The Russian Connection

[fraurosena]

Typical toddler behaviour. Ape the grown ups, say what they say.

Putin 'told Trump that Russian hackers are too good to get caught'

Quote

Vladimir Putin reportedly told Donald Trump that if Russian hackers had infiltrated Democratic groups, they would have been too good to have been caught. And now the President is making the same claims, the White House has admitted.

According to the New York Times, Mr Putin told Mr Trump during their G20 meeting that "Moscow’s cyber-operators are so good at covert computer-network operations that if they had dipped into the computer systems, there is no way they could have been detected".

Since then Trump has shared this claim with his team, his communications director Anthony Scaramucci has said.

During a CNN interview on Sunday, Mr Scaramucci told Jake Tapper that "someone" had told him Russian hackers were too good to be detected. "You know, somebody said to me yesterday — I won't tell you who — that if the Russians actually hacked this situation and spilled out those e-mails, you would have never seen it," Mr Scaramucci told Mr Tapper.

"You would have never had any evidence of them, meaning that they're super confident in their deception skills and hacking," he continued.

When Mr Tapper questioned who his source was, Mr Scaramucci admitted that it was Mr Trump.

"How about it was — how about it was the president, Jake?" Scaramucci said. "I talked to him yesterday. He called me from Air Force One. And he basically said to me, 'Hey, you know, this is —maybe they did it. Maybe they didn't do it'."

[...]

Oh, enough already! Stop implying they may not have done it. EVERYBODY knows they DID. The intel agencies have proof they did it. YOU are the only one denial, and you are not fooling anyone.

And Scaramucci, SHUT UP! Stop that stupid coy ploy with your "I won't tell you... well ok, I will..."  You make me want to throw up, you greasy-haired, sleazy slimeball. Ugh!

>end rant<

[GreyhoundFan]

@fraurosena -- of course Agent Orange believes Vlady over the entire US intelligence community. I'm guessing that the word intelligence confused him.

[fraurosena]

51 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

@fraurosena -- of course Agent Orange believes Vlady over the entire US intelligence community. I'm guessing that the word intelligence confused him.

 

LOL, he doesn't even know the meaning of the word... 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Manafort testifies to Senate Intelligence Committee, turns over notes from Trump Tower meeting with Russian lawyer"

Spoiler

Paul Manafort, a top campaign aide to President Trump, appeared before the Senate Intelligence Committee early Tuesday morning to answer questions about Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Before his testimony, he submitted to the committee notes that he took at a meeting with a Russian lawyer he and other campaign aides attended during the presidential campaign, a person familiar with the investigation said.

The notes could provide a key contemporaneous account of a meeting that has emerged as a focus of investigations into Russia’s interference in the 2016 campaign by both Congress and Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

Manafort’s testimony had been widely anticipated but he slipped in and out of the Capitol without prior announcement early Tuesday, hours before senior White House adviser Jared Kushner appeared before the House Intelligence Committee.

Jason Maloni, a Manafort spokesman, said he met “with the bipartisan staff of the Senate Intelligence Committee and answered their questions fully.”

The Tuesday morning interview was held at the request of Manafort’s legal team, specifically for the purpose of discussing the June 2016 meeting he participated in with Kushner, the president’s son, Donald Trump, Jr., a Russian lawyer with purported Kremlin ties and others with various connections to Russia, according to a person familiar with the meeting. Manafort’s lawyers have agreed to make him available to speak with Senate Intelligence Committee staffers and members in the future to discuss other issues, the person said.

Manafort’s appearance came as he has been engaged in intense negotiations with congressional committees about how and when to provide testimony.

Despite his appearance before the Senate Intelligence Committee, the Senate Judiciary Committee has continued to press for him to appear separately and late Monday, the committee issued a subpoena compelling Manafort’s appearance at a hearing on Wednesday.

In a joint statement, committee chairman Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) and its ranking Democrat, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (California), said negotiations over Manafort’s voluntary cooperation broke down after Manafort’s lawyer indicated he was willing to provide only one transcribed interview with congressional staff.

“While the Judiciary Committee was willing to cooperate on equal terms with any other committee to accommodate Mr. Manafort’s request, ultimately that was not possible,” they said.

Grassley and Feinstein said they were willing to continue talks to excuse Manafort from the hearing if he agreed to voluntarily provide documents and an interview to their committee.

“Paul has been cooperative from the beginning, and we are confident we can work something out,” Maloni said.

