Russiagate

[rushmc 18]

Of which you gleefully participate in.

Quote

The brazen plot against Trump by the Obama-era FBI and DOJ continues, enabled by a complicit media

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/the-brazen-plot-against-trump-by-the-obama-fbi-and-doj-continues-enabled-by-a-complicit-media

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[billvon 2,406]

Trump statements:

"I have nothing to do with Russia. I don’t have any jobs in Russia. I’m all over the world but we’re not involved in Russia.”

“I have nothing to do with Russia, folks, I’ll give you a written statement.”

“I know nothing about Russia ... I don’t deal there.”

“There was no communication between the campaign and any foreign entity during the campaign.”

"I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH RUSSIA - NO DEALS, NO LOANS, NO NOTHING!"

"I don't know Putin, have no deals in Russia, and the haters are going crazy."

"No, there are not [any contacts with Russia.] That’s absurd. And you know, there’s no basis to it.”

As of today, we have 14 members of the Trump campaign/administration/organization contacting Russians during the campaign or transition - Trump Jr, Jared Kushner, Ivanka, Cohen, Papadopoulos, Page, Manafort, Sessions, Flynn, Gordon, Stone, Sater, Caputo and Gates. They did this for political advantage, attempts to gain advantage in Russian real estate deals, and to coordinate political messaging. They communicated with Sergei Gordeev,
Alexander Torshin, Joseph Mifsud, Sergey Kislyak, Dmitry Peskov, Konstantin Kilimnik, Natalia Veselnitskaya, Sergey Gorkov, Ivan Timofeev, Andrei Rozov, Henry Greenberg, Dmitry Klokov, Maria Butina, Aras Agalarov and Arkady Dvorkovich. Overall, as of last week, we know of 109 times that those 14 Trump people contacted Russians.

And now we know that Trump met with Putin several times secretly and destroyed any record of their conversation. We also know that Trump is now changing his story and admitting he had contacts with Russia - “Everybody knew about it. This deal was a very public deal. Everybody knows about this deal. I wasn’t trying to hide anything.” (Except for the dozens of denials of course.)

[rushmc 18]

“And now we know...”


Got it

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[normiss 622]

Based on the new FBI investigation into whether or not Trump is a treasonous traitor with Russia, and how some of the key points are leaked, would leave you to believe that Mueller has some very very bad news coming Trump's way.
I think it's going to be quite a gut punch for the entire nation/world.
His forced destruction of meeting notes with Russia would make Nixon laugh.

[nigel99 144]

normiss

Based on the new FBI investigation into whether or not Trump is a treasonous traitor with Russia, and how some of the key points are leaked, would leave you to believe that Mueller has some very very bad news coming Trump's way.
I think it's going to be quite a gut punch for the entire nation/world.
His forced destruction of meeting notes with Russia would make Nixon laugh.

Maybe Marc is right, maybe there was no collusion, just treason

Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

[rushmc 18]

I will stick my neck out and say there is neither.

There have been many articles and pieces of information gleaned, so to speak, from the Washington post and other left leaning rags where they print pieces and parts of you illegally leaked information which subsequently becomes debunked Or shown to be misleading at best and completely out of context. But the posters of those articles never go back and show what’s been debunked. I guess this is going to be another one.

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[billvon 2,406]

Good summary from USA Today. There is no longer much question that Trump is concealing some very inconvenient truths about Putin's hold over him.

=============
All signs point the same way: Vladimir Putin has compromising information on Donald Trump

USA Today
Published 5:36 p.m. ET Jan. 13, 2019

Let us sit back, just for a moment, and absorb the reality of the revelations of the past few days.

For apparently the first time in history, the president of the United States himself was the subject of a counterintelligence investigation. This means that his ties to a hostile power were significant enough to overcome the high bar the FBI would have to clear to investigate any American for possibly being influenced or compromised by another country — much less its own chief executive.

We have also learned that the president has gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal his discussions with an enemy foreign leader not only from intelligence and foreign policy figures in his own administration, but even from the senior officials of his own Oval Office. It should go without saying that he has tried, in this area as in so many others, to wall himself off from congressional oversight.

The president himself is always a reliable barometer of the importance of such revelations, and his panicky tweeting and a subsequent bizarre interview on Fox News (where else?) suggest that these reports are indeed bombshells.

The president’s enablers are dismissing all of this as just more of a Deep State conspiracy set in motion by an FBI aggrieved by the firing of James Comey. The enraged Trump opponents who call themselves the Resistance are convinced that this is evidence not only of Russian influence, but of a Manchurian Candidate who is now the Red President.

