Trump is a Threat to National Security

[_Brackite]

Bracki can they censure him and if so, why haven't they? Or am I not understanding the purpose of censure?

Back in the 1830s, the Senate voted to censure President Andrew Jackson. I suppose that the Senate can vote to censure President Trump, but I very much doubt that the current GOP control Senate will do that.

[_canpakes]

Anyone not an ally of Putin should be very concerned by a president not using his own translator to talk to a leader of our biggest adversary. It's holy ____ big.

... However, sure, we should watch closely. But merely speaking out of earshot of the media, in and of itself, is not necessarily a holy crap moment, in my opinion.

And, yet -

I am always advocating for transparency.

I’m not sure who the real Exiled is. ; )

[_Chap]

Trump's first meeting with Putin included a US translator. She had her notes taken and sworn to never reveal what was discussed. She's been silent since. And Trump has gone out of his way to make sure no American translator accompanies him on at least four other occasions while requiring a Russian translator.

That isn't just a matter of expediency. That's a cover up.

To which Exiled responded:

I just don't go automatically to treason/cover-up/collusion when Trump seemingly breaches protocol and speaks in private to Putin without an American translator. I wonder how many other world leaders he speaks to this way and what other presidents have done in the past. My guess is that this probably occurs with other leaders.

Is Trump concealing something or is it benign? We don't know but you think we should assume something collusion related or treasonous perhaps, because he doesn't play for your team. I hate Trump as president too, but, speaking to Putin and other leaders should be encouraged. I think you and others here are overselling this.

Oh, come on! He has a talk to Putin, using ONLY Putin's translator and excluding any American personnel? When there was an American translator, her notes were taken from her and she was sworn to silence? After that he never allows any other American into the room when he meets Putin? So there is absolutely no official American record of what the President said to Putin, or what Putin said back?

I grant you that it is theoretically possible that there is a perfectly benign explanation for this unprecedented behaviour. However, we are not (yet) in a criminal trial, where 'proof beyond reasonable doubt' is the only possible criterion for conviction. In real life, and particularly in political life, we have to make important decisions on the basis of probability based on information that rarely enables us to be 100% sure of anything.

Are you really telling me that, given Trump's record of lying about business deals in Russia, borrowing money from the only bank that would finance him (Deutsche Bank), which happened to be the Russian oligarchs' favorite money launderer, plus the Mueller report's clear evidence of multiple (failed, fortunately for him) efforts by Trump to get his staff to shut Mueller down, we should not conclude that Trump's refusal to have any Americans with him when talking to Putin smells bad?

And why would Trump see such an unprecedented procedure in a summit meeting as being in America's interests? What is he afraid that an American staffer might hear? Something, clearly. Otherwise why exclude Americans?

[_Some Schmo]

Exiled must be Russian. His fealty to their propaganda is the tip off.

[_honorentheos]

In some ways I get where Exiled comes from. His view of US politics seems centered on the 2 party system largely serving a political class, their donors, the contractors who get preferential contracts, etc., that leaves the average person underserved and treated like pieces to be played rather than citizens being represented. His concern with military global police activity as something pushed by this over-class to funnel money around isn't unusual and isn't even really unfounded if it oversimplifies things, in my opinion. But I don't think it's coming from an irrational place per se. Eisenhower put the term "military-industrial complex" in the wider lexicon, and was clearly concerned about it's influence on the US. There's a wide spread, and grounded, perspective out there that the things that differentiate the two major US parties are less meaningful than what they share in common if maybe a degree different here or there.

So I don't think it's being gullible or disingenuous. I do think it's letting that broader perspective cause an unjustifiable degree of skepticism towards the investigation of Trump's dealings with Russia as just another aspect of this front masking the "real" motives of the political class who wanted a Clinton or Bush in the White House to maintain the status quo of perpetual war. (No, that's not my view. I'm just stating it as if I held it because clarifying this is apparently necessary now.) And I certainly don't agree with the idea Trump came in as an outsider without the ties to the money and interests that Exiled seems to believe drive the majority of political motives. This Bernie supporter view that any outsider is better than any insider no matter how bad was dangerous in 2016 and should be self-apparently wrong in hindsight in 2019 yet here we are.

So the best explanation, in my opinion, is there's a form of backfire effect at play.

[_Maksutov]

He won't take an American with him when he talks with Putin even though he can't speak Russian and you're cool with that?

He was in talks to do a massive deal past the point that he was nominated as the Republican Presidential candidate that would have included a multi-million dollar pent house for Putin but you want a smoking gun or we should ignore what he's been up to? Because military contractors in the US are in cahoots with the political class so burn it down?

Wow.

I remember similar denials during Watergate. It was just a drummed up minor partisan scandal, unlike the apocalyptic Constitutional crisis of a Fast and Furious or a Benghazi.

[_Kevin Graham]

Trump Would Have Been Charged With Obstruction If He Weren’t President, Former U.S. Prosecutors Say

Conduct outlined in the Mueller report would lead to multiple felony charges against anyone else, according to at least 375 former federal prosecutors.

[_Kevin Graham]

Seth Abramson's Tweet Storm

This thread will make sense to anyone who has 1) read Vol. 1 of the Mueller Report 2) done any research on who Simes is. Simes is the top story in America right now—he's the linchpin to confirming the Kremlin bought Trump's foreign policy pre-election. Bribery—not conspiracy.

Butina was arrested July 17; Simes looks to have begun his Moscow job in early September. Simes also appears to have peddled Russian kompromat to the Trump campaign: his claim the *FBI* was holding audio of Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky having phone sex is not believable.

This thread is a placeholder. You'll be hearing much more about Dimitri Simes. Someone in journalism is going to become very famous telling this story—and far importantly, do a service for America by once and for all explaining how the issue with Trump was always *bribery*.

The Mueller Report establishes that Simes was the architect of Trump's Russia policy, inasmuch as he helped write it—with 3 others who have acted on the Kremlin's behalf: Burt, Papadopoulos, and Page—and formed the Trump committee that oversaw the campaign's Russian contacts.

Some sources suggest Simes has "fled" the United States, but more reporting is needed on this: someone in major media needs to confirm ASAP if Simes has returned from Moscow to the United States since he suddenly flew there right after Butina's arrest for being a Kremlin spy.

During 2015 and 2016, Simes not only published writings by Butina but helped introduce her and her Kremlin handler to government officials. There is evidence that he and his Center were instrumental in forming the Trump team that did all Trump's covert outreach to the Kremlin.

Simes' current whereabouts are a matter of national security: the Mueller Report indicates that he called or met with Kushner during the 2016 campaign on almost *every significant date* in the Trump-Russia timeline—an overlap Mueller somehow missed and/or did not comment upon.

Putin has called Simes his "friend"—indeed, the volume of quotes on Simes that connect him to top Kremlin officials is so voluminous you just need to Google it. All the evidence suggests Simes *was* the Trump campaign's conduit to the Kremlin from *March 2016 to Election Day*.

The story of the Kremlin infiltrating the Trump campaign to set Trump's historically pro-Russia policy, even as the Kremlin was dangling a $1 billion tower deal (and a meeting with Putin to close it) before Trump's eyes, involves three primary people: Simes, Manafort, Kushner.

Of those 3 men, Manafort is in prison—having lied to investigators to avoid revealing anything of his in-campaign ties to Russia—Simes works for the Kremlin now (and may've fled to Moscow to do it), and Kushner has top secret clearance because Trump overruled career officials.

I don't know why the folks I respect who are on TV regularly to discuss national security are not reading Vol. 1, doing some research on Simes' connection to Manafort and Oleg Deripaska, and—given his current whereabouts and employment—sounding the alarm on national security.

I REPEAT: THE SOVIET-BORN MAN WHO CREATED Trump'S RUSSIA SANCTIONS POLICY DURING THE 2016 CAMPAIGN AND COORDINATED THE Trump TEAM THAT SECRETLY MET REPEATEDLY WITH THE KREMLIN DURING THE ELECTION HAS APPARENTLY FLED TO MOSCOW AND IS WORKING FOR THE KREMLIN FOR $500,000 A YEAR.

If this isn't a story someone at @washingtonpost, @nytpolitics, or @politico needs to be writing up right now—and please *research* Simes' ties to Putin, Deripaska, Manafort, and other top Kremlin officials like Lavrov—I don't even know what the hell we have a media for.

[_Kevin Graham]

Holy crap.https://scontent-atl3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/ ... e=5D6D0BDD

[_subgenius]

Rep AlGreen:
“I’m concerned if we don’t impeach this president, he will get re-elected. ... We must impeach him.”

there you have it.