Connecting the Trump-Russia Dots

LOL... Trump just released a letter from his tax lawyers, stating that with a few exceptions, his tax returns “do not reflect any income of any type from Russian sources” or any debt owed by the President or the Trump Organization to Russian lenders or any interest paid to Russian lenders. Interesting to note the date on the letter was a few months ago, and Spicer promised a letter to Graham this week.

blob:http://www.cnn.com/45771e7b-2865-4958-af2f-5de2ce9f4e86

Also recall that Trump supplied a letter from a doctor as proof of his good health. That letter was also viewed with skepticism...

 

While an interesting story, Mensch has little credibility. She is a conspiracy nut shill for Rupert Murdoch.

 

Interesting documentary from the Netherlands...



Maybe Comey and FBI were expanding investigation to his ties to the Russian mob.

 

Investigators seek former Trump adviser's bank records as Russian probe widens

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...ers-bank-records-as-russian-probe-widens.html

 

Trump keeps citing Clapper...
James Clapper on collusion between Russia, Trump aides: There could be evidence

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/12/politics/james-clapper-james-comey-donald-trump-russia/index.html

 

Seriously? This sort of stupidity is beyond the pale. Anyone who defends this buffoon is an idiot.

Trump sharing highly classified information with Russia shows his extreme hubris

By Aaron Blake May 15 at 5:03 PM
Trump revealed highly classified intel in Oval Office meeting with Russians

During the May 10 meeting at the White House with Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak, Trump began describing details about an Islamic State terror threat related to the use of laptop computers on aircraft, according to current and former U.S. officials. (The Washington Post)

Hubris and rank amateurism are killing President Trump when it comes to his Russia problem. And that’s the most charitable explanation.

First, Trump made the very questionable decision to meet with top Russian officials a day after making the very questionable decision to fire the man leading the FBI's Russia investigation, James Comey. And now The Washington Post is reporting that, in that very same meeting, Trump shared highly classified information about the Islamic State with the Russians.

This is information that current and former U.S. officials say could jeopardize a valuable source of intelligence in the fight against ISIS and give an adversarial Russia a strategic advantage in Syria, where its goals are different from ours. If there is something worse Trump could have done in that meeting, I'm not sure what it would be.

The details of what exactly Trump discussed with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak on Wednesday are sketchy, and The Washington Post is withholding some of them for national security reasons. But according to the officials, Trump relayed information from an intelligence-sharing arrangement that is so sensitive that some details aren't even shared with U.S. allies or broadly within the U.S. government. Trump cited the specifics of an ISIS plot and, most problematically, named the city in the Islamic State's territory where the U.S.' partner detected the threat.

Needless to say, sharing information with the Russian government that isn’t even being shared with allies is a big blunder. Trump has broad authority to declassify information, so he was probably within his rights to talk about it. But this is something that can credibly be described as Trump doing damage to the fight against the Islamic State with his loose lips.

The officials The Post spoke with are clearly exasperated. Here’s a sampling of their reactions:

• “Trump seems to be very reckless, and doesn’t grasp the gravity of the things he’s dealing with, especially when it comes to intelligence and national security.” — a former senior U.S. official close to current administration officials
• “Russia could identify our sources or techniques.” — a senior U.S. official
• “I don’t think that it would be that hard [for Russian spy services] to figure this out.” — a former intelligence official who worked on Russia-related issues
• “He seems to get in the room or on the phone and just goes with it — and that has big downsides. Does he understand what’s classified and what’s not? That’s what worries me.” — a former U.S. official

Given how unusual a politician Trump is and how shocked most of us were that he was elected president, we’re always in a constant search for alternate explanations for the off-kilter things he does. Maybe the tweets work! Maybe his offensive comments were calculated! Maybe he's just trying to distract us! Maybe he’s really a secret political genius, despite his 36 percent approval rating!

But the Comey firing last week, its badly bungled aftermath and now Trump’s disclosure of highly classified information to Russia in the Oval Office paint a pretty clear picture. This is a president who shoots from the hip. Sometimes he shoots from the hip and hits the target, but it's also causing him major, major problems now that he’s President Trump and not Candidate Trump. It's one thing to say something offensive during the New Hampshire primary; it's quite another to jeopardize tools for fighting terrorism because you speak before you think.

