Russia Trump remains the most explosive news story of this era…Although Mueller has gone into even deeper cover than usual ahead of the midterms, along with other major stories dominating the headlines these past few weeks. But the Mueller probe remains lurking from inside some secret backroom, threatening to explode on the scene with the force of a Category 5 hurricane at any given time. I can tend to get rather long-winded in these commentaries, but today I’ll mostly let the news articles dominate the conversation in all 3 parts. The topics can change base on the headlines, but basically in this twice per week newsletter we highlight Russia Trump news in part 1, the conservative echo-chamber (echo for short) in part 2, & the economy in part 3. Rest assured you’ll always get The Voice of Reason and Common Sense from us, as I’m a lifelong center-right conservative & GOP supporter until the party went off the rails. So please review this info & share with others, as we endeavor to try making the GOP sane again!
Going back to school for a written exam
But this is a test Trump would flunk & he needs to let his legal team answer the questions. They’re working to answer written questions from Mueller, reportedly around the collusion issue instead of obstruction. See this new news story on Russia Trump inside trump-lawyers-preparing-answers-mueller-questions & also trump-lawyers-mueller-questions & also this article posted from trump-lawyers-preparing-written-answers-to-mueller-questions-report:
President Trump’s personal legal team is preparing written answers to questions submitted by special counsel Robert Mueller, CNN reported Thursday. The development could mark a breakthrough in the prolonged battle between Trump’s personal lawyers and the special counsel’s office over whether and how the president would answer Mueller’s questions regarding possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia and obstruction of justice. Sources tell CNN the questions mostly focus on the collusion aspect of the special counsel’s probe. While the two sides have agreed on this initial round of questioning, the special counsel has reportedly insisted that Mueller’s team have the opportunity to follow up. Trump’s legal team and the special counsel are still negotiating if the president will be interviewed in person. “We are in continuing discussions with the special counsel and we do not comment on those discussions,” Trump attorney Jay Sekulow told CNN.
The president is known to be open to testifying in person, yet his personal lawyers have expressed concern that Trump could perjure himself during an interview. “It seems ridiculous that I’d have to do it when everybody says there’s no collusion, but I’ll do what is necessary to get it over with,” Trump told Fox News Thursday morning. “I’m not going to be rushed into having him testify so he gets trapped into perjury,” Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani told NBC’s “Meet the Press” in August. The special counsel has sought an interview with the president over the past several months, and reportedly threatened to subpoena Trump if he declined to voluntarily sit for an interview. Giuliani has previously asserted that Trump would not have to comply with a subpoena. The special counsel’s office declined to comment on Thursday afternoon.
New Clues Keep Popping Up
These are some new reports on Russia Trump revealed in the past week, as the clues to the puzzle are steadily assembled by Mueller’s team. These excerpts are seen inside muellers-quiet-but-suspicious-russia-clues-keep-popping-up:
“I think we’ll be treated very fairly,” President Trump told reporters yesterday, after meeting with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. “Everybody understands there was no collusion, there’s no Russia. It was all made up by the Democrats.” If Trump is going to shut down the Russia investigation, he is probably waiting until after the midterm elections, which he hopes will deliver a House Republican majority committed to protecting him from oversight or legal accountability. In the meantime, the scope of possibilities for what Robert Mueller might uncover continues to broaden. Saturday, The Wall Street Journal updated one of the most curious side plots in the investigation: the role of Peter W. Smith, a Republican activist who in 2016 sought Hillary Clinton’s emails from the State Department on behalf (according to Smith) of Trump’s then-adviser Michael Flynn. Smith met with one cybersecurity expert in an attempt to acquire the emails, and waved off concerns about the ethics or legality of colluding with Russian intelligence. Smith died in 2017, very shortly after being contacted by a reporter, bearing a suicide note explaining that he had a “life insurance of $5 million expiring” and his suicide involved “no foul play whatsoever.” The Journal’s latest report fills in many new details about Smith’s work. Smith raised at least $100,000, from at least four wealthy donors, as part of his effort. Smith “went to extraordinary lengths to ensure the privacy and secrecy of his projects,” reports the Journal. Smith personally donated $50,000 to the effort, a generous gift for a man who, only months later, putatively faced so much financial distress that he killed himself for the life insurance money.
