Trump Timeline ... Trumpocalypse

[Michael Scally MD]

Donald Trump and Roy Moore hold a strategy meeting on young voters.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

MONTGOMERY, AL—Saying that the state had no choice but to take them at their word, Alabama officials on Tuesday announced that thousands of sex offenders would be released after the inmates firmly denied the charges.

“If they said they didn’t do it, then what choice do we have but to let them go?” said Alabama Department of Corrections administrator Clay Buxton, adding that penitentiaries statewide would be interviewing prisoners and releasing them immediately upon receiving their sworn declaration of innocence.

“We sometimes ask these individuals not just once but multiple times if they’re guilty of sex crimes, and when they say no, often very emphatically, our hands are pretty much tied.”

Buxton emphasized, however, that any inmates who admitted that they did commit a sex crime will remain behind bars and continue to carry out their sentences as originally handed down.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Plenty of heads turned Saturday when it was reported that Trump transition adviser K.T. McFarland had described in a December 2016 email how Russia "has just thrown the U.S.A. election to [Trump]." The fuller context of the email later suggested she https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/12/04/a-tale-of-3-would-be-trump-russia-smoking-guns/ (was merely paraphrasing Democrats' arguments).

But that email now has McFarland in some hot water for another reason: Namely, how she appears to have given a Democratic senator a misleading response to his written question about Michael Flynn's contacts with Russia's ambassador. And in doing so, she becomes the latest in https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/11/14/a-brief-history-of-things-that-jeff-sessions-and-team-trump-could-not-recall-until-the-media-reminded-them/ (a long, long line of those around Trump who have obscured their Russia-related contacts).

But how bad was McFarland's response? Let's break down the exchange.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Senorman]

Wow, 4.5 months of Mueller’s investigation only cost $3.2M. Bargain, especially considering that each one of Trump’s Mar a Lago weekend trips costs taxpayers 3.6M.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

To the list of activities attracting the attention of prosecutors, President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort just added a new one: editor.

Oleg Voloshyn, a former spokesman for Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs under ex-President Viktor Yanukovych, said in an interview that he drafted the unpublished editorial that U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller accused Manafort on Dec. 4. of ghostwriting in order to influence public opinion about his work in Ukraine. Voloshyn said he wrote the piece on his own initiative. He said he sent it to Manafort only to check facts and incorporated a few of his suggestions.

It’s a violation of a court order for Manafort to try the case in the press, prosecutors say. Mueller is now seeking to deny Manafort’s bid for freedom from house arrest before his trial because of the editorial. More broadly, the dispute reveals how close Manafort remains to former colleagues in Ukraine, where he worked for a decade reaping millions of dollars in payments that are now subject to legal scrutiny.

Voloshyn said he was shocked to see his unpublished opinion piece spark the latest controversy in Mueller’s case against Manafort, who has been charged with conspiracy to launder money and acting as an unregistered agent for Ukraine. Voloshyn said that he sent his unpublished editorial last week to Konstantin Kilimnik, a longtime associate of Manafort in Ukraine, who then forwarded it on to Manafort.

"He just advised me to add that the Yanukovych government also worked actively with the U.S. on nuclear disarmament and with NATO,” Voloshyn said of Manafort. “And since I knew of that as well, I agreed those could be valuable contributions to strengthen my message.”

Voloshyn said he asked the press service of the Opposition Bloc, a political party that Manafort had worked for in Ukraine, to send the editorial to the English-language Kyiv Post. The Opposition Bloc grew out of the Party of Regions, which Manafort advised until Yanukovych fled to Russia in 2014.

Manafort spokesman Jason Maloni declined to comment.

Brian Bonner, editor of the Kyiv Post, said that he received the editorial on Monday. The newspaper isn’t planning to published the piece, Bonner said, which he called "highly suspicious" and "blatantly pro-Manafort."

 

[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]

 

[Big_paul]

Fight: Trump's lawyers will argue Trump either did not violate any law — or, even if it appears he did, that the president, because of his broad power, cannot be charged and should not be impeached.

Didn't Nixon try something like that?

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Didn't Nixon try something like that?

 

[Michael Scally MD]