Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

I really should read my own blog.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

T R E 4 5 O N

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

You are here: Home / Politics / America / The Maskirovka Slips Part XI: What’s Going On With the Investigations? Updated

The Maskirovka Slips Part XI: What’s Going On With the Investigations? Updated

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Several of you (Jeffro) have been asking me (Jeffro) about what is going on with the counterintelligence and Congressional investigations into Russian connections to the President, his immediate circle of advisors – both campaign and now in the new Administration, and his campaign. There has not been a lot of reporting on this. Today, David Corn wrote a story about how the topic had dropped way off in news coverage. Apparently Congressional Democrats had noticed and have decided to shed a little light on the subject.

It will be interesting to see what fruits are born from Congressman Nadler’s efforts.

Update at 10:05 PM EST:

The Washington Post has just reported that LTG (ret) Flynn discussed US sanctions on Russia with Russian Ambassador before the inauguration. At the point that he did this he was a private citizen, not a political appointee.

Reader Interactions

121Comments

  2. 2.

    dr. bloor

    I expect nothing, which I assume I will receive in abundance. Despite the occasional scenery chewing by the usual suspects (CoughMcCainRubioGrahamCough), Congressional Republicans’ actions have made it abundantly clear that they’re willing to let Trump run his grift and pay off his debts as long as he signs everything that crosses his desk.

  4. 4.

    Scout211

    @Adam L Silverman:

    “But it can’t simply be shut down out of hand.”

    Really? This sounds a bit naive, don’t you think? There doesn’t seem to be any House, Senate or Executive branch rules that can’t be broken anymore.

  6. 6.

    dr. bloor

    @Scout211: They don’t need to break any rules, they can just kill it in committee. R’s have the Judiciary committee by something like 24-17 at the moment. At most, four or five of those Republicans are in what could be described as “competitive” districts, assuming you count anything as less than R+10 as competitive and you’re wearing beer goggles while you count.

    I appreciate Nadler’s tactics and fervently hope that every congressional D is as proactive, but the R’s will kill it, and pay no electoral consequences.

  9. 9.

    Hunter Gathers

    they’re willing to let Trump run his grift and pay off his debts as long as he signs everything that crosses his desk.

    That assumes that anything will cross his desk. It’s been 3 weeks. I thought I was told that passing huge tax cuts, building the wall and repealing Obamacare was going to be quick and easy.

    The worldwide public train wreck that is his administration has already gummed up Congress. I can’t see them passing almost anything with his numbers where they are. And tomorrow he’s gonna bitch about the Judiciary. Which will help his approvals. Bigly.

  12. 12.

    efgoldman

    @dr. bloor:

    At most, four or five of those Republicans are in what could be described as “competitive” districts

    I dunno’. If the town meetings keep getting the same kind of reactions, and the phone lines keep getting jammed, and the staffers keep getting buried in emails, that’s going to keep an awful lot of our folks who generally ignore mid-terms, energized. It’s also going to scare the crap out of the RWNJ Republiklowns wrt re-election, which might make enough of them scared to fuck us over on ACA, Medicare, SS….
    If you follow Mayhew/Anderson’s morning posts, they’re already dithering about Obamacare.

  14. 14.

    Major Major Major Major

    I feel like there’s all of these rarely used obscure parliamentary tactics, but… why? Or rather, how–how do they remain obscure like this? If they work, do they get voted away? Is it not somebody’s job in leadership to know all of them?

  15. 15.

    Mnemosyne

    @dr. bloor:

    I appreciate Nadler’s tactics and fervently hope that every congressional D is as proactive, but the R’s will kill it, and pay no electoral consequences.

    I agree with you halfway. We’re less than a month into the Trump administration and even Republicans are getting a little queasy about Trump. If we can find the right Democrats, we may be able to contest those seats, or at least force them to defend them.

    We’re only 2 months into 2017. I wouldn’t predict 2018 just yet.

  16. 16.

    Adria McDowell (formerly LurkerExtraordinaire)

    Adam, have you written a book on maskirovka? If not, you should. It’s fascinating.

  17. 17.

    Mnemosyne

    @MomSense:

    I’m not sure that anything specific will come of this, but it adds to the pile. Everything that adds to the anti-Trump pile is a positive.

  19. 19.

    lamh36

    stop the presses…Rosie O’Donnell legit changed her twitter avatar…

    I give you…Rosie O’Donnell…as Steve Bannon!!!!

    Good gawd…if she is on this week’s SNL. hosted by Alec Baldwin!!!!!

  20. 20.

