Society The Donald J. Trump Show - 4 more years editions

[Truck Party]

View: https://twitter.com/DPRK_News/status/908313860981043200

 

[Freeloading Rusty]

Trump Chewed Out Sessions In Brutal Meeting After Sessions Recused Himself From Russia Probe
The New York Times reports that Trump berated Attorney General Jeff Sessions in an oval office meeting after Sessions stepped aside from the Justice Department's Russia inquiry. Trump reportedly told Sessions that his hire was the worst decision he's ever made, calling him an "idiot." Sessions reportedly offered his resignation, which Trump later sent back after talking to advisers.

Trump Confirms Details Of DACA Deal
Update, 12:50 PM: In an impromptu briefing with reporters, President Trump essentially confirmed the deal that was previously described by Nanci Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, that Trump later denied, saying "the wall will come later."

Previously: The Washington Post reports that Late Wednesday night Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi told the press that during a dinner, President Trump agreed to push legislation that would replace DACA in exchange for border security that didn't include a wall.

Thursday morning, Trump tweeted similar details, but that there was "no deal":

View: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/908272007011282944


View: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/908274366739345409


View: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/908276308265795585


View: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/908278070611779585

Trump To Announce New Iran Sanctions
The Trump administration will announce new sanctions on Iran while also extending the Iran nuclear deal, according to NBC. Trump is reportedly delaying pulling out of the deal, and attempting to renegotiate certain aspects of it. The new sanctions aim at stemming human rights abuses and illegal procurement of goods.

National Security Adviser Orders Entire Federal Gov To Hold Anti-Leak Training, Suggests Showing Fox News Clip
BuzzFeed reports that National Security Adviser HR McMaster has issued a memo to all government agencies and departments ordering anti-leaking training occur that covers classified and controlled unclassified information. Suggested videos to show include a clip from Fox News.

 

[Freeloading Rusty]

Mayweather: President Trump’s ‘Grab them by the p-ssy’ comment is how ‘real men’ talk

"People don’t like the truth," Mayweather said. "He speak like a real man spoke. Real men speak like, 'Man, she had a fat ass. You see her ass? I had to squeeze her ass. I had to grab that fat ass.' Right? So he talking locker room talk. Locker room talk. 'I’m the man, you know what I’m saying? You know who I am. Yeah, I grabbed her by the p-ssy. And?'"

"I feel people shy away from realness," he added. "This man didn’t do nothing. Listen, if y’all didn’t want the man in the White House, y’all should have voted the other way. It ain’t like he went and robbed—he done his homework. He did what he had to do and he got there."

 

[Truck Party]

What gives up the scam is Mexico's reaction to getting them back, they don't want them. They seem to think they're some bad hombres, too

 

[jason73]

 

[Sex Chicken]

 

[jason73]

 

[jason73]

 

[Freeloading Rusty]

A DECADE AFTER MASSACRE, BLACKWATER FOUNDER BUDDIES UP WITH PRESIDENT

It all started with a single gunshot from a Blackwater Security Company guard. A young man who was driving with his mother to pick up his dad from work was killed. His foot wedged against the accelerator causing his car to roll towards a Blackwater vehicle. Then, as one eyewitness recalled, “the shooting started like rain.” The young man’s car burst into flames after a direct hit by a grenade.

This was the scene when a Blackwater private security convoy opened fire in a busy square in Baghdad in the middle of the day, exactly 10 years ago, for no reason other than nervous trigger fingers.

Seventeen innocent Iraqis were killed and 24 injured in what came to be known as the Nisour Square Massacre. It contributed to the negative Iraqi public opinion toward the allied forces’ presence in their country, and to increased backlash and bloodshed.

Now the founder and ex-CEO of Blackwater (renamed twice — currently Academi Services) has the ear of the president of the United States.

Erik Prince is the brother of billionaire secretary of state for education Betsy DeVos. He and his family donated more than $10 million to GOP candidates and super PACs in 2016.

Prince was invited to an August meeting of military specialists at Camp David to finalize President Donald Trump’s strategy on Afghanistan. He had been making the rounds in Washington with a binder containing his proposal to embed advisors in Afghani forces and provide them with a private air force. All of this would be overseen by a commander, known as a “Viceroy,” reporting to Prince’s company.

“The privatization of security is not unusual,” says Robert Young Pelton — author, adventurer and war journalist whose coverage includes Chechnya, Afghanistan and Iraq. “But the privatization and provision of military level violence in conflict zones has proven to be a root cause of anger and distrust…The worst-case scenario is the self-financing of private armies so there is always skepticism of private plans to fight wars.”

There is nothing wrong with Prince’s strategic plan, says Pelton. “[It] was written by people with experience in the fundamentals of counterinsurgency concepts: air support, training of small commando groups and logistics.”

