Mueller Questions for Trump plus Iran/North Korea News….
Lots of Trump news has come out over the past few days, including the Mueller questions for the prez released on Monday night. So there’s plenty of news to cover. The 49 questions are more a list of topics from which several questions could evolve from each topic, so it entails a potentially enormous amount of ground. It also provides a window into the evidence Mueller has garnered from other witnesses, so it’s become very clear this is no witch hunt & proof of crimes has already been well-established. Trumpeters have lost their minds thinking there were no illegalities going on. The reasons these questions were developed is Mueller has compiled prior info verifying the likely authenticity of the evidence. The categories of those Mueller questions are so thorough, it’s hard to see Trump answering their questions honestly without implicating himself. Again, this is not because special counsel is embarked on a witch hunt, but we’re in this spot because the growing body of evidence against Trump is overwhelming. He only vents about the probe & evidence without ever refuting it with facts, indicating guilt since he’s unable to provide any clues of his innocence.
The general topic most covered by the 49 Mueller questions revolves around obstruction of justice. There’s also a section pointing to collusion/coordination/
But these Mueller questions would box Trump in if he became a testifying witness, so expect Trump’s legal team to turn down a Mueller interview. If Mueller wants to play hardball he could issue a subpoena, & should Trump plead the 5th it could become politically untenable. The prez might be allowed to submit his answers in writing, or Mueller might have all the evidence he needs to initially issue a report on obstruction without getting Trump’s input. Here is the beginning to the NY Times breaking news article from Monday night (robert-mueller-questions-
Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel investigating Russia’s election interference, has at least four dozen questions on an exhaustive array of subjects he wants to ask President Trump to learn more about his ties to Russia and determine whether he obstructed the inquiry itself, according to a list of the questions obtained by The New York Times.
The open-ended queries appear to be an attempt to penetrate the president’s thinking, to get at the motivation behind some of his most combative Twitter posts and to examine his relationships with his family and his closest advisers. They deal chiefly with the president’s high-profile firings of the F.B.I. director and his first national security adviser, his treatment of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and a 2016 Trump Tower meeting between campaign officials and Russians offering dirt on Hillary Clinton.
But they also touch on the president’s businesses; any discussions with his longtime personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, about a Moscow real estate deal; whether the president knew of any attempt by Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to set up a back channel to Russia during the transition; any contacts he had with Roger J. Stone Jr., a longtime adviser who claimed to have inside information about Democratic email hackings; and what happened during Mr. Trump’s 2013 trip to Moscow for the Miss Universe pageant.
Mr. Trump said on Twitter on Tuesday that it was “disgraceful” that questions the special counsel would like to ask him were publicly disclosed, and he incorrectly noted that there were no questions about collusion. The president also said collusion was a “phony” crime.
The questions provide the most detailed look yet inside Mr. Mueller’s investigation, which has been shrouded in secrecy since he was appointed nearly a year ago. The majority relate to possible obstruction of justice, demonstrating how an investigation into Russia’s election meddling grew to include an examination of the president’s conduct in office. Among them are queries on any discussions Mr. Trump had about his attempts to fire Mr. Mueller himself and what the president knew about possible pardon offers to Mr. Flynn.
