This has been an amazing week where we’ve seen Don Jr, coordinating with Wikileaks, Trump’s bodyguard saying Russians offered him five women in Moscow for group sex, Corey Lewandowski having approved Carter Page going to Moscow the same day that Papadopoulos Russian contact asked for someone beside Trump to come visit, and then there’s been Jeff Sessions and his long set of lies about Russian contacts which has been ever more exposed by the guilty plea of George Papadoploulos and Judge Roy Moore who is vying for Sessions old Senate seat running smack dab into decades of creeping around the mall and high school trolling for teenage girls to date and occasionally assault.
But most interesting and potentially dangerous was Sessions call to potentially have a new Special Prosecutor for the Uranium One/Clinton Foundation “Scandal” — a suggestion which follows Trump’s campaign threat to “throw Hillary in Jail” which one former Special Counsel John Danforth called “Un-American and Grotesque.”
Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s public suggestion that he may appoint a special counsel to investigate Hillary Clinton has alarmed current and former Justice Department officials who fear he will further politicize the embattled agency.
Sessions said at a congressional hearing Tuesday that he will weigh recommendations from senior prosecutors on whether to appoint a special counsel over a 2010 uranium company deal and other issues, including donations to the Clinton Foundation.
…
Peter R. Zeidenberg, who once served as deputy special counsel in the probe of former White House aide Lewis “Scooter’’ Libby, said “the best-case scenario” is that the attorney general is trying simply to mollify an angry president and doesn’t really plan to name a special counsel.
If one is appointed to probe Clinton matters, “I think the vast majority of people at DOJ would be completely disgusted and demoralized by it,’’ said Zeidenberg, referring to the Justice Department. “They don’t like feeling that they are political tools to be used by the president.’’
You don’t say?
Sessions also spent quite a bit of time dancing around questions and essentially digging himself even further into his own self-made perjury Tiger trap. And he truly has no way out now.
Hey do you remember when a GOP Senate nominee had his career effectively destroyed after he called a man of African descent “Macaca” on tape? I do.
At a campaign rally in southwest Virginia on Friday, Allen repeatedly called a volunteer for Democrat James Webb "macaca." During the speech in Breaks, near the Kentucky border, Allen began by saying that he was "going to run this campaign on positive, constructive ideas" and then pointed at S.R. Sidarth in the crowd.
"This fellow here, over here with the yellow shirt, macaca, or whatever his name is. He's with my opponent. He's following us around everywhere. And it's just great," Allen said, as his supporters began to laugh. After saying that Webb was raising money in California with a "bunch of Hollywood movie moguls," Allen said, "Let's give a welcome to macaca, here. Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia." Allen then began talking about the "war on terror."
…
But the apology, which came hours after Allen's campaign manager dismissed the issue with an expletive and insisted the senator has "nothing to apologize for," did little to mollify Webb's campaign or Sidarth, who said he suspects Allen singled him out because his was the only nonwhite face among about 100 Republican supporters.
"I think he was doing it because he could, and I was the only person of color there, and it was useful for him in inciting his audience," said Sidarth, who videotaped the event for the Webb campaign. "I was annoyed he would use my race in a political context."
Times have changed.
Anyway back to current events: as noted by the Washington Post. Fox’s Shep Smith has managed to the best Uranium One debunking in one sitting to date. It is truly a thing of beauty.
Various fact-checkers, including The Washington Post’s, have already dismantled the underpinnings of these accusations. No one expected a similar debunking from Fox.
But Smith, in his broadcast, made many of the same points as the fact-checkers. “Now, here’s the accusation,” he said.
Nine people involved in the deal made donations to the Clinton Foundation totaling more than $140 million. In exchange, Secretary of State Clinton approved the sale to the Russians, a quid pro quo. The accusation [was] first made by Peter Schweizer, the senior editor-at-large of the website Breitbart in his 2015 book “Clinton Cash.” The next year, candidate Donald Trump cited the accusation as an example of Clinton corruption.
He then played a video of Trump’s version of the “scandal” in which he claimed:
Hillary Clinton’s State Department approved the transfer of 20 percent of America’s uranium holdings to Russia. Well, nine investors in the deal funneled $145 million to the Clinton Foundation.
Smith called the statement “inaccurate in a number of ways,” noting that “the Clinton State Department had no power to veto or approve that transaction.” Rather, it must be approved by an interagency committee of the government consisting of nine department heads, including the secretary of state.
In response to Smith the good viewers at Fox were quite reasonable and measured.
Ok, I’m bullshitting you — no they weren't.
So there was that and then were was also this exchange during Sessions House testimony where his own base hypocrisy was laid bare for all by Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY):
“During an interview with Lou Dobbs, you criticized Hillary Clinton for saying, ‘I can’t remember’ approximately 35 times,” he said. “You also stated during that Lou Dobbs interview that the intentional failure to remember can constitute perjury. Mr. Attorney General, do you still believe that the intentional failure to remember can constitute a criminal act?”
“If it’s an act to deceive, yes,” Sessions admitted.
Jeffries then dropped the hammer by pointing to a 1999 speech that Sessions delivered in favor of impeaching former President Bill Clinton in which Sessions recalled prosecuting a police officer who lied during his deposition — despite the fact that, like Sessions has done this year, he corrected his previous false testimony.
“While serving as U.S. attorney, you once prosecuted a young police officer who lied in a deposition,” Jeffries said. “In that speech you decided to prosecute that young police officer even though he corrected his testimony. You testified under oath in January. You subsequently corrected that testimony in a March 6th written submission, and have been forced repeatedly to come back to the Senate and now the House to clarify… The Attorney General of the United States of America should not be held to a different standard than the young police officer whose life you ruined by prosecuting him for perjury.”
Oh Snap!
Meanwhile the situation with Judge Roy Moore has gone from bad, to terrible to just plain shitty very quickly as one accuser of sexual predation against minors quickly grew to four — and then Five, including this tearful press conference with Beverly Young Nelson about how Moore assaulted her when she was just 16 years old.
Moore supporters have responded to this by attacking his accusers of course, but also making the most ridiculous excuses literally for pedophilia including arguing that it’s biblical because Jesus mother Mary was still a teenage when she was Married to Joseph. And it’s gotten even more weird and disgusting since, but ultimately Moore has lost support of at last 16 Republican Senators including Mitch McConnell who now says that Moore should step aside and that even if he doesn’t and he wins he’ll immediately face a ethics investigation which could remove him from Congress. He’s even gone so far as to suggest that Sessions should be a write-in candidate for his own old seat to counter Moore — although that idea is most likely to split the GOP vote and open the door for Moore’s Democratic challenger.
And lets say for example that Sessions manages to win his old seat back, that really wouldn’t get the perjury dogs off his heals and he would probably face the same type of ethics investigation and possible removal as Moore.
Meanwhile, who becomes the New Attorney General and what happens when that new appointee is approved and isn’t recused from meddling in the Mueller investigation or even worse yet, might go through with Sessions threats to start up a (bogus) Uranium One investigation just to provide more smoke and mirrors to disguise Trump tire fire administration?
We live in interesting times.
Just as a palette cleanser, let’s let Bill Maher summarize as he walks through the various scandals of the week, pointing out the Moore has been fundraising over his accusations — which is like raising money and sending it to the Hurricane. Also Democrats kicked ass in Virginia and elsewhere and and that was before the Roy Moore scandal which to me makes things feel a lot like the era of Akin and Foley when we took back control of the House in 2006.
If only that happens again.
Other events from the week from my Master Trump Russia Timeline Volume #4.
- November 8th —
- November 9th —
- Rob Johnson of Crowdstrike who first investigated the DNC hack says that going public with it in July “forced the Russians to accelerate their timeline” as he suspects they had intended not to release the information until October. “I don’t think the Russian intelligence services were expecting it, expecting a statement and an article that pointed the finger at them.” [Technically Julian Assange revealed he had “emails linked to Hillary” on June 12, 2016 several days before the Wapo revealed the hack, then Guccifer 2.0 dumped the first files of DNC oppo-research file on Trump the next day.]
- Former NSA Analyst John Schindler at the Observer states that multiple Intel agencies have sex tapes featuring Donald Trump, but several of them may be forgeries intended to be counter-intel planted by the Russians. He doubts the existence of the Steele “golden shower” tape.
- ESPN analyst Tim Tebow declined to speak out against Richard Spencer’s White Supremacist Rally at UofF.
- Rawstory reports that the source of Veselnitskaya’s “Dirt” on Clinton was an Oppo-Research Document from Fusion GPS which claimed some campaign donations to her and the DNC had been made illegally [Which is only a crime if they knew it at the time and accepted them anyway.]