The problems began, says Pelton, “when Prince adds a level of bad history reading by integrating inflammatory concepts such as ‘Viceroy,’ ‘East India Company’ and of course the unsaid assumption that he seeks to profit from war.”

Despite a seeming inability to grasp how terms from the colonial past might upset present-day Afghans, Prince had clearly done his homework on President Trump’s fondness for flattery. He likened his master-plan for Afghanistan to Trump’s “turnaround” of a stalled ice rink in New York. Prince was so keen for this sycophantic reference to be highlighted in an interview he gave to the Atlantic that he told the writer: “Make sure to get the Wollman Ice Rink…Please be sure to use that in the article.”

Meanwhile, on August 4, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia overturned the only murder conviction of a Blackwater employee involved in the massacre; the Court also ordered the resentencing of three other Blackwater employees currently serving 30 years each on lesser manslaughter and firearms charges — ruling that these sentences constituted “cruel and unusual punishment.”

Pelton does not fault the Appeals Court on this decision: “The State Department created the high-profile violent operating style of Blackwater, and events like Nisour Square were just the most egregious of many. But the trial was deliberately vindictive, [it] wrongly applied laws and was fraught with procedural problems.”

“Full focus should be on the US Government’s use of rented perpetrators of violence in order to conduct business in hostile regions,” Pelton says. “It was only a matter of time before an event of this type would occur in Iraq using these operating methods condoned by the State Department.”

Prince’s lack of regret or acceptance of blame for murderous mistakes by his employees is a matter of public record. In a congressional hearing less than a month after the Nisour Square massacre, he testified that his men had “acted appropriately at all times.” When pressed further by Illinois Democrat Danny Davis, Prince denied the company had ever killed innocent civilians.

Davis: “You do admit that Blackwater personnel have shot and killed innocent civilians, don’t you?”

Prince: “No, sir. I disagree with that, I think there’s been times when guys are using defensive force to protect themselves, to protect the packages, trying to get away from danger. There would be ricochets, there are traffic accidents, yes. This is war.”

Jeremy Scahill, in his book Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army, is dismissive of Prince’s unwaveringly defiant testimony.

“The assertion by Prince that no innocents had been killed by Blackwater was simply unbelievable. And not just according to the eyewitnesses and survivors of the Nisour Square shootings and other deadly Blackwater actions. According to a report prepared by [former Congressman Henry] Waxman’s staff, from 2005 to the time of the hearing, Blackwater operatives in Iraq opened fire on at least 195 occasions. In more than 80 percent of these instances, Blackwater fired first. These statistics were based on Blackwater’s own reporting. But some alleged the company was underreporting its statistics. A former Blackwater operative who spent nearly three years in Iraq told the Washington Post his 20-man team averaged four or five shootings a week, several times the rate of 1.4 incidents per week that Blackwater claimed.”

Trump’s announcement of his new strategy for Afghanistan was typically short on specifics. Whether Prince’s private army will form part of or inform all of it is not yet known. But given the bloody history of what is now the longest war in US history, the question arises: Can the US afford to send for-profit mercenaries with views aligned to Prince’s onto the streets of Afghanistan at the taxpayers’ expense?

 

[Freeloading Rusty]

Former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort wiretapped by US investigators, report says

Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was wiretapped by U.S. government investigators both before and after the 2016 presidential election, according to a report out Monday night.

The wiretapping was authorized by a secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court after the FBI started to investigate Manafort, 68, in 2014, CNN reported. He's been under scrutiny over his financial dealings and lobbying efforts with pro-Russia and Ukrainian officials but has denied colluding with Russia to influence the election.

The order to monitor Manafort was discontinued in 2016, but investigators obtained another FISA warrant that stretched into early 2017, according to the report.

Some of the intelligence collected during the surveillance reportedly signaled that Manafort may have pushed for Russian officials to help try to get then-candidate Donald Trump elected. However, sources told CNN the evidence was not conclusive.

Manafort, according to the report, was not surveilled during the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting in which Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Manafort met with Kremlin-linked attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya.

Manafort – who is a key figure in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s involvement with the election – had his Virginia home raided in July by FBI agents who were looking for financial documents related to the election.

The FBI took documents and other materials related to Mueller’s investigation during the raid, just one day after Manafort had voluntarily met with members of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

The raid was followed up with a warning to Manafort from Mueller’s prosecutors that they planned to indict him, The New York Times reported.

Flynn's family sets up legal defense fund

The family of former Trump administration national security adviser Michael Flynn has set up a legal defense fund to defray expenses connected to the investigations into Russian election meddling.

"The various investigations arising out of the 2016 presidential election have placed a tremendous financial burden on our brother Mike and his family. The enormous expense of attorneys' fees and other related expenses far exceed their ability to pay," Flynn's siblings, Joe Flynn and Barbara Redgate, said in a statement.

