Trump's Dishonest Efforts to Distance Himself from Papadopoulos

Papadopoulous is center left with Trump, et al

In the wake of the guilty plea taken by former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser, George Papadopoulos, Donald Trump has resorted to his usual tactic when the truth becomes inconvenient: he lies.  Thus, in Trump world Papadopoulos has become a nobody and has been labeled as a liar since what he seemingly has to say cuts against the biggest Trump lie, namely that no collusion or efforts to collude with Russia ever occurred. A piece in the Washington Post looks at some of Papadopoulos' activities and who knew about them, especially efforts to collude with Russia so as to harm Hillary Clinton's chances of being elected.  Already, as Politico is reporting, Sam Clovis, a former co-chair and policy adviser to Trump’s campaign, knew that another campaign adviser, George Papadopoulos, was talking to Russians, according to documents released Monday as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe and campaign and administration officials. Clovis is reported to be cooperating with the Senate Intelligence Committee and one can imagine that he will be talking to Robert Mueller and his staff.  Others besides Clovis were "in the loop" on Papadopoulous' efforts to collude.  Here are highlights from the Post piece:

President Trump on Tuesday belittled former foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos, who pleaded guilty this week to lying to federal agents investigating Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, tweeting that “few people knew the young, low level volunteer named George, who has already proven to be a liar.”

But interviews and documents show that Papadopoulos was in regular contact with the Trump campaign’s most senior officials and held himself out as a Trump surrogate as he traveled the world to meet with foreign officials and reporters.

Papadopoulos sat at the elbow of one of Trump’s top campaign advisers, then-Sen. Jeff Sessions, during a dinner for campaign advisers weeks before the Republican National Convention, according to an individual who attended the meeting.

While some top campaign aides appeared to rebuff Papadopoulos’s persistent offers to broker a meeting with Russian President Vladi­mir Putin, there is no sign they told him directly to cease his activities or sought to end his affiliation with the campaign.

Emails included in court documents released Monday show that Papadopoulos repeatedly told Trump campaign officials about his contacts with people he believed were representing the Russian government.

At 29, Papadopoulos had scant experience that qualified him to advise a presidential candidate. He had entered the Trump campaign after a six-week stint working for the campaign of Trump’s rival for the Republican nomination, neurosurgeon Ben Carson.

By March 2016, Trump’s campaign, like Carson’s before it, was eagerly searching for foreign policy expertise. As Trump rose in the polls and won Republican primaries, the former reality TV host was under pressure to announce a group of advisers with whom he was consulting on foreign policy issues.

The scrutiny intensified early that month after 70 conservative national security experts signed an open letter opposing Trump’s candidacy. 

To come up with names, the campaign turned to Sam Clovis, a former Iowa radio host who served as national campaign co-chairman, an attorney for Clovis confirmed Tuesday in a statement.

On March 21, Trump included Papadopoulos among five men he announced were advising him on matters of national security in a meeting with The Washington Post editorial board. “An energy and oil consultant. Excellent guy,” Trump said.

Though Papadopoulos’s exaggerated résumé issues quickly became public, he remained a part of the Trump advisory panel and soon began urging campaign aides to let him set up a meeting between Trump and Russian officials.

Court documents show he raised the idea at a March 31 meeting of the group attended by both Trump and Sessions, who had endorsed Trump’s campaign, telling the group that “he had connections that could help arrange a meeting between then-candidate Trump and President [Vladimir] Putin.”

Papadopoulos continued to be invited to campaign events. In late June or early July, he attended a dinner at the Capitol Hill Club along with several other national security advisers for the Trump campaign.  Another person who was at the meeting said Sessions also attended; Papadopoulos was seated to Sessions’s left.  A spokeswoman for Sessions declined to comment.

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The Bombshell in Robert Mueller’s Indictments

I suspect that many were NOT surprised that Robert Mueller secured indictments against Paul Manafort given (i) the FBI raid on Manafort's home earlier this year, and (ii) Manafort's personification of sleaze and someone for sale to the highest bidder.  The only surprise is that nothing in the indictments against Manafort and his cohort Rick Gates appeared directly to Trump campaign efforts to collude with Russia.   That cannot be said about the facts behind the guilty plea of George Papadopoulos, a former foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign, who had lied to the FBI about his efforts to meet with Russian operatives for the purpose of collusion. Der Trumpenführer, who if he were smart would keep his mouth shut and fingers away from Twitter, has trumpeted that none of the indictments involved collusion, but such is NOT the case with Papadopoulos' guilty plea.  A column in the Washington Post authored by a professor who teaches white-collar criminal law looks at this reality.  Here are highlights:

[S]pecial counsel Robert S. Mueller III unsealed an indictmenton Monday of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and his longtime business partner Rick Gates, who also worked for the campaign. But the stealth bombshell of the day may end up being Mueller’s other announcement, that George Papadopoulos, a former foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign, has already pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about attempts to broker meetings between Russian officials and the campaign. It appears Papadopoulos is cooperating with investigators. 

