They both can't be Fredo, can they? Junior and Eric

[GreyhoundFan]

I love SNL's cold open this week with Junior and Eric, plus the wonderful Kate McKinnon as Julian Assange:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"‘Keep coming at me guys!!!’: Donald Trump Jr. meets Russia scrutiny with defiance"

Spoiler

Donald Trump Jr. had just posted a batch of private messages he exchanged with WikiLeaks during last year’s campaign, confirming reports that he communicated with the website that published stolen Democratic emails obtained by Russian military intelligence.

“More nothing burgers from the media and others desperately trying to create a false narrative,” the president’s oldest son wrote on Instagram. “Keep coming at me guys!!!”

Over the course of the week, Trump Jr. went on to tweet or retweet criticism of his father’s 2016 rival, Hillary Clinton; actor George Takei; Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and former vice president Joe Biden, sharing unsubstantiated claims about him from an anonymously sourced blog post.

Faced with deepening scrutiny of contacts he had in 2016 with people tied to Russia, the 39-year-old has adopted a provocative response: defiance.

In public appearances and on Twitter, Trump Jr. has taken an increasingly caustic tone, mocking critics and shoving himself into the scrum of the country’s most polarizing debates.

It’s an unorthodox legal strategy for someone under scrutiny by congressional investigators, whose every word could be used against him. But the approach fits with the real estate executive’s growing public persona as a right-wing provocateur and ardent defender of Trumpism.

“He’s very smart to be in the spotlight,” said Charlie Kirk, a friend and the founder of the conservative college and high school group Turning Point USA. “Would they stop the investigation if he stopped tweeting? He’s in a situation where either you defend yourself, reassure the base, reassure the supporters, or stay silent. And if you’re totally silent, it only increases suspicion.”

The Trump base is with him, Kirk added: “Most people can’t even keep up with this stuff, anyway.”

The Russia-related controversies have heightened Trump Jr.’s rising profile. Once a supporting character on his father’s reality show, the vice president of the family business is now an in-demand figure on the paid speaking circuit and a political player all his own.

Last month, he delivered a speech on the field of the cavernous Dallas Cowboys stadium, sounding off to a group of University of North Texas donors about “liberal imperialists,” media “vitriol” and universities that “train your children to hate our country.”

After the speech, for which Trump Jr. was paid $100,000, “he did selfies with half the people who showed up,” said G. Brint Ryan, a Republican mega-donor and Trump adviser whose tax firm co-sponsored the 800-attendee event.

Within hours, Trump Jr. was back on Twitter lashing out at his father’s targets, from Republican Sen. Jeff Flake (“liberal globalist”) to Clinton (“arrogance and entitlement”) to “opposition” protesters (“apparently my 3 year old is consulting”).

Two weeks later, he was billed as the featured guest at a party for Trump administration staff held in a chandelier-lit study at Trump’s Washington hotel, where dozens of high-ranking officials sipped cocktails and Trump wine from the family’s Virginia vineyard.

... < screencap of Twitter DMs >

Trump Jr. referred questions about his activities to the family’s private company, which did not respond to requests for comment. His brother, Eric Trump, said in a statement that “Don and I are totally dedicated to running our family business, The Trump Organization, which has been an incredible experience.”

“While our sole focus remains on the business, our father has the most important job in the world, and we could not be more proud of all that he has accomplished in his first year,” he told The Washington Post. “Don and I will always remain his biggest advocates and supporters.”

Trump Jr.’s attorney, Alan Futerfas, said that the president’s son is exercising his freedom to speak his mind as a private citizen.

“He is simply voicing thoughts and concerns and his hopes for America that he shared on the campaign trail,” Futerfas said in an interview. “He cares deeply about these issues and there’s no reason that he should not continue to express his opinion.”

Friends say the flame-throwing by Trump Jr. — a devoted outdoorsman and father of five who spent the campaign revving up voters at camping outfitters and shooting ranges — is merely the response of a loyal son.

“If you were him and watching the mainstream liberal media attack your father day after day, it would get kind of tiresome and you’d react, too,” said Doug Deason, a wealthy Dallas donor and investor who joined Trump Jr. last month for a pro-Trump super PAC’s fundraising-strategy session at oilman T. Boone Pickens’s mega-ranch.

Others who know Trump Jr. see grander ambitions. He is “more of a politician than his father,” said Louise Sunshine, a former Trump Organization executive who has known the Trump kids since they were born. “Donald was a businessman . . . but Donald Trump Jr. is making it his business to be a politician.”

Trump Jr. did not always appear destined to follow his father’s path, moving to Aspen after college for a year of fly-fishing and bartending. But by the time his father launched his White House bid, Trump Jr. was a key purveyor of the family brand, having joined the family business and co-starred as a “boardroom advisor” on Trump’s reality show “The Apprentice.”

He traveled almost constantly for 18 months as his father’s surrogate, mixing his outdoorsman bona fides with sharp swipes at Clinton, at one point warning she would reshape the United States into a “socialist state.”

After the election, Trump Jr. and his brother took over managing the Trump Organization, which their father still owns. Eric Trump told The Post in February that “the company and policy and government are completely separated. We have built an unbelievable wall in between the two.”

This year, Trump Jr. attended the openings of a Trump-brand hotel in Vancouver and a luxury golf complex in Dubai. Later this month, when his sister, Ivanka, heads to India as part of a White House trip, Trump Jr. will travel there, too, to help launch two Trump-branded tower projects in Kolkata and Gurgaon.

But much of his public calendar appears dominated by politics rather than business. In recent months, he has headlined GOP dinners, fundraisers and rallies in Indiana, Texas and Montana.

Some organizers said they broke fundraising records after donors flocked to hear his stories of life as a Trump. At one event for the Indiana Republican Party in May, captured on video by organizers, he said the first person to call his brother when Eric was expecting his first child wasn’t his father, but Vice President Pence.

Last month, a day after the Trump hotel division announced it had hired a new vice president, Trump Jr. was hunting pheasants with a shotgun alongside U.S. Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), one of his father’s top supporters.

Presidential children traditionally serve to soften and humanize their fathers, reminding voters that the nation’s leader can be a family man, too. But Trump Jr. has sharpened Trump’s already-pointed edges, often amplifying his father’s grudges.

On Twitter, he regularly jabs at the president’s antagonists, from liberal media personalities to Republican politicians to kneeling football players. Responding on Tuesday to a CNN guest’s claim that Trump rarely attacks white men, Trump Jr. rattled off 19 of his father’s white-male targets in a single tweet, including former president George W. Bush and current attorney general Jeff Sessions.

He often retweets or references far-right voices, as well as websites aimed at conservatives, such as Gateway Pundit, the Federalist and Breitbart News. Earlier this month, he retweeted a comment that the Clintons were “an unscrupulous gang of thugs” and noted a fringe-right conspiracy alleging that the couple covered up a murder.

In more than 400 tweets last month, he referred to his company only once, retweeting one of its posts offering “thoughts and prayers” after the Las Vegas shooting massacre.

In the coming weeks, Trump Jr. will appear at a $200-a-person fundraiser in Kansas for gubernatorial candidate Kris Kobach, a torchbearer for Trump’s voter-fraud crusade, and keynote a Turning Point USA banquet for thousands of students in Palm Beach, Fla.

Kirk, the group’s founder, said the event received hundreds of new applications when Trump Jr.’s attendance was announced.

“Part of what makes Don’s brand unique is he’s not afraid to push the envelope, not afraid to push the boundaries and call people out,” Kirk said.

Trump Jr.’s public bravado comes as he faces persistent questions about what multiple Russia probes will reveal about the role he played during his father’s White House run.

Along with the messages he exchanged with WikiLeaks, Trump Jr. met at Trump Tower in June 2016 with a Russian lawyer in hopes of getting damaging information on Clinton. “I love it,” he wrote to an associate about the possibility that the lawyer would have material on the Democratic candidate.

