Tag: Trump

Republicans trying to pass info from investigation to White House

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

The White House

How do you solve a problem like The Donald?

Officials at the department believe that the conservatives have now gone too far with document requests related to continuing investigations that the lawmakers clearly do not support, including the inquiry led by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, into Russia’s election interference. A former federal law enforcement official familiar with the department’s views said that Mr. Rosenstein and top F.B.I. officials have come to suspect that some lawmakers were using their oversight authority to gain intelligence about that investigation so that it could be shared with the White House.

After Nunes, you’d think they would take that as a given.

Mr. Trump’s threat on Wednesday to intervene bolstered those voices and could undermine the Justice Department’s ability to protect some of its most closely held secrets. Lawmakers conducting oversight are usually given summaries of the information, but not the intelligence collected directly from wiretaps and sensitive sources.

[…] “The department recognizes the keen interest that Congress has in the special counsel’s investigation, but, respectfully, we must adhere to the longstanding position of the department that congressional inquiries pertaining to ongoing criminal investigations threaten the integrity of those investigations,” Stephen E. Boyd, an assistant attorney general, wrote in the letter, a copy of which was provided to The New York Times…

“If we were to just open our doors to allow Congress to come and rummage through the files, that would be a serious infringement on the separation of powers,” Mr. Rosenstein said at an event in Washington. “It might resolve a dispute today, but it would have negative repercussions in the long run, and we have a responsibility to defend the institution.”

Roger Stone is one focus of Mueller probe

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

Attacks On Roger Stone Are Attacks On Us AllThe hardnosed political operative & patriot is facing multiple lawsuits.

Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy, amirite?

Special counsel Robert Mueller is focusing intensely on alleged interactions between former top Trump campaign official Rick Gates and political operative Roger Stone, one of President Donald Trump’s closest confidants, according to sources with direct knowledge of the matter.

Stone, a longtime advisor to Trump, is apparently one of the top subjects of the Mueller investigation into potential collusion between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign, sources told CNBC on condition of anonymity.

The questions have been largely about what was discussed at meetings, including dinners, between Stone and Gates, before and during the campaign, said the sources, who have knowledge of the substance of the recent interviews.

Oh my (UPDATE)

~ susie

UPDATE:

NBC News issued an on-air correction to their bombshell story Thursday reporting that a federal wiretap was placed on Michael Cohen’s phone. NBC said federal authorities were “monitoring” phone calls of President Trump’s lawyer, but not listening to them as previously reported.

Michael Cohen’s phone lines were tapped for several weeks before the FBI raid:

Just want to point out that it is EXTREMELY difficult to get a wiretap approved for a lawyer!

Return to Gitmo

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

2016 Close GITMO DC Rally 4

Dear sweet Jesus, we’re going backward at warp speed:

The detention facility at Guantanamo Bay is now formally set to receive new inmates for an indefinite stay, the Pentagon confirmed Wednesday.

In what amounts to a fulfilled campaign promise for Donald Trump, who had pledged to refill Guantanamo with “some bad dudes,” Defense Secretary Jim Mattis delivered a long-expected detentions policy to the White House, a day after the deadline set by Trump’s January executive order paving the way for new Guantanamo detainees.

“This policy provides our warfighters guidance on nominating detainees for transfer to Guantanamo detention should that person present a continuing, significant threat to the security of the United States,” said Navy Cdr. Sarah Higgins, the Pentagon’s detentions spokesperson.

Much remains unclear about the new policy, which neither the Pentagon nor the White House released. The criteria for determining the threshold for a detainee’s “continuing, significant threat” was not defined, nor was who within the chain of command will be empowered to recommend that decision. National Security Council representatives did not immediately respond to questions.

Is Cohen cooperating?

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

What a tangled web we weave! Why is Trump’s legal team freaking out?

“MSNBC chief legal correspondent Ari Melber tweeted the feds now have everything from michael cohen’s office, do they have something that’s forcing Trump’s lawyers to admit he’s behind the Stormy Daniels’ payment, after all his public denials? Joe?” Mika Brzezinski said.

“There’s no coordination on anything that’s said,” Scarborough said. “They’re constantly changing their story. This is the sort of thing again that Donald Trump may be able to get away with when he’s sending out tweets and he talks about fake news.

“But as you’ve seen, when you go into court proceedings, they have timelines, and they have statements, and they write down the statements: ‘This is what he said on January the 5th. This is what he said on, you know, February 2nd. This is what he said on March –‘ I mean, you go through the timeline of this, this is going to be devastating for whomever the defendant is when they finally get in court. Whether it’s Donald Trump, whether it’s Michael Cohen. They can’t keep their stories straight and for now, it’s just baffling. A Little League baseball team would be able to get their story more straight than the president’s team and this confederacy of dunces.”

Mike Barnicle said he was told last night that the legal strategy of Trump and Rudy Giuliani “is fear. They are desperately afraid that Michael Cohen is cooperating with the special prosecutor.

“And they are also convinced that the special prosecutor might have Donald Trump’s tax returns. which would be a lethal weapon in terms of matching the president’s rhetoric, against actual fact-based stuff. What did he spend the money on, what was the $400,000-plus spent on. did he deduct it, things like that. They are in a world of hurt and they’re waiting for Emmit Flood to come through the door.”

Sigh

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

Trump contra la pared. Visita e infórmate más en: laneta.com #Trump #Convocatoriajudicial #Infórmate

I don’t know about you, but I am really ready for the season finale of this shitty reality show…

The lawsuit, filed by the state of Maryland and the District of Columbia, accused Trump of violating the U.S. Constitution’s “emoluments” clause that bars U.S. officials from accepting gifts or other payments from foreign governments without congressional approval. The same clause also bars the president from receiving gifts and payments from individual states.

“If Plaintiffs want to sue the President for acts taken while in office, they must sue him in official capacity. But he is absolutely immune from any suit, including this one, seeking to impose individual liability premised on his assumption of the Presidency itself,” Trump’s lawyer William Consovoy wrote in a court filing on Tuesday.

Why bother even going to law school if everything is defined by what the ruling junta says it is?

Trump bodyguard raided his doctor’s office

~ susie ~ 3 Comments

https://youtu.be/Gq8gdThSFZ0

This is not normal. You’re entitled to copies of your medical records, but not the original records themselves:

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Tuesday insisted that President Donald Trump’s former bodyguard was following “standard operating procedure” when he reportedly raided the office of the president’s former doctor.

During Tuesday’s White House briefing, Sanders was asked why former White House staffer Keith Schiller forcibly took President Trump’s records from his former physician, Dr. Harold Bornstein.

“As is standard operating procedure, the White House medical unit took possession of the president’s medical records,” Sanders explained, disputing reports that characterized the incident as a “raid.” One reporter noted that some experts had compared the alleged raid to a “burglary.”

“Once again, it would be standard procedure for the president — a newly elected president’s medical records to be in possession of the White House’s medical unit,” Sanders insisted. “That’s what was taking place. Those records were being transferred over to the White House medical unit as requested by the president.”

It’s all a big plot by the Russians

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

When Trump led services for the faithful in Washington, Michigan Saturday night, he dribbled out this particular bit of word salad:

“A woman lawyer, she said, ‘I know nothing.’ Now, she supposedly — you know why? Putin and the group said, ‘Trump is killing us. Why don’t you say you are involved with government so that we can go and make their life in the United States even more chaotic?'”

He’s talking about Natalia Veselnitskaya, who met with Donald Trump Jr and other top campaign officials at Trump Tower in the summer of 2016 — promising dirt on Hillary Clinton.

Veselnitskaya insisted she had no ties to the Russian government, but she’s now admitted she’s a Kremlin informant.

In an NBC interview last week, she said, “I am a lawyer, and I am an informant. Since 2013, I have been actively communicating with the office of the Russian prosecutor general.”

And how does Trump explain it? It’s because Trump is so hard on Putin that Putin wants to get even by having Veselnitskaya say she worked with the Kremlin — because chaos!

From the Chaos Demon himself.

He holds these rallies because those people are the only ones who still believe him, no matter what. And he really, really needs that.

What Mueller wants to ask Trump

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

via the New York Times, read them here.

This is my favorite one:

• What did you mean when you told Russian diplomats on May 10, 2017, that firing Mr. Comey had taken the pressure off?

The day after Mr. Comey’s firing, Mr. Trump met with Russian officials in the Oval Office. There, The Times revealed, Mr. Trump suggested he had fired Mr. Comey because of the pressure from the Russia investigation.

“I just fired the head of the F.B.I. He was crazy, a real nut job,” Mr. Trump said. “I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.”