that the request came to revive things. So we were not in contact while the dinner played out.
However, if it was May, then it happened well after they had made me feel batshit crazy for thinking there might be anything unusual about this Russian grad student, very bright and admirable, but connected to Russian senators and oligarchs, swanking around with big shots who were getting her in touch with the son of the possible next president. Boy, did they gaslight me on that one. They made me feel like some kind of conspiracy nutjob to think that there might be anything problematic about that. Guess the joke was on me.

Anyway, it was shortly after that — the period I was telling them of talk of arrangements being made for her to meet Don Jr., and they were brushing them off as silly to worry about — that she asked me to Russia to speak and meet Putin, and they came back and told me to break it off and get her out of my life. And as I said, I was right in that window that any recrudescence of disease would have led to organs getting pulled out as a next step. So I folded and disappeared from the scene. Probably first or second week of April 2016. I did not see her again until October 2016, I believe.

Q. What happened after you spoke to the Justice Department?

A. I learned that Maria was transferred 9 days later from a SHU unit [solitary confinement] in a prison in Virginia to the nicest women’s camp in the federal system. So I give great compliments to the DOJ. Nothing happens in 9 days normally. But I think they heard my story, checked out some of the basic claims, and moved her out of isolation by the end of the following week (May 9). The following Wednesday they announced John Durham.

[Note: John H. Durham, the U.S. attorney for the District of Connecticut, is investigating the origins of the special counsel’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election. News broke about his investigation on May 13. The Washington Post (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/barr-taps-us-attorney-in-connecticut-to-investigate-origins-of-russia-probe/2019/05/13/abd1b74c-75e1-11e9-bd25-c989555e7766_story.html?noredirect=on)reported that the investigation had begun “in recent weeks.”]

I should make clear that I have no idea what connection there is, if any, between my coming forward and any subsequent events, including Durham’s appointment. I make no claims in that regard. I know only that I spoke twice to the DOJ, on April 5 and 30. I am under the impression that there are numerous other whistle-blowers coming forward, with tales that amount to political espionage conducted not just against Republicans, but against Hillary Clinton, by certain high-level actors (X, Y, and Z). Mine may well be (and probably is) a footnote to a footnote to the whole story. I hope so.

Q. It’s a fascinating story, but I need to report it out. Is there someone who can corroborate this?
Sara Carter has had some recent confirmation from the Department of Justice. I don’t know what your connections are like there, but that’s why you get paid the big bucks! I’m not in the convincing business. I am simply in the business or letting the world know what happened. My rabbi told me “You let feds do fed jobs, you do your job. You are a citizen. Your country is ripping itself in two. Your job is to come forward to the public.” So I have.

[Note: Byrne’s “rabbi” is Warren Buffett. Byrne’s father, John, was the CEO GEICO, one of Buffett’s companies, and Patrick has known Buffett for years.]

I watched this unfold for the last year knowing I had a lot of the answers, and in late June decided (and was advised by my rabbi) that I had a moral duty to come forward. So I have. It is proving interesting to see how long it takes the world to get it.

Ok, Seth, I have qualms. From what you have written so far, I fear that when you learn the full truth you will seek to distort it because it conflicts with some things you have written so far. On the other hand, I have it on good authority that you are a legitimate, honest reporter. I have given you a ton. I have a mountain more. Let us see how you represent what I have told you before going any further.

OK, signing off for now. Busy week ahead.

[Horn]

His mere existence as Overstock CEO then U.S. Intelligence asset verifies alot of other suspicions

on how U.S. Inc. operates alot like all the rest of the globe's techno-fascist states.

And you thought we were a different, non-monopolistic type, they're all Putin place.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmNcngEnCSA

[monty]

Tracy Beanz & husband Frank podcast discussing Patrick Byrne

Dark To Light With Frank & Beanz: Byrne It All Down

https://radioinfluence.com/2019/08/23/dark-to-light-byrne-it-all-down/

[JohnQPublic]

Her is a long thread by Seth Abramson analyzing this

https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/1164714935944974336

[JohnQPublic]

Deep state is surfacing for all to see...

[midnight rambler]

Deep state is surfacing for all to see...

And yet we can't post images here for all to see.

