March 21-30, 2017: Okay, So the Trump Campaign Did Have Russian Connections

 

Dad “has no moral or legal compass.” 

3/21/17: Hacked phone messages from one daughter of Paul Manafort (Trump’s former campaign manager) to another indicate she believes their father has given them “blood money.” 

Dad “has no moral or legal compass.” “You know he has killed people in the Ukraine? Knowingly,” she continues.

___ 

 

3/22/17: The Associated Press reports that Manafort worked with a Russian billionaire and friend of Vladimir Putin. He was paid as much as $12.7 million to “advance the interests of Russia [emphasis added].” 

Press Secretary Spicer tries to explain that the former campaign manager “played a very limited role for a very limited amount of time” during the 2016 campaign. (See: 3/23/17.)

Poor Sean Spicer! 

 He may have the worst job in America.

___ 

 

3/23/17: Did members of the Trump campaign have illegal contact with the Russians? No one knows for sure; but Paul Manafort is revealed to have had ties to a bank in Cyprus that laundered money for the Russians. He used 15 different accounts and operated 10 different shell companies. 

Could he be innocent? Yes. But reporting on such ties is not “fake news.” 

It’s…reporting.

___ 

 

3/24/17: Speaker Ryan is forced to pull the GOP healthcare law without a vote. After talking about “repeal and replace” for months, Trump responds by blaming others. He says Democrats killed the plan!

___

 

3/25/17: National Poison Prevention Week ends, having been proclaimed by Trump executive order. Finally, something Americans can agree on! Poison is bad. Unless it’s environmental. 

Under the Trump administration the E.P.A. no longer cares.

___ 

 

3/26/17: Roger Stone, longtime Trump pal, offers to testify in front of Congress. Did he contact Guccifer 2.0, a hacking group known to be a front for Russian intelligence agencies? Well, yes, he admits, maybe he did now that he thinks about it. But Stone insists Guccifer isn’t a Russian front. And who are you going to believe, Stone or U.S. intelligence, which says it is? (See: June 1, 2018.)

___ 

 

3/27/17: Son-in-law Jared Kushner gets a whole bunch of jobs in the new administration. These include serving as top policy advisor and “primary point of contact” with leaders and ambassadors from many foreign nations, heading up the White House Office of American Innovation, which will be “expected to tackle domestic issues such as Veterans’ Affairs, workforce development and opioid addiction,” and helping “run the government like a great American business.” Also, he must chaperone Ivanka during all dinners and black-tie affairs at Mar-a-Lago.

A previously undisclosed meeting. 

Anything else we should know about Jared? 

White House spokesperson Hope Hicks admits Kushner had a previously undisclosed meeting in December 2016 with the head of a Russian bank facing U.S. sanctions. 

Even more interesting, the bank provided cover for Russian spying in New York City in 2014.

___ 

 

3/28/17: A new Gallup poll shows job approval for the Tweeter-in-Chief has slumped to 35%.

___ 

 

3/29/17: In another early-morning tweet-storm Trump cries about the unfair coverage he’s getting. “If the people of our great country could only see how viciously and inaccurately my administration is covered by certain media!” 

Well, there’s always Fox & Friends…and Bill O’Reilly. (See: 4/5/17.)

___ 

 

3/30/17: U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley tells reporters: “You pick and choose your battles and when we’re looking at this [fighting in Syria], it’s about changing up priorities and our priority is no longer to sit there and focus on getting [Bashar al-] Assad out.” Secretary of State Rex Tillerson agrees.  

Syria? 

Not our problem. (See: 4/7/17.)

___ 

 

3/31/17: A judge finalizes a settlement against Trump University, awarding students who were defrauded $25 million. During the campaign, Trump promised to fight this to the bitter end. 

Sadly, the settlement does not require the president to admit he’s a scam artist.

March 30, 2018: Another Shady Character Surfaces in the Mueller Probe

 

3/30/18: Anything new with the Mueller investigation? Friday, as first reported by The Guardian, Trump campaign figure Ted Malloch was intercepted at the Boston airport after a flight from London. 

Malloch was served a subpoena, separated from his wife, and had his cellphone confiscated by the F.B.I. 

