Well, on top of all the things we’ve heard about Trump and his people lately, this just about takes the cake.
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.
So if this started before the inauguration it would be a big giant Logan Act violation although some indications are that it happened after, yet at the same time GOPers like Devin Nunes and Trump himself are now accusing John Kerry of violating the Logan Act for having a meeting with Iranian officials in an effort to support the Nuclear Deal he helped broker.
Either way while the Trumpeters have been claiming there was “No Collusion” with Russia while they were digging up dirt to sabotage Hillary, there was a set of ex-Israeli spies on their payroll trying to dig up dirt on former aides to Barack Obama. Coincidence? I doubt it.
Two days ago Devin Nunes called for former Secretary of State to be the very first person prosecuted under the Logan Act based on a Boston Globe report that he’s been meeting with diplomats in France and Iran to try and save the Iranian Nuclear Deal which he originally negotiated.
WASHINGTON — John Kerry’s bid to save one of his most significant accomplishments as secretary of state took him to New York on a Sunday afternoon two weeks ago, where, more than a year after he left office, he engaged in some unusual shadow diplomacy with a top-ranking Iranian official.
He sat down at the United Nations with Foreign Minister Javad Zarif to discuss ways of preserving the pact limiting Iran’s nuclear weapons program. It was the second time in about two months that the two had met to strategize over salvaging a deal they spent years negotiating during the Obama administration, according to a person briefed on the meetings.
With the Iran deal facing its gravest threat since it was signed in 2015, Kerry has been on an aggressive yet stealthy mission to preserve it, using his deep lists of contacts gleaned during his time as the top US diplomat to try to apply pressure on the Trump administration from the outside. President Trump, who has consistently criticized the pact and campaigned in 2016 on scuttling it, faces a May 12 deadline to decide whether to continue abiding by its terms.
Which is real odd since he doesn’t think Flynn, Papadopoulos, Manafort, Gates, Don Jr. or Kushner should be prosecuted under the Logan act despite all their meetings with Russians when they were private citizens.
Funny how that works out.
Trump has also blasted Kerry’s efforts, because apparently letting Iran do whatever it wants with Nuclear materials is somehow better than having a deal that permanently bans them from developing Nuclear weapons, and establishes a monitoring regime that will prevent them from doing anything more than minor enrichment for decades.
Amazing how all of sudden Trump knows that talking to foreign government officials when you’re a private citizen — like for example when Kushner and Bannon secretly met with the Crown Prince of the UEA in order to setup a back channel to Russia which Erik Prince lied about to Congress — might be “possibly illegal.”
Special Counsel Robert Mueller appears to have Blackwater founder Erik Prince directly in the crosshairs of his wide-ranging Russia probe. Recently, Mueller linked Prince’s attempt to set up a Trump-Russia backchannel to Vladimir Putin’s family. The meeting in question, which took place in the Seychelles islands (days before Trump’s inauguration), was described by Prince as a “chance encounter over a beer” between himself and Putin ally/Russian financier Kirill Dmitriev. That wasn’t very believable, but Mueller has reportedly finally has evidence to prove that Prince was lying.
Prince’s statement was made directly to Congress under oath, which doesn’t often lead to prison time, but there is precedent for that penalty to occur. Mueller’s evidence apparently comes from a rolled witness, George Nader, who has limited immunity in the Russia probe. ABC News reports that Nadar — who has been extensively grilled after Mueller pulled out the stops — admitted to setting up the meeting between Prince and Dmitriev:
So Trump say investigating all of that is a “Witch Hunt” but somehow Kerry is crossing a line? This week FBI lawyer Lisa Page and former FBI General Counsel James Baker — who worked directly with Comey — both retired and Trump thinks this mean something something.
And that somehow the Mueller probe is “tainted” because some of the investigators have donated to Democrat, even if some have also donated to Republicans and both Rosenstein and Mueller themselves are Republicans.
Via Politifact.
A month after Mueller’s selection, Trump implied the investigation was politically motivated, making a claim more extreme than Duffy’s in saying: "I can say that the people that have been hired (for the independent Russia investigation) are all Hillary Clinton supporters, some of them worked for Hillary Clinton."