Emails sent to Trump Jr. before the meeting show he agreed to meet with Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya after being told she was a Russian government lawyer, bearing damaging information about Trump’s opponent Hillary Clinton that was being shared as part of a Russian government effort to help his father’s campaign.

Manafort’s notes could provide information about what, exactly, was said at the meeting and how participants responded. Manafort, who would be named the campaign’s chairman days after the June 9, 2016 meeting, attended at Trump Jr.’s request, as did Trump’s son-in-law Kushner.

In a statement Monday, Kushner said he has found an email he sent an assistant during the meeting, requesting that he be called on his cellphone to provide an excuse to leave early.

In an initial statement as the New York Times prepared to report that the meeting had taken place, Trump Jr. had said it was “primarily” about the issue of the adoption of Russian children by American families. The Russian government halted such adoptions in retaliation for a U.S. law passed in 2012 which blacklisted top Russian officials over alleged human rights abuses.

Later, he acknowledged that Veselnitskaya had first described information she believed could be damaging to Democrats but has called that information “vague” and “ambiguous.” Rinat Akhmetshin, a Russian American lobbyist who also attended the meeting, has said that Veselnitskaya left behind documents describing the information.

Manafort’s notes could shed more light on the information she provided and what happened to the documents she brought to the session.

Also Tuesday, a person familiar with the investigation said Judiciary staff withdrew a subpoena for Glenn Simpson, the co-founder of the political intelligence firm that commissioned the so-called Trump Russia dossier, after Simpson agreed to appear for a transcribed interview with the committee at a date that has not yet been scheduled. The committee had hoped Simpson would appear at a public hearing Wednesday.

Trump has vigorously denied the allegations in the dossier, reports written during the campaign that outlined alleged connections between Trump and the Russian government. The firm, Fusion GPS, also conducted research work on behalf of a law firm working with a Russian client of Veselnitskaya, who had been sued by U.S. authorities in New York.

A lawyer for Simpson, Joshua Levy, declined to comment.

It will be interesting to see if anything comes out of his testimony.

[mamallama]

So let me see if I have this straight.  The fact that we have evidence that Russia interfered with the election proves that they did not interfere with the election.  Is that right?

[GreyhoundFan]

Oh, @mamallama -- stop trying to make sense. That's not allowed with this sham administration. I'm thinking of the tweetstorm that is going to erupt because of Manafort's appearance before congress. I'm sure it will be epic.

[GreyhoundFan]

I love Kamala Harris: "‘We need to get this done’: Kamala Harris gets tough on Russia probe (and ignores the mansplainers)"

Spoiler

“I’m not going to stop asking the questions.”

Asking the questions at Senate Intelligence Committee hearings related to Russian interference in the presidential election has added to the aura around Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.). The former California attorney general and San Francisco district attorney’s victory was among the few Democratic victories the night that Hillary Clinton lost the presidency. The fuss over Harris at the hearings is as much about her line of questioning as it is about the reaction to it among Republicans on the committee.

...

“I just want to get to the truth of what happened,” Harris told me in her office during the latest episode of “Cape Up.” “We should know what happened, and there should be the appropriate consequence and accountability for what happened.” She expressed frustration with the pace of the investigation, saying, “We need to do this as swiftly as possible.” But she added, “We need to be precise. We need to be careful. But we need to get this done. The American people have a right to know.”

Of course, you can’t talk to Harris about all that without asking her about her reaction to the “listen here, little lady” mansplaining she has endured from Republican men on the intelligence committee. “That Sista Girl look,” Harris laughed when I asked her about her steely-eyed, hair-flipping gif-worthy reactions. “I’m truly focused on, ‘I gotta get the answer to this question. We need to know the answer to this question,’ ” Harris said.

One of the questions the junior senator from California was trying to get answered was about whether Attorney General Jeff Sessions would make a commitment to give “full independence” to the investigation being conducted by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. “It’s about asking questions that are about focused on getting the answers because the American public has a right to know.” With President Trump still making noises about undermining or even firing Mueller, Harris’s probing then is even more relevant now.

Listen to the podcast to find out how Harris’s visit to the Central California Women’s Facility fits in with her commitment to criminal justice reform, how she met her husband and her view of the Democratic Party in the age of Trump.

“We have nothing to be ashamed of and nothing to run from in terms of who Democrats have always stood for,” Harris said. “Democrats have always stood for working people.”

