a quick poll about Russia and Donald Trump

https://newrepublic.com/article/143586/trumps-russian-laundromat-trump-tower-luxury-high-rises-dirty-money-international-crime-syndicate

There are dozens of things about this that will annoy some here - conflating Uzbeks with Russians, jumping all over the timeline, and so forth - but a decent rundown of how Trump since the 90s has been a willing silent partner in multiple money laundering activities by ruthless gangsters from the former SSRs, and eventually just started pursuing them as a fundamental demographic in his business model

i thought this was sensible https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-and-congress-are-probably-on-a-collision-course-over-russia/

damn

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/rnc-employees-asked-save-all-2016-campaign-documents

old news : )

http://www.npr.org/2017/07/28/539802914/businessman-paints-a-terrifying-and-complex-picture-of-putins-russia

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/02/opinion/donald-trump-russia-collusion-cia.html?_r=0

At the end of all of this, in a few months or a few years, several people in the Trump circle will be found guilty, or indicted, or otherwise be branded as complicit turncoats and disposed of/fired. Everyone short of Trump himself, tainted and still suspicious but too isolated and stupid to be a major player in this kerfuffle. And once those other half a dozen or a dozen or more people are out of the picture, his most die-hard loyalists, hacks and hypocrites will say, okay, let's put this behind us, time to move on, give Trump a chance.

the aspens will already be turning

Ok lol

the alleged financial shenanigans that pre-date last November's election

the slow-dancing with Russian oligarchs

the infusions of cash from the banks of the Volga that kept the Trump Organization in business

the overpayment by Russians for condos owned by the Trump Organization

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a56839/mueller-trump-finances-russia/

i believe over-payment on condos is how they got Benedict Arnold

i believe russian jets have always buzzed DC

http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/09/us/russian-air-force-tu154-overflight-dc/index.html

Dan Gaffney, spokesman for the DTRA, declined to confirm the surveilled targets

not gonna lie, my heart skipped a beat there

lol

putin is playing comrade combover like a fiddle

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/14/world/asia/north-korea-missiles-ukraine-factory.html

but her emails

8/ will be discussed. During all of the interviews, a FBI agent will be present, which makes it a crime to knowingly and willfully make a

— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) August 12, 2017

More direct link to start of thread:

THREAD: What does the news that Mueller is interviewing White House officials mean for the investigation? https://t.co/N5x95qhHcU

— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) August 12, 2017

fingers crossed this guy is the next MOOCH

http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/14/politics/george-papadopoulos-russia-trump/index.html

Webster's dad?

THREAD: Why does it matter that a Ukrainian hacker is cooperating with Mueller's investigation? https://t.co/mhZVbXg9lo

— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) August 16, 2017

According to people briefed on the developments, Steele has met with the FBI and provided agents with the names of his sources for the allegations in the dossier

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/glenn-simpson-key-figure-million-dollar-dossier-face/story?id=49348102

"look up pee tape," steele is reported to have told investigators

man what a great week it would be for *this* to come back

i may regret saying this, but for now, the email prankster owns

More: Breitbart editor suggests he could have Jared Kushner & Ivanka Trump ousted from White House "by end of year" https://t.co/LciboyiRTZ pic.twitter.com/A8K365k5iq

— CNN (@CNN) August 22, 2017

Yeah, Steele is probably all http://lmgtfy.com/?q=trump+pee+tape

I wonder if the 8 votes for "nothing" would shift to something if we re-polled the question.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/rick-dearborn-emails-trump-campaign-putin-meeting

Grabbing lunch tomorrow with my former Federal prosecutor friend turned legal talking head. Any questions? He's an expert on white collar crime and, well, a lot of the stuff Trump has been accused of.

How is babby formed

Done. Wait, Russian babby? Trump babby?

Same difference

http://i3.cpcache.com/product/423928021/stork_baby_russia_usa_tshirt.jpg?width=300&height=300&Filters=%5B%7B%22name%22%3A%22crop%22%2C%22value%22%3A%7B%22x%22%3A25.0%2C%22y%22%3A0.0%2C%22w%22%3A250%2C%22h%22%3A300.0%7D%2C%22sequence%22%3A1%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22background%22%2C%22value%22%3A%22F2F2F2%22%2C%22sequence%22%3A2%7D%5D

How do I shot marriage, why is Dave Matthews so bad & hated, can I run bass through a guitar amp

Done, done and done.

Is it reasonable to hope that Congress can way instain

I think my major questions be answered until Mueller spits out a report. So, just getting his general impressions based on news leaks to date would be intriguing enough.

OK, here is what I learned:

1) Mueller and his crew recognize the importance of this investigation to a huge degree - several of his people (my friend had applied to be one of them) left very big and/or lucrative jobs to join his team - so anything regarding the investigation that gets leaked or revealed absolutely is not coming from them.

2) White collar crimes are exceptionally hard to prove, since so many require knowing what was in the accused's mind, why they did what they did. So short of a dramatic smoking gun, he thinks Trump himself is very unlikely to be charged with anything. If he is, my friend thinks from what we know so far that obstruction would be the most likely charge. No way to know how Congress would handle that or any other charge.

