Not quite the TIME Magazine cover anyone ever dreams of, is it?
From the article:
It all adds up, in the words of a senior Administration official, to a “sh-tstorm” that no White House staffer even tries to deny. The #FakeNews defense won’t work when the Trump family is the one tweeting the potentially incriminating emails. And all of Washington has awakened to the fact that the Russia issue has spiraled beyond anyone’s control. There are too many investigations and too many targets–each with his own interests to protect and his own team of attorneys to protect them–and too many enemies created by Trump’s bull-in-a-china-shop style. It’s not a question anymore of putting them all in a box and shutting the lid. It’s only a question of how bad it will get.
I encourage you to read the full article at the link above.
We see one truly solid takeaway from the story of the day: Donald Trump Jr. is an idiot.
In the heat of your father’s presidential campaign, a bozo British publicist emails you to set up a sit-down with a “Russian government attorney” promising “documents and information” to “incriminate Hillary” courtesy of the “Crown prosecutor of Russia” as “part of” the Russian government’s “support” for Dad — and you eagerly take the meeting.
“If it’s what you say I love it,” wrote Junior. As if the government of former KGB spymaster Vladimir Putin would do anything so clumsy. (Our former colleague Kyle Smith put it nicely: “Don Jr. is why Nigerian email scammers keep trying their luck.”)
[snip]
Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. As were Junior’s shifting, incomplete accounts of the meeting under days of Times questioning.
Democrats and the media are frothing to find something criminal in it all, with the most unhinged talking treason. What it clearly was was criminally stupid.
Utilizing The Late Show‘s “weapon of mass clarification, the Figure-It-Out-a-Tron, Stephen Colbert connects the dots of the current Donald Trump Jr. RussiaGate revelations.
How are former campaign aide Carter Page, former campaign manager Paul Manafort, Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, “Russian government attorney” Natalia Veselnitskaya, Russian pop star Emin Agalarov, his billionaire dad Aras Agalarov, and Russian President Putin connected?
Colbert shows you in this concise, clearly understandable visual. Watch below.
In the aftermath of revelations that Donald Trump Jr. met with a Russian attorney expecting “incriminating” information about Hillary Clinton at the height of the presidential campaign, President Trump issued this statement in defense of his eldest son:
“My son is a high-quality person and I applaud his transparency.”
Note regarding “transparency” – Trump Jr. only released his emails because he was made aware the New York Times had the emails and was about to release them.
President Trump didn’t tweet or say this statement himself but had it read to reporters by White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders during an off-camera briefing.
Sanders followed up the president’s statement by informing reporters they need to refer further questions about Junior to his newly-hired lawyer.
After being told that the New York Times had his emails and were preparing to release them, he jumped and released himself.
Donald Trump Jr. tweeted out what he says constitutes the email exchanges involved in his June 9, 2016, meeting with a “Russian government attorney” that promised to provide incriminating information on Hillary Clinton.
In other words, Junior attended a meeting that he was told would be with a Russian operative who was offering dirt on his dad’s opponent.
The June 3, 2016, email sent to Donald Trump Jr. could hardly have been more explicit: One of his father’s former Russian business partners had been contacted by a senior Russian government official and was offering to provide the Trump campaign with dirt on Hillary Clinton.
The documents “would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father,” read the email, written by a trusted intermediary, who added, “This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.”
If the future president’s elder son was surprised or disturbed by the provenance of the promised material — or the notion that it was part of a continuing effort by the Russian government to aid his father’s campaign — he gave no indication.
He replied within minutes: “If it’s what you say I love it especially later in the summer.”
Four days later, after a flurry of emails, the intermediary wrote back, proposing a meeting in New York on Thursday with a “Russian government attorney.”
Donald Trump Jr. agreed, adding that he would most likely bring along “Paul Manafort (campaign boss)” and “my brother-in-law,” Jared Kushner, now one of the president’s closest White House advisers.
On June 9, the Russian lawyer was sitting in the younger Mr. Trump’s office on the 25th floor of Trump Tower, just one level below the office of the future president.
The emails reference “the crown prosecutor of Russia.” The NY Times clarifies:
There is no such title as crown prosecutor in Russia — the Crown Prosecution Service is a British term — but the equivalent in Russia is the prosecutor general of Russia.
That office is held by Yury Yakovlevich Chaika, a Putin appointee who is known to be close to Ms. Veselnitskaya.
Natalia Veselnitskaya was the Russian attorney Junior, Manafort and Kushner met with on June 6, 2016.
Below are the images of emails the Don Jr. tweeted out today. Click the images to enlarge.
Lindsey Graham: “If there’s an email from a Russian suggesting that the Russian government wants to help, that would be very problematic.” pic.twitter.com/Bof6eNysMZ
Donald Trump Jr. has agreed to speak to the Senate Intelligence committee but not before lawyering up after the revelation that he met with a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Maybe he should have done that before giving different statements about his June 9th meeting last year with Natalia Veselnitskaya?
President Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., has now changed his story twice regarding a meeting that took place last summer at Trump Tower with a Russian lawyer who has ties to the Kremlin.
Initially, Don Jr. said he never met with anyone with Russian ties.
Then, after the New York Times brought up meeting with a lawyer named Natalia Veselnitskaya on June 9, 2016, the younger Trump suddenly “remembered” a couple of details.
Junior said he took the appointment not knowing who the meeting was with, and he invited Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner and campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
Two things worth noting there:
• How many meetings does someone like Donald Trump Jr. take without knowing who he’s meeting?
• Why would he invite high-ranking campaign advisers like Kushner and Manafort if he didn’t know who or what he was meeting about?
When he was first asked about the meeting on Saturday, Donald Trump Jr. said that it was primarily about adoptions and mentioned nothing about Mrs. Clinton.
But on Sunday, presented with The Times’s findings, he offered a new account. In a statement, he said he had met with the Russian lawyer at the request of an acquaintance from the 2013 Miss Universe pageant, which his father took to Moscow. “After pleasantries were exchanged,” he said, “the woman stated that she had information that individuals connected to Russia were funding the Democratic National Committee and supporting Mrs. Clinton. Her statements were vague, ambiguous and made no sense. No details or supporting information was provided or even offered. It quickly became clear that she had no meaningful information.”
Remember, all of this revolves around the U.S. intelligence community concluding with “high confidence” that Russia interfered with the election to help Trump win.
In March, Don Jr. denied participating in any campaign-related meetings with Russian nationals. Speaking to the New York Times, he said, “Did I meet with people that were Russian? I’m sure, I’m sure I did. But none that were set up. None that I can think of at the moment. And certainly none that I was representing the campaign in any way.”
In all this time, all this talk about “Russian collusion,” Don Jr. forgot a meeting with a Russian lawyer two weeks after his father became the Republican nominee for president? A meeting with a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin where the lawyer offered “opposition info” about Hillary Clinton? He forgot that meeting?
This morning, Don Jr. admitted via Twitter that he took the meeting knowing it was to receive info about Hillary Clinton.
Obviously I’m the first person on a campaign to ever take a meeting to hear info about an opponent… went nowhere but had to listen. https://t.co/ccUjL1KDEa
That is literally the definition of “collusion.” He met with a Russian lawyer who offered to provide damaging info on Hillary Clinton. That is “collusion with Russia.”
It is certainly normal for political campaigns to gather information about opponents. But not from hostile countries like Russia. Campaigns don’t collect dirt via Moscow.
As political consultant Stuart Stevens reminded today on Twitter, “When Gore campaign was sent Bush debate brief book, they called FBI. If foreign interests offer you info on former Secretary of State, you call the FBI.”
Who among us hasn’t met a Russian lobbyist offering dirt on our enemies as a pretext to talk sanctions, forgotten it, then lied about it?
Fact that Jr confirms this story is huge. If senior staff so readily met with Russians to get bad info on HRC, what ELSE did they do? https://t.co/oBAjMUPJkR
.@DonaldJTrumpJr, you’re admitting that you colluded w/ a foreign govt. Sure, you’ll have your day in court, but, man, you belong in prison. https://t.co/XNHjfSpJEK
From behind-the-scenes of the Greeks Come True calendar
Some news items you may have missed:
• Let’s face it – it’s Tuesday. Who really likes Tuesdays without a pick me up? I got your pick me up: check out a tease from behind-the-scenes at the Greeks Come True Calendar 2017. Watch below.
• United Airlines has now issued a THIRD statement on the violent “deplaning” of a passenger in Chicago Sunday evening. I’m sure the $1 billion lost in stock value had nothing to do with it…
• Donald Trump Jr. has announced he won’t be running for New York’s governorship next year, but didn’t close the door on future runs – “You never know, it’s fascinating stuff.”
• A bill continues to move through the Texas legislature that would regulate male masturbation the way the state currently regulates abortions. When asked about the bill, Hillary Clinton said, “The bill may be satirical but the message sure resonated.”
After the United States chose to not utilize it’s veto power in a vote at the United Nations last Friday to prevent the passage of a United Nations Security Council resolution criticizing Israeli settlements, President-elect Donald Trump tweeted his outrage over the US position.
We cannot continue to let Israel be treated with such total disdain and disrespect. They used to have a great friend in the U.S., but…….
Today, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tweeted: “President-elect Trump, thank you for your warm friendship and your clear-cut support for Israel!” Netanyahu included in the tweet Israeli and U.S. flags, plus he tagged two of Trump’s children, Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr.
Note: This all comes as a criminal probe has been launched in Israel against Netanyahu.
It’s odd that a head of state would include the children in that they are supposedly not officially involved in the upcoming Trump administration, and Don Jr. in particular is slated to run The Trump Organization. #conflictofinterest
Others in the Twitterverse took note as well:
Most notable part of this tweet is that he tags Donald Trump Jr., who is supposed to be operating the Trump Organization https://t.co/1MpHml9nXT