Most interestingly, the Journal got in touch with somebody who spoke with Smith shortly before his death. “Retired Wall Street financier Charles Ortel said he spoke with Mr. Smith on the phone in the hours before his death about a new project to brief the Obama Foundation and warn its leaders against the mistakes they believed were made by the Clinton Foundation,” reports the Journal. “According to Mr. Ortel, Mr. Smith sounded excited, and he began brainstorming who to contact and how to proceed.” As Betsy Woodruff reported earlier this summer, and as Ryan Goodman noted, Mueller recently added to his team attorney Kathryn Rakoczy, “best known for her work on violent crime cases.” This would support the likelihood that Mueller is investigating Smith’s death as a murder. It is obviously possible that Smith suddenly decided to commit suicide after this conversation without betraying any hint of his intention, and while sounding excited about a future plan. But it is looking increasingly plausible that somebody in fact killed him.
Monday, The New Yorker published an investigation by Dexter Filkins into the connection between the Russian Alfa Bank and the Trump Organization. The story was originally broken by Franklin Foer in the waning days of the 2016 campaign, and its basic contours have not changed very much. Computer scientists discovered patterns of suspicious traffic between the bank’s Moscow office and the Trump Organization during the campaign. When New York Times reporter Eric Lichtblau inquired with Alfa Bank in September 2016, the Trump Organization quickly shut down its server, suggesting the two were in close contact. “The knee was hit in Moscow, the leg kicked in New York,” a computer scientist told Foer. Some experts have disputed whether the server was used for any real Moscow–Trump Tower communication, and a host of observers have treated the possibility as a crazy conspiracy theory. Filkins, frustratingly, does not resolve the question either way. He produces lots of deep circumstantial evidence and credible testimony suggesting the server played some role in collusion between Trump and Russia, but not enough to prove it. If there is a smoking gun here, it will probably require testimony from one of the people involved in the campaign. We have no indication that that kind of testimony is coming — but, then, we have no indication of anything Mueller is up to, nor have we had much indication the entire time he’s been investigating.
The final and perhaps most intriguing development is last week’s explosive New York Times account of Donald Trump’s fraudulent tax schemes. What makes this report so extraordinary is that it breaks new ground on a figure who has been in the public eye for four decades, on matters at the very center of the source of his fame. It has not been known that Trump received hundreds of millions of dollars in payments from his father, nor that his methods included (according to the Times) outright criminality. What does this have to do with the Russia investigation? Quite a bit, actually. It shows that Trump is willing not merely to skirt the law but to blatantly violate it. It reveals that he has been able to harbor enormous secrets even in the face of constant media coverage. And, most directly, it raises unanswered questions about his mysterious financial methods. Trump is and always has been a bad businessman who relies on regular, large cash infusions from his father to stay afloat.
Washington Post reporters David A. Fahrenthold and Jonathan O’Connell, piggybacking on the Times revelations, have raised another curiosity: it was about the time that Fred Trump’s payment stream dried up that Trump’s way of financing his operations took a sharp and sudden turn. Whereas before he financed his purchases with debt — he had called himself the “king of debt” — he began buying properties with cash. It is unusual for real estate developers to make cash purchases, given the incentives they normally have to finance with borrowing. It’s especially unusual that Trump started doing this right after he lost his father’s continuous cash spigot. This was also the time in his career he started working closely with Michael Cohen and Felix Sater, both of whom had links to the Russian underworld. It might feel like the Russia scandal is slowing down, as the stream of indictments halts before the midterm elections. In reality, the conclusion might not be anywhere close.
A Review from the Start
While here’s an overview of what we’ve learned from the Mueller investigation so far since the beginning. We’ve posted the opening to this next article, which you can also review a who’s-who list of those who’ve been charged with crimes up till now by clicking on mueller-indictments-grand-jury:
Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team has indicted or gotten guilty pleas from 32 people and three companies — that we know of. That group is composed of four former Trump advisers, 26 Russian nationals, three Russian companies, one California man, and one London-based lawyer. Six of these people (including now all four former Trump aides) have pleaded guilty. If you also count investigations that Mueller originated but then referred elsewhere in the Justice Department, you can add plea deals from two more people to the list. It’s a sprawling set of allegations, encompassing both election interference charges against overseas Russians, and various other crimes by American Trump advisers.
