Two Unofficial US Operatives Reporting To Trump’s Lawyer Privately Lobbied A Foreign Government In A Bid To Help The President Win In 2020
Reporting directly to Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, two operators waged a brazen back-channel campaign that could thrust another foreign country to the center of the next US election.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/mikesallah/rudy-giuliani-ukraine-trump-parnas-fruman

Two unofficial envoys reporting directly to Donald Trump’s personal lawyer have waged a remarkable back-channel campaign to discredit the president’s rivals and undermine the special counsel’s inquiry into Russian meddling in US elections.

In a whirlwind of private meetings, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman — who pumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into Republican campaigns and dined with the president — gathered repeatedly with top officials in Ukraine and set up meetings for Trump's attorney, Rudy Giuliani, as they turned up information that could be weaponized in the 2020 presidential race.

The two men urged prosecutors to investigate allegations against the Democratic frontrunner Joe Biden. And they pushed for a probe into accusations that Ukrainian officials plotted to rig the 2016 election in Hillary Clinton’s favor by leaking evidence against Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign chair, in what became a cornerstone of the special counsel’s inquiry.

They also waged an aggressive campaign in the United States, staying at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC, and meeting with key members of Congress as they joined in a successful push that led to the removal of the ambassador to Ukraine, after she angered their allies in Kiev.

Meanwhile, the two men — who both have troubled financial histories — rose to prominence in Republican circles, meeting with party leaders while injecting hundreds of thousands of dollars into top Republican committees and dozens of candidates’ campaigns.

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https://twitter.com/WritesTruths/status/1150210979839565824
https://twitter.com/WritesTruths/status/1150210993299099680
https://twitter.com/WritesTruths/status/1150213073887617025
https://twitter.com/WritesTruths/status/1150215451512889344
https://twitter.com/WritesTruths/status/1150218171439308800
https://twitter.com/WritesTruths/status/1150227503753113600

YES, COLLUSION
Mueller Missed the Crime: Trump’s Campaign Coordinated With Russia
The special counsel will testify before Congress next week. He needs to answer for historic legal and factual errors.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/robert-mueller-missed-the-crime-trumps-campaign-coordinated-with-russia

Ever since the release of the Mueller Report, countless commentators have implored everyone to just #ReadtheReport. The problem is not who is reading it—the problem is the report itself, and its many errors.

Robert Mueller made a significant legal error and erroneously cleared President Donald Trump and his campaign of wrongdoing on campaign coordination with Russia. Mueller’s errors meant that, first, he failed to conclude that the Trump campaign criminally coordinated with Russia; second, he failed to indict campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his deputy Rick Gates for felony campaign coordination (see in a concise timeline below); third, the 10 acts of felony obstruction in Volume II fell flat among the general public because it lacked compelling context of these underlying crimes between the campaign and Russia. On top of these errors, the former special counsel said he deliberately wrote the report to be unclear because it would be unfair to make clear criminal accusations against a president.

The bottom line is that the Mueller Report is a failure not because of Congress or because of public apathy, but because it failed to get the law, the facts, or even the basics of writing right. When Mueller testifies before Congress on July 17, he should be pressed on all of this.

The DOJ’s initial appointment explicitly tasked Mueller with investigating campaign “coordination,” and it is not too much to ask that he get the law of “coordination” right. The report stated that “‘coordination’ does not have a settled definition in federal criminal law. We understood coordination to require an agreement—tacit or express.”

However, Congress purposely sought to prevent such narrow interpretations: in 2002, it passed a statute directing that campaign finance regulations “shall not require agreement or formal collaboration to establish coordination.” The Federal Election Commission established the regulations for the implementation of the statute: “Coordinated means made in cooperation, consultation or concert with, or at the request or suggestion of, a candidate,” with no need to show any kind of agreement.

Outside spending for coordinated communications is an in-kind contribution, and foreign contributions are completely prohibited. And Congress made the criminal penalties unmistakably clear: “Any person who knowingly and willfully commits a violation of any provision of this Act” commits a crime. The Supreme Court upheld these limits in McConnell v. FEC with crucial observations about the functional role of suggestions, rather than agreements: “[E]xpenditures made after a wink or nod often will be as useful to the candidate as cash.” This timeline is full of suggestions far more explicit than winks and nods.

As the Supreme Court acknowledged, this is not about bribery and quid pro quo; it’s about outsourcing a consistent campaign messaging and expenses to known allies. It seems Mueller did not hire any legal experts with experience in campaign finance regulation. Given that this investigation was about campaign crimes, this appears to a revealing oversight with serious consequences.

In addition to ignoring these rules, Mueller also made a major organizational error: Volume I separates the events of Russian hacking from the actions of the Trump campaign. The entire point of a “conspiracy and coordination” investigation was the relationship between the two. The ongoing pattern of signal or invitation with response, of cause-and-effect, gets utterly lost in the hundreds of pages of details, the siloing of each character, and especially in the omissions and the errors.

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Seth Abramson Connects the Dots
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/6/3/1862344/-Seth-Abramson-Connects-the-Dots

During this whole Trump election ordeal, there have been several data points that made no sense at all to me. Three in particular have been haunting:

Why would Kushner be put in charge of “Middle East peace”? He had zero experience and zero skills in that area.

Why would Kushner seek to get a secure communication channel that could not be traced by the NSA or CIA?

WTF was going on with that Seychelles meeting that featured a rogue’s gallery of Arabs and Russians, plus everybody’s favorite mercenary, Erik Prince?

Abramson comments on a new NYTimes story. The story seems rather vague, but Abramson is able to connect dots with his own background. Suddenly those three above questions make perfect sense. Here are the points Abramson makes on Twitter:

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If Abramson is correct in his inferences, and I think he probably is, suddenly those three questions at the top of this post make sense. Specifically:

Kushner was put in charge of “Middle East peace” not to broker a deal, but to carry out the wishes of these 6 nations that were part of the organized attack on America.

The need for a secure channel becomes obvious, as this is treason beyond anything ever known in this country.

And the Seychelles “rogue’s gallery” is not a collection of rogues after all. It is a meeting of the key players in this attack
Why is this not getting more attention? Even on the NYTimes it is already on the back pages.

Not Impeaching Trump Is Riskier than Impeaching Him
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/node/84527

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Impeachment proceedings provide the Democrats the opportunity to establish a compelling narrative of Trump’s extraordinary malfeasance. Such hearings undoubtedly would include first-person accounts from the witnesses on whom Mueller relied, such as former White House Counsel Doug McGahn, detailing Trump’s repeated and felonious abuse of office to obstruct the investigation into Russian interference on his behalf in the 2016 Presidential election. (As Mueller’s report explains, obstruction of justice is committed by an obstructive act, such as firing FBI Director Comey, executed with the intention of obstructing an official proceeding, such as the FBI investigation -- regardless of whether act succeeds, e.g., whether it stops the investigation).

Impeachment hearings also would describe Trump’s numerous covert and discrediting links to the Russian government. Those would include his pursuing a real estate project in Russia while he was running for president and his senior campaign staff meeting with a Russian government agent to secure assistance with his Presidential campaign. Trump repeatedly lied in public to conceal these links. Given the numerous ongoing counter-intelligence investigations pertaining to Russia, and criminal prosecutions spun off by Mueller, it is likely additional evidence of such links would be disclosed in impeachment hearings.

The importance of these covert and discrediting links, regardless of whether they are criminal, is that like the “pee tapes” rumored to be held by the Russians, they provide the Russians leverage over Trump, i.e. the Russians could disclose his secrets. Absent some such leverage; it is difficult to explain Trump’s conduct towards Putin and Russia, such as his destruction of notes held by any American present at his meetings with Putin, and his obsequiousness in Putin’s presence. Few Americans will approve of Trump once he is shown to be, in a sense, “Putin’s poodle.”

