The Missing Trial of Donald J Trump

[Kid Berwyn]

While the Orange Turd may be held to account for "election interference" by hiding hush money payments, "mishandling" Top Secret and Sensitive Defense Information, "stealing" a presidential election, "hiding" money from various banks and the taxman, plus who knows what high crimes and misdemeanors else, one important area has not been addressed by Special Counsel or the investigative units of mainstream media:

As pee-resident, Trump represented the most successful spy operation of all time: Putin’s insertion of an active agent into the Oval Office.



Unretouched photo in which then-President Donald Trump sends former KGB colonel Vladimir Putin a conspiratorial wink.

Trump hid his calls with Putin. Now, Biden has access to them.

What was said between the two leaders is a great mystery, one that advisers to the current president say is imperative to find out.

By NATASHA BERTRAND and DANIEL LIPPMAN
Politico, 02/09/2021

Few Trump-era mysteries are as intriguing as what the 45th president said to Vladimir Putin in at least a dozen rambling, off-the-cuff calls and meetings over four years. Understanding what was said between the two could help illuminate whether Trump ever revealed sensitive information or struck any deals with the Kremlin leader that could take the new administration by surprise.

Now that President Joe Biden is in the White House, he can see for himself.

“They don’t need our approval to see those [records],” a former Trump White House official said, referring to the new Biden national security team. “Biden owns all the call materials. There is only one president at a time.”

SNIP…

“It is a national security priority to find out what Trump said to Putin” over his four years in office, said one former national security official who is close to the new president. “Some things, like what happened in some face-to-face meetings where no American translator or note-taker was present, may never be fully known. But I would be very surprised if the new national security team were not trying to access” the call records.

SNIP…

Trump went to particularly great lengths to keep his in-person conversations with the Russian leader private, from confiscating his interpreter’s notes to forgoing American translators and notetakers altogether in their meetings. That desire for secrecy has extended even past his time in office. One former Trump official argued last week that records of Trump’s conversations with Putin, which often lasted an hour or more, should not be made available to his successor.

SOURCE: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/02/09/biden-can-access-trump-putin-calls-468100

In his capacity as pee-resident, Trump represented an existential threat to national security as an agent working to advance the interests of Vladimir Putin. Therefore, in lieu of an investigation by the press or Congress, it would advance the national interest for the Department of Justice to investigate the troubling relationship between Boss Putin and Toad Trump. (Otherwise, without involvement by DoJ, Every Good American would want to perform a Citizen's Arrest the next time the guy is in town.)

Trump’s Top Targets in the Russia Probe Are Experts in Organized Crime

Some of President Trump’s favorite targets in the Russia probe have spent their careers in the Justice Department and the FBI investigating organized crime and money laundering, particularly as they pertain to Russia.

NATASHA BERTRAND
The Atlantic, AUG 30, 2018

Bruce Ohr. Lisa Page. Andrew Weissmann. Andrew McCabe. President Donald Trump has relentlessly attacked these FBI and Justice Department officials as dishonest “Democrats” engaged in a partisan “witch hunt” led by the special counsel determined to tie his campaign to Russia. But Trump’s attacks have also served to highlight another thread among these officials and others who have investigated his campaign: their extensive experience in probing money laundering and organized crime, particularly as they pertain to Russia.

snip...

Trump’s latest obsession is with Bruce Ohr, a career Justice Department official who spent years investigating Russian organized crime and corruption—an expertise he shared with another Trump target named Christopher Steele, the former British intelligence operative who provided valuable intelligence on Russia to the State Department and the FBI’s Eurasian Organized Crime Task Force prior to authoring the Trump-Russia dossier in 2016. Ohr and Steele met in 2007, according to The New York Times, and stayed in touch as a result of their shared interests and mutual respect. Trump has tweeted about Ohr nearly a dozen times this month alone, complaining about his relationship with Steele and Ohr’s wife’s past work for Fusion GPS—the opposition-research firm that hired Steele in 2016 to research Trump’s Russia ties.

snip...

