Marley Presten

Psychopathologist by training. Public policy analyst by trade. Religious extremism critic by inclination. MAGA opponent by moral imperative.

[Marley Presten @HoneyYouBettaDo]

Here’s the context your missing: Jack Smith was investigating efforts to overturn the 2020 election, part of that WIDE REACHING investigation included investigating financial activity connected to Trump's post-election fundraising operation, which raised over $250 million.

Anyone investigating potential financial crimes will likely examine business transactions, including records identifying the customers involved.

And naturally, a Republican political fundraising operation is going to have predominantly Republican donors and customers.

For example, suppose investigators subpoenaed ActBlue's financial records while investigating allegations of fundraising fraud—which I'm pretty sure is actually an active investigation.

If my 2024 donation to Kamala Harris appeared in those records, would that mean I was personally targeted for being a Democrat? Of course not.

It would mean my transaction was part of the financial records investigators were examining. That makes complete sense.

The same principle applies here.

A list of Republican donors or customers isn't proof of political persecution any more than a list of Democratic donors would be.

That's the distinction Grassley's framing obscures: appearing in an investigation's evidence is not the same as being the target of that investigation.

That would be like me discovering my name appeared in subpoenaed ActBlue records and screaming, “TODD BLANCHE IS SPYING ON DEMOCRATS! KAMALA HARRIS DONORS ARE ON AN ENEMIES LIST!”

When, in reality, investigators were examining the organization's financial transactions, and mine happened to be one of them.

See how absurd that conclusion becomes when you reverse the political parties?

That's the difference between following the evidence and falling for propaganda. The fact that you don’t already have this context demonstrates the effectiveness of the propaganda.

[Marley Presten @HoneyYouBettaDo]

Ever consider that might be because the call is coming from inside the house?

Have you considered that Jack Smith, immigrants, “evil socialists,” and the mythical Deep State are the authoritarian's designated scapegoats?

That perhaps you're part of the authoritarian's favored in-group, conditioned to see anyone investigating its leader as an enemy?

You're demanding that a political opponent be imprisoned for life, not because you've established that he committed a crime, but because you've been convinced he's your enemy.

That's not opposition to authoritarianism. That's how authoritarianism works.

And the irony? This very post is helping spread its propaganda. You've been taught to fear the imaginary tyranny of the out-group while cheering on the real authoritarian impulses of your own.

The most effective propaganda doesn't convince people they're supporting authoritarianism. It convinces them they're fighting it. 😬

[Marley Presten @HoneyYouBettaDo]

Have you read any of the indictments? Or the January 6 Committee’s report?

Smith was appointed to investigate both the classified-documents case AND efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

And the Committee’s findings raised additional questions about potential misconduct, including fundraising practices, that could have warranted further investigation.

What Smith ultimately charged isn’t necessarily the full extent of what he investigated. He had a LOT to work with.

I wonder if you’re confusing the scope of his investigation with the charges that resulted from it.

[Marley Presten @HoneyYouBettaDo]

You didn’t miss anything. The Fourth Amendment protects people whether they’re charged with a crime or not.

But it doesn’t prohibit investigators from obtaining third-party financial records through lawful subpoenas.

The question is whether the subpoenas violated anyone’s constitutional rights, not whether 639,000 names appeared in the records.

[Marley Presten @HoneyYouBettaDo]

Why would Smith need a “sympathetic judge” to obtain a subpoena? The January 6 Committee had already produced an 800-plus-page report documenting evidence warranting further investigation.

Subpoenas don’t require proof that a crime occurred. They require a legitimate investigative purpose and relevant records.

You’re alleging that Smith needed a cooperative judge to circumvent the law. That’s a serious accusation. Where’s your evidence?

Because I have hundreds of pages of documented findings not just justifying an investigation but legitimizing one. That’s why I have to stick with the notion that what he did was actually lawful.

[Marley Presten @HoneyYouBettaDo]

The January 6 Committee alleged that Trump and the RNC raised hundreds of millions of dollars by misleading donors about election fraud.

Jack Smith subsequently investigated Trump’s efforts to overturn the election, obtaining financial records connected to his political operation.

If your MAGA hat purchase appeared in those records, that doesn’t mean you were being investigated. It means your transaction may have been part of the evidence collected.

And that brings us to the outrage of the last 24 hours: Grassley presented those records as evidence that 639,000 Americans were politically targeted.

But appearing in subpoenaed records isn’t proof you were targeted.

That’s the difference between what the evidence establishes and what the propagandists want you to believe.

