Trump, Liar-in-Chief, to Depict Flynn As Liar

In the political realm - and perhaps in any circumstance imaginable - few liar more often than Donald Trump, a/k/a  Der Trumpenführer.  Indeed, if his lips are moving, the safest approach is to assume he's lying.  Yet now that Mike Flynn is seemingly prepared to go state's evidence on Trump, Der Trumpenführer legal team is reportedly planning to smear Flynn as a liar should he reveal damaging information against Trump.  It's all indicative of the utter moral bankruptcy that now reigns at the White House and gives new meaning to the old adage that there is no honor among thieves.  One can only hope that Trump's attacks move Flynn to truly "spill his guts" and show where the bodies are buried so to speak.  One can further hope that Flynn has plenty of damaging emails and correspondence tracing back to Trump.  As for the member's of the legal team, I hope they remember that committing a fraud on a tribunal can lead to disbarment. A piece in the Washington Post looks at the coming effort to trash Flynn.  Here are highlights:

President Trump’s legal team plans to cast former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn as a liar seeking to protect himself if he accuses the president or his senior aides of any wrongdoing, according to three people familiar with the strategy.

The approach would mark a sharp break from Trump’s previously sympathetic posture toward Flynn, whom he called a “wonderful man” when Flynn was ousted from the White House in February. Earlier this month, the president did not rule out a possible pardon for Flynn, who is cooperating with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Attorneys for Trump and his top advisers have privately expressed confidence that Flynn does not have any evidence that could implicate the president or his White House team.

But since Flynn’s cooperation agreement with prosecutors was made public earlier this month, the administration has been strategizing how to neutralize him in case the former national security adviser does make any claims. . . . . The lenient terms of his plea agreement suggest he has promised significant information to investigators, legal experts said. “He’s said it himself: He’s a liar,” said one person helping craft the strategy who was granted anonymity to describe private conversations.  Robert Kelner, an attorney for Flynn, declined to comment. Ty Cobb, the White House attorney overseeing the response to the special counsel investigation, also declined to comment.

Defense lawyers have said privately that Flynn will be unable to point to White House or campaign records turned over in the probe to bolster any claims of a criminal scheme. None of those records suggest a conspiracy by Trump or his inner circle to improperly work with Russians . . .  according to people who have reviewed the documents.

“It’s pretty predictable,” said Randall D. Eliason, a former public corruption prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington. “Defense will always argue that a cooperator who lied previously should not be believed, and that there is insufficient evidence of the conspiracy. It’s Defense Strategy 101.”

Exactly what Flynn might offer Mueller about what he saw inside the Trump operation remains a mystery. Van Gelder noted that in the way the special counsel structured Flynn’s plea agreement, prosecutors avoided sharing the guts of their ongoing investigation.

The Dangerous Partisan Attacks on Robert Mueller

So far in his investigation Robert Mueller has found that crimes WERE in fact committed and has two guilty pleas and two indictments to show for his efforts to date.  Many expect more indictments and more disclosures of illegal activities by members of the Trump/Pence campaign and Trump transition team, the latter of which was headed up by Mike Pence.   Polls show that a majority of Americans view Mueller's investigation is (i) important, and (ii) being properly undertaken.  The exception is a growing chorus of Republicans and Trump self-prostituting news outlets which have begun to attack not only Mueller but the FBI.  Why?  I suspect that they know that crimes were committed and are very fearful that if Mueller persists in his investigation Trump, Pence and perhaps even other senior Republicans could see indictments and/or may see their political careers go down in flames.  The one thing certain about today's Republicans is that party is more important than country or the truth and the rule of law.   A piece in The Atlantic looks at this dangerous phenomenon.  Here are highlights:

If you’re not a regular consumer of pro-Trump media outlets, it could be easy to underestimate or overlook the recent onslaught of attacks on Special Counsel Robert Mueller. There are a couple reasons for that. One is that this discourse exists almost entirely within that media ecosystem (which is distinct from, though overlapping with, the broader world of conservative media). The other is that critics have been calling for Mueller’s dismissal and an end to his probe since it was announced. Nonetheless, the intensity of the recent spree is notable, as is the gradual shift from ostensibly politically neutral critiques to openly partisan ones. “Mueller is corrupt. The senior FBI is corrupt. The system is corrupt,” former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said on Fox News. The channel’s legal analyst Gregg Jarrett said Mueller was employing the FBI “just like the old KGB,” which Sean Hannity piously told viewers was “not hyperbole.” . . . . Fox host Jeanine Pirro said, “There is a cleansing needed at the FBI and Department of Justice. What all of these denunciations lack is any concrete instance of wrongdoing by a member of Mueller’s team, much less Mueller himself. They have seized on the case of FBI agent Peter Strzok, who apparently wrote some text messages critical of Trump to a girlfriend, but who, as I wrote last week, was immediately reassigned from Mueller’s team when Mueller learned of the texts, and about whom there is as yet no proof of wrongdoing. But the path from Mueller’s appointment to the current critiques bears close examination. When Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed Mueller in May, the announcement drew varied conservative reactions. . . . . . some Trump backers welcomed Mueller’s appointment, seeing the former FBI director as a man of integrity who would finally clear the president. Newt Gingrich was one notable example:  "Robert Mueller is superb choice to be special counsel. His reputation is impeccable for honesty and integrity. Media should now calm down." Gingrich was right about Mueller’s reputation in Washington: He was a celebrated former FBI director, a longtime Republican, and an appointee of both Democratic and Republican presidents. And Rosenstein, who appointed him, was another example of a lifelong Republican, appointed by Trump, who had an impeccable reputation for fairness. In hindsight, this was hopelessly naive. Trump’s black-hole-like gravity is such that it overwhelms even reputations for probity and impartiality built up over decades. . . . . The opposition to Mueller is partisan, but not in that it pits Republicans against Democrats. Its partisans are loyal first and foremost to President Trump. And in the inexorable logic of fiercely loyal partisans, they can only interpret other people’s actions through the same lens. Hence they have decided that Mueller, despite no real evidence in favor of the proposition and plenty of circumstantial evidence against it, must also be entirely partisan. Back in May, when Mueller started his work, Trump partisans could still argue with a straight face that there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, there was no evidence of collusion, and there would never be any evidence of collusion. . . . . it has become impossible to claim that the special counsel’s probe is purely a fishing expedition. The July revelation of a June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower with a Russian lawyer established that if there was no collusion, it was not for want of trying. . . . . George Papadopoulos and Michael Flynn have since both pleaded guilty to lying about their contacts with Russian officials—in the former case, contacts that occurred during the campaign. Carter Page testified to the House about extensive contacts with Russians. [S]ince Mueller’s extensive indictment of Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, accusing them of laundering $75 million in foreign income, it has been harder to sustain the claim that there might not be serious crimes outside the campaign. Trump, too, has thought better of publicly repeating that he’d fire Mueller for poking into the Trump Organization or his personal finances, though that doesn’t mean he’s abandoned the idea.

Trump’s defenders have regrouped around the argument that the probe is a partisan effort to get Trump. . . . . Now, they are willing to state the stakes more bluntly: “Mueller poses an existential threat to the Trump presidency,” Newsmax CEO and Trump friend Chris Ruddy contends.  They are also seeking to discredit Mueller.

What drove Gingrich’s flip? . . . . Though he presents his objections today as principled, Gingrich’s reversal, and current labeling of Mueller as “corrupt,” are probably best viewed in the context of his many comically opportunistic reversals over the years. The strongest argument against Mueller is his friendship with James Comey. The problem is that given Comey’s experience as both FBI director and deputy attorney general, there is practically no qualified lawyer with government experience who isn’t connected to Comey in some way. As I wrote last week, concurring with arch-conservative Andrew McCarthy, the U.S. governmental system is constructed on the idea that politically interested individuals can set aside their biases to serve in government roles, with sufficient guidelines and checks and balances. This resembles similar right-wing critiques of academia and the press, and it is essentially nihilistic, seeking to disqualify not only avowed partisans but also those like Mueller, whose reputation Gingrich could praise heartily in May, denigrate in June, and call corrupt by December. The very idea of a reputation for fairness is obsolete before this totalizing partisanship. It doesn’t matter that Rosenstein last week rated Mueller’s work so far highly; as another lifelong Republican with a reputation for fairness, he can just as easily be written off, as Trump’s attack on him demonstrated. Thus the cynicism of The Wall Street Journal editorial board’s conclusion that “Mr. Mueller is too conflicted to investigate the FBI and should step down in favor of someone more credible.” This, of course, was just who Robert Mueller was said to be a few short months ago. Even if Rosenstein could find a replacement with a reputation as strong as Mueller’s, it’s clear that the Trump partisans would just as quickly work to undermine it. Who would satisfy the Journal’s editors? It’s hard to imagine many names beyond, say, Pirro or her Fox colleague Andrew Napolitano, both of them unshakeable Trump partisans. Appointing such a person would finally satisfy those critics, but it would also effectively end the special counsel’s investigation—which is, of course, the point.

I fully expect that Mueller, if allowed to complete his investigation, will find a panoply of crimes, some reaching up to Trump.  Congressional Republicans like Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell know this - they may even be already aware of the crimes and/or implicated themselves.  It is critical that this investigation be allowed to run its course and the crimes and possible treason that took place exposed.  A review of Trump's history in business dealings shows that he constantly has skirted the law if not broken it.  Does anyone sane think anything about the man changed once he moved into the political realm?

Mueller Closes in on White House, Pence Makes Himself Scarce

Lest Fox News viewers forget (assuming Fox is even covering Russiagate), Mike Pence was actively involved in the Trump campaign and he was the head of the Trump transition team.  Yet, as noted before, he has steadfastly acted like Sergeant Schultz in the old Hogan's Heroes, television show: he claims he saw nothing, heard nothing and knew nothing.  Recent revelations, including emails discussing Mike Flynn's Russian contacts, however, suggest that Pence - who claims to be a devout evangelical Christian - is perhaps lying.  As regular readers know, in my view from years of tracking them, other than perhaps Trump himself, few elements of American society lie more often or more viciously than the self-congratulatory "godly folk." A piece in Vanity Fair looks at Pence's efforts to fade into the woodwork as he no doubt hopes that if and when Trump is driven from office, he can step in and claim the mantle of the presidency.  Here are article highlights:

It is extraordinary, in retrospect, that Mike Pence wouldn’t have known about Michael Flynn’s conversations with Sergey Kislyak or his foreign lobbying ties. As we now know, multiple members of the Trump campaign were aware that the man who would become Donald Trump’s national security adviser was in communication with the Russian ambassador at a senior campaign official’s behest. Yet Pence, who was in charge of Trump’s White House transition team—directing staffing, organizing agency “landing teams,” and vetting administration candidates—was conveniently out of the loop. (Flynn was ostensibly fired for misleading the vice president about those contacts.) Pence went radio silent again last week, when Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I. about those conversations. And he was nowhere to be found in the aftermath, as Trump’s legal team raced to contain the fallout after the president potentially implicated himself in obstruction of justice on Twitter. The former Indiana governor has, on the one hand, secured Trump’s trust by serving as an unflappable, unquestionably ideological defender of the president’s agenda. But his blissful ignorance on all things Russia has also raised eyebrows in Washington among insiders who see him as the obvious back-up candidate if Trump doesn’t pan out. Indeed, Pence has a curious pattern of alibis whenever controversy strikes the West Wing. While Flynn and Jared Kushner were ensnared in back-channel brokering over a United Nations resolution during the transition, Politico notes, Pence was volunteering at a homeless shelter in his home state of Indiana. When Flynn was gabbing with Kislyak about lifting sanctions against Moscow, Pence was at his son’s wedding. As Donald Trump Jr. was fending off headlines about his Trump Tower meeting with Natalia Veselnitskaya, his father’s right-hand man insisted that was the first he’d heard of it.

Rumors of Pence’s presidential ambitions seem to resurface whenever Trump’s political prospects look weakest. . . . . Others noted the existence of an unspoken agreement among Republicans to keep Pence above the fray. “He’s not stupid about the fact that there could be some very bad outcomes for Donald Trump here,” Rick Wilson, another Republican strategist, added.

There is no vice president who takes the job without the expectation of advancement. But Pence, it seems, glimpsed the possibility of a promotion early on. According to The Atlantic, amid the tumult after the Access Hollywood tape was made public, Pence briefly came within spitting distance of the top of the Republican ticket.

It is a grand irony that Donald Trump might, unintentionally, slingshot Mike Pence to the presidency. While Pence’s name emerged as a potential presidential contender for 2016 in the wake of his 2012 gubernatorial victory, the Indiana governor’s political career was on a downward trajectory when he unexpectedly hitched his wagon to Trump’s star.

Pence has repeatedly denied that he has any designs on the presidency. . . . Still, the signs are there. In May, he filed paperwork with the F.E.C. to launch his own PAC, the Great America Committee. Reports that he was cozying up to Republican mega-donors fanned speculation that he was in drape-measuring mode. According to the Times story, “multiple advisers” to Pence have “already intimated to party donors that he would plan to run if Mr. Trump did not.”

Pence’s ascendance could come sooner than later. . . . The latest argument from Trump’s legal team—that there “is no crime of collusion” and that the “president cannot obstruct justice”—appears to anticipate the worst. Meanwhile, Pence boosters are waiting quietly in the wing.

The country does not need another conniving liar in the White House.  If - and hopefully soon - Trump goes down he will reach out and take Pence with him.  If Trump has any sense, he ought to see the signs that Pence will knife him in the back as soon as he sees it to be in his own self-interest.  I despise Paul Ryan, but he'd be far less dangerous to the country and civil rights of its citizenry than either Trump or Pence.

Mike Pence Is Intertwined in the Russia Scandal

Like the ever, in my view, despicable Jeff Sessions, Mike Pence acts sanctimonious and wears his right wing Christian faith on his sleeve.  Yet, like Sessions, Pence seemingly has a big problem when it comes to truth and veracity.  The only other explanation for Pence's constant back tracking on statements - or perhaps lies - is that he is an idiot and has been played like a gullible fool by Der Trumpenführer and his sycophants.   Over the last 20+ years that I have followed Christian "family values" groups, the one thing that is striking is the abandon with which the "godly folks" lie almost constantly.  This is precisely the background from which Pence derives his "Christian beliefs" - a background where lying to further theocratic goals is completely acceptable.  It's as if the Commandment against lying and bearing false witness doesn't exist.  It is in this context that a column in the Washington Post looks at Pence's incredible claims that he knew nothing of the Trump campaign's contacts with Russia.  Here are column highlights:

Vice President Pence is hip-deep in the Russia scandal, his best defense being that he was inattentive or an easily manipulated dunce. His home-state paper, the Indianapolis Star, reports:

Another of Vice President Pence’s past statements came back to bite him this week. This time it had to do with his denial last year that the Trump-Pence campaign had been in contact with WikiLeaks.

Donald Trump Jr. on Monday shared several messages he exchanged during the 2016 campaign with WikiLeaks around the time it was publishing leaked and secret material from Democrats. Those messages were exchanged in the fall, leading up to Trump’s eldest son tweeting out a link to WikiLeaks’ documents on Oct. 14, 2016, the same day Pence was asked by Fox News to respond to suggestions “that your campaign is in cahoots with WikiLeaks.”

“Nothing could be further from the truth,” Pence responded. “Here you see the national media chasing after unsubstantial allegations, the allegations that Donald Trump has categorically denied.”

Pence has a trail of inaccurate statements concerning the Trump campaign and Russia, nearly as many as the memory-challenged attorney general.

Consider the hiring of former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn. . . . . Flynn also lied to the vice president about his contacts with Russian officials during the transition, a lie that set in motion Sally Yates’s conversation with the White House general counsel and ultimately resulted in Flynn’s resignation, the opening of the Russia probe and the firing of former FBI director James B. Comey.

When Trump wanted to lean on Comey to drop the investigation of Flynn, he ordered both Pence and Attorney General Jeff Sessions out of the Oval Office. Put that down as evidence that Pence was being kept in the dark.

However, Pence reportedly was present at the Oval Office meeting where Trump read the draft memo concerning his decision to fire Comey. That memo apparently was a screed about Comey’s handling of the Russia probe. Pence subsequently related to Congress and the press the phony cover story that Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein had cooked up, namely that Comey had improperly handled the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails. Pence denied Comey was fired over the Russia investigation, a position Trump swiftly contradicted in his interview with NBC News’s Lester Holt.

[L]ike now-embattled Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Pence repeatedly denied that the campaign had any contacts with the Russians. Perhaps Pence knew and forgot, perhaps he knew and lied on behalf of the president, or perhaps he was kept in the dark.

At some point, special counsel Robert S. Mueller III almost certainly will want to interview Pence. (Pence’s lawyer reportedly met with Mueller over the summer.) At that point, Pence will need to explain how it was that he never learned in real time about Flynn’s legal problems as an unregistered foreign agent, never knew about campaign or transition contacts with Russians and/or WikiLeaks and didn’t know that Comey was being fired at least in part because of the Russia episode.

[O]ne wonders why he would want to continue serving in an administration that uses him to deceive Congress, the press and the public. At some point, if Pence is an innocent man wrapped up in a web of dishonesty and subterfuge, you’d think he’d get angry, refuse to carry the president’s water and even quit.

In any event, Pence’s political future is dim. If he’s complicit in a coverup, he’s in legal peril. If he’s not, he’s a fool and a pawn, someone far too naive to be entrusted with power.  

 Like Trump, Pence needs to be removed from office.

First Charges Filed in Mueller Investigation

Things apparently going to get interesting as early as Monday when those charged in the first indictments in special prosecutor Robert Mueller's may be taken into custody.  Obviously, we need to be prepared for a twitter orgy flowing from Der Trumpenführer and fake news outlets like Fox News, a/k/a Faux News, and Breitbart which will ramp up obfuscation campaigns to distract the ignorance and conspiracy theory embracing base of Trump supporters.  The names of those indicted have not yet been released as arrangements are being made.  CNN looks at this development.  Here are excerpts:

A federal grand jury in Washington on Friday approved the first charges in the investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller, according to sources briefed on the matter.

The charges are still sealed under orders from a federal judge. Plans were prepared Friday for anyone charged to be taken into custody as soon as Monday, the sources said. It is unclear what the charges are. A spokesman for the special counsel's office declined to comment.
 Under the regulations governing special counsel investigations, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who has oversight over the Russia investigation, would have been made aware of any charges before they were taken before the grand jury for approval, according to people familiar with the matter.

On Friday, top lawyers who are helping to lead the Mueller probe, including veteran prosecutor Andrew Weissmann, were seen entering the court room at the DC federal court where the grand jury meets to hear testimony in the Russia investigation.

Reporters present saw a flurry of activity at the grand jury room, but officials made no announcements.
 Mueller's team has also examined foreign lobbying conducted by former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, former national security adviser Michael Flynn and others. His team has issued subpoenas for documents and testimony to a handful of figures, including some people close to Manafort, and others involved in the Trump Tower meeting between Russians and campaign officials.

One can only hope that the indictments will cause those indicted to spill their guts and, with luck, implicate Trump, Pence and others in activities colluding with Russia and/or obstruction of justice.  

Russian Hackers Sought to Get Clinton Emails to Mike Flynn

If one wonders why Der Trumpenführer is so obsessed with shutting down the FBI investigation of Trump BFF Mike Flynn, stories in New York Magazine and Talking Points Memo look at efforts of Russian hackers working on Vladimir Putin's personal orders sought to collaborate with Flynn and to hinder Hillary Clinton's electoral chances. Trump may be trying to use the ruse of voter fraud to distract his knuckle dragging supporters, but the real story remains that of what collusion and attempted collaboration went on between Russian operatives and the Trump campaign and Trump advisers.  Remebr, Trump more or less admitted that he fired James Comey because of the FBI investigation of Mike Flynn.  First these highlights from the New York Magazine piece:

During the 2016 campaign, Russian hackers discussed how to obtain emails from Hillary Clinton’s private server — and, then, transmit them to Trump campaign advisor Michael Flynn, according to intelligence reports reviewed by U.S. officials.

Meanwhile, a longtime Republican opposition researcher organized a campaign to access the emails that Clinton had deleted from that server — emails that he believed Russian hackers had gotten hold of. This GOP operative, Peter W. Smith, told multiple friends and potential “recruits” that he was working with Flynn on the email project.

These bombshells were brought to you by the Wall Street Journal’s Shane Harris, who interviewed Smith on May 4 — 10 days before the 81-year-old died. Here’s Harris’s summary of Smith’s efforts:

His project began over Labor Day weekend 2016 when Mr. Smith, a private-equity executive from Chicago active in Republican politics, said he assembled a group of technology experts, lawyers and a Russian-speaking investigator based in Europe to acquire emails the group theorized might have been stolen from the private server Mrs. Clinton used as secretary of state. …In the interview with the Journal, Mr. Smith said he and his colleagues found five groups of hackers who claimed to possess Mrs. Clinton’s deleted emails, including two groups he determined were Russians. “We knew the people who had these were probably around the Russian government,” Mr. Smith said. …Mr. Smith said after vetting batches of emails offered to him by hacker groups last fall, he couldn’t be sure enough of their authenticity to leak them himself. “We told all the groups to give them to WikiLeaks,” he said. WikiLeaks has never published those emails or claimed to have them. Smith said that he worked independently of the Trump campaign, and declined to tell the Journal whether the retired general was involved in his project.

However, the paper obtained a great deal of evidence that, at the very least, Smith led people to believe he was working for the Republican nominee’s senior adviser.

“He said, ‘I’m talking to Michael Flynn about this—if you find anything, can you let me know?’” said Eric York, a computer-security expert from Atlanta who searched hacker forums on Mr. Smith’s behalf for people who might have access to the emails. …In one Smith email reviewed by the Journal, intended to entice outside experts to join his work, he offered to make introductions to Mr. Flynn’s son, Michael G. Flynn, who worked as chief of staff in his father’s company. Mr. Smith’s email mentioned the son among a small number of other people he said were helping. Michael G. Flynn didn’t respond to a request for comment.
 In another recruiting email seen by the Journal, Jonathan Safron, a law student Mr. Smith described as a close colleague, included links to the websites and LinkedIn profiles of people purportedly working with the Smith team. At the top of the list was the name and website of Flynn Intel, which Mr. Flynn set up after his 2014 firing as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. Harris’s report represents the most compelling evidence, to date, that Trump campaign associates colluded with Russian hackers to steal Clinton emails. The specific emails that Smith was targeting — ones sent by Clinton over a private server as secretary of State — were never leaked to the public by hackers. Rather, Russian agents hacked the email accounts of the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign chair John Podesta.

At the time Smith began his operation, the DNC emails had already been leaked.

It’s worth noting that Smith is not, necessarily, the world’s most trustworthy source. Among the GOP operative’s past endeavors were efforts to publicize sensational — and unverified — charges that, while governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton instructed his body guards to procure women for him to have sex with. Smith also drummed up rumors that Clinton had an illegitimate child.

The Journal story does not establish that Flynn was working on this effort — only that Smith said he was. It’s true that the intelligence reports cited in Smith’s story suggest that Russian hackers believed Flynn wanted them to send him emails. But if Smith were falsely informing hackers that he was affiliated with Flynn, it’s conceivable that those conversations could have transpired despite Flynn having no role in the project.

The Talking Points Memo piece adds some details.  Here are excerpts:

Eric York, one computer security expert who said he searched hacker forums on Smith’s behalf to try to dig up the emails, told the Journal.

What Smith hoped to unearth were the 33,000 emails that Clinton has said she deleted from her private email server because they were personal in nature, and which Trump infamously urged Russia to find and release during a July 2016 campaign rally.

Trump and his defenders in the media and his administration have referred to the federal investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election as a “witch hunt” intended to hurt his presidency. They insist there is no evidence of collusion between Russian operatives and Trump campaign associates.

Smith acknowledged that the emails, if they existed, would likely have been hacked by Russian operatives. He ultimately received some emails from hacker groups prior to the election, he told the Journal, but urged those groups to pass the emails along to WikiLeaks so he would not have to personally vouch for their authenticity. Those emails have never surfaced, according to the report.

With all this smoke, it is increasingly difficult to believe that there wasn't real fire in the collusion effort.  If Trump had nothing to hide, why did he fire Comey and try to impede the investigation?   

Don't Buy Mike Pence's Claims of Innocence

There are many things to find disgusting and reprehensible in the Trump/Pence, not the least of which is Mike Pence who, in his own way is just as dangerous as Der Trumpenführer.  Pence, like Trump, is a pathological liar, except Pence, like most Christofascists, sees lying to protect himself and to advance his theocratic agenda.  Now, Pence is lying to try to convince Americans that he has known nothing of the scandals roiling the flounder Trump regime.  To believe this, however, one has to accept the fact that Pence, as head of the transition team, is utterly incompetent and near brain dead. The truth, of course, is that Pence knows what's going on and is simply trying to save his extremist ass.  It must be remembered that Pence jumped at the vice presidential slot because he was facing likely defeat if he ran for re-election in Indiana's gubernatorial race.  Thus, Pence is a loser and a liar who claims to be a "godly Christian" even though he hitched his future on a thrice married, narcissistic liar who brags about sexual harassing/molesting women.  An op-ed in the Washington Post looks at Pence's lies.  Here are excerpts:

Mike Pence would like you to know that Mike Pence is not involved in any of this. At least that appears to be the message coming from Pence’s allies, and perhaps the vice president himself, as the Trump White House reels from a series of interlocking scandals that threaten all manner of political peril, even potentially an impeachment or resignation that could make Pence the president of the United States.

All of a sudden we’re seeing a wave of articles in which anonymous sources close to Pence tell reporters that he’s completely out of the loop, to use the phrase that then-Vice President George H.W. Bush uttered so memorably when claiming his innocence in the Iran-Contra scandal. But can we believe it?

Nobody tells him anything! How can he possibly have any culpability for administration wrongdoing when he’s barely involved in any of this running-the-government stuff? Sources close to Pence would also like you to know that “Pence was not consulted about the decision to bring on Flynn as the national security adviser in November.” I barely know the guy, I tell ya.

You’ll recall that Flynn was supposedly fired because he told Pence that he didn’t discuss the potential easing of sanctions with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak when he and the ambassador talked multiple times during the campaign, a lie that Pence then repeated to the press. This affront to Pence’s honor was so profound that President Trump had no choice but to give Flynn the boot. 

Flynn was paid half a million dollars to lobby on behalf of Turkey while he was advising the Trump campaign, and in January, on the advice of his lawyer, he retroactively registered as the agent of a foreign government. Though Flynn informed the Trump transition’s legal team of this fact, Pence says that no one told him, despite the fact that he was in charge of the transition.

Pence claimed in March to have just found out about Flynn’s work for Turkey. Yet Rep. Elijah Cummings (Md.), the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, sent Pence a letter on Nov. 18 going into considerable detail about Flynn’s Turkey connection. As of yesterday, Pence was standing by his assertion that he only learned about it in March.

As leader of the transition, it was Pence’s job to make sure that things such as appointing a national security adviser with troubling ties to foreign governments didn’t happen. So his defense in the Flynn matter comes down to: I was doing a terrible job leading the transition and had no idea what was going on.

That then brings us to the matter of FBI Director James B. Comey’s firing. . . . . We quickly learned, however, that Trump intended to fire Comey all along. Trump said so in an interview with NBC, and Rosenstein confirmed it to senators yesterday when he told them that he was instructed to write the memo after being told that Comey would be fired.

So the initial White House line was a lie, which was only corrected once Trump blurted out the truth. Did Pence know? . . . . if you parse Pence’s words carefully enough, you can come up with an interpretation in which he was being technically accurate despite giving an intentionally misleading impression.

Anyone who has gone to work in this administration risks being tainted with its excesses, its incompetence and its corruption. No one is more at risk than Pence, who plainly harbors presidential ambitions of his own — and might even become president without having to run for the job. So the steady narrative coming from Pence associates —  that he has nothing to do with the parade of horrors issuing from the administration — could be an attempt to inoculate him for some later date when he has to stand before the voters on his own. Sure, I was there, he may say, but I really wasn’t involved with that catastrophe.

If Pence thinks that argument is going to fly, he’s got another thing coming.

What Did Mike Pence Know - and When Did He Know It?

With the survival of Der Trumpenführer reign looking increasingly questionable, the new question that is gaining attention is that of what did Mike Pence know and when did he know it.  Stated another way, could Pence be looking at impeachment or criminal charges too?  It looks increasingly likely that Pence lied - a common trait with evangelical/fundamentalist Christians something which Pence claims to be - when he said he knew nothing about Mike Flynn being the subject of an FBI investigations.  That question in turn raises the question of what else did Pence know about?  The many calls to Russia?  Flynn's payments from Russia and Turkey? The list gets longer and longer and one can only assume one of two things: (i) Pence is as biggest liar, or (ii) Pence is grossly incompetent if he did not know about some of the issues under investigation.  A piece at CNN looks at the growing difficulties facing Pence.  Here are excerpts:

Vice President Mike Pence is standing by a March statement that he first learned of now-fired national security adviser Michael Flynn's ties to Turkey from media reports, despite renewed scrutiny and revelations President Donald Trump's transition team was made aware far earlier.

"The vice president stands by his comments in March upon first hearing the news regarding General Flynn's ties to Turkey and fully supports the President's decision to ask for General Flynn's resignation," said an aide to Pence, who declined to be named. But questions about what Pence knew and when are swirling thanks to new media reports about what Flynn revealed to Trump's transition team, which Pence oversaw.

Flynn informed the Trump transition team more than two weeks before the inauguration that he was under federal investigation for his work as a lobbyist advocating for Turkish government interests, The New York Times reported Wednesday. But Pence didn't know, according to a senior administration official close to Pence. Despite reportedly informing the transition's chief lawyer Donald McGahn, now White House counsel, of the investigation's existence, Flynn still walked into the West Wing on January 20 as the President's top adviser on national security issues.

The question of what Pence knew and when first arose months earlier after reports surfaced that Flynn discussed sanctions with Russia's ambassador to Washington despite Pence's public claim to the contrary. It's also one that was posed after Pence stood before news cameras and claimed that Trump had fired FBI director James Comey because of a memo written by the deputy attorney general -- only for Trump to later reveal he planned to fire Comey regardless.

A senior administration official rebuffed CNN's question about whether or not Pence knew of the investigation into Flynn during the transition with a simple, "No." But Pence should have known. . . . . Pence had also received a letter in November from the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee Rep. Elijah Cummings describing Flynn's foreign work.

In a November 18 letter to Pence "to raise questions about the apparent conflicts of interest of the Vice Chairman of the Presidential Transition Team, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn," Cummings described Flynn's lobbying work and public advocacy aimed at benefiting the Turkish government as well as Flynn's RT-funded speech in Moscow in December 2015.

Has Trump Unleashed the Next Deep Throat?

Hopefully, Donald Trump's malignant narcissism will be his undoing.  In firing James Comey to seemingly stop the FBI's Russiagate investigation, Trump may actually have set the stage for an intensifying of the investigation with any delay being short term at best.  Perhaps more dangerously for Trump and his fellow conspirator, the move may make more true patriots in the FBI and intelligence agencies  feel compelled to leak what they know to the media and accelerate things towards impeachment or better yet, prosecution for treason.  Trump, of course is too impulsive and too easily enraged by anything or anyone who upsets his fragile ego.  A column in the New York Times looks at Trump's possible undoing of himself.  Another good piece is in New York Magazine.  First excerpts from the Times piece:

Once again, Donald Trump has done something that no president before him dared to do. This time, he has fired an F.B.I. director engaged in an active and continuing investigation of his own campaign. The decision reflects President Trump’s most autocratic instincts, showcasing his contempt for the independence of federal investigators as well as for the basic search for truth.

Given his frequent calls to prosecute Hillary Clinton for using a private email server, the anger he directed at the F.B.I. director, James Comey, for giving her a “free pass,” and reports that he directed Attorney General Jeff Sessions to find a reason to fire Mr. Comey, it’s hard to believe the president’s claim that he made his decision out of concern for Mr. Comey’s harsh treatment of Mrs. Clinton during the campaign.

But if Mr. Trump actually hopes to shut down or limit the F.B.I. investigation into his campaign’s ties to Russia, he may well be disappointed. History suggests that his decision is likely to backfire, producing new leaks and heightened inquiries that will be more difficult to control than he imagines.

President Trump may think he has sent a stern warning to leakers and independent bureaucrats unwilling to toe the White House line. Instead, he may well have incited an internal rebellion.

That’s what happened in 1972, when President Richard Nixon suddenly found himself in a position to replace J. Edgar Hoover, the long-serving and infamous F.B.I. director. . . . . Hoover and Nixon came into conflict over the investigation of the Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg. Nixon discussed the possibility of firing Hoover, convinced that the director was too old and cautious — and too independent of White House influence. But Nixon worried that Hoover knew too much, and he recognized the political dangers inherent in firing an F.B.I. director.

Then Hoover died, of a heart attack, on May 2, 1972. The event made front-page news, and all three television networks carried Hoover’s funeral live. For Nixon, it appeared to be a moment of serendipity — a chance to do what he had long wanted to do. Instead, it turned out to be the beginning of a long national nightmare.

The F.B.I.’s Watergate investigation was not yet underway. But Nixon already believed that control of the F.B.I. would be critical for his political future. He hoped especially that a newly cooperative bureau would help to dam the fast-flowing stream of leaks from the executive branch. Instead, he inspired one of the great leakers of all time: the F.B.I. associate director W. Mark Felt.

In June 1972, when Washington police arrested five men connected to the Nixon campaign during a break-in at Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate office complex, Felt recognized an opportunity. As the journalist Bob Woodward admitted more than a decade ago, Felt turned on Nixon in the summer of 1972, feeding information to The Washington Post as the legendary informer Deep Throat.

Felt’s leaks served in part to counter intense pressure from the White House, which sought to end the F.B.I. investigation. . . . The F.B.I. proceeded nonetheless, painstakingly digging into Nixon’s campaign and its ties to the Watergate burglars. Felt leaked some of those discoveries to the press, keeping the story alive at a moment when Republicans hoped it would simply disappear.

Many commentators have pointed to Cox’s dismissal as the closest precedent for Mr. Comey’s firing: the last time a president tried to use his executive power to stop an investigation — and failed to get what he wanted. The story of the F.B.I.’s succession crisis raises still more troubling prospects for Mr. Trump in the months ahead. Despite having political skills far superior to President Trump’s, Nixon never managed to “consolidate control of the F.B.I.” in 1972, at the peak of his popularity. To the contrary, his attempts to do so fatally undermined his presidency, setting in motion a political and bureaucratic backlash from which Nixon — indeed, the presidency itself — never fully recovered.

Trump, of course, knows little or no history, his focus always being on himself.  The sycophants with which he has surrounded himself at the White House are little better. 

The New York Magazine continues the theme.  Here are highlights:  

The axing of James Comey will not be the end of the Russia investigation. But it may be the beginning of the end of the Trump administration.

Let’s assume the worst immediate scenario for the moment. That the Vichy Republicans in D.C. — whether Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell, or the big-bark-no-bite John McCain and Lindsey Graham — either block or pocket veto the Democrats’ calls for an independent prosecutor. And that somehow Trump and Jeff Sessions (who claims to have recused himself from all matters Russian, but clearly has not) ram one of their personal toadies through the Senate as the next FBI director: Rudy Giuliani perhaps, or Michael Mukasey, or, heaven knows, Jeanine Pirro.

Nonetheless, the new director’s attempts to further derail the ongoing investigation will be met with revolt by the career professionals within the organization — an unwinding that may already be happening. There will be chaos. There will be leaks. There will be resignations. There will be synergy, clandestine or otherwise, with the Senate and House investigations into Trump and Russia. There will be blood. After the news of the firing broke last night, McCain called the scandal “a centipede” and made an unassailable prediction: “I guarantee you there will be more shoes to drop, I can just guarantee it. There’s just too much information that we don’t have that will be coming out.”

Anyone in criminal jeopardy will be out to save his or her own butt, not to protect Donald J. Trump. This includes Michael Flynn — whom Trump is trying to hush up by continuing to sing his praises in public, presumably because Flynn knows enough to blackmail Trump (just as Russia knew enough to blackmail Flynn). My guess is that Flynn, who took such delight in calling for Hillary Clinton to be locked up, does not want to go to prison. Nor, I imagine, do the other White House hands who may be implicated in the 18-day gap that separated Sally Yates’s informing the White House counsel Don McGahn that Flynn was lying about his dealings with the Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak and Flynn’s exit.

Now that Trump, by his own actions, has shown that the Russia investigation is anything but the “total hoax” that his tweets have claimed — now that everyone knows he sees himself in criminal jeopardy — he’ll be engulfed in 24/7 whack-a-mole as the “fake news” rolls out one revelation after another. And those revelations won’t just be about Russia, but about the entire family enterprise

Politico: Flynn's Lobbying Payments May Have Come From Russia

Trump and Flynn - laugh over all the Russian money?

Even as the White House is refusing to turn over requested documents to Congressional investigators Politico has broken a story that suggests that payments received by former Trump BFF, Mike Flynn, ostensibly from Turkey may have in fact come from Russia.  Flynn received these payments while involved in the Trump campaign and failed to register as a foreign agent of Turkey, much less Russia. Indeed, the smoke is becoming thicker and thicker and suggesting that there indeed is a fire that could take Mike Flynn,  Der Trumpenführer, and many others down, if not put them in prison.  No wonder Flynn is seeking immunity from prosecution in exchange for his testimony about the Trump campaign's ties to Russia.   Here are excerpts from Politico (there is much more and the rule to remember is "follow the money back to its source"):

The Turkish man who gave Mike Flynn a $600,000 lobbying deal just before President Donald Trump picked him to be national security adviser has business ties to Russia, including a 2009 aviation financing deal negotiated with Vladimir Putin, according to court records.

The man, Ekim Alptekin, has in recent years helped to coordinate Turkish lobbying in Washington with Dmitri “David” Zaikin, a Soviet-born former executive in Russian energy and mining companies who also has had dealings with Putin’s government, according to three people with direct knowledge of the activities.

This unusual arrangement, in which Alptekin and Zaikin have helped steer Turkish lobbying through various groups since at least 2015, raises questions about both the agenda of the two men and the source of the funds used to pay the lobbyists.

the hiring of Flynn by Alptekin came at a time when Flynn was working for Trump’s campaign and Putin’s government was under investigation for interfering with the U.S. election.

Flynn’s lawyer, Robert Kelner, declined to comment. In a filing with the Justice Department, Flynn said he relied on assurances from Alptekin that he was not directly or indirectly funded by a foreign government. But shifting explanations and a web of business ties raise questions about the arrangement.

Flynn has offered evolving accounts of his lobbying work for Alptekin. In September, Flynn reported his client as a Dutch shell company owned by Alptekin. After being forced to leave the White House — reportedly because he lied to Vice President Mike Pence about his conversations during the transition with the Russian ambassador — Flynn filed new paperwork in March acknowledging that his lobbying work “principally benefitted” the Turkish government.

The revelation of Russian business ties to the man who hired Flynn threatens to complicate the White House’s struggle to escape the shadow of the FBI investigation into whether members of the Trump campaign coordinated with Russian agents.

His original White House ethics disclosure failed to include payments from Kremlin propaganda network RT and two other Russian companies. The RT payment was for a paid speech Flynn gave at a Moscow gala where he sat at the same table as Putin.

A White House spokesman declined to comment.

Alptekin, in an interview, said he hired Flynn with his own money and did not coordinate any lobbying for the Turkish government.

Siberian Energy Group’s dealings under Zaikin were characteristic of the equity trades, offshore financing schemes and consulting agreements that Putin’s allies have used to protect and hide assets.

Trump Refuses to Give Key Flynn Documents to Congressional Investigators

Der Trumpenführer seemingly has never heard of the saying that if you don't have anything to hide, then don't act as if you do.   With Russiagate continuing to haunt him - and rightfully so - Trump increasingly has Congressional Republicans beginning to protest obstruction efforts by the White House.  A case in point is the White House refusal to turn over requested documents relating to former Trump BFF Mike Flynn and payments made to Flynn by Russia. Marco Rubio and Jason Chaffez have joined the chorus of those criticizing Flynn and/or the White House.  I continue to believe that there is more than just smoke surrounding the evidence suggesting possible collusion between the Russian intelligence officials and the Trump campaign.  Of course, the release of Trump's tax returns could also shed light on the role of Russian money in Trump's financial situation. Mother Jones looks at the White House's attempt to strong arm Congressional investigators.  Here are excerpts:

The White House is refusing to provide congressional investigators with some of the documents they're requesting as part of an investigation into potential Trump campaign connections to Russia, and whether former national security adviser Mike Flynn disclosed payments from Russian companies when applying for his security clearance.

The news comes as Reps. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) and Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) announced Tuesday that Flynn might have broken the law by failing to disclose the foreign payments on official documents filed as part of the security clearance review process. The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence is conducting one of two congressional investigations into links between the Trump campaign and Russia. (The Senate intel committee is conducting the other.)

"I see no data to support the notion that Gen. Flynn complied with the law," Chaffetz, the chair of the committee, told reporters Tuesday.

Cummings, the ranking Democrat on the committee, said the White House is refusing to provide documents related to Flynn.

"Despite all of these very troubling developments…we received a response from the White House refusing to provide any of the documents we requested," Cummings told reporters Tuesday. "So we received no internal documents relating to what Gen. Flynn reported to the White House when they vetted him to become national security adviser, and we received no documents relating to his termination as national security adviser for concealing his discussion with the Russian ambassador."

CNN reported Tuesday morning that White House Director of Legislative Affairs Marc Short told the House committee in a letter that some of the documents originated with other agencies and therefore would have to be provided by them. He added that concerning the relevant White House documents, "we are unable to accommodate" the request.

The White House didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Mother Jones.

I am of an age where I remember the Watergate hearings.  As now, Nixon's unraveling and eventual resignation from office likewise began with acts like these now taking place.  If Trump has nothing to hide, he should release the requested documents and his tax returns as well.  The longer he fails to do so, the more many will believe he is guilty of collusion with Russia, if not outright treason.