In this weekly update incremental Trump Russia Corruption Timeline we now how the revelation that former Blackwater CEO Erik Prince may have lied to Congress about his connections to the Trump campaign because he had attended a meeting in Trump Tower with Don Jr. on behalf of the Crown Princes of Saudi Arabia and the UAE with their rep George Nader and social media expert Joel Zamel who apparently had ex-Israeli intelligence agents on his payroll with an offer to help the Trump campaign.
Erik Prince, the private security contractor and the former head of Blackwater, arranged the meeting, which took place on Aug. 3, 2016. The emissary, George Nader, told Donald Trump Jr. that the princes who led Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were eager to help his father win election as president. The social media specialist, Joel Zamel, extolled his company’s ability to give an edge to a political campaign; by that time, the firm had already drawn up a multimillion-dollar proposal for a social media manipulation effort to help elect Mr. Trump.
When it comes to accepting foreign help on a domestic campaign that’s about as far over the line as you can get when you get people from three different countries in the room all at the same time. On top of this is a fairly complex story of multiple competing contacts between reps from the Saudis, the UAE and Qatar with the Kushner companies and Michael Flynn involving bribery, an international blockade which started because of a false news hoax planted by Russian hackers, that was oddly supported by the Trump administration until it suddenly wasn’t when an eventual buyout by Brookfield properties — whose largest shareholder is Qatar — was offered for a large portion of Kushner’s failing investment in 666 5th Avenue which occurred just after Michael Cohen flew to Miami to meet with the Qatari Finance Minister just days before he was raided by the FBI. All of that is way more shady and swampy than anything that anyone has ever suggested involving Uranium One. This is where U.S. Foreign policy appears that it was quite literally for sale to the highest bidder.
But all of that pales in comparison to Trump’s out-and-out assault on the rule of law by attempting to strong arm the DOJ into investigating the ridiculous conspiracy theory that someone in the Obama administration “sent a political spy” after Trump’s campaign.
This particular snipe hunt has already led to Fox News apparently “outing” the suspected FBI informant as Cambridge professor Stephen Halper who had reportedly reached out to Carter Page, George Papadopoulos and also Sam Clovis sometime in mid-July 2016 around the time of the Republican National Convention.
University of Cambridge professor Stefan Halper has been identified as an FBI informant in Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, multiple news outlets reported Saturday.
The 73-year-old academic reportedly has deep ties to American and British intelligence, having served in the Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations, the New York Post reported.
President Trump tweeted Friday that confirmation of an FBI plant in his campaign would become the nation's "all time biggest political scandal."
Now the FBI has already said that this informants life was potentially at risk, but did that slow down Fox News, who wasn’t the only outlet to have this information?
Hell, NO!
Still Fox could be wrong about this because former FBI Agent Cliff Watts has argued that the most likely “informant” was probably Felix Sater who has previously been an informant for the FBi and also the CIA and was apparently attempting to get Trump Tower Moscow built along with Michael Cohen all the way until July of 2016 when Trump won the Republican nomination.
The irony of this is of course that while Trump is railing about this and having Rod Rosenstein, FBI Director Chris Wray and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coates brought before him in the White House for what will probably be a screaming match over this “spy” — considering the fact that the Trump campaign hired former Israeli spies to try and prove that at least two Obama Administration officials were getting payoffs for approving the Iran Nuclear Deal.
Reporter Ronan Farrow on Monday appeared on CNN to talk about his latest report in the New Yorker about the Israeli private intelligence firm that aides to President Donald Trump allegedly hired to dig up dirt on supporters of the Iran nuclear deal.
Farrow’s report, which piggybacks off a Guardian report from over the weekend that claimed Israeli intelligence firm Black Cube had been hired by Trump aides to spy on former Obama administration officials who were instrumental in pushing the Iran nuclear deal, shows how agents of the firm assumed false identities to try to trick officials into meeting with them.
“Black Cube agents were instructed to try to find damaging information about them, including unsubstantiated claims that [former Obama administration officials Ben Rhodes and Colin Kahl] had worked closely with Iran lobbyists and were personally enriched through their policy work on Iran (they denied those claims)… and an allegation that one of the individuals targeted by the campaign had an affair,” Farrow reported.
