rolling trump-russian collusion

damning review

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-russia-isnt-about-the-cover-up-its-about-the-crime

One tip-off was in Michael Flynn’s December 1 “allocution”—his signed submission to the court as part of his guilty plea to making false statements to the FBI on January 24, 2017. It received almost no media attention but suggested the nature of the criminal conspiracy that would likely be at the heart of Mueller’s prosecution.

Flynn didn’t just vaguely admit he lied. The law doesn’t allow that. He admitted in writing that his lie “had a material impact” on the FBI’s probe “into the existence of any links or coordination between individuals associated with the Trump Campaign and Russia’s efforts to intervene in the 2016 election.”

hurry up, mr. mueller!

What the hell is up with this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQZr2NgKPiU

boy I really hope that guy doesn't mysteriously wind up dead

we need to get this guy on the case. american IC is more and more "compromised" by trump m.mulvaney-ing the FBI / CIA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U28FY1H8sbY

It would be nice to think that Navalny has been allowed to persist because his profile in the West has risen too much....seems more like Putin has calculated that the public is now so inured to these crimes that he poses no real threat. New normals everywhere.

A couple months before that boat trip (June 2016) Victoria Nuland was asking congress for billion$ "to deploy an additional rotational Armored Brigade Combat Team (ABCT) to Central and Eastern Europe; the prepositioning of combat equipment; as well as additional trainings and exercises in Europe."

https://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/060716_Nuland_Testimony.pdf

the escort's instagram is wild. she's claiming that oleg is suing her to remove the photos and that it's an end-run around blocking youtube and instagram in russia?

https://www.instagram.com/nastya_rybka.ru/?hl=en

Some knucklehead at the IC testimony today asked smugly if the Steele Dossier is still considered "salacious and unverified." IC guy paused then said he would have to address that in closed session (!).

Same dude asked first if Steele had been employed by Oleg.

The escort is also threatening to sue Deripaska for rape if he doesn’t agree to marry her and led a partially-clothed street protest / publicity stunt in favour of Harvey Weinstein a few months ago. She’s a colourful character.

Yeah, that Weinstein protest was in the video. Looks like she stuck sparklers in her butt.

chait v. greenwald -- fight!

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/02/how-glenn-greenwald-made-the-russia-scandal-disappear.html

The column he quotes... How can anyone write shit like this with a straight face?

There has long been a fringe on the far right that believes the Clintons are responsible for murdering dozens of people in order to silence them. Sometimes, people who thought that way were in the mainstream, as evidenced by the leading role played by the Wall Street Journal editorial page in pushing the theory that Hillary Clinton had former White House attorney Vince Foster murdered.

But those people have been largely scorned and relegated to obscurity. The new conspiracy theorists — the ones who casually suggest that when a plane crashes, it is really a secret attempt by Putin and Trump to silence one of the passengers (who wasn’t even a passenger) — are found not on far right websites, but on MSNBC and at Harvard Law School, with constantly growing social media followings and increasingly viral tweets.

Seth Rich anyone?

Is the Seth Rich theory "in the mainstream"?

As in has anyone published anything regarding it in publications comparable to the WSJ?

The more outré Russia conspiracy theories are definitely more mainstream/visible than the Seth Rich thing imo

https://www.wsj.com/articles/fox-news-contributor-sues-over-discredited-article-on-dnc-staffer-1501606036

xp. Well given that Louise Mensch had an op-ed in the NYT I would say so.

oh, ok, fox covered it. i guess it's mainstream in terms of visibility and viewership.

Sean Hannity devoted several nights to Seth Rich, wtf?

Fox News is obviously a bit of an outlier in terms of the fact that it is a huge network but is batshit insane

And you should really read the column, the whole thing is about a weirdo dude on twitter. Not exactly a great example if the point is mainstream acceptance.

Also, try and google 'Breitbart Seth Rich' and 'Infowars Seth Rich'. Conspiracy hustling IS the right wing media mainstream.

yeah but fox news is also very much in the public sphere in a lot of parts of the country.

The politicization of the DoJ at the hands of a far-right AG, amid an attempted purge of employees deemed insufficiently loyal, is never described as McCarthyism, but the idea that the "deep state" is full of secret leftists, here protecting their traitorous queen....

— Charles Davis (@charliearchy) December 21, 2017

Does Greenwald still talk about Louise Mensch? That may indicate some degree of desperation on his part if he’s done that say in the past year.

What the hell is up with this?

"allegedly" oleg deripaska, sergei pridhodko, and paul manafort were the go-betweens between mr. putin and mr. trump?

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/12/world/europe/russia-youtube-instagram-navalny.html

*prikhodko

not sure re Mensch but bear in mind the NYT gave her a byline less than a year ago, only a couple months before it was broadly agreed she was certifiable

Yes, that is in the Chait piece.

have yet to read, was responding to NP regarding the acceptable Mensch burn window

yes there is certainly no lunatic fringe today on RussiaRussiaRussia

I am so confused-- now it's RUSSIA that is spreading the real/fake stories about Russian influence over Trump?! pic.twitter.com/6oHyoleI9x

— Peter Hart (@peterfhart) February 13, 2018

Yeah sure but that’s not a good example probably.

I find that plausible: that it's as much about sowing chaos as it is about guaranteeing a specific result.

Why would Russia not be spreading misinformation about Russia’s activities?