Trump’s fixation with seeing Ohr ousted from the Justice Department could be perceived as yet another attempt to undermine the credibility of the people who have investigated him. It could also be interpreted as an attack on someone with deep knowledge of the shady characters Trump and his cohort have been linked to, including Semion Mogilevich, the Russian mob boss, and Oleg Deripaska, a Russian aluminum magnate close to Putin who did business with Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort. (Incidentally, another Manafort associate, the Ukrainian billionaire Dmitry Firtash, admitted that he only managed to be in business because Mogilevich allowed him to be, according to a leaked 2008 State Department cable.) Ohr was involved in banning Deripaska from the U.S. in 2006, due to his alleged ties to organized crime and fear that he would try to launder money into American real estate. Nearly a decade later, Ohr and the FBI sought Deripaska’s help in taking down overseas criminal syndicates.

Snip...

The president has denied having any business ties to Russia, and his dream of building a Trump Tower Moscow never materialized. But his links to Russian oligarchs and mobsters from the former Soviet Union have been documented: Millions of dollars from the former Soviet Union flowed into Trump’s developments and casinos throughout the 1990s, as the journalist Craig Unger has chronicled, as oligarchs looked for a place to hide their money in the West. The Trump Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey, was once known as a hot spot for Brooklyn mobsters associated with the Russian Mafia, and quickly became the “favorite East Coast destination” of the top Russian mob boss Vyacheslav Ivankov, according to the 2000 book Red Mafiya: How the Russian Mob Has Invaded America. It was also repeatedly cited by the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network for having inadequate money-laundering controls.

Continues...

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/08/trumps-top-targets-in-the-russia-probe-are-experts-in-organized-crime/569056/

So. How many Americans even know this story? Most all the people I have asked about it have no clue. And for that ignorance, I blame the Media Monopoly, AKA the mainstream press, comprised of broadcast news organizations and America's major newspapers and news magazines, such as they are.

Of course, there's more to the Trump-Putin Love Story. Trump actually invited the GRU into the Oval Office.



The photo of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and dip above was taken by TASS, the official Russian news agency. The US media were not informed about the 2017 visit. We learned about it because the Unhinged Moron himself spread the pic proudly on social media.

How many people do you know who’ve seen that picture or the one below, taken on an earlier date in the Oval Office? Again, very few.



“I just fired the head of the FBI. He was crazy, a real nut job," Trump said, according to The Times. "I faced great pressure because of Russia. That's taken off.”

"I'm not under investigation," he added.

Sources:

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/05/10/527755991/trump-meets-with-russias-lavrov-at-the-white-house-today

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-nut-job-james-comey-russia-2017-5

The polls indicating the 2024 Presidential Election currently is a dead-heat demonstrates the power of propaganda and the corrupt nature of America’s profit-driven news media. Were it otherwise, most Americans would know Trump hosted Russia’s top spies and fired America's top counter-espionage agents specializing in catching Russian spies. Putting Trump on trial as a dirty rotten spy would change the narrative, as they say.

That's where the facts lead. And that is where criminal investigations should begin: Trump should be facing a third federal trial, answering charges of espionage on behalf of Russia.

[onecaliberal]

1. If only there was an American agency that could investigate....

[Kid Berwyn]

5. So many agencies. So many crimes. Take the Moonie Times.

Please. As editor in chief at Moonie Times pushed Uranium One smear of Hillary. It is proof of the works of a professional disonformationist, Manchurian-style. Why hasn't the Pentagon or Intelligence Community moved on this guy?

Who is John Solomon? Here’s what we know about the journalist whose stories shaped the Ukraine saga



A tweet from President Donald Trump is displayed as former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch testifies before the House Intelligence Committee in Washington on Nov. 15, 2019. (AP/Harnik)

PolitiFact

Excerpt...

Solomon’s commentary for The Hill has generated the most buzz. In 2017, he played a major role in pushing the inaccurate Uranium One conspiracy, alleging that Hillary Clinton sold a share of America’s uranium to Russia in exchange for a massive donation to the Clinton Foundation.

