Senate Intelligence Committee Confirms Russia Interfered in the 2016 Election to Aid Trump

Among the thousands of lies that issue from Donald Trump's lips is that claims that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election to aid him is a hoax.  A myth created by the "deep state" he fantasizes about but which does not exist.  Now, the U.S. Senate Intelligence, chaired by a Republican and with a Republican majority has issued its long awaited report and confirmed what the intelligence agencies concluded long ago: Russia interfered in the election with the direct goal of aiding in Trump's election.  Sane, thinking Americans already grasp this fact, but don't hold your breath waiting for the Trump base to ever accept that they were played by Putin.  That would run counter to their mental capabilities and against their deep seated bigotries that Trump and Putin skillfully played. The Washington Post looks at the Intelligence Committee findings.  Here are highlights:

THE SENATE Intelligence Committee has released a bipartisan report with a stark bottom line: What President Trump calls the “Russia hoax” isn’t a hoax at all.

The fourth and latest installment in lawmakers’ review of Moscow’s meddling examines a January 2017 assessment by the nation’s spy agencies that Mr. Trump has repeatedly attempted to discredit — and confirms it, unanimously. Russia sought to subvert Americans’ belief in our democracy, bring down Hillary Clinton and bolster her rival. That these legislators from both sides of the aisle are willing to say as much after three years of thorough investigation is an encouraging sign of some independent thinking still left in government. It’s also a reminder of the peril this independence is in today.

The committee members conclude that the intelligence community produced a “coherent and well-constructed . . . basis for the case of unprecedented Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election” despite a tight time frame.
 The Senate Intelligence Committee deserves accolades for its clear-eyed examination of a subject that shouldn’t be political but has become polarizing thanks to the president’s provocations. Yet lawmakers wouldn’t have had a report to analyze at all if it weren’t for an intelligence community willing to dig up inconvenient truths. This is the community Mr. Trump is slowly destroying, most recently by firing his director of national intelligence and nominating an unqualified loyalist to fill the slot, as well as by dismissing Inspector General Michael Atkinson for lawfully alerting Congress about a whistleblower complaint.

The most recent Russia report is a reminder of the need to protect our elections against a repeat performance, whether by disrupting online influence campaigns, securing critical infrastructure or requiring paper trails and risk-limiting audits at the ballot box. But it’s also a reminder of the need to protect the intelligence community from co-option by a leader hostile to any truths that threaten his power.

Mark Warner: "Enormous Amounts of Evidence’ of Possible Russia Collusion

While Donald Trump continues to lie to the delight of his foul base and today tweeted “I am an innocent man being persecuted by some very bad, conflicted & corrupt people in a Witch Hunt that is illegal & should never have been allowed to start" two leading Congressional Democrats stated very different tales on TV news shows this morning. One was Virginia Senator Mark Warner and the other was Congressman Adam Schiff, each of whom stated that evidence of collusion has been revealed.  Warner backed off from a formal declaration but Schiff felt no such reluctance.  A piece in Politico looks at the development.  Here are highlights:

The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee said Sunday lawmakers have found "enormous amounts of evidence" into potential collusion between the presidential campaign of Donald Trump and the Russians during the 2016 election.

Mark Warner of Virginia made his remarks in response to an assertion that there is "no factual evidence of collusion" from the Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), who is chairman of the Intelligence Committee.

As evidence, Warner cited on NBC's "Meet the Press" ongoing negotiations about Trump Tower and the dump of WikiLeaks material.

"Where that evidence leads, in terms of a conclusion ... I'm going to reserve judgment, until I'm finished," Warner said.

But he added: "There's no one that could factually say there's not plenty of evidence of collaboration or communications between Trump Organization and Russians."

Warner's House Intelligence Committee counterpart, Adam Schiff, said Sunday on CBS‘ "Face the Nation" that there's both "direct evidence" and "abundant circumstantial evidence" of collusion with Russia. Asked Sunday by NBC host Chuck Todd whether a Russia conspiracy without any actual evidence of a crime being committed could lead to impeachment of the president, Warner again said he would wait to reach his conclusion but qualified his statement by looking at history.

"I have never, in my lifetime, seen a presidential campaign, from a person of either party, have this much outreach to a foreign country and a foreign country that the intelligence community, and our committee has validated, intervened, massively, in our election and intervened with an attempt to help one candidate, Donald Trump, and to hurt another candidate, Hillary Clinton," he said.

Warner also said that some of the "key people" the Senate committee wants to talk to are "caught up" in the Mueller criminal investigations.

Jill Stein - Putin's Other Asset? - Uses Recount Cash for Her Russia Legal Defense

There are two ways to have one's preferred candidate win a close election: (i) trash and harm the main opponent - which is what Russia did to Hillary Clinton, and (ii) aid and abet a third party candidate who has no chance of winning so as to drain off votes from the non-preferred candidate.  The latter approach may be what Vladimir Putin did with Green Party candidate Jill Stein who has never satisfactorily explained what she was doing when she attended a December 2015 party for Russian state broadcaster RT and dined with Vladimir Putin and the now indicted Michael Flynn.  Stein's supporters who "protested" against Hillary Clinton helped throw the election to Trump just as much as Russian interference and manipulation of the most gullible and racist members of Trump's base.  As The Daily Beast reports, Stein is now using funds raised from supporters to fund recount efforts in key states instead to pay for her legal costs in responding to the Russiagate investigation - she seemingly played these folks for fools not once but twice.  Here are article excerpts:

Money that Jill Stein raised to recount votes in 2016 swing states is being used by her campaign to pay for legal bills stemming from the investigation of Russian interference in the last presidential election.

