June 8, 2018: Rick Gates Knows Where the Coven Meets

 

6/8/18: This is how the Russia investigation goes. Rudy Giuliani makes stupid comments on television: “The president has the power to pardon himself! He can pardon a head of lettuce!” 

Next, the president posts a stupid tweet, something like: “I can pardon anyone I want. Even witches! I am totally innocent. But even if Special Counsel Mueller has pictures of me in bed with five Russian hookers, a pair of mallard ducks, and Vladimir Putin, I have the power to pardon myself!!!” 

 

Gates knows where the coven meets. 

Special Counsel Mueller and his investigators just keep on digging. They keep building cases (we don’t know how many there will be) and keep their mouths clamped shut. 

On this fine day Mueller and his team issue two fresh indictments. Paul Manafort gets hit with another, this time for witness tampering. 

If you’re having trouble keeping track, don’t feel bad. Manafort has been charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States, money laundering, tax evasion, bank fraud and being, generally, a scumbag. 

Also indicted for the first time is Konstantin Kilimnik, Manafort’s business partner and man with ties (of course) to Russian intelligence. Manafort once referred to him as “my Russian brain.” 

Rick Gates, Manafort’s right-hand man, and a cooperating witness in the investigation, has admitted that he knew Kilimnik was linked with Russian intelligence agents. Manafort left the campaign under a cloud in August 2016; but Gates remained a member of Team Trump through Inauguration Day and beyond. 

That means if there are real witches in the White House Gates knows where the coven meets.

Rick Gates is cooperating with Mueller.

 

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AT THE G-7 MEETING in Canada, President Trump, who all the other leaders there can’t stand, suggests Russia should be allowed to rejoin the group. That way he’d have at least one friend. 

Trump also appears to be confused. At one point, he suggests Canada was responsible for burning the White House in 1814. As for Russia invading the Crimea in 2014, that doesn’t bother him one bit.

Trump does ♥Putin.

 

Ohio Governor John Kasich, a Republican, issues this statement: 

Russia was kicked out of the G-8 because of its invasion and annexation of Crimea. Since that time, Moscow has encouraged and directed a separatist insurgency in Eastern Ukraine, intervened in support Syria’s murderous dictator and the war crimes that he has perpetrated, interfered in the U.S. presidential election, waged an information war to undermine Western democracies, attempted to assassinate opponents on the sovereign territory of our allies, and made common cause with China to undermine the post-WWII international security system and the democratic values embedded in it.

 

…President Trump’s idea of renewing Russian membership in the G-7/G-8 does not protect or defend the national security interests [emphasis added] of the United States or our allies.

 

Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, also a Republican, says in a statement of his own, “Russia shouldn’t be let back into the G-8 until it changes the behavior that caused it to be expelled in the first place.”

 

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BACK IN WASHINGTON D.C., Sierra Club leaders file a Freedom of Information Act request. Then they start digging through E.P.A. records. It doesn’t take long to learn that E.P.A. Administrator Pruitt allowed a Dallas businessman to select the head of the E.P.A.’s influential Science Advisory Board. 

That businessman, Doug Deason, and his dad, Darwin Deason, donated $900,000 to GOP candidates and Trump’s 2016 election. Now the head of the Science Advisory Board will review regulations that can impact Deason’s business. 

Pruitt has also removed pesky scientists, with their ridiculous focus on clean air and water, from several advisory boards. To fill their seats, he allowed coal and gas industry executives to suggest replacements. Now the people who bring you giant oil spills, blow up towns like West, Texas and cause hundreds of fracking-related earthquakes in Oklahoma, will be advising the E.P.A. on clean water and clean air and how to make sure dangerous chemicals don’t end up… 

Oh, forget it. This is Scott Pruitt. 

He doesn’t care any more about clean air and water than Trump cares about eating healthy and regular exercise.