Let’s Drain the Swamp of all the Corruption & Crime that has come to DC….For once I agree with Trump & his merry band of Trumpeters, we need to drain the swamp! But not the swamp in place we he arrived, but the swamp he brought with him to DC must be drained! There are plenty of swamp creatures who’ve latched onto Trump, which we’ll get into the details further below. But as always in part 1, we begin with Russian updates. The excerpts below from napolitano-explains-how-trump-tower-meeting-could-amount-to are certainly newsworthy. Rarely does the audience of certain Fox shows, such as Fox & Friends, Carlson, Hannity or Ingraham, ever hear the truth. But occasionally, little snippets of facts come out, as we see here:
Fox News senior judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano said early Tuesday that the 2016 meeting in Trump Tower that President Trump confirmed was meant to gather information on then-Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton could amount to a crime of conspiracy. During an appearance on “Fox & Friends,” host Steve Doocy asked the former judge whether it is against the law for a person who works in politics to “try and dig up dirt on your opponent?” “No of course not, and everybody does it, and to that extent, the president’s correct,” Napolitano said. But the analyst added that there are “federal statutes that prohibit receiving something of value from a foreign national, foreign entity or foreign government.” “So was the purpose of this meeting to receive something of value? That’s something Bob Mueller’s going to have to look at,” Napolitano continued, referring to the special counsel investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, including whether the Trump campaign colluded with Moscow.
“Is there a crime here or conspiracy?” co-host Ainsley Earhardt asked Napolitano. “I don’t know the answer to that. But unfortunately, a lot of these statutes are written to make it easier for the government to convict,” Napolitano said in response. “So if there was an agreement to receive dirt on Hillary from the Russians, even if the dirt never came, if those who agreed, at least one of them, took some step in furtherance of the agreement, then there is the potential crime for conspiracy,” Napolitano added. Napolitano’s comments come just days after the president confirmed June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower between campaign officials including his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., and a Russian lawyer was meant to gather information on Clinton.
Trump Tower Meeting
Mueller may be closing in on proving Trump crimes are a family affair. A year ago sonny-boy jr. got on insanity Hannity’s show to lie about the Trump Tower meeting. The opening to the article what-we-know-about-the-trump-tower-meeting is posted here, but click on the link to see many details of what we know so far about that meeting:
When he sat down with Fox News’s Sean Hannity in July 2017, Donald Trump Jr. offered Hannity’s viewers an assurance about his willingness to be forthcoming about the meeting at Trump Tower on June 9, 2016. “I just want the truth to get out there,” he assured Hannity. “As far as this incident is concerned, this is all of it?” Hannity asked. “This is everything,” Trump Jr. affirmed. “This is everything.” It was not everything. Over the next 13 months, more details about that meeting involving Trump Jr., brother-in-law Jared Kushner and then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort emerged, some of it despite Trump Jr.’s apparent attempts at obfuscation. In light of that, we decided to walk through everything we know about the origins of that meeting, what happened during the meeting and the aftermath, and how it became public.
Of course, as we see these shifting explanations about the Trump Tower meeting, along the way we’ve caught Trump & his puppets in numerous lies. The Trump tweet just from yesterday made several claims about the Russian case, all of which were basic flat-out lies to again try discrediting the investigation: trump-lies-mueller-investigation-origins-papadopoulos. His echo co-conspirators like those on Fox fake news have played the Hillary card for decades, so once again they’ll blame Hillary for that meeting with the Russians as a way to justify their own collusion. That logic has grown as preposterous as it seems. Also, the Steele dossier is not what initially launched the investigation. And there was no grand conspiracy from the intelligence agencies out to get Trump during the campaign. How Trumpeter nudniks can keep buying this stuff, it’s really an embarrassment to the intellect of some who ostensibly comprise the human race. The last paragraph in this posting from donald-trumps-endgame-he-may-admit-collusion-and-claim-he-was-saving-america-from-hillary explains it’s ultimately up to the American people not to let them get away with their crimes, which highlights the importance of sharing this blog in helping inform the citizenry:
Donald Trump’s presidency is like a poorly written spy thriller turned into real life. The newest twist in this painful never-ending story? After many months of denying that his son and other campaign representatives met with a Russian agent to discuss receiving damaging information about Hillary Clinton — the cover story being that the meeting in Trump Tower was about the adoptions of Russian children — on Sunday Trump admitted on Twitter that this was all a lie. He proclaimed: “This was a meeting to get information on an opponent, totally legal and done all the time in politics – and it went nowhere. I did not know about it!” I have explained on numerous occasions that Donald Trump colluded with Russia in plain sight to steal the 2016 presidential election from Hillary Clinton and the American people. Trump has also continued to obstruct justice to conceal what was probably a crime and certainly a treasonous act.