In June, The Daily Beast reported that the the U.S. Green Party candidate’s campaign, which raised $7.3 million for recounts in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, had in 2017 stopped disclosing its monthly spending with the Federal Election Commission. Later that month, the Jill Stein for President committee filed a slew of reports that reveal spending on lawyers who are not trying to get inside any voting machines.

Stein campaign paid the “Partnership for Civil Justice” $66,441.60; that is on top of a $31,536 payment made in January, and more than the Stein campaign had in cash on hand by November 2016. . . . the group notes that it is representing Stein in her dealings before the the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

Stein has not been accused of any wrongdoing with respect to the various Russia investigations, but she has drawn attention from investigators for, among other things, her attendance at a December 2015 party in Moscow celebrating the 10th anniversary of state broadcaster RT. There she dined with Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. Gen. Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser whom Mueller indicted for making false statements.

In December 2017, Senate investigators requested documents from the Stein campaign as part of its own look into Russian government interference in the last presidential election. Stein has largely complied.

In an April 26 letter, Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, cofounder of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, told Senators Richard Burr and Mark Warner that, “As its records reflect, the Campaign paid for Dr. Stein’s trip to Russia.” The letter also notes Stein’s willingness to comply with its requests for communication with Russian state media organizations and Russian government officials. Objections are raised, however, to what are deemed unconstitutionally vague requests for internal policy discussions and contacts with any “Russian persons,” regardless of affiliation.

In a November 28 press release, the Stein campaign assured such donors that “recount funds are being held in a dedicated account, separate from Stein’s Presidential campaign treasury, and will be used to pay for all costs associated with the recounts.” . . . What to do with the money left over, after all recounts efforts were completed, is a question that 150,000 contributors were promised a vote on.

Dave Schwab, Communications Director for the Stein campaign responded Friday:

Recount money was used to provide legal counsel for the Senate investigation of alleged Russian collusion that the recount and our campaign were accused of. It was outrageous that the Senate Intelligence Committee accused the recount of being a tool of Russian interference, when the recount was exactly the thing that could have detected any such election interference, had it not been obstructed. Legal counsel enabled us to defend the recount from the baseless accusations behind the Russia investigation, which allowed us to leverage the intense media interest in the Russia investigation to amplify the critical message that election integrity is our best defense against election interference.

I don't trust Stein and her supporters were played for idiots.  They bear as much responsibility for Trump's election as the lazy slugs who failed to get out and vote.

Senate Intelligence Committee: Russia Interfered and Backed Trump

While the Republican controlled House Intelligence Committee proved itself to be little more than a patsy for Donald Trump and claimed that it found no evidence of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, the Senate counterpart found the exact opposite.   In a rebuke to Trump and Denin Nunes' farcical - if not treasonous - committee, the Senate found that (i) Russia had indeed interfered and had backed Trump, and (ii) the intelligence community's conclusion to that effect was accurate.  The take away on today, the 4th of July?  The stooge of a foreign power occupies the White House and is destroying the western alliance and framework that has held Russia in check for 70 years. Frighteningly, Trump's base, which claims to be the most patriotic of Americans, slavishly supports a likely traitor.  The Hill looks at the Senate Committee's conclusions. Here are excerpts:

The Senate Intelligence Committee has unequivocally upheld the conclusion of the intelligence community that Russia developed a "clear preference" for then-candidate Donald Trump in the 2016 election and sought to help him win the White House. 

The assessment, announced in an unclassified summary released Tuesday, represents a direct repudiation of the committee’s counterpart in the House — and of President Trump himself, who has consistently rejected assertions that Moscow sought to bolster his candidacy through its election interference. 

“The Committee has spent the last 16 months reviewing the sources, tradecraft and analytic work underpinning the Intelligence Community Assessment and sees no reason to dispute the conclusions,” said Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) said in a statement. 

The so-called "intelligence community assessment," or ICA, is a "sound intelligence production," according the Senate panel.

 

The ICA relied not only on public Russian leadership commentary and state media reports, but also "a body of intelligence reporting to support the assessment that Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for Trump," the committee found. 

Senate investigators also rejected the notion that the ICA was inappropriately influenced by politics, as some of Trump's supporters have alleged. 

In yet another contradiction to Trump allies claims, the Senate panel also found that a piece of Democratic-funded opposition research known as the Steele dossier did not "in any way inform the analysis in the ICA — including the key findings."

 

All in all, the Senate panel's report was a unflinching contradiction of many of the core claims made by Trump allies in the House. 

 

The Senate committee is still in the process of preparing the classified report detailing its conclusions about the ICA, which when completed will go through a classification review with an eye towards making a version public.

The Senate panel's overall investigation into Russian election meddling is also still ongoing, with interim reports like this one released on a rolling basis. 

May 16, 2018: A Very Bad Day for Trump

Recently I heard political pundits talking about the exhaustion many Americans are experiencing as they try to keep up with the breaking news stories swirling around the Trump/Pence regime and the Russiagate investigation, not to mention the short term news distractions that seemingly are manufactured almost daily by Der Trumpenführer.  Wednesday was a day that saw numerous stories break, none of which portend well for Trump and/or his co-conspirators and sycophants.  The day began with the news that the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee released a report finding that Russia had indeed sought to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.  The story was so damning that even Fox News was forced to report on it no doubt to the shock of Fox viewers who have been constantly told that claims of Russian interference were all false.  Here's a taste:

“Committee staff have spent 14 months reviewing the sources, tradecraft, and analytic work, and we see no reason to dispute the conclusions,” {Senator Richard} Burr said in a statement. “There is no doubt that Russia undertook an unprecedented effort to interfere with our 2016 elections.  . . . [Senator Mark] Warner said, “After a thorough review, our staff concluded that the ICA conclusions were accurate and on point. The Russian effort was extensive, sophisticated, and ordered by President Putin himself for the purpose of helping Donald Trump and hurting Hillary Clinton.”

Next came the release of transcripts by the Senate Judiciary Committee of the testimony of the participants in the infamous Trump Tower meeting, including Trump, Jr., who made utterly ridiculous statements strongly suggesting he was lying.  A column in the Washington Post looks at this debacle for Trump.  Here are excerpts:

[S]everal significant facts emerged. First, notes from Paul Manafort, who was present at the meeting, contain some curious clues including “Offshore — Cyprus” and “Active sponsors of RNC,” presumably meaning the Republican National Committee. This is the first we’ve heard of these meeting topics. It is of course illegal to take foreign assistance for an election campaign (more about that later), but it is noteworthy that the purpose of the meeting (adoptions) according to a White House statement — which Trump Jr. conceded may have included his father’s input — was the last item on Manafort’s list, perhaps an afterthought thrown in after discussions about far more controversial matters  . . .  The notion that no one from the campaign ever met with any Russians to discuss the campaign looks more and more like a lie. Second, Trump Jr. says he cannot remember (!) if he talked to his father after the meeting or the calls to set up the meeting (although there is a record of a four-minute call from a blocked number, followed by a short call with Emin Agalarov, who initiated the meeting). Failing to remember if he talked to his father after a group meeting with Russians strikes one as entirely improbable, but in any event, he says he later talked to Hope Hicks about the meeting, which is the virtually the same as talking to President Trump directly.  Third, this is confirmation of eagerness to receive something of value (dirt on Clinton) from a foreign source. And that’s a big legal problem, according to campaign finance and ethics gurus. “Federal law provides that ‘No person shall knowingly solicit, accept, or receive from a foreign national any contribution or donation,’ ” former White House ethics counsel Norman Eisen tells me. “That is not limited to only cash contributions but also includes in kind ones, such as the opposition research that Don Jr. and through him the Trump campaign solicited in connection with the Trump Tower meeting.” He adds, “As time passes and more information comes out such as the Senate release today, the evidence of collusion (or rather, of the various legal claims that we loosely refer to using that term) becomes stronger and stronger.”  Even though the actions occurred before the election, Trump may find himself in a legal fix. Constitutional scholar and co-author of a new book “To End a Presidency: The Power of Impeachment” Laurence Tribe says, “Under the U.S. criminal code, soliciting a bribe is an independent offense even if the bribe doesn’t come through. And under the federal election code, soliciting prohibited foreign assistance in a U.S. election is an offense even if the assistance isn’t provided. The Trump family’s problems don’t end there, since ‘acts of solicitation’ can become overt acts that form part of a conspiracy to commit another crime.” One final note: Whenever Trump shouts “No collusion,” the response to that should be: “There’s airtight evidence of attempted conspiracy by the highest levels in the Trump campaign to obtain foreign help.” As Bergmann puts it, “According to Donald Trump Jr.’s own testimony, he was disappointed by the meeting because the collusion the Russians were offering wasn’t good enough. So we know the Trump campaign wanted to collude and we know the Russians ran an aggressive campaign to help Trump. Given the mounting evidence it really isn’t a question anymore if they colluded, it’s a question of how deep the collusion went.” No wonder Trump is so freaked out about the Russia investigation.

Then there was the bombshell via New York Magazine that reported that Michael Cohen was gathering large amounts of foreign money that was being passed through to Trump and his family.  Here are highlights from that story:

Last night, the Daily Mail reported a development in the Michael Cohen saga of seismic scale. In a December 2016 meeting in Trump Tower, the British tabloid reports, Cohen asked Ahmed Al-Rumaihi, who runs a $100 billion Qatari investment fund, to send him “millions” which, the story claims, would go “through him to Trump family members.” 

The Daily Mail report deepens the trouble in two crucial ways. First, it extends Cohen’s scheme from domestic corporations (or, in one case, domestic corporations controlled by foreign entities) to direct overseas fundraising. Second, and more ominously, it alleges that Cohen funneled the money to Trump’s family. . . . Now the story suggests he was enriching them, transforming the Cohen bribery story into a Trump bribery story. [T]here is plenty of contextual evidence to support the charge. One is that, after Stormy Daniels’s lawyer Michael Avenatti published Trump Tower surveillance video of Al-Rumaihi, he suspiciously denied attending the meeting, only for his firm to admit it later. Another reason is that, multiple reports have linked both Qatar as a source of players in the broader web of shady Trump financial dealings with Russia, and Cohen as a key conduit. So it would fit the pattern for Cohen to be soliciting a bribe from Qatar on behalf of the Trump family. And yet another reason is Trump’s notorious resentment of other people making money off of him. If Cohen used Trump’s election to solicit bribes, it seems highly likely Trump would demand a taste. And then there is another reason to credit this allegation: Direct bribery of Trump is still happening, in plain sight.  Trump has defied all modern precedent by retaining control of his family company while serving as president, allowing interests domestic or foreign to curry favor by enriching him personally.

What’s clearly true is that the usual restraints against such behavior are altogether absent. There is an old phrase that used to be bandied around the media constantly: “the appearance of a conflict of interest.” Officials were held to this standard, which required them to avoid even looking like they might be tempted to allow their personal interest to influence their decisions. And of course, petty corruption often won out even in the face of this putatively strict public ethic. But it had to travel through a wick Roger et of rules guarding against outright corruption.

The Trump family, by contrast, is operating in a rules-free environment. The appearance of a conflict of interest is not even in question. There are proven conflicts everywhere, and the only question is straight-out quid pro quo bribery. The only authority empowered to uncover the alleged bribes is Robert Mueller.

Lastly, as icing on the cake, news broke that subpoenas were delivered late last week to lawyers representing Jason Sullivan, a social media and Twitter specialist Trump sycophant Roger Stone hired to work for an independent political action committee he set up to support Trump.  Reuters has details: 

U.S. Justice Department Special Counsel Robert Mueller has issued two subpoenas to a social media expert who worked for longtime Donald Trump adviser Roger Stone during the 2016 presidential election campaign. The subpoenas suggest that Mueller, who is probing Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, is focusing in part on Stone and whether he might have had advance knowledge of material allegedly hacked by Russian intelligence and sent to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who published it.

Stone appeared before the U.S. House of Representatives Intelligence Committee last September and denied allegations of collusion between the president’s associates and Russia during the election. “I am aware of no evidence whatsoever of collusion by the Russian state or anyone in the Trump campaign,” Stone told reporters at the time.

According to sources familiar with the ongoing investigation, Mueller also has been probing whether anyone associated with the Trump campaign may have helped Assange or the Russians time or target the release of hacked emails and other social media promoting Trump or critical of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

Sullivan told Reuters that he heads Cyphoon.com, a social media firm, and “worked on the Trump campaign serving as Chief Strategist directly to Roger J. Stone Jr.” 

Personally, I consider any news that is bad news for Trump on the Russiagate front as wonderful news for America and same, rational America and supporters of the rule of law.  My only fear is what lunatic thing Trump might do as he strives to distract the media and the public from the seemingly tightening noose. 

Sen. Mark Warner: More Serious Trump/Russia Questions; Nunes Memo a Fabrication

As Congressional Republicans (especially Rep. Devin Nunes who one would think was taking orders directly from Vladimir Putin) and Der Trumpenführer continue to wage war on the FBI and Justice Department officials - all aimed at killing the Russiagate investigation and protecting parties potential guilty of treason - Senator Mark Warner (D-Virginia) has announced that new documents provided to the Senate Intelligence Committee have opened entirely new lines of questions concerning Trump/Russia collusion.  Indeed, Warner excoriates Nunes who he describes as pushing a fabricated Star Chamber like effort. And that doesn't even get into the issue of obstruction of justice issues.  The take away is that notwithstanding GOP efforts to end the Russiagate as soon as possible, barring a right wing coup against  Constitutional government, not only is the Russiagate investigation not going away, but questions associated with it are multiplying and suggests many, many more months of hearings and possible indictments lie ahead.  Expect the Trump/GOP desperation to increase.  Here are excerpts from a piece in Politico on Warner's comments: 

Congress late last year received “extraordinarily important new documents” in its investigation of President Donald Trump and his campaign’s possible collusion with the 2016 Russian election hacking, opening up significant new lines of inquiry in the Senate Intelligence Committee’s probe of the president, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) says in an exclusive new interview.

Warner, the intel committee’s top Democrat, says “end-of-the-year document dumps” produced “very significant” revelations that “opened a lot of new questions” that Senate investigators are now looking into, meaning the inquiry into Trump and the Russia hacking—already nearly a year old—will not be finished for months longer. “We’ve had new information that raises more questions,” . . .

Warner also warns about a “coordinated” attack by the president and “Trump zealots” in the House of Representatives to undermine the legitimacy of the investigations against him, an effort Warner says includes the president’s threats to fire special counsel Robert Mueller and other officials as well as a secret Republican memo alleging “shocking” FBI surveillance abuse against Trump that Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) is now threatening to release. Warner calls out Nunes, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, in arguably more explicit terms than any Democrat has yet, saying he has read the underlying classified material used in the memo and that Nunes misrepresented it as part of a McCarthyite “secret Star Chamber” effort to discredit the FBI probe of the president.

“We’re seeing this coordinated effort to try to impede the investigation,” Warner says. The Nunes memo . . . . is based on “fabrications” and “connecting dots that don’t connect,” Warner asserts.

Warner and other Democrats, joined by a few Republicans, have been urging such a step [to bar Trump from firing Mueller] for months. Although GOP congressional leaders are unlikely to permit a vote, many senators in both parties have signaled to Trump in recent days that a move against Mueller would amount to an explosive escalation. Firing Mueller “would be the end of his presidency,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican who has been an on-again, off-again ally of Trump’s, said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”

Not only is the Russia investigation not going away, but questions associated with it are multiplying, whether it’s the new evidence Warner says his committee must now investigate or the revelation that the special counsel himself is on the long list of those, like fired FBI Director James Comey and the current deputy FBI director and deputy attorney general, that Trump has made very clear he wants out.

We may not have the public evidence yet to definitely resolve those questions, but Warner offers a provocative rationale for why it is we are now seeing such a stepped-up campaign by Trump and his defenders against those who seek to provide us the answers.

“Mueller is getting closer and closer to the truth,” Warner tells me, and “closer and closer to the truth is getting closer and closer to the president.”

Warner says he and the Senate panel remain focused almost exclusively on the initial questions surrounding the Russian election intervention and alleged collusion; the senators have decided that questions surrounding possible Trump obstruction of justice, “because it falls into criminality,” should remain largely in the “purview” of Mueller.

Virtually every member of our committee, Democrat or Republican, would agree,” he says, that Russia sought to intervene in 2016 on Trump’s behalf with “traditional spycraft” of stealing information and then releasing it, along with not-so-traditional methods of using social media platforms, compromising state voting systems and offering “dirt” on Trump’s 2016 opponent Hillary Clinton. . . . a noteworthy conclusion given that Trump himself has continued to cast doubt on the intelligence community’s conclusion that the Russians did in fact seek to influence the presidential race to Trump’s benefit.

Jared Kushner Hid 2016 Emails about WikiLeaks and Russia

It seems that with every passing day some new development comes out about the various Russiagate investigations now underway (e.g., Robert Mueller's investigation, the Senate Intelligence Committee investigation, etc.).  In addition to the news that Robert Mueller has subpoenaed a dozen top Trump campaign officials and ordered them to produce documents  - thereby putting pressure on those targeted to come clean and strike a plea deal - we find out that Jared Kushner failed to turn over to Senate investigators what would appear to be damaging documents, including emails with Wikileaks and Russian contacts.   Even if innocent - something that I personally doubt - Kushner has added to the overall impression that Trump et al, are lying and seeking to cover up information.  Basically, obstructing justice.  A piece in Politico looks at the new developments surrounding Kushner.  Here are excerpts:

Jared Kushner received emails in September 2016 about WikiLeaks and about a “Russian backdoor overture and dinner invite” and forwarded them to another campaign official, according to a letter to his attorney from the bipartisan leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and ranking member Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said Kushner failed to turn over the relevant documents when they asked for them last month.

In a section of the letter titled “Missing documents,” Grassley and Feinstein said Kushner had handed over some materials but omitted communications that mentioned some of the people connected to the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

“If, as you suggest, Mr. Kushner was unaware of, for example, any attempts at Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, then presumably there would be few communications concerning many of the persons identified,” the lawmakers wrote.

Grassley and Feinstein also alluded to documents they received from other witnesses on which Kushner was copied.

“Other parties have produced September 2016 email communications to Mr. Kushner concerning WikiLeaks, which Mr. Kushner then forwarded to another campaign official,” they wrote. “Such documents should have been produced...but were not.

“Likewise,” the letter continued, “other parties have produced documents concerning a ‘Russian backdoor overture and dinner invite’ which Mr. Kushner also forwarded. And still others have produced communications with Sergei Millian, copied to Mr. Kushner. Again, these do not appear in Mr. Kushner’s production despite being responsive to the second request. You also have not produced any phone records that we presume exist and would relate to Mr. Kushner’s communications regarding several requests.”

They asked Kushner to turn over all responsive documents by Nov. 27.

According to the lawmakers, Kushner’s attorney suggested providing some documents might “implicate the president’s Executive Privilege.” In their letter, they asked Lowell to resolve those issues and produce the documents or create a “privilege log” to detail over which documents the president is asserting executive privilege.

Grassley and Feinstein also said Kushner declined to produce documents connected to his security clearance application, citing their confidentiality. The lawmakers said they intend to take Lowell up on a separate request to visit his office to review the documents in person, but they said the committee would not waive its request to obtain its own copies.

The committee is also seeking another broad group of documents about Kushner’s contacts with former national security adviser Michael Flynn. Grassley and Feinstein said they’d like all communications between Kushner and Flynn since Election Day 2016, as well as any communications that reference email hacking, Russia, the Magnitsky Act and other people or entities that have been implicated in the Russian interference scheme.

The lawmakers said they have yet to receive access to Kushner’s lengthy interview with the Senate Intelligence Committee and are seeking a copy of it from Lowell to determine “whether the transcript satisfies the needs of our investigation.”

If one is not guilty, one does not repeatedly lie and fail to turn over requested documents. The irony, of course, is that Kushner was seemingly too stupid to realize that if others turned over emails, the email chain would expose his involvement as well as his attempt to hide documents.  All and all, it merely increases the perception that Kushner is dirty - and in way over his head.  

Mueller's Team Met with Trump Russia Dossier Author

While the Senate Intelligence Committee would have the public believe that former MI-6 agent Christopher Steele, author of the sensational dossier on Donald Trump's Russian ties, has been uncooperative, special prosecutor Robert Mueller seems to have had no problem arranging a meeting with Steele in which I for one hope Steele spilled his guts and provided information that will lead to verification of the explosive allegations.  Der Trumpenführer, who knows whether the allegations are in fact true, cannot be happy and it's a good bet that he will unleash more batshitery as a means to distract the media (Trump must be secretly relishing the media's fixation on the Las Vegas tragedy which has lead to far less reporting on Puerto Rico and Russiagate).  Hopefully, CNN's reporting on the Mueller/Steele meeting will get the media back on the trail of possible Trump/Russia collusion.  Here are highlights from CNN:

Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigators met this past summer with the former British spy whose dossier on alleged Russian efforts to aid the Trump campaign spawned months of investigations that have hobbled the Trump administration, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Information from Christopher Steele, a former MI-6 officer, could help investigators determine whether contacts between people associated with the Trump campaign and suspected Russian operatives broke any laws.
 CNN has learned that the FBI and the US intelligence community last year took the Steele dossier more seriously than the agencies have publicly acknowledged. James Clapper, then the director of national intelligence, said in a January 2017 statement that the intelligence community had "not made any judgment that the information in this document is reliable." The intelligence agencies, particularly the CIA, and the FBI took Steele's research seriously enough that they kept it out of a publicly-released January report on Russian meddling in the election in order to not divulge which parts of the dossier they had corroborated and how.
 This contrasts with attempts by President Donald Trump and some lawmakers to discredit Steele and the memos he produced. . . . In a series of tweets earlier this year, Trump said the memos were written by a "failed spy" who had relied on "totally made-up facts by sleazebag political operatives."

While the most salacious allegations in the dossier haven't been verified, its broad assertion that Russia waged a campaign to interfere in the election is now accepted as fact by the US intelligence community. CNN also reported earlier this year that US investigators have corroborated some aspects of the dossier, specifically that some of the communications among foreign nationals mentioned in the memos did actually take place. A representative for Steele did not respond to a request for comment. The special counsel's office declined to comment. But the intelligence community had bigger concerns, sources tell CNN. The classified version of the report would be disseminated beyond then-President Barack Obama and the President-elect to other officials including members of Congress. And if that report included the dossier allegations, the intelligence community would have to say which parts it had corroborated and how. That would compromise sources and methods, including information shared by foreign intelligence services, intelligence officials believed.
 In the end, the decision was made that the FBI and Comey personally would brief the incoming President on the allegations. That briefing occurred January 6 in a one-on-one conversation following a broader intelligence briefing on Russian meddling provided to then-President-elect Trump and his key staff. Trump later told The New York Times in July that he took Comey's briefing on the dossier to be an attempt to hold it as leverage over the new President.  "In my opinion, he shared it so that I would think he had it out there," Trump said.  Exactly what Comey feared had come to pass.

My personal thoughts?  I suspect the allegations in the dossier are true.  One need only look at the last 30 or more years of Trump's life to see that he has no qualms about dealing with the Russian mob and underworld figures to further his personal interests.  The man is amoral and his behavior toward women suggests, at least to me, that even the most salacious elements of the dossier could well be true. Trump is simply a foul and horrible person.  When it comes to Trump, believe the worst and you are probably right.   That Trump continues to be embraced by evangelical Christians tells the world all that it needs to know about these equally morally bankrupt individuals. 

Senate Intelligence Committee: Russia Did Interfere in 2016 Elections

Committee chairs Burr and Warner

Donald Trump continues to rant about "fake news" and to claim that the entire claim that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential elections is a "hoax."  Meanwhile, most of the fake news seems to have come from Trump himself, his rabid dog base, and/or Russian operatives masquerading as Americans.  As noted in an earlier post, Facebook ads by Russian operatives targeted swing states.  Meanwhile, as Salon reports, public confidence in the main stream news media is rising even as confidence in Trump is declining.    But most damning to Trump's lies and denials are the preliminary findings to date of the Senate Intelligence Committee released yesterday.  These findings flat out conform that Russia interfered in the 2016 election.  The only unanswered - or at least to date unrevealed - is whether Americans, particularly individuals from the Trump campaign colluded in the Russian effort.  Here are excerpts from the Washington Post on this issue:

The leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday largely endorsed the findings of the intelligence community that Russia sought to sway the 2016 U.S. elections through a hacking and influence campaign, and they called for a “more aggressive, whole-of-government approach” to ensure future elections are not similarly compromised.

“There is consensus among members and staff that we trust the conclusions of the ICA,” Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), the committee’s chairman, said at Wednesday news conference, referring to the intelligence community’s assessment that Russia was behind hackings of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton campaign director John Podesta’s email account and had attempted to exploit public opinion by sowing false information, much of it through fake social media accounts.

 

Burr also said that “the issue of collusion is still open” and would not be resolved until the committee’s work was done. He said that a deadline for the committee was the looming start of the 2018 primary season.

“You can’t walk away from this and believe that Russia’s not currently active,” he added.

Burr and Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.), the committee’s vice chairman, said the committee has interviewed more than 100 people and reviewed more than 100,000 documents, many of them from the intelligence community, President Trump’s inner circle and former members of the Obama administration. 

The committee has lately been focusing on the role social media companies such as Facebook and Twitter played in the dissemination of false or misleading ads and stories planted or otherwise backed by Russian operatives.

Warner said that the tech giants were beginning to take the issue of Russian meddling more seriously and that the committee was “seeing increasing levels of cooperation.”

The committee recently received over 3,000 advertisementsfrom Facebook detailing the content of ads Russia had purchased to appear on the platform during the election.

Burr added that the committee would not release the content of those ads, though he added that the committee would be “fine” with any of the social media companies choosing to release the content of documents and other information they had turned over to the committee themselves.

Expect Trump's rantings to increase as the evidence accumulates that Russia played a perhaps decisive vote in his election which has done immense harm to the nation both domestically and internationally. 

Did Jared Kushner Throw Trump Jr. Under the Bus?

Human nature - especially when immoral and unethical individuals are involved - is such that when the issue comes down to saving one's own ass versus throwing under the bus, many will opt to save themselves and allow purported friends and even family members to go down in flames.  In his prepared statement and testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Jared Kushner seemed to perhaps signaled that if it came down to him or Donald Trump, Jr., and perhaps even Der Trumpenführer himself, Kushner would look out for himself first and foremost.  Of course, given Kushner's past lies and convenient memory losses, all of Kushner's song and dance may yet to prove to be false and could backfire and lead to criminal prosecution - something he seemingly is trying desperately to avoid.   A column in the Washington Post looks at Kushner's apparent willingness to throw  Donald Trump, Jr., under the bus.  Here are excerpts:  

Presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner is set to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee this morning, and what is striking about his extensive opening statement is the degree to which it seeks to insulate Kushner himself from any culpability or responsibility for the problematic known facts about the Russia affair — particularly the known facts that concern Donald Trump Jr.

Kushner’s statement takes exceptional care to separate him, with scalpel-like precision, from the now-notorious meeting that Trump Jr. arranged with a Russian lawyer — a meeting that Trump Jr. had been informed would furnish the Trump campaign with information about Hillary Clinton supplied by the Russian government. Here is what Kushner’s statement says about the meeting (emphasis added):
 In June 2016, my brother-in-law, Donald Trump Jr. asked if I was free to stop by a meeting on June 9 at 3:00 p.m. . . . . He eventually sent me his own email changing the time of the meeting to 4:00 p.m. That email was on top of a long back and forth that I did not read at the time. . . . . I arrived at the meeting a little late. When I got there, the person who has since been identified as a Russian attorney was talking about the issue of a ban on U.S. adoptions of Russian children. I had no idea why that topic was being raised and quickly determined that my time was not well-spent at this meeting.
 [I]n looking for a polite way to leave and get back to my work, I actually emailed an assistant from the meeting after I had been there for ten or so minutes and wrote “Can u pls call me on my cell? Need excuse to get out of meeting.” . . . . No part of the meeting I attended included anything about the campaign, there was no follow up to the meeting that I am aware of, I do not recall how many people were there (or their names), and I have no knowledge of any documents being offered or accepted. 
 It’s not entirely clear that the “long back and forth” that Kushner claims he “did not read at the time” is the email chain that Trump Jr. released, under duress, which demonstrated that the meeting was taken with the express purpose of getting information advertised as coming from the Russian government. But it seems clear that this is what he is referring to. Note that Kushner does not say one way or the other whether he had been sent this email chain before. What we do know, however, is that Kushner says he never read it. And if Kushner is to be believed, he agreed to, and showed up at, this meeting without having any idea why it was being held. This, even though Trump Jr. was quite excited about what this meeting might yield (“I love it,” Trump Jr. exulted in the email chain), and even though Trump’s then-campaign chair Paul Manafort was also present. Also note the exceptional care that went into Kushner’s characterization of the meeting. He claims he arrived just late enough to miss the incriminating part of the meeting. Trump Jr. admitted in his second statement that the Russian lawyer brought up the campaign. . . .
 Kushner’s statement does not deny outright either that the meeting did address the campaign or that any documents had been offered to the Trump camp, which the email chainappears to confirm. All it does is insulate Kushner from those facts. [W]hatever the truth turns out to be on those fronts, what Kushner’s statement does not do is contest any of the known facts about that meeting — known facts that are deeply problematic for Trump Jr. and even for Trump himself. The meeting, at a minimum, shows that Trump Jr. was eager to collude with the Russian government, which, he had been told, was trying to get his father elected president.  Kushner’s statement denies any collusion on his own part, and claims no awareness of any other collusion . . . .
 President Trump himself reportedly signed off on that initial false statement, which means the president actively participated in an effort to mislead the country about his own campaign’s eagerness to collude with Russia to help him win. Kushner’s statement offers nothing to challenge these underlying facts. It just separates him from them.

Senator Warner: "Clear Evidence" Trump Campaign Met Russians to Harm Clinton

In addition to the legal problems that he has ignited for himself - and Prince Jared - Donald Trump, Jr., has given investigators their first concrete example of Trump campaign efforts to collude with Russia.  It is something I have always suspected took place given Der Trumpenführer history of dealing with shady (that's being charitable) individuals and ignoring the law when it did not suit his purposes.  One of the most insane side effects of the disclosure is Trump, Sr.'s claim that he knew nothing about the meeting.  Consider this: it occurred in Trump Tower and involved his son and son-in-law.  Only in Trump world is such a far fetched claim believable to his Kool-Aid drinking supporters.  A piece in CNN - not the fake news channel Der Trumpenführer claims (that would be Fox News) - Senator Mark Warner shares his views on the unfolding Russiagate scandal which increasingly has the feeling of Watergate deja vue.  Here are article highlights:

The vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee said Monday that Donald Trump Jr.'s acknowledgment of a meeting with a Russian lawyer last June is the first clear public evidence that senior Trump campaign officials met with Russians to try to discredit Hillary Clinton.

"This is the first time that the public has seen clear evidence of senior level members of the Trump campaign meeting Russians to try to obtain information that might hurt the campaign of Hillary Clinton," Sen. Mark Warner told reporters.

Trump Jr. acknowledged Sunday that he met with a Russian lawyer who he had been told "might have information helpful to the campaign." . . . Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort also attended the meeting with Veselnitskaya, according to Trump Jr., but he said he told them "nothing of the substance" prior to the meeting.

Warner said Monday that Trump Jr.'s acknowledgment of the meeting reveals a "continuing pattern" of Trump campaign and administration officials having "conveniently forgotten" meetings they had with Russians.
 "It's also a continuing pattern that we've seen since the election of Trump campaign and Trump administration officials who have conveniently forgotten meetings with Russians, only when they are then presented with evidence they have to recant and acknowledge those kind of meetings," the Virginia Democrat said.

"I'm not going to get into the witness list and the individuals that we have talked to or plan on talking to, but rest assured Donald Trump Jr. will be someone that we want to talk to," Warner said. Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democratic member of the same committee, echoed Warner on CNN's "Erin Burnett OutFront" later Monday. . . . . Wyden said he viewed Trump Jr.'s statement on Sunday as an "admission" of attempting to collude with a Russian person to bolster the Trump campaign.

"We don't know what was said, but when I look at somebody's own words, that was an admission," Wyden said. "He was getting together with somebody who was going to give him information of value, a Russian giving him information of value that would help Donald Trump get elected."

As in Watergate, there were first the improper actions followed by constant lies and then presidential efforts to obstruct justice.  The parallel's are increasingly stark.

Comey Had Asked for More Resources for Russia Inquiry

Although I've been at work and at a political function all day, I have checked the news outlets throughout the day and the take away from James Comey's firing by Der Trumpenführer,  is that Trump likely made his situation far worse.   Despite the bloviating - OK, let's be frank, lies - of Vichy Republicans like Mitch McConnell, the growing impression is that Comey was closing in on Trump and his Russian collusion (treason, if you will) and Trump stupidly acted in a knee jerk reaction that only confirms the impression that Trump and his campaign are guilty of high crimes.  Also of interest is the fact that the Senate Intelligence Committee has asked "Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network for financial information on Mr. Trump and some of his associates that was relevant to the Russia investigation."  From my own experience assisting the FBI and Justice Department officials, often it is the financial, banking and wire transfer activity that takes a target down.  The New York Times looks at the growing confrontation between Congress and Der Der Trumpenführer.  Here are highlights:

Days before he was fired as F.B.I. director, James B. Comey asked the Justice Department for more prosecutors and other personnel to accelerate the bureau’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the presidential election.

It was the first clear-cut evidence that Mr. Comey believed the bureau needed more resources to handle a sprawling and highly politicized counterintelligence investigation.

Two separate congressional inquiries into Russian meddling are relying on evidence and intelligence being amassed by the F.B.I., and if the bureau’s investigation falters, the congressional inquiries are likely to be hobbled. Perhaps for this reason, Mr. Comey’s firing appears to have imbued the Senate Intelligence Committee with a renewed sense of urgency.

The committee issued its first subpoena in the Russia investigation on Wednesday, ordering Michael T. Flynn, President Trump’s former national security adviser, to hand over records of any emails, phone calls, meetings and financial dealings with Russians.

It was an aggressive new tack in what had been a slowly unfolding inquiry. A day earlier, the Senate panel began pressing a little-known government bureau that tracks money laundering and terrorism financing for leads in the Russian investigation.

Senator Richard M. Burr of North Carolina, the Republican chairman of the Intelligence Committee, and Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the Democratic vice chairman, also invited Mr. Comey to testify in a closed session — a setting that would allow Mr. Comey to discuss classified information and any meetings he held with superiors at the Justice Department or with Mr. Trump.

“I’m told that as soon as Rosenstein arrived, there was a request for additional resources for the investigation, and that a few days afterward, he was sacked,” said Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois. “I think the Comey operation was breathing down the neck of the Trump campaign and their operatives, and this was an effort to slow down the investigation.”

According to the congressional officials, the Senate Intelligence Committee learned of Mr. Comey’s request on Monday when Senators Burr and Warner asked the F.B.I. director to meet them. They wanted him to accelerate the bureau’s investigation so they could press forward with theirs. Congressional investigators do not have the authority to collect intelligence that agencies like the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. possess.

At the meeting with the senators, Mr. Comey said he made the request because he believed the Justice Department had not dedicated enough resources to the investigation, a fact partly stemming from the unusual situation under which the inquiry was being run. Until two weeks ago, when Mr. Rosenstein took over as deputy attorney general, the investigation was being overseen by Dana Boente, who was acting as the deputy and had limited power.

But if the White House was hoping Mr. Comey’s firing would provide relief from the pressure of the Russia investigations, the Senate Intelligence Committee appeared eager to fill any temporary void.

Late last month, it asked a number of high-profile Trump campaign associates to hand over emails and other records of dealings with Russians, and the committee’s subpoena of Mr. Flynn on Wednesday made good on its threat to legally compel anyone who failed to voluntarily comply with its request.

Also on Wednesday, Mr. Burr and Mr. Warner asked the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network for financial information on Mr. Trump and some of his associates that was relevant to the Russia investigation.

Both Mr. Warner and Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon — the ranking Democrat on the Finance Committee with jurisdiction over the Treasury Department and also a member of the Intelligence Committee — have said they will block the confirmation of Sigal Mandelker, Mr. Trump’s nominee to be the top Treasury official for terrorism and financial crimes, until the network delivers the information.

“I have stated repeatedly that we have to follow the money if we are going to get to the bottom of how Russia has attacked our democracy,” Mr. Wyden said on Wednesday. “That means thoroughly review any information that relates to financial connections between Russia and President Trump and his associates, whether direct or laundered through hidden or illicit transactions.”

The financial crimes network would not confirm its participation in the inquiry, in line with its policy not to comment on investigations or even confirm that they exist, said Steve Hudak, a spokesman.

But financial intelligence experts, including several former employees of the bureau, said its database, which contains more than 200 million records, can be a treasure trove of information about financial ties between individuals and companies for law enforcement agencies pursuing complex investigations.

I sincerely hope that Trump's firing of Comey backfires and instead of delaying the investigation ends up accelerating it - and hopefully confirming that Trump and his associates - including Pence - are guilty of collusion with a foreign hostile government and deserving of prosecution and severe penalties.