rolling trump-russian collusion

yea Trump's silence on Avenatti and the whole Stormy situation is pretty telling to me

“I don’t think in the history of the department there’s ever been anybody so ill-prepared” for this job, says Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who has been one of the chief agitators against Benczkowski’s nomination. He says Benczkowski has “barely set foot in a courtroom.” (Benczkowski has never prosecuted a case.) He continues, “So if the obvious reason for why you’d want him there is not evident, then you have to look for less obvious reasons.”

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/07/brian-benczkowski-justice-department-nominee-with-russia-ties-confirmation/

our "conservative" republican friends are such traditionalists and strict originalists that when they ram a candidate through with zero relevant experiences, it can only be because freedom, liberty, tax cuts, and small government. free paul manafort! fire rosenstein! mire mueller! lock strzok up!!

these comments help clarify the wheeler thing quite a bit

Trip says:
July 3, 2018 at 10:53 am
I’m confused (what else is new, amirite?). You mention that this person is lying, but then state that the text was, in essence, corroborated. So it’s not clear my excessive-heat fogged out brain what the lie is. Was it about the person’s true intentions? It’s weird to share that type of info that is kind of true and then spread disinformation. I might have an inkling about the source, but it would only be speculation, which I’m not gonna share.

Be safe. Holy shit, life comes at you fast.

dc says:
July 3, 2018 at 11:41 am
She indicated in a twitter post that the text correctly predicted what happened, and implied that the person told lies about other subjects. Marcy can correct me if I am wrong, but thought I would help out to close the loop on this question.

i'm still not quite sure how a journalist could play a 'significant role' in this though? as she says:

“a person whom I had come to believe had played a significant role in the Russian election attack on the US”.

unless she just means running interference over the media but there's plenty of that to go around as it is

like a ‘journalistic telationship’ doesn’t mean the person is a journalist, it’s more that she’s burning a source

idk i’m still a little confused. seems like a bit of well-thought out ass-covering for a very specific situation she anticipates playing out further

still have to listen, but pertinent:

https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/why-reporter-turned-in-source/

okay this interview is way better than her post, listen to it

strongly insinuates greenwald

As the source? Huh?

skip to 8:30

eh frankly i'm not terribly smart so don't listen to me. it still sounds like an actor in the campaign, idk. stone also admitted he was the unnamed collaborator in the indictment which was like pointing out that the sky is blue

Seeing people link old articles about the Podesta hacks from the election is infuriating. This one might be the worst, if only because it includes a Clinton operative stating everything we now know to be fact, and being completely dismissed:

https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2016/10/if-the-russians-are-really-meddling-in-our-electio.html

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-07-17/helsinki-2018-putin-and-trump-s-tax-returns

Good point, we should have his tax returns.

But you know who likely has his tax returns? Mueller.

One of the two authors of that Paste article (H.A. Goodman who pushed some bizarre “Bernie can still win this” theories) has since become an open and unapologetic Trump supporter and the other (Walker Bragman) wrote the “Liberal case for Trump” piece for Salon during the election.

Maybe it’s healthy to acknowledge that horseshoe theory is at least a little bit real.

HA Goodman has always been the worst kind of troll, he was disgusting during the primaries in 16 and it was clear he was in it more for the followers than the movement

Yeah dragging up a paste magazine piece by those two is some pretty impressive cherry picking. IIRC the main reason anybody read that in the first place was because people were making fun of tweedle-dee & -dum.

nastya rybka has said that she’s only going to give her tapes to.... oleg deripaska, in exchange for “a date and flowers.”

https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/594g7n/exclusive-sex-huntress-says-she-wont-give-us-officials-secret-tapes-about-russian-election-meddling

man i wish my nickname was 'sex huntress'

trump temptress

i keep thinking 'reality is broken' so its only fitting that we're seeing calls to free reality winner imo

when i see her name in a sentence it just looks like broken grammar to me, until i remember "that's a person!"

Reality Winner being the only person thus far to go to jail over all this pretty much sums up where America is at right now

manafort is in jail awaiting trial fyi

but not for this specifically, right? wasn't he indicted on 400 separate crimes?

here’s an interesting tweet from 2016 about maria butina meeting with “nra member” trump

Мария Бутина сейчас в США. Пишет мне, что Д.Трамп (член NRA) реально за сотрудничество с Россией. https://t.co/enLxGEeCaX

— А.П. Торшин (@torshin_ru) February 14, 2016

*taps screen* is this thing broken?

if you click through you can translate jt

http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2018/07/russian-electoral-intervention-strategic-genius-something-else

This last observation leads me to the second point. My strong sense, based on what we know so far, is that Moscow needed convincing to pivot toward going “all in” on a Trump victory. This, by the way, is the context for existing evidence of collusion:. Various individuals affiliated with the Trump campaign tried to secure Russian support. Trump himself signaled in public that he was amenable to striking a partnership.

In this light, Moscow’s decision to back Trump was an enormous gamble—and it looks more like a desperate ‘Hail Mary’ than a strategically savvy decision. Sometimes, leaders make bad choices that nonetheless work out well. For this one to work out comes down to a horse-race: Can Trump do enough damage to American power, leadership, and influence before he’s gone? Can he lock-in a Republican shift against NATO and for Russia by 2020 or 2024? Will that be enough if the next President wants payback?

"Is Robert Mueller ever going to release his conflicts of interest with respect to President Trump, including the fact that we had a very nasty & contentious business relationship, I turned him down to head the FBI (one day before appointment as S.C.) & Comey is his close friend.."

