*
Trump
hires 480 foreign workers.
TRUMP’S CLUB at Mar-a-Lago is seeking permission under a special visa program to
hire 61 foreign waiters and cooks for the winter season. This brings the
total of foreign workers hired by Trump or his organizations since he started
running for president to 480, half at Mar-a-Lago.
Because, let’s face it. Trump is a cheap bastard.
Why not hire Americans? It’s not like Americans don’t know
how to wait tables and fry burgers. Oh! You’d have to offer them higher pay!!
“It’s very, very hard to get people,” Trump explained during a 2016 debate, arguing that “other hotels do the exact
same thing.” It’s legal. Why not? “I take advantage of that. There’s nothing
wrong with it. We have no choice.”
You have no choice?
There’s no way you could pay more to attract American workers?
It might help if you were ready to dip deeper into your own bank account and make sure
you paid workers a fair wage.
7/7/18: Trump
continues to learn that diplomacy is a bitch. Having announced that North Korea
was no longer a nuclear threat, and that all Americans could slumber in peace,
he sends Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to North Korea so Kim Jong-un can hand
over all his nuclear weapons.
Apparently, it comes as a surprise to the North Koreans that
they are no longer a threat to the U.S. Pompeo assures reporters after the meetings
end that talks were “productive.” “These are complicated issues,” he admits,
“but we made progress on almost all of the central issues.”
The North Korean Foreign Ministry releases a different assessment: “The attitude and demands from the
U.S. side during the high-level talks were nothing short of deeply
regrettable….The issues the U.S. side insisted on during the talks were the
same cancerous ones that the past U.S. administrations had insisted on.” For good measure, the North Koreans described the U.S.
negotiating position as a “unilateral and gangster-like demand for
denuclearization.”
*
BACK HOME, the president spends another “productive” day
tweeting. Eventually, his attention turns to the Russian investigation. It’s a
“Rigged Witch Hunt,” he says. He rambles on about “the missing DNC Server, Crooked
Hillary’s illegally deleted Emails, the Pakistani Fraudster, Uranium One,
Podesta & so much more.”
Why weren’t they investigated!
All
the following statements are true.
At this point you begin to wonder what other extraneous issues
Trump will dump in the mix. Who the hell is “the Pakistani Fraudster?” What does
he or she have to do with the fact that all the following statements are true:
1.
Trump’s first National Security Adviser, General
Flynn, lied to Vice President Jesus about a meeting with Russians. He has pled guilty to one felony and continues to cooperate
with the investigation.
2.
Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos lied about
contacts with Russians. He pled guilty and continues to cooperate.
3.
Roger Stone now admits he met with a Russian offering
dirt on Clinton; but the Russian wanted $2 million to share it.
4.
Michael Cohen admits negotiations to build a
Trump Tower Moscow continued until at least June 2016.
5.
Felix Sater, working for Trump in Moscow,
suggested giving Putin a $50 million penthouse apartment in the proposed tower,
to sweeten the deal.
6.
In June 2016 Don Jr., Jared Kushner and Trump
campaign manager Paul Manafort took a secret meeting with representatives of the Russian
government offering dirt on Mrs. Clinton.
7.
All three men “forgot” they had the meeting.
When The New York Times
revealed the meeting, all three men suddenly remembered: Oh, that meeting!
8.
Don Jr. appeared on Fox News to set the record
straight. He assured Sean Hannity that the meeting was a harmless affair and
everyone talked mostly about adoption policy.
9.
The president helped draft a letter that made a
similar claim—that the meeting was “primarily” about adoption policy.
The New
York
Times notified Don Jr. it had in its
possession emails proving the meeting had been set up primarily for the purpose
of receiving from agents of the Russian government, dirt on Hillary Clinton.
10. Press
Secretary Pinocchio denied that the president had drafted the letter claiming the meeting was
primarily about adoption.
12. Later he
backed off and said Don Jr. and Jared weren’t treasonous. Only Manafort was.
13. Manafort
has been indicted on a long list of crimes.
14. Manafort’s
top aide, Rick Gates, was indicted for most of the same crimes. He pled guilty and decided to cooperate with
investigators.
15. Trump’s
lawyers eventually admit that the president did draft the misleading
letter (#10 above) about the purpose of the meeting at Trump Tower.
16. Manafort
gets hauled into court a second time. His $10 million bail is revoked and he gets sent to jail.
17. Now he’s
charged with witness tampering.
18. Michael
Caputo and Roger Stone, who denied for two years having had anything to do with
any Russians during the 2016 campaign, suddenly remember they did set up a meeting
(Caputo) and meet (Stone) with a Russian offering to sell dirt on Hillary.
19. Last,
but not least—and remember, this is but a sampling—the Senate Judiciary
Committee releases its bipartisan report. Among its key findings: The
Russians did interfere in the 2016 election. The Russians did work to damage
Hillary Clinton’s chances of winning. The Russians did hope Donald J. Trump
would be the next president.
U.S. intelligence agencies had plenty of reasons to
start an investigation into contacts between members of the Trump campaign and
various Russians with links to Vladimir Putin.
7/8/18:
Considering all of the above (see: 7/7/18),
and much, much more, Horndog Rudy, the president’s lawyer, claims his client
has nothing to hide.
And Trump is never
going to talk to investigators because all they want to do is get
him in a perjury trap!
“Republicans
must stand up for the sanctity of our democracy.”
Making the Sunday morning talk show rounds, Giuliani shows up
on ABC’s This Week. Host George
Stephanopoulos asks about an op-ed piece in the Washington Post, written by Bill Frist, former Republican U.S.
Senate majority leader.
The Senate I served in was not
devoid of partisanship, nor should it be, but my hope was that patriotism would
always take priority over party.
It is with some trepidation that
I offer thoughts on how the good people still serving in the Senate should
address a current crisis, but staying silent is no longer an option. Special
counsel Robert S. Mueller III is under assault, and that is wrong. No matter
who is in the White House, we Republicans must stand up for the sanctity of our
democracy and the rule of law.
In terms of policies, Frist says, “President Trump is a great
partner at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.”
Still, he adds:
It isn’t easy to tell a
president of your own party that he is wrong. But the assault on Mueller’s
investigation does not help the president or his party. When Trump talks about
firing the special counsel or his power to pardon himself, he makes it seem as
though he has something to hide. The president must remember that only Mueller’s exoneration can lift the cloud hanging
over the White House.
