Donald Trump took to Twitter to blame Democrats and “a few Republicans”
for the failure of the GOP healthcare bill in the Senate. He then ended
his infantile rant with an ominous threat that “we will return.” Does
he not understand that people don’t want the GOP’s healthcare “fix” and
that the entire Republican Party needs to simply move on? Ring of Fire’s
Farron Cousins discusses this.
With the recent collapse of their healthcare bill in the Senate, the
Republican Party has shown us that they are incapable of leading this
country. Obviously, the death of their healthcare bill is a good thing,
but you have to wonder how these people can control so much of this
country without any clue how to lead. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins
discusses this.
From the beginning, people around me talked nonstop about the end.
How
long could Donald Trump’s presidency possibly last? Would impeachment
or the 25th Amendment undo him? Before Trump, few of us even knew
of the 25th Amendment, which allows the vice president and a majority
of the cabinet to decree the president unfit. But suddenly everybody was
up to speed, and no sooner had Trump been inaugurated than the “would
you rather” question du jour became him versus Mike Pence. All-purpose
lunacy or religious zeal: Choose your governance. Pick your poison.
Part
of this, yes, reflected the company I keep. It doesn’t brim with Trump
enthusiasts. But more of this came down to Trump himself — the lidless
grandiosity, the bottomless vulgarity, the lies atop lies upon lies.
I’ll never forget his second day in office, not just because he used an
appearance at the C.I.A. to crow
at great length about his many Time magazine covers and to insist,
despite ready evidence to the contrary, that any beef of his with
intelligence agencies was a media invention. It stays with me because of
a text message I received from a journalist who covers him as well as
any other, understands him better and was utterly flabbergasted by that
display.
“We’re
all going to die,” it said. While there was jest and hyperbole in that,
there was also genuine alarm and the dark realization that Trump would
not be transmogrified by the oath of office into anything approaching a
dignified, responsible statesman. No, his extra power was just making
him extra mean, and what we saw before Nov. 8 was what we got from Jan.
20 onward: a child in a man’s suit, a knave in a knight’s armor, a
dangerous experiment with unforeseeable consequences.
They’re
more seeable now. As of Thursday, July 20, Trump will have inhabited
the presidency for a full six months, and we can reach certain
conclusions with a measure of confidence.
No
one can yet say how or when it ends. His dim namesake’s antics,
evasions and omissions have reinvigorated talk of impeachment, but
Republican lawmakers’ statements
last week don’t support that scenario. With rare exception, the
sternest words came from the most predictable quarters and hardly rose
to the level of revolt. Maybe that’s a relief. Can you imagine Trump,
with his thin skin and martyr complex, in the throes of impeachment?
He’d wail and thrash and tear down everything around him. I mean, more
than now.
We have to stop rolling our eyes when he brags about how much he has done, because he’s right. He has done plenty.
With
his stances on climate change, trade and refugees and with all the air
kisses blown at Vladimir Putin, he has altered our place in the world
and splintered its postwar framework.
Don’t be reassured by the recent
pleasantries between him and Emmanuel Macron: Much of Western Europe is reeling
from what it considers a surrender of American leadership. This,
post-Trump, may be reparable. But I wonder if our sturdiest allies will
ever feel quite the same way about this country again.
With
his first Supreme Court appointment, he showed what he would almost
surely do with a second and third: fully indulge the social
conservatives who are one of the most dependable components of his base.
If he lasts a full term and the Senate remains, as is likely, in
Republican hands after the 2018 midterms, he could leave behind a court
that leans sharply to the right for a generation to come.
With his sloppiness, scandals and inner circle of arrogant neophytes, he is frittering away time. That’s hardly a singular accomplishment, but we can’t afford more government paralysis and procrastination. Infrastructure that’s no longer competitive (or safe), a tax code crying out for revision, a work force without the right skills: When do we fix this? How far behind do we fall?