The podcast is linked in the article.

[AmazonGrace]

 

[AmazonGrace]

A long read

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/07/bill-browders-testimony-to-the-senate-judiciary-committee/534864/

[AmazonGrace]

Update: Fusion GPS sent me the following statement after this article posted:

“Let’s be clear about what’s happening: The President’s political allies are going after Fusion GPS because it was reported to be the first to raise the alarm about the Trump campaign’s links with Russia.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/josh-rogin/wp/2017/07/25/judiciary-committee-to-turn-the-russia-investigation-back-on-fusion-gps/?utm_term=.73345f329ed7

[GreyhoundFan]

An interesting analysis "The ugly way Trump’s rise and Putin’s are connected"

Spoiler

There were at least eight people in the room on June 9, 2016, when two Trump family members and Donald Trump’s campaign manager met with a Russian lawyer and her extended team in Trump Tower. Focus your attention just briefly on one of them: Ike Kaveladze. Of course it will be important to learn, in due course, what he was really doing there. But in the meantime, we should spend a few minutes thinking about the peculiar financial culture — American as well as Russian — that he represents.

Though not exactly a celebrity, Kaveladze’s notoriety in certain circles stretches back more than two decades. Starting in the 1990s, his company, Euro-American Corporate Services Inc., set up more than 2,000 Delaware corporations on behalf of unknown, mostly Russian clients and used those companies to open bank accounts. According to a Government Accountability Office report on “Suspicious Banking Activities,” published in 2000, those bank accounts were then used to receive and send large amounts of money. The GAO found that two banks “facilitated the transfer of approximately $1 billion from Eastern Europe, through U.S. banks, and back to Eastern Europe by corporations formed for Russian brokers”; more than $800 million in total was deposited in 136 accounts that Euro-American Corporate Services and another Kaveladze company created at Citibank alone. Kaveladze has protested that what he had done was legal — and he was right. Delaware law really was so lax that it allowed unnamed Russians to send money in and out of the United States without much question.

Why did this matter? Because that kind of activity was a part of the business model that brought Vladimir Putin to power. As numerous books have documented — the best is “Putin’s Kleptocracy” by Karen Dawisha — Putin was one of a group of public officials, many affiliated with the old KGB, who systematically pillaged the Russian state. They drew money out of the state, often using commodities arbitrage or other methods, moved the money out of the country through shell companies, then brought it back to Russia and used it to buy companies and property. They became rich — many of them fabulously so. They then used that wealth to gain power.

Soviet-born businessmen such as Kaveladze, based in the United States and Europe, played significant roles in this system. But so did a range of U.S. and European bankers, accountants and lawyers. For two decades, Western real estate markets — New York, Miami, London — have also provided multiple safe places for Russian oligarchs (and many others) to spend money with complete anonymity. Last year, a Treasury Department investigation into shell companies that purchased luxury homes for cash in several U.S. metropolitan areas found that more than a quarter of such transactions in Manhattan and Miami actually involved someone engaged in “suspicious activity.”

The arrangement suited everybody: American real estate magnates, suddenly rich Russian oligarchs, the construction industry and many others. But underneath this boom there was a grim truth: An important chunk of the money that pumped up the New York luxury real estate market over the past two decades was money originally siphoned off from the Russian state. That was money that should have been used to build hospitals, schools and roads, but instead enriched officials such as Putin and the billionaires who surround him. In due course, Russian money also enriched Trump and his family: As Donald Trump Jr. said in 2008, “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets.”

In that sense the rise of Trump and the rise of Putin are connected. No wonder Trump feels such an affinity for the Russian president; no wonder he seeks him out at international meetings. And no wonder special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation has reportedly decided to look closely at past Trump family real estate transactions.

I’m sure there will eventually be a lot more to say about the details of the Trump-Russia financial relationship. But this story should make us ponder some larger themes, too. After all, the double rise of Trump and Putin might have been halted if only Western governments and financial institutions had acted, over the past two decades, as if they truly believed that these kinds of dealings are wrong. Laws were not enforced — or did not exist. Blind eyes were turned.

Even now, we could be doing much, much more. We could stop the registration of all anonymous companies in states such as Wyoming, Delaware and Nevada. We could make all property owners put their real names on public registers. We could listen to Global Witness and other activist groups that constantly point out the links between financial deals in New York and human rights abuse and poverty in faraway countries. Some of these changes are happening in Britain and Europe. But in the United States, where the political consequences of this ugly international system are now so dramatic, we have scarcely begun.

it is ridiculous that this can happen.