…The special counsel’s
investigation is not about Trump. It is about our national security. Every
American should be rooting for Mueller’s success in determining precisely how
Russia interfered in our fundamental democratic process.
If you can read that and not be worried about Trump, it’s
probably because consuming too much Fox News has made you numb and dumb.
7/9/18:
Diplomacy is still a bitch (see: 7/7/18).
North Korea appears to be playing the Trump team for fools.
Having declared last month that North Korea was no longer a threat, Trump must now explain why
they won’t just hand over their nukes. Naturally, when Trump gets in a logical
jam, he tries to fight his way out in a tweet:
I have confidence that Kim Jong Un will honor the contract we
signed &, even more importantly, our handshake. We agreed to the
denuclearization of North Korea. China, on the other hand, may be exerting
negative pressure on a deal because of our posture on Chinese Trade-Hope Not!
Who could have guessed? North Korea might not honor a
“contract” or a handshake! China might act against U.S. interests! Who knew!
Well, besides every U.S. president since 1950, except Donald J. Trump.
7/10/18: The
president prepares to leave for Europe, if you can say the president “prepares”
for anything.
Before his trip to Singapore to meet Kim Jong-un in June,
Trump insisted he was always prepared.
Mr.
Born-Prepared will meet with Putin.
Comb that weird hair, lock it down with a full can of
hairspray, and you’re good to go. “I think I’m very well prepared,” he tells reporters
before boarding Air Force One. “I don’t think I have to prepare very much. It’s
about attitude, it’s about willingness to get things done.”
On his trip to Europe, Mr. Born-Prepared will meet NATO
leaders, visit the United Kingdom, go golfing in Scotland for two days (because
he’s already prepared) and sit down with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki.
Oddly enough—and even Fox News can’t avoid reporting this—before embarking, Trump says, “I have NATO,
I have the UK, which is in somewhat in turmoil, and I have Putin. Frankly,
Putin might be the easiest of them all. Who would think? Who would
think?”
Yes, who would think.
7/11/18: The
president’s great attitude and preparedness are on display at breakfast with
NATO officials. Someone has hammered a fact through his helmet of hair
and right into his skull. That means Trump knows Germany buys a liquefied gas
from Russia and he’s pissed.
That means time to vent.
“Germany is totally controlled by Russia,” he grumbles for the world to see. Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo, sitting to his left, wears a tight smile frozen on his face. Kate
Bailey Hutchinson, U.S. ambassador to NATO, seated to his right, looks stunned,
as if someone has hit her upside the head with a frozen trout. Chief of Staff
General John Kelly, one seat down, stares at his plate. He dares not make eye
contact with any of our allies seated across the table. Kelly spends a few moments
silently counting his bacon strips. One. Two. Three. Four.
Yep. There are four.
Trump is off on one of his patented riffs. Whatever random
thoughts are floating in his head are flying from his lips. It’s like he’s at a
campaign rally, only now these are allies and he’s calling them Lyin’ Canada
and Crooked Germany.
I think it’s very sad when
Germany makes a massive oil and gas deal with Russia where—we’re supposed to be
guarding against Russia and Germany goes out and pays billions and billions of
dollars a year to Russia.
So we’re protecting Germany,
we’re protecting France, we’re protecting all of these countries and then
numerous of these countries go out and make a pipeline deal with Russia where
they’re paying billions of dollars into the coffers of Russia. So we’re
supposed to protect you against Russia, but they’re paying billions of dollars
to Russia. I think that’s very inappropriate.
The
Trump Doctrine: Can we score some cash?
Attitude, see. Trump prepares for appearances on the world
stage by bringing attitude and that attitude never changes. He believes
everyone is screwing the United States. In the history books we have the Monroe
Doctrine. We will now have the Truman Doctrine. The Trump Doctrine will
be: “If America can score some serious cash, we might be interested in helping.”
With that display of pique, you can hear the foundation of
what one expert has called “the most successful military alliance in history”
cracking. So, let’s recap. For seventy years the U.S. has helped defend NATO
allies. We have carried a heavy burden. But NATO was our idea. For the first
four decades our allies were part of an essential bulwark against Soviet expansion.
Trump apparently forgets this—or doesn’t know—or doesn’t care. When Ronald Reagan
told Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down that wall,” it was a victory for the West,
for freedom, for capitalism itself. In recent years NATO allies poured troops
into Afghanistan and fought by our side. Even now, NATO warplanes help bomb
ISIS targets in Syria.
In the meetings which follow his breakfast outburst, Trump
insists that NATO allies don’t spend enough on defense. The president claims the
United States is stuck picking up the tab. He says our long-time allies “owe us massive amounts of
money.” But that’s not even close to the truth. NATO has helped ensure peace
and prosperity across Europe and avoid costly wars in the region for seventy
years. Our allies spend heavily on defense, just not as heavily as us. Since
they’re our allies any spending they do can be viewed as combining with ours to make the entire alliance stronger.
These would be the allies that sent a total of
130,000 troops to aid us in Afghanistan. On September 11, 2001, none were
attacked. Yet they sent precious sons and precious daughters to fight in distant
lands, just as we did. Casualties were high. Canada
had 158 killed. Denmark lost 43, France 86, Germany 54, Italy 48, Spain 34, the
United Kingdom 455. Some NATO allies lost a handful, but each was tragedy for a
family back home. Belgium lost 1, Latvia 3, Hungary 7, Poland 10. Several
thousand NATO soldiers were wounded or maimed.
The U.S. dead in Afghanistan total, as of today, 2,412.
The allied dead number 1,148.
The president might not understand how much help our friends
provided in Afghanistan and provide in the fight against ISIS today. ISIS, however, has
noticed. The terrorists unleashed horrific attacks on civilian targets in Paris
and Nice, in London and Manchester, in Toronto, Brussels and Berlin.
Our allies paid a price in blood.
Trump insults the memory of their dead.
$$$$$$$$$$$
7/12/18: F.B.I.
agent Peter Strzok testifies for ten hours in front of a joint panel of
the House Oversight and House Judiciary Committees. Republicans spend the day
shouting about Strzok’s bias against President Trump.