The Deep State story is nonsense. The Mole in the Oval image, meanwhile, is too extreme — but not as crazy a theory as it was a year or two ago. The president clearly has something to hide. As I have written many times over the past two years, it is highly unlikely that there is any innocent explanation for the remarkable frequency and depth of the Trump coterie’s interactions with Russia for some 30 years, and especially during the campaign.

While Trump is not an “agent” of the Russian Federation (too many people use this kind of language without knowing what it means to counterintelligence officials), it seems at this point beyond argument that the president personally fears Russian President Vladimir Putin for reasons that can only suggest the existence of compromising information.

Despite the lurid fantasies of the president’s opponents, however, this information is most likely regarding the possible entanglement of Trump’s finances in New York with the Russian mob, Russian intelligence and the Russian government — which are, functionally, the same group — over the past decades.

Americans who are trying to think through the implications of these new developments more calmly should bear in mind three disturbing realities.

First, the existence of the counterintelligence investigation is not a scandal. Indeed, it would be scandal if we had found out today that the FBI had not launched an investigation.

Trump’s behavior regarding Russia has always presented a serious security concern. But when Trump fires the director of the FBI, and then brags about it to actual Russians, only the most stupid or craven law enforcement agency would decline to investigate what to any counterintelligence officer would be the brightest of dozens of flashing red lights. The White House communications shop can throw invective at James Comey and other Justice Department officials, but the FBI had no choice. It was doing the job Americans count on it to do.

Second, the president’s attempts to hide the content of his conversations with Putin are not only abnormal but also deeply suspect. The intelligence community, members of Congress and the public should always be anxious whenever any American official talks to a top Russian leader and then tries to seize the notes. This kind of behavior violates practices of sensible diplomacy and intelligence analysis, and no one acts this way for innocent reasons.

Nor are conversations between the president and Putin merely some personal matter. Such discussions might in fact need to be confidential; sensitive diplomacy often requires a close hold on the informal back-and-forth between top leaders. But their content should be known at the very least to the administration’s own top intelligence and foreign policy advisers.

It’s one thing to hold back information for strategic reasons from the public or even the opposition party. All presidents have done that. It’s another to withhold information from your own advisers.

This is not normal, in any way. As things stand, more people in the Kremlin than in Washington know what Trump said to Putin. It is almost certain that there are readouts and analyses of Trump’s discussions with Putin — but that for now, they are in Russian.

Finally, it is exhausting but nonetheless necessary to point out again the titanic hypocrisy of the Republican Party and of Trump’s apologists in the conservative media. If President Barack Obama had shredded his notes of a meeting with the Iranian president, or if Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager were sitting in jail for lying about meeting a Chinese business associate — and alleged intelligence officer — to share polling data, that alone would have been enough for the GOP to impeach everyone from the president to the White House chef.

Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Trump team ties to Russia might be coming to an end, if his willingness to let former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen speak to Congress next month is any indication. Mueller's report could make these recent revelations seem like the sound of distant fires compared with the bombshells about to explode. But even had Mueller never been appointed, we are already in the midst of the most astonishing scandal in American history.

What happens next is unknowable. But for the president’s supporters to double down in the face of mounting evidence that the president himself is, in some way, compromised by our most dedicated enemy, while making excuses for his secretive behavior by attacking the men and women of the FBI, is a road so dark that perhaps even Joseph McCarthy would not have dared walk it.
===============

[wolfriverjoe 1,346]

nigel99

***Based on the new FBI investigation into whether or not Trump is a treasonous traitor with Russia, and how some of the key points are leaked, would leave you to believe that Mueller has some very very bad news coming Trump's way.
I think it's going to be quite a gut punch for the entire nation/world.
His forced destruction of meeting notes with Russia would make Nixon laugh.

Maybe Marc is right, maybe there was no collusion, just treason

It won't be treason. That's a pretty clearly defined and specific crime.

It uses words like "enemy" and "in time of war".

While Russia may be an adversary, and a hostile one at that, we aren't at war.

During Flynn's recent hearing, the judge asked why he wasn't being charged with treason. The judge later retracted those comments (but not the 'you sold your country out' one) because Flynn's crimes didn't fit the definition.

Lots of folks have done lots of things for Russia. Aldrich Ames gave the then Soviet Union information on Russians who were working for the CIA. Many of those agents were executed. Betrayal, and criminal. But not 'treason'.