While impeachment proceedings likely would show even more grounds for impeachment, such as Trump’s violation of the Constitution’s emoluments clause -- an offense akin to bribery -- the bottom line is that impeachment hearings will demonstrate Trump needs to go. The retort that hearings won’t matter, because Trump’s “base,” presumably referring to his typical 40% approval rating, is unshakeable is manifestly wrong. Base is what is solid, and the 40% is not. For example, only 25% of voters strongly approve of Trump’s performance. That suggests a considerable portion of Trump’s supporters, as is typical for those of any president, can be switched.

The Democratic leadership maintains impeachment without removal would mobilize Trump’s base in 2020. Yet, as the political scientist Jeffrey Isaac has observed, Trump’s base is and will remain mobilized by his ceaseless racist and jingoistic incitement, regardless of impeachment. Conversely, impeachment proceedings likely will reduce Trump’s current support, perhaps down to his true base.

Mitch McConnell threatens to block everything if Trump loses in 2020
Mitch McConnell is already threatening to bring the country to a screeching halt if voters get rid of Trump.
https://shareblue.com/mitch-mcconnell-threat-obstruction-trump-2020-grim-reaper/

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is threatening to kill popular legislation and policies if voters elect a Democratic president in the 2020 election.

"If I'm still the majority leader in the Senate [in 2020], think of me as the Grim Reaper," McConnell told voters in Owensboro, Kentucky, on Monday. "None of that stuff is going to pass."

That stuff McConnell is so eager to kill? Popular progressive ideas like the Green New Deal and Medicare for All, which would help to clean up the environment and provide even more access to affordable health care. Even if voters reject Trump and the Republican agenda in 2020, McConnell is determined to do what he wants rather than what the voters want.

"I guarantee you that if I'm the last man standing and I'm still the majority leader, it ain't happening," he said. "I can promise you."

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Now McConnell is openly stating he will resort to the same tactics again. If America elects a Democratic president, McConnell will do everything in his power to stop the will of the voters. Again.

Trump Is Not Stable — and That Should Be a Huge News Story
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/node/83754

If over the weekend you saw a rambling madman give a frighteningly incoherent, sweaty, two-hour shoutfest of a speech at a right-wing summit, then you viewed a president coming unglued on national television in a way that has probably never been seen before in United States history. And that is extraordinary cause for alarm.

But if, instead, you saw nothing more than a “fiery” Donald Trump give a “zigzagging,” “wide-ranging,” “campaign-like” address where the Republican really “let loose,” then you likely work for the D.C. press, which once again swung and missed when it came to detailing the escalating threat that Trump represents to the country.

Specifically, newsrooms today nearly uniformly refuse to address the mounting, obvious signs that Trump is a deeply unstable man, as the CPAC meltdown so obviously demonstrated. Most reporters simply do not want to mention it. “In most ways, it was just another campaign rally for the president, in flavor, content, and punchlines,” the Daily Beast reported, summing up Trump’s CPAC calamity. In other words: Nothing to see here, folks.

That was typical of CPAC coverage. “Trump derides Mueller probe, mocks Democrats and his former attorney general,” the Washington Post headline announced. The accompanying article didn’t include even the slightest hint that Trump’s speech was a flashing neon-red sign of a man teetering on the edge. That is a bionic-level attempt to normalize Trump and his CPAC disaster, where he referred to 2020 Democratic candidates as “maniacs,” suggested they “hate their country,” and accused the Democratic Party of supporting “extreme late-term abortion.”

That wasn’t just some “long-winded” or “rambling” speech. That was pure insanity, and the fact that a sitting president unleashed such a bizarre performance, punctuated by so many incomprehensible nonsequiturs, means his stability and capacity ought to be questioned—and it ought to be a pressing news story.

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