Strzok, who served as an officer in the U.S. Army
(1991-1996), admits he had, in 2016—and still has—a bias against Trump. He says
that he could not imagine that any man who trashed a Gold Star family, said
John McCain was not a hero, and bragged about grabbing women by the pussy would
ever become President of the United States.
Republicans lawmakers take an Evel Knievel-like leap from
there to land a wild claim that since Strzok was biased he had to have been
working against Candidate Trump in 2016 and against President Trump to this
day. He could not have conducted himself in a professional manner when helping
investigate the Trump campaign and links to Russia. That proves, GOP lawmakers
insist, that the entire Mueller investigation is a witch hunt.
And, I suppose, it “proves” that none of the Republicans
shouting all day have any biases of their own.
He
could have sunk Trump’s golden boat.
Strzok keeps pointing out that the F.B.I. Inspector General’s
500-page report (which these lawmakers demanded should be compiled) found that
bias did not affect either his professional conduct or the
conduct of former F.B.I. Director James Comey or other top agency officials.
Strzok also points out that had he wanted to stop Trump from being elected he had the tools at hand. He was one
of a handful of top officials who knew in the summer of 2016 that the Trump
campaign had had an array of suspicious contacts with Russians. He knew an
investigation had been opened. He could have leaked that to the press before
the election. He could have sunk Trump’s golden boat.
Irrefutably, neither Strzok nor anyone else at the F.B.I. did.
Highlights of the hearing include Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ)
attacking Strzok on the basis of body language. At one point, in answer to a
question by Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-TX), Strzok made it clear he was appalled when
Candidate Trump attacked the Gold Star family of a slain Muslim American
soldier. Gosar pounced near the close of the hearings, like a
three-legged cat with one eye.
Angrily, he posed this question for Strzok:
You talk about bias. This morning
I watched—and by the way, I am a dentist, OK, so I read body language very,
very well. And I watched you comment on actions with Mr. Gowdy. You got very
angry in regards to the gold star father. That shows me that it is innately a
part of you and a bias.
Yeah. You could call it a “bias” if you liked. By that
standard, I guess you could say most people are “biased” against child
molesters.
Democratic lawmakers kept spoiling the fun. They pointed out that
the two Republican-controlled House committees had failed to subpoena a single
witness in over a year of “investigation.” They noted that the Senate Judiciary
Committee had reported in bipartisan fashion that the Russians did interfere in
the election. They did want Trump to win. They did try to derail Hillary
Clinton.
Not a single Republican member of the House committees, in
ten hours, asked Strzok a question about Russian meddling.
One Democratic lawmaker offered the assessment that his
Republican colleagues were part of a “Cover-up Caucus.”
“You
need your medication!”
The nadir was reached when Rep. Louis Gohmert (R-Tx.) attacked Strzok for smirking during a long day of
testimony. Gohmert asked if Strzok had the same smirk on his face when he lied
to his wife about having an affair with another F.B.I. agent. (Strzok has long
admitted the affair.)
Oh! Snap! You could almost hear Gohmert
thinking. But as a good liberal, I had to wonder: Did Rep. Gohmert ever wonder
in the same way about that sappy smirk Trump wears on his face? You know: The
look on his orange mug when he lies and tells three wives in a row that he’s
not cheating?
At any rate, one Democratic lawmaker could be heard shouting
at Gohmert, “You need your medication!”
It was that kind of a day.
7/13/18: Having
thoroughly trashed NATO, Trump has plunked down in Great Britain to see what
kind of mess he can make. He has already insulted the mayor of London. Now he
faces massive protests. Speaking at a press conference, with British Prime
Minister Theresa May by his side, the president is forced to deny he has just blasted her in an interview the day before.
Next, he takes questions from reporters about the Russian
investigation, which gets on his nerves.
“I think that we’re being hurt very badly by the—I would call
it the witch hunt,” he tells the British press. He brings up the hearing the
day before, involving F.B.I. agent Peter Strzok and all the body-language-interpreting
GOP lawmakers. “I would call it the rigged witch hunt, after watching some of
the little clips.… I think that really hurts our country, and it really hurts
our relationship with Russia.”
Yes, it’s very sad, hurting our relationship with Russia…
*
ON THE OTHER SIDE of the Atlantic, the Department of Justice
and the Mueller team fire three shots across the bow of the idiots who have
been insisting the Russian investigation is a witch hunt. That would include:
Donald J. Trump, Idiot-in-Chief
Rep. Paul Gosar, Body Language
Dentist
Rep. Louis Gohmert, Smirk Buster
An even dozen Russian military officers are indicted for interfering in the 2016 election. It wasn’t
some 400-lb. fat guy sitting on his bed doing
the hacking, as Candidate Trump once hinted. It wasn’t China or some other
country. It wasn’t chipmunks or squirrels chewing through computer wires. It
was Russian military—which means they had to have the go-ahead from Putin
himself.
The White House responds to the new set of indictments by
noting that no Americans were named.
Apparently, the White House is hoping we won’t notice the fine print in the
29-page court filing.
If you do read the indictment, and reach page 15, you notice
something odd. The Russians clearly had suspicious contacts with Americans
during the 2016 campaign. In Paragraph 43 we learn that a candidate for Congress requested dirt
on his opponent from Guccifer 2.0, a hacking site set up by the Russian
military. The Russians “sent the candidate stolen documents.”
Also, on page 16, we learn that 2.5 gigabytes of stolen information were sent to a “then
state-registered lobbyist and online source of political news.” That same day
the hackers sent information related to Black Lives Matter to a reporter, so
the reporter could attack that group.
In Paragraph 44, investigators note that the Russians
communicated with “U.S. persons about the release of stolen documents” including at least one American
“in regular contact with senior members of the presidential campaign of Donald
J. Trump.”
In Paragraph 57, we learn that the hackers are accused of money-laundering
in furtherance of their scheme.
In Paragraph 69, on page 25, we learn that the Russians are
charged with conspiracy,
…to hack into the computers of
U.S. persons and entities responsible for the administration of the 2016 U.S.
elections, such as state boards of election, secretaries of state, and U.S.
companies that supplied software and other technology related to the
administration of U.S. elections.
Of course, if you had been listening to President Trump for
more than a year and listened again when he spoke in Helsinki (see: 7/16/18), you would have thought
none of this illicit activity had transpired.
*
AT THIS POINT all good Americans might be wise to remember a
May 2017 report from the Washington
Post.
