A white Pennsylvania man is going to prison and losing his home after he was convicted of harassing his black neighbors over a period of years, reports The Morning Call.
According to the report, 45 year old Robert Kujawa of Easton, was found guilty by a jury of ethnic intimidation, harassment, stalking and is facing two to four years in state prison.
In their case against Kujawa, prosecutors claimed that the man hung Confederate flags in the windows of his home that faced his black neighbor’s home, and used a racial slur against the woman and her son when they were in the backyard — which Kujawa has denied.
According to the family, the man also used a pellet gun to shoot out their outdoor lights and damage their furniture, forcing them purchase a security system, lighting and a fence and forbid their sons from playing in their yard.
Following the announcement of the verdict, Judge Jennifer Sletvold noted that Kujawa was previously convicted of harassment of the family in 2015 and the following year admitted to reckless endangerment, with the judge stating, “Over the course of many years, Mr. Kujawa robbed this family of their peace.”
At his Friday hearing Kujawa apologized, saying he is losing his home to foreclosure and that he plans on leaving state once his 10th grade daughter graduates.
“I’m really remorseful,” Kujawa told the court. “I’m really sorry that it got to this point.”
According to his neighbor, Biafra Baker, “We just wanted to raise our children. We didn’t ask for any of this.”
For an ethnic intimidation conviction in Pennsylvania, authorities must show that a defendant committed a separate offense — in this case, stalking — for bigoted reasons.
You can watch a clip of Kujawa harassing his neighbors below via the Lehigh Valley Live on YouTube:
The FBI on Friday issued a formal warning that a sophisticated Russia-linked hacking campaign is compromising hundreds of thousands of home network devices worldwide and it is advising owners to reboot these devices in an attempt to disrupt the malicious software.
The law enforcement agency said foreign cyber actors are targeting routers in small or home offices with a botnet — or a network of infected devices — known as VPNFilter.
Cybersecurity experts and officials say VPNFilter has infected an estimated 500,000 devices worldwide.
The FBI recommends any owner of small office and home office routers reboot the devices to temporarily disrupt the malware and aid the potential identification of infected devices," the bureau's cyber division wrote in a public alert.
"Owners are advised to consider disabling remote management settings on devices and secure with strong passwords and encryption when enabled. Network devices should be upgraded to the latest available versions of firmware."
Earlier this week, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the bureau was working to disrupt the malware, which officials have linked to the cyber espionage group known as APT 28 or Sofacy.
Experts at Cisco’s threat intelligence arm Talos on Wednesday first called attention to VPNFilter, warning that hackers are ramping up malware attacks against Ukraine, infecting thousands of devices ahead of an upcoming national holiday in the country.
"While this isn't definitive by any means, we have also observed VPNFilter, a potentially destructive malware, actively infecting Ukrainian hosts at an alarming rate, utilizing a command and control infrastructure dedicated to that country," Talos wrote in a blog post.
"Both the scale and the capability of this operation are concerning. Working with our partners, we estimate the number of infected devices to be at least 500,000 in at least 54 countries."
The firm warned that VPNFilter could wreak havoc in a number of ways, from stealing website credentials to causing widespread internet disruption.
"The malware has a destructive capability that can render an infected device unusable, which can be triggered on individual victim machines or en masse, and has the potential of cutting off Internet access for hundreds of thousands of victims worldwide."
You see that up there? That's Major General Benedict Arnold's Oath of Allegiance to the United States, signed,
in the middle of the Revolutionary War, on May 30, 1778 at Valley
Forge. By the end of 1779, Arnold was working for the British to defeat
the United States. Lotta fuckin' good that loyalty oath did, huh?
Professing your love of nation doesn't mean shit if you don't act like
you love it.
Every generation or so, we have to go through this ludicrous exercise in
symbol worship. Anti-flag-burning still rears its ugly-ass head every
now and then even though the Supreme Court said in 1989 that it was free
speech. You know who joined
the majority in that case? Motherfuckin' Antonin Scalia who, when asked
about it years later, said he did it because the First Amendment is the
First Amendment. "If it were up to me, I would put in jail every
sandal-wearing, scruffy-bearded weirdo who burns the American flag. But I
am not king," he said in 2015. You got that? Freedom of speech
specifically allows us to say things like "your bullshit symbols are
bullshit."
And it allows us to not have to worship whatever symbols people in power
tell us to worship. During the flag-burning debate, I wrote a comic
piece about a joyful flag maker who is encouraging people to burn flags
because he makes more money that way. The point was that a flag is a
product, often not even made in the United States, that is purchased and
is the property of the person who purchased it. If I bought it, it's
mine. If I wanna wipe my ass with it, I can because capitalism.
You wanna assign each person their own flag that was sanctified with the
blood of George Washington or whatnot, then we can talk about
restrictions. But after 9/11, I saw flags that were flown to show pride
in country that were just left up, on vehicles and homes, in the rain,
in the wind, until they were faded in color, ragged, and worn, which, if
you think about it, was pretty damn symbolic for the nation we became
pretty quickly after 9/11. But no one was screaming that the pick-up
truck driver with an NRA sticker and a "We Support the Troops" magnet
should fuckin' respect the flag by taking that threadbare piece shit off
his antenna, even though he should have.
Which gets us to the National Anthem.
Look, if you think the National Anthem is a good song, you're just
wrong. It sucks. It's a terrible song with warmongering, violent words, a
flag fetish, and a ludicrously bad melody that is only vaguely
interesting to hear sung to see if the poor singer can actually hit the
high note towards the end, at which point the dogs of Pavlovian
patriotism in a crowd applaud for the singer not fucking it up.
Seriously, though, we have one bullshit national anthem.
When the National Football League owners released its new policy that commands
all players on the field to stand during the National Anthem or face
fines, they may as well have wiped their asses with the stars and
stripes. It didn't have to be this way. They could have just let the
protest happen. Colin Kaepernick and the other players who knelt were
protesting the mistreatment of African Americans by the police. Then our
fucking dickhead resident saw a chance to exploit people's racism and
stupidity by condemning players for daring to have an opinion that
wasn't his.
And that savage orange bastard said today that he agreed
with the new policy. "You have to stand proudly for the national anthem
or you shouldn’t be playing, you shouldn’t be there. Maybe you
shouldn’t be in the country," he told pubic lice on Fox and Friends
this morning. You should lose your job and your citizenship if you
don't stand when a shitty song is played before a bunch of millionaires
beat themselves into insanity for our entertainment and line the pockets
of even richer men who would demand that they stand. Oh, they won't
lock the bathrooms and the concession stands during the anthem at
AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. You can be sitting on a toilet and
taking a shit while the Dallas Cowboys are forced to stand.
So now it's not just about protesting police violence. Now the only
patriotic thing to do is to kneel when you're at a public event and they
stupidly play our dumb anthem. At a Little League game? Take a knee. At
a school event? Take a knee. At a football stadium? Take a fuckin'
knee. Because the brutish asshole who leads this country still ain't a
king, even though he wants to be. And enforced patriotism is just a way
to make sure that people fuckin' hate the bullshit symbols.
You don't need to sign an oath or pledge to a flag or stand for a song
to love your country. In fact, a country that makes you do that ain't
worth your love. So show the players that are forced to stand that you
still have a choice. Use it while you can.
Rachel Maddow puts into perspective former Director of National
Intelligence James Clapper's assertion that Donald Trump is only in
office because Russia put him there, and what that means to current
political events.
I have been sitting here, drinking away the lunch hour(s), trying to
figure out a way to encapsulate the hog pile of fuckery that has involved
the Trump administration just in the last few days.
I've thought about metaphors, like say Donald Trump is pretty much a guy
who likes to fuck sheep but he's always just lived on a small farm with
only a couple of sheep in the barn for him to fuck, but then, all of a
sudden, someone mistakes his fucking of sheep for being a really good
shepherd and he's hired to take care of a giant flock which for him is
like fuck paradise and now he's fucking all the sheep he can, fucking
them every which way, in their sheep asses, in their sheep pussies, in
their sheep ears, sometimes just rubbing his dick on the fleece on their
bodies until he orgasms, and no one's stopping him, no matter how much
people point over the fence and say, "He's fucking the sheep, sweet
Jesus. He's fucking the sheep," but no one who could stop him from
sheep-fucking is going to stop him, and, horrible as it is, you can't
look away because there's a fat old man fucking sheep.
But I didn't feel like that metaphor captured the nuances of the situation.
I've thought about recent history, like the "Chinagate" "scandal," where
Bill Clinton was accused of shifting policy to favor the Chinese
because China had attempted to donate to Democrats, including the
president's reelection campaign, and Clinton's legal defense fund.
Without getting into the muck of the details and the conflicting
conclusions (although some on the right really believe this is The Worst
Scandal In American History and Clinton should have been shot for it),
let's just deal with objectively what occurred: there were Justice
Department investigations that included teams of FBI agents involved, a
Senate investigation, and a House investigation, with Democrats,
including Joe Biden, being critical of Clinton.
At no point did Clinton attack the DOJ or Attorney General Janet Reno or FBI Director Louis Freeh. In fact, what Clinton
said was "[The allegations] obviously have to be thoroughly
investigated and I do not want to speculate or accuse anyone of
anything...Obviously it would be a very serious matter for the United
States if any country were to attempt to funnel funds to one of our
parties for any reason whatever" and said the investigations should get
to the bottom of the matter. Whatever he might have done behind the
scenes, Clinton did nothing but respect the independence of the DOJ and
the people who work there. By the way, the amounts of money that were
involved in Chinagate were ludicrously small, like in the $80,000 range (out of over $190 million that the DNC raised in 1996). And the foreign policy actions
that Clinton supposedly took to favor China were just a continuation of
a deal made under George H.W. Bush. You know, back when presidents
honored the agreements of other presidents.
Compare that to what ought to be Trump's Chinagate, which involves a
$500 million loan by a Chinese government-run company for an Indonesian
project that includes a Trump hotel and golf course. On its own, the
fact that a company still owned by the resident of the United States is
getting massive infusions of capital from foreign countries ought to be
a goddamned scandal that'd make Clinton's Chinagate look like the chump
change it is. But add into that the fact that Trump tweeted, just a few
days after the announced investment, support
for the Chinese phone company ZTE, which had been sanctioned by the
U.S. for illegal trading with, you know, Iran. And now Trump appears
to be backing away from his much-hyped trade war with China as the
Chinese roll the United States in whatever the fuck is going on with
negotiations. Frankly, the easiest way any of it makes sense is if the
trade war threat was just a negotiating tactic to get that Chinese
investment in the Indonesian project.
That's a motherfuckin' Chinagate. It's not even a complicated scandal.
Trump's company directly benefits from the loan, which means Trump and
his family directly benefit from the loan, and anything that Trump does
to help China has at least the appearance of a bribed quid pro quo.
This ain't Russian pee hookers or clandestine meetings with idiot
man-children and a real goddamn pedophile. This doesn't even involve
spies. It's a fucking bribe. It's the simplest form of corruption there
is.
In fact, let's leave aside the entire Russia probe, which is so
monumental in its implications that Republicans just plug their fingers
in their ears and scream, "La-la-la, I can't hear you" rather than deal
with it. Let's just deal with another easy one.
Trump personally contacted
Megan Brennan, the Postmaster General of the United States (not the
Postmaster General of Trump, but the whole fuckin' country), to get her
to double the shipping rate on packages sent by Amazon because Trump
hates the Washington Post, which is owned by Amazon CEO Jeff
Bezos. Trump tried on several occasions to get her to do what is clearly
a violation of a contract Amazon has with the Postal Service. But we
all know that a contract to Trump is just something used to wipe his
swampy ass dry. Brennan, obviously understanding her audience, sent
Trump a series of slides showing him that Amazon is paying a fair rate
and that the USPS makes money on the deal. But even a picture show
couldn't convince our fucking idiot resident that he's wrong once some
lie gets Fox-trapped in his thick, oatmeal-filled skull.
That's a scandal. That's the goddamn resident targeting and attempting
to punish an American and an American company because one of the
entities in that company doesn't worship Trump. That's abuse of power.
That's a violation of his oath. That's fucking easy to understand.
I know we keep thinking, like a mantra to give us some modicum of peace,
"Just wait until the midterms. Wait until the midterms." But unless
Democrats take back both houses of Congress by overwhelming majorities,
something that is frankly impossible, we still need Republicans to shake
off whatever combination of craven political power-mongering and greed
they have in order to step the fuck up here. Even in 2019, Republicans
would be needed to remove Trump from office over any of the
extravagantly impeachable scandals that are racking up on a daily basis.
Again, I'm not even talking about whatever Robert Mueller's
investigation might find. I'm saying that the crisis is here, now, and
it's not just in the big, grand uber-scandal that Trump is not the
legitimate president. I'm talking about the quotidian, easily
comprehensible graft and threats. What we might simple call "the
dictator shit." And he's getting away with the dictator shit because the
elected officials who are supposed to stop the dictator shit aren't
doing a goddamn thing.
That's on Republicans. But the GOP has signaled, in ways small and big,
that not only are they not interested in holding Trump to account, but
they will do what they can to aid and abet the entire hog pile of
fuckery, starting with the repulsive pile of goat vomit, Devin Nunes,
who will go down the shitter of history as "that fucker who kept letting
Trump get away with it." And that'll go for nearly every Republican in
Congress right now. This is the other big scandal: the dereliction of
duty by the majority party in the Legislative Branch.
But that kind of talk does us no good. The best we can hope is that a
2018 Democratic wave will scare the shit out of Republicans. Hell, it
might even make a few of them change party when the choice is fealty to a
vile orange blob or the possibility of some kind of redemption. Trump's
balls can't taste that good.
And Democrats should run on those easily understandable scandals, not
the Russia stuff, precisely because it's just easier to communicate in a
30-second ad: He took a bribe. He threatened to make your Amazon
deliveries cost more. He's an asshole because of that and needs to be
stopped. Right now, Republicans aren't doing their fucking jobs.
Democrats can run on just doing the fucking job of a member of Congress.
Otherwise, yeah, we're all just standing at the gate, yelling, "Won't
someone, for the love of God, stop him from fucking those sheep?"
Former White House ethics lawyer and Democratic Senate candidate Richard Painter argued
on CBS Monday night that there is much more evidence against resident
Donald Trump for obstruction of justice than there ever was against
President Richard Nixon before he resigned in disgrace.
The difference between the two situations? Congress, Painter said.
"We
have far more evidence of abuse of power and obstruction of justice
than we had in 1973 when I was 12 years old and the House and the Senate
convened the Judiciary Committees to have hearings with respect to
Watergate and President Nixon. We're well-beyond that point. And yet the
House and the Senate won't do anything at all.
Nearly 51 million households don’t earn enough to afford a monthly budget that includes housing, food, child care, health care, transportation, and a cell phone.
On Tuesday, May 15, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) joined Rachel Maddow on
MSNBC to discuss resident Trump's recent actions to protect Chinese
jobs and specifically ZTE, a company that violated U.S. sanctions on
North Korea and Iran and posed a cyber security threat.
Small business owners who supported Donald Trump are complaining about troubles hiring foreign seasonal labor the Lexington Herald-Leaderreports.
The newspaper interviewed multiple landscaping business owners who claim they are unable to hire Americans for the same wages.
Eddie Devine voted for Trump, but worries he may go out of business if
he is unable to continue hiring 20 foreign workers a season though the
H-2B visa program.
“I feel like I’ve been tricked by the devil,” Devine admitted. “I feel so stupid.”
Devin
says Trump's policies are more about race than economics, noting that
Trump properties in
New York and Florida rely upon the H-2B visa program
for 144 jobs a year.
“I think there’s a war on brown people,” he
argued. “I want to know why it’s OK for him to get his workers, but
supporters like me don’t get theirs."
“We live and die by these
visas,” said Ken Monin, owner of Monin Construction. “Last year we about
went bankrupt. The workers we were supposed to get in March didn’t show
up until August because they couldn’t get visas.”
“Americans don’t want most of these jobs,” Monin claimed.
Donald Trump, with his feral cunning, knew. The
oleaginous Mike Pence, with his talent for toadyism and appetite for
obsequiousness, could, Trump knew, become America’s most repulsive
public figure. And Pence, who has reached this pinnacle by dethroning
his benefactor, is augmenting the public stock of useful knowledge.
Because his is the authentic voice of today’s lick-spittle Republican
Party, he clarifies this year’s elections: Vote Republican to ratify
groveling as governing.