Trump Jr. testified privately in September for five hours before a Senate committee and said in a statement that he “did not collude with any foreign government and [does] not know of anyone who did.”

But he faces growing calls by Democratic lawmakers to participate in a public hearing and answer questions about any knowledge he might have about Russia’s effort to boost his father’s campaign.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, told CNN in September that she expected Trump Jr. to take part in a hearing “come hell or high water.”

Meanwhile, some of Trump Jr.’s friends said he is struggling with a more fundamental frustration: craving more of a connection to the man he called at the Republican National Convention “my mentor, my best friend.”

In February, Trump Jr. told The Post he had spoken briefly with his father but said “he’s got real stuff he’s got to deal with.” He told the New York Times earlier this year, “I feel ridiculous bothering him.”

“Don barely talks to his father, and they barely see each other,” said one person close to him who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations. “It weighs on him. It does. . . . It didn’t really hit him until laying the wreath before inauguration that this is so much bigger than us, and they’re going to have to make sacrifices.”

Amid his angry online missives are nostalgic posts about the president, whom he dressed up as for Halloween. On the anniversary of the election win, Trump Jr. posted photos of the two hugging and what he called his “favorite piece of campaign memorabilia:” an electoral map signed, “Great job! Thanks, Dad.”

In one video, Trump Jr. says he “had the privilege of being able” to fly with his father to the White House. He can be seen in the helicopter window’s reflection as the president walks away.

You know who I hope keeps "coming at" junior? Robert Mueller. With a nice, shiny pair of handcuffs. Ooh, and some leg-irons.

[fraurosena]

Well, @GreyhoundFan, like you posted, Junior asked for guys to come at him, and Billy Baldwin decided to oblige by answering this tweet of his ...

... with this:

[AmazonGrace]

Hey, Jr.,  you gotta try and keep up, Eric is getting ahead in the dumbest Trump competition again:

 

Maybe the difference is that in the movie Pocahontas is the name of the heroine, not something you call people to disparage them. In Donald Trump's usage it's always an insult.  

 

[AmazonGrace]

Junior busy rackin' up them dumbest Trump points again:

 

[Ali]

4 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

Junior busy rackin' up them dumbest Trump points again:

 

On what planet would it occur to a normal two year to ask such a question?

[onekidanddone]

5 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

Junior busy rackin' up them dumbest Trump points again:

 

There is some kind of sick going on in this family (duh). Who places a thought in their mind where a toddler talks about being naked to a grownup like that?  DJ you are one sick fuck.

[GrumpyGran]

6 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

Junior busy rackin' up them dumbest Trump points again:

 

Curious, did someone dig this up? He didn't re-tweet it, did he? Because that would be really stupid. If nothing else, it does show that this lack of awareness of proper behavior and social expression has been around for a while in the Dumpy family. He's stupid for not deleting this, say around mid-October of last year.

[GreyhoundFan]

9 hours ago, Ali said:

On what planet would it occur to a normal two year to ask such a question?

Planet Dumbass (AKA Trumplandia)

[GrumpyGran]

4 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Planet Dumbass (AKA Trumplandia)

In the land where your parents excuse sexual perversion.

[Audrey2]

1 hour ago, GrumpyGran said:

In the land where your parents excuse sexual perversion.

In the land where your patriarch is caught on tape bragging about grabbing women by their bits.

[GreyhoundFan]

I don't know if y'all have heard or read about this -- Junior apparently has decided to misunderstand the meaning of attorney-client privilege. "Trump Jr. cites attorney-client privilege in not answering panel's questions about discussions with his father"

Spoiler

Donald Trump Jr. on Wednesday cited attorney-client privilege to avoid telling lawmakers about a conversation he had with his father, President Donald Trump, after news broke this summer that the younger Trump — and top campaign brass — had met with Russia-connected individuals in Trump Tower during the 2016 campaign.

Though neither Trump Jr. nor the president is an attorney, Trump Jr. told the House Intelligence Committee that there was a lawyer in the room during the discussion, according to the committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Adam Schiff of California. Schiff said he didn’t think it was a legitimate invocation of attorney-client privilege.

“I don’t believe you can shield communications between individuals merely by having an attorney present,” he said, after the committee’s lengthy interview with Trump Jr. “That’s not the purpose of attorney-client privilege.”

Trump Jr.’s meeting in June 2016 at Trump Tower — and the president’s response after it became public earlier this year through a New York Times story — has become a central focus of investigators probing whether any Trump associates cooperated with Russian efforts to interfere in the presidential election.

Though Trump Jr. initially portrayed the meeting as “short,” “introductory” and focused on the issue of adoption, it was later revealed that there were eight participants — including the senior Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and his campaign chairman, Paul Manafort — and that Trump Jr. agreed to the meeting with a promise that he would receive negative information about Hillary Clinton provided by the Kremlin.

As the story unfolded, Trump Jr. revised his statements and ultimately released a series of emails that revealed he was told before the meeting that the Russian government wanted to help his father’s presidential campaign and that urged him to meet with a Kremlin-connected lawyer to receive dirt on Clinton. Subsequent reporting suggested that President Trump had a hand in crafting the initial, incomplete response to the Times story.

Republicans on the committee indicated they were satisfied with Trump Jr.’s answers but declined to discuss the substance of the hearing. Still, Schiff said he hoped they would compel fuller answers from the younger Trump.

“I don’t think my colleagues on the other side of the aisle would dispute the fact that as to this very central conversation between father and son, the witness declined to answer the question,” he said.

 

[AmazonGrace]

if the Republicans on the committee are satisfied with "not gonna answer that" it seems like they'd prefer not to get anywhere with the investigation. 

[GreyhoundFan]

23 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

if the Republicans on the committee are satisfied with "not gonna answer that" it seems like they'd prefer not to get anywhere with the investigation. 

The WaPo published this: "Donald Trump Jr. is clamming up on Russia. Republicans may help him get away with it."

Spoiler

In a closed-door interview with congressional investigators yesterday, Donald Trump Jr. refused to divulge the contents of a phone conversation with his father — that would be the president — that took place just after news broke of Trump Jr.’s now-notorious June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower with a Kremlin-connected lawyer. According to reports, investigators wanted to know whether Senior and Junior discussed what happened at that meeting and how they should respond to the news of it, but Trump Jr. cited attorney-client privilege and clammed up.

There is a perfectly reasonable chance that congressional Republicans will help Trump Jr. get away with this.

In an interview with me this morning, Rep. Adam Schiff (Calif.) — the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, which interviewed Trump Jr. yesterday — told me that if Trump Jr. continues to refuse to answer questions about this phone call, he will push for the committee to subpoena Trump Jr. and try to compel him to testify about it.

“If they persist in this claim of privilege, then we’d have to subpoena him to come back,” Schiff told me.

In his session with the Intelligence Committee, Trump Jr. was pressed to detail what transpired on a call he had with the president about the Trump Tower meeting in July 2017, just days after the news of it broke. Trump Jr.’s email chain, you will recall, confirmed that he took this meeting — which was also attended by Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner and then-campaign chair Paul Manafort — in the full expectation that it would yield dirt on Hillary Clinton provided by the Russian government, which was trying to tip the election to his father. Trump Jr. declined to detail the conversation, on the grounds that lawyers for both Trump Jr. and his father were also on the call, meaning it is protected by attorney-client privilege, a claim Schiff rejects.

Schiff told me — as he also told reporters late yesterday — that Trump Jr.’s lawyer asked for some time to study whether they will ultimately comply with investigators’ request for more detail about the call. Schiff said in our interview that he hopes Trump Jr. and his lawyer ultimately decide that privilege does not apply and that they will be forthcoming. But Schiff added: “If he doesn’t, we should absolutely subpoena him to come back.”

