Grasswire2
Grasswire2's JournalConspiracy Memo About Obama Aides Circulated In WH
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n early 2017, some of Donald Trump’s advisers concluded that they faced a sophisticated threat responsible for “coordinated attacks” on the new Administration. They circulated a memo, titled “The Echo Chamber,” which read like a U.S. military-intelligence officer’s analysis of a foreign-insurgent network. Instead of being about enemies in a distant war zone, however, the network described in the memo consisted of former aides to President Barack Obama.
The memo claimed that the “communications infrastructure” that the Obama White House used to “sell Obamacare and the Iran Deal to the public” had been moved to the private sector, now that the former aides were out of government. It called the network the Echo Chamber and accused its members of mounting a coördinated effort “to undermine President Trump’s foreign policy” through organized attacks in the press against Trump and his advisers. “These are the Obama loyalists who are probably among those coordinating the daily/weekly battle rhythm,” the memo said, adding that they likely operated a “virtual war room.” The memo lists Ben Rhodes, a former deputy national-security adviser to President Obama, as “likely the brain behind this operation” and Colin Kahl, Vice-President Joe Biden’s former national-security adviser, as its “likely ops chief.” Rhodes and Kahl both said in interviews that the allegations are false and no such organization exists.
The memo is unsigned and undated, and Trump Administration officials familiar with it offered conflicting accounts of who authored it and whether it originated inside or outside the White House. The officials said that it was circulated within the National Security Council and other parts of the Trump White House in early 2017. They said the memo may have had additional pages. A National Security Council spokesperson declined to comment
Can Trump afford to free Sessions to flip by firing him?
Sessions might see how he could be a hero by ratting out the whole shebang.
Robert Reich's proposal: ANNULMENT of Trump's presidency.
ANNULMENT OF THE TRUMP PRESIDENCY
Suppose Robert Mueller comes up with overwhelming evidence that Trump colluded with Russia to become President, and that, were it not for Russia’s actions during the election, Trump would not have been elected. In other words, Trump’s presidency is not authorized under the United States Constitution.
Impeachment in the House and conviction in the Senate would remove Trump from office. This would remedy Trump’s “high crimes and misdemeanors.”
But impeachment would not remedy Trump’s unconstitutional presidency because it would leave in place his vice president, White House staff and Cabinet, as well as all the executive orders he issued and all the legislation he signed, and the official record of his presidency.
The only way to respond to an unconstitutional presidency is to annul it. Annulment would repeal all of an unconstitutional president’s appointments and executive actions, and would eliminate the official record of the presidency. Annulment would recognize that all such appointments, actions, and records were made without constitutional authority.
The Constitution does not specifically provide for annulment of an unconstitutional presidency. But read as a whole, the Constitution leads to the logical conclusion that annulment is the appropriate remedy for one.
After all, the Supreme Court can declare legislation that doesn’t comport with the Constitution null and void. It would logically follow that the Court could declare all the legislation and executive actions of a presidency unauthorized by the Constitution to be null and void.
The Constitution also gives Congress and the states the power to amend the Constitution, thereby annulling or altering whatever provisions came before. Here, too, it would logically follow that Congress and the states could, through amendment, annul the actions of a presidency they determine to be unconstitutional.
I am not suggesting that constitutional annulment of the Trump presidency is likely. I am only arguing that, in the face of overwhelming evidence that his presidency was never authorized under the Constitution, there are ample grounds for arguing it should and can be annulled.
From his FB notes.
ALERT RANSOMWARE ATTACK
I clicked on the OP that contains a luckovich cartoon and immediately was hit with Ransomeware. My laptop is locked up. Damn.
What a mess.
"Cohen won't accept a pardon"
[link:https://www.politico.com/story/2018/08/22/michael-cohen-trump-lanny-davis-helsinki-791359|
President Donald Trump's former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen will "under no circumstances" accept a pardon from his former boss, Cohen's attorney Lanny Davis said Wednesday.
Cohen pleaded guilty Tuesday in a Manhattan federal court to violating campaign finance laws during the 2016 campaign, including making hush-money payments to two women who claim they had affairs with the president. Cohen implicated the president in his guilty plea, telling the court that he made those payments "in coordination and at the direction of a candidate for federal office."
Asked whether his client would seek a pardon from the president, Cohen's attorney Lanny Davis said "the answer is definitively no" during an appearance on CNN Wednesday morning.
"His answer would be no, I do not want a pardon from this man," Davis said. "Under no circumstances, since he came to the judgment after Mr. Trump's election to the presidency of the United States that his suitability is a serious risk to our country. And certainly after Helsinki, creates serious questions about his loyalty to our country."
Davis was a fixture on Wednesday morning's TV news programs, sitting for at least five interviews that aired before 9 a.m., including all three network morning shows — NBC's "Today," ABC's "Good Morning America" and "CBS This Morning."
Abramson on possibility of Manafort pardon....
[link:https://screenshots.firefox.com/g20n6tfT0Rk22zC3/twitter.com|
Seth Abramson
?Verified account @SethAbramson
1h1 hour ago
My take on the legality of a Manafort pardon: when Cohen revealed that Trump knew of and approved Manafort—and others—meeting with Russian agents to get stolen Clinton materials 3+ weeks ago, it made Trump an unindicted Manafort co-conspirator. POTUS can't pardon co-conspirators.
Christopher Steele almost got lost in today's news blitz....
[link:https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/aug/21/author-of-trump-russia-dossier-wins-libel-case-in-us-court-christopher-steele|
The former MI6 officer Christopher Steele has won a legal battle in the United States against three Russian oligarchs who sued him over allegations made in his dossier about the Trump campaign and its links with Moscow.
The oligarchs – Mikhail Fridman, Petr Aven and German Khan – claimed that Steele and his intelligence firm, Orbis, defamed them in the dossier, which was leaked and published in early 2017. The Russians own stakes in Moscow-based Alfa Bank. All are billionaires.
On Monday, a judge in the District of Columbia, Anthony C Epstein, upheld a motion by Steele to have the oligarchs’ case thrown out. Epstein did not determine whether the dossier – which Donald Trump has repeatedly dismissed as “fake” – was “accurate or not accurate”.
But the judge concluded that it was covered by the US first amendment, which protects free speech. He ruled that the oligarchs had failed to prove a key part of their case: that Steele knew that some information in the dossier was inaccurate, and had acted “with reckless disregard as to its falsity”.
Seth Abramson on the day's news...
Seth Abramson
?Verified account @SethAbramson
8m8 minutes ago
It's too much to hope for, but the idea of a Cohen plea and a Manafort guilty verdict on the same day is like a hot fudge sundae sitting on a rainbow.
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