Trump Timeline ... Trumpocalypse

[Michael Scally MD]

Those around President Trump have made a disconcerting habit of https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/at-least-nine-people-in-trumps-orbit-had-contact-with-russians-during-campaign-and-transition/2017/11/05/07c9993c-bf4c-11e7-959c-fe2b598d8c00_story.html (forgetting, obscuring or misremembering their contacts with Russians). Now it seems the boss may have some explaining to do, too.

Bloomberg is reporting that flight records contradict Trump's apparent claim to then-FBI Director James B. Comey that he didn't stay overnight in Moscow during the 2013 Miss Universe pageant. This is at issue, of course, because that's when a claim in the Steele dossier https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2018/04/15/why-the-lewd-trump-russian-prostitute-allegation-is-a-distraction-and-we-should-all-be-careful/?utm_term=.16462a98cf98 (alleges that Trump watched Russian prostitutes urinate on a bed) in a video the Russian government is holding as compromising material, or kompromat, on Trump. Trump was so insistent that the claim was baseless that he twice told Comey he didn't even spend a night in Moscow, according to Comey.

But Trump's timeline is now in serious doubt, if not obliterated.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

LIKE A GLOVE
https://claytoonz.com/2018/04/24/like-a-glove/

The Democratic National Committee is suing Wikileaks, Russia, and the Donald Trump presidential campaign for conspiring to disrupt the 2016 election in favor of Trump.

Republicans say this lawsuit is frivolous and without merit and seek to have it dismissed. While the House committee studying collusion between Trump and Russia say there isn’t any evidence, the facts say otherwise.

While on the campaign trail, Trump publicly asked Russia to get involved in the election and to hack into Clinton’s email. The Trump campaign hosted Russians in Trump Tower who were promising dirt on Hillary Clinton. Don Jr. and Roger Stone were both communicating with Wikileaks. Wikileaks even asked Don Jr. to provide some of Trump’s taxes so they could release them and make it appear as though they weren’t playing favorites. That’s collusion and a conspiracy.

The best part about this is, it allows discovery for the Democrats to seek internal documents and testimony from the Trump campaign. Republicans can claim it doesn’t have merit, but it’s a fact the Democrats computer system was hacked.

Republicans and Trump are also allowed discovery and will seek information about the Clinton campaign’s financing of the dossier, written by a former British spy, detailing Trump’s connections to Russia. The only problem with them seeking discovery about the dossier is, it’s already been discovered and it’s not illegal. Conducting an investigation on your opponent isn’t illegal and it’s done by every campaign. Case in point, the Trump campaign inviting Russians to Trump Tower (thought, that one might have been illegal).

If the GOP fights this in court with the same intelligence they’ve exhibited in defending Trump’s collusion with Russia, they’re in trouble.

The Democrats are seeking millions from the defendants for their conspiracy. Donald Trump is now a co-defendant with Vladimir Putin. Sure, it’ll be tough, if not impossible, to get the Russians and Wikileaks to cooperate in the lawsuit, but that will probably weaken Trump’s defense even further. Plus, Russia is probably too busy to defend themselves from charges of hacking the 2016 election in favor of Republicans while they’re busying themselves by hacking the 2018 elections in favor of Republicans.

There is precedent for this. In 1972, the DNC sued the Nixon reelection campaign for the Watergate break-in. Republicans called that suit frivolous also, yet they settled for $750,000 on the day Nixon resigned from the presidency in 1974.

The suit doesn’t name Trump as a defendent, but it targets Donald Trump Jr, Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort and Manafort’s deputy during the campaign, Rick Gates. The suit points out that these individuals were aware of Russia’s attempt to meddle in the election and instead of reporting it to law enforcement, they gleefully accepted the help. Manafort will have to get permission from courts (that’s plural) to leave his house to defend himself in court. He’s already wearing TWO ankle bracelets because he’s a huge flight risk.

Before Trump makes history by being the first president taken down by a porn star, he’ll make it by being the first president required to wear an ankle bracelet. Maybe Ivanka can design matching bracelets for Trump, Don Jr, and Jared.

This case isn’t frivolous. The Russians hacked the DNC and it’s very clear Trump was their choice. The problem for Trump and the Republicans is that there is a bloody glove…and it fits.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

As the Senate considers whether to confirm CIA Director Mike Pompeo as President Trump’s secretary of state, new information is coming to light about his sparse record on foreign affairs, raising concerns about Pompeo’s ability to serve as America’s top diplomat.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee was set to vote on Pompeo’s confirmation Monday night.

Pompeo has come under fire for remarks about Muslims. Now, disclosure documents reviewed by TYT also show that Pompeo once met with an Israeli official who was later honored by a group so extreme it was labeled a hate group.

In addition, Pompeo’s handling of the U.S. embassy move to Jerusalem could be complicated by his apparent belief in the Rapture. A June 2015 videotape unearthed by Slate shows Pompeo referring to politics as an ongoing struggle, “until the Rapture.” Evangelical Rapture theology typically includes a belief that for Jesus to return, Jerusalem must first be Israel’s capital, and the world’s Jews must return there. Jews who do not then convert to Christianity will be destroyed in the end times.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

The poignant aspect of Manafort’s story is that he, like so many others in Trump’s orbit, has seen his life shattered after working with Trump. Manafort is now bound in a knot of financial and legal troubles, pursued by a dogged Mueller team and subject to a court “gag order” that prevents him from responding directly to allegations. What follows is an attempt to weave the strands of Manafort’s story into a coherent, if still incomplete, narrative.

The story of Manafort’s involvement in the Trump campaign begins with Thomas J. Barrack Jr., a billionaire real estate financier close to both men. After hearing Manafort’s ideas for boosting the campaign following Trump’s defeat in the February 2016 Iowa caucuses, Barrack forwarded Manafort’s suggestions to Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner. Barrack’s cover letter described Manafort as “the most experienced and lethal of managers” who would be a “killer” at the GOP convention.

What’s astonishing, in hindsight, is that after Barrack’s initial introduction, nobody from the Trump campaign attempted any serious vetting of Manafort’s background. One campaign insider, speaking on condition of anonymity in order to describe its internal workings, told me he doesn’t recall any serious questions being asked about Manafort’s activities in Ukraine or his past links with pro-Russia figures. This lack of vetting is surprising, given that the FBI had investigated Manafort’s Ukraine activities back in 2014, according to a source familiar with the bureau’s investigation who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly about it. Such questions weren’t posed about any Trump advisers. It was “plug and play,” the insider recalled, with “no process” for background checks.

...

The Manafort case illustrates how hard it will be for Trump to dispel the allegations that swirl around the Mueller investigation. The president might want to rid himself of the special counsel, but he can’t make the evidence that has already been gathered disappear.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

As concern grew inside his orbit that Michael Cohen might become a cooperating witness to federal investigators, President Trump issued a declaration about his longtime personal lawyer and fixer.

“Most people will flip if the Government lets them out of trouble,” Trump tweeted over the weekend. He added: “Sorry, I don’t see Michael doing that.”

By asserting that the government would not be able to “flip” Cohen, Trump invited a question: If the Russia probe is the “witch hunt” the president says it is — and if he is as innocent as he so often proclaims — what incriminating evidence would Cohen have on Trump that would give him leverage to flip?

It was only the latest instance of the president adopting a posture vis-a-vis his legal troubles that is both combative and defensive — and, perhaps unwittingly, seems to assume guilt.

...

There is a historical parallel to Trump’s venting. During the 1970s Watergate investigation, then-President Richard Nixon fumed about what he saw as a “witch hunt” and plotted with his advisers on how to thwart investigators, as revealed later in Oval Office audio recordings.

“What’s very peculiar for students of the Watergate era is to see Trump speaking in the same self-incriminating terms publicly. Nixon had enough self-control to only do it privately,” said Timothy Naftali, an historian at New York University and a former director of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum.

Naftali added, “President Trump’s own rhetoric is not helping him exonerate himself. He shouldn’t have to care about whether someone ‘flips’ or not. If you’re innocent of crimes, you shouldn’t worry about what your lawyer tells law enforcement. Similarly, if Richard Nixon had not been worried about the truth, he would not have been suborning perjury.”

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Because Trump has blown through so many norms, the question of whether the American public is rejecting him is a momentous one. Trump has embraced overt racism, xenophobia and authoritarianism, in the form of regular racial provocations, assaults on our institutions and the rule of law, and an unprecedented level of self-dealing that basically constitutes a big middle finger to the country. He has married all this to orthodox GOP economic priorities — indeed, https://crooked.com/article/trump-fight-democrats-ready/, the three pillars of Trump-era conservatism are self-enriching plutocracy, racism and authoritarianism.

...

We don’t talk enough about the deep and widespread public rejection of Trumpism and what it means for the country and its future. Because so many of us got it wrong in 2016, a kind of defensive posture has set in that has rendered us reluctant to speculate on the meaning of polls indicating this rejection. By all means, caution is always in order when interpreting polling data. At the same time, this should not blind us to what is right there in plain sight at the end of our noses.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]