Rick Gates/Israeli firm strategy looks just like the Russian operation
Coincidence? I think not. For more specifics on what we’ve recently learned about this suspicious connection, it looks like Rick Gates was trying to illegally collude with a foreign Israeli firm to alter the election. What’s interesting is the methods proposed were identical to the Russian operation that actually did taint our election! Do you smell something fishy? I think I do see a connection here! This posting comes from Rick-Gates-asked-Israeli-firm-for-a-proposal-that-suggests-he-knew-a-lot-about-Russia-s-actions:
On Monday, the New York Times reported that former Trump campaign official Rick Gates solicited proposals to manipulate social media and steal information from both Trump’s primary opponents and Hillary Clinton. The nature of Gates’ communication with an Israeli firm suggests that the Trump campaign wasn’t just trying to practice digital dirty tricks, but that they may have had a much more complete picture of Russian operations in support of Trump than anyone has so far admitted. Gates has often been treated as little more than Paul Manafort’s sidekick when talking about their relationship to the Trump campaign. But Gates was embedded in the campaign for months longer than Manafort, with positions that continued into the transition period. And there were activities initiated by Gates which may have had no involvement from Manafort, even during the period when their terms overlapped. In April 2016, Gates began an email exchange with an company called “Psy-Group,” which was created by former operatives from Israeli intelligence. Together, Gates and Psy-Group put together a plan that would use fake accounts on social media, and close targeting of swing districts, to not just spread a pro-Trump message, but deliberately plant stories that caused schisms among supporters of Trump’s opponents. Psy-Group also proposed to conduct intelligence operations on opposition campaigns including the campaign of Hillary Clinton, to obtain information not available to the public. The proposal—which detailed a plan stretching out over months—was remarkably similar to the tactics used by the Russian government in support of Trump’s candidacy. The Russians established thousands of both manned and automated accounts to dominate conversations and promote topics on social media, just as Psy-Group proposed.
While the first exchange of documents between Gates and Psy-Group appears to have happened in April, it’s clear that Russian efforts to assist Trump in the election date back many months earlier. Even if the Trump campaign might claim to be unaware of Russian preparations in 2014 and 2015, they were absolutely aware of Russian efforts by March of 2016, when George Papadopoulos both discussed Russian offers of “dirt” against Hillary Clinton and suggested that Trump meet with Russian officials. Russian theft of information from the DNC and Democratic operatives took place on multiple occasions in 2015 and 2016, but was apparently complete by May of 2016, shortly after Gates began communicating with Psy-Group. Also at that point, approximately 80 Russia hackers working out of St. Petersburg were already responsible for thousands of false accounts on Facebook and Twitter, as well as false news sites, and websites mimicking those of both social and political organizations. The build up to that operation began in 2014.
If anything, the proposal worked out between Gates and Psy-Group seems to borrow heavily from the operation that was then already well underway by the Russian government team. Which opens the question: Did Gates know that? Gates was certainly among those who knew that the Russians had a project underway to gather information about Clinton. Papadopoulos spread that information both by email and in person. Also, the June 3 exchange between publicist Rob Goldstone and Donald Trump Jr. mentions “Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump” as if it’s something that would not be a surprise to Trump Jr. It’s clear that at least some aspects of the Russian operation were known within Trump’s campaign. But what’s especially interesting is that the first document between Gates and Psy-Group isn’t a proposal—it’s a request for a proposal that went from Gates to Psy-Group. Gates asked Psy-Group to put a price tag on an operation that bears a striking similarity to the Russian campaign. That certainly suggests that Gates, and perhaps many members of the Trump campaign, was aware not just of the “dirt” being gathered by Russian operatives, but of the efforts to use targeted social media to disrupt opposing campaigns and open rifts among Trump’s opponents. If Gates was not aware of the Russian operation, in detail, then his proposal to Psy-Group certainly represents an astounding coincidence. Considering that Gates has signed a cooperating agreement with Special Counsel Robert Mueller, it’s likely that whatever the Trump campaign knew about the Russians—Mueller knows it now.
