Today in this week’s update in the Trump Russia Corruption Timeline after Sam Numberg TV topped the rating last week is the just breaking announcement that Republicans on the House Intel Committee has finished all their interviews for the Trump-Russia Election Investigation.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that the committee “has finished interviewing witnesses in its yearlong probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election, according to a person familiar with the matter, signaling the end is near of a contentious investigation that has revealed deep partisan divisions on the panel.”
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“Republicans on the committee and in the House of Representatives think it is now time to conclude the panel’s investigation, according to people familiar with the matter,” the report said. “Republicans and Democrats on the House committee have said they would like to produce a bipartisan report, but relations on the panel have deteriorated to the point where such a task may be difficult.”
This their doing despite the fact that multiple witnesses including Corey Lewandowski, Hope Hicks, Steve Bannon and Don Jr. refused to answer direct questions relevant to the investigation and claimed to have “executive” privilege even for conversations that took place during the campaign and the transition when Trump wasn’t yet “The Executive.” Junior claimed “Attorney Client” privilege even though he’s not an attorney and his father isn’t his client, but just because White House lawyers where in the room sometimes when they talked. They did subpoena Steve Bannon when he refused to answer questions, but when he came back under the subpoena he only answered pre-written questions that were supplied in advance by White House Lawyers, each with a single one word answer. “No.”
And there’s also the fact that another witness former Blackwater CEO and Betsy Devos brother Erik Prince may have lied to them under oath about his secret meeting with UAE and Russian officials in the Seychelles Islands in order to establish yet another “back channel” to Putin during the transition.
George Nader, who attended a January 2017 meeting in the Seychelles with informal Donald Trump adviser and Blackwater founder Erik Prince (the brother of Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos), gave testimony to the grand jury last week. Mueller is reportedly looking into whether Nader “funneled” money from the UAE to Trump’s political campaign, according to the Times.
Nader is an adviser to UAE Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan. As the Times reports, Nader “represented” bin Zayed Al-Nahyan during a meeting in the Seychelles shortly before Trumps inauguration. The Times reports: “At the meeting, Emirati officials believed Mr. Prince was speaking for the Trump transition team, and a Russian fund manager, Kirill Dmitriev, represented Mr. Putin, according to several people familiar with the meeting.”
Nader also met with Jared Kushner and Steve Bannon during the presidential transition and is now cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller.
But now House Intel doesn’t have any more questions for Bannon, or for Kushner, or for Prince? Really?
In fact House Intel has determined that Putin didn't try to help Trump win the election. Which I’m certain has really taken a load off Putin’s mind.
In their investigation into Russian inference during the 2016 presidential election, Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee have reached the conclusion there is “no evidence” of collusion between Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and the Russian government, CNN’s Manu Raju reports.
The GOP leaders also “contend that evidence does not support” the assessment by the U.S. intelligence community that Russia—at the urging of Vladimir Putin—tried to help Trump defeat Hillary Clinton.
That’s flatly bullshit. I mean, it’s not like Mueller didn’t just indict 13 Russians for doing exactly that!
Or that DNI Dan Coates just told the Senate Armed Services Committee “We are under cyber attack. We have entered a period that can best be described as a race for technological superiority against our adversaries who seek to sow division in the United States and weaken U.S. leadership,” He also said “we don't have a policy” on how to handle Russia election interference.
But sure, Russia “didn’t meddle” and there was “no collusion” so lets just close up shop at House Intel, right?
Frankly the reason this is happening is likely because the Democrats are very likely to take the House in November, and by closing the investigation now Republicans can claim that “We already did all this and found nothing — No collusion” if Democrats choose to restart the investigation once they’re in control.
That’s pretty fracking despicable.
Of course Democrats are going to reopen this investigation, they’re going to have to put call back Don Jr., Hicks, Lewandowski, and Prince with subpoenas and if they continue to bullshit them like Bannon did — go to a court and hold them in Contempt of Congress until they cut the crap and give honest truthful answers.
Yes, sure Trump will cry “Witch Hunt” crocodile tears but none of that is going to fly with Mueller. Even with Senators Grassley and Graham calling for criminal investigation of Chris Steele and Devin Nunes calling for the FBI to investigate the FBI [yep, he did that] it’s not going to stop the truth coming out.