Trump Tower Meeting
Who was making the call from a blocked number to Donny Jr. a few days prior to the Trump Tower meeting? Sonny-boy Jr. received that call right in between two calls with Emin Agalarov organizing that infamous Trump Tower meeting in June 2016, where the Trump campaign sought dirt on Hillary from the Russians. If that call was made by sonny-boy Jr’s father, who is now President of the United States, that could point towards Trump’s personal involvement in coordinating with Russia to illegally interfere in our election, which the Russian interference has already been proven. No matter what Trumpeters & echo-audiences might think, if it can be proven a presidential candidate colluded with a foreign adversary to steal an election, that is a VERY BIG DEAL & would be a SERIOUS CRIME against America, from which our constitutional democracy & rule of law would demand administering the appropriate punishments. There is so much circumstantial evidence gathered already, the American people at this point must patiently wait for the Mueller investigation to dig up all the facts, at which time we can act accordingly. Here are excerpts from did-trump-jr-talk-to-his-
The meeting was organized on behalf of Aras Agalarov, a construction magnate based in Russia, and his son Emin, a singer. The Agalarovs had partnered with the Trump Organization on the 2013 Miss Universe contest in Moscow. Rob Goldstone, a publicist for Emin Agalarov, emailed Trump Jr. to seek the meeting. In a June 3, 2016, email, Goldstone said that a senior Russian official, as “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump” had “offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father.” Less than 20 minutes late, Trump Jr. responded, “If it’s what you say I love it especially later in the summer.” According to the Democrats’ report, Trump Jr. exchanged calls about the meeting with Emin Agalarov on June 6 at Goldstone’s request. The first call was at 4:04 pm. At 4:27 pm, prior to Trump Jr.’s second call with Emin, Trump Jr. received a call from a “blocked” number. Trump Jr. told the committee last year he did not know who had called him. The Democrats note, however, that Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s first campaign manager, told the committee that Trump Sr.’s “primary residence has a blocked [phone] line.” Democrats say they made “repeated efforts to obtain the home or cell phone records for then-candidate Trump to determine whether the blocked call was Trump Jr.’s father.” But, they note, “the Majority was unwilling to pursue the matter.”
More on that same topic comes in these excerpts I patched together below from the-new-house-gop-report-on-ru
The GOP report does address that Trump Tower meeting, allowing that it showed “poor judgment” on the part of the Trump campaign. As we learned from Trump Jr.’s emails, those top Trump campaign officials went to the meeting in the full expectation of receiving dirt on Hillary Clinton, supplied by the Russian government. According to the Democratic response, right after Trump Jr. set up the specifics of the meeting, he had two calls with a number in Russia belonging to Emin Agalarov. Between those two calls, the Democratic response recounts, Trump Jr. received a third call from a blocked number. Who might it have been? Democrats wanted to find out, but Republicans blocked it from happening, according to the Democrats’ response. “We sought to determine whether that number belonged to the president, because we also ascertained that then-candidate Trump used a blocked number,” Schiff said during our interview. “That would tell us whether Don Jr. sought his father’s permission to take the meeting, and [whether] that was the purpose of that call.”
If Trump Jr. did inform his father of the meeting in between calls with Emin Agalarov, it would be absolutely explosive news. First, it would mean the president has lied about his knowledge of the Trump Tower meeting. Second, it would show he was an active participant in a manner of speaking, though he wasn’t in the room. There is at least some reason to suspect that Trump may have known about the meeting. As the Democrats point out in their response, on June 7, the day after Trump Jr.’s conversations to set up the meeting, Trump told a crowd: “I am going to give a major speech on probably Monday of next week and we’re going to be discussing all of the things that have taken place with the Clintons. I think you’re going to find it very informative and very, very interesting.” The Trump Tower meeting happened two days later, and didn’t produce the promised dirt — and the “major speech” never took place. We may still find out the truth on this front — because it’s possible special counsel Robert S. Mueller III will take an interest in these phone records, if he hasn’t already.
The broader story about this GOP report is that, again and again, it acknowledges contact between members of the Trump campaign and Russians, but essentially says, “Okay sure, that happened, but it wasn’t collusion.” That’s their explanation for the Trump Tower meeting; for Carter Page’s Russia contacts; for George Papadopoulos’ Russian contacts; for everything Paul Manafort did; for the campaign’s enthusiastic use of the material hacked from Democratic email systems; for conversations with the Russian ambassador that Michael Flynn and Jeff Sessions later lied about; for all of it. To paraphrase David St. Hubbins, there’s a fine line between stupid and clever, and the committee’s Republicans seem to think they’re firmly on the right side of it. After conducting seven separate congressional investigations into Benghazi, it is clear they just want the Russia story to go away. The only consolation is that they’re not even competent enough to mount a credible cover-up.
In this start to another article on the Trump Tower meeting from trump-offers-wild-new-explanat
On June 9, 2016, Donald Trump Jr. and other top members of the Trump campaign met with a number of Russians, including lawyer Natalia V. Veselnitskaya. The meeting was set up after Trump Jr. was contacted by Rob Goldstone, an agent who represents a Russian pop star. Goldstone told Trump Jr. that the Russians had dirt on Hillary. “If it’s what you say I love it especially later in the summer,” Trump Jr. famously replied. Veselnitskaya, despite evidence to the contrary, had denied any connections to the Russian government. But this week, Veselniskaya admitted she has been “actively communicating with the office of the Russian prosecutor general” for years. The admission came after emails documenting her relationship with the prosecutor general were released by Dossier, an organization started by a Russian exile who is a leading opponent of Putin. At a campaign rally in Michigan, a red-faced Trump offered a convoluted explanation for Veselniskaya’s admission. According to Trump, Veselniskaya does not have any relationship with the Russian government. But she recently was convinced by Putin to pretend she was an agent of the Russian government.
Other articles pertaining to that Trump Tower meeting are trump-rally-natalia-veseln
President Trump’s family and the Kremlin-connected Agalarov family were apparently communicating during Trump’s presidential transition, BuzzFeed News reported. Azerbaijani singer and businessman Emin Agalarov started texting Donald Trump Jr. two days after the 2016 election and continued until at least mid-December, according to the report. Trump Jr.’s contact with Agalarov during the campaign has been previously reported. While BuzzFeed News confirmed that multiple messages were sent after the election, the outlet noted it can’t confirm how many messages were sent or whether Trump Jr. replied to any of the messages. Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee referred to the text messages in their report on the committee’s findings in the Russia investigation, including one text sent by Agalarov to Trump Jr. about a business venture in December 2016. Critics argue that the messages show the Trump and Agalarov family were closer than they were assumed to be. President Trump met Agalarov in 2013 at the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow and has reportedly kept in touch since then. Agalarov’s music manager Rob Goldstone set up the June 2016 meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer at Trump Tower, reportedly at the request of Agalarov.
In more updates from the Russian probe, they can be found by clicking on new-obstruction-of-justice-
And if this is Trump’s idea of draining the swamp, it’s going to do far more harm than good: trump-deserted-government. In other recent news, some of the corrupted radicals in the House Freedom Caucus are actually trying to commit the lawless act of impeaching Rosenstein: trump-allied-house-
Throughout his business and political careers, Donald Trump has had an important advantage: He is willing to lie, frequently and shamelessly. Most other people in public life view reality as a limitation. Trump does not. If telling falsehoods is more convenient or helpful to him than telling the truth, he tells falsehoods. It’s worked out very well for him — making his business look more successful than it was, helping him land a primetime television show and, of course, allowing him to win the most powerful political office on earth. In his 15-plus months as president, Trump has added a second bit of shamelessness to his approach. In addition to lying, he has also been willing to obstruct justice.
North Korea & Iran
There is tremendous hope of a deal with North Korea to eliminate their nuclear weapons program, while at the same time if Israeli leader Netanyahu is right that Iran has a secret nuclear weapons program (netanyahu-says-iran-had-secre
The readers who overall tend to agree with my commentaries the most are liberal Dems, with my regularly bashing Trump & the GOP. But always remember up until recently I was a lifelong GOP supporter, & still at my core I’m more center-right. Although our country’s attempts at nation building those countries we’ve gone to war against have seen us bogged down at tremendous cost, I’m still more hawkish than dovish because I believe America has to assume their rightful leadership role in stamping out serious threats that jeopardize our nation & our allies. Sure, we should enlist the increased financial support from other freedom-loving allies to maintain our military might, but America is the only nation in the world uniquely positioned to preserve the peace. There are times peace is only preserved through force. So I believe in a very hard line against rogue nuclear or potential-nuclear states, yet I have grave concerns whether Trump has the judgement, emotional stability & understanding of the situations to pull off positive outcomes.
