As early as last Tuesday, days before we learned Mueller would bring indictments later in the week, Fox News’s Hannity called for Mueller’s resignation.Here's a fun fact: Trump -- president since January 20 -- has never demanded that Uranium One divest its American mines. Trump certainly has the power to order a divestiture, just as Obama had ordered a Chinese firm to divest its interest in American wind farms.
“Back in 2009, he was the FBI director. This was when the bureau, the FBI, so clearly had this information [about Uranium One.] He had conflicts of interest. There’s no way the American people can trust Robert Mueller to investigate anything Russian-related,” he said
Has Trump done one single thing to force divestment? No, he has not. Thus, Hannity is essentially saying that there's no way the American people can trust Donald Trump!
(Actually, the whole Uranium One deal is a smokescreen: Those American mines have no export licenses, which means that no uranium leaves the country. Moreover, the uranium is not weapons-grade. That's why the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Department of Homeland Secuirty and the entire intelligence community approved the deal.)
The WSJ has also asked for a blanket pardon of all of Trump's associates. I think that Trump will issue such a pardon and will also find a way to fire Mueller. Trump is a shameless, vicious beast who, if cornered, is capable of anything.
Clinton won the 2016 election! Yesterday, Sean Hannity twice referred to Hillary as "President Clinton." Corey Lewandowski has castigated "the Clinton administration." (I'm thinking of applying for a cabinet position.) Trump tweets "DO SOMETHING" as though he were powerless to order things done.
Here's the problem: Right-wing conspiracism is an engine designed to operate outside the halls of power. When you drag the machine into the White House and plug it into an Oval Office outlet, hilarity ensues.
Those damned emails. We've seen many new timelines of the evidence indicating the Trump campaign's collusion the Russians during the campaign. While I'm grateful for these chronologies, I'm disturbed that Trump's "30,000 emails" claim continues to be aired without proper context.
Once more into the breach, dear friends...
We know that the deleted emails were innocuous. How do we know this? Because the FBI recovered them. James Comey testified on July 5, 2016 that the FBI read these emails and that they were not deleted as part of any kind of nefarious cover-up.
I think that this July 5 testimony needs to be inserted into the various timelines we've been seeing. Trump made his infamous " Russia, if you're listening" speech on July 29. We now know from Papadopolous that Russia claimed to have gotten hold that material at least a month earlier.
(Perhaps from the FBI itself? Odd thought. Must look into that later.)
For months now, I have offered the theory that Russia's original intent was to release a trove of deleted emails that included a few "damning" fakes. ("Remind the cook that I prefer children to be served medium-rare with a light Bearnaise sauce. -- HRC.") What we're learning now bolsters that theory.
Many have forgotten that the Russians tried a similar trick with the emails they stole from the DNC. In early October, "Guccifer 2" (a.k.a. Russian intelligence) created a fake document dump which supposedly came the Clinton Foundation, even though it was actually composed of pilfered DNC emails (not the same thing) plus some laughably obvious falsities. The whole thing was so ludicrous that even Alex freakin' Jones couldn't take it seriously.
So why didn't Russia go through with the scheme to toss in a few fake emails? Simple: James Comey's testimony. Took 'em a while to figure out the implications, but eventually the truth sunk in: Whatever the Russians had, the FBI had.
Think about it. If the Russians had tossed in a few false items, the FBI and everyone else would have quickly understood what Putin's people were up to. If the really, really juicy material had shown up only in the Russian collection but not in the FBI collection, the jig would have been up -- for Russia. Not for Hillary.
In short: I think that Trump supporters had concocted a plan to create false Clinton emails. ("I swear, the next person who leaves the toilet seat up will be Vince Fostered. PS: Jesus died because he was weak and stupid. -- HRC") I also think that Comey's testimony upended that plan.
The hidden implications of the Manafort indictment. The White House wants you to believe that nothing in the Manafort indictment touches Trump or the campaign. Some talking heads on CNN and even MSNBC have agreed with this assessment.
One DU poster says: "Au contraire."
12 Investment companies from Cyprus are listed in the indictment (here: https://www.justice.gov/file/1007271/download)The idea that Trump cannot pardon a co-conspirator has been questioned. (Right now, I'm sure of only one thing: It's complicated.) The only Soho company listed in the indictment is MC Soho Holdings LLC," which Manafort used to buy property in Soho.
Why is this damning for Trump?
1. Conspiracy: Trump cannot pardon these people if he is a co-conspirator. And conspiracy is heavily used throughout the indictment.
2. Cyprus: Let's take a closer look at Trump's ties with investment companies in Cyrpus, shall we?
(keep in mind the SoHo companies listed in the indictment)
- Felix Sater, a major player in the Bayrock group that developed the Trump SoHo Hotel in New York and a twice-convicted felon who spent a year in prison for stabbing a man. Sater later scouted for Trump investments in Russia.
- Alexander Mashkevich, a Kazakh mining billionaire,was another source of funds for Bayrock financing and the SoHo project, and was accused by Belgian authorities in 2011 in a $55 million money-laundering scheme.
- Anatoly Golubchik, Vadim Trincher and Michael Sall are three owners of Trump condos in Florida and Manhattan who were accused in federal indictments of belonging to a Russian-American organized crime group and working for a major international crime boss based in Russia.
- Viktor Khrapunov, a former Kazakhstan energy minister and mayor of Almaty, owns three units in the Trump SoHo through shell companies and was accused in a federal lawsuit filed in Los Angeles in 2014 of hiding millions of dollars looted from his city, some of which was spent on three Trump SoHo units.
- Peter Kiritchenko, a Ukrainian owner of two Trump condos in Florida, who was indicted in a money-laundering scheme involving a former prime minister of Ukraine.
From: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/04/trump-financial-ties-russia-money-laundering-banks-oligarchs-manafort/
Why is SoHo important? Because it represents Trump Properties in the SoHo Neighborhood of Manhattan. Manafort's company laundered money through MC Soho Holdings into Trump Properties. See the below link in conjunction with the indictment:
http://www.refinblog.com/tag/mc-soho-holdings-llc/
In other words, this DU poster has made a rather strained argument. You can't start jumping up and down while crying "CONSPIRACY!" every time you see the place-name "Soho."
However, it is true that Manafort's apparent money-laundering operations did use a number of Cyprus-based paper corporations, as well as a couple of companies in the Grenadines and one in the UK. The question before us: Were any of those "companies" (if that is indeed the right word) also used to benefit Trump or his campaign?
If so: WHAM.
John Kelly. It seems obvious to me that he spewed obnoxious pro-Confederacy nonsense in order to insure that the media would talk about anything other than the Papadopolous and Manafort stories. The trick worked. It's sort of like deliberately stepping in dogshit to keep people from complaining about your halitosis.
5 comments:
Sadly, our constitution, written by slave owners who insisted upon maintaining privilege, left us with a defective and increasingly useless document. I'm not a lawyer, but the meaning is clear, that with federal crimes, POTUS, even DOTUS, can pardon anyone for anything. After thirty years of continuous right wing attack on Democratic norms and institutions this is where we are.
Since many issues facing us are actually political in nature, the GOP crooks and thugs who own the system including the judiciary will make their partisan decisions, should it come to that. Trump will probably be allowed to resign after the ghastly stench has become too much, leaving the GOP elite ready to step in.
State charges will probably be all important in the forthcoming mess. In criminal matters, it's hard to see hew Trump emerges unscathed but given the political damage, it seems a petty matter.
But I could be wrong, here's hoping they successfully throw the book at him and make it stick.
And Hillary herself didn't delete any emails, as the media keep saying. Her lawyers deleted those of her emails that were obviously personal.
It seems to me that the only undisputed crime to come out of the election of 2016 was the hacking of the DNC emails. Hacking is unquestionably illegal. Trump actually encourage, ON AIR, the hacking by Russia. It also seems clear that Russia was at least involved with Wikileaks and that Trump had prior knowledge of the crime.
On another subject, what do you suppose are the odds that the FBI told Clovis that Papadopolous had cooperated before it talked to him? What do you suppose are the chances that he lied to the FBI and they can prove it. Given who Colvis' lawyer is, he might want to get a second opinion.
Four words:
IT'S MUELLER TIME MUTHAFUCKAS!
Greg Sargent of the WaPo agrees with your grim warning, Joseph.
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