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Trump Timeline ... Trumpocalypse
- Thread starter CdnGuy
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There’s a decent chance, when all the dust has settled from the doomed presidency of Donald Trump and the historians are picking over the ashes, that tonight’s Lawfare piece by Benjamin Wittes will be seen as an important document that emerged at a crucial turning point. Certainly, the New York Times article on which it is based will be a key reference point.
I find this frustrating.
It’s frustrating because Wittes’s piece is essentially a giant mea culpa– on behalf of himself and on behalf of the media in general. It’s at once a recognition and an apology for having gone about the analysis of the Russia investigation the wrong way from the beginning. Its basic insight is that the Russia investigation has never really been bifurcated into collusion and obstruction of justice components, but has all along been primarily a counterintelligence investigation with criminal components.
To go just a bit deeper, Wittes seems to be realizing for the first time that Trump’s efforts to obstruct the investigation may be little more than an element of the underlying problem, which is that Trump has been working on the behalf of Russian interests all along. For this reason, his obstruction is just as much about protecting Russia as it is about protecting himself. Or, in other words, the Obstruction Was the Collusion.
To be sure, there is some genuine news in the New York Times piece. We learn about specific events at specific points in time. We learn how investigatory decisions were made and what prompted them. But the central revelation, as shocking as it may be, really should not come as a surprise. The American intelligence community suspects that Donald Trump is compromised by the Russians.
LAWYERING UP
https://claytoonz.com/2019/01/12/lawyering-up-2/
For the past two years, Trump sycophants have been barking “what evidence is there that Trump colluded with Russia”? It’s as if Robert Mueller is supposed to call each and every one of them directly each time he discovers something new. Never mind that there is evidence that Trump worked with Russia, such as calling Russia out to hack his opponent on the campaign trail, reading Wikileaks out loud at Trump rallies, and having Russians visiting his campaign headquarters to meet his son, son-in-law, and campaign manager. But after this week, the Sycophants should be having a harder time asking their stupid question. The mountain of evidence just got higher.
Sycophants aren’t the only ones who will struggle with their talking point. Donald Trump himself will have a harder time saying “no collusion” now that we know his campaign manager and current prisoner of the federal government Paul Manafort was sharing internal campaign polling dating with Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian national with suspected ties to Russian intelligence and who has been indicted by the Special Counsel’s office. Kilimnik formerly worked for Manafort’s consulting firm. Manafort had also discussed a Ukraine peace plan, which would lift sanctions on Russia, with Kilimnik, who is believed to be hiding in Moscow at this time. Manafort, deep in debt to very dangerous pro-Russian oligarchs, was working for the Trump campaign without pay only because he’s such a nice guy.
Why was Manafort sharing polling data with a Russian national who has ties to Russian intelligence? There have been questions since the election about how Russian hackers knew to target specific areas and people, like Wisconsinites who didn’t like Hillary Clinton but would never vote for Trump. Trump beat Clinton by around 80,000 votes in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, a total lower than candidate Jill Stein’s. Russian hackers promoted Stein’s candidacy in those states. How did they know to do that?
Now, we have learned that the FBI has been investigating Donald Trump which is a big deal. The FBI doesn’t normally investigate a president, especially into if he was secretly working to benefit Russia against American interest.
The FBI, much like anyone with eyes, ears, and their head not currently up their own ass, was suspicious of Trump’s attitude toward Russia. They were holding off on an investigation until he fired FBI Director James Comey and told NBC’s Lester Holt that he fired Comey to relieve the stress of the Russia investigation. He told the same thing to the Russian ambassador and foreign minister.
Counterintelligence investigators had to consider whether the president’s own actions constituted a possible threat to national security. Agents also sought to determine whether Trump was knowingly working for Russia or had unwittingly fallen under Moscow’s influence.
If Trump had fired Comey to stop the Russia investigation, the act would have been a national security issue because it would have hurt the bureau’s effort to learn how Moscow interfered in the 2016 election and whether any Americans were involved. That’s what they call obstruction. Donald Trump is a national security threat.
Trump recently added seventeen lawyers to his defense team. What’s more shocking than the FBI investigating a president is that one of the lawyers is Not Natalia Veselnitskaya. That probably would have looked too weird.
https://claytoonz.com/2019/01/12/lawyering-up-2/
For the past two years, Trump sycophants have been barking “what evidence is there that Trump colluded with Russia”? It’s as if Robert Mueller is supposed to call each and every one of them directly each time he discovers something new. Never mind that there is evidence that Trump worked with Russia, such as calling Russia out to hack his opponent on the campaign trail, reading Wikileaks out loud at Trump rallies, and having Russians visiting his campaign headquarters to meet his son, son-in-law, and campaign manager. But after this week, the Sycophants should be having a harder time asking their stupid question. The mountain of evidence just got higher.
Sycophants aren’t the only ones who will struggle with their talking point. Donald Trump himself will have a harder time saying “no collusion” now that we know his campaign manager and current prisoner of the federal government Paul Manafort was sharing internal campaign polling dating with Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian national with suspected ties to Russian intelligence and who has been indicted by the Special Counsel’s office. Kilimnik formerly worked for Manafort’s consulting firm. Manafort had also discussed a Ukraine peace plan, which would lift sanctions on Russia, with Kilimnik, who is believed to be hiding in Moscow at this time. Manafort, deep in debt to very dangerous pro-Russian oligarchs, was working for the Trump campaign without pay only because he’s such a nice guy.
Why was Manafort sharing polling data with a Russian national who has ties to Russian intelligence? There have been questions since the election about how Russian hackers knew to target specific areas and people, like Wisconsinites who didn’t like Hillary Clinton but would never vote for Trump. Trump beat Clinton by around 80,000 votes in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, a total lower than candidate Jill Stein’s. Russian hackers promoted Stein’s candidacy in those states. How did they know to do that?
Now, we have learned that the FBI has been investigating Donald Trump which is a big deal. The FBI doesn’t normally investigate a president, especially into if he was secretly working to benefit Russia against American interest.
The FBI, much like anyone with eyes, ears, and their head not currently up their own ass, was suspicious of Trump’s attitude toward Russia. They were holding off on an investigation until he fired FBI Director James Comey and told NBC’s Lester Holt that he fired Comey to relieve the stress of the Russia investigation. He told the same thing to the Russian ambassador and foreign minister.
Counterintelligence investigators had to consider whether the president’s own actions constituted a possible threat to national security. Agents also sought to determine whether Trump was knowingly working for Russia or had unwittingly fallen under Moscow’s influence.
If Trump had fired Comey to stop the Russia investigation, the act would have been a national security issue because it would have hurt the bureau’s effort to learn how Moscow interfered in the 2016 election and whether any Americans were involved. That’s what they call obstruction. Donald Trump is a national security threat.
Trump recently added seventeen lawyers to his defense team. What’s more shocking than the FBI investigating a president is that one of the lawyers is Not Natalia Veselnitskaya. That probably would have looked too weird.
President Trump asserted late Friday that drug prices declined for the first time in nearly 50 years, implying in a tweet that his administration’s efforts to speed generic drugs to market were responsible for that historic feat.
But in the context of America’s prescription drug market, the statement is both a non-sequitur and demonstrably false.
A recent analysis of brand-name drugs by the Associated Press found 96 price increases for every price cut in the first seven months of 2018. At the start of last year, drug makers hiked prices on 1,800 medicines by a median of 9.1 percent, and many continued to increase prices throughout the year.
