Trump Timeline ... Trumpocalypse

[Michael Scally MD]

The pile of cash? Seized from the Texas home of a guy who overstayed his visa. The drugs? Seized at a legal port of entry. The guns? Some seized, in 2016, from a car *heading from the U.S. to Mexico*, some seized at a Texas traffic stop, origin unknown.



To help make his point, the evidence was laid out on tables: a big bag of cash, bundles of drugs, high-powered firearms, all confiscated by law enforcement agents working the borderlands in South Texas.

“This is just all recent. This is all very recent,” Mr. Trump said, pointing to the illicit exhibit in front of him. Mr. Trump was not shy about his disgust for the illegal goods: “It looks pretty brutal. This is not a manufactured deal, as you say. This is the real stuff.”

But the display at the president’s Jan. 10 round table, it turns out, had little to do with what happens along unfortified reaches of the border. An examination of the seized items suggests that a border wall would not have stopped most of the items from entering the United States, or, in the case of several weapons displayed in front of the president, from leaving the United States for Mexico.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

It’s become a staple of President Donald Trump’s riffs on the horrors of the US-Mexico border, something he knows by heart so well that he doesn’t even need it scripted on a teleprompter: Human traffickers gag women with tape so they can’t even breathe before packing them into vans and driving them across the border illegally.

But two weeks after Trump had started talking about tape-gagged women — when a https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/01/17/trumps-stories-taped-up-women-smuggled-into-us-are-divorced-reality-experts-say/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.f50298b3f64d (January 17 Washington Post article) had questioned the claim — a top Border Patrol official had to email agents to ask if they had “any information” that the claim was actually true.

The email, shown to Vox by a source within Border Patrol, was sent as a “request for information” by an assistant Border Patrol chief, apparently on behalf of the office of Customs and Border Protection commissioner Kevin McAleenan (referred to internally as “C-1”). It asked agents to reply within less than two hours with “any information (in any format)” regarding claims of tape-gagged women — and even linked to the Post article “for further info.”

Vox’s source indicated that they and others in their sector hadn’t heard anything that would back up Trump’s claims, but wasn’t sure if agents in other sectors had provided information. However, no one from the Trump administration has come forward to offer evidence for the claim, either before or after the internal Border Patrol email was sent. (Customs and Border Protection did not respond to a request for comment.)

 

[Michael Scally MD]

The government shutdown that just ended has deepened Americans' discontent with the state of the nation--and they place the blame primarily on President Donald Trump, a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released on Sunday showed.

The poll's results showed that by 63 percent to 28 percent , a margin greater than two to one, Americans believe the country is "off on the wrong track" rather than "headed in the right direction." That's significantly worse than the 56 percent to 33 percent finding from the December NBC/WSJ poll, taken before the shutdown.

And by 50 percent to 37 percent, Americans blame Trump, rather than Democrats in Congress, for the debacle. That result reflects their disagreement with his stance on the issue that caused it.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

They lied to the public for months before Donald Trump was elected — and then repeatedly after he took office.

They lied to Congress as lawmakers sought to investigate Russia’s attack on American democracy in 2016.

And they lied to the FBI, even when they knew lying was a crime.

In indictments and plea agreements unveiled over the last 20 months, special counsel Robert S. Mueller III has shown over and over again that some of President Trump’s closest friends and advisers have lied about Russia and related issues.

On Friday, Mueller laid out a new allegation: that longtime Trump confidant Roger Stone lied to Congress and obstructed its probe of Russia’s interference in the 2016 campaign.

...

While Mueller has not accused any American of criminally coordinating with Russia, the lies https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/national/robert-mueller-special-counsel-indictments-timeline/?utm_term=.c3e2871bfbdc (meticulously unspooled) by his prosecutors over 20 months have not been mere quibbles.

They have documented various falsehoods by Trump advisers that masked efforts by people in his orbit to develop inroads with Russia and leverage that country’s hacking of Democratic emails.

The remaining question — for both Mueller’s team, as it works on a final investigative report, and for the American people — is why.

Did the president’s men lie to protect a still-hidden dark secret about the campaign’s interaction with Russia, engaging in a broad effort to obstruct the probe — one that included perhaps even Trump?

Did they lie to avoid diminishing Trump’s victory by acknowledging Russia played a role in his election?

Did they each lie for their own reasons, taking their cue from the president — who has told many whoppers of his own, including about Russia?

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Roger Stone, a longtime political adviser to President Trump who was arrested Friday on accusations of lying to Congress, said he would consider cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller in his probe of Trump campaign ties to Russian election interference in 2016.

In an ABC News interview Sunday, host George Stephanopoulos asked Mr. Stone whether there was any chance he would cooperate at Mr. Mueller’s request.

“You know, that’s a question I would have to—I would have to determine after my attorneys have some discussion,” Mr. Stone said. “If there’s wrongdoing by other people in the campaign that I know about, which I know of none, but if there is, I would certainly testify honestly.”

Mr. Stone added: “I’d also testify honestly about any other matter, including any communications with the president. It’s true that we spoke on the phone, but those communications are political in nature, they’re benign, and there is, there is certainly no conspiracy with Russia.”