Much as liberals & dovish libertarians would prefer we abstain from intervening, there are times we need to do the sabre-rattling & surgical military strikes against our enemies. Staying isolated would only allow the power/influence of China & Russia to grow, ruthless dictators/regimes to become stronger, & terrorist organizations to blossom & spread. And the minute North Korea & Iran have nuclear weapon capabilities along with long-range missile technologies (Jong Un may already be there), America would be living in a world our very existence is threatened like never before. Despite enormous risks, if we can preemptively take out their nuclear programs by whatever means necessary, it may not be nearly as risky as allowing them to proceed. The mutually assured destruction strategy we’ve always tolerated with Russia won’t work so well when it comes to crazy dictators. So yes, call me a hawk, though I’m not in the same league as Bolton, McCain or Lindsey Graham. It’s also vitally important to establish the precedent & agreement from the world community that no other nations should ever be added to the list of nuclear powers. I believe failure to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons, mankind is destined at some point to blow themselves up.
So we can hope & pray Trump can negotiate positive outcomes with North Korea & Iran. It won’t excuse him of crimes against America if that’s what the facts wind up showing, so we may need to send him packing anyway, albeit with a thank you should he leave with a successfully denuclearized North Korea & Iran. That would be the ultimate irony of this conflicted presidency, perhaps watching Trump riding off into the sunset contradictorily known as a convicted felon/national hero. Yes, he would leave quite a legacy, initially promising to ride into DC & shake things up, but nobody could have envisioned the 8.0 earthquake & subsequent huge tsunami he would leave in his wake, despite perhaps only serving roughly half his 4-year term. But there are surely more twists & turns in the road ahead, on a highway we don’t know where it’s taking us, which 2018 looks to be one of the most pivotal years in our nation’s history. This article sounds promising kim-says-he%E2%80%99ll-give-up
When he was running for president, Donald Trump promised to bring unorthodox, fresh thinking to global problems, shaking up the stale consensus from the right and left. Most people can agree that that the results have been tumultuous, but a landmark meeting between the leaders of North and South Korea is a major win for his strategy. For years, American leaders vacillated within a narrow mainstream range, but Trump, with a series of brash threats, has produced real progress—including a historic moment as the leaders of the two nations stepped into each other’s countries. Trump’s strategy was a modern reinvention of Richard Nixon’s “madman” theoryfor dealing with the Soviet Union. And it was flamboyantly batty: Trump called Kim “Little Rocket Man” at the United Nations, threatened “fire and fury” against the North, and boasted about the comparative sizes of their nuclear buttons, as the North’s weapons capacity increased. But unlike Nixon’s feint, Trump’s worked. The North agreed to talks ahead of the Olympics, welcomed then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo for secret talks, and is negotiating a summit meeting between Trump and Kim. Then came Friday’s meeting. The speed with which the shift has happened, after decades of stalemate, is a testament to the efficacy of Trump’s stratagem. Not only is there progress toward ending the war, but North Korea consented to language about a “nuclear-free Korean Peninsula.”
As a candidate, Donald Trump promised to bring a fresh approach to intractable foreign-policy problems. Rhetorically, that has been true, with the president offering threats and bluster. What is clear now, and was clear to many people then, was that Trump really had very little understanding of what he was talking about. On Friday, after a historic meeting between the leaders of North and South Korea, Trump tried to take a victory lap. In reality, he’s walking into an old North Korean trap, showing how little he knows. Trump’s madman act, including bringing the U.S. and North Korea closer to nuclear war than at any time in recent memory, may indeed have convinced Kim Jong-Un to make some overtures to both Washington and Seoul. But as Trump would know if he studied his history, his predecessors, and South Korean President Moon Jae-In’s, have had some success getting North Korean leaders to talk. Getting them to act is another thing entirely. What emerged from Friday’s meeting was a concise statement. Ending a war requires a treaty, and that’s something entirely different.
As Nicholas Eberstadt wrote this week in The New York Times, North and South Korea have embraced and offered warm, fuzzy statements several times before: 1992, 2000, 2007. “All of these deals were then trash-canned,” Eberstadt wrote. “The North Korean promises in them were worthless, indeed deceitful. These agreements only seemed to hold force until, well, they no longer did, when Pyongyang unilaterally decided to ignore, violate or repudiate them.” Trump is quick (and correct) to point to his predecessors’ failures to contain North Korea’s nuclear program, but he hasn’t studied the reasons well enough to avoid falling into the same traps.
