FYI, he can’t. But what shit is about to hit the fan?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yrf9-aCQ5c
Tag: Trump
Oh, oops
"I know for a fact that Donald Trump is on at least one" of Michael Cohen audio recordings – @MichaelAvenatti pic.twitter.com/L3SpRt65Lr
— The Beat with Ari Melber đź“ş (@TheBeatWithAri) May 30, 2018
He sure acts guilty
Breaking news last night from the New York Times. Trump asked Jeff Sessions to walk back his recusal. If Trump wasn’t guilty, why would it matter?
When they met, Mr. Trump was ready to talk — but not about the travel ban. His grievance was with Mr. Sessions: The president objected to his decision to recuse himself from the Russia investigation. Mr. Trump, who had told aides that he needed a loyalist overseeing the inquiry, berated Mr. Sessions and told him he should reverse his decision, an unusual and potentially inappropriate request.
Mr. Sessions refused.
The confrontation, which has not been previously reported, is being investigated by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, as are the president’s public and private attacks on Mr. Sessions and efforts to get him to resign. Mr. Trump dwelled on the recusal for months, according to confidants and current and former administration officials who described his behavior toward the attorney general.
The special counsel’s interest demonstrates Mr. Sessions’s overlooked role as a key witness in the investigation into whether Mr. Trump tried to obstruct the inquiry itself. It also suggests that the obstruction investigation is broader than it is widely understood to be — encompassing not only the president’s interactions with and firing of the former F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, but also his relationship with Mr. Sessions.
James Clapper: Russians handed the election to Trump
Former Intelligence chief James Clapper appeared on PBS Newshour Wednesday night, and told Judy Woodruff he believes the Russians handed the election to Trump.
“One of the things you write or have spoken about, I should say, in addition to writing about it very candidly is how you have concluded after what happened in 2016 that the Russians not only affected — tried to affect the election, but you said they actually did affect the outcome,” Woodruff said. “What did you mean?”
“Well, first, I need to make clear that, when we did our formal intelligence community assessment in January of 2017, we did not make any call at all about whether the Russians affected the outcome of the election,” Clapper said.
“We didn’t have the authority, charter or capability to do that. Since I left the government, though, as a private citizen, it’s what I would call my informed opinion that, given the massive effort the Russians made and the number of citizens that they touched and the variety and the multi-dimensional aspects of what they did to influence opinion and affect the election, and given the fact that it turned on less than 80,000 votes in three states, to me, it just exceeds logic and credulity that they turned the election.”
He also said “there’s an assault on our institutions both internally from both internal and external sources. The external source is Russia. The internal source is our president, is attacking these institutions that have served this country long and well. you know there’s not a whole lot of — these are actually fragile, and if they’re not protected and nurtured over time, we risk losing them, and not all that much different between where we are today and being a banana republic.”
‘It’s a f*cking circus’
They ignore the law and Republicans won’t stop them:
@tedbarrettcnn spots Flood entering the Senate for the Gang of Eight meeting. The WH attorney dealing with Russia probe attended both briefings today for at least part of the time, despite the WH saying this week no WH official would attend pic.twitter.com/4RUbGg7E6r
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) May 24, 2018
Breaking News: Reports are that Emmett Flood, Trump's atty, went to DOJ meeting with Republicans about informant. Not clear yet how much of the meeting he was allowed to participate in. Completely inappropriate for him being there even a minute.
— Jill Wine-Banks (now on Threads as jillwinebanks) (@JillWineBanks) May 24, 2018
https://twitter.com/woodruffbets/status/999767551973449728
Time to open ANOTHER Special counsel on unauthorized disclosure of classified information and Conspiracy to Obstruct Justice. Flood should have known better. ACLU should file to Disbar him. https://t.co/hVLgN8gRAz
— Malcolm Nance (@MalcolmNance) May 24, 2018
The @WhiteHouse said this has to do with congressional requests to @TheJusticeDept. Having Emmet Flood, the lawyer for @realDonaldTrump, in the meeting is highly inappropriate. https://t.co/z3gM3eR7z6
— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) May 24, 2018
https://twitter.com/woodruffbets/status/999767551973449728
Summit canceled
Apparently Trump’s feelings were hurt after the North Koreans said mean things! The Washington Post:
President Trump on Thursday canceled a planned summit next month with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, citing “tremendous anger and open hostility” from the rogue nation in a letter explaining his abrupt decision.
“I feel it is inappropriate, at this time, to have this long-planned meeting,” Trump said to Kim in a letter released by the White House on Thursday morning.
Looks like Mike Pence shooting off his mouth is what blew things up!
Trump’s decision comes hours after North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui, in remarks carried on the country’s official KCNA news service, said it would not “beg the U.S. for dialogue” and warned that it could make Washington “taste an appalling tragedy.”
Choe also called Vice President Pence a “political dummy” and criticized Pence’s recent suggestion that North Korea could end up like Libya if doesn’t come to the bargaining table.