Conspiracy theorists who are fond of the claims in that dossier will believe that this is Trump deliberately feeding valuable information to his buddies in Russia as payback for their help in the 2016 election. But sharing it out in the open during a meeting with other national security officials in the room would seem to be a very curious move. As The Post report notes, Trump's flub was quickly recognized and the damage control began almost immediately.

On a much more basic level, this appears to be Trump being careless and completely unaware of how the things he’s saying may create problems — both perception problems for himself, and real-world problems for the fight against terrorism. He lets his hubris get the better of him and starts bragging about the power and information at his fingertips — just like he did at Mar-a-Lago back in February. “I get great intel,” Trump reportedly told the Russians on Wednesday. “I have people brief me on great intel every day.”

Trump badly miscalculated the public reaction to his firing of Comey and bungled the explanations; then he went ahead with the Russia meeting anyway; then he did something in that Russia meeting that is only going to feed the narratives that he's (a) in the tank for Moscow and/or (b) totally in over his head as president in ways that are dangerous.

It's a series of tightly-packed-together errors that can only be accomplished with an extraordinary amount of ego and a lack of a better angel.

 

Wow. The whole article is a tad breath-taking. This may be worth a dedicated thread.

But expected of Trump. He would want to impress the cool kids.

The Washington Post is tracking Trump's connections to Russia as per their reporting:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/trump-russia/?utm_term=.ff229cb26967

 

Richard Nixon

 

Dabbing 40 years before the rest of us.

 

As an '80s youth, let me just say this whole RNC-Trump-Russia thing is quite jaw dropping. Anyway...

Russia keeps trolling. They say Trump did nothing wrong and the uproar is transactional politics. But they want us to also know that Putin knows whatever Trump said:

Lavrov briefed Putin on his meeting with Trump
http://tass.com/politics/946111

SOCHI, May 16. /TASS/. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has briefed President Vladimir Putin on his May 10 meeting with US President Donald Trump in the usual way he does, presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said about media rumors the US leader had allegedly shared some classified information.

"He [the foreign minister] always briefs the president on his contacts [with foreign leaders]," Peskov said when asked by the media about the details of last week’s Lavrov-Trump meeting. Peskov did not disclose any details.

"Everything we wished to be said about that meeting had already been said," he recalled.

The question about the meeting emerged after the Washington Post said Trump might have shared with Lavrov and the Russian ambassador to US Sergey Kislyak some top secret information about the terrorist group Islamic State (outlawed in Russia).


Earlier on Tuesday Peskov dismissed such publications as "utter nonsense" in which there was "nothing to be either confirm or deny."

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said that such media speculations were part and parcel of the campaign that had been launched long before the US presidential election with the aim of putting political pressures on the new administration in the White House and for bargaining over various appointments and lobbying."

Trump said on Tuesday that in his capacity of the head of state he had the right to share information with Russia. He added that the information concerned terrorism and flight safety. He hopes it will prove useful in the struggle against terrorism.

 

He was a true innovator, trend setter, and obvious influence for our current prez.

 

I'll just leave this smoking gun here...

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/16/us/politics/james-comey-trump-flynn-russia-investigation.html

Comey Memo Says Trump Asked Him to End Flynn Investigation

By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDTMAY 16, 2017

WASHINGTON — President Trump asked the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, to shut down the federal investigation into Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, in an Oval Office meeting in February, according to a memo Mr. Comey wrote shortly after the meeting.

“I hope you can let this go,” the president told Mr. Comey, according to the memo.

The existence of Mr. Trump’s request is the clearest evidence that the president has tried to directly influence the Justice Department and F.B.I. investigation into links between Mr. Trump’s associates and Russia.

Mr. Comey wrote the memo detailing his conversation with the president immediately after the meeting, which took place the day after Mr. Flynn resigned, according to two people who read the memo. The memo was part of a paper trail Mr. Comey created documenting what he perceived as the president’s improper efforts to influence a continuing investigation. An F.B.I. agent’s contemporaneous notes are widely held up in court as credible evidence of conversations.

Mr. Comey shared the existence of the memo with senior F.B.I. officials and close associates. The New York Times has not viewed a copy of the memo, which is unclassified, but one of Mr. Comey’s associates read parts of the memo to a Times reporter.
“I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go,” Mr. Trump told Mr. Comey, according to the memo. “He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.”

Mr. Trump told Mr. Comey that Mr. Flynn had done nothing wrong, according to the memo.

Mr. Comey did not say anything to Mr. Trump about curtailing the investigation, only replying: “I agree he is a good guy.”