[Horn]

Doesn't seem like this story is getting the world wide coverage it deserves, hmmm?

Is it a conspiracy?

[Amanda]

On the part where he says they spied on Clinton too, that's just hard to believe.
Maybe the lying, insanely criminal and corrupt FBI just told him that so it wouldn't look obvious that they were only targeting Trump.

[Neuro]

And yet we can't post images here for all to see.

But!....

We have a Teflon slum lord!

[Neuro]

On the part where he says they spied on Clinton too, that's just hard to believe.
Maybe the lying, insanely criminal and corrupt FBI just told him that so it wouldn't look obvious that they were only targeting Trump.

I don’t doubt for a minute that they spied on Hillary too. It’s just they didn’t act on the information like they did with Trump. Or maybe they did? Leaking the DNC e-mails to wikileaks? Perhaps they just murdered Seth Rich like a layered smokescreen. First layer was to blame it on Russian hackers. Second layer Seth Rich murdered by Clinton/DNC CRIME INC for leaking the e-mails. Russian hackers to be believed by democrats, Seth to be believed by deeper investigating Republican leaning. Or does this seem like too much work to cover the tracks? Wouldn’t professional hitmen who wanted it to look like a murder robbery make it look like that, instead of just making it look like a murder?

[PatColo]

Tracy Beanz & husband Frank podcast discussing Patrick Byrne

Dark To Light With Frank & Beanz: Byrne It All Down

https://radioinfluence.com/2019/08/23/dark-to-light-byrne-it-all-down/

FWIW I'm quite sure Beanz & Frank aren't married; Beanz has a hubby & at least 1 kid. Frank & her started doing shows together last year sometime.

I was following Beanz until last year; she was into Pizzagate & Qanon; but I was finding her podcasts too technical "deep dives" - I'd start playing them but my mind would quickly wander, to where I wasn't really listening at all! Frank's a more entertaining personality than Beanz, but I don't really listen to him any more either.

[monty]

FWIW I'm quite sure Beanz & Frank aren't married; Beanz has a hubby & at least 1 kid. Frank & her started doing shows together last year sometime.

I was following Beanz until last year; she was into Pizzagate & Qanon; but I was finding her podcasts too technical "deep dives" - I'd start playing them but my mind would quickly wander, to where I wasn't really listening at all! Frank's a more entertaining personality than Beanz, but I don't really listen to him any more either.
I don't follow Beanz. That is the only podcast of theirs that I've listened to so I assumed they were married.

[old steel]

Patrick Byrne has made an update, so i'll post some of it and the link.



"For these reasons it may give you some comfort to know what I am doing with the capital generated by the sale of my stock. After paying tens of millions in taxes (after all, “We didn’t build that,” right?) by Friday the rest will be in investments that are counter-cyclical to the economy: Gold, silver, and two flavors of crypto. The gold and silver are stored outside of the United States, in Switzerland, and within two weeks, will be scattered in other locations that are even more outside of the reach of the Deep State, but are places that are safe for me. The crypto is stored in the place where all crypto is stored: in mathematical mist, behind long keys held only in the memory of someone who is quite good at storing such things in memory (with paper backups in the hands of a priest I met 35 years ago who never sits foot in the West)

These acts accomplish two objectives:



It provides a hedge for Overstock. If the economy craters and thus Overstock runs into tough times, those investments will soar (that’s what “hedging” a bet means) and you will have access to capital if needed. In fact, you will have not just access to capital, you will have access to the friendliest capital imaginable: my own. I have to wait six months for it to be legal, but anytime after March 17, 2020 I can provide a capital injection (if needed) by buying back into Overstock. Please remember that as you watch the global chaos. If you see the US economy cratering please do not lose the sleep you otherwise might: you will have a friend who has sunk (almost) his entire fortune into investments that will soar if a crisis occurs, and who knows your business well, and who appreciates you.



The other thing accomplished by the investment moves I described above is that my ammunition gets moved outside acts of retaliation from the Deep State. That is important because, in fact, I am now going to shellac them. Actually, “shellac” is too weak a word for what I intend to do to the Deep State. Sit back and enjoy the show.


You may note that I said, “almost”. I did make an investment in a business in an unrelated industry, a firm with a wonderful invention but so far afield from ecommerce or blockchain that your board had no interest in hearing about it. I suspect that in time you may hear of it, though.

