This may be why Trump is melting down this morning:

[pbmus]

Link to tweet

[Eliot Rosewater]

1. Anything that gets justice done.

[MineralMan]

2. Ruh-Roh....

The thot plickens.

[Hortensis]

10. "The red flag for me is why the Russians fought so hard

to keep him from being extradited," ...

Another looming question is whether Nikulin worked with the Internet Research Agency, a St. Petersburg-based troll farm tied to Russian intelligence ... sought to spread distrust among voters and in the election results, ...

The plot thickens, all right. But also interesting is Paul Ryan "calling for" the extradition during a visit to Prague. What might that signal, or not? Was this forced by circumstances, the way Trump's recall of diplomats was?

[grantcart]

20. Doubtful, Ryan also pushed for his extradition.

Probably a rogue and Russia didn't want to create a precedent

[Hortensis]

24. Yes, but did Ryan push because it was a way to show

he was doing something OR because he's coming down on the side of the investigation into Russian meddling in the election with Republican politicians? THAT would be huge, but I don't believe it. Not yet.

Further unraveling of the GOP-Russia interactions can only reveal and highlight additional deeply unethical behaviors that will be tremendously damaging to the party; and of course there's a strong possibility that some of them will be illegal and be prosecuted. Ryan's smack in the middle, with enormous power blocs backing him and information resources available, and he had to know or at very least carefully maintain plausible deniability as most of it was going down.

[grantcart]

28. There is an unfortunate tendency at DU to tie everything into the narrative we want to see

In addition to the specific Russian/Trump operation were hundreds of independent operatives who are blackmailing hospitals, companies, cities, etc. There really is no evidence yet that this has anything to do with the election scandal.

Russia could easily have been wanting to get there hands on him because he was running attacks on Russian firms as well.

The weakest part of the article is tying dates to two independent actions and then saying because they happened about the same time they are linked. Reminds me of a professor of mine who worked for the DIA as a Russian specialist and a major alert was sent up when over a dozen Russian generals all died within the same week. All of the Russian experts were assigned to stop what they were doing and a complex analysis was set up to find all of the links between the generals, what units they were in, what academies they went to, who was married to whose cousin. After two weeks a junior analyst found the common thread (unlike the US where it is up or out creating a pyramid Russia promoted almost everyone up so there were literally hundreds of generals), the average age of the generals was 86, they were dying of old age.

Not every story about a Russian hacker is going to be linked to the same narrative.

The fact that Ryan invested 5 minutes is more than enough evidence to show that this hacker was commercially motivated and not politically motivated as Ryan has done absolutely nothing to advance the investigation of the Russian involvement in the election, see for example Nunes.

[brush]

31. Let's just see what develops before putting the onus on DUers. You don't know and we don't know.

There's a reason for them wanting his testimony.

[grantcart]

34. Exactly, it's speculative. Actual federal enforcement preceded Mueller's probe

[Hortensis]

48. Actually, a lot of ties have been documented between

Russian money and Republican politics involving at least dozens of people in many separate and/or interlinked instances. That there is massive ethical breakdown and corruption has been established and corroborated by many investigative sources.

In some cases evidence has been gathered and statutes reviewed, and laws seem to have clearly been broken. In others, we learn about laws written to protect wrongdoers from prosecution. Mitch McConnell, for instance, is currently shown to be the largest beneficiary in congress of Russian money, in the area of $1m, but so far it's believed to be legal because it was donated to super PACS that serve him. The laws against foreign donations to campaigns don't apply.

Many details about who, how, what influence, and what we're gong to do about it, are still to come. We're in pre-trial stage. And appropriateness of terms like treason, sedition, conspiracy against the U.S. government, has not been established.

[grantcart]

49. and you make my point

a lot of legitimate cases have but that doesn't mean that every single one is.

Both Mitch and Ryan have been shown to be beneficiaries of Russian related funding.

So how logical is it that Ryan would push for the extradition of a hacker to the US. Not at all. That one fact alone is compelling, barring some other significant actual fact, to prove that this one hacker probably is not part of the government operations but an independent crook, of which there are hundreds attacking our businesses, hospitals and even municipal government demanding ransoms.

[Hortensis]

50. Well, I'm not making that point. NO ONE says

everything being speculated about is legitimate, although there may be too much indulgence of facile "belief" by some.

But I agree that Ryan has to be in serious protective mode, raising that big question mark, and you could be right. Another possibility suggested is that this one extradition is in some way government related but small and distant in complex story, giving Ryan a chance to posture on the side of justice while not actually incurring significant additional risk for him personally.

It also likely became inevitable regardless of anything he did. Photos of Ryan bringing an extradited hacker to justice in the U.S. will be useful for obfuscating the picture for the electorate.

[Ilsa]

47. I'm wondering if this hacker isn't a false trail

of some sort that leads to nowhere. Then PR can claim, "See, nothing here!"

[LiberalArkie]

22. Putin has already won his election.

[Shrike47]

3. Hasnt he been melting down every morning lately?

[onecaliberal]

4. He is a walking melt down.

[njhoneybadger]

5. This is the way Spanky punches back when he knows Mueller is ready to release something knew.

[Iliyah]

6. Psycho melts down every waking hour . . . .

I fear the safety of the hacker.

[Hortensis]

13. GRU/FSB assassinations in our prisons are not exactly common,

and one now would not be wise. Just look at the international outrage over Russian political attempted murders of Russian nationals in the UK. And that wasn't even to keep them from giving evidence.

The federal prosecutor in San Francisco has requested detention as an "extreme flight risk," that hearing on April 4, but he's in custody now. Next step is a medical evaluation before pre-trial interviews.

As far as I'm concerned, once he's at least been deposed, but preferably after his trial is complete, he's welcome to drop dead -- but not to be murdered in our federal penitentiary. But by then, why would they bother?

[mitch96]

7. I suspect another "accidental" death coming down the road..

Heart attack? food poisoning? Chinese space junk falling on his head???
m

[PaulX2]

18. Failed Robbery Attempt

Beaten to death in his apartment's doorway.

Poisoned by toxin only found in Russia.

Oh, the list goes on for the people who oppose Putin's criminal regime.

[Flaleftist]

23. Maybe a suicide

Something like shooting himself twice in the back of the head and jumping off a high rise.

[HipChick]

8. Meh - he 'melts' down everyday..Dude has already been in the country for a week..

[uponit7771]

11. +1

[Hugin]

9. I prefer to consider it a flare up in the dumpster fire.

Meltdown implies there was something better earlier.

A dumpster fire is always only a dumpster fire.

Status quo. More of the same.

[Scarsdale]

45. Another bad golf game?

Maybe someone in his foursome forgot the rules - that Spanky has to have the best score? Also, remember that Hope is gone. Hicks finally departed the WH.

[RandomAccess]

12. Important to note --

It's not necessarily of interest to the Mueller investigation --

Nikulin, 30, was arrested in a Prague restaurant on Oct. 5, 2016, and three days later, then-President Barack Obama made his first accusation of Russian meddling in the U.S. election. On Oct. 20, Nikulin was indicted on federal charges of hacking the private user databases of three U.S. internet giants — LinkedIn, Dropbox and Formspring — and mail accounts tied to Google. The indictment alleges Nikulin used several aliases, including Chinabig01 and itBlackHat.

[Hortensis]

16. Yes, but "not necessarily" are the key words.

Check the last paragraph also. He almost certainly has something to say that the Mueller investigation would find interesting, if only to help fill in the picture on what's already uncovered.

[RandomAccess]

17. Yeah, but it had my hopes up a lot higher than it should have

given the facts.

Nevertheless, I'm very glad -- just not elated.

[BobTheSubgenius]

14. I'd love to see a real time graph of Twoscoops' BP and pulse.

Those numbers might not be 'astonishingly excellent.'

[SleeplessinSoCal]

15. Paul Ryan did something to help Mueller?

That is HUGE!

[FakeNoose]

25. Maybe Ryan is looking for a way to embarrass Anthony Weiner

... thereby embarrassing Hillary, indirectly? I can't imagine that Ryan would be trying to help Mueller's investigation.

But you never know. Maybe he's starting to get worried about Midterm re-elections.

[Honeycombe8]

33. No. Paul Ryan wouldn't do that. He has no involvement w/that investigation, and as he's shown,

he is in Trump's pocket. He is loyal to Trump for the tax cuts.

[SleeplessinSoCal]

36. article suggests the opposite.

After he visited the Czeck Republic, the hacker was extradited.

[triron]

38. Hence my post below.

[Honeycombe8]

39. That's because the hacker is unrelated to the Mueller investigation.

The hacking is about businesses...it started back in 2012.

Ryan will NEVER do anything disloyal to Trump. He owes Trump, now. It was a tit for tat: We'll support you, or at least not harm you, in return for the big tax cut bill that will enable us all to make millions every year. After all, we're family. Trump said "It's a deal! We all win! Am I the best deal maker ever, or what?" That's how I see it, anyway.

[triron]

35. Ryan being linked someway to his extradition is unsettling to me.

[FakeNoose]

41. Yes I find this puzzling

Why would Ryan help Mueller's investigation? He has to realize this will circle back to the Trump-CA-Russia investigation.

[Honeycombe8]

42. Ryan will NEVER do anything to harm Trump's Presidency. Never.

He wasn't for Trump, but once Trump was in, it was a marriage. As Ryan said to his co-Republicans in a secret meeting where they laughed about Russia giving money to Trump, "We don't speak about this outside these doors. We're family."

He and Trump made a deal. They support him, and he works with them on Ryan's #1 wet dream: a HUGE tax cut bill for the wealthy, of which he and Trump are two. They made a deal.

Ryan will retire before he does something that harms Trump's Presidency. Ryan is also not involved whatsoever in the Mueller investigation. He's not on the intel committee, anyway. He is, however, a corporate shill, and this hacker hacked some big American businesses.

As Baretta would say, "And that's the name of that tune."

[mahatmakanejeeves]

19. He is one wild and crazy guy.

[ProudLib72]

21. He's the 400lb guy from the New Jersey basement?

Could have fooled me.

[flying_wahini]

26. Anyone here know where this guy will be held? Just curious?

N/t

[DallasNE]

27. Sending Troops To Ukraine May Have Been The Signal

The Czech Republic was looking for before extraditing this individual.

Both are things Trump opposes but they happened anyway. More shake-up coming?

[Alternative Facts]

29. Ryan wants to stick it to the FBI with this extradition!

Ryan is not helping Muller. He is trying to stick it to the FBI. Yevgeniy Nikulin says the FBI tried to bribe him with money and US citizenship if he confessed that Trump and Putin made him hack the DNC email. Ryan wants him back in the US to depose about the following.

http://usdefensewatch.com/2017/08/accused-russian-hacker-yevgeniy-nikulin-claims-the-fbi-offered-him-cash-an-apartment-an-u-s-citizenship-if-he-confessed-to-hacking-hillarys-emails-on-the-orders-of-donald-trump/

Nikulin tells of the FBI coming to visit him in prison and offering him cash, an apartment, and citizenship:
In a letter sent to the Present Time, Nikulin talks about the interrogations that took place on November 14-15, 2016 and February 7, 2017. Interviewed with the people he identifies as “Agent” and “Miller.” A Russian citizen claims that he was offered to take the blame for hacking the post of US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. All quotes from the letter are published with preservation of author’s spelling.

“In the future, I received a proposal from A [gent]:” You will have to declare that you have broken Hillory Clinton’s mailbox for D. Trump on the orders of V. Putin, you must agree to extradition to the USA, here we will remove all the accusations we will give you Apartment and money, American citizenship “- I refused, soon the” interrogation “was over, the Agent said that they would still come,” Nikulin wrote.

[Honeycombe8]

32. You're citing a "Donald Trump for President" site? A rightwing hack site? For a fake story?

I think you'll find the posters here aren't as stupid as Trumpers. We mainly rely on legitimate news, legitimate journalism and sources, cites to authoritative sites with a reputation for truthfulness.

The article you cite even says at top left "DTforPres." Kinda obvious, ya think?

Those really ARE "alternative facts," except of course they aren't facts at all.

[SleeplessinSoCal]

37. We have to deal with the alt facts/con theories asap.

We aren't going to survive as a united nation if we don't.

[Honeycombe8]

40. Click on the link and see what he cited....

It's a "DT for Pres" site (upper left above the article). It's a rightwing hack site.

[Demsrule86]

43. It is Mueller time the GOP wet dream of destroying the FBI won't happen...how long I wonder before

Trump is gone?

[Honeycombe8]

46. Did you click on the link? That's a rightwing hack site that cites "Donald Trump for President."

It's one of those fake rightwing "alternative theories," like Hillary murdering people.

And Democrats are responding, "We have to consider all theories"???? Seriously?

If that's the way it is, all is lost.

[Honeycombe8]

30. I doubt someone in the trenches has contact with American operatives, and not with Trump.

Just thinking out loud.

[triron]

44. knr

[democratisphere]

51. Waterboard the truth out of him!