Month: December 2018

Daily Check-In 12/17/2018

Monday, December 17, 2018

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

Flynn’s Buddies Get Indicted

Posted by

u/RELEASE_PEE-PEE_TAPE

MOD8 hours ago

Grand Jury Indicts Turkish National Who Directed and Paid Michael Flynn in Anti-Gülen Influence Campaign

DOJ Announcement:

An indictment was unsealed today charging Bijan Rafiekian, aka Bijan Kian, 66, of San Juan Capistrano, California, and Kamil Ekim Alptekin, 41, of Istanbul, and a Turkish national, with conspiracy, acting in the United States as illegal agents of the government of Turkey, and making false statements to the FBI.

According to allegations in the indictment, the two men were involved in a conspiracy to covertly influence U.S. politicians and public opinion against a Turkish citizen living in the United States whose extradition had been requested by the Government of Turkey. The plot included using a company founded by Rafiekian and a person referred to as “Person A” in the indictment [Michael Flynn]. The company, referred to as “Company A” in the indictment [Flynn Intel Group], provided services based upon Person A’s national security expertise.

Flynn’s March 2017 FARA Filings:

News Coverage:

Prior Coverage:

Remember when Mike Flynn was accused of organizing an attempted kidnapping of a Turkish cleric?  Or the time Mike Flynn attended a breakfast with Devin Nunes and senior diplomats from Turkey?  Or the about-face that Flynn took in relations to Turkey after they paid his company $600,000?

Bijan Kian, the second in command of Flynn Intel Group, was involved in all of that. He worked as an unregistered lobbyist for Turkey, in violation of FARA guidelines.  On Monday, he and Kamil Alptekin were indicted on charges of not registering as a foreign agent.  But that’s not all of it.

There’s a thing in journalism called “burying the lede.”  This is when the main point of the story is lost deep in the weeds.  Like, if your spouse comes home and tells you about their day and they start with lunch, how their boss is a jerk, their coworkers are mean, and the building burned down and they’re the prime suspect.  That last part is the most important thing they said, but they buried it at the end.

The lede in this story isn’t that Bijan Kian worked with Mike Flynn to take Turkish money, but both Bijan and Mike Flynn worked on the Trump Transition Team WHILE TAKING MONEY FROM TURKEY UNDER THE TABLE.  They were crafting national security for years to come while taking Erdogan’s blood money.

Putting another country’s interests above your own while leading major government initiatives.  Sounds pretty damn close to treason.

 

Flynn

This is just beautiful.  After Flynn tried to pull “But I was entrapped when I lied to the Feds” last week (Daily Check-In 12/14/2018), the judge felt that cherrypicking from the 302 was a chickenshit move by his legal team, and ordered Mueller’s team to release a redacted version of the 302 form.  The FD-302 form is the form that an FBI Agent fills out immediately after interviewing someone.  Here, we can see Flynn lying, and that the focus of his lies wasn’t so much to protect himself but to shield Trump from Russian connections.

Shit’s about to get interesting.

 

Disinformation

Gee, it’s almost like I’ve been talking about this for a year and a half.  Oh, wait, I HAVE.

One new development is how they’re moving the goalposts after this report.  We’ve gone from “There was no interference” to “No coordinated interference” to “there was only a little interference, but it didn’t make a difference”.  Watch out for this thread in the coming days, with talking heads saying things like “there wasn’t any vote totals changed” and “how many people really get their news from Reddit or Facebook?”  This is a deflection from the point that people were marketed to and thus changed their voting choice.

 

How Many?

Investigations by the Special Counsel

  1. The Russian Government’s Election Attack
  2. WikiLeaks
  3. Middle Eastern Influence
  4. Paul Manafort’s Activity
  5. The Trump Tower Moscow Project
  6. Other Campaign and Transition Contacts With Russia
  7. Obstruction of Justice

Investigations by the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York

  1. Campaign Conspiracy and the Trump Organization’s Finances
  2. Inauguration Funding
  3. Trump SuperPAC Funding
  4. Foreign Lobbying

Investigations by the US Attorney for the District of Columbia

  1. Maria Butina and the NRA

Investigations by the US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia

  1. Elena Alekseevna Khusyaynova
  2. Turkish Influence

Investigations by New York City, New York State, & Other State Attorneys General

  1. Tax Case
  2. The Trump Foundation
  3. Emoluments Lawsuit

7+4+1+2+3 = 17.  17 investigations.