These are the first charges brought by Mueller . . . . They represent a major step forward for his probe — and a potentially ominous sign for others who may be in Mueller’s sights.

As the White House already is pointing out, the charges against Manafort and Gates don’t directly relate to the Trump campaign. . . . The bulk of the allegations concern activities that occurred before either man was working for the then-Republican candidate. The word “Trump” doesn’t appear in the indictment.

But this is not particularly surprising. It’s not unusual for prosecutors to build a case against a potential key cooperator involving charges not directly linked to the ultimate matter under investigation. Even unrelated charges give the prosecutor leverage to persuade the defendant to plead guilty, cooperate in the broader investigation, and provide evidence against the “bigger fish” to earn more lenient treatment in his or her own case. And pursuing Manafort makes perfect sense. With his extensive ties to Russia and his key role as chairman of the Trump campaign, Manafort potentially is a linchpin in Mueller’s investigation.

If Manafort were cooperating there typically would not be a grand jury indictment. There would simply be a statement of charges filed by the prosecutor, along with a plea and cooperation agreement.

This is what happened with Papadopoulos, who was not indicted but pleaded guilty under seal pursuant to an agreement with prosecutors. Unlike the charges against Manafort, the charges against Papadopoulos do relate directly to his contacts with Russian officials while working for the campaign. Papadopoulos may already be providing information that goes directly to the heart of Mueller’s investigation.

If those facing potential charges refuse to cooperate, Mueller is not going to dither around for months or simply move on. He will not hesitate to throw the heat where appropriate. By unveiling both of these cases on the same day, prosecutors are making it clear that it’s smarter to be like Papadopoulos: Cut a deal early and cooperate.

For Manafort himself, the indictment dramatically escalates the pressure to cooperate. Previously his own jeopardy may have seemed more theoretical. Now he has been booked on a federal indictment charging him with multiple felonies carrying a maximum potential penalty of 80 years in prison. Of course, he would never actually receive a sentence that severe — but numbers like that tend to focus the mind.

We don’t know yet what other charges (if any) will be coming out of Mueller’s office. But Monday’s news in no way suggests the investigation is drawing to a close. . . .  Future indictments and pleas, if any, likely will come on a rolling basis, as the prosecutors build cases against lower-level players, possibly persuade them to cooperate, and move up the ladder to higher-level targets.

Mueller’s investigation continues to proceed aggressively, methodically and relatively rapidly. These charges likely are simply the first salvo. Their echoes will reverberate loudly through the corridors of Washington in the days ahead.

 My sincere hope is that as things continue to roll out, Jeff Sessions, Mike Pence, and of course Trump, become involved in the collusion efforts and ultimate all are forced out of office.  More on the charges against George Papadopoulos can be found here. 

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Mueller's Indictments: Thoughts on What To Expect Today

Many on both sides of the political isle are waiting with baited breath to see if special counsel Robert Mueller's indictments in Russiagate will lead to the first arrests today.  Some Democrats are waiting with glee to see who is/are the first to be arrested, sending shock waves through Washington, D.C.  Among Trump and far too many Republicans, the efforts to obfuscate and gin out false, manufactured scandals has jumped into high gear.  One can only wonder what lies the liar-in-chief will spew this morning via his Twitter account, which frankly ought  to be suspended.  A piece in Talking Points Memo looks at what may possible transpire as the day unfolds.  Another one in Huffington Post suggests to watch Der Trumpenführer reaction and whether he will unwittingly dig his own hole deaper.  Here are excerpts from the TPM piece:

I want to share a few thoughts about what might be coming. I will discuss them seriatim.

1. I don’t know who will be indicted tomorrow [today] or what they will be indicted for. I don’t think anyone writing about this does.

2. I would not expect a big fish or a crime that goes to the heart of whether Americans colluded with Russia to turn the 2016 election. Something more marginal or secondary seems more likely, probably with the aim of gaining cooperation in pursuing the bigger question of collusion. But the Mueller probe has been very leak free. We really have little clear understanding of what is going on inside the probe.

3. Let me reemphasize that last point. It is hard to overstate how locked down the Mueller probe has been. We have inferred outlines of it from interviews conducted, documents requested, grand juries impanelled. When an investigation reaches a certain momentum certain actions become difficult to keep secret because defense attorneys become involved.

4. Above I mentioned the possibility of some marginal or secondary bad act. To put the entire story into a proper perspective, we should think of two distinct but possibly overlapping realms or channels of criminal activity. It seems highly likely that Paul Manafort was deeply involved in a network of money laundering and financial crimes connecting Russia, Ukraine and other post-Soviet states to the US. That is something that long predated and exists independently of Russian involvement in the 2016 campaign. A number of people in Trump’s orbit and certainly Trump himself are part of that. A lot of that money channel goes into real estate and major construction projects. If the collusion channel exists it almost certainly grows out of the money laundering channel. Since the crimes are likely more clear cut and easier to prove on the money channel, it makes sense for the prosecutions to begin there. Such prosecutions might be use to pry free evidence about the collusion channel . . .

5. Spies who are looking to enlist, suborn or compromise individuals generally look first for people who are crooked or desperate. The crooked can often be bought. They also have secrets. They can be bought and then their treachery can be used as a secret against them. Desperation makes everyone more vulnerable. The Trump campaign and administration are full of just those people: the crooked and the desperate.

I would not expect to hear tomorrow about something that proves collusion or is even directly tied to collusion. I’d expect a financial crime, likely tied to money laundering, which may prove to be proximate to collusion or those involved in it. But who knows? We could be surprised because we don’t know very much.

Meanwhile, via Facebook, one enterprising British comedy/spoof website has posted a video that shows Trump administration figures, including Der Trumpenführer himself, being arrested by FBI agents - their faces have been dubbed onto the bodies of others being taken into custody.  If you dislike Trump and his foul henchmen, the clip is hysterical.  My main criticism is that the figure used for Trump is not sufficiently obese.  

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As Indictments and Arrests Loom, Trump Rants to Distract His Base

As expected, in the wake of reports that special prosecutor Robert Mueller has secured one or more indictments with arrests to begin this coming week, true to form Der Trumpenführer has unleashed a torrent of Twitter ranks seeking to distract his base and fan the flames of disingenuous efforts to create new Clinton scandals.  Trump's big fear is that his abysmal 38% approval rating could totally tank if his base ever comes to realize that they lave been lied to and played for fools from the very beginning of Trump's campaign in 2015.  Expect the lies and conniption fits and efforts to slime everyone from the FBI to Mueller himself, to Clinton to increase exponentially as the indictments and arrests move forward.  Trump's biggest enemy - besides his own malignant narcissism - is the truth about the long trail of financial misconduct by Trump himself, to Price Jared to, of course, Paul Manafort.  A piece in the New Yorker looks at the rising efforts to distract.  Here are excerpts:

On Friday, while prosecutors working for the special counsel, Robert Mueller, obtained their first grand-jury indictments in their investigation of potential collusion by the Trump campaign and Russia, the President of the United States was busy gaslighting. Trump tweeted, of course, that “It is now commonly agreed, after many months of COSTLY looking, that there was NO collusion between Russia and Trump. Was collusion with HC!”

The President was referring to an episode that took place in 2010 whereby the Obama Administration gave a Russian firm permission to buy a Canadian company that had the rights to mine a great deal of uranium in the U.S. . . . . the vast majority of examinations by journalists of the uranium deal have found no sign of wrongdoing. I won’t rehash all the details of the bureaucratic process that led to the deal being approved, but it required the support of multiple government agencies, including the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, a body not controlled by Hillary Clinton. If you want the full explanation for why this allegation is false, I highly recommend this detailed account from FactCheck.org . . . .

What’s more important is that Trump is once again spreading lies to confuse the public about the Russian attack on American democracy last year. There are some obvious reasons why Trump would make this untruthful claim. The first is political. Trump’s typical response to any allegation of wrongdoing is to accuse his accuser of the same crime. Perhaps the most famous moment of the Presidential debates last year was Trump’s response when Hillary Clinton accused him of being Vladimir Putin’s puppet. “No puppet, no puppet, you’re the puppet,” he muttered into his microphone. He has been trying to make that case ever since.

The time line of Hillary Clinton’s relationship with Putin after the uranium deal is hard to square with Trump’s accusation.

The roots of Putin’s animosity toward Clinton and preference for Trump are clear. Putin, according to the intelligence community, blamed Clinton Clinton for stoking protests against his regime in 2011 after Russian parliamentary elections that were called fraudulent by independent observers. Coming in the wake of the Arab Spring, the protests were more widespread than anything Putin had previously faced. The Russian leader publicly accused Clinton of being behind them, charging at the time, as the Times reported, that she sent “a signal” to “some actors in our country.” The U.S. intelligence report concluded, “Putin most likely wanted to discredit Secretary Clinton because he has publicly blamed her since 2011 for inciting mass protests against his regime in late 2011 and early 2012 . . . . Putin also believed that the Panama Papers, which disclosed a global offshore accounting network and implicated close friends of Putin, was secretly directed by the U.S. government.

There is no ambiguity about Russia’s preference in the election, and the only reason it needs to be reiterated is that Trump regularly lies about this basic fact. “We assess the influence campaign aspired to help President-elect Trump’s chances of victory when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to the President-elect,” the joint report by sixteen U.S. intelligence agencies concluded.

The second, related, reason for Trump to make this false allegation is that he needs some Democratic “scandal” for his supporters on the Hill and in the media to feast on as the details of the Mueller probe become more problematic for his Administration. And what is more alarming than Trump’s lies about this issue is his ability to get top Republicans and influential conservative media institutions to rally around the idea that the Clinton uranium deal is the real collusion story Americans should care about.

Of course, Trump’s ability to gaslight the public has its limits. The indictments obtained by Mueller’s staffers are expected to be unsealed—or leak—by Monday. They are not expected to concern the Clintons or uranium.

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