What does your mental model tell you?

It has been two days since the release of the Horowitz investigation of the FBI. Enough time to let things simmer down? Perhaps not but like some browning motion device, much more time and new directions will have spawned.

I occasionally seek to memorialize what I am thinking so that I can look back a year or five from now to understand my state-of-mind at a given point based on my interpretation of what I think I see being reported at this particular point.

As could be predicted, all movie watchers saw the one of two movies they wanted to see even though they were watching the same movie. On the far left, the Horowitz report was a full exoneration of the FBI. On the far right, the Horowitz report fully validates the Deep State coup theory.

Certainly there is evidence for both positions and neither extreme interpretation is likely to be true.

My position for the past couple of years is that, similar to the mainstream media, there is a persistent left-lean to government employees and many branches of the government, distinctly and significantly disproportionate to the voting population. Does it constitute a subterranean secret socialist Deep State? No! But that doesn't mean the systemic bias isn't there.

One of my other predicates is that there is something deeply amiss among our national intelligence and even security agencies. We got early intimations of this early in the Obama administration, (or was it late in the Bush administration?), when, over a number of years, there were periodic reports of wild Secret Service parties, drinking, drugs, prostitutes, possibly under-age sex workers, at locations both here and abroad. An agency which we once assumed to be deeply professional was revealed to be a frat with unlimited budget for parties.

During the Obama administration we saw jailing of reporters, strategic leaking by agencies for political purpose, Capitol Hill Police incompetence (Awan case), CIA spying on Congress, and CIA and NSA leadership providing false testimony to Congress. Again, formerly well-respected institutions seemingly dissolute in values and purpose.

My original focus was on what was happening in our intelligence services but in the past six months I have begun to wonder what might be happening in the military leadership ranks. These are by-and-large trustworthy individuals with deep integrity but I have begun to wonder about what the institutional impact might have been from the Obama years when some large number (500?) officer careers were terminated early in order to accelerate new leadership more amenable to the climate change, light-hand-on Islam, gender, and other social justice priorities of the Obama Administration.

I have wondered whether the Obama Administration might have affected the future decision-making of the military branches in a fashion similar to what is happening under the Trump Administration in terms of the Court system.

So my bias is to assume that there is a Deep State and that it markedly left-leaning and also that there is something wrong and possibly political about our intelligence agencies and security departments disjoint from the past.

But I have also been deeply skeptical that this arises to a conspiracy, coup, or coordinated action. It represents systemic bias, amplified by normal human incompetence, and not structured actions.

So where do we stand after the Horowitz report?

Of course there was the first wave of opinion pieces released within an hour of the report's release. Pieces pre-written and based on opinion rather than content of the report. From the mainstream media came pretty uniform reports that Horowitz exonerated the FBI and found no conspiracy.

The second wave over the past 36 hours has included the first pieces from those who have actually read the report. This messaging is quite different from the first wave.

My interpretation is that Horowitz basically defaulted to the Nuremberg defense. That bad actions occurred but the perpetrators were following orders and the orders came from individuals in a system with a notable absence of checks-and-balances, oversight, or accountability. Therefore there was no crime to reveal.

Yes, bad and unacceptable actions occurred. Yes, there was a systemic bias in the direction of those actions. And yes, this is entirely legal.

From my perspective at this moment in time, it appears to me that there is great value to the Horowitz report. It seems to confirm that the Democratic Party funded the creation of a specious dossier (the Steele Report), that that report was quickly known to be at least suspect and likely substantively untrue. That the Clinton campaign in concert with members of the Administration, coordinated with mainstream media outlets to place the Steele Dossier in the public marketplace devoid of caveats. That the former Administration departments (DOJ, CIA, FBI) knowingly used the false Steele Report to obtain warrants to monitor (spy) on members of the Trump campaign and therefore, effectively spied on the campaign. That the then President knew of and was briefed on this spying. That allied intelligence agencies in other countries participated in this campaign of spying and entrapment.

And Horowitz finds that it was all likely legal.

Which explains why both sides find justification for their respective positions.

My interpretation is based on reading samplings of the whole report. My assumption that I am broadly correct is bolstered by the reporting of two registered Democrats, legal scholar Jonathan Turley (Horowitz report is damning for the FBI and unsettling for the rest of us and Democrats offering passion over proof in Trump impeachment) and reporter Matt Taibi (‘Corroboration Zero’: An Inspector General’s Report Reveals the Steele Dossier Was Always a Joke). It seems that there is a building revision to the initial mainstream reports of exoneration. The new version emerging seems to be - Yes, legally exonerated but bad actions and behaviors confirmed.

How correct am I? I won't know for some period of time. The validation of mental models is the degree to which it provides the basis for usefully accurate forecasts. To test my mental models, I need to forecast.

My forecast consists of eleven predictions (probabilities in brackets):

An indictment for impeachment will be executed rather than just a vote to censure (95%).

The House will endorse the two-charge indictment (80%).

The vote will be overwhelmingly, if not completely on party lines (95%).

There will be immense tensions within the Democratic Party with the large number of moderate Democrats elected in 2018 fearing for their political careers a la the 2010 election (80%).

Probably 30-40 Democrats will wobble. Even though Pelosi seems to have shown a marked decline in her iron-fisted control of the Democratic caucus, I suspect that virtually all Democrats, barring perhaps half a dozen, will fall into line. The fact that this mirrors the hardline whip for the Obamacare vote and the subsequent loss of 63 Democratic legislators in 2010 makes the possibility of a caucus revolt possible but I suspect unlikely (65%).

When the indictment hits the Senate, some faction of the Republicans will advocate for an instant dismissal but that will be rejected (60%)

The Republican Senate will use the impeachment process to further elaborate documented biases and failings on the part of the intelligence agencies (80%).

The Republican Senate will use the impeachment process to lay the groundwork for indictments of current and former members of the intelligence agencies who have committed bad acts that are not black-letter law illegal (80%).

After a 1-4 month impeachment process, the Senate will vote against impeachment (90%).

Evidence amassed from the impeachment process, from the Horowitz investigation, and from the Durham investigation will be used as the basis for some wholesale reform and personnel changes in the Intelligence agencies, possibly in other agencies as well (65%).

Evidence amassed from the impeachment process, from the Horowitz investigation, and from the Durham investigation will be used as the basis for only selected prosecutions (2-6) against individuals with the most egregious behaviors and demonstrated malicious actions. For all others, it will be the basis for dismissal from their positions to extent that they still retain them (55%).

My mental model is on the hook.

We'll see how usefully accurate it will turn out to be over the next year.