 

Comey

 

 

 

COHEN, NEW YORK, AND THE OTHER LAWSUITS

 

TRUMP THE RUSSIAN ASSET A.K.A. INDIVIDUAL-1

Mob Talk

 

Shutdown

 

 

TRAITOR TOTS

 

FIGHTING BACK

 

RIGHT WING TERRORISM & WHITE NATIONALISM

 

KHASHOGGI & SAUDI ARABIA

 

#METOO & WOMEN’S RIGHTS

 

IMMIGRATION

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

FIXING THE INTERNET

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

TRADE WAR AND ECONOMY

 

STUDENT ISSUES

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

PRIESTS & RELIGION

 

ENVIRONMENT & SCIENCE

 

CONGRESS

 

ELECTIONS

 

THINKING AHEAD

 

PROGRESS IS PROGRESS

 

IN OTHER NEWS…

 

RUMOR MILL

 

That’s it for Monday.  The week is looking like it’s going to be a weird one.  A spoiler for Tuesday, there’s some weird shit happening at Flynn’s sentencing.

Before I wrap it up for the day, I’m going to update The Indicted to include Bijan and Kamil.  Something to keep in mind with them; they’re indicted, but Flynn isn’t.  That tells me two things:

  1. He’s cooperating against them and several others to avoid this fate.
  2. If he fucks around, “Person 1” will become Michael Flynn in a New York Minute.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Daily Check-In 12/14/2018

Friday, December 14, 2018 and the weekend.

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

Manafort

From the Vox article:

Last Friday, special counsel Robert Mueller alleged in court filings that Manafort told“multiple discernible lies” to FBI agents and prosecutors, in violation of the cooperation agreement between Manafort and the special counsel’s office. Among those, Mueller charged, were lies by Manafort to investigators that he had not been in contact with anyone in the White House.

“After signing the plea agreement, Manafort stated he had no direct or indirect communications with anyone in the administration while they were in the administration,” the special counsel said in a court pleading, “and that he never asked anyone to try and communicate a message to anyone in the administration on any subject.” Citing text messages, Manafort’s electronic records, and witness interviews, the special counsel wrote: “The evidence demonstrates that Manafort lied about his contacts.”

Manafort advised Trump to attack the Russian Investigation in three different ways:

  1. Attack the FBI.
  2. Attack the DNC.
  3. Attack Clinton and the Steele Dossier.

Trump followed this playbook to a T.

 

Senate Report on Disinformation

There will be more on this in Monday’s post.

 

Cohen

 

Flynn

 

Butina

THREAD: Some thoughts on Butina from a CI perspective and the bad choices she has made:

Mueller’s investigation is clearly not typical but in a normal situation, I would expect that the FBI would have offered Butina a chance to work for the U.S. government (I.e., be a double agent), and have a chance for leniency, maybe even live in the States.

Not sure if this was offered in this case and she declined, or if they just decided to prosecute, but either way, the decision to prosecute would have not been taken lightly, since it puts the FBI’s cards on the table. I wrote about that here

The decision to go this route shows that Mueller’s team believes the public interest in outing Butina and/or stopping her activities were much more important than continuing to keep tabs on Butina’s — and thus the Russians’ — activities

Note that in 2010, the spies were charged, but swapped for our spies in Russia before they could cooperate/provide more info. Not here. I’m curious whether this was offered to Russia, and they disowned her/left her out to dry, or it was not even an option

The part that puzzles me is how she expects this to work out for her. She is going to burn Russia’s operation, and then after she serves time is going to be deported. Pooty won’t be happy…not sure what kind of life she’ll have there, or how long it will last

Unless her “tasking” was that if she got caught, she was free to rat out whomever she needed to…but that would be weird for a spy. Curious for thoughts from @john_sipher, @StevenLHall1, @CIAspygirland others

In any case, as I noted before, I am 99% certain that she would have been under FISA surveillance for some period of time, which means that anyone she was in communication with is now captured in FBI intel. Sucks to be them.