Snip...

When Fiona Hill, Trump’s former top Russia expert, was asked during private testimony how she first learned about Giuliani’s "interest" in Ukraine, she mentioned Solomon, whose columns outlined the same conspiracies that Giuliani was actively pushing on Twitter and TV.

Senior State Department official George Kent later testified that what he had described as the "campaign of slander" against former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch began with one of Solomon’s articles and ended with Yovanovitch’s removal.

Snip...

Solomon’s columns also alleged misconduct in Ukraine by Democratic donor George Soros and claimed, without much evidence, that Democrats coordinated with Ukrainian officials to interfere in the 2016 election by sharing dirt on Trump and reviving a 2014 investigation into former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, who had ties to the country’s old, pro-Russia regime.

Continues...

https://www.politifact.com/article/2019/nov/19/who-john-solomon-heres-what-we-know-about-journali/

This shouldn't be left up to Stormy Daniels and E. Jean Carroll. While both are patriotic Americans, their words should be followed up by the full weight of the US Government.

[onecaliberal]

6. Because the AG is ok the other team.

[erronis]

12. Let's ask SPECTRE to look into this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPECTRE


A non-national organization that exists to cause disruption. May be aligned with various nations and groups at different times but always looking for ways to enhance its own power. Sounds like rampant capitalism to me.

[BoRaGard]

2. The republican betrayal of America

requires a massive dose of justice.

[Kid Berwyn]

7. GOP in service of the Kremlin. Who'dathunk?

From the Great DUer Botany:

Remember the Moscow 8 and their July 4, 2018 trip to Russia?

ETA: Gigolos Obeying Putin

[onecaliberal]

8. The department of justice should not be partisan. Where are they?

[keithbvadu2]

3. From Obama to ???

[Kid Berwyn]

9. What DO they talk about? "None of your business."

Trump says what happens in Putin meeting is 'none of your business'

Congress is probing whether Trump destroyed records from previous meetings.

ByConor Finnegan
June 26, 2019,

Ahead of a planned meeting with Vladimir Putin at the G20 summit in Japan, President Donald Trump on Wednesday said what he talks about with the Russian president is "none of your business."

That kind of dismissal has fueled concerns about their previous meetings, some of which are under investigation by Congress over reports that Trump destroyed translators' notes afterwards or met without any U.S. officials present. The reported destruction of notes is also the subject of lawsuits that allege the Trump administration has violated federal laws about records preservation.

"I'll have a very good conversation with him. What I say to him is none of your business," Trump answered as he left the White House when a reporter asked him whether he would tell Putin not to meddle in U.S. elections.

SNIP...

"Based on the fact that the ships and sailors have not been returned to Ukraine from Russia, I have decided it would be best for all parties concerned to cancel my previously scheduled meeting in Argentina with President Vladimir Putin. I look forward to a meaningful Summit again as soon as this situation is resolved!" Trump tweeted at the time.

Trump ended up speaking to Putin during the G20 leaders' dinner in Buenos Aires. The White House described the encounter as an "informal conversation," but no staff were present for it.

SOURCE: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-putin-meeting-business/story?id=63967271

"Money trumps peace." -- pretzeldent George W Bush, Feb. 14, 2007

[pwb]

4. I agree.

He had his hand in both of the current wars. Maybe he wants to put a hotel in Russian Ukraine? That is all it would take for trump to give the go ahead.

[Kid Berwyn]

10. Trump Tower NRA

The real immunity falls on the "Money trumps Peace" crowd. As long as the Cold War kept going, they had a monopoly over the purse strings under the fig leaf of "national security."



Sadly, more context missing from national press coverage of the national gun disorder and Agent Donald Trump and the Russia Thing. Even if all the media did was to follow the money, they’d find how Agent Trump and the GOP were helped by a hostile power to win ultimate power in the USA. And now that they are out of the Oval Office, their demented spawn kill innocent people with weapons of war, wreck havoc through law and fear, and create the chaotic socio-economic conditions conducive to fascism.

