The 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 4th, June 21st, June 18th, June 14th, June 12th, June 9th, June 6th, and June 2nd if you like to take these in bite size pieces.
Today’s incremental update includes several nice new juicy bombshells.
First and foremost is the revelation of yet another previously undisclosed meeting between a Kremlin-Linked Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya who apparently offered Donald Jr. “dirt on Hillary Clinton” prior to the sit-down at Trump Tower which also included Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner. This would be the definition of “Collusion” particularly if this information was derived from criminal cyber espionage and would yet again confirm another plank in the Steele Dossier which claimed the Kremlin had already been supplying Trump with opposition research on Clinton for some time.
If true, as Richard Painter points out this would “Border on Treason.” And remember this in addition to the reports from last week that an associate of Michael Flynn was trying to get copies of Hillary’s emails from Russian Hackers, so this wasn’t a bug in the Trump campaign — it’s was a feature.
Trump’s ongoing War with Reality and the Press has escalated as Pro-Trump forces have doxed CNN staff and their family’s phone numbers and home addresses causing them to receive numerous death threats. Trump and Co continue to ignore that real potential harm from their own actions and instead continue to retweet violent videos attacking CNN and whine that they are the “real victims.”
Trump meets with Putin for 2 hours, and after reportedly shocking Tillerson when he “unceremoniously began the meeting by reportedly saying to Putin: 'I'm going to get this out of the way: Did you do this?'” Then apparently takes Putin’s denials that he ordered the hacking of the U.S. election seriously, proposes to form a Cyber Security Unit with Russia which some say is like “putting an Arsonist in charge of the Fire Brigade” and then he disses Obama for “doing nothing” about a hack he doesn’t believe happened and insults John Podesta over not giving the DNC server which he had no control over to the CIA who never asked for it, or the FBI who could have simply applied for a warrant if they wanted it that badly but didn’t because Crowdstrike already had all the proof that it was Russia they needed.
Also pro-Trump agent provocateurs attempt to generate forged NSA documents claiming to name a specific unmasked Trump associate who had colluded with the Russians to the Rachel Maddow show and to Buzzfeed in an apparent effort to prove they are “Fake News” by prompting them to report a false story.
Via the New York Times.
President Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., was promised damaging information about Hillary Clinton before agreeing to meet with a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer during the 2016 campaign, according to three advisers to the White House briefed on the meeting and two others with knowledge of it.
The meeting was also attended by his campaign chairman at the time, Paul J. Manafort, and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Mr. Manafort and Mr. Kushner recently disclosed the meeting, though not its content, in confidential government documents described to The New York Times.
The Times reported the existence of the meeting on Saturday. But in subsequent interviews, the advisers and others revealed the motivation behind it.
Here’s Richard Painter on Don Jr.’s neo-Treason.
Let me also take a moment to respond specifically to a couple of Don Jr’s tweets, in which he stated:
Rep. Gabby Giffords was shot not long after her Offices were vandalized following the posting of gunsight crosshairs over her offices by Sarah Palin’s PAC. Other political shootings include the Washington Holocaust Museum shooter who was actually on his way to kill David Axelrod, the terrorist attack on Planned Parenthood after phony right-wing video appeared calming they “sold baby parts”, the Knoxville Church terrorist attack against Liberals, the Charleston Church shooting which was in retaliation for the arrest and trial of George Zimmerman as fed by Right-wing propoganda, and now we have CNN staff and their families receiving dozens of vicious “gory” death threats. Via Redstate.
This is insane.
How long before Trump’s vendetta against the media culminates in violence?
Even in Europe for the G20 Summit, the president couldn’t resist taking a shot at the media.
Last week, Trump’s utter lack of maturity or decency was put on display, when he tweeted out a meme from a Reddit user that showed Trump attacking someone with the CNN logo over their face.
….
We have a president who is actively working to silence media, and he doesn’t really seem capable of understand how his rhetoric might be dangerous.
CNN hasn’t spoken much about this directly, except for this comment by Brian Stetler.
One more…
The IRS didn’t “target” Conservatives organizations — they were adding them to an already existing list of potential political organizations since the Tea Party was so new at the point.
Close to a third of the advocacy groups named by the Internal Revenue Service as recipients of special scrutiny during tax-exempt application reviews were liberal or neutral in political outlook, a leading nonpartisan tax newsletter reported after conducting an independent analysis of data released by the agency.
All told, around 470 groups were flagged as "potential political cases" between 2010 and 2012, including 298 whose experiences were analyzed in a Treasury Department inspector general's report. Because the IRS by law must not name groups that have not yet been approved or which were rejected, only a subset of their names was made public in May by the agency -- 176 cases.
Fast and Furious was essentially the same as a program that originated under George W. Bush’s administration under the name Wide Receiver and was actually ended by the Obama Administration.
The two operations -- Fast and Furious and Wide Receiver -- had some similarities, and both were run out of the ATF’s Phoenix Field Division. The inspector general explored both programs in depth and found similar problems.
"The risk to public safety was immediately evident in both investigations," the inspector general’s report states.
The White House told us that Obama was referring to the general practice of gun walking, which happened in both administrations. "The President was referring to the flawed tactic of gun-walking, which despite Republicans efforts to politicize this issue, began under the previous administration and it was our attorney general who ended it," said White House spokesman Eric Schultz.
And also there’s no big secret to the Iran Deal — it simply put ends their ability to produce Nuclear Weapons.
Beruff said Obama’s deal "allows Iran to produce a nuclear weapon." He makes it sound as if the agreement formally blesses Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons. But it doesn’t.
The terms of the deal expressly forbid pursuing a militarized nuclear program. There are limits on uranium enrichment and facility uses, and Iran must agree to inspections. It also must abide by terms of international treaties to not seek weapons even after the deal’s guidelines end.
To develop nuclear weapons, Iran would have to either break the terms of the agreement or else wait it out and start building one anew once the deal’s provisions have expired (which would be counter to the provisions of treaties that predated this deal). Either way, that doesn’t sound like an agreement that "allows Iran to produce a nuclear weapon."
All this is distraction, if Don Jr. agreed to go to that meeting in order to get Russian generated “dirt” on Hillary Clinton in June of 2016— which just five days before the first Wapo Report that the DNC was hacked by the Russians — he was most likely agreeing to receive information that the Russian’s couldn’t have gotten without espionage. And if they discussed giving them anything in exchange for that information — that’s collusion, even if they never actually did anything or never receiving the info.
Although we know they did receive the info because the first dump of DNC emails was released by DCLeaks just 7 days later.
Other specific Trump/Russia/Corruption details over the last 5 days.
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July 5th —
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July 6th —
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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.]
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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.”
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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.”
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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,”
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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.
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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.”
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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.
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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.
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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.
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According to Lavrov, “Trump told Putin that some circles in the US are exaggerating the topic of Russian cyber meddling.”
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Tillerson claimed he sent Melania into the meeting to break it up after first hour, but they just kept talking for another hour.
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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.
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They don’t reach an agreement on how to handle North Korean’s increasingly aggressive missile and nuclear program.
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They do reach an agreement on a cease fire in southern Syria.
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They talk for so long both of them skip out of the Climate Change/Energy meeting.
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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”
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Trump tweets that Podesta didn’t let FBI [or inexplicably the CIA who have no jurisdiction inside the U.S.] have the DNC server when Podesta actually didn’t have any control 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.
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Ivanka temporarily sits in Trump’s place at one G20 summit table, the internet goes nuts.
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July 8th —
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July 9th —
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July 10th —
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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 is illegal) in order to help Hillary Clinton but her claims “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 avoided a Logan Act violation].
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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 which was kinda collusion-ish.
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Kellyanne goes on George Stephanapoulos and gets caught in her previous statements that there were “no contacts or meetings” with Russians.
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Kellyanne also talks to Chris Cuomo and whines endlessness that CNN doesn’t give Trump any positive coverage — although they do. She tries to do an infomercial about Trump the Great on the VA reform, the Opiod crisis and Infrastructure, Cuomo counters that Don Jr. 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 (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 and other Trump sycophants on every day. he says “You rally people to attack the press and our families” which they have.
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Keith Olbermann pulls up an old Trump tweet that he says shows Trump knew Manafort and Don Jr. meet with Veselnitskaya because it was the first time he said “33,000 of Hillary’s emails were missing.”
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FBI says about half of Comey’s memos contain sensitive or confidential information indicating his sharing some of them with Senate investigators may be problematic, which means that he is now suffering from the same after-the-fact “up classification” problem that plagued Hillary Clinton and her emails.
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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 only reached an agreement to review them just last week.
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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.
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Congressional staffers tell the Daily Beast that Treasury officials attempted to water down the Senate Sanctions Bill against Russia. Tillerson supposedly argue it would “handicap their desire to repair the relationship between the two nations.”
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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?”
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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.”
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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.”
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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 he lawyers up.
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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.
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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.