its over from trump. we may see the first imprisonment of a potus. even the justice department has turned on him. if i were Trump, i would fly to moscow and not come back home.
Trump dindu nuffin. Much more at the link. Trump asked intelligence chiefs to push back against FBI collusion probe after Comey revealed its existence President Trump asked two of the nation’s top intelligence officials in March to help him push back against an FBI investigation into possible coordination between his campaign and the Russian government, according to current and former officials. Trump made separate appeals to the director of national intelligence, Daniel Coats, and to Adm. Michael S. Rogers, the director of the National Security Agency, urging them to publicly deny the existence of any evidence of collusion during the 2016 election. Coats and Rogers refused to comply with the requests, which they both deemed to be inappropriate, according to two current and two former officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private communications with the president. Trump sought the assistance of Coats and Rogers after FBI Director James B. Comey told the House Intelligence Committee on March 20that the FBI was investigating “the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia’s efforts.” Trump’s conversation with Rogers was documented contemporaneously in an internal memo written by a senior NSA official, according to the officials. It is unclear if a similar memo was prepared by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to document Trump’s conversation with Coats. Officials said such memos could be made available to both the special counsel now overseeing the Russia investigation and congressional investigators, who might explore whether Trump sought to impede the FBI’s work. A senior intelligence official said that Trump’s goal was to “muddy the waters” about the scope of the FBI probe at a time when Democrats were ramping up their calls for the Justice Department to appoint a special counsel, a step announced last week. Senior intelligence officials also saw the March requests as a threat to the independence of U.S. spy agencies, which are supposed to remain insulated from partisan issues. “The problem wasn’t so much asking them to issue statements, it was asking them to issue false statements about an ongoing investigation,” a former senior intelligence official said of the request to Coats. The NSA and Brian Hale, a spokesman for Coats, declined to comment, citing the ongoing investigation. “The White House does not confirm or deny unsubstantiated claims based on illegal leaks from anonymous individuals,” a White House spokesperson said. “The president will continue to focus on his agenda that he was elected to pursue by the American people.” In addition to the requests to Coats and Rogers, senior White House officials sounded out top intelligence officials about the possibility of intervening directly with Comey to encourage the FBI to drop its probe of Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser, according to people familiar with the matter. The officials said the White House appeared uncertain about its power to influence the FBI. “Can we ask him to shut down the investigation? Are you able to assist in this matter?” one official said of the line of questioning from the White House. The new revelations add to a growing body of evidence that Trump sought to co-opt and then undermine Comey before he fired him May 9. According to notes kept by Comey, Trump first asked for his loyalty at a dinner in January and then, at a meeting the next month, asked him to drop the probe into Flynn. Trump disputes those accounts. Current and former officials said either Trump lacks an understanding of the FBI’s role as an independent law enforcement agency or does not care about maintaining such boundaries. Trump’s effort to use the director of national intelligence and the NSA director to refute Comey’s statement and to say there was no evidence of collusion echoes President Richard Nixon’s “unsuccessful efforts to use the CIA to shut down the FBI’s investigation of the Watergate break-in on national security grounds,” said Jeffrey H. Smith, a former general counsel at the CIA. Smith called Trump’s actions “an appalling abuse of power.” Trump made his appeal to Coats days after Comey’s testimony, according to officials. That same week, Trump telephoned Rogers to make a similar appeal. In his call with Rogers, Trump urged the NSA director to speak out publicly if there was no evidence of collusion, according to officials briefed on the exchange. Rogers was taken aback but tried to respectfully explain why he could not do so, the officials said. For one thing, he could not comment on an ongoing investigation. Rogers added that he would not talk about classified matters in public. While relations between Trump and Comey were strained by the Russia probe, ties between the president and the other intelligence chiefs, including Rogers, Coats and CIA Director Mike Pompeo, appear to be less contentious, according to officials. Rogers met with Trump in New York shortly after the election, and Trump’s advisers at the time held him out as the leading candidate to be the next director of national intelligence.
I think there is a real chance that Trump will get "got" on obstruction despite it coming out that he had direct involvement with any collusion.
I tend to think the Russians would be smart enough not to include the idiot directly, simply because he is an idiot. However, because he is so easily influenced... Former C.I.A. chief talks publicly about concern over possible Russia ties to Trump campaign. Mr. Brennan, the former C.I.A. director, said Tuesday that he became concerned last year that the Russian government was trying to influence members of the Trump campaign to act — wittingly or unwittingly — on Moscow’s behalf. “I encountered and am aware of information and intelligence that revealed contacts and interactions between Russian officials and U.S. persons involved in the Trump campaign that I was concerned about because of known Russian efforts to suborn such individuals,” Mr. Brennan told lawmakers on the House Intelligence Committee. “It raised questions in my mind about whether Russia was able to gain the cooperation of those individuals,” he said, adding that he did not know whether the Russian efforts were successful. He added, “I don’t know whether such collusion existed.” It was the first time he publicly acknowledged that he was concerned about possible ties between Russia and the Trump campaign. He said he left office in January with many unanswered questions about the Russian influence operation. Intelligence officials have said that Russia tried to tip the election toward Mr. Trump. — Matt Apuzzo
This is fast becoming The Days of Trump Lies. What a soap opera - can't wait until this man is gone and someone more sane is back in the oval office.
Trying and failing... And... in response to Gowdy's telling CNN reporter that Russians contacting campaigns is normal...
Lawyering up... Trump retains Marc Kasowitz as private attorney for Russia probe -reports https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-counsel-idUSKBN18J30W?il=0
... and Fox must have greater doubts, since they are (1) still trying to disqualify Mueller and (2) trying to argue that heck, collusion between campaigns and Russians isn't illegal anyway... http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017...vestigating-since-collusion-is-not-crime.html
Kasowitz last represented Trump in the Trump university fraud case, which trump agreed to pay back the defrauded students he also help trump to file a frivolous law suit against the author of "TrumpNation", who asserted that Trump's net worth was ~ $350 Million, not the billions that Trump had been boasting, for $5 Billion. trump lost; then the appeal court rejected his appeal btw, Kasowitz has no experience defending a Federal employee for malfeasance
After the Benghazi fiasco by Trey Gowdy, I knew he had problems, but he is really unknowledgeable. Why is he asking someone from the CIA about evidence? The CIA doesn't collect evidence. As Brennen said, they found out there was communication going on, and kicked it over to the FBI to investigate. Gowdy really seemed lost up there.
i'm surprised he hasn't lost his hair with all this drama. so he's not a billionaire? This one is new to me.
Kasowitz is an odd choice for this vital role: he’s defending Sberbank—which is majority owned by the Russian government—against allegations related to corporate raiding Sberbank also happens to be run by Herman Gref, the influential former economy minister for president Vladimir Putin. This means Kasowitz can invoke attorney-client privilege with both the US president and an extension of the Russian government. https://qz.com/990164/amazons-first-bookstore-in-new-york-city-sucks-the-joy-out-of-buying-books/
http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/24/politics/jeff-sessions-russian-officials-meetings/index.html Oh look... our nations top cop in the news again. Sessions did NOT disclose multiple meetings with Russians. That's not suspicious at all. To our Republican friends: please give me one good explainion why it is okay for someone with this stature to have broken protocol and lied about meeting with a foreign adversary? Of all the times to lie, during your security clearance? Really Jeff?? Just humor me.