    Adam L Silverman

    @efgoldman: Now if the Democrats can just run someone in every district all of that energy could be channelled into voting them out of office. I’m not sanguine about this actually happening.

  21. 21.

    Jeffro

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Every rule can always be broken. The question is how much trouble are you willing to but to do so.

    Sounds like a variation on my dad’s advice: “Laws are really just recommendations, as long as you understand the consequences.” Something like that, anyway!

    Adam, thanks for bringing this back up. It really does strike me that both sides know this is the ultimate decision point, the ‘other shoe dropping’, the end of pretending. It will not be an easy time for the country no matter how it gets out, via IC report, Congressional investigation, or even more leaks and outside reporting. BUT…I’d like to think that on just this one issue, at least, there are enough Ds and country-first Rs to carry the day and see Orangemandias out of the Oval Office, in disgrace if not in actual handcuffs.

    And really the easiest thing to do is the most obvious: get the IC report out and fully air Manafort, Page, Stone, and Cohen’s ties to Putin, payments included. After that, it takes on a life of its own and the script is pretty easy to write, down to most of the actual dialogue at the hearings (if not the tweets)

  26. 26.

    dr. bloor

    @Mnemosyne: I agree about the House and Senate being potentially competitive in general, but the House Judiciary is an all-star roster of high-profile, long-term, gerrymandered assholes who are generally sent to Washington to specifically fuck over anything the the Democraps support: Chaffetz, King, Gohmert, Gowdy, Franks, Lamar Smith, it goes on.

  27. 27.

    Cynn

    I always thought the Russian thing was big. What is wrong with the R’s that they won’t go after this? Aren’t they the chest-puffing America firsters? Are they really that craven — probably.

  29. 29.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Scout211: People bitch that the Democrats in Congress need to do something. Then, when the Dems do something, people say that it will never work.

  36. 36.

    hilts

    @Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):

    Is there much likelihood that this might get somewhere

    Donald Trumpenstein is an unrepentant ratfucking bastard. Even if this investigation ultimately goes nowhere, Democrats need to push as hard as possible. If we can’t remove this odious obnoxious buffoon from office, the next best thing we can do is get under his fucking skin and make him miserable every goddamn day of his presidency.

  41. 41.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Spoke to the local D offices in this red exurb county – they tell me the calls are coming strong, people who had never been involved willing to be precinct captains, LD chairs.

  46. 46.

    dr. bloor

    @Omnes Omnibus: @Baud: Predicting something will not work, which is a completely rational response here, is not the same as saying that Nadler shouldn’t have bothered doing it. It’s useful as one of the straws that ultimately has a chance of breaking the camel’s back, but anyone expecting that this particular tactic will open the floodgates that definitively expose Trump to be Putin’s puppet are going to be sorely disappointed.

  49. 49.

    hovercraft

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    It’s like the green lantern nonsense with Obama, if only he/they would lead, then he/they are doing it wrong. It’s never enough or the right thing with us, this is where we get it wrong. I wouldn’t want us to be like them, willing to tolerate or even to support anything their side does as long as it keeps them in charge, but our side needs to understand that governing is messy and we are a big tent, we cannot agree with everything our leaders do. The thing is when we do disagree, we need to stop immediately jumping to eleventy and calling people traitors and sellouts, dissent is healthy, but so is disagreement, good people can have different opinions on goals and methods. We don’t want to be Pollyannaish, but persistent pessimism is not healthy either.

  53. 53.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @dr. bloor: Didn’t Edison say something about coming up with a thousand ways to not make a light bulb before he came up with a way to make one?

  55. 55.

    Jeffro

    @Cynn:

    I always thought the Russian thing was big. What is wrong with the R’s that they won’t go after this? Aren’t they the chest-puffing America firsters? Are they really that craven — probably.

    Gee, you think?

    No seriously, they know something is rotten in Flynnmark, in Manafortmark, and therefore, in Trumpmark. The problem is, we’ve never had something this potentially explosive before – we are “off the looking glass and through the map”, as Adam puts it. We’ve had presidentially-directed election malfeasance before…even to a criminal level. We’ve never had a hostile foreign power aid and abet a US presidential candidate before, and win, and especially not one this nuts.

    Almost none of the pols know what to do, because for the GOP, standing on principle is a lost art (if indeed they ever knew it) and the Dems are out of power. I think that in their fondest dreams, the Rs think they see a future where Trump gets fed up with governing and quits, Pence comes in, RWNJ agenda saved, no worries about Russia at that point (they’d just hang it solely on Trump), and life goes on. But Trump is so unstable that even the Randians get nervous about the level of opposition he creates…not to mention, nukes will seriously “light up their life”, too.

    In the meantime, on the D side, they are having a hard time making the IC report drop (although geez, what more could some of them be saying about Trump and Russia, right?) They need it to come from some source other than partisan Ds saying Trump is owned by Putin – that’s just, sadly, where the country is at this point.

    So…anything that keeps this story up is good, any way to remind people about President Trumpov’s “assist” from Putin is a good thing, and if we’re still dealing with this a year from now, it’s one more thing to add to those town halls and phone calls.

  56. 56.

    dm

    If this story continues to develop, I expect we’ll be hearing more about Deutsche Bank, the last remaining bank that will loan money to Trump, and it’s recent fine for laundering money for Russian oligarchs. Did some of that money wash through Trump properties?

  57. 57.

    Vhh

    Chaffetz under pressure at town meeting. He knows he has to go after Conway for conflict of interest, but claims Trump immune. Prof Tribe of Harvard, preeminent constitutional scholar, points out Emoluments Clause covers entire executive branch, incl Trump and Flynn (who as retired officer cannot take payments from foreign govts, as he did from Russia.) Also applies to Trump business both foreign and domestic. Suit pending. Even a trickle on that puts more pressure on Rat Chaffetz (Jew turned Mormon, Dukakais campaigner turned Reaganite). Media soaring on Trump coverage, NYT and WaPo subscriptions skyrocketing, both proftable. CNN rediscovering its journalistic gonads. WSJ staff complaining openly about Trump slant of their bosses. SNL, Full Frontal, and the late night shows have hit comedy gold. And after today, enterprising blue state AGs and public advocates generally itching for fights they think they can win. Somewhere out there are Pulitzers and exciting legal victories. The WH is leaking at every seam, people are scared and covering bets. Something will give. It might be one brave soul who takes the risk of leaking the right pages of a Trump tax file—illegal, but so was the leak of the Pentagon Papers, and sometimes the common danger defense flies. Or it might be an indirect leak from the intelligence guys. Three weeks in, Trump is heading to where Nixon was after 5 years.

  59. 59.

    Jeffro

    @Adam L Silverman: They will get Flynn, eventually. And I still think Manafort and Page are the ones to focus on…Cohen and Stone are court jesters, M & P moved the money and made it happen.

  66. 66.

    efgoldman

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I’m not sanguine about this actually happening.

    I’m not up on what districts are unreachable, and what districts (except the obvious ones) are totally safe, but 24 seats flips the house. I’m not sure it’s possible, but an energized opposition going to the goddamned polls instead of staying home would be an excellent first step.

  67. 67.

    Adam L Silverman

    @dm: Actually a PRC bank holds a very large amount of his debt. And part of the inquiries in the counterintelligence investigation, based on the leaks, appear to be in regard to Alfa Bank and their financial connections to the President, his immediate circle, his campaign, and his business.

  68. 68.

    amk

    @efgoldman: Yup. If the dem ‘establishment’ runs the table in at least 50 to 60 rethug seats and the lazy ass dems move their lazy asses, we stand at least a 50% chance of flipping the house.

  71. 71.

    zhena gogolia

    @Gin & Tonic:

    You and I can’t stop thinking about the 19% of Rosneft. I don’t think there are too many people who would even know what you’re talking about.

  72. 72.

    Adam L Silverman

    @amk: Actually the PPP polling that just came out tonight indicates that the impeachment question follow on about support for President broke out as 38% for Trump, 32% for Pence, and the rest was Don’t Know/Unsure.

  76. 76.

    Adam L Silverman

    @efgoldman: I don’t think I was clear. The idea here is to not just flip 24 seats, though that’s part of the objective. The idea is to make the GOP compete everywhere at every election. For decades they have not been forced by Democrats to do this. Even under Governor Dean’s 50 state strategy. State and local races went unchallenged. This is what has to change. Make the GOP expend resources everywhere, every time. Make winning for the GOP become costly and loosing more so.

  84. 84.

    CaseyL

    Even assuming there is an actual investigation, how much can it uncover with the murder of the man who turned over the dossier?

    What is left of US intelligence assets in Russia now that Flynn blew everyone’s cover and Moscow rolled up all the networks?

    Where can the information come from at this point?

  85. 85.

    Ridnik Chrome

    @Baud: Sorry to be a drag. I’m discouraged that Devos and Sessions both got through. I figured we’d stop at least one of them. And I remember that there were huge protests in Wisconsin in 2011, too, but somehow that prick Walker is still governor. I know, he’s about as popular as syphilis right now, but he doesn’t care, because he’s gotten pretty much everything he wanted.

