Tag: Politics

Daily Check-In 09/03/2018

Monday, September 3rd and the weekend.

 

Friday, August 31, 2018

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

WASHINGTON — For the young Russian gun rights activist studying in the United States, it would have been an unimaginably rich payday: $1 million to help broker the sale of Russian jet fuel to an American middleman. All she had to do was secure the fuel.

So the activist, Maria Butina, whom American prosecutors now accuse of being a covert Russian agent, reached out to contacts in her homeland — and turned on the charm. In a July 2017 email, she told one man that his passport photo was “a handsome one.”

The following month, she told another Russian contact that she had labeled him in her phone as “the lovely Shakhov.” Every time he called, she was notified that “‘the lovely Shakov is calling you,’” Ms. Butina wrote. “Good feelings.”

A year later, Ms. Butina, 29, is in a jail cell outside Washington, awaiting trial. Federal prosecutors have depicted her as a character out of “Red Sparrow,” the spy thriller about a Russian femme fatale. Ms. Butina, supported by Russian intelligence, managed to infiltrate conservative groups and advance Moscow’s interests in the United States, prosecutors say.

In their telling, she used gun rights — Ms. Butina had started a pro-gun group in Russia — to gain a toehold in American conservative circles, and then struck up a romance with a far older Republican operative to open doors further. She has denied the allegations.

Ms. Butina’s efforts to deal in Russian jet fuel, detailed in hundreds of pages of previously unreported emails, were notable not just for their whiff of foreign intrigue but for whom they involved: David Keene, a former president of the National Rifle Association and a prominent leader of the conservative movement, who has advised Republican candidates from Ronald Reagan to Mitt Romney. They also involved Mr. Keene’s wife, Donna, a well-connected Washington lobbyist, and Ms. Butina’s boyfriend, Paul Erickson, who ran Patrick J. Buchanan’s 1992 presidential campaign and who moved in rarefied conservative circles despite allegations of fraud in three states.

Jet fuel?  Really?  This is getting weirder by the minute.

Private planes require fuel, which can get pretty expensive.  Sometimes, the biggest expense for owning a private plane is the fuel needed to fly.  Donna Keene, the wife of former NRA Presisdent David Keene, approached our Russian spy to arrange a deal get her a deal on jet fuel, and offered her a sweet pay day in return.

This tells us that the Keene family knew that Butina was well connected in Russia.  VERY well connected.  There’s no way they can play stupid and go “we thought she was just a college student or activist.”  You don’t offer someone a million bucks to set up a deal like this unless you know that said someone is well connected.  And in Russia, well connected means ties to Oligarchs/Mafia/Government.  Usually all three.

This claim of jet fuel reminds me of a storyfrom Louise Mensch last year involving human trafficking and stakes in jet fuel stakes.  I don’t know if there is a connection, but it might be worth remembering.

 

Between 2014 and 2016, the F.B.I. and the Justice Department unsuccessfully tried to turn Mr. Deripaska into an informant. They signaled that they might provide help with his trouble in getting visas for the United States or even explore other steps to address his legal problems. In exchange, they were hoping for information on Russian organized crime and, later, on possible Russian aid to President Trump’s 2016 campaign, according to current and former officials and associates of Mr. Deripaska.

In one dramatic encounter, F.B.I. agents appeared unannounced and uninvited at a home Mr. Deripaska maintains in New York and pressed him on whether Paul Manafort, a former business partner of his who went on to become chairman of Mr. Trump’s campaign, had served as a link between the campaign and the Kremlin.

The attempt to flip Mr. Deripaska was part of a broader, clandestine American effort to gauge the possibility of gaining cooperation from roughly a half-dozen of Russia’s richest men, nearly all of whom, like Mr. Deripaska, depend on President Vladimir V. Putin to maintain their wealth, the officials said.

Interesting.  Trump, the first Pro-Crime President in recent history, attacks the people behind an operation aimed at getting Oligarchs to flip on Russian Mafia.  It’s almost like he’s doing this to shield himself and his companies from the eyes of law enforcement.

This would normally go in the Cold War section, but Bibi’s ties to Kushner and Trump bring this to the Russian section.

 

New York

 

Rudy’s Disinformation

Fuck off Rudy.  So, if his newest rantings are to be held to any veracity, he’s saying that he’s working on a voluminous counter report to Mueller’s report, but they (The White House) will block the Mueller report anyway, even though there is not a single tool for them to do so since it is a report from a independent investigator, and the report would be handed to multiple groups at the same time, most of which the White House has no control over.

