This week’s update in the Timeline of Trump Russia Corruption on top of R-Anon Op-ed Gate and the new Bob Woodward book blowing everyone's stack we saw the very first person who’s action set the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation in to Russia’s contact with Trump associates in motion, George Papadopoulos, being finally sentenced to 14 days in Federal Prison for his having lied to the FBI claiming that his communications had happened before the campaign simply to cover for Trump who had denied that there were any such communications. There were, and George Papadopoulos was at the center of it and then gave a Special 45-minute interview to CNN’s Jake Tapper.
This interview makes it clear why the Special Counsel decided to sentence Papadopoulos rather than use him as a witness because he’s still lying, and still trying to protect Trump whom he continues to support and says had done “good things” with foreign policy.
For starters Papadopoulos claims that he “absolutely didn’t” and “doesn’t recall” ever informing anyone in the Trump campaign about the “Hillary emails” that he was told by about by Prof. Mifsud from Malta, that’s despite the fact the Trump campaign member John Mashburn testified to the Senate Judiciary committee that Papadopoulos has sent an email to the campaign talking about the “Hillary emails” which were in the possession of Russia.
WASHINGTON — The White House official had a startling assertion: He thought he had received an email in the first half of 2016 alerting the Trump campaign that Russia had damaging information about Hillary Clinton.
Testifying behind closed doors on Capitol Hill in late March, the official, John K. Mashburn, said he remembered the email coming from George Papadopoulos, a foreign policy adviser to the campaign who was approached by a Russian agent, sometime before the party conventions — and well before WikiLeaks began publishing messages stolen in hackings from Democrats.
Such an email could have proved explosive, providing evidence that at least one high-ranking Trump campaign official was alerted to Russia’s meddling, raising questions about which advisers knew and undercutting President Trump’s denials of collusion.
However, that specific email has not yet been produced, although a very similar one from Papadopoulos to Stephen Miller has been.
In his guilty plea, it says the Papadopoulos emailed Stephen Miller about what Mifsud had told him.
Papadopoulos emailed Miller from London on April 25, 2016, after speaking multiple times to a Russian connected to the Kremlin’s ministry of foreign affairs to relay an “open invitation for Trump to meet Russian president Vladimir Putin.”
The following day, Papadopoulos met with “overseas professor” Joseph Mifsud, who told the Trump foreign policy adviser that Russia had “thousands of emails” that he promised would hurt Clinton’s election chances.
Papadopoulos emailed Miller on April 27 to notify him about “interesting messages coming in from Moscow,” the guilty plea shows.
Papadopoulos claims in this interview that he doesn’t specifically remember telling Australian Ambassador Alexander Downer about the emails, although that was the reason Downer was even talking to him because he'd already let it slip to a young woman he was talking to who informed Downer, and Downer is the person who informed the FBI which is what started the case against him.
Fairfax Media can reveal a woman in London with whom Papadopoulos became involved happened to know Alexander Downer and told the Australian High Commissioner about Papadopoulos, a newly signed staffer for Donald Trump. Downer, being a canny diplomat, followed it up and arranged a meeting with the young American, who was mostly living in London at the time.
In December last year it was reported that former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos told Australian diplomat Alexander Downer that Russia had political dirt on Hillary Clinton.
What followed was the now infamous May 2016 conversation over many glasses of wine at the swanky Kensington Wine Rooms, during which the 28-year-old Papadopoulos spilled to Downer that he knew of a Russian dirt file on the rival Clinton campaign consisting of thousands of hacked emails.
Interestingly Papadopoulos attacked Downer on twitter calling him a liar and a mole who only met him under orders from “some organization or entity.”
So his sudden inability to remember may not be just coincidental, but part of his continued support from Trump just as his attempts to call out Christopher Steele. But still he also according to his own attorneys told the Greek ambassador about the emails -- but he’s seriously trying to make us believe that he didn’t tell anyone in the Trump campaign at all, not even his boss Sam Clovis?
How is that even possible?
He makes that claim despite the statement made recently which was picked up by ThinkProgress where he says Jeff Sessions specifically instructed him to “find out everything he could about the emails” that had been mentioned by Mifsud.
