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