The statement continued: "To help ensure that he can defend himself, we have set up a legal defense fund, and we are asking Mike's supporters, veterans and all people of goodwill to contribute whatever amount they can to this fund. "

A website has been set up for donations. The site notes only "US citizens and permanent residents may donate." A source close to Flynn told CNN the fund will not "accept funds from the Trump campaign or Trump Organization."
Flynn thanked his family on Monday morning, tweeting, "Lori and I are very grateful to my brother Joe and sister Barbara for creating a fund to help pay my legal defense costs."

View: https://twitter.com/GenFlynn/status/909748907600760832


Report: Mueller warned Manafort to expect an indictment

Prosecutors on special counsel Robert Mueller's team reportedly told former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort that they planned to indict him when they picked his lock and raided his Virginia home in July.

The warning, allegedly a shock-and-awe tactic, came as federal agents combed through Manafort's computer files, documents and any other potential pieces of evidence that could help them in their federal investigation, The New York Times reported Monday, citing two people close to the investigation.



The jarring comment is part of the approach Mueller and his team have embraced since May when the Justice Department named them to lead the high-profile investigation earlier, which aims to intimidate witnesses and possible targets of the probe, the newspaper reported.
The right to pick a lock and enter Manafort's home unannounced, even with a warrant in hand, means prosecutors had to convince a federal judge that Manafort would likely try to destroy evidence upon making themselves known.

Manafort, who was fired from Trump's campaign last summer, has emerged as a key figure in Mueller's investigation as prosecutors continue to scrutinize possible ties to Russia, his lobbying work overseas and other previous business transactions.

A spokesman for Mueller declined the Times's request for comment and so did the lawyers and a spokesman for Manafort.

Mueller's probe is broadly investigating Russia's interference in the 2016 election as well as whether Trump campaign associates colluded with the Kremlin in order to fix the outcome so that Donald Trump would end up in the Oval Office.

The report comes at a time when the investigation appears to be picking up steam as the federal prosecutor continues to sniff around the White House for leads.

Mueller has reportedly issued a series of subpoenas to pressure witnesses to testify before a grand jury. Manafort's spokesman reportedly testifiedbefore a federal grand jury in Washington on Friday. As did one of Manafort's former lawyers, during which Mueller claimed an exception to the attorney-client privacy rule.

The Times report came around the same time Monday afternoon that CNN reported the government wiretapped Manafort's phone during and after the 2016 presidential election.

Manafort has not been charged with any crime.

With a Picked Lock and a Threatened Indictment, Mueller’s Inquiry Sets a Tone

Paul J. Manafort was in bed early one morning in July when federal agents bearing a search warrant picked the lock on his front door and raided his Virginia home. They took binders stuffed with documents and copied his computer files, looking for evidence that Mr. Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign chairman, set up secret offshore bank accounts. They even photographed the expensive suits in his closet.

The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, then followed the house search with a warning: His prosecutors told Mr. Manafort they planned to indict him, said two people close to the investigation.

The moves against Mr. Manafort are just a glimpse of the aggressive tactics used by Mr. Mueller and his team of prosecutors in the four months since taking over the Justice Department’s investigation into Russia’s attempts to disrupt last year’s election, according to lawyers, witnesses and American officials who have described the approach. Dispensing with the plodding pace typical of many white-collar investigations, Mr. Mueller’s team has used what some describe as shock-and-awe tactics to intimidate witnesses and potential targets of the inquiry.

Mr. Mueller has obtained a flurry of subpoenas to compel witnesses to testify before a grand jury, lawyers and witnesses say, sometimes before his prosecutors have taken the customary first step of interviewing them. One witness was called before the grand jury less than a month after his name surfaced in news accounts. The special counsel even took the unusual step of obtaining a subpoena for one of Mr. Manafort’s former lawyers, claiming an exception to the rule that shields attorney-client discussions from scrutiny.


“They are setting a tone. It’s important early on to strike terror in the hearts of people in Washington, or else you will be rolled,” said Solomon L. Wisenberg, who was deputy independent counsel in the investigation that led to the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton in 1999. “You want people saying to themselves, ‘Man, I had better tell these guys the truth.’”


A spokesman for Mr. Mueller declined to comment. Lawyers and a spokesman for Mr. Manafort also declined to comment.

Few people can upend Washington like a federal prosecutor rooting around a presidential administration, and Mr. Mueller, a former F.B.I. director, is known to dislike meandering investigations that languish for years. At the same time, he appears to be taking a broad view of his mandate: examining not just the Russian disruption campaign and whether any of Mr. Trump’s associates assisted in the effort, but also any financial entanglements with Russians going back several years. He is also investigating whether Mr. Trump tried to obstruct justice when he fired James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director.

Mr. Manafort is under investigation for possible violations of tax laws, money-laundering prohibitions and requirements to disclose foreign lobbying. Michael T. Flynn, the former national security adviser, is being scrutinized for foreign lobbying work as well as for conversations he had last year with Russia’s ambassador to the United States. On Monday, Mr. Flynn’s siblings announced the creation of a legal-defense fund to help cover their brother’s “enormous” legal fees.

The wide-ranging nature of Mr. Mueller’s investigation could put him on a collision course with Mr. Trump, who has said publicly that Mr. Mueller should keep his investigation narrowly focused on last year’s presidential campaign. In an interview with The New York Times, Mr. Trump said Mr. Mueller would be overstepping his boundaries if he investigated his family’s finances unrelated to Russia.

For the moment, Mr. Mueller’s team has shown a measure of deference to White House officials, sparing them grand jury subpoenas and allowing them to be appear for voluntary interviews. Those sessions are expected to begin soon. Ty Cobb, a lawyer brought in to manage the White House response to the inquiry, has told administration officials that he wants to avoid any subpoenas from the special prosecutor.

Staff members have been working long hours answering Mr. Mueller’s request for 13 categories of documents, including records related to Mr. Comey’s firing and Mr. Trump’s role in drafting a misleading statement about a June 2016 meeting between campaign officials and Russian-born visitors. Nonetheless, the demand for documents has provoked at least one angry confrontation between Mr. Cobb and Donald F. McGahn II, the White House counsel, over whether certain documents should be withheld to protect the president’s right to confidentiality.


But associates of both Mr. Manafort and Mr. Flynn have received more peremptory treatment. Instead of invitations to the prosecutor’s office, they have been presented with grand jury subpoenas, forcing them to either testify or take the Fifth Amendment and raise suspicions that they had something to hide. At least three witnesses have recently been subpoenaed to testify about Mr. Manafort: Jason Maloni, a spokesman who appeared before the grand jury for more than two hours on Friday, and the heads of two consulting firms — Mercury Public Affairs and the Podesta Group — who worked with Mr. Manafort on behalf of Viktor F. Yanukovych, the pro-Russia former president of Ukraine.


Mr. Mueller’s team also took the unusual step of issuing a subpoena to Melissa Laurenza, a specialist in lobbying law who formerly represented Mr. Manafort, according to people familiar with the subpoena. Conversations between lawyers and their clients are normally considered bound by attorney-client privilege, but there are exceptions when lawyers prepare public documents that are filed on behalf of their client.

Mr. Mueller took over the Russia investigation in May, after the F.B.I. had already spent nearly a year looking into connections between Mr. Trump’s associates and Russians. His team has occasionally been caught by surprise, hearing of possibly important information only when it is revealed in the news media.

This was the case in July, when Mr. Mueller’s prosecutors learned about email exchanges between Donald Trump Jr. and an emissary for a Kremlin-connected Russian oligarch only after they were disclosed in The New York Times, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity. Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son, set up the Trump Tower meeting to receive what he was told would be damaging information about Hillary Clinton from the Russian government.

Soon after his name surfaced, one of the Russian-born participants at the meeting, Rinat Akhmetshin, was ordered to testify before the grand jury, according to one of Mr. Akhmetshin’s associates.

“They seem to be pursuing this more aggressively, taking a much harder line, than you’d expect to see in a typical white collar case,” said Jimmy Gurulé, a Notre Dame law professor and former federal prosecutor. “This is more consistent with how you’d go after an organized crime syndicate.”


The tactics reflect some of the hard-charging — and polarizing — personalities of Mr. Mueller’s team, seasoned prosecutors with experience investigating financial fraud, money laundering and organized crime.


Robert S. Mueller III, a former F.B.I director, is known to dislike meandering investigations that languish for years.
DOUG MILLS / THE NEW YORK TIMES
Admirers of Andrew Weissmann, one of the team’s senior prosecutors, describe him as relentless and uncompromising, while his detractors say his scorched earth tactics have backfired in some previous cases. Greg B. Andres, another one of Mr. Mueller’s prosecutors, once ran an investigation into a Mafia kingpin. Zainab N. Ahmad made her name as a prosecutor pursing high-profile terrorism cases.


Some lawyers defending people who have been caught up in Mr. Mueller’s investigation privately complain that the special counsel’s team is unwilling to engage in the usual back-and-forth that precedes — or substitutes for — grand jury testimony. They argue that the team’s more aggressive tactics might end up being counterproductive, especially if some grand jury witnesses turn out to be more guarded than they would have been in a more informal setting or invoke the Fifth Amendment.

The longer Mr. Mueller’s investigation goes on, the more vulnerable he will be to allegations that he is on a fishing expedition, said Katy Harriger, a professor of politics at Wake Forest University and the author of a book on special prosecutors. Such accusations dogged the investigation of Kenneth W. Starr, the independent counsel whose investigation of Mr. Clinton stretched on for years.

To a degree, Mr. Mueller is in a race against three congressional committees that are interviewing some of same people who are of interest to the special prosecutor’s team. Even if the committees refuse to grant them immunity, congressional testimony that becomes public can give other witnesses a chance to line up their stories.

Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said committee staff members were going to great lengths not to get in Mr. Mueller’s way. But Senator Charles E. Grassley, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, indicated last week that his committee might subpoena witnesses to testify about the circumstances of Mr. Comey’s firing even over Mr. Mueller’s objections.

Mr. Mueller’s need to navigate this complex landscape could explain the timing of the raid on Mr. Manafort’s house, which took place in the early hours of July 26. The raid came one day after Mr. Manafort was interviewed by staff members of the Senate Intelligence Committee.


On the day of the raid, Mr. Manafort was scheduled to talk to the Senate Judiciary Committee, an interview that was eventually canceled.


It is unusual for a prosecutor to seek a search warrant against someone who, like Mr. Manafort, had already put his lawyer in contact with the Justice Department. No search warrants were executed during the investigations by Mr. Starr or Patrick J. Fitzgerald, a special counsel appointed during the George W. Bush administration to investigate the leak of the name of a C.I.A. officer.

To get the warrant, Mr. Mueller’s team had to show probable cause that Mr. Manafort’s home contained evidence of a crime. To be allowed to pick the lock and enter the home unannounced, prosecutors had to persuade a federal judge that Mr. Manafort was likely to destroy evidence.

Said Mr. Gurulé, the former federal prosecutor, “Clearly they didn’t trust him.”

 

[jason73]

 

[Freeloading Rusty]

Still posting tweets from the fake Julian Assange Twitter account eh?

 

[jason73]

The U.S. government wiretapped former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort before and after the presidential election, CNN is reporting.

According to the bombshell report, the surveillance, which was granted under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, continued into early this year.

U.S. investigators first obtained a secret order to conduct surveillance on Manafort after he became the subject of an FBI investigation in 2014 because of his consulting work for a Ukrainian political party.

The surveillance was ended at some point last year because of a lack of evidence, one source told CNN, but investigators obtained another warrant at some point during the presidential campaign.

It it not clear exactly when the second surveillance warrant was obtained, though it was after the now-infamous meeting held at Trump Tower last June. Manafort attended the meeting along with Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and a group of Russians with alleged ties to the Russian government.

Manafort was picked as Trump’s campaign chairman last May. He lasted through August, when he was essentially fired over revelations about his consulting work in Ukraine.

According to CNN, the FBI became more interested in Manafort during the fall after intercepting communications between the longtime GOP lobbyist and Russian operatives.

The wiretap on Manafort has yielded intelligence of interest to Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is overseeing the investigation into Russian meddling in the presidential campaign.

Mueller obtained a search warrant of Manafort’s Virginia residence in late July. Federal agents also conducted a search of a storage facility that belongs to Manafort, according to CNN. The latter search appears to have been carried out earlier this year, before Mueller took over the Russia investigation.

It is unclear if the surveillance captured conversations between Manafort and Trump. The two have reportedly spoken since Trump took office.

 

[jason73]

 

[jason73]

 

[Truck Party]

The U.S. government wiretapped former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort before and after the presidential election, CNN is reporting.

According to the bombshell report, the surveillance, which was granted under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, continued into early this year.

U.S. investigators first obtained a secret order to conduct surveillance on Manafort after he became the subject of an FBI investigation in 2014 because of his consulting work for a Ukrainian political party.

The surveillance was ended at some point last year because of a lack of evidence, one source told CNN, but investigators obtained another warrant at some point during the presidential campaign.

It it not clear exactly when the second surveillance warrant was obtained, though it was after the now-infamous meeting held at Trump Tower last June. Manafort attended the meeting along with Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and a group of Russians with alleged ties to the Russian government.

Manafort was picked as Trump’s campaign chairman last May. He lasted through August, when he was essentially fired over revelations about his consulting work in Ukraine.

According to CNN, the FBI became more interested in Manafort during the fall after intercepting communications between the longtime GOP lobbyist and Russian operatives.

The wiretap on Manafort has yielded intelligence of interest to Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is overseeing the investigation into Russian meddling in the presidential campaign.

Mueller obtained a search warrant of Manafort’s Virginia residence in late July. Federal agents also conducted a search of a storage facility that belongs to Manafort, according to CNN. The latter search appears to have been carried out earlier this year, before Mueller took over the Russia investigation.

It is unclear if the surveillance captured conversations between Manafort and Trump. The two have reportedly spoken since Trump took office.

it'd be an interesting exercise to go thru old posts & see what everyone had to say after Trump's tweet about being wiretapped months ago

 

[Ted Williams' head]

it'd be an interesting exercise to go thru old posts & see what everyone had to say after Trump's tweet about being wiretapped months ago

I flipped on CNN yesterday and they were talking about it with the headline graphic "THE PARANOIA CONTINUES" underneath.

Great for them to make up their minds without the facts though, that's what great journalists do

 

[Freeloading Rusty]

it'd be an interesting exercise to go thru old posts & see what everyone had to say after Trump's tweet about being wiretapped months ago

It will be interesting to see what comes out of these wire taps.

 

[Freeloading Rusty]

Michael Flynn Prepping for a $1 Million Legal Tab
Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn plans to spend more than a million dollars on his legal defense, a source familiar with the situation told The Daily Beast on Monday. But because of the structure of the fund he has set up to pay for it, the public won’t know who is footing the bills.

 

[Freeloading Rusty]

Kushner, Bannon, Flynn Pushed Huge Nuclear Power Deal in Middle East for Profit, In Secret

 

[Freeloading Rusty]

Trump Using Campaign Funds And RNC Money To Pay For Legal Bills
Yesterday, Reuters reported that President Trump has been using funds donated for his his re-election campaign to pay his legal fees for the growing Russia investigation. Campaign filings show that the Trump campaign has paid law firm Jones Day $4 million for typical campaign work, but also for responding to Russia-related inquiries.

CNN later reported that the Republican National Committee had paid Trump attorneys $230,000 to cover Russia-related legal fees. The RNC confirmed this. CNN also reported the the RNC has given $200,000 for Donald Trump Jr.'s defense.

Trump Approval Ratings Increase Consistently For Three Weeks In First For His Presidency
President Trump's approval ratings have increased from 35% to 38% in the last three weeks. That may sound unremarkable, but this is the first time in his presidency that Trump's rating have consistently increased over a three week period. The Washington Post's Philip Bump speculates that the increase can be derived from two things: the departure of Steve Bannon and the hurricanes.

Health And Human Services Secretary Caught Using Taxpayer Money On Private Flights
Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price has gone on a series of five flights on private jets in the last week costing upwards of $60,000 under the guise that commercial flights weren't available. Politico was able to find commercial travel to substitute for every one.


Trump Using Campaign Funds And RNC Money To Pay Legal Fees, And Other Trump News From Today

 

[Freeloading Rusty]

View: https://twitter.com/davidmackau/status/910558586799099904

 

[Freeloading Rusty]

Trump using campaign, RNC funds to pay legal bills from Russia probe: sources

U.S. President Donald Trump is using money donated to his re-election campaign and the Republican National Committee to pay for his lawyers in the probe of alleged Russian interference in the U.S. election, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

Following Reuters exclusive report on Tuesday, CNN reported that the Republican National Committee paid in August more than $230,000 to cover some of Trump’s legal fees related to the probe.

RNC spokesperson Cassie Smedile confirmed to Reuters that Trump’s lead lawyer, John Dowd, received $100,000 from the RNC and that the RNC also paid $131,250 to the Constitutional Litigation and Advocacy Group, the law firm where Jay Sekulow, another of Trump’s lawyers, is a partner.

The RNC is scheduled to disclose its August spending on Wednesday. The Trump campaign is due for a disclosure on Oct. 15.

The U.S. Federal Election Commission allows the use of private campaign funds to pay legal bills arising from being a candidate or elected official.

While previous presidential campaigns have used these funds to pay for routine legal matters such as ballot access disputes and compliance requirements, Trump would be the first U.S. president in the modern campaign finance era to use such funds to cover the costs of responding to a criminal probe, said election law experts.

Smedile said the RNC payments to Trump’s lawyers were ”from a pre-existing legal proceedings account and do not reduce by a dime the resources we can put towards our political work.”

It was not clear how Trump’s legal costs related to the Russia probe would be allocated between the campaign and the RNC, one of the sources said.

Dowd declined to say how the president’s legal bills were being paid, adding: “That’s none of your business.”

Special counsel Robert Mueller is looking at possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia in last year’s election, and whether Trump may have obstructed justice by firing Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey, among other actions.

Moscow has denied meddling in the U.S. election, and Trump has denied any collusion or obstruction.

Reuters could not determine how large a legal bill Trump has incurred to date from his lawyers on the Mueller investigation. Trump hired his longtime New York lawyer Marc Kasowitz to head his defense team in May, but Kasowitz stepped down in July, with Dowd taking over the lead role, according to people familiar with the situation.

Special White House counsel Ty Cobb, who is a salaried staff member, is also working on the matter.