Papadopoulos, according to this new acquaintance, said that Sessions was well aware of the contact between Papadopoulos and Joseph Mifsud, an academic from Malta with high-level connections in Russia. Papadopoulos’ indictment revealed that Mifsud had told Papadopoulos that the Russians had “‘dirt’ on then-candidate Hillary Clinton in the form of ‘thousands of emails.'”
Jason Wilson, a computer engineer who lives in Chicago, told ThinkProgress that Papadopoulos said during their conversation that “Sessions encouraged me” to find out anything he could about the hacked Hillary Clinton emails that Mifsud had mentioned.
So, how’d that happen if Sessions didn’t even know about the emails?
At another point he says that the Foreign policy meeting pictured above was the first time that he’d met Donald Trump, but during a trip to Greece — where apparently he talked to the ambassador — he also talked to local reporters and told them that he’d later met privately one-on-one with Trump where his efforts to reach out to Russia and other nations were specifically authorized by the candidate.
George Papadopoulos has already pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his meeting with a Kremlin-linked Russian academic who promised “thousands of emails” that would hurt the Clinton campaign, but the just-reported comments from Politico would be the first time Papadadoulos's work had a direct link to Trump himself, rather than lower-level campaign staffers.
Marianna Kakaounaki, an investigative reporter for the Greek newspaper Kathimerini, said Papadopoulos told her that Trump called him personally after he was hired to the campaign in March 2016. Trump later met with Papadopoulos one-on-one, when the aide told Trump about his ongoing efforts to set up a meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Kakaounaki said.
This means that Trump and Sessions claims — some which were made under oath — that there were “no contacts” and “no collusion” with Russians have always been a big fat lie. Also, it’s perjury for Sessions.
He also sent many emails to the campaign about them including some to Manafort and Corey Lewandowski, enough that there was some discussion within the campaign about the legality of his efforts.
Three days after Donald Trump named his campaign foreign policy team in March 2016, the youngest of the new advisers sent an email to seven campaign officials with the subject line: “Meeting with Russian Leadership - Including Putin.” The adviser, George Papadopoulos, offered to set up “a meeting between us and the Russian leadership to discuss US-Russia ties under President Trump,” telling them his Russian contacts welcomed the opportunity, according to internal campaign emails read to The Washington Post.
The proposal sent a ripple of concern through campaign headquarters in Trump Tower. Campaign co-chairman Sam Clovis wrote that he thought NATO allies should be consulted before any plans were made. Another Trump adviser, retired Navy Rear Adm. Charles Kubic, cited legal concerns, including a possible violation of U.S. sanctions against Russia and of the Logan Act, which prohibits U.S. citizens from unauthorized negotiation with foreign governments. But Papadopoulos, a campaign volunteer with scant foreign policy experience, persisted.
Papadopoulos’ efforts to reach out to the Russians were not a secret, and it’s wasn’t a “lone wolf” operation. He even boasted to the Russians that he had “authorization” to talk with them.
Papadopoulos wrote a Russian contact to suggest a meeting for August or September in the United Kingdom. He allegedly sent the email shortly before the Republican National Convention in 2016 and noted that it would include “my national chairman and maybe one other foreign policy adviser,” along with members of Putin’s office and Russia’s foreign ministry. Papadopoulos then said it had been approved by “our side.”
The “national chairman” at that point — was Manafort.
Ignorance is no valid defense here. Papadopoulos’ efforts to reach out to the Russians was illegal AND THEY KNEW IT WAS so the effort by the campaign, including Trump personally who knew about it all along, to keep this a secret by denying this effort and these contacts was a cover-up and a conspiracy that grew even more serious once Mifsud’s information entered the mix, because it’s a felony not to inform the authorities about felonies.
And the idea that he told some girl about Mifsud’s “Hillary emails”, who told Downer, and he told the Greek Ambassador — but he didn’t tell any of this to Clovis, Mashburn, Manafort, Lewandoski or Miller and still somehow Sessions knew about and wanted him to “find out all he could” is just plain ludicrous.
Even The View is calling BS on That.
“I have been asked this a million times, and here’s the reality,” Papadopoulos said. “The same day I was told about the dirt from, you know, I had a scheduled call with Stephen Miller, who is (now) in the White House. That call never went through, so who knows? If that call went through, I may have told him, but it never went through.”
The co-hosts were skeptical of his claims, but Papadopoulos argued there’s no evidence that he notified the campaign about the stolen emails.
“No recollection of not doing it, and not doing it are two different things,” said Hostin.
“Let’s not forget I was living in London at the time, right?” Papadopoulos said. “I wasn’t in some sort of headquarters.”
“That doesn’t affect your memory,” said co-host Sunny Hostin.
“What it affects is how I was transmitting information at that time, and it was 99 percent over email at that time,” he said. “So if it would have been sent it would have been done over email, and that has obviously that email has never been discovered because I don’t remember sending it.”
You didn’t tell him because the call didn’t go through? Really, man? What about during the email he sent Miller the very next day? Maybe there’s no evidence of the email because he deleted after he sent it, and he asked others who received it to delete it also. But again, according to the George himself, Sessions knew about it — how’d that happen?
The problem is that George is a now a lousy witness because he’s given several different conflicting versions of these events, and even denies statements he’s made recently which were not under duress. What they would need is the paper trail, some of which they seem to have, but they don’t need George as a witness — he’s even less reliable and trust-worthy than Rick Gates.
If Mueller has the email sent to Mashburn or Miller, and he just might, that’s game, set and match for Sessions and Trump.
There may have been many other contacts with Russians during the campaign but this effort we know what authorized and known within the campaign right when it started and it was clearly criminal as well as “Collusion.”
Daily updates for this week are as follows:
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September 4th —
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Former Arizona Senator John Kyl is selected to replace John McCain until the next election in November.
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Early releases of Bob Woodward’s new book “Fear” which is based on recorded interviews with various members of WH staff becomes a nuclear bombshell. Trump himself was very upset that he wasn't interviewed by Woodward, but he had tried at least 6 times to have an interview but Trump’s staff had blocked it — which confirms a lot of the main themes of the book and Scaramucci’s claim that there are people in the WH who think they have to protect the country from Trump.
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In 2017, President Donald Trump addressed the riot of white nationalists chanting ‘Jews will not replace us” in Charlottesville by observing that there were “very fine people” on “both sides.” “That was the biggest f*cking mistake I’ve made,” Trump told advisers shortly after giving a speech that condemned white nationalists. Woodward’s sources also told him Trump called the speech “the worst” he’d ever given.
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According to Woodward’s sources, the president opted out after flubbing a practice session set up by aides. “I don’t really want to testify,” Trump said at the end of a half-an-hour rant against his attorneys. “It’s either that or an orange jumpsuit,” one of his attorneys reportedly warned. And that after this John Dowd supposedly went to Mueller and told them Trump couldn't testify because he would “makeup stories and lie.” Mueller reportedly responded, “I need the President’s testimony, I need to know his intent on Comey, did he have corrupt intent?” The following day Dowd resigned.
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John Kelly called Trump an ‘idiot’ who has ‘gone off the rails in Crazytown’,
- According to the book, Secretary of Defense James Mattis once said that Trump “acted like — and had the understanding of — a fifth- or sixth-grader.” The president’s poor understanding of global diplomacy occurred during a meeting about troops on the Korean Peninsula.
- In a bid to thwart a third world war, aides reportedly hid documents from Trump. James Mattis apparently once snapped at Trump “We’re doing this in order to prevent World War III,” after he was asked why the U.S. is spending money to detect North Korea missile launches. [This was part of the same exchange that led to Tillerson supposedly called him a “Fucking Moron.”]
- Following the launch of chemical attacks against his own people, Bashar al-Assad apparently almost became a target of US assassination. According to Woodward’s sources, when the president heard news of the attack, he exploded and ranted “Let’s kill the f*cking lot of them.” Aides convinced him to instead opt for an air strike.
- Several staffers have taken paperwork on the Oval Office desk to protect the nation:
In one case, an aide swiped a letter that would have withdrawn the U.S. from a trade agreement with South Korea that affects our ability to monitor North Korean nukes. “I stole it off his desk,” former chief economic adviser Gary Cohn said, according to the report. “I wouldn’t let him see it. He’s never going to see that document. Got to protect the country.”
