Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped?

[Winstonm]

Part I: Just how cozy was the Trump campaign to Russia?

 

From WaPo and the NYT:

 

By Tom Hamburger and Rosalind S. Helderman July 8 at 11:40 PM

The president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., acknowledged attending a June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower with a Russian lawyer tied to the Kremlin, one of the first confirmed encounters between President Trump’s inner circle and a Russian national during the presidential campaign.

 

In a statement distributed Saturday evening, Trump Jr. confirmed he had participated in a “short introductory meeting,” which, per his request, was also attended by Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, and the chair of the Trump campaign, Paul Manafort.

 

Part II: How many believe that Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort, and Donal Trump Jr. made time 2 weeks after the Republican convention to meet with this Russia lawyer to talk about adoptions?

 

“We primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children that was active and popular with American families years ago and was since ended by the Russian government, but it was not a campaign issue at that time and there was no follow-up,” Trump Jr. said in the statement. “I was asked to attend the meeting by an acquaintance, but was not told the name of the person I would be meeting with beforehand.”

 

Part III: If meetings with Russians are never reported by Trump officials until after the press discovers them and reports them, and then unbelievable reasons for the meetings are given by Trump and his people, what do you think was happening?

[Winstonm]

And now this from the NYT:

 

Trump’s Son Met With Russian Lawyer After Being Promised Damaging Information on Clinton

By JO BECKER, MATT APUZZO and ADAM GOLDMANJULY 9, 2017

 

 

President Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., was promised damaging information about Hillary Clinton before agreeing to meet with a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer during the 2016 campaign, according to three advisers to the White House briefed on the meeting and two others with knowledge of it.

 

The meeting was also attended by his campaign chairman at the time, Paul J. Manafort, and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Mr. Manafort and Mr. Kushner only recently disclosed the meeting, though not its content, in confidential government documents described to The New York Times.

 

The Times reported the existence of the meeting on Saturday. But in subsequent interviews, the advisers and others revealed the motivation behind it.

 

The meeting — at Trump Tower on June 9, 2016, two weeks after Donald J. Trump clinched the Republican nomination — points to the central question in federal investigations of the Kremlin’s meddling in the presidential election: whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians. The accounts of the meeting represent the first public indication that at least some in the campaign were willing to accept Russian help.

 

And while President Trump has been dogged by revelations of undisclosed meetings between his associates and the Russians, the episode at Trump Tower is the first such confirmed private meeting involving members of his inner circle during the campaign — as well as the first one known to have included his eldest son. It came at an inflection point in the campaign, when Donald Trump Jr., who served as an adviser and a surrogate, was ascendant and Mr. Manafort was consolidating power.

 

It is unclear whether the Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, actually produced the promised compromising information about Mrs. Clinton. But the people interviewed by The Times about the meeting said the expectation was that she would do so.

 

In a statement on Sunday, Donald Trump Jr. said he had met with the Russian lawyer at the request of an acquaintance. “After pleasantries were exchanged,” he said, “the woman stated that she had information that individuals connected to Russia were funding the Democratic National Committee and supporting Ms. Clinton. Her statements were vague, ambiguous and made no sense. No details or supporting information was provided or even offered. It quickly became clear that she had no meaningful information.”

 

He said she then turned the conversation to adoption of Russian children and the Magnitsky Act, an American law that blacklists suspected Russian human rights abusers. The law so enraged President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia that he retaliated by halting American adoptions of Russian children.

 

“It became clear to me that this was the true agenda all along and that the claims of potentially helpful information were a pretext for the meeting,” Mr. Trump said.

 

When he was first asked about the meeting on Saturday, he said only that it was primarily about adoptions and mentioned nothing about Mrs. Clinton.

 

President Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, also attended the meeting last year at Trump Tower. Credit Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

Mark Corallo, a spokesman for the president’s lawyer, said on Sunday that “the president was not aware of and did not attend the meeting.”

 

Lawyers and spokesmen for Mr. Kushner and Mr. Manafort did not immediately respond to requests for comment. In his statement, Donald Trump Jr. said he asked Mr. Manafort and Mr. Kushner to attend, but did not tell them what the meeting was about.

 

American intelligence agencies have concluded that Russian hackers and propagandists worked to tip the election toward Donald J. Trump, in part by stealing and then providing to WikiLeaks internal Democratic Party and Clinton campaign emails that were embarrassing to Mrs. Clinton. WikiLeaks began releasing the material on July 22.

 

A special prosecutor and congressional committees are now investigating the Trump campaign’s possible collusion with the Russians. Mr. Trump has disputed that, but the investigation has cast a shadow over his administration.

 

Mr. Trump has also equivocated on whether the Russians were solely responsible for the hacking. On Sunday, two days after his first meeting as president with Mr. Putin, Mr. Trump said in a Twitter post: “I strongly pressed President Putin twice about Russian meddling in our election. He vehemently denied it. I’ve already given my opinion.....” He also tweeted that they had “discussed forming an impenetrable Cyber Security unit so that election hacking, & many other negative things, will be guarded...””

 

On Sunday morning on Fox News, the White House chief of staff, Reince Priebus, described the Trump Tower meeting as a “big nothing burger.”

 

“Talking about issues of foreign policy, issues related to our place in the world, issues important to the American people is not unusual,” he said.

 

But Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, the leading Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, one of the panels investigating Russian election interference, said he wanted to question “everyone that was at that meeting.”

 

“There’s no reason for this Russian government advocate to be meeting with Paul Manafort or with Mr. Kushner or the president’s son if it wasn’t about the campaign and Russia policy,” Mr. Schiff said after the initial Times report.

 

Ms. Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer invited to the Trump Tower meeting, is best known for mounting a multipronged attack against the Magnitsky Act.

 

The adoption impasse is a frequently used talking point for opponents of the act. Ms. Veselnitskaya’s campaign against the law has also included attempts to discredit the man after whom it was named, Sergei L. Magnitsky, a lawyer and auditor who died in 2009 in mysterious circumstances in a Russian prison after exposing one of the biggest corruption scandals during Mr. Putin’s rule.

 

The noose tightens, placed their by Trump Jr. himself:

“It became clear to me that this was the true agenda all along and that the claims of potentially helpful information were a pretext for the meeting,” Mr. Trump said.

 

So Trump Jr., Manafort, and Kushner all showed up expecting to receive damaging information on Hillary Clinton from a Russian lawyer known to be cozy with the Kremlin.

 

How much longer can the Republicans in Congress pretend not to notice?

[diana_eva]

From the Romanian State TV archives, a typical day of patriotic chants and odes to the great leader during Ceausescu's dictatorship:

 

 

 

 

[Winstonm]

I had missed this earlier, but it seems as though when the master speaks the monkeys are supposed to bang their cymbals and dance in circles dressed in red hats:

.@stevenmnuchin1: Proposed US-Russia cybersecurity partnership a "very significant accomplishment" for Pres. Trump. http://abcn.ws/2sTTYbs

8:18 AM - 9 Jul 2017

 

Significant only in the amount of derision produced from his own party. :P

[y66]

From Donald Trump’s alarming G20 performance by Lawrence Summers:

 

Confusing civility with comity is a grave mistake in human or international relations. Yes, the G20 summit did agree on a common communiqué after the leaders’ meeting. Some see this as an achievement or an indication that some normality in international relations between the US and other countries is being restored. The truth is that at no previous G20 meeting did the possibility that there would not be a common statement agreed by all participants occur to anyone.

 

Rather than seeing agreement as an achievement, it is more accurate to see the content of the communiqué as a confirmation of the breakdown of international order that many have feared since the election of Donald Trump. The president’s behaviour in and around the summit was unsettling to US allies and confirmed the fears of those who believe that his conduct is the greatest threat to American security.

 

The existence of the G20 as an annual forum arose from a common belief of major nations that there was a global community with common interests in peace, mutual security, prosperity and economic integration and the containment of threats even as there was competition between nations in the security and economic realms. The idea that the US should lead in the development of the international community has been a central tenet of American foreign policy since the end of the second world war.

 

Since his election, Mr Trump’s rhetoric has rejected the concept of global community, and expressed a strong belief that the US should seek better deals rather than stronger institutions and systems. In the past month and especially after the G20, it has become clear that Mr Trump’s actions will match his rhetoric. The US is now isolated on the question of how to deal with the long run security threat of climate change. It has forced the G20 to back away from previous commitments to rejecting protectionism. And in part because of American attitudes, the G20 was mute on international migration at a time when refugee issues are more serious than at any moment in the past 50 years.

 

All of this is troubling enough. What many people fear but few are saying is that in the difficult times that come during any term the president’s character will cause him to act dangerously. As biographer Robert Caro has observed, power may or may not corrupt but it always reveals. Mr Trump has yet to experience a period of economic difficulty or any form of international economic crisis. He has not yet had to make a major military decision in time of crisis. Yet his behaviour has been erratic.