In a statement, the White House denied the version of events in the memo.

“While the president has repeatedly expressed his view that General Flynn is a decent man who served and protected our country, the president has never asked Mr. Comey or anyone else to end any investigation, including any investigation involving General Flynn,” the statement said. “The president has the utmost respect for our law enforcement agencies, and all investigations. This is not a truthful or accurate portrayal of the conversation between the president and Mr. Comey.”

In testimony to the Senate last week, the acting F.B.I. director, Andrew G. McCabe, said, “There has been no effort to impede our investigation to date.”

Mr. McCabe was referring to the broad investigation into possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. The investigation into Mr. Flynn is separate.

A spokesman for the F.B.I. declined to comment.

Mr. Comey created similar memos — including some that are classified — about every phone call and meeting he had with the president, the two people said. It is unclear whether Mr. Comey told the Justice Department about the conversation or his memos.

Mr. Trump fired Mr. Comey last week. Trump administration officials have provided multiple, conflicting accounts of the reasoning behind Mr. Comey’s dismissal. Mr. Trump said in a television interview that one of the reasons was because he believed “this Russia thing” was a “made-up story.”

The Feb. 14 meeting took place just a day after Mr. Flynn was forced out of his job after it was revealed he had lied to Vice President Mike Pence about the nature of phone conversations he had had with the Russian ambassador to the United States.

Despite the conversation between Mr. Trump and Mr. Comey, the investigation of Mr. Flynn has proceeded. In Virginia, a federal grand jury has issued subpoenas in recent weeks for records related to Mr. Flynn. Part of the Flynn investigation is centered on his financial ties to Russia and Turkey.

Mr. Comey had been in the Oval Office that day with other senior national security officials for a terrorism threat briefing. When the meeting ended, Mr. Trump told those present — including Mr. Pence and Attorney General Jeff Sessions — to leave the room except for Mr. Comey.

Alone in the Oval Office, Mr. Trump began the discussion by condemning leaks to the news media, saying that Mr. Comey should consider putting reporters in prison for publishing classified information, according to one of Mr. Comey’s associates.

Five Contradictions in the White House’s Story About Comey’s Firing
The Trump administration has offered conflicting answers about how and why the F.B.I. director, James Comey, was fired.


Mr. Trump then turned the discussion to Mr. Flynn.

After writing up a memo that outlined the meeting, Mr. Comey shared it with senior F.B.I. officials. Mr. Comey and his aides perceived Mr. Trump’s comments as an effort to influence the investigation, but they decided that they would try to keep the conversation secret — even from the F.B.I. agents working on the Russia investigation — so the details of the conversation would not affect the investigation.

Mr. Comey was known among his closest advisers to document conversations that he believed would later be called into question, according to two former confidants, who said Mr. Comey was uncomfortable at times with his relationship with Mr. Trump.

Mr. Comey’s recollection has been bolstered in the past by F.B.I. notes. In 2007, he told Congress about a now-famous showdown with senior White House officials over the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program. The White House disputed Mr. Comey’s account, but the F.B.I. director at the time, Robert S. Mueller III, kept notes that backed up Mr. Comey’s story.

The White House has repeatedly crossed lines that other administrations have been reluctant to cross when discussing politically charged criminal investigations. Mr. Trump has disparaged the ongoing F.B.I. investigation as a hoax and called for an investigation into his political rivals. His representatives have taken the unusual step of declaring no need for a special prosecutor to investigate the president’s associates.

The Oval Office meeting occurred a little more than two weeks after Mr. Trump summoned Mr. Comey to the White House for a lengthy, one-on-one dinner in the residence. At that dinner, on Jan. 27, Mr. Trump asked Mr. Comey at least two times for a pledge of loyalty — which Mr. Comey declined, according to one of Mr. Comey’s associates.

In a Twitter posting on Friday, Mr. Trump said that “James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!”

After the meeting, Mr. Comey’s associates did not believe there was any way to corroborate Mr. Trump’s statements. But Mr. Trump’s suggestion last week that he was keeping tapes has made them wonder whether there are tapes that back up Mr. Comey’s account.

The Jan. 27 dinner came a day after White House officials learned that Mr. Flynn had been interviewed by F.B.I. agents about his phone calls with the Russian ambassador, Sergey I. Kislyak. On Jan. 26, Acting Attorney General Sally Q. Yates told the White House counsel about the interview, and said Mr. Flynn could be subject to blackmail by the Russians because they knew he had lied about the content of the calls.