What is this kindergarten playbook people think that foreign intelligence services are reading from

a better example would have been the lib accounts claiming that something awful in the Trump budget was "straight out of the Putin playbook" or whatever

The online version of the article doesn't appear to make that claim any more, if it's from the NY Times.

never gets old

"There's two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump," McCarthy (R-Calif.) said, according to a recording of the June 15, 2016, exchange, which was listened to and verified by The Washington Post. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher is a Californian Republican known in Congress as a fervent defender of Putin and Russia.

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) immediately interjected, stopping the conversation from further exploring McCarthy's assertion, and swore the Republicans present to secrecy.

Before the conversation, McCarthy and Ryan had emerged from separate talks at the Capitol with Ukrainian Prime Minister Vladimir Groysman, who had described a Kremlin tactic of financing populist politicians to undercut Eastern European democratic institutions.

News had just broken the day before in The Washington Post that Russian government hackers had penetrated the computer network of the Democratic National Committee, prompting McCarthy to shift the conversation from Russian meddling in Europe to events closer to home.

Some of the lawmakers laughed at McCarthy's comment. Then McCarthy quickly added: "Swear to God."

Ryan instructed his Republican lieutenants to keep the conversation private, saying: "No leaks. ... This is how we know we're a real family here."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/house-majority-leader-to-colleagues-in-2016-i-think-putin-pays-trump/2017/05/17/515f6f8a-3aff-11e7-8854-21f359183e8c_story.html?utm_term=.1ebb39551c67

where's jason chaffetz when you need him? and jim "the USA FISA courts are corrupt tools of hellary benghazobama killton" jordan (r-oh) and devin "grapefruit fucker" nunes? #MRGA

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-rick-gates-plea-deal-20180218-story.html

A former top aide to Donald Trump's presidential campaign will plead guilty to fraud-related charges within days — and has made clear to prosecutors that he would testify against Paul Manafort, the lawyer-lobbyist who once managed the campaign.

The change of heart by Trump's former deputy campaign manager Richard Gates, who had pleaded not guilty after being indicted in October on charges similar to Manafort's, was described in interviews by people familiar with the case.

"Rick Gates is going to change his plea to guilty," said a person with direct knowledge of the new developments, adding that the revised plea will be presented in federal court in Washington "within the next few days."

case closed. no collusion

Manafort getting squeeeeeeeezed. Gates, that additional mortgage fraud charge ... Mueller must want something from him, I just can't put my finger on what. Maybe cheap rugs?

the thing that trump knows that no one else knows about the latest mueller indictments is that, if you look at them, none of the people indicted were in the trump administration or campaign. and that proves that there was no collusion. and since mueller's work is done, that's the end of the story.

Makes sense to me.

June 9, 2016 ~ Half Scoop's, Jar Jar's, Manafort's, and Bannon's Trump Tower Russia meeting
June 9, 2016 ~ Trump tweets about missing Clinton emails
June 12, 2016 ~ Wikileaks promises to release more Clinton emails

July 18, 2016 ~ Trump campaign surrogates make RNC Platform Committee soften stance against Russia, reduce support for Ukraine
- Other Platform Committee members note that 2scoops's people took almost no interest in any other platform planks
- Carter Page congratulates Trump surrogates via email: "As for the Ukraine amendment, excellent work."
http://www.businessinsider.com/carter-page-congressional-testimony-transcript-steele-dossier-2017-11
July 22, 2016 ~ Wikileaks releases DNC emails

but tax cuts! tax cuts!!

maybe we should place upper age limits on voting too

A Florida woman who ran a Trump supporters page that unwittingly promoted a Russian-coordinated event on Facebook says she doesn’t believe that she was influenced by Kremlin-linked trolls https://t.co/DmgDRFRwyn pic.twitter.com/OAz5julCyA

— CNN (@CNN) February 21, 2018

maybe we should place upper age limits on voting too

A Florida woman who ran a Trump supporters page that unwittingly promoted a Russian-coordinated event on Facebook says she doesn’t believe that she was influenced by Kremlin-linked trolls https://t.co/DmgDRFRwyn pic.twitter.com/OAz5julCyA

— CNN (@CNN) February 21, 2018

What if outrage over Russian interference could lead to a broader discussion about the dangers of online psyops, soft power, and meddling in other countries affairs instead of a one-note outrage orgy by partisan hacks who defend these same practices when done by the US

— Adam H. Johnson (@adamjohnsonNYC) February 21, 2018

Russian bot activity goes back decades. #knowyourmasters pic.twitter.com/dQrYhaGd16

— Dennis Perrin (@DennisThePerrin) February 23, 2018

point
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/taibbi-russiagate-skeptics-take-a-beating-mueller-probe-w517006

counterpoint
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2018/02/26/the-mounds-of-evidence-russiagate-skeptics-have-to-ignore/

That Taibbi piece's entire opening premise was completely undercut by this piece from someone who worked at Facebook

https://www.wired.com/story/how-trump-conquered-facebookwithout-russian-ads/

"During the run-up to the election, the Trump and Clinton campaigns bid ruthlessly for the same online real estate in front of the same swing-state voters. But because Trump used provocative content to stoke social media buzz, and he was better able to drive likes, comments, and shares than Clinton, his bids received a boost from Facebook’s click model, effectively winning him more media for less money. In essence, Clinton was paying Manhattan prices for the square footage on your smartphone’s screen, while Trump was paying Detroit prices. Facebook users in swing states who felt Trump had taken over their news feeds may not have been hallucinating."