 

 

McCAIN

 

TRUMP THE RUSSIAN ASSET

 

TRAITOR TOTS

 

FIGHTING BACK

 

IMMIGRATION

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

TRADE WAR AND ECONOMY

 

SCOTUS

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

FIXING THE INTERNET

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

POLLS

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

ELECTION 2018

Florida

 

Texas

 

 

 

ENVIRONMENT

 

#METOO

 

PROGRESS IS PROGRESS

 

IN OTHER NEWS…

 

RUMOR MILL

The Kasparov Conversations

This thread captures my sentiments of post-Trumpism politics as well, although perhaps a bit more temperately. Yes, those us comprising can, and should, move back into our more natural political configurations.

Where we differ, perhaps, is on how to respond to those who aided and abetted Trump’s high crimes and misdemeanors, embraced his autocratic tendencies, and furthered his anti-democratic aims. For them there can be no redemption.

Those who undermined investigations crucial to the national security, engaged in espionage, ignored court orders, caged children, plotted mass ethnic cleansing, planned the false imprisonment & military oppression of their domestic political foes deserve more than “contempt.”

To those little Quislings, those happy collaborators, those torch-bearing, swastika-waving, child-torturers, I have one message for when this is over: Run. Run as far and as fast as you can, because for the rest of your lives the instruments of American justice will pursue you.

For you have broken more than the Laws of the USA. You have violated the International Law, the Law of War and Crimes against Humanity, and the very Laws of Nature herself. For that, there will be no forgiveness. You will be found. You will be tried. And you will be punished.

As you are guilty of grave crimes, you will either suffer the full punishments of the very Law you sought to place yourselves above… or you will run, like the Nazis before you. But forgiveness? If you want forgiveness pray that your God is merciful. You shall not find it here.

Lady Justice holds a set of scales in one hand, and in the other… a sword. We tried a gentle Reconstruction once. It didn’t work out. We won’t make the same mistake twice. The sword is there for a reason.

 

 

That’s it for the Labor Day weekend.  I’d like to say it wasn’t as crazy as expected, but it most of that was due to Senator McCain’s funeral and it being a holiday weekend.

I might not be available the whole week this week.  I have a small road trip scheduled and might not have access to everything I use to keep up with this site.  My posting patterns might change for a couple days.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Daily Check-In 08/31/2018

Friday, August 31, 2018

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

Patten and Manafort

A Republican political consultant linked to Paul Manafort, who also once worked for Cambridge Analytica, has been charged with operating illegally in the US as an agent for pro-Russia politicians from Ukraine.

Sam Patten is accused of “willfully” acting as an agent for the Ukrainian political party Opposition Bloc between 2014 and this year, according to a filing to federal court in Washington DC on Friday.

Patten, 47, was charged with violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act (Fara) by failing to register with the US government as an agent for a foreign country. 

The charge was brought by the US attorney’s office in the capital. The case was referred to that office by Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating Russian election interference, links between Trump aides and Moscow and potential obstruction of justice by the president.

There were rumblings from Daily Check-In 08/30/2018 that something big was coming down from Mueller’s office.  Maybe an indictment, maybe some new arrests, maybe Roger Stone was FINALLY going away.  Instead, we got something different.  Sam Patten, a 47 year old Republican lobbyists, pled guilty to failing to register with the Attorney General under the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) for his work in Ukraine alongside Paul Manafort.  At first glance, this doesn’t seem too big.  He’s just another dirty lobbyist in Washington who ignored the law and took a payday shilling for tyrants and terrorists.  But a deeper dive shows this is far, far greater than just that.

Patten worked alongside Manafort representing the Opposition Bloc, the political party that rose in Ukraine following Yanukovitch fleeing to Moscow.  This work was mentioned briefly in Manafort’s tax trial.  Patten is pleading guilty to not registering as a lobbyist for them before working for them.

But there are three other very important takeaways from this deal.

Patten’s indictment mentions that he acted as a straw buyer to get Ukrainian money into Trump’s Inauguration Committee.  A straw buyer is a middleman used for Money Laundering to hide the original source of payment.  Since it is illegal for a foreigner to donate money to an American political campaign in any way, shape, or form, they’ll use middlemen to make the final purchase.  A foreigner, let’s say a Russian using Ukrainian money, will pay Bob’s Legitimate Business their donation plus a “processing fee” to make sure that the donation to the campaign comes from an American company.  Not only did Patten take part in this process, but he set it up.  He had his choice of straw buyers, and chose to do it himself.  He knows all of the players.  So does Mueller.

