That article presents a President both handcuffed and clueless. I wonder if he still loves being surrounded by generals.Originally Posted by nsacpi
That article presents a President both handcuffed and clueless. I wonder if he still loves being surrounded by generals.
FFF - BB, BB, 2B, HR, 2B, HR, 1B, BB, BB, 1B, BB, BB, HR
Handuffed and clueless yes. But also still in a position where he could do a great deal of harm.
"I am a victim, I will tell you. I am a victim."
"I am your retribution."
A lot of the focus in this thread and in the media has been on collusion and obstruction.
I think the financial dependency angle is not getting the attention it deserves. It covers a lot of entities and people:
1) The Trump Organization. Eric and Trump Jr have both made comments (since denied) about how much Russian money was coming in.
2) Trump himself through Deutsche. Did someone provide an implicit guarantee for the 2010 loan.
3) Kushner through Deutsche and maybe in other ways. What was the meeting with Sergei Gorkov about?
4) Manafortov through Yanukovich and Derispaka (and therefore to Russia and Putin).
5) Flynn. Payments from Russia and bigger payments from Turkey. We do not yet have a full accounting of who was really paying him.
6) Lurking in the background are various parties in the Middle East who have been very eager to cultivate various members of the Trump administration.
7) Carter Page. Small potatoes but he was hoping to get rich.
8) Michael Cohen. Seems to have brought in a fair amount of money from Ukrainians and Russians.
9) Felix Sater
Last edited by nsacpi; 02-24-2018 at 11:42 AM.
"I am a victim, I will tell you. I am a victim."
"I am your retribution."
I'm satisfied that Mueller is giving it plenty of attention.
FFF - BB, BB, 2B, HR, 2B, HR, 1B, BB, BB, 1B, BB, BB, HR
I’m fairly certain Putin would love to have Obama back right now. Especially as it relates to Syria.
10) James Alefantis in the Comet Ping Pong with the children.
If it was really about the threat Russia faces then everyone should love trump. But we already know that had nothing to do with it.
Natural Immunity Croc
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/0...064151020.html
Oh, look, a ceasefire.
I have an idea: let's talk about Paul Manafort!
excellent piece
"I am a victim, I will tell you. I am a victim."
"I am your retribution."
"I don’t know what this means as a legal matter. That involves facts I don’t know and legal knowledge I lack."
= about every post on this subject on this forum since ever.
"The Trump campaign, through multiple channels that we know about, made it clear repeatedly that they wanted to play ball. Repeatedly with a consistent message. Did Donald Trump himself know about or approve these contacts? I don’t know or rather don’t have proof. But you have to be terribly naive to think that Trump’s comically approval-starved son Don Jr. didn’t loop his dad in on this great opportunity he’d come up with.
"But none of these are the key thing. That is this: For the second half of 2016 Donald Trump himself and his campaign knew that Russia was engaged in a wide-ranging effort to subvert the 2016 campaign and to work to get him elected. Yet despite this knowledge he and his campaign continued to approve numerous contacts with Russian government officials, clandestine meetings, receive offers of assistance. He also continued to push a decidedly Russia friendly policy agenda, even to the point of threatening to short-circuit or abandon the NATO alliance – probably Russia’s principal foreign policy goal not only today but decades back into the Cold War. They continued to authorize all of this, continued to feel out the possible dimensions of the relationship and, critically, made no effort to contact the FBI or other relevant federal agencies about a plot they knew these agencies were tracking and trying to combat.
"Now, key question: How do I know they knew this? First, they knew because the Russians told them. Explicitly told them. Second, they knew what all of us knew. Remember: from late July through November there was a constant stream of reportage detailing Russian efforts. At the time that was mainly tied to the theft and distribution of emails. But the Russian use of social media bots and sock puppets as well as Russian-state owned English language media were apparent too. A lot was public in the fall of 2016. But the critical thing is this: starting in August, Donald Trump personally, as well as various high-ranking members of his team, were briefed on the Russian interference effort by US intelligence and law enforcement officials. We know this, Mr. Trump and we want to make sure you know.
"If hearing it from the Russians themselves wasn’t enough, if seeing the numerous press reports wasn’t enough, the US government’s intelligence leaders telling him certainly should have been. Repeatedly. Notably, they likely included a number of key details we in the public only learned as much as a year later.
"He knew. He 100% knew. And yet they continued on with the contacts and clandestine discussions and public policy promises right up to election day and intensified them during the transition. Not once, as far as we know, did anyone associated with the Trump campaign or Trump himself speak to anyone from law enforcement or the intelligence community and say, “Hey, you told us about that interference campaign. This one guy contacted us and we had a few conversations with him. Just wanted you to know.”
"Not once.
"Of course, Trump or Jared Kushner or Paul Manafort or Don Jr might have said, “Hey, now that you mention it, we actually took this meeting in Trump Tower in June. And someone said it was the Russian government itself trying to give us dirt. We just wanted you to know.”
"Not once. None of that happened. To me this shows a clear consciousness of guilt and more specifically a desire to participate – ‘collaborate’ is probably the better word – in the Russian operation out of the view of the US government which was trying to prevent it. Note here that I haven’t even gotten into the after the fact obstruction, calling in the the Russia Foreign Minister and sharing the most closely held US intelligence secrets or the continued refusal to impose sanctions mandated overwhelmingly by Congress."
Its kind of interesting that Bannon was the only one within the campaign to be able to look at it from a law enforcement/national security perspective. I don't know what to make of that.
"I am a victim, I will tell you. I am a victim."
"I am your retribution."
Runnin (02-24-2018)
yes...we all be amateurs
"I am a victim, I will tell you. I am a victim."
"I am your retribution."
Runnin (02-24-2018)
Hey it's everyone's favorite subject!
Memos!!
https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/24/polit...sed/index.html
The actual memo:
http://docs.house.gov/meetings/ig/ig...0205-sd002.pdf
lol
So, any hottakey commentary that isn't ripped from the Chris Hayes or Seth Abramson Twitter feeds?
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