The Trump thread: All things Donald

[Athos_131]

Trump associates are getting buried in massive legal fees, and Roger Stone says his are more than $450,000

 

#Resist

[Katiebee]

A favorite conservative saying comes to mind. “If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.”
Boo hoo, conservatives crying because they don’t Like the consequences of their behavior.

[Athos_131]

A favorite conservative saying comes to mind. “If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.”
Boo hoo, conservatives crying because they don’t Like the consequences of their behavior.

I'd also accept the adopted GOP phrase of, "Fuck Your Feelings."

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Pence turns VP’s office into gateway for lobbyists to influence the Trump administration

#Resist

[Lois]

  Who said anything about his property, other than he could sell his property NOW, before he needs to sell it at bargain basement prices, to pay legal fees, or to finance his trip home to Mexico, pay for his children, grand children's education, other important matters, while he still maintains some control.

  He obviously was on a list, eligible for deportation, for whatever reason, so he should spend whatever it takes to straighten that out, or be prepared to go to the degree possible.

  Stuff happens. Life is a bitch, and then you die. Not a citizen, is subject to whatever they have on him, needs to answer why he should not be deported, seems at this point, and pay the costs needed to resolve his situation.

  He got 20 good years here, maybe can enlighten ICE and the Judge. No matter what color he happens to be, his legal status is what is in jeopardy, and he needs to step up and fix that, or begin practicing his Mexican life skills.

  Maybe his daughter and her children will wish to go with him, you know, to keep the family together. Seems important enough to her to call the media, rather than to hire a Immigration Attorney, as a first step.

  Perhaps the NY Times will ride to the rescue... maybe he needs no help...

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Oh yeah, life is a bitch.

[Lois]

The GOP under Trump can no longer call themselves patriots or wrap themselves in the flag.  Want to know why many of them are supporting Trump in his attempts to stop Mueller from investigating collusion with Russia?  Because quite a few of them are getting money from Russia, too.


How Putin's oligarchs funneled millions into GOP campaigns
by Ruth May

As Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team probes deeper into potential collusion between Trump officials and representatives of the Russian government, investigators are taking a closer look at political contributions made by U.S. citizens with close ties to Russia.

Buried in the campaign finance reports available to the public are some troubling connections between a group of wealthy donors with ties to Russia and their political contributions to President Donald Trump and a number of top Republican leaders. And thanks to changes in campaign finance laws, the political contributions are legal. We have allowed our campaign finance laws to become a strategic threat to our country.

An example is Len Blavatnik, a dual U.S.-U.K. citizen and one of the largest donors to GOP political action committees in the 2015-16 election cycle. Blavatnik's family emigrated to the U.S. in the late '70s from the U.S.S.R. and he returned to Russia when the Soviet Union began to collapse in the late '80s.

Data from the Federal Election Commission show that Blavatnik's campaign contributions dating back to 2009-10 were fairly balanced across party lines and relatively modest for a billionaire. During that season he contributed $53,400. His contributions increased to $135,552 in 2011-12 and to $273,600 in 2013-14, still bipartisan.

In 2015-16, everything changed. Blavatnik's political contributions soared and made a hard right turn as he pumped $6.35 million into GOP political action committees, with millions of dollars going to top Republican leaders including Sens. Mitch McConnell, Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham.

In 2017, donations continued, with $41,000 going to both Republican and Democrat candidates, along with $1 million to McConnell's Senate Leadership Fund.

https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2018/05/08/putins-proxies-helped-funnel-millions-gop-campaigns

[Athos_131]

The proper way to view the Trump Foundation scandal

The New York attorney general's case packs a strong evidentiary punch. Emails among members of Trump's innermost circle show that the "foundation" was not a separate entity or a proper charity but allegedly just another slush fund from which Trump could pay people for his personal and political benefit.

Trump's publicity stunts during the 2016 Iowa caucuses -- skipping the Republican debate to raise money for his foundation, for example -- were engineered by his presidential campaign. The New York state attorney general's office alleges that Trump's foundation was simply a façade. According to the lawsuit, the foundation's actions appear to have allegedly been in violation not only of New York charities law but also federal tax law governing 501(c)(3) non-profit organizations.