I think the USA Today article Billvon quoted is pretty close. I do, however, believe that Putin & Russia have more on Trump than just financial misdeeds. Those are probably pretty extensive, but revealing them would force Russia to admit how deeply the Russian Mafia and Government are tied together.
I would bet (and fairly heavily) that Russia has some sex shenanigans by Trump on tape. Based on his past, I would suspect that it involves young girls. Well under legal age. And that Trump acknowledges (and likely brags about it) on the tape.

As Ron has commented, the S is about to H The F. But not in the way he wants it to. We're likely facing a huge kerfuffle, and if the Rs don't realize how bad this is, and join with the Ds to force him out, it could get ugly.

"There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy

"~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

[rushmc 18]

Mounting evidence. Talk about something that is incredibly laughable. All you have is incredible crazy opinion.

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[tonyhays 86]

"Truth isn't truth"

“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”

[kallend 1,635]

nigel99

***Based on the new FBI investigation into whether or not Trump is a treasonous traitor with Russia, and how some of the key points are leaked, would leave you to believe that Mueller has some very very bad news coming Trump's way.
I think it's going to be quite a gut punch for the entire nation/world.
His forced destruction of meeting notes with Russia would make Nixon laugh.

Maybe Marc is right, maybe there was no collusion, just treason

Marc appears to be in full panic mode.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[DJL 232]

rushmc

Of which you gleefully participate in.

Quote

The brazen plot against Trump by the Obama-era FBI and DOJ continues, enabled by a complicit media

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/the-brazen-plot-against-trump-by-the-obama-fbi-and-doj-continues-enabled-by-a-complicit-media

From the video header of our article: "Rep. Peter King: 'Absolutely disgraceful' of FBI to question if Trump's motivation for firing Comey was tied to Russia."

From Donald Trump's mouth, he was thinking of “this Russia thing” when he decided James Comey’s fate – contradicting the White House rationale that he fired the FBI director for mishandling the Clinton email investigation.

The FBI was literally doing their job. Did they find anything that stuck? Doesn't look like it so they put it on the shelf. Quit freaking out about nothing.

You're also one of the people who applauds the FBI every time you see an article about them looking into Clinton. It's what they do.

"I encourage all awesome dangerous behavior." - Jeffro Fincher

[rushmc 18]

First off. There is no evidence currently tying Trump to Russia. So obviously there was no evidence at the time Trump fired Comey after Rosenstein recommendation to do so.

Secondly, since there was no evidence of any crime, which is a requirement to start an FBI investigation, that investigation was at best political!

As far as Clinton goes, Comey appointed himself AG after Lynch became politically harmed when she got caught with Bill Clinton in an accidental tarmac meeting, and therefore she got a political pass

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[billvon 2,406]

>First off. There is no evidence currently tying Trump to Russia. So obviously there was no
>evidence at the time Trump fired Comey after Rosenstein recommendation to do so.

1) He didn't do it

>As far as Clinton goes, Comey appointed himself AG after Lynch became politically harmed
>when she got caught with Bill Clinton in an accidental tarmac meeting, and therefore she
>got a political pass

3) Clinton did it first

You missed the "OK maybe he did it but it wasn't that bad."

[DJL 232]

rushmc

First off. There is no evidence currently tying Trump to Russia. So obviously there was no evidence at the time Trump fired Comey after Rosenstein recommendation to do so.

Secondly, since there was no evidence of any crime, which is a requirement to start an FBI investigation, that investigation was at best political!

As far as Clinton goes, Comey appointed himself AG after Lynch became politically harmed when she got caught with Bill Clinton in an accidental tarmac meeting, and therefore she got a political pass

The grounds for investigating don't necessarily work like that. You start looking into it "investigating" and THEN you gain evidence. Sure, you can start with a dead body or someone handing over something like emails between campaign members and other parties but it's not needed. If the mayor of your town fired the police chief after the police chief was looking into something relating to the mayor and he said something to the effect that he fired him because of that thing... I'll let you take it from there.

In this case they were just doing their due diligence. Let's say they found something that compromised national security, you would probably want them to do something about that right? It's not even a matter of prosecuting Trump because the executive may be the exact person to bring that to so that they can extricate him from whatever that thing is.

I know that Fox is painting this for you too seem like more Deep State/Obama corruption but it really is what they need to do to protect our President and our country.