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Former staff secretary Rob Porter said he also stole documents off the Resolute desk. “A third of my job was trying to react to some of the really dangerous ideas that he had and try to give him reasons to believe that maybe they weren’t such good ideas,” Porter reportedly said.
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Trump also reportedly called Jeff Sessions a “Mentally retarded dumb southerner.”
- Sarah Huckabee-Sanders claps back “This book is nothing more than fabricated stories, many by former disgruntled employees, [Except that Mattis and Kelly are still there] told to make the President look bad,” [He does that all on his own.] “President Trump has broken through the bureaucratic process to deliver unprecedented successes for the American people.” [Not at all “unprecedented” since Clinton had greater GDP and also balanced the budget.]
- Kelly denies that he ever called Trump “Idiot”, except this isn’t the first time this report has come out nor is it the first time he’s denied. it. He doesn’t deny of the rest of it like “gone off the rails in Crazytown” though.
- Fox News Howard Kurtz points out that several of Woodward’s sources are still in the White House.
- Fox News Brit Hume says “Thank god for the people who steal papers to stop him from destroying the nation”
- GOP pollster John Couvillion indicates that the blue wave is real. “From looking at primary turnout as evidence of partisan enthusiasm, I’m seeing it on the Democratic side.”
- Fox online host says Colin Kaepernick is a ‘revered character among America-hating leftists’.
- Salon documents that every time he had a chance Kavanaugh ruled against protecting women's reproductive rights.
- Brett Kavanaugh’s hearing begins.
- Rumors spread that the woman sitting behind Kavanaugh flashed a White-power “Not-OK” symbol. Right-media argues this is WH advisor and former Kavanaugh clerk Zina Bash who has Mexican and Jewish heritage, so she’s couldn't possibly be a “white supremacist”. [Unfortunately, that doesn't explain Steve Cortez] Also the same symbol is sign-language for “Asshole.”
- Nike shares dip 2% as Colin Kaepernick ad spurs boycott.
- Mueller issues a written response to Trump's lawyers from 3 weeks previous about a face-to-face interview saying that they will accept written answer to questions on Russia, but not on collusion.
- Zina Bash’s husband uses an Official U.S Attorney twitter account to defend his wife, claiming she's half Mexican and she was just scratching her arm, but the video shows her holding the position — which is known as a symbol for the III percenters — for 15 solid minutes without scratching.
- September 5th —
- September 6th —
- NYTimes publishes an anonymous Resistance editorial by a "high ranking administration official" says that Trump’s behavior is "off the rails" and a threat to national security stating that many government officials are working behind the scenes to save the nation, and him from himself, and that the cabinet had considered the 25th Amendment early on, which is consistent with what Steve Bannon said in “Fire and Fury” and also consistent with when James Comey talked John Kelly out of resigning because “principled people” needed to be around Trump and the section from Woodward’s “Fear” where Gary Cohn says he took a letter canceling the U.S.-South Korea trade agreement out of the oval office to “protect the country.”
- Actor Burt Reynolds dies at age 82.
- Trump demands that the NYTimes turn the anonymous op-ed author "over to the government" and suggests that he (or she) may have committed "Treason?” [It's a complaint letter from the staff, not the release of State Secrets.] Then he says the author probably "isn't real" [Which means there’s no one to turn over, and no "Treason" — also this reaction pretty much proves they were correct.]
- Pence spox denies that he wrote the op-ed. "We're above such acts.” even though it uses the term “lodestar" which is a favorite of Pence's instead of “Northstar.”
- Pompeo denies he wrote it, so does Dan Coats.
- Corey Booker vows to release some of the “Congress Confidential" emails related to Kavanaugh and racial profiling, even if it means violating Senate rules and could have him expelled, Other Senate Dems join him. However, Kavanaugh’s gatekeeper Bill Burke — who also happens to be both Steve Bannon and Don McGahn’s attorney — had already released the documents in question earlier that morning and Booker was informed of this. He later argues that he had read the first email during a hearing the previous evening, and had released 20 more that weren't cleared by Burke.
- Sen Hirono releases so-called “Congress Confidential" emails where Kavanaugh rails against protections for native Hawaiians claiming it's a “naked racial set-aside”
- the Guardian reports that Trump personally intervened to get a government photographer to edit photos of his inauguration to hide evidence that his crowd size was smaller than the crowd at former President Barack Obama’s inauguration.
- CNN’s John Berman does a real-time fact check to Corey Lewandowski’s manic attack on the White House ‘resistance’ leaker where he claims that they must be "an Obama holdover.”
- Some of the hidden emails show that Kavanaugh had argued that Roe V Wade wasn’t settled law among scholars, although he’s been saying all day under oath that's it's “double precedent” after Casey.
- Trump admin signals they plan to withdraw from the Flores immigrant child detention agreement, although it was really a judgment which has since been upheld.
- Sarah Huckabee-Sanders posts the NYTimes phone number and tells people to ask them to ID ‘gutless loser’ op-ed writer.[Right, so ok, next time she goes to a restaurant can we post her home phone number?]
- Sean Hannity claims The ‘Deep State’ put a ‘hit’ out on Trump with the anonymous New York Times op-edl
- NDA’d former Trump campaign staffer Mike Caputo says the NY Times op-ed writer must be ‘investigated and jailed’.
- Bandy Lee, the Yale University psychiatrist who edited the bestselling book “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President,” explained in an email conversation that these “revelations” about Trump seem entirely predictable based on his public and other behavior. Lee also says she had been contacted by 2 administration officials to help with Trump whom they said had gone mentally “off the rails" in October.
- Ryan Lizza posts the document from Bob Woodward's “Fear" that he claims former Trump financial advisor Gary Cohn said he “swiped from the Resolute desk” so Trump wouldn’t see it.
- Dozens of Trump top Lieutenants claim they didn’t write Deep State Throat op-ed. [Yeah neither did everyone on the Orient Express.]
- Pat Leahy catches Kavanaugh in a series of lies over his claim he didn't know emails sent to him by GOP Congressional staff had been stolen from Democrat’s computers: “I was born at night, but not last night.”
- Ted Cruz claims the Deep State Throat has to be a Democrat.
- Former Trump surrogate Scottie Nell Hughes goes to work for RT.
- Omarosa said the Resistance Op-Ed came out of Mike Pence’s office.
- Axio reports that some White House staffers are saying they wish they had written the R anon op-ed themselves. “There are dozens and dozens of us.”
- Sen. Ben Sasse says the R-anon op-ed is exactly like what they already here from WH staffers on the Hill.
- Kavanaugh stumbles as he's asked by Sen. Kamala Harris if he's had personal communications with Trump's lawyers from the office of Mark Kasowitz about the Mueller probe, which he denies more forcefully afterward. Harris later says she has reliable information that there was a conversation between Kavanaugh and someone at Kasowitz's firm, which means possible perjury.
- Rep. Mark Meadows claims Democrats want to investigate the R anon leaker.
- Melania says the R anon op-ed is “cowardly and sabotaging.”
- The “It wasn’t me” list grows to 12 Cabinet secretaries but not John Kelly, yet.
- Fox News host A.B. Stoddard says Trump ‘doesn’t have the temperament for the hardest job on the planet’ and is now likely to purge
- Tony Schwartz says ‘Mueller has 40 years worth of crimes’ to expose’ [He probably won’t go back that far himself, but he may hand off more cases to SDNY or DC US Attorney]
- Matt Dowd and Chris Christie says the Trump admin is sinking after being torpedoed by New York Times op-ed.
- So-called “Civil Libertarian” Rand Paul says Trump should use a lie detector test to see who R anon is.
- AP reports that Giuliani has finally dropped the charade and admitted that Trump isn't going to answer any questions from Mueller in writing or otherwise. It’s a “no go.” [Go Go Rocket Subpeona!]
- Alex Jones and Infowars get permanently banned from Twitter and Periscope for abusive behavior.
- RNC Chair Ronna Romney-McDaniels long essay saying that nobody cares who wrote the NYT op-ed. [So I guess nobody is in the WH running the country right now...]
- Kavanaugh dodges and weaves as Cory Booker grills him on whether he ‘respects’ Donald Trump.
- Wolf Blitzer points out John Kelly may have denied calling Trump an "idiot" but he hasn't denied writing the op-ed yet.
- Paul Ryan say the op-ed author is “Living in Dishonesty. It doesn’t help the President. If you’re not interested in helping the President, you shouldn’t work for the President”
- Grassley claims that the reason Bill Burke is involved in the vetting process of Kavanaugh docs from the Bush-era is that it would take the National Archive 37 weeks to process the amount of info, but Dick Durbin quotes a letter from the Archives dated August 2nd saying they would have it done by the end of October.
- To find R anon alleged former civil libertarian Sen. Rand Paul has decided to let out his inner Stalin and said that everyone in the White House with a security clearance should take a polygraph test.
- In response to this former FBI and CIA officer Phil Mudd said on CNN “Where’s the crime?” [It’s not the FBI’s job to hunt down who wrote Trump a “Dear Donald, I like your policies but I’m just not that into you anymore” letter, which had no national security impact.] He says Trump would have to bring in private contractors to do this. [And since he’s a cheapskate skinflint, I would assume he’d pay for it using money from his Inauguration fund which is still got about $100 Million of partially Russian money slushing around, unaccounted for.]
- Trump argues at a Montana rally that if his supporters don't vote America will become a “Banana Republic” where the opposite party will always try to Impeach whoever is in the White House [Where the frack was he the last 8 years when Birthers - like him- wanted to impeach Obama before he was even sworn in?] He also rails over the “unelected deep state with their own agendas” and said even liberals who hate him are against the R anon Op-ed. [He means Rep. Swalwell who says Anon should come forward, but I think Batman where’s a mask for a reason.] He also says there was “fake news" in response to Lincoln's Gettysburg address, but George Conway says the reviews were very nice.
- A Trump administration official told the Daily Beast on condition of anonymity that the members of the group “went around fist-bumping each other” when the op-ed came out.
- Zina Bash flashes the “OK" sign again while sitting directly behind Kavanaugh on camera - because of course, she does.
- ThinkProgress and the Atlantic document that many DailyCaller reporters keep getting airtime on Russian media such as Sputnik News, some had written numerous articles for Richard Spencer’s alt-right website, and the Daily Stormer had called Tucker Carlson's Fox News program “Daily Stormer: The Show.”
- September 7th —
- Rawstory reports that 18 months ago a set of psychiatrist put together “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President” which shows that mental health professionals agree with Woodward and R Anon.
- Conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi won't be making his scheduled appearance before the Mueller grand jury as his attorney David Gray attempts to get him a private sit-down with investigators.
- Trump supposedly has his R anon suspect list down to just 12 people.
- Mueller hardens his position and wants a follow up personal interview following the written questions of Trump, both of which Giuliani is currently refusing. [This is headed to Subpeona Town.]
- Papadopoulos asks for leniency just prior to his sentencing.
- Reports surface that there is a grand jury investigating Andrew McCabe for making false statements to the DOJ Inspector general.
- Lindsey Graham jumps in front of some microphones with a conspiracy theory that the R anon op-ed shows that Meuller has no proof of collusion with Russia because somehow he has something to do with something that invoked this “Trump is crazy" hail mary. [Don’t ask me, I don’t get it either.]
- Kavanaugh protestor arrests reach 200.
- Former Page Six editor Jeane MacIntosh tells the New York Times that Trump once told her that he planned on divorcing his second wife, Marla Maples because he couldn’t stand her southern family. “Are you old enough to remember the show ‘The Beverly Hillbillies?'” Trump said, according to MacIntosh. “That’s exactly her family, except they came to New York City instead of Beverly Hills.” [So we should believe he didn’t call Sessions a “dumb southerner” because of what?’]
- Dana Bash reports that the GOP donor base is in full retreat after Woodward and R anon.
- Republican Muslims are also standing down on midterms: ‘Unless you’re white you don’t matter to them’.
- According to the Washington Post, White House aides including Reince Priebus wishing to manipulate the president would provide talking points to Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) or Bob Corker (R-TN) before golf outings with Trump in hopes of preventing the president from making rash or disastrous policy decisions.
- Reince Priebus would backburner Trump’s requests for someone to be fired or policies to be put in place, by telling the president it would happen “next week,” then dropping it entirely knowing Trump would have forgotten what he had asked for.
- Trump calls for Sessions to investigate the R anon author and says he’s looking to taking legal action against the NYTimes.
- Obama gives an hour-long speech in Illinois and mocks Trump’s “economic miracle” as simply an extension of what he previously started.
- Roger Stone pal Radio host Randy Credico testifies before Mueller's grand jury.
- Federal prosecutors in New York turn to examine investigating Trump Org executives for campaign finance violations.
- Manafort’s may plead guilty to get out of having to go to his second trial.
- Papadopoulos is sentenced to 14 days for having lied to the FBI about his meetings with Russian assets during Trump's campaign. Then he appears for an extended interview/special with Jake Tapper on CNN and claims he doesn't remember if he told anyone in the Trump campaign about the Hillary emails, [However he clearly emailed Jeff Sessions and Stephen Miller about it, in fact Sessions even asked him to “find out all he could" about the emails] and he doesn't remember telling Australian diplomat Alexander Downer either which is what started the Russia investigation when Downer went to the FBI. He also explains how FBI informant Stephan Halper tried to interrogate him over Russian hacking while he claimed he didn't know anything about it [but he did because that's what he told Downer], and how a possible Israeli agent may have tried to recruit him.
- Michael Cohen’s shell company will tear up hush money agreement with Stormy Daniels — and demands she pay back the $130K.
- Jack Kingston gets humiliated on CNN for calling NYT op-ed ‘sedition’.
- Nike suffers a huge jump in sales for their decision to make Colin Kaepernick the face of their 2018 “just do it” campaign.
- Parkland shooting survivor Aaliyah Eastmond gives a harrowing account of her experiences as she lobbies against the confirmation of Kavanaugh because of his support for relaxed gun policies.
- Fox analyst bitterly complain that Obama ‘breaking norms’ by criticizing Trump.
- September 8th —
- The op-ed writer snipe hunt continues as Trump's list of suspects narrows to “just a few people”, Kellyanne Conway says they don't believe it's someone in the WH, they think it's someone in national security. Meanwhile, John Kelly says "let it go”, but Trump argues that he "doesn't want this person in a classified meeting.”
- George Zimmerman issues death threats against Beyonce and Jay Z over their producing a Trayvon Martin documentary.
- WaPo reporter Josh Rogan says the WH “Doesn’t know squat” about who wrote the NYT anon op-ed.
- Grassley is blocking the appointment William Evanina, an Obama appointee who was nominated by Trump to be director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center until he receives unredacted documents on the origin of the Russia investigation which are being held as Secret by DNI Dan Coats.
- Judge Jeanine blast Obama for bashing Trump: ‘How dare you? He is to be respected!’ [Not when he doesn’t deserve it.]
- Former Cheerleaders from Kennesaw State University sue the school under the Klu Klux Klan act because they conspired to block their ability to protect racial injustice after they had kneeled during the national anthem.
- FL Republican Matt Gaetz does the Nazi “OK” symbol on Jesse Water’s show:
“Matt, don’t make that hand-gesture, they’re going to freeze-frame it,” Watters joked. [They did] “I know, right?” Gaetz said. “It just shows you the extent to which people want to focus on the absurd, rather than the substance.”
- September 9th —
- September 10th —
- Former Ted Cruz spox says it’s possible he could “lose his seat” to Beto O’Rouke. Reports are that Trump plans to do a rally for Cruz [Which should make his wife and father’s head explode.]
- Sen Feinstein says Kavanaugh thinks he’s an “oligarch that can’t be investigated.”
- Trump says Woodward’s book is a joke, “I’ll write the book.” [If that means you plan to retire early, fine we’ll go with that]
- Omarosa visits The View to drop off an audio tape of Trump derailing a WH meeting on tax reform with a rant about Hillary and Russia, claiming it was illegal for the DNC to hire Fusion GPS [But somehow not illegal for Don Jr. to invite what he thought was a Russia government lawyer — and also a GRU asset (Ahkmetshin) — into Trump tower to get “dirt” on Hillary.]
- A high school football game descends into a racist Trump rally as one team’s fans sports “Build the Wall” signs and “USA USA” chants when they score. The opposing team, which has Chicanos and Dreamers, threatened to leaves the field.
- Bob Woodward explains on the Today show how Trump is a constant threat to national security. “This has not been treated seriously enough,” Woodward said. “Some of the things Trump did and does jeopardize the real national security. This country does some things in the intelligence world which are so important to protect the country they are astonishing. They are secret. They are called special access programs, and he jeopardizes them.”
- Instead of being tough on human rights violators — the Trump administration decides it’s going to be tough on the International Criminal Court by threatening sanctions and prosecution against its judges in retaliation for cases against the U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.
- Trump calls for the declassification of documents related to Bruce Ohr, which could damage efforts to take down Russian gangsters like Semion Mogelivich and Oleg Deripaska.
- Sarah Huckabee-Sanders finally has a press conference after 19 days where he brings out Trump's economic guys who claim that the economy improved as soon as the election occurred, but when asked who deserves “credit” says that he prefers to give credit to “policies rather than people" — except that there were no policies instituted right after the election. Apparently, business confidence rose because they had a "good feeling” about Trump - which means it could have gone up earlier except big business and Wall Street didn't want to give Obama that “Win". He takes the blame for Trump’s “first time the GDP has been higher than unemployment in 100 years” tweet by claiming he accidentally added an extra zero, but it’s still not the best GDP in 10 years either. GDP growth was last higher than unemployment in 2006.
- Judge in Maria Butina case drops allegations that she attempted to trade “sex for access" as the emails on this subject appear to obviously be a joke. However, ABC releases emails that show that Butina arranged for a meeting between high level NRA official and Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov.
- September 11th —
- Quoting Lou Dobbs Trump attacks Strzok, Page and Holder over a letter from Mark Meadows about two new text messages from Strzok about a “DOJ Media Leak strategy” except that this was a strategy according to Strzok’s lawyer to STOP Leaks, not strategically create them.
- House Oversight Committee responds to Meadow’s new rumors about Strzok: The documents clearly show that Mr. Strzok and Ms. Page were not discussing how to leak documents to the press—but whether the Justice Department should change its regulations to stop leaks to the media.”
- Even Fox News calls out Trump’s ridiculous claim that 4.2% GDP is the “higher than unemployment for the first time in 100 years” because it’s not.
- Trump gives a speech at the Pennsylvania 9/11 memorial — which yeah, sucks — after greeting supporters at the airport with a double fist pump. [Just for contrast remember how people reacted when Obama didn’t wear a flag pin once, completely stood up but still “broke the law" when didn't put his hand over his heart during “Star Spangled Banner” — even though the “flag codes” and the Bellamy Salute to the pledge of allegiance which were designed to be the American version/variation of the “Heil Hitler" salute are not part of U.S. criminal law — or perhaps when he saluted with a coffee in his hand while coming out of Marine One, all of which we were told wre great moral failings, but Trump double fist pumping during just before a memorial 2,900 dead Americans is no problem.]
- With Cat 4 Hurricane Florence bearing down on South Carolina Trump rants about how their response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico was “best job we did” even though almost 3,000 people — nearly as many as during 9/11/01 — died from lack of clean water and power. “I think Puerto Rico was incredibly successful,” Trump claimed. Trump repeatedly and erroneously claimed that Puerto Rico did not have power before the storms hit. “I think Puerto Rico was an incredible unsung success,” Trump bragged.
- Woodward’s “Fear: Trump inside the White House” hits books shelves and there’s more juice.
- Sen Jeff Merkley releases documents that show Trump defunded $10 Million from FEMA ‘response and recovery’ to spend on ICE detentions — just before hurricane season.
- Trump only approved 75 out of 2000 requests funeral assistance for Puerto Rico — then called it an ‘unsung success’
- Manafort is still in talks with Mueller over a plea deal in advance of his second trial.
- US deficit is now scheduled to reach $1 Trillion again after the for the first time since the great recessions two years earlier than expected.