“There’s
two people I think Putin pays.”
In a leaked recording of a meeting of top Republican
lawmakers, in June 2016, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy can be heard
joking, “There’s two people I think Putin pays: [Rep. Dana] Rohrabacher and
Trump.”
The Post explained:
Some of the lawmakers laughed at
McCarthy’s comment. Then McCarthy quickly added: “Swear to God.”
“This is an off the record,”
[Speaker Paul] Ryan said.
Some lawmakers laughed at that.
“No leaks, all right?” Ryan
said, adding: “This is how we know we’re a real family here.”
“That’s how you know that we’re
tight,” [Rep. Steve] Scalise said.
“What’s said in the family stays
in the family,” Ryan added.
The remarks remained secret for
nearly a year….
Evan McMullin, who in his role
as policy director to the House Republican Conference participated in the
June 15 conversation, said: “It’s true that Majority Leader McCarthy said
that he thought candidate Trump was
on the Kremlin’s payroll. Speaker Ryan was concerned about that
leaking.”
McMullin ran for president last
year as an independent and has been a vocal critic of Trump.
When initially asked to comment
on the exchange, Brendan Buck, a spokesman for Ryan, said: “That never
happened,” and Matt Sparks, a spokesman for McCarthy, said: “The idea that
McCarthy would assert this is absurd and false.”
After being told that The Post would cite a recording of the
exchange, Buck, speaking for the GOP House leadership, said: “This entire
year-old exchange was clearly an attempt at humor. No one believed the majority
leader was seriously asserting that Donald Trump or any of our members were
being paid by the Russians. What’s more, the speaker and leadership team have
repeatedly spoken out against Russia’s interference in our election, and the
House continues to investigate that activity.”
“This was a failed attempt at
humor,” Sparks said.
And there you have it. As has so often been true where
Russians and investigations are concerned, first you get lies from Republicans.
Then the free press confronts the liars with evidence.
Then the liars back-pedal furiously.
Postscript: We now know that Rep.
Rohrabacher traveled to Moscow during the 2016 campaign. We know
he received documents from Yuri Y. Chaika, Russia’s prosecutor general, a post equivalent
to the U.S. Attorney General.
Rohrabacher denies using anything he received from Chaika to
damage Hillary or the Democrats. (See:
7/18/18.)
7/14/18: Time runs a cover story titled “Democracy Will Prevail.” The writer is retired
Admiral James Stavridis, former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO and not
what you might call a fan of President Trump. Round the world, he warns,
democracy is under attack. Trump has done nothing to blunt the assault.
America’s President, Donald
Trump, has just met in Brussels with the leaders of the countries of NATO,
arguably the most successful military alliance in human history, and
Washington’s prized partner in democracy’s 20th century victory. Throughout his
campaign and his presidency, Trump has attacked NATO and America’s allies in
it. From Brussels, he travels to Helsinki, where he will talk privately with
Russia’s Vladimir Putin, a strongman he has flattered and suggested is to be
emulated.
Trump himself has shunned
traditional norms…and his rhetoric seeks to chill freedom of the press and undermine the nation’s institutions of
democracy.
If the former NATO commander has little use for the president
he does see hope elsewhere, in the leadership of Germany, France, Canada, Japan
and Great Britain. As for Trump, he concludes: “Under this U.S. Administration,
there is little leadership on global human rights or democratic norms.”
7/15/18: Trump
rests after four busy days in Europe. In short order he has managed to insult
our closest NATO allies. Still, he claims to have won a great victory when he says he forced them to agree to
increase defense spending. Leaders of Italy and France both call him—in
diplomatic terms—a liar. The agreement they made in 2014, when Obama
was in office, to raise spending to 2% of GDP by 2024 remains. Trump has
attacked German Chancellor Angela Merkel. He has undercut Prime Minister
Theresa May of Great Britain. Then he denied he undercut her and labeled The Sun, which ran a critical interview
of May given by the president, “fake news.”
The Sun
responded by posting the tape of the interview, proving Trump said
everything they said he said.
Ready or not, Donald is off to meet with Vladimir in
Helsinki.
Once again, the president has “prepared” by locking down his
hair, this time with three cans of hair spray, and by whacking golf balls
around one of his private courses in Scotland.
7/16/18:
Trump starts the new day in Helsinki by tweet-complaining: “Our relationship
with Russia has NEVER been worse thanks to many years of U.S. foolishness and
stupidity and now, the Rigged Witch Hunt!”
If you started rubbing your eyes then and there, you’d be
excused. Did our fearless leader just say our poor relationship with Russia was
our fault?
He did!
Did this poor relationship have anything to do with the fact
that Russia invaded the Crimea in 2014? Did it have anything to do with
the fact Russia continues a low-level war, if you can call
10,000 Ukrainian dead a low-level war, along the Ukrainian border? Was it a
problem when Russia shot down a civilian jet liner and killed
everyone aboard? Were the hundreds of billions of rubles Putin and his cronies
laundered through the world’s banks—often investing in U.S. real estate—an issue? Nope.
It was us.
What about Russian agents poisoning a Putin critic on
British soil? What about all the critics of Putin who end up dead? What about Russian military forces
propping up Bashar-al-Assad in Syria while the Syrian people die by the
hundreds of thousands? What about the attack by Russian mercenaries in Syria on a
U.S.-held military base? Perhaps the problems between our countries were
exacerbated by Russia’s extensive meddling in our 2016 election? No, Trump
didn’t care.
The problem was the United States.
The
puppet danced perfectly as Putin jerked the strings.
It only got worse as the day wore on. After sitting down
(oddly, alone) for a two-hour
meeting with Putin—not that President Trump has anything to hide—he and the
Russian strongman came out, read prepared statements, agreed that their
discussions had gone great and took questions. What a proud day it turned out
to be for Vladimir Putin. The puppet President of the United States danced
perfectly as Putin jerked him up and down on the strings.
A reporter asked Trump if there was anything he held the Russians responsible for,
in terms of our poor relations. Did Trump believe the Russians interfered in
the 2016 campaign?
Trump’s answer was stunning. “I hold both countries
responsible. I think that the United States has been foolish. I think we’ve all
been foolish ...we’re all to blame,” he responded.
