Badlands Brief
Nationalized Elections, Nazi Bankers & Sovereign Shielding
The Badlands Brief is your daily drop of Badlands’ takes on the narratives dominating the info war. Read on, and join the conversation in the comments section.
Trump Calls on Republicans to Nationalize Elections as Tulsi Gabbard Goes to Work
The Trump administration has launched multiple probes into the 2020 presidential election.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is overseeing a separate intelligence community review examining potential voting machine vulnerabilities and foreign interference, running parallel to a Justice Department criminal investigation.
Gabbard personally participated in an FBI raid on a Fulton County, Georgia, election facility, where agents seized nearly 700 boxes containing 2020 physical ballots, tabulator tapes, ballot images, and voter rolls, citing alleged violations related to record preservation and false ballots.
President Trump congratulated the agents by phone during the operation.
Concurrently, Trump has publicly called on Republicans to “take over” and “nationalize” election administration in at least 15 states, arguing it is needed to prevent undocumented immigrants from voting and to address what he describes as inaccurate vote counting.
He has endorsed two pieces of legislation: the Save America Act, which would mandate proof of citizenship for voter registration and impose restrictions on mail-in voting processes, and the Make Elections Great Again Act, which would prohibit ranked-choice voting, universal mail ballots, and establish national election audits.
Ashe in America: It’s comforting that after a few days of ‘the DOJ is sabotaging election fraud investigations,’ the administration — and the President — confirm that ODNI is doing its own inquiry.
Todd Blanche haters most impacted.
The Tulsi turmoil ran in parallel with the Martin madness these past couple days, as rumors that Ed Martin was removed from his authorities and demoted and sent to Siberia (or something) made the MAGA movement melt all the way down.
I cautioned everyone to give this story time, because the same people forwarding it are known for their gayotic narrative deployments, particularly since the second Trump administration began.
Also, Martin didn’t seem bothered at all, posting memes about lawfare and presidential handshakes while the internet tried to victimize him as proof of ‘Dummy Trump.’
It’s all very silly. We need better psyops.
Related: Yesterday, when talking about Tulsi, I said “the hunt is heating up,” and I think that’s being confirmed by this “election threat” deployment.
The people that steal elections—who weaponized the government against all of their political opponents and objectively engaged in treason—claim to be the victims now because people are finding out what they did.
I didn’t just read this in the ‘news.’ I learned yesterday that Colorado Clerks received a talking-to from Matt Crane, their handler, because I broke the news that Ryan Macias was at the clerk meeting while the meeting was still going.
‘We’re not safe if people know where we are!’
How very democratic, lol.
The funny thing is, I never said where they were. I said they were at the meeting, but didn’t provide the location. In my opinion, it was the embarrassment—not any fear of the people—that inspired the reprimand.
More specifically, the reason I broke that news is that Macias was pitching Colorado Clerks to fund his new NGO at literally the same moment that he was being implicated in willful election fraud in Georgia. The totals in the recount didn’t match but then, allegedly, they sent them to Ryan, and then they matched. Ryan was with The Elections Group, another NGO, when the total-matching allegation occurred.
Sources familiar with the reprimand told me that Colorado Clerks are no longer allowed to post to socials during their meetings, because it isn’t safe.
What kind of government do you have when transparency is dangerous?
I reckon Tulsi’s ODNI investigation is going to answer that question.
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The Swiss Have a (Nazi) Banking Problem
U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, announced that an independent investigation uncovered 890 previously undisclosed accounts at Credit Suisse with potential links to the Nazi regime during World War II.
These accounts were held by entities including the German Foreign Office, the SS paramilitary organization, and a German arms-manufacturing company, with evidence indicating that the SS’s economic arm maintained an account at the bank—revealing more extensive ties than previously known.
The probe, conducted by U.S. lawyer Neil Barofsky, also found that Credit Suisse expropriated funds from accounts belonging to Jewish individuals during the Nazi era and transferred them to Nazi clients.
Additional details emerged regarding the bank’s involvement in schemes to assist Nazis in fleeing to Argentina after the war.
The accounts are tied to the Nazi apparatus under Adolf Hitler, which orchestrated the Holocaust and the deaths of approximately 6 million Jewish people.
No specifics were released on the amounts in these accounts or their current status.
Barofsky had initially investigated Credit Suisse as an independent entity, but was fired after the bank allegedly obstructed his efforts.
Following UBS’s government-brokered acquisition of Credit Suisse in 2023, UBS rehired Barofsky to continue the voluntary review. UBS and Credit Suisse had previously reached a global settlement in 1999 that resolved all Nazi-era claims, including future ones, with both banks issuing apologies.
UBS described the ongoing investigation as a voluntary initiative, with UBS Americas President Robert Karofsky stating that the company accepts and deeply regrets the dark history of Swiss banking during World War II.
The probe is expected to conclude by early summer 2026, with a final report anticipated by the end of the year.
GhostofBasedPatrickHenry: This is where things get very spicy, and very interesting. It’s also where the narrative “cloud of war” seems to benefit a White Hat plan.
Allow me to explain.
This Congressional investigation into Credit Suisse was initiated by Democrat Senator Sheldon Whitehouse.
You may recall that Whitehouse was the insufferable prick who viciously excoriated all of President Trump’s Cabinet nominations last year.
The reason Whitehouse opened the investigation was to determine whether Credit Suisse had helped Nazi SS officers flee Germany and escape to Argentina by providing them banking services with extreme discretion. Whitehouse was first put up to this task in March 2020 by the Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC), a Jewish human rights organization named for a famous Nazi hunter.
In 2021, Credit Suisse hired former US prosecutor Neil Barofsky to act as an independent ombudsman to conduct an internal investigation into the bank’s Nazi-era accounts. A year into his investigation, the bank pressured Barofsky into limiting the scope of his inquiry, ultimately firing him in December 2022— just months before Credit Suisse would face insolvency and be forced by the Swiss government to be acquired by their competitor, UBS Bank.
By this time, Whitehouse and the co-chair on this committee, Chuck Grassely had heard that Credit Suisse had likely fired Barofsky in an attempt to conceal the depth of the scandal, they intervened, demanding that Barofsky be reinstated— which he was, by UBS Bank, after the acquisition was completed in 2023.
I will remind you that Credit Suisse’s insolvency was most likely triggered by massive asset forfeiture that was conducted by the DOJ’s Operation Money Flight, which had arrested investment banker Mathias Krull in July 2018, after determining that Krull had laundered $1.2 billion worth of funds embezzled from Venezuela’s oil company PDVSA. While investigations into PDVSA’s stolen funds had been underway for years prior to Nicolas Maduro filing his infamous [though relatively unknown] RICO lawsuit against the oil industry in March 2018, the trove of evidence provided by Maduro created a map that led to multiple raids in both the US and Europe— including Mathias Krull.
If the name Neil Barofsky sounds familiar, that’s because he was the Special Inspector General at the heart of the 2008 financial crisis, appointed to investigate the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP,) but also the [$55 trillion credit default swap] Mortgage Fraud investigation in the Southern District of New York.
It was Barofsky who testified in a Senate hearing that, “It is extremely unlikely that the taxpayer will see a full return on its TARP investment,” referring to the $3 trillion bank bailout.
Prior to these gigs, Barofsky worked as an assistant US district attorney in New York, where he “prosecuted 50 leaders of the Colombian militia group FARC on narcotics charges and successfully argued one of the largest accounting fraud cases in history.”
Simply put, Barofsky understands the corruption of the banking and financial systems as well as anybody, and also has the unique experience of prosecuting Colombian cartel members on narcotics charges.
I share all of this to demonstrate that in this fog of war, we see multiple lines of inquiry coinciding in strange and wonderful ways, with Nicolas Maduro’s 2018 RICO civil action lawsuit running right into a congressional inquiry that was started by a Jewish human rights organization, with both investigations ultimately setting their sights on the Swiss banking system—specifically, Credit Suisse—the irony being that Maduro is the most staunch and vocal anti-Israel world leader of the Trump era, which is why the Zionists have been so eager to see him overthrown.
Digging into articles from the past few years, I found one from Argentina that specifically cites Credit Suisse and PDVSA, while alluding to Credit Suisse’s history with the Nazis going back to the 1940s.
It even discloses that Credit Suisse has over 18,000 accounts owned by both white collar criminals and hardened cartel bosses that total over $100 billion in assets.
Citing criminal investigations— not the Maduro lawsuit—the article states that the PDVSA-related accounts at Credit Suisse, which were used to hide the money that was embezzled and laundered from PDVSA, were all opened between 2004 and 2015. That’s interesting because that is the exact corruption timeline that is cited in the Maduro lawsuit— though the lawsuit did not mention Credit Suisse or any other banking institution.
So would this explain why the Venezuelan economy was completely gutted an collapsing by the time Nicolas Maduro comes into office in 2013, compounded by the artificially crashing of oil prices by the Deep State in 2014, which brought Venezuela’s economy to a grinding halt?
The article names former PDVSA official Nervis Villalobos, who was arrested in Spain in 2018.
In a separate article that I found that was published around the same time (2022) by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, look who shows up and gives insight on Villalobos:
That’s our guy, Mathias Krull, who became a cooperating witness for the DOJ in exchange for clemency on his 10 year prison sentence.
The point is that the global banking system is being exposed—through multiple different tracks—for the fact that it is the actual cartel.
Trump Provokes a Global Shift in Economic Agreements, Media Warns of a New ‘Arms Race’
President Trump announced a U.S.-India trade agreement that would lower tariffs on Indian imports from 25% to 18%, contingent on India ceasing purchases of Russian crude oil and increasing buys of U.S. energy and goods; however, the Indian government has remained silent on the matter with no official confirmation or ratification, and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated that Moscow has received no indications from New Delhi of any oil cutoff, while emphasizing Russia’s intent to maintain its strategic partnership with India despite U.S. pressure.
Separately, U.S. trade partners are accelerating alternative agreements to mitigate the impact of Trump administration tariffs and threats, including new or advancing pacts such as an India-EU free trade deal, an EU-Mercosur bloc covering over 700 million people, and other diversification efforts; additional U.S. actions include threats of 100% tariffs on Canada over electric vehicle policy alignment with China and increased tariffs on South Korea, contributing to reported declines in the dollar’s value and shifts toward gold holdings by central banks.
On nuclear arms control, the New START treaty—the last remaining major U.S.-Russia agreement limiting deployed strategic nuclear warheads to 1,550 and delivery systems to 800 per side—is set to expire imminently without renewal.
The Trump administration has not responded to Russia’s September offer for a one-year extension (without inspections), with Trump indicating he prefers a new deal including China and downplaying expiration risks, stating, “If it expires, it expires. We’ll just do a better agreement.”
Russia has cited demands for involvement of Britain and France, modernization of uncovered systems, and prior suspension of U.S. inspections amid Ukraine tensions as complicating factors.
Experts and reports warn of potential arsenal expansions by both nations, a broader global arms race involving China, loss of verification mechanisms, and heightened instability risks.
Burning Bright: I discussed coordinated moves with India and Saudi Arabia yesterday, wherein Donald Trump is helping each set up Regions of Responsibility on both Economic and Kinetic fronts in response to his triggers, and the pattern is now repeating among the would-be Globalists in the Collectorate.
As America reasserts economic sovereignty, trade partners scramble—not into isolation, but into deepened deals among themselves.
They're even using the term, "shielding" to describe their efforts to employ, well, protectionism in order to protect them from Donald Trump's ... protectionism.
Which is exactly what he wants them to do.
Trump’s escalatory framing shields former rivals and bridge states alike, granting them domestic political cover to 'go their own way' while ironically positioning them as stronger, more viable trade partners under mutually beneficial terms, with Trump often rushing in to fill a void of his own making in short order, sending sovereign signal to others on the game board.
This shielding also extends even to the most escalatory theater of all: the one the Media Protectorate is only now beginning to awaken to.
To wit, the biggest Region of Responsibility is that being set up by the Tripolar Alliance, the Trinity of the US, Russia and China, Trump, Putin and Xi.
Just as new nuclear and arms treaties expire without renewal, rapid modernization programs accelerate on all sides.
The Media Protectorate—now a significantly-lagging translation layer—is finally picking up on this pattern, with headlines warning of a new arms race, of instability, of the return of eternal existential threats.
And yet … don't we have a contradiction, here?
Globalists once thrived on the prospect of endless war—or the perpetual narrative threat OF it—because it justified their borderless control apparatus, their proxy networks and all the parasitic financial flows that keep it all animated.
Now, they recoil.
Why?
Because the truth is beginning to dawn on them:
The Sovereign Alliance is real, which means that no terminal kinetic escalation is coming, despite breathless (and Sovereign-assisted) narratives to the contrary.
The 'New Arms Race,' in other words is entirely narrative—escalatory framing deployed precisely to grant shielding to all three poles for accelerated technological innovation, defense investment and sovereign pivots.
Clintons Agree to Testify Regarding Jeffrey Epstein
Former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reached a final agreement with House Republicans to testify under oath in the House Oversight Committee’s investigation into Jeffrey Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell.
