Report: More Attempted Collusion

[_Hawkeye]

Oh gee look, (drip) another Trumper turns out to have lied (drip) about more Russian connections....(drip)

Trump associate Roger Stone reveals new contact with Russian national during 2016 campaign

MIAMI — One day in late May 2016, Roger Stone — the political dark sorcerer and longtime confidant of Donald Trump — slipped into his Jaguar and headed out to meet a man with a “Make America Great Again” hat and a viscous Russian accent.

The man, who called himself Henry Greenberg, offered damaging information about Hillary Clinton, Trump’s presumptive Democratic opponent in the upcoming presidential election, according to Stone, who spoke about the previously unreported incident in interviews with The Washington Post. Greenberg, who did not reveal the information he claimed to possess, wanted Trump to pay $2 million for the political dirt, Stone said.

“You don’t understand Donald Trump,” Stone recalled saying before rejecting the offer at a restaurant in the Russian-expat magnet of Sunny Isles, Fla. “He doesn’t pay for anything.”

Later, Stone got a text message from Michael Caputo, a Trump campaign communications official who’d arranged the meeting after Greenberg had approached Caputo’s Russian-immigrant business partner.

“How crazy is the Russian?” Caputo wrote, according to a text message reviewed by The Post. Noting that Greenberg wanted “big” money, Stone replied, “waste of time.”

Two years later, the brief sit-down in Florida has resurfaced as part of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s sprawling investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign, according to Caputo. Caputo said he was asked about the meeting by prosecutors during a sometimes-heated questioning session last month.

Stone and Caputo, who did not previously disclose the meeting to congressional investigators, now say they believe they were the targets of a setup by U.S. law enforcement officials hostile to Trump.

They cite records — independently examined by The Post — showing that the man who approached Stone is actually a Russian national who has claimed to work as an FBI informant.

Interviews and additional documents show that Greenberg has at times used the name Henry Oknyansky. Under that name, he claimed in a 2015 court filing related to his immigration status that he had provided information to the FBI for 17 years. He attached records showing that the government had granted him special permission to enter the United States because his presence represented a “significant public benefit.”

There is no evidence that Greenberg was working with the FBI in his interactions with Stone, and in his court filing, Greenberg said he had stopped his FBI cooperation sometime after 2013. Greenberg, in text messages with The Post, denied that he had been acting on the FBI’s behalf when he met with Stone.

An FBI spokeswoman declined to comment, as did a spokesman for Mueller’s office.

The meeting took place two months earlier than federal officials have said a counterintelligence operation was officially opened and before WikiLeaks began releasing hacked Democratic emails.

It came in the same time period as other episodes in which Russian interests approached the Trump campaign. A few weeks earlier, Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos was told in London that the Russians had dirt on Clinton. And it was two weeks before the sit-down at Trump Tower between Donald Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer who he had been told could offer information that would hurt Clinton as part of a Russian government effort to help his father.

Trump and his allies have said that the meetings were inconsequential and that there was no collusion.

Stone and Caputo’s interactions with Greenberg mean that at least 11 Trump associates or campaign officials have acknowledged interactions with a Russian during the election season or presidential transition. Those interactions have become public in the year and a half since a Trump spokeswoman said no one associated with the campaign had communications with Russians or other foreign entities.

It is not clear how seriously investigators are taking the Florida meeting. Caputo said prosecutors during his interview seemed to have intense interest in the interaction, as well as the role of Greenberg.

Reached by phone, Greenberg, 59, initially denied Stone’s account of a meeting.

“This is wrong information,” Greenberg said.

Later, in text messages to a Post reporter, Greenberg changed his story, acknowledging that he’d met with Stone and providing a skeletal account of the encounter that matched Stone’s in some ways. Unprompted, Greenberg used essentially the same language as Stone to describe Stone’s reaction: “Trump will never pay for anything.”

Stone said Greenberg was alone at the meeting. But Greenberg said he was accompanied by a Ukrainian friend he identified only as Alexei, who he said had been fired from a job with the Clinton Foundation, a global charitable organization founded by Hillary Clinton’s husband, former president Bill Clinton. Greenberg provided no evidence the man had worked for the Clinton Foundation, and a foundation spokesman said the group has never employed a man with the first name of Alexei.

“He was very upset, and he wants to tell his story,” Greenberg said in a text. “He told Mr. Stone what he knew and what he want.”

Greenberg denied that he asked for money, saying that it was his friend who spoke with Stone.