Speaking with CNN’s Alisyn Camerota, Farrow said that the Black Cube agents used aliases in an effort to contact former Obama officials’ wives in an effort to find damaging information about their husbands that could be used to undermine support for the Iran deal.
Now that’s sleazy.
Of course there was nothing to that story, just as there’s nothing to the Seth RIch conspiracy, and nothing to Birth Certificate-Gate, and nothing to the Uranium One issue, and nothing to the Carter Page FiSA warrant [Note: those last two issues are already being looked at by Utah U.S. Attorney John Huber] never the less — Trump will persist.
He probably won’t accept Rosenstein’s call to have the DOJ Inspector General analyze the “spy” issue even though his office is the one that got Andrew McCabe fired. A new Special Counsel isn’t appropriate because Obama isn’t President anymore.
[Since I began typing this apparently Trump has tweeted that he’s calling for the DOJ to release even more documents to Congress and have them investigate the “spy” — which will just turn out peachy considering the crap that the GOP House Intel committee produced. Rosenstein has agreed to offer classified briefings on this and other related subjects to Congress — which of course will be immediately twisted and leaked by Devin Nunes and his cohorts in Congress.]
“Based on the meeting with the President, the Department of Justice has asked the Inspector General to expand its current investigation to include any irregularities with the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s or the Department of Justice’s tactics concerning the Trump Campaign. It was also agreed that White House Chief of Staff Kelly will immediately set up a meeting with the FBI, DOJ, and DNI together with Congressional Leaders to review highly classified and other information they have requested.”
Also Trump has tweeted a thread pointing the finger at former CIA Direction John Brennen as being at the center of the “Deep State Plot against Trump” based on a two day old WSJ Op-Ed written by James Freeman.
Yeah, right whatever.
There is the point that if the FBi and CIA had this massive spying operation in place to derail the Trump campaign — why exactly didn’t they tell anyone? And why — for example — did they basically fire Christopher Steele as a source when he went to the press about it?
In addition to all this there is the “illegal immigrants are Animals” kerfuffle, where both Trump and the WH have claimed that they weren’t talking about immigrants, but only about MS-13. Except that’s not what he actually said.
“We have people coming into the country, or trying to come in — and we’re stopping a lot of them — but we’re taking people out of the country,” Trump replied.
“You wouldn’t believe how bad these people are. These aren’t people. These are animals. And we’re taking them out of the country at a level and at a rate that’s never happened before. And because of the weak laws, they come in fast, we get them, we release them, we get them again, we bring them out. It’s crazy.”
“The dumbest laws — as I said before, the dumbest laws on immigration in the world. So we’re going to take care of it, Margaret. We’ll get it done.”
Trump didn’t say anything about MS-13 here. It is true that he was responding to a woman complaining about Sanctuary City laws saying that when they have MS-13 members in custody they can’t contact ICE until they “reach a certain threshold”, which sounds like they have to be accused of an actual serious crime first, not simply alleged to be affiliated with the gang.
Frankly under the basic rules of due process, that makes sense, since you should have probable cause against somebody before you take action and also even if they were in MS-13 it doesn't mean that they’re also undocumented. Trump’s response is problematic even if he was only talking about MS-13 — without even saying “MS-13” — because even gang members get the equal protection of the laws. They aren’t “animals”, they actually are people no matter what they’re suspected or accused of. They actually are — in this country — supposed to be afforded equal justice regardless of how they arrived in the country, which is really what Trump was getting at. He thinks our “laws are dumb” because they are actually intended to protect everyone, not just certain people — his people — in the way that he and Alt-Right Citizen Supremacists like Steven Bannon would prefer.
Further Trump’s next claim that “we’re taking them out of the country at a level and rate that’s never happened before” is also bullshit.
This is the rate of ICE removals during the Obama Administration while his primary target were “Criminals.”
The grand total including FY2016 is 3,119,127 persons, 91% of whom reportedly had also committed crimes inside the U.S. The average per year, even if you lop off FY2008 at the front as that partly belongs to Bush, is still 343,738 people.
Comparing Obama’s last two years FY2015-2016 where the deportation rate began to drop off to Trump’s first year of FY2017 produces this which shows a removal rate of just 226,119 which is over 120,000 fewer than Obama’s average.
Trump is touting removal levels “never before seen” but that’s just plain crap. What is different is that they’ve been catching far fewer people attempting to cross at the border, which doesn’t mean they aren't still coming through other means — they just aren’t catching them so easily anymore possibly because so many more are now using coyotes and smugglers then ending up deeply in debt or sometimes dead stuffed in a truck. What has increased is the number of “non criminals” who they’ve been targeting. Whereas in FY2016 Obama removed 5,014 non criminals, Trump removed 13,744 which is an increase of 173%. He's been breaking up families, leaving children who actually are American citizens without their parents. And trying to deport DACA kids by falsely claiming that they’re “gang members.”
SEATTLE (AP) — A Seattle area man detained by immigration agents despite his participation in a federal program to protect those brought to the U.S. illegally as children admitted to having gang ties, the U.S. Justice Department said in court documents filed Thursday.
However, Daniel Ramirez Medina's lawyer Mark Rosenbaum said in a conference call late Thursday that the documents fail to provide even one piece of evidence that Ramirez is affiliated with any gang.
"It is a blatant falsehood that defames this young man, I suppose, to justify what was a mistake at the beginning," Rosenbaum said of the 23-year-old's arrest and detention by immigration agents Friday.
Other conservatives have gone further saying that the DACA kids are all MS-13.
On a recent episode of his show, Tucker Carlson on Fox News reported on the Salvadoran-American gang MS-13. The segment lives online with the title: “MS-13 is now in 22 states, thanks to DACA.”
Another FoxNews.com story from Monday reported on an undocumented immigrant in Rochester, New York, who was arrested for making threats toward students at a local high school. The headline? “DACA recipient, 21, threatened to ‘shoot all of ya b----es’ at NY high school, police say.”
Last month, the right-leaning Washington Examiner featured this headline: “Report: Ex-DACA criminals, gang bangers go free.” And recently some studies from conservative researchers have come out to give more substance to the association these stories attempt to make — that DACA and crime are somehow connected.
The fact is DACA members have to go through a criminal background check to be approved.
You may request DACA if you:
- Were under the age of 31 as of June 15, 2012;
- Came to the United States before reaching your 16th birthday;
- Have continuously resided in the United States since June 15, 2007, up to the present time;
- Were physically present in the United States on June 15, 2012, and at the time of making your request for consideration of deferred action with USCIS;
- Had no lawful status on June 15, 2012;
- Are currently in school, have graduated or obtained a certificate of completion from high school, have obtained a general education development (GED) certificate, or are an honorably discharged veteran of the Coast Guard or Armed Forces of the United States; and
- Have not been convicted of a felony, significant misdemeanor,or three or more other misdemeanors, and do not otherwise pose a threat to national security or public safety.
Those conservative screeds are basically complaining about the 2,127 people who over the last 6 years had been granted DACA who have since been kicked off the program due to criminal arrests and convictions, which is a failure rate of just 0.2% out of roughly 800,000 current DACA particpants.
So conflating 99.8% of DACA recipients with MS-13, and then MS-13 with all “illegal immigrants” as “Animals”, and then further to all immigrants even the asylum caravan who are actually tyring to escape the gangs in El Salvador, or the Syria refugees with ISIS who made them refugees in the first place isn’t a mistake or a gaff… it’s part of a deliberate plan.
It’s the same one as saying the “deep state” is out the get him. It’s the “we’re the victim” of those evil people — out there — plan.
Unfortunately all the real evil is now coming from inside the (White) House.
Daily details for Weekly Update #50 in the Trump Russian Corruption Series are as follows.
-
May 15th
-
May 16th —
-
Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL) tells Chris Cuomo that the House GOP has been covering up the Russia scandal by cancelling the House probe before the revelations about Qatar’s attempt to bribe Trump officials were brought to light which means they have more questions for Michael Cohen, Erik Prince and Alexander Nix who may have perjured themselves.