Next, Patten lied to the Senate, and they caught him on it.  The Special Counselor’s investigation into Sam Patten didn’t start with the criminal referral from the Senate Intelligence Committee, but it certainly helped spur it along.

Finally, and I think most importantly, Patten worked for Cambridge Analytica from 2014 to 2015.  During the same time period he’s representing Putin’s cronies in Ukraine, he’s working for SCL/Cambridge Analytica testing messaging on Putin that was later used during the 2016 campaign.  He knows who was involved, who did what, and who worked with whom.

And now Mueller has it all, too.

Now, why was Patten’s deal announced now?  Because Paul Manafort’s FARA trial starts in a few weeks, and he will be a cooperating witness at the trial.  And what better way to give Trump and his team a heart attack than to let them stew over the holiday weekend knowing that Robert Mueller has now tied money laundering and foreign money directly to his inauguration slush fund, and that he is only a hop, skip, and a jump away from tying Putin’s Russians directly to Trump.  Hell, the connection’s been made, it’s just a matter of showing how many connections there are.

 

Papadopoulos

In George Papadopoulos’s deal, he said that Trump approved of his attempts to set up a meeting with Vladimir Putin.  We’ve discussed before his possible meeting with Putin in Greece (Daily Check-In 11/06/2017), and his connections with Russian Intelligence started long before that, whether he knew it or not.

Page.  Papadopoulos. Sessions.  Kushner.  Erik Prince.  The Mayflower Meeting. The June 9th Meeting.  The RNC at Cleveland.  And those are just the meetings that we know of.

 

Butina

It’s about fucking time.  Robert Driscoll has been bitching about how poorly Butina’s been treated or how bad the case is against her for 6 weeks on Fox News, most of the time never disclosing that he is her attorney.  That’s like hearing some formerly respected politician turned hack talking about how an anti-corruption campaign in Romania is bad for the stability of the country without finding out that the politician in question is a lobbyist for them.

Yes, I’m talking about Rudy.

 

Ohr

The part of the campaign against the investigation that really makes me scratch my head is looking at this from a distance.

Imagine, for a second, that you were talking to someone who just woke up from a coma, or time travelled from the 1980’s.  Say, 1988, while Regan was President and before the Soviet Union fell.  Imagine that this person, let’s call him Marty, asked for the TL:DR; on the Russian Investigation and what was happening in Congress because of it.

“The current President has multiple and repeated ties to the Russian Mob, and his only remaining defense is to use his allies in Congress to attack the FBI and Justice officials that specialize in fighting Russian Organized Crime.”  When Marty asks which party it was that was getting all soft on the Ruskies, and he jokingly says the Democrats, you’d do a double take and say “Fuck no.  It’s the Republicans.  The Democrats are the ones fighting against Russia.  The Republicans are bought and paid for by Moscow.”  At that point, Marty tries to figure out what he screwed up to end up in this future.

 

Stone

 

Justice League Lineup

Prosecutors Ryan Dickey and Brian Richardson are no longer working for the office of special counsel Robert Mueller, the Justice Department confirmed.

Both lawyers were relatively junior but frequently spotted members of Mueller’s corps. Both have worked on court cases that Mueller opened as part of his investigation into Russian interference and coordination with the Trump campaign in the 2016 presidential election.

Peter Carr, a spokesman for the special counsel, declined to explain on Thursday what the departures mean for the state of Mueller’s office.

I’ll update The Justice League post shortly.

 

COHEN

Out of all of the lawsuits, investigations, depositions, dastardly deeds, criminal, and civil procedures progressing against the Trump Criminal Family, the most dangerous to him right now is the series of moves that New York State is pursuing.  They are not beholden. to Federal DOJ memoranda or guidelines, and state charges are outside of a Presidential Pardon.  Even if the Supreme Court rules that a POTUS can’t be charged by a state while in office, there’s nothing to stop New York from going after his children.

