Monday April 30th and the weekend. This was supposed to be a shorter post,
THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION: NYT HAS THE QUESTIONS MUELLER WANTS TO ASK TRUMP
The New York Times got their hands on a series of questions that Mueller’s team wants to ask Donald Trump in their interview, and it’s likely that Jon Dowd, or someone from his office, gave these questions to the press.
Back in March, Jon Dowd was Trump’s lead lawyer, but fought hard against his client’s desire to interview Robert Mueller. (Daily Check-In 03/22/2018). He knew, like every sane person, that Trump would lie his ass off and incriminate himself in a matter of seconds.
Let’s take a look at the questions. The following is from Reddit /u/McIgglyTuffMuffin
What did you know about phone calls that Mr. Flynn made with the Russian ambassador, Sergey I. Kislyak, in late December 2016?
What was your reaction to news reports on Jan. 12, 2017, and Feb. 8-9, 2017?
What did you know about Sally Yates’s meetings about Mr. Flynn?
How was the decision made to fire Mr. Flynn on Feb. 13, 2017?
After the resignations, what efforts were made to reach out to Mr. Flynn about seeking immunity or possible pardon?
What was your opinion of Mr. Comey during the transition?
What did you think about Mr. Comey’s intelligence briefing on Jan. 6, 2017, about Russian election interference?
What was your reaction to Mr. Comey’s briefing that day about other intelligence matters?
What was the purpose of your Jan. 27, 2017, dinner with Mr. Comey, and what was said?
What was the purpose of your Feb. 14, 2017, meeting with Mr. Comey, and what was said?
What did you know about the F.B.I.’s investigation into Mr. Flynn and Russia in the days leading up to Mr. Comey’s testimony on March 20, 2017?
What did you do in reaction to the March 20 testimony? Describe your contacts with intelligence officials.
What did you think and do in reaction to the news that the special counsel was speaking to Mr. Rogers, Mr. Pompeo and Mr. Coats?
What was the purpose of your calls to Mr. Comey on March 30 and April 11, 2017?
What was the purpose of your April 11, 2017, statement to Maria Bartiromo?
What did you think and do about Mr. Comey’s May 3, 2017, testimony?
Regarding the decision to fire Mr. Comey: When was it made? Why? Who played a role?
What did you mean when you told Russian diplomats on May 10, 2017, that firing Mr. Comey had taken the pressure off?
What did you mean in your interview with Lester Holt about Mr. Comey and Russia?
What was the purpose of your May 12, 2017, tweet?
What did you think about Mr. Comey’s June 8, 2017, testimony regarding Mr. Flynn, and what did you do about it?
What was the purpose of the September and October 2017 statements, including tweets, regarding an investigation of Mr. Comey?
What is the reason for your continued criticism of Mr. Comey and his former deputy, Andrew G. McCabe?
What did you think and do regarding the recusal of Mr. Sessions?
What efforts did you make to try to get him to change his mind?
Did you discuss whether Mr. Sessions would protect you, and reference past attorneys general?
What did you think and what did you do in reaction to the news of the appointment of the special counsel?
Why did you hold Mr. Sessions’s resignation until May 31, 2017, and with whom did you discuss it?
What discussions did you have with Reince Priebus in July 2017 about obtaining the Sessions resignation? With whom did you discuss it?
What discussions did you have regarding terminating the special counsel, and what did you do when that consideration was reported in January 2018?
What was the purpose of your July 2017 criticism of Mr. Sessions?
When did you become aware of the Trump Tower meeting?
What involvement did you have in the communication strategy, including the release of Donald Trump Jr.’s emails?
During a 2013 trip to Russia, what communication and relationships did you have with the Agalarovs and Russian government officials?
What communication did you have with Michael D. Cohen, Felix Sater and others, including foreign nationals, about Russian real estate developments during the campaign?
What discussions did you have during the campaign regarding any meeting with Mr. Putin? Did you discuss it with others?
What discussions did you have during the campaign regarding Russian sanctions?
What involvement did you have concerning platform changes regarding arming Ukraine?
During the campaign, what did you know about Russian hacking, use of social media or other acts aimed at the campaign?
What knowledge did you have of any outreach by your campaign, including by Paul Manafort, to Russia about potential assistance to the campaign?
What did you know about communication between Roger Stone, his associates, Julian Assange or WikiLeaks?
What did you know during the transition about an attempt to establish back-channel communication to Russia, and Jared Kushner’s efforts?
What do you know about a 2017 meeting in Seychelles involving Erik Prince?
What do you know about a Ukrainian peace proposal provided to Mr. Cohen in 2017?
edited to include questions in case someone can’t access the article for any reason
There’s about 4 dozen questions here, and I’d put real money down that Mueller’s team has the answers to all of them. A good prosecutor doesn’t ask a question in an interview they don’t already know the answer to. And we’re talking about The Justice League.
Need more proof that they know the answers? Look at Cooperating Witnesses. More than half of those questions involve people on that list. The rest involve law enforcement officials like James Comey, Sally Yates, and Andrew McCabe, who were cooperating with Robert Mueller from Day 1. (Daily Check-In 9/8/2017, Daily Check-In 03/19/2018)
COHEN: FBI MET WITH RUSSIAN MMA STAR
The FBI has interviewed a Russian mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter with ties to President Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Trump’s longtime personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, The Associated Press reported on Sunday.
Affliction Entertainment was an MMA company started by the Affliction clothing brand. The UFC banned their equipment when they learned that Affliction was starting up their own company.
Affliction partnered with Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions. Their primary shareholder was Donald Trump, and their COO was none other than Michael Cohen.
The fighter, Fedor Emelianenko, is a multi-time MMA champion who also happens to be one of Vladimir Putin’s favorite fighters. Affliction made Emelianenko their star attraction.
Affliction had two pay per views in 2008. Their third was cancelled less than two weeks beforehand due to one of the fighters popping a piss test for steroids, and they couldn’t find a replacement for the main event in time.
Trump demands the spotlight everywhere he goes, and all of his business ventures look more like efforts at Money Laundering than actual business ventures. What makes this look even more ridiculous is what we’ve learned in the past couple years about Trump’s business ties, his desires to work in Russia, and the general shadiness and corruption surrounding sports.
There are so many ways to launder, lose, and find money in sports, it should be criminal. Actually, many of them are. For example, fixing fights, outsourcing the fight promotion to a subsidiary of the parent company, or throwing VIP Only parties that hide and mix the cash flow can all be used as methods of cleaning dirty money through sports. And I haven’t even talked about endorsements, sponsorships, or media access rights yet.
So, we have a known Russophile and alleged money launderer, and his fixer, running a sports business that had deep ties to the betting community (read: organized crime), who’s star attraction has ties to the head of the country he’s been trying to work with since the 1980’s. And, it’s an interesting enough connection that the FBI thought it was worth looking into.
This is gonna get interesting.
$20 says that the FBI found incriminating evidence against AMI, the parent company of the National Enquirer.
STORMYGATE
WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENTS DINNER: SWINE CLUTCHING AT PEARLS, A SPECIAL TWIST ON “THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE”
Hey mags! All these jokes were about her despicable behavior. Sounds like you have some thoughts about her looks though?
I’m not going to fan the flames on this one. This is another case of faux outrage by the same people that enable Trump and his ilk to attack democracy and decency every day. It’s like accusing someone of being bigoted against bigots. “How dare you be mean about the meanest person alive? How dare you say a known liar and racist is a liar and a racist? That makes you just as hate-filled as them”. Fuck those people and that line of thought. One group is enabling a liar, thief, racist, and rapist. The other is calling out the enablers.
MEANWHILE, IN MICHIGAN HIDING FROM MEAN COMEDIANS…
Seriously. That just fucking happened. Donald Trump admitted that the Russian Lawyer was working for the Russian Government, and he said it’s coming out now because Putin was afraid of how tough he was.
Sometimes, I can’t even.
#NEVERAGAIN
Wait, the NRA won’t let guns in the hall for the Vice President’s speech? After all that bullshit they cried about how only good guys with guns can stop bad guys with guns, and we need more guns for safety, they want to ban guns from their convention.
Fuck the NRA.
WHITE HOUSE CHAOS
CARL ICAHN
Carl Icahn is a corrupt asshole. Daily Check-In 8/18/2017 described his efforts to set up these exemptions, and Daily Check-In 03/02/2018 show him engaging in insider trading.
GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD
CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA AND FACEBOOK
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
COLD WAR 2.0
PARIS (AP) — The French president’s office says there’s nothing mysterious about the disappearance of an oak tree he planted on the White House lawn.
It was put in quarantine, like other plants or animals brought into U.S. territory.
The sapling was a gift from French President Emmanuel Macron for his state visit to U.S. President Donald Trump last week.
An official in Macron’s office said Monday that Trump insisted on holding a symbolic planting ceremony alongside Macron despite the quarantine requirement. The official said both sides knew all along that the tree would go later into quarantine.
A pale patch of grass now covers the spot.
The oak originally sprouted at the World War I Battle of Belleau Wood in northern France, where about 2,000 U.S. troops died fighting a German offensive.
For once, nothing nefarious happened.
SAY GOODBYE TO THE ECONOMY
BLUE WAVE
TRUMP ORG AND CORRUPTION, FROM THE WATER IS WET DEPARTMENT
SCIENCE, BITCHES
RUMOR MILL
Look forward to this when I eventually bend space and time, and get around to writing my piece on Maggie Haberman.
That’s it for today. Remember on Daily Check-In 04/27/2018 I said I was going to write about the House Intel Report? Well, I did. I spent 5 hours working on that Sunday night. Then another hour with tech support trying to recover the post that magically disappeared. 2800 words disappeared into the ether. More than 50 links, gone. All that work, just…
Was I upset? Yeah. But this ain’t my first rodeo. I’ve lost work before, and it’ll happen again. I adjust my workflow to avoid a catastrophic failure, and move on. Shit happens, it’s how we deal with it when the Poop Parade comes to town.
I’m going to redo that piece, work on it over the next several days, and republish it.
Thank you, and have a good one.
“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”
– Katy Tur
None of this is Normal 