The speed with which matters have progressed from fear of a shooting war to hand-holding in the DMZ should be reason for uneasiness, not optimism. Few major diplomatic breakthroughs happen overnight. Besides, if Trump was able to convince Kim that he was just crazy enough to act, that impression will not quickly dissolve: North Korea would reasonably conclude that it should take any American promises with a full cellar’s worth of salt. Consider also the statement that Moon and Kim released: “South and North Korea confirmed the common goal of realizing, through complete denuclearization, a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula.” Optimists promptly focused on the use of the word “denuclearization,” which is notable, but worth no more than the paper it is printed on. North Korea did not explicitly commit to ending its own nuclear program, and as Jeffrey Lewis has noted, “denuclearization” has a different meaning in Korean negotiations than it does in plain English. Nor did Kim mention denuclearization in his own remarks.
Rubin also sounds a note of caution in trump-has-already-been-played
Because Trump is the master of believing what he wants to believe and trying to win favor with whomever is sitting in the room with him the real danger is that Trump impulsively accepts frothy promises in exchange for concrete concessions. The North Koreans are practiced at conning U.S. administrations into believing they have found the key to peace on the Korean Peninsula. Meanwhile, Pyongyang retains a nuclear arsenal that Kim, like his father, believes is essential to the regime’s survival and to reunification of the peninsula on its terms.
Stormy Daniels
We now have a new lawsuit from Stormy: stormy-daniels-is-suin
A federal judge is delaying Stormy Daniels’ lawsuit against President Trump for 90 days, ruling on Friday that the case will be paused while a criminal investigation into Trump’s longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen proceeds in New York. Cohen is a central figure in the civil suit brought by the adult film actress, who accepted a $130,000 payment from Cohen shortly before the 2016 presidential election in exchange for keeping silent about her alleged affair with Trump. Daniels is now suing to invalidate the agreement she made with Cohen. Cohen is also subject to a separate criminal probe, following an FBI raid of his home and office earlier this month. Federal agents seized documents related to the settlement with Daniels, among other personal emails and business records.
But it’s not all good news for the president and his personal lawyer. The judge also indicated that he expects Cohen to be indicted in connection with the ongoing criminal probe, pointing out that there must be serious enough allegations at play to justify the approval of the search warrants. “[T]he significance of the FBI raid cannot be understated,” Otero wrote. “This is no simple criminal investigation; it is an investigation into the personal attorney of a sitting President regarding documents that might be subject to the attorney-client privilege.” And there could be even more lawsuits coming. Daniels has suggested she may file a new legal suit next week, alleging that Trump libeled her when he accused herof perpetuating a “con job” by releasing a sketch of a man who she says threatened physical harm against her in 2011 if she didn’t stop talking about Trump.
In conclusion….our president is simply despicable. I’m sorry, he just is. We should all be sorry. He lacks basic human values. But in dealing with the irrational/unpredictable generational regime in North Korea, Trump may be on the verge of a great achievement in spite of himself. We may soon learn from face-to-face meetings in as soon as a month whether Jong Un really does pledge to denuclearize: cnn-kim-jong-un-agrees-to-meet
Maybe Trump is being played & Jong Un has no intentions of giving up the nuke program that defines them, throwing out deals he has no intentions of keeping like the same tricks his ancestors played. But if nothing else, maybe it can divert Trump’s attention throughout this next month, when his toxic rhetoric might be toned down & the irresponsible attacks on the DOJ, FBI, Mueller, the media & political opposition would be muted (let’s hope). As a nation we must leave Mueller alone & let him uncover all the facts. Regardless of the outcome on the Korean Peninsula, it still can’t excuse criminal activities against American democracy if proof is found Trump was personally involved. Is the Mueller investigation a hoax? Phony? A ruse? Witch hunt?…. 19-witches-hunted-so-far-but-n
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