[News] Trump, Russia, and the 2016 Election

All news related to Donald Trump's alleged ties to Russia and to the Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential election. New details should be cited to reputable sources.

A completely new story

Russian Agents Sought Secret US Treasury Records On Clinton Backers During 2016 Campaign

US Treasury Department officials used a Gmail back channel with the Russian government as the Kremlin sought sensitive financial information on its enemies in America and across the globe, according to documents reviewed by BuzzFeed News.

The extraordinary unofficial line of communication arose in the final year of the Obama administration — in the midst of what multiple US intelligence agencies have said was a secret campaign by the Kremlin to interfere in the US election. Russian agents ostensibly trying to track ISIS instead pressed their American counterparts for private financial documents on at least two dozen dissidents, academics, private investigators, and American citizens.

Most startlingly, Russia requested sensitive documents on Dirk, Edward, and Daniel Ziff, billionaire investors who had run afoul of the Kremlin. That request was made weeks before a Russian lawyer showed up at Trump Tower offering top campaign aides “dirt” on Hillary Clinton — including her supposed connection to the Ziff brothers.

Wow, just wow!
I can't believe that people can keep their heads in the sand after things like this, but they will.

fangblackbone wrote:

Wow, just wow!
I can't believe that people can keep their heads in the sand after things like this, but they will.

Unless it can be used to attack Obama, since this began while he was still in office.

fangblackbone wrote:

I can't believe that people can keep their heads in the sand after things like this, but they will.

Coincidentally, there is a newly discovered blind, burrowing amphibian that has been named for this phenomenon.

Good thing they can wait like the rest of us to see what captain crazy will do.

Administration officials brace for Trump announcement on Afghanistan

Officials throughout the Trump administration are bracing themselves for the President to make an announcement about the US presence in Afghanistan, similar to his declaration Wednesday that the US will withdraw the military from Syria, informed administration sources tell CNN.

The sources cautioned that President has not yet made a final decision, but officials are concerned and convinced that he might do so, and soon.

Surprised this hasn't been posted yet.

Rolling Stone: Cell Phone Records Show Michael Cohen Was Near Prague When Alleged Meeting with Russia Took Place

Michael Cohen’s cell phone pinged off cell phone towers in Prague during the summer of 2016, suggesting that Cohen was there meeting with Russian government officials as alleged in the infamous Steele dossier, McClatchy reported, citing four people familiar with the matter.

McClatchy also reported that electronic eavesdropping by an Eastern European intelligence agency picked up a call between Russians officials during which one said Cohen was in Prague. At the meeting, Cohen and Russians allegedly discussed how to hide the campaign’s close relationship with the Russian government. Both revelations have been shared with Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating collusion between the Donald Trump presidential campaign and the Russian government.

Former prosecutor Jill Wine-Banks told McClatchy that these new revelations could be important to Mueller’s case. “This is a very significant break, because it looks like a direct link between Donald Trump’s personal fixer and Russians most likely involved in the disruption of our election,” she said. “It would prove that lying was going on, not only about being in Prague, but much beyond the Prague episode.”

IMAGE(http://thepeetapeisreal.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/pee-tape.png)

Michael Cohen is denying it on Twitter. For whatever that is worth.

Michael Cohen wrote:

‏@MichaelCohen212
I hear #Prague #CzechRepublic is beautiful in the summertime. I wouldn’t know as I have never been. #Mueller knows everything!

Rachel Maddow Breaks Down Where Donald Trump Gets His Conspiracy Theories

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Thursday did a deep dive into where President Donald Trump may get some of his conspiracy theories.

The host of “The Rachel Maddow Show” pointed out that several of Trump’s foreign policy talking points since taking office have appeared to directly parrot propaganda and fake news originally put forward by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government.

@MaddowBlog
Here are the segments from tonight's show about Donald Trump's strange fluency in Russian propaganda:
Part 1: https://on.msnbc.com/2R7vkQP

Part 2: https://on.msnbc.com/2VuxfNL
Michael McFaul

@McFaul
Just learned from @vkaramurza via @maddow that Putin's party IS seeking to rewrite the history of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan! And our president just echoed the same. Amazing. I had no idea from where Trump had picked up this crazy idea. Now I have a theory. Thanks Rachel. https://twitter.com/PostOpinions/sta...

12:27 AM - Jan 4, 2019

Trump’s seemingly random warnings that Poland may invade Belarus and Montenegro may start a world war initially were propagated by Russia as part of its military intelligence disinformation campaigns,Maddow explained.

Rachel gets into what amounts to her conspiracy theory about Trump at 1:50. She continues on in a second segment where she interviews Michael McFaul, a former ambassador to Russia, and a target by Putin, who wanted to interrogate him. The link to the second segment is the one in the tweet. The first segment is the one HuffPost found a Youtube version of.

The TL;DW is that Trump has uttered a couple of nonsensical conspiracy theories that are not from Breitbart and Alex Jones, that are not being discussed on Fox News, but, rather, only appear in the wild in Russian propaganda. And we're not talking posted on Twitter stuff, we're talking obscure stuff Trump would not have been exposed to by anyone but Russians themselves.

This is really just another layer to the idea that Trump was turned decades ago by the Russian mafia. He is the ultimate useful idiot. I will tell you that the Montenegro stuff is really interesting. Remember this:

IMAGE(https://i.redd.it/ye844js13ozy.gif)

Suddenly that seems so much less random. That was the president of Montenegro she shoved.

That's really interesting. Thanks for sharing.

Yeah, I used to read Sarah Kendzior on Twitter back in 2015-2016. She talked a lot about the rumors of early cultivation, etc. That's part of where my "he doesn't work for us" stuff comes from. Everything she linked to made sense, rang true and seemed more plausible than the idea that the campaign was just recently contacted.

He'd been doing business with Russians for years, wanted to build in Moscow for literally decades. Paul Manafort was a neighbor.

I realize I'm treading into conspiracy theories, but it seems entirely plausible that what we know (publicly) about the Russia investigation so far simply encompasses the contacts made by other members of the campaign and that Trump has had a long relationship. Even more plausible to me is that a lot of the contacts by other members of the campaign were intended to obscure the fact that this was a long term relationship.

If Maddow doesn't get a Pulitzer for at least one of the amazing pieces of investigative journalism she did in 2018, they need to just shut down the Pulitzers. Too bad this piece was a few days late.

What I'm abstractly interested in is in reading the complete history of this thing in a couple of decades, after all the details come out. It'll be really interesting to look back and see who figured out what was going on and who didn't, and just what was really behind some of the crazy stunts that have happened.

I imagine this is something similar to what Watergate or the Vietnam War or JFK's assassination was for earlier generations. You know, the big event that the History channel has periodic shows about. Back when they did, like, history.

Gremlin wrote:

What I'm abstractly interested in is in reading the complete history of this thing in a couple of decades, after all the details come out. It'll be really interesting to look back and see who figured out what was going on and who didn't, and just what was really behind some of the crazy stunts that have happened.

I imagine this is something similar to what Watergate or the Vietnam War or JFK's assassination was for earlier generations. You know, the big event that the History channel has periodic shows about. Back when they did, like, history.

A quarter of the nation was still enthusiastically behind Nixon the day after he resigned.

A surprisingly large number of people are simply unreachable.

Gremlin wrote:

You know, the big event that the History channel has periodic shows about. Back when they did, like, history.

Well it does involve Nazis...

Archangel wrote:

Oh hey, this will save a bit of time:

Pelosi Says She Will Skip Trump and Negotiate Directly with Putin

Worth highlighting that this is satire, though conservatives have still been up in arms about it.

Dimmerswitch wrote:
Archangel wrote:

Oh hey, this will save a bit of time:

Pelosi Says She Will Skip Trump and Negotiate Directly with Putin

Worth highlighting that this is satire, though conservatives have still been up in arms about it.

It would actually get more done this way... that’s the depressing part about it.

Dimmerswitch wrote:
Archangel wrote:

Oh hey, this will save a bit of time:

Pelosi Says She Will Skip Trump and Negotiate Directly with Putin

Worth highlighting that this is satire, though conservatives have still been up in arms about it.

Which tells you it is true. If it was pure nonsense, the conservatives wouldn't be bothered by it.

Dimmerswitch wrote:
Archangel wrote:

Oh hey, this will save a bit of time:

Pelosi Says She Will Skip Trump and Negotiate Directly with Putin

Worth highlighting that this is satire, though conservatives have still been up in arms about it.

and that fact that this warning is necessary only serves to remind is that satire is dead and reality is the joke.

thrawn82 wrote:
Dimmerswitch wrote:
Archangel wrote:

Oh hey, this will save a bit of time:

Pelosi Says She Will Skip Trump and Negotiate Directly with Putin

Worth highlighting that this is satire, though conservatives have still been up in arms about it.

and that fact that this warning is necessary only serves to remind is that satire is dead and reality is the joke.

Hey, it could keep us in the INF...

Archangel wrote:

Oh hey, this will save a bit of time:

Pelosi Says She Will Skip Trump and Negotiate Directly with Putin

The actual funny thing is that Pence is the one who's trying to negotiate with Pelosi and Schumer to reopen the government. Trump's watching Fox News and tweeting upwards of 15 times a day.

So the man who claimed he was the best negotiator in the history of the world isn't bringing his supposedly considerable skills to bear to achieve the one campaign promise he has to achieve in order to keep his base happy.

OG_slinger wrote:

So the man who claimed he was the best negotiator in the history of the world isn't bringing his supposedly considerable skills to bear to achieve the one campaign promise he has to achieve in order to keep his base happy.

Like most things that have Trump's name on them (including: his Casino, his book, his school, his tv show...) the actual work is done by other people while he does his best to accidentally run the thing into the ground.

Gremlin wrote:
OG_slinger wrote:

So the man who claimed he was the best negotiator in the history of the world isn't bringing his supposedly considerable skills to bear to achieve the one campaign promise he has to achieve in order to keep his base happy.

Like most things that have Trump's name on them (including: his Casino, his book, his school, his tv show...) the actual work is done by other people while he does his best to accidentally run the thing into the ground.

When this is all through, I’m betting no one will ever want their name attached to this administration either, even if they were complicit in also looting the government while they all merrily burn it to the ground.

Gremlin wrote:

Like most things that have Trump's name on them (including: his Casino, his book, his school, his tv show...) the actual work is done by other people while he does his best to accidentally run the thing into the ground.

Of course. But I'd still like the media to call out the fact that the Great Negotiator who can make the Best Deals isn't doing so.

This was a key part of his campaign, after all: Trump alone had the keen business sense needed to solve the problems the country faced and get us out of all the bad deals others had made.

And yet here he is, making Pence, a former AM talk radio host, run point. A real alpha male business man like Trump would seize control of negotiations this important and force everyone to bend to his will.

But, like you said, that's the myth of Trump.

It's also a fabulous opportunity to show everyone that the emperor isn't wearing any clothes.

OG_slinger wrote:
Gremlin wrote:

Like most things that have Trump's name on them (including: his Casino, his book, his school, his tv show...) the actual work is done by other people while he does his best to accidentally run the thing into the ground.

Of course. But I'd still like the media to call out the fact that the Great Negotiator who can make the Best Deals isn't doing so.

This was a key part of his campaign, after all: Trump alone had the keen business sense needed to solve the problems the country faced and get us out of all the bad deals others had made.

And yet here he is, making Pence, a former AM talk radio host, run point. A real alpha male business man like Trump would seize control of negotiations this important and force everyone to bend to his will.

But, like you said, that's the myth of Trump.

It's also a fabulous opportunity to show everyone that the emperor isn't wearing any clothes.

There’s so much chaff in the air, that everything is only ever focused on the newest shiniest awful thing that’s happened.

People do bring it up; however, it’s just noise in the wind now.

A Paul Manafort court filing just accidentally connected some big dots between the Trump campaign and Russia

tl;dr: Paul Manafort's lawyers did a poor job of redacting information from a court filing, and in so doing revealed that Manafort met with alleged Russian Intelligence Agent Konstantin Kilimnik in Madrid during the 2016 Presidential campaign and shared unspecified polling data with Kilimnik. Manafort later lied about this meeting to investigators, as well as the polling data; his lawyers claim that he simply forgot.

In his defense, if I met with Russian agents as much as he did, they would run together for me as well.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

A Paul Manafort court filing just accidentally connected some big dots between the Trump campaign and Russia

tl;dr: Paul Manafort's lawyers did a poor job of redacting information from a court filing, and in so doing revealed that Manafort met with alleged Russian Intelligence Agent Konstantin Kilimnik in Madrid during the 2016 Presidential campaign and shared unspecified polling data with Kilimnik. Manafort later lied about this meeting to investigators, as well as the polling data; his lawyers claim that he simply forgot.

If these people actually sufferent from as significant of memory problems as they claim, they would have to be placed in 24/7 managed care facilities for their own safety.

Either that or are they saying that they have met so many Soviet operatives that they
can't recall whether they met this one or that.
I mean because I don't find it acceptable that you wouldn't recall meeting someone
completely out of the ordinary.
You can't have it both ways. But that is the GOP MO, "I didn't do it and it wasn't/wouldn't be a crime if/when I do it." f*cking children!