Variously

Did Trump commit treason on tape? That's the purport of the Olbermann piece embedded above. He draws his argument from Louise Mensch, here.

Sources with links to the intelligence community say it is believed that Carter Page went to Moscow in early July carrying with him a pre-recorded tape of Donald Trump offering to change American policy if he were to be elected, to make it more favorable to Putin. In exchange, Page was authorized directly by Trump to request the help of the Russian government in hacking the election.

On November 7th I reported that the FBI had been granted a FISA warrant to investigate the activities of two Russian banks, Alfa Bank and Silicoln Valley Bank. I also reported that an earlier attempt to obtain a FISA warrant, in June, had failed in the court because it named Donald Trump himself and three of his associates. In an exclusive at Patribotics, I reported that these named associates were Carter Page, Paul Manafort, and Boris Epshteyn.

Sources close to the intelligence community now report that this application was made because a recording exists of all three men discussing the possibility of Page taking the tape of Trump to Moscow as an earnest of good faith. There is a minor dispute over whether Trump himself is also on that tape, as well as the tape that was delivered to Moscow by Carter Page of Trump making this promise.

A separate source with links to the intelligence community reported to me several months ago that Boris Epshteyn, alone of the four men named in the first FISA application, is an actual FSB agent, and, the source said, is the son of two other sleeper agents.

This blog was the first to discuss the allegation that Ephsteyn is "Source E" in the Steele dossier; many other writers have since concluded that this identification is quite possible. The Steele dossier does not explicitly identify Source E as an FSB agent, although that was always a valid between-the-lines reading. Source E appears to have been cognizant of the "watersports" kompromat, and may even have helped to arrange the video recording.

An important Erik Prince piece. Bloomberg -- not a weirdo conspiracy site -- says that Prince used to sneak in through the back entrance of Trump Tower.

The conversations provide a glimpse of Prince’s relationship with an administration that’s distanced itself from him since the Washington Post reported earlier this month that Prince had met with a top aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Seychelles in January.

Specifically, he offered a deal: Putin would toss Assad under the bus in return for lifted sanctions and other goodies. Why does everyone forget the most important part of the story?

In one informal discussion in late November, Prince spoke openly with two members of Trump’s transition team on a train bound from New York to Washington. He boarded the same Acela as Kellyanne Conway and they sat together. Joining the conversation at one point was Kevin Harrington, a longtime associate of Trump adviser Peter Thiel who is now on the National Security Council. They discussed, in broad terms, major changes the incoming administration envisioned for the intelligence community, as recounted by a person on the train who overheard their conversation.

The piece goes on to state that when Prince was close to Flynn; when Flynn lost access to Trump, so did Erik Prince.

This could be it. A couple of posts down, I said that if (as some propose) we hope to impeach Trump on a perjury charge during a deposition, we first need a lawsuit. This one is made to order.

Two new plaintiffs — an association of restaurants and restaurant workers, and a woman who books banquet halls for two D.C. hotels — plan to join a lawsuit alleging that President Trump has violated the Constitution’s emoluments clause because his hotels and restaurants do business with foreign governments.

The new plaintiffs will be added to the case on Tuesday morning, according to a spokesman for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a D.C.-based watchdog group.

In my view, this case has importance in and of itself. But its true significance will come if and when Trump is deposed, as Bill Clinton was deposed in the Paula Jones suit.

Trump is not a stupid man. He may disdain book larnin', but he has the cunning of a grifter. He's intelligent enough to know what a perjury trap is. If he is deposed, he will be on guard, and he will make every effort to tell the truth -- at least a technical, legalistic, split-hair version of the truth (as did Bill Clinton).  

But. Donald Trump cannot escape his own character, just as the scorpion cannot stop himself from killing the frog in the famous parable. If Trump is deposed at sufficient length, I predict that he will eventually lie under oath. He will do so without intending to, without needing to. Such is his character.

The lie will come. If it is large enough, and if the political environment permits, impeachment may follow.

Is AJ a nut or a liar? Head's up, schadenfreude fans: This story is an utter delight. Either Alex Jones is a blowhard and a fraud or he's a dangerously unstable fruitcake who can't be allowed near his own children. If there's an option 3, I can't see it.

However the case falls out, Alex Jones will surely run true to form: He'll blame his problems on "THEM" -- the Illuminati, the globalists, the build-a-burgers, the Trilateral Commission, the Clintons, the Rockefellers, Satanists, the flying saucer people, the Gustav Mahler Appreciation Society -- instead of blaming himself. That's the allure of the conspiracy buff subculture: Once you join it, you need never again take personal responsibility. For anything.

More theater. Despite headlines like this one, I'm still convinced that Vlad and Donnie are BFFs. From a purely tactical point of view, they should have staged a rift ages ago.