 

"Mr. Comey created similar memos — including some that are classified — about every phone call and meeting he had with the president, the two people said. It is unclear whether Mr. Comey told the Justice Department about the conversation or his memos."

Wow. There must be so much more coming down the pipeline, provided this is all true. No doubt Comey covered his bases regarding this seamy lot.

 

You can make like six seasons of 'the americans' with this and the trump hasn't even been in office half a year.

 

Today in the Trump-Russia story:

Deputy attorney general appoints special counsel to oversee probe of Russian interference in election
https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...1f359183e8c_story.html?utm_term=.8a10c1bb109a

The Justice Department has decided to appoint a special counsel to investigate possible coordination between Trump associates and Russian officials seeking to meddle in last year’s election, according to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

Robert Mueller, a former prosecutor who served as the FBI director from 2001 to 2013, has agreed to serve in the role, Rosenstein said. The move marks a concession by the Trump administration to Democratic demands for the investigation to be run independently of the Justice Department. Calls for a special counsel have increased since Trump fired FBI Director James B. Comey last week.

“In my capacity as acting attorney general I determined that it is in the public interest for me to exercise my authority and appoint a special counsel to assume responsibility for this matter,’’ Rosenstein said in a statement. “My decision is not a finding that crimes have been committed or that any prosecution is warranted. I have made no such determination. What I have determined is that based upon the unique circumstances, the public interest requires me to place this investigation under the authority of a person who exercises a degree of independence from the normal chain of command.’’

He said Mueller has agreed to resign from his private law firm to avoid any conflicts of interest.
[Follow link for more]


House majority leader to colleagues in 2016: ‘I think Putin pays’ Trump
https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...1f359183e8c_story.html?utm_term=.fc34b530da62

KIEV, Ukraine — A month before Donald Trump clinched the Republican nomination, one of his closest allies in Congress — House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy — made a politically explosive assertion in a private conversation on Capitol Hill with his fellow GOP leaders: that Trump could be the beneficiary of payments from Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“There’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump,” McCarthy (R-Calif.) said, according to a recording of the June 15, 2016 exchange, which was listened to and verified by The Washington Post. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher is a Californian Republican known in Congress as a fervent defender of Putin and Russia.

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) immediately interjected, stopping the conversation from further exploring McCarthy’s assertion, and swore the Republicans present to secrecy.

Before the conversation, McCarthy and Ryan had emerged from separate talks at the U.S. Capitol with Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman, who had described a Kremlin tactic of financing populist politicians to undercut Eastern European democratic institutions.

News had just broken the day before in The Washington Post that Russian government hackers had penetrated the computer network of the Democratic National Committee, prompting McCarthy to shift the conversation from Russian meddling in Europe to events closer to home.


Some of the lawmakers laughed at McCarthy’s comment. Then McCarthy quickly added: “Swear to God.”

Ryan instructed his Republican lieutenants to keep the conversation private, saying: “No leaks...This is how we know we’re a real family here.”

The remarks remained secret for nearly a year.
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When initially asked to comment on the exchange, Brendan Buck, a spokesman for Ryan, said: “That never happened,” and Matt Sparks, a spokesman for McCarthy, said: “The idea that McCarthy would assert this is absurd and false.”

After being told that The Post would cite a recording of the exchange, Buck, speaking for the GOP House leadership, said: “This entire year-old exchange was clearly an attempt at humor. No one believed the majority leader was seriously asserting that Donald Trump or any of our members were being paid by the Russians. What’s more, the speaker and leadership team have repeatedly spoken out against Russia’s interference in our election, and the House continues to investigate that activity.”

“This was a failed attempt at humor,” Sparks said.
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investigation has been going on for a year and turned up no evidence of meddling other than a supposed link to Podesta phishing

 

I should have added, from the Washington Post:

"Under the order signed Wednesday by Rosenstein, Mueller is tasked with investigating “any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump’’ as well as “any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation’’ and any other matters that fall under the scope of the Justice Department regulation covering special counsel appointments."

So Mueller can go wherever the evidence takes him. Including Trump's finances. Members of the House and Senate intel committees have previously hinted at some fairly damning but classified info on Trump. So we barely know anything publicly. Hopefully, Mueller and public testimony before Congress will change that. This is gonna be a long few months for Trump.

 

Yes, it will be a long few months. A few months may be all he has left.