-
NYTimes reports that the FBI’s investigation into Russia and the Trump campaign was code-named “Crossfire Hurricane” and began with investigations of Paul Manafort, Carter Page, George Papadopoulos and Michael Flynn.
-
Huckabee-Sanders rages that the person who leaked Sadler’s slur against John McCain is : ‘A total and complete coward and they should be fired’. But Sadler still works in the WH.
-
To prevent leaks the WH has banned cell phones in the building and has hall monitors with sniffers to detect anyone with a “contraband” phone. [Welcome to the center ring of the Police State, people!]
-
Democrats on Senate Intelligence releases a preliminary report on the Russian attacks on our elections and the June 6th Trump Tower meeting which concludes:
-
Putin interfered because he wanted Trump to win over Hillary.
-
Rob Goldstone had tried to setup a meeting directly between Trump and Putin in an email to Trump assistant Rhona Ghraff saying that “Emin [Agalarov] could set it up.”.
-
During the June 6th meeting with Veselnitskaya Manafort cribed notes about “Offshore — Cyprus — 135 Million shares” of an undisclosed company. [Could this be reference to the Qatari QIA purchasing 19% of Rosneft?]
-
Manafort also wrote : “Value in Cypress as inter,” followed by the word “illici,” followed by the phrase “Active sponsors of RNC.”
-
Rinat Akhmetshin testified that Don Jr. opened the meeting directly asking for dirt on Hillary and he responded that they should “do their own research on her” then continued talking about the Magnitsky Act. [FEC violation & Misprision of Felony]
-
Ike Kaveledze testified that Don Jr. had said after they won the election they might take look at the Magnitsky Act issue which confirms what Veselnitskay has said about it. [Corruption, Theft of Honest Services, Logan Act.]
-
Don Jr. didn’t explain the phone call he received from a blocked number in between his calls with Emin Agalarov.
-
Don Jr. said he didn’t talk to Trump about his meeting with Veselnitskaya, but he did text Hope Hicks about it and admitted that Hicks may have been involved in crafting the initial WH statement on AF1 along with Trump which turned out to be a lie.
-
Trump’s attorney reached out to all those involved once the story broke and sought to help them get their story straight and on the same page.
-
Russia may have attempted to fund Trump’s campaign via the NRA.
-
Trump files his latest financial disclosure forms which now includes payments to Michael Cohen of nearly $200,000, not just the $130,000 reimbursement for the Stormy Daniels payoff. None of these payments were included on his forms last year which has prompted the Ethics Office to make a possible criminal referral to the DOJ for “false statements” under 18 USC 1001, the same law that Flynn, Papadopoulos and Van Der Zwaan have all pleaded guilty to.
-
Fox host Katie Pavlich claims on Outnumbered that the Hillary campaign were the ones really behind the Don Jr/Veselnitskaya meeting because someone from Fusion GPS once talked to Veselnitskaya. [Yeah, Right….]
-
Politico reports that EPA’s Inspector General is investigating the use of non-government emails accounts by Scott Pruitt in potential violation of records acts and FOIA.
-
DHS Sec. Kistjen Neilsen denies she threatened to resign after being scolded by Trump over the border, however she doesn't deny that she wrote a resignation letter.
-
EPA Admin Scott Pruitt potentially perjures himself during a House Budget hearing when he tells Rep. Tom Udall (D-MN) that his landlords wife Steven Hart “wasn’t registered as a lobbyist” before the EPA in 2017 when he lived in their apartment, but he and his firm were listed as lobbyist for Smithfield Foods with the EPA. And Pruitt had met with Hart and Smithfield reps in person at least twice during 2017 the New York Times and Politico reported.
-
The New Yorker reports that Steven Cohen’s banking data was part of the Suspicious Activity Report filed with the Treasury Dept as was leaked because an anonymous law enforcement official became concerned when two other SAR reports on AT&T and Novartis linked to Cohen were missing.
-
Rueters reports that Mueller issued a Grand Jury subpoena late last week to Jason Sullivan the social media consultant for Trump confidante Roger Stone. The subpoenas, Reuters reported, imply Mueller is focused on whether Stone had advanced knowledge of hacked Democratic emails that were eventually published by Wikileaks.
-
Giuliani claims that Mueller ‘s team has admitted he “can’t indict” Trump due to DOJ rules and claims that they should therefore end the investigation, even though they have 3 pending trials and over a dozen outstanding indictments. “All they can do is write a report” about which the House can then vote on. All of that is true, but the House may not be in GOP hands in a few months, and if Trump is listed as an “Unindicted Co-conspirator” on future charges that might even sway the Senate to remove him. Maybe.
-
NYTimes reports that a government informant had met several times with Carter Page and George Papadopoulos after they had both left the campaign. Rush Limbaugh and other conservatives have argued that his person was used to “spy” on the Trump campaign [actually they had an open investigation of them starting in July 2018 once they discovered from the Australians that Papadopoulos had been secretly in contact with Russian government officials] While Devin Nunes continues to threaten and subpoena the DOJ for more information.
-
Giuliani claims to Laura Ingraham that “Mueller put a spy in the Trump campaign” targeting George Papadopoulos [echoing similar claims by Limbaugh] which ignores the obvious fact that Mueller has only been on the job for the year and the Trump campaign ended 17 months ago. Riddle me that will you without a TARDIS? He also claims Veselnitskaya wasn’t offering “illegal dirt on Hillary and since they didn't get that dirt it was still not illegal, which ignores FEC rules that say simply attempting to get anything of value from a foreign country is still against the law,
-
During a WH panel on immigration following a question about MS-13 and illegal immigration Trump responds that Illegal immigrants aren’t even people, they're animals. “We have people coming into the country, or trying to come in — and we’re stopping a lot of them — but we’re taking people out of the country,” Trump replied. “You wouldn’t believe how bad these people are. These aren’t people. These are animals. And we’re taking them out of the country at a level and at a rate that’s never happened before. And because of the weak laws, they come in fast, we get them, we release them, we get them again, we bring them out. It’s crazy.” [No actually they aren’t, Trump’s rate on deporting 67,859 criminals from inside the nation may be up by 12% over 2016, but only 3% over 2015, then just 50% of what they were in 2013 (133,551), 1/3rd of what they were in 2012 (180,970), and 1/4th of what they were from 2008-2011 (~234,000 per year)]
-
Gina Haspel is approved by the Senate Intel Committee 10-5 after 2 Democrats jump ship to support her.
-
May 17th—
-
NYTimes announces that Qatar has inked a deal with the Kushner companies via Brookfield investments and the QIA, just 1 month after the Trump administration announced that they now oppose the Saudi/UAE blockade that they have previously supported.
-
Trump celebrates the 1st Anniversary of the Mueller investigation by saying it’s is fake, fraudulent and probably illegal. FBI Director Wray says “It’s not a Witch Hunt.”
-
Giuliani again claims that Mueller has told him that Trump can’t be indicted, so he argues that means he can’t be subpoenaed — which is nonsense — he’s been named a “subject” in the investigation and they can certainly subpoena him.
-
Judge Napolitano throws cold water on Giuliuani by saying there are two OLC memos one saying a President can’t be indicted and another one, from the Watergate Investigation, saying that he can.
-
Orrin Hatch says that Trump can be indicted after he leaves the Administration even if Mueller doesn’t do it himself.
-
Marco Rubio says “it the Trump camp colluded it would have been leaked a long time ago.” [It was, man!]
-
Avenatti says two more women were paid hush money by Cohen — for much more than Stormy Daniels.
-
China triples their purchases of Russian soybeans as U.S. farms begin to suffer from Trump’s tariffs.
-
NY Appeals court approves the continuation of the Summer Zervos defamation suit against Trump.
-
Buzzfeed reports that Michael Cohen and Felix Sater continued working on the Trump Tower Moscow project with sanctioned VTB Bank until at least July 2016 using an encrypted app to send message back and forth to each other. In December Sater promised Cohen that VTB’s powerful president would meet him in Moscow, thanks to a former GRU pal — and he asked for a photo of Trump’s passport, but that meeting fell through so Sater tried again through GenBank which Cohen rejected as a ‘third-tier” operation.
-
Mueller’s office files a sealed unredacted copy of the Rosenstein Special Counsel memo with Judge T.S. Elliot in the Virginia case against Manafort.
-
Gina Haspel is confirmed as the new CIA director by the Senate.
-
South Korea attempts to restart stalled talks but North Korea says they won’t talk with ‘incompetent’ South unless their differences are settled.
-
Trump’s WH is now so afraid of leaks they’ve cancelled weekly staff meetings.
-
Former GOP congressman Tom Coleman (R-MO) argues that Trump may have committed “Treason” by offering aid and comfort to Russia while they were waging a CyberWar against us.
-
Manafort’s former son-in-law Jeffrey Yohal has signed a guilty plea deal over his own shady financial transactions and has become a cooperating witness with Mueller’s investigation.
-
John Bolton states that the U.S. would like to see a denuclearation plan for North Korea similar to that of made by Khadaffi in 2003 but Trump contradicts him and say we “destroyed Khadaffi” — even though that was 8 years later and done by his own people — then he says it’s possible that Kim Jong-Un might keep his regime.
-
Education Sec Betsy Devos shuts down the Anti-Fraud section of the DOE, which had previously fined for-profits schools which overcharged and over-promised jobs for students like Devry — this is after she had assigned a former Dean from Devry to run that arm of the department.
-
Reports from LVPD indicate the Mandalay Bay mass shooter Stephen Paddock who killed 58 people was obsessed with right-wing gun grabbing conspiracy theories of government overreach concerning the post-Katrina FEMA camps, Rudy Ridge and Waco.
-
May 18th —
-
Giuliani gives a bonkers interview with Chris Cuomo who backs him down on the “spy” inside the Trump campaign to saying “they were told there was an informant” [Which would be someone who didn't commit Misprision of Felony like the rest of them and also who would tell them that and why??] and catches him cold on his 1998 claim that a President [then Clinton] has to comply with a subpoena to testify as he screams “Unfair” and claims he's never said what he actually said. Avenatti has a field day with him via twitter. Giuliani also claims:
-
FBI Director Chris Wray is wrong that it’s not a “Witch Hunt”, saying he knows more about the case than Wray does. [Which is possible how after just 3 weeks?]
-
“I don’t know for sure, nor does the President, that there really was [an informant],” Giuliani said. “We’re told that.” [By someone who leaked confidential information to you and may have put that persons life at risk from retaliation by the Russians?}
-
“At one point, the President thought there was a wiretap,” said Giuliani. “We were never notified that he was on a tap,” [Of course not because he wasn’t — but Page and Manafort were after they have both left the campaign.]
-
WaPo reports that the FBI is moving to protect the identity of the informant who helped them with the Russia investigation before and after Mueller was involved in the case, and and who had spoken with Carter Page and George Papadopoulos after they left the campaign.
-
Trump rants the media is “wrong as usual” for saying he slurred immigrants as “animals” saying he was only talking about MS-13, [Who still remain fully human technically] but at least the first time he himself didn’t mention MS-13 he only mentioned “people coming into the country.”
-
Former Russian spy Sergei Skripal is released from the Hospital in England.
-
Sessions’ DOJ blocks immigration judges from being able to use administrative closures to end immigration cases and stop deportations for immigrants with close ties to their families inside the U.S.
-
A school shooting in Sante Fe Texas kills 8-10 students, wounding as many as 13 other people, a suspect is captured and several explosives are found in the area. [This is school shooting #22 so far this year] A Trump fan shows up at the school carrying a weapon and waving a big flag [Which is far too late, and helps no one.] It is ultimately confirmed that the fatalities were 9 students and 1 teacher.
-
Trump promises to “do everything” to stop School Shootings — about which he's accomplished absolutely nothing so far.
-
Buzzfeed’s Jason Leopold reports that the Treasury Dept had restricted access to Cohen’s SAR reports, this is why two of them were missing which is what had alarmed the Whistleblower who leaked the one about his payment to Stormy Daniels.
-
42 year old South African Jonathon Oddi is shot and taken into custody by police after allegedly shouting “anti-Trump rhetoric” and firing a gun in the lobby of the Trump National Doral Miami Resort, he has however also posted pro-Trump memes on social media which had criticized Colin Kaepernick and praised Melania.
-
NJ Advance Media reports that a plane owned by sanctioned Russian billionaire Andrei Skoch, arrived in the Seychelles just one day before Erik Prince arrived meet the chief of the sanctioned Russian sovereign investment fund Kirill Dmitriev, the UAE crown prince and his rep George Nader. Six passengers who were on the plane stayed at the Four Seasons Hotel, which, according to Prince, is where the meeting was held.
-
Wapo reports that Trump personally requested that the Post Master General raise Amazon’s bulk postal rates — which is part of his ongoing feud with Jeff Bezos and the Capo itself— which he refused because the rate is based on contracts and regulatory standards.
-
Foreign Policy reports that only days before he was raided by the FBI Michael Cohen had flown to Miami to meet with Qatar Finance minister Ahmed bin Jassim bin Mohammed Al Thani.
-
May 19th —
-
May 20th —
-
In response to the Sante Fe shooting Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick proposes arming teachers — which is already legal in TX and also they had TWO SRO’s on duty at Santa Fe — closing down school access to just 1 or 2 entrances, but he doesn’t support requiring gun owners to safely secure their weapons so other members of the family can’t just grab them and go on a killing spree. Security experts respond and say that this 1 door idea would trap the students and create a "Killing field.” Patrick’s comments drive Fred Guttenberg who lost his daughter Jamie at Parkland over the moon with rage.
-
NRA President Oliver North says we need 5 Metal detectors at every school — [So then how are the “good guys” with guns going to get in?] and blames school shootings on prescriptions of Ritalin.
-
Treasury Sec. Mnuchin says we’re putting the Trade War with China “On Hold.”
-
Trump tweet rants that the NYTimes has proven that the Russia probe has “exonerated” him of collusion — but nobody knows what fracking NYTimes article he's talking about. He also dismisses the NYTimes report that his campaign conspired with the UAE and Saudi crown Princes during the election.
-
WSJ interviews Giuliani who claims Trump has a “right to know any incriminating information provided by the ex-professor informant" via Page, Papadopoulos and Clovis. [That’s funny, I thought they were the "coffee boys” who didn't know anything or do anything?] He also says that Mueller said he might finish his Obstruction investigation by Sept 1st, but that was dependent on getting in interview with Trump done.
-
Trump tweet spews: “I hereby demand, and will do so officially tomorrow, that the Department of Justice look into whether or not the FBI/DOJ infiltrated or surveilled the Trump Campaign for Political Purposes – and if any such demands or requests were made by people within the Obama Administration” [Yeah, that’s just such bullshit, they were conducting a CRIMINAL and COUNTER-INTELLIGENCE INVESTIGATION OF YOUR CAMPAIGN for very good god-damn reasons you dolt. This is what we get when people elect a fucking conspiracy nut into office.]
-
Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein calls to have the Inspector General investigate if “improper reasons” where involved in the use of the informant.
-
Fox News outs the FBI informant as Cambridge Professor Stephen Halper. because of course they have.
-
Roger Stone says he’s prepared for a Mueller Indictment. [Are you? Are you really?]
-
Iran begins to say the continued support from the EU for the Nuclear Deal is not sufficient.
-
Kelly Clarkson tearfully opens the Billboard Music Awards saying “Sorry, I’m a Texas Girl and we’ve suffered. I’m sick of a moment of silence, why don’t we have a moment of action, instead?”
-
Former CiA Officer Bob Baer says Trump demanding the FBi investigate itself is like “That time he said that Trump Tower was wire tapped.” He also says in response to the news about the “informant” that “this is what the FBI does when you have a Russian spy on staff.”
-
WaPo reports that the RNC has paid $500,000 worth of Hope Hick’s legal fees.
-
May 21st —