Until then, live long and prosper, my friends.
With great admiration, memories, and affection,"

Patrick

https://www.deepcapture.com/2019/09/a-message-to-my-former-colleagues-at-overstock/

[Horn]

This Patrick Byrne just slipped through all news cycles practically unnoticed.

[Jewboo]

Byrne says that Russian woman early on engaged in sex with him then only later he casually mentions that he is STAGE FOUR HEPATITIS C.

:o



SALT LAKE CITY, April 11, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Overstock.com, Inc. (http://www.globenewswire.com/Tracker?data=RVBF4iRfAt-V-FpiqS6NWYsw7Is5AXGliqohoQ3Jbl87E_N3ON_WETgEzk79oQh xGChyawcqqLP-eDw95C6YMpPjFwcECoZt6XEevQc7yzU=) (NASDAQ:OSTK) today announced its founder and CEO, Patrick M. Byrne, will take a personal leave of absence for medical reasons. It is unknown if he will return to work...


I must take an indefinite medical leave of absence. The proximate cause is that for over a year I have been gutting it out through a Stage IV diagnosis of Hepatitis C, contracted (to save awkward questions) in 1984 in Xinjiang when a barefoot doctor sewed up a head wound under less-than-ideal conditions. I have finished treatment and think I have it beat but only time will tell...

https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2016/04/11/827498/0/en/Overstock-com-CEO-Dr-Patrick-M-Byrne-to-Take-Medical-Leave-of-Absence.html

[monty]

Patrick Byrne released an update, but says he is not revealing anything not previously disclosed


Maria Butina & I, Part Three: Finale (https://www.deepcapture.com/2019/10/maria-butina-finale/)



Readers should be aware that I am not going to disclose anything more than I disclosed in television interviews two months ago. However, I will tie things together in a way that will help the public comprehend what is going on in our country, and shift the dialogue from Stuck on Stupid to something more constructive. Readers should begin by first reading these two parts of the story:

Maria Butina & I, Part I: Meeting Maria (https://www.deepcapture.com/2019/08/maria-butina-and-i-part-i-meeting-maria/)

Maria Butina & I, Part Deux: Romancing Maria (https://www.deepcapture.com/2019/08/maria-butina-and-i-part-deux-romancing-maria/)

As we left things….In July of 2016 the Men In Black came back asking me to rekindle a romantic relationship with Maria Butina. As I have emphasized, they were aghast at having to make this request of me. They emphasized it had never been done in their experience, that the USA is the Good Guy, that we do not operate like the Bad Guys, and so on and so forth. But the request had come from X, Y, and Z, federal officials of whom I had heard (incidentally, I misunderstood one detail, in that I thought the request was coming from all three: two months later they later me know that Z had officially added his signature to the request, and only then did I become aware of my slight misunderstanding of the original request). I wish to emphasize again that there was no leering, no rubbing of elbows and laughing. The Men in Black are honorable people, and they were extremely discomfited by what they were communicating. They reminded me I had every right to say, “No” and no one would think worse of me.

I responded, “It’s not exactly hardship duty!” And agreed to carry out their instruction.

Meanwhile, internally, I decided that I would create the impression of romancing Maria for them, while in fact not laying a finger on her, and instead, focus on setting up X, Y, and Z for felony charges.

Why did I do that? First, let me admit that if I thought there was a legitimate law enforcement purpose to their request I would have complied without a second thought. I am patriotic and not saint. But as I have described in the two previous essays on Maria, my alarm bells were going off in a big way. First, I had come to realize I was being played in some way, that they had been duping me all along in pretending not to have any interest in Maria, and that there was some other scheme at work, most likely having something to do with creating a Can-O-Scandal that they were going to whip out some day in the future, shake up, and spray all over anyone they wanted to (including, possibly, me). Second, they had also involved me in an operation having to do with a corrupt federal official, and that operation had ended in a way that was disconcerting. So when they came back with a request to rekindle a romance with Maria, when three months earlier they had told me (against all reasonable evidence and interpretation) that there was nothing unusual about her and to get her out of my life, I knew there was mischief afoot. I could not tell what the mischief was, but I was determined to get to the bottom of it.