3) Of the satellites, he says Manafort seems to be in the most trouble, not least because of the foreign agent stuff but also because there is a high bar for approving an FBI raid of his house. He says the Kush has good lawyers, Don Jr., has bad legal counsel, but from their relative silence lately Kush, Flynn, DJTJ, even Manafort seem to be taking this very seriously. He says there is no way Trump's lawyers have not told him how serious this all is, so has no idea why Trump continues to make things worse for himself.

4) When a man and a woman love each other very much, that is how a babby is made. Except for Trump, who can fuck himself.

My friend, btw, told me both of his parents are Trump voters/supporters, but while his dad is a lost cause (a prosperity evangelical who literally believes Trump was chosen by god), his mom seems to be responding to facts and reporting the right way. Generally, my friend thinks the damaging of the press/free press might be the worst thing to come out of this whole mess.

was there any speculation about why bannon hasn't (or doesn't seem to have) lawyered up? if there's dirt, did he get involved too late in the campaign to get smeared?

thx for the summary

xpost Bannon is actually not human so they're not sure how to charge him in court

"Unfortunately, despite a thorough search of the literature, we find that the law has no precise precedent for indicting a collection of gelatinous toxic slime molds. Therefore, Mr Bannon, you are free to go (alas). However, the court strongly requests that you wait to disband into your component parts until after you have left the building."

2) White collar crimes are exceptionally hard to prove, since so many require knowing what was in the accused's mind, why they did what they did. So short of a dramatic smoking gun, he thinks Trump himself is very unlikely to be charged with anything. If he is, my friend thinks from what we know so far that obstruction would be the most likely charge. No way to know how Congress would handle that or any other charge.

this is one of the reasons the DOJ didnt want to go after 2008 financial crisis bad guys, but still. barely even tried.

Yeah, he brought that up. Wasn't the idea of the New Yorker piece on that basically fear of failure on the part of lawyers?

Yeah its also outrageously expensive to prosecute and the FBIs resources are mostly directed to national security/counter-terrorism.

fwiw, other tidbits he told me were that his firm was more or less OK with his talking head appearances as long as he kept up his regular workload and the appearances remained pretty legal/neutral, vs. political, though he's pushed at that a little in published OpEds; there were concerns in particular that firm lobbyists in DC could bear the brunt of any blowback should he piss off the admin. On the work front, he said he's actually losing money being a talking head, since he could be working or generating new jobs for the firm, but that's all relative. He said he mostly does it for fun. He's been on CNN and MSNBC a bunch, from their little remote studios. The one time he was dumped into some right/left crossfire situation for some radio show he found it so unpleasant he doesn't want to go that route again.

Per resources, he noted once back in his federal prosecutor days that it was just him and his second counsel going up against this whole team of bank lawyers, and they felt seriously outgunned, though he pointed out that Mueller and his team should have the resources they need. I asked him what might happen should Mueller turn up other tangentially related stuff, and he said a lot of its use would be proscribed by the terms of the grand jury. That is, if it took a grand jury to get the info, it'll likely stay locked up forever if it doesn't make it into any sort of final report. (I think I'm remembering this correctly.) There's also the matter of statue of limitations for past crimes. He worked on the Dennis Hastert case here, and noted that Hastert was ultimately prosecuted for tax infractions stemming from his payoffs, not for the crimes themselves, which had happened long ago. But he said that kind of thing is usually pretty frowned upon, so if Mueller found some similar sort of past sneakiness he might not pursue it or include it in his investigation, mostly to maintain the reputation of the office. Federal prosecutors and their ilk take their jobs and offices really seriously.

I am relieved to finally know how is babby formed

The details of the deal, which have not previously been disclosed, provide evidence that Trump’s business was actively pursuing significant commercial interests in Russia at the same time he was campaigning to be president — and in a position to determine U.S.-Russia relations.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-business-sought-deal-on-a-trump-tower-in-moscow-while-he-ran-for-president/2017/08/27/d6e95114-8b65-11e7-91d5-ab4e4bb76a3a_story.html?utm_term=.2616a3130ae2

1/ Stunning: Trump failed to disclose a large pending deal in Moscow while he ran for White House via @CarolLeonnig https://t.co/ARkRb5dIAW

— Andrew S. Weiss (@andrewsweiss) August 28, 2017

Apparently questions re: Trump Tower Russia being referred to Cohen's lawyer.

Per your friend's comment:

So short of a dramatic smoking gun, he thinks Trump himself is very unlikely to be charged with anything.

Not saying this was a smoking gun, but perhaps a whiff of grapeshot?

It all sounds bad and messy, but I think my friend's point is it is not necessarily criminal to be friends and associate with criminals. It's a pretty high bar to prove Trump himself knowingly did anything illegal here short a paper trail of explicit contractions and cover-ups. For example, he told me about this one real estate mogul he prosecuted who was giving different PowerPoint presentations with different numbers to different audiences. That's bad. But just getting in bed with sketchy partners is not itself illegal. However, it could lead to the discovery of a legality, and obviously the more people swept into the net increases those odds, assuming there is anything there.