Wishful Thinking, or Will Mike Pence Be Indicted?

As much as I want Donald Trump out of the White House, I do not want him replaced by Mike Pence.  All that would accomplish is replacing a mentally unstable crook with a mentally unstable religious zealot.  Both need to go down in the Russiagate probe.  A piece in The Advocate looks at whether it is merely a liberal dream that Pence will end up indicted or whether just perhaps Pence is up to his eyeballs in lying to Congress and the FBI like Michel Flynn.  Throughout my years involved in politics and monitoring right wing "Christian" organizations, I have learned one thing:  No one - other than perhaps Trump - lies more often that the falsely pious "godly folk" like Pence.  Here are article highlights:

It could be wishful thinking — but a few liberal pundits and activists are predicting that virulently anti-LGBTQ Vice President Mike Pence will be charged with wrongdoing in connection with the 2016 presidential election. 

Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who’s investigating Russian interference in the election and possible collusion by Donald Trump’s campaign, released a heavily redacted sentencing memo Tuesday regarding former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. “The memo clearly states that the Trump transition team was heavily involved in Flynn’s illegal dealings with Russia,” writes PoliticusUSA commentator Leo Vidal. “And, as everyone now remembers, the person in charge of that transition team was none other than vice president-elect Mike Pence.”

“Michael Flynn committed numerous crimes, and Mike Pence did everything possible to cover up those crimes, possibly because he was implicated in them also,” Vidal continues. “In fact, Pence could face the same criminal charges that Mueller brought against Flynn.” Flynn has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about contacts with Russian officials and is cooperating with Mueller in the investigation.

Pence, Vidal writes, lied while defending Flynn to the public, and also probably lied to law enforcement. “It is very likely that the redacted portions of Mueller’s memo mention the name Mike Pence, and not in a good way,” he says.

Jon Cooper, chairman of the Democratic Coalition Against Trump, also predicts Pence will face criminal charges, as he expressed in a recent tweet.

[N]o one on the outside really knows what’s going to come out of Mueller’s probe. Documents Mueller’s team released Friday concerning former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort and lawyer Michael Cohen allege that both lied about Russia contacts, The Washington Post reports. Also, Cohen has implicated the president in campaign finance violations regarding a payment made to keep adult-film star Stormy Daniels silent about a sexual encounter with Trump. “The plot thickened for Trump just a little bit,” the Post notes.

If it’s thickened for Trump, it may likewise thicken for Pence. . . . . . the Mueller investigation has been full of surprises, none of them good for Trump and his inner circle. We’ll be eagerly waiting for the next shoe to drop.

Flynn’s Plea Deal could be VERY Bad News for Prince Kushner

As previous posts have noted, special counsel Robert Mueller went very easy on Michael Flynn in the plea deal announced on Friday.  The inference to many is that Flynn has apparently agreed to tell Mueller all that he knows and is poised to assist Mueller in indicting or flipping someone even higher in the Trump/Pence regime.   Much conjecture suggests that the likely target of Flynn's information is Jared "Prince Jared" Kushner, Der Trumpenführer's son-n-law.  A piece in Vox looks at Kushner's vulnerability.  Here are article highlights:

[T]he Flynn plea bargain could also be a major problem for someone else extremely close to the president: Jared Kushner, his senior adviser and son-in-law.

A court document in the Flynn case, released Friday, refers to a “very senior” transition official who told Flynn to try to get the Russian ambassador to the US to help stop a United Nations Security Council vote on Israeli settlement policy in late December.

Reporters from Bloomberg, BuzzFeed News, and NBC News have all confirmed that this very senior official is Kushner. That makes perfect sense — by all accounts, Kushner was an extremely important figure during the transition, and reporting even at the time suggested that he was involved in Trump team deliberations on the settlements issue.

[T]he new reporting is just the latest of many, many times Kushner’s name has come up in connection with the Russia matter. There was the meeting he had with Ambassador Kislyak during the transition in which they reportedly discussed setting up a secret backchannel of communication. There was the Donald Trump Jr.-brokered meeting with a Russian lawyer who’d promised “dirt” on Hillary Clinton during the campaign. And there are the reports that Kushner urged Trump to fire FBI Director James Comey.

Furthermore, as part of Flynn’s cooperation agreement with Mueller’s team, he is likely providing information that could incriminate someone close to Trump. That someone could well be Kushner.

To get top-secret security clearance, Kushner was supposed to list any foreign government officials whom he’d met with in the past seven years. But he left more than 100 meetings off his forms — including several with Russians. (His lawyer claims the forms were “prematurely submitted.”) ·        The most curious of these meetings occurred during the transition. On December 1 or 2, Kushner and Flynn met with Kislyak, and, according to the Washington Post, Kislyak told his superiors afterward that Kushner wanted to set up a secret line of communication between them, and suggested using Russian diplomatic facilities for this. This has raised questions about whether Kushner was seeking to shield his contacts with the Russian government from US intelligence.

·        Later in the month, Kushner sent a deputy to attend another meeting with Kislyak. And in mid-December, he met with Sergey Gorkov, head of Vnesheconombank (a Russian bank currently under US sanctions). The White House claims Kushner took this meeting at Kislyak’s request, for diplomatic reasons, while the bank says it was about business.

·        But before all this, there was the June 9, 2016, meeting Trump Jr. set up with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya to get dirt on Hillary Clinton. Trump Jr. forwarded Kushner an email thread with the subject “Russia - Clinton - private and confidential,” and further down in the thread, publicist Rob Goldstone clearly states he is setting up this meeting as part of “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.” Kushner attended the meeting, but according to recent statements by both Trump Jr. and Veselnitskaya, he left after a few minutes.

·        Then a Reuters report claims there were two phone calls between Kushner and Kislyak during the campaign, though Kushner’s lawyer said he had no recollection of these.

That’s not all. A report from McClatchy’s Peter Stone and Greg Gordon also suggests that investigators are taking a close look at the Trump campaign’s digital operation, which Kushner oversaw, with an eye toward whether there was any collaboration with Russian cyber operatives and bots targeting voters in key states or precincts.

Finally, it’s also worth noting that when President Trump was considering firing FBI Director Comey back in May, Kushner was reportedly one of the most prominent advisers arguing that he should go ahead and do it. That disastrous miscalculation led to the appointment of Mueller, the man who could eventually indict Kushner and other top Trump aides. Earlier this week — before Flynn’s guilty plea — the New York Times and CNN both reported that Kushner sat with investigators on Mueller’s team for an interview at some point in November. . . . . that interview also means that Mueller got Kushner on the record about his version of events that related to Flynn — before Flynn was known to have become a cooperating witness.

And since it is a crime to make false statements to the FBI, if Kushner was less than fully forthcoming about matters Flynn is now prepared to dish on, he could be in some legal jeopardy.

Emails Reveal White House Lied That Flynn Acted Independently on Russia

A new piece in the New York Times - surprise, surprise - looks at newly reviewed emails by Trump campaign/transition officials show that when Der Trumpenführer and his sycophants claimed that Michael Flynn acted alone in contacts with Russia he/they were lying.   Two ironies strike me. First, that Trump has been obsessed with Hillary Clinton's emails, yet it could prove that those of his own minions will be what helps to take him down (if you missed it, watch SNL's cold open last night here).  Deliciously, Trump's motorcade was greeted in New York City by large crowds chanting "lock him up" and "traitor." The second irony is that Trump's main base of support is evangelical Christians, a group that two decades of monitoring lies more than virtually any other segment of American society.  Perhaps it takes liars to support a pathological liar like Trump.  But back to the Times piece.  Here are excerpts:

When President Trump fired his national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, in February, White House officials portrayed him as a renegade who had acted independently in his discussions with a Russian official during the presidential transition and then lied to his colleagues about the interactions.

But emails among top transition officials, provided or described to The New York Times, suggest that Mr. Flynn was far from a rogue actor. In fact, the emails, coupled with interviews and court documents filed on Friday, showed that Mr. Flynn was in close touch with other senior members of the Trump transition team both before and after he spoke with the Russian ambassador, Sergey I. Kislyak, about American sanctions against Russia.

While Mr. Trump has disparaged as a Democratic “hoax” any claims that he or his aides had unusual interactions with Russian officials, the records suggest that the Trump transition team was intensely focused on improving relations with Moscow and was willing to intervene to pursue that goal despite a request from the Obama administration that it not sow confusion about official American policy before Mr. Trump took office.

On Dec. 29, a transition adviser to Mr. Trump, K. T. McFarland, wrote in an email to a colleague that sanctions announced hours before by the Obama administration in retaliation for Russian election meddling were aimed at discrediting Mr. Trump’s victory. The sanctions could also make it much harder for Mr. Trump to ease tensions with Russia, “which has just thrown the U.S.A. election to him,” she wrote in the emails obtained by The Times.

The Trump advisers feared that a cycle of retaliation between the United States and Russia would keep the spotlight on Moscow’s election meddling, tarnishing Mr. Trump’s victory and potentially hobbling his presidency from the start.

As part of the outreach, Ms. McFarland wrote, Mr. Flynn would be speaking with the Russian ambassador, Mr. Kislyak, hours after Mr. Obama’s sanctions were announced.

“Key will be Russia’s response over the next few days,” Ms. McFarland wrote in an email to another transition official, Thomas P. Bossert, now the president’s homeland security adviser.

In an interview, Ty Cobb, the White House lawyer handling the Russia inquiry, said there was nothing illegal or unethical about the transition team’s actions. . . . . The only problem, Mr. Cobb said, was that Mr. Flynn had lied to White House officials and to F.B.I. agents about what he had told the Russian ambassador. Mr. Flynn’s misstatements led to his firing in February and his guilty plea on Friday to charges of lying to federal agents.

With Mr. Flynn’s plea and agreement to cooperate with Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel investigating the Russian election interference, the inquiry edges closer to Mr. Trump.

[T]he new details about Mr. Flynn’s Russia contacts underscore the possibility that the president may have been worried not just about Mr. Flynn but also about whether any investigation might reach into the White House and perhaps to the Oval Office. That question will be at the center of any consideration by Mr. Mueller of whether Mr. Trump’s actions constituted obstruction of justice.

Mr. Bossert forwarded Ms. McFarland’s Dec. 29 email exchange about the sanctions to six other Trump advisers, including Mr. Flynn; Reince Priebus, who had been named as chief of staff; Stephen K. Bannon, the senior strategist; and Sean Spicer, who would become the press secretary. It is uncertain how involved Mr. Trump was in the discussions among his staff members of Mr. Flynn’s conversation with the Russian ambassador. Mr. Spicer told reporters on the morning of Dec. 29 that the president-elect would be meeting with his national security team, including Ms. McFarland, that day. A phone call that included Mr. Trump, Mr. Flynn, Ms. McFarland, Mr. Priebus and Mr. Bannon was scheduled for 5 p.m., shortly after Ms. McFarland’s email exchange. It is unclear whether the call took place.

Is Papadopoulous Merely the First Domino to Fall?

As noted in the previous post, Der Trumpenführer is fully engaged in a lying campaign to distance himself from his campaign's foreign policy adviser who sought to collude with Russian operatives during the 2016 presidential election cycle.  As Talking Points Memo ("TPM") notes, the Washington Post and others have begun filling in the names of those who were linked via emails to George Papadopoulous' efforts to collude with Russia.  Indeed, TPM has a version of the Papadopoulous guilty plea documents with the redacted names filled in.  Here are article excerpts:

Former Trump adviser George Papadopolous’ newly-released plea agreement is littered with the redacted names of other campaign officials he allegedly informed about his efforts to hook them up with Russian nationals, making prosecutors’ claims rather hard to follow.

TPM’s design team has gone through the document and plugged in the missing names of those senior campaign staffers, as identified by the Washington Post, to make it easier to parse.

Per the Post’s reporting, the “high-ranking campaign official” was former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski; “another high-ranking campaign official” was campaign chairman Paul Manafort; “another campaign official” was chairman Manafort’s deputy Rick Gates. The “campaign supervisor” was campaign co-chair and policy adviser Sam Clovis, as his attorney confirmed to the newspaper. And one “senior policy advisor” referenced in the document has yet to be identified.

So where may all of this lead?  Another TPM piece looks at this question.  Here are excerpts:

It shows a Trump foreign policy advisor in active communication with what appear to be Russian government officials or spies trying to get dirt on Hillary Clinton, arrange meetings with Russian government officials (even Vladimir Putin, rather ludicrously) and solicit Russian support. That an active foreign policy advisor was taking these actions while in active communication with the campaign about those actions is quite damning. An unnamed campaign official sent back word that a meeting with Trump himself was not happening.

Papadopoulos was arrested in July and has apparently been cooperating since. I see no purely legal reason why the news of his arrest in July and guilty plea in early October had to be revealed today, other than keeping the news from Manafort. One other potential reason is that one of the ‘campaign officials’ referenced in the Papadopoulos plea appears to be Manafort. It sends two clear messages. First, we’re not at all done with collusion and we’re making progress. Second, we arrested Papadopoulos in July and he pled out in October and no one knew. So don’t think you have any idea what we have.

[I]n revealing the Manafort news early, giving time for the White House to respond as you’d expect (nothing to do with us or Russia or the campaign) and then following up by revealing this Papadopoulos indictment certainly has the feel of sucker punching the White House.

If Trump were as smart as he claims, he would keep his mouth shut and keep his tiny fingers off of Twitter.  Neither will likely happen and by running his mouth, Trump is setting the stage for perjury charges when he ultimately gets hauled in before Mueller's team and is confronted with inconsistent statements and/or documents.   If Bill Clinton came close to impeachment for lying about an affair with an intern, does Trump really think his lying about efforts to collude with a hostile foreign government won't be taken more seriously even by many in today's morally bankrupt GOP?  My one hope is that as the evidence is gathered by Mueller's team they find proof that Mike Pence is involved as well.   Falsely pious and sanctimonious "Christians" like Pence in my experience are often the biggest liars of all. Both he and Trump need to go..