“As a person involved in the U.S. affairs, I cannot suppress my surprise at such ignorant and stupid remarks gushing out from the mouth of the U.S. vice president,” Choe said.
Here’s his letter:
The letter from @POTUS pulling out of the Singapore summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un. pic.twitter.com/UsYxIBFiFS
— Willie Geist (@WillieGeist) May 24, 2018
And here are some reactions:
https://twitter.com/AricHurkman/status/999660724795326464
https://twitter.com/BrianJOMalley/status/999659336011079681
https://twitter.com/LarryMurphyJr/status/999659318562697217
https://twitter.com/JeremyGreenlee/status/999660727240679428
⚡ U.S. stocks fell sharply Thursday after President Donald Trump announced that the hotly anticipated summit next month with North Korea was cancelled.
The Dow Jones industrial average has fallen 170 points immediately after the announcement.
— $. €. Investâ‚ąust 🇮🇳 (@SterlingFincap) May 24, 2018
You probably knew this already
The smoking gun
I don’t know how much more proof some people will need of this administration’s corruption, but some people believe in Trump fairies and will always clap their hands. Via the BBC:
Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, received a secret payment of at least $400,000 (ÂŁ300,000) to fix talks between the Ukrainian president and President Trump, according to sources in Kiev close to those involved.
The payment was arranged by intermediaries acting for Ukraine’s leader, Petro Poroshenko, the sources said, though Mr Cohen was not registered as a representative of Ukraine as required by US law.
The meeting at the White House was last June.
Shortly after the Ukrainian president returned home, his country’s anti-corruption agency stopped its investigation into Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort.
A high-ranking Ukrainian intelligence officer in Mr Poroshenko’s administration described what happened before the visit to the White House.
Mr Cohen was brought in, he said, because Ukraine’s registered lobbyists and embassy in Washington DC could get Mr Poroshenko little more than a brief photo-op with Mr Trump. Mr Poroshenko needed something that could be portrayed as “talks”.
This senior official’s account is as follows – Mr Poroshenko decided to establish a back channel to Mr Trump. The task was given to a former aide, who asked a loyal Ukrainian MP for help.
He in turn used personal contacts in a Jewish charity in New York state, Chabad of Port Washington. This eventually led to Michael Cohen, the president’s lawyer and trusted fixer. Mr Cohen was paid $400,000.
There is no suggestion that Mr Trump knew about the payment.
PAUSE HERE FOR HYSTERICAL LAUGHTER – Then how did they know which SARs reports to steal?
Continue reading “The smoking gun”
‘You wake up one day and we’re in Venezuala’
President Donald Trump’s latest round of attacks on the FBI has left morale at the Justice Department at a new low, with officials bemoaning what they view as a full-frontal assault on their institution.
“It’s a deliberate campaign to delegitimize institutions where the people who are inside those institutions are professionals and giving up lots of money for the jobs that they’re doing and it’s extremely demoralizing,” said one current federal prosecutor.
“As my father used to say, history goes forward and backward. And things go backward when the trust in bedrock institutions—which are trustworthy, by the way—is diminished for the benefit of a few. It accelerates, and you wake up one day and we’re in Venezuela.”
Trump has been pushing a conspiracy theory that the FBI sicced a spy on his campaign during the election season. In reality, a longtime FBI informant—per numerous reports—spoke with several Trump campaign officials, including Carter Page and George Papadopoulos, and shared the information with FBI investigators. The Daily Caller reported the name of the person believed to be that informant.
Season finale: Impeachment
Morning Joe’s Scarborough talked about Trump’s Twitter rants from Sunday, and saw them as a warning sign.
“I do wonder if there was any other description suggesting it’s Nixonian, that it appears at least to be — we appear to be on the eve of where Nixon was before he launched the Saturday night massacre,” Scarborough said, referring to Nixon firing top Justice Department officials. (Good times! Remember when Henry Kissinger had to talk the Joint Chiefs into calling off a nuclear attack on North Korea because Nixon was drunk?)
“I think we are. I don’t think that’s hyperbolic, when you have a president who is basically engaging the Justice Department at this level of political detail and calling on investigating his predecessors,” historian Jon Meacham said.
“One Nixonian element is both Nixon and Trump fixate on former opponents in a way that I think shapes what they do in deleterious ways, at least. Nixon justified the taping as FDR had done it, LBJ had done it. He was always obsessed with what President Kennedy had gotten away with, in his view. And remember, of course, it’s clearly true with President Trump with an obsession with Obama and Secretary Clinton.
“I can’t remember who said this first but somebody remarked they hoped Hillary Clinton watches Fox News because it’s the only place she’s president. I think that’s a true factor here. My own sense is the most — and this may sound kind of League of Women Voter-y but the most important political story in the country right now in many ways are those 435 House races,” Meacham said.
“I’ve been skeptical of this but i would bet a good bit of money this will end up in the house with some kind of impeachment proceeding, and the makeup of that body and ultimate partly the reaction of the United States Senate, which is supposed to be the great deliberative check and final hammer on these things, I think we’re going to end up — that’s going to be the season finale of this.”