 

TRUMP THE RUSSIAN ASSET

 

ATTACKS ON JOURNALISTS

 

POLLS

Just 3 percent of black Americans polled said they approved of Trump’s performance, compared to the president’s 36 percent approval overall. An overwhelming 93 percent of black Americans, meanwhile, said they disapprove. Those numbers have plummeted, data over time shows; just months ago his approval among black Americans was nearly 20 percent.

Non-white respondents overall largely disapprove of Trump, with 78 percent saying that he’s handling the presidency poorly and 19 percent saying he’s doing well. Those numbers were on the upswing, but sunk back down to the consistent low marks that Trump has received since entering office. Women also disapprove of Trump at higher rates: Sixty-six percent of women disapprove of his performance, and 54 percent of men agree.

Among white respondents, 45 percent approve of the president, while 51 percent disapprove. Trump’s approval ratings are worse than ever among all demographic groups — 60 percent disapproval overall is the highest the Post has ever found.

The Washington Post-ABC News poll was conducted Aug. 26-29, reaching 1,003 adults by phone. The margin of error is 3.5 percentage points.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!

When the result is less than the margin of error, this could be interpreted as being statistically zero.  It is so small as to be damn near non-existent.  The result is so small that we’re not sure if it exists or if it’s a problem with the way the survey was performed.

 

TRAITOR TOTS

Rudy

Fuck off, Rudy.  We don’t believe a word you say, you’re borderline senile, and you probably shit yourself on the way to the Fox News Studio.

But here are two questions to this rambling ball of interest conflicts.

  1. How can you prepare a comprehensive counter report when the original report isn’t complete, submitted, or or even required, if his previous cries of “get off my lawn” are to be believed?
  2. Why would an innocent person need to preemptively prepare a counter report on criminal activity they allegedly committed?

 

McCAIN

 

FIGHTING BACK

The citations linked back to Trump’s initial tweet, a fact-checking website, and the Washington Post. The comment went on to remind readers that “we know for a fact that Russia did hack the DNC and the Clinton Campaign,” and to reprint the indictment brought by Robert Mueller against 12 Russian intelligence officers accused of hacking the 2016 presidential election. Though the comment was soon “brigaded” by a passel of aggressive pro-Trump commenters who came over from The_Donald full of insults and yelling, the user’s work stood on its own: extensive, well-sourced, and convincing. Welcome to the world of PoppinKREAM, the most meticulous Redditor of them all.

It is generally safe to assume that everybody on the internet is, in one way or another, full of shit. This is especially true for internet comment sections—and especially especially true on Reddit—both of which combine discursivity and anonymity in ways that make it very difficult to easily tell if any given commenter actually knows what he or she is talking about. Millions of times per day, website commenters around the world make broad and vague claims about anything and everything, only to respond, when asked for links to articles that would support their arguments, by saying, “Google it. I don’t have time to do your research for you.”

PoppinKREAM is an exception to this very depressing rule. PoppinKREAM always has time to do your research for you. (That’s the PoppinKREAM difference!) A ubiquitous presence on r/politics and other newsy subreddits, PoppinKREAM eschews memes and banter in favor of extensive, endnoted comments that calmly and repeatedly establish a narrative of corruption in Trumpworld. In a sea of uninformed opinion and misinformation, PoppinKREAM stands out by sourcing their work.

Long time readers are very familiar with PoppinKREAM and their work.  I’ve referenced their posts many times, and PK’s work was the starting ground for The Justice League.  PK’s work is similar to what I do here, but different.  I’m a longtime Redditor, but my posts are nowhere near as impactful as theirs.  Also, I like the format of a website a little better.  Reddit formatting can get a little wonky.

 

IMMIGRATION

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

FIXING THE INTERNET

 

TRADE WAR AND ECONOMY

 

SCOTUS

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

PUERTO RICO

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

ELECTION 2018

 

ENVIRONMENT

 

PROGRESS IS PROGRESS

 

RUMOR MILL

 

That’s it for Friday.  I’ve decided to put the weekend events on Monday’s post.  There was enough crazy shit that happened on in one day to include McCain’s funeral with this.

With the news of Sam Patten and the Mueller lawyers, I will have to update The Indicted, Cooperating Witnesses, and The Justice League.  If I get time before Monday, I’d also like to update the Cast of Characters to include the Rumor Mill members and start up on a Russian page.