Why did I take it as my job to get to the bottom of it? Because unbeknownst to the Men In Black, I had been instructed, by another party within the federal government, to investigate the federal government itself. Maria Butina brought me the perfect opportunity to bring that investigation to its conclusion. So I took it.

Thus I responded to their request to rekindle a romantic relationship with Maria Butina by making a joke about it not being hardship duty, saluted, and went about rekindling a fake relationship with Maria. Why “fake”? Because I expected that someday, one way or another, everything was going to be exposed, and when it was, I was not going to have Maria Butina, Russia, or the United States of America disgraced by committing what felt like it might have been sexual assault, by actually carrying out such an order. The first period I dated Maria while also informing on her was close enough to that boundary: however, because it was she who initiated that physical relationship, and because my intent throughout it was yenta-ing her in to foreign policy circles where her dreams of being a back-channel for peace might have come true, I was comfortable with what I was doing. But given that by July 2016 I had come to understand that I was being used in some kind of political espionage, both with regard to Maria and with regard to a corruption investigation of a federal official, I decided instead simply to play along, and set up X, Y, and Z for felony charges, in the hope that someday we would have rule of law that could bring the criminals to justice.

Given the harshness with which I had ended things with Maria the first time, it took me awhile to win back Maria’s confidence through emails, texts, and phone calls. Eventually I did, and got her to visit me in Utah. I romanced her in front of 8,000 people at a corporate party, I wined and dined her, I won her confidence back. By the fall of 2016 she was ready to leave her Republican boyfriend and move to Utah. I reported that, and was admonished not to let her do so, because X, Y, and Z wanted her to stay in DC doing…. Precisely the shmoozing that two years later she was arrested and imprisoned for doing.

I wish to emphasize that (unlike the first period I dated Maria) at no point throughout this period did I have physical relations with Maria. I knew we had to have a bright line on that, so if and when this all got unscrambled later, she would not be disgraced. As I have explained, I knew Maria wanted to run for President of Russia someday, and if she was known as the woman who had succumbed to an American shmuck like me playing games like this, her chances of being President of Russia would be hurt. But I created publicly the impression that we were hot and heavy, and reported that this as the truth. In fact, once that was accepted, I started taking it farther and farther, in ways I will not reveal here, but simply in order to incriminate the people at the top of the chain of command who were sending me these instructions.

I wish also to state again how entirely inappropriate if anything should happen to the Men In Black who were part of this process and were conduits for the orders. I deliberately kept them confused about what the hell was going on, and if there are any legal repercussions brought against them I hope their lawyers will get in touch, because I can exonerate them. For all I care the people at the top of the chain of command can be hanged, but the agents who were involved in these activities were completely caught off guard and confused by what I was doing, by my design.

Maria and I discussed getting together over Christmas, 2016. I think she was going to be in Dakota with her Republican boyfriend, and my home in Utah was only a jaunt away. We could have made it work. If I remember correctly, however, we did not. That is because, while keeping the relationship warm at a distance, I began to beg off meetings with her. This was because I was beginning to have a pang of conscience about it all. The truth is, until then, while I admired Maria, and I respected her, I thought it would be the greatest thing in the world if a liberal like her could go on and be President of Russia someday… I was still comfortable using her in my own designs. I anticipated and intended that I would be able to shield her from any harm. But all along, I would describe my romantic sense as being precisely like that characterized as existing in Bill Murray towards Scarlett Johansson in Lost in Translation (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1s4YQqnbnM8). It seems to be my lot in life (especially as the middle-aged bachelor into whom I have grown) to come across, from time to time, young women who develop an attachment to me. I have learned that the responsible thing to do in such circumstances is to use our times together to open their eyes a bit, to give them experiences which may enhance their lives and futures, to give them memories they can reflect on when they go on with their lives…. But not to try to possess. In that fabulous movie, that is the understanding that Bill Murray brings to Scarlett Johansson. To the extent that my involvement with Maria was not completely cold-blooded on my part, giving me an opportunity to investigate the federal government itself (per my earlier instructions), that is what I was trying to do for Maria. I thought it would be a good thing for all concerned.

But in late 2016, that began to slip. There was a brief period where I realized that things were going too far, and I deliberately found ways to avoid following through on the weekend invitations that were cropping up. We discussed getting together at Christmas, or in the month after it, and I found ways to dodge, simply because I wanted to nip any romance in the bud and reduce the possibility of any damage to Maria that might result from what was going on.

In late February, 2017, an article appeared in the Daily Beast (https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-kremlin-and-gop-have-a-new-friendand-boy-does-she-love-guns) about Maria Butina. It was the first such article to have appeared, and it laid out with perfect accuracy her entire story (as I knew it, anyway). I was summoned angrily by Men In Black, who wanted to know if I had had anything to do with the story. I had not, and was unaware of it until they brought it to my attention. It is important to know this: read that Daily Beast article from early 2017, and know that essentially every piece of information in it was known to the United States Government by September, 2015. Everything. Read that, and ask yourself, “If the USG knew all this information from September, 2015, what are the chances that they were telling the truth when they were pretending to me to be ignoring Maria from September 2015 – March 2016?” I put the odds at 0%.

I was instructed angrily to get to Washington, DC and get to the bottom of how the story had appeared. In early March I did so. A mistake they made was the incredible disparity between their anger at the appearance of this article, and how they had treated in a nonchalant manner all the same information when I had provided it from September 2015 (and their lackadaisical nonchalant-ness about further information I developed up through March, 2016, when they had had me break up with Maria for the first time). Now completely convinced I was being manipulated in a game totally unrelated to anything to do with law enforcement or national security, I agreed to go to DC and get them the information they requested, but used the opportunity to set a trap for them of sorts. I won’t go into the details, but I did manage to learn the source of the article, how the information had leaked from Maria to the press (via some fellow students and a professor), and everything else for which they had asked.

They were satisfied with my results but I believe they sussed out that I had some hidden agenda I was not exposing (and if they did, they were right). In any case, in March of 2017 was I told, once again, to get Maria Butina out of my life. I did. It was in the course of that conversation that I was told that what was going on was that Putin had a campaign that was designed to get all of America chasing our tails, and that whoever had won the 2016 election, he was going to pull a trigger and create an enormous shit-storm that would engulf the USA….
Precisely as was already happening. They said it had nothing to do with Trump, and the same thing would be happening if Hillary had won, or Cruz or Rubio. The National Security apparatus had reached that conclusion by March, 2017.

In any case, I was told to get Maria out of my life again, and to have no further contact. I complied. While there may have been an incidental text between us over the next year, there was nothing of substance, no phone calls, no meetings.

About 15 months later, in May or June, 2018, I was speaking in Washington, DC in a public forum. I received a text from Maria: she had been tracking me, and was aware that I was in DC. She told me that she had finished her Master’s Degree at American University, and wondered if she could come by my hotel and show me her diploma and transcript. Although for 16 months I had complied with the request of Men In Black to have no further contact with maria Butina, I said, “Yes” that day. Why? Partially I did not have a good answer to refuse such a benign request. Partially I was a little soft-hearted. But partially it was…. Because fuck them.

I told Maria to come to my hotel. Maria came, and we spent about 40 minutes together. After an initial few minutes, the warmth slowly returned, and eventually she pulled out her cell phone and showed me a photograph of her transcript. As I had come to expect, it was more or less straight A+.

Clever girl that she is, Maria waited until I had studied the photograph of the transcript for a moment…
Then she flipped the screen. I was staring at a subpoena she had received from the Senate Intelligence Committee a few weeks earlier. She told me about being questioned, about how the forces of the USG seemed to be closing in on her. All along, she was studying my face closely for a reaction. I gave her none: I was still in the mode of needing to let things play out, so I would have answers I sought. But finally, probably crossing some lines myself, I told her that I thought she was dreaming if she thought she was going to skate away from everything. We were 18 months into an espionage scandal that was engulfing Washington, DC and the Trump administration. I asked her if she could go home to Russia safely. Maria replied, “Patrick, they have destroyed my group with all the liberals of Russia. If I go home I will go to prison for 15 years. “ I told her that the headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Investigations was about six blocks away, and she should walk over there, knock on the door, and simply say, “You must have read about me and have some concerns. I would like to speak to someone and explain who I am and what I am doing here, and allay any concerns.” She told me that as a Russian citizen she could not do that.