House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) sent Attorney General Jeff Sessions a letter on Thursday accusing the FBI of breaking the law when acquiring surveillance warrants against former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
In the letter, which was obtained by Fox News, Nunes claims the bureau violated the Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide by obtaining warrants for Page on the alleged base of an unverified dossier that purports as evidence of ties between Donald Trump and the Kremlin and other Russian individuals.
And this was after Jeff Sessions already announced he was having the Inspector General do exactly that.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Tuesday that the Justice Department’s internal watchdog will investigate how the FBI and federal prosecutors obtained warrants from the nation’s secret spy court to surveil a former Trump campaign adviser.
Session said he was going to do that on Feb 27th, but then Nunes sent him a letter on the same subject on March 1st. Was he not paying attention? Even Trump noticed because he complained about it not being a strong enough measure.
Right…
The GOP plan to insulate this White House Resident from his crimes and corruption are nakedly obvious and pathetic. And I don’t say that lightly because I know how it sounds. I know that wing-nut crazies would constantly say that same thing about President Obama, and about President Clinton before him.
“Geez, why can’t we catch this criminal!”
Yeah, we can — we have — Mueller certainly has IMO. Collusion and also Conspiracy has already been proven. Republicans are doing everything they can to keep the attention of America away from those facts, just as Putin himself is doing as he this week claimed that the 2016 Election meddling was the act of “Jews, Tartars or maybe Ukrainians.” Even though they may technically have “Russian” citizenship that just doesn’t count if their aren’t “ethnically Russia” (i.e. White), because — well of course. So we now have “Russians” and Real Russians, ain’t that nice and supremacy of you Vladimir?
So now we know who’s not on Putin’s Christmas Card list.
Cozy Bear is one of Russia's elite hacking groups, in part responsible for the hack of the DNC in 2016 in an effort to influence the presidential campaign. They also, according to Dutch media reports, had been spied on by Dutch intelligence agents for at least a year. The observed the Russian hackers attempting to infiltrate both the State Department and the White House, and informed the NSA about the intrusions.
So no, not “jews” and not “tartars” — although they do still make a fine sauce. [Yes, yes, I know that’s a groaner, but chances to talk about the Tartars are pretty far and few between....]
British Prime Minister Theresa May said Monday it was highly likely that Russia was responsible for a “reckless and despicable” attack on a former double agent in Britain, an accusation rejected by Moscow as a “provocation”.
In a dramatic escalation of diplomatic tensions over the attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter on March 4, May said the nerve agent that poisoned them was a military-grade type developed by Russia.
Moscow has repeatedly denied any involvement, and earlier warned London that in attributing blame, it was playing a “dangerous game” that risked harming bilateral ties.
But May told parliament that Russia had previously used this group of nerve agents known as Novichok, had a history of state-sponsored assassinations and viewed defectors such as Skripal as legitimate targets.
That’s right Moscow is threatening London not to say that they did something that they clearly fracking did. And then Huckabee-Sanders didn't even mention “Russia” when asked about this attack, and then claimed that it was somehow an “indiscriminate” attack.
Because clearly the Russian government wasn’t specifically targeting a former Russian Spy with a military grade nerve agent in an act of massive indiscriminate subtlety.
Maybe this attack was “the Jews and the Tartars” too? You know how they get around.
Former contestants at the Miss Universe pageant told Toobin that Trump would regularly talk with them about business deals that he did in their countries — and that women whose countries were doing business with Trump would routinely get selected as finalists, sometimes overruling the decisions that were made by pageant judges.
“He made comments about every girl: ‘I’ve been to that country.’ ‘We’re building a Trump Tower there,'” said Canadian former contestant Adwoa Yamoah. “It was clear the countries that he liked did well. He’d whisper to Paula about the girls, and she’d write it down. He basically told us he picked nine of the top fifteen.”
Shi Lim, a former contestant from Singapore, similarly told Toobin that “the finalists were picked by Trump” and “he was really in charge.”
And one judge at the pageant told Toobin that he was floored when saw that several of the women he and his fellow judges had picked as finalists did not make it to the official list of winners, as Trump apparently intervened to override their decisions.
“I didn’t know what had happened,” the judge claimed. “I felt ridiculous.”
And he was racist about it too.
Frequently, Trump would toss out finalists and replace them with others he preferred. “If there were too many women of color, he would make changes,” a Miss Universe staffer later noted. Another Miss Universe staffer recalled, “He often thought a woman was too ethnic or too dark-skinned. He had a particular type of woman he thought was a winner. Others were too ethnic. He liked a type. There was Olivia Culpo, Dayanara Torres [the 1993 winner], and, no surprise, East European women.” On occasion, according to this staffer, Trump would reject a woman “who had snubbed his advances.”
What a charmer.
- March 6th —
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Republican strategist Mike Murphy on Monday told NBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell an “international businessman” said special counsel Robert Mueller is looking into an MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) agreement Donald Trump had with Russian interests during the 2016 campaign.
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Florida Senate Votes against arming most teachers, however they do allow weapons for former military, police or those who members of the Reserve Officers Training Corp. The bill also raises the minimum purchase age for rifles to 21 with a 3 day waiting period, and allows police to petition a court to find a person “dangerous”.
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DNI Dan Coates tells Senate Armed Services Committee “We are under cyber attack. We have entered a period that can best be described as a race for technological superiority against our adversaries who seek to sow division in the United States and weaken U.S. leadership,” He also says “we don't have a policy” on how to handle Russia election interference.
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Fox and Friends refuses to mention the Nunberg said Trump may have committed crimes. “He was inebriated!”
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Nunberg reverses his position from his previous all day media meltdown, and says he might actually cooperate with the Grand Jury after all, probably.
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Leaked emails show that a businessman with ties to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) tried to convince US President Donald Trump to fire Secretary of State Rex Tillerson for not supporting the UAE-backed blockade of Qatar.
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Mueller’s office tells Trump to punish Kellyanne Conway for violating the Hatch Act twice, 1st when she asked people on Fox and Friend’s to buy Ivanka products, and again when she called people to vote for Roy Moore over Doug Jones for Senate.
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W. Bush quips that Trump makes him look “Look pretty good.”
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Rep. Claudia Tenney cries “fake news” when being questioned about her nutty claim that “most mass shooters are Democrats”
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The Daily Beast reports House Intel Committee has leaked information about the Steele Dossier to Trump attorney Michael Cohen. Former John McCain staffer David Kramer has acted as a go between in delivering a copy of the dossier from British Ambassador to James Comey — days after his testimony in late December his lawyer received a call from Cohen’s lawyers asking about the dossier. His lawyer complained to the committee about the leak.
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WH issues a bizarro world statement in response to the Special Counsel that claims that Conway actually “complied with the Hatch Act” when she pretty clearly didn’t.[Middle Finger Message received.]
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Huckabee-Sanders dodges question of whether Trump talked to Karl Ichann about the tariffs when he did his big steel and aluminum stock dump.
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Reports are that since the Trump admin weakened restrictions on the dumping of coal ash, more coal ash has begun to be dumped in the rivers and streams near coal plants leading to elevated levels of arsenic and radium. [Making America Toxic Again!]
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Major U.S. Solar companies blame jobs cuts on Trump’s solar power tariff.
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CNN panel including Brook Baldwin laughs in Rick Santorum’s face after he says Devin Nunes ‘thoroughly’ investigated Russiagate. [Yep, that’s a knee slapper alright.]
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NYTimes reports that Top WH Economic Advisor Gary Cohn plans to retire in protest of Trumps tariffs against our allies.
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WaPo reports that Mueller has requested documents related to Michael Cohen’s attempt to broker a Trump Tower Moscow deal and the attempted Ukrainian “Peace Deal” which would have ended Russian Sanctions.
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Trump’s golf course removes the Presidential Seal because that was totally illegal.
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Opiod overdoses are up 30 percent in the last year (Making America Overdose Again!)
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20 Year-old man sues Dick’s Sporting Goods and Walmart because they refuse to sell him a gun.
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Trump Admin sues California over Sanctuary Cities — which is funny because California had already been winning in court over this.
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Trey Gowdy asks for a [Another?] Special Prosecutor to look into the surveillance of Carter Page — even though there was nothing wrong with that, at all.
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Stormy Daniels sues Trump to invalidate her NDA over their affair because he forgot to SIGN IT! Her filing indicates Trump knew about the payment meaning it could have violated FEC laws. She claims she was coerced into signing a false statement by Cohen, he had even tried to pressure her in February by filing an arbritation motion against her.
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New York Times reports George Nadler, an adviser to the United Arab Emirates who met with Jared Kushner and Steve Bannon during the presidential transition is cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller. Nadler also went with Erik Primce to the follow on meeting in the Secheylle Islands with the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi. Mueller is reportedly looking into whether Nader “funneled” money from the UAE to Trump’s political campaign, according to the Times. ‘[OH looky, MORE FEC violations!]
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Atlantic correspondent Natasha Bertrand stated on Hardball that Mueller probably has Trump tax returns by subpoena from Treasury. [OH please, let that be true.]
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Trump vows to “Conteract” Russian (or somebodies) meddling in the 2018 Election. [Using what? His Magic Mullet Hair Helmet!!?]
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March 7th —
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European Union targets peanut butter, orange juice and whiskey in escalating trade war with Trump.
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Retiring WH Advisor Gary Cohn complains he only used 20 percent of his brain power in that job.
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The creator of Pepe the Frog is suing Infowars.
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Jeff Sessions accuses California of ‘secession’ and ‘nullification’ over sanctuary cities when in reality it’s an unfunded mandate he’s trying to push to get local jails to illegally hold people until ICE finally shows up.
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The Guardian reports that a nerve agent similar to VX or Sarin was used against former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury, England, leaving them both unconscious and in critical condition just one day before the New Yorker’s report on Chris Steele which mentioned that some of his contacts were located in the UK.
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Blue Collar Trump voters are not whelmed by by his tax cut. “It’s lunch money.”
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Fox Host Bill Hemmer Grills Huckabee-Sanders over Russia: ‘The American people need to know the meddling will be dealt with’
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Homeland Security announces that the DACA protections for 700k young people remain in place due to court intervention.
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Sam Nunberg insists his world wind media blitz wasn’t a drunken meltdown. “‘I was trending number 1 on Twitter from a couch.” [Hopefully he had his pants on!]
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Sens. Shaheen and Klobachar send letter to voting equipment venders asking about Russian access to their source code.
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ABC news reports that multiple WH aides — including one Melania aide — have been fired over security clearance issues, but Jared and Ivanka remain.
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Oakland’s Mayor Libby Schaaf claps back at Sessions claim that she had put LEO’s at risk by warning immigrants about ICE raids by pointing to a chart showing violent crime in the city has dropped by 25% in the last five years.
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Betsy Devos does a photo-op at Stoneman Douglas High, talks to 3 people, pets a dog and leaves, then Dwayne Wade shows up and is welcomed like a conquering Hero.
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NBC News reports the Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen had recently obtained a ‘secret restraining order’ to stop Stormy Daniels from talking — which is weird because if it’s a secret, how’s she supposed to know about it?
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Rep. Mark (Appalachian Trail) Sanford (R-SC) blasts trump for his Stormy Daniels Affair. ‘If it was a Democrat’ there’d be hearings’ [Or possibly an impeachment!]
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NBC News reports that during her House Intel testimony Hope Hick revealed she had been locked out of her two email accounts during the campaign and one of them had been hacked.
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Richard Painter says ‘This was covered up illegally’ about the Trump-Stormy affair.
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Senator Kamala Harris torches Jeff Sessions for bringing up slavery in defense of DOJ’s ‘war on California’.
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Stormy Daniel’s lawyers calls out Michael Cohen’s ‘ludicrous’ claim he paid her without Trump’s knowledge — which if true, would've been an ethics violation and could get his ass disbarred.
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WaPo reports that George Nader has confirmed to Mueller that the secret Sechelle’s meeting with Erik Prince, the UAE and Russians was intended to setup a secret back-channel for communications between them which contradicts Prince’s testimony to House Intel.
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Several former DOJ Officials have filed an amicus brief that alleges that Trump may have tried to influence the Time-Warner/AT&T merger in order to punish CNN.
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March 8th —
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CNN reports that Trump is furious at Huckabee-Sanders for linking him to Stormy Daniels.
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The Telegraph reports that the poisoned former Russian double-agent Sergei Skripal lives near a consultant for Christopher Steele’s Orbis Business Intelligence. Skirpal remains in intensive care.
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Trump signs his Steel and Aluminum Tariffs, but only after Steve Mnuchin reminds him not to walk off and forget again — which he’s done about 4 times during signings.
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David Corn and Michael Isakoff report that on top of advancing Miss Universe contestants who were from countries where Trump had business interests, he also would block contestants who were “too dark or too ethnic” looking.
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Trump agrees to meet one-on-one with Kim John Un, but he doesn’t have any real experts or North Korea on his staff or at the State Dept. anymore.
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Van Jones says the GOP would have put Obama in Gitmo if he’d done ‘half of what Trump did last week’ alone.
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The Prosecutor General of Ukraine has launched an investigation into claims surrounding an alleged multi-million dollar lobbying contract with sanctioned VTB Bank that names one of Trump's most influential fundraisers, Elliott Broidy.
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NYTimes reports that Trump has been questioning witnesses such as McGahn and Preibus who’ve been interviewed by Mueller. Sean Spicer says there’s “no problem” because he just likes to exchange “pleasantries” however CNN reports that John Kelly and other staffers have repeatedly warned him not to have these conversations with witnesses.
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The Daily Caller publishes an op-ed written by Oleg Deripaska where he claims collusion between Trump and Russia is a “manufactured non-scandal.” “The ever-changing ‘Russia narrative’ in American politics is today’s ‘Wag the Dog’ scenario,” he argues that “Deep State” Democrats are using this non-scandal to promote more military spending. [I don’t think he really saw “Wag the Dog” because that’s not how it worked at all.]
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Adult film actress Jessica Drake, who had accused Trump of inappropriate sexual contact, happens to also be named in the Stormy Daniel’s NDA under the pseudonym “Angel Ryan”.
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Michael Cohen inks a deal for a “Tell-All” book which is weird since really telling all would clearly violate attorney-client privilege.
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The U.S. Department of Interior spent $139,000 to fix three sets of doors in Secretary Ryan Zinke’s office. Supposedly he wasn’t aware of this.
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Veterans Affairs Secretary David Schulkin — who apparently loves to have the government fly him to vacation in Europe — is so afraid of his own staff that he posted an armed guard outside his office.
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While negotiating the $130,000 payment and NDA with Stormy Daniels and her attorney during the last days of the election, Michael Cohen used a trumporg.com email address which doesn’t really validate Huckabee-Sanders claim that the payment had “nothing to do with Trump, the Trump organization or the campaign.”
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ABC reports that Michael Cohen claims that the $130,000 that he paid Daniels came from his home equity line of credit.
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House Oversight Ranking Member Elijah Cummings demands that Chairman Trey Gowdy subpoena the WH after the refused to answer Gowdy’s previous letting about Rob Porter’s security clearance.
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WSJ reports that Trump’s attorneys have crafted a deal for him to be interviewed, but only if they keep to just one topic and also promise to conclude the Trump portion of their investigation within 60 days after the meeting. [Can use say Grand Jury Subpoena?]
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Rep Sean [Idiot] Duffy gets roasted by Fox News analyst Marie Harf when he claims the Trumpsters had to use back-channels because “Obama wiretapped” them. [Page and Manafort were tapped but they had both already left the campaign, and Flynn was specifically warned that Kislyak was being monitored then blabbed with him anyway.] “There is no indication that Trump Tower was tapped,”
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Reporter Brian Karem asked if it was dangerous for the U.S. to be sending signals that it wants to build up its nuclear arms stockpile even more and Huckabee-Sanders answers that false narratives are “more dangerous.” “This thermonuclear war we’re talking about — you don’t come back from that,” Karem pushed back. “Isn’t it dangerous to…” “I think it is dangerous to push something that is a narrative that is not at all what this administration is pushing,” Sanders interrupted.
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March 9th —
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March 10th —
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March 11th —
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March 12th —