Maybe the president is exactly as compromised as he looks.
.. No matter how low your expectations for the summit between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin on Monday, it was hard not to be staggered by the American president’s slavish and toadying performance... Dan Coats, gave a speech about America’s vulnerability to cyberattacks, particularly from Russia. “I’m here to say, the warning lights are blinking red again,” he said, comparing the threat to the one that preceded Sept. 11... Trump sided with the Russian president against American intelligence agencies while spewing lies and conspiracy theories. “He just said it’s not Russia,” he said of Putin’s denials. “I will say this. I don’t see any reason why it would be.” Continuing in a free-associative fugue, he asked, “What happened to the servers of the Pakistani gentleman that worked on the D.N.C.?” referring to a debunked right-wing claim about a former Democratic I.T. staffer... Perhaps the most sinister part of the news conference was Trump’s seeming openness to a deal in which F.B.I. investigators could question people in Russia in exchange for letting Russians question Putin critics in America... Putin referred specifically to associates of his arch-nemesis Bill Browder, a businessman (and British citizen) who has succeeded in getting seven countries, including the United States, to pass laws punishing Russian oligarchs suspected of corruption. (The Russians who met with members of the Trump campaign at Trump Tower in June 2016 wanted to discuss this law, the Magnitsky Act.).. “I’ve known for a long time that Putin has been trying to use every trick in the book to get me arrested in a foreign country and extradited back to Russia,” Browder told me after the news conference. It’s chilling that Trump appeared willing to help Putin with his vendetta... John McCain, Republican of Arizona, described it as “one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory.” Even some Trump partisans were aghast. Newt Gingrich decried it as the “most serious mistake” of Trump’s presidency... Trump’s behavior on Monday recalled his outburst at Trump Tower after the violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, when he insisted there were “very fine people” among the racist demonstrators... everything Trump said was in keeping with things he’d said before. The shocking part was his frankness... it forced, if just for a moment, a collective apprehension of just what a repulsive abomination this presidency is... It’s always been obvious that Trump does not hold Russia’s hacking of the 2016 election, which he publicly encouraged and gleefully benefited from, against Putin... None of us yet know the exact contours of Trump’s relationship with Russia, whether Putin is
- his handler,
- his co-conspirator
- or just his hero.
But it’s clear that Trump is willing to sell out American democracy for personal gain.
.. on July 27, 2016, he publicly called for Russia to find Clinton’s emails, and, thanks to Friday’s indictments, we now know Russia started trying to hack the domain used by her personal office that very day.
.. Trump’s collusion with Russia has always been out in the open, daring us to recognize what’s in front of our faces.
.. Some doubt that Trump is a Russian puppet precisely because his fealty to Putin is so blatant and undisguised.
.. Mariia Butina
.. who worked for the Russian politician and alleged organized crime figure Alexander Torshin, presented herself as a Russian gun rights activist, and spent years cultivating links to the National Rifle Association.
.. She became a fixture in some pro-Trump circles and was reportedly especially close to a conservative operative named Paul Erickson.
.. hosting a birthday costume party that was attended by Trump aides.
“She dressed as Russian Empress Alexandra while Erickson was dressed as Rasputin,”
.. At the party, Butina reportedly boasted that she’d helped the Trump campaign communicate with Russia. If there was a reason to doubt that she was a Russian spy, it was only that one would expect a Russian spy to be subtler.
.. This weekend, Butina was arrested in Washington, and on Monday a criminal complaint against her for acting as a Russian agent was unsealed. She was accused of conspiracy to “exploit personal connections with U.S. persons having influence in American politics in an effort to advance the interests of the Russian Federation.”
.. Sometimes things are exactly as bad as they appear.
Trump’s Michael Cohen problem just keeps looking more ominous
During the presidential campaign, National Enquirer executives sent digital copies of the tabloid’s articles and cover images related to Donald Trump and his political opponents to Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen in advance of publication, according to three people with knowledge of the matter — an unusual practice that speaks to the close relationship between Trump and David Pecker, chief executive of American Media Inc., the Enquirer’s parent company.
