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Trump Told Russian Officials Firing “Nut Job” James Comey Relieved “Great Pressure” On Him


 The New York Times is reporting that President Trump told Russian officials during an Oval Office meeting that he had fired FBI Director James Comey (whom he described as “crazy, a real nut job”) and in doing so had removed “great pressure” on him.

In attendance at the meeting were Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, as well as Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergey I. Kislyak.

“I just fired the head of the F.B.I. He was crazy, a real nut job,” Mr. Trump said, according to the document, which was read to The New York Times by an American official. “I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.”

Mr. Trump added, “I’m not under investigation.”

The conversation, during a May 10 meeting — the day after he fired Mr. Comey — reinforces the notion that Mr. Trump dismissed him primarily because of the bureau’s investigation into possible collusion between his campaign and Russian operatives. Mr. Trump said as much in one televised interview, but the White House has offered changing justifications for the firing.

The White House document that contained Mr. Trump’s comments was based on notes taken from inside the Oval Office and has been circulated as the official account of the meeting. One official read quotations to The Times, and a second official confirmed the broad outlines of the discussion.

Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, did not dispute the account.

This is really wild, wild stuff, folks.

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Comey: Infamous Trump Hug Was “Disgusting” Calculation

According to Benjamin Wittes, a longtime friend of James Comey, the former FBI director said that infamous hug at the White House “disgusted him” because he felt it was calculated to show closeness between the two men that didn’t actually exist.

“Trump fired Jim Comey because the most dangerous thing in the world, if you’re Donald Trump, is a person who tells the truth, is dogged, you can’t control, and who is as committed as Comey is to the institutional independence of an organization that has the power to investigate you,” Wittes told the NewsHour’s William Brangham.

Watch Wittes describe the moment below.

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Bare Majority Of Americans Believe Stronger LGBT Civil Rights Laws Are Needed

From Gallup:

Americans are about evenly divided on whether new civil rights laws are needed to protect lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. Fifty-one percent of U.S. adults say such laws are needed, while 46% say they are not.

These data, from Gallup’s annual Values and Beliefs poll conducted May 3-7, come as Democratic members of Congress plan to reintroduce a bill that would provide protections for LGBT people from housing, employment and other forms of discrimination. The bill’s potential for passage is unclear, as few in the majority Republican caucus have given their support.

Gallup is being generous with that last line. The Equality Act currently has no chance in hell in passing with both the House and Senate in Republican control.

And certainly President Babyhands isn’t going to go to bat for us.

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NY Times: Trump Asked Comey To “Put Out The Word” He Was Not Personally Under Investigation


 The New York Times has the story:

President Trump called the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, weeks after he took office and asked him when federal authorities were going to put out word that Mr. Trump was not personally under investigation, according to two people briefed on the call.

Mr. Comey told the president that if he wanted to know details about the bureau’s investigations, he should not contact him directly but instead follow the proper procedures and have the White House counsel send any inquiries to the Justice Department, according to those people.

After explaining to Mr. Trump how communications with the F.B.I. should work, Mr. Comey believed he had effectively drawn the line after a series of encounters he had with the president and other White House officials that he felt jeopardized the F.B.I.’s independence. At the time, Mr. Comey was overseeing the investigation into links between Mr. Trump’s associates and Russia.

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Trump Denies Collusion On His Part, More Nuanced Regarding His Campaign

Standing next to Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos Calderón at a joint press conference today, President Donald Trump categorically denied there was any collusion between him and Russia during the 2016 election cycle.

Collusion between his campaign staff and Russia? He was a little more nuanced on that.

Additionally, when asked point-blank if he had ever requested former FBI Director Jim Comey to “close or back down” on the FBI investigation into former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn, Trump abruptly declared, “No. No. Next question.”

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Trump: Special Counsel Investigating Russian Interference In Election “Hurts The Country”

President Trump

Yesterday, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announced he had appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller as special counsel, taking over the investigation into Russia’s alleged meddling in the 2016 election.

The White House issued this statement last night on the president’s behalf:

“As I have stated many times, a thorough investigation will confirm what we already know — there was no collusion between my campaign and any foreign entity. I look forward to this matter concluding quickly. In the meantime, I will never stop fighting for the people and the issues that matter most to the future of our country.”

Very adult sounding, no?

Well, in a lunch meeting with network news anchors and reporters today, President Trump struck a very different tone saying the special counsel investigation “hurts the country!”

Via CNBC:

“I believe it hurts our country terribly, because it shows we’re a divided, mixed-up, not-unified country,” Trump said. “And we have very important things to be doing right now, whether it’s trade deals, whether it’s military, whether it’s stopping nuclear — all of the things that we discussed today. And I think this shows a very divided country.”

“It also happens to be a pure excuse for the Democrats having lost an election that they should have easily won because of the Electoral College being slanted so much in their way. That’s all this is. I think it shows division, and it shows that we’re not together as a country. And I think it’s a very, very negative thing. And hopefully, this can go quickly, because we have to show unity if we’re going to do great things with respect to the rest of the world.”

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Chelsea Manning Says “Hello World!”

Chelsea Manning

One day after her release from Fort Leavenworth where she spent 7 years in confinement, Chelsea Manning posted her first self-pic for the world with the caption, “Okay, so here I am everyone!! 😜 . . #HelloWorld.”

In advance of her release yesterday, she told ABC News, “I appreciate the wonderful support that I have received from so many people across the world over these past years. As I rebuild my life, I remind myself not to relive the past. The past will always affect me and I will keep that in mind while remembering that how it played out is only my starting point, not my final destination.”

Manning had been sentenced to 35 years in prison for releasing approximately 750,000 documents to WikiLeaks.

One of President Obama’s final acts before leaving office was to commute her sentence.

A post shared by Chelsea E. Manning (@xychelsea87) on May 17, 2017 at 5:21pm PDT

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Out Music: Wrabel “We Could Be Beautiful”

Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter Wrabel has dropped his 5 song We Could Be Beautiful EP, which includes the title track as well as “11 Blocks” (one of my favorite tracks for 2016) and “Bloodstain.”

The five songs feel like a journey through his personal diary. From the awareness of proximity to a former love (“11 Blocks”), to love coming around again (“We Could Be Beautiful”) to contentment (“Poetry”).

Wrabel’s writing presents a window into how he handles dating life:

“I tend to be silent when I need to talk the most,” Wrabel told Out.com in April. “I push people away when I need them the most. I break my own heart to save another’s, but I would rather love truly, wholly and completely, and hurt, than not love at all.”

Check out “We Could Be Beautiful” below, and head over to iTunes to check out the rest of the EP.

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News Round-Up: May 18, 2017

(via Instagram)

Some news stories you may have missed:

• It may be Thursday, but no one’s throwing him back – photographer Frank Marando shoots Instastud Nick Sandell for Adon Magazine (above).

• Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn stopped a military plan Turkey opposed before he was fired. But – Flynn didn’t disclose until after he was fired that he received $500,000 from Turkey to represent their interests. #ThingsThatMakeYouGoHmm

• Wing-nut commentator Alex Jones says National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster’s bald head means he’s a “leather daddy” who looks like “he could suck a golf ball through a garden hose.” Homophobic much?

• The United States has denied visas to gay Chechen men who are trying to flee the country in light of the torture and murders of gays in the Russian country.

• Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued a surprising statement underlining the Justice Department’s commitment to prosecuting bias-related crimes against transgender individuals. Sessions has had a worrisome history when it comes to LGBT rights and protections.

• Jimmy Kimmel Live takes a cue from School House Rock to musically explain how truth, or the lack of it, works in today’s White House: