The Russian Connection

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump Jr.’s Russia meeting sure sounds like a Russian intelligence operation"

Spoiler

Donald Trump Jr. is seeking to write off as a nonevent his meeting last year with a Russian lawyer who was said to have damaging information about Hillary Clinton. “It was such a nothing,” he told Fox News’s Sean Hannity on Tuesday. “There was nothing to tell.”

But everything we know about the meeting — from whom it involved to how it was set up to how it unfolded — is in line with what intelligence analysts would expect an overture in a Russian influence operation to look like. It bears all the hallmarks of a professionally planned, carefully orchestrated intelligence soft pitch designed to gauge receptivity, while leaving room for plausible deniability in case the approach is rejected. And the Trump campaign’s willingness to take the meeting — and, more important, its failure to report the episode to U.S. authorities — may have been exactly the green light Russia was looking for to launch a more aggressive phase of intervention in the U.S. election campaign.

Let’s start with the interlocutor: Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya. When arranging the meeting, music promoter and Trump family acquaintance Rob Goldstone referred to a “Russian government attorney.” Both Veselnitskaya and the Kremlin have subsequently denied any association. What’s beyond dispute is that she has lobbied for the United States to repeal Magnitsky Act sanctions against Russian officials, that she regularly represents the interests of the Moscow regional government and that her clients include the vice president of state-owned Russian Railways.

My read, as someone who has been part of the U.S. intelligence community for more than four decades, is that Veselnitskaya is probably too well-connected to have independently initiated such a high-level and sensitive encounter. If she had, her use of known Trump and Kremlin associates (Aras and Emin Agalarov) to help make introductions and the suggestion, in Goldstone’s account, that she wanted to share “official documents and information” as “part of Russia and its government’s support” for Trump could have gotten her into significant trouble. Her efforts to meet Trump associates would have surely come to the attention of Russian authorities at some point, given Russian government email monitoring and other means of surveillance. The Kremlin would look harshly on someone going rogue in a manner that would surely damage ongoing Russian intelligence operational efforts related to the U.S. presidential campaign.

A better explanation is that Veselnitskaya is far enough removed from Moscow’s halls of power to make her a good fit as an intermediary in an intelligence operation — as a “cut-out” with limited knowledge of the larger scheme and as an “access agent” sent to assess and test a high-priority target’s interest in cooperation. She may have had her own agenda going into the meeting: to lobby against the Magnitsky Act, which happens to impact some of her clients. But her agenda dovetailed with Kremlin interests — and it would have added another layer of plausible deniability. Russian intelligence practice is to co-opt such a person. News Friday that she was accompanied by Rinat Akhmetshin, a Russian-American lobbyist who is reportedly suspected of, though denies, having ties to Russian intelligence, further bolsters this reading.

Trump Jr.’s assertion that Veselnitskaya didn’t deliver the promised dirt in that meeting is also consistent with how Russian intelligence operates. So, too, is Akhmetshin’s account that Veselnitskaya presented a document that she said suggested illegal payments to the Democratic National Committee, but told Trump Jr. that supporting evidence would require more research. Russia would have wanted to feel out the campaign before sharing its most prized material. Intelligence officers prefer to dip their toes in the water before taking a plunge. And it’s too risky to attempt a blunt approach to an extremely sensitive target (such as the son of the Republican front-runner for president), especially on hostile (in this case, American) soil.

Moreover, Russian intelligence presumably would not have risked passing high-value information through Veselnitskaya. As an untrained asset or co-optee — not a professional intelligence officer by any account — she would not have been entrusted with making a direct intelligence recruitment approach, including the passage of compromising information. Formalizing a relationship with the Trump campaign would be left for another day. If and when that day came, the pitch would be carried out by an experienced intelligence officer in favorable circumstances, with the right Trump associate and on friendly turf.

But even at the soft-pitch stage, standard Russian intelligence practice would require making clear what was on offer. The point is to test the target. Are they open to entering into a compromising relationship? Will they rebuff the mere suggestion of such impropriety? Will they alert authorities and thus stand in the way of Russian efforts?

And here, the deal should have been obvious to everyone. Moscow intended to discredit Clinton and help get Trump elected, and in exchange it hoped the Republican would consider its interests — in sanctions relief and otherwise. The Russian government appears to have signaled its direct involvement and real intention in advance of the meeting, presumably to avoid the possibility that its offer might be misconstrued, perhaps naively, as an innocent gesture of support and nothing more.

From the Russian perspective, the fact that Trump Jr. agreed to the meeting would have been the first promising sign. That veteran political operative Paul Manafort and senior adviser Jared Kushner showed up with him would have furthered the impression that there was strong interest in Russian assistance (and vulnerability to compromise) on the part of the campaign. But, according to standard espionage tradecraft, the most notable achievement of this encounter lay in the campaign’s failure to report it to the appropriate U.S. authorities — as Russia would have known when there was no immediate, dramatic increase in U.S. counterintelligence scrutiny of its election-related operations.

We should be cautious about overestimating the significance of this episode in isolation. Russia may have extended other feelers to other Trump associates at other points in time. Indeed, the Steele dossier suggests that the Kremlin was trying to cultivate the Trumps as far back as 2011. But, based on the publicly available information, the June 2016 overture seems to have been a win for Russia. It helped set the stage for the possibility of subsequent contacts between Trump associates and witting agents of the Russian government. (Some of these contacts are now known, and others, perhaps not.) And it would have allowed Russian intelligence to be comfortable initiating the next phase of its operation — systematically leaking information on Clinton and trying to penetrate the U.S. voting process — with the knowledge that the Trump campaign was interested in such Russian government assistance.

Although the Kremlin could have meddled without active or tacit approval from the campaign, having the campaign on board would have made the meddling more effective. For example, Russia could be sure that its actions would fit with Trump campaign strategy. Even Trump Jr.’s initial thought to drop the Clinton information later in the summer would be valuable for the Kremlin to know in terms of best timing.

Russia also would have wanted an implicit if not explicit agreement that intelligence assistance would be rewarded by a grateful Trump administration willing to relieve sanctions and embark on a more constructive relationship. The president presumably would not be nearly as willing to shift the long-standing, hard-line U.S. approach toward Russia — or its position on Ukraine, NATO and other issues — if he didn’t have a full appreciation for the Russian contribution to his election victory.