Also, we’re finishing up August and heading into September.  For a while, I’ve reported on rumors that included something big happening in early September.  Whether it be for political purposes to prevent influencing the midterm elections, or that’s just how things have proceeded, September has been looked at as a pivotal time in these events.  The House was on break during August, and Manafort’s FARA trial starts up later this month, but one of the long-held rumors was that the Mueller Team would submit the first half of their report, focusing on Obstruction of Justice, to Congress.  The report, which would almost certainly recommend impeachment and removal from offie to allow criminal charges to be pressed against Trump, would force the Republicans in Congress to make a choice: either serve the country or serve Trump.  If they choose the latter, then they are all but conceding the House to Democrats in January, and only delaying the inevitable.

I wonder what will happen.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Daily Check-In 08/30/2018

Thursday, August 30, 2018

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

Part distraction, part disinformation, and part NPD, Trump is now claiming that the Lester Holt video was faked, or altered, or fudged, or selective edits to show him admitting that he fired Comey for the “Russia Thing”.  He did the exact same thing following the Billy Bush tape, claiming that was faked, too.

It’s interesting why he decided to pick now to make this claim.

 

COHEN

 

TRUMP THE RUSSIAN ASSET

 

FIXING THE INTERNET

This statement, at least the headline, reminds me of the old phrase “A broken clock is right twice a day.”  I agree that those companies are too large and should be broken into smaller companies, but definitely not for the reasons Trump says.

For the young kids out there, clocks used to be analog and had these things called hands that would move.  When the clock would break, the hands stuck in the same spot.  Eventually, twice a day, the broken hands would match the current time, hence the phrase above.

 

FIGHTING BACK

 

McCAIN

 

IMMIGRATION

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

ATTACKS AGAINST JOURNALISTS

 

 ENVIRONMENT

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

PREGNANCY

 

NFL

From this comment in the NFL Subreddit /r/nfl

A reminder, since there’s some misinformation that pops up in every single one of these threads:

• ⁠If Kaep win this, it does not immediately void the CBA.It doesn’t void it at all. There’s an almost infinitesimally small chance it would even open the door to the CBA being voided.

• ⁠This is a labor grievance as laid out in the CBA, similar to appealing a suspension.It is not currently a lawsuit against the league, like Brady and Elliot’s cases were.

• ⁠Just because there may be a legitimate reason that people wouldn’t hire him doesn’t mean collusion didn’t also happen.

editing to add

• ⁠If he wins this, he only wins “the amount by which the collusion damaged him,” i.e. whatever the impartial arbitrator thinks he should have earned had he been signed.That’s going to an especially the interesting part of the case, if it gets that far. My guess is it would be somewhere in the realm of the average cost of a serviceable backup’s contract, like a McCown or a Fitzpatrick.

• ⁠The burden of proof for Kaepernick is “a preponderance of the evidence,” or 51% of the evidence.This is the “more probable than not” phrasing that the league used in the Brady case.

• ⁠Kaep does not need to prove collusion between all 32 teams.He needs to prove it between any two of 33 parties: the 32 teams and the league office.Two teams agreeing that neither would sign him would constitute collusion. A single team agreeing with the league office would also constitute collusion.

• ⁠Whether or not Kaep turned down contracts is irrelevant to whether or not collusion happened.He could say no to thirty straight offers, but if the last teams in the league got together and said “well, no way in hell we’re signing this ingrate,” that would constitute collusion.

• ⁠Even if he turned down contract offers from all thirty two teams wouldn’t mean he wasn’t colluded against. If every team agreed not to offer him anything more than the veteran minimum, and they all did, and he turned them all down…that would still be collusion.

• ⁠It’s true that Kaep opted out of his contract with San Francisco, but he did so after being told explicitly by John Lynch that if he didn’t the team would be cutting him even later in the year.There was absolutely no reason for him not to opt out to get a head start on free agency.Regardless, that point is irrelevant — see above.

edit 2:

I’m aware that the New York Times article says his damages could be tripled.Based on the language in the CBA (defining compensatory damages as “the amount by which any player has been injured as a result of such violation” and allocating “compensatory damages shall be paid to the injured player or players” and “non-compensatory damages, including any fines, shall be paid directly to any NFL player pension fund, any other NFL player benefit fund [or other charities]”) implies to me that that’s not the case.It reads as though teams can be subject to escalators if they’ve been found guilty of collusion under this CBA at least once already.To my recollection, none have, so it’s unlikely that punitive damages would be awarded, and it’s certain that that money would not go to Kaep.

I’m not a lawyer, though, so I could be missing some nuance — in particular with regards to the Times’ reference to an “open hearing.”Feel free to set me straight.

 

TRADE WAR AND ECONOMY

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

DOXXING

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

#METOO

 

ELECTION 2018

Florida

 

Texas

 

PROGRESS IS PROGRESS

 

RUMOR MILL

 

That’s it for Thursday.  There are some rumors floating around about something big happening on Friday, but those are still just rumors.

I’m changing some of the section headings around and checking to see what stays, what gets moved around, and what goes.  Each one has a reason for being included, but there’s not always stories for it for the day.  Plus, with all of the headings, this post gets longer every day.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Daily Check-In 08/29/2018

Wednesday, August 29th.

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

While it was common knowledge in the White House that counsel Don McGahn planned to depart after Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed, McGahn was “surprised” by Trump’s abrupt tweet announcing his departure, The Washington Post reported.

According to people familiar with the matter who spoke to the Post, McGahn was not angered by Trump’s tweeted, but rather saw it as the exact way he’d expect the Twitter President to behave.

“Of course it happened this way,” McGahn reportedly said, according to a person familiar with McGahn.

Don McGahn, the White House Counsel and the Mr. Smithers to Trump’s Montgomery Burns, is leaving the White House this fall.  This was known around the White House, but leave it to the Dotard to announce it to the world in some kind of “I’m firing him” tweet.  If it doesn’t look or smell bad, it should.

McGahn, while a crook, asshole, and racist, appears to have limits on what he’ll do for Trump.  He has stopped Trump from trying to pardon Manafort (Daily Check-In 08/27/2018), so I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump tries to get someone in that job that would let him do it.

 

When federal prosecutors charged Maria Butina with infiltrating the conservative movement on behalf of the Kremlin, questions began to swirl around a Washington think tank that had published her pro-GOP writing—and hosted then-candidate Donald Trump’s Russia-friendly first foreign-policy speech.

The executive director of the organization, the Center for the National Interest, insistedthat its interaction with Butina was “very limited.”

But previously unreported emails and direct messages between Butina and officials at the Center show her relationship with the think tank’s president—former Richard Nixon adviser Dimitri Simes—was closer than previously understood. The two didn’t just make plans to have dinner together. According to emails and Twitter DMs reviewed by The Daily Beast, Simes looked to use his connections with Butina and her associate, Russian Central Bank official Alexandr Torshin, to advance the business interests of one of the Center’s most generous donors.

The Center’s executive director, Paul Saunders, declined to comment on the record for this story, as did Butina’s lawyer. An attorney for the donor—Maurice “Hank” Greenberg, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the one-time CEO of insurance and financial services giant AIG—said he did nothing inappropriate. Indeed, there’s no evidence that Greenberg requested the outreach or was even aware of it.

It’s been about six weeks since Maria Butina was arrested, and we’re still figuring out how deep the honeypot goes. (Daily Check-In 07/16/2018).

 

The U.S. Justice Department is investigating whether a fugitive Malaysian financier laundered tens of millions of dollars through two associates and used the funds to pay a U.S. legal team that includes former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and a lawyer who represents President Trump, according to people familiar with the matter.

Jho Low, the Malaysian businessman, has been described in U.S. court filings as playing a central role in the alleged embezzlement of $4.5 billion from a Malaysian fund called 1Malaysia Development Bhd.

Malaysian authorities this week separately charged Low with money laundering in the case, which investigators suspect may be one of the biggest financial frauds in history. He has been moving around Hong Kong, Macau and mainland China in recent months, according to people with knowledge of his whereabouts.

Low was close to former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Rajak, who unexpectedly lost an election in May and was arrested last month in Kuala Lumpur. Najib has pleaded not guilty to charges of money laundering and criminal breach of trust in connection with the 1MDB scandal.

Time for 6 Degrees of Corruption…

Low worked for 1MDB, who hired Elliot Broidy to help kill the DoJ’s investigation into them.  Broidy, a convicted felon, was named Deputy Finance Chair of the Republican National Committee.  Broidy hired his fellow Deputy Finance Chair Michael Cohen to supposedly represent him to pay off his mistress.  Michael Cohen is… Michael Cohen.

 

A letter that Rudolph W. Giuliani, one of President Trump’s personal attorneys, sent to Romanian officials opposing a corruption crackdown in that country has drawn the attention of the State Department and renewed questions about his continued work for foreign clients while representing the president.