That’s it — I’ll just end by saying she is charged with Conspiracy Against the United States so anyone who was working with her is a part of the conspiracy. May the odds be ever in their favor.

 

Someone vs. Mueller

 

Papadopoulos

 

Abandonment

 

Giuliani

 

Congressional Questions

 

 

 

 

COHEN, NEW YORK, AND THE OTHER LAWSUITS

Cohen,  AMI, All That, Then Some, and a Bag of Chips

Why?  According to Tom Arnold:

 

Inauguration

 

On a scale of 1-10, how screwed is Trump?

 

TRUMP THE RUSSIAN ASSET A.K.A. INDIVIDUAL-1

 

TRAITOR TOTS

Zinke Quits

 

Acosta

 

 

FIGHTING BACK

 

RIGHT WING TERRORISM & WHITE NATIONALISM

 

KHASHOGGI & SAUDI ARABIA

 

SCOTUS & COURTS

Reed O’Connor, the judge who just ruled against the ACA, has a long history of ruling against anything with the words Obama attached to it He ruled against the interpretation of Title IX that allowed transgender students to use the bathroom of the sex they identified as (Thread)

(2) In 2016 he issued an injunction against Obamacare because he said gender inclusion guidance within the law violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Just 2 months ago, O’Connor ruled that the Indian Child Welfare Act was unconstitutional.

(3) When the right moans about activist judges, just remember there is definitely a “both sides” to this issue. Conservative judges like O’Connor ignore the law of the land and legislate from the bench. And their decision create chaos and undermine equality in this country.

 

 

#METOO & WOMEN’S RIGHTS

 

IMMIGRATION

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

#NEVERAGAIN

Every year, I reject this cynical, hopeless, inaccurate tweet. So much has happened since .

.@MomsDemandwas formed the day after and we’ve helped pass background checks in eight states, bringing the total to 20. Over 50% of Americans now live in states requiring a background check on every gun sale.

We’ve also worked hard to pass laws in 28 states – red and blue – that keep guns away from domestic abusers. Just a couple of months ago, we passed one in Pennsylvania. We won’t rest until every state protects women and children – the main victims – from domestic gun violence.

We’ve passed bills to strengthen our background check system, gun owner training requirements, Red Flag Laws, bump stock prohibitions, safe gun storage requirements, and on and on.

In fact, 2018 was our strongest year yet: we helped pass stronger gun laws in 20 states – nine of which were signed into law by Republican governors.

And don’t forget defense. We’ve killed killed thousands of @NRA-supported bills to force guns on campus and in K-12 schools, to expand Stand Your Ground, and to dismantle permitting systems. @MomsDemandhas a 90% track record each year of beating back bad bills across the US.

Not to mention the fact that we’ve prevented the @NRAfrom passing their two priority pieces of federal legislation since 2016: concealed carry reciprocity and deregulating silencers. Despite the fact that there was a Republican President and Congress.

And we’re changing our culture by working with companies like Trader Joes, Target, Starbucks, Dicks, Walmart and Chipotle to have reasonable gun policies. This year, @TOMSjoined the movement and is already helping to grow support for gun safety.

We’re also teaching Americans about responsible gun storage to help protect children from unintentional shootings and gun suicide through http://besmartforkids.org . We’ve given thousands of presentations and partnered with the PTA and other organizations. #BeSmart

Six years ago, after the horrific, senseless, preventable shooting at #SandyHook, @MomsDemandbegan fiercely and fearlessly taking on the most powerful lobby this nation has ever seen – and we are winning. We have become the David to the @NRA’s Goliath.

That work is paying off. In the midterms, 3,000 Democrat and Republican candidates wanted our gun sense distinction. Of the 196 candidates @everytownendorsed, 150 won. And we didn’t just outspend the @NRA, our hundreds of thousands of volunteers outmaneuvered them on the ground.

Nearly 100 Americans are shot and killed every day, and hundreds more are injured. This is a crisis no other developed nation faces. Stopping gun violence in our urban centers and in rural outposts, and everywhere in between, has become @MomsDemand‘s mission.