The question, though, is whether the House Republicans who control the committee will agree with this demand. Those Republicans said they were satisfied with Trump Jr.’s appearance. And Schiff told me he’s concerned that if Trump Jr. continues to refuse to discuss this call, Republicans will not press the issue, to avoid determining what happened on it.

“If the majority isn’t willing to find out, then they’re not living up to their commitment to the American people to follow the facts wherever they lead,” Schiff said. “Effectively they’re saying, ‘We don’t want to know where the facts lead, so we’re not going to insist on answers.’ ”

The larger context here is that the president himself helped dictate the initial statement that misled the American people about the true rationale for this meeting. Investigators want more info about the call between Trump Jr. and his father because it might help establish both what happened at that meeting and why Senior and Junior subsequently covered it up.

That could help further establish a pattern in which President Trump and/or his advisers have regularly lied about both their eagerness to collude with Russia (which was allegedly also trying to sow confusion and discord to undermine our democracy) and about their contacts with Russians during the campaign and the transition. Trump also allegedly demanded that his former FBI director drop the probe into former national security adviser Michael Flynn (who is now cooperating with the special counsel) and has publicly admitted to firing Comey over the Russia probe, both of which appear designed to impede investigations getting to the bottom of what happened.

“We’d like to know what the president’s son had to say about the meeting [with the Russian lawyer] in a private conversation with his father,” Schiff told me. “The best evidence we’re going to get of what actually happened before, during, and after the meeting is what the president and his son said privately.” Schiff added that the details of the call could help establish how far the president went in “supporting false statements from his son,” which could be “part of an effort by the president to conceal his conduct and the conduct of his family.” This, Schiff said, should be of “great concern” to the committee.

Unfortunately, this may not end up being a matter of great concern to the Republicans who control it. We don’t know if all of this will amount to obstruction of justice or not. But even if it falls short of criminality, all of it could still add up to highly questionable or potentially impeachable conduct. We all should want to know the full story — Republicans included.

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[GrumpyGran]

11 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I don't know if y'all have heard or read about this -- Junior apparently has decided to misunderstand the meaning of attorney-client privilege. "Trump Jr. cites attorney-client privilege in not answering panel's questions about discussions with his father"

  Reveal hidden contents

Donald Trump Jr. on Wednesday cited attorney-client privilege to avoid telling lawmakers about a conversation he had with his father, President Donald Trump, after news broke this summer that the younger Trump — and top campaign brass — had met with Russia-connected individuals in Trump Tower during the 2016 campaign.

Though neither Trump Jr. nor the president is an attorney, Trump Jr. told the House Intelligence Committee that there was a lawyer in the room during the discussion, according to the committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Adam Schiff of California. Schiff said he didn’t think it was a legitimate invocation of attorney-client privilege.

“I don’t believe you can shield communications between individuals merely by having an attorney present,” he said, after the committee’s lengthy interview with Trump Jr. “That’s not the purpose of attorney-client privilege.”

Trump Jr.’s meeting in June 2016 at Trump Tower — and the president’s response after it became public earlier this year through a New York Times story — has become a central focus of investigators probing whether any Trump associates cooperated with Russian efforts to interfere in the presidential election.

Though Trump Jr. initially portrayed the meeting as “short,” “introductory” and focused on the issue of adoption, it was later revealed that there were eight participants — including the senior Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and his campaign chairman, Paul Manafort — and that Trump Jr. agreed to the meeting with a promise that he would receive negative information about Hillary Clinton provided by the Kremlin.

As the story unfolded, Trump Jr. revised his statements and ultimately released a series of emails that revealed he was told before the meeting that the Russian government wanted to help his father’s presidential campaign and that urged him to meet with a Kremlin-connected lawyer to receive dirt on Clinton. Subsequent reporting suggested that President Trump had a hand in crafting the initial, incomplete response to the Times story.

Republicans on the committee indicated they were satisfied with Trump Jr.’s answers but declined to discuss the substance of the hearing. Still, Schiff said he hoped they would compel fuller answers from the younger Trump.