At that point, the names of eight lawyers on Mueller’s team had been made public. Three had made campaign contributions to Clinton, but none had worked for her. One had defended the Clinton Foundation in court for WilmerHale. And another represented a Clinton aide, also for WilmerHale.
The Justice Department looked into the contributions and employment histories of all of Mueller’s hires and determined them consistent with the rules of professional responsibility.
Guess who else was a client of WilmerHale? Jared Kushner.
The Judge in the Virginia case against Paul Manafort had a lot of questions for Mueller’s lawyer questioning their authority to go after him for bank fraud, and attempting to use those charges to get him to flip on Trump but then Fox’s Judge Anthony Napolitano blew up all that noise.
According to Napolitano, Ellis’ rant means “nothing” because “it’s just [a] personal opinion.”
“There’s no evidence in the courtroom in front of him to justify that kind of an opinion,” the legal analyst observed. “It drew enormous headlines over the weekend because it’s a political narrative with which Trump and reporters agree.”
“It is probably correct but it is irrelevant to the ruling on the matter,” he added. “The matter was Manafort moves to dismiss the indictment against him on the theory that Mueller doesn’t have the jurisdiction to prosecute me for bank fraud. The judge says, where does the jurisdiction come from? It comes from a letter authorizing it from the appointing authority, [Deputy Attorney General] Rod Rosenstein.”
Rosenstein specifically authorized Mueller to go after Manafort’s banking issues. Case Closed.
Still Judge Ellis demanded access to the Rosenstein memo which granted authority to Mueller.
But as it happens on Friday Rosenstein after claiming he won’t be “threatened or extorted” by efforts to charge him with contempt of Congress and even Impeach him allowed House GOP Intel members to view his minimally redacted memo authorizing Mueller to pursue charges against Manafort. Ironically Devin Nunes who was screaming the loudest for access didn’t bother to go read the document and sent his staff and Trey Gowdy instead who afterwards said he didn’t see any problems with the document or Rosenstein’s actions.
In other news Gina Haspel has offered to quit her bid to be the new CIA director then rebooted it in just a single day over the issue of her connection to torture during the Bush Administration.
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May 1st —
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Ashley Judd files a lawsuit against Harvey Weinstein for sexual harassment and defamation.
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Comey states during a George Washington University book store event that Mueller should want an “open ended” interview with Trump, he also says he’s learned to “shrug off” Trump’s constant threat to have him jailed, even though it’s really a big deal.
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Mueller’s former assistant Michael Zeldin who now works for CNN says that grammatical errors prove ‘leaked questions’ came from Trump.
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WaPo reports that former WH counsel John Dowd grew angry with Mueller’s team during their March 5th meeting over an interview when he threatened to issuing a subpoena against Trump. “This isn’t some game,” Dowd reportedly argued. “You are screwing with the work of the president of the United States.” [Well, he’s screwing with the Country — so we’re about even then.]
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Bankruptcy Trustee Thomas Casey has filed a lawsuit against Paul Manafort in Santa Ana, California alleging that he falsely claimed he was a creditor owed $2.7 million in a failed real estate deal with his former son-in-law Jeffrey Yohal.
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Andrew Pollack the rightwing pro-gun father of Parkland shooting victim Meadow Pollack files a wrongful death lawsuit against the former Parkland school resource officer Scot Peterson who didn’t go into the school during the shooting, calling him a “coward.”
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The first eight women from the Migrant Caravan enter the U.S. to seek asylum, Mike Pence says they will be processed within the law.
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Trump tweets that there were “no questions about collusion” in the Mueller list, but then Ben Wittes of the law fare blog tears this claim apart piece by piece.
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Fox and Friends celebrates the anniversary of the death of Bin Laden without once mentioning Barack Obama who gave the green light for the raid.
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Jill Stein while trying to explain why her campaign is refusing to turn over documents to the Senate Intel committee spouts Russian talking points about America interfering in elections too, when asked about Russia’s own interference and never addresses their hacking of the DNC.
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Trump’s personal private physician Harold Bornstein tells NBC news that 2 days after he had revealed that he had proscribed the hair-growth drug Propecia for Trump, his longtime bodyguard Keith Schiller had raided his office and taken all of Trump’s medical records without a properly signed release form that which would have violated HIPAA and even took the signed photo of the two of them on the wall. CNN’s Michael Zeldin says “it’s theft and looks like a burglary.” Huckabee-Sanders says the raid on Bornstein is “standard operating procedure” [The Hell, it is.] MSNBC analyst Danny Cevallos says that Trump seems to have robbed his own doctor’s office since the records belong to the provider and a proper release wasn’t provided. Bornstein says he felt “Raped and Sad” afterward.
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ABC News reports that Pasquale “Nino” Perrott the former Secret Service agent who acts as EPA Director Scott Pruitt head of security suddenly resigns and states that he will cooperate with the House probe into scandals involving Pruitt. Rawstory states: Albert “Kell” Kelly, who ran the agency’s Superfund cleanup program, also announced his resignation, the EPA confirmed. Kelly was barred by the FDIC from working at any U.S. financial institution after unspecified violations while working at a bank in Oklahoma.
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Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein says on C-SPAN while explaining why he won’t comply with the GOP House Intel Subpoenas for information about Uranium One and the Mueller probe that these are ongoing investigations and responds to calls for him to be Impeached for that with: “I can tell you that there have been people who have been making threats privately and publicly against me for quite some time and I think they should understand by now the Department of Justice is not going to be extorted… any threats that people make are not going to affect how we do our job.”
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Reports surface that Trump himself dictated the note on his health which his former Dr. Harold Bornstein had claimed to have written. [As if we couldn’t tell...] which could be a severe ethics violation and suggest that Adm. Ronny Jackson may have done the same thing with all his “excellent genes” comments.
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Trump tweets that it’s disgraceful that Mueller questions for him were leaked. [Yes, it’s a shame that YOUR LAWYERS did that — for you.]
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Pruitt’s chief of staff states that the EPA head wanted an office in his own hometown.
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Richard Smotkin, a former Comcast lobbyist and longtime Pruitt friend who also had ties to the Moroccan government was reportedly unusually involved in the planning of the $100,000 four-day trip by Pruitt and his staff to Morocco.
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Buzzfeed reports that Prof. Joseph Mifsud had travelled to Moscow on Oct 5, 2017 just two weeks before the Papapoulos guilty plea documents were revealed. He was interviewed and confirmed he was the same person mention in the docs on Oct 31st the day after the release, but he hasn’t been heard or seen since.
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CNN legal analyst Paul Callan argues with Avenatti that Stormy Daniels career as a Porn star hurts her claim that Trump’s tweet accusing her of a “con job” may have “damaged her reputation.” [Because what — having sex on camera makes you lie?” That’s very “Pre-MeToo” of him.]
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Former HHS Sec Tom Price admits the truth to the Washington Times that repealing the individual mandate will drive premium prices up in the exchanges. [No kidding, who didn’t know that?] But he claims also says he doesn’t agree with that assessment.
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John McCain announces this is his last term in the Senate as he continues to battle brain cancer.
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Bloomberg reports that the only Trump lawyer who had the security clearance needed to fully discuss the issues behind Mueller’s questions was John Dowd, and his new attorney’s Flood and Giuliani don't have a clearance.
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Bloomberg also reports that Michael Cohen owes the city of New York $235,000 in back taxes for his Tax Businesses.
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May 2nd —
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Trump biographer Gwenda Blair tell Chris Hayes that Trump may have robbed his doctors office because besides battling hair loss Propecia also has a side-effect of causing sexual dysfunction.
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Colbert mocks the raid to hide the Propecia prescription over Trump’s hair loss: ‘They know we can see, right?”
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Trump tweets that the Mueller probe is an “setup and trap and no collusion and blah blah blah.” Then responds to Rosenstein’s refusal to comply with GOP document request for an unredacted copy his memo authorizing the Special Counsel. “I may have no choice but to get involved” which suggests he’s going to obstruct justice [AGAIN] by releasing the documents himself over DOJ objection, which would MAKE HIM A LEAKER of confidential information, however he can't release anything until Rosenstein gives it to him and he probably won’t.
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Former NSA and CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden states on Morning Joe that the Russians gained 4 advantages as a result of the Veselnitskaya meeting. 1) That the Trump campaign was “willing to deal” 2) That they would accepted information on Hillary Clinton that had the “provenance of the Russians.” 3) That they wouldn’t go to the Feds even though they were illegally offering information and 4) they got a Kompromat downpayment since the Trumpsters didn’t report the meeting, they could then use the threat of outing them as leverage.f outing them as leverage.
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Chris Cuomo audibly groans when Rick Santorum claims he doesn’t know if Trump has lied.
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Corey Lewandowski on CNN besides claiming he doesn’t understand that the DOJ doesn’t release information about ongoing investigations claiming “it’s a matter of transparency” when it’s not — they (almost) never do that because it would damage the investigation and/or unfairly tarnish a potential target, y’know like it did to Hillary Clinton— he says the Trump admin has been “fully cooperative” and he’ll answer any question but he in fact twice failed to answer questions from House Intel [“I’m not answering your Fucking Questions”] and also states he didn’t know “anyone in the Trump campaign who reached out to Russia (besides Manafort)”, but that’s a LIE because Papadopoulos repeatedly sent emails the campaign while he was reaching out to Russians and he also personally authorized Carter Page’s trip to Moscow where he was told about the “dirt” they had on Hillary. Also Gates was also talking to GRU member Konstantin Kilimnick at the time, while Don jr and Roger Stone were tweeting with Wikileaks but Corey was what — just clueless about all that?
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Two weeks after joining Trump’s legal time and vowing to “shut down” the Mueller probe “in 2 weeks” — which doesn’t seem to much shut downy — Rudy Giuliani claims that he wants to limit Mueller’s interview with Trump to just 2-3 hours — which isn’t really enough to get through question 5 out of the 49 they have for Trump.
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Trump WH lawyer Ty Cobb is out to be replaced by form Bush, Cheney and Clinton Impeachment Lawyer Emmet Flood. So his team is now Sekulow & Giuliani on the private side, Flood on the WH side. [Trump had called previous reports of lawyer shake ups and attempt to recruit Flood “Fake News” — seems rather Unfake” to me now.] Cobb had reportedly advised “calm” in response to the Mueller probe and was uncomfortable about Trump’s mudslinging tweets attacking them “I can’t go down that road” and that Trump is growing more aggressive. Giuliani admits to the WaPo that pushing Cobb out was part of a new “aggressive strategy”.
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Cambridge Analytica’s parent company announces that their shutting down in the midst of the Facebook Scandal [I guess that’s because they’re now fully outsourcing to St. Petersburg, Russia.]
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Trump’s lawyers claim “absolute immunity” in an attempt to have the Emoluments Suit against him tossed out.
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Gen Hayden states on WNYC that “No GOP Congress will ever impeach Trump” [And he’s right, because obviously they Hate America — or at least all the people in it at risk of living in a Rabid Kleptocracy.]
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Sessions announces that 35 lawyers and 18 judges are being added to the border and immigration courts. [Using what for money?]
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Summer Zervos’ defamation lawyers issues subpoenas to Beverly Hill Hilton and to MGM for tapes from the Apprentice which feature Trump talking-to, or about former contestant Zervos — and also any tapes showing him behaving in an “inappropriate sexual manner” with female contestants. [This may be one way to cut through the expensive punitive NDA that former Apprentice employees were required to sign.]
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Former Trump advisor, Roger Stone pal and PR agent for Putin Michael Caputo whines on MSNBC that his lawyer fees in the Mueller probe are costing him $150,000 and making him sell his house. [You should’ve known it would cost you to work for Putin, pal.] He’s also interviewed by the Mueller investigation and comes out saying “House and Senate are net fishing they’re spear fishing and they are deadly accurate. Collusion is definitely on the table” and “They know more about the Trump campaign than anyone who ever worked there.”
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ABC Reports that the Trump campaign has paid $228,000 worth of Cohen’s legal fees.
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18 GOP Reps led by Luke Messner (R-IN) send a letter nominating Trump for a “Nobel Peace Prize” in regards to his work to end the conflict between North and South Korea.
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White Supremacist Jacob Scott Goodwin is found guilty of the bloody beating of Deadre Harris in Charlottesville. The jury recommends a 10 year sentence after rejecting Goodwins “self-defense” claims. [One down, about 10 more to go!]
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Reuters reports that Trump has all but decided to pull out of the Iran Nuclear Deal he just hasn’t decided exactly how.
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At least 88 Central American asylum seekers from the caravan through Mexico cross into the US, which prompted Sessions to beef up legal resources on the border.
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Convicted owner of the Upper Big Branch Mine - which exploded due to failure to follow safety protocols killing 29 people — Mike Blankenship who is running for GOP nomination for Senate in West Virginia says that it’s not Racist to call Mitch McConnell’s wife Transportation Sec Elaine Chao a “Chinaperson”. He also releases an ad referring to McConell as “Cocain Mitch” because a small quantity was once found on a boat owned by his father-in-law.
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Giuliani goes on Hannity
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He says that Trump paid Cohen back his $130,000 through his retainer fees for $35,000 plus enough for taxes and a bonus and that means there’s no “campaign finance” problem, but that’s not how campaign finance law works — that would still be a violation by the size of an “in kind” contribution, by the fact they didn’t report it, plus potentially money laundering and fraud.
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He says that he won’t allow Trump to be interviewed for more than 2-3 hours because Hillary was only interview for 3 hours and he doesn’t want Trump “treated worse than her” when this has nothing to do with her case and if they get a subpoena that “limit” won’t matter.
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He says that the NY FBI who raided Cohen’s office were “Stormtroopers” — wait, didn't they use to work for Giuliani?
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He says that Trump fired Comey because he wouldn’t publicly exonerate him as being part of the Russia investigation [but technically that wasn’t up to him, it was up to Dana Boente at the time — and that also means that the Rosenstein letter was just an excuse, and again we’re back to obstruction.].
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He claims Sessions and Rosenstein should order the investigation “Over” [Because why when they have a pending trial against Manafort and 13 outstanding indictments against various Russians?]
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He says Cohen hardly did any “legal work” for Trump. [So what’s the retainer for because if its for legal work THAT’S FRAUD and how are they still claiming Attorney-Client privilege for something Cohen wasn’t doing?]
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CNN reports that Stormy Daniels manager Gina Rodriguez has turned over documents to the FBI in cooperation with their investigation of Cohen.
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Avenatti responds to Giuliani about the payback to Cohen: “That’s a felony.” He also goes on Stephen Colbert and shows the payment receipt made to Daniels and points out that it was made from First Republic Bank in San Francisco which indicates that California Attorney General Xavier Becerra would have jurisdiction over it and Trump can’t pardon someone charged with a State crime.
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May 3rd —
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May 4th —
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Federal Judge T.S. Ellis grills the Mueller team over the linkages between the Manafort case and Russian interference, and suggests that the case is intended to make Manafort “flip” and that they don’t really care about him and these charges, then requests copies of the unreacted Rosenstein memo authorizing Mueller’s investigation of Manafort to ensure that the remaining redacting portion are not about Manafort.
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Trump-loving Rosanne Barr tweet blasts at Patricia Arquette for the equation that if Storm Daniels is “classless” then so is Trump by saying “she’s known for Anal scenes” which is completely irrelevant to her level of “class” but then Stormy herself says: “I don't even do anal movies, you ignorant twat. That's like saying you are known for your beautiful rendition of The Star Spangled Banner.” [Oh, SNAP!!!] Then a fan replies “Hey! On behalf of my twat, please don’t insult twats by associating them with her.” to which “classless” Daniels says: “Touche'. Please send my sincerest apologies to your undercarriage. It was insensitive of me.” ‘[Classy and Funnier than Rosanne!]
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Obama Ethic Czar Norm Eisen writes a scathing Op-ED saying that Rep Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Mark Meadows (R-NC) have no business threatening the Impeachment of Rosenstein for political purposes and to inject themselves in the middles of an ongoing Justice Dept. criminal investigation.
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Trump slams NBC as “wrong again” when they correct a story about Cohen being “wire-tapped” to say that he was subject to a “pen register” which tracks calls in real time. Then he says that “Rudy’s only been on [the case] for a day, and he’s get his facts straight.” [Shouldn’t he have done that before he started spouting off on Fox News?] He also says that the Meuller team are “all angry Democrats” which they aren’t, but even if they were they’d still have to follow the law and DOJ guidelines.
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WSJ slams Trump for his lies about the Daniels case: Americans will stop believing anything the says. [Some of us never did.] He also says he’ll only talk to Mueller “If it’s fair” — which means what exactly?
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Ben Carson continues with his plans to screw up affordable housing by increasing rents by 3x and adding work requirements which means that housing will no longer be affordable.
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Kushner updates his financial disclosure form for the 40th time.
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Chris Hayes gets into a shouting match with Hannity lawyer Victory Toensing over the scope of Trump’s authority to fire anyone in the government.
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Ryan re-hires the House Chaplain.
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MSNBC’s Donny Deustch says that Michael Cohen told him “Rudy doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
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Dr. Jen Pena, VP Mike Pence’s official WH physician abruptly resigns. No reasons are given
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NYTimes reports that the Russian Oligarch who had attended Trump’s inauguration and been questioned and had his electronics scanned as he departed his private plane by he Mueller team in April was Viktor Vekselberg, who has been since included on the list of sanctioned Russians released by the Treasury Dept. Vekselberg had also attended the 2015 RT anniversary dinner with Michel Flynn, Jill Stein and Putin.
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Trump brags before the NRA about Judge Ellis questioning the Mueller team about them not really “caring about Manafort’s bank fraud. You can to prosecute or impeach Trump” which isn’t at all a surprise, it’s how Federal Prosecutors work and it’s exactly what they did to get guilty pleas from Flynn, Papadopoulos and Gates
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Daily Beast reports that Trump and WH Counsel Don McGahn are barely on speaking terms after McGahn refused to deny the story that he has previously threaten to quit if Mueller were fired.
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Former FBI General Counsel James Baker — who had been considered a Comey loyalist by Jeff Sessions and had been replaced after pressure from Sessions was applied to FBI Director Chris Wray — quits the FBI to write for a national security column for the Brookings Institute’s Lawfare Blog. FBI trial attorney Lisa Page who had worked for FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and had an affair with and sent numerous text message with FBI Agent Peter Strzok also resigns.
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Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein after claiming he won’t be “threatened or extorted” by efforts to charge him with contempt of Congress and even Impeach him allows House GOP Intel members to view his minimally redacted memo authorizing Mueller to pursue charges against Manafort. Ironically Devin Nunes didn’t bother to go read the document and sent Trey Gowdy instead who afterwards said he didn’t see any problems with the document or Rosenstein’s actions.
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NYTimes reports that Trump apparently did know about the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels months ago, so he’s been lying it about it all this time up until 2 days ago when Giuliani admitted he paid Cohen back.
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Devin Nunes calls for former Secretary of State to be the very first person prosecuted under the Logan Act based on a Boston Globe report that he’s been meeting with diplomats in France and Iran to try and save the Iranian Nuclear Deal which he originally negotiated — which is real odd since he doesn’t think Flynn, Papadopoulos, Manafort, Gates, Don Jr. or Kushner should be prosecuted under the Logan act despite all their meetings with Russians when they were private citizens.
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WSJ reports that during the election Michael Cohen established a $774,000 line of credit due to a 2 transactions he made involving a Trump Tower condominium that was owned by his in-laws (which would include his Soviet born father-in-law who had originally introduced him to Donald Trump).
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May 5th —
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May 6th —
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May 7th —