Last June, a Trump
Cabinet meeting featured testimonials offered to Dear Leader by his
forelock-tugging colleagues. His chief of staff, Reince Priebus, caught
the spirit of the worship service by thanking Trump for the “blessing”
of being allowed to serve him. The hosannas poured forth
from around the table, unredeemed by even a scintilla of insincerity.
Priebus was soon deprived of his blessing, as was Tom Price. Before
Price’s ecstasy of public service was truncated because of his
incontinent enthusiasm for charter flights, he was the secretary of
health and human services who at the Cabinet meeting said, “I can’t
thank you enough for the privileges you’ve given me.”
The vice resident
chimed in but saved his best riff for a December Cabinet meeting when,
as The Post’s Aaron Blake calculated,
Pence praised Trump once every 12 seconds for three minutes: “I’m
deeply humbled. . . . ” Judging by the number of times Pence announces
himself “humbled,” he might seem proud of his humility, but that is
impossible because he is conspicuously devout and pride is a sin.
Between those two Cabinet meetings, Pence and his retinue flew to Indiana
for the purpose of walking out of an Indianapolis Colts football game,
thereby demonstrating that football players kneeling during the national
anthem are intolerable to someone of Pence’s refined sense of right and
wrong. Which brings us to his Arizona salute last week to Joe Arpaio,
who was sheriff of Maricopa County until in 2016 voters wearied of his act.
Noting
that Arpaio was in his Tempe audience, Pence, oozing unctuousness from
every pore, called Arpaio “another favorite,” professed himself
“honored” by Arpaio’s presence, and praised
him as “a tireless champion of . . . the rule of law.” Arpaio, a
grandstanding, camera-chasing bully and darling of the thuggish right,
is also a criminal, convicted
of contempt of court for ignoring a federal judge’s order to desist
from certain illegal law enforcement practices. Pence’s performance
occurred eight miles from the home of Sen. John McCain, who could teach
Pence — or perhaps not — something about honor.
Henry Adams said
that “practical politics consists in ignoring facts,” but what was the
practicality in Pence’s disregard of the facts about Arpaio? His
pandering had no purpose beyond serving Pence’s vocation, which is to
ingratiate himself with his audience of the moment. The audience for his
praise of Arpaio was given to chanting “Build that wall!” and applauded Arpaio, who wears Trump’s pardon like a boutonniere.
Hoosiers, of whom Pence is one, sometimes say that although Abraham Lincoln was born in Kentucky and flourished in Illinois, he spent his formative years
— December 1816 to March 1830 — in Indiana, which he left at age 21. Be
that as it may, on Jan. 27, 1838, Lincoln, then 28, delivered his first great speech,
to the Young Men’s Lyceum in Springfield.
Less than three months
earlier, Elijah Lovejoy, an abolitionist newspaper editor in Alton,
Ill., 67 miles from Springfield, was murdered
by a pro-slavery mob. Without mentioning Lovejoy — it would have been
unnecessary — Lincoln lamented that throughout America, “so lately famed
for love of law and order,” there was a “mobocratic spirit” among “the
vicious portion of [the] population.” So, “let reverence for the laws
. . . become the political religion of the nation.” Pence, one of
evangelical Christians’ favorite pin-ups, genuflects at various altars,
as the mobocratic spirit and the vicious portion require.
It
is said that one cannot blame people who applaud Arpaio and support his
rehabilitators (Trump, Pence, et al.), because, well, globalization or
health-care costs or something. Actually, one must either blame them or
condescend to them as lacking moral agency. Republicans silent about
Pence have no such excuse.
There will be
negligible legislating by the next Congress, so ballots cast this
November will be most important as validations or repudiations of the
harmonizing voices of Trump, Pence, Arpaio and the like. Trump is what
he is, a floundering, inarticulate jumble of gnawing insecurities and
not-at-all compensating vanities, which is pathetic. Pence is what he
has chosen to be, which is horrifying.
If you think Rudy Giuliani created a mess during his pro Trump defense
right wing media tour, then you have to watch this to believe the
magnitude of the disaster expanded by Trump. Trump not only Ran the Bus
over Rudy, he reversed it over him as well, all in the name of defending
his friend.
Robert S. Mueller III is said
to be trying to determine whether the president had criminal intent
when he fired James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director.Credit
J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press
WASHINGTON
— Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel investigating Russia’s
election interference, has at least four dozen questions on an
exhaustive array of subjects he wants to ask resident Trump to learn
more about his ties to Russia and determine whether he obstructed the
inquiry itself, according to a list of the questions obtained by The New
York Times.
The
open-ended queries appear to be an attempt to penetrate the resident’s
thinking, to get at the motivation behind some of his most combative
Twitter posts and to examine his relationships with his family and his
closest advisers. They deal chiefly with the resident’s high-profile
firings of the F.B.I. director and his first national security adviser,
his treatment of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and a 2016 Trump Tower
meeting between campaign officials and Russians offering dirt on Hillary
Clinton.
But
they also touch on the resident’s businesses; any discussions with his
longtime personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, about a Moscow real estate
deal; whether the resident knew of any attempt by Mr. Trump’s
son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to set up a back channel to Russia during the
transition; any contacts he had with Roger J. Stone Jr., a longtime
adviser who claimed to have inside information about Democratic email
hackings; and what happened during Mr. Trump’s 2013 trip to Moscow for the Miss Universe pageant.
The
questions provide the most detailed look yet inside Mr. Mueller’s
investigation, which has been shrouded in secrecy since he was appointed
nearly a year ago. The majority relate to possible obstruction of
justice, demonstrating how an investigation into Russia’s election
meddling grew to include an examination of the resident’s conduct in
office. Among them are queries on any discussions Mr. Trump had about
his attempts to fire Mr. Mueller himself and what the resident knew
about possible pardon offers to Mr. Flynn.
“What
efforts were made to reach out to Mr. Flynn about seeking immunity or
possible pardon?” Mr. Mueller planned to ask, according to questions
read by the special counsel investigators to the resident’s lawyers,
who compiled them into a list. That document was provided to The Times
by a person outside Mr. Trump’s legal team.
A
few questions reveal that Mr. Mueller is still investigating possible
coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia. In one of the more
tantalizing inquiries, Mr. Mueller asks what Mr. Trump knew about
campaign aides, including the former chairman Paul Manafort, seeking
assistance from Moscow: “What knowledge did you have of any outreach by
your campaign, including by Paul Manafort, to Russia about potential
assistance to the campaign?” No such outreach has been revealed
publicly.
Jay
Sekulow, a lawyer for Mr. Trump, declined to comment. A spokesman for
the special counsel’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
The
questions serve as a reminder of the chaotic first 15 months of the
Trump residency and the transition and campaign before that. Mr.
Mueller wanted to inquire about public threats the resident made,
conflicting statements from Mr. Trump and White House aides, the resident’s private admissions to Russian officials, a secret meeting at
an island resort, WikiLeaks, salacious accusations and dramatic
congressional testimony.
The
special counsel also sought information from the resident about his
relationship with Russia. Mr. Mueller would like to ask Mr. Trump
whether he had any discussions during the campaign about any meetings
with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and whether he spoke to
others about either American sanctions against Russia or meeting with
Mr. Putin.
Through
his questions, Mr. Mueller also tries to tease out Mr. Trump’s views on
law enforcement officials and whether he sees them as independent
investigators or people who should loyally protect him.
For example, when the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, was fired,
the White House said he broke with Justice Department policy and spoke
publicly about the investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s email server. Mr.
Mueller’s questions put that statement to the test. He wants to ask why,
time and again, Mr. Trump expressed no concerns with whether Mr. Comey
had abided by policy. Rather, in statements in private and on national
television, Mr. Trump suggested that Mr. Comey was fired because of the Russia investigation.
Many
of the questions surround Mr. Trump’s relationship with Mr. Sessions,
including the attorney general’s decision to recuse himself from the
Russia investigation and whether Mr. Trump told Mr. Sessions he needed
him in place for protection.
Mr.
Mueller appears to be investigating how Mr. Trump took steps last year
to fire Mr. Mueller himself. The resident relented after the White
House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, threatened to resign, an episode
that the special counsel wants to ask about.
“What
consideration and discussions did you have regarding terminating the
special counsel in June of 2017?” Mr. Mueller planned to ask, according
to the list of questions. “What did you think and do in reaction to Jan.
25, 2018, story about the termination of the special counsel and Don
McGahn backing you off the termination?” he planned to ask, referring to
the Times article that broke the news of the confrontation.
Mr.
Mueller has sought for months to question the resident, who has in
turn expressed a desire, at times, to be interviewed, viewing it as an
avenue to end the inquiry more quickly. His lawyers have been
negotiating terms of an interview out of concern that their client —
whose exaggerations, half-truths and outright falsehoods are well
documented — could provide false statements or easily become distracted.
Four people, including Mr. Flynn, have pleaded guilty to lying to investigators in the Russia inquiry.
The
list of questions grew out of those negotiations. In January, Mr.
Trump’s lawyers gave Mr. Mueller several pages of written explanations
about the resident’s role in the matters the special counsel is
investigating. Concerned about putting the resident in legal jeopardy,
his lead lawyer, John Dowd, was trying to convince Mr. Mueller he did
not need to interview Mr. Trump, according to people briefed on the
matter.
Mr.
Mueller was apparently unsatisfied. He told Mr. Dowd in early March
that he needed to question the resident directly to determine whether
he had criminal intent when he fired Mr. Comey, the people said.
But
Mr. Dowd held firm, and investigators for Mr. Mueller agreed days later
to share during a meeting with Mr. Dowd the questions they wanted to
ask Mr. Trump.
When
Mr. Mueller’s team relayed the questions, their tone and detailed
nature cemented Mr. Dowd’s view that the resident should not sit for an
interview. Despite Mr. Dowd’s misgivings, Mr. Trump remained firm in
his insistence that he meet with Mr. Mueller. About a week and a half
after receiving the questions, Mr. Dowd resigned, concluding that his client was ignoring his advice.
Mr. Trump’s new lawyer in the investigation
and his longtime confidant, Rudolph W. Giuliani, met with Mr. Mueller
last week and said he was trying to determine whether the special
counsel and his staff were going to be “truly objective.”
Mr.
Mueller’s endgame remains a mystery, even if he determines the resident broke the law. A longstanding Justice Department legal finding
says residents cannot be charged with a crime while they are in
office. The special counsel told Mr. Dowd in March that though the resident’s conduct is under scrutiny, he is not a target of the
investigation, meaning Mr. Mueller does not expect to charge him.
The
prospect of pardons is also among Mr. Mueller’s inquiries, and whether
Mr. Trump offered them to a pair of former top aides to influence their
decisions about whether to cooperate with the special counsel
investigation.
Mr. Dowd broached the idea
with lawyers for both of the advisers, Mr. Flynn and Mr. Manafort,
according to people with knowledge of the discussions. Mr. Manafort has
pleaded not guilty on charges of money laundering and other financial
crimes related to his work for the pro-Russia former president of
Ukraine.
Mr. Flynn, a retired Army lieutenant general who was ousted from the White House in February 2017
amid revelations about contacts with the Russian ambassador to the
United States, ultimately pleaded guilty last December to lying to
federal authorities and agreed to cooperate with the special counsel.
“After
General Flynn resigned, what calls or efforts were made by people
associated with you to reach out to General Flynn or to discuss Flynn
seeking immunity or possible pardon?” Mr. Mueller planned to ask.
Maggie Haberman contributed reporting from New York.
A version of this article appears in print on May 1, 2018, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Questions for President Show Depth of Inquiry Into Russian Meddling. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe
Wolf's routine took shots at Donald Trump, Mike
Pence, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders and the media.
Good evening. Good evening. Here we are, the White House
correspondents' dinner: Like a porn star says when she's about to have
sex with a Trump, let's get this over with.
Yup,
kiddos, this is who you're getting tonight. I'm going to skip a lot of
the normal pleasantries. We're at a Hilton; it's not nice. This is on
C-SPAN; no one watches that. Trump is president; it's not ideal.The White House Correspondents' Association, thank you for having me. The monkfish was fine.
And
just a reminder to everyone, I'm here to make jokes. I have no agenda.
I'm not trying to get anything accomplished. So everyone that's here
from Congress, you should feel right at home.
Yeah, before we
get too far, a little bit about me. A lot of you might not know who I
am. I'm 32 years old, which is an odd age: 10 years too young to host
this event and 20 years too old for Roy Moore. I know, he almost got elected, yeah. It was fun. It was fun.
Honestly,
I never really thought I'd be a comedian. But I did take an aptitude
test in seventh grade — and this is 100 percent true — I took an
aptitude test in seventh grade, and it said in my best profession was a
clown or a mime.Well, at first it said clown, and then it heard my voice and then was like, “Or maybe mime. Think about mime.”
And
I know as much as some of you might want me to, it's 2018 and I am a
woman, so you cannot shut me up — unless you have Michael Cohen wire me
$130,000. Michael, you can find me on Venmo under my porn star name,
Reince Priebus. Reince just gave a thumbs up. OK.
Now,
people are saying America is more divided than ever, but I think no
matter what you support politically, we can all agree that this is a
great time for craft stores. Because of all the protests, poster board
has been flying off the shelves faster than Robert Mueller can say,
“You've been subpoenaed.”
Thanks to Trump, pink yarn
sales are through the roof. After Trump got elected, women started
knitting those pussy hats. When I first saw them, I was like, “That's a
pussy?” I guess mine just has a lot more yarn on it.Yeah, shoulda done more research before you got me to do this.
Now,
there is a lot to cover tonight. There's a lot to go over. I can't get
to everything. I know there's a lot of people that want me to talk about
Russia and Putin and collusion, but I'm not going to do that because
there's also a lot of liberal media here. And I've never really wanted
to know what any of you look like when you orgasm.
Except for maybe you, Jake Tapper. I bet it's something like this: “OK, that's all the time we have.”
It
is kind of crazy that the Trump campaign was in contact with Russia
when the Hillary campaign wasn't even in contact with Michigan. It's a
direct flight; it's so close.
Of course, Trump isn't
here, if you haven't noticed. He's not here. And I know, I know, I would
drag him here myself. But it turns out the resident of the United
States is the one pussy you're not allowed to grab.He said it first. Yeah, he did. Do you remember? Good.
Now,
I know people really want me to go after Trump tonight, but I think we
should give the resident credit when he deserves it. Like, he pulled
out the Paris agreement, and I think he should get credit for that
because he said he was going to pull out and then he did. And that's a
refreshing quality in a man. Most men are like, “I forgot. I'll get you
next time.” Oh, there's going to be a next time?
People say romance is
dead. People call Trump names all the time. And, look, I could call Trump
a racist, a misogynist or xenophobic or unstable or incompetent or
impotent. But he's heard all of those, and he doesn't care. So, tonight,
I'm going to try to make fun of the resident in a new way — in a way
that I think will really get him. Mr. resident, I don't think you're
very rich.
Like, I think you might be rich in Idaho, but
in New York, you're doing fine. Trump is the only person that still
watches “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” and thinks, “Me.”Although,
I'm not sure you'd get very far. He'd get to, like, the third question
and be, like, “I have to phone a 'Fox & Friend.'
”We're going to try a fun new thing, OK? I'm going to say, “Trump is so broke,” and you guys go, “How broke is he?” All right?
Trump is so broke. [AUDIENCE: How broke is he?] He has to fly failed business class.
Trump is so broke. [AUDIENCE: How broke is he?] He looked for foreign oil in Don Jr.'s hair.
Trump is so broke. [AUDIENCE: How broke is he?] He — Southwest used him as one of their engines. I know, it's so soon. It's so soon for that joke. Why did she tell it? It's so soon.
Trump is so broke. [AUDIENCE: How broke is he?] He
had to borrow money from the Russians, and now he's compromised and not
susceptible to blackmail and possibly responsible for the collapse of
the republic.Yay! It's a fun game.
Trump is
racist, though. He loves white nationalists, which is a weird term for a
Nazi. Calling a Nazi a white nationalist is like calling a pedophile a
kid friend or Harvey Weinstein a ladies' man — which isn't really fair;
he also likes plants. Trump's also an idea guy. He's got loads
of ideas. You gotta love him for that. He wants to give teachers guns,
and I support that, 'cause then they can sell them for things they need,
like supplies. A lot of protractors. A lot of people want Trump
to be impeached. I do not. Because just when you think Trump is awful,
you remember Mike Pence. Mike Pence is what happens when Anderson Cooper
isn't gay.
Mike Pence is the kind of guy that brushes
his teeth and then drinks orange juice and thinks, “Mmm.” Mike Pence is
also very anti-choice. He thinks abortion is murder, which, first of
all, don't knock it till you try it. And when you do try it, really
knock it. You know, you got to get that baby out of there. And,
yes, sure, you can groan all you want. I know a lot of you are very
anti-abortion. You know, unless it's the one you got for your secret
mistress. It's fun how values can waiver. But good for you.
Mike
Pence is a weirdo, though. He's a weird little guy. He won't meet with
other women without his wife present. When people first heard this, they
were like, “That's crazy.” But now, in this current climate, they're
like, “That's a good witness.”Which, of course, brings me to
the Me Too movement; it's probably the reason I'm here. They were like,
“A woman's probably not going to jerk off in front of anyone, right?”
And to that, I say, “Don't count your chickens.” There's a lot of party.
Now,
I've worked in a lot of male-dominated fields. Before comedy, I worked
at a tech company and, before that, I worked on Wall Street. And,
honestly, I've never really been sexually harassed. That being said, I
did work at Bear Stearns in 2008. So, although I haven't been sexually
harassed, I've definitely been fucked. Yeah, that whole company went
down on me without my consent. And no men got in trouble for that one
either.
No, things are changing. Men are being held
accountable. You know, Al Franken was ousted. That one really hurt
liberals. But I believe it was the great Ted Kennedy who said, “Wow,
that's crazy; I murdered a woman.”
Chappaquiddick – in theaters now.
I
did have a lot of jokes — I had a lot of jokes about Cabinet members,
but I had to scrap all of those because everyone has been fired. You
guys are going through Cabinet members quicker than Starbucks throws out
black people. No, don't worry, they're having an afternoon. That'll solve it. We just needed an afternoon.
Mitch McConnell isn't here. He had a prior engagement. He's finally getting his neck circumcised. Mazel.
Paul
Ryan couldn't make it. Of course, he's already been circumcised.
Unfortunately, while they were down there, they also took his bitches.Yeah, bye, Paul. Great acting, though, in that video.
Republicans
are easy to make fun of. It's like shooting fish in a Chris Christie.
But I also want to make fun of Democrats. Democrats are harder to make
fun of because you guys don't do anything. People think you
might flip the House and Senate this November, but you guys always find a
way to mess it up. You're somehow going to lose by 12 points to a guy
named Jeff Pedophile Nazi Doctor. Oh, he's a doctor?
We should
definitely talk about the women in the Trump administration. There's
Kellyanne Conway. Man, she has the perfect last name for what she does:
Conway. It's like if my name was Michelle Jokes Frizzy Hair Small Tits. You
guys gotta stop putting Kellyanne on your shows. All she does is lie.
If you don't give her a platform, she has nowhere to lie. It's like that
old saying: If a tree falls in the woods, how do we get Kellyanne under
that tree? I'm not suggesting she gets hurt; just stuck. Stuck under a tree. Incidentally, a tree falls in the woods is Scott Pruitt's definition of porn. Yeah, we all have our kinks.
There's
also, of course, Ivanka. She was supposed to be an advocate for women,
but it turns out she's about as helpful to women as an empty box of
tampons. She's done nothing to satisfy women. So, I guess, like father,
like daughter. Oh, you don't think he's good in bed. Come on.
She
does clean up nice, though. Ivanka cleans up nice. She's the Diaper
Genie of the administration. On the outside, she looks sleek but the
inside — it's still full of shit.
And, of course, we have
Sarah Huckabee Sanders. We're graced with Sarah's presence tonight. I
have to say I'm a little star-struck. I love you as Aunt Lydia in “The
Handmaid's Tale.”Mike Pence, if you haven't seen it, you would love it.
Every
time Sarah steps up to the podium, I get excited because I'm not really
sure what we're going to get: you know, a press briefing, a bunch of
lies or divided into softball teams. “It's shirts and skins, and this
time, don't be such a little bitch, Jim Acosta.”I actually
really like Sarah. I think she's very resourceful. Like, she burns
facts, and then she uses the ash to create a perfect smoky eye. Like,
maybe she's born with it; maybe it's lies.It's probably lies.
And
I'm never really sure what to call Sarah Huckabee Sanders. You know, is
it Sarah Sanders? Is Sarah Huckabee Sanders? Is it Cousin Huckabee? Is
it Auntie Huckabee Sanders? Like, what's Uncle Tom but for white women
who disappoint other white women? Oh, I know: Aunt Coulter.
We've
got our friends at CNN here. Welcome, guys, it's great to have you. You
guys love breaking news, and you did it. You broke it. Good work.The most useful information on CNN is when Anthony Bourdain tells me where to eat noodles. Fox News is here. So, you know what that means, ladies: Cover your drinks. Seriously. People want me to make fun of Sean Hannity tonight, but I cannot do that; this dinner is for journalists.
We've
got MSNBC here. MSNBC's news slogan is, “This is who we are.” Guys,
it's not a good slogan. “This is who we are” is what your Mom thinks the
sad show on NBC is called. “Did you watch 'This Is Who We Are' this
week? Someone left on a Crockpot, and everyone died.”I watch
“Morning Joe” every morning. We now know that Mika and Joe are engaged.
Congratulations, you guys. It's like when a Me Too works out.
We
also have Rachel Maddow. We cannot forget about Rachel Maddow. She is
the Peter Pan of MSNBC. But instead of never growing up, she never gets
to the point. Watching Rachel Maddow is like going to Target. You went
in for milk, but you left with shampoo, candles and the entire history
of the Byzantine Empire. “I didn't need this.”And, of course, Megyn Kelly. What would I do without Megyn Kelly? You know, probably be more proud of women.
Megyn
Kelly got paid $23 million by NBC, then NBC didn't let Megyn go to the
Winter Olympics. Why not? She's so white, cold and expensive, she might
as well be the Winter Olympics.
And, by the way, Megyn,
Santa's black. The weird old guy going through your chimney was Bill
O'Reilly. You might want to put a flue on it or something.There's
a lot of print media here. There's a ton of you guys, but I'm not going
to go after print media tonight because it's illegal to attack an
endangered species.Buy newspapers.There's a ton of
news right now; a lot is going on, and we have all these 24-hour news
networks, and we could be covering everything. But, instead, we're
covering like three topics. Every hour, it's Trump, Russia, Hillary and a
panel of four people who remind you why you don't go home for
Thanksgiving.
“Milk comes from nuts now, all 'cause of the gays.”You
guys are obsessed with Trump. Did you use to date him? Because you
pretend like you hate him, but I think you love him. I think what no one
in this room wants to admit is that Trump has helped all of you. He
couldn't sell steaks or vodka or water or college or ties or Eric, but
he has helped you.
He's helped you sell your papers and
your books and your TV. You helped create this monster, and now you're
profiting off of him. And if you're gonna profit off of Trump, you
should at least give him some money because he doesn't have any.
Trump is so broke.
[AUDIENCE: How broke is he?]
He
grabs pussies 'cause he thinks there might be loose change in them. All
right, like an immigrant who was brought here by his parents and didn't
do anything wrong, I gotta get the fuck out of here.
Enlarge/ Daybreak's story on the money behind this logo has been changing recently.
Back in 2015, the former Sony Online Entertainment announced it was being bought by investment management firm Columbus Nova and changing its name to Daybreak Game Company (Everquest II, H1Z1, Planetside 2).
Now that the US Treasury Department is sanctioning the Russian oligarch
that owns Columbus Nova, though, Daybreak is suddenly saying that it
has never had any affiliation with its ostensible parent company.
What Daybreak now disputes, though, is that Columbus Nova ever had an
ownership stake in the MMO maker. "From the get-go, Daybreak has been
primarily owned by Jason Epstein, a longtime investor who also has
investments in a variety of media properties," the company wrote in a forum post yesterday.
"We're well aware of prior statements from Daybreak indicating our
company was acquired by Columbus Nova. We have since clarified that the
company was acquired by Jason Epstein when he was a partner at Columbus
Nova, which he left in 2017."
It's those previous statements—which have stood uncontested for
years—that are raising some eyebrows now that the companies are
attempting to distance themselves from the investment management firm.
Columbus Nova was mentioned a number of times in Daybreak's February 2015 announcement press release, which doesn't mention Epstein at all. Columbus Nova was also cited as Daybreak's parent company in the site's privacy policy
from 2015 through at least 2017. Both of those documents have since
been taken down from the Daybreak Games website, but the Internet
Archive links cited above don't forget.
Outside of those previous firsthand sources, there's also a Polygon feature from April 2015
where Daybreak's then-president and CEO John Smedley directly says that
"after kissing a lot of frogs, we finally found a happy home with
Columbus Nova. It was really a match made in heaven." Smedley also
mentions Columbus Nova's investment in a May VentureBeat interview and in a 2016 Polygon interview.
Players of Daybreak games like Everquest II are understandably concerned that the disputed connections between Vekselberg and Daybreak could cause trouble for their favorite titles. Reports suggest
Vekselberg's frozen US accounts contain up to $2 billion in assets and
that the Treasury Department has given his US investment funds until
June 5 to sell off their interest in his companies at a loss and wind
down their related operations.
Given that, it's likely only a small matter of time until we find out
if Vekselberg's legal and financial problems will become Daybreak's via
a disputed business relationship. For now, we'll only say that
something doesn't seem to add up.
[Update: A source inside Daybreak Games (who asked
not to be named directly) responded to Ars' request for comment to
clarify once again that Daybreak was actually purchased in 2015 by Jason
Epstein through his wholly-owned LLC, Inception Acquisitions. Epstein
was an ownership partner of Columbus Nova at the time, leading his
purchase to be conflated with ownership by Columbus Nova itself in
statements and reporting, the source explained.
"At the time, they just didn't think that that was a big deal,
because both Inception and Columbus Nova were Jason's," said the source,
who was not with the company in 2015. "Jason was the primary owner, and
he owned both. Saying Columbus Nova as an investment firm seemed to
make more sense [at the time]... What they should have said was 'Jason
Epstein, owner of Harmonix, purchased Daybreak,' [or] ''Partners of
Columbus Nova purchase Daybreak.'"
"We're not denying he was there," the source continued. But when
Epstein left Columbus Nova last year, any association between the
investment firm and Daybreak (through Epstein) ended, the source said.
Daybreak and Columbus Nova let an announcement of that distinction "fall
through the cracks" when Epstein departed, focusing instead on getting H1Z1 to a full release, they added.
What's more, the source also said that Vekselberg's Renova Group does
not actually own Columbus Nova, despite widespread reporting through
the years suggesting they do. Instead, the source said, Columbus Nova
merely "managed some accounts," for the Russian conglomerate, adding
that those accounts were "not tied to Russia. Renova has other holdings
and accounts, and we've gotten roped in."
