Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

The National Guard is not Batman.

When we show up, we win.

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

So fucking stupid, and still doing a tremendous amount of damage.

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

Sometimes the world just tells you your cat is here.

He really is that stupid.

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Donald Trump found guilty as fuck – May 30, 2024!

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

Let there be snark.

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

You are here: Home / Politics / America / Emails!

Emails!

by | 265 Comments

This post is in: , , , , , , , , , ,

I just want to take a moment and focus on the Papadopolous confession that John highlighted earlier. Specifically this part from the Statement of the Offense:

Defendant PAPADOPOULOS acknowledged that the professor had told him about the Russians possessing “dirt” on then-candidate Hillary Clinton in the form of “thousands of emails,” but stated multiple times that he learned that information prior to joining the Campaign. In truth and in fact, however, defendant PAPADOPOULOS learned he would be an advisor to the Campaign in early March, and met the professor on or about March 14, 2016; the professor only took interest in defendant PAPADOPOULOS because of his status with the Campaign; and the professor told defendant PAPADOPOULOS about the “thousands of emails” on or about April 26, 2016, when defendant PAPADOPOULOS had been a foreign policy adviser to the Campaign for over a month.

The DNC, DSCC, and DCCC hacks, as well as the spear phishing hack on John Podesta all took place before the Russians used the foreign professor as a dangle to hook first Papadopolous and then, hopefully, the Trump campaign. Similar language was used in the approach by the Agalarovs and Veselnitskaya in June 2016 to Donald Trump Jr, Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort.

While the Papadopolous approach in the spring and the Donald Trump Jr approach in the summer did not, as far as we know, lead to a transfer of any of this materials to the Trump campaign, those emails and hacked documents still were made public. They were specifically made public by Wikileaks/Julian Assange. While Assange has consistently denied that he works for, is involved with, and/or received the stolen documents from Russian sources (intel and/or organized crime), what little fig leaf of cover his denials provides is fast disintegrating. At this point Assange’s disingenuous denials, and those of his supporters, are almost completely pointless.

Even more interesting is that this is at least the third, if not the fourth, attempt by the Russians to use a nebulously defined emails that incriminate or have dirt on Secretary Clinton to approach the Trump campaign. Papadopolous, based on the statement of offenses, seems to be the first in chronological order (that we currently know of). Peter Smith, who claimed to be in contact with LTG (ret) Flynn, was the second. Donald Trump Jr, along with Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort, would seem to be the third based on the approach from the Agalarovs, via Goldstone, on behalf of Veselnetskiya in June 2016. The possible fourth would be Roger Stone based on his October 2016 Twitter statement that John Podesta would soon have time in the barrel.

And it is the nebulous definition of what is meant by emails on the Russian side that is important. As far as anyone knows the only emails and documents that the Russians got were whatever they hacked from the DNC, DSCC, DCCC, as well as spear phished from John Podesta’s email account. None of these are the work  emails that either the DOJ was reviewing as part of a dispute between the State Department and the US Intelligence Community over what needed to be up classified or declassified in regard to FOIA requests. Nor were they the 30,000 or so emails that had been deemed to not be work related and therefore not turned over to the State Department for archiving pursuant to Federal records laws. The Russians, however, had determined that dangling the notion that they had Secretary Clinton’s actual emails and that they could make them available was the best bait to fish with. This wasn’t hard to figure out. The President and his surrogates on the campaign trail were bellowing about it at rallies. Everyone at FOX News but Shep Smith and Chris Wallace were constantly ranting and raving about it. As was everyone on talk radio and on the right wing news/commentary parts of the Internet and social media.

Apparently the NY Times has been right all along; this is all about Secretary Clinton’s emails. That the Trump campaign wanted them and that the Russians had determined the Trump campaign would be willing to deal to get them. Tells you something about what Putin thinks of the President and the people around him. And what he thinks he could get from the President.

This is going to be important too, once people start focusing on it:

Reader Interactions

265Comments

  5. 5.

    trollhattan

    Lemiuux seems convinced Trump’s about to fire Mueller and/or issue blanket pardons to every Republican who can fog a mirror, and that congress will cover for him. IANA(constiutional)L but am afraid it sounds all too plausible. Trump wants to DO SOMETHING! and sooner, rather than later. Monday Night Massacre?

  8. 8.

    Raoul

    So this footnote from pg. 8 of the statement of offenses seems to be to be saying upper level campaign officials were well aware of Papa’s activities and worried about protecting Trump.

    2 The government notes that the official forwarded defendant PAPADOPOULOS’s email to another Campaign official (without including defendant PAPADOPOULOS) and stated: “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.”

  10. 10.

    Adam L Silverman

    @schrodingers_cat: Correct, I misread his bio. It isn’t worded very well. I’ll go back and delete that comment. If I remember correctly he did have a faculty connection at Cambridge, but I can’t find it right now.

  11. 11.

    Mnemosyne

    So it sounds like the short version is that the Russians suckered the Trump morons in by claiming to have Clinton emails that don’t actually exist, but they knew the Trump morons would fall for it because Fox News had already created this whole mythology around But Her Emails! in the wake of Benghazi.

    Is that about right?

  12. 12.

    dmsilev

    @trollhattan: I wonder how much firing Mueller would actually matter at this point. He’s heading the investigation but (a) he’s not exactly working as a lone wolf and (b) clearly a lot of the work has already been done.

  15. 15.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Cheryl Rofer: I think the actual faculty connection between Nix and OxBridge is that his director of research is, or was, a faculty member at either Oxford or Cambridge and that the CA analytical model is partially built on the guy’s methodology. I can’t find the sourcing right now, so I’ve deleted the comment.

  16. 16.

    dmsilev

    @Mnemosyne: You forgot to add that the suckers-by-proxy included the NYT and the rest of the ostensibly serious political media, who seem to have a Pavlovian slobber reflex whenever someone rings a Clinton-toned bell.

  18. 18.

    PhoenixRising

    It’s dare to be stupid day:

    Am I the only person here who didn’t know that sharing data with Russians was a crime? I’ll be the first to admit that while it was obviously a bad idea, and obviously I wouldn’t want to run a campaign’s foreign policy operation without knowing what I could not do, it is less obvious to me that anyone should have realized this was criminal.

    I know we’re all highly informed and educated and cool and all that. We all knew that if an oil lobbyist who owes money to guys named Boris offered to chair and steer Baud 2016, Baud would be rightfully suspicious. And not take the ‘gift’, because *someone* is paying for the work.

    But did y’all all know that taking data you think will help a campaign, from a foreign government or foreigners, was a crime? I’m daring to be stupid: I thought it looked bad, was shady and should be disqualifying on its own…but I didn’t know it was a crime.

  21. 21.

    PaulWartenberg

    @dmsilev:

    anything trump would do to save his own orange-shaded ass.

    but like you said, most of the work’s probably already done, and a lot of our Intel agencies HAVE to know how bad the damage was with Putin and the Russians f-cking with our elections. If trump fires Mueller now, he’s going to have a serious mutiny between the CIA, NSA, FBI, whatever is left of the DoJ not tainted by Sessions, and DoD on his hands.