 

The president chose hours before meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin to cast doubt on judgments of the US intelligence community regarding Russia’s interference with the US election. On the brink of the most important set of international meetings of his presidency so far, he put forward the absurd idea that a main discussion item at the G20 involved Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, making demonstrably false assertions about his role.

 

It is rare for heads of government to step away from the table during major summits. When it is necessary, their place is normally taken by the foreign minister or another very senior government official. There is no precedent for a head of government’s adult child taking a seat, as was the case when Ivanka Trump took her father’s place at the G20. There is no precedent for good reason. It is insulting to the others present and sends a signal of disempowerment regarding senior officials.

 

Mr Trump’s pre-summit speech in Poland expressed the sentiment that the primary question of our time was the will of the west to survive. Such a sentiment is inevitably alienating to the vast majority of humanity that does not live in what the president considers to be the west. Manichean rhetoric from presidents is rarely wise. George W Bush’s reference to an “axis of evil” is generally regarded as a serious error not because the nations he referenced were not evil but because his rhetoric drew those adversaries together. Invoking the idea of the west against the rest as the president did is a graver mis-step.

 

A corporate chief executive whose public behaviour was as erratic as that of Mr Trump would already have been replaced. The standard for democratically elected officials is appropriately different. But one cannot look at the past months and rule out the possibility of even more aberrant behaviour in the future. The president’s cabinet and his political allies in Congress should never forget that the oaths they swore were not to the defence of the president but to the defence of the constitution.

This guy doesn't wait for a crisis to arrive. He is the crisis.

[RedSpawn]

And now this from the NYT:

 

 

 

The noose tightens, placed their by Trump Jr. himself:

 

 

So Trump Jr., Manafort, and Kushner all showed up expecting to receive damaging information on Hillary Clinton from a Russian lawyer known to be cozy with the Kremlin.

 

How much longer can the Republicans in Congress pretend not to notice?

I have a few questions that I feel are fair--not to divert--but they need to be asked.

 

1. 
    
   
2. The Democratic National Committee (DNC) was hacked in July 2016 and the e-mails that were hacked were released on Wikileaks prior to the November election. Was the release of the DNC e-mails online a national security matter under the jurisdiction of the federal government since it could potentially have a material outcome on a Presidential election?
    
   
3. IF the hacking of the DNC and the subsequent release of the trove of DNC emails online was a national security matter with the potential to disturb our electoral process, then why did the federal government treat it is a private matter and allow a 3rd party service provider to analyze the DNC's server and conduct all of the forensic investigation of the server?
    
   I want to make the case that now the Department of Homeland Security is saying that communications and information technology infrastructure owned by individual states for voting purposes now falls under its jurisdiction and now DHS can access, examine, and scrutinize these systems without permission. See https://www.dhs.gov/news/2017/01/06/statement-secretary-johnson-designation-election-infrastructure-critical for additional information.
    
   
4. How do we know that it was Russian hackers and propagandists who hacked the DNC server? Absolutely NONE of the cybersecurity or forensic work on the hacked server was done by a federal investigation authority. Remember, the FBI, CIA, or NSA didn't examine the DNC's server but relied on the results of Crowdstrike since the DNC would not grant them access to the servers. How does the FBI know that Crowdstrike followed proper evidence handling and investigation protocol? No governmental authority was present while Crowdstrike performed its work. This has practically destroyed the chain of custody for the critical evidence in question.
    
   
5. Couldn't the FBI have petitioned the Supreme Court for an injunction to get access to the DNC server if the hack was truly a matter of national security which had the potential to affect the outcome of our federal election?
    
   
6. So we have Crowdstrike, a 3rd party service provider, saying that it was the Russians who hacked the DNC server in July 2016 and we have,

   After pleasantries were exchanged,” he said, “the [Russian lawyer] stated that she had information that individuals connected to Russia were funding the Democratic National Committee and supporting Mrs. Clinton. Her statements were vague, ambiguous and made no sense. No details or supporting information was provided or even offered. It quickly became clear that she had no meaningful information.

   I don't know who to believe?
    
   Truth be told, this looks VERY ODD and SUSPICIOUS on the federal government's side AND on Trump's side.
   

The way our federal government handled this matter made it seem like it was some small scale theft in the beginning. The FBI acted as if it had no legitimate jurisdiction in this "matter" and doesn't appear to go to any great lengths to pursue a matter that could have large national security concerns. So the DNC refused to give the FBI the server for review; the government relies on a private company to do the forensic investigative work on the server. The hacked e-mails are published on Wikileaks and our federal government does nothing substantial to offset the negative impact of this leak. It appears the federal government allows the media and the populace to sort out the details of this information for themselves.

 

Now that Trump is President, the full measure of the intelligence agencies are being employed and presenting this "matter" as if it a huge collusion conspiracy and national security breach demanding the public's full attention.

 

I don't give Trump a pass and I am not giving our government a pass either--something is fishy on BOTH sides of this story.

[Winstonm]

One has to wonder how Trump Jr., Kushner, and Manafort had the gall to meet with a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer expecting to receive information that would damage Hillary Clinton. To those who do not yet understand the attitudes of Donald Trump, his family, and his inner circle, I would suggest a study of John Gotti and the Gambino crime family. The actions taken may not all match but the basic attitude is the same.

[RedSpawn]

http://www.burrardstreetjournal.com/updated-mayan-calendar-declares-world-will-end-on-jan-20-2017/

 

I like this one--the end of the world is coming when Trump starts his presidency on January 20th, 2017.

 

:lol:

 

http://vaticanenquirer.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Mayan-Calendar-Predicts-World-Will-Now-End-On-January-20th-2017.jpg

[Al_U_Card]

Larry Summers, Sec'y of the treasury and author of so many financial maneuvers against the common man and for the oligarchs and financial overlords as to defy description? If Trump is going against his desires, viva Trump! Now, where is Ron Rubin when you need him (to save the financial elite, that is....) Might as well resurrect Greenspan while we are at it. TARP II perhaps. It may well be coming based on the market. :(

[RedSpawn]

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/golf/lpga/2017/07/10/donald-trump-said-have-threatened-usga-lawsuit/465590001/

 

Will principle or politics prevail?

[Winstonm]

Oops! It appears that the Trumps have been lying, all along.

 

Donald Trump Jr. was told in an email that a meeting to obtain information damaging to presidential rival Hillary Clinton was connected to intelligence gathered by the Russian government to help elect his father, according to a report from The New York Times.

 

This is now serious stuff. Moderators, can we now move the Bill Clinton sideshow to its own separate thread?

[mike777]

ok and after the public condemnation...which has actually happened.....next?

 

at the very least we are debating not whether to destroy the president but how...it seems.

 

If you follow the last 6ooo or so posts the debate is over how to destroy...trump....how to wreck destruction...but you may have a different take.

[Winstonm]

One has to wonder how Trump Jr., Kushner, and Manafort had the gall to meet with a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer expecting to receive information that would damage Hillary Clinton. To those who do not yet understand the attitudes of Donald Trump, his family, and his inner circle, I would suggest a study of John Gotti and the Gambino crime family. The actions taken may not all match but the basic attitude is the same.

 

You can't make this stuff up. Too ironic.

 

Later Monday, Trump Jr. announced he had hired Alan Futerfas as his lawyer. Futerfas is known for representing the Gambino, Genovese and Colombo crime families.

[diana_eva]

Moved some of the BC discussion to a separate thread here.

[RedSpawn]

Moved some of the BC discussion to a separate thread here.

I'm not seeing how we can rail on Trump but any comparison of the same behavior to other President's similar behavior is considered hijacked and moderator worthy and requires a separate thread.

 

If the Office of the President has a moral standard, then it applies to all Presidents, not just the one we are rooting for. I am deeply disappointed that we call moderators than discuss the double standard we hold for Presidents in terms of their character. Sad.

[diana_eva]

I'm not seeing how we can rail on Trump but any comparison of the same behavior to other President's similar behavior is considered hijacked and moderator worthy and requires a separate thread.

 

If the Office of the President has a moral standard, then it applies to all Presidents, not just the one we are rooting for. I am deeply disappointed that we call moderators than discuss the double standard we hold for Presidents in terms of their character. Sad.

 

You made your point clear in the first two or three replies. Meanwhile investigation into russian ties advances, trump does stuff abroad, the balance of power changes in the world and all that can't be discussed because after each new post there's a flood of arguments on how sexually assaulting women and cheating on your wife is somehow equivalent.

[RedSpawn]

You made your point clear in the first two or three replies. Meanwhile investigation into russian ties advances, trump does stuff abroad, the balance of power changes in the world and all that can't be discussed because after each new post there's a flood of arguments on how sexually assaulting women and cheating on your wife is somehow equivalent.

