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DonViejo

(60,536 posts)
Mon Jul 10, 2017, 12:45 PM Jul 2017

Taking Stock of the Times Blockbuster - Josh Marshall

By JOSH MARSHALL Published JULY 9, 2017 6:56 PM

I want to share a few initial thoughts on this afternoon’s Times blockbuster. If you have not seen it yet, yesterday the Times reported that Donald Trump Jr., along with Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort, met last year with a Russian lawyer with close ties to the Kremlin, Natalia Veselnitskaya, about something called the Magnitsky Act. Magnitsky is a sort of mini-sanctions law passed in 2012 which Russia has wanted overturned ever since. (The details of Magnitsky are important but we’ll discuss them later.) That in itself was a major story. This afternoon they followed up with additional details that made it a genuine blockbuster: according to the Times, Trump took the meeting because he was promised that he would receive damaging information about Hillary Clinton.

This is a very big story in that it gets quite close to the first evidence of collusion between the Russian government and the Trump campaign during the 2016 campaign. At a minimum, Trump Jr was open to receiving damaging information about Clinton from Russian nationals who a simple Google search would identify as being closely allied with the Kremlin.

Let me share a few thoughts.

1. What I suspect is the most important detail in this story is the sources. The Times reports that they got the information from “three advisers to the White House briefed on the meeting and two others with knowledge of it.” They apparently talked after the release of the first story. This is highly, highly significant. Needless to say, advisors to the White House are not in the business of taking highly damaging stories and volunteering new information which makes them catastrophically damaging. The only reason a President’s allies ever do something like that is either to get ahead of something much more damaging or get a first crack at shaping the public understanding of something much more damaging. There’s really no other explanation. We don’t know yet what drove them to volunteer such highly damaging information. Five of them did it. It wasn’t a matter of one person going rogue.

2. The Times story doesn’t say whether any damaging information was provided to Trump Jr. It will be interesting to find out whether Veselnitskaya did share any such information.

more
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/taking-stock-of-the-times-blockbuster

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Taking Stock of the Times Blockbuster - Josh Marshall (Original Post) DonViejo Jul 2017 OP
Maybe the staffers realized that that republican Draft-Dodger-in-Chief and his... Achilleaze Jul 2017 #1
Then why did they wait? flamingdem Jul 2017 #2
Manafort and Kushner had to amend their security clearance apps... brush Jul 2017 #3
republican liar karma Achilleaze Jul 2017 #4

Achilleaze

(15,543 posts)
1. Maybe the staffers realized that that republican Draft-Dodger-in-Chief and his...
Mon Jul 10, 2017, 12:51 PM
Jul 2017

cretinous Cabal of Colluding republican Cronies are driving the USA deep into a freaking cesspool of treason, perjury, economic indebtedness, war risk, and just general overall russian-republican KristoFascist Hell? They mighta, coulda, maybe had an attack of conscience.

Could be. Things happen, you know.

brush

(53,475 posts)
3. Manafort and Kushner had to amend their security clearance apps...
Mon Jul 10, 2017, 02:31 PM
Jul 2017

to include previously omitted recollections of meetings with Russians.

Once that was done it came out that trump jr. not only attended the meeting also but helped arranged it.

Their lies are catching up with them.

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