“I don’t think my colleagues on the other side of the aisle would dispute the fact that as to this very central conversation between father and son, the witness declined to answer the question,” he said.

 

No point in trying to convince anyone that you have brains now. Maybe he used to be more intelligent but his brain has been ravaged by Sessions Syndrome.

[AmazonGrace]

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Donald Trump Jr. demands leak investigation"

Spoiler

Donald Trump Jr. and his lawyer formally requested an investigation Tuesday into leaks from the House Intelligence Committee that followed Trump’s participation in a closed-door interview with committee members and staffers last week.

“The public release of confidential non-public information by Committee members continued unabated” for 24 hours after Trump’s supposedly confidential interview last week, Trump’s lawyer, Alan Futerfas, wrote in a letter delivered Tuesday afternoon.

The four-page letter, addressed to Rep. K. Michael Conaway (R-Tex.), the panel chairman overseeing the Russia investigation, complains about public comments made by three members of the panel, all Democrats, including the highest-ranking minority member of the panel, Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.). The letter says that members and staffers began “selectively leaking information” even before the closed-door meeting ended.

Schiff’s spokesman said in response that the congressman and his staff “do not leak classified or confidential information.” The spokesman, Patrick Boland, noted, however, that “we do not permit witnesses to represent publicly that they are fully cooperating with our committee and privately refuse to answer questions pertinent to our investigation on the basis of meritless claims of privilege.”

Just after the hearing, Schiff told reporters that Trump Jr. had declined to discuss details of a July telephone conversation with his father about a 2016 meeting at which Trump campaign officials had expected to receive damaging information from the Russian government about Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

Schiff’s spokesman said Tuesday: “While we do not discuss the substance of a witness’s testimony, we do reserve the right to inform the public of their noncooperation and do not allow them to conceal that behind closed doors.”

The letter from Futerfas describes repeated assurances provided to Trump Jr. in advance of the Intelligence Committee interview that the proceedings would be treated as confidential unless the full committee voted to release a transcript. Yet public comments by Schiff and Reps. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) and Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) breached the confidentiality agreement, the letter says.

Speier said in response Tuesday that “I had every right to characterize his testimony as nonresponsive while not revealing the substance of his testimony. And I will continue to do that for any witness who appears unwilling to answer questions.” A spokesman for Swalwell said the congressman backed the views expressed by Schiff’s office.

Futerfas wrote that the public comments last week by the three Democrats about the closed-door meeting “was sufficiently brazen” that he was notified the next day by the majority staff of the committee that Trump Jr. was no longer bound by the confidentiality rule imposed in advance of his appearance.

The letter specifically complains that committee members or staffers “began disseminating wildly inaccurate information” to reporters about an email that suggested that Trump Jr. may have received an invitation to access WikiLeaks documents damaging to Clinton before those documents had been made publicly available.

Broadcast accounts of that email first reported the wrong date of the email conversation. In fact, it was sent after the publication of the WikiLeaks information, making the email less significant and leading networks to correct their initial reports.

“These disturbing circumstances warrant examination,” Futerfas wrote. “This committee should determine whether any member or staff member violated the Rules by leaking information to the media concerning the interview or by purposely providing inaccurate information which led to significant misreporting.”

Trump Jr. is expected to return to Capitol Hill in coming days to speak behind closed doors with the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Poor widdle junior is butthurt because the ebil Dems didn't just roll over, quaking, when he falsely claimed attorney-client privilege.

[GrumpyGran]

24 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"Donald Trump Jr. demands leak investigation"

  Reveal hidden contents

Donald Trump Jr. and his lawyer formally requested an investigation Tuesday into leaks from the House Intelligence Committee that followed Trump’s participation in a closed-door interview with committee members and staffers last week.

“The public release of confidential non-public information by Committee members continued unabated” for 24 hours after Trump’s supposedly confidential interview last week, Trump’s lawyer, Alan Futerfas, wrote in a letter delivered Tuesday afternoon.