[AmazonGrace]

Firm of Oligarch Behind Trump Jr. Meeting Was “Primary Client” of Co. Probed for Money Laundering

Documents from a US government investigation reveal Aras Agalarov’s relationship with a firm that helped circulate $1.4 billion through US bank accounts.

In 2000, an investigation spearheaded by then-Sen. Carl Levin identified Russian businessman Ike Kaveladze as a “poster child” for the practice of establishing anonymous US shell corporations that could be used to launder “ill-gotten gains,” according to the Michigan Democrat. Documents obtained as part of that probe into possible money laundering show that Kaveladze’s main client at the time was Crocus International, a company headed by Aras Agalarov, who in 2013 partnered with Donald Trump to bring the Miss Universe contest to Moscow.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/07/firm-of-oligarch-behind-trump-jr-meeting-was-primary-client-of-co-probed-for-money-laundering/

[AmazonGrace]

Manafort at least can't claim that he forgot about the Russian meeting because he took notes. (from @Hardball)

http://www.msnbc.com/hardball/watch/manafort-meets-with-senate-intelligence-committee-1008879683552?cid=sm_npd_ms_tw_hb

[GreyhoundFan]

"DOJ: Ex-Manafort Associate Firtash Is Top-Tier Comrade of Russian Mobsters"

Spoiler

The Department of Justice has identified a former business associate of ex-Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort as an "upper-echelon [associate] of Russian organized crime."

The declaration came in a 115-page filing as part of the government's case against Dmytro Firtash, a Ukrainian oligarch who was once involved in a failed multimillion-dollar deal to buy New York's Drake Hotel with Manafort, and an important player in the Ukrainian political party for which Manafort worked.

Firtash is being prosecuted for what federal prosecutors in Chicago say was his role in bribing Indian officials in order to get a lucrative mining deal to sell titanium to Boeing.

The government says that prosecuting Firtash and his co-defendant in the alleged scheme, Andras Knopp, "will disrupt this organized crime group and prevent it from further criminal acts within the United States."

In 2008, according to court records, Manafort's firm was involved with Firtash in a plan to redevelop the Drake Hotel for $850 million. Firtash's company planned to invest more than $100 million, the records say.

One of the other partners working with Manafort on the deal was the former exclusive broker for Fred Trump's properties, Brad Zackson. Fred Trump is the now-deceased father of Donald Trump.

Eventually, documents show, Firtash's investment company transferred $25 million into escrow to further the project.

Also in 2008, according to a State Department cable posted by WikiLeaks, Firtash told U.S. Ambassador William Taylor that he got his start in business with the permission of one of Russia's most well-known organized crime bosses, Semion Mogilevich. But Firtash claimed to Taylor that he was forced to deal with such people.

Firtash was a major backer of Ukraine's Party of Regions, the pro-Russian party for which Manafort worked for many years, according to the federal criminal complaint and another leaked State cable. Manafort's firm made more than $17 million in gross revenue from the party in just two years, according to his recent Foreign Agent Registration Act filing. Another leaked cable said that Manafort's job in 2006 was to give the Party of Regions an "extreme makeover" and "change its image from … a haven for mobsters into that of a legitimate political party."

In interviews and statements to NBC News, Manafort has said he "never had a business relationship" with Firtash. "There was one occasion where an opportunity was explored. ... Nothing transpired and no business relationship was ever implemented."

The government's 115-page filing came in response to a motion to dismiss by Firtash's lawyers, who say the government has failed to establish that any crime occurred in the U.S.

In a statement to NBC News, Firtash attorney Dan Webb said the government filing makes two accusations that are not part of the federal indictment — that Firtash is connected to Russian organized crime, and that he made bribe payments intended for individuals in the U.S. Webb said there is "no evidence" that Firtash is linked to organized crime, and the accusation that he made bribe payments "is also false, and that is why the government did not include it as well in its own indictment."

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Illinois did not respond to a request for comment.

It is amazing how many ties to Russia keep popping up. I'm sure the TT will cry that it is "fake news".

[fraurosena]

Anyone who still doesn't believe the Russians hacked the elections should watch this.

 

Red pencils and paper ballots sound a whole lot more attractive now, don't they?

[GreyhoundFan]

It seems that Putin is angry because his widdle puppet didn't veto the sanctions set forth by congress: "Putin orders cut of 755 personnel at U.S. missions"

Spoiler

MOSCOW — Russian President Vladi­mir Putin said Sunday that the U.S. diplomatic missions in Moscow and elsewhere in the country will have to reduce their staffs by 755 people.

In an interview with the Rossiya-1 television channel, Putin said that the number of American diplomatic and technical personnel will be capped at 455 — equivalent to the number of their Russian counterparts working in the United States.

The Kremlin had said Friday, as the Senate voted to strengthen sanctions on Russia, that some American diplomats would be expelled, but the size of the reduction is dramatic. It covers the main embassy in Moscow, as well as missions in St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg and Vladivostok.

The Russian government is also seizing two diplomatic properties — a dacha, or country house, in a leafy neighborhood in Moscow, and a warehouse — following the decision by the Obama administration in December to take possession of two Russian mansions in the United States.

The move comes as it has become apparent that Russia has abandoned its hopes for better relations with the United States under a Trump administration.

 

[fraurosena]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

It seems that Putin is angry because his widdle puppet didn't veto the sanctions set forth by congress: "Putin orders cut of 755 personnel at U.S. missions"

  Reveal hidden contents

MOSCOW — Russian President Vladi­mir Putin said Sunday that the U.S. diplomatic missions in Moscow and elsewhere in the country will have to reduce their staffs by 755 people.

In an interview with the Rossiya-1 television channel, Putin said that the number of American diplomatic and technical personnel will be capped at 455 — equivalent to the number of their Russian counterparts working in the United States.

The Kremlin had said Friday, as the Senate voted to strengthen sanctions on Russia, that some American diplomats would be expelled, but the size of the reduction is dramatic. It covers the main embassy in Moscow, as well as missions in St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg and Vladivostok.

The Russian government is also seizing two diplomatic properties — a dacha, or country house, in a leafy neighborhood in Moscow, and a warehouse — following the decision by the Obama administration in December to take possession of two Russian mansions in the United States.

The move comes as it has become apparent that Russia has abandoned its hopes for better relations with the United States under a Trump administration.

 

Say one thing for Putin, say he knows how to retaliate.

If you compare that to the eviction the grand total of 35 Russians as payback for the meddling in the elections... Obama comes off as rather too... gentlemanly, shall we say?

[onekidanddone]

7 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Anyone who still doesn't believe the Russians hacked the elections should watch this.

TT flat out denies any Russian hacking, but cries like a baby because Clinton won the popular vote. Some how the exact number of votes she got were all by illegals.

[nvmbr02]

 According to the Washington Post, Trump was the one that came up with the original statement that Don Jr. put out about the meeting with the Russian lawyer. 

Trump dictated son’s misleading statement on meeting with Russian lawyer

Quote

On the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Germany this month, President Trump’s advisers discussed how to respond to a new revelation that Trump’s oldest son had met with a Russian lawyer during the 2016 campaign — a disclosure the advisers knew carried political and potentially legal peril. 

The strategy, the advisers agreed, should be for Donald Trump Jr. to release a statement to get ahead of the story. They wanted to be truthful, so their account couldn’t be repudiated later if the full details emerged.

But within hours, at the president’s direction, the plan changed.

Flying home from Germany on July 8 aboard Air Force One, Trump personally dictated a statement in which Trump Jr. said he and the Russian lawyer had “primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children” when they met in June 2016, according to multiple people with knowledge of the deliberations. The statement, issued to the New York Times as it prepared a story, emphasized that the subject of the meeting was “not a campaign issue at the time.”

The claims were later shown to be misleading.

 

 

There is a lot more in the article, but I only skimmed the rest since my phone is not cooperating at the moment. 

[GreyhoundFan]

From Reuters, another lawyer who has overseen programs that targeted illegal foreign bribery, has joined Mueller's team: "Exclusive: Former Justice Department official joins Mueller team"

Spoiler

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A former U.S. Justice Department official has become the latest lawyer to join special counsel Robert Mueller's team investigating Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential election, a spokesman for the team confirmed.

Greg Andres started on Tuesday, becoming the 16th lawyer on the team, said Josh Stueve, a spokesman for the special counsel.