Dossier Author Served His Conscience
He could sense something very shady going on during the campaign involving Russia Trump, so he tried to do the right thing for the sake of free democracies. By the way, the dossier has not been discredited as the echo claims, since some of it is panning out. And it was not the source of the original reason the FBI started up the Russian probe in 2016. Steele just commented on the matter in this posting from christopher-steele-breaks-silence-we-have-a-duty-to-speak:
Former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele is taking a subtle swipe at President Trump, saying that the media has a key responsibility to keep a “distorted” and “one-sided” U.S. government accountable. Steele, the author of the controversial dossier about Trump’s alleged ties with Russia, made the comment in an email to an editor of Vanity Fair after he was selected to be featured in the magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people in the media, politics, entertainment and finance, according to Sky News. “In these strange and troubling times, it is hard to speak unpalatable truths to power, but I believe we all still have a duty to do so,” Steele wrote. “I salute those on your list, and otherwise, who have had the courage to speak out over the last year, often at great personal cost. “At a time when governance is so distorted and one-sided, as I believe it currently is in the United States, the media has a key role to play in holding it accountable.” Sky News noted that the comment serves as the first time Steele has spoken publicly in 18 months. Steele has become a highly scrutinized figure over the Trump-Russia dossier he compiled. The documents include many salacious allegations about Trump’s ties to Russia.
Sentenced
Another one goes to jail over the Mueller probe, this one a longer sentence than the others, as explained in posts from calif-man-ensnared-in-mueller-probe-sentenced-to-one-year:
A California man ensnared in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s election interference was sentenced on Wednesday to six months in prison, six months of home detention and two years of supervised release. Richard Pinedo pleaded guilty to one count of identity fraud seven months ago and cooperated with government investigators in the case against the Internet Research Agency, the Russian troll farm accused of interfering in the 2016 presidential election. Judge Dabney Friedrich handed down his sentence in federal court in Washington, D.C. Pinedo will also have to complete 100 hours of community service and submit to computer monitoring. Pinedo’s sentencing, which ties up another lose end in Mueller’s sprawling probe, comes not long after the sentencing of former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos to 14 days in prison for lying to FBI agents investigating Russia’s efforts. Pinedo is a rather minor player in an investigation that spans several fronts and has embroiled major figures of President Trump’s 2016 campaign, as Mueller explores potential collusion between the campaign and Moscow. His sentencing also follows other bombshell developments in the probe, including the decision by former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort to cooperate with Mueller’s team.
Legal Defense Grasping At Straws
This crazy lawsuit somehow tries to conflate illegally conspiring with a foreign power to interfere in our election with free speech, which truly is crazy but points to a legal defense that’s desperate & running out of options. Team-Trump must be aware Mueller is putting together a strong case for conspiracy with a foreign enemy to attack our democracy, so they’re floating long-shot ideas to counteract that narrative. Our laws clearly state political candidates cannot accept anything of value from foreign nationals, as seen inside trump-campaign-defends-wikileaks-use-hacked-dnc-emails. It’s been apparent for quite some time Trump is looking for politically expedient ways to shut down the Mueller probe, likely starting with the removal of Sessions &/or Rosenstein, anticipated to happen after the midterms. I hope this conclusion to the article opinion/rod-rosenstein-trump-robert-mueller-russia is accurate, that the investigation is too far along to be stopped:
Mr. Mueller’s investigation is more closely held than most, but its tentacles have already clearly spread to other field offices — consider the investigation against President Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, run out of the Southern District of New York office, or the plea deal of a California man, Richard Pinedo, who assisted Russia in executing its disinformation campaign on social media. Field offices are evaluated in part based on their success in following through on leads and making cases that result in arrests and convictions. No case agent worth their salt would remain quiet if their cases were closed in the face of a continuing threat. To “shut down” the investigation at this point would require not just a face-off with Mr. Mueller but also with special agents in charge of multiple field offices with a vested interest in seeing their responsibilities through, and possibly even a battle with the F.B.I. director, Christopher Wray.
Finally, many of the most critical parts of the Russia investigation have already entered the judicial system. Mr. Mueller has already indicted numerous individuals and companies and secured several convictions. Five members of the Trump campaign have pleaded guilty to federal charges and are actively cooperating with prosecutors. Grand juries have seen evidence, judges have signed off on warrants, and there are likely subpoenas and indictments waiting in the wings. Whatever happens now, there is no doubt that the F.B.I. has already collected hundreds of thousands of pages of evidence in the form of documents, interviews, electronic surveillance and foreign intelligence shared by our allies that are stored in the F.B.I.’s tamper-proof system and cannot be destroyed.
This isn’t to say that a Rosenstein replacement couldn’t do any damage — he could try to starve the investigation of resources, for example, or withhold approval for investigative steps that have yet to be taken. But considering that the potential replacements for Mr. Rosenstein — Solicitor General Noel Francisco or the head of the Office of Legal Counsel, Steven Engel — have very little experience in counterintelligence and criminal matters, they would face an uphill battle justifying those decisions against seasoned prosecutors and in the face of evidence warranting otherwise. Under the special counsel regulations, moreover, any such decision would be required to be reported to Congress. With the precedent set by Devin Nunes on the House Intelligence Committee, if Congress changes hands, it’s going to be very difficult for the president to try to block obvious attempts to obstruct justice from seeing the light of day. The wheels of justice are already in motion, and it would take someone willing to take a fall for the president to try to stop it.
What might happen when Sessions gets fired
These next articles offer ominous signs America is about to face another Saturday Night Massacre prompting a constitutional crisis: trump-fox-friends-interview-jeff-sessions-midterm-elections & also trump-considering-several-candidates-to-replace-sessions-report. Trump did explore the idea of replacing Sessions with Matthew Whitaker, a full-fledged Trumpeter, which if such a person were to ever be appointed interim AG or any position where he could oversee (& cripple) the Mueller probe, such a move would be a direct attack on the constitutional rule of law: trumps-potential-new-attorney-general-once-mused-about-choking-off-robert-muellers-funds. These excerpts were the intro to trump-talked-with-jeff-sessionss-own-chief-of-staff-about-replacing-him-as-attorney-general:
President Trump talked recently with Jeff Sessions’s own chief of staff about replacing Sessions as attorney general, according to people briefed on the conversation, signaling that the president remains keenly interested in ousting his top law enforcement official. The conversation between Trump and Matthew G. Whitaker was somewhat nebulous, the people said. It was not clear, for example, whether Whitaker would take over on an interim basis or be nominated in a more permanent capacity, or how definitive the president’s intentions were. On a long list of indignities that Sessions has endured from his boss, Trump’s discussing replacing him with his own top aide stands out. Trump has wanted to fire Sessions ever since he recused himself from what is now the special counsel’s investigation into whether Russia coordinated with the Trump campaign to influence the 2016 election. He has berated his attorney general publicly and privately, and recently told Hill.TV, “I don’t have an attorney general.” Sessions, meanwhile, has dutifully sought to implement Trump’s agenda, even as it has become clear his relationship with the president is damaged beyond repair.
Let’s Wipe Out Our Crony Capitalist System
The bombshell reports about Trump’s family finances reveal loads about the character of the man & demands a complete investigation what laws were violated, including taking a close look at Trump financial records in more recent years. It should also prompt our nation to do a thorough review of current tax laws, uncovering the various ways the wealthy may be stealing us blind: opinion/trump-bezos-estate-tax.
Massive Yet Fragile Ego
This next link takes us to an op-ed stating “He’s emotionally unsuited to deal with the presidency,” so the prez surrounds himself with yes-people who fawn over his mere presence. So there’s few if any inside the White House willing to speak truth to power & telling him the facts the way they really are, not just the way Trump wants them to be: trump-cabinet-white-house-pompeo-cohn. Inside all-the-major-firings-and-resignations-in-trump-administration & also who-has-trump-fired-so-far-james-comey-sean-spicer-michael-flynn are thorough reviews of the unprecedented turnover within the White House. The most recent resignation was a big blow, found in these excerpts from nikki-haleys-resignation-remarks-president-trump:
For nearly two years, it’s been part of the Washington wise man or wise woman’s catechism: Thank God for the adults in the room at the White House. You know the ones: Defense Secretary James Mattis. Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats. And until Tuesday, United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley. On Tuesday morning, Haley sat next to President Donald Trump in the Oval Office and announced that she’ll be leaving the administration at the end of the year. While the pace of departures from the Trump team has slowed in recent months—it could hardly keep up with the frenetic revolving door of 2017—Haley’s exit is a big one, and it might not be a one-off. Haley and Trump were all smiles Tuesday, with the ambassador adopting the language of the most sycophantic Trump disciples.
However, beneath the Haley-fellow-well-met routine, there’s been tension between the ambassador and the White House. Haley was an unknown quantity on foreign policy before her appointment, but she quickly won over much of the establishment with her Reaganite approach. Against Trump’s isolationist and retrenching influences, she has been hawkish and emphasized the importance of international alliances. Haley has been the administration’s most prominent critic of Russia, even as Trump tends to coddle Vladimir Putin. Now, whether or not the “adults” had much effect while in the room, another wave of them seem to be headed for the exits. After Haley, it’s easy to imagine Mattis and Kelly leaving after the midterm elections. If Democrats take the House, much less the Senate, the administration could become an even less fun place to work, and the president might turn to foreign affairs to get things done—a common pivot for presidents who find Congress unobliging.
Why does Trump always seem aligned with brutal dictators?
Putin has been on a murderous spree to wipe out opponents for a long time. Here’s another example of the deadly dangers associated with the risk of blowing the whistle on the Kremlin/KGB crime ring: russian-whistleblower-assassinated-after-uncovering-dollar200-billion-dirty-money-scandal. Trump has long protected the Russian dictator, much like he now seems to be offering cover for the Saudi prince: i-like-them-very-much-trump-has-long-standing-business-ties-with-saudis-who-have-boosted-his-hotels-since-he-took-office. In my younger years I loved the sitcom Hogan’s Heroes, where the German POW guard Sergeant Schultz would watch all the shenanigans around him pulled off by the Hogan team, from which he would often bark out I know nothing! That’s what Trump has been saying as he looks the other way when the Saudis almost certainly murdered a Washington Post columnist, as seen inside trump-jamal-khashoggi & also jamal-khashoggi-saudi-arabia-turkey-journalist.
The one good outcome from this otherwise horrific story is the communications with Turkey likely indirectly resulted in the release of an imprisoned pastor. But who would have ever believed an American President could heap praise on ruthless dictators the likes of the leaders of Russia, North Korea & Saudi Arabia, while also often reaping scorn on the leaders of Canada, Britain & Germany. It’s like the world has turned upside down! From more article links below, I guess selling the Saudi dictator military weapons trumps protecting the lives of journalists, even journalists who’ve become Americans: trump-weapons-deal-with-saudi-arabia-khashoggi-disappearance. And our prez consistently keeps giving dictators cover for human rights abuses & their ruling with an iron fist. It may be how he secretly wishes to rule. So here are more from the newsfeeds on that brutal murder:
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/10/jamal-khashoggi-us-saudi/572722/
http://time.com/5420680/jamal-khashoggi-meng-hongwei-china-saudi-arabia-trump/
http://time.com/5420680/jamal-khashoggi-meng-hongwei-china-saudi-arabia-trump/
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/10/trumps-weak-khashoggi-response-will-embolden-dictators.html
Circus Ringmaster
Some examples here of not being willing to focus on governing, even in the face of an emergency in the Southeast. Those examples this week were rallies & a goofy spot on Fox & Friends. And oh, don’t forget, there was also that crazy rant in the Oval Office from Kanye West (see song at bottom of part 3). Even Hannity has suddenly become a Kanye fan! So here is how our president likes to spend his time: trump-spends-47-useless-minutes-on-fox-friends-phone-call-while-florida-recovers-from-devastating-hurricane & also trump-kanye-west-oval-office-meeting & also hurricane-season-gets-surreal-from-kavanaugh-to-kanye-a-weird-week-in-trumpworld. And don’t be blase about the Russia Trump news just because things seem relatively quiet behind the scenes (for now). Whenever that does blow up, it’s likely to be unlike anything we’ve ever seen!
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