Speaking of dogs, my 2 year old golden, Brodie had a run in with a skunk last night. Quickly discovered that a quart of hydrogen peroxide, a quarter cup of baking soda and some dish soap takes care of it.
Timeline of Trump/Russia corruption, cyber-espionage, obstruction and treason
- Thread starter Elfiero
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That works, we found it a few years ago. Greyhounds are faster than skunks.
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This is comical to me.
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I was inspired to grill 2 giant T-bone steaks. So good.
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Right? It was a good one. Usually, when someone insults you, you may get mad and insult them in return. It literally made me laugh out loud.
Sunday morning so I usually take the time to make french press coffee. What's everybody else got?
I brewed this morning. Getting ready to smoke ribs for the game.
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I tried that a couple times but couldn't get it to come out right without using a lot more coffee beans than I expected. Any advice?
I usually buy dark roast whole beans and grind them with a cheapo grinder. Maybe they are not ground fine enough.
So just what do we know about what Russia did or didn’t do involving the 2016 election and how the Trump campaign responded? Quite a bit actually, even though new Special Prosecutor Mueller has just started to get his feet on the ground.
I’ll tell you, when you actually lay it out all out item by item in chronological order a lot of patterns and actions/reactions become eminently clear. WIthout getting into classified or confidential data that isn’t yet public knowledge, what is public knowledge is already fairly stunning.
[This timeline has been continued with Vol#2 and Vol#3 due to length]
1985 — Australian government rejects a bid for a Trump Casino in Sydney because of his alleged ties to the mafia.
1986 — Trump attempts to gain a posting to Russia as part of the Reagan Administration and says he could sit down with Gorbechev to negotiate an end to the cold war “in an hour.”
1990 — Trump’s Taj Mahal casino, which is a favorite gambling spot for Russian mobsters living in Brooklyn, is cited 106 times in 18 months for violating money laundering rules, particular failing to report when someone wins and withdraws more then $10,000.
1991 — Taj Mahal files for bankrupcy protection, Trump sells his 50% share. After this and his other Casino bankruptcies most major banks no longer authorize loans to the Trump organization.
1998 -- Felix Sater a Russian born violent convict with ties to the Russian Mob — who are frequently used by Russian intelligence to do their dirty work and fund blackbag operations — gets caught up in a $40 Million stock fraud case but is only fined $35,000 in exchange for becoming an FBI informant.
2000 — Former KGB Agent Alexander Litvinenko defects to Britain.
GAO does analysis of Russian-American oligarch Ike Kaveladze and his involvement in starting 2000 shell companies which could be involved in money laundering.
2001-2007 — At least 63 Russian Oligarchs lease, rent or buy various Trump propertetes in South Florida spending upwards of $98.5 Million on them, many of these deals with Russian nationals in Manhattan reportedly are arranged through Bayrock Group LLC whose offices are located on the 24th floor of Trump Tower. Felix Sater becomes Bayrock’s managing director. Their first joint project together, in 2003, is building a Trump Tower in Phoenix.
2005 — TrumpCo puts together it’s first proposal for Trump Tower Moscow in coordination with BayRock LLC.
2006 — Alexander Litvinenko is poisoned by Polonium-210 and slowly dies of radiation sickness, he points to Putin as being behind his murder before he dies. His case officer with MI-6 is Christopher Steele.
2008 —Trump sells a Palm Beach Mansion to a Russian Oligarch for $95 Million after purchasing it just 2 years previously for only $45 Million.
Donald Jr. states “We get a lot to money from Russia.”
Felix Sater leaves Bayrock after his criminal record is revealed and goes to work for Trump.
Bayrock founder Tefvik Arif is busted and prosecuted for his connection to an underage prostitution ring in Turkey, he is eventually acquitted.
2009 — U.S. investor Bill Browder is expelled from Russia and his assets are used to setup a $230 Million tax rebate scam. Browder’s lawyer Sergei Magnitski discovers the scam and testifies to reveal it, he is subsequently arrested, tortured and murdered in a Russian jail, beaten to death by the guards.
2010 — A racketeering case is filed against Bayrock, Sater and Arif alleging they had been “substantially and covertly mob-owned and operated.”
2011 — Trump Soho a joint venture condo project by TrumpCO and Bayrock is sued for defrauding buyers with inflated claims. The suit is settled with a payout of $3.19 Million and a potential criminal case is avoided.
March 2011 — Trump begins his birther campaign against President Obama claiming there’s something wrong with his birth certificate. He also demands Obama's college transcripts alleging he didn't deserve access to Harvard, and claims that his best selling book “Dreams From My Father" was really ghostwritten by Bill Ayers.
May 2011 --
Obama authorizes the Bin Laden Raid, then attends the White House Correspondents dinner, Donald Trump is in the audience.
Obama reveals his long-form birth certificate and takes a couple shots at Donald, but Seth Myer brutalizes him from behind the podium. Myer's theorizes Trump decided to run for President right then and there in retaliation.
2012 — Obama signs the Magnitski Act following the jail house death of Sergey Magnitski after he was wrongfully imprisoned for investigation Russia corruption and laundering of money stolen from American businessmen Bill Browder. Putin responds by cancelling the adoption of Russian orphans by American parents. This act is strongly supported by Russian opposition leaders Boris Nemtsov and Vladimir Kara-Murza.
Exxon signs a $500 Billion deal with Russian Oil giant Rosneft for drilling in the Black sea.
2013 —
Russian mobsters renting property in Trump Tower just three floors below the penthouse suite are arrested for money laundering and running an illegal gambling ring at the end of a 2 year investigation. One of the attorney’s for the defendant Denys Katsyv of the Prevezon Group is Natalia Veselnitskaya, and the prosecutor is Preet Bharara, some of the stolen money is connected to Bill Browder’s investigation and the murder of Magnitski in Russia.
Several months later Trump holds the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow, the apparent money-laundering ring leader who remains at large is welcomed on the Red Carpet at the event. While in Moscow Trump reportedly meets with several high ranking oligarchs with ties to Putin, including Billionaire Russian Real Estate developer Arag Agalarov and his Pop Star son Emil who partners with Trump on the pageant.
Video shot before the pageant shows Trump at dinner with Emin and Aras Agalarov, as well as Rob Goldstone Emin’s promoter. Michael Isakoff talks to Goldstone who reveals that Trump has plans to license a new Trump Tower in Russia with Agalarov as the local builder/owner. Don jr. is in charge of the project and Ivanka goes on location scouting trips with Emin. Ike Kaveladze who works for the Agalarov family is also present.
2014 —
Michael Flynn is fired by the Obama administration as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency for his “odd behavior.”
Eric Trump says in an interview when discussing the funding of Trump Golf courses “Well, we don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia.” Eric later denies making this statement.
Bayrock is functionally inactive, except for a few outstanding lawsuits.
Putin releases ***** Riot from prison for shooting a Punk Rock video in a Church.
The Winter Olympics takes place in Sochi, Russia.
Russia invades Crimea and begins sending Troops and equipment in the Ukraine to destabilize the Country, Obama rallies the international community to place Sanctions on Russia which crush their economy — plans for the Rosneft/Exxon deal and Trump Tower Russia are both put on hold.
2015 —Trump and his kids are named as witnesses in a $250 Million tax evasion case connected to Bayrock and Trump Soho.
Michael Flynn goes to Russia, meets and sits with Putin for dinner and is paid $45,000 for a speech at RT's 10th Anniversary Gala. He also receives $11,250 from Kaspersky Government Security Solutions, and $11,250 from Volga-Dnepr Airlines. He doesn't get prior permission from the Pentagon for this trip or the payments.
Taj Mahal is fined $10 Million for continued money laundering by Treasury’s FinCen unit.
Boris Nemtsov is murdered in the streets of Moscow in the shadow of the Kremlin.
U.S. intel captures discussion by Russians about Trump running for President, when he hasn’t announced his run yet, and talking about multiple contacts they’ve been having with Trump associates and planning to funnel money into the election.
June 17, 2015 -- Trump announces his run for President. He never releases his Taxes, his birth certificate or his school transcripts.
Summer 2015 —Cyber hacking contractors working with the FSB (Cozy Bear) begin infiltrating and extracting copies of documents including the oppo-research on Trump and emails from the DNC servers. Their previous successful attacks include the White House and State Dept. email systems.
They also penetrate some RNC emails accounts and attack various Republicans who oppose Trump in the primaries.
September 2015 — FBI detects the hack and begins trying to inform the DNC, but they start by going to their Help desk not simply calling Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.
November 2015 — Felix Sater emails Michael Cohen saying “I will get Putin on this program and we will get Donald elected... I know how to play it and how to get this done. Buddy, our boy can become president of the USA and we can engineer it... I will get all of Putin’s team to buy in on this, I will manage this process.”
Late 2015 — GCHQ and other western intel agencies from Germany, Poland, Estonia and Australia begin noticing contacts between Russia Spies and members of the Trump campaign. They attempt to notify FBI and CIA who are apparently caught "flat footed.”
January 2016 — Michael Cohen send an email to Putin deputy Dmitry Peskov trying to get talks regarding Trump Tower Moscow restarted.
March 2016 -— US Attorney Preet Bharara prosecutes Russian intelligence officer Evgeny Buryakov an employee of sanctioned Russia bank Vnesheconombank (VEB) of conspiracy to commit espionage in recruiting U.S Businessmen in Manhattan including Carter Page. Page had been cooperating in this investigation as an informant.
FBI receives memo alleging collusion between Loretta Lynch and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz to quash the Clinton email investigation — they believe this document is fake.
March 16, 2016 -— John Podesta receives a spearfishing email, his IT people mistakenly tell him that it’s “Legitimate” and his assistant clicks on the link and gives up his password compromising his account.
March 21, 2016 —Trump lists Carter Page & George Papadopoulis as part of his foreign policy team.
March 24, 2016 — Papadopoulis writes an email offering to set up “a meeting between us and the Russian leadership to discuss US-Russia ties under President Trump,” telling them his Russian contacts welcomed the opportunity.
March 28, 2016 —Trump hires Paul Manafort to handle the delegate process on his campaign.
April 2016 — GRU Russian military intelligence also attacks the DNC systems with Fancy Bear. The DNC discovers the intrusion and calls in cyber security firm Crowdstrike to address it, they discover both intrusions, briefly monitor them to confirm their ID, then shut them down.
About this time Paul Manafort — former advisor to Putin friendly ex-Ukrainian President Yanakovych who has a close associate with links to the GRU, and who had previous been paid $Millions to allegedy secretly promote Putin’s agenda by Russian aluminum oligarch Oleg Deripaska — becomes Trump campaign chairman.
The Kremlin gives Rep. Dana Rohrabacher instructions to stage a “show trial” in Congress attacking Bill Browder in order to alter the Magnitski Act sanctions on Russia. Rohrabacher is provided a Russian propaganda film against Browder by the Russian Prosecutor Generals Office run by Yuri Chaika, the same person who had jailed Magnitski.
April 27, 2016 -Trump gives his first major foreign policy speech at an event that had been largely arranged by Jeff Sessions Chief of Staff Rick Dearborn, Russian ambassador Kislyak is invited as a special guest, both Trump and Session briefly meet with him at a backstage reception before the speech at the Mayflower Hotel.
Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos writes in an email to campaign manager Corey Lewandowsk he had fielded “a lot of calls over the past month” related to a meeting between the Trump campaign and Russia. “Russia has been eager to meet with Mr. Trump for some time and have been reaching out to me to discuss,” Papadopoulos says in a separate email to Paul Manafort.
May 2016 — US surveillance operations detects Russian Spies vowing to “Get Hillary Clinton” in retaliation for her criticism of Putin’s last election. A GRU Officer is recorded saying they are “getting ready to pay Clinton back for what President Vladimir Putin believed was an influence operation she had run against him five years earlier as Secretary of State”
They also detect them bragging that they have good ties to Michael Flynn and may be able to use him to “influence" Trump.
Obama admin attempts to limit classified information to Flynn.
Russian spies attempt to cultivate Carter Page as an asset, yet again!
FBI obtains a FISA warrant to monitor Page’s communications and possibly on a Trump server in Pennsylvania which keeps being oddly pinged by a server owned by Russia’s Alfa Bank and another owned by the DeVos companies.
Trump backs Brexit says “England is better off without the EU.”
Paul Manafort meets with his assistant from the Ukraine Konstantin Kilimnik, who has alleged ties to the GRU.
Trump releases an attack ad on Hillary claiming she’s “too close to Putin”, WaPo considers if the “Bromance” between Trump and Putin is over? But still Politico reports that Trump is “Putin’s Candidate.”
June 2016 — Russian Think Tank controlled by Putin publishes a blue print to use cyber bots, trolls and social media to push anti-Clinton/pro-Trump propaganda to help swing the election.
Jeff Sessions Chief of staff Rick Dearborn who is an advisor to the Trump campaign writes an email to Lowendowski noting that he’d received and offer from someone referrenced as “WV” to setup a meeting between Trump officials and Putin.
June 2, 2016 — Hillary gives a major speech criticizing Trump’s closeness to Russia and Putin accusing him of praising “dictators like Vladimir Putin” and having a “bizarre fascination with dictators and strongmen who have no love for America.”
June 3, 2016 — Music Promoter Rob Goldstone emails Don Jr, and says he has information from the Russian Government about shady dealings by Hillary and DNC. Don Jr. says “I Love it” and plans to discuss it further on a phone call and eventually a meeting.
June 7, 2016 — Trump says that he’ll give a major speech about Hillary Clinton’s corruption in a week.
June 9, 2016 —
Donald Jr, Kushner and Manafort secretly meet with a prominent Russia lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya at Trump Tower after being offered “dirt” about the Clinton Campaign and the DNC being funded by Russia. The information comes through their Miss Universe Moscow partner Aras Agalarov via his son’s Emin’s promoter Rob Goldstone who had received it directly from the “Crown Prosecutor” [actually the Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika] of Russia because the Russian Government “supports Trump.” They also discuss the Russian adoption program in the wake of the Magnitski Act, which is a law that blacklists Russian Human Rights violators.
Later that day Donald tweets for the first time about Clinton’s “33,000 missing emails.”
June 12, 2016 — Julian Assange hints that he’s soon release emails linked to Hillary Clinton.
The Pulse Night Club in Orlando is attacked and 49 people are killed by a frustrated gay Muslim man
June 13, 2016 — Trump blames the Pulse attack on Obama’s sympathy with “Radical Islam” and on immigrants even though the shooter was a native born American citizen born in New Hyde Park, NY.
June 14, 2016 -— Wapo Reports that the DNC has been hacked by the Russian government, DNC goes public about the cyber intrusion.
June 15, 2016 — Guccifer 2.0 releases the DNC’s opposition research file on Donald Trump.
Dana Rohrabacher’s scheduled “show trial” hearing on Bill Browder in opposition to the Magnitski Act is cancelled by his committee chairman.
Rep. Kevin McCarthy jokes behind scenes that the only people Putin pays are Rohrabacher and Trump.
June 16, 2016 — Guccifer 2.0 uses DCLeaks to reveal the first set of hacked DNC emails, they have Cyrillic characters and Russian urls in their metadata
June 17, 2016 — Putin says the Trump is a “bright” individual.[Actually the word he used translates more accurately into “Colorful”]
June 20, 2016 — Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski is fired after a controversy where he physically grabbed and yanked a Brietbart reporter away from Trump as she asked a question. At first Corey and the Trump campaign denies it ever happened, but it’s on video — then he claims he would’ve “apologized if he knew she was from Breitbart” but he doesn’t. She files a criminal complaint, but it’s thrown out. He goes to work for CNN while still being paid by Trump.
June 22, 2016 — Trump finally gives his big anti-Clinton speech over a week late, he complains about Benghazi, Free Trade, Temperment and that her “Deleted emails could make her vulnerable to blackmail by hostile states.” He doesn’t mention Russian money going into the DNC.
June 24, 2016 — Brexit Referendum Vote Passes.
Trump is in Scotland for the opening of his Turnberry Golf Course, he says he’s glad Scotland Voted to leave the EU — but they didn’t, England did.
June 27, 2016 — Bill Clinton meets privately with AG Loretta Lynch on her plane at the Pheonix Airport while they are both there during a layover. Reportedly they discuss family, golf and travel, but calls of “obstruction” and “undue influence” — even though there is absolutely no evidence to that effect — eventually cause her to defer any decision on the Clinton email investigation to the FBI.
July 2016 — Business Insider publishes a report on the Kremlin’s Troll army based in St. Petersburg. They pose online as Pro-Trump and Pro-Bernie Americans and incessantly attack Clinton.
Cyber attacks are also made on the DCCC in order to impact House races in Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Ohio, Illinois, New Mexico and North Carolina.
Carter Page travels to Moscow, approved by Trump Natsec advisor JD Gordon and Corey Lewandowski, to give several paid speeches.
Former MI-6 agent Christopher Steele while working on oppo-research for a GOP candidate receives intel that Page also has secret meetings with Russian government oil firm Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin who allegedly offers him broker fees on the sale of 19% of Rosneft stock supposedly as a payoff for influencing Trump to drop sanctions on Russia. Page eventually denies all of this.
Steele begins writing memos to the FBI.
U.S. intel intercepts Russian Operatives discussing a request for “Help damaging Clinton’s campaign” from the Trump campaign which mentions Manafort.
July 5, 2016 — Influenced by false email intel generated by the Russians alleging that AG Lynch was “throwing the Clinton case”, and apparently the fact that she has suggested he called the Clinton situation a “matter” rather than an “investigation” — even though DOJ rules prohibit confirming an investigation before it is complete — FBI Director James Comey after announcing that the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s server is complete and no charges will be filed goes on to blast her in an extended public statement.
July 7, 2016 — Comey testifies to Congress about Hillary’s server and manages to debunk just about every Right-wing conspiracy about it.
July 18-21, 2016 — The Republican National Convention takes place during which Trump National Security Advisor J.D. Gordon torpedoes a platform plank supporting the arming of Ukrainian rebels against pro-Russian forces, then lies about it.
Kislyak attends and briefly meets Sessions again at a Heritage Foundation event, as well as Carter Page and J.D. Gordon.
Flynn delivers a speech at the Republican convention, joining in the crowd’s “Lock her up!” chant. “If I, a guy who knows this business, if I did a tenth of what she did, I would be in jail today”
Mike Pence also chants “Lock Her Up” over Hillary’s emails — even though she’s been cleared already — and he himself has AOL for his email for official business as Governor and his account had been hacked.
Flynn fills out his SF-86 form to reactivate his security clearance related to his being selected by Trump as national security advisor. Flynn fails to include that he had received $530,000 from Turkey or that he had taken another $45,000 from Russia in 2015.
July 22, 2016 — One day after end of RNC Wikileaks reveals their first set of DNC emails.
Russia Today, Sputnik News, Breitbart and other right-wing outlets begin doing incessant stories about every little negative revelation in them as well as numerous false and inflammatory rumors these are further pushed by bots and trolls on facebook and twitter until they trend.
The FBI begin to look into the Russia hack based on information from Crowdstrike, they don’t get direct access to DNC servers presumably as that would cause them to shutdown their entire email capability in middle of an election until a replacement set of servers could be installed [I’ve sent a question to the DNC’s Deputy Communications Director on this point, he hasn’t responded yet].
FBI is also looking into links to Trump due to Steele memos and concerns raised by CIA head Brennan.
July 25, 2016 — Democratic Convention starts, because of the brouhaha from the Wikileaks email dump, Chairman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz resigns and Donna Brazille takes over, RT/Sputnik heightened and amplified rumors swirl about the DNC “rigging the Primary” for Clinton and against Sanders.
July 26, 2016 — Roger Ailes leaves Fox News amid harassment allegations. Trump defends him.
Wapo reporter Sarah Kendzior asks a Kremlin official about the hacking of DNC emails and he refers the issue to Donald Trump Jr.
July 27, 2016 — Trump asks Russia to hack and/or release Hillary’s missing emails.
July 28, 2016 — Sputnik news claims Wikileaks proves the primary and DNC was rigged against Sanders.
July 31, 2016 — Manafort denies that the Trump campaign made any changes to the RNC platform. Various Trump affiliates will repeat these denials 20 more times before finally admitting the truth; Donald personally ordered the change in a meeting with Gordon during the RNC in which Sessions attended. [If this was done as a pay off to Russia to ensure their continued support in their hacking/propaganda efforts, it proves Donald’s direct involvement in a criminal conspiracy.]
August 2016 —Mikail Kalugin who was linked to pension payment scheme by Steele leaves the U.S., and is later confirmed to have been falsely posing as a diplomat while actually being a spy.
Kilminik again travels to the U.S. and meet with Manafort where they allegedly discuss the DNC hack.
CIA Director Brennen sends an “Eyes Only” private note to the WH for Obama and just 3 senior aids which states that “Putin has ordered a cyber attack to defeat or damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign, and elect Donald Trump.”
August 4, 2016 — Brennen calls his counterpart Alexander Bortnikov Director of the FSB and issues him a stern warning about the hacking and active measures.
August 9, 2016 — Flynn Intel Group, a consulting firm founded by Flynn, signs a contract with Inovo BV, a firm run by a Turkish businessman close to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, for more than $500,000
August 16, 2016 — Manafort pushes a false RT/Sputnik News story about terrorist sabotage at a NATO base in Turkey. Trump also pushes the same false story.
August 17, 2016 — Trump receives his first classified briefing. Flynn is with him.
August 19, 2016 — Manafort leaves the Trump campaign amidst allegations that he accepted a $12 Million under-the-table cash payment from his former Putin friendly client, ex-Ukraine President Yanakovych. Pollster Kellyanne Conway, who is a Mercer employee, takes over.
August 21, 2016 -— Trump pal Roger Stone tweets “it will soon be Podesta's time in the barrel.” He later claims he was talking about Podesta’s “business dealings” not his email, although Stone had also been sending DM’s to Guccifer 2.0 the public face of Russia’s cyber hacking operation.
September 2016 — Reports are the Russian hackers have attempted to penetrate the voter registration systems in 20 States, 4 were successfully infiltrated.
GOP consultant Aaron Nevins sends a note to Guccifer 2.0 asking if he has anything on Florida Dems, 10 days later he gets 2.5 Gigabits of stolen DCCC data, which confirms the connection between Kremlin intel & Guccifer.
Roger Stone says on Boston Herald Radio that he expects, "Julian Assange and the Wikileaks people to drop a payload of new documents on a weekly basis fairly soon. And that of course will answer the question of exactly what was erased on that email server."
Obama meets Putin at a summit and personally tells him to “Cut it out” with the hacking.
Obama assembles Congress’s “Gang of 12” and informs them of the Russia hack confidentially and asks for a bipartisan public statement in opposition to the attack. Mitch McConnel refuses as he doubts the veracity of the information, no public statement is issued at this time.
Trump transition chair Chris Christie begins to recommend that Flynn be fired after his erratic behavior during a national security briefing.
FBI offers to pay Christopher Steele to continue his work investigating Trump/Russia links.
Jeff Sessions meets privately with Kislyak at his Senate Offices.
Guccifer 2.0 sends Roger Stone a link to a blog post on manipulating voter turnout.
Ignoring McConnel and other Republicans Sen Feinstein and Rep Schiff issue a joint statement revealing the Russia cyber attack.
One week later McConnell and other Reps issues a tepid statement warning state election boards to remain “secure from attack.”
October 2016 — The Russian Think Tank publishes another paper, this one saying the Clinton is likely to win the election, so the online influence campaign needs to focus on claims that the election was “rigged” or “stolen” due to voter fraud.
Trump starts saying the only way he could lose Pennsylvania is because of “Voter Fraud.” and mentions the information revealed by Wikileaks 164 times over the next month.
The FEC unanimously agrees to prioritize investigations into foreign spending.
Around this time before election day NSA detects that the GRU has launched a set of cyber attacks on state and local election registration systems. Some are penetrated.
Kushner Co receives a $285 Million loan from Duetsche Bank for their Times Square building that was facing charges for not stopping Russian money-laundering on the premesis.
October 4, 2016 — Guccifer 2.0 Post documents stolen from the Clinton Foundation.
October 5, 2016 — Buzzfeed reports that Trump financial attorneys regularly meet with him in pairs so that there would be a witness. “...It’s always been our practice to make sure two people are present, and we don’t have a problem of people lying.” and “We tried to do it with Donald always if we could because Donald says certain things and then has a lack of memory.”
October 6, 2016 — The Access Hollywood Video drops with “Grab ‘em by the *****”. One hour later Wikileaks releases the first set of emails taken from John Podesta’s account. RT and Sputnik News continue to do daily reports as another set of emails is dumped for next 30 days.
October 7, 2016 — Homeland Security and the Director of National Intelligence release a Joint Statement on the Russia Hacking efforts saying it “was directed from the highest levels of the Kremlin.” FBI Director Comey had also originally signed on to this document, but refrained at the last minute due to the closeness of the election.
October 11, 2016 — Trump uses false talking points from RT to blame HIllary for Benghazi
October 21, 2016 — Hillary Clinton states during a debate that 17 Intelligence Agencies have confirmed Russia’s attempt to influence the election. Trump denies it, says “nobody knows” and it could be “China, North Korea or a 300lbs. Fat Guy.” which is also a Sputnik News Talking point.
October 23, 2016 —Christopher Steele, frustrated by the lack of response by the FBI particularly the New York Field Office which he says houses an Anti-Clinton Cabal (aka Trumpland), contacts David Corn of Motherjones who writes that “Russian spies have been attempting to cultivate Trump as an asset for 5 years.”
FBI rescinds their job offer to Steele.
Eventually with the help of the British Ambassador to Russia, his dossier of memos are passed to John McCain who physically gives a copy to James Comey.
October 26, 2016 — James Comey writes a letter to congress about the Abedin emails found on Anthony Weiner’s laptop several weeks earlier — it gets leaked almost immediately, presumably by Jason Chaffetz’s office. All hell breaks lose, Clinton drops 3-5% in the polls.
October 27, 2016 — Rudy Giuliani admits on Fox that he knew about the Comey letter from “former FBI agents” before it was sent to Congres and leaked.
October 30, 2016 — FBI obtains a warrant to review the Abedin emails.
November 6, 2016 — FBI finds that virtually all of the Abedin emails are duplicates that they already had in their possession from the Clinton server.
November 7, 2016 — 19.5% of Rosneft is sold to unknown buyers. [This seem to be consistent with the Steele Memo which predicted this sale as an payoff to Trump for lifting sanctions on Russia]
November 8, 2016 —Election Day.
Michael Flynn writes an Op-Ed in support of Turkey arguing that the U.S. should extradite a Turkish expat who President Erdoğan blames for the recent attempted coup. Seemingly Turkey has been paying Flynn and his consulting firm $530,000 — money which originated with yet another Russian oligarch.
Flynn does not disclose this or register as a foreign agent.
Russia’s Parliament erupts into applause when Trump is announced the winner.
Also four patents for various Trump Hotels and products which were applied for years earlier are simultaneously renewed in Russia.
November 9, 2016 — Wikileaks proclaims that Trump won because Democrats rigged system to have Clinton beat Sanders.
November 10, 2016 — Russia’s Foreign Minister Lavrov admits they had continuing communications from Trump’s “immediate entourage.”
Trump and Obama meet at the WH, Obama warns him not to hire Flynn.
November 11, 2016 — Chris Christie is dropped as transition chief, VP Pence takes his place.
Flynn stays on.
November 12, 2016 — Lewandowski quits CNN to work for Trump again.
November 28, 2016 — In an interview with Time magazine, Trump denies interference from Russia. “I don’t believe they interfered,” he said. “That became a laughing point, not a talking point, a laughing point. Any time I do something, they say ‘oh, Russia interfered.'” He also addressed the hacking: “It could be Russia. And it could be China. And it could be some guy in his home in New Jersey”
November 30, 2016 — The Justice Department informs Flynn that he is under investigation for his unreported lobbying on behalf of Turkey.
November —House oversight ranking member Rep. Cummings sends a letter to VP Pence about Flynn’s Op-Ed and his lobbying for Turkey.
When Flynn states he plans to schedule a meeting with Kislyak former Bush Pentagon Official Michael Billingslea warns him that any such communications with Kislyak are likely to be picked up by U.S. surveillance.
December —Trump transition does a background check on Flynn but doesn't fully vet him, they are also specifically informed by Flynn’s lawyers that he may have to register as a “Foreign Agent” because of his work for Turkey even though the Pentagon had previously warned him to get permission for such payments first, and that he was under investigation by the FBI because of it.
Watchdog groups file a complaint with the FEC over Russia and the Trump campaign coordinating.
December 1, 2016 — Flynn meets with Kislyak at Trump Tower along with Jared Kushner. Kushner suggests setting up a secure back-channel back to the Kremlin using Russian facilities that could “bypass the U.S. national security bureaucracy.”. Kislyak is reportedly “taken aback”. They also suggest having an overseas meeting but Flynn is considered too high profile to attend.
Both Flynn and Kushner don’t include these meetings on their security clearances forms and are at risk of Logan Act violations if this meetings are intended to undermine current U.S Foreign policy as both are private citizens at this point. Kushner later includes the meetings on future updates.
NSA discovers the details of this meeting while surveilling Kislyak as he communicates with Moscow.
At Kislyak’s suggestion, Kushner later meets with banker and FSB Academy graduate Sergei Gorkov who is head of Moscow based government owned bank Vnesheconombank (VEB), which funds special projects like the Sochi Olympics or` Trump Tower in Toronto and included Russian intelligence officer Evgeny Buryakov on it’s payroll, who was convicted in March 2016 by Preet Bharara of conspiracy in the case involving the attempted cultivation of Carter Page as an Russian asset. Gorkov is also former deputy board chairman of Russia largest state-owned bank, Sberank, whom had hired Trump’s attorney’s Marc Kasowitz to defend it.
December 8, 2016 — Page is back in Moscow to meet with “business leaders and thought leaders”
December 9, 2016 — Wapo reports that the CIA has made a Secret Assessment that the Russia government sought to interfere in our election in order to make Trump President, and that Congress was informed of this so they could make a bipartisan statement but Mitch McConnell refused.
December 12, 2016 -—While in Moscow, Trump’s former campaign surrogate Jack Kingston meets with Russian businessmen to discuss what they might expect from a Trump administration. “Trump can look at sanctions,” Kingston says. “They’ve been in place long enough.”
December 13, 2016 — Trump says he doesn’t need a security briefing everyday. “I’ll get it when I need it”.
Trump nominates then Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson — recipient of the Russia Order of Friendship personally from Putin who had been seeking a waiver on Russian/Crimea sanctions to proceed with their $500 Billion deal with Rosneft for drilling in the Black sea — as Secretary of State.
NBC News’ Richard Engel reports from Moscow on Trump’s secretary of state pick, Rex Tillerson. Former Russian Energy Minister Vladimir Milov tells Engel that Tillerson was a “gift for Putin.”
Steve Bannon joins Flynn and Kushner for a separate meeting with the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, who makes an undisclosed visit to New York.
December 20, 2016 -— Jared Kushner brags to Forbes magazine about the data-mining and voter micro-targeting operation he helped setup for the Trump campaign with Cambridge-Analytica which is owned by deep pocketed Trump pal Robert Mercer, who also bankrolls Breitbart News.
December 21, 2016 — Lewandowski doesn’t get rehired by Trump, starts a lobbying firm.
December 29, 2016 —Obama hits Russia with Sanctions for their hacking and involvement in the Election. Flynn talks to Russian Ambassador Kislyak, mentions “We’ll review everything” when Obama’s new sanctions are brought up. This conversation is recorded by the NSA/FBI.
The Obama Administration tries to save the intel data with a trail of bread crumbs for Congress to track.
December 30, 2016 — Putin states he will not retaliate to Obama’s newly imposed sanctions and the expulsion of 30 suspected Russian spies. Trump praises his lack of response.
A PHP web shell called P.A.S. created by Ukrainian Hacker Profexor is identified by DHS as being used in part of the DNC hack. He eventually contacts the FBI himself as he had no knowledge his worked was being used in this manner.
January 5th — Former CIA Director James Woolsey leaves Trump transition team because he is alarmed by Flynn's stance on trying to have Erdogen’s opponent Gulley “snatched up” and shipped off to Turkey.
Trump tweets a storm of attacks on the Intel community and claims of Russian hacking.
January 6th —U.S. Intel agencies publish their report on the Russia Cyber efforts to influence the election. Obama, Biden and Trump are briefed on the report, Trump claims it proves Russia didn’t “change the vote” even though the report doesn’t attempt to answer that question.
January 10th —Jeff Sessions testifies during confirmation hearings that he doesn’t know “any Trump surrogates who were in contact with the Russians” ignoring the question he was asked which was “What would you do if you discover surrogates coordinating with Russians?” Apparently the correct answer is “Nothing.”
Buzzfeed publishes the entire Steele Dossier online.
CNN reports that Trump was specifically briefed on it during the Jan 6th briefing.
Trump transition team does full court press to deny this briefing occurred, not only denying that anyone verbally described it to Trump but also there was a 3 page summary at the end of the full Russia report.
Flynn meets with Susan Rice over a plan to arm the Kurds against ISIS, Flynn vetoes the plan as the Kurds are considered terrorists by one of his financial benefactors Turkey.
Paul Manafort calls Reince Preibus to deny allegations in the dossier about him
January 11th — At his first press conference of the year Trump says he himself “didn’t meet with any Russians” during the election even though he did.
Erik Prince, former CEO of Blackwater, giant Christian Supremacist, Mike Pence supporter and brother of
Education Secretary nominee Betsy DeVos has a secret meeting with the UAE on the Seychelles islands to establish a back channel to Putin which is noticed by FBI. That meeting is chaired by the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi who had previously met with Bannon, Flynn & Kushner secretly in New York, and seems to be a follow-on to Kushner’s meeting with Kislyak at Trump Tower.
Politico issues a report indicating that Ukrainian-American Alexandra Chalupa who consulted for the DNC had gone to the Ukrainian embassy to gain information about Paul Manafort’s links to Yanakovic.
January 12th — NBC news confirms that Comey personally briefed Trump about the Steele Dossier revealing yet another transition team lie.
January 14th — Reports surface that U.S. Intel agents have warned our allies like Israel not to share sensitive intel with Trump transition team due to the Steele dossier and the risk he might share it with Russia and hence their ally Iran.
January 15th — Trump says “We should trust Putin” while lambasting NATO and Angela Merkel.
Former CIA Officer for Moscow states that Steele dossier deserves support: “This is exactly how the Russians operate.”
January 20th — Inauguration day.
January 21st —Sean Spicer does his first press briefing and spends most of it lying about the Inauguration crowd size, then takes no questions.
Women’s march crowd dwarfs Trump’s crowd by 3 to 1.
Trump WH officials soon begin pushing State Dept to remove all Russian sanctions. Alarmed State Offiicials Melinowski and Fried begin to contact congress.
January 22nd — Comey attends an event honoring Law Enforcement at the WH, tries to avoid being noticed by Trump, but fails.
January 23rd —Spicer claims Flynn didn’t talk to Kislyak about sanctions, even though he did.
Later Mike Pence goes on Meet the Press after talking personally to Flynn and claims “Flynn told me he didn’t talk to Russia about sanctions.”
January 24th — Flynn interviewed by FBI, again he apparently says he didn’t talk to Russians about sanctions but they know better. He also claims that he didn’t get any foreign money and the $45k and $530k came from “U.S. companies” having omitted the true information on his SF-86 Security form.
January 26th —Sally Yates goes to the White House personally and warns WH Counsel McGahn that Flynn may be vulnerable to “blackmail by the Russians” because he’d lied to the FBI & Pence about his contacts with Kislyak.
Trump is immediately briefed by McGahn but does nothing about Flynn.
Former Bush Ethics Atty Richard Painter files complaint with Government Ethics Office that James Comey may have violated the Hatch Act by releasing unsubstantiated information about the Abedine emails.
January 27th — Trump signs a travel ban against 7 majority Muslim nations.
McGahn calls Yates, she returns to the WH where he asks “why does it matter if Flynn lied to Pence?”
Trump invites Comey to dinner at the White House, allegedly asks Comey if he wants to “keep his job” and to pledge him his “Loyalty”, Comey offers his “Honesty” and takes copious notes.
Kremlin arrests FSB officials Sergei Mikhailov, his deputy Dmitry Dokuchaev, and Ruslan Stoyanov, the head of cybercrime investigations at Kaspersky Labs (who had paid Flynn $11,500 in 2015) for treason and illegal hacking apparently for sharing intel information with the CIA.
January 29th — London Mayor Saddiq Khan says that Trump shouldn’t be allowed entry into the UK while his Muslim ban is in place.
Trump signs EO that places Steve Bannon on the principles committee of the National Security Council, the DNI and head of the Joint Chiefs are relegated to "part time" participants.
January 30th — Sally Yates orders the DOJ not to defend Trump's Muslim ban executive order in court as she doubts it is legal or constitutional.
January 31st --Yates is fired by Trump allegedly for refusing to defend his Muslim ban executive order.
Flynn stays.
Roger Stone goes on Russia Today to push the conspiracy that murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich is the "real hacker.” This is his fifth appearance on the channel.
Deutsche Bank is fined $630 Million for $10 Billion in money laundering transactions involving Russia.
February 2nd — Putin opposition leader Vladimir Kara-Murza is poisoned for a second time in Moscow.
February 3rd —Federal Judge Robart blocks Trump's Muslim Ban echoing Yates issues with it.
Reports surface that Trump is still using that same vulnerable unsecured out of date Galaxy S3 Cell Phone to tweet with during the campaign while in the White House.
February 6th —Rep. Maxine Waters states “Trump is moving towards Impeachment.”
Trump attorney Michael Cohen and Felix Sater negotiate a deal to end sanctions against Russia by stopping the violence in Crimea with a Ukranian named Andrii V. Artemenko. They supposedly deliver a copy of this plan to Michael Flynn’s desk, but there is no evidence he ever reviewed it or passed it on to anyone.
When this is revealed Artemenko is looked at for possible Treason charges by Ukraine. [Exactly who came up with this idea and tasked them with this? Does anyone believe they went rogue?]
Februray 7th -— Sens. Cardin and Graham — alerted by Fried and Malinowski at State of Trump efforts to scrap sanctions -— author bipartisan legislation to require the approval of Congress for all changes to sanctions.
February 8th — Washington posts asks Flynn if he discussed sanctions with Russia, he says “No” twice.
February 9th —Flynn’s spokesman issues a correction to Wapo that he “doesn’t remember” if he did or didn’t discuss sanctions.
Trump talks to Putin by phone and criticizes Obama’s Start II Nuclear deal with Russia. Flynn is there for the call.
Judge Robart’s national block of the Muslim Ban is upheld by the 9th Circuit
February 10th — Trump is asked about Flynn talking to Russians about sanctions and says “This is the first time I’ve heard that.” Note: He had already been personally told about this by White House Counsel McGahn immediately after he was told by Yates on Jan 26th.
February 12th — Reports emerge that the Intel agencies are considering holding back highly sensitive intel from Trump to prevent leaks to Russia.
February 13th — Flynn is fired immediate after Wapo report proving that he lied, allegedly he’s let go because he lied to Vice President Pence and caused him to be embarrassed about what he said on Meet the Press. WH secret push to cut sanctions goes on hold.
February 14th — Comey & Sessions meet Trump in the Oval for a counter-terrorism briefing. Trump clears the room and gets Comey alone to complain about leaks asking him to prosecute some reporters over it and ask if he can just “Let Flynn go” Comey interprets the request to only be about Flynn not the Russia investigation,
Comey notes this and discusses it with FBI leadership.
The NYTimes reports that Trump aids (including Flynn, Manafort and Page) had repeated contacts with Russian Intelligence according to the NSA and that the FBI had requested they “collect as much information as possible about the Russian operatives on the phone calls” and go through their archives for more information.
February 15th — Intel Agencies with access to foreign intercepts say “Trump Will Die in Jail.”
Comey laters asks Sessions not to leave him alone with Trump again as it’s inappropriate. Comey’s memory of the event is hazy, but he states later Sessions doesn’t really respond. [During later testimony Session claims he repeated back basic DOJ protocols to Comey, which doesn’t answer his concern over why Sessions failed to follow protocol the previous day.]
February 16th — CBS reports that Trump screamed at CIA Director Pompeo over reports that Intel is being withheld from him because of fears he might leak it to Russia.
Pompeo denies any intel is being withheld from Trump.
Trump rage tweets that “Russia” is a made up story by Democrats as an excuse for losing the election.
House Democrats submit bill to prevent removal of Russia sanctions without Congress approval.
February 17th — Trump calls the Press the “Enemies of the American People.”
February 21st — Artemenko talks to a Ukrainian News outlet and reveals that he’s known Michael Cohen for some time since Cohen has an ethanol business in the country, which is also where his wife was born, and that his meeting with Cohen and Sater on Feb 6 wasn’t their first. According to Artemenko, he discussed the “peace-plan” with Cohen and Sater “at the time of the primaries, when no one believed that Trump would even be nominated.”
February 25th — FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe — who began his carrier with the New York Field Office while Trump surrogate Giuliani was Mayor — goes to the White House and in direct violation of DOJ protocols buttonholes Reince Prebus to tell him the NYT article on contacts “Is Bullshit.” [Later reporting seems to hint that the FBI’s objection to the report is the claim that certain contacts were confirmed as part of “Russian Intelligence”, not that the contacts didn’t happen because those were confirmed by James Clapper.]
February 26th —Preibus calls McCabe back and asks him to inform the Press about this as an “anonymous source”, he refuses.
Preibus call his pals Devin Nunez Chairman of the House intelligence committee and Richard Burr Chairman of the Senate Intel Committee who are each former Trump surrogates who are heading up investigations of “Russia” — they do it for him.
Former Bush Ethics Atty Richard Painter files complaint with Government Ethics Office that James Comey violated the Hatch Act by publicly disclosing unsubstantiated information about Abedine’s emails prior to the election.
February 28th — Trump who had essentially called Hillary a “murderer” over Benghazi blames the Generals and Obama for death of Navy Seal in Yemen during raid he himself authorized.
March 1 —it’s discovered that Sessions met with Kislyak twice, in July at the RNC which he attended as a Trump surrogate along with Carter Page and JD. Gordon and in September in his Senate Offices. Nobody notices that he also met him in April.
Sen. Franken asks for Sessions to come back to the Senate to explain, he declines and sends a letter which claims he didn’t understand the question he was asked and didn’t think he was “acting as a surrogate” when he met Kislyak.
March 2 — 100 Democrats demand that Jeff Sessions resign as Attorney General. He doesn’t.
March 4 —Session recuses himself from the Russia investigation.
Trump blows his top that weekend screaming at his staff, throwing Priebus and Bannon off Air Force One for his weekly Mar-A-Lago trip.
March 5th — Trump tweets about being “Wiretapped in Trump Tower by Obama” that morning based on a report from Breitbart and Judge Napolitano on Fox News — Narrative shifts away from Sessions.
James Clapper denies that “Obama Wiretapped Trump.”
March 6th -- Trump issues a revised Muslim travel ban, which no longer blocks immigrants and refugees from Iraq.
March 7th —House Intel committee invites Sally Yates and James Comey to testify about Michael Flynn and Russia.
Michael Hayden denies Trump’s Wiretapped by Obama claims.
Sen. Franken says Session committed perjury.
The Guardian reports that SLC Group and Cambridge Analytics methods of generating micro-targeted alt-news webiverse using data provided by AggregateIQ were used to meddle in the Brexit Vote to encourage “voter disengagement” and “to persuade Democrat voters to stay at home”:
March 8th — British media reports more of the specific contacts by person and date alleged by Steele dossier have been confirmed by independent surveillance, but they do not yet confirm the substance of the conversations.
Flynn finally registers as a foreign agent.
June 20th —
Sen. Whitehouse argues that there is evidence Flynn has been cooperating with Mueller’s investigation for some time.
CNN Reports the Trump pick for FBI director Christopher Wray had edited his online bio to remove reference to a case against Russia.
Bannon says the reason Spicer doesn’t do his briefings on camera : “Sean got fatter.” Which is ironic for a guy who’s fatter than Spicer and doesn’t explain why he won’t allow the audio to be recorded either.
Jason Miller generates excuses for why Trump hasn’t commented on London Mosque attack: “It literally happened just yesterday” when it was 2 days ago, Yesterday was the death of former North Korean prisoner Otto Warmbier, but he commented on that, the Baseball practice shooting and the London Bridge attack immediately.
CBS reports that Trump’s approval is down 11% among Republicans since the end of his first 100 days. 36% approval overall.
“Still Fatter” Spicer does an on camera briefing.
Mueller adds Russian speaking prosecutor to his team.
Sessions lawyers up with an attorney Chuck Cooper, who had previously defended Bob Jones’ University’s ban on interracial dating to supporting job discrimination against those with HIV/AIDS.
Hannity claims new nutbag theory that the intelligence community and mainstream media are planning a “Soft Coup” to undermine Trump. “Deep State”, “Political Witch Hunt” etc
June 21st —
Bloomberg reports a detailed piece by Trump biographer Tim O’Brien on his shady financial ties to Mafia and Russian Mob money through Felix Sater and Bayrock LLC between 2002-2011 including $33 Million in properties sales & rentals of luxury condos in New York, Vegas and Los Angeles to mysterious LLCs since the election.
Don Jr. and Ivanka’s involvement in these deals makes them potential targets for Mueller’s investigations.
Former Homeland Security head Jeh Johnson testifies
He says that “The Russian government, at the direction of Vladimir Putin himself, orchestrated cyber attacks on our nation for the purpose of influencing our election,” he said. “That is a fact, plain and simple.”
But that there’s “No evidence they flipped votes.” which would have been an act of war.
He also says Trump’s “Rigged” talk made it difficult to address the interference Russia created.
Other officials from DHS indicate that voter registration systems in 21 states were attacked.
Spicer says he “hasn’t specifically asked” Trump if he believes Russia interfered with the election.
Telegraph reports that Trump will not be making an official state visit to the UK over the threat of widespread protests for at least two years.
Senate’s new Russia sanctions bill hits a snag on the House rule that any bill that raises revenue must start in the House.
Dems on House Oversight send letter to Preibus to explain why Kushner still has a security clearance?
Kushner flies to Tel Aviv to negotiate with Israel and Palestine.
Lewandowski tells Fox and Friends the Russian collusion investigation “should end immediately” because they’ve found nothing. [That they’ve told us about, Yet. And they won’t say anything until there’s either an indictment or a Grand Jury report to Rosenstein.]
NATO F-16 from Poland buzzes plane carrying Lavrov and shadows it until a Russian SU-22 with air-to-air missiles shows up.
Rachel Maddow highlights that what Homeland security testified isn't just that lots of states were attacked but also that voter registration files in specific counties that leaned heavily Democratic were targeted and some of the poll book software failed on election night in those counties which created excessive delays, long lines and more votes shifted to provisional ballots which aren't always counted — meanwhile personal information for 200 Million U.S. voters were posted on an open server by RNC contractor Deep Root analytics which could have been accessed by anyone who knew the IP or web address.
june 22nd —
Senate releases their version of Trumpcare which is even worse than the house version and immediately loses 4 Republican votes leaving the bill DOA. Senator Collins questions it's Medicaid cuts while Senator Warren says it pays for tax cuts with Blood Money.
Trump finally admits after 41 days, one day before the deadline set by congress for an answer, that he doesn't have any "Tapes" of his conversations with Comey, and had only brought it up to "rattle" him. He seems to claim he had thought Comey himself or the intel community had been taping the conversation in a weird variation on the "Obama taped me in Trump Tower" conspiracy. It never seems to occur to him that if Comey had a recording, he wouldn’t have needed to take notes and write memos about what was said, which is a pretty standard FBI practice.
Election officials report that hackers stole and changed voter registration information during the 2016 election in at least one county in addition to accessing registration systems in 39 states.
Huckabee Sanders says "Everybody agrees the election wasn't influenced by Russia" [No, not really. They didn't change votes, but they did all they could to access their registration data and to trick voters with false news and conspiracy theories.] when finally admitting that the DNC was probably hacked by Russia which everyone actually does say.
Trump staffers reacts to this latest nutty conspiracy theory and the looming backlash over it --"**** my life."
Nunez "I never said I was leaving the Russia investigation for good."
Trump's "Voter Fraud" panel backfires as they starting looking into Russian hacking of election systems.
Pizzagate shooter sentenced to four years in prison.
Preet Bharara signs a book deal
Schiff says that Trump's tweet about the tapes is not enough, 'he's been untruthful before in his tweets.' and that his statement that he doesn't have tapes doesn't cover the rest of the White House.
Coats and Rogers tells House intel that Trump did ask them to “get the word out” about his not being personally under investigation and that there was “no evidence of collusion.” Coats also says Trump is “obsessed with the Russia probe.”
Rand Paul's attempts to claim that Trump really was being surveilled which inspires former CIA agent Phill Mudd to call bullshit on that. Besides the fact that Comey, Coats, Clapper (all under oath) and Michael Hayden have already denied this and said it’s not even possible under the law.
June 23rd —
Wapo releases report that CIA had generated an “Eyes Only” memo for Obama in August that Putin personally ordered the attack on the U.S. election. Trump says "This is the first he's heard of it..." as if he wasn't briefed on exactly this on Jan 6th and Jeh Johnson hadn’t just testified to the same thing two days ago.
Spicer finally admits he talked to Trump about “elections tampering” but doesn’t specifically mention Russia, and claims Trump’s “tape threat” was intended to force Comey to “tell the truth” as if being under oath were meaningless.
Incoming House Oversight Chair Trey Gowdy, replacing Chaffetz, says he’s totally dropping investigation of Russian interference leaving it for Mueller, House Judiciary and Intelligence.
Trump Energy official sends racist tweets calling Obama a “Kenyan creampuff.”
Wapo reports that WH can’t get through to Tillerson on the phone, “he won’t return calls”
Senate Intel opens investigation into faked and already debunked report about Loretta Lynch colluding with Debbie Wasserman-Schultz to shutdown Clinton email investigation.
Trump claims Comey tapes may exists because “Obama taped the White House”, again. [Uh, no he didn’t he taped the Russian ambassador and caught Flynn, which is something he was warned would happen, dumb ***.]
The rollout of new FBI Director Nominee Chris Wray appears to be completely fouled up, already.
Politico reports that Trump blames WH Counsel McGhan for not stopping the Russia probe, somehow.
LATimes reports that Mueller's team includes experts on fraud and money laundering and they seem "Dangerously close to an obstruction case."
Rep. Andy Biggs calls for Mueller to recuse himself because of his close relationship with Comey, who had been his boss as Deputy AG while Mueller was FBI Director. He doesn’t seem to have a problem with the fact that Kushner and Ivanka’s attorney Jamie Gorelick is also a member of Mueller’s law firm.
Kris Kobach from Trump's "Voter Fraud" panel gets sanctioned for "Deceptive Conduct and Lack of Condor"
June 24th —
Russia pushes back on more reports that they meddled in the U.S. elections claiming “We don’t do that, but the U.S. does.”
Trump attacks Obama administration for “doing nothing” to fight Russia attacks, finally admitting that there even was a Russia attack while ignoring that they did respond to the attack on state elections systems reached out diplomatically several times very strongly including face to face with Putin, then implemented sanctions which Trump has been already trying to remove.
June 25th —
Buzzfeed reports that Putin plans to recall Kislyak back to Russia.
Jeffrey Lord says Mueller should hire Michael Cohen — yes, seriously — ignoring the fact that he’s actually been investigating Cohen who has since lawyered up.
Eric Trump again says the DNC Chair Tom Perez is a “Nut Job” and his dad “has done more than any President in History.”
90 Parliament email accounts are attacked by hackers.
Kellyanne Conway refuses to talk about Russian hacks because “It was Obama’s fault for not stopping them” — even though he actually did stop them once he, DHS and the FBI knew about it.
Trump admits calling Elizabeth Warren “Pochahantas” is racist, but does it anyway. He also tweets that “Hillary colluded with the DNC to defeat Bernie” even though that actually didn’t happen at all and is just another Sputnik News talking point.
White House skips Ramadan celebration, because why not?
Adam Schiff and Al Franken criticize Obama’s tepid reaction to Russia prior to the election saying he “coulda, shoulda, woulda” done more. Yeah, ok, that’s good backseat driving there. Like what exactly?
Kushner goes to Palestine and infuriates Prime Minister Abbas enough that they threaten to shutdown talks.
june 26th —
Brit Hume argues that colluding with Russia’s illegal cyber attacks against America wouldn’t be a crime — because “Huh?”
Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) tells Politico that he’s prepared to battle the White House over efforts to water down legislation imposing sanctions against the Russian government.
Trump says that “Obama colluded with Russia” because he “did nothing” when he was informed about the hacking attacks — even though he did plenty & Hume says “collusion wouldn’t be a crime.” Somehow he ignores his own request for Russia to hack and release “Hillary’s emails” and multiple attempts to raise sanctions. He also demands an “apology” claiming the Wapo report disproves collusion by his campaign when that subject wasn’t even addressed in the report.
Spicer says Trump was “only joking” about Russia hacking and releasing Hillary’s emails. Katy Tur puts a match to that B.S. and sets it on fire.
Somehow a Russia media rep. Igor Zorin who only earns $75,000 bought 3 condos worth $5.4 Million from Trump Palace. Shocker.
Supreme Court partially allows Travel Ban —upholding it for all those who filed suit based on “standing” but potentially damaging tourism to the tune of $18 Billion — until they fully hear the case in October.
Wapo reports that Kushner received a $285 Million loan from Deutsche Bank a month before the election for their Times Square building while the bank was facing charges being involved in Russian money laundering.
Kushner in addition to attorney Jamie Gorelick hires powerhouse defense attorney Abbie Lowell who had previously defended Harold Keating, Jack Abramov, Dan Rostenkowski and John Edwards.
2 weeks after claiming they would “immediately” file a complaint against Comey for his “leaking” his own thoughts and recollections to Congress, Kasowitz and Trump’s other attorneys haven’t done it yet.
Nunez admits he was never going to recuse himself from Russia investigation.
Wapo Reports that Trump associate Carter Page was interviewed by the FBI 5 times for a total of 10 hours during March and did so without an attorney.
Spicer announces that the WH has information indicating another possible chemical weapons attack by the Assad regime, but CENTCOM knows nothing about it.
CBO says that Senate TrumpCare bill will leave 22 Million without insurance.
Trump’s re-election campaign pays $50,000 to Donald Jr.’s lawyer Alan Futerfas after he’s contacted by the NYTimes for a comment after they discovered that Kushner’s attorneys had updated his SF86 form to include a meeting called by Don Jr. with a lawyer from Russia.
July 27th -—
Trump’s act bombs at Senate Health care meetings because he has no idea what’s in the bill, or for that matter no idea how health care actually works.
Ryan states that “22 Million don’t really want insurance anyway.”
CNN caves to a $100 Libel lawsuit threat over a single-sourced anonymous story involving Trump team member Anthony Scaramucci and fires three employees, including the reporter Thomas Frank and producer Eric Litchbau on the story.
Reporter Brian Karem unloads on the hypocrisy of Huckabee-Sanders trying to grandstand on Scaramucci story firing, while the WH uses anonymous sources for it’s own counter story.
The law firm of Kushner’s new attorney Abbie Lowell has links to both Sberbank and Rosneft and was one of the first U.S. firms allowed to have offices in Moscow.
Clinton campaign chair John Podesta testifies in closed session to House Intel.
Wapo reports that Manafort has registered as a foreign agent and declared $17 million in profits from Ukrainian groups. This “finally getting right with the law” act fuels rumors that he has or soon intends to flip for Mueller.
Gingrich says Trump should testify, because it’s not like he wouldn’t prat fall into perjury trap that way…Noooo.
Rick Perry talks to the press about the environment and ****. gets. crazy.
CNN medical producer opines on tape made by James O’Keefe that Russia probably a “witch hunt” and that CNN ‘s coverage is over the top. CNN sticks with him as having his own opinion, besides it’s not like aren’t still paying Jeffrey Lord to say the same thing day after day. There is also another video of Van Jones saying “Russia is a nothing burger” — which in terms of Demcractic politics he’s previously said many times.
Sally Yates says Americans should be alarmed at Trump’s behavior even if you assume there “was no collusion.”
Kasowitz puts his complaints about Comey’s “leaks” on indefinite hold.
Senate pushes back vote on Trumpcare until after July 4th recess.
July 28th -—
Trump tweets incoherently about the Washington Post supporting Amazon for not paying “taxes” when they do pay sales taxes in 45 states.
Time magazine asks Trump to remove fake magazine covers from his golf courses.
Sekulow argues that we should have a special prosecutor to investigate Obama’s reaction to Russian hacking and meddling, because that’s logical — in Bizarro World.
Maddow reports that Senate Republicans seem to be investigating the Mueller investigation and are reviewing the Comey Memo’s even though they aren’t investigation obstruction — that’s under Senate Judiciary — perhaps to see if it’s is based entirely on the Steele Dossier in order to use that as a reason to have it shut down.
Senate Intel is also reportedly going through 2,000 documents for Treasury’s FinCEN unit on Trump and his associations and the money ties to Russia.
CREW files a Hatch Act complaint against Nikki Haley for retweeting an endorsement by Trump for Republican Robert Northam to fill the congressional seat vacated by budget director Mick Mulvaney.
CNN reports that Trump’s staff is going increasingly concerned about his lack of concern about what and how Russia hacked us, and whether they might do it again.
Chuck Todd tears into Trump’s press office :”This is nothing less than a war on the truth.”
Ex MTV-VJ Kennedy argues on Fox: “Who cares if 15 Million people will lose Health Care next year, we’re all gonna die anyway?” Yes we will, but not this exact minute. Well, not unless North Korea — well y’know.
Spicer tweets claim that Obamacare has “failed” 28 Million people who still don’t have Health Care and that only TrumpCare is the “solution” to this problem — while the CBO says it will increase that problem another 23 Million by 2026.
June 29th —
Annoyed by criticism from Morning Joe’s Mika saying he’s “Out of his Mind” while discussing a reported loud clash between SecState Tillerson and WH over meddling and interference by Kushner, Trump counters by tweeting that Joe and Mika visited Mar-A-Lago 3 times, and that he refused a personal meeting around New Year’s because Mika was “bleeding from a recent facelift” — pics taken of Mika that same day disprove this. Melania and Huckabee-Sanders give excuses for this crap.
WH aides respond to facelift tweet “At least you’re not reporting we’re going to kill Millions” — yeah, but you are though, if we let you.
MSNBC’s Katy Tur smashes Huckabee-Sanders false claim that “Trump never advocated violence” on the campaign trail point by point.
Republicans respond to “Facelift” tweet with outrage, but still continue to support and vote for Trump proposal despite outrage of the American people. Typical.
Trump prepares to meet privately with Putin at G20 by asking staff to give him “bargaining chips he can trade away.” Might those include “American Sovereignty?
Steven Benen at MSNBC reveals that Trump’s “secret plan” to fight ISIS was a Lie, because his actual plan is to do what Obama was already doing.
Kasowitz law firm under potential scrutiny by Mueller for a $285 Million 2015 real estate deal for Time Square property and refinancing loan between Kushner and Deutsche Bank.
Ryan says Senate must repass their Russia sanctions bill to resolve constitutional issue, but the issue is that revenue bills have to start in the House — so, um, what?
House intel requests a more full response to the question of Comey recordings than just the President’s tweet, which only spoke for him not any recording being kept by the entire White House.
Wall Street Journal reports that GOP operative Peter W. Smith had endeavored to gain stolen Clinton email information for Flynn. He claimed to them, before he died on May 15, to have found two groups with the information and asked them to provide it to Wikileaks. U.S. intel also picks up indications that Russian hackers were actively trying to get access to Clinton’s server to provide those emails to Flynn. Smith acting as an “intermediary” for communications between Russian hackers and Flynn confirms another plank in the Steele Dossier that Kremlin intel had been deliberately supplying Trump with anti-Clinton intel.
Van Jones lays into James O’keefe’s bogus “Nothing Burger” video supposedly “exposing” the CNN host for not really caring that much about the Russia issue compared to other policy issues — an opinion which he’s never hidden.
Hawaii files a new suit against Trump’s Partial Travel Ban/Suspension.
NRA releases a video statement featuring Media Wingnut Dana Leosch that accuses the Left of widespread verbal and other violence against Trump, the Police and the Right. She then goes onto fTucker Carlson to defend and rationalize it.
Deutsche Bank refuses request for Trump financial documents from House Dems for the 2nd time.
Senate passes updated version of their new Russia Sanctions Bill which now includes sanctions on Iran as well.
June 30th -—
TPM reports that Homeland Security hasn’t yet checked the integrity of a single voting machine to ensure none of them were hacked or tampered with.
Joe Scarborough reveals that Mika had told Melania about her facelift and that Trump was so impressed he asked for the name of her doctor 10 times.
Joe also says that Trump had tried to blackmail them into apologizing for their coverage by saying if they did he would spike a negative National Enquirer story about them. Trump rage tweets and accidentally confirms part of their story. If proven these allegations would violate New York Criminal (Coercion), DC Criminal (Bribery) and Federal Criminal Law (Extortion by officers of the U.S.).
Russian Communications Minister Nikolay Nikiforov served notice on Friday that the Russian government would retaliate against U.S. companies if Congress bans the Pentagon from using controversial cyber-security software from Kaspersky Labs.
States reject extreme voter information request from Election Suppression Commission, even Kris Kobach’s own state of Kansas refuses. Huckabee-Sanders says this is only a “political stunt” — but it’s Republican controlled states as well as Democratic that refuse.
July 1st —
UK cyber-analyst Matt Tait reveals he was recruited by Peter Smith to authenticate emails stolen from Clinton’s server by the Russians which were to be provided to Michael Flynn.
Bloomberg reports that Kushner had attempted to buy the National Enquirer along with David Pecker in 2006.
Trump continues his twitter rage-a-thon against Mika and Joe for a 3rd day saying ““Crazy Joe Scarborough and dumb as a rock Mika are not bad people,” and also criticizes MSNBC for firing Greta Van Sustren.
Senate Intel reaches agreement to review the Comey Memos.
Trump “jokes” it would be “Fun to sue CNN” at a fundraiser. He says “These are really dishonest people. Should I sue them? I mean, they’re phonies,” Trump said, according to the recording. “I mean, these are horrible human beings.”
In his 2nd loud clash with WH Officials this week Tillerson apparently had “tense” conversation with Jason Miller who pushed him to take a tougher stance on immigration, while Tillerson demanded independence on how he ran State Dept. affairs.
CBS reports that the Science Division of the WH Office of Technology is now completely unstaffed.
July 2nd —
Trump tweets video of himself body slamming and punching WWE CEO Vince McMahon into a stupor — only edited with the CNN logo covering McMahon’s face which has been posted on Reddit 4 days about by yet another neo-Nazi whose online name is literally HanAssholeSolo. CNN takes it as a literal physical threat. WH laughs saying “you guys can never take a joke.” Kathy Griffin is not consulted on the “Funny Ha Ha” of the thing.
DOJ Corporate Fraud expert quits in disgust because doing her job is simply “not possible under Trump.”
All discussion of the Tait’s revelation about being recruited to review Clinton emails obtained from Russia to provide to Michael Flynn or Trump’s ongoing assault on health care recedes.
July 3rd —
Reporter Jared Yates Sexton who discovered ID of Reddit user “HanAssholeSolo” who created anti-CNN video, begins receiving “gory” death threats and insults from other Alt-Right Neo-Nazis.
David Duke chimes in and justifies threats against “Journalistic terrorists”arguing the press has endorsed violence against him for the last 50 years..
Katrina Peirson claims “By the very nature of being President of the United States, it makes his actions presidential whether you like it or not.”
Former Ted Cruz spokesperson Amanda Carpenter argues the president’s attacks on the press “essentially [hands] a weapon to some of our enemies.”
Trump biographer Tim O’Brien says his tweets aren’t some grand distraction because he’s “not smart enough for that.”
Melania says Mika Brzezski “doesn’t know me” in response to her comments on their feud with Trump to InStyle Magazine.
House Dems back bill that could invoke the 25th Amendment removing Trump if he is found mentally or physically unfit for office.
July 4th —
Florida head of the NAACP found a Confederate flag on her lawn after receiving a series of late-night death threats from callers claiming ties to the Ku Klux Klan.
Trump plans for full “Bilateral” meeting with Putin during G20 Summit, Tillerson plans to do “cleanup” meeting in Ukraine hours later.
41 States refuse to provide information to Kris Kobach’s Voter Suppression commission — and some members begins to quit.
Germany’s Angela Merkel no longer describes America under Trump as “a friend.”
July 5th —
Jack Prosoblec A Pro-Trump activist with White House access releases the phone numbers and home addresses of multiple CNN personalities and their families.
Neo-Nazi hackers then begin to contact the families & parents of various CNN anchors and reporters, including those of Andrew Kaczinski who wrote the HanAssholeSolo story and threaten their lives.
HanAssholeSolo apologizes and promises not to produce more racist memes, Ted Cruz accuses CNN of extortion when they later publish an article about his apology while reserving the right to reveal his ID if he reneges on his promise, Some Trumpers scream “blackmail” but CNN counters that they haven’t published his ID, they won’t since he’s a private citizen and he goes on to contact CNN himself and says “he wasn’t threatened”
Fox contributor Tammy Bruce defends HanAssholeSolo right to be an ******* and criticizes CNN “(He) made this meme that the president picked up, and they decided that they could get their pound of flesh from this individual.”
Don Jr. complains “It was only a matter of time” when CNN reports the Anti-Defamation League statement that the anti-CNN meme may be racist and anti-semitic, claiming they’re “Bullying a 15 year old”, but CNN having found his Facebook page counters that claim “He’s not 15.”
Jr. continues “If only @CNN spent as much time tracking down info on IRS targeting, Fast & Furious, Iran deal etc as they did a meme writer! #CNNBlackmail” but there aren’t any outstanding questions on any of those issues, except for Wingnut conspiracies about them.
Trump supports AT&T/Time Warner deal which some see as a way for him to gain leverage over CNN.
Investigators are looking into scores of Easter European Pro-Trump websites which popped up before the election and published dozens of co-ordinated fake anti-Clinton reports.
July 6th —
Trump supporter charged with criminal mischief for writing “False Flag” graffiti at an Elementary School. [Responding officers found “Kill Trump,” “Left is the best,” “Bernie Sanders 2020” and “Death to Trump” written on a sign in the playground.]
While in Warsaw, Poland for the G20 summit Trump again says “Nobody really knows” who hacked the 2016 election. “I think it was Russia. But I think it was probably other people and/or countries, and I see nothing wrong with that statement. Nobody really knows. Nobody really knows for sure,” Trump said. He argues that “Obama did nothing” and that Bush went to war in Iraq over WMD’s and “was wrong.”
Trump also says that CNN took his wresting video too seriously. “CNN has really taken (the video) too seriously and I think they’ve hurt themselves very badly, very very badly.”
Rep. Adam Schiff blasts Trump’s comments. “The President’s comments today, again casting doubt on whether Russia was behind the blatant interference in our election and suggesting ... that nobody really knows, continue to directly undermine U.S. interests,”
CREW asks the Office of Government Ethics to investigate Kushner’s failure to disclose “his ownership interest in an online real estate investment company called Cadre” in his public financial disclosure.
On Fox and Friend Eric Trump bashes the media saying the DOW and S&P are at the highest level ever but all the media talks about is whether Trump colluded with Russia to meddle in the elections. ”I mean, we’re thriving as a nation. Everybody wants to get focused on nonsense. On garbage. On distractions.”
Walter Schraub head of the Office of Government Ethics who had been a highly vocal critical of Trump’s lack of divestiture from his private businesses abruptly resigns effective July 19th.
Rachel Maddow reports that her show had been sent a faked NSA Document which claimed proof that a specific member of the Trump Campaign had been colluding with Russians. This forged document appears to have been an attempt to discredit her program with planted Fake News which could be easily debunked at a later date.
Right wing editorials slam CNN for suggesting they might reveal the identity of HanAssholeSolo claiming that it’s “Blackmail” in exchange for his not generating racists, violent memes anymore, which pretty much establishes that yet again the Rightwing (Hearts) Racism & Sexism.
July 7th —
Trump meets Putin privately for two hours in Warsaw during the G20.
Putin says he “didn’t hack our election” and Trump believes him according to Lavrov, but Tillerson disagrees.
According to Lavrov, “Trump told Putin that some circles in the US are exaggerating the topic of Russian cyber meddling.”
Tillerson claimed he sent Melania into the meeting to break it up after first hour, but they just kept talking for another hour.
Donald Trump agreed to form a joint task force with the Russians to address cyber security, which is a bit like the bank inviting the thieves in to look around and hang out.
They don’t reach an agreement on how to handle North Korean’s increasingly aggressive missile and nuclear program.
They do reach an agreement on a cease fire in southern Syria.
They talk for so long both of them skip out of the Climate Change/Energy meeting.
California Govorner Jerry Brown shows up at G20 and shreds Trump at climate meeting he skipped. “(Trump) doesn’t speak for the rest of America”
Trump tweets that Podesta didn’t let FBI have the DNC server when Podesta actually didn’t have any jurisdiction over anything the DNC did or didn’t do. Podesta hits back with “Get a Grip Man.”
Trump State Dept grants Visas to 150 Russian Spies.
Ivanka temporarily sits in Trump’s place at one G20 summit table, the internet goes nuts.
July 8th —
NyTimes reveals the secret June 9, 2016 meeting between Don Jr., Manafort and Kushner with a prominent Russia lawyer who is known for being an agent of the Russian government. Supposedly they discuss the U.S. adoption of Russian children which had been suspended by Putin after the passage of the Magnitsky Act blacklisting Russian’s with Human Rights violations.
Donald Jr. tweets an edited video of Top Gun footage that shows Trump shooting down planes marked with CNN and says it’s “One of the best I’ve seen.”
Wapo reports that Russian hackers had accessed networks for American Nuclear and Energy companies.
While flying back from the G20 on Air Force One WH staffers begin to craft an “accurate” statement of response to the Time report about Junior and Veselniskaya, Trump himself intervenes and dictates a false story for them to release that the meeting was primarily about “Adoption”. Jared who later claims he was only at the meeting long enough to hear about the adoption portion and had left early before the Magnitski act came up is present on AF1 at this time, Junior isn’t.
July 9th —
Instead of a post summit Press Conference Trump has a tweet-gasm…
Claiming he accepted Putin’s denial of being involved in the election hacks.
He wants to partner with Russia on Cyber Security concerns
He again attacks the DNC for not letting the FBI (and he includes the CIA for some reason) have their email server even though they really didn’t need it.
And also attacks Obama for doing “nothing” about the hacks [that is besides getting in Putin’s face, shoring up our cyber defenses, informing congress, having DHS and the DNI announce that we’d been attacked and devising a new set of sanctions as well as kicking out 35 spies out and takin over 2 Russian compounds]
Kasowitz files motion to dismiss a sexual harassment and defamation suit from a former “Apprentice” contestant against Trump arguing he now has “immunity” and that his comments insulting his various accusers were simply “Free Speech”
Russia expert and investigative reporter Michael Weiss argues that doing a cyber security unit with Putin is like “having an arsonist in charge of the fire brigade.” Fox and Fools says the idea is “actually Genius.” Social media suggests El Chapo and Charles Manson as next members of this crack Cyber Security Unit.
Some GOP Senators coming back from july 4th recess say that Trumpcare is probably dead. McConnell hints that he may attempt to work with Democrats to strengthen the ACA individual market and exchanges.
The NYTimes reports that Donald Jr. was offered damaging information on Hillary Clinton before attending a meeting with a Kremlin-linked Russian Lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya last June with Manafort and Kushner, but they do not confirm that she actually delivered this information during the meeting. [If that information was provided and it originated as a result of Russian cyber-espionage — we have Collusion Sign once again, particularly if it was offered in exchange for a repeal of the Magnitsky act which sanctions Russian individuals for Human Rights violations.’]
Trump’s legal team says he “was unaware and did not attend” the meeting with Veselnitskaya.
Bush ethics lawyer Richard Painter says Don Jr & Kushner’s actions in attending the Veselnitskaya meeting to get opposition research on Clinton “border on Treason.” Also, potentially, the Logan Act again.
Outgoing Ethics Chief Walter Shaub notes that part of why he’s leaving his post early is that while attempting to do his job he got nothing but stonewalling and even a “explicit threat” from Reince Preibus.
Trump begins his tweet walkback on the Cyber Security Unit: “The fact that President Putin and I discussed a Cyber Security unit doesn't mean I think it can happen. It can't-but a ceasefire can,& did!” [Uh, what?]
July 10th —
Don Jr. issues a statement — changing his previous claims that there were “No meetings”, and his second claim that it was about “adoptions” — that he went to this meeting because he was asked by a friend he’d met during the Moscow Miss Universe pageant in 2013 and admits he went because of he promise of “helpful information”. He didn’t know Veselnitskaya previously, she talked about Russians funding the DNC (which would be illegal) in order to help Hillary Clinton but her claims were “vague and made no sense” and after discussing Russian adoption and the Magnitski act he ended the meeting after 20 mins because Trump wasn’t public official yet [which avoids a Logan Act violation].
Common Cause files a complaint about Don Jr. “Solicitiing a contribution from a foreign national” with the FEC.
Junior goes on to repeatedly like tweets that say he attended the meeting to get “dirt” on Clinton which doesn’t help his case at all.
Brit Hume insist “Don Jr. was tricked by a Russian bait and switch” but there’s no evidence of collusion. [Yeah, except that he jumped at the bait until he decided it was worthless and not harmful enough to Clinton which was kinda collusion-ish.]
Kellyanne goes on George Stephanapoulos and gets caught in her previous statements that there were “no contacts or meetings” with Russians. George asks “Who misled you?” on the details of these meetings.
Kellyanne also talks to Chris Cuomo and whines endlessness that CNN doesn’t give Trump any positive coverage — although they do. [I mean, not all day long for 10 hours straight on show after show, but they mention the other stuff sometimes.] She tries to do an infomercial about “Trump the Great” on VA reform, the Opiod crisis and Infrastructure, Cuomo counters that Don Jr.’s statement is an admission that Russians were trying to ingratiate themselves into the Trump campaign, whether they succeeded that particular time is besides the point [And they apparently did succeed later with multiple undisclosed Kushner/Flynn meetings with Kislyak and others.) “Don Jr. changed his story twice, that’s what matters” Cuomo says. She keeps whining for more positive coverage “Your panelists roll their eyes and furrow their brows, they need to be more balanced” as if they don’t have Jeffrey Lord, Jason Miller, Jack Kingston, Rick Santorum and other Pro-Trump sycophants on every day. He says “You rally people to attack the press and our families” which they have.
Keith Olbermann pulls up an old Trump tweet that he says shows Trump knew Manafort and Don Jr. meet with Veselnitskaya because later that day was the first time he said “33,000 of Hillary’s emails were missing.”
FBI says about half (4 of 7) of Comey’s memos contain sensitive or confidential information indicating his sharing some of them with Senate investigators may be problematic even though he testified that he created all the memos as “Unclassified”, this means that he is now suffering from the same after-the-fact “up classification” problem that plagued Hillary Clinton and her emails. Ironic.
Trump retweets a Fox and Friends segment that claims Comey revealed classified information to the media in his memos, when in fact the media doesn’t even have his memos, Mueller does. Senate intel had only reached an agreement to see them just last week and hasn’t fully reviewed them yet.
Rep. Schiff say House Intel wants to question Don Jr. as does Sen. Susan Collins who wants him to talk to the Senate Intel committee. Donnie tweets he’ll be happy to talk to Senate Intel.
Congressional staffers tell the Daily Beast that Treasury officials have attempted to water down the Senate’s New Sanctions Bill against Russia. Tillerson supposedly argued it would “handicap their desire to repair the relationship between the two nations.”
After Trump tweets that if Chelsea Clinton had been a place holder for her mother as Ivanka had been for him at the G20 the “Fake media would have said Chelsea for Prez” — during an audio only briefing a WH reporters asks Huckabee-Sanders when he’ll finally put “Bill and Hillary in the rear view mirror?”
Chelsea hits back saying her Father and Mother “Never would have asked her” to do such a thing and never have.
Former watergate assistant prosecutor Nick Akerman echoes Richard Painter’s call that Don Jr. actions may have “betrayed the United States” and could be considered “Treason.”
Former CIA spy Lindsay Moran says that she has seen the Russian government use these kinds of tactics in the past on American citizens, “Legality aside, this is Russian intelligence tactics at their best,” she said. “Let’s promise Trump Jr. something that he wants, lure him in, bait and switch. It doesn’t matter whether they talked about nefarious activities with him at the meeting — the whole thing is nefarious.”
Don Jr. sarcastically tweets admitting he went to get the opposition research info on Clinton that he’s “the first campaign rep to have a meeting to get information on an opponent” {Yes, he would be for information From Russia!!’]
Then Don Jr. lawyers up. His new attorney is best known for defending the Mafia.
On CNN Jennifer Taub of the Vermont Law School says that “A campaign taking anything of value from a foreign national” is a crime, and even attempting to do so by going to the meeting would be “conspiracy” to violate campaign finance laws. A Trump friendly former U.S. attorney disagrees, but then this wouldn’t be an issue under the DOJ, it would be under the FEC.
The Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) prohibits any foreign national from contributing, donating or spending funds in connection with any federal, state, or local election in the United States, either directly or indirectly. It is also unlawful to help foreign nationals violate that ban or to solicit, receive or accept contributions or donations from them. Persons who knowingly and willfully engage in these activities may be subject to fines and/or imprisonment.
Sen. Mark Warner the ranking Democrat on the Intel Committee does a press conference and says “This isn’t the first time the public has seen clear evidence of an attempt by the Trump campaign to obtain information from Russia against the Clinton campaign. It’s a continuing pattern.” He also points out the Jared Kushner has already had to amend his security clearance forms twice because he keep “forgetting” to include meetings like this with Russians.
Iraq declares victory over ISIS in Mosul.
Sen. Chuck Schumer calls on Trump and Don Jr. to “Stop Lying.”
Maggie Haberman at the NYTimes reports that the initial email to Don Jr. about meeting Veselnitskaya noted that the information came from the Russian Government, which pretty much blows up all the Trump denials that they never “colluded” with Russia, since they obviously went to the meeting knowing that it was info against Clinton that came from the Kremlin. What he should have done when he got that email was go straight to the FBI, but he didn’t.
July 11th —
Don Jr. releases his emails with Rob Goldstone, pre-empting another New York Times report on them. They completely confirm Haberman’s previous report that they were told Veselnitskaya was a “Government Lawyer” from Russia and the information was provided by the “Crown Prosecutor” of Russia because the Russian Government “wanted to help Trump.”
Veselnitskaya talks to NBC and denies she ever worked for the Russian government or tried to tell Trump Jr. anything about Clinton but that “they wanted it very badly.”
Harvard Law Prof Laurence Tribe says ““We now have the proverbial smoking gun: TJr was part of criminal conspiracy to violate fed crim laws banning foreign aid to any US campaign,”
Jared Yates Sexton who’d’ been working on this story for a year concurs with Tribe: “This is the dumbest and biggest crime in the history of American politics. There's not even a close second.”
Trump priases his son’s transparency. “My son is a high quality person.”’
Huckabee-Sanders stonewalls all questions about Trump jr. during an audio-only press conference, referring questions about him to his lawyer, but she still stands by the “no one colluded” claim she made the previous day.
Reports surface that some WH aides are considering lawyering up.
Rep. Marsha Blackburn says “Maybe Trump Jr. was duped.”
Ted Cruz blames all this Russia stuff on “Barack Obama.”
Fox News tries to spin Don Jr. email dump — then gives up on it when they get to the part where Jr. responds ‘If it’s what you say, I love it.’” when he reads that the Russian government wants to provide Trump information against Clinton in order to help their campaign.
Fox and Friends retracts their claim that Comey shared Top Secret information with the Press. “We were mistaken.”
Politico reports that Peter W. Smith’s attempts to gain access to Hillary’s emails involved a White Supremacist who had been banned from Twitter for his racism.
Julian Assange admits that he tried to give Don jr. advise to publish his emails through Wikileaks.
Some on the media argue that the leaks on Don Jr’s emails are coming from Steve Bannon in order to protect Kushner.
Wapo reports that GOP operatives close to Trump are building a “discredit team” to smear reporters.
Daily Beast reports that Bill Browder will testify before Senate Judiciary on how Veselnitskaya is linked to the GRU, FSB and efforts to lower the Magnitski Act sanctions.
joe Scarborough announces on Colbert that he’s leaving the Republican party to become and Independent.
CNN report Special Counsel Bob Mueller was unaware of Juniors meeting with Veselniskaya, but will now be investigating.
July 12th —
The intercept reports that Trump is still the principle on many of his businesses despite his claims to have handed over control to his family. [Liar, Liar, super long tie on fire.]
Rep Brad Sherman (D-CA) and Al Green (D-TX) file articles of Impeachment against Trump over his handling of the firing of James Comey.
Sen Franken rips defense of Donald Jr. to shreds during confirmation hearing for FBI director nominee Christopher Wray in response to a claim by Lindsey Graham that the Ukraine tried to give information to Hillary Clinton’s campaign. [Although this wasn’t the Ukrainian government sending an operative to reach out to Clinton, it was an effort to gather information on Paul Manafort by DNC consultant Alexandra Chalupa who is Ukrainian-American. That’s oppo research due diligence by an American, not a foreign government trying to interfere with a U.S. election.]
Sen Graham asks Wray if Mueller is on a “Witch Hunt” — he says “Director Mueller is not on a Witch Hunt.” He also says “Any threat or promise to help a campaign by a foreign government, the FBI would want to know.”
Senate Judiciary Chair Grassley prepares to call Manafort to testify.
Rep. Steve King threatens to re-open investigation of 65k emails of Anthony Weiner, Comey’s “activities” and Hillary’s emails if Democrats don't stop talking about Trump and Russia. [Go for it, punk!]
Emin Agalarov’s attorney Scott Balber gets smashed on live TV by Chris Cuomo over Emin's promoter Rob Goldstone “Do you know him to a a pathological liar?” and his attempt to give Don Jr. negative information on Hillary: Balber says it’s “Simply fiction that this was an attempt by the Russian government to reach Trump through having his son’s pop music publicist, the prosecutor never talked to his father.” Cuomo says about Goldstone’s claim: “That is some doozy of a lie.”
Cuomo also takes on Sekulow over Don Jr. and tells him “You have no facts!”
McClatchy reports that House, Senate and DOJ investigators are looking at whether the Russian cyberbot and Troll program to spread fake news about Hillary as reported by Time was coordinated using Jared Kushner voter micro-targeting system with Cambridge Analytics. Former Pentagon expert on Russia Mike Carpenter states ““There appears to have been significant cooperation between Russia’s online propaganda machine and individuals in the United States who were knowledgeable about where to target the disinformation,” he said, without naming any American suspects.
Democratic party donors and some staff have sued the Trump campaign and Roger Stone for conspiring to publicly release their private information through the dumping of data stolen from the DNC by Russian hackers through DCLeaks and Wikileaks. The suit doesn’t contain any hard evidence of conspiracy but it does seek to depose witnesses and do discovery of Trump campaign emails.
WSJ reports that US intel is reviewing intercepts they captured in 2015 before his run for the President of Russian intel personnel discussing contacts with Trump associates.
DOJ misses a court ordered deadline to provide all of Jeff Sessions foreign contacts.
Trump tells Pat Roberson that Putin “wanted Clinton to win because of the Military and Energy.” He doesn’t mention sanctions, human rights, Crimea, Ukraine, NATO or the EU.
During a Reuters interview Trump says he didn’t know about Junior meeting Veselnitskaya and argues “most people would have taken that meeting.” [Uh, nope.]
July 13th —
NyTimes reports that Kushner has updated his security forms for foreign contacts 3 times and added more than 100 new names to the list.
Republican Rep. Bill Flores says that Trump should get his kids, including Kushner, out of the White House.
DOJ delivers Sessions foreign contact list a day late and short of details.
Asked about Trump Jr’s meeting and his FBI director nominee’s claim that anyone in that situation “should contact the FBI” while in France for Bastille Day Trump echoes his own false story that he previous dictated for Junior on AF1 says “most people would have taken that meeting”, “nothing happened, they talked about adoptions which wasn’t part of the campaign” and claims she wasn’t a “Government Lawyer” even though Junior was specifically told that she was and this was part of the Russian government’s effort to help his campaign, he ignores FEC rules over foreign “gifts and contributions” then he blames Veselnitskaya even being in the country on Loretta Lynch (ignoring that her Visa was approved by the State Dept, not DOJ, because she was a Denys Katsyv’s defense attorney while he was being sued under the Magnitski Act)
Chuck Grassley sends Junior a letter requesting he testify before Senate Judiciary.
After first saying he’d only just heard of the Veselnitskaya meeting 2 days ago Trump changes his tune later in the day, telling reporters on Air Force One: “In fact maybe it was mentioned at some point,” This statement was supposed to be off the record, but Trump changed and put it on the record.
Chicago Tribune reports that GOP Donor and operative Peter W. Smith who had tried to acquire Hillary’s emails for Michael Flynn committed suicide 10 days after talking to WSJ.
Yahoo News reports that Trump’s attorneys were informed about the meeting 3 weeks ago after the emails referring to it were discovered by Kushner’s lawyers who then updated his SF-86 form.
Senate Intel member James Lankford (R-OK) reveals that Kushners attendance at the Veselnitskaya meetings was known as far back as April, when he updated his background check forms.
Kushner explodes with WH Press staff saying that instead of letting Trump and Juniors lawyers respond to these issues they need to aggressively defend Don Jr. and have two staffers ready to “attack the Chyrons”on Cable News shows and have op-eds written for the NYtimes and WSJ. Some reports are that Spicey has begun complaining about Kush and still others say these conversations just didn’t happen. [Yeah, alrighty.]
Kasowitz blows his stack at an email critic: “I’m on you now. You are ******* with me now. Let’s see who you are. Watch your back, *****.” Charming.
TPM reports that Trump Deputy Sebastian Gorka is a Nazi Worshipper, cuz of course he is.
Many reporters note that there are references to a phone call between Don Jr. and Emin in the emails chain, and also that Goldstone’s mention of the Russian governments efforts to help Trump seem nonchalant as if that was an already known fact to Don Jr.
Michael Isakoff reveals on CNN that he had interviewed Rob Goldstone and learned that the Trump’s and Agalarov’s had a deal for a new Trump Tower in 2013 that went sideways in 2014 when Obama placed sanctions on Russia for their invasion of Crimea.
Glenn Simpson co-owner of the firm Fusion GPS which had employed Christopher Steel while he compiled his dossier on Trump declines an invitation to testify before Senate Judiciary.
July 14 —
Harvard Law Prof Laurence Tribe says ““We now have the proverbial smoking gun: TJr was part of criminal conspiracy to violate fed crim laws banning foreign aid to any US campaign,”
Jared Yates Sexton who’d’ been working on this story for a year concurs with Tribe: “This is the dumbest and biggest crime in the history of American politics. There's not even a close second.”
Trump priases his son’s transparency. “My son is a high quality person.”’
Huckabee-Sanders stonewalls all questions about Trump jr. during an audio-only press conference, referring questions about him to his lawyer, but she still stands by the “no one colluded” claim she made the previous day.
Reports surface that some WH aides are considering lawyering up.
Rep. Marsha Blackburn says “Maybe Trump Jr. was duped.” Hm, ya think?
Ted Cruz blames all this Russia stuff on “Barack Obama.”
Fox News tries to spin Don Jr. email dump — then gives up on it when they get to the part where Jr. responds ‘If it’s what you say, I love it.’” when he reads that the Russian government wants to provide Trump information against Clinton in order to help their campaign.
Fox and Friends retracts their claim that Comey shared Top Secret information with the Press. “We were mistaken.” [No ****, Sherlock.]
Politico reports that Peter W. Smith’s attempts to gain access to Hillary’s emails involved a White Supremacist who had been banned from Twitter for his racism.
Julian Assange admits that he tried to give Don jr. advise to publish his emails through Wikileaks.
Some on the media argue that the leaks on Don Jr’s emails are coming from Steve Bannon in order to protect Kushner.
Wapo reports that GOP operatives close to Trump are building a “discredit team” to smear reporters.
Daily Beast reports that Bill Browder will testify before Senate Judiciary on how Veselnitskaya is linked to the GRU, FSB and efforts to lower the Magnitski Act sanctions.
William Browder, an American financier who has investigated Russian corruption for more than a decade, will brief the Senate Judiciary Committeeat a hearing next week on the lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya’s ties to the Russian government—including to former top members of the GRU and the FSB, two of the Kremlin’s main intelligence agencies. Those ties were spelled out in documents that Browder shared with the committee and provided to The Daily Beast this week.
joe Scarborough announces on Colbert that he’s leaving the Republican party to become and Independent.
CNN reports Special Counsel Bob Mueller was unaware of Juniors meeting with Veselniskaya, but will now be investigating. [Ruh Roh!]
The intercept reports that Trump is still the principle on many of his businesses despite his claims to have handed over control to his family. [Liar, Liar, super long tie on fire.]
Rep Brad Sherman (D-CA) and Al Green (D-TX) file articles of Impeachment against Trump over his handling of the firing of James Comey.
Sen Franken rips defense of Donald Jr. to shreds during confirmation hearing for FBI director nominee Christopher Wray in response to a claim by Lindsey Graham that the Ukraine tried to give information to Hillary Clinton’s campaign. [Although this wasn’t the Ukrainian government sending an operative to reach out to Clinton, it was an effort to gather information on Paul Manafort by DNC consultant Alexandra Chalupa who is Ukrainian-American. That’s oppo research due diligence by an American, not a foreign government trying to interfere with a U.S. election.]
Sen Graham ask Wray if Mueller is on a “Witch Hunt” — he say “Director Mueller is not on a Witch Hunt.” He also says “Any threat or promise to help a campaign by a foreign government, the FBI would want to know.”
Senate Judiciary Chair Grassley prepares to call Manafort to testify.
Rep. Steve King threatens to re-open investigation of 65k emails of Anthony Weiner, Comey’s “activities” and Hillary’s emails if Democrats don't stop talking about Trump and Russia. [Go for it, punk!]
Emin Agalarov’s attorney Scott Balber gets smashed on live TV by Chris Cuomo over Emin's promoter Rob Goldstone “Do you know him to a a pathological liar?” and his attempt to give Don Jr. negative information on Hillary: Balber says it’s “Simply fiction that this was an attempt by the Russian government to reach Trump through having his son’s pop music publicist, the prosecutor never talked to his father.” Cuomo says about Goldstone’s claim: “That is some doozy of a lie.”
Cuomo also takes on Sekulow over Don Jr. and tells him “You have no facts!”
McClatchy reports that House, Senate and DOJ investigators are looking at whether the Russian cyberbot and Troll program to spread fake news about Hillary as reported by Time was coordinated using Jared Kushner voter micro-targeting system with Cambridge Analytics. Former Pentagon expert on Russia Mike Carpenter states ““There appears to have been significant cooperation between Russia’s online propaganda machine and individuals in the United States who were knowledgeable about where to target the disinformation,” he said, without naming any American suspects.
Democratic party donors and some staff have sued the Trump campaign and Roger Stone for conspiring to publicly release their private information through the dumping of data stolen from the DNC by Russian hackers through DCLeaks and Wikileaks. The suit doesn’t contain any hard evidence of conspiracy but it does seek to depose witnesses and do discovery of Trump campaign emails.
WSJ reports that US intel is reviewing intercepts they captured in 2015 of Russian intel personnel discussing contacts with Trump associates.
DOJ misses a court ordered deadline to provide all of Jeff Sessions foreign contacts.
Trump tells Pat Roberson that Putin “wanted Clinton to win because of the Military and Energy.” He doesn’t mention sanctions, human rights, Crimea, Ukraine, NATO or the EU.
During a Reuters interview Trump says he didn’t know about Junior meeting Veselnitskaya and argues “most people would have taken that meeting.” [Uh, nope.]
NyTimes reports that Kushner has updated his security forms for foreign contacts 3 times and added more than 100 new names to the list.
Republican Rep. Bill Flores says that Trump should get his kids, including Kushner, out of the White House.
DOJ delivers Sessions foreign contact list a day late and short of details. He continues to claim that Foreign contacts he made as a member of the Senate are not relevant and are therefore redacted, but that’s not an option available on the form.
Asked about Trump Jr’s meeting and his FBI director nominee’s claim that anyone in that situation “should contact the FBI” while in France for Bastille Day Trump says again repeating the false statement he himself helped craft on AF1 that “most people would have taken that meeting”, “nothing happened, they talked about adoptions which wasn’t part of the campaign” and claims she wasn’t a “Government Lawyer” even though Junior was specifically told that she was and this was part of the Russian government’s effort to help his campaign, he ignores FEC rules over foreign “gifts and contributions” then he blames Veselnitskaya even being in the country on Loretta Lynch (ignoring that her Visa was approved by the State Dept, not DOJ, because she was a Denys Katsyv’s defense attorney while he was being sued under the Magnitski Act)
Chuck Grassley sends Junior a letter requesting he testify before Senate Judiciary.
After first saying he’d only just heard of the Veselnitskaya meeting 2 days ago Trump changes his tune later in the day, telling reporters on Air Force One: “In fact maybe it was mentioned at some point,” This statement was supposed to be off the record, but Trump changed and put it on the record.
Chicago Tribune reports that GOP Donor and operative Peter W. Smith who had tried to acquire Hillary’s emails for Michael Flynn committed suicide 10 days after talking to WSJ.
Yahoo News reports that Trump’s attorneys were informed about the meeting 3 weeks ago after the emails referring to it were discovered by Kushner’s lawyers who then updated his SF-86 form.
Senate Intel member James Lankford (R-OK) reveals that Kushners attendance at the Veselnitskaya meetings was known as far back as April, when he updated his background check forms.
Kushner explodes with WH Press staff saying that instead of letting Trump and Juniors lawyers respond to these issues they need to aggressively defend Don Jr. and have two staffers ready to “attack the Chyrons” on Cable News shows and have op-eds written for the NYtimes and WSJ. Some reports are that Spicey has begun complaining about Kush and still others say these conversations just didn’t happen. [Yeah, alrighty.]
Kasowitz blows his stack at an email critic: “I’m on you now. You are ******* with me now. Let’s see who you are. Watch your back, *****.” Charming.
TPM reports that Trump Deputy Sebastian Gorka is a Nazi Worshipper, cuz of course he is.
Many reporters note that there are references to a phone call between Don Jr. and Emin in the emails chain, and also that Goldstone’s mention of the Russian governments efforts to help Trump seem nonchalant as if that was an already known fact to Don Jr.
Michael Isakoff reveals that he had interviewed Rob Goldstone and learned that the Trump’s and Agalarov’s had a deal for a new Trump Tower in 2013 that went sideways in 2014 when Obama placed sanctions on Russia for their invasion of Crimea.
Daily Beast reports that in addition to the “translator” who came with Veselnitskaya to the meeting with Don Jr. there was Rinat Akhmetshin a former Russian Intelligence officer and lobbyist who had previously been accused of being involved in an international hacking scheme.
On Fox both Lou Hobbs while appearing on Hannity and Jesse Waters accuse the “deep state” and “left wing” media of attempting a “coup d’etat” against Trump to undermine American values and “break the will of the people” even though the actual majority of the people voted against Trump.
Loretta Lynch denies she had any personal involvement or knowledge of Veselnitskaya’s Visa status, and she shouldn’t because that wasn’t. her. job. the State Dept. under John Kerry handled Visas at that time and her’s was approved at least as far back as 2013 when Bharara first issued his Magnitski suit against the Prevezon Holdings.
GOP strategist Rick Wllson says “Only Trump’s hypnotized base believes his Bullshit Tornado about Russia.” [Yep, pretty much.’]
Trump digital media expert Brad Pascale issues a statement in response to House and Senate intel requests to speak to him that he has ‘no knowledge of Russian involvement” in the online campaign he put together with Cambridge-Analytica.
Rep.Adam Schiff calls for everyone from the Veselnitskaya meeting to testify to the House Intel. [Which is now at 8 people and counting...]
The New Republic publishes an extensive story on TrumpCos long history of being involved in money laundering with Russian mobsters going all the way back to 1987.
Former Trump communications aid Michael Caputo agrees with CNN that the Trump Campaign was too much of a ‘**** Show” to have been able to effectively coordinate with the Russians. [Do Tell.]
Caputo testifies behind closed doors to House Intel, claims he saw no links to discussions of Russia, that little old ladies used to bring them “dog-eared papers” on Clinton, and condemns Rep. Jackie Spieres for linking him to Russia saying that it caused his wife and family to receive death threats, and that someone threatened to burn his house down. “The Rhetoric is going to get someone killed and I don’t want to be the next one shot” which is pretty ironic since Jackie Spiere’s was shot 5 times while she was a staffer for Rep. Leo Ryan when he was killed near the Jim Jones compound in Guyana.
Akhmetshin claims he has never worked for Russian intelligence or the GRU, his simply served 2 years in the Russian army before immigrating to the U.S. and becoming a citizen and working as a lobbyist, but says that Veselnitskaya brought a plastic folder with documents showing the DNC accepting funds from Russia to the meeting. All this despite a letter written from Sen. Grassley to SecDEf Kelly about Akhmetshin being and “unregistered” lobbyist who had previously experience as an “active measures expert” with the GRU.
Veselnitskaya admits that she is a former prosecutor and is in regular contact with the Prosecutor General of Russia Yuri Chaika, who is controversial for trumping up bogus charges against Putin’s enemies and having them tortured and killed in prisonthe same way the Sergei Magnitski was killed.
Kushner Lawyer Jamie Gorelick is reported by Politico to be backing out of Kushner’s issues with Mueller and leaving everything to Abbie Lowell
July 15th —
WH announces “Made In America Week” but has no answer when asked if that means that Ivanka’s clothing line which is made overseas will be moving their manufacturing to the U.S. The WaPo then pointed out that Trump branded products are made in at least a dozen countries.
The Hill reports that there were 150,000 hack attempts were made against South Carolina’s voter registration system, indications are that they were not successful.
Secret Service smacks down Sekolow — “That meeting was never cleared with us.”
Trump’s lawyer Sekolow blames the Veselnitskaya/Akhmetshin meeting on the Secret Service even though no one who was a protectee at that time was in the meeting. He also claims he and Trump weren’t involved in the crafting of Don Jr’s initial and false statements about the meeting, but that is a lie since Trump dictated and approved it from AF1.
Daily Beast reports that Don Jr.’s lawyer Alan Futerfas had been paid $50,000 by the Trump re-election campaign 11 days before the first report about his Veselnitskaya meeting. Furteras is best known for having been the attorney for all four of New York’s most notorious organized crime families.
July 16th —
Trump whines on Twitter about all the attention on Don Jr’s meeting and accuses Hillary of “illegally” deleting emails even after the FBI said it wasn’t illegal, and his own companies have repeated deleted emails and documents under court order, and getting debate questions ahead of time which also isn’t illegal particularly when Clinton wasn’t even asked the same questions that were wrongfully forwarded to her meanwhile he was warned about Meghan Kelly’s first debate question and had threatened her not to ask it or else his twitter followers would come after her, which they did.
July 17th —
Spicer proclaims that there was nothing in Juniors email that shows the meeting wasn’t about Abortion and the Magnitski Act [which he mis-pronounces as “Maginski Act”] — except everything Junior released five days ago and also what Trump said on Bastille day and tweeted about admiring that it was about obtaining “Oppo research.”
CNN talks to Junior’s Lawyer Futerfas and he says he talked to the 8th man in the meeting who was a rep for the Agalarov Family, even though their lawyers Scott Balber says they basically had nothing to do with anything, This person confirms that the meeting started off being about Russia giving money to the DNC, but he doesn’t confirm that a 2 page document was left behind by Veselnitskaya for Junior.
The Senate Trumpcare Bill coughs and dies as 2 more Repub Senators come out against it dropping them to 48 votes. Trump calls for a full repeal of O-care with a two year delay for them to “figure something out” also known as magically skipping over the 2018 midterm elections.
Fox’s Judge Anthony Napolitano who was the primary source of Trump’s bogus “Obama Wiretapped Trump Tower using GCHQ” claim, comes out and says that Junior probably broke the law. “Because it is suspicious that they met with these people, that they didn’t consult a lawyer, that one of these people was a former KGB, GRU, that’s the Russian intelligence arm, Russian military intelligence arm, and didn’t tell anybody about it.” [Yeah, ya think?’’]
WSJ Editoral “Eviscerates” Trump over the entire Russia scandal saying “Mr. Trump and his family are repeating the mistakes that doomed Mrs. Clinton.Don Jr. released his emails that showed the Russian lure about Mrs. Clinton and Don Jr. all excited—’I love it.’ Oh, and son-in-law Jared Kushner and Beltway bagman Paul Manafort were also at the meeting. Don Jr. told Sean Hannity this was the full story,” they continued. “But then news leaked that a Russian-American lobbyist was also at the meeting.”
July 18th —
The 8th man finally appears and is revealed to be a naturalized Russian-American, Ike Kaveladze, working in the U.S. for a Russian real estate company owned by the Agalarov’s who is represented by Emin’s Lawyer Scott Balber. Balber says he was there to act as a translator, but that Veselnitskaya brought her own translator (person #7) and that he’d been contacted by Mueller’s office about the ID of the 8th man. Congress and the GAO had previously investigated Kaveladze as a “foreigner creating shell companies” exactly like the types of money laundering schemes that have been used by the Russian Mob and Intel services.
Trumpcare finally implodes as more Republican Senator balk at their bullshit plan. Trump whines and blames Democrats for not helping destroy healthcare for 22-23 Million people even though the entire point of using the reconciliation process was to avoid needing any Dem votes. He says he’s now “let Obamacare fail” while in fact he’s already been sabotaging it by messing with cost sharing reductions and driving providers out of the marketplace.
Mueller ok’s the Senate Judiciary committees to talk to Junior and Manafort in an open hearing. [Is this because he’s already talked to both of them?]
It’s revealed that during a dinner at the G20 Trump again spoke with Putin for another hour without disclosing it, this time without any other Americans or aides present so there is no record or documentation of what was said.
Fox WH correspondent John Roberts walks out of Huckabee-Sanders briefing early and when she notes his departure from the podium he slaps back “‘If it was on camera, I might not be.’ Generating “Ooohs” from the pool.
Sean Hannity whines about Shep Smith’s criticism of Trump “Some voices on Fox drive me nuts. Shep is so anti-Trump.”
Chris Christie says that it was “probably illegal” to receive oppo research from a foreign government but that Don Jr. is not smart enough to collude with the Russians.
July 19th —
Scarborough says about Trump’s second Putin meeting: ““So what are we to assume if not the worst — that he had this meeting, the White House didn’t reveal it. Once again we had to find out about it through third channels and there wasn’t even an American within earshot to listen what they talked about for an hour.”
Walter Schaub says he was horrified when Trump’s lawyer asked if he could turn in his financial disclosure forms without signing them and certifying that they were true.
Over 20 lawmakers begin to question Ivanka Trump’s security clearance because she apparently didn’t disclose any of their families multiple meetings with Russian officials on her SF86 forms.
Shep Smith slaps back at Hannity “Sometimes facts are displeasing.”
Flynn and Caputo are reportedly having difficulty paying their lawyer fees.
Veselnitskaya says she’s ready to testify to the Senate who otherwise can’t subpoena her since she’s a foreign natonal. [Judging by her RT interview, she’ll do great right?]
Daily Beast reports that while Veselnitskaya met secretly with Don Jr. last June the Kremlin gave Rep. Dana Rohrabacher instructions to stage a “show trial” in Congress attacking Bill Browder in order to alter the Magnitski Act sanctions on Russia. Rohrabacher was provided a Russian propaganda film against Browder by Yuri Chaika’s Prosecutor Generals Office, which was the same source for Veselnitskaya’s “evidence” against Hillary Clinton and the DNC.
Trump does an interview with Maggie Haberman and the NyTimes
He says that he blames the appointment of Mueller as Special Counsel on Jeff Sessions recusal, and says if he’d known Sessions would recuse himself he wouldn’t have picked him for AG. “It’s very unfair to the President.”
He thinks Comey briefing him on the Steele dossier was intended as blackmail in order to keep his job.
That Mueller was rife with conflicts of interest because he had interviewed for interim FBI director the day before he was appointed Special Counsel, and he has Democrats working for him
He doesn’t trust Deputy FBI Director McCabe because his wife ran for office as a Democrat once and got $700k from Gov. Terry McAullif and the DNC, who are friendly with Clinton so that means McCabe is “evil.”
He doesn’t trust Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein because he’s from Baltimore and it’s full of Democrats.
He claims he still doesn’t think he’s under investigation even for obstruction of Justice “I don’t think we’re under investigation,” he said. “I’m not under investigation. For what? I didn’t do anything wrong.”
He again denied that he asked Comey to drop the Flynn investigation.
He admits that his second hour long conversation with Putin at the G20 included a discussion of Russian adoptions, the same subject that Veselnitskaya had brought up with Don Jr.
He says that if Mueller wanders from Russia and starts to investigate his families finances it would be “crossing a red line.”
The NYTimes reports that investigators are looking at complex financial transactions between Trump, Kushner, Deutsche Bank and VEB.
Trump hits 6 Months in Office as Carrier lays off 300 workers.
Kushner is scheduled to testify in closed Session to Senate Intel on the 24th. Manafort and Don Jr. are scheduled to testify before Senate Judiciary on the 26th.
NYTimes reports that Manafort owed $17 Million to pro-Russia shell companies based in Cyprus before he joined Trump campaign.
July 20th —
Bloomberg reports that Mueller is looking at the finances of Trump and his associates.
AP reports that the Russian urged Trump to bring a note taker for his dinner meeting with Putin but he declined because he was afraid of leaks.
Senate Judiciary approves Chris Wray for FBI Director.
Sessions says he’ll stay on as a “Zombie Attorney General.”
Sally Yates slams Trump’s attack on the independence of the DOJ as a “violation of a bedrock principle of democracy”
Rohrabacher dismisses what Russia asked him to do with a “show trial” as insignificant.
HHS is using Obamacare outreach funds to undermine the laws function.
Rep. Schiff calls Trump’s secret dinner meeting with Putin “deeply troubling.”
Huckabee-Sanders says those who complain about Trump’s 2nd meeting have “Russia Fever.”
Deutsche bank which has loaned Trump hundreds of $Million agrees to turn over financial records to Mueller and investigators.
U.S. Military renting space in Trump Tower are paying $130,000 per month for it.
1 in 8 Trump voters wish they could take it back.
Treasury Dept fines Exxon-Mobil $2 Million for violating Russia sanctions related to Ukraine when Tillerson was CEO.
NAACP Legal Defense Fund Sues Trump election panel for racial discrimination, voter intimidation and suppression.
Trump’s Chief counter-terrorism advisor Thomas Bossert admits that Russia was definitely behind the 2016 election hacking, so how come Trump doesn’t know, or believe, that?
Rumors abound that Kasowitz will be taking a back seat on Trump’s legal team as some on the team begin doing oppo research on the members of Mueller’s team in order to hinder them. [Which would be obstruction]
Court documents show that one of Veselnitskaya’s previous clients was the FSB.
Trump asks his lawyers and advisors what his options are for pardoning members of his family or himself.
Weary Trump supporters begin to tune out the news because it’s all bad for him and them.
July 21st —
Roger Stone rips Sessions: He’s only a ‘tough guy’ when it comes to ‘chasing people for smoking pot’
Mueller request WH Staff preserve all documents and emails of communications related to Trump Jr.’s June meeting with Russians.
Reports surface that the shakeup in Trump’s legal team is linked to the attacks on Mueller.
Trump hires Anthony Scaramucci as Communications Director, Preibus had no idea. Sean Spicer resigns in protest because having a shmoozy Wall Street hack shill “Yes” man stooge with no Washington or communications experience as your instant boss was obviously the last fracking straw. Sarah “Resting scowl-face” Huckabee-Sanders becomes the new WH Press Secretary.
Kasowitz and strategist Mark Corallo leave Trump’s legal team. DC lawyer John Down takes over.
Wapo Reports that Intercepts by U.S. intel of conversation between Kislyak and Russia indicate that Sessions twice, at the Mayflower Hotel and at the RNC, discussed Trump’s positions regarding Russia with him indicating that he lied to congress under oath about those conversations.
Mother Jones reports that Sen. Warren has been pressing the Treasury department since January on whether Scaramucci had violated sanctions rules by discussing possible investment opportunities with Kirill Dmitriev, head of the sanctioned Russian Direct Investment Fund.
Senate intel chair Burr says “the unmasking thing” was all created by Devin Nunez.
Senate Judiciary issues a subpoena to Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS for information about the creation of the Steele Dossier.
Kislyak steps down as ambassador and returns to Russia.
NSC Staffer Rich Higgins is fired for writing a crazed conspiracy filled memo.
July 23rd —
Huckabee-Sanders gets caught in a lie by Stephanapolous claiming the Russia story is all the press covers.
Don Jr. hires more lawyers.
Scaramucci tries to scrub all his previous anti-Trump, pro-Climate Change tweets but everyone notices.
Scaramucci is interviewed by Jake Tapper on CNN
He says that Putin told Trump in Hamburg that Russian hackers are too good to have been caught by the U.S.
He denies that Russia hacked our election “This is maybe they did it, maybe they didn’t do it” and runs into a buzzsaw with Tapper — “Don’t you owe a duty to the truth?”
Kellyanne Conway freaks out when CNN’s Brian Stetler suggests the Trump campaign welcomed Russian interference and influence during the election, which frankly they didn’t oppose.
July 24th —
Kushner releases an 11 Page statement prior to his speaking to the Senate Intel staff behind closed doors
He denies colluding with Russians or discussing campaign issues.
He says he tried to get out of the Veselnitskaya meeting and never fully read the email or apparently the subject line “Hillary — Russia — Sensitive and Confidential. [But he still showed up, didn't he?] He arrived at the meeting late and the topic at the time was “Russian adoptions” he didn’t see that as being relevant and emailed his assistant to call him in order to give him an excuse to leave. "Can u pls call me on my cell? Need excuse to get out of meeting.” He says he didn’t remember anything about the meeting and had disclosed it on his forms prior to it reaching the press.
He says his SF86 form was accidentally submitted without being completed when his assistant mistook the completion of one section to mean the entire form was complete. [Aren’t these supposed to be signed when submitted certifying that they’re fully complete?] All contacts with foreign nations were originally omitted not just Russians.
He reveals that he received an email that was clearly an extortion attempt by “Guccifer400” that threatened to reveal Trump tax returns. He thought is was a hoax and referred it to Secret Service. [That should have gone to FBI, Secret Service protects you from physical threats and conterfeiters they don’t pursue blackmail or extortion.]
He says he only talked to Kislyak for “about a minute” at the Mayflower Hotel simply to exchange pleasantries and denies the Reuters report that he had two phone calls with Kislyak between April and November, saying he searched his phone records and couldn’t find any numbers associated with the ambassador. “I doubt these calls took place.”
He says he tried to setup a secure back-channel to the Kremlin in order to discuss the war in Syria with Russian “generals” came from Kislyak, but was not over sanctions. Flynn said such a secure channel didn’t exist and Kushner asked if one existed in the Russian embassy. [This doesn’t explain why he wanted the U.S. Intel community cut out of the loop, since they have to implement Syria policy anyway and the people who really don’t need to know is ISIS. Plus this was in December and January while they were all still “private citizens” — Logan Act — and long before there were allegations of “wiretaps”, “unmasking” or “leaks” coming from US Intel so what gives?]
Kislyak kept pestering him for continued meetings which he didn’t have time for and turned down until finally sending his assistant, then he agreed to meet VEB’s Gorkov because “he had a direct link to Putin.” He says they didn’t discuss sanctions or business or really anything other than “wanting better relations.”
He never mentions or explains his meeting with the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi which he attended with Steve Bannon following his meeting with Gorkov to further discuss Russia relations, or the follow on meeting to that between the Crown Prince and Eric Prince of Blackwater in the Seychelles Islands.
Kushner gives a public statement “I didn't collude with Russians and don’t know anyone who did.” [You know Flynn, Manafort and Roger Stone don’t you?] And claims “I did not rely on Russian money for my businesses.”
Kushner also apparently tell Congressional Staff the “Trump campaign was too disorganized to have colluded with the Russians” [Then why is that frakhole “President” then?]
At some point near this time Manafort also talks to Congressional staffers and tell them about the Veselnitskaya meeting.
Former FBI Agent Clint Watts says Kushner’s statement and it’s “chaos and confusion” defense shows he’s either incompetent or the Russia influence on TrumpCo is very strong. [Could be both!]
The Guardian reports that Kushner paid $295 Million for a portion of the New York Times building from Jewish Soviet-born Diamond Tycoon Lev Leviev — who the Dutch media reports smuggles valuable diamonds by making them look worthless by covering them in soot, connected to Human Rights violations in Angola as well as funding illegal Jewish settlements in the disputed zones of Israel. Kushner later borrowed $285 million to refinance the purchase through Deutsche Bank, which has come under scrutiny for alleged ties to Russian money laundering and had to pay $630 Million in fines for transferring $10 Billion through Russia. [So much for ‘not relying Russian Money for his business’]
Fox Host Jason Chaffetz claims people should be talking about Chelsea Clinton’s links to Benghazi [even though she has none, she didn’t work for Hillary or the State Dept then], and Hillary’s links to Russia [also has none, certainly not since Putin returned to the Presidency] rather than Kushner’s failure to report his meetings, even though only Kushner is speaking to the Senate today.`
NYTimes Glenn Thrush reports that rather than being an insult to the press, the yanking of WH press conference videos was because Spicer didn’t want Trump yelling at him and saying he “sucked at his job”.
Feinstein asks Grassley to call Sessions before Senate Judiciary.
Trump tweet/whines why “Beleagured” Sessions and House committees don’t investigate Hillary’s connections to Russia [Bill spoke to Renaissance Capital in 2010 for $500,000 while supposedly at that time Hillary opposed requests for the State Dept to deny visas to Russian oligarch accused of Human rights violations under Medvedev. But that all changed with the passage of the Magnitski Act and Putin’s return to the Presidency in 2012 and the annexation of Crimea and invasion of Ukraine in 2014. Also if you think Bill and Hillary can be bought for $500k what exactly did Deutsche Bank get from Kushner for a cool $285 Million?]
Trump trues to bully Republicans into passing Trumpcare by saying “Obamacare is Death” — which is bullshit. Does a campaign rally at the Boy Scout Jamboree — even though I’m pretty sure they can’t vote yet. And reports start to surface that’s he’s floating the idea of removing Sessions.
July 25th —
After Trump’s usual self-aggrandizing, whining, hate and delusion filled partisan rally speech to the Boy Scout Jamboree parents and former scouts alike our outraged. He had invited members of his staff who were Eagle Scouts like Rick Perry but gives Jeff Sessions the Spicer Treatment by leaving him out. Some reports at that Sessions is so pissed he won’t give Trump the satisfaction of quitting.
During the Jamboree Scaramucci’s wife gives birth to their second child James, he’s not there because he’s with Trump, but he does send her a text.
Trump thumps Sessions some more on Twitter. Several times, even though it was his ethical — and legal — duty to recuse himself from any investigation of a campaign that he was a participant of. He’s so mean even Breitbart and Limbaugh start to feel sorry for Sessions. Some Congressional Republicans start to grow a soul, but Paul Ryan doesn’t.
The House approves new strengthened sanctions on Russia/Iran & North Korea which don’t allow Trump to unilaterally cut them by a final Veto Proof vote of 419-3.
John McCain triumphantly returns to the Senate after his brain cancer diagnosis and gives an impassioned rousing speach on bipartisanship right after casting a pivotal party line vote to open debate on taking the kind of Health Care he’s currently receiving away from between 15 or 22 or 32 Million people depending on Mitch McConnell’s mood. Although the parlimentarian says they’re going to need 60 Votes for most of what they have in mind.
Kushner is interviewed behind closed doors by House Intel panel staff for 3 Hours.
Manafort is subpeoned by Senate Judiciary.
House Repubs block Democrats attempt to see Trump’s Treasury FIles.
Scarmucci admits Trump wants Sessions FIred “It’s like a divorce.”
Huckabee-Sanders says re-re-reinvestigating Clinton for things that didn’t happen and she’s already been cleared for is just “Keeping a level playing field.”
Trump tweets about classified Syria program to fund and supply anti-Assad rebels in order to slap back at a Wapo story.
July 26h —
FBI executes a “No Knock” pre-dawn search warrant on Paul Manafort’s residence looking for financial documents some of which he was supposed to have turned over to Senate Intel specifically because they’re concerned he might destroy evidence.
Just minutes after Tucker Carlson calls trans people potential “child abusers” Trump tweets that all trans persons in the military will be removed because to the cost of their surgeries, although the military spends 4 times as much on Viagra to treat ED.
Trump tweets again asking why Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe hasn’t been fired because his wife received $700k from Terry McAulif when she ran for congress.
Putin threatens to retaliate against “Illegal” U.S. sanctions after their approval by Congress.
Senate defribs Trumpcare by considering “Skinny Repeal” for Obamacare which would only affect the mandates, subsidies and Medicare expansion.
Scaramucci’s financial disclosure forms indicates that he is still doing work for his investment firm while working in the White House and that the company was recently bought by Chinese investors meaning he’s receiving paychecks from China and the U.S. government at the same time.
Senate Intel calls for pro-Trump oppo researcher Chuck Johnson to testify on his work with to obtain Hillary’s emails for Michael Flynn along with the late Peter W. Smith.
Ken Starr calls for Trump to stop attacking Sessions “Cut it out.”
Grassley warns Trump not to fire Sessions.
Jeffrey Lord attempts to defend Trump’s trans-ban tweet says the Military shouldn’t be paying for Viagra either.
Kushner may be violating the Presidential records act by having and app that makes message sent or received “disappear’ on his iPhone.
Nine Inch Nail’s Trent Reznor says “Trump’s a vulgarian” — yeah, you bet.
July 27th —
CBO score of Skinny Repeals says that it would take Healthcare from 16 Million people and increase premiums by 20%.
Newsweek reports that Russia used Facebook to try and trick Macron supporters prior to French Election.
Senate ignores Trump’s call to investigate Hillary Clinton again.
Lindsay Graham says firing Sessions and/or Mueller would be the beginning of the end of Trump’s presidency.
The Joint Chiefs announce no one is going no where based on a Tweet, Trump hasn’t given them any formal instructions on trans soldiers yet.
Bill Browder testifies to Senate Judiciary and tells them that Veselnitskaya and Ahkmenttshin were clearly operatives for Putin and Russian Intel offering Kompromat on Clinton to see if anyone in the Trump camp would take the bait.
He explains how Putin and Chaika had Magnitski and Boris Nemsov murdered and tried to poison Kara-Murza twice to cover up their graft and corruption.
Having the Magnitski act repealed or limited is a prime Putin goal.
He also says that Fusion GPS was also funded by Russians because they like to “Play both sides” — which suggests some of the more salacious items in the Steele Dossier may have been fed to them as disinformationto help make it easier to discredit the overall report.
Kellyanne Conway throws Preibus a “shiv in the ribs” for leaking Scaramucci’s financials — which he probably didn’t do.
Scaramucci gives a mad crazy interview on CNN about his financial forms being leaked even though it’s still public information calling in right in the middle of an interview with Ryan Lizza.
Scaramucci then calls Ryan Pizza of the New Yorker directly and gives him a rambling profane on the record interview.
He demands to know who leaked that he was having dinner with Hannity, Trump and Melanie that night, and that he’d fire everyone in the White House until Lizza told him. (He can’t do that, he can only fire press and communications people — Preibus could do that, or Trump. And since when is having dinner with the Trumps and Sean Hannity a matter of National Security?)
He says that he’s not out to promote himself and “Suck his own ****” like Steve Bannon, he’s trying to promote Trump. [And doing a wonderful job of it he is too...]
He claims Preibus is a “******* paranoid schizophrenic paranoiac” who leaked his financial forms — although the forms are public information — because he didn’t want him hired in the first place. [And who could blame him for that prescience?]
He claims he has ‘digital fingerprints” of alleged leakers given to him by the FBI (which would be illegal for them to do) and also he’s not on the approved WH/DOJ communications list, neither is Preibus.
He says they need to “Kill all the ******* leakers.”and that “People in this administration think their job is too save the country from Trump, that’s not their job, it’s to inject Trump into the nation”— eww..just ewww.
Propublica obtains a set of talking points created for DNI Dan Coates which shows that the relationship between the Intel Community and Trump is highly strained. [No kiddin?]
The Senate fails to pass each and every single Trumpcare proposal including “Repeal/Replace” and“Repeal/Delay” and even eventually fail even with the Hail-Mary “Skinny Repeal” after Senators John McCain, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski vote against it.
McConnel says the failure to repeal O-care is “disappointing”, whines about losing then sarcastically asks “Let see what the Democrats have.” Schumer calls for bi-partisan cooperation to help fix the lingering problems of the Health Care Market.
Trump says they should now ‘let O-care Implode” although what he really means is he’s going to have Tom Price sabotage it even further until Dems cry “Uncle.”
Devin Nunez continues pushing his Obama “Unmasking” Story.
Manafort is scheduled to meet with Senate Judiciary today, but negotiates a later date.
New Russia sanctions bill gets sent to Trump’s desk.
July 28th —
Trump calls for Police Brutality by telling assembled cheering Long Island Police to "don’t be too nice” when slamming them into the back of a paddy wagon and “don’t hold their head” when placing them in the back seat. “You can take the hand away, okay?”
Trump fires Reice Preibus via Tweet, makes DHS head Kelly as new Chief of Staff. Preibus finds out on a rain soaked tarmac as AF1 arrives back in Washington, others get out of his Suburban and his car leaves the motorcade and goes off on it’s own instead of returning to the WH.
Scaramucci’s wife, who had been estranged with him for months, files for Divorce because of his naked political ambition “Deirdre is not a fan of Trump” which means he’s gonna have to learn that special trick of Bannon’s now.
Russia expels U.S. 755 Diplomats and seizes an American compound in “retaliation” for the new sanctions bill that Trump hasn’t yet signed calling them “Illegal” and unjustified.
july 29th —
Trump’s Gallup approval rating of 37% drops lower than Bill Clinton’s during the Lewinsky scandal.
Painter says shuffling Sessions into Homeland in place of Kelly would be yet more obstruction.
Police Departments from coast to coast condemn Trump’s call for Police Brutality.
Surprising absolutely no one on earth Ted Nugent breaks his civility pledge.
Tillerson’s State Dept. channels opposite world and claims the new sanctions on Russia will be “good for our relationship.” [Uh, Nope!]
It’s reported that Scaramucci’s wife was nine months pregnant when she bailed on him because of his #TrumpLove and that he apparently missed the birth of his second child James because he was with Trump at the Boy Scout Jamboree and sent his wife a text “I’ll pray for our son.”
July 30th —
Jared and Ivanka admit it’s way too much to expect them to have any moderating influence on Trump.
Pence swears we’ll see more moderate behavior from Putin as he orders 755 U.S. Diplomats out of Russia. [Yeah, uh, NOPE!]
Lewandowsky calls for Trump to fire CFPB chief Richard Cordray because — yeah, sorry, I got nothin’. [Ok fine seriously, He claims he doesn’t have any clients that oppose Cordray’s work at CFPB, but it turns out that he does have a client that is a pay day lender]
PS. Kushner is still a slumlord.
Roger Stone says “McCain is a piece of **** and traitor” — also now with Brain Cancer.
July 31st —
Gen. Kelly starts his first day as the new WH Chief of Staff.
Pence talks tough about Russia’s retaliation against the newly imposed sanctions signed by Trump. Trump echoes Russia’s complaints.
Scaramucci suddenly resigns as WH Communications Director 11 days after was announced in the position and 4 days before he was to officially begin. He’s then escorted off the grounds by security, then goes to dinner with Katrina Peirson.
Kelly calls Sessions and tells him his job is safe.
Former NSA Analyst John Schindler reports that Putin’s move to expel 755 U.S. Diplomatic workers over sanctions shows he’s ready to throw Trump under the bus.
NYTimes reports that Trump personally dictated the first false version of Junior’s statement about his meeting with Veselnitskaya — even though he said at the time “this was the first he’d heard about it” — claiming the meeting was “primarily about adoption” a claim that was later repeated by Trump twice and also by Spicer even though Junior himself had already admitted it was about oppo research on Hillary 7 days previously.
Trump’s direct involvement in promoting a false story when there is a open Federal Investigation of links between his campaign in Russia potentially indicates “consciousness of guilt” and may be an attempt at Witness Tampering and Obstruction of Justice particularly since Mueller’s office already requested the WH preserve all documents and records related to this meeting on July 21st.
Ivanka and Melania were “disgusted” by Scaramucci’s dirty talk — but then again they do support Trump who brought him on in the first place and has history for salty talk of his own.
CNN Reports that Kelly was furious by the manner in which Comey was fired and nearly resigned himself in protest until Comey talked him out of it.
Former McCain staffer Steve Schmidt says Scarmucci’s firing exposes the “snakepit” of Trump White House.
Surprising absolutely no-one with eyes and a working brain former Obamacare hating Blaze corespondent Tami Lahren is actually on Obamacare as she’s 24 and still on her parent Health Care plans.
A British “Email Prankster” successfully tricked several members of Trump’s WH into thinking he was Kushner and Preibus.
August 1st —
Spicer admits that the WH and Trump was personally briefed on the false and since retracted FOX story alleging that murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich was connected to emails leaked to Wikileaks as a way to redirect attention from Russia. This means that Spicer lied during the May 16 press briefing where he denied any knowledge of the Rich story. Again, potential Obstruction of Justice during the current investigation of Russia’s involvement with DNC hack.
Wired releases an audio recording of Kushner telling WH interns he doesn’t know of anything knew that the Trump WH offers to solve the Israel/Palestine problem.
Daily Caller reports that Kellyanne — who is still banned from Morning Joe for lying — may be tapped as the new WH Communications Director.
Lewandowski is fired from One America News Network (OANN) because he’d been moonlighting on Fox News too many times.
GOP lawmakers warn Trump not to sabotage Obamacare — but frankly that’s already is progress.
Rep Trent Franks (R-AZ) says “Mueller is a partisan and should resign” because of his “close friendship with Comey” who used to be his boss which is funny since he’s a registered Republican and so was Comey, but then nobody sane or smart listens to Trent Franks on anything.
GOP Activist Ed Butowski who pushed the Seth Rich conspiracy to the WH and Fox News gets grills on CNN by Chris Cuomo in an incoherent interview.
August 2nd —
Trump signs new Russia Sanctions Bill, includes a signing statement and a personal statement whining about Congress encroaching on executive authority and claims as a former CEO he can negotiate a better deal than Congress that could negotiate a Health Care Bill — which is of course exactly why Congress passed more sanctions.
Iran says these new sanction breaks the Nuclear deal setup by Obama.
Huckabee-Sanders tried to defend Trump’s claims that the Mexican President called to say they were doing such a great job on the border that Mexico was seeing fewer people entering in the hope of reaching the U.S. [although Mexico says they hadn’t called Trump in months] and the Head of the Boy Scouts called to say his speech “was great’ [He denies it too.] She says they did say these things, “it just wasn’t on the phone.”
Tillerson refuses to spend $80 Million in State Dept funds allocated to fight ISIS and Russian media manipulation and propaganda because it might “anger the Kremlin.”
Trump along with Sen Tom Cotton announces changes to Green Card eligibility that focuses on a “merit based” system for high skilled workers which seems to deprioritize petitions for family members, refugees and asylum seekers. [This proposal was submitted back in February and went nowhere then, going nowhere now]
At the same time that Trump publicly tries to the door to “low skilled” immigrants his Department of Homeland Security has increased the cap for H2B Visas per year from 66,000 to 81,000 and that his own companies in including Mar-A-Lago have submitted 76 more applications for low wage foreign workers.
Stephan Miller argues with CNN’s Jim Acosta about the meaning of the Statue of Liberty to justify Trump’s new Green Card plan and uses coded White Supremacist Slurs against him.
Russia responds to the sanctions bill saying that it shows that Trump is “Impotent” and the establishment wants to oust him.
Reports surface that Kremlin backed Sputnik News is the source of the Seth Rich conspiracy theory pushed by Sean Hannity and Fox News, causing them to be sued by Rich’s family.
Congressional investigators call for Don Jr. phone records to see who he talked to in the lead up to his June 6, 2016 meeting with Veselnitskaya. [Possibly Emin Agalarov as indicated by some of the email exchanges]
WSJ reports that U.S Attorney’s have subpoena records from the Kushner companies about their attempts to get Chinese investors special EB-5 Visas using Jared association with Trump.
Former Flynn staffer Erza Cohen-Watnick who provided the “unmasking” documents to Devin Nunez is fired.
Rod Wheeler who filed suit against Fox News over their bogus Seth Rich story says that Trump had inserted phony quotes by Rich.
The crazed conspiracy riddled memo written by NSC staffer Rich Higgins that connects the Muslim Brotherhood to the European Union, “Maoist Insurgents”, “Leftists’ and “Deep State” activists circulates through the WH and for some reason Don Jr. — who doesn’t have a security clearance to receive an NSC memo — is sent a copy, which he forwards to his father who “gushes” over the thing. Then he finds out from Hannity that Higgins had already been fired for writing it.
August 3rd —
Deputy FBI Director McCabe warns top LE officials that they should consider themselves witnesses and their notes evidence in Mueller’s investigation, possibly because of their communications and interactions with Comey as he talked to Trump on the phone.
WaPo publishes leaked transcripts of Trump talking to the President of Mexico and Prime Minister of Australia back in January which reveal that he’s repeatedly and knowingly lied about “Mexico paying for the wall” and begged not to be outed.
Audio of Scarmucci’s profane phone call with Ryan Lizza is released.
Fox News lawyers up over Seth Rich suit.
Former CIA agents pen a NYTimes op-ed on Trump’s response to Russia “Innocent people don’t behave this way.”
Wapo reports that the Secret Service has moved out of Trump Tower over a rental dispute with Trump’s Companies, their command post is now in a trailer parked on the sidewalk.
Kellyanne says Russia hacking our political and voter registration systems to help Trump get elected isn’t a “matter of national security.”
Hannity flips when he discovers a report from Bloomberg that NSA Director McMaster has granted his predecessor Susan Rice a lifetime Security Clearance — which is the normal custom — because he say “she did nothing wrong with any unmasking of Trump officials” confirming the previously findings of the House Intel Committee, except for Devin Nunez.
Trump Vacation Day count after 7 Months surpasses the number of vacation days taken by Obama in his full 8 years.
Trump plans 17-day “working vacation” in New Jersey while the WH is renovated. His neighbors are not overjoyed with all of his security.
Michael Flynn amends his financial disclosure forms to include funds received from a tech company, SCL Group which has ties to Cambridg-Analytica and whose CEO used “dirty Tricks” to support Trump and the Brexit Vote, he also includes consulting work for NIK Holdings who had attempted to donate $100,000 under the table for former Sen. Norm Coleman before he was defeated by Al Franken.
Glenn Thrush at NYTimes reports that Kelly fired Cohen-Watnick to show his authority over Bannon and Kushner.
WSJ reports that Mueller has empaneled a Grand Jury which is issuing subpeonas related to Don Jr.’s meeting with Veselnitskaya and financial ties between TrumpCo and Russia, this is in addition to the already existing Grand Jury that is looking into Michael Flynn.
Sen. Jeff Flake warns that firing Mueller could cause Congress to turn against Trump.
Sen Tillis and Coons introduce legislation to protect Mueller from being unjustifiably fired by Trump without judicial review.
August 4th —
Spicer says “No” to Dancing With the Stars.
Mark Warner the ranking Dem on Senate Intel calls for an investigation into leak of transcripts of Trump’s conversations with President of Mexico and Prime Minister of Australia.
CNN reports that Carter Page has been under FISA surveillance and suspected of being a foreign agent since 2014.
During a West Virginia rally Trump calls the Russia investigation a “total fabrication” and argues the Special Counsel should “go after why Clinton deleted 33,000 emails” which the FBI already investigated and found completely legal.
CNN reports that Intel intercepts of suspected Russian operatives during summer of 2016 discussed Manafort asking for help with damaging Clinton’s campaign.
August 5th —
Alt-Right and Russia-Bots begin relentless attacking NSA chief McMaster arguing that he should be fired for something or the other. Daily Beast reports that this is apparently payback from Bannon for the firing of Cohen-Watnick and Col. Darek Harvey.
CNN reports that Mueller’s investigation is likely to first focus on Trump’s financial crimes as they have the strongest path to prosecution.
Fox’s Eric Bolling is suspended for sexual harrassment.
Painter says if you placed lie detector on Huckabee-Sanders podium “It would light up like a disco!”
New polls indicate Trump support has dropped to just 33%, and that he’s losing White Non-College educated voters where he now stands underwater at 43% approval to 50% disapproval — a drop of 10 points since June, and 23 points since the election.
Minnesota mosque is firebombed in an apparent act of terrorism, no casualties are reported. WH says nothing.
August 6th —
CNN says McEnany quit to join Trump’s Fake “Real” News channel.
Sen. Jeff Flake says he wished the GOP had stood up against birtherism. [Which they didn't, with the notable exception of John McCain they generally took advantage and pandered to it just like Kushner said Trump did.]
Trump says he “working hard” on his vacation — but his schedule is blank.
August 7th —
Sen. Blumenthal goes on CNN and explains the new bill to protect Mueller from being fired, and Trump — who says he “not watching tv” while on his work-cation — immediately goes on a tweet storm attacking Blumenthal for saying he served in Vietnam, when his actual Marine service was in the U.S. during Vietnam. Since Trump never served due to “bone spurs” Vets call him a “Chicken Hawk piece of trash.”
Wapo reports that while requesting H2B visas for 70 more foreign employees Mar-A-Lago barely put out a couple of local ads which didn’t include a phone # or email, only a fax, for U.S. workers to be hired.
Sen. Blumenthal snaps back at Trump over his Vietnam service slurs. “ I will not be bullied.”
Chicago sues Trump over his threat to pull funds from “sanctuary cities.”
Right-Wing Militias align with GOP officials under Trump.
McEnany gets Spicer’s old job as RNC national spokesperson.
August 8th —
Alex Jones hosts Russian ultra-nationalist on program about firing McMaster.
Ex-CIA agent Daniel Hoffman states that Putin probably left a paper trail from Trump Tower to the Kremlin.
Staffers for Devin Nunez appear to be staging a stealth investigation of Christopher Steele.
Trump pays one of his staffers $89k/year just to look up positive news about him and provide it in a 20 page “propaganda report” twice a day.
Jared Kushner failed to disclose that he holds a stake in his brother’s health insurance company which had paid lobbyists to fight the repeal of Obamacare.
Trump tweets out classified information revealed by annonymous sources on Fox & Friends about North Korean Missile movements.
Trump’s support among GOP voters drops by 14 points.
Russian bots and trolls begin attacking Republicans including the House Speaker with #ResignPaulRyan campaign.
Wapo reports that North Korea now has a miniturized nuclear device that can fit on a missile, Trump says if they threaten us again they will met with “Fire and Fury that the world has never seen.” North Korea responds by threatening to attack Guam. No “Fire or Fury” appears.
August 9th —
WaPo reports that the FBI staged a pre-dawn raid of Manafort’s residence in July, which continues to suggest Mueller is attempting to flip Manafort, only now the hard way.
National Enquirer publishes a hit piece on Manafort (one hour after the Wapo report on the search warrant raid) that alleges that he was involved in a “sick sex scandal” with women much younger than his wife.
Trump campaign hands over 20,000 pages of documents to Senate Judiciary on their efforts to find negative information on Hillary Clinton.
WH aid Gorka says silence on mosque bombing is justified because he says it may be been a faked hate crime by Liberals, which frankly I would expect would make Huckabee-Sander’s and her resting scowl face crack a smile.
Politico reports that Federal investigators had approached Manafort’s son in law in order to get a better “read” on his mindset.
August 10th —
Reports indicate that Manafort had already told congressional investigators about the Don Jr/Veselnitskaya meeting before his house was raided by the FBI.
CNN finally fires Jeffrey Lord over a Nazi “Seig Heil” tweet at Media Matters Angelo Carusone arguing that they are a “fascist” site that seeks to curtail free speech, when in fact all they do is document what right-wingers say without much comment.
Trump thanks Putin for kicking 755 of our Diplomats, “Now we have a smaller payroll” and doubles down on his “Fire and Fury” nonsense, “Maybe that was too soft.” And threatens military action in Venezuela.
August 11th —
Rachel Maddow reports that a 1980 audit of Trump finances found he failed to pay $2.8 Million to the City of New York in a deal to avoid paying $150 Million in property taxes.
Fancy Bear hacker group begins targeting Hotel guests using unsecured wifi.
WH says Trump was being “sarcastic” about the smaller payroll for Diplomats in Russia, but then he says it again.
Senate Judiciary demands info on Kushner’s relationship with Russia and an explanation for the gaps on his SF86 security form.
Neo-Nazi protesters get into melee at U of VA over removal of statue to Robert E. Lee.
Rinat Akhmetshin testifies for several hours to the Mueller Grand Jury.
August 12th —
Alt-Right Neo-Nazi Protest in Charlottesville VA erupts in more violence. Deandre Harris is beaten bloody, a car driven my James Fields Jr. smashes into a crowd of counter-protesters killing Heather Heyer and injuring 19 others.
David Duke says the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” protest fulfills the promises of Donald Trump.
August 13th —
Trump gives a rambling confused statement on Charlottesville that talks about violence “on many sides” and never mentions white supremacist or neo-Nazis.
Washington Post reports Trump staffer George Papadopoulos repeatedly offered to set up “a meeting between us and the Russian leadership to discuss US-Russia ties under President Trump,” “Putin wants to host the Trump team when the time is right,” Papadopoulos wrote in an email to former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski on April 27, 2016. He also told Lewamdowski he had fielded “a lot of calls over the past month” related to a meeting between the Trump campaign and Russia. “Russia has been eager to meet with Mr. Trump for some time and have been reaching out to me to discuss,” Papadopoulos said in a separate email to former campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
August 14th —
Trump gives his “hostage video” speech where he finally condemns neo-Nazis, but then attacks African-American CEO of Merck for quitting his business advisory council on twitter.
Reports surface the Homeland security had issued a warning about Neo-Nazis and White Supremacist back in May.
Politico reporrs the Obama administration had many warnings between 2014 and 2016 that Russia was stepping up its intelligence operations to build propaganda networks.
North Korea calls off it’s missiles test targeting Guam.
Michael Cohen’s atty writes a letter to Congress vehemently denying his involvement in colluding between Trump and Russia as described in the Steele dossier — even though he had been directly involved in writing to the Russian government during the campaign to restart the Trump Tower Moscow project.
August 15th —
Kushner faces lawsuit for over charging rent in NYC.
Trump retweets meme of a train running over a CNN reporter.
Trump angrily argues during an Infrastructure Press Briefing that “Both Sides” were at fault in Charlottesville violence and stuns much of the GOP who quickly criticize his comments. He claims that if Gen. Lee and Stonwall Jackson statues have to come down so do monuments to Washington and Jefferson since they were slave owners, although they never attacked and waged war against America over it, they fought Britain to increase freedom, not decrease it and thus his real White-Power bona fides are finally revealed and confirmed.
August 16th —
NYTimes reports about 3 hackers whose work may have been used without their knowledge to attack the DNC.
ABC News reports that Peter Stroz former head of FBI Counterterrorism quits the Mueller investigation team.
Internal reports disprove claims of “Turmoil” inside the FBI prior to Comey firing.
Newsweek reports that in 1985 the Australian government rejected a bid for a Trump Casino in Sydney because of his alleged ties to the mafia.
4 CEOs defect in protest from Trump’s business council over his pro-Confederate comments, so he shuts both his business councils down in frustration.
Bannon gives a grandstanding football spike of an interview to the NYTimes claiming the more the Left talks about Racism, the more we Win. “I want them to talk about Racism everyday.” He also basically claims he’s running the White House from behind the scenes, which I’m sure is news to Kelly and also, Trump.
Jack Tapper tweets that at least two journalists were attacked by anti-Nazi counter protestors in Charlottesville, one of whom required stitches.
Rep. Jackie Spiere calls for Trump to be ousted using the 25th Amendment.
Both Bush Presidents denounce Trump’s neo-Nazi support.
Heather Heyer’s mother scorns bigots at her funeral.
August 17th —
The Spectator reports that Felix Sater — who helped sell many Trump properties to various Russians through his former real estate firm Bayrock — may have flipped for the FBI again and that he has said the both he and Trump “are going to prison.”
Cantwell states emphatically that he’s “Not a coward.” No one is impressed, particularly not PayPal and Ok, Cupid who cut him off for life.
Sen Bob Corker (R-TN) says in response to Trump Charlottesville comments: “The president has not yet been able to demonstrate the stability nor some of the competence that he needs to demonstrate in order to be successful,”
UVA Librarian Tyler McGill suffers a stroke from being struck in the neck with a Tiki Torch by Unite the Right protestors.
Foreign Policy reports that Wikileaks refused to receive or publish 68 Gig of negative data on the operations of the Kremlin.
Buzzfeed reports that Trump is furious that “Bannon is taking credit for my election.”
A Van strikes 50 people in Barcelona, 13 are killed. 2 suspects are taken into custody but no information about them or their motive is released immediately.
Trump tweets in support of “beautiful Confederate Statues” and decrying “Terrorism in Barcelona” then later endorsed a questionable internet rumor that a U.S. General in the Philippines committed the War Crime of mass executions using bullets laced with pigs blood to deter terrorists, when in actuality he sat down with Muslims, ate their food, learned their language, customs and read the Koran with them. CNN’s Jake Tapper says “He just suggested we should study a lie.” But he still hasn’t said anything about the firebombing of a mosque in Minnesota, the car crashed into a crowd near a mosque in London or the machete attack against Democrats in Kentucky.
Mike Huckabee says if you take down Robert E. Lee, you have to take down Mt. Rushmore.
With “Infrastructure Week” not quite complete, Trump gives up on his infrastructure council.
August 18th —
Steve Bannon is Fired and quickly reports surface here’s going to take Breitbart to Defcon1 Thermonuclear Global War against Trump. Cue the Russia Bots of Doom. Subsequent reports say that he intends to use Brietbart to go to War with Trump’s enemies — which now, is just about everyone.
Also a former friend and aide of Preibus, George Sifakis, leaves the WH.
Buzzfeed reports that Mueller’s investigation is now targeting Donald Jr concerning his meeting with Veselnitskaya and Akhmetshin.
Reports surface that besides Bayrock’s Tefvik Arik Trump has financial links to post-Soviet era oligarch Mukhtar Ablyazov, who had been charged with stealing between $4-$10 Billion from Kazakhstan’s largest banks through loans and shell companies and had been working with Trump on 2 Tower projects in (former soviet) Georgia through a company run by Michael Cohen. The same report also notes the connection of oligarch Alexander Shnaider, who has mob ties, and had been involved in the Toronto Trump Tower deal.
16 out of 17 members of Trump’s Arts Council resign en mass in protest of Trump comments about Charlottesville. He says “Nah ah, I QUIT YOU”, they say “No, We quit you first!”
Heather Heyer’s mother Susan Bro refuses to speak with Trump in protest of his comments on Charlottesville, while Mitt Romney calls for him to apologize. He doesn’t.
7 Charities have cancelled fundraisers scheduled to be held at Mar-a-Lago.
Charlottesville Police issue arrest warrant for Chris Cantwell for illegal use of gases and injury by caustic agent or explosive,
ISIS reportedly takes credit for the Barcelona Van attack which Spain authorities say involved 12 people, 4 are in custody and 5 had been killed in a police raid.
August 19th —
Carl Ichann resigns from his position as an informal Trump advisor allegedly because of his Charlottesville comments. But this happens admit rumors that he made $60 Million by advising Trump to cut prices on a regulatory devicethat he’d been short selling for months.
The cancelled Mar-a-Lago charity list grows to 16.
Trump announces that he will not attend the Kennedy Center Honors with Norman Lear, Gloria Estaban, Lionel Richie & LL Kool J so as not to create a “Political Distraction.”
Robert E. Lee biographer says Lee would have wanted all the Confederate statues torn down.
Trump condemns anti-violence protestors as being “anti-police agitators” and then commends the cops.
August 20th —
ADL says the “Violent Alt-Left” is a Right-Wing media lie.
Bannon’s Breitbart attacks McMaster as a “Koran kissing Muslim sympathizer”for his endorsing use of a military manual on showing respect for Islam and how not to inflame tensions.
Congressional Democrats begin to question if “Trump is mentally Ill?”
Jesse Waters says removing Confederate monuments is a plot to help make people forget that “Democrats enslaved Blacks” which is technically true but they were also southern Conservative Democrats — Dixiecrats — who’ve all become Republicans or Independents since then.
Jerry Falwell Jr defends Trump’s “fine Nazi people” and “bad counter-protestors” claims saying he has “inside knowledge” although Trump claimed that all the media saw the same videos that he did. Close examination of Videos from protest shows they’re wrong.
Dick Gregory Dies.
August 21st —
Trump showing his usual level of sociopathic empathy deficit disorder responds to the crash of the U.S.S. McCain which injured five sailors and where ten remain missing with “That’s too bad.”
Paul Ryan holds a CNN Town hall and gives a weak tepid condemnation of Trump’s statements on Charlottesville — Tapper says it “Wasn’t morally ambiguous, it’s was Morally Wrong.”
Virginia State Attorney issues four warrants for Christopher Cantwell.
The U.S experiences it’s first total solar eclipse in 38 years, Shep Smith freaks the heck out. Trump stares into the Sun without glasses — “Finally, he establishes a Blind Trust.”
North Korea releases fake propaganda videos of their missiles hitting Guam.
Rep. Bryan Zollinger (R-ID) claims that Obama may have “staged the Charlottesville riots.” [Facepalm!]
“Art of the Deal” Ghost writer Tony Schwatz gets a loud racist voicemailcriticizing him for saying Trump “will resign.”
Katrina Peirson — yes, she’s still here — goes ballistic on Fox claiming “Slavery is an example of how special and wonderful this country is.” [Uh, er, what?]
NYTimes reports that Akhmetshin has close ties to the FSB and Putin, had helped Russian oligarchs using sophisticated cyber hacks for their benefit, helped unmask corruption at a Krygystan Air Force base which Russia wanted purged of U.S. personnel, and got Federal prosecutors to file charges against an American businessman who happened to be a CIA operative working in Russia.
USA Today reports that Trump’s extended family and their extensive travel is draining the resources of the Secret Service Dry.
Treasury Sec Mnunchin uses a government plane to fly to visit Fort Knox as an excuse to view the Solar exclispe at 95% totally, he also brings Mitch McConnel
August 22nd —
ABC News reports that Christopher Steele met with and has given the FBI the names and contact information for the sources of his Trump/Russia dossier.
CNN reports that Glenn Simpson, partner with Fusion GPS the oppo research team that had contracted with Steele to produce his dossier, has testified for 10 hours before Senate Judiciary behind closed doors. Fusion also provided 40,000 pages of documents to the committee.
At his Phoenix rally Trump attacks the media as “Fake” while misquoting his own statements about Charlottesville and his “unequivocal” condemnation of White Supremacy, except for the “Good Ones” and the BLM/Antifa “Chargers” which he doesn’t bring up this time. He hints at pardoning ex-Sheriff Joe Arpaio who was convicted of violating a court order to stop his deputies from profiling, targeting and discriminating against Latinos. He claims the media won’t show the size of his crowd, but they do, and he claims the protestors outside are only a few, but they aren’t. And he leads a chant calling for the death of John McCain.
Police and Protestors lob bottles, bricks and tear gas back and forth at each other during and after Trump’s rally, no injuries are reported.
CNN responds to Trump’s attack and begins to say he sounds “unhinged.” Don Lemon says “His speech was without thought, without reason, devoid of facts, devoid of wisdom,”
NYTimes reports that Trump’s relationship with Mitch McConnell has deteriorated down to explicative filled phone calls over Trumpcare’s failure and the continued Russia probes in congress.
Trump’s airwar against ISIS passes the civilian death toll of Obama’s entire Presidency.
Trump’s pick to protect U.S. workers from abuse as Deputy Secretary of Labor is a former lobbyists for forced abortion sweatshops.[Oh, lordy!]
Alex Jones suggest reparations for White People. [Yes, really]
McClatchy reports that Mueller’s investigators may have found that Manafort may have received between $80-$100 Million from Russian and Ukrainian Oligarchs over the past decade.
Trump gives a speech on his new Afghanistan policy, which is basically more war, more killing, no end in sight and no nation building. [Which is different from the last 17 years before this how exactly? Oh yeah, no “dates certain.”]
A rabidily racist Trump supporter — the same one who called Tony Schwartz — leaves a vicious bigoted message for CEO Ravin Ghandi — who has Indian heritage but was born in the U.S. — because he is one of the CEOs who left one of Trump’s economic councils.
August 23rd —
Armed man slashes tarp on Charlottesville monument and says Heather Heyer died ‘playing in traffic’ [Nope, you can’t make this ish up.]
Grassley says he will have the Judiciary committee to vote on releasing the testimony from Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS on the Steele Dossier.
Shep Smith calls out Trump for trying to “rewrite history” with his Pheonix speech. [Don’t you know he’s been doing that since he rode down the escalator in Trump Tower?]
Pro-Russia social media cyberbots begin to amplify rightwing rhetoric over Charlottesville claiming ““Dems and Media Continue to IGNORE BLM and Antifa Violence in Charlottesville” except there really wasn’t any to ignore. Did any neo-Nazis go to the Hospital? Nope.
Cantwell, who is still in hiding from Charlottesville PD, reveals that his attorney has ditched him.
James Clapper questions Trump’s “mental fitness” to be President after his Arizona speech.
Kushner heads to Israel to try again for a peace deal after things went so “well” last time, which they didn’t.
Michigan Senate candidate Kid Rock curses Colin Kaepernick, because that’s just what wannabe government leaders do.
Scarborough asks “Who are these people?” in Trump’s crowd calling for John McCain’s death? [Arizona GOP voters?]
Politico reports that Trump is so obsessed with the Russia investigation and the bill to protect Mueller from being wrongfully fired that he’s calling GOP Senators to scream and curse at them and can’t keep focused on day to day business.
CNN reports that Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff Rick Dearborn last June when he was an advisor to the Trump campaign and Jeff Session’s Chief of staff had sent an email to Corey Lowendowski about someone nicked name “WV” trying to arrange a meeting between Trump and members of the Russian government including Putin at about the same time as Don Jr.’s meeting with Veselnitskaya. This is the second staffer in addition to NatSec advisor George Papadopoulos who had also tried to set up this kind of meeting last April according Trump campaign emails given to congress.
Cantwell turns himself in to police, judge denies bail.
Trump calls Clapper “a liar” for his mental fitness comments via — guess what — twitter. He also slams Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell over the debt ceiling vote, which hasn’t even happened yet.
Dems, rising from their long slumber, try to defund Trump’s Voter Fraud Commission.
CNN locates and interviews former Russian ambassador Kislyak on the streets of Moscow, he says that the allegations that he’s a “Spymaster” is “nonsense”. He says that the future of US/Russians relations will be “difficult.” And that sanctions and tensions will make it hard to resume a normalcy in our relationship.
Politico reports that Trump has been repeatedly and angrily calling up GOP Senators such as Bob Corker and Thom Tillus to complain about bills he doesn’t like such as the Russia sanctions and Mueller protection legislation.
August 24th —
Trump pardons ex-Sherrif Arpaio for his contempt of court conviction for refusing to stop discriminating against latino citizens. This he does despite — or perhaps because of — his history of racial discrimination and targeting of Latinos for arrest and detention, the horrific conditions in his “concentration camp” jails which have led to record suicides and in custody deaths, his attempts to intimidate and wrongfully arrest journalist and politicians who criticize him with bogus trumped up charges. Also he’s a birther, like Trump.
Hungarian Nazi Badge wearer Sebastian Gorka resigns from the WH amid rumors of his anti-Semetism.
Reports are that Meuller is investigating how involved Flynn, his son and his consulting firm were with Robert W. Smith’s attempts to aquire Hillary emails from Russian hackers. He also issues subpeonas for 6 PR firms which had worked for Flynn and Manafort.
Reports are that in 2007 Trump said “This is the first he’s heard...” that his employee Felix Sater was convicted of fraud in 1998.
.WH advisor Gary Cohn wrotes a resignation letter because of Trump’s support for anti-Semitic Neo-Nazis who chanted “Jews will not replace us” in Charlottesville, but he doesn’t hand it in. Mnunchin say’s “Gary is excited to be working here.”
Trump’s approval rating per Gallup drops to just 34%.
Ex White Nationalists confirms that Trump is using the same slippery bigoted dog whistle rhetoric that helped recruit them into hate groups.
August 25th —
Gorka says he didn’t resign from the WH, but yet, he’s still out.
Richard Painter blasts Arpaio as “One of the worst” law enforcement officers in the country,
Paul Begala argues that the Arpaio pardon is a signal to Mueller’s targets, Flynn, Manafort, Kushner and Donald Jr, that Trump will protect them if they face charges.
Ana Navarro links Trump’s Charlottesville comments to his support for racists like Gorka and Arpaio because, yeah, that makes sense.
NYTimes reports that Trump has cancelled an Obama era program to increase public works projects at the Department of Transportation. [So much for “American jobs” and “Infrastructure”]
Bannon vows to bring down Mitch McConnell “I’m going to light him up.”