  24. 24.

    catclub

    @Elizabelle:

    Curious: has anyone seen any word on Bannon’s reaction to this morning’s events?

    well, breitbart news and Fox have been loudly talking up Hillary criminality – just going ‘la la la I can’t hear you’ over it.

  26. 26.

    Mnemosyne

    @PhoenixRising:

    But did y’all all know that taking data you think will help a campaign, from a foreign government or foreigners, was a crime?

    IANAL, but I’m assuming it falls under the provision where knowing accepting cash contributions to your campaign from foreign donors is a crime. This may be a contribution of information rather than cash, but I’m not sure that distinction matters in our election laws.

  28. 28.

    Just One More Canuck

    Not directly on topic, but those of you on facebook need to ‘like’ Bloom County’ (actually, “Berkeley Breathed’s Bloom County”, specifically) – today’s strip is great

  29. 29.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @PhoenixRising: But did y’all all know that taking data you think will help a campaign, from a foreign government or foreigners, was a crime?

    Isn’t the law written as ‘receiving something of value from a foreign government’? I’ve been thinking what can be explained to twelve people who just want to get back to their own lives

  31. 31.

    PaulWartenberg

    @PhoenixRising:

    first thing you’re SUPPOSED to do when a foreign government shows up whispering “Hey, I might have some tasty info on your political opponent” is you’re SUPPOSED to go the FBI and tell them “ZOMG this spy was trying to sell me secrets can you arrest him for the good of the nation KthanxBai.”

    Not only did trump and his cohorts petition/ask/beg the Russians to hack Hillary and the DNC, but they agreed eagerly to meet with Russian contacts who were offering dirt on Hillary. “Conspiracy AGAINST the United States” is a serious charge, even if that means attacking Hillary (who, oddly enough is an American citizen with rights protected under the Constitution).

  32. 32.

    d58826

    The Trumpers are saying that all of Manafort’s ‘crimes’ were in the past, long before he joined the Trump team.
    Couple of thoughts:
    1. anyone think that if Hillary hired someone with that kind of past it would be passed over as irrelevant
    2. what does it say about the moral standards (I know oxymoron) of the Trumpers that they would make someone with this kind of a history campaign manager
    3. Putin and his spy operatives must have had multiple organisms at such a target rich environment for blackmail

  33. 33.

    trollhattan

    @dmsilev:
    Seems like the crux of it–if the investigation is so vast and heavily staffed and many months underway, does it have enough inertia to thwart Trump and the Rep’s from steering it off-target or sinking it altogether? I haven’t a shred of a clue. While New York can make Trump’s people nervous they’re not much of a proxy for the JD.

  34. 34.

    Roger Moore

    While Assange has consistently denied that he works for, is involved with, and/or received the stolen documents from Russian sources (intel and/or organized crime), what little fig leaf of cover his denials provides is fast disintegrating.

    The most his denials tell us- assuming they’re honest- is that the Russians used a cut-out so he wasn’t dealing with them directly. I personally believe he’s lying and knows perfectly well where his information and funding is coming from, even though he’s supposedly set stuff up so people can send material anonymously.

  35. 35.

    PaulWartenberg

    @catclub:

    Actually if Bibi was informing Romney in 2012, or trump in 2016, that would be just as bad as Putin doing it.

    Thing is, I don’t think the Israelis were trying to sabotage us (or the Dems) in this manner. If they did, they were far more competent about it than this clown car of clueless conspirators.

  36. 36.

    ruemara

    He also wore a wire. I have a lawyer connection who is reading and reviewing what’s happening. He was wearing a wire possibly since he was picked up. Holee Cow.

    @PhoenixRising: I would presume 1. Foreign interference is like foreign money. Verboten. 2. Offering hacked emails is a crime as well. 3. Valid oppo research would give me more to run on on than bullshit from abroad. 4. Quid pro quo to a foreign government is not how I want to take power.

    @PaulWartenberg: Israel was just about Israel. Being hardline and nationalistic as well as racist, they interfered because they knew Republicans would back them up, despite the fact that it was illegal, unethical and unprecedented. Hey! It’s the GOP slogan since 1974!

  37. 37.

    Raoul

    @catclub: Unfortunately, we now have Tony Podesta stepping down from his fancy lobby shop because of the Mueller investigation, so the RW noise machine can go to eleventy on that.

  41. 41.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Jethrene Huckabee about to take the stage, if any of you can stomach her lying bully schtick. I cannot.

  42. 42.

    PhoenixRising

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Isn’t the law written as ‘receiving something of value from a foreign government’? I’ve been thinking what can be explained to twelve people who just want to get back to their own lives

    Exactly! And the thing is, those 12 people may not know, as I did not, that in addition to betraying what suckers and fools they are, and how unqualified anyone who will associate with Trump is, by taking these meetings they knowingly broke the law.

    To be clear, I understand what law they broke, but I didn’t know it existed in March 2016. And I’m concerned that a conviction may ride on convincing jurors who are not federal criminal defense lawyers, as I am not, that these clowns were breaking a law they could reasonably have been expected to know about.

  44. 44.

    The Moar You Know

    Papadopolous and Manafort were using Facebook Messenger. Fuck me. They’d have been more secure spray painting their shit on sidewalks, or yelling it to each other on the subway during rush hour.

    Jesus.

  47. 47.

    PaulWartenberg

    Papadopolous is an easy name to pronounce.

    Say Papa
    Say Dop
    Say O
    Say Lous

    put that all together and that says
    Smith

    …
    okay, let’s work on that again…

  48. 48.

    trollhattan

    Hellofaday for Deadbeat Donny.

    U.S. federal court in Washington on Monday blocked President Donald Trump’s administration from enforcing his ban on transgender people serving in the American military.

    A group of transgender service members last month asked the court to block the planned ban while it considers their claims that it violates their U.S. constitutional rights to due process and equal protection under the law. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly said the plaintiffs were entitled to an injunction halting enforcement of the ban until their case is resolved.

    Kicking them to the curb seemed soooo important to Donny and Mikie back then.

  51. 51.

    Redshift

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Receiving or soliciting anything of value from a foreign person, not just a government, if I’m remembering what I’ve read correctly.

    And no, I didn’t know that before this whole mess, but it makes sense that of foreign contributions are illegal, it doesn’t matter if they’re monetary or in-kind.

  52. 52.

    PhoenixRising

    @PaulWartenberg:

    first thing you’re SUPPOSED to do when

    That is my point.

    I didn’t know that. Can 12 people be convinced that a guy who lied about Model UN on his resume, to get a role on the foreign policy team of a campaign that no one who knew jack would dirty himself with, did know it?

  57. 57.

    Elizabelle

    And — Possum Queen opens press briefing with — tax reform.

    She’s nervous, and reading this concocted story way too fast to follow her story. She’s Dale Earnhardting. Idiotic story about reporters in a bar as analogy to tax policy.

    Someone is rattled. Very rattled. She’s got a quaver in her voice.

  59. 59.

    Roger Moore

    @trollhattan:
    My guess is that Mueller has some kind of arrangement with NY AG Scheiderman to issue state-level indictments if that happens. I think it’s time to start getting advisory opinions about the double jeopardy implications of a preemptive federal pardon on a state indictment.

  60. 60.

    Adam L Silverman

    @trollhattan: @dmsilev: It’s a possibility, but I don’t think it’s going to happen. It would create more problems for the President than it would solve/resolve. Not that the President is a deep, strategic, and/or critical thinker about these things. Part of what we learn from the Papadopolous confession/data dump is that Mueller has the ability to run silent and deep and be on target. What no one knows right now is how many more Papadopolous’s (Papadopoli?) are out there. Carter Page has similar liability to Papadopolous vis a vis Russia and his Russian connections. Walid Phares, one of the other five foreign policy advisors, has been alleged to have been one of the lead planners for the Sabra and Shatilla massacres (and I hate to write that as I know Walid professionally from when I was a doctoral student/before he went to work for FDD, and he was always great to deal with). Flynn and his son, as well as Giuliani, have exposure on work for Erdogan. Boris Epshteyn is tied to Russian business development in St. Petersberg, Russia, which means he’s tied to the Russian mob. Jared, in addition to the sketchy business and financing deals, and encouraging the President to fire Comey and thereby obstruct justice, has significant jeopardy from falsifying his security clearance and disclosure forms. As does Ivanka. Lewandowski has a history of getting away with physically assaulting people, including women – not just the Breitbart reporter. Both Gorka and Melania have potential jeopardy regarding irregularities on their immigration history that could invalidate their citizenship. There are a lot of people that need a way out. And Mueller owns all the directions to relative safety.

  61. 61.

    sibusisodan

    @schrodingers_cat: They both still are boys-only.

    @germy: Public school in the UK historically meant a school that the general public could enrol in (assuming they had the money). The Quality would arrange private tuition, to avoid having to associate with all that.

  65. 65.

    The Moar You Know

    But did y’all all know that taking data you think will help a campaign, from a foreign government or foreigners, was a crime? I’m daring to be stupid: I thought it looked bad, was shady and should be disqualifying on its own…but I didn’t know it was a crime.

    @PhoenixRising: It isn’t.

    But failing to disclose it is very much a crime. You gotta register as an agent of a foreign government. And if you’re getting paid, you gotta disclose that as well. Beavis and Butthead did neither – and knew they were supposed to.

    ETA: this has been Manafort’s life work, lobbying foreign governments. He probably knew the reporting requirements better than the guys who are indicting him. HE DID IT ANYWAY. I think he’s a slam dunk conviction. The law is very clear and there is no way he can defend with “I didn’t know”.

  66. 66.

    rikyrah

    I don’t know what I love most.
    Him being stupid enough to think that he could LIE to the FBI.
    Him being stupid enough to have a serious paper trail.
    Him being a link to ATTORNEY GENERAL WHITE CITIZENS COUNCIL
    The possibility, that, in addition to being a snitch…he was a SNITCH WITH A WIRE!

  67. 67.

    ruemara

    @Roger Moore: Sit by me. Because that’s pretty much what I believe. I think he’s got some dirt Russia is holding on him too. I forgot where I read this, sorry, but he did start off with some level of “I’m gonna push back on all the big wigs” but went quiet after some discussion with Russians. Funny how all the real crusaders turn out to be tin soldiers at best.

    @PhoenixRising: DUDE. Yes. You wouldn’t be working on a campaign without knowing this. I’ve never managed a campaign and I’d guess it.

    @rikyrah: Popcorn futures are at an all time high.

  68. 68.

    Elizabelle

    “And that ladies and gentlemen, is how our tax system works.” She warns us the drinkers might decide to go drink overseas too.

    But it went by so quickly I couldn’t follow and doubt others could either. It’s like the announcer with the drug and car ads. Motor mouth.

    First question: about today’s events:

    “No intention or plan to make any changes in regard to the Special Counsel.”

    Today’s events have nothing to do with Trump. Nothing to do with aciivites of the campaign.

    Says clear collusion is HRC and Fusion.

  69. 69.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Jethrene: Clear evidence of the Clinton campaign colluding with Russian intelligence. That’s like saying Det Columbo colluded with the killer by conducting the investigation

    ETA: and no one, so far, asks her to explain. I’m torn between being glad they’re not giving it more oxygen, and disgusted that they don’t bat an eye when she flat out lies to them, and they all know it.

  70. 70.

    Patricia Kayden

    @d58826:

    The Trumpers are saying

    Why are we worrying about anything they are saying? They lie like they breathe. The focus should be on Mueller’s investigation and the indictments which are real world facts. Manafort was Trump’s campaign manager so obviously his misconduct implicates Trump.

  72. 72.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Gin & Tonic: Apparently Nina Turner was on went full Fox/Breitbart yesterday at some symposium CNN over Clinton being responsible for selling the US’s uranium to Russia and overall colluding with Russia.

    ETA: Here’s the video. And her remarks were not really an issue, despite what the tweet implies.

  75. 75.

    bemused

    I’m enjoying imagining the WH chaos now and rage yelling Humpty Trumpty with a beet red face and hyperventilating.

    When in danger,
    when in doubt,
    run in circles,
    scream and shout.

  76. 76.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Elizabelle: Wouldn’t you expect Ms. Liar to be nervous today? The shoes are literally dropping all around her. Her lies aren’t working as reality is closing in on her boss. I can imagine that in the near future as the indictments pile up and get closer and closer to the White House, she’ll just stand up silently in front of reporters with a blank stare.

  77. 77.

    d58826

    @Davebo: somewhere Baghdad Bob is green with envy at the level of BS that she is flinging and the talent that she shows in doing it. I wonder if that is what they teach at her church.

  78. 78.

    Elizabelle

    @eclare: And she could have eaten up so much time, and foiled those pesky reporters (alcoholics!) by reading the story at a slow or normal pace. You know, comprehensible.

    I have never seen anything like that. Starting to wonder what the Possum cubs’ bedtime stories are like.

    Gee. No one is asking her any questions on tax cuts.

  79. 79.

    ruemara

    @Adam L Silverman: The Women’s Convention that was supposed to be an I HEART BERNIE symposium? Ha! Trust me, something will be touching those Our Revolution folks too. They’ve been as loud as Fox that Russia was a non-entity and they’re pushing the Uranium One story hard.

  80. 80.

    Mnemosyne

    @ruemara:

    I think he’s got some dirt Russia is holding on him too.

    Given what kind of charges he’s hiding out from, I have a pretty good guess what the Russians are holding over him.

  81. 81.

    MCA1

    @PaulWartenberg: That’s probably right. I have a sneaking suspicion that Kelly, Cobb and others have also been told “The peepee tape is real – tell your boss/client” or something similar, as a proactive constraint on Drumpf and an incentive to stand clear and if need be stand down.

    Not to mention, the public, at long last, seems to be waking up. Gallup daily numbers from yesterday show the bottom may finally be falling out – 33/62 now, the lowest yet. That’s off a cliff. Just 18 days ago it was a -15 at 39/54, so 7 percent have turned their fickle thumbs downward in the last couple weeks. I wouldn’t be shocked if we get to the magical 27% this week as the cockroaches make more mistakes scurrying about in the wake of today’s arrests and the Papadopoulos news.

    In any event, my point was going to be that a Saturday Night Massacre at this point might turbocharge the public disapproval enough to make GOP Congressmembers FINALLY come to the only calculation that’s ever mattered in the last 9 months: that it’s more detrimental to their own reelection hopes to be on Drumpf’s side than it is to start publicly opposing him and/or talking impeachment.

  86. 86.

    rikyrah

    He’d sell his mother to Lucifer for those tax cuts.

    Paul Ryan asked about indictment: “I really don’t have anything to add other than nothing is going to derail what we’re doing in Congress”

    — Liz Goodwin (@lizcgoodwin) October 30, 2017

  87. 87.

    Elizabelle

    “No worry about distracting, because it does not have anything to do with us. Outside the campaign. …

    The president has thousands of photographs with millions of people.”

    I think Sean Spicer is popping back cocktails right now and laughing his head off. Boehner somewhere too. (Merlot.)

    “This individual.” She can’t be bothered with Pap…’s name. “He was a volunteer on a council that met once.”

    She is “not here to speak on behalf of the thousands of people who volunteered for the campaign.”

    Well, all righty then.

  90. 90.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    has anyone heard any of our Constitutionally-protected ink-stained wretches point out that last week’s heroes, Flake Corky and McCain, have been pretty much silent today? at least none of the wretches I follow have tweeted any sign of life. Or courage. Or even curiosity.

  91. 91.

    Redshift

    @PhoenixRising: Ignorance of the law is not a defense. I really don’t think it’s that hard to get across:

    – you understand that asking for campaign contributions from foreigners is illegal, right? (They may not already know, but it’s pretty obvious once your told that it must be true.)

    – contributions can be anything of value, so a campaign can’t hide contributions by having contributions give something like rent-free office space instead of money

    – campaigns pay a lot for opposition research, so clearly it’s a thing of value

    – therefore discussing being given opposition research with a foreigner is soliciting s contribution

    (Paying fair value for it shouldn’t be illegal, if I understand things correctly, so there thing that may get the Trumpers, ironically, is that they’re cheap bastards who are eager to get stuff for free.)

    (ETA missing mention of contributions from foreigners specifically.)

  92. 92.

    Elizabelle

    Some reporter:

    “Is that what you are telling the American public?”

    Love it! Two can play that game.

  93. 93.

    Adam L Silverman

    @PaulWartenberg: I played youth soccer with one of the Fotopolous kids. His family owned ABC pizza. Any of those still around? Or did they finally close the last one near USF?

  95. 95.

    PhoenixRising

    @The Moar You Know:

    You gotta register as an agent of a foreign government. And if you’re getting paid, you gotta disclose that as well. Beavis and Butthead did neither – and knew they were supposed to.

    Due to all the now-falsified claims on his LinkedIn profile, and how low-level his actual experience was, I agree that the campaign could have reasonably expected Papadopoulos to know that. I’m just not sure he did, because it turns out he was lying about all the ways he appears more qualified on paper than I am, and I didn’t.

    This only matters because this is a crisis of legitimacy: it provides an opportunity for Trump to give himself a bogey on whether he is above the law.

    My concern is, people who didn’t intuitively grasp that Trump is a con artist surrounded by grifters, and why elevating such a person to POTUS is bad for our country regardless of your policy preferences, (I refer to about 62 million voters) are unlikely to see through the defenses they will be presented with if the crime is one they didn’t know existed.

  97. 97.

    retr2327

    @d58826: Well, here’s a point that has not received as much media attention yet as it should. Manafort is a VERY greedy guy (75 million at issue, 1.4 million in clothing, 6oo K in gardening, etc.). Yet he worked for the Trump campaign for free. Choose 1:
    a) he did it out of a profound sense of civic duty;
    b) he did it out of an expectation/agreement that he would receive millions from a source outside of the Trump campaign . . .

    I know which one I’m betting on. And I’m pretty confident the question has occurred to Mueller as well.

  100. 100.

    Elizabelle

    Now she’s talking about fake news about the Trump campaign.

    Reporters! Why aren’t you paying attention to the Clinton campaign.

    I find her and all the diversioners really appalling. I’d like to see Possum Queen in trouble for perjury, down the road.

    She is another Goebbels, without his polish.

    Love the incredulous voice the reporters are taking.

    “Doesn’t it speak to the president’s judgment to have these two individuals in high positions, given (their pasts)?”

  101. 101.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Papadopoulos’ attorneys say he looks forward to telling his story. I think that’s code for “he’s already flipped on you”

  105. 105.

    Elizabelle

    “Does he still believe Pappa.. is an excellent guy?”

    Possum reels out “volunteer on the campaign” again.

  106. 106.

    Luthe

    You know who else lives in London? (well, technically Ecuador in London, but details, details)

  109. 109.

    MattF

    @PhoenixRising: Well, we’re all friends-of-Vladimir here, right? And who can possibly object to being protected from the Clinton-Beast? It’s your patriotic duty to do whatever you can.

  110. 110.

    Roger Moore

    @Raoul:

    Unfortunately, we now have Tony Podesta stepping down from his fancy lobby shop because of the Mueller investigation, so the RW noise machine can go to eleventy on that.

    OTOH, if he’s investigating Podesta, doesn’t that make it harder to claim the whole thing is a partisan witch hunt?

  112. 112.

    Chris

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    It’s become pretty well accepted that when Republicans lie to you, it’s rude to call them out on it.

    Not entirely the MSM’s fault, as one of the big problems in dealing with conservatives is that if you always tried to correct their lies, you’d have to dispute almost every sentence that came out of their mouths. Where do you even start?

  113. 113.

    Adam L Silverman

    @The Moar You Know: @PhoenixRising: Manafort will plead for a deal. He is desperate to have extradition to Ukraine taken off the table. And everything he was charged with today could be mirrored by NY state AG Schneiderman if they President decided to pardon him. So anything that keeps him from being extradited to Ukraine, where he’d be executed, is what Manafort is looking for.

  114. 114.

    Elizabelle

    One of the reporters asks about Trump recollections, since he’s bragged about his great memory. Said something very close to that.

    I don’t generally watch Possum Queen. Does she always fly this quickly, like a moonshiner hitting an oil slick?

    Never mind the lies and tortured phrasing, she speaks too quickly for me to catch. You’d have to have a recorder on her.

  115. 115.

    Doug R

    @d58826: These dominionists always leave out “Thou shalt not bear false witness” I guess it ties in nicely with “Thou shalt not covet”.

  117. 117.

    d58826

    @Elizabelle: AMAZING!!!!!!!! According to Sarah the investigation is about to wrap up. When asked how she knew her answer was ask Mueller.

    According to Sarah Manafort was hired as a vote counter and then dismissed shortly after.

    Are these people so stupid that they have never heard of video tape. Virtually everything she has said is undercut by videotape or Der Fuhrer’s own tweets.

  118. 118.

    Chet Murthy

    @PhoenixRising:

    exactly why I didn’t get a good night’s sleep.

    Not in a long time here, either. Shitlord soils everything he touches. Even when he touches by proxy.

  119. 119.

    MCA1

    @Adam L Silverman: This is one of my favorite things I’ve read today, and not just because of “Papadopoli.” Let’s not forget Sater and Cohen, too. There were so many people in the weekend’s “Who got indicted” prediction contest that it was hard to choose, and that’s just the top level names we know about. Drumpf and all the minions and hangers on are now fully aware that (a) Mueller’s team got to a lower level person who was willing to become an informant, and (b) they’ve already taken down the campaign chairman, so their sights are set high. They have to be absolutely sweating bullets right now.

  120. 120.

    Raoul

    (via Elizabelle) “This individual.” SHS can’t be bothered with Pap…’s name. “He was a volunteer on a council that met once.”

    And yet campaign officials well above him were emailing about his efforts to meet, and figuring out which disposable asset could go try for the illicit info drop. Its in the details of the offense.

  122. 122.

    Ruckus

    @PhoenixRising:
    IANAL but I’ve heard enough times that ignorance of the law is no excuse. If I worked in elections at the presidential level I hope that I’d not be stupid enough to not check if this sort of stuff is legal.
    IOW
    1. The should have known. Hell it is/should be part of their duty to know.
    2. If they didn’t, the only person to blame is themselves.
    3. They didn’t care, they thought they could get away with it.

  123. 123.

    ruemara

    @PhoenixRising: You’re really married to this hypotheses, aren’t you? Look, it’s obviously wrong if you have half an ounce of sense. We’re past devil’s advocacy and now into please stop with the pretzel logic.

    @Adam L Silverman: Knowing that, I’m even more pro-extradition. I have no compassion for these folks and would watch a firing squad.

  124. 124.

    EthylEster

    In truth and in fact

    WTF?
    isn’t this Department of Redundancy Department territory?

    What would be “in truth but not in fact”?

  125. 125.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Chet Murthy: I suspect trump is guilty of money-laundering for the Russian mafia, but whether or not that ever comes to trial, the bigger question is will any Rs in Congress bat an eye about on-going obstruction of justice that to my non-lawyer’s eye started with trump’s one-on-one dinners with Comey, ran through the firing and continues now with his ‘interviews’ with US Atty nominees, including Rudi Giuliani’s law partner and (according to something that was going around twitter the other day) a former contestant on his little game show.

    Wow. that was short, Jethrene’s lie-feats usually go on a lot longer, I think

  126. 126.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Elizabelle: @eclare: This was a response to actual economists spending most of the past week or so making fun of her explanations by creatively explaining the difference between mean and median averages. Such as: if you have ten people in a room and give one of them ten apples. The mean average is that everyone got an apple, which is not factually correct.

  128. 128.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Elizabelle: “Does he still believe Pappa.. is an excellent guy?”

    Papa-dupe got duped by Papa Putin! I could write headlines for Murdoch.

  129. 129.

    Redshift

    @retr2327:

    a) he did it out of a profound sense of civic duty;
    b) he did it out of an expectation/agreement that he would receive millions from a source outside of the Trump campaign . . .

    c) He was being paid by someone else. What better way to fulfill his contract to advance Putin’s interests?

  131. 131.

    MattF

    @Adam L Silverman: Kevin Drum raises the question of how on earth Manafort thought he would get away with it. He knew that things he was doing were… um, very illegal. But then went ahead and took a high-profile job. Masochism? Death wish? Seriously.

  136. 136.

    Elizabelle

    Manafort’s attorney is going to speak after court hearing. Not guilty pleas; no word yet on bail, etc …

  138. 138.

    Ruckus

    @PhoenixRising:
    It doesn’t matter if they knew it was illegal. It still is. Illegal.
    Lots of men don’t think rape should be illegal. It still is. Illegal.

  139. 139.

    Redshift

    @PhoenixRising: Prosecutors don’t depend on “random people in a jury intuitively understanding what the law is.” It’s literally almost their entire job to make sure they understand it. Jurors are not just figuring it out on their own.

  141. 141.

    Elizabelle

    First time I ever watched a Possum Queen presser. I tend to avoid her, and Trump, and as much of them as I can.

    I am shocked, though, at how brazen she was.

  142. 142.

    Chet Murthy

    @ruemara:

    I’m even more pro-extradition

    Not possible to be more pro-extradition. Not possible to be more “tossed into vat of boiling oil”. Not possible to be more “Yulia Tymoshenko gets to run the bologna slicer on his living body”.

    ETA: I blame Shitlord for my blloodthirstiness.

  145. 145.

    ruemara

    @MattF: Past performance. Come on! How often have conservatives paid any price for their actions? Trump was not even remotely wrong that he could gun down someone on 5th Avenue and he’d still have support. He’s right and that’s been proven going back to Nixon. They are horrible, treasonous, evil vipers and have profited nicely for decades. Of course he felt he wasn’t going to suffer for it.

  147. 147.

    catclub

    @MCA1:

    Gallup daily numbers from yesterday show the bottom may finally be falling out – 33/62 now, the lowest yet. That’s off a cliff.

    wow

  150. 150.

    catclub

    @Redshift:

    It’s literally almost their entire job to make sure they understand it. Jurors are not just figuring it out on their own.

    tell the prosecutors of the oregon malheur occupation that conspiracy is a crime and they need to convince jurors it is one.

  151. 151.

    Ruckus

    @d58826:

    I wonder if that is what they teach at her church.

    I don’t. Bullshit is her life. Bullshit is her family. She’s perfect for the job she has, working for the person she does. Bullshit is all she has.

  152. 152.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Elizabelle: As I’ve said before, Ron Ziegler is laughing his ass off in his sulfur hot tub in Hell at the amateur nature of the Donald PR team.

  154. 154.

    ruemara

    @Adam L Silverman: I’m going to echo a comment below it. “Why can’t a person supposedly repping for Dems just say “Clinton did not sell 20% of our uranium to Russia and this whole story is misinformation?”” Because that’s where I am with Nina. I will even not require clarification of the deal because I’ve already heard it once and haven’t fully retained it, but just the above would be right. She gets no points for her advocacy.

  155. 155.

    catclub

    @MattF:

    Kevin Drum raises the question of how on earth Manafort thought he would get away with it. He knew that things he was doing were… um, very illegal. But then went ahead and took a high-profile job. Masochism? Death wish? Seriously.

    why not. he had been getting away with it since when? at least 2011? one might assume/convince yourself the feds have no interest.

  156. 156.

    Adam L Silverman

    @germy: Bannon is spending Mercer’s money, not his. Eventually one of these exceedingly wealthy people he goes after, such as Singer, are simply going to have someone deal with him. No amount of Mercer’s money will help him with that. And that will be the end of Bannon.

  157. 157.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    the only congressional responses I’ve seen are mealy-mouthed “we need to let Meuller do his job”. I assume they’re all hiding in their offices so there won’t be video of them running away from Kasie Hunt?

  158. 158.

    rikyrah

    Seth Abramson

    @SethAbramson
    PS3/ This can’t be stated enough: the Trump/Sessions lunch today is wildly inappropriate and possibly illegal. Both men are FBI targets.

  159. 159.

    HRA

    FYI

    “Papadopoulos. Papadopoulos (Greek: Παπαδόπουλος), sometimes transliterated as Papadopulos, is the most common Greek surname. It is used in Greece, Cyprus and countries of the Greek diaspora as well, such as the USA, United Kingdom, Australia and Scandinavian countries. It means “son of a priest”.

    My mother’s family defines the name as one son every generation to the priesthood.

  160. 160.

    d58826

    @Elizabelle: I usually do something more useful when she is on – like mucking out the stable. Oh wait that is the same thing. Anyway figured it would be worth a laugh to see how she would work around the ‘you going to believe me or your lying eyes’

  162. 162.

    catclub

    @MattF: It is more likely to be catchup for his treatment of La David Johnson’s widow than any of this stuff, then,

  163. 163.

    trollhattan

    @Adam L Silverman:
    Thanks. Trying to stay mid-lane and not drift into either the ditch (Trump escapes!) or the median (Trump in an orange jumpsuit!) as this unfolds isn’t easy. Immediate concern is actually who’s running the country?

  164. 164.

    rikyrah

    Don’t forget that Sessions — who had little foreign policy experience — ran the nat sec board on campaign, lied about meeting w/Russians t.co/Fdag7GCLTs

    — Sarah Kendzior (@sarahkendzior) October 30, 2017

    A top Trump aide who just pled guilty to lying about Russia contacts participated in top-level meetings with Trump & Sessions. pic.twitter.com/80py9Bzfl9

    — CAP Action (@CAPAction) October 30, 2017

  165. 165.

    Amaranthine RBG

    @Roger Moore:

    I believe the President’s pardon power extends only to offenses against the United States. So, state crimes cannot be pardoned.

    No double jeopardy implications since the same conduct can violate separate State/Federal laws. This makes the news most often when police officers are acquitted of some State offenses but then subsequently charged for federal crime of violation of civil rights.

  166. 166.

    mike in dc

    Adam, there was a potential 5th contact–the story about asking Cambridge Analytica about approaching/working with WikiLeaks a week or two ago.

    It’d be nice to see regularly sequenced rolling indictments–a wave every couple months or so, with various revelations in between.

  167. 167.

    Barbara

    @PhoenixRising: For nearly every criminal law, the standards is one of general intent. It doesn’t matter if you weren’t a lawyer who specialized in laws that pertained to your conduct. If, for instance, it’s illegal to burn garbage on your own property without a permit from your township, you can be issued a citation even if you had no idea. There are a few crimes that require what I refer to as a Ratzlaf standard of intent because the conduct is not mala in se, you can look it up yourself, and would literally have had no notice that what they were doing was in any way, shape or form unlawful if they did not actually have knowledge of the law. Forget about whether this conduct is mala in se, the reason you know Papadapoulous — WHO HAS ALREADY PLEADED GUILTY AND SO WILL NOT BE IN A POSITION TO MISLEAD A JURY — knew it was wrongful is because he lied about the timing — he knew it was no big deal before joining the campaign and a BFD after her joined the campaign. Your aw shucks delivery is starting to look like willful trolling.

  170. 170.

    p.a.

    “…my national chairman…”, “…maybe one other foreign policy advisor…”

    nat’l chairman= Manafort?
    other f.p. advisor= ??? Sessions???

  173. 173.

    Mike J

    Steve Reilly‏ Verified account @BySteveReilly 12 minutes ago
    U.S. District Court for D.C. has four sealed cases in its docket with case numbers between Papadopoulos’ (182) and Manafort’s (201).

  175. 175.

    germy

    Satire from The Borowitz Report

    Millions Disappointed It Wasn’t Jared

    “Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled that Manafort’s being brought in,” one downcast American said. “But he’s no Jared.”

  178. 178.

    sheila in nc

    @catclub:

    how on earth Manafort thought he would get away with it

    Same way I thought I would get away with reading BJ at work — I always have.
    (uh oh…)

  179. 179.

    Barbara

    @PhoenixRising: And just to further respond to your deflection, Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to making false statements. It is so easy to get people on this. If you are ever asked questions by a law enforcement official with the USG, just remember this handy tip: In nearly every case, when they have singled you out for questioning, they ALREADY KNOW the answers to many of the questions they are asking you and if you lie that will be count 1 of the indictment. Sure, you can raise your fancy legal arguments about whether Ratzlaf applies to this or that regulatory offense, but it ain’t never okay to lie to the FBI or ICE or the IRS or whoever it is. And the fact that you lied will also be used as evidence that you knew GD well that what you were doing was wrong. They aren’t stupid.

  180. 180.

    Adam L Silverman

    @MCA1: Here’s a real question: what did Kislyak talk to Jeff Sessions about on the three occasions, including one in his then office in the Senate, that they met? Was Kislyak offering emails?

  183. 183.

    The Pale Scot

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I’ve been thinking what can be explained to twelve people who just want to get back to their own lives

    Just make sure that the jury is comprised of people with Polish or Ukrainian heritage

  186. 186.

    Adam L Silverman

    @MattF: 1) No one enforces FARA until they have to, so… 2) When your handlers at the home office, who you are millions in debt to, give you an assignment, you take it.

  189. 189.

    Barbara

    @p.a.: I thought he did that some time ago. He and Ivanka seem to have vanished after his testimony. If they thought that they would never be in jeopardy I assume they now understand otherwise.

  193. 193.

    danielx

    @trollhattan:

    Immediate concern is actually who’s running the country?

    I want to play! Mike Pence? No, can’t be, Republic of Gilead hasn’t been declared.

    Yet.

  194. 194.

    Redshift

    @Chris:

    Not entirely the MSM’s fault, as one of the big problems in dealing with conservatives is that if you always tried to correct their lies, you’d have to dispute almost every sentence that came out of their mouths. Where do you even start?

    You start by reporting it as “conservative official X falsely stated,” in the headline, instead of he said/she said. If you’re more interested in the truth than in continuing to get false statements from conservatives to print/air, that is.

  195. 195.

    MCA1

    @Adam L Silverman: Perhaps Don asked him just that question between the Oreo’s and ice cream courses at lunch today, further cementing the obstruction of justice case against his orangeness.

  197. 197.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I know Ja’Vanka were champions of Flynn. Did they also encourage the Beast to hire Manafort, who as multiple people are pointing out hadn’t run a campaign in twenty years? Jared also owes the Russians a lot of money, I believe.

  198. 198.

    Adam L Silverman

    @trollhattan: The same folks who are always running the country: three GS 9s at a small, nondescript Federal building in the middle of DC.

  199. 199.

    Gravenstone

    @Adam L Silverman:

    And everything he was charged with today could be mirrored by NY state AG Schneiderman if they President decided to pardon him.

    That was my big question, how many of the Federal charges had a NYS equivalent queued up and ready to go as needed? Thanks for addressing it proactively.

  200. 200.

    TenguPhule

    @rikyrah:

    Paul Ryan asked about indictment: “I really don’t have anything to add other than nothing is going to derail what we’re doing in Congress”

    Well that settles that, Paul Ryan is a Russian Stooge.

  206. 206.

    TenguPhule

    @Major Major Major Major:

    Did you just ask if a Trump might be stupid enough to do something stupid?

    Yes.

    I mean, sure he’s probed the lowest depths possible but even he can’t have been stupid enough to have done what only happens in Scooby Doo reruns.

  209. 209.

    MCA1

    @catclub: Probably so, other than people responding over the weekend to the latest tweetstorm and the news of pending indictment drops. It’s been a really funny metric that occasionally shows bouncebacks at the weirdest times which make me question humanity and the sanity of the American people en masse, but it is noteworthy that 62% is the highest disapproval rating we’ve seen in this so-called presidency, on the eve of the worst news we’ve yet heard. If today shaves just another couple percentage points off, we’re in 2:1 disapprove territory, which is like post-Katrina Bush levels of unpopularity.

  211. 211.

    dimmsdale

    @Adam L Silverman: I think I am going to have this response encased in amber and mounted on a plaque where I can look at it every day. Even if the R’s can make parts of this go away, even if Schneiderman whiffs on the pitch with regard to prosecuting these felons in NY State (just as he whiffed on prosecuting major banking institutions involved in MERS and the mortgage scandal) this is a concise summation and at least some of it will eventually be answered in court…I hope. Thanks, Adam.

  212. 212.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Gin & Tonic: I don’t either. But he is dealing with very stupid people. I’d be surprised if something wasn’t dangled to Sessions surreptitiously.

  213. 213.

    Barbara

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I believe there is one thing and one thing only that really matters to Kushner, and that is whether he can salvage his family business that he personally put into jeopardy by entering into a misbegotten transaction to pay too much at exactly the wrong time for exactly the wrong building. Look at how much Trump salvaged his own real estate empire by selling large blocks of condos to Russian oligarchs. I assume Kushner had the same idea. I assume that Putin would have guaranteed the success of that plan if Trump had been able to minimize or abandon Crimea related sanctions. I am sure Putin is very frustrated that has not yet come about and will continue trying to fuck with us until it does, unless he dies first.

  215. 215.

    TenguPhule

    @Major Major Major Major: If he was only concerned about passing tax cuts he would be demonstrating some concern about it being threatened by real life events.

    What he’s doing right now is the equivalent of raising a big red flag and waving it frantically over his head.

  217. 217.

    Redshift

    @TenguPhule:

    Well that settles that, Paul Ryan is a Russian Stooge.

    I think that was pretty obvious from the time he shushed Republican congresscritters who were joking about who’s on Putin’s payroll.

  218. 218.

    TenguPhule

    @Adam L Silverman:

    The same folks who are always running the country: three GS 9s at a small, nondescript Federal building in the middle of DC.

    Citizen, your code clearance does not permit you access to that information.

    Please report to Friend Computer for mandatory processing.

  220. 220.

    trollhattan

    @Adam L Silverman:

    The same folks who are always running the country: three GS 9s at a small, nondescript Federal building in the middle of DC.

    And if that doesn’t beg to be made into a TV series.

    “Three GS 9s at a small, nondescript Federal building in the middle of DC. run the country, these are their stories. [dunn-dunn] ‘Law & Order, GS9′”

  221. 221.

    Sam

    @PhoenixRising: two potential crimes: violation of campaign finances laws, foreigners aren’t allowed to contribute anything of value or if the pitchers were a foreign intel agency then.. um pick it but treason seems possible

  222. 222.

    Adam L Silverman

    @dimmsdale: I don’t think either Mueller or Schneiderman are going to whiff. And don’t forget that allied and partner intel communities would leak to protect their own states.

  225. 225.

    The Moar You Know

    Bannon is spending Mercer’s money, not his. Eventually one of these exceedingly wealthy people he goes after, such as Singer, are simply going to have someone deal with him. No amount of Mercer’s money will help him with that. And that will be the end of Bannon.

    @Adam L Silverman: You don’t cross billionaire money in this country and live. But then again, I’ve always gotten more than a whiff of the “suicide in waiting” from Bannon.

  226. 226.

    Aleta

    @Elizabelle: “I pay you to control the press. These stories are your fault. I think you’re the one trying to take me down. Never trust a woman. I will ruin you.”

  227. 227.

    Major Major Major Major

    @TenguPhule:

    If he was only concerned about passing tax cuts he would be demonstrating some concern about it being threatened by real life events.

    He is. They passed the budget while nobody was looking and are proceeding headlong into writing the bill. He’s assuming if he keeps his head down they can pass this before everything collapses. It’s a surrender of sorts to the reality of the situation. The future once this investigation really starts stirring shit up is too unknowable so he’s hurrying now.

  228. 228.

    Jack the Second

    To the “ignorance of the law is not a defense” I’ll add that even working at the town/county level, your local party apparatus should be giving you a “how to comply with campaign finance laws” pamphlet.

    If these chuckleheads were actually ignorant of the laws they were breaking, it also illustrates a startling level of willful ignorance. They had be turning down information at dozens of times throughout the process of running a Presidential campaign to remain ignorant, actively ignoring people speaking and declining to read any papers given to them.

    Not an impossibility from Mr President, but still pretty galling.

  229. 229.

    Redshift

    Besides Josh Marshall’s “Stupid Watergate,” my other favorite description of the conspirator freakout over the weekend was from someone on Twitter, “like Reservoir Dogs reenacted by the cast of Minions.”

  230. 230.

    TenguPhule

    @Major Major Major Major:

    They passed the budget while nobody was looking and are proceeding headlong into writing the bill.

    Wait, waht?

    I thought they passed the Senate’s version of the budget outline and were still dickering over the details of the actual budget.

  231. 231.

    TenguPhule

    @Redshift:

    “like Reservoir Dogs reenacted by the cast of Minions.”

    That’s an insult to the minions, who are at least ugly-cute.

  233. 233.

    Shana

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I could barely pay attention to her lying because her eyeshadow was so unevenly applied it made her look like she has a black eye. Perhaps that’s an indication of how badly things are going in the White House today…

  234. 234.

    Aleta

    @The Moar You Know: He does seem like could be a “no one controls my death except me” fake samurai type. (Just another Westerner misinterpretation that’s more about projection.) And suicide would match his fantasy philosophy of cinematic apocalypse.

  236. 236.

    Millard Filmore

    @Adam L Silverman:

    So anything that keeps him from being extradited to Ukraine, where he’d be executed, is what Manafort is looking for.

    Wouldn’t an extradition depend on the Democrats retaking the Whitehouse?

  237. 237.

    MisterForkbeard

    @TenguPhule: I’m pretty sure Adam is an Indigo Troubleshooter at the least.

    Also, Friend Computer would like you to know that impersonating The Computer is a treasonous offense. Please report to a local troubleshooter for execution and processing.

  238. 238.

    Mnemosyne

    @ruemara:

    I just found out that a co-worker of mine went to that conference. She is not a Sanders dead-ender, so I’ll be curious to hear what her take is.

  239. 239.

    Miss Bianca

    @Adam L Silverman: Adam, maybe I just haven’t been paying as much attention as I should have been (I blame the blizzard of bullshit, at some point you have to close your eyes, plug your nose and ears, and ignore it all just to make it thru’ the day), but can you point me to a somewhat succinct summary of why Manafort would be facing extraditon and execution 9or some other serious consequence) in Ukraine? I am aware he did some skeevy campaign management/advisor work over there, and that’s really all I know.

  241. 241.

    PhoenixRising

    You’re really married to this hypotheses, aren’t you? Look, it’s obviously wrong if you have half an ounce of sense. We’re past devil’s advocacy and now into please stop with the pretzel logic.

    Read the plea deal carefully, as I did, and what you will see is a guy who thinks he’s smart confessing to a crime he didn’t think was important enough to get a lawyer to answer questions about.

    I’m not saying I think they didn’t commit a crime, or even that a jury is unlikely to be convinced they did. I’m saying that George may just be stupid enough that he really didn’t recall the facts revealed in his FB feed which he contradicted while bragging to the FBI…and he also didn’t realize the significance of their questions (ie what crime they were driving toward). Apparently we’re all way too cool to admit what we don’t know.

    Maybe we’re also too cool to address the issue that raises: we’re stuck with these clowns, who know less than I do about election law, unless we can convince more Americans that this confession to a cover-up is covering up something significant. Not just wrong and technically illegal, but meaningful and treasonous.

    You are not taking this nearly seriously enough if you think asking the question is the problem.

    Love how many of y’all are quick to assume that I need a tune-up on how criminal law works, though. Thanks, and if I’m contemplating taking a job I don’t understand that might implicate me in a conspiracy, if I were credulous enough to believe Boris and Natasha were doing me a favor about adoptions, I’ll call you first for advice.

  242. 242.

    Millard Filmore

    @MattF:

    Kevin Drum raises the question of how on earth Manafort thought he would get away with it.

    Here is my guess: Manafort thought Trump would lose, and he would get paid all those millions anyway.

  244. 244.

    Dave

    @catclub: I suspect he would have, or at least had a much better chance at it, gotten away with if if Trump lost which was probably the plan. After all a Clinton campaign investigating a fallen opponents campaign would have been the “worst thing ever” to the village.

  245. 245.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Miss Bianca: Worked for Victor Yanukovych’s Party of Regions, which was Ukraine’s political party that fronted for Putin, as well as Russian organized crime. It appears a lot of that work was paid for off the official books and from the Ukrainian treasury to Manafort. He’s also been implicated by his daughter in committing several murders in Ukraine.

  246. 246.

    Miss Bianca

    @rikyrah: but, you know, Bill Clinton met with Loretta Lynch on that tarmac that one time so BOTH SIDES DO IT LIBTARDS AND DEMOCRATS DO IT WORSE SO THERE – OOOH LOOK!! SQUIRREL!!

  247. 247.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Roger Moore: They can’t seem to decide between “this is all a partisan witch hunt” and “Hillary is the real target, Mueller will arrest her shortly”.

  249. 249.

    Starfish

    @Mnemosyne: There were a number of people who had signed up before they announced that Sanders would be speaking. There was some group from Baltimore (I think) that had been invited. They were wondering if they should have withdrawn, but the opportunity to meet other activists was a big draw for them.

    There were some tweets and videos about the event on the internet, and I was really unimpressed by Nina Turner yelling at people. I mean, I know it is an oratory style, but it was just not a very good one.

  251. 251.

    TenguPhule

    @MisterForkbeard:

    Also, Friend Computer would like you to know that impersonating The Computer is a treasonous offense. Please report to a local troubleshooter for execution and processing.

    Only Communist Fascist Liberal Mutant Spies refer to Friend Computer as “The Computer”. Please report to a local troubleshooter for execution and processing.

  258. 258.

    clay

    @manyakitty: Yes. JMM also invented Trump’s Razor, which is that when in doubt, go with the stupidest explanation that fits all of the known facts.

  259. 259.

    opiejeanne

    @Elizabelle: Daily Kos tackled this “math” problem in 2008. It was a RW email that made the rounds and she read the problem from the email while she was at the podium. The link is below, but her whole argument is a fallacy, it’s the $80 tab that should be focused on in the problem, not the $20 reduction.

    Ten reporters go into a bar

  261. 261.

    Barbara

    @PhoenixRising: He gets to join Martha Stewart and a lot of other people at the Club Fed reunion for people who thought they were smart enough to answer FBI questions without hiring a lawyer.

  262. 262.

    Groucho48

    @PhoenixRising:

    Do you guys remember, back during the first Obama campaign, when a couple of brown folks from the ME bought a bunch of Obama T-Shirts, from his campaign, to sell? Something similar with Gore…a Buddhist Temple, I vaguely remember. And, Clinton had a Chinese bundler. Republicans went crazy about each one and said the Dem had to pull out of the race because of such blatant foreign influence.

  263. 263.

    J R in WV

    @PhoenixRising:

    For a political campaign to accept anything [anything=bag full of rocks and sand] of value from any foreign source is a felony. Everyone who works in politics knows who you can accept donations from and whom you can’t accept anything from.

    In various presidential campaigns even professional Dem fundraisers have had to refund donations and say “I’m sorry!” in the recent past when they took legitimate money blended in with a few foreign donations. No foreign money, garments, ideas, data, notzink.

  264. 264.

    J R in WV

    @MattF:

    @Adam L Silverman: Kevin Drum raises the question of how on earth Manafort thought he would get away with it. He knew that things he was doing were… um, very illegal. But then went ahead and took a high-profile job. Masochism? Death wish? Seriously.

    Perhaps Mr. Manafort had no choice in his decision to take a job he knew would be dangerous. After all, he knew what the Russians he has worked for could do, would do to anyone who defied their wishes, right?

    That may be too simple an answer to the question, but sometimes the simple answer is the right answer.

  265. 265.

    J R in WV

    @p.a.:

    “JKush has deleted all his tweets.”

    Duh!!!

    As if that means the government investigation doesn’t already have copies of every thing he ever did, wrote, sent, received or even looked at on the Internet!

    Everything! Deleted his Tweets!

Comments are closed.