Instead of following Trump on Twitter, follow the money: Trump settled the Trump University case for $25 million (an extraordinarily high amount, given that the illegal school had grossed about $40 million). That was not the action of a man who could defend his innocence on the merits. Trump has repeatedly denied the fraud claims.

Now, Trump faces not only the New York attorney general but also potentially the IRS and the FEC for potentially serious violations of federal tax and campaign finance laws, respectively. Once again, dedicated prosecutors and judges, many of whom are conservatives and lifelong Republicans, will be called upon to scrutinize Trump's conduct, with the federal tax issues potentially carrying criminal liability. And the New York case may result in a trial well before Trump faces re-election in 2020.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

White House falsely insists Democrats to blame for family separations, even as some in GOP urge Trump to reverse course

Contrary to Trump’s claims, the separations largely stem from a “zero-tolerance” policy announced with fanfare last month by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. As more families are stopped for illegally crossing the border, adults are taken to detention facilities that are effectively jails, and children are sent elsewhere.

The White House also has interpreted a 1997 legal agreement and a 2008 bipartisan anti-human-trafficking bill as requiring the separation of families — a position not taken by the George W. Bush or Obama administrations.

Former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci also urged Trump to change course.

“I hope he changes it today, frankly,” Scaramucci said during a CNN interview on Monday morning. “This is very, very bad for the Republican Party, and this is bad for the president. I want to see him win reelection.”

Appearing on NPR, Rep. Will Hurd (R-Tex.) took issue with a statement on Twitter over the weekend by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, who insisted: “We do not have a policy of separating families at the border. Period.”

Hurd laughed, saying: “Kids are being separated. . . . In the last two months, there’s been about2,000. The previous year it was almost 700. And 100 of those kids were under the age of 4.”

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker (R) on Monday abandoned plans for his state to send National Guard assets to the southern border, citing the forced separations of families, which his office decried as “inhumane.”

“Governor Baker directed the National Guard not to send any assets or personnel to the Southwest border today because the federal government’s current actions are resulting in the inhumane treatment of children,” Lizzy Guyton, Baker’s communications director, said in a statement.

Earlier this month, officials in Massachusetts had announced plans for the state’s National Guard to send a helicopter and military analysts to the border to assist with security operations.

Former first lady Laura Bush also spoke out against the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance policy” over the weekend, writing in an op-ed in The Washington Post that it is “cruel” and “immoral.”

“And it breaks my heart,” she added.

Her brother-in-law, former Florida governor Jeb Bush (R), also criticized Trump on Monday, writing on Twitter that the president is pursuing a “heartless policy” and using the family separations as a negotiating tool with Congress.

Meanwhile, Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich) called what had transpired “ugly and inhumane” — and urged Congress to act.

“Enough finger pointing. Time for action and solutions,” he said in a statement.

A Quinnipiac poll released Monday found that 27 percent of registered voters support and 66 percent oppose the Trump administration of immediately prosecuting parents who cross the border to seek asylum and separating them from their children.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

At least six people close to Trump almost certainly knew about offers from Russians of dirt on Clinton

Let’s walk through the connections between the Trump team and Russian agents and actors in chronological order.

Some important context: By March 2016, both Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s email and the Democratic National Committee’s network had been compromised by hackers believed to be working for Russian intelligence agencies. Reports suggest that the first access of the DNC’s network occurred in summer 2015, the hack of Podesta’s account in mid-March and the DNC network was compromised again in April. By April, then, Russians had a cache of information stolen from the DNC and Clinton’s campaign chairman.

Mifsud-Papadopoulos. That same month, Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos was told by a London-based professor named Joseph Mifsud that the Russians had dirt on Clinton in the form of emails. Mifsud, Papadopoulos later admitted to special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, was interested in Papadopoulos once Papadopoulos revealed his connection to Trump. After Mifsud told Papadopoulos about the dirt, Papadopoulos shared that with an Australian diplomat — who eventually informed the FBI and kicked off the counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign.

Papadopoulos sent an email to Trump adviser Stephen Miller the day after Mifsud reached out to him, telling Miller he had some “interesting messages” coming in from Moscow. It is not clear whether the offer from Mifsud was conveyed to Miller at a later point.

