[kenberg]

awm, on 2018-August-22, 05:43, said:

Does any of this matter? The chance of Trump resigning is basically zero, and while the Democrats might take over the house and impeach him, the 2/3 senate vote for removal seems like a stretch.

Do you see any writers or news organizations or non-retired politicians who supported Trump before and are now changing their minds? Any evidence Trumps electoral "base" is deserting him?

I guess these convictions might fire up some voters to come vote against Rs in the midterms or against Trump in 2020, but they also might fire up Trump supporter to vote because of all the "unfair persecution."

While I agree that the amount of criminality is quite high, most of us suspected this about Trump anyway and it's sort of already priced into our opinions?

For me the biggest impact is how bad our government is at white collar crime, considering that these serial tax fraudsters were getting away with it for years and probably could've continued indefinitely if not for the special prosecutor. Who knows how many other scumballs not connected to Trump are getting away with the same stuff? Of course "there are other criminals on the world" doesn't excuse Trump, but I can't help feel that both the Democrats and the country as a whole would be better off now if Obama had prosecuted a few banksters and other rich lawbreakers after the economic crash.

This last paragraph is something that has been bothering me as well. It takes time and resources, and of course willingness, to get these guys. Manafort and Cohen got caught up in something bigger, so their crimes were uncovered and prosecuted. It is hardly cynical to believe that there are a great many others who cheat their way to greater wealth but survive because the close detailed look that would be required simply never happens. We really need to address this, I think properly funding the IRS would be a good start. It isn't just the money, although the money is important. More important, we really don't want people thinking that only stupid people pay taxes. That view leads down a very bad path.

As to the general question of what it all means, I think you might be underestimating it. Trump has been very destructive, and he has been successful at it because there are still many who believe in him. At some point this will stop. It's easy to find the Cohen plea agreement on line, but here is a link: http://apps.washingt...2Fstory-ans . Even ardent supporters might choke a bit at calling this fake news.

Trump has suggested that we compare the Mueller investigation to the days of Joe McCarthy. I remember Joe McCarthy. I came home from a Boy Scout meeting in 1952, and my parents were watching television. There was this guy, McCarthy, explaining that Adlai Stevenson was a communist. I was 13 but I saw this guy as someone not to be trusted. In fact the only other politician who has ever produced such immediate instinctual feelings of revulsion is Donald Trump. The country eventually came to see things my way in the 1950s and I think the country will come to see things my way about Trump in the not too distant future. Of course I know what happened to Cassandra so maybe I should shut up.

[Winstonm]

awm, on 2018-August-22, 05:43, said:

Does any of this matter? The chance of Trump resigning is basically zero, and while the Democrats might take over the house and impeach him, the 2/3 senate vote for removal seems like a stretch.

Do you see any writers or news organizations or non-retired politicians who supported Trump before and are now changing their minds? Any evidence Trumps electoral “base” is deserting him?

I guess these convictions might fire up some voters to come vote against Rs in the midterms or against Trump in 2020, but they also might fire up Trump supporter to vote because of all the “unfair persecution.”

While I agree that the amount of criminality is quite high, most of us suspected this about Trump anyway and it’s sort of already priced into our opinions?

For me the biggest impact is how bad our government is at white collar crime, considering that these serial tax fraudsters were getting away with it for years and probably could’ve continued indefinitely if not for the special prosecutor. Who knows how many other scumballs not connected to Trump are getting away with the same stuff? Of course “there are other criminals on the world” doesn’t excuse Trump, but I can’t help feel that both the Democrats and the country as a whole would be better off now if Obama had prosecuted a few banksters and other rich lawbreakers after the economic crash.

The size of his ardent supporters is not so great as we are led to believe. This maniac was elected by many people other than his ardent admirers, people who wanted significant change in Washington politics - and what they have received is more of the same with a side order of criminality. There will be a point when the polls will reflect this. Remember, even at resignation Nixon still had favorable poll ratings around 25%.

Congressmen and Senators react to their re-election chances. Those Congressmen in severely gerrymandered Republican districts with lots of tea party constituents will probably have to support Dennison all the way to survive - but there are many who will need to change their position to win re-election.

The coming mid-terms will tell us a lot - if there is a massive blue wave, you will see many of the remaining Republicans start to distance themselves from this president. If there is no giant blue wave, then it will take a serious finding of conspiracy with Russia in order to see them change positions.

The most likely scenario is we have this guy until 2020, at which point his 25% of ardent admirers will not be enough to re-elect him, and the information about him will disgust enough people to vote him out of office.

Edit: I just read that Dennison tweeted, "Don't retain Michael Cohen," but said about Paul Manafort, "I feel bad for Paul Manafort, such a courageous man." Guess which one kept silent.

Unless you like and want your politicians to be the living embodiment of Vito Corleone, it is difficult to understand how the man's own words don't pierce the bubble his supporters have stuck in their ears. After all, Paul Manafort is a "stand-up guy" while Michael Cohen is a "rat".

[Winstonm]

This ought to have a chilling effect on any supporters of Dennison - Lanny Davis, a Cohen lawyer, said this on the Rachel Maddow show:

Quote

"I can tell you that Mr. Cohen has knowledge on certain subjects that should be of interest to the special counsel and is more than happy to tell special counsel all that he knows -- not just about the obvious possibility of a conspiracy to collude and corrupt the American democracy system in the 2016 election, which the Trump Tower meeting was all about, but also, knowledge about the computer crime of hacking and whether or not Mr. Trump knew ahead of time about that crime and even cheered it on."

The big issue here for Mueller is whether or not this information can be verified with documents or confirmed by other witnesses or a combination of both. If it can be confirmed, that's the show, and the curtain will come down on the criminal enterprise currently occupying the West Wing of the WH.

[barmar]

hrothgar, on 2018-August-22, 06:09, said:

From my perspective, there is actually a shadow impeachment already in progress.

The big money contributors on the far right + Rupert Murdoch are constantly evaluating whether or not Trump has started doing more harm than good.
At that point in time, they'll turn on Trump, the Republicans in congress will see the writhing on the wall, we'll be rid of this idiots, and some new idiot will wander in to 1600 Pennsylvania avenue and mindless sign tax cut legislation.

I don't know. They wanted the tax cuts, he got it for them. As far as many of them are concerned, all this corruption and collusion stuff is just a side show -- his policies are still really good for rich businessmen.

[y66]

awm, on 2018-August-22, 05:43, said:

Does any of this matter? The chance of Trump resigning is basically zero, and while the Democrats might take over the house and impeach him, the 2/3 senate vote for removal seems like a stretch.

Do you see any writers or news organizations or non-retired politicians who supported Trump before and are now changing their minds? Any evidence Trumps electoral “base” is deserting him?

I guess these convictions might fire up some voters to come vote against Rs in the midterms or against Trump in 2020, but they also might fire up Trump supporter to vote because of all the “unfair persecution.”

While I agree that the amount of criminality is quite high, most of us suspected this about Trump anyway and it’s sort of already priced into our opinions?

For me the biggest impact is how bad our government is at white collar crime, considering that these serial tax fraudsters were getting away with it for years and probably could’ve continued indefinitely if not for the special prosecutor. Who knows how many other scumballs not connected to Trump are getting away with the same stuff? Of course “there are other criminals on the world” doesn’t excuse Trump, but I can’t help feel that both the Democrats and the country as a whole would be better off now if Obama had prosecuted a few banksters and other rich lawbreakers after the economic crash.

I suspect Obama regrets not having prosecuted a few banksters and will have even more reason to do so when the financial system comes under pressure in the next wave.

The Manafort indictments matter. The corrupting effect he and his ilk have had on the lobbying business (see Atlantic story that passedout posted), on Congress and our entire system of government is way scarier than having a pig in the White House. The pigs are everywhere. They have had their day. It's time to make bacon.

[Winstonm]

Interview on Fox:

Quote

EARHARDT: Did you know about the payments?

TRUMP Dennison: Later on I knew. Later on. But you have to understand, Ainsley, what he did ― and they weren’t taken out of campaign finance. That’s a big thing. That’s a much bigger thing. Did they come out of the campaign? They came from me. I tweeted about it. I don’t know if you know, but I tweeted about the payments.

But they didn’t come out of the campaign. In fact, my first question when I heard about it was, did they come out of the campaign? Because that could be a little dicey. They didn’t come out of the campaign, and that’s big. It’s not even a campaign violation.

Checking my Dennison-to-English dictionary: the payments came from the campaign.

[johnu]

barmar, on 2018-August-22, 09:15, said:

I don't know. They wanted the tax cuts, he got it for them. As far as many of them are concerned, all this corruption and collusion stuff is just a side show -- his policies are still really good for rich businessmen.

"his policies are still really good for the rich businessmen", assuming you are on the right side of his trade war.

[y66]

From Benjamin Wittes at The Atlantic:

Quote

It is the morning after a devastating defeat. Smoke is still rising from the field. The rubble has not yet been cleared. And the commanders are having trouble facing just how hopeless their position has become. They no longer know on how many fronts they are fighting, how many separate enemies they face, or to what extent those enemies are cooperating—one might say “colluding”—with one another. They know they are surrounded. They know the next push could come at any moment—or be days, weeks, or months off. But they know neither what the attack will look like nor from which side it will come.

And so they talk about those 10 counts on which Paul Manafort was not convicted. They talk about a “two-tiered justice system” in which their people get prosecuted for offenses for which the other side has impunity. They talk about about how “every candidate” commits campaign-finance infractions. They talk about the so-called Steele dossier. They talk about how the charges all have nothing to do with their leader. The enemy isn’t fighting fair, they grumble, between suggestions that yesterday’s defeat wasn’t that big a deal or was actually a setback for the other side. Some of them even believe their own bullshit. And they thus convince themselves that their situation is not that different from that of other armies who have toughed it out and ultimately prevailed. The enemy won’t return. Or it will somehow prove manageable when it does, they say, like the Abbasid caliph of Baghdad as the Mongols approached in 1258. Or, like Dick Cheney, they convince themselves that they’re watching the death throes of the insurgency.

In their hearts, of course, most of them know it’s bullshit. But Trump world and its media ecosystem are an intellectual monoculture that demands this. There’s no room around this particular campfire for a plucky commander to speak the truth—which is that Birnam Wood has, indeed, come to Dunsinane while the mad king is busy tweeting about witch hunts.

In this monoculture, Republican members of Congress won’t go to the president and frankly tell him how bad his position really is. I sincerely doubt that his lawyers have done so, either. Donald Trump knows that he can count on nobody. He can’t count on his White House counsel not to slip away from his post and spend 30 hours with the other side—taking advantage of the legal team’s decision not to assert privileges to make sure that Robert Mueller knows his side of the story. He can’t count on his staff not to text Maggie Haberman even while walking out of his office. He can’t count on his personal lawyer not to tape him and then defect to the other side and implicate him in the crimes to which he pleads guilty. He demands absolute loyalty from his subordinates, but he can count on none at all from any of them.

It’s easy to understand why nobody is willing to approach the mad king and describe honestly the situation he faces—indeed, why Fox News can’t even deal candidly with its viewership on the subject: The situation is dire and it is worsening, and saying so would require very tough choices.

The president is facing at least three separate serious investigations, each moving forward at its own inexorable pace. The Paul Manafort conviction yesterday was the latest move forward in the core Russia probe, though the specific charges against Manafort don’t deal with l’affaire Russe itself. Mueller now has Manafort—the president’s campaign chair and a man with extensive ties both to the former Ukrainian government and to Russian oligarchs—convicted on serious criminal conduct. He also has another trial of Manafort coming up next month. This is a man who was in the room for the Trump Tower meeting and who is now facing a long period of time in prison. The prosecutor already had a lot of leverage over him. He now has a lot more.

The Manafort case is not the only movement on the core Russia matter. The Michael Cohen plea also promises potential answers on important questions. Cohen, after all, was a key figure in the negotiations over Trump Tower Moscow, and he played a role in any number of other Russia-related incidents. Mueller also appears to be building a case against Roger Stone. The president can tweet “No Collusion” all he wants, and his sycophants can scoff all they like about the Russia-less nature of the charges yesterday, but if you were honestly advising Trump as to his situation, you couldn’t be blithe. That’s why nobody is.

Nor could you be blithe about the obstruction-of-justice investigation, which may be integrated with the Russia probe to some degree but also appears to be distinct in important respects. When Mueller listed the areas he wants to discuss with Trump, obstruction issues dominated the list. These are questions that touch the president’s personal behavior intimately. And the president’s legal team, almost unfathomably, was caught flat-footed by the scope and extent of White House Counsel Don McGahn’s cooperation with Mueller. For all of Rudy Giuliani’s bluster, the Trump defense team appears to have relatively little sense of where this investigation stands or what to expect from it—save that they seem to expect some kind of damaging report at some point and don’t expect Mueller to indict the president.