[Marley Presten @HoneyYouBettaDo]

@2xBeepBoopVodka @ChuckGrassley “Sure Jan” is my personal favorite rage-bait response. Although, if you’re going to dismiss an argument full stop, at least have the decency to post the actual meme. Come on!

See? Common ground! 😂

[Marley Presten @HoneyYouBettaDo]

I oppose MAGA. That doesn’t mean I’m wrong. You oppose Democrats or “RINOs,” I’m guessing. That doesn’t mean you’re right.

Neither of our opinions proves anything. That’s what evidence is for. I care about evidence, not party loyalty.

My objection to MAGA is precisely that: the idea that the strongman at the top gets to decide what’s true, and anyone who questions him is dismissed as a “libtard socialist” destroying America.

That’s not critical thinking. It’s obedience to authority.

So perhaps it’s more accurate to say I oppose authoritarianism. And I’d oppose it just as strongly if a Democrat were practicing it.

[Marley Presten @HoneyYouBettaDo]

Tim, I don’t have a theory. I have an assessment of the evidence.

My reading is that Trump and the RNC were the subjects of an investigation into potential fundraising fraud. Financial records were obtained through legal process, and approximately 600,000 Americans appeared in those records.

My interpretation is that Grassley stripped away that context and presented the records in a way designed to provoke political outrage.

What he did NOT establish was that those Americans were individually targeted for their political beliefs or that the subpoenas were unlawful.

If you have evidence establishing either, I’m happy to examine it.

Until then, you’re asking me to substitute suspicion for proof. And when suspicion is repeatedly treated as fact, it becomes the foundation of conspiracy theories.

I’m not willing to make that leap, regardless of which political party is involved.

[Marley Presten @HoneyYouBettaDo]

Sure. If Biden officials pressured banks to deny services based on political affiliation, I’d absolutely support investigating that.

But “don’t you think there were a few calls?” isn’t evidence those calls happened.

Banks independently assessing reputational risk is capitalism. Government coercion raises constitutional concerns. There’s a difference.

And that brings us right back to the propaganda in the original post.

Plant suspicion, omit evidence, and let the audience fill in the blanks until speculation feels like fact.

I’m willing to investigate your theory. I’m just not willing to mistake it for proof.

And surely you’re not so naive that you can’t recognize how the original post encourages precisely that conclusion without actually substantiating it—whether the author realizes it or not.

[Marley Presten @HoneyYouBettaDo]

Imagine you’re watching a magician perform.

The magician is Trump. The audience is his supporters. The investigators are trying to figure out whether the magician stole money from the audience.

I’m asking what the investigation actually uncovered.

You’re in the audience, screaming that the investigators are criminals for looking through the magician’s records.

Every time I ask you for evidence, you shout about something else. Open borders! Debanking! Democrats!

Meanwhile, the magician is standing there, delighted that you’re too busy attacking the investigators to question him.

That’s the trick. And you’re not the one performing it. You’re the one falling for it.

[Marley Presten @HoneyYouBettaDo]

And there’s the bait-and-switch again. Well, what do you think is a gotcha—yeah, it’s not.

The question wasn’t whether the committee established a criminal conspiracy. It was what the evidence actually showed.

The Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee documented extensive Russian election interference, including the sharing of internal Trump campaign polling data with Konstantin Kilimnik, whom the committee identified as a Russian intelligence officer.

You’re treating the absence of an established criminal conspiracy as proof that the underlying evidence was meaningless.

That’s a logical fallacy, not a rebuttal.

And dismissing documented findings as a “hoax” doesn’t make them disappear. It just makes it easier for you to avoid addressing them.

And that’s how propaganda works: condition people to dismiss inconvenient evidence as a “hoax,” repeat the dismissal until it feels like established fact, and eventually they’ll mistake their own ignorance of the evidence for proof that none exists.

[Marley Presten @HoneyYouBettaDo]

Oh, look. Another textbook example of propaganda.

You’ve taken four unrelated controversies, stripped away their individual contexts, and bundled them into one grand narrative of political persecution.

That’s called a Gish gallop, with a healthy dose of false equivalence and manufactured victimhood.

And here’s the remarkable part: Not one of your examples establishes that Jack Smith criminally targeted 639,000 Americans for buying MAGA merchandise.

You’ve provided evidence of precisely nothing relevant to the claim you’re supposedly defending.

But you have demonstrated how effectively propaganda conditions people to mistake a collection of grievances for an argument.

[Marley Presten @HoneyYouBettaDo]

The Fourth Amendment applies to everyone. Including Republicans. Nobody is arguing otherwise.

But a subpoena for business transaction records is not the same thing as a criminal investigation of every customer whose name appears in those records.

Whether the subpoenas were lawful, properly limited, or overly broad is a legitimate Fourth Amendment question. I’m perfectly willing to examine that evidence.

What you cannot do is leap from “investigators obtained records” to “639,000 Americans were politically persecuted.”

If you have evidence of an unconstitutional search, present it. Your political affiliation doesn’t establish a constitutional violation, and neither does Grassley’s gaslighting.

[Marley Presten @HoneyYouBettaDo]

And there it is again. Another accusation presented as though it’s a settled fact.

You claim the committee excluded meaningful opposition and ignored exculpatory evidence. Fine. Identify the evidence, explain what it establishes, and show how it contradicts the findings we’re discussing.

Because even if you establish procedural bias, that doesn’t automatically make every factual finding false.

That’s the distinction.

And calling the committee authoritarian doesn’t answer the question either.

We’re discussing documented financial records and fundraising practices. You keep responding with allegations about the investigators instead of addressing what they found.

You’re illustrating the very error I’ve been pointing out.

[Marley Presten @HoneyYouBettaDo]

Yes, Mark. Judge Cannon ruled that Smith’s appointment was unconstitutional. Nobody is disputing what her ruling says.

Now explain how a ruling about a prosecutor’s appointment in the classified-documents case disproves the January 6 Committee’s documented findings about Trump’s fundraising operation.

It doesn’t.

You’ve established that a judge ruled against Smith on a constitutional question. You have NOT established that Smith committed a crime, that the committee fabricated evidence, or that Grassley’s characterization of the financial subpoenas is accurate.

And we haven’t even touched on the fact that a procedural dismissal doesn’t establish Trump’s innocence of the underlying allegations. But we can save that lesson for another day.

You’re doing precisely what I’ve been criticizing: presenting evidence of one thing and pretending it proves something entirely different.

And after all that typing, you still haven’t addressed the actual evidence I cited.

[Marley Presten @HoneyYouBettaDo]

And there it is. Another person who apparently thinks investigating Trump means endorsing everything Biden ever did.

Human trafficking at the border is a serious issue. If you have evidence that officials deliberately enabled it, investigate them. Hold them accountable.

But none of that answers my question: How does criticizing Trump make someone anti-American?

You’ve offered an unrelated accusation, an insult, and absolutely no argument.

Trump is not America. Criticizing a president is not treason. And demanding accountability isn’t a partisan principle unless you only believe in it when the other party is in power.

I’m sorry that get your panties in a bunch.

[Marley Presten @HoneyYouBettaDo]

Yes, Judge Cannon dismissed the classified-documents case. On the grounds that Smith was improperly appointed. That’s a real ruling, not something I’m disputing.

But she did NOT rule that Trump was innocent, that the evidence was fabricated, or that the financial subpoenas in the separate election investigation were improper.

You’re citing a ruling about HOW a prosecutor was appointed as though it proves WHY investigators collected financial records.

Two different investigations. Two different legal questions.

Once again, you’re presenting evidence of one thing as proof of something else.

That’s the distinction you keep missing.

Happy to bookmark this and revisit once the 11th circuit throws out her findings and finally releases Volume 2.

[Marley Presten @HoneyYouBettaDo]

See? You just did it again.

Let’s try an analogy.

Imagine ten witnesses testify that someone robbed a bank. One witness says the robber drove away in a red car. Another says the car was blue.

Does that disagreement prove the robbery never happened? Does it mean the other nine witnesses lied? Of course not.

You’ve identified a disputed detail in Hutchinson’s testimony. That’s fair game for scrutiny.

But “her account was contested” does NOT mean “she was proven to have lied,” much less “the entire January 6 investigation was a sham.”

And it certainly doesn’t disprove the committee’s separate findings about Trump’s fundraising operation.

You’re taking one disputed detail and pretending it invalidates an entire mountain of evidence.

THAT is the distinction you keep missing.

[Marley Presten @HoneyYouBettaDo]

You’re confusing making an accusation with proving it.

Saying the committee “concealed and distorted evidence” isn’t challenging its findings. It’s alleging misconduct without showing what evidence was distorted, how, or which conclusions it changes.

And an article reporting allegations that a witness lied doesn’t establish that she did, much less invalidate an entire investigation.

Notice what you still haven’t done? Address the documented fundraising operation we were actually discussing.

Instead, you’ve declared the investigators corrupt and used that accusation to dismiss everything they uncovered.

That’s the exact propaganda mechanism I’m describing: replace evidence with suspicion, repeat the suspicion until it sounds like fact, then treat the investigation as discredited.

Do you see the distinction? Because until you do, you’re going to keep mistaking your accusations for arguments—and demonstrating my point every time you try to disprove it.