I told her that she was what we called in English, “a loose end,” and that she should not expect things to end well. She was either going to get iced by some FSB goons, or she would be arrested by the FBI. The look on her face told me she knew I was right. Sadly, she kissed me goodbye for the last time, still studying my face for answers I could not provide. I told Maria not to forget our North Star, the principles of liberalism, and that maybe things would work out.

About four weeks later I was in Atlantic City, and my iPad served up some YouTube clips with a man named “Peter Strzok” being grilled by Congress. His testimony gave me the missing pieces I needed to put together what I had been involved in. The next day I was in Washington, DC trying to explain to the right parties what was going on behind the curtains regarding Maria Butina and a great many other matters. Days later, however, before anything could be done, Maria was arrested and put in solitary confinement (“Solitary Housing Unit” or “SHU”), and was ultimately sentenced to 18 months in a box the size of a typical shower stall. I read that she was let out every morning at 2 a.m. for 30 minutes, so she could brush her teeth and take a shower.

As I indicated in a previous essay, both the prosecutor and the judge were Obama second term appointments. About the prosecutor I know nothing, other than that he was married in the offices of the Women’s Democratic National Committee. About the judge, a courtroom observer has noted that she is known as a defendant’s judge, always taking the side of leniency for defendants in her courtroom: Maria’s case is the only case in her career that this judge demanded more punishment be meted out than the prosecutor requested.

It has been reported that it was Robert Mueller’s committee that insisted on Maria Butina’s isolated confinement. Here are some odd things to know about the Robert Mueller Commission.



Bob Muller knows all about me: in a previous post (https://www.deepcapture.com/2019/08/maria-butina-and-i-part-deux-romancing-maria/) I revealed that I helped the FBI indict 200 Wall Street players from 2009-2011. Muller was FBI director that entire time. I received his personal congratulations and thanks from back in those days. I promise, Bob Mueller knows who I am.
The Mueller Commission was formed to investigate Russian spying in the 2016 election.
Maria Butina is the only “Russian spy” that has show up through this entire charade.
Maria Butina and I had an on-and-off affair for the three years she was here and in play. I am all over the Maria Butina file.
The Mueller Commission never once contacted me.

I therefore ask: was the Mueller Commission supposed to get to the bottom of anything? Or was its purpose to obfuscate the bottom of everything?

Today, as I wrote this, the news brought word (https://edition.cnn.com/2019/10/24/politics/barr-probe-russia-2016-criminal-investigation/index.html) that the DOJ has opened a criminal investigation into the origins of the Russian probe. I think I know just a small fraction of what the DOJ is going to turn up, and what I have revealed is a sliver of what I know. All I can say is, “It is about time.” For the last three years our country has been put through the ringer as the organs of law enforcement and national security got hijacked by some traitorous psychopaths, and they have nearly destroyed the United States of America. If it had not been the eventual appointment of an Attorney General who seems determined to return Rule of Law to our country and wrestle it back from the criminals who almost destroyed it, they might have succeeded.

I do not expect those criminals to go down quietly. It is amusing to watch the Party Organs of the Deep State at the New York Timesalready going to work trying to discredit Barr’s criminal investigation. They are just digging themselves a deeper hole, and to them I say: “Keep at it fellows!” They have no idea yet how stupid they are going to look. I hope they bet he last ounce of their credibility on the proposition that Durham’s investigation is just some political witch-hunt: Americans will all finally become conversant enough with the concept of “gaslighting” to enable its future common use.

I hope that as Maria Butina flies home to Russia in the hours ahead, she can take some satisfaction for the fact that she did stay true to the North Star of the principles of liberalism. it is our country that has lost its way. Maria is the finest Russia has to offer. And I hope that President Putin may look past some of his philosophical differences with Maria long enough to understand she does not deserve 15 years in Siberia. In fact, he might consider getting to know her himself.

I do not know what that prosecutor and judge knew and what they did not know about the background of Maria Butina and the events which landed her in their courtroom. But with a little luck, both that prosecutor and that federal judge, and maybe Andrew Weissmann and Robert Mueller, and perhaps even X, Y, and Z, are going to find out what it is like to be brushing their teeth at two o’clock in the morning, standing on cold tile in a SHU unit somewhere.