From suicides to domestic gun violence to police shootings to shootings motivated by hate – it is all gun violence and we can make it stop. Mothers won’t allow the senseless deaths of Americans – including the 26 educators and elementary students at #SandyHook– to be in vain.

@MomsDemand, the grassroots arms of @Everytown, is fiercely and fearlessly taking on the most powerful lobby this nation has ever seen – and we are winning. Don’t let anyone tell you that’s not true. Be angry, but stay hopeful.#SandyHook

 

FIXING THE INTERNET

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

TRADE WAR AND ECONOMY

 

STUDENT ISSUES

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

PRIESTS & RELIGION

 

ENVIRONMENT & SCIENCE

 

CONGRESS

 

ELECTIONS

 

Wisconsin

 

Florida

 

THINKING AHEAD

 

RUMOR MILL

 

That’s it for the last few days.  This weekend was busy, and will be so throughout the holidays.  I might take a couple days off as we approach the New Year.

Monday will bring some more indictments on the eve of Flynn’s sentencing, as well as the list of the 17 known investigations into TrumpWorld.  17.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Daily Check-In 12/13/2018

Thursday, December 13, 2018

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

Butina

THREAD: What can we learn from the cooperation deal with Russian spy Maria Butina? (Answer: A lot.)

1/ Today Russian spy Maria Butina pleaded guilty to conspiring to secretly work as a Russian agent within the United States. As part of her plea, Butina and federal prosecutors agreed on the facts that proved her guilt, and they are shocking. See here:

2/ Butina pleaded guilty to working with “U.S. Person 1” (her former paramour, GOP operative Paul Erickson) to secretly act as a Russian agent at the direction of “Russian Official,” which @CNN has identified as Alexander Torshin.

3/ Butina admitted that she drafted a proposal in Russian called “Description of the Diplomacy Project” that suggested Russia could use “unofficial channels of communication” to build relations with Political Party #1 (the Republican Party).

4/ In the proposal, she pointed to her attendance at conferences organized by “Gun Rights Organization” (the National Rifle Association or @NRA), which she told the Russian government had influence over the Republican Party.

5/ She told the Russian government that she believed the Republican Party would win the next presidential election and that she “laid the groundwork for an unofficial channel of communication with the next U.S. administration.”

6/ In the proposal, Butina also claimed that she had been introduced to Republican Party leaders as “an unofficial representative” of Russian official Alexander Torshin. (It’s worth noting that there are photos of Butina with Trump Jr., Santorum, and many others.)

7/ What shocks me most is that Erickson helped write this proposal! His behavior amounts to what most Americans would regard as outright treason. (As I discussed on my latest #OnTopic podcast with @Mimirocah1, our Constitution defines “treason” narrowly.) What was he thinking?

8/ In the joint statement to the court agreed to by the government and Butina, they said Erickson reviewed a Google-translated version of the proposal and gave advice, including information about U.S. political figures and connection with a Russian media commentator.

9/ Butina sent the proposal to the Russian official (Torshin) and asked for $125,000 from a Russian billionaire to attend NRA conferences as well as “separate meetings with interested parties,” including the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

10/ She then traveled to the U.S. in April 2015 to attend a NRA convention. and was introduced to “influential members” of the Republican Party, including Donald Trump. (As @washpost recently noted, she was later able to directly ask Trump a question.)

11/ (The question was about sanctions imposed on Russia after its 2014 invasion of Crimea, and Trump gave an answer–“I don’t think you’d need the sanctions”–the Russian government would have favored.)

12/ Butina and federal prosecutors noted that part of the conspiracy was also inviting NRA leaders to Moscow in December 2015, and using Torshin to set up meetings with high-ranking Russian politicians because doing so would advance Russian interests.

13/ According to Butina and federal prosecutors, Butina sent the following message to Russian official Torshin about the NRA, translated from the original Russian: “We should let them express their gratitude now, we will put pressure on them quietly later.”

14/ Butina also hosted “friendship dinners” with individuals who she believed “would have the ear of the next U.S. presidential administration.” She told Torshin about one attendee who Erickson connected her with, and then sent an email to that attendee, copying Erickson:

15/ “Torshin is very impressed with you and expresses his great appreciation for what you are doing to restore the relations between the two countries. He also wants you to know the Russians will support the efforts from our side.”