And what, in the meantime, happens to Americans’ already shriveled faith in Washington? Trump’s election reflected many voters’ exasperation with the status quo and sense of permanent estrangement from some gilded clique of winners. He was their pyrrhic retort. How much hotter will their anger burn when they realize they got played?
I’m more likely to win a season of “The Bachelorette” than he is to build that incessantly promised wall. His professed disdain for Wall Street was a campaign-season pose, abandoned the minute he started assembling his administration. Health care that’s better, cheaper and more universal? Oh, please.
It’s possible that Trump’s fans will never blame him, because of one of his most self-serving and corrosive feats: the stirring of partisanship and distrust of institutions into the conviction that there’s no such thing as objective truth. There are only rival claims. There are always “alternative facts.” Charges of mere bias are the antiquated weapons of yesteryear; “fake news” is the new nullifier, and it’s a phrase so dear to him that his unprincipled acolytes are building on it. Last week a Trump adviser, Sebastian Gorka, lashed out at the “fake news industrial complex.” Trump reportedly swooned.
What happens to a democracy whose citizens not only lose common ground but also take a match to the idea of a common reality? Thanks in part to Trump, we may find out. He doesn’t care about civility or basic decency, and even if he did, he lacks the discipline to yoke his actions to any ideals. The Democratic strategist Doug Sosnik expressed it perfectly, telling me, “His presidency is what happens when you have road rage in the Oval Office.”
I was just 9 when Richard Nixon resigned and a teenager during the Jimmy Carter years. I began paying close attention only with Ronald Reagan. He and every one of his successors bent the truth, to varying degrees. He and every successor had a vanity that sometimes ran contrary to the public good. But none came close to Trump in those regards.
None shrugged off conflicts of interest the way he does. None publicly savaged women (and men) based on their looks or supposed cosmetic surgery. None made gloating a trademark of his public discourse. Two scoops for Trump, one for everybody else. He’s president and you’re not. The pettiness radiates outward, as does the viciousness and lack of ethics — to his lawyers, to his kin.
And it’s more than just coarse spectacle. It’s an assault on what it means to be president and what the presidency means. The injury to the office won’t be quick to heal.
I can’t shake two incidents in particular. A few weeks before his inauguration, Trump tweeted a New Year greeting that was, instead, a spitball thrown at anyone who hadn’t genuflected before him. Last month, he coaxed his cabinet members to kiss his ring as the television cameras rolled. Those grotesque bookends affirmed that he is changeless and that he rules as he lives, for Trump and Trump alone.
In Trump's defense on this one, the meeting between Donald Trump Jr.,
Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort and a Russian team sent to offer Russian
government "support" for the Trump campaign was a campaign meeting, not a
personal one. So this is fine.
President Donald Trump appears to have used more than half a
million dollars in campaign funds to pay legal fees over the last three
months, new campaign filings show.
The spending included $50,000 in legal expenses to lawyer Alan Futerfas, who is now representing Donald Trump Jr., on June 27th.
That's why Trump quickly launched a "re-election" campaign immediately
after entering office, of course. So he could collect a half-million
dollars from his brigade of red-hat-wearing morons to pay for his legal defenses out of their own pockets.
As we said, it would be a real problem if Donald Trump were siphoning
off cash from his own campaign for the personal benefit of his wealthy
but incredibly stupid son. But Trump is fully acknowledging that the
meeting with a Russian team set up under the explicit declaration that it was "part of" the Russian government's support
for the campaign, a mere week before the Russian government began to
leak thousands of files stolen from Trump's campaign opponent, was a
campaign meeting involving his campaign staff to hear the provided
information in their capacity as leaders of the Trump campaign.
Being a HYPOCRITE is just part of being a TRUMP. How is that fight
against cyber-bullying coming Melania? Or what about women's rights
Ivanka? Hosted by Francis Maxwell. See more TYT Facebook Originals at http://fb.com/theyoungturks/videos
On Monday, the Interceptpublished a classified internal NSA document
noting that Russian military intelligence mounted an operation to hack
at least one US voting software supplier—which provided software related
to voter registration files—in the months prior to last year’s
presidential contest. It has previously been reported that Russia
attempted to hack into voter registration systems, but this NSA document
provides details of how one such operation occurred.
According to the Intercept:
The top-secret National Security Agency document, which was provided
anonymously to The Intercept and independently authenticated, analyzes
intelligence very recently acquired by the agency about a months-long
Russian intelligence cyber effort against elements of the US election
and voting infrastructure. The report, dated May 5, 2017, is the most
detailed US government account of Russian interference in the election
that has yet come to light.
While the document provides a rare window into the NSA’s
understanding of the mechanics of Russian hacking, it does not show the
underlying “raw” intelligence on which the analysis is based. A US
intelligence officer who declined to be identified cautioned against
drawing too big a conclusion from the document because a single analysis
is not necessarily definitive.
The report indicates that Russian hacking may have penetrated further
into US voting systems than was previously understood. It states
unequivocally in its summary statement that it was Russian military
intelligence, specifically the Russian General Staff Main Intelligence
Directorate, or GRU, that conducted the cyber attacks described in the
document:
Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate actors … executed
cyber espionage operations against a named U.S. company in August 2016,
evidently to obtain information on elections-related software and
hardware solutions. … The actors likely used data obtained from that
operation to … launch a voter registration-themed spear-phishing
campaign targeting U.S. local government organizations.
Let's be clear here: The Republican Party holds the power it does
because it is unafraid to lie. From the overhyped fear of Communism to
the overhyped fear of crime to the overhyped fear of terrorism, the GOP
has jumped from lie to lie to lie in order to maintain power, often
pivoting back to ones that work so well, like welfare fraud and, time
and again, crime. They recovered from their near dismantling in 2006 and
2008, after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 washed away the Bush bullshit, by
going big with the lies about Barack Obama and, especially, about the
Affordable Care Act. And as Republican leaders in the Senate desperately
try to come up with a way to squeeze out one more turd of a Trumpcare
bill, they are lying with abandon, and not just about what's in the aforementioned turd.
Obamacare markets aren't "collapsing." They're stabilizing. People on the Medicaid expansion aren't desperate to get rid of it. They are satisfied with the care they are getting. Over two-thirds of the country, including a majority of Republicans, support the birth control mandate in Obamacare, the subject of another fake controversy just to appeal to yahoo religious nutzoids.
And the reason that they've gotten away with lying is that they are so
fucking good at it. They are so fucking good at playing the media,
playing their constituents, playing the Democrats, playing everyone.
They are master bullshitters. They get away with it because conservative
ideas in a political context are so fucking simple to understand.
What's easier on the brain? "We should provide decent education,
housing, job-training, and anti-poverty programs to help combat crime"?
Or "Lock 'em up"? Democrats can't compete until they come up with a
better story than the lies that have worked so well for so long.
It was going along so well for the GOP until the Trumps, this family of
outsiders, came along and fucked it all up. Donald Trump, Jared Kushner,
and Junior have lived on a privileged plane of existence, where having a
cadre of brutish dickhead attorneys on retainer is enough of a
deterrent for anyone who would dare question them or try to get paid
fairly. They could intimidate people into silence or, if that fails,
settle any lawsuits with the handy provisions that they admit no guilt
and the plaintiffs can't talk about it. They could be bumblefuck corrupt
business shitheels and get away with it.
The biggest problem in getting into the public arena is that, all of a
sudden, the Trumps have to deal with the federal government, an entity
that doesn't just have lawyers but entire goddamned bureaus devoted to
investigating just the kind of fuckery that the Trumps have regularly
been involved in. Throw in a media that realizes it had better make
itself relevant again or just fucking give up, and a group of people as
boisterously, unashamedly moronic as the Trumps don't stand a chance.
You don't want to be probed and pilloried? Then either don't be corrupt
(except in the usual way of sucking up to Wall Street and other rich
fucks - that's just sadly acceptable now), like Obama, who could take
all the shit and toss it back, or don't fucking run for office.
We'll never know what toxic combination of hubris, narcissism, and
lickspittlism got Donald Trump to run for president to win. But we do
know that another toxic combination got him elected, and one of the
primary ingredients in that poison was the interference of the Russian
government. We also know that we are learning all this because the Trump
family was too fucking dumb to cover it up well. They're shitty liars
as well as being shitty human beings.
You can imagine Karl Rove slapping his bloated forehead when he saw the
emails between cartoon louche Richie Gallstone or whatever the fuck that
guy's name is and Donald Trump, Jr. You can imagine Rove getting on the
phone with John Boehner and the two of them, liars of the first order,
screaming with laughter, "The subject
line...the subject line is 'Russia-Clinton.'" You can imagine them both
calling Mitch McConnell and taunting him about having to deal with this
shit. You can imagine McConnell slowly cursing the fact that he worked
so hard to get all these lies working, all the cocksucking and
ratfucking that went into them, and now they're being brought down by
these Trump assholes.
You can be corrupt. You can be stupid. You can't be stupid and corrupt.
Otherwise, you don't know when to shut the fuck up. You don't know when
to keep your head down. You don't know when to not fucking tweet out the
evidence that, at the very least, reveals the very thing everyone has
been trying to pin on you.
So now it falls to the professional liars, the liars with experience, to
try to unfuck this fucked up situation. You are going to see a
hard-press from the right-wing attack dogs about how this is nothing,
how the Democrats are more corrupt and destructive, how it was just a
Washington naif's error. It's happening already,
and they're saying that it's essentially treasonous to not support the
president, a hypocrisy that they have no problem with. They'll say it's
about bringing down the great man Trump, it's about sour grapes over the
failure in the election, and it's about the mighty flag-waving patriots
who don't want to see the country dragged down by what they don't even
see as a scandal.
Which brings us back to the top of this here post. The Trump lies and
power-at-any-cost actions are part and parcel of what the Republican
Party does. The GOP is filthy with masterful sleaze merchants. They can
fuck your ears and tell you it was God's blessing. It's going to be up
to the Democrats to come up with a simple, straightforward narrative
here that can slap the Republicans down until they scurry back to the
gutter.
How this turns out will reveal who gives a shit about the nation. Who is
enraged that this has happened. Who the real patriots are.
(Note: Sure, Democrats went along some of the time with GOP lies because
they can get swept up in a lie as much as anyone, but they rarely have
been the originators of a big lie in the last 50 years. And, yeah, the
country ain't perfect. No shit. Patriots work to make it better.)
1. Let's do this one more time, President Pussygrabber McCrazy. Consider this a lesson in the law.
James Comey could have leaked all the classified information he could get his large hands on.
Hillary Clinton could have mishandled classified emails and done something something with uranium and Russia.
Bill Clinton could have told Loretta Lynch exactly what to say about Hillary.
Every news channel that isn't Fox could be totally fake.
Barack Obama could have done nothing about Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Democrats could have colluded with Russians or Ukrainians or another foreign country during the election.
All the intelligence agencies could be leaking to do damage to the administration.
All of those things can be true, but none of them change the fact that you can still be guilty of obstruction of justice.
A murderer cannot use as a defense that his neighbor is a murderer, too.
But both Trump and his son constantly tweet out what they say others
are guilty of, as if to say, "If you let them get away with it, you have
to let us get away with it." It's like neither of them understand that
Hillary Clinton isn't the president and that Barack Obama is out of
office.
2. Speaking of Pussygrabber McCrazy, Jr., he is still insisting there was nothing untoward about his meeting,
along with Paul "Eyes That Have Seen Trump Nude" Manafort and Jared
"Would Gladly Fuck a Dead Raccoon If His Father-in-Law Told Him To"
Kushner, with a Russian lawyer. His explanation for having giving two
seemingly contradictory statements about the meeting
is "No inconsistency in statements, meeting ended up being primarily
about adoptions. In response to further Q's I simply provided more
details." No, motherfucker, you lied and thought you could get away with
it. It's just like the campaign lied from the start about hookups with Russians in general.
3. First off, this "adoption" thing is a bullshit excuse. It has to do with the Magnitsky Act, passed
by Congress and signed by President Obama in 2012 in order to punish
Russian government officials and oligarchs who are involved in human
rights abuses and fraud. It froze the assets of some really rich Russian
dicks, and Putin had a hissy, so he banned Americans from adopting
Russian babies. Putin hates the Act and wants it repealed. The lawyer
who Junior met with, Natalia Veselnitskaya, is involved in an effort to
get it repealed. Adoption is part of it, but this is about cold fuckin'
cash and power.
4. But the really fucked-up part of this is that when a Russian
associated with the Kremlin wanted to get together at Trump fuckin'
Plaza because she had dirt on Hillary Clinton, Junior's response was,
"Well, sure" when it should have been "I better call the FBI." But he
couldn't do that because Junior is cut from the same scuzzy cloth as his
father and the Trumps likely owe the Russians a metric fuck-ton of money and jump when told to.
4a. One fun part that hasn't gotten much discussion: Veselnitskaya
"recalled that after about 10 minutes, either Mr. Kushner or Mr.
Manafort left the room." She makes it seem that it's because nothing
significant was discussed. But it could have been that they thought,
"Oh, crap, this is illegal" and got the fuck out of Dodge. (Or they were
rushing to tell Daddy about what they learned. He was in the building
that day, June 9, 2016.)
5. Look, I'm not running around with my hair on fire and game theorizing
the shit out of all this on Twitter. I've been circumspect, definitely
leaning towards the "this is hinky" side of things with Russia. But at
some goddamned point, if you keep sucking dicks for money for meth,
you're a meth whore. Sure, sure, you suck one or two dicks and get paid
and then go buy meth, maybe we can let it slide as tweaker shit. But if
you're doing it every day, then you, my friend, have a problem with
meth. And handling your finances. But mostly meth.
It's becoming more difficult to deny that the Trump administration is a meth whore. And we know who the john is.
Over
73 percent of Democrats would give up alcohol for the rest of their
life if it meant President Trump would be impeached tomorrow, according to a survey released on Thursday by a drug and alcohol rehabilitation group.
Only
17 percent of Republicans would give up alcohol for Trump’s
impeachment. The poll also found that nearly 31 percent of Republicans
would give up drinking if it meant the media stopped writing negative
things about President Trump.
Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) formally introduced an article
of impeachment against President Trump on Wednesday, accusing the
president of obstructing justice during the investigation of Russia’s
2016 election interference. It was the first time a lawmaker had offered
an impeachment article against Trump.
Detox.net
surveyed 1,013 active alcohol drinkers on March 14 and asked questions
related to what they would be willing to sacrifice in exchange for
alcohol. Forty-one percent of those surveyed identified as women, 58
percent as men and 1 percent identified as a gender not listed on the
survey.
As for political affiliation, 21 percent identified as Republican, 43 percent as Democrat and 36 percent as other.
The
minimum amount of money the Americans surveyed would accept to quit
drinking for a year is at least $4,700 and to give up alcohol for life
they would expect at least $365,458.
There was a 5
percentage point margin of error when asking about the average minimum
amount of money respondents would be willing to give accept to give up
alcohol.
Jimmy Kimmel took White House counselor Kellyanne Conway to task on his
Monday night show for her constant refusal to actually address the
questions that the media asks her.
According to the New York Times Donald Trump Jr., his brother in law
Jared Kushner and Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort met with a
Russian lawyer to hear what they thought would be information that could
hurt Hillary Clinton.
It’s all very fishy, so we invited White House
spokesperson Kellyanne Conway live via satellite to clear it all up.
Over
the weekend, as the import of the Donald Trump Jr meeting became clear,
but before this morning’s emails release, I started going back through
my notes to piece together the timeline of events and whether they
looked different in the light of the new revelations. And? Good guess!
They look a lot different. For the moment, look at the timeline after
the jump starting in April and running through August. That is the
critical part. The critical addition of the Don Jr meeting fits right
into a critical period when what we understand were Russian intelligence
operatives were trying various vehicles to surface emails that were
stolen during the spring. Look at the timeline after the jump – again,
go ahead to April 2016.
June 16th, 2015: Donald Trump announces his candidacy for President of the United States.
Circa Summer 2015: The US government alleges that Russian hackers first gain access to DNC computer networks.
Circa August 2015: Trump staff arranges first meeting between Trump and General Flynn, according to Flynn’s account in an August 2016 interview
with The Washington Post. “I got a phone call from his team. They asked
if he would be willing meet with Mr. Trump and I did. … In late summer
2015.”
August 8th, 2015: Roger Stone leaves formal role
in Trump campaign. Whether he quits or was fired is disputed. Stone
will continue as a key, albeit informal advisor, for the remainder of
the campaign.
December 10th, 2015: Michael Flynn attends conference and banquet
in Moscow to celebrate the 10th anniversary of RT (formerly Russia
today). Flynn is seated next to Russian President Vladimir Putin at the
concluding banquet.
March 19th, 2016: Hackers successfully hack into Clinton campaign Chairman John Podesta’s email.
March 21st, 2016: In a meeting with The Washington Post
editorial board, Trump provides a list of five foreign policy advisors.
The list includes Carter Page but not Michael Flynn. The list is Walid
Phares, Carter Page, George Papadopoulos, Joe Schmitz, and ret. Lt. Gen.
Keith Kellogg.
March 28th, 2016: Trump campaign hires Paul Manafort to oversee delegate operations for campaign. Manafort becomes the dominant figure running the campaign by late April and takes over as campaign manager on June 21st with the firing of campaign manager Corey Lewandowski.
February-April 2016: Flynn advisory relationship with Trump appears to have solidified over the Spring of 2016. In late January Flynn is mentioned as an advisor who has “regular interactions” with Trump. There are similar mentions in February and March. Yet as late as mid-March, Flynn appeared to downplay his ties to Trump. By May Flynn is routinely listed as an advisor and by late May is even being mooted as a possible vice presidential pick.
April 2016: DNC network administrators first notice suspicious activity on Committee computer networks in late April, 2016, according to The Washington Post. The DNC retains the services of network security firm Crowdstrike which expels hackers from the DNC computer network. Crowdstrike tells The Washington Post it believes hackers had been operating inside the DNC networks since the Summer of 2015.
April 19th, 2016: “DCLeaks.com” url/address registered.
May 3rd, 2016: Donald J. Trump becomes becomes presumptive nominee after Ted Cruz and John Kasich withdraw from race.
May 26th, 2016: Donald J. Trump officially secure majority of GOP delegates, officially clinching the nomination of the Republican party.
June 3rd, 2016:
First email contact between Rob Goldstone and Donald Trump Jr. about
meeting with “Russian government lawyer” with damaging information about
Hillary Clinton.
June 7th, 2016: Donald J Trump gives speech in which he promises
a major speech about Hillary Clinton’s crimes on June 13th. “I am going
to give a major speech on … probably Monday [June 13th] of next week
and we’re going to be discussing all of the things that have taken place
with the Clintons. I think you’re going to find it very informative and
very, very interesting.”
June 8th, 2016: First tweet posted to “DCLeaks” Twitter account.
June 9th, 2016:
Donald Trump, Jr., Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort meet with Natalia
Veselnitskaya. Trump agreed to take the meeting after being told by
Trump associate Rob Goldstone that Veselnitskaya had damaging
information about Hillary Clinton which came from a Russian government
operation to help his father Donald J. Trump.
June 12th, 2016: Julian Assange first announces
that Wikileaks has Clinton emails which are soon to be released.
“Wikileaks has a very big year ahead … We have emails related to Hillary
Clinton which are pending publication.”
June 14, 2016: Washington Postpublishes first account of hacking of the DNC computer networks, allegedly by hackers working on behalf of the Russian government.
June 15th, 2016:
“Guccifer 2.0”, later identified by US government officials and other
private sector analysts as a fictive persona created by Russian
intelligence operatives, contacts The Smoking Gun to take credit for hacking the DNC.
July 12th, 2016: Official publication date, The Field of Fight by Michael Flynn and Michael Ledeen.
July 22, 2016: Wikileaks releases first tranche of DNC emails dating from January 2015 to May 2016.
July 27th, 2016:
Donald Trump asks Russia to hack Clinton’s email to find 33,000 alleged
lost emails: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you can find the
33,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded
mightily by our press.”
August 1st, 2016: Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort denies Trump campaign changed GOP platform on Russia and Ukraine.
August 8th, 2016: Trump Advisor Roger Stone tells
Southwest Broward Republican Organization “I actually have communicated
with Assange. I believe the next tranche of his documents pertain to
the Clinton Foundation but there’s no telling what the October surprise
may be.”
August 14th, 2016: The New York Times publishes
story detailing handwritten ledgers showing “$12.7 million in
undisclosed cash payments designated for Mr. Manafort from Mr.
Yanukovych’s pro-Russian political party from 2007 to 2012, according to
Ukraine’s newly formed National Anti-Corruption Bureau.”
August 19, 2016: Paul Manafort resigns from Trump campaign.
August 21, 2016: Trump advisor Roger Stone tweets: “Trust me, it will soon [sic] the Podesta’s time in the barrel.”
September 26th, 2016: Trump Russia-Europe Policy Advisor Carter Page steps down from campaign
while disputing allegations that he engaged in private communications
with Russian government officials. A Yahoo News article from three days
earlier reported that US intelligence officials were probing whether he
met privately with Russian officials in Moscow in July, including an
alleged meeting with close Putin ally Igor Sechin, Chairman of Russian oil company Rosneft.
September 26th, 2016: At first presidential debate, Donald Trump casts doubt
on Russian role in hacking campaign: “It could be Russia, but it could
also be China. It could also be lots of other people. It also could be
somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds.”
October 7, 2016: A “Joint Statement from the Department of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence” officially accuses the Russian government of being behind hacking of the DNC “to interfere with the US election process.”
October 30th, 2016:
In response to FBI Director James Comey’s letter to Congress about new
developments in the Clinton email server probe, Senate Minority Leader
Harry Reid writes a public letter to Comey
in which he claims: “In my communications with you and other top
officials in the national security community, it has become clear that
you possess explosive information about close ties and coordination
between Donald Trump, his top advisors, and the Russian government.”
December 29th, 2016: Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov vows retaliation for sanctions.
December 29th, 2016: Incoming National Security Michael Flynn has multiple phone conversations with Russian Sergey Kislyak. It is later reported
that the calls covered US sanctions and suggestions that Obama’s
punitive actions could be undone in a matter of weeks. Trump
administration officials had repeatedly denied that the conversations
involved more than pleasantries and logistics about future meetings.
January 19th, 2017: The New York Times reports
that the FBI is leading an interagency task force probing ties between
Russia and three close Trump associates: Paul Manafort, Carter Page and
Roger Stone.
January 26th, 2017: Acting Attorney General
Sally Yates and a senior intelligence official visit to White House
Counsel Donald McGahn to deliver the message that National Security
Advisor Flynn has deceived the Vice President about the subject matter
of his calls and may be subject to Russian blackmail.
February 13th, 2017: Michael Flynn resigns as National Security Advisor.
Conway alleged that the “New Day” co-host was attempting to go viral,
but it was Conway that lit up the Internet with commentary.
The interviews caught her in a series of awkward pivots and obvious
hypocrisy, namely that she mentioned a report about former FBI director
James Comey that cited anonymous sources. Trump and his White House has
notoriously criticized the media for using anonymous sources.
Twitter users weren’t having any of it. They attacked Conway for both
interviews and heralded Cuomo’s dogged attempts to get Conway to
understand Donald Trump Jr. accepting a meeting with a Russian lawyer is
an admission of guilt.