Most recently a white-collar criminal defense lawyer with New York law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell, Andres, 50, served at the Justice Department from 2010 to 2012. He was deputy assistant attorney general in the criminal division, where he oversaw the fraud unit and managed the program that targeted illegal foreign bribery.

Mueller, who was appointed special counsel in May, is looking into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia during the election, among other matters. Congressional committees are also investigating the matter.

That Mueller continues to expand his team means the probe is not going to end anytime soon, said Robert Ray, who succeeded Kenneth Starr as independent counsel for the Whitewater investigation during the Clinton administration.

"It's an indication that the investigation is going to extend well into 2018," said Ray. "Whether it extends beyond 2018 is an open question."

The special counsel last month asked the White House to preserve all of its communications about a June 2016 meeting that included the president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., his son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner, and Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya.

Russian officials have denied meddling in the U.S. election, and Trump denies any collusion by his campaign.

Among the cases Andres oversaw at the Justice Department was the prosecution of Texas financier Robert Allen Stanford, who was convicted in 2012 for operating an $8 billion Ponzi scheme.

Before that, Andres was a federal prosecutor in Brooklyn for over a decade, eventually serving as chief of the criminal division in the U.S. attorney's office there. He prosecuted several members of the Bonanno organized crime family, one of whom was accused of plotting to have Andres killed.

A graduate of Notre Dame and University of Chicago Law School, Andres was a Peace Corps volunteer in Benin from 1989 to 1992.

He is married to Ronnie Abrams, a U.S. district judge in Manhattan nominated to the bench in 2011 by Democratic President Barack Obama.

Others on the special counsel team include Andrew Weissmann, chief of the Justice Department's fraud section; Andrew Goldstein, former head of the public corruption unit at the U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan; and James Quarles, who was an assistant special prosecutor in the Watergate investigation that helped bring down President Richard Nixon.

 

[Cartmann99]

2 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

From Reuters, another lawyer who has overseen programs that targeted illegal foreign bribery, has joined Mueller's team

I've never done anything in my life worthy of such an incredibly detailed investigation, and just the thought of 16 lawyers going through my affairs makes me nervous. 

 

[onekidanddone]

Pence says Trump is taking a ‘we’ll see’ attitude toward Russia

No, Mikey the only reason he singed the bill was he didn't want to look fooling with the override. Problem is he always looks foolish

Quote

ABOARD AIR FORCE TWO — Vice President Pence, returning from a trip to Eastern Europe, continued his forceful rhetoric on Russia and warned that the United States expects China to do more to contain North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.

Pence, in an interview with The Washington Post on Wednesday, touted President Trump’s signing of a Russia sanctions bill as evidence that the White House strongly rejects Russian meddling and misbehavior around the world.

“His decision to sign the Iran sanctions bill — or the Iran-North Korea-Russia sanctions bill — I think is reflective of a desire to make sure that freedom-loving countries around the world know that we are with them, and that Russia and the rogue regimes in North Korea and Iran know that this president and this administration expect a change,” Pence said, sitting at a table in the middle cabin of his plane.

[Trump signs what he calls ‘seriously flawed’ bill imposing new sanctions on Russia]

While Pence, who hopscotched between Estonia, Georgia and Montenegro over 3½ days, used his trip to reassure skittish allies that the United States supports them against Russian aggression and is committed to NATO’s promise of mutual defense, the president has been far less tough on Russian President Vladimir Putin and his country, repeatedly refusing to fully accept his own intelligence agencies’ conclusion that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election and talking about a more collaborative relationship with one of the United States’ biggest geopolitical foes.

Although Trump signed the sanctions bill Wednesday only in the face of mounting bipartisan pressure, Pence said the original “concerns the president had about the process and the efforts the administration took to increase flexibility don’t change the fact that the direction of these sanctions is completely consistent to the direction that President Trump has set.”

Asked about a specific red line he and the president have for Russia, the vice president called it “a really great question” but declined to answer, instead criticizing former president Barack Obama’s administration for not following through on the red line it set with Syria on using chemical weapons.

Trump, he said, has a “we’ll see” attitude toward Russia, but he added that the White House is hopeful that sanctions will force Russia — which has retaliated in response to the legislation — to change its behavior.

“We think that creates an environment where there can be a more honest dialogue about resolving differences and finding common ground,” he said.

He said that if Russia understands the United States backs its allies “in an unambiguous way,” his hope is that “perhaps Russia will reconsider its recent actions and embrace the kind of changes that will make it possible for us to improve relationships going forward.”

On the question of North Korea, which recently developed an intercontinental ballistic missile believed to be capable of reaching the United States, Pence echoed recent tweets by the president calling on China to use both its economic and diplomatic leverage to pressure North Korea.

“Whatever China has done, to this point, has accomplished nothing,” Pence said. “We literally have seen more provocations, more missile testing, and more of the same kind of behavior that we’ve witnessed out that regime, now, for years. And I think in the days ahead, you’re going to see President Trump continue to marshal the support of our allies in the region, to further isolate North Korea economically and diplomatically. But also, you’re going to see the president, as he did this week, call President Xi of China to account.”

Pence left on his trip as turmoil continued to engulf Trump’s administration at the six-month mark. The vice president departed just a day after the president pushed Reince Priebus out as his chief of staff. While Pence was in Georgia, news broke that Anthony Scaramucci, the latest White House communications director, had been fired after just 10 days on the job.

Scaramucci’s firing came, in part, because of an interview he gave to the New Yorker, savaging Priebus and Stephen K. Bannon, the president’s chief strategist, in crude, expletive-laced terms.

Asked what he thought about Scaramucci’s language, the vice president said, “I fully support the president’s decisions about personnel.”

Praising Trump’s leadership, Pence recited a list of achievements — from stock market records that are, he said,” increasing the wealth and resources of American families,” to the confirmation of Neil M. Gorsuch to the Supreme Court and the reduction of illegal crossings along the nation’s southern border — all of which he said are “a testament to the strength of the president’s leadership, to his vision for the country.”

So far, however, the Trump administration has seen two chiefs of staff, two communications directors, two press secretaries, two national security advisers and two deputy national security advisers. Pressed on the chaos that has roiled the Trump White House — and asked whether he truly believes it is the chaos-free and “finely-tuned machine” the president has claimed — Pence said the recent churn is simply a sign of Trump’s “energy” and “commitment to the agenda that we would like to advance.”

“I think it is a finely tuned machine,” Pence said, “but it’s led by a president with very high expectations, and like any good leader, he has the ability to take action and to make change when he determines it to be necessary.”

The president, he concluded, “has my full support.”

 

[onekidanddone]

If Trump thinks the bill is unconstitutional why did sign it? Wouldn't his signing it mean he just broke the law?

[Childless]

11 hours ago, onekidanddone said:

If Trump thinks the bill is unconstitutional why did sign it? Wouldn't his signing it mean he just broke the law?

He knows it's constitutional.  He just needed a way to bitch without admitting to doing Putin's bidding and getting himself in even more trouble.  He was penned in by a veto proof majority and an investigation into collusion.  He hemmed and hawed around about signing it (probably stalling in an attempt to find a loop hole that could save his ass), but had his hand forced in the end.  And if there's one thing Cheeto von Tweeto hates its being forced to do something that wasn't his idea.

[Howl]

So here's the deal.  At some point, Trump became persona non grata with US banks because of his vile business practices and multiple bankruptcies.  The money dried up, so Trump turned to other sources, like Russians/Ukrainians/Uzbekistanis/Kazakhstanis, all the oligarchs with dirty money that needed to be laundered.  So -- always follow the money and real estate deals.  It will always be dirty money from oligarchs of various stripes and the real estate deals will be how the dirty money is moved and laundered.  I don't think Trump's connections to that part of the world, or to people who have immigrated to New York from that part of the world, are any more complicated than that -unless Trump is being redmailed with Kompromat files.  Anyway, because it's dirty money, there will also be some mob-type crime and unsavory characters, dirty bankers and what not.   Mueller is delving heavily into all things financial:  ties, subterfuge, skullduggery, shell companies, off shoring, you name it.  And because Mueller is bringing on the best of the best who have seen this all before, it's possible that Team Muelller will experience SO. MUCH. WINNING.  They are running a tight ship; there are no leaks.  Because there are no leaks, Trump can't monitor/contain the damage until it's too late.  Really, the only thing that could make this more delicious would be for Mueller to hire Preet Bharara. 

Should Trump decide that the damage from Mueller's investigation is worse than the damage incurred from firing him,  he'll move to get rid of him.  With Trump's approval rating tanking by the minute, the Republicans have to make some decisions.  HOWEVER, Trumps approval rating among Republican voters is still over 70%.  No, I can't process this either.  My brain just returns a "does not compute" message.