Trump Blabbed Nuclear Submarine Secrets To Australian Billionaire, But It's OK, That Guy Only Told Like 45 Other People
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Trump Blabbed Nuclear Submarine Secrets To Australian Billionaire, But It's OK, That Guy Only Told Like 45 Other People
Oh so now it's a crime to try to impress Australians?
Donald Trump reportedly jizzed American nuclear submarine secrets all over some random dude at Mar-a-Lago. And Special Counsel Jack Smith has been investigating it.
Months after leaving the White House, former President Donald Trump allegedly discussed potentially sensitive information about U.S. nuclear submarines with a member of his Mar-a-Lago Club — an Australian billionaire who then allegedly shared the information with scores of others, including more than a dozen foreign officials, several of his own employees, and a handful of journalists, according to sources familiar with the matter.
That’s cool, right? The guy is a billionaire. And he’s a member of Mar-a-Lago. How is that really different from having a security clearance?
The man’s name is Anthony Pratt, and as ABC News explains, he runs a US-based packaging company — a really huge one — called Pratt Industries.
He had a lot to say to Jack Smith:
In those interviews, Pratt described how — looking to make conversation with Trump during a meeting at Mar-a-Lago in April 2021 — he brought up the American submarine fleet, which the two had discussed before, the sources told ABC News.
Just small talk. Locker room talk, really. About nuclear subs.
According to 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.
GOD FUCKING CHRIST JESUS WHAT THE JESUS GOD DAMN FUCK GOD JESUS.
Pratt is a bit of a Blabbering Beauregard himself, it sounds like. Because he discreetly leaned in real close to 45 people and told them about it, maybe more. We’re sure they’re all cool, though.
In emails and conversations after meeting with Trump, Pratt described Trump's remarks to at least 45 others, including six journalists, 11 of his company's employees, 10 Australian officials, and three former Australian prime ministers, the sources told ABC News.
OK, so do not tell that guy your secrets, nuclear or otherwise.
ABC News reports that a former Mar-a-Lago employee told investigators that Pratt started gossiping to somebody else about what Trump had told him “within minutes” of their meeting. It freaked the former Mar-a-Lago employee out to realize that Trump had just told all these things to somebody who wasn’t even an American.
While Pratt told investigators he couldn’t tell if what Trump said about U.S. submarines was real or just bluster, investigators nevertheless asked Pratt not to repeat the numbers that Trump allegedly told him, suggesting the information could be too sensitive to relay further, ABC News was told.
Let’s keep this between you and Trump and those 45+ Australians, ‘kay?
But yes, let’s discuss Trump’s “bluster.”
One of the things about Trump that is so recklessly, dangerously stupid and unfit for the presidency (or any other position of trust) is his desperate need for respect and admiration. And that stunted self esteem comes out in the most humiliating of ways.
In the first year of Trump’s presidency — just after Russia gave him such a thorough reach-around in the 2016 election that he had a presidency in the first place, and one day after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey for investigating that — Trump invited the Russian ambassador and foreign minister into the Oval Office. And immediately he prematurely ejaculated code-word level intelligence from one of our closest allies all over those representatives of our greatest adversary. (Turned out it was Israeli intel.)
From the very beginning, the news reported that Trump had done this in part because his needy ass was trying really hard to impress the Russians. He truly thought these seasoned, high-level Russian spies diplomats would be impressed by the president of the United States having access to some serious secrets. He’s really fuckin’ stupid like that.
This has always been part of the collective terror of Trump having access to state secrets, both as president, and with the myriad classified documents he stole and tried to conceal afterward. Completely aside from suspicions that he’s beholden to any number of American adversaries, a useful idiot or a witting agent or something in between, there’s the simple fact that Trump desperately needs approval, and would do anything for it.
So it’s no surprise to learn that Trump allegedly spilled information about nuclear submarines to, um, some Australian dude with a lot of money who winked at him at Mar-a-Lago. But don’t worry, it’s not like Trump showed the dude the blueprints for the subs:
Pratt told investigators Trump didn't show him any government documents during their April 2021 meeting, nor at any other time they crossed paths at Mar-a-Lago, sources said.
See? It’s all fine.
This stuff isn’t in Jack Smith’s indictments — just one more thing he has up his sleeve, we guess. And it’s a huge thing. Heather Cox Richardson reminds us in today’s newsletter that almost a year ago, a judge sentenced US Navy nuclear engineer Jonathan Toebbe and his wife Dianna to prison for almost two decades for their conspiracy to sell secrets about nuclear submarines.
According to this reporting, Trump will give it to you for free!
Also, remember that other incident at Bedminster, when Trump blabbed classified intel at Mark Meadows’s biographer? It doesn’t even have to be a cool person in front of him for him to cough up state secrets. Just somebody who might potentially show him respect or give him love.
The only consolation in any of this is that we’re pretty sure Trump is too savagely stupid to understand upwards of 90 percent of the intel he ever saw.
What a “consolation.”
[ABC News]
Evan Hurst on Twitter right here.
@evanjosephhurst on Threads!
I have profiles those other places but I think I forgot how to log on.
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Trump Blabbed Nuclear Submarine Secrets To Australian Billionaire, But It's OK, That Guy Only Told Like 45 Other People
Not related to Pratt-Whitney?
"Pratt Industries"
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I'm not exactly an expert on British slang, but...