Lotta Diet Coke Thoughts in today's Tweets...

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/01/trump-thinks-mueller-has-golf-fee-conflict-of-interest.html

rolling remunerative trump-kremlin conspiracy

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/russian-tv-host-features-trump-fans-id-rather-a-russian-than-a-democrat-shirt

The only questions that remain are whether the collusion that took place constituted criminally liable conspiracy, whether obstruction of justice occurred to cover up any collusion or conspiracy, and how many members of “Trump Incorporated” attempted to defraud the government by laundering and concealing the movement of money into their pockets.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/16/opinion/john-brennan-trump-russia-collusion-security-clearance.html

August 16, 2018

STATEMENT FROM FORMER SENIOR INTELLIGENCE OFFICIALS

As former senior intelligence officials, we feel compelled to respond in the wake of the ill-considered and unprecedented remarks and actions by the White House regarding the removal of John Brennan’s security clearances. We know John to be an enormously talented, capable, and patriotic individual who devoted his adult life to the service of this nation. Insinuations and allegations of wrongdoing on the part of Brennan while in office are baseless. Since leaving government service John has chosen to speak out sharply regarding what he sees as threats to our national security. Some of the undersigned have done so as well. Others among us have elected to take a different course and be more circumspect in our public pronouncements. Regardless, we all agree that the president’s action regarding John Brennan and the threats of similar action against other former officials has nothing to do with who should and should not hold security clearances – and everything to do with an attempt to stifle free speech. You don’t have to agree with what John Brennan says (and, again, not all of us do) to agree with his right to say it, subject to his obligation to protect classified information. We have never before seen the approval or removal of security clearances used as a political tool, as was done in this case. Beyond that, this action is quite clearly a signal to other former and current officials. As individuals who have cherished and helped preserve the right of Americans to free speech – even when that right has been used to criticize us – that signal is inappropriate and deeply regrettable. Decisions on security clearances should be based on national security concerns and not political views.

William H. Webster, former Director of Central Intelligence (1987-1991)

George J. Tenet, former Director of Central Intelligence (1997-2004)

Porter J. Goss, former Director of Central Intelligence, (2005-2006)

General Michael V. Hayden, USAF, Ret., former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (2006-2009)

Leon E. Panetta, former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (2009-2011)

General David H. Petraeus, USA, Ret., former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (2011-2012)

James R. Clapper, former Director of National Intelligence (2010-2017)

John E. McLaughlin, former Deputy Director of Central Intelligence (2000-2004)

Stephen R. Kappes, former Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (2006-2010)

Michael J. Morell, former Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (2010-2013)

Avril Haines, former Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (2013-2015)

David S. Cohen, former Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (2015-2017)

That'll show him.

he probably just ate that memo and laughed when whoever's replaced michael cohen showed it to him

14 Angry Democrat Generals!!

(It doesn’t matter that they aren’t all democrats. It doesn’t matter that they’re not generals. It doesn’t matter that there are 12.)

it's extremely weird (and suspicious) that he has felt, almost since day one, that the best move for himself would be to pick fights with the intelligence community

you kind of expect a right wing president to get along with the CIA--the least accountable, most secretive part of the federal government

especially since reporters love to do stories about how much happier the intelligence community is with a Republican president

Well, he probably shouldn't have colluded with the Russians to get elected, then.

you kind of expect a right wing president to get along with the CIA

calling him "right-wing" implies he has some identifiable ideology when all he seems to have in his brain is an assortment of idiot-tested-and-approved memes, many of which come from the conspiracy-obsessed fringe, where the CIA is often the arch-villain.

his gut instincts are all right-wing individually and coherently american-postwar-backlash-fascist in combination: xenophobic racism, strongman authoritarianism, and greed-is-good hypercapitalism.

http://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=(title:52%20section:30121%20edition:prelim)

Investigators are focused on two bursts of transactions that bank examiners deemed suspicious: one a short time after the meeting and another immediately after the November 2016 presidential election.

The first set came just 11 days after the June 9 meeting, when an offshore company controlled by Agalarov wired more than $19.5 million to his account at a bank in New York.

The second flurry began shortly after Trump was elected. The Agalarov family started sending what would amount to $1.2 million from their bank in Russia to an account in New Jersey controlled by the billionaire’s son, pop singer Emin Agalarov, and two of his friends. The account had been virtually dormant since the summer of 2015, according to records reviewed by BuzzFeed News, and bankers found it strange that activity in Emin Agalarov’s checking account surged after Trump’s victory.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/anthonycormier/trump-tower-meeting-suspicious-transactions-agalarov

better dead than red

https://abcnews.go.com/International/putin-us-dominance-ending-mistakes-typical-empire/story?id=58611354

Extremely self-serving analysis by Putin, but there's a kernel of truth about the USA making typical imperial mistakes by overextending its reach and overestimating its power. The British did this consistently from 1870 onwards, but they stayed in the power seat for nearly half a century more.

Where Putin indulges in wishful thinking is where he asserts a multi-polar world will emerge as US power hits some air gaps. The only nation ready to exploit US weakness enough to insert itself as our rival great power is China. Which, if it happens, makes for a bi-polar world again, not the multi-polar world Putin wishes for. Russia still wouldn't be in the game.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1102316/download

^ in case anyone's curious about the kremlin's (quite effective) strategy for dividing americans against each other, this DoJ complaint is rewarding reading

So is the big moment coming when they finally take down Trump and all his cronies?