Malloch padded his resume but claimed he had no assets in bankruptcy.

Why would Malloch, who most Americans, including this dedicated blogger, have never heard of before, be of interest to the Mueller investigation? Malloch has close ties with Nigel Farage – who has close ties with Julian Assange of WikiLeaks – who helped expose the damaging Clinton/Democratic National Committee emails – which helped the Big Orange Buffoon get elected. 

In an email response to the Guardian story, Malloch, 

described himself as a policy wonk and defender of Trump, [and] said the FBI also asked him about his relationship with Roger Stone, the Republican strategist, and whether he had ever visited the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where the Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has resided for nearly six years.

 

It turns out Malloch was “floated in media reports as a possible US ambassador to the EU,” in 2016. European officials, “alarmed by the possible pick and his lack of diplomatic credentials, openly criticised Malloch, particularly after he compared the EU to the Soviet Union.” 

It probably didn’t help his chances of landing the post when it turned out he had padded his resume. Malloch claimed, variously, that he had been “a fellow at Wolfson and Pembroke colleges at Oxford, that he had been called a ‘genius’ by Margaret Thatcher, and that he was the ‘first’ to coin the phrase ‘thought leadership.’” None of these claims were … technically  … true.

 

So why might this matter? Mueller’s team is digging into links between the Trump campaign and Russia. Of particular interest would be links between Trump surrogates, through WikiLeaks, to Russians. 

What we begin to see is a potential merry-go-round of problems for Trump and his pals. Did Roger Stone knowingly communicate with Russian agents, such as Guccifer 2.0? It seems he did. Did Stone ever work with or through WikiLeaks, which might mean working with or through Russians, to ensure the release of Democratic National Committee and Clinton emails to damage her campaign? Did Malloch help? Where does Strategic Communications Laboratories Group (SCL), the London-based data-mining company and Cambridge Analytica, its American arm, fit into this scheme? (See: 3/15-21/18 for more detail.) 

Who has ties to SCL? It turns out Michael Flynn, already cooperating with the Mueller investigation, was on the SCL payroll.

 

Finally, we learn this week, that Stone is nervous. Thursday night, Sam Nunberg, once the brains behind the Trump run for president, said during a television interview that Stone had tried to “curry favor with Trump by suggesting he had met with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange prior to the 2016 presidential election.” 

“He’s always trying to ingratiate himself to Trump,” Nunberg continued. “I don’t care about Trump. It’s irrelevant to me if I have a relationship with him again. Roger does. They have a long relationship.”  

Stone has denied in all kinds of ways, in all kinds of places, that he had prior knowledge of coming leaks of emails that would damage Clinton. And, no, he never worked with Assange to make it happen. Now, Nunberg was claiming Stone told Trump he met with Assange. This did not sit well with Stone, who quickly took to Instagram to blast his former friend and ally. 

Nunberg, he said, was a “psycho,” “a cocaine addict” and a “lying asshole.”

POSTSCRIPT: Additional checking proves that Malloch is Donald J. Trump’s kind of guy. That is, a sleazebag. In March 2017, he lost a default judgment to two banks, after he tried to declare bankruptcy, and dump debts to the institutions, to the tune of $5.9 million.

Michael Kopsick, a lawyer for One Bank, one of the two institutions effected, told the Financial Times that, in essence, you would have to be a blithering idiot to appoint Mr. Malloch to any post of importance. Malloch had, said Kopsick, “appeared to have made ‘never-ending’ efforts to obfuscate the true state of his finances. ‘Anyone who would consider putting him in a position of trust regarding financial matters should read the bankruptcy court file,’ he said.”

May 25, 2018: Spygate, Jade Helm, and Other Right-Wing Obsessions

 

5/25/18: Trump can’t let the “Spygate” story go. On late night television Stephen Colbert labels the matter “Stupidgate.” A former federal prosecutor labels Trump’s disingenuous campaign “Liegate.” 

____________________ 

“The last thing America needs is for its Justice Department to be complicit in this vandalism of democracy.” 

New Jersey Star-Ledger

____________________ 

 

As expected, the president lays out his “case” in a series of idiot tweets. He could stand up at a press conference and explain his concern in detail to the American people. But he’d have to answer probing questions and he’d get mad. Trump hasn’t held a press conference for 461 days. 

Instead, we’re served tweets: 

The Democrats are now alluding to the the concept that having an Informant placed in an opposing party’s campaign is different than having a Spy, as illegal as that may be. But what about an “Informant” who is paid a fortune and who “sets up” way earlier than the Russian Hoax? 

 

Tweet #2: Can anyone even imagine having Spies placed in a competing campaign, by the people and party in absolute power, for the sole purpose of political advantage and gain? And to think that the party in question, even with the expenditure of far more money, LOST! 

Tweet #3: 

“Everyone knows there was a Spy, and in fact the people who were involved in the Spying are admitting that there was a Spy...Widespread Spying involving multiple people.” Mollie Hemingway, The Federalist Senior Editor But the corrupt Mainstream Media hates this monster story!  

 

“Absolute right to do what I want with the Justice Department.” 

The New Jersey Star-Ledger captures the sentiment of that part of the American people still capable of grasping the basic issues in this sordid Trump tale. The Star-Ledger editorial reads in part:  

Confident that he can use the U.S. Department of Justice as his personal chew toy, Donald Trump has again decided that he can trample the thickest red line in American rule of law and that nobody is going to lift a finger to stop him.

 

The president demanded that Justice launch an investigation designed to torpedo another criminal investigation – the one in which Trump is the principle subject, which is probably his most audacious act of obstruction since he fired the FBI director who led another investigation against him. 

 

…this is the same president who said, “I have absolute right to do what I want with the Justice Department,” despite the prevailing consensus that DOJ has operational independence from the executive branch...

 

It’s all very predictable, given the jaw-dropping scorecard of an investigation which Trump has tried to disturb, derail, and delegitimize. Special Counsel Robert Mueller has extracted guilty pleas from Trump’s national security adviser, deputy campaign manager, and foreign policy adviser, and indicted his campaign manager, 13 Russians and 3 Russian companies.

 

Mueller has bagged all that in just 12 months. And he hasn’t even frog-walked Michael Cohen and Roger Stone out of their caves yet, or shown whether Donald Trump Jr. tried to solicit anything of value in all those visits with foreign agents during the 2016 campaign. 

 

…Yet as the special counsel shoves it into fifth gear, the possibilities still seem endless. The last thing America needs is for its Justice Department to be complicit in this vandalism of democracy.

 

* 

MEANWHILE, The New York Times breaks another story. On January 9, 2017, just eleven days before Trump is sworn into office, Michael Cohen, his personal lawyer and fixer (and at the time an employee of the Trump Organization), has another secret meeting at Trump Tower. 

His guests are Viktor Vekselberg, a Russian oligarch, and Vekselberg’s American cousin, businessman Andrew Intrater. No one knows about this tea party until reporters poring through C-SPAN footage notice the two boarding the elevator in the Trump Tower lobby and exiting again half-an-hour later. 

It turns out to be a productive meeting. Cohen gets a $1 million contract to advise his visitors on business opportunities in Trumpistan. Vekselberg and Intrater donate $1.2 million to support Trump inaugural festivities. Vekselberg and Cohen later attend an inaugural ball together. 

You can certainly understand why a Russian oligarch might want to curry favor with a new president, especially one anxious to be curried. With direct ties to Putin, Vekselberg would like nothing better than to see U.S. sanctions lifted. We know, in December 2105, that he attended the same dinner in Moscow where General Flynn spoke. We know Flynn was paid handsomely for his eloquence. We know he forgot to reveal payments from Russian entities as required by U.S. Army regulations. We know Flynn lied to Vice President Pence about another meeting with Russians. We know Vekselberg was stopped at a U.S. airport recently by agents from the Mueller probe. So, if you smell something fishy, your olfactory senses are working. 

This past April, Vekselberg and his companies were specifically sanctioned as a result of Russian meddling in the 2016 election. 

These sanctions led to somewhere between $1.5 billion-$2 billion in Vekselberg’s assets being frozen. 

CNN sent a reporter to catch up to Vekselberg in Moscow. When confronted by questions about payments to Cohen and donations to the Trump inauguration, the Russian oligarch refused to answer.

 

* 

IN OTHER NEWS, Trump straight man, Congressman Louie Gohmert, insists that the president is as pure as the Virgin Mary. Robert Mueller, however, “has protected radical Islamists his whole career.” 

* 

Aliens have taken over the minds of our pets. 

IN OTHER NEWS, Trump straight man, Congressman Louie Gohmert, insists that the president is as pure as the Virgin Mary. Robert Mueller, however, “has protected radical Islamists his whole career.” 

Gohmert offers the theory that the “anthrax scare” which filled the news a few days after the 9/11 attacks, was a diversion. Mueller (then director of the F.B.I.) was “looking for something to take the attention away….” 

In the wake of the terrible 9/11 attacks, media coverage was continuous and profound. No one was “diverted” by the anthrax scare. Most Americans probably don’t remember it even occurred. We all remember that on that terrible day 19 individuals, adhering to a twisted strain of Islam, carried out their murderous attacks. No one “diverted” us from that horrible truth. 

The only people stupid enough to believe Gohmert’s comments are conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones, on the right-wing fringe. These are the nuts who think the 9/11 attacks were a government “inside job.” 

In fact, we know Gohmert spoke at length to Jones on his May 18, 2015, show. At the time, Louie was shouting warning about the Jade Helm plot, wherein the Obama administration was going to send federal troops to invade Texas. How would this invasion proceed? There were tunnels. These tunnels were under Walmart stores that had suddenly closed without reason. When it comes to diversionary tactics, Gohmert earned a black belt in bullshit years ago.

 

* 

CONGRESSMAN Adam Kinzinger, like Gohmert a Republican, unlike Gohmert, a war hero and not nuts, appears on CNN. Wolf Blitzer describes him as “a key member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.” A transcript of their talk includes these relevant details, as always emphasis added, unless otherwise noted. 

BLITZER: We got a lot to discuss.

I want to talk about North Korea in just a moment, but first are you concerned at all by this pattern of connections between people in President Trump’s orbit and these Russians, including oligarchs directly linked to Vladimir Putin?

KINZINGER: No. I mean, I don’t really know what to make of any of this stuff, partially because, as I have said from the very beginning, I – Mueller knows what he’s doing….I want him to complete his report. And then I will make a determination based on what he says….

BLITZER: The president is also arguing that the confidential FBI source who was investigating Russian ties of the Trump campaign is actually a spy and he was actually directed by the Obama administration to undermine President Trump.

Does that make sense to you?

KINZINGER: I don’t know. Again, I mean, all I have seen is what I have seen on TV about that.

And then I have seen my colleagues who have been briefed on this. They came out and said they weren’t overly concerned about it, as you played a sound bite from Mitch McConnell. I have not been briefed on it, so I just don’t know. 

BLITZER: The president’s allies, at least some of them, are clearly ramping up their attacks on the special counsel, Robert Mueller, was for a long time the FBI director.

I want you to listen to what your Republican congressman – your Republican colleague Congressman Louie Gohmert told Judicial Watch. Watch this. 

 

(They watch Gohmert spin his yarn.)

BLITZER: When you hear that, what’s your reaction?

KINZINGER: I know Louie, obviously. I like Louie. He’s a good guy.

 

But I disagree with him in this case. I don’t know what case he’s referring to, but I can tell you with pretty good confidence that Mr. Mueller’s not sympathetic to radical Islam. So I think, if there’s any connection that was made, it’s not because of any kind of sympathy by Mr. Mueller. I trust his investigations. I trust his techniques.

 

Indeed, it is possible Mueller’s final report will exonerate President Trump. If Trump is innocent, that should be clear enough.

June 17, 2018: Trump Pals Caught with Their Conspiracy Pants Half Down

 

6/17/18: The Washington Post reports – and Roger Stone and Michael Caputo suddenly admit – that Stone met during the 2016 campaign with a Russian individual who was offering dirt on Hillary Clinton. 

Caputo: forgot he helped arrange the meeting.

____________________ 

Amnesia afflicted everyone associated with the campaign.

____________________ 

 

Caputo now remembers arranging the meeting after a man going by the name of “Henry Greenberg” approached Caputo’s Russian-immigrant business partner, at an art showing in Miami in the spring of 2016. 

The Stone-Greenberg meeting may not have borne fruit, save to alert Russian intelligence that the Trump team was willing to play ball. Greenberg asked for $2 million for his pile of dirt. Stone claims he turned him down, telling the Russian, “You don’t understand Donald Trump. He doesn’t pay for anything.” 

Stone wasn’t saying no because it would be wrong to allow a foreign adversary to tilt a U.S. election. 

He was saying no because Trump was cheap. 

Afterward, Caputo texted Stone to ask: “How crazy is the Russian?” Caputo realized who Greenberg meant to represent. 

Stone explained that the Russian had asked for big money and labeled the meeting “a waste of time.” 

Caputo responded: “The Russian way. Anything interesting?” 

“No,” his pal replied.

Stone: forgot he had a meeting with a Russian who wanted $2 million.

 

Here’s what seems odd. Stone has long denied meeting with any Russians during the campaign. Both Stone and Caputo could have brought this meeting up during testimony before Congress. Both “forgot” they helped arrange or had the meeting. Even the pattern is odd. The meeting with Greenberg was set up not long after George Papadopoulos met in secret with what he believed were people with direct links to Vladimir Putin and had dirt on Clinton. Papadopoulos “forgot” about his meeting. For lying about it, he got indicted and plead guilty. 

Stone’s meeting with Greenberg came two weeks before Don Jr., Jared Kushner, and the now-incarcerated Paul Manafort agreed to take a meeting specifically arranged with the understanding that agents of the Russian government would provide dirt on…Hillary Clinton! Typical of the amnesia that afflicted everyone associated with the 2016 campaign, Don Jr. quickly forgot about the meeting. 

Jared forgot. 

Paul forgot.

Kushner: forgot about the meeting with another Russian.

Don Jr.: forgot the same meeting as Jared.

Manafort: a triple play; he forgot the same meeting.

He's currently in jail.

 

When Greenberg was contacted by the Post for the story, he denied that he and Stone had met. Not long after, he texted the Post and admitted, okay, they did. Now that he thought about it, he could remember what Stone said two years ago. Greenberg didn’t understand Trump. He wouldn’t give him $2 million. “He doesn’t pay for anything,” Greenberg said Stone said. 

In other words, no dirt was passed – no harm done – and no campaign laws were broken or even slightly bruised. 

 

Caught with their Conspiracy Pants at least half down. 

Stone told the Post he met with Greenberg alone. Greenberg said he was accompanied by a Ukrainian friend named Alexei, who had previously worked for the Clinton Foundation and had dirt he wanted to share. 

Caught, as it were, with their Conspiracy Pants at least half down, both Stone and Caputo claimed that when they talked to Congressional investigators sometime back, they forgot all about this unimportant meeting where someone with Russian connections asked for $2 million. In fact, Caputo claims the meeting was an F.B.I. setup. So he’s the victim in all of this. 

As for Mr. Stone, he insisted in a videotaped interview given to the Post last year: “I’ve never been to Russia. I didn’t talk to anybody who was identifiably Russian during the two-year run-up to this campaign. I very definitely can’t think of anybody who might have been a Russian without my knowledge. It’s a canard.” 

See any pattern?

July 7, 2018: No Deal with North Korea - and Nineteen Reasons to Believe Candidate Trump Jumped in Bed with the Russians

 

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 nukes. 

 

No deal with North Korea. 

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. 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! 

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 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.     Originally, all the men mentioned in #’s 1-6, “forgot” they had such meetings and contacts.

 

When The New York Times revealed the meeting, noted in #6, all three men 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. 

11. Steve Bannon called the meeting at Trump Tower “treasonous.” 

12. Later he backed off and said Don Jr. and Jared weren’t treasonous. Only Manafort. 

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 admitted that the president did draft the misleading letter (#9 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.