Russian Connection 4: Do Not Congratulate

[fraurosena]

Here's why the presidunce is suddenly admitting to staying overnight in Russia (apart from the flight records):

Miss Universe host confirms Trump lied when he told Comey he never stayed overnight in Moscow

Quote

Another defense by the White House against an infamous dossier may have been undermined by reports to the contrary from another eye-witness,” The Daily Beast reported Tuesday.

Thomas Roberts, who hosted the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow, says that President Donald Trump did spend the night in Moscow.

Previously, Trump denied the salacious allegations that Russian hookers defiled the bed in his hotel suite. The alleged motivation was that President Barack Obama had once stayed in the same room.

But Trump has said the allegations can’t be true, because he never spent the night in Moscow.

“The first time I met Donald Trump it was in Moscow on November 8th, 2013,” Roberts recalled. “I taped a sit-down interview with Trump the next day on November 9th. That was also the date for the Miss Universe broadcast.”

“During the after-party for the Miss Universe event, Mr. Trump offered to fly me and my husband back to New York. He said he would be leaving directly from the party. We were unable to accept the invitation. That was the early morning hours of November 10th.”

Flight records have also undermined Trump’s claims.

 

 

[fraurosena]

Phew! They did it!

 

[Howl]

1 hour ago, fraurosena said:

Phew! They did it!

 

But hasn't McConnell threatened to block it from coming to a vote?

Plus House, plus veto-proof numbers.  Still, a start. 

[Audrey2]

2 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Phew! They did it!

 

Amen and Hallelujah! (Where's that button when I need it?) Now, the obstructionists and apologists will be obvious (looking at you, Mitch McTurtle).

[fraurosena]

No surprise here, but now there's evidence.

Lawyer Who Was Said to Have Dirt on Clinton Had Closer Ties to Kremlin Than She Let On

Quote

The Russian lawyer who met with Trump campaign officialsin Trump Tower in June 2016 on the premise that she would deliver damaging information about Hillary Clinton has long insisted she is a private attorney, not a Kremlin operative trying to meddle in the presidential election.

But newly released emails show that in at least one instance two years earlier, the lawyer, Natalia V. Veselnitskaya, worked hand in glove with Russia’s chief legal office to thwart a Justice Department civil fraud case against a well-connected Russian firm.

Ms. Veselnitskaya also appears to have recanted her earlier denials of Russian government ties. During an interview to be broadcast Friday by NBC News, she acknowledged that she was not merely a private lawyer but a source of information for a top Kremlin official, Yuri Y. Chaika, the prosecutor general.

“I am a lawyer, and I am an informant,” she said. “Since 2013, I have been actively communicating with the office of the Russian prosecutor general.”

The previously undisclosed details about Ms. Veselnitskaya rekindle questions about who she was representing when she met with Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort and others at Trump Tower in Manhattan during the campaign. The meeting, one focus of the special counsel investigation into Russia’s election interference, was organized after an intermediary promised that Ms. Veselnitskaya would deliver documents that would incriminate Mrs. Clinton.

Ms. Veselnitskaya had long insisted that she met the president’s son, son-in-law and campaign chairman in a private capacity, not as a representative of the Russian government.

“I operate independently of any governmental bodies,” she wrote in a November statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee. “I have no relationship with Mr. Chaika, his representatives and his institutions other than those related to my professional functions as a lawyer.”

But that claim had already been undercut last fall by revelations that her talking points for the Trump Tower meeting — detailing tax and financial fraud accusations against two Democratic Party donors tied to a Kremlin opponent — matched those in a confidential memorandum circulated by Mr. Chaika’s office.

And a sheaf of Ms. Veselnitskaya’s email correspondence released Friday appeared to show that her relationship with Mr. Chaika’s office is far closer than she has described.

The emails were obtained by Dossier, an organization set up by Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, a former tycoon who was stripped of his oil holdings, imprisoned and then exiled from his native Russia. He has emerged as a leading opponent of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

Shown copies of the emails by Richard Engel of NBC News, Ms. Veselnitskaya acknowledged that “many things included here are from my documents, my personal documents.” She told the Russian news agency Interfax on Wednesday that her email accounts were hacked this year by people determined to discredit her, and that she would report the hack to Russian authorities.

The Russian prosecutor general’s office did not respond to requests for comment. In an email, Ms. Veselnitskaya said she would respond in two weeks.

