Tag: Russian collusion

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Donald Trump Moans About Russian Election Investigation Costs Which Are Less Than His Golf Trips

Donald Trump is very concerned about the cost of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russian investigation even though his golf trips cost more
Donald Trump

Donald Trump has suddenly become very concerned about the cost and expense of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in our elections here in the U.S.

The Trumpster took to Twitter today to moan yet again calling the investigation a “very expensive Witch Hunt Hoax.”

It was reported by several news outlets yesterday that Mueller’s efforts have thus far cost the government about $16.7 million.

Citing the federal government’s $4.1 trillion budget for fiscal 2018, the Washington Post puts these numbers in perspective like this: spending $16.7 million of $4.1 trillion is like making $50,000 a year and spending 20 cents.

However…

The conservative group Judicial Watch told the Associated Press that each of Trump’s trips to Mar-a-Lago cost about $1 million, including only Air Force One travel and Secret Service protection.

Trump has been to Mar-a-Lago 17 times, for a grand total of $17 million in flight and protection costs.

Wait.

That’s, like, more than has been spent on Mueller’s investigation into protecting American elections from Russian interference!

And that doesn’t include his trips to Just to his club in Bedminster, N.J., costs more than $40,000 in travel time (9 times he’s been there). Or to his golf club in Sterling, Virginia – 31 visits there.

Now, which is more important – protecting our democratic processes or Trump getting on his own golf courses so he can cheat at golf again?

If Trump is sooooo concerned about expenses, how about he cut back on his illegitimate golf games?

#ThingsThatMakeYouGoHmm

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Donald Trump Rants About “Young And Beautiful Lives” Destroyed By “Phony Witch Hunt”

Donald Trump has continued his wild and wacky Twitter rant all weekend long about the ongoing investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

From Politico:

“Who’s going to give back the young and beautiful lives (and others) that have been devastated and destroyed by the phony Russia Collusion Witch Hunt? They journeyed down to Washington, D.C., with stars in their eyes and wanting to help our nation. … They went back home in tatters,” the president wrote on Twitter.

Trump has repeatedly called special counsel Mueller’s probe a “witch hunt,” a charge that in recent weeks has been coupled with renewed calls from his allies to end the probe soon. Some House lawmakers have gone even further, arguing that reports stating a confidential FBI informant met with Trump campaign officials means the investigation is irrevocably tainted.

“With Spies, or “Informants” as the Democrats like to call them because it sounds less sinister (but it’s not), all over my campaign,” Trump wrote on Twitter on Saturday, “even from a very early date, why didn’t the crooked highest levels of the FBI or “Justice” contact me to tell me of the phony Russia problem?”

It’s unclear who Trump is referring to when he says individuals have “went back home in tatters.” A score of former campaign aides have reportedly met with Mueller’s team along with congressional investigators — racking up significant legal bills in the process.

It’s not exactly clear who the “young and beautiful” folks are that Trump is referring to.

The investigation isn’t exactly a “witch hunt” in that there have been at least five guilty pleas, including from former national security adviser Michael Flynn, former campaign adviser George Papadopoulos, and former campaign aide Rick Gates.

It was Papadopoulos’ conversation with an Australian diplomat regarding “dirt” on Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign that began the FBI’s original investigation into the president’s campaign that has become the Mueller probe.

And just for good measure, the Trumpster threw out some more deflection on Hillary Clinton:

Yesterday, Trump got angry that a New York Times report referenced “a senior White House official” as a source for a report. Trump wants his followers to believe that journalists make these things up, so he simply announced the “official” didn’t exist.

Except, the official does exist. And dozens of reporters were introduced to White House official Dan Pottinger who gave the briefing Trump references. The irony is that the White House press office insisted that briefing which hundreds of reporters heard be on background.

Reporter Yashar Ali tweeted the official’s name even though the briefing was done “on background” because Ali isn’t a White House reporter and not on the actual briefing conference call.

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NYT: Trump Lawyer Michael Cohen Received Payments From Russian Oligarch

Michael Cohen

You have to ask – is this the Russian collusion?

 The New York Times has the details:

A shell company that Michael D. Cohen used to pay hush money to a pornographic film actress received payments totaling more than $1 million from an American company linked to a Russian oligarch and several corporations with business before the Trump administration, according to documents and interviews.

Financial records reviewed by The New York Times show that Mr. Cohen, President Trump’s personal lawyer and longtime fixer, used the shell company, Essential Consultants L.L.C., for an array of business activities that went far beyond what was publicly known. Transactions totaling at least $4.4 million flowed through Essential Consultants starting shortly before Mr. Trump was elected president and continuing to this January, the records show.

Among the previously unreported transactions were payments last year totaling about $500,000 from Columbus Nova, an investment firm in New York whose biggest client is a company controlled by Viktor Vekselberg, the Russian oligarch. A lawyer for Columbus Nova, in a statement Tuesday, described the money as a consulting fee that had nothing to do with Mr. Vekselberg.

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Russian Lawyer Who Met With Trump Jr. Admits She’s Kremlin Informant

Donald Trump Jr.

The allegations for a year and a half have been that someone from the Trump campaign met or coordinated with Russian actors connected with the Kremlin.

Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, who met with Donald Trump Jr. at Trump Tower offering dirt on Hillary Clinton during the campaign, now admits she is a top Kremlin informant.

There’s your “there.”

From The New York Times:

The Russian lawyer who met with Trump campaign officials in Trump Tower in June 2016 on the premise that she would deliver damaging information about Hillary Clinton has long insisted she is a private attorney, not a Kremlin operative trying to meddle in the presidential election.

But newly released emails show that in at least one instance two years earlier, the lawyer, Natalia V. Veselnitskaya, worked hand in glove with Russia’s chief legal office to thwart a Justice Department civil fraud case against a well-connected Russian firm.

Ms. Veselnitskaya also appears to have recanted her earlier denials of Russian government ties. During an interview to be broadcast Friday by NBC News, she acknowledged that she was not merely a private lawyer but a source of information for a top Kremlin official, Yuri Y. Chaika, the prosecutor general. “I am a lawyer, and I am an informant,” she said. “Since 2013, I have been actively communicating with the office of the Russian prosecutor general.”

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Let’s Go To The Video Tape: Trump Contradicts Himself On Comey Firing

Before arriving at the White House, I’m certain Donald Trump was not accustomed to having folks follow, track and hold him to his word about most issues.

He was the boss of the Trump Organization, and if you wanted to work there, you just let the boss be the boss.

But as president, the Trumpster is finding out that, yes, folks are paying attention and we keep a record of everything you say.

So there wasn’t any difficulty involved when the Donald tweeted this morning that former FBI Director James Comey “was not fired because of the phony Russia investigation” to jump back a year when he told Lester Holt of NBC News that he specifically fired Comey over the “Russia thing.”

#Liar

By the way, this is why Donald doesn’t give press conferences any more. He would most certainly be asked about his self-inflicted contradictions.

I know he was able to correctly pick out pictures of animals on a test, but there are days I’m not so sure about his mental competence.

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Report: Mueller Has Evidence Trump Lawyer Cohen Traveled To Prague; Cohen Issues Denial

Trump lawyer and confidant Michael Cohen

While Donald Trump was ordering the missile strike on Syria last night, McClatchyDC was reporting that Special Counsel Robert Mueller has found evidence that Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, did travel to Prague in August/September of 2016 at the height of the presidential campaign.

Confirmation of the trip would lend credence to a retired British spy’s report that Cohen strategized there with a powerful Kremlin figure about Russian meddling in the U.S. election.

It would also be one of the most significant developments thus far in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of whether the Trump campaign and the Kremlin worked together to help Trump win the White House. Undercutting Trump’s repeated pronouncements that “there is no evidence of collusion,” it also could ratchet up the stakes if the president tries, as he has intimated he might for months, to order Mueller’s firing.

Cohen denied the allegations last year saying he has “never been to Prague” in his life. He famously produced his passport which showed no stamp of entry into Prague.

But the new reports posit that Cohen may have traveled on private jet to Germany and entered the Czech Republic from there. Because both countries are in the so-called Schengen Area in which 26 nations operate with open borders, a passport would not have been necessary for entry.

The infamous Steele dossier has been declared “debunked” in great part by Trump loyalists because of Cohen’s passport defense. The logic seems to be if that one aspect of the report was untrue then the entire dossier must be a lie.

And yet, several items in the dossier have been verified.

Cohen again denied the reports today via Twitter.

“Bad reporting, bad information and bad story,” Cohen tweeted, calling out McClatchy reporter Peter Stone by name.

“No matter how many times or ways they write it, I have never been to Prague. I was in LA with my son. Proven!”

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News Round-Up: March 29, 2018

Me with Arminae Austen and Matt Zarley in Fort Worth, Texas 1999

Some news items you might have missed:

• Since it’s Thursday, how about a little #Throwback action? The pic above was from a production of A Chorus Line I directed back in 1999 at Casa Mañana in Fort Worth, Texas. I wasn’t originally going to be in the show but the producers eventually asked if I would also play the role of “Bobby” since I had many times before. Pictured with my besties from the Broadway production of ACL who came down to kill it, and kill it they did, Matt Zarley and Arminae Austen.

• There will be a sixth and final installment of social media phenom Sharknado this year on SyFy Network. #YAY! #DumbButFun

• The Ecuadorian embassy has placed jammers in its own building to block WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange from access to the internet, social media or even phone calls. Assange has been living in the embassy since 2012 believing he’ll be picked up and extradited to the United States for questioning over activities by WikiLeaks.

•  A high-level Trump campaign official had repeated communications in the final weeks of the 2016 presidential campaign with a business associate tied to Russian intelligence, according to a document released on Tuesday by the special counsel investigating Russian interference in the election. Remember when the story was “There was NO communication by anyone on the Trump campaign with Russians?”

• Did you hear the one about Donald Trump’s lawyer dangling pardons to former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn and former campaign chair Paul Manafort? #ObstructionOfJustice?

• Always keeping in mind that nature is beautiful but can be just as dangerous, check out this incredible video of a cheetah on the hunt who jumped into a jeep to check things out. Gorgeous, exciting but scary as hell. The passenger didn’t make eye contact so he wouldn’t seem a threat. #WOW

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Report: Trump Adviser Roger Stone Bragged He Knew About WikiLeaks Hack In Advance

Roger Stone

Longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone has vehemently denied having any contact with WikiLeaks leader Julian Assange or prior notice of the document dumps by WikiLeaks that occurred during the 2016 presidential election.

Today, The Washington Post is reporting that Stone told two friends, Sam Nunberg and another associate, that he had learned from Julian Assange that Wikileaks had obtained emails that would torment the Clinton campaign months before the email hack was made public.

In the spring of 2016, longtime political operative Roger Stone had a phone conversation that would later seem prophetic, according to the person on the other end of the line.

Stone, an informal adviser to then-candidate Donald Trump, said he had learned from WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange that his organization had obtained emails that would torment senior Democrats such as John Podesta, then campaign chairman for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

The conversation occurred before it was publicly known that hackers had obtained the emails of Podesta and of the Democratic National Committee, documents that WikiLeaks released in late July and October. The U.S. intelligence community later concluded the hackers were working for Russia.

The person, who spoke to The Washington Post on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing federal investigation into Russian campaign interference, is one of two Stone associates who say Stone claimed to have had contact with Assange in 2016.

The second, former Trump adviser Sam Nunberg, said in an interview Monday that Stone told him that he had met with Assange — a conversation Nunberg said investigators for special counsel Robert S. Mueller III recently asked him to describe.

Meanwhile, the Republican-led House Intelligence Committee announced it was closing it’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election just yesterday.

Hmm…

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House Intelligence Committee Calls It Quits On Russian Interference Investigation

Donald Trump

The New York Times is reporting the Republican-controlled House Intelligence Committee has decided to end it’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election after concluding that Russia did meddle but did not favor Donald Trump.

According to the Republican committee chairman, there was no evidence found of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian actors.

Even as the special counsel expands his inquiry and pursues criminal charges against at least four Trump associates, House Intelligence Committee Republicans said Monday they have found no evidence of collusion between Donald J. Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia to sway the 2016 election.

Representative K. Michael Conaway of Texas, who is leading the investigation, said committee Republicans agreed with the conclusions of American intelligence agencies that Russia had interfered with the election, but they broke with the agencies on one crucial point: that the Russians had favored Mr. Trump’s candidacy.

“The bottom line: The Russians did commit active measures against our election in ’16, and we think they will do that in the future,” Mr. Conaway said. But, he added, “We disagree with the narrative that they were trying to help Trump.”

Democrats on the committee say there are still witnesses to be called and evidence requested that hasn’t been delivered to the committee.

There are reports that the ranking Democrat on the committee, Rep. Adam Schiff, was not informed of the decision to end the investigation before Conway announced his decision to the press.

Expect the Democrats to issue their own report on the committee’s findings.

Even though the House committee calls their investigation to conclude, the Senate Intelligence Committee will continue their investigation in addition to the special counsel.

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Former Trump Aide Sam Nunberg Thinks Special Counsel May Have “Something” On Trump

Former top Trump aide Sam Nunberg says he will defy a Mueller subpoena and not show up for grand jury testimony because it’s a pain to pull together the information Special Counsel Robert Mueller has requested.

In an interview with The Washington Post, Nunberg said he was asked to come to appear before the grand jury on Friday.

He also admitted he was asked for any communications related to President Trump and nine other people, including departing White House communications director Hope Hicks, former White House strategist Stephen K. Bannon, Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone.

“I shouldn’t have to spend that much time,” said Nunberg. “I shouldn’t have to go to a grand jury. I’m spending a lot of money on legal fees. A lot of other people are. And granted, Donald Trump caused this because he’s an idiot.”

Nunberg told several reporters this afternoon that he believes Mueller thinks Roger Stone (Nunberg’s mentor) colluded with Julian Assange of WikiLeaks. I’m guessing that is in reference to WikiLeaks release of emails from the DNC.

“They want me to testify against Roger,” Nunberg said. “They want me to say that Roger was going around telling people he was colluding with Julian Assange.”

MSNBC’s Katy Tur directly asked him, “Do you think that they [meaning Mueller] have something on the president?”

Nunberg’s response: “I think they may. I think he may have done something during the election.”

He told CNN’s Gloria Borger, “Mueller thinks that trump is the Manchurian Candidate, and I will tell you I disagree with that.”

As I write this, Nunberg – giving yet another interview on TV – just told CNN’s Jake Tapper, “I’m not cooperating. Arrest me.”

Nunberg also told Tapper he believes Trump knew about the Trump Tower meeting Donald Trump Jr. had with Russians in June of 2016.

This was truly a stunning series of interviews.

One, you don’t just say “no” to the Special Counsel.

Two, you don’t give three wild and wooly, lengthy interviews live on CNN and MSNBC. A smart man would just shut up.

Watch several of Nunberg’s moments on TV today below.