Introduction to “To the Dark Tower” Blog and Podcast Series
By: Franklin Alexander
Tags: 2016 Election, Information War, Anthony Weiner, Russian Influence, Politics

MY first thought was, he lied in every word,

That hoary cripple, with malicious eye

Askance to watch the working of his lie

On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford

Suppression of the glee, that purs’d and scor’d

Its edge, at one more victim gain’d thereby. What else should he be set for, with his staff?

What, save to waylay with his lies, ensnare

All travellers who might find him posted there,

And ask the road? I guess’d what skull-like laugh

Would break, what crutch ’gin write my epitaph

For pastime in the dusty thoroughfare, If at his counsel I should turn aside

Into that ominous tract which, all agree,

Hides the Dark Tower. Yet acquiescingly

I did turn as he pointed: neither pride

Nor hope rekindling at the end descried,

So much as gladness that some end might be. For, what with my whole world-wide wandering,

What with my search drawn out thro’ years, my hope

Dwindled into a ghost not fit to cope

With that obstreperous joy success would bring, —

I hardly tried now to rebuke the spring

My heart made, finding failure in its scope.

From Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came, by Robert Browning

In May 2017, I began researching the circumstances by which a sexting relationship between disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner with a 15 year-old girl from North Carolina came to have a significant, likely decisive, impact on the 2016 election. What I found in my research immediately aroused my suspicion that a serious fraud had been perpetrated on the American people related to the FBI investigation into Anthony Weiner and the Clinton emails found on a laptop computer belonging to Weiner in the course of that investigation. Hundreds of hours spent researching events over the past nearly three-and-a-half years has hardened my suspicion into conviction.

Several times I began writing drafts of stories based upon information I uncovered in my research, but each time I abandoned the project because I felt what I had found was too outlandish to be believed.

I am conscious of the admonition that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof,” the problem I have now is too much evidence, not a lack. My dilemma is that I am not a professional journalist or even an amateur with any sort of following. Therefore, know that readers will not be willing to ride along with me very far if they have no clear idea of the destination; on the other horn, I fear that summarizing what I have uncovered will cause readers to dismiss me out of hand because the claims will see too extraordinary, and they will not be willing to spend several hours reading to determine if they are justified.

In his 1951 essay, Irony as a principle of structure, literary critic Cleanth Brooks wrote:

The poet can legitimately step out into the universal only by first going through the narrow door of the particular. The poet does not select an abstract theme and then embellish it with concrete details. On the contrary, he must establish the details, must abide by the details, and through his realization of the details attain to whatever general meaning he can attain. The meaning must issue from the particulars; it must not seem to be arbitrarily forced upon the particulars.

I’ve come to realize that Brooks’s admonition to poets applies to my situation. There is no way I can blurt out the truth I have stumbled upon. I have to lay out all of the facts I have gathered and hope that readers will come along for the ride with me and see what meaning issues from these particular facts.

I therefore have settled upon stating here a thesis, which I believe is supported by the facts I will lay out in upcoming stories, and a table of contents with a brief summary of the issues to be examined in each of the upcoming stories in this series, which I suppose I might as well refer to chapters.

Thesis:

The American people have been the victims of a series of hoaxes, many of them as yet undetected, perpetrated by a loosely affiliated organization of foreign and domestic political leaders, oligarchs, and opportunistic stooges in their employ. These hoaxes are part of an effort to disrupt the Western alliance, which, by virtue of the combined military and economic might of the United States and the European Union, has been the dominant organizing force in global politics since World War II. These hoaxes are a significant and underappreciated aspect of the information warfare and psychological operations directed by Russia and affiliated nations, individuals, and entities dissatisfied with the existing global order, as documented in the Mueller Report and elsewhere. The Anthony Weiner sexting saga, and its eventual influence on the 2016 election involves a series of such hoaxes. Identifying and explicating these hoaxes, provides a clearer insight into the nature and extent of the current geopolitical struggle.

Table of Contents:

Introduction: See above.

Chapter 1: A brief summary of the basic facts of how, in 2016, the anonymous allegations of a 15 year-old girl in the British tabloid the Daily Mail, led to an FBI investigation into Anthony Weiner, which led to the discovery of emails between Hillary Clinton and Huma Abedin, which, in turn, led to the reopening of the Clinton email investigation in late October 2016, and to FBI Director James Comey’s notification to congress that the investigation had been reopened 11 days before the 2016 election.

Chapter 2: Explores the background of Alana Goodman, the reporter who broke the Daily Mail story, the initial loose thread I spotted and began to pull on in May 2017.

Chapter 3: Examines Anthony Weiner’s 2011 sexting scandal and exposes a hoax perpetrated by Andrew Breitbart that is at the center of the scandal.

Chapter 4: Examines Anthony Weiner’s 2013 sexting scandal and explores the motives of Sydney Leathers, the young woman at the center of the scandal.

Chapter 5: Examines the allegations in the Daily Mail story and the motives of the participants, and evidence of a hoax at the center of the scandal.

Chapter 6: Examines the prosecution of Anthony Weiner.

Chapter 7: Examines the seizure of Anthony Weiner’s laptop, and the discovery of the Clinton emails.

Chapter 8: Examines the decision to reopen the Clinton email investigation and notify congress in late October 2016.

Chapter 9: Examines the influence campaign waged against James Comey.

Chapter 10: Examines the cover up of the operation to influence the 2016 and the purge of personnel insufficiently loyal to Donald Trump.

Chapter 11: Links the Weiner influence operation to the Russian-led information war.

Chapter 12: Explores the meaning of the evidence.

I reserve the right to alter these chapters as I progress through publication, and will update with links to the other chapters and to podcasts as they get published.