The exchanges document Mr. Chaika’s response to a Justice Department request in 2014 for help with its civil fraud case against a real estate firm, Prevezon Holdings Ltd., and its owner, Denis P. Katsyv, a well-connected Russian businessman.

Federal prosecutors say Ms. Veselnitskaya was the driving force on Mr. Katsyv’s defense team, a description she has echoed in court filings. In a declaration to the court, she identified herself as a lawyer in private practice, representing Mr. Katsyv and his firm.

The Justice Department prosecutors charged Mr. Katsyv’s firm in 2013 with using real estate purchases in New York to launder a portion of the profits from a tax scheme in Russia. They were seeking Russian bank, tax and court records, the type of documents that typically form the crux of civil money-laundering cases. The Justice Department asked the Russian government to keep the matter confidential, “except as is necessary to execute this request,” according to court documents. Russia and the United States have a mutual legal assistance treaty governing law-enforcement requests.

The emails indicate that a senior prosecutor on Mr. Chaika’s staff, Sergei A. Bochkaryov, worked closely with Ms. Veselnitskaya to craft the Russian government response. She knew him well enough to address him in friendly terms.

“Dear Sergei Aleksandrovich!” Ms. Veselnitskaya wrote on Aug. 2, 2014, in one of at least 11 emails exchanged. “I am sending you the edits in the draft response, as per instructions. I am ready to answer any questions that arise, at any time convenient for you.”

The language in their final email exchange matches that of the prosecutor general’s official response to the Justice Department.

The judge in the case later wrote that the Russian government had “spurned” the Justice Department’s request for evidence, instead sending a lengthy treatise on why Ms. Veselnitskaya’s client was innocent.

Ms. Veselnitskaya’s involvement in the official communications with the Russian government “raises serious questions about obstruction of justice and false statements,” said Jaimie Nawaday, a former assistant United States attorney in Manhattan who was a prosecutor on the case.

She said Ms. Veselnitskaya’s actions should be referred to the United States attorney’s office for investigation, including whether she misrepresented herself to the court. “It’s completely outrageous,” Ms. Nawaday said.

Asked about the Russian government’s culpability, Andrew Keane Woods, a professor at the University of Kentucky law school who specializes in international law, said, “If there was funny business, then they are not really complying with the terms of the treaty.” But, he added, “there is no clear sanction” for failing to comply.

Moscow’s refusal to provide records to the American prosecutors dealt a severe blow to the case. In the end, the Justice Department agreed to settle it for about $6 million. Prevezon, which did not admit fault, has yet to pay.

Although Ms. Veselnitskaya appears to have influenced how the Russian prosecutor general’s office justified its decision, its refusal to cooperate was not unexpected. The tax fraud was uncovered by Sergei L. Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer who was imprisoned and died in custody after disclosing the theft. Russian officials contend that the Magnitsky case, which became a cause célèbre in Washington, was a fraud concocted by the West to justify sanctions against Russian citizens.

The release of Ms. Veselnitskaya’s emails by Mr. Khodorkovsky marks a second foray by Russian opposition figures into the controversy over Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. In a telephone interview, Mr. Khodorkovsky said someone had deposited the email records anonymously into an electronic drop box maintained by his organization.

This year, Aleksei A. Navalny, a key opposition leader in Russia, also publicized videos that he said hinted at a role for Oleg V. Deripaska, a well-known Russian oligarch, in the Russian government’s efforts to meddle in the American political process. A spokesman for Mr. Deripaska said Mr. Navalny’s accusations were utterly false.

It seems that everyone is connected to Russians buying New York real estate in order to launder money. Huh. Who'd've thunk?

[fraurosena]

They've put in writing what everyone with even half a braincell knows already.

Meanwhile, the presidunce is doing what he always does:

Sigh. This stuff is getting old. 

Here's the majority's report:

The House Intelligence Committee Just Released Its Report On The Russia Investigation. Read It Here.

Quote

Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee have released a heavily redacted version of their final report on the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Democrats have released a separate document detailing their views.

The report comes after Republicans announced in March that they were ending the probe, which had been plagued by partisan bickering. At the time, Republicans released a one-page summary report saying they had found no evidence of collusion between President Donald Trump's campaign and the Russians. Democrats on the committee blasted the move to shut down the probe, with ranking member Rep. Adam Schiff calling it a "tragic milestone for this Congress."