Although the company strongly denies ever sharing such material before publication, these three individuals say the sharing of material continued after Trump took office.
“Since Trump’s become president and even before, [Pecker] openly just has been willing to turn the magazine and the cover over to the Trump machine,” said one of the people with knowledge of the practice.
During the campaign, “if it was a story specifically about Trump, then it was sent over to Michael, and as long as there were no objections from him, the story could be published,” this person added.
.. During the presidential campaign, National Enquirer executives sent digital copies of the tabloid’s articles and cover images related to Donald Trump and his political opponents to Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen in advance of publication, according to three people with knowledge of the matter — an unusual practice that speaks to the close relationship between Trump and David Pecker, chief executive of American Media Inc., the Enquirer’s parent company.Although the company strongly denies ever sharing such material before publication, these three individuals say the sharing of material continued after Trump took office.
“Since Trump’s become president and even before, [Pecker] openly just has been willing to turn the magazine and the cover over to the Trump machine,” said one of the people with knowledge of the practice.
At least six people close to Trump almost certainly knew about offers from Russians of dirt on Clinton
Roger Stone, means that at least six members of Trump’s broader team knew about offers of dirt from Russians during that campaign — and, depending on how that information was shared, as many as 10 may have, including Trump.
.. Papadopoulos sent an email to Trump adviser Stephen Miller the day after Mifsud reached out to him, telling Miller he had some “interesting messages” coming in from Moscow.
.. Trump’s argument has long been that there was no collusion between his campaign and the Russian government. That claim increasingly depends on how one defines “collusion.”
Did Trump Jr. call the blocked number, or vice versa?
Was Trump Jr. the only member of the Trump campaign to share that same private anticipation? Did Manafort and Kushner also know what the point of the meeting was? Did the candidate, Donald Trump? In other words, were all four of them planning to play ball with what the Russians offered?
.. This week, the Senate Judiciary Committee released testimony from Trump Jr. and Goldstone that made fairly clear that both Manafort and Kushner knew what the point of the meeting was.
.. But before Trump Jr. took the meeting, he wanted to confirm with Goldstone’s boss that it was legitimate. “Perhaps I just speak to Emin [Agalarov] first,” he wrote in his initial response to Goldstone, referring to the developer/musician with whom Goldstone worked. Goldstone worked to set that call up, and Trump Jr. received a call on June 6 from Russia that lasted one or two minutes and later placed one to Russia that lasted two or three minutes. (Trump Jr. has insisted that he doesn’t remember speaking with Agalarov and that perhaps the calls back and forth, including one from Agalarov to Trump Jr. at around noon on June 7 were an exchange of voice mails.)
.. In between those calls on June 6, though, was a mysterious one. Trump Jr. was in contact with a blocked number for three to four minutes. (Call logs round up to the nearest minute in reporting call lengths.) Immediately after ending that call, Trump Jr. called Agalarov.
.. Without subpoenaing records — which Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) told The Post’s Greg Sargent that the Republican majority on the House Intelligence Committee refused to do — it’s impossible to know who was on the other end.
.. But there’s another question that remains unanswered and is potentially important: Did Trump Jr. call the blocked number, or did the blocked number call him?
On CNN Thursday night, Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) described the call as outgoing. The implication from an outgoing call, of course, is that Trump Jr. was seeking advice before he called Agalarov back. (His first call to Agalarov came immediately after that blocked-number call.) If Trump Jr. received the call, the timing is still suspicious, but it’s possible that the call is not related to the investigation.
.. In short, the evidence suggests that the call was indeed made to Trump Jr. from the blocked number. The vagueness about the subject — an important one when considering the critical question of whether Donald Trump knew about the meeting — is likely a function both of the lack of curiosity among House Republicans and an eagerness by some Democrats to present the call as outgoing. It still seems likely that the call involved Trump, given the context, but it’s still a mystery.
.. At least two people probably know who that call involved. One is Trump Jr., despite the denials in his testimony.
The other is special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.