"I encourage all awesome dangerous behavior." - Jeffro Fincher

[Phil1111 913]

DJL

***First off. There is no evidence currently tying Trump to Russia. So obviously there was no evidence at the time Trump fired Comey after Rosenstein recommendation to do so.

Secondly, since there was no evidence of any crime, which is a requirement to start an FBI investigation, that investigation was at best political!

As far as Clinton goes, Comey appointed himself AG after Lynch became politically harmed when she got caught with Bill Clinton in an accidental tarmac meeting, and therefore she got a political pass

The grounds for investigating don't necessarily work like that. You start looking into it "investigating" and THEN you gain evidence. Sure, you can start with a dead body or someone handing over something like emails between campaign members and other parties but it's not needed. If the mayor of your town fired the police chief after the police chief was looking into something relating to the mayor and he said something to the effect that he fired him because of that thing... I'll let you take it from there.

In this case they were just doing their due diligence. Let's say they found something that compromised national security, you would probably want them to do something about that right? It's not even a matter of prosecuting Trump because the executive may be the exact person to bring that to so that they can extricate him from whatever that thing is.

I know that Fox is painting this for you too seem like more Deep State/Obama corruption but it really is what they need to do to protect our President and our country.

1. Robert Swan Mueller, Republican, appointed by republicans.
2. Rod Jay Rosenstein, Republican, appointed by trump
3. AG nominee William Barr "tells senators he doesn't think Mueller would pursue 'witch hunt'
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/01/15/live-blog-william-barr-senate-hearing-attorney-general/2571876002/

Marc, Ron and now about 34% of American voters still puppet FOX/trump cult talking points. Yet judge, after judge, after the aforementioned appointees and the FBI.

Still say Russia. Putina and Russia are so far up trump's ass. That when trump opens his mouth. Matryoshka dolls open up one after another. Russian mob money laundering, Russian loans for golf courses, Moscow trump tower building permits. Wait, more dolls for Mueller and the FBI to open yet.

Just say nyet to Marc. Its the only Russian word that trump doesn't know.

[rushmc 18]

DJL

***First off. There is no evidence currently tying Trump to Russia. So obviously there was no evidence at the time Trump fired Comey after Rosenstein recommendation to do so.

Secondly, since there was no evidence of any crime, which is a requirement to start an FBI investigation, that investigation was at best political!

As far as Clinton goes, Comey appointed himself AG after Lynch became politically harmed when she got caught with Bill Clinton in an accidental tarmac meeting, and therefore she got a political pass

The grounds for investigating don't necessarily work like that. You start looking into it "investigating" and THEN you gain evidence. Sure, you can start with a dead body or someone handing over something like emails between campaign members and other parties but it's not needed. If the mayor of your town fired the police chief after the police chief was looking into something relating to the mayor and he said something to the effect that he fired him because of that thing... I'll let you take it from there.

In this case they were just doing their due diligence. Let's say they found something that compromised national security, you would probably want them to do something about that right? It's not even a matter of prosecuting Trump because the executive may be the exact person to bring that to so that they can extricate him from whatever that thing is.

I know that Fox is painting this for you too seem like more Deep State/Obama corruption but it really is what they need to do to protect our President and our country.

The statue is what it is.

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[billvon 2,406]

Nixon, 1973: "I am not a crook"
Trump, 2019: "I never worked for Russia"

[normiss 622]

Quote

The statue is what it is.

Thankfully they're being torn down though.

[DJL 232]

Quote

The statue is what it is.

The statue? What are you talking about?

"I encourage all awesome dangerous behavior." - Jeffro Fincher

[Phil1111 913]

DJL

Quote

The statue is what it is.

The statue? What are you talking about?

Its like Ron's description on how the English language changes and adapts. In this case it means a state of mind for trump supporters whereby the thinking is resolute and unchanging. Regardless of what evidence or facts are brought to the matter.

The mind is like a statue, never changing.

[billvon 2,406]

Devin Nunes was one of Trump's biggest supporters - and was instrumental in blunting investigations of Trump during his time in the House Intelligence Committee. Now it looks like he may have legal problems of his own due to a meeting between him, Flynn and some foreign nationals including the Saudis and UAE.

==============
Mueller Probes an Event With Nunes, Flynn, and Foreign Officials at Trump’s D.C. Hotel

Asawin Suebsaeng
01.14.19 8:02 PM ET
Daily Beast

The Special Counsel’s Office and federal prosecutors in Manhattan are scrutinizing a meeting involving former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, one-time National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, and dozens of foreign officials, according to three sources familiar with the investigations.

The breakfast event, which was first reported by The Daily Sabah, a pro-government Turkish paper, took place at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. at 8.30 a.m. on Jan. 18, 2017—two days before President Donald Trump’s inauguration. About 60 people were invited, including diplomats from governments around the world, according to those same sources.

The breakfast has come under scrutiny by federal prosecutors in Manhattan as part of their probe into whether the Trump inaugural committee misspent funds and if donors tried to buy influence in the White House. The existence of that probe was first reported by The Wall Street Journal. The Special Counsel’s Office is also looking at the breakfast as part of its investigation into whether foreigners contributed money to the Trump inaugural fund and PAC by possibly using American intermediaries, as first reported by The New York Times. Robert Mueller’s team has asked Flynn about the event, according to two sources familiar with the Special Counsel’s Office questioning.

Nunes, who has not been accused of any wrongdoing, has been perhaps Trump’s most important congressional ally over the last two years. After serving on Trump’s transition team, Nunes became a vigorous defender of the president against federal and congressional inquiries. The California Republican pushed a misleading memo alleging misconduct in the FBI investigation of Trump’s associates that the bureau said contained “material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy.”

Now Nunes—a key figure behind the right-wing counter narrative that Trump is at the mercy of a “Deep State” conspiracy—finds at least one meeting that he himself attended under the special counsel’s scrutiny.

The breakfast gathering took place the night after the Global Chairman’s Dinner—one of the inauguration’s most exclusive events, set up so the incoming president can meet the foreign diplomatic corps. Some of those who attended the dinner also attended the Trump Hotel breakfast, two individuals with direct knowledge of the events told The Daily Beast. Country officials invited to the breakfast included Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Israel, Lithuania, Estonia, Denmark, Japan, Angola and others. Former Kazakh Ambassador Kairat Umarov attended the breakfast, as did two senior Qatari officials.

Pluvious Group, a consultancy that raised money for the Republican National Committee and the Trump campaign, helped with the event’s organization, according to two sources with knowledge of the breakfast. The group did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
. . .
And within Trumpworld, there are few players better known for their willingness to “throw themselves on grenade, after grenade, after grenade” in the defense of Trump than Nunes, according to a former senior White House official.

. . . Late last year, President Trump even went as far as to bizarrely state that Nunes deserves the Medal of Honor for “bravery” in his blocking-and-tackling against the Trump-Russia investigations, only to subsequently correct himself to say Nunes should get the Medal of Freedom instead. (The Medal of Honor is a military decoration.)
=========

[rushmc 18]

More developments.

Former top FBI lawyer James Baker is under criminal investigation for Media leaks. Washington Examiner

Politico has reported that a top FBI official linked to the reporter who broke the Trump dossier story.

We know McCabe was fired for lying. And he is now under criminal investigation .

Now is being reported that Comey’s chief of staff for Jim Bakker is also now under official criminal investigation .

Going to get interesting to see how this all flushes out .

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[rushmc 18]

No this today!

Quote

Judge orders Susan Rice, Ben Rhodes to answer written Benghazi questions in Clinton email lawsuit

Quote

A federal judge ruled Tuesday that former national security adviser Susan Rice and former deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes must answer written questions about the State Department's response to the deadly 2012 terror attack in Benghazi, Libya, as part of an ongoing legal battle over whether Hillary Clinton sought to deliberately evade public record laws by using a private email server while secretary of state.

U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth denied a request by the conservative group Judicial Watch to make Rice and Rhodes sit for depositions, but agreed to have them answer written questions. He also agreed to Judicial Watch's request to depose the State Department about the preparation of talking points for Rice, then President Barack Obama's ambassador to the United Nations, ahead of appearances on political talk shows the Sunday following the attack. That deposition is part of Judicial Watch's inquiry into whether the State Department acted in bad faith by not telling a court for months that they had asked in mid-2014 for missing emails to be returned.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/judge-orders-susan-rice-ben-rhodes-to-answer-written-benghazi-questions-in-clinton-email-lawsuit

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[rushmc 18]

Quote

Hillary Clinton’s use of private email server among ‘gravest’ offenses to transparency, judge says

Quote

On Thursday, Lamberth ordered the State and Justice departments to work with Judicial Watch on a discovery plan to determine whether Clinton used the server to circumvent FOIA requirements, the Hill reported.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/hillary-clintons-use-of-private-email-server-among-gravest-offenses-to-transparency-judge-says

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln