The Russian Connection

[fraurosena]

Just how many layers does this Russian onion have? Now it turns out that Obama warned the tangerine toddler against hiring Mike Flynn.

Quote

Former President Obama warned President Donald Trump against hiring Mike Flynn as his national security adviser, three former Obama administration officials tell NBC News.

The warning, which has not been previously reported, came less than 48 hours after the November election when the two sat down for a 90-minute conversation in the Oval Office.

A senior Trump administration official acknowledged Monday that Obama raised the issue of Flynn, saying the former president made clear he was "not a fan of Michael Flynn." Another official said Obama's remark seemed like it was made in jest.

The revelation comes on a day that former acting Attorney General Sally Yates is expected to testify that Flynn misled the White House about his contacts with Russia's ambassador to the United States.

According to all three former officials, Obama warned Trump against hiring Flynn. The Obama administration fired Flynn in 2014 from his position as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, largely because of mismanagement and temperament issues.

Obama's warning pre-dated the concerns inside the government about Flynn's contacts with the Russian ambassador, one of the officials said. Obama passed along a general caution that he believed Flynn was not suitable for such a high level post, the official added.

Two administration officials said Obama also warned Trump to stay vigilant on North Korea.

Trump named Flynn as his national security adviser. Flynn, who was conducting private conversations with the Russian ambassador regarding sanctions, was then fired three weeks into the administration for misleading Vice President Pence about those conversations.

Obama and Trump shake hands following their meeting in the Oval Office on Nov. 10, 2016. Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP

News of the Obama warning came as Trump sought to get ahead of a day of unpleasant disclosures about his former top foreign policy aide, taking to Twitter Monday to cast aspersions on Yates, the 27-year Justice Department prosecutor who warned the White House that then-National Security Adviser Mike Flynn had misled officials about his conversations with the Russian ambassador.

"Ask Sally Yates, under oath, if she knows how classified information got into the newspapers soon after she explained it to W.H. Counsel," Trump tweeted, referring to Yates' conversation with White House counsel Donald McGahn.

But Trump has left many other important questions about the Flynn affair unanswered, including: What, if anything, did he know about his national security adviser's conversations with the Russian ambassador?

Monday afternoon, Yates is scheduled to testify for the first time in public, alongside James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence, who pushed Flynn in 2014 from his job as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. The two are due to appear before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee at 2:30 p.m.

It was more than a week after Yates raised concerns about Flynn with McGahn that the story leaked to the Washington Post, prompting a series of events that led to Flynn's ouster from his White House job.

In a second tweet Monday morning, Trump noted that "General Flynn was given the highest security clearance by the Obama administration, but the Fake News seldom likes talking about that."

It's true that Flynn got his top level security clearance renewed in January 2016, but what Trump didn't mention is that Flynn should have received a far more thorough vetting in advance of his becoming national security adviser, a job that allows access to the nation's most closely-held secrets. What was the nature of that vetting, and did it raise any flags about Flynn's lobbying work for Turkish interests during the campaign, or his paid appearance on behalf of Russian state media, both now under scrutiny by law enforcement agencies? The White House hasn't said.

Another big question that has never been answered: Did Flynn coordinate with the president over his repeated contacts with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak? Those contacts raised alarms not only within the Obama administration, but within Trump's own transition team, according to reports Friday confirmed by NBC News. There were concerns that the Trump administration was signaling Russia not to worry about the Obama administration sanctions on Russia over its election interference, which expelled Russian intelligence officers from the U.S. and blocked access to Russian diplomatic compounds here.

Flynn was fired as national security adviser, White House officials said, because he told Vice President Pence he didn't discuss those sanctions with Kislyak, despite FBI transcripts showing that he did. That is among the issues Yates raised to McGahn, according to people who have been briefed on the matter.

People familiar with her plans don't expect her to get into much detail about her warnings regarding Flynn, largely because many of the underlying facts involve classified material.

In advance of her testimony, Republicans have been accusing her of acting politically, and noting that she was fired by Trump for refusing to enforce his travel ban. They call her a partisan Democrat.

In response, her defenders point out that she spent much of her 27-year Justice Department career working as a line prosecutor, a non-political job. Though she was appointed to positions in both the Clinton and Obama administrations, she was widely respected on both sides of the aisle. Georgia Republican Johnny Isakson, her home state senator, was among those introducing her at her 2015 confirmation hearing to become deputy attorney general. She was confirmed, 84-12.

 

[fraurosena]

Speaking of Misha... 

Holy fuck. A part of me wishes that he had chosen him as VP. Because then the impeachment process against Misha would have been taken the toddler along with him. Added bonus, no fear of a Pencey-poo presiduncy.

[formergothardite]

So anyone want to guess a timeline on when things will really start rolling and we will be on our way of ridding ourselves of the Orange Dictator? I realize it has only been a couple of months, but it feels like this has been going on for an eternity. 

[GreyhoundFan]

11 minutes ago, formergothardite said:

So anyone want to guess a timeline on when things will really start rolling and we will be on our way of ridding ourselves of the Orange Dictator? I realize it has only been a couple of months, but it feels like this has been going on for an eternity. 

Personally, I keep going back and forth between believing that as soon as the first domino falls, they'll all fall in quick succession, and fearing that this will be dragged out for another two years (the two years assumes that the Dems can make major gains in congressional elections in 2018). I also fear that Agent Orange has enough dirt on his minions that they'll be afraid to turn on him.

I agree that it seems like it's been going on for an eternity.

[fraurosena]

3 minutes ago, formergothardite said:

So anyone want to guess a timeline on when things will really start rolling and we will be on our way of ridding ourselves of the Orange Dictator? I realize it has only been a couple of months, but it feels like this has been going on for an eternity. 

If the Nixon scandal is anything to go by, it could take up to a year to 18 months before an impeachment process is begun. But those were different times, and the scandal was not as far-reaching as this one seems to be.

[GreyhoundFan]

6 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

If the Nixon scandal is anything to go by, it could take up to a year to 18 months before an impeachment process is begun. But those were different times, and the scandal was not as far-reaching as this one seems to be.

You forgot that the Repubs in that era actually had a conscience, so they didn't nix something just because it was proposed by Dems. The Repubs didn't become the DOH party until Gingrich took over. Lyan and Bitch aren't going to do anything that the Dems want, no matter what the impact to our country.

[fraurosena]

2 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

You forgot that the Repubs in that era actually had a conscience, so they didn't nix something just because it was proposed by Dems. The Repubs didn't become the DOH party until Gingrich took over. Lyan and Bitch aren't going to do anything that the Dems want, no matter what the impact to our country.

I so agree with you there. I believe that a lot of repubs are in on this thing up to their eyeballs, with no way to extricate themselves and so they keep up the support because they have no other recourse.

I'm all for it if it the investigations take their time, even if it's more than a year, if it means all of them are toppled down like the domino's you mentioned. This boil on the face of the American nation needs to be lanced and drained completely.

[sawasdee]

The levels of corruption and dishonesty are devastating. THIS is the way the Great American Experiment in Democracy ends - not with a bang, but with a whimper of conniving for financial gain?

[GreyhoundFan]

I thought this might be interesting to some FJers: Full transcript: Sally Yates and James Clapper testify on Russian election interference

 

This is a good analysis: "Here’s why Sally Yates is such a key part of the Trump-Russia investigation"

Quote

...

What we don't know:

Who else in the White House knew that Flynn wasn't telling the truth. Or, who in the White House knew that Flynn was talking about lifting sanctions on Russia all along?

Yates knew, because the FBI was collecting intelligence on whom the Russian ambassador was talking to.

That actually raises another question. Because the identity of U.S. citizens' conversations are kept secret from all but a handful of top intelligence officials, including someone in Yates's position, who unmasked Flynn's identity to the media?

Also, did the Trump White House try to block Yates from testifying to a House investigation committee in March? (The Post obtained letters from the Justice Department, now under Attorney General Jeff Sessions's control, that suggested her testimony was off-limits because of presidential communication privilege. White House press secretary Sean Spicer denied they tried to block Yates.)

The Trump administration has characterized what Yates told them about the nature of Flynn's conversations with Russia as less “alarm bells!” and more “hey, you might want to check this out.”

Here's White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus in February on CBS's “Face the Nation”: “Our legal counsel got a heads up from Sally Yates that something wasn’t adding up with his story. And then so our legal department went into a review of the situation. . . . The legal department came back and said they didn’t see anything wrong with what was actually said.”

We'll see if Yates agrees with that characterization when she takes the witness stand Monday afternoon. Every word she shared with people in the White House about Flynn's conversations regarding lifting Russia sanctions could help answer how much, if anything, Trump and other top officials knew about it.

 

 

 

One more good one: "Sally Yates just threw the White House under the bus"

Quote

...

With all that build-up, Yates’s testimony might have been anti-climactic. It was not. She described two in-person meetings with Trump White House Counsel Donald McGahn. Both meetings were attended by one of McGahn’s associates and a Justice Department career civil servant from the national security division. In other words, there were plenty of witnesses. Yates testified that she told McGahn on Jan. 26 that Justice was aware that what Flynn was telling Vice President Pence about contacts with the Russians was untrue. She explained the “underlying conduct was problematic in and of itself,” and that it set up the potential for Flynn to be “compromised.” McGahn called her back to the White House on Jan. 27 when he asked questions including what was the concern about one White House official lying to another, whether Flynn might be criminally prosecuted, whether taking action would compromise the investigation and whether the administration could see the underlying data. On Jan. 30, Yates told McGahn the intelligence could in fact be reviewed.

The mystery as to why Flynn remained in place for 18 days remains. Did McGahn tell Trump about his meetings with Yates? Did McGahn ever review the underlying intelligence? Who made the decision that keeping Flynn on the job until four days after The Post broke the story that Flynn had lied to Pence? Why did they not believe his ongoing presence in the administration was a problem — or set Pence straight that he was telling untrue things to the American people because Flynn had lied to Pence?

Yates repeated that the risk was that the Russians would subtly and not so subtly use the fact Flynn had lied to pressure him in ways favorable to them. And she stressed it was not fair to Pence for him to be in the dark. Ironically, it seemed Yates was more concerned about Pence’s reputation than was the rest of the administration.

...

Yates’s testimony continues, as do the string of questions surrounding the administration’s bizarre conduct.

UPDATE, 4:30 p.m.: Yates is giving a tutorial in committee testifying. She just walloped not one but two GOP senators. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) tried to accuse her of misconduct in refusing to defend the Trump administration’s travel ban, which was ultimately blocked by multiple courts. Yates reminded him that at her confirmation hearing, Cornyn had asked if she would refuse to carry out an illegal or unconstitutional order. She recalled she had promised him she would indeed refuse. Ouch. Then up came Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) sleazily trying to get her to opine on Huma Abedin’s email habits(!). When that led nowhere, he took to quoting the statutory basis for the travel ban. She corrected him by pointing out that there was subsequent congressional action that specifically prohibited religious discrimination. Moreover, she took the opportunity to drop the news bomb that the administration ordered the Office of Legal Counsel to not even tell the acting attorney general the ban was in the works. Game, set, match.

Go Sally!

[fraurosena]

In addition to @GreyhoundFan's articles, here's the one in the New York Times, (cuz you never can have too many sources )

Sally Yates Says She Told White House Flynn Was Susceptible to Blackmail

Quote

 Yates says she told the White House that Flynn could be a blackmail target.

Ms. Yates said that in the first days of the Trump administration, she told the White House counsel that Mr. Flynn was susceptible to Russian blackmail.

“General Flynn was compromised in regard to the Russians,” Ms. Yates said at the hearing.

She testified that Mr. Flynn’s conduct was “problematic.” Though Ms. Yates did not publicly reveal her underlying concerns, she did refer to discussions about sanctions between Mr. Flynn and the Russian ambassador to the United States.

The White House initially mischaracterized those discussions. Mr. Trump ultimately fired Mr. Flynn over those discrepancies.[...]

British officials shared information on Trump-Russia connections.

Mr. Clapper confirmed that British authorities shared information related to Russian links to Mr. Trump’s associates. The New York Times reported this sharing, from British, Dutch and other allies, in March.

“It is very sensitive,” Mr. Clapper said. He did not elaborate.

Ted Cruz Brings Hillary Clinton’s Emails Back Into the Conversation.

Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, a former Republican presidential candidate, briefly veered away from Mr. Flynn, Russia and the Trump administration and into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while secretary of state, an issue that dogged her campaign.

James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director, told senators last week that Huma Abedin, an aide to Mrs. Clinton, forwarded emails containing classified information to her husband, Anthony D. Weiner, a former New York representative. Mr. Comey said Ms. Abedin forwarded the messages for Mr. Weiner to print for her to give to Mrs. Clinton.

Several current and former government officials familiar with the investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s handling of delicate information said that while some emails had been forwarded, the vast majority were instead backed up to Mr. Weiner’s computer.

Mr. Cruz asked Mr. Clapper what he would do if, hypothetically, his employee forwarded emails containing classified information — a thinly veiled reference to Ms. Abedin.

“It raises all kinds of potential security concerns, again depending on the content of the email, what the intent was, a whole bunch of variables here would have to be considered,” Mr. Clapper said. “But given a hypothetical scenario, I’d be quite concerned.”[...]

These are just some of the many interesting points of the hearing. I'm certain I'll have more comments later. For now, I'm off to bed as it's almost midnight in my part of the world. 

 

[AuntK]

Sally Yates is awesome! Smart, unflappable, cool, direct, she is impressive!  

[fraurosena]

Keith Olbermann. Nuff said.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

I liked this one about Sally Yates' testimony:

[GreyhoundFan]

"Here’s how an independent investigation into Trump and Russia would happen"

Quote

All over Washington, politicians are calling for independent investigations into Russian interference in the election. But not everyone is calling for the same thing. Here’s a quick guide to what people generally mean when they call for different kinds of “independent investigations.”

Special counsel

The Justice Department can appoint a special counsel, also often called a special prosecutor, any time the person who would ordinarily handle a matter is believed to face a conflict or might be perceived to hold potential bias.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has recused himself from involvement in probing the Russia matter, so it is up to Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein to decide whether to appoint a special prosecutor.

Congress does not have the power to appoint a special counsel, though some Democrats have been publicly urging Rosenstein to do so.

Once appointed, a special counsel would work with the FBI and the court system to subpoena documents, conduct interviews and potentially seek criminal charges.

...

These days, there are formal Justice Department rules that govern how special prosecutors operate, intended to provide more independence. But one thing has not changed: Any president willing to face the political consequences still has the authority to dismiss a special counsel.

Independent counsel

A law creating a process for appointing an independent counsel, or independent prosecutor, was passed after Watergate but allowed to expire in 1999 amid displeasure over independent investigations of President Bill Clinton.

Under the 1978 statute, the attorney general started the process while the appointment of an independent counsel was formally made by a panel of federal judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The judges would then oversee the independent counsel’s work. Under the statute, the independent counsel could be dismissed only for “good cause.”

Under current law, however, there is no mechanism to appoint an independent counsel or prosecutor. Congress could, in theory, pass a law establishing an independent counsel, either creating a process for naming independent counsels generally or specifically appointing a prosecutor to look into the Russia matter. It seems unlikely that Congress would do so, given that the legislation would require support from the Republican-led House and Senate, as well as President Trump’s signature.

Special or select congressional committee

Congress has broad power to investigate matters of public concern. Congressional panels can issue subpoenas for documents or testimony from relevant witnesses and issue reports with their findings or even initiate impeachment of public officials. Congressional committees do not, however, have the ability to seek criminal charges.

Currently, both the House and Senate Select Committees on Intelligence are probing the Russia matter.

Another option would be for Congress to appoint a special congressional committee composed of members of the House or Senate who have been appointed specifically to examine the issue. Typically, select committees are formed by a resolution adopted by a vote of the chamber establishing the committee.

A special committee could bring more focused attention to the issue, but there is no guarantee it would be free from partisanship. For instance, the special House committee that probed the attacks on the U.S. installations in Benghazi, Libya, was marked by bitter clashes between the Republican majority and their Democratic counterparts.

Special commission

Another option for Congress would be to establish an independent commission, composed of members who do not serve in Congress. Congress would be free to establish the rules for the commission, including qualifications to serve.

Creating a commission requires passage of a law signed by the president.

Congress in 2002, for instance, established a special commission to investigate the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, requiring that its membership include five Democrats and five Republicans. That panel held high-profile hearings with testimony from top officials and published one of the most comprehensive accounts of the attacks and the government’s response.

Congress can agree to give a commission certain powers, including subpoena power, but a congressionally appointed commission cannot seek criminal charges.

I thought this was helpful -- I didn't know the differences.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Presence of Russian photographer in Oval Office raises alarms"

Quote

A photographer for a Russian state-owned news agency was allowed into the Oval Office on Wednesday during President Trump’s meeting with Russian diplomats, a level of access that was criticized by former U.S. intelligence officials as a potential security breach.

The officials cited the danger that a listening device or other surveillance equipment could have been brought into the Oval Office while hidden in cameras or other electronics. Former U.S. intelligence officials raised questions after photos of Trump’s meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov were posted online by the Tass news agency.

Among those commenting on the issue was former deputy CIA director David S. Cohen. Responding to a question posed online about whether it was a sound decision to allow the photographer into the Oval Office, Cohen replied on Twitter: “No it was not.” He declined to elaborate when reached by phone.

The White House played down the danger, saying that the photographer and his equipment were subjected to a security screening before he and it entered the White House grounds. The Russian “had to go through the same screening as a member of the U.S. press going through the main gate to the [White House] briefing room,” a senior administration official said.

Other former intelligence officials also described the access granted to the photographer as a potential security lapse, noting that standard screening for White House visitors would not necessarily detect a sophisticated espionage device.

The administration official also said the White House had been misled about the role of the Russian photographer. Russian officials had described the individual as Lavrov’s official photographer without disclosing that he also worked for Tass.

“We were not informed by the Russians that their official photographer was dual-hatted and would be releasing the photographs on the state news agency,” the administration official said.

As a result, White House officials said they were surprised to see photos posted online showing Trump not only with Lavrov but also smiling and shaking hands with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

Kislyak has figured prominently in a series of damaging stories for the administration. Former national security adviser Michael Flynn was forced to resign in February over his contacts with Kislyak last year and over misleading statements about the nature of those conversations to Vice President Pence.

The administration official said that “it is standard practice for ambassadors to accompany their principals, and it is ridiculous to suggest there was anything improper.” He added that White House rooms “are swept routinely” for listening devices.

Russia has in the past gone to significant lengths to hide bugs in key U.S. facilities. In the late 1990s, the State Department’s security came under fire after the discovery of a sophisticated listening device in a conference room on the seventh floor, where then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and others often held meetings.

Speaking to reporters at the Russian Embassy after his White House talks with Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Lavrov did not hide his irritation with repeated questions about Moscow’s alleged meddling in the U.S. presidential election to boost Trump’s chances and damage Hillary Clinton’s.

“I never thought I’d have to answer such questions, particularly in the United States, given your highly developed democratic system,” he said, according to a simultaneous translation of his remarks into English.

Lavrov said that no evidence exists linking Russia to hacked Democratic Party emails released during last year’s election campaign and that the issue of Russian interference in the campaign did not arise in his meeting with Trump that morning.

U.S. intelligence agencies said they concluded with “high confidence” that Russia tried to affect the outcome of the 2016 election. Lavrov at turns characterized such allegations as “noise” and a “humiliation” for the American people.

“We are monitoring what is going on here concerning Russia and its alleged ‘decisive role’ in your domestic policy,” he said, according to a quote reported in Tass, which added a remark phrased less colorfully by the embassy interpreter. “We have been discussing specific issues, but never touched upon this bacchanalia.”

By chance, Lavrov visited as the White House is coming under political fire for Trump’s firing of James B. Comey as FBI director on Tuesday night. The FBI has been conducting an investigation into possible ties between Russia and the Trump campaign.

The overlapping events led to a series of odd scenes.

Before a separate, early-morning meeting with Tillerson at the State Department, Lavrov professed mock surprise when asked whether Comey’s dismissal had cast a shadow over his visit.

“Was he fired?” Lavrov said, arching his eyebrows. “You’re kidding! You’re kidding!”

He then jerked his head back in a dismissive gesture and walked away, shaking his head.