And after Russia’s overtures to the Trump campaign and the Trump campaign’s public denials that it had ever interacted with Russians, Vladi­mir Putin may have had the kompromat he needed to indirectly influence the Republican Party (such as the GOP platform on Ukraine) and Trump if he made it to the White House. The worst outcome would be that Trump would lose the election and, as a billionaire with global interests, still be a very useful ally for Putin.

Had this Russian overture been rejected or promptly reported by the Trump campaign to U.S. authorities, Russian intelligence would have been forced to recalculate the risk vs. gain of continuing its aggressive operation to influence U.S. domestic politics. Russian meddling might have been compromised in its early stages and stopped in its tracks by U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies before it reached fruition by the late fall.

So the suggestion that this was a nothing meeting without consequence is, in all likelihood, badly mistaken.

I think this is an excellent analysis of the situation.

[fraurosena]

Well, now I've heard everything.

Trump Lawyer Blames Secret Service For Not Preemptively Stopping Jr.’s Meeting

Quote

Jay Sekulow, a member of President Donald Trump’s legal team, on Sunday aired a new defense for Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with a Russian lawyer who promised him damaging information on Hillary Clinton: The Secret Service should not have “allowed these people in” to meet with Trump’s eldest son.

“I wonder why the Secret Service, if this was nefarious, why the Secret Service allowed these people in,” Sekulow said on ABC’s “This Week,” referring to Trump’s protection detail as the Republican candidate. “The President had Secret Service protection at that point, and that raised a question with me.”

Trump Jr. arranged the meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya after he was promised compromising information on Hillary Clinton as part of a Russian state effort to aid his father’s campaign.

Sekulow said he had not talked to Trump about whether the President would eliminate the possibility of pardoning associates caught up in the federal investigation into possible collusion between members of Trump’s campaign and Russian officials to interfere in the 2016 election.

“He can pardon individuals, of course,” he said. “But I have not had those conversations, so I couldn’t speculate on that.”

“The President has said over and over again, again this week, that this is a witch hunt. I want to get specific on this. Is he saying that the Mueller investigation is part of a witch hunt?” ABC’s Jon Karl asked, referring to Robert Mueller, the special counsel overseeing the federal probe.

“Yes,” Sekulow replied. “Look how it started.”

He said Trump would be willing to testify under oath “if it came to that.”

“And I don’t think it will, but if it came to that, he would do that,” Sekulow said. “The President was very clear on that.”

 

 

[candygirl200413]

SO in their eyes is the secret service supposed to be babysitters??

 

[GrumpyGran]

23 hours ago, candygirl200413 said:

SO in their eyes is the secret service supposed to be babysitters??

 

This brings up a question I have. Maybe someone has an enlightening opinion. I was wondering if Secret Service was in place at the time. And was it just for Trump at that time or did Donnie Jr have it too? If so, then more witnesses. It may be that they weren't present and I know they aren't required to report anything that isn't overtly illegal.

But every American citizen is legally required to report anything that citizen knows is illegal. Hell, even your defense lawyer can't go into court and say you didn't commit a crime if they know you did. Aren't Secret Service agents also required to reveal illegal activity they become aware of? I can see Cheeto blabbing around them because he just doesn't "see" them, he is so used to having flunkies follow him around. Does he have a handler constantly reminding him to keep his mouth shut until he shakes the agent?

[GreyhoundFan]

19 minutes ago, GrumpyGran said:

This brings up a question I have. Maybe someone has an enlightening opinion. I was wondering if Secret Service was in place at the time. And was it just for Trump at that time or did Donnie Jr have it too? If so, then more witnesses. It may be that they weren't present and I know they aren't required to report anything that isn't overtly illegal.

No, he wasn't under protection at the time.

Spoiler

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Secret Service on Sunday denied a suggestion from President Donald Trump's personal lawyer that it had vetted a meeting between the president's son and Russian nationals during the 2016 campaign.

Donald Trump Jr. has acknowledged that he met in New York with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya after he was told she might have damaging information about his father's rival, Democrat Hillary Clinton.

"Well, I wonder why the Secret Service, if this was nefarious, why the Secret Service allowed these people in. The president had Secret Service protection at that point, and that raised a question with me," Jay Sekulow, a member of the president's legal team, said on Sunday on the ABC news program "This Week."

In an emailed response to questions about Sekulow's comments, Secret Service spokesman Mason Brayman said the younger Trump was not under Secret Service protection at the time of the meeting, which included Trump's son and two senior campaign officials.

"Donald Trump, Jr. was not a protectee of the USSS in June, 2016. Thus we would not have screened anyone he was meeting with at that time," the statement said.

According to emails released by Trump Jr. last week, he eagerly agreed to meet Veselnitskaya, who he was told was a Russian government lawyer. Veselnitskaya has said she is a private lawyer and denies having Kremlin ties.

On Friday, NBC News reported that a lobbyist who was once a Soviet counter-intelligence officer participated in the meeting, which was also attended by Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and the president's former campaign manager, Paul Manafort.

The meeting appears to be the most tangible evidence of a connection between Trump's election campaign and Russia, a subject that has prompted investigations by congressional committees and a federal special counsel.

Moscow has denied any interference and the president and Trump Jr. have denied any collusion.

Sekulow's comments about the Secret Service drew quick criticism, including from Frances Townsend, who advised former Republican President George W. Bush on homeland security.

"Ok let's try to deflect blame & throw those in @SecretService who protect @POTUS @realDonaldTrump @FLOTUS & family under the bus," she said on Twitter.

The Secret Service's mission is to provide physical protection for the U.S. president. The agency also protects major presidential candidates. But its role in vetting people who meet with a U.S. president or candidates is limited to ensuring physical safety.

...

What a surprise, someone in this administration lied, this time about the Secret Service. <end sarcasm>

[GreyhoundFan]

"The Trump team’s delusional fixation on getting along with Russia"

Spoiler

Among the most dangerous and disappointing aspects of President Trump’s foreign policy operation is the expressed eagerness, not just from the president but also from his secretary of state and national security adviser, to ignore Russia’s international conduct with the hope of improving relations. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson did his best impression of his predecessor, John Kerry, when he declared after the Hamburg meeting between the president and Russian President Vladimir Putin, “I think what the two presidents, I think rightly, focused on is how do we move forward; how do we move forward from here. Because it’s not clear to me that we will ever come to some agreed-upon resolution of that question [of Russian interference in our election] between the two nations.” (As an aside, Garry Kasparov observed, “It was a bad sign that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was the only senior American figure present at the meeting between Trump and Putin. While he was discreet enough not to wear the friendship medal he was awarded personally by Putin in 2013, Tillerson cannot be considered a check on Trump’s mysterious affection for the Russian.”)