The four-page letter, addressed to Rep. K. Michael Conaway (R-Tex.), the panel chairman overseeing the Russia investigation, complains about public comments made by three members of the panel, all Democrats, including the highest-ranking minority member of the panel, Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.). The letter says that members and staffers began “selectively leaking information” even before the closed-door meeting ended.

Schiff’s spokesman said in response that the congressman and his staff “do not leak classified or confidential information.” The spokesman, Patrick Boland, noted, however, that “we do not permit witnesses to represent publicly that they are fully cooperating with our committee and privately refuse to answer questions pertinent to our investigation on the basis of meritless claims of privilege.”

Just after the hearing, Schiff told reporters that Trump Jr. had declined to discuss details of a July telephone conversation with his father about a 2016 meeting at which Trump campaign officials had expected to receive damaging information from the Russian government about Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

Schiff’s spokesman said Tuesday: “While we do not discuss the substance of a witness’s testimony, we do reserve the right to inform the public of their noncooperation and do not allow them to conceal that behind closed doors.”

The letter from Futerfas describes repeated assurances provided to Trump Jr. in advance of the Intelligence Committee interview that the proceedings would be treated as confidential unless the full committee voted to release a transcript. Yet public comments by Schiff and Reps. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) and Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) breached the confidentiality agreement, the letter says.

Speier said in response Tuesday that “I had every right to characterize his testimony as nonresponsive while not revealing the substance of his testimony. And I will continue to do that for any witness who appears unwilling to answer questions.” A spokesman for Swalwell said the congressman backed the views expressed by Schiff’s office.

Futerfas wrote that the public comments last week by the three Democrats about the closed-door meeting “was sufficiently brazen” that he was notified the next day by the majority staff of the committee that Trump Jr. was no longer bound by the confidentiality rule imposed in advance of his appearance.

The letter specifically complains that committee members or staffers “began disseminating wildly inaccurate information” to reporters about an email that suggested that Trump Jr. may have received an invitation to access WikiLeaks documents damaging to Clinton before those documents had been made publicly available.

Broadcast accounts of that email first reported the wrong date of the email conversation. In fact, it was sent after the publication of the WikiLeaks information, making the email less significant and leading networks to correct their initial reports.

“These disturbing circumstances warrant examination,” Futerfas wrote. “This committee should determine whether any member or staff member violated the Rules by leaking information to the media concerning the interview or by purposely providing inaccurate information which led to significant misreporting.”

Trump Jr. is expected to return to Capitol Hill in coming days to speak behind closed doors with the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Poor widdle junior is butthurt because the ebil Dems didn't just roll over, quaking, when he falsely claimed attorney-client privilege.

He sure has a very uninformed opinion of how much privacy he is allowed in an investigation, doesn't he? Especially for a guy who loves to yammer on Twitter all the time. Hey, Dumpy J, nobody needs to leak things about you. You shine a bright light on your ignorance. 

[Botkinetti]

I wonder if it starting to dawn on both Don jr and Eric that their name and money just might not protect them from the consequences of their actions. They are used to an easy ride and think they are clever. Anyone clever would shut up .

They are now dealing with smart grownups not sycophants. I hope their rage and panic will be their undoing.

[fraurosena]

On 14/12/2017 at 3:20 AM, GreyhoundFan said:

Trump Jr. is expected to return to Capitol Hill in coming days to speak behind closed doors with the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Does anyone know if the transcripts of this closed-door testimony will be released like those of Carter Page and Eric Prince? 

[GreyhoundFan]

11 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Does anyone know if the transcripts of this closed-door testimony will be released like those of Carter Page and Eric Prince? 

I would wager not. I think they aren't going to want too much to come out publicly from people that close to the inner circle until the whole investigation is over.

[AmazonGrace]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

@AmazonGrace -- it looks like someone is ramming something up junior's backside. Hopefully, it's the business end of a pitchfork. Also, whose picture is on that cookie? It's the Obama colors, but if it's supposed to be Obama, they hired a terrible "artist".