And now there’s the Cohen investigation. The most damaging thing that happened yesterday to Trump was not that his former lawyer alleged under oath that Trump had directed him in the commission of crimes. It was that the United States Department of Justice allowed him to enter a guilty plea whose factual basis was that Trump had directed him in the commission of a crime. That is to say that the significance of the Cohen plea is not merely that Cohen alleges that Trump had him arrange to pay hush money to a porn star and a model in a specific effort to influence the election with illegal corporate contributions. It’s that the Justice Department believes this allegation to be true and is willing to proceed criminally against Cohen on that basis. That’s ominous for both Trump personally and for his campaign. What’s more, this particular front in the war is not under Mueller, who spun it off to the U.S. attorney’s office in the Southern District of New York. This is not, in other words, a problem Trump can fire his way out of. The SDNY has a lot more than 17 prosecutors; and whether they are angry or not, Democrats or not, they are not going away.

The situation gets worse for the president—because nobody, including him, has much idea when the next blow is coming or along which of these fronts. On any given day, we could see a subpoena for the president’s grand-jury testimony, which would provoke major litigation, assuming the president decides not to accede to it. At any point—perhaps today, perhaps a week from now, perhaps after the midterm elections—Mueller’s grand jury could issue its next indictments, likely involving people on this side of the Atlantic. And, of course, nobody knows how quickly, if at all, the Southern District might choose to move against other Trump-world figures who are mentioned in yesterday’s Cohen plea filings or what they might seek to do with Cohen’s allegations against Trump himself.

There’s one more reason why nobody will tell the mad king the hopeless truth that he’s surrounded, outmanned, outgunned, and that there’s no telling from where or when the next blow will come: The king is mad and doesn’t want to hear it. And his courtiers, seeking his favor, have either to convince themselves or play along with it. They do this both in talks with him privately and in their public utterances—to show loyalty, or because they are well paid to do so.

And thus we wait.

[johnu]

Dennison declares 'market would crash' if Democrats impeached him

Why would anybody want to impeach Dennison if the stock market is going to crash because he is the only one keeping the market pumped?

In unverified remarks, Dennison also noted that the sun would fail to rise the day after his impeachment, but that it wouldn't make a difference because the sky would have already fallen. I, for one, have taken this seriously and instead of calling for Dennison's impeachment, I am going to spend the rest of the day hiding under my bed.

[kenberg]

WaPo reports on an interview Fox news had with a juror.

https://www.washingt...m=.d281e46eef1b
I found this interesting on many counts. The juror is just an ordinary person. That alone makes it very interesting to me.She describes herself as a Trump supporter, The Post then says:
“The evidence was overwhelming,” Duncan said, pointing to prosecutors’ extensive paper trail. “I did not want Paul Manafort to be guilty, but he was, and no one’s above the law.”
Here is a technical point:

Quote

Duncan, though, also said she was underwhelmed by Manafort’s defense and seemed to acknowledge, in response to a question, that Manafort’s decision not to testify influenced her decision. The judge in the case had told jurors they were not supposed to hold that against Manafort.

“We’re supposed to assume he’s innocent and therefore he does not need to defend himself, and the judge made that very clear, that there is no requirement for him to do so. However, just based on what I saw, what I heard, I think I would have liked to have heard a little more from the defense,” she said. “They gave a very easygoing atmosphere to the whole thing, they objected to very little, and appeared agreeable throughout it all.”

I think WaPo 's description "Manafort’s decision not to testify influenced her decision" is not quite accurate. As I see it she understood and accepted the judge's instruction that she was not to hold it against him that he did not take the stand in his own defense. Rather she was saying that the evidence was damning and if Manafort was able to contest any of it it would have been in his best interest to do so. That is a different thing than holding his lack of response against him, it's simply saying that the presented evidence led her to believe that he was guilty, and if he had anything to say in contradiction it would have been a really good idea for him to say it. She would have listened.





Anyway, we have here a Trump supporter who wanted Manafort to be innocent, someone who took her job seriously and decided that Manafort was guilty. This seems like a bad omen for Trump.

[Winstonm]

kenberg, on 2018-August-23, 07:29, said:

WaPo reports on an interview Fox news had with a juror.

https://www.washingt...m=.d281e46eef1b
I found this interesting on many counts. The juror is just an ordinary person. That alone makes it very interesting to me.She describes herself as a Trump supporter, The Post then says:
“The evidence was overwhelming,” Duncan said, pointing to prosecutors’ extensive paper trail. “I did not want Paul Manafort to be guilty, but he was, and no one’s above the law.”
Here is a technical point:


I think WaPo 's description "Manafort’s decision not to testify influenced her decision" is not quite accurate. As I see it she understood and accepted the judge's instruction that she was not to hold it against him that he did not take the stand in his own defense. Rather she was saying that the evidence was damning and if Manafort was able to contest any of it it would have been in his best interest to do so. That is a different thing than holding his lack of response against him, it's simply saying that the presented evidence led her to believe that he was guilty, and if he had anything to say in contradiction it would have been a really good idea for him to say it. She would have listened.





Anyway, we have here a Trump supporter who wanted Manafort to be innocent, someone who took her job seriously and decided that Manafort was guilty. This seems like a bad omen for Trump.

I guess in the natural order of things the next step would be claims of "fake evidence!".

[Winstonm]

Ken,

This article from The Atlantic helps explain why supporters find it difficult to see the corruption in this administration.

Quote

Once you grasp that for Trump and many of his supporters, corruption means less the violation of law than the violation of established hierarchies, their behavior makes more sense.

Edit:

When you read the above article and then read this, from the NYT quoting a Fox interview, it starts making some sense: (emphasis added)

Quote

WASHINGTON — President Trump said he was not surprised that his onetime lawyer and fixer cooperated with prosecutors in exchange for a lesser punishment — “It’s called ‘flipping,’ and it almost ought to be illegal,” he said.

Mr. Trump said the years in prison facing his longtime attorney, Michael D. Cohen, for bank fraud were too daunting, and “in all fairness to him, most people are going to do that.”

“I know all about flipping. For 30, 40 years I have been watching flippers,” Mr. Trump said on Wednesday during an interview with “Fox & Friends” that aired on Thursday.

Then Mr. Trump referred to Mr. Cohen’s case. “But if you can say something bad about Donald Trump and you will go down to two years or three years, which is the deal he made, in all fairness to him, most people are going to do that. And I have seen it many times. I have had many friends involved in this stuff.”

The two emphasized lines should be enough to tell anyone that this guy has no business anywhere within sniffing distance of power - make illegal law enforcement techniques that help stop criminal families? and who are those friends, Gambinos?

But when you understand that to the 25% hardcore base, this is simply a matter of the regular order, and as long as white males are on top nothing else really matters, then the weirdness is at least comprehensible - sort of.

[barmar]

kenberg, on 2018-August-23, 07:29, said:

Anyway, we have here a Trump supporter who wanted Manafort to be innocent, someone who took her job seriously and decided that Manafort was guilty. This seems like a bad omen for Trump.

While it's heartening to know that there are such people in the world, I doubt she's representative of the majority of Trump supporters (or opponents, for that matter). She made it through the process of jury selection, and that's ideally supposed to weed out jurors who would let their biases influence their decision.

[barmar]

Winstonm, on 2018-August-23, 08:07, said:

The two emphasized lines should be enough to tell anyone that this guy has no business anywhere within sniffing distance of power - make illegal law enforcement techniques that help stop criminal families? and who are those friends, Gambinos?

In all fairness, there are probably lots of reasonable people who think that trading evidence in another case for reducing your own charges is a miscarriage of justice -- it allows them to get away with their own crimes, just because they had a more attractive co-conspirato. It only becomes sleazy when the person making the comment is the target of the other investigation.

But of course you know that if the shoe were on the other foot, Trump would flip in a nanosecond.

[Winstonm]

This is a long quote, but I wasn't sure if WaPo would block the link. Originally, this came from Lawfare as a book recommendation. To me, it is the most likely explanation for how we got from there to here. If you look at events through a prism that accepts the premises put forth, most everything makes some kind of sense, even to the point where a narcissistic businessman could believe he had not been compromised when he was only "doing business", nothing that anyone else in the same position wouldn't do.

Quote

Of all the allegations contained in the “Steele dossier,” the urtext of President Trump’s possible ties to Russia, one has long stood out as the most compromising, because it would be evidence of a political and business relationship between Trump and Russia that predated his campaign for the White House.

“An intelligence exchange,” former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele writes, “had been running between” Trump’s team and the Kremlin, with the direct knowledge of Russian President Vladimir Putin. “Within this context Putin’s priority requirement had been for intelligence on the activities, business and otherwise, in the US of leading Russian oligarchs and their families. Trump and his associates duly had obtained and supplied the Kremlin with this information.”

The precise nature and location of that “intelligence exchange” have never been fully explained. But journalist Craig Unger thinks he may have found it, running out of the offices of Bayrock Group, a real estate development company that operated in Trump Tower in Manhattan in the early 2000s and partnered with the Trump Organization.

Based on his own reporting and the investigative work of a former federal prosecutor, Unger posits that through Bayrock, Trump was “indirectly providing Putin with a regular flow of intelligence on what the oligarchs were doing with their money in the U.S.”

As the theory goes, Putin wanted to keep tabs on the billionaires — some of them former mobsters — who had made their post-Cold War fortunes on the backs of industries once owned by the state. The oligarchs, as well as other new-moneyed elites, were stashing their money in foreign real estate, including Trump properties, presumably beyond Putin’s reach.

Trump, knowingly or otherwise, may have struck a side deal with the Kremlin, Unger argues: He would secretly rat out his customers to Putin, who would allow them to keep buying Trump properties. Trump got rich. Putin got eyes on where the oligarchs had hidden their wealth. Everybody won.

Thus Trump succeeded in business with Russia by what could most charitably be described as willful ignorance. Take the money. Don’t ask too many questions.

And he’d had a lot of practice at that, Unger writes. Trump’s burgeoning real estate empire was fueled in the 1980s by another privileged class, Russian gangsters who appear to have used Trump properties to launder their ill-gotten gains, Unger alleges.

It is this nexus between Trump, Putin, and wealthy mobsters and oligarchs — often the same people — that is Unger’s fixation in his latest book, “House of Trump, House of Putin: The Untold Story of Donald Trump and the Russian Mafia.”

That subtitle is a bit misleading. There is much in Unger’s thoroughly researched narrative that has been told, including in the pages of The Washington Post. Close followers of the byzantine Trump-Russia saga will recognize many of the names and events that fill the pages of Unger’s book.

And yet the story Unger weaves with those earlier accounts and his original reporting is fresh, illuminating and more alarming than the intelligence channel described in the Steele dossier.

Unger believes that Trump was compromised by Russia as early as the 1980s, when the Russian money laundering through his properties probably began. “It’s hard to imagine Donald Trump had no knowledge whatsoever about what was going on,” Unger writes, as hundreds of millions in Russian investment flowed into Trump’s coffers. Trump evinced an “eagerness to turn a blind eye to practices that allowed the Russian mob to launder money,” Unger continues.

There’s never been a proven allegation that Trump was involved in or knew of money laundering through his businesses. But remember, Unger implores, Trump worked at the upper end of Manhattan real estate development. That’s not to say he engaged in organized crime, but he certainly knew what it looked like.

The richer Trump got, the deeper he sank into the Russian criminal underworld, which after the fall of the Soviet Union rose up to form the ruling class, now under Putin’s control.

Unger spends much of his story connecting the dots between Trump and individual alleged Russian mobsters, such as David Bogatin, the pioneer of a gas tax scam, who bought five apartments in Trump Tower in 1984 for $6 million.

Not all the connections run so directly. One famous gangster, Semion Mogilevich, who was renowned for his talent of making dirty money look clean, looms over the entire narrative like an orchestra conductor. Mogilevich, whom FBI agents have called the “boss of bosses,” directed the expansion of the Russian mob into the United States in the early 1990s. And although there is no definitive evidence connecting him directly to Trump, according to Unger, a mountain of facts places him in Trump’s corner of the real estate business.


As Unger tells it, Trump can’t be totally unaware of the criminality surrounding him, and even if he were, that ignorance is no defense. Trump allowed himself to become compromised by Russia, years before he seriously entertained running for public office.

The men who used Trump for their illicit purposes ensnared him. “They had ensured that he was beholden to Russia’s money, and its power,” Unger writes. “All largely unseen. With deniability.”

There is abundant evidence in Unger’s book that Trump made his business infrastructure — his condos, his developments, his very name — available to criminals and oligarchs trying to hide their ill-gotten gains, whether from tax collectors, investigators or the president of Russia. And that’s a form of collusion, too

In fairness, this is the book:
HOUSE OF TRUMP,
HOUSE OF PUTIN
The Untold Story of
Donald Trump and
the Russian Mafia
By Craig Unger

[kenberg]

barmar, on 2018-August-23, 09:16, said:

While it's heartening to know that there are such people in the world, I doubt she's representative of the majority of Trump supporters (or opponents, for that matter). She made it through the process of jury selection, and that's ideally supposed to weed out jurors who would let their biases influence their decision.

I think one of the most difficult things for anyone to say is "I wish this were not so, but I now can see that it is so" . We do not need learned papers on cognitive dissonance to recognize this difficulty. As you suggest, this can be a problem for anyone. On this instance, a Trump supporter serving on the Manafort jury, she seems to have risen to the occasion. Whether this is from a glass that is half empty or half full, I liked reading about it. The jury selection procedure can, I hope, weed out the very worst cases but I think you end up with normal people who have normal difficulties.

[Al_U_Card]

Wyatt Trump vs. the Clinton gang .... will history repeat itself?

From 2001 to 2005 there was an ongoing investigation into the Clinton Foundation.
A Grand Jury had been impanelled.
Governments from around the world had donated to the “Charity”.
Yet, from 2001 to 2003 none of those “Donations” to the Clinton Foundation were declared. Now you would think that an honest investigator would be able to figure this out.
Look who took over this investigation in 2005: None other than James Comey; Coincidence? Guess who was transferred into the Internal Revenue Service to run the Tax Exemption Branch of the IRS? None other than, Lois “Be on The Look Out” (BOLO) Lerner. Isn’t that interesting?
But this is all just a series of strange coincidences, right?
Guess who ran the Tax Division inside the Department of Injustice from 2001 to 2005?
No other than the Assistant Attorney General of the United States,
Rod Rosenstein.
Guess who was the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation during this time frame?
Another coincidence (just an anomaly in statistics and chances), but it was Robert Mueller.
What do all four casting characters have in common?
They all were briefed and/or were front-line investigators into the Clinton Foundation Investigation.
Another coincidence, right?
Fast forward to 2009....
James Comey leaves the Justice Department to go and cash-in at Lockheed Martin.
Hillary Clinton is running the State Department, official government business, on her own personal email server.
The Uranium One “issue” comes to the attention of the Hillary.
Like all good public servants do, supposedly looking out for America’s best interest, she decides to support the decision and approve the sale of 20% of US Uranium to no other than, the Russians.
Now you would think that this is a fairly straight up deal, except it wasn’t, America got absolutely nothing out of it.
However, prior to the sales approval, no other than Bill Clinton goes to Moscow, gets paid 500K for a one hour speech; then meets with Vladimir Putin at his home for a few hours.
Ok, no big deal right? Well, not so fast, the FBI had a mole inside the money laundering and bribery scheme.
Robert Mueller was the FBI Director during this time frame? Yep, He even delivered a Uranium Sample to Moscow in 2009.
Who was handling that case within the Justice Department out of the US Attorney’s Office in Maryland?
None other than, Rod Rosenstein. And what happened to the informant?
The Department of Justice placed a GAG order on him and threatened to lock him up if he spoke out about it.
How does 20% of the most strategic asset of the United States of America end up in Russian hands when the FBI has an informant, a mole providing inside information to the FBI on the criminal enterprise?
Very soon after; the sale was approved!~145 million dollars in “donations” made their way into the Clinton Foundation from entities directly connected to the Uranium One deal.
Guess who was still at the Internal Revenue Service working the Charitable Division? None other than, - Lois Lerner.
Ok, that’s all just another series of coincidences, nothing to see here, right?
Let’s fast forward to 2015.
Due to a series of tragic events in Benghazi and after the 9 “investigations” the House, Senate and at State Department, Trey Gowdy who was running the 10th investigation as Chairman of the Select Committee on Benghazi discovers that the Hillary ran the State Department on an unclassified, unauthorized, outlaw personal email server.He also discovered that none of those emails had been turned over when she departed her “Public Service” as Secretary of State which was required by law. He also discovered that there was Top Secret information contained within her personally archived email.
Sparing you the State Departments cover up, the nostrums they floated, the delay tactics that were employed and the outright lies that were spewed forth from the necks of the Kerry State Department, we shall leave it with this…… they did everything humanly possible to cover for Hillary. .
Now this is amazing, guess who became FBI Director in 2013? None other than James Comey; who secured 17 no bid contracts for his employer (Lockheed Martin) with the State Department and was rewarded with a six million dollar thank you present when he departed his employer? Amazing how all those no-bids just went right through at State, huh?
Now he is the FBI Director in charge of the “Clinton Email Investigation” after of course his FBI Investigates the Lois Lerner “Matter” at the Internal Revenue Service and he exonerates her. Nope.... couldn’t find any crimes there.
In April 2016, James Comey drafts an exoneration letter of Hillary Rodham Clinton, meanwhile the DOJ is handing out immunity deals like candy.They didn’t even convene a Grand Jury!
Like a lightning bolt of statistical impossibility, like a miracle from God himself, like the true “Gangsta” Comey is, James steps out into the cameras of an awaiting press conference on July the 8th of 2016, and exonerates the Hillary from any wrongdoing.
Do you see the pattern?
It goes on and on, Rosenstein becomes Asst. Attorney General,Comey gets fired based upon a letter by Rosenstein, Comey leaks government information to the press, Mueller is assigned to the Russian Investigation sham by Rosenstein to provide cover for decades of malfeasance within the FBI and DOJ and the story continues.
FISA Abuse, political espionage..... pick a crime, any crime, chances are...... this group and a few others did it:
All the same players.
All compromised and conflicted.
All working fervently to NOT go to jail themselves
All connected in one way or another to the Clinton's.
They are like battery acid; they corrode and corrupt everything they touch.How many lives have these two destroyed?
As of this writing, the Clinton Foundation, in its 20+ years of operation of being the largest International Charity Fraud in the history of mankind, has never been audited by the Internal Revenue Service.
Let us not forget that Comey's brother works for DLA Piper, the law firm that does the Clinton Foundation's taxes.
The person that is the common denominator to all the crimes above and still doing her evil escape legal maneuvers at the top of the 3 Letter USA Agencies?
Yep, that would be Hillary R. Clinton.
Now who is LISA BARSOOMIAN? Let’s learn a little about Mrs. Lisa H. Barsoomian’s background.
Lisa H. Barsoomian, an Attorney that graduated from Georgetown Law, is a protégé of James Comey and Robert Mueller.
Barsoomian, with her boss R. Craig Lawrence, represented Bill Clinton in 1998.
Lawrence also represented:
Robert Mueller three times;
James Comey five times;
Barack Obama 45 times;
Kathleen Sebelius 56 times;
Bill Clinton 40 times; and
Hillary Clinton 17 times.
Between 1998 and 2017, Barsoomian herself represented the FBI at least five times.
You may be saying to yourself, OK, who cares? Who cares about the work history of this Barsoomian woman?
Apparently, someone does, because someone out there cares so much that they’ve “purged” all Barsoomian court documents for her Clinton representation in Hamburg vs. Clinton in 1998 and its appeal in 1999 from the DC District and Appeals Court dockets (?). Someone out there cares so much that even the internet has been “purged” of all information pertaining to Barsoomian.
Historically, this indicates that the individual is a protected CIA operative. Additionally, Lisa Barsoomian has specialized in opposing Freedom of Information Act requests on behalf of the intelligence community. Although Barsoomian has been involved in hundreds of cases representing the DC Office of the US Attorney, her email address is Lisa Barsoomian at NIH.gov. The NIH stands for National Institutes of Health. This is a tactic routinely used by the CIA to protect an operative by using another government organization to shield their activities.
It’s a cover, so big deal right? What does one more attorney with ties to the US intelligence community really matter?
It deals with Trump and his recent tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum imports, the border wall, DACA, everything coming out of California, the Uni-party unrelenting opposition to President Trump, the Clapper leaks, the Comey leaks, Attorney General Jeff Sessions recusal and subsequent 14 month nap with occasional forays into the marijuana legalization mix …. and last but not least Mueller’s never-ending investigation into collusion between the Trump team and-the Russians.
Why does Barsoomian, CIA operative, merit any mention?
BECAUSE….
She is Assistant Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s WIFE!

[Winstonm]

The above is to con the uninformed and naive - like something Russia would provide Facebook trolls.

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All of those misstatements and misrepresentations appeared in just the first few sentences of the “FBI Corruption … Decades in a Nutshell” commentary. It’s clear that its claims are misleading, and in some cases outright false. We’re not going to bother fact-checking the rest of it. Given that many of the details are rooted in fact but are presented inaccurately, we’re calling this commentary “misleading.”

[Winstonm]

Quotes:

1) David Dennison - aka Pauli the Pres aka Great Pumpkinini

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I feel very badly for Paul Manafort and his wonderful family. “Justice” took a 12 year old tax case, among other things, applied tremendous pressure on him and, unlike Michael Cohen, he refused to “break” - make up stories in order to get a “deal.” Such respect for a brave man!

2) Sammy "The Bull" Gravano

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“I got a lot of respect for the guys who don’t break under the pressure, the FBI pressure, or whatever,” Gravano said. “This is the government we're talking about. They can do a lot to you in terms of pressure,

[johnu]

Al_U_Card, on 2018-August-23, 19:37, said:

Wyatt Trump vs. the Clinton gang .... will history repeat itself?

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Garbage deleted

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Comrade, comrade, comrade... Surely you, Comrade Dennison, and the alt-right can do better.