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Post by Old Badger on Mar 17, 2018 15:17:28 GMT -5
BTW, on another board *ahem* a few years ago I warned that people should stop obsessing about NSA's efforts to track terrorists through telephonic metadata and instead worry about the information they were providing to corporations, including Facebook. I got a lot of hell and virtually know support for that position. The most common counter-argument was that those companies were just using the data to push ads to buy stuff that I could ignore, not trying to influence government and politics, while NSA could be "spying" on Americans. I noted that no one knew who was buying/dredging all those on-line data, including foreign governments. I guess I had a point, huh? To date, NSA has not rounded up millions of Americans, whereas the Trump campaign used private data on 50 million of us to influence the last election.
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Post by Old Badger on Mar 17, 2018 15:23:56 GMT -5
"Massachusetts attorney general Maura Healey (D) announced Saturday that her state will launch an investigation into Cambridge Analytica, a data firm used by the Trump campaign during the 2016 election, after Facebook suspended the firm...Special counsel Robert Mueller has reportedly requested all the emails between the firm and the Trump campaign and the firm’s CEO has been reportedly interviewed by the House Intelligence Committee." link
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Post by Old Badger on Mar 17, 2018 15:32:45 GMT -5
But I expect thousands of honest FBI employees are very happy to see a return of at least some justice to DOJ. The "thousands of honest FBI employees" spoke up yesterday, jon. Surprise! “Since its founding, the FBIAA has worked in cooperation with the Bureau and with Congress to develop personnel procedures that simultaneously guarantee the professionalism of the FBI and the rights of Special Agents. While the FBIAA does not comment on personnel matters, the Association remains fully committed to ensuring that every FBIAA member is provided appropriate procedural protections. The FBIAA also strongly believes that personnel decisions should never be politicized.” linkNow why do you suppose the FBIAA would issue a condemnation of "politicized" personnel decisions immediately after Trump had McCabe fired? And it's not the first time they've had to respond to Trump: "The organization voiced support for FBI Director Christopher Wray over the administration’s decision to release a memo alleging surveillance abuses, despite Wray's objections. The group also hit Trump over his tweet last year claiming that the FBI’s reputation was 'In tatters,' saying that any suggestion that agents aren’t dedicated to their jobs 'is simply false.'” One day, jon, you'll be ashamed of your shameful defense of this madman.
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Post by Old Badger on Mar 17, 2018 22:08:23 GMT -5
Trump's disgusting behavior toward McCabe speaks for itself. Here, McCabe speaks for himself: I have been an FBI Special Agent for over 21 years. I spent half of that time investigating Russian Organized Crime as a street agent and Supervisor in New York City. I have spent the second half of my career focusing on national security issues and protecting this country from terrorism. I served in some of the most challenging, demanding investigative and leadership roles in the FBI. And I was privileged to serve as Deputy Director during a particularly tough time. For the last year and a half, my family and I have been the targets of an unrelenting assault on our reputation and my service to this country. Articles too numerous to count have leveled every sort of false, defamatory and degrading allegation against us. The President's tweets have amplified and exacerbated it all. He called for my firing. He called for me to be stripped of my pension after more than 20 years of service. And all along we have said nothing, never wanting to distract from the mission of the FBI by addressing the lies told and repeated about us. No more. The investigation by the Justice Department's Office of Inspector General (OIG) has to be understood in the context of the attacks on my credibility. The investigation flows from my attempt to explain the FBI's involvement and my supervision of investigations involving Hillary Clinton. I was being portrayed in the media over and over as a political partisan, accused of closing down investigations under political pressure. The FBI was portrayed as caving under that pressure, and making decisions for political rather than law enforcement purposes. Nothing was further from the truth. In fact, this entire investigation stems from my efforts, fully authorized under FBI rules, to set the record straight on behalf of the Bureau, and to make clear that we were continuing an investigation that people in DOJ opposed. The OIG investigation has focused on information I chose to share with a reporter through my public affairs officer and a legal counselor. As Deputy Director, I was one of only a few people who had the authority to do that. It was not a secret, it took place over several days, and others, including the Director, were aware of the interaction with the reporter. It was the type of exchange with the media that the Deputy Director oversees several times per week. In fact, it was the same type of work that I continued to do under Director Wray, at his request. The investigation subsequently focused on who I talked to, when I talked to them, and so forth. During these inquiries, I answered questions truthfully and as accurately as I could amidst the chaos that surrounded me. And when I thought my answers were misunderstood, I contacted investigators to correct them. But looking at that in isolation completely misses the big picture. The big picture is a tale of what can happen when law enforcement is politicized, public servants are attacked, and people who are supposed to cherish and protect our institutions become instruments for damaging those institutions and people. Here is the reality: I am being singled out and treated this way because of the role I played, the actions I took, and the events I witnessed in the aftermath of the firing of James Comey. The release of this report was accelerated only after my testimony to the House Intelligence Committee revealed that I would corroborate former Director Comey's accounts of his discussions with the President. The OIG's focus on me and this report became a part of an unprecedented effort by the Administration, driven by the President himself, to remove me from my position, destroy my reputation, and possibly strip me of a pension that I worked 21 years to earn. The accelerated release of the report, and the punitive actions taken in response, make sense only when viewed through this lens. Thursday's comments from the White House are just the latest example of this. This attack on my credibility is one part of a larger effort not just to slander me personally, but to taint the FBI, law enforcement, and intelligence professionals more generally. It is part of this Administration's ongoing war on the FBI and the efforts of the Special Counsel investigation, which continue to this day. Their persistence in this campaign only highlights the importance of the Special Counsel's work. I have always prided myself on serving my country with distinction and integrity, and I always encouraged those around me to do the same. Just ask them. To have my career end in this way, and to be accused of lacking candor when at worst I was distracted in the midst of chaotic events, is incredibly disappointing and unfair. But it will not erase the important work I was privileged to be a part of, the results of which will in the end be revealed for the country to see. I have unfailing faith in the men and women of the FBI and I am confident that their efforts to seek justice will not be deterred. link
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Post by Old Badger on Mar 17, 2018 22:28:04 GMT -5
"Special counsel Robert Mueller's team interviewed former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and asked about the firing of FBI Director James Comey, a source briefed on the matter confirmed to CNN. The source would not say when the interview, first reported by Axios, occurred. Mueller also has memos written by McCabe documenting his conversations with President Donald Trump, a person familiar with the matter told CNN. The memos also detail what Comey told McCabe about his own interactions with Trump while he was FBI director, the source said, and are seen as a way to corroborate Comey's account in Mueller's probe on Russian interference in the 2016 election." link
You know, Trump may think he can end the Mueller investigation this way. But the documents Mueller is collecting are federal records, and they are going to be preserved. I fully expect that many have been shared with the New York Attorney-General, where many of the alleged crimes for which Mueller has obtained indictments and guilty pleas took place. I do not doubt that the Virginia A-G also will want access to those records, if he doesn't have them already. And, of course, it's a lead-pipe cinch that if Trump does this that material will be leaked, not by Mueller but by people on his staff with access who will want to get the information to the public who will pass them on to reporters at the WP, NYT, and other legitimate news venues. This is how Nixon was brought down, after all. I think what forced Trump's hand was his panic when Mueller started going after his Organization's financial records. This indirectly--and inadvertently--confirms what most people have suspected all along: that Trump's financial ties to Putin are connected to the 201f6 campaign and subsequent unwillingness by Trump to so much as criticize Putin. But this material will surface, no matter what he does. Every political reporter in town already is looking into it, and if the Mueller probe is killed it is going to spur them to do still more. Trump may have much to hide, but his cranky, ham-handed efforts to hide it only encourage others to make it all public. As I mentioned earlier, people at the national security agencies think Trump is a danger to the country and have the dope to show it. That's why as Trump comes nearer to his legal coup we're seeing people such as Gen. Mcaffrey, and former CIA and FBI Directors saying that he's a danger to the country, something we didn't see even with Richard Nixon. They know and they're going to take action to make sure the rest of us do, too. This will not end well for Trump.
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Post by Old Badger on Mar 17, 2018 22:56:42 GMT -5
"The Federal Election Commission has launched an investigation to determine if the National Rifle Association accepted illegal contributions from Russian nationals or organizations to support President Donald Trump’s campaign, Politico reports. The FEC does not comment on ongoing investigations, but an NRA attorney told aides for Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) that the gun lobbying group was already “answering questions about possible Russian donations as part of an FEC inquiry,” according to a statement from Wyden’s office provided to Politico. It’s illegal to use foreign money to influence federal elections...The NRA spent a record amount on 2016 elections, including $21 million to back Trump and $14 million to attack Hillary Clinton." linkWouldn't it be ironic fun to see Wayne LaPierre spend his final years on Earth in a federal pen for breaking federal campaign finance laws?
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Post by buckybasser on Mar 18, 2018 4:46:24 GMT -5
Dana Loesch once considered going to law school...
The NRA should send her and then hire her as corporate counsel to defend against the constant attacks from those who have contempt for our Constitution.
I just love when this beautiful & thoughtful all-American mom dices the left like a Vidalia Chop Wizard - and the small blade at that!
We need many more women like Dana and many more organizations like the NRA for this nation to survive the horrific onslaught of liberalism.
>O
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Post by Old Badger on Mar 18, 2018 11:16:47 GMT -5
Dana Loesch once considered going to law school... The NRA should send her Yes, then she can act as her own attorney when she's being tried for laundering Russian money during the 2016 campaign. Maybe she can negotiate her way into the Chicago facility where she can mingle with the participants in gun deaths in that city, given the interest she's shown in that topic.
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Post by Old Badger on Mar 18, 2018 11:20:35 GMT -5
You knew this was the next step in Trump's game of Escalatio: "President Trump appeared on Sunday to abandon a strategy of deferring to the special counsel examining Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election, lashing out at what he characterized as a partisan investigation and raising questions about whether he might seek to shut it down...Now as Mr. Mueller extends his inquiry with a subpoena to the Trump Organization evidently in search of business ties with Russia, the president appears to be losing his patience. While his lawyers had reassured him that the investigation would wrap up by Thanksgiving, then Christmas, then early in the new year, it seems increasingly clear that Mr. Mueller is not about to conclude his inquiry any time soon...Together, the comments raised the question once again about whether the president might be seeking to lay the groundwork to try to fire Mr. Mueller, a scenario that would almost surely set off a bipartisan storm of protest. Some Republicans expressed alarm on Sunday at the possibility that Mr. Trump would try to fire the special counsel." linkThis is Trump's MO: first go after the activity, then the individual through surrogates, then frontal attack, finally firing. We are headed for a full-on constitutional crisis. Alas, the Republican Party no longer has the character or fortitude to buck this madman--they've been too badly compromised already. Watch for citizens in the streets soon enough, me among them.
