Trump Subpoena Means Mueller Wants A Closer Look At Trump’s Business….
The unprecedented amount of turnover in this White House hit the headlines this week, with more exits expected. Before commenting on the firings, I’ll bring us up-to-date on the Russia scandal. Mueller has issued a Trump subpoena for documents from the Trump Organization directly related to Trump’s businesses. Quite interesting. That was an area Trump had originally said would be crossing a red line & indicates Mueller is making progress by following the money. Some of this inquiry looks to involve the big Moscow project Trump fervently sought a few years ago. That may have laid the foundation for any shady dealings he had with the Russians right through the presidential campaign. And late word has it Trump was still pursuing a Russian business deal during the election campaign through a sanctioned Russian bank. If true, that would be illegal. That could explain a lot about Trump’s constantly snuggling up to Putin. Our prez might be susceptible to blackmail! And get this point, Mueller isn’t just asking, a Trump subpoena means he’s demanding those documents. Yes folks, mark my words the walls are closing in on Trump! Plus the drama over a potential Mueller interview with Trump continues to play out: as-mueller-seeks-interview-tru
The attention this week on who is the latest Trump campaign aide to be on the hot seat is Roger Stone, a Nixon crony & maybe as slippery of a character as we’ve ever seen in politics. There are a number of stories this week that Stone was in contact with WikiLeaks & knew of the John Podesta email dumps damaging to Hillary ahead of time, which WikiLeaks is the vessel Russia used to do their damage on the email side (which is a separate issue from the fake social media ads done by Russia & seen by 100+ million Americans). The Stone news is just another piece to a large puzzle suggesting collusion. Inside stone-told-friend-wikileaks-ha
Roger Stone reportedly said in 2016 that he had contact with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Stone, a confidant of President Trump, said during a phone conversation that WikiLeaks had emails regarding Hillary Clinton and her former campaign chairman, John Podesta, according to The Washington Post, which cited the person at the other end of the line. Stone said he heard the information from Assange in comments that came before it was publicly known that WikiLeaks had gained access to the emails of Podesta and the Democratic National Committee (DNC), the Post’s source added. Former Trump campaign aide Sam Nunberg, meanwhile, also told the newspaper that Stone had informed him that he met with Assange.
Now for the firings, in the latest Trump news national security adviser H.R. McMaster will soon be removed. Maybe Trump thought he was being too harsh on Russia. There’s been so many leaving, this whole thing has turned into a joke if it weren’t so serious. As for the State Dept, it was apparent Tillerson & Trump had a number of policy disagreements in key areas. They never agreed on the Iran deal. And recently, Tillerson questioned our preparedness to go into the Trump North Korea talks, while immediately supporting British Prime Minister Theresa May’s accusations against Russia where the spy & his daughter living in their country were poisoned (& still in critical condition in the hospital), so Tillerson was also quick to denounce Russia in direct contrast to how Trump always favorably reacts to the Kremlin. Trump demands loyalty from all underlings which squishes dissent, creating a bunch of talking parrot yes-men within his inner circle. It also struck me how reports came out last week claiming it was Russia who really nixed letting Romney become Secretary of State, which if true it would be easy to see why they would prefer Tillerson. This speculation may be crossing over into conspiracy territory, but I do recall when Tillerson was head of Exxon, he sought approval for a massive oil drilling project with Putin in the Arctic. So those two had very strong ties & big ambitions, but Russia’s recently revealed criminal activities became a bridge too far for Tillerson, especially when we know they meddled in our election & are routinely caught attempting to murder people.
Despite the Trump-Tillerson tag team often not being on the same page, together they did do a lot of damage. I see it as a mystery & dangerous miscalculation the way the State Dept. has been gutted, which being seriously understaffed is sabotaging our diplomatic efforts around the world & undermines our security. Many of these federal employees the echo views as the swamp, but experienced civil servants who know the ropes are critically important in advancing America’s interests & keeping tabs on our enemies. And in his typically classless way, Trump fired Tillerson out of the blue in a tweet. But Trump’s true motives could be part of a devious plot. This firing could be a strategic opening salvo in a deliberate wave of departures to create cover from all the chaos to fire Sessions. In isolation, dumping Sessions would really stand out & point towards the growing evidence of obstruction by Trump. But as part of an overall housecleaning, it would allow the Sessions ouster to fly more under the radar, so don’t be surprised if Trump continues to throw several of his top staff under the bus as part of a bigger calculus to get at Sessions, in ultimately getting at Mueller.
So we have a group of links below on the Tillerson firing, followed by a group on the John McEntee firing. McEntee certainly deserved to get the boot from being under a criminal investigation for financial malfeasance. So what does McEntee do next? Why of course, he immediately got hired on Trump’s reelection campaign, a perfect choice following in the footsteps of known shysters Manafort, Flynn & Stone: trump-world-goes-into-protect-
The upshot of such an environment in the White House is that—again, with the honorable and quite possibly heroic exception of Mattis—it will become more than ever the conniving and dishonest court of an unpredictable, ill-informed, and willful monarch. The president will hear no forceful disagreements; he will not be contradicted; he will believe that his instincts and whims are invariably correct. Those around him may not be quite as honest in admitting their lack of integrity as Peter Navarro, the economic adviser who recently described his job as finding the data to support Trump’s instincts. To stay in favor, however, they will have to do as he does—and hope that the president will forget his really stupid or dangerous decisions while they undo the damage. The dangers of an executive branch run this way, with public groveling and private deceit the order of the day, are evident.
The president’s men (and few women) will also know that what happened to Tillerson could happen to them. That includes Mattis. That in turn means that when the time comes they will be all too happy to betray each other and the president himself. When the clouds finally gather around Macbeth, one of the discontented nobles observes: “Now minutely revolts upbraid his faith-breach; Those he commands move only in command, nothing in love.” Such a moment awaits Trump, though unlike Shakespeare’s Scottish king, who is at least self-aware, he is incapable of understanding that. No band of brothers this: rather a mixture of wary scoundrels, opportunists, and very rare patriots who know that there can be no trust amongst each other or towards their leader. This too is a danger for when some serious test comes.
In the Stormy group of links, there are reports other women are going to chime in (more-women-want-to-sue-tru
Certainly, all those factors contribute to a shorter shelf-life for White House misrepresentations. But mainly — and this is key — Trump’s constant lying (more than 2,500 lies, by The Post’s count) has convinced a large majority of Americans that he’s not credible. The spin put out under his name is immediately suspect; the only suspense is in finding out which part is untrue. White House spokespersons have misled the press again and again, sapping their own credibility. Mention of Sarah Huckabee Sanders’s name evokes eye-rolls. In short, it does all “matter” — the lies, the mean-spirited attacks, the empty conspiracy theories. It matters because if you lie enough, the lies become less and less effective. Come to think of it, even when you are telling the truth, people may not believe you.
As for the last group of links, the special election near Pittsburgh in a district Trump won by 20 points, to have a Dem victory follows a pattern we’ve seen in various other elections the past several months. With voters being repulsed at Trump’s jackass management style (voters-reject-trumps-banana-r
Lamb’s breakthrough should petrify Republicans. The staunchest anti-Trump voters are clearly prepared to vote for Democratic candidates no matter their ideology. Trump’s grip on less affluent white voters has clearly weakened. This is also a sign that many of his 2016 supporters were casting ballots more against Clinton than for him. But November’s elections will not be a referendum on Clinton. They will very much be a judgment on Trump. And we’ve seen in one contest after another how lethal he is to his party.
Inside the-pennsylvania-race-proves-i
The race should be a blaring wake-up call to Republicans (“Commence panicking!”). This blue-collar district in the Rust Belt, ideally designed for President Trump, gave him a 20-point margin of victory 16 months ago. Moreover, the district has consistently voted Republican over the past few election cycles, and to top it off, Trump personally visited there twice, most recently on Saturday. Trump even announced tariffs designed to placate steel workers. And yet that 20-point advantage disappeared, thanks to massive Democratic turnout. Republicans were out spinning gullible reporters. We expected much worse! This will motivate our voters! Nonsense. This is nothing short of a disaster for Republicans.
Democrats have renewed hope of winning back white, working-class Trump voters. In suburban districts where Trump is already struggling with women, college-educated voters and younger voters, we could see a blue tsunami. The picture at the national level does not look any brighter for Republicans. The latest CBS News poll finds Trump’s overall approval mired at 38 percent, while 57 percent disapproval. His rating among independents is virtually identical (37/54 percent). The PA-18 result, polling over the past few weeks (both nationally and in swing states) and constant staff turmoil at the White House (more firings to come this week, we are told!) paint a picture of a president in meltdown mode. Fewer and fewer Republicans, even those in solidly red districts, will want to be seen with a struggling president, even if they are not willing to speak out against him or vote against his policy preferences.
In short, the vast majority of Republican officeholders will continue walking the tightrope. Too afraid of offending the GOP base, which is still solidly behind Trump, yet too afraid of generating a backlash among Democrats and independents, they are the proverbial deer caught in the headlights. They dare not dash to one side or another (solidly pro- or anti-Trump), but they are defenseless against the charge that they are enablers of a deeply unpopular president. If Democrats play their cards right, in November they’ll pitch a message to the 66 percent who say Trump has either hurt or not done much for the middle class. The classic bread-and-butter economic agenda for Democrats, focusing on wage growth, rising health-care costs and increased income inequality, will pay dividends in many swing and even red states where economic gains have lagged.
I would welcome the transition to a Dem Congress (even though prior to 2016 I’ve never been a Dem supporter), since the current version of the GOP has proven beyond a shadow of doubt they are subservient to Trump & no longer retain any semblance of sanity, so the party really needs to just burn to the ground at this point. At whatever point Trump, the radical-right & the echo can lose their grip on the party, it’s only at that time the party can start over from a foundation of center-right pragmatism, rationality & with a mission to represent most of the people, not a narrow fringe. This constant caving to large corporate interests & the fanatical hardcore base has been a recipe for disaster, so such a party needs to be wiped out, clearing the way for the rise (eventually) of a new legitimate party. And with word of Mueller issuing that Trump subpoena, it provides us with the hope & expectation this cancer on our country can soon be excised.
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