Trump and his spokespeople and other allies have been shifting the narrative from whether Donald Trump and his inner circle colluded with Russians during the 2016 election to “So what! Collusion is not illegal!” Trump’s confession on Sunday is but the next step in an overall strategy of normalizing the heretofore unthinkable in American politics and society. In many ways, this is the Trump’s administration’s guiding principle. Donald Trump will also continue his assault on Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Party and their voters’ loyalty, patriotism and humanity. This too is but an extension of a decades-long strategy by Republicans and the right-wing media, in which violent and eliminationist rhetoric — and stochastic terrorism — directed at liberals, progressives, and Democrats is the norm. Trump may finally admit that he worked with the Russians to stop Hillary Clinton because she was a “threat” to the American people and the “American way of life.” Donald Trump will hide his behavior, and that of his allies, behind a mask that their goal was pure and patriotic.
Trump’s political movement meets the definition of a cult. As explained by Steven Hassan, one of the world’s foremost experts on the subject, “Donald Trump fits the stereotypical profile of a cult leader. His followers fit the model as well. Many of them, especially the ones that say, ‘He could do anything and we would still believe him, we would still follow him,’ sound like people who have been indoctrinated into a totalistic mindset.” Republicans and other conservatives are increasingly authoritarian and possess a deep disdain for democracy. Research by political scientists and others has revealed that “winning at any costs” – even if that means subverting democracy – is increasingly all that matters for many on the American right. Other polling data and research shows that Republican voters also hold increasingly positive views of Russia and Vladimir Putin. Extreme political polarization and negative partisanship dictates that any criticism of Donald Trump is taken to be a personal affront and an attack on one’s own personal identity by his voters and other supporters.
Fox News and the right-wing echo chamber function as a type of state-sponsored media who help to legitimate most if not all of Trump’s policies and behavior. Donald Trump is one of the most popular Republican presidents among his own party’s members and supporters in the history of modern public opinion polling. Republican elected officials largely agree with his policies and do his bidding. Republicans, both elites and rank-and-file voters, will not abandon Donald Trump. Responsible voices in the mainstream American news media will be aghast at Donald Trump’s admission of guilt and his claims that collusion is just another word for “patriotism.” But given the malignant reality that Trump and his enablers have created, all efforts by the fourth estate to be the watchdog of democracy will once again fail to stop Trump and the Republican Party’s war on democracy and the truth. For Trump and his public, journalists and are “enemies of the people,” to be vilified and, if need be, targeted for violence.
Of course the Republican Party and their voters and news media will never stand up against Donald Trump. This will be true even if Robert Mueller uncovers incontrovertible evidence that Trump and his allies intentionally and in violation of law colluded with Russia to undermine American democracy and that Trump personally obstructed justice in an effort to conceal the crimes. Optimally, Donald Trump should be impeached, convicted and removed from office. That should also be the fate of any Republican elected officials who aided and abetted Trump’s betrayal of American democracy and his treasonous behavior. Unfortunately, this is exceedingly unlikely. Democrats may well win a majority in the House of Representatives this fall, but most polling models and forecasts suggest they will be unable to do so in the Senate. (In any case, a two-thirds majority is required to convict a president in the Senate, and no party is ever likely to hold such a margin.)
The American people are the country’s remaining hope. They will need to engage in nationwide strikes and protests that disrupt day-to-day life. Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons that range ranging from cowardice to learned helplessness and exhaustion, most Americans have become used to the moral, ethical, and political abomination that is Age of Donald Trump. Their outrage is spent. As historian Richard Frankel warned in a previous interview about the rise of the Nazis and its lessons for America, “The unfortunate aspect is that if you set the bar so high in terms of outrage and horror then people all too often let things continue when they could have been stopped earlier. Once it gets to that point it’s way too late.” He is correct. History’s epitaph for American democracy — that less-than-perfect time before the irreparable harm inflicted on our country’s democracy and culture by Trump’s presidency — may well include the observation that Americans surrendered their country with surprisingly little struggle.
Blame the Investigators
It’s become one of their favorite games to play, trying to sway public opinion. They’re desperately trying to engineer the end to the probe before the facts come out. It may be all they have left, so attacking the investigator has become a primary Trump-team strategy! They’re really pushing for an early conclusion to the probe (Labor Day?…Ha!). But their nonsense always plays well with their low-information base. With Trump’s increased personal attacks against Mueller, plus all the digs coming from the president’s lackeys trying to protect their corrupt leader, it’s always a good idea to remind the American people who Mueller really is: robert-mueller-bio-photos-trump-russia-investigator-history-2017-10#but-its-muellers-breadth-of-experience-with-high-profile-litigation-that-has-earned-him-the-most-respect-16.
So with Trump & his TV lawyer Rudy throwing barbs at special counsel as a PR campaign for public consumption, knowing Mueller won’t fire back, they also keep pushing back against Mueller’s request to interview Trump. If the two sides can’t come to an agreement, Mueller has 3 basic choices. He can either acquiesce to Rudy’s demand to limit the questioning, subpoena the president, or submit his final reports to Rosenstein without the benefit of Trump’s testimony. We may be at the point where enough is enough: enough-already-trump-needs-to-answer-robert-muellers-questions & also time-for-mueller-to-bring-out-the-big-guns. And yes, it is a perjury trap, simply because Trump is a pathological liar & likely guilty as sin over Russiagate: perjury-trap-is-real-its-been-set-by-trump. Rubin’s take posted here from tweet-by-tweet-trump-digs-himself-into-a-deeper-legal-hole highlights the legal pickle Trump is in, since the bottom line is, nobody is above the law:
As we have discussed previously, President Trump’s tweet regarding the real purpose of the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting is injurious to Trump’s legal position regarding the possible underlying crime (i.e. seeking help from a foreign national to win a campaign) and the obstruction case against him (e.g. drafting the false statement about the meeting). Likewise, to the extent Trump ever contemplated invoking the Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination, his public statements have now waived that right. He cannot refuse to talk under oath if he has talked about it openly. Trump’s insistence that he knew nothing about the meeting in advance is also fraught with danger. For one thing, Michael Cohen (and perhaps others) might contradict him, as might phone records of Trump Jr.’s calls to blocked phone numbers. (It’s a dubious argument to begin with. Does anyone think Trump Jr. would have the nerve to take the meeting and not tell his father?).
Moreover, Trump’s tweet reinforces the need for Trump to be interviewed, Bauer argues. “He is publicly asserting facts about a matter in which the special counsel has a clear and legitimate interest, while insisting he is not required to submit to questioning about them in an ongoing legal proceeding. He has expressed a judgment about two key facts: (1) what the meeting was about and (2) whether he knew about it in advance.” Trump’s loquaciousness on Twitter (not to mention his “executive time” and constant golf outings) also make it hard for his attorneys to argue that he cannot spare a moment to talk to the prosecutors. (“It is hard to see how Trump would be suffering inconvenience if required to share his views with the special counsel,” says Bauer. “If the principle ‘No one is above the law’ means anything, it would be fairly taken to deny the president the right to litigate a case in the press but excuse himself from the legal process.”) Frankly, we’ve never had a president who wastes so much time on golf, TV-watching and travels to his own properties. In short, Trump really cannot contain himself. That’s the very reason his lawyers cannot imagine letting him sit for an interview. The chance that he will contradict himself and/or incriminate himself just as he did in the tweet is close to 100 percent. And thanks to Trump, there’s a better chance now that he will be compelled to give such testimony.
All The Best People (that’s what he told us)
Here are those implicated, charged or guilty of criminal conduct so far, but there’s more to come: indictments-investigations-crimes-allegations-trump-associates. Morning Joe went ballistic on this GOP culture of corruption, helping emphasize the importance of how we need to drain the swamp: morning-joe-hammers-gops-culture-of-corruption-in-epic-rant. Under the category, which I’ve referred to often, of Trump corrupts everyone he touches, there was an overwhelming amount of news this week about crime & corruption that surrounds Trump. It’s not only that Trump corrupts those in his circle, but also corrupt people are attracted to Trump in using his status for personal gain. Just to illuminate the incredible levels of corruption drawn to Trump & are welcomed in based on puppet-like subservience, do you recall many of these names?
His campaign &/or White House staff: Manafort, Gates, Flynn, Cohen, Stone, Page, Papadopoulos, Miller, Bannon, Gorka, Lewandowski, Ross, Pruitt, Zinke, Price, Porter, McEntee, Dr. Jackson, Omarosa, Kobach & Shine.
Congressional Cronies: Nunes, Jordan, Collins, Rohrabacher, Meadows, Gohmert, Gaetz, Goodlatte, DeSantis & S. King.
Echo-Nutjobs: Hannity, Carlson, Ingraham, Dobbs, Judge Jeanine, Levin, Fox & Friends, Limbaugh, Alex Jones & literally hundreds of others.
All the best people? Hardly. That’s quite a list of incompetent buffoons, which I’m sure there are many others certainly deserving but not on this list. Even those who seemed incorruptible, such as Pence, Carson, daddy/daughter-Huckabee, & numerous prominent evangelical leaders, have sacrificed their integrity & been given over to a deceptive mindset. Talk about Trump keeping bad company, our song at the bottom of part 3 is dedicated to that reality.
Headlines overfloweth this week with news of Crimes & Corruption
So what are the headlines from this week alone? We see these reports the Commerce Secretary has cheated people out of extraordinary amounts of money: wilbur-ross-120-million-grift-donald-trump. In addition to all the legal jeopardy Cohen is currently in, we see new reports of tax fraud inside former-trump-lawyer-michael-cohen-under-investigation-for-tax-fraud. Trump’s former “fixer” needs to be ready to soon flip or be indicted. There’s also a Trump congressional sycophant who was the first to endorse him as a candidate, a couple days ago was indicted along with other family members for insider trading: congressman-chris-collins-arrested-for-insider-trading. A point of interest is this Collins investigation has been going on longer than the Mueller probe about Russia, which the Russian case is far more complicated with lots more tentacles & worldwide connections (so in other words, it’s important to give Mueller time to uncover the truth). See more reports about this insider trading charge from york-congressman-indicted-insider-trading-charges. And as the person who headed up Trump’s voter fraud commission which was a total farce, Kobach made more news this week as he’s revealed as a real piece of work (although he did finally recuse himself from overseeing the recount): kris-kobach-kansas-gop-primary.
So indeed let’s drain the swamp, but only after accurately identifying who the swamp creatures really are. They can be found in the Trump swamp. With so many in Trump’s inner circle being found out for bank/tax fraud & various financial crimes, here’s an excellent question: how-on-earth-have-we-let-trump-get-away-with-hiding-his-tax-returns. In another big headline story this week, we’re witnessing a trial where a high Trump campaign official also involved on the transition team & has already plead guilty to Mueller for conspiracy, has testified against Trump’s former campaign manager about the extensive criminal enterprise they participated in together (a showboating judge notwithstanding). These excerpts from Rubin in whats-even-worse-than-the-swamp-the-company-that-trump-kept ties in how the Manafort trial reflects very poorly on the shady contacts, corruption & various illegal activities that always seem to swirl around/define Trump:
In particular, Gates detailed Manafort’s “15 foreign accounts they did not report to the federal government and that they knew [were] illegal” and intentionally misidentifying foreign money wired to the United States as loans. This was allegedly designed to avoid paying taxes. Gates is a problematic witness, to put it mildly. Boy Scouts usually don’t have eyewitness testimony of serious crimes over an extended period of time. To some extent, the testimony that preceded Gates — vendors from whom Manafort bought hundreds of thousands of dollars in clothes, an accountant who misstated income, etc. — paved the way for Gates to describe the inner workings of Manafort’s operation. Even if the jury doesn’t entirely believe Gates, the mountain of documentary evidence and other witness testimony is staggering.
Trump lawyers’ attempts to paint his campaign organization as perfectly normal or, alternatively, as too incompetent to commit crimes look less and less credible as we learn more about these characters. No, normal campaigns don’t have a campaign chief with 15 foreign accounts to allegedly evade taxes, just as they don’t meet with hostile foreign powers peddling dirt on their political opponents. And a disorganized campaign leaves lots of room for people to do things they shouldn’t. Media pundits love to say that Trump has “redefined” the presidency. Wrong. He only redefines it and our constitutional system if he and his associates escape accountability. If they don’t, the guardrails of democracy will have held. Then Trump can be seen as the horrible exception to the rules rather than as the man who shattered the rules. The effort to reinforce the guardrails begins with Manafort’s trial, which explains why Trump is having a public meltdown.
