A Good Friday for a Trumpworld Grab-Bag

It's amazing to think that there were signs that the Trump campaign had unusual connections to Russia, as discovered by, well, everybody in the IC, as early as 2015, and yet, the Obama Administration was pretty much politically hamstrung from doing much to point it out--or at least felt they were. I mean, it happened, but it is amazing. It's not that there is one big thing that makes a person go "Hmm, I think there could be a connection here". It's...all the connections.

Speaking of connections--the screenshot of a Tweet from Corey Lewandowski above turned out to be correct--it's been verified that Paul Manafort's company did receive black ledger payments. This makes it about time that he finally got around to registering as a foreign agent--although I feel like everyone already knew that he had worked for the pro-Putin party in Ukraine? It's just weird that it got overlooked, but then again, since Michael Flynn did rather the same sort of thing...maybe it's the sort of tedious paperwork everyone forgets until people find out they got paid? (I'm still mulling over what to make about all the money Manafort's shell company borrowed from Trump-related businesses.) Manafort, like Roger Stone and Flynn, probably has an interesting story in him. Or several.

You know who has interesting stories and doesn't shut up? Carter Page. For a person who either was or wasn't close to the Trump campaign, and almost certainly was close to Russia, he talks a lot. One thing that he's staying mum on, though, is whether talks about sanctions ever came up when he was talking to, oh, anyone. He thinks it might but you'd really have to consult the FISA transcripts, which I think translates to, "Well, if it's on tape, I'm busted, and if it's not, I'm not".  That's an interesting way of looking at it, but he has a very interesting way of looking at things.

Anyway, there has been a bit of a mystery about Page--who brought him onto the Trump campaign as an adviser in the first place? A lot of people thought it was Jeff Sessions, because he was the one who helped Trump put together his list of five(!) foreign policy advisers when it became kind of alarming last spring that he hadn't any. But Chuck Ross at The Daily Caller says, not so. His sources say it was...Corey Lewandowski. The same who approved Page's odd trip to Moscow? The same.

It's just all interesting, is all I'm saying.