Jeff Sessions, Andrew McCabe & Others hit the Headlines adding to the Russian Suspense….Jeff Sessions & Andrew McCabe are among those Trump now detests, since each in their own way have contributed to the Mueller investigation. That the prez & his lackeys would constantly resort to blatant lies to push back on the Russian scandal smacks of desperation. They are unable to present any fact-based evidence in helping prove his innocence, so all they’re left with are wild conspiracy theories & attacking the investigators. It always seems to work with his low-information base, those apparently possessing a combination of ignorance & willingly accepting the lies since the prez is leader of their tribe. But intelligent Americans are easily seeing through the charade. The important thing we should do is spread truths, including sharing this blog site with others, to refute the president’s barrage of lies & reset the debate into the realm of reality. And as a nation we must ultimately learn what really happened with the Russians, especially with their interference possibly swaying the election, so for that we must leave Mueller alone to let him complete his work. Only then will it come into clearer focus what corrective measures need to be taken.
The prez would know as well as anyone what Mueller is likely learning of Trump’s actions, which probably explains why our leader is now acting very very guilty. With no legal leg to stand on, TV lawyer & Trump perpetrator of falsehoods (Rudy) admits they’re playing to public opinion (rudy-giuliani-admits-white-ho
CNN’s Michael Smerconish slammed President Trump‘s “SpyGate” narrative as part of a plan to inoculate himself from when Robert Mueller is finally done with his report. Smerconish walked through the timeline of the “plot” alleged by the President and how the facts don’t exactly pan out in his favor. For one, he asked, “if the aim were to undermine Donald Trump’s election, then why did all this remain a secret until after the election?” He concluded that this is clearly part of an effort to discredit the special counsel’s investigation:
“To the President and his partisans, this is not about evidence. It’s about inoculation. The aim is to prepare the country for a scenario whereby special counsel Robert Mueller gives to Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein a report outlining a colorable case for obstruction of justice that would then go to the Congress for debate. If SpyGate is effectively sold, half the country will already be of a mindset that the Mueller report is the product of a flawed investigation, even though that’s unsupported in the facts.”
The biggest Russian scandal headline to hit coming out of the holiday weekend was this NY Times story: politics/trump-sessions-obstru
By the time Attorney General Jeff Sessions arrived at President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort for dinner one Saturday evening in March 2017, he had been receiving the presidential silent treatment for two days. Mr. Sessions had flown to Florida because Mr. Trump was refusing to take his calls about a pressing decision on his travel ban. When they met, Mr. Trump was ready to talk — but not about the travel ban. His grievance was with Mr. Sessions: The president objected to his decision to recuse himself from the Russia investigation. Mr. Trump, who had told aides that he needed a loyalist overseeing the inquiry, berated Mr. Sessions and told him he should reverse his decision, an unusual and potentially inappropriate request. Mr. Sessions refused.
The confrontation, which has not been previously reported, is being investigated by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, as are the president’s public and private attacks on Mr. Sessions and efforts to get him to resign. Mr. Trump dwelled on the recusal for months, according to confidants and current and former administration officials who described his behavior toward the attorney general. The special counsel’s interest demonstrates Mr. Sessions’s overlooked role as a key witness in the investigation into whether Mr. Trump tried to obstruct the inquiry itself. It also suggests that the obstruction investigation is broader than it is widely understood to be — encompassing not only the president’s interactions with and firing of the former F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, but also his relationship with Mr. Sessions. Investigators have pressed current and former White House officials about Mr. Trump’s treatment of Mr. Sessions and whether they believe the president was trying to impede the Russia investigation by pressuring him. The attorney general was also interviewed at length by Mr. Mueller’s investigators in January. And of the four dozen or so questions Mr. Mueller wants to ask Mr. Trump, eight relate to Mr. Sessions. Among them: What efforts did you make to try to get him to reverse his recusal?
More recent articles on the Jeff Sessions matter appear here:
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how-jeff-sessions-could-bring-
sessions-recusal-from-the-russ
opinions-the-debate-is-over-of
the-trump-obstruction-of-justi
There was more breaking news last night about Andrew McCabe writing a secret memo last spring, which may have provided a more accurate report on Trump’s reason for firing Comey, reportedly conflicting with Rosenstein’s account (might Rosenstein need to recuse himself?). And Mueller got McCabe’s memo. If Trump got wind of this, it could explain his intense dislike & revenge motives against McCabe. It certainly could also enhance the obstruction case. And always keep in mind, obstruction of justice alone is considered an impeachable offense. So read the articles from fbi-official-wrote-secret
Legal & Political Strategies
Trump refuses to do press conferences since he’d only get caught in multiple lies, so an interview in front of Mueller would almost certainly be a disaster for the prez. And if Trump should become so brazen as to fire Rosenstein or Sessions, Mueller may decide to quickly respond in kind by issuing the prez a grand jury subpoena. He may also leak the most damning evidence against the prez gathered so far. Or if the evidence is already strong enough, Mueller might opt for the nuclear option & seek an indictment. But I’m hoping this is the one true statement Rudy has made, that firing people to derail the investigation would “look too much like Watergate”: rudy-giuliani-trump-won-apos. Nixon’s Saturday Night Massacre precipitated his exit. Everyone would be better off letting Mueller finish the job & uncover the facts, from there letting the chips fall where they may. Just when the Mueller probe might wrap up is anybody’s guess is-the-mueller-investiga
In other news, an estimated 3.7 million documents from the Cohen raid are being poured through. Cohen’s lawyers have until the middle of June to finish reviewing the documents. The FBI is even capable of putting shredded documents back together. Stormy’s lawyer Avenatti is also indicating there are recorded tapes from Cohen the public would find extremely interesting, including Avenatti saying at least one of those audios has a conversation with Trump: michael-avenatti-addresses-mic
The FBI has obtained wiretapped conversations of a Kremlin-linked banker who later met with Donald Trump Jr. during the 2016 presidential election. Spanish national police provided the FBI with tapes of Russian oligarch Alexander Torshin’s phone calls with a convicted Russian money launderer, according to a special prosecutor from Spain’s attorney general’s office, Yahoo News reported. “Just a few months ago, the wiretaps of these telephone conversations were given to the FBI,” according to the special prosecutor, José Grinda Gonzalez, speaking at the Hudson Institute on Friday. Torshin, a close supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin, briefly met with Trump Jr. at the National Rifle Association’s annual convention in Louisville, Ky., in May 2016. Torshin was known to leverage his membership in the NRA for meetings with high-profile officials. “Mr. Trump’s son should be concerned,” Grinda said of Torshin’s meetings, according to the report.
Russian Probe
Obstruction may prove to be a slam-dunk case: watergate-prosecutor-giu
For a man with a lot of serious issues he needs to address every day, President Trump plainly spends a lot of time thinking about special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. If you’re one of his supporters, it can be a challenge just to keep up with the shifting defenses he offers for the things he and people working for him did during the campaign. It’s like someone on trial for bank robbery saying, “That bank wasn’t even robbed! Somebody else robbed it! And what we should really be asking is why the cops didn’t stop the bank from being robbed!” Last week I wrote a piece arguing that we need to stop chasing Trump down the absurd rabbit holes that he digs for us, where we pretend that some ridiculous lie he tosses out is worthy of serious consideration. So I want to tread carefully here, because the question isn’t whether Trump’s specific allegations have any merit. This is worth discussing, however, because it’s part of a broader campaign on the part of the president and his allies to create a fog around the truth of what happened in 2016. It’s plain that he desperately wants us to forget those events, particularly his own actions and those of people around him. And because the president is trying so hard to obscure the actual history of 2016, let’s review some facts about the Trump campaign and Russia that are not in dispute:
*Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, is under indictment for a series of crimes, some of which are connected to his relationships with a Kremlin-allied Ukrainian leader and a Russian oligarch close to Vladimir Putin. His deputy, Rick Gates, pleaded guiltyto conspiracy and lying to the FBI, and is cooperating with the Mueller investigation.
*In June 2016, Donald Trump Jr. was approached by an acquaintance with an offer of dirt on Hillary Clinton from a group of Russians, which the acquaintance characterized as follows: “This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.” Don Jr. replied “I love it” and gathered Manafort and Jared Kushner to meet with the Russians.
*When the story of that meeting broke about a year later, President Trump himself reportedly dictated a false story to be given to the press, claiming that the meeting took place to discuss adoption of Russian children.
*In July 2016, Trump publicly encouraged Russia to hack into Clinton’s email.
*In 2015, Michael Flynn, who would go on to become Trump’s national security adviser, was paid $45,000 plus travel expenses to deliver a speech in Moscow at an event honoring RT, a television network that acts as a mouthpiece for the Kremlin. He sat with Putin at the dinner.
*Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to FBI investigators about his conversations with the Russian ambassador to the United States, and is cooperating with Mueller’s investigation.
George Papadopoulos, a foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign, got the FBI counterintelligence investigation rolling when he told an Australian diplomat that the campaign had been offered dirt on Clinton from Russia in the form of hacked emails. (The diplomat passed the information along to the U.S. government.) Papadopoulos also pleaded guilty to lying to investigators and is cooperating with Mueller.
*Carter Page, another Trump foreign policy adviser, had been on the FBI radar for years before the campaign because they suspected that Russian intelligence agents were attempting to recruit him. In 2016 the FBI became concerned enough about his contacts with people connected to the Russian government that it obtained a FISA warrantto monitor him.
*Both in his confirmation hearing and on a security clearance questionnaire in preparation for becoming attorney general, Jeff Sessions claimed that he had no contact with Russian officials during the campaign. He later admitted that this was false and that he did have multiple meetings with the Russian ambassador.
*During the presidential transition, the Russian ambassador was picked up on surveillance telling his superiors that Trump’s son-in-law and close adviser, Jared Kushner, had suggested they set up a secret communications channel, perhaps within the Russian Embassy or consulate, so that Trump aides could speak to the Russians without U.S. intelligence agencies monitoring the communications. Even the Russians found this suggestion completely bonkers.
To repeat, none of that is in dispute. And it’s only part of the full picture of the Russia investigation, which has expanded to include other potential crimes. We can argue about the significance of any one piece of that puzzle; some pieces are very significant, and others may be trivial. We can also argue about whether Trump is innocent or guilty of particular crimes such as obstruction of justice. But the connections between the Trump campaign and Russia were so copious that it would be positively bizarre for there not to be a serious, thorough investigation, especially considering that we know Russia carried out a comprehensive effort to manipulate our election. Yet that is exactly what Trump is trying to persuade people to believe: not just that he’s innocent, but that he and everyone around him are so obviously innocent that there should never have been an investigation in the first place. Of all his crazy claims about Russia, that may be the craziest.
Some may remember that popular saying from election campaigns many moons ago to throw the bums out! Well, that sentiment is more important today than ever, especially those complicit in the cover up to protect Trump: throw-the-bums-out-of-c
It all started with a single probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election. That investigation quickly split into two buckets: the Trump campaign’s collusion with Russia and Donald Trump’s obstruction of justice. Then came the addition of the Stormy Daniels hush-money payment and her lawsuit to dissolve the Nondisclosure Agreement (NDA) silencing her about her alleged affair with Trump. Shortly after that heated up, the FBI executed a search warrant on the premises of Trump’s longtime lawyer/fixer Michael Cohen, and the rest is history. The Cohen investigation wed the Daniels’ scandal with the mind-boggling revelation that millions of dollars in apparent bribes flowed through the shell company Cohen originally set up to pay Daniels off. That’s opened up the possibility of everything from bank fraud and federal bribery charges to money laundering and tax evasion. And it’s far from over—Summer Zervos’s defamation lawsuit is starting to get traction and every day brings another Cohen impropriety. Trump’s erstwhile sidekick was apparently the de facto point of entry for international corporations and foreign leaders seeking influence over the Trump administration. If you are feeling a little overwhelmed by the flood of news, the ever-increasing number of Russian oligarchs you’re trying to memorize, and the sheer volume of Donald Trump’s misdeeds and legal liabilities, join the club. We’re all sitting right there with you, scratching our heads with one hand while crossing our fingers with the other.
But for better or worse, there’s a way to winnow all this down to a cliff-notes version of Trump’s tenure that comes down to one solitary word: corruption. The Atlantic’s Adam Serwer writes:
There are not many Trump scandals. There is one Trump scandal. Singular: the corruption of the American government by the president and his associates, who are using their official power for personal and financial gain rather than for the welfare of the American people, and their attempts to shield that corruption from political consequences, public scrutiny, or legal accountability.
Corruption is the one massive bucket that everything from collusion and obstruction to bribery and pay offs sits comfortably within. So the next time you’re fretting over that Russian oligarch you can’t recall or the crown prince you’ve never heard of, relax. Every story line has the same origin and they all lead back to the same crook: Donald Trump.
We’re now seeing Trump’s easily detectable & more aggressive tactics playing out in attacking Mueller & the investigation, as we find in the links donald-trump-no-longer-h
Trump simply refuses to protect the nation, as well as the Constitution, against the Russian attack, while shamelessly and falsely attacking Obama for not doing anything — even though Obama took significant and verifiable actions against Russia. I’ve used the following extended metaphor before to describe how ludicrous this disconnect is, but it bears repeating. Imagine there’s a massive building on fire. Two fire companies are ordered to put out the blaze. One fire company shows up first but fails to put out the fire and is pulled from the scene. The second company shows up, but instead of battling the fire, it sits on the curb across the street denying the fire is even happening — that the whole thing is a hoax inexplicably orchestrated by the first company. Later, the second company blames the first company for not doing anything about the fire, which it still claims never existed. That’s the insanity of this story. That’s the insanity of Donald Trump. That’s the collective delusion and ignorance of his base. Sure, it’s easy to lose the details in the face of the vastness and complexities of this attack. Trump is weaponizing the memory hole and the firehose of news for his own benefit, exploiting the short attention spans of his people and, indeed, far too much of the voting public.
I think Rudy lost it last night on insanity Hannity’s show, calling the investigators a lynching mob. Rudy has practically admitted Mueller is likely to find Trump guilty, so he’s turning this into a PR campaign against Mueller to protect his client from impeachment from a political standpoint. See the-intent-behind-giuliani
“Truth is relative.” Leave it to Rudy Giuliani to efficiently articulate the essence of the Trump era. Perhaps the presidential lawyer—in explaining how Robert Mueller “may have a different version of the truth than we do”—meant to nod to the ontological question, familiar to any philosophy major (or anyone who’s ever been stoned) of what’s really real. But he also was describing, in terms reminiscent of Kellyanne Conway’s “alternative facts,” the operative principle of this presidency. That principle is why President Donald Trump lies with such abandon. (The Twitter rant that launched his “spygate” push included 11 untruths in just five tweets, for a total of one lie every three minutes.) Truth, to him and his acolytes, is not a thing that exists. All there is are “versions,” and ensuring that yours prevails.
And how do you ensure that? By attacking every institution that might dare offer an alternate accounting. We don’t know exactly what Trump said when 60 Minutes‘ Lesley Stahl asked why he keeps slamming the press, but her paraphrase—that he does it so that “when you write negative stories about me, no one will believe you”—is compelling, because we see it in action every day. Take “spygate.” There’s not a shred of evidence for Trump’s claim that his campaign was infiltrated, but a chorus of Republican leaders and right-wing media are now running with it, with the single goal of discrediting Robert Mueller and the FBI. Likewise with Trump’s attacks on the judiciary, the intelligence community, the deep state (a.k.a. America’s civil service), and, again and again, the CROOKED, FAILING press.
Happy Birthday Rudy!
He was considered a superhero in the Big Apple for his leadership after 9-11. It looks like his star has fallen: giuliani-booed-when-ya
Trump Henchmen & Rally Crowds
Inside this link is described the real swamp michael-avenatti-instead
North Korea
I believe nuclear proliferation is by far the biggest threat the world faces, so to the extent Trump can navigate the tricky/perilous path in resolving the serious threat of North Korean nukes & even curtail the Iran nuclear program, I cheer him on (while hoping & praying a miscalculation doesn’t start WWIII). But Trump would love to keep hearing his Trumpeters cheering him on with chants of Nobel ringing in his ears, especially with build that wall & lock her up not working out so well, so he might be overanxious to have that meeting in Singapore & strike a deal just for the optics. It also helps him keep Mueller at bay. So there’s a real risk of Jong Un just stringing him along, or making a pact he has no intention of keeping. The Jong Un family has always broken their promises in the past, so any deal that doesn’t result in timely dismantling of their nukes along with airtight verification may not be much of a deal at all.
There’s a top North Korean official visiting us now for preliminary talks. A positive outcome can be hoped for kim-jong-un-reportedly-cried-o
And to wrap things up in part 1, Trump does leave the world worried & scratching their heads how-does-world-deal-with
For the west’s enemies and critics, the new chaos is welcome. Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping are united in their view that the postwar order was a victor’s order, organised to suit US interests and from which it has benefited hugely. China chafes under the supremacy of the dollar, the US’s network of military bases, its dominance of the great international institutions and the way global trade and financial flows centre on the US. Russia still smarts from how the ring of satellite countries that constituted the Soviet Union have since detached themselves from Russian influence. Putin wants to level the score – witness his invasion of Crimea, his siege of Ukraine (involving, we now learn, the Russian shooting down of flight MH17, killing all 298 passengers) and his armies massing on the frontiers of the Baltic republics.
Both see yet more opportunities spinning out of Trump’s incredible stupidity in deliberately destabilising the very system from which the US benefits so much. His waywardness is offering the chance to create new Russian and Chinese spheres of influence. China is being given the chance to dominate Asia, Russia the chance to recreate the Soviet Union’s influence in its old borderlands. And both can do it while talking the language of peace and respect for obvious global menaces such as climate change. Has a bigger fool ever occupied the White House? In Trumpland, however, both he and his “ base” see themselves as advancing America first. It is a universe that has created its own hermetically sealed reality. Trump’s long, rambling folksy speeches at his rallies – he uses “folks” a lot, diving into eccentric diversions at enormous length – are bound together by a combination of paranoia, vanity, prejudice and jokiness that is as curiously compelling as it is bonkers. But the unifying theme is that life is a zero-sum game: there are never gains from collaboration, no virtue in sharing and no value in anything but asserting your own will – with a gun, with a cheque book or with a missile. Give no quarter, look for the other side’s weakness and brutally cut the deal to walk away taller and prouder yourself. Trump’s fights and deals may reward the rich, but many of the disenfranchised rally to the philosophy of uncompromising self-assertion. It’s potent and it’s dangerous.
This may work with Trump’s base – but it is a ludicrous way for the superpower to behave. Worse, it makes everyone else adopt the same dog-eat-dog value system. The lesson of history is unambiguous. When the international system becomes a cockpit for economic, trade and national rivalry, armed conflict becomes more likely. Trump and the incompetent ideologues around him may welcome that: nobody else does. The best response is to show no weakness and stand up to him, as France’s Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s Angela Merkel do. And try to keep what is left of the international system together until eventually Trump is either impeached or voted out of office. But Macron and Merkel have the power of the EU behind them, itself now the world’s best and most powerful custodian of a rules-based international system. Britain is a weakened onlooker – a flyblown lion unable to muster more than a whimper. Our capacity is reduced by Brexit, just as we – and the world – need so much more.
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