In this weeks update in the ongoing Clown Car Soap Opera Unreality Show that is the Criminal Trump Administration we have lots of new revelations of just how much these guys don't really give a flying frack about National Security.
The obvious big thing is the sudden resignation of Staff Secretary Rob Porter who is apparently a serial domestic abuser who had assaulted both of his ex-wives and his ex-girlfriend which had been discovered by the FBI sometime last year and it had been reported that he failed his security clearance to Chief of Staff John Kelly weeks ago. Never the less, he persisted in his position until photos of his first wife with a black eye were posted online by the Dailymail and he immediately resigned, however Kelly initially defended him, and his current girlfriend Hope Hicks concocted a story that the claims against him were a “smear campaign from his enemies.” Which was just fucking bullshit.
On top of the fact that Porter spent over a year handling the highest level security documents without having his full clearance — [when I worked for a Defense Contractor and needed a TS/SCI clearance to do my job, those who were still held up with “Interim” clearances weren’t even allowed into our office areas and were instead given clerical busy work to do until their clearances were final] — it appears that there are dozens (30-40) other people in the Trump White House who have had their permanent clearances held up, yet they remain on their jobs and continue to handle classified material.
Dozens of White House employees are awaiting permanent security clearances and have been working for months with temporary approvals to handle sensitive information while the FBI continues to probe their backgrounds, according to U.S. officials.
People familiar with the security-clearance process said one of those White House officials with an interim approval is Jared Kushner — the president’s son-in-law and one of his most influential advisers.
if Trump did the kind of “extreme vetting” for his own staff that he claims we need to do with immigrants — he pretty much wouldn’t have a staff because the WH still has dozens of open positions.
But yeah, he gets “the best people…”
Even though the FBI had been holding up Porter’s clearance because of the reports of abuse from both of his ex-wives Trump came out today and again praised him for “doing a good job” and wished him well in his future career without ever mentioning even the slightest bit of sympathy for his wives and girlfriend whom he reportedly assaulted.
Before he made this tone deaf statement, this was a problem mostly for John Kelly’s reputation, his judgement and competence — now it’s a problem for Trump himself because here he’s done the exact same thing he did when Bill O’Reilly, Roger Ailes and Roy Moore were accused of sexual violence. This is on top of the fact that threatened to cut funding to the Office of Violence Against women.
President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration is working on plans to make “dramatic cuts” in funding for initiatives to end violence against women, as well as for federal arts and humanities programs, according to a report from The Hill published on Thursday morning.
The article, which quickly sparked widespread social media outrage, says two members of Trump’s team—Russ Vought, a former aide to Vice President-elect Mike Pence, and John Gray, who has worked for Pence, Senator Rand Paul and House Speaker Paul Ryan—are working on the plan for widespread budget cuts after meeting with White House staff ahead of Friday's inauguration. In total, the cuts would save $10.5 trillion over 10 years, according to The Hill. Here’s where some of the proposed cuts might happen:
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“The federal government should not be in the business of funding the arts,” the Republican Study Committee budget report reads. Eliminating both the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities would save an estimated $296 million a year, according to the Republican Study Committee.
The Heritage Foundation blueprint also calls for cuts to the Justice Department’s Office on Violence Against Women grant program and the Legal Services Corporation. The Office on Violence Against Women grants include funding to provide services to sexual assault victims; for tribal governments; and legal assistance for victims of stalking, sexual assault and domestic and dating violence
it’s not like Porter was the only person in the White House with a history of violence against women.
On New Year’s Day, 1996, future Trump campaign chair Steve Bannon was charged with three misdemeanor counts of domestic violence by the Santa Monica police. The charges were eventually dropped when his then-wife did not appear at the trial. On the day that she called the police to her house, however, she told them that at the beginning of their relationship, there had been “3-4 arguments that became physical,” according to the police report. They had gone to counseling, though, and she told police that there had “not been any physical abuse in their arguments for about the past four years”—until the violent altercation that day.
Bannon’s predecessor at the Trump campaign also faced criminal charges for violence against a woman. Corey Lewandowski was arrested in Florida on March 29, 2017, on misdemeanor battery charges. On March 8, Lewandowski had grabbed and pulled aside a reporter, Michelle Fields. Fields photographed and tweeted the bruises on her arm. Lewandowski denied that he touched Fields until contradicted by video evidence. The state attorney ultimately decided that there was not enough evidence to pursue criminal charges, and dropped the case.
This he did the day after Porter’s second wife spoke at length about her marriage on CNN.
Amazingly she pointed out that Porter tried to influence her statement to the FBI and when she basically refused to LIE FOR HIM he turned around after she finally got him out of her apartment and smashed the glass with his fist. Yeah, this is a fine “upstanding” guy.
Conservative — yes Conservative — CNN commentator Amanda Carpenter basically speaks for us all here.
“The takeaway here is, beating your wife is not disqualifying to work in the White House,” Carpenter began. “Should we be surprised? No, because it is the job requirement to go defend the man who talked about sexual assault on the ‘Access Hollywood’ tapes. This is a job qualification to be a professional spokesperson of the Republican Party to go and defend Roy Moore.”
“How much more evidence do we need that the head of the Republican Party, Donald Trump, does not give a whit about the abuse of women,” she continued. “This comes from the top. I mean, I feel like we dance around all of these subjects, and to be able to talk about this in an honest way requires talking about uncomfortable things — like the rape allegation from his first wife. There’s a pattern here. And because the subjects are so uncomfortable, I think we don’t talk about them and they continue to fester.”
On the Russia investigation side of things it’s been pretty busy too as Trump continues to weigh whether he will release the Adam Schiff memo which essentially debunks the Nunes memo which claims that the Russia investigation is merely part of partisan smear campaign paid for the Hillary Clinton and the DNC using the Steele Dossier as it’s primary weapon.
There are unfortunately several problems with that theory even without Schiff’s memo being released. First is the fact that Senate Judiciary Ranking Member Diane Feinstein has announced that none of the allegations in Steele’s dossier have been refuted, and that the partisan “smearing” was actually done by Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley and Lindsey Graham when they made a bogus criminal referral to FBI against Steele.
“The criminal referral of Christopher Steele has nothing to do with accountability,” Feinstein said. “Clearly its goals included undermining the FBI andSpecial Counsel Mueller’s investigation, attacking Christopher Steele and deflecting attention from collusion and obstruction of justice investigations.”
“Not a single revelation in the Steele dossier has been refuted. Unfortunately, the claims in the criminal referral rely on classified information, so it’s difficult to fully repudiate them here. However, as much as possible using unclassified information, the following points lay out the flaws in the criminal referral.”
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The criminal referral is not based on any allegation that Steele lied ormisrepresented facts about Carter Page or what is included in the Steele dossier.In fact, neither provide any evidence that any of the information in Steele’s dossier is wrong. Instead, the referral is limited to a single baseless allegation: that Steele lied about his contacts with the press.
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The criminal referral omits key facts. The Department of Justice has provided documents regarding its interactions with Mr. Steele to the Judiciary Committee both before and after the criminal referral was made. Despite this, the Majority did not modify the criminal referral and pressed forward with its original claims, which do not take into account the additional information provided after the initial January 4 referral.
Instead of providing a comprehensive analysis, the criminal referral selectively focuses on some facts while omitting others.
In addition to this John Podesta was interview today on CNN and he revealed that Hillary campaign and the DNC did not seek out Steele of Fusion GPS to hire them to create the dossier. Instead, members of Fusion GPS came to Marc Elias at Perkins Coie — whom they apparently knew — and stated that they were already working on researching Trump and offered it to them if they would pick up the contract that had been previously dropped by the Washington Free Beacon.
That flies directly in the face of what Nunes claimed to Sean Hannity that the “collusion” was between the Clinton campaign and Russia.
“Sir, are there crimes committed here?” he asked Nunes, who appeared to agree and said he hoped viewers “understood” Hannity’s comments.
“We have a clear link to Russia,” the chairman said. “You have a campaign who hired a law firm, who hired [dossier author firm] Fusion GPS, who hired a foreign agent, who got information from the Russians on another campaign.”
He’s got all of that backwards. Every bit of it.
The tension between Nunes staff — who wrote his bogus fucked up memo smearing the FBI — and democratic staffers is apparently so bad they’re going to construct a wall inside the Capitol to keep them apart from each other. What’s he think, they’re gonna get into a brawl and get shivved?
On top of the Nunes flop memo, and Grassley trying to get Steele arrested, Republicans are also trying to smear Intelligence Committee Ranking member Mark Warner with some bullshit, unfortunately Marco Rubio called them out on it.
Rubio defended Senator Mark Warner, D-VA, a top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, after Fox News reported that he had “extensive contact” with lobbyist Adam Waldman in 2017 in an attempt to contact Christopher Steele, the British spy behind the infamous “Steele dossier” on then-candidate Donald Trump.
Waldman’s lobbying firm worked with Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska in 2009 and 2010. The firm, according to Fox News, also has ties to Hillary Clinton.
The Fox News article alleges that “secrecy seemed very important to Warner” and that he wanted to connect “directly with Steele without anyone else on the Senate Intelligence Committee being in the loop — at least initially.”
Oops.
Yet of course, even though Rubio is simply telling the truth that this really isn’t news Trump attorney Jay Sekulow has accused him of a “covering for [Warner].”
“Has had zero impact on our work,” Rubio insisted.
That comment drew the attention of Sekulow, who ranted against Rubio and Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) in an interview with Politico on Friday.
“It may have zero impact on his work,” Sekulow said. “I’m not so sure it has zero impact on the United States.”
“Republicans are covering for him,” Sekulow insisted, calling Rubio and Burr’s responses to the texts “weak.”
Speaking of the Schiff memo Trump’s White House has declined to release it and have instead sent it back to the House even though FBI Director Wray and Deputy AG Rosenstein have specified the changes and redactions they would like.
Lastly it appears that Associate Attorney General Rachel Brand plans to retire, this normally wouldn’t matter much but she happens to have been the person who would have taken over oversight of the Mueller investigation if anything happens to current Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein. Now Trump will have to nominate someone new and that person will have the authority to shut Mueller down if Rosenstein isn’t able to stand in the way.
Daily updates and details are as follows:
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February 3rd —
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February 4th —
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February 5th —
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Emails from FBI show — despite claims from Trump and Huckabee-Sanders — that rank and file agents were shocked and dismayed by Comey’s firing.
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Trump in Ohio while doing a Happy dance over his tax cuts and wage hikes says he’s not ‘braggadocios” then calls Democrats (mostly the CBC) he didn't applaud his stealing credit from Obama for bringing African-American and Hispanic unemployement down for 8 years — “UnAmerican and Treasonous”. They’d rather see Trump lose than America Win.” He also claims that “we caught them in the act, like the great sleuth… they’re so embarrassed” [No, really they [The FBI] are pretty pissed off that you’ve smeared them.]
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Just as Trump starts speaking the Dow drops 1,500 points before finally settling at a net 1,179 Point loss — the largest point drop in history. Fox breaks in on Trump’s live event to show the market crashing, he remains silent on the issue.
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Jerome Powell is sworn in as the new chairmen of the federal reserve, he vows to ‘remain vigilant’ about financial risks [Yeah, sure he will.]
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Trump tweets Nunes will go down as an “American Hero” and ridicules “Little Adam Schiff” as a leaker and liar “who must be stopped” as the House votes on whether to release the Democrats Minority Memo on the Carter Page FISA Warrant & reports are the WH wants to appoint a second Special Counsel to investigate the DOJ and FBI even though the Inspector General is already doing that.
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Britain slams Trump for attacking their healthcare system. “The Democrats are pushing for Universal HealthCare while thousands of people are marching in the UK because their system is going broke and not working,” [No, they were marching against attempts to privatize their system!]
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Edward Snowden debates Joe Scarborough over Nunes memo via tweet arguing over “all the information” that should be released.
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Trump’s nominee for UN migration programs says “Muslims are inherently violent” [And they wonder why we call them “bigots”?]
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Angela Rye blasts Republican scumbag for calling Rep. Maxine Waters “crazy” while whining the Democrats are nice enough to Trump.
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Bloomberg confirms that Don Jr agreed to adjust Magnitsky act sanctions just as Vesenitskaya requested, then asked for documents proving the “dirt” on Hillary. When she didn’t deliver, he kicked her out.
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Nunes tells Hannity he has clear evidence of “collusion” between Russia and the Clinton campaign. He also denies he has colluded with the WH ‘Whatever Democrats accuse you of doing is what they’re doing’ and admits he left Carter Page’s personally history with Russia out of his memo, even though Page wrote in 2013 that he was an “advisor to the Kremlin.”
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Anderson Cooper shuts down WH Spokesman Hogan Gidley’s bizarre claim his Uber driver proves Americans don’t care about Russia.
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Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) hits Trump back over his “Treason” accusations saying we don’t live in a dictatorship where we have to clap at the whims of Cadet “Bone Spurs”. Sen. Whitehouse says the claim “sounds like North Korea.” [More that they have in common.]
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Super Bowl Champion Eagles players say they won’t visit Trump at the WH.
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Maggie Haberman reports that Trump’s lawyers want him to refuse an “open ended” interview with Mueller because he’s likely to be trapped into perjuring himself. Jeffrey Tobin says there’s no such thing as a “perjury” trap — you either lie or you don’t.
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Politico reports that Nunes told Fox and Friends over the weekend that the Page FiSA application did include that the Steele memo was financed by a “political source.” Which means his memo is a fucking lie.
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Grassley starts going after Steele again.
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CNN Staffer finds a copy a national security response plan against a potential biological attack against the Super Bowl in the back pocket of a plane seat.
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Don Jr. Says his father can’t be racists because of ‘all the rappers’ who have taken photos with him” which is very nutty nonsense because they simply didn’t realize it yet. Ask Snoop Dogg or Eminem what they think of him now, why don’t cha?
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House intel panels votes to release Democratic Minority report memo.
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The Anti-Defamation League and SPLC both release reports indicating recent `murders by White Supremacists and the alt-Right have surged under Trump, doubling the number from the previous year including 43 deaths and over 100 injuries since 2014.
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February 6th —
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February 7th —
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February 8th —
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Fox cuts away from WH briefing as the DOW crashes another -1,033 points again. “What the hell happened?”
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Politico reports that Page was under surveillance at the time he testified that he spoke to Steve Bannon about the Steele dossier.
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CNN’s Joan Walsh smacks down Trumpnut military supremacist Steve Cortes who claims she’s “not fit to shine John Kelly’s shoes.”
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CNN Conservative Amanda Carpenter explodes at the culture of abusers in the Trump WH.
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WH Deputy Press Secretary Raj Shah gives his first official briefing and refuses to admit when Kelly knew about Porter’s abuse allegations claiming there were “new revelations” [and pictures] only recently. He also angers Trump by admitting they could have done things “better.”
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Porter’s second ex-wife is interviewed on CNN and says that he tried to influence her statements to the FBI about him and tried to get her to take down a blog post about their marriage, and that after she finally got him to leave and locked the door he turned around and punched the glass. She says she worried for Hope Hicks “The [violent] behavior comes out when he’s under a lot of stress, like now. I don’t think he’ll stop.”
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Porter’s most recent girl friend had reached out to both of his previous wives to confirm whether they had experienced the same abuse, and had even contacted WH Counsel Don McGhan about it before finding suggestive text messages between Porter and Hope Hicks. [So he’s an abuser *and* a cheater!]
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Joe Biden suggests Trump is being blackmailed by Putin, and advises the he shouldn’t be interviewed by Mueller. [Which could be reverse psychology because that will likely get him subpoenaed by the Grand Jury]
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Omarosa whispers while crying to a fellow Celebrity Big Brother contestant that she was haunted by what Trump would tweet next, and that she tried to make him stop but others protected him. “It’s not going to be Ok.”
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The Winter Olympics open in South Korea, both the North and South Korea delegation appear as a single team.
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Pence lies about about his support for gay conversion therapy when Olympic Skater Adam Rippon calls him out for it and refuses to meet him. Then he attacks the reporter who broke the story claiming it’s “Fake News.” During the opening ceremony Pence refuse to stand for any country except the U.S. [What sportsmanship!] Kim Jong-Un’s sister is sitting just a few feet from him.
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Rand Paul filibusters the budget deal because he wants a vote on an amendment and all amendments are closed — the government shuts down for several hours until he finally gets tired and allows the Senate to vote.
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CNN reports that John Kelly sent out an email condemning domestic abuse to WH staffers [Too damn little, too damn late — and did he cc: Trump on that?]
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Daily Beast reports that the WH initial response to the allegations against Porter were that they were a “smear campaign cooked up by Porters enemies” [And how exactly the frack does this unknown staffer dude have enemies?]
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Politico reports that Kelly knew that Porter’s security clearance would be denied weeks ago. [Ruh roh!]
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Jeff Sessions, who is planning to prosecute legalized medical marijuana use, says that people suffering from Chronic pain should avoid opioids by “taking more aspirin and toughing it out.”
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Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) defends Kelly saying he’s “still a good man” and that he only made a “bad decision.” [Yeah, but apparently he’s made dozens of bad decisions because lots of people in the WH besides Porter still have interim clearances, including Jared Kushner. Technically Trump couldn’t get a clearance either if he wasn’t exempt since 19 women have accused him of sexual assault.]
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Thinkprogress reports that if Trump had used “extreme vetting” for his staff the way he wants to do with immigrants — he basically wouldn’t have a staff.
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CBS reports that tension between Dem and GOP staffers on the House intel committee have become so severe that they plan to literally build a wall inside the Capital to separate them from each other. [And will Mexico be paying for the wall? Fucking Snowflakes!!!]
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February 9th —
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Macro Rubio blows up the latest fake Fox “scandal” that Sen. Mark Warner had been texting and emailing lobbyist Adam Waldman who had connections to Oleg Deripaska in an effort to contact Christopher Steele. He states that all the messages which were hyped by Julian Assange and Hannity were disclosed months ago to the Intelligence committee and were part of their investigation of Trump’s links to Russia. Intel Chairman Sen. Burr also defends Warner.
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Trump goes on to praise Rob Porter again saying “he denies it” and “wishes him a great career, he did a very good job” — just like he defended Bill O’Reilly, Roger Ailes and Roy Moore when they were accused of sexual harassment and assault — despite the pictures, the restraining order and the fact that his two ex-wives and ex-girlfriend would be liable for charges of lying to the FBI if they weren’t telling the truth. He’s apparently angry at Hope Hicks now who did nothing but defend Porter, just before he defended Porter too which is nonsense bullshit.
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Joe Biden responds that he’s “most disturbed” that even though Porter couldn’t get a security clearance he was excused because “he was good at his job. It’s like saying that an axe murderer is a real good painter.”
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Dana Bash slams Trump for only showing sympathy for Porter and not a single word for his 3 (and counting) abuse victims.
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WH staff reveal that Kelly tried to get them to tell a bogus story about Porter’s departure.
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NYTimes reports that Trump had called his fired former Chief of Staff Reince Preibus to complain about his current Chief of Staff John Kelly and all the negative press he was generating. [He has to cry to his ex about his new manfriend getting in trouble. Fucking hilarious!]
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Amanda Carpenter reminds us that on top of the 19 women who accused Trump of sexual assault — his first wife Ivana accused him of rape.
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Omarosa continues bashing Trump: : I’d never vote for him again ‘in a million years’. [You’re not alone Sista!]
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Pence calls North Korea’s military parades “menacing”, but says Trump’s military parade will be “Patriotic.” [Yeah, right dude.]
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WaPo reports that Trump doesn’t even bother to read his Daily Intelligence Briefing, they have to read it to him. He apparently only has the briefing every 2 to 3 days, complains they “talk down to him” and goes off tangents in the middle of them.
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Sen Feinstein slams Grassley and Lindsey Graham for making a criminal referral to the FBI against Christopher Steele stating not one allegation in his dossier has been refuted.
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Fox executive editor John Moody slams Olympics for being proud to have their most diverse U.S. Team ever saying instead of “Faster, Stronger, Higher” their motto should be “Darker, Gayer, Different.” The column is later pulled from the website with a claim that it “doesn’t reflect the feelings of Fox News” — except that John Moody is one of their highest execs, so yeah, it kinda does.
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TPM reports that Putin asked Trump to go easy on Russian sanctions when they met face to face — without U.S. Press or an American interpreter — last July. And so far, he has.
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Wapo reports House GOP leaders are complaining of memo fatigue as the Nunes and Schiff memos on the surveillance of Carter Page rages on and Trump signals that he will release the 10 Page Dem counter-memo; “We’re in Memo Hell” [It’s a hell of your own making pal!]
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Judge Gonzalo Curiel — who Trump had attacked as being biased against him in the Trump University case over his border wall because of his Mexican heritage even though he was born in Indiana — will today hear arguments over a case filed against allowing his border wall to deviate from the regular environmental review process.
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WSJ reports that Senate Intel Committee is preparing a report to protect our election systems during the midterms [OH THANK GOD SOMEBODY REMEMBERED!!!!]
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John Podesta states on CNN that Fusion GPS had come to Marc Elias at Perkins Coie and told them they were already doing research on Trump not the other way around, and that the DNC and Clinton campaign didn’t even know about it even after Elias hired them to continue their work.
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Officers from the California Highway Patrol collaborated with violent neo-Nazis to go after members of Anti-Fascist Action whom they had stabbed repeatedly in a brawl outside the State Capitol.
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Associate Attorney General Rachel Brand — who is in third position at the agency behind Rod Rosenstein — announces that she’s stepping down to become General Counsel for Walmart. This means Trump gets to pick a new nominee for this position who would have responsibility over Mueller if Rosenstein is fired or leaves.
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James Comey former Special Assistant Josh Campbell states on CNN that the SF86 Security form is inconsistent when it comes to questions about domestic violence. On other types of crimes it asks if you’ve ever been “charged” — but when it comes to domestic violence it only asks if you ever been “convicted.”
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Trump’s attorney Jay Sekulow attacks Rubio and Burr claiming that they “covering” for Warner’s text messages.
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Former CIA Chief of Staff Jeremy Bash says that Brand probably left before Trump could fire her because of all of his attacks on the DOJ. “Rachel may have seen the writing on the wall, said ‘This thing is coming right for me, I’m out of here.'”
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ABC reports that Kelly has offered to resign to a “furious” Trump — however WH spokesman Hogan Gidley denies it.
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Trump refuses to release the Dem memo on Carter Page’s FISA Warrant supposedly because Wray and Rosenstein had suggested some redactions and changes, although they did release the Nunes memo even though the FBI and DOJ said it had “gross omissions of fact” [Of course it would also blow away his “the FBI is biased” talking points] The House now gets it back and could either change it per the DOJ or possibly vote to release it to the congressional record as is, Rep Eric Swalwell suggests that this may be deliberate obstruction of justice if the changes are political rather than about sources and methods.
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NSA agents paid a Russian operative $100K to get back stolen cyberweapons and hacking tools and instead received a grainy 15 second video that was supposedly of Trump with 2 prostitutes in Moscow in 2013. The $100K was intended to be a downpayment of $1 Million but they cut off future payments thinking they were not getting what they requested.