Well worth a read

[DemocratSinceBirth]

Why did Don Jr.'s emails surface? Because Robert Mueller is already changing Washington's lying ways

For more than a year, the most senior officials in the Trump administration have adamantly, even scornfully, denied that there was any contact between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. The bombshell report earlier this week of Donald Trump Jr.’s efforts to secure dirt on Hillary Clinton from Russian officials — and his June 9, 2016, meeting with the supposed purveyor of that dirt as well as then-Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and his father’s aide Jared Kushner — has put the lie to those denials.

Why has the truth emerged now? A careful parsing of the events of the last few days points to the importance of the federal criminal investigation overseen by a stalwart special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III. His behind-the-scenes work already has changed the rules of the game for the White House and contributed to a more accurate public accounting.

...


Perhaps no quality has more stunned and frustrated the president’s critics than his brazen willingness to lie. Trump frequently appears to have no independent regard for truth, to see veracity in purely expedient terms: What he can get away with in public debate. More dumbfounding, he and others in the White House do seem to get away with it, ridiculing plainly objective accounts as “fake news.”

But the prospect of genuine legal jeopardy upends the calculation, certainly for Trump’s subordinates, who have future careers to lose, families to raise and, unlike the president, no general insulation from criminal prosecution. It is probable that some powerful people will be going to jail as a result of the Mueller investigation. Among the likeliest candidates are those who don’t realize that the game has changed, and that in the ambit of the special counsel investigation, and the courts of law, a lie is a lie.


http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-litman-the-special-counselor-is-already-getting-the-truth-out-20170714-story.html

[H2O Man]

1. Recommended.

Thank you for this!

[Achilleaze]

2. Decent Americans have been disgusted with Republican Russian lies

For a long time. Republican perjurers and traitors should be investigated, prosecuted, and locked up.

[magicarpet]

11. Should have been tried...convicted...incarcerated

Nixon
Reagan/Bush
Bush/Cheney
Trump/Pence

We let them off scot-free and they become more and more brazen next time around.

[SusanaMontana41]

3. Yes! Thank you!

LA Times has waaay out in front of Trumpf the Terrible since his election. Nice to see the watchdogs again! The Fourth Estate just might save us.

[lib-ruhl]

4. With money there is power...

His lying, deceiving and bullying may have worked in his business life but he's finding out the hard way it doesn't work when you're president. As frustrating as it is now everything will soon come crashing down on him so be patient.

[Amaryllis]

5. Thanks; I needed that. Something that shows the tide is turning.

[Amaryllis]

6. THis is interesting:

"The Trump Jr. emails have given rise to a circular firing squad in the West Wing that we are told features widespread suspicions of Kushner."

Since they all have separate legal representation, they will all be protecting their own asses which means telling on the others.

[Honeycombe8]

8. Hmm. I don't see Kushner & Jr. blaming ea. other. They're family.

But if they do, it'd be interesting to see who Trump stands behind more. Jr. is blood and a first born son. But Kushner is a billionaire, married family, and the head of a large organization like himself. It is Kushner to whom he has given the plumb jobs in the W.H. & who is a close advisor.

Whether he tweets about it or not, it'll be interesting to find out who he stands behind more.

[WhiteTara]

9. Kushner is only family by marriage

so he's really not family.

[magicarpet]

12. Kushner is a calming influence for djt.sr

Jared is soft spoken.
Jared has the education djt wishes he had gotten.
Jared is married to the girl djt wishes was his wife.
Jared is a sleaze-bag like djt but likely gets away with more because he is soft spoken and not such an in your face braggart.

This band of sleaze-bags should never had reached for the brass ring of the White House. Just remained in their fraudulent business of real estate holdings and money laundering operations with the criminal under world - their screwed up lives would have gone just fine and dandy. With all the comforts they could want or need.

But once these tr-dump sleaze-bags stood under the intense glare of the spotlight and scrutiny of national political exposure their fraudulent house of cards came crashing down from every which direction at once.

If they were clean and pure that would be one thing.... but team tr-dump is so filthy, rotten dirty .....once all is revealed... they will crash and burn real hard..... no soft landing in store for them ... as usually happens .....this time their lives a smoldering mess of personal and financial ruins.

They deserve the bad karma coming their way.

[Honeycombe8]

13. I think Trump probably regards him as much as blood family. He's father of grandkids...

and more like Trump, Sr., than Jr. is. The son Trump always wanted? And Ivanka's hubby...Ivanka is w/o a doubt his favorite child.

I think he regards both highly, though. I think he'd find a way to support both. But you could be right.

[malaise]

7. Good read

Rec

[coeur_de_lion]

10. K & R