Consider for a moment Tillerson’s formulation: Because Russia will not confess to an attack on American democracy, we have to ignore its assault so as to improve relations between the countries. It does not seem to dawn on Tillerson or the rest of the administration that Russian conduct in attacking our electoral system, in allegedly committing war crimes in Syria, in repressing its own people and in aggression and occupation of its neighbors makes improved relations both impossible and undesirable. Their formula amounts to appeasement plain and simple, a capitulation that assumes getting along with a rogue regime is preferable to confronting the rogue regime and forcing a change in its behavior.

“Is it possible to work with the Putin regime? The answer to that question is decidedly ‘no,'” former State Department official and human rights guru David Kramer wrote recently. “A brief look at recent events ought to convince any open-minded individual that Russia simply can’t be a partner—and indeed has no desire to be one.” Kramer recounts:

Putin’s regime simply doesn’t abide by agreements it has signed or inherited. It has been violating arms control agreements by developing and testing missiles in violation of the INF treaty. It has never abided by the ceasefire deal following its invasion of Georgia in 2008. It has never complied with two Minsk ceasefire deals following its illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014 and ongoing invasion of and aggression against Ukraine in that country’s east. It has violated the Budapest memorandum of 1994, the Friendship Treaty with Ukraine in 1997, and the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity. It didn’t respect any ceasefire deals in Syria. And it grossly abuses the human rights of its own people despite being a member of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the Council of Europe as well as a signatory to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Putin, in other words, is a wholly untrustworthy interlocutor. His regime is thoroughly corrupt and authoritarian and poses a threat to its own people, its neighbors, and the West.

The desire to “get along” is more than dangerous naivete. It’s emblematic of the mentality of an exhausted West that finds defense of its own interests and values so daunting that it must resort to self-delusion about the nature of its enemy. Kramer recommends: “The next time President Trump asks, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if we and Russia got along?’ answer with the following: How many more Russian liberal activists need to be killed or poisoned? How many more countries does Putin need to invade? How many more Ukrainians need to die? How many more civilians need to be killed in Syria? And how many more elections does he need to interfere in—before we understand the existential threat the Putin regime represents?”

Ironically, the president who asks “Wouldn’t it be nice if we and Russia got along?” is one who will never maintain American greatness nor “win” on the international stage. It’s the language of a loser, a weakling. You see, America is great when it stands up to the likes of Russia on behalf of democracy, universal human rights and an international liberal order that respects national sovereignty.

I love the last paragraph.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Robert Mueller is now the ninth person in Donald Trump Jr.’s Russia meeting"

Spoiler

We have the identity of the “eighth person” in Donald Trump Jr.'s Russia meeting. The Post's Rosalind S. Helderman reports that it's Ike Kaveladze, an American-based employee of a Russian real estate company. According to his lawyer, Kaveladze planned to serve in the June 2016 meeting as an interpreter and the representative of Emin and Aras Agalarov, the Russian pop star and developer who hosted President Trump's 2013 Miss Universe pageant.

It's not clear how the presence of Kaveladze, a U.S. citizen, might change perceptions of the meeting, for which Trump Jr. was promised opposition research about Democrats courtesy of the Russian government. But the big takeaway here is this: The meeting is now under investigation.

Kaveladze's lawyer, Scott Balber, told Helderman that he received a phone call over the weekend from special counsel Robert Mueller's office seeking an interview with Kaveladze. That means Mueller is now looking into the meeting, and it's the first on-the-record indication that he is.

That may not be terribly surprising, given Mueller's investigation is examining coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia, which makes this meeting a logical thing for him to look at. Indeed, it would be odd if he didn't. But we now have confirmation.

In addition to possible coordination, the president himself is being looked into for obstruction of justice. And the finances and business dealings of his son-in-law and senior White House adviser, Jared Kushner, are also being probed as part of the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Despite Trump Jr.'s claims of transparency in releasing his emails arranging the meeting, we continue to learn new things about it — specifically the presence of three people he didn't disclose. First it was Rinat Akhmetshin, a Russian-American lobbyist and former Soviet counterintelligence officer. Now we have learned the identities of Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya's translator and Kaveladze.

Mueller probing the meeting would suggest, despite Trump Jr.'s opacity, that we would now hear more about it — at least eventually — including perhaps most notably what was in that folder that Akhmetshin said Veselnitskaya provided to the Trump campaign. We'd also likely hear more about specifically who these people are and how substantial their alleged ties to the Russian government are.

...

Where this will wind up, who knows? But we're now in a situation in which the president, his most trusted adviser/daughter's husband and his own son who is running his business are all in Mueller's sights. That is troubling for the president because distancing himself from his family is going to be very difficult.

The investigation seems to be growing apace.

Cue the tweetstorm. It will be interesting to see if Trumplethinskin tries to fire Mueller.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Lawyer who met with Trump Jr. had Russian intelligence connections"

Spoiler

MOSCOW — The Russian lawyer who met with Donald Trump Jr. and other senior advisers to the Republican presidential candidate in a highly scrutinized meeting at Trump Tower last year had previously represented Russia’s top spy agency, the Federal Security Service, in a land dispute in Moscow, according to court documents.

 Natalia Veselnitskaya, a Moscow lawyer who has powerful government contacts, represented a military unit founded by the spy agency in court cases in 2011 and 2012, court rulings seen by The Washington Post show.   

 In those cases, Veselnitskaya represented Military Unit 55002 in a property dispute over a five-story office building in northwest Moscow where a number of electronics companies were based. It was not immediately clear what the spy agency, known as the FSB, used the building for.

The news was first reported Friday by Reuters, which said it had seen documents showing the relationship began in at least 2005 and lasted until 2013.

According to legal records, Military Unit 55002 was founded by the FSB, and its address is 12 Bolshaya Lubyanka, which is next door to the Lubyanka, the headquarters of the Soviet Union’s secret police and intelligence agency for decades. The military unit works on procurement for the FSB, which directs Russia’s counterintelligence and border security agencies. 