President Trump and his allies previously accused the FBI of unfairly targeting his campaign following revelations that another FBI informant, Cambridge University professor Stefan A. Halper, approached Papadopoulos and two other campaign advisers starting in July 2016 to gather information about their possible ties to Russia.

“If you believe that [Greenberg] took time off from his long career as an FBI informant to reach out to us in his spare time, I have a bridge in Brooklyn that I want to sell you,” Caputo said in an interview.
In a separate interview, Stone said, “I didn’t realize it was an FBI sting operation at the time, but it sure looks like one now.”

The Florida meeting adds another layer of complexity to Stone’s involvement in the Russia probe. For months, as several of Stone’s employees and associates have been subpoenaed or have appeared before the Mueller grand jury, it has been clear that the special counsel has been scrutinizing repeated claims by Stone that he communicated with WikiLeaks via a back-channel source before the group’s 2016 release of hacked Democratic Party emails.

Stone has said it’s possible he will be indicted, speculating that Mueller might charge him with a crime unrelated to the election to silence him. He said he anticipates that his meeting with Greenberg could be used in an attempt to pressure him to testify against Trump — something he says he would never do.

Last year, in a videotaped interview with The Post, Stone denied having any contacts with Russians during the campaign.

“I’ve never been to Russia. I didn’t talk to anybody who was identifiably Russian during the two-year run-up to this campaign,” he said. “I very definitely can’t think of anybody who might have been a Russian without my knowledge. It’s a canard.”

Stone and Caputo said in separate interviews that they did not disclose the Greenberg meeting during testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence because they had forgotten about an incident that Stone calls unimportant “due diligence” that would have been “political malpractice” not to explore.

Caputo said that he was asked during a session with the committee in July whether he’d ever been offered information about the Clinton campaign by a Russian, and he either answered “no” or that he could not recall.

However, Stone and Caputo said their memories were refreshed by text messages that Caputo said he no longer has in his possession but was shown during a May 2 interview.

Caputo’s attorney on Friday sent a letter amending his House testimony, and he plans to present Caputo’s account of the Greenberg incident to the Office of Inspector General for the Justice Department, which has announced it is examining the FBI’s use of informants during the Russia probe. Stone said his attorney has done the same.

Documents and interviews reveal a quirk-filled story that spans three decades and two continents. It touches down in locales as distinct as a hipster Miami art gallery and a riverfront construction site. But, like so much of the drama swirling around the 2016 election, its roots lie far away from American ballot boxes — in the Russian capital of Moscow.

Though they never met, both Caputo and Greenberg lived heady existences in Moscow in the years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, a period when the city had a frisson of artistic and creative energy that Caputo compares to “Paris of the 1920s, but with Kalashnikovs.” Caputo had moved to Russia to develop a Rock-the-Vote-style campaign for Russian President Boris Yeltsin.

Greenberg was already a familiar figure in the city’s social whirl. He married a Russian actress and moved to Los Angeles. Court records show that, after being charged in 1994 with assault with a deadly weapon, he entered a plea in which he was convicted without accepting guilt.

According to a declaration he filed in court, Greenberg spent almost two years in the custody of the U.S. immigration service. He said he decided in 2000 to return to Russia, where, according to interviews and local media coverage, he resumed a glamorous life.

For a time, he shared an apartment at a fashionable Moscow address with John Daly, a producer of hit films including “The Terminator,” and he was well known by expats from the Moscow club scene.
“He was an up and down kind of guy. Charming. Very ingratiating and personal,” said Edward Bass, a movie producer who knew Greenberg in Moscow in that time.

According to accounts in Russian media, he was arrested in 2002 and charged with a decade-old $2.7 million fraud. The Moscow Times reported that authorities found three passports with false names in his apartment and photographs that appeared to show him posing with movie directors Steven Spielberg and Oliver Stone.

The Post was unable to determine the outcome of the case from public records. Greenberg denied wrongdoing, saying that he was not convicted and that the case was closed.

Greenberg returned to the United States, according to immigration records that he submitted as part of his federal court filing in 2015.

He attached to the statement government documents outlining his immigration history.

Between 2008 and 2012, the records show, he repeatedly was extended permission to enter the United States under a “significant public benefit parole.” The documents list an FBI agent as a contact person. The agent declined to comment.

Immigration lawyer David Leopold, former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said the documents described an immigration history generally consistent with Greenberg’s claims that he had been allowed to enter the United States to assist law enforcement.

In a 2015 court declaration, Greenberg — using the last name Oknyansky — said he’d been giving information to the FBI since returning to Russia from the United States in 2000.

“Wherever I was, from Iran to North Korea, I always send information to” the FBI, he wrote. “I cooperated with the FBI for 17 years, often put my life in danger. Based on my information, there is so many arrests criminal from drugs and human trafficking, money laundering and insurance frauds.”
Greenberg did not respond to questions about his use of multiple names but said in a text that he had worked for the “federal government” for 17 years.

“I risked my life and put myself in danger to do so, as you can imagine,” he said.

By May 2016, Greenberg was in the midst of an eventually unsuccessful zoning fight to open a restaurant on the Miami River, according to public records. He showed up without an invitation at a gallery opening organized by Caputo’s public relations firm, according to Caputo’s business partner, Sergey “George” Petrushin.

Greenberg approached Petrushin and invited him to check out the possible restaurant site the next day, Petrushin said. According to Petrushin, Greenberg eventually said that he knew Petrushin was partners with Caputo and that he had information he wanted to share that would be helpful to Trump’s campaign.

Petrushin called Caputo and handed the phone to Greenberg to make his pitch.

At the time, Caputo said, Russia was not a major campaign issue, and the man’s accent raised no red flags for him.

“I said, ‘Let me get somebody to vet it for you,’ ” Caputo recalls saying.

Caputo knew just the guy: Roger Stone.

Stone had spent decades trying to persuade Trump to run for president. In the spring of 2016, Stone was no longer with the campaign — but he remained in touch with Trump and some in his orbit.

When Stone arrived at the restaurant in Sunny Isles, he said, Greenberg was wearing a “Make America Great Again” T-shirt and hat. On his phone, Greenberg pulled up a photo of himself with Trump at a rally, Stone said.

“We really want to help Trump,” Stone recalled Greenberg saying during the brief encounter.

By Greenberg’s account, he had limited contact with Stone, sitting at a nearby table while his friend Alexei conducted the meeting. “Alexei talk to Mr. Stone, not me,” he wrote. He added that he believes Alexei has moved back to Ukraine and that they are not in contact.

When Caputo followed up with Stone via text to ask if “anything at all interesting” took place, Stone responded with a single word: “No.”

[_Hawkeye]

Special counsel eyeing Russians granted unusual access to Trump inauguration parties

Several billionaires with deep ties to Russia attended exclusive, invitation-only receptions during Donald Trump’s inauguration festivities, guest lists obtained by ABC News show.

These powerful businessmen, who amassed their fortunes following the collapse of the Soviet Union -- including one who has since been sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department -- were ushered into events typically reserved for top donors and close political allies and were given unprecedented access to Trump’s inner circle.

Their presence has attracted the interest of federal investigators probing Russian efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election, three sources with knowledge of the matter said.

Matthew Olsen, a former senior national security official who now serves as an ABC News consultant, said their presence at inaugural events is “very concerning.”

“This reflects a Russian strategy of gaining access to our political leaders at a time when they are just forming a government,” Olsen said. “They don’t need to be spies in the James Bond sense. They are powerful people with significant wealth who are in a position to exert influence on U.S. policy makers. And they’re in a position to report back to Russian intelligence services on what they’re able to learn.”

The presence of people with Kremlin ties in Washington for Trump’s inaugural celebration was first reported by The Washington Post. But the guest lists obtained by ABC News offer a new glimpse at the level of access granted to several well-connected oligarchs.

Several donated enough to the Presidential Inaugural Committee to qualify for tickets to a “Candlelight Dinner” in Washington’s Union Station on the eve of the inauguration, a perk for $1 million contributors, the list of attendees show. Guests were treated to a preview performance by singer Jackie Evancho, a one-time runner-up on "America's Got Talent," who would go on to sing at the inauguration the following day.

A handful celebrated Trump’s surprise victory at the black-tie “Chairman’s Global Dinner,” an exclusive 500-guest affair held the same night in the Greek-columned Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium whose attendees included close Trump friends, high-ranking campaign aides, and an array of foreign ambassadors and dignitaries. The inaugural committee treated them to a dinner of butter-poached lobster, coffee-crusted beef tenderloin and chocolate raspberry dome. For entertainment, casino mogul and Trump pal Steve Wynn flew in Las Vegas show girls to perform a Broadway-style rendition of Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York.”

According to a source with knowledge of the congressional investigations, at least one oligarch was ushered into Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol for the traditional Inaugural Day luncheon, hosted by the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies – an event typically out of reach to donors and even most rank-and-file members of Congress.

“It’s incredibly unusual,” said Stephen Kerrigan, who planned the 2009 and 2013 Obama inaugural festivities and said every guest was scrutinized for foreign ties. “Particularly if they were going to be within arm’s reach of the President, they went through an intensive vetting process.”

Names on the guest lists of the Candlelight Dinner included Victor Vekselberg, the billionaire head of the global conglomerate Renova Group, who was later sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury “for operating in the energy sector of the Russian Federation economy,” and his American cousin Andrew Intrater. Late last year, Vekselberg was stopped at a New York airport by federal agents working for Special Counsel Robert Mueller and questioned, according to the New York Times. The Times also reported that Intrater was separately interviewed by the special counsel.

[_canpakes]

But Hillary. Dijon mustard. Flag pins. Brown people.

[_Hawkeye]

Michael Cohen Says His ‘Silence Is Broken’ During ‘Good Morning America’ Interview

“My wife, my daughter and my son have my first loyalty and always will,” Cohen told George Stephanopoulos.

Uh oh!

[_Chap]

Worth a read ...

... On issue after issue, Cohen did, however, separate himself from President Trump ...

Now we see why Trump is so worried about the 'loyalty' issue above all else. Basically, Trump shows no signs of caring for other people's interests if they clash with his - so why should anybody take a risk for him? Cohen is behaving in a rational and prudent manner. Must have got himself a good lawyer ... remind me who Trump has at the moment ...

But Cohen did not praise the president during our conversation -- and pointedly disagreed with Trump’s criticism of the federal investigations.

When I asked Cohen directly what he would do if prosecutors forced him to choose between protecting the president and protecting his family, he said his family is “my first priority.”

Cohen added: “Once I understand what charges might be filed against me, if any at all, I will defer to my new counsel, Guy Petrillo, for guidance.”

But when I pointed out to Cohen that he wasn’t repeating past vows to “take a bullet” and “do anything” to protect the president, the longtime Trump loyalist left little doubt about where he stands now, saying simply: “To be crystal clear, my wife, my daughter and my son, and this country have my first loyalty.”

Cohen recently retained Petrillo, a highly regarded former federal prosecutor who once led the criminal division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan -- the very same office currently conducting the criminal investigation of Cohen.

Petrillo is expected to take over as Cohen’s lead counsel in the coming days. And Cohen makes clear that his decision about whether to cooperate will be based not on any previous loyalty to Trump -- but on Petrillo’s legal advice.

Once Petrillo fully assumes his role, a joint defense agreement Cohen shared with the president, which allowed their lawyers to share information and documents with each other, will come to an end, ABC News has learned.

At that point, the legal interests of the president of the United States and his longtime personal attorney could quickly become adversarial.

When I asked Cohen how he might respond if the president or his legal team come after him -- to try and discredit him and the work he did for Mr. Trump over the last decade -- he sat up straight. His voice gained strength.

“I will not be a punching bag as part of anyone’s defense strategy,” he said emphatically. “I am not a villain of this story, and I will not allow others to try to depict me that way.”

Prosecutors in New York’s Southern District are investigating Cohen for alleged violations of election law and possible financial crimes associated with his personal business dealings.

He has not been charged with any crime. But on the advice of his attorney, Cohen declined to address specific questions about matters currently under investigation.

“I respect the prosecutors. I respect the process,” Cohen said. “I would not do or say anything that might be perceived as interfering with their professional review of the evidence and the facts.”

One subject the prosecutors are surely exploring: that $130,000 payment Cohen made to adult-film star Stephanie Clifford, a.k.a. Stormy Daniels, less than two weeks before the 2016 election, in exchange for her silence –- a possible violation of campaign finance law.

I asked Cohen if the president directed him to make that payment or promised to reimburse him. In the past, Cohen has said that he acted on his own initiative.

Not this time.

“I want to answer. One day I will answer,” he said. “But for now, I can’t comment further on advice of my counsel.”

On issue after issue, Cohen did, however, separate himself from President Trump -– starting with the president’s criticism of how the government has conducted its investigation.

After federal agents searched Cohen’s New York properties, Trump described the raid as a break-in, an “attack on our country, in a true sense. It’s an attack on what we all stand for.”

“I don’t agree with those who demonize or vilify the FBI. I respect the FBI as an institution, as well as their agents,” Cohen told me. “When they searched my hotel room and my home, it was obviously upsetting to me and my family. Nonetheless, the agents were respectful, courteous and professional. I thanked them for their service and as they left, we shook hands.”

Cohen also refused to criticize the Mueller investigation.

"I don’t like the term witch hunt,” he said, adding that he condemned Russia for interfering in the 2016 election.

“As an American, I repudiate Russia’s or any other foreign government’s attempt to interfere or meddle in our democratic process, and I would call on all Americans to do the same,” he said.

And in a direct rebuttal to President Trump, who sent out a tweet last week repeating Vladimir Putin’s claim that Russia did not interfere in our election, Cohen added this: “Simply accepting the denial of Mr. Putin is unsustainable.”

“I respect our nation’s intelligence agencies’... unanimous conclusions,” he said.

Cohen also repeated his previous denials of any personal involvement with Russian attempts to interfere in our election, declaring that he never went to Prague, as alleged in the Steele dossier, and never colluded with the Russians in any way.

Although he has not been interviewed yet by Mueller’s team, he says he has provided documents and added that he would fully cooperate with them, just as he says he has with the Senate and House committees investigating the matter.

“I appeared under oath before the House Select Intelligence Committee for over six hours and to the Senate Select Intelligence Committee for over eight hours,” he says.

Cohen believes Mueller will not find any evidence that he had any illegal or improper dealings with the Russians.

But Cohen did criticize those members of the Trump campaign who participated in that now infamous Trump Tower meeting in June of 2016 with several Russians after being promised dirt on Hillary Clinton.

“I believe it was a mistake by those from the Trump campaign who did participate,” he said. "It was simply an example of poor judgment.”

When I asked Cohen if President Trump knew about that meeting before it happened, he declined to answer.

“I can’t comment under advice of my counsel due to the ongoing investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York,” Cohen said.

After months of silence, Cohen seemed relieved to be telling more of his story. He visibly relaxed over the course of the interview after telling me -- with some understatement -- that the last year has been “difficult, upsetting and unpleasant.”

Trump lawyer Cohen likely to cooperate as his attorneys leave case: Sources)
When I asked if he had any regrets about how he handled any of the matters under investigation, he said “as an attorney and as an employee, I tried to make good faith judgments in the past. I also acknowledge that I am not perfect. I would prefer not to be in this situation at all, obviously.”

This interview, he hopes, will be a first step towards his ultimate goal: “Resolution.”

“I want to regain my name and my reputation and my life back," he said.

[_Kevin Graham]

On the same day that Trump publicly asked Russia to look for Hillary Clinton’s emails, Russian agents hacked Clinton’s email server for the first time.

Trump Told Russia To Get Clinton’s Emails. The Same Day, They Obeyed.

A new indictment from Robert Mueller reveals that Russia appeared to be listening to what Trump wanted.

In the morning of July 27, 2016, Donald Trump encouraged Russian hackers to find emails that had been deleted from Hillary Clinton’s private server that she used while serving as secretary of state.

“I will tell you this, Russia: If you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” Trump said at a press conference in Florida. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”

Russia appeared to be listening and heeded Trump’s call, according to a bombshell revelation on Friday. A grand jury convened by special counsel Robert Mueller indicted 12 Russian intelligence officials for their involvement in hacking the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 election.

The indictment states that on July 27 ― the same day as Trump’s press conference ― Russian hackers, “for the first time,” attempted to break into email accounts, including those used by Clinton’s personal office. Notably, the indictment specifies that the hack happened in the evening, meaning the Russian officials could have done it after Trump’s press conference.

Around the same time, they also tried hacking the Clinton campaign ― although the hacking of the campaign began earlier, before Trump’s call.

Shortly after his press conference, Trump tweeted about his comments, adding that the hackers should share the emails with the FBI ― something he left out of his initial remarks.

The White House played down the revelations in the indictment, saying there was no evidence that anyone on the Trump campaign knowingly colluded with Russian officials.

“Today’s charges include no allegations of knowing involvement by anyone on the campaign and no allegations that the alleged hacking affected the election result,” said White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters. “This is consistent with what we have been saying all along.”

“We know that the Trump campaign and the Russians were in constant contact during the campaign, and it is increasingly apparent they were in fact coordinating their efforts,” said Max Bergmann, the director of the Moscow Project at the Center for American Progress. “That’s what collusion looks like.”

[_Bach]

Trump Told Russia To Get Clinton’s Emails. The Same Day, They Obeyed.



In the morning of July 27, 2016, Donald Trump encouraged Russian hackers to find emails that had been deleted from Hillary Clinton’s private server that she used while serving as secretary of state.

“I will tell you this, Russia: If you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” Trump said at a press conference in Florida. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”

Russia appeared to be listening

Thank god someone was listening and trying to do the job that our FBI lead investigators couldn’t do due to all the pillow talk/time Peter and Lisa were spending.

Trump's was only a candidate at that time and had more influence than then President Obama had, pleading “hey, I’ll have more flexibility after the election”!

Why are you so frustrated about? It’s was a preview to why Trump and the US has so much more muscle in the world today.

[_Kevin Graham]

That liberal rag, National Review, on the latest Muller indictments:

"There’s no way to know if it moved enough votes in key states to swing the election, but the leaks of hacked emails dominated multiple news cycles, embarrassed key Democrats, and sowed a degree of discord within the Democratic party. Republicans, including Donald Trump, exulted in the revelations and sometimes explicitly called for more. “Russia, if you’re listening,” Trump said publicly on July 27, 2016, “I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.”

Interestingly, it appears the Russians may indeed have been listening. “After hours” on July 27, the conspirators “for the first time” targeted “email accounts at a domain hosted by a third-party provider and used by Clinton’s personal office,” according to Friday’s indictment.

There will be much more analysis and dot-connecting in the coming days, some of it valuable and much of it specious. But for now here are two key takeaways:

1. This indictment demonstrates why it’s important that Mueller be permitted to finish his work. Our nation needs to know what happened in 2016, and Mueller — through both the social-media indictment and the hacking indictment — has provided a clearer picture of the precise details of alleged Russian election meddling than any other source. This is a valuable public service, and to the extent that he can hold the actual conspirators accountable, it’s also an act of necessary justice.....

2. It’s now becoming increasingly clear why intelligence agencies believe that Russians were trying to help Trump and hurt Clinton — the scale of the attack on the Clinton campaign, the DCCC, and the DNC was troubling. And while there are past reports that the Russians attempted to hack Republicans, this indictment outlines a comprehensive and sustained effort against the Democrats and is silent about a similar conspiracy aimed at Republicans. Perhaps more information will emerge, but the available public evidence at this point bolsters the intelligence agencies’ unanimous conclusion that Russia tried to help Trump.

3. The indictment practically screams, “More information is coming!” — including additional information about Russian communication with American citizens. For example, paragraph 43a of the indictment contains the first evidence of possible Russian collusion with an American candidate for public office — not President Trump, but an unnamed candidate for Congress:



Then there’s this disturbing detail about a transfer of information (including the personal identifying information of Democratic donors) to a “state lobbyist and online source of political news”:



Finally, there’s this partial record of communication between the newly indicted Russians and a “person who was in regular contact with senior members” of Trump’s presidential campaign:



Thus, while the indictment doesn’t establish collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians, it clearly indicates that Mueller possesses evidence and information that the public hasn’t yet seen. Guesses about that additional evidence are just that, guesses, but we can make an educated presumption that there is more to come.

4. This indictment makes it even more troubling that Trump mocks, denigrates, and undermines the Mueller investigation as a “witch hunt.” We now know that there was real wrongdoing; we just don’t yet know its extent.

We don’t yet know if Trump cooperated in any way with Russian schemes. But when we learn more about the extent of Russian efforts to disrupt the 2016 election (and aid Trump), when we remember that Donald Jr. actually tried to collude, when we ponder for more than a few moments the web of financial connections between senior Trump aides such as Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn and the Kremlin or Kremlin allies, and when we know that Russians contacted Trump friends and advisers to offer “dirt” on the Clinton campaign — well, Trump’s repeated demands that the investigation end become much less understandable.

Republicans were rightly outraged when Barack Obama opined about the pending Clinton-email investigation, and we have since learned that his gratuitous and public exoneration of the then–likely Democratic nominee created a headache for the FBI. Now it’s time for Republicans to be consistent. As Mueller reveals more facts about Russian interference and indicts more individuals for troubling crimes uncovered as part of his entirely legitimate investigation, it’s time for the GOP to tell the president that the hunt needs to continue, because the witches are very real.

[_Jersey Girl]

I know I've said this prior, but I don't think they're going to come up with jack on Trump. The best you can hope for is the Democrat's come up with a decent candidate and a better campaign.

[_Maksutov]

I know I've said this prior, but I don't think they're going to come up with jack on Trump. The best you can hope for is the Democrat's come up with a decent candidate and a better campaign.

I think that the Russians would just love to mess with us to see us destabilized, distracted. This is one way to do it. Doesn't have to be picking a president. And I still wonder if it isn't part of a long campaign of same back and forth between our countries. Either way, we have dangerous vulnerabilities that we need to fix and another election is upon us.