Trump slaps sanctions on Venezuela because of their “Dictatorship” — which is totally unlike his pals Putin or Duterte.
August 26th —
Sen. Blumenthal states that Mueller targets shouldn’t expect pardons from Trump, “His loyalty is limited.” [Not even with Jared?]
Paul Ryan says the Arpaio pardon “is wrong.” [Yeah, no kidding, eh?]
Charlottesville police arrests neo-Nazis involved in the attack on Deandre Harris.
Trump international Gold Club in Dubai is refusing to pay it’s migrant workers from Pakistan on time.
I’ll tell you, when you actually lay it out all out item by item in chronological order a lot of patterns and actions/reactions become eminently clear. WIthout getting into classified or confidential data that isn’t yet public knowledge, what is public knowledge is already fairly stunning.
[This timeline has been continued with Vol#2 and Vol#3 due to length]
1985 — Australian government rejects a bid for a Trump Casino in Sydney because of his alleged ties to the mafia.
1986 — Trump attempts to gain a posting to Russia as part of the Reagan Administration and says he could sit down with Gorbechev to negotiate an end to the cold war “in an hour.”
1990 — Trump’s Taj Mahal casino, which is a favorite gambling spot for Russian mobsters living in Brooklyn, is cited 106 times in 18 months for violating money laundering rules, particular failing to report when someone wins and withdraws more then $10,000.
1991 — Taj Mahal files for bankrupcy protection, Trump sells his 50% share. After this and his other Casino bankruptcies most major banks no longer authorize loans to the Trump organization.
1998 -- Felix Sater a Russian born violent convict with ties to the Russian Mob — who are frequently used by Russian intelligence to do their dirty work and fund blackbag operations — gets caught up in a $40 Million stock fraud case but is only fined $35,000 in exchange for becoming an FBI informant.
2000 — Former KGB Agent Alexander Litvinenko defects to Britain.
GAO does analysis of Russian-American oligarch Ike Kaveladze and his involvement in starting 2000 shell companies which could be involved in money laundering.
2001-2007 — At least 63 Russian Oligarchs lease, rent or buy various Trump propertetes in South Florida spending upwards of $98.5 Million on them, many of these deals with Russian nationals in Manhattan reportedly are arranged through Bayrock Group LLC whose offices are located on the 24th floor of Trump Tower. Felix Sater becomes Bayrock’s managing director. Their first joint project together, in 2003, is building a Trump Tower in Phoenix.
2005 — TrumpCo puts together it’s first proposal for Trump Tower Moscow in coordination with BayRock LLC.
2006 — Alexander Litvinenko is poisoned by Polonium-210 and slowly dies of radiation sickness, he points to Putin as being behind his murder before he dies. His case officer with MI-6 is Christopher Steele.
2008 —Trump sells a Palm Beach Mansion to a Russian Oligarch for $95 Million after purchasing it just 2 years previously for only $45 Million.
Donald Jr. states “We get a lot to money from Russia.”
Felix Sater leaves Bayrock after his criminal record is revealed and goes to work for Trump.
Bayrock founder Tefvik Arif is busted and prosecuted for his connection to an underage prostitution ring in Turkey, he is eventually acquitted.
2009 — U.S. investor Bill Browder is expelled from Russia and his assets are used to setup a $230 Million tax rebate scam. Browder’s lawyer Sergei Magnitski discovers the scam and testifies to reveal it, he is subsequently arrested, tortured and murdered in a Russian jail, beaten to death by the guards.
2010 — A racketeering case is filed against Bayrock, Sater and Arif alleging they had been “substantially and covertly mob-owned and operated.”
2011 — Trump Soho a joint venture condo project by TrumpCO and Bayrock is sued for defrauding buyers with inflated claims. The suit is settled with a payout of $3.19 Million and a potential criminal case is avoided.
March 2011 — Trump begins his birther campaign against President Obama claiming there’s something wrong with his birth certificate. He also demands Obama's college transcripts alleging he didn't deserve access to Harvard, and claims that his best selling book “Dreams From My Father" was really ghostwritten by Bill Ayers.
May 2011 --
Obama authorizes the Bin Laden Raid, then attends the White House Correspondents dinner, Donald Trump is in the audience.
Obama reveals his long-form birth certificate and takes a couple shots at Donald, but Seth Myer brutalizes him from behind the podium. Myer's theorizes Trump decided to run for President right then and there in retaliation.
2012 — Obama signs the Magnitski Act following the jail house death of Sergey Magnitski after he was wrongfully imprisoned for investigation Russia corruption and laundering of money stolen from American businessmen Bill Browder. Putin responds by cancelling the adoption of Russian orphans by American parents. This act is strongly supported by Russian opposition leaders Boris Nemtsov and Vladimir Kara-Murza.
Exxon signs a $500 Billion deal with Russian Oil giant Rosneft for drilling in the Black sea.
2013 —
Russian mobsters renting property in Trump Tower just three floors below the penthouse suite are arrested for money laundering and running an illegal gambling ring at the end of a 2 year investigation. One of the attorney’s for the defendant Denys Katsyv of the Prevezon Group is Natalia Veselnitskaya, and the prosecutor is Preet Bharara, some of the stolen money is connected to Bill Browder’s investigation and the murder of Magnitski in Russia.
Several months later Trump holds the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow, the apparent money-laundering ring leader who remains at large is welcomed on the Red Carpet at the event. While in Moscow Trump reportedly meets with several high ranking oligarchs with ties to Putin, including Billionaire Russian Real Estate developer Arag Agalarov and his Pop Star son Emil who partners with Trump on the pageant.
Video shot before the pageant shows Trump at dinner with Emin and Aras Agalarov, as well as Rob Goldstone Emin’s promoter. Michael Isakoff talks to Goldstone who reveals that Trump has plans to license a new Trump Tower in Russia with Agalarov as the local builder/owner. Don jr. is in charge of the project and Ivanka goes on location scouting trips with Emin. Ike Kaveladze who works for the Agalarov family is also present.
2014 —
Michael Flynn is fired by the Obama administration as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency for his “odd behavior.”
Eric Trump says in an interview when discussing the funding of Trump Golf courses “Well, we don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia.” Eric later denies making this statement.
Bayrock is functionally inactive, except for a few outstanding lawsuits.
Putin releases ***** Riot from prison for shooting a Punk Rock video in a Church.
The Winter Olympics takes place in Sochi, Russia.
Russia invades Crimea and begins sending Troops and equipment in the Ukraine to destabilize the Country, Obama rallies the international community to place Sanctions on Russia which crush their economy — plans for the Rosneft/Exxon deal and Trump Tower Russia are both put on hold.
2015 —Trump and his kids are named as witnesses in a $250 Million tax evasion case connected to Bayrock and Trump Soho.
Michael Flynn goes to Russia, meets and sits with Putin for dinner and is paid $45,000 for a speech at RT's 10th Anniversary Gala. He also receives $11,250 from Kaspersky Government Security Solutions, and $11,250 from Volga-Dnepr Airlines. He doesn't get prior permission from the Pentagon for this trip or the payments.
Taj Mahal is fined $10 Million for continued money laundering by Treasury’s FinCen unit.
Boris Nemtsov is murdered in the streets of Moscow in the shadow of the Kremlin.
U.S. intel captures discussion by Russians about Trump running for President, when he hasn’t announced his run yet, and talking about multiple contacts they’ve been having with Trump associates and planning to funnel money into the election.
June 17, 2015 -- Trump announces his run for President. He never releases his Taxes, his birth certificate or his school transcripts.
Summer 2015 —Cyber hacking contractors working with the FSB (Cozy Bear) begin infiltrating and extracting copies of documents including the oppo-research on Trump and emails from the DNC servers. Their previous successful attacks include the White House and State Dept. email systems.
They also penetrate some RNC emails accounts and attack various Republicans who oppose Trump in the primaries.
September 2015 — FBI detects the hack and begins trying to inform the DNC, but they start by going to their Help desk not simply calling Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.
November 2015 — Felix Sater emails Michael Cohen saying “I will get Putin on this program and we will get Donald elected... I know how to play it and how to get this done. Buddy, our boy can become president of the USA and we can engineer it... I will get all of Putin’s team to buy in on this, I will manage this process.”
Late 2015 — GCHQ and other western intel agencies from Germany, Poland, Estonia and Australia begin noticing contacts between Russia Spies and members of the Trump campaign. They attempt to notify FBI and CIA who are apparently caught "flat footed.”
January 2016 — Michael Cohen send an email to Putin deputy Dmitry Peskov trying to get talks regarding Trump Tower Moscow restarted.
March 2016 -— US Attorney Preet Bharara prosecutes Russian intelligence officer Evgeny Buryakov an employee of sanctioned Russia bank Vnesheconombank (VEB) of conspiracy to commit espionage in recruiting U.S Businessmen in Manhattan including Carter Page. Page had been cooperating in this investigation as an informant.
FBI receives memo alleging collusion between Loretta Lynch and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz to quash the Clinton email investigation — they believe this document is fake.
March 16, 2016 -— John Podesta receives a spearfishing email, his IT people mistakenly tell him that it’s “Legitimate” and his assistant clicks on the link and gives up his password compromising his account.
March 21, 2016 —Trump lists Carter Page & George Papadopoulis as part of his foreign policy team.
March 24, 2016 — Papadopoulis writes an email offering to set up “a meeting between us and the Russian leadership to discuss US-Russia ties under President Trump,” telling them his Russian contacts welcomed the opportunity.
March 28, 2016 —Trump hires Paul Manafort to handle the delegate process on his campaign.
April 2016 — GRU Russian military intelligence also attacks the DNC systems with Fancy Bear. The DNC discovers the intrusion and calls in cyber security firm Crowdstrike to address it, they discover both intrusions, briefly monitor them to confirm their ID, then shut them down.
About this time Paul Manafort — former advisor to Putin friendly ex-Ukrainian President Yanakovych who has a close associate with links to the GRU, and who had previous been paid $Millions to allegedy secretly promote Putin’s agenda by Russian aluminum oligarch Oleg Deripaska — becomes Trump campaign chairman.
The Kremlin gives Rep. Dana Rohrabacher instructions to stage a “show trial” in Congress attacking Bill Browder in order to alter the Magnitski Act sanctions on Russia. Rohrabacher is provided a Russian propaganda film against Browder by the Russian Prosecutor Generals Office run by Yuri Chaika, the same person who had jailed Magnitski.
April 27, 2016 -Trump gives his first major foreign policy speech at an event that had been largely arranged by Jeff Sessions Chief of Staff Rick Dearborn, Russian ambassador Kislyak is invited as a special guest, both Trump and Session briefly meet with him at a backstage reception before the speech at the Mayflower Hotel.
Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos writes in an email to campaign manager Corey Lewandowsk he had fielded “a lot of calls over the past month” related to a meeting between the Trump campaign and Russia. “Russia has been eager to meet with Mr. Trump for some time and have been reaching out to me to discuss,” Papadopoulos says in a separate email to Paul Manafort.
May 2016 — US surveillance operations detects Russian Spies vowing to “Get Hillary Clinton” in retaliation for her criticism of Putin’s last election. A GRU Officer is recorded saying they are “getting ready to pay Clinton back for what President Vladimir Putin believed was an influence operation she had run against him five years earlier as Secretary of State”
They also detect them bragging that they have good ties to Michael Flynn and may be able to use him to “influence" Trump.
Obama admin attempts to limit classified information to Flynn.
Russian spies attempt to cultivate Carter Page as an asset, yet again!
FBI obtains a FISA warrant to monitor Page’s communications and possibly on a Trump server in Pennsylvania which keeps being oddly pinged by a server owned by Russia’s Alfa Bank and another owned by the DeVos companies.
Trump backs Brexit says “England is better off without the EU.”
Paul Manafort meets with his assistant from the Ukraine Konstantin Kilimnik, who has alleged ties to the GRU.
Trump releases an attack ad on Hillary claiming she’s “too close to Putin”, WaPo considers if the “Bromance” between Trump and Putin is over? But still Politico reports that Trump is “Putin’s Candidate.”
June 2016 — Russian Think Tank controlled by Putin publishes a blue print to use cyber bots, trolls and social media to push anti-Clinton/pro-Trump propaganda to help swing the election.
Jeff Sessions Chief of staff Rick Dearborn who is an advisor to the Trump campaign writes an email to Lowendowski noting that he’d received and offer from someone referrenced as “WV” to setup a meeting between Trump officials and Putin.
June 2, 2016 — Hillary gives a major speech criticizing Trump’s closeness to Russia and Putin accusing him of praising “dictators like Vladimir Putin” and having a “bizarre fascination with dictators and strongmen who have no love for America.”
June 3, 2016 — Music Promoter Rob Goldstone emails Don Jr, and says he has information from the Russian Government about shady dealings by Hillary and DNC. Don Jr. says “I Love it” and plans to discuss it further on a phone call and eventually a meeting.
June 7, 2016 — Trump says that he’ll give a major speech about Hillary Clinton’s corruption in a week.
June 9, 2016 —
Donald Jr, Kushner and Manafort secretly meet with a prominent Russia lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya at Trump Tower after being offered “dirt” about the Clinton Campaign and the DNC being funded by Russia. The information comes through their Miss Universe Moscow partner Aras Agalarov via his son’s Emin’s promoter Rob Goldstone who had received it directly from the “Crown Prosecutor” [actually the Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika] of Russia because the Russian Government “supports Trump.” They also discuss the Russian adoption program in the wake of the Magnitski Act, which is a law that blacklists Russian Human Rights violators.
Later that day Donald tweets for the first time about Clinton’s “33,000 missing emails.”
June 12, 2016 — Julian Assange hints that he’s soon release emails linked to Hillary Clinton.
The Pulse Night Club in Orlando is attacked and 49 people are killed by a frustrated gay Muslim man
June 13, 2016 — Trump blames the Pulse attack on Obama’s sympathy with “Radical Islam” and on immigrants even though the shooter was a native born American citizen born in New Hyde Park, NY.
June 14, 2016 -— Wapo Reports that the DNC has been hacked by the Russian government, DNC goes public about the cyber intrusion.
June 15, 2016 — Guccifer 2.0 releases the DNC’s opposition research file on Donald Trump.
Dana Rohrabacher’s scheduled “show trial” hearing on Bill Browder in opposition to the Magnitski Act is cancelled by his committee chairman.
Rep. Kevin McCarthy jokes behind scenes that the only people Putin pays are Rohrabacher and Trump.
June 16, 2016 — Guccifer 2.0 uses DCLeaks to reveal the first set of hacked DNC emails, they have Cyrillic characters and Russian urls in their metadata
June 17, 2016 — Putin says the Trump is a “bright” individual.[Actually the word he used translates more accurately into “Colorful”]
June 20, 2016 — Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski is fired after a controversy where he physically grabbed and yanked a Brietbart reporter away from Trump as she asked a question. At first Corey and the Trump campaign denies it ever happened, but it’s on video — then he claims he would’ve “apologized if he knew she was from Breitbart” but he doesn’t. She files a criminal complaint, but it’s thrown out. He goes to work for CNN while still being paid by Trump.
June 22, 2016 — Trump finally gives his big anti-Clinton speech over a week late, he complains about Benghazi, Free Trade, Temperment and that her “Deleted emails could make her vulnerable to blackmail by hostile states.” He doesn’t mention Russian money going into the DNC.
June 24, 2016 — Brexit Referendum Vote Passes.
Trump is in Scotland for the opening of his Turnberry Golf Course, he says he’s glad Scotland Voted to leave the EU — but they didn’t, England did.
June 27, 2016 — Bill Clinton meets privately with AG Loretta Lynch on her plane at the Pheonix Airport while they are both there during a layover. Reportedly they discuss family, golf and travel, but calls of “obstruction” and “undue influence” — even though there is absolutely no evidence to that effect — eventually cause her to defer any decision on the Clinton email investigation to the FBI.
July 2016 — Business Insider publishes a report on the Kremlin’s Troll army based in St. Petersburg. They pose online as Pro-Trump and Pro-Bernie Americans and incessantly attack Clinton.
Cyber attacks are also made on the DCCC in order to impact House races in Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Ohio, Illinois, New Mexico and North Carolina.
Carter Page travels to Moscow, approved by Trump Natsec advisor JD Gordon and Corey Lewandowski, to give several paid speeches.
Former MI-6 agent Christopher Steele while working on oppo-research for a GOP candidate receives intel that Page also has secret meetings with Russian government oil firm Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin who allegedly offers him broker fees on the sale of 19% of Rosneft stock supposedly as a payoff for influencing Trump to drop sanctions on Russia. Page eventually denies all of this.
Steele begins writing memos to the FBI.
U.S. intel intercepts Russian Operatives discussing a request for “Help damaging Clinton’s campaign” from the Trump campaign which mentions Manafort.
July 5, 2016 — Influenced by false email intel generated by the Russians alleging that AG Lynch was “throwing the Clinton case”, and apparently the fact that she has suggested he called the Clinton situation a “matter” rather than an “investigation” — even though DOJ rules prohibit confirming an investigation before it is complete — FBI Director James Comey after announcing that the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s server is complete and no charges will be filed goes on to blast her in an extended public statement.
July 7, 2016 — Comey testifies to Congress about Hillary’s server and manages to debunk just about every Right-wing conspiracy about it.
July 18-21, 2016 — The Republican National Convention takes place during which Trump National Security Advisor J.D. Gordon torpedoes a platform plank supporting the arming of Ukrainian rebels against pro-Russian forces, then lies about it.
Kislyak attends and briefly meets Sessions again at a Heritage Foundation event, as well as Carter Page and J.D. Gordon.
Flynn delivers a speech at the Republican convention, joining in the crowd’s “Lock her up!” chant. “If I, a guy who knows this business, if I did a tenth of what she did, I would be in jail today”
Mike Pence also chants “Lock Her Up” over Hillary’s emails — even though she’s been cleared already — and he himself has AOL for his email for official business as Governor and his account had been hacked.
Flynn fills out his SF-86 form to reactivate his security clearance related to his being selected by Trump as national security advisor. Flynn fails to include that he had received $530,000 from Turkey or that he had taken another $45,000 from Russia in 2015.
July 22, 2016 — One day after end of RNC Wikileaks reveals their first set of DNC emails.
Russia Today, Sputnik News, Breitbart and other right-wing outlets begin doing incessant stories about every little negative revelation in them as well as numerous false and inflammatory rumors these are further pushed by bots and trolls on facebook and twitter until they trend.
The FBI begin to look into the Russia hack based on information from Crowdstrike, they don’t get direct access to DNC servers presumably as that would cause them to shutdown their entire email capability in middle of an election until a replacement set of servers could be installed [I’ve sent a question to the DNC’s Deputy Communications Director on this point, he hasn’t responded yet].
FBI is also looking into links to Trump due to Steele memos and concerns raised by CIA head Brennan.
July 25, 2016 — Democratic Convention starts, because of the brouhaha from the Wikileaks email dump, Chairman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz resigns and Donna Brazille takes over, RT/Sputnik heightened and amplified rumors swirl about the DNC “rigging the Primary” for Clinton and against Sanders.
July 26, 2016 — Roger Ailes leaves Fox News amid harassment allegations. Trump defends him.
Wapo reporter Sarah Kendzior asks a Kremlin official about the hacking of DNC emails and he refers the issue to Donald Trump Jr.
July 27, 2016 — Trump asks Russia to hack and/or release Hillary’s missing emails.
July 28, 2016 — Sputnik news claims Wikileaks proves the primary and DNC was rigged against Sanders.
July 31, 2016 — Manafort denies that the Trump campaign made any changes to the RNC platform. Various Trump affiliates will repeat these denials 20 more times before finally admitting the truth; Donald personally ordered the change in a meeting with Gordon during the RNC in which Sessions attended. [If this was done as a pay off to Russia to ensure their continued support in their hacking/propaganda efforts, it proves Donald’s direct involvement in a criminal conspiracy.]
August 2016 —Mikail Kalugin who was linked to pension payment scheme by Steele leaves the U.S., and is later confirmed to have been falsely posing as a diplomat while actually being a spy.
Kilminik again travels to the U.S. and meet with Manafort where they allegedly discuss the DNC hack.
CIA Director Brennen sends an “Eyes Only” private note to the WH for Obama and just 3 senior aids which states that “Putin has ordered a cyber attack to defeat or damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign, and elect Donald Trump.”
August 4, 2016 — Brennen calls his counterpart Alexander Bortnikov Director of the FSB and issues him a stern warning about the hacking and active measures.
August 9, 2016 — Flynn Intel Group, a consulting firm founded by Flynn, signs a contract with Inovo BV, a firm run by a Turkish businessman close to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, for more than $500,000
August 16, 2016 — Manafort pushes a false RT/Sputnik News story about terrorist sabotage at a NATO base in Turkey. Trump also pushes the same false story.
August 17, 2016 — Trump receives his first classified briefing. Flynn is with him.
August 19, 2016 — Manafort leaves the Trump campaign amidst allegations that he accepted a $12 Million under-the-table cash payment from his former Putin friendly client, ex-Ukraine President Yanakovych. Pollster Kellyanne Conway, who is a Mercer employee, takes over.
August 21, 2016 -— Trump pal Roger Stone tweets “it will soon be Podesta's time in the barrel.” He later claims he was talking about Podesta’s “business dealings” not his email, although Stone had also been sending DM’s to Guccifer 2.0 the public face of Russia’s cyber hacking operation.
September 2016 — Reports are the Russian hackers have attempted to penetrate the voter registration systems in 20 States, 4 were successfully infiltrated.
GOP consultant Aaron Nevins sends a note to Guccifer 2.0 asking if he has anything on Florida Dems, 10 days later he gets 2.5 Gigabits of stolen DCCC data, which confirms the connection between Kremlin intel & Guccifer.
Roger Stone says on Boston Herald Radio that he expects, "Julian Assange and the Wikileaks people to drop a payload of new documents on a weekly basis fairly soon. And that of course will answer the question of exactly what was erased on that email server."
Obama meets Putin at a summit and personally tells him to “Cut it out” with the hacking.
Obama assembles Congress’s “Gang of 12” and informs them of the Russia hack confidentially and asks for a bipartisan public statement in opposition to the attack. Mitch McConnel refuses as he doubts the veracity of the information, no public statement is issued at this time.
Trump transition chair Chris Christie begins to recommend that Flynn be fired after his erratic behavior during a national security briefing.
FBI offers to pay Christopher Steele to continue his work investigating Trump/Russia links.
Jeff Sessions meets privately with Kislyak at his Senate Offices.
Guccifer 2.0 sends Roger Stone a link to a blog post on manipulating voter turnout.
Ignoring McConnel and other Republicans Sen Feinstein and Rep Schiff issue a joint statement revealing the Russia cyber attack.
One week later McConnell and other Reps issues a tepid statement warning state election boards to remain “secure from attack.”
October 2016 — The Russian Think Tank publishes another paper, this one saying the Clinton is likely to win the election, so the online influence campaign needs to focus on claims that the election was “rigged” or “stolen” due to voter fraud.
Trump starts saying the only way he could lose Pennsylvania is because of “Voter Fraud.” and mentions the information revealed by Wikileaks 164 times over the next month.
The FEC unanimously agrees to prioritize investigations into foreign spending.
Around this time before election day NSA detects that the GRU has launched a set of cyber attacks on state and local election registration systems. Some are penetrated.
Kushner Co receives a $285 Million loan from Duetsche Bank for their Times Square building that was facing charges for not stopping Russian money-laundering on the premesis.
October 4, 2016 — Guccifer 2.0 Post documents stolen from the Clinton Foundation.
October 5, 2016 — Buzzfeed reports that Trump financial attorneys regularly meet with him in pairs so that there would be a witness. “...It’s always been our practice to make sure two people are present, and we don’t have a problem of people lying.” and “We tried to do it with Donald always if we could because Donald says certain things and then has a lack of memory.”
October 6, 2016 — The Access Hollywood Video drops with “Grab ‘em by the *****”. One hour later Wikileaks releases the first set of emails taken from John Podesta’s account. RT and Sputnik News continue to do daily reports as another set of emails is dumped for next 30 days.
October 7, 2016 — Homeland Security and the Director of National Intelligence release a Joint Statement on the Russia Hacking efforts saying it “was directed from the highest levels of the Kremlin.” FBI Director Comey had also originally signed on to this document, but refrained at the last minute due to the closeness of the election.
October 11, 2016 — Trump uses false talking points from RT to blame HIllary for Benghazi
October 21, 2016 — Hillary Clinton states during a debate that 17 Intelligence Agencies have confirmed Russia’s attempt to influence the election. Trump denies it, says “nobody knows” and it could be “China, North Korea or a 300lbs. Fat Guy.” which is also a Sputnik News Talking point.
October 23, 2016 —Christopher Steele, frustrated by the lack of response by the FBI particularly the New York Field Office which he says houses an Anti-Clinton Cabal (aka Trumpland), contacts David Corn of Motherjones who writes that “Russian spies have been attempting to cultivate Trump as an asset for 5 years.”
FBI rescinds their job offer to Steele.
Eventually with the help of the British Ambassador to Russia, his dossier of memos are passed to John McCain who physically gives a copy to James Comey.
October 26, 2016 — James Comey writes a letter to congress about the Abedin emails found on Anthony Weiner’s laptop several weeks earlier — it gets leaked almost immediately, presumably by Jason Chaffetz’s office. All hell breaks lose, Clinton drops 3-5% in the polls.
October 27, 2016 — Rudy Giuliani admits on Fox that he knew about the Comey letter from “former FBI agents” before it was sent to Congres and leaked.
October 30, 2016 — FBI obtains a warrant to review the Abedin emails.
November 6, 2016 — FBI finds that virtually all of the Abedin emails are duplicates that they already had in their possession from the Clinton server.
November 7, 2016 — 19.5% of Rosneft is sold to unknown buyers. [This seem to be consistent with the Steele Memo which predicted this sale as an payoff to Trump for lifting sanctions on Russia]
November 8, 2016 —Election Day.
Michael Flynn writes an Op-Ed in support of Turkey arguing that the U.S. should extradite a Turkish expat who President Erdoğan blames for the recent attempted coup. Seemingly Turkey has been paying Flynn and his consulting firm $530,000 — money which originated with yet another Russian oligarch.
Flynn does not disclose this or register as a foreign agent.
Russia’s Parliament erupts into applause when Trump is announced the winner.
Also four patents for various Trump Hotels and products which were applied for years earlier are simultaneously renewed in Russia.
November 9, 2016 — Wikileaks proclaims that Trump won because Democrats rigged system to have Clinton beat Sanders.
November 10, 2016 — Russia’s Foreign Minister Lavrov admits they had continuing communications from Trump’s “immediate entourage.”
Trump and Obama meet at the WH, Obama warns him not to hire Flynn.
November 11, 2016 — Chris Christie is dropped as transition chief, VP Pence takes his place.
Flynn stays on.
November 12, 2016 — Lewandowski quits CNN to work for Trump again.
November 28, 2016 — In an interview with Time magazine, Trump denies interference from Russia. “I don’t believe they interfered,” he said. “That became a laughing point, not a talking point, a laughing point. Any time I do something, they say ‘oh, Russia interfered.'” He also addressed the hacking: “It could be Russia. And it could be China. And it could be some guy in his home in New Jersey”
November 30, 2016 — The Justice Department informs Flynn that he is under investigation for his unreported lobbying on behalf of Turkey.
November —House oversight ranking member Rep. Cummings sends a letter to VP Pence about Flynn’s Op-Ed and his lobbying for Turkey.
When Flynn states he plans to schedule a meeting with Kislyak former Bush Pentagon Official Michael Billingslea warns him that any such communications with Kislyak are likely to be picked up by U.S. surveillance.
December —Trump transition does a background check on Flynn but doesn't fully vet him, they are also specifically informed by Flynn’s lawyers that he may have to register as a “Foreign Agent” because of his work for Turkey even though the Pentagon had previously warned him to get permission for such payments first, and that he was under investigation by the FBI because of it.
Watchdog groups file a complaint with the FEC over Russia and the Trump campaign coordinating.
December 1, 2016 — Flynn meets with Kislyak at Trump Tower along with Jared Kushner. Kushner suggests setting up a secure back-channel back to the Kremlin using Russian facilities that could “bypass the U.S. national security bureaucracy.”. Kislyak is reportedly “taken aback”. They also suggest having an overseas meeting but Flynn is considered too high profile to attend.
Both Flynn and Kushner don’t include these meetings on their security clearances forms and are at risk of Logan Act violations if this meetings are intended to undermine current U.S Foreign policy as both are private citizens at this point. Kushner later includes the meetings on future updates.
NSA discovers the details of this meeting while surveilling Kislyak as he communicates with Moscow.
At Kislyak’s suggestion, Kushner later meets with banker and FSB Academy graduate Sergei Gorkov who is head of Moscow based government owned bank Vnesheconombank (VEB), which funds special projects like the Sochi Olympics or` Trump Tower in Toronto and included Russian intelligence officer Evgeny Buryakov on it’s payroll, who was convicted in March 2016 by Preet Bharara of conspiracy in the case involving the attempted cultivation of Carter Page as an Russian asset. Gorkov is also former deputy board chairman of Russia largest state-owned bank, Sberank, whom had hired Trump’s attorney’s Marc Kasowitz to defend it.
December 8, 2016 — Page is back in Moscow to meet with “business leaders and thought leaders”
December 9, 2016 — Wapo reports that the CIA has made a Secret Assessment that the Russia government sought to interfere in our election in order to make Trump President, and that Congress was informed of this so they could make a bipartisan statement but Mitch McConnell refused.
December 12, 2016 -—While in Moscow, Trump’s former campaign surrogate Jack Kingston meets with Russian businessmen to discuss what they might expect from a Trump administration. “Trump can look at sanctions,” Kingston says. “They’ve been in place long enough.”
December 13, 2016 — Trump says he doesn’t need a security briefing everyday. “I’ll get it when I need it”.
Trump nominates then Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson — recipient of the Russia Order of Friendship personally from Putin who had been seeking a waiver on Russian/Crimea sanctions to proceed with their $500 Billion deal with Rosneft for drilling in the Black sea — as Secretary of State.
NBC News’ Richard Engel reports from Moscow on Trump’s secretary of state pick, Rex Tillerson. Former Russian Energy Minister Vladimir Milov tells Engel that Tillerson was a “gift for Putin.”
Steve Bannon joins Flynn and Kushner for a separate meeting with the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, who makes an undisclosed visit to New York.
December 20, 2016 -— Jared Kushner brags to Forbes magazine about the data-mining and voter micro-targeting operation he helped setup for the Trump campaign with Cambridge-Analytica which is owned by deep pocketed Trump pal Robert Mercer, who also bankrolls Breitbart News.
December 21, 2016 — Lewandowski doesn’t get rehired by Trump, starts a lobbying firm.
December 29, 2016 —Obama hits Russia with Sanctions for their hacking and involvement in the Election. Flynn talks to Russian Ambassador Kislyak, mentions “We’ll review everything” when Obama’s new sanctions are brought up. This conversation is recorded by the NSA/FBI.
The Obama Administration tries to save the intel data with a trail of bread crumbs for Congress to track.
December 30, 2016 — Putin states he will not retaliate to Obama’s newly imposed sanctions and the expulsion of 30 suspected Russian spies. Trump praises his lack of response.
A PHP web shell called P.A.S. created by Ukrainian Hacker Profexor is identified by DHS as being used in part of the DNC hack. He eventually contacts the FBI himself as he had no knowledge his worked was being used in this manner.
January 5th — Former CIA Director James Woolsey leaves Trump transition team because he is alarmed by Flynn's stance on trying to have Erdogen’s opponent Gulley “snatched up” and shipped off to Turkey.
Trump tweets a storm of attacks on the Intel community and claims of Russian hacking.
January 6th —U.S. Intel agencies publish their report on the Russia Cyber efforts to influence the election. Obama, Biden and Trump are briefed on the report, Trump claims it proves Russia didn’t “change the vote” even though the report doesn’t attempt to answer that question.
January 10th —Jeff Sessions testifies during confirmation hearings that he doesn’t know “any Trump surrogates who were in contact with the Russians” ignoring the question he was asked which was “What would you do if you discover surrogates coordinating with Russians?” Apparently the correct answer is “Nothing.”
Buzzfeed publishes the entire Steele Dossier online.
CNN reports that Trump was specifically briefed on it during the Jan 6th briefing.
Trump transition team does full court press to deny this briefing occurred, not only denying that anyone verbally described it to Trump but also there was a 3 page summary at the end of the full Russia report.
Flynn meets with Susan Rice over a plan to arm the Kurds against ISIS, Flynn vetoes the plan as the Kurds are considered terrorists by one of his financial benefactors Turkey.
Paul Manafort calls Reince Preibus to deny allegations in the dossier about him
January 11th — At his first press conference of the year Trump says he himself “didn’t meet with any Russians” during the election even though he did.
Erik Prince, former CEO of Blackwater, giant Christian Supremacist, Mike Pence supporter and brother of
Education Secretary nominee Betsy DeVos has a secret meeting with the UAE on the Seychelles islands to establish a back channel to Putin which is noticed by FBI. That meeting is chaired by the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi who had previously met with Bannon, Flynn & Kushner secretly in New York, and seems to be a follow-on to Kushner’s meeting with Kislyak at Trump Tower.
Politico issues a report indicating that Ukrainian-American Alexandra Chalupa who consulted for the DNC had gone to the Ukrainian embassy to gain information about Paul Manafort’s links to Yanakovic.
January 12th — NBC news confirms that Comey personally briefed Trump about the Steele Dossier revealing yet another transition team lie.
January 14th — Reports surface that U.S. Intel agents have warned our allies like Israel not to share sensitive intel with Trump transition team due to the Steele dossier and the risk he might share it with Russia and hence their ally Iran.
January 15th — Trump says “We should trust Putin” while lambasting NATO and Angela Merkel.
Former CIA Officer for Moscow states that Steele dossier deserves support: “This is exactly how the Russians operate.”
January 20th — Inauguration day.
January 21st —Sean Spicer does his first press briefing and spends most of it lying about the Inauguration crowd size, then takes no questions.
Women’s march crowd dwarfs Trump’s crowd by 3 to 1.
Trump WH officials soon begin pushing State Dept to remove all Russian sanctions. Alarmed State Offiicials Melinowski and Fried begin to contact congress.
January 22nd — Comey attends an event honoring Law Enforcement at the WH, tries to avoid being noticed by Trump, but fails.
January 23rd —Spicer claims Flynn didn’t talk to Kislyak about sanctions, even though he did.
Later Mike Pence goes on Meet the Press after talking personally to Flynn and claims “Flynn told me he didn’t talk to Russia about sanctions.”
January 24th — Flynn interviewed by FBI, again he apparently says he didn’t talk to Russians about sanctions but they know better. He also claims that he didn’t get any foreign money and the $45k and $530k came from “U.S. companies” having omitted the true information on his SF-86 Security form.
January 26th —Sally Yates goes to the White House personally and warns WH Counsel McGahn that Flynn may be vulnerable to “blackmail by the Russians” because he’d lied to the FBI & Pence about his contacts with Kislyak.
Trump is immediately briefed by McGahn but does nothing about Flynn.
Former Bush Ethics Atty Richard Painter files complaint with Government Ethics Office that James Comey may have violated the Hatch Act by releasing unsubstantiated information about the Abedine emails.
January 27th — Trump signs a travel ban against 7 majority Muslim nations.
McGahn calls Yates, she returns to the WH where he asks “why does it matter if Flynn lied to Pence?”
Trump invites Comey to dinner at the White House, allegedly asks Comey if he wants to “keep his job” and to pledge him his “Loyalty”, Comey offers his “Honesty” and takes copious notes.
Kremlin arrests FSB officials Sergei Mikhailov, his deputy Dmitry Dokuchaev, and Ruslan Stoyanov, the head of cybercrime investigations at Kaspersky Labs (who had paid Flynn $11,500 in 2015) for treason and illegal hacking apparently for sharing intel information with the CIA.
January 29th — London Mayor Saddiq Khan says that Trump shouldn’t be allowed entry into the UK while his Muslim ban is in place.
Trump signs EO that places Steve Bannon on the principles committee of the National Security Council, the DNI and head of the Joint Chiefs are relegated to "part time" participants.
January 30th — Sally Yates orders the DOJ not to defend Trump's Muslim ban executive order in court as she doubts it is legal or constitutional.
January 31st --Yates is fired by Trump allegedly for refusing to defend his Muslim ban executive order.
Flynn stays.
Roger Stone goes on Russia Today to push the conspiracy that murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich is the "real hacker.” This is his fifth appearance on the channel.
Deutsche Bank is fined $630 Million for $10 Billion in money laundering transactions involving Russia.
February 2nd — Putin opposition leader Vladimir Kara-Murza is poisoned for a second time in Moscow.
February 3rd —Federal Judge Robart blocks Trump's Muslim Ban echoing Yates issues with it.
Reports surface that Trump is still using that same vulnerable unsecured out of date Galaxy S3 Cell Phone to tweet with during the campaign while in the White House.
February 6th —Rep. Maxine Waters states “Trump is moving towards Impeachment.”
Trump attorney Michael Cohen and Felix Sater negotiate a deal to end sanctions against Russia by stopping the violence in Crimea with a Ukranian named Andrii V. Artemenko. They supposedly deliver a copy of this plan to Michael Flynn’s desk, but there is no evidence he ever reviewed it or passed it on to anyone.
When this is revealed Artemenko is looked at for possible Treason charges by Ukraine. [Exactly who came up with this idea and tasked them with this? Does anyone believe they went rogue?]
Februray 7th -— Sens. Cardin and Graham — alerted by Fried and Malinowski at State of Trump efforts to scrap sanctions -— author bipartisan legislation to require the approval of Congress for all changes to sanctions.
February 8th — Washington posts asks Flynn if he discussed sanctions with Russia, he says “No” twice.
February 9th —Flynn’s spokesman issues a correction to Wapo that he “doesn’t remember” if he did or didn’t discuss sanctions.
Trump talks to Putin by phone and criticizes Obama’s Start II Nuclear deal with Russia. Flynn is there for the call.
Judge Robart’s national block of the Muslim Ban is upheld by the 9th Circuit
February 10th — Trump is asked about Flynn talking to Russians about sanctions and says “This is the first time I’ve heard that.” Note: He had already been personally told about this by White House Counsel McGahn immediately after he was told by Yates on Jan 26th.
February 12th — Reports emerge that the Intel agencies are considering holding back highly sensitive intel from Trump to prevent leaks to Russia.
February 13th — Flynn is fired immediate after Wapo report proving that he lied, allegedly he’s let go because he lied to Vice President Pence and caused him to be embarrassed about what he said on Meet the Press. WH secret push to cut sanctions goes on hold.
February 14th — Comey & Sessions meet Trump in the Oval for a counter-terrorism briefing. Trump clears the room and gets Comey alone to complain about leaks asking him to prosecute some reporters over it and ask if he can just “Let Flynn go” Comey interprets the request to only be about Flynn not the Russia investigation,
Comey notes this and discusses it with FBI leadership.
The NYTimes reports that Trump aids (including Flynn, Manafort and Page) had repeated contacts with Russian Intelligence according to the NSA and that the FBI had requested they “collect as much information as possible about the Russian operatives on the phone calls” and go through their archives for more information.
February 15th — Intel Agencies with access to foreign intercepts say “Trump Will Die in Jail.”
Comey laters asks Sessions not to leave him alone with Trump again as it’s inappropriate. Comey’s memory of the event is hazy, but he states later Sessions doesn’t really respond. [During later testimony Session claims he repeated back basic DOJ protocols to Comey, which doesn’t answer his concern over why Sessions failed to follow protocol the previous day.]
February 16th — CBS reports that Trump screamed at CIA Director Pompeo over reports that Intel is being withheld from him because of fears he might leak it to Russia.
Pompeo denies any intel is being withheld from Trump.
Trump rage tweets that “Russia” is a made up story by Democrats as an excuse for losing the election.
House Democrats submit bill to prevent removal of Russia sanctions without Congress approval.
February 17th — Trump calls the Press the “Enemies of the American People.”
February 21st — Artemenko talks to a Ukrainian News outlet and reveals that he’s known Michael Cohen for some time since Cohen has an ethanol business in the country, which is also where his wife was born, and that his meeting with Cohen and Sater on Feb 6 wasn’t their first. According to Artemenko, he discussed the “peace-plan” with Cohen and Sater “at the time of the primaries, when no one believed that Trump would even be nominated.”
February 25th — FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe — who began his carrier with the New York Field Office while Trump surrogate Giuliani was Mayor — goes to the White House and in direct violation of DOJ protocols buttonholes Reince Prebus to tell him the NYT article on contacts “Is Bullshit.” [Later reporting seems to hint that the FBI’s objection to the report is the claim that certain contacts were confirmed as part of “Russian Intelligence”, not that the contacts didn’t happen because those were confirmed by James Clapper.]
February 26th —Preibus calls McCabe back and asks him to inform the Press about this as an “anonymous source”, he refuses.
Preibus call his pals Devin Nunez Chairman of the House intelligence committee and Richard Burr Chairman of the Senate Intel Committee who are each former Trump surrogates who are heading up investigations of “Russia” — they do it for him.
Former Bush Ethics Atty Richard Painter files complaint with Government Ethics Office that James Comey violated the Hatch Act by publicly disclosing unsubstantiated information about Abedine’s emails prior to the election.
February 28th — Trump who had essentially called Hillary a “murderer” over Benghazi blames the Generals and Obama for death of Navy Seal in Yemen during raid he himself authorized.
March 1 —it’s discovered that Sessions met with Kislyak twice, in July at the RNC which he attended as a Trump surrogate along with Carter Page and JD. Gordon and in September in his Senate Offices. Nobody notices that he also met him in April.
Sen. Franken asks for Sessions to come back to the Senate to explain, he declines and sends a letter which claims he didn’t understand the question he was asked and didn’t think he was “acting as a surrogate” when he met Kislyak.
March 2 — 100 Democrats demand that Jeff Sessions resign as Attorney General. He doesn’t.
March 4 —Session recuses himself from the Russia investigation.
Trump blows his top that weekend screaming at his staff, throwing Priebus and Bannon off Air Force One for his weekly Mar-A-Lago trip.
March 5th — Trump tweets about being “Wiretapped in Trump Tower by Obama” that morning based on a report from Breitbart and Judge Napolitano on Fox News — Narrative shifts away from Sessions.
James Clapper denies that “Obama Wiretapped Trump.”
March 6th -- Trump issues a revised Muslim travel ban, which no longer blocks immigrants and refugees from Iraq.
March 7th —House Intel committee invites Sally Yates and James Comey to testify about Michael Flynn and Russia.
Michael Hayden denies Trump’s Wiretapped by Obama claims.
Sen. Franken says Session committed perjury.
The Guardian reports that SLC Group and Cambridge Analytics methods of generating micro-targeted alt-news webiverse using data provided by AggregateIQ were used to meddle in the Brexit Vote to encourage “voter disengagement” and “to persuade Democrat voters to stay at home”:
March 8th — British media reports more of the specific contacts by person and date alleged by Steele dossier have been confirmed by independent surveillance, but they do not yet confirm the substance of the conversations.
Flynn finally registers as a foreign agent.
June 20th —
Sen. Whitehouse argues that there is evidence Flynn has been cooperating with Mueller’s investigation for some time.
CNN Reports the Trump pick for FBI director Christopher Wray had edited his online bio to remove reference to a case against Russia.
Bannon says the reason Spicer doesn’t do his briefings on camera : “Sean got fatter.” Which is ironic for a guy who’s fatter than Spicer and doesn’t explain why he won’t allow the audio to be recorded either.
Jason Miller generates excuses for why Trump hasn’t commented on London Mosque attack: “It literally happened just yesterday” when it was 2 days ago, Yesterday was the death of former North Korean prisoner Otto Warmbier, but he commented on that, the Baseball practice shooting and the London Bridge attack immediately.
CBS reports that Trump’s approval is down 11% among Republicans since the end of his first 100 days. 36% approval overall.
“Still Fatter” Spicer does an on camera briefing.
Mueller adds Russian speaking prosecutor to his team.
Sessions lawyers up with an attorney Chuck Cooper, who had previously defended Bob Jones’ University’s ban on interracial dating to supporting job discrimination against those with HIV/AIDS.
Hannity claims new nutbag theory that the intelligence community and mainstream media are planning a “Soft Coup” to undermine Trump. “Deep State”, “Political Witch Hunt” etc
June 21st —
Bloomberg reports a detailed piece by Trump biographer Tim O’Brien on his shady financial ties to Mafia and Russian Mob money through Felix Sater and Bayrock LLC between 2002-2011 including $33 Million in properties sales & rentals of luxury condos in New York, Vegas and Los Angeles to mysterious LLCs since the election.
Don Jr. and Ivanka’s involvement in these deals makes them potential targets for Mueller’s investigations.
Former Homeland Security head Jeh Johnson testifies
He says that “The Russian government, at the direction of Vladimir Putin himself, orchestrated cyber attacks on our nation for the purpose of influencing our election,” he said. “That is a fact, plain and simple.”
But that there’s “No evidence they flipped votes.” which would have been an act of war.
He also says Trump’s “Rigged” talk made it difficult to address the interference Russia created.
Other officials from DHS indicate that voter registration systems in 21 states were attacked.
Spicer says he “hasn’t specifically asked” Trump if he believes Russia interfered with the election.
Telegraph reports that Trump will not be making an official state visit to the UK over the threat of widespread protests for at least two years.
Senate’s new Russia sanctions bill hits a snag on the House rule that any bill that raises revenue must start in the House.
Dems on House Oversight send letter to Preibus to explain why Kushner still has a security clearance?
Kushner flies to Tel Aviv to negotiate with Israel and Palestine.
Lewandowski tells Fox and Friends the Russian collusion investigation “should end immediately” because they’ve found nothing. [That they’ve told us about, Yet. And they won’t say anything until there’s either an indictment or a Grand Jury report to Rosenstein.]
NATO F-16 from Poland buzzes plane carrying Lavrov and shadows it until a Russian SU-22 with air-to-air missiles shows up.
Rachel Maddow highlights that what Homeland security testified isn't just that lots of states were attacked but also that voter registration files in specific counties that leaned heavily Democratic were targeted and some of the poll book software failed on election night in those counties which created excessive delays, long lines and more votes shifted to provisional ballots which aren't always counted — meanwhile personal information for 200 Million U.S. voters were posted on an open server by RNC contractor Deep Root analytics which could have been accessed by anyone who knew the IP or web address.
june 22nd —
Senate releases their version of Trumpcare which is even worse than the house version and immediately loses 4 Republican votes leaving the bill DOA. Senator Collins questions it's Medicaid cuts while Senator Warren says it pays for tax cuts with Blood Money.
Trump finally admits after 41 days, one day before the deadline set by congress for an answer, that he doesn't have any "Tapes" of his conversations with Comey, and had only brought it up to "rattle" him. He seems to claim he had thought Comey himself or the intel community had been taping the conversation in a weird variation on the "Obama taped me in Trump Tower" conspiracy. It never seems to occur to him that if Comey had a recording, he wouldn’t have needed to take notes and write memos about what was said, which is a pretty standard FBI practice.
Election officials report that hackers stole and changed voter registration information during the 2016 election in at least one county in addition to accessing registration systems in 39 states.
Huckabee Sanders says "Everybody agrees the election wasn't influenced by Russia" [No, not really. They didn't change votes, but they did all they could to access their registration data and to trick voters with false news and conspiracy theories.] when finally admitting that the DNC was probably hacked by Russia which everyone actually does say.
Trump staffers reacts to this latest nutty conspiracy theory and the looming backlash over it --"**** my life."
Nunez "I never said I was leaving the Russia investigation for good."
Trump's "Voter Fraud" panel backfires as they starting looking into Russian hacking of election systems.
Pizzagate shooter sentenced to four years in prison.
Preet Bharara signs a book deal
Schiff says that Trump's tweet about the tapes is not enough, 'he's been untruthful before in his tweets.' and that his statement that he doesn't have tapes doesn't cover the rest of the White House.
Coats and Rogers tells House intel that Trump did ask them to “get the word out” about his not being personally under investigation and that there was “no evidence of collusion.” Coats also says Trump is “obsessed with the Russia probe.”
Rand Paul's attempts to claim that Trump really was being surveilled which inspires former CIA agent Phill Mudd to call bullshit on that. Besides the fact that Comey, Coats, Clapper (all under oath) and Michael Hayden have already denied this and said it’s not even possible under the law.
June 23rd —
Wapo releases report that CIA had generated an “Eyes Only” memo for Obama in August that Putin personally ordered the attack on the U.S. election. Trump says "This is the first he's heard of it..." as if he wasn't briefed on exactly this on Jan 6th and Jeh Johnson hadn’t just testified to the same thing two days ago.
Spicer finally admits he talked to Trump about “elections tampering” but doesn’t specifically mention Russia, and claims Trump’s “tape threat” was intended to force Comey to “tell the truth” as if being under oath were meaningless.
Incoming House Oversight Chair Trey Gowdy, replacing Chaffetz, says he’s totally dropping investigation of Russian interference leaving it for Mueller, House Judiciary and Intelligence.
Trump Energy official sends racist tweets calling Obama a “Kenyan creampuff.”
Wapo reports that WH can’t get through to Tillerson on the phone, “he won’t return calls”
Senate Intel opens investigation into faked and already debunked report about Loretta Lynch colluding with Debbie Wasserman-Schultz to shutdown Clinton email investigation.
Trump claims Comey tapes may exists because “Obama taped the White House”, again. [Uh, no he didn’t he taped the Russian ambassador and caught Flynn, which is something he was warned would happen, dumb ***.]
The rollout of new FBI Director Nominee Chris Wray appears to be completely fouled up, already.
Politico reports that Trump blames WH Counsel McGhan for not stopping the Russia probe, somehow.
LATimes reports that Mueller's team includes experts on fraud and money laundering and they seem "Dangerously close to an obstruction case."
Rep. Andy Biggs calls for Mueller to recuse himself because of his close relationship with Comey, who had been his boss as Deputy AG while Mueller was FBI Director. He doesn’t seem to have a problem with the fact that Kushner and Ivanka’s attorney Jamie Gorelick is also a member of Mueller’s law firm.
Kris Kobach from Trump's "Voter Fraud" panel gets sanctioned for "Deceptive Conduct and Lack of Condor"
June 24th —
Russia pushes back on more reports that they meddled in the U.S. elections claiming “We don’t do that, but the U.S. does.”
Trump attacks Obama administration for “doing nothing” to fight Russia attacks, finally admitting that there even was a Russia attack while ignoring that they did respond to the attack on state elections systems reached out diplomatically several times very strongly including face to face with Putin, then implemented sanctions which Trump has been already trying to remove.
June 25th —
Buzzfeed reports that Putin plans to recall Kislyak back to Russia.
Jeffrey Lord says Mueller should hire Michael Cohen — yes, seriously — ignoring the fact that he’s actually been investigating Cohen who has since lawyered up.
Eric Trump again says the DNC Chair Tom Perez is a “Nut Job” and his dad “has done more than any President in History.”
90 Parliament email accounts are attacked by hackers.
Kellyanne Conway refuses to talk about Russian hacks because “It was Obama’s fault for not stopping them” — even though he actually did stop them once he, DHS and the FBI knew about it.
Trump admits calling Elizabeth Warren “Pochahantas” is racist, but does it anyway. He also tweets that “Hillary colluded with the DNC to defeat Bernie” even though that actually didn’t happen at all and is just another Sputnik News talking point.
White House skips Ramadan celebration, because why not?
Adam Schiff and Al Franken criticize Obama’s tepid reaction to Russia prior to the election saying he “coulda, shoulda, woulda” done more. Yeah, ok, that’s good backseat driving there. Like what exactly?
Kushner goes to Palestine and infuriates Prime Minister Abbas enough that they threaten to shutdown talks.
june 26th —
Brit Hume argues that colluding with Russia’s illegal cyber attacks against America wouldn’t be a crime — because “Huh?”
Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) tells Politico that he’s prepared to battle the White House over efforts to water down legislation imposing sanctions against the Russian government.
Trump says that “Obama colluded with Russia” because he “did nothing” when he was informed about the hacking attacks — even though he did plenty & Hume says “collusion wouldn’t be a crime.” Somehow he ignores his own request for Russia to hack and release “Hillary’s emails” and multiple attempts to raise sanctions. He also demands an “apology” claiming the Wapo report disproves collusion by his campaign when that subject wasn’t even addressed in the report.
Spicer says Trump was “only joking” about Russia hacking and releasing Hillary’s emails. Katy Tur puts a match to that B.S. and sets it on fire.
Somehow a Russia media rep. Igor Zorin who only earns $75,000 bought 3 condos worth $5.4 Million from Trump Palace. Shocker.
Supreme Court partially allows Travel Ban —upholding it for all those who filed suit based on “standing” but potentially damaging tourism to the tune of $18 Billion — until they fully hear the case in October.
Wapo reports that Kushner received a $285 Million loan from Deutsche Bank a month before the election for their Times Square building while the bank was facing charges being involved in Russian money laundering.
Kushner in addition to attorney Jamie Gorelick hires powerhouse defense attorney Abbie Lowell who had previously defended Harold Keating, Jack Abramov, Dan Rostenkowski and John Edwards.
2 weeks after claiming they would “immediately” file a complaint against Comey for his “leaking” his own thoughts and recollections to Congress, Kasowitz and Trump’s other attorneys haven’t done it yet.
Nunez admits he was never going to recuse himself from Russia investigation.
Wapo Reports that Trump associate Carter Page was interviewed by the FBI 5 times for a total of 10 hours during March and did so without an attorney.
Spicer announces that the WH has information indicating another possible chemical weapons attack by the Assad regime, but CENTCOM knows nothing about it.
CBO says that Senate TrumpCare bill will leave 22 Million without insurance.
Trump’s re-election campaign pays $50,000 to Donald Jr.’s lawyer Alan Futerfas after he’s contacted by the NYTimes for a comment after they discovered that Kushner’s attorneys had updated his SF86 form to include a meeting called by Don Jr. with a lawyer from Russia.
July 27th -—
Trump’s act bombs at Senate Health care meetings because he has no idea what’s in the bill, or for that matter no idea how health care actually works.
Ryan states that “22 Million don’t really want insurance anyway.”
CNN caves to a $100 Libel lawsuit threat over a single-sourced anonymous story involving Trump team member Anthony Scaramucci and fires three employees, including the reporter Thomas Frank and producer Eric Litchbau on the story.
Reporter Brian Karem unloads on the hypocrisy of Huckabee-Sanders trying to grandstand on Scaramucci story firing, while the WH uses anonymous sources for it’s own counter story.
The law firm of Kushner’s new attorney Abbie Lowell has links to both Sberbank and Rosneft and was one of the first U.S. firms allowed to have offices in Moscow.
Clinton campaign chair John Podesta testifies in closed session to House Intel.
Wapo reports that Manafort has registered as a foreign agent and declared $17 million in profits from Ukrainian groups. This “finally getting right with the law” act fuels rumors that he has or soon intends to flip for Mueller.
Gingrich says Trump should testify, because it’s not like he wouldn’t prat fall into perjury trap that way…Noooo.
Rick Perry talks to the press about the environment and ****. gets. crazy.
CNN medical producer opines on tape made by James O’Keefe that Russia probably a “witch hunt” and that CNN ‘s coverage is over the top. CNN sticks with him as having his own opinion, besides it’s not like aren’t still paying Jeffrey Lord to say the same thing day after day. There is also another video of Van Jones saying “Russia is a nothing burger” — which in terms of Demcractic politics he’s previously said many times.
Sally Yates says Americans should be alarmed at Trump’s behavior even if you assume there “was no collusion.”
Kasowitz puts his complaints about Comey’s “leaks” on indefinite hold.
Senate pushes back vote on Trumpcare until after July 4th recess.
July 28th -—
Trump tweets incoherently about the Washington Post supporting Amazon for not paying “taxes” when they do pay sales taxes in 45 states.
Time magazine asks Trump to remove fake magazine covers from his golf courses.
Sekulow argues that we should have a special prosecutor to investigate Obama’s reaction to Russian hacking and meddling, because that’s logical — in Bizarro World.
Maddow reports that Senate Republicans seem to be investigating the Mueller investigation and are reviewing the Comey Memo’s even though they aren’t investigation obstruction — that’s under Senate Judiciary — perhaps to see if it’s is based entirely on the Steele Dossier in order to use that as a reason to have it shut down.
Senate Intel is also reportedly going through 2,000 documents for Treasury’s FinCEN unit on Trump and his associations and the money ties to Russia.
CREW files a Hatch Act complaint against Nikki Haley for retweeting an endorsement by Trump for Republican Robert Northam to fill the congressional seat vacated by budget director Mick Mulvaney.
CNN reports that Trump’s staff is going increasingly concerned about his lack of concern about what and how Russia hacked us, and whether they might do it again.
Chuck Todd tears into Trump’s press office :”This is nothing less than a war on the truth.”
Ex MTV-VJ Kennedy argues on Fox: “Who cares if 15 Million people will lose Health Care next year, we’re all gonna die anyway?” Yes we will, but not this exact minute. Well, not unless North Korea — well y’know.
Spicer tweets claim that Obamacare has “failed” 28 Million people who still don’t have Health Care and that only TrumpCare is the “solution” to this problem — while the CBO says it will increase that problem another 23 Million by 2026.
June 29th —
Annoyed by criticism from Morning Joe’s Mika saying he’s “Out of his Mind” while discussing a reported loud clash between SecState Tillerson and WH over meddling and interference by Kushner, Trump counters by tweeting that Joe and Mika visited Mar-A-Lago 3 times, and that he refused a personal meeting around New Year’s because Mika was “bleeding from a recent facelift” — pics taken of Mika that same day disprove this. Melania and Huckabee-Sanders give excuses for this crap.
WH aides respond to facelift tweet “At least you’re not reporting we’re going to kill Millions” — yeah, but you are though, if we let you.
MSNBC’s Katy Tur smashes Huckabee-Sanders false claim that “Trump never advocated violence” on the campaign trail point by point.
Republicans respond to “Facelift” tweet with outrage, but still continue to support and vote for Trump proposal despite outrage of the American people. Typical.
Trump prepares to meet privately with Putin at G20 by asking staff to give him “bargaining chips he can trade away.” Might those include “American Sovereignty?
Steven Benen at MSNBC reveals that Trump’s “secret plan” to fight ISIS was a Lie, because his actual plan is to do what Obama was already doing.
Kasowitz law firm under potential scrutiny by Mueller for a $285 Million 2015 real estate deal for Time Square property and refinancing loan between Kushner and Deutsche Bank.
Ryan says Senate must repass their Russia sanctions bill to resolve constitutional issue, but the issue is that revenue bills have to start in the House — so, um, what?
House intel requests a more full response to the question of Comey recordings than just the President’s tweet, which only spoke for him not any recording being kept by the entire White House.
Wall Street Journal reports that GOP operative Peter W. Smith had endeavored to gain stolen Clinton email information for Flynn. He claimed to them, before he died on May 15, to have found two groups with the information and asked them to provide it to Wikileaks. U.S. intel also picks up indications that Russian hackers were actively trying to get access to Clinton’s server to provide those emails to Flynn. Smith acting as an “intermediary” for communications between Russian hackers and Flynn confirms another plank in the Steele Dossier that Kremlin intel had been deliberately supplying Trump with anti-Clinton intel.
Van Jones lays into James O’keefe’s bogus “Nothing Burger” video supposedly “exposing” the CNN host for not really caring that much about the Russia issue compared to other policy issues — an opinion which he’s never hidden.
Hawaii files a new suit against Trump’s Partial Travel Ban/Suspension.
NRA releases a video statement featuring Media Wingnut Dana Leosch that accuses the Left of widespread verbal and other violence against Trump, the Police and the Right. She then goes onto fTucker Carlson to defend and rationalize it.
Deutsche Bank refuses request for Trump financial documents from House Dems for the 2nd time.
Senate passes updated version of their new Russia Sanctions Bill which now includes sanctions on Iran as well.
June 30th -—
TPM reports that Homeland Security hasn’t yet checked the integrity of a single voting machine to ensure none of them were hacked or tampered with.
Joe Scarborough reveals that Mika had told Melania about her facelift and that Trump was so impressed he asked for the name of her doctor 10 times.
Joe also says that Trump had tried to blackmail them into apologizing for their coverage by saying if they did he would spike a negative National Enquirer story about them. Trump rage tweets and accidentally confirms part of their story. If proven these allegations would violate New York Criminal (Coercion), DC Criminal (Bribery) and Federal Criminal Law (Extortion by officers of the U.S.).
Russian Communications Minister Nikolay Nikiforov served notice on Friday that the Russian government would retaliate against U.S. companies if Congress bans the Pentagon from using controversial cyber-security software from Kaspersky Labs.
States reject extreme voter information request from Election Suppression Commission, even Kris Kobach’s own state of Kansas refuses. Huckabee-Sanders says this is only a “political stunt” — but it’s Republican controlled states as well as Democratic that refuse.
July 1st —
UK cyber-analyst Matt Tait reveals he was recruited by Peter Smith to authenticate emails stolen from Clinton’s server by the Russians which were to be provided to Michael Flynn.
Bloomberg reports that Kushner had attempted to buy the National Enquirer along with David Pecker in 2006.
Trump continues his twitter rage-a-thon against Mika and Joe for a 3rd day saying ““Crazy Joe Scarborough and dumb as a rock Mika are not bad people,” and also criticizes MSNBC for firing Greta Van Sustren.
Senate Intel reaches agreement to review the Comey Memos.
Trump “jokes” it would be “Fun to sue CNN” at a fundraiser. He says “These are really dishonest people. Should I sue them? I mean, they’re phonies,” Trump said, according to the recording. “I mean, these are horrible human beings.”
In his 2nd loud clash with WH Officials this week Tillerson apparently had “tense” conversation with Jason Miller who pushed him to take a tougher stance on immigration, while Tillerson demanded independence on how he ran State Dept. affairs.
CBS reports that the Science Division of the WH Office of Technology is now completely unstaffed.
July 2nd —
Trump tweets video of himself body slamming and punching WWE CEO Vince McMahon into a stupor — only edited with the CNN logo covering McMahon’s face which has been posted on Reddit 4 days about by yet another neo-Nazi whose online name is literally HanAssholeSolo. CNN takes it as a literal physical threat. WH laughs saying “you guys can never take a joke.” Kathy Griffin is not consulted on the “Funny Ha Ha” of the thing.
DOJ Corporate Fraud expert quits in disgust because doing her job is simply “not possible under Trump.”
All discussion of the Tait’s revelation about being recruited to review Clinton emails obtained from Russia to provide to Michael Flynn or Trump’s ongoing assault on health care recedes.
July 3rd —
Reporter Jared Yates Sexton who discovered ID of Reddit user “HanAssholeSolo” who created anti-CNN video, begins receiving “gory” death threats and insults from other Alt-Right Neo-Nazis.
David Duke chimes in and justifies threats against “Journalistic terrorists”arguing the press has endorsed violence against him for the last 50 years..
Katrina Peirson claims “By the very nature of being President of the United States, it makes his actions presidential whether you like it or not.”
Former Ted Cruz spokesperson Amanda Carpenter argues the president’s attacks on the press “essentially [hands] a weapon to some of our enemies.”
Trump biographer Tim O’Brien says his tweets aren’t some grand distraction because he’s “not smart enough for that.”
Melania says Mika Brzezski “doesn’t know me” in response to her comments on their feud with Trump to InStyle Magazine.
House Dems back bill that could invoke the 25th Amendment removing Trump if he is found mentally or physically unfit for office.
July 4th —
Florida head of the NAACP found a Confederate flag on her lawn after receiving a series of late-night death threats from callers claiming ties to the Ku Klux Klan.
Trump plans for full “Bilateral” meeting with Putin during G20 Summit, Tillerson plans to do “cleanup” meeting in Ukraine hours later.
41 States refuse to provide information to Kris Kobach’s Voter Suppression commission — and some members begins to quit.
Germany’s Angela Merkel no longer describes America under Trump as “a friend.”
July 5th —
Jack Prosoblec A Pro-Trump activist with White House access releases the phone numbers and home addresses of multiple CNN personalities and their families.
Neo-Nazi hackers then begin to contact the families & parents of various CNN anchors and reporters, including those of Andrew Kaczinski who wrote the HanAssholeSolo story and threaten their lives.
HanAssholeSolo apologizes and promises not to produce more racist memes, Ted Cruz accuses CNN of extortion when they later publish an article about his apology while reserving the right to reveal his ID if he reneges on his promise, Some Trumpers scream “blackmail” but CNN counters that they haven’t published his ID, they won’t since he’s a private citizen and he goes on to contact CNN himself and says “he wasn’t threatened”
Fox contributor Tammy Bruce defends HanAssholeSolo right to be an ******* and criticizes CNN “(He) made this meme that the president picked up, and they decided that they could get their pound of flesh from this individual.”
Don Jr. complains “It was only a matter of time” when CNN reports the Anti-Defamation League statement that the anti-CNN meme may be racist and anti-semitic, claiming they’re “Bullying a 15 year old”, but CNN having found his Facebook page counters that claim “He’s not 15.”
Jr. continues “If only @CNN spent as much time tracking down info on IRS targeting, Fast & Furious, Iran deal etc as they did a meme writer! #CNNBlackmail” but there aren’t any outstanding questions on any of those issues, except for Wingnut conspiracies about them.
Trump supports AT&T/Time Warner deal which some see as a way for him to gain leverage over CNN.
Investigators are looking into scores of Easter European Pro-Trump websites which popped up before the election and published dozens of co-ordinated fake anti-Clinton reports.
July 6th —
Trump supporter charged with criminal mischief for writing “False Flag” graffiti at an Elementary School. [Responding officers found “Kill Trump,” “Left is the best,” “Bernie Sanders 2020” and “Death to Trump” written on a sign in the playground.]
While in Warsaw, Poland for the G20 summit Trump again says “Nobody really knows” who hacked the 2016 election. “I think it was Russia. But I think it was probably other people and/or countries, and I see nothing wrong with that statement. Nobody really knows. Nobody really knows for sure,” Trump said. He argues that “Obama did nothing” and that Bush went to war in Iraq over WMD’s and “was wrong.”
Trump also says that CNN took his wresting video too seriously. “CNN has really taken (the video) too seriously and I think they’ve hurt themselves very badly, very very badly.”
Rep. Adam Schiff blasts Trump’s comments. “The President’s comments today, again casting doubt on whether Russia was behind the blatant interference in our election and suggesting ... that nobody really knows, continue to directly undermine U.S. interests,”
CREW asks the Office of Government Ethics to investigate Kushner’s failure to disclose “his ownership interest in an online real estate investment company called Cadre” in his public financial disclosure.
On Fox and Friend Eric Trump bashes the media saying the DOW and S&P are at the highest level ever but all the media talks about is whether Trump colluded with Russia to meddle in the elections. ”I mean, we’re thriving as a nation. Everybody wants to get focused on nonsense. On garbage. On distractions.”
Walter Schraub head of the Office of Government Ethics who had been a highly vocal critical of Trump’s lack of divestiture from his private businesses abruptly resigns effective July 19th.
Rachel Maddow reports that her show had been sent a faked NSA Document which claimed proof that a specific member of the Trump Campaign had been colluding with Russians. This forged document appears to have been an attempt to discredit her program with planted Fake News which could be easily debunked at a later date.
Right wing editorials slam CNN for suggesting they might reveal the identity of HanAssholeSolo claiming that it’s “Blackmail” in exchange for his not generating racists, violent memes anymore, which pretty much establishes that yet again the Rightwing (Hearts) Racism & Sexism.
July 7th —
Trump meets Putin privately for two hours in Warsaw during the G20.
Putin says he “didn’t hack our election” and Trump believes him according to Lavrov, but Tillerson disagrees.
According to Lavrov, “Trump told Putin that some circles in the US are exaggerating the topic of Russian cyber meddling.”
Tillerson claimed he sent Melania into the meeting to break it up after first hour, but they just kept talking for another hour.
Donald Trump agreed to form a joint task force with the Russians to address cyber security, which is a bit like the bank inviting the thieves in to look around and hang out.
They don’t reach an agreement on how to handle North Korean’s increasingly aggressive missile and nuclear program.
They do reach an agreement on a cease fire in southern Syria.
They talk for so long both of them skip out of the Climate Change/Energy meeting.
California Govorner Jerry Brown shows up at G20 and shreds Trump at climate meeting he skipped. “(Trump) doesn’t speak for the rest of America”
Trump tweets that Podesta didn’t let FBI have the DNC server when Podesta actually didn’t have any jurisdiction over anything the DNC did or didn’t do. Podesta hits back with “Get a Grip Man.”
Trump State Dept grants Visas to 150 Russian Spies.
Ivanka temporarily sits in Trump’s place at one G20 summit table, the internet goes nuts.
July 8th —
NyTimes reveals the secret June 9, 2016 meeting between Don Jr., Manafort and Kushner with a prominent Russia lawyer who is known for being an agent of the Russian government. Supposedly they discuss the U.S. adoption of Russian children which had been suspended by Putin after the passage of the Magnitsky Act blacklisting Russian’s with Human Rights violations.
Donald Jr. tweets an edited video of Top Gun footage that shows Trump shooting down planes marked with CNN and says it’s “One of the best I’ve seen.”
Wapo reports that Russian hackers had accessed networks for American Nuclear and Energy companies.
While flying back from the G20 on Air Force One WH staffers begin to craft an “accurate” statement of response to the Time report about Junior and Veselniskaya, Trump himself intervenes and dictates a false story for them to release that the meeting was primarily about “Adoption”. Jared who later claims he was only at the meeting long enough to hear about the adoption portion and had left early before the Magnitski act came up is present on AF1 at this time, Junior isn’t.
July 9th —
Instead of a post summit Press Conference Trump has a tweet-gasm…
Claiming he accepted Putin’s denial of being involved in the election hacks.
He wants to partner with Russia on Cyber Security concerns
He again attacks the DNC for not letting the FBI (and he includes the CIA for some reason) have their email server even though they really didn’t need it.
And also attacks Obama for doing “nothing” about the hacks [that is besides getting in Putin’s face, shoring up our cyber defenses, informing congress, having DHS and the DNI announce that we’d been attacked and devising a new set of sanctions as well as kicking out 35 spies out and takin over 2 Russian compounds]
Kasowitz files motion to dismiss a sexual harassment and defamation suit from a former “Apprentice” contestant against Trump arguing he now has “immunity” and that his comments insulting his various accusers were simply “Free Speech”
Russia expert and investigative reporter Michael Weiss argues that doing a cyber security unit with Putin is like “having an arsonist in charge of the fire brigade.” Fox and Fools says the idea is “actually Genius.” Social media suggests El Chapo and Charles Manson as next members of this crack Cyber Security Unit.
Some GOP Senators coming back from july 4th recess say that Trumpcare is probably dead. McConnell hints that he may attempt to work with Democrats to strengthen the ACA individual market and exchanges.
The NYTimes reports that Donald Jr. was offered damaging information on Hillary Clinton before attending a meeting with a Kremlin-linked Russian Lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya last June with Manafort and Kushner, but they do not confirm that she actually delivered this information during the meeting. [If that information was provided and it originated as a result of Russian cyber-espionage — we have Collusion Sign once again, particularly if it was offered in exchange for a repeal of the Magnitsky act which sanctions Russian individuals for Human Rights violations.’]
Trump’s legal team says he “was unaware and did not attend” the meeting with Veselnitskaya.
Bush ethics lawyer Richard Painter says Don Jr & Kushner’s actions in attending the Veselnitskaya meeting to get opposition research on Clinton “border on Treason.” Also, potentially, the Logan Act again.
Outgoing Ethics Chief Walter Shaub notes that part of why he’s leaving his post early is that while attempting to do his job he got nothing but stonewalling and even a “explicit threat” from Reince Preibus.
Trump begins his tweet walkback on the Cyber Security Unit: “The fact that President Putin and I discussed a Cyber Security unit doesn't mean I think it can happen. It can't-but a ceasefire can,& did!” [Uh, what?]
July 10th —
Don Jr. issues a statement — changing his previous claims that there were “No meetings”, and his second claim that it was about “adoptions” — that he went to this meeting because he was asked by a friend he’d met during the Moscow Miss Universe pageant in 2013 and admits he went because of he promise of “helpful information”. He didn’t know Veselnitskaya previously, she talked about Russians funding the DNC (which would be illegal) in order to help Hillary Clinton but her claims were “vague and made no sense” and after discussing Russian adoption and the Magnitski act he ended the meeting after 20 mins because Trump wasn’t public official yet [which avoids a Logan Act violation].
Common Cause files a complaint about Don Jr. “Solicitiing a contribution from a foreign national” with the FEC.
Junior goes on to repeatedly like tweets that say he attended the meeting to get “dirt” on Clinton which doesn’t help his case at all.
Brit Hume insist “Don Jr. was tricked by a Russian bait and switch” but there’s no evidence of collusion. [Yeah, except that he jumped at the bait until he decided it was worthless and not harmful enough to Clinton which was kinda collusion-ish.]
Kellyanne goes on George Stephanapoulos and gets caught in her previous statements that there were “no contacts or meetings” with Russians. George asks “Who misled you?” on the details of these meetings.
Kellyanne also talks to Chris Cuomo and whines endlessness that CNN doesn’t give Trump any positive coverage — although they do. [I mean, not all day long for 10 hours straight on show after show, but they mention the other stuff sometimes.] She tries to do an infomercial about “Trump the Great” on VA reform, the Opiod crisis and Infrastructure, Cuomo counters that Don Jr.’s statement is an admission that Russians were trying to ingratiate themselves into the Trump campaign, whether they succeeded that particular time is besides the point [And they apparently did succeed later with multiple undisclosed Kushner/Flynn meetings with Kislyak and others.) “Don Jr. changed his story twice, that’s what matters” Cuomo says. She keeps whining for more positive coverage “Your panelists roll their eyes and furrow their brows, they need to be more balanced” as if they don’t have Jeffrey Lord, Jason Miller, Jack Kingston, Rick Santorum and other Pro-Trump sycophants on every day. He says “You rally people to attack the press and our families” which they have.
Keith Olbermann pulls up an old Trump tweet that he says shows Trump knew Manafort and Don Jr. meet with Veselnitskaya because later that day was the first time he said “33,000 of Hillary’s emails were missing.”
FBI says about half (4 of 7) of Comey’s memos contain sensitive or confidential information indicating his sharing some of them with Senate investigators may be problematic even though he testified that he created all the memos as “Unclassified”, this means that he is now suffering from the same after-the-fact “up classification” problem that plagued Hillary Clinton and her emails. Ironic.
Trump retweets a Fox and Friends segment that claims Comey revealed classified information to the media in his memos, when in fact the media doesn’t even have his memos, Mueller does. Senate intel had only reached an agreement to see them just last week and hasn’t fully reviewed them yet.
Rep. Schiff say House Intel wants to question Don Jr. as does Sen. Susan Collins who wants him to talk to the Senate Intel committee. Donnie tweets he’ll be happy to talk to Senate Intel.
Congressional staffers tell the Daily Beast that Treasury officials have attempted to water down the Senate’s New Sanctions Bill against Russia. Tillerson supposedly argued it would “handicap their desire to repair the relationship between the two nations.”
After Trump tweets that if Chelsea Clinton had been a place holder for her mother as Ivanka had been for him at the G20 the “Fake media would have said Chelsea for Prez” — during an audio only briefing a WH reporters asks Huckabee-Sanders when he’ll finally put “Bill and Hillary in the rear view mirror?”
Chelsea hits back saying her Father and Mother “Never would have asked her” to do such a thing and never have.
Former watergate assistant prosecutor Nick Akerman echoes Richard Painter’s call that Don Jr. actions may have “betrayed the United States” and could be considered “Treason.”
Former CIA spy Lindsay Moran says that she has seen the Russian government use these kinds of tactics in the past on American citizens, “Legality aside, this is Russian intelligence tactics at their best,” she said. “Let’s promise Trump Jr. something that he wants, lure him in, bait and switch. It doesn’t matter whether they talked about nefarious activities with him at the meeting — the whole thing is nefarious.”
Don Jr. sarcastically tweets admitting he went to get the opposition research info on Clinton that he’s “the first campaign rep to have a meeting to get information on an opponent” {Yes, he would be for information From Russia!!’]
Then Don Jr. lawyers up. His new attorney is best known for defending the Mafia.
On CNN Jennifer Taub of the Vermont Law School says that “A campaign taking anything of value from a foreign national” is a crime, and even attempting to do so by going to the meeting would be “conspiracy” to violate campaign finance laws. A Trump friendly former U.S. attorney disagrees, but then this wouldn’t be an issue under the DOJ, it would be under the FEC.
The Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) prohibits any foreign national from contributing, donating or spending funds in connection with any federal, state, or local election in the United States, either directly or indirectly. It is also unlawful to help foreign nationals violate that ban or to solicit, receive or accept contributions or donations from them. Persons who knowingly and willfully engage in these activities may be subject to fines and/or imprisonment.
Sen. Mark Warner the ranking Democrat on the Intel Committee does a press conference and says “This isn’t the first time the public has seen clear evidence of an attempt by the Trump campaign to obtain information from Russia against the Clinton campaign. It’s a continuing pattern.” He also points out the Jared Kushner has already had to amend his security clearance forms twice because he keep “forgetting” to include meetings like this with Russians.
Iraq declares victory over ISIS in Mosul.
Sen. Chuck Schumer calls on Trump and Don Jr. to “Stop Lying.”
Maggie Haberman at the NYTimes reports that the initial email to Don Jr. about meeting Veselnitskaya noted that the information came from the Russian Government, which pretty much blows up all the Trump denials that they never “colluded” with Russia, since they obviously went to the meeting knowing that it was info against Clinton that came from the Kremlin. What he should have done when he got that email was go straight to the FBI, but he didn’t.
July 11th —
Don Jr. releases his emails with Rob Goldstone, pre-empting another New York Times report on them. They completely confirm Haberman’s previous report that they were told Veselnitskaya was a “Government Lawyer” from Russia and the information was provided by the “Crown Prosecutor” of Russia because the Russian Government “wanted to help Trump.”
Veselnitskaya talks to NBC and denies she ever worked for the Russian government or tried to tell Trump Jr. anything about Clinton but that “they wanted it very badly.”
Harvard Law Prof Laurence Tribe says ““We now have the proverbial smoking gun: TJr was part of criminal conspiracy to violate fed crim laws banning foreign aid to any US campaign,”
Jared Yates Sexton who’d’ been working on this story for a year concurs with Tribe: “This is the dumbest and biggest crime in the history of American politics. There's not even a close second.”
Trump priases his son’s transparency. “My son is a high quality person.”’
Huckabee-Sanders stonewalls all questions about Trump jr. during an audio-only press conference, referring questions about him to his lawyer, but she still stands by the “no one colluded” claim she made the previous day.
Reports surface that some WH aides are considering lawyering up.
Rep. Marsha Blackburn says “Maybe Trump Jr. was duped.”
Ted Cruz blames all this Russia stuff on “Barack Obama.”
Fox News tries to spin Don Jr. email dump — then gives up on it when they get to the part where Jr. responds ‘If it’s what you say, I love it.’” when he reads that the Russian government wants to provide Trump information against Clinton in order to help their campaign.
Fox and Friends retracts their claim that Comey shared Top Secret information with the Press. “We were mistaken.”
Politico reports that Peter W. Smith’s attempts to gain access to Hillary’s emails involved a White Supremacist who had been banned from Twitter for his racism.
Julian Assange admits that he tried to give Don jr. advise to publish his emails through Wikileaks.
Some on the media argue that the leaks on Don Jr’s emails are coming from Steve Bannon in order to protect Kushner.
Wapo reports that GOP operatives close to Trump are building a “discredit team” to smear reporters.
Daily Beast reports that Bill Browder will testify before Senate Judiciary on how Veselnitskaya is linked to the GRU, FSB and efforts to lower the Magnitski Act sanctions.
joe Scarborough announces on Colbert that he’s leaving the Republican party to become and Independent.
CNN report Special Counsel Bob Mueller was unaware of Juniors meeting with Veselniskaya, but will now be investigating.
July 12th —
The intercept reports that Trump is still the principle on many of his businesses despite his claims to have handed over control to his family. [Liar, Liar, super long tie on fire.]
Rep Brad Sherman (D-CA) and Al Green (D-TX) file articles of Impeachment against Trump over his handling of the firing of James Comey.
Sen Franken rips defense of Donald Jr. to shreds during confirmation hearing for FBI director nominee Christopher Wray in response to a claim by Lindsey Graham that the Ukraine tried to give information to Hillary Clinton’s campaign. [Although this wasn’t the Ukrainian government sending an operative to reach out to Clinton, it was an effort to gather information on Paul Manafort by DNC consultant Alexandra Chalupa who is Ukrainian-American. That’s oppo research due diligence by an American, not a foreign government trying to interfere with a U.S. election.]
Sen Graham asks Wray if Mueller is on a “Witch Hunt” — he says “Director Mueller is not on a Witch Hunt.” He also says “Any threat or promise to help a campaign by a foreign government, the FBI would want to know.”
Senate Judiciary Chair Grassley prepares to call Manafort to testify.
Rep. Steve King threatens to re-open investigation of 65k emails of Anthony Weiner, Comey’s “activities” and Hillary’s emails if Democrats don't stop talking about Trump and Russia. [Go for it, punk!]
Emin Agalarov’s attorney Scott Balber gets smashed on live TV by Chris Cuomo over Emin's promoter Rob Goldstone “Do you know him to a a pathological liar?” and his attempt to give Don Jr. negative information on Hillary: Balber says it’s “Simply fiction that this was an attempt by the Russian government to reach Trump through having his son’s pop music publicist, the prosecutor never talked to his father.” Cuomo says about Goldstone’s claim: “That is some doozy of a lie.”
Cuomo also takes on Sekulow over Don Jr. and tells him “You have no facts!”
McClatchy reports that House, Senate and DOJ investigators are looking at whether the Russian cyberbot and Troll program to spread fake news about Hillary as reported by Time was coordinated using Jared Kushner voter micro-targeting system with Cambridge Analytics. Former Pentagon expert on Russia Mike Carpenter states ““There appears to have been significant cooperation between Russia’s online propaganda machine and individuals in the United States who were knowledgeable about where to target the disinformation,” he said, without naming any American suspects.
Democratic party donors and some staff have sued the Trump campaign and Roger Stone for conspiring to publicly release their private information through the dumping of data stolen from the DNC by Russian hackers through DCLeaks and Wikileaks. The suit doesn’t contain any hard evidence of conspiracy but it does seek to depose witnesses and do discovery of Trump campaign emails.
WSJ reports that US intel is reviewing intercepts they captured in 2015 before his run for the President of Russian intel personnel discussing contacts with Trump associates.
DOJ misses a court ordered deadline to provide all of Jeff Sessions foreign contacts.
Trump tells Pat Roberson that Putin “wanted Clinton to win because of the Military and Energy.” He doesn’t mention sanctions, human rights, Crimea, Ukraine, NATO or the EU.
During a Reuters interview Trump says he didn’t know about Junior meeting Veselnitskaya and argues “most people would have taken that meeting.” [Uh, nope.]
July 13th —
NyTimes reports that Kushner has updated his security forms for foreign contacts 3 times and added more than 100 new names to the list.
Republican Rep. Bill Flores says that Trump should get his kids, including Kushner, out of the White House.
DOJ delivers Sessions foreign contact list a day late and short of details.
Asked about Trump Jr’s meeting and his FBI director nominee’s claim that anyone in that situation “should contact the FBI” while in France for Bastille Day Trump echoes his own false story that he previous dictated for Junior on AF1 says “most people would have taken that meeting”, “nothing happened, they talked about adoptions which wasn’t part of the campaign” and claims she wasn’t a “Government Lawyer” even though Junior was specifically told that she was and this was part of the Russian government’s effort to help his campaign, he ignores FEC rules over foreign “gifts and contributions” then he blames Veselnitskaya even being in the country on Loretta Lynch (ignoring that her Visa was approved by the State Dept, not DOJ, because she was a Denys Katsyv’s defense attorney while he was being sued under the Magnitski Act)
Chuck Grassley sends Junior a letter requesting he testify before Senate Judiciary.
After first saying he’d only just heard of the Veselnitskaya meeting 2 days ago Trump changes his tune later in the day, telling reporters on Air Force One: “In fact maybe it was mentioned at some point,” This statement was supposed to be off the record, but Trump changed and put it on the record.
Chicago Tribune reports that GOP Donor and operative Peter W. Smith who had tried to acquire Hillary’s emails for Michael Flynn committed suicide 10 days after talking to WSJ.
Yahoo News reports that Trump’s attorneys were informed about the meeting 3 weeks ago after the emails referring to it were discovered by Kushner’s lawyers who then updated his SF-86 form.
Senate Intel member James Lankford (R-OK) reveals that Kushners attendance at the Veselnitskaya meetings was known as far back as April, when he updated his background check forms.
Kushner explodes with WH Press staff saying that instead of letting Trump and Juniors lawyers respond to these issues they need to aggressively defend Don Jr. and have two staffers ready to “attack the Chyrons”on Cable News shows and have op-eds written for the NYtimes and WSJ. Some reports are that Spicey has begun complaining about Kush and still others say these conversations just didn’t happen. [Yeah, alrighty.]
Kasowitz blows his stack at an email critic: “I’m on you now. You are ******* with me now. Let’s see who you are. Watch your back, *****.” Charming.
TPM reports that Trump Deputy Sebastian Gorka is a Nazi Worshipper, cuz of course he is.
Many reporters note that there are references to a phone call between Don Jr. and Emin in the emails chain, and also that Goldstone’s mention of the Russian governments efforts to help Trump seem nonchalant as if that was an already known fact to Don Jr.
Michael Isakoff reveals on CNN that he had interviewed Rob Goldstone and learned that the Trump’s and Agalarov’s had a deal for a new Trump Tower in 2013 that went sideways in 2014 when Obama placed sanctions on Russia for their invasion of Crimea.
Glenn Simpson co-owner of the firm Fusion GPS which had employed Christopher Steel while he compiled his dossier on Trump declines an invitation to testify before Senate Judiciary.
July 14 —
Harvard Law Prof Laurence Tribe says ““We now have the proverbial smoking gun: TJr was part of criminal conspiracy to violate fed crim laws banning foreign aid to any US campaign,”
Jared Yates Sexton who’d’ been working on this story for a year concurs with Tribe: “This is the dumbest and biggest crime in the history of American politics. There's not even a close second.”
Trump priases his son’s transparency. “My son is a high quality person.”’
Huckabee-Sanders stonewalls all questions about Trump jr. during an audio-only press conference, referring questions about him to his lawyer, but she still stands by the “no one colluded” claim she made the previous day.
Reports surface that some WH aides are considering lawyering up.
Rep. Marsha Blackburn says “Maybe Trump Jr. was duped.” Hm, ya think?
Ted Cruz blames all this Russia stuff on “Barack Obama.”
Fox News tries to spin Don Jr. email dump — then gives up on it when they get to the part where Jr. responds ‘If it’s what you say, I love it.’” when he reads that the Russian government wants to provide Trump information against Clinton in order to help their campaign.
Fox and Friends retracts their claim that Comey shared Top Secret information with the Press. “We were mistaken.” [No ****, Sherlock.]
Politico reports that Peter W. Smith’s attempts to gain access to Hillary’s emails involved a White Supremacist who had been banned from Twitter for his racism.
Julian Assange admits that he tried to give Don jr. advise to publish his emails through Wikileaks.
Some on the media argue that the leaks on Don Jr’s emails are coming from Steve Bannon in order to protect Kushner.
Wapo reports that GOP operatives close to Trump are building a “discredit team” to smear reporters.
Daily Beast reports that Bill Browder will testify before Senate Judiciary on how Veselnitskaya is linked to the GRU, FSB and efforts to lower the Magnitski Act sanctions.
William Browder, an American financier who has investigated Russian corruption for more than a decade, will brief the Senate Judiciary Committeeat a hearing next week on the lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya’s ties to the Russian government—including to former top members of the GRU and the FSB, two of the Kremlin’s main intelligence agencies. Those ties were spelled out in documents that Browder shared with the committee and provided to The Daily Beast this week.
joe Scarborough announces on Colbert that he’s leaving the Republican party to become and Independent.
CNN reports Special Counsel Bob Mueller was unaware of Juniors meeting with Veselniskaya, but will now be investigating. [Ruh Roh!]
The intercept reports that Trump is still the principle on many of his businesses despite his claims to have handed over control to his family. [Liar, Liar, super long tie on fire.]
Rep Brad Sherman (D-CA) and Al Green (D-TX) file articles of Impeachment against Trump over his handling of the firing of James Comey.
Sen Franken rips defense of Donald Jr. to shreds during confirmation hearing for FBI director nominee Christopher Wray in response to a claim by Lindsey Graham that the Ukraine tried to give information to Hillary Clinton’s campaign. [Although this wasn’t the Ukrainian government sending an operative to reach out to Clinton, it was an effort to gather information on Paul Manafort by DNC consultant Alexandra Chalupa who is Ukrainian-American. That’s oppo research due diligence by an American, not a foreign government trying to interfere with a U.S. election.]
Sen Graham ask Wray if Mueller is on a “Witch Hunt” — he say “Director Mueller is not on a Witch Hunt.” He also says “Any threat or promise to help a campaign by a foreign government, the FBI would want to know.”
Senate Judiciary Chair Grassley prepares to call Manafort to testify.
Rep. Steve King threatens to re-open investigation of 65k emails of Anthony Weiner, Comey’s “activities” and Hillary’s emails if Democrats don't stop talking about Trump and Russia. [Go for it, punk!]
Emin Agalarov’s attorney Scott Balber gets smashed on live TV by Chris Cuomo over Emin's promoter Rob Goldstone “Do you know him to a a pathological liar?” and his attempt to give Don Jr. negative information on Hillary: Balber says it’s “Simply fiction that this was an attempt by the Russian government to reach Trump through having his son’s pop music publicist, the prosecutor never talked to his father.” Cuomo says about Goldstone’s claim: “That is some doozy of a lie.”
Cuomo also takes on Sekulow over Don Jr. and tells him “You have no facts!”
McClatchy reports that House, Senate and DOJ investigators are looking at whether the Russian cyberbot and Troll program to spread fake news about Hillary as reported by Time was coordinated using Jared Kushner voter micro-targeting system with Cambridge Analytics. Former Pentagon expert on Russia Mike Carpenter states ““There appears to have been significant cooperation between Russia’s online propaganda machine and individuals in the United States who were knowledgeable about where to target the disinformation,” he said, without naming any American suspects.
Democratic party donors and some staff have sued the Trump campaign and Roger Stone for conspiring to publicly release their private information through the dumping of data stolen from the DNC by Russian hackers through DCLeaks and Wikileaks. The suit doesn’t contain any hard evidence of conspiracy but it does seek to depose witnesses and do discovery of Trump campaign emails.
WSJ reports that US intel is reviewing intercepts they captured in 2015 of Russian intel personnel discussing contacts with Trump associates.
DOJ misses a court ordered deadline to provide all of Jeff Sessions foreign contacts.
Trump tells Pat Roberson that Putin “wanted Clinton to win because of the Military and Energy.” He doesn’t mention sanctions, human rights, Crimea, Ukraine, NATO or the EU.
During a Reuters interview Trump says he didn’t know about Junior meeting Veselnitskaya and argues “most people would have taken that meeting.” [Uh, nope.]
NyTimes reports that Kushner has updated his security forms for foreign contacts 3 times and added more than 100 new names to the list.
Republican Rep. Bill Flores says that Trump should get his kids, including Kushner, out of the White House.
DOJ delivers Sessions foreign contact list a day late and short of details. He continues to claim that Foreign contacts he made as a member of the Senate are not relevant and are therefore redacted, but that’s not an option available on the form.
Asked about Trump Jr’s meeting and his FBI director nominee’s claim that anyone in that situation “should contact the FBI” while in France for Bastille Day Trump says again repeating the false statement he himself helped craft on AF1 that “most people would have taken that meeting”, “nothing happened, they talked about adoptions which wasn’t part of the campaign” and claims she wasn’t a “Government Lawyer” even though Junior was specifically told that she was and this was part of the Russian government’s effort to help his campaign, he ignores FEC rules over foreign “gifts and contributions” then he blames Veselnitskaya even being in the country on Loretta Lynch (ignoring that her Visa was approved by the State Dept, not DOJ, because she was a Denys Katsyv’s defense attorney while he was being sued under the Magnitski Act)
Chuck Grassley sends Junior a letter requesting he testify before Senate Judiciary.
After first saying he’d only just heard of the Veselnitskaya meeting 2 days ago Trump changes his tune later in the day, telling reporters on Air Force One: “In fact maybe it was mentioned at some point,” This statement was supposed to be off the record, but Trump changed and put it on the record.
Chicago Tribune reports that GOP Donor and operative Peter W. Smith who had tried to acquire Hillary’s emails for Michael Flynn committed suicide 10 days after talking to WSJ.
Yahoo News reports that Trump’s attorneys were informed about the meeting 3 weeks ago after the emails referring to it were discovered by Kushner’s lawyers who then updated his SF-86 form.
Senate Intel member James Lankford (R-OK) reveals that Kushners attendance at the Veselnitskaya meetings was known as far back as April, when he updated his background check forms.
Kushner explodes with WH Press staff saying that instead of letting Trump and Juniors lawyers respond to these issues they need to aggressively defend Don Jr. and have two staffers ready to “attack the Chyrons” on Cable News shows and have op-eds written for the NYtimes and WSJ. Some reports are that Spicey has begun complaining about Kush and still others say these conversations just didn’t happen. [Yeah, alrighty.]
Kasowitz blows his stack at an email critic: “I’m on you now. You are ******* with me now. Let’s see who you are. Watch your back, *****.” Charming.
TPM reports that Trump Deputy Sebastian Gorka is a Nazi Worshipper, cuz of course he is.
Many reporters note that there are references to a phone call between Don Jr. and Emin in the emails chain, and also that Goldstone’s mention of the Russian governments efforts to help Trump seem nonchalant as if that was an already known fact to Don Jr.
Michael Isakoff reveals that he had interviewed Rob Goldstone and learned that the Trump’s and Agalarov’s had a deal for a new Trump Tower in 2013 that went sideways in 2014 when Obama placed sanctions on Russia for their invasion of Crimea.
Daily Beast reports that in addition to the “translator” who came with Veselnitskaya to the meeting with Don Jr. there was Rinat Akhmetshin a former Russian Intelligence officer and lobbyist who had previously been accused of being involved in an international hacking scheme.
On Fox both Lou Hobbs while appearing on Hannity and Jesse Waters accuse the “deep state” and “left wing” media of attempting a “coup d’etat” against Trump to undermine American values and “break the will of the people” even though the actual majority of the people voted against Trump.
Loretta Lynch denies she had any personal involvement or knowledge of Veselnitskaya’s Visa status, and she shouldn’t because that wasn’t. her. job. the State Dept. under John Kerry handled Visas at that time and her’s was approved at least as far back as 2013 when Bharara first issued his Magnitski suit against the Prevezon Holdings.
GOP strategist Rick Wllson says “Only Trump’s hypnotized base believes his Bullshit Tornado about Russia.” [Yep, pretty much.’]
Trump digital media expert Brad Pascale issues a statement in response to House and Senate intel requests to speak to him that he has ‘no knowledge of Russian involvement” in the online campaign he put together with Cambridge-Analytica.
Rep.Adam Schiff calls for everyone from the Veselnitskaya meeting to testify to the House Intel. [Which is now at 8 people and counting...]
The New Republic publishes an extensive story on TrumpCos long history of being involved in money laundering with Russian mobsters going all the way back to 1987.
Former Trump communications aid Michael Caputo agrees with CNN that the Trump Campaign was too much of a ‘**** Show” to have been able to effectively coordinate with the Russians. [Do Tell.]
Caputo testifies behind closed doors to House Intel, claims he saw no links to discussions of Russia, that little old ladies used to bring them “dog-eared papers” on Clinton, and condemns Rep. Jackie Spieres for linking him to Russia saying that it caused his wife and family to receive death threats, and that someone threatened to burn his house down. “The Rhetoric is going to get someone killed and I don’t want to be the next one shot” which is pretty ironic since Jackie Spiere’s was shot 5 times while she was a staffer for Rep. Leo Ryan when he was killed near the Jim Jones compound in Guyana.
Akhmetshin claims he has never worked for Russian intelligence or the GRU, his simply served 2 years in the Russian army before immigrating to the U.S. and becoming a citizen and working as a lobbyist, but says that Veselnitskaya brought a plastic folder with documents showing the DNC accepting funds from Russia to the meeting. All this despite a letter written from Sen. Grassley to SecDEf Kelly about Akhmetshin being and “unregistered” lobbyist who had previously experience as an “active measures expert” with the GRU.
Veselnitskaya admits that she is a former prosecutor and is in regular contact with the Prosecutor General of Russia Yuri Chaika, who is controversial for trumping up bogus charges against Putin’s enemies and having them tortured and killed in prisonthe same way the Sergei Magnitski was killed.
Kushner Lawyer Jamie Gorelick is reported by Politico to be backing out of Kushner’s issues with Mueller and leaving everything to Abbie Lowell
July 15th —
WH announces “Made In America Week” but has no answer when asked if that means that Ivanka’s clothing line which is made overseas will be moving their manufacturing to the U.S. The WaPo then pointed out that Trump branded products are made in at least a dozen countries.
The Hill reports that there were 150,000 hack attempts were made against South Carolina’s voter registration system, indications are that they were not successful.
Secret Service smacks down Sekolow — “That meeting was never cleared with us.”
Trump’s lawyer Sekolow blames the Veselnitskaya/Akhmetshin meeting on the Secret Service even though no one who was a protectee at that time was in the meeting. He also claims he and Trump weren’t involved in the crafting of Don Jr’s initial and false statements about the meeting, but that is a lie since Trump dictated and approved it from AF1.
Daily Beast reports that Don Jr.’s lawyer Alan Futerfas had been paid $50,000 by the Trump re-election campaign 11 days before the first report about his Veselnitskaya meeting. Furteras is best known for having been the attorney for all four of New York’s most notorious organized crime families.
July 16th —
Trump whines on Twitter about all the attention on Don Jr’s meeting and accuses Hillary of “illegally” deleting emails even after the FBI said it wasn’t illegal, and his own companies have repeated deleted emails and documents under court order, and getting debate questions ahead of time which also isn’t illegal particularly when Clinton wasn’t even asked the same questions that were wrongfully forwarded to her meanwhile he was warned about Meghan Kelly’s first debate question and had threatened her not to ask it or else his twitter followers would come after her, which they did.
July 17th —
Spicer proclaims that there was nothing in Juniors email that shows the meeting wasn’t about Abortion and the Magnitski Act [which he mis-pronounces as “Maginski Act”] — except everything Junior released five days ago and also what Trump said on Bastille day and tweeted about admiring that it was about obtaining “Oppo research.”
CNN talks to Junior’s Lawyer Futerfas and he says he talked to the 8th man in the meeting who was a rep for the Agalarov Family, even though their lawyers Scott Balber says they basically had nothing to do with anything, This person confirms that the meeting started off being about Russia giving money to the DNC, but he doesn’t confirm that a 2 page document was left behind by Veselnitskaya for Junior.
The Senate Trumpcare Bill coughs and dies as 2 more Repub Senators come out against it dropping them to 48 votes. Trump calls for a full repeal of O-care with a two year delay for them to “figure something out” also known as magically skipping over the 2018 midterm elections.
Fox’s Judge Anthony Napolitano who was the primary source of Trump’s bogus “Obama Wiretapped Trump Tower using GCHQ” claim, comes out and says that Junior probably broke the law. “Because it is suspicious that they met with these people, that they didn’t consult a lawyer, that one of these people was a former KGB, GRU, that’s the Russian intelligence arm, Russian military intelligence arm, and didn’t tell anybody about it.” [Yeah, ya think?’’]
WSJ Editoral “Eviscerates” Trump over the entire Russia scandal saying “Mr. Trump and his family are repeating the mistakes that doomed Mrs. Clinton.Don Jr. released his emails that showed the Russian lure about Mrs. Clinton and Don Jr. all excited—’I love it.’ Oh, and son-in-law Jared Kushner and Beltway bagman Paul Manafort were also at the meeting. Don Jr. told Sean Hannity this was the full story,” they continued. “But then news leaked that a Russian-American lobbyist was also at the meeting.”
July 18th —
The 8th man finally appears and is revealed to be a naturalized Russian-American, Ike Kaveladze, working in the U.S. for a Russian real estate company owned by the Agalarov’s who is represented by Emin’s Lawyer Scott Balber. Balber says he was there to act as a translator, but that Veselnitskaya brought her own translator (person #7) and that he’d been contacted by Mueller’s office about the ID of the 8th man. Congress and the GAO had previously investigated Kaveladze as a “foreigner creating shell companies” exactly like the types of money laundering schemes that have been used by the Russian Mob and Intel services.
Trumpcare finally implodes as more Republican Senator balk at their bullshit plan. Trump whines and blames Democrats for not helping destroy healthcare for 22-23 Million people even though the entire point of using the reconciliation process was to avoid needing any Dem votes. He says he’s now “let Obamacare fail” while in fact he’s already been sabotaging it by messing with cost sharing reductions and driving providers out of the marketplace.
Mueller ok’s the Senate Judiciary committees to talk to Junior and Manafort in an open hearing. [Is this because he’s already talked to both of them?]
It’s revealed that during a dinner at the G20 Trump again spoke with Putin for another hour without disclosing it, this time without any other Americans or aides present so there is no record or documentation of what was said.
Fox WH correspondent John Roberts walks out of Huckabee-Sanders briefing early and when she notes his departure from the podium he slaps back “‘If it was on camera, I might not be.’ Generating “Ooohs” from the pool.
Sean Hannity whines about Shep Smith’s criticism of Trump “Some voices on Fox drive me nuts. Shep is so anti-Trump.”
Chris Christie says that it was “probably illegal” to receive oppo research from a foreign government but that Don Jr. is not smart enough to collude with the Russians.
July 19th —
Scarborough says about Trump’s second Putin meeting: ““So what are we to assume if not the worst — that he had this meeting, the White House didn’t reveal it. Once again we had to find out about it through third channels and there wasn’t even an American within earshot to listen what they talked about for an hour.”
Walter Schaub says he was horrified when Trump’s lawyer asked if he could turn in his financial disclosure forms without signing them and certifying that they were true.
Over 20 lawmakers begin to question Ivanka Trump’s security clearance because she apparently didn’t disclose any of their families multiple meetings with Russian officials on her SF86 forms.
Shep Smith slaps back at Hannity “Sometimes facts are displeasing.”
Flynn and Caputo are reportedly having difficulty paying their lawyer fees.
Veselnitskaya says she’s ready to testify to the Senate who otherwise can’t subpoena her since she’s a foreign natonal. [Judging by her RT interview, she’ll do great right?]
Daily Beast reports that while Veselnitskaya met secretly with Don Jr. last June the Kremlin gave Rep. Dana Rohrabacher instructions to stage a “show trial” in Congress attacking Bill Browder in order to alter the Magnitski Act sanctions on Russia. Rohrabacher was provided a Russian propaganda film against Browder by Yuri Chaika’s Prosecutor Generals Office, which was the same source for Veselnitskaya’s “evidence” against Hillary Clinton and the DNC.
Trump does an interview with Maggie Haberman and the NyTimes
He says that he blames the appointment of Mueller as Special Counsel on Jeff Sessions recusal, and says if he’d known Sessions would recuse himself he wouldn’t have picked him for AG. “It’s very unfair to the President.”
He thinks Comey briefing him on the Steele dossier was intended as blackmail in order to keep his job.
That Mueller was rife with conflicts of interest because he had interviewed for interim FBI director the day before he was appointed Special Counsel, and he has Democrats working for him
He doesn’t trust Deputy FBI Director McCabe because his wife ran for office as a Democrat once and got $700k from Gov. Terry McAullif and the DNC, who are friendly with Clinton so that means McCabe is “evil.”
He doesn’t trust Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein because he’s from Baltimore and it’s full of Democrats.
He claims he still doesn’t think he’s under investigation even for obstruction of Justice “I don’t think we’re under investigation,” he said. “I’m not under investigation. For what? I didn’t do anything wrong.”
He again denied that he asked Comey to drop the Flynn investigation.
He admits that his second hour long conversation with Putin at the G20 included a discussion of Russian adoptions, the same subject that Veselnitskaya had brought up with Don Jr.
He says that if Mueller wanders from Russia and starts to investigate his families finances it would be “crossing a red line.”
The NYTimes reports that investigators are looking at complex financial transactions between Trump, Kushner, Deutsche Bank and VEB.
Trump hits 6 Months in Office as Carrier lays off 300 workers.
Kushner is scheduled to testify in closed Session to Senate Intel on the 24th. Manafort and Don Jr. are scheduled to testify before Senate Judiciary on the 26th.
NYTimes reports that Manafort owed $17 Million to pro-Russia shell companies based in Cyprus before he joined Trump campaign.
July 20th —
Bloomberg reports that Mueller is looking at the finances of Trump and his associates.
AP reports that the Russian urged Trump to bring a note taker for his dinner meeting with Putin but he declined because he was afraid of leaks.
Senate Judiciary approves Chris Wray for FBI Director.
Sessions says he’ll stay on as a “Zombie Attorney General.”
Sally Yates slams Trump’s attack on the independence of the DOJ as a “violation of a bedrock principle of democracy”
Rohrabacher dismisses what Russia asked him to do with a “show trial” as insignificant.
HHS is using Obamacare outreach funds to undermine the laws function.
Rep. Schiff calls Trump’s secret dinner meeting with Putin “deeply troubling.”
Huckabee-Sanders says those who complain about Trump’s 2nd meeting have “Russia Fever.”
Deutsche bank which has loaned Trump hundreds of $Million agrees to turn over financial records to Mueller and investigators.
U.S. Military renting space in Trump Tower are paying $130,000 per month for it.
1 in 8 Trump voters wish they could take it back.
Treasury Dept fines Exxon-Mobil $2 Million for violating Russia sanctions related to Ukraine when Tillerson was CEO.
NAACP Legal Defense Fund Sues Trump election panel for racial discrimination, voter intimidation and suppression.
Trump’s Chief counter-terrorism advisor Thomas Bossert admits that Russia was definitely behind the 2016 election hacking, so how come Trump doesn’t know, or believe, that?
Rumors abound that Kasowitz will be taking a back seat on Trump’s legal team as some on the team begin doing oppo research on the members of Mueller’s team in order to hinder them. [Which would be obstruction]
Court documents show that one of Veselnitskaya’s previous clients was the FSB.
Trump asks his lawyers and advisors what his options are for pardoning members of his family or himself.
Weary Trump supporters begin to tune out the news because it’s all bad for him and them.
July 21st —
Roger Stone rips Sessions: He’s only a ‘tough guy’ when it comes to ‘chasing people for smoking pot’
Mueller request WH Staff preserve all documents and emails of communications related to Trump Jr.’s June meeting with Russians.
Reports surface that the shakeup in Trump’s legal team is linked to the attacks on Mueller.
Trump hires Anthony Scaramucci as Communications Director, Preibus had no idea. Sean Spicer resigns in protest because having a shmoozy Wall Street hack shill “Yes” man stooge with no Washington or communications experience as your instant boss was obviously the last fracking straw. Sarah “Resting scowl-face” Huckabee-Sanders becomes the new WH Press Secretary.
Kasowitz and strategist Mark Corallo leave Trump’s legal team. DC lawyer John Down takes over.
Wapo Reports that Intercepts by U.S. intel of conversation between Kislyak and Russia indicate that Sessions twice, at the Mayflower Hotel and at the RNC, discussed Trump’s positions regarding Russia with him indicating that he lied to congress under oath about those conversations.
Mother Jones reports that Sen. Warren has been pressing the Treasury department since January on whether Scaramucci had violated sanctions rules by discussing possible investment opportunities with Kirill Dmitriev, head of the sanctioned Russian Direct Investment Fund.
Senate intel chair Burr says “the unmasking thing” was all created by Devin Nunez.
Senate Judiciary issues a subpoena to Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS for information about the creation of the Steele Dossier.
Kislyak steps down as ambassador and returns to Russia.
NSC Staffer Rich Higgins is fired for writing a crazed conspiracy filled memo.
July 23rd —
Huckabee-Sanders gets caught in a lie by Stephanapolous claiming the Russia story is all the press covers.
Don Jr. hires more lawyers.
Scaramucci tries to scrub all his previous anti-Trump, pro-Climate Change tweets but everyone notices.
Scaramucci is interviewed by Jake Tapper on CNN
He says that Putin told Trump in Hamburg that Russian hackers are too good to have been caught by the U.S.
He denies that Russia hacked our election “This is maybe they did it, maybe they didn’t do it” and runs into a buzzsaw with Tapper — “Don’t you owe a duty to the truth?”
Kellyanne Conway freaks out when CNN’s Brian Stetler suggests the Trump campaign welcomed Russian interference and influence during the election, which frankly they didn’t oppose.
July 24th —
Kushner releases an 11 Page statement prior to his speaking to the Senate Intel staff behind closed doors
He denies colluding with Russians or discussing campaign issues.
He says he tried to get out of the Veselnitskaya meeting and never fully read the email or apparently the subject line “Hillary — Russia — Sensitive and Confidential. [But he still showed up, didn't he?] He arrived at the meeting late and the topic at the time was “Russian adoptions” he didn’t see that as being relevant and emailed his assistant to call him in order to give him an excuse to leave. "Can u pls call me on my cell? Need excuse to get out of meeting.” He says he didn’t remember anything about the meeting and had disclosed it on his forms prior to it reaching the press.
He says his SF86 form was accidentally submitted without being completed when his assistant mistook the completion of one section to mean the entire form was complete. [Aren’t these supposed to be signed when submitted certifying that they’re fully complete?] All contacts with foreign nations were originally omitted not just Russians.
He reveals that he received an email that was clearly an extortion attempt by “Guccifer400” that threatened to reveal Trump tax returns. He thought is was a hoax and referred it to Secret Service. [That should have gone to FBI, Secret Service protects you from physical threats and conterfeiters they don’t pursue blackmail or extortion.]
He says he only talked to Kislyak for “about a minute” at the Mayflower Hotel simply to exchange pleasantries and denies the Reuters report that he had two phone calls with Kislyak between April and November, saying he searched his phone records and couldn’t find any numbers associated with the ambassador. “I doubt these calls took place.”
He says he tried to setup a secure back-channel to the Kremlin in order to discuss the war in Syria with Russian “generals” came from Kislyak, but was not over sanctions. Flynn said such a secure channel didn’t exist and Kushner asked if one existed in the Russian embassy. [This doesn’t explain why he wanted the U.S. Intel community cut out of the loop, since they have to implement Syria policy anyway and the people who really don’t need to know is ISIS. Plus this was in December and January while they were all still “private citizens” — Logan Act — and long before there were allegations of “wiretaps”, “unmasking” or “leaks” coming from US Intel so what gives?]
Kislyak kept pestering him for continued meetings which he didn’t have time for and turned down until finally sending his assistant, then he agreed to meet VEB’s Gorkov because “he had a direct link to Putin.” He says they didn’t discuss sanctions or business or really anything other than “wanting better relations.”
He never mentions or explains his meeting with the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi which he attended with Steve Bannon following his meeting with Gorkov to further discuss Russia relations, or the follow on meeting to that between the Crown Prince and Eric Prince of Blackwater in the Seychelles Islands.
Kushner gives a public statement “I didn't collude with Russians and don’t know anyone who did.” [You know Flynn, Manafort and Roger Stone don’t you?] And claims “I did not rely on Russian money for my businesses.”
Kushner also apparently tell Congressional Staff the “Trump campaign was too disorganized to have colluded with the Russians” [Then why is that frakhole “President” then?]
At some point near this time Manafort also talks to Congressional staffers and tell them about the Veselnitskaya meeting.
Former FBI Agent Clint Watts says Kushner’s statement and it’s “chaos and confusion” defense shows he’s either incompetent or the Russia influence on TrumpCo is very strong. [Could be both!]
The Guardian reports that Kushner paid $295 Million for a portion of the New York Times building from Jewish Soviet-born Diamond Tycoon Lev Leviev — who the Dutch media reports smuggles valuable diamonds by making them look worthless by covering them in soot, connected to Human Rights violations in Angola as well as funding illegal Jewish settlements in the disputed zones of Israel. Kushner later borrowed $285 million to refinance the purchase through Deutsche Bank, which has come under scrutiny for alleged ties to Russian money laundering and had to pay $630 Million in fines for transferring $10 Billion through Russia. [So much for ‘not relying Russian Money for his business’]
Fox Host Jason Chaffetz claims people should be talking about Chelsea Clinton’s links to Benghazi [even though she has none, she didn’t work for Hillary or the State Dept then], and Hillary’s links to Russia [also has none, certainly not since Putin returned to the Presidency] rather than Kushner’s failure to report his meetings, even though only Kushner is speaking to the Senate today.`
NYTimes Glenn Thrush reports that rather than being an insult to the press, the yanking of WH press conference videos was because Spicer didn’t want Trump yelling at him and saying he “sucked at his job”.
Feinstein asks Grassley to call Sessions before Senate Judiciary.
Trump tweet/whines why “Beleagured” Sessions and House committees don’t investigate Hillary’s connections to Russia [Bill spoke to Renaissance Capital in 2010 for $500,000 while supposedly at that time Hillary opposed requests for the State Dept to deny visas to Russian oligarch accused of Human rights violations under Medvedev. But that all changed with the passage of the Magnitski Act and Putin’s return to the Presidency in 2012 and the annexation of Crimea and invasion of Ukraine in 2014. Also if you think Bill and Hillary can be bought for $500k what exactly did Deutsche Bank get from Kushner for a cool $285 Million?]
Trump trues to bully Republicans into passing Trumpcare by saying “Obamacare is Death” — which is bullshit. Does a campaign rally at the Boy Scout Jamboree — even though I’m pretty sure they can’t vote yet. And reports start to surface that’s he’s floating the idea of removing Sessions.
July 25th —
After Trump’s usual self-aggrandizing, whining, hate and delusion filled partisan rally speech to the Boy Scout Jamboree parents and former scouts alike our outraged. He had invited members of his staff who were Eagle Scouts like Rick Perry but gives Jeff Sessions the Spicer Treatment by leaving him out. Some reports at that Sessions is so pissed he won’t give Trump the satisfaction of quitting.
During the Jamboree Scaramucci’s wife gives birth to their second child James, he’s not there because he’s with Trump, but he does send her a text.
Trump thumps Sessions some more on Twitter. Several times, even though it was his ethical — and legal — duty to recuse himself from any investigation of a campaign that he was a participant of. He’s so mean even Breitbart and Limbaugh start to feel sorry for Sessions. Some Congressional Republicans start to grow a soul, but Paul Ryan doesn’t.
The House approves new strengthened sanctions on Russia/Iran & North Korea which don’t allow Trump to unilaterally cut them by a final Veto Proof vote of 419-3.
John McCain triumphantly returns to the Senate after his brain cancer diagnosis and gives an impassioned rousing speach on bipartisanship right after casting a pivotal party line vote to open debate on taking the kind of Health Care he’s currently receiving away from between 15 or 22 or 32 Million people depending on Mitch McConnell’s mood. Although the parlimentarian says they’re going to need 60 Votes for most of what they have in mind.
Kushner is interviewed behind closed doors by House Intel panel staff for 3 Hours.
Manafort is subpeoned by Senate Judiciary.
House Repubs block Democrats attempt to see Trump’s Treasury FIles.
Scarmucci admits Trump wants Sessions FIred “It’s like a divorce.”
Huckabee-Sanders says re-re-reinvestigating Clinton for things that didn’t happen and she’s already been cleared for is just “Keeping a level playing field.”
Trump tweets about classified Syria program to fund and supply anti-Assad rebels in order to slap back at a Wapo story.
July 26h —
FBI executes a “No Knock” pre-dawn search warrant on Paul Manafort’s residence looking for financial documents some of which he was supposed to have turned over to Senate Intel specifically because they’re concerned he might destroy evidence.
Just minutes after Tucker Carlson calls trans people potential “child abusers” Trump tweets that all trans persons in the military will be removed because to the cost of their surgeries, although the military spends 4 times as much on Viagra to treat ED.
Trump tweets again asking why Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe hasn’t been fired because his wife received $700k from Terry McAulif when she ran for congress.
Putin threatens to retaliate against “Illegal” U.S. sanctions after their approval by Congress.
Senate defribs Trumpcare by considering “Skinny Repeal” for Obamacare which would only affect the mandates, subsidies and Medicare expansion.
Scaramucci’s financial disclosure forms indicates that he is still doing work for his investment firm while working in the White House and that the company was recently bought by Chinese investors meaning he’s receiving paychecks from China and the U.S. government at the same time.
Senate Intel calls for pro-Trump oppo researcher Chuck Johnson to testify on his work with to obtain Hillary’s emails for Michael Flynn along with the late Peter W. Smith.
Ken Starr calls for Trump to stop attacking Sessions “Cut it out.”
Grassley warns Trump not to fire Sessions.
Jeffrey Lord attempts to defend Trump’s trans-ban tweet says the Military shouldn’t be paying for Viagra either.
Kushner may be violating the Presidential records act by having and app that makes message sent or received “disappear’ on his iPhone.
Nine Inch Nail’s Trent Reznor says “Trump’s a vulgarian” — yeah, you bet.
July 27th —
CBO score of Skinny Repeals says that it would take Healthcare from 16 Million people and increase premiums by 20%.
Newsweek reports that Russia used Facebook to try and trick Macron supporters prior to French Election.
Senate ignores Trump’s call to investigate Hillary Clinton again.
Lindsay Graham says firing Sessions and/or Mueller would be the beginning of the end of Trump’s presidency.
The Joint Chiefs announce no one is going no where based on a Tweet, Trump hasn’t given them any formal instructions on trans soldiers yet.
Bill Browder testifies to Senate Judiciary and tells them that Veselnitskaya and Ahkmenttshin were clearly operatives for Putin and Russian Intel offering Kompromat on Clinton to see if anyone in the Trump camp would take the bait.
He explains how Putin and Chaika had Magnitski and Boris Nemsov murdered and tried to poison Kara-Murza twice to cover up their graft and corruption.
Having the Magnitski act repealed or limited is a prime Putin goal.
He also says that Fusion GPS was also funded by Russians because they like to “Play both sides” — which suggests some of the more salacious items in the Steele Dossier may have been fed to them as disinformationto help make it easier to discredit the overall report.
Kellyanne Conway throws Preibus a “shiv in the ribs” for leaking Scaramucci’s financials — which he probably didn’t do.
Scaramucci gives a mad crazy interview on CNN about his financial forms being leaked even though it’s still public information calling in right in the middle of an interview with Ryan Lizza.
Scaramucci then calls Ryan Pizza of the New Yorker directly and gives him a rambling profane on the record interview.
He demands to know who leaked that he was having dinner with Hannity, Trump and Melanie that night, and that he’d fire everyone in the White House until Lizza told him. (He can’t do that, he can only fire press and communications people — Preibus could do that, or Trump. And since when is having dinner with the Trumps and Sean Hannity a matter of National Security?)
He says that he’s not out to promote himself and “Suck his own ****” like Steve Bannon, he’s trying to promote Trump. [And doing a wonderful job of it he is too...]
He claims Preibus is a “******* paranoid schizophrenic paranoiac” who leaked his financial forms — although the forms are public information — because he didn’t want him hired in the first place. [And who could blame him for that prescience?]
He claims he has ‘digital fingerprints” of alleged leakers given to him by the FBI (which would be illegal for them to do) and also he’s not on the approved WH/DOJ communications list, neither is Preibus.
He says they need to “Kill all the ******* leakers.”and that “People in this administration think their job is too save the country from Trump, that’s not their job, it’s to inject Trump into the nation”— eww..just ewww.
Propublica obtains a set of talking points created for DNI Dan Coates which shows that the relationship between the Intel Community and Trump is highly strained. [No kiddin?]
The Senate fails to pass each and every single Trumpcare proposal including “Repeal/Replace” and“Repeal/Delay” and even eventually fail even with the Hail-Mary “Skinny Repeal” after Senators John McCain, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski vote against it.
McConnel says the failure to repeal O-care is “disappointing”, whines about losing then sarcastically asks “Let see what the Democrats have.” Schumer calls for bi-partisan cooperation to help fix the lingering problems of the Health Care Market.
Trump says they should now ‘let O-care Implode” although what he really means is he’s going to have Tom Price sabotage it even further until Dems cry “Uncle.”
Devin Nunez continues pushing his Obama “Unmasking” Story.
Manafort is scheduled to meet with Senate Judiciary today, but negotiates a later date.
New Russia sanctions bill gets sent to Trump’s desk.
July 28th —
Trump calls for Police Brutality by telling assembled cheering Long Island Police to "don’t be too nice” when slamming them into the back of a paddy wagon and “don’t hold their head” when placing them in the back seat. “You can take the hand away, okay?”
Trump fires Reice Preibus via Tweet, makes DHS head Kelly as new Chief of Staff. Preibus finds out on a rain soaked tarmac as AF1 arrives back in Washington, others get out of his Suburban and his car leaves the motorcade and goes off on it’s own instead of returning to the WH.
Scaramucci’s wife, who had been estranged with him for months, files for Divorce because of his naked political ambition “Deirdre is not a fan of Trump” which means he’s gonna have to learn that special trick of Bannon’s now.
Russia expels U.S. 755 Diplomats and seizes an American compound in “retaliation” for the new sanctions bill that Trump hasn’t yet signed calling them “Illegal” and unjustified.
july 29th —
Trump’s Gallup approval rating of 37% drops lower than Bill Clinton’s during the Lewinsky scandal.
Painter says shuffling Sessions into Homeland in place of Kelly would be yet more obstruction.
Police Departments from coast to coast condemn Trump’s call for Police Brutality.
Surprising absolutely no one on earth Ted Nugent breaks his civility pledge.
Tillerson’s State Dept. channels opposite world and claims the new sanctions on Russia will be “good for our relationship.” [Uh, Nope!]
It’s reported that Scaramucci’s wife was nine months pregnant when she bailed on him because of his #TrumpLove and that he apparently missed the birth of his second child James because he was with Trump at the Boy Scout Jamboree and sent his wife a text “I’ll pray for our son.”
July 30th —
Jared and Ivanka admit it’s way too much to expect them to have any moderating influence on Trump.
Pence swears we’ll see more moderate behavior from Putin as he orders 755 U.S. Diplomats out of Russia. [Yeah, uh, NOPE!]
Lewandowsky calls for Trump to fire CFPB chief Richard Cordray because — yeah, sorry, I got nothin’. [Ok fine seriously, He claims he doesn’t have any clients that oppose Cordray’s work at CFPB, but it turns out that he does have a client that is a pay day lender]
PS. Kushner is still a slumlord.
Roger Stone says “McCain is a piece of **** and traitor” — also now with Brain Cancer.
July 31st —
Gen. Kelly starts his first day as the new WH Chief of Staff.
Pence talks tough about Russia’s retaliation against the newly imposed sanctions signed by Trump. Trump echoes Russia’s complaints.
Scaramucci suddenly resigns as WH Communications Director 11 days after was announced in the position and 4 days before he was to officially begin. He’s then escorted off the grounds by security, then goes to dinner with Katrina Peirson.
Kelly calls Sessions and tells him his job is safe.
Former NSA Analyst John Schindler reports that Putin’s move to expel 755 U.S. Diplomatic workers over sanctions shows he’s ready to throw Trump under the bus.
NYTimes reports that Trump personally dictated the first false version of Junior’s statement about his meeting with Veselnitskaya — even though he said at the time “this was the first he’d heard about it” — claiming the meeting was “primarily about adoption” a claim that was later repeated by Trump twice and also by Spicer even though Junior himself had already admitted it was about oppo research on Hillary 7 days previously.
Trump’s direct involvement in promoting a false story when there is a open Federal Investigation of links between his campaign in Russia potentially indicates “consciousness of guilt” and may be an attempt at Witness Tampering and Obstruction of Justice particularly since Mueller’s office already requested the WH preserve all documents and records related to this meeting on July 21st.
Ivanka and Melania were “disgusted” by Scaramucci’s dirty talk — but then again they do support Trump who brought him on in the first place and has history for salty talk of his own.
CNN Reports that Kelly was furious by the manner in which Comey was fired and nearly resigned himself in protest until Comey talked him out of it.
Former McCain staffer Steve Schmidt says Scarmucci’s firing exposes the “snakepit” of Trump White House.
Surprising absolutely no-one with eyes and a working brain former Obamacare hating Blaze corespondent Tami Lahren is actually on Obamacare as she’s 24 and still on her parent Health Care plans.
A British “Email Prankster” successfully tricked several members of Trump’s WH into thinking he was Kushner and Preibus.
August 1st —
Spicer admits that the WH and Trump was personally briefed on the false and since retracted FOX story alleging that murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich was connected to emails leaked to Wikileaks as a way to redirect attention from Russia. This means that Spicer lied during the May 16 press briefing where he denied any knowledge of the Rich story. Again, potential Obstruction of Justice during the current investigation of Russia’s involvement with DNC hack.
Wired releases an audio recording of Kushner telling WH interns he doesn’t know of anything knew that the Trump WH offers to solve the Israel/Palestine problem.
Daily Caller reports that Kellyanne — who is still banned from Morning Joe for lying — may be tapped as the new WH Communications Director.
Lewandowski is fired from One America News Network (OANN) because he’d been moonlighting on Fox News too many times.
GOP lawmakers warn Trump not to sabotage Obamacare — but frankly that’s already is progress.
Rep Trent Franks (R-AZ) says “Mueller is a partisan and should resign” because of his “close friendship with Comey” who used to be his boss which is funny since he’s a registered Republican and so was Comey, but then nobody sane or smart listens to Trent Franks on anything.
GOP Activist Ed Butowski who pushed the Seth Rich conspiracy to the WH and Fox News gets grills on CNN by Chris Cuomo in an incoherent interview.
August 2nd —
Trump signs new Russia Sanctions Bill, includes a signing statement and a personal statement whining about Congress encroaching on executive authority and claims as a former CEO he can negotiate a better deal than Congress that could negotiate a Health Care Bill — which is of course exactly why Congress passed more sanctions.
Iran says these new sanction breaks the Nuclear deal setup by Obama.
Huckabee-Sanders tried to defend Trump’s claims that the Mexican President called to say they were doing such a great job on the border that Mexico was seeing fewer people entering in the hope of reaching the U.S. [although Mexico says they hadn’t called Trump in months] and the Head of the Boy Scouts called to say his speech “was great’ [He denies it too.] She says they did say these things, “it just wasn’t on the phone.”
Tillerson refuses to spend $80 Million in State Dept funds allocated to fight ISIS and Russian media manipulation and propaganda because it might “anger the Kremlin.”
Trump along with Sen Tom Cotton announces changes to Green Card eligibility that focuses on a “merit based” system for high skilled workers which seems to deprioritize petitions for family members, refugees and asylum seekers. [This proposal was submitted back in February and went nowhere then, going nowhere now]
At the same time that Trump publicly tries to the door to “low skilled” immigrants his Department of Homeland Security has increased the cap for H2B Visas per year from 66,000 to 81,000 and that his own companies in including Mar-A-Lago have submitted 76 more applications for low wage foreign workers.
Stephan Miller argues with CNN’s Jim Acosta about the meaning of the Statue of Liberty to justify Trump’s new Green Card plan and uses coded White Supremacist Slurs against him.
Russia responds to the sanctions bill saying that it shows that Trump is “Impotent” and the establishment wants to oust him.
Reports surface that Kremlin backed Sputnik News is the source of the Seth Rich conspiracy theory pushed by Sean Hannity and Fox News, causing them to be sued by Rich’s family.
Congressional investigators call for Don Jr. phone records to see who he talked to in the lead up to his June 6, 2016 meeting with Veselnitskaya. [Possibly Emin Agalarov as indicated by some of the email exchanges]
WSJ reports that U.S Attorney’s have subpoena records from the Kushner companies about their attempts to get Chinese investors special EB-5 Visas using Jared association with Trump.
Former Flynn staffer Erza Cohen-Watnick who provided the “unmasking” documents to Devin Nunez is fired.
Rod Wheeler who filed suit against Fox News over their bogus Seth Rich story says that Trump had inserted phony quotes by Rich.
The crazed conspiracy riddled memo written by NSC staffer Rich Higgins that connects the Muslim Brotherhood to the European Union, “Maoist Insurgents”, “Leftists’ and “Deep State” activists circulates through the WH and for some reason Don Jr. — who doesn’t have a security clearance to receive an NSC memo — is sent a copy, which he forwards to his father who “gushes” over the thing. Then he finds out from Hannity that Higgins had already been fired for writing it.
August 3rd —
Deputy FBI Director McCabe warns top LE officials that they should consider themselves witnesses and their notes evidence in Mueller’s investigation, possibly because of their communications and interactions with Comey as he talked to Trump on the phone.
WaPo publishes leaked transcripts of Trump talking to the President of Mexico and Prime Minister of Australia back in January which reveal that he’s repeatedly and knowingly lied about “Mexico paying for the wall” and begged not to be outed.
Audio of Scarmucci’s profane phone call with Ryan Lizza is released.
Fox News lawyers up over Seth Rich suit.
Former CIA agents pen a NYTimes op-ed on Trump’s response to Russia “Innocent people don’t behave this way.”
Wapo reports that the Secret Service has moved out of Trump Tower over a rental dispute with Trump’s Companies, their command post is now in a trailer parked on the sidewalk.
Kellyanne says Russia hacking our political and voter registration systems to help Trump get elected isn’t a “matter of national security.”
Hannity flips when he discovers a report from Bloomberg that NSA Director McMaster has granted his predecessor Susan Rice a lifetime Security Clearance — which is the normal custom — because he say “she did nothing wrong with any unmasking of Trump officials” confirming the previously findings of the House Intel Committee, except for Devin Nunez.
Trump Vacation Day count after 7 Months surpasses the number of vacation days taken by Obama in his full 8 years.
Trump plans 17-day “working vacation” in New Jersey while the WH is renovated. His neighbors are not overjoyed with all of his security.
Michael Flynn amends his financial disclosure forms to include funds received from a tech company, SCL Group which has ties to Cambridg-Analytica and whose CEO used “dirty Tricks” to support Trump and the Brexit Vote, he also includes consulting work for NIK Holdings who had attempted to donate $100,000 under the table for former Sen. Norm Coleman before he was defeated by Al Franken.
Glenn Thrush at NYTimes reports that Kelly fired Cohen-Watnick to show his authority over Bannon and Kushner.
WSJ reports that Mueller has empaneled a Grand Jury which is issuing subpeonas related to Don Jr.’s meeting with Veselnitskaya and financial ties between TrumpCo and Russia, this is in addition to the already existing Grand Jury that is looking into Michael Flynn.
Sen. Jeff Flake warns that firing Mueller could cause Congress to turn against Trump.
Sen Tillis and Coons introduce legislation to protect Mueller from being unjustifiably fired by Trump without judicial review.
August 4th —
Spicer says “No” to Dancing With the Stars.
Mark Warner the ranking Dem on Senate Intel calls for an investigation into leak of transcripts of Trump’s conversations with President of Mexico and Prime Minister of Australia.
CNN reports that Carter Page has been under FISA surveillance and suspected of being a foreign agent since 2014.
During a West Virginia rally Trump calls the Russia investigation a “total fabrication” and argues the Special Counsel should “go after why Clinton deleted 33,000 emails” which the FBI already investigated and found completely legal.
CNN reports that Intel intercepts of suspected Russian operatives during summer of 2016 discussed Manafort asking for help with damaging Clinton’s campaign.
August 5th —
Alt-Right and Russia-Bots begin relentless attacking NSA chief McMaster arguing that he should be fired for something or the other. Daily Beast reports that this is apparently payback from Bannon for the firing of Cohen-Watnick and Col. Darek Harvey.
CNN reports that Mueller’s investigation is likely to first focus on Trump’s financial crimes as they have the strongest path to prosecution.
Fox’s Eric Bolling is suspended for sexual harrassment.
Painter says if you placed lie detector on Huckabee-Sanders podium “It would light up like a disco!”
New polls indicate Trump support has dropped to just 33%, and that he’s losing White Non-College educated voters where he now stands underwater at 43% approval to 50% disapproval — a drop of 10 points since June, and 23 points since the election.
Minnesota mosque is firebombed in an apparent act of terrorism, no casualties are reported. WH says nothing.
August 6th —
CNN says McEnany quit to join Trump’s Fake “Real” News channel.
Sen. Jeff Flake says he wished the GOP had stood up against birtherism. [Which they didn't, with the notable exception of John McCain they generally took advantage and pandered to it just like Kushner said Trump did.]
Trump says he “working hard” on his vacation — but his schedule is blank.
August 7th —
Sen. Blumenthal goes on CNN and explains the new bill to protect Mueller from being fired, and Trump — who says he “not watching tv” while on his work-cation — immediately goes on a tweet storm attacking Blumenthal for saying he served in Vietnam, when his actual Marine service was in the U.S. during Vietnam. Since Trump never served due to “bone spurs” Vets call him a “Chicken Hawk piece of trash.”
Wapo reports that while requesting H2B visas for 70 more foreign employees Mar-A-Lago barely put out a couple of local ads which didn’t include a phone # or email, only a fax, for U.S. workers to be hired.
Sen. Blumenthal snaps back at Trump over his Vietnam service slurs. “ I will not be bullied.”
Chicago sues Trump over his threat to pull funds from “sanctuary cities.”
Right-Wing Militias align with GOP officials under Trump.
McEnany gets Spicer’s old job as RNC national spokesperson.
August 8th —
Alex Jones hosts Russian ultra-nationalist on program about firing McMaster.
Ex-CIA agent Daniel Hoffman states that Putin probably left a paper trail from Trump Tower to the Kremlin.
Staffers for Devin Nunez appear to be staging a stealth investigation of Christopher Steele.
Trump pays one of his staffers $89k/year just to look up positive news about him and provide it in a 20 page “propaganda report” twice a day.
Jared Kushner failed to disclose that he holds a stake in his brother’s health insurance company which had paid lobbyists to fight the repeal of Obamacare.
Trump tweets out classified information revealed by annonymous sources on Fox & Friends about North Korean Missile movements.
Trump’s support among GOP voters drops by 14 points.
Russian bots and trolls begin attacking Republicans including the House Speaker with #ResignPaulRyan campaign.
Wapo reports that North Korea now has a miniturized nuclear device that can fit on a missile, Trump says if they threaten us again they will met with “Fire and Fury that the world has never seen.” North Korea responds by threatening to attack Guam. No “Fire or Fury” appears.
August 9th —
WaPo reports that the FBI staged a pre-dawn raid of Manafort’s residence in July, which continues to suggest Mueller is attempting to flip Manafort, only now the hard way.
National Enquirer publishes a hit piece on Manafort (one hour after the Wapo report on the search warrant raid) that alleges that he was involved in a “sick sex scandal” with women much younger than his wife.
Trump campaign hands over 20,000 pages of documents to Senate Judiciary on their efforts to find negative information on Hillary Clinton.
WH aid Gorka says silence on mosque bombing is justified because he says it may be been a faked hate crime by Liberals, which frankly I would expect would make Huckabee-Sander’s and her resting scowl face crack a smile.
Politico reports that Federal investigators had approached Manafort’s son in law in order to get a better “read” on his mindset.
August 10th —
Reports indicate that Manafort had already told congressional investigators about the Don Jr/Veselnitskaya meeting before his house was raided by the FBI.
CNN finally fires Jeffrey Lord over a Nazi “Seig Heil” tweet at Media Matters Angelo Carusone arguing that they are a “fascist” site that seeks to curtail free speech, when in fact all they do is document what right-wingers say without much comment.
Trump thanks Putin for kicking 755 of our Diplomats, “Now we have a smaller payroll” and doubles down on his “Fire and Fury” nonsense, “Maybe that was too soft.” And threatens military action in Venezuela.
August 11th —
Rachel Maddow reports that a 1980 audit of Trump finances found he failed to pay $2.8 Million to the City of New York in a deal to avoid paying $150 Million in property taxes.
Fancy Bear hacker group begins targeting Hotel guests using unsecured wifi.
WH says Trump was being “sarcastic” about the smaller payroll for Diplomats in Russia, but then he says it again.
Senate Judiciary demands info on Kushner’s relationship with Russia and an explanation for the gaps on his SF86 security form.
Neo-Nazi protesters get into melee at U of VA over removal of statue to Robert E. Lee.
Rinat Akhmetshin testifies for several hours to the Mueller Grand Jury.
August 12th —
Alt-Right Neo-Nazi Protest in Charlottesville VA erupts in more violence. Deandre Harris is beaten bloody, a car driven my James Fields Jr. smashes into a crowd of counter-protesters killing Heather Heyer and injuring 19 others.
David Duke says the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” protest fulfills the promises of Donald Trump.
August 13th —
Trump gives a rambling confused statement on Charlottesville that talks about violence “on many sides” and never mentions white supremacist or neo-Nazis.
Washington Post reports Trump staffer George Papadopoulos repeatedly offered to set up “a meeting between us and the Russian leadership to discuss US-Russia ties under President Trump,” “Putin wants to host the Trump team when the time is right,” Papadopoulos wrote in an email to former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski on April 27, 2016. He also told Lewamdowski he had fielded “a lot of calls over the past month” related to a meeting between the Trump campaign and Russia. “Russia has been eager to meet with Mr. Trump for some time and have been reaching out to me to discuss,” Papadopoulos said in a separate email to former campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
August 14th —
Trump gives his “hostage video” speech where he finally condemns neo-Nazis, but then attacks African-American CEO of Merck for quitting his business advisory council on twitter.
Reports surface the Homeland security had issued a warning about Neo-Nazis and White Supremacist back in May.
Politico reporrs the Obama administration had many warnings between 2014 and 2016 that Russia was stepping up its intelligence operations to build propaganda networks.
North Korea calls off it’s missiles test targeting Guam.
Michael Cohen’s atty writes a letter to Congress vehemently denying his involvement in colluding between Trump and Russia as described in the Steele dossier — even though he had been directly involved in writing to the Russian government during the campaign to restart the Trump Tower Moscow project.
August 15th —
Kushner faces lawsuit for over charging rent in NYC.
Trump retweets meme of a train running over a CNN reporter.
Trump angrily argues during an Infrastructure Press Briefing that “Both Sides” were at fault in Charlottesville violence and stuns much of the GOP who quickly criticize his comments. He claims that if Gen. Lee and Stonwall Jackson statues have to come down so do monuments to Washington and Jefferson since they were slave owners, although they never attacked and waged war against America over it, they fought Britain to increase freedom, not decrease it and thus his real White-Power bona fides are finally revealed and confirmed.
August 16th —
NYTimes reports about 3 hackers whose work may have been used without their knowledge to attack the DNC.
ABC News reports that Peter Stroz former head of FBI Counterterrorism quits the Mueller investigation team.
Internal reports disprove claims of “Turmoil” inside the FBI prior to Comey firing.
Newsweek reports that in 1985 the Australian government rejected a bid for a Trump Casino in Sydney because of his alleged ties to the mafia.
4 CEOs defect in protest from Trump’s business council over his pro-Confederate comments, so he shuts both his business councils down in frustration.
Bannon gives a grandstanding football spike of an interview to the NYTimes claiming the more the Left talks about Racism, the more we Win. “I want them to talk about Racism everyday.” He also basically claims he’s running the White House from behind the scenes, which I’m sure is news to Kelly and also, Trump.
Jack Tapper tweets that at least two journalists were attacked by anti-Nazi counter protestors in Charlottesville, one of whom required stitches.
Rep. Jackie Spiere calls for Trump to be ousted using the 25th Amendment.
Both Bush Presidents denounce Trump’s neo-Nazi support.
Heather Heyer’s mother scorns bigots at her funeral.
August 17th —
The Spectator reports that Felix Sater — who helped sell many Trump properties to various Russians through his former real estate firm Bayrock — may have flipped for the FBI again and that he has said the both he and Trump “are going to prison.”
Cantwell states emphatically that he’s “Not a coward.” No one is impressed, particularly not PayPal and Ok, Cupid who cut him off for life.
Sen Bob Corker (R-TN) says in response to Trump Charlottesville comments: “The president has not yet been able to demonstrate the stability nor some of the competence that he needs to demonstrate in order to be successful,”
UVA Librarian Tyler McGill suffers a stroke from being struck in the neck with a Tiki Torch by Unite the Right protestors.
Foreign Policy reports that Wikileaks refused to receive or publish 68 Gig of negative data on the operations of the Kremlin.
Buzzfeed reports that Trump is furious that “Bannon is taking credit for my election.”
A Van strikes 50 people in Barcelona, 13 are killed. 2 suspects are taken into custody but no information about them or their motive is released immediately.
Trump tweets in support of “beautiful Confederate Statues” and decrying “Terrorism in Barcelona” then later endorsed a questionable internet rumor that a U.S. General in the Philippines committed the War Crime of mass executions using bullets laced with pigs blood to deter terrorists, when in actuality he sat down with Muslims, ate their food, learned their language, customs and read the Koran with them. CNN’s Jake Tapper says “He just suggested we should study a lie.” But he still hasn’t said anything about the firebombing of a mosque in Minnesota, the car crashed into a crowd near a mosque in London or the machete attack against Democrats in Kentucky.
Mike Huckabee says if you take down Robert E. Lee, you have to take down Mt. Rushmore.
With “Infrastructure Week” not quite complete, Trump gives up on his infrastructure council.
August 18th —
Steve Bannon is Fired and quickly reports surface here’s going to take Breitbart to Defcon1 Thermonuclear Global War against Trump. Cue the Russia Bots of Doom. Subsequent reports say that he intends to use Brietbart to go to War with Trump’s enemies — which now, is just about everyone.
Also a former friend and aide of Preibus, George Sifakis, leaves the WH.
Buzzfeed reports that Mueller’s investigation is now targeting Donald Jr concerning his meeting with Veselnitskaya and Akhmetshin.
Reports surface that besides Bayrock’s Tefvik Arik Trump has financial links to post-Soviet era oligarch Mukhtar Ablyazov, who had been charged with stealing between $4-$10 Billion from Kazakhstan’s largest banks through loans and shell companies and had been working with Trump on 2 Tower projects in (former soviet) Georgia through a company run by Michael Cohen. The same report also notes the connection of oligarch Alexander Shnaider, who has mob ties, and had been involved in the Toronto Trump Tower deal.
16 out of 17 members of Trump’s Arts Council resign en mass in protest of Trump comments about Charlottesville. He says “Nah ah, I QUIT YOU”, they say “No, We quit you first!”
Heather Heyer’s mother Susan Bro refuses to speak with Trump in protest of his comments on Charlottesville, while Mitt Romney calls for him to apologize. He doesn’t.
7 Charities have cancelled fundraisers scheduled to be held at Mar-a-Lago.
Charlottesville Police issue arrest warrant for Chris Cantwell for illegal use of gases and injury by caustic agent or explosive,
ISIS reportedly takes credit for the Barcelona Van attack which Spain authorities say involved 12 people, 4 are in custody and 5 had been killed in a police raid.
August 19th —
Carl Ichann resigns from his position as an informal Trump advisor allegedly because of his Charlottesville comments. But this happens admit rumors that he made $60 Million by advising Trump to cut prices on a regulatory devicethat he’d been short selling for months.
The cancelled Mar-a-Lago charity list grows to 16.
Trump announces that he will not attend the Kennedy Center Honors with Norman Lear, Gloria Estaban, Lionel Richie & LL Kool J so as not to create a “Political Distraction.”
Robert E. Lee biographer says Lee would have wanted all the Confederate statues torn down.
Trump condemns anti-violence protestors as being “anti-police agitators” and then commends the cops.
August 20th —
ADL says the “Violent Alt-Left” is a Right-Wing media lie.
Bannon’s Breitbart attacks McMaster as a “Koran kissing Muslim sympathizer”for his endorsing use of a military manual on showing respect for Islam and how not to inflame tensions.
Congressional Democrats begin to question if “Trump is mentally Ill?”
Jesse Waters says removing Confederate monuments is a plot to help make people forget that “Democrats enslaved Blacks” which is technically true but they were also southern Conservative Democrats — Dixiecrats — who’ve all become Republicans or Independents since then.
Jerry Falwell Jr defends Trump’s “fine Nazi people” and “bad counter-protestors” claims saying he has “inside knowledge” although Trump claimed that all the media saw the same videos that he did. Close examination of Videos from protest shows they’re wrong.
Dick Gregory Dies.
August 21st —
Trump showing his usual level of sociopathic empathy deficit disorder responds to the crash of the U.S.S. McCain which injured five sailors and where ten remain missing with “That’s too bad.”
Paul Ryan holds a CNN Town hall and gives a weak tepid condemnation of Trump’s statements on Charlottesville — Tapper says it “Wasn’t morally ambiguous, it’s was Morally Wrong.”
Virginia State Attorney issues four warrants for Christopher Cantwell.
The U.S experiences it’s first total solar eclipse in 38 years, Shep Smith freaks the heck out. Trump stares into the Sun without glasses — “Finally, he establishes a Blind Trust.”
North Korea releases fake propaganda videos of their missiles hitting Guam.
Rep. Bryan Zollinger (R-ID) claims that Obama may have “staged the Charlottesville riots.” [Facepalm!]
“Art of the Deal” Ghost writer Tony Schwatz gets a loud racist voicemailcriticizing him for saying Trump “will resign.”
Katrina Peirson — yes, she’s still here — goes ballistic on Fox claiming “Slavery is an example of how special and wonderful this country is.” [Uh, er, what?]
NYTimes reports that Akhmetshin has close ties to the FSB and Putin, had helped Russian oligarchs using sophisticated cyber hacks for their benefit, helped unmask corruption at a Krygystan Air Force base which Russia wanted purged of U.S. personnel, and got Federal prosecutors to file charges against an American businessman who happened to be a CIA operative working in Russia.
USA Today reports that Trump’s extended family and their extensive travel is draining the resources of the Secret Service Dry.
Treasury Sec Mnunchin uses a government plane to fly to visit Fort Knox as an excuse to view the Solar exclispe at 95% totally, he also brings Mitch McConnel
August 22nd —
ABC News reports that Christopher Steele met with and has given the FBI the names and contact information for the sources of his Trump/Russia dossier.
CNN reports that Glenn Simpson, partner with Fusion GPS the oppo research team that had contracted with Steele to produce his dossier, has testified for 10 hours before Senate Judiciary behind closed doors. Fusion also provided 40,000 pages of documents to the committee.
At his Phoenix rally Trump attacks the media as “Fake” while misquoting his own statements about Charlottesville and his “unequivocal” condemnation of White Supremacy, except for the “Good Ones” and the BLM/Antifa “Chargers” which he doesn’t bring up this time. He hints at pardoning ex-Sheriff Joe Arpaio who was convicted of violating a court order to stop his deputies from profiling, targeting and discriminating against Latinos. He claims the media won’t show the size of his crowd, but they do, and he claims the protestors outside are only a few, but they aren’t. And he leads a chant calling for the death of John McCain.
Police and Protestors lob bottles, bricks and tear gas back and forth at each other during and after Trump’s rally, no injuries are reported.
CNN responds to Trump’s attack and begins to say he sounds “unhinged.” Don Lemon says “His speech was without thought, without reason, devoid of facts, devoid of wisdom,”
NYTimes reports that Trump’s relationship with Mitch McConnell has deteriorated down to explicative filled phone calls over Trumpcare’s failure and the continued Russia probes in congress.
Trump’s airwar against ISIS passes the civilian death toll of Obama’s entire Presidency.
Trump’s pick to protect U.S. workers from abuse as Deputy Secretary of Labor is a former lobbyists for forced abortion sweatshops.[Oh, lordy!]
Alex Jones suggest reparations for White People. [Yes, really]
McClatchy reports that Mueller’s investigators may have found that Manafort may have received between $80-$100 Million from Russian and Ukrainian Oligarchs over the past decade.
Trump gives a speech on his new Afghanistan policy, which is basically more war, more killing, no end in sight and no nation building. [Which is different from the last 17 years before this how exactly? Oh yeah, no “dates certain.”]
A rabidily racist Trump supporter — the same one who called Tony Schwartz — leaves a vicious bigoted message for CEO Ravin Ghandi — who has Indian heritage but was born in the U.S. — because he is one of the CEOs who left one of Trump’s economic councils.
August 23rd —
Armed man slashes tarp on Charlottesville monument and says Heather Heyer died ‘playing in traffic’ [Nope, you can’t make this ish up.]
Grassley says he will have the Judiciary committee to vote on releasing the testimony from Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS on the Steele Dossier.
Shep Smith calls out Trump for trying to “rewrite history” with his Pheonix speech. [Don’t you know he’s been doing that since he rode down the escalator in Trump Tower?]
Pro-Russia social media cyberbots begin to amplify rightwing rhetoric over Charlottesville claiming ““Dems and Media Continue to IGNORE BLM and Antifa Violence in Charlottesville” except there really wasn’t any to ignore. Did any neo-Nazis go to the Hospital? Nope.
Cantwell, who is still in hiding from Charlottesville PD, reveals that his attorney has ditched him.
James Clapper questions Trump’s “mental fitness” to be President after his Arizona speech.
Kushner heads to Israel to try again for a peace deal after things went so “well” last time, which they didn’t.
Michigan Senate candidate Kid Rock curses Colin Kaepernick, because that’s just what wannabe government leaders do.
Scarborough asks “Who are these people?” in Trump’s crowd calling for John McCain’s death? [Arizona GOP voters?]
Politico reports that Trump is so obsessed with the Russia investigation and the bill to protect Mueller from being wrongfully fired that he’s calling GOP Senators to scream and curse at them and can’t keep focused on day to day business.
CNN reports that Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff Rick Dearborn last June when he was an advisor to the Trump campaign and Jeff Session’s Chief of staff had sent an email to Corey Lowendowski about someone nicked name “WV” trying to arrange a meeting between Trump and members of the Russian government including Putin at about the same time as Don Jr.’s meeting with Veselnitskaya. This is the second staffer in addition to NatSec advisor George Papadopoulos who had also tried to set up this kind of meeting last April according Trump campaign emails given to congress.
Cantwell turns himself in to police, judge denies bail.
Trump calls Clapper “a liar” for his mental fitness comments via — guess what — twitter. He also slams Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell over the debt ceiling vote, which hasn’t even happened yet.
Dems, rising from their long slumber, try to defund Trump’s Voter Fraud Commission.
CNN locates and interviews former Russian ambassador Kislyak on the streets of Moscow, he says that the allegations that he’s a “Spymaster” is “nonsense”. He says that the future of US/Russians relations will be “difficult.” And that sanctions and tensions will make it hard to resume a normalcy in our relationship.
Politico reports that Trump has been repeatedly and angrily calling up GOP Senators such as Bob Corker and Thom Tillus to complain about bills he doesn’t like such as the Russia sanctions and Mueller protection legislation.
August 24th —
Trump pardons ex-Sherrif Arpaio for his contempt of court conviction for refusing to stop discriminating against latino citizens. This he does despite — or perhaps because of — his history of racial discrimination and targeting of Latinos for arrest and detention, the horrific conditions in his “concentration camp” jails which have led to record suicides and in custody deaths, his attempts to intimidate and wrongfully arrest journalist and politicians who criticize him with bogus trumped up charges. Also he’s a birther, like Trump.
Hungarian Nazi Badge wearer Sebastian Gorka resigns from the WH amid rumors of his anti-Semetism.
Reports are that Meuller is investigating how involved Flynn, his son and his consulting firm were with Robert W. Smith’s attempts to aquire Hillary emails from Russian hackers. He also issues subpeonas for 6 PR firms which had worked for Flynn and Manafort.
Reports are that in 2007 Trump said “This is the first he’s heard...” that his employee Felix Sater was convicted of fraud in 1998.
.WH advisor Gary Cohn wrotes a resignation letter because of Trump’s support for anti-Semitic Neo-Nazis who chanted “Jews will not replace us” in Charlottesville, but he doesn’t hand it in. Mnunchin say’s “Gary is excited to be working here.”
Trump’s approval rating per Gallup drops to just 34%.
Ex White Nationalists confirms that Trump is using the same slippery bigoted dog whistle rhetoric that helped recruit them into hate groups.
August 25th —
Gorka says he didn’t resign from the WH, but yet, he’s still out.
Richard Painter blasts Arpaio as “One of the worst” law enforcement officers in the country,
Paul Begala argues that the Arpaio pardon is a signal to Mueller’s targets, Flynn, Manafort, Kushner and Donald Jr, that Trump will protect them if they face charges.
Ana Navarro links Trump’s Charlottesville comments to his support for racists like Gorka and Arpaio because, yeah, that makes sense.
NYTimes reports that Trump has cancelled an Obama era program to increase public works projects at the Department of Transportation. [So much for “American jobs” and “Infrastructure”]
Bannon vows to bring down Mitch McConnell “I’m going to light him up.”
Trump slaps sanctions on Venezuela because of their “Dictatorship” — which is totally unlike his pals Putin or Duterte.
August 26th —
Sen. Blumenthal states that Mueller targets shouldn’t expect pardons from Trump, “His loyalty is limited.” [Not even with Jared?]
Paul Ryan says the Arpaio pardon “is wrong.” [Yeah, no kidding, eh?]
Charlottesville police arrests neo-Nazis involved in the attack on Deandre Harris.
Trump international Gold Club in Dubai is refusing to pay it’s migrant workers from Pakistan on time.
- Joined
- Apr 9, 2014
- Messages
- 20,296
- Reaction score
- 21,921
- Points
- 113
I'm having eggs,bacon on a bagel this morning. Good workout fuel for me.
Yesterday I picked up some Alpha King by Three Floyd's Brewery. Looking forward to it.
So just what do we know about what Russia did or didn’t do involving the 2016 election and how the Trump campaign responded? Quite a bit actually, even though new Special Prosecutor Mueller has just started to get his feet on the ground.
I’ll tell you, when you actually lay it out all out item by item in chronological order a lot of patterns and actions/reactions become eminently clear. WIthout getting into classified or confidential data that isn’t yet public knowledge, what is public knowledge is already fairly stunning.
[This timeline has been continued with Vol#2 and Vol#3 due to length]
1985 — Australian government rejects a bid for a Trump Casino in Sydney because of his alleged ties to the mafia.
1986 — Trump attempts to gain a posting to Russia as part of the Reagan Administration and says he could sit down with Gorbechev to negotiate an end to the cold war “in an hour.”
1990 — Trump’s Taj Mahal casino, which is a favorite gambling spot for Russian mobsters living in Brooklyn, is cited 106 times in 18 months for violating money laundering rules, particular failing to report when someone wins and withdraws more then $10,000.
1991 — Taj Mahal files for bankrupcy protection, Trump sells his 50% share. After this and his other Casino bankruptcies most major banks no longer authorize loans to the Trump organization.
1998 -- Felix Sater a Russian born violent convict with ties to the Russian Mob — who are frequently used by Russian intelligence to do their dirty work and fund blackbag operations — gets caught up in a $40 Million stock fraud case but is only fined $35,000 in exchange for becoming an FBI informant.
2000 — Former KGB Agent Alexander Litvinenko defects to Britain.
GAO does analysis of Russian-American oligarch Ike Kaveladze and his involvement in starting 2000 shell companies which could be involved in money laundering.
2001-2007 — At least 63 Russian Oligarchs lease, rent or buy various Trump propertetes in South Florida spending upwards of $98.5 Million on them, many of these deals with Russian nationals in Manhattan reportedly are arranged through Bayrock Group LLC whose offices are located on the 24th floor of Trump Tower. Felix Sater becomes Bayrock’s managing director. Their first joint project together, in 2003, is building a Trump Tower in Phoenix.
2005 — TrumpCo puts together it’s first proposal for Trump Tower Moscow in coordination with BayRock LLC.
2006 — Alexander Litvinenko is poisoned by Polonium-210 and slowly dies of radiation sickness, he points to Putin as being behind his murder before he dies. His case officer with MI-6 is Christopher Steele.
2008 —Trump sells a Palm Beach Mansion to a Russian Oligarch for $95 Million after purchasing it just 2 years previously for only $45 Million.
Donald Jr. states “We get a lot to money from Russia.”
Felix Sater leaves Bayrock after his criminal record is revealed and goes to work for Trump.
Bayrock founder Tefvik Arif is busted and prosecuted for his connection to an underage prostitution ring in Turkey, he is eventually acquitted.
2009 — U.S. investor Bill Browder is expelled from Russia and his assets are used to setup a $230 Million tax rebate scam. Browder’s lawyer Sergei Magnitski discovers the scam and testifies to reveal it, he is subsequently arrested, tortured and murdered in a Russian jail, beaten to death by the guards.
2010 — A racketeering case is filed against Bayrock, Sater and Arif alleging they had been “substantially and covertly mob-owned and operated.”
2011 — Trump Soho a joint venture condo project by TrumpCO and Bayrock is sued for defrauding buyers with inflated claims. The suit is settled with a payout of $3.19 Million and a potential criminal case is avoided.
March 2011 — Trump begins his birther campaign against President Obama claiming there’s something wrong with his birth certificate. He also demands Obama's college transcripts alleging he didn't deserve access to Harvard, and claims that his best selling book “Dreams From My Father" was really ghostwritten by Bill Ayers.
May 2011 --
Obama authorizes the Bin Laden Raid, then attends the White House Correspondents dinner, Donald Trump is in the audience.
Obama reveals his long-form birth certificate and takes a couple shots at Donald, but Seth Myer brutalizes him from behind the podium. Myer's theorizes Trump decided to run for President right then and there in retaliation.
2012 — Obama signs the Magnitski Act following the jail house death of Sergey Magnitski after he was wrongfully imprisoned for investigation Russia corruption and laundering of money stolen from American businessmen Bill Browder. Putin responds by cancelling the adoption of Russian orphans by American parents. This act is strongly supported by Russian opposition leaders Boris Nemtsov and Vladimir Kara-Murza.
Exxon signs a $500 Billion deal with Russian Oil giant Rosneft for drilling in the Black sea.
2013 —
Russian mobsters renting property in Trump Tower just three floors below the penthouse suite are arrested for money laundering and running an illegal gambling ring at the end of a 2 year investigation. One of the attorney’s for the defendant Denys Katsyv of the Prevezon Group is Natalia Veselnitskaya, and the prosecutor is Preet Bharara, some of the stolen money is connected to Bill Browder’s investigation and the murder of Magnitski in Russia.
Several months later Trump holds the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow, the apparent money-laundering ring leader who remains at large is welcomed on the Red Carpet at the event. While in Moscow Trump reportedly meets with several high ranking oligarchs with ties to Putin, including Billionaire Russian Real Estate developer Arag Agalarov and his Pop Star son Emil who partners with Trump on the pageant.
Video shot before the pageant shows Trump at dinner with Emin and Aras Agalarov, as well as Rob Goldstone Emin’s promoter. Michael Isakoff talks to Goldstone who reveals that Trump has plans to license a new Trump Tower in Russia with Agalarov as the local builder/owner. Don jr. is in charge of the project and Ivanka goes on location scouting trips with Emin. Ike Kaveladze who works for the Agalarov family is also present.
2014 —
Michael Flynn is fired by the Obama administration as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency for his “odd behavior.”
Eric Trump says in an interview when discussing the funding of Trump Golf courses “Well, we don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia.” Eric later denies making this statement.
Bayrock is functionally inactive, except for a few outstanding lawsuits.
Putin releases ***** Riot from prison for shooting a Punk Rock video in a Church.
The Winter Olympics takes place in Sochi, Russia.
Russia invades Crimea and begins sending Troops and equipment in the Ukraine to destabilize the Country, Obama rallies the international community to place Sanctions on Russia which crush their economy — plans for the Rosneft/Exxon deal and Trump Tower Russia are both put on hold.
2015 —Trump and his kids are named as witnesses in a $250 Million tax evasion case connected to Bayrock and Trump Soho.
Michael Flynn goes to Russia, meets and sits with Putin for dinner and is paid $45,000 for a speech at RT's 10th Anniversary Gala. He also receives $11,250 from Kaspersky Government Security Solutions, and $11,250 from Volga-Dnepr Airlines. He doesn't get prior permission from the Pentagon for this trip or the payments.
Taj Mahal is fined $10 Million for continued money laundering by Treasury’s FinCen unit.
Boris Nemtsov is murdered in the streets of Moscow in the shadow of the Kremlin.
U.S. intel captures discussion by Russians about Trump running for President, when he hasn’t announced his run yet, and talking about multiple contacts they’ve been having with Trump associates and planning to funnel money into the election.
June 17, 2015 -- Trump announces his run for President. He never releases his Taxes, his birth certificate or his school transcripts.
Summer 2015 —Cyber hacking contractors working with the FSB (Cozy Bear) begin infiltrating and extracting copies of documents including the oppo-research on Trump and emails from the DNC servers. Their previous successful attacks include the White House and State Dept. email systems.
They also penetrate some RNC emails accounts and attack various Republicans who oppose Trump in the primaries.
September 2015 — FBI detects the hack and begins trying to inform the DNC, but they start by going to their Help desk not simply calling Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.
November 2015 — Felix Sater emails Michael Cohen saying “I will get Putin on this program and we will get Donald elected... I know how to play it and how to get this done. Buddy, our boy can become president of the USA and we can engineer it... I will get all of Putin’s team to buy in on this, I will manage this process.”
Late 2015 — GCHQ and other western intel agencies from Germany, Poland, Estonia and Australia begin noticing contacts between Russia Spies and members of the Trump campaign. They attempt to notify FBI and CIA who are apparently caught "flat footed.”
January 2016 — Michael Cohen send an email to Putin deputy Dmitry Peskov trying to get talks regarding Trump Tower Moscow restarted.
March 2016 -— US Attorney Preet Bharara prosecutes Russian intelligence officer Evgeny Buryakov an employee of sanctioned Russia bank Vnesheconombank (VEB) of conspiracy to commit espionage in recruiting U.S Businessmen in Manhattan including Carter Page. Page had been cooperating in this investigation as an informant.
FBI receives memo alleging collusion between Loretta Lynch and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz to quash the Clinton email investigation — they believe this document is fake.
March 16, 2016 -— John Podesta receives a spearfishing email, his IT people mistakenly tell him that it’s “Legitimate” and his assistant clicks on the link and gives up his password compromising his account.
March 21, 2016 —Trump lists Carter Page & George Papadopoulis as part of his foreign policy team.
March 24, 2016 — Papadopoulis writes an email offering to set up “a meeting between us and the Russian leadership to discuss US-Russia ties under President Trump,” telling them his Russian contacts welcomed the opportunity.
March 28, 2016 —Trump hires Paul Manafort to handle the delegate process on his campaign.
April 2016 — GRU Russian military intelligence also attacks the DNC systems with Fancy Bear. The DNC discovers the intrusion and calls in cyber security firm Crowdstrike to address it, they discover both intrusions, briefly monitor them to confirm their ID, then shut them down.
About this time Paul Manafort — former advisor to Putin friendly ex-Ukrainian President Yanakovych who has a close associate with links to the GRU, and who had previous been paid $Millions to allegedy secretly promote Putin’s agenda by Russian aluminum oligarch Oleg Deripaska — becomes Trump campaign chairman.
The Kremlin gives Rep. Dana Rohrabacher instructions to stage a “show trial” in Congress attacking Bill Browder in order to alter the Magnitski Act sanctions on Russia. Rohrabacher is provided a Russian propaganda film against Browder by the Russian Prosecutor Generals Office run by Yuri Chaika, the same person who had jailed Magnitski.
April 27, 2016 -Trump gives his first major foreign policy speech at an event that had been largely arranged by Jeff Sessions Chief of Staff Rick Dearborn, Russian ambassador Kislyak is invited as a special guest, both Trump and Session briefly meet with him at a backstage reception before the speech at the Mayflower Hotel.
Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos writes in an email to campaign manager Corey Lewandowsk he had fielded “a lot of calls over the past month” related to a meeting between the Trump campaign and Russia. “Russia has been eager to meet with Mr. Trump for some time and have been reaching out to me to discuss,” Papadopoulos says in a separate email to Paul Manafort.
May 2016 — US surveillance operations detects Russian Spies vowing to “Get Hillary Clinton” in retaliation for her criticism of Putin’s last election. A GRU Officer is recorded saying they are “getting ready to pay Clinton back for what President Vladimir Putin believed was an influence operation she had run against him five years earlier as Secretary of State”
They also detect them bragging that they have good ties to Michael Flynn and may be able to use him to “influence" Trump.
Obama admin attempts to limit classified information to Flynn.
Russian spies attempt to cultivate Carter Page as an asset, yet again!
FBI obtains a FISA warrant to monitor Page’s communications and possibly on a Trump server in Pennsylvania which keeps being oddly pinged by a server owned by Russia’s Alfa Bank and another owned by the DeVos companies.
Trump backs Brexit says “England is better off without the EU.”
Paul Manafort meets with his assistant from the Ukraine Konstantin Kilimnik, who has alleged ties to the GRU.
Trump releases an attack ad on Hillary claiming she’s “too close to Putin”, WaPo considers if the “Bromance” between Trump and Putin is over? But still Politico reports that Trump is “Putin’s Candidate.”
June 2016 — Russian Think Tank controlled by Putin publishes a blue print to use cyber bots, trolls and social media to push anti-Clinton/pro-Trump propaganda to help swing the election.
Jeff Sessions Chief of staff Rick Dearborn who is an advisor to the Trump campaign writes an email to Lowendowski noting that he’d received and offer from someone referrenced as “WV” to setup a meeting between Trump officials and Putin.
June 2, 2016 — Hillary gives a major speech criticizing Trump’s closeness to Russia and Putin accusing him of praising “dictators like Vladimir Putin” and having a “bizarre fascination with dictators and strongmen who have no love for America.”
June 3, 2016 — Music Promoter Rob Goldstone emails Don Jr, and says he has information from the Russian Government about shady dealings by Hillary and DNC. Don Jr. says “I Love it” and plans to discuss it further on a phone call and eventually a meeting.
June 7, 2016 — Trump says that he’ll give a major speech about Hillary Clinton’s corruption in a week.
June 9, 2016 —
Donald Jr, Kushner and Manafort secretly meet with a prominent Russia lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya at Trump Tower after being offered “dirt” about the Clinton Campaign and the DNC being funded by Russia. The information comes through their Miss Universe Moscow partner Aras Agalarov via his son’s Emin’s promoter Rob Goldstone who had received it directly from the “Crown Prosecutor” [actually the Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika] of Russia because the Russian Government “supports Trump.” They also discuss the Russian adoption program in the wake of the Magnitski Act, which is a law that blacklists Russian Human Rights violators.
Later that day Donald tweets for the first time about Clinton’s “33,000 missing emails.”
June 12, 2016 — Julian Assange hints that he’s soon release emails linked to Hillary Clinton.
The Pulse Night Club in Orlando is attacked and 49 people are killed by a frustrated gay Muslim man
June 13, 2016 — Trump blames the Pulse attack on Obama’s sympathy with “Radical Islam” and on immigrants even though the shooter was a native born American citizen born in New Hyde Park, NY.
June 14, 2016 -— Wapo Reports that the DNC has been hacked by the Russian government, DNC goes public about the cyber intrusion.
June 15, 2016 — Guccifer 2.0 releases the DNC’s opposition research file on Donald Trump.
Dana Rohrabacher’s scheduled “show trial” hearing on Bill Browder in opposition to the Magnitski Act is cancelled by his committee chairman.
Rep. Kevin McCarthy jokes behind scenes that the only people Putin pays are Rohrabacher and Trump.
June 16, 2016 — Guccifer 2.0 uses DCLeaks to reveal the first set of hacked DNC emails, they have Cyrillic characters and Russian urls in their metadata
June 17, 2016 — Putin says the Trump is a “bright” individual.[Actually the word he used translates more accurately into “Colorful”]
June 20, 2016 — Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski is fired after a controversy where he physically grabbed and yanked a Brietbart reporter away from Trump as she asked a question. At first Corey and the Trump campaign denies it ever happened, but it’s on video — then he claims he would’ve “apologized if he knew she was from Breitbart” but he doesn’t. She files a criminal complaint, but it’s thrown out. He goes to work for CNN while still being paid by Trump.
June 22, 2016 — Trump finally gives his big anti-Clinton speech over a week late, he complains about Benghazi, Free Trade, Temperment and that her “Deleted emails could make her vulnerable to blackmail by hostile states.” He doesn’t mention Russian money going into the DNC.
June 24, 2016 — Brexit Referendum Vote Passes.
Trump is in Scotland for the opening of his Turnberry Golf Course, he says he’s glad Scotland Voted to leave the EU — but they didn’t, England did.
June 27, 2016 — Bill Clinton meets privately with AG Loretta Lynch on her plane at the Pheonix Airport while they are both there during a layover. Reportedly they discuss family, golf and travel, but calls of “obstruction” and “undue influence” — even though there is absolutely no evidence to that effect — eventually cause her to defer any decision on the Clinton email investigation to the FBI.
July 2016 — Business Insider publishes a report on the Kremlin’s Troll army based in St. Petersburg. They pose online as Pro-Trump and Pro-Bernie Americans and incessantly attack Clinton.
Cyber attacks are also made on the DCCC in order to impact House races in Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Ohio, Illinois, New Mexico and North Carolina.
Carter Page travels to Moscow, approved by Trump Natsec advisor JD Gordon and Corey Lewandowski, to give several paid speeches.
Former MI-6 agent Christopher Steele while working on oppo-research for a GOP candidate receives intel that Page also has secret meetings with Russian government oil firm Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin who allegedly offers him broker fees on the sale of 19% of Rosneft stock supposedly as a payoff for influencing Trump to drop sanctions on Russia. Page eventually denies all of this.
Steele begins writing memos to the FBI.
U.S. intel intercepts Russian Operatives discussing a request for “Help damaging Clinton’s campaign” from the Trump campaign which mentions Manafort.
July 5, 2016 — Influenced by false email intel generated by the Russians alleging that AG Lynch was “throwing the Clinton case”, and apparently the fact that she has suggested he called the Clinton situation a “matter” rather than an “investigation” — even though DOJ rules prohibit confirming an investigation before it is complete — FBI Director James Comey after announcing that the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s server is complete and no charges will be filed goes on to blast her in an extended public statement.
July 7, 2016 — Comey testifies to Congress about Hillary’s server and manages to debunk just about every Right-wing conspiracy about it.
July 18-21, 2016 — The Republican National Convention takes place during which Trump National Security Advisor J.D. Gordon torpedoes a platform plank supporting the arming of Ukrainian rebels against pro-Russian forces, then lies about it.
Kislyak attends and briefly meets Sessions again at a Heritage Foundation event, as well as Carter Page and J.D. Gordon.
Flynn delivers a speech at the Republican convention, joining in the crowd’s “Lock her up!” chant. “If I, a guy who knows this business, if I did a tenth of what she did, I would be in jail today”
Mike Pence also chants “Lock Her Up” over Hillary’s emails — even though she’s been cleared already — and he himself has AOL for his email for official business as Governor and his account had been hacked.
Flynn fills out his SF-86 form to reactivate his security clearance related to his being selected by Trump as national security advisor. Flynn fails to include that he had received $530,000 from Turkey or that he had taken another $45,000 from Russia in 2015.
July 22, 2016 — One day after end of RNC Wikileaks reveals their first set of DNC emails.
Russia Today, Sputnik News, Breitbart and other right-wing outlets begin doing incessant stories about every little negative revelation in them as well as numerous false and inflammatory rumors these are further pushed by bots and trolls on facebook and twitter until they trend.
The FBI begin to look into the Russia hack based on information from Crowdstrike, they don’t get direct access to DNC servers presumably as that would cause them to shutdown their entire email capability in middle of an election until a replacement set of servers could be installed [I’ve sent a question to the DNC’s Deputy Communications Director on this point, he hasn’t responded yet].
FBI is also looking into links to Trump due to Steele memos and concerns raised by CIA head Brennan.
July 25, 2016 — Democratic Convention starts, because of the brouhaha from the Wikileaks email dump, Chairman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz resigns and Donna Brazille takes over, RT/Sputnik heightened and amplified rumors swirl about the DNC “rigging the Primary” for Clinton and against Sanders.
July 26, 2016 — Roger Ailes leaves Fox News amid harassment allegations. Trump defends him.
Wapo reporter Sarah Kendzior asks a Kremlin official about the hacking of DNC emails and he refers the issue to Donald Trump Jr.
July 27, 2016 — Trump asks Russia to hack and/or release Hillary’s missing emails.
July 28, 2016 — Sputnik news claims Wikileaks proves the primary and DNC was rigged against Sanders.
July 31, 2016 — Manafort denies that the Trump campaign made any changes to the RNC platform. Various Trump affiliates will repeat these denials 20 more times before finally admitting the truth; Donald personally ordered the change in a meeting with Gordon during the RNC in which Sessions attended. [If this was done as a pay off to Russia to ensure their continued support in their hacking/propaganda efforts, it proves Donald’s direct involvement in a criminal conspiracy.]
August 2016 —Mikail Kalugin who was linked to pension payment scheme by Steele leaves the U.S., and is later confirmed to have been falsely posing as a diplomat while actually being a spy.
Kilminik again travels to the U.S. and meet with Manafort where they allegedly discuss the DNC hack.
CIA Director Brennen sends an “Eyes Only” private note to the WH for Obama and just 3 senior aids which states that “Putin has ordered a cyber attack to defeat or damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign, and elect Donald Trump.”
August 4, 2016 — Brennen calls his counterpart Alexander Bortnikov Director of the FSB and issues him a stern warning about the hacking and active measures.
August 9, 2016 — Flynn Intel Group, a consulting firm founded by Flynn, signs a contract with Inovo BV, a firm run by a Turkish businessman close to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, for more than $500,000
August 16, 2016 — Manafort pushes a false RT/Sputnik News story about terrorist sabotage at a NATO base in Turkey. Trump also pushes the same false story.
August 17, 2016 — Trump receives his first classified briefing. Flynn is with him.
August 19, 2016 — Manafort leaves the Trump campaign amidst allegations that he accepted a $12 Million under-the-table cash payment from his former Putin friendly client, ex-Ukraine President Yanakovych. Pollster Kellyanne Conway, who is a Mercer employee, takes over.
August 21, 2016 -— Trump pal Roger Stone tweets “it will soon be Podesta's time in the barrel.” He later claims he was talking about Podesta’s “business dealings” not his email, although Stone had also been sending DM’s to Guccifer 2.0 the public face of Russia’s cyber hacking operation.
September 2016 — Reports are the Russian hackers have attempted to penetrate the voter registration systems in 20 States, 4 were successfully infiltrated.
GOP consultant Aaron Nevins sends a note to Guccifer 2.0 asking if he has anything on Florida Dems, 10 days later he gets 2.5 Gigabits of stolen DCCC data, which confirms the connection between Kremlin intel & Guccifer.
Roger Stone says on Boston Herald Radio that he expects, "Julian Assange and the Wikileaks people to drop a payload of new documents on a weekly basis fairly soon. And that of course will answer the question of exactly what was erased on that email server."
Obama meets Putin at a summit and personally tells him to “Cut it out” with the hacking.
Obama assembles Congress’s “Gang of 12” and informs them of the Russia hack confidentially and asks for a bipartisan public statement in opposition to the attack. Mitch McConnel refuses as he doubts the veracity of the information, no public statement is issued at this time.
Trump transition chair Chris Christie begins to recommend that Flynn be fired after his erratic behavior during a national security briefing.
FBI offers to pay Christopher Steele to continue his work investigating Trump/Russia links.
Jeff Sessions meets privately with Kislyak at his Senate Offices.
Guccifer 2.0 sends Roger Stone a link to a blog post on manipulating voter turnout.
Ignoring McConnel and other Republicans Sen Feinstein and Rep Schiff issue a joint statement revealing the Russia cyber attack.
One week later McConnell and other Reps issues a tepid statement warning state election boards to remain “secure from attack.”
October 2016 — The Russian Think Tank publishes another paper, this one saying the Clinton is likely to win the election, so the online influence campaign needs to focus on claims that the election was “rigged” or “stolen” due to voter fraud.
Trump starts saying the only way he could lose Pennsylvania is because of “Voter Fraud.” and mentions the information revealed by Wikileaks 164 times over the next month.
The FEC unanimously agrees to prioritize investigations into foreign spending.
Around this time before election day NSA detects that the GRU has launched a set of cyber attacks on state and local election registration systems. Some are penetrated.
Kushner Co receives a $285 Million loan from Duetsche Bank for their Times Square building that was facing charges for not stopping Russian money-laundering on the premesis.
October 4, 2016 — Guccifer 2.0 Post documents stolen from the Clinton Foundation.
October 5, 2016 — Buzzfeed reports that Trump financial attorneys regularly meet with him in pairs so that there would be a witness. “...It’s always been our practice to make sure two people are present, and we don’t have a problem of people lying.” and “We tried to do it with Donald always if we could because Donald says certain things and then has a lack of memory.”
October 6, 2016 — The Access Hollywood Video drops with “Grab ‘em by the *****”. One hour later Wikileaks releases the first set of emails taken from John Podesta’s account. RT and Sputnik News continue to do daily reports as another set of emails is dumped for next 30 days.
October 7, 2016 — Homeland Security and the Director of National Intelligence release a Joint Statement on the Russia Hacking efforts saying it “was directed from the highest levels of the Kremlin.” FBI Director Comey had also originally signed on to this document, but refrained at the last minute due to the closeness of the election.
October 11, 2016 — Trump uses false talking points from RT to blame HIllary for Benghazi
October 21, 2016 — Hillary Clinton states during a debate that 17 Intelligence Agencies have confirmed Russia’s attempt to influence the election. Trump denies it, says “nobody knows” and it could be “China, North Korea or a 300lbs. Fat Guy.” which is also a Sputnik News Talking point.
October 23, 2016 —Christopher Steele, frustrated by the lack of response by the FBI particularly the New York Field Office which he says houses an Anti-Clinton Cabal (aka Trumpland), contacts David Corn of Motherjones who writes that “Russian spies have been attempting to cultivate Trump as an asset for 5 years.”
FBI rescinds their job offer to Steele.
Eventually with the help of the British Ambassador to Russia, his dossier of memos are passed to John McCain who physically gives a copy to James Comey.
October 26, 2016 — James Comey writes a letter to congress about the Abedin emails found on Anthony Weiner’s laptop several weeks earlier — it gets leaked almost immediately, presumably by Jason Chaffetz’s office. All hell breaks lose, Clinton drops 3-5% in the polls.
October 27, 2016 — Rudy Giuliani admits on Fox that he knew about the Comey letter from “former FBI agents” before it was sent to Congres and leaked.
October 30, 2016 — FBI obtains a warrant to review the Abedin emails.
November 6, 2016 — FBI finds that virtually all of the Abedin emails are duplicates that they already had in their possession from the Clinton server.
November 7, 2016 — 19.5% of Rosneft is sold to unknown buyers. [This seem to be consistent with the Steele Memo which predicted this sale as an payoff to Trump for lifting sanctions on Russia]
November 8, 2016 —Election Day.
Michael Flynn writes an Op-Ed in support of Turkey arguing that the U.S. should extradite a Turkish expat who President Erdoğan blames for the recent attempted coup. Seemingly Turkey has been paying Flynn and his consulting firm $530,000 — money which originated with yet another Russian oligarch.
Flynn does not disclose this or register as a foreign agent.
Russia’s Parliament erupts into applause when Trump is announced the winner.
Also four patents for various Trump Hotels and products which were applied for years earlier are simultaneously renewed in Russia.
November 9, 2016 — Wikileaks proclaims that Trump won because Democrats rigged system to have Clinton beat Sanders.
November 10, 2016 — Russia’s Foreign Minister Lavrov admits they had continuing communications from Trump’s “immediate entourage.”
Trump and Obama meet at the WH, Obama warns him not to hire Flynn.
November 11, 2016 — Chris Christie is dropped as transition chief, VP Pence takes his place.
Flynn stays on.
November 12, 2016 — Lewandowski quits CNN to work for Trump again.
November 28, 2016 — In an interview with Time magazine, Trump denies interference from Russia. “I don’t believe they interfered,” he said. “That became a laughing point, not a talking point, a laughing point. Any time I do something, they say ‘oh, Russia interfered.'” He also addressed the hacking: “It could be Russia. And it could be China. And it could be some guy in his home in New Jersey”
November 30, 2016 — The Justice Department informs Flynn that he is under investigation for his unreported lobbying on behalf of Turkey.
November —House oversight ranking member Rep. Cummings sends a letter to VP Pence about Flynn’s Op-Ed and his lobbying for Turkey.
When Flynn states he plans to schedule a meeting with Kislyak former Bush Pentagon Official Michael Billingslea warns him that any such communications with Kislyak are likely to be picked up by U.S. surveillance.
December —Trump transition does a background check on Flynn but doesn't fully vet him, they are also specifically informed by Flynn’s lawyers that he may have to register as a “Foreign Agent” because of his work for Turkey even though the Pentagon had previously warned him to get permission for such payments first, and that he was under investigation by the FBI because of it.
Watchdog groups file a complaint with the FEC over Russia and the Trump campaign coordinating.
December 1, 2016 — Flynn meets with Kislyak at Trump Tower along with Jared Kushner. Kushner suggests setting up a secure back-channel back to the Kremlin using Russian facilities that could “bypass the U.S. national security bureaucracy.”. Kislyak is reportedly “taken aback”. They also suggest having an overseas meeting but Flynn is considered too high profile to attend.
Both Flynn and Kushner don’t include these meetings on their security clearances forms and are at risk of Logan Act violations if this meetings are intended to undermine current U.S Foreign policy as both are private citizens at this point. Kushner later includes the meetings on future updates.
NSA discovers the details of this meeting while surveilling Kislyak as he communicates with Moscow.
At Kislyak’s suggestion, Kushner later meets with banker and FSB Academy graduate Sergei Gorkov who is head of Moscow based government owned bank Vnesheconombank (VEB), which funds special projects like the Sochi Olympics or` Trump Tower in Toronto and included Russian intelligence officer Evgeny Buryakov on it’s payroll, who was convicted in March 2016 by Preet Bharara of conspiracy in the case involving the attempted cultivation of Carter Page as an Russian asset. Gorkov is also former deputy board chairman of Russia largest state-owned bank, Sberank, whom had hired Trump’s attorney’s Marc Kasowitz to defend it.
December 8, 2016 — Page is back in Moscow to meet with “business leaders and thought leaders”
December 9, 2016 — Wapo reports that the CIA has made a Secret Assessment that the Russia government sought to interfere in our election in order to make Trump President, and that Congress was informed of this so they could make a bipartisan statement but Mitch McConnell refused.
December 12, 2016 -—While in Moscow, Trump’s former campaign surrogate Jack Kingston meets with Russian businessmen to discuss what they might expect from a Trump administration. “Trump can look at sanctions,” Kingston says. “They’ve been in place long enough.”
December 13, 2016 — Trump says he doesn’t need a security briefing everyday. “I’ll get it when I need it”.
Trump nominates then Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson — recipient of the Russia Order of Friendship personally from Putin who had been seeking a waiver on Russian/Crimea sanctions to proceed with their $500 Billion deal with Rosneft for drilling in the Black sea — as Secretary of State.
NBC News’ Richard Engel reports from Moscow on Trump’s secretary of state pick, Rex Tillerson. Former Russian Energy Minister Vladimir Milov tells Engel that Tillerson was a “gift for Putin.”
Steve Bannon joins Flynn and Kushner for a separate meeting with the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, who makes an undisclosed visit to New York.
December 20, 2016 -— Jared Kushner brags to Forbes magazine about the data-mining and voter micro-targeting operation he helped setup for the Trump campaign with Cambridge-Analytica which is owned by deep pocketed Trump pal Robert Mercer, who also bankrolls Breitbart News.
December 21, 2016 — Lewandowski doesn’t get rehired by Trump, starts a lobbying firm.
December 29, 2016 —Obama hits Russia with Sanctions for their hacking and involvement in the Election. Flynn talks to Russian Ambassador Kislyak, mentions “We’ll review everything” when Obama’s new sanctions are brought up. This conversation is recorded by the NSA/FBI.
The Obama Administration tries to save the intel data with a trail of bread crumbs for Congress to track.
December 30, 2016 — Putin states he will not retaliate to Obama’s newly imposed sanctions and the expulsion of 30 suspected Russian spies. Trump praises his lack of response.
A PHP web shell called P.A.S. created by Ukrainian Hacker Profexor is identified by DHS as being used in part of the DNC hack. He eventually contacts the FBI himself as he had no knowledge his worked was being used in this manner.
January 5th — Former CIA Director James Woolsey leaves Trump transition team because he is alarmed by Flynn's stance on trying to have Erdogen’s opponent Gulley “snatched up” and shipped off to Turkey.
Trump tweets a storm of attacks on the Intel community and claims of Russian hacking.
January 6th —U.S. Intel agencies publish their report on the Russia Cyber efforts to influence the election. Obama, Biden and Trump are briefed on the report, Trump claims it proves Russia didn’t “change the vote” even though the report doesn’t attempt to answer that question.
January 10th —Jeff Sessions testifies during confirmation hearings that he doesn’t know “any Trump surrogates who were in contact with the Russians” ignoring the question he was asked which was “What would you do if you discover surrogates coordinating with Russians?” Apparently the correct answer is “Nothing.”
Buzzfeed publishes the entire Steele Dossier online.
CNN reports that Trump was specifically briefed on it during the Jan 6th briefing.
Trump transition team does full court press to deny this briefing occurred, not only denying that anyone verbally described it to Trump but also there was a 3 page summary at the end of the full Russia report.
Flynn meets with Susan Rice over a plan to arm the Kurds against ISIS, Flynn vetoes the plan as the Kurds are considered terrorists by one of his financial benefactors Turkey.
Paul Manafort calls Reince Preibus to deny allegations in the dossier about him
January 11th — At his first press conference of the year Trump says he himself “didn’t meet with any Russians” during the election even though he did.
Erik Prince, former CEO of Blackwater, giant Christian Supremacist, Mike Pence supporter and brother of
Education Secretary nominee Betsy DeVos has a secret meeting with the UAE on the Seychelles islands to establish a back channel to Putin which is noticed by FBI. That meeting is chaired by the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi who had previously met with Bannon, Flynn & Kushner secretly in New York, and seems to be a follow-on to Kushner’s meeting with Kislyak at Trump Tower.
Politico issues a report indicating that Ukrainian-American Alexandra Chalupa who consulted for the DNC had gone to the Ukrainian embassy to gain information about Paul Manafort’s links to Yanakovic.
January 12th — NBC news confirms that Comey personally briefed Trump about the Steele Dossier revealing yet another transition team lie.
January 14th — Reports surface that U.S. Intel agents have warned our allies like Israel not to share sensitive intel with Trump transition team due to the Steele dossier and the risk he might share it with Russia and hence their ally Iran.
January 15th — Trump says “We should trust Putin” while lambasting NATO and Angela Merkel.
Former CIA Officer for Moscow states that Steele dossier deserves support: “This is exactly how the Russians operate.”
January 20th — Inauguration day.
January 21st —Sean Spicer does his first press briefing and spends most of it lying about the Inauguration crowd size, then takes no questions.
Women’s march crowd dwarfs Trump’s crowd by 3 to 1.
Trump WH officials soon begin pushing State Dept to remove all Russian sanctions. Alarmed State Offiicials Melinowski and Fried begin to contact congress.
January 22nd — Comey attends an event honoring Law Enforcement at the WH, tries to avoid being noticed by Trump, but fails.
January 23rd —Spicer claims Flynn didn’t talk to Kislyak about sanctions, even though he did.
Later Mike Pence goes on Meet the Press after talking personally to Flynn and claims “Flynn told me he didn’t talk to Russia about sanctions.”
January 24th — Flynn interviewed by FBI, again he apparently says he didn’t talk to Russians about sanctions but they know better. He also claims that he didn’t get any foreign money and the $45k and $530k came from “U.S. companies” having omitted the true information on his SF-86 Security form.
January 26th —Sally Yates goes to the White House personally and warns WH Counsel McGahn that Flynn may be vulnerable to “blackmail by the Russians” because he’d lied to the FBI & Pence about his contacts with Kislyak.
Trump is immediately briefed by McGahn but does nothing about Flynn.
Former Bush Ethics Atty Richard Painter files complaint with Government Ethics Office that James Comey may have violated the Hatch Act by releasing unsubstantiated information about the Abedine emails.
January 27th — Trump signs a travel ban against 7 majority Muslim nations.
McGahn calls Yates, she returns to the WH where he asks “why does it matter if Flynn lied to Pence?”
Trump invites Comey to dinner at the White House, allegedly asks Comey if he wants to “keep his job” and to pledge him his “Loyalty”, Comey offers his “Honesty” and takes copious notes.
Kremlin arrests FSB officials Sergei Mikhailov, his deputy Dmitry Dokuchaev, and Ruslan Stoyanov, the head of cybercrime investigations at Kaspersky Labs (who had paid Flynn $11,500 in 2015) for treason and illegal hacking apparently for sharing intel information with the CIA.
January 29th — London Mayor Saddiq Khan says that Trump shouldn’t be allowed entry into the UK while his Muslim ban is in place.
Trump signs EO that places Steve Bannon on the principles committee of the National Security Council, the DNI and head of the Joint Chiefs are relegated to "part time" participants.
January 30th — Sally Yates orders the DOJ not to defend Trump's Muslim ban executive order in court as she doubts it is legal or constitutional.
January 31st --Yates is fired by Trump allegedly for refusing to defend his Muslim ban executive order.
Flynn stays.
Roger Stone goes on Russia Today to push the conspiracy that murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich is the "real hacker.” This is his fifth appearance on the channel.
Deutsche Bank is fined $630 Million for $10 Billion in money laundering transactions involving Russia.
February 2nd — Putin opposition leader Vladimir Kara-Murza is poisoned for a second time in Moscow.
February 3rd —Federal Judge Robart blocks Trump's Muslim Ban echoing Yates issues with it.
Reports surface that Trump is still using that same vulnerable unsecured out of date Galaxy S3 Cell Phone to tweet with during the campaign while in the White House.
February 6th —Rep. Maxine Waters states “Trump is moving towards Impeachment.”
Trump attorney Michael Cohen and Felix Sater negotiate a deal to end sanctions against Russia by stopping the violence in Crimea with a Ukranian named Andrii V. Artemenko. They supposedly deliver a copy of this plan to Michael Flynn’s desk, but there is no evidence he ever reviewed it or passed it on to anyone.
When this is revealed Artemenko is looked at for possible Treason charges by Ukraine. [Exactly who came up with this idea and tasked them with this? Does anyone believe they went rogue?]
Februray 7th -— Sens. Cardin and Graham — alerted by Fried and Malinowski at State of Trump efforts to scrap sanctions -— author bipartisan legislation to require the approval of Congress for all changes to sanctions.
February 8th — Washington posts asks Flynn if he discussed sanctions with Russia, he says “No” twice.
February 9th —Flynn’s spokesman issues a correction to Wapo that he “doesn’t remember” if he did or didn’t discuss sanctions.
Trump talks to Putin by phone and criticizes Obama’s Start II Nuclear deal with Russia. Flynn is there for the call.
Judge Robart’s national block of the Muslim Ban is upheld by the 9th Circuit
February 10th — Trump is asked about Flynn talking to Russians about sanctions and says “This is the first time I’ve heard that.” Note: He had already been personally told about this by White House Counsel McGahn immediately after he was told by Yates on Jan 26th.
February 12th — Reports emerge that the Intel agencies are considering holding back highly sensitive intel from Trump to prevent leaks to Russia.
February 13th — Flynn is fired immediate after Wapo report proving that he lied, allegedly he’s let go because he lied to Vice President Pence and caused him to be embarrassed about what he said on Meet the Press. WH secret push to cut sanctions goes on hold.
February 14th — Comey & Sessions meet Trump in the Oval for a counter-terrorism briefing. Trump clears the room and gets Comey alone to complain about leaks asking him to prosecute some reporters over it and ask if he can just “Let Flynn go” Comey interprets the request to only be about Flynn not the Russia investigation,
Comey notes this and discusses it with FBI leadership.
The NYTimes reports that Trump aids (including Flynn, Manafort and Page) had repeated contacts with Russian Intelligence according to the NSA and that the FBI had requested they “collect as much information as possible about the Russian operatives on the phone calls” and go through their archives for more information.
February 15th — Intel Agencies with access to foreign intercepts say “Trump Will Die in Jail.”
Comey laters asks Sessions not to leave him alone with Trump again as it’s inappropriate. Comey’s memory of the event is hazy, but he states later Sessions doesn’t really respond. [During later testimony Session claims he repeated back basic DOJ protocols to Comey, which doesn’t answer his concern over why Sessions failed to follow protocol the previous day.]
February 16th — CBS reports that Trump screamed at CIA Director Pompeo over reports that Intel is being withheld from him because of fears he might leak it to Russia.
Pompeo denies any intel is being withheld from Trump.
Trump rage tweets that “Russia” is a made up story by Democrats as an excuse for losing the election.
House Democrats submit bill to prevent removal of Russia sanctions without Congress approval.
February 17th — Trump calls the Press the “Enemies of the American People.”
February 21st — Artemenko talks to a Ukrainian News outlet and reveals that he’s known Michael Cohen for some time since Cohen has an ethanol business in the country, which is also where his wife was born, and that his meeting with Cohen and Sater on Feb 6 wasn’t their first. According to Artemenko, he discussed the “peace-plan” with Cohen and Sater “at the time of the primaries, when no one believed that Trump would even be nominated.”
February 25th — FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe — who began his carrier with the New York Field Office while Trump surrogate Giuliani was Mayor — goes to the White House and in direct violation of DOJ protocols buttonholes Reince Prebus to tell him the NYT article on contacts “Is Bullshit.” [Later reporting seems to hint that the FBI’s objection to the report is the claim that certain contacts were confirmed as part of “Russian Intelligence”, not that the contacts didn’t happen because those were confirmed by James Clapper.]
February 26th —Preibus calls McCabe back and asks him to inform the Press about this as an “anonymous source”, he refuses.
Preibus call his pals Devin Nunez Chairman of the House intelligence committee and Richard Burr Chairman of the Senate Intel Committee who are each former Trump surrogates who are heading up investigations of “Russia” — they do it for him.
Former Bush Ethics Atty Richard Painter files complaint with Government Ethics Office that James Comey violated the Hatch Act by publicly disclosing unsubstantiated information about Abedine’s emails prior to the election.
February 28th — Trump who had essentially called Hillary a “murderer” over Benghazi blames the Generals and Obama for death of Navy Seal in Yemen during raid he himself authorized.
March 1 —it’s discovered that Sessions met with Kislyak twice, in July at the RNC which he attended as a Trump surrogate along with Carter Page and JD. Gordon and in September in his Senate Offices. Nobody notices that he also met him in April.
Sen. Franken asks for Sessions to come back to the Senate to explain, he declines and sends a letter which claims he didn’t understand the question he was asked and didn’t think he was “acting as a surrogate” when he met Kislyak.
March 2 — 100 Democrats demand that Jeff Sessions resign as Attorney General. He doesn’t.
March 4 —Session recuses himself from the Russia investigation.
Trump blows his top that weekend screaming at his staff, throwing Priebus and Bannon off Air Force One for his weekly Mar-A-Lago trip.
March 5th — Trump tweets about being “Wiretapped in Trump Tower by Obama” that morning based on a report from Breitbart and Judge Napolitano on Fox News — Narrative shifts away from Sessions.
James Clapper denies that “Obama Wiretapped Trump.”
March 6th -- Trump issues a revised Muslim travel ban, which no longer blocks immigrants and refugees from Iraq.
March 7th —House Intel committee invites Sally Yates and James Comey to testify about Michael Flynn and Russia.
Michael Hayden denies Trump’s Wiretapped by Obama claims.
Sen. Franken says Session committed perjury.
The Guardian reports that SLC Group and Cambridge Analytics methods of generating micro-targeted alt-news webiverse using data provided by AggregateIQ were used to meddle in the Brexit Vote to encourage “voter disengagement” and “to persuade Democrat voters to stay at home”:
March 8th — British media reports more of the specific contacts by person and date alleged by Steele dossier have been confirmed by independent surveillance, but they do not yet confirm the substance of the conversations.
Flynn finally registers as a foreign agent.
June 20th —
Sen. Whitehouse argues that there is evidence Flynn has been cooperating with Mueller’s investigation for some time.
CNN Reports the Trump pick for FBI director Christopher Wray had edited his online bio to remove reference to a case against Russia.
Bannon says the reason Spicer doesn’t do his briefings on camera : “Sean got fatter.” Which is ironic for a guy who’s fatter than Spicer and doesn’t explain why he won’t allow the audio to be recorded either.
Jason Miller generates excuses for why Trump hasn’t commented on London Mosque attack: “It literally happened just yesterday” when it was 2 days ago, Yesterday was the death of former North Korean prisoner Otto Warmbier, but he commented on that, the Baseball practice shooting and the London Bridge attack immediately.
CBS reports that Trump’s approval is down 11% among Republicans since the end of his first 100 days. 36% approval overall.
“Still Fatter” Spicer does an on camera briefing.
Mueller adds Russian speaking prosecutor to his team.
Sessions lawyers up with an attorney Chuck Cooper, who had previously defended Bob Jones’ University’s ban on interracial dating to supporting job discrimination against those with HIV/AIDS.
Hannity claims new nutbag theory that the intelligence community and mainstream media are planning a “Soft Coup” to undermine Trump. “Deep State”, “Political Witch Hunt” etc
June 21st —
Bloomberg reports a detailed piece by Trump biographer Tim O’Brien on his shady financial ties to Mafia and Russian Mob money through Felix Sater and Bayrock LLC between 2002-2011 including $33 Million in properties sales & rentals of luxury condos in New York, Vegas and Los Angeles to mysterious LLCs since the election.
Don Jr. and Ivanka’s involvement in these deals makes them potential targets for Mueller’s investigations.
Former Homeland Security head Jeh Johnson testifies
He says that “The Russian government, at the direction of Vladimir Putin himself, orchestrated cyber attacks on our nation for the purpose of influencing our election,” he said. “That is a fact, plain and simple.”
But that there’s “No evidence they flipped votes.” which would have been an act of war.
He also says Trump’s “Rigged” talk made it difficult to address the interference Russia created.
Other officials from DHS indicate that voter registration systems in 21 states were attacked.
Spicer says he “hasn’t specifically asked” Trump if he believes Russia interfered with the election.
Telegraph reports that Trump will not be making an official state visit to the UK over the threat of widespread protests for at least two years.
Senate’s new Russia sanctions bill hits a snag on the House rule that any bill that raises revenue must start in the House.
Dems on House Oversight send letter to Preibus to explain why Kushner still has a security clearance?
Kushner flies to Tel Aviv to negotiate with Israel and Palestine.
Lewandowski tells Fox and Friends the Russian collusion investigation “should end immediately” because they’ve found nothing. [That they’ve told us about, Yet. And they won’t say anything until there’s either an indictment or a Grand Jury report to Rosenstein.]
NATO F-16 from Poland buzzes plane carrying Lavrov and shadows it until a Russian SU-22 with air-to-air missiles shows up.
Rachel Maddow highlights that what Homeland security testified isn't just that lots of states were attacked but also that voter registration files in specific counties that leaned heavily Democratic were targeted and some of the poll book software failed on election night in those counties which created excessive delays, long lines and more votes shifted to provisional ballots which aren't always counted — meanwhile personal information for 200 Million U.S. voters were posted on an open server by RNC contractor Deep Root analytics which could have been accessed by anyone who knew the IP or web address.
june 22nd —
Senate releases their version of Trumpcare which is even worse than the house version and immediately loses 4 Republican votes leaving the bill DOA. Senator Collins questions it's Medicaid cuts while Senator Warren says it pays for tax cuts with Blood Money.
Trump finally admits after 41 days, one day before the deadline set by congress for an answer, that he doesn't have any "Tapes" of his conversations with Comey, and had only brought it up to "rattle" him. He seems to claim he had thought Comey himself or the intel community had been taping the conversation in a weird variation on the "Obama taped me in Trump Tower" conspiracy. It never seems to occur to him that if Comey had a recording, he wouldn’t have needed to take notes and write memos about what was said, which is a pretty standard FBI practice.
Election officials report that hackers stole and changed voter registration information during the 2016 election in at least one county in addition to accessing registration systems in 39 states.
Huckabee Sanders says "Everybody agrees the election wasn't influenced by Russia" [No, not really. They didn't change votes, but they did all they could to access their registration data and to trick voters with false news and conspiracy theories.] when finally admitting that the DNC was probably hacked by Russia which everyone actually does say.
Trump staffers reacts to this latest nutty conspiracy theory and the looming backlash over it --"**** my life."
Nunez "I never said I was leaving the Russia investigation for good."
Trump's "Voter Fraud" panel backfires as they starting looking into Russian hacking of election systems.
Pizzagate shooter sentenced to four years in prison.
Preet Bharara signs a book deal
Schiff says that Trump's tweet about the tapes is not enough, 'he's been untruthful before in his tweets.' and that his statement that he doesn't have tapes doesn't cover the rest of the White House.
Coats and Rogers tells House intel that Trump did ask them to “get the word out” about his not being personally under investigation and that there was “no evidence of collusion.” Coats also says Trump is “obsessed with the Russia probe.”
Rand Paul's attempts to claim that Trump really was being surveilled which inspires former CIA agent Phill Mudd to call bullshit on that. Besides the fact that Comey, Coats, Clapper (all under oath) and Michael Hayden have already denied this and said it’s not even possible under the law.
June 23rd —
Wapo releases report that CIA had generated an “Eyes Only” memo for Obama in August that Putin personally ordered the attack on the U.S. election. Trump says "This is the first he's heard of it..." as if he wasn't briefed on exactly this on Jan 6th and Jeh Johnson hadn’t just testified to the same thing two days ago.
Spicer finally admits he talked to Trump about “elections tampering” but doesn’t specifically mention Russia, and claims Trump’s “tape threat” was intended to force Comey to “tell the truth” as if being under oath were meaningless.
Incoming House Oversight Chair Trey Gowdy, replacing Chaffetz, says he’s totally dropping investigation of Russian interference leaving it for Mueller, House Judiciary and Intelligence.
Trump Energy official sends racist tweets calling Obama a “Kenyan creampuff.”
Wapo reports that WH can’t get through to Tillerson on the phone, “he won’t return calls”
Senate Intel opens investigation into faked and already debunked report about Loretta Lynch colluding with Debbie Wasserman-Schultz to shutdown Clinton email investigation.
Trump claims Comey tapes may exists because “Obama taped the White House”, again. [Uh, no he didn’t he taped the Russian ambassador and caught Flynn, which is something he was warned would happen, dumb ***.]
The rollout of new FBI Director Nominee Chris Wray appears to be completely fouled up, already.
Politico reports that Trump blames WH Counsel McGhan for not stopping the Russia probe, somehow.
LATimes reports that Mueller's team includes experts on fraud and money laundering and they seem "Dangerously close to an obstruction case."
Rep. Andy Biggs calls for Mueller to recuse himself because of his close relationship with Comey, who had been his boss as Deputy AG while Mueller was FBI Director. He doesn’t seem to have a problem with the fact that Kushner and Ivanka’s attorney Jamie Gorelick is also a member of Mueller’s law firm.
Kris Kobach from Trump's "Voter Fraud" panel gets sanctioned for "Deceptive Conduct and Lack of Condor"
June 24th —
Russia pushes back on more reports that they meddled in the U.S. elections claiming “We don’t do that, but the U.S. does.”
Trump attacks Obama administration for “doing nothing” to fight Russia attacks, finally admitting that there even was a Russia attack while ignoring that they did respond to the attack on state elections systems reached out diplomatically several times very strongly including face to face with Putin, then implemented sanctions which Trump has been already trying to remove.
June 25th —
Buzzfeed reports that Putin plans to recall Kislyak back to Russia.
Jeffrey Lord says Mueller should hire Michael Cohen — yes, seriously — ignoring the fact that he’s actually been investigating Cohen who has since lawyered up.
Eric Trump again says the DNC Chair Tom Perez is a “Nut Job” and his dad “has done more than any President in History.”
90 Parliament email accounts are attacked by hackers.
Kellyanne Conway refuses to talk about Russian hacks because “It was Obama’s fault for not stopping them” — even though he actually did stop them once he, DHS and the FBI knew about it.
Trump admits calling Elizabeth Warren “Pochahantas” is racist, but does it anyway. He also tweets that “Hillary colluded with the DNC to defeat Bernie” even though that actually didn’t happen at all and is just another Sputnik News talking point.
White House skips Ramadan celebration, because why not?
Adam Schiff and Al Franken criticize Obama’s tepid reaction to Russia prior to the election saying he “coulda, shoulda, woulda” done more. Yeah, ok, that’s good backseat driving there. Like what exactly?
Kushner goes to Palestine and infuriates Prime Minister Abbas enough that they threaten to shutdown talks.
june 26th —
Brit Hume argues that colluding with Russia’s illegal cyber attacks against America wouldn’t be a crime — because “Huh?”
Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) tells Politico that he’s prepared to battle the White House over efforts to water down legislation imposing sanctions against the Russian government.
Trump says that “Obama colluded with Russia” because he “did nothing” when he was informed about the hacking attacks — even though he did plenty & Hume says “collusion wouldn’t be a crime.” Somehow he ignores his own request for Russia to hack and release “Hillary’s emails” and multiple attempts to raise sanctions. He also demands an “apology” claiming the Wapo report disproves collusion by his campaign when that subject wasn’t even addressed in the report.
Spicer says Trump was “only joking” about Russia hacking and releasing Hillary’s emails. Katy Tur puts a match to that B.S. and sets it on fire.
Somehow a Russia media rep. Igor Zorin who only earns $75,000 bought 3 condos worth $5.4 Million from Trump Palace. Shocker.
Supreme Court partially allows Travel Ban —upholding it for all those who filed suit based on “standing” but potentially damaging tourism to the tune of $18 Billion — until they fully hear the case in October.
Wapo reports that Kushner received a $285 Million loan from Deutsche Bank a month before the election for their Times Square building while the bank was facing charges being involved in Russian money laundering.
Kushner in addition to attorney Jamie Gorelick hires powerhouse defense attorney Abbie Lowell who had previously defended Harold Keating, Jack Abramov, Dan Rostenkowski and John Edwards.
2 weeks after claiming they would “immediately” file a complaint against Comey for his “leaking” his own thoughts and recollections to Congress, Kasowitz and Trump’s other attorneys haven’t done it yet.
Nunez admits he was never going to recuse himself from Russia investigation.
Wapo Reports that Trump associate Carter Page was interviewed by the FBI 5 times for a total of 10 hours during March and did so without an attorney.
Spicer announces that the WH has information indicating another possible chemical weapons attack by the Assad regime, but CENTCOM knows nothing about it.
CBO says that Senate TrumpCare bill will leave 22 Million without insurance.
Trump’s re-election campaign pays $50,000 to Donald Jr.’s lawyer Alan Futerfas after he’s contacted by the NYTimes for a comment after they discovered that Kushner’s attorneys had updated his SF86 form to include a meeting called by Don Jr. with a lawyer from Russia.
July 27th -—
Trump’s act bombs at Senate Health care meetings because he has no idea what’s in the bill, or for that matter no idea how health care actually works.
Ryan states that “22 Million don’t really want insurance anyway.”
CNN caves to a $100 Libel lawsuit threat over a single-sourced anonymous story involving Trump team member Anthony Scaramucci and fires three employees, including the reporter Thomas Frank and producer Eric Litchbau on the story.
Reporter Brian Karem unloads on the hypocrisy of Huckabee-Sanders trying to grandstand on Scaramucci story firing, while the WH uses anonymous sources for it’s own counter story.
The law firm of Kushner’s new attorney Abbie Lowell has links to both Sberbank and Rosneft and was one of the first U.S. firms allowed to have offices in Moscow.
Clinton campaign chair John Podesta testifies in closed session to House Intel.
Wapo reports that Manafort has registered as a foreign agent and declared $17 million in profits from Ukrainian groups. This “finally getting right with the law” act fuels rumors that he has or soon intends to flip for Mueller.
Gingrich says Trump should testify, because it’s not like he wouldn’t prat fall into perjury trap that way…Noooo.
Rick Perry talks to the press about the environment and ****. gets. crazy.
CNN medical producer opines on tape made by James O’Keefe that Russia probably a “witch hunt” and that CNN ‘s coverage is over the top. CNN sticks with him as having his own opinion, besides it’s not like aren’t still paying Jeffrey Lord to say the same thing day after day. There is also another video of Van Jones saying “Russia is a nothing burger” — which in terms of Demcractic politics he’s previously said many times.
Sally Yates says Americans should be alarmed at Trump’s behavior even if you assume there “was no collusion.”
Kasowitz puts his complaints about Comey’s “leaks” on indefinite hold.
Senate pushes back vote on Trumpcare until after July 4th recess.
July 28th -—
Trump tweets incoherently about the Washington Post supporting Amazon for not paying “taxes” when they do pay sales taxes in 45 states.
Time magazine asks Trump to remove fake magazine covers from his golf courses.
Sekulow argues that we should have a special prosecutor to investigate Obama’s reaction to Russian hacking and meddling, because that’s logical — in Bizarro World.
Maddow reports that Senate Republicans seem to be investigating the Mueller investigation and are reviewing the Comey Memo’s even though they aren’t investigation obstruction — that’s under Senate Judiciary — perhaps to see if it’s is based entirely on the Steele Dossier in order to use that as a reason to have it shut down.
Senate Intel is also reportedly going through 2,000 documents for Treasury’s FinCEN unit on Trump and his associations and the money ties to Russia.
CREW files a Hatch Act complaint against Nikki Haley for retweeting an endorsement by Trump for Republican Robert Northam to fill the congressional seat vacated by budget director Mick Mulvaney.
CNN reports that Trump’s staff is going increasingly concerned about his lack of concern about what and how Russia hacked us, and whether they might do it again.
Chuck Todd tears into Trump’s press office :”This is nothing less than a war on the truth.”
Ex MTV-VJ Kennedy argues on Fox: “Who cares if 15 Million people will lose Health Care next year, we’re all gonna die anyway?” Yes we will, but not this exact minute. Well, not unless North Korea — well y’know.
Spicer tweets claim that Obamacare has “failed” 28 Million people who still don’t have Health Care and that only TrumpCare is the “solution” to this problem — while the CBO says it will increase that problem another 23 Million by 2026.
June 29th —
Annoyed by criticism from Morning Joe’s Mika saying he’s “Out of his Mind” while discussing a reported loud clash between SecState Tillerson and WH over meddling and interference by Kushner, Trump counters by tweeting that Joe and Mika visited Mar-A-Lago 3 times, and that he refused a personal meeting around New Year’s because Mika was “bleeding from a recent facelift” — pics taken of Mika that same day disprove this. Melania and Huckabee-Sanders give excuses for this crap.
WH aides respond to facelift tweet “At least you’re not reporting we’re going to kill Millions” — yeah, but you are though, if we let you.
MSNBC’s Katy Tur smashes Huckabee-Sanders false claim that “Trump never advocated violence” on the campaign trail point by point.
Republicans respond to “Facelift” tweet with outrage, but still continue to support and vote for Trump proposal despite outrage of the American people. Typical.
Trump prepares to meet privately with Putin at G20 by asking staff to give him “bargaining chips he can trade away.” Might those include “American Sovereignty?
Steven Benen at MSNBC reveals that Trump’s “secret plan” to fight ISIS was a Lie, because his actual plan is to do what Obama was already doing.
Kasowitz law firm under potential scrutiny by Mueller for a $285 Million 2015 real estate deal for Time Square property and refinancing loan between Kushner and Deutsche Bank.
Ryan says Senate must repass their Russia sanctions bill to resolve constitutional issue, but the issue is that revenue bills have to start in the House — so, um, what?
House intel requests a more full response to the question of Comey recordings than just the President’s tweet, which only spoke for him not any recording being kept by the entire White House.
Wall Street Journal reports that GOP operative Peter W. Smith had endeavored to gain stolen Clinton email information for Flynn. He claimed to them, before he died on May 15, to have found two groups with the information and asked them to provide it to Wikileaks. U.S. intel also picks up indications that Russian hackers were actively trying to get access to Clinton’s server to provide those emails to Flynn. Smith acting as an “intermediary” for communications between Russian hackers and Flynn confirms another plank in the Steele Dossier that Kremlin intel had been deliberately supplying Trump with anti-Clinton intel.
Van Jones lays into James O’keefe’s bogus “Nothing Burger” video supposedly “exposing” the CNN host for not really caring that much about the Russia issue compared to other policy issues — an opinion which he’s never hidden.
Hawaii files a new suit against Trump’s Partial Travel Ban/Suspension.
NRA releases a video statement featuring Media Wingnut Dana Leosch that accuses the Left of widespread verbal and other violence against Trump, the Police and the Right. She then goes onto fTucker Carlson to defend and rationalize it.
Deutsche Bank refuses request for Trump financial documents from House Dems for the 2nd time.
Senate passes updated version of their new Russia Sanctions Bill which now includes sanctions on Iran as well.
June 30th -—
TPM reports that Homeland Security hasn’t yet checked the integrity of a single voting machine to ensure none of them were hacked or tampered with.
Joe Scarborough reveals that Mika had told Melania about her facelift and that Trump was so impressed he asked for the name of her doctor 10 times.
Joe also says that Trump had tried to blackmail them into apologizing for their coverage by saying if they did he would spike a negative National Enquirer story about them. Trump rage tweets and accidentally confirms part of their story. If proven these allegations would violate New York Criminal (Coercion), DC Criminal (Bribery) and Federal Criminal Law (Extortion by officers of the U.S.).
Russian Communications Minister Nikolay Nikiforov served notice on Friday that the Russian government would retaliate against U.S. companies if Congress bans the Pentagon from using controversial cyber-security software from Kaspersky Labs.
States reject extreme voter information request from Election Suppression Commission, even Kris Kobach’s own state of Kansas refuses. Huckabee-Sanders says this is only a “political stunt” — but it’s Republican controlled states as well as Democratic that refuse.
July 1st —
UK cyber-analyst Matt Tait reveals he was recruited by Peter Smith to authenticate emails stolen from Clinton’s server by the Russians which were to be provided to Michael Flynn.
Bloomberg reports that Kushner had attempted to buy the National Enquirer along with David Pecker in 2006.
Trump continues his twitter rage-a-thon against Mika and Joe for a 3rd day saying ““Crazy Joe Scarborough and dumb as a rock Mika are not bad people,” and also criticizes MSNBC for firing Greta Van Sustren.
Senate Intel reaches agreement to review the Comey Memos.
Trump “jokes” it would be “Fun to sue CNN” at a fundraiser. He says “These are really dishonest people. Should I sue them? I mean, they’re phonies,” Trump said, according to the recording. “I mean, these are horrible human beings.”
In his 2nd loud clash with WH Officials this week Tillerson apparently had “tense” conversation with Jason Miller who pushed him to take a tougher stance on immigration, while Tillerson demanded independence on how he ran State Dept. affairs.
CBS reports that the Science Division of the WH Office of Technology is now completely unstaffed.
July 2nd —
Trump tweets video of himself body slamming and punching WWE CEO Vince McMahon into a stupor — only edited with the CNN logo covering McMahon’s face which has been posted on Reddit 4 days about by yet another neo-Nazi whose online name is literally HanAssholeSolo. CNN takes it as a literal physical threat. WH laughs saying “you guys can never take a joke.” Kathy Griffin is not consulted on the “Funny Ha Ha” of the thing.
DOJ Corporate Fraud expert quits in disgust because doing her job is simply “not possible under Trump.”
All discussion of the Tait’s revelation about being recruited to review Clinton emails obtained from Russia to provide to Michael Flynn or Trump’s ongoing assault on health care recedes.
July 3rd —
Reporter Jared Yates Sexton who discovered ID of Reddit user “HanAssholeSolo” who created anti-CNN video, begins receiving “gory” death threats and insults from other Alt-Right Neo-Nazis.
David Duke chimes in and justifies threats against “Journalistic terrorists”arguing the press has endorsed violence against him for the last 50 years..
Katrina Peirson claims “By the very nature of being President of the United States, it makes his actions presidential whether you like it or not.”
Former Ted Cruz spokesperson Amanda Carpenter argues the president’s attacks on the press “essentially [hands] a weapon to some of our enemies.”
Trump biographer Tim O’Brien says his tweets aren’t some grand distraction because he’s “not smart enough for that.”
Melania says Mika Brzezski “doesn’t know me” in response to her comments on their feud with Trump to InStyle Magazine.
House Dems back bill that could invoke the 25th Amendment removing Trump if he is found mentally or physically unfit for office.
July 4th —
Florida head of the NAACP found a Confederate flag on her lawn after receiving a series of late-night death threats from callers claiming ties to the Ku Klux Klan.
Trump plans for full “Bilateral” meeting with Putin during G20 Summit, Tillerson plans to do “cleanup” meeting in Ukraine hours later.
41 States refuse to provide information to Kris Kobach’s Voter Suppression commission — and some members begins to quit.
Germany’s Angela Merkel no longer describes America under Trump as “a friend.”
July 5th —
Jack Prosoblec A Pro-Trump activist with White House access releases the phone numbers and home addresses of multiple CNN personalities and their families.
Neo-Nazi hackers then begin to contact the families & parents of various CNN anchors and reporters, including those of Andrew Kaczinski who wrote the HanAssholeSolo story and threaten their lives.
HanAssholeSolo apologizes and promises not to produce more racist memes, Ted Cruz accuses CNN of extortion when they later publish an article about his apology while reserving the right to reveal his ID if he reneges on his promise, Some Trumpers scream “blackmail” but CNN counters that they haven’t published his ID, they won’t since he’s a private citizen and he goes on to contact CNN himself and says “he wasn’t threatened”
Fox contributor Tammy Bruce defends HanAssholeSolo right to be an ******* and criticizes CNN “(He) made this meme that the president picked up, and they decided that they could get their pound of flesh from this individual.”
Don Jr. complains “It was only a matter of time” when CNN reports the Anti-Defamation League statement that the anti-CNN meme may be racist and anti-semitic, claiming they’re “Bullying a 15 year old”, but CNN having found his Facebook page counters that claim “He’s not 15.”
Jr. continues “If only @CNN spent as much time tracking down info on IRS targeting, Fast & Furious, Iran deal etc as they did a meme writer! #CNNBlackmail” but there aren’t any outstanding questions on any of those issues, except for Wingnut conspiracies about them.
Trump supports AT&T/Time Warner deal which some see as a way for him to gain leverage over CNN.
Investigators are looking into scores of Easter European Pro-Trump websites which popped up before the election and published dozens of co-ordinated fake anti-Clinton reports.
July 6th —
Trump supporter charged with criminal mischief for writing “False Flag” graffiti at an Elementary School. [Responding officers found “Kill Trump,” “Left is the best,” “Bernie Sanders 2020” and “Death to Trump” written on a sign in the playground.]
While in Warsaw, Poland for the G20 summit Trump again says “Nobody really knows” who hacked the 2016 election. “I think it was Russia. But I think it was probably other people and/or countries, and I see nothing wrong with that statement. Nobody really knows. Nobody really knows for sure,” Trump said. He argues that “Obama did nothing” and that Bush went to war in Iraq over WMD’s and “was wrong.”
Trump also says that CNN took his wresting video too seriously. “CNN has really taken (the video) too seriously and I think they’ve hurt themselves very badly, very very badly.”
Rep. Adam Schiff blasts Trump’s comments. “The President’s comments today, again casting doubt on whether Russia was behind the blatant interference in our election and suggesting ... that nobody really knows, continue to directly undermine U.S. interests,”
CREW asks the Office of Government Ethics to investigate Kushner’s failure to disclose “his ownership interest in an online real estate investment company called Cadre” in his public financial disclosure.
On Fox and Friend Eric Trump bashes the media saying the DOW and S&P are at the highest level ever but all the media talks about is whether Trump colluded with Russia to meddle in the elections. ”I mean, we’re thriving as a nation. Everybody wants to get focused on nonsense. On garbage. On distractions.”
Walter Schraub head of the Office of Government Ethics who had been a highly vocal critical of Trump’s lack of divestiture from his private businesses abruptly resigns effective July 19th.
Rachel Maddow reports that her show had been sent a faked NSA Document which claimed proof that a specific member of the Trump Campaign had been colluding with Russians. This forged document appears to have been an attempt to discredit her program with planted Fake News which could be easily debunked at a later date.
Right wing editorials slam CNN for suggesting they might reveal the identity of HanAssholeSolo claiming that it’s “Blackmail” in exchange for his not generating racists, violent memes anymore, which pretty much establishes that yet again the Rightwing (Hearts) Racism & Sexism.
July 7th —
Trump meets Putin privately for two hours in Warsaw during the G20.
Putin says he “didn’t hack our election” and Trump believes him according to Lavrov, but Tillerson disagrees.
According to Lavrov, “Trump told Putin that some circles in the US are exaggerating the topic of Russian cyber meddling.”
Tillerson claimed he sent Melania into the meeting to break it up after first hour, but they just kept talking for another hour.
Donald Trump agreed to form a joint task force with the Russians to address cyber security, which is a bit like the bank inviting the thieves in to look around and hang out.
They don’t reach an agreement on how to handle North Korean’s increasingly aggressive missile and nuclear program.
They do reach an agreement on a cease fire in southern Syria.
They talk for so long both of them skip out of the Climate Change/Energy meeting.
California Govorner Jerry Brown shows up at G20 and shreds Trump at climate meeting he skipped. “(Trump) doesn’t speak for the rest of America”
Trump tweets that Podesta didn’t let FBI have the DNC server when Podesta actually didn’t have any jurisdiction over anything the DNC did or didn’t do. Podesta hits back with “Get a Grip Man.”
Trump State Dept grants Visas to 150 Russian Spies.
Ivanka temporarily sits in Trump’s place at one G20 summit table, the internet goes nuts.
July 8th —
NyTimes reveals the secret June 9, 2016 meeting between Don Jr., Manafort and Kushner with a prominent Russia lawyer who is known for being an agent of the Russian government. Supposedly they discuss the U.S. adoption of Russian children which had been suspended by Putin after the passage of the Magnitsky Act blacklisting Russian’s with Human Rights violations.
Donald Jr. tweets an edited video of Top Gun footage that shows Trump shooting down planes marked with CNN and says it’s “One of the best I’ve seen.”
Wapo reports that Russian hackers had accessed networks for American Nuclear and Energy companies.
While flying back from the G20 on Air Force One WH staffers begin to craft an “accurate” statement of response to the Time report about Junior and Veselniskaya, Trump himself intervenes and dictates a false story for them to release that the meeting was primarily about “Adoption”. Jared who later claims he was only at the meeting long enough to hear about the adoption portion and had left early before the Magnitski act came up is present on AF1 at this time, Junior isn’t.
July 9th —
Instead of a post summit Press Conference Trump has a tweet-gasm…
Claiming he accepted Putin’s denial of being involved in the election hacks.
He wants to partner with Russia on Cyber Security concerns
He again attacks the DNC for not letting the FBI (and he includes the CIA for some reason) have their email server even though they really didn’t need it.
And also attacks Obama for doing “nothing” about the hacks [that is besides getting in Putin’s face, shoring up our cyber defenses, informing congress, having DHS and the DNI announce that we’d been attacked and devising a new set of sanctions as well as kicking out 35 spies out and takin over 2 Russian compounds]
Kasowitz files motion to dismiss a sexual harassment and defamation suit from a former “Apprentice” contestant against Trump arguing he now has “immunity” and that his comments insulting his various accusers were simply “Free Speech”
Russia expert and investigative reporter Michael Weiss argues that doing a cyber security unit with Putin is like “having an arsonist in charge of the fire brigade.” Fox and Fools says the idea is “actually Genius.” Social media suggests El Chapo and Charles Manson as next members of this crack Cyber Security Unit.
Some GOP Senators coming back from july 4th recess say that Trumpcare is probably dead. McConnell hints that he may attempt to work with Democrats to strengthen the ACA individual market and exchanges.
The NYTimes reports that Donald Jr. was offered damaging information on Hillary Clinton before attending a meeting with a Kremlin-linked Russian Lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya last June with Manafort and Kushner, but they do not confirm that she actually delivered this information during the meeting. [If that information was provided and it originated as a result of Russian cyber-espionage — we have Collusion Sign once again, particularly if it was offered in exchange for a repeal of the Magnitsky act which sanctions Russian individuals for Human Rights violations.’]
Trump’s legal team says he “was unaware and did not attend” the meeting with Veselnitskaya.
Bush ethics lawyer Richard Painter says Don Jr & Kushner’s actions in attending the Veselnitskaya meeting to get opposition research on Clinton “border on Treason.” Also, potentially, the Logan Act again.
Outgoing Ethics Chief Walter Shaub notes that part of why he’s leaving his post early is that while attempting to do his job he got nothing but stonewalling and even a “explicit threat” from Reince Preibus.
Trump begins his tweet walkback on the Cyber Security Unit: “The fact that President Putin and I discussed a Cyber Security unit doesn't mean I think it can happen. It can't-but a ceasefire can,& did!” [Uh, what?]
July 10th —
Don Jr. issues a statement — changing his previous claims that there were “No meetings”, and his second claim that it was about “adoptions” — that he went to this meeting because he was asked by a friend he’d met during the Moscow Miss Universe pageant in 2013 and admits he went because of he promise of “helpful information”. He didn’t know Veselnitskaya previously, she talked about Russians funding the DNC (which would be illegal) in order to help Hillary Clinton but her claims were “vague and made no sense” and after discussing Russian adoption and the Magnitski act he ended the meeting after 20 mins because Trump wasn’t public official yet [which avoids a Logan Act violation].
Common Cause files a complaint about Don Jr. “Solicitiing a contribution from a foreign national” with the FEC.
Junior goes on to repeatedly like tweets that say he attended the meeting to get “dirt” on Clinton which doesn’t help his case at all.
Brit Hume insist “Don Jr. was tricked by a Russian bait and switch” but there’s no evidence of collusion. [Yeah, except that he jumped at the bait until he decided it was worthless and not harmful enough to Clinton which was kinda collusion-ish.]
Kellyanne goes on George Stephanapoulos and gets caught in her previous statements that there were “no contacts or meetings” with Russians. George asks “Who misled you?” on the details of these meetings.
Kellyanne also talks to Chris Cuomo and whines endlessness that CNN doesn’t give Trump any positive coverage — although they do. [I mean, not all day long for 10 hours straight on show after show, but they mention the other stuff sometimes.] She tries to do an infomercial about “Trump the Great” on VA reform, the Opiod crisis and Infrastructure, Cuomo counters that Don Jr.’s statement is an admission that Russians were trying to ingratiate themselves into the Trump campaign, whether they succeeded that particular time is besides the point [And they apparently did succeed later with multiple undisclosed Kushner/Flynn meetings with Kislyak and others.) “Don Jr. changed his story twice, that’s what matters” Cuomo says. She keeps whining for more positive coverage “Your panelists roll their eyes and furrow their brows, they need to be more balanced” as if they don’t have Jeffrey Lord, Jason Miller, Jack Kingston, Rick Santorum and other Pro-Trump sycophants on every day. He says “You rally people to attack the press and our families” which they have.
Keith Olbermann pulls up an old Trump tweet that he says shows Trump knew Manafort and Don Jr. meet with Veselnitskaya because later that day was the first time he said “33,000 of Hillary’s emails were missing.”
FBI says about half (4 of 7) of Comey’s memos contain sensitive or confidential information indicating his sharing some of them with Senate investigators may be problematic even though he testified that he created all the memos as “Unclassified”, this means that he is now suffering from the same after-the-fact “up classification” problem that plagued Hillary Clinton and her emails. Ironic.
Trump retweets a Fox and Friends segment that claims Comey revealed classified information to the media in his memos, when in fact the media doesn’t even have his memos, Mueller does. Senate intel had only reached an agreement to see them just last week and hasn’t fully reviewed them yet.
Rep. Schiff say House Intel wants to question Don Jr. as does Sen. Susan Collins who wants him to talk to the Senate Intel committee. Donnie tweets he’ll be happy to talk to Senate Intel.
Congressional staffers tell the Daily Beast that Treasury officials have attempted to water down the Senate’s New Sanctions Bill against Russia. Tillerson supposedly argued it would “handicap their desire to repair the relationship between the two nations.”
After Trump tweets that if Chelsea Clinton had been a place holder for her mother as Ivanka had been for him at the G20 the “Fake media would have said Chelsea for Prez” — during an audio only briefing a WH reporters asks Huckabee-Sanders when he’ll finally put “Bill and Hillary in the rear view mirror?”
Chelsea hits back saying her Father and Mother “Never would have asked her” to do such a thing and never have.
Former watergate assistant prosecutor Nick Akerman echoes Richard Painter’s call that Don Jr. actions may have “betrayed the United States” and could be considered “Treason.”
Former CIA spy Lindsay Moran says that she has seen the Russian government use these kinds of tactics in the past on American citizens, “Legality aside, this is Russian intelligence tactics at their best,” she said. “Let’s promise Trump Jr. something that he wants, lure him in, bait and switch. It doesn’t matter whether they talked about nefarious activities with him at the meeting — the whole thing is nefarious.”
Don Jr. sarcastically tweets admitting he went to get the opposition research info on Clinton that he’s “the first campaign rep to have a meeting to get information on an opponent” {Yes, he would be for information From Russia!!’]
Then Don Jr. lawyers up. His new attorney is best known for defending the Mafia.
On CNN Jennifer Taub of the Vermont Law School says that “A campaign taking anything of value from a foreign national” is a crime, and even attempting to do so by going to the meeting would be “conspiracy” to violate campaign finance laws. A Trump friendly former U.S. attorney disagrees, but then this wouldn’t be an issue under the DOJ, it would be under the FEC.
The Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) prohibits any foreign national from contributing, donating or spending funds in connection with any federal, state, or local election in the United States, either directly or indirectly. It is also unlawful to help foreign nationals violate that ban or to solicit, receive or accept contributions or donations from them. Persons who knowingly and willfully engage in these activities may be subject to fines and/or imprisonment.
Sen. Mark Warner the ranking Democrat on the Intel Committee does a press conference and says “This isn’t the first time the public has seen clear evidence of an attempt by the Trump campaign to obtain information from Russia against the Clinton campaign. It’s a continuing pattern.” He also points out the Jared Kushner has already had to amend his security clearance forms twice because he keep “forgetting” to include meetings like this with Russians.
Iraq declares victory over ISIS in Mosul.
Sen. Chuck Schumer calls on Trump and Don Jr. to “Stop Lying.”
Maggie Haberman at the NYTimes reports that the initial email to Don Jr. about meeting Veselnitskaya noted that the information came from the Russian Government, which pretty much blows up all the Trump denials that they never “colluded” with Russia, since they obviously went to the meeting knowing that it was info against Clinton that came from the Kremlin. What he should have done when he got that email was go straight to the FBI, but he didn’t.
July 11th —
Don Jr. releases his emails with Rob Goldstone, pre-empting another New York Times report on them. They completely confirm Haberman’s previous report that they were told Veselnitskaya was a “Government Lawyer” from Russia and the information was provided by the “Crown Prosecutor” of Russia because the Russian Government “wanted to help Trump.”
Veselnitskaya talks to NBC and denies she ever worked for the Russian government or tried to tell Trump Jr. anything about Clinton but that “they wanted it very badly.”
Harvard Law Prof Laurence Tribe says ““We now have the proverbial smoking gun: TJr was part of criminal conspiracy to violate fed crim laws banning foreign aid to any US campaign,”
Jared Yates Sexton who’d’ been working on this story for a year concurs with Tribe: “This is the dumbest and biggest crime in the history of American politics. There's not even a close second.”
Trump priases his son’s transparency. “My son is a high quality person.”’
Huckabee-Sanders stonewalls all questions about Trump jr. during an audio-only press conference, referring questions about him to his lawyer, but she still stands by the “no one colluded” claim she made the previous day.
Reports surface that some WH aides are considering lawyering up.
Rep. Marsha Blackburn says “Maybe Trump Jr. was duped.”
Ted Cruz blames all this Russia stuff on “Barack Obama.”
Fox News tries to spin Don Jr. email dump — then gives up on it when they get to the part where Jr. responds ‘If it’s what you say, I love it.’” when he reads that the Russian government wants to provide Trump information against Clinton in order to help their campaign.
Fox and Friends retracts their claim that Comey shared Top Secret information with the Press. “We were mistaken.”
Politico reports that Peter W. Smith’s attempts to gain access to Hillary’s emails involved a White Supremacist who had been banned from Twitter for his racism.
Julian Assange admits that he tried to give Don jr. advise to publish his emails through Wikileaks.
Some on the media argue that the leaks on Don Jr’s emails are coming from Steve Bannon in order to protect Kushner.
Wapo reports that GOP operatives close to Trump are building a “discredit team” to smear reporters.
Daily Beast reports that Bill Browder will testify before Senate Judiciary on how Veselnitskaya is linked to the GRU, FSB and efforts to lower the Magnitski Act sanctions.
joe Scarborough announces on Colbert that he’s leaving the Republican party to become and Independent.
CNN report Special Counsel Bob Mueller was unaware of Juniors meeting with Veselniskaya, but will now be investigating.
July 12th —
The intercept reports that Trump is still the principle on many of his businesses despite his claims to have handed over control to his family. [Liar, Liar, super long tie on fire.]
Rep Brad Sherman (D-CA) and Al Green (D-TX) file articles of Impeachment against Trump over his handling of the firing of James Comey.
Sen Franken rips defense of Donald Jr. to shreds during confirmation hearing for FBI director nominee Christopher Wray in response to a claim by Lindsey Graham that the Ukraine tried to give information to Hillary Clinton’s campaign. [Although this wasn’t the Ukrainian government sending an operative to reach out to Clinton, it was an effort to gather information on Paul Manafort by DNC consultant Alexandra Chalupa who is Ukrainian-American. That’s oppo research due diligence by an American, not a foreign government trying to interfere with a U.S. election.]
Sen Graham asks Wray if Mueller is on a “Witch Hunt” — he says “Director Mueller is not on a Witch Hunt.” He also says “Any threat or promise to help a campaign by a foreign government, the FBI would want to know.”
Senate Judiciary Chair Grassley prepares to call Manafort to testify.
Rep. Steve King threatens to re-open investigation of 65k emails of Anthony Weiner, Comey’s “activities” and Hillary’s emails if Democrats don't stop talking about Trump and Russia. [Go for it, punk!]
Emin Agalarov’s attorney Scott Balber gets smashed on live TV by Chris Cuomo over Emin's promoter Rob Goldstone “Do you know him to a a pathological liar?” and his attempt to give Don Jr. negative information on Hillary: Balber says it’s “Simply fiction that this was an attempt by the Russian government to reach Trump through having his son’s pop music publicist, the prosecutor never talked to his father.” Cuomo says about Goldstone’s claim: “That is some doozy of a lie.”
Cuomo also takes on Sekulow over Don Jr. and tells him “You have no facts!”
McClatchy reports that House, Senate and DOJ investigators are looking at whether the Russian cyberbot and Troll program to spread fake news about Hillary as reported by Time was coordinated using Jared Kushner voter micro-targeting system with Cambridge Analytics. Former Pentagon expert on Russia Mike Carpenter states ““There appears to have been significant cooperation between Russia’s online propaganda machine and individuals in the United States who were knowledgeable about where to target the disinformation,” he said, without naming any American suspects.
Democratic party donors and some staff have sued the Trump campaign and Roger Stone for conspiring to publicly release their private information through the dumping of data stolen from the DNC by Russian hackers through DCLeaks and Wikileaks. The suit doesn’t contain any hard evidence of conspiracy but it does seek to depose witnesses and do discovery of Trump campaign emails.
WSJ reports that US intel is reviewing intercepts they captured in 2015 before his run for the President of Russian intel personnel discussing contacts with Trump associates.
DOJ misses a court ordered deadline to provide all of Jeff Sessions foreign contacts.
Trump tells Pat Roberson that Putin “wanted Clinton to win because of the Military and Energy.” He doesn’t mention sanctions, human rights, Crimea, Ukraine, NATO or the EU.
During a Reuters interview Trump says he didn’t know about Junior meeting Veselnitskaya and argues “most people would have taken that meeting.” [Uh, nope.]
July 13th —
NyTimes reports that Kushner has updated his security forms for foreign contacts 3 times and added more than 100 new names to the list.
Republican Rep. Bill Flores says that Trump should get his kids, including Kushner, out of the White House.
DOJ delivers Sessions foreign contact list a day late and short of details.
Asked about Trump Jr’s meeting and his FBI director nominee’s claim that anyone in that situation “should contact the FBI” while in France for Bastille Day Trump echoes his own false story that he previous dictated for Junior on AF1 says “most people would have taken that meeting”, “nothing happened, they talked about adoptions which wasn’t part of the campaign” and claims she wasn’t a “Government Lawyer” even though Junior was specifically told that she was and this was part of the Russian government’s effort to help his campaign, he ignores FEC rules over foreign “gifts and contributions” then he blames Veselnitskaya even being in the country on Loretta Lynch (ignoring that her Visa was approved by the State Dept, not DOJ, because she was a Denys Katsyv’s defense attorney while he was being sued under the Magnitski Act)
Chuck Grassley sends Junior a letter requesting he testify before Senate Judiciary.
After first saying he’d only just heard of the Veselnitskaya meeting 2 days ago Trump changes his tune later in the day, telling reporters on Air Force One: “In fact maybe it was mentioned at some point,” This statement was supposed to be off the record, but Trump changed and put it on the record.
Chicago Tribune reports that GOP Donor and operative Peter W. Smith who had tried to acquire Hillary’s emails for Michael Flynn committed suicide 10 days after talking to WSJ.
Yahoo News reports that Trump’s attorneys were informed about the meeting 3 weeks ago after the emails referring to it were discovered by Kushner’s lawyers who then updated his SF-86 form.
Senate Intel member James Lankford (R-OK) reveals that Kushners attendance at the Veselnitskaya meetings was known as far back as April, when he updated his background check forms.
Kushner explodes with WH Press staff saying that instead of letting Trump and Juniors lawyers respond to these issues they need to aggressively defend Don Jr. and have two staffers ready to “attack the Chyrons”on Cable News shows and have op-eds written for the NYtimes and WSJ. Some reports are that Spicey has begun complaining about Kush and still others say these conversations just didn’t happen. [Yeah, alrighty.]
Kasowitz blows his stack at an email critic: “I’m on you now. You are ******* with me now. Let’s see who you are. Watch your back, *****.” Charming.
TPM reports that Trump Deputy Sebastian Gorka is a Nazi Worshipper, cuz of course he is.
Many reporters note that there are references to a phone call between Don Jr. and Emin in the emails chain, and also that Goldstone’s mention of the Russian governments efforts to help Trump seem nonchalant as if that was an already known fact to Don Jr.
Michael Isakoff reveals on CNN that he had interviewed Rob Goldstone and learned that the Trump’s and Agalarov’s had a deal for a new Trump Tower in 2013 that went sideways in 2014 when Obama placed sanctions on Russia for their invasion of Crimea.
Glenn Simpson co-owner of the firm Fusion GPS which had employed Christopher Steel while he compiled his dossier on Trump declines an invitation to testify before Senate Judiciary.
July 14 —
Harvard Law Prof Laurence Tribe says ““We now have the proverbial smoking gun: TJr was part of criminal conspiracy to violate fed crim laws banning foreign aid to any US campaign,”
Jared Yates Sexton who’d’ been working on this story for a year concurs with Tribe: “This is the dumbest and biggest crime in the history of American politics. There's not even a close second.”
Trump priases his son’s transparency. “My son is a high quality person.”’
Huckabee-Sanders stonewalls all questions about Trump jr. during an audio-only press conference, referring questions about him to his lawyer, but she still stands by the “no one colluded” claim she made the previous day.
Reports surface that some WH aides are considering lawyering up.
Rep. Marsha Blackburn says “Maybe Trump Jr. was duped.” Hm, ya think?
Ted Cruz blames all this Russia stuff on “Barack Obama.”
Fox News tries to spin Don Jr. email dump — then gives up on it when they get to the part where Jr. responds ‘If it’s what you say, I love it.’” when he reads that the Russian government wants to provide Trump information against Clinton in order to help their campaign.
Fox and Friends retracts their claim that Comey shared Top Secret information with the Press. “We were mistaken.” [No ****, Sherlock.]
Politico reports that Peter W. Smith’s attempts to gain access to Hillary’s emails involved a White Supremacist who had been banned from Twitter for his racism.
Julian Assange admits that he tried to give Don jr. advise to publish his emails through Wikileaks.
Some on the media argue that the leaks on Don Jr’s emails are coming from Steve Bannon in order to protect Kushner.
Wapo reports that GOP operatives close to Trump are building a “discredit team” to smear reporters.
Daily Beast reports that Bill Browder will testify before Senate Judiciary on how Veselnitskaya is linked to the GRU, FSB and efforts to lower the Magnitski Act sanctions.
William Browder, an American financier who has investigated Russian corruption for more than a decade, will brief the Senate Judiciary Committeeat a hearing next week on the lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya’s ties to the Russian government—including to former top members of the GRU and the FSB, two of the Kremlin’s main intelligence agencies. Those ties were spelled out in documents that Browder shared with the committee and provided to The Daily Beast this week.
joe Scarborough announces on Colbert that he’s leaving the Republican party to become and Independent.
CNN reports Special Counsel Bob Mueller was unaware of Juniors meeting with Veselniskaya, but will now be investigating. [Ruh Roh!]
The intercept reports that Trump is still the principle on many of his businesses despite his claims to have handed over control to his family. [Liar, Liar, super long tie on fire.]
Rep Brad Sherman (D-CA) and Al Green (D-TX) file articles of Impeachment against Trump over his handling of the firing of James Comey.
Sen Franken rips defense of Donald Jr. to shreds during confirmation hearing for FBI director nominee Christopher Wray in response to a claim by Lindsey Graham that the Ukraine tried to give information to Hillary Clinton’s campaign. [Although this wasn’t the Ukrainian government sending an operative to reach out to Clinton, it was an effort to gather information on Paul Manafort by DNC consultant Alexandra Chalupa who is Ukrainian-American. That’s oppo research due diligence by an American, not a foreign government trying to interfere with a U.S. election.]
Sen Graham ask Wray if Mueller is on a “Witch Hunt” — he say “Director Mueller is not on a Witch Hunt.” He also says “Any threat or promise to help a campaign by a foreign government, the FBI would want to know.”
Senate Judiciary Chair Grassley prepares to call Manafort to testify.
Rep. Steve King threatens to re-open investigation of 65k emails of Anthony Weiner, Comey’s “activities” and Hillary’s emails if Democrats don't stop talking about Trump and Russia. [Go for it, punk!]
Emin Agalarov’s attorney Scott Balber gets smashed on live TV by Chris Cuomo over Emin's promoter Rob Goldstone “Do you know him to a a pathological liar?” and his attempt to give Don Jr. negative information on Hillary: Balber says it’s “Simply fiction that this was an attempt by the Russian government to reach Trump through having his son’s pop music publicist, the prosecutor never talked to his father.” Cuomo says about Goldstone’s claim: “That is some doozy of a lie.”
Cuomo also takes on Sekulow over Don Jr. and tells him “You have no facts!”
McClatchy reports that House, Senate and DOJ investigators are looking at whether the Russian cyberbot and Troll program to spread fake news about Hillary as reported by Time was coordinated using Jared Kushner voter micro-targeting system with Cambridge Analytics. Former Pentagon expert on Russia Mike Carpenter states ““There appears to have been significant cooperation between Russia’s online propaganda machine and individuals in the United States who were knowledgeable about where to target the disinformation,” he said, without naming any American suspects.
Democratic party donors and some staff have sued the Trump campaign and Roger Stone for conspiring to publicly release their private information through the dumping of data stolen from the DNC by Russian hackers through DCLeaks and Wikileaks. The suit doesn’t contain any hard evidence of conspiracy but it does seek to depose witnesses and do discovery of Trump campaign emails.
WSJ reports that US intel is reviewing intercepts they captured in 2015 of Russian intel personnel discussing contacts with Trump associates.
DOJ misses a court ordered deadline to provide all of Jeff Sessions foreign contacts.
Trump tells Pat Roberson that Putin “wanted Clinton to win because of the Military and Energy.” He doesn’t mention sanctions, human rights, Crimea, Ukraine, NATO or the EU.
During a Reuters interview Trump says he didn’t know about Junior meeting Veselnitskaya and argues “most people would have taken that meeting.” [Uh, nope.]
NyTimes reports that Kushner has updated his security forms for foreign contacts 3 times and added more than 100 new names to the list.
Republican Rep. Bill Flores says that Trump should get his kids, including Kushner, out of the White House.
DOJ delivers Sessions foreign contact list a day late and short of details. He continues to claim that Foreign contacts he made as a member of the Senate are not relevant and are therefore redacted, but that’s not an option available on the form.
Asked about Trump Jr’s meeting and his FBI director nominee’s claim that anyone in that situation “should contact the FBI” while in France for Bastille Day Trump says again repeating the false statement he himself helped craft on AF1 that “most people would have taken that meeting”, “nothing happened, they talked about adoptions which wasn’t part of the campaign” and claims she wasn’t a “Government Lawyer” even though Junior was specifically told that she was and this was part of the Russian government’s effort to help his campaign, he ignores FEC rules over foreign “gifts and contributions” then he blames Veselnitskaya even being in the country on Loretta Lynch (ignoring that her Visa was approved by the State Dept, not DOJ, because she was a Denys Katsyv’s defense attorney while he was being sued under the Magnitski Act)
Chuck Grassley sends Junior a letter requesting he testify before Senate Judiciary.
After first saying he’d only just heard of the Veselnitskaya meeting 2 days ago Trump changes his tune later in the day, telling reporters on Air Force One: “In fact maybe it was mentioned at some point,” This statement was supposed to be off the record, but Trump changed and put it on the record.
Chicago Tribune reports that GOP Donor and operative Peter W. Smith who had tried to acquire Hillary’s emails for Michael Flynn committed suicide 10 days after talking to WSJ.
Yahoo News reports that Trump’s attorneys were informed about the meeting 3 weeks ago after the emails referring to it were discovered by Kushner’s lawyers who then updated his SF-86 form.
Senate Intel member James Lankford (R-OK) reveals that Kushners attendance at the Veselnitskaya meetings was known as far back as April, when he updated his background check forms.
Kushner explodes with WH Press staff saying that instead of letting Trump and Juniors lawyers respond to these issues they need to aggressively defend Don Jr. and have two staffers ready to “attack the Chyrons” on Cable News shows and have op-eds written for the NYtimes and WSJ. Some reports are that Spicey has begun complaining about Kush and still others say these conversations just didn’t happen. [Yeah, alrighty.]
Kasowitz blows his stack at an email critic: “I’m on you now. You are ******* with me now. Let’s see who you are. Watch your back, *****.” Charming.
TPM reports that Trump Deputy Sebastian Gorka is a Nazi Worshipper, cuz of course he is.
Many reporters note that there are references to a phone call between Don Jr. and Emin in the emails chain, and also that Goldstone’s mention of the Russian governments efforts to help Trump seem nonchalant as if that was an already known fact to Don Jr.
Michael Isakoff reveals that he had interviewed Rob Goldstone and learned that the Trump’s and Agalarov’s had a deal for a new Trump Tower in 2013 that went sideways in 2014 when Obama placed sanctions on Russia for their invasion of Crimea.
Daily Beast reports that in addition to the “translator” who came with Veselnitskaya to the meeting with Don Jr. there was Rinat Akhmetshin a former Russian Intelligence officer and lobbyist who had previously been accused of being involved in an international hacking scheme.
On Fox both Lou Hobbs while appearing on Hannity and Jesse Waters accuse the “deep state” and “left wing” media of attempting a “coup d’etat” against Trump to undermine American values and “break the will of the people” even though the actual majority of the people voted against Trump.
Loretta Lynch denies she had any personal involvement or knowledge of Veselnitskaya’s Visa status, and she shouldn’t because that wasn’t. her. job. the State Dept. under John Kerry handled Visas at that time and her’s was approved at least as far back as 2013 when Bharara first issued his Magnitski suit against the Prevezon Holdings.
GOP strategist Rick Wllson says “Only Trump’s hypnotized base believes his Bullshit Tornado about Russia.” [Yep, pretty much.’]
Trump digital media expert Brad Pascale issues a statement in response to House and Senate intel requests to speak to him that he has ‘no knowledge of Russian involvement” in the online campaign he put together with Cambridge-Analytica.
Rep.Adam Schiff calls for everyone from the Veselnitskaya meeting to testify to the House Intel. [Which is now at 8 people and counting...]
The New Republic publishes an extensive story on TrumpCos long history of being involved in money laundering with Russian mobsters going all the way back to 1987.
Former Trump communications aid Michael Caputo agrees with CNN that the Trump Campaign was too much of a ‘**** Show” to have been able to effectively coordinate with the Russians. [Do Tell.]
Caputo testifies behind closed doors to House Intel, claims he saw no links to discussions of Russia, that little old ladies used to bring them “dog-eared papers” on Clinton, and condemns Rep. Jackie Spieres for linking him to Russia saying that it caused his wife and family to receive death threats, and that someone threatened to burn his house down. “The Rhetoric is going to get someone killed and I don’t want to be the next one shot” which is pretty ironic since Jackie Spiere’s was shot 5 times while she was a staffer for Rep. Leo Ryan when he was killed near the Jim Jones compound in Guyana.
Akhmetshin claims he has never worked for Russian intelligence or the GRU, his simply served 2 years in the Russian army before immigrating to the U.S. and becoming a citizen and working as a lobbyist, but says that Veselnitskaya brought a plastic folder with documents showing the DNC accepting funds from Russia to the meeting. All this despite a letter written from Sen. Grassley to SecDEf Kelly about Akhmetshin being and “unregistered” lobbyist who had previously experience as an “active measures expert” with the GRU.
Veselnitskaya admits that she is a former prosecutor and is in regular contact with the Prosecutor General of Russia Yuri Chaika, who is controversial for trumping up bogus charges against Putin’s enemies and having them tortured and killed in prisonthe same way the Sergei Magnitski was killed.
Kushner Lawyer Jamie Gorelick is reported by Politico to be backing out of Kushner’s issues with Mueller and leaving everything to Abbie Lowell
July 15th —
WH announces “Made In America Week” but has no answer when asked if that means that Ivanka’s clothing line which is made overseas will be moving their manufacturing to the U.S. The WaPo then pointed out that Trump branded products are made in at least a dozen countries.
The Hill reports that there were 150,000 hack attempts were made against South Carolina’s voter registration system, indications are that they were not successful.
Secret Service smacks down Sekolow — “That meeting was never cleared with us.”
Trump’s lawyer Sekolow blames the Veselnitskaya/Akhmetshin meeting on the Secret Service even though no one who was a protectee at that time was in the meeting. He also claims he and Trump weren’t involved in the crafting of Don Jr’s initial and false statements about the meeting, but that is a lie since Trump dictated and approved it from AF1.
Daily Beast reports that Don Jr.’s lawyer Alan Futerfas had been paid $50,000 by the Trump re-election campaign 11 days before the first report about his Veselnitskaya meeting. Furteras is best known for having been the attorney for all four of New York’s most notorious organized crime families.
July 16th —
Trump whines on Twitter about all the attention on Don Jr’s meeting and accuses Hillary of “illegally” deleting emails even after the FBI said it wasn’t illegal, and his own companies have repeated deleted emails and documents under court order, and getting debate questions ahead of time which also isn’t illegal particularly when Clinton wasn’t even asked the same questions that were wrongfully forwarded to her meanwhile he was warned about Meghan Kelly’s first debate question and had threatened her not to ask it or else his twitter followers would come after her, which they did.
July 17th —
Spicer proclaims that there was nothing in Juniors email that shows the meeting wasn’t about Abortion and the Magnitski Act [which he mis-pronounces as “Maginski Act”] — except everything Junior released five days ago and also what Trump said on Bastille day and tweeted about admiring that it was about obtaining “Oppo research.”
CNN talks to Junior’s Lawyer Futerfas and he says he talked to the 8th man in the meeting who was a rep for the Agalarov Family, even though their lawyers Scott Balber says they basically had nothing to do with anything, This person confirms that the meeting started off being about Russia giving money to the DNC, but he doesn’t confirm that a 2 page document was left behind by Veselnitskaya for Junior.
The Senate Trumpcare Bill coughs and dies as 2 more Repub Senators come out against it dropping them to 48 votes. Trump calls for a full repeal of O-care with a two year delay for them to “figure something out” also known as magically skipping over the 2018 midterm elections.
Fox’s Judge Anthony Napolitano who was the primary source of Trump’s bogus “Obama Wiretapped Trump Tower using GCHQ” claim, comes out and says that Junior probably broke the law. “Because it is suspicious that they met with these people, that they didn’t consult a lawyer, that one of these people was a former KGB, GRU, that’s the Russian intelligence arm, Russian military intelligence arm, and didn’t tell anybody about it.” [Yeah, ya think?’’]
WSJ Editoral “Eviscerates” Trump over the entire Russia scandal saying “Mr. Trump and his family are repeating the mistakes that doomed Mrs. Clinton.Don Jr. released his emails that showed the Russian lure about Mrs. Clinton and Don Jr. all excited—’I love it.’ Oh, and son-in-law Jared Kushner and Beltway bagman Paul Manafort were also at the meeting. Don Jr. told Sean Hannity this was the full story,” they continued. “But then news leaked that a Russian-American lobbyist was also at the meeting.”
July 18th —
The 8th man finally appears and is revealed to be a naturalized Russian-American, Ike Kaveladze, working in the U.S. for a Russian real estate company owned by the Agalarov’s who is represented by Emin’s Lawyer Scott Balber. Balber says he was there to act as a translator, but that Veselnitskaya brought her own translator (person #7) and that he’d been contacted by Mueller’s office about the ID of the 8th man. Congress and the GAO had previously investigated Kaveladze as a “foreigner creating shell companies” exactly like the types of money laundering schemes that have been used by the Russian Mob and Intel services.
Trumpcare finally implodes as more Republican Senator balk at their bullshit plan. Trump whines and blames Democrats for not helping destroy healthcare for 22-23 Million people even though the entire point of using the reconciliation process was to avoid needing any Dem votes. He says he’s now “let Obamacare fail” while in fact he’s already been sabotaging it by messing with cost sharing reductions and driving providers out of the marketplace.
Mueller ok’s the Senate Judiciary committees to talk to Junior and Manafort in an open hearing. [Is this because he’s already talked to both of them?]
It’s revealed that during a dinner at the G20 Trump again spoke with Putin for another hour without disclosing it, this time without any other Americans or aides present so there is no record or documentation of what was said.
Fox WH correspondent John Roberts walks out of Huckabee-Sanders briefing early and when she notes his departure from the podium he slaps back “‘If it was on camera, I might not be.’ Generating “Ooohs” from the pool.
Sean Hannity whines about Shep Smith’s criticism of Trump “Some voices on Fox drive me nuts. Shep is so anti-Trump.”
Chris Christie says that it was “probably illegal” to receive oppo research from a foreign government but that Don Jr. is not smart enough to collude with the Russians.
July 19th —
Scarborough says about Trump’s second Putin meeting: ““So what are we to assume if not the worst — that he had this meeting, the White House didn’t reveal it. Once again we had to find out about it through third channels and there wasn’t even an American within earshot to listen what they talked about for an hour.”
Walter Schaub says he was horrified when Trump’s lawyer asked if he could turn in his financial disclosure forms without signing them and certifying that they were true.
Over 20 lawmakers begin to question Ivanka Trump’s security clearance because she apparently didn’t disclose any of their families multiple meetings with Russian officials on her SF86 forms.
Shep Smith slaps back at Hannity “Sometimes facts are displeasing.”
Flynn and Caputo are reportedly having difficulty paying their lawyer fees.
Veselnitskaya says she’s ready to testify to the Senate who otherwise can’t subpoena her since she’s a foreign natonal. [Judging by her RT interview, she’ll do great right?]
Daily Beast reports that while Veselnitskaya met secretly with Don Jr. last June the Kremlin gave Rep. Dana Rohrabacher instructions to stage a “show trial” in Congress attacking Bill Browder in order to alter the Magnitski Act sanctions on Russia. Rohrabacher was provided a Russian propaganda film against Browder by Yuri Chaika’s Prosecutor Generals Office, which was the same source for Veselnitskaya’s “evidence” against Hillary Clinton and the DNC.
Trump does an interview with Maggie Haberman and the NyTimes
He says that he blames the appointment of Mueller as Special Counsel on Jeff Sessions recusal, and says if he’d known Sessions would recuse himself he wouldn’t have picked him for AG. “It’s very unfair to the President.”
He thinks Comey briefing him on the Steele dossier was intended as blackmail in order to keep his job.
That Mueller was rife with conflicts of interest because he had interviewed for interim FBI director the day before he was appointed Special Counsel, and he has Democrats working for him
He doesn’t trust Deputy FBI Director McCabe because his wife ran for office as a Democrat once and got $700k from Gov. Terry McAullif and the DNC, who are friendly with Clinton so that means McCabe is “evil.”
He doesn’t trust Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein because he’s from Baltimore and it’s full of Democrats.
He claims he still doesn’t think he’s under investigation even for obstruction of Justice “I don’t think we’re under investigation,” he said. “I’m not under investigation. For what? I didn’t do anything wrong.”
He again denied that he asked Comey to drop the Flynn investigation.
He admits that his second hour long conversation with Putin at the G20 included a discussion of Russian adoptions, the same subject that Veselnitskaya had brought up with Don Jr.
He says that if Mueller wanders from Russia and starts to investigate his families finances it would be “crossing a red line.”
The NYTimes reports that investigators are looking at complex financial transactions between Trump, Kushner, Deutsche Bank and VEB.
Trump hits 6 Months in Office as Carrier lays off 300 workers.
Kushner is scheduled to testify in closed Session to Senate Intel on the 24th. Manafort and Don Jr. are scheduled to testify before Senate Judiciary on the 26th.
NYTimes reports that Manafort owed $17 Million to pro-Russia shell companies based in Cyprus before he joined Trump campaign.
July 20th —
Bloomberg reports that Mueller is looking at the finances of Trump and his associates.
AP reports that the Russian urged Trump to bring a note taker for his dinner meeting with Putin but he declined because he was afraid of leaks.
Senate Judiciary approves Chris Wray for FBI Director.
Sessions says he’ll stay on as a “Zombie Attorney General.”
Sally Yates slams Trump’s attack on the independence of the DOJ as a “violation of a bedrock principle of democracy”
Rohrabacher dismisses what Russia asked him to do with a “show trial” as insignificant.
HHS is using Obamacare outreach funds to undermine the laws function.
Rep. Schiff calls Trump’s secret dinner meeting with Putin “deeply troubling.”
Huckabee-Sanders says those who complain about Trump’s 2nd meeting have “Russia Fever.”
Deutsche bank which has loaned Trump hundreds of $Million agrees to turn over financial records to Mueller and investigators.
U.S. Military renting space in Trump Tower are paying $130,000 per month for it.
1 in 8 Trump voters wish they could take it back.
Treasury Dept fines Exxon-Mobil $2 Million for violating Russia sanctions related to Ukraine when Tillerson was CEO.
NAACP Legal Defense Fund Sues Trump election panel for racial discrimination, voter intimidation and suppression.
Trump’s Chief counter-terrorism advisor Thomas Bossert admits that Russia was definitely behind the 2016 election hacking, so how come Trump doesn’t know, or believe, that?
Rumors abound that Kasowitz will be taking a back seat on Trump’s legal team as some on the team begin doing oppo research on the members of Mueller’s team in order to hinder them. [Which would be obstruction]
Court documents show that one of Veselnitskaya’s previous clients was the FSB.
Trump asks his lawyers and advisors what his options are for pardoning members of his family or himself.
Weary Trump supporters begin to tune out the news because it’s all bad for him and them.
July 21st —
Roger Stone rips Sessions: He’s only a ‘tough guy’ when it comes to ‘chasing people for smoking pot’
Mueller request WH Staff preserve all documents and emails of communications related to Trump Jr.’s June meeting with Russians.
Reports surface that the shakeup in Trump’s legal team is linked to the attacks on Mueller.
Trump hires Anthony Scaramucci as Communications Director, Preibus had no idea. Sean Spicer resigns in protest because having a shmoozy Wall Street hack shill “Yes” man stooge with no Washington or communications experience as your instant boss was obviously the last fracking straw. Sarah “Resting scowl-face” Huckabee-Sanders becomes the new WH Press Secretary.
Kasowitz and strategist Mark Corallo leave Trump’s legal team. DC lawyer John Down takes over.
Wapo Reports that Intercepts by U.S. intel of conversation between Kislyak and Russia indicate that Sessions twice, at the Mayflower Hotel and at the RNC, discussed Trump’s positions regarding Russia with him indicating that he lied to congress under oath about those conversations.
Mother Jones reports that Sen. Warren has been pressing the Treasury department since January on whether Scaramucci had violated sanctions rules by discussing possible investment opportunities with Kirill Dmitriev, head of the sanctioned Russian Direct Investment Fund.
Senate intel chair Burr says “the unmasking thing” was all created by Devin Nunez.
Senate Judiciary issues a subpoena to Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS for information about the creation of the Steele Dossier.
Kislyak steps down as ambassador and returns to Russia.
NSC Staffer Rich Higgins is fired for writing a crazed conspiracy filled memo.
July 23rd —
Huckabee-Sanders gets caught in a lie by Stephanapolous claiming the Russia story is all the press covers.
Don Jr. hires more lawyers.
Scaramucci tries to scrub all his previous anti-Trump, pro-Climate Change tweets but everyone notices.
Scaramucci is interviewed by Jake Tapper on CNN
He says that Putin told Trump in Hamburg that Russian hackers are too good to have been caught by the U.S.
He denies that Russia hacked our election “This is maybe they did it, maybe they didn’t do it” and runs into a buzzsaw with Tapper — “Don’t you owe a duty to the truth?”
Kellyanne Conway freaks out when CNN’s Brian Stetler suggests the Trump campaign welcomed Russian interference and influence during the election, which frankly they didn’t oppose.
July 24th —
Kushner releases an 11 Page statement prior to his speaking to the Senate Intel staff behind closed doors
He denies colluding with Russians or discussing campaign issues.
He says he tried to get out of the Veselnitskaya meeting and never fully read the email or apparently the subject line “Hillary — Russia — Sensitive and Confidential. [But he still showed up, didn't he?] He arrived at the meeting late and the topic at the time was “Russian adoptions” he didn’t see that as being relevant and emailed his assistant to call him in order to give him an excuse to leave. "Can u pls call me on my cell? Need excuse to get out of meeting.” He says he didn’t remember anything about the meeting and had disclosed it on his forms prior to it reaching the press.
He says his SF86 form was accidentally submitted without being completed when his assistant mistook the completion of one section to mean the entire form was complete. [Aren’t these supposed to be signed when submitted certifying that they’re fully complete?] All contacts with foreign nations were originally omitted not just Russians.
He reveals that he received an email that was clearly an extortion attempt by “Guccifer400” that threatened to reveal Trump tax returns. He thought is was a hoax and referred it to Secret Service. [That should have gone to FBI, Secret Service protects you from physical threats and conterfeiters they don’t pursue blackmail or extortion.]
He says he only talked to Kislyak for “about a minute” at the Mayflower Hotel simply to exchange pleasantries and denies the Reuters report that he had two phone calls with Kislyak between April and November, saying he searched his phone records and couldn’t find any numbers associated with the ambassador. “I doubt these calls took place.”
He says he tried to setup a secure back-channel to the Kremlin in order to discuss the war in Syria with Russian “generals” came from Kislyak, but was not over sanctions. Flynn said such a secure channel didn’t exist and Kushner asked if one existed in the Russian embassy. [This doesn’t explain why he wanted the U.S. Intel community cut out of the loop, since they have to implement Syria policy anyway and the people who really don’t need to know is ISIS. Plus this was in December and January while they were all still “private citizens” — Logan Act — and long before there were allegations of “wiretaps”, “unmasking” or “leaks” coming from US Intel so what gives?]
Kislyak kept pestering him for continued meetings which he didn’t have time for and turned down until finally sending his assistant, then he agreed to meet VEB’s Gorkov because “he had a direct link to Putin.” He says they didn’t discuss sanctions or business or really anything other than “wanting better relations.”
He never mentions or explains his meeting with the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi which he attended with Steve Bannon following his meeting with Gorkov to further discuss Russia relations, or the follow on meeting to that between the Crown Prince and Eric Prince of Blackwater in the Seychelles Islands.
Kushner gives a public statement “I didn't collude with Russians and don’t know anyone who did.” [You know Flynn, Manafort and Roger Stone don’t you?] And claims “I did not rely on Russian money for my businesses.”
Kushner also apparently tell Congressional Staff the “Trump campaign was too disorganized to have colluded with the Russians” [Then why is that frakhole “President” then?]
At some point near this time Manafort also talks to Congressional staffers and tell them about the Veselnitskaya meeting.
Former FBI Agent Clint Watts says Kushner’s statement and it’s “chaos and confusion” defense shows he’s either incompetent or the Russia influence on TrumpCo is very strong. [Could be both!]
The Guardian reports that Kushner paid $295 Million for a portion of the New York Times building from Jewish Soviet-born Diamond Tycoon Lev Leviev — who the Dutch media reports smuggles valuable diamonds by making them look worthless by covering them in soot, connected to Human Rights violations in Angola as well as funding illegal Jewish settlements in the disputed zones of Israel. Kushner later borrowed $285 million to refinance the purchase through Deutsche Bank, which has come under scrutiny for alleged ties to Russian money laundering and had to pay $630 Million in fines for transferring $10 Billion through Russia. [So much for ‘not relying Russian Money for his business’]
Fox Host Jason Chaffetz claims people should be talking about Chelsea Clinton’s links to Benghazi [even though she has none, she didn’t work for Hillary or the State Dept then], and Hillary’s links to Russia [also has none, certainly not since Putin returned to the Presidency] rather than Kushner’s failure to report his meetings, even though only Kushner is speaking to the Senate today.`
NYTimes Glenn Thrush reports that rather than being an insult to the press, the yanking of WH press conference videos was because Spicer didn’t want Trump yelling at him and saying he “sucked at his job”.
Feinstein asks Grassley to call Sessions before Senate Judiciary.
Trump tweet/whines why “Beleagured” Sessions and House committees don’t investigate Hillary’s connections to Russia [Bill spoke to Renaissance Capital in 2010 for $500,000 while supposedly at that time Hillary opposed requests for the State Dept to deny visas to Russian oligarch accused of Human rights violations under Medvedev. But that all changed with the passage of the Magnitski Act and Putin’s return to the Presidency in 2012 and the annexation of Crimea and invasion of Ukraine in 2014. Also if you think Bill and Hillary can be bought for $500k what exactly did Deutsche Bank get from Kushner for a cool $285 Million?]
Trump trues to bully Republicans into passing Trumpcare by saying “Obamacare is Death” — which is bullshit. Does a campaign rally at the Boy Scout Jamboree — even though I’m pretty sure they can’t vote yet. And reports start to surface that’s he’s floating the idea of removing Sessions.
July 25th —
After Trump’s usual self-aggrandizing, whining, hate and delusion filled partisan rally speech to the Boy Scout Jamboree parents and former scouts alike our outraged. He had invited members of his staff who were Eagle Scouts like Rick Perry but gives Jeff Sessions the Spicer Treatment by leaving him out. Some reports at that Sessions is so pissed he won’t give Trump the satisfaction of quitting.
During the Jamboree Scaramucci’s wife gives birth to their second child James, he’s not there because he’s with Trump, but he does send her a text.
Trump thumps Sessions some more on Twitter. Several times, even though it was his ethical — and legal — duty to recuse himself from any investigation of a campaign that he was a participant of. He’s so mean even Breitbart and Limbaugh start to feel sorry for Sessions. Some Congressional Republicans start to grow a soul, but Paul Ryan doesn’t.
The House approves new strengthened sanctions on Russia/Iran & North Korea which don’t allow Trump to unilaterally cut them by a final Veto Proof vote of 419-3.
John McCain triumphantly returns to the Senate after his brain cancer diagnosis and gives an impassioned rousing speach on bipartisanship right after casting a pivotal party line vote to open debate on taking the kind of Health Care he’s currently receiving away from between 15 or 22 or 32 Million people depending on Mitch McConnell’s mood. Although the parlimentarian says they’re going to need 60 Votes for most of what they have in mind.
Kushner is interviewed behind closed doors by House Intel panel staff for 3 Hours.
Manafort is subpeoned by Senate Judiciary.
House Repubs block Democrats attempt to see Trump’s Treasury FIles.
Scarmucci admits Trump wants Sessions FIred “It’s like a divorce.”
Huckabee-Sanders says re-re-reinvestigating Clinton for things that didn’t happen and she’s already been cleared for is just “Keeping a level playing field.”
Trump tweets about classified Syria program to fund and supply anti-Assad rebels in order to slap back at a Wapo story.
July 26h —
FBI executes a “No Knock” pre-dawn search warrant on Paul Manafort’s residence looking for financial documents some of which he was supposed to have turned over to Senate Intel specifically because they’re concerned he might destroy evidence.
Just minutes after Tucker Carlson calls trans people potential “child abusers” Trump tweets that all trans persons in the military will be removed because to the cost of their surgeries, although the military spends 4 times as much on Viagra to treat ED.
Trump tweets again asking why Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe hasn’t been fired because his wife received $700k from Terry McAulif when she ran for congress.
Putin threatens to retaliate against “Illegal” U.S. sanctions after their approval by Congress.
Senate defribs Trumpcare by considering “Skinny Repeal” for Obamacare which would only affect the mandates, subsidies and Medicare expansion.
Scaramucci’s financial disclosure forms indicates that he is still doing work for his investment firm while working in the White House and that the company was recently bought by Chinese investors meaning he’s receiving paychecks from China and the U.S. government at the same time.
Senate Intel calls for pro-Trump oppo researcher Chuck Johnson to testify on his work with to obtain Hillary’s emails for Michael Flynn along with the late Peter W. Smith.
Ken Starr calls for Trump to stop attacking Sessions “Cut it out.”
Grassley warns Trump not to fire Sessions.
Jeffrey Lord attempts to defend Trump’s trans-ban tweet says the Military shouldn’t be paying for Viagra either.
Kushner may be violating the Presidential records act by having and app that makes message sent or received “disappear’ on his iPhone.
Nine Inch Nail’s Trent Reznor says “Trump’s a vulgarian” — yeah, you bet.
July 27th —
CBO score of Skinny Repeals says that it would take Healthcare from 16 Million people and increase premiums by 20%.
Newsweek reports that Russia used Facebook to try and trick Macron supporters prior to French Election.
Senate ignores Trump’s call to investigate Hillary Clinton again.
Lindsay Graham says firing Sessions and/or Mueller would be the beginning of the end of Trump’s presidency.
The Joint Chiefs announce no one is going no where based on a Tweet, Trump hasn’t given them any formal instructions on trans soldiers yet.
Bill Browder testifies to Senate Judiciary and tells them that Veselnitskaya and Ahkmenttshin were clearly operatives for Putin and Russian Intel offering Kompromat on Clinton to see if anyone in the Trump camp would take the bait.
He explains how Putin and Chaika had Magnitski and Boris Nemsov murdered and tried to poison Kara-Murza twice to cover up their graft and corruption.
Having the Magnitski act repealed or limited is a prime Putin goal.
He also says that Fusion GPS was also funded by Russians because they like to “Play both sides” — which suggests some of the more salacious items in the Steele Dossier may have been fed to them as disinformationto help make it easier to discredit the overall report.
Kellyanne Conway throws Preibus a “shiv in the ribs” for leaking Scaramucci’s financials — which he probably didn’t do.
Scaramucci gives a mad crazy interview on CNN about his financial forms being leaked even though it’s still public information calling in right in the middle of an interview with Ryan Lizza.
Scaramucci then calls Ryan Pizza of the New Yorker directly and gives him a rambling profane on the record interview.
He demands to know who leaked that he was having dinner with Hannity, Trump and Melanie that night, and that he’d fire everyone in the White House until Lizza told him. (He can’t do that, he can only fire press and communications people — Preibus could do that, or Trump. And since when is having dinner with the Trumps and Sean Hannity a matter of National Security?)
He says that he’s not out to promote himself and “Suck his own ****” like Steve Bannon, he’s trying to promote Trump. [And doing a wonderful job of it he is too...]
He claims Preibus is a “******* paranoid schizophrenic paranoiac” who leaked his financial forms — although the forms are public information — because he didn’t want him hired in the first place. [And who could blame him for that prescience?]
He claims he has ‘digital fingerprints” of alleged leakers given to him by the FBI (which would be illegal for them to do) and also he’s not on the approved WH/DOJ communications list, neither is Preibus.
He says they need to “Kill all the ******* leakers.”and that “People in this administration think their job is too save the country from Trump, that’s not their job, it’s to inject Trump into the nation”— eww..just ewww.
Propublica obtains a set of talking points created for DNI Dan Coates which shows that the relationship between the Intel Community and Trump is highly strained. [No kiddin?]
The Senate fails to pass each and every single Trumpcare proposal including “Repeal/Replace” and“Repeal/Delay” and even eventually fail even with the Hail-Mary “Skinny Repeal” after Senators John McCain, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski vote against it.
McConnel says the failure to repeal O-care is “disappointing”, whines about losing then sarcastically asks “Let see what the Democrats have.” Schumer calls for bi-partisan cooperation to help fix the lingering problems of the Health Care Market.
Trump says they should now ‘let O-care Implode” although what he really means is he’s going to have Tom Price sabotage it even further until Dems cry “Uncle.”
Devin Nunez continues pushing his Obama “Unmasking” Story.
Manafort is scheduled to meet with Senate Judiciary today, but negotiates a later date.
New Russia sanctions bill gets sent to Trump’s desk.
July 28th —
Trump calls for Police Brutality by telling assembled cheering Long Island Police to "don’t be too nice” when slamming them into the back of a paddy wagon and “don’t hold their head” when placing them in the back seat. “You can take the hand away, okay?”
Trump fires Reice Preibus via Tweet, makes DHS head Kelly as new Chief of Staff. Preibus finds out on a rain soaked tarmac as AF1 arrives back in Washington, others get out of his Suburban and his car leaves the motorcade and goes off on it’s own instead of returning to the WH.
Scaramucci’s wife, who had been estranged with him for months, files for Divorce because of his naked political ambition “Deirdre is not a fan of Trump” which means he’s gonna have to learn that special trick of Bannon’s now.
Russia expels U.S. 755 Diplomats and seizes an American compound in “retaliation” for the new sanctions bill that Trump hasn’t yet signed calling them “Illegal” and unjustified.
july 29th —
Trump’s Gallup approval rating of 37% drops lower than Bill Clinton’s during the Lewinsky scandal.
Painter says shuffling Sessions into Homeland in place of Kelly would be yet more obstruction.
Police Departments from coast to coast condemn Trump’s call for Police Brutality.
Surprising absolutely no one on earth Ted Nugent breaks his civility pledge.
Tillerson’s State Dept. channels opposite world and claims the new sanctions on Russia will be “good for our relationship.” [Uh, Nope!]
It’s reported that Scaramucci’s wife was nine months pregnant when she bailed on him because of his #TrumpLove and that he apparently missed the birth of his second child James because he was with Trump at the Boy Scout Jamboree and sent his wife a text “I’ll pray for our son.”
July 30th —
Jared and Ivanka admit it’s way too much to expect them to have any moderating influence on Trump.
Pence swears we’ll see more moderate behavior from Putin as he orders 755 U.S. Diplomats out of Russia. [Yeah, uh, NOPE!]
Lewandowsky calls for Trump to fire CFPB chief Richard Cordray because — yeah, sorry, I got nothin’. [Ok fine seriously, He claims he doesn’t have any clients that oppose Cordray’s work at CFPB, but it turns out that he does have a client that is a pay day lender]
PS. Kushner is still a slumlord.
Roger Stone says “McCain is a piece of **** and traitor” — also now with Brain Cancer.
July 31st —
Gen. Kelly starts his first day as the new WH Chief of Staff.
Pence talks tough about Russia’s retaliation against the newly imposed sanctions signed by Trump. Trump echoes Russia’s complaints.
Scaramucci suddenly resigns as WH Communications Director 11 days after was announced in the position and 4 days before he was to officially begin. He’s then escorted off the grounds by security, then goes to dinner with Katrina Peirson.
Kelly calls Sessions and tells him his job is safe.
Former NSA Analyst John Schindler reports that Putin’s move to expel 755 U.S. Diplomatic workers over sanctions shows he’s ready to throw Trump under the bus.
NYTimes reports that Trump personally dictated the first false version of Junior’s statement about his meeting with Veselnitskaya — even though he said at the time “this was the first he’d heard about it” — claiming the meeting was “primarily about adoption” a claim that was later repeated by Trump twice and also by Spicer even though Junior himself had already admitted it was about oppo research on Hillary 7 days previously.
Trump’s direct involvement in promoting a false story when there is a open Federal Investigation of links between his campaign in Russia potentially indicates “consciousness of guilt” and may be an attempt at Witness Tampering and Obstruction of Justice particularly since Mueller’s office already requested the WH preserve all documents and records related to this meeting on July 21st.
Ivanka and Melania were “disgusted” by Scaramucci’s dirty talk — but then again they do support Trump who brought him on in the first place and has history for salty talk of his own.
CNN Reports that Kelly was furious by the manner in which Comey was fired and nearly resigned himself in protest until Comey talked him out of it.
Former McCain staffer Steve Schmidt says Scarmucci’s firing exposes the “snakepit” of Trump White House.
Surprising absolutely no-one with eyes and a working brain former Obamacare hating Blaze corespondent Tami Lahren is actually on Obamacare as she’s 24 and still on her parent Health Care plans.
A British “Email Prankster” successfully tricked several members of Trump’s WH into thinking he was Kushner and Preibus.
August 1st —
Spicer admits that the WH and Trump was personally briefed on the false and since retracted FOX story alleging that murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich was connected to emails leaked to Wikileaks as a way to redirect attention from Russia. This means that Spicer lied during the May 16 press briefing where he denied any knowledge of the Rich story. Again, potential Obstruction of Justice during the current investigation of Russia’s involvement with DNC hack.
Wired releases an audio recording of Kushner telling WH interns he doesn’t know of anything knew that the Trump WH offers to solve the Israel/Palestine problem.
Daily Caller reports that Kellyanne — who is still banned from Morning Joe for lying — may be tapped as the new WH Communications Director.
Lewandowski is fired from One America News Network (OANN) because he’d been moonlighting on Fox News too many times.
GOP lawmakers warn Trump not to sabotage Obamacare — but frankly that’s already is progress.
Rep Trent Franks (R-AZ) says “Mueller is a partisan and should resign” because of his “close friendship with Comey” who used to be his boss which is funny since he’s a registered Republican and so was Comey, but then nobody sane or smart listens to Trent Franks on anything.
GOP Activist Ed Butowski who pushed the Seth Rich conspiracy to the WH and Fox News gets grills on CNN by Chris Cuomo in an incoherent interview.
August 2nd —
Trump signs new Russia Sanctions Bill, includes a signing statement and a personal statement whining about Congress encroaching on executive authority and claims as a former CEO he can negotiate a better deal than Congress that could negotiate a Health Care Bill — which is of course exactly why Congress passed more sanctions.
Iran says these new sanction breaks the Nuclear deal setup by Obama.
Huckabee-Sanders tried to defend Trump’s claims that the Mexican President called to say they were doing such a great job on the border that Mexico was seeing fewer people entering in the hope of reaching the U.S. [although Mexico says they hadn’t called Trump in months] and the Head of the Boy Scouts called to say his speech “was great’ [He denies it too.] She says they did say these things, “it just wasn’t on the phone.”
Tillerson refuses to spend $80 Million in State Dept funds allocated to fight ISIS and Russian media manipulation and propaganda because it might “anger the Kremlin.”
Trump along with Sen Tom Cotton announces changes to Green Card eligibility that focuses on a “merit based” system for high skilled workers which seems to deprioritize petitions for family members, refugees and asylum seekers. [This proposal was submitted back in February and went nowhere then, going nowhere now]
At the same time that Trump publicly tries to the door to “low skilled” immigrants his Department of Homeland Security has increased the cap for H2B Visas per year from 66,000 to 81,000 and that his own companies in including Mar-A-Lago have submitted 76 more applications for low wage foreign workers.
Stephan Miller argues with CNN’s Jim Acosta about the meaning of the Statue of Liberty to justify Trump’s new Green Card plan and uses coded White Supremacist Slurs against him.
Russia responds to the sanctions bill saying that it shows that Trump is “Impotent” and the establishment wants to oust him.
Reports surface that Kremlin backed Sputnik News is the source of the Seth Rich conspiracy theory pushed by Sean Hannity and Fox News, causing them to be sued by Rich’s family.
Congressional investigators call for Don Jr. phone records to see who he talked to in the lead up to his June 6, 2016 meeting with Veselnitskaya. [Possibly Emin Agalarov as indicated by some of the email exchanges]
WSJ reports that U.S Attorney’s have subpoena records from the Kushner companies about their attempts to get Chinese investors special EB-5 Visas using Jared association with Trump.
Former Flynn staffer Erza Cohen-Watnick who provided the “unmasking” documents to Devin Nunez is fired.
Rod Wheeler who filed suit against Fox News over their bogus Seth Rich story says that Trump had inserted phony quotes by Rich.
The crazed conspiracy riddled memo written by NSC staffer Rich Higgins that connects the Muslim Brotherhood to the European Union, “Maoist Insurgents”, “Leftists’ and “Deep State” activists circulates through the WH and for some reason Don Jr. — who doesn’t have a security clearance to receive an NSC memo — is sent a copy, which he forwards to his father who “gushes” over the thing. Then he finds out from Hannity that Higgins had already been fired for writing it.
August 3rd —
Deputy FBI Director McCabe warns top LE officials that they should consider themselves witnesses and their notes evidence in Mueller’s investigation, possibly because of their communications and interactions with Comey as he talked to Trump on the phone.
WaPo publishes leaked transcripts of Trump talking to the President of Mexico and Prime Minister of Australia back in January which reveal that he’s repeatedly and knowingly lied about “Mexico paying for the wall” and begged not to be outed.
Audio of Scarmucci’s profane phone call with Ryan Lizza is released.
Fox News lawyers up over Seth Rich suit.
Former CIA agents pen a NYTimes op-ed on Trump’s response to Russia “Innocent people don’t behave this way.”
Wapo reports that the Secret Service has moved out of Trump Tower over a rental dispute with Trump’s Companies, their command post is now in a trailer parked on the sidewalk.
Kellyanne says Russia hacking our political and voter registration systems to help Trump get elected isn’t a “matter of national security.”
Hannity flips when he discovers a report from Bloomberg that NSA Director McMaster has granted his predecessor Susan Rice a lifetime Security Clearance — which is the normal custom — because he say “she did nothing wrong with any unmasking of Trump officials” confirming the previously findings of the House Intel Committee, except for Devin Nunez.
Trump Vacation Day count after 7 Months surpasses the number of vacation days taken by Obama in his full 8 years.
Trump plans 17-day “working vacation” in New Jersey while the WH is renovated. His neighbors are not overjoyed with all of his security.
Michael Flynn amends his financial disclosure forms to include funds received from a tech company, SCL Group which has ties to Cambridg-Analytica and whose CEO used “dirty Tricks” to support Trump and the Brexit Vote, he also includes consulting work for NIK Holdings who had attempted to donate $100,000 under the table for former Sen. Norm Coleman before he was defeated by Al Franken.
Glenn Thrush at NYTimes reports that Kelly fired Cohen-Watnick to show his authority over Bannon and Kushner.
WSJ reports that Mueller has empaneled a Grand Jury which is issuing subpeonas related to Don Jr.’s meeting with Veselnitskaya and financial ties between TrumpCo and Russia, this is in addition to the already existing Grand Jury that is looking into Michael Flynn.
Sen. Jeff Flake warns that firing Mueller could cause Congress to turn against Trump.
Sen Tillis and Coons introduce legislation to protect Mueller from being unjustifiably fired by Trump without judicial review.
August 4th —
Spicer says “No” to Dancing With the Stars.
Mark Warner the ranking Dem on Senate Intel calls for an investigation into leak of transcripts of Trump’s conversations with President of Mexico and Prime Minister of Australia.
CNN reports that Carter Page has been under FISA surveillance and suspected of being a foreign agent since 2014.
During a West Virginia rally Trump calls the Russia investigation a “total fabrication” and argues the Special Counsel should “go after why Clinton deleted 33,000 emails” which the FBI already investigated and found completely legal.
CNN reports that Intel intercepts of suspected Russian operatives during summer of 2016 discussed Manafort asking for help with damaging Clinton’s campaign.
August 5th —
Alt-Right and Russia-Bots begin relentless attacking NSA chief McMaster arguing that he should be fired for something or the other. Daily Beast reports that this is apparently payback from Bannon for the firing of Cohen-Watnick and Col. Darek Harvey.
CNN reports that Mueller’s investigation is likely to first focus on Trump’s financial crimes as they have the strongest path to prosecution.
Fox’s Eric Bolling is suspended for sexual harrassment.
Painter says if you placed lie detector on Huckabee-Sanders podium “It would light up like a disco!”
New polls indicate Trump support has dropped to just 33%, and that he’s losing White Non-College educated voters where he now stands underwater at 43% approval to 50% disapproval — a drop of 10 points since June, and 23 points since the election.
Minnesota mosque is firebombed in an apparent act of terrorism, no casualties are reported. WH says nothing.
August 6th —
CNN says McEnany quit to join Trump’s Fake “Real” News channel.
Sen. Jeff Flake says he wished the GOP had stood up against birtherism. [Which they didn't, with the notable exception of John McCain they generally took advantage and pandered to it just like Kushner said Trump did.]
Trump says he “working hard” on his vacation — but his schedule is blank.
August 7th —
Sen. Blumenthal goes on CNN and explains the new bill to protect Mueller from being fired, and Trump — who says he “not watching tv” while on his work-cation — immediately goes on a tweet storm attacking Blumenthal for saying he served in Vietnam, when his actual Marine service was in the U.S. during Vietnam. Since Trump never served due to “bone spurs” Vets call him a “Chicken Hawk piece of trash.”
Wapo reports that while requesting H2B visas for 70 more foreign employees Mar-A-Lago barely put out a couple of local ads which didn’t include a phone # or email, only a fax, for U.S. workers to be hired.
Sen. Blumenthal snaps back at Trump over his Vietnam service slurs. “ I will not be bullied.”
Chicago sues Trump over his threat to pull funds from “sanctuary cities.”
Right-Wing Militias align with GOP officials under Trump.
McEnany gets Spicer’s old job as RNC national spokesperson.
August 8th —
Alex Jones hosts Russian ultra-nationalist on program about firing McMaster.
Ex-CIA agent Daniel Hoffman states that Putin probably left a paper trail from Trump Tower to the Kremlin.
Staffers for Devin Nunez appear to be staging a stealth investigation of Christopher Steele.
Trump pays one of his staffers $89k/year just to look up positive news about him and provide it in a 20 page “propaganda report” twice a day.
Jared Kushner failed to disclose that he holds a stake in his brother’s health insurance company which had paid lobbyists to fight the repeal of Obamacare.
Trump tweets out classified information revealed by annonymous sources on Fox & Friends about North Korean Missile movements.
Trump’s support among GOP voters drops by 14 points.
Russian bots and trolls begin attacking Republicans including the House Speaker with #ResignPaulRyan campaign.
Wapo reports that North Korea now has a miniturized nuclear device that can fit on a missile, Trump says if they threaten us again they will met with “Fire and Fury that the world has never seen.” North Korea responds by threatening to attack Guam. No “Fire or Fury” appears.
August 9th —
WaPo reports that the FBI staged a pre-dawn raid of Manafort’s residence in July, which continues to suggest Mueller is attempting to flip Manafort, only now the hard way.
National Enquirer publishes a hit piece on Manafort (one hour after the Wapo report on the search warrant raid) that alleges that he was involved in a “sick sex scandal” with women much younger than his wife.
Trump campaign hands over 20,000 pages of documents to Senate Judiciary on their efforts to find negative information on Hillary Clinton.
WH aid Gorka says silence on mosque bombing is justified because he says it may be been a faked hate crime by Liberals, which frankly I would expect would make Huckabee-Sander’s and her resting scowl face crack a smile.
Politico reports that Federal investigators had approached Manafort’s son in law in order to get a better “read” on his mindset.
August 10th —
Reports indicate that Manafort had already told congressional investigators about the Don Jr/Veselnitskaya meeting before his house was raided by the FBI.
CNN finally fires Jeffrey Lord over a Nazi “Seig Heil” tweet at Media Matters Angelo Carusone arguing that they are a “fascist” site that seeks to curtail free speech, when in fact all they do is document what right-wingers say without much comment.
Trump thanks Putin for kicking 755 of our Diplomats, “Now we have a smaller payroll” and doubles down on his “Fire and Fury” nonsense, “Maybe that was too soft.” And threatens military action in Venezuela.
August 11th —
Rachel Maddow reports that a 1980 audit of Trump finances found he failed to pay $2.8 Million to the City of New York in a deal to avoid paying $150 Million in property taxes.
Fancy Bear hacker group begins targeting Hotel guests using unsecured wifi.
WH says Trump was being “sarcastic” about the smaller payroll for Diplomats in Russia, but then he says it again.
Senate Judiciary demands info on Kushner’s relationship with Russia and an explanation for the gaps on his SF86 security form.
Neo-Nazi protesters get into melee at U of VA over removal of statue to Robert E. Lee.
Rinat Akhmetshin testifies for several hours to the Mueller Grand Jury.
August 12th —
Alt-Right Neo-Nazi Protest in Charlottesville VA erupts in more violence. Deandre Harris is beaten bloody, a car driven my James Fields Jr. smashes into a crowd of counter-protesters killing Heather Heyer and injuring 19 others.
David Duke says the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” protest fulfills the promises of Donald Trump.
August 13th —
Trump gives a rambling confused statement on Charlottesville that talks about violence “on many sides” and never mentions white supremacist or neo-Nazis.
Washington Post reports Trump staffer George Papadopoulos repeatedly offered to set up “a meeting between us and the Russian leadership to discuss US-Russia ties under President Trump,” “Putin wants to host the Trump team when the time is right,” Papadopoulos wrote in an email to former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski on April 27, 2016. He also told Lewamdowski he had fielded “a lot of calls over the past month” related to a meeting between the Trump campaign and Russia. “Russia has been eager to meet with Mr. Trump for some time and have been reaching out to me to discuss,” Papadopoulos said in a separate email to former campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
August 14th —
Trump gives his “hostage video” speech where he finally condemns neo-Nazis, but then attacks African-American CEO of Merck for quitting his business advisory council on twitter.
Reports surface the Homeland security had issued a warning about Neo-Nazis and White Supremacist back in May.
Politico reporrs the Obama administration had many warnings between 2014 and 2016 that Russia was stepping up its intelligence operations to build propaganda networks.
North Korea calls off it’s missiles test targeting Guam.
Michael Cohen’s atty writes a letter to Congress vehemently denying his involvement in colluding between Trump and Russia as described in the Steele dossier — even though he had been directly involved in writing to the Russian government during the campaign to restart the Trump Tower Moscow project.
August 15th —
Kushner faces lawsuit for over charging rent in NYC.
Trump retweets meme of a train running over a CNN reporter.
Trump angrily argues during an Infrastructure Press Briefing that “Both Sides” were at fault in Charlottesville violence and stuns much of the GOP who quickly criticize his comments. He claims that if Gen. Lee and Stonwall Jackson statues have to come down so do monuments to Washington and Jefferson since they were slave owners, although they never attacked and waged war against America over it, they fought Britain to increase freedom, not decrease it and thus his real White-Power bona fides are finally revealed and confirmed.
August 16th —
NYTimes reports about 3 hackers whose work may have been used without their knowledge to attack the DNC.
ABC News reports that Peter Stroz former head of FBI Counterterrorism quits the Mueller investigation team.
Internal reports disprove claims of “Turmoil” inside the FBI prior to Comey firing.
Newsweek reports that in 1985 the Australian government rejected a bid for a Trump Casino in Sydney because of his alleged ties to the mafia.
4 CEOs defect in protest from Trump’s business council over his pro-Confederate comments, so he shuts both his business councils down in frustration.
Bannon gives a grandstanding football spike of an interview to the NYTimes claiming the more the Left talks about Racism, the more we Win. “I want them to talk about Racism everyday.” He also basically claims he’s running the White House from behind the scenes, which I’m sure is news to Kelly and also, Trump.
Jack Tapper tweets that at least two journalists were attacked by anti-Nazi counter protestors in Charlottesville, one of whom required stitches.
Rep. Jackie Spiere calls for Trump to be ousted using the 25th Amendment.
Both Bush Presidents denounce Trump’s neo-Nazi support.
Heather Heyer’s mother scorns bigots at her funeral.
August 17th —
The Spectator reports that Felix Sater — who helped sell many Trump properties to various Russians through his former real estate firm Bayrock — may have flipped for the FBI again and that he has said the both he and Trump “are going to prison.”
Cantwell states emphatically that he’s “Not a coward.” No one is impressed, particularly not PayPal and Ok, Cupid who cut him off for life.
Sen Bob Corker (R-TN) says in response to Trump Charlottesville comments: “The president has not yet been able to demonstrate the stability nor some of the competence that he needs to demonstrate in order to be successful,”
UVA Librarian Tyler McGill suffers a stroke from being struck in the neck with a Tiki Torch by Unite the Right protestors.
Foreign Policy reports that Wikileaks refused to receive or publish 68 Gig of negative data on the operations of the Kremlin.
Buzzfeed reports that Trump is furious that “Bannon is taking credit for my election.”
A Van strikes 50 people in Barcelona, 13 are killed. 2 suspects are taken into custody but no information about them or their motive is released immediately.
Trump tweets in support of “beautiful Confederate Statues” and decrying “Terrorism in Barcelona” then later endorsed a questionable internet rumor that a U.S. General in the Philippines committed the War Crime of mass executions using bullets laced with pigs blood to deter terrorists, when in actuality he sat down with Muslims, ate their food, learned their language, customs and read the Koran with them. CNN’s Jake Tapper says “He just suggested we should study a lie.” But he still hasn’t said anything about the firebombing of a mosque in Minnesota, the car crashed into a crowd near a mosque in London or the machete attack against Democrats in Kentucky.
Mike Huckabee says if you take down Robert E. Lee, you have to take down Mt. Rushmore.
With “Infrastructure Week” not quite complete, Trump gives up on his infrastructure council.
August 18th —
Steve Bannon is Fired and quickly reports surface here’s going to take Breitbart to Defcon1 Thermonuclear Global War against Trump. Cue the Russia Bots of Doom. Subsequent reports say that he intends to use Brietbart to go to War with Trump’s enemies — which now, is just about everyone.
Also a former friend and aide of Preibus, George Sifakis, leaves the WH.
Buzzfeed reports that Mueller’s investigation is now targeting Donald Jr concerning his meeting with Veselnitskaya and Akhmetshin.
Reports surface that besides Bayrock’s Tefvik Arik Trump has financial links to post-Soviet era oligarch Mukhtar Ablyazov, who had been charged with stealing between $4-$10 Billion from Kazakhstan’s largest banks through loans and shell companies and had been working with Trump on 2 Tower projects in (former soviet) Georgia through a company run by Michael Cohen. The same report also notes the connection of oligarch Alexander Shnaider, who has mob ties, and had been involved in the Toronto Trump Tower deal.
16 out of 17 members of Trump’s Arts Council resign en mass in protest of Trump comments about Charlottesville. He says “Nah ah, I QUIT YOU”, they say “No, We quit you first!”
Heather Heyer’s mother Susan Bro refuses to speak with Trump in protest of his comments on Charlottesville, while Mitt Romney calls for him to apologize. He doesn’t.
7 Charities have cancelled fundraisers scheduled to be held at Mar-a-Lago.
Charlottesville Police issue arrest warrant for Chris Cantwell for illegal use of gases and injury by caustic agent or explosive,
ISIS reportedly takes credit for the Barcelona Van attack which Spain authorities say involved 12 people, 4 are in custody and 5 had been killed in a police raid.
August 19th —
Carl Ichann resigns from his position as an informal Trump advisor allegedly because of his Charlottesville comments. But this happens admit rumors that he made $60 Million by advising Trump to cut prices on a regulatory devicethat he’d been short selling for months.
The cancelled Mar-a-Lago charity list grows to 16.
Trump announces that he will not attend the Kennedy Center Honors with Norman Lear, Gloria Estaban, Lionel Richie & LL Kool J so as not to create a “Political Distraction.”
Robert E. Lee biographer says Lee would have wanted all the Confederate statues torn down.
Trump condemns anti-violence protestors as being “anti-police agitators” and then commends the cops.
August 20th —
ADL says the “Violent Alt-Left” is a Right-Wing media lie.
Bannon’s Breitbart attacks McMaster as a “Koran kissing Muslim sympathizer”for his endorsing use of a military manual on showing respect for Islam and how not to inflame tensions.
Congressional Democrats begin to question if “Trump is mentally Ill?”
Jesse Waters says removing Confederate monuments is a plot to help make people forget that “Democrats enslaved Blacks” which is technically true but they were also southern Conservative Democrats — Dixiecrats — who’ve all become Republicans or Independents since then.
Jerry Falwell Jr defends Trump’s “fine Nazi people” and “bad counter-protestors” claims saying he has “inside knowledge” although Trump claimed that all the media saw the same videos that he did. Close examination of Videos from protest shows they’re wrong.
Dick Gregory Dies.
August 21st —
Trump showing his usual level of sociopathic empathy deficit disorder responds to the crash of the U.S.S. McCain which injured five sailors and where ten remain missing with “That’s too bad.”
Paul Ryan holds a CNN Town hall and gives a weak tepid condemnation of Trump’s statements on Charlottesville — Tapper says it “Wasn’t morally ambiguous, it’s was Morally Wrong.”
Virginia State Attorney issues four warrants for Christopher Cantwell.
The U.S experiences it’s first total solar eclipse in 38 years, Shep Smith freaks the heck out. Trump stares into the Sun without glasses — “Finally, he establishes a Blind Trust.”
North Korea releases fake propaganda videos of their missiles hitting Guam.
Rep. Bryan Zollinger (R-ID) claims that Obama may have “staged the Charlottesville riots.” [Facepalm!]
“Art of the Deal” Ghost writer Tony Schwatz gets a loud racist voicemailcriticizing him for saying Trump “will resign.”
Katrina Peirson — yes, she’s still here — goes ballistic on Fox claiming “Slavery is an example of how special and wonderful this country is.” [Uh, er, what?]
NYTimes reports that Akhmetshin has close ties to the FSB and Putin, had helped Russian oligarchs using sophisticated cyber hacks for their benefit, helped unmask corruption at a Krygystan Air Force base which Russia wanted purged of U.S. personnel, and got Federal prosecutors to file charges against an American businessman who happened to be a CIA operative working in Russia.
USA Today reports that Trump’s extended family and their extensive travel is draining the resources of the Secret Service Dry.
Treasury Sec Mnunchin uses a government plane to fly to visit Fort Knox as an excuse to view the Solar exclispe at 95% totally, he also brings Mitch McConnel
August 22nd —
ABC News reports that Christopher Steele met with and has given the FBI the names and contact information for the sources of his Trump/Russia dossier.
CNN reports that Glenn Simpson, partner with Fusion GPS the oppo research team that had contracted with Steele to produce his dossier, has testified for 10 hours before Senate Judiciary behind closed doors. Fusion also provided 40,000 pages of documents to the committee.
At his Phoenix rally Trump attacks the media as “Fake” while misquoting his own statements about Charlottesville and his “unequivocal” condemnation of White Supremacy, except for the “Good Ones” and the BLM/Antifa “Chargers” which he doesn’t bring up this time. He hints at pardoning ex-Sheriff Joe Arpaio who was convicted of violating a court order to stop his deputies from profiling, targeting and discriminating against Latinos. He claims the media won’t show the size of his crowd, but they do, and he claims the protestors outside are only a few, but they aren’t. And he leads a chant calling for the death of John McCain.
Police and Protestors lob bottles, bricks and tear gas back and forth at each other during and after Trump’s rally, no injuries are reported.
CNN responds to Trump’s attack and begins to say he sounds “unhinged.” Don Lemon says “His speech was without thought, without reason, devoid of facts, devoid of wisdom,”
NYTimes reports that Trump’s relationship with Mitch McConnell has deteriorated down to explicative filled phone calls over Trumpcare’s failure and the continued Russia probes in congress.
Trump’s airwar against ISIS passes the civilian death toll of Obama’s entire Presidency.
Trump’s pick to protect U.S. workers from abuse as Deputy Secretary of Labor is a former lobbyists for forced abortion sweatshops.[Oh, lordy!]
Alex Jones suggest reparations for White People. [Yes, really]
McClatchy reports that Mueller’s investigators may have found that Manafort may have received between $80-$100 Million from Russian and Ukrainian Oligarchs over the past decade.
Trump gives a speech on his new Afghanistan policy, which is basically more war, more killing, no end in sight and no nation building. [Which is different from the last 17 years before this how exactly? Oh yeah, no “dates certain.”]
A rabidily racist Trump supporter — the same one who called Tony Schwartz — leaves a vicious bigoted message for CEO Ravin Ghandi — who has Indian heritage but was born in the U.S. — because he is one of the CEOs who left one of Trump’s economic councils.
August 23rd —
Armed man slashes tarp on Charlottesville monument and says Heather Heyer died ‘playing in traffic’ [Nope, you can’t make this ish up.]
Grassley says he will have the Judiciary committee to vote on releasing the testimony from Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS on the Steele Dossier.
Shep Smith calls out Trump for trying to “rewrite history” with his Pheonix speech. [Don’t you know he’s been doing that since he rode down the escalator in Trump Tower?]
Pro-Russia social media cyberbots begin to amplify rightwing rhetoric over Charlottesville claiming ““Dems and Media Continue to IGNORE BLM and Antifa Violence in Charlottesville” except there really wasn’t any to ignore. Did any neo-Nazis go to the Hospital? Nope.
Cantwell, who is still in hiding from Charlottesville PD, reveals that his attorney has ditched him.
James Clapper questions Trump’s “mental fitness” to be President after his Arizona speech.
Kushner heads to Israel to try again for a peace deal after things went so “well” last time, which they didn’t.
Michigan Senate candidate Kid Rock curses Colin Kaepernick, because that’s just what wannabe government leaders do.
Scarborough asks “Who are these people?” in Trump’s crowd calling for John McCain’s death? [Arizona GOP voters?]
Politico reports that Trump is so obsessed with the Russia investigation and the bill to protect Mueller from being wrongfully fired that he’s calling GOP Senators to scream and curse at them and can’t keep focused on day to day business.
CNN reports that Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff Rick Dearborn last June when he was an advisor to the Trump campaign and Jeff Session’s Chief of staff had sent an email to Corey Lowendowski about someone nicked name “WV” trying to arrange a meeting between Trump and members of the Russian government including Putin at about the same time as Don Jr.’s meeting with Veselnitskaya. This is the second staffer in addition to NatSec advisor George Papadopoulos who had also tried to set up this kind of meeting last April according Trump campaign emails given to congress.
Cantwell turns himself in to police, judge denies bail.
Trump calls Clapper “a liar” for his mental fitness comments via — guess what — twitter. He also slams Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell over the debt ceiling vote, which hasn’t even happened yet.
Dems, rising from their long slumber, try to defund Trump’s Voter Fraud Commission.
CNN locates and interviews former Russian ambassador Kislyak on the streets of Moscow, he says that the allegations that he’s a “Spymaster” is “nonsense”. He says that the future of US/Russians relations will be “difficult.” And that sanctions and tensions will make it hard to resume a normalcy in our relationship.
Politico reports that Trump has been repeatedly and angrily calling up GOP Senators such as Bob Corker and Thom Tillus to complain about bills he doesn’t like such as the Russia sanctions and Mueller protection legislation.
August 24th —
Trump pardons ex-Sherrif Arpaio for his contempt of court conviction for refusing to stop discriminating against latino citizens. This he does despite — or perhaps because of — his history of racial discrimination and targeting of Latinos for arrest and detention, the horrific conditions in his “concentration camp” jails which have led to record suicides and in custody deaths, his attempts to intimidate and wrongfully arrest journalist and politicians who criticize him with bogus trumped up charges. Also he’s a birther, like Trump.
Hungarian Nazi Badge wearer Sebastian Gorka resigns from the WH amid rumors of his anti-Semetism.
Reports are that Meuller is investigating how involved Flynn, his son and his consulting firm were with Robert W. Smith’s attempts to aquire Hillary emails from Russian hackers. He also issues subpeonas for 6 PR firms which had worked for Flynn and Manafort.
Reports are that in 2007 Trump said “This is the first he’s heard...” that his employee Felix Sater was convicted of fraud in 1998.
.WH advisor Gary Cohn wrotes a resignation letter because of Trump’s support for anti-Semitic Neo-Nazis who chanted “Jews will not replace us” in Charlottesville, but he doesn’t hand it in. Mnunchin say’s “Gary is excited to be working here.”
Trump’s approval rating per Gallup drops to just 34%.
Ex White Nationalists confirms that Trump is using the same slippery bigoted dog whistle rhetoric that helped recruit them into hate groups.
August 25th —
Gorka says he didn’t resign from the WH, but yet, he’s still out.
Richard Painter blasts Arpaio as “One of the worst” law enforcement officers in the country,
Paul Begala argues that the Arpaio pardon is a signal to Mueller’s targets, Flynn, Manafort, Kushner and Donald Jr, that Trump will protect them if they face charges.
Ana Navarro links Trump’s Charlottesville comments to his support for racists like Gorka and Arpaio because, yeah, that makes sense.
NYTimes reports that Trump has cancelled an Obama era program to increase public works projects at the Department of Transportation. [So much for “American jobs” and “Infrastructure”]
Bannon vows to bring down Mitch McConnell “I’m going to light him up.”
Trump slaps sanctions on Venezuela because of their “Dictatorship” — which is totally unlike his pals Putin or Duterte.
August 26th —
Sen. Blumenthal states that Mueller targets shouldn’t expect pardons from Trump, “His loyalty is limited.” [Not even with Jared?]
Paul Ryan says the Arpaio pardon “is wrong.” [Yeah, no kidding, eh?]
Charlottesville police arrests neo-Nazis involved in the attack on Deandre Harris.
Trump international Gold Club in Dubai is refusing to pay it’s migrant workers from Pakistan on time.
I’ll tell you, when you actually lay it out all out item by item in chronological order a lot of patterns and actions/reactions become eminently clear. WIthout getting into classified or confidential data that isn’t yet public knowledge, what is public knowledge is already fairly stunning.