Exclusive: Russians Appear to Use Facebook to Push Trump Rallies in 17 U.S. Cities

‘Being Patriotic,’ a Facebook group uncovered by The Daily Beast, is the first evidence of suspected Russian provocateurs explicitly mobilizing Trump supporters in real life.

Suspected Russia propagandists on Facebook tried to organize more than a dozen pro-Trump rallies in Florida during last year’s election, The Daily Beast has learned.

The demonstrations—at least one of which was promoted online by local pro-Trump activists— brought dozens of supporters together in real life. They appear to be the first case of Russian provocateurs successfully mobilizing Americans over Facebook in direct support of Donald Trump.

The Aug. 20, 2016, events were collectively called “Florida Goes Trump!” and they were billed as a “patriotic state-wide flash mob,” unfolding simultaneously in 17 different cities and towns in the battleground state. It’s difficult to determine how many of those locations actually witnessed any turnout, in part because Facebook’s recent deletion of hundreds of Russian accounts hid much of the evidence. But videos and photos from two of the locations—Fort Lauderdale and Coral Springs—were reposted to a Facebook page run by the local Trump campaign chair, where they remain to this day.

“On August 20, we want to gather patriots on the streets of Floridian towns and cities and march to unite America and support Donald Trump!” read the Facebook event page for the demonstrations. “Our flash mob will occur in several places at the same time; more details about locations will be added later. Go Donald!”

The Florida flash mob was one of at least four pro-Trump or anti-Hillary Clinton demonstrations conceived and organized over a Facebook page called “Being Patriotic,” and a related Twitter account called “march_for_trump.” (The Daily Beast identified the accounts in a software-assisted review of politically themed social-media profiles.)

Being Patriotic had 200,000 followers and the strongest activist bent of any of the suspected Russian Facebook election pages that have so far emerged. Events promoted by the page last year included a July “Down With Hillary!” protest outside Clinton’s New York campaign headquarters, a September 11 pro-Trump demonstration in Manhattan, simultaneous “Miners for Trump” demonstrations in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh in October, and a pro-Trump rally outside Trump Tower last November, after his election victory.

Trump judicial nominee said transgender children are part of 'Satan's plan', defended 'conversion therapy' - CNNPolitics

In a pair of 2015 speeches, President Donald Trump's nominee for a federal judgeship in Texas described transgender children as evidence of "Satan's plan," lamented that states were banning conversion therapy and argued that sanctioning same-sex marriage would lead to polygamy and bestiality.

Jeff Mateer, the current first assistant attorney general of Texas, was serving at the time as general counsel of the First Liberty Institute, a religious liberty advocacy group known before 2016 as the Liberty Institute. He faced criticism from LGBT rights groups for his work with the organization, such as opposing the expansion of nondiscrimination protections to LGBT people in the city of Plano. If confirmed by the US Senate, he will serve on the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.
In a May 2015 speech, titled "The Church and Homosexuality," Mateer discussed a Colorado lawsuit in which the parents of a transgender girl sued her school for preventing her from using the bathroom of her choice.
"In Colorado, a public school has been sued because a first grader and I forget the sex, she's a girl who thinks she's a boy or a boy who thinks she's a girl, it's probably that, a boy who thinks she's a girl," Mateer said in a video posted on Vimeo in 2015 and reviewed by CNN's KFile. "And the school said, 'Well, she's not using the girl's restroom.' And so she has now sued to have a right to go in. Now, I submit to you, a parent of three children who are now young adults, a first grader really knows what their sexual identity? I mean it just really shows you how Satan's plan is working and the destruction that's going on."
Mateer's nomination comes as the Trump administration has unveiled a series of actions aimed at rolling back advancements for gay and transgender rights. Trump vowed to fight for the LGBT community during his presidential campaign and said last April that people should "use the bathroom they feel is appropriate." Since taking office, however, Trump has withdrawn an Obama administration directive that allowed transgender students in public schools to use the bathroom of their choice and issued a directive banning transgender military recruits.
In that same May 2015 speech, Mateer said that the Supreme Court decision allowing same-sex marriage could lead to what he called "disgusting" new forms of matrimony.
"I submit to you that there'll be no line there," he said. "And actually in the arguments Chief Justice Roberts, who's in the center there said, I mean, what is the limiting? Why couldn't four 4 people wanna get married? Why not one man and three women? Or three women and one man? And we're gonna spare you some of those slides. We actually have a presentation that we get into it. And I'll tell you, we say it's PG-13, it may be R, or what do they call the next one? NC-17 or whatever?"
He continued, "I mean, it's disgusting. I've learned words I didn't know. I mean, other than...my assistants here, have you ever heard the word 'throuple'?'Throuple' so that's three people coming together of different sexes, maybe mixed sexes. Them coming together. There are people who marry themselves. Somebody wanted to marry a tree. People marrying their pets. It's just like -- you know, you read the New Testament and you read about all the things and you think, 'Oh, that's not going on in our community.' Oh yes it is. We're back to that time where debauchery rules."
Later that year in November 2015, Mateer lamented that states were banning gay conversion therapy at a conference hosted by controversial pastor Kevin Swanson, who preaches that the Biblical punishment for homosexuality is death.

"Biblical counselors and therapists, we've seen cases in New Jersey and in California where folks have gotten in trouble because they gave biblical counseling and, you know, the issue is always, it's same sex," Mateer says in audio obtained by CNN's KFile. "And if you're giving conversion therapy, that's been outlawed in at least two states and then in some local areas. So they're invading that area."
Groups like the American Psychiatric Association and the American Pediatric Association have condemned the practice as having no scientific basis and the potential to do mental harm.
Mateer did not respond to a request for comment. A Department of Justice spokesperson declined to comment on Mateer's remarks.

Manafort offered to give Russian billionaire ‘private briefings’ on 2016 campaign

Less than two weeks before Donald Trump accepted the Republican presidential nomination, his campaign chairman offered to provide briefings on the race to a Russian billionaire closely aligned with the Kremlin, according to people familiar with the discussions.

Paul Manafort made the offer in an email to an overseas intermediary, asking that a message be sent to Oleg Deripaska, an aluminum magnate with whom Manafort had done business in the past, these people said.

“If he needs private briefings we can accommodate,” Manafort wrote in the July 7, 2016, email, portions of which were read to The Washington Post along with other Manafort correspondence from that time.

The emails are among tens of thousands of documents that have been turned over to congressional investigators and special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s team as they probe whether Trump associates coordinated with Russia as part of Moscow’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 U.S. election.

There is no evidence in the documents showing that Deripaska received Manafort’s offer or that any briefings took place. And a spokeswoman for Deripaska dismissed the email exchanges as scheming by “consultants in the notorious ‘beltway bandit’ industry.”

Nonetheless, investigators believe that the exchanges, which reflect Manafort’s willingness to profit from his prominent role alongside Trump, created a potential opening for Russian interests at the highest level of a U.S. presidential campaign, according to people familiar with the probe. Those people, like others interviewed for this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss matters under investigation.

Several of the exchanges, which took place between Manafort and a Kiev-based employee of his international political consulting practice, focused on money that Manafort believed he was owed by Eastern European clients.

The notes appear to be written in deliberately vague terms, with Manafort and his longtime employee, Konstantin Kilimnik, never explicitly mentioning Deripaska by name. But investigators believe that key passages refer to Deripaska, who is referenced in some places by his initials, “OVD,” according to people familiar with the emails. One email uses “black caviar,” a Russian delicacy, in what investigators believe is a veiled reference to payments Manafort hoped to receive from former clients.

In one April exchange days after Trump named Manafort as a campaign strategist, Manafort referred to his positive press and growing reputation and asked, “How do we use to get whole?”

Manafort spokesman Jason Maloni said Wednesday that the email exchanges reflected an “innocuous” effort to collect past debts.

 

[Freeloading Rusty]

Trump hires campaign workers instead of farm experts at USDA

President Donald Trump’s appointees to jobs at Agriculture Department headquarters include a long-haul truck driver, a country club cabana attendant and the owner of a scented-candle company.

A POLITICO review of dozens of résumés from political appointees to USDA shows the agency has been stocked with Trump campaign staff and volunteers who in many cases demonstrated little to no experience with federal policy, let alone deep roots in agriculture. But of the 42 résumés POLITICO reviewed, 22 cited Trump campaign experience. And based on their résumés, some of those appointees appear to lack credentials, such as a college degree, required to qualify for higher government salaries.

It’s typical for presidents to reward loyalists with jobs once a campaign is over. But what’s different under Trump, sources familiar with the department's inner workings say, is the number of campaign staffers who have gotten positions and the jobs and salaries they have been hired for, despite not having solid agricultural credentials in certain cases. An inexperienced staff can lead to mistakes and sidetrack a president’s agenda, the sources say.

“There is a clear prioritization of one attribute, and that is loyalty,” said Austin Evers, American Oversight's executive director, who provided the documents after his organization received them in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. He said the group sought résumés for Trump administration political appointees from across the federal government and found an abundance of former campaign workers in positions that did not appear to match their qualifications. “The theme that emerges is pretty clear: What do you have to do to get an administration job? Work on the campaign,” he added.

USDA in a statement defended the hires: “All of the appointees have skills that are applicable to the roles they fill at USDA.

 

[Sex Chicken]

Look at this crazy piece of shit.

View: https://twitter.com/vicenews/status/910913276443205632