Well, it’s been a lively couple weeks hasn’t it? It seems like the Trump-Russia scandal moves in phases, where it first started focused on Michael Flynn and his being fired over lying to Mike Pence and the FBI about his discussions with former ambassador Kislyak to the firing of James Comey and his bread crumb trail of notes which hint at Trump attempting to save Flynn and derail the investigation.
Then we had Trump’s attacks on Scarborough and CNN leading to the doxing of CNN’s staff and numerous death threats against them and their families followed by the entire story of Don Jr., Kushner and Manafort having this secret little meeting to get damaging information on Hillary Clinton with a Russian Lawyer and former spy after they’d all said they’d had no contacts with Russians at all.
Kushner effectively deployed the “I’m incompetent, didn’t know anything, didn’t hear anything, didn’t see anything and my assistant doesn’t know when to hit ‘Send”” defense.
Then there’s been the growing feud between Trump and Sessions for his decision to recuse himself from the investigation of the campaign after he’d been a member of that campaign, which eventually led to the revelation that Kislyak was recorded stating that he and Sessions had had two detailed conversations about the Trump campaign when he, you guessed it, had claimed he hadn’t talked to any Russians about anything during the campaign, let alone about the campaign.
Now we have the tumbling train wreck on fire that is fresh White House Communications Director Anthony “The Mooch” Scaramucci who claims Preibus is a “fucking paranoid schizophrenic” and Bannon is self-promotor who likes to “suck his own cock” while railing about the release of a Public. Disclosure. Form. that shows he’s taking checks from a company owned by China while working in the White House.
Lastly Bill Browder who was Sergei Magnitski’s employer when Putin and Russia’s Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika had him falsely arrested and beaten to death in Jail gets to testify to Senate Judiciary and explain how it was Chaika’s former employee Natalia Veselnitskaya who walked into Trump Tower with supposed dirt on Clinton when what she really wanted was to see if she could work a deal with the Trumpsters to get Russian sanctions like the Magnitsky act reduced while Congress has now actually approved increased sanctions on Russia and Vladimir Putin has threatened retaliation.
Also Trumpcare gasped, choked and finally died in the Senate last night.
Fun times, eh?
[This post is part of a larger series including my original Master Timeline which begins in 1986 when Trump first began talking about becoming a diplomat/negotiator with Russia so he could “end the Cold War in an hour” has been split due to length with a new Master List Vol 2 beginning in Mid-June.
There are also view previous incremental updates for July 14th, July 10th, July 9th, July 4th, June 21st, June 18th, June 14th, June 12th, June 9th, June 6th, and June 2nd.]
Here is Bill Browder on CNN with Fareed Zakaria and just this alone is a key primer on what has really been going on here with Russia, Putin, Sanctions and all their efforts to boost and get their hooks into Trump.
Not surprisingly Veselnetskaya has talked exclusively to RT and whined about her safety while blaming everything on Bill Browder.
Yeah, she basically claims Browder is manipulating the media and says that nothing ever really happened to Magnitsky at all even though Russia’s own human rights reports clearly says that it did and the didn’t die of a “heart attack” as Putin and Chaika claim. She’s not real convincing here.
Oh and of course, Scaramucci calls in during the middle of Ryan Lizza talking to Chris Cuomo.
Yeah, man… lay off some of the coke will ya?
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July 15th —
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July 16th —
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July 17th —
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Spicey 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.”
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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.
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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.
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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?’’]
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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.”
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July 18th —
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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.
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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.
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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?]
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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.
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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.
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Sean Hannity whines about Shep Smith’s criticism of Trump “Some voices on Fox drive me nuts. Shep is so anti-Trump.”
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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.
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July 19th —
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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.”
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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.
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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.
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Shep Smith slaps back at Hannity “Sometimes facts are displeasing.”
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Flynn and Caputo are reportedly having difficulty paying their lawyer fees.
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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?]
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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.
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Trump does an interview with Maggie Haberman and the NyTimes
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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.”
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He thinks Comey briefing him on the Steele dossier was intended as blackmail in order to keep his job.
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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
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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.”
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He doesn’t trust Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein because he’s from Baltimore and it’s full of Democrats.
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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.”
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He again denied that he asked Comey to drop the Flynn investigation.
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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.
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He says that if Mueller wanders from Russia and starts to investigate his families finances it would be “crossing a red line.”
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The NYTimes reports that investigators are looking at complex financial transactions between Trump, Kushner, Deutsche Bank and VEB.
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Trump hits 6 Months in Office as Carrier lays off 300 workers.
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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.
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NYTimes reports that Manafort owed $17 Million to pro-Russia shell companies based in Cyprus before he joined Trump campaign.
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July 20th —
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July 21st —
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July 23rd —
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July 24th —
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Kushner releases an 11 Page statement prior to his speaking to the Senate Intel staff behind closed doors
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He denies colluding with Russians or discussing campaign issues.
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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.
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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.
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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.]
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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.”
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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?]
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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.”
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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.
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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.”
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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!]
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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’]
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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.`
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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”.
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Feinstein asks Grassley to call Sessions before Senate Judiciary.
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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?]
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Trump tries 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. He uses his Interior Secretary to try and threaten Sen. Murkowski, which pretty much backfires and pisses her off. And reports start to surface that’s he’s floating the idea of removing Sessions.
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July 25th —
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July 26h —
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July 27th —
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CBO score of Skinny Repeals says that it would take Healthcare from 16 Million people and increase premiums by 20%.
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Newsweek reports that Russia used Facebook to try and trick Macron supporters prior to French Election.
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Senate ignores Trump’s call to investigate Hillary Clinton again.
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Lindsay Graham says firing Sessions and/or Mueller would be the beginning of the end of Trump’s presidency.
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The Joint Chiefs announce no one is going no where based on a Tweet, Trump hasn’t given them any formal instructions yet.
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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.
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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.
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Having the Magnitski act repealed or limited is a prime Putin goal.
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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 disinformation to help make it easier to discredit the overall report.
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Kellyanne Conway throws Preibus a “shiv in the ribs” for leaking Scaramucci’s financials — which he probably didn’t do.
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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.
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Scaramucci then calls Ryan Pizza of the New Yorker directly and gives him a rambling profane on the record interview.
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He demands to know who leaked that he was having dinner with 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 a matter of National Security?)
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He says that he’s not out to promote himself and “Suck his own cock” like Steve Bannon, he’s trying to promote Trump. [And doing a wonderful job he is too...]
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He claims Preibus is a “fucking 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?]
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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.
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He says they need to “Kill all the fucking 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.
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Propublica obtains a set of talking points created for DNI Dan Coates which shows that the relationship between the Intel ommunity and Trump is highly strained. [No kiddin?]
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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.
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McConnel says it’s “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.
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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.”
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Devin Nunez continues pushing his Obama “Unmasking” Story.
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Manafort is schedule to meet with Senate Judiciary today, but negotiates a later date.
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New Russia sanctions bill gets sent to Trump’s desk.
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July 28th —
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Trump calls for Police Brutality by telling assembled cheering Long Island Police to "don’t be to 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?”
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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.
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Scaramucci’s wife 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.
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Russia expels U.S. Diplomats and seizes an American compound in “retaliation” for the new sanctions bill that Trump hasn’t yet signed calling them “Illegal” and unjustified.