The depositions are scheduled as closed-door sessions—Hillary Clinton on February 26 and Bill Clinton on February 27—with transcription and video recording, and potential later release of transcripts.
Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) described the testimony as part of efforts to examine how Epstein surrounded himself with influential figures and to provide transparency for victims and the public, while indicating openness to a subsequent public hearing if requested by the Clintons.
The agreement followed months of resistance to subpoenas issued in August, during which the Clintons argued the subpoenas were invalid and initially offered only sworn declarations about their limited knowledge of Epstein’s crimes.
Negotiations were marked by disputes over format and scope, leading House Republicans to advance criminal contempt of Congress resolutions—potentially carrying fines or imprisonment—which received some bipartisan support, including votes from nine Democrats against Bill Clinton and three against Hillary Clinton.
House Speaker Mike Johnson announced on February 3 that contempt efforts were “on pause” after the deal was finalized, marking the first instance of a former president being compelled to testify before Congress.
Bill Clinton had a documented association with Epstein in the late 1990s and early 2000s, including travel on Epstein’s plane, though neither Clinton has been accused of wrongdoing related to Epstein’s sexual abuse of minors, and both have stated they were unaware of his crimes prior to public charges.
The Clintons have criticized the probe’s focus on them rather than the Trump administration’s handling of the Epstein files.
President Trump, commenting on the depositions, called them “a shame,” expressed personal liking for Bill Clinton, and praised Hillary Clinton as a “smart woman.”
Some Democrats, such as Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-N.Y.), noted the development sets a precedent for future congressional inquiries.
Ashe in America: It would be so great if the Clintons testify and then Congress holds them in contempt anyway.
Most people are clamoring to hear Bill Clinton questioned about sex with underage girls on Epstein Island. Or the Hillary stuff from the Weiner laptop (horrifying allegations, this one).
That’s understandable. I want them punished for those things, certainly, though I’m not particularly keen to hear about it in detail.
What I do want to hear them questioned in detail about is their role in subverting the US Constitution for foreign interests (e.g. treason).
In the Steve Bannon-Jeffrey Epstein footage, Epstein alleges that Bill Clinton set up the 2008 financial collapse. It’s related to Epstein, ask him about that.
Fast forward to when Hillary Clinton was Sec of State, and consider the earthquake in Haiti.
How’d the CF get off the hook on that one?
It’s more horrifying allegations—ask about that.
In the wake of that earthquake, Clinton and her chief of staff Cheryl Mills were pushing to get Smartmatic elections installed in that country.
Mills said, “They just completed a successful election in the Philippines.”
I laughed out loud when I read that and, if you watch Why We Vote, you know why:
The committee could and should ask about that.
They should ask about all of these things—and Benghazi and Gaddafi and a thousand other scandals—get their answers, draft referrals, and send them both over to the DOJ for prosecution.
Then sanction them anyway.
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Trump Hosts Colombia’s Petro at the White House
U.S. President Donald Trump hosted Colombian President Gustavo Petro for their first in-person meeting at the White House on February 3, lasting over two hours in a private Oval Office session.
The encounter, attended by top officials including Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and U.S. Senator Bernie Moreno on the American side, and Foreign Minister Rosa Villavicencio, Defense Minister Pedro Sánchez, and Ambassador Daniel García-Peña on the Colombian side, produced unexpectedly positive tones and visuals after a year of public tensions, threats, and insults between the two leaders.
Trump described the meeting positively, stating “We got along very well” and noting prior unfamiliarity despite past friction.
Petro called himself “optimistic and positive,” reporting discussions on “concrete problems and joint pathways,” and left with a modified MAGA hat reading “Make Americas Great Again.”
Trump gifted Petro a signed copy of “The Art of the Deal” inscribed with “You are great” and “I love Colombia,” which Petro shared on X.
Discussions focused on counternarcotics cooperation (with Trump highlighting drug flows from Colombia), economic development near Colombia’s borders with Venezuela and Ecuador to combat trafficking, energy and oil issues, Venezuela’s border situation following the recent U.S. capture of Nicolás Maduro, and potential guerrilla threats.
The leaders reached general agreements on counternarcotics efforts and mentioned “sanctions” (though details remained unclear, with Petro denying talks of personal sanctions against him).
No major concrete policy announcements emerged beyond these areas.