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Post by Old Badger on Mar 19, 2018 17:01:29 GMT -5
"Sitting in a hotel bar, Alexander Nix, who runs the political data firm Cambridge Analytica, had a few ideas for a prospective client looking for help in a foreign election. The firm could send an attractive woman to seduce a rival candidate and secretly videotape the encounter, Mr. Nix said, or send someone posing as a wealthy land developer to pass a bribe. 'We have a long history of working behind the scenes,' Mr. Nix said. The prospective client, though, was actually a reporter from Channel 4 News in Britain, and the encounter was secretly filmed as part of a monthslong investigation into Cambridge Analytica, the data firm with ties to President Trump’s 2016 campaign." link
Don't you love the irony that this guy was being gulled into making an embarrassing admission while touting how he could get someone else to do just that? And it gets worse: "The Channel 4 reporter posed as a 'fixer' for a wealthy Sri Lankan family that wanted to help politicians they favored. In a series of meetings at London hotels between November and January, all of which were secretly filmed, Mr. Nix and other executives boasted that Cambridge Analytica employs front companies and former spies on behalf of political clients. The information that is uncovered through such clandestine work is then put 'into the bloodstream to the internet,' said Mark Turnbull, another Cambridge executive, in an encounter in December 2015 at the Berkeley hotel in London. 'Then watch it grow, give it a little push every now and again, over time, to watch it take shape,' he added." Basically, the MO of the Trump campaign. So now Cambridge is in trouble with the UK government: "Earlier this month, he told a parliamentary inquiry into fake news and Russian interference in Britain’s referendum to exit the European Union that Cambridge Analytica never used or possessed Facebook data. But following the reports in The Times and Observer on Saturday, Damian Collins, the Conservative lawmaker leading the inquiry, said he planned to call Mr. Nix back to testify. 'It seems clear that he has deliberately misled the committee and Parliament,' Mr. Collins said in a statement this weekend. Elizabeth Denham, the British information commissioner, told Channel 4 News that on March 7 she asked for access to Cambridge Analytica, setting a deadline of 6 p.m. Monday. Ms. Denham said she did not accept the response as satisfactory and so would be applying in court on Tuesday for a warrant. 'We need to look at the databases, we need to look at the servers and understand how the data was processed,' she said." If you're known by the company you keep, we know even more about Donald Trump's criminal enterprise now.
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Post by Old Badger on Mar 19, 2018 17:18:20 GMT -5
"President Trump’s attorneys have provided the special counsel’s office with written descriptions that chronicle key moments under investigation in hopes of curtailing the scope of a presidential interview, according to two people familiar with the situation. Trump’s legal team recently shared the documents in an effort to limit any session between the president and special counsel Robert S. Mueller III to a few select topics, the people said. The lawyers are worried that Trump, who has a penchant for making erroneous claims, would be vulnerable in an hours-long interview. The decision to share materials with Mueller’s team is part of an effort by Trump’s lawyers to minimize his exposure to the special counsel, whom the president recently attacked in a series of tweets. Trump has told aides he is 'champing at the bit' to sit for an interview, according to one person. But his lawyers, who are carefully negotiating the terms of a sit-down, recognize the extraordinarily high stakes." link
Not that sentence in red. It's extraordinary. Translation: "Trump's lawyers know he lies and are afraid he'll lie to Mueller, opening him to a criminal charge, if the interview lasts too long." The admission itself is damning.
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Post by Old Badger on Mar 20, 2018 10:43:26 GMT -5
Stephen Colbert explains:
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Post by Old Badger on Mar 20, 2018 10:44:22 GMT -5
The BBC has a more sobering take:
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Post by Old Badger on Mar 20, 2018 17:42:03 GMT -5
Some fallout: "Cambridge Analytica, the political data firm with ties to President Trump’s 2016 campaign, suspended its chief executive, Alexander Nix, on Tuesday, amid a furor over the access it gained to private information on more than 50 million Facebook users. The decision came after a television broadcast in which Mr. Nix was recorded suggesting unseemly practices to influence foreign elections. The London-based company, founded by Stephen K. Bannon and Robert Mercer, a wealthy Republican donor who has put at least $15 million into it, offered tools that could identify the personalities of American voters and influence their behavior." link"The Federal Trade Commission has opened an investigation into Facebook following reports that a data analytics firm that had worked with the Trump campaign had improperly accessed names, “likes” and other personal information about tens of millions of the social site’s users without their knowledge. The FTC probe – confirmed by a source familiar with the agency's thinking and not authorized to speak on the record -- marks the most substantial political and legal threat yet to Facebook as it grapples with the fallout from Cambridge Analytica and its controversial tactics. And it could result in the U.S. government slapping Facebook with a massive fine. At issue for the company -- and at the heart of the FTC probe -- is a settlement they reached with the agency in November 2011, ending an investigation that Facebook deceived users about the privacy protections they are afforded on the site." link
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Post by Old Badger on Mar 21, 2018 12:36:02 GMT -5
Do not expect congressional Republicans to do anything to protect the Mueller investigation from Trump. So says the not-at-all liberal Washington Examiner after talking with GOP Members in the House and Senate. The reason: the GOP voter base. Sen. Bob Corker explains: “The president is, as you know — you’ve seen his numbers among the Republican base — it’s very strong. It’s more than strong, it’s tribal in nature. People who tell me, who are out on trail, say, look, people don’t ask about issues anymore. They don’t care about issues. They want to know if you’re with Trump or not.” linkThe problem for the GOP is that Trump is a two-edged sword, even if you avoid the legal/constitutional issues and focus only on the electoral politics of 2018: "Trump remains a political asset for Senate Republicans, even as he drags down House Republicans in battleground districts and jeopardizes the party’s 23-seat advantage in that chamber. That’s because the battle for the Senate is largely playing out in red states the president won in 2016 that feature vulnerable Democratic incumbents." So, even if the Dems take the House, the GOP base may actually give them a bigger majority in the Senate, perhaps insulating them through 2020, when more GOP than Dem seats are up. There are a couple of takeaways here. One is that it actually may be in Trump's interest not to fire Mueller, but instead to use attacks on him to pump up GOP turnout in November by making him appear as an imminent threat. The other is that House GOP Members likely are in big trouble if that's going to be the strategy, which may explain the record number of them deciding not to run for re-election. The easy prediction: Dems take the House, GOP holds onto the Senate, and we have stalemate in Congress during 2019-20. Any takers?