Asked whether he believed the U.S. intelligence community,
that Putin was responsible for a campaign to undermine the election, the puppet
pirouetted on his strings. Rather than answer directly, he attacked the F.B.I.
for not confiscating the hacked e-mail server of the Democratic National
Committee. Here, in view of the entire world, the President of the United
States was peddling a convoluted conspiracy theory, that the Democrats hacked themselves and ditched
the evidence. He was letting Vladimir Putin and the Russians off the
hook.
“Where is the server?” he asked. “I want to know where is
the server and what is the server saying.”
Yes, he admitted, his Director of National Intelligence, Dan
Coates, “and some others” had told him “they think it is Russia,” they think
Russia hacked the election. He was skeptical. “I don’t see any reason why it would be. But I
really do want to see the server. I have great confidence in my intelligence
people. But I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and
powerful in his denial today.”
His response was so unexpected—so bizarre, really—that
experienced reporters listening were stunned.
*
YOU COULD EXPECT Democrats and probably most patriotic
Americans to hit the roof. Many did.
Let’s ignore Democrats and sample Republican reaction:
Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a former Air Force officer: “The American
people deserve the truth, & to disregard the legitimacy of our intelligence
officials is a disservice to the men & women who serve this country. It’s
time to wake up & face reality. #Putin is not our friend; he’s an enemy to
our freedom.”
Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming:
As a member of the House Armed Services
Committee, I am deeply troubled by
President Trump’s defense of Putin against the intelligence agencies
of the U.S. & his suggestion of moral equivalence between the U.S. and
Russia. Russia poses a grave threat to our national security.
Mark Lowenthal, former assistant director at the C.I.A. says
of Trump: “He’s the best president
that Russia’s ever had.”
Chuck Hagel, decorated war hero, former Republican senator
from Nebraska, former defense secretary under President Obama, said it appeared
Trump had no real strategy in meeting with Putin. “This was not a golf outing. This was not a
real estate transactional kind of arrangement.... Engagement must be connected
to a strategic interest, a strategic purpose. I don’t know what that strategic
purpose was. I am now convinced we didn’t have one.”
Sen. Rob Portman: The president “failed to stand up to Vladimir Putin on some of the most
critical security issues facing our country and our allies.”
Sen. Orrin Hatch, a key Trump ally, issued a statement
backing up the intelligence community.
Russia interfered in the 2016 election.
Our nation’s top intelligence agencies all agree on that point. From the
President on down, we must do everything in our power to protect our democracy by securing
future elections from foreign influence and interference, regardless of what
Vladimir Putin or any other Russian operative says.
Mitt Romney: “President Trump’s decision to side with Putin
over American intelligence agencies is disgraceful and detrimental to our democratic principles.”
Even Milksop Mitch mustered up a tidbit of courage. “I’ve
said a number of times and I say it again, the Russians are not our friends and
I entirely believe the assessment of our intelligence community.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham said Trump had handed Putin an easy victory. “This answer…
will be seen by Russia as a sign of weakness and create far more problems than
it solves. Bad day for the U.S.”
In a rare moment of levity, considering the disaster
Americans had just seen unfold, Graham warned the president to leave a soccer
ball, a World Cup souvenir from Putin, outside when he came home. “If it were
me, I’d check the soccer ball for listening devices and never allow it in the
White House.”
In a lengthy statement, Sen. John McCain, chairman of the
Senate Committee on Armed Services, let rip:
Today’s press conference in Helsinki
was one of the most disgraceful
performances by an American president in memory. The damage
inflicted by President Trump’s naiveté, egotism, false equivalence, and
sympathy for autocrats is difficult to calculate. But it is clear that the
summit in Helsinki was a tragic mistake.
President Trump proved not only unable,
but unwilling to stand up to Putin. He and Putin seemed to be speaking from the
same script as the president made a conscious choice to defend a tyrant against the fair questions of a free press,
and to grant Putin an uncontested platform to spew propaganda and lies to the
world.
Former C.I.A. Chief John O. Brennan, who served both
Republican and Democratic presidents, had had all he could stand. In a scathing
tweet he blasted Trump. Let’s give Brennan, a man who devoted a long career to
serving the United States of America, the last word:
Donald Trump’s press conference
performance in Helsinki rises to & exceeds the threshold of “high crimes
& misdemeanors.” It was nothing
short of treasonous. Not only were Trump’s comments imbecilic, he is
wholly in the pocket of Putin. Republican Patriots: Where are you???
At least one member of the Trump administration had seen
enough. Dan Coats, Trump’s Director of National Intelligence, issued a terse statement in response to the president’s comments.
His office took the unusual step of noting that it was
issuing this message without clearing it with the White House:
The role of the Intelligence
Community is to provide the best information and fact-based assessments
possible for the President and policymakers. We have been clear in our assessments of Russian meddling in the 2016
election and their ongoing, pervasive efforts to undermine our democracy,
and we will continue to provide unvarnished and objective intelligence in
support of our national security.
This is Dan Coats we’re talking about. Coats served for a
quarter century in Congress. He’s a lifelong Republican, not a charter member
of the “Deep State.” He was picked by Trump to be the top intelligence official
in this administration. Hillary didn’t pick him. “Muslim” Obama isn’t lurking
in the shadows. This is the president’s guy, making it clear. Trump is full of
crap.
7/17/18: Trump
leaps from the frying pan of disgrace into the fire of farce. Battered by
criticism of his performance in Helsinki—even by the sycophants at Fox
News—Trump puts out a new story.
That story, despite what you saw with your own two peepers
and heard with your own two eardrums, is that he is the toughest president ever
to take on the Russians.
“I
don’t know why they wouldn’t,” Trump meant to say.
With a script prepared by top aides in his mitts, the
president reads to reporters, adding a few random thoughts as he proceeds. In
the face of near-universal condemnation, he is backtracking for once:
So, I’ll begin by stating that I
have full faith and support for America’s great intelligence agencies, always
have. And I have felt very strongly that while Russia’s actions had no impact
at all on the outcome of the election, let me be totally clear in saying
that—and I’ve said this many times—I accept our intelligence community’s
conclusion that Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election took place. It could be other
people also. There’s a lot of people out there.
Reporters can’t believe it! Who knew there were “a lot of
people out there?” You know: 7.6 billion.
Well, what the president really wants is to clarify one
point—which would make everything else he said seem so much better. When he
said, “I don’t see why they would,” in response to a reporter’s question about
whether the Russians interfered in the election, it was just a slip of the
tongue.
“I don’t know why they wouldn’t,” he says he meant to say.
In other words, if you took that one word out and plugged in the “correct” word, he gave
Putin hell.
So, I say, let’s look at the transcript. Let’s read exactly what Trump said. And to help
your thought processes, if you’re an avid Trump fan, I will annotate the
transcript with comment as required.
First, we should remember that Trump had multiple chances to address Russian
meddling. First, he tweet-blamed America for problems with Russia. He had more
than one chance to stand up for democracy, fair elections and the rule of law.
He stood at the podium, as representative of the United States of America, and
groveled.
The first exchange with a reporter, after his private meeting
with Putin was ended, led to this:
REPORTER, JEFF MASON, REUTERS: Thank you. Mr. President, you tweeted
this morning that it’s U.S. foolishness, stupidity, and the Mueller probe that
is responsible for the decline in U.S. relations with Russia. Do you hold
Russia at all accountable [f]or anything in particular? And if so, what would
you what would you consider them that they are responsible for?
Okay.
Here’s your chance, Mr. President. Tell Putin to stay out of our elections.
You’ve got this! Easy peasy.
TRUMP: Yes, I do. I hold both countries
responsible. I think that the United States has been foolish.
WTF!
TRUMP (continuing): I think we’ve all
been foolish. We should have had this dialogue a long time ago, a long time
frankly before I got to office. And I think we’re all to blame.
Not
me, personally, he’s saying. It was all those stupid presidents who came
before. Trump could offer a better response if he simply stood there and farted.
TRUMP (still babbling): I think that the
United States now has stepped forward, along with Russia, and we’re getting
together and we have a chance to do some great things, whether it’s nuclear
proliferation in terms of stopping, have to do it, ultimately that’s probably
the most important thing that we can be working on.
Mention
the elections. You fool! We can work on nuclear, too; but, the elections…say
something to Putin.
TRUMP: But I do feel that we have both
made some mistakes. I think that the probe is a disaster for our country. I
think it’s kept us apart. It’s kept us separated.
There was no collusion at all. Everybody
knows it. People are being brought out to the fore. So far that I know
virtually none of it related to the campaign. And they’re gonna have to try
really hard to find somebody that did relate to the campaign. That was a clean
campaign. I beat Hillary Clinton easily and frankly we beat her.
We
know this. The election was two years ago. We know you won. That’s why Hillary
isn’t standing at the podium. Do you hold Russia accountable for anything? Do
you, or don’t you? You are blowing it!
TRUMP: And I’m not even saying from the
standpoint...we won that race. And it’s a shame that there can even be a little
bit of a cloud over it. People know that. People understand it. But the main
thing and we discussed this also is zero collusion and it has had a negative
impact upon the relationship of the two largest nuclear powers in the world.
We have 90 percent of nuclear power
between the two countries. It’s ridiculous. It’s ridiculous what’s going on
with the probe.
Did
Trump just say we’re nuclear rivals, with enough bombs to blow up the world
many times over, and it’s because of the probe?
*
CLEARLY, TRUMP muffed his first chance. A few minutes later,
he had a second opportunity to clean up the mess.
REPORTER, AP: President Trump…Just now, President Putin
denied having anything to do with the election interference in 2016. Every U.S.
intelligence agency has concluded that Russia did. My first question for you sir
is, who do you believe? My second question is would you now, with the whole
world watching, tell President Putin, would you denounce what happened in 2016
and would you warn him to never do it again?
Would
you? Did that reporter mean “wouldn’t?” That would mean his entire question was
nonsense. Election? Did he mean to say “erection?” Maybe he meant to ask about
eels. You can see where one word makes a big difference!
TRUMP: So
let me just say that we have two thoughts. You have groups that are wondering
why the FBI never took the server. Why haven’t they taken the server? Why was
the FBI told to leave the office of the Democratic National Committee?
You
are screwing the pooch. He asked if you would denounce Putin. Not the F.B.I.
and the Democratic National Committee!
TRUMP: I’ve been wondering that. I’ve
been asking that for months and months and I’ve been tweeting it out and
calling it out on social media. Where is the server? I want to know where is
the server and what is the server saying?
With that being said, all I can do is ask
the question.
My people came to me, Dan Coates [sic],
came to me and some others they said they think it’s Russia. I have President
Putin. He just said it’s not Russia.
Someone
sedate this fool! Our intelligence agencies don’t “think” it was Russia. They
know it was Russia. Trump isn’t talking about Russian interference. He’s
babbling about some server. He might as well be yodeling.
TRUMP: I will say this: I don’t see any
reason why it would be. But I really do want to see the server but I have, I
have confidence in both parties.
Okay,
there’s the slip of the tongue. Wait? Did he mean to say “constipation,” not
confidence? Who knows what the president meant? I don’t think Trump knows what
Trump meant. I’ve not even sure he’s speaking English.
MORE TRUMP: I really believe that this
will probably go on for a while but I don’t think it can go on without finding
out what happened to the server. What happened to the servers of the Pakistani
gentleman that worked on the DNC?
Where are those servers? They’re missing.
Where are they? What happened to Hillary Clinton’s emails? 33,000 emails gone,
just gone. I think in Russia they wouldn’t be gone so easily.
Does
Trump realize Russia is a police state? Does he realize the K.G.B. gets any
information it wants by tapping reporters’ phones, arrests musicians who
criticize Putin, blocks most candidates from running in fair elections and
secretly records people in compromising situations? Of course, he doesn’t. We
have a moron for president.
TRUMP (droning on): I think it’s a disgrace
that we can’t get Hillary Clinton’s thirty three thousand e-mails.
I have great confidence in my
intelligence people but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely
strong and powerful in his denial today and what he did is an incredible offer.
He offered to have the people working on
the case come and work with their investigators, with respect to the 12 people.
I think that’s an incredible offer. Ok? Thank you.
*
AND THERE you have it, supposedly fixed
by changing one word. First, the President of the United States disgraced
himself on the world stage.
Second, he and his aides concocted a
ridiculous story to help him find his way out of the woods.
Or wood that be the “woulds.”
7/18/18: Who’s
sweating profusely today when it comes to the Russia investigation? If you’ve
been busy shampooing the dog, several shoes dropped this week. On Friday
Special Counsel Robert Mueller dropped combat boots on a dozen Russian military
officers charged with trying to influence the 2016 election.
The White House immediately released a statement saying: Hey,
no Americans were indicted for collusion with said Russians! But the White
House knew plenty and Trump and his team were praying that Americans heading
for the beach or the pool would be too busy slathering on sunscreen to take
note. According to the indictment at
least one unnamed Trump associate had a series of contacts with
Guccifer 2.0, now conclusively shown to be a Russian front. Roger Stone has
admitted that unnamed Trump associate is “probably” him. (See: 6/17/18.)
What other shoes dropped? On Sunday the F.B.I. arrested Maria
Butina, a young Russian. She was charged with working as an unregistered
foreign agent, one step removed from an espionage charge. For at least three
years Butina is alleged to have acted on U.S. soil in the interests of the
Russian Federation. Purportedly a gun-rights activist back home, she wormed her
way into the graces of the N.R.A. here. It may have helped that according to
court records she was willing to trade sex with Americans in return for
political access. We know the N.R.A. paid her way to this country more than
once so she could speak on gun rights. Her public stance was in favor of
private ownership of guns by Russian citizens.
Butina also went to the trouble to speak on at least one
American campus and called Putin “a dictator and a tyrant.”
That at least was true.
“I
don’t think you’d need the sanctions.”
Strangely enough, her criticism never led to arrest whenever
she returned home. We now know that she rubbed shoulders with a variety of top
Republican movers and shakers. She also rubbed other body parts. In one photo,
the attractive redhead from Siberia stands smiling next to Scott Walker,
governor of Wisconsin. In another, she looks fetching in pearls, with N.R.A.
president Wayne LaPierre gaping by her side.
In July 2015 she was in the audience at Freedom Fest in Las
Vegas. By chance or by design she was called on to ask then-candidate-Trump a
question. What would his position toward Russia be, she asked, if he were
elected?
Would the sanctions be lifted?
“I know Putin, and I’ll tell you what, we get along with
Putin…I believe I would get along very nicely with Putin, OK?” Trump told her.
“And I mean, where we have the strength. I don’t think you’d need the
sanctions. I think we would get along very, very well.”
In August she was back home when Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a
California Republican, was visiting. The congressman says he can’t remember
much about the young lady. Yes, he says, Butina did arrange a breakfast with
Alexander Torshin, but all he—your good old congressman—had was tea and toast.
Because…you know…the waistline.
No, seriously, Rohrabacher said the breakfast was of “no
consequence,” which is probably a good way to cover your ass, if you broke
bread with a Russian spy and her Russian spy master.
Interestingly, if you do a little digging, you understand why
Rohrabacher might be feeling the heat. He is said to have met in early 2016
with Natalia Veselnitskaya. She’s the
Russian lawyer who took part in the Trump Tower meeting that June, a
meeting which is of key interest to Mueller’s team.
Well, now, what did Rep. Rohrabacher think about the
indictment of this poor little girl! “It’s ridiculous. It’s stupid,” he fumed.
“She’s the assistant of some guy who is the head of the bank and is a member of
their Parliament. That’s what we call a spy? That shows you how bogus this
whole thing [the Mueller investigation] is.”
Actually, that “some guy who is the head of the bank” is a
seriously shady character. Torshin is one of 24 individuals and 14 Russian
companies sanctioned by the Treasury Department in May.
They ended up on that list because they were individuals and
entities that had benefitted “from [ties with] the Putin regime and play a key
role in advancing Russia’s malign activities.”
So, yes, Mr. Rohrabacher—we’re talking malign Russian
activities. And you’re just slinging bullshit.
Who exactly will be squashed by all the falling shoes we
cannot yet know. But several Americans would be wise to scurry for cover. We
know Torshin is an ally of Putin. This latest indictment (not directly tied to
the Mueller investigation, but of obvious interest) makes clear that Torshin
was giving Butina orders. Both became life members of the N.R.A., which even
the head of the N.R.A. would probably admit is not a great look for the organization.
Rohrabacher may be in trouble. Some say he’s the congressman
in Paragraph 43 of the latest Mueller indictment. (See: 7/13/18.)
Certainly, longtime Republican fixer, Paul Erickson, is
likely to get whacked with a size-22 shoe. For some reason he formed a company
with Butina in South Dakota in 2016. That company is the subject of a fraud
investigation. Erickson is not named in the indictment but is thought to be
the unnamed political operative with whom she was said to be coordinating
activities. Erickson, almost twice her age, and Butina were shacking up and
Erickson had been helping her do homework while she studied (under a student
visa gained by lying on her application) at American University.
 |
| Ms. Butina. |
The
Kremlin approved her efforts.
From the official indictment, we know Torshin was telling
Butina to play the long game during the 2016 campaign. He advised her “not [to]
burn out prematurely.” She admitted she was tired of living with Erickson. (She
was also tired of offering to have sex with other men high up in conservative
ranks in order to gain political access.) She responded via Twitter: “Only incognito!”
That is, she was operating in secret. “Right now everything has to be quiet and
careful.”
“In the F.B.I. affidavit,” The New York Times reports, Ms. Butina assured some unnamed person,
likely Erickson, “that the Kremlin had approved her efforts to connect members of the Trump team with allies or associates of Vladimir Putin.
‘All that we needed was “yes” from Putin’s side.’”
Later she wrote again to her American contact, “My dearest
president [Putin, not Trump] has received ‘the message’ about your group
initiatives.”
That exchange came in March 2016. So, you can understand why
the F.B.I. might have been suspicious. We now know Trump campaign aide George
Papadopoulos met with what he thought were Russian agents
offering dirt on Hillary Clinton that same month. Later he lied about it.
Stone met his Russian in May. Eventually, he denied
meeting with any Russians in testimony before Congress.
Torshin tried to set up a meeting between Trump and Putin
that month.
In in June 2016, Paul Manafort, Don Jr. and Jared Kushner
took a secret meeting with individuals they knew were Russian
agents.
Alleged
money-launderer scheduled to meet with Trump.
We know Torshin scored a short meeting with Don Jr. at an N.R.A. convention in May
2016. We know Butina and Torshin attended President Trump’s inauguration. In
February 2017 she and Torshin organized a delegation of a dozen Russians to
attend the National Prayer Breakfast and hear the Putin Pal President speak. Torshin
scored a meeting at the White House later that year. At the last minute, his
meeting with Trump was canceled when a White House security aide noticed that
Torshin was under investigation for
money laundering in Spain.