The meeting followed strained relations, including U.S. Treasury sanctions in October 2025 on Petro, his family, and associates over alleged drug ties (which Petro denied), his criticism of Maduro’s capture as a sovereignty violation, and Trump’s prior threats and personal insults toward Petro.
A late-January phone call facilitated by Senator Rand Paul helped pave the way for the invitation.
Reactions in Colombia ranged from relief to descriptions of the meeting as a “complete success,” with Petro emphasizing the Caribbean region’s role in U.S. drug policy concerns due to shared coasts facilitating exports.
GhostofBasedPatrickHenry: The long-anticipated meeting of Gustavo Petro and Donald Trump.
Unfortunately, the meeting was not televised. I feel that a major opportunity for ratings was missed, as Petro has proven himself to be one of the more vibrant and entertaining figures in the TrumpaMania lore.
Because he has described himself as a passionate lover and romantic, I have decided to give him the nickname "Pepe Le Pew."
The meeting started off with an exchanging of gifts.
Petro gave Trump a colorful jaguar sculpture, and Trump gave Petro a signed MAGA hat that was altered to read "Make Americas Great Again."
President Trump also gave a signed copy of The Art of The Deal with a special inscription. Petro wasted no time in trolling the haters online with it.
(I told you that he's an awesome character in the wrestling soap opera.)
While we don't have any hard facts yet on what specifically was achieved during the meeting, both Trump and Petro have independently said in interviews they agreed to collaboration on operations against the cartels, as well as Trump looking into lifting the sanctions he recently imposed on Petro and his family.
I went and read the document from the Treasury that imposed the sanctions on Petro, and found a paragraph that stuck out to me.
So what is this organization? I asked ChatGPT.
So the Deep State literally has an international intelligence unit that tracks all the financial crime information that is shared between governments, and when Gustavo Petro—the one world leader that we know for certain is going after the cartels—shared privileged information about the group that he had obtained through official channels, it compromised the integrity of the organization and led to the suspension of Colombia from the team.
So where is this organization located? Where is their headquarters?
CANADA??? You have got to be kidding me! And this group tracks bank transactions and passes suspicious activity on to the FBI and DOJ.
The Mark Carney lore as the king of all central bankers has now significantly increased.
Canada may very well be the final boss.
Sidenote: I may do a stream this afternoon to dig into all of this. Stay tuned.
It is worth noting that after his meeting with President Trump, Petro held a press conference where he said that the next step in fighting the cartels is to target the major financiers and international structures that operate outside of Colombia.
Accelerate!
BONUS ITEM
The Epstein Media Cycle Continues Unabated
The U.S. Department of Justice released over 3 million pages of previously undisclosed Jeffrey Epstein investigative files, framed as the final phase of compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which had mandated full disclosure by December 19, 2025.
The release, delayed by nearly six weeks, included emails, contacts, calendars, recordings, FBI source reports, and other materials from a pool of over 6 million initially identified pages, with the remainder deemed duplicates, non-responsive, or withheld.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche stated that the DOJ had fulfilled its obligations, including submitting a report to Congress and publishing redaction justifications.
Victims’ advocates and attorneys strongly criticized the release as inadequate, arguing that millions of additional documents remain withheld and that it fails to address key questions, such as Epstein’s lenient 2007 plea deal, potential immunity arrangements, and government failures in investigating his abuse of hundreds of victims over decades.
Democrats, including Rep. Jamie Raskin, described the process as a potential cover-up, noting over 10,000 redactions and the halving of released pages from the identified total.
The scandal’s persistence is attributed to the files’ vast scale enabling ongoing revelations (e.g., Epstein’s elite meetings, unverified speculation about intelligence ties like Mossad, and links to figures across politics, business, and royalty), lack of new prosecutions, partisan accusations against figures like Donald Trump and the Clintons (without substantiated criminal evidence in the files), privacy violations for victims, and its symbolic role in public distrust of elite accountability, rooted in the 2008 plea deal and subsequent handling.
No further DOJ actions or prosecutions are planned at this time.
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Great job connecting the dots in the Credit Suisse take that the elites try so hard to obscure, Ghost. 👏👏👏
Our whole lives we have been programmed to think of Switzerland in glowing and nearly saintly esteem. Neutral, pristine, naturally beautiful, crisp, precise, lily white, Christian cross, Heidi, cocoa, eiderdown. It has perhaps been the biggest white-out cover-up of all. This is where the truly horrible things are cooked up and fomented, hidden behind an artifice of sugarplum.