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Post by Old Badger on Mar 21, 2018 21:42:49 GMT -5
This Administration is providing enough fodder to keep both academic and pop book shelves full for decades. I expect several volumes on this one: "The F.B.I. investigated Attorney General Jeff Sessions for possible perjury last year over congressional testimony in which he said he had no contacts with Russians, according to three people familiar with the case. In fact, Mr. Sessions later acknowledged, he had personally met the Russian ambassador to the United States during the campaign and was aware that George Papadopoulos, a campaign adviser, had developed Russian ties, too. F.B.I. agents were aware of both inaccuracies in real time. And last March, when Congress asked the F.B.I. to investigate the attorney general, agents began doing so, two of the people said. "Andrew G. McCabe, the F.B.I.’s deputy director at the time, authorized the investigation, the two people said. Mr. McCabe himself was recently fired for showing “lack of candor” in an internal investigation. Mr. Sessions rejected Mr. McCabe’s appeal and fired him hours before his retirement was to take effect, jeopardizing his pension. The investigation into Mr. Sessions began before Robert S. Mueller III was appointed special counsel to investigate Russia-related matters. Mr. Sessions’s lawyer, Chuck Cooper, said no investigation is being conducted now. linkNo wonder Sessions was anxious to fire McCabe before he was eligible for his pension. But beyond that: the FBI investigating the head of their own Department? Wow! And, yeah, Sessions lied about the Trump-Russia meetings, but short of a tape of him telling someone "I lied" there's no way to convict him of perjury because of the "I'm old and I forgot" defense he was able to throw up.
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Post by Old Badger on Mar 22, 2018 11:36:07 GMT -5
"The president’s lead lawyer for the special counsel investigation, John Dowd, resigned on Thursday, according to two people briefed on the matter, days after the president called for an end to the inquiry. Mr. Dowd, who took over the president’s legal team last summer, had considered leaving several times in recent months and ultimately concluded that Mr. Trump was increasingly ignoring his advice, one of the people said. Under Mr. Dowd’s leadership, Mr. Trump’s lawyers had advised him to cooperate with the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, who is investigating Russia’s election interference and possible ties to Trump associates as well as whether the president obstructed the inquiry...Mr. Trump now is veering toward the combative approach supported by his longtime personal lawyer, Marc E. Kasowitz, who stepped back last summer but was still in contact with the president occasionally over the past several months." linkWhy has Trump decided to go postal on Mueller? Follow the money!
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Post by goldenbucky on Mar 22, 2018 12:31:01 GMT -5
Trump should represent himself.
Show us how smart he is and avoid those elite attorneys.
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Post by Old Badger on Mar 25, 2018 22:23:14 GMT -5
"The president is disappointed that conflicts prevent Joe diGenova and Victoria Toensing from joining the president’s special counsel legal team." linkHis lead lawyer, John Dowd, quit last week, DC heavyweight attorneys Ted Olsen and Emmitt Flood turned down invitations to join the team, and now diGenova and Toensing aren't coming on board, either. The ostensible reasons: (1) "the president did not believe he had personal chemistry with Mr. diGenova and Ms. Toensing;" and (2) "Ms. Toensing is representing Mark Corallo, who was the spokesman for Mr. Trump’s legal team in 2017 before they parted ways." The first is easy enough to believe, since it's hard to imagine diGenova and Trump sharing the Alpha Dog role; but my guess is that it was diGenova who backed out once he actually spent time with Trump and realized how uncontrollable a client he'd be taking on. The Toensing "conflict" is a cover story, since she knew before the meeting that she was representing Corallo, so would have known better than to take the meeting if there were a real conflict. But for what's it's worth, this aspect of the sprawling case is worth watching: "Mr. Corallo has told investigators that he was concerned that a close aide to Mr. Trump, Hope Hicks, may have been planning to obstruct justice during the drafting of a statement about a meeting between a Russian lawyer and Donald Trump Jr. during the campaign." I wonder whether HH left the WH at her lawyers' advice in order to be free to make a plea deal with Mueller? Just idle speculation there. Trump's comments are the funniest part of the story: "Earlier on Sunday, Mr. Trump took to Twitter from his Florida resort to insist that he faced no problems finding lawyers to represent him in the Russia investigation. 'Fame & fortune will never be turned down by a lawyer, though some are conflicted,' Mr. Trump said in a tweet. The president insisted that 'many lawyers and top law firms want to represent me in the Russia case,' and that reports of flux on his team were a 'Fake News narrative.' Adding new lawyers, he said, would be costly because they would take months 'to get up to speed (if for no other reason than they can bill more).'" LOL! I love how he disses the lawyers as shysters while claiming they're dying to work for him, even as they refuse to come on board. Mueller will make mincemeat of the lawyers Trump has because they're used to working in his sleazy business world, arranging payoffs, making threats, and declaring bankruptcy. He really needs a good criminal lawyer, but who'd want to touch this case?
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Post by Old Badger on Mar 26, 2018 22:24:03 GMT -5
"A prominent Chicago defense attorney said Monday that he had declined an invitation to lead President Trump’s legal team responding to special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s Russia investigation, underscoring the president’s difficulty in attracting top legal talent to represent him in the probe. Dan K. Webb, a Republican, is a former U.S. attorney for Illinois and a corporate and white-collar-defense lawyer for the firm Winston and Strawn. In a statement, his firm said the president and his team recently reached out to Webb and D.C.-based partner Tom Buchanan. "Trump and his allies have been reaching out to several lawyers in recent weeks, including some who had turned Trump down after he interviewed them last spring and summer to be his personal lawyer in Mueller’s investigation into Moscow’s interference in the 2016 election and whether the president’s campaign coordinated with Russia in this effort. Cobb has been handling the probe from the White House Counsel’s Office, formally representing the office of the presidency and not Trump personally. Sekulow is the lead counsel currently representing Trump. Sekulow is a constitutional lawyer and radio host who has been quick to acknowledge that he lacks the experience to oversee a complex criminal investigation like the one the White House and Trump now face. "With a reputation for failing to pay lawyers or follow their legal advice, Trump has struggled to find another top-notch lawyer to take his case." linkLOL! Trump's reputation is so bad that even lawyers won't work for him. Amazing!
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Post by Old Badger on Mar 27, 2018 21:36:32 GMT -5
Let's start with this: " Cambridge Analytica assigned dozens of non-U.S. citizens to provide campaign strategy and messaging advice to Republican candidates in 2014, according to three former workers for the data firm, even as an attorney warned executives to abide by U.S. laws limiting foreign involvement in elections. The assignments came amid efforts to present the newly created company as “an American brand” that would appeal to U.S. political clients even though its parent, SCL Group, was based in London, according to former Cambridge Analytica research director Christopher Wylie. Wylie, who emerged this month as a whistleblower, provided The Washington Post with documents that describe a program across several U.S. states to win campaigns for Republicans using psychological profiling to reach voters with individually tailored messages. The documents include previously unreported details about the program, which was called 'Project Ripon' for the Wisconsin town where the Republican Party was born in 1854. " U.S. election regulations say foreign nationals must not 'directly or indirectly participate in the decision-making process' of a political campaign, although they can play lesser roles. Those restrictions were explained in a 10-page memo prepared in July 2014 by a New York attorney, Laurence Levy, for Cambridge Analytica’s leadership at the time, including President Rebekah Mercer, Vice President Stephen K. Bannon and chief executive Alexander Nix. The memo said that foreign nationals could serve in minor roles — for example as 'functionaries' handling data — but could not involve themselves in significant campaign decisions or provide high-level analysis or strategy. Cambridge Analytica and SCL Group were overwhelmingly staffed by non-U.S. citizens — mainly Canadians, Britons and other Europeans — at least 20 of whom fanned out across the United States in 2014 to work on congressional and legislative campaigns, the three former Cambridge workers said. Many of those employees and contractors were involved in helping to decide what voters to target with political messages and what messages to deliver to them, the former workers said. Their tasks ran the gamut of campaign work, including 'managing media relations' as well as fundraising, planning events, and providing 'communications strategy' and 'talking points, speeches [and] debate prep,' according to a document touting the firm’s 2014 work." link
So, they were violating US election laws as early as 2014. And that's no surprise, because that's what they'd been doing in other countries even before then, according to insider testimony before a committee of the UK Parliament: Christopher Wylie, Nix’s former director of research and now whistleblower, said he saw less 007, more hustler. 'He’s a salesman, he likes to sell stuff,' Wylie told the committee, explaining that as head of Cambridge Analytica, Nix’s job was to woo clients, not write algorithms...Wylie said that Nix and his company didn’t care whether they broke laws in developing countries, as long as they won elections for their clients — in Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana and the Caribbean. Asked what he thought might be Nix’s next move, Wylie — a Brexit supporter who sports pink hair and a nose ring — suggested, 'Jail?'” linkBasically, the GOP and Cambridge Analytica were treating the US as just another Third World country over the past two election cycles, at least. But don't think they didn't have help from Corporate America: "As a start-up called Cambridge Analytica sought to harvest the Facebook data of tens of millions of Americans in summer 2014, the company received help from at least one employee at Palantir Technologies, a top Silicon Valley contractor to American spy agencies and the Pentagon. It was a Palantir employee in London, working closely with the data scientists building Cambridge’s psychological profiling technology, who suggested the scientists create their own app — a mobile-phone-based personality quiz — to gain access to Facebook users’ friend networks, according to documents obtained by The New York Times. Cambridge ultimately took a similar approach. By early summer, the company found a university researcher to harvest data using a personality questionnaire and Facebook app. The researcher scraped private data from over 50 million Facebook users — and Cambridge Analytica went into business selling so-called psychometric profiles of American voters, setting itself on a collision course with regulators and lawmakers in the United States and Britain. " The revelations pulled Palantir — co-founded by the wealthy libertarian Peter Thiel — into the furor surrounding Cambridge, which improperly obtained Facebook data to build analytical tools it deployed on behalf of Donald J. Trump and other Republican candidates in 2016. Mr. Thiel, a supporter of President Trump, serves on the board at Facebook. 'There were senior Palantir employees that were also working on the Facebook data,' said Christopher Wylie, a data expert and Cambridge Analytica co-founder, in testimony before British lawmakers on Tuesday. The connections between Palantir and Cambridge Analytica were thrust into the spotlight by Mr. Wylie’s testimony on Tuesday. Both companies are linked to tech-driven billionaires who backed Mr. Trump’s campaign: Cambridge is chiefly owned by Robert Mercer, the computer scientist and hedge fund magnate, while Palantir was co-founded in 2003 by Mr. Thiel, who was an initial investor in Facebook." linkSo, what a lovely circle! American Billionaires for Trump (Mercer and Thiel), a British huckster (Nix), a complacent data-rich corporation (Facebook), and the Republican Party working together to produce an election that will be regarded as suspicious if not downright fraudulent for the rest of American history. All in the service of making the Billionaires for Trump even richer at the expense of everyone else. That's what the Republican Party has come down to since its lofty start in Ripon.
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Post by Old Badger on Mar 28, 2018 9:41:35 GMT -5
"The FBI has found that a business associate of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort had ongoing ties to Russian intelligence, including during the 2016 campaign when Manafort and his deputy, Rick Gates, were in touch with the associate, according to new court filings. The documents, filed late Tuesday by prosecutors for special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, also allege that Gates had said he knew the associate was a former officer with the Russian military intelligence service. The allegations underscore Mueller’s interest in Manafort and Gates, who continued to interact with business associates in Ukraine even as they helped lead Donald Trump’s presidential campaign...Prosecutors made the allegation without naming the Manafort associate but described his role with Manafort in detail. The description matches the Russian manager of Manafort’s lobbying office in Kiev, Konstantin Kilimnik." linkThe "no collusion" story continues to sag under the weight of evidence. In fact, it's becoming more and more apparent just how broad and deep the collusion was: "The information about the FBI’s assessment of the Manafort associate came in a court filing related to the upcoming sentencing of London attorney Alex van der Zwaan, whose firm worked with Manafort when he served a political consultant in Ukraine. Van der Zwaan, 33, the son-in-law of a prominent Russian Ukrainian banker, pleaded guilty last month to lying about his September 2016 contacts with Gates and the Manafort associate, identified in court documents only as 'Person A.' Prosecutors explained that van der Zwaan had lied and withheld documents about information that was 'pertinent' to their investigation — that Gates had been in direct contact during the presidential campaign with a person who 'has ties to a Russian intelligence services and had such ties in 2016.' They said when van der Zwaan was interviewed by the FBI in November, he told investigators that Gates had informed him that Person A was a former GRU officer. Kilimnik ran Manafort’s office in Kiev during the 10 years he did consulting work there...During Kilimnik’s time working for Manafort in Kiev, he had served as a liaison for Manafort to the Russian aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska, with whom Manafort had done business. Emails previously described to The Post show that Manafort asked Kilimnik during the campaign to offer Deripaska 'private briefings' about Trump’s effort. " Oh, I suppose it's merely a coincidence that a guy identified as a Russian intelligence officer was running Manafort's Kiev office when his firm was trying to keep in office a Ukrainian President subservient to Moscow, and that he was the go-between from the Trump campaign's manager (Manafort) to a Russian Oligarch who acted as a cut-out between Kiev and Putin. But believing that gets us back to believing that Trump's lawyer set up a Delaware company to pay off a porn star out of his own pocket, just to protect is billionaire buddy's sterling reputation. Or we could just use the principle of Occam's Razor and connect the dots, and then wait for the connections to other sets of dots to be tied together: Trump -->Manafort-->Gates-->Van der Zwaan-->Deripsaska-->Putin Theil-->Facebook-->Cambridge Analytica-->Trump campaign-->voters Russian intelligence-->WikiLeaks-->media-->voters I suspect Mueller is going to tie these all into one pretty simple design, including whatever it is that connects Putin more directly to Trump: that it will involve money (most likely in the form of debt) and sex (videos), and it will end Trump's "Presidency" either through impeachment and conviction, resignation, or loss in the 2020 election.
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Post by Old Badger on Mar 28, 2018 15:33:10 GMT -5
"A lawyer for President Trump broached the idea of Mr. Trump pardoning two of his former top advisers, Michael T. Flynn and Paul Manafort, with their lawyers last year, according to three people with knowledge of the discussions. The discussions came as the special counsel was building cases against both men, and they raise questions about whether the lawyer, John Dowd, who resigned last week, was offering pardons to influence their decisions about whether to plead guilty and cooperate in the investigation. The talks suggest that Mr. Trump’s lawyers were concerned about what Mr. Flynn and Mr. Manafort might reveal were they to cut a deal with the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, in exchange for leniency. Mr. Mueller’s team could investigate the prospect that Mr. Dowd made pardon offers to thwart the inquiry, although legal experts are divided about whether such offers might constitute obstruction of justice. "Mr. Dowd’s conversation with Mr. Flynn’s lawyer, Robert K. Kelner, occurred sometime after Mr. Dowd took over last summer as the president’s personal lawyer, at a time when a grand jury was hearing evidence against Mr. Flynn on a range of potential crimes. Mr. Flynn, who served as Mr. Trump’s first national security adviser, agreed in late November to cooperate with the special counsel’s investigation. He pleaded guilty in December to lying to the F.B.I. about his conversations with the Russian ambassador and received favorable sentencing terms. Mr. Dowd has said privately that he did not know why Mr. Flynn had accepted a plea, according to one of the people. He said he had told Mr. Kelner that the president had long believed that the case against Mr. Flynn was flimsy and was prepared to pardon him, the person said. "The pardon discussion with Mr. Manafort’s attorney, Reginald J. Brown, came before his client was indicted in October on charges of money laundering and other financial crimes. Mr. Manafort, the former chairman of Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign, has pleaded not guilty and has told others he is not interested in a pardon because he believes he has done nothing wrong and the government overstepped its authority. Mr. Brown is no longer his lawyer." linkDowd is quoted as denying that he held those talks. Of course he is. If true, this is an obvious case of obstruction of justice. And you know damn well Dowd didn't do this without Trump's knowledge--how could he offer presidential pardons without checking with the "President"? No wonder Flynn had such minor charges posted against him! He and his lawyer may have spilled this offer to Mueller, which would explain the constant rumors that he's investigating obstruction of his criminal investigation. Expect Dowd to be called to testify soon enough. Perhaps he'll take a plea deal to point the finger to You-Know-Who? I mean, we know this is what happened, anyway, so he might as well and get the best deal he can.
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Post by goldenbucky on Mar 28, 2018 19:31:52 GMT -5
Is it any wonder Trump can't find an attorney?!
Imagine walking into THIS sh!tshow as an attorney. After all that, you'd almost certainly get stiffed for the bill too!
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Post by goldenbucky on Mar 29, 2018 17:18:00 GMT -5
Mueller probing Russia contacts at Republican convention: sources"Mueller’s team has been asking about a convention-related event attended by both Russia’s U.S. ambassador and Jeff Sessions, the first U.S. senator to support Trump and now his attorney general, said one source... Another issue Mueller’s team has been asking about is how and why Republican Party platform language hostile to Russia was deleted from a section of the document related to Ukraine..." I thought the second item was curious, if not alarming, at the time. I assume that once Mueller's people start asking around about this sort of thing - thereby allowing sources to make it public - he probably already knows the answers.
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Post by Old Badger on Mar 29, 2018 22:20:26 GMT -5
Mueller probing Russia contacts at Republican convention: sources"Mueller’s team has been asking about a convention-related event attended by both Russia’s U.S. ambassador and Jeff Sessions, the first U.S. senator to support Trump and now his attorney general, said one source... Another issue Mueller’s team has been asking about is how and why Republican Party platform language hostile to Russia was deleted from a section of the document related to Ukraine..." I thought the second item was curious, if not alarming, at the time. I assume that once Mueller's people start asking around about this sort of thing - thereby allowing sources to make it public - he probably already knows the answers. Thanks for posting this, gb. The details further down in that article are quite telling: "The special counsel’s investigators have also interviewed attendees of the committee meetings that drafted the Republican Party platform in Cleveland. At one committee meeting, according to people in attendance, Diana Denman, a member of the platform committee’s national security subcommittee, proposed language calling for the United States to supply 'lethal defensive weapons to Ukraine’s armed forces and greater coordination with NATO on defense planning.' But the final platform language deleted the reference to “lethal defensive weapons,” a change that made the platform less hostile to Russia, whose troops had invaded the Crimean peninsula and eastern Ukraine. After the convention, Denman told Reuters in 2016, J.D. Gordon, a Trump foreign policy adviser, told her he was going to speak to Trump about the language on Ukraine, and that Trump’s campaign team played a direct role in softening the platform language. The Trump campaign has denied playing any role in the weakening of the party’s position regarding Ukraine. Gordon has called Denman’s version of events 'inaccurate.'"
The idea that the campaign had no role in finalizing the platform language is preposterous on its face, even for a bunch as disorganized as the Trump campaign. I agree that Mueller's "detailed" questioning implies that his team already knows from other sources and documents what the answers should be, and they're basically getting corroboration--or putting some people in a position where they're in danger of committing perjury. The target here would appear to be J. Beauregard Sessions, Esq., currently the Attorney=General of the United States. My, won't he have interesting stories to tell when Mueller offers him the choice of coming clean about the Trump campaign or facing prison which at his age likely means a life sentence. Gosh, I wonder which way he'd go?
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Post by Old Badger on Mar 29, 2018 22:54:36 GMT -5
Jeff Sessions is not going to appoint another Special Counsel to investigate the FBI. Instead, he's having the US Attorney for Utah, John W. Huber, look into the issues raised by Sen. Charles Grassley and Reps. Bob Goodlatte and Trey Gowdy concerning the FBI's handling of the Trump-Russia connection and the Clinton Foundation. Earlier this week he announced that DOJ Inspector-General Michael Horowitz is reviewing the FBI investigation into Carter Page (just why are Members of Congress acting as defense attorneys for Page, I wonder?) and--as if no one's looked at this yet--Hillary's damned emails. Sessions clearly has no interest in doing what these Hill Republicans have been demanding by appointing a second Special Counsel, thereby validating the delusional conspiracy theory germinated in alt-right media and popularized by Fox News that the overwhelmingly Republican and conservative leaders and members of the nation's foremost law enforcement agency somehow are part of a left-wing cabal that (a) tried to get Hillary elected (they did just the reverse), and (b) are trying to destroy the Trump "Presidency" (something Trump is doing single-handedly without their help). Sessions seems to understand that he needs the FBI to carry out his own agenda, such as tossing millions of marijuana smokers into federal prisons. link
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Post by Old Badger on Mar 30, 2018 9:42:58 GMT -5
Here's a novel idea: perhaps Mueller could use the Dowd offer as the basis for a charge of conspiracy to commit bribery rather than obstruction of justice. There are good legal reasons to go this route: "Federal bribery requires that a public official agree to receive and accept something of value in exchange for being influenced in the performance of an official act. In this scenario, the official act would be granting a pardon. While the Supreme Court’s 2016 decision in the case of former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell dramatically narrowed the definition of 'official act,' there’s no question that a president granting a pardon would be an exercise of government power under the McDonnell v. United States standard. 'Thing of value' is also fairly easily met: It would be the agreement not to cooperate against the president. The thing of value in bribery law is not limited to envelopes stuffed with cash. It can include anything of subjective value to the public official, whether tangible or intangible. Such intangibles as offers of future employment and personal companionship have been found to be things of value for purposes of bribery. A promise not to cooperate in special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s probe could readily serve as the quid in this quid pro quo." linkWhat makes this so attractive is that there is some doubt among legal scholars whether a President can be charged with obstruction for doing things like firing the head of the FBI (or a special counsel) to block an investigation, since that would reduce the ability of the President to manage the federal bureaucracy. However, there is no dispute that a President can be charged with conspiracy to commit bribery. So the latter is more attractive to a prosecutor. But they'd still have to show that Trump agreed that Dowd should make such an offer and that he did, even if it was not accepted. Seen from this light, it makes sense that Dowd denies both that he made the offer and that Trump ever discussed it with him (much as lawyer Cohen insists he borrowed $130K against his own home to pay off Stormy Daniels without telling Trump about it, even though he later complained to others that Trump hadn't reimbursed him). Why do I suspect that something is going to stick here?
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Post by Old Badger on Apr 2, 2018 20:37:05 GMT -5
"On Monday, the paper reported that Roger Stone, longtime ally and adviser to Donald Trump, told a colleague in an email in August 2016 that he’d had dinner with Assange the previous night. Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team has reportedly asked at least one witness about the email in front of a grand jury. It adds a new wrinkle to long-standing questions about Stone’s relationship with Assange. The Washington Post reported last month that Stone had told an associate in the spring of 2016 that he’d been in contact with Assange and learned that WikiLeaks possessed emails that would be problematic for Democrats. That report also revealed that he’d told another former Trump aide, Sam Nunberg, about having had dinner with Assange. That claim, Stone told The Post, was 'a throwaway line' to get Nunberg 'off the phone.' The Journal report says that Stone emailed the same claim to Nunberg on Aug. 4." linkYet another link in the chain tying the Trump campaign to Assange by way of Stone, who's also liked to Russian military intelligence. Hmmm...
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Post by Old Badger on Apr 2, 2018 21:12:37 GMT -5
The WP's Philip Bump helpfully has traced out six distinct lines of contacts that connect Trump and his campaign to Putin: Left to right: Lavrov-Mifsud-Papadopoulos. George Papadopoulos was an adviser to the Trump campaign who met a professor named Joseph Mifsud shortly after being given that position. Mifsud eventually told Papadopoulos that the Russian government had dirt on Clinton in the form of emails, information that Papadopoulos later conveyed to an Australian diplomat. When WikiLeaks began releasing emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee in July 2016, the Australians tipped off the FBI about Papadopoulos’s comments, initiating the investigation into Trump that evolved into Mueller’s probe. Torshin-Trump Jr. Aleksandr Torshin is a former member of the Russian parliament who has actively sought to build a stronger connection between Russia and the National Rifle Association, of which he’s a member. During the 2016 campaign, he repeatedly sought to be connected directly to senior Trump campaign officials, leveraging relationships to try to set up a meeting during the NRA convention in Kentucky that year. At an event associated with that convention, he met Donald Trump Jr., though apparently only in passing. GRU-WikiLeaks-Trump Jr. U.S. intelligence officials and outside analysts believe that the GRU was able to access the DNC’s computer network in April 2016, stealing information that was eventually released by WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks denies any connection to the Russian government. But it was in contact with Trump Jr. over Twitter’s private messaging system. WikiLeaks passed links and ideas to Trump Jr. during the latter part of the campaign, and he asked them for additional information about upcoming leaks, apparently without success. Veselnitskaya-Trump campaign team. The connection between Natalia Veselnitskaya, a lawyer linked to the Kremlin, and three senior Trump campaign officials is well-established. In June 2016, a music promoter working for a Russian pop star and developer approached Trump Jr. about meeting with Veselnitskaya to receive dirt on Clinton that was part of the Russian government’s efforts to get Trump elected. Trump Jr. readily agreed and met with Veselnitskaya later that month along with Manafort and Jared Kushner. Kilimnik-Manafort. The explanation above doesn’t encompass the scope of this set of connections between Russia and Trump. Manafort’s work in Ukraine overlapped with his work for Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, with whom Manafort had a rocky relationship ultimately involving a lawsuit between the two. During the campaign, Manafort contacted Kilimnik to apparently explore how to make amends with Deripaska, including asking Kilimnik whether Deripaska had seen that he was working with Trump and how that might be used to “get whole.” Dvorkovich–Page. Carter Page was a foreign-policy adviser to the Trump campaign when he traveled to Russia in early July 2016 to give a speech. Pressed by Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee, he admitted last year that, while in Moscow, he had had a cursory meeting with Arkady Dvorkovich, a Russian deputy prime minister. Page claimed that the meeting was only cursory, but in emails reporting back to the campaign, his claims were more robust.
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