16/ Butina then helped organize a Russian delegation to the 2017 National Prayer Breakfast after Trump’s election. Butina emailed Erickson that a list of invitees was handpicked by her and Torshin and were “coming to establish a back channel of communication.”

17/ Erickson emailed someone (we don’t know who), copying Butina, stating “Reaction to the delegation’s presence in America will be relayed DIRECTLY” to Putin and the Russian Foreign Minister. As the statement makes clear, Butina did all of this work under Torshin’s direction.

18/ So what does today’s news mean legally? Now that Butina will testify against him, Erickson faces what appears to be overwhelming evidence of his guilt. Indeed, as @woodruffbets and @ErinBanco reported recently, Erickson received a target letter.

19/ That means that federal prosecutors intend to indict him. One reason why prosecutors send someone a target letter is because they *want* the person to find a criminal defense attorney. I’ve done that before myself when I was a federal prosecutor.

20/ Why would prosecutors want Erickson to get a good federal criminal defense attorney? Because they hope the attorney will tell Erickson that he faces overwhelming evidence and needs to cooperate.

21/ What did Erickson tell GOP leaders, NRA leaders, GOP operatives and others when he was connecting them with a Russian spy? Those conversations will be of very great interest to federal prosecutors because they might reveal others who also acted as Russian agents.

22/ Even if they didn’t act as Russian agents, it is important for the United States to know whether the Russian government can blackmail any powerful American. Securing Erickson’s testimony is the logical next step for prosecutors. The big question: Where does he lead them? /end

Butina flipped.  Or at least appears to.  Aside from her admitting to everything that she’s done so far, I’m left with two main questions. (Daily Check-In 12/12/2018)

  1.  Why is she cooperating?  Is it to get out of jail early, do the right thing, or spread chaos?
  2. What does she think will come of this?  Unless she asks for asylum in the United States after her sentence is over, she’ll likely be deported back to Russia where it’ll take about 5 minutes before she suffers a Russian Heart Attack.

One thing that is certain is that everyone from the NRA to the Religious Right to the GOP should be very, very worried.

 

Flynn

 

Cohen

 

Incoming & Upcoming

 

Middle East

There’s a ton of connections to the Middle East from everyone involved in Team Trump.  This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who’s been following along, but needs a reminder from time to time.  George Nader flipped a long while back. (Cooperating Witnesses)

 

COHEN, NEW YORK, AND THE OTHER LAWSUITS

Cohen Hush Money

So, when Michael Cohen was discussing paying off Trump’s former affairs with David Pecker and a third person in the room, it looks like the third person was… Individual-1 himself, Donald Trump.  Trump is a micromanaging asshole.  Anyone who doesn’t think that he was heavily involved in coordinating this attack on his brand doesn’t understand him or his unrelenting narcissism.

 

Inauguration

YAY!!!  Time to investigate the slush fund.

 

Speed Freak

Aderrall use and soliciting favors from teen girls.  I can’t wait for the Religious Right to defend this shit.

 

TRUMP THE RUSSIAN ASSET A.K.A. INDIVIDUAL-1

A classic example is how he “regifted” Ivanka to Jared as a wedding present.

 

TRAITOR TOTS

 

EPSTEIN

I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it — Jeffrey enjoys his social life.

  1. In 1992, Trump is quoted in an interview as saying the above.
  2. In the 1990s up through when he was reportedly barred in 2007, Epstein was known as a regular at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago.
  3. It was widely reported in the early 2000s that Trump socialized with Epstein, for example attending a dinner party [1][2] at Epstein’s that was thrown in honor of Bill Clinton.
  4. In 2004, court documents revealed Epstein’s address book/journal. Among the many names found inside was Donald Trump. “Under his name were 14 phone numbers, including emergency numbers, car numbers, and numbers to Trump’s security guard and houseman.” Also included were at least 21 separate numbers for Bill Clinton; 16 separate phone numbers for Prince Andrew, 3 numbers for former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert, 1 number for ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair, etc. (source).
  5. In 2009, Mark Epstein, Jeffrey’s brother, testified that “Trump flew on Jeffrey’s private jet at least once”.
  6. The same year, Trump was reportedly subpoenaed in a case involving Epstein victim Virginia Roberts, who claimed she was recruited as Epstein’s sex-slave while working as a $9-per-hour locker room attendant at Mar-A-Lago in the late 1990s, and subsequently pimped/loaned out by Epstein to various friends of his, including Prince Andrew and Alan Dershowitz. Both of them denied it.
  7. In 2010, Epstein was asked under oath if he had “ever socialized with Donald Trump in the presence of females under the age of 18”. He pleaded the fifth.
  8. In 2016, Trump was accused, along with Epstein, of having on 3 occasions sexually assaulted and one 1 occasion raped a 13 year old girl at Epstein’s Manhattan residence in 1994. Trump and Epstein categorically denied it ever happened. The lawsuit was dismissed for technical errors and the plaintiff’s failure to pay the cost of litigation. She filed another lawsuit in New York, this time as Jane Doe, but withdraws 3 months later. She refiled in New York again and was set to appear at a press conference 6 days before the election, but canceled, citing threats on her life, and ultimately dropped the lawsuit.
  9. In 2017, Trump nominated Alexander Acosta as labor secretary. Acosta was briefly questioned about the Epstein case during a Senate confirmation hearing but he didn’t offer any new details. He was confirmed and sworn inand serves in that post today.

 

FIGHTING BACK

 

RIGHT WING TERRORISM & WHITE NATIONALISM

 

KHASHOGGI & SAUDI ARABIA

 

SCOTUS & COURTS

California Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye has quietly given up her Republican registration and re-registered as a no-party-preference voter, saying Thursday she had become increasingly uncomfortable with the GOP’s direction nationally and in the state.

In a phone interview with CALmatters, Cantil-Sakauye—who was a prosecutor before becoming a judge 28 years ago and California Supreme Court chief justice in 2011—said she made the final decision to change her registration after watching the U.S. Senate confirmation hearings of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

“You can draw your own conclusions,” she said.

In those hearings, Kavanaugh denied allegations by Christine Blasey Ford, a Palo Alto professor, that he assaulted her when they were high school students in Maryland.

“I’ve been thinking about it for some time,” Cantil-Sakauye said, adding that she talked it over with her husband and friends. Their consensus, she said, was that “you didn’t leave the party. The party left you.”

 

#METOO & WOMEN’S RIGHTS

 

IMMIGRATION

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

FIXING THE INTERNET

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

TRADE WAR AND ECONOMY

 

STUDENT ISSUES

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

PRIESTS & RELIGION

 

ENVIRONMENT & SCIENCE

 

CONGRESS

 

ELECTIONS

 

THINKING AHEAD

 

IN OTHER NEWS…

 

RUMOR MILL

 

That’s it for Thursday.  Let’s review what happened…

  • A Russian spy admitted to being a Russian spy and implicated her handler, her boss, and her patsy boyfriend.
  • The President’s personal attorney and tabloid publicist handed over information on a criminal cover-up to the Feds.
  • Same attorney had documents on the Trump Inauguration slush fund, which is under a criminal investigation.
  • A comedian who worked for Trump said in his stand up routine that Trump tried to fuck teenage beauty pageant contestants and snorted a drug for ADD which, if taken by someone who doesn’t have that disease, makes them get all wired.  He also said how a lot of those girls looked a hell of a lot like Ivanka.
  • Trump is on Plan D or E for his Chief of Staff, and is thinking of having Jared do the job.
  • The Senate said “Fuck You and Fuck MSB” with their Yemen War vote.
  • Mueller’s been looking into the Middle East and all of their ties.

Damn.  That’s a lot to take in.  The Middle East one is particularly interesting.  I’ve been thinking about the Grand Bargain Theory for the last couple of weeks, and how it ties together Russia with the Middle East.  I like it so much I’ll try to write about it in the upcoming weeks.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Daily Check-In 12/12/2018

Wednesday, December 12, 2018

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

Cohen Gets 3 Years

“Today is the day that I am getting my freedom back,” Cohen told U.S. District Court Judge William Pauley, a Bill Clinton appointee who minutes later handed down the prison sentence. “I have been living in a personal and mental incarceration ever since the day that I accepted the offer to work for a real estate mogul whose business acumen that I deeply admired.”

Ouch.  I wonder what the Special Counselor’s team had to say about Michael Cohen.

Special Counsel’s Office prosecutor Jeannie S. Rhee said that Cohen provided “credible” and “valuable information” regarding “any links between a campaign and a foreign government.” “Mr. Cohen has sought to tell us the truth,” Rhee said. “There’s only so much we can say about the particulars at this time, given our ongoing investigation,” Rhee said.

Lordy, lordy, lordy.  Former Deputy Finance Chair of the Republican National Committee and personal attorney to President Donald J. Trump Michael Cohen has been sentenced to 3 years in federal prison for tax evasion, campaign finance violations, and lying to Congress.  But that’s not the interesting part.

What’s interesting is that the makings of a solid case against Donald Trump exists for multiple felonies, and SDNY sounds like they’re ready to pull the trigger on going after his orange ass.  And that might be the least of his problems.

First, Cohen directly said that he committed the campaign finance violations and related tax evasions, at the direction of and in coordination with Donald Trump.  The main crimes he was charged with was organizing payoffs for Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels back in 2016.  These payoffs used campaign money to keep these women quiet about affairs with Trump back in 2005.  In both cases, money was laundered from the Trump Presidential Campaign through middlemen to the women with the caveat that they couldn’t talk about their experiences.  Karen’s payoff went through AMI and the National Enquirer, while Stormy’s went though an LLC that Cohen set up for this specific cause, Essential Consultants LLC.  That last one bit Cohen in the ass when he used that shell company for selling “access” to the President as a lobbyist of sorts.  (Daily Check-In 11/29/2018, Daily Check-In 12/11/2018, Daily Check-In 08/21/2018, Daily Check-In 01/12/2018)

 

National Enquirer

Next, David Pecker and AMI, the publishers behind the National Enquirer, are cooperating with federal prosecutors in exchange for immunity from the Cohen case.  Pecker has a safe full of embarrassing info on Trump which included the McDougal story.  It’s almost a certainty that Pecker gave the Feds the contents of that safe so he could walk away. (Daily Check-In 07/27/2018)

How does this get worse for Trump?

 

Cooperation with Congress

Michael Cohen was in the room where it happened.  He organized, handled, and coordinated activities between the Trump Organization, the Trump Campaign, and all of the ne’er-do-wells that wanted to work with them, like the Russian government, Cambridge Analytica, or the National Enquirer.  And he’s willing to testify before Congress about all he knows.

 

Hannity Deletes Cohen Tweets

Trump’s not the only person shitting bricks right now.  One of Cohen’s other clients spent most of the day deleting tweets.  Sure, it could be completely coincidental that a man whose lawyer was getting sentenced in federal court tried to delete tweets that tied him to various efforts to obfuscate his dealings, but if you believe that, I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn for sale.

 

Implications

U.S. Attorneys said in no uncertain terms that Donald Trump committed crimes with Michael Cohen.  They can’t say that unless they’ve got the proof and are ready to use it.

Remember when Cohen’s shit was seized, and there was this big hubbub about Cohen recording all of his conversations with Trump?  Only a small fraction of Cohen’s work was deemed as privileged information, and then Trump blows up his confidentiality anyway.  The feds have those recordings.

 

Flynn

Something that gets lost in the shuffle with this whole “Lying to Investigators” story is the caliber of the lie.  They’re not bringing criminal charges for forgetting that he sent an email when he said he didn’t, or said he ate steak when he had chicken, or lied to his buddies about banging some chick he brought home from the bar when instead he went home and jerked off to the underwear section of the weekly Walmart ad.  No, they caught him lying repeatedly in the same conversation about a pretty big deal.  It’s akin to asking a husband if he cheated on his wife and he said no a dozen times, even though he was a dumbass and streamed it to PornHub.

What freaked out the investigators the most was that here was the fucking NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.  They should be on the same side.  And Flynn was the head of the DIA, one of the major intelligence organizations.  Being the head of an intel group should make him paranoid AF.  Instead, the thought never crossed his mind that someone might be bugging the phone line of the Russian Ambassador right after all of the national intelligence organizations signed on to a report that they attacked the United States.  And cops, feds, and investigators don’t like to ask questions they don’t already know the answer to.  If Flynn said “Yeah, I talked to that fat fuck and told him to chill the fuck out and let’s talk when DT’s in house”, then the investigators would be cool with that.  Instead, Flynn lied when he didn’t have to lie, and dug himself even deeper.  When they looked into his story more, they uncovered a trash pile of treasonous activities.

 

Butina

Looks like we’re waiting until Thursday to hear from Red Sparrow.

 

Simona says she is looking forward to pursuing a Hollywood career now that she and her man are ‘at the end, I hope, of a dark period’. She’d already landed a part as Brigitte Bardot in an unfinished film called Affairs on Capri, directed by a British man called Paul Wiffen.

Wiffen, it turns out, is the former Chairman of UKIP London, a contributor to Russia Today, a fierce opponent of George Soros, and somebody who once attended a party with Anna Chapman, the former Russian intelligence agent turned media personality. That background will do nothing to quell rumors that somehow Simone Mangiante Papadopoulos is part of a sinister Kremlin plot

Funny how it is the international relations expert from Italy who speaks with a Russian accent and lied on her passport suddenly thinks that she’s an actress, and is staring in a play financed by someone with suspicious ties to Russia.

On second thought, scratch that.  This suddenly makes sense.

 

 

NEW YORK, EMOLUMENTS, AND THE OTHER LAWSUITS

Here’s your friendly reminder that a President cannot pardon state crimes.

 

TRUMP THE RUSSIAN ASSET A.K.A. INDIVIDUAL-1

Calls for Violence

People underestimate these calls for violence, but think about it like this.

A puppet madman dictator wannabe with delusions of grandeur and has rallied the most deplorable members of society to his cause while creating a cult-like atmosphere of fanatical dipshits who, coincidentally, are both afraid of everything and armed to the teeth, calls upon his cult to rise up and attack those who seek to unseat Dear Leader from his golden toilet.  Do we forget the MAGABomber? (Daily Check-In 10/24/2018)

This is why when the case is made to remove Trump, the worst and most vile evidence has to be released.  There will still be some crazies out there, but the first step to avoiding violence is breaking the will to do so.  Nothing will do that quite like treason, theft, ties to murder, human trafficking, and pedophilia.

 

TRAITOR TOTS

 

FIGHTING BACK

 

RIGHT WING TERRORISM & WHITE NATIONALISM

 

KHASHOGGI & SAUDI ARABIA

 

SCOTUS & COURTS

 

#METOO & WOMEN’S RIGHTS

 

IMMIGRATION

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

FIXING THE INTERNET

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

“Career prosecutors here in New York have evidence that the president of the United States committed a felony by ordering and paying Michael Cohen to break the law,” Napolitano said while speaking on Fox News. “How do we know that? They told that to the federal judge. Under the rules, they can’t tell that to the federal judge unless they actually have that hardcore evidence. Under the rules, they can’t tell that to the federal judge unless they intend to do something with that evidence.”

When Fox News says Trump’s fucked, Trump’s fucked.  And he’s fucked.

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

TRADE WAR AND ECONOMY

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

PRIESTS & RELIGION

 

ENVIRONMENT & SCIENCE

 

CONGRESS

 

ELECTIONS

 

North Carolina

 

THINKING AHEAD

 

IN OTHER NEWS…

 

RUMOR MILL

 

That’s it for Wednesday.  Damn.  Thursday’s gonna be busy too, with Butina pleading guilty to conspiracy and the like.  Plus, we’re hearing that Mueller is looking into Trump’s ties in the Middle East.  Makes the Grand Bargain sound more likely all of the time.

The walls are closing in, and things are accelerating.  We’ll probably get a lull around the holidays, but the stream of incoming news feels like it’s accelerating to something big.  Something that will shake people to their core.  Remember, most people aren’t paying attention to the details and only get a piece of the picture.  Once they get all of it, things could get ugly.  Hopefully, it’ll get ugly in a good way.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur