The Russian Connection

[candygirl200413]

Kellyanne just announced that Trump can actually stop Comey for testifying

[VixenToast]

3 hours ago, candygirl200413 said:

Kellyanne just announced that Trump can actually stop Comey for testifying

Oh God, that's just going to make him look more guilty. Seriously, does he have any clue how bad this looks?

[onekidanddone]

34 minutes ago, VixenToast said:

Oh God, that's just going to make him look more guilty. Seriously, does he have any clue how bad this looks?

Between this and the "ethics" waver for Bannon The United States as we knew it is dead. I feel like some emotional eating and getting 27 bags of sweet potato fries from Trader Joe's and eating them all.

[JMarie]

I don't know if anyone's posted this already.  It's from tonight's 60 Minutes, about how some Russian dissenters mysteriously wind up dead.  Scary stuff.

http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/poisoned-3/

[GreyhoundFan]

"Everything we know about the Mueller probe so far"

Spoiler

Special counsel Robert Mueller is assembling a prosecution team with decades of experience going after everything from Watergate to the Mafia to Enron as he digs in for a lengthy probe into possible collusion between Russia and President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign.

His first appointments — tapping longtime law-firm partner James Quarles and Andrew Weissmann, the head of the Justice Department’s criminal fraud unit — were the opening moves in a politically red-hot criminal case that has upended the opening months of the Trump White House.

Mueller is expected to take an expansive view of his role. He inherited a spate of existing federal probes covering figures including the president’s son-in-law and senior White House adviser, Jared Kushner, and former campaign hands Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn and Carter Page.

Mueller brings a wealth of national security experience from his time leading the FBI in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Veteran prosecutors say he has assembled a potent team whose members have backgrounds handling cases involving politicians, mobsters and others — and who know how to work potential witnesses if it helps them land bigger fish.

“The more familiar you are with the important, hard cases that have come before you, the better you are at assessing the one in front of you,” said Samuel Buell, a former federal prosecutor who worked with Weissmann on the Enron case in the early 2000s.

“In a matter of this importance — it’s going to have an almost unprecedented level of outside scrutiny for anything they do — it’s critical that Mueller would be prizing that kind of gray-beard energy,” Buell said.

Mueller and his new staff have spent their first weeks holding briefings on everything that’s been done over the past year by the FBI, Justice Department and the U.S. attorney’s office in Alexandria, Virginia, on the probes into the 2016 election — work that now falls under their umbrella.

Peter Carr, a spokesman for Mueller, confirmed in an email to POLITICO that the special counsel’s office won’t start from scratch but can “move forward on investigative steps already taken.”

Here’s a rundown of everything we know about Mueller’s probe so far:

Who’s on Mueller’s staff?

Mueller’s prosecution team is full of familiar faces — to him.

He already has picked three former colleagues from his last job as a partner at the Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr law firm: Aaron Zebley, who also was Mueller’s FBI chief of staff; Jeannie Rhee, a former DOJ attorney; and Quarles, who got his start in Washington some four decades ago as an assistant Watergate prosecutor.

But Mueller’s biggest hire to date was Weissmann, who is taking a leave from his current post leading the Justice Department’s criminal fraud section. The two men have a long history together at the FBI, where Weissmann served as both the bureau’s general counsel from 2011 to 2013 and as Mueller’s special counsel in 2005.

Weissmann’s prosecution record includes overseeing the investigations into more than 30 people while running the Enron Task Force, including CEOs Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling. And while working in the U.S. attorney’s office in the eastern district of New York, he tried more than 25 cases involving members of the Genovese, Colombo and Gambino crime families.

Former Obama DOJ spokeswoman Emily Pierce called Weissmann “an inspired choice” to help Mueller lead the Russia probe.

“As a fraud and foreign bribery expert, he knows how to follow the money. Who knows what they will find, but if there is something to be found, he will find it,” she said.

Mueller has more spaces to fill. Cliff Stricklin, a former assistant U.S. attorney who worked with Weissmann on the Enron case, said the “ideal team for something like this” would be around six to eight prosecutors.

The special counsel will also add administrative assistants and is likely to tap experts from other agencies as specialized needs arise. That could include Treasury Department staffers who know about money laundering or IRS agents who could help untangle complicated tax returns. FBI agents also are likely to cycle through, though that number isn’t likely to be very large.

“I’d not expect a massive army of agents here by any stretch,” Buell said.

Carr, the Mueller spokesman, said the special prosecutor is initially “focused on providing a management structure to oversee ongoing matters” in the Russia probe, and he said the number of staffers who will be appointed to join the probe “will be determined by the needs of the investigation.”

What happens to all the existing federal investigatory work?

Mueller’s team will pick up where other probes left off, including an FBI investigation that started last July exploring possible links between the Trump campaign and Moscow. They’re also taking on the Manafort probe, which The Associated Press reported started in 2014 — before Manafort became Trump’s campaign manager — when federal officials started looking into his work on behalf of pro-Kremlin officials in Ukraine.

Also under Mueller’s purview: The government’s investigation of Flynn, the former White House national security adviser who has come under scrutiny on multiple fronts, including for lobbying on behalf of a Turkish businessman with ties to Russia.

Reuters previously reported that a grand jury in northern Virginia has approved subpoenas to Flynn’s business associates, and veteran prosecutors say that work will now be handed over to the special counsel.

“Obviously, Flynn and Manafort and all the people connected in the campaign are going to be looked at,” said Peter Zeidenberg, a former federal prosecutor who worked at DOJ during the George W. Bush-era Valerie Plame Wilson investigation. “That seems self-evident.”

How wide will the Mueller probe go?

DOJ from the get-go gave Mueller leverage to take the Russia probe wherever he thinks it needs to go. The original mandate cleared him to explore “any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump,” and it also gave the green light on “any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation.”

Former federal prosecutors say Mueller is likely to examine any financial ties between Russia, Trump and his business partners; the hacks into the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton campaign manager John Podesta; and even Trump’s decision last month to fire FBI Director James Comey.

As they dig, Mueller and his team could find useful evidence in Trump’s personal Twitter feed, which Zeidenberg said is a “gold mine” of time-stamped thoughts and opinions from the president on matters under investigation. They’ll also be positioned to study posts from associates like Roger Stone, who openly touted his communications with Russian hackers and associates of WikiLeaks last summer just before the site posted stolen emails from Podesta.

Mueller’s team also will be on the lookout for evidence of obstruction of justice, such as the destruction of any records that could have provided links between the Republican and Russia.

Carr declined to comment on the breadth of the probe, but he said Mueller does not think he’s limited to any particular federal court district jurisdiction, meaning he can bring cases in any federal court in the country. He also does not need approval from DOJ’s national security or criminal divisions to take routine steps in the investigation.

How long will Mueller’s probe last?

Veteran prosecutors say Mueller won’t move as quickly as House and Senate committees that have already demanded materials from key Trump associates, including Manafort, Stone, Page and Flynn.

“You don’t go talk to potential targets first,” Zeidenberg said. “They’re at the end. I don’t think they’re anywhere close to that.”

Mueller’s team has to propose a budget by mid-July, but other than that, there are no deadlines.

Former prosecutors say the investigation could last two years or more before it produces a final report to the Justice Department. In the meantime, they say he can recommend grand jury indictments if his team uncovers illegal activity.

“I’d think he’d be reluctant to reach the reporting stage on this before he felt he’d really run to the ground most of the big stuff,” Buell said. “But he wouldn’t have to wait until he turns out the lights and vacates the office to do that.”

Even though I'm impatient, I am sure he's going to be thorough, which will take time. I just hope it ends up taking down a whole bunch of the Repugs.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Sen. Warner: Russian cyberattacks 'much broader than has been reported'"

Spoiler

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Russian cyberattacks on U.S. election systems “is much broader than has been reported so far,” according to USA Today.

The Virginia senator’s comments follow a top-secret intelligence report leaked to The Intercept, which detailed Russian hacking efforts during the 2016 presidential campaign.

The intelligence report noted that Russian military intelligence “likely attempted to launch a voter-registration themed spear-phishing campaign targeting U.S. local government organizations.”

The senator said these efforts did not change voting outcomes, but is much broader than is known publicly.

The Kremlin on Tuesday denied that the Russian government was involved in voting-related cyberattacks.

Warner is calling on intelligence agencies to declassify the names of states affected so they can beef up their electoral systems before the 2018 midterms, warning that “none of these actions from the Russians stopped on Election Day.”

The Department of Justice announced charges Monday against Reality Leigh Winner, a 25-year-old federal contractor with a top-secret security clearance, for leaking classified information to an online media outlet, the same day The Intercept published the National Security Agency report detailing Russian involvement.

“Whoever’s the leaker should be pursued to the full extent of the law,” Warner said.

More and more dirt is coming out.

[nvmbr02]

I posted in the regular Trump thread the Washington Post timeline that covers what we know from the Trump campaign and the Russia investigation so far from Dec. 2015- May 2017. 

Here is the link to that post

http://www.freejinger.org/topic/29510-trump-19-please-cry-for-us-montenegro-and-we-are-so-sorry/?do=findComment&comment=1380495

[JenniferJuniper]

A little on-point levity.  Randy Rainbow's "The Russian Connection". 

[fraurosena]

Is there anyone he hasn't asked?

Top intelligence official told associates Trump asked him if he could intervene with Comey on FBI Russia probe

Spoiler

The nation’s top intelligence official told associates in March that President Trump asked him if he could intervene with then-FBI Director James B. Comey to get the bureau to back off its focus on former national security adviser Michael Flynn in its Russia probe, according to officials.

On March 22, less than a week after being confirmed by the Senate, Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats attended a briefing at the White House together with officials from several government agencies. As the briefing was wrapping up, Trump asked everyone to leave the room except for Coats and CIA Director Mike Pompeo.

The president then started complaining about the FBI investigation and Comey’s handling of it, said officials familiar with the account Coats gave to associates. Two days earlier, Comey had confirmed in a congressional hearing that the bureau was probing whether Trump’s campaign coordinated with Russia during the 2016 race.

After the encounter, Coats discussed the conversation with other officials and decided that intervening with Comey as Trump had suggested would be inappropriate, according to officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal matters.

The events involving Coats show the president went further than just asking intelligence officials to deny publicly the existence of any evidence showing collusion during the 2016 election, as The Washington Post reported in May. The interaction with Coats indicates that Trump aimed to enlist top officials to have Comey curtail the bureau’s probe.

Coats will testify on Wednesday before the Senate Intelligence Committee. Lawmakers on the panel said they would press him for information about his interactions with the president regarding the FBI investigation.

The question of whether the president obstructed the Russia investigation is expected to take center stage this week with Comey’s highly anticipated testimony on the Hill on Thursday. Comey associates say that before the director was fired in May, the president had asked him to drop the investigation into Flynn, and Comey refused.

Brian P. Hale, a spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), declined to comment on whether Trump asked Coats to intervene with Comey regarding the Flynn investigation. Hale said in a statement: “Director Coats does not discuss his private conversations with the President. However, he has never felt pressured by the President or anyone else in the Administration to influence any intelligence matters or ongoing investigations.”

A spokesman for Pompeo declined to comment on the closed-door discussions. The White House referred questions to outside lawyers, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump has repeatedly denied any coordination took place between his campaign and the Russian government, which, according to U.S. intelligence agencies, stole emails embarrassing to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and leaked them to undermine her campaign.

Flynn had served as an enthusiastic surrogate for Trump during the campaign and then was fired after just 24 days as national security adviser over revelations he misrepresented his discussions with the Russian ambassador to the United States.

The incidents suggest that Trump may not have appreciated the traditional barriers meant to insulate the intelligence agencies from politics.

Though the ODNI oversees other intelligence agencies, the FBI director operates independently on many matters. For example, Comey kept James R. Clapper Jr., Coats’s predecessor in the Obama administration, in the dark about the bureau’s investigation into possible coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia.

A day or two after the March 22 meeting, the president followed up with a phone call to Coats, according to officials familiar with the discussions. In the call, Trump asked Coats to issue a public statement denying the existence of any evidence of coordination between his campaign and the Russian government. Again, Coats decided not to act on the request.

Trump similarly approached Adm. Mike Rogers, the director of the National Security Agency, to ask him to publicly deny the existence of any evidence of coordination, as The Post previously reported, according to current and former officials. Like Coats, Rogers refused to comply with the president’s request.

Trump announced in January that he was nominating Coats to serve as director of national intelligence, responsible for overseeing U.S. intelligence agencies and for briefing the president on global developments.

In February, as tensions flared between intelligence agencies and the White House over Russia and other issues, some of Trump’s advisers floated the idea of appointing a New York billionaire, Stephen A. Feinberg, to undertake a review of the ODNI. Coats, who was preparing for his confirmation hearing, felt blindsided, officials said.

The White House backed away from the idea of naming Feinberg after Coats, members of the intelligence community and Congress raised objections.

Officials say Trump’s advisers have since revived their proposal to appoint Feinberg to a senior position, possibly to review the roles of the ODNI and other intelligence agencies.

Some officials said they viewed the prospective appointment of Feinberg as an effort by White House officials to put pressure on intelligence agencies to close ranks with the White House.

In an appearance last month before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Coats refused to provide details about his interactions with Trump.

But he indicated that he would cooperate with the Russia probe now being led by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. Under questioning by Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Coats said that if asked, he would provide details of his conversations with Trump to Mueller.

Coats also said that if he is called before an investigative committee, such as the Senate Intelligence Committee, “I certainly will provide them with what I know and what I don’t know.” He said the Trump administration had not directed the ODNI to withhold information from members of Congress conducting oversight.

How many examples are necessary to convince people to act on these blatant efforts of obstruction? 

It's quite obvious that the presidunce really really doesn't want anyone looking to deeply into these Russian connections. Now why would that be, if there was nothing to hide? 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Putin’s campaign of personal revenge against the United States"

Spoiler

At a cafe a few blocks from the old KGB headquarters at Lubyanka Square, investigative journalist Andrei Soldatov tries to explain the murky world of Russian intelligence that’s now the focus of a U.S. criminal investigation into the hacking of the 2016 campaign.

Big events in today’s Russia often aren’t the product of broad strategy, argues Soldatov, but rather are “tactical moves” that reflect the personal interests of Vladimir Putin and his all-powerful “presidential administration.”

Soldatov thinks the Putin factor is crucial in understanding issues in the hacking investigation. Putin has a personal dislike of Hillary Clinton, and Russian intelligence had been gathering information about her since late summer 2015. But what may have pushed the Russian operation into a higher gear was the April 2016 publication of the so-called Panama Papers, which revealed secret bank accounts of some of Putin’s close friends and associates.

“It was a personal attack,” says Soldatov. “You cannot write about Putin’s family or personal friends.” He speculates that the Russian leader “wanted to do something about it, to teach a lesson.”

Putin denounced the Panama Papers as a deliberate effort by America to embarrass him. “Officials and state agencies in the United States are behind all this,” he charged in April 2016. “They are used to holding a monopoly on the international stage and do not want to have to make way for anyone else. . . . Attempts are made to weaken us from within, make us more acquiescent and make us toe their line.”

State Department spokesman Mark Toner denied at the time that the United States was “in any way involved in the actual leak of these documents.” But he confirmed that the U.S. Agency for International Development had supported the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, one of the media organizations involved in researching the Panama files. To the Russians, that was proof enough.

For Putin, the ex-KGB officer, nothing in the information arena is accidental. In a combative session last Friday at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, he rebuffed NBC’s Megyn Kelly: “As for independent sources, there is nothing independent in this world.” When she pressed about Russian “digital fingerprints” in the hacking of the Democratic National Committee, he exploded: “What fingerprints? Hoof prints? Horn prints?”

The day before, Putin had said that “patriotically minded” Russian private hackers might have been involved in the operation. But by Friday, he was in full denial mode, suggesting that the CIA could have manufactured the whole thing: “IP addresses can be simply made up. . . . There are such IT specialists in the world today, and they can arrange anything and then blame it on whoever.”

Soldatov argues that Russian intelligence taps a network of private hackers, much as the CIA and National Security Agency use private contractors to develop offensive cyberweapons and “zero-day exploits” for malware. “Although the [Russian] security and intelligence services have cyberwar capabilities, most of the actual strikes come through other channels,” he wrote in a post last year on his website, Agentura.ru. He cited the example of a Russian technology company that allegedly was asked to help organize “sensitive” denial-of-service attacks.

The truth of what happened in the 2016 campaign will take many months to unravel, and there’s a cloud of misinformation, fueled by Putin, President Trump and insatiable media coverage. Soldatov notes, for instance, that the famous dossier compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele included “unverifiable” details and some “confusion” about facts. But Soldatov wrote in January for the Guardian that it’s also “a good reflection of how things are run in the Kremlin — the mess at the level of decision-making and increasingly the outsourcing of operations.”

To Russian eyes, all information is potential disinformation, and secrets are hidden from the public. As Putin scolded Kelly last Friday: “A non-classified version means no version.” The Russians regard American media claims of independence as bogus, and they see their own propaganda outlets competing on equal terms with global media companies.

“Sputnik,” for example, had its own booth at the St. Petersburg forum. The director of national intelligence described Sputnik in a Jan. 6 report as part of “Russia’s state-run propaganda machine,” but its brochures describe a media group publishing 2,000 news items a day in Russian, Arabic, Chinese, Spanish and English.

As the investigation of Russian hacking rolls forward, we shouldn’t lose perspective: Russia isn’t a demonic, all-powerful presence. It’s a sophisticated, increasingly modern country. But it’s also the rare nation run by a former intelligence officer, who sees the world through a very particular lens.

Interesting take on Russia's motives.

[fraurosena]

Hey guys, I could only catch the very, very last part of Rogers', Coats and Rosenstein's testimonies. Did Burr just lecture them and warn them that they should start talking to the SSCI? If not in open session, then in a closed one, or to the gang of eight? It sure sounded like he wasn't much pleased with them. He mentioned the checks and balances system, and as far as I could make out, he was implying they weren't complying with that. 

What happened??? 

 

[sawasdee]

Apparently Rogers said

Quote

“I’m not going to discuss the specifics of any conversations with the president of the United States,” Rogers said.

Instead, he said that in the three years he has headed the NSA, he has “never been directed to do anything that I believe to be illegal, immoral” or inappropriate. And, he added, “I do not recall having been pressured to do so.”

He uses the word 'directed', and as a Wapo commenter said, 'directed' isn't the same as 'asked'. And if he was never asked, then why not discuss specifics?

And 'I do not recall' are real weasel words.......

Rosenstein said something interesting

Quote

“Senator, speaking for Mr.McCabe and myself, we have been involved in managing the criminal investigation, and so I would ask that as chairman Burr suggested, it’s appropriate for director Mueller, since we turned control of the investigation for him to make the determination about what we can and can’t speak about, so I would encourage you ro use Mr. Mueller as your point person.”

My bolding. I think this is the first time I have heard it called a criminal investigation.

And Coats

Quote

I don’t believe it’s appropriate for me to address that in a public session,’’ Coats said. “I don’t think this is the appropriate venue to do this in.’’

He added: “I have never felt pressure to intervene or interfere in any way … in an ongoing investigation.’

If there nothing there, why is it inappropriate to comment in that venue? Only if there is a there there,something under investigation, would it be so.

So all in all, nothing earth shattering, but definite hints of more.

I think Comey tomorrow will be more of the same.

[sawasdee]

The whole Wapo article on the hearings.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-director-rogers-and-intelligence-director-coats-said-they-wont-discuss-specifics-of-private-conversations-with-trump/2017/06/07/e74f7fbe-4b88-11e7-a186-60c031eab644_story.html?utm_term=.38e07cbd76e0

Spoiler

Quote

Two of the nation’s top intelligence officials declined in a testy hearing Wednesday to discuss the specifics of private conversations with President Trump, refusing to say whether they had been asked to push back against an FBI probe into possible coordination between Trump’s campaign and the Russian government.

Testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats demurred when asked whether it was true, as The Washington Post reported Tuesday, that Trump asked Coats if he could intervene with then-FBI Director James B. Comey to get him to back off the bureau’s focus on Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser.

“I don’t believe it’s appropriate for me to address that in a public session,’’ Coats said. “I don’t think this is the appropriate venue to do this in.’’

Similarly, National Security Agency Director Michael S. Rogers declined to answer Sen. Mark R. Warner’s (D-Va) question of whether Trump asked him to deny the existence of any evidence showing coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia, as the Post reported last month.

“I’m not going to discuss the specifics of any conversations with the president of the United States,” Rogers said.

Instead, both men said they never felt pressure to do anything inappropriate, or, in Coats’ case, to intervene in an ongoing probe.

Both men struggled to provide a consistent rationale for why they could not discuss the conversations with Trump. Rogers offered that the conversations were classified. But when pressed by Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), he could not specify what was classified about the conversation.

The officials’ refusal to address whether Trump asked them to downplay or somehow impede the investigation disturbed the committee’s Democrats, who were visibly frustrated by what one lawmaker called their “filibustering.”

Warner told Rogers the committee had “facts that there were other individuals” who were aware of his conversation with Trump and that a memo had been prepared “because of concerns” about the call.

In one particularly heated exchange, King lambasted the two intelligence officials for not offering a legal basis for refusing to discuss their discussions with the president about the Russia investigation. The probe is now being led by Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III, following Trump’s May 9 firing of Comey.

“It is my belief that you are inappropriately refusing to answer these questions today,’’ King said angrily.

“I think your unwillingness to answer a very basic question speaks volumes,” said Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.).

Coats said he didn’t have a specific legal justification for declining to answer such questions, but suggested he might be able to do so in the classified, closed briefing later in the day. Asked if he would be forthcoming in such a setting, Coats said he intended to, but did not know yet whether the White House would block such discussion by asserting that executive privilege covers his conversations with the president.

The exchange suggested the president could use executive privilege to prevent certain information from being shared with a congressional investigation into any possible coordination between Russia and Trump associates.

Though the hearing was supposed to focus on a critical surveillance authority that is set to expire in December, much of the discussion was dominated by Democrats’ efforts to elicit testimony about potential efforts by the president to interfere in the criminal investigation.

They also pressed Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe on whether he ever discussed with Comey any conversations Trump had with the then-FBI director. Trump reportedly has at various times in private conversations with Comey asked him for a pledge of loyalty and also urged him to drop the probe into Flynn.

McCabe repeatedly declined to answer, saying Comey would testify to the committee Thursday. One reason for his reticence, he said, is he did not want to interfere with Mueller’s probe — a strong hint that the investigation may expand to cover potential criminal attempts by the president to impede its course.

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“I think that those matters also begin to fall within the scope of issues being investigated by the special counsel,’’ McCabe said.

The acting director of the FBI also clarified a key point from an earlier congressional appearance, in which he had said there’d been no effort to slow or interfere with the Russia probe. What he meant, McCabe said, was that the firing of Comey had not stalled the investigation.

Also frustrating the Democrats was Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein’s refusal to state outright what he had told senators in a closed session last month — that he knew a memo he had written critical of Comey’s handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server would be used as justification for Comey’s firing. When asked if he knew that was the case, he responded with answers that did not directly address the question.

“You’ve filibustered better than most of my colleagues,” an exasperated Heinrich said. “So we’ll move on.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[fraurosena]

@sawasdee, thanks for your info! Apparently, it's already known what he will be saying tomorrow:

Read Comey's prepared remarks for his upcoming testimony

It's a long read, and I'm only on the first page, but I found this bit interesting:

Quote

I felt compelled to document my first conversation with the President-Elect in a memo. To ensure accuracy, I began to type it on a laptop in an FBI vehicle outside Trump tower the moment I walked out of the meeting. Creating written records immediately after one-on-one conversations with Mr. Trump was my practice from that point forward. This had not been my practice in the past. I spoke alone with President Obama twice in person (and never on the phone) – once in 2015 to discuss law enforcement policy issues and a second time, briefly, for him to say goodbye in late 2016. In neither of those circumstances did I memorialize the discussions. I can recall nine one-on-one conversations with President Trump in four months – three in person and six on the phone.

So immediately after the very first meeting (in which he tells TT that his campaign is under investigation, but he is not personally - because he wasn't at that time, before his inauguration) Comey felt compelled to write it up. While it hadn't been necessary at all with Obama. I read that as Comey's finding that meeting entirely disquieting and suspicious.

I might post more later as I read more.

 

Ha, you beat me to it!

[GreyhoundFan]

The WaPo has published annotated Comey's prepared testimony for Thursday: "‘I need loyalty’: James Comey’s riveting prepared testimony about what Trump asked him, annotated". I can't quote the notes, but it's worth a read.

 

@fraurosena -- great minds think alike! The notes in the article I posted help clarify some of the statements.

[sawasdee]

Well, the intelligence services seem to have taken the pee tape seriously...

[sawasdee]

 

Spoiler

Quote

Again and again today at the hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats and National Security Agency Director Adm. Michael Rogers refused to answer direct questions as to whether they had been asked by the president to interfere with the investigation into possible collusion with Russia. In response to Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) and Angus King (I-Maine), they said they did not feel “pressured” and/or “directed” but declined to say whether they were asked. FBI acting director McCabe also refused to say if he had conversations with former FBI director James B. Comey about his conversations with the president. And then Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein refused to explain how and why Attorney General Jeff Sessions un-recused himself and whether he understood his memo would be used to fire Comey.

None of these witnesses invoked executive privilege or national security. They just didn’t want to answer. King finally blew up, scolding Rogers that what he “feels” isn’t relevant. He demanded to know why Rogers and Coats were not answering. He demanded a “legal justification” for not answering, and the witnesses did not supply any. Coats strongly hinted he would share information, just not in public, and that he would cooperate with the special prosecutor.

This is nothing short of outrageous. Congress has an independent obligation to conduct oversight. Witnesses cannot simply decide they don’t want to share. If they could, there would be no oversight. While they were not under subpoena, their behavior was contemptuous and frankly unprecedented. The committee has the option to subpoena witnesses, demand answers and then hold them in contempt if they decline to answer. (Is that what the witnesses are hoping for, so they will be seen as having no choice?) It is hard to see any reason why Congress should not do so. A source not authorized to speak on the record but familiar with his thinking told me, “Senator Heinrich will seek to get answers one way or another.” It should be noted that no closed-door sessions are scheduled.

Should Republicans not take these steps, the conclusion should be obvious: They are acting to protect the president from public embarrassment. In doing so, they are demonstrating a lack of respect both for the public and Congress, an equal branch of government.

As time goes on, even men as respected as Coats, Rosenstein and Rogers — who hardly can be described as cohorts of Trump — seem to have become afflicted with a peculiar desire not to tell the public what is going on. They clearly don’t want to get fired as Comey was. Are they afraid of that eventuality? If so, they are, contrary to their protestations, being cowed, intimidated in the performance of their duties.

All of these witnesses, national security adviser H.R. McMaster and other White House officials act as if they work for the president, not the American people. This is unacceptable in a functional democracy and would, if perpetuated, do serious damage to our democratic system. They need to tell the truth, the whole truth. Transparency and honesty cannot be optional for members of the executive branch. We will see if Republicans in Congress exhibit the same level of outrage as do Democrats. If not, they will be revealing their own willingness to defend the president and refusal to wholeheartedly perform their duties as required by their oaths.

 

A Wapo opinion article on today's hearings. They are not happy - and call Coats' and Roger's answers 'outrageous'.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2017/06/07/outrageous-contempt-of-congress/?tid=pm_pop&utm_term=.5eaa7a13de90#comments

[sawasdee]

And now Clapper has piped up!

Quote

The Watergate scandal pales in comparison to events in Washington surrounding U.S. President Donald Trump and alleged links between his campaign and Russia, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said on Wednesday.

Clapper questioned Trump's continued pro-Russian stance, saying his sharing of intelligence with Russia "reflect either ignorance or disrespect, and either is very problematic".

"I think if you compare the two that Watergate pales, really, in my view, compared to what we're confronting now," Clapper told reporters in Canberra, Australia's capital.

Full article here

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-australia-clapper-idUSKBN18Y0SU

Great timing on his part - just before Comey testifies....

[fraurosena]

40 minutes ago, sawasdee said:

 

  Hide contents

 

A Wapo opinion article on today's hearings. They are not happy - and call Coats' and Roger's answers 'outrageous'.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2017/06/07/outrageous-contempt-of-congress/?tid=pm_pop&utm_term=.5eaa7a13de90#comments

I think this quote is quite appropriate in this case:

 

-------

I don't think this is in any way, shape or form even remotely on par with the Watergate schandal. This is much, much worse.

Ex-WH ethics czar: 'This is the equivalent of the Nixon tapes'

Quote

A former White House ethics czar and ambassador to the Czech Republic during the Obama [presidency] said Wednesday that former FBI Director James Comey's testimony is "the equivalent of the Nixon tapes."

"I think it's remarkable," Norman Eisen told CNN's Brooke Baldwin on CNN's "Newsroom." "Clearly Director Comey is looking ahead to the day beyond the hearing tomorrow when he may have to testify about this. Whether it's in an obstruction proceeding, or an impeachment proceeding, or something else."

Eisen compared the news revealed in Comey's testimony to former President Richard Nixon's secret recording of his phone calls in meetings at the White House when he was in office, which eventually played a role in his resignation.

"This moves us into the same realm as Nixon's obstruction, maybe worse," he continued. "This is the equivalent of the Nixon tapes. We are headed into very, very choppy waters."

Eisen's remarks come after Comey's testimony, which was published Wednesday ahead of his hearing with the Senate intelligence committee, revealed that President Donald Trump asked him about former national security adviser Michael Flynn, and to "see your way clear to letting this go."

 

From Comey's planned remarks, posted online Wednesday: "He then said, 'I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go. I replied only that 'he is a good guy.' (In fact, I had a positive experience dealing with Mike Flynn when he was a colleague as Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency at the beginning of my term at FBI.) I did not say I would 'let this go.'"

On CNN Wednesday, Eisen called the testimony "another turn of the screw for President Trump on the obstruction of justice front."

He added that in the testimony, Comey "notes how troubled he was, and documents it, and addresses how to deal with this kind of an extraordinary intrusion on an investigation."

 

[fraurosena]

Just had to share this tweet I came across. So true.

 

Aaaaand, Keith Olbermann weighs in.