There is no information that Veselnitskaya is herself an intelligence agent or an employee of the Russian government. She has said that she is in regular contact with Yuri Chaika, who has been the Russian prosecutor general since 2006.

A British music agent who set up the meeting with Trump Jr. had indicated it would involve a Russian government lawyer who had damaging information about candidate Hillary Clinton provided by a senior Russian prosecutor.

Chaika’s office has denied supplying such information.

Veselnitskaya could not immediately be reached for comment on Friday. 

The court rulings are the first legal evidence to become public of a relationship between Veselnitskaya and the Russian intelligence establishment.

The lawsuit was filed by the Federal Property Management Agency, which had given the FSB-linked military unit the right to use the property in 2007. The military unit represented by Veselnitskaya was a third party in the lawsuit. The court ruled in favor of the Federal Property Agency in 2013.

Drip, drip, drip...more connections.

[nvmbr02]

And Looks like Sessions discussed campaign related matters with the Russians. Can you say perjury?

Sessions discussed Trump campaign-related matters with Russian ambassador, U.S. intelligence intercepts show

Spoiler

Russia’s ambassador to Washington told his superiors in Moscow that he discussed campaign-related matters, including policy issues important to Moscow, with Jeff Sessions during the 2016 presidential race, contrary to public assertions by the embattled attorney general, according to current and former U.S. officials.

Ambassador Sergey Kislyak’s accounts of two conversations with Sessions — then a top foreign policy adviser to Republican candidate Donald Trump — were intercepted by U.S. spy agencies, which monitor the communications of senior Russian officials both in the United States and in Russia. Sessions initially failed to disclose his contacts with Kislyak and then said that the meetings were not about the Trump campaign.

One U.S. official said that Sessions — who testified that he has no recollection of an April encounter — has provided “misleading” statements that are “contradicted by other evidence.” A former official said that the intelligence indicates that Sessions and Kislyak had “substantive” discussions on matters including Trump’s positions on Russia-related issues and prospects for U.S.-Russia relations in a Trump administration.

Sessions has said repeatedly that he never discussed campaign-related issues with Russian officials and that it was only in his capacity as a U.S. Senator that he met with Kislyak.

“I never had meetings with Russian operatives or Russian intermediaries about the Trump campaign,” Sessions said in March when he announced that he would recuse himself from matters relating to the FBI probe of Russian interference in the election and any connections to the Trump campaign.

Current and former U.S. officials said that assertion is at odds with Kislyak’s accounts of conversations during two encounters over the course of the campaign, one in April ahead of Trump’s first major foreign policy speech and another in July on the sidelines of the Republican National Convention.

The apparent discrepancy could pose new problems for Sessions at a time when his position in the administration appears increasingly tenuous.

Trump, in an interview this week, expressed frustration with Sessions’s recusing himself from the Russia probe and indicated that he regretted his decision to make the lawmaker from Alabama the nation’s top law enforcement officer. Trump also faulted Sessions as giving “bad answers” during his confirmation hearing about his Russian contacts during the campaign.

Officials emphasized that the information contradicting Sessions comes from U.S. intelligence on Kislyak’s communications with the Kremlin, and acknowledged that the Russian ambassador could have mischaracterized or exaggerated the nature of his interactions.

“Obviously I cannot comment on the reliability of what anonymous sources describe in a wholly uncorroborated intelligence intercept that the Washington Post has not seen and that has not been provided to me,” said Sarah Isgur Flores, a Justice Department spokeswoman in a statement. She reiterated that Sessions did not discuss interference in the election.

Russian and other foreign diplomats in Washington and elsewhere have been known, at times, to report false or misleading information to bolster their standing with their superiors or to confuse U.S. intelligence agencies.

But U.S. officials with regular access to Russian intelligence reports say Kislyak — whose tenure as ambassador to the United States ended recently — has a reputation for accurately relaying details about his interactions with officials in Washington.

Sessions removed himself from direct involvement in the Russia investigation after it was revealed in The Washington Post that he had met with Kislyak at least twice in 2016, contacts he failed to disclose during his confirmation hearing in January.

“I did not have communications with the Russians,” Sessions said when asked whether anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign had communicated with representatives of the Russian government.

He has since maintained that he misunderstood the scope of the question and that his meetings with Kislyak were strictly in his capacity as a U.S. senator. In a March appearance on Fox television, Sessions said, “I don’t recall any discussion of the campaign in any significant way.”

Sessions appeared to narrow that assertion further in extensive testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee in June, saying that he “never met with or had any conversation with any Russians or foreign officials concerning any type of interference with any campaign or election in the United States.”

But when pressed for details, Sessions qualified many of his answers during that hearing by saying that he could “not recall” or did not have “any recollection.”

A former U.S. official who read the Kislyak reports said that the Russian ambassador reported speaking with Sessions about issues that were central to the campaign, including Trump’s positions on key policy matters of significance to Moscow.

 

Sessions had a third meeting with Kislyak in his Senate office in September. Officials declined to say whether U.S. intelligence agencies intercepted any Russian communications describing the third encounter.

As a result, the discrepancies center on two earlier Sessions-Kislyak conversations, including one that Sessions has acknowledged took place in July 2016 on the sidelines of the Republican National Convention.

By that point, Russian President Vladimir Putin had decided to embark on a secret campaign to help Trump win the White House by leaking damaging emails about his rival, Democrat Hillary Clinton, according to U.S. intelligence agencies.

Although it remains unclear how involved Kislyak was in the covert Russian campaign to aid Trump, his superiors in Moscow were eager for updates about the candidate’s positions, particularly regarding U.S. sanctions on Russia and long-standing disputes with the Obama administration over conflicts in Ukraine and Syria.

Kislyak also reported having a conversation with Sessions in April at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, where then-candidate Trump delivered his first major foreign policy address, according to the officials familiar with intelligence on Kislyak.

Sessions has said he does not remember any encounter with Kislyak at that event. In his June testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sessions said, “I do not recall any conversations with any Russian official at the Mayflower Hotel.”

Later in that hearing, Sessions said that “it’s conceivable that that occurred. I just don’t remember it.”

Kislyak was also a key figure in the departure of former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who was forced to leave that job after The Post revealed that he had discussed U.S. sanctions against Russia with Kislyak even while telling others in the Trump administration that he had not done so.

In that case, however, Flynn’s phone conversations with Kislyak were intercepted by U.S. intelligence, providing irrefutable evidence. The intelligence on Sessions, by contrast, is based on Kislyak’s accounts and not corroborated by other sources.

Former FBI director James B. Comey fueled speculation about the possibility of a Sessions-Kislyak meeting at the Mayflower when he told the same Senate committee on June 8 that the bureau had information about Sessions that would have made it “problematic” for him to be involved in the Russia probe.

Comey would not provide details of what information the FBI had, except to say that he could only discuss it privately with the senators. Current and former officials said he appeared to be alluding to intelligence on Kislyak’s account of an encounter with Sessions at the Mayflower.

Senate Democrats later called on the FBI to investigate the event in April at the Mayflower hotel.

Sessions’s role in removing Comey as FBI director angered many at the bureau and set in motion events that led to the appointment of former FBI director Robert S. Mueller III as a special counsel overseeing the Russia probe.

Trump’s harsh words toward the attorney general fueled speculation this week that Sessions would be fired or would resign. So far, he has resisted resigning, saying that he intends to stay in the job “as long as that is appropriate.”

Matt Zapotosky and Julie Tate contributed to this report.

 

[onekidanddone]

16 minutes ago, nvmbr02 said:

And Looks like Sessions discussed campaign related matters with the Russians. Can you say perjury?

This is so fucking fucked up I can't even think of a snarky comeback. 

Ah just thought of one.

[GreyhoundFan]

18 minutes ago, nvmbr02 said:

And Looks like Sessions discussed campaign related matters with the Russians. Can you say perjury?

The little troll needs to be escorted out in an orange jumpsuit and handcuffs.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Jeff Sessions just got in more trouble — and now he’s put Trump in a box, too"

Spoiler

Attorney General Jeff Sessions's bad week just got worse. And while his new problems would appear to threaten his job, they also put President Trump in a box when it comes to his apparent desire to be rid of Sessions.

The Washington Post is reporting that Russia's ambassador has said he and Sessions discussed the 2016 campaign during two meetings last year. That is contrary to multiple public comments made by Sessions in March, when he recused himself from oversight of the Russia investigation.

Adam Entous, Ellen Nakashima and Greg Miller report that Ambassador Sergey Kislyak's accounts of those meetings were intercepted by U.S. intelligence and that in them he suggested that the two men spoke substantively about campaign issues. Yet Sessions said March 1 that he “never met with any Russian officials to discuss issues of the campaign,” and the following day, while announcing his recusal, he said it again: “I never had meetings with Russian operatives or Russian intermediaries about the Trump campaign.”

This is now the second time that Sessions's accounts of his meetings with Russians have been seriously called into question. During his confirmation hearings this year, he denied having met with any Russians during the campaign. When the Kislyak meetings came to light, he clarified that he thought the exchange was in the context of the campaign only. He then quickly recused himself.

That flub was highlighted this week by none other than Trump. In a New York Times interview, Trump openly suggested that he wouldn't have nominated Sessions in the first place had he known he would recuse himself. Then Trump turned to Sessions's “bad answers” at his confirmation hearings:

TRUMP: So Jeff Sessions, Jeff Sessions gave some bad answers.

MAGGIE HABERMAN: You mean at the hearing?

TRUMP: Yeah, he gave some answers that were simple questions and should have been simple answers, but they weren’t.

If Trump does want to get rid of Sessions, it would seem that more of Sessions's “bad answers” about his meetings with Kislyak are on the table to justify it. The problem for Trump is that using that justification would also lend credence to the idea that there was something untoward about those meetings. Trump has repeatedly suggested that the entire Russia investigation is a “hoax” and a “witch hunt,” so the idea that he's suddenly that concerned about Sessions's Russia contacts would be difficult to reconcile.

It would also be difficult to square with other top Trump allies and family members who have failed to acknowledge or be transparent about their meetings with Russians. How could Trump take issue with Sessions's failures to correctly characterize his meetings with Russians but not with Donald Trump Jr., whose meeting seeking opposition research about Hillary Clinton allegedly from the Russian government came to light this month? And then what about Jared Kushner's meetings, which include that one, a meeting with Kislyak and a meeting with the head of a Russian state-owned bank. None of them were disclosed on his security clearance form when he joined the White House. Trump would need to explain why Sessions's failures were bad and his son's and son-in-law's weren't.

But Trump nonetheless seemed to get the ball rolling on that front in his New York Times interview. And given that more of Sessions's comments have come into question now, we'll see whether Trump keeps using that as justification for continuing to undermine one of his earliest supporters and top Cabinet officials.

Maybe they'll have adjoining cells.

[nvmbr02]

2 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

The little troll needs to be escorted out in an orange jumpsuit and handcuffs.

On Twitter Joy Reid suggested that the White House may have purposely leaked the Sessions intelligence information in order to force him to resign so they would have a way to place a new AG. She has stated she has a GOP source that inferred as much to her. It sounds very believable to me. It has been said by many different sources that Trump has been fuming ever since Sessions recused himself. I think Trump sees it as a personal stab in the back so to speak and would love to get ride of Sessions and this seems like the perfect opportunity. I am hoping that nasty little temper mixer with a whole lot of turnover in the white house and justice department will be Trump's undoing. I would love to see Jeff Sessions go down as well. He is such a slime ball.

[GreyhoundFan]

@nvmbr02 -- I can see that. I'm sure he wants to appoint a new AG who he can then have fire Mueller.

Jennifer Rubin had this to say about the toxic elf: "Don’t waste your sympathy on Sessions"

Spoiler

The Post reports:

Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Thursday that he plans to stay in his job despite the president’s public assertion that he would not have nominated Sessions to the post had he known that he would recuse himself from the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

At a news conference ostensibly meant to announce the takedown of an illicit online marketplace, Sessions said he had the “honor of serving as attorney general,” and he planned “to continue to do so as long as that is appropriate.” Asked how he could keep working, having apparently lost President Trump’s confidence, Sessions responded: “We’re serving right now. The work we’re doing today is the kind of work that we intend to continue.”

Republicans are rallying around Sessions, whispering that he has been humiliated and suggesting that Trump is undeserving of such a loyal adviser. Sorry, but this is a pair who deserve one another. Sessions knew exactly what he was getting into when he teamed up with a candidate who insulted Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and POWs and attacked a federal court judge on the grounds that his ethnicity prevented him from doing his job. Sessions apparently didn’t think anything was amiss when Trump invited the Russians to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails. Session was willing to stick by him after the “Access Hollywood” tape revelation. Once in office, Sessions did not flinch when Trump impugned our intelligence services, gave code-word classified information to the Russian foreign minister and fired the FBI director. Sessions violated the broad language of his recusal to participate in James B. Comey’s firing and incorporated by reference Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein’s absurd, pretextual memo saying that Comey treated Clinton unfairly. Sessions isn’t motivated to quit or sound the alarm bell when Trump threatens Comey, lies about tapes or attempts to intimidate the special counsel.

Sessions is the last person who deserves our sympathy. He was willing to sell his political soul to enable Trump, and he has enabled him every step of the way. Unlike Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who plays a vital role in insulating the military from Trump and literally preventing nuclear war, Sessions is not maintaining the integrity of the Justice Department. He has normalized and rationalized conduct that flies in face of the rule of law.

As Bob Bauer put it in commenting on the interview in which Trump degraded Sessions, “The President displays an ethical posture defined by a narrow and intense concern with his own interests. This is an ethics that may have served him well in business. However, it will have disastrous consequences when carried over into the exercise of his public responsibility as President—a duty to act on behalf of others.” And Sessions sees nothing is amiss? He thinks it is appropriate to lay down a “red line” with a special counsel, threatening to fire him if he (as is essential) explores Trump’s finances to determine illegality and/or ways in which Trump might have been compromised?

Sessions, precisely because he was close to Trump and the darling of the far right, at any point along the way could have taken a principled stand, refused to participate in Trump’s efforts to shut down the Russia investigation and decried efforts to bully the special counsel — who was appointed by his own department (by Rosenstein in the wake of Sessions’s recusal). No, we have zero sympathy for Sessions. He is no victim; he’s a perpetrator.

Amen, sister.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Kushner to testify at both intel committees next week; Manafort, Trump Jr. to turn over documents to Senate Judiciary panel"

Spoiler

President Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner is set to make a second appearance on Capitol Hill next week to speak with the House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, one day after he is scheduled to speak with Senate Intelligence Committee investigators behind closed doors.

The interview, which is also expected to take place behind closed doors, was announced by the House Intelligence Committee’s ranking Democrat Adam B. Schiff (Calif.) and Rep. Michael K. Conaway (R-Tex.), who is running the panel’s Russia probe.

Word of the interview came as the Senate Judiciary Committee announced Friday that former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and the president’s son Donald Trump Jr. had agreed to turn over documents and speak to panel members behind closed doors as part of its ongoing probe into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The date for their closed-door interviews has not been decided.

Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) and ranking Democrat Dianne Feinstein (Calif.) still expect Manafort and Trump Jr. to speak to the committee publicly. But because both are cooperating, the panel leaders said in a statement they would not issue subpoenas requiring their presence at the Wednesday hearing but “reserve the right to do so in the future.”

“Both Donald Trump, Jr. and Paul Manafort, through their attorneys, have agreed to negotiate and provide the committee with documents and be interviewed by committee members and staff prior to a public hearing,” they said in a statement.

The focus on top Trump surrogates indicates the panels’ respective probes have entered a new phase of their investigations, as lawmakers seek answers about various meetings with Russian officials. Lawmakers of both parties have focused particular attention on a June 2016 meeting that Kushner, Manafort and Trump Jr. held in Trump Tower with a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer who once represented a Russian intelligence unit in a court dispute.

In letters to Trump Jr. and Manafort this week, the Judiciary Committee leaders asked them to furnish all documents related to that June 2016 meeting , as well as any communications or records of attempts to obtain information from Russians about Hillary Clinton or the 2016 presidential campaign. Those documents are due to be delivered to the committee by Aug. 2.

But Grassley and Feinstein did issue a subpoena Friday night for Glenn Simpson, the chief executive of Fusion GPS, a firm behind the production of a dossier depicting salacious but unverified details of Donald Trump’s experience in Moscow. Simpson was slated to appear on a panel with Manafort and Trump Jr. on Wednesday, but in a Friday letter from his lawyers, Simpson turned down the committee’s invitation, claiming Simpson could not attend “due to long held vacation plans.”

They also wrote that they would challenge a subpoena by asserting “applicable privileges . . . under the First and Fifth Amendments.”

Grassley has focused acutely on Fusion over the past few months, asking the Justice Department why the research firm has not been required to register as a foreign agent.

Simpson was invited to testify before the Judiciary Committee this week at a hearing on enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, but the hearing was postponed until next Wednesday. Manafort and Trump Jr. were scheduled to appear on a panel with him; their appearance at the hearing is no longer expected.

The heat is turning up.

[mamallama]

My daughter said the same thing when she heard about the Sessions leak.

 

 

[fraurosena]

Seth Abramson has some interesting thoughts on Marc Kasowitz being out as the presidunce's attorney.

Because I want to bold the specific statements I find most interesting and comment on a few, I'm going to quote all of them in full here:

Quote

1. Kasowitz being out as Trump's lawyer comes on the heels of Trump's top legal spokesman, Mark Corallo, resigning.
2. Corrallo resigned because he feared he was being lied to, he couldn't stand the in-fighting and he opposed the new anti-Mueller strategy.
3. Kasowitz leaving underscores one of those complaints: there are clearly factions in Trump's legal team, and it's making it ineffective.
   This is good news for those of us who want to see the presidunce go down. However, I'd rather he has adequate legal representation, so he has no recourse for a retrial based on inadequate representation (or whatever the legal term is- I'm not an attorney and don't play one on tv ).
4. Broadly speaking, those resigning or pulling back from the team ar PR-expert attorneys, and the people staying on are criminal lawyers.
5. This suggest that *some* of the in-fighting may have to do with the question of whether this is a "PR situation" or a criminal defense.
6. The criminal attorneys on the team are winning because they're *right* - this is a criminal investigation and Trump is a criminal suspect.
7. Corallo's thrid complaint, about Mueller, speaks for itself: he believes- and is right- that it's a losing strategy and an unethical one.
8. But I want to focus here on Corallo's claim he was being "lied to". He didn't mean by Trump - that would breach attorney-client priviledge.
9. So Corallo was telling media that he was either being lied to by the rest of the legal tem *or* by non-client witnesses close to Trump.
10. Thing is - and I say this as a longtime criminal attorney - you never quit a case because the witnesses are lying. Why? Well - they often do.
11. Any attorney would read Corallo's extraordinary statement - therefore - as a claim that *other members of the legal team* are lying to him.
12. Of the Trump attorneys veteran enough to have info they might withhold from Corallo or mislead him about, Kasowitz is a prime suspect.
13. This suggests the possibility Kasowitz is not "out" because of a lack of criminal litigation experience or his recent bizarre behavior.
14. Incidentally, the recen bizarre behavior I refer to are allegations that Kasowitz threatened a man over email.
15. But no - *much* more likely is that Kasowitz's exit has to do with information about Preet Bharara that he accidentally dropped publicly.
16. Recall that Preet Bharara had been personally assured by the President that he wouldn't be fired. Then Trump suddenly changed his mind.
17. What Kasowitz has done is make the extraordinary boast tha the was the won who changed the President's mind about firing Preet Bharara.
18. You can read about his breach of attorney-client priviledge and possible - by Trump - Obstruction of Justice here.
    Quote from the article: 
    Kasowitz’s claimed role in the Bharara firing appears to be a sign that the New York lawyer has been inserting himself into matters of governance and not just advising the president on personal legal matters. 
    I wonder if this 'inserting into matters of governance' is an illegal act, and could be prosecuted. 
19. Keep in mind presidents never - ever- fire all U.S. attorneys at once and without warning because it dramatically destabilizes government.
20. Nor is there any indication that Mr. Trump planned to do this prior to Kasowitz telling him that Preet Bharara was "going to get him."
21. Kasowitz's warning to Trump strongly suggests Trump's firing of *all* his U.S. Attorneys nationally was an attempt to Obstruct Justice.
22. I and others believe the reported facts establish that Trump fired not just Preet Bharara but *all* U.S. Attorneys to protect himself.
23. Given that the case Preet Bharara was investigating looks to now be related to Mueller's probe, you can bet that Mueller knows it, too.
24. It's reasonable for an attorney observing recent news to infer that Mueller is investigating the reason for Trump's firing of Bharara.
25. So Marc Kasowitz has made himself into one of the *chief witnesses* in this aspect of the Mueller inestigation into Trump-Russia ties.
26. Neither Trump nor Kasowitz could therefore be fully candid with Mark Corallo about prior conversations they had about Trump's defense.
27. This, then, is the top "candidate" for the sort of lie Mark Corallo might have been complaining about when he quit Trump's legal team.
28. And this better explains - than mere "email intemperance" does - why Kasowitz would need to pull back from a case he could be a witness in.
29. So Corallo's exit (a) suggests Trump's legal team is falling appart; (b) it has moved to a criminal-defense footing; and (c) Trump...
30. ...could be in further MAJOR legal trouble because of the actions of his own attorney. So yes: the Corallo/Kasowitz exits MATTER {end}
    I really, really, really hope that this is going to be a major pillar of his downfall. This, and the rest of the Russian collusion.

 

[fraurosena]

Oh wow. If this is true... 

 

[fraurosena]

The man is a blithering idiot.

 

Yep, he affirmed that Sessions did indeed collude with the Russians during the campaign, by shouting INTELLIGENCE LEAK. 

He just shot himself in the foot, and doesn't even realize why he's limping... 

[formergothardite]

He is truly his own worst enemy.

[onekidanddone]

3 minutes ago, formergothardite said:

He is truly his own worst enemy.

Like the "it is not a travel ban" we need the TRAVEL BAN NOW tweets.

[fraurosena]

14 minutes ago, formergothardite said:

He is truly his own worst enemy.

Thankfully! 

I shudder at the image of him having rational, intelligent thought.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Sometimes it’s ‘normal’ to meet with foreign officials. For Jeff Sessions and the Russian ambassador, it wasn’t."

Spoiler

As members of the Trump campaign team defend themselves from questions about contact with Russians, a common explanation has been: 1) It's normal to meet with foreign officials and 2) We forgot about those meetings, because they were so normal.

To which former U.S. intelligence officials and security experts say: Those meetings are not normal, at least not in this extraordinary moment.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has given a version of this argument before: During his confirmation hearing in January, Sessions first told Congress he didn't remember meeting with any Russian officials.

When The Washington Post reported he had met with Russian officials, Sessions said he didn't recall meeting about politics with Russians. It now appears that wasn't true, either.

The Post reported Friday that Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the United States, told his bosses in Moscow that he and Sessions talked extensively about politics and policy when they met during the 2016 presidential election, according to U.S. officials who intercepted the conversations.

Sessions has a few options to explain why he keeps misremembering his meetings with Russians during the campaign. Either the Russians got it wrong, or he forgot about the substance of those conversations or didn't think they were substantial enough to mention.

In a campaign where Russians were actively trying to help his candidate win, the latter argument would not hold water, according to what former U.S. intelligence chiefs have testified about Russia.

Right around the time these meetings were taking place, the CIA director started to notice that the Russians were talking about actively, aggressively trying to influence the U.S. presidential election against Hillary Clinton.

Then-CIA director John Brennan also noticed that the Russians were reaching out to Trump campaign officials. His “radar” went off, he told Congress in May: “I know what the Russians try to do. They try to suborn individuals, and they try to get individuals, including U.S. persons, to try to act on their behalf, either wittingly or unwittingly. And I was worried by a number of contacts that the Russians had with U.S. persons.”

Anyone with reasonable knowledge of the Russian government should know that any conversation with a high-ranking Russian official is likely to be reported back to the Kremlin -- and potentially intercepted by U.S. spy agencies.

Sessions definitely qualifies as someone who would have “reasonable knowledge of the Russian government.” He's been in public service nearly his entire adult life, including 20 years in the Senate. He's served on committees that have some focus on Russia, most recently the Senate Armed Services Committee. He may not have had access to the same intelligence the CIA director did about the Russians, but he wasn't clueless either. It's hard for him to say these meetings were normal or forgetful.

Let's take another example of Trump campaign members forgetting their contacts with Russia to underscore why that argument doesn't make sense: Trump's senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner has revised his security clearance forms several times to mention his contacts with Russian officials.

Kushner doesn't have the political experience that Sessions does. But he was reportedly in the meeting with Donald Trump Jr. and several Russians with ties to the Kremlin — the one where Trump Jr. was promised dirt on Hillary Clinton and told this was part of a Russian government effort to help his father win.

Mark Zaid, a lawyer who specializes in security clearances, said there are legitimate reasons Kushner might not have included some of those officials and meetings on his form. (If the meeting only lasted five minutes, he arguably didn't need to report it, for example.)

But it defies logic to say you simply forgot about those meetings, especially when filling out a 127-page form designed to get at any politically sticky situations with foreign governments, ethics expert Melanie Sloan said.

“The fact that they can remember everything else suggests they have something to hide,” she said, “that they are deliberately trying to hide contacts with Russia, and there are serious questions about whether they were conspiring with the Russian government to win the presidency.”

As Rep. Adam B. Schiff (Calif.), the top Democrat on the House's Intelligence Committee, said in March before much of the above was public knowledge, every new layer revealing the depth of the Trump campaign and Russia's relationship makes it look more suspicious:

“Is it possible that all of these events and reports are completely unrelated and nothing more than an entirely unhappy coincidence? Yes, it is possible. But it is also possible, maybe more than possible, that they are not coincidental, not disconnected and not unrelated, and that the Russians use the same techniques to corrupt U.S. persons that they employed in Europe and elsewhere.”

And the Trump campaign's categorization of these extraordinary meetings as normal only makes things look more suspicious.

They're trying to normalize the completely abnormal.

[GrumpyGran]

14 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"Sometimes it’s ‘normal’ to meet with foreign officials. For Jeff Sessions and the Russian ambassador, it wasn’t."

  Hide contents

As members of the Trump campaign team defend themselves from questions about contact with Russians, a common explanation has been: 1) It's normal to meet with foreign officials and 2) We forgot about those meetings, because they were so normal.

To which former U.S. intelligence officials and security experts say: Those meetings are not normal, at least not in this extraordinary moment.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has given a version of this argument before: During his confirmation hearing in January, Sessions first told Congress he didn't remember meeting with any Russian officials.

When The Washington Post reported he had met with Russian officials, Sessions said he didn't recall meeting about politics with Russians. It now appears that wasn't true, either.

The Post reported Friday that Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the United States, told his bosses in Moscow that he and Sessions talked extensively about politics and policy when they met during the 2016 presidential election, according to U.S. officials who intercepted the conversations.

Sessions has a few options to explain why he keeps misremembering his meetings with Russians during the campaign. Either the Russians got it wrong, or he forgot about the substance of those conversations or didn't think they were substantial enough to mention.

In a campaign where Russians were actively trying to help his candidate win, the latter argument would not hold water, according to what former U.S. intelligence chiefs have testified about Russia.

Right around the time these meetings were taking place, the CIA director started to notice that the Russians were talking about actively, aggressively trying to influence the U.S. presidential election against Hillary Clinton.

Then-CIA director John Brennan also noticed that the Russians were reaching out to Trump campaign officials. His “radar” went off, he told Congress in May: “I know what the Russians try to do. They try to suborn individuals, and they try to get individuals, including U.S. persons, to try to act on their behalf, either wittingly or unwittingly. And I was worried by a number of contacts that the Russians had with U.S. persons.”

Anyone with reasonable knowledge of the Russian government should know that any conversation with a high-ranking Russian official is likely to be reported back to the Kremlin -- and potentially intercepted by U.S. spy agencies.

Sessions definitely qualifies as someone who would have “reasonable knowledge of the Russian government.” He's been in public service nearly his entire adult life, including 20 years in the Senate. He's served on committees that have some focus on Russia, most recently the Senate Armed Services Committee. He may not have had access to the same intelligence the CIA director did about the Russians, but he wasn't clueless either. It's hard for him to say these meetings were normal or forgetful.

Let's take another example of Trump campaign members forgetting their contacts with Russia to underscore why that argument doesn't make sense: Trump's senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner has revised his security clearance forms several times to mention his contacts with Russian officials.

Kushner doesn't have the political experience that Sessions does. But he was reportedly in the meeting with Donald Trump Jr. and several Russians with ties to the Kremlin — the one where Trump Jr. was promised dirt on Hillary Clinton and told this was part of a Russian government effort to help his father win.

Mark Zaid, a lawyer who specializes in security clearances, said there are legitimate reasons Kushner might not have included some of those officials and meetings on his form. (If the meeting only lasted five minutes, he arguably didn't need to report it, for example.)

But it defies logic to say you simply forgot about those meetings, especially when filling out a 127-page form designed to get at any politically sticky situations with foreign governments, ethics expert Melanie Sloan said.

“The fact that they can remember everything else suggests they have something to hide,” she said, “that they are deliberately trying to hide contacts with Russia, and there are serious questions about whether they were conspiring with the Russian government to win the presidency.”

As Rep. Adam B. Schiff (Calif.), the top Democrat on the House's Intelligence Committee, said in March before much of the above was public knowledge, every new layer revealing the depth of the Trump campaign and Russia's relationship makes it look more suspicious:

“Is it possible that all of these events and reports are completely unrelated and nothing more than an entirely unhappy coincidence? Yes, it is possible. But it is also possible, maybe more than possible, that they are not coincidental, not disconnected and not unrelated, and that the Russians use the same techniques to corrupt U.S. persons that they employed in Europe and elsewhere.”

And the Trump campaign's categorization of these extraordinary meetings as normal only makes things look more suspicious.

They're trying to normalize the completely abnormal.

Ok, seriously. Last week it occurred to me that I might need a mammogram. But I wasn't sure if it would be covered yet. So guess what I did. I went back and looked at my CALENDAR. That's right, the thing where I write down appointments so I can remember them. You can't tell me these people don't keep at least one calendar, that they don't have people who keep calendars for them.

We're expected to believe that they somehow magically make all their meetings by just remembering them? And then forget about them after the fact? Well, they truly are amazing, aren't they.

[GreyhoundFan]

9 hours ago, GrumpyGran said:

Ok, seriously. Last week it occurred to me that I might need a mammogram. But I wasn't sure if it would be covered yet. So guess what I did. I went back and looked at my CALENDAR. That's right, the thing where I write down appointments so I can remember them. You can't tell me these people don't keep at least one calendar, that they don't have people who keep calendars for them.

We're expected to believe that they somehow magically make all their meetings by just remembering them? And then forget about them after the fact? Well, they truly are amazing, aren't they.

He doesn't even keep his own calendar, that's what his staff is for. I'm surprised he hasn't thrown one of them under the bus already.