*
ON MONDAY, Mueller’s team swatted a big cockroach with a wingtip.
Mueller asked a judge for immunity for up to five witnesses to testify in the
coming trial of former Trump campaign manager Manafort.
That means there are five people who may be compelled to give testimony as
witnesses. They are to be granted “use immunity,” which means nothing they say
can be used against them.
They will not be able to plead the Fifth.
Is it still possible that President Trump will be absolved of
all crimes during his campaign? I taught history for decades. I go only with
facts I think are proven. He could be innocent. He could be nothing more than a
poor dupe. I can’t deny, however, that I think a Nike Mag 2016 basketball shoe
(cost: $26,000) may be hovering over his orange,
hair-spray-helmeted head.
*
“I do not believe special counsel Mueller is on a witch hunt.
I think it’s a professional investigation conducted by a man that I’ve known to
be a straight shooter.”
F.B.I. Director Wray
F.B.I. DIRECTOR CHRISTOPHER WRAY sits down in front of an
audience at the Aspen Security Conference in Colorado. He’ll be taking
questions from moderator Lester Holt of NBC. For the third time, over the course of more than a year, including
this past May and in June 2017, Wray makes it clear he does not believe the
Russia investigation is a witch hunt.
In the wake of the president’s recent statements in
Helsinki—that he believes Putin—then he doesn’t—then he kind of does—you sense
exasperation and even a hint of doubt about the innocence of the president in
Director Wray’s response. “I do not believe special counsel Mueller is on a
witch hunt. I think it’s a professional investigation conducted by a man that
I’ve known to be a straight shooter.”
Remember now. Wray was Trump’s pick to head the F.B.I. He
just backed up Mueller 100 percent.
Holt wonders: “There have also been stories that you
threatened to resign. Have you ever hit a point on that issue of sources and
methods or anything else when you said, this is a line?”
Wray replies, “I’m a low-key, understated guy, but that
should not be mistaken for what my spine is made out of. I’ll just leave it at
that.”
Postscript: On August 22, 2019, Patrick
Byrne, CEO of Overstock.com, resigns from the company and admits having an
on-and-off sexual relationship with Ms. Butina for three years. This was at the
same time Ms. Butina was living with longtime Republican fixer, Paul Erickson.
Byrne says he only did it for the sake of the country—that
was the only reason he had sex with the young redhead. He sacrificed his patriotic
semen for us all. Byrne told an interviewer on Fox Business News, where no
story is too stupid to be believed, that the F.B.I. encouraged him to boink the
babe.
It was part of a “soft coup” (no pun intended) to undermine
Donald J. Trump! “There is a Deep State, like a submarine, lurking just beneath
the waves at periscope depth, watching our shipping lanes,” he claimed. “And a
nuclear icebreaker named the USS Bill Barr has snuck up on them and
is about to ram them at midship.”
7/19/18: The
president continues to try to dig his way out of the mess he made in Helsinki.
He decides the best way to do it is to take a shovel and bang
a few reporters on their heads. He fires off this tweet:
The Summit with Russia was a
great success, except with the
real enemy of the people, the Fake News Media. I look
forward to our second meeting so that we can start implementing some of the
many things discussed, including stopping terrorism, security for Israel,
nuclear........
You may recall that Putin offered to allow American
investigators to come to Russia and interview the twelve Russian officers
indicted for interfering in our last election. In return, the Russians would be
allowed to grill 11 Americans, who, Putin insists, committed crimes while in
Russia. This would include former U.S. ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul.
Apparently, Trump has never heard of diplomatic immunity or
U.S. sovereignty. Nor does he realize that Putin prefers to deal with critics
by having them shot, poisoned or clubbed dead.
On Monday, the president responded to the question of whether or not Russia had
interfered in our election like so:
I will tell you that President
Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today [of Russian
interference in 2016] and what he did is an incredible offer. He offered to
have the people working on the case come and work with their investigations
with respect to the 12 people. I think that’s an incredible offer.
Sadly, the “Deep State” once again shot down another muddled proposal that trickled from
Trump’s lips.
On Wednesday, a State Department spokeswoman read the
following statement to reporters:
The overall assertions that have
come out of the Russian government are absolutely absurd: the fact that they
want to question 11 American citizens and the assertions that the Russian
government is making about those American citizens. We do not stand by those
assertions that the Russian government makes.
On Thursday, the U.S. Senate passed a resolution, by a vote
of 98-0, warning Trump not to allow Russians to interrogate American citizens.
*
IN AN EDITORIAL in The
New York Times, Republican congressman Will Hurd writes:
Over the course of my career as
an undercover officer in the C.I.A., I saw Russian intelligence manipulate many
people. I never thought I would see
the day when an American president would be one of them.
The president’s failure to
defend the United States intelligence community’s unanimous conclusions of
Russian meddling in the 2016 election and condemn Russian covert
counterinfluence campaigns and his standing idle on the world stage while a
Russian dictator spouted lies confused many but should concern all
Americans. By playing into Vladimir Putin’s hands, the leader of the free world
actively participated in a Russian
disinformation campaign that legitimized Russian denial and weakened
the credibility of the United States to both our friends and foes abroad.
…Russia is an adversary not just
of the United States but of freedom-loving people everywhere.
Who, then, is the real “enemy of the people?” Putin fits the
description. Donald J. Trump may be another.
7/20/18: F.B.I.
Director Christopher Wray has already undercut Trump at the Aspen Security
Forum (see: 7/18/18). Now Director of
National Intelligence Dan Coats takes a shot.
Coats
is laughing at Trump.
At this point, four days after Trump sat down privately to
chat with his pal Vladimir, the White House still hasn’t briefed top
administration officials or military leaders on any agreements the two men
might have made. Mr. Coats is answering questions from Andrea Mitchell, a
reporter for MSNBC, in front of a large audience, when news breaks. Press
Secretary Pinocchio announces, via Twitter, that Putin will be invited to the
White House this fall. Coats’s reaction is telling, and we learn later that
White House aides feel Coats is laughing at Trump.
That’s because he is—and like Wray, on Wednesday—almost
daring the president to fire him.
COATS CLIP….