- Fox and Friends freaks out over Paisley and Underwood at the CMA’s “Isn’t Country music supposed to be conservative?” [Sometimes, but that doesn’t mean it’s Trumpist too.]
- Acting DHS Secretary Elaine Duke reportedly plans to resign in protest over pressure from White House officials to expel tens of thousands of citizens of Honduras who are staying in the United States under protected status.
- ‘We are at risk of a coup’: GOP Congressman Matt Gaetz demands Mueller resign — and the DOJ investigate Clinton — because yeah sure, they haven’t don't that before.
- A Democratic member of the Trump’s Election Suppression Commission filed suit against the them in federal court in Washington, D.C. on Thursday morning, alleging that its Republican leadership has intentionally excluded him from deliberations and violated federal transparency laws.
- Carrier says it plans to lay off 215 more workers this coming January, just months after it laid off more than 300 employees earlier this year. The deal that the company struck with Trump gave it $7 million to keep some jobs in the United States, although it still is moving many of the jobs at its Indiana plant down to Mexico anyway.
- Wapo reports that RT has finally agreed to register as a Foreign Agent.
- Alabama GOP Senate Nominee Roy Moore runs to Breitbart to preemptively deny a WaPo report about his improper relations with underage girls in the 70’s.
- Dems on the Senate Foreign Relations committee have been investigating worldwide Russian Election Crimes on their own because Republicans on the committee just won’t bother.
- Federal investigators name the woman who claimed to be “Putin’s Niece” to Papadopoulos as an attractive Russian model name Olga Vinogradova who may have been a “cut out” with a handler in the Kremlin.
- Rand Paul’s attacker pleads Not Guilty to assault charges. [The dude has 6 broken ribs, how’s this gonna work? The anger fairy did it?]
- CBS and ABC report that Trump aide Stephen Miller has been interviewed by Mueller’s investigation, mostly likely about his involvement in drafting the original letter justifying the firing of James Comey before that was vetoed by White House counsel and Rosenstein was brought in to come up with a new set of excuses for it.
- WSJ reports that the DOJ is seeking a plea deal with Manafort’s ex-son in law Jeffrey Yohai over shade real estate deals he made using shell companies.
- Comedia Louis CK is accused of sexual misconduct by five women.
- November 10th —
- November 11th —
- November 12th —
- November 13th —
- Thousands March in Hollywood in a #MeToo march against sexual abuse.
- The Atlantic reports that Wikileaks and Don Junior were in repeated contact via twitter and email offering them suggestions and that on several occasions he tweeted the information and links which they had provided to him. A former WH Counsel says this contact and coordination with a foreign nation — Assange — is a Federal Crime.
- Trump travels to the Philippines and claims he discussed human rights abuses with Duterte, but Duterte’s government says he’s a liar and the subject never came up. He says nothing publicly about the thousands who have been killed in Duterte’s “Drug War.” Then he chuckles as Duterte calls the press a bunch of “spies.”
- Giant protests against Trump break out in Manilla including burning a swastika laden Trump effigy, which authorities counter with water cannons and batons.
- GOP Billionaire donor Sheldon Adelson publicly drops Roy Moore apologist Steve Bannon under the bus, then backs over him.
- Coffee maker company Keurig pulls their ads from Hannity due to his support of Roy Moore amid his pedophile allegations and his calling Moore’s accuser a liar only to be attacked by Russian bots and twitter trolls.
- Court documents show that Papadopoulos informed Stephen Miller about the “Russian dirt on Hillary Clinton” which puts him also in the cross hairs for conspiracy to aid and abet cyber crime by not reporting it to the FBI.
- Trump nominates former Pharma exec Alex Azar to replace Tom Price at HHS claiming the guy who used to profit from the high price of drugs is now going to help bring those prices down. [Yeah, right..sure he will.]
- Moore threatens to sue the WaPo over the story about the sex allegations against him, but they had 30 on the record sources for that story — how’s that going to work?
- Moore acquires a fifth accuser Beverly Young Nelson who gives a compelling tearful account of how he sexually assaulted her in his car behind the restaurant she worked in when she was just 16, he denies knowing her or the restaurant but she has a copy of her High School year book with his signature which name checks the restaurant. Locals also note that Moore was banned form the local mall for trying to pick up teenage girls.
- Mitch McConnell say Moore should step aside, “I believe the women.” Pat Toomey says the allegations against Moore “have more credibility than his denials.” Bill Cassidy also rescinds his support for Moore making a total of 3 GOP Senators who’ve backed away from him. Within hours that total grows to 16 GOP Senators including Hatch, Collins, Cornyn, Graham and McCain.
- Brett J. Talley who was nominated by Trump for the Federal Bench in Alabama besides never having ever tried a court case, also failed to disclose on his conflict of interest forms that he’s married to WH Counsel Dan McGahn’s chief of staff Ann Donaldson who was present and took detailed notes concerning the decisions and advice given by WH Counsel on the firing of James Comey. Talley was confirmed by committee and is expected to come up for a full Senate vote within a week.
- Surprising no one with a brain, “Women’s Advocate” Ivanka Trump stays completely silent on the allegations against Moore just as she hasn’t said anything about Harvey Weinstein. Still.
- Wapo reports that Sessions is considering a second special counsel to investigate the Clinton Foundation and the Uranium One deal. That won’t last for long.
- November 14th —
- November 15th —
- Fox News continues going ALL IN on the Uranium One “scandal” despite Shep Smith’s handy smashing of the conspiracy theory.
- Trump returns to the US and tweet/wonders if the 3 UCLA basketball players who had been released from China after he spoke to President XI will thank him.
- GOP guest Trenton Garmin — who had previously tried to Don Lemon “squeezy, peasy” — tries to derail discussion of Moore by suggesting Ali Velshi — who is Canadian and Muslim — would date a 14-year-old.
- FOX fans erupt at UCLA Ball players who don’t speek at their press conference saying “Send them back” for not thanking Trump, even tho the President of the NCAA thanked him.
- More’s Alabama allies seek to smear his accusers and claim that Mrs Nelsons’ restaurant doesn’t exist, but it does.
- Tomi Lahren slams Black Liberals for supporting segregation because Colin Kaepernick is named Citizen of the year by GQ Magazine.
- After the mass shooting in California killing five people Trump responds by cutting and pasting his pervious comments about Sutherland Springs, Texas.
- The Time’s Newspaper reports that Russian Troll accounts support Brexit before the EU Referendum.
- A plot by McConnell emerges that would get Sessions out of the DOJ before his launches a Uranium One which hunt, and keep Moore out of the Senate — but Sessions would still be under scrutiny for perjury and pedophlia has no statute of limitations in Alabama for Moore to duck behind.
- Director Cordray at the CPFB, who was selected for the position when Elizabeth Warren was blocked, then instead ran for Senate — announces his resignation.
- McConnell says that if Moore wins he would “immediately face an ethics investigation” and clearly with at least 16 GOP Senators already on record against him — he could quickly be expelled.
- Ryan announces the House will begin mandatory anti-harrasement training after reports surface that two current members of Congress has sexually harassed female staffers
- The 4 UCLA ball players apologize for shoplifting Louis Vuitton sunglasses in China and thanks Trump for his help.
- Mother Jones reports that their PutinTrump.org website was hit by a vicious cyber attack after Don Jr. and Wikileaks communicated about them as has been recently by The Atlantic. “It was the scariest time in our lives,” one staff member recounted to PutinTrump editorial director Bill Buzenberg, who penned the Mother Jones essay. “There were messages threatening our families.”
- Trump gives a rambling statement/pressers where he essentially fluffs himself about how great his Asia trip was — then bolts from the room when asked about Roy Moore and takes no questions.
- Ivanka finally says something about Moore “There’s a special place in hell for those who abuse children” Yay, now what about Harvey Weinstein?
- Robert Reich points out the Trump’s corporate tax repatriation scheme has been tried before and just ended in less jobs, more executive bonuses and stock by-backs.
- The Guardian reports Chris Steele stands behind his dossier and says it’s at least 70 percent accurate — which leaves quite a margin of error, but it was fairly raw intel, so fine.
- Moore writes an open letter to Sean Hannity proclaiming his innocence because he has grand-daughters, and Nelson was once a plaintiff before his court during her divorce case and didn't ask from him to be recused.
[There are also previous incremental updates to the timeline which highlight and focus specific events at about one week intervals for Nov 7th, Oct 30th, Oct 25th, Oct 11th, Oct 4th, Sept 27, Sept 22, Sept. 17, Sept. 11th, Sept 4th, August 24th, August 17th, August 4th, July 28th, July 14th, July 10th, July 9th, July 4th, June 21st, June 18th, June 14th, June 12th, June 9th, June 6th, and June 2nd.]