In just this one week, Trump world had more news reports on crime & corruption than a normal president would likely have in an entire year! For sure it is time to drain the swamp! And this is quite a campaign lineup for Team-Trump as seen inside the-trump-2016-campaign-police-blotter, which is more like a police lineup. More on the company Trump keeps are found in manafort-gates-cohen-and-trumps-rat-infested-campaign & also here is the conclusion to the article republican-party-corruption-manafort-gates-chris-collins-wilbur-ross (yes, the song in part 3 is spot on):
But the Trump administration has, even in its embryonic stage, already brought it all to a new level. Several possible explanations present themselves. Trump appears to select for greed and dishonesty in his cronies. (Collins does not work in the administration, but was Trump’s first endorser in Congress.) The sorts of people Trump admires are rich and brash and disdainful of professional norms, and seem unlikely to rat on him. The sorts of people who are apt to work for Trump seem to be those who lack much in the way of scruples. The administration is understaffed and disorganized to the point of virtual anarchy, opening up promising avenues for insiders to escape accountability. Trump’s public ethos, despite his professions during the campaign that he could “drain the swamp” and impose a series of stringent ethics reforms, runs toward relativism — he famously tolerates anybody who supports him, regardless of criminal history or other disqualifications, defining their goodness entirely in terms of personal loyalty. And above all there is the simple fact that Trump himself is a wildly unethical businessman who has stiffed his counterparties and contractors, and worked closely with mobsters, his entire career. A president who is continuing to profit personally from his office is hardly in any position to demand his subordinates refrain from following suit. It has been frequently noted that the president is molding the party in his nationalist, populist, authoritarian image. He is likewise molding its governing class after his own personal business ethos.
Threats from Foreign Enemies
We now know the Russians interfered in 2016. They’re also doing it again. So with the dangers still among us, it appears a compromised president may be the only explanation for the lack of direction & urgency coming from the top: bill-nelson-russia-hackers-tampa-bay-times. Trump upon landing back from Singapore claimed he had stopped the North Korean nuclear threat. Someone tell Jong Un that. Rubin gives us the truth over what has ensued since the much-ballyhooed Trump-Jong Un talks in excerpts from john-bolton-admits-it-the-north-korea-summit-was-a-bust, where it now appears both leaders used the summit for a photo op, not for an actual binding agreement:
President Trump insisted that the nuclear threat from North Korea was over. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo continues to cover for the president, acting as though progress is being made on denuclearization and as though the president’s diplomacy at the North Korea summit marked a breakthrough. That’s all nonsense, of course. Kim Jong Un has given up nothing, keeps expanding his missile program, continues to create fissile material, got Trump to cancel joint military exercises with South Korea and has seen China loosen sanctions enforcement. Now someone in the administration has finally fessed up. National security adviser John Bolton, who to his credit tried to prevent the disastrous one-on-one meeting between Kim and Trump, inadvertently (or not) let on that North Korea hasn’t done much of anything. In a Fox News interview (the most dangerous interviews are often on friendly turf), Bolton acknowledged: “The United States has lived up to the Singapore declaration. It’s just North Korea that has not taken the steps we feel are necessary to denuclearize.” Translation: So far it looks as though Trump was snookered.
Pompeo and Trump may have vowed to resume the joint military exercises if North Korea didn’t negotiate in good faith, but no exercises are planned even though North Korea shows no sign that it will live up to even its vaguest promises. Unfortunately, Trump’s failed summitry managed to undermine the “maximum pressure” campaign, which was designed to force North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program. North Korea’s intransigence likely will get worse as Kim finds support in China, Russia and perhaps elsewhere. (“Relaxing or lifting sanctions is of less negotiating value now than before. South Korea and China increasingly are shadow-boxing over who will secure a firmer toehold in North Korea’s economy, thereby reducing the sense of economic pressure Pyongyang previously felt.”) In short, Trump’s Singapore triumph, as we have long pointed out, was no triumph at all. It made the United States weaker and our adversary stronger. U.S. national interests were sacrificed at the altar of Trump’s ego. Those spinning Trump’s performance and praising his deal-making once more look like fools. And “foolish” pretty much describes Trump’s entire foreign policy.
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