NRA Was 'Foreign Asset' To Russia Ahead of 2016, New Senate Report Reveals

Tim Mak, Heard on All Things Considered
September 27, 2019

The National Rifle Association acted as a "foreign asset" for Russia in the period leading up to the 2016 election, according to a new investigation unveiled Friday by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.

Drawing on contemporaneous emails and private interviews, an 18-month probe by the Senate Finance Committee's Democratic staff found that the NRA underwrote political access for Russian nationals Maria Butina and Alexander Torshin more than previously known — even though the two had declared their ties to the Kremlin.

Snip…

The report indicates that top NRA officials were aware of Butina's and Torshin's links with the Kremlin even as they sought to work more closely together under the banner of gun rights.

In an email later circulated to two senior NRA staff members, Butina wrote that a purpose of the 2015 Moscow trip was that "many powerful figures in the Kremlin are counting on Torshin to prove his American connections" by showing he could bring prominent NRA officials to Russia.

At another point, Butina suggested to participants on the 2015 NRA trip to Russia that she might be able to set up a meeting between them and President Vladimir Putin, referring to him as "Russia's highest leader."

Continues…

https://www.npr.org/2019/09/27/764879242/nra-was-foreign-asset-to-russia-ahead-of-2016-new-senate-report-reveals

This — the proven and still active connection between America’s ultra right and Russia’s Mafiya of oligarchics and spooks — should be brought up in context of the current vast right wing gun-nut cult, officially OK’d by SCOTUS and America’s plutocrats. IF we had an honest and true national news media, let alone a Department of Justice interested in putting away the traitors, then who knows? It might unite the country against a common enemy: Vladimir Putin and the GRU and their chums in Beijing and wherever else is flush with cash.

[Diraven]

11. Apparently still no one knows

These stories are years old. If Biden really had the power to find out, I think something would have come of it by now.

[Kid Berwyn]

13. Is it the fault of Uncle Sam or Corporate McPravda?

Sure, the stories are old. But most Americans have never heard them.

And, just like Trump being held to account for election interference, leading an insurrection, hiding top secret documents, and bilking the taxpayers of New York, the guy's relationship with Vladimir Putin should be brought to light.

Investigation and prosecution would go a long way to explaining how the nation got to where it is. Moreover, holding those responsible would prevent their re-emergence as political figures later.

[dalton99a]

14. Kick

[Kid Berwyn]

16. The Big Story got missed due to the Big Lie

News and analysis that few papers, TV and radio stations have dared publish:

The NYT should tell readers whether it helped crooked FBI agents get Trump elected in 2016

The arrest of a high-level FBI agent on Russia-tied corruption charges raises stunning new questions about how Trump really won in 2016.

Will Bunch
Philadelphia Inquirer, January 29, 2023

It was arguably the most consequential “October Surprise” in the history of American presidential elections. In the waning days of the 2016 race, with polls showing Hillary Clinton clinging to a lead over Donald Trump, two last-minute stories broke that rekindled on-the-fence voters’ ethical doubts about Democrat Clinton and quashed a budding scandal around her GOP rival.

Except the “October Surprise” was no surprise to one key player: Rudolph Giuliani, the ex-New York City mayor and Trump insider who later became the 45th president’s attorney. Late that month, Giuliani told Fox News that the trailing Republican nominee had “a surprise or two that you’re going to hear about in the next few days. I mean, I’m talking about some pretty big surprises.”

Just two days later, then-FBI director James Comey revealed the bureau had reopened its probe into Clinton’s emails, based on the possible discovery of new communications on a laptop belonging to disgraced New York politico Anthony Weiner. The news jolted the campaign with a particularly strong boost from the New York Times, which devoted two-thirds of its front page to the story — and the notion it was a major blow to Clinton’s prospects.

It was later reported that Comey was motivated to make the unusual announcement about the laptop because he feared leaks from the FBI’s New York field office, which, according to Reuters, had “a faction of investigators based in the office known to be hostile to Hillary Clinton.” Indeed, Giuliani bragged immediately after that he had sources in the FBI, including current agents.

