This is a special free bonus episode of Ball of Thread related to the hack of Donald Trump's campaign and the genuine threats to his life.

To get your questions answered, support this podcast, and access all of the bonus episodes related to the series and current threats, join the Ball of Thread Patreon.

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Check out "Taking Out the FBI," the full episode this accompanies.

Read the accompanying post on emptywheel.

*********** Jim Jordan and James Comer have spent the last year and a half running their House Committees as Super PACs designed to frame the Bidens while attacking the FBI for ever having the gall to investigate Donald Trump.

These efforts have mostly been ignored outside the MAGA Cinematic Universe, flaming out completely when House Republicans couldn’t find the votes to impeach and effectively being rendered null by Joe Biden swiftly passing the baton to Kamala Harris. 

But Jordan and Comer have succeeded in a way only Marcy has seemed to notice. They have made Donald Trump less safe.

The threats to Trump’s life are genuine, as we saw in Butler, Pennsylvania. However, the most aggressive targeting of the former president may be from Iran. Marcy notes the Islamic Republic has been running influence operations targeting MAGA since 2020. The Intelligence Community has accessed that Iran hacked the Trump team after targeting both campaigns in 2024.

In this Ball of Thread bonus, Marcy connects the attacks on the FBI covered in Episode 5 to developments of the last few weeks to unspool the hidden dangers of the backlash to the Russia investigation, which became the Twitter Files, which now may leave law enforcement hampered in the effort to contain the risks to Donald Trump.