Republicans on the committee say they are unhappy with the number of redactions intelligence agencies placed in their report. "Given the substantial public interest at stake, the Committee is publishing the redacted version we’ve received,” committee chairman Devin Nunes said in statement Friday. “However, we object to the excessive and unjustified number of redactions, many of which do not relate to classified information. The Committee will convey our objections to the appropriate agencies and looks forward to publishing a less redacted version in the near future.”

Schiff on Friday released a lengthy statement criticizing Republicans’ handling of the probe, accusing them of choosing “not to seriously investigate — or even see, when in plain sight — evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, instead adopting the role of defense counsel for key investigation witnesses.”

Trump tweeted about the more than 250-page report shortly after it was released Friday, “Wow! A total Witch Hunt! MUST END NOW!”

In the tweet, Trump also quoted from the report’s conclusion that the committee found “no evidence” that his campaign “colluded, coordinated or conspired” with Russia. However, the full quote, which Trump did not include in his tweet, goes on to say that “the investigation did find poor judgment and ill-considered actions by the Trump and Clinton campaigns.”

The report specifically cites the Trump campaign’s “periodic praise for and communications with Wikileaks — a hostile foreign organization” as well as the Trump Tower meeting, during which top campaign officials met with a Russian lawyer who “falsely purported to have damaging information on the Clinton campaign.”

The Clinton campaign, the report concludes, exhibited “poor judgement” in “using a series of cutouts and intermediaries to obscure their roles” to pay for opposition research “obtained from Russian sources” — which later became the Steele dossier. The dossier, which alleged several years of Trump-Kremlin links, was first published by BuzzFeed News in January 2017, after security officials had briefed then-president Barack Obama and Trump about it.

Schiff said Friday that Democrats would continue the investigation, pointing to their interview this week of Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie and revealing that they had “received new documents from another important witness.”

“We will continue our investigation using every means at our disposal; to do otherwise would ignore our responsibility to conduct meaningful oversight and insure that the Russians do not possess leverage over the President of the United States,” Schiff said.

You can read the Republican report here and Democrats’ views here.

Of course, Nunes is whining that the report is too heavily redacted for his liking. 

[fraurosena]

Ha!  Inadvertently, new information on Flynn has been revealed by the House Intelligence Committee's Report on the Russia investigation.

Flynn And His Son Met With Russian Ambassador In December 2015

Quote

The House Intelligence Committee’s report from its Russia investigation published on Friday revealed another meeting former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn had with the Russian ambassador before he joined the Trump campaign.

Flynn and his son, Michael Flynn, Jr., met with Ambassador Sergey Kislyak at his Washington, D.C. residence on December 2, 2015, according to emails reviewed by the House Intelligence Committee. Flynn’s son described the meeting as “very productive” in an email to the Russian embassy, according to the committee’s report. According to the report, “emails indicate that the meeting was arranged at the request of General Flynn or his son.” Neither Flynn sat with the committee for an interview, leaving congressional investigators with few details about the rendezvous.

The meeting with Kislyak took place about a week before Flynn traveled to Moscow to speak at the Kremlin RT news organization’s annual gala. Flynn sat next to Vladimir Putin at the dinner and was paid by RT to attend the event.

Flynn’s December 2015 meeting with Kislyak also came after he met with President Donald Trump for the first time, but Flynn did not formally join the campaign until 2016.

Flynn resigned as Trump’s first national security adviser in February 2017 after it became clear that he discussed Russian sanctions with Kislyak in late 2016 before Trump took office and allegedly lied to Vice President Mike Pence about it.

He then pleaded guilty in December 2017 to lying to the FBI about his conversations with Russian officials. Flynn is now cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.

 

[fraurosena]

Wow.

 

It looks like when this administration goes down, it'll take the NRA with it!    

[fraurosena]

*sniggers* 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"U.S. judge tosses Paul Manafort suit seeking to bar special counsel Mueller from bringing future charges"

Spoiler

A federal judge Friday dismissed a challenge brought by Paul Manafort to special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s criminal probe of Russian interference in 2016 U.S. elections, ruling that Manafort may not use a lawsuit to thwart his prosecution.

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson tossed out the attempt by Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign chairman, to bar the special counsel from bringing future charges against him. The judge cited the “sound and well-established principle” that potential defendants cannot “circumvent federal criminal procedure” that already permits individuals to challenge charges within criminal proceedings..

Manafort’s attorneys had at first asked the judge to void Mueller’s appointment and dismiss all indictments against Manafort already filed in the District and Virginia, contending Mueller had overstepped his authority. The attorneys later withdrew those requests and focused their arguments on any future charges.