In his letter last week to Romanian President Klaus Iohannis and Premier Viorica Dancila, Giuliani criticized anti-corruption efforts in that country, expressing concern about “continued damage to the rule of law in Romania, committed under the pretext of law enforcement.”

Writing under the letterhead of his consulting firm, Giuliani Partners, the former New York mayor criticized the “excesses” of Romania’s anti-corruption agency and warned that recent moves could affect foreign investment.

Giuliani’s letter caused significant ripples in Romania and raised questions about his decision to work for foreign clients while serving as one of Trump’s chief attorneys dealing with the Russia investigation.

It also put him in opposition with the State Department, which has supported efforts to prosecute corruption in Romania. The United States joined with 11 other countries in June in a statement warning Romania not to take measures that would weaken its “ability to fight crime or corruption.”

Giuliani received a call from State Department officials this week about his letter, he said in an interview Wednesday.

Here’s a gentle reminder that Giuliani has not filed his work for Romania under the FARA Guidelines.  Ask Paul Manafort about how being an unregistered lobbyist for a foreign power worked out for him.

[N]ew documents show that American bank examiners delved deeper into the embassy’s financial activity than was previously known — and reveal why they flagged two of the transactions as suspicious.

The first, made just 10 days after the US presidential election in 2016, was a $120,000 lump-sum check to then-ambassador Sergey Kislyak that was twice as large as any payment he’d received in the previous two years.

The second, just five days after President Donald Trump’s inauguration, was a blocked attempt to withdraw $150,000 in cash that a bank official feared was meant for Russians the US had just expelled from the country.

In their investigations into 2016 election interference, special counsel Robert Mueller and the FBI are scrutinizing the financial activity by the Russian embassy, according to three federal law enforcement sources with direct knowledge of the matter. Last November, BuzzFeed News began revealing suspicious embassy transactions, including a $29,000 wire transfer to the embassy’s US bank account to “finance election campaign of 2016”; $325,000 in payments to the Russian Cultural Centre in Washington; and $2.4 million paid to small home-improvement companies controlled by a Russian immigrant living in Virginia.

Hmm… sounds like Money Laundering.  Better questions are who was the money from, and what was it for?

The decision puts to rest weeks of public hand-wringing by his wife, Simona Mangiante Papadopoulos, who has been acting as an informal spokeswoman for her husband. She said in an interview with ABC News earlier this month that her husband was strongly considering backing away from the agreement he struck with Mueller that led him to plead guilty to lying to the FBI.

Good move George.  You just saved yourself from a world of pain. (Daily Check-In 08/16/2018)

 

COHEN

A portion of voters for President Donald Trump—a small portion, but a portion nonetheless—said they would have changed their vote if the Stormy Daniels affair allegations had surfaced the week before the 2016 election, according to a new poll released Wednesday.

The survey from YouGov/The Economist asked a series of Daniels-related questions, including: “If the week before the 2016 Presidential election you had heard a news story in which a porn star claimed she had an affair with Donald Trump just after Melania Trump had given birth to their son, would that have changed your vote for President?”

Five percent of respondents who voted for Trump said, “Yes, I would have voted differently,” according to the survey. Eighty-nine percent of Trump voters, however, said they would have voted the same. Seven percent of Trump voters responded they weren’t sure if their vote would have changed in that hypothetical universe.

That’s what the payment to Stormy Daniels was worth.  5 percent.

5 percent might not sound like much, but in one of the “closest” elections in history, 5 percent changes the score completely.

Using the figures from the 2016 Election, let’s have some fun.  Let’s first look at all of the states that Trump won with less than a 5 percent margin of victory (MOV), and their Electoral Votes (EV).  And Georgia, because it was very, VERY close to that threshold.

  • Arizona: 3.55% MOV, 11 EV to Trump
  • Florida: 1.20% MOV, 29 EV to Trump
  • Georgia: 5.13% MOV, 16 EV to Trump
  • Michigan: 0.22% MOV, 16 EV to Trump
  • Nebraska 2nd District: 2.24% MOV, 1 EV to Trump
  • North Carolina: 3.66% MOV, 15 EV to Trump
  • Pennsylvania: 0.72% MOV, 20 EV to Trump
  • Wisconsin: 0.76% MOV, 10 EV to Trump

That’s 118 Electoral Votes.  Remember, the election wen 306 to 232 in Trump’s favor, and 270 are needed to win the election.

Now, let’s say that 5 percent of Trump voters decided to not vote for him because the Stormy Daniels news breaks withing 2 weeks of the election.  They don’t vote for Hilary, but they don’t vote for Trump.  What do those numbers look like?

  • Arizona: 1.14% MOV, 11 EV to Trump
  • Florida: 1.28% MOV, 29 EV to Clinton
  • Georgia: 2.66% MOV, 16 EV to Trump
  • Michigan: 2.20% MOV, 16 EV to Clinton
  • Nebraska 2nd District: 0.12% MOV, 1 EV to Clinton
  • North Carolina: 1.19% MOV, 15 EV to Trump
  • Pennsylvania: 1.73% MOV, 20 EV to Clinton
  • Wisconsin: 1.64% MOV, 10 EV to Clinton

With just 5 percent of Trump voters not voting for Trump, that takes away 4 states and 1 congressional district from Nebraska from hin and gives them to Clinton.  76 Electoral Votes.  Moving 76 from Trump to Clinton makes the new total 230-308 in favor of Clinton.  Hell, even just a 2 percent change flips Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, giving Clinton the victory.

Now, let me qualify this… this math assumes 5 percent in each state or district, nothing like all of them from California, Illinois, or New York.  There would bound to be some fluctuation from state to state, but this also assumes that not a single one of those 5 percent would vote for Hilary Clinton.  And it also assumes that Russian wouldn’t pull even more last minute shenanigans against her.

This is why Cohen’s plea deal is so disastrous for Trump.  It shows that her payment influenced the campaign and swayed the election in Trump’s favor.  This was never about sex, it was about whether or not the payment benefited the campaign.

 

A second Trump Organization employee discussed a potential immunity deal with the federal prosecutors who charged Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney, according to people familiar with the matter.

That employee ultimately did not receive immunity after prosecutors in the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York decided against granting such protection. The person was not called to testify before the grand jury, the people familiar with the matter said.

The employee’s identity couldn’t be determined by CNN. Spokespeople for the US Attorney’s office and Trump Organization declined to comment.

This has really got to chap Trump’s ass.  Not only did his CFO flip, but we wasn’t the only person who talked with the government about a deal.

I see two reasons why this deal didn’t happen.  Either this person didn’t have enough of value, they didn’t have Weisselberg yet and once they got Allan, they no longer needed this person.

That is terrible for Trump.  That means there are multiple people that can corroborate Cohen’s story, and that even more people are in legal jeopardy and could flip on him.

 

Trump Tower

 

 

TRUMP THE RUSSIAN ASSET

 

FBI Building Interference

 

China Bullshit

 

IMPEACHMENT AND INDICTMENT TALK

 

TRAITOR TOTS

 

FIGHTING BACK

 

IMMIGRATION

 

PUERTO RICO

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

SCOTUS

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

TRADE WAR AND ECONOMY

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

The United States Postal Service has released the entire federal security clearance application of a former CIA officer running for Democratic Congressional seat, in what experts say is a highly unusual and perhaps unprecedented move, given the extensive, highly personal nature of the information contained in such documents.

In an interview with the New York Times published Tuesday, the former officer, Abigail Spanberger, accused the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned with House Speaker Paul Ryan, of improperly obtaining the document, and suggested that the Trump administration may have leaked the information for partisan purposes.

But BuzzFeed News can confirm that an unredacted copy of the federal security clearance application was obtained by America Rising, a research group allied with the Republican Party, through what the organization believed was a response to its July 9 Freedom of Information Act request from the US Postal Service’s human resources section. Once America Rising obtained the documents it then shared it with its client, the Congressional Leadership Fund.

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

PRIESTS

 

GAY CONVERSION “THERAPY”

 

ELECTION 2018

 

WEED

 

PROGRESS IS PROGRESS

 

WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT OF THE DAY

 

RUMOR MILL

 

 

That’s it for Wednesday.  I’m looking forward to a nice, long weekend.  I need to spend some time recuperating. At some point in the last week, I injured my back.  It’s not the first time, it won’t be the last, but I need to spend a day or two lying down with an ice pack strapped on.

Like I said earlier this week, I want to write a piece about Michael Cohen being the linchpin of this whole operation, and who’s connected to him.  Not only is he the most connected person in this whole process, but as the fixer he knows all of the dirty shit Trump did over the years.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur