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.”

 

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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.