 

[sawasdee]

Jennifer Rubin with another good piece.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2017/06/07/the-critical-information-in-james-comeys-written-statement/?utm_term=.afb364d64eb5

Spoiler

Quote

In advance of his highly anticipated hearing Thursday, the testimony of former FBI director James B. Comey has been released by the Senate Intelligence Committee. (That, in and of itself, is a favor to the White House, allowing it to prepare.) The testimony is not the same as the individual memos Comey wrote, but presumably those support the narrative he tells in a gripping account of five of his nine interactions with the president.

In a nutshell: On Jan. 6, Comey was sent to brief Trump on the contents of the Russia dossier. “In that context, prior to the January 6 meeting, I discussed with the FBI’s leadership team whether I should be prepared to assure President-Elect Trump that we were not investigating him personally. That was true; we did not have an open counter-intelligence case on him. We agreed I should do so if circumstances warranted. During our one-on-one meeting at Trump Tower, based on President-Elect Trump’s reaction to the briefing and without him directly asking the question, I offered that assurance.” Note what is NOT said when Comey writes, “We did not have.” That does not mean a case was not opened subsequently. The written testimony confirms Trump’s claim Comey told him three times he was not being investigated. Did Comey subsequently open a file?

Comey notes that he began documenting his meetings with the president, something he never did with President Barack Obama. Why? What behavior or information compelled him to document these encounters in such detail?

Next came the private dinner on Jan. 27, to which Comey says the president invited him. I quote it at length to convey the drama:

The President began by asking me whether I wanted to stay on as FBI Director, which I found strange because he had already told me twice in earlier conversations that he hoped I would stay, and I had assured him that I intended to. He said that lots of people wanted my job and, given the abuse I had taken during the previous year, he would understand if I wanted to walk away.

My instincts told me that the one-on-one setting, and the pretense that this was our first discussion about my position, meant the dinner was, at least in part, an effort to have me ask for my job and create some sort of patronage relationship.

This is weird, but not illegal. However, we’ll come back to this later, when it becomes an implied threat not to keep Comey on.

Comey continued:

That concerned me greatly, given the FBI’s traditionally independent status in the executive branch.

I replied that I loved my work and intended to stay and serve out my ten-year term as Director. And then, because the set-up made me uneasy, I added that I was not “reliable” in the way politicians use that word, but he could always count on me to tell him the truth. I added that I was not on anybody’s side politically and could not be counted on in the traditional political sense, a stance I said was in his best interest as the President.

A few moments later, the President said, “I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.” I didn’t move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed. We simply looked at each other in silence. The conversation then moved on, but he returned to the subject near the end of our dinner.

Once again, Trump is not asking for anything specific, but he is conditioning Comey, softening him up so Trump can make demands later. The day before, then-Acting Attorney General Sally Yates met with the White House counsel to tell him Michael T. Flynn had lied about his contacts with the Russian ambassador. Trump, in the dinner with Comey on Jan. 27, came back to “loyalty.” (“He then said, ‘I need loyalty.’ I replied, ‘You will always get honesty from me.’ He paused and then said, ‘That’s what I want, honest loyalty.’ I paused, and then said, ‘You will get that from me.'”)

The day after Flynn resigned, Trump shooed everyone else out of the Oval Office to meet one-on-one with Comey. Here was the “ask”: “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.” Given the previous questions about staying on and “loyalty,” did Comey think he needed to drop the Flynn investigation, or was he being asked to drop the Flynn investigation to remain in his post?

Regarding a March 30 phone call with the president, Comey says:

He described the Russia investigation as “a cloud” that was impairing his ability to act on behalf of the country. He said he had nothing to do with Russia, had not been involved with hookers in Russia, and had always assumed he was being recorded when in Russia. He asked what we could do to “lift the cloud.” I responded that we were investigating the matter as quickly as we could, and that there would be great benefit, if we didn’t find anything, to our having done the work well. He agreed, but then re-emphasized the problems this was causing him.

At the end of the call Trump, brought it up yet again: “He finished by stressing ‘the cloud’ that was interfering with his ability to make deals for the country and said he hoped I could find a way to get out that he wasn’t being investigated.” Here Trump is asking about letting it be known he was not under investigation, not about simply cutting Flynn loose. There is no ask to end the investigation in its entirety.

Was this an attempt to interfere improperly with the investigation? The reason seems to be his concern about his political standing (a cloud). Again, in light of the loyalty question and previous request about Flynn, did Comey understand he was being asked to dump the investigation for political reasons? Or simply to accurately report Trump was in the clear (which he may or may not have been at that point)?

Ironically, he then, in essence, asked Comey for a job reference on Andrew McCabe, whom Comey did not know was to replace him as FBI director in the interim. On April 11, in a phone call, Trump asked Comey about getting the word out that Trump was not personally under investigation. Comey told him he had asked then-Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein but didn’t have a response.

The critical question for Comey on Thursday will be: Given the tone, conversations, frequency of contacts and every other signal, did he feel that Trump was pushing him to dismiss the Flynn case for improper reasons (he’s a good guy, not necessarily that he was innocent) and/or to drop the Russia investigation, or clear him, since it was a political problem?

Constitutional lawyer and Harvard law professor Laurence H. Tribe observes, “Comey’s recollections strongly suggest that the President deliberately sought to create the impression with Comey that the best way to get his wish of retaining his position as Director was to back off in his investigation of Flynn and to assure Trump that he would not later become a target of the Russia investigation.”