The Justice Department had asked for the lawsuit to be dismissed.

“A civil case is not the appropriate vehicle for taking issue with what a prosecutor has done in the past or where he might be headed in the future,” Jackson wrote.

Courts should not “interfere with or enjoin an ongoing criminal investigation when the defendant will have the opportunity to challenge any defects in the prosecution in the trial court or on direct appeal,” Jackson wrote, adding, “The court finds that this civil complaint must be dismissed.”

Manafort, 69, has pleaded not guilty to felony charges related to his work as an international political consultant in Ukraine before joining Trump’s campaign in March 2016. He resigned from the campaign in August 2016.

Manafort separately has moved to dismiss criminal charges in the District ahead of a scheduled September trial date there and in federal court in Alexandria, where he faces trial July 10 on tax-related and banking charges to which he also has pleaded not guilty.

He also has challenged Mueller’s authority in those cases.

“This opinion will not address, and should not be read as expressing any opinion about the merits of those motions,” Jackson wrote.

Manafort’s attorneys have argued Mueller exceeded his authority by charging Manafort with numerous felonies, including conspiracy, bank and tax frauds, and money laundering, related to work done before 2014 on behalf of Ukraine’s pro-Russian president at the time, Viktor Yanukovych.

The defense has focused on a provision that authorizes the special counsel to investigate possible collusion between Trump officials and the Russian government as well as “any matters that arose or may arise directly from” that investigation.

Manafort’s attorneys argue the May 2017 order by Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein establishing the Mueller probe is so broad that it violates a department regulation that they contend required a “specific factual description” of the matter to be investigated.

Manafort attorney Kevin M. Downing said the provision gave prosecutors a “blank check” to pursue any matters, and argue that his dealings in Ukraine ended years before he joined Trump’s campaign.

Prosecutors defended their investigation into Manafort, saying his status as a top Trump campaign official and his long-standing ties to Russian-backed politicians, oligarchs and others warranted a probe into whether any served as “back channels” or a means for “surreptitious communications’ to the campaign.

Manafort’s charges include conspiracy for actions that continued into 2016.

Jackson cited a federal appeals court ruling in D.C. that “the subject of a criminal investigation may not bring a civil action to attack an impending criminal prosecution.”

While acknowledging the toll that criminal cases take on an individual’s reputation and finances, the courts have found, the judge wrote, that “all citizens must submit to a criminal prosecution brought in good faith so that larger societal interests may be preserved.”

Rather than allowing defendants to skirt the process, courts typically require defendants to challenge the legality of charges or indictments through pretrial motions in criminal cases or post-trial appeals, the judge ruled.

Jackson also called the prospect of additional charges against Manafort “purely speculative.”

The judge concluded, “Since it is not clear at this point what actions, if any, the Special Counsel will take with respect to Manafort, and whether those future actions will be subject to attack for the same reasons set forth in the complaint, prudential considerations weight against hearing an action to prohibit them now.”

Ha Ha!!

[fraurosena]

1 minute ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"U.S. judge tosses Paul Manafort suit seeking to bar special counsel Mueller from bringing future charges"

  Reveal hidden contents

A federal judge Friday dismissed a challenge brought by Paul Manafort to special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s criminal probe of Russian interference in 2016 U.S. elections, ruling that Manafort may not use a lawsuit to thwart his prosecution.

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson tossed out the attempt by Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign chairman, to bar the special counsel from bringing future charges against him. The judge cited the “sound and well-established principle” that potential defendants cannot “circumvent federal criminal procedure” that already permits individuals to challenge charges within criminal proceedings..

Manafort’s attorneys had at first asked the judge to void Mueller’s appointment and dismiss all indictments against Manafort already filed in the District and Virginia, contending Mueller had overstepped his authority. The attorneys later withdrew those requests and focused their arguments on any future charges.

The Justice Department had asked for the lawsuit to be dismissed.

“A civil case is not the appropriate vehicle for taking issue with what a prosecutor has done in the past or where he might be headed in the future,” Jackson wrote.

Courts should not “interfere with or enjoin an ongoing criminal investigation when the defendant will have the opportunity to challenge any defects in the prosecution in the trial court or on direct appeal,” Jackson wrote, adding, “The court finds that this civil complaint must be dismissed.”

Manafort, 69, has pleaded not guilty to felony charges related to his work as an international political consultant in Ukraine before joining Trump’s campaign in March 2016. He resigned from the campaign in August 2016.