They aren't equivalent but the sexual assault allegations against BC for Kathleen Willey and Juanita Broddrick are right up Trump's pu$$y grabbing alley. When a man gropes you and kisses you without invitation, I thought that qualified as sexual assault. OK, enough about sexual assault.

 

http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/07/politics/bill-clinton-history-2016-election/index.html

[jogs]

The lie of the century comes from the European progressive left. The left claims this world is ready for globalism and open borders. Trump says if Europe wants open borders why do we need NATO? Let the Russians invade and occupy. Obviously Europe doesn't want open borders.

The Russians aren't the main threat. Islamic terrorists is only a minor inconvenience. The main threat is ordinary Muslims who don't assimilate and want to live under Sharia from the Kuran.

The progressive left wants to live in the idealized 25th century. Conservatives wants to live in the 20th century. Muslims want to live in the ancient 7th century. Women would be property of their husbands. Any LGBT member will be stoned on sight. The left condemns conservatives, while they defend Muslims. Turkey blocked a gay pride parade.

No Western nation has a fertility rate higher than 1.9 babies per female and a generation is about 30 years. Muslims have a fertility rate of 3.5 babies per female and a generation is under 25 years. By 2050 Muslims will outnumber Westerns worldwide.

Muslims didn't assimilate into Europeans. Muslims cannot defeat Westerners on the battlefield. By 2050 Muslims will outnumber Europeans in many regions of Europe. Muslims will absorb the Europeans. Muslim can beat Europeans by the ballot box. Many of you fools will be living under Sharia.

This women] terrifies me. She represents the views of 50% of Muslims in America and 90% of Muslims in Europe.

Donald Trump is the only Western leader defending western civilization.

You Europeans are fighting the last war. The Soviet Union collapsed in the 1980's. The Russians are a toothless enemy.

The real danger is the devout Muslim who believes in the Kuran and Sharia Law. They want to take humanity back to the 7th century.

[Winstonm]

Moved some of the BC discussion to a separate thread here.

Thank you.

[awm]

Bill Clinton is not the president, he was not a candidate in 2016, and no set of circumstances will cause him to become president now. So he is not really relevant to the current discussion.

 

The difference between Trump and Clinton on sexual harassment is that Trump has admitted, on tape, to criminal harassment. Clinton has not done this, and while there are accusations out there all of them seem to have reasonable doubts and none have been proven. So Trump voters clearly know his attitude towards women and didn't care (Trump himself doesn't really deny it, just tries to change the subject) whereas Clinton voters could credibly disbelieve accusations of this sort.

 

In any case, no one is suggesting Trump be impeached because of his history of sexual assault, much less because of cheating on his wife (which is basically what Clinton was impeached for -- lying to congress about having cheated on his wife; senators, including some Republicans, did not feel this rose to the level of "high crimes"). If Trump is impeached it will be for treason -- colluding with a foreign power to illegally obtain information which would then be used to win a US election. Treason (and covering it up) is a different and far more serious issue than lying about an extra-marital affair. Note that the breach of the DNC data is quite similar to Watergate, if the burglars had been Soviet spies and with the addition of modern technology. There is certainly precedent for impeachment and the case seems to grow stronger by the day. Of course politics enters into the equation and Republicans in congress are unlikely to impeach as long as their voters (who already forgave Trump for sexual assault and a scam university and any number of other things) still support the president.

[Winstonm]

I'm not seeing how we can rail on Trump but any comparison of the same behavior to other President's similar behavior is considered hijacked and moderator worthy and requires a separate thread.

 

If the Office of the President has a moral standard, then it applies to all Presidents, not just the one we are rooting for. I am deeply disappointed that we call moderators than discuss the double standard we hold for Presidents in terms of their character. Sad.

 

This is a thread about Trump's influence on American politics. Your views are valid - they just need to be expressed on another thread. You now have one. And you're still sad. Sad.

[Zelandakh]

You can't make this stuff up. Too ironic.

It is an interesting response to Müller hiring lawyers into his team with experience of prosecuting organised crime. Perhaps RM predicted such a move and wanted experience of going up against a powerful criminal family.

[Zelandakh]

A humourous overview of where we stand regarding Russia.

[Zelandakh]

And a few more details emerging from the NYT.

[Winstonm]

And a few more details emerging from the NYT.

 

Trumpsters are finally getting good legal advice, it seems. History has shown that it is always better to dump all at once information that hurts you rather than allow the prosecution to pull it out drop by drop or in a big show.

 

Of course, when the information is this damning, trying to bury it might have been a better idea. :blink: