TWGB: Raining Bad Pennies

 

This post is brought to by Bell's Theorem, karma and the tendency of criminals to return to the scene of the crime. If this opening sentence doesn't make sense, wait for it. I've been waiting for the NY civil trial decision and the immunity thing like all of you guys. The waiting is either the hardest part as Petty proclaimed, or the special sauce as hedonists everywhere have discovered to their throbbing surprise and delight. 

Discovering that Trump's data protection suit against Christopher Steele was rejected was a fun thing to trip over on a Thursday morning. There's no good reason to have brought that case, and no good reason to file it when it got filed except--as a warning that Trump will try to sue you eventually if you say mean things about him ever? I don't know UK law, but this was rejected for statute of limitations, which really feels to me like he didn't want the suit, just the message the making the suit sends. And his campaign paid for the pleasure of a lolsuit. (Level Law--the firm--it's in his FEC reports. Donors are paying for the pleasure of Trump satisfying his grudges.)

Trump's predicament is dumb. What if there were a suit that had to deal with the data in the dossier, which would be rehashing shit that could have come up in 2016--NOW?! Me? I think there were a LOT OF THINGS we could have discussed about Trump in 2016 that we didn't. And now it's 2024, there's SO MUCH MORE. 

TWGB: Flipping Bricks

 

Well, here's to having the kind of week in the news where a journey into TrumpWorld actually feels like a bit of a vacation. And before I get things started, let's hear it for this week's TrumpWorld winner, though he doesn't even know it, Jim Jordan, for not becoming Speaker of the House. I used to joke about a tough job as "leading the clowns and following the elephants"--and that's what GOP Speaker would look like right now. Jimmy--enjoy doing less. I hope to enjoy you doing less and less in the future. It suits you. 

Now on to TrumpWorld--obviously, the big story this week is out of Fulton County where Sidney Powell and now Kenneth Chesebro have entered plea agreements with cooperation.  This does a handful of things--shocks TrumpWorld because some folks probably thought Powell was too batshit to get flipped: nah, she's a lawyer and figured out how screwed she was--and with the addition of Chesebro, um, probably Jenna Ellis and Rudy Giuliani should be getting on the phone about getting correct, you think? 

By admitting guilt, they are highlighting that the conspiracy was real and by agreeing to talk about it without Trump and the other co-conspirators getting the benefit of watching those speedy trials get played out for them, they are giving some folks specters of not a penny or a dime dropping, but a whole Coinstar machine falling out. Happy Halloween being haunted with the ghosts of felonies past and sentences future, you guys!

Durham Didn't Deliver

 

Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann is acquitted of lying to the FBI in the first trial of special counsel John Durham's investigation https://t.co/ddFPzN2GgS

— CNN Breaking News (@cnnbrk) May 31, 2022

Every now and then I just stop myself in the middle of whatever I'm doing and ponder that there is a subset of people in this country who genuinely are like: "Why would there be an investigation into the Trump campaign possibly coordinating with Russian intelligence like that was a bad thing or something?" as if, and no, I don't know how this happened, they do not understand that yes, this would be a bad thing.

While the forewoman of the jury has a point that the charges were a waste of time, I guess we did find out one new thing--the Alfa Bank traffic thing is still kind of a puzzle. But what kind of investigation goes on for three years and at best serves up something that feels like "it should be a crime to do opposition research on Trump, for reasons." Like, the real crime here is noticing that something looks bad. And then for fuck's sake talking about it. 

The hilarity I feel is that this is a standard that doesn't seem to exist with anyone else. I keep saying, "it looks bad because it is bad" because Trump defenders seem to have come to the belief that any criticism or claim against Trump (and associates) is automatically partisan or illegitimate. And yet, from George Papadopoulos to Paul Manafort to Mike Flynn, to OMG Don Jr.'s bizarre sit-down at Trump Tower, from Michael Cohen's Trump Tower Moscow dealings to Jeff Sessions' denial of Russian contacts when he had net with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, to Trump's very public "Russia if you're listening..." shenanigans, etc. something was very obviously up with them. 

Screw the Steele dossier (which plays a part in a future Durham production number); in retrospect the worst things we've learned about the Trump crew came from their very own words and actions. What Durham's doing is a distraction to point fingers at the Clinton campaign or the FBI, but it boils down to something that isn't really criminal, just sad:

No fair peeking at Mr. Trump. No fair telling on him! 

The investigation just has the flavor of a burnt offering to satisfy the palate of the toddler Trump, who insists that everything is rigged against him, and everyone is being so unfair, and he deserves a do-over because of all the big meanies who expected him to not be corrupt and stuff and to be held accountable. 

So, of course Trump's defenders now claim the trial was rigged. The jury was predisposed to be against the Trump campaign. So unfair. Because they still don't get it. The Clinton campaign had every right to be critical (it was a political campaign they were trying to win, for crying out loud) of what turned out to be true: it looked bad.

It was.  Nothing changes that. 

The Long and the Short of It

Dems have settled on two articles of impeachment. At a private meeting Monday night with Speaker Pelosi and her leadership team, they debated whether to also include another article of obstruction of justice, per @mkraju https://t.co/pPK25j0BFk

— Jeremy Herb (@jeremyherb) December 10, 2019

I think the idea that the articles of impeachment against Trump will only be two or three actual items isn't exactly the point--think of "abuse of power", "obstruction of Congress" and "obstruction of justice" as basically being like categories or bins into which a range of different actions of presidential misconduct can be sorted into. There is nothing that especially limits anything, even Mueller-related material, from being included in any of these broader categories, so while the list of articles is short, the conduct detailed within them can be extensive.

As my obsessive "TWGB" posts indicate, I'm kind of a maximalist in my approach to addressing what it is, exactly, that Trump does. He subverts and undermines people and institutions, and it helps to see the big pattern to understand that if he is not checked, he will just damage faith in our government further. What disturbs me from Trump apologist, which now stands as basically establishment Republicanism, is that Trump somehow hasn't really done anything that bad, and Democrats are performing this serious impeachment attempt because--we're mad and don't like him.

This is pretty much why James Rosen of Sinclair tried to nail Speaker Nancy Pelosi down on the idea of whether she "hated" Trump and the notion was forcefully rejected. The pursuit of the president in this case is not a personal issue (although I think he has some personality features that make it difficult to come to terms with him) but a question of how he uses his office, which is, in a word, deplorable.

Senator Ted Cruz, a man who has had Trump call his father an assassin, and his wife homely, and whom was the subject of a National Enquirer spread regarding possible affairs that now seem pretty likely to be at Trump's direction, what with Trump and Pecker being so friendly and all, not only joined Burr and Kennedy in spending a Sunday mouthing Russian propaganda regarding Ukraine, but now makes an astounding argument about how the persecution of Trump derives from hate:

“The real interpretation is these were hardcore political partisans that hated Donald Trump and they were willing and complicit to abuse the power of law enforcement and intelligence and spy on a political opponent” - Ted Cruz pic.twitter.com/q8EGVl3kJU

— Acyn Torabi (@Acyn) December 10, 2019

The DOJ IG report did not indicate that this is what happened, at all. The investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia had nothing to do with political bias. Cruz is gaslighting. There was no one implanted in the Trump campaign. There was no "spying". The only person under FISA was Carter Page, and despite some discrepancies in the warrant it was deemed appropriate to have been renewed. It is neither a profile of courage nor of especial insight for Cruz to ignore everything that Trump has done, and focus his ire on Democrats. Cruz appears to be saying these things hoping that his audience can't or won't read the details--sadly, the audience he's trying to reach probably won't.

In a political environment where I've heard the phrase "we're better than that" more than I can count and have winced to know it pretty much isn't true on all counts, I'd like to think this time it could be: maybe the House Intelligence Committee report on impeachment can be read by the people who need to revisit the factual details, and maybe people can even be enticed to consult the Mueller Report--maybe the people are really paying attention, even though they are being told by Fox News talking heads that all of this is boring and they should go back to sleep. There are factual accounts of misdeeds, definitely including obstruction of justice and of Congress, which make the full accounting of the entire timeline a sketch--but still a commanding one. Maybe people will think for themselves, instead of letting Republican partisans snow them about Trump's supposed America First inclinations, when he has been looking out for Number One (himself) since the jump.

Maybe if there is anything to hate here, it's watching Republicans make themselves unreachable on the subject of the real harm Trump is doing, preferring to align themselves even with a foreign power who does not mean us any good, and a politician of no particular staggering beneficial personal qualities. I certainly don't love that. But the impeachment will go on because the rule of law and our very system of government appears to be at stake, and if that isn't enough for you, I may not hate you, but I don't feel good about you, that much I can say.

TWGB: Chaff and Ammunition

One of the things to keep in mind about Ukraine, which is featuring prominently in the TrumpWorld storyline now, is that it isn't just a part of the story: this is a country that had a very corrupt government that was pro-Russia, and the pro-Russian government was being advised by Paul Manafort, who went on to become Donald Trump's campaign manager for a spell. Trump's phone call with President Zelenskyy  and the uncertainty of receiving military aid because of the difficulties posed by doing Trump a favor, not alienating European backers, etc., led to a decision that might please Russia, but does not please all Ukrainians:

During their presser last week Trump said he hoped Zelensky could work things out with Putin.

Tonight, protests erupted on Maidan in central Kyiv over Zelensky's backing of the Steinmeier Formula [capitulation to Russia re Donbass] with protestors chanting: “Zelensky out!” https://t.co/AJlfwk1Xyb

— Polly Sigh (@dcpoll) October 2, 2019

To people in the US, Trump's apparent extortion of another world leader for his own electoral benefit is an exercise in whether our institutions can deal with a president's abuse of power, but for Ukraine, this is a more existential matter (or, arguably, both situations are existential, but differ in the degree). Zelenskyy yielded geographic control because he doubted he had strong enough global support.

The United States, supposed leader of the free world, exporter of democratic values....

Hold up. I'm telling it wrong. Self-determined cop of the world, the United States, got caught sleeping. We never were good at law and global order, and now are a disgrace. Because our current president has no more idea regarding alliances than sheer transactionalism.  He owes Russia plenty (allegedly--let's say) and owes Ukraine nothing. You couldn't sell him on Ukrainian sovereignty for freedom's sake because that would involve explaining too much, and for all his "America First" blather, I don't know that he values what US sovereignty is worth.

TWGB: But What Does it Mean?!

George Papadopoulos deleted this tweet (using: Twitter for iPhone). #GeorgePapadopoulos #GeorgePapa19 #deletedtweet #screenshotbot #sshotbot pic.twitter.com/2eIKQixQy8

— Screenshot Bot (@sshotbot) December 29, 2018

There's something mysterious in the air lately, and, welp, I have no idea what's up with any of it. Nope. No freakin' clues. The above linked Tweet from George Papadopoulos regarding Maria Butina seems to pertain to the impression Russian tv is creating the Butina appears to have been "groomed" (in more ways than one) to perform some kind of campaign in the US. It appears to be a denial that this is even the case (and really, is it out of the way to suppose that Russian tv is not--GASP!--totally honest?) but frankly, what does he know?

I'm guessing he assumed the less said the better, in any case, which is a lesson better learned late than never, no?

In other fascinating news from McClatchy, it looks like a story they reported in spring may have firmed up a little, to the extent that Michael Cohen's phone (at least) appears to have been in the vicinity of Prague at the time when the Steele Dossier indicated that he was meeting with Russian officials to arrange a payment to hackers. This story from the dossier was originally met with by Cohen with a hard disavowal and a picture of the outside of his passport for some reason, and he still pretty firmly denies it--but a bit intriguingly:

He's never been, he says (although maybe he had, but it's been a while!) And yet, "#Mueller knows everything!"

Mueller knowing everything sounds good--but what does it mean?! (Stay tuned, I guess.) Sometimes these breadcrumbs we're following in this case seem like they are simply "for the birds". (I mean, honestly, one of the companies engaging in trolling during the 2016 campaign still appears to be trolling, filing a motion that tantalizingly refers to a "nude selfie".  Children, please do not let such sugar plums dance in your heads! It is probably nothing. Much.)

One of the things that does feel like "something" is that Russians appear to have actively promoted Jill Stein during 2016 to leech left-leaning votes away from Hillary Clinton as part of a protest contingent. This was enough to impact the totals for certain key swing states. (Although useless knob Gary Johnson impacted vote totals in my damn state by more apparently without Russian fuckery.) And remember her fascinating fundraising to try and get recounts? Well, it's paying for her legal defense, now. (And her ties to Russia aren't her only problem.) But all in all, the "something" I hope most people take away from this is that in America's two-party dominated system, right now, you have to vote your goals, not your feelings, and that might mean casting a vote for someone you don't love. It strikes me that I don't know if the problem is more about lack of civics or just innumeracy, but it gnaws at me that either deficiency could be so exploitable.

In another interesting "something" --look, I'm just going to post the lede of this Leopold and Cormier story and admit this is messed up and I also don't know what it means, either:

US Treasury Department officials used a Gmail back channel with the Russian government as the Kremlin sought sensitive financial information on its enemies in America and across the globe, according to documents reviewed by BuzzFeed News.

The extraordinary unofficial line of communication arose in the final year of the Obama administration — in the midst of what multiple US intelligence agencies have said was a secret campaign by the Kremlin to interfere in the US election. Russian agents ostensibly trying to track ISIS instead pressed their American counterparts for private financial documents on at least two dozen dissidents, academics, private investigators, and American citizens.

Most startlingly, Russia requested sensitive documents on Dirk, Edward, and Daniel Ziff, billionaire investors who had run afoul of the Kremlin. That request was made weeks before a Russian lawyer showed up at Trump Tower offering top campaign aides “dirt” on Hillary Clinton — including her supposed connection to the Ziff brothers.

And why in the hell would there be any cooperation when the information asked for was this? If there's any transparency, it looks like transparent fuckery!

But nope, I can't fit it all into the big, messy, clearly fucked-rotten story about what happened during the 2016 presidential election. It just looks like one more way among several that a foreign entity wanted to skew the election against Clinton--and in favor of Trump.

Raiding the TrumpWorld Grab-Bag

There's just something about a raid on Trump's personal attorney and the deputy national finance chairman of the RNC (or at least, he was--maybe not so much anymore) and Stormy Daniels pay-off patsy that perks me right up. It's not very usual to see a raid that goes after various documents at a president's lawyer's office, home, and the hotel room were he happens to be staying.

You just don't. I take people more experienced in these things at their word that this is a serious development that suggests Cohen has got himself into something deeper than just the Daniels pay-off situation (although that in and of itself might touch on campaign finance violations, bank fraud, bribery and intimidation if Daniel's recollection of being personally threatened bears out). I recall in Michael Wolff's Fire and Fury reading that Steve Bannon had indicated that there might be rather a large number of similar arrangements, but that still doesn't quite seem like what would call down this kind of activity. 

It kind of reminds me of the raid of Paul Manafort's offices and home and whatnot. Deputy AG Rosenstein and special counsel Mueller seem to be proceeding from a pretty high confidence that there was a "there" there in pursuing connections between Manafort and Russia.  What they uncovered was sufficient to indict him for a buttload of money laundering and it looks like he was up to some damn unsavory shenanigans for the benefit of then Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych (which included, interestingly enough, smear campaigns against political rivals and a certain US Secretary of State). I doubt Cohen was into anything that deep, but he did arrange for a 20 minute Trump speech to be made in exchange for a $150K contribution to the Trump Foundation by a Ukrainian billionaire, right at the beginning of Trump's campaign. 

Laundering contributions by foreign nationals through one's foundation in return for speeches in what is an apparent attempt to gain influence? Gosh--where have I heard of such a thing before?

Anyhow, and this is all very slap-dash, since the last damn TrumpWorld Grab-bag I've filed, Guccifer 2.0 turned out to be probably GRU and was in contact with Roger Stone and WikiLeaks seems to have been communicating with him, too, and Stone either did or didn't have foreknowledge about Wikileaks', um, leaks, maybe someone heard from George Papadapolous in a nightclub that Jeff Sessions wanted him to go after dirt on Clinton (the Papadapolous guy either needs a big operational security lecture or to start attending AA). Basically, there were a lot of people in the Trump orbit who were really all about those damn emails. None of it looks like a big old smoking gun that of course the Trump campaign was coordinating with Russian agents mind you. It looks like a pattern of just not being terribly particular where dirt on Clinton came from. And odd connections with Russians keep coming up.

Of course, we'll doubtless learn more about what this Cohen situation anon, and it does seem like this particular development has POTUS exceptionally rattled. It may be that this really does just boil down to the bizarre ethic compromise of paying off an adult film actress to keep shtum over a one-night stand, but then again, even that points to a takeaway from the Steele Dossier--that Trump could be subject to blackmail over his sexual business. 

This TrumpWorld Grab-Bag is a Dumpster Fire

In what surely feels like a sign of the times, Merriam-Webster has added the term "dumpster fire" to the dictionary, and that is exactly what TrumpWorld feels like: to wit, "an utterly calamitous or mismanaged situation or occurrence". Except TrumpWorld isn't any singular calamitous or mismanaged occurrence--it is entire mixed lots of rubbish burning together with different layers of grease or spent rubber or whatever have you undergoing their own unique kinds of combustion according to their chemistry.

One might think this has something to do with the man in charge. I don't know if Trump himself is deep, but his superficiality seems to have layers. He is keen to tell people that his White House isn't in chaos, but admits he likes conflict. He talks about the great energy he's surrounded with, but the White House itself could be powered with electricity generated by staff evacuating through a revolving door. Trump no sooner made the statement that people wanted to work at the White House than it was announced that his top economic adviser, Gary Cohn, was leaving over a disagreement on trade policy.  (It apparently makes no difference that Trump plans to enact the tariff scheme in "a loving way".  "I'm going to tariff you so good. Tariff a piece of that ass." Etc.)

But who's to say Trump even is in charge? In an essential read on Christopher Steele and the Trump/Russia connection by Jane Mayer, it's asserted that Putin vetoed Mitt Romney for Secretary of State in favor of Friend of Russia Rex Tillerson. (I myself mostly assumed that Trump let on that the spot was available to Mitt just for the sheer joy of seeing a man grovel.)

It's not fully implausible--it seems like former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn was working out "foreign policy" (or bribery and kidnapping) on his own ambit during his short term under foreign influence, and it's quite possible that White House Senior Adviser Jared Kushner backed a blockade against Qatar in retaliation for a failure to invest in his family's business.  The operations of this White House are such that one would be suspicious if anyone did anything without some appearance of ulterior motives. 

Trump is Having an Angry Weekend

CNN's latest reporting about Trump's weekend: He's "watching TV" and "getting riled up by his sons who are encouraging him to go harder on FBI" pic.twitter.com/BlRlHzC2AB

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) February 18, 2018

I think it's a little bit astonishing that after being relatively satisfied with the Mueller indictments and Deputy AG Rosenstein's press conference, and then a nice photo op with Broward County first responders (since he and Melania were already in the neighborhood) followed with a Studio 54 disco party but, sadly, no golfing!! Trump allowed himself to get all riled up by his two large adult sons and go a-Tweeting in the most disgraceful manner.

This collection is where Trump, annoyed at his press, starts blaming others for shit. He blames Democrats for not passing DACA (they are the minority party in Congress, and he himself actually ended DACA) and not passing gun control (see also--the minority party but they tried). He blamed the FBI for not catching "all the signals sent out" by Nikolas Cruz and blames this on the focus on the Russian meddling the ine 2016 election (specifically, the "collusion") but seems unaware that with 35K employees, the FBI can do numerous things at once, and that there really is no legal way of holding someone on suspicion of being really screwed up and dangerous forever--it isn't a crime to just be screwed up and owning guns. There was little they could actually do there because maybe the laws are kind of lax regarding dangerous people getting guns?  Seriously--using the 17 dead bodies in Florida to fig-leaf the investigation into his campaign ad Russia is damn low.

He also wants General McMaster to go beyond what the indictments or what Rosenstein said and publically waive him from allegations that the election results were impacted or...various conspiracy theory bits of glurge that I term the "Trump trots". If you are familiar with the "gish gallop", the Trump trot is the same thing, only a stickier mess of nonsense delivered by Tweet by a US President.  The Democratic party or the DNC never would have colluded with Russia to...smear Hillary Clinton and install Trump--that's just a fucking stupid thing to allege. There's no sign they did anything at all to boost Hillary Clinton during the election. Also, Uranium One is just really dumb and already debunked an awful lot. The Steele Dossier is not debunked, but holds up. The rest of the tweets that burbles about "Speeches, Emails, and the Podesta Company!" is just sad. Really sad. Throwing spaghetti at the wall.

Donald Trump doesn't seem to get that he is in office right now because these bullshit things got pushed even though they should not have mattered. Trump got paid large money for Wall Street speeches, just like Hillary Clinton. His transition team and his White House staff are using private email trust me. Also his son in law Jared (let me amend this here form) Kushner is not only not supposed to have a security clearance, but is requesting lots of classified info. 

What Trump is saying is bullshit, but he isn't thwarted, because he is apparently quite peevish:

Here we go--he references the dumb "pallets of cash" thing he swears he saw on Fox News which never happened to pretend there is a scandal about the thing where the US refunded Iran money they paid us for weapons they never got. He's just a bit mistaken as to what happened there.

He insults House Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff for a thing he hasn't said. And then he disgracefully lies about his long-held position regarding Russian meddling, which has been that Trump treated it as entirely a hoax. He hasn't admitted their wrongdoing even still, is blaming everyone else in sight, and never has either brought the additional sanctions requested by Congress or suggested any other punishment. In fact, I kind of think being back on his bullshit about why the FBI is supposedly wasting their time with the Trump connection to Russian meddling is, in a very real way--more obstruction, very much along the lines of firing Comey quite obviously for his attention to Trump's Russian connections.

Although I have not ever really figured out when Trump was at his smartest, I can safely say that the experience of angry Trump is fairly dumb. The position of President is stressful enough as it is--but most likely more so for a person woefully uninformed with a staff he either distrusts or which is also incompetent and probably not suitable to be there either.

This sort of thing is very sad and transparently an admission of knowledge of guilt and rank incompetence on his part.

This Looks Crooked from Every Angle

The thing that bothers me about Michael Cohen's statement that he is the guy who paid Stormy Daniels for no particular reason whatsoever is that the fact that he paid her at all is really amazingly coincidental with his client, one Donald J. Trump, having been implicated in an affair with this woman, and in the throes of an election where the most recent scuttlebutt alleged that he was a womanizer, when this pay-off happened. He can try to pretend-separate this from the campaign, but there is no more obvious reason for this payoff than that the Trump campaign would prefer to not have another woman talk about his extra-marital sex bidness.

I think this right there is stupid, because we know now, after the election, that Trump's philandering was never a problem for his voters. He was accused of sexual harassment and rape during the election. I'm not sure how Stormy Daniels' story was going to be some kind of "too much". Coming on the heels of the several kinds of harassment and assault allegations happening just then, which Trump had no problem denying, I don't know why her story would have represented a damaging bit of pile-on that needed to be monetarily hushed.

Cohen alleges that his financial facilitation of a payment (through the creation of an LLC to sort of, shall we say, launder that monetary "gift") was done entirely without any coordination with the Trump Campaign or the Trump Foundation.

Yah right--and he isn't also suing Buzzfeed because of the Steele Dossier.  Cohen is a fixer, and he does shit for Trump whether it is really good shit to do or not. I kind of wonder whether he has significantly fuxxored himself by admitting he has paid for Stormy Daniels in lots of ways--he should not be offering his financial assistance to some client who is not indigent to influence any potential case--and Trump should seriously be staking his own bribes, right?  This is basic lack of lawyering ethics.

Also, this is either a bribe or a material boost to the Trump campaign because it pretend-refutes damaging info for the Trump Campaign.  Totally an in-kind donation, you might think?

I don't even know. Cohen strikes me as a bad actor anyway. I definitely don't give credence to his story.

When Things Don't Go His Way--Boom!

After President Trump's self-contradictory immigration meeting with legislators yesterday, the White House plan to end DACA was blocked by a judge. And when you put that together with the up-ending of part of his Dossier complaint by Senator Feinstein's release of the transcript of the Glenn Simpson interview-- why, you get Trump to go Boom! on Twitter again.


It's like Old Faithful in a way. Can't say I'd miss it if he stopped. Also, congratulations on the new nickname, "Sneaky Dianne Feinstein"! You're my kind of nasty woman!

Even TrumpWorld Grab-Bags Get the Blues

There is a limit to how much good faith one can presume of other people. When it comes to Senate Republicans, Senators Grassley and Graham pretty much exhausted whatever confidence I had in them with the "stunt" recommendation to the FBI to investigate Christopher Steele for possible criminal charges of lying to them. In the midst of an investigation into whether Trump campaign officials conspired with Russia to use stolen information to win an election, the person these partisan hacks decide to finger as a problem is the whistleblower?

Add to that the news that the DOJ is opening a new probe into the Clinton email server and that the Clinton Foundation is currently being investigated by the FBI, and it's hard for me not to see a pattern that looks like Republicans using the Justice Department for partisan ends. It doesn't even seem all that low-key. And while they are at it, pretending that the FBI was actually Hillary Clinton's fan club. 

This is the kind of thing that makes me dread blogging. It isn't healthy to look around and just see examples of shameful dealing everywhere.

But then, someone does something that really picks me up--Senator Dianne Feinstein decided to release a transcript of a congressional interview with Glenn Simpson, founder of Fusion GPS, which was the research company that produced the dossier. And it appears to confirm what by now we should already know--the dossier was not the reason for the FBI investigation into Trump/Russia connections, because they already received information from someone inside the Trump orbit. Simpson also related the Steele broke off contact with the FBI in October 2016 when he became concerned that there might have been a pro-Trump faction within the FBI (which wasn't such a stretch--anti-Clinton is probably more like it) when a narrative was fed to The New York Times that no links were found between Trump and Russia. 

Now, I know this new information probably isn't going to change the whole conversation (I don't know--Trump hasn't mean-Tweeted about FBI DD McCabe since it was reported that his speculation about McCabe having anything to do with the Clinton investigation was rubbish) but it sheds some light where there was obfuscation. 

In other Steele Dossier news (how is there more Steele Dossier news?), Trump attorney Michael Cohen is filing a defamation suit against Buzzfeed for publishing the not-actually-discredited document. This strikes me as amazing for much the same reason as Trump's threatening to file a defamation suit against anyone over Michael Wolffe's Fire and Fury--it certainly looks like an effort to silence people to prevent true information coming out, and the discovery process would probably be brutal and unfavorable to President Trump because, and stick with me on this, Trump has a four decade long, well-documented history in multiple books and publications as being really shady. Why, before he was a fan of Trump, Steve Bannon shopped oppo connecting Trump to organized crime.  The connections aren't hard to make. 

It also isn't hard to see what Russia might have gotten in return for their "investment". This story from Spencer Ackerman that a White House official floated the idea of the US withdrawing from Eastern Europe reminds me a bit of the search for "deliverables" Trump wanted to offer Putin last year. And if one wanted an example of what a financially-leveraged President might be able to do, say, for his creditors, there is a nice example of a favor with respects to waiving penalties for interest manipulation that he is doing for a few banks, including Deutsche Bank. (The very one Steve Bannon noted might be of particular interest to Mueller's investigation.)

This TrumpWorld Grab-Bag Has Been Out Drinking

The New York Times tale of how the FBI investigation into the Trump-Russia connection really began, not with the Steele dossier, but with an Australian diplomat being told interesting and alarming things by Trump campaign foreign policy adviser, George Papadopoulos, is an absolute delight. It squares away some important details--for one thing, the Steele dossier (which is not, despite the best efforts of Trump and his supporters to pretend it is, actually discredited) did not spur the investigation, but the actual behavior of the Trump campaign folks did.

It also highlights a disturbing feature of the Trump campaign--when presented with various contacts alleging that illicitly gained "dirt" had been obtained by Russia, a hostile actor regarding US interests, and that said dirt was being peddled with the intent of fuxx0ring a US election, instead of bringing this to the attention of anyone involved in national security like responsible patriotic citizens would have done, the Trump boys rolled with it. It was up to Alexander Downer, an Australian, and Christopher Steele, a Briton, to do the necessary and give the US government a heads-up about what was going on. Which either means that the Trump folks never understood the intent or implications of what these various Russian contacts were for (undermining democracy and helping either sway an election, or effectively dirtying a nascent Clinton Administration so badly as to render it ineffective) or simply did not care.  Or both. Both is also a possibility, and a sickening and grave one.

The story moots the central claim from Trumpists that George Papadopoulos was low-level, and therefore, what he knew was not relevant. It also reinforces, to me, the idea that the Trump Campaign openness to this kind of attention from Russia was clearly visible, and not nearly so covert as the geniuses running it seemed to believe. (In rather the same way as the apparent coordination between Russia/WikiLeaks/Trump messaging would turn out.)

From the NYT:

Mr. Papadopoulos was trusted enough to edit the outline of Mr. Trump’s first major foreign policy speech on April 27, an address in which the candidate said it was possible to improve relations with Russia. Mr. Papadopoulos flagged the speech to his newfound Russia contacts, telling Mr. Timofeev that it should be taken as “the signal to meet.”

“That is a statesman speech,” Mr. Mifsud agreed. Ms. Polonskaya wrote that she was pleased that Mr. Trump’s “position toward Russia is much softer” than that of other candidates.

Stephen Miller, then a senior policy adviser to the campaign and now a top White House aide, was eager for Mr. Papadopoulos to serve as a surrogate, someone who could publicize Mr. Trump’s foreign policy views without officially speaking for the campaign. But Mr. Papadopoulos’s first public attempt to do so was a disaster.

That foreign policy speech was attended by the forgettable yet ever-present Sergei Kislyak. In it, Trump called for "an easing of tensions and improved relations".  It was quite the day.  Was it quite the day when the connection got real? I can't say--but the Russians sure were at it again when they contacted Trump, Jr. in June 2016. Because they had not been definitively told to fuck off. And I can't see where they ever were told to fuck off, because if they had been, the Trump folks could point to that "when".

And would have done ages ago. So I think they never told Russia to go away, and that's why they never did.