  86. 86.

    Adam L Silverman

    @CaseyL: So the person who produced the dossier is, himself, not dead. He is, however, in the wind. One of the sources is dead. And our European allies all have their own, open counterintelligence investigations ongoing over this because they are concerned that the US President and/or members of his administration have been compromised.

  88. 88.

    Jeffro

    @efgoldman:

    I’m not up on what districts are unreachable, and what districts (except the obvious ones) are totally safe, but 24 seats flips the house. I’m not sure it’s possible, but an energized opposition going to the goddamned polls instead of staying home would be an excellent first step.

    The important thing is to go at it balls-out, in the hopes that we win and stop this nonsense dead in its tracks (plus paybacks! Who wouldn’t want a Dem House investigating Jason Chaffetz for dereliction of parenting, after his support of a known sexual predator?)

    Rev up, run in every race from senator to dogcatcher, in every state, build some momentum for 2020! In addition to the presidential race, we’ll need to make sure we win enough state seats to undo the Great Harm Redistricting of 2010.

  90. 90.

    Doofus

    @Adam L Silverman: Agree. Republicans have always been more afraid of a challenge from their right flank than a challenge from the center. It’s our job to teach their a new fear.

  93. 93.

    Adam L Silverman

    @dm: Some of the reporting is clear as mud. What’s interesting is the Chinese held note on Trump Tower is coming up for sale. Should be interesting to see who buys the debt.

  94. 94.

    Ridnik Chrome

    @amk: Yeah, I’m glad they at least stuck together. If they keep it up maybe we can keep Gorsuch off the SCOTUS. We only need 41 votes for that, and it would be a big win.

  95. 95.

    Adam L Silverman

    @NotMax: Actually, if I remember correctly, she was a Soviet specialist. I know a lot about Putin, his ideology, his connections to organized crime, his strategy because I had to get smart real fast at the beginning of 2014. Its fascinating stuff, so I’ve stuck with it. And since my work is more of a thematic specialty at the strategic levels than a regional/country specific one, I’m usually in good shape/on safe ground. But I don’t claim to know enough about Russian culture and society to make any great truth claims.

  97. 97.

    CaseyL

    @Adam L Silverman: Our European allies are either sucking up to Trump (England) or running scared of their own Russian-affiliated RW parties (France). I think the only country willing and able to still put up a fight is Germany – and, no, I will never get over the irony of that.

    (I know it isn’t actually that ironic. There’s no “Lessons Learned” like having had the actual Hitler in one’s non-distant history.)

  98. 98.

    GregB

    @Vhh:

    Thanks for the positive summation.

    Not to mention essentially every world leader can see what more than half of Americans can see in Trump. Namely that he’s a mendacious power mongering money grubbing narcissist.

    I am not there yet, he’s been able to continuously beat the odds so I am very pessimistic but I think the water is building up behind the damn.

    We have to hope.

  100. 100.

    liberal

    @efgoldman: the problem is that the dems are pussies. If they took a majority of one of the chambers, they’d have subpoena power, and could use that to really fuck with the a Republican scum. But they won’t do it.

  103. 103.

    geg6

    @Adam L Silverman:

    So would he just disappear completely or does he still have a network to get out what needs to get out? And what would that be? Recordings, original notes, purloined documents? Can’t believe he wouldn’t have a way to get out what needs to be out if he wanted to. And if it was me, I would want to. But my calculations are different. I’m much older and I don’t have kids.

  106. 106.

    Adam L Silverman

    @geg6: He’s a former, senior MI6 officer. He’s close friends with the current MI6 director who, in the first public speech ever made by a director of MI6, actually cited material from the oppo research dossier, which tells us something about whether the material is credible and can be substantiated. His business partner, also former MI6, is still around and their company is still open for business.

  107. 107.

    geg6

    @Adam L Silverman:

    So there is still work going on there. I don’t question anything he’s put out so far. There is nothing you could say about the Shitgibbon that I would doubt. And I know we won’t know what they have until they are ready to tell us or if we ever get the full picture. But from what you say, I am inferring that British intelligence is ON THIS. And hopefully, the real pros in the US IC is on it, too. I’m just more leery of them simply because of the political peril they are currently under.

  108. 108.

    Adam L Silverman

    @geg6: My understanding from the reporting is that MI6 is on this, as is German, French, and several of the Eastern European members of NATO intel communities as well.

  110. 110.

    NotMax

    @Adam L. Silverman

    Has the British government ever officially acknowledged that MI6 exists?

    Just curious.

    @Adam L. Silverman

    Said at the time of her tenure in the administration that being a Soviet specialist post-USSR was like being an Ottoman or Habsburg specialist post-WW1.

  111. 111.

    J R in WV

    …Flynn discussed sanctions with Russian envoy before Trump took office, despite denials, officials say…

    But isn’t that illegal? Somefing like the Logan Act? Wouldn’t you expect a high-level security guy like LtGen(ret) Flynn to know about that?

    Do you think General (ret) Flynn thinks laws like that don’t apply to him? Why would he think that?

    Maybe he’s got a similar dementia problem to Trump’s mentation issues??? So scary!

    And Trump doesn’t even know what the START treaties are? Hell I’m a retired software guy, former E-2 in the USN, and I know what the START treaties are!!! That means I’m more qualified to be President of the USA than Trump is! Scary! But I repeat myself…

  113. 113.

    Adam L Silverman

    @NotMax: Given the head of MI6 has now made a public speech, maybe?

    As for Secretary Rice, her comment notwithstanding, doesn’t change the fact that that was her specialty.

  114. 114.

    Vhh

    @zhena gogolia: I agree that Rosneft could be central. Several days ago, there was an article about the Shaltai-Boltai and other hackers in Novaya Gazeta (in Russian). These are independents who hack for paying clients and, on occasion, blackmail. The FSB contracted for them to hack the DNC etc, great. But they also hacked the accts of Kremlin leadership,army etc, who paid for that? The stated reason for the recent hacker arrests was their passing of info to CIA–the western press has generally assumed that was for giving away the story of the election hacks, but it is likely not that simple. And there is one important entity that appears not to have been hacked, and that is Rosneft–the object of the 19% stock sale, and which was also the partner of Exxon when Tillerson (our new Sec State). As always in Russia, THE question is: kto kogo? or who is doing whom? Another thing going down over there is the sudden firing of > 10 generals of the military arm that handles unusual events like natural disasters and unrest. Is this separate, or not? And there’s a shit ton to dig thru from Ukrainian special forces hits on Donetsk republic generals to the long buried story of Soviet space dogs (sad) to expected oil price rises and the deliberate devaluation of the ruble. . . Too bad I can only do this over morning coffee before work.

  115. 115.

    Vhh

    @CaseyL: Yeah, the German press is talking about leading a Trump pushback to defend democratic ideals they got from the US, amazing. In a few monthsI am moving to NE Germany near the Polish border (big physics project) so I will have a front row seat if something epic happens in the Baltics and Poland. But Germany has really reduced their military … where is the Wehrmacht when you really need them?

  116. 116.

    Vhh

    @CaseyL: Yeah, the German press is talking about leading a Trump pushback to defend democratic ideals they got from the US, amazing. In a few monthsI am moving to NE Germany near the Polish border (big physics project) so I will have a front row seat if something epic happens in the Baltics and Poland. But Germany has really reduced their military … where is the Wehrmacht when you really need [email protected]dm:

  117. 117.

    Chet Murthy

    @Omnes Omnibus: Well, I also expect this to lead nowhere … *in the halls of government*. This is on us. This is when we find out if we’re a free people, or not.

    When we get to show the world how it’s done. Or not.

  119. 119.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    @Vhh:

    Rat Chaffetz (Jew turned Mormon, Dukakais campaigner turned Reaganite)

    Stop that. Right this fucking minute.

    Look, I’m a Jew, and I think Mormons are deluded members of a goofball cult, too – but everyone has a right to decide his or her own religious identity, however fucked up or damaging or wrong I may think those beliefs are. Criticize him all you like for trying to implement medieval dickwad ideas and impose them on others, but suggesting he’s some kind of race traitor or Bad Jew for choosing his own religion is NOT ON.

    The Dukakis-to-Reagan thing, on the other hand – that’s messed up.

  120. 120.

    Vhh

    Absolutely, look at Jean-Marie Lustiger, who converted as a boy and became a Catholic cardinal, and among other things, mediated in an agonizing dispute involving nuns who set up a community in Auschwitz and the international Jewish community. Jason in the House, however, is covering for a WH gang who thought it would be cool to send a message on Holocaust remembrance day that did not bother to note that destroying the Jews was the raison d’etre of the Final Solution, a formulation, by the way, that the Soviets commonly used. That was not an oversight, it was a shout out.

  121. 121.

    Barry

    @Cynn: “I always thought the Russian thing was big. What is wrong with the R’s that they won’t go after this? ”

    They’re traitors. End of story.

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