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5️⃣ The Soldier Who Bet On His Own Mission
Federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment overnight charging a U.S. special forces soldier with using classified information about the Maduro raid to place cash bets on the outcome. Gannon Ken Van Dyke, who reports to the Joint Special Operations Command and helped plan and execute the operation, placed 13 Polymarket bets between December 27 and January 26, turning $33,000 into more than $409,000. “That’s 13 bets because the operation kept moving,” Shalev said. “So he had to keep moving. It’s pretty obvious what he did.” Trump, asked about it from the Oval Office, called prediction markets “somewhat of a casino” and said he was “never much in favor of it.” Donald Trump Jr. sits on Polymarket’s advisory board. A $500 million oil futures bet minutes before the Maduro raid forced the former SEC watchdog to resign weeks ago after she pointed at the Trump family. “These predictive market people,” Blundell said, “obviously have a very close relationship with trend-setting, news-making people who understand when and how some of the world’s worst or best events are going to happen.”
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4️⃣ Ellie Leonard Transcribes The Wolff-Epstein Emails And Exposes The PR Man
Ellie Leonard, a Narativ contributor who publishes at The Panicked Writer, has transcribed 1,800 pages of emails between Michael Wolff and Jeffrey Epstein — believed to be the only complete read of the entire correspondence. Her reporting establishes that Wolff was Epstein’s paid reputation repairman, writing clean-up pieces including a 7,000-word whitewash for The New Yorker after Epstein’s conviction for procuring an underage prostitute. Shalev noted Wolff’s email volume to Epstein spiked the moment Virginia Giuffre surfaced her Prince Andrew and Epstein allegations, as Wolff worked to discredit her and the journalists covering the story. “He looks like the biggest weasel and leech in the entire Epstein files now,” Blundell said. Leonard has been harassed by Wolff and Michael Cohen for the reporting. The publishing houses that kept handing Wolff book deals, both hosts said, knew exactly what they were buying.
3️⃣ The White House Scraps The Records Law And Clears The Filing Cabinets
The Washington Post reported at 5 a.m. Friday that the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel ruled the Presidential Records Act unconstitutional on April 1, and the next day White House Counsel David Warrington sent every Executive Office staffer a memo rewriting the rules. Mandatory became “should.” Prohibited became “whenever possible.” The 2017 version required staff to use official email; the new version suggests they do. “He’s doing something really bad right now,” Shalev said of the timing. Blundell added that the memo lets the administration “hide all the records, delete whatever they want” with no paper trail once they leave office. The post-Watergate law was written to stop exactly this. The White House just walked away from it.
2️⃣ GOP and Dems split On A Maxwell Pardon And Ehud Barak’s Cousin Runs The Operation
House Oversight Chair James Comer said yesterday his committee is split on pardoning Ghislaine Maxwell in exchange for testimony — testimony that Shalev forecast will clear both Trump and Clinton. Two additional exit ramps are active: a direct pardon from Trump and a motion to vacate the charges at the Southern District of New York. Shalev’s Narativ.org reporting this morning names Daphne Barak — cousin of Ehud Barak, himself accused by Virginia Giuffre — as the operator of a four-year PAC campaign to spring Maxwell, hiring operatives to harass survivors on social media. “Half the committee facilitated the rape and the abuse and possibly the murder of hundreds, maybe thousands of children from around the world,” Blundell said. “And half of them are split.” Marjorie Taylor Greene said publicly that Trump himself ordered Pam Bondi and Todd Blanche to bury the Epstein files. Blanche, now the attorney general, ran Maxwell’s interview before her transfer to a minimum-security camp.
1️⃣ Trump Sinks To 33 Percent And The Women Are Gone
AP-NORC has Trump at 33 percent approval, his second-term low, and the internals show the floor caving. Women: 28 percent. “When everyone realized Nixon was done was when he hit 25 percent,” Shalev said. “And women right now are trending three points above that.” Hispanic approval 25 percent. Black 14 percent. Independents have collapsed from 60 percent to 23. Even the Republican base has softened to 68. The Iran war is the accelerant, with Brent crude at $107 and gas above $4 heading into the midterms. The White House Correspondents Dinner lands tomorrow — a staged victory lap as the numbers say the opposite. “These numbers are the real indicator of how much America hates the president of the United States,” Blundell said.
A soldier bets on his own mission while Polymarket quotes odds on the Maxwell pardon, the records law goes dark, and the 33 percent president walks into a correspondents dinner built to look like a victory. History Rhymes. That’s how we know sooner.
The FiveStack is available as an audio podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. The FiveStack is a co-production of deanblundell.substack.com and narativ.org.
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