Manafort separately has moved to dismiss criminal charges in the District ahead of a scheduled September trial date there and in federal court in Alexandria, where he faces trial July 10 on tax-related and banking charges to which he also has pleaded not guilty.

He also has challenged Mueller’s authority in those cases.

“This opinion will not address, and should not be read as expressing any opinion about the merits of those motions,” Jackson wrote.

Manafort’s attorneys have argued Mueller exceeded his authority by charging Manafort with numerous felonies, including conspiracy, bank and tax frauds, and money laundering, related to work done before 2014 on behalf of Ukraine’s pro-Russian president at the time, Viktor Yanukovych.

The defense has focused on a provision that authorizes the special counsel to investigate possible collusion between Trump officials and the Russian government as well as “any matters that arose or may arise directly from” that investigation.

Manafort’s attorneys argue the May 2017 order by Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein establishing the Mueller probe is so broad that it violates a department regulation that they contend required a “specific factual description” of the matter to be investigated.

Manafort attorney Kevin M. Downing said the provision gave prosecutors a “blank check” to pursue any matters, and argue that his dealings in Ukraine ended years before he joined Trump’s campaign.

Prosecutors defended their investigation into Manafort, saying his status as a top Trump campaign official and his long-standing ties to Russian-backed politicians, oligarchs and others warranted a probe into whether any served as “back channels” or a means for “surreptitious communications’ to the campaign.

Manafort’s charges include conspiracy for actions that continued into 2016.

Jackson cited a federal appeals court ruling in D.C. that “the subject of a criminal investigation may not bring a civil action to attack an impending criminal prosecution.”

While acknowledging the toll that criminal cases take on an individual’s reputation and finances, the courts have found, the judge wrote, that “all citizens must submit to a criminal prosecution brought in good faith so that larger societal interests may be preserved.”

Rather than allowing defendants to skirt the process, courts typically require defendants to challenge the legality of charges or indictments through pretrial motions in criminal cases or post-trial appeals, the judge ruled.

Jackson also called the prospect of additional charges against Manafort “purely speculative.”

The judge concluded, “Since it is not clear at this point what actions, if any, the Special Counsel will take with respect to Manafort, and whether those future actions will be subject to attack for the same reasons set forth in the complaint, prudential considerations weight against hearing an action to prohibit them now.”

Ha Ha!!

We are really in sync today, @GreyhoundFan!

Isn't it a wonderful that the both of us are chortling together about the very same things, each on the other side of the Atlantic? 

[GreyhoundFan]

1 minute ago, fraurosena said:

We are really in sync today, @GreyhoundFan!

Isn't it a wonderful that the both of us are chortling together about the very same things, each on the other side of the Atlantic? 

Great minds think alike! And, yes, it's great that we can share the moments, both laugh and cry, from such across the pond.

 

[fraurosena]

Seth Abramson has a new mega- thread with his analysis of the HPSCI report:

His timeline of events is damning for the campaign. You can bet your last dollar that Mueller is quite aware of all this.

[AmazonGrace]

Because of course she won't

[AmazonGrace]

 

[fraurosena]

But there was no COLLUSION!

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

 

[fraurosena]

Lalalalalalalalalalalalalalalaaaaaaa.... can't hear you, won't hear you, not looking, nope.

 

[fraurosena]

Russians followed up on Trump Tower meeting after election, Democrats say

Quote

The Russian oligarch and Russian lawyer who were key players in the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting reached out to Trump's team after Donald Trump was elected President to try to lobby on the Russian sanctions they sought to overturn, according to Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee.

Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the intelligence panel, told CNN's Jim Sciutto on Friday that Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya reached out to the Trump family after the election with a request to follow up on efforts to repeal the Magnitsky Act, the 2012 Russian sanctions the US enacted over human rights abuses.

Veselnitskaya was the Russian lawyer at the center of the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting, where Donald Trump Jr. expected to receive damaging information on Hillary Clinton but instead Veselnitskaya focused on the repeal of the sanctions.

"Clearly, there's an expectation there on the Russian side that they may now have success with the Magnitsky Act, given that the prior meeting and communications dealt with the offer of help," Schiff said. "It certainly seems like the Russians were ready for payback."

In addition, another effort to reach out to Trump's team after the election came from Aras Agalarov, the Azerbaijani-Russian oligarch who also has ties to the Trump Tower meeting. Agalarov, along with his pop-star son, Emin Agalarov, also worked with Trump to bring the 2013 Miss Universe Pageant to Moscow.

The outreach from the Russians after the 2016 election was one of the new details that stemmed from the release of the Republican report on the Russia investigation, as well as a lengthy Democratic dissent that disputed the Republican conclusion there was no evidence of collusion between Trump's team and Russia.

In the dissent, Democrats cite a November 28, 2016, email from publicist Rob Goldstone to Trump's assistant, Rhona Graff, which said that "Aras Agalarov has asked me to pass on this document in the hope it can be passed on to the appropriate team."

"Later that day, Graff forwarded to Steve Bannon the email with Agalarov's document regarding the Magnitsky Act as an attachment, explaining, 'The PE [President Elect] knows Aras well. Rob is his rep in the US and sent this on. Not sure how to proceed, if at all.'"

Trump's team has denied there was any follow up after the Trump Tower meeting.

It's not clear that there was any response from the Trump team to the request from Veselnitskaya, or Agalarov. The Trump administration has not moved to roll back the Russian sanctions, and, in fact, new sanctions against Russia have been enacted.

CNN has previously reported additional outreach that came after the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting, in which Goldstone sent emails to Trump's team in the weeks following that meeting. But the overtures from Veselnitskaya and Agalarov are the first indication that the same Russians were still pushing to change the sanctions law after Trump was elected.

While the Democratic report released Friday does not mention Veselnitskaya's post-election outreach, a committee source said that she approached the Trump team following the election before the appeal from Aras Agalarov.

In the lead-up to the Trump Tower meeting, Goldstone told Trump Jr. that Veselnitskaya had damaging information about Clinton that he claimed came from the Russian government. At the meeting, however, Trump Jr. said she did not provide damaging information, and instead focused on the repeal of the sanctions law.

 

[Howl]

Russian, Russian, no you're the Russian. 

Anyway, interesting Josh Marshall twitter thread, with a link to a Josh podcast about.......wait for it.....Russians! 

One thing I really enjoy about reading TalkingPointsMemo.com and Josh's twitter is the high quality of comments.  Here's one from the twitter thread above: 

Quote

Sue‏ @scnyny Apr 17

1. it kills me that all this stuff about Trump has been known, was out there for 30 yrs & MSM downplayed/ignored it: RICO, money-laundering, mob-ties, 6 bankruptcies, stiffing contractors, Russia, Trump U, robbing Charities, CHILD RAPE-all for their ratings-look where we are now

There are also comments speculating that Jarvanka and the Trumplets will be hit with a RICO suit. 

Can any of y'all help me with this? Were Trump to be impeached, would he lose the legal immunity he now has as president?  Might that be one lesser reason for Republicans, particularly in the House, although they are  exhausted from the relentless demands of leg humping, know that they have to keep going, no matter what? 

And were Trump to be impeached,  Jarvanka and the Trumplets could not be saved by a pardon from Dad.  Interesting times.  

[fraurosena]

1 hour ago, Howl said:

And were Trump to be impeached,  Jarvanka and the Trumplets could not be saved by a pardon from Dad.

No, when that happens, they won't be saved by a pardon from daddy-dearest. But being saved or not all depends on who ends up in the Oval Office after the presidunce's impeachment, because, (Rufus forbid!) if it's Pencey-poo, then I wouldn't put it past him to issue a blanket pardon to all those involved, including Jared, Ivanka, and Fredo-dweeb and Fredo-dumb. "Because we need to look to the future now, restoring peace to the country, and forgiveness is the Christian thing to do" or some such nauseating nonsense.

[AmazonGrace]

The first thing I thought is whether he looks like Stormy's sketch but all of his pics seem less hairy and she might have mentioned something about an accent.

[fraurosena]

1 hour ago, AmazonGrace said:

The first thing I thought is whether he looks like Stormy's sketch but all of his pics seem less hairy and she might have mentioned something about an accent.

Here's a headshot I found of Fedor Emelianenko, side by side with Stephanie's sketch. The only things that are somewhat similar are the eyes and nose. But the mouth is not wide enough, the chin isn't as square, the cheekbones not pronounced enough, and the tops of his ears are too far from the side of his head to be the same person, I think. 

That said, the sketch was made recently based off a memory from a couple of years back... so who knows?

  

[AmazonGrace]

I think not... I don't have much faith in people's ability to correctly describe the facial  details of someone they briefly saw once a decade ago so any of those things could be wrong. But you might remember  the general vibe you had and one of those guys  looks like a boxer and the other looks like a surfer.