In Moscow, the reaction to Comey’s dismissal also has been acerbic.

“A Comical Firing” was the headline on the Comey story on Russia’s pro-Kremlin NTV news channel. In the report, Konstantin Kosyachev, a senior Russian legislator, said that the FBI director was let go “because he’s not supposed to act like he’s the president.”

...

In his remarks to reporters, Lavrov did not try to paper over his disdain for the Obama administration. He said the Obama administration had driven U.S.-Russian relations to new lows as a result of its “ideological” positions.

Lavrov also said he wants the United States to give back to Russia two properties it seized outside New York and Washington last year after the Obama administration said they were linked to spying.

Great, so now Russia can hear the tangerine toddler's tantrums through their bugs...

[fraurosena]

Well, this is interesting news! 

Eric Schneiderman is the New York State Attorney General, and he, together with 19 other AG's have officially called for an independant investigation.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Don’t forget those smiling images of Trump and the Russians"

Quote

The pictures from the Oval Office on Wednesday — published by a Tass photographer, as no U.S. media were present — are jolly and good-humored. President Trump, who fired his FBI director a day earlier, is grinning for the cameras and shaking hands with the Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, and the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov. They, too, smile and laugh, relishing the many ironies of the moment.

Have a close look at those happy faces; keep the images in your head. Then turn your attention just for a moment to the story of Ildar Dadin, an unusually brave young Russian. Dadin was arrested in Moscow in 2015, one of the first to fall victim to a harsh new Russian law against dissent. His crime was to have protested peacefully and repeatedly, mostly by standing silently in the street with a sign around his neck.

Dadin was sentenced to three years in prison in Karelia, the northwestern province that was once home to the White Sea Canal, one of the most infamous prison camps in Stalin’s Soviet Union. Far away from the capital, he discovered that torture, of a kind also practiced in Stalin’s Soviet Union, was still in use. In Karelia, guards throw a prisoner into an isolation cell as soon as they arrive, Dadin has written, “so that he understands straight away what hell he’s got into.” Later, he was hung up by his arms, which were handcuffed behind his back. Others in Karelian prisons were beaten on the soles of their feet, drenched with water and left in the cold, beaten on the back and stomach.

Why? In Stalin’s day, people were tortured to get them to confess to crimes they had not committed. Nowadays they are often tortured as a form of extortion: If their families pay up, the torture stops. Dadin’s wife, Anastasia Zotova — she was in London meeting with human rights organizations — also told me that some prisoners are forced to work for prison guards and their families (another tradition handed down from the Gulag). It is fitting, somehow, that in Putin’s Russia, people torture for money and not ideology.

Dadin is lucky: He is educated, comes from Moscow and was able to make use of what remains of the press and the judicial apparatus in Russia. Meduza, a Russian-language website published outside the country, posted a letter he wrote from prison; thanks to Zotova and some dedicated lawyers, he got Russia’s human rights ombudsman interested in his case and was released. But his story is exceptional. By contrast, gay men in Chechnya, another Russian province, have been kidnapped, tortured and killed by police with impunity after Chechen officials decided to “eliminate” homosexuality altogether. Russian prosecutors also recently arrested and detained Yuri Dmitriev, one of the country’s best-known historians of Stalinism, on trumped-up charges. Dmitriev literally knows where the bodies are buried: In the 1990s, he uncovered hundreds of mass graves, the only remaining evidence of Stalin’s mass murders. Knowledge like that has become increasingly uncomfortable in a Russia that no longer wants to distance itself from its murderous past.

What is the connection between those stories and the photographs in the Oval Office? There isn’t one. Neither Trump, nor Lavrov, nor Kislyak is remotely interested in the fate of Dadin or Dmitriev, if they have even heard of them, which seems unlikely. Nor are any of them much interested in the fate of Dan Heyman, the West Virginia reporter arrested recently for persistent questioning of Tom Price, the health and human services secretary. Due process, rule of law, all of the dull rules and procedures that deliver justice are uninteresting to men who believe in personalized power unconstrained by traditions, institutions or constitutions. Look at how pleased they were to see one another — and compare those pictures with Trump’s stiff and awkward news conferences with democratic leaders such as Germany’s Angela Merkel or Britain’s Theresa May.

I know that investigations should continue, but let’s be clear: Russia would have needed no inducements or collusion to support Trump’s election campaign. His personality is the kind they understand, his cynicism and his dishonesty are familiar, his greed is the same as their greed. Above all, his lack of respect for the law is their lack of respect for the law. Trump fired the FBI director to get him off his television screen; Russian police lock up dissidents to get them out of public view. No, it’s not the same thing. But it’s not that different either.

...

Interesting perspective.

[CTRLZero]

22 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Eric Schneiderman is the New York State Attorney General, and he, together with 19 other AG's have officially called for an independant investigation.

I was glad to see my state's Attorney General was a co-signer.  Thanks for posting this.  How many more people have to chime in before this happens...

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Believe it or not, Senate’s Russia investigation is moving faster than its Watergate counterpart 44 years ago"

Quote

This week marks the 44th anniversary of the public debut of the Senate Watergate Committee. On May 17, 1973, the committee kicked off hearings that became must-see TV, broadcast live on the three networks in the afternoon and replayed at night on PBS.

“What did the president know, and when did he know it?” was the famous question posed by Sen. Howard Baker (R-Tenn.) early on in the Watergate hearings, a defining phrase still invoked today when a politician is caught in scandal.

Since those hearings, just about every congressional committee conducting a high-profile investigation has had to live up to the legacy of Baker and Sen. Sam Ervin (D-N.C.), the leaders of the Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities. It’s an almost impossible standard to meet — and also one that often gets lost in myth rather than facts.

Sens. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Mark R. Warner (D-Va.), the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, are the latest to stand in the long shadows of the Watergate committee. They regularly face questions about why they aren’t moving faster to investigate Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign.

In fact, they’re moving more quickly than Ervin and Baker did 44 years ago. If it doesn’t seem that way, that’s got more to do with the insatiable appetites of social media and cable news than with reality.

...

The article continues with some interesting information about both investigations. I was six years old when the Watergate hearings were going on, so I didn't pay attention. I think I'm making up for it now.

[47of74]

Meanwhile a Russia Today anchor has resigned and admitted she spread lies on behalf of Putin

huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/18/sara-firth-resigns-russia-today-lies-anchor_n_5598815.html

Quote

Another Russia Today anchor has resigned from her post at the Kremlin-funded TV network.

Corespondent Sara Firth’s announcement came nearly two hours after she stated on Twitter that RT anchors “do work for Putin” and spread “lies,” in a conversation with RT London correspondent Polly Boiko. Firth alleged that the network asks its anchors to “obscure the truth,” and now she is saying she’s had enough.

Russia Today’s Liz Wahl also publicly criticized the network earlier this year. Wahl quit while on air, stating that she could not support a network that “whitewashes the actions of Putin” and asks her to “promote Russian foreign policy.” In March, RT anchor Abby Martin used her air time to speak out against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, boldly stating that “what Russia did is wrong.” The network did not fire her for speaking out, and Martin later told the AP, “I think that, honestly, it would look really bad if I got fired. I think they probably just weighed their options and just knew that keeping me on would be best.”

 

[Imagine20]

Russia Today is basically the propaganda arm of the Russian government. It's not surprising at all that they spread lies during the campaign. 

[nvmbr02]

I didn't see this posted yet. I am not sure how it is connected but it seems unlikely to be a coincidence.

 

 

 

[Howl]

Wow, tennis court, basketball court, swimming pool, putting green/one-hole golf course w/sand trap for starters.  Yeah, Manafort's got some splainin' to do. 

[nvmbr02]

Perhaps another small piece of the puzzle.

Russian-Canadian developer put money into Toronto project after receiving hundreds of millions from deal involving VEB (a Russian state bank)

 

[nvmbr02]

I realize that all these little pieces to the puzzle are a big deal on their own, but why is Russia mentioned everywhere you look? I try not to buy into conspiracy theories but everywhere you turn you see Putin/Moscow/Russia or some other connection.

Even without the Russia connection David Clark is a tool. (and sorry for all the twitter links, my internet connection is not the best so twitter is the easiest way to get a lot of information quickly)