Torshin-Trump Jr. In May, a former member of the Russian parliament named Aleksandr Torshin made repeated efforts to contact Donald Trump Jr., the candidate’s son. He sent multiple emails hoping to set up a meeting with Trump Jr. when both were at a National Rifle Association convention in Kentucky. The two met briefly at a dinner associated with that event. It is not clear whether Torshin had any information to offer Trump Jr.

Greenberg-Stone-Caputo. This is the new connection reported by The Post over the weekend.

A man calling himself Henry Greenberg approached Stone about having unspecified dirt on Clinton. Stone met with Greenberg, who asked for money in exchange for the alleged dirt. Stone was not part of the campaign in 2016, but had been connected to Greenberg (who also used the name Henry Oknyansky) by campaign official Michael Caputo. (It was Caputo’s business partner who connected him with Greenberg.) The meeting was a bust, Stone and Caputo told The Post.

Greenberg told The Post that a third person was at that meeting, a man named Alexei who said he had worked for the Clinton Foundation. “He told Mr. Stone what he knew and what he want,” Greenberg said in a text message to Post reporters.

That the information allegedly dealt with the Clinton Foundation is interesting. Stone has been under fire for having claimed to have had a back channel with WikiLeaks, the organization that ultimately dumped the information stolen from the Democratic National Committee and Podesta. When Stone first claimed to have had contact with WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange, speaking before a Republican group in Florida in August 2016, he predicted that the next document cache released by WikiLeaks would center on the Clinton Foundation. It did not.

What is not known is whether Greenberg had any contact with the Russian government. He was himself a Russian national, but there is no indication at this point that either he or “Alexei” were working in coordination with that government.

Agalarov-Veselnitskaya-Trump Jr.-Manafort-Kushner. This is the infamous Trump Tower meeting. Emin Agalarov, a pop star and developer in Moscow, asked his associate Rob Goldstone to reach out to Trump Jr. to pitch a meeting in which dirt on Clinton would be shared, courtesy of Agalarov’s intervention. (“If it’s what you say I love it,” Trump Jr. replied.) The meeting, centered on a Kremlin-connected lawyer named Natalia Veselnitskaya, took place at Trump Tower in early June.

When the Senate Judiciary Committee last month released Trump Jr.’s testimony from his appearance there, it became clear that the assertion that dirt existed — Veselnitskaya did not end up offering any, per both sides — was not confined to Goldstone and Trump Jr. It is apparent that Agalarov and Trump Jr. almost certainly spoke on the phone multiple times before that meeting and that Trump Jr. informed both Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and campaign chairman Paul Manafort of what was being offered.

The question is whether any of those three also informed Trump. There is good reason to think he knew. The night that the meeting time was set up, following calls between Trump Jr., Manafort and Kushner — and the day after Trump Jr. had a call with a blocked number before agreeing to the meeting — Trump told reporters, “I am going to give a major speech on probably Monday of next week, and we’re going to be discussing all of the things that have taken place with the Clintons.”

When that dirt did not materialize, the speech about Clinton the following Monday did not either.

Dvorkovich-Page. In July 2016, Trump campaign adviser Carter Page traveled to Russia to give a speech. On his return, he emailed Trump campaign staffer J.D. Gordon, offering to share “incredible insights and outreach I’ve received from a few Russian legislators and senior members of the Presidential administration here.” In testimony before the House Intelligence Committee, Page said his contact with Russian legislators was limited to a brief greeting with Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich.

This is noteworthy not only because of the connection between Page and a senior government official but because of what other reports suggest about Page’s time in Russia. Specifically, the controversial dossier of reports compiled by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele includes a report from mid-July alleging that Page met with a Russian official who “rais[ed] a dossier of ‘kompromat’ ” — compromising material — “the Kremlin possessed on TRUMP’s Democratic presidential rival, Hillary CLINTON, and its possible release to the Republican’s campaign team.”

This allegation is unproven. Steele’s work on the dossier was funded by a law firm working for the DNC and the Clinton campaign. If Page was offered dirt, it’s also not clear he informed Gordon.

Kilimnik-Manafort-Gates. Another connection between the Trump camp and Russia, though one not centered on compromising information, is Manafort’s longtime Ukraine-based aide Konstantin Kilimnik. In July — as Page was in Moscow — Manafort emailed Kilimnik to offer private campaign briefings to oligarch Oleg Deripaska, for whom Manafort had done consulting work for years. Kilimnik is believed to have ties to Russian intelligence.

Rick Gates, a longtime business partner of Manafort’s who also served as deputy campaign chairman, also had ties to Kilimnik. Kilimnik joined Gates and Manafort this month in being indicted on criminal charges by Mueller.

Intelligence agencies-Stone. In August, Stone took up another cause: denying that the release of material stolen from the DNC the prior month was a function of the Russian government. He wrote an article for Breitbart placing the blame instead on someone calling himself “Guccifer 2.0″ who released several documents from the cache of stolen documents in June. Guccifer then reached out to Stone on Twitter; the two carried on a brief exchange.

Guccifer 2.0 is now believed to have been a Russian intelligence officer, based on a slip-up in his efforts to anonymize his identity.

WikiLeaks-Trump Jr. The following month, Trump Jr. and WikiLeaks exchanged private messages on Twitter. None of those messages suggest Trump Jr. and the organization coordinated the released of information damaging to Clinton. But the exchange occurred shortly before WikiLeaks began releasing the emails stolen from Podesta in early October.

So we are confident the following people were offered or told about information allegedly incriminating Clinton:

George Papadopoulos
Roger Stone
Michael Caputo
Donald Trump Jr.
Jared Kushner
Paul Manafort

Don't take your eye off anything.  Trump, his family, anyone who voted for him, and anyone who supports him want you to focus on one thing when another atrocity is going on.

Intelligent people are able to focus on all of it.

The Trump Administration is wholly corrupt.  His supporters like it.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Border Patrol Says Yes, We're Definitely Keeping Kids in 'Cages,' but Please Stop Saying That

This morning, CBS News reported Border Patrol took issue with the media use of the word “cages,” not because it’s inaccurate, but because it’s a deeply “uncomfortable” word for people to keep using to describe the situation.

“They are very uncomfortable, in their words, with this characterization of the word ‘cages,’” co-host Gayle King said on the air. “They said it’s not inaccurate, but they’re very uncomfortable with using the word ‘cages.’””

#Resist

[Athos_131]

DHS secretary was flown to the White House because Sarah Sanders didn’t want to do the briefing on child separation

Snowflakes, indeed.

#Resist

[Katiebee]

Now trump is threatening China with $200 Billion in tariffs.

The question is no longer how stupid he is, it isn't if he is incompetent or unfit. No, the question is who unfit is the GOP congressmen who are allowing this stupidity to destroy our nation.

Welcome to the last days of the Weimar Republic.

[Athos_131]

Forget Tax Cuts. Trump Wants to Rally G.O.P. Base Over Immigration

Now that he's appeased the donors, it's time to appease the racists.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

The facts about Trump’s policy of separating families at the border

The doublespeak coming from Trump and top administration officials on this issue is breathtaking, not only because of the sheer audacity of these claims but also because they keep being repeated without evidence. Immigrant families are being separated at the border not because of Democrats and not because some law forces this result, as Trump insists. They’re being separated because the Trump administration, under its zero-tolerance policy, is choosing to prosecute border-crossing adults for any offenses.

This includes illegal-entry misdemeanors, which are being prosecuted at a rate not seen in previous administrations. Because the act of crossing itself is now being treated as an offense worthy of prosecution, any family that enters the United States illegally is likely to end up separated. Nielsen may choose not to call this a “family separation policy,” but that’s precisely the effect it has.

Sessions, who otherwise owns up to what’s happening, has suggested that the Flores settlement and a court ruling are forcing his hand. They’re not. At heart, this is an issue of prosecutorial discretion: his discretion.

The Trump administration owns this family-separation policy, and its spin deserves Four Pinocchios.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Border-crossing Guatemalan mom sues Trump admin for not saying where her son is

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Trump Officials Block More Lawmakers From Inspecting Child Detention Centers

#Resist

[Athos_131]

The State Department's Facebook Q&A About Family Travel Was a Disaster for Some Reason

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Youngest migrants held in ‘tender age’ shelters

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Trump and Kirstjen Nielsen’s embarrassing surrender on separating families at the border

#Resist

[Athos_131]

The White House Can't Even Spell 'Separation' Right

I wonder how many proofreaders one could hire for the cost of one Trump trip to Mar-a-Lago.

#Resist