Badlands Brief
Tulsi Exposes Traitors; Peace Talks in Pakistan
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.
Impeachment Bombshell: Secret Memos Expose Ukraine Accuser
Newly declassified Intelligence Community Inspector General memos from August 2019 document that the whistleblower whose complaint triggered President Donald Trump’s first impeachment acknowledged potential perceptions of political bias, including prior work with then–Vice President Joe Biden and being a registered Democrat. The inspector general concluded that those indications did not alter the agency’s assessment that the complaint “appears credible.”
According to the memos, the whistleblower told investigators he had worked closely with Biden on Ukraine policy and had traveled with him to Ukraine. The complaint itself was based on secondhand information rather than direct knowledge of the events described.
The documents also describe a second intelligence official, identified as “Witness 2,” who reviewed the Trump–Ukraine call transcript for situational awareness and assisted the whistleblower, citing a “moral and patriotic duty.” The memo states that this official had previously worked with former FBI agent Peter Strzok.
GhostofBasedPatrickHenry: Here is the key portion of the article:
The documents declassified by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard at the request of Just the News provide a starkly different portrait of the alleged whistleblower whose name and face were never shown to the public and whose lawyerly written letter accusing Trump of hijacking Ukraine policy for political gain was heralded by Democrats to launch impeachment proceedings.
#OurGirl Tulsi coming through in the clutch to declassify explosive documents just as Mossad Media is desperately trying to remove her from office.
As I have said many times now, Tulsi Gabbard is probably the only person in this entire administration that I trust (outside of Trump) to complete the mission and drain the swamp. She has been as consistent in her policy positions as Ron Paul throughout her career, and principled when it comes to unnecessary Forever Wars. The fact that Mossad Media has sic’d all of their feral dogs on her lends credence to her importance.
As for this document, it clearly demonstrates that the testimony that triggered President Trump’s first impeachment trial was complete and utter bullshit. The word “TREASON” gets thrown around a lot, but this is a textbook example.
The compounding problem for The Swamp is that this now implicates a number of intelligence agencies, along with both the Democrat and Republican political parties. It is crystal clear that the 2020 COVID scam and stolen election were all part of a coup that began with RussiaGate in 2016.
It is not enough for people to go to prison, or be executed for treason. (Though both must be pursued as part of due process.) We now need to reevaluate the makeup of the entire Intelligence Community, because as of now it would appear that all or most of it is likely implicated in this coup to overthrow President Trump. If the other intelligence agencies that are not named in this report claim ignorance, then they have demonstrated they are not just useless and incompetent, but a dangerous liability and should therefore be immediately disbanded. There really is no reasonable excuse for why this wasn’t addressed when it happened in 2019.
I consider this to be an act of war by a hostile domestic [and likely foreign] enemy, and therefore the military should now step in and respond to this threat accordingly. The scope of responsibilities of the Intelligence Community should be assumed by the military under the civilian control of DNI Gabbard operating with the authority of the President.
If this domestic enemy is not fully confronted and neutralized by the appropriate authorities, then we cannot have a government, because we do not have law and order. Without law and order, we cannot have a civilized society. We are simply living under the tyranny of an organized crime syndicate.
The American People have been more than patient with this band of boot-licking traitors. We have demonstrated a calm and peaceful disposition. The time has now come to turn DC inside out and Drain The Swamp. Enough is enough.
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US-Iran Peace Talks in Pakistan Fail with Two Week Ceasefire Still in Place
A fragile ceasefire between the United States and Iran has unraveled following failed negotiations, raising the risk of renewed military escalation and disruption to global energy markets.
President Donald Trump announced April 7 a two-week suspension of U.S. bombing operations against Iran, contingent on Tehran reopening the Strait of Hormuz, as part of a provisional ceasefire mediated by Pakistan and joined by Israel.
Talks in Islamabad aimed at extending the truce collapsed days later, with disputes centered on Iran’s nuclear program and related conditions.
In response, Trump ordered a U.S. naval blockade targeting Iranian ports and vessels, while allowing non-Iranian shipping to continue transiting the Strait of Hormuz. He also warned of possible strikes on Iranian infrastructure if Tehran fails to meet U.S. demands.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said any military vessel approaching the strait would be considered a violation of the ceasefire and could prompt retaliation.
The escalating tensions have already affected global oil markets, with prices rising amid concerns over potential disruption to traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a critical route for international energy supplies.
Burning Bright: Donald Trump is re-writing the rules for global trade and power projection ... and Iran is helping him do it.
The fragile off-ramp from the latest Iran theater hasn’t brought the quiet many expected.
Instead, it’s detonated a cascade of second-order exposures that are laying bare the true mechanics of what I’ve been mapping for years: the acceleration of Sovereign Disentanglement, the patient architecture of the Sovereign Alliance steadily inverting the Unipolar Globalist Hegemonic Paradigm in real time, whether the next escalation arc materializes in Iran once again or in another proxy flashpoint.
What they call de-escalation here isn’t retreat or representative of a stalemate. It’s the public translation layer revealing pre-coordinated realignments in global energy leverage and currency rails, the kind that force the Collectorate to confront its dependencies head-on.
Look no further than the immediate systemic panic in the midst of what SHOULD be an exultant global news cycle.
Iran is asserting direct and tiered control over the Hormuz Strait—limiting daily transits, vetting affiliations and floating toll structures that lean into DeFi rails for reconstruction funding—which hasn’t just tightened the flow of lifeblood through a critical artery, but which has triggered howls about “dangerous precedents” from the very institutions that once enforced the old rules-based order as globalist gospel.
This is the template some of us projected long before the crisis arc kicked off: a sovereign actor leveraging its God-given geography and resources not for the benefit of distant overlords, but for its own people and the emerging multipolar framework.
Sound familiar?
It’s the same inversion playbook we watched unfold in Venezuela, where the narrative of regime menace masked the actual continuity of stewardship redirecting energy abundance away from engineered scarcity cults and toward cooperative, self-interested arcs, which is why the Venezuela Model inspired my naming of the Sovereign Disentanglement pattern in the first place.
Now, we have Donald Trump threatening an energy blockade that the US is largely insulated from, but that the Globalist Hegemon represented by NATO and the EU cannot afford.
The Globalist Hegemon never feared this Regime or that. It feared precisely this emergent and naturalistic template being allowed to flourish: nations drawing strength inward first, then radiating it outward on their own terms, untethered from the web of interdependencies that kept the collectivist house of cards propped up.
***
GhostofBasedPatrickHenry: In all of the chaos of the “failed” Pakistan negotiations, there were some interesting and notable developments that suggest that the official narrative may not be entirely accurate.
The first development is a report that the US has agreed to unfreeze $100 billion in assets as a show of good faith.
The report was first published by Reuters and cited a senior Iranian official as its source. US officials denied the report, but the funds are allegedly held in Qatar and are directly tied to the sanctions President Trump placed on Iran in 2018 when he went withdrew from the nuclear deal. (He sanctioned Iranian central bankers, and those bankers were subsequently arrested by the Iranian government a few months later and charged with the exact crimes President Trump accused them of in his sanctions.)
The other development would be a report that the CIA used the Pegasus software, made by the NSO Group, to run a deception operation against IRGC officials as part of the rescue operation of the US pilot who was reported to have been shot down in Iran.
Considering that we are now being openly told that the US military is deployment deception psyops as part of its strategy in the “Iran War,” shouldn’t we also consider that these psyops may be greater in scale than just a rescue operation?
Couldn’t the whole story of the pilot being shot down be a deception operation?
Couldn’t the whole story of a war with Iran be a deception operation?
Wouldn’t that explain why the Iranian response to US missile attacks continues to be to deploy AI-generated videos documenting the story (from their perspective) using a LEGO aesthetic? It doesn’t seem like a believable war strategy of a radical Islamic regime.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu is posting videos surrounded by masked IDF thugs, declaring their intent to continue bombing every village in southern Lebanon.
In response, President Erdogan has repeatedly stated that Israel has committed a genocide in Gaza, and is now conducting another one in Lebanon. He said that Israel is threatening the stability of the region, and that Turkey may need to intervene.
You may recall that exactly a year ago I had forecast that Turkey may become the army that would intervene to stop Netanyahu and the IDF.
Accelerate.
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Eric Swalwell Drops Out of California Governor’s Race
U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell suspended his campaign for California governor on April 12, 2026, amid multiple allegations of sexual misconduct, saying he would fight the claims while acknowledging past “mistakes in judgment.”
The allegations include claims by several women, including a former staffer who accused him of sexual assault, as reported by CNN and the San Francisco Chronicle. Swalwell has denied the accusations, calling them false.
The controversy prompted calls from some Democratic lawmakers and allies for him to withdraw from the race.
Separately, the Department of Homeland Security has opened an investigation into Swalwell’s employment of a Brazilian nanny, according to reporting.
Ashe in America: Eric Swalwell was running for Governor of California despite being busted for his relationship with a Chinese spy. He had zero consequences and kept all his titles and continued to throw the right kind of political tantrums in the wake of that scandal, so it’s no wonder that he was able to pull off a run in the first place.
That is, a sitting US Congressman was caught banging a Chinese spy and went on to make a run for chief executive.
But that’s an old scandal.
Swalwell’s current scandal is also a sex scandal, but it reminds me of that time Cuomo enabled the murder of New York seniors and was dramatically removed from office for…being inappropriate with his female staff.
Pelosi told Swalwell to drop out, reportedly telling NBC:
“The young woman who has made serious allegations against Congressman Swalwell must be respected and heard. This extremely sensitive matter must be appropriately investigated with full transparency and accountability. As I discussed with Congressman Swalwell, it is clear that this is best done outside of a gubernatorial campaign.”
Pelosi told him to drop out, so he did:
Hooray for Democracy!
Related: Over the weekend, the homies over at Marco Polo identified the young female in the viral video of Swalwell appearing to kick off a gang bang. Her social media appears to be dominated by sex acts on camera.
Thanks, Marco Polo! Follow up questions:
Who is the other dude?
What are we watching?
Who’s holding the camera?
Artemis Returns Home After Allegedly Flying Around The Moon
Graduate students and a professor at the University of Alabama have developed software slated for use in NASA’s Artemis II mission, reflecting academic contributions to the agency’s lunar program.
Artemis II, a planned crewed lunar flyby, is part of NASA’s broader Artemis program aimed at returning astronauts to the Moon. The agency is already planning subsequent missions beyond Artemis II as it advances its lunar exploration goals.
The mission has drawn contributions from across the United States, including institutions and individuals in southern Colorado, underscoring regional involvement in the effort.
Meanwhile, members of the Artemis II crew recently reunited with their families following a key milestone related to the mission, according to video footage released by ABC News.
Ashe in America: If the messaging of the current moon op is any indication, Artemis II is the beginning of a very long story.
We are told that the four-person crew completed a lunar flyby to conduct critical systems tests that are needed for future moon landings.
According to the “reporting”, the “astronauts” spent one-ish day around the moon after they spent four-ish days to get there, and then spent three-ish days to get back before splashing down and reuniting with their families.
Sure.
Future moon landings are the stated goal, and future moon landings mean future moon missions (and all their related spend).
Instead of pragmatic arguments for why this endeavor is an American imperative, we get emotional propaganda about fighting our Chinese adversaries or whatever. We have to go “back” to the moon — if we don’t, China will beat us to moon dominance. They’ll get all the moon resources.
How is moon exploration more accessible than exploration in Antarctica?
The moon maxis never provide the price tag. From the machine:
“There isn’t a single ‘per mission price tag’ published as a clean line item, but based on NASA budget data and audits, the best estimate of Artemis’ per mission cost is $4.1B.”
They don’t show us the price tag because they know that we’d say no.
BONUS ITEM
Orban Concedes Defeat After 16 Years In Office
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán conceded defeat in the country’s parliamentary election and congratulated opposition leader Péter Magyar on his party’s victory, according to media reports. At the time of the concession, Magyar’s Tisza party was leading Orbán’s Fidesz party by roughly 52% to 39% of the vote.
Magyar campaigned on addressing corruption, improving public services, and restoring Hungary’s relations with the European Union. The election outcome is expected to shape Budapest’s future approach to European Union policies and its relationship with Brussels.
Orbán’s tenure had been marked by disputes with the European Union over issues including Russia policy, sanctions, and military support for Ukraine. Ahead of the vote, he received public backing from figures such as Czech politician Andrej Babiš and Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico.
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Thank you getting a Brief out, when after a full weekend at GART, which was awesome btw. Seems the Orban story came out of nowhere. Would love more thoughts as the weeks go by. He seemed to be a great supporting member of the Sovereign Alliance.
To echo HGV -- Welcome back!
I like Tulsi. She is the iron hand in the velvet glove. I am looking forward to more revelation from ODNI. May we continue to see revelations regarding our "elected" officials and their nefarious activities.
Iran is still good theater. Israel has fully committed to whatever they perceive their role to be. However, it seems that they are straying outside the bounds of the Holy One who created them. Although, I could be wrong.
Thank you for bringing us these news takes. Thank you for helping us to think and not be lemmings running to the cliff.