A federal grand jury has approved

[_Bach]

Folks, this will be the biggest “nothing burger” of all time as it relates to those who wanted Hillary Elected! Rachel Maddow may try and use it in an attempt to redeem her election night embarrassment but this will be the yawn of the century when all said and done.

[_EAllusion]

Lol. Jared Kushner has now purged all his tweets. That's not how the internet works, buddy.

[_Xenophon]

All this is unfolding at such a rapid rate it is hard to keep up with it all. As you suggested EA, it appears that the Papadopoulos plea is the actual "big" story, as it seems to have opened the floodgates here.

http://www.npr.org/2017/10/30/560786546 ... estigation

That case is made in charging documents in the case of then-Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.

The court documents also establish that Russia promised "thousands of emails" that would have "dirt" on Hillary Clinton to Papadopoulos in April 2016. A trove of hacked Democratic emails was released by WikiLeaks three months later — in the midst of the Democratic National Convention.

[_EAllusion]

With all the references to "dirt" that have come up in our glimpses of Russian contact, the amazing thing is the hacked emails didn't contain much of anything. The real trick was getting the media to breathlessly cover them to provide cover for innuendo.

[_Kevin Graham]

From the Papadopoulos statement & Washington Post reporting we know Manafort wrote, regarding @realdonaldtrump visiting Russia, “Let[‘]s discuss. We need someone to communicate that DT is not doing these trips. It should be someone low level in the campaign so as not to send any signal.”

https://t.co/zpxw4cvyaZ

[_Kevin Graham]

Trump campaign emails show aide’s repeated efforts to set up Russia meetings

To experts in Russian intelligence gathering, the Papadopoulos chain offers further evidence that Russians were looking for entry points and playing upon connections with lower-level aides to penetrate the 2016 campaign.

Former CIA director John Brennan in May told the House Intelligence Committee that he had seen worrisome evidence of “contacts and interactions” between Russian officials and the Trump campaign, although he offered no specifics.

Steven L. Hall, who retired from the CIA in 2015 after 30 years of managing the agency’s Russia operations, said when told by The Post about the emails: “The bottom line is that there’s no doubt in my mind that the Russian government was casting a wide net when they were looking at the American election. I think they were doing very basic intelligence work: Who’s out there? Who’s willing to play ball? And how can we use them?”

Papadopoulos, a former intern and researcher at the conservative Hudson Institute, was on a list of campaign volunteers that Trump announced as his foreign policy advisory team during a meeting with The Post’s editorial board in March 2016. Trump called Papadopoulos an “excellent guy.”

Here is an image with him sitting four seats to the Right of Trump: https://s4.reutersmedia.net/resources/r ... 1DX&w=1280

Almost immediately, Papadopoulos came under scrutiny for his lack of experience. He graduated from college in 2009, and his LinkedIn profile cited his participation in a Model U.N. program for students among his qualifications. Papadopoulos did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Page, who has been the subject of a foreign surveillance warrant over his connections to Russia, said the Papadopoulos email exchange was another sign that the Russia communications were inconsequential.

“The entirely benign offer from a volunteer member of the Trump movement is infinitely less relevant than the real collusion in the 2016 election,” said Page, who was copied on the first Papadopoulos email communication in March. Page said in an email exchange Saturday that “the real scandal lies among Clinton and Obama associates who fed false evidence” to investigators that he said formed the basis of the federal warrant concerning him.

Papadopoulos made more than a half-dozen overtures on behalf of Russians or people with Russia contacts whom he claimed to know.

On March 24, Clovis, the campaign co-chairman who also served on the foreign policy team, reacted to one proposed Russia meeting by writing, “We thought we probably should not go forward with any meeting with the Russians until we have had occasion to sit with our NATO allies.”

In the same email chain, Kubic, the retired admiral, reminded others about legal restrictions on meetings with certain Russian officials, adding, “Just want to make sure that no one on the team outruns their headlights and embarrasses the campaign.”

Undeterred, Papadopoulos alerted then-campaign manager Corey Lewandowski in an April email that he was receiving “a lot of calls over the past month” about arranging a Russia meeting.

“Putin wants to host the Trump team when the time is right,” he wrote on April 27.

On May 4, Papadopoulos forwarded Lewandowski and others a note he received from the program head for the government-funded Russian International Affairs Council. In it, Ivan Timofeev, a senior official in the organization, reached out to report that Russian foreign ministry officials were open to a Trump visit to Moscow and requested that the campaign and Russians write a formal letter outlining the meeting.

Clovis responded to the Timofeev invitation by noting: “There are legal issues we need to mitigate, meeting with foreign officials as a private citizen.”

The email chain does not show a response from Lewandowski, who did not return calls seeking comment.

Several weeks later, Papadopoulos forwarded the same message from Timofeev to Manafort, the newly named campaign chairman.

“Russia has been eager to meet with Mr. Trump for some time and have been reaching out to me to discuss,” the adviser told Manafort.

Manafort reacted coolly, forwarding the email to his associate Rick Gates, with a note: “We need someone to communicate that Donald Trump is not doing these trips.”

Gates agreed and told Manafort he would ask the campaign’s correspondence coordinator to handle it — “the person responding to all mail of non-importance” — to signify this did not need a senior official to respond.


A spokesman for Manafort, whose Virginia home was raided by FBI agents three weeks ago as part of an investigation by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, said the email chain provides “concrete evidence that the Russia collusion narrative is fake news.”

“Mr. Manafort’s swift action reflects the attitude of the campaign — any invitation by Russia, directly or indirectly, would be rejected outright,” Manafort spokesman Jason Maloni said in a statement.

In an email to The Post, Timofeev confirmed that his organization had discussed a meeting with the Trump campaign in the spring of 2016.

The Russian International Affairs Council was created in 2010 by a decree of then-President Dmitry Medvedev as a project of various Russian government agencies. It is led by former foreign minister Igor Ivanov. Its board includes Russia’s current foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, as well as top Russian scholars and business leaders, among them the chairman of Alfa-Bank and Sberbank, two of Russia’s largest banks.

“We discussed the idea informally as one of the opportunities for . . . dialogue between Russia and the U.S.,” Timofeev said in the email. “RIAC often hosts meetings with prominent political figures and experts from the US and many other countries.”

He said the group would have been open to meeting with other campaigns.

Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill said officials with the Democrat’s campaign have “no recollections or record” of having been contacted by the group. Similarly an adviser to Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign, former Russian ambassador Michael McFaul, said he could not recall any similar invitation.

[_Xenophon]

There was some discussion earlier about the firing of Mueller and what that might mean. I found myself nodding my head with this thought from Nate Silver on 538's live coverage of this development:

Why Mueller May Be Moving Fast
On the podcast today — we’ll have the full episode up later this afternoon — we discussed whether Mueller is moving relatively slowly or relatively quickly.

My vote is for “quickly,” and here’s why: Since there’s always the threat of Mueller being fired by Trump, Mueller wants to get what he has out on the table sooner rather than later. That’s both because he might not have the opportunity to do so later on and because it might be harder for Trump to fire Mueller without significant political repercussions once the investigation has begun to produce some promising findings.

There’s also some evidence for “quickly” in that Gates did not have his lawyer on hand today and instead was represented by a public defender, suggesting he hadn’t had a lot of advance warning.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/live-blog/ma ... mp-russia/

[_Kevin Graham]

Here’s What ‘Fox & Friends’ Covered On Manafort Indictment Day

In the age of “FAKE NEWS,” it can be difficult to know whom to trust and what to believe. To get the real story surrounding Monday’s biggest news story — the federal charges against former Donald Trump campaign staffers Paul Manafort and Richard Gates — we decided to watch two straight hours of “Fox & Friends,” the fair-and-balanced Fox News morning show hosted by Steve Doocy, Ainsley Earhardt and Brian Kilmeade, three decent Americans simply searching for truth.

Here’s our running diary.

7:02 a.m. EDT: OK, it seems like this indictment thing might be a big deal. Doocy called the potential indictments their “top story,” and Fox News correspondent Griff Jenkins said that the network has “teams all over this town [Washington] to see what happens.”

But wait, Doocy says: There’s some important context missing from the other networks’ coverage. Is it possible this is all part of a giant Democratic conspiracy to ruin Trump?

“Keep in mind: This all got started after Hillary Clinton lost,” Doocy says, “and there’s a new Ed Klein book that’s coming out. Ed’s going to be on the show tomorrow. Essentially what he says is around Christmas time, [then-President] Barack Obama and some of his top lieutenants figured out, ‘OK, this is how we are going to destroy the presidency of Donald Trump.’”

And we’re off.

7:05: Kilmeade suddenly seems extremely angry. Apparently the biggest story in the country has nothing to do with the day’s potential indictments, but with the corrupt Democratic Party. Here are some key terms to remember now: Fusion GPS, Uranium One, Hillary Clinton, dossier.

7:06: According to Kilmeade, the media is missing the big story surrounding the indictments. “The president has a different view on this, maybe you do too,” he say to his audience. “The big story is how do you even get this information.”

7:07: We are currently reading the president’s tweets, and now Doocy is getting pretty riled up, too.

“What he’s trying to do is ― he’s trying to shift the spotlight back to Hillary Clinton ...” Doocy says, “and suggest that the fact that she funded that the opposition research along with the [Democratic National Committee] was a sign that she was working with Russia.”

He then adds, “There should be an investigation.”

I can’t help but wonder: Why is the mainstream media ignoring this story?

7:10: Earhardt is extremely angry about the leakers who disclosed late last week that indictments were coming in special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election:

Whoever leaked this indictment information that Mueller’s going to indict someone today ― whoever that leaker is, I don’t think they’re ever going to get caught. I think it’s just going to get brushed under the table just like everything else. None of these leakers are ever going to get caught.

7:12: “Fox & Friends” is really fascinated by theoretical prospect of a Clinton-Russia investigation.

7:17: A side-by-side of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Clinton appears on the screen. Should there be an investigation? “Fox & Friends” is simply asking the questions other networks are too scared to bring up

Just kidding: They know there should be. “The left continues to dismiss the Fusion GPS dossier as opposition research while denying any knowledge of its connection to the DNC, but we know it’s a fact,” Kilmeade says.

7:18: “Fox & Friends” have brought on a like-minded thinker who also cares only for the facts and not for any partisan agenda ― former Trump campaign senior adviser Michael Caputo. Are we talking about the potential indictments against Trump’s former campaign chairman yet? No we are not. We are talking about Clinton.

“It went from being desktop research into Donald Trump’s businesses and apparently many other candidates’ to being a dossier put together by spies. It sounds like a lot of collusion to me,” Caputo says.

Kilmeade is flabbergasted and disturbed: “What do you mean? Collusion with the Russians and with Fusion GPS and the Clinton campaign??”

7:24: Apparently some dad got dressed up and looked like a member of ISIS or something.

7:25: Our heroes are getting in some attacks on NFL players who are taking a knee before games to bring attention to police mistreatment of people of color. “These players who are kneeling during the anthem, they’re taking out their anger about other issues on veterans and on the flag,” Earhardt says with horror in her voice.

7:29: OK, that was a nice break. Are we getting back to the potential indictment against Trump’s former campaign chairman?

No, we are talking about a New York Post article that argued millennials should not be getting as excited as they do about Halloween costumes. The hosts ask former “Superman” actor Dean Cain for his opinion.Cain said he doesn’t really care if adults dress up, but does have an issue with political correctness run amok.

“My biggest problem with what they’re doing with Halloween now is the cultural appropriation police,” he says. Kilmeade violently rolls his eyes into the back of his head in agreement.

7:33: During a segment about Google creating a cheeseburger with the cheese below the meat, Doocy jokes that the company’s employees should have just Googled where the cheese goes on a cheeseburger. It’s clear he absolutely loves this joke. Also, for some inexplicable reason, Kilmeade blurts out, “As you know, we’re American, we don’t care about other countries.” (This is a joke, I believe.)

7:36: Indictments? No, it’s time to rip on two Trump critics ― Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) and Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.). Doocy jokes about Kasich “getting Trumped” when they competed for the Republican presidential nomination. Earhardt throws out a comment about how Americans are “done with the swamp.” Kilmeade says Corker needs to “up the charisma level.” Roasted.

7:41: White House counselor Kellyanne Conway is here!

It sounds like they are finally going to actually get into the Mueller stuff a bit more. Doocy starts us off with an introduction about the potential indictments that is not at all leading in its wording.

“We know this because ― because somebody blabbed to CNN. Somebody leaked that; that may or may not be a crime. What are your thoughts?” Doocy asks.

After quickly noting that this whole Mueller thing is a giant hoax perpetrated by the left, Conway is off to the races. She talks about the Clinton campaign and the Russian dossier before saying that the former secretary of state tried to destroy the American health care system 25 years ago when she was first lady. Then Conway complains that Clinton “just won’t go away,” which seems strange because she brought her up in the first place, but whatever.

7:44: A confused Earhardt interjects with an innocent, totally not biased question.

“Why isn’t Hillary or her campaign and the DNC ― why aren’t they getting investigated for the Uranium One deal or for Fusion GPS, the dossier?”

A patient Conway explains, “Because most people who would be doing the investigating slash covering the said investigation, Ainsley, voted for her and neither expected nor wanted the election results.”

Good enough for Earhardt ― she’s convinced.

7:47: The hosts flash some polling data showing that many people are frustrated with the tax system, for which Conway thanks them. “These numbers are so much more important than the silly approval ratings,” Conway says, before launching into a monologue about consumer confidence, Dow Jones highs and the like.

Eventually Kilmeade seems to get bored and breaks in to ask about Fusion GPS and whether Conway thinks Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) ― the former DNC chairwoman ― is a liar. Then they return to the Mueller probe, something Conway says her and the president “hardly discuss.” “I don’t remember the last time I discussed this with the president,” she adds.

8:01: Conway is gone, and we’re finally getting some real news! It’s confirmed: Manafort and longtime associate Rick Gates are being charged and are going to surrender to federal authorities.

8:03: Doocy is reading The New York Times story on the indictments off his phone.

8:04: Kilmeade doesn’t look pleased. “The big question” surrounding Manafort, Kilmeade says, is whether the alleged crimes “happened during his months with President Trump.”

8:06: Kilmeade looks like he’s about to punch someone.

“Keep in mind, and I just keep saying this,” Kilmeade says, “just because you’re indicted doesn’t mean you’re guilty of anything! Then you have a chance to find out what they have and you mount a defense. Now you can start defending yourself.”

8:07: We’re reading Trump tweets again.

8:08: Wait, they’re already re-running the interview with Conway? She was just on like 15 minutes ago! Nevertheless, here she is again saying journalists and investigators have a pro-Hillary bias. Then, back to the Democrats and the dossier. “Democrats say it doesn’t matter who paid for the dossier, because… it was them!” Kilmeade chirps.

8:24: Uhhhhhhhhhhhh ...



8:25: Apparently someone at The Economist wrote a piece saying that “America’s love affair with uniformed men is problematic” and everyone is super pissed, especially Fox News contributor Rachel Campos-Duffy, who calls this part of a larger “effort by the left” to bring down our “last standing institution.” (The magazine characterizes itself as “in the radical centre.”)

Campos-Duffy then launches into a questionable attack on the Obama administration. The topic involves the celebrations of U.S. troops at NFL games ― planes flying overhead, etc. “It’s a great recruitment tool,” she says of the celebrations. “It also makes us feel warm and fuzzy. That’s the sound of freedom.”

But, she adds, “Under the Obama administration, they made it harder to do those kind of flyovers on football games. So listen: This is part of a concerted effort.”

Sorry to note this, but it was Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) who led the push against what came to be called “paid patriotism.” And the reason they were against it was because the Defense Department was using taxpayer dollars to pay the NFL to honor the troops.

Anyway, then there’s an obligatory back-and-forth about how the investigation into Trump’s potential collusion with the Russians is ridiculous, and Campos-Duffy signs off.

8:32: Manafort has turned himself in! Celebrity lawyer Alan Dershowitz is in the studio explaining that “Manafort is the first domino,” and that Mueller will probably try to use the indictment to get leverage to see what he knows about any potential collusion with the Russians. When Doocy says that White House lawyer Ty Cobb has already said that Manafort has no information on that, Dershowitz calls that “wishful thinking” and Doocy gets quiet and looks a little scared.

8:41: The Google cheeseburger is back, and Doocy has made the same joke about Googling where to put the cheese on a cheeseburger. Please kill me.

8:47: Correspondent Jenkins is back to help provide some context from the field.

“Remember,” Jenkins says, “the fact that we’re following this play out right now in real time came because of a leak which could have potentially broken the law.”

9:00: Well, it’s been two hours, and I think I have a pretty good handle on the Manafort and Gates indictments: Hillary Clinton is the problem, the leakers need to be locked up, Donald Trump is a victim, the left is conspiring to ruin the country and no one is paying nearly enough attention to the scandal surrounding Fusion GPS and Uranium One. Any questions? Didn’t think so.

[_beastie]

At least your consistently an idiot.

[_Elphaba]