[This timeline has been continued with Vol#2 and Vol#3 due to length]
1985 — Australian government rejects a bid for a Trump Casino in Sydney because of his alleged ties to the mafia.
1986 — Trump attempts to gain a posting to Russia as part of the Reagan Administration and says he could sit down with Gorbechev to negotiate an end to the cold war “in an hour.”
1990 — Trump’s Taj Mahal casino, which is a favorite gambling spot for Russian mobsters living in Brooklyn, is cited 106 times in 18 months for violating money laundering rules, particular failing to report when someone wins and withdraws more then $10,000.
1991 — Taj Mahal files for bankrupcy protection, Trump sells his 50% share. After this and his other Casino bankruptcies most major banks no longer authorize loans to the Trump organization.
1998 -- Felix Sater a Russian born violent convict with ties to the Russian Mob — who are frequently used by Russian intelligence to do their dirty work and fund blackbag operations — gets caught up in a $40 Million stock fraud case but is only fined $35,000 in exchange for becoming an FBI informant.
2000 — Former KGB Agent Alexander Litvinenko defects to Britain.
GAO does analysis of Russian-American oligarch Ike Kaveladze and his involvement in starting 2000 shell companies which could be involved in money laundering.
2001-2007 — At least 63 Russian Oligarchs lease, rent or buy various Trump propertetes in South Florida spending upwards of $98.5 Million on them, many of these deals with Russian nationals in Manhattan reportedly are arranged through Bayrock Group LLC whose offices are located on the 24th floor of Trump Tower. Felix Sater becomes Bayrock’s managing director. Their first joint project together, in 2003, is building a Trump Tower in Phoenix.
2005 — TrumpCo puts together it’s first proposal for Trump Tower Moscow in coordination with BayRock LLC.
2006 — Alexander Litvinenko is poisoned by Polonium-210 and slowly dies of radiation sickness, he points to Putin as being behind his murder before he dies. His case officer with MI-6 is Christopher Steele.
2008 —Trump sells a Palm Beach Mansion to a Russian Oligarch for $95 Million after purchasing it just 2 years previously for only $45 Million.
Donald Jr. states “We get a lot to money from Russia.”
Felix Sater leaves Bayrock after his criminal record is revealed and goes to work for Trump.
Bayrock founder Tefvik Arif is busted and prosecuted for his connection to an underage prostitution ring in Turkey, he is eventually acquitted.
2009 — U.S. investor Bill Browder is expelled from Russia and his assets are used to setup a $230 Million tax rebate scam. Browder’s lawyer Sergei Magnitski discovers the scam and testifies to reveal it, he is subsequently arrested, tortured and murdered in a Russian jail, beaten to death by the guards.
2010 — A racketeering case is filed against Bayrock, Sater and Arif alleging they had been “substantially and covertly mob-owned and operated.”
2011 — Trump Soho a joint venture condo project by TrumpCO and Bayrock is sued for defrauding buyers with inflated claims. The suit is settled with a payout of $3.19 Million and a potential criminal case is avoided.
March 2011 — Trump begins his birther campaign against President Obama claiming there’s something wrong with his birth certificate. He also demands Obama's college transcripts alleging he didn't deserve access to Harvard, and claims that his best selling book “Dreams From My Father" was really ghostwritten by Bill Ayers.
May 2011 --
Obama authorizes the Bin Laden Raid, then attends the White House Correspondents dinner, Donald Trump is in the audience.
Obama reveals his long-form birth certificate and takes a couple shots at Donald, but Seth Myer brutalizes him from behind the podium. Myer's theorizes Trump decided to run for President right then and there in retaliation.
2012 — Obama signs the Magnitski Act following the jail house death of Sergey Magnitski after he was wrongfully imprisoned for investigation Russia corruption and laundering of money stolen from American businessmen Bill Browder. Putin responds by cancelling the adoption of Russian orphans by American parents. This act is strongly supported by Russian opposition leaders Boris Nemtsov and Vladimir Kara-Murza.
Exxon signs a $500 Billion deal with Russian Oil giant Rosneft for drilling in the Black sea.
2013 —
Russian mobsters renting property in Trump Tower just three floors below the penthouse suite are arrested for money laundering and running an illegal gambling ring at the end of a 2 year investigation. One of the attorney’s for the defendant Denys Katsyv of the Prevezon Group is Natalia Veselnitskaya, and the prosecutor is Preet Bharara, some of the stolen money is connected to Bill Browder’s investigation and the murder of Magnitski in Russia.
Several months later Trump holds the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow, the apparent money-laundering ring leader who remains at large is welcomed on the Red Carpet at the event. While in Moscow Trump reportedly meets with several high ranking oligarchs with ties to Putin, including Billionaire Russian Real Estate developer Arag Agalarov and his Pop Star son Emil who partners with Trump on the pageant.
Video shot before the pageant shows Trump at dinner with Emin and Aras Agalarov, as well as Rob Goldstone Emin’s promoter. Michael Isakoff talks to Goldstone who reveals that Trump has plans to license a new Trump Tower in Russia with Agalarov as the local builder/owner. Don jr. is in charge of the project and Ivanka goes on location scouting trips with Emin. Ike Kaveladze who works for the Agalarov family is also present.
2014 —
Michael Flynn is fired by the Obama administration as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency for his “odd behavior.”
Eric Trump says in an interview when discussing the funding of Trump Golf courses “Well, we don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia.” Eric later denies making this statement.
Bayrock is functionally inactive, except for a few outstanding lawsuits.
Putin releases ***** Riot from prison for shooting a Punk Rock video in a Church.
The Winter Olympics takes place in Sochi, Russia.
Russia invades Crimea and begins sending Troops and equipment in the Ukraine to destabilize the Country, Obama rallies the international community to place Sanctions on Russia which crush their economy — plans for the Rosneft/Exxon deal and Trump Tower Russia are both put on hold.
2015 —Trump and his kids are named as witnesses in a $250 Million tax evasion case connected to Bayrock and Trump Soho.
Michael Flynn goes to Russia, meets and sits with Putin for dinner and is paid $45,000 for a speech at RT's 10th Anniversary Gala. He also receives $11,250 from Kaspersky Government Security Solutions, and $11,250 from Volga-Dnepr Airlines. He doesn't get prior permission from the Pentagon for this trip or the payments.
Taj Mahal is fined $10 Million for continued money laundering by Treasury’s FinCen unit.
Boris Nemtsov is murdered in the streets of Moscow in the shadow of the Kremlin.
U.S. intel captures discussion by Russians about Trump running for President, when he hasn’t announced his run yet, and talking about multiple contacts they’ve been having with Trump associates and planning to funnel money into the election.
June 17, 2015 -- Trump announces his run for President. He never releases his Taxes, his birth certificate or his school transcripts.
Summer 2015 —Cyber hacking contractors working with the FSB (Cozy Bear) begin infiltrating and extracting copies of documents including the oppo-research on Trump and emails from the DNC servers. Their previous successful attacks include the White House and State Dept. email systems.
They also penetrate some RNC emails accounts and attack various Republicans who oppose Trump in the primaries.
September 2015 — FBI detects the hack and begins trying to inform the DNC, but they start by going to their Help desk not simply calling Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.
November 2015 — Felix Sater emails Michael Cohen saying “I will get Putin on this program and we will get Donald elected... I know how to play it and how to get this done. Buddy, our boy can become president of the USA and we can engineer it... I will get all of Putin’s team to buy in on this, I will manage this process.”
Late 2015 — GCHQ and other western intel agencies from Germany, Poland, Estonia and Australia begin noticing contacts between Russia Spies and members of the Trump campaign. They attempt to notify FBI and CIA who are apparently caught "flat footed.”
January 2016 — Michael Cohen send an email to Putin deputy Dmitry Peskov trying to get talks regarding Trump Tower Moscow restarted.
March 2016 -— US Attorney Preet Bharara prosecutes Russian intelligence officer Evgeny Buryakov an employee of sanctioned Russia bank Vnesheconombank (VEB) of conspiracy to commit espionage in recruiting U.S Businessmen in Manhattan including Carter Page. Page had been cooperating in this investigation as an informant.
FBI receives memo alleging collusion between Loretta Lynch and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz to quash the Clinton email investigation — they believe this document is fake.
March 16, 2016 -— John Podesta receives a spearfishing email, his IT people mistakenly tell him that it’s “Legitimate” and his assistant clicks on the link and gives up his password compromising his account.
March 21, 2016 —Trump lists Carter Page & George Papadopoulis as part of his foreign policy team.
March 24, 2016 — Papadopoulis writes an email offering to set up “a meeting between us and the Russian leadership to discuss US-Russia ties under President Trump,” telling them his Russian contacts welcomed the opportunity.
March 28, 2016 —Trump hires Paul Manafort to handle the delegate process on his campaign.
April 2016 — GRU Russian military intelligence also attacks the DNC systems with Fancy Bear. The DNC discovers the intrusion and calls in cyber security firm Crowdstrike to address it, they discover both intrusions, briefly monitor them to confirm their ID, then shut them down.
About this time Paul Manafort — former advisor to Putin friendly ex-Ukrainian President Yanakovych who has a close associate with links to the GRU, and who had previous been paid $Millions to allegedy secretly promote Putin’s agenda by Russian aluminum oligarch Oleg Deripaska — becomes Trump campaign chairman.
The Kremlin gives Rep. Dana Rohrabacher instructions to stage a “show trial” in Congress attacking Bill Browder in order to alter the Magnitski Act sanctions on Russia. Rohrabacher is provided a Russian propaganda film against Browder by the Russian Prosecutor Generals Office run by Yuri Chaika, the same person who had jailed Magnitski.
April 27, 2016 -Trump gives his first major foreign policy speech at an event that had been largely arranged by Jeff Sessions Chief of Staff Rick Dearborn, Russian ambassador Kislyak is invited as a special guest, both Trump and Session briefly meet with him at a backstage reception before the speech at the Mayflower Hotel.
Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos writes in an email to campaign manager Corey Lewandowsk he had fielded “a lot of calls over the past month” related to a meeting between the Trump campaign and Russia. “Russia has been eager to meet with Mr. Trump for some time and have been reaching out to me to discuss,” Papadopoulos says in a separate email to Paul Manafort.
May 2016 — US surveillance operations detects Russian Spies vowing to “Get Hillary Clinton” in retaliation for her criticism of Putin’s last election. A GRU Officer is recorded saying they are “getting ready to pay Clinton back for what President Vladimir Putin believed was an influence operation she had run against him five years earlier as Secretary of State”
They also detect them bragging that they have good ties to Michael Flynn and may be able to use him to “influence" Trump.
Obama admin attempts to limit classified information to Flynn.
Russian spies attempt to cultivate Carter Page as an asset, yet again!
FBI obtains a FISA warrant to monitor Page’s communications and possibly on a Trump server in Pennsylvania which keeps being oddly pinged by a server owned by Russia’s Alfa Bank and another owned by the DeVos companies.
Trump backs Brexit says “England is better off without the EU.”
Paul Manafort meets with his assistant from the Ukraine Konstantin Kilimnik, who has alleged ties to the GRU.
Trump releases an attack ad on Hillary claiming she’s “too close to Putin”, WaPo considers if the “Bromance” between Trump and Putin is over? But still Politico reports that Trump is “Putin’s Candidate.”
June 2016 — Russian Think Tank controlled by Putin publishes a blue print to use cyber bots, trolls and social media to push anti-Clinton/pro-Trump propaganda to help swing the election.
Jeff Sessions Chief of staff Rick Dearborn who is an advisor to the Trump campaign writes an email to Lowendowski noting that he’d received and offer from someone referrenced as “WV” to setup a meeting between Trump officials and Putin.
June 2, 2016 — Hillary gives a major speech criticizing Trump’s closeness to Russia and Putin accusing him of praising “dictators like Vladimir Putin” and having a “bizarre fascination with dictators and strongmen who have no love for America.”
June 3, 2016 — Music Promoter Rob Goldstone emails Don Jr, and says he has information from the Russian Government about shady dealings by Hillary and DNC. Don Jr. says “I Love it” and plans to discuss it further on a phone call and eventually a meeting.
June 7, 2016 — Trump says that he’ll give a major speech about Hillary Clinton’s corruption in a week.
June 9, 2016 —
Donald Jr, Kushner and Manafort secretly meet with a prominent Russia lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya at Trump Tower after being offered “dirt” about the Clinton Campaign and the DNC being funded by Russia. The information comes through their Miss Universe Moscow partner Aras Agalarov via his son’s Emin’s promoter Rob Goldstone who had received it directly from the “Crown Prosecutor” [actually the Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika] of Russia because the Russian Government “supports Trump.” They also discuss the Russian adoption program in the wake of the Magnitski Act, which is a law that blacklists Russian Human Rights violators.
Later that day Donald tweets for the first time about Clinton’s “33,000 missing emails.”
June 12, 2016 — Julian Assange hints that he’s soon release emails linked to Hillary Clinton.
The Pulse Night Club in Orlando is attacked and 49 people are killed by a frustrated gay Muslim man
June 13, 2016 — Trump blames the Pulse attack on Obama’s sympathy with “Radical Islam” and on immigrants even though the shooter was a native born American citizen born in New Hyde Park, NY.
June 14, 2016 -— Wapo Reports that the DNC has been hacked by the Russian government, DNC goes public about the cyber intrusion.
June 15, 2016 — Guccifer 2.0 releases the DNC’s opposition research file on Donald Trump.
Dana Rohrabacher’s scheduled “show trial” hearing on Bill Browder in opposition to the Magnitski Act is cancelled by his committee chairman.
Rep. Kevin McCarthy jokes behind scenes that the only people Putin pays are Rohrabacher and Trump.
June 16, 2016 — Guccifer 2.0 uses DCLeaks to reveal the first set of hacked DNC emails, they have Cyrillic characters and Russian urls in their metadata
June 17, 2016 — Putin says the Trump is a “bright” individual.[Actually the word he used translates more accurately into “Colorful”]
June 20, 2016 — Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski is fired after a controversy where he physically grabbed and yanked a Brietbart reporter away from Trump as she asked a question. At first Corey and the Trump campaign denies it ever happened, but it’s on video — then he claims he would’ve “apologized if he knew she was from Breitbart” but he doesn’t. She files a criminal complaint, but it’s thrown out. He goes to work for CNN while still being paid by Trump.
June 22, 2016 — Trump finally gives his big anti-Clinton speech over a week late, he complains about Benghazi, Free Trade, Temperment and that her “Deleted emails could make her vulnerable to blackmail by hostile states.” He doesn’t mention Russian money going into the DNC.
June 24, 2016 — Brexit Referendum Vote Passes.
Trump is in Scotland for the opening of his Turnberry Golf Course, he says he’s glad Scotland Voted to leave the EU — but they didn’t, England did.
June 27, 2016 — Bill Clinton meets privately with AG Loretta Lynch on her plane at the Pheonix Airport while they are both there during a layover. Reportedly they discuss family, golf and travel, but calls of “obstruction” and “undue influence” — even though there is absolutely no evidence to that effect — eventually cause her to defer any decision on the Clinton email investigation to the FBI.
July 2016 — Business Insider publishes a report on the Kremlin’s Troll army based in St. Petersburg. They pose online as Pro-Trump and Pro-Bernie Americans and incessantly attack Clinton.
Cyber attacks are also made on the DCCC in order to impact House races in Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Ohio, Illinois, New Mexico and North Carolina.
Carter Page travels to Moscow, approved by Trump Natsec advisor JD Gordon and Corey Lewandowski, to give several paid speeches.
Former MI-6 agent Christopher Steele while working on oppo-research for a GOP candidate receives intel that Page also has secret meetings with Russian government oil firm Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin who allegedly offers him broker fees on the sale of 19% of Rosneft stock supposedly as a payoff for influencing Trump to drop sanctions on Russia. Page eventually denies all of this.
Steele begins writing memos to the FBI.
U.S. intel intercepts Russian Operatives discussing a request for “Help damaging Clinton’s campaign” from the Trump campaign which mentions Manafort.
July 5, 2016 — Influenced by false email intel generated by the Russians alleging that AG Lynch was “throwing the Clinton case”, and apparently the fact that she has suggested he called the Clinton situation a “matter” rather than an “investigation” — even though DOJ rules prohibit confirming an investigation before it is complete — FBI Director James Comey after announcing that the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s server is complete and no charges will be filed goes on to blast her in an extended public statement.
July 7, 2016 — Comey testifies to Congress about Hillary’s server and manages to debunk just about every Right-wing conspiracy about it.
July 18-21, 2016 — The Republican National Convention takes place during which Trump National Security Advisor J.D. Gordon torpedoes a platform plank supporting the arming of Ukrainian rebels against pro-Russian forces, then lies about it.
Kislyak attends and briefly meets Sessions again at a Heritage Foundation event, as well as Carter Page and J.D. Gordon.
Flynn delivers a speech at the Republican convention, joining in the crowd’s “Lock her up!” chant. “If I, a guy who knows this business, if I did a tenth of what she did, I would be in jail today”
Mike Pence also chants “Lock Her Up” over Hillary’s emails — even though she’s been cleared already — and he himself has AOL for his email for official business as Governor and his account had been hacked.
Flynn fills out his SF-86 form to reactivate his security clearance related to his being selected by Trump as national security advisor. Flynn fails to include that he had received $530,000 from Turkey or that he had taken another $45,000 from Russia in 2015.
July 22, 2016 — One day after end of RNC Wikileaks reveals their first set of DNC emails.
Russia Today, Sputnik News, Breitbart and other right-wing outlets begin doing incessant stories about every little negative revelation in them as well as numerous false and inflammatory rumors these are further pushed by bots and trolls on facebook and twitter until they trend.
The FBI begin to look into the Russia hack based on information from Crowdstrike, they don’t get direct access to DNC servers presumably as that would cause them to shutdown their entire email capability in middle of an election until a replacement set of servers could be installed [I’ve sent a question to the DNC’s Deputy Communications Director on this point, he hasn’t responded yet].
FBI is also looking into links to Trump due to Steele memos and concerns raised by CIA head Brennan.
July 25, 2016 — Democratic Convention starts, because of the brouhaha from the Wikileaks email dump, Chairman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz resigns and Donna Brazille takes over, RT/Sputnik heightened and amplified rumors swirl about the DNC “rigging the Primary” for Clinton and against Sanders.
July 26, 2016 — Roger Ailes leaves Fox News amid harassment allegations. Trump defends him.
Wapo reporter Sarah Kendzior asks a Kremlin official about the hacking of DNC emails and he refers the issue to Donald Trump Jr.
July 27, 2016 — Trump asks Russia to hack and/or release Hillary’s missing emails.
July 28, 2016 — Sputnik news claims Wikileaks proves the primary and DNC was rigged against Sanders.
July 31, 2016 — Manafort denies that the Trump campaign made any changes to the RNC platform. Various Trump affiliates will repeat these denials 20 more times before finally admitting the truth; Donald personally ordered the change in a meeting with Gordon during the RNC in which Sessions attended. [If this was done as a pay off to Russia to ensure their continued support in their hacking/propaganda efforts, it proves Donald’s direct involvement in a criminal conspiracy.]
August 2016 —Mikail Kalugin who was linked to pension payment scheme by Steele leaves the U.S., and is later confirmed to have been falsely posing as a diplomat while actually being a spy.
Kilminik again travels to the U.S. and meet with Manafort where they allegedly discuss the DNC hack.
CIA Director Brennen sends an “Eyes Only” private note to the WH for Obama and just 3 senior aids which states that “Putin has ordered a cyber attack to defeat or damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign, and elect Donald Trump.”
August 4, 2016 — Brennen calls his counterpart Alexander Bortnikov Director of the FSB and issues him a stern warning about the hacking and active measures.
August 9, 2016 — Flynn Intel Group, a consulting firm founded by Flynn, signs a contract with Inovo BV, a firm run by a Turkish businessman close to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, for more than $500,000
August 16, 2016 — Manafort pushes a false RT/Sputnik News story about terrorist sabotage at a NATO base in Turkey. Trump also pushes the same false story.
August 17, 2016 — Trump receives his first classified briefing. Flynn is with him.
August 19, 2016 — Manafort leaves the Trump campaign amidst allegations that he accepted a $12 Million under-the-table cash payment from his former Putin friendly client, ex-Ukraine President Yanakovych. Pollster Kellyanne Conway, who is a Mercer employee, takes over.
August 21, 2016 -— Trump pal Roger Stone tweets “it will soon be Podesta's time in the barrel.” He later claims he was talking about Podesta’s “business dealings” not his email, although Stone had also been sending DM’s to Guccifer 2.0 the public face of Russia’s cyber hacking operation.
September 2016 — Reports are the Russian hackers have attempted to penetrate the voter registration systems in 20 States, 4 were successfully infiltrated.
GOP consultant Aaron Nevins sends a note to Guccifer 2.0 asking if he has anything on Florida Dems, 10 days later he gets 2.5 Gigabits of stolen DCCC data, which confirms the connection between Kremlin intel & Guccifer.
Roger Stone says on Boston Herald Radio that he expects, "Julian Assange and the Wikileaks people to drop a payload of new documents on a weekly basis fairly soon. And that of course will answer the question of exactly what was erased on that email server."
Obama meets Putin at a summit and personally tells him to “Cut it out” with the hacking.
Obama assembles Congress’s “Gang of 12” and informs them of the Russia hack confidentially and asks for a bipartisan public statement in opposition to the attack. Mitch McConnel refuses as he doubts the veracity of the information, no public statement is issued at this time.
Trump transition chair Chris Christie begins to recommend that Flynn be fired after his erratic behavior during a national security briefing.
FBI offers to pay Christopher Steele to continue his work investigating Trump/Russia links.
Jeff Sessions meets privately with Kislyak at his Senate Offices.
Guccifer 2.0 sends Roger Stone a link to a blog post on manipulating voter turnout.
Ignoring McConnel and other Republicans Sen Feinstein and Rep Schiff issue a joint statement revealing the Russia cyber attack.
One week later McConnell and other Reps issues a tepid statement warning state election boards to remain “secure from attack.”
October 2016 — The Russian Think Tank publishes another paper, this one saying the Clinton is likely to win the election, so the online influence campaign needs to focus on claims that the election was “rigged” or “stolen” due to voter fraud.
Trump starts saying the only way he could lose Pennsylvania is because of “Voter Fraud.” and mentions the information revealed by Wikileaks 164 times over the next month.
The FEC unanimously agrees to prioritize investigations into foreign spending.
Around this time before election day NSA detects that the GRU has launched a set of cyber attacks on state and local election registration systems. Some are penetrated.
Kushner Co receives a $285 Million loan from Duetsche Bank for their Times Square building that was facing charges for not stopping Russian money-laundering on the premesis.
October 4, 2016 — Guccifer 2.0 Post documents stolen from the Clinton Foundation.
October 5, 2016 — Buzzfeed reports that Trump financial attorneys regularly meet with him in pairs so that there would be a witness. “...It’s always been our practice to make sure two people are present, and we don’t have a problem of people lying.” and “We tried to do it with Donald always if we could because Donald says certain things and then has a lack of memory.”
October 6, 2016 — The Access Hollywood Video drops with “Grab ‘em by the *****”. One hour later Wikileaks releases the first set of emails taken from John Podesta’s account. RT and Sputnik News continue to do daily reports as another set of emails is dumped for next 30 days.
October 7, 2016 — Homeland Security and the Director of National Intelligence release a Joint Statement on the Russia Hacking efforts saying it “was directed from the highest levels of the Kremlin.” FBI Director Comey had also originally signed on to this document, but refrained at the last minute due to the closeness of the election.
October 11, 2016 — Trump uses false talking points from RT to blame HIllary for Benghazi
October 21, 2016 — Hillary Clinton states during a debate that 17 Intelligence Agencies have confirmed Russia’s attempt to influence the election. Trump denies it, says “nobody knows” and it could be “China, North Korea or a 300lbs. Fat Guy.” which is also a Sputnik News Talking point.
October 23, 2016 —Christopher Steele, frustrated by the lack of response by the FBI particularly the New York Field Office which he says houses an Anti-Clinton Cabal (aka Trumpland), contacts David Corn of Motherjones who writes that “Russian spies have been attempting to cultivate Trump as an asset for 5 years.”
FBI rescinds their job offer to Steele.
Eventually with the help of the British Ambassador to Russia, his dossier of memos are passed to John McCain who physically gives a copy to James Comey.
October 26, 2016 — James Comey writes a letter to congress about the Abedin emails found on Anthony Weiner’s laptop several weeks earlier — it gets leaked almost immediately, presumably by Jason Chaffetz’s office. All hell breaks lose, Clinton drops 3-5% in the polls.
October 27, 2016 — Rudy Giuliani admits on Fox that he knew about the Comey letter from “former FBI agents” before it was sent to Congres and leaked.
October 30, 2016 — FBI obtains a warrant to review the Abedin emails.
November 6, 2016 — FBI finds that virtually all of the Abedin emails are duplicates that they already had in their possession from the Clinton server.
November 7, 2016 — 19.5% of Rosneft is sold to unknown buyers. [This seem to be consistent with the Steele Memo which predicted this sale as an payoff to Trump for lifting sanctions on Russia]
November 8, 2016 —Election Day.
Michael Flynn writes an Op-Ed in support of Turkey arguing that the U.S. should extradite a Turkish expat who President Erdoğan blames for the recent attempted coup. Seemingly Turkey has been paying Flynn and his consulting firm $530,000 — money which originated with yet another Russian oligarch.
Flynn does not disclose this or register as a foreign agent.
Russia’s Parliament erupts into applause when Trump is announced the winner.
Also four patents for various Trump Hotels and products which were applied for years earlier are simultaneously renewed in Russia.
November 9, 2016 — Wikileaks proclaims that Trump won because Democrats rigged system to have Clinton beat Sanders.
November 10, 2016 — Russia’s Foreign Minister Lavrov admits they had continuing communications from Trump’s “immediate entourage.”
Trump and Obama meet at the WH, Obama warns him not to hire Flynn.
November 11, 2016 — Chris Christie is dropped as transition chief, VP Pence takes his place.
Flynn stays on.
November 12, 2016 — Lewandowski quits CNN to work for Trump again.
November 28, 2016 — In an interview with Time magazine, Trump denies interference from Russia. “I don’t believe they interfered,” he said. “That became a laughing point, not a talking point, a laughing point. Any time I do something, they say ‘oh, Russia interfered.'” He also addressed the hacking: “It could be Russia. And it could be China. And it could be some guy in his home in New Jersey”
November 30, 2016 — The Justice Department informs Flynn that he is under investigation for his unreported lobbying on behalf of Turkey.
November —House oversight ranking member Rep. Cummings sends a letter to VP Pence about Flynn’s Op-Ed and his lobbying for Turkey.
When Flynn states he plans to schedule a meeting with Kislyak former Bush Pentagon Official Michael Billingslea warns him that any such communications with Kislyak are likely to be picked up by U.S. surveillance.
December —Trump transition does a background check on Flynn but doesn't fully vet him, they are also specifically informed by Flynn’s lawyers that he may have to register as a “Foreign Agent” because of his work for Turkey even though the Pentagon had previously warned him to get permission for such payments first, and that he was under investigation by the FBI because of it.
Watchdog groups file a complaint with the FEC over Russia and the Trump campaign coordinating.
December 1, 2016 — Flynn meets with Kislyak at Trump Tower along with Jared Kushner. Kushner suggests setting up a secure back-channel back to the Kremlin using Russian facilities that could “bypass the U.S. national security bureaucracy.”. Kislyak is reportedly “taken aback”. They also suggest having an overseas meeting but Flynn is considered too high profile to attend.
Both Flynn and Kushner don’t include these meetings on their security clearances forms and are at risk of Logan Act violations if this meetings are intended to undermine current U.S Foreign policy as both are private citizens at this point. Kushner later includes the meetings on future updates.
NSA discovers the details of this meeting while surveilling Kislyak as he communicates with Moscow.
At Kislyak’s suggestion, Kushner later meets with banker and FSB Academy graduate Sergei Gorkov who is head of Moscow based government owned bank Vnesheconombank (VEB), which funds special projects like the Sochi Olympics or` Trump Tower in Toronto and included Russian intelligence officer Evgeny Buryakov on it’s payroll, who was convicted in March 2016 by Preet Bharara of conspiracy in the case involving the attempted cultivation of Carter Page as an Russian asset. Gorkov is also former deputy board chairman of Russia largest state-owned bank, Sberank, whom had hired Trump’s attorney’s Marc Kasowitz to defend it.
December 8, 2016 — Page is back in Moscow to meet with “business leaders and thought leaders”
December 9, 2016 — Wapo reports that the CIA has made a Secret Assessment that the Russia government sought to interfere in our election in order to make Trump President, and that Congress was informed of this so they could make a bipartisan statement but Mitch McConnell refused.
December 12, 2016 -—While in Moscow, Trump’s former campaign surrogate Jack Kingston meets with Russian businessmen to discuss what they might expect from a Trump administration. “Trump can look at sanctions,” Kingston says. “They’ve been in place long enough.”
December 13, 2016 — Trump says he doesn’t need a security briefing everyday. “I’ll get it when I need it”.
Trump nominates then Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson — recipient of the Russia Order of Friendship personally from Putin who had been seeking a waiver on Russian/Crimea sanctions to proceed with their $500 Billion deal with Rosneft for drilling in the Black sea — as Secretary of State.
NBC News’ Richard Engel reports from Moscow on Trump’s secretary of state pick, Rex Tillerson. Former Russian Energy Minister Vladimir Milov tells Engel that Tillerson was a “gift for Putin.”
Steve Bannon joins Flynn and Kushner for a separate meeting with the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, who makes an undisclosed visit to New York.
December 20, 2016 -— Jared Kushner brags to Forbes magazine about the data-mining and voter micro-targeting operation he helped setup for the Trump campaign with Cambridge-Analytica which is owned by deep pocketed Trump pal Robert Mercer, who also bankrolls Breitbart News.
December 21, 2016 — Lewandowski doesn’t get rehired by Trump, starts a lobbying firm.
December 29, 2016 —Obama hits Russia with Sanctions for their hacking and involvement in the Election. Flynn talks to Russian Ambassador Kislyak, mentions “We’ll review everything” when Obama’s new sanctions are brought up. This conversation is recorded by the NSA/FBI.
The Obama Administration tries to save the intel data with a trail of bread crumbs for Congress to track.
December 30, 2016 — Putin states he will not retaliate to Obama’s newly imposed sanctions and the expulsion of 30 suspected Russian spies. Trump praises his lack of response.
A PHP web shell called P.A.S. created by Ukrainian Hacker Profexor is identified by DHS as being used in part of the DNC hack. He eventually contacts the FBI himself as he had no knowledge his worked was being used in this manner.
January 5th — Former CIA Director James Woolsey leaves Trump transition team because he is alarmed by Flynn's stance on trying to have Erdogen’s opponent Gulley “snatched up” and shipped off to Turkey.
Trump tweets a storm of attacks on the Intel community and claims of Russian hacking.
January 6th —U.S. Intel agencies publish their report on the Russia Cyber efforts to influence the election. Obama, Biden and Trump are briefed on the report, Trump claims it proves Russia didn’t “change the vote” even though the report doesn’t attempt to answer that question.
January 10th —Jeff Sessions testifies during confirmation hearings that he doesn’t know “any Trump surrogates who were in contact with the Russians” ignoring the question he was asked which was “What would you do if you discover surrogates coordinating with Russians?” Apparently the correct answer is “Nothing.”
Buzzfeed publishes the entire Steele Dossier online.
CNN reports that Trump was specifically briefed on it during the Jan 6th briefing.
Trump transition team does full court press to deny this briefing occurred, not only denying that anyone verbally described it to Trump but also there was a 3 page summary at the end of the full Russia report.
Flynn meets with Susan Rice over a plan to arm the Kurds against ISIS, Flynn vetoes the plan as the Kurds are considered terrorists by one of his financial benefactors Turkey.
Paul Manafort calls Reince Preibus to deny allegations in the dossier about him
January 11th — At his first press conference of the year Trump says he himself “didn’t meet with any Russians” during the election even though he did.
Erik Prince, former CEO of Blackwater, giant Christian Supremacist, Mike Pence supporter and brother of
Education Secretary nominee Betsy DeVos has a secret meeting with the UAE on the Seychelles islands to establish a back channel to Putin which is noticed by FBI. That meeting is chaired by the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi who had previously met with Bannon, Flynn & Kushner secretly in New York, and seems to be a follow-on to Kushner’s meeting with Kislyak at Trump Tower.
Politico issues a report indicating that Ukrainian-American Alexandra Chalupa who consulted for the DNC had gone to the Ukrainian embassy to gain information about Paul Manafort’s links to Yanakovic.
January 12th — NBC news confirms that Comey personally briefed Trump about the Steele Dossier revealing yet another transition team lie.
January 14th — Reports surface that U.S. Intel agents have warned our allies like Israel not to share sensitive intel with Trump transition team due to the Steele dossier and the risk he might share it with Russia and hence their ally Iran.
January 15th — Trump says “We should trust Putin” while lambasting NATO and Angela Merkel.
Former CIA Officer for Moscow states that Steele dossier deserves support: “This is exactly how the Russians operate.”
January 20th — Inauguration day.
January 21st —Sean Spicer does his first press briefing and spends most of it lying about the Inauguration crowd size, then takes no questions.
Women’s march crowd dwarfs Trump’s crowd by 3 to 1.
Trump WH officials soon begin pushing State Dept to remove all Russian sanctions. Alarmed State Offiicials Melinowski and Fried begin to contact congress.
January 22nd — Comey attends an event honoring Law Enforcement at the WH, tries to avoid being noticed by Trump, but fails.
January 23rd —Spicer claims Flynn didn’t talk to Kislyak about sanctions, even though he did.
Later Mike Pence goes on Meet the Press after talking personally to Flynn and claims “Flynn told me he didn’t talk to Russia about sanctions.”
January 24th — Flynn interviewed by FBI, again he apparently says he didn’t talk to Russians about sanctions but they know better. He also claims that he didn’t get any foreign money and the $45k and $530k came from “U.S. companies” having omitted the true information on his SF-86 Security form.
January 26th —Sally Yates goes to the White House personally and warns WH Counsel McGahn that Flynn may be vulnerable to “blackmail by the Russians” because he’d lied to the FBI & Pence about his contacts with Kislyak.
Trump is immediately briefed by McGahn but does nothing about Flynn.
Former Bush Ethics Atty Richard Painter files complaint with Government Ethics Office that James Comey may have violated the Hatch Act by releasing unsubstantiated information about the Abedine emails.
January 27th — Trump signs a travel ban against 7 majority Muslim nations.
McGahn calls Yates, she returns to the WH where he asks “why does it matter if Flynn lied to Pence?”
Trump invites Comey to dinner at the White House, allegedly asks Comey if he wants to “keep his job” and to pledge him his “Loyalty”, Comey offers his “Honesty” and takes copious notes.
Kremlin arrests FSB officials Sergei Mikhailov, his deputy Dmitry Dokuchaev, and Ruslan Stoyanov, the head of cybercrime investigations at Kaspersky Labs (who had paid Flynn $11,500 in 2015) for treason and illegal hacking apparently for sharing intel information with the CIA.
January 29th — London Mayor Saddiq Khan says that Trump shouldn’t be allowed entry into the UK while his Muslim ban is in place.
Trump signs EO that places Steve Bannon on the principles committee of the National Security Council, the DNI and head of the Joint Chiefs are relegated to "part time" participants.
January 30th — Sally Yates orders the DOJ not to defend Trump's Muslim ban executive order in court as she doubts it is legal or constitutional.
January 31st --Yates is fired by Trump allegedly for refusing to defend his Muslim ban executive order.
Flynn stays.
Roger Stone goes on Russia Today to push the conspiracy that murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich is the "real hacker.” This is his fifth appearance on the channel.
Deutsche Bank is fined $630 Million for $10 Billion in money laundering transactions involving Russia.
February 2nd — Putin opposition leader Vladimir Kara-Murza is poisoned for a second time in Moscow.
February 3rd —Federal Judge Robart blocks Trump's Muslim Ban echoing Yates issues with it.
Reports surface that Trump is still using that same vulnerable unsecured out of date Galaxy S3 Cell Phone to tweet with during the campaign while in the White House.
February 6th —Rep. Maxine Waters states “Trump is moving towards Impeachment.”
Trump attorney Michael Cohen and Felix Sater negotiate a deal to end sanctions against Russia by stopping the violence in Crimea with a Ukranian named Andrii V. Artemenko. They supposedly deliver a copy of this plan to Michael Flynn’s desk, but there is no evidence he ever reviewed it or passed it on to anyone.
When this is revealed Artemenko is looked at for possible Treason charges by Ukraine. [Exactly who came up with this idea and tasked them with this? Does anyone believe they went rogue?]
Februray 7th -— Sens. Cardin and Graham — alerted by Fried and Malinowski at State of Trump efforts to scrap sanctions -— author bipartisan legislation to require the approval of Congress for all changes to sanctions.
February 8th — Washington posts asks Flynn if he discussed sanctions with Russia, he says “No” twice.
February 9th —Flynn’s spokesman issues a correction to Wapo that he “doesn’t remember” if he did or didn’t discuss sanctions.
Trump talks to Putin by phone and criticizes Obama’s Start II Nuclear deal with Russia. Flynn is there for the call.
Judge Robart’s national block of the Muslim Ban is upheld by the 9th Circuit
February 10th — Trump is asked about Flynn talking to Russians about sanctions and says “This is the first time I’ve heard that.” Note: He had already been personally told about this by White House Counsel McGahn immediately after he was told by Yates on Jan 26th.
February 12th — Reports emerge that the Intel agencies are considering holding back highly sensitive intel from Trump to prevent leaks to Russia.
February 13th — Flynn is fired immediate after Wapo report proving that he lied, allegedly he’s let go because he lied to Vice President Pence and caused him to be embarrassed about what he said on Meet the Press. WH secret push to cut sanctions goes on hold.
February 14th — Comey & Sessions meet Trump in the Oval for a counter-terrorism briefing. Trump clears the room and gets Comey alone to complain about leaks asking him to prosecute some reporters over it and ask if he can just “Let Flynn go” Comey interprets the request to only be about Flynn not the Russia investigation,
Comey notes this and discusses it with FBI leadership.
The NYTimes reports that Trump aids (including Flynn, Manafort and Page) had repeated contacts with Russian Intelligence according to the NSA and that the FBI had requested they “collect as much information as possible about the Russian operatives on the phone calls” and go through their archives for more information.
February 15th — Intel Agencies with access to foreign intercepts say “Trump Will Die in Jail.”
Comey laters asks Sessions not to leave him alone with Trump again as it’s inappropriate. Comey’s memory of the event is hazy, but he states later Sessions doesn’t really respond. [During later testimony Session claims he repeated back basic DOJ protocols to Comey, which doesn’t answer his concern over why Sessions failed to follow protocol the previous day.]
February 16th — CBS reports that Trump screamed at CIA Director Pompeo over reports that Intel is being withheld from him because of fears he might leak it to Russia.
Pompeo denies any intel is being withheld from Trump.
Trump rage tweets that “Russia” is a made up story by Democrats as an excuse for losing the election.
House Democrats submit bill to prevent removal of Russia sanctions without Congress approval.
February 17th — Trump calls the Press the “Enemies of the American People.”
February 21st — Artemenko talks to a Ukrainian News outlet and reveals that he’s known Michael Cohen for some time since Cohen has an ethanol business in the country, which is also where his wife was born, and that his meeting with Cohen and Sater on Feb 6 wasn’t their first. According to Artemenko, he discussed the “peace-plan” with Cohen and Sater “at the time of the primaries, when no one believed that Trump would even be nominated.”
February 25th — FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe — who began his carrier with the New York Field Office while Trump surrogate Giuliani was Mayor — goes to the White House and in direct violation of DOJ protocols buttonholes Reince Prebus to tell him the NYT article on contacts “Is Bullshit.” [Later reporting seems to hint that the FBI’s objection to the report is the claim that certain contacts were confirmed as part of “Russian Intelligence”, not that the contacts didn’t happen because those were confirmed by James Clapper.]
February 26th —Preibus calls McCabe back and asks him to inform the Press about this as an “anonymous source”, he refuses.
Preibus call his pals Devin Nunez Chairman of the House intelligence committee and Richard Burr Chairman of the Senate Intel Committee who are each former Trump surrogates who are heading up investigations of “Russia” — they do it for him.
Former Bush Ethics Atty Richard Painter files complaint with Government Ethics Office that James Comey violated the Hatch Act by publicly disclosing unsubstantiated information about Abedine’s emails prior to the election.
February 28th — Trump who had essentially called Hillary a “murderer” over Benghazi blames the Generals and Obama for death of Navy Seal in Yemen during raid he himself authorized.
March 1 —it’s discovered that Sessions met with Kislyak twice, in July at the RNC which he attended as a Trump surrogate along with Carter Page and JD. Gordon and in September in his Senate Offices. Nobody notices that he also met him in April.
Sen. Franken asks for Sessions to come back to the Senate to explain, he declines and sends a letter which claims he didn’t understand the question he was asked and didn’t think he was “acting as a surrogate” when he met Kislyak.
March 2 — 100 Democrats demand that Jeff Sessions resign as Attorney General. He doesn’t.
March 4 —Session recuses himself from the Russia investigation.
Trump blows his top that weekend screaming at his staff, throwing Priebus and Bannon off Air Force One for his weekly Mar-A-Lago trip.
March 5th — Trump tweets about being “Wiretapped in Trump Tower by Obama” that morning based on a report from Breitbart and Judge Napolitano on Fox News — Narrative shifts away from Sessions.
James Clapper denies that “Obama Wiretapped Trump.”
March 6th -- Trump issues a revised Muslim travel ban, which no longer blocks immigrants and refugees from Iraq.
March 7th —House Intel committee invites Sally Yates and James Comey to testify about Michael Flynn and Russia.
Michael Hayden denies Trump’s Wiretapped by Obama claims.
Sen. Franken says Session committed perjury.
The Guardian reports that SLC Group and Cambridge Analytics methods of generating micro-targeted alt-news webiverse using data provided by AggregateIQ were used to meddle in the Brexit Vote to encourage “voter disengagement” and “to persuade Democrat voters to stay at home”:
March 8th — British media reports more of the specific contacts by person and date alleged by Steele dossier have been confirmed by independent surveillance, but they do not yet confirm the substance of the conversations.
Flynn finally registers as a foreign agent.
June 20th —
Sen. Whitehouse argues that there is evidence Flynn has been cooperating with Mueller’s investigation for some time.
CNN Reports the Trump pick for FBI director Christopher Wray had edited his online bio to remove reference to a case against Russia.
Bannon says the reason Spicer doesn’t do his briefings on camera : “Sean got fatter.” Which is ironic for a guy who’s fatter than Spicer and doesn’t explain why he won’t allow the audio to be recorded either.
Jason Miller generates excuses for why Trump hasn’t commented on London Mosque attack: “It literally happened just yesterday” when it was 2 days ago, Yesterday was the death of former North Korean prisoner Otto Warmbier, but he commented on that, the Baseball practice shooting and the London Bridge attack immediately.
CBS reports that Trump’s approval is down 11% among Republicans since the end of his first 100 days. 36% approval overall.
“Still Fatter” Spicer does an on camera briefing.
Mueller adds Russian speaking prosecutor to his team.
Sessions lawyers up with an attorney Chuck Cooper, who had previously defended Bob Jones’ University’s ban on interracial dating to supporting job discrimination against those with HIV/AIDS.
Hannity claims new nutbag theory that the intelligence community and mainstream media are planning a “Soft Coup” to undermine Trump. “Deep State”, “Political Witch Hunt” etc
June 21st —
Bloomberg reports a detailed piece by Trump biographer Tim O’Brien on his shady financial ties to Mafia and Russian Mob money through Felix Sater and Bayrock LLC between 2002-2011 including $33 Million in properties sales & rentals of luxury condos in New York, Vegas and Los Angeles to mysterious LLCs since the election.
Don Jr. and Ivanka’s involvement in these deals makes them potential targets for Mueller’s investigations.
Former Homeland Security head Jeh Johnson testifies
He says that “The Russian government, at the direction of Vladimir Putin himself, orchestrated cyber attacks on our nation for the purpose of influencing our election,” he said. “That is a fact, plain and simple.”
But that there’s “No evidence they flipped votes.” which would have been an act of war.
He also says Trump’s “Rigged” talk made it difficult to address the interference Russia created.
Other officials from DHS indicate that voter registration systems in 21 states were attacked.
Spicer says he “hasn’t specifically asked” Trump if he believes Russia interfered with the election.
Telegraph reports that Trump will not be making an official state visit to the UK over the threat of widespread protests for at least two years.
Senate’s new Russia sanctions bill hits a snag on the House rule that any bill that raises revenue must start in the House.
Dems on House Oversight send letter to Preibus to explain why Kushner still has a security clearance?
Kushner flies to Tel Aviv to negotiate with Israel and Palestine.
Lewandowski tells Fox and Friends the Russian collusion investigation “should end immediately” because they’ve found nothing. [That they’ve told us about, Yet. And they won’t say anything until there’s either an indictment or a Grand Jury report to Rosenstein.]
NATO F-16 from Poland buzzes plane carrying Lavrov and shadows it until a Russian SU-22 with air-to-air missiles shows up.
Rachel Maddow highlights that what Homeland security testified isn't just that lots of states were attacked but also that voter registration files in specific counties that leaned heavily Democratic were targeted and some of the poll book software failed on election night in those counties which created excessive delays, long lines and more votes shifted to provisional ballots which aren't always counted — meanwhile personal information for 200 Million U.S. voters were posted on an open server by RNC contractor Deep Root analytics which could have been accessed by anyone who knew the IP or web address.
june 22nd —
Senate releases their version of Trumpcare which is even worse than the house version and immediately loses 4 Republican votes leaving the bill DOA. Senator Collins questions it's Medicaid cuts while Senator Warren says it pays for tax cuts with Blood Money.
Trump finally admits after 41 days, one day before the deadline set by congress for an answer, that he doesn't have any "Tapes" of his conversations with Comey, and had only brought it up to "rattle" him. He seems to claim he had thought Comey himself or the intel community had been taping the conversation in a weird variation on the "Obama taped me in Trump Tower" conspiracy. It never seems to occur to him that if Comey had a recording, he wouldn’t have needed to take notes and write memos about what was said, which is a pretty standard FBI practice.
Election officials report that hackers stole and changed voter registration information during the 2016 election in at least one county in addition to accessing registration systems in 39 states.
Huckabee Sanders says "Everybody agrees the election wasn't influenced by Russia" [No, not really. They didn't change votes, but they did all they could to access their registration data and to trick voters with false news and conspiracy theories.] when finally admitting that the DNC was probably hacked by Russia which everyone actually does say.
Trump staffers reacts to this latest nutty conspiracy theory and the looming backlash over it --"**** my life."
Nunez "I never said I was leaving the Russia investigation for good."
Trump's "Voter Fraud" panel backfires as they starting looking into Russian hacking of election systems.
Pizzagate shooter sentenced to four years in prison.
Preet Bharara signs a book deal
Schiff says that Trump's tweet about the tapes is not enough, 'he's been untruthful before in his tweets.' and that his statement that he doesn't have tapes doesn't cover the rest of the White House.
Coats and Rogers tells House intel that Trump did ask them to “get the word out” about his not being personally under investigation and that there was “no evidence of collusion.” Coats also says Trump is “obsessed with the Russia probe.”
Rand Paul's attempts to claim that Trump really was being surveilled which inspires former CIA agent Phill Mudd to call bullshit on that. Besides the fact that Comey, Coats, Clapper (all under oath) and Michael Hayden have already denied this and said it’s not even possible under the law.
June 23rd —
Wapo releases report that CIA had generated an “Eyes Only” memo for Obama in August that Putin personally ordered the attack on the U.S. election. Trump says "This is the first he's heard of it..." as if he wasn't briefed on exactly this on Jan 6th and Jeh Johnson hadn’t just testified to the same thing two days ago.
Spicer finally admits he talked to Trump about “elections tampering” but doesn’t specifically mention Russia, and claims Trump’s “tape threat” was intended to force Comey to “tell the truth” as if being under oath were meaningless.
Incoming House Oversight Chair Trey Gowdy, replacing Chaffetz, says he’s totally dropping investigation of Russian interference leaving it for Mueller, House Judiciary and Intelligence.
Trump Energy official sends racist tweets calling Obama a “Kenyan creampuff.”
Wapo reports that WH can’t get through to Tillerson on the phone, “he won’t return calls”
Senate Intel opens investigation into faked and already debunked report about Loretta Lynch colluding with Debbie Wasserman-Schultz to shutdown Clinton email investigation.
Trump claims Comey tapes may exists because “Obama taped the White House”, again. [Uh, no he didn’t he taped the Russian ambassador and caught Flynn, which is something he was warned would happen, dumb ***.]
The rollout of new FBI Director Nominee Chris Wray appears to be completely fouled up, already.
Politico reports that Trump blames WH Counsel McGhan for not stopping the Russia probe, somehow.
LATimes reports that Mueller's team includes experts on fraud and money laundering and they seem "Dangerously close to an obstruction case."
Rep. Andy Biggs calls for Mueller to recuse himself because of his close relationship with Comey, who had been his boss as Deputy AG while Mueller was FBI Director. He doesn’t seem to have a problem with the fact that Kushner and Ivanka’s attorney Jamie Gorelick is also a member of Mueller’s law firm.
Kris Kobach from Trump's "Voter Fraud" panel gets sanctioned for "Deceptive Conduct and Lack of Condor"
June 24th —
Russia pushes back on more reports that they meddled in the U.S. elections claiming “We don’t do that, but the U.S. does.”
Trump attacks Obama administration for “doing nothing” to fight Russia attacks, finally admitting that there even was a Russia attack while ignoring that they did respond to the attack on state elections systems reached out diplomatically several times very strongly including face to face with Putin, then implemented sanctions which Trump has been already trying to remove.
June 25th —
Buzzfeed reports that Putin plans to recall Kislyak back to Russia.
Jeffrey Lord says Mueller should hire Michael Cohen — yes, seriously — ignoring the fact that he’s actually been investigating Cohen who has since lawyered up.
Eric Trump again says the DNC Chair Tom Perez is a “Nut Job” and his dad “has done more than any President in History.”
90 Parliament email accounts are attacked by hackers.
Kellyanne Conway refuses to talk about Russian hacks because “It was Obama’s fault for not stopping them” — even though he actually did stop them once he, DHS and the FBI knew about it.
Trump admits calling Elizabeth Warren “Pochahantas” is racist, but does it anyway. He also tweets that “Hillary colluded with the DNC to defeat Bernie” even though that actually didn’t happen at all and is just another Sputnik News talking point.
White House skips Ramadan celebration, because why not?
Adam Schiff and Al Franken criticize Obama’s tepid reaction to Russia prior to the election saying he “coulda, shoulda, woulda” done more. Yeah, ok, that’s good backseat driving there. Like what exactly?
Kushner goes to Palestine and infuriates Prime Minister Abbas enough that they threaten to shutdown talks.
june 26th —
Brit Hume argues that colluding with Russia’s illegal cyber attacks against America wouldn’t be a crime — because “Huh?”
Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) tells Politico that he’s prepared to battle the White House over efforts to water down legislation imposing sanctions against the Russian government.
Trump says that “Obama colluded with Russia” because he “did nothing” when he was informed about the hacking attacks — even though he did plenty & Hume says “collusion wouldn’t be a crime.” Somehow he ignores his own request for Russia to hack and release “Hillary’s emails” and multiple attempts to raise sanctions. He also demands an “apology” claiming the Wapo report disproves collusion by his campaign when that subject wasn’t even addressed in the report.
Spicer says Trump was “only joking” about Russia hacking and releasing Hillary’s emails. Katy Tur puts a match to that B.S. and sets it on fire.
Somehow a Russia media rep. Igor Zorin who only earns $75,000 bought 3 condos worth $5.4 Million from Trump Palace. Shocker.
Supreme Court partially allows Travel Ban —upholding it for all those who filed suit based on “standing” but potentially damaging tourism to the tune of $18 Billion — until they fully hear the case in October.
Wapo reports that Kushner received a $285 Million loan from Deutsche Bank a month before the election for their Times Square building while the bank was facing charges being involved in Russian money laundering.
Kushner in addition to attorney Jamie Gorelick hires powerhouse defense attorney Abbie Lowell who had previously defended Harold Keating, Jack Abramov, Dan Rostenkowski and John Edwards.
2 weeks after claiming they would “immediately” file a complaint against Comey for his “leaking” his own thoughts and recollections to Congress, Kasowitz and Trump’s other attorneys haven’t done it yet.
Nunez admits he was never going to recuse himself from Russia investigation.
Wapo Reports that Trump associate Carter Page was interviewed by the FBI 5 times for a total of 10 hours during March and did so without an attorney.
Spicer announces that the WH has information indicating another possible chemical weapons attack by the Assad regime, but CENTCOM knows nothing about it.
CBO says that Senate TrumpCare bill will leave 22 Million without insurance.
Trump’s re-election campaign pays $50,000 to Donald Jr.’s lawyer Alan Futerfas after he’s contacted by the NYTimes for a comment after they discovered that Kushner’s attorneys had updated his SF86 form to include a meeting called by Don Jr. with a lawyer from Russia.
July 27th -—
Trump’s act bombs at Senate Health care meetings because he has no idea what’s in the bill, or for that matter no idea how health care actually works.
Ryan states that “22 Million don’t really want insurance anyway.”
CNN caves to a $100 Libel lawsuit threat over a single-sourced anonymous story involving Trump team member Anthony Scaramucci and fires three employees, including the reporter Thomas Frank and producer Eric Litchbau on the story.
Reporter Brian Karem unloads on the hypocrisy of Huckabee-Sanders trying to grandstand on Scaramucci story firing, while the WH uses anonymous sources for it’s own counter story.
The law firm of Kushner’s new attorney Abbie Lowell has links to both Sberbank and Rosneft and was one of the first U.S. firms allowed to have offices in Moscow.
Clinton campaign chair John Podesta testifies in closed session to House Intel.
Wapo reports that Manafort has registered as a foreign agent and declared $17 million in profits from Ukrainian groups. This “finally getting right with the law” act fuels rumors that he has or soon intends to flip for Mueller.
Gingrich says Trump should testify, because it’s not like he wouldn’t prat fall into perjury trap that way…Noooo.
Rick Perry talks to the press about the environment and ****. gets. crazy.
CNN medical producer opines on tape made by James O’Keefe that Russia probably a “witch hunt” and that CNN ‘s coverage is over the top. CNN sticks with him as having his own opinion, besides it’s not like aren’t still paying Jeffrey Lord to say the same thing day after day. There is also another video of Van Jones saying “Russia is a nothing burger” — which in terms of Demcractic politics he’s previously said many times.
Sally Yates says Americans should be alarmed at Trump’s behavior even if you assume there “was no collusion.”
Kasowitz puts his complaints about Comey’s “leaks” on indefinite hold.
Senate pushes back vote on Trumpcare until after July 4th recess.
July 28th -—
Trump tweets incoherently about the Washington Post supporting Amazon for not paying “taxes” when they do pay sales taxes in 45 states.
Time magazine asks Trump to remove fake magazine covers from his golf courses.
Sekulow argues that we should have a special prosecutor to investigate Obama’s reaction to Russian hacking and meddling, because that’s logical — in Bizarro World.
Maddow reports that Senate Republicans seem to be investigating the Mueller investigation and are reviewing the Comey Memo’s even though they aren’t investigation obstruction — that’s under Senate Judiciary — perhaps to see if it’s is based entirely on the Steele Dossier in order to use that as a reason to have it shut down.
Senate Intel is also reportedly going through 2,000 documents for Treasury’s FinCEN unit on Trump and his associations and the money ties to Russia.
CREW files a Hatch Act complaint against Nikki Haley for retweeting an endorsement by Trump for Republican Robert Northam to fill the congressional seat vacated by budget director Mick Mulvaney.
CNN reports that Trump’s staff is going increasingly concerned about his lack of concern about what and how Russia hacked us, and whether they might do it again.
Chuck Todd tears into Trump’s press office :”This is nothing less than a war on the truth.”
Ex MTV-VJ Kennedy argues on Fox: “Who cares if 15 Million people will lose Health Care next year, we’re all gonna die anyway?” Yes we will, but not this exact minute. Well, not unless North Korea — well y’know.
Spicer tweets claim that Obamacare has “failed” 28 Million people who still don’t have Health Care and that only TrumpCare is the “solution” to this problem — while the CBO says it will increase that problem another 23 Million by 2026.
June 29th —
Annoyed by criticism from Morning Joe’s Mika saying he’s “Out of his Mind” while discussing a reported loud clash between SecState Tillerson and WH over meddling and interference by Kushner, Trump counters by tweeting that Joe and Mika visited Mar-A-Lago 3 times, and that he refused a personal meeting around New Year’s because Mika was “bleeding from a recent facelift” — pics taken of Mika that same day disprove this. Melania and Huckabee-Sanders give excuses for this crap.
WH aides respond to facelift tweet “At least you’re not reporting we’re going to kill Millions” — yeah, but you are though, if we let you.
MSNBC’s Katy Tur smashes Huckabee-Sanders false claim that “Trump never advocated violence” on the campaign trail point by point.
Republicans respond to “Facelift” tweet with outrage, but still continue to support and vote for Trump proposal despite outrage of the American people. Typical.
Trump prepares to meet privately with Putin at G20 by asking staff to give him “bargaining chips he can trade away.” Might those include “American Sovereignty?
Steven Benen at MSNBC reveals that Trump’s “secret plan” to fight ISIS was a Lie, because his actual plan is to do what Obama was already doing.
Kasowitz law firm under potential scrutiny by Mueller for a $285 Million 2015 real estate deal for Time Square property and refinancing loan between Kushner and Deutsche Bank.
Ryan says Senate must repass their Russia sanctions bill to resolve constitutional issue, but the issue is that revenue bills have to start in the House — so, um, what?
House intel requests a more full response to the question of Comey recordings than just the President’s tweet, which only spoke for him not any recording being kept by the entire White House.
Wall Street Journal reports that GOP operative Peter W. Smith had endeavored to gain stolen Clinton email information for Flynn. He claimed to them, before he died on May 15, to have found two groups with the information and asked them to provide it to Wikileaks. U.S. intel also picks up indications that Russian hackers were actively trying to get access to Clinton’s server to provide those emails to Flynn. Smith acting as an “intermediary” for communications between Russian hackers and Flynn confirms another plank in the Steele Dossier that Kremlin intel had been deliberately supplying Trump with anti-Clinton intel.
Van Jones lays into James O’keefe’s bogus “Nothing Burger” video supposedly “exposing” the CNN host for not really caring that much about the Russia issue compared to other policy issues — an opinion which he’s never hidden.
Hawaii files a new suit against Trump’s Partial Travel Ban/Suspension.
NRA releases a video statement featuring Media Wingnut Dana Leosch that accuses the Left of widespread verbal and other violence against Trump, the Police and the Right. She then goes onto fTucker Carlson to defend and rationalize it.
Deutsche Bank refuses request for Trump financial documents from House Dems for the 2nd time.
Senate passes updated version of their new Russia Sanctions Bill which now includes sanctions on Iran as well.
June 30th -—
TPM reports that Homeland Security hasn’t yet checked the integrity of a single voting machine to ensure none of them were hacked or tampered with.
Joe Scarborough reveals that Mika had told Melania about her facelift and that Trump was so impressed he asked for the name of her doctor 10 times.
Joe also says that Trump had tried to blackmail them into apologizing for their coverage by saying if they did he would spike a negative National Enquirer story about them. Trump rage tweets and accidentally confirms part of their story. If proven these allegations would violate New York Criminal (Coercion), DC Criminal (Bribery) and Federal Criminal Law (Extortion by officers of the U.S.).
Russian Communications Minister Nikolay Nikiforov served notice on Friday that the Russian government would retaliate against U.S. companies if Congress bans the Pentagon from using controversial cyber-security software from Kaspersky Labs.
States reject extreme voter information request from Election Suppression Commission, even Kris Kobach’s own state of Kansas refuses. Huckabee-Sanders says this is only a “political stunt” — but it’s Republican controlled states as well as Democratic that refuse.
July 1st —
UK cyber-analyst Matt Tait reveals he was recruited by Peter Smith to authenticate emails stolen from Clinton’s server by the Russians which were to be provided to Michael Flynn.
Bloomberg reports that Kushner had attempted to buy the National Enquirer along with David Pecker in 2006.
Trump continues his twitter rage-a-thon against Mika and Joe for a 3rd day saying ““Crazy Joe Scarborough and dumb as a rock Mika are not bad people,” and also criticizes MSNBC for firing Greta Van Sustren.
Senate Intel reaches agreement to review the Comey Memos.
Trump “jokes” it would be “Fun to sue CNN” at a fundraiser. He says “These are really dishonest people. Should I sue them? I mean, they’re phonies,” Trump said, according to the recording. “I mean, these are horrible human beings.”
In his 2nd loud clash with WH Officials this week Tillerson apparently had “tense” conversation with Jason Miller who pushed him to take a tougher stance on immigration, while Tillerson demanded independence on how he ran State Dept. affairs.
CBS reports that the Science Division of the WH Office of Technology is now completely unstaffed.
July 2nd —
Trump tweets video of himself body slamming and punching WWE CEO Vince McMahon into a stupor — only edited with the CNN logo covering McMahon’s face which has been posted on Reddit 4 days about by yet another neo-Nazi whose online name is literally HanAssholeSolo. CNN takes it as a literal physical threat. WH laughs saying “you guys can never take a joke.” Kathy Griffin is not consulted on the “Funny Ha Ha” of the thing.
DOJ Corporate Fraud expert quits in disgust because doing her job is simply “not possible under Trump.”
All discussion of the Tait’s revelation about being recruited to review Clinton emails obtained from Russia to provide to Michael Flynn or Trump’s ongoing assault on health care recedes.
July 3rd —
Reporter Jared Yates Sexton who discovered ID of Reddit user “HanAssholeSolo” who created anti-CNN video, begins receiving “gory” death threats and insults from other Alt-Right Neo-Nazis.
David Duke chimes in and justifies threats against “Journalistic terrorists”arguing the press has endorsed violence against him for the last 50 years..
Katrina Peirson claims “By the very nature of being President of the United States, it makes his actions presidential whether you like it or not.”
Former Ted Cruz spokesperson Amanda Carpenter argues the president’s attacks on the press “essentially [hands] a weapon to some of our enemies.”
Trump biographer Tim O’Brien says his tweets aren’t some grand distraction because he’s “not smart enough for that.”
Melania says Mika Brzezski “doesn’t know me” in response to her comments on their feud with Trump to InStyle Magazine.
House Dems back bill that could invoke the 25th Amendment removing Trump if he is found mentally or physically unfit for office.
July 4th —
Florida head of the NAACP found a Confederate flag on her lawn after receiving a series of late-night death threats from callers claiming ties to the Ku Klux Klan.
Trump plans for full “Bilateral” meeting with Putin during G20 Summit, Tillerson plans to do “cleanup” meeting in Ukraine hours later.
41 States refuse to provide information to Kris Kobach’s Voter Suppression commission — and some members begins to quit.
Germany’s Angela Merkel no longer describes America under Trump as “a friend.”
July 5th —
Jack Prosoblec A Pro-Trump activist with White House access releases the phone numbers and home addresses of multiple CNN personalities and their families.
Neo-Nazi hackers then begin to contact the families & parents of various CNN anchors and reporters, including those of Andrew Kaczinski who wrote the HanAssholeSolo story and threaten their lives.
HanAssholeSolo apologizes and promises not to produce more racist memes, Ted Cruz accuses CNN of extortion when they later publish an article about his apology while reserving the right to reveal his ID if he reneges on his promise, Some Trumpers scream “blackmail” but CNN counters that they haven’t published his ID, they won’t since he’s a private citizen and he goes on to contact CNN himself and says “he wasn’t threatened”
Fox contributor Tammy Bruce defends HanAssholeSolo right to be an ******* and criticizes CNN “(He) made this meme that the president picked up, and they decided that they could get their pound of flesh from this individual.”
Don Jr. complains “It was only a matter of time” when CNN reports the Anti-Defamation League statement that the anti-CNN meme may be racist and anti-semitic, claiming they’re “Bullying a 15 year old”, but CNN having found his Facebook page counters that claim “He’s not 15.”
Jr. continues “If only @CNN spent as much time tracking down info on IRS targeting, Fast & Furious, Iran deal etc as they did a meme writer! #CNNBlackmail” but there aren’t any outstanding questions on any of those issues, except for Wingnut conspiracies about them.
Trump supports AT&T/Time Warner deal which some see as a way for him to gain leverage over CNN.
Investigators are looking into scores of Easter European Pro-Trump websites which popped up before the election and published dozens of co-ordinated fake anti-Clinton reports.
July 6th —
Trump supporter charged with criminal mischief for writing “False Flag” graffiti at an Elementary School. [Responding officers found “Kill Trump,” “Left is the best,” “Bernie Sanders 2020” and “Death to Trump” written on a sign in the playground.]
While in Warsaw, Poland for the G20 summit Trump again says “Nobody really knows” who hacked the 2016 election. “I think it was Russia. But I think it was probably other people and/or countries, and I see nothing wrong with that statement. Nobody really knows. Nobody really knows for sure,” Trump said. He argues that “Obama did nothing” and that Bush went to war in Iraq over WMD’s and “was wrong.”
Trump also says that CNN took his wresting video too seriously. “CNN has really taken (the video) too seriously and I think they’ve hurt themselves very badly, very very badly.”
Rep. Adam Schiff blasts Trump’s comments. “The President’s comments today, again casting doubt on whether Russia was behind the blatant interference in our election and suggesting ... that nobody really knows, continue to directly undermine U.S. interests,”
CREW asks the Office of Government Ethics to investigate Kushner’s failure to disclose “his ownership interest in an online real estate investment company called Cadre” in his public financial disclosure.
On Fox and Friend Eric Trump bashes the media saying the DOW and S&P are at the highest level ever but all the media talks about is whether Trump colluded with Russia to meddle in the elections. ”I mean, we’re thriving as a nation. Everybody wants to get focused on nonsense. On garbage. On distractions.”
Walter Schraub head of the Office of Government Ethics who had been a highly vocal critical of Trump’s lack of divestiture from his private businesses abruptly resigns effective July 19th.
Rachel Maddow reports that her show had been sent a faked NSA Document which claimed proof that a specific member of the Trump Campaign had been colluding with Russians. This forged document appears to have been an attempt to discredit her program with planted Fake News which could be easily debunked at a later date.
Right wing editorials slam CNN for suggesting they might reveal the identity of HanAssholeSolo claiming that it’s “Blackmail” in exchange for his not generating racists, violent memes anymore, which pretty much establishes that yet again the Rightwing (Hearts) Racism & Sexism.
July 7th —
Trump meets Putin privately for two hours in Warsaw during the G20.
Putin says he “didn’t hack our election” and Trump believes him according to Lavrov, but Tillerson disagrees.
According to Lavrov, “Trump told Putin that some circles in the US are exaggerating the topic of Russian cyber meddling.”
Tillerson claimed he sent Melania into the meeting to break it up after first hour, but they just kept talking for another hour.
Donald Trump agreed to form a joint task force with the Russians to address cyber security, which is a bit like the bank inviting the thieves in to look around and hang out.
They don’t reach an agreement on how to handle North Korean’s increasingly aggressive missile and nuclear program.
They do reach an agreement on a cease fire in southern Syria.
They talk for so long both of them skip out of the Climate Change/Energy meeting.
California Govorner Jerry Brown shows up at G20 and shreds Trump at climate meeting he skipped. “(Trump) doesn’t speak for the rest of America”
Trump tweets that Podesta didn’t let FBI have the DNC server when Podesta actually didn’t have any jurisdiction over anything the DNC did or didn’t do. Podesta hits back with “Get a Grip Man.”
Trump State Dept grants Visas to 150 Russian Spies.
Ivanka temporarily sits in Trump’s place at one G20 summit table, the internet goes nuts.
July 8th —
NyTimes reveals the secret June 9, 2016 meeting between Don Jr., Manafort and Kushner with a prominent Russia lawyer who is known for being an agent of the Russian government. Supposedly they discuss the U.S. adoption of Russian children which had been suspended by Putin after the passage of the Magnitsky Act blacklisting Russian’s with Human Rights violations.
Donald Jr. tweets an edited video of Top Gun footage that shows Trump shooting down planes marked with CNN and says it’s “One of the best I’ve seen.”
Wapo reports that Russian hackers had accessed networks for American Nuclear and Energy companies.
While flying back from the G20 on Air Force One WH staffers begin to craft an “accurate” statement of response to the Time report about Junior and Veselniskaya, Trump himself intervenes and dictates a false story for them to release that the meeting was primarily about “Adoption”. Jared who later claims he was only at the meeting long enough to hear about the adoption portion and had left early before the Magnitski act came up is present on AF1 at this time, Junior isn’t.
July 9th —
Instead of a post summit Press Conference Trump has a tweet-gasm…
Claiming he accepted Putin’s denial of being involved in the election hacks.
He wants to partner with Russia on Cyber Security concerns
He again attacks the DNC for not letting the FBI (and he includes the CIA for some reason) have their email server even though they really didn’t need it.
And also attacks Obama for doing “nothing” about the hacks [that is besides getting in Putin’s face, shoring up our cyber defenses, informing congress, having DHS and the DNI announce that we’d been attacked and devising a new set of sanctions as well as kicking out 35 spies out and takin over 2 Russian compounds]
Kasowitz files motion to dismiss a sexual harassment and defamation suit from a former “Apprentice” contestant against Trump arguing he now has “immunity” and that his comments insulting his various accusers were simply “Free Speech”
Russia expert and investigative reporter Michael Weiss argues that doing a cyber security unit with Putin is like “having an arsonist in charge of the fire brigade.” Fox and Fools says the idea is “actually Genius.” Social media suggests El Chapo and Charles Manson as next members of this crack Cyber Security Unit.
Some GOP Senators coming back from july 4th recess say that Trumpcare is probably dead. McConnell hints that he may attempt to work with Democrats to strengthen the ACA individual market and exchanges.
The NYTimes reports that Donald Jr. was offered damaging information on Hillary Clinton before attending a meeting with a Kremlin-linked Russian Lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya last June with Manafort and Kushner, but they do not confirm that she actually delivered this information during the meeting. [If that information was provided and it originated as a result of Russian cyber-espionage — we have Collusion Sign once again, particularly if it was offered in exchange for a repeal of the Magnitsky act which sanctions Russian individuals for Human Rights violations.’]
Trump’s legal team says he “was unaware and did not attend” the meeting with Veselnitskaya.
Bush ethics lawyer Richard Painter says Don Jr & Kushner’s actions in attending the Veselnitskaya meeting to get opposition research on Clinton “border on Treason.” Also, potentially, the Logan Act again.
Outgoing Ethics Chief Walter Shaub notes that part of why he’s leaving his post early is that while attempting to do his job he got nothing but stonewalling and even a “explicit threat” from Reince Preibus.
Trump begins his tweet walkback on the Cyber Security Unit: “The fact that President Putin and I discussed a Cyber Security unit doesn't mean I think it can happen. It can't-but a ceasefire can,& did!” [Uh, what?]
July 10th —
Don Jr. issues a statement — changing his previous claims that there were “No meetings”, and his second claim that it was about “adoptions” — that he went to this meeting because he was asked by a friend he’d met during the Moscow Miss Universe pageant in 2013 and admits he went because of he promise of “helpful information”. He didn’t know Veselnitskaya previously, she talked about Russians funding the DNC (which would be illegal) in order to help Hillary Clinton but her claims were “vague and made no sense” and after discussing Russian adoption and the Magnitski act he ended the meeting after 20 mins because Trump wasn’t public official yet [which avoids a Logan Act violation].
Common Cause files a complaint about Don Jr. “Solicitiing a contribution from a foreign national” with the FEC.
Junior goes on to repeatedly like tweets that say he attended the meeting to get “dirt” on Clinton which doesn’t help his case at all.
Brit Hume insist “Don Jr. was tricked by a Russian bait and switch” but there’s no evidence of collusion. [Yeah, except that he jumped at the bait until he decided it was worthless and not harmful enough to Clinton which was kinda collusion-ish.]
Kellyanne goes on George Stephanapoulos and gets caught in her previous statements that there were “no contacts or meetings” with Russians. George asks “Who misled you?” on the details of these meetings.
Kellyanne also talks to Chris Cuomo and whines endlessness that CNN doesn’t give Trump any positive coverage — although they do. [I mean, not all day long for 10 hours straight on show after show, but they mention the other stuff sometimes.] She tries to do an infomercial about “Trump the Great” on VA reform, the Opiod crisis and Infrastructure, Cuomo counters that Don Jr.’s statement is an admission that Russians were trying to ingratiate themselves into the Trump campaign, whether they succeeded that particular time is besides the point [And they apparently did succeed later with multiple undisclosed Kushner/Flynn meetings with Kislyak and others.) “Don Jr. changed his story twice, that’s what matters” Cuomo says. She keeps whining for more positive coverage “Your panelists roll their eyes and furrow their brows, they need to be more balanced” as if they don’t have Jeffrey Lord, Jason Miller, Jack Kingston, Rick Santorum and other Pro-Trump sycophants on every day. He says “You rally people to attack the press and our families” which they have.
Keith Olbermann pulls up an old Trump tweet that he says shows Trump knew Manafort and Don Jr. meet with Veselnitskaya because later that day was the first time he said “33,000 of Hillary’s emails were missing.”
FBI says about half (4 of 7) of Comey’s memos contain sensitive or confidential information indicating his sharing some of them with Senate investigators may be problematic even though he testified that he created all the memos as “Unclassified”, this means that he is now suffering from the same after-the-fact “up classification” problem that plagued Hillary Clinton and her emails. Ironic.
Trump retweets a Fox and Friends segment that claims Comey revealed classified information to the media in his memos, when in fact the media doesn’t even have his memos, Mueller does. Senate intel had only reached an agreement to see them just last week and hasn’t fully reviewed them yet.
Rep. Schiff say House Intel wants to question Don Jr. as does Sen. Susan Collins who wants him to talk to the Senate Intel committee. Donnie tweets he’ll be happy to talk to Senate Intel.
Congressional staffers tell the Daily Beast that Treasury officials have attempted to water down the Senate’s New Sanctions Bill against Russia. Tillerson supposedly argued it would “handicap their desire to repair the relationship between the two nations.”
After Trump tweets that if Chelsea Clinton had been a place holder for her mother as Ivanka had been for him at the G20 the “Fake media would have said Chelsea for Prez” — during an audio only briefing a WH reporters asks Huckabee-Sanders when he’ll finally put “Bill and Hillary in the rear view mirror?”
Chelsea hits back saying her Father and Mother “Never would have asked her” to do such a thing and never have.
Former watergate assistant prosecutor Nick Akerman echoes Richard Painter’s call that Don Jr. actions may have “betrayed the United States” and could be considered “Treason.”
Former CIA spy Lindsay Moran says that she has seen the Russian government use these kinds of tactics in the past on American citizens, “Legality aside, this is Russian intelligence tactics at their best,” she said. “Let’s promise Trump Jr. something that he wants, lure him in, bait and switch. It doesn’t matter whether they talked about nefarious activities with him at the meeting — the whole thing is nefarious.”
Don Jr. sarcastically tweets admitting he went to get the opposition research info on Clinton that he’s “the first campaign rep to have a meeting to get information on an opponent” {Yes, he would be for information From Russia!!’]
Then Don Jr. lawyers up. His new attorney is best known for defending the Mafia.
On CNN Jennifer Taub of the Vermont Law School says that “A campaign taking anything of value from a foreign national” is a crime, and even attempting to do so by going to the meeting would be “conspiracy” to violate campaign finance laws. A Trump friendly former U.S. attorney disagrees, but then this wouldn’t be an issue under the DOJ, it would be under the FEC.
The Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) prohibits any foreign national from contributing, donating or spending funds in connection with any federal, state, or local election in the United States, either directly or indirectly. It is also unlawful to help foreign nationals violate that ban or to solicit, receive or accept contributions or donations from them. Persons who knowingly and willfully engage in these activities may be subject to fines and/or imprisonment.
Sen. Mark Warner the ranking Democrat on the Intel Committee does a press conference and says “This isn’t the first time the public has seen clear evidence of an attempt by the Trump campaign to obtain information from Russia against the Clinton campaign. It’s a continuing pattern.” He also points out the Jared Kushner has already had to amend his security clearance forms twice because he keep “forgetting” to include meetings like this with Russians.
Iraq declares victory over ISIS in Mosul.
Sen. Chuck Schumer calls on Trump and Don Jr. to “Stop Lying.”
Maggie Haberman at the NYTimes reports that the initial email to Don Jr. about meeting Veselnitskaya noted that the information came from the Russian Government, which pretty much blows up all the Trump denials that they never “colluded” with Russia, since they obviously went to the meeting knowing that it was info against Clinton that came from the Kremlin. What he should have done when he got that email was go straight to the FBI, but he didn’t.
July 11th —
Don Jr. releases his emails with Rob Goldstone, pre-empting another New York Times report on them. They completely confirm Haberman’s previous report that they were told Veselnitskaya was a “Government Lawyer” from Russia and the information was provided by the “Crown Prosecutor” of Russia because the Russian Government “wanted to help Trump.”
Veselnitskaya talks to NBC and denies she ever worked for the Russian government or tried to tell Trump Jr. anything about Clinton but that “they wanted it very badly.”
Harvard Law Prof Laurence Tribe says ““We now have the proverbial smoking gun: TJr was part of criminal conspiracy to violate fed crim laws banning foreign aid to any US campaign,”
Jared Yates Sexton who’d’ been working on this story for a year concurs with Tribe: “This is the dumbest and biggest crime in the history of American politics. There's not even a close second.”
Trump priases his son’s transparency. “My son is a high quality person.”’
Huckabee-Sanders stonewalls all questions about Trump jr. during an audio-only press conference, referring questions about him to his lawyer, but she still stands by the “no one colluded” claim she made the previous day.
Reports surface that some WH aides are considering lawyering up.
Rep. Marsha Blackburn says “Maybe Trump Jr. was duped.”
Ted Cruz blames all this Russia stuff on “Barack Obama.”
Fox News tries to spin Don Jr. email dump — then gives up on it when they get to the part where Jr. responds ‘If it’s what you say, I love it.’” when he reads that the Russian government wants to provide Trump information against Clinton in order to help their campaign.
Fox and Friends retracts their claim that Comey shared Top Secret information with the Press. “We were mistaken.”
Politico reports that Peter W. Smith’s attempts to gain access to Hillary’s emails involved a White Supremacist who had been banned from Twitter for his racism.
Julian Assange admits that he tried to give Don jr. advise to publish his emails through Wikileaks.
Some on the media argue that the leaks on Don Jr’s emails are coming from Steve Bannon in order to protect Kushner.
Wapo reports that GOP operatives close to Trump are building a “discredit team” to smear reporters.
Daily Beast reports that Bill Browder will testify before Senate Judiciary on how Veselnitskaya is linked to the GRU, FSB and efforts to lower the Magnitski Act sanctions.
joe Scarborough announces on Colbert that he’s leaving the Republican party to become and Independent.
CNN report Special Counsel Bob Mueller was unaware of Juniors meeting with Veselniskaya, but will now be investigating.
July 12th —
The intercept reports that Trump is still the principle on many of his businesses despite his claims to have handed over control to his family. [Liar, Liar, super long tie on fire.]
Rep Brad Sherman (D-CA) and Al Green (D-TX) file articles of Impeachment against Trump over his handling of the firing of James Comey.
Sen Franken rips defense of Donald Jr. to shreds during confirmation hearing for FBI director nominee Christopher Wray in response to a claim by Lindsey Graham that the Ukraine tried to give information to Hillary Clinton’s campaign. [Although this wasn’t the Ukrainian government sending an operative to reach out to Clinton, it was an effort to gather information on Paul Manafort by DNC consultant Alexandra Chalupa who is Ukrainian-American. That’s oppo research due diligence by an American, not a foreign government trying to interfere with a U.S. election.]
Sen Graham asks Wray if Mueller is on a “Witch Hunt” — he says “Director Mueller is not on a Witch Hunt.” He also says “Any threat or promise to help a campaign by a foreign government, the FBI would want to know.”
Senate Judiciary Chair Grassley prepares to call Manafort to testify.
Rep. Steve King threatens to re-open investigation of 65k emails of Anthony Weiner, Comey’s “activities” and Hillary’s emails if Democrats don't stop talking about Trump and Russia. [Go for it, punk!]
Emin Agalarov’s attorney Scott Balber gets smashed on live TV by Chris Cuomo over Emin's promoter Rob Goldstone “Do you know him to a a pathological liar?” and his attempt to give Don Jr. negative information on Hillary: Balber says it’s “Simply fiction that this was an attempt by the Russian government to reach Trump through having his son’s pop music publicist, the prosecutor never talked to his father.” Cuomo says about Goldstone’s claim: “That is some doozy of a lie.”
Cuomo also takes on Sekulow over Don Jr. and tells him “You have no facts!”
McClatchy reports that House, Senate and DOJ investigators are looking at whether the Russian cyberbot and Troll program to spread fake news about Hillary as reported by Time was coordinated using Jared Kushner voter micro-targeting system with Cambridge Analytics. Former Pentagon expert on Russia Mike Carpenter states ““There appears to have been significant cooperation between Russia’s online propaganda machine and individuals in the United States who were knowledgeable about where to target the disinformation,” he said, without naming any American suspects.
Democratic party donors and some staff have sued the Trump campaign and Roger Stone for conspiring to publicly release their private information through the dumping of data stolen from the DNC by Russian hackers through DCLeaks and Wikileaks. The suit doesn’t contain any hard evidence of conspiracy but it does seek to depose witnesses and do discovery of Trump campaign emails.
WSJ reports that US intel is reviewing intercepts they captured in 2015 before his run for the President of Russian intel personnel discussing contacts with Trump associates.
DOJ misses a court ordered deadline to provide all of Jeff Sessions foreign contacts.
Trump tells Pat Roberson that Putin “wanted Clinton to win because of the Military and Energy.” He doesn’t mention sanctions, human rights, Crimea, Ukraine, NATO or the EU.
During a Reuters interview Trump says he didn’t know about Junior meeting Veselnitskaya and argues “most people would have taken that meeting.” [Uh, nope.]
July 13th —
NyTimes reports that Kushner has updated his security forms for foreign contacts 3 times and added more than 100 new names to the list.
Republican Rep. Bill Flores says that Trump should get his kids, including Kushner, out of the White House.
DOJ delivers Sessions foreign contact list a day late and short of details.
Asked about Trump Jr’s meeting and his FBI director nominee’s claim that anyone in that situation “should contact the FBI” while in France for Bastille Day Trump echoes his own false story that he previous dictated for Junior on AF1 says “most people would have taken that meeting”, “nothing happened, they talked about adoptions which wasn’t part of the campaign” and claims she wasn’t a “Government Lawyer” even though Junior was specifically told that she was and this was part of the Russian government’s effort to help his campaign, he ignores FEC rules over foreign “gifts and contributions” then he blames Veselnitskaya even being in the country on Loretta Lynch (ignoring that her Visa was approved by the State Dept, not DOJ, because she was a Denys Katsyv’s defense attorney while he was being sued under the Magnitski Act)
Chuck Grassley sends Junior a letter requesting he testify before Senate Judiciary.
After first saying he’d only just heard of the Veselnitskaya meeting 2 days ago Trump changes his tune later in the day, telling reporters on Air Force One: “In fact maybe it was mentioned at some point,” This statement was supposed to be off the record, but Trump changed and put it on the record.
Chicago Tribune reports that GOP Donor and operative Peter W. Smith who had tried to acquire Hillary’s emails for Michael Flynn committed suicide 10 days after talking to WSJ.
Yahoo News reports that Trump’s attorneys were informed about the meeting 3 weeks ago after the emails referring to it were discovered by Kushner’s lawyers who then updated his SF-86 form.
Senate Intel member James Lankford (R-OK) reveals that Kushners attendance at the Veselnitskaya meetings was known as far back as April, when he updated his background check forms.
Kushner explodes with WH Press staff saying that instead of letting Trump and Juniors lawyers respond to these issues they need to aggressively defend Don Jr. and have two staffers ready to “attack the Chyrons”on Cable News shows and have op-eds written for the NYtimes and WSJ. Some reports are that Spicey has begun complaining about Kush and still others say these conversations just didn’t happen. [Yeah, alrighty.]
Kasowitz blows his stack at an email critic: “I’m on you now. You are ******* with me now. Let’s see who you are. Watch your back, *****.” Charming.
TPM reports that Trump Deputy Sebastian Gorka is a Nazi Worshipper, cuz of course he is.
Many reporters note that there are references to a phone call between Don Jr. and Emin in the emails chain, and also that Goldstone’s mention of the Russian governments efforts to help Trump seem nonchalant as if that was an already known fact to Don Jr.
Michael Isakoff reveals on CNN that he had interviewed Rob Goldstone and learned that the Trump’s and Agalarov’s had a deal for a new Trump Tower in 2013 that went sideways in 2014 when Obama placed sanctions on Russia for their invasion of Crimea.
Glenn Simpson co-owner of the firm Fusion GPS which had employed Christopher Steel while he compiled his dossier on Trump declines an invitation to testify before Senate Judiciary.
July 14 —
Harvard Law Prof Laurence Tribe says ““We now have the proverbial smoking gun: TJr was part of criminal conspiracy to violate fed crim laws banning foreign aid to any US campaign,”
Jared Yates Sexton who’d’ been working on this story for a year concurs with Tribe: “This is the dumbest and biggest crime in the history of American politics. There's not even a close second.”
Trump priases his son’s transparency. “My son is a high quality person.”’
Huckabee-Sanders stonewalls all questions about Trump jr. during an audio-only press conference, referring questions about him to his lawyer, but she still stands by the “no one colluded” claim she made the previous day.
Reports surface that some WH aides are considering lawyering up.
Rep. Marsha Blackburn says “Maybe Trump Jr. was duped.” Hm, ya think?
Ted Cruz blames all this Russia stuff on “Barack Obama.”
Fox News tries to spin Don Jr. email dump — then gives up on it when they get to the part where Jr. responds ‘If it’s what you say, I love it.’” when he reads that the Russian government wants to provide Trump information against Clinton in order to help their campaign.
Fox and Friends retracts their claim that Comey shared Top Secret information with the Press. “We were mistaken.” [No ****, Sherlock.]
Politico reports that Peter W. Smith’s attempts to gain access to Hillary’s emails involved a White Supremacist who had been banned from Twitter for his racism.
Julian Assange admits that he tried to give Don jr. advise to publish his emails through Wikileaks.
Some on the media argue that the leaks on Don Jr’s emails are coming from Steve Bannon in order to protect Kushner.
Wapo reports that GOP operatives close to Trump are building a “discredit team” to smear reporters.
Daily Beast reports that Bill Browder will testify before Senate Judiciary on how Veselnitskaya is linked to the GRU, FSB and efforts to lower the Magnitski Act sanctions.
William Browder, an American financier who has investigated Russian corruption for more than a decade, will brief the Senate Judiciary Committeeat a hearing next week on the lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya’s ties to the Russian government—including to former top members of the GRU and the FSB, two of the Kremlin’s main intelligence agencies. Those ties were spelled out in documents that Browder shared with the committee and provided to The Daily Beast this week.
joe Scarborough announces on Colbert that he’s leaving the Republican party to become and Independent.
CNN reports Special Counsel Bob Mueller was unaware of Juniors meeting with Veselniskaya, but will now be investigating. [Ruh Roh!]
The intercept reports that Trump is still the principle on many of his businesses despite his claims to have handed over control to his family. [Liar, Liar, super long tie on fire.]
Rep Brad Sherman (D-CA) and Al Green (D-TX) file articles of Impeachment against Trump over his handling of the firing of James Comey.
Sen Franken rips defense of Donald Jr. to shreds during confirmation hearing for FBI director nominee Christopher Wray in response to a claim by Lindsey Graham that the Ukraine tried to give information to Hillary Clinton’s campaign. [Although this wasn’t the Ukrainian government sending an operative to reach out to Clinton, it was an effort to gather information on Paul Manafort by DNC consultant Alexandra Chalupa who is Ukrainian-American. That’s oppo research due diligence by an American, not a foreign government trying to interfere with a U.S. election.]
Sen Graham ask Wray if Mueller is on a “Witch Hunt” — he say “Director Mueller is not on a Witch Hunt.” He also says “Any threat or promise to help a campaign by a foreign government, the FBI would want to know.”
Senate Judiciary Chair Grassley prepares to call Manafort to testify.
Rep. Steve King threatens to re-open investigation of 65k emails of Anthony Weiner, Comey’s “activities” and Hillary’s emails if Democrats don't stop talking about Trump and Russia. [Go for it, punk!]
Emin Agalarov’s attorney Scott Balber gets smashed on live TV by Chris Cuomo over Emin's promoter Rob Goldstone “Do you know him to a a pathological liar?” and his attempt to give Don Jr. negative information on Hillary: Balber says it’s “Simply fiction that this was an attempt by the Russian government to reach Trump through having his son’s pop music publicist, the prosecutor never talked to his father.” Cuomo says about Goldstone’s claim: “That is some doozy of a lie.”
Cuomo also takes on Sekulow over Don Jr. and tells him “You have no facts!”
McClatchy reports that House, Senate and DOJ investigators are looking at whether the Russian cyberbot and Troll program to spread fake news about Hillary as reported by Time was coordinated using Jared Kushner voter micro-targeting system with Cambridge Analytics. Former Pentagon expert on Russia Mike Carpenter states ““There appears to have been significant cooperation between Russia’s online propaganda machine and individuals in the United States who were knowledgeable about where to target the disinformation,” he said, without naming any American suspects.
Democratic party donors and some staff have sued the Trump campaign and Roger Stone for conspiring to publicly release their private information through the dumping of data stolen from the DNC by Russian hackers through DCLeaks and Wikileaks. The suit doesn’t contain any hard evidence of conspiracy but it does seek to depose witnesses and do discovery of Trump campaign emails.
WSJ reports that US intel is reviewing intercepts they captured in 2015 of Russian intel personnel discussing contacts with Trump associates.
DOJ misses a court ordered deadline to provide all of Jeff Sessions foreign contacts.
Trump tells Pat Roberson that Putin “wanted Clinton to win because of the Military and Energy.” He doesn’t mention sanctions, human rights, Crimea, Ukraine, NATO or the EU.
During a Reuters interview Trump says he didn’t know about Junior meeting Veselnitskaya and argues “most people would have taken that meeting.” [Uh, nope.]
NyTimes reports that Kushner has updated his security forms for foreign contacts 3 times and added more than 100 new names to the list.
Republican Rep. Bill Flores says that Trump should get his kids, including Kushner, out of the White House.
DOJ delivers Sessions foreign contact list a day late and short of details. He continues to claim that Foreign contacts he made as a member of the Senate are not relevant and are therefore redacted, but that’s not an option available on the form.
Asked about Trump Jr’s meeting and his FBI director nominee’s claim that anyone in that situation “should contact the FBI” while in France for Bastille Day Trump says again repeating the false statement he himself helped craft on AF1 that “most people would have taken that meeting”, “nothing happened, they talked about adoptions which wasn’t part of the campaign” and claims she wasn’t a “Government Lawyer” even though Junior was specifically told that she was and this was part of the Russian government’s effort to help his campaign, he ignores FEC rules over foreign “gifts and contributions” then he blames Veselnitskaya even being in the country on Loretta Lynch (ignoring that her Visa was approved by the State Dept, not DOJ, because she was a Denys Katsyv’s defense attorney while he was being sued under the Magnitski Act)
Chuck Grassley sends Junior a letter requesting he testify before Senate Judiciary.
After first saying he’d only just heard of the Veselnitskaya meeting 2 days ago Trump changes his tune later in the day, telling reporters on Air Force One: “In fact maybe it was mentioned at some point,” This statement was supposed to be off the record, but Trump changed and put it on the record.
Chicago Tribune reports that GOP Donor and operative Peter W. Smith who had tried to acquire Hillary’s emails for Michael Flynn committed suicide 10 days after talking to WSJ.
Yahoo News reports that Trump’s attorneys were informed about the meeting 3 weeks ago after the emails referring to it were discovered by Kushner’s lawyers who then updated his SF-86 form.
Senate Intel member James Lankford (R-OK) reveals that Kushners attendance at the Veselnitskaya meetings was known as far back as April, when he updated his background check forms.
Kushner explodes with WH Press staff saying that instead of letting Trump and Juniors lawyers respond to these issues they need to aggressively defend Don Jr. and have two staffers ready to “attack the Chyrons” on Cable News shows and have op-eds written for the NYtimes and WSJ. Some reports are that Spicey has begun complaining about Kush and still others say these conversations just didn’t happen. [Yeah, alrighty.]
Kasowitz blows his stack at an email critic: “I’m on you now. You are ******* with me now. Let’s see who you are. Watch your back, *****.” Charming.
TPM reports that Trump Deputy Sebastian Gorka is a Nazi Worshipper, cuz of course he is.
Many reporters note that there are references to a phone call between Don Jr. and Emin in the emails chain, and also that Goldstone’s mention of the Russian governments efforts to help Trump seem nonchalant as if that was an already known fact to Don Jr.
Michael Isakoff reveals that he had interviewed Rob Goldstone and learned that the Trump’s and Agalarov’s had a deal for a new Trump Tower in 2013 that went sideways in 2014 when Obama placed sanctions on Russia for their invasion of Crimea.
Daily Beast reports that in addition to the “translator” who came with Veselnitskaya to the meeting with Don Jr. there was Rinat Akhmetshin a former Russian Intelligence officer and lobbyist who had previously been accused of being involved in an international hacking scheme.
On Fox both Lou Hobbs while appearing on Hannity and Jesse Waters accuse the “deep state” and “left wing” media of attempting a “coup d’etat” against Trump to undermine American values and “break the will of the people” even though the actual majority of the people voted against Trump.
Loretta Lynch denies she had any personal involvement or knowledge of Veselnitskaya’s Visa status, and she shouldn’t because that wasn’t. her. job. the State Dept. under John Kerry handled Visas at that time and her’s was approved at least as far back as 2013 when Bharara first issued his Magnitski suit against the Prevezon Holdings.
GOP strategist Rick Wllson says “Only Trump’s hypnotized base believes his Bullshit Tornado about Russia.” [Yep, pretty much.’]
Trump digital media expert Brad Pascale issues a statement in response to House and Senate intel requests to speak to him that he has ‘no knowledge of Russian involvement” in the online campaign he put together with Cambridge-Analytica.
Rep.Adam Schiff calls for everyone from the Veselnitskaya meeting to testify to the House Intel. [Which is now at 8 people and counting...]
The New Republic publishes an extensive story on TrumpCos long history of being involved in money laundering with Russian mobsters going all the way back to 1987.
Former Trump communications aid Michael Caputo agrees with CNN that the Trump Campaign was too much of a ‘**** Show” to have been able to effectively coordinate with the Russians. [Do Tell.]
Caputo testifies behind closed doors to House Intel, claims he saw no links to discussions of Russia, that little old ladies used to bring them “dog-eared papers” on Clinton, and condemns Rep. Jackie Spieres for linking him to Russia saying that it caused his wife and family to receive death threats, and that someone threatened to burn his house down. “The Rhetoric is going to get someone killed and I don’t want to be the next one shot” which is pretty ironic since Jackie Spiere’s was shot 5 times while she was a staffer for Rep. Leo Ryan when he was killed near the Jim Jones compound in Guyana.
Akhmetshin claims he has never worked for Russian intelligence or the GRU, his simply served 2 years in the Russian army before immigrating to the U.S. and becoming a citizen and working as a lobbyist, but says that Veselnitskaya brought a plastic folder with documents showing the DNC accepting funds from Russia to the meeting. All this despite a letter written from Sen. Grassley to SecDEf Kelly about Akhmetshin being and “unregistered” lobbyist who had previously experience as an “active measures expert” with the GRU.
Veselnitskaya admits that she is a former prosecutor and is in regular contact with the Prosecutor General of Russia Yuri Chaika, who is controversial for trumping up bogus charges against Putin’s enemies and having them tortured and killed in prisonthe same way the Sergei Magnitski was killed.
Kushner Lawyer Jamie Gorelick is reported by Politico to be backing out of Kushner’s issues with Mueller and leaving everything to Abbie Lowell
July 15th —
WH announces “Made In America Week” but has no answer when asked if that means that Ivanka’s clothing line which is made overseas will be moving their manufacturing to the U.S. The WaPo then pointed out that Trump branded products are made in at least a dozen countries.
The Hill reports that there were 150,000 hack attempts were made against South Carolina’s voter registration system, indications are that they were not successful.
Secret Service smacks down Sekolow — “That meeting was never cleared with us.”
Trump’s lawyer Sekolow blames the Veselnitskaya/Akhmetshin meeting on the Secret Service even though no one who was a protectee at that time was in the meeting. He also claims he and Trump weren’t involved in the crafting of Don Jr’s initial and false statements about the meeting, but that is a lie since Trump dictated and approved it from AF1.
Daily Beast reports that Don Jr.’s lawyer Alan Futerfas had been paid $50,000 by the Trump re-election campaign 11 days before the first report about his Veselnitskaya meeting. Furteras is best known for having been the attorney for all four of New York’s most notorious organized crime families.
July 16th —
Trump whines on Twitter about all the attention on Don Jr’s meeting and accuses Hillary of “illegally” deleting emails even after the FBI said it wasn’t illegal, and his own companies have repeated deleted emails and documents under court order, and getting debate questions ahead of time which also isn’t illegal particularly when Clinton wasn’t even asked the same questions that were wrongfully forwarded to her meanwhile he was warned about Meghan Kelly’s first debate question and had threatened her not to ask it or else his twitter followers would come after her, which they did.
July 17th —
Spicer proclaims that there was nothing in Juniors email that shows the meeting wasn’t about Abortion and the Magnitski Act [which he mis-pronounces as “Maginski Act”] — except everything Junior released five days ago and also what Trump said on Bastille day and tweeted about admiring that it was about obtaining “Oppo research.”
CNN talks to Junior’s Lawyer Futerfas and he says he talked to the 8th man in the meeting who was a rep for the Agalarov Family, even though their lawyers Scott Balber says they basically had nothing to do with anything, This person confirms that the meeting started off being about Russia giving money to the DNC, but he doesn’t confirm that a 2 page document was left behind by Veselnitskaya for Junior.
The Senate Trumpcare Bill coughs and dies as 2 more Repub Senators come out against it dropping them to 48 votes. Trump calls for a full repeal of O-care with a two year delay for them to “figure something out” also known as magically skipping over the 2018 midterm elections.
Fox’s Judge Anthony Napolitano who was the primary source of Trump’s bogus “Obama Wiretapped Trump Tower using GCHQ” claim, comes out and says that Junior probably broke the law. “Because it is suspicious that they met with these people, that they didn’t consult a lawyer, that one of these people was a former KGB, GRU, that’s the Russian intelligence arm, Russian military intelligence arm, and didn’t tell anybody about it.” [Yeah, ya think?’’]
WSJ Editoral “Eviscerates” Trump over the entire Russia scandal saying “Mr. Trump and his family are repeating the mistakes that doomed Mrs. Clinton.Don Jr. released his emails that showed the Russian lure about Mrs. Clinton and Don Jr. all excited—’I love it.’ Oh, and son-in-law Jared Kushner and Beltway bagman Paul Manafort were also at the meeting. Don Jr. told Sean Hannity this was the full story,” they continued. “But then news leaked that a Russian-American lobbyist was also at the meeting.”
July 18th —
The 8th man finally appears and is revealed to be a naturalized Russian-American, Ike Kaveladze, working in the U.S. for a Russian real estate company owned by the Agalarov’s who is represented by Emin’s Lawyer Scott Balber. Balber says he was there to act as a translator, but that Veselnitskaya brought her own translator (person #7) and that he’d been contacted by Mueller’s office about the ID of the 8th man. Congress and the GAO had previously investigated Kaveladze as a “foreigner creating shell companies” exactly like the types of money laundering schemes that have been used by the Russian Mob and Intel services.
Trumpcare finally implodes as more Republican Senator balk at their bullshit plan. Trump whines and blames Democrats for not helping destroy healthcare for 22-23 Million people even though the entire point of using the reconciliation process was to avoid needing any Dem votes. He says he’s now “let Obamacare fail” while in fact he’s already been sabotaging it by messing with cost sharing reductions and driving providers out of the marketplace.
Mueller ok’s the Senate Judiciary committees to talk to Junior and Manafort in an open hearing. [Is this because he’s already talked to both of them?]
It’s revealed that during a dinner at the G20 Trump again spoke with Putin for another hour without disclosing it, this time without any other Americans or aides present so there is no record or documentation of what was said.
Fox WH correspondent John Roberts walks out of Huckabee-Sanders briefing early and when she notes his departure from the podium he slaps back “‘If it was on camera, I might not be.’ Generating “Ooohs” from the pool.
Sean Hannity whines about Shep Smith’s criticism of Trump “Some voices on Fox drive me nuts. Shep is so anti-Trump.”
Chris Christie says that it was “probably illegal” to receive oppo research from a foreign government but that Don Jr. is not smart enough to collude with the Russians.
July 19th —
Scarborough says about Trump’s second Putin meeting: ““So what are we to assume if not the worst — that he had this meeting, the White House didn’t reveal it. Once again we had to find out about it through third channels and there wasn’t even an American within earshot to listen what they talked about for an hour.”
Walter Schaub says he was horrified when Trump’s lawyer asked if he could turn in his financial disclosure forms without signing them and certifying that they were true.
Over 20 lawmakers begin to question Ivanka Trump’s security clearance because she apparently didn’t disclose any of their families multiple meetings with Russian officials on her SF86 forms.
Shep Smith slaps back at Hannity “Sometimes facts are displeasing.”
Flynn and Caputo are reportedly having difficulty paying their lawyer fees.
Veselnitskaya says she’s ready to testify to the Senate who otherwise can’t subpoena her since she’s a foreign natonal. [Judging by her RT interview, she’ll do great right?]
Daily Beast reports that while Veselnitskaya met secretly with Don Jr. last June the Kremlin gave Rep. Dana Rohrabacher instructions to stage a “show trial” in Congress attacking Bill Browder in order to alter the Magnitski Act sanctions on Russia. Rohrabacher was provided a Russian propaganda film against Browder by Yuri Chaika’s Prosecutor Generals Office, which was the same source for Veselnitskaya’s “evidence” against Hillary Clinton and the DNC.
Trump does an interview with Maggie Haberman and the NyTimes
He says that he blames the appointment of Mueller as Special Counsel on Jeff Sessions recusal, and says if he’d known Sessions would recuse himself he wouldn’t have picked him for AG. “It’s very unfair to the President.”
He thinks Comey briefing him on the Steele dossier was intended as blackmail in order to keep his job.
That Mueller was rife with conflicts of interest because he had interviewed for interim FBI director the day before he was appointed Special Counsel, and he has Democrats working for him
He doesn’t trust Deputy FBI Director McCabe because his wife ran for office as a Democrat once and got $700k from Gov. Terry McAullif and the DNC, who are friendly with Clinton so that means McCabe is “evil.”
He doesn’t trust Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein because he’s from Baltimore and it’s full of Democrats.
He claims he still doesn’t think he’s under investigation even for obstruction of Justice “I don’t think we’re under investigation,” he said. “I’m not under investigation. For what? I didn’t do anything wrong.”
He again denied that he asked Comey to drop the Flynn investigation.
He admits that his second hour long conversation with Putin at the G20 included a discussion of Russian adoptions, the same subject that Veselnitskaya had brought up with Don Jr.
He says that if Mueller wanders from Russia and starts to investigate his families finances it would be “crossing a red line.”
The NYTimes reports that investigators are looking at complex financial transactions between Trump, Kushner, Deutsche Bank and VEB.
Trump hits 6 Months in Office as Carrier lays off 300 workers.
Kushner is scheduled to testify in closed Session to Senate Intel on the 24th. Manafort and Don Jr. are scheduled to testify before Senate Judiciary on the 26th.
NYTimes reports that Manafort owed $17 Million to pro-Russia shell companies based in Cyprus before he joined Trump campaign.
July 20th —
Bloomberg reports that Mueller is looking at the finances of Trump and his associates.
AP reports that the Russian urged Trump to bring a note taker for his dinner meeting with Putin but he declined because he was afraid of leaks.
Senate Judiciary approves Chris Wray for FBI Director.
Sessions says he’ll stay on as a “Zombie Attorney General.”
Sally Yates slams Trump’s attack on the independence of the DOJ as a “violation of a bedrock principle of democracy”
Rohrabacher dismisses what Russia asked him to do with a “show trial” as insignificant.
HHS is using Obamacare outreach funds to undermine the laws function.
Rep. Schiff calls Trump’s secret dinner meeting with Putin “deeply troubling.”
Huckabee-Sanders says those who complain about Trump’s 2nd meeting have “Russia Fever.”
Deutsche bank which has loaned Trump hundreds of $Million agrees to turn over financial records to Mueller and investigators.
U.S. Military renting space in Trump Tower are paying $130,000 per month for it.
1 in 8 Trump voters wish they could take it back.
Treasury Dept fines Exxon-Mobil $2 Million for violating Russia sanctions related to Ukraine when Tillerson was CEO.
NAACP Legal Defense Fund Sues Trump election panel for racial discrimination, voter intimidation and suppression.
Trump’s Chief counter-terrorism advisor Thomas Bossert admits that Russia was definitely behind the 2016 election hacking, so how come Trump doesn’t know, or believe, that?
Rumors abound that Kasowitz will be taking a back seat on Trump’s legal team as some on the team begin doing oppo research on the members of Mueller’s team in order to hinder them. [Which would be obstruction]
Court documents show that one of Veselnitskaya’s previous clients was the FSB.
Trump asks his lawyers and advisors what his options are for pardoning members of his family or himself.
Weary Trump supporters begin to tune out the news because it’s all bad for him and them.
July 21st —
Roger Stone rips Sessions: He’s only a ‘tough guy’ when it comes to ‘chasing people for smoking pot’
Mueller request WH Staff preserve all documents and emails of communications related to Trump Jr.’s June meeting with Russians.
Reports surface that the shakeup in Trump’s legal team is linked to the attacks on Mueller.
Trump hires Anthony Scaramucci as Communications Director, Preibus had no idea. Sean Spicer resigns in protest because having a shmoozy Wall Street hack shill “Yes” man stooge with no Washington or communications experience as your instant boss was obviously the last fracking straw. Sarah “Resting scowl-face” Huckabee-Sanders becomes the new WH Press Secretary.
Kasowitz and strategist Mark Corallo leave Trump’s legal team. DC lawyer John Down takes over.
Wapo Reports that Intercepts by U.S. intel of conversation between Kislyak and Russia indicate that Sessions twice, at the Mayflower Hotel and at the RNC, discussed Trump’s positions regarding Russia with him indicating that he lied to congress under oath about those conversations.
Mother Jones reports that Sen. Warren has been pressing the Treasury department since January on whether Scaramucci had violated sanctions rules by discussing possible investment opportunities with Kirill Dmitriev, head of the sanctioned Russian Direct Investment Fund.
Senate intel chair Burr says “the unmasking thing” was all created by Devin Nunez.
Senate Judiciary issues a subpoena to Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS for information about the creation of the Steele Dossier.
Kislyak steps down as ambassador and returns to Russia.
NSC Staffer Rich Higgins is fired for writing a crazed conspiracy filled memo.
July 23rd —
Huckabee-Sanders gets caught in a lie by Stephanapolous claiming the Russia story is all the press covers.
Don Jr. hires more lawyers.
Scaramucci tries to scrub all his previous anti-Trump, pro-Climate Change tweets but everyone notices.
Scaramucci is interviewed by Jake Tapper on CNN
He says that Putin told Trump in Hamburg that Russian hackers are too good to have been caught by the U.S.
He denies that Russia hacked our election “This is maybe they did it, maybe they didn’t do it” and runs into a buzzsaw with Tapper — “Don’t you owe a duty to the truth?”
Kellyanne Conway freaks out when CNN’s Brian Stetler suggests the Trump campaign welcomed Russian interference and influence during the election, which frankly they didn’t oppose.
July 24th —
Kushner releases an 11 Page statement prior to his speaking to the Senate Intel staff behind closed doors
He denies colluding with Russians or discussing campaign issues.
He says he tried to get out of the Veselnitskaya meeting and never fully read the email or apparently the subject line “Hillary — Russia — Sensitive and Confidential. [But he still showed up, didn't he?] He arrived at the meeting late and the topic at the time was “Russian adoptions” he didn’t see that as being relevant and emailed his assistant to call him in order to give him an excuse to leave. "Can u pls call me on my cell? Need excuse to get out of meeting.” He says he didn’t remember anything about the meeting and had disclosed it on his forms prior to it reaching the press.
He says his SF86 form was accidentally submitted without being completed when his assistant mistook the completion of one section to mean the entire form was complete. [Aren’t these supposed to be signed when submitted certifying that they’re fully complete?] All contacts with foreign nations were originally omitted not just Russians.
He reveals that he received an email that was clearly an extortion attempt by “Guccifer400” that threatened to reveal Trump tax returns. He thought is was a hoax and referred it to Secret Service. [That should have gone to FBI, Secret Service protects you from physical threats and conterfeiters they don’t pursue blackmail or extortion.]
He says he only talked to Kislyak for “about a minute” at the Mayflower Hotel simply to exchange pleasantries and denies the Reuters report that he had two phone calls with Kislyak between April and November, saying he searched his phone records and couldn’t find any numbers associated with the ambassador. “I doubt these calls took place.”
He says he tried to setup a secure back-channel to the Kremlin in order to discuss the war in Syria with Russian “generals” came from Kislyak, but was not over sanctions. Flynn said such a secure channel didn’t exist and Kushner asked if one existed in the Russian embassy. [This doesn’t explain why he wanted the U.S. Intel community cut out of the loop, since they have to implement Syria policy anyway and the people who really don’t need to know is ISIS. Plus this was in December and January while they were all still “private citizens” — Logan Act — and long before there were allegations of “wiretaps”, “unmasking” or “leaks” coming from US Intel so what gives?]
Kislyak kept pestering him for continued meetings which he didn’t have time for and turned down until finally sending his assistant, then he agreed to meet VEB’s Gorkov because “he had a direct link to Putin.” He says they didn’t discuss sanctions or business or really anything other than “wanting better relations.”
He never mentions or explains his meeting with the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi which he attended with Steve Bannon following his meeting with Gorkov to further discuss Russia relations, or the follow on meeting to that between the Crown Prince and Eric Prince of Blackwater in the Seychelles Islands.
Kushner gives a public statement “I didn't collude with Russians and don’t know anyone who did.” [You know Flynn, Manafort and Roger Stone don’t you?] And claims “I did not rely on Russian money for my businesses.”
Kushner also apparently tell Congressional Staff the “Trump campaign was too disorganized to have colluded with the Russians” [Then why is that frakhole “President” then?]
At some point near this time Manafort also talks to Congressional staffers and tell them about the Veselnitskaya meeting.
Former FBI Agent Clint Watts says Kushner’s statement and it’s “chaos and confusion” defense shows he’s either incompetent or the Russia influence on TrumpCo is very strong. [Could be both!]
The Guardian reports that Kushner paid $295 Million for a portion of the New York Times building from Jewish Soviet-born Diamond Tycoon Lev Leviev — who the Dutch media reports smuggles valuable diamonds by making them look worthless by covering them in soot, connected to Human Rights violations in Angola as well as funding illegal Jewish settlements in the disputed zones of Israel. Kushner later borrowed $285 million to refinance the purchase through Deutsche Bank, which has come under scrutiny for alleged ties to Russian money laundering and had to pay $630 Million in fines for transferring $10 Billion through Russia. [So much for ‘not relying Russian Money for his business’]
Fox Host Jason Chaffetz claims people should be talking about Chelsea Clinton’s links to Benghazi [even though she has none, she didn’t work for Hillary or the State Dept then], and Hillary’s links to Russia [also has none, certainly not since Putin returned to the Presidency] rather than Kushner’s failure to report his meetings, even though only Kushner is speaking to the Senate today.`
NYTimes Glenn Thrush reports that rather than being an insult to the press, the yanking of WH press conference videos was because Spicer didn’t want Trump yelling at him and saying he “sucked at his job”.
Feinstein asks Grassley to call Sessions before Senate Judiciary.
Trump tweet/whines why “Beleagured” Sessions and House committees don’t investigate Hillary’s connections to Russia [Bill spoke to Renaissance Capital in 2010 for $500,000 while supposedly at that time Hillary opposed requests for the State Dept to deny visas to Russian oligarch accused of Human rights violations under Medvedev. But that all changed with the passage of the Magnitski Act and Putin’s return to the Presidency in 2012 and the annexation of Crimea and invasion of Ukraine in 2014. Also if you think Bill and Hillary can be bought for $500k what exactly did Deutsche Bank get from Kushner for a cool $285 Million?]
Trump trues to bully Republicans into passing Trumpcare by saying “Obamacare is Death” — which is bullshit. Does a campaign rally at the Boy Scout Jamboree — even though I’m pretty sure they can’t vote yet. And reports start to surface that’s he’s floating the idea of removing Sessions.
July 25th —
After Trump’s usual self-aggrandizing, whining, hate and delusion filled partisan rally speech to the Boy Scout Jamboree parents and former scouts alike our outraged. He had invited members of his staff who were Eagle Scouts like Rick Perry but gives Jeff Sessions the Spicer Treatment by leaving him out. Some reports at that Sessions is so pissed he won’t give Trump the satisfaction of quitting.
During the Jamboree Scaramucci’s wife gives birth to their second child James, he’s not there because he’s with Trump, but he does send her a text.
Trump thumps Sessions some more on Twitter. Several times, even though it was his ethical — and legal — duty to recuse himself from any investigation of a campaign that he was a participant of. He’s so mean even Breitbart and Limbaugh start to feel sorry for Sessions. Some Congressional Republicans start to grow a soul, but Paul Ryan doesn’t.
The House approves new strengthened sanctions on Russia/Iran & North Korea which don’t allow Trump to unilaterally cut them by a final Veto Proof vote of 419-3.
John McCain triumphantly returns to the Senate after his brain cancer diagnosis and gives an impassioned rousing speach on bipartisanship right after casting a pivotal party line vote to open debate on taking the kind of Health Care he’s currently receiving away from between 15 or 22 or 32 Million people depending on Mitch McConnell’s mood. Although the parlimentarian says they’re going to need 60 Votes for most of what they have in mind.
Kushner is interviewed behind closed doors by House Intel panel staff for 3 Hours.
Manafort is subpeoned by Senate Judiciary.
House Repubs block Democrats attempt to see Trump’s Treasury FIles.
Scarmucci admits Trump wants Sessions FIred “It’s like a divorce.”
Huckabee-Sanders says re-re-reinvestigating Clinton for things that didn’t happen and she’s already been cleared for is just “Keeping a level playing field.”
Trump tweets about classified Syria program to fund and supply anti-Assad rebels in order to slap back at a Wapo story.
July 26h —
FBI executes a “No Knock” pre-dawn search warrant on Paul Manafort’s residence looking for financial documents some of which he was supposed to have turned over to Senate Intel specifically because they’re concerned he might destroy evidence.
Just minutes after Tucker Carlson calls trans people potential “child abusers” Trump tweets that all trans persons in the military will be removed because to the cost of their surgeries, although the military spends 4 times as much on Viagra to treat ED.
Trump tweets again asking why Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe hasn’t been fired because his wife received $700k from Terry McAulif when she ran for congress.
Putin threatens to retaliate against “Illegal” U.S. sanctions after their approval by Congress.
Senate defribs Trumpcare by considering “Skinny Repeal” for Obamacare which would only affect the mandates, subsidies and Medicare expansion.
Scaramucci’s financial disclosure forms indicates that he is still doing work for his investment firm while working in the White House and that the company was recently bought by Chinese investors meaning he’s receiving paychecks from China and the U.S. government at the same time.
Senate Intel calls for pro-Trump oppo researcher Chuck Johnson to testify on his work with to obtain Hillary’s emails for Michael Flynn along with the late Peter W. Smith.
Ken Starr calls for Trump to stop attacking Sessions “Cut it out.”
Grassley warns Trump not to fire Sessions.
Jeffrey Lord attempts to defend Trump’s trans-ban tweet says the Military shouldn’t be paying for Viagra either.
Kushner may be violating the Presidential records act by having and app that makes message sent or received “disappear’ on his iPhone.
Nine Inch Nail’s Trent Reznor says “Trump’s a vulgarian” — yeah, you bet.
July 27th —
CBO score of Skinny Repeals says that it would take Healthcare from 16 Million people and increase premiums by 20%.
Newsweek reports that Russia used Facebook to try and trick Macron supporters prior to French Election.
Senate ignores Trump’s call to investigate Hillary Clinton again.
Lindsay Graham says firing Sessions and/or Mueller would be the beginning of the end of Trump’s presidency.
The Joint Chiefs announce no one is going no where based on a Tweet, Trump hasn’t given them any formal instructions on trans soldiers yet.
Bill Browder testifies to Senate Judiciary and tells them that Veselnitskaya and Ahkmenttshin were clearly operatives for Putin and Russian Intel offering Kompromat on Clinton to see if anyone in the Trump camp would take the bait.
He explains how Putin and Chaika had Magnitski and Boris Nemsov murdered and tried to poison Kara-Murza twice to cover up their graft and corruption.
Having the Magnitski act repealed or limited is a prime Putin goal.
He also says that Fusion GPS was also funded by Russians because they like to “Play both sides” — which suggests some of the more salacious items in the Steele Dossier may have been fed to them as disinformationto help make it easier to discredit the overall report.
Kellyanne Conway throws Preibus a “shiv in the ribs” for leaking Scaramucci’s financials — which he probably didn’t do.
Scaramucci gives a mad crazy interview on CNN about his financial forms being leaked even though it’s still public information calling in right in the middle of an interview with Ryan Lizza.
Scaramucci then calls Ryan Pizza of the New Yorker directly and gives him a rambling profane on the record interview.
He demands to know who leaked that he was having dinner with Hannity, Trump and Melanie that night, and that he’d fire everyone in the White House until Lizza told him. (He can’t do that, he can only fire press and communications people — Preibus could do that, or Trump. And since when is having dinner with the Trumps and Sean Hannity a matter of National Security?)
He says that he’s not out to promote himself and “Suck his own ****” like Steve Bannon, he’s trying to promote Trump. [And doing a wonderful job of it he is too...]
He claims Preibus is a “******* paranoid schizophrenic paranoiac” who leaked his financial forms — although the forms are public information — because he didn’t want him hired in the first place. [And who could blame him for that prescience?]
He claims he has ‘digital fingerprints” of alleged leakers given to him by the FBI (which would be illegal for them to do) and also he’s not on the approved WH/DOJ communications list, neither is Preibus.
He says they need to “Kill all the ******* leakers.”and that “People in this administration think their job is too save the country from Trump, that’s not their job, it’s to inject Trump into the nation”— eww..just ewww.
Propublica obtains a set of talking points created for DNI Dan Coates which shows that the relationship between the Intel Community and Trump is highly strained. [No kiddin?]
The Senate fails to pass each and every single Trumpcare proposal including “Repeal/Replace” and“Repeal/Delay” and even eventually fail even with the Hail-Mary “Skinny Repeal” after Senators John McCain, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski vote against it.
McConnel says the failure to repeal O-care is “disappointing”, whines about losing then sarcastically asks “Let see what the Democrats have.” Schumer calls for bi-partisan cooperation to help fix the lingering problems of the Health Care Market.
Trump says they should now ‘let O-care Implode” although what he really means is he’s going to have Tom Price sabotage it even further until Dems cry “Uncle.”
Devin Nunez continues pushing his Obama “Unmasking” Story.
Manafort is scheduled to meet with Senate Judiciary today, but negotiates a later date.
New Russia sanctions bill gets sent to Trump’s desk.
July 28th —
Trump calls for Police Brutality by telling assembled cheering Long Island Police to "don’t be too nice” when slamming them into the back of a paddy wagon and “don’t hold their head” when placing them in the back seat. “You can take the hand away, okay?”
Trump fires Reice Preibus via Tweet, makes DHS head Kelly as new Chief of Staff. Preibus finds out on a rain soaked tarmac as AF1 arrives back in Washington, others get out of his Suburban and his car leaves the motorcade and goes off on it’s own instead of returning to the WH.
Scaramucci’s wife, who had been estranged with him for months, files for Divorce because of his naked political ambition “Deirdre is not a fan of Trump” which means he’s gonna have to learn that special trick of Bannon’s now.
Russia expels U.S. 755 Diplomats and seizes an American compound in “retaliation” for the new sanctions bill that Trump hasn’t yet signed calling them “Illegal” and unjustified.
july 29th —
Trump’s Gallup approval rating of 37% drops lower than Bill Clinton’s during the Lewinsky scandal.
Painter says shuffling Sessions into Homeland in place of Kelly would be yet more obstruction.
Police Departments from coast to coast condemn Trump’s call for Police Brutality.
Surprising absolutely no one on earth Ted Nugent breaks his civility pledge.
Tillerson’s State Dept. channels opposite world and claims the new sanctions on Russia will be “good for our relationship.” [Uh, Nope!]
It’s reported that Scaramucci’s wife was nine months pregnant when she bailed on him because of his #TrumpLove and that he apparently missed the birth of his second child James because he was with Trump at the Boy Scout Jamboree and sent his wife a text “I’ll pray for our son.”
July 30th —
Jared and Ivanka admit it’s way too much to expect them to have any moderating influence on Trump.
Pence swears we’ll see more moderate behavior from Putin as he orders 755 U.S. Diplomats out of Russia. [Yeah, uh, NOPE!]
Lewandowsky calls for Trump to fire CFPB chief Richard Cordray because — yeah, sorry, I got nothin’. [Ok fine seriously, He claims he doesn’t have any clients that oppose Cordray’s work at CFPB, but it turns out that he does have a client that is a pay day lender]
PS. Kushner is still a slumlord.
Roger Stone says “McCain is a piece of **** and traitor” — also now with Brain Cancer.
July 31st —
Gen. Kelly starts his first day as the new WH Chief of Staff.
Pence talks tough about Russia’s retaliation against the newly imposed sanctions signed by Trump. Trump echoes Russia’s complaints.
Scaramucci suddenly resigns as WH Communications Director 11 days after was announced in the position and 4 days before he was to officially begin. He’s then escorted off the grounds by security, then goes to dinner with Katrina Peirson.
Kelly calls Sessions and tells him his job is safe.
Former NSA Analyst John Schindler reports that Putin’s move to expel 755 U.S. Diplomatic workers over sanctions shows he’s ready to throw Trump under the bus.
NYTimes reports that Trump personally dictated the first false version of Junior’s statement about his meeting with Veselnitskaya — even though he said at the time “this was the first he’d heard about it” — claiming the meeting was “primarily about adoption” a claim that was later repeated by Trump twice and also by Spicer even though Junior himself had already admitted it was about oppo research on Hillary 7 days previously.
Trump’s direct involvement in promoting a false story when there is a open Federal Investigation of links between his campaign in Russia potentially indicates “consciousness of guilt” and may be an attempt at Witness Tampering and Obstruction of Justice particularly since Mueller’s office already requested the WH preserve all documents and records related to this meeting on July 21st.
Ivanka and Melania were “disgusted” by Scaramucci’s dirty talk — but then again they do support Trump who brought him on in the first place and has history for salty talk of his own.
CNN Reports that Kelly was furious by the manner in which Comey was fired and nearly resigned himself in protest until Comey talked him out of it.
Former McCain staffer Steve Schmidt says Scarmucci’s firing exposes the “snakepit” of Trump White House.
Surprising absolutely no-one with eyes and a working brain former Obamacare hating Blaze corespondent Tami Lahren is actually on Obamacare as she’s 24 and still on her parent Health Care plans.
A British “Email Prankster” successfully tricked several members of Trump’s WH into thinking he was Kushner and Preibus.
August 1st —
Spicer admits that the WH and Trump was personally briefed on the false and since retracted FOX story alleging that murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich was connected to emails leaked to Wikileaks as a way to redirect attention from Russia. This means that Spicer lied during the May 16 press briefing where he denied any knowledge of the Rich story. Again, potential Obstruction of Justice during the current investigation of Russia’s involvement with DNC hack.
Wired releases an audio recording of Kushner telling WH interns he doesn’t know of anything knew that the Trump WH offers to solve the Israel/Palestine problem.
Daily Caller reports that Kellyanne — who is still banned from Morning Joe for lying — may be tapped as the new WH Communications Director.
Lewandowski is fired from One America News Network (OANN) because he’d been moonlighting on Fox News too many times.
GOP lawmakers warn Trump not to sabotage Obamacare — but frankly that’s already is progress.
Rep Trent Franks (R-AZ) says “Mueller is a partisan and should resign” because of his “close friendship with Comey” who used to be his boss which is funny since he’s a registered Republican and so was Comey, but then nobody sane or smart listens to Trent Franks on anything.
GOP Activist Ed Butowski who pushed the Seth Rich conspiracy to the WH and Fox News gets grills on CNN by Chris Cuomo in an incoherent interview.
August 2nd —
Trump signs new Russia Sanctions Bill, includes a signing statement and a personal statement whining about Congress encroaching on executive authority and claims as a former CEO he can negotiate a better deal than Congress that could negotiate a Health Care Bill — which is of course exactly why Congress passed more sanctions.
Iran says these new sanction breaks the Nuclear deal setup by Obama.
Huckabee-Sanders tried to defend Trump’s claims that the Mexican President called to say they were doing such a great job on the border that Mexico was seeing fewer people entering in the hope of reaching the U.S. [although Mexico says they hadn’t called Trump in months] and the Head of the Boy Scouts called to say his speech “was great’ [He denies it too.] She says they did say these things, “it just wasn’t on the phone.”
Tillerson refuses to spend $80 Million in State Dept funds allocated to fight ISIS and Russian media manipulation and propaganda because it might “anger the Kremlin.”
Trump along with Sen Tom Cotton announces changes to Green Card eligibility that focuses on a “merit based” system for high skilled workers which seems to deprioritize petitions for family members, refugees and asylum seekers. [This proposal was submitted back in February and went nowhere then, going nowhere now]
At the same time that Trump publicly tries to the door to “low skilled” immigrants his Department of Homeland Security has increased the cap for H2B Visas per year from 66,000 to 81,000 and that his own companies in including Mar-A-Lago have submitted 76 more applications for low wage foreign workers.
Stephan Miller argues with CNN’s Jim Acosta about the meaning of the Statue of Liberty to justify Trump’s new Green Card plan and uses coded White Supremacist Slurs against him.
Russia responds to the sanctions bill saying that it shows that Trump is “Impotent” and the establishment wants to oust him.
Reports surface that Kremlin backed Sputnik News is the source of the Seth Rich conspiracy theory pushed by Sean Hannity and Fox News, causing them to be sued by Rich’s family.
Congressional investigators call for Don Jr. phone records to see who he talked to in the lead up to his June 6, 2016 meeting with Veselnitskaya. [Possibly Emin Agalarov as indicated by some of the email exchanges]
WSJ reports that U.S Attorney’s have subpoena records from the Kushner companies about their attempts to get Chinese investors special EB-5 Visas using Jared association with Trump.
Former Flynn staffer Erza Cohen-Watnick who provided the “unmasking” documents to Devin Nunez is fired.
Rod Wheeler who filed suit against Fox News over their bogus Seth Rich story says that Trump had inserted phony quotes by Rich.
The crazed conspiracy riddled memo written by NSC staffer Rich Higgins that connects the Muslim Brotherhood to the European Union, “Maoist Insurgents”, “Leftists’ and “Deep State” activists circulates through the WH and for some reason Don Jr. — who doesn’t have a security clearance to receive an NSC memo — is sent a copy, which he forwards to his father who “gushes” over the thing. Then he finds out from Hannity that Higgins had already been fired for writing it.
August 3rd —
Deputy FBI Director McCabe warns top LE officials that they should consider themselves witnesses and their notes evidence in Mueller’s investigation, possibly because of their communications and interactions with Comey as he talked to Trump on the phone.
WaPo publishes leaked transcripts of Trump talking to the President of Mexico and Prime Minister of Australia back in January which reveal that he’s repeatedly and knowingly lied about “Mexico paying for the wall” and begged not to be outed.
Audio of Scarmucci’s profane phone call with Ryan Lizza is released.
Fox News lawyers up over Seth Rich suit.
Former CIA agents pen a NYTimes op-ed on Trump’s response to Russia “Innocent people don’t behave this way.”
Wapo reports that the Secret Service has moved out of Trump Tower over a rental dispute with Trump’s Companies, their command post is now in a trailer parked on the sidewalk.
Kellyanne says Russia hacking our political and voter registration systems to help Trump get elected isn’t a “matter of national security.”
Hannity flips when he discovers a report from Bloomberg that NSA Director McMaster has granted his predecessor Susan Rice a lifetime Security Clearance — which is the normal custom — because he say “she did nothing wrong with any unmasking of Trump officials” confirming the previously findings of the House Intel Committee, except for Devin Nunez.
Trump Vacation Day count after 7 Months surpasses the number of vacation days taken by Obama in his full 8 years.
Trump plans 17-day “working vacation” in New Jersey while the WH is renovated. His neighbors are not overjoyed with all of his security.
Michael Flynn amends his financial disclosure forms to include funds received from a tech company, SCL Group which has ties to Cambridg-Analytica and whose CEO used “dirty Tricks” to support Trump and the Brexit Vote, he also includes consulting work for NIK Holdings who had attempted to donate $100,000 under the table for former Sen. Norm Coleman before he was defeated by Al Franken.
Glenn Thrush at NYTimes reports that Kelly fired Cohen-Watnick to show his authority over Bannon and Kushner.
WSJ reports that Mueller has empaneled a Grand Jury which is issuing subpeonas related to Don Jr.’s meeting with Veselnitskaya and financial ties between TrumpCo and Russia, this is in addition to the already existing Grand Jury that is looking into Michael Flynn.
Sen. Jeff Flake warns that firing Mueller could cause Congress to turn against Trump.
Sen Tillis and Coons introduce legislation to protect Mueller from being unjustifiably fired by Trump without judicial review.
August 4th —
Spicer says “No” to Dancing With the Stars.
Mark Warner the ranking Dem on Senate Intel calls for an investigation into leak of transcripts of Trump’s conversations with President of Mexico and Prime Minister of Australia.
CNN reports that Carter Page has been under FISA surveillance and suspected of being a foreign agent since 2014.
During a West Virginia rally Trump calls the Russia investigation a “total fabrication” and argues the Special Counsel should “go after why Clinton deleted 33,000 emails” which the FBI already investigated and found completely legal.
CNN reports that Intel intercepts of suspected Russian operatives during summer of 2016 discussed Manafort asking for help with damaging Clinton’s campaign.
August 5th —
Alt-Right and Russia-Bots begin relentless attacking NSA chief McMaster arguing that he should be fired for something or the other. Daily Beast reports that this is apparently payback from Bannon for the firing of Cohen-Watnick and Col. Darek Harvey.
CNN reports that Mueller’s investigation is likely to first focus on Trump’s financial crimes as they have the strongest path to prosecution.
Fox’s Eric Bolling is suspended for sexual harrassment.
Painter says if you placed lie detector on Huckabee-Sanders podium “It would light up like a disco!”
New polls indicate Trump support has dropped to just 33%, and that he’s losing White Non-College educated voters where he now stands underwater at 43% approval to 50% disapproval — a drop of 10 points since June, and 23 points since the election.
Minnesota mosque is firebombed in an apparent act of terrorism, no casualties are reported. WH says nothing.
August 6th —
CNN says McEnany quit to join Trump’s Fake “Real” News channel.
Sen. Jeff Flake says he wished the GOP had stood up against birtherism. [Which they didn't, with the notable exception of John McCain they generally took advantage and pandered to it just like Kushner said Trump did.]
Trump says he “working hard” on his vacation — but his schedule is blank.
August 7th —
Sen. Blumenthal goes on CNN and explains the new bill to protect Mueller from being fired, and Trump — who says he “not watching tv” while on his work-cation — immediately goes on a tweet storm attacking Blumenthal for saying he served in Vietnam, when his actual Marine service was in the U.S. during Vietnam. Since Trump never served due to “bone spurs” Vets call him a “Chicken Hawk piece of trash.”
Wapo reports that while requesting H2B visas for 70 more foreign employees Mar-A-Lago barely put out a couple of local ads which didn’t include a phone # or email, only a fax, for U.S. workers to be hired.
Sen. Blumenthal snaps back at Trump over his Vietnam service slurs. “ I will not be bullied.”
Chicago sues Trump over his threat to pull funds from “sanctuary cities.”
Right-Wing Militias align with GOP officials under Trump.
McEnany gets Spicer’s old job as RNC national spokesperson.
August 8th —
Alex Jones hosts Russian ultra-nationalist on program about firing McMaster.
Ex-CIA agent Daniel Hoffman states that Putin probably left a paper trail from Trump Tower to the Kremlin.
Staffers for Devin Nunez appear to be staging a stealth investigation of Christopher Steele.
Trump pays one of his staffers $89k/year just to look up positive news about him and provide it in a 20 page “propaganda report” twice a day.
Jared Kushner failed to disclose that he holds a stake in his brother’s health insurance company which had paid lobbyists to fight the repeal of Obamacare.
Trump tweets out classified information revealed by annonymous sources on Fox & Friends about North Korean Missile movements.
Trump’s support among GOP voters drops by 14 points.
Russian bots and trolls begin attacking Republicans including the House Speaker with #ResignPaulRyan campaign.
Wapo reports that North Korea now has a miniturized nuclear device that can fit on a missile, Trump says if they threaten us again they will met with “Fire and Fury that the world has never seen.” North Korea responds by threatening to attack Guam. No “Fire or Fury” appears.
August 9th —
WaPo reports that the FBI staged a pre-dawn raid of Manafort’s residence in July, which continues to suggest Mueller is attempting to flip Manafort, only now the hard way.
National Enquirer publishes a hit piece on Manafort (one hour after the Wapo report on the search warrant raid) that alleges that he was involved in a “sick sex scandal” with women much younger than his wife.
Trump campaign hands over 20,000 pages of documents to Senate Judiciary on their efforts to find negative information on Hillary Clinton.
WH aid Gorka says silence on mosque bombing is justified because he says it may be been a faked hate crime by Liberals, which frankly I would expect would make Huckabee-Sander’s and her resting scowl face crack a smile.
Politico reports that Federal investigators had approached Manafort’s son in law in order to get a better “read” on his mindset.
August 10th —
Reports indicate that Manafort had already told congressional investigators about the Don Jr/Veselnitskaya meeting before his house was raided by the FBI.
CNN finally fires Jeffrey Lord over a Nazi “Seig Heil” tweet at Media Matters Angelo Carusone arguing that they are a “fascist” site that seeks to curtail free speech, when in fact all they do is document what right-wingers say without much comment.
Trump thanks Putin for kicking 755 of our Diplomats, “Now we have a smaller payroll” and doubles down on his “Fire and Fury” nonsense, “Maybe that was too soft.” And threatens military action in Venezuela.
August 11th —
Rachel Maddow reports that a 1980 audit of Trump finances found he failed to pay $2.8 Million to the City of New York in a deal to avoid paying $150 Million in property taxes.
Fancy Bear hacker group begins targeting Hotel guests using unsecured wifi.
WH says Trump was being “sarcastic” about the smaller payroll for Diplomats in Russia, but then he says it again.
Senate Judiciary demands info on Kushner’s relationship with Russia and an explanation for the gaps on his SF86 security form.
Neo-Nazi protesters get into melee at U of VA over removal of statue to Robert E. Lee.
Rinat Akhmetshin testifies for several hours to the Mueller Grand Jury.
August 12th —
Alt-Right Neo-Nazi Protest in Charlottesville VA erupts in more violence. Deandre Harris is beaten bloody, a car driven my James Fields Jr. smashes into a crowd of counter-protesters killing Heather Heyer and injuring 19 others.
David Duke says the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” protest fulfills the promises of Donald Trump.
August 13th —
Trump gives a rambling confused statement on Charlottesville that talks about violence “on many sides” and never mentions white supremacist or neo-Nazis.
Washington Post reports Trump staffer George Papadopoulos repeatedly offered to set up “a meeting between us and the Russian leadership to discuss US-Russia ties under President Trump,” “Putin wants to host the Trump team when the time is right,” Papadopoulos wrote in an email to former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski on April 27, 2016. He also told Lewamdowski he had fielded “a lot of calls over the past month” related to a meeting between the Trump campaign and Russia. “Russia has been eager to meet with Mr. Trump for some time and have been reaching out to me to discuss,” Papadopoulos said in a separate email to former campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
August 14th —
Trump gives his “hostage video” speech where he finally condemns neo-Nazis, but then attacks African-American CEO of Merck for quitting his business advisory council on twitter.
Reports surface the Homeland security had issued a warning about Neo-Nazis and White Supremacist back in May.
Politico reporrs the Obama administration had many warnings between 2014 and 2016 that Russia was stepping up its intelligence operations to build propaganda networks.
North Korea calls off it’s missiles test targeting Guam.
Michael Cohen’s atty writes a letter to Congress vehemently denying his involvement in colluding between Trump and Russia as described in the Steele dossier — even though he had been directly involved in writing to the Russian government during the campaign to restart the Trump Tower Moscow project.
August 15th —
Kushner faces lawsuit for over charging rent in NYC.
Trump retweets meme of a train running over a CNN reporter.
Trump angrily argues during an Infrastructure Press Briefing that “Both Sides” were at fault in Charlottesville violence and stuns much of the GOP who quickly criticize his comments. He claims that if Gen. Lee and Stonwall Jackson statues have to come down so do monuments to Washington and Jefferson since they were slave owners, although they never attacked and waged war against America over it, they fought Britain to increase freedom, not decrease it and thus his real White-Power bona fides are finally revealed and confirmed.
August 16th —
NYTimes reports about 3 hackers whose work may have been used without their knowledge to attack the DNC.
ABC News reports that Peter Stroz former head of FBI Counterterrorism quits the Mueller investigation team.
Internal reports disprove claims of “Turmoil” inside the FBI prior to Comey firing.
Newsweek reports that in 1985 the Australian government rejected a bid for a Trump Casino in Sydney because of his alleged ties to the mafia.
4 CEOs defect in protest from Trump’s business council over his pro-Confederate comments, so he shuts both his business councils down in frustration.
Bannon gives a grandstanding football spike of an interview to the NYTimes claiming the more the Left talks about Racism, the more we Win. “I want them to talk about Racism everyday.” He also basically claims he’s running the White House from behind the scenes, which I’m sure is news to Kelly and also, Trump.
Jack Tapper tweets that at least two journalists were attacked by anti-Nazi counter protestors in Charlottesville, one of whom required stitches.
Rep. Jackie Spiere calls for Trump to be ousted using the 25th Amendment.
Both Bush Presidents denounce Trump’s neo-Nazi support.
Heather Heyer’s mother scorns bigots at her funeral.
August 17th —
The Spectator reports that Felix Sater — who helped sell many Trump properties to various Russians through his former real estate firm Bayrock — may have flipped for the FBI again and that he has said the both he and Trump “are going to prison.”
Cantwell states emphatically that he’s “Not a coward.” No one is impressed, particularly not PayPal and Ok, Cupid who cut him off for life.
Sen Bob Corker (R-TN) says in response to Trump Charlottesville comments: “The president has not yet been able to demonstrate the stability nor some of the competence that he needs to demonstrate in order to be successful,”
UVA Librarian Tyler McGill suffers a stroke from being struck in the neck with a Tiki Torch by Unite the Right protestors.
Foreign Policy reports that Wikileaks refused to receive or publish 68 Gig of negative data on the operations of the Kremlin.
Buzzfeed reports that Trump is furious that “Bannon is taking credit for my election.”
A Van strikes 50 people in Barcelona, 13 are killed. 2 suspects are taken into custody but no information about them or their motive is released immediately.
Trump tweets in support of “beautiful Confederate Statues” and decrying “Terrorism in Barcelona” then later endorsed a questionable internet rumor that a U.S. General in the Philippines committed the War Crime of mass executions using bullets laced with pigs blood to deter terrorists, when in actuality he sat down with Muslims, ate their food, learned their language, customs and read the Koran with them. CNN’s Jake Tapper says “He just suggested we should study a lie.” But he still hasn’t said anything about the firebombing of a mosque in Minnesota, the car crashed into a crowd near a mosque in London or the machete attack against Democrats in Kentucky.
Mike Huckabee says if you take down Robert E. Lee, you have to take down Mt. Rushmore.
With “Infrastructure Week” not quite complete, Trump gives up on his infrastructure council.
August 18th —
Steve Bannon is Fired and quickly reports surface here’s going to take Breitbart to Defcon1 Thermonuclear Global War against Trump. Cue the Russia Bots of Doom. Subsequent reports say that he intends to use Brietbart to go to War with Trump’s enemies — which now, is just about everyone.
Also a former friend and aide of Preibus, George Sifakis, leaves the WH.
Buzzfeed reports that Mueller’s investigation is now targeting Donald Jr concerning his meeting with Veselnitskaya and Akhmetshin.
Reports surface that besides Bayrock’s Tefvik Arik Trump has financial links to post-Soviet era oligarch Mukhtar Ablyazov, who had been charged with stealing between $4-$10 Billion from Kazakhstan’s largest banks through loans and shell companies and had been working with Trump on 2 Tower projects in (former soviet) Georgia through a company run by Michael Cohen. The same report also notes the connection of oligarch Alexander Shnaider, who has mob ties, and had been involved in the Toronto Trump Tower deal.
16 out of 17 members of Trump’s Arts Council resign en mass in protest of Trump comments about Charlottesville. He says “Nah ah, I QUIT YOU”, they say “No, We quit you first!”
Heather Heyer’s mother Susan Bro refuses to speak with Trump in protest of his comments on Charlottesville, while Mitt Romney calls for him to apologize. He doesn’t.
7 Charities have cancelled fundraisers scheduled to be held at Mar-a-Lago.
Charlottesville Police issue arrest warrant for Chris Cantwell for illegal use of gases and injury by caustic agent or explosive,
ISIS reportedly takes credit for the Barcelona Van attack which Spain authorities say involved 12 people, 4 are in custody and 5 had been killed in a police raid.
August 19th —
Carl Ichann resigns from his position as an informal Trump advisor allegedly because of his Charlottesville comments. But this happens admit rumors that he made $60 Million by advising Trump to cut prices on a regulatory devicethat he’d been short selling for months.
The cancelled Mar-a-Lago charity list grows to 16.
Trump announces that he will not attend the Kennedy Center Honors with Norman Lear, Gloria Estaban, Lionel Richie & LL Kool J so as not to create a “Political Distraction.”
Robert E. Lee biographer says Lee would have wanted all the Confederate statues torn down.
Trump condemns anti-violence protestors as being “anti-police agitators” and then commends the cops.
August 20th —
ADL says the “Violent Alt-Left” is a Right-Wing media lie.
Bannon’s Breitbart attacks McMaster as a “Koran kissing Muslim sympathizer”for his endorsing use of a military manual on showing respect for Islam and how not to inflame tensions.
Congressional Democrats begin to question if “Trump is mentally Ill?”
Jesse Waters says removing Confederate monuments is a plot to help make people forget that “Democrats enslaved Blacks” which is technically true but they were also southern Conservative Democrats — Dixiecrats — who’ve all become Republicans or Independents since then.
Jerry Falwell Jr defends Trump’s “fine Nazi people” and “bad counter-protestors” claims saying he has “inside knowledge” although Trump claimed that all the media saw the same videos that he did. Close examination of Videos from protest shows they’re wrong.
Dick Gregory Dies.
August 21st —
Trump showing his usual level of sociopathic empathy deficit disorder responds to the crash of the U.S.S. McCain which injured five sailors and where ten remain missing with “That’s too bad.”
Paul Ryan holds a CNN Town hall and gives a weak tepid condemnation of Trump’s statements on Charlottesville — Tapper says it “Wasn’t morally ambiguous, it’s was Morally Wrong.”
Virginia State Attorney issues four warrants for Christopher Cantwell.
The U.S experiences it’s first total solar eclipse in 38 years, Shep Smith freaks the heck out. Trump stares into the Sun without glasses — “Finally, he establishes a Blind Trust.”
North Korea releases fake propaganda videos of their missiles hitting Guam.
Rep. Bryan Zollinger (R-ID) claims that Obama may have “staged the Charlottesville riots.” [Facepalm!]
“Art of the Deal” Ghost writer Tony Schwatz gets a loud racist voicemailcriticizing him for saying Trump “will resign.”
Katrina Peirson — yes, she’s still here — goes ballistic on Fox claiming “Slavery is an example of how special and wonderful this country is.” [Uh, er, what?]
NYTimes reports that Akhmetshin has close ties to the FSB and Putin, had helped Russian oligarchs using sophisticated cyber hacks for their benefit, helped unmask corruption at a Krygystan Air Force base which Russia wanted purged of U.S. personnel, and got Federal prosecutors to file charges against an American businessman who happened to be a CIA operative working in Russia.
USA Today reports that Trump’s extended family and their extensive travel is draining the resources of the Secret Service Dry.
Treasury Sec Mnunchin uses a government plane to fly to visit Fort Knox as an excuse to view the Solar exclispe at 95% totally, he also brings Mitch McConnel
August 22nd —
ABC News reports that Christopher Steele met with and has given the FBI the names and contact information for the sources of his Trump/Russia dossier.
CNN reports that Glenn Simpson, partner with Fusion GPS the oppo research team that had contracted with Steele to produce his dossier, has testified for 10 hours before Senate Judiciary behind closed doors. Fusion also provided 40,000 pages of documents to the committee.
At his Phoenix rally Trump attacks the media as “Fake” while misquoting his own statements about Charlottesville and his “unequivocal” condemnation of White Supremacy, except for the “Good Ones” and the BLM/Antifa “Chargers” which he doesn’t bring up this time. He hints at pardoning ex-Sheriff Joe Arpaio who was convicted of violating a court order to stop his deputies from profiling, targeting and discriminating against Latinos. He claims the media won’t show the size of his crowd, but they do, and he claims the protestors outside are only a few, but they aren’t. And he leads a chant calling for the death of John McCain.
Police and Protestors lob bottles, bricks and tear gas back and forth at each other during and after Trump’s rally, no injuries are reported.
CNN responds to Trump’s attack and begins to say he sounds “unhinged.” Don Lemon says “His speech was without thought, without reason, devoid of facts, devoid of wisdom,”
NYTimes reports that Trump’s relationship with Mitch McConnell has deteriorated down to explicative filled phone calls over Trumpcare’s failure and the continued Russia probes in congress.
Trump’s airwar against ISIS passes the civilian death toll of Obama’s entire Presidency.
Trump’s pick to protect U.S. workers from abuse as Deputy Secretary of Labor is a former lobbyists for forced abortion sweatshops.[Oh, lordy!]
Alex Jones suggest reparations for White People. [Yes, really]
McClatchy reports that Mueller’s investigators may have found that Manafort may have received between $80-$100 Million from Russian and Ukrainian Oligarchs over the past decade.
Trump gives a speech on his new Afghanistan policy, which is basically more war, more killing, no end in sight and no nation building. [Which is different from the last 17 years before this how exactly? Oh yeah, no “dates certain.”]
A rabidily racist Trump supporter — the same one who called Tony Schwartz — leaves a vicious bigoted message for CEO Ravin Ghandi — who has Indian heritage but was born in the U.S. — because he is one of the CEOs who left one of Trump’s economic councils.
August 23rd —
Armed man slashes tarp on Charlottesville monument and says Heather Heyer died ‘playing in traffic’ [Nope, you can’t make this ish up.]
Grassley says he will have the Judiciary committee to vote on releasing the testimony from Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS on the Steele Dossier.
Shep Smith calls out Trump for trying to “rewrite history” with his Pheonix speech. [Don’t you know he’s been doing that since he rode down the escalator in Trump Tower?]
Pro-Russia social media cyberbots begin to amplify rightwing rhetoric over Charlottesville claiming ““Dems and Media Continue to IGNORE BLM and Antifa Violence in Charlottesville” except there really wasn’t any to ignore. Did any neo-Nazis go to the Hospital? Nope.
Cantwell, who is still in hiding from Charlottesville PD, reveals that his attorney has ditched him.
James Clapper questions Trump’s “mental fitness” to be President after his Arizona speech.
Kushner heads to Israel to try again for a peace deal after things went so “well” last time, which they didn’t.
Michigan Senate candidate Kid Rock curses Colin Kaepernick, because that’s just what wannabe government leaders do.
Scarborough asks “Who are these people?” in Trump’s crowd calling for John McCain’s death? [Arizona GOP voters?]
Politico reports that Trump is so obsessed with the Russia investigation and the bill to protect Mueller from being wrongfully fired that he’s calling GOP Senators to scream and curse at them and can’t keep focused on day to day business.
CNN reports that Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff Rick Dearborn last June when he was an advisor to the Trump campaign and Jeff Session’s Chief of staff had sent an email to Corey Lowendowski about someone nicked name “WV” trying to arrange a meeting between Trump and members of the Russian government including Putin at about the same time as Don Jr.’s meeting with Veselnitskaya. This is the second staffer in addition to NatSec advisor George Papadopoulos who had also tried to set up this kind of meeting last April according Trump campaign emails given to congress.
Cantwell turns himself in to police, judge denies bail.
Trump calls Clapper “a liar” for his mental fitness comments via — guess what — twitter. He also slams Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell over the debt ceiling vote, which hasn’t even happened yet.
Dems, rising from their long slumber, try to defund Trump’s Voter Fraud Commission.
CNN locates and interviews former Russian ambassador Kislyak on the streets of Moscow, he says that the allegations that he’s a “Spymaster” is “nonsense”. He says that the future of US/Russians relations will be “difficult.” And that sanctions and tensions will make it hard to resume a normalcy in our relationship.
Politico reports that Trump has been repeatedly and angrily calling up GOP Senators such as Bob Corker and Thom Tillus to complain about bills he doesn’t like such as the Russia sanctions and Mueller protection legislation.
August 24th —
Trump pardons ex-Sherrif Arpaio for his contempt of court conviction for refusing to stop discriminating against latino citizens. This he does despite — or perhaps because of — his history of racial discrimination and targeting of Latinos for arrest and detention, the horrific conditions in his “concentration camp” jails which have led to record suicides and in custody deaths, his attempts to intimidate and wrongfully arrest journalist and politicians who criticize him with bogus trumped up charges. Also he’s a birther, like Trump.
Hungarian Nazi Badge wearer Sebastian Gorka resigns from the WH amid rumors of his anti-Semetism.
Reports are that Meuller is investigating how involved Flynn, his son and his consulting firm were with Robert W. Smith’s attempts to aquire Hillary emails from Russian hackers. He also issues subpeonas for 6 PR firms which had worked for Flynn and Manafort.
Reports are that in 2007 Trump said “This is the first he’s heard...” that his employee Felix Sater was convicted of fraud in 1998.
.WH advisor Gary Cohn wrotes a resignation letter because of Trump’s support for anti-Semitic Neo-Nazis who chanted “Jews will not replace us” in Charlottesville, but he doesn’t hand it in. Mnunchin say’s “Gary is excited to be working here.”
Trump’s approval rating per Gallup drops to just 34%.
Ex White Nationalists confirms that Trump is using the same slippery bigoted dog whistle rhetoric that helped recruit them into hate groups.
August 25th —
Gorka says he didn’t resign from the WH, but yet, he’s still out.
Richard Painter blasts Arpaio as “One of the worst” law enforcement officers in the country,
Paul Begala argues that the Arpaio pardon is a signal to Mueller’s targets, Flynn, Manafort, Kushner and Donald Jr, that Trump will protect them if they face charges.
Ana Navarro links Trump’s Charlottesville comments to his support for racists like Gorka and Arpaio because, yeah, that makes sense.
NYTimes reports that Trump has cancelled an Obama era program to increase public works projects at the Department of Transportation. [So much for “American jobs” and “Infrastructure”]
Bannon vows to bring down Mitch McConnell “I’m going to light him up.”
Trump slaps sanctions on Venezuela because of their “Dictatorship” — which is totally unlike his pals Putin or Duterte.
August 26th —
Sen. Blumenthal states that Mueller targets shouldn’t expect pardons from Trump, “His loyalty is limited.” [Not even with Jared?]
Paul Ryan says the Arpaio pardon “is wrong.” [Yeah, no kidding, eh?]
Charlottesville police arrests neo-Nazis involved in the attack on Deandre Harris.
Trump international Gold Club in Dubai is refusing to pay it’s migrant workers from Pakistan on time.
Just regular, Columbian Folgers for me this morning.
Although I am making some breakfast burritos. Eggs, sausage, onions, peppers, home fried potatoes, and a little sharp cheese.
Figure it will get me through the game and allow more beer consumption.
Although I am making some breakfast burritos. Eggs, sausage, onions, peppers, home fried potatoes, and a little sharp cheese.
Figure it will get me through the game and allow more beer consumption.
So just what do we know about what Russia did or didn’t do involving the 2016 election and how the Trump campaign responded? Quite a bit actually, even though new Special Prosecutor Mueller has just started to get his feet on the ground.
I’ll tell you, when you actually lay it out all out item by item in chronological order a lot of patterns and actions/reactions become eminently clear. WIthout getting into classified or confidential data that isn’t yet public knowledge, what is public knowledge is already fairly stunning.
[This timeline has been continued with Vol#2 and Vol#3 due to length]
1985 — Australian government rejects a bid for a Trump Casino in Sydney because of his alleged ties to the mafia.
1986 — Trump attempts to gain a posting to Russia as part of the Reagan Administration and says he could sit down with Gorbechev to negotiate an end to the cold war “in an hour.”
1990 — Trump’s Taj Mahal casino, which is a favorite gambling spot for Russian mobsters living in Brooklyn, is cited 106 times in 18 months for violating money laundering rules, particular failing to report when someone wins and withdraws more then $10,000.
1991 — Taj Mahal files for bankrupcy protection, Trump sells his 50% share. After this and his other Casino bankruptcies most major banks no longer authorize loans to the Trump organization.
1998 -- Felix Sater a Russian born violent convict with ties to the Russian Mob — who are frequently used by Russian intelligence to do their dirty work and fund blackbag operations — gets caught up in a $40 Million stock fraud case but is only fined $35,000 in exchange for becoming an FBI informant.
2000 — Former KGB Agent Alexander Litvinenko defects to Britain.
GAO does analysis of Russian-American oligarch Ike Kaveladze and his involvement in starting 2000 shell companies which could be involved in money laundering.
2001-2007 — At least 63 Russian Oligarchs lease, rent or buy various Trump propertetes in South Florida spending upwards of $98.5 Million on them, many of these deals with Russian nationals in Manhattan reportedly are arranged through Bayrock Group LLC whose offices are located on the 24th floor of Trump Tower. Felix Sater becomes Bayrock’s managing director. Their first joint project together, in 2003, is building a Trump Tower in Phoenix.
2005 — TrumpCo puts together it’s first proposal for Trump Tower Moscow in coordination with BayRock LLC.
2006 — Alexander Litvinenko is poisoned by Polonium-210 and slowly dies of radiation sickness, he points to Putin as being behind his murder before he dies. His case officer with MI-6 is Christopher Steele.
2008 —Trump sells a Palm Beach Mansion to a Russian Oligarch for $95 Million after purchasing it just 2 years previously for only $45 Million.
Donald Jr. states “We get a lot to money from Russia.”
Felix Sater leaves Bayrock after his criminal record is revealed and goes to work for Trump.
Bayrock founder Tefvik Arif is busted and prosecuted for his connection to an underage prostitution ring in Turkey, he is eventually acquitted.
2009 — U.S. investor Bill Browder is expelled from Russia and his assets are used to setup a $230 Million tax rebate scam. Browder’s lawyer Sergei Magnitski discovers the scam and testifies to reveal it, he is subsequently arrested, tortured and murdered in a Russian jail, beaten to death by the guards.
2010 — A racketeering case is filed against Bayrock, Sater and Arif alleging they had been “substantially and covertly mob-owned and operated.”
2011 — Trump Soho a joint venture condo project by TrumpCO and Bayrock is sued for defrauding buyers with inflated claims. The suit is settled with a payout of $3.19 Million and a potential criminal case is avoided.
March 2011 — Trump begins his birther campaign against President Obama claiming there’s something wrong with his birth certificate. He also demands Obama's college transcripts alleging he didn't deserve access to Harvard, and claims that his best selling book “Dreams From My Father" was really ghostwritten by Bill Ayers.
May 2011 --
Obama authorizes the Bin Laden Raid, then attends the White House Correspondents dinner, Donald Trump is in the audience.
Obama reveals his long-form birth certificate and takes a couple shots at Donald, but Seth Myer brutalizes him from behind the podium. Myer's theorizes Trump decided to run for President right then and there in retaliation.
2012 — Obama signs the Magnitski Act following the jail house death of Sergey Magnitski after he was wrongfully imprisoned for investigation Russia corruption and laundering of money stolen from American businessmen Bill Browder. Putin responds by cancelling the adoption of Russian orphans by American parents. This act is strongly supported by Russian opposition leaders Boris Nemtsov and Vladimir Kara-Murza.
Exxon signs a $500 Billion deal with Russian Oil giant Rosneft for drilling in the Black sea.
2013 —
Russian mobsters renting property in Trump Tower just three floors below the penthouse suite are arrested for money laundering and running an illegal gambling ring at the end of a 2 year investigation. One of the attorney’s for the defendant Denys Katsyv of the Prevezon Group is Natalia Veselnitskaya, and the prosecutor is Preet Bharara, some of the stolen money is connected to Bill Browder’s investigation and the murder of Magnitski in Russia.
Several months later Trump holds the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow, the apparent money-laundering ring leader who remains at large is welcomed on the Red Carpet at the event. While in Moscow Trump reportedly meets with several high ranking oligarchs with ties to Putin, including Billionaire Russian Real Estate developer Arag Agalarov and his Pop Star son Emil who partners with Trump on the pageant.
Video shot before the pageant shows Trump at dinner with Emin and Aras Agalarov, as well as Rob Goldstone Emin’s promoter. Michael Isakoff talks to Goldstone who reveals that Trump has plans to license a new Trump Tower in Russia with Agalarov as the local builder/owner. Don jr. is in charge of the project and Ivanka goes on location scouting trips with Emin. Ike Kaveladze who works for the Agalarov family is also present.
2014 —
Michael Flynn is fired by the Obama administration as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency for his “odd behavior.”
Eric Trump says in an interview when discussing the funding of Trump Golf courses “Well, we don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia.” Eric later denies making this statement.
Bayrock is functionally inactive, except for a few outstanding lawsuits.
Putin releases ***** Riot from prison for shooting a Punk Rock video in a Church.
The Winter Olympics takes place in Sochi, Russia.
Russia invades Crimea and begins sending Troops and equipment in the Ukraine to destabilize the Country, Obama rallies the international community to place Sanctions on Russia which crush their economy — plans for the Rosneft/Exxon deal and Trump Tower Russia are both put on hold.
2015 —Trump and his kids are named as witnesses in a $250 Million tax evasion case connected to Bayrock and Trump Soho.
Michael Flynn goes to Russia, meets and sits with Putin for dinner and is paid $45,000 for a speech at RT's 10th Anniversary Gala. He also receives $11,250 from Kaspersky Government Security Solutions, and $11,250 from Volga-Dnepr Airlines. He doesn't get prior permission from the Pentagon for this trip or the payments.
Taj Mahal is fined $10 Million for continued money laundering by Treasury’s FinCen unit.
Boris Nemtsov is murdered in the streets of Moscow in the shadow of the Kremlin.
U.S. intel captures discussion by Russians about Trump running for President, when he hasn’t announced his run yet, and talking about multiple contacts they’ve been having with Trump associates and planning to funnel money into the election.
June 17, 2015 -- Trump announces his run for President. He never releases his Taxes, his birth certificate or his school transcripts.
Summer 2015 —Cyber hacking contractors working with the FSB (Cozy Bear) begin infiltrating and extracting copies of documents including the oppo-research on Trump and emails from the DNC servers. Their previous successful attacks include the White House and State Dept. email systems.
They also penetrate some RNC emails accounts and attack various Republicans who oppose Trump in the primaries.
September 2015 — FBI detects the hack and begins trying to inform the DNC, but they start by going to their Help desk not simply calling Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.
November 2015 — Felix Sater emails Michael Cohen saying “I will get Putin on this program and we will get Donald elected... I know how to play it and how to get this done. Buddy, our boy can become president of the USA and we can engineer it... I will get all of Putin’s team to buy in on this, I will manage this process.”
Late 2015 — GCHQ and other western intel agencies from Germany, Poland, Estonia and Australia begin noticing contacts between Russia Spies and members of the Trump campaign. They attempt to notify FBI and CIA who are apparently caught "flat footed.”
January 2016 — Michael Cohen send an email to Putin deputy Dmitry Peskov trying to get talks regarding Trump Tower Moscow restarted.
March 2016 -— US Attorney Preet Bharara prosecutes Russian intelligence officer Evgeny Buryakov an employee of sanctioned Russia bank Vnesheconombank (VEB) of conspiracy to commit espionage in recruiting U.S Businessmen in Manhattan including Carter Page. Page had been cooperating in this investigation as an informant.
FBI receives memo alleging collusion between Loretta Lynch and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz to quash the Clinton email investigation — they believe this document is fake.
March 16, 2016 -— John Podesta receives a spearfishing email, his IT people mistakenly tell him that it’s “Legitimate” and his assistant clicks on the link and gives up his password compromising his account.
March 21, 2016 —Trump lists Carter Page & George Papadopoulis as part of his foreign policy team.
March 24, 2016 — Papadopoulis writes an email offering to set up “a meeting between us and the Russian leadership to discuss US-Russia ties under President Trump,” telling them his Russian contacts welcomed the opportunity.
March 28, 2016 —Trump hires Paul Manafort to handle the delegate process on his campaign.
April 2016 — GRU Russian military intelligence also attacks the DNC systems with Fancy Bear. The DNC discovers the intrusion and calls in cyber security firm Crowdstrike to address it, they discover both intrusions, briefly monitor them to confirm their ID, then shut them down.
About this time Paul Manafort — former advisor to Putin friendly ex-Ukrainian President Yanakovych who has a close associate with links to the GRU, and who had previous been paid $Millions to allegedy secretly promote Putin’s agenda by Russian aluminum oligarch Oleg Deripaska — becomes Trump campaign chairman.
The Kremlin gives Rep. Dana Rohrabacher instructions to stage a “show trial” in Congress attacking Bill Browder in order to alter the Magnitski Act sanctions on Russia. Rohrabacher is provided a Russian propaganda film against Browder by the Russian Prosecutor Generals Office run by Yuri Chaika, the same person who had jailed Magnitski.
April 27, 2016 -Trump gives his first major foreign policy speech at an event that had been largely arranged by Jeff Sessions Chief of Staff Rick Dearborn, Russian ambassador Kislyak is invited as a special guest, both Trump and Session briefly meet with him at a backstage reception before the speech at the Mayflower Hotel.
Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos writes in an email to campaign manager Corey Lewandowsk he had fielded “a lot of calls over the past month” related to a meeting between the Trump campaign and Russia. “Russia has been eager to meet with Mr. Trump for some time and have been reaching out to me to discuss,” Papadopoulos says in a separate email to Paul Manafort.
May 2016 — US surveillance operations detects Russian Spies vowing to “Get Hillary Clinton” in retaliation for her criticism of Putin’s last election. A GRU Officer is recorded saying they are “getting ready to pay Clinton back for what President Vladimir Putin believed was an influence operation she had run against him five years earlier as Secretary of State”
They also detect them bragging that they have good ties to Michael Flynn and may be able to use him to “influence" Trump.
Obama admin attempts to limit classified information to Flynn.
Russian spies attempt to cultivate Carter Page as an asset, yet again!
FBI obtains a FISA warrant to monitor Page’s communications and possibly on a Trump server in Pennsylvania which keeps being oddly pinged by a server owned by Russia’s Alfa Bank and another owned by the DeVos companies.
Trump backs Brexit says “England is better off without the EU.”
Paul Manafort meets with his assistant from the Ukraine Konstantin Kilimnik, who has alleged ties to the GRU.
Trump releases an attack ad on Hillary claiming she’s “too close to Putin”, WaPo considers if the “Bromance” between Trump and Putin is over? But still Politico reports that Trump is “Putin’s Candidate.”
June 2016 — Russian Think Tank controlled by Putin publishes a blue print to use cyber bots, trolls and social media to push anti-Clinton/pro-Trump propaganda to help swing the election.
Jeff Sessions Chief of staff Rick Dearborn who is an advisor to the Trump campaign writes an email to Lowendowski noting that he’d received and offer from someone referrenced as “WV” to setup a meeting between Trump officials and Putin.
June 2, 2016 — Hillary gives a major speech criticizing Trump’s closeness to Russia and Putin accusing him of praising “dictators like Vladimir Putin” and having a “bizarre fascination with dictators and strongmen who have no love for America.”
June 3, 2016 — Music Promoter Rob Goldstone emails Don Jr, and says he has information from the Russian Government about shady dealings by Hillary and DNC. Don Jr. says “I Love it” and plans to discuss it further on a phone call and eventually a meeting.
June 7, 2016 — Trump says that he’ll give a major speech about Hillary Clinton’s corruption in a week.
June 9, 2016 —
Donald Jr, Kushner and Manafort secretly meet with a prominent Russia lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya at Trump Tower after being offered “dirt” about the Clinton Campaign and the DNC being funded by Russia. The information comes through their Miss Universe Moscow partner Aras Agalarov via his son’s Emin’s promoter Rob Goldstone who had received it directly from the “Crown Prosecutor” [actually the Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika] of Russia because the Russian Government “supports Trump.” They also discuss the Russian adoption program in the wake of the Magnitski Act, which is a law that blacklists Russian Human Rights violators.
Later that day Donald tweets for the first time about Clinton’s “33,000 missing emails.”
June 12, 2016 — Julian Assange hints that he’s soon release emails linked to Hillary Clinton.
The Pulse Night Club in Orlando is attacked and 49 people are killed by a frustrated gay Muslim man
June 13, 2016 — Trump blames the Pulse attack on Obama’s sympathy with “Radical Islam” and on immigrants even though the shooter was a native born American citizen born in New Hyde Park, NY.
June 14, 2016 -— Wapo Reports that the DNC has been hacked by the Russian government, DNC goes public about the cyber intrusion.
June 15, 2016 — Guccifer 2.0 releases the DNC’s opposition research file on Donald Trump.
Dana Rohrabacher’s scheduled “show trial” hearing on Bill Browder in opposition to the Magnitski Act is cancelled by his committee chairman.
Rep. Kevin McCarthy jokes behind scenes that the only people Putin pays are Rohrabacher and Trump.
June 16, 2016 — Guccifer 2.0 uses DCLeaks to reveal the first set of hacked DNC emails, they have Cyrillic characters and Russian urls in their metadata
June 17, 2016 — Putin says the Trump is a “bright” individual.[Actually the word he used translates more accurately into “Colorful”]
June 20, 2016 — Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski is fired after a controversy where he physically grabbed and yanked a Brietbart reporter away from Trump as she asked a question. At first Corey and the Trump campaign denies it ever happened, but it’s on video — then he claims he would’ve “apologized if he knew she was from Breitbart” but he doesn’t. She files a criminal complaint, but it’s thrown out. He goes to work for CNN while still being paid by Trump.
June 22, 2016 — Trump finally gives his big anti-Clinton speech over a week late, he complains about Benghazi, Free Trade, Temperment and that her “Deleted emails could make her vulnerable to blackmail by hostile states.” He doesn’t mention Russian money going into the DNC.
June 24, 2016 — Brexit Referendum Vote Passes.
Trump is in Scotland for the opening of his Turnberry Golf Course, he says he’s glad Scotland Voted to leave the EU — but they didn’t, England did.
June 27, 2016 — Bill Clinton meets privately with AG Loretta Lynch on her plane at the Pheonix Airport while they are both there during a layover. Reportedly they discuss family, golf and travel, but calls of “obstruction” and “undue influence” — even though there is absolutely no evidence to that effect — eventually cause her to defer any decision on the Clinton email investigation to the FBI.
July 2016 — Business Insider publishes a report on the Kremlin’s Troll army based in St. Petersburg. They pose online as Pro-Trump and Pro-Bernie Americans and incessantly attack Clinton.
Cyber attacks are also made on the DCCC in order to impact House races in Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Ohio, Illinois, New Mexico and North Carolina.
Carter Page travels to Moscow, approved by Trump Natsec advisor JD Gordon and Corey Lewandowski, to give several paid speeches.
Former MI-6 agent Christopher Steele while working on oppo-research for a GOP candidate receives intel that Page also has secret meetings with Russian government oil firm Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin who allegedly offers him broker fees on the sale of 19% of Rosneft stock supposedly as a payoff for influencing Trump to drop sanctions on Russia. Page eventually denies all of this.
Steele begins writing memos to the FBI.
U.S. intel intercepts Russian Operatives discussing a request for “Help damaging Clinton’s campaign” from the Trump campaign which mentions Manafort.
July 5, 2016 — Influenced by false email intel generated by the Russians alleging that AG Lynch was “throwing the Clinton case”, and apparently the fact that she has suggested he called the Clinton situation a “matter” rather than an “investigation” — even though DOJ rules prohibit confirming an investigation before it is complete — FBI Director James Comey after announcing that the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s server is complete and no charges will be filed goes on to blast her in an extended public statement.
July 7, 2016 — Comey testifies to Congress about Hillary’s server and manages to debunk just about every Right-wing conspiracy about it.
July 18-21, 2016 — The Republican National Convention takes place during which Trump National Security Advisor J.D. Gordon torpedoes a platform plank supporting the arming of Ukrainian rebels against pro-Russian forces, then lies about it.
Kislyak attends and briefly meets Sessions again at a Heritage Foundation event, as well as Carter Page and J.D. Gordon.
Flynn delivers a speech at the Republican convention, joining in the crowd’s “Lock her up!” chant. “If I, a guy who knows this business, if I did a tenth of what she did, I would be in jail today”
Mike Pence also chants “Lock Her Up” over Hillary’s emails — even though she’s been cleared already — and he himself has AOL for his email for official business as Governor and his account had been hacked.
Flynn fills out his SF-86 form to reactivate his security clearance related to his being selected by Trump as national security advisor. Flynn fails to include that he had received $530,000 from Turkey or that he had taken another $45,000 from Russia in 2015.
July 22, 2016 — One day after end of RNC Wikileaks reveals their first set of DNC emails.
Russia Today, Sputnik News, Breitbart and other right-wing outlets begin doing incessant stories about every little negative revelation in them as well as numerous false and inflammatory rumors these are further pushed by bots and trolls on facebook and twitter until they trend.
The FBI begin to look into the Russia hack based on information from Crowdstrike, they don’t get direct access to DNC servers presumably as that would cause them to shutdown their entire email capability in middle of an election until a replacement set of servers could be installed [I’ve sent a question to the DNC’s Deputy Communications Director on this point, he hasn’t responded yet].
FBI is also looking into links to Trump due to Steele memos and concerns raised by CIA head Brennan.
July 25, 2016 — Democratic Convention starts, because of the brouhaha from the Wikileaks email dump, Chairman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz resigns and Donna Brazille takes over, RT/Sputnik heightened and amplified rumors swirl about the DNC “rigging the Primary” for Clinton and against Sanders.
July 26, 2016 — Roger Ailes leaves Fox News amid harassment allegations. Trump defends him.
Wapo reporter Sarah Kendzior asks a Kremlin official about the hacking of DNC emails and he refers the issue to Donald Trump Jr.
July 27, 2016 — Trump asks Russia to hack and/or release Hillary’s missing emails.
July 28, 2016 — Sputnik news claims Wikileaks proves the primary and DNC was rigged against Sanders.
July 31, 2016 — Manafort denies that the Trump campaign made any changes to the RNC platform. Various Trump affiliates will repeat these denials 20 more times before finally admitting the truth; Donald personally ordered the change in a meeting with Gordon during the RNC in which Sessions attended. [If this was done as a pay off to Russia to ensure their continued support in their hacking/propaganda efforts, it proves Donald’s direct involvement in a criminal conspiracy.]
August 2016 —Mikail Kalugin who was linked to pension payment scheme by Steele leaves the U.S., and is later confirmed to have been falsely posing as a diplomat while actually being a spy.
Kilminik again travels to the U.S. and meet with Manafort where they allegedly discuss the DNC hack.
CIA Director Brennen sends an “Eyes Only” private note to the WH for Obama and just 3 senior aids which states that “Putin has ordered a cyber attack to defeat or damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign, and elect Donald Trump.”
August 4, 2016 — Brennen calls his counterpart Alexander Bortnikov Director of the FSB and issues him a stern warning about the hacking and active measures.
August 9, 2016 — Flynn Intel Group, a consulting firm founded by Flynn, signs a contract with Inovo BV, a firm run by a Turkish businessman close to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, for more than $500,000
August 16, 2016 — Manafort pushes a false RT/Sputnik News story about terrorist sabotage at a NATO base in Turkey. Trump also pushes the same false story.
August 17, 2016 — Trump receives his first classified briefing. Flynn is with him.
August 19, 2016 — Manafort leaves the Trump campaign amidst allegations that he accepted a $12 Million under-the-table cash payment from his former Putin friendly client, ex-Ukraine President Yanakovych. Pollster Kellyanne Conway, who is a Mercer employee, takes over.
August 21, 2016 -— Trump pal Roger Stone tweets “it will soon be Podesta's time in the barrel.” He later claims he was talking about Podesta’s “business dealings” not his email, although Stone had also been sending DM’s to Guccifer 2.0 the public face of Russia’s cyber hacking operation.
September 2016 — Reports are the Russian hackers have attempted to penetrate the voter registration systems in 20 States, 4 were successfully infiltrated.
GOP consultant Aaron Nevins sends a note to Guccifer 2.0 asking if he has anything on Florida Dems, 10 days later he gets 2.5 Gigabits of stolen DCCC data, which confirms the connection between Kremlin intel & Guccifer.
Roger Stone says on Boston Herald Radio that he expects, "Julian Assange and the Wikileaks people to drop a payload of new documents on a weekly basis fairly soon. And that of course will answer the question of exactly what was erased on that email server."
Obama meets Putin at a summit and personally tells him to “Cut it out” with the hacking.
Obama assembles Congress’s “Gang of 12” and informs them of the Russia hack confidentially and asks for a bipartisan public statement in opposition to the attack. Mitch McConnel refuses as he doubts the veracity of the information, no public statement is issued at this time.
Trump transition chair Chris Christie begins to recommend that Flynn be fired after his erratic behavior during a national security briefing.
FBI offers to pay Christopher Steele to continue his work investigating Trump/Russia links.
Jeff Sessions meets privately with Kislyak at his Senate Offices.
Guccifer 2.0 sends Roger Stone a link to a blog post on manipulating voter turnout.
Ignoring McConnel and other Republicans Sen Feinstein and Rep Schiff issue a joint statement revealing the Russia cyber attack.
One week later McConnell and other Reps issues a tepid statement warning state election boards to remain “secure from attack.”
October 2016 — The Russian Think Tank publishes another paper, this one saying the Clinton is likely to win the election, so the online influence campaign needs to focus on claims that the election was “rigged” or “stolen” due to voter fraud.
Trump starts saying the only way he could lose Pennsylvania is because of “Voter Fraud.” and mentions the information revealed by Wikileaks 164 times over the next month.
The FEC unanimously agrees to prioritize investigations into foreign spending.
Around this time before election day NSA detects that the GRU has launched a set of cyber attacks on state and local election registration systems. Some are penetrated.
Kushner Co receives a $285 Million loan from Duetsche Bank for their Times Square building that was facing charges for not stopping Russian money-laundering on the premesis.
October 4, 2016 — Guccifer 2.0 Post documents stolen from the Clinton Foundation.
October 5, 2016 — Buzzfeed reports that Trump financial attorneys regularly meet with him in pairs so that there would be a witness. “...It’s always been our practice to make sure two people are present, and we don’t have a problem of people lying.” and “We tried to do it with Donald always if we could because Donald says certain things and then has a lack of memory.”
October 6, 2016 — The Access Hollywood Video drops with “Grab ‘em by the *****”. One hour later Wikileaks releases the first set of emails taken from John Podesta’s account. RT and Sputnik News continue to do daily reports as another set of emails is dumped for next 30 days.
October 7, 2016 — Homeland Security and the Director of National Intelligence release a Joint Statement on the Russia Hacking efforts saying it “was directed from the highest levels of the Kremlin.” FBI Director Comey had also originally signed on to this document, but refrained at the last minute due to the closeness of the election.
October 11, 2016 — Trump uses false talking points from RT to blame HIllary for Benghazi
October 21, 2016 — Hillary Clinton states during a debate that 17 Intelligence Agencies have confirmed Russia’s attempt to influence the election. Trump denies it, says “nobody knows” and it could be “China, North Korea or a 300lbs. Fat Guy.” which is also a Sputnik News Talking point.
October 23, 2016 —Christopher Steele, frustrated by the lack of response by the FBI particularly the New York Field Office which he says houses an Anti-Clinton Cabal (aka Trumpland), contacts David Corn of Motherjones who writes that “Russian spies have been attempting to cultivate Trump as an asset for 5 years.”
FBI rescinds their job offer to Steele.
Eventually with the help of the British Ambassador to Russia, his dossier of memos are passed to John McCain who physically gives a copy to James Comey.
October 26, 2016 — James Comey writes a letter to congress about the Abedin emails found on Anthony Weiner’s laptop several weeks earlier — it gets leaked almost immediately, presumably by Jason Chaffetz’s office. All hell breaks lose, Clinton drops 3-5% in the polls.
October 27, 2016 — Rudy Giuliani admits on Fox that he knew about the Comey letter from “former FBI agents” before it was sent to Congres and leaked.
October 30, 2016 — FBI obtains a warrant to review the Abedin emails.
November 6, 2016 — FBI finds that virtually all of the Abedin emails are duplicates that they already had in their possession from the Clinton server.
November 7, 2016 — 19.5% of Rosneft is sold to unknown buyers. [This seem to be consistent with the Steele Memo which predicted this sale as an payoff to Trump for lifting sanctions on Russia]
November 8, 2016 —Election Day.
Michael Flynn writes an Op-Ed in support of Turkey arguing that the U.S. should extradite a Turkish expat who President Erdoğan blames for the recent attempted coup. Seemingly Turkey has been paying Flynn and his consulting firm $530,000 — money which originated with yet another Russian oligarch.
Flynn does not disclose this or register as a foreign agent.
Russia’s Parliament erupts into applause when Trump is announced the winner.
Also four patents for various Trump Hotels and products which were applied for years earlier are simultaneously renewed in Russia.
November 9, 2016 — Wikileaks proclaims that Trump won because Democrats rigged system to have Clinton beat Sanders.
November 10, 2016 — Russia’s Foreign Minister Lavrov admits they had continuing communications from Trump’s “immediate entourage.”
Trump and Obama meet at the WH, Obama warns him not to hire Flynn.
November 11, 2016 — Chris Christie is dropped as transition chief, VP Pence takes his place.
Flynn stays on.
November 12, 2016 — Lewandowski quits CNN to work for Trump again.
November 28, 2016 — In an interview with Time magazine, Trump denies interference from Russia. “I don’t believe they interfered,” he said. “That became a laughing point, not a talking point, a laughing point. Any time I do something, they say ‘oh, Russia interfered.'” He also addressed the hacking: “It could be Russia. And it could be China. And it could be some guy in his home in New Jersey”
November 30, 2016 — The Justice Department informs Flynn that he is under investigation for his unreported lobbying on behalf of Turkey.
November —House oversight ranking member Rep. Cummings sends a letter to VP Pence about Flynn’s Op-Ed and his lobbying for Turkey.
When Flynn states he plans to schedule a meeting with Kislyak former Bush Pentagon Official Michael Billingslea warns him that any such communications with Kislyak are likely to be picked up by U.S. surveillance.
December —Trump transition does a background check on Flynn but doesn't fully vet him, they are also specifically informed by Flynn’s lawyers that he may have to register as a “Foreign Agent” because of his work for Turkey even though the Pentagon had previously warned him to get permission for such payments first, and that he was under investigation by the FBI because of it.
Watchdog groups file a complaint with the FEC over Russia and the Trump campaign coordinating.
December 1, 2016 — Flynn meets with Kislyak at Trump Tower along with Jared Kushner. Kushner suggests setting up a secure back-channel back to the Kremlin using Russian facilities that could “bypass the U.S. national security bureaucracy.”. Kislyak is reportedly “taken aback”. They also suggest having an overseas meeting but Flynn is considered too high profile to attend.
Both Flynn and Kushner don’t include these meetings on their security clearances forms and are at risk of Logan Act violations if this meetings are intended to undermine current U.S Foreign policy as both are private citizens at this point. Kushner later includes the meetings on future updates.
NSA discovers the details of this meeting while surveilling Kislyak as he communicates with Moscow.
At Kislyak’s suggestion, Kushner later meets with banker and FSB Academy graduate Sergei Gorkov who is head of Moscow based government owned bank Vnesheconombank (VEB), which funds special projects like the Sochi Olympics or` Trump Tower in Toronto and included Russian intelligence officer Evgeny Buryakov on it’s payroll, who was convicted in March 2016 by Preet Bharara of conspiracy in the case involving the attempted cultivation of Carter Page as an Russian asset. Gorkov is also former deputy board chairman of Russia largest state-owned bank, Sberank, whom had hired Trump’s attorney’s Marc Kasowitz to defend it.
December 8, 2016 — Page is back in Moscow to meet with “business leaders and thought leaders”
December 9, 2016 — Wapo reports that the CIA has made a Secret Assessment that the Russia government sought to interfere in our election in order to make Trump President, and that Congress was informed of this so they could make a bipartisan statement but Mitch McConnell refused.
December 12, 2016 -—While in Moscow, Trump’s former campaign surrogate Jack Kingston meets with Russian businessmen to discuss what they might expect from a Trump administration. “Trump can look at sanctions,” Kingston says. “They’ve been in place long enough.”
December 13, 2016 — Trump says he doesn’t need a security briefing everyday. “I’ll get it when I need it”.
Trump nominates then Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson — recipient of the Russia Order of Friendship personally from Putin who had been seeking a waiver on Russian/Crimea sanctions to proceed with their $500 Billion deal with Rosneft for drilling in the Black sea — as Secretary of State.
NBC News’ Richard Engel reports from Moscow on Trump’s secretary of state pick, Rex Tillerson. Former Russian Energy Minister Vladimir Milov tells Engel that Tillerson was a “gift for Putin.”
Steve Bannon joins Flynn and Kushner for a separate meeting with the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, who makes an undisclosed visit to New York.
December 20, 2016 -— Jared Kushner brags to Forbes magazine about the data-mining and voter micro-targeting operation he helped setup for the Trump campaign with Cambridge-Analytica which is owned by deep pocketed Trump pal Robert Mercer, who also bankrolls Breitbart News.
December 21, 2016 — Lewandowski doesn’t get rehired by Trump, starts a lobbying firm.
December 29, 2016 —Obama hits Russia with Sanctions for their hacking and involvement in the Election. Flynn talks to Russian Ambassador Kislyak, mentions “We’ll review everything” when Obama’s new sanctions are brought up. This conversation is recorded by the NSA/FBI.
The Obama Administration tries to save the intel data with a trail of bread crumbs for Congress to track.
December 30, 2016 — Putin states he will not retaliate to Obama’s newly imposed sanctions and the expulsion of 30 suspected Russian spies. Trump praises his lack of response.
A PHP web shell called P.A.S. created by Ukrainian Hacker Profexor is identified by DHS as being used in part of the DNC hack. He eventually contacts the FBI himself as he had no knowledge his worked was being used in this manner.
January 5th — Former CIA Director James Woolsey leaves Trump transition team because he is alarmed by Flynn's stance on trying to have Erdogen’s opponent Gulley “snatched up” and shipped off to Turkey.
Trump tweets a storm of attacks on the Intel community and claims of Russian hacking.
January 6th —U.S. Intel agencies publish their report on the Russia Cyber efforts to influence the election. Obama, Biden and Trump are briefed on the report, Trump claims it proves Russia didn’t “change the vote” even though the report doesn’t attempt to answer that question.
January 10th —Jeff Sessions testifies during confirmation hearings that he doesn’t know “any Trump surrogates who were in contact with the Russians” ignoring the question he was asked which was “What would you do if you discover surrogates coordinating with Russians?” Apparently the correct answer is “Nothing.”
Buzzfeed publishes the entire Steele Dossier online.
CNN reports that Trump was specifically briefed on it during the Jan 6th briefing.
Trump transition team does full court press to deny this briefing occurred, not only denying that anyone verbally described it to Trump but also there was a 3 page summary at the end of the full Russia report.
Flynn meets with Susan Rice over a plan to arm the Kurds against ISIS, Flynn vetoes the plan as the Kurds are considered terrorists by one of his financial benefactors Turkey.
Paul Manafort calls Reince Preibus to deny allegations in the dossier about him
January 11th — At his first press conference of the year Trump says he himself “didn’t meet with any Russians” during the election even though he did.
Erik Prince, former CEO of Blackwater, giant Christian Supremacist, Mike Pence supporter and brother of
Education Secretary nominee Betsy DeVos has a secret meeting with the UAE on the Seychelles islands to establish a back channel to Putin which is noticed by FBI. That meeting is chaired by the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi who had previously met with Bannon, Flynn & Kushner secretly in New York, and seems to be a follow-on to Kushner’s meeting with Kislyak at Trump Tower.
Politico issues a report indicating that Ukrainian-American Alexandra Chalupa who consulted for the DNC had gone to the Ukrainian embassy to gain information about Paul Manafort’s links to Yanakovic.
January 12th — NBC news confirms that Comey personally briefed Trump about the Steele Dossier revealing yet another transition team lie.
January 14th — Reports surface that U.S. Intel agents have warned our allies like Israel not to share sensitive intel with Trump transition team due to the Steele dossier and the risk he might share it with Russia and hence their ally Iran.
January 15th — Trump says “We should trust Putin” while lambasting NATO and Angela Merkel.
Former CIA Officer for Moscow states that Steele dossier deserves support: “This is exactly how the Russians operate.”
January 20th — Inauguration day.
January 21st —Sean Spicer does his first press briefing and spends most of it lying about the Inauguration crowd size, then takes no questions.
Women’s march crowd dwarfs Trump’s crowd by 3 to 1.
Trump WH officials soon begin pushing State Dept to remove all Russian sanctions. Alarmed State Offiicials Melinowski and Fried begin to contact congress.
January 22nd — Comey attends an event honoring Law Enforcement at the WH, tries to avoid being noticed by Trump, but fails.
January 23rd —Spicer claims Flynn didn’t talk to Kislyak about sanctions, even though he did.
Later Mike Pence goes on Meet the Press after talking personally to Flynn and claims “Flynn told me he didn’t talk to Russia about sanctions.”
January 24th — Flynn interviewed by FBI, again he apparently says he didn’t talk to Russians about sanctions but they know better. He also claims that he didn’t get any foreign money and the $45k and $530k came from “U.S. companies” having omitted the true information on his SF-86 Security form.
January 26th —Sally Yates goes to the White House personally and warns WH Counsel McGahn that Flynn may be vulnerable to “blackmail by the Russians” because he’d lied to the FBI & Pence about his contacts with Kislyak.
Trump is immediately briefed by McGahn but does nothing about Flynn.
Former Bush Ethics Atty Richard Painter files complaint with Government Ethics Office that James Comey may have violated the Hatch Act by releasing unsubstantiated information about the Abedine emails.
January 27th — Trump signs a travel ban against 7 majority Muslim nations.
McGahn calls Yates, she returns to the WH where he asks “why does it matter if Flynn lied to Pence?”
Trump invites Comey to dinner at the White House, allegedly asks Comey if he wants to “keep his job” and to pledge him his “Loyalty”, Comey offers his “Honesty” and takes copious notes.
Kremlin arrests FSB officials Sergei Mikhailov, his deputy Dmitry Dokuchaev, and Ruslan Stoyanov, the head of cybercrime investigations at Kaspersky Labs (who had paid Flynn $11,500 in 2015) for treason and illegal hacking apparently for sharing intel information with the CIA.
January 29th — London Mayor Saddiq Khan says that Trump shouldn’t be allowed entry into the UK while his Muslim ban is in place.
Trump signs EO that places Steve Bannon on the principles committee of the National Security Council, the DNI and head of the Joint Chiefs are relegated to "part time" participants.
January 30th — Sally Yates orders the DOJ not to defend Trump's Muslim ban executive order in court as she doubts it is legal or constitutional.
January 31st --Yates is fired by Trump allegedly for refusing to defend his Muslim ban executive order.
Flynn stays.
Roger Stone goes on Russia Today to push the conspiracy that murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich is the "real hacker.” This is his fifth appearance on the channel.
Deutsche Bank is fined $630 Million for $10 Billion in money laundering transactions involving Russia.
February 2nd — Putin opposition leader Vladimir Kara-Murza is poisoned for a second time in Moscow.
February 3rd —Federal Judge Robart blocks Trump's Muslim Ban echoing Yates issues with it.
Reports surface that Trump is still using that same vulnerable unsecured out of date Galaxy S3 Cell Phone to tweet with during the campaign while in the White House.
February 6th —Rep. Maxine Waters states “Trump is moving towards Impeachment.”
Trump attorney Michael Cohen and Felix Sater negotiate a deal to end sanctions against Russia by stopping the violence in Crimea with a Ukranian named Andrii V. Artemenko. They supposedly deliver a copy of this plan to Michael Flynn’s desk, but there is no evidence he ever reviewed it or passed it on to anyone.
When this is revealed Artemenko is looked at for possible Treason charges by Ukraine. [Exactly who came up with this idea and tasked them with this? Does anyone believe they went rogue?]
Februray 7th -— Sens. Cardin and Graham — alerted by Fried and Malinowski at State of Trump efforts to scrap sanctions -— author bipartisan legislation to require the approval of Congress for all changes to sanctions.
February 8th — Washington posts asks Flynn if he discussed sanctions with Russia, he says “No” twice.
February 9th —Flynn’s spokesman issues a correction to Wapo that he “doesn’t remember” if he did or didn’t discuss sanctions.
Trump talks to Putin by phone and criticizes Obama’s Start II Nuclear deal with Russia. Flynn is there for the call.
Judge Robart’s national block of the Muslim Ban is upheld by the 9th Circuit
February 10th — Trump is asked about Flynn talking to Russians about sanctions and says “This is the first time I’ve heard that.” Note: He had already been personally told about this by White House Counsel McGahn immediately after he was told by Yates on Jan 26th.
February 12th — Reports emerge that the Intel agencies are considering holding back highly sensitive intel from Trump to prevent leaks to Russia.
February 13th — Flynn is fired immediate after Wapo report proving that he lied, allegedly he’s let go because he lied to Vice President Pence and caused him to be embarrassed about what he said on Meet the Press. WH secret push to cut sanctions goes on hold.
February 14th — Comey & Sessions meet Trump in the Oval for a counter-terrorism briefing. Trump clears the room and gets Comey alone to complain about leaks asking him to prosecute some reporters over it and ask if he can just “Let Flynn go” Comey interprets the request to only be about Flynn not the Russia investigation,
Comey notes this and discusses it with FBI leadership.
The NYTimes reports that Trump aids (including Flynn, Manafort and Page) had repeated contacts with Russian Intelligence according to the NSA and that the FBI had requested they “collect as much information as possible about the Russian operatives on the phone calls” and go through their archives for more information.
February 15th — Intel Agencies with access to foreign intercepts say “Trump Will Die in Jail.”
Comey laters asks Sessions not to leave him alone with Trump again as it’s inappropriate. Comey’s memory of the event is hazy, but he states later Sessions doesn’t really respond. [During later testimony Session claims he repeated back basic DOJ protocols to Comey, which doesn’t answer his concern over why Sessions failed to follow protocol the previous day.]
February 16th — CBS reports that Trump screamed at CIA Director Pompeo over reports that Intel is being withheld from him because of fears he might leak it to Russia.
Pompeo denies any intel is being withheld from Trump.
Trump rage tweets that “Russia” is a made up story by Democrats as an excuse for losing the election.
House Democrats submit bill to prevent removal of Russia sanctions without Congress approval.
February 17th — Trump calls the Press the “Enemies of the American People.”
February 21st — Artemenko talks to a Ukrainian News outlet and reveals that he’s known Michael Cohen for some time since Cohen has an ethanol business in the country, which is also where his wife was born, and that his meeting with Cohen and Sater on Feb 6 wasn’t their first. According to Artemenko, he discussed the “peace-plan” with Cohen and Sater “at the time of the primaries, when no one believed that Trump would even be nominated.”
February 25th — FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe — who began his carrier with the New York Field Office while Trump surrogate Giuliani was Mayor — goes to the White House and in direct violation of DOJ protocols buttonholes Reince Prebus to tell him the NYT article on contacts “Is Bullshit.” [Later reporting seems to hint that the FBI’s objection to the report is the claim that certain contacts were confirmed as part of “Russian Intelligence”, not that the contacts didn’t happen because those were confirmed by James Clapper.]
February 26th —Preibus calls McCabe back and asks him to inform the Press about this as an “anonymous source”, he refuses.
Preibus call his pals Devin Nunez Chairman of the House intelligence committee and Richard Burr Chairman of the Senate Intel Committee who are each former Trump surrogates who are heading up investigations of “Russia” — they do it for him.
Former Bush Ethics Atty Richard Painter files complaint with Government Ethics Office that James Comey violated the Hatch Act by publicly disclosing unsubstantiated information about Abedine’s emails prior to the election.
February 28th — Trump who had essentially called Hillary a “murderer” over Benghazi blames the Generals and Obama for death of Navy Seal in Yemen during raid he himself authorized.
March 1 —it’s discovered that Sessions met with Kislyak twice, in July at the RNC which he attended as a Trump surrogate along with Carter Page and JD. Gordon and in September in his Senate Offices. Nobody notices that he also met him in April.
Sen. Franken asks for Sessions to come back to the Senate to explain, he declines and sends a letter which claims he didn’t understand the question he was asked and didn’t think he was “acting as a surrogate” when he met Kislyak.
March 2 — 100 Democrats demand that Jeff Sessions resign as Attorney General. He doesn’t.
March 4 —Session recuses himself from the Russia investigation.
Trump blows his top that weekend screaming at his staff, throwing Priebus and Bannon off Air Force One for his weekly Mar-A-Lago trip.
March 5th — Trump tweets about being “Wiretapped in Trump Tower by Obama” that morning based on a report from Breitbart and Judge Napolitano on Fox News — Narrative shifts away from Sessions.
James Clapper denies that “Obama Wiretapped Trump.”
March 6th -- Trump issues a revised Muslim travel ban, which no longer blocks immigrants and refugees from Iraq.
March 7th —House Intel committee invites Sally Yates and James Comey to testify about Michael Flynn and Russia.
Michael Hayden denies Trump’s Wiretapped by Obama claims.
Sen. Franken says Session committed perjury.
The Guardian reports that SLC Group and Cambridge Analytics methods of generating micro-targeted alt-news webiverse using data provided by AggregateIQ were used to meddle in the Brexit Vote to encourage “voter disengagement” and “to persuade Democrat voters to stay at home”:
March 8th — British media reports more of the specific contacts by person and date alleged by Steele dossier have been confirmed by independent surveillance, but they do not yet confirm the substance of the conversations.
Flynn finally registers as a foreign agent.
June 20th —
Sen. Whitehouse argues that there is evidence Flynn has been cooperating with Mueller’s investigation for some time.
CNN Reports the Trump pick for FBI director Christopher Wray had edited his online bio to remove reference to a case against Russia.
Bannon says the reason Spicer doesn’t do his briefings on camera : “Sean got fatter.” Which is ironic for a guy who’s fatter than Spicer and doesn’t explain why he won’t allow the audio to be recorded either.
Jason Miller generates excuses for why Trump hasn’t commented on London Mosque attack: “It literally happened just yesterday” when it was 2 days ago, Yesterday was the death of former North Korean prisoner Otto Warmbier, but he commented on that, the Baseball practice shooting and the London Bridge attack immediately.
CBS reports that Trump’s approval is down 11% among Republicans since the end of his first 100 days. 36% approval overall.
“Still Fatter” Spicer does an on camera briefing.
Mueller adds Russian speaking prosecutor to his team.
Sessions lawyers up with an attorney Chuck Cooper, who had previously defended Bob Jones’ University’s ban on interracial dating to supporting job discrimination against those with HIV/AIDS.
Hannity claims new nutbag theory that the intelligence community and mainstream media are planning a “Soft Coup” to undermine Trump. “Deep State”, “Political Witch Hunt” etc
June 21st —
Bloomberg reports a detailed piece by Trump biographer Tim O’Brien on his shady financial ties to Mafia and Russian Mob money through Felix Sater and Bayrock LLC between 2002-2011 including $33 Million in properties sales & rentals of luxury condos in New York, Vegas and Los Angeles to mysterious LLCs since the election.
Don Jr. and Ivanka’s involvement in these deals makes them potential targets for Mueller’s investigations.
Former Homeland Security head Jeh Johnson testifies
He says that “The Russian government, at the direction of Vladimir Putin himself, orchestrated cyber attacks on our nation for the purpose of influencing our election,” he said. “That is a fact, plain and simple.”
But that there’s “No evidence they flipped votes.” which would have been an act of war.
He also says Trump’s “Rigged” talk made it difficult to address the interference Russia created.
Other officials from DHS indicate that voter registration systems in 21 states were attacked.
Spicer says he “hasn’t specifically asked” Trump if he believes Russia interfered with the election.
Telegraph reports that Trump will not be making an official state visit to the UK over the threat of widespread protests for at least two years.
Senate’s new Russia sanctions bill hits a snag on the House rule that any bill that raises revenue must start in the House.
Dems on House Oversight send letter to Preibus to explain why Kushner still has a security clearance?
Kushner flies to Tel Aviv to negotiate with Israel and Palestine.
Lewandowski tells Fox and Friends the Russian collusion investigation “should end immediately” because they’ve found nothing. [That they’ve told us about, Yet. And they won’t say anything until there’s either an indictment or a Grand Jury report to Rosenstein.]
NATO F-16 from Poland buzzes plane carrying Lavrov and shadows it until a Russian SU-22 with air-to-air missiles shows up.
Rachel Maddow highlights that what Homeland security testified isn't just that lots of states were attacked but also that voter registration files in specific counties that leaned heavily Democratic were targeted and some of the poll book software failed on election night in those counties which created excessive delays, long lines and more votes shifted to provisional ballots which aren't always counted — meanwhile personal information for 200 Million U.S. voters were posted on an open server by RNC contractor Deep Root analytics which could have been accessed by anyone who knew the IP or web address.
june 22nd —
Senate releases their version of Trumpcare which is even worse than the house version and immediately loses 4 Republican votes leaving the bill DOA. Senator Collins questions it's Medicaid cuts while Senator Warren says it pays for tax cuts with Blood Money.
Trump finally admits after 41 days, one day before the deadline set by congress for an answer, that he doesn't have any "Tapes" of his conversations with Comey, and had only brought it up to "rattle" him. He seems to claim he had thought Comey himself or the intel community had been taping the conversation in a weird variation on the "Obama taped me in Trump Tower" conspiracy. It never seems to occur to him that if Comey had a recording, he wouldn’t have needed to take notes and write memos about what was said, which is a pretty standard FBI practice.
Election officials report that hackers stole and changed voter registration information during the 2016 election in at least one county in addition to accessing registration systems in 39 states.
Huckabee Sanders says "Everybody agrees the election wasn't influenced by Russia" [No, not really. They didn't change votes, but they did all they could to access their registration data and to trick voters with false news and conspiracy theories.] when finally admitting that the DNC was probably hacked by Russia which everyone actually does say.
Trump staffers reacts to this latest nutty conspiracy theory and the looming backlash over it --"**** my life."
Nunez "I never said I was leaving the Russia investigation for good."
Trump's "Voter Fraud" panel backfires as they starting looking into Russian hacking of election systems.
Pizzagate shooter sentenced to four years in prison.
Preet Bharara signs a book deal
Schiff says that Trump's tweet about the tapes is not enough, 'he's been untruthful before in his tweets.' and that his statement that he doesn't have tapes doesn't cover the rest of the White House.
Coats and Rogers tells House intel that Trump did ask them to “get the word out” about his not being personally under investigation and that there was “no evidence of collusion.” Coats also says Trump is “obsessed with the Russia probe.”
Rand Paul's attempts to claim that Trump really was being surveilled which inspires former CIA agent Phill Mudd to call bullshit on that. Besides the fact that Comey, Coats, Clapper (all under oath) and Michael Hayden have already denied this and said it’s not even possible under the law.
June 23rd —
Wapo releases report that CIA had generated an “Eyes Only” memo for Obama in August that Putin personally ordered the attack on the U.S. election. Trump says "This is the first he's heard of it..." as if he wasn't briefed on exactly this on Jan 6th and Jeh Johnson hadn’t just testified to the same thing two days ago.
Spicer finally admits he talked to Trump about “elections tampering” but doesn’t specifically mention Russia, and claims Trump’s “tape threat” was intended to force Comey to “tell the truth” as if being under oath were meaningless.
Incoming House Oversight Chair Trey Gowdy, replacing Chaffetz, says he’s totally dropping investigation of Russian interference leaving it for Mueller, House Judiciary and Intelligence.
Trump Energy official sends racist tweets calling Obama a “Kenyan creampuff.”
Wapo reports that WH can’t get through to Tillerson on the phone, “he won’t return calls”
Senate Intel opens investigation into faked and already debunked report about Loretta Lynch colluding with Debbie Wasserman-Schultz to shutdown Clinton email investigation.
Trump claims Comey tapes may exists because “Obama taped the White House”, again. [Uh, no he didn’t he taped the Russian ambassador and caught Flynn, which is something he was warned would happen, dumb ***.]
The rollout of new FBI Director Nominee Chris Wray appears to be completely fouled up, already.
Politico reports that Trump blames WH Counsel McGhan for not stopping the Russia probe, somehow.
LATimes reports that Mueller's team includes experts on fraud and money laundering and they seem "Dangerously close to an obstruction case."
Rep. Andy Biggs calls for Mueller to recuse himself because of his close relationship with Comey, who had been his boss as Deputy AG while Mueller was FBI Director. He doesn’t seem to have a problem with the fact that Kushner and Ivanka’s attorney Jamie Gorelick is also a member of Mueller’s law firm.
Kris Kobach from Trump's "Voter Fraud" panel gets sanctioned for "Deceptive Conduct and Lack of Condor"
June 24th —
Russia pushes back on more reports that they meddled in the U.S. elections claiming “We don’t do that, but the U.S. does.”
Trump attacks Obama administration for “doing nothing” to fight Russia attacks, finally admitting that there even was a Russia attack while ignoring that they did respond to the attack on state elections systems reached out diplomatically several times very strongly including face to face with Putin, then implemented sanctions which Trump has been already trying to remove.
June 25th —
Buzzfeed reports that Putin plans to recall Kislyak back to Russia.
Jeffrey Lord says Mueller should hire Michael Cohen — yes, seriously — ignoring the fact that he’s actually been investigating Cohen who has since lawyered up.
Eric Trump again says the DNC Chair Tom Perez is a “Nut Job” and his dad “has done more than any President in History.”
90 Parliament email accounts are attacked by hackers.
Kellyanne Conway refuses to talk about Russian hacks because “It was Obama’s fault for not stopping them” — even though he actually did stop them once he, DHS and the FBI knew about it.
Trump admits calling Elizabeth Warren “Pochahantas” is racist, but does it anyway. He also tweets that “Hillary colluded with the DNC to defeat Bernie” even though that actually didn’t happen at all and is just another Sputnik News talking point.
White House skips Ramadan celebration, because why not?
Adam Schiff and Al Franken criticize Obama’s tepid reaction to Russia prior to the election saying he “coulda, shoulda, woulda” done more. Yeah, ok, that’s good backseat driving there. Like what exactly?
Kushner goes to Palestine and infuriates Prime Minister Abbas enough that they threaten to shutdown talks.
june 26th —
Brit Hume argues that colluding with Russia’s illegal cyber attacks against America wouldn’t be a crime — because “Huh?”
Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) tells Politico that he’s prepared to battle the White House over efforts to water down legislation imposing sanctions against the Russian government.
Trump says that “Obama colluded with Russia” because he “did nothing” when he was informed about the hacking attacks — even though he did plenty & Hume says “collusion wouldn’t be a crime.” Somehow he ignores his own request for Russia to hack and release “Hillary’s emails” and multiple attempts to raise sanctions. He also demands an “apology” claiming the Wapo report disproves collusion by his campaign when that subject wasn’t even addressed in the report.
Spicer says Trump was “only joking” about Russia hacking and releasing Hillary’s emails. Katy Tur puts a match to that B.S. and sets it on fire.
Somehow a Russia media rep. Igor Zorin who only earns $75,000 bought 3 condos worth $5.4 Million from Trump Palace. Shocker.
Supreme Court partially allows Travel Ban —upholding it for all those who filed suit based on “standing” but potentially damaging tourism to the tune of $18 Billion — until they fully hear the case in October.
Wapo reports that Kushner received a $285 Million loan from Deutsche Bank a month before the election for their Times Square building while the bank was facing charges being involved in Russian money laundering.
Kushner in addition to attorney Jamie Gorelick hires powerhouse defense attorney Abbie Lowell who had previously defended Harold Keating, Jack Abramov, Dan Rostenkowski and John Edwards.
2 weeks after claiming they would “immediately” file a complaint against Comey for his “leaking” his own thoughts and recollections to Congress, Kasowitz and Trump’s other attorneys haven’t done it yet.
Nunez admits he was never going to recuse himself from Russia investigation.
Wapo Reports that Trump associate Carter Page was interviewed by the FBI 5 times for a total of 10 hours during March and did so without an attorney.
Spicer announces that the WH has information indicating another possible chemical weapons attack by the Assad regime, but CENTCOM knows nothing about it.
CBO says that Senate TrumpCare bill will leave 22 Million without insurance.
Trump’s re-election campaign pays $50,000 to Donald Jr.’s lawyer Alan Futerfas after he’s contacted by the NYTimes for a comment after they discovered that Kushner’s attorneys had updated his SF86 form to include a meeting called by Don Jr. with a lawyer from Russia.
July 27th -—
Trump’s act bombs at Senate Health care meetings because he has no idea what’s in the bill, or for that matter no idea how health care actually works.
Ryan states that “22 Million don’t really want insurance anyway.”
CNN caves to a $100 Libel lawsuit threat over a single-sourced anonymous story involving Trump team member Anthony Scaramucci and fires three employees, including the reporter Thomas Frank and producer Eric Litchbau on the story.
Reporter Brian Karem unloads on the hypocrisy of Huckabee-Sanders trying to grandstand on Scaramucci story firing, while the WH uses anonymous sources for it’s own counter story.
The law firm of Kushner’s new attorney Abbie Lowell has links to both Sberbank and Rosneft and was one of the first U.S. firms allowed to have offices in Moscow.
Clinton campaign chair John Podesta testifies in closed session to House Intel.
Wapo reports that Manafort has registered as a foreign agent and declared $17 million in profits from Ukrainian groups. This “finally getting right with the law” act fuels rumors that he has or soon intends to flip for Mueller.
Gingrich says Trump should testify, because it’s not like he wouldn’t prat fall into perjury trap that way…Noooo.
Rick Perry talks to the press about the environment and ****. gets. crazy.
CNN medical producer opines on tape made by James O’Keefe that Russia probably a “witch hunt” and that CNN ‘s coverage is over the top. CNN sticks with him as having his own opinion, besides it’s not like aren’t still paying Jeffrey Lord to say the same thing day after day. There is also another video of Van Jones saying “Russia is a nothing burger” — which in terms of Demcractic politics he’s previously said many times.
Sally Yates says Americans should be alarmed at Trump’s behavior even if you assume there “was no collusion.”
Kasowitz puts his complaints about Comey’s “leaks” on indefinite hold.
Senate pushes back vote on Trumpcare until after July 4th recess.
July 28th -—
Trump tweets incoherently about the Washington Post supporting Amazon for not paying “taxes” when they do pay sales taxes in 45 states.
Time magazine asks Trump to remove fake magazine covers from his golf courses.
Sekulow argues that we should have a special prosecutor to investigate Obama’s reaction to Russian hacking and meddling, because that’s logical — in Bizarro World.
Maddow reports that Senate Republicans seem to be investigating the Mueller investigation and are reviewing the Comey Memo’s even though they aren’t investigation obstruction — that’s under Senate Judiciary — perhaps to see if it’s is based entirely on the Steele Dossier in order to use that as a reason to have it shut down.
Senate Intel is also reportedly going through 2,000 documents for Treasury’s FinCEN unit on Trump and his associations and the money ties to Russia.
CREW files a Hatch Act complaint against Nikki Haley for retweeting an endorsement by Trump for Republican Robert Northam to fill the congressional seat vacated by budget director Mick Mulvaney.
CNN reports that Trump’s staff is going increasingly concerned about his lack of concern about what and how Russia hacked us, and whether they might do it again.
Chuck Todd tears into Trump’s press office :”This is nothing less than a war on the truth.”
Ex MTV-VJ Kennedy argues on Fox: “Who cares if 15 Million people will lose Health Care next year, we’re all gonna die anyway?” Yes we will, but not this exact minute. Well, not unless North Korea — well y’know.
Spicer tweets claim that Obamacare has “failed” 28 Million people who still don’t have Health Care and that only TrumpCare is the “solution” to this problem — while the CBO says it will increase that problem another 23 Million by 2026.
June 29th —
Annoyed by criticism from Morning Joe’s Mika saying he’s “Out of his Mind” while discussing a reported loud clash between SecState Tillerson and WH over meddling and interference by Kushner, Trump counters by tweeting that Joe and Mika visited Mar-A-Lago 3 times, and that he refused a personal meeting around New Year’s because Mika was “bleeding from a recent facelift” — pics taken of Mika that same day disprove this. Melania and Huckabee-Sanders give excuses for this crap.
WH aides respond to facelift tweet “At least you’re not reporting we’re going to kill Millions” — yeah, but you are though, if we let you.
MSNBC’s Katy Tur smashes Huckabee-Sanders false claim that “Trump never advocated violence” on the campaign trail point by point.
Republicans respond to “Facelift” tweet with outrage, but still continue to support and vote for Trump proposal despite outrage of the American people. Typical.
Trump prepares to meet privately with Putin at G20 by asking staff to give him “bargaining chips he can trade away.” Might those include “American Sovereignty?
Steven Benen at MSNBC reveals that Trump’s “secret plan” to fight ISIS was a Lie, because his actual plan is to do what Obama was already doing.
Kasowitz law firm under potential scrutiny by Mueller for a $285 Million 2015 real estate deal for Time Square property and refinancing loan between Kushner and Deutsche Bank.
Ryan says Senate must repass their Russia sanctions bill to resolve constitutional issue, but the issue is that revenue bills have to start in the House — so, um, what?
House intel requests a more full response to the question of Comey recordings than just the President’s tweet, which only spoke for him not any recording being kept by the entire White House.
Wall Street Journal reports that GOP operative Peter W. Smith had endeavored to gain stolen Clinton email information for Flynn. He claimed to them, before he died on May 15, to have found two groups with the information and asked them to provide it to Wikileaks. U.S. intel also picks up indications that Russian hackers were actively trying to get access to Clinton’s server to provide those emails to Flynn. Smith acting as an “intermediary” for communications between Russian hackers and Flynn confirms another plank in the Steele Dossier that Kremlin intel had been deliberately supplying Trump with anti-Clinton intel.
Van Jones lays into James O’keefe’s bogus “Nothing Burger” video supposedly “exposing” the CNN host for not really caring that much about the Russia issue compared to other policy issues — an opinion which he’s never hidden.
Hawaii files a new suit against Trump’s Partial Travel Ban/Suspension.
NRA releases a video statement featuring Media Wingnut Dana Leosch that accuses the Left of widespread verbal and other violence against Trump, the Police and the Right. She then goes onto fTucker Carlson to defend and rationalize it.
Deutsche Bank refuses request for Trump financial documents from House Dems for the 2nd time.
Senate passes updated version of their new Russia Sanctions Bill which now includes sanctions on Iran as well.
June 30th -—
TPM reports that Homeland Security hasn’t yet checked the integrity of a single voting machine to ensure none of them were hacked or tampered with.
Joe Scarborough reveals that Mika had told Melania about her facelift and that Trump was so impressed he asked for the name of her doctor 10 times.
Joe also says that Trump had tried to blackmail them into apologizing for their coverage by saying if they did he would spike a negative National Enquirer story about them. Trump rage tweets and accidentally confirms part of their story. If proven these allegations would violate New York Criminal (Coercion), DC Criminal (Bribery) and Federal Criminal Law (Extortion by officers of the U.S.).
Russian Communications Minister Nikolay Nikiforov served notice on Friday that the Russian government would retaliate against U.S. companies if Congress bans the Pentagon from using controversial cyber-security software from Kaspersky Labs.
States reject extreme voter information request from Election Suppression Commission, even Kris Kobach’s own state of Kansas refuses. Huckabee-Sanders says this is only a “political stunt” — but it’s Republican controlled states as well as Democratic that refuse.
July 1st —
UK cyber-analyst Matt Tait reveals he was recruited by Peter Smith to authenticate emails stolen from Clinton’s server by the Russians which were to be provided to Michael Flynn.
Bloomberg reports that Kushner had attempted to buy the National Enquirer along with David Pecker in 2006.
Trump continues his twitter rage-a-thon against Mika and Joe for a 3rd day saying ““Crazy Joe Scarborough and dumb as a rock Mika are not bad people,” and also criticizes MSNBC for firing Greta Van Sustren.
Senate Intel reaches agreement to review the Comey Memos.
Trump “jokes” it would be “Fun to sue CNN” at a fundraiser. He says “These are really dishonest people. Should I sue them? I mean, they’re phonies,” Trump said, according to the recording. “I mean, these are horrible human beings.”
In his 2nd loud clash with WH Officials this week Tillerson apparently had “tense” conversation with Jason Miller who pushed him to take a tougher stance on immigration, while Tillerson demanded independence on how he ran State Dept. affairs.
CBS reports that the Science Division of the WH Office of Technology is now completely unstaffed.
July 2nd —
Trump tweets video of himself body slamming and punching WWE CEO Vince McMahon into a stupor — only edited with the CNN logo covering McMahon’s face which has been posted on Reddit 4 days about by yet another neo-Nazi whose online name is literally HanAssholeSolo. CNN takes it as a literal physical threat. WH laughs saying “you guys can never take a joke.” Kathy Griffin is not consulted on the “Funny Ha Ha” of the thing.
DOJ Corporate Fraud expert quits in disgust because doing her job is simply “not possible under Trump.”
All discussion of the Tait’s revelation about being recruited to review Clinton emails obtained from Russia to provide to Michael Flynn or Trump’s ongoing assault on health care recedes.
July 3rd —
Reporter Jared Yates Sexton who discovered ID of Reddit user “HanAssholeSolo” who created anti-CNN video, begins receiving “gory” death threats and insults from other Alt-Right Neo-Nazis.
David Duke chimes in and justifies threats against “Journalistic terrorists”arguing the press has endorsed violence against him for the last 50 years..
Katrina Peirson claims “By the very nature of being President of the United States, it makes his actions presidential whether you like it or not.”
Former Ted Cruz spokesperson Amanda Carpenter argues the president’s attacks on the press “essentially [hands] a weapon to some of our enemies.”
Trump biographer Tim O’Brien says his tweets aren’t some grand distraction because he’s “not smart enough for that.”
Melania says Mika Brzezski “doesn’t know me” in response to her comments on their feud with Trump to InStyle Magazine.
House Dems back bill that could invoke the 25th Amendment removing Trump if he is found mentally or physically unfit for office.
July 4th —
Florida head of the NAACP found a Confederate flag on her lawn after receiving a series of late-night death threats from callers claiming ties to the Ku Klux Klan.
Trump plans for full “Bilateral” meeting with Putin during G20 Summit, Tillerson plans to do “cleanup” meeting in Ukraine hours later.
41 States refuse to provide information to Kris Kobach’s Voter Suppression commission — and some members begins to quit.
Germany’s Angela Merkel no longer describes America under Trump as “a friend.”
July 5th —
Jack Prosoblec A Pro-Trump activist with White House access releases the phone numbers and home addresses of multiple CNN personalities and their families.
Neo-Nazi hackers then begin to contact the families & parents of various CNN anchors and reporters, including those of Andrew Kaczinski who wrote the HanAssholeSolo story and threaten their lives.
HanAssholeSolo apologizes and promises not to produce more racist memes, Ted Cruz accuses CNN of extortion when they later publish an article about his apology while reserving the right to reveal his ID if he reneges on his promise, Some Trumpers scream “blackmail” but CNN counters that they haven’t published his ID, they won’t since he’s a private citizen and he goes on to contact CNN himself and says “he wasn’t threatened”
Fox contributor Tammy Bruce defends HanAssholeSolo right to be an ******* and criticizes CNN “(He) made this meme that the president picked up, and they decided that they could get their pound of flesh from this individual.”
Don Jr. complains “It was only a matter of time” when CNN reports the Anti-Defamation League statement that the anti-CNN meme may be racist and anti-semitic, claiming they’re “Bullying a 15 year old”, but CNN having found his Facebook page counters that claim “He’s not 15.”
Jr. continues “If only @CNN spent as much time tracking down info on IRS targeting, Fast & Furious, Iran deal etc as they did a meme writer! #CNNBlackmail” but there aren’t any outstanding questions on any of those issues, except for Wingnut conspiracies about them.
Trump supports AT&T/Time Warner deal which some see as a way for him to gain leverage over CNN.
Investigators are looking into scores of Easter European Pro-Trump websites which popped up before the election and published dozens of co-ordinated fake anti-Clinton reports.
July 6th —
Trump supporter charged with criminal mischief for writing “False Flag” graffiti at an Elementary School. [Responding officers found “Kill Trump,” “Left is the best,” “Bernie Sanders 2020” and “Death to Trump” written on a sign in the playground.]
While in Warsaw, Poland for the G20 summit Trump again says “Nobody really knows” who hacked the 2016 election. “I think it was Russia. But I think it was probably other people and/or countries, and I see nothing wrong with that statement. Nobody really knows. Nobody really knows for sure,” Trump said. He argues that “Obama did nothing” and that Bush went to war in Iraq over WMD’s and “was wrong.”
Trump also says that CNN took his wresting video too seriously. “CNN has really taken (the video) too seriously and I think they’ve hurt themselves very badly, very very badly.”
Rep. Adam Schiff blasts Trump’s comments. “The President’s comments today, again casting doubt on whether Russia was behind the blatant interference in our election and suggesting ... that nobody really knows, continue to directly undermine U.S. interests,”
CREW asks the Office of Government Ethics to investigate Kushner’s failure to disclose “his ownership interest in an online real estate investment company called Cadre” in his public financial disclosure.
On Fox and Friend Eric Trump bashes the media saying the DOW and S&P are at the highest level ever but all the media talks about is whether Trump colluded with Russia to meddle in the elections. ”I mean, we’re thriving as a nation. Everybody wants to get focused on nonsense. On garbage. On distractions.”
Walter Schraub head of the Office of Government Ethics who had been a highly vocal critical of Trump’s lack of divestiture from his private businesses abruptly resigns effective July 19th.
Rachel Maddow reports that her show had been sent a faked NSA Document which claimed proof that a specific member of the Trump Campaign had been colluding with Russians. This forged document appears to have been an attempt to discredit her program with planted Fake News which could be easily debunked at a later date.
Right wing editorials slam CNN for suggesting they might reveal the identity of HanAssholeSolo claiming that it’s “Blackmail” in exchange for his not generating racists, violent memes anymore, which pretty much establishes that yet again the Rightwing (Hearts) Racism & Sexism.
July 7th —
Trump meets Putin privately for two hours in Warsaw during the G20.
Putin says he “didn’t hack our election” and Trump believes him according to Lavrov, but Tillerson disagrees.
According to Lavrov, “Trump told Putin that some circles in the US are exaggerating the topic of Russian cyber meddling.”
Tillerson claimed he sent Melania into the meeting to break it up after first hour, but they just kept talking for another hour.
Donald Trump agreed to form a joint task force with the Russians to address cyber security, which is a bit like the bank inviting the thieves in to look around and hang out.
They don’t reach an agreement on how to handle North Korean’s increasingly aggressive missile and nuclear program.
They do reach an agreement on a cease fire in southern Syria.
They talk for so long both of them skip out of the Climate Change/Energy meeting.
California Govorner Jerry Brown shows up at G20 and shreds Trump at climate meeting he skipped. “(Trump) doesn’t speak for the rest of America”
Trump tweets that Podesta didn’t let FBI have the DNC server when Podesta actually didn’t have any jurisdiction over anything the DNC did or didn’t do. Podesta hits back with “Get a Grip Man.”
Trump State Dept grants Visas to 150 Russian Spies.
Ivanka temporarily sits in Trump’s place at one G20 summit table, the internet goes nuts.
July 8th —
NyTimes reveals the secret June 9, 2016 meeting between Don Jr., Manafort and Kushner with a prominent Russia lawyer who is known for being an agent of the Russian government. Supposedly they discuss the U.S. adoption of Russian children which had been suspended by Putin after the passage of the Magnitsky Act blacklisting Russian’s with Human Rights violations.
Donald Jr. tweets an edited video of Top Gun footage that shows Trump shooting down planes marked with CNN and says it’s “One of the best I’ve seen.”
Wapo reports that Russian hackers had accessed networks for American Nuclear and Energy companies.
While flying back from the G20 on Air Force One WH staffers begin to craft an “accurate” statement of response to the Time report about Junior and Veselniskaya, Trump himself intervenes and dictates a false story for them to release that the meeting was primarily about “Adoption”. Jared who later claims he was only at the meeting long enough to hear about the adoption portion and had left early before the Magnitski act came up is present on AF1 at this time, Junior isn’t.
July 9th —
Instead of a post summit Press Conference Trump has a tweet-gasm…
Claiming he accepted Putin’s denial of being involved in the election hacks.
He wants to partner with Russia on Cyber Security concerns
He again attacks the DNC for not letting the FBI (and he includes the CIA for some reason) have their email server even though they really didn’t need it.
And also attacks Obama for doing “nothing” about the hacks [that is besides getting in Putin’s face, shoring up our cyber defenses, informing congress, having DHS and the DNI announce that we’d been attacked and devising a new set of sanctions as well as kicking out 35 spies out and takin over 2 Russian compounds]
Kasowitz files motion to dismiss a sexual harassment and defamation suit from a former “Apprentice” contestant against Trump arguing he now has “immunity” and that his comments insulting his various accusers were simply “Free Speech”
Russia expert and investigative reporter Michael Weiss argues that doing a cyber security unit with Putin is like “having an arsonist in charge of the fire brigade.” Fox and Fools says the idea is “actually Genius.” Social media suggests El Chapo and Charles Manson as next members of this crack Cyber Security Unit.
Some GOP Senators coming back from july 4th recess say that Trumpcare is probably dead. McConnell hints that he may attempt to work with Democrats to strengthen the ACA individual market and exchanges.
The NYTimes reports that Donald Jr. was offered damaging information on Hillary Clinton before attending a meeting with a Kremlin-linked Russian Lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya last June with Manafort and Kushner, but they do not confirm that she actually delivered this information during the meeting. [If that information was provided and it originated as a result of Russian cyber-espionage — we have Collusion Sign once again, particularly if it was offered in exchange for a repeal of the Magnitsky act which sanctions Russian individuals for Human Rights violations.’]
Trump’s legal team says he “was unaware and did not attend” the meeting with Veselnitskaya.
Bush ethics lawyer Richard Painter says Don Jr & Kushner’s actions in attending the Veselnitskaya meeting to get opposition research on Clinton “border on Treason.” Also, potentially, the Logan Act again.
Outgoing Ethics Chief Walter Shaub notes that part of why he’s leaving his post early is that while attempting to do his job he got nothing but stonewalling and even a “explicit threat” from Reince Preibus.
Trump begins his tweet walkback on the Cyber Security Unit: “The fact that President Putin and I discussed a Cyber Security unit doesn't mean I think it can happen. It can't-but a ceasefire can,& did!” [Uh, what?]
July 10th —
Don Jr. issues a statement — changing his previous claims that there were “No meetings”, and his second claim that it was about “adoptions” — that he went to this meeting because he was asked by a friend he’d met during the Moscow Miss Universe pageant in 2013 and admits he went because of he promise of “helpful information”. He didn’t know Veselnitskaya previously, she talked about Russians funding the DNC (which would be illegal) in order to help Hillary Clinton but her claims were “vague and made no sense” and after discussing Russian adoption and the Magnitski act he ended the meeting after 20 mins because Trump wasn’t public official yet [which avoids a Logan Act violation].
Common Cause files a complaint about Don Jr. “Solicitiing a contribution from a foreign national” with the FEC.
Junior goes on to repeatedly like tweets that say he attended the meeting to get “dirt” on Clinton which doesn’t help his case at all.
Brit Hume insist “Don Jr. was tricked by a Russian bait and switch” but there’s no evidence of collusion. [Yeah, except that he jumped at the bait until he decided it was worthless and not harmful enough to Clinton which was kinda collusion-ish.]
Kellyanne goes on George Stephanapoulos and gets caught in her previous statements that there were “no contacts or meetings” with Russians. George asks “Who misled you?” on the details of these meetings.
Kellyanne also talks to Chris Cuomo and whines endlessness that CNN doesn’t give Trump any positive coverage — although they do. [I mean, not all day long for 10 hours straight on show after show, but they mention the other stuff sometimes.] She tries to do an infomercial about “Trump the Great” on VA reform, the Opiod crisis and Infrastructure, Cuomo counters that Don Jr.’s statement is an admission that Russians were trying to ingratiate themselves into the Trump campaign, whether they succeeded that particular time is besides the point [And they apparently did succeed later with multiple undisclosed Kushner/Flynn meetings with Kislyak and others.) “Don Jr. changed his story twice, that’s what matters” Cuomo says. She keeps whining for more positive coverage “Your panelists roll their eyes and furrow their brows, they need to be more balanced” as if they don’t have Jeffrey Lord, Jason Miller, Jack Kingston, Rick Santorum and other Pro-Trump sycophants on every day. He says “You rally people to attack the press and our families” which they have.
Keith Olbermann pulls up an old Trump tweet that he says shows Trump knew Manafort and Don Jr. meet with Veselnitskaya because later that day was the first time he said “33,000 of Hillary’s emails were missing.”
FBI says about half (4 of 7) of Comey’s memos contain sensitive or confidential information indicating his sharing some of them with Senate investigators may be problematic even though he testified that he created all the memos as “Unclassified”, this means that he is now suffering from the same after-the-fact “up classification” problem that plagued Hillary Clinton and her emails. Ironic.
Trump retweets a Fox and Friends segment that claims Comey revealed classified information to the media in his memos, when in fact the media doesn’t even have his memos, Mueller does. Senate intel had only reached an agreement to see them just last week and hasn’t fully reviewed them yet.
Rep. Schiff say House Intel wants to question Don Jr. as does Sen. Susan Collins who wants him to talk to the Senate Intel committee. Donnie tweets he’ll be happy to talk to Senate Intel.
Congressional staffers tell the Daily Beast that Treasury officials have attempted to water down the Senate’s New Sanctions Bill against Russia. Tillerson supposedly argued it would “handicap their desire to repair the relationship between the two nations.”
After Trump tweets that if Chelsea Clinton had been a place holder for her mother as Ivanka had been for him at the G20 the “Fake media would have said Chelsea for Prez” — during an audio only briefing a WH reporters asks Huckabee-Sanders when he’ll finally put “Bill and Hillary in the rear view mirror?”
Chelsea hits back saying her Father and Mother “Never would have asked her” to do such a thing and never have.
Former watergate assistant prosecutor Nick Akerman echoes Richard Painter’s call that Don Jr. actions may have “betrayed the United States” and could be considered “Treason.”
Former CIA spy Lindsay Moran says that she has seen the Russian government use these kinds of tactics in the past on American citizens, “Legality aside, this is Russian intelligence tactics at their best,” she said. “Let’s promise Trump Jr. something that he wants, lure him in, bait and switch. It doesn’t matter whether they talked about nefarious activities with him at the meeting — the whole thing is nefarious.”
Don Jr. sarcastically tweets admitting he went to get the opposition research info on Clinton that he’s “the first campaign rep to have a meeting to get information on an opponent” {Yes, he would be for information From Russia!!’]
Then Don Jr. lawyers up. His new attorney is best known for defending the Mafia.
On CNN Jennifer Taub of the Vermont Law School says that “A campaign taking anything of value from a foreign national” is a crime, and even attempting to do so by going to the meeting would be “conspiracy” to violate campaign finance laws. A Trump friendly former U.S. attorney disagrees, but then this wouldn’t be an issue under the DOJ, it would be under the FEC.
The Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) prohibits any foreign national from contributing, donating or spending funds in connection with any federal, state, or local election in the United States, either directly or indirectly. It is also unlawful to help foreign nationals violate that ban or to solicit, receive or accept contributions or donations from them. Persons who knowingly and willfully engage in these activities may be subject to fines and/or imprisonment.
Sen. Mark Warner the ranking Democrat on the Intel Committee does a press conference and says “This isn’t the first time the public has seen clear evidence of an attempt by the Trump campaign to obtain information from Russia against the Clinton campaign. It’s a continuing pattern.” He also points out the Jared Kushner has already had to amend his security clearance forms twice because he keep “forgetting” to include meetings like this with Russians.
Iraq declares victory over ISIS in Mosul.
Sen. Chuck Schumer calls on Trump and Don Jr. to “Stop Lying.”
Maggie Haberman at the NYTimes reports that the initial email to Don Jr. about meeting Veselnitskaya noted that the information came from the Russian Government, which pretty much blows up all the Trump denials that they never “colluded” with Russia, since they obviously went to the meeting knowing that it was info against Clinton that came from the Kremlin. What he should have done when he got that email was go straight to the FBI, but he didn’t.
July 11th —
Don Jr. releases his emails with Rob Goldstone, pre-empting another New York Times report on them. They completely confirm Haberman’s previous report that they were told Veselnitskaya was a “Government Lawyer” from Russia and the information was provided by the “Crown Prosecutor” of Russia because the Russian Government “wanted to help Trump.”
Veselnitskaya talks to NBC and denies she ever worked for the Russian government or tried to tell Trump Jr. anything about Clinton but that “they wanted it very badly.”
Harvard Law Prof Laurence Tribe says ““We now have the proverbial smoking gun: TJr was part of criminal conspiracy to violate fed crim laws banning foreign aid to any US campaign,”
Jared Yates Sexton who’d’ been working on this story for a year concurs with Tribe: “This is the dumbest and biggest crime in the history of American politics. There's not even a close second.”
Trump priases his son’s transparency. “My son is a high quality person.”’
Huckabee-Sanders stonewalls all questions about Trump jr. during an audio-only press conference, referring questions about him to his lawyer, but she still stands by the “no one colluded” claim she made the previous day.
Reports surface that some WH aides are considering lawyering up.
Rep. Marsha Blackburn says “Maybe Trump Jr. was duped.”
Ted Cruz blames all this Russia stuff on “Barack Obama.”
Fox News tries to spin Don Jr. email dump — then gives up on it when they get to the part where Jr. responds ‘If it’s what you say, I love it.’” when he reads that the Russian government wants to provide Trump information against Clinton in order to help their campaign.
Fox and Friends retracts their claim that Comey shared Top Secret information with the Press. “We were mistaken.”
Politico reports that Peter W. Smith’s attempts to gain access to Hillary’s emails involved a White Supremacist who had been banned from Twitter for his racism.
Julian Assange admits that he tried to give Don jr. advise to publish his emails through Wikileaks.
Some on the media argue that the leaks on Don Jr’s emails are coming from Steve Bannon in order to protect Kushner.
Wapo reports that GOP operatives close to Trump are building a “discredit team” to smear reporters.
Daily Beast reports that Bill Browder will testify before Senate Judiciary on how Veselnitskaya is linked to the GRU, FSB and efforts to lower the Magnitski Act sanctions.
joe Scarborough announces on Colbert that he’s leaving the Republican party to become and Independent.
CNN report Special Counsel Bob Mueller was unaware of Juniors meeting with Veselniskaya, but will now be investigating.
July 12th —
The intercept reports that Trump is still the principle on many of his businesses despite his claims to have handed over control to his family. [Liar, Liar, super long tie on fire.]
Rep Brad Sherman (D-CA) and Al Green (D-TX) file articles of Impeachment against Trump over his handling of the firing of James Comey.
Sen Franken rips defense of Donald Jr. to shreds during confirmation hearing for FBI director nominee Christopher Wray in response to a claim by Lindsey Graham that the Ukraine tried to give information to Hillary Clinton’s campaign. [Although this wasn’t the Ukrainian government sending an operative to reach out to Clinton, it was an effort to gather information on Paul Manafort by DNC consultant Alexandra Chalupa who is Ukrainian-American. That’s oppo research due diligence by an American, not a foreign government trying to interfere with a U.S. election.]
Sen Graham asks Wray if Mueller is on a “Witch Hunt” — he says “Director Mueller is not on a Witch Hunt.” He also says “Any threat or promise to help a campaign by a foreign government, the FBI would want to know.”
Senate Judiciary Chair Grassley prepares to call Manafort to testify.
Rep. Steve King threatens to re-open investigation of 65k emails of Anthony Weiner, Comey’s “activities” and Hillary’s emails if Democrats don't stop talking about Trump and Russia. [Go for it, punk!]
Emin Agalarov’s attorney Scott Balber gets smashed on live TV by Chris Cuomo over Emin's promoter Rob Goldstone “Do you know him to a a pathological liar?” and his attempt to give Don Jr. negative information on Hillary: Balber says it’s “Simply fiction that this was an attempt by the Russian government to reach Trump through having his son’s pop music publicist, the prosecutor never talked to his father.” Cuomo says about Goldstone’s claim: “That is some doozy of a lie.”
Cuomo also takes on Sekulow over Don Jr. and tells him “You have no facts!”
McClatchy reports that House, Senate and DOJ investigators are looking at whether the Russian cyberbot and Troll program to spread fake news about Hillary as reported by Time was coordinated using Jared Kushner voter micro-targeting system with Cambridge Analytics. Former Pentagon expert on Russia Mike Carpenter states ““There appears to have been significant cooperation between Russia’s online propaganda machine and individuals in the United States who were knowledgeable about where to target the disinformation,” he said, without naming any American suspects.
Democratic party donors and some staff have sued the Trump campaign and Roger Stone for conspiring to publicly release their private information through the dumping of data stolen from the DNC by Russian hackers through DCLeaks and Wikileaks. The suit doesn’t contain any hard evidence of conspiracy but it does seek to depose witnesses and do discovery of Trump campaign emails.
WSJ reports that US intel is reviewing intercepts they captured in 2015 before his run for the President of Russian intel personnel discussing contacts with Trump associates.
DOJ misses a court ordered deadline to provide all of Jeff Sessions foreign contacts.
Trump tells Pat Roberson that Putin “wanted Clinton to win because of the Military and Energy.” He doesn’t mention sanctions, human rights, Crimea, Ukraine, NATO or the EU.
During a Reuters interview Trump says he didn’t know about Junior meeting Veselnitskaya and argues “most people would have taken that meeting.” [Uh, nope.]
July 13th —
NyTimes reports that Kushner has updated his security forms for foreign contacts 3 times and added more than 100 new names to the list.
Republican Rep. Bill Flores says that Trump should get his kids, including Kushner, out of the White House.
DOJ delivers Sessions foreign contact list a day late and short of details.
Asked about Trump Jr’s meeting and his FBI director nominee’s claim that anyone in that situation “should contact the FBI” while in France for Bastille Day Trump echoes his own false story that he previous dictated for Junior on AF1 says “most people would have taken that meeting”, “nothing happened, they talked about adoptions which wasn’t part of the campaign” and claims she wasn’t a “Government Lawyer” even though Junior was specifically told that she was and this was part of the Russian government’s effort to help his campaign, he ignores FEC rules over foreign “gifts and contributions” then he blames Veselnitskaya even being in the country on Loretta Lynch (ignoring that her Visa was approved by the State Dept, not DOJ, because she was a Denys Katsyv’s defense attorney while he was being sued under the Magnitski Act)
Chuck Grassley sends Junior a letter requesting he testify before Senate Judiciary.
After first saying he’d only just heard of the Veselnitskaya meeting 2 days ago Trump changes his tune later in the day, telling reporters on Air Force One: “In fact maybe it was mentioned at some point,” This statement was supposed to be off the record, but Trump changed and put it on the record.
Chicago Tribune reports that GOP Donor and operative Peter W. Smith who had tried to acquire Hillary’s emails for Michael Flynn committed suicide 10 days after talking to WSJ.
Yahoo News reports that Trump’s attorneys were informed about the meeting 3 weeks ago after the emails referring to it were discovered by Kushner’s lawyers who then updated his SF-86 form.
Senate Intel member James Lankford (R-OK) reveals that Kushners attendance at the Veselnitskaya meetings was known as far back as April, when he updated his background check forms.
Kushner explodes with WH Press staff saying that instead of letting Trump and Juniors lawyers respond to these issues they need to aggressively defend Don Jr. and have two staffers ready to “attack the Chyrons”on Cable News shows and have op-eds written for the NYtimes and WSJ. Some reports are that Spicey has begun complaining about Kush and still others say these conversations just didn’t happen. [Yeah, alrighty.]
Kasowitz blows his stack at an email critic: “I’m on you now. You are ******* with me now. Let’s see who you are. Watch your back, *****.” Charming.
TPM reports that Trump Deputy Sebastian Gorka is a Nazi Worshipper, cuz of course he is.
Many reporters note that there are references to a phone call between Don Jr. and Emin in the emails chain, and also that Goldstone’s mention of the Russian governments efforts to help Trump seem nonchalant as if that was an already known fact to Don Jr.
Michael Isakoff reveals on CNN that he had interviewed Rob Goldstone and learned that the Trump’s and Agalarov’s had a deal for a new Trump Tower in 2013 that went sideways in 2014 when Obama placed sanctions on Russia for their invasion of Crimea.
Glenn Simpson co-owner of the firm Fusion GPS which had employed Christopher Steel while he compiled his dossier on Trump declines an invitation to testify before Senate Judiciary.
July 14 —
Harvard Law Prof Laurence Tribe says ““We now have the proverbial smoking gun: TJr was part of criminal conspiracy to violate fed crim laws banning foreign aid to any US campaign,”
Jared Yates Sexton who’d’ been working on this story for a year concurs with Tribe: “This is the dumbest and biggest crime in the history of American politics. There's not even a close second.”
Trump priases his son’s transparency. “My son is a high quality person.”’
Huckabee-Sanders stonewalls all questions about Trump jr. during an audio-only press conference, referring questions about him to his lawyer, but she still stands by the “no one colluded” claim she made the previous day.
Reports surface that some WH aides are considering lawyering up.
Rep. Marsha Blackburn says “Maybe Trump Jr. was duped.” Hm, ya think?
Ted Cruz blames all this Russia stuff on “Barack Obama.”
Fox News tries to spin Don Jr. email dump — then gives up on it when they get to the part where Jr. responds ‘If it’s what you say, I love it.’” when he reads that the Russian government wants to provide Trump information against Clinton in order to help their campaign.
Fox and Friends retracts their claim that Comey shared Top Secret information with the Press. “We were mistaken.” [No ****, Sherlock.]
Politico reports that Peter W. Smith’s attempts to gain access to Hillary’s emails involved a White Supremacist who had been banned from Twitter for his racism.
Julian Assange admits that he tried to give Don jr. advise to publish his emails through Wikileaks.
Some on the media argue that the leaks on Don Jr’s emails are coming from Steve Bannon in order to protect Kushner.
Wapo reports that GOP operatives close to Trump are building a “discredit team” to smear reporters.
Daily Beast reports that Bill Browder will testify before Senate Judiciary on how Veselnitskaya is linked to the GRU, FSB and efforts to lower the Magnitski Act sanctions.
William Browder, an American financier who has investigated Russian corruption for more than a decade, will brief the Senate Judiciary Committeeat a hearing next week on the lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya’s ties to the Russian government—including to former top members of the GRU and the FSB, two of the Kremlin’s main intelligence agencies. Those ties were spelled out in documents that Browder shared with the committee and provided to The Daily Beast this week.
joe Scarborough announces on Colbert that he’s leaving the Republican party to become and Independent.
CNN reports Special Counsel Bob Mueller was unaware of Juniors meeting with Veselniskaya, but will now be investigating. [Ruh Roh!]
The intercept reports that Trump is still the principle on many of his businesses despite his claims to have handed over control to his family. [Liar, Liar, super long tie on fire.]
Rep Brad Sherman (D-CA) and Al Green (D-TX) file articles of Impeachment against Trump over his handling of the firing of James Comey.
Sen Franken rips defense of Donald Jr. to shreds during confirmation hearing for FBI director nominee Christopher Wray in response to a claim by Lindsey Graham that the Ukraine tried to give information to Hillary Clinton’s campaign. [Although this wasn’t the Ukrainian government sending an operative to reach out to Clinton, it was an effort to gather information on Paul Manafort by DNC consultant Alexandra Chalupa who is Ukrainian-American. That’s oppo research due diligence by an American, not a foreign government trying to interfere with a U.S. election.]
Sen Graham ask Wray if Mueller is on a “Witch Hunt” — he say “Director Mueller is not on a Witch Hunt.” He also says “Any threat or promise to help a campaign by a foreign government, the FBI would want to know.”
Senate Judiciary Chair Grassley prepares to call Manafort to testify.
Rep. Steve King threatens to re-open investigation of 65k emails of Anthony Weiner, Comey’s “activities” and Hillary’s emails if Democrats don't stop talking about Trump and Russia. [Go for it, punk!]
Emin Agalarov’s attorney Scott Balber gets smashed on live TV by Chris Cuomo over Emin's promoter Rob Goldstone “Do you know him to a a pathological liar?” and his attempt to give Don Jr. negative information on Hillary: Balber says it’s “Simply fiction that this was an attempt by the Russian government to reach Trump through having his son’s pop music publicist, the prosecutor never talked to his father.” Cuomo says about Goldstone’s claim: “That is some doozy of a lie.”
Cuomo also takes on Sekulow over Don Jr. and tells him “You have no facts!”
McClatchy reports that House, Senate and DOJ investigators are looking at whether the Russian cyberbot and Troll program to spread fake news about Hillary as reported by Time was coordinated using Jared Kushner voter micro-targeting system with Cambridge Analytics. Former Pentagon expert on Russia Mike Carpenter states ““There appears to have been significant cooperation between Russia’s online propaganda machine and individuals in the United States who were knowledgeable about where to target the disinformation,” he said, without naming any American suspects.
Democratic party donors and some staff have sued the Trump campaign and Roger Stone for conspiring to publicly release their private information through the dumping of data stolen from the DNC by Russian hackers through DCLeaks and Wikileaks. The suit doesn’t contain any hard evidence of conspiracy but it does seek to depose witnesses and do discovery of Trump campaign emails.
WSJ reports that US intel is reviewing intercepts they captured in 2015 of Russian intel personnel discussing contacts with Trump associates.
DOJ misses a court ordered deadline to provide all of Jeff Sessions foreign contacts.
Trump tells Pat Roberson that Putin “wanted Clinton to win because of the Military and Energy.” He doesn’t mention sanctions, human rights, Crimea, Ukraine, NATO or the EU.
During a Reuters interview Trump says he didn’t know about Junior meeting Veselnitskaya and argues “most people would have taken that meeting.” [Uh, nope.]
NyTimes reports that Kushner has updated his security forms for foreign contacts 3 times and added more than 100 new names to the list.
Republican Rep. Bill Flores says that Trump should get his kids, including Kushner, out of the White House.
DOJ delivers Sessions foreign contact list a day late and short of details. He continues to claim that Foreign contacts he made as a member of the Senate are not relevant and are therefore redacted, but that’s not an option available on the form.
Asked about Trump Jr’s meeting and his FBI director nominee’s claim that anyone in that situation “should contact the FBI” while in France for Bastille Day Trump says again repeating the false statement he himself helped craft on AF1 that “most people would have taken that meeting”, “nothing happened, they talked about adoptions which wasn’t part of the campaign” and claims she wasn’t a “Government Lawyer” even though Junior was specifically told that she was and this was part of the Russian government’s effort to help his campaign, he ignores FEC rules over foreign “gifts and contributions” then he blames Veselnitskaya even being in the country on Loretta Lynch (ignoring that her Visa was approved by the State Dept, not DOJ, because she was a Denys Katsyv’s defense attorney while he was being sued under the Magnitski Act)
Chuck Grassley sends Junior a letter requesting he testify before Senate Judiciary.
After first saying he’d only just heard of the Veselnitskaya meeting 2 days ago Trump changes his tune later in the day, telling reporters on Air Force One: “In fact maybe it was mentioned at some point,” This statement was supposed to be off the record, but Trump changed and put it on the record.
Chicago Tribune reports that GOP Donor and operative Peter W. Smith who had tried to acquire Hillary’s emails for Michael Flynn committed suicide 10 days after talking to WSJ.
Yahoo News reports that Trump’s attorneys were informed about the meeting 3 weeks ago after the emails referring to it were discovered by Kushner’s lawyers who then updated his SF-86 form.
Senate Intel member James Lankford (R-OK) reveals that Kushners attendance at the Veselnitskaya meetings was known as far back as April, when he updated his background check forms.
Kushner explodes with WH Press staff saying that instead of letting Trump and Juniors lawyers respond to these issues they need to aggressively defend Don Jr. and have two staffers ready to “attack the Chyrons” on Cable News shows and have op-eds written for the NYtimes and WSJ. Some reports are that Spicey has begun complaining about Kush and still others say these conversations just didn’t happen. [Yeah, alrighty.]
Kasowitz blows his stack at an email critic: “I’m on you now. You are ******* with me now. Let’s see who you are. Watch your back, *****.” Charming.
TPM reports that Trump Deputy Sebastian Gorka is a Nazi Worshipper, cuz of course he is.
Many reporters note that there are references to a phone call between Don Jr. and Emin in the emails chain, and also that Goldstone’s mention of the Russian governments efforts to help Trump seem nonchalant as if that was an already known fact to Don Jr.
Michael Isakoff reveals that he had interviewed Rob Goldstone and learned that the Trump’s and Agalarov’s had a deal for a new Trump Tower in 2013 that went sideways in 2014 when Obama placed sanctions on Russia for their invasion of Crimea.
Daily Beast reports that in addition to the “translator” who came with Veselnitskaya to the meeting with Don Jr. there was Rinat Akhmetshin a former Russian Intelligence officer and lobbyist who had previously been accused of being involved in an international hacking scheme.
On Fox both Lou Hobbs while appearing on Hannity and Jesse Waters accuse the “deep state” and “left wing” media of attempting a “coup d’etat” against Trump to undermine American values and “break the will of the people” even though the actual majority of the people voted against Trump.
Loretta Lynch denies she had any personal involvement or knowledge of Veselnitskaya’s Visa status, and she shouldn’t because that wasn’t. her. job. the State Dept. under John Kerry handled Visas at that time and her’s was approved at least as far back as 2013 when Bharara first issued his Magnitski suit against the Prevezon Holdings.
GOP strategist Rick Wllson says “Only Trump’s hypnotized base believes his Bullshit Tornado about Russia.” [Yep, pretty much.’]
Trump digital media expert Brad Pascale issues a statement in response to House and Senate intel requests to speak to him that he has ‘no knowledge of Russian involvement” in the online campaign he put together with Cambridge-Analytica.
Rep.Adam Schiff calls for everyone from the Veselnitskaya meeting to testify to the House Intel. [Which is now at 8 people and counting...]
The New Republic publishes an extensive story on TrumpCos long history of being involved in money laundering with Russian mobsters going all the way back to 1987.
Former Trump communications aid Michael Caputo agrees with CNN that the Trump Campaign was too much of a ‘**** Show” to have been able to effectively coordinate with the Russians. [Do Tell.]
Caputo testifies behind closed doors to House Intel, claims he saw no links to discussions of Russia, that little old ladies used to bring them “dog-eared papers” on Clinton, and condemns Rep. Jackie Spieres for linking him to Russia saying that it caused his wife and family to receive death threats, and that someone threatened to burn his house down. “The Rhetoric is going to get someone killed and I don’t want to be the next one shot” which is pretty ironic since Jackie Spiere’s was shot 5 times while she was a staffer for Rep. Leo Ryan when he was killed near the Jim Jones compound in Guyana.
Akhmetshin claims he has never worked for Russian intelligence or the GRU, his simply served 2 years in the Russian army before immigrating to the U.S. and becoming a citizen and working as a lobbyist, but says that Veselnitskaya brought a plastic folder with documents showing the DNC accepting funds from Russia to the meeting. All this despite a letter written from Sen. Grassley to SecDEf Kelly about Akhmetshin being and “unregistered” lobbyist who had previously experience as an “active measures expert” with the GRU.
Veselnitskaya admits that she is a former prosecutor and is in regular contact with the Prosecutor General of Russia Yuri Chaika, who is controversial for trumping up bogus charges against Putin’s enemies and having them tortured and killed in prisonthe same way the Sergei Magnitski was killed.
Kushner Lawyer Jamie Gorelick is reported by Politico to be backing out of Kushner’s issues with Mueller and leaving everything to Abbie Lowell
July 15th —
WH announces “Made In America Week” but has no answer when asked if that means that Ivanka’s clothing line which is made overseas will be moving their manufacturing to the U.S. The WaPo then pointed out that Trump branded products are made in at least a dozen countries.
The Hill reports that there were 150,000 hack attempts were made against South Carolina’s voter registration system, indications are that they were not successful.
Secret Service smacks down Sekolow — “That meeting was never cleared with us.”
Trump’s lawyer Sekolow blames the Veselnitskaya/Akhmetshin meeting on the Secret Service even though no one who was a protectee at that time was in the meeting. He also claims he and Trump weren’t involved in the crafting of Don Jr’s initial and false statements about the meeting, but that is a lie since Trump dictated and approved it from AF1.
Daily Beast reports that Don Jr.’s lawyer Alan Futerfas had been paid $50,000 by the Trump re-election campaign 11 days before the first report about his Veselnitskaya meeting. Furteras is best known for having been the attorney for all four of New York’s most notorious organized crime families.
July 16th —
Trump whines on Twitter about all the attention on Don Jr’s meeting and accuses Hillary of “illegally” deleting emails even after the FBI said it wasn’t illegal, and his own companies have repeated deleted emails and documents under court order, and getting debate questions ahead of time which also isn’t illegal particularly when Clinton wasn’t even asked the same questions that were wrongfully forwarded to her meanwhile he was warned about Meghan Kelly’s first debate question and had threatened her not to ask it or else his twitter followers would come after her, which they did.
July 17th —
Spicer proclaims that there was nothing in Juniors email that shows the meeting wasn’t about Abortion and the Magnitski Act [which he mis-pronounces as “Maginski Act”] — except everything Junior released five days ago and also what Trump said on Bastille day and tweeted about admiring that it was about obtaining “Oppo research.”
CNN talks to Junior’s Lawyer Futerfas and he says he talked to the 8th man in the meeting who was a rep for the Agalarov Family, even though their lawyers Scott Balber says they basically had nothing to do with anything, This person confirms that the meeting started off being about Russia giving money to the DNC, but he doesn’t confirm that a 2 page document was left behind by Veselnitskaya for Junior.
The Senate Trumpcare Bill coughs and dies as 2 more Repub Senators come out against it dropping them to 48 votes. Trump calls for a full repeal of O-care with a two year delay for them to “figure something out” also known as magically skipping over the 2018 midterm elections.
Fox’s Judge Anthony Napolitano who was the primary source of Trump’s bogus “Obama Wiretapped Trump Tower using GCHQ” claim, comes out and says that Junior probably broke the law. “Because it is suspicious that they met with these people, that they didn’t consult a lawyer, that one of these people was a former KGB, GRU, that’s the Russian intelligence arm, Russian military intelligence arm, and didn’t tell anybody about it.” [Yeah, ya think?’’]
WSJ Editoral “Eviscerates” Trump over the entire Russia scandal saying “Mr. Trump and his family are repeating the mistakes that doomed Mrs. Clinton.Don Jr. released his emails that showed the Russian lure about Mrs. Clinton and Don Jr. all excited—’I love it.’ Oh, and son-in-law Jared Kushner and Beltway bagman Paul Manafort were also at the meeting. Don Jr. told Sean Hannity this was the full story,” they continued. “But then news leaked that a Russian-American lobbyist was also at the meeting.”
July 18th —
The 8th man finally appears and is revealed to be a naturalized Russian-American, Ike Kaveladze, working in the U.S. for a Russian real estate company owned by the Agalarov’s who is represented by Emin’s Lawyer Scott Balber. Balber says he was there to act as a translator, but that Veselnitskaya brought her own translator (person #7) and that he’d been contacted by Mueller’s office about the ID of the 8th man. Congress and the GAO had previously investigated Kaveladze as a “foreigner creating shell companies” exactly like the types of money laundering schemes that have been used by the Russian Mob and Intel services.
Trumpcare finally implodes as more Republican Senator balk at their bullshit plan. Trump whines and blames Democrats for not helping destroy healthcare for 22-23 Million people even though the entire point of using the reconciliation process was to avoid needing any Dem votes. He says he’s now “let Obamacare fail” while in fact he’s already been sabotaging it by messing with cost sharing reductions and driving providers out of the marketplace.
Mueller ok’s the Senate Judiciary committees to talk to Junior and Manafort in an open hearing. [Is this because he’s already talked to both of them?]
It’s revealed that during a dinner at the G20 Trump again spoke with Putin for another hour without disclosing it, this time without any other Americans or aides present so there is no record or documentation of what was said.
Fox WH correspondent John Roberts walks out of Huckabee-Sanders briefing early and when she notes his departure from the podium he slaps back “‘If it was on camera, I might not be.’ Generating “Ooohs” from the pool.
Sean Hannity whines about Shep Smith’s criticism of Trump “Some voices on Fox drive me nuts. Shep is so anti-Trump.”
Chris Christie says that it was “probably illegal” to receive oppo research from a foreign government but that Don Jr. is not smart enough to collude with the Russians.
July 19th —
Scarborough says about Trump’s second Putin meeting: ““So what are we to assume if not the worst — that he had this meeting, the White House didn’t reveal it. Once again we had to find out about it through third channels and there wasn’t even an American within earshot to listen what they talked about for an hour.”
Walter Schaub says he was horrified when Trump’s lawyer asked if he could turn in his financial disclosure forms without signing them and certifying that they were true.
Over 20 lawmakers begin to question Ivanka Trump’s security clearance because she apparently didn’t disclose any of their families multiple meetings with Russian officials on her SF86 forms.
Shep Smith slaps back at Hannity “Sometimes facts are displeasing.”
Flynn and Caputo are reportedly having difficulty paying their lawyer fees.
Veselnitskaya says she’s ready to testify to the Senate who otherwise can’t subpoena her since she’s a foreign natonal. [Judging by her RT interview, she’ll do great right?]
Daily Beast reports that while Veselnitskaya met secretly with Don Jr. last June the Kremlin gave Rep. Dana Rohrabacher instructions to stage a “show trial” in Congress attacking Bill Browder in order to alter the Magnitski Act sanctions on Russia. Rohrabacher was provided a Russian propaganda film against Browder by Yuri Chaika’s Prosecutor Generals Office, which was the same source for Veselnitskaya’s “evidence” against Hillary Clinton and the DNC.
Trump does an interview with Maggie Haberman and the NyTimes
He says that he blames the appointment of Mueller as Special Counsel on Jeff Sessions recusal, and says if he’d known Sessions would recuse himself he wouldn’t have picked him for AG. “It’s very unfair to the President.”
He thinks Comey briefing him on the Steele dossier was intended as blackmail in order to keep his job.
That Mueller was rife with conflicts of interest because he had interviewed for interim FBI director the day before he was appointed Special Counsel, and he has Democrats working for him
He doesn’t trust Deputy FBI Director McCabe because his wife ran for office as a Democrat once and got $700k from Gov. Terry McAullif and the DNC, who are friendly with Clinton so that means McCabe is “evil.”
He doesn’t trust Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein because he’s from Baltimore and it’s full of Democrats.
He claims he still doesn’t think he’s under investigation even for obstruction of Justice “I don’t think we’re under investigation,” he said. “I’m not under investigation. For what? I didn’t do anything wrong.”
He again denied that he asked Comey to drop the Flynn investigation.
He admits that his second hour long conversation with Putin at the G20 included a discussion of Russian adoptions, the same subject that Veselnitskaya had brought up with Don Jr.
He says that if Mueller wanders from Russia and starts to investigate his families finances it would be “crossing a red line.”
The NYTimes reports that investigators are looking at complex financial transactions between Trump, Kushner, Deutsche Bank and VEB.
Trump hits 6 Months in Office as Carrier lays off 300 workers.
Kushner is scheduled to testify in closed Session to Senate Intel on the 24th. Manafort and Don Jr. are scheduled to testify before Senate Judiciary on the 26th.
NYTimes reports that Manafort owed $17 Million to pro-Russia shell companies based in Cyprus before he joined Trump campaign.
July 20th —
Bloomberg reports that Mueller is looking at the finances of Trump and his associates.
AP reports that the Russian urged Trump to bring a note taker for his dinner meeting with Putin but he declined because he was afraid of leaks.
Senate Judiciary approves Chris Wray for FBI Director.
Sessions says he’ll stay on as a “Zombie Attorney General.”
Sally Yates slams Trump’s attack on the independence of the DOJ as a “violation of a bedrock principle of democracy”
Rohrabacher dismisses what Russia asked him to do with a “show trial” as insignificant.
HHS is using Obamacare outreach funds to undermine the laws function.
Rep. Schiff calls Trump’s secret dinner meeting with Putin “deeply troubling.”
Huckabee-Sanders says those who complain about Trump’s 2nd meeting have “Russia Fever.”
Deutsche bank which has loaned Trump hundreds of $Million agrees to turn over financial records to Mueller and investigators.
U.S. Military renting space in Trump Tower are paying $130,000 per month for it.
1 in 8 Trump voters wish they could take it back.
Treasury Dept fines Exxon-Mobil $2 Million for violating Russia sanctions related to Ukraine when Tillerson was CEO.
NAACP Legal Defense Fund Sues Trump election panel for racial discrimination, voter intimidation and suppression.
Trump’s Chief counter-terrorism advisor Thomas Bossert admits that Russia was definitely behind the 2016 election hacking, so how come Trump doesn’t know, or believe, that?
Rumors abound that Kasowitz will be taking a back seat on Trump’s legal team as some on the team begin doing oppo research on the members of Mueller’s team in order to hinder them. [Which would be obstruction]
Court documents show that one of Veselnitskaya’s previous clients was the FSB.
Trump asks his lawyers and advisors what his options are for pardoning members of his family or himself.
Weary Trump supporters begin to tune out the news because it’s all bad for him and them.
July 21st —
Roger Stone rips Sessions: He’s only a ‘tough guy’ when it comes to ‘chasing people for smoking pot’
Mueller request WH Staff preserve all documents and emails of communications related to Trump Jr.’s June meeting with Russians.
Reports surface that the shakeup in Trump’s legal team is linked to the attacks on Mueller.
Trump hires Anthony Scaramucci as Communications Director, Preibus had no idea. Sean Spicer resigns in protest because having a shmoozy Wall Street hack shill “Yes” man stooge with no Washington or communications experience as your instant boss was obviously the last fracking straw. Sarah “Resting scowl-face” Huckabee-Sanders becomes the new WH Press Secretary.
Kasowitz and strategist Mark Corallo leave Trump’s legal team. DC lawyer John Down takes over.
Wapo Reports that Intercepts by U.S. intel of conversation between Kislyak and Russia indicate that Sessions twice, at the Mayflower Hotel and at the RNC, discussed Trump’s positions regarding Russia with him indicating that he lied to congress under oath about those conversations.
Mother Jones reports that Sen. Warren has been pressing the Treasury department since January on whether Scaramucci had violated sanctions rules by discussing possible investment opportunities with Kirill Dmitriev, head of the sanctioned Russian Direct Investment Fund.
Senate intel chair Burr says “the unmasking thing” was all created by Devin Nunez.
Senate Judiciary issues a subpoena to Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS for information about the creation of the Steele Dossier.
Kislyak steps down as ambassador and returns to Russia.
NSC Staffer Rich Higgins is fired for writing a crazed conspiracy filled memo.
July 23rd —
Huckabee-Sanders gets caught in a lie by Stephanapolous claiming the Russia story is all the press covers.
Don Jr. hires more lawyers.
Scaramucci tries to scrub all his previous anti-Trump, pro-Climate Change tweets but everyone notices.
Scaramucci is interviewed by Jake Tapper on CNN
He says that Putin told Trump in Hamburg that Russian hackers are too good to have been caught by the U.S.
He denies that Russia hacked our election “This is maybe they did it, maybe they didn’t do it” and runs into a buzzsaw with Tapper — “Don’t you owe a duty to the truth?”
Kellyanne Conway freaks out when CNN’s Brian Stetler suggests the Trump campaign welcomed Russian interference and influence during the election, which frankly they didn’t oppose.
July 24th —
Kushner releases an 11 Page statement prior to his speaking to the Senate Intel staff behind closed doors
He denies colluding with Russians or discussing campaign issues.
He says he tried to get out of the Veselnitskaya meeting and never fully read the email or apparently the subject line “Hillary — Russia — Sensitive and Confidential. [But he still showed up, didn't he?] He arrived at the meeting late and the topic at the time was “Russian adoptions” he didn’t see that as being relevant and emailed his assistant to call him in order to give him an excuse to leave. "Can u pls call me on my cell? Need excuse to get out of meeting.” He says he didn’t remember anything about the meeting and had disclosed it on his forms prior to it reaching the press.
He says his SF86 form was accidentally submitted without being completed when his assistant mistook the completion of one section to mean the entire form was complete. [Aren’t these supposed to be signed when submitted certifying that they’re fully complete?] All contacts with foreign nations were originally omitted not just Russians.
He reveals that he received an email that was clearly an extortion attempt by “Guccifer400” that threatened to reveal Trump tax returns. He thought is was a hoax and referred it to Secret Service. [That should have gone to FBI, Secret Service protects you from physical threats and conterfeiters they don’t pursue blackmail or extortion.]
He says he only talked to Kislyak for “about a minute” at the Mayflower Hotel simply to exchange pleasantries and denies the Reuters report that he had two phone calls with Kislyak between April and November, saying he searched his phone records and couldn’t find any numbers associated with the ambassador. “I doubt these calls took place.”
He says he tried to setup a secure back-channel to the Kremlin in order to discuss the war in Syria with Russian “generals” came from Kislyak, but was not over sanctions. Flynn said such a secure channel didn’t exist and Kushner asked if one existed in the Russian embassy. [This doesn’t explain why he wanted the U.S. Intel community cut out of the loop, since they have to implement Syria policy anyway and the people who really don’t need to know is ISIS. Plus this was in December and January while they were all still “private citizens” — Logan Act — and long before there were allegations of “wiretaps”, “unmasking” or “leaks” coming from US Intel so what gives?]
Kislyak kept pestering him for continued meetings which he didn’t have time for and turned down until finally sending his assistant, then he agreed to meet VEB’s Gorkov because “he had a direct link to Putin.” He says they didn’t discuss sanctions or business or really anything other than “wanting better relations.”
He never mentions or explains his meeting with the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi which he attended with Steve Bannon following his meeting with Gorkov to further discuss Russia relations, or the follow on meeting to that between the Crown Prince and Eric Prince of Blackwater in the Seychelles Islands.
Kushner gives a public statement “I didn't collude with Russians and don’t know anyone who did.” [You know Flynn, Manafort and Roger Stone don’t you?] And claims “I did not rely on Russian money for my businesses.”
Kushner also apparently tell Congressional Staff the “Trump campaign was too disorganized to have colluded with the Russians” [Then why is that frakhole “President” then?]
At some point near this time Manafort also talks to Congressional staffers and tell them about the Veselnitskaya meeting.
Former FBI Agent Clint Watts says Kushner’s statement and it’s “chaos and confusion” defense shows he’s either incompetent or the Russia influence on TrumpCo is very strong. [Could be both!]
The Guardian reports that Kushner paid $295 Million for a portion of the New York Times building from Jewish Soviet-born Diamond Tycoon Lev Leviev — who the Dutch media reports smuggles valuable diamonds by making them look worthless by covering them in soot, connected to Human Rights violations in Angola as well as funding illegal Jewish settlements in the disputed zones of Israel. Kushner later borrowed $285 million to refinance the purchase through Deutsche Bank, which has come under scrutiny for alleged ties to Russian money laundering and had to pay $630 Million in fines for transferring $10 Billion through Russia. [So much for ‘not relying Russian Money for his business’]
Fox Host Jason Chaffetz claims people should be talking about Chelsea Clinton’s links to Benghazi [even though she has none, she didn’t work for Hillary or the State Dept then], and Hillary’s links to Russia [also has none, certainly not since Putin returned to the Presidency] rather than Kushner’s failure to report his meetings, even though only Kushner is speaking to the Senate today.`
NYTimes Glenn Thrush reports that rather than being an insult to the press, the yanking of WH press conference videos was because Spicer didn’t want Trump yelling at him and saying he “sucked at his job”.
Feinstein asks Grassley to call Sessions before Senate Judiciary.
Trump tweet/whines why “Beleagured” Sessions and House committees don’t investigate Hillary’s connections to Russia [Bill spoke to Renaissance Capital in 2010 for $500,000 while supposedly at that time Hillary opposed requests for the State Dept to deny visas to Russian oligarch accused of Human rights violations under Medvedev. But that all changed with the passage of the Magnitski Act and Putin’s return to the Presidency in 2012 and the annexation of Crimea and invasion of Ukraine in 2014. Also if you think Bill and Hillary can be bought for $500k what exactly did Deutsche Bank get from Kushner for a cool $285 Million?]
Trump trues to bully Republicans into passing Trumpcare by saying “Obamacare is Death” — which is bullshit. Does a campaign rally at the Boy Scout Jamboree — even though I’m pretty sure they can’t vote yet. And reports start to surface that’s he’s floating the idea of removing Sessions.
July 25th —
After Trump’s usual self-aggrandizing, whining, hate and delusion filled partisan rally speech to the Boy Scout Jamboree parents and former scouts alike our outraged. He had invited members of his staff who were Eagle Scouts like Rick Perry but gives Jeff Sessions the Spicer Treatment by leaving him out. Some reports at that Sessions is so pissed he won’t give Trump the satisfaction of quitting.
During the Jamboree Scaramucci’s wife gives birth to their second child James, he’s not there because he’s with Trump, but he does send her a text.
Trump thumps Sessions some more on Twitter. Several times, even though it was his ethical — and legal — duty to recuse himself from any investigation of a campaign that he was a participant of. He’s so mean even Breitbart and Limbaugh start to feel sorry for Sessions. Some Congressional Republicans start to grow a soul, but Paul Ryan doesn’t.
The House approves new strengthened sanctions on Russia/Iran & North Korea which don’t allow Trump to unilaterally cut them by a final Veto Proof vote of 419-3.
John McCain triumphantly returns to the Senate after his brain cancer diagnosis and gives an impassioned rousing speach on bipartisanship right after casting a pivotal party line vote to open debate on taking the kind of Health Care he’s currently receiving away from between 15 or 22 or 32 Million people depending on Mitch McConnell’s mood. Although the parlimentarian says they’re going to need 60 Votes for most of what they have in mind.
Kushner is interviewed behind closed doors by House Intel panel staff for 3 Hours.
Manafort is subpeoned by Senate Judiciary.
House Repubs block Democrats attempt to see Trump’s Treasury FIles.
Scarmucci admits Trump wants Sessions FIred “It’s like a divorce.”
Huckabee-Sanders says re-re-reinvestigating Clinton for things that didn’t happen and she’s already been cleared for is just “Keeping a level playing field.”
Trump tweets about classified Syria program to fund and supply anti-Assad rebels in order to slap back at a Wapo story.
July 26h —
FBI executes a “No Knock” pre-dawn search warrant on Paul Manafort’s residence looking for financial documents some of which he was supposed to have turned over to Senate Intel specifically because they’re concerned he might destroy evidence.
Just minutes after Tucker Carlson calls trans people potential “child abusers” Trump tweets that all trans persons in the military will be removed because to the cost of their surgeries, although the military spends 4 times as much on Viagra to treat ED.
Trump tweets again asking why Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe hasn’t been fired because his wife received $700k from Terry McAulif when she ran for congress.
Putin threatens to retaliate against “Illegal” U.S. sanctions after their approval by Congress.
Senate defribs Trumpcare by considering “Skinny Repeal” for Obamacare which would only affect the mandates, subsidies and Medicare expansion.
Scaramucci’s financial disclosure forms indicates that he is still doing work for his investment firm while working in the White House and that the company was recently bought by Chinese investors meaning he’s receiving paychecks from China and the U.S. government at the same time.
Senate Intel calls for pro-Trump oppo researcher Chuck Johnson to testify on his work with to obtain Hillary’s emails for Michael Flynn along with the late Peter W. Smith.
Ken Starr calls for Trump to stop attacking Sessions “Cut it out.”
Grassley warns Trump not to fire Sessions.
Jeffrey Lord attempts to defend Trump’s trans-ban tweet says the Military shouldn’t be paying for Viagra either.
Kushner may be violating the Presidential records act by having and app that makes message sent or received “disappear’ on his iPhone.
Nine Inch Nail’s Trent Reznor says “Trump’s a vulgarian” — yeah, you bet.
July 27th —
CBO score of Skinny Repeals says that it would take Healthcare from 16 Million people and increase premiums by 20%.
Newsweek reports that Russia used Facebook to try and trick Macron supporters prior to French Election.
Senate ignores Trump’s call to investigate Hillary Clinton again.
Lindsay Graham says firing Sessions and/or Mueller would be the beginning of the end of Trump’s presidency.
The Joint Chiefs announce no one is going no where based on a Tweet, Trump hasn’t given them any formal instructions on trans soldiers yet.
Bill Browder testifies to Senate Judiciary and tells them that Veselnitskaya and Ahkmenttshin were clearly operatives for Putin and Russian Intel offering Kompromat on Clinton to see if anyone in the Trump camp would take the bait.
He explains how Putin and Chaika had Magnitski and Boris Nemsov murdered and tried to poison Kara-Murza twice to cover up their graft and corruption.
Having the Magnitski act repealed or limited is a prime Putin goal.
He also says that Fusion GPS was also funded by Russians because they like to “Play both sides” — which suggests some of the more salacious items in the Steele Dossier may have been fed to them as disinformationto help make it easier to discredit the overall report.
Kellyanne Conway throws Preibus a “shiv in the ribs” for leaking Scaramucci’s financials — which he probably didn’t do.
Scaramucci gives a mad crazy interview on CNN about his financial forms being leaked even though it’s still public information calling in right in the middle of an interview with Ryan Lizza.
Scaramucci then calls Ryan Pizza of the New Yorker directly and gives him a rambling profane on the record interview.
He demands to know who leaked that he was having dinner with Hannity, Trump and Melanie that night, and that he’d fire everyone in the White House until Lizza told him. (He can’t do that, he can only fire press and communications people — Preibus could do that, or Trump. And since when is having dinner with the Trumps and Sean Hannity a matter of National Security?)
He says that he’s not out to promote himself and “Suck his own ****” like Steve Bannon, he’s trying to promote Trump. [And doing a wonderful job of it he is too...]
He claims Preibus is a “******* paranoid schizophrenic paranoiac” who leaked his financial forms — although the forms are public information — because he didn’t want him hired in the first place. [And who could blame him for that prescience?]
He claims he has ‘digital fingerprints” of alleged leakers given to him by the FBI (which would be illegal for them to do) and also he’s not on the approved WH/DOJ communications list, neither is Preibus.
He says they need to “Kill all the ******* leakers.”and that “People in this administration think their job is too save the country from Trump, that’s not their job, it’s to inject Trump into the nation”— eww..just ewww.
Propublica obtains a set of talking points created for DNI Dan Coates which shows that the relationship between the Intel Community and Trump is highly strained. [No kiddin?]
The Senate fails to pass each and every single Trumpcare proposal including “Repeal/Replace” and“Repeal/Delay” and even eventually fail even with the Hail-Mary “Skinny Repeal” after Senators John McCain, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski vote against it.
McConnel says the failure to repeal O-care is “disappointing”, whines about losing then sarcastically asks “Let see what the Democrats have.” Schumer calls for bi-partisan cooperation to help fix the lingering problems of the Health Care Market.
Trump says they should now ‘let O-care Implode” although what he really means is he’s going to have Tom Price sabotage it even further until Dems cry “Uncle.”
Devin Nunez continues pushing his Obama “Unmasking” Story.
Manafort is scheduled to meet with Senate Judiciary today, but negotiates a later date.
New Russia sanctions bill gets sent to Trump’s desk.
July 28th —
Trump calls for Police Brutality by telling assembled cheering Long Island Police to "don’t be too nice” when slamming them into the back of a paddy wagon and “don’t hold their head” when placing them in the back seat. “You can take the hand away, okay?”
Trump fires Reice Preibus via Tweet, makes DHS head Kelly as new Chief of Staff. Preibus finds out on a rain soaked tarmac as AF1 arrives back in Washington, others get out of his Suburban and his car leaves the motorcade and goes off on it’s own instead of returning to the WH.
Scaramucci’s wife, who had been estranged with him for months, files for Divorce because of his naked political ambition “Deirdre is not a fan of Trump” which means he’s gonna have to learn that special trick of Bannon’s now.
Russia expels U.S. 755 Diplomats and seizes an American compound in “retaliation” for the new sanctions bill that Trump hasn’t yet signed calling them “Illegal” and unjustified.
july 29th —
Trump’s Gallup approval rating of 37% drops lower than Bill Clinton’s during the Lewinsky scandal.
Painter says shuffling Sessions into Homeland in place of Kelly would be yet more obstruction.
Police Departments from coast to coast condemn Trump’s call for Police Brutality.
Surprising absolutely no one on earth Ted Nugent breaks his civility pledge.
Tillerson’s State Dept. channels opposite world and claims the new sanctions on Russia will be “good for our relationship.” [Uh, Nope!]
It’s reported that Scaramucci’s wife was nine months pregnant when she bailed on him because of his #TrumpLove and that he apparently missed the birth of his second child James because he was with Trump at the Boy Scout Jamboree and sent his wife a text “I’ll pray for our son.”
July 30th —
Jared and Ivanka admit it’s way too much to expect them to have any moderating influence on Trump.
Pence swears we’ll see more moderate behavior from Putin as he orders 755 U.S. Diplomats out of Russia. [Yeah, uh, NOPE!]
Lewandowsky calls for Trump to fire CFPB chief Richard Cordray because — yeah, sorry, I got nothin’. [Ok fine seriously, He claims he doesn’t have any clients that oppose Cordray’s work at CFPB, but it turns out that he does have a client that is a pay day lender]
PS. Kushner is still a slumlord.
Roger Stone says “McCain is a piece of **** and traitor” — also now with Brain Cancer.
July 31st —
Gen. Kelly starts his first day as the new WH Chief of Staff.
Pence talks tough about Russia’s retaliation against the newly imposed sanctions signed by Trump. Trump echoes Russia’s complaints.
Scaramucci suddenly resigns as WH Communications Director 11 days after was announced in the position and 4 days before he was to officially begin. He’s then escorted off the grounds by security, then goes to dinner with Katrina Peirson.
Kelly calls Sessions and tells him his job is safe.
Former NSA Analyst John Schindler reports that Putin’s move to expel 755 U.S. Diplomatic workers over sanctions shows he’s ready to throw Trump under the bus.
NYTimes reports that Trump personally dictated the first false version of Junior’s statement about his meeting with Veselnitskaya — even though he said at the time “this was the first he’d heard about it” — claiming the meeting was “primarily about adoption” a claim that was later repeated by Trump twice and also by Spicer even though Junior himself had already admitted it was about oppo research on Hillary 7 days previously.
Trump’s direct involvement in promoting a false story when there is a open Federal Investigation of links between his campaign in Russia potentially indicates “consciousness of guilt” and may be an attempt at Witness Tampering and Obstruction of Justice particularly since Mueller’s office already requested the WH preserve all documents and records related to this meeting on July 21st.
Ivanka and Melania were “disgusted” by Scaramucci’s dirty talk — but then again they do support Trump who brought him on in the first place and has history for salty talk of his own.
CNN Reports that Kelly was furious by the manner in which Comey was fired and nearly resigned himself in protest until Comey talked him out of it.
Former McCain staffer Steve Schmidt says Scarmucci’s firing exposes the “snakepit” of Trump White House.
Surprising absolutely no-one with eyes and a working brain former Obamacare hating Blaze corespondent Tami Lahren is actually on Obamacare as she’s 24 and still on her parent Health Care plans.
A British “Email Prankster” successfully tricked several members of Trump’s WH into thinking he was Kushner and Preibus.
August 1st —
Spicer admits that the WH and Trump was personally briefed on the false and since retracted FOX story alleging that murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich was connected to emails leaked to Wikileaks as a way to redirect attention from Russia. This means that Spicer lied during the May 16 press briefing where he denied any knowledge of the Rich story. Again, potential Obstruction of Justice during the current investigation of Russia’s involvement with DNC hack.
Wired releases an audio recording of Kushner telling WH interns he doesn’t know of anything knew that the Trump WH offers to solve the Israel/Palestine problem.
Daily Caller reports that Kellyanne — who is still banned from Morning Joe for lying — may be tapped as the new WH Communications Director.
Lewandowski is fired from One America News Network (OANN) because he’d been moonlighting on Fox News too many times.
GOP lawmakers warn Trump not to sabotage Obamacare — but frankly that’s already is progress.
Rep Trent Franks (R-AZ) says “Mueller is a partisan and should resign” because of his “close friendship with Comey” who used to be his boss which is funny since he’s a registered Republican and so was Comey, but then nobody sane or smart listens to Trent Franks on anything.
GOP Activist Ed Butowski who pushed the Seth Rich conspiracy to the WH and Fox News gets grills on CNN by Chris Cuomo in an incoherent interview.
August 2nd —
Trump signs new Russia Sanctions Bill, includes a signing statement and a personal statement whining about Congress encroaching on executive authority and claims as a former CEO he can negotiate a better deal than Congress that could negotiate a Health Care Bill — which is of course exactly why Congress passed more sanctions.
Iran says these new sanction breaks the Nuclear deal setup by Obama.
Huckabee-Sanders tried to defend Trump’s claims that the Mexican President called to say they were doing such a great job on the border that Mexico was seeing fewer people entering in the hope of reaching the U.S. [although Mexico says they hadn’t called Trump in months] and the Head of the Boy Scouts called to say his speech “was great’ [He denies it too.] She says they did say these things, “it just wasn’t on the phone.”
Tillerson refuses to spend $80 Million in State Dept funds allocated to fight ISIS and Russian media manipulation and propaganda because it might “anger the Kremlin.”
Trump along with Sen Tom Cotton announces changes to Green Card eligibility that focuses on a “merit based” system for high skilled workers which seems to deprioritize petitions for family members, refugees and asylum seekers. [This proposal was submitted back in February and went nowhere then, going nowhere now]
At the same time that Trump publicly tries to the door to “low skilled” immigrants his Department of Homeland Security has increased the cap for H2B Visas per year from 66,000 to 81,000 and that his own companies in including Mar-A-Lago have submitted 76 more applications for low wage foreign workers.
Stephan Miller argues with CNN’s Jim Acosta about the meaning of the Statue of Liberty to justify Trump’s new Green Card plan and uses coded White Supremacist Slurs against him.
Russia responds to the sanctions bill saying that it shows that Trump is “Impotent” and the establishment wants to oust him.
Reports surface that Kremlin backed Sputnik News is the source of the Seth Rich conspiracy theory pushed by Sean Hannity and Fox News, causing them to be sued by Rich’s family.
Congressional investigators call for Don Jr. phone records to see who he talked to in the lead up to his June 6, 2016 meeting with Veselnitskaya. [Possibly Emin Agalarov as indicated by some of the email exchanges]
WSJ reports that U.S Attorney’s have subpoena records from the Kushner companies about their attempts to get Chinese investors special EB-5 Visas using Jared association with Trump.
Former Flynn staffer Erza Cohen-Watnick who provided the “unmasking” documents to Devin Nunez is fired.
Rod Wheeler who filed suit against Fox News over their bogus Seth Rich story says that Trump had inserted phony quotes by Rich.
The crazed conspiracy riddled memo written by NSC staffer Rich Higgins that connects the Muslim Brotherhood to the European Union, “Maoist Insurgents”, “Leftists’ and “Deep State” activists circulates through the WH and for some reason Don Jr. — who doesn’t have a security clearance to receive an NSC memo — is sent a copy, which he forwards to his father who “gushes” over the thing. Then he finds out from Hannity that Higgins had already been fired for writing it.
August 3rd —
Deputy FBI Director McCabe warns top LE officials that they should consider themselves witnesses and their notes evidence in Mueller’s investigation, possibly because of their communications and interactions with Comey as he talked to Trump on the phone.
WaPo publishes leaked transcripts of Trump talking to the President of Mexico and Prime Minister of Australia back in January which reveal that he’s repeatedly and knowingly lied about “Mexico paying for the wall” and begged not to be outed.
Audio of Scarmucci’s profane phone call with Ryan Lizza is released.
Fox News lawyers up over Seth Rich suit.
Former CIA agents pen a NYTimes op-ed on Trump’s response to Russia “Innocent people don’t behave this way.”
Wapo reports that the Secret Service has moved out of Trump Tower over a rental dispute with Trump’s Companies, their command post is now in a trailer parked on the sidewalk.
Kellyanne says Russia hacking our political and voter registration systems to help Trump get elected isn’t a “matter of national security.”
Hannity flips when he discovers a report from Bloomberg that NSA Director McMaster has granted his predecessor Susan Rice a lifetime Security Clearance — which is the normal custom — because he say “she did nothing wrong with any unmasking of Trump officials” confirming the previously findings of the House Intel Committee, except for Devin Nunez.
Trump Vacation Day count after 7 Months surpasses the number of vacation days taken by Obama in his full 8 years.
Trump plans 17-day “working vacation” in New Jersey while the WH is renovated. His neighbors are not overjoyed with all of his security.
Michael Flynn amends his financial disclosure forms to include funds received from a tech company, SCL Group which has ties to Cambridg-Analytica and whose CEO used “dirty Tricks” to support Trump and the Brexit Vote, he also includes consulting work for NIK Holdings who had attempted to donate $100,000 under the table for former Sen. Norm Coleman before he was defeated by Al Franken.
Glenn Thrush at NYTimes reports that Kelly fired Cohen-Watnick to show his authority over Bannon and Kushner.
WSJ reports that Mueller has empaneled a Grand Jury which is issuing subpeonas related to Don Jr.’s meeting with Veselnitskaya and financial ties between TrumpCo and Russia, this is in addition to the already existing Grand Jury that is looking into Michael Flynn.
Sen. Jeff Flake warns that firing Mueller could cause Congress to turn against Trump.
Sen Tillis and Coons introduce legislation to protect Mueller from being unjustifiably fired by Trump without judicial review.
August 4th —
Spicer says “No” to Dancing With the Stars.
Mark Warner the ranking Dem on Senate Intel calls for an investigation into leak of transcripts of Trump’s conversations with President of Mexico and Prime Minister of Australia.
CNN reports that Carter Page has been under FISA surveillance and suspected of being a foreign agent since 2014.
During a West Virginia rally Trump calls the Russia investigation a “total fabrication” and argues the Special Counsel should “go after why Clinton deleted 33,000 emails” which the FBI already investigated and found completely legal.
CNN reports that Intel intercepts of suspected Russian operatives during summer of 2016 discussed Manafort asking for help with damaging Clinton’s campaign.
August 5th —
Alt-Right and Russia-Bots begin relentless attacking NSA chief McMaster arguing that he should be fired for something or the other. Daily Beast reports that this is apparently payback from Bannon for the firing of Cohen-Watnick and Col. Darek Harvey.
CNN reports that Mueller’s investigation is likely to first focus on Trump’s financial crimes as they have the strongest path to prosecution.
Fox’s Eric Bolling is suspended for sexual harrassment.
Painter says if you placed lie detector on Huckabee-Sanders podium “It would light up like a disco!”
New polls indicate Trump support has dropped to just 33%, and that he’s losing White Non-College educated voters where he now stands underwater at 43% approval to 50% disapproval — a drop of 10 points since June, and 23 points since the election.
Minnesota mosque is firebombed in an apparent act of terrorism, no casualties are reported. WH says nothing.
August 6th —
CNN says McEnany quit to join Trump’s Fake “Real” News channel.
Sen. Jeff Flake says he wished the GOP had stood up against birtherism. [Which they didn't, with the notable exception of John McCain they generally took advantage and pandered to it just like Kushner said Trump did.]
Trump says he “working hard” on his vacation — but his schedule is blank.
August 7th —
Sen. Blumenthal goes on CNN and explains the new bill to protect Mueller from being fired, and Trump — who says he “not watching tv” while on his work-cation — immediately goes on a tweet storm attacking Blumenthal for saying he served in Vietnam, when his actual Marine service was in the U.S. during Vietnam. Since Trump never served due to “bone spurs” Vets call him a “Chicken Hawk piece of trash.”
Wapo reports that while requesting H2B visas for 70 more foreign employees Mar-A-Lago barely put out a couple of local ads which didn’t include a phone # or email, only a fax, for U.S. workers to be hired.
Sen. Blumenthal snaps back at Trump over his Vietnam service slurs. “ I will not be bullied.”
Chicago sues Trump over his threat to pull funds from “sanctuary cities.”
Right-Wing Militias align with GOP officials under Trump.
McEnany gets Spicer’s old job as RNC national spokesperson.
August 8th —
Alex Jones hosts Russian ultra-nationalist on program about firing McMaster.
Ex-CIA agent Daniel Hoffman states that Putin probably left a paper trail from Trump Tower to the Kremlin.
Staffers for Devin Nunez appear to be staging a stealth investigation of Christopher Steele.
Trump pays one of his staffers $89k/year just to look up positive news about him and provide it in a 20 page “propaganda report” twice a day.
Jared Kushner failed to disclose that he holds a stake in his brother’s health insurance company which had paid lobbyists to fight the repeal of Obamacare.
Trump tweets out classified information revealed by annonymous sources on Fox & Friends about North Korean Missile movements.
Trump’s support among GOP voters drops by 14 points.
Russian bots and trolls begin attacking Republicans including the House Speaker with #ResignPaulRyan campaign.
Wapo reports that North Korea now has a miniturized nuclear device that can fit on a missile, Trump says if they threaten us again they will met with “Fire and Fury that the world has never seen.” North Korea responds by threatening to attack Guam. No “Fire or Fury” appears.
August 9th —
WaPo reports that the FBI staged a pre-dawn raid of Manafort’s residence in July, which continues to suggest Mueller is attempting to flip Manafort, only now the hard way.
National Enquirer publishes a hit piece on Manafort (one hour after the Wapo report on the search warrant raid) that alleges that he was involved in a “sick sex scandal” with women much younger than his wife.
Trump campaign hands over 20,000 pages of documents to Senate Judiciary on their efforts to find negative information on Hillary Clinton.
WH aid Gorka says silence on mosque bombing is justified because he says it may be been a faked hate crime by Liberals, which frankly I would expect would make Huckabee-Sander’s and her resting scowl face crack a smile.
Politico reports that Federal investigators had approached Manafort’s son in law in order to get a better “read” on his mindset.
August 10th —
Reports indicate that Manafort had already told congressional investigators about the Don Jr/Veselnitskaya meeting before his house was raided by the FBI.
CNN finally fires Jeffrey Lord over a Nazi “Seig Heil” tweet at Media Matters Angelo Carusone arguing that they are a “fascist” site that seeks to curtail free speech, when in fact all they do is document what right-wingers say without much comment.
Trump thanks Putin for kicking 755 of our Diplomats, “Now we have a smaller payroll” and doubles down on his “Fire and Fury” nonsense, “Maybe that was too soft.” And threatens military action in Venezuela.
August 11th —
Rachel Maddow reports that a 1980 audit of Trump finances found he failed to pay $2.8 Million to the City of New York in a deal to avoid paying $150 Million in property taxes.
Fancy Bear hacker group begins targeting Hotel guests using unsecured wifi.
WH says Trump was being “sarcastic” about the smaller payroll for Diplomats in Russia, but then he says it again.
Senate Judiciary demands info on Kushner’s relationship with Russia and an explanation for the gaps on his SF86 security form.
Neo-Nazi protesters get into melee at U of VA over removal of statue to Robert E. Lee.
Rinat Akhmetshin testifies for several hours to the Mueller Grand Jury.
August 12th —
Alt-Right Neo-Nazi Protest in Charlottesville VA erupts in more violence. Deandre Harris is beaten bloody, a car driven my James Fields Jr. smashes into a crowd of counter-protesters killing Heather Heyer and injuring 19 others.
David Duke says the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” protest fulfills the promises of Donald Trump.
August 13th —
Trump gives a rambling confused statement on Charlottesville that talks about violence “on many sides” and never mentions white supremacist or neo-Nazis.
Washington Post reports Trump staffer George Papadopoulos repeatedly offered to set up “a meeting between us and the Russian leadership to discuss US-Russia ties under President Trump,” “Putin wants to host the Trump team when the time is right,” Papadopoulos wrote in an email to former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski on April 27, 2016. He also told Lewamdowski he had fielded “a lot of calls over the past month” related to a meeting between the Trump campaign and Russia. “Russia has been eager to meet with Mr. Trump for some time and have been reaching out to me to discuss,” Papadopoulos said in a separate email to former campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
August 14th —
Trump gives his “hostage video” speech where he finally condemns neo-Nazis, but then attacks African-American CEO of Merck for quitting his business advisory council on twitter.
Reports surface the Homeland security had issued a warning about Neo-Nazis and White Supremacist back in May.
Politico reporrs the Obama administration had many warnings between 2014 and 2016 that Russia was stepping up its intelligence operations to build propaganda networks.
North Korea calls off it’s missiles test targeting Guam.
Michael Cohen’s atty writes a letter to Congress vehemently denying his involvement in colluding between Trump and Russia as described in the Steele dossier — even though he had been directly involved in writing to the Russian government during the campaign to restart the Trump Tower Moscow project.
August 15th —
Kushner faces lawsuit for over charging rent in NYC.
Trump retweets meme of a train running over a CNN reporter.
Trump angrily argues during an Infrastructure Press Briefing that “Both Sides” were at fault in Charlottesville violence and stuns much of the GOP who quickly criticize his comments. He claims that if Gen. Lee and Stonwall Jackson statues have to come down so do monuments to Washington and Jefferson since they were slave owners, although they never attacked and waged war against America over it, they fought Britain to increase freedom, not decrease it and thus his real White-Power bona fides are finally revealed and confirmed.
August 16th —
NYTimes reports about 3 hackers whose work may have been used without their knowledge to attack the DNC.
ABC News reports that Peter Stroz former head of FBI Counterterrorism quits the Mueller investigation team.
Internal reports disprove claims of “Turmoil” inside the FBI prior to Comey firing.
Newsweek reports that in 1985 the Australian government rejected a bid for a Trump Casino in Sydney because of his alleged ties to the mafia.
4 CEOs defect in protest from Trump’s business council over his pro-Confederate comments, so he shuts both his business councils down in frustration.
Bannon gives a grandstanding football spike of an interview to the NYTimes claiming the more the Left talks about Racism, the more we Win. “I want them to talk about Racism everyday.” He also basically claims he’s running the White House from behind the scenes, which I’m sure is news to Kelly and also, Trump.
Jack Tapper tweets that at least two journalists were attacked by anti-Nazi counter protestors in Charlottesville, one of whom required stitches.
Rep. Jackie Spiere calls for Trump to be ousted using the 25th Amendment.
Both Bush Presidents denounce Trump’s neo-Nazi support.
Heather Heyer’s mother scorns bigots at her funeral.
August 17th —
The Spectator reports that Felix Sater — who helped sell many Trump properties to various Russians through his former real estate firm Bayrock — may have flipped for the FBI again and that he has said the both he and Trump “are going to prison.”
Cantwell states emphatically that he’s “Not a coward.” No one is impressed, particularly not PayPal and Ok, Cupid who cut him off for life.
Sen Bob Corker (R-TN) says in response to Trump Charlottesville comments: “The president has not yet been able to demonstrate the stability nor some of the competence that he needs to demonstrate in order to be successful,”
UVA Librarian Tyler McGill suffers a stroke from being struck in the neck with a Tiki Torch by Unite the Right protestors.
Foreign Policy reports that Wikileaks refused to receive or publish 68 Gig of negative data on the operations of the Kremlin.
Buzzfeed reports that Trump is furious that “Bannon is taking credit for my election.”
A Van strikes 50 people in Barcelona, 13 are killed. 2 suspects are taken into custody but no information about them or their motive is released immediately.
Trump tweets in support of “beautiful Confederate Statues” and decrying “Terrorism in Barcelona” then later endorsed a questionable internet rumor that a U.S. General in the Philippines committed the War Crime of mass executions using bullets laced with pigs blood to deter terrorists, when in actuality he sat down with Muslims, ate their food, learned their language, customs and read the Koran with them. CNN’s Jake Tapper says “He just suggested we should study a lie.” But he still hasn’t said anything about the firebombing of a mosque in Minnesota, the car crashed into a crowd near a mosque in London or the machete attack against Democrats in Kentucky.
Mike Huckabee says if you take down Robert E. Lee, you have to take down Mt. Rushmore.
With “Infrastructure Week” not quite complete, Trump gives up on his infrastructure council.
August 18th —
Steve Bannon is Fired and quickly reports surface here’s going to take Breitbart to Defcon1 Thermonuclear Global War against Trump. Cue the Russia Bots of Doom. Subsequent reports say that he intends to use Brietbart to go to War with Trump’s enemies — which now, is just about everyone.
Also a former friend and aide of Preibus, George Sifakis, leaves the WH.
Buzzfeed reports that Mueller’s investigation is now targeting Donald Jr concerning his meeting with Veselnitskaya and Akhmetshin.
Reports surface that besides Bayrock’s Tefvik Arik Trump has financial links to post-Soviet era oligarch Mukhtar Ablyazov, who had been charged with stealing between $4-$10 Billion from Kazakhstan’s largest banks through loans and shell companies and had been working with Trump on 2 Tower projects in (former soviet) Georgia through a company run by Michael Cohen. The same report also notes the connection of oligarch Alexander Shnaider, who has mob ties, and had been involved in the Toronto Trump Tower deal.
16 out of 17 members of Trump’s Arts Council resign en mass in protest of Trump comments about Charlottesville. He says “Nah ah, I QUIT YOU”, they say “No, We quit you first!”
Heather Heyer’s mother Susan Bro refuses to speak with Trump in protest of his comments on Charlottesville, while Mitt Romney calls for him to apologize. He doesn’t.
7 Charities have cancelled fundraisers scheduled to be held at Mar-a-Lago.
Charlottesville Police issue arrest warrant for Chris Cantwell for illegal use of gases and injury by caustic agent or explosive,
ISIS reportedly takes credit for the Barcelona Van attack which Spain authorities say involved 12 people, 4 are in custody and 5 had been killed in a police raid.
August 19th —
Carl Ichann resigns from his position as an informal Trump advisor allegedly because of his Charlottesville comments. But this happens admit rumors that he made $60 Million by advising Trump to cut prices on a regulatory devicethat he’d been short selling for months.
The cancelled Mar-a-Lago charity list grows to 16.
Trump announces that he will not attend the Kennedy Center Honors with Norman Lear, Gloria Estaban, Lionel Richie & LL Kool J so as not to create a “Political Distraction.”
Robert E. Lee biographer says Lee would have wanted all the Confederate statues torn down.
Trump condemns anti-violence protestors as being “anti-police agitators” and then commends the cops.
August 20th —
ADL says the “Violent Alt-Left” is a Right-Wing media lie.
Bannon’s Breitbart attacks McMaster as a “Koran kissing Muslim sympathizer”for his endorsing use of a military manual on showing respect for Islam and how not to inflame tensions.
Congressional Democrats begin to question if “Trump is mentally Ill?”
Jesse Waters says removing Confederate monuments is a plot to help make people forget that “Democrats enslaved Blacks” which is technically true but they were also southern Conservative Democrats — Dixiecrats — who’ve all become Republicans or Independents since then.
Jerry Falwell Jr defends Trump’s “fine Nazi people” and “bad counter-protestors” claims saying he has “inside knowledge” although Trump claimed that all the media saw the same videos that he did. Close examination of Videos from protest shows they’re wrong.
Dick Gregory Dies.
August 21st —
Trump showing his usual level of sociopathic empathy deficit disorder responds to the crash of the U.S.S. McCain which injured five sailors and where ten remain missing with “That’s too bad.”
Paul Ryan holds a CNN Town hall and gives a weak tepid condemnation of Trump’s statements on Charlottesville — Tapper says it “Wasn’t morally ambiguous, it’s was Morally Wrong.”
Virginia State Attorney issues four warrants for Christopher Cantwell.
The U.S experiences it’s first total solar eclipse in 38 years, Shep Smith freaks the heck out. Trump stares into the Sun without glasses — “Finally, he establishes a Blind Trust.”
North Korea releases fake propaganda videos of their missiles hitting Guam.
Rep. Bryan Zollinger (R-ID) claims that Obama may have “staged the Charlottesville riots.” [Facepalm!]
“Art of the Deal” Ghost writer Tony Schwatz gets a loud racist voicemailcriticizing him for saying Trump “will resign.”
Katrina Peirson — yes, she’s still here — goes ballistic on Fox claiming “Slavery is an example of how special and wonderful this country is.” [Uh, er, what?]
NYTimes reports that Akhmetshin has close ties to the FSB and Putin, had helped Russian oligarchs using sophisticated cyber hacks for their benefit, helped unmask corruption at a Krygystan Air Force base which Russia wanted purged of U.S. personnel, and got Federal prosecutors to file charges against an American businessman who happened to be a CIA operative working in Russia.
USA Today reports that Trump’s extended family and their extensive travel is draining the resources of the Secret Service Dry.
Treasury Sec Mnunchin uses a government plane to fly to visit Fort Knox as an excuse to view the Solar exclispe at 95% totally, he also brings Mitch McConnel
August 22nd —
ABC News reports that Christopher Steele met with and has given the FBI the names and contact information for the sources of his Trump/Russia dossier.
CNN reports that Glenn Simpson, partner with Fusion GPS the oppo research team that had contracted with Steele to produce his dossier, has testified for 10 hours before Senate Judiciary behind closed doors. Fusion also provided 40,000 pages of documents to the committee.
At his Phoenix rally Trump attacks the media as “Fake” while misquoting his own statements about Charlottesville and his “unequivocal” condemnation of White Supremacy, except for the “Good Ones” and the BLM/Antifa “Chargers” which he doesn’t bring up this time. He hints at pardoning ex-Sheriff Joe Arpaio who was convicted of violating a court order to stop his deputies from profiling, targeting and discriminating against Latinos. He claims the media won’t show the size of his crowd, but they do, and he claims the protestors outside are only a few, but they aren’t. And he leads a chant calling for the death of John McCain.
Police and Protestors lob bottles, bricks and tear gas back and forth at each other during and after Trump’s rally, no injuries are reported.
CNN responds to Trump’s attack and begins to say he sounds “unhinged.” Don Lemon says “His speech was without thought, without reason, devoid of facts, devoid of wisdom,”
NYTimes reports that Trump’s relationship with Mitch McConnell has deteriorated down to explicative filled phone calls over Trumpcare’s failure and the continued Russia probes in congress.
Trump’s airwar against ISIS passes the civilian death toll of Obama’s entire Presidency.
Trump’s pick to protect U.S. workers from abuse as Deputy Secretary of Labor is a former lobbyists for forced abortion sweatshops.[Oh, lordy!]
Alex Jones suggest reparations for White People. [Yes, really]
McClatchy reports that Mueller’s investigators may have found that Manafort may have received between $80-$100 Million from Russian and Ukrainian Oligarchs over the past decade.
Trump gives a speech on his new Afghanistan policy, which is basically more war, more killing, no end in sight and no nation building. [Which is different from the last 17 years before this how exactly? Oh yeah, no “dates certain.”]
A rabidily racist Trump supporter — the same one who called Tony Schwartz — leaves a vicious bigoted message for CEO Ravin Ghandi — who has Indian heritage but was born in the U.S. — because he is one of the CEOs who left one of Trump’s economic councils.
August 23rd —
Armed man slashes tarp on Charlottesville monument and says Heather Heyer died ‘playing in traffic’ [Nope, you can’t make this ish up.]
Grassley says he will have the Judiciary committee to vote on releasing the testimony from Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS on the Steele Dossier.
Shep Smith calls out Trump for trying to “rewrite history” with his Pheonix speech. [Don’t you know he’s been doing that since he rode down the escalator in Trump Tower?]
Pro-Russia social media cyberbots begin to amplify rightwing rhetoric over Charlottesville claiming ““Dems and Media Continue to IGNORE BLM and Antifa Violence in Charlottesville” except there really wasn’t any to ignore. Did any neo-Nazis go to the Hospital? Nope.
Cantwell, who is still in hiding from Charlottesville PD, reveals that his attorney has ditched him.
James Clapper questions Trump’s “mental fitness” to be President after his Arizona speech.
Kushner heads to Israel to try again for a peace deal after things went so “well” last time, which they didn’t.
Michigan Senate candidate Kid Rock curses Colin Kaepernick, because that’s just what wannabe government leaders do.
Scarborough asks “Who are these people?” in Trump’s crowd calling for John McCain’s death? [Arizona GOP voters?]
Politico reports that Trump is so obsessed with the Russia investigation and the bill to protect Mueller from being wrongfully fired that he’s calling GOP Senators to scream and curse at them and can’t keep focused on day to day business.
CNN reports that Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff Rick Dearborn last June when he was an advisor to the Trump campaign and Jeff Session’s Chief of staff had sent an email to Corey Lowendowski about someone nicked name “WV” trying to arrange a meeting between Trump and members of the Russian government including Putin at about the same time as Don Jr.’s meeting with Veselnitskaya. This is the second staffer in addition to NatSec advisor George Papadopoulos who had also tried to set up this kind of meeting last April according Trump campaign emails given to congress.
Cantwell turns himself in to police, judge denies bail.
Trump calls Clapper “a liar” for his mental fitness comments via — guess what — twitter. He also slams Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell over the debt ceiling vote, which hasn’t even happened yet.
Dems, rising from their long slumber, try to defund Trump’s Voter Fraud Commission.
CNN locates and interviews former Russian ambassador Kislyak on the streets of Moscow, he says that the allegations that he’s a “Spymaster” is “nonsense”. He says that the future of US/Russians relations will be “difficult.” And that sanctions and tensions will make it hard to resume a normalcy in our relationship.
Politico reports that Trump has been repeatedly and angrily calling up GOP Senators such as Bob Corker and Thom Tillus to complain about bills he doesn’t like such as the Russia sanctions and Mueller protection legislation.
August 24th —
Trump pardons ex-Sherrif Arpaio for his contempt of court conviction for refusing to stop discriminating against latino citizens. This he does despite — or perhaps because of — his history of racial discrimination and targeting of Latinos for arrest and detention, the horrific conditions in his “concentration camp” jails which have led to record suicides and in custody deaths, his attempts to intimidate and wrongfully arrest journalist and politicians who criticize him with bogus trumped up charges. Also he’s a birther, like Trump.
Hungarian Nazi Badge wearer Sebastian Gorka resigns from the WH amid rumors of his anti-Semetism.
Reports are that Meuller is investigating how involved Flynn, his son and his consulting firm were with Robert W. Smith’s attempts to aquire Hillary emails from Russian hackers. He also issues subpeonas for 6 PR firms which had worked for Flynn and Manafort.
Reports are that in 2007 Trump said “This is the first he’s heard...” that his employee Felix Sater was convicted of fraud in 1998.
.WH advisor Gary Cohn wrotes a resignation letter because of Trump’s support for anti-Semitic Neo-Nazis who chanted “Jews will not replace us” in Charlottesville, but he doesn’t hand it in. Mnunchin say’s “Gary is excited to be working here.”
Trump’s approval rating per Gallup drops to just 34%.
Ex White Nationalists confirms that Trump is using the same slippery bigoted dog whistle rhetoric that helped recruit them into hate groups.
August 25th —
Gorka says he didn’t resign from the WH, but yet, he’s still out.
Richard Painter blasts Arpaio as “One of the worst” law enforcement officers in the country,
Paul Begala argues that the Arpaio pardon is a signal to Mueller’s targets, Flynn, Manafort, Kushner and Donald Jr, that Trump will protect them if they face charges.
Ana Navarro links Trump’s Charlottesville comments to his support for racists like Gorka and Arpaio because, yeah, that makes sense.
NYTimes reports that Trump has cancelled an Obama era program to increase public works projects at the Department of Transportation. [So much for “American jobs” and “Infrastructure”]
Bannon vows to bring down Mitch McConnell “I’m going to light him up.”
Trump slaps sanctions on Venezuela because of their “Dictatorship” — which is totally unlike his pals Putin or Duterte.
August 26th —
Sen. Blumenthal states that Mueller targets shouldn’t expect pardons from Trump, “His loyalty is limited.” [Not even with Jared?]
Paul Ryan says the Arpaio pardon “is wrong.” [Yeah, no kidding, eh?]
Charlottesville police arrests neo-Nazis involved in the attack on Deandre Harris.
Trump international Gold Club in Dubai is refusing to pay it’s migrant workers from Pakistan on time.
I’ll tell you, when you actually lay it out all out item by item in chronological order a lot of patterns and actions/reactions become eminently clear. WIthout getting into classified or confidential data that isn’t yet public knowledge, what is public knowledge is already fairly stunning.
[This timeline has been continued with Vol#2 and Vol#3 due to length]
1985 — Australian government rejects a bid for a Trump Casino in Sydney because of his alleged ties to the mafia.
1986 — Trump attempts to gain a posting to Russia as part of the Reagan Administration and says he could sit down with Gorbechev to negotiate an end to the cold war “in an hour.”
1990 — Trump’s Taj Mahal casino, which is a favorite gambling spot for Russian mobsters living in Brooklyn, is cited 106 times in 18 months for violating money laundering rules, particular failing to report when someone wins and withdraws more then $10,000.
1991 — Taj Mahal files for bankrupcy protection, Trump sells his 50% share. After this and his other Casino bankruptcies most major banks no longer authorize loans to the Trump organization.
1998 -- Felix Sater a Russian born violent convict with ties to the Russian Mob — who are frequently used by Russian intelligence to do their dirty work and fund blackbag operations — gets caught up in a $40 Million stock fraud case but is only fined $35,000 in exchange for becoming an FBI informant.
2000 — Former KGB Agent Alexander Litvinenko defects to Britain.
GAO does analysis of Russian-American oligarch Ike Kaveladze and his involvement in starting 2000 shell companies which could be involved in money laundering.
2001-2007 — At least 63 Russian Oligarchs lease, rent or buy various Trump propertetes in South Florida spending upwards of $98.5 Million on them, many of these deals with Russian nationals in Manhattan reportedly are arranged through Bayrock Group LLC whose offices are located on the 24th floor of Trump Tower. Felix Sater becomes Bayrock’s managing director. Their first joint project together, in 2003, is building a Trump Tower in Phoenix.
2005 — TrumpCo puts together it’s first proposal for Trump Tower Moscow in coordination with BayRock LLC.
2006 — Alexander Litvinenko is poisoned by Polonium-210 and slowly dies of radiation sickness, he points to Putin as being behind his murder before he dies. His case officer with MI-6 is Christopher Steele.
2008 —Trump sells a Palm Beach Mansion to a Russian Oligarch for $95 Million after purchasing it just 2 years previously for only $45 Million.
Donald Jr. states “We get a lot to money from Russia.”
Felix Sater leaves Bayrock after his criminal record is revealed and goes to work for Trump.
Bayrock founder Tefvik Arif is busted and prosecuted for his connection to an underage prostitution ring in Turkey, he is eventually acquitted.
2009 — U.S. investor Bill Browder is expelled from Russia and his assets are used to setup a $230 Million tax rebate scam. Browder’s lawyer Sergei Magnitski discovers the scam and testifies to reveal it, he is subsequently arrested, tortured and murdered in a Russian jail, beaten to death by the guards.
2010 — A racketeering case is filed against Bayrock, Sater and Arif alleging they had been “substantially and covertly mob-owned and operated.”
2011 — Trump Soho a joint venture condo project by TrumpCO and Bayrock is sued for defrauding buyers with inflated claims. The suit is settled with a payout of $3.19 Million and a potential criminal case is avoided.
March 2011 — Trump begins his birther campaign against President Obama claiming there’s something wrong with his birth certificate. He also demands Obama's college transcripts alleging he didn't deserve access to Harvard, and claims that his best selling book “Dreams From My Father" was really ghostwritten by Bill Ayers.
May 2011 --
Obama authorizes the Bin Laden Raid, then attends the White House Correspondents dinner, Donald Trump is in the audience.
Obama reveals his long-form birth certificate and takes a couple shots at Donald, but Seth Myer brutalizes him from behind the podium. Myer's theorizes Trump decided to run for President right then and there in retaliation.
2012 — Obama signs the Magnitski Act following the jail house death of Sergey Magnitski after he was wrongfully imprisoned for investigation Russia corruption and laundering of money stolen from American businessmen Bill Browder. Putin responds by cancelling the adoption of Russian orphans by American parents. This act is strongly supported by Russian opposition leaders Boris Nemtsov and Vladimir Kara-Murza.
Exxon signs a $500 Billion deal with Russian Oil giant Rosneft for drilling in the Black sea.
2013 —
Russian mobsters renting property in Trump Tower just three floors below the penthouse suite are arrested for money laundering and running an illegal gambling ring at the end of a 2 year investigation. One of the attorney’s for the defendant Denys Katsyv of the Prevezon Group is Natalia Veselnitskaya, and the prosecutor is Preet Bharara, some of the stolen money is connected to Bill Browder’s investigation and the murder of Magnitski in Russia.
Several months later Trump holds the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow, the apparent money-laundering ring leader who remains at large is welcomed on the Red Carpet at the event. While in Moscow Trump reportedly meets with several high ranking oligarchs with ties to Putin, including Billionaire Russian Real Estate developer Arag Agalarov and his Pop Star son Emil who partners with Trump on the pageant.
Video shot before the pageant shows Trump at dinner with Emin and Aras Agalarov, as well as Rob Goldstone Emin’s promoter. Michael Isakoff talks to Goldstone who reveals that Trump has plans to license a new Trump Tower in Russia with Agalarov as the local builder/owner. Don jr. is in charge of the project and Ivanka goes on location scouting trips with Emin. Ike Kaveladze who works for the Agalarov family is also present.
2014 —
Michael Flynn is fired by the Obama administration as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency for his “odd behavior.”
Eric Trump says in an interview when discussing the funding of Trump Golf courses “Well, we don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia.” Eric later denies making this statement.
Bayrock is functionally inactive, except for a few outstanding lawsuits.
Putin releases ***** Riot from prison for shooting a Punk Rock video in a Church.
The Winter Olympics takes place in Sochi, Russia.
Russia invades Crimea and begins sending Troops and equipment in the Ukraine to destabilize the Country, Obama rallies the international community to place Sanctions on Russia which crush their economy — plans for the Rosneft/Exxon deal and Trump Tower Russia are both put on hold.
2015 —Trump and his kids are named as witnesses in a $250 Million tax evasion case connected to Bayrock and Trump Soho.
Michael Flynn goes to Russia, meets and sits with Putin for dinner and is paid $45,000 for a speech at RT's 10th Anniversary Gala. He also receives $11,250 from Kaspersky Government Security Solutions, and $11,250 from Volga-Dnepr Airlines. He doesn't get prior permission from the Pentagon for this trip or the payments.
Taj Mahal is fined $10 Million for continued money laundering by Treasury’s FinCen unit.
Boris Nemtsov is murdered in the streets of Moscow in the shadow of the Kremlin.
U.S. intel captures discussion by Russians about Trump running for President, when he hasn’t announced his run yet, and talking about multiple contacts they’ve been having with Trump associates and planning to funnel money into the election.
June 17, 2015 -- Trump announces his run for President. He never releases his Taxes, his birth certificate or his school transcripts.
Summer 2015 —Cyber hacking contractors working with the FSB (Cozy Bear) begin infiltrating and extracting copies of documents including the oppo-research on Trump and emails from the DNC servers. Their previous successful attacks include the White House and State Dept. email systems.
They also penetrate some RNC emails accounts and attack various Republicans who oppose Trump in the primaries.
September 2015 — FBI detects the hack and begins trying to inform the DNC, but they start by going to their Help desk not simply calling Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.
November 2015 — Felix Sater emails Michael Cohen saying “I will get Putin on this program and we will get Donald elected... I know how to play it and how to get this done. Buddy, our boy can become president of the USA and we can engineer it... I will get all of Putin’s team to buy in on this, I will manage this process.”
Late 2015 — GCHQ and other western intel agencies from Germany, Poland, Estonia and Australia begin noticing contacts between Russia Spies and members of the Trump campaign. They attempt to notify FBI and CIA who are apparently caught "flat footed.”
January 2016 — Michael Cohen send an email to Putin deputy Dmitry Peskov trying to get talks regarding Trump Tower Moscow restarted.
March 2016 -— US Attorney Preet Bharara prosecutes Russian intelligence officer Evgeny Buryakov an employee of sanctioned Russia bank Vnesheconombank (VEB) of conspiracy to commit espionage in recruiting U.S Businessmen in Manhattan including Carter Page. Page had been cooperating in this investigation as an informant.
FBI receives memo alleging collusion between Loretta Lynch and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz to quash the Clinton email investigation — they believe this document is fake.
March 16, 2016 -— John Podesta receives a spearfishing email, his IT people mistakenly tell him that it’s “Legitimate” and his assistant clicks on the link and gives up his password compromising his account.
March 21, 2016 —Trump lists Carter Page & George Papadopoulis as part of his foreign policy team.
March 24, 2016 — Papadopoulis writes an email offering to set up “a meeting between us and the Russian leadership to discuss US-Russia ties under President Trump,” telling them his Russian contacts welcomed the opportunity.
March 28, 2016 —Trump hires Paul Manafort to handle the delegate process on his campaign.
April 2016 — GRU Russian military intelligence also attacks the DNC systems with Fancy Bear. The DNC discovers the intrusion and calls in cyber security firm Crowdstrike to address it, they discover both intrusions, briefly monitor them to confirm their ID, then shut them down.
About this time Paul Manafort — former advisor to Putin friendly ex-Ukrainian President Yanakovych who has a close associate with links to the GRU, and who had previous been paid $Millions to allegedy secretly promote Putin’s agenda by Russian aluminum oligarch Oleg Deripaska — becomes Trump campaign chairman.
The Kremlin gives Rep. Dana Rohrabacher instructions to stage a “show trial” in Congress attacking Bill Browder in order to alter the Magnitski Act sanctions on Russia. Rohrabacher is provided a Russian propaganda film against Browder by the Russian Prosecutor Generals Office run by Yuri Chaika, the same person who had jailed Magnitski.
April 27, 2016 -Trump gives his first major foreign policy speech at an event that had been largely arranged by Jeff Sessions Chief of Staff Rick Dearborn, Russian ambassador Kislyak is invited as a special guest, both Trump and Session briefly meet with him at a backstage reception before the speech at the Mayflower Hotel.
Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos writes in an email to campaign manager Corey Lewandowsk he had fielded “a lot of calls over the past month” related to a meeting between the Trump campaign and Russia. “Russia has been eager to meet with Mr. Trump for some time and have been reaching out to me to discuss,” Papadopoulos says in a separate email to Paul Manafort.
May 2016 — US surveillance operations detects Russian Spies vowing to “Get Hillary Clinton” in retaliation for her criticism of Putin’s last election. A GRU Officer is recorded saying they are “getting ready to pay Clinton back for what President Vladimir Putin believed was an influence operation she had run against him five years earlier as Secretary of State”
They also detect them bragging that they have good ties to Michael Flynn and may be able to use him to “influence" Trump.
Obama admin attempts to limit classified information to Flynn.
Russian spies attempt to cultivate Carter Page as an asset, yet again!
FBI obtains a FISA warrant to monitor Page’s communications and possibly on a Trump server in Pennsylvania which keeps being oddly pinged by a server owned by Russia’s Alfa Bank and another owned by the DeVos companies.
Trump backs Brexit says “England is better off without the EU.”
Paul Manafort meets with his assistant from the Ukraine Konstantin Kilimnik, who has alleged ties to the GRU.
Trump releases an attack ad on Hillary claiming she’s “too close to Putin”, WaPo considers if the “Bromance” between Trump and Putin is over? But still Politico reports that Trump is “Putin’s Candidate.”
June 2016 — Russian Think Tank controlled by Putin publishes a blue print to use cyber bots, trolls and social media to push anti-Clinton/pro-Trump propaganda to help swing the election.
Jeff Sessions Chief of staff Rick Dearborn who is an advisor to the Trump campaign writes an email to Lowendowski noting that he’d received and offer from someone referrenced as “WV” to setup a meeting between Trump officials and Putin.
June 2, 2016 — Hillary gives a major speech criticizing Trump’s closeness to Russia and Putin accusing him of praising “dictators like Vladimir Putin” and having a “bizarre fascination with dictators and strongmen who have no love for America.”
June 3, 2016 — Music Promoter Rob Goldstone emails Don Jr, and says he has information from the Russian Government about shady dealings by Hillary and DNC. Don Jr. says “I Love it” and plans to discuss it further on a phone call and eventually a meeting.
June 7, 2016 — Trump says that he’ll give a major speech about Hillary Clinton’s corruption in a week.
June 9, 2016 —
Donald Jr, Kushner and Manafort secretly meet with a prominent Russia lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya at Trump Tower after being offered “dirt” about the Clinton Campaign and the DNC being funded by Russia. The information comes through their Miss Universe Moscow partner Aras Agalarov via his son’s Emin’s promoter Rob Goldstone who had received it directly from the “Crown Prosecutor” [actually the Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika] of Russia because the Russian Government “supports Trump.” They also discuss the Russian adoption program in the wake of the Magnitski Act, which is a law that blacklists Russian Human Rights violators.
Later that day Donald tweets for the first time about Clinton’s “33,000 missing emails.”
June 12, 2016 — Julian Assange hints that he’s soon release emails linked to Hillary Clinton.
The Pulse Night Club in Orlando is attacked and 49 people are killed by a frustrated gay Muslim man
June 13, 2016 — Trump blames the Pulse attack on Obama’s sympathy with “Radical Islam” and on immigrants even though the shooter was a native born American citizen born in New Hyde Park, NY.
June 14, 2016 -— Wapo Reports that the DNC has been hacked by the Russian government, DNC goes public about the cyber intrusion.
June 15, 2016 — Guccifer 2.0 releases the DNC’s opposition research file on Donald Trump.
Dana Rohrabacher’s scheduled “show trial” hearing on Bill Browder in opposition to the Magnitski Act is cancelled by his committee chairman.
Rep. Kevin McCarthy jokes behind scenes that the only people Putin pays are Rohrabacher and Trump.
June 16, 2016 — Guccifer 2.0 uses DCLeaks to reveal the first set of hacked DNC emails, they have Cyrillic characters and Russian urls in their metadata
June 17, 2016 — Putin says the Trump is a “bright” individual.[Actually the word he used translates more accurately into “Colorful”]
June 20, 2016 — Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski is fired after a controversy where he physically grabbed and yanked a Brietbart reporter away from Trump as she asked a question. At first Corey and the Trump campaign denies it ever happened, but it’s on video — then he claims he would’ve “apologized if he knew she was from Breitbart” but he doesn’t. She files a criminal complaint, but it’s thrown out. He goes to work for CNN while still being paid by Trump.
June 22, 2016 — Trump finally gives his big anti-Clinton speech over a week late, he complains about Benghazi, Free Trade, Temperment and that her “Deleted emails could make her vulnerable to blackmail by hostile states.” He doesn’t mention Russian money going into the DNC.
June 24, 2016 — Brexit Referendum Vote Passes.
Trump is in Scotland for the opening of his Turnberry Golf Course, he says he’s glad Scotland Voted to leave the EU — but they didn’t, England did.
June 27, 2016 — Bill Clinton meets privately with AG Loretta Lynch on her plane at the Pheonix Airport while they are both there during a layover. Reportedly they discuss family, golf and travel, but calls of “obstruction” and “undue influence” — even though there is absolutely no evidence to that effect — eventually cause her to defer any decision on the Clinton email investigation to the FBI.
July 2016 — Business Insider publishes a report on the Kremlin’s Troll army based in St. Petersburg. They pose online as Pro-Trump and Pro-Bernie Americans and incessantly attack Clinton.
Cyber attacks are also made on the DCCC in order to impact House races in Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Ohio, Illinois, New Mexico and North Carolina.
Carter Page travels to Moscow, approved by Trump Natsec advisor JD Gordon and Corey Lewandowski, to give several paid speeches.
Former MI-6 agent Christopher Steele while working on oppo-research for a GOP candidate receives intel that Page also has secret meetings with Russian government oil firm Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin who allegedly offers him broker fees on the sale of 19% of Rosneft stock supposedly as a payoff for influencing Trump to drop sanctions on Russia. Page eventually denies all of this.
Steele begins writing memos to the FBI.
U.S. intel intercepts Russian Operatives discussing a request for “Help damaging Clinton’s campaign” from the Trump campaign which mentions Manafort.
July 5, 2016 — Influenced by false email intel generated by the Russians alleging that AG Lynch was “throwing the Clinton case”, and apparently the fact that she has suggested he called the Clinton situation a “matter” rather than an “investigation” — even though DOJ rules prohibit confirming an investigation before it is complete — FBI Director James Comey after announcing that the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s server is complete and no charges will be filed goes on to blast her in an extended public statement.
July 7, 2016 — Comey testifies to Congress about Hillary’s server and manages to debunk just about every Right-wing conspiracy about it.
July 18-21, 2016 — The Republican National Convention takes place during which Trump National Security Advisor J.D. Gordon torpedoes a platform plank supporting the arming of Ukrainian rebels against pro-Russian forces, then lies about it.
Kislyak attends and briefly meets Sessions again at a Heritage Foundation event, as well as Carter Page and J.D. Gordon.
Flynn delivers a speech at the Republican convention, joining in the crowd’s “Lock her up!” chant. “If I, a guy who knows this business, if I did a tenth of what she did, I would be in jail today”
Mike Pence also chants “Lock Her Up” over Hillary’s emails — even though she’s been cleared already — and he himself has AOL for his email for official business as Governor and his account had been hacked.
Flynn fills out his SF-86 form to reactivate his security clearance related to his being selected by Trump as national security advisor. Flynn fails to include that he had received $530,000 from Turkey or that he had taken another $45,000 from Russia in 2015.
July 22, 2016 — One day after end of RNC Wikileaks reveals their first set of DNC emails.
Russia Today, Sputnik News, Breitbart and other right-wing outlets begin doing incessant stories about every little negative revelation in them as well as numerous false and inflammatory rumors these are further pushed by bots and trolls on facebook and twitter until they trend.
The FBI begin to look into the Russia hack based on information from Crowdstrike, they don’t get direct access to DNC servers presumably as that would cause them to shutdown their entire email capability in middle of an election until a replacement set of servers could be installed [I’ve sent a question to the DNC’s Deputy Communications Director on this point, he hasn’t responded yet].
FBI is also looking into links to Trump due to Steele memos and concerns raised by CIA head Brennan.
July 25, 2016 — Democratic Convention starts, because of the brouhaha from the Wikileaks email dump, Chairman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz resigns and Donna Brazille takes over, RT/Sputnik heightened and amplified rumors swirl about the DNC “rigging the Primary” for Clinton and against Sanders.
July 26, 2016 — Roger Ailes leaves Fox News amid harassment allegations. Trump defends him.
Wapo reporter Sarah Kendzior asks a Kremlin official about the hacking of DNC emails and he refers the issue to Donald Trump Jr.
July 27, 2016 — Trump asks Russia to hack and/or release Hillary’s missing emails.
July 28, 2016 — Sputnik news claims Wikileaks proves the primary and DNC was rigged against Sanders.
July 31, 2016 — Manafort denies that the Trump campaign made any changes to the RNC platform. Various Trump affiliates will repeat these denials 20 more times before finally admitting the truth; Donald personally ordered the change in a meeting with Gordon during the RNC in which Sessions attended. [If this was done as a pay off to Russia to ensure their continued support in their hacking/propaganda efforts, it proves Donald’s direct involvement in a criminal conspiracy.]
August 2016 —Mikail Kalugin who was linked to pension payment scheme by Steele leaves the U.S., and is later confirmed to have been falsely posing as a diplomat while actually being a spy.
Kilminik again travels to the U.S. and meet with Manafort where they allegedly discuss the DNC hack.
CIA Director Brennen sends an “Eyes Only” private note to the WH for Obama and just 3 senior aids which states that “Putin has ordered a cyber attack to defeat or damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign, and elect Donald Trump.”
August 4, 2016 — Brennen calls his counterpart Alexander Bortnikov Director of the FSB and issues him a stern warning about the hacking and active measures.
August 9, 2016 — Flynn Intel Group, a consulting firm founded by Flynn, signs a contract with Inovo BV, a firm run by a Turkish businessman close to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, for more than $500,000
August 16, 2016 — Manafort pushes a false RT/Sputnik News story about terrorist sabotage at a NATO base in Turkey. Trump also pushes the same false story.
August 17, 2016 — Trump receives his first classified briefing. Flynn is with him.
August 19, 2016 — Manafort leaves the Trump campaign amidst allegations that he accepted a $12 Million under-the-table cash payment from his former Putin friendly client, ex-Ukraine President Yanakovych. Pollster Kellyanne Conway, who is a Mercer employee, takes over.
August 21, 2016 -— Trump pal Roger Stone tweets “it will soon be Podesta's time in the barrel.” He later claims he was talking about Podesta’s “business dealings” not his email, although Stone had also been sending DM’s to Guccifer 2.0 the public face of Russia’s cyber hacking operation.
September 2016 — Reports are the Russian hackers have attempted to penetrate the voter registration systems in 20 States, 4 were successfully infiltrated.
GOP consultant Aaron Nevins sends a note to Guccifer 2.0 asking if he has anything on Florida Dems, 10 days later he gets 2.5 Gigabits of stolen DCCC data, which confirms the connection between Kremlin intel & Guccifer.
Roger Stone says on Boston Herald Radio that he expects, "Julian Assange and the Wikileaks people to drop a payload of new documents on a weekly basis fairly soon. And that of course will answer the question of exactly what was erased on that email server."
Obama meets Putin at a summit and personally tells him to “Cut it out” with the hacking.
Obama assembles Congress’s “Gang of 12” and informs them of the Russia hack confidentially and asks for a bipartisan public statement in opposition to the attack. Mitch McConnel refuses as he doubts the veracity of the information, no public statement is issued at this time.
Trump transition chair Chris Christie begins to recommend that Flynn be fired after his erratic behavior during a national security briefing.
FBI offers to pay Christopher Steele to continue his work investigating Trump/Russia links.
Jeff Sessions meets privately with Kislyak at his Senate Offices.
Guccifer 2.0 sends Roger Stone a link to a blog post on manipulating voter turnout.
Ignoring McConnel and other Republicans Sen Feinstein and Rep Schiff issue a joint statement revealing the Russia cyber attack.
One week later McConnell and other Reps issues a tepid statement warning state election boards to remain “secure from attack.”
October 2016 — The Russian Think Tank publishes another paper, this one saying the Clinton is likely to win the election, so the online influence campaign needs to focus on claims that the election was “rigged” or “stolen” due to voter fraud.
Trump starts saying the only way he could lose Pennsylvania is because of “Voter Fraud.” and mentions the information revealed by Wikileaks 164 times over the next month.
The FEC unanimously agrees to prioritize investigations into foreign spending.
Around this time before election day NSA detects that the GRU has launched a set of cyber attacks on state and local election registration systems. Some are penetrated.
Kushner Co receives a $285 Million loan from Duetsche Bank for their Times Square building that was facing charges for not stopping Russian money-laundering on the premesis.
October 4, 2016 — Guccifer 2.0 Post documents stolen from the Clinton Foundation.
October 5, 2016 — Buzzfeed reports that Trump financial attorneys regularly meet with him in pairs so that there would be a witness. “...It’s always been our practice to make sure two people are present, and we don’t have a problem of people lying.” and “We tried to do it with Donald always if we could because Donald says certain things and then has a lack of memory.”
October 6, 2016 — The Access Hollywood Video drops with “Grab ‘em by the *****”. One hour later Wikileaks releases the first set of emails taken from John Podesta’s account. RT and Sputnik News continue to do daily reports as another set of emails is dumped for next 30 days.
October 7, 2016 — Homeland Security and the Director of National Intelligence release a Joint Statement on the Russia Hacking efforts saying it “was directed from the highest levels of the Kremlin.” FBI Director Comey had also originally signed on to this document, but refrained at the last minute due to the closeness of the election.
October 11, 2016 — Trump uses false talking points from RT to blame HIllary for Benghazi
October 21, 2016 — Hillary Clinton states during a debate that 17 Intelligence Agencies have confirmed Russia’s attempt to influence the election. Trump denies it, says “nobody knows” and it could be “China, North Korea or a 300lbs. Fat Guy.” which is also a Sputnik News Talking point.
October 23, 2016 —Christopher Steele, frustrated by the lack of response by the FBI particularly the New York Field Office which he says houses an Anti-Clinton Cabal (aka Trumpland), contacts David Corn of Motherjones who writes that “Russian spies have been attempting to cultivate Trump as an asset for 5 years.”
FBI rescinds their job offer to Steele.
Eventually with the help of the British Ambassador to Russia, his dossier of memos are passed to John McCain who physically gives a copy to James Comey.
October 26, 2016 — James Comey writes a letter to congress about the Abedin emails found on Anthony Weiner’s laptop several weeks earlier — it gets leaked almost immediately, presumably by Jason Chaffetz’s office. All hell breaks lose, Clinton drops 3-5% in the polls.
October 27, 2016 — Rudy Giuliani admits on Fox that he knew about the Comey letter from “former FBI agents” before it was sent to Congres and leaked.
October 30, 2016 — FBI obtains a warrant to review the Abedin emails.
November 6, 2016 — FBI finds that virtually all of the Abedin emails are duplicates that they already had in their possession from the Clinton server.
November 7, 2016 — 19.5% of Rosneft is sold to unknown buyers. [This seem to be consistent with the Steele Memo which predicted this sale as an payoff to Trump for lifting sanctions on Russia]
November 8, 2016 —Election Day.
Michael Flynn writes an Op-Ed in support of Turkey arguing that the U.S. should extradite a Turkish expat who President Erdoğan blames for the recent attempted coup. Seemingly Turkey has been paying Flynn and his consulting firm $530,000 — money which originated with yet another Russian oligarch.
Flynn does not disclose this or register as a foreign agent.
Russia’s Parliament erupts into applause when Trump is announced the winner.
Also four patents for various Trump Hotels and products which were applied for years earlier are simultaneously renewed in Russia.
November 9, 2016 — Wikileaks proclaims that Trump won because Democrats rigged system to have Clinton beat Sanders.
November 10, 2016 — Russia’s Foreign Minister Lavrov admits they had continuing communications from Trump’s “immediate entourage.”
Trump and Obama meet at the WH, Obama warns him not to hire Flynn.
November 11, 2016 — Chris Christie is dropped as transition chief, VP Pence takes his place.
Flynn stays on.
November 12, 2016 — Lewandowski quits CNN to work for Trump again.
November 28, 2016 — In an interview with Time magazine, Trump denies interference from Russia. “I don’t believe they interfered,” he said. “That became a laughing point, not a talking point, a laughing point. Any time I do something, they say ‘oh, Russia interfered.'” He also addressed the hacking: “It could be Russia. And it could be China. And it could be some guy in his home in New Jersey”
November 30, 2016 — The Justice Department informs Flynn that he is under investigation for his unreported lobbying on behalf of Turkey.
November —House oversight ranking member Rep. Cummings sends a letter to VP Pence about Flynn’s Op-Ed and his lobbying for Turkey.
When Flynn states he plans to schedule a meeting with Kislyak former Bush Pentagon Official Michael Billingslea warns him that any such communications with Kislyak are likely to be picked up by U.S. surveillance.
December —Trump transition does a background check on Flynn but doesn't fully vet him, they are also specifically informed by Flynn’s lawyers that he may have to register as a “Foreign Agent” because of his work for Turkey even though the Pentagon had previously warned him to get permission for such payments first, and that he was under investigation by the FBI because of it.
Watchdog groups file a complaint with the FEC over Russia and the Trump campaign coordinating.
December 1, 2016 — Flynn meets with Kislyak at Trump Tower along with Jared Kushner. Kushner suggests setting up a secure back-channel back to the Kremlin using Russian facilities that could “bypass the U.S. national security bureaucracy.”. Kislyak is reportedly “taken aback”. They also suggest having an overseas meeting but Flynn is considered too high profile to attend.
Both Flynn and Kushner don’t include these meetings on their security clearances forms and are at risk of Logan Act violations if this meetings are intended to undermine current U.S Foreign policy as both are private citizens at this point. Kushner later includes the meetings on future updates.
NSA discovers the details of this meeting while surveilling Kislyak as he communicates with Moscow.
At Kislyak’s suggestion, Kushner later meets with banker and FSB Academy graduate Sergei Gorkov who is head of Moscow based government owned bank Vnesheconombank (VEB), which funds special projects like the Sochi Olympics or` Trump Tower in Toronto and included Russian intelligence officer Evgeny Buryakov on it’s payroll, who was convicted in March 2016 by Preet Bharara of conspiracy in the case involving the attempted cultivation of Carter Page as an Russian asset. Gorkov is also former deputy board chairman of Russia largest state-owned bank, Sberank, whom had hired Trump’s attorney’s Marc Kasowitz to defend it.
December 8, 2016 — Page is back in Moscow to meet with “business leaders and thought leaders”
December 9, 2016 — Wapo reports that the CIA has made a Secret Assessment that the Russia government sought to interfere in our election in order to make Trump President, and that Congress was informed of this so they could make a bipartisan statement but Mitch McConnell refused.
December 12, 2016 -—While in Moscow, Trump’s former campaign surrogate Jack Kingston meets with Russian businessmen to discuss what they might expect from a Trump administration. “Trump can look at sanctions,” Kingston says. “They’ve been in place long enough.”
December 13, 2016 — Trump says he doesn’t need a security briefing everyday. “I’ll get it when I need it”.
Trump nominates then Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson — recipient of the Russia Order of Friendship personally from Putin who had been seeking a waiver on Russian/Crimea sanctions to proceed with their $500 Billion deal with Rosneft for drilling in the Black sea — as Secretary of State.
NBC News’ Richard Engel reports from Moscow on Trump’s secretary of state pick, Rex Tillerson. Former Russian Energy Minister Vladimir Milov tells Engel that Tillerson was a “gift for Putin.”
Steve Bannon joins Flynn and Kushner for a separate meeting with the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, who makes an undisclosed visit to New York.
December 20, 2016 -— Jared Kushner brags to Forbes magazine about the data-mining and voter micro-targeting operation he helped setup for the Trump campaign with Cambridge-Analytica which is owned by deep pocketed Trump pal Robert Mercer, who also bankrolls Breitbart News.
December 21, 2016 — Lewandowski doesn’t get rehired by Trump, starts a lobbying firm.
December 29, 2016 —Obama hits Russia with Sanctions for their hacking and involvement in the Election. Flynn talks to Russian Ambassador Kislyak, mentions “We’ll review everything” when Obama’s new sanctions are brought up. This conversation is recorded by the NSA/FBI.
The Obama Administration tries to save the intel data with a trail of bread crumbs for Congress to track.
December 30, 2016 — Putin states he will not retaliate to Obama’s newly imposed sanctions and the expulsion of 30 suspected Russian spies. Trump praises his lack of response.
A PHP web shell called P.A.S. created by Ukrainian Hacker Profexor is identified by DHS as being used in part of the DNC hack. He eventually contacts the FBI himself as he had no knowledge his worked was being used in this manner.
January 5th — Former CIA Director James Woolsey leaves Trump transition team because he is alarmed by Flynn's stance on trying to have Erdogen’s opponent Gulley “snatched up” and shipped off to Turkey.
Trump tweets a storm of attacks on the Intel community and claims of Russian hacking.
January 6th —U.S. Intel agencies publish their report on the Russia Cyber efforts to influence the election. Obama, Biden and Trump are briefed on the report, Trump claims it proves Russia didn’t “change the vote” even though the report doesn’t attempt to answer that question.
January 10th —Jeff Sessions testifies during confirmation hearings that he doesn’t know “any Trump surrogates who were in contact with the Russians” ignoring the question he was asked which was “What would you do if you discover surrogates coordinating with Russians?” Apparently the correct answer is “Nothing.”
Buzzfeed publishes the entire Steele Dossier online.
CNN reports that Trump was specifically briefed on it during the Jan 6th briefing.
Trump transition team does full court press to deny this briefing occurred, not only denying that anyone verbally described it to Trump but also there was a 3 page summary at the end of the full Russia report.
Flynn meets with Susan Rice over a plan to arm the Kurds against ISIS, Flynn vetoes the plan as the Kurds are considered terrorists by one of his financial benefactors Turkey.
Paul Manafort calls Reince Preibus to deny allegations in the dossier about him
January 11th — At his first press conference of the year Trump says he himself “didn’t meet with any Russians” during the election even though he did.
Erik Prince, former CEO of Blackwater, giant Christian Supremacist, Mike Pence supporter and brother of
Education Secretary nominee Betsy DeVos has a secret meeting with the UAE on the Seychelles islands to establish a back channel to Putin which is noticed by FBI. That meeting is chaired by the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi who had previously met with Bannon, Flynn & Kushner secretly in New York, and seems to be a follow-on to Kushner’s meeting with Kislyak at Trump Tower.
Politico issues a report indicating that Ukrainian-American Alexandra Chalupa who consulted for the DNC had gone to the Ukrainian embassy to gain information about Paul Manafort’s links to Yanakovic.
January 12th — NBC news confirms that Comey personally briefed Trump about the Steele Dossier revealing yet another transition team lie.
January 14th — Reports surface that U.S. Intel agents have warned our allies like Israel not to share sensitive intel with Trump transition team due to the Steele dossier and the risk he might share it with Russia and hence their ally Iran.
January 15th — Trump says “We should trust Putin” while lambasting NATO and Angela Merkel.
Former CIA Officer for Moscow states that Steele dossier deserves support: “This is exactly how the Russians operate.”
January 20th — Inauguration day.
January 21st —Sean Spicer does his first press briefing and spends most of it lying about the Inauguration crowd size, then takes no questions.
Women’s march crowd dwarfs Trump’s crowd by 3 to 1.
Trump WH officials soon begin pushing State Dept to remove all Russian sanctions. Alarmed State Offiicials Melinowski and Fried begin to contact congress.
January 22nd — Comey attends an event honoring Law Enforcement at the WH, tries to avoid being noticed by Trump, but fails.
January 23rd —Spicer claims Flynn didn’t talk to Kislyak about sanctions, even though he did.
Later Mike Pence goes on Meet the Press after talking personally to Flynn and claims “Flynn told me he didn’t talk to Russia about sanctions.”
January 24th — Flynn interviewed by FBI, again he apparently says he didn’t talk to Russians about sanctions but they know better. He also claims that he didn’t get any foreign money and the $45k and $530k came from “U.S. companies” having omitted the true information on his SF-86 Security form.
January 26th —Sally Yates goes to the White House personally and warns WH Counsel McGahn that Flynn may be vulnerable to “blackmail by the Russians” because he’d lied to the FBI & Pence about his contacts with Kislyak.
Trump is immediately briefed by McGahn but does nothing about Flynn.
Former Bush Ethics Atty Richard Painter files complaint with Government Ethics Office that James Comey may have violated the Hatch Act by releasing unsubstantiated information about the Abedine emails.
January 27th — Trump signs a travel ban against 7 majority Muslim nations.
McGahn calls Yates, she returns to the WH where he asks “why does it matter if Flynn lied to Pence?”
Trump invites Comey to dinner at the White House, allegedly asks Comey if he wants to “keep his job” and to pledge him his “Loyalty”, Comey offers his “Honesty” and takes copious notes.
Kremlin arrests FSB officials Sergei Mikhailov, his deputy Dmitry Dokuchaev, and Ruslan Stoyanov, the head of cybercrime investigations at Kaspersky Labs (who had paid Flynn $11,500 in 2015) for treason and illegal hacking apparently for sharing intel information with the CIA.
January 29th — London Mayor Saddiq Khan says that Trump shouldn’t be allowed entry into the UK while his Muslim ban is in place.
Trump signs EO that places Steve Bannon on the principles committee of the National Security Council, the DNI and head of the Joint Chiefs are relegated to "part time" participants.
January 30th — Sally Yates orders the DOJ not to defend Trump's Muslim ban executive order in court as she doubts it is legal or constitutional.
January 31st --Yates is fired by Trump allegedly for refusing to defend his Muslim ban executive order.
Flynn stays.
Roger Stone goes on Russia Today to push the conspiracy that murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich is the "real hacker.” This is his fifth appearance on the channel.
Deutsche Bank is fined $630 Million for $10 Billion in money laundering transactions involving Russia.
February 2nd — Putin opposition leader Vladimir Kara-Murza is poisoned for a second time in Moscow.
February 3rd —Federal Judge Robart blocks Trump's Muslim Ban echoing Yates issues with it.
Reports surface that Trump is still using that same vulnerable unsecured out of date Galaxy S3 Cell Phone to tweet with during the campaign while in the White House.
February 6th —Rep. Maxine Waters states “Trump is moving towards Impeachment.”
Trump attorney Michael Cohen and Felix Sater negotiate a deal to end sanctions against Russia by stopping the violence in Crimea with a Ukranian named Andrii V. Artemenko. They supposedly deliver a copy of this plan to Michael Flynn’s desk, but there is no evidence he ever reviewed it or passed it on to anyone.
When this is revealed Artemenko is looked at for possible Treason charges by Ukraine. [Exactly who came up with this idea and tasked them with this? Does anyone believe they went rogue?]
Februray 7th -— Sens. Cardin and Graham — alerted by Fried and Malinowski at State of Trump efforts to scrap sanctions -— author bipartisan legislation to require the approval of Congress for all changes to sanctions.
February 8th — Washington posts asks Flynn if he discussed sanctions with Russia, he says “No” twice.
February 9th —Flynn’s spokesman issues a correction to Wapo that he “doesn’t remember” if he did or didn’t discuss sanctions.
Trump talks to Putin by phone and criticizes Obama’s Start II Nuclear deal with Russia. Flynn is there for the call.
Judge Robart’s national block of the Muslim Ban is upheld by the 9th Circuit
February 10th — Trump is asked about Flynn talking to Russians about sanctions and says “This is the first time I’ve heard that.” Note: He had already been personally told about this by White House Counsel McGahn immediately after he was told by Yates on Jan 26th.
February 12th — Reports emerge that the Intel agencies are considering holding back highly sensitive intel from Trump to prevent leaks to Russia.
February 13th — Flynn is fired immediate after Wapo report proving that he lied, allegedly he’s let go because he lied to Vice President Pence and caused him to be embarrassed about what he said on Meet the Press. WH secret push to cut sanctions goes on hold.
February 14th — Comey & Sessions meet Trump in the Oval for a counter-terrorism briefing. Trump clears the room and gets Comey alone to complain about leaks asking him to prosecute some reporters over it and ask if he can just “Let Flynn go” Comey interprets the request to only be about Flynn not the Russia investigation,
Comey notes this and discusses it with FBI leadership.
The NYTimes reports that Trump aids (including Flynn, Manafort and Page) had repeated contacts with Russian Intelligence according to the NSA and that the FBI had requested they “collect as much information as possible about the Russian operatives on the phone calls” and go through their archives for more information.
February 15th — Intel Agencies with access to foreign intercepts say “Trump Will Die in Jail.”
Comey laters asks Sessions not to leave him alone with Trump again as it’s inappropriate. Comey’s memory of the event is hazy, but he states later Sessions doesn’t really respond. [During later testimony Session claims he repeated back basic DOJ protocols to Comey, which doesn’t answer his concern over why Sessions failed to follow protocol the previous day.]
February 16th — CBS reports that Trump screamed at CIA Director Pompeo over reports that Intel is being withheld from him because of fears he might leak it to Russia.
Pompeo denies any intel is being withheld from Trump.
Trump rage tweets that “Russia” is a made up story by Democrats as an excuse for losing the election.
House Democrats submit bill to prevent removal of Russia sanctions without Congress approval.
February 17th — Trump calls the Press the “Enemies of the American People.”
February 21st — Artemenko talks to a Ukrainian News outlet and reveals that he’s known Michael Cohen for some time since Cohen has an ethanol business in the country, which is also where his wife was born, and that his meeting with Cohen and Sater on Feb 6 wasn’t their first. According to Artemenko, he discussed the “peace-plan” with Cohen and Sater “at the time of the primaries, when no one believed that Trump would even be nominated.”
February 25th — FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe — who began his carrier with the New York Field Office while Trump surrogate Giuliani was Mayor — goes to the White House and in direct violation of DOJ protocols buttonholes Reince Prebus to tell him the NYT article on contacts “Is Bullshit.” [Later reporting seems to hint that the FBI’s objection to the report is the claim that certain contacts were confirmed as part of “Russian Intelligence”, not that the contacts didn’t happen because those were confirmed by James Clapper.]
February 26th —Preibus calls McCabe back and asks him to inform the Press about this as an “anonymous source”, he refuses.
Preibus call his pals Devin Nunez Chairman of the House intelligence committee and Richard Burr Chairman of the Senate Intel Committee who are each former Trump surrogates who are heading up investigations of “Russia” — they do it for him.
Former Bush Ethics Atty Richard Painter files complaint with Government Ethics Office that James Comey violated the Hatch Act by publicly disclosing unsubstantiated information about Abedine’s emails prior to the election.
February 28th — Trump who had essentially called Hillary a “murderer” over Benghazi blames the Generals and Obama for death of Navy Seal in Yemen during raid he himself authorized.
March 1 —it’s discovered that Sessions met with Kislyak twice, in July at the RNC which he attended as a Trump surrogate along with Carter Page and JD. Gordon and in September in his Senate Offices. Nobody notices that he also met him in April.
Sen. Franken asks for Sessions to come back to the Senate to explain, he declines and sends a letter which claims he didn’t understand the question he was asked and didn’t think he was “acting as a surrogate” when he met Kislyak.
March 2 — 100 Democrats demand that Jeff Sessions resign as Attorney General. He doesn’t.
March 4 —Session recuses himself from the Russia investigation.
Trump blows his top that weekend screaming at his staff, throwing Priebus and Bannon off Air Force One for his weekly Mar-A-Lago trip.
March 5th — Trump tweets about being “Wiretapped in Trump Tower by Obama” that morning based on a report from Breitbart and Judge Napolitano on Fox News — Narrative shifts away from Sessions.
James Clapper denies that “Obama Wiretapped Trump.”
March 6th -- Trump issues a revised Muslim travel ban, which no longer blocks immigrants and refugees from Iraq.
March 7th —House Intel committee invites Sally Yates and James Comey to testify about Michael Flynn and Russia.
Michael Hayden denies Trump’s Wiretapped by Obama claims.
Sen. Franken says Session committed perjury.
The Guardian reports that SLC Group and Cambridge Analytics methods of generating micro-targeted alt-news webiverse using data provided by AggregateIQ were used to meddle in the Brexit Vote to encourage “voter disengagement” and “to persuade Democrat voters to stay at home”:
March 8th — British media reports more of the specific contacts by person and date alleged by Steele dossier have been confirmed by independent surveillance, but they do not yet confirm the substance of the conversations.
Flynn finally registers as a foreign agent.
June 20th —
Sen. Whitehouse argues that there is evidence Flynn has been cooperating with Mueller’s investigation for some time.
CNN Reports the Trump pick for FBI director Christopher Wray had edited his online bio to remove reference to a case against Russia.
Bannon says the reason Spicer doesn’t do his briefings on camera : “Sean got fatter.” Which is ironic for a guy who’s fatter than Spicer and doesn’t explain why he won’t allow the audio to be recorded either.
Jason Miller generates excuses for why Trump hasn’t commented on London Mosque attack: “It literally happened just yesterday” when it was 2 days ago, Yesterday was the death of former North Korean prisoner Otto Warmbier, but he commented on that, the Baseball practice shooting and the London Bridge attack immediately.
CBS reports that Trump’s approval is down 11% among Republicans since the end of his first 100 days. 36% approval overall.
“Still Fatter” Spicer does an on camera briefing.
Mueller adds Russian speaking prosecutor to his team.
Sessions lawyers up with an attorney Chuck Cooper, who had previously defended Bob Jones’ University’s ban on interracial dating to supporting job discrimination against those with HIV/AIDS.
Hannity claims new nutbag theory that the intelligence community and mainstream media are planning a “Soft Coup” to undermine Trump. “Deep State”, “Political Witch Hunt” etc
June 21st —
Bloomberg reports a detailed piece by Trump biographer Tim O’Brien on his shady financial ties to Mafia and Russian Mob money through Felix Sater and Bayrock LLC between 2002-2011 including $33 Million in properties sales & rentals of luxury condos in New York, Vegas and Los Angeles to mysterious LLCs since the election.
Don Jr. and Ivanka’s involvement in these deals makes them potential targets for Mueller’s investigations.
Former Homeland Security head Jeh Johnson testifies
He says that “The Russian government, at the direction of Vladimir Putin himself, orchestrated cyber attacks on our nation for the purpose of influencing our election,” he said. “That is a fact, plain and simple.”
But that there’s “No evidence they flipped votes.” which would have been an act of war.
He also says Trump’s “Rigged” talk made it difficult to address the interference Russia created.
Other officials from DHS indicate that voter registration systems in 21 states were attacked.
Spicer says he “hasn’t specifically asked” Trump if he believes Russia interfered with the election.
Telegraph reports that Trump will not be making an official state visit to the UK over the threat of widespread protests for at least two years.
Senate’s new Russia sanctions bill hits a snag on the House rule that any bill that raises revenue must start in the House.
Dems on House Oversight send letter to Preibus to explain why Kushner still has a security clearance?
Kushner flies to Tel Aviv to negotiate with Israel and Palestine.
Lewandowski tells Fox and Friends the Russian collusion investigation “should end immediately” because they’ve found nothing. [That they’ve told us about, Yet. And they won’t say anything until there’s either an indictment or a Grand Jury report to Rosenstein.]
NATO F-16 from Poland buzzes plane carrying Lavrov and shadows it until a Russian SU-22 with air-to-air missiles shows up.
Rachel Maddow highlights that what Homeland security testified isn't just that lots of states were attacked but also that voter registration files in specific counties that leaned heavily Democratic were targeted and some of the poll book software failed on election night in those counties which created excessive delays, long lines and more votes shifted to provisional ballots which aren't always counted — meanwhile personal information for 200 Million U.S. voters were posted on an open server by RNC contractor Deep Root analytics which could have been accessed by anyone who knew the IP or web address.
june 22nd —
Senate releases their version of Trumpcare which is even worse than the house version and immediately loses 4 Republican votes leaving the bill DOA. Senator Collins questions it's Medicaid cuts while Senator Warren says it pays for tax cuts with Blood Money.
Trump finally admits after 41 days, one day before the deadline set by congress for an answer, that he doesn't have any "Tapes" of his conversations with Comey, and had only brought it up to "rattle" him. He seems to claim he had thought Comey himself or the intel community had been taping the conversation in a weird variation on the "Obama taped me in Trump Tower" conspiracy. It never seems to occur to him that if Comey had a recording, he wouldn’t have needed to take notes and write memos about what was said, which is a pretty standard FBI practice.
Election officials report that hackers stole and changed voter registration information during the 2016 election in at least one county in addition to accessing registration systems in 39 states.
Huckabee Sanders says "Everybody agrees the election wasn't influenced by Russia" [No, not really. They didn't change votes, but they did all they could to access their registration data and to trick voters with false news and conspiracy theories.] when finally admitting that the DNC was probably hacked by Russia which everyone actually does say.
Trump staffers reacts to this latest nutty conspiracy theory and the looming backlash over it --"**** my life."
Nunez "I never said I was leaving the Russia investigation for good."
Trump's "Voter Fraud" panel backfires as they starting looking into Russian hacking of election systems.
Pizzagate shooter sentenced to four years in prison.
Preet Bharara signs a book deal
Schiff says that Trump's tweet about the tapes is not enough, 'he's been untruthful before in his tweets.' and that his statement that he doesn't have tapes doesn't cover the rest of the White House.
Coats and Rogers tells House intel that Trump did ask them to “get the word out” about his not being personally under investigation and that there was “no evidence of collusion.” Coats also says Trump is “obsessed with the Russia probe.”
Rand Paul's attempts to claim that Trump really was being surveilled which inspires former CIA agent Phill Mudd to call bullshit on that. Besides the fact that Comey, Coats, Clapper (all under oath) and Michael Hayden have already denied this and said it’s not even possible under the law.
June 23rd —
Wapo releases report that CIA had generated an “Eyes Only” memo for Obama in August that Putin personally ordered the attack on the U.S. election. Trump says "This is the first he's heard of it..." as if he wasn't briefed on exactly this on Jan 6th and Jeh Johnson hadn’t just testified to the same thing two days ago.
Spicer finally admits he talked to Trump about “elections tampering” but doesn’t specifically mention Russia, and claims Trump’s “tape threat” was intended to force Comey to “tell the truth” as if being under oath were meaningless.
Incoming House Oversight Chair Trey Gowdy, replacing Chaffetz, says he’s totally dropping investigation of Russian interference leaving it for Mueller, House Judiciary and Intelligence.
Trump Energy official sends racist tweets calling Obama a “Kenyan creampuff.”
Wapo reports that WH can’t get through to Tillerson on the phone, “he won’t return calls”
Senate Intel opens investigation into faked and already debunked report about Loretta Lynch colluding with Debbie Wasserman-Schultz to shutdown Clinton email investigation.
Trump claims Comey tapes may exists because “Obama taped the White House”, again. [Uh, no he didn’t he taped the Russian ambassador and caught Flynn, which is something he was warned would happen, dumb ***.]
The rollout of new FBI Director Nominee Chris Wray appears to be completely fouled up, already.
Politico reports that Trump blames WH Counsel McGhan for not stopping the Russia probe, somehow.
LATimes reports that Mueller's team includes experts on fraud and money laundering and they seem "Dangerously close to an obstruction case."
Rep. Andy Biggs calls for Mueller to recuse himself because of his close relationship with Comey, who had been his boss as Deputy AG while Mueller was FBI Director. He doesn’t seem to have a problem with the fact that Kushner and Ivanka’s attorney Jamie Gorelick is also a member of Mueller’s law firm.
Kris Kobach from Trump's "Voter Fraud" panel gets sanctioned for "Deceptive Conduct and Lack of Condor"
June 24th —
Russia pushes back on more reports that they meddled in the U.S. elections claiming “We don’t do that, but the U.S. does.”
Trump attacks Obama administration for “doing nothing” to fight Russia attacks, finally admitting that there even was a Russia attack while ignoring that they did respond to the attack on state elections systems reached out diplomatically several times very strongly including face to face with Putin, then implemented sanctions which Trump has been already trying to remove.
June 25th —
Buzzfeed reports that Putin plans to recall Kislyak back to Russia.
Jeffrey Lord says Mueller should hire Michael Cohen — yes, seriously — ignoring the fact that he’s actually been investigating Cohen who has since lawyered up.
Eric Trump again says the DNC Chair Tom Perez is a “Nut Job” and his dad “has done more than any President in History.”
90 Parliament email accounts are attacked by hackers.
Kellyanne Conway refuses to talk about Russian hacks because “It was Obama’s fault for not stopping them” — even though he actually did stop them once he, DHS and the FBI knew about it.
Trump admits calling Elizabeth Warren “Pochahantas” is racist, but does it anyway. He also tweets that “Hillary colluded with the DNC to defeat Bernie” even though that actually didn’t happen at all and is just another Sputnik News talking point.
White House skips Ramadan celebration, because why not?
Adam Schiff and Al Franken criticize Obama’s tepid reaction to Russia prior to the election saying he “coulda, shoulda, woulda” done more. Yeah, ok, that’s good backseat driving there. Like what exactly?
Kushner goes to Palestine and infuriates Prime Minister Abbas enough that they threaten to shutdown talks.
june 26th —
Brit Hume argues that colluding with Russia’s illegal cyber attacks against America wouldn’t be a crime — because “Huh?”
Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) tells Politico that he’s prepared to battle the White House over efforts to water down legislation imposing sanctions against the Russian government.
Trump says that “Obama colluded with Russia” because he “did nothing” when he was informed about the hacking attacks — even though he did plenty & Hume says “collusion wouldn’t be a crime.” Somehow he ignores his own request for Russia to hack and release “Hillary’s emails” and multiple attempts to raise sanctions. He also demands an “apology” claiming the Wapo report disproves collusion by his campaign when that subject wasn’t even addressed in the report.
Spicer says Trump was “only joking” about Russia hacking and releasing Hillary’s emails. Katy Tur puts a match to that B.S. and sets it on fire.
Somehow a Russia media rep. Igor Zorin who only earns $75,000 bought 3 condos worth $5.4 Million from Trump Palace. Shocker.
Supreme Court partially allows Travel Ban —upholding it for all those who filed suit based on “standing” but potentially damaging tourism to the tune of $18 Billion — until they fully hear the case in October.
Wapo reports that Kushner received a $285 Million loan from Deutsche Bank a month before the election for their Times Square building while the bank was facing charges being involved in Russian money laundering.
Kushner in addition to attorney Jamie Gorelick hires powerhouse defense attorney Abbie Lowell who had previously defended Harold Keating, Jack Abramov, Dan Rostenkowski and John Edwards.
2 weeks after claiming they would “immediately” file a complaint against Comey for his “leaking” his own thoughts and recollections to Congress, Kasowitz and Trump’s other attorneys haven’t done it yet.
Nunez admits he was never going to recuse himself from Russia investigation.
Wapo Reports that Trump associate Carter Page was interviewed by the FBI 5 times for a total of 10 hours during March and did so without an attorney.
Spicer announces that the WH has information indicating another possible chemical weapons attack by the Assad regime, but CENTCOM knows nothing about it.
CBO says that Senate TrumpCare bill will leave 22 Million without insurance.
Trump’s re-election campaign pays $50,000 to Donald Jr.’s lawyer Alan Futerfas after he’s contacted by the NYTimes for a comment after they discovered that Kushner’s attorneys had updated his SF86 form to include a meeting called by Don Jr. with a lawyer from Russia.
July 27th -—
Trump’s act bombs at Senate Health care meetings because he has no idea what’s in the bill, or for that matter no idea how health care actually works.
Ryan states that “22 Million don’t really want insurance anyway.”
CNN caves to a $100 Libel lawsuit threat over a single-sourced anonymous story involving Trump team member Anthony Scaramucci and fires three employees, including the reporter Thomas Frank and producer Eric Litchbau on the story.
Reporter Brian Karem unloads on the hypocrisy of Huckabee-Sanders trying to grandstand on Scaramucci story firing, while the WH uses anonymous sources for it’s own counter story.
The law firm of Kushner’s new attorney Abbie Lowell has links to both Sberbank and Rosneft and was one of the first U.S. firms allowed to have offices in Moscow.
Clinton campaign chair John Podesta testifies in closed session to House Intel.
Wapo reports that Manafort has registered as a foreign agent and declared $17 million in profits from Ukrainian groups. This “finally getting right with the law” act fuels rumors that he has or soon intends to flip for Mueller.
Gingrich says Trump should testify, because it’s not like he wouldn’t prat fall into perjury trap that way…Noooo.
Rick Perry talks to the press about the environment and ****. gets. crazy.
CNN medical producer opines on tape made by James O’Keefe that Russia probably a “witch hunt” and that CNN ‘s coverage is over the top. CNN sticks with him as having his own opinion, besides it’s not like aren’t still paying Jeffrey Lord to say the same thing day after day. There is also another video of Van Jones saying “Russia is a nothing burger” — which in terms of Demcractic politics he’s previously said many times.
Sally Yates says Americans should be alarmed at Trump’s behavior even if you assume there “was no collusion.”
Kasowitz puts his complaints about Comey’s “leaks” on indefinite hold.
Senate pushes back vote on Trumpcare until after July 4th recess.
July 28th -—
Trump tweets incoherently about the Washington Post supporting Amazon for not paying “taxes” when they do pay sales taxes in 45 states.
Time magazine asks Trump to remove fake magazine covers from his golf courses.
Sekulow argues that we should have a special prosecutor to investigate Obama’s reaction to Russian hacking and meddling, because that’s logical — in Bizarro World.
Maddow reports that Senate Republicans seem to be investigating the Mueller investigation and are reviewing the Comey Memo’s even though they aren’t investigation obstruction — that’s under Senate Judiciary — perhaps to see if it’s is based entirely on the Steele Dossier in order to use that as a reason to have it shut down.
Senate Intel is also reportedly going through 2,000 documents for Treasury’s FinCEN unit on Trump and his associations and the money ties to Russia.
CREW files a Hatch Act complaint against Nikki Haley for retweeting an endorsement by Trump for Republican Robert Northam to fill the congressional seat vacated by budget director Mick Mulvaney.
CNN reports that Trump’s staff is going increasingly concerned about his lack of concern about what and how Russia hacked us, and whether they might do it again.
Chuck Todd tears into Trump’s press office :”This is nothing less than a war on the truth.”
Ex MTV-VJ Kennedy argues on Fox: “Who cares if 15 Million people will lose Health Care next year, we’re all gonna die anyway?” Yes we will, but not this exact minute. Well, not unless North Korea — well y’know.
Spicer tweets claim that Obamacare has “failed” 28 Million people who still don’t have Health Care and that only TrumpCare is the “solution” to this problem — while the CBO says it will increase that problem another 23 Million by 2026.
June 29th —
Annoyed by criticism from Morning Joe’s Mika saying he’s “Out of his Mind” while discussing a reported loud clash between SecState Tillerson and WH over meddling and interference by Kushner, Trump counters by tweeting that Joe and Mika visited Mar-A-Lago 3 times, and that he refused a personal meeting around New Year’s because Mika was “bleeding from a recent facelift” — pics taken of Mika that same day disprove this. Melania and Huckabee-Sanders give excuses for this crap.
WH aides respond to facelift tweet “At least you’re not reporting we’re going to kill Millions” — yeah, but you are though, if we let you.
MSNBC’s Katy Tur smashes Huckabee-Sanders false claim that “Trump never advocated violence” on the campaign trail point by point.
Republicans respond to “Facelift” tweet with outrage, but still continue to support and vote for Trump proposal despite outrage of the American people. Typical.
Trump prepares to meet privately with Putin at G20 by asking staff to give him “bargaining chips he can trade away.” Might those include “American Sovereignty?
Steven Benen at MSNBC reveals that Trump’s “secret plan” to fight ISIS was a Lie, because his actual plan is to do what Obama was already doing.
Kasowitz law firm under potential scrutiny by Mueller for a $285 Million 2015 real estate deal for Time Square property and refinancing loan between Kushner and Deutsche Bank.
Ryan says Senate must repass their Russia sanctions bill to resolve constitutional issue, but the issue is that revenue bills have to start in the House — so, um, what?
House intel requests a more full response to the question of Comey recordings than just the President’s tweet, which only spoke for him not any recording being kept by the entire White House.
Wall Street Journal reports that GOP operative Peter W. Smith had endeavored to gain stolen Clinton email information for Flynn. He claimed to them, before he died on May 15, to have found two groups with the information and asked them to provide it to Wikileaks. U.S. intel also picks up indications that Russian hackers were actively trying to get access to Clinton’s server to provide those emails to Flynn. Smith acting as an “intermediary” for communications between Russian hackers and Flynn confirms another plank in the Steele Dossier that Kremlin intel had been deliberately supplying Trump with anti-Clinton intel.
Van Jones lays into James O’keefe’s bogus “Nothing Burger” video supposedly “exposing” the CNN host for not really caring that much about the Russia issue compared to other policy issues — an opinion which he’s never hidden.
Hawaii files a new suit against Trump’s Partial Travel Ban/Suspension.
NRA releases a video statement featuring Media Wingnut Dana Leosch that accuses the Left of widespread verbal and other violence against Trump, the Police and the Right. She then goes onto fTucker Carlson to defend and rationalize it.
Deutsche Bank refuses request for Trump financial documents from House Dems for the 2nd time.
Senate passes updated version of their new Russia Sanctions Bill which now includes sanctions on Iran as well.
June 30th -—
TPM reports that Homeland Security hasn’t yet checked the integrity of a single voting machine to ensure none of them were hacked or tampered with.
Joe Scarborough reveals that Mika had told Melania about her facelift and that Trump was so impressed he asked for the name of her doctor 10 times.
Joe also says that Trump had tried to blackmail them into apologizing for their coverage by saying if they did he would spike a negative National Enquirer story about them. Trump rage tweets and accidentally confirms part of their story. If proven these allegations would violate New York Criminal (Coercion), DC Criminal (Bribery) and Federal Criminal Law (Extortion by officers of the U.S.).
Russian Communications Minister Nikolay Nikiforov served notice on Friday that the Russian government would retaliate against U.S. companies if Congress bans the Pentagon from using controversial cyber-security software from Kaspersky Labs.
States reject extreme voter information request from Election Suppression Commission, even Kris Kobach’s own state of Kansas refuses. Huckabee-Sanders says this is only a “political stunt” — but it’s Republican controlled states as well as Democratic that refuse.
July 1st —
UK cyber-analyst Matt Tait reveals he was recruited by Peter Smith to authenticate emails stolen from Clinton’s server by the Russians which were to be provided to Michael Flynn.
Bloomberg reports that Kushner had attempted to buy the National Enquirer along with David Pecker in 2006.
Trump continues his twitter rage-a-thon against Mika and Joe for a 3rd day saying ““Crazy Joe Scarborough and dumb as a rock Mika are not bad people,” and also criticizes MSNBC for firing Greta Van Sustren.
Senate Intel reaches agreement to review the Comey Memos.
Trump “jokes” it would be “Fun to sue CNN” at a fundraiser. He says “These are really dishonest people. Should I sue them? I mean, they’re phonies,” Trump said, according to the recording. “I mean, these are horrible human beings.”
In his 2nd loud clash with WH Officials this week Tillerson apparently had “tense” conversation with Jason Miller who pushed him to take a tougher stance on immigration, while Tillerson demanded independence on how he ran State Dept. affairs.
CBS reports that the Science Division of the WH Office of Technology is now completely unstaffed.
July 2nd —
Trump tweets video of himself body slamming and punching WWE CEO Vince McMahon into a stupor — only edited with the CNN logo covering McMahon’s face which has been posted on Reddit 4 days about by yet another neo-Nazi whose online name is literally HanAssholeSolo. CNN takes it as a literal physical threat. WH laughs saying “you guys can never take a joke.” Kathy Griffin is not consulted on the “Funny Ha Ha” of the thing.
DOJ Corporate Fraud expert quits in disgust because doing her job is simply “not possible under Trump.”
All discussion of the Tait’s revelation about being recruited to review Clinton emails obtained from Russia to provide to Michael Flynn or Trump’s ongoing assault on health care recedes.
July 3rd —
Reporter Jared Yates Sexton who discovered ID of Reddit user “HanAssholeSolo” who created anti-CNN video, begins receiving “gory” death threats and insults from other Alt-Right Neo-Nazis.
David Duke chimes in and justifies threats against “Journalistic terrorists”arguing the press has endorsed violence against him for the last 50 years..
Katrina Peirson claims “By the very nature of being President of the United States, it makes his actions presidential whether you like it or not.”
Former Ted Cruz spokesperson Amanda Carpenter argues the president’s attacks on the press “essentially [hands] a weapon to some of our enemies.”
Trump biographer Tim O’Brien says his tweets aren’t some grand distraction because he’s “not smart enough for that.”
Melania says Mika Brzezski “doesn’t know me” in response to her comments on their feud with Trump to InStyle Magazine.
House Dems back bill that could invoke the 25th Amendment removing Trump if he is found mentally or physically unfit for office.
July 4th —
Florida head of the NAACP found a Confederate flag on her lawn after receiving a series of late-night death threats from callers claiming ties to the Ku Klux Klan.
Trump plans for full “Bilateral” meeting with Putin during G20 Summit, Tillerson plans to do “cleanup” meeting in Ukraine hours later.
41 States refuse to provide information to Kris Kobach’s Voter Suppression commission — and some members begins to quit.
Germany’s Angela Merkel no longer describes America under Trump as “a friend.”
July 5th —
Jack Prosoblec A Pro-Trump activist with White House access releases the phone numbers and home addresses of multiple CNN personalities and their families.
Neo-Nazi hackers then begin to contact the families & parents of various CNN anchors and reporters, including those of Andrew Kaczinski who wrote the HanAssholeSolo story and threaten their lives.
HanAssholeSolo apologizes and promises not to produce more racist memes, Ted Cruz accuses CNN of extortion when they later publish an article about his apology while reserving the right to reveal his ID if he reneges on his promise, Some Trumpers scream “blackmail” but CNN counters that they haven’t published his ID, they won’t since he’s a private citizen and he goes on to contact CNN himself and says “he wasn’t threatened”
Fox contributor Tammy Bruce defends HanAssholeSolo right to be an ******* and criticizes CNN “(He) made this meme that the president picked up, and they decided that they could get their pound of flesh from this individual.”
Don Jr. complains “It was only a matter of time” when CNN reports the Anti-Defamation League statement that the anti-CNN meme may be racist and anti-semitic, claiming they’re “Bullying a 15 year old”, but CNN having found his Facebook page counters that claim “He’s not 15.”
Jr. continues “If only @CNN spent as much time tracking down info on IRS targeting, Fast & Furious, Iran deal etc as they did a meme writer! #CNNBlackmail” but there aren’t any outstanding questions on any of those issues, except for Wingnut conspiracies about them.
Trump supports AT&T/Time Warner deal which some see as a way for him to gain leverage over CNN.
Investigators are looking into scores of Easter European Pro-Trump websites which popped up before the election and published dozens of co-ordinated fake anti-Clinton reports.
July 6th —
Trump supporter charged with criminal mischief for writing “False Flag” graffiti at an Elementary School. [Responding officers found “Kill Trump,” “Left is the best,” “Bernie Sanders 2020” and “Death to Trump” written on a sign in the playground.]
While in Warsaw, Poland for the G20 summit Trump again says “Nobody really knows” who hacked the 2016 election. “I think it was Russia. But I think it was probably other people and/or countries, and I see nothing wrong with that statement. Nobody really knows. Nobody really knows for sure,” Trump said. He argues that “Obama did nothing” and that Bush went to war in Iraq over WMD’s and “was wrong.”
Trump also says that CNN took his wresting video too seriously. “CNN has really taken (the video) too seriously and I think they’ve hurt themselves very badly, very very badly.”
Rep. Adam Schiff blasts Trump’s comments. “The President’s comments today, again casting doubt on whether Russia was behind the blatant interference in our election and suggesting ... that nobody really knows, continue to directly undermine U.S. interests,”
CREW asks the Office of Government Ethics to investigate Kushner’s failure to disclose “his ownership interest in an online real estate investment company called Cadre” in his public financial disclosure.
On Fox and Friend Eric Trump bashes the media saying the DOW and S&P are at the highest level ever but all the media talks about is whether Trump colluded with Russia to meddle in the elections. ”I mean, we’re thriving as a nation. Everybody wants to get focused on nonsense. On garbage. On distractions.”
Walter Schraub head of the Office of Government Ethics who had been a highly vocal critical of Trump’s lack of divestiture from his private businesses abruptly resigns effective July 19th.
Rachel Maddow reports that her show had been sent a faked NSA Document which claimed proof that a specific member of the Trump Campaign had been colluding with Russians. This forged document appears to have been an attempt to discredit her program with planted Fake News which could be easily debunked at a later date.
Right wing editorials slam CNN for suggesting they might reveal the identity of HanAssholeSolo claiming that it’s “Blackmail” in exchange for his not generating racists, violent memes anymore, which pretty much establishes that yet again the Rightwing (Hearts) Racism & Sexism.
July 7th —
Trump meets Putin privately for two hours in Warsaw during the G20.
Putin says he “didn’t hack our election” and Trump believes him according to Lavrov, but Tillerson disagrees.
According to Lavrov, “Trump told Putin that some circles in the US are exaggerating the topic of Russian cyber meddling.”
Tillerson claimed he sent Melania into the meeting to break it up after first hour, but they just kept talking for another hour.
Donald Trump agreed to form a joint task force with the Russians to address cyber security, which is a bit like the bank inviting the thieves in to look around and hang out.
They don’t reach an agreement on how to handle North Korean’s increasingly aggressive missile and nuclear program.
They do reach an agreement on a cease fire in southern Syria.
They talk for so long both of them skip out of the Climate Change/Energy meeting.
California Govorner Jerry Brown shows up at G20 and shreds Trump at climate meeting he skipped. “(Trump) doesn’t speak for the rest of America”
Trump tweets that Podesta didn’t let FBI have the DNC server when Podesta actually didn’t have any jurisdiction over anything the DNC did or didn’t do. Podesta hits back with “Get a Grip Man.”
Trump State Dept grants Visas to 150 Russian Spies.
Ivanka temporarily sits in Trump’s place at one G20 summit table, the internet goes nuts.
July 8th —
NyTimes reveals the secret June 9, 2016 meeting between Don Jr., Manafort and Kushner with a prominent Russia lawyer who is known for being an agent of the Russian government. Supposedly they discuss the U.S. adoption of Russian children which had been suspended by Putin after the passage of the Magnitsky Act blacklisting Russian’s with Human Rights violations.
Donald Jr. tweets an edited video of Top Gun footage that shows Trump shooting down planes marked with CNN and says it’s “One of the best I’ve seen.”
Wapo reports that Russian hackers had accessed networks for American Nuclear and Energy companies.
While flying back from the G20 on Air Force One WH staffers begin to craft an “accurate” statement of response to the Time report about Junior and Veselniskaya, Trump himself intervenes and dictates a false story for them to release that the meeting was primarily about “Adoption”. Jared who later claims he was only at the meeting long enough to hear about the adoption portion and had left early before the Magnitski act came up is present on AF1 at this time, Junior isn’t.
July 9th —
Instead of a post summit Press Conference Trump has a tweet-gasm…
Claiming he accepted Putin’s denial of being involved in the election hacks.
He wants to partner with Russia on Cyber Security concerns
He again attacks the DNC for not letting the FBI (and he includes the CIA for some reason) have their email server even though they really didn’t need it.
And also attacks Obama for doing “nothing” about the hacks [that is besides getting in Putin’s face, shoring up our cyber defenses, informing congress, having DHS and the DNI announce that we’d been attacked and devising a new set of sanctions as well as kicking out 35 spies out and takin over 2 Russian compounds]
Kasowitz files motion to dismiss a sexual harassment and defamation suit from a former “Apprentice” contestant against Trump arguing he now has “immunity” and that his comments insulting his various accusers were simply “Free Speech”
Russia expert and investigative reporter Michael Weiss argues that doing a cyber security unit with Putin is like “having an arsonist in charge of the fire brigade.” Fox and Fools says the idea is “actually Genius.” Social media suggests El Chapo and Charles Manson as next members of this crack Cyber Security Unit.
Some GOP Senators coming back from july 4th recess say that Trumpcare is probably dead. McConnell hints that he may attempt to work with Democrats to strengthen the ACA individual market and exchanges.
The NYTimes reports that Donald Jr. was offered damaging information on Hillary Clinton before attending a meeting with a Kremlin-linked Russian Lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya last June with Manafort and Kushner, but they do not confirm that she actually delivered this information during the meeting. [If that information was provided and it originated as a result of Russian cyber-espionage — we have Collusion Sign once again, particularly if it was offered in exchange for a repeal of the Magnitsky act which sanctions Russian individuals for Human Rights violations.’]
Trump’s legal team says he “was unaware and did not attend” the meeting with Veselnitskaya.
Bush ethics lawyer Richard Painter says Don Jr & Kushner’s actions in attending the Veselnitskaya meeting to get opposition research on Clinton “border on Treason.” Also, potentially, the Logan Act again.
Outgoing Ethics Chief Walter Shaub notes that part of why he’s leaving his post early is that while attempting to do his job he got nothing but stonewalling and even a “explicit threat” from Reince Preibus.
Trump begins his tweet walkback on the Cyber Security Unit: “The fact that President Putin and I discussed a Cyber Security unit doesn't mean I think it can happen. It can't-but a ceasefire can,& did!” [Uh, what?]
July 10th —
Don Jr. issues a statement — changing his previous claims that there were “No meetings”, and his second claim that it was about “adoptions” — that he went to this meeting because he was asked by a friend he’d met during the Moscow Miss Universe pageant in 2013 and admits he went because of he promise of “helpful information”. He didn’t know Veselnitskaya previously, she talked about Russians funding the DNC (which would be illegal) in order to help Hillary Clinton but her claims were “vague and made no sense” and after discussing Russian adoption and the Magnitski act he ended the meeting after 20 mins because Trump wasn’t public official yet [which avoids a Logan Act violation].
Common Cause files a complaint about Don Jr. “Solicitiing a contribution from a foreign national” with the FEC.
Junior goes on to repeatedly like tweets that say he attended the meeting to get “dirt” on Clinton which doesn’t help his case at all.
Brit Hume insist “Don Jr. was tricked by a Russian bait and switch” but there’s no evidence of collusion. [Yeah, except that he jumped at the bait until he decided it was worthless and not harmful enough to Clinton which was kinda collusion-ish.]
Kellyanne goes on George Stephanapoulos and gets caught in her previous statements that there were “no contacts or meetings” with Russians. George asks “Who misled you?” on the details of these meetings.
Kellyanne also talks to Chris Cuomo and whines endlessness that CNN doesn’t give Trump any positive coverage — although they do. [I mean, not all day long for 10 hours straight on show after show, but they mention the other stuff sometimes.] She tries to do an infomercial about “Trump the Great” on VA reform, the Opiod crisis and Infrastructure, Cuomo counters that Don Jr.’s statement is an admission that Russians were trying to ingratiate themselves into the Trump campaign, whether they succeeded that particular time is besides the point [And they apparently did succeed later with multiple undisclosed Kushner/Flynn meetings with Kislyak and others.) “Don Jr. changed his story twice, that’s what matters” Cuomo says. She keeps whining for more positive coverage “Your panelists roll their eyes and furrow their brows, they need to be more balanced” as if they don’t have Jeffrey Lord, Jason Miller, Jack Kingston, Rick Santorum and other Pro-Trump sycophants on every day. He says “You rally people to attack the press and our families” which they have.
Keith Olbermann pulls up an old Trump tweet that he says shows Trump knew Manafort and Don Jr. meet with Veselnitskaya because later that day was the first time he said “33,000 of Hillary’s emails were missing.”
FBI says about half (4 of 7) of Comey’s memos contain sensitive or confidential information indicating his sharing some of them with Senate investigators may be problematic even though he testified that he created all the memos as “Unclassified”, this means that he is now suffering from the same after-the-fact “up classification” problem that plagued Hillary Clinton and her emails. Ironic.
Trump retweets a Fox and Friends segment that claims Comey revealed classified information to the media in his memos, when in fact the media doesn’t even have his memos, Mueller does. Senate intel had only reached an agreement to see them just last week and hasn’t fully reviewed them yet.
Rep. Schiff say House Intel wants to question Don Jr. as does Sen. Susan Collins who wants him to talk to the Senate Intel committee. Donnie tweets he’ll be happy to talk to Senate Intel.
Congressional staffers tell the Daily Beast that Treasury officials have attempted to water down the Senate’s New Sanctions Bill against Russia. Tillerson supposedly argued it would “handicap their desire to repair the relationship between the two nations.”
After Trump tweets that if Chelsea Clinton had been a place holder for her mother as Ivanka had been for him at the G20 the “Fake media would have said Chelsea for Prez” — during an audio only briefing a WH reporters asks Huckabee-Sanders when he’ll finally put “Bill and Hillary in the rear view mirror?”
Chelsea hits back saying her Father and Mother “Never would have asked her” to do such a thing and never have.
Former watergate assistant prosecutor Nick Akerman echoes Richard Painter’s call that Don Jr. actions may have “betrayed the United States” and could be considered “Treason.”
Former CIA spy Lindsay Moran says that she has seen the Russian government use these kinds of tactics in the past on American citizens, “Legality aside, this is Russian intelligence tactics at their best,” she said. “Let’s promise Trump Jr. something that he wants, lure him in, bait and switch. It doesn’t matter whether they talked about nefarious activities with him at the meeting — the whole thing is nefarious.”
Don Jr. sarcastically tweets admitting he went to get the opposition research info on Clinton that he’s “the first campaign rep to have a meeting to get information on an opponent” {Yes, he would be for information From Russia!!’]
Then Don Jr. lawyers up. His new attorney is best known for defending the Mafia.
On CNN Jennifer Taub of the Vermont Law School says that “A campaign taking anything of value from a foreign national” is a crime, and even attempting to do so by going to the meeting would be “conspiracy” to violate campaign finance laws. A Trump friendly former U.S. attorney disagrees, but then this wouldn’t be an issue under the DOJ, it would be under the FEC.
The Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) prohibits any foreign national from contributing, donating or spending funds in connection with any federal, state, or local election in the United States, either directly or indirectly. It is also unlawful to help foreign nationals violate that ban or to solicit, receive or accept contributions or donations from them. Persons who knowingly and willfully engage in these activities may be subject to fines and/or imprisonment.
Sen. Mark Warner the ranking Democrat on the Intel Committee does a press conference and says “This isn’t the first time the public has seen clear evidence of an attempt by the Trump campaign to obtain information from Russia against the Clinton campaign. It’s a continuing pattern.” He also points out the Jared Kushner has already had to amend his security clearance forms twice because he keep “forgetting” to include meetings like this with Russians.
Iraq declares victory over ISIS in Mosul.
Sen. Chuck Schumer calls on Trump and Don Jr. to “Stop Lying.”
Maggie Haberman at the NYTimes reports that the initial email to Don Jr. about meeting Veselnitskaya noted that the information came from the Russian Government, which pretty much blows up all the Trump denials that they never “colluded” with Russia, since they obviously went to the meeting knowing that it was info against Clinton that came from the Kremlin. What he should have done when he got that email was go straight to the FBI, but he didn’t.
July 11th —
Don Jr. releases his emails with Rob Goldstone, pre-empting another New York Times report on them. They completely confirm Haberman’s previous report that they were told Veselnitskaya was a “Government Lawyer” from Russia and the information was provided by the “Crown Prosecutor” of Russia because the Russian Government “wanted to help Trump.”
Veselnitskaya talks to NBC and denies she ever worked for the Russian government or tried to tell Trump Jr. anything about Clinton but that “they wanted it very badly.”
Harvard Law Prof Laurence Tribe says ““We now have the proverbial smoking gun: TJr was part of criminal conspiracy to violate fed crim laws banning foreign aid to any US campaign,”
Jared Yates Sexton who’d’ been working on this story for a year concurs with Tribe: “This is the dumbest and biggest crime in the history of American politics. There's not even a close second.”
Trump priases his son’s transparency. “My son is a high quality person.”’
Huckabee-Sanders stonewalls all questions about Trump jr. during an audio-only press conference, referring questions about him to his lawyer, but she still stands by the “no one colluded” claim she made the previous day.
Reports surface that some WH aides are considering lawyering up.
Rep. Marsha Blackburn says “Maybe Trump Jr. was duped.”
Ted Cruz blames all this Russia stuff on “Barack Obama.”
Fox News tries to spin Don Jr. email dump — then gives up on it when they get to the part where Jr. responds ‘If it’s what you say, I love it.’” when he reads that the Russian government wants to provide Trump information against Clinton in order to help their campaign.
Fox and Friends retracts their claim that Comey shared Top Secret information with the Press. “We were mistaken.”
Politico reports that Peter W. Smith’s attempts to gain access to Hillary’s emails involved a White Supremacist who had been banned from Twitter for his racism.
Julian Assange admits that he tried to give Don jr. advise to publish his emails through Wikileaks.
Some on the media argue that the leaks on Don Jr’s emails are coming from Steve Bannon in order to protect Kushner.
Wapo reports that GOP operatives close to Trump are building a “discredit team” to smear reporters.
Daily Beast reports that Bill Browder will testify before Senate Judiciary on how Veselnitskaya is linked to the GRU, FSB and efforts to lower the Magnitski Act sanctions.
joe Scarborough announces on Colbert that he’s leaving the Republican party to become and Independent.
CNN report Special Counsel Bob Mueller was unaware of Juniors meeting with Veselniskaya, but will now be investigating.
July 12th —
The intercept reports that Trump is still the principle on many of his businesses despite his claims to have handed over control to his family. [Liar, Liar, super long tie on fire.]
Rep Brad Sherman (D-CA) and Al Green (D-TX) file articles of Impeachment against Trump over his handling of the firing of James Comey.
Sen Franken rips defense of Donald Jr. to shreds during confirmation hearing for FBI director nominee Christopher Wray in response to a claim by Lindsey Graham that the Ukraine tried to give information to Hillary Clinton’s campaign. [Although this wasn’t the Ukrainian government sending an operative to reach out to Clinton, it was an effort to gather information on Paul Manafort by DNC consultant Alexandra Chalupa who is Ukrainian-American. That’s oppo research due diligence by an American, not a foreign government trying to interfere with a U.S. election.]
Sen Graham asks Wray if Mueller is on a “Witch Hunt” — he says “Director Mueller is not on a Witch Hunt.” He also says “Any threat or promise to help a campaign by a foreign government, the FBI would want to know.”
Senate Judiciary Chair Grassley prepares to call Manafort to testify.
Rep. Steve King threatens to re-open investigation of 65k emails of Anthony Weiner, Comey’s “activities” and Hillary’s emails if Democrats don't stop talking about Trump and Russia. [Go for it, punk!]
Emin Agalarov’s attorney Scott Balber gets smashed on live TV by Chris Cuomo over Emin's promoter Rob Goldstone “Do you know him to a a pathological liar?” and his attempt to give Don Jr. negative information on Hillary: Balber says it’s “Simply fiction that this was an attempt by the Russian government to reach Trump through having his son’s pop music publicist, the prosecutor never talked to his father.” Cuomo says about Goldstone’s claim: “That is some doozy of a lie.”
Cuomo also takes on Sekulow over Don Jr. and tells him “You have no facts!”
McClatchy reports that House, Senate and DOJ investigators are looking at whether the Russian cyberbot and Troll program to spread fake news about Hillary as reported by Time was coordinated using Jared Kushner voter micro-targeting system with Cambridge Analytics. Former Pentagon expert on Russia Mike Carpenter states ““There appears to have been significant cooperation between Russia’s online propaganda machine and individuals in the United States who were knowledgeable about where to target the disinformation,” he said, without naming any American suspects.
Democratic party donors and some staff have sued the Trump campaign and Roger Stone for conspiring to publicly release their private information through the dumping of data stolen from the DNC by Russian hackers through DCLeaks and Wikileaks. The suit doesn’t contain any hard evidence of conspiracy but it does seek to depose witnesses and do discovery of Trump campaign emails.
WSJ reports that US intel is reviewing intercepts they captured in 2015 before his run for the President of Russian intel personnel discussing contacts with Trump associates.
DOJ misses a court ordered deadline to provide all of Jeff Sessions foreign contacts.
Trump tells Pat Roberson that Putin “wanted Clinton to win because of the Military and Energy.” He doesn’t mention sanctions, human rights, Crimea, Ukraine, NATO or the EU.
During a Reuters interview Trump says he didn’t know about Junior meeting Veselnitskaya and argues “most people would have taken that meeting.” [Uh, nope.]
July 13th —
NyTimes reports that Kushner has updated his security forms for foreign contacts 3 times and added more than 100 new names to the list.
Republican Rep. Bill Flores says that Trump should get his kids, including Kushner, out of the White House.
DOJ delivers Sessions foreign contact list a day late and short of details.
Asked about Trump Jr’s meeting and his FBI director nominee’s claim that anyone in that situation “should contact the FBI” while in France for Bastille Day Trump echoes his own false story that he previous dictated for Junior on AF1 says “most people would have taken that meeting”, “nothing happened, they talked about adoptions which wasn’t part of the campaign” and claims she wasn’t a “Government Lawyer” even though Junior was specifically told that she was and this was part of the Russian government’s effort to help his campaign, he ignores FEC rules over foreign “gifts and contributions” then he blames Veselnitskaya even being in the country on Loretta Lynch (ignoring that her Visa was approved by the State Dept, not DOJ, because she was a Denys Katsyv’s defense attorney while he was being sued under the Magnitski Act)
Chuck Grassley sends Junior a letter requesting he testify before Senate Judiciary.
After first saying he’d only just heard of the Veselnitskaya meeting 2 days ago Trump changes his tune later in the day, telling reporters on Air Force One: “In fact maybe it was mentioned at some point,” This statement was supposed to be off the record, but Trump changed and put it on the record.
Chicago Tribune reports that GOP Donor and operative Peter W. Smith who had tried to acquire Hillary’s emails for Michael Flynn committed suicide 10 days after talking to WSJ.
Yahoo News reports that Trump’s attorneys were informed about the meeting 3 weeks ago after the emails referring to it were discovered by Kushner’s lawyers who then updated his SF-86 form.
Senate Intel member James Lankford (R-OK) reveals that Kushners attendance at the Veselnitskaya meetings was known as far back as April, when he updated his background check forms.
Kushner explodes with WH Press staff saying that instead of letting Trump and Juniors lawyers respond to these issues they need to aggressively defend Don Jr. and have two staffers ready to “attack the Chyrons”on Cable News shows and have op-eds written for the NYtimes and WSJ. Some reports are that Spicey has begun complaining about Kush and still others say these conversations just didn’t happen. [Yeah, alrighty.]
Kasowitz blows his stack at an email critic: “I’m on you now. You are ******* with me now. Let’s see who you are. Watch your back, *****.” Charming.
TPM reports that Trump Deputy Sebastian Gorka is a Nazi Worshipper, cuz of course he is.
Many reporters note that there are references to a phone call between Don Jr. and Emin in the emails chain, and also that Goldstone’s mention of the Russian governments efforts to help Trump seem nonchalant as if that was an already known fact to Don Jr.
Michael Isakoff reveals on CNN that he had interviewed Rob Goldstone and learned that the Trump’s and Agalarov’s had a deal for a new Trump Tower in 2013 that went sideways in 2014 when Obama placed sanctions on Russia for their invasion of Crimea.
Glenn Simpson co-owner of the firm Fusion GPS which had employed Christopher Steel while he compiled his dossier on Trump declines an invitation to testify before Senate Judiciary.
July 14 —
Harvard Law Prof Laurence Tribe says ““We now have the proverbial smoking gun: TJr was part of criminal conspiracy to violate fed crim laws banning foreign aid to any US campaign,”
Jared Yates Sexton who’d’ been working on this story for a year concurs with Tribe: “This is the dumbest and biggest crime in the history of American politics. There's not even a close second.”
Trump priases his son’s transparency. “My son is a high quality person.”’
Huckabee-Sanders stonewalls all questions about Trump jr. during an audio-only press conference, referring questions about him to his lawyer, but she still stands by the “no one colluded” claim she made the previous day.
Reports surface that some WH aides are considering lawyering up.
Rep. Marsha Blackburn says “Maybe Trump Jr. was duped.” Hm, ya think?
Ted Cruz blames all this Russia stuff on “Barack Obama.”
Fox News tries to spin Don Jr. email dump — then gives up on it when they get to the part where Jr. responds ‘If it’s what you say, I love it.’” when he reads that the Russian government wants to provide Trump information against Clinton in order to help their campaign.
Fox and Friends retracts their claim that Comey shared Top Secret information with the Press. “We were mistaken.” [No ****, Sherlock.]
Politico reports that Peter W. Smith’s attempts to gain access to Hillary’s emails involved a White Supremacist who had been banned from Twitter for his racism.
Julian Assange admits that he tried to give Don jr. advise to publish his emails through Wikileaks.
Some on the media argue that the leaks on Don Jr’s emails are coming from Steve Bannon in order to protect Kushner.
Wapo reports that GOP operatives close to Trump are building a “discredit team” to smear reporters.
Daily Beast reports that Bill Browder will testify before Senate Judiciary on how Veselnitskaya is linked to the GRU, FSB and efforts to lower the Magnitski Act sanctions.
William Browder, an American financier who has investigated Russian corruption for more than a decade, will brief the Senate Judiciary Committeeat a hearing next week on the lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya’s ties to the Russian government—including to former top members of the GRU and the FSB, two of the Kremlin’s main intelligence agencies. Those ties were spelled out in documents that Browder shared with the committee and provided to The Daily Beast this week.
joe Scarborough announces on Colbert that he’s leaving the Republican party to become and Independent.
CNN reports Special Counsel Bob Mueller was unaware of Juniors meeting with Veselniskaya, but will now be investigating. [Ruh Roh!]
The intercept reports that Trump is still the principle on many of his businesses despite his claims to have handed over control to his family. [Liar, Liar, super long tie on fire.]
Rep Brad Sherman (D-CA) and Al Green (D-TX) file articles of Impeachment against Trump over his handling of the firing of James Comey.
Sen Franken rips defense of Donald Jr. to shreds during confirmation hearing for FBI director nominee Christopher Wray in response to a claim by Lindsey Graham that the Ukraine tried to give information to Hillary Clinton’s campaign. [Although this wasn’t the Ukrainian government sending an operative to reach out to Clinton, it was an effort to gather information on Paul Manafort by DNC consultant Alexandra Chalupa who is Ukrainian-American. That’s oppo research due diligence by an American, not a foreign government trying to interfere with a U.S. election.]
Sen Graham ask Wray if Mueller is on a “Witch Hunt” — he say “Director Mueller is not on a Witch Hunt.” He also says “Any threat or promise to help a campaign by a foreign government, the FBI would want to know.”
Senate Judiciary Chair Grassley prepares to call Manafort to testify.
Rep. Steve King threatens to re-open investigation of 65k emails of Anthony Weiner, Comey’s “activities” and Hillary’s emails if Democrats don't stop talking about Trump and Russia. [Go for it, punk!]
Emin Agalarov’s attorney Scott Balber gets smashed on live TV by Chris Cuomo over Emin's promoter Rob Goldstone “Do you know him to a a pathological liar?” and his attempt to give Don Jr. negative information on Hillary: Balber says it’s “Simply fiction that this was an attempt by the Russian government to reach Trump through having his son’s pop music publicist, the prosecutor never talked to his father.” Cuomo says about Goldstone’s claim: “That is some doozy of a lie.”
Cuomo also takes on Sekulow over Don Jr. and tells him “You have no facts!”
McClatchy reports that House, Senate and DOJ investigators are looking at whether the Russian cyberbot and Troll program to spread fake news about Hillary as reported by Time was coordinated using Jared Kushner voter micro-targeting system with Cambridge Analytics. Former Pentagon expert on Russia Mike Carpenter states ““There appears to have been significant cooperation between Russia’s online propaganda machine and individuals in the United States who were knowledgeable about where to target the disinformation,” he said, without naming any American suspects.
Democratic party donors and some staff have sued the Trump campaign and Roger Stone for conspiring to publicly release their private information through the dumping of data stolen from the DNC by Russian hackers through DCLeaks and Wikileaks. The suit doesn’t contain any hard evidence of conspiracy but it does seek to depose witnesses and do discovery of Trump campaign emails.
WSJ reports that US intel is reviewing intercepts they captured in 2015 of Russian intel personnel discussing contacts with Trump associates.
DOJ misses a court ordered deadline to provide all of Jeff Sessions foreign contacts.
Trump tells Pat Roberson that Putin “wanted Clinton to win because of the Military and Energy.” He doesn’t mention sanctions, human rights, Crimea, Ukraine, NATO or the EU.
During a Reuters interview Trump says he didn’t know about Junior meeting Veselnitskaya and argues “most people would have taken that meeting.” [Uh, nope.]
NyTimes reports that Kushner has updated his security forms for foreign contacts 3 times and added more than 100 new names to the list.
Republican Rep. Bill Flores says that Trump should get his kids, including Kushner, out of the White House.
DOJ delivers Sessions foreign contact list a day late and short of details. He continues to claim that Foreign contacts he made as a member of the Senate are not relevant and are therefore redacted, but that’s not an option available on the form.
Asked about Trump Jr’s meeting and his FBI director nominee’s claim that anyone in that situation “should contact the FBI” while in France for Bastille Day Trump says again repeating the false statement he himself helped craft on AF1 that “most people would have taken that meeting”, “nothing happened, they talked about adoptions which wasn’t part of the campaign” and claims she wasn’t a “Government Lawyer” even though Junior was specifically told that she was and this was part of the Russian government’s effort to help his campaign, he ignores FEC rules over foreign “gifts and contributions” then he blames Veselnitskaya even being in the country on Loretta Lynch (ignoring that her Visa was approved by the State Dept, not DOJ, because she was a Denys Katsyv’s defense attorney while he was being sued under the Magnitski Act)
Chuck Grassley sends Junior a letter requesting he testify before Senate Judiciary.
After first saying he’d only just heard of the Veselnitskaya meeting 2 days ago Trump changes his tune later in the day, telling reporters on Air Force One: “In fact maybe it was mentioned at some point,” This statement was supposed to be off the record, but Trump changed and put it on the record.
Chicago Tribune reports that GOP Donor and operative Peter W. Smith who had tried to acquire Hillary’s emails for Michael Flynn committed suicide 10 days after talking to WSJ.
Yahoo News reports that Trump’s attorneys were informed about the meeting 3 weeks ago after the emails referring to it were discovered by Kushner’s lawyers who then updated his SF-86 form.
Senate Intel member James Lankford (R-OK) reveals that Kushners attendance at the Veselnitskaya meetings was known as far back as April, when he updated his background check forms.
Kushner explodes with WH Press staff saying that instead of letting Trump and Juniors lawyers respond to these issues they need to aggressively defend Don Jr. and have two staffers ready to “attack the Chyrons” on Cable News shows and have op-eds written for the NYtimes and WSJ. Some reports are that Spicey has begun complaining about Kush and still others say these conversations just didn’t happen. [Yeah, alrighty.]
Kasowitz blows his stack at an email critic: “I’m on you now. You are ******* with me now. Let’s see who you are. Watch your back, *****.” Charming.
TPM reports that Trump Deputy Sebastian Gorka is a Nazi Worshipper, cuz of course he is.
Many reporters note that there are references to a phone call between Don Jr. and Emin in the emails chain, and also that Goldstone’s mention of the Russian governments efforts to help Trump seem nonchalant as if that was an already known fact to Don Jr.
Michael Isakoff reveals that he had interviewed Rob Goldstone and learned that the Trump’s and Agalarov’s had a deal for a new Trump Tower in 2013 that went sideways in 2014 when Obama placed sanctions on Russia for their invasion of Crimea.
Daily Beast reports that in addition to the “translator” who came with Veselnitskaya to the meeting with Don Jr. there was Rinat Akhmetshin a former Russian Intelligence officer and lobbyist who had previously been accused of being involved in an international hacking scheme.
On Fox both Lou Hobbs while appearing on Hannity and Jesse Waters accuse the “deep state” and “left wing” media of attempting a “coup d’etat” against Trump to undermine American values and “break the will of the people” even though the actual majority of the people voted against Trump.
Loretta Lynch denies she had any personal involvement or knowledge of Veselnitskaya’s Visa status, and she shouldn’t because that wasn’t. her. job. the State Dept. under John Kerry handled Visas at that time and her’s was approved at least as far back as 2013 when Bharara first issued his Magnitski suit against the Prevezon Holdings.
GOP strategist Rick Wllson says “Only Trump’s hypnotized base believes his Bullshit Tornado about Russia.” [Yep, pretty much.’]
Trump digital media expert Brad Pascale issues a statement in response to House and Senate intel requests to speak to him that he has ‘no knowledge of Russian involvement” in the online campaign he put together with Cambridge-Analytica.
Rep.Adam Schiff calls for everyone from the Veselnitskaya meeting to testify to the House Intel. [Which is now at 8 people and counting...]
The New Republic publishes an extensive story on TrumpCos long history of being involved in money laundering with Russian mobsters going all the way back to 1987.
Former Trump communications aid Michael Caputo agrees with CNN that the Trump Campaign was too much of a ‘**** Show” to have been able to effectively coordinate with the Russians. [Do Tell.]
Caputo testifies behind closed doors to House Intel, claims he saw no links to discussions of Russia, that little old ladies used to bring them “dog-eared papers” on Clinton, and condemns Rep. Jackie Spieres for linking him to Russia saying that it caused his wife and family to receive death threats, and that someone threatened to burn his house down. “The Rhetoric is going to get someone killed and I don’t want to be the next one shot” which is pretty ironic since Jackie Spiere’s was shot 5 times while she was a staffer for Rep. Leo Ryan when he was killed near the Jim Jones compound in Guyana.
Akhmetshin claims he has never worked for Russian intelligence or the GRU, his simply served 2 years in the Russian army before immigrating to the U.S. and becoming a citizen and working as a lobbyist, but says that Veselnitskaya brought a plastic folder with documents showing the DNC accepting funds from Russia to the meeting. All this despite a letter written from Sen. Grassley to SecDEf Kelly about Akhmetshin being and “unregistered” lobbyist who had previously experience as an “active measures expert” with the GRU.
Veselnitskaya admits that she is a former prosecutor and is in regular contact with the Prosecutor General of Russia Yuri Chaika, who is controversial for trumping up bogus charges against Putin’s enemies and having them tortured and killed in prisonthe same way the Sergei Magnitski was killed.
Kushner Lawyer Jamie Gorelick is reported by Politico to be backing out of Kushner’s issues with Mueller and leaving everything to Abbie Lowell
July 15th —
WH announces “Made In America Week” but has no answer when asked if that means that Ivanka’s clothing line which is made overseas will be moving their manufacturing to the U.S. The WaPo then pointed out that Trump branded products are made in at least a dozen countries.
The Hill reports that there were 150,000 hack attempts were made against South Carolina’s voter registration system, indications are that they were not successful.
Secret Service smacks down Sekolow — “That meeting was never cleared with us.”
Trump’s lawyer Sekolow blames the Veselnitskaya/Akhmetshin meeting on the Secret Service even though no one who was a protectee at that time was in the meeting. He also claims he and Trump weren’t involved in the crafting of Don Jr’s initial and false statements about the meeting, but that is a lie since Trump dictated and approved it from AF1.
Daily Beast reports that Don Jr.’s lawyer Alan Futerfas had been paid $50,000 by the Trump re-election campaign 11 days before the first report about his Veselnitskaya meeting. Furteras is best known for having been the attorney for all four of New York’s most notorious organized crime families.
July 16th —
Trump whines on Twitter about all the attention on Don Jr’s meeting and accuses Hillary of “illegally” deleting emails even after the FBI said it wasn’t illegal, and his own companies have repeated deleted emails and documents under court order, and getting debate questions ahead of time which also isn’t illegal particularly when Clinton wasn’t even asked the same questions that were wrongfully forwarded to her meanwhile he was warned about Meghan Kelly’s first debate question and had threatened her not to ask it or else his twitter followers would come after her, which they did.
July 17th —
Spicer proclaims that there was nothing in Juniors email that shows the meeting wasn’t about Abortion and the Magnitski Act [which he mis-pronounces as “Maginski Act”] — except everything Junior released five days ago and also what Trump said on Bastille day and tweeted about admiring that it was about obtaining “Oppo research.”
CNN talks to Junior’s Lawyer Futerfas and he says he talked to the 8th man in the meeting who was a rep for the Agalarov Family, even though their lawyers Scott Balber says they basically had nothing to do with anything, This person confirms that the meeting started off being about Russia giving money to the DNC, but he doesn’t confirm that a 2 page document was left behind by Veselnitskaya for Junior.
The Senate Trumpcare Bill coughs and dies as 2 more Repub Senators come out against it dropping them to 48 votes. Trump calls for a full repeal of O-care with a two year delay for them to “figure something out” also known as magically skipping over the 2018 midterm elections.
Fox’s Judge Anthony Napolitano who was the primary source of Trump’s bogus “Obama Wiretapped Trump Tower using GCHQ” claim, comes out and says that Junior probably broke the law. “Because it is suspicious that they met with these people, that they didn’t consult a lawyer, that one of these people was a former KGB, GRU, that’s the Russian intelligence arm, Russian military intelligence arm, and didn’t tell anybody about it.” [Yeah, ya think?’’]
WSJ Editoral “Eviscerates” Trump over the entire Russia scandal saying “Mr. Trump and his family are repeating the mistakes that doomed Mrs. Clinton.Don Jr. released his emails that showed the Russian lure about Mrs. Clinton and Don Jr. all excited—’I love it.’ Oh, and son-in-law Jared Kushner and Beltway bagman Paul Manafort were also at the meeting. Don Jr. told Sean Hannity this was the full story,” they continued. “But then news leaked that a Russian-American lobbyist was also at the meeting.”
July 18th —
The 8th man finally appears and is revealed to be a naturalized Russian-American, Ike Kaveladze, working in the U.S. for a Russian real estate company owned by the Agalarov’s who is represented by Emin’s Lawyer Scott Balber. Balber says he was there to act as a translator, but that Veselnitskaya brought her own translator (person #7) and that he’d been contacted by Mueller’s office about the ID of the 8th man. Congress and the GAO had previously investigated Kaveladze as a “foreigner creating shell companies” exactly like the types of money laundering schemes that have been used by the Russian Mob and Intel services.
Trumpcare finally implodes as more Republican Senator balk at their bullshit plan. Trump whines and blames Democrats for not helping destroy healthcare for 22-23 Million people even though the entire point of using the reconciliation process was to avoid needing any Dem votes. He says he’s now “let Obamacare fail” while in fact he’s already been sabotaging it by messing with cost sharing reductions and driving providers out of the marketplace.
Mueller ok’s the Senate Judiciary committees to talk to Junior and Manafort in an open hearing. [Is this because he’s already talked to both of them?]
It’s revealed that during a dinner at the G20 Trump again spoke with Putin for another hour without disclosing it, this time without any other Americans or aides present so there is no record or documentation of what was said.
Fox WH correspondent John Roberts walks out of Huckabee-Sanders briefing early and when she notes his departure from the podium he slaps back “‘If it was on camera, I might not be.’ Generating “Ooohs” from the pool.
Sean Hannity whines about Shep Smith’s criticism of Trump “Some voices on Fox drive me nuts. Shep is so anti-Trump.”
Chris Christie says that it was “probably illegal” to receive oppo research from a foreign government but that Don Jr. is not smart enough to collude with the Russians.
July 19th —
Scarborough says about Trump’s second Putin meeting: ““So what are we to assume if not the worst — that he had this meeting, the White House didn’t reveal it. Once again we had to find out about it through third channels and there wasn’t even an American within earshot to listen what they talked about for an hour.”
Walter Schaub says he was horrified when Trump’s lawyer asked if he could turn in his financial disclosure forms without signing them and certifying that they were true.
Over 20 lawmakers begin to question Ivanka Trump’s security clearance because she apparently didn’t disclose any of their families multiple meetings with Russian officials on her SF86 forms.
Shep Smith slaps back at Hannity “Sometimes facts are displeasing.”
Flynn and Caputo are reportedly having difficulty paying their lawyer fees.
Veselnitskaya says she’s ready to testify to the Senate who otherwise can’t subpoena her since she’s a foreign natonal. [Judging by her RT interview, she’ll do great right?]
Daily Beast reports that while Veselnitskaya met secretly with Don Jr. last June the Kremlin gave Rep. Dana Rohrabacher instructions to stage a “show trial” in Congress attacking Bill Browder in order to alter the Magnitski Act sanctions on Russia. Rohrabacher was provided a Russian propaganda film against Browder by Yuri Chaika’s Prosecutor Generals Office, which was the same source for Veselnitskaya’s “evidence” against Hillary Clinton and the DNC.
Trump does an interview with Maggie Haberman and the NyTimes
He says that he blames the appointment of Mueller as Special Counsel on Jeff Sessions recusal, and says if he’d known Sessions would recuse himself he wouldn’t have picked him for AG. “It’s very unfair to the President.”
He thinks Comey briefing him on the Steele dossier was intended as blackmail in order to keep his job.
That Mueller was rife with conflicts of interest because he had interviewed for interim FBI director the day before he was appointed Special Counsel, and he has Democrats working for him
He doesn’t trust Deputy FBI Director McCabe because his wife ran for office as a Democrat once and got $700k from Gov. Terry McAullif and the DNC, who are friendly with Clinton so that means McCabe is “evil.”
He doesn’t trust Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein because he’s from Baltimore and it’s full of Democrats.
He claims he still doesn’t think he’s under investigation even for obstruction of Justice “I don’t think we’re under investigation,” he said. “I’m not under investigation. For what? I didn’t do anything wrong.”
He again denied that he asked Comey to drop the Flynn investigation.
He admits that his second hour long conversation with Putin at the G20 included a discussion of Russian adoptions, the same subject that Veselnitskaya had brought up with Don Jr.
He says that if Mueller wanders from Russia and starts to investigate his families finances it would be “crossing a red line.”
The NYTimes reports that investigators are looking at complex financial transactions between Trump, Kushner, Deutsche Bank and VEB.
Trump hits 6 Months in Office as Carrier lays off 300 workers.
Kushner is scheduled to testify in closed Session to Senate Intel on the 24th. Manafort and Don Jr. are scheduled to testify before Senate Judiciary on the 26th.
NYTimes reports that Manafort owed $17 Million to pro-Russia shell companies based in Cyprus before he joined Trump campaign.
July 20th —
Bloomberg reports that Mueller is looking at the finances of Trump and his associates.
AP reports that the Russian urged Trump to bring a note taker for his dinner meeting with Putin but he declined because he was afraid of leaks.
Senate Judiciary approves Chris Wray for FBI Director.
Sessions says he’ll stay on as a “Zombie Attorney General.”
Sally Yates slams Trump’s attack on the independence of the DOJ as a “violation of a bedrock principle of democracy”
Rohrabacher dismisses what Russia asked him to do with a “show trial” as insignificant.
HHS is using Obamacare outreach funds to undermine the laws function.
Rep. Schiff calls Trump’s secret dinner meeting with Putin “deeply troubling.”
Huckabee-Sanders says those who complain about Trump’s 2nd meeting have “Russia Fever.”
Deutsche bank which has loaned Trump hundreds of $Million agrees to turn over financial records to Mueller and investigators.
U.S. Military renting space in Trump Tower are paying $130,000 per month for it.
1 in 8 Trump voters wish they could take it back.
Treasury Dept fines Exxon-Mobil $2 Million for violating Russia sanctions related to Ukraine when Tillerson was CEO.
NAACP Legal Defense Fund Sues Trump election panel for racial discrimination, voter intimidation and suppression.
Trump’s Chief counter-terrorism advisor Thomas Bossert admits that Russia was definitely behind the 2016 election hacking, so how come Trump doesn’t know, or believe, that?
Rumors abound that Kasowitz will be taking a back seat on Trump’s legal team as some on the team begin doing oppo research on the members of Mueller’s team in order to hinder them. [Which would be obstruction]
Court documents show that one of Veselnitskaya’s previous clients was the FSB.
Trump asks his lawyers and advisors what his options are for pardoning members of his family or himself.
Weary Trump supporters begin to tune out the news because it’s all bad for him and them.
July 21st —
Roger Stone rips Sessions: He’s only a ‘tough guy’ when it comes to ‘chasing people for smoking pot’
Mueller request WH Staff preserve all documents and emails of communications related to Trump Jr.’s June meeting with Russians.
Reports surface that the shakeup in Trump’s legal team is linked to the attacks on Mueller.
Trump hires Anthony Scaramucci as Communications Director, Preibus had no idea. Sean Spicer resigns in protest because having a shmoozy Wall Street hack shill “Yes” man stooge with no Washington or communications experience as your instant boss was obviously the last fracking straw. Sarah “Resting scowl-face” Huckabee-Sanders becomes the new WH Press Secretary.
Kasowitz and strategist Mark Corallo leave Trump’s legal team. DC lawyer John Down takes over.
Wapo Reports that Intercepts by U.S. intel of conversation between Kislyak and Russia indicate that Sessions twice, at the Mayflower Hotel and at the RNC, discussed Trump’s positions regarding Russia with him indicating that he lied to congress under oath about those conversations.
Mother Jones reports that Sen. Warren has been pressing the Treasury department since January on whether Scaramucci had violated sanctions rules by discussing possible investment opportunities with Kirill Dmitriev, head of the sanctioned Russian Direct Investment Fund.
Senate intel chair Burr says “the unmasking thing” was all created by Devin Nunez.
Senate Judiciary issues a subpoena to Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS for information about the creation of the Steele Dossier.
Kislyak steps down as ambassador and returns to Russia.
NSC Staffer Rich Higgins is fired for writing a crazed conspiracy filled memo.
July 23rd —
Huckabee-Sanders gets caught in a lie by Stephanapolous claiming the Russia story is all the press covers.
Don Jr. hires more lawyers.
Scaramucci tries to scrub all his previous anti-Trump, pro-Climate Change tweets but everyone notices.
Scaramucci is interviewed by Jake Tapper on CNN
He says that Putin told Trump in Hamburg that Russian hackers are too good to have been caught by the U.S.
He denies that Russia hacked our election “This is maybe they did it, maybe they didn’t do it” and runs into a buzzsaw with Tapper — “Don’t you owe a duty to the truth?”
Kellyanne Conway freaks out when CNN’s Brian Stetler suggests the Trump campaign welcomed Russian interference and influence during the election, which frankly they didn’t oppose.
July 24th —
Kushner releases an 11 Page statement prior to his speaking to the Senate Intel staff behind closed doors
He denies colluding with Russians or discussing campaign issues.
He says he tried to get out of the Veselnitskaya meeting and never fully read the email or apparently the subject line “Hillary — Russia — Sensitive and Confidential. [But he still showed up, didn't he?] He arrived at the meeting late and the topic at the time was “Russian adoptions” he didn’t see that as being relevant and emailed his assistant to call him in order to give him an excuse to leave. "Can u pls call me on my cell? Need excuse to get out of meeting.” He says he didn’t remember anything about the meeting and had disclosed it on his forms prior to it reaching the press.
He says his SF86 form was accidentally submitted without being completed when his assistant mistook the completion of one section to mean the entire form was complete. [Aren’t these supposed to be signed when submitted certifying that they’re fully complete?] All contacts with foreign nations were originally omitted not just Russians.
He reveals that he received an email that was clearly an extortion attempt by “Guccifer400” that threatened to reveal Trump tax returns. He thought is was a hoax and referred it to Secret Service. [That should have gone to FBI, Secret Service protects you from physical threats and conterfeiters they don’t pursue blackmail or extortion.]
He says he only talked to Kislyak for “about a minute” at the Mayflower Hotel simply to exchange pleasantries and denies the Reuters report that he had two phone calls with Kislyak between April and November, saying he searched his phone records and couldn’t find any numbers associated with the ambassador. “I doubt these calls took place.”
He says he tried to setup a secure back-channel to the Kremlin in order to discuss the war in Syria with Russian “generals” came from Kislyak, but was not over sanctions. Flynn said such a secure channel didn’t exist and Kushner asked if one existed in the Russian embassy. [This doesn’t explain why he wanted the U.S. Intel community cut out of the loop, since they have to implement Syria policy anyway and the people who really don’t need to know is ISIS. Plus this was in December and January while they were all still “private citizens” — Logan Act — and long before there were allegations of “wiretaps”, “unmasking” or “leaks” coming from US Intel so what gives?]
Kislyak kept pestering him for continued meetings which he didn’t have time for and turned down until finally sending his assistant, then he agreed to meet VEB’s Gorkov because “he had a direct link to Putin.” He says they didn’t discuss sanctions or business or really anything other than “wanting better relations.”
He never mentions or explains his meeting with the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi which he attended with Steve Bannon following his meeting with Gorkov to further discuss Russia relations, or the follow on meeting to that between the Crown Prince and Eric Prince of Blackwater in the Seychelles Islands.
Kushner gives a public statement “I didn't collude with Russians and don’t know anyone who did.” [You know Flynn, Manafort and Roger Stone don’t you?] And claims “I did not rely on Russian money for my businesses.”
Kushner also apparently tell Congressional Staff the “Trump campaign was too disorganized to have colluded with the Russians” [Then why is that frakhole “President” then?]
At some point near this time Manafort also talks to Congressional staffers and tell them about the Veselnitskaya meeting.
Former FBI Agent Clint Watts says Kushner’s statement and it’s “chaos and confusion” defense shows he’s either incompetent or the Russia influence on TrumpCo is very strong. [Could be both!]
The Guardian reports that Kushner paid $295 Million for a portion of the New York Times building from Jewish Soviet-born Diamond Tycoon Lev Leviev — who the Dutch media reports smuggles valuable diamonds by making them look worthless by covering them in soot, connected to Human Rights violations in Angola as well as funding illegal Jewish settlements in the disputed zones of Israel. Kushner later borrowed $285 million to refinance the purchase through Deutsche Bank, which has come under scrutiny for alleged ties to Russian money laundering and had to pay $630 Million in fines for transferring $10 Billion through Russia. [So much for ‘not relying Russian Money for his business’]
Fox Host Jason Chaffetz claims people should be talking about Chelsea Clinton’s links to Benghazi [even though she has none, she didn’t work for Hillary or the State Dept then], and Hillary’s links to Russia [also has none, certainly not since Putin returned to the Presidency] rather than Kushner’s failure to report his meetings, even though only Kushner is speaking to the Senate today.`
NYTimes Glenn Thrush reports that rather than being an insult to the press, the yanking of WH press conference videos was because Spicer didn’t want Trump yelling at him and saying he “sucked at his job”.
Feinstein asks Grassley to call Sessions before Senate Judiciary.
Trump tweet/whines why “Beleagured” Sessions and House committees don’t investigate Hillary’s connections to Russia [Bill spoke to Renaissance Capital in 2010 for $500,000 while supposedly at that time Hillary opposed requests for the State Dept to deny visas to Russian oligarch accused of Human rights violations under Medvedev. But that all changed with the passage of the Magnitski Act and Putin’s return to the Presidency in 2012 and the annexation of Crimea and invasion of Ukraine in 2014. Also if you think Bill and Hillary can be bought for $500k what exactly did Deutsche Bank get from Kushner for a cool $285 Million?]
Trump trues to bully Republicans into passing Trumpcare by saying “Obamacare is Death” — which is bullshit. Does a campaign rally at the Boy Scout Jamboree — even though I’m pretty sure they can’t vote yet. And reports start to surface that’s he’s floating the idea of removing Sessions.
July 25th —
After Trump’s usual self-aggrandizing, whining, hate and delusion filled partisan rally speech to the Boy Scout Jamboree parents and former scouts alike our outraged. He had invited members of his staff who were Eagle Scouts like Rick Perry but gives Jeff Sessions the Spicer Treatment by leaving him out. Some reports at that Sessions is so pissed he won’t give Trump the satisfaction of quitting.
During the Jamboree Scaramucci’s wife gives birth to their second child James, he’s not there because he’s with Trump, but he does send her a text.
Trump thumps Sessions some more on Twitter. Several times, even though it was his ethical — and legal — duty to recuse himself from any investigation of a campaign that he was a participant of. He’s so mean even Breitbart and Limbaugh start to feel sorry for Sessions. Some Congressional Republicans start to grow a soul, but Paul Ryan doesn’t.
The House approves new strengthened sanctions on Russia/Iran & North Korea which don’t allow Trump to unilaterally cut them by a final Veto Proof vote of 419-3.
John McCain triumphantly returns to the Senate after his brain cancer diagnosis and gives an impassioned rousing speach on bipartisanship right after casting a pivotal party line vote to open debate on taking the kind of Health Care he’s currently receiving away from between 15 or 22 or 32 Million people depending on Mitch McConnell’s mood. Although the parlimentarian says they’re going to need 60 Votes for most of what they have in mind.
Kushner is interviewed behind closed doors by House Intel panel staff for 3 Hours.
Manafort is subpeoned by Senate Judiciary.
House Repubs block Democrats attempt to see Trump’s Treasury FIles.
Scarmucci admits Trump wants Sessions FIred “It’s like a divorce.”
Huckabee-Sanders says re-re-reinvestigating Clinton for things that didn’t happen and she’s already been cleared for is just “Keeping a level playing field.”
Trump tweets about classified Syria program to fund and supply anti-Assad rebels in order to slap back at a Wapo story.
July 26h —
FBI executes a “No Knock” pre-dawn search warrant on Paul Manafort’s residence looking for financial documents some of which he was supposed to have turned over to Senate Intel specifically because they’re concerned he might destroy evidence.
Just minutes after Tucker Carlson calls trans people potential “child abusers” Trump tweets that all trans persons in the military will be removed because to the cost of their surgeries, although the military spends 4 times as much on Viagra to treat ED.
Trump tweets again asking why Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe hasn’t been fired because his wife received $700k from Terry McAulif when she ran for congress.
Putin threatens to retaliate against “Illegal” U.S. sanctions after their approval by Congress.
Senate defribs Trumpcare by considering “Skinny Repeal” for Obamacare which would only affect the mandates, subsidies and Medicare expansion.
Scaramucci’s financial disclosure forms indicates that he is still doing work for his investment firm while working in the White House and that the company was recently bought by Chinese investors meaning he’s receiving paychecks from China and the U.S. government at the same time.
Senate Intel calls for pro-Trump oppo researcher Chuck Johnson to testify on his work with to obtain Hillary’s emails for Michael Flynn along with the late Peter W. Smith.
Ken Starr calls for Trump to stop attacking Sessions “Cut it out.”
Grassley warns Trump not to fire Sessions.
Jeffrey Lord attempts to defend Trump’s trans-ban tweet says the Military shouldn’t be paying for Viagra either.
Kushner may be violating the Presidential records act by having and app that makes message sent or received “disappear’ on his iPhone.
Nine Inch Nail’s Trent Reznor says “Trump’s a vulgarian” — yeah, you bet.
July 27th —
CBO score of Skinny Repeals says that it would take Healthcare from 16 Million people and increase premiums by 20%.
Newsweek reports that Russia used Facebook to try and trick Macron supporters prior to French Election.
Senate ignores Trump’s call to investigate Hillary Clinton again.
Lindsay Graham says firing Sessions and/or Mueller would be the beginning of the end of Trump’s presidency.
The Joint Chiefs announce no one is going no where based on a Tweet, Trump hasn’t given them any formal instructions on trans soldiers yet.
Bill Browder testifies to Senate Judiciary and tells them that Veselnitskaya and Ahkmenttshin were clearly operatives for Putin and Russian Intel offering Kompromat on Clinton to see if anyone in the Trump camp would take the bait.
He explains how Putin and Chaika had Magnitski and Boris Nemsov murdered and tried to poison Kara-Murza twice to cover up their graft and corruption.
Having the Magnitski act repealed or limited is a prime Putin goal.
He also says that Fusion GPS was also funded by Russians because they like to “Play both sides” — which suggests some of the more salacious items in the Steele Dossier may have been fed to them as disinformationto help make it easier to discredit the overall report.
Kellyanne Conway throws Preibus a “shiv in the ribs” for leaking Scaramucci’s financials — which he probably didn’t do.
Scaramucci gives a mad crazy interview on CNN about his financial forms being leaked even though it’s still public information calling in right in the middle of an interview with Ryan Lizza.
Scaramucci then calls Ryan Pizza of the New Yorker directly and gives him a rambling profane on the record interview.
He demands to know who leaked that he was having dinner with Hannity, Trump and Melanie that night, and that he’d fire everyone in the White House until Lizza told him. (He can’t do that, he can only fire press and communications people — Preibus could do that, or Trump. And since when is having dinner with the Trumps and Sean Hannity a matter of National Security?)
He says that he’s not out to promote himself and “Suck his own ****” like Steve Bannon, he’s trying to promote Trump. [And doing a wonderful job of it he is too...]
He claims Preibus is a “******* paranoid schizophrenic paranoiac” who leaked his financial forms — although the forms are public information — because he didn’t want him hired in the first place. [And who could blame him for that prescience?]
He claims he has ‘digital fingerprints” of alleged leakers given to him by the FBI (which would be illegal for them to do) and also he’s not on the approved WH/DOJ communications list, neither is Preibus.
He says they need to “Kill all the ******* leakers.”and that “People in this administration think their job is too save the country from Trump, that’s not their job, it’s to inject Trump into the nation”— eww..just ewww.
Propublica obtains a set of talking points created for DNI Dan Coates which shows that the relationship between the Intel Community and Trump is highly strained. [No kiddin?]
The Senate fails to pass each and every single Trumpcare proposal including “Repeal/Replace” and“Repeal/Delay” and even eventually fail even with the Hail-Mary “Skinny Repeal” after Senators John McCain, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski vote against it.
McConnel says the failure to repeal O-care is “disappointing”, whines about losing then sarcastically asks “Let see what the Democrats have.” Schumer calls for bi-partisan cooperation to help fix the lingering problems of the Health Care Market.
Trump says they should now ‘let O-care Implode” although what he really means is he’s going to have Tom Price sabotage it even further until Dems cry “Uncle.”
Devin Nunez continues pushing his Obama “Unmasking” Story.
Manafort is scheduled to meet with Senate Judiciary today, but negotiates a later date.
New Russia sanctions bill gets sent to Trump’s desk.
July 28th —
Trump calls for Police Brutality by telling assembled cheering Long Island Police to "don’t be too nice” when slamming them into the back of a paddy wagon and “don’t hold their head” when placing them in the back seat. “You can take the hand away, okay?”
Trump fires Reice Preibus via Tweet, makes DHS head Kelly as new Chief of Staff. Preibus finds out on a rain soaked tarmac as AF1 arrives back in Washington, others get out of his Suburban and his car leaves the motorcade and goes off on it’s own instead of returning to the WH.
Scaramucci’s wife, who had been estranged with him for months, files for Divorce because of his naked political ambition “Deirdre is not a fan of Trump” which means he’s gonna have to learn that special trick of Bannon’s now.
Russia expels U.S. 755 Diplomats and seizes an American compound in “retaliation” for the new sanctions bill that Trump hasn’t yet signed calling them “Illegal” and unjustified.
july 29th —
Trump’s Gallup approval rating of 37% drops lower than Bill Clinton’s during the Lewinsky scandal.
Painter says shuffling Sessions into Homeland in place of Kelly would be yet more obstruction.
Police Departments from coast to coast condemn Trump’s call for Police Brutality.
Surprising absolutely no one on earth Ted Nugent breaks his civility pledge.
Tillerson’s State Dept. channels opposite world and claims the new sanctions on Russia will be “good for our relationship.” [Uh, Nope!]
It’s reported that Scaramucci’s wife was nine months pregnant when she bailed on him because of his #TrumpLove and that he apparently missed the birth of his second child James because he was with Trump at the Boy Scout Jamboree and sent his wife a text “I’ll pray for our son.”
July 30th —
Jared and Ivanka admit it’s way too much to expect them to have any moderating influence on Trump.
Pence swears we’ll see more moderate behavior from Putin as he orders 755 U.S. Diplomats out of Russia. [Yeah, uh, NOPE!]
Lewandowsky calls for Trump to fire CFPB chief Richard Cordray because — yeah, sorry, I got nothin’. [Ok fine seriously, He claims he doesn’t have any clients that oppose Cordray’s work at CFPB, but it turns out that he does have a client that is a pay day lender]
PS. Kushner is still a slumlord.
Roger Stone says “McCain is a piece of **** and traitor” — also now with Brain Cancer.
July 31st —
Gen. Kelly starts his first day as the new WH Chief of Staff.
Pence talks tough about Russia’s retaliation against the newly imposed sanctions signed by Trump. Trump echoes Russia’s complaints.
Scaramucci suddenly resigns as WH Communications Director 11 days after was announced in the position and 4 days before he was to officially begin. He’s then escorted off the grounds by security, then goes to dinner with Katrina Peirson.
Kelly calls Sessions and tells him his job is safe.
Former NSA Analyst John Schindler reports that Putin’s move to expel 755 U.S. Diplomatic workers over sanctions shows he’s ready to throw Trump under the bus.
NYTimes reports that Trump personally dictated the first false version of Junior’s statement about his meeting with Veselnitskaya — even though he said at the time “this was the first he’d heard about it” — claiming the meeting was “primarily about adoption” a claim that was later repeated by Trump twice and also by Spicer even though Junior himself had already admitted it was about oppo research on Hillary 7 days previously.
Trump’s direct involvement in promoting a false story when there is a open Federal Investigation of links between his campaign in Russia potentially indicates “consciousness of guilt” and may be an attempt at Witness Tampering and Obstruction of Justice particularly since Mueller’s office already requested the WH preserve all documents and records related to this meeting on July 21st.
Ivanka and Melania were “disgusted” by Scaramucci’s dirty talk — but then again they do support Trump who brought him on in the first place and has history for salty talk of his own.
CNN Reports that Kelly was furious by the manner in which Comey was fired and nearly resigned himself in protest until Comey talked him out of it.
Former McCain staffer Steve Schmidt says Scarmucci’s firing exposes the “snakepit” of Trump White House.
Surprising absolutely no-one with eyes and a working brain former Obamacare hating Blaze corespondent Tami Lahren is actually on Obamacare as she’s 24 and still on her parent Health Care plans.
A British “Email Prankster” successfully tricked several members of Trump’s WH into thinking he was Kushner and Preibus.
August 1st —
Spicer admits that the WH and Trump was personally briefed on the false and since retracted FOX story alleging that murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich was connected to emails leaked to Wikileaks as a way to redirect attention from Russia. This means that Spicer lied during the May 16 press briefing where he denied any knowledge of the Rich story. Again, potential Obstruction of Justice during the current investigation of Russia’s involvement with DNC hack.
Wired releases an audio recording of Kushner telling WH interns he doesn’t know of anything knew that the Trump WH offers to solve the Israel/Palestine problem.
Daily Caller reports that Kellyanne — who is still banned from Morning Joe for lying — may be tapped as the new WH Communications Director.
Lewandowski is fired from One America News Network (OANN) because he’d been moonlighting on Fox News too many times.
GOP lawmakers warn Trump not to sabotage Obamacare — but frankly that’s already is progress.
Rep Trent Franks (R-AZ) says “Mueller is a partisan and should resign” because of his “close friendship with Comey” who used to be his boss which is funny since he’s a registered Republican and so was Comey, but then nobody sane or smart listens to Trent Franks on anything.
GOP Activist Ed Butowski who pushed the Seth Rich conspiracy to the WH and Fox News gets grills on CNN by Chris Cuomo in an incoherent interview.
August 2nd —
Trump signs new Russia Sanctions Bill, includes a signing statement and a personal statement whining about Congress encroaching on executive authority and claims as a former CEO he can negotiate a better deal than Congress that could negotiate a Health Care Bill — which is of course exactly why Congress passed more sanctions.
Iran says these new sanction breaks the Nuclear deal setup by Obama.
Huckabee-Sanders tried to defend Trump’s claims that the Mexican President called to say they were doing such a great job on the border that Mexico was seeing fewer people entering in the hope of reaching the U.S. [although Mexico says they hadn’t called Trump in months] and the Head of the Boy Scouts called to say his speech “was great’ [He denies it too.] She says they did say these things, “it just wasn’t on the phone.”
Tillerson refuses to spend $80 Million in State Dept funds allocated to fight ISIS and Russian media manipulation and propaganda because it might “anger the Kremlin.”
Trump along with Sen Tom Cotton announces changes to Green Card eligibility that focuses on a “merit based” system for high skilled workers which seems to deprioritize petitions for family members, refugees and asylum seekers. [This proposal was submitted back in February and went nowhere then, going nowhere now]
At the same time that Trump publicly tries to the door to “low skilled” immigrants his Department of Homeland Security has increased the cap for H2B Visas per year from 66,000 to 81,000 and that his own companies in including Mar-A-Lago have submitted 76 more applications for low wage foreign workers.
Stephan Miller argues with CNN’s Jim Acosta about the meaning of the Statue of Liberty to justify Trump’s new Green Card plan and uses coded White Supremacist Slurs against him.
Russia responds to the sanctions bill saying that it shows that Trump is “Impotent” and the establishment wants to oust him.
Reports surface that Kremlin backed Sputnik News is the source of the Seth Rich conspiracy theory pushed by Sean Hannity and Fox News, causing them to be sued by Rich’s family.
Congressional investigators call for Don Jr. phone records to see who he talked to in the lead up to his June 6, 2016 meeting with Veselnitskaya. [Possibly Emin Agalarov as indicated by some of the email exchanges]
WSJ reports that U.S Attorney’s have subpoena records from the Kushner companies about their attempts to get Chinese investors special EB-5 Visas using Jared association with Trump.
Former Flynn staffer Erza Cohen-Watnick who provided the “unmasking” documents to Devin Nunez is fired.
Rod Wheeler who filed suit against Fox News over their bogus Seth Rich story says that Trump had inserted phony quotes by Rich.
The crazed conspiracy riddled memo written by NSC staffer Rich Higgins that connects the Muslim Brotherhood to the European Union, “Maoist Insurgents”, “Leftists’ and “Deep State” activists circulates through the WH and for some reason Don Jr. — who doesn’t have a security clearance to receive an NSC memo — is sent a copy, which he forwards to his father who “gushes” over the thing. Then he finds out from Hannity that Higgins had already been fired for writing it.
August 3rd —
Deputy FBI Director McCabe warns top LE officials that they should consider themselves witnesses and their notes evidence in Mueller’s investigation, possibly because of their communications and interactions with Comey as he talked to Trump on the phone.
WaPo publishes leaked transcripts of Trump talking to the President of Mexico and Prime Minister of Australia back in January which reveal that he’s repeatedly and knowingly lied about “Mexico paying for the wall” and begged not to be outed.
Audio of Scarmucci’s profane phone call with Ryan Lizza is released.
Fox News lawyers up over Seth Rich suit.
Former CIA agents pen a NYTimes op-ed on Trump’s response to Russia “Innocent people don’t behave this way.”
Wapo reports that the Secret Service has moved out of Trump Tower over a rental dispute with Trump’s Companies, their command post is now in a trailer parked on the sidewalk.
Kellyanne says Russia hacking our political and voter registration systems to help Trump get elected isn’t a “matter of national security.”
Hannity flips when he discovers a report from Bloomberg that NSA Director McMaster has granted his predecessor Susan Rice a lifetime Security Clearance — which is the normal custom — because he say “she did nothing wrong with any unmasking of Trump officials” confirming the previously findings of the House Intel Committee, except for Devin Nunez.
Trump Vacation Day count after 7 Months surpasses the number of vacation days taken by Obama in his full 8 years.
Trump plans 17-day “working vacation” in New Jersey while the WH is renovated. His neighbors are not overjoyed with all of his security.
Michael Flynn amends his financial disclosure forms to include funds received from a tech company, SCL Group which has ties to Cambridg-Analytica and whose CEO used “dirty Tricks” to support Trump and the Brexit Vote, he also includes consulting work for NIK Holdings who had attempted to donate $100,000 under the table for former Sen. Norm Coleman before he was defeated by Al Franken.
Glenn Thrush at NYTimes reports that Kelly fired Cohen-Watnick to show his authority over Bannon and Kushner.
WSJ reports that Mueller has empaneled a Grand Jury which is issuing subpeonas related to Don Jr.’s meeting with Veselnitskaya and financial ties between TrumpCo and Russia, this is in addition to the already existing Grand Jury that is looking into Michael Flynn.
Sen. Jeff Flake warns that firing Mueller could cause Congress to turn against Trump.
Sen Tillis and Coons introduce legislation to protect Mueller from being unjustifiably fired by Trump without judicial review.
August 4th —
Spicer says “No” to Dancing With the Stars.
Mark Warner the ranking Dem on Senate Intel calls for an investigation into leak of transcripts of Trump’s conversations with President of Mexico and Prime Minister of Australia.
CNN reports that Carter Page has been under FISA surveillance and suspected of being a foreign agent since 2014.
During a West Virginia rally Trump calls the Russia investigation a “total fabrication” and argues the Special Counsel should “go after why Clinton deleted 33,000 emails” which the FBI already investigated and found completely legal.
CNN reports that Intel intercepts of suspected Russian operatives during summer of 2016 discussed Manafort asking for help with damaging Clinton’s campaign.
August 5th —
Alt-Right and Russia-Bots begin relentless attacking NSA chief McMaster arguing that he should be fired for something or the other. Daily Beast reports that this is apparently payback from Bannon for the firing of Cohen-Watnick and Col. Darek Harvey.
CNN reports that Mueller’s investigation is likely to first focus on Trump’s financial crimes as they have the strongest path to prosecution.
Fox’s Eric Bolling is suspended for sexual harrassment.
Painter says if you placed lie detector on Huckabee-Sanders podium “It would light up like a disco!”
New polls indicate Trump support has dropped to just 33%, and that he’s losing White Non-College educated voters where he now stands underwater at 43% approval to 50% disapproval — a drop of 10 points since June, and 23 points since the election.
Minnesota mosque is firebombed in an apparent act of terrorism, no casualties are reported. WH says nothing.
August 6th —
CNN says McEnany quit to join Trump’s Fake “Real” News channel.
Sen. Jeff Flake says he wished the GOP had stood up against birtherism. [Which they didn't, with the notable exception of John McCain they generally took advantage and pandered to it just like Kushner said Trump did.]
Trump says he “working hard” on his vacation — but his schedule is blank.
August 7th —
Sen. Blumenthal goes on CNN and explains the new bill to protect Mueller from being fired, and Trump — who says he “not watching tv” while on his work-cation — immediately goes on a tweet storm attacking Blumenthal for saying he served in Vietnam, when his actual Marine service was in the U.S. during Vietnam. Since Trump never served due to “bone spurs” Vets call him a “Chicken Hawk piece of trash.”
Wapo reports that while requesting H2B visas for 70 more foreign employees Mar-A-Lago barely put out a couple of local ads which didn’t include a phone # or email, only a fax, for U.S. workers to be hired.
Sen. Blumenthal snaps back at Trump over his Vietnam service slurs. “ I will not be bullied.”
Chicago sues Trump over his threat to pull funds from “sanctuary cities.”
Right-Wing Militias align with GOP officials under Trump.
McEnany gets Spicer’s old job as RNC national spokesperson.
August 8th —
Alex Jones hosts Russian ultra-nationalist on program about firing McMaster.
Ex-CIA agent Daniel Hoffman states that Putin probably left a paper trail from Trump Tower to the Kremlin.
Staffers for Devin Nunez appear to be staging a stealth investigation of Christopher Steele.
Trump pays one of his staffers $89k/year just to look up positive news about him and provide it in a 20 page “propaganda report” twice a day.
Jared Kushner failed to disclose that he holds a stake in his brother’s health insurance company which had paid lobbyists to fight the repeal of Obamacare.
Trump tweets out classified information revealed by annonymous sources on Fox & Friends about North Korean Missile movements.
Trump’s support among GOP voters drops by 14 points.
Russian bots and trolls begin attacking Republicans including the House Speaker with #ResignPaulRyan campaign.
Wapo reports that North Korea now has a miniturized nuclear device that can fit on a missile, Trump says if they threaten us again they will met with “Fire and Fury that the world has never seen.” North Korea responds by threatening to attack Guam. No “Fire or Fury” appears.
August 9th —
WaPo reports that the FBI staged a pre-dawn raid of Manafort’s residence in July, which continues to suggest Mueller is attempting to flip Manafort, only now the hard way.
National Enquirer publishes a hit piece on Manafort (one hour after the Wapo report on the search warrant raid) that alleges that he was involved in a “sick sex scandal” with women much younger than his wife.
Trump campaign hands over 20,000 pages of documents to Senate Judiciary on their efforts to find negative information on Hillary Clinton.
WH aid Gorka says silence on mosque bombing is justified because he says it may be been a faked hate crime by Liberals, which frankly I would expect would make Huckabee-Sander’s and her resting scowl face crack a smile.
Politico reports that Federal investigators had approached Manafort’s son in law in order to get a better “read” on his mindset.
August 10th —
Reports indicate that Manafort had already told congressional investigators about the Don Jr/Veselnitskaya meeting before his house was raided by the FBI.
CNN finally fires Jeffrey Lord over a Nazi “Seig Heil” tweet at Media Matters Angelo Carusone arguing that they are a “fascist” site that seeks to curtail free speech, when in fact all they do is document what right-wingers say without much comment.
Trump thanks Putin for kicking 755 of our Diplomats, “Now we have a smaller payroll” and doubles down on his “Fire and Fury” nonsense, “Maybe that was too soft.” And threatens military action in Venezuela.
August 11th —
Rachel Maddow reports that a 1980 audit of Trump finances found he failed to pay $2.8 Million to the City of New York in a deal to avoid paying $150 Million in property taxes.
Fancy Bear hacker group begins targeting Hotel guests using unsecured wifi.
WH says Trump was being “sarcastic” about the smaller payroll for Diplomats in Russia, but then he says it again.
Senate Judiciary demands info on Kushner’s relationship with Russia and an explanation for the gaps on his SF86 security form.
Neo-Nazi protesters get into melee at U of VA over removal of statue to Robert E. Lee.
Rinat Akhmetshin testifies for several hours to the Mueller Grand Jury.
August 12th —
Alt-Right Neo-Nazi Protest in Charlottesville VA erupts in more violence. Deandre Harris is beaten bloody, a car driven my James Fields Jr. smashes into a crowd of counter-protesters killing Heather Heyer and injuring 19 others.
David Duke says the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” protest fulfills the promises of Donald Trump.
August 13th —
Trump gives a rambling confused statement on Charlottesville that talks about violence “on many sides” and never mentions white supremacist or neo-Nazis.
Washington Post reports Trump staffer George Papadopoulos repeatedly offered to set up “a meeting between us and the Russian leadership to discuss US-Russia ties under President Trump,” “Putin wants to host the Trump team when the time is right,” Papadopoulos wrote in an email to former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski on April 27, 2016. He also told Lewamdowski he had fielded “a lot of calls over the past month” related to a meeting between the Trump campaign and Russia. “Russia has been eager to meet with Mr. Trump for some time and have been reaching out to me to discuss,” Papadopoulos said in a separate email to former campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
August 14th —
Trump gives his “hostage video” speech where he finally condemns neo-Nazis, but then attacks African-American CEO of Merck for quitting his business advisory council on twitter.
Reports surface the Homeland security had issued a warning about Neo-Nazis and White Supremacist back in May.
Politico reporrs the Obama administration had many warnings between 2014 and 2016 that Russia was stepping up its intelligence operations to build propaganda networks.
North Korea calls off it’s missiles test targeting Guam.
Michael Cohen’s atty writes a letter to Congress vehemently denying his involvement in colluding between Trump and Russia as described in the Steele dossier — even though he had been directly involved in writing to the Russian government during the campaign to restart the Trump Tower Moscow project.
August 15th —
Kushner faces lawsuit for over charging rent in NYC.
Trump retweets meme of a train running over a CNN reporter.
Trump angrily argues during an Infrastructure Press Briefing that “Both Sides” were at fault in Charlottesville violence and stuns much of the GOP who quickly criticize his comments. He claims that if Gen. Lee and Stonwall Jackson statues have to come down so do monuments to Washington and Jefferson since they were slave owners, although they never attacked and waged war against America over it, they fought Britain to increase freedom, not decrease it and thus his real White-Power bona fides are finally revealed and confirmed.
August 16th —
NYTimes reports about 3 hackers whose work may have been used without their knowledge to attack the DNC.
ABC News reports that Peter Stroz former head of FBI Counterterrorism quits the Mueller investigation team.
Internal reports disprove claims of “Turmoil” inside the FBI prior to Comey firing.
Newsweek reports that in 1985 the Australian government rejected a bid for a Trump Casino in Sydney because of his alleged ties to the mafia.
4 CEOs defect in protest from Trump’s business council over his pro-Confederate comments, so he shuts both his business councils down in frustration.
Bannon gives a grandstanding football spike of an interview to the NYTimes claiming the more the Left talks about Racism, the more we Win. “I want them to talk about Racism everyday.” He also basically claims he’s running the White House from behind the scenes, which I’m sure is news to Kelly and also, Trump.
Jack Tapper tweets that at least two journalists were attacked by anti-Nazi counter protestors in Charlottesville, one of whom required stitches.
Rep. Jackie Spiere calls for Trump to be ousted using the 25th Amendment.
Both Bush Presidents denounce Trump’s neo-Nazi support.
Heather Heyer’s mother scorns bigots at her funeral.
August 17th —
The Spectator reports that Felix Sater — who helped sell many Trump properties to various Russians through his former real estate firm Bayrock — may have flipped for the FBI again and that he has said the both he and Trump “are going to prison.”
Cantwell states emphatically that he’s “Not a coward.” No one is impressed, particularly not PayPal and Ok, Cupid who cut him off for life.
Sen Bob Corker (R-TN) says in response to Trump Charlottesville comments: “The president has not yet been able to demonstrate the stability nor some of the competence that he needs to demonstrate in order to be successful,”
UVA Librarian Tyler McGill suffers a stroke from being struck in the neck with a Tiki Torch by Unite the Right protestors.
Foreign Policy reports that Wikileaks refused to receive or publish 68 Gig of negative data on the operations of the Kremlin.
Buzzfeed reports that Trump is furious that “Bannon is taking credit for my election.”
A Van strikes 50 people in Barcelona, 13 are killed. 2 suspects are taken into custody but no information about them or their motive is released immediately.
Trump tweets in support of “beautiful Confederate Statues” and decrying “Terrorism in Barcelona” then later endorsed a questionable internet rumor that a U.S. General in the Philippines committed the War Crime of mass executions using bullets laced with pigs blood to deter terrorists, when in actuality he sat down with Muslims, ate their food, learned their language, customs and read the Koran with them. CNN’s Jake Tapper says “He just suggested we should study a lie.” But he still hasn’t said anything about the firebombing of a mosque in Minnesota, the car crashed into a crowd near a mosque in London or the machete attack against Democrats in Kentucky.
Mike Huckabee says if you take down Robert E. Lee, you have to take down Mt. Rushmore.
With “Infrastructure Week” not quite complete, Trump gives up on his infrastructure council.
August 18th —
Steve Bannon is Fired and quickly reports surface here’s going to take Breitbart to Defcon1 Thermonuclear Global War against Trump. Cue the Russia Bots of Doom. Subsequent reports say that he intends to use Brietbart to go to War with Trump’s enemies — which now, is just about everyone.
Also a former friend and aide of Preibus, George Sifakis, leaves the WH.
Buzzfeed reports that Mueller’s investigation is now targeting Donald Jr concerning his meeting with Veselnitskaya and Akhmetshin.
Reports surface that besides Bayrock’s Tefvik Arik Trump has financial links to post-Soviet era oligarch Mukhtar Ablyazov, who had been charged with stealing between $4-$10 Billion from Kazakhstan’s largest banks through loans and shell companies and had been working with Trump on 2 Tower projects in (former soviet) Georgia through a company run by Michael Cohen. The same report also notes the connection of oligarch Alexander Shnaider, who has mob ties, and had been involved in the Toronto Trump Tower deal.
16 out of 17 members of Trump’s Arts Council resign en mass in protest of Trump comments about Charlottesville. He says “Nah ah, I QUIT YOU”, they say “No, We quit you first!”
Heather Heyer’s mother Susan Bro refuses to speak with Trump in protest of his comments on Charlottesville, while Mitt Romney calls for him to apologize. He doesn’t.
7 Charities have cancelled fundraisers scheduled to be held at Mar-a-Lago.
Charlottesville Police issue arrest warrant for Chris Cantwell for illegal use of gases and injury by caustic agent or explosive,
ISIS reportedly takes credit for the Barcelona Van attack which Spain authorities say involved 12 people, 4 are in custody and 5 had been killed in a police raid.
August 19th —
Carl Ichann resigns from his position as an informal Trump advisor allegedly because of his Charlottesville comments. But this happens admit rumors that he made $60 Million by advising Trump to cut prices on a regulatory devicethat he’d been short selling for months.
The cancelled Mar-a-Lago charity list grows to 16.
Trump announces that he will not attend the Kennedy Center Honors with Norman Lear, Gloria Estaban, Lionel Richie & LL Kool J so as not to create a “Political Distraction.”
Robert E. Lee biographer says Lee would have wanted all the Confederate statues torn down.
Trump condemns anti-violence protestors as being “anti-police agitators” and then commends the cops.
August 20th —
ADL says the “Violent Alt-Left” is a Right-Wing media lie.
Bannon’s Breitbart attacks McMaster as a “Koran kissing Muslim sympathizer”for his endorsing use of a military manual on showing respect for Islam and how not to inflame tensions.
Congressional Democrats begin to question if “Trump is mentally Ill?”
Jesse Waters says removing Confederate monuments is a plot to help make people forget that “Democrats enslaved Blacks” which is technically true but they were also southern Conservative Democrats — Dixiecrats — who’ve all become Republicans or Independents since then.
Jerry Falwell Jr defends Trump’s “fine Nazi people” and “bad counter-protestors” claims saying he has “inside knowledge” although Trump claimed that all the media saw the same videos that he did. Close examination of Videos from protest shows they’re wrong.
Dick Gregory Dies.
August 21st —
Trump showing his usual level of sociopathic empathy deficit disorder responds to the crash of the U.S.S. McCain which injured five sailors and where ten remain missing with “That’s too bad.”
Paul Ryan holds a CNN Town hall and gives a weak tepid condemnation of Trump’s statements on Charlottesville — Tapper says it “Wasn’t morally ambiguous, it’s was Morally Wrong.”
Virginia State Attorney issues four warrants for Christopher Cantwell.
The U.S experiences it’s first total solar eclipse in 38 years, Shep Smith freaks the heck out. Trump stares into the Sun without glasses — “Finally, he establishes a Blind Trust.”
North Korea releases fake propaganda videos of their missiles hitting Guam.
Rep. Bryan Zollinger (R-ID) claims that Obama may have “staged the Charlottesville riots.” [Facepalm!]
“Art of the Deal” Ghost writer Tony Schwatz gets a loud racist voicemailcriticizing him for saying Trump “will resign.”
Katrina Peirson — yes, she’s still here — goes ballistic on Fox claiming “Slavery is an example of how special and wonderful this country is.” [Uh, er, what?]
NYTimes reports that Akhmetshin has close ties to the FSB and Putin, had helped Russian oligarchs using sophisticated cyber hacks for their benefit, helped unmask corruption at a Krygystan Air Force base which Russia wanted purged of U.S. personnel, and got Federal prosecutors to file charges against an American businessman who happened to be a CIA operative working in Russia.
USA Today reports that Trump’s extended family and their extensive travel is draining the resources of the Secret Service Dry.
Treasury Sec Mnunchin uses a government plane to fly to visit Fort Knox as an excuse to view the Solar exclispe at 95% totally, he also brings Mitch McConnel
August 22nd —
ABC News reports that Christopher Steele met with and has given the FBI the names and contact information for the sources of his Trump/Russia dossier.
CNN reports that Glenn Simpson, partner with Fusion GPS the oppo research team that had contracted with Steele to produce his dossier, has testified for 10 hours before Senate Judiciary behind closed doors. Fusion also provided 40,000 pages of documents to the committee.
At his Phoenix rally Trump attacks the media as “Fake” while misquoting his own statements about Charlottesville and his “unequivocal” condemnation of White Supremacy, except for the “Good Ones” and the BLM/Antifa “Chargers” which he doesn’t bring up this time. He hints at pardoning ex-Sheriff Joe Arpaio who was convicted of violating a court order to stop his deputies from profiling, targeting and discriminating against Latinos. He claims the media won’t show the size of his crowd, but they do, and he claims the protestors outside are only a few, but they aren’t. And he leads a chant calling for the death of John McCain.
Police and Protestors lob bottles, bricks and tear gas back and forth at each other during and after Trump’s rally, no injuries are reported.
CNN responds to Trump’s attack and begins to say he sounds “unhinged.” Don Lemon says “His speech was without thought, without reason, devoid of facts, devoid of wisdom,”
NYTimes reports that Trump’s relationship with Mitch McConnell has deteriorated down to explicative filled phone calls over Trumpcare’s failure and the continued Russia probes in congress.
Trump’s airwar against ISIS passes the civilian death toll of Obama’s entire Presidency.
Trump’s pick to protect U.S. workers from abuse as Deputy Secretary of Labor is a former lobbyists for forced abortion sweatshops.[Oh, lordy!]
Alex Jones suggest reparations for White People. [Yes, really]
McClatchy reports that Mueller’s investigators may have found that Manafort may have received between $80-$100 Million from Russian and Ukrainian Oligarchs over the past decade.
Trump gives a speech on his new Afghanistan policy, which is basically more war, more killing, no end in sight and no nation building. [Which is different from the last 17 years before this how exactly? Oh yeah, no “dates certain.”]
A rabidily racist Trump supporter — the same one who called Tony Schwartz — leaves a vicious bigoted message for CEO Ravin Ghandi — who has Indian heritage but was born in the U.S. — because he is one of the CEOs who left one of Trump’s economic councils.
August 23rd —
Armed man slashes tarp on Charlottesville monument and says Heather Heyer died ‘playing in traffic’ [Nope, you can’t make this ish up.]
Grassley says he will have the Judiciary committee to vote on releasing the testimony from Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS on the Steele Dossier.
Shep Smith calls out Trump for trying to “rewrite history” with his Pheonix speech. [Don’t you know he’s been doing that since he rode down the escalator in Trump Tower?]
Pro-Russia social media cyberbots begin to amplify rightwing rhetoric over Charlottesville claiming ““Dems and Media Continue to IGNORE BLM and Antifa Violence in Charlottesville” except there really wasn’t any to ignore. Did any neo-Nazis go to the Hospital? Nope.
Cantwell, who is still in hiding from Charlottesville PD, reveals that his attorney has ditched him.
James Clapper questions Trump’s “mental fitness” to be President after his Arizona speech.
Kushner heads to Israel to try again for a peace deal after things went so “well” last time, which they didn’t.
Michigan Senate candidate Kid Rock curses Colin Kaepernick, because that’s just what wannabe government leaders do.
Scarborough asks “Who are these people?” in Trump’s crowd calling for John McCain’s death? [Arizona GOP voters?]
Politico reports that Trump is so obsessed with the Russia investigation and the bill to protect Mueller from being wrongfully fired that he’s calling GOP Senators to scream and curse at them and can’t keep focused on day to day business.
CNN reports that Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff Rick Dearborn last June when he was an advisor to the Trump campaign and Jeff Session’s Chief of staff had sent an email to Corey Lowendowski about someone nicked name “WV” trying to arrange a meeting between Trump and members of the Russian government including Putin at about the same time as Don Jr.’s meeting with Veselnitskaya. This is the second staffer in addition to NatSec advisor George Papadopoulos who had also tried to set up this kind of meeting last April according Trump campaign emails given to congress.
Cantwell turns himself in to police, judge denies bail.
Trump calls Clapper “a liar” for his mental fitness comments via — guess what — twitter. He also slams Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell over the debt ceiling vote, which hasn’t even happened yet.
Dems, rising from their long slumber, try to defund Trump’s Voter Fraud Commission.
CNN locates and interviews former Russian ambassador Kislyak on the streets of Moscow, he says that the allegations that he’s a “Spymaster” is “nonsense”. He says that the future of US/Russians relations will be “difficult.” And that sanctions and tensions will make it hard to resume a normalcy in our relationship.
Politico reports that Trump has been repeatedly and angrily calling up GOP Senators such as Bob Corker and Thom Tillus to complain about bills he doesn’t like such as the Russia sanctions and Mueller protection legislation.
August 24th —
Trump pardons ex-Sherrif Arpaio for his contempt of court conviction for refusing to stop discriminating against latino citizens. This he does despite — or perhaps because of — his history of racial discrimination and targeting of Latinos for arrest and detention, the horrific conditions in his “concentration camp” jails which have led to record suicides and in custody deaths, his attempts to intimidate and wrongfully arrest journalist and politicians who criticize him with bogus trumped up charges. Also he’s a birther, like Trump.
Hungarian Nazi Badge wearer Sebastian Gorka resigns from the WH amid rumors of his anti-Semetism.
Reports are that Meuller is investigating how involved Flynn, his son and his consulting firm were with Robert W. Smith’s attempts to aquire Hillary emails from Russian hackers. He also issues subpeonas for 6 PR firms which had worked for Flynn and Manafort.
Reports are that in 2007 Trump said “This is the first he’s heard...” that his employee Felix Sater was convicted of fraud in 1998.
.WH advisor Gary Cohn wrotes a resignation letter because of Trump’s support for anti-Semitic Neo-Nazis who chanted “Jews will not replace us” in Charlottesville, but he doesn’t hand it in. Mnunchin say’s “Gary is excited to be working here.”
Trump’s approval rating per Gallup drops to just 34%.
Ex White Nationalists confirms that Trump is using the same slippery bigoted dog whistle rhetoric that helped recruit them into hate groups.
August 25th —
Gorka says he didn’t resign from the WH, but yet, he’s still out.
Richard Painter blasts Arpaio as “One of the worst” law enforcement officers in the country,
Paul Begala argues that the Arpaio pardon is a signal to Mueller’s targets, Flynn, Manafort, Kushner and Donald Jr, that Trump will protect them if they face charges.
Ana Navarro links Trump’s Charlottesville comments to his support for racists like Gorka and Arpaio because, yeah, that makes sense.
NYTimes reports that Trump has cancelled an Obama era program to increase public works projects at the Department of Transportation. [So much for “American jobs” and “Infrastructure”]
Bannon vows to bring down Mitch McConnell “I’m going to light him up.”
Trump slaps sanctions on Venezuela because of their “Dictatorship” — which is totally unlike his pals Putin or Duterte.
August 26th —
Sen. Blumenthal states that Mueller targets shouldn’t expect pardons from Trump, “His loyalty is limited.” [Not even with Jared?]
Paul Ryan says the Arpaio pardon “is wrong.” [Yeah, no kidding, eh?]
Charlottesville police arrests neo-Nazis involved in the attack on Deandre Harris.
Trump international Gold Club in Dubai is refusing to pay it’s migrant workers from Pakistan on time.
I don't drink coffee, but my friends in intelligence will not talk about this. The investigation continues...
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Good read.
Yeah, I use an extra spoonful of beans for the french press. Boil water and steep for 7-8 minutes. Grind them too fine and they don't filter well though.
A while ago I saw some info that said a cup of coffee is not a measured cup but it should actually be 3/4 cup. So my three "cups" in the french press is really 2 1/4 cups of water and 4 tablespoons of coffee beans ground on the Coarse setting. In the coffeemaker it's 3 measured cups of water and 4 tablespoons ground on the Drip setting. I use Brita filtered water in the coffeemaker, french press, and espresso maker. Sundays I drink a bit less at home since we go to early church and out to breakfast after.
Our go to coffee was the Owner's Blend from Nicholas Coffee, located in Market Square. But since they were closed by fire damage, we have been struggling to find a replacement.
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Thanks Ron. What kind of beans do you typically buy?
Believe it or not, my go-to is called Black & Gold Blend from a local coffee roasterie in New Brighton that roasts their own beans. They have all kinds of stuff though. www.hallowed-grounds.com They do mail order.
Also I buy LaVazza coffee from Italy on Amazon. I like the Rossa in the red bag best. A 3-pack of 8.8 oz bricks is about $24. Makes good espresso or regular coffee. Got hip to LaVazza when I was in Italy.
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So just what do we know about what Russia did or didn’t do involving the 2016 election and how the Trump campaign responded? Quite a bit actually, even though new Special Prosecutor Mueller has just started to get his feet on the ground.
I’ll tell you, when you actually lay it out all out item by item in chronological order a lot of patterns and actions/reactions become eminently clear. WIthout getting into classified or confidential data that isn’t yet public knowledge, what is public knowledge is already fairly stunning.
[This timeline has been continued with Vol#2 and Vol#3 due to length]
1985 — Australian government rejects a bid for a Trump Casino in Sydney because of his alleged ties to the mafia.
1986 — Trump attempts to gain a posting to Russia as part of the Reagan Administration and says he could sit down with Gorbechev to negotiate an end to the cold war “in an hour.”
1990 — Trump’s Taj Mahal casino, which is a favorite gambling spot for Russian mobsters living in Brooklyn, is cited 106 times in 18 months for violating money laundering rules, particular failing to report when someone wins and withdraws more then $10,000.
1991 — Taj Mahal files for bankrupcy protection, Trump sells his 50% share. After this and his other Casino bankruptcies most major banks no longer authorize loans to the Trump organization.
1998 -- Felix Sater a Russian born violent convict with ties to the Russian Mob — who are frequently used by Russian intelligence to do their dirty work and fund blackbag operations — gets caught up in a $40 Million stock fraud case but is only fined $35,000 in exchange for becoming an FBI informant.
2000 — Former KGB Agent Alexander Litvinenko defects to Britain.
GAO does analysis of Russian-American oligarch Ike Kaveladze and his involvement in starting 2000 shell companies which could be involved in money laundering.
2001-2007 — At least 63 Russian Oligarchs lease, rent or buy various Trump propertetes in South Florida spending upwards of $98.5 Million on them, many of these deals with Russian nationals in Manhattan reportedly are arranged through Bayrock Group LLC whose offices are located on the 24th floor of Trump Tower. Felix Sater becomes Bayrock’s managing director. Their first joint project together, in 2003, is building a Trump Tower in Phoenix.
2005 — TrumpCo puts together it’s first proposal for Trump Tower Moscow in coordination with BayRock LLC.
2006 — Alexander Litvinenko is poisoned by Polonium-210 and slowly dies of radiation sickness, he points to Putin as being behind his murder before he dies. His case officer with MI-6 is Christopher Steele.
2008 —Trump sells a Palm Beach Mansion to a Russian Oligarch for $95 Million after purchasing it just 2 years previously for only $45 Million.
Donald Jr. states “We get a lot to money from Russia.”
Felix Sater leaves Bayrock after his criminal record is revealed and goes to work for Trump.
Bayrock founder Tefvik Arif is busted and prosecuted for his connection to an underage prostitution ring in Turkey, he is eventually acquitted.
2009 — U.S. investor Bill Browder is expelled from Russia and his assets are used to setup a $230 Million tax rebate scam. Browder’s lawyer Sergei Magnitski discovers the scam and testifies to reveal it, he is subsequently arrested, tortured and murdered in a Russian jail, beaten to death by the guards.
2010 — A racketeering case is filed against Bayrock, Sater and Arif alleging they had been “substantially and covertly mob-owned and operated.”
2011 — Trump Soho a joint venture condo project by TrumpCO and Bayrock is sued for defrauding buyers with inflated claims. The suit is settled with a payout of $3.19 Million and a potential criminal case is avoided.
March 2011 — Trump begins his birther campaign against President Obama claiming there’s something wrong with his birth certificate. He also demands Obama's college transcripts alleging he didn't deserve access to Harvard, and claims that his best selling book “Dreams From My Father" was really ghostwritten by Bill Ayers.
May 2011 --
Obama authorizes the Bin Laden Raid, then attends the White House Correspondents dinner, Donald Trump is in the audience.
Obama reveals his long-form birth certificate and takes a couple shots at Donald, but Seth Myer brutalizes him from behind the podium. Myer's theorizes Trump decided to run for President right then and there in retaliation.
2012 — Obama signs the Magnitski Act following the jail house death of Sergey Magnitski after he was wrongfully imprisoned for investigation Russia corruption and laundering of money stolen from American businessmen Bill Browder. Putin responds by cancelling the adoption of Russian orphans by American parents. This act is strongly supported by Russian opposition leaders Boris Nemtsov and Vladimir Kara-Murza.
Exxon signs a $500 Billion deal with Russian Oil giant Rosneft for drilling in the Black sea.
2013 —
Russian mobsters renting property in Trump Tower just three floors below the penthouse suite are arrested for money laundering and running an illegal gambling ring at the end of a 2 year investigation. One of the attorney’s for the defendant Denys Katsyv of the Prevezon Group is Natalia Veselnitskaya, and the prosecutor is Preet Bharara, some of the stolen money is connected to Bill Browder’s investigation and the murder of Magnitski in Russia.
Several months later Trump holds the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow, the apparent money-laundering ring leader who remains at large is welcomed on the Red Carpet at the event. While in Moscow Trump reportedly meets with several high ranking oligarchs with ties to Putin, including Billionaire Russian Real Estate developer Arag Agalarov and his Pop Star son Emil who partners with Trump on the pageant.
Video shot before the pageant shows Trump at dinner with Emin and Aras Agalarov, as well as Rob Goldstone Emin’s promoter. Michael Isakoff talks to Goldstone who reveals that Trump has plans to license a new Trump Tower in Russia with Agalarov as the local builder/owner. Don jr. is in charge of the project and Ivanka goes on location scouting trips with Emin. Ike Kaveladze who works for the Agalarov family is also present.
2014 —
Michael Flynn is fired by the Obama administration as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency for his “odd behavior.”
Eric Trump says in an interview when discussing the funding of Trump Golf courses “Well, we don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia.” Eric later denies making this statement.
Bayrock is functionally inactive, except for a few outstanding lawsuits.
Putin releases ***** Riot from prison for shooting a Punk Rock video in a Church.
The Winter Olympics takes place in Sochi, Russia.
Russia invades Crimea and begins sending Troops and equipment in the Ukraine to destabilize the Country, Obama rallies the international community to place Sanctions on Russia which crush their economy — plans for the Rosneft/Exxon deal and Trump Tower Russia are both put on hold.
2015 —Trump and his kids are named as witnesses in a $250 Million tax evasion case connected to Bayrock and Trump Soho.
Michael Flynn goes to Russia, meets and sits with Putin for dinner and is paid $45,000 for a speech at RT's 10th Anniversary Gala. He also receives $11,250 from Kaspersky Government Security Solutions, and $11,250 from Volga-Dnepr Airlines. He doesn't get prior permission from the Pentagon for this trip or the payments.
Taj Mahal is fined $10 Million for continued money laundering by Treasury’s FinCen unit.
Boris Nemtsov is murdered in the streets of Moscow in the shadow of the Kremlin.
U.S. intel captures discussion by Russians about Trump running for President, when he hasn’t announced his run yet, and talking about multiple contacts they’ve been having with Trump associates and planning to funnel money into the election.
June 17, 2015 -- Trump announces his run for President. He never releases his Taxes, his birth certificate or his school transcripts.
Summer 2015 —Cyber hacking contractors working with the FSB (Cozy Bear) begin infiltrating and extracting copies of documents including the oppo-research on Trump and emails from the DNC servers. Their previous successful attacks include the White House and State Dept. email systems.
They also penetrate some RNC emails accounts and attack various Republicans who oppose Trump in the primaries.
September 2015 — FBI detects the hack and begins trying to inform the DNC, but they start by going to their Help desk not simply calling Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.
November 2015 — Felix Sater emails Michael Cohen saying “I will get Putin on this program and we will get Donald elected... I know how to play it and how to get this done. Buddy, our boy can become president of the USA and we can engineer it... I will get all of Putin’s team to buy in on this, I will manage this process.”
Late 2015 — GCHQ and other western intel agencies from Germany, Poland, Estonia and Australia begin noticing contacts between Russia Spies and members of the Trump campaign. They attempt to notify FBI and CIA who are apparently caught "flat footed.”
January 2016 — Michael Cohen send an email to Putin deputy Dmitry Peskov trying to get talks regarding Trump Tower Moscow restarted.
March 2016 -— US Attorney Preet Bharara prosecutes Russian intelligence officer Evgeny Buryakov an employee of sanctioned Russia bank Vnesheconombank (VEB) of conspiracy to commit espionage in recruiting U.S Businessmen in Manhattan including Carter Page. Page had been cooperating in this investigation as an informant.
FBI receives memo alleging collusion between Loretta Lynch and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz to quash the Clinton email investigation — they believe this document is fake.
March 16, 2016 -— John Podesta receives a spearfishing email, his IT people mistakenly tell him that it’s “Legitimate” and his assistant clicks on the link and gives up his password compromising his account.
March 21, 2016 —Trump lists Carter Page & George Papadopoulis as part of his foreign policy team.
March 24, 2016 — Papadopoulis writes an email offering to set up “a meeting between us and the Russian leadership to discuss US-Russia ties under President Trump,” telling them his Russian contacts welcomed the opportunity.
March 28, 2016 —Trump hires Paul Manafort to handle the delegate process on his campaign.
April 2016 — GRU Russian military intelligence also attacks the DNC systems with Fancy Bear. The DNC discovers the intrusion and calls in cyber security firm Crowdstrike to address it, they discover both intrusions, briefly monitor them to confirm their ID, then shut them down.
About this time Paul Manafort — former advisor to Putin friendly ex-Ukrainian President Yanakovych who has a close associate with links to the GRU, and who had previous been paid $Millions to allegedy secretly promote Putin’s agenda by Russian aluminum oligarch Oleg Deripaska — becomes Trump campaign chairman.
The Kremlin gives Rep. Dana Rohrabacher instructions to stage a “show trial” in Congress attacking Bill Browder in order to alter the Magnitski Act sanctions on Russia. Rohrabacher is provided a Russian propaganda film against Browder by the Russian Prosecutor Generals Office run by Yuri Chaika, the same person who had jailed Magnitski.
April 27, 2016 -Trump gives his first major foreign policy speech at an event that had been largely arranged by Jeff Sessions Chief of Staff Rick Dearborn, Russian ambassador Kislyak is invited as a special guest, both Trump and Session briefly meet with him at a backstage reception before the speech at the Mayflower Hotel.
Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos writes in an email to campaign manager Corey Lewandowsk he had fielded “a lot of calls over the past month” related to a meeting between the Trump campaign and Russia. “Russia has been eager to meet with Mr. Trump for some time and have been reaching out to me to discuss,” Papadopoulos says in a separate email to Paul Manafort.
May 2016 — US surveillance operations detects Russian Spies vowing to “Get Hillary Clinton” in retaliation for her criticism of Putin’s last election. A GRU Officer is recorded saying they are “getting ready to pay Clinton back for what President Vladimir Putin believed was an influence operation she had run against him five years earlier as Secretary of State”
They also detect them bragging that they have good ties to Michael Flynn and may be able to use him to “influence" Trump.
Obama admin attempts to limit classified information to Flynn.
Russian spies attempt to cultivate Carter Page as an asset, yet again!
FBI obtains a FISA warrant to monitor Page’s communications and possibly on a Trump server in Pennsylvania which keeps being oddly pinged by a server owned by Russia’s Alfa Bank and another owned by the DeVos companies.
Trump backs Brexit says “England is better off without the EU.”
Paul Manafort meets with his assistant from the Ukraine Konstantin Kilimnik, who has alleged ties to the GRU.
Trump releases an attack ad on Hillary claiming she’s “too close to Putin”, WaPo considers if the “Bromance” between Trump and Putin is over? But still Politico reports that Trump is “Putin’s Candidate.”
June 2016 — Russian Think Tank controlled by Putin publishes a blue print to use cyber bots, trolls and social media to push anti-Clinton/pro-Trump propaganda to help swing the election.
Jeff Sessions Chief of staff Rick Dearborn who is an advisor to the Trump campaign writes an email to Lowendowski noting that he’d received and offer from someone referrenced as “WV” to setup a meeting between Trump officials and Putin.
June 2, 2016 — Hillary gives a major speech criticizing Trump’s closeness to Russia and Putin accusing him of praising “dictators like Vladimir Putin” and having a “bizarre fascination with dictators and strongmen who have no love for America.”
June 3, 2016 — Music Promoter Rob Goldstone emails Don Jr, and says he has information from the Russian Government about shady dealings by Hillary and DNC. Don Jr. says “I Love it” and plans to discuss it further on a phone call and eventually a meeting.
June 7, 2016 — Trump says that he’ll give a major speech about Hillary Clinton’s corruption in a week.
June 9, 2016 —
Donald Jr, Kushner and Manafort secretly meet with a prominent Russia lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya at Trump Tower after being offered “dirt” about the Clinton Campaign and the DNC being funded by Russia. The information comes through their Miss Universe Moscow partner Aras Agalarov via his son’s Emin’s promoter Rob Goldstone who had received it directly from the “Crown Prosecutor” [actually the Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika] of Russia because the Russian Government “supports Trump.” They also discuss the Russian adoption program in the wake of the Magnitski Act, which is a law that blacklists Russian Human Rights violators.
Later that day Donald tweets for the first time about Clinton’s “33,000 missing emails.”
June 12, 2016 — Julian Assange hints that he’s soon release emails linked to Hillary Clinton.
The Pulse Night Club in Orlando is attacked and 49 people are killed by a frustrated gay Muslim man
June 13, 2016 — Trump blames the Pulse attack on Obama’s sympathy with “Radical Islam” and on immigrants even though the shooter was a native born American citizen born in New Hyde Park, NY.
June 14, 2016 -— Wapo Reports that the DNC has been hacked by the Russian government, DNC goes public about the cyber intrusion.
June 15, 2016 — Guccifer 2.0 releases the DNC’s opposition research file on Donald Trump.
Dana Rohrabacher’s scheduled “show trial” hearing on Bill Browder in opposition to the Magnitski Act is cancelled by his committee chairman.
Rep. Kevin McCarthy jokes behind scenes that the only people Putin pays are Rohrabacher and Trump.
June 16, 2016 — Guccifer 2.0 uses DCLeaks to reveal the first set of hacked DNC emails, they have Cyrillic characters and Russian urls in their metadata
June 17, 2016 — Putin says the Trump is a “bright” individual.[Actually the word he used translates more accurately into “Colorful”]
June 20, 2016 — Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski is fired after a controversy where he physically grabbed and yanked a Brietbart reporter away from Trump as she asked a question. At first Corey and the Trump campaign denies it ever happened, but it’s on video — then he claims he would’ve “apologized if he knew she was from Breitbart” but he doesn’t. She files a criminal complaint, but it’s thrown out. He goes to work for CNN while still being paid by Trump.
June 22, 2016 — Trump finally gives his big anti-Clinton speech over a week late, he complains about Benghazi, Free Trade, Temperment and that her “Deleted emails could make her vulnerable to blackmail by hostile states.” He doesn’t mention Russian money going into the DNC.
June 24, 2016 — Brexit Referendum Vote Passes.
Trump is in Scotland for the opening of his Turnberry Golf Course, he says he’s glad Scotland Voted to leave the EU — but they didn’t, England did.
June 27, 2016 — Bill Clinton meets privately with AG Loretta Lynch on her plane at the Pheonix Airport while they are both there during a layover. Reportedly they discuss family, golf and travel, but calls of “obstruction” and “undue influence” — even though there is absolutely no evidence to that effect — eventually cause her to defer any decision on the Clinton email investigation to the FBI.
July 2016 — Business Insider publishes a report on the Kremlin’s Troll army based in St. Petersburg. They pose online as Pro-Trump and Pro-Bernie Americans and incessantly attack Clinton.
Cyber attacks are also made on the DCCC in order to impact House races in Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Ohio, Illinois, New Mexico and North Carolina.
Carter Page travels to Moscow, approved by Trump Natsec advisor JD Gordon and Corey Lewandowski, to give several paid speeches.
Former MI-6 agent Christopher Steele while working on oppo-research for a GOP candidate receives intel that Page also has secret meetings with Russian government oil firm Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin who allegedly offers him broker fees on the sale of 19% of Rosneft stock supposedly as a payoff for influencing Trump to drop sanctions on Russia. Page eventually denies all of this.
Steele begins writing memos to the FBI.
U.S. intel intercepts Russian Operatives discussing a request for “Help damaging Clinton’s campaign” from the Trump campaign which mentions Manafort.
July 5, 2016 — Influenced by false email intel generated by the Russians alleging that AG Lynch was “throwing the Clinton case”, and apparently the fact that she has suggested he called the Clinton situation a “matter” rather than an “investigation” — even though DOJ rules prohibit confirming an investigation before it is complete — FBI Director James Comey after announcing that the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s server is complete and no charges will be filed goes on to blast her in an extended public statement.
July 7, 2016 — Comey testifies to Congress about Hillary’s server and manages to debunk just about every Right-wing conspiracy about it.
July 18-21, 2016 — The Republican National Convention takes place during which Trump National Security Advisor J.D. Gordon torpedoes a platform plank supporting the arming of Ukrainian rebels against pro-Russian forces, then lies about it.
Kislyak attends and briefly meets Sessions again at a Heritage Foundation event, as well as Carter Page and J.D. Gordon.
Flynn delivers a speech at the Republican convention, joining in the crowd’s “Lock her up!” chant. “If I, a guy who knows this business, if I did a tenth of what she did, I would be in jail today”
Mike Pence also chants “Lock Her Up” over Hillary’s emails — even though she’s been cleared already — and he himself has AOL for his email for official business as Governor and his account had been hacked.
Flynn fills out his SF-86 form to reactivate his security clearance related to his being selected by Trump as national security advisor. Flynn fails to include that he had received $530,000 from Turkey or that he had taken another $45,000 from Russia in 2015.
July 22, 2016 — One day after end of RNC Wikileaks reveals their first set of DNC emails.
Russia Today, Sputnik News, Breitbart and other right-wing outlets begin doing incessant stories about every little negative revelation in them as well as numerous false and inflammatory rumors these are further pushed by bots and trolls on facebook and twitter until they trend.
The FBI begin to look into the Russia hack based on information from Crowdstrike, they don’t get direct access to DNC servers presumably as that would cause them to shutdown their entire email capability in middle of an election until a replacement set of servers could be installed [I’ve sent a question to the DNC’s Deputy Communications Director on this point, he hasn’t responded yet].
FBI is also looking into links to Trump due to Steele memos and concerns raised by CIA head Brennan.
July 25, 2016 — Democratic Convention starts, because of the brouhaha from the Wikileaks email dump, Chairman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz resigns and Donna Brazille takes over, RT/Sputnik heightened and amplified rumors swirl about the DNC “rigging the Primary” for Clinton and against Sanders.
July 26, 2016 — Roger Ailes leaves Fox News amid harassment allegations. Trump defends him.
Wapo reporter Sarah Kendzior asks a Kremlin official about the hacking of DNC emails and he refers the issue to Donald Trump Jr.
July 27, 2016 — Trump asks Russia to hack and/or release Hillary’s missing emails.
July 28, 2016 — Sputnik news claims Wikileaks proves the primary and DNC was rigged against Sanders.
July 31, 2016 — Manafort denies that the Trump campaign made any changes to the RNC platform. Various Trump affiliates will repeat these denials 20 more times before finally admitting the truth; Donald personally ordered the change in a meeting with Gordon during the RNC in which Sessions attended. [If this was done as a pay off to Russia to ensure their continued support in their hacking/propaganda efforts, it proves Donald’s direct involvement in a criminal conspiracy.]
August 2016 —Mikail Kalugin who was linked to pension payment scheme by Steele leaves the U.S., and is later confirmed to have been falsely posing as a diplomat while actually being a spy.
Kilminik again travels to the U.S. and meet with Manafort where they allegedly discuss the DNC hack.
CIA Director Brennen sends an “Eyes Only” private note to the WH for Obama and just 3 senior aids which states that “Putin has ordered a cyber attack to defeat or damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign, and elect Donald Trump.”
August 4, 2016 — Brennen calls his counterpart Alexander Bortnikov Director of the FSB and issues him a stern warning about the hacking and active measures.
August 9, 2016 — Flynn Intel Group, a consulting firm founded by Flynn, signs a contract with Inovo BV, a firm run by a Turkish businessman close to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, for more than $500,000
August 16, 2016 — Manafort pushes a false RT/Sputnik News story about terrorist sabotage at a NATO base in Turkey. Trump also pushes the same false story.
August 17, 2016 — Trump receives his first classified briefing. Flynn is with him.
August 19, 2016 — Manafort leaves the Trump campaign amidst allegations that he accepted a $12 Million under-the-table cash payment from his former Putin friendly client, ex-Ukraine President Yanakovych. Pollster Kellyanne Conway, who is a Mercer employee, takes over.
August 21, 2016 -— Trump pal Roger Stone tweets “it will soon be Podesta's time in the barrel.” He later claims he was talking about Podesta’s “business dealings” not his email, although Stone had also been sending DM’s to Guccifer 2.0 the public face of Russia’s cyber hacking operation.
September 2016 — Reports are the Russian hackers have attempted to penetrate the voter registration systems in 20 States, 4 were successfully infiltrated.
GOP consultant Aaron Nevins sends a note to Guccifer 2.0 asking if he has anything on Florida Dems, 10 days later he gets 2.5 Gigabits of stolen DCCC data, which confirms the connection between Kremlin intel & Guccifer.
Roger Stone says on Boston Herald Radio that he expects, "Julian Assange and the Wikileaks people to drop a payload of new documents on a weekly basis fairly soon. And that of course will answer the question of exactly what was erased on that email server."
Obama meets Putin at a summit and personally tells him to “Cut it out” with the hacking.
Obama assembles Congress’s “Gang of 12” and informs them of the Russia hack confidentially and asks for a bipartisan public statement in opposition to the attack. Mitch McConnel refuses as he doubts the veracity of the information, no public statement is issued at this time.
Trump transition chair Chris Christie begins to recommend that Flynn be fired after his erratic behavior during a national security briefing.
FBI offers to pay Christopher Steele to continue his work investigating Trump/Russia links.
Jeff Sessions meets privately with Kislyak at his Senate Offices.
Guccifer 2.0 sends Roger Stone a link to a blog post on manipulating voter turnout.
Ignoring McConnel and other Republicans Sen Feinstein and Rep Schiff issue a joint statement revealing the Russia cyber attack.
One week later McConnell and other Reps issues a tepid statement warning state election boards to remain “secure from attack.”
October 2016 — The Russian Think Tank publishes another paper, this one saying the Clinton is likely to win the election, so the online influence campaign needs to focus on claims that the election was “rigged” or “stolen” due to voter fraud.
Trump starts saying the only way he could lose Pennsylvania is because of “Voter Fraud.” and mentions the information revealed by Wikileaks 164 times over the next month.
The FEC unanimously agrees to prioritize investigations into foreign spending.
Around this time before election day NSA detects that the GRU has launched a set of cyber attacks on state and local election registration systems. Some are penetrated.
Kushner Co receives a $285 Million loan from Duetsche Bank for their Times Square building that was facing charges for not stopping Russian money-laundering on the premesis.
October 4, 2016 — Guccifer 2.0 Post documents stolen from the Clinton Foundation.
October 5, 2016 — Buzzfeed reports that Trump financial attorneys regularly meet with him in pairs so that there would be a witness. “...It’s always been our practice to make sure two people are present, and we don’t have a problem of people lying.” and “We tried to do it with Donald always if we could because Donald says certain things and then has a lack of memory.”
October 6, 2016 — The Access Hollywood Video drops with “Grab ‘em by the *****”. One hour later Wikileaks releases the first set of emails taken from John Podesta’s account. RT and Sputnik News continue to do daily reports as another set of emails is dumped for next 30 days.
October 7, 2016 — Homeland Security and the Director of National Intelligence release a Joint Statement on the Russia Hacking efforts saying it “was directed from the highest levels of the Kremlin.” FBI Director Comey had also originally signed on to this document, but refrained at the last minute due to the closeness of the election.
October 11, 2016 — Trump uses false talking points from RT to blame HIllary for Benghazi
October 21, 2016 — Hillary Clinton states during a debate that 17 Intelligence Agencies have confirmed Russia’s attempt to influence the election. Trump denies it, says “nobody knows” and it could be “China, North Korea or a 300lbs. Fat Guy.” which is also a Sputnik News Talking point.
October 23, 2016 —Christopher Steele, frustrated by the lack of response by the FBI particularly the New York Field Office which he says houses an Anti-Clinton Cabal (aka Trumpland), contacts David Corn of Motherjones who writes that “Russian spies have been attempting to cultivate Trump as an asset for 5 years.”
FBI rescinds their job offer to Steele.
Eventually with the help of the British Ambassador to Russia, his dossier of memos are passed to John McCain who physically gives a copy to James Comey.
October 26, 2016 — James Comey writes a letter to congress about the Abedin emails found on Anthony Weiner’s laptop several weeks earlier — it gets leaked almost immediately, presumably by Jason Chaffetz’s office. All hell breaks lose, Clinton drops 3-5% in the polls.
October 27, 2016 — Rudy Giuliani admits on Fox that he knew about the Comey letter from “former FBI agents” before it was sent to Congres and leaked.
October 30, 2016 — FBI obtains a warrant to review the Abedin emails.
November 6, 2016 — FBI finds that virtually all of the Abedin emails are duplicates that they already had in their possession from the Clinton server.
November 7, 2016 — 19.5% of Rosneft is sold to unknown buyers. [This seem to be consistent with the Steele Memo which predicted this sale as an payoff to Trump for lifting sanctions on Russia]
November 8, 2016 —Election Day.
Michael Flynn writes an Op-Ed in support of Turkey arguing that the U.S. should extradite a Turkish expat who President Erdoğan blames for the recent attempted coup. Seemingly Turkey has been paying Flynn and his consulting firm $530,000 — money which originated with yet another Russian oligarch.
Flynn does not disclose this or register as a foreign agent.
Russia’s Parliament erupts into applause when Trump is announced the winner.
Also four patents for various Trump Hotels and products which were applied for years earlier are simultaneously renewed in Russia.
November 9, 2016 — Wikileaks proclaims that Trump won because Democrats rigged system to have Clinton beat Sanders.
November 10, 2016 — Russia’s Foreign Minister Lavrov admits they had continuing communications from Trump’s “immediate entourage.”
Trump and Obama meet at the WH, Obama warns him not to hire Flynn.
November 11, 2016 — Chris Christie is dropped as transition chief, VP Pence takes his place.
Flynn stays on.
November 12, 2016 — Lewandowski quits CNN to work for Trump again.
November 28, 2016 — In an interview with Time magazine, Trump denies interference from Russia. “I don’t believe they interfered,” he said. “That became a laughing point, not a talking point, a laughing point. Any time I do something, they say ‘oh, Russia interfered.'” He also addressed the hacking: “It could be Russia. And it could be China. And it could be some guy in his home in New Jersey”
November 30, 2016 — The Justice Department informs Flynn that he is under investigation for his unreported lobbying on behalf of Turkey.
November —House oversight ranking member Rep. Cummings sends a letter to VP Pence about Flynn’s Op-Ed and his lobbying for Turkey.
When Flynn states he plans to schedule a meeting with Kislyak former Bush Pentagon Official Michael Billingslea warns him that any such communications with Kislyak are likely to be picked up by U.S. surveillance.
December —Trump transition does a background check on Flynn but doesn't fully vet him, they are also specifically informed by Flynn’s lawyers that he may have to register as a “Foreign Agent” because of his work for Turkey even though the Pentagon had previously warned him to get permission for such payments first, and that he was under investigation by the FBI because of it.
Watchdog groups file a complaint with the FEC over Russia and the Trump campaign coordinating.
December 1, 2016 — Flynn meets with Kislyak at Trump Tower along with Jared Kushner. Kushner suggests setting up a secure back-channel back to the Kremlin using Russian facilities that could “bypass the U.S. national security bureaucracy.”. Kislyak is reportedly “taken aback”. They also suggest having an overseas meeting but Flynn is considered too high profile to attend.
Both Flynn and Kushner don’t include these meetings on their security clearances forms and are at risk of Logan Act violations if this meetings are intended to undermine current U.S Foreign policy as both are private citizens at this point. Kushner later includes the meetings on future updates.
NSA discovers the details of this meeting while surveilling Kislyak as he communicates with Moscow.
At Kislyak’s suggestion, Kushner later meets with banker and FSB Academy graduate Sergei Gorkov who is head of Moscow based government owned bank Vnesheconombank (VEB), which funds special projects like the Sochi Olympics or` Trump Tower in Toronto and included Russian intelligence officer Evgeny Buryakov on it’s payroll, who was convicted in March 2016 by Preet Bharara of conspiracy in the case involving the attempted cultivation of Carter Page as an Russian asset. Gorkov is also former deputy board chairman of Russia largest state-owned bank, Sberank, whom had hired Trump’s attorney’s Marc Kasowitz to defend it.
December 8, 2016 — Page is back in Moscow to meet with “business leaders and thought leaders”
December 9, 2016 — Wapo reports that the CIA has made a Secret Assessment that the Russia government sought to interfere in our election in order to make Trump President, and that Congress was informed of this so they could make a bipartisan statement but Mitch McConnell refused.
December 12, 2016 -—While in Moscow, Trump’s former campaign surrogate Jack Kingston meets with Russian businessmen to discuss what they might expect from a Trump administration. “Trump can look at sanctions,” Kingston says. “They’ve been in place long enough.”
December 13, 2016 — Trump says he doesn’t need a security briefing everyday. “I’ll get it when I need it”.
Trump nominates then Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson — recipient of the Russia Order of Friendship personally from Putin who had been seeking a waiver on Russian/Crimea sanctions to proceed with their $500 Billion deal with Rosneft for drilling in the Black sea — as Secretary of State.
NBC News’ Richard Engel reports from Moscow on Trump’s secretary of state pick, Rex Tillerson. Former Russian Energy Minister Vladimir Milov tells Engel that Tillerson was a “gift for Putin.”
Steve Bannon joins Flynn and Kushner for a separate meeting with the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, who makes an undisclosed visit to New York.
December 20, 2016 -— Jared Kushner brags to Forbes magazine about the data-mining and voter micro-targeting operation he helped setup for the Trump campaign with Cambridge-Analytica which is owned by deep pocketed Trump pal Robert Mercer, who also bankrolls Breitbart News.
December 21, 2016 — Lewandowski doesn’t get rehired by Trump, starts a lobbying firm.
December 29, 2016 —Obama hits Russia with Sanctions for their hacking and involvement in the Election. Flynn talks to Russian Ambassador Kislyak, mentions “We’ll review everything” when Obama’s new sanctions are brought up. This conversation is recorded by the NSA/FBI.
The Obama Administration tries to save the intel data with a trail of bread crumbs for Congress to track.
December 30, 2016 — Putin states he will not retaliate to Obama’s newly imposed sanctions and the expulsion of 30 suspected Russian spies. Trump praises his lack of response.
A PHP web shell called P.A.S. created by Ukrainian Hacker Profexor is identified by DHS as being used in part of the DNC hack. He eventually contacts the FBI himself as he had no knowledge his worked was being used in this manner.
January 5th — Former CIA Director James Woolsey leaves Trump transition team because he is alarmed by Flynn's stance on trying to have Erdogen’s opponent Gulley “snatched up” and shipped off to Turkey.
Trump tweets a storm of attacks on the Intel community and claims of Russian hacking.
January 6th —U.S. Intel agencies publish their report on the Russia Cyber efforts to influence the election. Obama, Biden and Trump are briefed on the report, Trump claims it proves Russia didn’t “change the vote” even though the report doesn’t attempt to answer that question.
January 10th —Jeff Sessions testifies during confirmation hearings that he doesn’t know “any Trump surrogates who were in contact with the Russians” ignoring the question he was asked which was “What would you do if you discover surrogates coordinating with Russians?” Apparently the correct answer is “Nothing.”
Buzzfeed publishes the entire Steele Dossier online.
CNN reports that Trump was specifically briefed on it during the Jan 6th briefing.
Trump transition team does full court press to deny this briefing occurred, not only denying that anyone verbally described it to Trump but also there was a 3 page summary at the end of the full Russia report.
Flynn meets with Susan Rice over a plan to arm the Kurds against ISIS, Flynn vetoes the plan as the Kurds are considered terrorists by one of his financial benefactors Turkey.
Paul Manafort calls Reince Preibus to deny allegations in the dossier about him
January 11th — At his first press conference of the year Trump says he himself “didn’t meet with any Russians” during the election even though he did.
Erik Prince, former CEO of Blackwater, giant Christian Supremacist, Mike Pence supporter and brother of
Education Secretary nominee Betsy DeVos has a secret meeting with the UAE on the Seychelles islands to establish a back channel to Putin which is noticed by FBI. That meeting is chaired by the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi who had previously met with Bannon, Flynn & Kushner secretly in New York, and seems to be a follow-on to Kushner’s meeting with Kislyak at Trump Tower.
Politico issues a report indicating that Ukrainian-American Alexandra Chalupa who consulted for the DNC had gone to the Ukrainian embassy to gain information about Paul Manafort’s links to Yanakovic.
January 12th — NBC news confirms that Comey personally briefed Trump about the Steele Dossier revealing yet another transition team lie.
January 14th — Reports surface that U.S. Intel agents have warned our allies like Israel not to share sensitive intel with Trump transition team due to the Steele dossier and the risk he might share it with Russia and hence their ally Iran.
January 15th — Trump says “We should trust Putin” while lambasting NATO and Angela Merkel.
Former CIA Officer for Moscow states that Steele dossier deserves support: “This is exactly how the Russians operate.”
January 20th — Inauguration day.
January 21st —Sean Spicer does his first press briefing and spends most of it lying about the Inauguration crowd size, then takes no questions.
Women’s march crowd dwarfs Trump’s crowd by 3 to 1.
Trump WH officials soon begin pushing State Dept to remove all Russian sanctions. Alarmed State Offiicials Melinowski and Fried begin to contact congress.
January 22nd — Comey attends an event honoring Law Enforcement at the WH, tries to avoid being noticed by Trump, but fails.
January 23rd —Spicer claims Flynn didn’t talk to Kislyak about sanctions, even though he did.
Later Mike Pence goes on Meet the Press after talking personally to Flynn and claims “Flynn told me he didn’t talk to Russia about sanctions.”
January 24th — Flynn interviewed by FBI, again he apparently says he didn’t talk to Russians about sanctions but they know better. He also claims that he didn’t get any foreign money and the $45k and $530k came from “U.S. companies” having omitted the true information on his SF-86 Security form.
January 26th —Sally Yates goes to the White House personally and warns WH Counsel McGahn that Flynn may be vulnerable to “blackmail by the Russians” because he’d lied to the FBI & Pence about his contacts with Kislyak.
Trump is immediately briefed by McGahn but does nothing about Flynn.
Former Bush Ethics Atty Richard Painter files complaint with Government Ethics Office that James Comey may have violated the Hatch Act by releasing unsubstantiated information about the Abedine emails.
January 27th — Trump signs a travel ban against 7 majority Muslim nations.
McGahn calls Yates, she returns to the WH where he asks “why does it matter if Flynn lied to Pence?”
Trump invites Comey to dinner at the White House, allegedly asks Comey if he wants to “keep his job” and to pledge him his “Loyalty”, Comey offers his “Honesty” and takes copious notes.
Kremlin arrests FSB officials Sergei Mikhailov, his deputy Dmitry Dokuchaev, and Ruslan Stoyanov, the head of cybercrime investigations at Kaspersky Labs (who had paid Flynn $11,500 in 2015) for treason and illegal hacking apparently for sharing intel information with the CIA.
January 29th — London Mayor Saddiq Khan says that Trump shouldn’t be allowed entry into the UK while his Muslim ban is in place.
Trump signs EO that places Steve Bannon on the principles committee of the National Security Council, the DNI and head of the Joint Chiefs are relegated to "part time" participants.
January 30th — Sally Yates orders the DOJ not to defend Trump's Muslim ban executive order in court as she doubts it is legal or constitutional.
January 31st --Yates is fired by Trump allegedly for refusing to defend his Muslim ban executive order.
Flynn stays.
Roger Stone goes on Russia Today to push the conspiracy that murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich is the "real hacker.” This is his fifth appearance on the channel.
Deutsche Bank is fined $630 Million for $10 Billion in money laundering transactions involving Russia.
February 2nd — Putin opposition leader Vladimir Kara-Murza is poisoned for a second time in Moscow.
February 3rd —Federal Judge Robart blocks Trump's Muslim Ban echoing Yates issues with it.
Reports surface that Trump is still using that same vulnerable unsecured out of date Galaxy S3 Cell Phone to tweet with during the campaign while in the White House.
February 6th —Rep. Maxine Waters states “Trump is moving towards Impeachment.”
Trump attorney Michael Cohen and Felix Sater negotiate a deal to end sanctions against Russia by stopping the violence in Crimea with a Ukranian named Andrii V. Artemenko. They supposedly deliver a copy of this plan to Michael Flynn’s desk, but there is no evidence he ever reviewed it or passed it on to anyone.
When this is revealed Artemenko is looked at for possible Treason charges by Ukraine. [Exactly who came up with this idea and tasked them with this? Does anyone believe they went rogue?]
Februray 7th -— Sens. Cardin and Graham — alerted by Fried and Malinowski at State of Trump efforts to scrap sanctions -— author bipartisan legislation to require the approval of Congress for all changes to sanctions.
February 8th — Washington posts asks Flynn if he discussed sanctions with Russia, he says “No” twice.
February 9th —Flynn’s spokesman issues a correction to Wapo that he “doesn’t remember” if he did or didn’t discuss sanctions.
Trump talks to Putin by phone and criticizes Obama’s Start II Nuclear deal with Russia. Flynn is there for the call.
Judge Robart’s national block of the Muslim Ban is upheld by the 9th Circuit
February 10th — Trump is asked about Flynn talking to Russians about sanctions and says “This is the first time I’ve heard that.” Note: He had already been personally told about this by White House Counsel McGahn immediately after he was told by Yates on Jan 26th.
February 12th — Reports emerge that the Intel agencies are considering holding back highly sensitive intel from Trump to prevent leaks to Russia.
February 13th — Flynn is fired immediate after Wapo report proving that he lied, allegedly he’s let go because he lied to Vice President Pence and caused him to be embarrassed about what he said on Meet the Press. WH secret push to cut sanctions goes on hold.
February 14th — Comey & Sessions meet Trump in the Oval for a counter-terrorism briefing. Trump clears the room and gets Comey alone to complain about leaks asking him to prosecute some reporters over it and ask if he can just “Let Flynn go” Comey interprets the request to only be about Flynn not the Russia investigation,
Comey notes this and discusses it with FBI leadership.
The NYTimes reports that Trump aids (including Flynn, Manafort and Page) had repeated contacts with Russian Intelligence according to the NSA and that the FBI had requested they “collect as much information as possible about the Russian operatives on the phone calls” and go through their archives for more information.
February 15th — Intel Agencies with access to foreign intercepts say “Trump Will Die in Jail.”
Comey laters asks Sessions not to leave him alone with Trump again as it’s inappropriate. Comey’s memory of the event is hazy, but he states later Sessions doesn’t really respond. [During later testimony Session claims he repeated back basic DOJ protocols to Comey, which doesn’t answer his concern over why Sessions failed to follow protocol the previous day.]
February 16th — CBS reports that Trump screamed at CIA Director Pompeo over reports that Intel is being withheld from him because of fears he might leak it to Russia.
Pompeo denies any intel is being withheld from Trump.
Trump rage tweets that “Russia” is a made up story by Democrats as an excuse for losing the election.
House Democrats submit bill to prevent removal of Russia sanctions without Congress approval.
February 17th — Trump calls the Press the “Enemies of the American People.”
February 21st — Artemenko talks to a Ukrainian News outlet and reveals that he’s known Michael Cohen for some time since Cohen has an ethanol business in the country, which is also where his wife was born, and that his meeting with Cohen and Sater on Feb 6 wasn’t their first. According to Artemenko, he discussed the “peace-plan” with Cohen and Sater “at the time of the primaries, when no one believed that Trump would even be nominated.”
February 25th — FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe — who began his carrier with the New York Field Office while Trump surrogate Giuliani was Mayor — goes to the White House and in direct violation of DOJ protocols buttonholes Reince Prebus to tell him the NYT article on contacts “Is Bullshit.” [Later reporting seems to hint that the FBI’s objection to the report is the claim that certain contacts were confirmed as part of “Russian Intelligence”, not that the contacts didn’t happen because those were confirmed by James Clapper.]
February 26th —Preibus calls McCabe back and asks him to inform the Press about this as an “anonymous source”, he refuses.
Preibus call his pals Devin Nunez Chairman of the House intelligence committee and Richard Burr Chairman of the Senate Intel Committee who are each former Trump surrogates who are heading up investigations of “Russia” — they do it for him.
Former Bush Ethics Atty Richard Painter files complaint with Government Ethics Office that James Comey violated the Hatch Act by publicly disclosing unsubstantiated information about Abedine’s emails prior to the election.
February 28th — Trump who had essentially called Hillary a “murderer” over Benghazi blames the Generals and Obama for death of Navy Seal in Yemen during raid he himself authorized.
March 1 —it’s discovered that Sessions met with Kislyak twice, in July at the RNC which he attended as a Trump surrogate along with Carter Page and JD. Gordon and in September in his Senate Offices. Nobody notices that he also met him in April.
Sen. Franken asks for Sessions to come back to the Senate to explain, he declines and sends a letter which claims he didn’t understand the question he was asked and didn’t think he was “acting as a surrogate” when he met Kislyak.
March 2 — 100 Democrats demand that Jeff Sessions resign as Attorney General. He doesn’t.
March 4 —Session recuses himself from the Russia investigation.
Trump blows his top that weekend screaming at his staff, throwing Priebus and Bannon off Air Force One for his weekly Mar-A-Lago trip.
March 5th — Trump tweets about being “Wiretapped in Trump Tower by Obama” that morning based on a report from Breitbart and Judge Napolitano on Fox News — Narrative shifts away from Sessions.
James Clapper denies that “Obama Wiretapped Trump.”
March 6th -- Trump issues a revised Muslim travel ban, which no longer blocks immigrants and refugees from Iraq.
March 7th —House Intel committee invites Sally Yates and James Comey to testify about Michael Flynn and Russia.
Michael Hayden denies Trump’s Wiretapped by Obama claims.
Sen. Franken says Session committed perjury.
The Guardian reports that SLC Group and Cambridge Analytics methods of generating micro-targeted alt-news webiverse using data provided by AggregateIQ were used to meddle in the Brexit Vote to encourage “voter disengagement” and “to persuade Democrat voters to stay at home”:
March 8th — British media reports more of the specific contacts by person and date alleged by Steele dossier have been confirmed by independent surveillance, but they do not yet confirm the substance of the conversations.
Flynn finally registers as a foreign agent.
June 20th —
Sen. Whitehouse argues that there is evidence Flynn has been cooperating with Mueller’s investigation for some time.
CNN Reports the Trump pick for FBI director Christopher Wray had edited his online bio to remove reference to a case against Russia.
Bannon says the reason Spicer doesn’t do his briefings on camera : “Sean got fatter.” Which is ironic for a guy who’s fatter than Spicer and doesn’t explain why he won’t allow the audio to be recorded either.
Jason Miller generates excuses for why Trump hasn’t commented on London Mosque attack: “It literally happened just yesterday” when it was 2 days ago, Yesterday was the death of former North Korean prisoner Otto Warmbier, but he commented on that, the Baseball practice shooting and the London Bridge attack immediately.
CBS reports that Trump’s approval is down 11% among Republicans since the end of his first 100 days. 36% approval overall.
“Still Fatter” Spicer does an on camera briefing.
Mueller adds Russian speaking prosecutor to his team.
Sessions lawyers up with an attorney Chuck Cooper, who had previously defended Bob Jones’ University’s ban on interracial dating to supporting job discrimination against those with HIV/AIDS.
Hannity claims new nutbag theory that the intelligence community and mainstream media are planning a “Soft Coup” to undermine Trump. “Deep State”, “Political Witch Hunt” etc
June 21st —
Bloomberg reports a detailed piece by Trump biographer Tim O’Brien on his shady financial ties to Mafia and Russian Mob money through Felix Sater and Bayrock LLC between 2002-2011 including $33 Million in properties sales & rentals of luxury condos in New York, Vegas and Los Angeles to mysterious LLCs since the election.
Don Jr. and Ivanka’s involvement in these deals makes them potential targets for Mueller’s investigations.
Former Homeland Security head Jeh Johnson testifies
He says that “The Russian government, at the direction of Vladimir Putin himself, orchestrated cyber attacks on our nation for the purpose of influencing our election,” he said. “That is a fact, plain and simple.”
But that there’s “No evidence they flipped votes.” which would have been an act of war.
He also says Trump’s “Rigged” talk made it difficult to address the interference Russia created.
Other officials from DHS indicate that voter registration systems in 21 states were attacked.
Spicer says he “hasn’t specifically asked” Trump if he believes Russia interfered with the election.
Telegraph reports that Trump will not be making an official state visit to the UK over the threat of widespread protests for at least two years.
Senate’s new Russia sanctions bill hits a snag on the House rule that any bill that raises revenue must start in the House.
Dems on House Oversight send letter to Preibus to explain why Kushner still has a security clearance?
Kushner flies to Tel Aviv to negotiate with Israel and Palestine.
Lewandowski tells Fox and Friends the Russian collusion investigation “should end immediately” because they’ve found nothing. [That they’ve told us about, Yet. And they won’t say anything until there’s either an indictment or a Grand Jury report to Rosenstein.]
NATO F-16 from Poland buzzes plane carrying Lavrov and shadows it until a Russian SU-22 with air-to-air missiles shows up.
Rachel Maddow highlights that what Homeland security testified isn't just that lots of states were attacked but also that voter registration files in specific counties that leaned heavily Democratic were targeted and some of the poll book software failed on election night in those counties which created excessive delays, long lines and more votes shifted to provisional ballots which aren't always counted — meanwhile personal information for 200 Million U.S. voters were posted on an open server by RNC contractor Deep Root analytics which could have been accessed by anyone who knew the IP or web address.
june 22nd —
Senate releases their version of Trumpcare which is even worse than the house version and immediately loses 4 Republican votes leaving the bill DOA. Senator Collins questions it's Medicaid cuts while Senator Warren says it pays for tax cuts with Blood Money.
Trump finally admits after 41 days, one day before the deadline set by congress for an answer, that he doesn't have any "Tapes" of his conversations with Comey, and had only brought it up to "rattle" him. He seems to claim he had thought Comey himself or the intel community had been taping the conversation in a weird variation on the "Obama taped me in Trump Tower" conspiracy. It never seems to occur to him that if Comey had a recording, he wouldn’t have needed to take notes and write memos about what was said, which is a pretty standard FBI practice.
Election officials report that hackers stole and changed voter registration information during the 2016 election in at least one county in addition to accessing registration systems in 39 states.
Huckabee Sanders says "Everybody agrees the election wasn't influenced by Russia" [No, not really. They didn't change votes, but they did all they could to access their registration data and to trick voters with false news and conspiracy theories.] when finally admitting that the DNC was probably hacked by Russia which everyone actually does say.
Trump staffers reacts to this latest nutty conspiracy theory and the looming backlash over it --"**** my life."
Nunez "I never said I was leaving the Russia investigation for good."
Trump's "Voter Fraud" panel backfires as they starting looking into Russian hacking of election systems.
Pizzagate shooter sentenced to four years in prison.
Preet Bharara signs a book deal
Schiff says that Trump's tweet about the tapes is not enough, 'he's been untruthful before in his tweets.' and that his statement that he doesn't have tapes doesn't cover the rest of the White House.
Coats and Rogers tells House intel that Trump did ask them to “get the word out” about his not being personally under investigation and that there was “no evidence of collusion.” Coats also says Trump is “obsessed with the Russia probe.”
Rand Paul's attempts to claim that Trump really was being surveilled which inspires former CIA agent Phill Mudd to call bullshit on that. Besides the fact that Comey, Coats, Clapper (all under oath) and Michael Hayden have already denied this and said it’s not even possible under the law.
June 23rd —
Wapo releases report that CIA had generated an “Eyes Only” memo for Obama in August that Putin personally ordered the attack on the U.S. election. Trump says "This is the first he's heard of it..." as if he wasn't briefed on exactly this on Jan 6th and Jeh Johnson hadn’t just testified to the same thing two days ago.
Spicer finally admits he talked to Trump about “elections tampering” but doesn’t specifically mention Russia, and claims Trump’s “tape threat” was intended to force Comey to “tell the truth” as if being under oath were meaningless.
Incoming House Oversight Chair Trey Gowdy, replacing Chaffetz, says he’s totally dropping investigation of Russian interference leaving it for Mueller, House Judiciary and Intelligence.
Trump Energy official sends racist tweets calling Obama a “Kenyan creampuff.”
Wapo reports that WH can’t get through to Tillerson on the phone, “he won’t return calls”
Senate Intel opens investigation into faked and already debunked report about Loretta Lynch colluding with Debbie Wasserman-Schultz to shutdown Clinton email investigation.
Trump claims Comey tapes may exists because “Obama taped the White House”, again. [Uh, no he didn’t he taped the Russian ambassador and caught Flynn, which is something he was warned would happen, dumb ***.]
The rollout of new FBI Director Nominee Chris Wray appears to be completely fouled up, already.
Politico reports that Trump blames WH Counsel McGhan for not stopping the Russia probe, somehow.
LATimes reports that Mueller's team includes experts on fraud and money laundering and they seem "Dangerously close to an obstruction case."
Rep. Andy Biggs calls for Mueller to recuse himself because of his close relationship with Comey, who had been his boss as Deputy AG while Mueller was FBI Director. He doesn’t seem to have a problem with the fact that Kushner and Ivanka’s attorney Jamie Gorelick is also a member of Mueller’s law firm.
Kris Kobach from Trump's "Voter Fraud" panel gets sanctioned for "Deceptive Conduct and Lack of Condor"
June 24th —
Russia pushes back on more reports that they meddled in the U.S. elections claiming “We don’t do that, but the U.S. does.”
Trump attacks Obama administration for “doing nothing” to fight Russia attacks, finally admitting that there even was a Russia attack while ignoring that they did respond to the attack on state elections systems reached out diplomatically several times very strongly including face to face with Putin, then implemented sanctions which Trump has been already trying to remove.
June 25th —
Buzzfeed reports that Putin plans to recall Kislyak back to Russia.
Jeffrey Lord says Mueller should hire Michael Cohen — yes, seriously — ignoring the fact that he’s actually been investigating Cohen who has since lawyered up.
Eric Trump again says the DNC Chair Tom Perez is a “Nut Job” and his dad “has done more than any President in History.”
90 Parliament email accounts are attacked by hackers.
Kellyanne Conway refuses to talk about Russian hacks because “It was Obama’s fault for not stopping them” — even though he actually did stop them once he, DHS and the FBI knew about it.
Trump admits calling Elizabeth Warren “Pochahantas” is racist, but does it anyway. He also tweets that “Hillary colluded with the DNC to defeat Bernie” even though that actually didn’t happen at all and is just another Sputnik News talking point.
White House skips Ramadan celebration, because why not?
Adam Schiff and Al Franken criticize Obama’s tepid reaction to Russia prior to the election saying he “coulda, shoulda, woulda” done more. Yeah, ok, that’s good backseat driving there. Like what exactly?
Kushner goes to Palestine and infuriates Prime Minister Abbas enough that they threaten to shutdown talks.
june 26th —
Brit Hume argues that colluding with Russia’s illegal cyber attacks against America wouldn’t be a crime — because “Huh?”
Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) tells Politico that he’s prepared to battle the White House over efforts to water down legislation imposing sanctions against the Russian government.
Trump says that “Obama colluded with Russia” because he “did nothing” when he was informed about the hacking attacks — even though he did plenty & Hume says “collusion wouldn’t be a crime.” Somehow he ignores his own request for Russia to hack and release “Hillary’s emails” and multiple attempts to raise sanctions. He also demands an “apology” claiming the Wapo report disproves collusion by his campaign when that subject wasn’t even addressed in the report.
Spicer says Trump was “only joking” about Russia hacking and releasing Hillary’s emails. Katy Tur puts a match to that B.S. and sets it on fire.
Somehow a Russia media rep. Igor Zorin who only earns $75,000 bought 3 condos worth $5.4 Million from Trump Palace. Shocker.
Supreme Court partially allows Travel Ban —upholding it for all those who filed suit based on “standing” but potentially damaging tourism to the tune of $18 Billion — until they fully hear the case in October.
Wapo reports that Kushner received a $285 Million loan from Deutsche Bank a month before the election for their Times Square building while the bank was facing charges being involved in Russian money laundering.
Kushner in addition to attorney Jamie Gorelick hires powerhouse defense attorney Abbie Lowell who had previously defended Harold Keating, Jack Abramov, Dan Rostenkowski and John Edwards.
2 weeks after claiming they would “immediately” file a complaint against Comey for his “leaking” his own thoughts and recollections to Congress, Kasowitz and Trump’s other attorneys haven’t done it yet.
Nunez admits he was never going to recuse himself from Russia investigation.
Wapo Reports that Trump associate Carter Page was interviewed by the FBI 5 times for a total of 10 hours during March and did so without an attorney.
Spicer announces that the WH has information indicating another possible chemical weapons attack by the Assad regime, but CENTCOM knows nothing about it.
CBO says that Senate TrumpCare bill will leave 22 Million without insurance.
Trump’s re-election campaign pays $50,000 to Donald Jr.’s lawyer Alan Futerfas after he’s contacted by the NYTimes for a comment after they discovered that Kushner’s attorneys had updated his SF86 form to include a meeting called by Don Jr. with a lawyer from Russia.
July 27th -—
Trump’s act bombs at Senate Health care meetings because he has no idea what’s in the bill, or for that matter no idea how health care actually works.
Ryan states that “22 Million don’t really want insurance anyway.”
CNN caves to a $100 Libel lawsuit threat over a single-sourced anonymous story involving Trump team member Anthony Scaramucci and fires three employees, including the reporter Thomas Frank and producer Eric Litchbau on the story.
Reporter Brian Karem unloads on the hypocrisy of Huckabee-Sanders trying to grandstand on Scaramucci story firing, while the WH uses anonymous sources for it’s own counter story.
The law firm of Kushner’s new attorney Abbie Lowell has links to both Sberbank and Rosneft and was one of the first U.S. firms allowed to have offices in Moscow.
Clinton campaign chair John Podesta testifies in closed session to House Intel.
Wapo reports that Manafort has registered as a foreign agent and declared $17 million in profits from Ukrainian groups. This “finally getting right with the law” act fuels rumors that he has or soon intends to flip for Mueller.
Gingrich says Trump should testify, because it’s not like he wouldn’t prat fall into perjury trap that way…Noooo.
Rick Perry talks to the press about the environment and ****. gets. crazy.
CNN medical producer opines on tape made by James O’Keefe that Russia probably a “witch hunt” and that CNN ‘s coverage is over the top. CNN sticks with him as having his own opinion, besides it’s not like aren’t still paying Jeffrey Lord to say the same thing day after day. There is also another video of Van Jones saying “Russia is a nothing burger” — which in terms of Demcractic politics he’s previously said many times.
Sally Yates says Americans should be alarmed at Trump’s behavior even if you assume there “was no collusion.”
Kasowitz puts his complaints about Comey’s “leaks” on indefinite hold.
Senate pushes back vote on Trumpcare until after July 4th recess.
July 28th -—
Trump tweets incoherently about the Washington Post supporting Amazon for not paying “taxes” when they do pay sales taxes in 45 states.
Time magazine asks Trump to remove fake magazine covers from his golf courses.
Sekulow argues that we should have a special prosecutor to investigate Obama’s reaction to Russian hacking and meddling, because that’s logical — in Bizarro World.
Maddow reports that Senate Republicans seem to be investigating the Mueller investigation and are reviewing the Comey Memo’s even though they aren’t investigation obstruction — that’s under Senate Judiciary — perhaps to see if it’s is based entirely on the Steele Dossier in order to use that as a reason to have it shut down.
Senate Intel is also reportedly going through 2,000 documents for Treasury’s FinCEN unit on Trump and his associations and the money ties to Russia.
CREW files a Hatch Act complaint against Nikki Haley for retweeting an endorsement by Trump for Republican Robert Northam to fill the congressional seat vacated by budget director Mick Mulvaney.
CNN reports that Trump’s staff is going increasingly concerned about his lack of concern about what and how Russia hacked us, and whether they might do it again.
Chuck Todd tears into Trump’s press office :”This is nothing less than a war on the truth.”
Ex MTV-VJ Kennedy argues on Fox: “Who cares if 15 Million people will lose Health Care next year, we’re all gonna die anyway?” Yes we will, but not this exact minute. Well, not unless North Korea — well y’know.
Spicer tweets claim that Obamacare has “failed” 28 Million people who still don’t have Health Care and that only TrumpCare is the “solution” to this problem — while the CBO says it will increase that problem another 23 Million by 2026.
June 29th —
Annoyed by criticism from Morning Joe’s Mika saying he’s “Out of his Mind” while discussing a reported loud clash between SecState Tillerson and WH over meddling and interference by Kushner, Trump counters by tweeting that Joe and Mika visited Mar-A-Lago 3 times, and that he refused a personal meeting around New Year’s because Mika was “bleeding from a recent facelift” — pics taken of Mika that same day disprove this. Melania and Huckabee-Sanders give excuses for this crap.
WH aides respond to facelift tweet “At least you’re not reporting we’re going to kill Millions” — yeah, but you are though, if we let you.
MSNBC’s Katy Tur smashes Huckabee-Sanders false claim that “Trump never advocated violence” on the campaign trail point by point.
Republicans respond to “Facelift” tweet with outrage, but still continue to support and vote for Trump proposal despite outrage of the American people. Typical.
Trump prepares to meet privately with Putin at G20 by asking staff to give him “bargaining chips he can trade away.” Might those include “American Sovereignty?
Steven Benen at MSNBC reveals that Trump’s “secret plan” to fight ISIS was a Lie, because his actual plan is to do what Obama was already doing.
Kasowitz law firm under potential scrutiny by Mueller for a $285 Million 2015 real estate deal for Time Square property and refinancing loan between Kushner and Deutsche Bank.
Ryan says Senate must repass their Russia sanctions bill to resolve constitutional issue, but the issue is that revenue bills have to start in the House — so, um, what?
House intel requests a more full response to the question of Comey recordings than just the President’s tweet, which only spoke for him not any recording being kept by the entire White House.
Wall Street Journal reports that GOP operative Peter W. Smith had endeavored to gain stolen Clinton email information for Flynn. He claimed to them, before he died on May 15, to have found two groups with the information and asked them to provide it to Wikileaks. U.S. intel also picks up indications that Russian hackers were actively trying to get access to Clinton’s server to provide those emails to Flynn. Smith acting as an “intermediary” for communications between Russian hackers and Flynn confirms another plank in the Steele Dossier that Kremlin intel had been deliberately supplying Trump with anti-Clinton intel.
Van Jones lays into James O’keefe’s bogus “Nothing Burger” video supposedly “exposing” the CNN host for not really caring that much about the Russia issue compared to other policy issues — an opinion which he’s never hidden.
Hawaii files a new suit against Trump’s Partial Travel Ban/Suspension.
NRA releases a video statement featuring Media Wingnut Dana Leosch that accuses the Left of widespread verbal and other violence against Trump, the Police and the Right. She then goes onto fTucker Carlson to defend and rationalize it.
Deutsche Bank refuses request for Trump financial documents from House Dems for the 2nd time.
Senate passes updated version of their new Russia Sanctions Bill which now includes sanctions on Iran as well.
June 30th -—
TPM reports that Homeland Security hasn’t yet checked the integrity of a single voting machine to ensure none of them were hacked or tampered with.
Joe Scarborough reveals that Mika had told Melania about her facelift and that Trump was so impressed he asked for the name of her doctor 10 times.
Joe also says that Trump had tried to blackmail them into apologizing for their coverage by saying if they did he would spike a negative National Enquirer story about them. Trump rage tweets and accidentally confirms part of their story. If proven these allegations would violate New York Criminal (Coercion), DC Criminal (Bribery) and Federal Criminal Law (Extortion by officers of the U.S.).
Russian Communications Minister Nikolay Nikiforov served notice on Friday that the Russian government would retaliate against U.S. companies if Congress bans the Pentagon from using controversial cyber-security software from Kaspersky Labs.
States reject extreme voter information request from Election Suppression Commission, even Kris Kobach’s own state of Kansas refuses. Huckabee-Sanders says this is only a “political stunt” — but it’s Republican controlled states as well as Democratic that refuse.
July 1st —
UK cyber-analyst Matt Tait reveals he was recruited by Peter Smith to authenticate emails stolen from Clinton’s server by the Russians which were to be provided to Michael Flynn.
Bloomberg reports that Kushner had attempted to buy the National Enquirer along with David Pecker in 2006.
Trump continues his twitter rage-a-thon against Mika and Joe for a 3rd day saying ““Crazy Joe Scarborough and dumb as a rock Mika are not bad people,” and also criticizes MSNBC for firing Greta Van Sustren.
Senate Intel reaches agreement to review the Comey Memos.
Trump “jokes” it would be “Fun to sue CNN” at a fundraiser. He says “These are really dishonest people. Should I sue them? I mean, they’re phonies,” Trump said, according to the recording. “I mean, these are horrible human beings.”
In his 2nd loud clash with WH Officials this week Tillerson apparently had “tense” conversation with Jason Miller who pushed him to take a tougher stance on immigration, while Tillerson demanded independence on how he ran State Dept. affairs.
CBS reports that the Science Division of the WH Office of Technology is now completely unstaffed.
July 2nd —
Trump tweets video of himself body slamming and punching WWE CEO Vince McMahon into a stupor — only edited with the CNN logo covering McMahon’s face which has been posted on Reddit 4 days about by yet another neo-Nazi whose online name is literally HanAssholeSolo. CNN takes it as a literal physical threat. WH laughs saying “you guys can never take a joke.” Kathy Griffin is not consulted on the “Funny Ha Ha” of the thing.
DOJ Corporate Fraud expert quits in disgust because doing her job is simply “not possible under Trump.”
All discussion of the Tait’s revelation about being recruited to review Clinton emails obtained from Russia to provide to Michael Flynn or Trump’s ongoing assault on health care recedes.
July 3rd —
Reporter Jared Yates Sexton who discovered ID of Reddit user “HanAssholeSolo” who created anti-CNN video, begins receiving “gory” death threats and insults from other Alt-Right Neo-Nazis.
David Duke chimes in and justifies threats against “Journalistic terrorists”arguing the press has endorsed violence against him for the last 50 years..
Katrina Peirson claims “By the very nature of being President of the United States, it makes his actions presidential whether you like it or not.”
Former Ted Cruz spokesperson Amanda Carpenter argues the president’s attacks on the press “essentially [hands] a weapon to some of our enemies.”
Trump biographer Tim O’Brien says his tweets aren’t some grand distraction because he’s “not smart enough for that.”
Melania says Mika Brzezski “doesn’t know me” in response to her comments on their feud with Trump to InStyle Magazine.
House Dems back bill that could invoke the 25th Amendment removing Trump if he is found mentally or physically unfit for office.
July 4th —
Florida head of the NAACP found a Confederate flag on her lawn after receiving a series of late-night death threats from callers claiming ties to the Ku Klux Klan.
Trump plans for full “Bilateral” meeting with Putin during G20 Summit, Tillerson plans to do “cleanup” meeting in Ukraine hours later.
41 States refuse to provide information to Kris Kobach’s Voter Suppression commission — and some members begins to quit.
Germany’s Angela Merkel no longer describes America under Trump as “a friend.”
July 5th —
Jack Prosoblec A Pro-Trump activist with White House access releases the phone numbers and home addresses of multiple CNN personalities and their families.
Neo-Nazi hackers then begin to contact the families & parents of various CNN anchors and reporters, including those of Andrew Kaczinski who wrote the HanAssholeSolo story and threaten their lives.
HanAssholeSolo apologizes and promises not to produce more racist memes, Ted Cruz accuses CNN of extortion when they later publish an article about his apology while reserving the right to reveal his ID if he reneges on his promise, Some Trumpers scream “blackmail” but CNN counters that they haven’t published his ID, they won’t since he’s a private citizen and he goes on to contact CNN himself and says “he wasn’t threatened”
Fox contributor Tammy Bruce defends HanAssholeSolo right to be an ******* and criticizes CNN “(He) made this meme that the president picked up, and they decided that they could get their pound of flesh from this individual.”
Don Jr. complains “It was only a matter of time” when CNN reports the Anti-Defamation League statement that the anti-CNN meme may be racist and anti-semitic, claiming they’re “Bullying a 15 year old”, but CNN having found his Facebook page counters that claim “He’s not 15.”
Jr. continues “If only @CNN spent as much time tracking down info on IRS targeting, Fast & Furious, Iran deal etc as they did a meme writer! #CNNBlackmail” but there aren’t any outstanding questions on any of those issues, except for Wingnut conspiracies about them.
Trump supports AT&T/Time Warner deal which some see as a way for him to gain leverage over CNN.
Investigators are looking into scores of Easter European Pro-Trump websites which popped up before the election and published dozens of co-ordinated fake anti-Clinton reports.
July 6th —
Trump supporter charged with criminal mischief for writing “False Flag” graffiti at an Elementary School. [Responding officers found “Kill Trump,” “Left is the best,” “Bernie Sanders 2020” and “Death to Trump” written on a sign in the playground.]
While in Warsaw, Poland for the G20 summit Trump again says “Nobody really knows” who hacked the 2016 election. “I think it was Russia. But I think it was probably other people and/or countries, and I see nothing wrong with that statement. Nobody really knows. Nobody really knows for sure,” Trump said. He argues that “Obama did nothing” and that Bush went to war in Iraq over WMD’s and “was wrong.”
Trump also says that CNN took his wresting video too seriously. “CNN has really taken (the video) too seriously and I think they’ve hurt themselves very badly, very very badly.”
Rep. Adam Schiff blasts Trump’s comments. “The President’s comments today, again casting doubt on whether Russia was behind the blatant interference in our election and suggesting ... that nobody really knows, continue to directly undermine U.S. interests,”
CREW asks the Office of Government Ethics to investigate Kushner’s failure to disclose “his ownership interest in an online real estate investment company called Cadre” in his public financial disclosure.
On Fox and Friend Eric Trump bashes the media saying the DOW and S&P are at the highest level ever but all the media talks about is whether Trump colluded with Russia to meddle in the elections. ”I mean, we’re thriving as a nation. Everybody wants to get focused on nonsense. On garbage. On distractions.”
Walter Schraub head of the Office of Government Ethics who had been a highly vocal critical of Trump’s lack of divestiture from his private businesses abruptly resigns effective July 19th.
Rachel Maddow reports that her show had been sent a faked NSA Document which claimed proof that a specific member of the Trump Campaign had been colluding with Russians. This forged document appears to have been an attempt to discredit her program with planted Fake News which could be easily debunked at a later date.
Right wing editorials slam CNN for suggesting they might reveal the identity of HanAssholeSolo claiming that it’s “Blackmail” in exchange for his not generating racists, violent memes anymore, which pretty much establishes that yet again the Rightwing (Hearts) Racism & Sexism.
July 7th —
Trump meets Putin privately for two hours in Warsaw during the G20.
Putin says he “didn’t hack our election” and Trump believes him according to Lavrov, but Tillerson disagrees.
According to Lavrov, “Trump told Putin that some circles in the US are exaggerating the topic of Russian cyber meddling.”
Tillerson claimed he sent Melania into the meeting to break it up after first hour, but they just kept talking for another hour.
Donald Trump agreed to form a joint task force with the Russians to address cyber security, which is a bit like the bank inviting the thieves in to look around and hang out.
They don’t reach an agreement on how to handle North Korean’s increasingly aggressive missile and nuclear program.
They do reach an agreement on a cease fire in southern Syria.
They talk for so long both of them skip out of the Climate Change/Energy meeting.
California Govorner Jerry Brown shows up at G20 and shreds Trump at climate meeting he skipped. “(Trump) doesn’t speak for the rest of America”
Trump tweets that Podesta didn’t let FBI have the DNC server when Podesta actually didn’t have any jurisdiction over anything the DNC did or didn’t do. Podesta hits back with “Get a Grip Man.”
Trump State Dept grants Visas to 150 Russian Spies.
Ivanka temporarily sits in Trump’s place at one G20 summit table, the internet goes nuts.
July 8th —
NyTimes reveals the secret June 9, 2016 meeting between Don Jr., Manafort and Kushner with a prominent Russia lawyer who is known for being an agent of the Russian government. Supposedly they discuss the U.S. adoption of Russian children which had been suspended by Putin after the passage of the Magnitsky Act blacklisting Russian’s with Human Rights violations.
Donald Jr. tweets an edited video of Top Gun footage that shows Trump shooting down planes marked with CNN and says it’s “One of the best I’ve seen.”
Wapo reports that Russian hackers had accessed networks for American Nuclear and Energy companies.
While flying back from the G20 on Air Force One WH staffers begin to craft an “accurate” statement of response to the Time report about Junior and Veselniskaya, Trump himself intervenes and dictates a false story for them to release that the meeting was primarily about “Adoption”. Jared who later claims he was only at the meeting long enough to hear about the adoption portion and had left early before the Magnitski act came up is present on AF1 at this time, Junior isn’t.
July 9th —
Instead of a post summit Press Conference Trump has a tweet-gasm…
Claiming he accepted Putin’s denial of being involved in the election hacks.
He wants to partner with Russia on Cyber Security concerns
He again attacks the DNC for not letting the FBI (and he includes the CIA for some reason) have their email server even though they really didn’t need it.
And also attacks Obama for doing “nothing” about the hacks [that is besides getting in Putin’s face, shoring up our cyber defenses, informing congress, having DHS and the DNI announce that we’d been attacked and devising a new set of sanctions as well as kicking out 35 spies out and takin over 2 Russian compounds]
Kasowitz files motion to dismiss a sexual harassment and defamation suit from a former “Apprentice” contestant against Trump arguing he now has “immunity” and that his comments insulting his various accusers were simply “Free Speech”
Russia expert and investigative reporter Michael Weiss argues that doing a cyber security unit with Putin is like “having an arsonist in charge of the fire brigade.” Fox and Fools says the idea is “actually Genius.” Social media suggests El Chapo and Charles Manson as next members of this crack Cyber Security Unit.
Some GOP Senators coming back from july 4th recess say that Trumpcare is probably dead. McConnell hints that he may attempt to work with Democrats to strengthen the ACA individual market and exchanges.
The NYTimes reports that Donald Jr. was offered damaging information on Hillary Clinton before attending a meeting with a Kremlin-linked Russian Lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya last June with Manafort and Kushner, but they do not confirm that she actually delivered this information during the meeting. [If that information was provided and it originated as a result of Russian cyber-espionage — we have Collusion Sign once again, particularly if it was offered in exchange for a repeal of the Magnitsky act which sanctions Russian individuals for Human Rights violations.’]
Trump’s legal team says he “was unaware and did not attend” the meeting with Veselnitskaya.
Bush ethics lawyer Richard Painter says Don Jr & Kushner’s actions in attending the Veselnitskaya meeting to get opposition research on Clinton “border on Treason.” Also, potentially, the Logan Act again.
Outgoing Ethics Chief Walter Shaub notes that part of why he’s leaving his post early is that while attempting to do his job he got nothing but stonewalling and even a “explicit threat” from Reince Preibus.
Trump begins his tweet walkback on the Cyber Security Unit: “The fact that President Putin and I discussed a Cyber Security unit doesn't mean I think it can happen. It can't-but a ceasefire can,& did!” [Uh, what?]
July 10th —
Don Jr. issues a statement — changing his previous claims that there were “No meetings”, and his second claim that it was about “adoptions” — that he went to this meeting because he was asked by a friend he’d met during the Moscow Miss Universe pageant in 2013 and admits he went because of he promise of “helpful information”. He didn’t know Veselnitskaya previously, she talked about Russians funding the DNC (which would be illegal) in order to help Hillary Clinton but her claims were “vague and made no sense” and after discussing Russian adoption and the Magnitski act he ended the meeting after 20 mins because Trump wasn’t public official yet [which avoids a Logan Act violation].
Common Cause files a complaint about Don Jr. “Solicitiing a contribution from a foreign national” with the FEC.
Junior goes on to repeatedly like tweets that say he attended the meeting to get “dirt” on Clinton which doesn’t help his case at all.
Brit Hume insist “Don Jr. was tricked by a Russian bait and switch” but there’s no evidence of collusion. [Yeah, except that he jumped at the bait until he decided it was worthless and not harmful enough to Clinton which was kinda collusion-ish.]
Kellyanne goes on George Stephanapoulos and gets caught in her previous statements that there were “no contacts or meetings” with Russians. George asks “Who misled you?” on the details of these meetings.
Kellyanne also talks to Chris Cuomo and whines endlessness that CNN doesn’t give Trump any positive coverage — although they do. [I mean, not all day long for 10 hours straight on show after show, but they mention the other stuff sometimes.] She tries to do an infomercial about “Trump the Great” on VA reform, the Opiod crisis and Infrastructure, Cuomo counters that Don Jr.’s statement is an admission that Russians were trying to ingratiate themselves into the Trump campaign, whether they succeeded that particular time is besides the point [And they apparently did succeed later with multiple undisclosed Kushner/Flynn meetings with Kislyak and others.) “Don Jr. changed his story twice, that’s what matters” Cuomo says. She keeps whining for more positive coverage “Your panelists roll their eyes and furrow their brows, they need to be more balanced” as if they don’t have Jeffrey Lord, Jason Miller, Jack Kingston, Rick Santorum and other Pro-Trump sycophants on every day. He says “You rally people to attack the press and our families” which they have.
Keith Olbermann pulls up an old Trump tweet that he says shows Trump knew Manafort and Don Jr. meet with Veselnitskaya because later that day was the first time he said “33,000 of Hillary’s emails were missing.”
FBI says about half (4 of 7) of Comey’s memos contain sensitive or confidential information indicating his sharing some of them with Senate investigators may be problematic even though he testified that he created all the memos as “Unclassified”, this means that he is now suffering from the same after-the-fact “up classification” problem that plagued Hillary Clinton and her emails. Ironic.
Trump retweets a Fox and Friends segment that claims Comey revealed classified information to the media in his memos, when in fact the media doesn’t even have his memos, Mueller does. Senate intel had only reached an agreement to see them just last week and hasn’t fully reviewed them yet.
Rep. Schiff say House Intel wants to question Don Jr. as does Sen. Susan Collins who wants him to talk to the Senate Intel committee. Donnie tweets he’ll be happy to talk to Senate Intel.
Congressional staffers tell the Daily Beast that Treasury officials have attempted to water down the Senate’s New Sanctions Bill against Russia. Tillerson supposedly argued it would “handicap their desire to repair the relationship between the two nations.”
After Trump tweets that if Chelsea Clinton had been a place holder for her mother as Ivanka had been for him at the G20 the “Fake media would have said Chelsea for Prez” — during an audio only briefing a WH reporters asks Huckabee-Sanders when he’ll finally put “Bill and Hillary in the rear view mirror?”
Chelsea hits back saying her Father and Mother “Never would have asked her” to do such a thing and never have.
Former watergate assistant prosecutor Nick Akerman echoes Richard Painter’s call that Don Jr. actions may have “betrayed the United States” and could be considered “Treason.”
Former CIA spy Lindsay Moran says that she has seen the Russian government use these kinds of tactics in the past on American citizens, “Legality aside, this is Russian intelligence tactics at their best,” she said. “Let’s promise Trump Jr. something that he wants, lure him in, bait and switch. It doesn’t matter whether they talked about nefarious activities with him at the meeting — the whole thing is nefarious.”
Don Jr. sarcastically tweets admitting he went to get the opposition research info on Clinton that he’s “the first campaign rep to have a meeting to get information on an opponent” {Yes, he would be for information From Russia!!’]
Then Don Jr. lawyers up. His new attorney is best known for defending the Mafia.
On CNN Jennifer Taub of the Vermont Law School says that “A campaign taking anything of value from a foreign national” is a crime, and even attempting to do so by going to the meeting would be “conspiracy” to violate campaign finance laws. A Trump friendly former U.S. attorney disagrees, but then this wouldn’t be an issue under the DOJ, it would be under the FEC.
The Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) prohibits any foreign national from contributing, donating or spending funds in connection with any federal, state, or local election in the United States, either directly or indirectly. It is also unlawful to help foreign nationals violate that ban or to solicit, receive or accept contributions or donations from them. Persons who knowingly and willfully engage in these activities may be subject to fines and/or imprisonment.
Sen. Mark Warner the ranking Democrat on the Intel Committee does a press conference and says “This isn’t the first time the public has seen clear evidence of an attempt by the Trump campaign to obtain information from Russia against the Clinton campaign. It’s a continuing pattern.” He also points out the Jared Kushner has already had to amend his security clearance forms twice because he keep “forgetting” to include meetings like this with Russians.
Iraq declares victory over ISIS in Mosul.
Sen. Chuck Schumer calls on Trump and Don Jr. to “Stop Lying.”
Maggie Haberman at the NYTimes reports that the initial email to Don Jr. about meeting Veselnitskaya noted that the information came from the Russian Government, which pretty much blows up all the Trump denials that they never “colluded” with Russia, since they obviously went to the meeting knowing that it was info against Clinton that came from the Kremlin. What he should have done when he got that email was go straight to the FBI, but he didn’t.
July 11th —
Don Jr. releases his emails with Rob Goldstone, pre-empting another New York Times report on them. They completely confirm Haberman’s previous report that they were told Veselnitskaya was a “Government Lawyer” from Russia and the information was provided by the “Crown Prosecutor” of Russia because the Russian Government “wanted to help Trump.”
Veselnitskaya talks to NBC and denies she ever worked for the Russian government or tried to tell Trump Jr. anything about Clinton but that “they wanted it very badly.”
Harvard Law Prof Laurence Tribe says ““We now have the proverbial smoking gun: TJr was part of criminal conspiracy to violate fed crim laws banning foreign aid to any US campaign,”
Jared Yates Sexton who’d’ been working on this story for a year concurs with Tribe: “This is the dumbest and biggest crime in the history of American politics. There's not even a close second.”
Trump priases his son’s transparency. “My son is a high quality person.”’
Huckabee-Sanders stonewalls all questions about Trump jr. during an audio-only press conference, referring questions about him to his lawyer, but she still stands by the “no one colluded” claim she made the previous day.
Reports surface that some WH aides are considering lawyering up.
Rep. Marsha Blackburn says “Maybe Trump Jr. was duped.”
Ted Cruz blames all this Russia stuff on “Barack Obama.”
Fox News tries to spin Don Jr. email dump — then gives up on it when they get to the part where Jr. responds ‘If it’s what you say, I love it.’” when he reads that the Russian government wants to provide Trump information against Clinton in order to help their campaign.
Fox and Friends retracts their claim that Comey shared Top Secret information with the Press. “We were mistaken.”
Politico reports that Peter W. Smith’s attempts to gain access to Hillary’s emails involved a White Supremacist who had been banned from Twitter for his racism.
Julian Assange admits that he tried to give Don jr. advise to publish his emails through Wikileaks.
Some on the media argue that the leaks on Don Jr’s emails are coming from Steve Bannon in order to protect Kushner.
Wapo reports that GOP operatives close to Trump are building a “discredit team” to smear reporters.
Daily Beast reports that Bill Browder will testify before Senate Judiciary on how Veselnitskaya is linked to the GRU, FSB and efforts to lower the Magnitski Act sanctions.
joe Scarborough announces on Colbert that he’s leaving the Republican party to become and Independent.
CNN report Special Counsel Bob Mueller was unaware of Juniors meeting with Veselniskaya, but will now be investigating.
July 12th —
The intercept reports that Trump is still the principle on many of his businesses despite his claims to have handed over control to his family. [Liar, Liar, super long tie on fire.]
Rep Brad Sherman (D-CA) and Al Green (D-TX) file articles of Impeachment against Trump over his handling of the firing of James Comey.
Sen Franken rips defense of Donald Jr. to shreds during confirmation hearing for FBI director nominee Christopher Wray in response to a claim by Lindsey Graham that the Ukraine tried to give information to Hillary Clinton’s campaign. [Although this wasn’t the Ukrainian government sending an operative to reach out to Clinton, it was an effort to gather information on Paul Manafort by DNC consultant Alexandra Chalupa who is Ukrainian-American. That’s oppo research due diligence by an American, not a foreign government trying to interfere with a U.S. election.]
Sen Graham asks Wray if Mueller is on a “Witch Hunt” — he says “Director Mueller is not on a Witch Hunt.” He also says “Any threat or promise to help a campaign by a foreign government, the FBI would want to know.”
Senate Judiciary Chair Grassley prepares to call Manafort to testify.
Rep. Steve King threatens to re-open investigation of 65k emails of Anthony Weiner, Comey’s “activities” and Hillary’s emails if Democrats don't stop talking about Trump and Russia. [Go for it, punk!]
Emin Agalarov’s attorney Scott Balber gets smashed on live TV by Chris Cuomo over Emin's promoter Rob Goldstone “Do you know him to a a pathological liar?” and his attempt to give Don Jr. negative information on Hillary: Balber says it’s “Simply fiction that this was an attempt by the Russian government to reach Trump through having his son’s pop music publicist, the prosecutor never talked to his father.” Cuomo says about Goldstone’s claim: “That is some doozy of a lie.”
Cuomo also takes on Sekulow over Don Jr. and tells him “You have no facts!”
McClatchy reports that House, Senate and DOJ investigators are looking at whether the Russian cyberbot and Troll program to spread fake news about Hillary as reported by Time was coordinated using Jared Kushner voter micro-targeting system with Cambridge Analytics. Former Pentagon expert on Russia Mike Carpenter states ““There appears to have been significant cooperation between Russia’s online propaganda machine and individuals in the United States who were knowledgeable about where to target the disinformation,” he said, without naming any American suspects.
Democratic party donors and some staff have sued the Trump campaign and Roger Stone for conspiring to publicly release their private information through the dumping of data stolen from the DNC by Russian hackers through DCLeaks and Wikileaks. The suit doesn’t contain any hard evidence of conspiracy but it does seek to depose witnesses and do discovery of Trump campaign emails.
WSJ reports that US intel is reviewing intercepts they captured in 2015 before his run for the President of Russian intel personnel discussing contacts with Trump associates.
DOJ misses a court ordered deadline to provide all of Jeff Sessions foreign contacts.
Trump tells Pat Roberson that Putin “wanted Clinton to win because of the Military and Energy.” He doesn’t mention sanctions, human rights, Crimea, Ukraine, NATO or the EU.
During a Reuters interview Trump says he didn’t know about Junior meeting Veselnitskaya and argues “most people would have taken that meeting.” [Uh, nope.]
July 13th —
NyTimes reports that Kushner has updated his security forms for foreign contacts 3 times and added more than 100 new names to the list.
Republican Rep. Bill Flores says that Trump should get his kids, including Kushner, out of the White House.
DOJ delivers Sessions foreign contact list a day late and short of details.
Asked about Trump Jr’s meeting and his FBI director nominee’s claim that anyone in that situation “should contact the FBI” while in France for Bastille Day Trump echoes his own false story that he previous dictated for Junior on AF1 says “most people would have taken that meeting”, “nothing happened, they talked about adoptions which wasn’t part of the campaign” and claims she wasn’t a “Government Lawyer” even though Junior was specifically told that she was and this was part of the Russian government’s effort to help his campaign, he ignores FEC rules over foreign “gifts and contributions” then he blames Veselnitskaya even being in the country on Loretta Lynch (ignoring that her Visa was approved by the State Dept, not DOJ, because she was a Denys Katsyv’s defense attorney while he was being sued under the Magnitski Act)
Chuck Grassley sends Junior a letter requesting he testify before Senate Judiciary.
After first saying he’d only just heard of the Veselnitskaya meeting 2 days ago Trump changes his tune later in the day, telling reporters on Air Force One: “In fact maybe it was mentioned at some point,” This statement was supposed to be off the record, but Trump changed and put it on the record.
Chicago Tribune reports that GOP Donor and operative Peter W. Smith who had tried to acquire Hillary’s emails for Michael Flynn committed suicide 10 days after talking to WSJ.
Yahoo News reports that Trump’s attorneys were informed about the meeting 3 weeks ago after the emails referring to it were discovered by Kushner’s lawyers who then updated his SF-86 form.
Senate Intel member James Lankford (R-OK) reveals that Kushners attendance at the Veselnitskaya meetings was known as far back as April, when he updated his background check forms.
Kushner explodes with WH Press staff saying that instead of letting Trump and Juniors lawyers respond to these issues they need to aggressively defend Don Jr. and have two staffers ready to “attack the Chyrons”on Cable News shows and have op-eds written for the NYtimes and WSJ. Some reports are that Spicey has begun complaining about Kush and still others say these conversations just didn’t happen. [Yeah, alrighty.]
Kasowitz blows his stack at an email critic: “I’m on you now. You are ******* with me now. Let’s see who you are. Watch your back, *****.” Charming.
TPM reports that Trump Deputy Sebastian Gorka is a Nazi Worshipper, cuz of course he is.
Many reporters note that there are references to a phone call between Don Jr. and Emin in the emails chain, and also that Goldstone’s mention of the Russian governments efforts to help Trump seem nonchalant as if that was an already known fact to Don Jr.
Michael Isakoff reveals on CNN that he had interviewed Rob Goldstone and learned that the Trump’s and Agalarov’s had a deal for a new Trump Tower in 2013 that went sideways in 2014 when Obama placed sanctions on Russia for their invasion of Crimea.
Glenn Simpson co-owner of the firm Fusion GPS which had employed Christopher Steel while he compiled his dossier on Trump declines an invitation to testify before Senate Judiciary.
July 14 —
Harvard Law Prof Laurence Tribe says ““We now have the proverbial smoking gun: TJr was part of criminal conspiracy to violate fed crim laws banning foreign aid to any US campaign,”
Jared Yates Sexton who’d’ been working on this story for a year concurs with Tribe: “This is the dumbest and biggest crime in the history of American politics. There's not even a close second.”
Trump priases his son’s transparency. “My son is a high quality person.”’
Huckabee-Sanders stonewalls all questions about Trump jr. during an audio-only press conference, referring questions about him to his lawyer, but she still stands by the “no one colluded” claim she made the previous day.
Reports surface that some WH aides are considering lawyering up.
Rep. Marsha Blackburn says “Maybe Trump Jr. was duped.” Hm, ya think?
Ted Cruz blames all this Russia stuff on “Barack Obama.”
Fox News tries to spin Don Jr. email dump — then gives up on it when they get to the part where Jr. responds ‘If it’s what you say, I love it.’” when he reads that the Russian government wants to provide Trump information against Clinton in order to help their campaign.
Fox and Friends retracts their claim that Comey shared Top Secret information with the Press. “We were mistaken.” [No ****, Sherlock.]
Politico reports that Peter W. Smith’s attempts to gain access to Hillary’s emails involved a White Supremacist who had been banned from Twitter for his racism.
Julian Assange admits that he tried to give Don jr. advise to publish his emails through Wikileaks.
Some on the media argue that the leaks on Don Jr’s emails are coming from Steve Bannon in order to protect Kushner.
Wapo reports that GOP operatives close to Trump are building a “discredit team” to smear reporters.
Daily Beast reports that Bill Browder will testify before Senate Judiciary on how Veselnitskaya is linked to the GRU, FSB and efforts to lower the Magnitski Act sanctions.
William Browder, an American financier who has investigated Russian corruption for more than a decade, will brief the Senate Judiciary Committeeat a hearing next week on the lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya’s ties to the Russian government—including to former top members of the GRU and the FSB, two of the Kremlin’s main intelligence agencies. Those ties were spelled out in documents that Browder shared with the committee and provided to The Daily Beast this week.
joe Scarborough announces on Colbert that he’s leaving the Republican party to become and Independent.
CNN reports Special Counsel Bob Mueller was unaware of Juniors meeting with Veselniskaya, but will now be investigating. [Ruh Roh!]
The intercept reports that Trump is still the principle on many of his businesses despite his claims to have handed over control to his family. [Liar, Liar, super long tie on fire.]
Rep Brad Sherman (D-CA) and Al Green (D-TX) file articles of Impeachment against Trump over his handling of the firing of James Comey.
Sen Franken rips defense of Donald Jr. to shreds during confirmation hearing for FBI director nominee Christopher Wray in response to a claim by Lindsey Graham that the Ukraine tried to give information to Hillary Clinton’s campaign. [Although this wasn’t the Ukrainian government sending an operative to reach out to Clinton, it was an effort to gather information on Paul Manafort by DNC consultant Alexandra Chalupa who is Ukrainian-American. That’s oppo research due diligence by an American, not a foreign government trying to interfere with a U.S. election.]
Sen Graham ask Wray if Mueller is on a “Witch Hunt” — he say “Director Mueller is not on a Witch Hunt.” He also says “Any threat or promise to help a campaign by a foreign government, the FBI would want to know.”
Senate Judiciary Chair Grassley prepares to call Manafort to testify.
Rep. Steve King threatens to re-open investigation of 65k emails of Anthony Weiner, Comey’s “activities” and Hillary’s emails if Democrats don't stop talking about Trump and Russia. [Go for it, punk!]
Emin Agalarov’s attorney Scott Balber gets smashed on live TV by Chris Cuomo over Emin's promoter Rob Goldstone “Do you know him to a a pathological liar?” and his attempt to give Don Jr. negative information on Hillary: Balber says it’s “Simply fiction that this was an attempt by the Russian government to reach Trump through having his son’s pop music publicist, the prosecutor never talked to his father.” Cuomo says about Goldstone’s claim: “That is some doozy of a lie.”
Cuomo also takes on Sekulow over Don Jr. and tells him “You have no facts!”
McClatchy reports that House, Senate and DOJ investigators are looking at whether the Russian cyberbot and Troll program to spread fake news about Hillary as reported by Time was coordinated using Jared Kushner voter micro-targeting system with Cambridge Analytics. Former Pentagon expert on Russia Mike Carpenter states ““There appears to have been significant cooperation between Russia’s online propaganda machine and individuals in the United States who were knowledgeable about where to target the disinformation,” he said, without naming any American suspects.
Democratic party donors and some staff have sued the Trump campaign and Roger Stone for conspiring to publicly release their private information through the dumping of data stolen from the DNC by Russian hackers through DCLeaks and Wikileaks. The suit doesn’t contain any hard evidence of conspiracy but it does seek to depose witnesses and do discovery of Trump campaign emails.
WSJ reports that US intel is reviewing intercepts they captured in 2015 of Russian intel personnel discussing contacts with Trump associates.
DOJ misses a court ordered deadline to provide all of Jeff Sessions foreign contacts.
Trump tells Pat Roberson that Putin “wanted Clinton to win because of the Military and Energy.” He doesn’t mention sanctions, human rights, Crimea, Ukraine, NATO or the EU.
During a Reuters interview Trump says he didn’t know about Junior meeting Veselnitskaya and argues “most people would have taken that meeting.” [Uh, nope.]
NyTimes reports that Kushner has updated his security forms for foreign contacts 3 times and added more than 100 new names to the list.
Republican Rep. Bill Flores says that Trump should get his kids, including Kushner, out of the White House.
DOJ delivers Sessions foreign contact list a day late and short of details. He continues to claim that Foreign contacts he made as a member of the Senate are not relevant and are therefore redacted, but that’s not an option available on the form.
Asked about Trump Jr’s meeting and his FBI director nominee’s claim that anyone in that situation “should contact the FBI” while in France for Bastille Day Trump says again repeating the false statement he himself helped craft on AF1 that “most people would have taken that meeting”, “nothing happened, they talked about adoptions which wasn’t part of the campaign” and claims she wasn’t a “Government Lawyer” even though Junior was specifically told that she was and this was part of the Russian government’s effort to help his campaign, he ignores FEC rules over foreign “gifts and contributions” then he blames Veselnitskaya even being in the country on Loretta Lynch (ignoring that her Visa was approved by the State Dept, not DOJ, because she was a Denys Katsyv’s defense attorney while he was being sued under the Magnitski Act)
Chuck Grassley sends Junior a letter requesting he testify before Senate Judiciary.
After first saying he’d only just heard of the Veselnitskaya meeting 2 days ago Trump changes his tune later in the day, telling reporters on Air Force One: “In fact maybe it was mentioned at some point,” This statement was supposed to be off the record, but Trump changed and put it on the record.
Chicago Tribune reports that GOP Donor and operative Peter W. Smith who had tried to acquire Hillary’s emails for Michael Flynn committed suicide 10 days after talking to WSJ.
Yahoo News reports that Trump’s attorneys were informed about the meeting 3 weeks ago after the emails referring to it were discovered by Kushner’s lawyers who then updated his SF-86 form.
Senate Intel member James Lankford (R-OK) reveals that Kushners attendance at the Veselnitskaya meetings was known as far back as April, when he updated his background check forms.
Kushner explodes with WH Press staff saying that instead of letting Trump and Juniors lawyers respond to these issues they need to aggressively defend Don Jr. and have two staffers ready to “attack the Chyrons” on Cable News shows and have op-eds written for the NYtimes and WSJ. Some reports are that Spicey has begun complaining about Kush and still others say these conversations just didn’t happen. [Yeah, alrighty.]
Kasowitz blows his stack at an email critic: “I’m on you now. You are ******* with me now. Let’s see who you are. Watch your back, *****.” Charming.
TPM reports that Trump Deputy Sebastian Gorka is a Nazi Worshipper, cuz of course he is.
Many reporters note that there are references to a phone call between Don Jr. and Emin in the emails chain, and also that Goldstone’s mention of the Russian governments efforts to help Trump seem nonchalant as if that was an already known fact to Don Jr.
Michael Isakoff reveals that he had interviewed Rob Goldstone and learned that the Trump’s and Agalarov’s had a deal for a new Trump Tower in 2013 that went sideways in 2014 when Obama placed sanctions on Russia for their invasion of Crimea.
Daily Beast reports that in addition to the “translator” who came with Veselnitskaya to the meeting with Don Jr. there was Rinat Akhmetshin a former Russian Intelligence officer and lobbyist who had previously been accused of being involved in an international hacking scheme.
On Fox both Lou Hobbs while appearing on Hannity and Jesse Waters accuse the “deep state” and “left wing” media of attempting a “coup d’etat” against Trump to undermine American values and “break the will of the people” even though the actual majority of the people voted against Trump.
Loretta Lynch denies she had any personal involvement or knowledge of Veselnitskaya’s Visa status, and she shouldn’t because that wasn’t. her. job. the State Dept. under John Kerry handled Visas at that time and her’s was approved at least as far back as 2013 when Bharara first issued his Magnitski suit against the Prevezon Holdings.
GOP strategist Rick Wllson says “Only Trump’s hypnotized base believes his Bullshit Tornado about Russia.” [Yep, pretty much.’]
Trump digital media expert Brad Pascale issues a statement in response to House and Senate intel requests to speak to him that he has ‘no knowledge of Russian involvement” in the online campaign he put together with Cambridge-Analytica.
Rep.Adam Schiff calls for everyone from the Veselnitskaya meeting to testify to the House Intel. [Which is now at 8 people and counting...]
The New Republic publishes an extensive story on TrumpCos long history of being involved in money laundering with Russian mobsters going all the way back to 1987.
Former Trump communications aid Michael Caputo agrees with CNN that the Trump Campaign was too much of a ‘**** Show” to have been able to effectively coordinate with the Russians. [Do Tell.]
Caputo testifies behind closed doors to House Intel, claims he saw no links to discussions of Russia, that little old ladies used to bring them “dog-eared papers” on Clinton, and condemns Rep. Jackie Spieres for linking him to Russia saying that it caused his wife and family to receive death threats, and that someone threatened to burn his house down. “The Rhetoric is going to get someone killed and I don’t want to be the next one shot” which is pretty ironic since Jackie Spiere’s was shot 5 times while she was a staffer for Rep. Leo Ryan when he was killed near the Jim Jones compound in Guyana.
Akhmetshin claims he has never worked for Russian intelligence or the GRU, his simply served 2 years in the Russian army before immigrating to the U.S. and becoming a citizen and working as a lobbyist, but says that Veselnitskaya brought a plastic folder with documents showing the DNC accepting funds from Russia to the meeting. All this despite a letter written from Sen. Grassley to SecDEf Kelly about Akhmetshin being and “unregistered” lobbyist who had previously experience as an “active measures expert” with the GRU.
Veselnitskaya admits that she is a former prosecutor and is in regular contact with the Prosecutor General of Russia Yuri Chaika, who is controversial for trumping up bogus charges against Putin’s enemies and having them tortured and killed in prisonthe same way the Sergei Magnitski was killed.
Kushner Lawyer Jamie Gorelick is reported by Politico to be backing out of Kushner’s issues with Mueller and leaving everything to Abbie Lowell
July 15th —
WH announces “Made In America Week” but has no answer when asked if that means that Ivanka’s clothing line which is made overseas will be moving their manufacturing to the U.S. The WaPo then pointed out that Trump branded products are made in at least a dozen countries.
The Hill reports that there were 150,000 hack attempts were made against South Carolina’s voter registration system, indications are that they were not successful.
Secret Service smacks down Sekolow — “That meeting was never cleared with us.”
Trump’s lawyer Sekolow blames the Veselnitskaya/Akhmetshin meeting on the Secret Service even though no one who was a protectee at that time was in the meeting. He also claims he and Trump weren’t involved in the crafting of Don Jr’s initial and false statements about the meeting, but that is a lie since Trump dictated and approved it from AF1.
Daily Beast reports that Don Jr.’s lawyer Alan Futerfas had been paid $50,000 by the Trump re-election campaign 11 days before the first report about his Veselnitskaya meeting. Furteras is best known for having been the attorney for all four of New York’s most notorious organized crime families.
July 16th —
Trump whines on Twitter about all the attention on Don Jr’s meeting and accuses Hillary of “illegally” deleting emails even after the FBI said it wasn’t illegal, and his own companies have repeated deleted emails and documents under court order, and getting debate questions ahead of time which also isn’t illegal particularly when Clinton wasn’t even asked the same questions that were wrongfully forwarded to her meanwhile he was warned about Meghan Kelly’s first debate question and had threatened her not to ask it or else his twitter followers would come after her, which they did.
July 17th —
Spicer proclaims that there was nothing in Juniors email that shows the meeting wasn’t about Abortion and the Magnitski Act [which he mis-pronounces as “Maginski Act”] — except everything Junior released five days ago and also what Trump said on Bastille day and tweeted about admiring that it was about obtaining “Oppo research.”
CNN talks to Junior’s Lawyer Futerfas and he says he talked to the 8th man in the meeting who was a rep for the Agalarov Family, even though their lawyers Scott Balber says they basically had nothing to do with anything, This person confirms that the meeting started off being about Russia giving money to the DNC, but he doesn’t confirm that a 2 page document was left behind by Veselnitskaya for Junior.
The Senate Trumpcare Bill coughs and dies as 2 more Repub Senators come out against it dropping them to 48 votes. Trump calls for a full repeal of O-care with a two year delay for them to “figure something out” also known as magically skipping over the 2018 midterm elections.
Fox’s Judge Anthony Napolitano who was the primary source of Trump’s bogus “Obama Wiretapped Trump Tower using GCHQ” claim, comes out and says that Junior probably broke the law. “Because it is suspicious that they met with these people, that they didn’t consult a lawyer, that one of these people was a former KGB, GRU, that’s the Russian intelligence arm, Russian military intelligence arm, and didn’t tell anybody about it.” [Yeah, ya think?’’]
WSJ Editoral “Eviscerates” Trump over the entire Russia scandal saying “Mr. Trump and his family are repeating the mistakes that doomed Mrs. Clinton.Don Jr. released his emails that showed the Russian lure about Mrs. Clinton and Don Jr. all excited—’I love it.’ Oh, and son-in-law Jared Kushner and Beltway bagman Paul Manafort were also at the meeting. Don Jr. told Sean Hannity this was the full story,” they continued. “But then news leaked that a Russian-American lobbyist was also at the meeting.”
July 18th —
The 8th man finally appears and is revealed to be a naturalized Russian-American, Ike Kaveladze, working in the U.S. for a Russian real estate company owned by the Agalarov’s who is represented by Emin’s Lawyer Scott Balber. Balber says he was there to act as a translator, but that Veselnitskaya brought her own translator (person #7) and that he’d been contacted by Mueller’s office about the ID of the 8th man. Congress and the GAO had previously investigated Kaveladze as a “foreigner creating shell companies” exactly like the types of money laundering schemes that have been used by the Russian Mob and Intel services.
Trumpcare finally implodes as more Republican Senator balk at their bullshit plan. Trump whines and blames Democrats for not helping destroy healthcare for 22-23 Million people even though the entire point of using the reconciliation process was to avoid needing any Dem votes. He says he’s now “let Obamacare fail” while in fact he’s already been sabotaging it by messing with cost sharing reductions and driving providers out of the marketplace.
Mueller ok’s the Senate Judiciary committees to talk to Junior and Manafort in an open hearing. [Is this because he’s already talked to both of them?]
It’s revealed that during a dinner at the G20 Trump again spoke with Putin for another hour without disclosing it, this time without any other Americans or aides present so there is no record or documentation of what was said.
Fox WH correspondent John Roberts walks out of Huckabee-Sanders briefing early and when she notes his departure from the podium he slaps back “‘If it was on camera, I might not be.’ Generating “Ooohs” from the pool.
Sean Hannity whines about Shep Smith’s criticism of Trump “Some voices on Fox drive me nuts. Shep is so anti-Trump.”
Chris Christie says that it was “probably illegal” to receive oppo research from a foreign government but that Don Jr. is not smart enough to collude with the Russians.
July 19th —
Scarborough says about Trump’s second Putin meeting: ““So what are we to assume if not the worst — that he had this meeting, the White House didn’t reveal it. Once again we had to find out about it through third channels and there wasn’t even an American within earshot to listen what they talked about for an hour.”
Walter Schaub says he was horrified when Trump’s lawyer asked if he could turn in his financial disclosure forms without signing them and certifying that they were true.
Over 20 lawmakers begin to question Ivanka Trump’s security clearance because she apparently didn’t disclose any of their families multiple meetings with Russian officials on her SF86 forms.
Shep Smith slaps back at Hannity “Sometimes facts are displeasing.”
Flynn and Caputo are reportedly having difficulty paying their lawyer fees.
Veselnitskaya says she’s ready to testify to the Senate who otherwise can’t subpoena her since she’s a foreign natonal. [Judging by her RT interview, she’ll do great right?]
Daily Beast reports that while Veselnitskaya met secretly with Don Jr. last June the Kremlin gave Rep. Dana Rohrabacher instructions to stage a “show trial” in Congress attacking Bill Browder in order to alter the Magnitski Act sanctions on Russia. Rohrabacher was provided a Russian propaganda film against Browder by Yuri Chaika’s Prosecutor Generals Office, which was the same source for Veselnitskaya’s “evidence” against Hillary Clinton and the DNC.
Trump does an interview with Maggie Haberman and the NyTimes
He says that he blames the appointment of Mueller as Special Counsel on Jeff Sessions recusal, and says if he’d known Sessions would recuse himself he wouldn’t have picked him for AG. “It’s very unfair to the President.”
He thinks Comey briefing him on the Steele dossier was intended as blackmail in order to keep his job.
That Mueller was rife with conflicts of interest because he had interviewed for interim FBI director the day before he was appointed Special Counsel, and he has Democrats working for him
He doesn’t trust Deputy FBI Director McCabe because his wife ran for office as a Democrat once and got $700k from Gov. Terry McAullif and the DNC, who are friendly with Clinton so that means McCabe is “evil.”
He doesn’t trust Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein because he’s from Baltimore and it’s full of Democrats.
He claims he still doesn’t think he’s under investigation even for obstruction of Justice “I don’t think we’re under investigation,” he said. “I’m not under investigation. For what? I didn’t do anything wrong.”
He again denied that he asked Comey to drop the Flynn investigation.
He admits that his second hour long conversation with Putin at the G20 included a discussion of Russian adoptions, the same subject that Veselnitskaya had brought up with Don Jr.
He says that if Mueller wanders from Russia and starts to investigate his families finances it would be “crossing a red line.”
The NYTimes reports that investigators are looking at complex financial transactions between Trump, Kushner, Deutsche Bank and VEB.
Trump hits 6 Months in Office as Carrier lays off 300 workers.
Kushner is scheduled to testify in closed Session to Senate Intel on the 24th. Manafort and Don Jr. are scheduled to testify before Senate Judiciary on the 26th.
NYTimes reports that Manafort owed $17 Million to pro-Russia shell companies based in Cyprus before he joined Trump campaign.
July 20th —
Bloomberg reports that Mueller is looking at the finances of Trump and his associates.
AP reports that the Russian urged Trump to bring a note taker for his dinner meeting with Putin but he declined because he was afraid of leaks.
Senate Judiciary approves Chris Wray for FBI Director.
Sessions says he’ll stay on as a “Zombie Attorney General.”
Sally Yates slams Trump’s attack on the independence of the DOJ as a “violation of a bedrock principle of democracy”
Rohrabacher dismisses what Russia asked him to do with a “show trial” as insignificant.
HHS is using Obamacare outreach funds to undermine the laws function.
Rep. Schiff calls Trump’s secret dinner meeting with Putin “deeply troubling.”
Huckabee-Sanders says those who complain about Trump’s 2nd meeting have “Russia Fever.”
Deutsche bank which has loaned Trump hundreds of $Million agrees to turn over financial records to Mueller and investigators.
U.S. Military renting space in Trump Tower are paying $130,000 per month for it.
1 in 8 Trump voters wish they could take it back.
Treasury Dept fines Exxon-Mobil $2 Million for violating Russia sanctions related to Ukraine when Tillerson was CEO.
NAACP Legal Defense Fund Sues Trump election panel for racial discrimination, voter intimidation and suppression.
Trump’s Chief counter-terrorism advisor Thomas Bossert admits that Russia was definitely behind the 2016 election hacking, so how come Trump doesn’t know, or believe, that?
Rumors abound that Kasowitz will be taking a back seat on Trump’s legal team as some on the team begin doing oppo research on the members of Mueller’s team in order to hinder them. [Which would be obstruction]
Court documents show that one of Veselnitskaya’s previous clients was the FSB.
Trump asks his lawyers and advisors what his options are for pardoning members of his family or himself.
Weary Trump supporters begin to tune out the news because it’s all bad for him and them.
July 21st —
Roger Stone rips Sessions: He’s only a ‘tough guy’ when it comes to ‘chasing people for smoking pot’
Mueller request WH Staff preserve all documents and emails of communications related to Trump Jr.’s June meeting with Russians.
Reports surface that the shakeup in Trump’s legal team is linked to the attacks on Mueller.
Trump hires Anthony Scaramucci as Communications Director, Preibus had no idea. Sean Spicer resigns in protest because having a shmoozy Wall Street hack shill “Yes” man stooge with no Washington or communications experience as your instant boss was obviously the last fracking straw. Sarah “Resting scowl-face” Huckabee-Sanders becomes the new WH Press Secretary.
Kasowitz and strategist Mark Corallo leave Trump’s legal team. DC lawyer John Down takes over.
Wapo Reports that Intercepts by U.S. intel of conversation between Kislyak and Russia indicate that Sessions twice, at the Mayflower Hotel and at the RNC, discussed Trump’s positions regarding Russia with him indicating that he lied to congress under oath about those conversations.
Mother Jones reports that Sen. Warren has been pressing the Treasury department since January on whether Scaramucci had violated sanctions rules by discussing possible investment opportunities with Kirill Dmitriev, head of the sanctioned Russian Direct Investment Fund.
Senate intel chair Burr says “the unmasking thing” was all created by Devin Nunez.
Senate Judiciary issues a subpoena to Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS for information about the creation of the Steele Dossier.
Kislyak steps down as ambassador and returns to Russia.
NSC Staffer Rich Higgins is fired for writing a crazed conspiracy filled memo.
July 23rd —
Huckabee-Sanders gets caught in a lie by Stephanapolous claiming the Russia story is all the press covers.
Don Jr. hires more lawyers.
Scaramucci tries to scrub all his previous anti-Trump, pro-Climate Change tweets but everyone notices.
Scaramucci is interviewed by Jake Tapper on CNN
He says that Putin told Trump in Hamburg that Russian hackers are too good to have been caught by the U.S.
He denies that Russia hacked our election “This is maybe they did it, maybe they didn’t do it” and runs into a buzzsaw with Tapper — “Don’t you owe a duty to the truth?”
Kellyanne Conway freaks out when CNN’s Brian Stetler suggests the Trump campaign welcomed Russian interference and influence during the election, which frankly they didn’t oppose.
July 24th —
Kushner releases an 11 Page statement prior to his speaking to the Senate Intel staff behind closed doors
He denies colluding with Russians or discussing campaign issues.
He says he tried to get out of the Veselnitskaya meeting and never fully read the email or apparently the subject line “Hillary — Russia — Sensitive and Confidential. [But he still showed up, didn't he?] He arrived at the meeting late and the topic at the time was “Russian adoptions” he didn’t see that as being relevant and emailed his assistant to call him in order to give him an excuse to leave. "Can u pls call me on my cell? Need excuse to get out of meeting.” He says he didn’t remember anything about the meeting and had disclosed it on his forms prior to it reaching the press.
He says his SF86 form was accidentally submitted without being completed when his assistant mistook the completion of one section to mean the entire form was complete. [Aren’t these supposed to be signed when submitted certifying that they’re fully complete?] All contacts with foreign nations were originally omitted not just Russians.
He reveals that he received an email that was clearly an extortion attempt by “Guccifer400” that threatened to reveal Trump tax returns. He thought is was a hoax and referred it to Secret Service. [That should have gone to FBI, Secret Service protects you from physical threats and conterfeiters they don’t pursue blackmail or extortion.]
He says he only talked to Kislyak for “about a minute” at the Mayflower Hotel simply to exchange pleasantries and denies the Reuters report that he had two phone calls with Kislyak between April and November, saying he searched his phone records and couldn’t find any numbers associated with the ambassador. “I doubt these calls took place.”
He says he tried to setup a secure back-channel to the Kremlin in order to discuss the war in Syria with Russian “generals” came from Kislyak, but was not over sanctions. Flynn said such a secure channel didn’t exist and Kushner asked if one existed in the Russian embassy. [This doesn’t explain why he wanted the U.S. Intel community cut out of the loop, since they have to implement Syria policy anyway and the people who really don’t need to know is ISIS. Plus this was in December and January while they were all still “private citizens” — Logan Act — and long before there were allegations of “wiretaps”, “unmasking” or “leaks” coming from US Intel so what gives?]
Kislyak kept pestering him for continued meetings which he didn’t have time for and turned down until finally sending his assistant, then he agreed to meet VEB’s Gorkov because “he had a direct link to Putin.” He says they didn’t discuss sanctions or business or really anything other than “wanting better relations.”
He never mentions or explains his meeting with the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi which he attended with Steve Bannon following his meeting with Gorkov to further discuss Russia relations, or the follow on meeting to that between the Crown Prince and Eric Prince of Blackwater in the Seychelles Islands.
Kushner gives a public statement “I didn't collude with Russians and don’t know anyone who did.” [You know Flynn, Manafort and Roger Stone don’t you?] And claims “I did not rely on Russian money for my businesses.”
Kushner also apparently tell Congressional Staff the “Trump campaign was too disorganized to have colluded with the Russians” [Then why is that frakhole “President” then?]
At some point near this time Manafort also talks to Congressional staffers and tell them about the Veselnitskaya meeting.
Former FBI Agent Clint Watts says Kushner’s statement and it’s “chaos and confusion” defense shows he’s either incompetent or the Russia influence on TrumpCo is very strong. [Could be both!]
The Guardian reports that Kushner paid $295 Million for a portion of the New York Times building from Jewish Soviet-born Diamond Tycoon Lev Leviev — who the Dutch media reports smuggles valuable diamonds by making them look worthless by covering them in soot, connected to Human Rights violations in Angola as well as funding illegal Jewish settlements in the disputed zones of Israel. Kushner later borrowed $285 million to refinance the purchase through Deutsche Bank, which has come under scrutiny for alleged ties to Russian money laundering and had to pay $630 Million in fines for transferring $10 Billion through Russia. [So much for ‘not relying Russian Money for his business’]
Fox Host Jason Chaffetz claims people should be talking about Chelsea Clinton’s links to Benghazi [even though she has none, she didn’t work for Hillary or the State Dept then], and Hillary’s links to Russia [also has none, certainly not since Putin returned to the Presidency] rather than Kushner’s failure to report his meetings, even though only Kushner is speaking to the Senate today.`
NYTimes Glenn Thrush reports that rather than being an insult to the press, the yanking of WH press conference videos was because Spicer didn’t want Trump yelling at him and saying he “sucked at his job”.
Feinstein asks Grassley to call Sessions before Senate Judiciary.
Trump tweet/whines why “Beleagured” Sessions and House committees don’t investigate Hillary’s connections to Russia [Bill spoke to Renaissance Capital in 2010 for $500,000 while supposedly at that time Hillary opposed requests for the State Dept to deny visas to Russian oligarch accused of Human rights violations under Medvedev. But that all changed with the passage of the Magnitski Act and Putin’s return to the Presidency in 2012 and the annexation of Crimea and invasion of Ukraine in 2014. Also if you think Bill and Hillary can be bought for $500k what exactly did Deutsche Bank get from Kushner for a cool $285 Million?]
Trump trues to bully Republicans into passing Trumpcare by saying “Obamacare is Death” — which is bullshit. Does a campaign rally at the Boy Scout Jamboree — even though I’m pretty sure they can’t vote yet. And reports start to surface that’s he’s floating the idea of removing Sessions.
July 25th —
After Trump’s usual self-aggrandizing, whining, hate and delusion filled partisan rally speech to the Boy Scout Jamboree parents and former scouts alike our outraged. He had invited members of his staff who were Eagle Scouts like Rick Perry but gives Jeff Sessions the Spicer Treatment by leaving him out. Some reports at that Sessions is so pissed he won’t give Trump the satisfaction of quitting.
During the Jamboree Scaramucci’s wife gives birth to their second child James, he’s not there because he’s with Trump, but he does send her a text.
Trump thumps Sessions some more on Twitter. Several times, even though it was his ethical — and legal — duty to recuse himself from any investigation of a campaign that he was a participant of. He’s so mean even Breitbart and Limbaugh start to feel sorry for Sessions. Some Congressional Republicans start to grow a soul, but Paul Ryan doesn’t.
The House approves new strengthened sanctions on Russia/Iran & North Korea which don’t allow Trump to unilaterally cut them by a final Veto Proof vote of 419-3.
John McCain triumphantly returns to the Senate after his brain cancer diagnosis and gives an impassioned rousing speach on bipartisanship right after casting a pivotal party line vote to open debate on taking the kind of Health Care he’s currently receiving away from between 15 or 22 or 32 Million people depending on Mitch McConnell’s mood. Although the parlimentarian says they’re going to need 60 Votes for most of what they have in mind.
Kushner is interviewed behind closed doors by House Intel panel staff for 3 Hours.
Manafort is subpeoned by Senate Judiciary.
House Repubs block Democrats attempt to see Trump’s Treasury FIles.
Scarmucci admits Trump wants Sessions FIred “It’s like a divorce.”
Huckabee-Sanders says re-re-reinvestigating Clinton for things that didn’t happen and she’s already been cleared for is just “Keeping a level playing field.”
Trump tweets about classified Syria program to fund and supply anti-Assad rebels in order to slap back at a Wapo story.
July 26h —
FBI executes a “No Knock” pre-dawn search warrant on Paul Manafort’s residence looking for financial documents some of which he was supposed to have turned over to Senate Intel specifically because they’re concerned he might destroy evidence.
Just minutes after Tucker Carlson calls trans people potential “child abusers” Trump tweets that all trans persons in the military will be removed because to the cost of their surgeries, although the military spends 4 times as much on Viagra to treat ED.
Trump tweets again asking why Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe hasn’t been fired because his wife received $700k from Terry McAulif when she ran for congress.
Putin threatens to retaliate against “Illegal” U.S. sanctions after their approval by Congress.
Senate defribs Trumpcare by considering “Skinny Repeal” for Obamacare which would only affect the mandates, subsidies and Medicare expansion.
Scaramucci’s financial disclosure forms indicates that he is still doing work for his investment firm while working in the White House and that the company was recently bought by Chinese investors meaning he’s receiving paychecks from China and the U.S. government at the same time.
Senate Intel calls for pro-Trump oppo researcher Chuck Johnson to testify on his work with to obtain Hillary’s emails for Michael Flynn along with the late Peter W. Smith.
Ken Starr calls for Trump to stop attacking Sessions “Cut it out.”
Grassley warns Trump not to fire Sessions.
Jeffrey Lord attempts to defend Trump’s trans-ban tweet says the Military shouldn’t be paying for Viagra either.
Kushner may be violating the Presidential records act by having and app that makes message sent or received “disappear’ on his iPhone.
Nine Inch Nail’s Trent Reznor says “Trump’s a vulgarian” — yeah, you bet.
July 27th —
CBO score of Skinny Repeals says that it would take Healthcare from 16 Million people and increase premiums by 20%.
Newsweek reports that Russia used Facebook to try and trick Macron supporters prior to French Election.
Senate ignores Trump’s call to investigate Hillary Clinton again.
Lindsay Graham says firing Sessions and/or Mueller would be the beginning of the end of Trump’s presidency.
The Joint Chiefs announce no one is going no where based on a Tweet, Trump hasn’t given them any formal instructions on trans soldiers yet.
Bill Browder testifies to Senate Judiciary and tells them that Veselnitskaya and Ahkmenttshin were clearly operatives for Putin and Russian Intel offering Kompromat on Clinton to see if anyone in the Trump camp would take the bait.
He explains how Putin and Chaika had Magnitski and Boris Nemsov murdered and tried to poison Kara-Murza twice to cover up their graft and corruption.
Having the Magnitski act repealed or limited is a prime Putin goal.
He also says that Fusion GPS was also funded by Russians because they like to “Play both sides” — which suggests some of the more salacious items in the Steele Dossier may have been fed to them as disinformationto help make it easier to discredit the overall report.
Kellyanne Conway throws Preibus a “shiv in the ribs” for leaking Scaramucci’s financials — which he probably didn’t do.
Scaramucci gives a mad crazy interview on CNN about his financial forms being leaked even though it’s still public information calling in right in the middle of an interview with Ryan Lizza.
Scaramucci then calls Ryan Pizza of the New Yorker directly and gives him a rambling profane on the record interview.
He demands to know who leaked that he was having dinner with Hannity, Trump and Melanie that night, and that he’d fire everyone in the White House until Lizza told him. (He can’t do that, he can only fire press and communications people — Preibus could do that, or Trump. And since when is having dinner with the Trumps and Sean Hannity a matter of National Security?)
He says that he’s not out to promote himself and “Suck his own ****” like Steve Bannon, he’s trying to promote Trump. [And doing a wonderful job of it he is too...]
He claims Preibus is a “******* paranoid schizophrenic paranoiac” who leaked his financial forms — although the forms are public information — because he didn’t want him hired in the first place. [And who could blame him for that prescience?]
He claims he has ‘digital fingerprints” of alleged leakers given to him by the FBI (which would be illegal for them to do) and also he’s not on the approved WH/DOJ communications list, neither is Preibus.
He says they need to “Kill all the ******* leakers.”and that “People in this administration think their job is too save the country from Trump, that’s not their job, it’s to inject Trump into the nation”— eww..just ewww.
Propublica obtains a set of talking points created for DNI Dan Coates which shows that the relationship between the Intel Community and Trump is highly strained. [No kiddin?]
The Senate fails to pass each and every single Trumpcare proposal including “Repeal/Replace” and“Repeal/Delay” and even eventually fail even with the Hail-Mary “Skinny Repeal” after Senators John McCain, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski vote against it.
McConnel says the failure to repeal O-care is “disappointing”, whines about losing then sarcastically asks “Let see what the Democrats have.” Schumer calls for bi-partisan cooperation to help fix the lingering problems of the Health Care Market.
Trump says they should now ‘let O-care Implode” although what he really means is he’s going to have Tom Price sabotage it even further until Dems cry “Uncle.”
Devin Nunez continues pushing his Obama “Unmasking” Story.
Manafort is scheduled to meet with Senate Judiciary today, but negotiates a later date.
New Russia sanctions bill gets sent to Trump’s desk.
July 28th —
Trump calls for Police Brutality by telling assembled cheering Long Island Police to "don’t be too nice” when slamming them into the back of a paddy wagon and “don’t hold their head” when placing them in the back seat. “You can take the hand away, okay?”
Trump fires Reice Preibus via Tweet, makes DHS head Kelly as new Chief of Staff. Preibus finds out on a rain soaked tarmac as AF1 arrives back in Washington, others get out of his Suburban and his car leaves the motorcade and goes off on it’s own instead of returning to the WH.
Scaramucci’s wife, who had been estranged with him for months, files for Divorce because of his naked political ambition “Deirdre is not a fan of Trump” which means he’s gonna have to learn that special trick of Bannon’s now.
Russia expels U.S. 755 Diplomats and seizes an American compound in “retaliation” for the new sanctions bill that Trump hasn’t yet signed calling them “Illegal” and unjustified.
july 29th —
Trump’s Gallup approval rating of 37% drops lower than Bill Clinton’s during the Lewinsky scandal.
Painter says shuffling Sessions into Homeland in place of Kelly would be yet more obstruction.
Police Departments from coast to coast condemn Trump’s call for Police Brutality.
Surprising absolutely no one on earth Ted Nugent breaks his civility pledge.
Tillerson’s State Dept. channels opposite world and claims the new sanctions on Russia will be “good for our relationship.” [Uh, Nope!]
It’s reported that Scaramucci’s wife was nine months pregnant when she bailed on him because of his #TrumpLove and that he apparently missed the birth of his second child James because he was with Trump at the Boy Scout Jamboree and sent his wife a text “I’ll pray for our son.”
July 30th —
Jared and Ivanka admit it’s way too much to expect them to have any moderating influence on Trump.
Pence swears we’ll see more moderate behavior from Putin as he orders 755 U.S. Diplomats out of Russia. [Yeah, uh, NOPE!]
Lewandowsky calls for Trump to fire CFPB chief Richard Cordray because — yeah, sorry, I got nothin’. [Ok fine seriously, He claims he doesn’t have any clients that oppose Cordray’s work at CFPB, but it turns out that he does have a client that is a pay day lender]
PS. Kushner is still a slumlord.
Roger Stone says “McCain is a piece of **** and traitor” — also now with Brain Cancer.
July 31st —
Gen. Kelly starts his first day as the new WH Chief of Staff.
Pence talks tough about Russia’s retaliation against the newly imposed sanctions signed by Trump. Trump echoes Russia’s complaints.
Scaramucci suddenly resigns as WH Communications Director 11 days after was announced in the position and 4 days before he was to officially begin. He’s then escorted off the grounds by security, then goes to dinner with Katrina Peirson.
Kelly calls Sessions and tells him his job is safe.
Former NSA Analyst John Schindler reports that Putin’s move to expel 755 U.S. Diplomatic workers over sanctions shows he’s ready to throw Trump under the bus.
NYTimes reports that Trump personally dictated the first false version of Junior’s statement about his meeting with Veselnitskaya — even though he said at the time “this was the first he’d heard about it” — claiming the meeting was “primarily about adoption” a claim that was later repeated by Trump twice and also by Spicer even though Junior himself had already admitted it was about oppo research on Hillary 7 days previously.
Trump’s direct involvement in promoting a false story when there is a open Federal Investigation of links between his campaign in Russia potentially indicates “consciousness of guilt” and may be an attempt at Witness Tampering and Obstruction of Justice particularly since Mueller’s office already requested the WH preserve all documents and records related to this meeting on July 21st.
Ivanka and Melania were “disgusted” by Scaramucci’s dirty talk — but then again they do support Trump who brought him on in the first place and has history for salty talk of his own.
CNN Reports that Kelly was furious by the manner in which Comey was fired and nearly resigned himself in protest until Comey talked him out of it.
Former McCain staffer Steve Schmidt says Scarmucci’s firing exposes the “snakepit” of Trump White House.
Surprising absolutely no-one with eyes and a working brain former Obamacare hating Blaze corespondent Tami Lahren is actually on Obamacare as she’s 24 and still on her parent Health Care plans.
A British “Email Prankster” successfully tricked several members of Trump’s WH into thinking he was Kushner and Preibus.
August 1st —
Spicer admits that the WH and Trump was personally briefed on the false and since retracted FOX story alleging that murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich was connected to emails leaked to Wikileaks as a way to redirect attention from Russia. This means that Spicer lied during the May 16 press briefing where he denied any knowledge of the Rich story. Again, potential Obstruction of Justice during the current investigation of Russia’s involvement with DNC hack.
Wired releases an audio recording of Kushner telling WH interns he doesn’t know of anything knew that the Trump WH offers to solve the Israel/Palestine problem.
Daily Caller reports that Kellyanne — who is still banned from Morning Joe for lying — may be tapped as the new WH Communications Director.
Lewandowski is fired from One America News Network (OANN) because he’d been moonlighting on Fox News too many times.
GOP lawmakers warn Trump not to sabotage Obamacare — but frankly that’s already is progress.
Rep Trent Franks (R-AZ) says “Mueller is a partisan and should resign” because of his “close friendship with Comey” who used to be his boss which is funny since he’s a registered Republican and so was Comey, but then nobody sane or smart listens to Trent Franks on anything.
GOP Activist Ed Butowski who pushed the Seth Rich conspiracy to the WH and Fox News gets grills on CNN by Chris Cuomo in an incoherent interview.
August 2nd —
Trump signs new Russia Sanctions Bill, includes a signing statement and a personal statement whining about Congress encroaching on executive authority and claims as a former CEO he can negotiate a better deal than Congress that could negotiate a Health Care Bill — which is of course exactly why Congress passed more sanctions.
Iran says these new sanction breaks the Nuclear deal setup by Obama.
Huckabee-Sanders tried to defend Trump’s claims that the Mexican President called to say they were doing such a great job on the border that Mexico was seeing fewer people entering in the hope of reaching the U.S. [although Mexico says they hadn’t called Trump in months] and the Head of the Boy Scouts called to say his speech “was great’ [He denies it too.] She says they did say these things, “it just wasn’t on the phone.”
Tillerson refuses to spend $80 Million in State Dept funds allocated to fight ISIS and Russian media manipulation and propaganda because it might “anger the Kremlin.”
Trump along with Sen Tom Cotton announces changes to Green Card eligibility that focuses on a “merit based” system for high skilled workers which seems to deprioritize petitions for family members, refugees and asylum seekers. [This proposal was submitted back in February and went nowhere then, going nowhere now]
At the same time that Trump publicly tries to the door to “low skilled” immigrants his Department of Homeland Security has increased the cap for H2B Visas per year from 66,000 to 81,000 and that his own companies in including Mar-A-Lago have submitted 76 more applications for low wage foreign workers.
Stephan Miller argues with CNN’s Jim Acosta about the meaning of the Statue of Liberty to justify Trump’s new Green Card plan and uses coded White Supremacist Slurs against him.
Russia responds to the sanctions bill saying that it shows that Trump is “Impotent” and the establishment wants to oust him.
Reports surface that Kremlin backed Sputnik News is the source of the Seth Rich conspiracy theory pushed by Sean Hannity and Fox News, causing them to be sued by Rich’s family.
Congressional investigators call for Don Jr. phone records to see who he talked to in the lead up to his June 6, 2016 meeting with Veselnitskaya. [Possibly Emin Agalarov as indicated by some of the email exchanges]
WSJ reports that U.S Attorney’s have subpoena records from the Kushner companies about their attempts to get Chinese investors special EB-5 Visas using Jared association with Trump.
Former Flynn staffer Erza Cohen-Watnick who provided the “unmasking” documents to Devin Nunez is fired.
Rod Wheeler who filed suit against Fox News over their bogus Seth Rich story says that Trump had inserted phony quotes by Rich.
The crazed conspiracy riddled memo written by NSC staffer Rich Higgins that connects the Muslim Brotherhood to the European Union, “Maoist Insurgents”, “Leftists’ and “Deep State” activists circulates through the WH and for some reason Don Jr. — who doesn’t have a security clearance to receive an NSC memo — is sent a copy, which he forwards to his father who “gushes” over the thing. Then he finds out from Hannity that Higgins had already been fired for writing it.
August 3rd —
Deputy FBI Director McCabe warns top LE officials that they should consider themselves witnesses and their notes evidence in Mueller’s investigation, possibly because of their communications and interactions with Comey as he talked to Trump on the phone.
WaPo publishes leaked transcripts of Trump talking to the President of Mexico and Prime Minister of Australia back in January which reveal that he’s repeatedly and knowingly lied about “Mexico paying for the wall” and begged not to be outed.
Audio of Scarmucci’s profane phone call with Ryan Lizza is released.
Fox News lawyers up over Seth Rich suit.
Former CIA agents pen a NYTimes op-ed on Trump’s response to Russia “Innocent people don’t behave this way.”
Wapo reports that the Secret Service has moved out of Trump Tower over a rental dispute with Trump’s Companies, their command post is now in a trailer parked on the sidewalk.
Kellyanne says Russia hacking our political and voter registration systems to help Trump get elected isn’t a “matter of national security.”
Hannity flips when he discovers a report from Bloomberg that NSA Director McMaster has granted his predecessor Susan Rice a lifetime Security Clearance — which is the normal custom — because he say “she did nothing wrong with any unmasking of Trump officials” confirming the previously findings of the House Intel Committee, except for Devin Nunez.
Trump Vacation Day count after 7 Months surpasses the number of vacation days taken by Obama in his full 8 years.
Trump plans 17-day “working vacation” in New Jersey while the WH is renovated. His neighbors are not overjoyed with all of his security.
Michael Flynn amends his financial disclosure forms to include funds received from a tech company, SCL Group which has ties to Cambridg-Analytica and whose CEO used “dirty Tricks” to support Trump and the Brexit Vote, he also includes consulting work for NIK Holdings who had attempted to donate $100,000 under the table for former Sen. Norm Coleman before he was defeated by Al Franken.
Glenn Thrush at NYTimes reports that Kelly fired Cohen-Watnick to show his authority over Bannon and Kushner.
WSJ reports that Mueller has empaneled a Grand Jury which is issuing subpeonas related to Don Jr.’s meeting with Veselnitskaya and financial ties between TrumpCo and Russia, this is in addition to the already existing Grand Jury that is looking into Michael Flynn.
Sen. Jeff Flake warns that firing Mueller could cause Congress to turn against Trump.
Sen Tillis and Coons introduce legislation to protect Mueller from being unjustifiably fired by Trump without judicial review.
August 4th —
Spicer says “No” to Dancing With the Stars.
Mark Warner the ranking Dem on Senate Intel calls for an investigation into leak of transcripts of Trump’s conversations with President of Mexico and Prime Minister of Australia.
CNN reports that Carter Page has been under FISA surveillance and suspected of being a foreign agent since 2014.
During a West Virginia rally Trump calls the Russia investigation a “total fabrication” and argues the Special Counsel should “go after why Clinton deleted 33,000 emails” which the FBI already investigated and found completely legal.
CNN reports that Intel intercepts of suspected Russian operatives during summer of 2016 discussed Manafort asking for help with damaging Clinton’s campaign.
August 5th —
Alt-Right and Russia-Bots begin relentless attacking NSA chief McMaster arguing that he should be fired for something or the other. Daily Beast reports that this is apparently payback from Bannon for the firing of Cohen-Watnick and Col. Darek Harvey.
CNN reports that Mueller’s investigation is likely to first focus on Trump’s financial crimes as they have the strongest path to prosecution.
Fox’s Eric Bolling is suspended for sexual harrassment.
Painter says if you placed lie detector on Huckabee-Sanders podium “It would light up like a disco!”
New polls indicate Trump support has dropped to just 33%, and that he’s losing White Non-College educated voters where he now stands underwater at 43% approval to 50% disapproval — a drop of 10 points since June, and 23 points since the election.
Minnesota mosque is firebombed in an apparent act of terrorism, no casualties are reported. WH says nothing.
August 6th —
CNN says McEnany quit to join Trump’s Fake “Real” News channel.
Sen. Jeff Flake says he wished the GOP had stood up against birtherism. [Which they didn't, with the notable exception of John McCain they generally took advantage and pandered to it just like Kushner said Trump did.]
Trump says he “working hard” on his vacation — but his schedule is blank.
August 7th —
Sen. Blumenthal goes on CNN and explains the new bill to protect Mueller from being fired, and Trump — who says he “not watching tv” while on his work-cation — immediately goes on a tweet storm attacking Blumenthal for saying he served in Vietnam, when his actual Marine service was in the U.S. during Vietnam. Since Trump never served due to “bone spurs” Vets call him a “Chicken Hawk piece of trash.”
Wapo reports that while requesting H2B visas for 70 more foreign employees Mar-A-Lago barely put out a couple of local ads which didn’t include a phone # or email, only a fax, for U.S. workers to be hired.
Sen. Blumenthal snaps back at Trump over his Vietnam service slurs. “ I will not be bullied.”
Chicago sues Trump over his threat to pull funds from “sanctuary cities.”
Right-Wing Militias align with GOP officials under Trump.
McEnany gets Spicer’s old job as RNC national spokesperson.
August 8th —
Alex Jones hosts Russian ultra-nationalist on program about firing McMaster.
Ex-CIA agent Daniel Hoffman states that Putin probably left a paper trail from Trump Tower to the Kremlin.
Staffers for Devin Nunez appear to be staging a stealth investigation of Christopher Steele.
Trump pays one of his staffers $89k/year just to look up positive news about him and provide it in a 20 page “propaganda report” twice a day.
Jared Kushner failed to disclose that he holds a stake in his brother’s health insurance company which had paid lobbyists to fight the repeal of Obamacare.
Trump tweets out classified information revealed by annonymous sources on Fox & Friends about North Korean Missile movements.
Trump’s support among GOP voters drops by 14 points.
Russian bots and trolls begin attacking Republicans including the House Speaker with #ResignPaulRyan campaign.
Wapo reports that North Korea now has a miniturized nuclear device that can fit on a missile, Trump says if they threaten us again they will met with “Fire and Fury that the world has never seen.” North Korea responds by threatening to attack Guam. No “Fire or Fury” appears.
August 9th —
WaPo reports that the FBI staged a pre-dawn raid of Manafort’s residence in July, which continues to suggest Mueller is attempting to flip Manafort, only now the hard way.
National Enquirer publishes a hit piece on Manafort (one hour after the Wapo report on the search warrant raid) that alleges that he was involved in a “sick sex scandal” with women much younger than his wife.
Trump campaign hands over 20,000 pages of documents to Senate Judiciary on their efforts to find negative information on Hillary Clinton.
WH aid Gorka says silence on mosque bombing is justified because he says it may be been a faked hate crime by Liberals, which frankly I would expect would make Huckabee-Sander’s and her resting scowl face crack a smile.
Politico reports that Federal investigators had approached Manafort’s son in law in order to get a better “read” on his mindset.
August 10th —
Reports indicate that Manafort had already told congressional investigators about the Don Jr/Veselnitskaya meeting before his house was raided by the FBI.
CNN finally fires Jeffrey Lord over a Nazi “Seig Heil” tweet at Media Matters Angelo Carusone arguing that they are a “fascist” site that seeks to curtail free speech, when in fact all they do is document what right-wingers say without much comment.
Trump thanks Putin for kicking 755 of our Diplomats, “Now we have a smaller payroll” and doubles down on his “Fire and Fury” nonsense, “Maybe that was too soft.” And threatens military action in Venezuela.
August 11th —
Rachel Maddow reports that a 1980 audit of Trump finances found he failed to pay $2.8 Million to the City of New York in a deal to avoid paying $150 Million in property taxes.
Fancy Bear hacker group begins targeting Hotel guests using unsecured wifi.
WH says Trump was being “sarcastic” about the smaller payroll for Diplomats in Russia, but then he says it again.
Senate Judiciary demands info on Kushner’s relationship with Russia and an explanation for the gaps on his SF86 security form.
Neo-Nazi protesters get into melee at U of VA over removal of statue to Robert E. Lee.
Rinat Akhmetshin testifies for several hours to the Mueller Grand Jury.
August 12th —
Alt-Right Neo-Nazi Protest in Charlottesville VA erupts in more violence. Deandre Harris is beaten bloody, a car driven my James Fields Jr. smashes into a crowd of counter-protesters killing Heather Heyer and injuring 19 others.
David Duke says the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” protest fulfills the promises of Donald Trump.
August 13th —
Trump gives a rambling confused statement on Charlottesville that talks about violence “on many sides” and never mentions white supremacist or neo-Nazis.
Washington Post reports Trump staffer George Papadopoulos repeatedly offered to set up “a meeting between us and the Russian leadership to discuss US-Russia ties under President Trump,” “Putin wants to host the Trump team when the time is right,” Papadopoulos wrote in an email to former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski on April 27, 2016. He also told Lewamdowski he had fielded “a lot of calls over the past month” related to a meeting between the Trump campaign and Russia. “Russia has been eager to meet with Mr. Trump for some time and have been reaching out to me to discuss,” Papadopoulos said in a separate email to former campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
August 14th —
Trump gives his “hostage video” speech where he finally condemns neo-Nazis, but then attacks African-American CEO of Merck for quitting his business advisory council on twitter.
Reports surface the Homeland security had issued a warning about Neo-Nazis and White Supremacist back in May.
Politico reporrs the Obama administration had many warnings between 2014 and 2016 that Russia was stepping up its intelligence operations to build propaganda networks.
North Korea calls off it’s missiles test targeting Guam.
Michael Cohen’s atty writes a letter to Congress vehemently denying his involvement in colluding between Trump and Russia as described in the Steele dossier — even though he had been directly involved in writing to the Russian government during the campaign to restart the Trump Tower Moscow project.
August 15th —
Kushner faces lawsuit for over charging rent in NYC.
Trump retweets meme of a train running over a CNN reporter.
Trump angrily argues during an Infrastructure Press Briefing that “Both Sides” were at fault in Charlottesville violence and stuns much of the GOP who quickly criticize his comments. He claims that if Gen. Lee and Stonwall Jackson statues have to come down so do monuments to Washington and Jefferson since they were slave owners, although they never attacked and waged war against America over it, they fought Britain to increase freedom, not decrease it and thus his real White-Power bona fides are finally revealed and confirmed.
August 16th —
NYTimes reports about 3 hackers whose work may have been used without their knowledge to attack the DNC.
ABC News reports that Peter Stroz former head of FBI Counterterrorism quits the Mueller investigation team.
Internal reports disprove claims of “Turmoil” inside the FBI prior to Comey firing.
Newsweek reports that in 1985 the Australian government rejected a bid for a Trump Casino in Sydney because of his alleged ties to the mafia.
4 CEOs defect in protest from Trump’s business council over his pro-Confederate comments, so he shuts both his business councils down in frustration.
Bannon gives a grandstanding football spike of an interview to the NYTimes claiming the more the Left talks about Racism, the more we Win. “I want them to talk about Racism everyday.” He also basically claims he’s running the White House from behind the scenes, which I’m sure is news to Kelly and also, Trump.
Jack Tapper tweets that at least two journalists were attacked by anti-Nazi counter protestors in Charlottesville, one of whom required stitches.
Rep. Jackie Spiere calls for Trump to be ousted using the 25th Amendment.
Both Bush Presidents denounce Trump’s neo-Nazi support.
Heather Heyer’s mother scorns bigots at her funeral.
August 17th —
The Spectator reports that Felix Sater — who helped sell many Trump properties to various Russians through his former real estate firm Bayrock — may have flipped for the FBI again and that he has said the both he and Trump “are going to prison.”
Cantwell states emphatically that he’s “Not a coward.” No one is impressed, particularly not PayPal and Ok, Cupid who cut him off for life.
Sen Bob Corker (R-TN) says in response to Trump Charlottesville comments: “The president has not yet been able to demonstrate the stability nor some of the competence that he needs to demonstrate in order to be successful,”
UVA Librarian Tyler McGill suffers a stroke from being struck in the neck with a Tiki Torch by Unite the Right protestors.
Foreign Policy reports that Wikileaks refused to receive or publish 68 Gig of negative data on the operations of the Kremlin.
Buzzfeed reports that Trump is furious that “Bannon is taking credit for my election.”
A Van strikes 50 people in Barcelona, 13 are killed. 2 suspects are taken into custody but no information about them or their motive is released immediately.
Trump tweets in support of “beautiful Confederate Statues” and decrying “Terrorism in Barcelona” then later endorsed a questionable internet rumor that a U.S. General in the Philippines committed the War Crime of mass executions using bullets laced with pigs blood to deter terrorists, when in actuality he sat down with Muslims, ate their food, learned their language, customs and read the Koran with them. CNN’s Jake Tapper says “He just suggested we should study a lie.” But he still hasn’t said anything about the firebombing of a mosque in Minnesota, the car crashed into a crowd near a mosque in London or the machete attack against Democrats in Kentucky.
Mike Huckabee says if you take down Robert E. Lee, you have to take down Mt. Rushmore.
With “Infrastructure Week” not quite complete, Trump gives up on his infrastructure council.
August 18th —
Steve Bannon is Fired and quickly reports surface here’s going to take Breitbart to Defcon1 Thermonuclear Global War against Trump. Cue the Russia Bots of Doom. Subsequent reports say that he intends to use Brietbart to go to War with Trump’s enemies — which now, is just about everyone.
Also a former friend and aide of Preibus, George Sifakis, leaves the WH.
Buzzfeed reports that Mueller’s investigation is now targeting Donald Jr concerning his meeting with Veselnitskaya and Akhmetshin.
Reports surface that besides Bayrock’s Tefvik Arik Trump has financial links to post-Soviet era oligarch Mukhtar Ablyazov, who had been charged with stealing between $4-$10 Billion from Kazakhstan’s largest banks through loans and shell companies and had been working with Trump on 2 Tower projects in (former soviet) Georgia through a company run by Michael Cohen. The same report also notes the connection of oligarch Alexander Shnaider, who has mob ties, and had been involved in the Toronto Trump Tower deal.
16 out of 17 members of Trump’s Arts Council resign en mass in protest of Trump comments about Charlottesville. He says “Nah ah, I QUIT YOU”, they say “No, We quit you first!”
Heather Heyer’s mother Susan Bro refuses to speak with Trump in protest of his comments on Charlottesville, while Mitt Romney calls for him to apologize. He doesn’t.
7 Charities have cancelled fundraisers scheduled to be held at Mar-a-Lago.
Charlottesville Police issue arrest warrant for Chris Cantwell for illegal use of gases and injury by caustic agent or explosive,
ISIS reportedly takes credit for the Barcelona Van attack which Spain authorities say involved 12 people, 4 are in custody and 5 had been killed in a police raid.
August 19th —
Carl Ichann resigns from his position as an informal Trump advisor allegedly because of his Charlottesville comments. But this happens admit rumors that he made $60 Million by advising Trump to cut prices on a regulatory devicethat he’d been short selling for months.
The cancelled Mar-a-Lago charity list grows to 16.
Trump announces that he will not attend the Kennedy Center Honors with Norman Lear, Gloria Estaban, Lionel Richie & LL Kool J so as not to create a “Political Distraction.”
Robert E. Lee biographer says Lee would have wanted all the Confederate statues torn down.
Trump condemns anti-violence protestors as being “anti-police agitators” and then commends the cops.
August 20th —
ADL says the “Violent Alt-Left” is a Right-Wing media lie.
Bannon’s Breitbart attacks McMaster as a “Koran kissing Muslim sympathizer”for his endorsing use of a military manual on showing respect for Islam and how not to inflame tensions.
Congressional Democrats begin to question if “Trump is mentally Ill?”
Jesse Waters says removing Confederate monuments is a plot to help make people forget that “Democrats enslaved Blacks” which is technically true but they were also southern Conservative Democrats — Dixiecrats — who’ve all become Republicans or Independents since then.
Jerry Falwell Jr defends Trump’s “fine Nazi people” and “bad counter-protestors” claims saying he has “inside knowledge” although Trump claimed that all the media saw the same videos that he did. Close examination of Videos from protest shows they’re wrong.
Dick Gregory Dies.
August 21st —
Trump showing his usual level of sociopathic empathy deficit disorder responds to the crash of the U.S.S. McCain which injured five sailors and where ten remain missing with “That’s too bad.”
Paul Ryan holds a CNN Town hall and gives a weak tepid condemnation of Trump’s statements on Charlottesville — Tapper says it “Wasn’t morally ambiguous, it’s was Morally Wrong.”
Virginia State Attorney issues four warrants for Christopher Cantwell.
The U.S experiences it’s first total solar eclipse in 38 years, Shep Smith freaks the heck out. Trump stares into the Sun without glasses — “Finally, he establishes a Blind Trust.”
North Korea releases fake propaganda videos of their missiles hitting Guam.
Rep. Bryan Zollinger (R-ID) claims that Obama may have “staged the Charlottesville riots.” [Facepalm!]
“Art of the Deal” Ghost writer Tony Schwatz gets a loud racist voicemailcriticizing him for saying Trump “will resign.”
Katrina Peirson — yes, she’s still here — goes ballistic on Fox claiming “Slavery is an example of how special and wonderful this country is.” [Uh, er, what?]
NYTimes reports that Akhmetshin has close ties to the FSB and Putin, had helped Russian oligarchs using sophisticated cyber hacks for their benefit, helped unmask corruption at a Krygystan Air Force base which Russia wanted purged of U.S. personnel, and got Federal prosecutors to file charges against an American businessman who happened to be a CIA operative working in Russia.
USA Today reports that Trump’s extended family and their extensive travel is draining the resources of the Secret Service Dry.
Treasury Sec Mnunchin uses a government plane to fly to visit Fort Knox as an excuse to view the Solar exclispe at 95% totally, he also brings Mitch McConnel
August 22nd —
ABC News reports that Christopher Steele met with and has given the FBI the names and contact information for the sources of his Trump/Russia dossier.
CNN reports that Glenn Simpson, partner with Fusion GPS the oppo research team that had contracted with Steele to produce his dossier, has testified for 10 hours before Senate Judiciary behind closed doors. Fusion also provided 40,000 pages of documents to the committee.
At his Phoenix rally Trump attacks the media as “Fake” while misquoting his own statements about Charlottesville and his “unequivocal” condemnation of White Supremacy, except for the “Good Ones” and the BLM/Antifa “Chargers” which he doesn’t bring up this time. He hints at pardoning ex-Sheriff Joe Arpaio who was convicted of violating a court order to stop his deputies from profiling, targeting and discriminating against Latinos. He claims the media won’t show the size of his crowd, but they do, and he claims the protestors outside are only a few, but they aren’t. And he leads a chant calling for the death of John McCain.
Police and Protestors lob bottles, bricks and tear gas back and forth at each other during and after Trump’s rally, no injuries are reported.
CNN responds to Trump’s attack and begins to say he sounds “unhinged.” Don Lemon says “His speech was without thought, without reason, devoid of facts, devoid of wisdom,”
NYTimes reports that Trump’s relationship with Mitch McConnell has deteriorated down to explicative filled phone calls over Trumpcare’s failure and the continued Russia probes in congress.
Trump’s airwar against ISIS passes the civilian death toll of Obama’s entire Presidency.
Trump’s pick to protect U.S. workers from abuse as Deputy Secretary of Labor is a former lobbyists for forced abortion sweatshops.[Oh, lordy!]
Alex Jones suggest reparations for White People. [Yes, really]
McClatchy reports that Mueller’s investigators may have found that Manafort may have received between $80-$100 Million from Russian and Ukrainian Oligarchs over the past decade.
Trump gives a speech on his new Afghanistan policy, which is basically more war, more killing, no end in sight and no nation building. [Which is different from the last 17 years before this how exactly? Oh yeah, no “dates certain.”]
A rabidily racist Trump supporter — the same one who called Tony Schwartz — leaves a vicious bigoted message for CEO Ravin Ghandi — who has Indian heritage but was born in the U.S. — because he is one of the CEOs who left one of Trump’s economic councils.
August 23rd —
Armed man slashes tarp on Charlottesville monument and says Heather Heyer died ‘playing in traffic’ [Nope, you can’t make this ish up.]
Grassley says he will have the Judiciary committee to vote on releasing the testimony from Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS on the Steele Dossier.
Shep Smith calls out Trump for trying to “rewrite history” with his Pheonix speech. [Don’t you know he’s been doing that since he rode down the escalator in Trump Tower?]
Pro-Russia social media cyberbots begin to amplify rightwing rhetoric over Charlottesville claiming ““Dems and Media Continue to IGNORE BLM and Antifa Violence in Charlottesville” except there really wasn’t any to ignore. Did any neo-Nazis go to the Hospital? Nope.
Cantwell, who is still in hiding from Charlottesville PD, reveals that his attorney has ditched him.
James Clapper questions Trump’s “mental fitness” to be President after his Arizona speech.
Kushner heads to Israel to try again for a peace deal after things went so “well” last time, which they didn’t.
Michigan Senate candidate Kid Rock curses Colin Kaepernick, because that’s just what wannabe government leaders do.
Scarborough asks “Who are these people?” in Trump’s crowd calling for John McCain’s death? [Arizona GOP voters?]
Politico reports that Trump is so obsessed with the Russia investigation and the bill to protect Mueller from being wrongfully fired that he’s calling GOP Senators to scream and curse at them and can’t keep focused on day to day business.
CNN reports that Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff Rick Dearborn last June when he was an advisor to the Trump campaign and Jeff Session’s Chief of staff had sent an email to Corey Lowendowski about someone nicked name “WV” trying to arrange a meeting between Trump and members of the Russian government including Putin at about the same time as Don Jr.’s meeting with Veselnitskaya. This is the second staffer in addition to NatSec advisor George Papadopoulos who had also tried to set up this kind of meeting last April according Trump campaign emails given to congress.
Cantwell turns himself in to police, judge denies bail.
Trump calls Clapper “a liar” for his mental fitness comments via — guess what — twitter. He also slams Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell over the debt ceiling vote, which hasn’t even happened yet.
Dems, rising from their long slumber, try to defund Trump’s Voter Fraud Commission.
CNN locates and interviews former Russian ambassador Kislyak on the streets of Moscow, he says that the allegations that he’s a “Spymaster” is “nonsense”. He says that the future of US/Russians relations will be “difficult.” And that sanctions and tensions will make it hard to resume a normalcy in our relationship.
Politico reports that Trump has been repeatedly and angrily calling up GOP Senators such as Bob Corker and Thom Tillus to complain about bills he doesn’t like such as the Russia sanctions and Mueller protection legislation.
August 24th —
Trump pardons ex-Sherrif Arpaio for his contempt of court conviction for refusing to stop discriminating against latino citizens. This he does despite — or perhaps because of — his history of racial discrimination and targeting of Latinos for arrest and detention, the horrific conditions in his “concentration camp” jails which have led to record suicides and in custody deaths, his attempts to intimidate and wrongfully arrest journalist and politicians who criticize him with bogus trumped up charges. Also he’s a birther, like Trump.
Hungarian Nazi Badge wearer Sebastian Gorka resigns from the WH amid rumors of his anti-Semetism.
Reports are that Meuller is investigating how involved Flynn, his son and his consulting firm were with Robert W. Smith’s attempts to aquire Hillary emails from Russian hackers. He also issues subpeonas for 6 PR firms which had worked for Flynn and Manafort.
Reports are that in 2007 Trump said “This is the first he’s heard...” that his employee Felix Sater was convicted of fraud in 1998.
.WH advisor Gary Cohn wrotes a resignation letter because of Trump’s support for anti-Semitic Neo-Nazis who chanted “Jews will not replace us” in Charlottesville, but he doesn’t hand it in. Mnunchin say’s “Gary is excited to be working here.”
Trump’s approval rating per Gallup drops to just 34%.
Ex White Nationalists confirms that Trump is using the same slippery bigoted dog whistle rhetoric that helped recruit them into hate groups.
August 25th —
Gorka says he didn’t resign from the WH, but yet, he’s still out.
Richard Painter blasts Arpaio as “One of the worst” law enforcement officers in the country,
Paul Begala argues that the Arpaio pardon is a signal to Mueller’s targets, Flynn, Manafort, Kushner and Donald Jr, that Trump will protect them if they face charges.
Ana Navarro links Trump’s Charlottesville comments to his support for racists like Gorka and Arpaio because, yeah, that makes sense.
NYTimes reports that Trump has cancelled an Obama era program to increase public works projects at the Department of Transportation. [So much for “American jobs” and “Infrastructure”]
Bannon vows to bring down Mitch McConnell “I’m going to light him up.”
Trump slaps sanctions on Venezuela because of their “Dictatorship” — which is totally unlike his pals Putin or Duterte.
August 26th —
Sen. Blumenthal states that Mueller targets shouldn’t expect pardons from Trump, “His loyalty is limited.” [Not even with Jared?]
Paul Ryan says the Arpaio pardon “is wrong.” [Yeah, no kidding, eh?]
Charlottesville police arrests neo-Nazis involved in the attack on Deandre Harris.
Trump international Gold Club in Dubai is refusing to pay it’s migrant workers from Pakistan on time.
I’ll tell you, when you actually lay it out all out item by item in chronological order a lot of patterns and actions/reactions become eminently clear. WIthout getting into classified or confidential data that isn’t yet public knowledge, what is public knowledge is already fairly stunning.
[This timeline has been continued with Vol#2 and Vol#3 due to length]
1985 — Australian government rejects a bid for a Trump Casino in Sydney because of his alleged ties to the mafia.
1986 — Trump attempts to gain a posting to Russia as part of the Reagan Administration and says he could sit down with Gorbechev to negotiate an end to the cold war “in an hour.”
1990 — Trump’s Taj Mahal casino, which is a favorite gambling spot for Russian mobsters living in Brooklyn, is cited 106 times in 18 months for violating money laundering rules, particular failing to report when someone wins and withdraws more then $10,000.
1991 — Taj Mahal files for bankrupcy protection, Trump sells his 50% share. After this and his other Casino bankruptcies most major banks no longer authorize loans to the Trump organization.
1998 -- Felix Sater a Russian born violent convict with ties to the Russian Mob — who are frequently used by Russian intelligence to do their dirty work and fund blackbag operations — gets caught up in a $40 Million stock fraud case but is only fined $35,000 in exchange for becoming an FBI informant.
2000 — Former KGB Agent Alexander Litvinenko defects to Britain.
GAO does analysis of Russian-American oligarch Ike Kaveladze and his involvement in starting 2000 shell companies which could be involved in money laundering.
2001-2007 — At least 63 Russian Oligarchs lease, rent or buy various Trump propertetes in South Florida spending upwards of $98.5 Million on them, many of these deals with Russian nationals in Manhattan reportedly are arranged through Bayrock Group LLC whose offices are located on the 24th floor of Trump Tower. Felix Sater becomes Bayrock’s managing director. Their first joint project together, in 2003, is building a Trump Tower in Phoenix.
2005 — TrumpCo puts together it’s first proposal for Trump Tower Moscow in coordination with BayRock LLC.
2006 — Alexander Litvinenko is poisoned by Polonium-210 and slowly dies of radiation sickness, he points to Putin as being behind his murder before he dies. His case officer with MI-6 is Christopher Steele.
2008 —Trump sells a Palm Beach Mansion to a Russian Oligarch for $95 Million after purchasing it just 2 years previously for only $45 Million.
Donald Jr. states “We get a lot to money from Russia.”
Felix Sater leaves Bayrock after his criminal record is revealed and goes to work for Trump.
Bayrock founder Tefvik Arif is busted and prosecuted for his connection to an underage prostitution ring in Turkey, he is eventually acquitted.
2009 — U.S. investor Bill Browder is expelled from Russia and his assets are used to setup a $230 Million tax rebate scam. Browder’s lawyer Sergei Magnitski discovers the scam and testifies to reveal it, he is subsequently arrested, tortured and murdered in a Russian jail, beaten to death by the guards.
2010 — A racketeering case is filed against Bayrock, Sater and Arif alleging they had been “substantially and covertly mob-owned and operated.”
2011 — Trump Soho a joint venture condo project by TrumpCO and Bayrock is sued for defrauding buyers with inflated claims. The suit is settled with a payout of $3.19 Million and a potential criminal case is avoided.
March 2011 — Trump begins his birther campaign against President Obama claiming there’s something wrong with his birth certificate. He also demands Obama's college transcripts alleging he didn't deserve access to Harvard, and claims that his best selling book “Dreams From My Father" was really ghostwritten by Bill Ayers.
May 2011 --
Obama authorizes the Bin Laden Raid, then attends the White House Correspondents dinner, Donald Trump is in the audience.
Obama reveals his long-form birth certificate and takes a couple shots at Donald, but Seth Myer brutalizes him from behind the podium. Myer's theorizes Trump decided to run for President right then and there in retaliation.
2012 — Obama signs the Magnitski Act following the jail house death of Sergey Magnitski after he was wrongfully imprisoned for investigation Russia corruption and laundering of money stolen from American businessmen Bill Browder. Putin responds by cancelling the adoption of Russian orphans by American parents. This act is strongly supported by Russian opposition leaders Boris Nemtsov and Vladimir Kara-Murza.
Exxon signs a $500 Billion deal with Russian Oil giant Rosneft for drilling in the Black sea.
2013 —
Russian mobsters renting property in Trump Tower just three floors below the penthouse suite are arrested for money laundering and running an illegal gambling ring at the end of a 2 year investigation. One of the attorney’s for the defendant Denys Katsyv of the Prevezon Group is Natalia Veselnitskaya, and the prosecutor is Preet Bharara, some of the stolen money is connected to Bill Browder’s investigation and the murder of Magnitski in Russia.
Several months later Trump holds the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow, the apparent money-laundering ring leader who remains at large is welcomed on the Red Carpet at the event. While in Moscow Trump reportedly meets with several high ranking oligarchs with ties to Putin, including Billionaire Russian Real Estate developer Arag Agalarov and his Pop Star son Emil who partners with Trump on the pageant.
Video shot before the pageant shows Trump at dinner with Emin and Aras Agalarov, as well as Rob Goldstone Emin’s promoter. Michael Isakoff talks to Goldstone who reveals that Trump has plans to license a new Trump Tower in Russia with Agalarov as the local builder/owner. Don jr. is in charge of the project and Ivanka goes on location scouting trips with Emin. Ike Kaveladze who works for the Agalarov family is also present.
2014 —
Michael Flynn is fired by the Obama administration as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency for his “odd behavior.”
Eric Trump says in an interview when discussing the funding of Trump Golf courses “Well, we don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia.” Eric later denies making this statement.
Bayrock is functionally inactive, except for a few outstanding lawsuits.
Putin releases ***** Riot from prison for shooting a Punk Rock video in a Church.
The Winter Olympics takes place in Sochi, Russia.
Russia invades Crimea and begins sending Troops and equipment in the Ukraine to destabilize the Country, Obama rallies the international community to place Sanctions on Russia which crush their economy — plans for the Rosneft/Exxon deal and Trump Tower Russia are both put on hold.
2015 —Trump and his kids are named as witnesses in a $250 Million tax evasion case connected to Bayrock and Trump Soho.
Michael Flynn goes to Russia, meets and sits with Putin for dinner and is paid $45,000 for a speech at RT's 10th Anniversary Gala. He also receives $11,250 from Kaspersky Government Security Solutions, and $11,250 from Volga-Dnepr Airlines. He doesn't get prior permission from the Pentagon for this trip or the payments.
Taj Mahal is fined $10 Million for continued money laundering by Treasury’s FinCen unit.
Boris Nemtsov is murdered in the streets of Moscow in the shadow of the Kremlin.
U.S. intel captures discussion by Russians about Trump running for President, when he hasn’t announced his run yet, and talking about multiple contacts they’ve been having with Trump associates and planning to funnel money into the election.
June 17, 2015 -- Trump announces his run for President. He never releases his Taxes, his birth certificate or his school transcripts.
Summer 2015 —Cyber hacking contractors working with the FSB (Cozy Bear) begin infiltrating and extracting copies of documents including the oppo-research on Trump and emails from the DNC servers. Their previous successful attacks include the White House and State Dept. email systems.
They also penetrate some RNC emails accounts and attack various Republicans who oppose Trump in the primaries.
September 2015 — FBI detects the hack and begins trying to inform the DNC, but they start by going to their Help desk not simply calling Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.
November 2015 — Felix Sater emails Michael Cohen saying “I will get Putin on this program and we will get Donald elected... I know how to play it and how to get this done. Buddy, our boy can become president of the USA and we can engineer it... I will get all of Putin’s team to buy in on this, I will manage this process.”
Late 2015 — GCHQ and other western intel agencies from Germany, Poland, Estonia and Australia begin noticing contacts between Russia Spies and members of the Trump campaign. They attempt to notify FBI and CIA who are apparently caught "flat footed.”
January 2016 — Michael Cohen send an email to Putin deputy Dmitry Peskov trying to get talks regarding Trump Tower Moscow restarted.
March 2016 -— US Attorney Preet Bharara prosecutes Russian intelligence officer Evgeny Buryakov an employee of sanctioned Russia bank Vnesheconombank (VEB) of conspiracy to commit espionage in recruiting U.S Businessmen in Manhattan including Carter Page. Page had been cooperating in this investigation as an informant.
FBI receives memo alleging collusion between Loretta Lynch and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz to quash the Clinton email investigation — they believe this document is fake.
March 16, 2016 -— John Podesta receives a spearfishing email, his IT people mistakenly tell him that it’s “Legitimate” and his assistant clicks on the link and gives up his password compromising his account.
March 21, 2016 —Trump lists Carter Page & George Papadopoulis as part of his foreign policy team.
March 24, 2016 — Papadopoulis writes an email offering to set up “a meeting between us and the Russian leadership to discuss US-Russia ties under President Trump,” telling them his Russian contacts welcomed the opportunity.
March 28, 2016 —Trump hires Paul Manafort to handle the delegate process on his campaign.
April 2016 — GRU Russian military intelligence also attacks the DNC systems with Fancy Bear. The DNC discovers the intrusion and calls in cyber security firm Crowdstrike to address it, they discover both intrusions, briefly monitor them to confirm their ID, then shut them down.
About this time Paul Manafort — former advisor to Putin friendly ex-Ukrainian President Yanakovych who has a close associate with links to the GRU, and who had previous been paid $Millions to allegedy secretly promote Putin’s agenda by Russian aluminum oligarch Oleg Deripaska — becomes Trump campaign chairman.
The Kremlin gives Rep. Dana Rohrabacher instructions to stage a “show trial” in Congress attacking Bill Browder in order to alter the Magnitski Act sanctions on Russia. Rohrabacher is provided a Russian propaganda film against Browder by the Russian Prosecutor Generals Office run by Yuri Chaika, the same person who had jailed Magnitski.
April 27, 2016 -Trump gives his first major foreign policy speech at an event that had been largely arranged by Jeff Sessions Chief of Staff Rick Dearborn, Russian ambassador Kislyak is invited as a special guest, both Trump and Session briefly meet with him at a backstage reception before the speech at the Mayflower Hotel.
Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos writes in an email to campaign manager Corey Lewandowsk he had fielded “a lot of calls over the past month” related to a meeting between the Trump campaign and Russia. “Russia has been eager to meet with Mr. Trump for some time and have been reaching out to me to discuss,” Papadopoulos says in a separate email to Paul Manafort.
May 2016 — US surveillance operations detects Russian Spies vowing to “Get Hillary Clinton” in retaliation for her criticism of Putin’s last election. A GRU Officer is recorded saying they are “getting ready to pay Clinton back for what President Vladimir Putin believed was an influence operation she had run against him five years earlier as Secretary of State”
They also detect them bragging that they have good ties to Michael Flynn and may be able to use him to “influence" Trump.
Obama admin attempts to limit classified information to Flynn.
Russian spies attempt to cultivate Carter Page as an asset, yet again!
FBI obtains a FISA warrant to monitor Page’s communications and possibly on a Trump server in Pennsylvania which keeps being oddly pinged by a server owned by Russia’s Alfa Bank and another owned by the DeVos companies.
Trump backs Brexit says “England is better off without the EU.”
Paul Manafort meets with his assistant from the Ukraine Konstantin Kilimnik, who has alleged ties to the GRU.
Trump releases an attack ad on Hillary claiming she’s “too close to Putin”, WaPo considers if the “Bromance” between Trump and Putin is over? But still Politico reports that Trump is “Putin’s Candidate.”
June 2016 — Russian Think Tank controlled by Putin publishes a blue print to use cyber bots, trolls and social media to push anti-Clinton/pro-Trump propaganda to help swing the election.
Jeff Sessions Chief of staff Rick Dearborn who is an advisor to the Trump campaign writes an email to Lowendowski noting that he’d received and offer from someone referrenced as “WV” to setup a meeting between Trump officials and Putin.
June 2, 2016 — Hillary gives a major speech criticizing Trump’s closeness to Russia and Putin accusing him of praising “dictators like Vladimir Putin” and having a “bizarre fascination with dictators and strongmen who have no love for America.”
June 3, 2016 — Music Promoter Rob Goldstone emails Don Jr, and says he has information from the Russian Government about shady dealings by Hillary and DNC. Don Jr. says “I Love it” and plans to discuss it further on a phone call and eventually a meeting.
June 7, 2016 — Trump says that he’ll give a major speech about Hillary Clinton’s corruption in a week.
June 9, 2016 —
Donald Jr, Kushner and Manafort secretly meet with a prominent Russia lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya at Trump Tower after being offered “dirt” about the Clinton Campaign and the DNC being funded by Russia. The information comes through their Miss Universe Moscow partner Aras Agalarov via his son’s Emin’s promoter Rob Goldstone who had received it directly from the “Crown Prosecutor” [actually the Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika] of Russia because the Russian Government “supports Trump.” They also discuss the Russian adoption program in the wake of the Magnitski Act, which is a law that blacklists Russian Human Rights violators.
Later that day Donald tweets for the first time about Clinton’s “33,000 missing emails.”
June 12, 2016 — Julian Assange hints that he’s soon release emails linked to Hillary Clinton.
The Pulse Night Club in Orlando is attacked and 49 people are killed by a frustrated gay Muslim man
June 13, 2016 — Trump blames the Pulse attack on Obama’s sympathy with “Radical Islam” and on immigrants even though the shooter was a native born American citizen born in New Hyde Park, NY.
June 14, 2016 -— Wapo Reports that the DNC has been hacked by the Russian government, DNC goes public about the cyber intrusion.
June 15, 2016 — Guccifer 2.0 releases the DNC’s opposition research file on Donald Trump.
Dana Rohrabacher’s scheduled “show trial” hearing on Bill Browder in opposition to the Magnitski Act is cancelled by his committee chairman.
Rep. Kevin McCarthy jokes behind scenes that the only people Putin pays are Rohrabacher and Trump.
June 16, 2016 — Guccifer 2.0 uses DCLeaks to reveal the first set of hacked DNC emails, they have Cyrillic characters and Russian urls in their metadata
June 17, 2016 — Putin says the Trump is a “bright” individual.[Actually the word he used translates more accurately into “Colorful”]
June 20, 2016 — Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski is fired after a controversy where he physically grabbed and yanked a Brietbart reporter away from Trump as she asked a question. At first Corey and the Trump campaign denies it ever happened, but it’s on video — then he claims he would’ve “apologized if he knew she was from Breitbart” but he doesn’t. She files a criminal complaint, but it’s thrown out. He goes to work for CNN while still being paid by Trump.
June 22, 2016 — Trump finally gives his big anti-Clinton speech over a week late, he complains about Benghazi, Free Trade, Temperment and that her “Deleted emails could make her vulnerable to blackmail by hostile states.” He doesn’t mention Russian money going into the DNC.
June 24, 2016 — Brexit Referendum Vote Passes.
Trump is in Scotland for the opening of his Turnberry Golf Course, he says he’s glad Scotland Voted to leave the EU — but they didn’t, England did.
June 27, 2016 — Bill Clinton meets privately with AG Loretta Lynch on her plane at the Pheonix Airport while they are both there during a layover. Reportedly they discuss family, golf and travel, but calls of “obstruction” and “undue influence” — even though there is absolutely no evidence to that effect — eventually cause her to defer any decision on the Clinton email investigation to the FBI.
July 2016 — Business Insider publishes a report on the Kremlin’s Troll army based in St. Petersburg. They pose online as Pro-Trump and Pro-Bernie Americans and incessantly attack Clinton.
Cyber attacks are also made on the DCCC in order to impact House races in Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Ohio, Illinois, New Mexico and North Carolina.
Carter Page travels to Moscow, approved by Trump Natsec advisor JD Gordon and Corey Lewandowski, to give several paid speeches.
Former MI-6 agent Christopher Steele while working on oppo-research for a GOP candidate receives intel that Page also has secret meetings with Russian government oil firm Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin who allegedly offers him broker fees on the sale of 19% of Rosneft stock supposedly as a payoff for influencing Trump to drop sanctions on Russia. Page eventually denies all of this.
Steele begins writing memos to the FBI.
U.S. intel intercepts Russian Operatives discussing a request for “Help damaging Clinton’s campaign” from the Trump campaign which mentions Manafort.
July 5, 2016 — Influenced by false email intel generated by the Russians alleging that AG Lynch was “throwing the Clinton case”, and apparently the fact that she has suggested he called the Clinton situation a “matter” rather than an “investigation” — even though DOJ rules prohibit confirming an investigation before it is complete — FBI Director James Comey after announcing that the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s server is complete and no charges will be filed goes on to blast her in an extended public statement.
July 7, 2016 — Comey testifies to Congress about Hillary’s server and manages to debunk just about every Right-wing conspiracy about it.
July 18-21, 2016 — The Republican National Convention takes place during which Trump National Security Advisor J.D. Gordon torpedoes a platform plank supporting the arming of Ukrainian rebels against pro-Russian forces, then lies about it.
Kislyak attends and briefly meets Sessions again at a Heritage Foundation event, as well as Carter Page and J.D. Gordon.
Flynn delivers a speech at the Republican convention, joining in the crowd’s “Lock her up!” chant. “If I, a guy who knows this business, if I did a tenth of what she did, I would be in jail today”
Mike Pence also chants “Lock Her Up” over Hillary’s emails — even though she’s been cleared already — and he himself has AOL for his email for official business as Governor and his account had been hacked.
Flynn fills out his SF-86 form to reactivate his security clearance related to his being selected by Trump as national security advisor. Flynn fails to include that he had received $530,000 from Turkey or that he had taken another $45,000 from Russia in 2015.
July 22, 2016 — One day after end of RNC Wikileaks reveals their first set of DNC emails.
Russia Today, Sputnik News, Breitbart and other right-wing outlets begin doing incessant stories about every little negative revelation in them as well as numerous false and inflammatory rumors these are further pushed by bots and trolls on facebook and twitter until they trend.
The FBI begin to look into the Russia hack based on information from Crowdstrike, they don’t get direct access to DNC servers presumably as that would cause them to shutdown their entire email capability in middle of an election until a replacement set of servers could be installed [I’ve sent a question to the DNC’s Deputy Communications Director on this point, he hasn’t responded yet].
FBI is also looking into links to Trump due to Steele memos and concerns raised by CIA head Brennan.
July 25, 2016 — Democratic Convention starts, because of the brouhaha from the Wikileaks email dump, Chairman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz resigns and Donna Brazille takes over, RT/Sputnik heightened and amplified rumors swirl about the DNC “rigging the Primary” for Clinton and against Sanders.
July 26, 2016 — Roger Ailes leaves Fox News amid harassment allegations. Trump defends him.
Wapo reporter Sarah Kendzior asks a Kremlin official about the hacking of DNC emails and he refers the issue to Donald Trump Jr.
July 27, 2016 — Trump asks Russia to hack and/or release Hillary’s missing emails.
July 28, 2016 — Sputnik news claims Wikileaks proves the primary and DNC was rigged against Sanders.
July 31, 2016 — Manafort denies that the Trump campaign made any changes to the RNC platform. Various Trump affiliates will repeat these denials 20 more times before finally admitting the truth; Donald personally ordered the change in a meeting with Gordon during the RNC in which Sessions attended. [If this was done as a pay off to Russia to ensure their continued support in their hacking/propaganda efforts, it proves Donald’s direct involvement in a criminal conspiracy.]
August 2016 —Mikail Kalugin who was linked to pension payment scheme by Steele leaves the U.S., and is later confirmed to have been falsely posing as a diplomat while actually being a spy.
Kilminik again travels to the U.S. and meet with Manafort where they allegedly discuss the DNC hack.
CIA Director Brennen sends an “Eyes Only” private note to the WH for Obama and just 3 senior aids which states that “Putin has ordered a cyber attack to defeat or damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign, and elect Donald Trump.”
August 4, 2016 — Brennen calls his counterpart Alexander Bortnikov Director of the FSB and issues him a stern warning about the hacking and active measures.
August 9, 2016 — Flynn Intel Group, a consulting firm founded by Flynn, signs a contract with Inovo BV, a firm run by a Turkish businessman close to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, for more than $500,000
August 16, 2016 — Manafort pushes a false RT/Sputnik News story about terrorist sabotage at a NATO base in Turkey. Trump also pushes the same false story.
August 17, 2016 — Trump receives his first classified briefing. Flynn is with him.
August 19, 2016 — Manafort leaves the Trump campaign amidst allegations that he accepted a $12 Million under-the-table cash payment from his former Putin friendly client, ex-Ukraine President Yanakovych. Pollster Kellyanne Conway, who is a Mercer employee, takes over.
August 21, 2016 -— Trump pal Roger Stone tweets “it will soon be Podesta's time in the barrel.” He later claims he was talking about Podesta’s “business dealings” not his email, although Stone had also been sending DM’s to Guccifer 2.0 the public face of Russia’s cyber hacking operation.
September 2016 — Reports are the Russian hackers have attempted to penetrate the voter registration systems in 20 States, 4 were successfully infiltrated.
GOP consultant Aaron Nevins sends a note to Guccifer 2.0 asking if he has anything on Florida Dems, 10 days later he gets 2.5 Gigabits of stolen DCCC data, which confirms the connection between Kremlin intel & Guccifer.
Roger Stone says on Boston Herald Radio that he expects, "Julian Assange and the Wikileaks people to drop a payload of new documents on a weekly basis fairly soon. And that of course will answer the question of exactly what was erased on that email server."
Obama meets Putin at a summit and personally tells him to “Cut it out” with the hacking.
Obama assembles Congress’s “Gang of 12” and informs them of the Russia hack confidentially and asks for a bipartisan public statement in opposition to the attack. Mitch McConnel refuses as he doubts the veracity of the information, no public statement is issued at this time.
Trump transition chair Chris Christie begins to recommend that Flynn be fired after his erratic behavior during a national security briefing.
FBI offers to pay Christopher Steele to continue his work investigating Trump/Russia links.
Jeff Sessions meets privately with Kislyak at his Senate Offices.
Guccifer 2.0 sends Roger Stone a link to a blog post on manipulating voter turnout.
Ignoring McConnel and other Republicans Sen Feinstein and Rep Schiff issue a joint statement revealing the Russia cyber attack.
One week later McConnell and other Reps issues a tepid statement warning state election boards to remain “secure from attack.”
October 2016 — The Russian Think Tank publishes another paper, this one saying the Clinton is likely to win the election, so the online influence campaign needs to focus on claims that the election was “rigged” or “stolen” due to voter fraud.
Trump starts saying the only way he could lose Pennsylvania is because of “Voter Fraud.” and mentions the information revealed by Wikileaks 164 times over the next month.
The FEC unanimously agrees to prioritize investigations into foreign spending.
Around this time before election day NSA detects that the GRU has launched a set of cyber attacks on state and local election registration systems. Some are penetrated.
Kushner Co receives a $285 Million loan from Duetsche Bank for their Times Square building that was facing charges for not stopping Russian money-laundering on the premesis.
October 4, 2016 — Guccifer 2.0 Post documents stolen from the Clinton Foundation.
October 5, 2016 — Buzzfeed reports that Trump financial attorneys regularly meet with him in pairs so that there would be a witness. “...It’s always been our practice to make sure two people are present, and we don’t have a problem of people lying.” and “We tried to do it with Donald always if we could because Donald says certain things and then has a lack of memory.”
October 6, 2016 — The Access Hollywood Video drops with “Grab ‘em by the *****”. One hour later Wikileaks releases the first set of emails taken from John Podesta’s account. RT and Sputnik News continue to do daily reports as another set of emails is dumped for next 30 days.
October 7, 2016 — Homeland Security and the Director of National Intelligence release a Joint Statement on the Russia Hacking efforts saying it “was directed from the highest levels of the Kremlin.” FBI Director Comey had also originally signed on to this document, but refrained at the last minute due to the closeness of the election.
October 11, 2016 — Trump uses false talking points from RT to blame HIllary for Benghazi
October 21, 2016 — Hillary Clinton states during a debate that 17 Intelligence Agencies have confirmed Russia’s attempt to influence the election. Trump denies it, says “nobody knows” and it could be “China, North Korea or a 300lbs. Fat Guy.” which is also a Sputnik News Talking point.
October 23, 2016 —Christopher Steele, frustrated by the lack of response by the FBI particularly the New York Field Office which he says houses an Anti-Clinton Cabal (aka Trumpland), contacts David Corn of Motherjones who writes that “Russian spies have been attempting to cultivate Trump as an asset for 5 years.”
FBI rescinds their job offer to Steele.
Eventually with the help of the British Ambassador to Russia, his dossier of memos are passed to John McCain who physically gives a copy to James Comey.
October 26, 2016 — James Comey writes a letter to congress about the Abedin emails found on Anthony Weiner’s laptop several weeks earlier — it gets leaked almost immediately, presumably by Jason Chaffetz’s office. All hell breaks lose, Clinton drops 3-5% in the polls.
October 27, 2016 — Rudy Giuliani admits on Fox that he knew about the Comey letter from “former FBI agents” before it was sent to Congres and leaked.
October 30, 2016 — FBI obtains a warrant to review the Abedin emails.
November 6, 2016 — FBI finds that virtually all of the Abedin emails are duplicates that they already had in their possession from the Clinton server.
November 7, 2016 — 19.5% of Rosneft is sold to unknown buyers. [This seem to be consistent with the Steele Memo which predicted this sale as an payoff to Trump for lifting sanctions on Russia]
November 8, 2016 —Election Day.
Michael Flynn writes an Op-Ed in support of Turkey arguing that the U.S. should extradite a Turkish expat who President Erdoğan blames for the recent attempted coup. Seemingly Turkey has been paying Flynn and his consulting firm $530,000 — money which originated with yet another Russian oligarch.
Flynn does not disclose this or register as a foreign agent.
Russia’s Parliament erupts into applause when Trump is announced the winner.
Also four patents for various Trump Hotels and products which were applied for years earlier are simultaneously renewed in Russia.
November 9, 2016 — Wikileaks proclaims that Trump won because Democrats rigged system to have Clinton beat Sanders.
November 10, 2016 — Russia’s Foreign Minister Lavrov admits they had continuing communications from Trump’s “immediate entourage.”
Trump and Obama meet at the WH, Obama warns him not to hire Flynn.
November 11, 2016 — Chris Christie is dropped as transition chief, VP Pence takes his place.
Flynn stays on.
November 12, 2016 — Lewandowski quits CNN to work for Trump again.
November 28, 2016 — In an interview with Time magazine, Trump denies interference from Russia. “I don’t believe they interfered,” he said. “That became a laughing point, not a talking point, a laughing point. Any time I do something, they say ‘oh, Russia interfered.'” He also addressed the hacking: “It could be Russia. And it could be China. And it could be some guy in his home in New Jersey”
November 30, 2016 — The Justice Department informs Flynn that he is under investigation for his unreported lobbying on behalf of Turkey.
November —House oversight ranking member Rep. Cummings sends a letter to VP Pence about Flynn’s Op-Ed and his lobbying for Turkey.
When Flynn states he plans to schedule a meeting with Kislyak former Bush Pentagon Official Michael Billingslea warns him that any such communications with Kislyak are likely to be picked up by U.S. surveillance.
December —Trump transition does a background check on Flynn but doesn't fully vet him, they are also specifically informed by Flynn’s lawyers that he may have to register as a “Foreign Agent” because of his work for Turkey even though the Pentagon had previously warned him to get permission for such payments first, and that he was under investigation by the FBI because of it.
Watchdog groups file a complaint with the FEC over Russia and the Trump campaign coordinating.
December 1, 2016 — Flynn meets with Kislyak at Trump Tower along with Jared Kushner. Kushner suggests setting up a secure back-channel back to the Kremlin using Russian facilities that could “bypass the U.S. national security bureaucracy.”. Kislyak is reportedly “taken aback”. They also suggest having an overseas meeting but Flynn is considered too high profile to attend.
Both Flynn and Kushner don’t include these meetings on their security clearances forms and are at risk of Logan Act violations if this meetings are intended to undermine current U.S Foreign policy as both are private citizens at this point. Kushner later includes the meetings on future updates.
NSA discovers the details of this meeting while surveilling Kislyak as he communicates with Moscow.
At Kislyak’s suggestion, Kushner later meets with banker and FSB Academy graduate Sergei Gorkov who is head of Moscow based government owned bank Vnesheconombank (VEB), which funds special projects like the Sochi Olympics or` Trump Tower in Toronto and included Russian intelligence officer Evgeny Buryakov on it’s payroll, who was convicted in March 2016 by Preet Bharara of conspiracy in the case involving the attempted cultivation of Carter Page as an Russian asset. Gorkov is also former deputy board chairman of Russia largest state-owned bank, Sberank, whom had hired Trump’s attorney’s Marc Kasowitz to defend it.
December 8, 2016 — Page is back in Moscow to meet with “business leaders and thought leaders”
December 9, 2016 — Wapo reports that the CIA has made a Secret Assessment that the Russia government sought to interfere in our election in order to make Trump President, and that Congress was informed of this so they could make a bipartisan statement but Mitch McConnell refused.
December 12, 2016 -—While in Moscow, Trump’s former campaign surrogate Jack Kingston meets with Russian businessmen to discuss what they might expect from a Trump administration. “Trump can look at sanctions,” Kingston says. “They’ve been in place long enough.”
December 13, 2016 — Trump says he doesn’t need a security briefing everyday. “I’ll get it when I need it”.
Trump nominates then Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson — recipient of the Russia Order of Friendship personally from Putin who had been seeking a waiver on Russian/Crimea sanctions to proceed with their $500 Billion deal with Rosneft for drilling in the Black sea — as Secretary of State.
NBC News’ Richard Engel reports from Moscow on Trump’s secretary of state pick, Rex Tillerson. Former Russian Energy Minister Vladimir Milov tells Engel that Tillerson was a “gift for Putin.”
Steve Bannon joins Flynn and Kushner for a separate meeting with the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, who makes an undisclosed visit to New York.
December 20, 2016 -— Jared Kushner brags to Forbes magazine about the data-mining and voter micro-targeting operation he helped setup for the Trump campaign with Cambridge-Analytica which is owned by deep pocketed Trump pal Robert Mercer, who also bankrolls Breitbart News.
December 21, 2016 — Lewandowski doesn’t get rehired by Trump, starts a lobbying firm.
December 29, 2016 —Obama hits Russia with Sanctions for their hacking and involvement in the Election. Flynn talks to Russian Ambassador Kislyak, mentions “We’ll review everything” when Obama’s new sanctions are brought up. This conversation is recorded by the NSA/FBI.
The Obama Administration tries to save the intel data with a trail of bread crumbs for Congress to track.
December 30, 2016 — Putin states he will not retaliate to Obama’s newly imposed sanctions and the expulsion of 30 suspected Russian spies. Trump praises his lack of response.
A PHP web shell called P.A.S. created by Ukrainian Hacker Profexor is identified by DHS as being used in part of the DNC hack. He eventually contacts the FBI himself as he had no knowledge his worked was being used in this manner.
January 5th — Former CIA Director James Woolsey leaves Trump transition team because he is alarmed by Flynn's stance on trying to have Erdogen’s opponent Gulley “snatched up” and shipped off to Turkey.
Trump tweets a storm of attacks on the Intel community and claims of Russian hacking.
January 6th —U.S. Intel agencies publish their report on the Russia Cyber efforts to influence the election. Obama, Biden and Trump are briefed on the report, Trump claims it proves Russia didn’t “change the vote” even though the report doesn’t attempt to answer that question.
January 10th —Jeff Sessions testifies during confirmation hearings that he doesn’t know “any Trump surrogates who were in contact with the Russians” ignoring the question he was asked which was “What would you do if you discover surrogates coordinating with Russians?” Apparently the correct answer is “Nothing.”
Buzzfeed publishes the entire Steele Dossier online.
CNN reports that Trump was specifically briefed on it during the Jan 6th briefing.
Trump transition team does full court press to deny this briefing occurred, not only denying that anyone verbally described it to Trump but also there was a 3 page summary at the end of the full Russia report.
Flynn meets with Susan Rice over a plan to arm the Kurds against ISIS, Flynn vetoes the plan as the Kurds are considered terrorists by one of his financial benefactors Turkey.
Paul Manafort calls Reince Preibus to deny allegations in the dossier about him
January 11th — At his first press conference of the year Trump says he himself “didn’t meet with any Russians” during the election even though he did.
Erik Prince, former CEO of Blackwater, giant Christian Supremacist, Mike Pence supporter and brother of
Education Secretary nominee Betsy DeVos has a secret meeting with the UAE on the Seychelles islands to establish a back channel to Putin which is noticed by FBI. That meeting is chaired by the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi who had previously met with Bannon, Flynn & Kushner secretly in New York, and seems to be a follow-on to Kushner’s meeting with Kislyak at Trump Tower.
Politico issues a report indicating that Ukrainian-American Alexandra Chalupa who consulted for the DNC had gone to the Ukrainian embassy to gain information about Paul Manafort’s links to Yanakovic.
January 12th — NBC news confirms that Comey personally briefed Trump about the Steele Dossier revealing yet another transition team lie.
January 14th — Reports surface that U.S. Intel agents have warned our allies like Israel not to share sensitive intel with Trump transition team due to the Steele dossier and the risk he might share it with Russia and hence their ally Iran.
January 15th — Trump says “We should trust Putin” while lambasting NATO and Angela Merkel.
Former CIA Officer for Moscow states that Steele dossier deserves support: “This is exactly how the Russians operate.”
January 20th — Inauguration day.
January 21st —Sean Spicer does his first press briefing and spends most of it lying about the Inauguration crowd size, then takes no questions.
Women’s march crowd dwarfs Trump’s crowd by 3 to 1.
Trump WH officials soon begin pushing State Dept to remove all Russian sanctions. Alarmed State Offiicials Melinowski and Fried begin to contact congress.
January 22nd — Comey attends an event honoring Law Enforcement at the WH, tries to avoid being noticed by Trump, but fails.
January 23rd —Spicer claims Flynn didn’t talk to Kislyak about sanctions, even though he did.
Later Mike Pence goes on Meet the Press after talking personally to Flynn and claims “Flynn told me he didn’t talk to Russia about sanctions.”
January 24th — Flynn interviewed by FBI, again he apparently says he didn’t talk to Russians about sanctions but they know better. He also claims that he didn’t get any foreign money and the $45k and $530k came from “U.S. companies” having omitted the true information on his SF-86 Security form.
January 26th —Sally Yates goes to the White House personally and warns WH Counsel McGahn that Flynn may be vulnerable to “blackmail by the Russians” because he’d lied to the FBI & Pence about his contacts with Kislyak.
Trump is immediately briefed by McGahn but does nothing about Flynn.
Former Bush Ethics Atty Richard Painter files complaint with Government Ethics Office that James Comey may have violated the Hatch Act by releasing unsubstantiated information about the Abedine emails.
January 27th — Trump signs a travel ban against 7 majority Muslim nations.
McGahn calls Yates, she returns to the WH where he asks “why does it matter if Flynn lied to Pence?”
Trump invites Comey to dinner at the White House, allegedly asks Comey if he wants to “keep his job” and to pledge him his “Loyalty”, Comey offers his “Honesty” and takes copious notes.
Kremlin arrests FSB officials Sergei Mikhailov, his deputy Dmitry Dokuchaev, and Ruslan Stoyanov, the head of cybercrime investigations at Kaspersky Labs (who had paid Flynn $11,500 in 2015) for treason and illegal hacking apparently for sharing intel information with the CIA.
January 29th — London Mayor Saddiq Khan says that Trump shouldn’t be allowed entry into the UK while his Muslim ban is in place.
Trump signs EO that places Steve Bannon on the principles committee of the National Security Council, the DNI and head of the Joint Chiefs are relegated to "part time" participants.
January 30th — Sally Yates orders the DOJ not to defend Trump's Muslim ban executive order in court as she doubts it is legal or constitutional.
January 31st --Yates is fired by Trump allegedly for refusing to defend his Muslim ban executive order.
Flynn stays.
Roger Stone goes on Russia Today to push the conspiracy that murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich is the "real hacker.” This is his fifth appearance on the channel.
Deutsche Bank is fined $630 Million for $10 Billion in money laundering transactions involving Russia.
February 2nd — Putin opposition leader Vladimir Kara-Murza is poisoned for a second time in Moscow.
February 3rd —Federal Judge Robart blocks Trump's Muslim Ban echoing Yates issues with it.
Reports surface that Trump is still using that same vulnerable unsecured out of date Galaxy S3 Cell Phone to tweet with during the campaign while in the White House.
February 6th —Rep. Maxine Waters states “Trump is moving towards Impeachment.”
Trump attorney Michael Cohen and Felix Sater negotiate a deal to end sanctions against Russia by stopping the violence in Crimea with a Ukranian named Andrii V. Artemenko. They supposedly deliver a copy of this plan to Michael Flynn’s desk, but there is no evidence he ever reviewed it or passed it on to anyone.
When this is revealed Artemenko is looked at for possible Treason charges by Ukraine. [Exactly who came up with this idea and tasked them with this? Does anyone believe they went rogue?]
Februray 7th -— Sens. Cardin and Graham — alerted by Fried and Malinowski at State of Trump efforts to scrap sanctions -— author bipartisan legislation to require the approval of Congress for all changes to sanctions.
February 8th — Washington posts asks Flynn if he discussed sanctions with Russia, he says “No” twice.
February 9th —Flynn’s spokesman issues a correction to Wapo that he “doesn’t remember” if he did or didn’t discuss sanctions.
Trump talks to Putin by phone and criticizes Obama’s Start II Nuclear deal with Russia. Flynn is there for the call.
Judge Robart’s national block of the Muslim Ban is upheld by the 9th Circuit
February 10th — Trump is asked about Flynn talking to Russians about sanctions and says “This is the first time I’ve heard that.” Note: He had already been personally told about this by White House Counsel McGahn immediately after he was told by Yates on Jan 26th.
February 12th — Reports emerge that the Intel agencies are considering holding back highly sensitive intel from Trump to prevent leaks to Russia.
February 13th — Flynn is fired immediate after Wapo report proving that he lied, allegedly he’s let go because he lied to Vice President Pence and caused him to be embarrassed about what he said on Meet the Press. WH secret push to cut sanctions goes on hold.
February 14th — Comey & Sessions meet Trump in the Oval for a counter-terrorism briefing. Trump clears the room and gets Comey alone to complain about leaks asking him to prosecute some reporters over it and ask if he can just “Let Flynn go” Comey interprets the request to only be about Flynn not the Russia investigation,
Comey notes this and discusses it with FBI leadership.
The NYTimes reports that Trump aids (including Flynn, Manafort and Page) had repeated contacts with Russian Intelligence according to the NSA and that the FBI had requested they “collect as much information as possible about the Russian operatives on the phone calls” and go through their archives for more information.
February 15th — Intel Agencies with access to foreign intercepts say “Trump Will Die in Jail.”
Comey laters asks Sessions not to leave him alone with Trump again as it’s inappropriate. Comey’s memory of the event is hazy, but he states later Sessions doesn’t really respond. [During later testimony Session claims he repeated back basic DOJ protocols to Comey, which doesn’t answer his concern over why Sessions failed to follow protocol the previous day.]
February 16th — CBS reports that Trump screamed at CIA Director Pompeo over reports that Intel is being withheld from him because of fears he might leak it to Russia.
Pompeo denies any intel is being withheld from Trump.
Trump rage tweets that “Russia” is a made up story by Democrats as an excuse for losing the election.
House Democrats submit bill to prevent removal of Russia sanctions without Congress approval.
February 17th — Trump calls the Press the “Enemies of the American People.”
February 21st — Artemenko talks to a Ukrainian News outlet and reveals that he’s known Michael Cohen for some time since Cohen has an ethanol business in the country, which is also where his wife was born, and that his meeting with Cohen and Sater on Feb 6 wasn’t their first. According to Artemenko, he discussed the “peace-plan” with Cohen and Sater “at the time of the primaries, when no one believed that Trump would even be nominated.”
February 25th — FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe — who began his carrier with the New York Field Office while Trump surrogate Giuliani was Mayor — goes to the White House and in direct violation of DOJ protocols buttonholes Reince Prebus to tell him the NYT article on contacts “Is Bullshit.” [Later reporting seems to hint that the FBI’s objection to the report is the claim that certain contacts were confirmed as part of “Russian Intelligence”, not that the contacts didn’t happen because those were confirmed by James Clapper.]
February 26th —Preibus calls McCabe back and asks him to inform the Press about this as an “anonymous source”, he refuses.
Preibus call his pals Devin Nunez Chairman of the House intelligence committee and Richard Burr Chairman of the Senate Intel Committee who are each former Trump surrogates who are heading up investigations of “Russia” — they do it for him.
Former Bush Ethics Atty Richard Painter files complaint with Government Ethics Office that James Comey violated the Hatch Act by publicly disclosing unsubstantiated information about Abedine’s emails prior to the election.
February 28th — Trump who had essentially called Hillary a “murderer” over Benghazi blames the Generals and Obama for death of Navy Seal in Yemen during raid he himself authorized.
March 1 —it’s discovered that Sessions met with Kislyak twice, in July at the RNC which he attended as a Trump surrogate along with Carter Page and JD. Gordon and in September in his Senate Offices. Nobody notices that he also met him in April.
Sen. Franken asks for Sessions to come back to the Senate to explain, he declines and sends a letter which claims he didn’t understand the question he was asked and didn’t think he was “acting as a surrogate” when he met Kislyak.
March 2 — 100 Democrats demand that Jeff Sessions resign as Attorney General. He doesn’t.
March 4 —Session recuses himself from the Russia investigation.
Trump blows his top that weekend screaming at his staff, throwing Priebus and Bannon off Air Force One for his weekly Mar-A-Lago trip.
March 5th — Trump tweets about being “Wiretapped in Trump Tower by Obama” that morning based on a report from Breitbart and Judge Napolitano on Fox News — Narrative shifts away from Sessions.
James Clapper denies that “Obama Wiretapped Trump.”
March 6th -- Trump issues a revised Muslim travel ban, which no longer blocks immigrants and refugees from Iraq.
March 7th —House Intel committee invites Sally Yates and James Comey to testify about Michael Flynn and Russia.
Michael Hayden denies Trump’s Wiretapped by Obama claims.
Sen. Franken says Session committed perjury.
The Guardian reports that SLC Group and Cambridge Analytics methods of generating micro-targeted alt-news webiverse using data provided by AggregateIQ were used to meddle in the Brexit Vote to encourage “voter disengagement” and “to persuade Democrat voters to stay at home”:
March 8th — British media reports more of the specific contacts by person and date alleged by Steele dossier have been confirmed by independent surveillance, but they do not yet confirm the substance of the conversations.
Flynn finally registers as a foreign agent.
June 20th —
Sen. Whitehouse argues that there is evidence Flynn has been cooperating with Mueller’s investigation for some time.
CNN Reports the Trump pick for FBI director Christopher Wray had edited his online bio to remove reference to a case against Russia.
Bannon says the reason Spicer doesn’t do his briefings on camera : “Sean got fatter.” Which is ironic for a guy who’s fatter than Spicer and doesn’t explain why he won’t allow the audio to be recorded either.
Jason Miller generates excuses for why Trump hasn’t commented on London Mosque attack: “It literally happened just yesterday” when it was 2 days ago, Yesterday was the death of former North Korean prisoner Otto Warmbier, but he commented on that, the Baseball practice shooting and the London Bridge attack immediately.
CBS reports that Trump’s approval is down 11% among Republicans since the end of his first 100 days. 36% approval overall.
“Still Fatter” Spicer does an on camera briefing.
Mueller adds Russian speaking prosecutor to his team.
Sessions lawyers up with an attorney Chuck Cooper, who had previously defended Bob Jones’ University’s ban on interracial dating to supporting job discrimination against those with HIV/AIDS.
Hannity claims new nutbag theory that the intelligence community and mainstream media are planning a “Soft Coup” to undermine Trump. “Deep State”, “Political Witch Hunt” etc
June 21st —
Bloomberg reports a detailed piece by Trump biographer Tim O’Brien on his shady financial ties to Mafia and Russian Mob money through Felix Sater and Bayrock LLC between 2002-2011 including $33 Million in properties sales & rentals of luxury condos in New York, Vegas and Los Angeles to mysterious LLCs since the election.
Don Jr. and Ivanka’s involvement in these deals makes them potential targets for Mueller’s investigations.
Former Homeland Security head Jeh Johnson testifies
He says that “The Russian government, at the direction of Vladimir Putin himself, orchestrated cyber attacks on our nation for the purpose of influencing our election,” he said. “That is a fact, plain and simple.”
But that there’s “No evidence they flipped votes.” which would have been an act of war.
He also says Trump’s “Rigged” talk made it difficult to address the interference Russia created.
Other officials from DHS indicate that voter registration systems in 21 states were attacked.
Spicer says he “hasn’t specifically asked” Trump if he believes Russia interfered with the election.
Telegraph reports that Trump will not be making an official state visit to the UK over the threat of widespread protests for at least two years.
Senate’s new Russia sanctions bill hits a snag on the House rule that any bill that raises revenue must start in the House.
Dems on House Oversight send letter to Preibus to explain why Kushner still has a security clearance?
Kushner flies to Tel Aviv to negotiate with Israel and Palestine.
Lewandowski tells Fox and Friends the Russian collusion investigation “should end immediately” because they’ve found nothing. [That they’ve told us about, Yet. And they won’t say anything until there’s either an indictment or a Grand Jury report to Rosenstein.]
NATO F-16 from Poland buzzes plane carrying Lavrov and shadows it until a Russian SU-22 with air-to-air missiles shows up.
Rachel Maddow highlights that what Homeland security testified isn't just that lots of states were attacked but also that voter registration files in specific counties that leaned heavily Democratic were targeted and some of the poll book software failed on election night in those counties which created excessive delays, long lines and more votes shifted to provisional ballots which aren't always counted — meanwhile personal information for 200 Million U.S. voters were posted on an open server by RNC contractor Deep Root analytics which could have been accessed by anyone who knew the IP or web address.
june 22nd —
Senate releases their version of Trumpcare which is even worse than the house version and immediately loses 4 Republican votes leaving the bill DOA. Senator Collins questions it's Medicaid cuts while Senator Warren says it pays for tax cuts with Blood Money.
Trump finally admits after 41 days, one day before the deadline set by congress for an answer, that he doesn't have any "Tapes" of his conversations with Comey, and had only brought it up to "rattle" him. He seems to claim he had thought Comey himself or the intel community had been taping the conversation in a weird variation on the "Obama taped me in Trump Tower" conspiracy. It never seems to occur to him that if Comey had a recording, he wouldn’t have needed to take notes and write memos about what was said, which is a pretty standard FBI practice.
Election officials report that hackers stole and changed voter registration information during the 2016 election in at least one county in addition to accessing registration systems in 39 states.
Huckabee Sanders says "Everybody agrees the election wasn't influenced by Russia" [No, not really. They didn't change votes, but they did all they could to access their registration data and to trick voters with false news and conspiracy theories.] when finally admitting that the DNC was probably hacked by Russia which everyone actually does say.
Trump staffers reacts to this latest nutty conspiracy theory and the looming backlash over it --"**** my life."
Nunez "I never said I was leaving the Russia investigation for good."
Trump's "Voter Fraud" panel backfires as they starting looking into Russian hacking of election systems.
Pizzagate shooter sentenced to four years in prison.
Preet Bharara signs a book deal
Schiff says that Trump's tweet about the tapes is not enough, 'he's been untruthful before in his tweets.' and that his statement that he doesn't have tapes doesn't cover the rest of the White House.
Coats and Rogers tells House intel that Trump did ask them to “get the word out” about his not being personally under investigation and that there was “no evidence of collusion.” Coats also says Trump is “obsessed with the Russia probe.”
Rand Paul's attempts to claim that Trump really was being surveilled which inspires former CIA agent Phill Mudd to call bullshit on that. Besides the fact that Comey, Coats, Clapper (all under oath) and Michael Hayden have already denied this and said it’s not even possible under the law.
June 23rd —
Wapo releases report that CIA had generated an “Eyes Only” memo for Obama in August that Putin personally ordered the attack on the U.S. election. Trump says "This is the first he's heard of it..." as if he wasn't briefed on exactly this on Jan 6th and Jeh Johnson hadn’t just testified to the same thing two days ago.
Spicer finally admits he talked to Trump about “elections tampering” but doesn’t specifically mention Russia, and claims Trump’s “tape threat” was intended to force Comey to “tell the truth” as if being under oath were meaningless.
Incoming House Oversight Chair Trey Gowdy, replacing Chaffetz, says he’s totally dropping investigation of Russian interference leaving it for Mueller, House Judiciary and Intelligence.
Trump Energy official sends racist tweets calling Obama a “Kenyan creampuff.”
Wapo reports that WH can’t get through to Tillerson on the phone, “he won’t return calls”
Senate Intel opens investigation into faked and already debunked report about Loretta Lynch colluding with Debbie Wasserman-Schultz to shutdown Clinton email investigation.
Trump claims Comey tapes may exists because “Obama taped the White House”, again. [Uh, no he didn’t he taped the Russian ambassador and caught Flynn, which is something he was warned would happen, dumb ***.]
The rollout of new FBI Director Nominee Chris Wray appears to be completely fouled up, already.
Politico reports that Trump blames WH Counsel McGhan for not stopping the Russia probe, somehow.
LATimes reports that Mueller's team includes experts on fraud and money laundering and they seem "Dangerously close to an obstruction case."
Rep. Andy Biggs calls for Mueller to recuse himself because of his close relationship with Comey, who had been his boss as Deputy AG while Mueller was FBI Director. He doesn’t seem to have a problem with the fact that Kushner and Ivanka’s attorney Jamie Gorelick is also a member of Mueller’s law firm.
Kris Kobach from Trump's "Voter Fraud" panel gets sanctioned for "Deceptive Conduct and Lack of Condor"
June 24th —
Russia pushes back on more reports that they meddled in the U.S. elections claiming “We don’t do that, but the U.S. does.”
Trump attacks Obama administration for “doing nothing” to fight Russia attacks, finally admitting that there even was a Russia attack while ignoring that they did respond to the attack on state elections systems reached out diplomatically several times very strongly including face to face with Putin, then implemented sanctions which Trump has been already trying to remove.
June 25th —
Buzzfeed reports that Putin plans to recall Kislyak back to Russia.
Jeffrey Lord says Mueller should hire Michael Cohen — yes, seriously — ignoring the fact that he’s actually been investigating Cohen who has since lawyered up.
Eric Trump again says the DNC Chair Tom Perez is a “Nut Job” and his dad “has done more than any President in History.”
90 Parliament email accounts are attacked by hackers.
Kellyanne Conway refuses to talk about Russian hacks because “It was Obama’s fault for not stopping them” — even though he actually did stop them once he, DHS and the FBI knew about it.
Trump admits calling Elizabeth Warren “Pochahantas” is racist, but does it anyway. He also tweets that “Hillary colluded with the DNC to defeat Bernie” even though that actually didn’t happen at all and is just another Sputnik News talking point.
White House skips Ramadan celebration, because why not?
Adam Schiff and Al Franken criticize Obama’s tepid reaction to Russia prior to the election saying he “coulda, shoulda, woulda” done more. Yeah, ok, that’s good backseat driving there. Like what exactly?
Kushner goes to Palestine and infuriates Prime Minister Abbas enough that they threaten to shutdown talks.
june 26th —
Brit Hume argues that colluding with Russia’s illegal cyber attacks against America wouldn’t be a crime — because “Huh?”
Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) tells Politico that he’s prepared to battle the White House over efforts to water down legislation imposing sanctions against the Russian government.
Trump says that “Obama colluded with Russia” because he “did nothing” when he was informed about the hacking attacks — even though he did plenty & Hume says “collusion wouldn’t be a crime.” Somehow he ignores his own request for Russia to hack and release “Hillary’s emails” and multiple attempts to raise sanctions. He also demands an “apology” claiming the Wapo report disproves collusion by his campaign when that subject wasn’t even addressed in the report.
Spicer says Trump was “only joking” about Russia hacking and releasing Hillary’s emails. Katy Tur puts a match to that B.S. and sets it on fire.
Somehow a Russia media rep. Igor Zorin who only earns $75,000 bought 3 condos worth $5.4 Million from Trump Palace. Shocker.
Supreme Court partially allows Travel Ban —upholding it for all those who filed suit based on “standing” but potentially damaging tourism to the tune of $18 Billion — until they fully hear the case in October.
Wapo reports that Kushner received a $285 Million loan from Deutsche Bank a month before the election for their Times Square building while the bank was facing charges being involved in Russian money laundering.
Kushner in addition to attorney Jamie Gorelick hires powerhouse defense attorney Abbie Lowell who had previously defended Harold Keating, Jack Abramov, Dan Rostenkowski and John Edwards.
2 weeks after claiming they would “immediately” file a complaint against Comey for his “leaking” his own thoughts and recollections to Congress, Kasowitz and Trump’s other attorneys haven’t done it yet.
Nunez admits he was never going to recuse himself from Russia investigation.
Wapo Reports that Trump associate Carter Page was interviewed by the FBI 5 times for a total of 10 hours during March and did so without an attorney.
Spicer announces that the WH has information indicating another possible chemical weapons attack by the Assad regime, but CENTCOM knows nothing about it.
CBO says that Senate TrumpCare bill will leave 22 Million without insurance.
Trump’s re-election campaign pays $50,000 to Donald Jr.’s lawyer Alan Futerfas after he’s contacted by the NYTimes for a comment after they discovered that Kushner’s attorneys had updated his SF86 form to include a meeting called by Don Jr. with a lawyer from Russia.
July 27th -—
Trump’s act bombs at Senate Health care meetings because he has no idea what’s in the bill, or for that matter no idea how health care actually works.
Ryan states that “22 Million don’t really want insurance anyway.”
CNN caves to a $100 Libel lawsuit threat over a single-sourced anonymous story involving Trump team member Anthony Scaramucci and fires three employees, including the reporter Thomas Frank and producer Eric Litchbau on the story.
Reporter Brian Karem unloads on the hypocrisy of Huckabee-Sanders trying to grandstand on Scaramucci story firing, while the WH uses anonymous sources for it’s own counter story.
The law firm of Kushner’s new attorney Abbie Lowell has links to both Sberbank and Rosneft and was one of the first U.S. firms allowed to have offices in Moscow.
Clinton campaign chair John Podesta testifies in closed session to House Intel.
Wapo reports that Manafort has registered as a foreign agent and declared $17 million in profits from Ukrainian groups. This “finally getting right with the law” act fuels rumors that he has or soon intends to flip for Mueller.
Gingrich says Trump should testify, because it’s not like he wouldn’t prat fall into perjury trap that way…Noooo.
Rick Perry talks to the press about the environment and ****. gets. crazy.
CNN medical producer opines on tape made by James O’Keefe that Russia probably a “witch hunt” and that CNN ‘s coverage is over the top. CNN sticks with him as having his own opinion, besides it’s not like aren’t still paying Jeffrey Lord to say the same thing day after day. There is also another video of Van Jones saying “Russia is a nothing burger” — which in terms of Demcractic politics he’s previously said many times.
Sally Yates says Americans should be alarmed at Trump’s behavior even if you assume there “was no collusion.”
Kasowitz puts his complaints about Comey’s “leaks” on indefinite hold.
Senate pushes back vote on Trumpcare until after July 4th recess.
July 28th -—
Trump tweets incoherently about the Washington Post supporting Amazon for not paying “taxes” when they do pay sales taxes in 45 states.
Time magazine asks Trump to remove fake magazine covers from his golf courses.
Sekulow argues that we should have a special prosecutor to investigate Obama’s reaction to Russian hacking and meddling, because that’s logical — in Bizarro World.
Maddow reports that Senate Republicans seem to be investigating the Mueller investigation and are reviewing the Comey Memo’s even though they aren’t investigation obstruction — that’s under Senate Judiciary — perhaps to see if it’s is based entirely on the Steele Dossier in order to use that as a reason to have it shut down.
Senate Intel is also reportedly going through 2,000 documents for Treasury’s FinCEN unit on Trump and his associations and the money ties to Russia.
CREW files a Hatch Act complaint against Nikki Haley for retweeting an endorsement by Trump for Republican Robert Northam to fill the congressional seat vacated by budget director Mick Mulvaney.
CNN reports that Trump’s staff is going increasingly concerned about his lack of concern about what and how Russia hacked us, and whether they might do it again.
Chuck Todd tears into Trump’s press office :”This is nothing less than a war on the truth.”
Ex MTV-VJ Kennedy argues on Fox: “Who cares if 15 Million people will lose Health Care next year, we’re all gonna die anyway?” Yes we will, but not this exact minute. Well, not unless North Korea — well y’know.
Spicer tweets claim that Obamacare has “failed” 28 Million people who still don’t have Health Care and that only TrumpCare is the “solution” to this problem — while the CBO says it will increase that problem another 23 Million by 2026.
June 29th —
Annoyed by criticism from Morning Joe’s Mika saying he’s “Out of his Mind” while discussing a reported loud clash between SecState Tillerson and WH over meddling and interference by Kushner, Trump counters by tweeting that Joe and Mika visited Mar-A-Lago 3 times, and that he refused a personal meeting around New Year’s because Mika was “bleeding from a recent facelift” — pics taken of Mika that same day disprove this. Melania and Huckabee-Sanders give excuses for this crap.
WH aides respond to facelift tweet “At least you’re not reporting we’re going to kill Millions” — yeah, but you are though, if we let you.
MSNBC’s Katy Tur smashes Huckabee-Sanders false claim that “Trump never advocated violence” on the campaign trail point by point.
Republicans respond to “Facelift” tweet with outrage, but still continue to support and vote for Trump proposal despite outrage of the American people. Typical.
Trump prepares to meet privately with Putin at G20 by asking staff to give him “bargaining chips he can trade away.” Might those include “American Sovereignty?
Steven Benen at MSNBC reveals that Trump’s “secret plan” to fight ISIS was a Lie, because his actual plan is to do what Obama was already doing.
Kasowitz law firm under potential scrutiny by Mueller for a $285 Million 2015 real estate deal for Time Square property and refinancing loan between Kushner and Deutsche Bank.
Ryan says Senate must repass their Russia sanctions bill to resolve constitutional issue, but the issue is that revenue bills have to start in the House — so, um, what?
House intel requests a more full response to the question of Comey recordings than just the President’s tweet, which only spoke for him not any recording being kept by the entire White House.
Wall Street Journal reports that GOP operative Peter W. Smith had endeavored to gain stolen Clinton email information for Flynn. He claimed to them, before he died on May 15, to have found two groups with the information and asked them to provide it to Wikileaks. U.S. intel also picks up indications that Russian hackers were actively trying to get access to Clinton’s server to provide those emails to Flynn. Smith acting as an “intermediary” for communications between Russian hackers and Flynn confirms another plank in the Steele Dossier that Kremlin intel had been deliberately supplying Trump with anti-Clinton intel.
Van Jones lays into James O’keefe’s bogus “Nothing Burger” video supposedly “exposing” the CNN host for not really caring that much about the Russia issue compared to other policy issues — an opinion which he’s never hidden.
Hawaii files a new suit against Trump’s Partial Travel Ban/Suspension.
NRA releases a video statement featuring Media Wingnut Dana Leosch that accuses the Left of widespread verbal and other violence against Trump, the Police and the Right. She then goes onto fTucker Carlson to defend and rationalize it.
Deutsche Bank refuses request for Trump financial documents from House Dems for the 2nd time.
Senate passes updated version of their new Russia Sanctions Bill which now includes sanctions on Iran as well.
June 30th -—
TPM reports that Homeland Security hasn’t yet checked the integrity of a single voting machine to ensure none of them were hacked or tampered with.
Joe Scarborough reveals that Mika had told Melania about her facelift and that Trump was so impressed he asked for the name of her doctor 10 times.
Joe also says that Trump had tried to blackmail them into apologizing for their coverage by saying if they did he would spike a negative National Enquirer story about them. Trump rage tweets and accidentally confirms part of their story. If proven these allegations would violate New York Criminal (Coercion), DC Criminal (Bribery) and Federal Criminal Law (Extortion by officers of the U.S.).
Russian Communications Minister Nikolay Nikiforov served notice on Friday that the Russian government would retaliate against U.S. companies if Congress bans the Pentagon from using controversial cyber-security software from Kaspersky Labs.
States reject extreme voter information request from Election Suppression Commission, even Kris Kobach’s own state of Kansas refuses. Huckabee-Sanders says this is only a “political stunt” — but it’s Republican controlled states as well as Democratic that refuse.
July 1st —
UK cyber-analyst Matt Tait reveals he was recruited by Peter Smith to authenticate emails stolen from Clinton’s server by the Russians which were to be provided to Michael Flynn.
Bloomberg reports that Kushner had attempted to buy the National Enquirer along with David Pecker in 2006.
Trump continues his twitter rage-a-thon against Mika and Joe for a 3rd day saying ““Crazy Joe Scarborough and dumb as a rock Mika are not bad people,” and also criticizes MSNBC for firing Greta Van Sustren.
Senate Intel reaches agreement to review the Comey Memos.
Trump “jokes” it would be “Fun to sue CNN” at a fundraiser. He says “These are really dishonest people. Should I sue them? I mean, they’re phonies,” Trump said, according to the recording. “I mean, these are horrible human beings.”
In his 2nd loud clash with WH Officials this week Tillerson apparently had “tense” conversation with Jason Miller who pushed him to take a tougher stance on immigration, while Tillerson demanded independence on how he ran State Dept. affairs.
CBS reports that the Science Division of the WH Office of Technology is now completely unstaffed.
July 2nd —
Trump tweets video of himself body slamming and punching WWE CEO Vince McMahon into a stupor — only edited with the CNN logo covering McMahon’s face which has been posted on Reddit 4 days about by yet another neo-Nazi whose online name is literally HanAssholeSolo. CNN takes it as a literal physical threat. WH laughs saying “you guys can never take a joke.” Kathy Griffin is not consulted on the “Funny Ha Ha” of the thing.
DOJ Corporate Fraud expert quits in disgust because doing her job is simply “not possible under Trump.”
All discussion of the Tait’s revelation about being recruited to review Clinton emails obtained from Russia to provide to Michael Flynn or Trump’s ongoing assault on health care recedes.
July 3rd —
Reporter Jared Yates Sexton who discovered ID of Reddit user “HanAssholeSolo” who created anti-CNN video, begins receiving “gory” death threats and insults from other Alt-Right Neo-Nazis.
David Duke chimes in and justifies threats against “Journalistic terrorists”arguing the press has endorsed violence against him for the last 50 years..
Katrina Peirson claims “By the very nature of being President of the United States, it makes his actions presidential whether you like it or not.”
Former Ted Cruz spokesperson Amanda Carpenter argues the president’s attacks on the press “essentially [hands] a weapon to some of our enemies.”
Trump biographer Tim O’Brien says his tweets aren’t some grand distraction because he’s “not smart enough for that.”
Melania says Mika Brzezski “doesn’t know me” in response to her comments on their feud with Trump to InStyle Magazine.
House Dems back bill that could invoke the 25th Amendment removing Trump if he is found mentally or physically unfit for office.
July 4th —
Florida head of the NAACP found a Confederate flag on her lawn after receiving a series of late-night death threats from callers claiming ties to the Ku Klux Klan.
Trump plans for full “Bilateral” meeting with Putin during G20 Summit, Tillerson plans to do “cleanup” meeting in Ukraine hours later.
41 States refuse to provide information to Kris Kobach’s Voter Suppression commission — and some members begins to quit.
Germany’s Angela Merkel no longer describes America under Trump as “a friend.”
July 5th —
Jack Prosoblec A Pro-Trump activist with White House access releases the phone numbers and home addresses of multiple CNN personalities and their families.
Neo-Nazi hackers then begin to contact the families & parents of various CNN anchors and reporters, including those of Andrew Kaczinski who wrote the HanAssholeSolo story and threaten their lives.
HanAssholeSolo apologizes and promises not to produce more racist memes, Ted Cruz accuses CNN of extortion when they later publish an article about his apology while reserving the right to reveal his ID if he reneges on his promise, Some Trumpers scream “blackmail” but CNN counters that they haven’t published his ID, they won’t since he’s a private citizen and he goes on to contact CNN himself and says “he wasn’t threatened”
Fox contributor Tammy Bruce defends HanAssholeSolo right to be an ******* and criticizes CNN “(He) made this meme that the president picked up, and they decided that they could get their pound of flesh from this individual.”
Don Jr. complains “It was only a matter of time” when CNN reports the Anti-Defamation League statement that the anti-CNN meme may be racist and anti-semitic, claiming they’re “Bullying a 15 year old”, but CNN having found his Facebook page counters that claim “He’s not 15.”
Jr. continues “If only @CNN spent as much time tracking down info on IRS targeting, Fast & Furious, Iran deal etc as they did a meme writer! #CNNBlackmail” but there aren’t any outstanding questions on any of those issues, except for Wingnut conspiracies about them.
Trump supports AT&T/Time Warner deal which some see as a way for him to gain leverage over CNN.
Investigators are looking into scores of Easter European Pro-Trump websites which popped up before the election and published dozens of co-ordinated fake anti-Clinton reports.
July 6th —
Trump supporter charged with criminal mischief for writing “False Flag” graffiti at an Elementary School. [Responding officers found “Kill Trump,” “Left is the best,” “Bernie Sanders 2020” and “Death to Trump” written on a sign in the playground.]
While in Warsaw, Poland for the G20 summit Trump again says “Nobody really knows” who hacked the 2016 election. “I think it was Russia. But I think it was probably other people and/or countries, and I see nothing wrong with that statement. Nobody really knows. Nobody really knows for sure,” Trump said. He argues that “Obama did nothing” and that Bush went to war in Iraq over WMD’s and “was wrong.”
Trump also says that CNN took his wresting video too seriously. “CNN has really taken (the video) too seriously and I think they’ve hurt themselves very badly, very very badly.”
Rep. Adam Schiff blasts Trump’s comments. “The President’s comments today, again casting doubt on whether Russia was behind the blatant interference in our election and suggesting ... that nobody really knows, continue to directly undermine U.S. interests,”
CREW asks the Office of Government Ethics to investigate Kushner’s failure to disclose “his ownership interest in an online real estate investment company called Cadre” in his public financial disclosure.
On Fox and Friend Eric Trump bashes the media saying the DOW and S&P are at the highest level ever but all the media talks about is whether Trump colluded with Russia to meddle in the elections. ”I mean, we’re thriving as a nation. Everybody wants to get focused on nonsense. On garbage. On distractions.”
Walter Schraub head of the Office of Government Ethics who had been a highly vocal critical of Trump’s lack of divestiture from his private businesses abruptly resigns effective July 19th.
Rachel Maddow reports that her show had been sent a faked NSA Document which claimed proof that a specific member of the Trump Campaign had been colluding with Russians. This forged document appears to have been an attempt to discredit her program with planted Fake News which could be easily debunked at a later date.
Right wing editorials slam CNN for suggesting they might reveal the identity of HanAssholeSolo claiming that it’s “Blackmail” in exchange for his not generating racists, violent memes anymore, which pretty much establishes that yet again the Rightwing (Hearts) Racism & Sexism.
July 7th —
Trump meets Putin privately for two hours in Warsaw during the G20.
Putin says he “didn’t hack our election” and Trump believes him according to Lavrov, but Tillerson disagrees.
According to Lavrov, “Trump told Putin that some circles in the US are exaggerating the topic of Russian cyber meddling.”
Tillerson claimed he sent Melania into the meeting to break it up after first hour, but they just kept talking for another hour.
Donald Trump agreed to form a joint task force with the Russians to address cyber security, which is a bit like the bank inviting the thieves in to look around and hang out.
They don’t reach an agreement on how to handle North Korean’s increasingly aggressive missile and nuclear program.
They do reach an agreement on a cease fire in southern Syria.
They talk for so long both of them skip out of the Climate Change/Energy meeting.
California Govorner Jerry Brown shows up at G20 and shreds Trump at climate meeting he skipped. “(Trump) doesn’t speak for the rest of America”
Trump tweets that Podesta didn’t let FBI have the DNC server when Podesta actually didn’t have any jurisdiction over anything the DNC did or didn’t do. Podesta hits back with “Get a Grip Man.”
Trump State Dept grants Visas to 150 Russian Spies.
Ivanka temporarily sits in Trump’s place at one G20 summit table, the internet goes nuts.
July 8th —
NyTimes reveals the secret June 9, 2016 meeting between Don Jr., Manafort and Kushner with a prominent Russia lawyer who is known for being an agent of the Russian government. Supposedly they discuss the U.S. adoption of Russian children which had been suspended by Putin after the passage of the Magnitsky Act blacklisting Russian’s with Human Rights violations.
Donald Jr. tweets an edited video of Top Gun footage that shows Trump shooting down planes marked with CNN and says it’s “One of the best I’ve seen.”
Wapo reports that Russian hackers had accessed networks for American Nuclear and Energy companies.
While flying back from the G20 on Air Force One WH staffers begin to craft an “accurate” statement of response to the Time report about Junior and Veselniskaya, Trump himself intervenes and dictates a false story for them to release that the meeting was primarily about “Adoption”. Jared who later claims he was only at the meeting long enough to hear about the adoption portion and had left early before the Magnitski act came up is present on AF1 at this time, Junior isn’t.
July 9th —
Instead of a post summit Press Conference Trump has a tweet-gasm…
Claiming he accepted Putin’s denial of being involved in the election hacks.
He wants to partner with Russia on Cyber Security concerns
He again attacks the DNC for not letting the FBI (and he includes the CIA for some reason) have their email server even though they really didn’t need it.
And also attacks Obama for doing “nothing” about the hacks [that is besides getting in Putin’s face, shoring up our cyber defenses, informing congress, having DHS and the DNI announce that we’d been attacked and devising a new set of sanctions as well as kicking out 35 spies out and takin over 2 Russian compounds]
Kasowitz files motion to dismiss a sexual harassment and defamation suit from a former “Apprentice” contestant against Trump arguing he now has “immunity” and that his comments insulting his various accusers were simply “Free Speech”
Russia expert and investigative reporter Michael Weiss argues that doing a cyber security unit with Putin is like “having an arsonist in charge of the fire brigade.” Fox and Fools says the idea is “actually Genius.” Social media suggests El Chapo and Charles Manson as next members of this crack Cyber Security Unit.
Some GOP Senators coming back from july 4th recess say that Trumpcare is probably dead. McConnell hints that he may attempt to work with Democrats to strengthen the ACA individual market and exchanges.
The NYTimes reports that Donald Jr. was offered damaging information on Hillary Clinton before attending a meeting with a Kremlin-linked Russian Lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya last June with Manafort and Kushner, but they do not confirm that she actually delivered this information during the meeting. [If that information was provided and it originated as a result of Russian cyber-espionage — we have Collusion Sign once again, particularly if it was offered in exchange for a repeal of the Magnitsky act which sanctions Russian individuals for Human Rights violations.’]
Trump’s legal team says he “was unaware and did not attend” the meeting with Veselnitskaya.
Bush ethics lawyer Richard Painter says Don Jr & Kushner’s actions in attending the Veselnitskaya meeting to get opposition research on Clinton “border on Treason.” Also, potentially, the Logan Act again.
Outgoing Ethics Chief Walter Shaub notes that part of why he’s leaving his post early is that while attempting to do his job he got nothing but stonewalling and even a “explicit threat” from Reince Preibus.
Trump begins his tweet walkback on the Cyber Security Unit: “The fact that President Putin and I discussed a Cyber Security unit doesn't mean I think it can happen. It can't-but a ceasefire can,& did!” [Uh, what?]
July 10th —
Don Jr. issues a statement — changing his previous claims that there were “No meetings”, and his second claim that it was about “adoptions” — that he went to this meeting because he was asked by a friend he’d met during the Moscow Miss Universe pageant in 2013 and admits he went because of he promise of “helpful information”. He didn’t know Veselnitskaya previously, she talked about Russians funding the DNC (which would be illegal) in order to help Hillary Clinton but her claims were “vague and made no sense” and after discussing Russian adoption and the Magnitski act he ended the meeting after 20 mins because Trump wasn’t public official yet [which avoids a Logan Act violation].
Common Cause files a complaint about Don Jr. “Solicitiing a contribution from a foreign national” with the FEC.
Junior goes on to repeatedly like tweets that say he attended the meeting to get “dirt” on Clinton which doesn’t help his case at all.
Brit Hume insist “Don Jr. was tricked by a Russian bait and switch” but there’s no evidence of collusion. [Yeah, except that he jumped at the bait until he decided it was worthless and not harmful enough to Clinton which was kinda collusion-ish.]
Kellyanne goes on George Stephanapoulos and gets caught in her previous statements that there were “no contacts or meetings” with Russians. George asks “Who misled you?” on the details of these meetings.
Kellyanne also talks to Chris Cuomo and whines endlessness that CNN doesn’t give Trump any positive coverage — although they do. [I mean, not all day long for 10 hours straight on show after show, but they mention the other stuff sometimes.] She tries to do an infomercial about “Trump the Great” on VA reform, the Opiod crisis and Infrastructure, Cuomo counters that Don Jr.’s statement is an admission that Russians were trying to ingratiate themselves into the Trump campaign, whether they succeeded that particular time is besides the point [And they apparently did succeed later with multiple undisclosed Kushner/Flynn meetings with Kislyak and others.) “Don Jr. changed his story twice, that’s what matters” Cuomo says. She keeps whining for more positive coverage “Your panelists roll their eyes and furrow their brows, they need to be more balanced” as if they don’t have Jeffrey Lord, Jason Miller, Jack Kingston, Rick Santorum and other Pro-Trump sycophants on every day. He says “You rally people to attack the press and our families” which they have.
Keith Olbermann pulls up an old Trump tweet that he says shows Trump knew Manafort and Don Jr. meet with Veselnitskaya because later that day was the first time he said “33,000 of Hillary’s emails were missing.”
FBI says about half (4 of 7) of Comey’s memos contain sensitive or confidential information indicating his sharing some of them with Senate investigators may be problematic even though he testified that he created all the memos as “Unclassified”, this means that he is now suffering from the same after-the-fact “up classification” problem that plagued Hillary Clinton and her emails. Ironic.
Trump retweets a Fox and Friends segment that claims Comey revealed classified information to the media in his memos, when in fact the media doesn’t even have his memos, Mueller does. Senate intel had only reached an agreement to see them just last week and hasn’t fully reviewed them yet.
Rep. Schiff say House Intel wants to question Don Jr. as does Sen. Susan Collins who wants him to talk to the Senate Intel committee. Donnie tweets he’ll be happy to talk to Senate Intel.
Congressional staffers tell the Daily Beast that Treasury officials have attempted to water down the Senate’s New Sanctions Bill against Russia. Tillerson supposedly argued it would “handicap their desire to repair the relationship between the two nations.”
After Trump tweets that if Chelsea Clinton had been a place holder for her mother as Ivanka had been for him at the G20 the “Fake media would have said Chelsea for Prez” — during an audio only briefing a WH reporters asks Huckabee-Sanders when he’ll finally put “Bill and Hillary in the rear view mirror?”
Chelsea hits back saying her Father and Mother “Never would have asked her” to do such a thing and never have.
Former watergate assistant prosecutor Nick Akerman echoes Richard Painter’s call that Don Jr. actions may have “betrayed the United States” and could be considered “Treason.”
Former CIA spy Lindsay Moran says that she has seen the Russian government use these kinds of tactics in the past on American citizens, “Legality aside, this is Russian intelligence tactics at their best,” she said. “Let’s promise Trump Jr. something that he wants, lure him in, bait and switch. It doesn’t matter whether they talked about nefarious activities with him at the meeting — the whole thing is nefarious.”
Don Jr. sarcastically tweets admitting he went to get the opposition research info on Clinton that he’s “the first campaign rep to have a meeting to get information on an opponent” {Yes, he would be for information From Russia!!’]
Then Don Jr. lawyers up. His new attorney is best known for defending the Mafia.
On CNN Jennifer Taub of the Vermont Law School says that “A campaign taking anything of value from a foreign national” is a crime, and even attempting to do so by going to the meeting would be “conspiracy” to violate campaign finance laws. A Trump friendly former U.S. attorney disagrees, but then this wouldn’t be an issue under the DOJ, it would be under the FEC.
The Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) prohibits any foreign national from contributing, donating or spending funds in connection with any federal, state, or local election in the United States, either directly or indirectly. It is also unlawful to help foreign nationals violate that ban or to solicit, receive or accept contributions or donations from them. Persons who knowingly and willfully engage in these activities may be subject to fines and/or imprisonment.
Sen. Mark Warner the ranking Democrat on the Intel Committee does a press conference and says “This isn’t the first time the public has seen clear evidence of an attempt by the Trump campaign to obtain information from Russia against the Clinton campaign. It’s a continuing pattern.” He also points out the Jared Kushner has already had to amend his security clearance forms twice because he keep “forgetting” to include meetings like this with Russians.
Iraq declares victory over ISIS in Mosul.
Sen. Chuck Schumer calls on Trump and Don Jr. to “Stop Lying.”
Maggie Haberman at the NYTimes reports that the initial email to Don Jr. about meeting Veselnitskaya noted that the information came from the Russian Government, which pretty much blows up all the Trump denials that they never “colluded” with Russia, since they obviously went to the meeting knowing that it was info against Clinton that came from the Kremlin. What he should have done when he got that email was go straight to the FBI, but he didn’t.
July 11th —
Don Jr. releases his emails with Rob Goldstone, pre-empting another New York Times report on them. They completely confirm Haberman’s previous report that they were told Veselnitskaya was a “Government Lawyer” from Russia and the information was provided by the “Crown Prosecutor” of Russia because the Russian Government “wanted to help Trump.”
Veselnitskaya talks to NBC and denies she ever worked for the Russian government or tried to tell Trump Jr. anything about Clinton but that “they wanted it very badly.”
Harvard Law Prof Laurence Tribe says ““We now have the proverbial smoking gun: TJr was part of criminal conspiracy to violate fed crim laws banning foreign aid to any US campaign,”
Jared Yates Sexton who’d’ been working on this story for a year concurs with Tribe: “This is the dumbest and biggest crime in the history of American politics. There's not even a close second.”
Trump priases his son’s transparency. “My son is a high quality person.”’
Huckabee-Sanders stonewalls all questions about Trump jr. during an audio-only press conference, referring questions about him to his lawyer, but she still stands by the “no one colluded” claim she made the previous day.
Reports surface that some WH aides are considering lawyering up.
Rep. Marsha Blackburn says “Maybe Trump Jr. was duped.”
Ted Cruz blames all this Russia stuff on “Barack Obama.”
Fox News tries to spin Don Jr. email dump — then gives up on it when they get to the part where Jr. responds ‘If it’s what you say, I love it.’” when he reads that the Russian government wants to provide Trump information against Clinton in order to help their campaign.
Fox and Friends retracts their claim that Comey shared Top Secret information with the Press. “We were mistaken.”
Politico reports that Peter W. Smith’s attempts to gain access to Hillary’s emails involved a White Supremacist who had been banned from Twitter for his racism.
Julian Assange admits that he tried to give Don jr. advise to publish his emails through Wikileaks.
Some on the media argue that the leaks on Don Jr’s emails are coming from Steve Bannon in order to protect Kushner.
Wapo reports that GOP operatives close to Trump are building a “discredit team” to smear reporters.
Daily Beast reports that Bill Browder will testify before Senate Judiciary on how Veselnitskaya is linked to the GRU, FSB and efforts to lower the Magnitski Act sanctions.
joe Scarborough announces on Colbert that he’s leaving the Republican party to become and Independent.
CNN report Special Counsel Bob Mueller was unaware of Juniors meeting with Veselniskaya, but will now be investigating.
July 12th —
The intercept reports that Trump is still the principle on many of his businesses despite his claims to have handed over control to his family. [Liar, Liar, super long tie on fire.]
Rep Brad Sherman (D-CA) and Al Green (D-TX) file articles of Impeachment against Trump over his handling of the firing of James Comey.
Sen Franken rips defense of Donald Jr. to shreds during confirmation hearing for FBI director nominee Christopher Wray in response to a claim by Lindsey Graham that the Ukraine tried to give information to Hillary Clinton’s campaign. [Although this wasn’t the Ukrainian government sending an operative to reach out to Clinton, it was an effort to gather information on Paul Manafort by DNC consultant Alexandra Chalupa who is Ukrainian-American. That’s oppo research due diligence by an American, not a foreign government trying to interfere with a U.S. election.]
Sen Graham asks Wray if Mueller is on a “Witch Hunt” — he says “Director Mueller is not on a Witch Hunt.” He also says “Any threat or promise to help a campaign by a foreign government, the FBI would want to know.”
Senate Judiciary Chair Grassley prepares to call Manafort to testify.
Rep. Steve King threatens to re-open investigation of 65k emails of Anthony Weiner, Comey’s “activities” and Hillary’s emails if Democrats don't stop talking about Trump and Russia. [Go for it, punk!]
Emin Agalarov’s attorney Scott Balber gets smashed on live TV by Chris Cuomo over Emin's promoter Rob Goldstone “Do you know him to a a pathological liar?” and his attempt to give Don Jr. negative information on Hillary: Balber says it’s “Simply fiction that this was an attempt by the Russian government to reach Trump through having his son’s pop music publicist, the prosecutor never talked to his father.” Cuomo says about Goldstone’s claim: “That is some doozy of a lie.”
Cuomo also takes on Sekulow over Don Jr. and tells him “You have no facts!”
McClatchy reports that House, Senate and DOJ investigators are looking at whether the Russian cyberbot and Troll program to spread fake news about Hillary as reported by Time was coordinated using Jared Kushner voter micro-targeting system with Cambridge Analytics. Former Pentagon expert on Russia Mike Carpenter states ““There appears to have been significant cooperation between Russia’s online propaganda machine and individuals in the United States who were knowledgeable about where to target the disinformation,” he said, without naming any American suspects.
Democratic party donors and some staff have sued the Trump campaign and Roger Stone for conspiring to publicly release their private information through the dumping of data stolen from the DNC by Russian hackers through DCLeaks and Wikileaks. The suit doesn’t contain any hard evidence of conspiracy but it does seek to depose witnesses and do discovery of Trump campaign emails.
WSJ reports that US intel is reviewing intercepts they captured in 2015 before his run for the President of Russian intel personnel discussing contacts with Trump associates.
DOJ misses a court ordered deadline to provide all of Jeff Sessions foreign contacts.
Trump tells Pat Roberson that Putin “wanted Clinton to win because of the Military and Energy.” He doesn’t mention sanctions, human rights, Crimea, Ukraine, NATO or the EU.
During a Reuters interview Trump says he didn’t know about Junior meeting Veselnitskaya and argues “most people would have taken that meeting.” [Uh, nope.]
July 13th —
NyTimes reports that Kushner has updated his security forms for foreign contacts 3 times and added more than 100 new names to the list.
Republican Rep. Bill Flores says that Trump should get his kids, including Kushner, out of the White House.
DOJ delivers Sessions foreign contact list a day late and short of details.
Asked about Trump Jr’s meeting and his FBI director nominee’s claim that anyone in that situation “should contact the FBI” while in France for Bastille Day Trump echoes his own false story that he previous dictated for Junior on AF1 says “most people would have taken that meeting”, “nothing happened, they talked about adoptions which wasn’t part of the campaign” and claims she wasn’t a “Government Lawyer” even though Junior was specifically told that she was and this was part of the Russian government’s effort to help his campaign, he ignores FEC rules over foreign “gifts and contributions” then he blames Veselnitskaya even being in the country on Loretta Lynch (ignoring that her Visa was approved by the State Dept, not DOJ, because she was a Denys Katsyv’s defense attorney while he was being sued under the Magnitski Act)
Chuck Grassley sends Junior a letter requesting he testify before Senate Judiciary.
After first saying he’d only just heard of the Veselnitskaya meeting 2 days ago Trump changes his tune later in the day, telling reporters on Air Force One: “In fact maybe it was mentioned at some point,” This statement was supposed to be off the record, but Trump changed and put it on the record.
Chicago Tribune reports that GOP Donor and operative Peter W. Smith who had tried to acquire Hillary’s emails for Michael Flynn committed suicide 10 days after talking to WSJ.
Yahoo News reports that Trump’s attorneys were informed about the meeting 3 weeks ago after the emails referring to it were discovered by Kushner’s lawyers who then updated his SF-86 form.
Senate Intel member James Lankford (R-OK) reveals that Kushners attendance at the Veselnitskaya meetings was known as far back as April, when he updated his background check forms.
Kushner explodes with WH Press staff saying that instead of letting Trump and Juniors lawyers respond to these issues they need to aggressively defend Don Jr. and have two staffers ready to “attack the Chyrons”on Cable News shows and have op-eds written for the NYtimes and WSJ. Some reports are that Spicey has begun complaining about Kush and still others say these conversations just didn’t happen. [Yeah, alrighty.]
Kasowitz blows his stack at an email critic: “I’m on you now. You are ******* with me now. Let’s see who you are. Watch your back, *****.” Charming.
TPM reports that Trump Deputy Sebastian Gorka is a Nazi Worshipper, cuz of course he is.
Many reporters note that there are references to a phone call between Don Jr. and Emin in the emails chain, and also that Goldstone’s mention of the Russian governments efforts to help Trump seem nonchalant as if that was an already known fact to Don Jr.
Michael Isakoff reveals on CNN that he had interviewed Rob Goldstone and learned that the Trump’s and Agalarov’s had a deal for a new Trump Tower in 2013 that went sideways in 2014 when Obama placed sanctions on Russia for their invasion of Crimea.
Glenn Simpson co-owner of the firm Fusion GPS which had employed Christopher Steel while he compiled his dossier on Trump declines an invitation to testify before Senate Judiciary.
July 14 —
Harvard Law Prof Laurence Tribe says ““We now have the proverbial smoking gun: TJr was part of criminal conspiracy to violate fed crim laws banning foreign aid to any US campaign,”
Jared Yates Sexton who’d’ been working on this story for a year concurs with Tribe: “This is the dumbest and biggest crime in the history of American politics. There's not even a close second.”
Trump priases his son’s transparency. “My son is a high quality person.”’
Huckabee-Sanders stonewalls all questions about Trump jr. during an audio-only press conference, referring questions about him to his lawyer, but she still stands by the “no one colluded” claim she made the previous day.
Reports surface that some WH aides are considering lawyering up.
Rep. Marsha Blackburn says “Maybe Trump Jr. was duped.” Hm, ya think?
Ted Cruz blames all this Russia stuff on “Barack Obama.”
Fox News tries to spin Don Jr. email dump — then gives up on it when they get to the part where Jr. responds ‘If it’s what you say, I love it.’” when he reads that the Russian government wants to provide Trump information against Clinton in order to help their campaign.
Fox and Friends retracts their claim that Comey shared Top Secret information with the Press. “We were mistaken.” [No ****, Sherlock.]
Politico reports that Peter W. Smith’s attempts to gain access to Hillary’s emails involved a White Supremacist who had been banned from Twitter for his racism.
Julian Assange admits that he tried to give Don jr. advise to publish his emails through Wikileaks.
Some on the media argue that the leaks on Don Jr’s emails are coming from Steve Bannon in order to protect Kushner.
Wapo reports that GOP operatives close to Trump are building a “discredit team” to smear reporters.
Daily Beast reports that Bill Browder will testify before Senate Judiciary on how Veselnitskaya is linked to the GRU, FSB and efforts to lower the Magnitski Act sanctions.
William Browder, an American financier who has investigated Russian corruption for more than a decade, will brief the Senate Judiciary Committeeat a hearing next week on the lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya’s ties to the Russian government—including to former top members of the GRU and the FSB, two of the Kremlin’s main intelligence agencies. Those ties were spelled out in documents that Browder shared with the committee and provided to The Daily Beast this week.
joe Scarborough announces on Colbert that he’s leaving the Republican party to become and Independent.
CNN reports Special Counsel Bob Mueller was unaware of Juniors meeting with Veselniskaya, but will now be investigating. [Ruh Roh!]
The intercept reports that Trump is still the principle on many of his businesses despite his claims to have handed over control to his family. [Liar, Liar, super long tie on fire.]
Rep Brad Sherman (D-CA) and Al Green (D-TX) file articles of Impeachment against Trump over his handling of the firing of James Comey.
Sen Franken rips defense of Donald Jr. to shreds during confirmation hearing for FBI director nominee Christopher Wray in response to a claim by Lindsey Graham that the Ukraine tried to give information to Hillary Clinton’s campaign. [Although this wasn’t the Ukrainian government sending an operative to reach out to Clinton, it was an effort to gather information on Paul Manafort by DNC consultant Alexandra Chalupa who is Ukrainian-American. That’s oppo research due diligence by an American, not a foreign government trying to interfere with a U.S. election.]
Sen Graham ask Wray if Mueller is on a “Witch Hunt” — he say “Director Mueller is not on a Witch Hunt.” He also says “Any threat or promise to help a campaign by a foreign government, the FBI would want to know.”
Senate Judiciary Chair Grassley prepares to call Manafort to testify.
Rep. Steve King threatens to re-open investigation of 65k emails of Anthony Weiner, Comey’s “activities” and Hillary’s emails if Democrats don't stop talking about Trump and Russia. [Go for it, punk!]
Emin Agalarov’s attorney Scott Balber gets smashed on live TV by Chris Cuomo over Emin's promoter Rob Goldstone “Do you know him to a a pathological liar?” and his attempt to give Don Jr. negative information on Hillary: Balber says it’s “Simply fiction that this was an attempt by the Russian government to reach Trump through having his son’s pop music publicist, the prosecutor never talked to his father.” Cuomo says about Goldstone’s claim: “That is some doozy of a lie.”
Cuomo also takes on Sekulow over Don Jr. and tells him “You have no facts!”
McClatchy reports that House, Senate and DOJ investigators are looking at whether the Russian cyberbot and Troll program to spread fake news about Hillary as reported by Time was coordinated using Jared Kushner voter micro-targeting system with Cambridge Analytics. Former Pentagon expert on Russia Mike Carpenter states ““There appears to have been significant cooperation between Russia’s online propaganda machine and individuals in the United States who were knowledgeable about where to target the disinformation,” he said, without naming any American suspects.
Democratic party donors and some staff have sued the Trump campaign and Roger Stone for conspiring to publicly release their private information through the dumping of data stolen from the DNC by Russian hackers through DCLeaks and Wikileaks. The suit doesn’t contain any hard evidence of conspiracy but it does seek to depose witnesses and do discovery of Trump campaign emails.
WSJ reports that US intel is reviewing intercepts they captured in 2015 of Russian intel personnel discussing contacts with Trump associates.
DOJ misses a court ordered deadline to provide all of Jeff Sessions foreign contacts.
Trump tells Pat Roberson that Putin “wanted Clinton to win because of the Military and Energy.” He doesn’t mention sanctions, human rights, Crimea, Ukraine, NATO or the EU.
During a Reuters interview Trump says he didn’t know about Junior meeting Veselnitskaya and argues “most people would have taken that meeting.” [Uh, nope.]
NyTimes reports that Kushner has updated his security forms for foreign contacts 3 times and added more than 100 new names to the list.
Republican Rep. Bill Flores says that Trump should get his kids, including Kushner, out of the White House.
DOJ delivers Sessions foreign contact list a day late and short of details. He continues to claim that Foreign contacts he made as a member of the Senate are not relevant and are therefore redacted, but that’s not an option available on the form.
Asked about Trump Jr’s meeting and his FBI director nominee’s claim that anyone in that situation “should contact the FBI” while in France for Bastille Day Trump says again repeating the false statement he himself helped craft on AF1 that “most people would have taken that meeting”, “nothing happened, they talked about adoptions which wasn’t part of the campaign” and claims she wasn’t a “Government Lawyer” even though Junior was specifically told that she was and this was part of the Russian government’s effort to help his campaign, he ignores FEC rules over foreign “gifts and contributions” then he blames Veselnitskaya even being in the country on Loretta Lynch (ignoring that her Visa was approved by the State Dept, not DOJ, because she was a Denys Katsyv’s defense attorney while he was being sued under the Magnitski Act)
Chuck Grassley sends Junior a letter requesting he testify before Senate Judiciary.
After first saying he’d only just heard of the Veselnitskaya meeting 2 days ago Trump changes his tune later in the day, telling reporters on Air Force One: “In fact maybe it was mentioned at some point,” This statement was supposed to be off the record, but Trump changed and put it on the record.
Chicago Tribune reports that GOP Donor and operative Peter W. Smith who had tried to acquire Hillary’s emails for Michael Flynn committed suicide 10 days after talking to WSJ.
Yahoo News reports that Trump’s attorneys were informed about the meeting 3 weeks ago after the emails referring to it were discovered by Kushner’s lawyers who then updated his SF-86 form.
Senate Intel member James Lankford (R-OK) reveals that Kushners attendance at the Veselnitskaya meetings was known as far back as April, when he updated his background check forms.
Kushner explodes with WH Press staff saying that instead of letting Trump and Juniors lawyers respond to these issues they need to aggressively defend Don Jr. and have two staffers ready to “attack the Chyrons” on Cable News shows and have op-eds written for the NYtimes and WSJ. Some reports are that Spicey has begun complaining about Kush and still others say these conversations just didn’t happen. [Yeah, alrighty.]
Kasowitz blows his stack at an email critic: “I’m on you now. You are ******* with me now. Let’s see who you are. Watch your back, *****.” Charming.
TPM reports that Trump Deputy Sebastian Gorka is a Nazi Worshipper, cuz of course he is.
Many reporters note that there are references to a phone call between Don Jr. and Emin in the emails chain, and also that Goldstone’s mention of the Russian governments efforts to help Trump seem nonchalant as if that was an already known fact to Don Jr.
Michael Isakoff reveals that he had interviewed Rob Goldstone and learned that the Trump’s and Agalarov’s had a deal for a new Trump Tower in 2013 that went sideways in 2014 when Obama placed sanctions on Russia for their invasion of Crimea.
Daily Beast reports that in addition to the “translator” who came with Veselnitskaya to the meeting with Don Jr. there was Rinat Akhmetshin a former Russian Intelligence officer and lobbyist who had previously been accused of being involved in an international hacking scheme.
On Fox both Lou Hobbs while appearing on Hannity and Jesse Waters accuse the “deep state” and “left wing” media of attempting a “coup d’etat” against Trump to undermine American values and “break the will of the people” even though the actual majority of the people voted against Trump.
Loretta Lynch denies she had any personal involvement or knowledge of Veselnitskaya’s Visa status, and she shouldn’t because that wasn’t. her. job. the State Dept. under John Kerry handled Visas at that time and her’s was approved at least as far back as 2013 when Bharara first issued his Magnitski suit against the Prevezon Holdings.
GOP strategist Rick Wllson says “Only Trump’s hypnotized base believes his Bullshit Tornado about Russia.” [Yep, pretty much.’]
Trump digital media expert Brad Pascale issues a statement in response to House and Senate intel requests to speak to him that he has ‘no knowledge of Russian involvement” in the online campaign he put together with Cambridge-Analytica.
Rep.Adam Schiff calls for everyone from the Veselnitskaya meeting to testify to the House Intel. [Which is now at 8 people and counting...]
The New Republic publishes an extensive story on TrumpCos long history of being involved in money laundering with Russian mobsters going all the way back to 1987.
Former Trump communications aid Michael Caputo agrees with CNN that the Trump Campaign was too much of a ‘**** Show” to have been able to effectively coordinate with the Russians. [Do Tell.]
Caputo testifies behind closed doors to House Intel, claims he saw no links to discussions of Russia, that little old ladies used to bring them “dog-eared papers” on Clinton, and condemns Rep. Jackie Spieres for linking him to Russia saying that it caused his wife and family to receive death threats, and that someone threatened to burn his house down. “The Rhetoric is going to get someone killed and I don’t want to be the next one shot” which is pretty ironic since Jackie Spiere’s was shot 5 times while she was a staffer for Rep. Leo Ryan when he was killed near the Jim Jones compound in Guyana.
Akhmetshin claims he has never worked for Russian intelligence or the GRU, his simply served 2 years in the Russian army before immigrating to the U.S. and becoming a citizen and working as a lobbyist, but says that Veselnitskaya brought a plastic folder with documents showing the DNC accepting funds from Russia to the meeting. All this despite a letter written from Sen. Grassley to SecDEf Kelly about Akhmetshin being and “unregistered” lobbyist who had previously experience as an “active measures expert” with the GRU.
Veselnitskaya admits that she is a former prosecutor and is in regular contact with the Prosecutor General of Russia Yuri Chaika, who is controversial for trumping up bogus charges against Putin’s enemies and having them tortured and killed in prisonthe same way the Sergei Magnitski was killed.
Kushner Lawyer Jamie Gorelick is reported by Politico to be backing out of Kushner’s issues with Mueller and leaving everything to Abbie Lowell
July 15th —
WH announces “Made In America Week” but has no answer when asked if that means that Ivanka’s clothing line which is made overseas will be moving their manufacturing to the U.S. The WaPo then pointed out that Trump branded products are made in at least a dozen countries.
The Hill reports that there were 150,000 hack attempts were made against South Carolina’s voter registration system, indications are that they were not successful.
Secret Service smacks down Sekolow — “That meeting was never cleared with us.”
Trump’s lawyer Sekolow blames the Veselnitskaya/Akhmetshin meeting on the Secret Service even though no one who was a protectee at that time was in the meeting. He also claims he and Trump weren’t involved in the crafting of Don Jr’s initial and false statements about the meeting, but that is a lie since Trump dictated and approved it from AF1.
Daily Beast reports that Don Jr.’s lawyer Alan Futerfas had been paid $50,000 by the Trump re-election campaign 11 days before the first report about his Veselnitskaya meeting. Furteras is best known for having been the attorney for all four of New York’s most notorious organized crime families.
July 16th —
Trump whines on Twitter about all the attention on Don Jr’s meeting and accuses Hillary of “illegally” deleting emails even after the FBI said it wasn’t illegal, and his own companies have repeated deleted emails and documents under court order, and getting debate questions ahead of time which also isn’t illegal particularly when Clinton wasn’t even asked the same questions that were wrongfully forwarded to her meanwhile he was warned about Meghan Kelly’s first debate question and had threatened her not to ask it or else his twitter followers would come after her, which they did.
July 17th —
Spicer proclaims that there was nothing in Juniors email that shows the meeting wasn’t about Abortion and the Magnitski Act [which he mis-pronounces as “Maginski Act”] — except everything Junior released five days ago and also what Trump said on Bastille day and tweeted about admiring that it was about obtaining “Oppo research.”
CNN talks to Junior’s Lawyer Futerfas and he says he talked to the 8th man in the meeting who was a rep for the Agalarov Family, even though their lawyers Scott Balber says they basically had nothing to do with anything, This person confirms that the meeting started off being about Russia giving money to the DNC, but he doesn’t confirm that a 2 page document was left behind by Veselnitskaya for Junior.
The Senate Trumpcare Bill coughs and dies as 2 more Repub Senators come out against it dropping them to 48 votes. Trump calls for a full repeal of O-care with a two year delay for them to “figure something out” also known as magically skipping over the 2018 midterm elections.
Fox’s Judge Anthony Napolitano who was the primary source of Trump’s bogus “Obama Wiretapped Trump Tower using GCHQ” claim, comes out and says that Junior probably broke the law. “Because it is suspicious that they met with these people, that they didn’t consult a lawyer, that one of these people was a former KGB, GRU, that’s the Russian intelligence arm, Russian military intelligence arm, and didn’t tell anybody about it.” [Yeah, ya think?’’]
WSJ Editoral “Eviscerates” Trump over the entire Russia scandal saying “Mr. Trump and his family are repeating the mistakes that doomed Mrs. Clinton.Don Jr. released his emails that showed the Russian lure about Mrs. Clinton and Don Jr. all excited—’I love it.’ Oh, and son-in-law Jared Kushner and Beltway bagman Paul Manafort were also at the meeting. Don Jr. told Sean Hannity this was the full story,” they continued. “But then news leaked that a Russian-American lobbyist was also at the meeting.”
July 18th —
The 8th man finally appears and is revealed to be a naturalized Russian-American, Ike Kaveladze, working in the U.S. for a Russian real estate company owned by the Agalarov’s who is represented by Emin’s Lawyer Scott Balber. Balber says he was there to act as a translator, but that Veselnitskaya brought her own translator (person #7) and that he’d been contacted by Mueller’s office about the ID of the 8th man. Congress and the GAO had previously investigated Kaveladze as a “foreigner creating shell companies” exactly like the types of money laundering schemes that have been used by the Russian Mob and Intel services.
Trumpcare finally implodes as more Republican Senator balk at their bullshit plan. Trump whines and blames Democrats for not helping destroy healthcare for 22-23 Million people even though the entire point of using the reconciliation process was to avoid needing any Dem votes. He says he’s now “let Obamacare fail” while in fact he’s already been sabotaging it by messing with cost sharing reductions and driving providers out of the marketplace.
Mueller ok’s the Senate Judiciary committees to talk to Junior and Manafort in an open hearing. [Is this because he’s already talked to both of them?]
It’s revealed that during a dinner at the G20 Trump again spoke with Putin for another hour without disclosing it, this time without any other Americans or aides present so there is no record or documentation of what was said.
Fox WH correspondent John Roberts walks out of Huckabee-Sanders briefing early and when she notes his departure from the podium he slaps back “‘If it was on camera, I might not be.’ Generating “Ooohs” from the pool.
Sean Hannity whines about Shep Smith’s criticism of Trump “Some voices on Fox drive me nuts. Shep is so anti-Trump.”
Chris Christie says that it was “probably illegal” to receive oppo research from a foreign government but that Don Jr. is not smart enough to collude with the Russians.
July 19th —
Scarborough says about Trump’s second Putin meeting: ““So what are we to assume if not the worst — that he had this meeting, the White House didn’t reveal it. Once again we had to find out about it through third channels and there wasn’t even an American within earshot to listen what they talked about for an hour.”
Walter Schaub says he was horrified when Trump’s lawyer asked if he could turn in his financial disclosure forms without signing them and certifying that they were true.
Over 20 lawmakers begin to question Ivanka Trump’s security clearance because she apparently didn’t disclose any of their families multiple meetings with Russian officials on her SF86 forms.
Shep Smith slaps back at Hannity “Sometimes facts are displeasing.”
Flynn and Caputo are reportedly having difficulty paying their lawyer fees.
Veselnitskaya says she’s ready to testify to the Senate who otherwise can’t subpoena her since she’s a foreign natonal. [Judging by her RT interview, she’ll do great right?]
Daily Beast reports that while Veselnitskaya met secretly with Don Jr. last June the Kremlin gave Rep. Dana Rohrabacher instructions to stage a “show trial” in Congress attacking Bill Browder in order to alter the Magnitski Act sanctions on Russia. Rohrabacher was provided a Russian propaganda film against Browder by Yuri Chaika’s Prosecutor Generals Office, which was the same source for Veselnitskaya’s “evidence” against Hillary Clinton and the DNC.
Trump does an interview with Maggie Haberman and the NyTimes
He says that he blames the appointment of Mueller as Special Counsel on Jeff Sessions recusal, and says if he’d known Sessions would recuse himself he wouldn’t have picked him for AG. “It’s very unfair to the President.”
He thinks Comey briefing him on the Steele dossier was intended as blackmail in order to keep his job.
That Mueller was rife with conflicts of interest because he had interviewed for interim FBI director the day before he was appointed Special Counsel, and he has Democrats working for him
He doesn’t trust Deputy FBI Director McCabe because his wife ran for office as a Democrat once and got $700k from Gov. Terry McAullif and the DNC, who are friendly with Clinton so that means McCabe is “evil.”
He doesn’t trust Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein because he’s from Baltimore and it’s full of Democrats.
He claims he still doesn’t think he’s under investigation even for obstruction of Justice “I don’t think we’re under investigation,” he said. “I’m not under investigation. For what? I didn’t do anything wrong.”
He again denied that he asked Comey to drop the Flynn investigation.
He admits that his second hour long conversation with Putin at the G20 included a discussion of Russian adoptions, the same subject that Veselnitskaya had brought up with Don Jr.
He says that if Mueller wanders from Russia and starts to investigate his families finances it would be “crossing a red line.”
The NYTimes reports that investigators are looking at complex financial transactions between Trump, Kushner, Deutsche Bank and VEB.
Trump hits 6 Months in Office as Carrier lays off 300 workers.
Kushner is scheduled to testify in closed Session to Senate Intel on the 24th. Manafort and Don Jr. are scheduled to testify before Senate Judiciary on the 26th.
NYTimes reports that Manafort owed $17 Million to pro-Russia shell companies based in Cyprus before he joined Trump campaign.
July 20th —
Bloomberg reports that Mueller is looking at the finances of Trump and his associates.
AP reports that the Russian urged Trump to bring a note taker for his dinner meeting with Putin but he declined because he was afraid of leaks.
Senate Judiciary approves Chris Wray for FBI Director.
Sessions says he’ll stay on as a “Zombie Attorney General.”
Sally Yates slams Trump’s attack on the independence of the DOJ as a “violation of a bedrock principle of democracy”
Rohrabacher dismisses what Russia asked him to do with a “show trial” as insignificant.
HHS is using Obamacare outreach funds to undermine the laws function.
Rep. Schiff calls Trump’s secret dinner meeting with Putin “deeply troubling.”
Huckabee-Sanders says those who complain about Trump’s 2nd meeting have “Russia Fever.”
Deutsche bank which has loaned Trump hundreds of $Million agrees to turn over financial records to Mueller and investigators.
U.S. Military renting space in Trump Tower are paying $130,000 per month for it.
1 in 8 Trump voters wish they could take it back.
Treasury Dept fines Exxon-Mobil $2 Million for violating Russia sanctions related to Ukraine when Tillerson was CEO.
NAACP Legal Defense Fund Sues Trump election panel for racial discrimination, voter intimidation and suppression.
Trump’s Chief counter-terrorism advisor Thomas Bossert admits that Russia was definitely behind the 2016 election hacking, so how come Trump doesn’t know, or believe, that?
Rumors abound that Kasowitz will be taking a back seat on Trump’s legal team as some on the team begin doing oppo research on the members of Mueller’s team in order to hinder them. [Which would be obstruction]
Court documents show that one of Veselnitskaya’s previous clients was the FSB.
Trump asks his lawyers and advisors what his options are for pardoning members of his family or himself.
Weary Trump supporters begin to tune out the news because it’s all bad for him and them.
July 21st —
Roger Stone rips Sessions: He’s only a ‘tough guy’ when it comes to ‘chasing people for smoking pot’
Mueller request WH Staff preserve all documents and emails of communications related to Trump Jr.’s June meeting with Russians.
Reports surface that the shakeup in Trump’s legal team is linked to the attacks on Mueller.
Trump hires Anthony Scaramucci as Communications Director, Preibus had no idea. Sean Spicer resigns in protest because having a shmoozy Wall Street hack shill “Yes” man stooge with no Washington or communications experience as your instant boss was obviously the last fracking straw. Sarah “Resting scowl-face” Huckabee-Sanders becomes the new WH Press Secretary.
Kasowitz and strategist Mark Corallo leave Trump’s legal team. DC lawyer John Down takes over.
Wapo Reports that Intercepts by U.S. intel of conversation between Kislyak and Russia indicate that Sessions twice, at the Mayflower Hotel and at the RNC, discussed Trump’s positions regarding Russia with him indicating that he lied to congress under oath about those conversations.
Mother Jones reports that Sen. Warren has been pressing the Treasury department since January on whether Scaramucci had violated sanctions rules by discussing possible investment opportunities with Kirill Dmitriev, head of the sanctioned Russian Direct Investment Fund.
Senate intel chair Burr says “the unmasking thing” was all created by Devin Nunez.
Senate Judiciary issues a subpoena to Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS for information about the creation of the Steele Dossier.
Kislyak steps down as ambassador and returns to Russia.
NSC Staffer Rich Higgins is fired for writing a crazed conspiracy filled memo.
July 23rd —
Huckabee-Sanders gets caught in a lie by Stephanapolous claiming the Russia story is all the press covers.
Don Jr. hires more lawyers.
Scaramucci tries to scrub all his previous anti-Trump, pro-Climate Change tweets but everyone notices.
Scaramucci is interviewed by Jake Tapper on CNN
He says that Putin told Trump in Hamburg that Russian hackers are too good to have been caught by the U.S.
He denies that Russia hacked our election “This is maybe they did it, maybe they didn’t do it” and runs into a buzzsaw with Tapper — “Don’t you owe a duty to the truth?”
Kellyanne Conway freaks out when CNN’s Brian Stetler suggests the Trump campaign welcomed Russian interference and influence during the election, which frankly they didn’t oppose.
July 24th —
Kushner releases an 11 Page statement prior to his speaking to the Senate Intel staff behind closed doors
He denies colluding with Russians or discussing campaign issues.
He says he tried to get out of the Veselnitskaya meeting and never fully read the email or apparently the subject line “Hillary — Russia — Sensitive and Confidential. [But he still showed up, didn't he?] He arrived at the meeting late and the topic at the time was “Russian adoptions” he didn’t see that as being relevant and emailed his assistant to call him in order to give him an excuse to leave. "Can u pls call me on my cell? Need excuse to get out of meeting.” He says he didn’t remember anything about the meeting and had disclosed it on his forms prior to it reaching the press.
He says his SF86 form was accidentally submitted without being completed when his assistant mistook the completion of one section to mean the entire form was complete. [Aren’t these supposed to be signed when submitted certifying that they’re fully complete?] All contacts with foreign nations were originally omitted not just Russians.
He reveals that he received an email that was clearly an extortion attempt by “Guccifer400” that threatened to reveal Trump tax returns. He thought is was a hoax and referred it to Secret Service. [That should have gone to FBI, Secret Service protects you from physical threats and conterfeiters they don’t pursue blackmail or extortion.]
He says he only talked to Kislyak for “about a minute” at the Mayflower Hotel simply to exchange pleasantries and denies the Reuters report that he had two phone calls with Kislyak between April and November, saying he searched his phone records and couldn’t find any numbers associated with the ambassador. “I doubt these calls took place.”
He says he tried to setup a secure back-channel to the Kremlin in order to discuss the war in Syria with Russian “generals” came from Kislyak, but was not over sanctions. Flynn said such a secure channel didn’t exist and Kushner asked if one existed in the Russian embassy. [This doesn’t explain why he wanted the U.S. Intel community cut out of the loop, since they have to implement Syria policy anyway and the people who really don’t need to know is ISIS. Plus this was in December and January while they were all still “private citizens” — Logan Act — and long before there were allegations of “wiretaps”, “unmasking” or “leaks” coming from US Intel so what gives?]
Kislyak kept pestering him for continued meetings which he didn’t have time for and turned down until finally sending his assistant, then he agreed to meet VEB’s Gorkov because “he had a direct link to Putin.” He says they didn’t discuss sanctions or business or really anything other than “wanting better relations.”
He never mentions or explains his meeting with the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi which he attended with Steve Bannon following his meeting with Gorkov to further discuss Russia relations, or the follow on meeting to that between the Crown Prince and Eric Prince of Blackwater in the Seychelles Islands.
Kushner gives a public statement “I didn't collude with Russians and don’t know anyone who did.” [You know Flynn, Manafort and Roger Stone don’t you?] And claims “I did not rely on Russian money for my businesses.”
Kushner also apparently tell Congressional Staff the “Trump campaign was too disorganized to have colluded with the Russians” [Then why is that frakhole “President” then?]
At some point near this time Manafort also talks to Congressional staffers and tell them about the Veselnitskaya meeting.
Former FBI Agent Clint Watts says Kushner’s statement and it’s “chaos and confusion” defense shows he’s either incompetent or the Russia influence on TrumpCo is very strong. [Could be both!]
The Guardian reports that Kushner paid $295 Million for a portion of the New York Times building from Jewish Soviet-born Diamond Tycoon Lev Leviev — who the Dutch media reports smuggles valuable diamonds by making them look worthless by covering them in soot, connected to Human Rights violations in Angola as well as funding illegal Jewish settlements in the disputed zones of Israel. Kushner later borrowed $285 million to refinance the purchase through Deutsche Bank, which has come under scrutiny for alleged ties to Russian money laundering and had to pay $630 Million in fines for transferring $10 Billion through Russia. [So much for ‘not relying Russian Money for his business’]
Fox Host Jason Chaffetz claims people should be talking about Chelsea Clinton’s links to Benghazi [even though she has none, she didn’t work for Hillary or the State Dept then], and Hillary’s links to Russia [also has none, certainly not since Putin returned to the Presidency] rather than Kushner’s failure to report his meetings, even though only Kushner is speaking to the Senate today.`
NYTimes Glenn Thrush reports that rather than being an insult to the press, the yanking of WH press conference videos was because Spicer didn’t want Trump yelling at him and saying he “sucked at his job”.
Feinstein asks Grassley to call Sessions before Senate Judiciary.
Trump tweet/whines why “Beleagured” Sessions and House committees don’t investigate Hillary’s connections to Russia [Bill spoke to Renaissance Capital in 2010 for $500,000 while supposedly at that time Hillary opposed requests for the State Dept to deny visas to Russian oligarch accused of Human rights violations under Medvedev. But that all changed with the passage of the Magnitski Act and Putin’s return to the Presidency in 2012 and the annexation of Crimea and invasion of Ukraine in 2014. Also if you think Bill and Hillary can be bought for $500k what exactly did Deutsche Bank get from Kushner for a cool $285 Million?]
Trump trues to bully Republicans into passing Trumpcare by saying “Obamacare is Death” — which is bullshit. Does a campaign rally at the Boy Scout Jamboree — even though I’m pretty sure they can’t vote yet. And reports start to surface that’s he’s floating the idea of removing Sessions.
July 25th —
After Trump’s usual self-aggrandizing, whining, hate and delusion filled partisan rally speech to the Boy Scout Jamboree parents and former scouts alike our outraged. He had invited members of his staff who were Eagle Scouts like Rick Perry but gives Jeff Sessions the Spicer Treatment by leaving him out. Some reports at that Sessions is so pissed he won’t give Trump the satisfaction of quitting.
During the Jamboree Scaramucci’s wife gives birth to their second child James, he’s not there because he’s with Trump, but he does send her a text.
Trump thumps Sessions some more on Twitter. Several times, even though it was his ethical — and legal — duty to recuse himself from any investigation of a campaign that he was a participant of. He’s so mean even Breitbart and Limbaugh start to feel sorry for Sessions. Some Congressional Republicans start to grow a soul, but Paul Ryan doesn’t.
The House approves new strengthened sanctions on Russia/Iran & North Korea which don’t allow Trump to unilaterally cut them by a final Veto Proof vote of 419-3.
John McCain triumphantly returns to the Senate after his brain cancer diagnosis and gives an impassioned rousing speach on bipartisanship right after casting a pivotal party line vote to open debate on taking the kind of Health Care he’s currently receiving away from between 15 or 22 or 32 Million people depending on Mitch McConnell’s mood. Although the parlimentarian says they’re going to need 60 Votes for most of what they have in mind.
Kushner is interviewed behind closed doors by House Intel panel staff for 3 Hours.
Manafort is subpeoned by Senate Judiciary.
House Repubs block Democrats attempt to see Trump’s Treasury FIles.
Scarmucci admits Trump wants Sessions FIred “It’s like a divorce.”
Huckabee-Sanders says re-re-reinvestigating Clinton for things that didn’t happen and she’s already been cleared for is just “Keeping a level playing field.”
Trump tweets about classified Syria program to fund and supply anti-Assad rebels in order to slap back at a Wapo story.
July 26h —
FBI executes a “No Knock” pre-dawn search warrant on Paul Manafort’s residence looking for financial documents some of which he was supposed to have turned over to Senate Intel specifically because they’re concerned he might destroy evidence.
Just minutes after Tucker Carlson calls trans people potential “child abusers” Trump tweets that all trans persons in the military will be removed because to the cost of their surgeries, although the military spends 4 times as much on Viagra to treat ED.
Trump tweets again asking why Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe hasn’t been fired because his wife received $700k from Terry McAulif when she ran for congress.
Putin threatens to retaliate against “Illegal” U.S. sanctions after their approval by Congress.
Senate defribs Trumpcare by considering “Skinny Repeal” for Obamacare which would only affect the mandates, subsidies and Medicare expansion.
Scaramucci’s financial disclosure forms indicates that he is still doing work for his investment firm while working in the White House and that the company was recently bought by Chinese investors meaning he’s receiving paychecks from China and the U.S. government at the same time.
Senate Intel calls for pro-Trump oppo researcher Chuck Johnson to testify on his work with to obtain Hillary’s emails for Michael Flynn along with the late Peter W. Smith.
Ken Starr calls for Trump to stop attacking Sessions “Cut it out.”
Grassley warns Trump not to fire Sessions.
Jeffrey Lord attempts to defend Trump’s trans-ban tweet says the Military shouldn’t be paying for Viagra either.
Kushner may be violating the Presidential records act by having and app that makes message sent or received “disappear’ on his iPhone.
Nine Inch Nail’s Trent Reznor says “Trump’s a vulgarian” — yeah, you bet.
July 27th —
CBO score of Skinny Repeals says that it would take Healthcare from 16 Million people and increase premiums by 20%.
Newsweek reports that Russia used Facebook to try and trick Macron supporters prior to French Election.
Senate ignores Trump’s call to investigate Hillary Clinton again.
Lindsay Graham says firing Sessions and/or Mueller would be the beginning of the end of Trump’s presidency.
The Joint Chiefs announce no one is going no where based on a Tweet, Trump hasn’t given them any formal instructions on trans soldiers yet.
Bill Browder testifies to Senate Judiciary and tells them that Veselnitskaya and Ahkmenttshin were clearly operatives for Putin and Russian Intel offering Kompromat on Clinton to see if anyone in the Trump camp would take the bait.
He explains how Putin and Chaika had Magnitski and Boris Nemsov murdered and tried to poison Kara-Murza twice to cover up their graft and corruption.
Having the Magnitski act repealed or limited is a prime Putin goal.
He also says that Fusion GPS was also funded by Russians because they like to “Play both sides” — which suggests some of the more salacious items in the Steele Dossier may have been fed to them as disinformationto help make it easier to discredit the overall report.
Kellyanne Conway throws Preibus a “shiv in the ribs” for leaking Scaramucci’s financials — which he probably didn’t do.
Scaramucci gives a mad crazy interview on CNN about his financial forms being leaked even though it’s still public information calling in right in the middle of an interview with Ryan Lizza.
Scaramucci then calls Ryan Pizza of the New Yorker directly and gives him a rambling profane on the record interview.
He demands to know who leaked that he was having dinner with Hannity, Trump and Melanie that night, and that he’d fire everyone in the White House until Lizza told him. (He can’t do that, he can only fire press and communications people — Preibus could do that, or Trump. And since when is having dinner with the Trumps and Sean Hannity a matter of National Security?)
He says that he’s not out to promote himself and “Suck his own ****” like Steve Bannon, he’s trying to promote Trump. [And doing a wonderful job of it he is too...]
He claims Preibus is a “******* paranoid schizophrenic paranoiac” who leaked his financial forms — although the forms are public information — because he didn’t want him hired in the first place. [And who could blame him for that prescience?]
He claims he has ‘digital fingerprints” of alleged leakers given to him by the FBI (which would be illegal for them to do) and also he’s not on the approved WH/DOJ communications list, neither is Preibus.
He says they need to “Kill all the ******* leakers.”and that “People in this administration think their job is too save the country from Trump, that’s not their job, it’s to inject Trump into the nation”— eww..just ewww.
Propublica obtains a set of talking points created for DNI Dan Coates which shows that the relationship between the Intel Community and Trump is highly strained. [No kiddin?]
The Senate fails to pass each and every single Trumpcare proposal including “Repeal/Replace” and“Repeal/Delay” and even eventually fail even with the Hail-Mary “Skinny Repeal” after Senators John McCain, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski vote against it.
McConnel says the failure to repeal O-care is “disappointing”, whines about losing then sarcastically asks “Let see what the Democrats have.” Schumer calls for bi-partisan cooperation to help fix the lingering problems of the Health Care Market.
Trump says they should now ‘let O-care Implode” although what he really means is he’s going to have Tom Price sabotage it even further until Dems cry “Uncle.”
Devin Nunez continues pushing his Obama “Unmasking” Story.
Manafort is scheduled to meet with Senate Judiciary today, but negotiates a later date.
New Russia sanctions bill gets sent to Trump’s desk.
July 28th —
Trump calls for Police Brutality by telling assembled cheering Long Island Police to "don’t be too nice” when slamming them into the back of a paddy wagon and “don’t hold their head” when placing them in the back seat. “You can take the hand away, okay?”
Trump fires Reice Preibus via Tweet, makes DHS head Kelly as new Chief of Staff. Preibus finds out on a rain soaked tarmac as AF1 arrives back in Washington, others get out of his Suburban and his car leaves the motorcade and goes off on it’s own instead of returning to the WH.
Scaramucci’s wife, who had been estranged with him for months, files for Divorce because of his naked political ambition “Deirdre is not a fan of Trump” which means he’s gonna have to learn that special trick of Bannon’s now.
Russia expels U.S. 755 Diplomats and seizes an American compound in “retaliation” for the new sanctions bill that Trump hasn’t yet signed calling them “Illegal” and unjustified.
july 29th —
Trump’s Gallup approval rating of 37% drops lower than Bill Clinton’s during the Lewinsky scandal.
Painter says shuffling Sessions into Homeland in place of Kelly would be yet more obstruction.
Police Departments from coast to coast condemn Trump’s call for Police Brutality.
Surprising absolutely no one on earth Ted Nugent breaks his civility pledge.
Tillerson’s State Dept. channels opposite world and claims the new sanctions on Russia will be “good for our relationship.” [Uh, Nope!]
It’s reported that Scaramucci’s wife was nine months pregnant when she bailed on him because of his #TrumpLove and that he apparently missed the birth of his second child James because he was with Trump at the Boy Scout Jamboree and sent his wife a text “I’ll pray for our son.”
July 30th —
Jared and Ivanka admit it’s way too much to expect them to have any moderating influence on Trump.
Pence swears we’ll see more moderate behavior from Putin as he orders 755 U.S. Diplomats out of Russia. [Yeah, uh, NOPE!]
Lewandowsky calls for Trump to fire CFPB chief Richard Cordray because — yeah, sorry, I got nothin’. [Ok fine seriously, He claims he doesn’t have any clients that oppose Cordray’s work at CFPB, but it turns out that he does have a client that is a pay day lender]
PS. Kushner is still a slumlord.
Roger Stone says “McCain is a piece of **** and traitor” — also now with Brain Cancer.
July 31st —
Gen. Kelly starts his first day as the new WH Chief of Staff.
Pence talks tough about Russia’s retaliation against the newly imposed sanctions signed by Trump. Trump echoes Russia’s complaints.
Scaramucci suddenly resigns as WH Communications Director 11 days after was announced in the position and 4 days before he was to officially begin. He’s then escorted off the grounds by security, then goes to dinner with Katrina Peirson.
Kelly calls Sessions and tells him his job is safe.
Former NSA Analyst John Schindler reports that Putin’s move to expel 755 U.S. Diplomatic workers over sanctions shows he’s ready to throw Trump under the bus.
NYTimes reports that Trump personally dictated the first false version of Junior’s statement about his meeting with Veselnitskaya — even though he said at the time “this was the first he’d heard about it” — claiming the meeting was “primarily about adoption” a claim that was later repeated by Trump twice and also by Spicer even though Junior himself had already admitted it was about oppo research on Hillary 7 days previously.
Trump’s direct involvement in promoting a false story when there is a open Federal Investigation of links between his campaign in Russia potentially indicates “consciousness of guilt” and may be an attempt at Witness Tampering and Obstruction of Justice particularly since Mueller’s office already requested the WH preserve all documents and records related to this meeting on July 21st.
Ivanka and Melania were “disgusted” by Scaramucci’s dirty talk — but then again they do support Trump who brought him on in the first place and has history for salty talk of his own.
CNN Reports that Kelly was furious by the manner in which Comey was fired and nearly resigned himself in protest until Comey talked him out of it.
Former McCain staffer Steve Schmidt says Scarmucci’s firing exposes the “snakepit” of Trump White House.
Surprising absolutely no-one with eyes and a working brain former Obamacare hating Blaze corespondent Tami Lahren is actually on Obamacare as she’s 24 and still on her parent Health Care plans.
A British “Email Prankster” successfully tricked several members of Trump’s WH into thinking he was Kushner and Preibus.
August 1st —
Spicer admits that the WH and Trump was personally briefed on the false and since retracted FOX story alleging that murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich was connected to emails leaked to Wikileaks as a way to redirect attention from Russia. This means that Spicer lied during the May 16 press briefing where he denied any knowledge of the Rich story. Again, potential Obstruction of Justice during the current investigation of Russia’s involvement with DNC hack.
Wired releases an audio recording of Kushner telling WH interns he doesn’t know of anything knew that the Trump WH offers to solve the Israel/Palestine problem.
Daily Caller reports that Kellyanne — who is still banned from Morning Joe for lying — may be tapped as the new WH Communications Director.
Lewandowski is fired from One America News Network (OANN) because he’d been moonlighting on Fox News too many times.
GOP lawmakers warn Trump not to sabotage Obamacare — but frankly that’s already is progress.
Rep Trent Franks (R-AZ) says “Mueller is a partisan and should resign” because of his “close friendship with Comey” who used to be his boss which is funny since he’s a registered Republican and so was Comey, but then nobody sane or smart listens to Trent Franks on anything.
GOP Activist Ed Butowski who pushed the Seth Rich conspiracy to the WH and Fox News gets grills on CNN by Chris Cuomo in an incoherent interview.
August 2nd —
Trump signs new Russia Sanctions Bill, includes a signing statement and a personal statement whining about Congress encroaching on executive authority and claims as a former CEO he can negotiate a better deal than Congress that could negotiate a Health Care Bill — which is of course exactly why Congress passed more sanctions.
Iran says these new sanction breaks the Nuclear deal setup by Obama.
Huckabee-Sanders tried to defend Trump’s claims that the Mexican President called to say they were doing such a great job on the border that Mexico was seeing fewer people entering in the hope of reaching the U.S. [although Mexico says they hadn’t called Trump in months] and the Head of the Boy Scouts called to say his speech “was great’ [He denies it too.] She says they did say these things, “it just wasn’t on the phone.”
Tillerson refuses to spend $80 Million in State Dept funds allocated to fight ISIS and Russian media manipulation and propaganda because it might “anger the Kremlin.”
Trump along with Sen Tom Cotton announces changes to Green Card eligibility that focuses on a “merit based” system for high skilled workers which seems to deprioritize petitions for family members, refugees and asylum seekers. [This proposal was submitted back in February and went nowhere then, going nowhere now]
At the same time that Trump publicly tries to the door to “low skilled” immigrants his Department of Homeland Security has increased the cap for H2B Visas per year from 66,000 to 81,000 and that his own companies in including Mar-A-Lago have submitted 76 more applications for low wage foreign workers.
Stephan Miller argues with CNN’s Jim Acosta about the meaning of the Statue of Liberty to justify Trump’s new Green Card plan and uses coded White Supremacist Slurs against him.
Russia responds to the sanctions bill saying that it shows that Trump is “Impotent” and the establishment wants to oust him.
Reports surface that Kremlin backed Sputnik News is the source of the Seth Rich conspiracy theory pushed by Sean Hannity and Fox News, causing them to be sued by Rich’s family.
Congressional investigators call for Don Jr. phone records to see who he talked to in the lead up to his June 6, 2016 meeting with Veselnitskaya. [Possibly Emin Agalarov as indicated by some of the email exchanges]
WSJ reports that U.S Attorney’s have subpoena records from the Kushner companies about their attempts to get Chinese investors special EB-5 Visas using Jared association with Trump.
Former Flynn staffer Erza Cohen-Watnick who provided the “unmasking” documents to Devin Nunez is fired.
Rod Wheeler who filed suit against Fox News over their bogus Seth Rich story says that Trump had inserted phony quotes by Rich.
The crazed conspiracy riddled memo written by NSC staffer Rich Higgins that connects the Muslim Brotherhood to the European Union, “Maoist Insurgents”, “Leftists’ and “Deep State” activists circulates through the WH and for some reason Don Jr. — who doesn’t have a security clearance to receive an NSC memo — is sent a copy, which he forwards to his father who “gushes” over the thing. Then he finds out from Hannity that Higgins had already been fired for writing it.
August 3rd —
Deputy FBI Director McCabe warns top LE officials that they should consider themselves witnesses and their notes evidence in Mueller’s investigation, possibly because of their communications and interactions with Comey as he talked to Trump on the phone.
WaPo publishes leaked transcripts of Trump talking to the President of Mexico and Prime Minister of Australia back in January which reveal that he’s repeatedly and knowingly lied about “Mexico paying for the wall” and begged not to be outed.
Audio of Scarmucci’s profane phone call with Ryan Lizza is released.
Fox News lawyers up over Seth Rich suit.
Former CIA agents pen a NYTimes op-ed on Trump’s response to Russia “Innocent people don’t behave this way.”
Wapo reports that the Secret Service has moved out of Trump Tower over a rental dispute with Trump’s Companies, their command post is now in a trailer parked on the sidewalk.
Kellyanne says Russia hacking our political and voter registration systems to help Trump get elected isn’t a “matter of national security.”
Hannity flips when he discovers a report from Bloomberg that NSA Director McMaster has granted his predecessor Susan Rice a lifetime Security Clearance — which is the normal custom — because he say “she did nothing wrong with any unmasking of Trump officials” confirming the previously findings of the House Intel Committee, except for Devin Nunez.
Trump Vacation Day count after 7 Months surpasses the number of vacation days taken by Obama in his full 8 years.
Trump plans 17-day “working vacation” in New Jersey while the WH is renovated. His neighbors are not overjoyed with all of his security.
Michael Flynn amends his financial disclosure forms to include funds received from a tech company, SCL Group which has ties to Cambridg-Analytica and whose CEO used “dirty Tricks” to support Trump and the Brexit Vote, he also includes consulting work for NIK Holdings who had attempted to donate $100,000 under the table for former Sen. Norm Coleman before he was defeated by Al Franken.
Glenn Thrush at NYTimes reports that Kelly fired Cohen-Watnick to show his authority over Bannon and Kushner.
WSJ reports that Mueller has empaneled a Grand Jury which is issuing subpeonas related to Don Jr.’s meeting with Veselnitskaya and financial ties between TrumpCo and Russia, this is in addition to the already existing Grand Jury that is looking into Michael Flynn.
Sen. Jeff Flake warns that firing Mueller could cause Congress to turn against Trump.
Sen Tillis and Coons introduce legislation to protect Mueller from being unjustifiably fired by Trump without judicial review.
August 4th —
Spicer says “No” to Dancing With the Stars.
Mark Warner the ranking Dem on Senate Intel calls for an investigation into leak of transcripts of Trump’s conversations with President of Mexico and Prime Minister of Australia.
CNN reports that Carter Page has been under FISA surveillance and suspected of being a foreign agent since 2014.
During a West Virginia rally Trump calls the Russia investigation a “total fabrication” and argues the Special Counsel should “go after why Clinton deleted 33,000 emails” which the FBI already investigated and found completely legal.
CNN reports that Intel intercepts of suspected Russian operatives during summer of 2016 discussed Manafort asking for help with damaging Clinton’s campaign.
August 5th —
Alt-Right and Russia-Bots begin relentless attacking NSA chief McMaster arguing that he should be fired for something or the other. Daily Beast reports that this is apparently payback from Bannon for the firing of Cohen-Watnick and Col. Darek Harvey.
CNN reports that Mueller’s investigation is likely to first focus on Trump’s financial crimes as they have the strongest path to prosecution.
Fox’s Eric Bolling is suspended for sexual harrassment.
Painter says if you placed lie detector on Huckabee-Sanders podium “It would light up like a disco!”
New polls indicate Trump support has dropped to just 33%, and that he’s losing White Non-College educated voters where he now stands underwater at 43% approval to 50% disapproval — a drop of 10 points since June, and 23 points since the election.
Minnesota mosque is firebombed in an apparent act of terrorism, no casualties are reported. WH says nothing.
August 6th —
CNN says McEnany quit to join Trump’s Fake “Real” News channel.
Sen. Jeff Flake says he wished the GOP had stood up against birtherism. [Which they didn't, with the notable exception of John McCain they generally took advantage and pandered to it just like Kushner said Trump did.]
Trump says he “working hard” on his vacation — but his schedule is blank.
August 7th —
Sen. Blumenthal goes on CNN and explains the new bill to protect Mueller from being fired, and Trump — who says he “not watching tv” while on his work-cation — immediately goes on a tweet storm attacking Blumenthal for saying he served in Vietnam, when his actual Marine service was in the U.S. during Vietnam. Since Trump never served due to “bone spurs” Vets call him a “Chicken Hawk piece of trash.”
Wapo reports that while requesting H2B visas for 70 more foreign employees Mar-A-Lago barely put out a couple of local ads which didn’t include a phone # or email, only a fax, for U.S. workers to be hired.
Sen. Blumenthal snaps back at Trump over his Vietnam service slurs. “ I will not be bullied.”
Chicago sues Trump over his threat to pull funds from “sanctuary cities.”
Right-Wing Militias align with GOP officials under Trump.
McEnany gets Spicer’s old job as RNC national spokesperson.
August 8th —
Alex Jones hosts Russian ultra-nationalist on program about firing McMaster.
Ex-CIA agent Daniel Hoffman states that Putin probably left a paper trail from Trump Tower to the Kremlin.
Staffers for Devin Nunez appear to be staging a stealth investigation of Christopher Steele.
Trump pays one of his staffers $89k/year just to look up positive news about him and provide it in a 20 page “propaganda report” twice a day.
Jared Kushner failed to disclose that he holds a stake in his brother’s health insurance company which had paid lobbyists to fight the repeal of Obamacare.
Trump tweets out classified information revealed by annonymous sources on Fox & Friends about North Korean Missile movements.
Trump’s support among GOP voters drops by 14 points.
Russian bots and trolls begin attacking Republicans including the House Speaker with #ResignPaulRyan campaign.
Wapo reports that North Korea now has a miniturized nuclear device that can fit on a missile, Trump says if they threaten us again they will met with “Fire and Fury that the world has never seen.” North Korea responds by threatening to attack Guam. No “Fire or Fury” appears.
August 9th —
WaPo reports that the FBI staged a pre-dawn raid of Manafort’s residence in July, which continues to suggest Mueller is attempting to flip Manafort, only now the hard way.
National Enquirer publishes a hit piece on Manafort (one hour after the Wapo report on the search warrant raid) that alleges that he was involved in a “sick sex scandal” with women much younger than his wife.
Trump campaign hands over 20,000 pages of documents to Senate Judiciary on their efforts to find negative information on Hillary Clinton.
WH aid Gorka says silence on mosque bombing is justified because he says it may be been a faked hate crime by Liberals, which frankly I would expect would make Huckabee-Sander’s and her resting scowl face crack a smile.
Politico reports that Federal investigators had approached Manafort’s son in law in order to get a better “read” on his mindset.
August 10th —
Reports indicate that Manafort had already told congressional investigators about the Don Jr/Veselnitskaya meeting before his house was raided by the FBI.
CNN finally fires Jeffrey Lord over a Nazi “Seig Heil” tweet at Media Matters Angelo Carusone arguing that they are a “fascist” site that seeks to curtail free speech, when in fact all they do is document what right-wingers say without much comment.
Trump thanks Putin for kicking 755 of our Diplomats, “Now we have a smaller payroll” and doubles down on his “Fire and Fury” nonsense, “Maybe that was too soft.” And threatens military action in Venezuela.
August 11th —
Rachel Maddow reports that a 1980 audit of Trump finances found he failed to pay $2.8 Million to the City of New York in a deal to avoid paying $150 Million in property taxes.
Fancy Bear hacker group begins targeting Hotel guests using unsecured wifi.
WH says Trump was being “sarcastic” about the smaller payroll for Diplomats in Russia, but then he says it again.
Senate Judiciary demands info on Kushner’s relationship with Russia and an explanation for the gaps on his SF86 security form.
Neo-Nazi protesters get into melee at U of VA over removal of statue to Robert E. Lee.
Rinat Akhmetshin testifies for several hours to the Mueller Grand Jury.
August 12th —
Alt-Right Neo-Nazi Protest in Charlottesville VA erupts in more violence. Deandre Harris is beaten bloody, a car driven my James Fields Jr. smashes into a crowd of counter-protesters killing Heather Heyer and injuring 19 others.
David Duke says the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” protest fulfills the promises of Donald Trump.
August 13th —
Trump gives a rambling confused statement on Charlottesville that talks about violence “on many sides” and never mentions white supremacist or neo-Nazis.
Washington Post reports Trump staffer George Papadopoulos repeatedly offered to set up “a meeting between us and the Russian leadership to discuss US-Russia ties under President Trump,” “Putin wants to host the Trump team when the time is right,” Papadopoulos wrote in an email to former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski on April 27, 2016. He also told Lewamdowski he had fielded “a lot of calls over the past month” related to a meeting between the Trump campaign and Russia. “Russia has been eager to meet with Mr. Trump for some time and have been reaching out to me to discuss,” Papadopoulos said in a separate email to former campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
August 14th —
Trump gives his “hostage video” speech where he finally condemns neo-Nazis, but then attacks African-American CEO of Merck for quitting his business advisory council on twitter.
Reports surface the Homeland security had issued a warning about Neo-Nazis and White Supremacist back in May.
Politico reporrs the Obama administration had many warnings between 2014 and 2016 that Russia was stepping up its intelligence operations to build propaganda networks.
North Korea calls off it’s missiles test targeting Guam.
Michael Cohen’s atty writes a letter to Congress vehemently denying his involvement in colluding between Trump and Russia as described in the Steele dossier — even though he had been directly involved in writing to the Russian government during the campaign to restart the Trump Tower Moscow project.
August 15th —
Kushner faces lawsuit for over charging rent in NYC.
Trump retweets meme of a train running over a CNN reporter.
Trump angrily argues during an Infrastructure Press Briefing that “Both Sides” were at fault in Charlottesville violence and stuns much of the GOP who quickly criticize his comments. He claims that if Gen. Lee and Stonwall Jackson statues have to come down so do monuments to Washington and Jefferson since they were slave owners, although they never attacked and waged war against America over it, they fought Britain to increase freedom, not decrease it and thus his real White-Power bona fides are finally revealed and confirmed.
August 16th —
NYTimes reports about 3 hackers whose work may have been used without their knowledge to attack the DNC.
ABC News reports that Peter Stroz former head of FBI Counterterrorism quits the Mueller investigation team.
Internal reports disprove claims of “Turmoil” inside the FBI prior to Comey firing.
Newsweek reports that in 1985 the Australian government rejected a bid for a Trump Casino in Sydney because of his alleged ties to the mafia.
4 CEOs defect in protest from Trump’s business council over his pro-Confederate comments, so he shuts both his business councils down in frustration.
Bannon gives a grandstanding football spike of an interview to the NYTimes claiming the more the Left talks about Racism, the more we Win. “I want them to talk about Racism everyday.” He also basically claims he’s running the White House from behind the scenes, which I’m sure is news to Kelly and also, Trump.
Jack Tapper tweets that at least two journalists were attacked by anti-Nazi counter protestors in Charlottesville, one of whom required stitches.
Rep. Jackie Spiere calls for Trump to be ousted using the 25th Amendment.
Both Bush Presidents denounce Trump’s neo-Nazi support.
Heather Heyer’s mother scorns bigots at her funeral.
August 17th —
The Spectator reports that Felix Sater — who helped sell many Trump properties to various Russians through his former real estate firm Bayrock — may have flipped for the FBI again and that he has said the both he and Trump “are going to prison.”
Cantwell states emphatically that he’s “Not a coward.” No one is impressed, particularly not PayPal and Ok, Cupid who cut him off for life.
Sen Bob Corker (R-TN) says in response to Trump Charlottesville comments: “The president has not yet been able to demonstrate the stability nor some of the competence that he needs to demonstrate in order to be successful,”
UVA Librarian Tyler McGill suffers a stroke from being struck in the neck with a Tiki Torch by Unite the Right protestors.
Foreign Policy reports that Wikileaks refused to receive or publish 68 Gig of negative data on the operations of the Kremlin.
Buzzfeed reports that Trump is furious that “Bannon is taking credit for my election.”
A Van strikes 50 people in Barcelona, 13 are killed. 2 suspects are taken into custody but no information about them or their motive is released immediately.
Trump tweets in support of “beautiful Confederate Statues” and decrying “Terrorism in Barcelona” then later endorsed a questionable internet rumor that a U.S. General in the Philippines committed the War Crime of mass executions using bullets laced with pigs blood to deter terrorists, when in actuality he sat down with Muslims, ate their food, learned their language, customs and read the Koran with them. CNN’s Jake Tapper says “He just suggested we should study a lie.” But he still hasn’t said anything about the firebombing of a mosque in Minnesota, the car crashed into a crowd near a mosque in London or the machete attack against Democrats in Kentucky.
Mike Huckabee says if you take down Robert E. Lee, you have to take down Mt. Rushmore.
With “Infrastructure Week” not quite complete, Trump gives up on his infrastructure council.
August 18th —
Steve Bannon is Fired and quickly reports surface here’s going to take Breitbart to Defcon1 Thermonuclear Global War against Trump. Cue the Russia Bots of Doom. Subsequent reports say that he intends to use Brietbart to go to War with Trump’s enemies — which now, is just about everyone.
Also a former friend and aide of Preibus, George Sifakis, leaves the WH.
Buzzfeed reports that Mueller’s investigation is now targeting Donald Jr concerning his meeting with Veselnitskaya and Akhmetshin.
Reports surface that besides Bayrock’s Tefvik Arik Trump has financial links to post-Soviet era oligarch Mukhtar Ablyazov, who had been charged with stealing between $4-$10 Billion from Kazakhstan’s largest banks through loans and shell companies and had been working with Trump on 2 Tower projects in (former soviet) Georgia through a company run by Michael Cohen. The same report also notes the connection of oligarch Alexander Shnaider, who has mob ties, and had been involved in the Toronto Trump Tower deal.
16 out of 17 members of Trump’s Arts Council resign en mass in protest of Trump comments about Charlottesville. He says “Nah ah, I QUIT YOU”, they say “No, We quit you first!”
Heather Heyer’s mother Susan Bro refuses to speak with Trump in protest of his comments on Charlottesville, while Mitt Romney calls for him to apologize. He doesn’t.
7 Charities have cancelled fundraisers scheduled to be held at Mar-a-Lago.
Charlottesville Police issue arrest warrant for Chris Cantwell for illegal use of gases and injury by caustic agent or explosive,
ISIS reportedly takes credit for the Barcelona Van attack which Spain authorities say involved 12 people, 4 are in custody and 5 had been killed in a police raid.
August 19th —
Carl Ichann resigns from his position as an informal Trump advisor allegedly because of his Charlottesville comments. But this happens admit rumors that he made $60 Million by advising Trump to cut prices on a regulatory devicethat he’d been short selling for months.
The cancelled Mar-a-Lago charity list grows to 16.
Trump announces that he will not attend the Kennedy Center Honors with Norman Lear, Gloria Estaban, Lionel Richie & LL Kool J so as not to create a “Political Distraction.”
Robert E. Lee biographer says Lee would have wanted all the Confederate statues torn down.
Trump condemns anti-violence protestors as being “anti-police agitators” and then commends the cops.
August 20th —
ADL says the “Violent Alt-Left” is a Right-Wing media lie.
Bannon’s Breitbart attacks McMaster as a “Koran kissing Muslim sympathizer”for his endorsing use of a military manual on showing respect for Islam and how not to inflame tensions.
Congressional Democrats begin to question if “Trump is mentally Ill?”
Jesse Waters says removing Confederate monuments is a plot to help make people forget that “Democrats enslaved Blacks” which is technically true but they were also southern Conservative Democrats — Dixiecrats — who’ve all become Republicans or Independents since then.
Jerry Falwell Jr defends Trump’s “fine Nazi people” and “bad counter-protestors” claims saying he has “inside knowledge” although Trump claimed that all the media saw the same videos that he did. Close examination of Videos from protest shows they’re wrong.
Dick Gregory Dies.
August 21st —
Trump showing his usual level of sociopathic empathy deficit disorder responds to the crash of the U.S.S. McCain which injured five sailors and where ten remain missing with “That’s too bad.”
Paul Ryan holds a CNN Town hall and gives a weak tepid condemnation of Trump’s statements on Charlottesville — Tapper says it “Wasn’t morally ambiguous, it’s was Morally Wrong.”
Virginia State Attorney issues four warrants for Christopher Cantwell.
The U.S experiences it’s first total solar eclipse in 38 years, Shep Smith freaks the heck out. Trump stares into the Sun without glasses — “Finally, he establishes a Blind Trust.”
North Korea releases fake propaganda videos of their missiles hitting Guam.
Rep. Bryan Zollinger (R-ID) claims that Obama may have “staged the Charlottesville riots.” [Facepalm!]
“Art of the Deal” Ghost writer Tony Schwatz gets a loud racist voicemailcriticizing him for saying Trump “will resign.”
Katrina Peirson — yes, she’s still here — goes ballistic on Fox claiming “Slavery is an example of how special and wonderful this country is.” [Uh, er, what?]
NYTimes reports that Akhmetshin has close ties to the FSB and Putin, had helped Russian oligarchs using sophisticated cyber hacks for their benefit, helped unmask corruption at a Krygystan Air Force base which Russia wanted purged of U.S. personnel, and got Federal prosecutors to file charges against an American businessman who happened to be a CIA operative working in Russia.
USA Today reports that Trump’s extended family and their extensive travel is draining the resources of the Secret Service Dry.
Treasury Sec Mnunchin uses a government plane to fly to visit Fort Knox as an excuse to view the Solar exclispe at 95% totally, he also brings Mitch McConnel
August 22nd —
ABC News reports that Christopher Steele met with and has given the FBI the names and contact information for the sources of his Trump/Russia dossier.
CNN reports that Glenn Simpson, partner with Fusion GPS the oppo research team that had contracted with Steele to produce his dossier, has testified for 10 hours before Senate Judiciary behind closed doors. Fusion also provided 40,000 pages of documents to the committee.
At his Phoenix rally Trump attacks the media as “Fake” while misquoting his own statements about Charlottesville and his “unequivocal” condemnation of White Supremacy, except for the “Good Ones” and the BLM/Antifa “Chargers” which he doesn’t bring up this time. He hints at pardoning ex-Sheriff Joe Arpaio who was convicted of violating a court order to stop his deputies from profiling, targeting and discriminating against Latinos. He claims the media won’t show the size of his crowd, but they do, and he claims the protestors outside are only a few, but they aren’t. And he leads a chant calling for the death of John McCain.
Police and Protestors lob bottles, bricks and tear gas back and forth at each other during and after Trump’s rally, no injuries are reported.
CNN responds to Trump’s attack and begins to say he sounds “unhinged.” Don Lemon says “His speech was without thought, without reason, devoid of facts, devoid of wisdom,”
NYTimes reports that Trump’s relationship with Mitch McConnell has deteriorated down to explicative filled phone calls over Trumpcare’s failure and the continued Russia probes in congress.
Trump’s airwar against ISIS passes the civilian death toll of Obama’s entire Presidency.
Trump’s pick to protect U.S. workers from abuse as Deputy Secretary of Labor is a former lobbyists for forced abortion sweatshops.[Oh, lordy!]
Alex Jones suggest reparations for White People. [Yes, really]
McClatchy reports that Mueller’s investigators may have found that Manafort may have received between $80-$100 Million from Russian and Ukrainian Oligarchs over the past decade.
Trump gives a speech on his new Afghanistan policy, which is basically more war, more killing, no end in sight and no nation building. [Which is different from the last 17 years before this how exactly? Oh yeah, no “dates certain.”]
A rabidily racist Trump supporter — the same one who called Tony Schwartz — leaves a vicious bigoted message for CEO Ravin Ghandi — who has Indian heritage but was born in the U.S. — because he is one of the CEOs who left one of Trump’s economic councils.
August 23rd —
Armed man slashes tarp on Charlottesville monument and says Heather Heyer died ‘playing in traffic’ [Nope, you can’t make this ish up.]
Grassley says he will have the Judiciary committee to vote on releasing the testimony from Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS on the Steele Dossier.
Shep Smith calls out Trump for trying to “rewrite history” with his Pheonix speech. [Don’t you know he’s been doing that since he rode down the escalator in Trump Tower?]
Pro-Russia social media cyberbots begin to amplify rightwing rhetoric over Charlottesville claiming ““Dems and Media Continue to IGNORE BLM and Antifa Violence in Charlottesville” except there really wasn’t any to ignore. Did any neo-Nazis go to the Hospital? Nope.
Cantwell, who is still in hiding from Charlottesville PD, reveals that his attorney has ditched him.
James Clapper questions Trump’s “mental fitness” to be President after his Arizona speech.
Kushner heads to Israel to try again for a peace deal after things went so “well” last time, which they didn’t.
Michigan Senate candidate Kid Rock curses Colin Kaepernick, because that’s just what wannabe government leaders do.
Scarborough asks “Who are these people?” in Trump’s crowd calling for John McCain’s death? [Arizona GOP voters?]
Politico reports that Trump is so obsessed with the Russia investigation and the bill to protect Mueller from being wrongfully fired that he’s calling GOP Senators to scream and curse at them and can’t keep focused on day to day business.
CNN reports that Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff Rick Dearborn last June when he was an advisor to the Trump campaign and Jeff Session’s Chief of staff had sent an email to Corey Lowendowski about someone nicked name “WV” trying to arrange a meeting between Trump and members of the Russian government including Putin at about the same time as Don Jr.’s meeting with Veselnitskaya. This is the second staffer in addition to NatSec advisor George Papadopoulos who had also tried to set up this kind of meeting last April according Trump campaign emails given to congress.
Cantwell turns himself in to police, judge denies bail.
Trump calls Clapper “a liar” for his mental fitness comments via — guess what — twitter. He also slams Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell over the debt ceiling vote, which hasn’t even happened yet.
Dems, rising from their long slumber, try to defund Trump’s Voter Fraud Commission.
CNN locates and interviews former Russian ambassador Kislyak on the streets of Moscow, he says that the allegations that he’s a “Spymaster” is “nonsense”. He says that the future of US/Russians relations will be “difficult.” And that sanctions and tensions will make it hard to resume a normalcy in our relationship.
Politico reports that Trump has been repeatedly and angrily calling up GOP Senators such as Bob Corker and Thom Tillus to complain about bills he doesn’t like such as the Russia sanctions and Mueller protection legislation.
August 24th —
Trump pardons ex-Sherrif Arpaio for his contempt of court conviction for refusing to stop discriminating against latino citizens. This he does despite — or perhaps because of — his history of racial discrimination and targeting of Latinos for arrest and detention, the horrific conditions in his “concentration camp” jails which have led to record suicides and in custody deaths, his attempts to intimidate and wrongfully arrest journalist and politicians who criticize him with bogus trumped up charges. Also he’s a birther, like Trump.
Hungarian Nazi Badge wearer Sebastian Gorka resigns from the WH amid rumors of his anti-Semetism.
Reports are that Meuller is investigating how involved Flynn, his son and his consulting firm were with Robert W. Smith’s attempts to aquire Hillary emails from Russian hackers. He also issues subpeonas for 6 PR firms which had worked for Flynn and Manafort.
Reports are that in 2007 Trump said “This is the first he’s heard...” that his employee Felix Sater was convicted of fraud in 1998.
.WH advisor Gary Cohn wrotes a resignation letter because of Trump’s support for anti-Semitic Neo-Nazis who chanted “Jews will not replace us” in Charlottesville, but he doesn’t hand it in. Mnunchin say’s “Gary is excited to be working here.”
Trump’s approval rating per Gallup drops to just 34%.
Ex White Nationalists confirms that Trump is using the same slippery bigoted dog whistle rhetoric that helped recruit them into hate groups.
August 25th —
Gorka says he didn’t resign from the WH, but yet, he’s still out.
Richard Painter blasts Arpaio as “One of the worst” law enforcement officers in the country,
Paul Begala argues that the Arpaio pardon is a signal to Mueller’s targets, Flynn, Manafort, Kushner and Donald Jr, that Trump will protect them if they face charges.
Ana Navarro links Trump’s Charlottesville comments to his support for racists like Gorka and Arpaio because, yeah, that makes sense.
NYTimes reports that Trump has cancelled an Obama era program to increase public works projects at the Department of Transportation. [So much for “American jobs” and “Infrastructure”]
Bannon vows to bring down Mitch McConnell “I’m going to light him up.”
Trump slaps sanctions on Venezuela because of their “Dictatorship” — which is totally unlike his pals Putin or Duterte.
August 26th —
Sen. Blumenthal states that Mueller targets shouldn’t expect pardons from Trump, “His loyalty is limited.” [Not even with Jared?]
Paul Ryan says the Arpaio pardon “is wrong.” [Yeah, no kidding, eh?]
Charlottesville police arrests neo-Nazis involved in the attack on Deandre Harris.
Trump international Gold Club in Dubai is refusing to pay it’s migrant workers from Pakistan on time.
- Joined
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Here we go Steelers
Here we go!!
Here we go!!
JMM, Ron: I'm a simple man. Die for Dunkin Donuts coffee. Get the beans, grind them at home. Many days of the week I guy buy a DD while having a pot brewed here. Sipping on some now and will have some during the game too.
Oh and Mods, can we now officially give Elftard a deserved vacation?
While Elfie started this thread, it is our prerogative whether to consume the slanted, angry, often offensive drivel he/she posts. We've chosen to ignore the fool without using the ignore button, and talk about things that we think are more substantial.
So in response, Elf has taken it upon himself to destroy the fabric of the site and make the thread itself unreadable by posting 6 or 7 times on one page alone the longest of possible messages. Scroll up. You'll get it. Elf is now interfering with your paid members' ability to enjoy the forum as designed.
While Elfie started this thread, it is our prerogative whether to consume the slanted, angry, often offensive drivel he/she posts. We've chosen to ignore the fool without using the ignore button, and talk about things that we think are more substantial.
So in response, Elf has taken it upon himself to destroy the fabric of the site and make the thread itself unreadable by posting 6 or 7 times on one page alone the longest of possible messages. Scroll up. You'll get it. Elf is now interfering with your paid members' ability to enjoy the forum as designed.
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