We will need to see the totality of evidence to decide how much trouble Trump is in. As Tribe puts it, the written testimony “casts a dark cloud over this president that, in combination with other evidence that seems to be emerging, threatens to break open a gusher of incriminating information that could engulf him beyond redemption.” For starters, the Senate needs to re-call the witnesses from Wednesday, under oath if need be, and compel their testimony

 

 

[onekidanddone]

1 hour ago, sawasdee said:

Jennifer Rubin with another good piece.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2017/06/07/the-critical-information-in-james-comeys-written-statement/?utm_term=.afb364d64eb5

 

Remind me again why she is still a Republican?

[GreyhoundFan]

"To know where the Russia probe is headed, pay attention to the topics Comey avoided"

Spoiler

What do you do if you’ve just been fired as director of the FBI, the administration has chosen to “defame” you with “lies plain and simple,” and you believe the president of the United States may be trying to obstruct justice? You leak bombshell information to the media in hopes of forcing the appointment of a special counsel. It might work.

Actually, it did work.

In stunning public testimony Thursday, James B. Comey acknowledged arranging for a friend to leak details of a conversation Comey had with President Trump — the Feb. 14 Oval Office encounter in which Trump said he hoped the FBI director could “drop” the bureau’s investigation of fired national security adviser Michael Flynn, according to Comey’s contemporaneous notes. “I thought that might prompt the appointment of a special counsel,” Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee about his orchestrated leak.

“I don’t think it’s for me to say” whether Trump committed obstruction, Comey demurred, “but that’s a conclusion I’m sure the special counsel will work toward, to try and understand what the intention was there and whether that’s an offense.” Comey said he took Trump’s words not as just a “hope” but as a “direction” from the highest official in the land — an order he was not about to obey.

Three months later, with no warning, Comey was summarily dismissed. “It’s my judgment that I was fired because of the Russia investigation,” Comey testified. “That is a very big deal.”

Comey was unabashed about accusing Trump and his administration of telling “lies,” and said he began the practice of immediately making notes after talking with the president because “I was honestly concerned he might lie” about the conversations. He said he had no such concern about the veracity of the other two presidents he served, George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

On one subject, Comey confirmed that the president is being truthful: Comey did tell him three times that he was not personally under investigation. Comey explained that this was “technically” the case during his FBI tenure. He said he does not know, however, whether special counsel Robert S. Mueller III is investigating Trump now — and left little doubt that he hopes Mueller is doing just that.

Comey’s best line of the day was a belated response to a May 12 tweet from the president, which warned that “James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!”

Said Comey: “Lordy, I hope there are tapes.”

I hope so, too, but I would be surprised if such recordings exist. Trump’s inner circle is such a sieve that full transcripts surely would have leaked by now. Investigators and the public will have to decide whether they believe Trump, who lies all the time, or Comey, who has a flair for the dramatic but also the bearing of an oversized Boy Scout. That’s a pretty easy choice.

And now for some rare kind words about members of Congress: Overall, the senators questioning Comey behaved in a manner that could be described by such last-century terms as “bipartisan” and “patriotic.” The Democrats’ questions tended to be somewhat more accusatory toward the president, the Republicans’ questions somewhat more exculpatory, but there was a welcome air of sobriety about the whole thing. At this point, any examples of grown-up behavior should be recognized and praised.

The one exception was the weird line of questioning pursued by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who wanted to know why Comey wouldn’t publicly clear Trump of wrongdoing even though he had done so for Hillary Clinton. Comey tried to explain that the investigation of Clinton’s emails was finished whereas the investigation of Trump’s campaign is ongoing. “Maybe going forward I shouldn’t stay up late watching the Diamondbacks night games,” McCain later said.

As perhaps should have been expected, the most important takeaway from Comey’s testimony may be what he didn’t say. Topics he scrupulously avoided may give a hint of where the investigation is headed.

He declined, for example, to answer a question in open session about Vnesheconombank (VEB), a Russian government-owned development bank linked to President Vladimir Putin. Trump’s adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, met last year with VEB executives.

Comey was also reticent about his interactions with Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who was his boss — and who had to recuse himself from Russia-related investigations.

Comey’s memos about his meetings with Trump are now in Mueller’s hands. Trump desperately wanted the Russia investigation to end. Firing Comey ensured that it is only beginning.

This is true, the topics he wouldn't discuss in open session are the most important topics.

[Penny]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Comey’s memos about his meetings with Trump are now in Mueller’s hands. Trump desperately wanted the Russia investigation to end. Firing Comey ensured that it is only beginning.

This is so true, and most likely was the beginning of the end for Cheeto, and all his cronies. 

I texted my daughter that Cheeteo's lawyer was speaking after the hearing. She said, "You mean he found someone to represent him?"
 

[Childless]

1 hour ago, Penny said:

This is so true, and most likely was the beginning of the end for Cheeto, and all his cronies. 

I texted my daughter that Cheeteo's lawyer was speaking after the hearing. She said, "You mean he found someone to represent him?"
 

As sad as it is to say, Trump would probably be better off representing himself than letting that moron do it.  A dumb mistake straight out of the gate does not bode well for Lord Dampnuts.