Link to tweet

Continues…

https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commentary/mcgonigal-russian-oligarch-trump-2016-election-20230129.html#loaded

Thank you for noticing, dalton99a. This stuff is mind-blowing and the news media don’t like to rock the boat when it affects the money bag set, yet the subject matter changed the course of our lives from 2016 to the present day. That’s why DU is so important: Democracy requires a Free Press to build a better future.

[Mister Ed]

15. K&R. I recommend not only the OP but also the several detailed replies. n/t

[Kid Berwyn]

18. "What if the Deep State was real?"

Charles McGonigal and the Deep State

What if the Deep State was real?

Jonathan V. Last
Bulwark, January 28, 2023

Excerpt…

… Anne Applebaum once put the question the right way: why didn't the FBI investigate Trump’s connections to Putin much earlier? In retrospect, it seems as though the FBI investigation of Trump’s campaign and its Russian connections in 2016 was not only late, but weirdly understated.

If the McGonigal allegations are proven, then we have an entirely new set of problems. Not just that one political party was willing to become the cat’s paw of a foreign government, but that a key part of America’s law enforcement apparatus was in on the game.

In other words: An actual Deep State.

As always, projection is the sincerest form of Trumpism.

Source: https://www.thebulwark.com/p/charles-mcgonigal-and-the-deep-state

Thank you for the kind words, Mister Ed.

[malaise]

17. A great OP

Rec

[Kid Berwyn]

19. Former federal prosecutor: Robert Mueller left many questions unanswered

Where is the counterintelligence investigation — and the information on Trump's finances? Mueller must testify

KENNETH F. MCCALLION
Salon.com, JUNE 2, 2019

Excerpt...

The Mueller report is completely silent on the results of the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation that was opened up shortly after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey on May 9, 2017. The next day, Trump then confided to Russia’s foreign minister and ambassador to the U.S. the following day in the Oval Office that — referring to the FBI’s Russia investigation — the firing of “nut job” Comey had relieved “great pressure” on him. Trump then followed this confirmation by admitting to NBC’s Lester Holt in a televised interview at the White House that he had decided to fire Comey because of the “Russia thing.”

Alarmed FBI and Justice Department officials promptly opened up a counterintelligence investigation into whether the current occupant of the White House was so compromised by Russia that, for all intents and purposes, he was an active agent of a hostile foreign power. After all, Trump had sounded like a Russia apologist for many months. There was no reasonable basis for his apparent love of all things Russian and his inability to criticize the country or President Vladimir Putin, its autocratic leader, in any way. Firing the FBI director, in an evident attempt to derail the bureau’s investigation into the massive and coordinated attack by Russia on the U.S. electoral system, left no question that there was something seriously wrong in the White House and that there was an urgent need to mount an investigation as quickly as possible. For the first time in American history, there was a rational and actionable basis for believing that a sitting president of the United States was betraying his own country.

So, Mr. Mueller, what happened to this counterintelligence investigation? Attorney General William Barr and his deputy Trump sycophants now occupying key positions in the once-independent Justice Department won’t tell us what happened. Now that you are a private citizen, as a career public servant of the highest integrity, don’t you think you at least have an obligation to tell the House and Senate Intelligence committees whether there is a basis for believing that treason is afoot in the White House? And if so, what is being done about it?

The Mueller report also does not tell us anything about the treasure trove of financial data on Trump that the special counsel’s office inevitably collected in its wide investigative net during the two years of its investigation. Mueller was apparently reticent to cross the line in the sand that Trump drew, warning Mueller away from pursuing subpoenas of Deutsche Bank and other financial institutions who are sitting on ticking financial time bombs that could potentially reveal the extent of Trump’s ties with Russian oligarchs and Russian interests.

Continues...

https://www.salon.com/2019/06/02/former-federal-prosecutor-robert-mueller-left-many-questions-unanswered/

Most importantly: Spasibo, Zoli Mamzel.