Donald Trump was never found "innocent" about his communications with Russia

Read the full Justice Department indictment at this PBS site here.

Russia if you are listening from Book People

The Department of Justice released an unsealed federal indictment of former President Donald Trump, with 37 felony counts related to the mishandling of classified documents, obstructing justice and making false statements.

Trump and Putin in Helsinki

A Repository opinion letter writer on June 11 describes what he calls “the false narrative of collusion between Russia’s President Putin and President Trump.” 

The problem here is that the narrative is not false.

In the current case of secret government documents held by Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago, he does not seem to be denying anything he is accused of doing. He says it is not a crime. He says he acted within his presidential powers and legal rights. But he does not deny the underlying accusations.

Trump famously said in a public speech during the 2016, campaign, “Russia, if you’re listening;” − as he invited the Russian government to hack into American computers.

One of Trump’s campaign chairmen was Paul Manafort*, who was found guilty as a result of the Russia investigation. Trump gave him a presidential pardon.

Several Trump associates and supporters have been found guilty in court. But like the old joke about “an officer and a gentleman” being two different men, a legal judgment of “not guilty” is not the same thing as a declaration of innocence. Trump is not "innocent."

Although I agree with several of Joe Biden’s decisions and policies, I believe he is naïve and “Pollyannaish” on the subject of Trump and presidential powers.

I would have told Biden in January 2021, to campaign heavily against the power of presidential pardons. He should have said this is a bad thing for presidents to have such powers, and we need to change it. Even if Biden could not have got any anti-Trump constitutional amendments passed, he should have tried.

All of the high-sounding words about our great “justice system” mean nothing, if a president can just − on a whim − destroy it all with the stroke of a pen.

Eric Haubert, Massillon, Ohio

This article originally appeared on The Repository, A Canton Ohio newspaper: Letter to the editor: Trump is not 'innocent'

*In 2019, during their fourth day of deliberation, the jury found Manafort guilty on 8 of the 18 felony counts, including five counts of filing false tax returns, two counts of bank fraud, and one count of failing to disclose a foreign bank account.

Ukraine and Turkey - Trump's failed foreign policy in stereo

Maine Writer - Where is the Secretary of State Pompeo, who is a West Point Army graduate, when the US Military is now sickened by Trump's failed foreign policy?  

Echo opinion column published in The New York Times, by Michelle Goldberg

‘The Beacon Has Gone Out’: What Trump and Giuliani Have Wrought:  Once upon a time, we spread ideals of democracy and rule of law. Now? We send (crazy!) Rudy.

KIEV, Ukraine — In 2014, Ukraine’s wildly corrupt president, Viktor Yanukovych, fled to Russia after mass protests on the Maidan, Kiev’s central square. During what Ukrainians call the Revolution of Dignity, police snipers killed dozens of demonstrators. 

In the revolution’s aftermath, a number of young idealists decided to plunge into politics, hoping to reform their troubled country from the inside. One of them was Serhiy Leshchenko, at the time perhaps the country’s most famous investigative journalist.

The American political scientist Francis Fukuyama had encouraged Leshchenko and some of his friends to run for Parliament. He’d met Leshchenko in 2013, when the journalist took part in a three-week summer course run by Fukuyama at Stanford that aims to teach activists from around the world about building democratic institutions. “After the Maidan revolution, I thought that it was particularly important that all these people in civil society actually go into the government,” Fukuyama said.

Many of them did. That October, Leshchenko, a lanky, bearded hipster with a passion for rave culture, became part of a cadre of Western-oriented newcomers elected to Parliament, even as he continued to work as a journalist exposing corruption. This year, after Volodymyr Zelensky won the presidential election, Leshchenko advised him during the transition.

Then Rudy Giuliani began attacking Leshchenko as a conspirator against America.

In 2016, Leshchenko had helped expose the “black ledger,” an accounting book of hundreds of pages found in Yanukovych’s former party headquarters. Among its many entries, it showed $12.7 million in secret payments to Paul Manafort. At the time, Manafort was running Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, but before that, he was one of Yanukovych’s most important advisers.

One of the reasons Manafort is in federal prison is that he failed to disclose or pay taxes on millions of dollars from Ukraine. But if you believe Giuliani, the black ledger was part of a plot to damage Trump.

Paul Manafort was Donald Trump's campaign manager.

During a Fox News appearance on May 10, Giuliani described the ledger as a “falsely created book” and Leshchenko as part of a group of “enemies of the president, in some cases enemies of the United States.” Last month, in an epic, ranting interview on CNN, he accused Ukraine’s leading anti-corruption organization, the Anti-Corruption Action Center, or AntAC, of developing “all of the dirty information that ended up being a false document that was created in order to incriminate Manafort.”

A tour guide at the opulent former home of Viktor Yanukovych, the Ukrainian president who fled to Russia after the Maidan protests. CreditLena Mucha for The New York Times

In Giuliani’s fevered alternative reality, Ukraine’s most stalwart foes of corruption are actually corruption’s embodiment. Deeply compromised figures with vendettas against the activists — particularly the ex-prosecutors Viktor Shokin and Yuriy Lutsenko

This addled, through-the-looking glass fantasy came to drive American foreign policy in Ukraine. Trump withdrew the American ambassador to the country, Marie Yovanovitch, whom reformers saw as their champion. He withheld military aid that Ukraine desperately needed, while asking Zelensky to do him a “favor” and investigate deranged fictions about Ukrainian interference in American elections, as well as Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.

Given how much Ukraine depends on American support, Giuliani’s smears made it politically impossible for Leshchenko, who left Parliament in August, to continue advising Zelensky. 

Now, with Ukraine at the center of a world-historical international scandal, he is stupefied to find himself defamed by powerful forces in the United States, once the world’s strongest backer of those fighting for democracy in his country.

“I could imagine that maybe some Ukrainian prosecutors will create a fake case against me, or some criminals will attack me, or I could be attacked by trolls on social media,” Leshchenko told me when I met him in a Kiev cafe. “But I never imagined before that my real problems will appear because of the statement of the personal attorney of the American president.”

If America can be said to have a foreign policy at this debased stage of the Trump administration, it mostly consists of sucking up to strongmen while betraying everyone who ever believed in America’s putative ideals. Trump has given Turkey his blessing to assault the Syrian Kurds, America’s crucial allies against ISIS. In June, he reportedly promised China that he wouldn’t speak out in favor of pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong, some of whom have been carrying American flags, as long as trade talks progressed.

Here in Ukraine, a country locked in a proxy war with Russia, coping with a deluge of disinformation and propaganda and struggling to transcend a history of corruption, reformers are trying to figure out what it means when the American president sides against them.

Pro-Western reformers, the Ukrainian philosopher Volodymyr Yermolenko told me, had seen the United States as a “a perfect democracy functioning very well,” with an admirable system of checks and balances. “And now this image is crumbling and that’s very dangerous.”

Ukrainians understand that America, like any other country, generally acts from self-interest rather than high principle. They are not naive. But, there was a time when America at least viewed the projection of democratic values as being in its self-interest. That gave liberals in countries like Ukraine leverage against recalcitrant officials.

“The majority of the reforms, especially on anti-corruption, were passed because there was a very strong demand from civil society, and there was the I.M.F. and the U.S. Embassy pushing it hard,” said Oleksandra Ustinova, a former board member of AntAC who was elected to Parliament this year.

The U.S. also provided a degree of protection to local activists and journalists. When Lutsenko was prosecutor general in Ukraine — a position roughly equivalent to our attorney general — he would, said Ustinova, harass anti-corruption campaigners with spurious criminal investigations. “The U.S. ambassador and the E.U. ambassador were going out publicly saying you cannot do this,” Ustinova said.

Now, that’s all changed. As The New York Times reported, after Trump recalled the U.S. ambassador, Lutsenko gloated to the head of AntAC that he had “eliminated your roof,” using Russian mafia slang for guardian.

“We’ve been exporting our corruption to them, rather than trying to export good governance,” said Fukuyama.

When he said that, Fukuyama may not have known how right he was. A few hours after I met Leshchenko, news broke that two Ukrainian-born clients of Giuliani, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, had been arrested on charges of campaign finance crimes as they were preparing to leave the United States with one-way tickets.

According to an indictment, the two “sought to advance their personal financial interests and the political interests of at least one Ukrainian government official with whom they were working.” (In one of those preposterously on-the-nose details that make the Trump era feel like a computer simulation on the fritz, Parnas had a company called Fraud Guarantee.)

As soon as news of the indictment broke, I messaged Leshchenko, who guessed that the unnamed Ukrainian official was Lutsenko. It was a natural assumption; it had already been reported that Parnas and Fruman connected Giuliani with Lutsenko, who had been feeding Trump’s lawyer conspiracy theories about the journalist, the former American ambassador and Joe Biden.

Sure enough, on Saturday NBC News reported that Lutsenko was the official in the indictment. Yovanovitch might have been referring to Lutsenko when she said, in her Friday congressional testimony, that “individuals who have been named in the press as contacts of Mr. Giuliani may well have believed that their personal financial ambitions were stymied by our anti-corruption policy in Ukraine.”

Thanks to Giuliani’s escapades, the domestic grudges of a crooked Ukrainian prosecutor have blossomed into a scandal that’s likely to lead to the impeachment of an American president. Federal prosecutors are now investigating whether Giuliani himself broke the law.

Lutsenko has since left Ukraine for London, and Ukrainian authorities have opened a criminal case against him for allegedly abusing his authority in an unrelated matter. In a recent interview, he told reporters for The Times that in speaking to Giuliani, he sought to tell Trump’s lawyer what he wanted to hear. “I understood very well what would interest them,” Lutsenko said, adding, “I have 23 years in politics.”

He should be seen as wholly discredited, but in our polarized, frenzied media environment, lies never really go away. Trump’s defenders will continue to take Lutsenko’s stories at face value. Worse, long after America has forgotten them, these slanders, which Trump and Giuliani magnified to gargantuan scale, will linger in Ukraine, undermining the people our country once sought to help.

“This smear campaign circulates everywhere: in American media, then in Ukrainian media,” said Leshchenko. Those in Ukraine who want impunity for corruption, he said, can now say, “Look at these anti-corruption activists and journalists and members of Parliament. They are not welcome in the U.S., so don’t listen to them. So it suppresses our reputation here in Ukraine as well.”

Ukrainians are no strangers to post-truth politics. The first time I ever heard the term “fake news” was in 2015, when I learned about the Ukrainian fact-checking organization StopFake. It was created by a group of journalists to push back against the torrents of Russian disinformation sowing chaos in the country’s politics. At the time, it would have been hard to imagine that the United States would soon join Russia as a source of weaponized untruth in Ukraine.
“This is very new, because now it seems it’s not only Russia influencing Ukrainian politics, but Ukraine is also influencing the U.S., and things happening in the U.S. are greatly influencing Ukraine,” Yevhen Fedchenko, one of StopFake’s founders, told me. “So it becomes much more complicated.”

Here’s what’s not complicated. Throughout our history, America has committed many sins against democracy around the world, but we used to be on the right side in Ukraine. Not anymore. As one former U.S. diplomat said to me recently, “The beacon has gone out.” We’re with the oligarchs now.

Russia attacked the US in 2016 and Donald Trump must acknowledge this assault

In the media, the Mueller investigation began at a Russia Today dinner with Putin:

During the 2016 campaign, Michael Flynn led chants of "lock her up" at the Republican National Convention, and after Trump's victory, was appointed to serve as his first national security adviser.

Michael Flynn

But he lasted less than a month on the job before resigning, and in December 2017, he pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with the Russian ambassador during the transition.

The single count against Flynn related to discussions with ambassador Sergey Kislyak around two issues: Obama administration sanctions on Russia and a United Nations resolution condemning Israeli settlements.

According to court documents, Flynn denied to investigators that he asked Kislyak to either defeat or delay the U.N. vote on settlements, and that he also asked the Russians to refrain from retaliating against the sanctions. 

In fact, the government said Flynn was directed by "a very senior member" of the transition team.

Flynn, a former Army general, would eventually admit to misleading the FBI about those conversations, and as part of his plea deal, agreed to cooperate with the special counsel's investigation. Ahead of his sentencing hearing, prosecutors said Flynn had provided "substantial" aid with "several ongoing investigations," telling a court his assistance merited a judge's consideration.

All The Criminal Charges To Emerge So Far From Robert Mueller's Investigation National Public Radio reports by Jason Breslow

The longer special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election has gone on, the more Trump has railed against it. 

Since the investigation began in May 2017, the president has taken to Twitter and dismissed it as a "witch hunt" more than 125 times.

That criticism aside, the special counsel investigation has resulted in criminal counts against more than 30 people and three Russian entities. And while the final outcome of the Mueller probe remains far from certain, it has already generated new insights into how Russia targeted the election, the presidential transition and Trump's business empire.

Here's a closer look at where things stand:

Indicted- Roger Stone, a longtime informal adviser to President Trump and a self-proclaimed "dirty trickster," was arrested by FBI agents at his home in Florida and charged with seven counts, including obstruction, witness tampering and making false statements in relation to Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The special counsel's indictment alleges that Stone was in regular contact with WikiLeaks (identified in the indictment as "Organization 1") and the Trump campaign at key moments as stolen emails from the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign were being released to the public ahead of Election Day in 2016. The timing of these communications, prosecutors allege, suggest officials in the Trump campaign knew ahead of time that WikiLeaks' had stolen the emails and was prepared to leak them.

According to the indictment:

"After the July 22, 2016 release of stolen DNC emails by Organization 1, a senior Trump Campaign official was directed to contact Stone about any additional releases and what other damaging information Organization 1 had regarding the Clinton Campaign."

The indictment says Stone "thereafter told the Trump Campaign about potential future releases."

As NPR's Philip Ewing and Tamara Keith note, the indictment is the first to charge an American in relation to the theft and release of stolen Democratic Party emails. Moreover, "it shows Mueller wants to try to prove that at least one person in the Trump campaign's orbit colluded with Russian's election interference."

Stone has repeatedly denied that he played any role in helping the Russian attack on the 2016 election. In May, he told NPR that the special counsel was "following a fake news narrative, which continues to repeat incorrectly that I had advance knowledge of the content source or exact timing of the WikiLeaks disclosures."

Convicted- Paul Manafort, Trump's former campaign chairman pleaded guilty in September 2018 to conspiracy against the United States and conspiracy to obstruct justice — charges that stemmed from a range of alleged crimes committed over more than a decade as a lobbyist, and later, a member of the Trump campaign.

Paul Manafort

Manafort had been set to go on trial in Washington, D.C., but his plea meant his case did not go before a jury.

As part of his plea deal, Manafort agreed to cooperate with the Mueller investigation, but in November, the special counsel's office told a federal judge he had "breached the plea agreement."

Prosecutors said Manafort committed new crimes "by lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Special Counsel's Office on a variety of subject matters." Manafort's attorneys said he gave the government useful information.

In an earlier case, a federal jury found Manafort guilty on eight of the 18 counts he faced in a sprawling tax and bank fraud case.

It marked an important milestone for the Mueller investigation: the first case to reach trial. Prosecutors accused Manafort of failing to pay taxes on millions of dollars that he earned as a consultant for pro-Russia politicians in Ukraine and kept hidden from the IRS.

The jury deadlocked on 10 counts, prompting U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III to declare a mistrial on those remaining charges.

Pleaded guilty Michael Cohen- At one time, lawyer Michael Cohen said he would "take a bullet" for Donald Trump. But by pleading guilty in November 2018 to lying to Congress, Cohen raised new questions about Trump's business interests in Russia during a pivotal period of the 2016 presidential campaign.

Cohen admitted that he lied when he told Congress that discussions about a potential Trump Tower project in Moscow ended in January 2016. Actually, he said, they continued through June of that year.

According to court documents, Cohen also initially said that his overtures to the Russian government went unrequited, but as talks progressed, he eventually heard back from a top aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin: Dmitry Peskov.

Cohen also pleaded guilty in August 2018 to five counts of tax evasion, one count of falsifying submissions to a bank and two campaign finance violations — a plea that directly implicated the president.

The campaign finance violations stem from two payments that Cohen helped arrange ahead of Election Day in 2016 to buy the silence of former Playboy model Karen McDougal and the adult film actress Stephanie Clifford, also known as Stormy Daniels. The women say they had sexual relationships with Trump.

Trump has acknowledged that he reimbursed Cohen for a $130,000 payment to Clifford — but denies the alleged relationships with both women.

Cohen told a federal judge that he made the payments "in coordination with and at the direction of a candidate for federal office," and that he did so "for the principal purpose of influencing the election."

On Dec. 12, 2018, Cohen was sentenced to 36 months in prison. He had been facing as many as 63 months. Cohen was also ordered to pay nearly $2 million for his crimes.

Pleaded guilty: W. Samuel Patten pleaded guilty in August 2018 to failing to register as a foreign agent for lobbying work he performed for a political party in Ukraine called Opposition Bloc.

Prosecutors said Patten partnered with a Russian national to lobby on behalf of the pro-Russia party, providing political consulting to members, including an unnamed Ukrainian oligarch. 

They received more than $1 million for that work, which included setting up meetings with government officials and members of Congress, and drafting op-eds to appear on behalf of the oligarch inside U.S. news outlets.

Though unnamed in court papers, the Russian national is believed to be Konstantin Kilimnik, who for years worked closely with Paul Manafort in Ukraine. Patten's case was brought by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia on a referral from the special counsel.  Patten has not yet been sentenced.

Pleaded: Rick Gates, like Manafort, Gates was once a top aide to Trump, serving as his deputy campaign chairman during the 2016 presidential race, and later, as a senior aide on the presidential inaugural committee. 

Before that, Gates spent years as Manafort's protege.

Gates agreed to cooperate with the Mueller investigation after pleading guilty in February 2018 to financial fraud and lying to federal investigators.

He was originally charged alongside Manafort with conspiracy to launder money, making false statements and other charges in connection to their work advising Russia-friendly politicians in Ukraine.

At Manafort's trial, Gates testified that he and his former partner used offshore bank accounts and wire transfers in order to hide money from the IRS. Gates faces as much as six years in prison. 

He has continued cooperating with the government as its investigations go forward and has not yet been sentenced.

Pleaded guilty: Alex van der Zwaan became the first person to be sentenced in the Mueller probe after he pleaded guilty to lying to investigators.  The son-in-law of a Russia-based billionaire, van der Zwaan acknowledged in federal court in February 2018 that he misled investigators about a conversation he had with Rick Gates, the former Trump campaign aide, in September 2016.

The conversation focused on a report that van der Zwaan's law firm prepared about the prosecution of Yulia Tymoshenko, a political rival of former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych.

He was sentenced to 30 days in prison and a $20,000 fine.

Pleaded guilty: Richard Pinedo is a California man who in February 2018, pleaded guilty to identity fraud.

Pinedo admitted to making tens of thousands of dollars by creating hundreds of bank accounts, often using stolen identities. He then sold those accounts on the Web to unidentified foreign users.
It's unclear to what extent, if any, those users included suspects connected to the Russia investigation. But it's possible they were used as part of a scheme described by Mueller's office in which Russians intent on attacking the 2016, election moved money around the world to pay for virtual private networks, Web hosting services and other such cyber-tools.

In an interview with The New York Times, Pinedo's attorney, Jeremy I. Lessem, said that if his client's actions did assist "any individuals, including foreign nationals, with interfering in the American presidential election, it was done completely without his knowledge or understanding."

Pindedo was sentenced to six months in prison, six months of home confinement and 100 hours of community service.

Pleaded guilty: George Papadopoulos was the first person charged in the Mueller investigation and pleaded guilty in October 2017 to lying to the FBI. Papadopoulos was a junior foreign policy adviser to the Trump 2016 campaign — one of a number brought on early amidst questions about who would advise Trump about foreign affairs. Trump once praised him as an "excellent guy."

In January 2017, the FBI questioned Papadopoulos about his interactions with a professor based in London with links to the Russian government. The official told Papadopoulos that the Russians had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton in the form of "thousands of emails," according to court documents.

Prosecutors say Papadopoulos went on to use the professor's connections in an effort to arrange a meeting between the Trump campaign and Russian officials.

In his interview with the FBI, Papadopoulos originally described the professor as "a nothing," but investigators said that "In truth ... Papadopoulos understood that the professor had substantial connections to Russian government officials."

Papadopoulos' attorney said when he was sentenced that he didn't recall whether he'd communicated the information about the dirt on Clinton to his superiors on the Trump campaign.

He was sentenced to 14 days in prison. 

Indicted: Russian Intelligence

In July 2018, the Justice Department brought charges against 12 Russian intelligence officers on a litany of alleged crimes related to Russia's hacking of the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Clinton presidential campaign.

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who announced the charges, said the defendants worked for the Russian government's Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff — known by its Russian initials as the GRU.

In a 29-page indictment, the Justice Department outlined how the attackers were able to access and steal sensitive Democratic Party emails and information, and then carefully timed their release for maximum political impact through fictitious online personas that included "DCLeaks" and "Guccifer 2.0."

The Russians also targeted state election systems, and stole information related to approximately 500,000 voters. However, because Russia is unlikely to extradite the accused suspects, the case is unlikely to go to trial.

Indicted: Konstantin Kilimnik worked alongside Paul Manafort in Ukraine for more than a decade. Kilimnik started as a translator, and later helped run his lobbying operations in Kiev, according to Politico.

In June 2018, the special counsel's office charged Kilimnik with obstruction of justice for allegedly trying to persuade witnesses to lie to the jury in the government's then-pending case against Manafort. Ultimately, Manafort pleaded guilty and the matter did not go to trial.

Kilimnik is believed to be living in Russia, meaning it's unlikely he'll be extradited to the U.S. for trial.

(Certainly, as a MaineWriter Twitterzin, I was assaulted by many of these creatures.) Indicted: Russian Internet trolls: A federal grand jury indicted 13 Russians and three Russian entities in February 2018 for what Rosenstein described to reporters as "information warfare" with "the stated goal of spreading distrust towards the candidates and the political system in general."

At the center of the indictment was the work the Internet Research Agency, the notorious Russian troll farm based in St. Petersburg. It was there, Rosenstein said, that the suspects "took extraordinary steps to make it appear that they were ordinary American political activists."

They created "hundreds of social media accounts" to divide Americans around polarizing issues, and according to the indictment, "engaged in operations primarily intended to communicate derogatory information about Hillary Clinton ... and to support Bernie Sanders and then-candidate Donald Trump."

The indictment doesn't assess whether the disinformation scheme succeeded in swaying votes, and the U.S. intelligence community also says it hasn't assessed what kind of effect the scheme had on the outcome of the 2016 White House race. 

Barring Russia's cooperation in extraditing the accused disinformation specialists, they are unlikely to face trial.

Donald Trump must accept and respond to the reality of the evidence in the Mueller Russia investigation.  

Mueller is doing right by "following the money"

Ann echo opinion by Carl Hisiro, a retired attorney, and an occasional PennLive Opinion contributor. He writes from Susquehanna Township in Pennsylvania.

Watching the legal travails surrounding Donald Trump and his inner circle over the past week in the ongoing investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller over Russian tampering in the 2016 election, it’s tough not to be reminded of the Watergate scandal and the last days of President Richard Nixon’s White House.

In the past few days alone, we’ve seen former Trump fixer Michael Cohen’s guilty plea; the collapse of a plea agreement between Mueller and former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, and Tuesday’s release of a heavily redacted sentencing memo suggesting former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn cooperated extensively with Mueller’s office to avoid jail time for lying to Congress.

History reminds us that Nixon’s ultimate downfall began when then White House Counsel John Dean decided to testify to Congress about his knowledge of the Watergate break-in and the subsequent cover-up.

It’s becoming increasingly clear that Trump’s fate is tied to Cohen’s decision to cooperate not only with Mueller’s ongoing investigation, but with three other law enforcement agencies, by providing some 70 hours of testimony. Based on news reports, it appears that Flynn’s cooperation could be of similar impact.

Before the election, I wrote that Trump would be the most conflicted president ever elected, and that these conflicts could threaten our national security. I remain as convinced as ever that is the case.

My position has only been reinforced by allegations that Trump continued to pursue efforts to build a new property in Russia well into the 2016 campaign.

We’ve since learned that that the Trump Organization had offered Russian leader Vladimir Putin a $50 million Penthouse in the Trump Tower as part of a kickback to get the deal approved by the dictator. And while all of this was going on, Trump repeatedly denied on the campaign trail that he had “any business dealings with Russia.”

In sum, while Trump was campaigning for president in 2016, he was secretly interacting with a hostile foreign government to close on perhaps Trump’s largest business transaction ever.

The American public was entitled to know about this enormous conflict of interest, but were denied the truth before the election by Trump’s repeated denials on the subject.

With Trump, Mueller is doing the right thing by “following the money” to connect the dots on Russia. With Trump everything is about the money.

The Trump Organization is a family business where Trump micromanages everything. It is hard to imagine anything happening within the company, especially meetings with top Russian officials right under Trump’s nose in his NYC Trump Tower, that he didn’t know about at the time it occurred.

The other fascinating fact that is hard to ignore is how Trump often acts more like a Mafia boss instead of the chief law enforcement officer of the country when he reacts to any negative news involving the Mueller investigation.

We saw it with Manafort when Trump praised Manafort for not cracking when he first refused to cooperate with Mueller and instead went to trial. Now, we see it again when Trump last week called Cohen “a weak person” when Cohen decided to cooperate fully with Mueller’s probe and his concurrent praise of Trump insider Roger Stone for his refusal to cooperate with Mueller.

The larger question is whether Trump’s base will stick with him as these revelations continue to mount; as Mueller releases his final report, and as the 2020 campaign draws ever nearer.

Like Nixon more than 40 years ago, Trump has repeatedly taken steps to interfere or otherwise obstruct ongoing. That’s included his purges at the Justice Department.

History is definitely repeating itself as we slowly grind to the finish line. However, there is one difference between now and the Watergate scandal. What Trump is being accused of relating to Russia and his other business dealings, if proven true, makes Nixon look like a nickel and dime crook by comparison.

“I am working to set things right,” Michael Flynn reported in The New Yorker

The New Yorker opinion by Eric Lach

Donald Trump will be compelled to eventually tell the truth to Robert Mueller

Almost exactly a year ago, after he had pleaded guilty to lying to the government about his conversations with the Russian Ambassador to the U.S. and about his business relationship with the Turkish government, Michael Flynn, the retired lieutenant general who served for a few short weeks as Donald Trump’s first national-security adviser, issued a statement acknowledging that he was coöperating with the special counsel, Robert Mueller. “I am working to set things right,” he said. At the time, Nicholas Schmidle, who wrote a Profile of Flynn for The New Yorker, predicted that coöperating with Mueller had the potential to be Flynn’s “most significant act of public service yet.” On Tuesday, Mueller filed a memo in court suggesting that Flynn had made good on his word.

Michael Flynn "I am working to set things right"

“The defendant’s assistance to the government was substantial and merits consideration at sentencing,” the memo says. “His early cooperation was particularly valuable because he was one of the few people with long-term and firsthand insight regarding events and issues under investigation.” 

Flynn is due to be sentenced for his crimes later in December, and the memo states that a sentence with no jail time “is appropriate and warranted.”

Many people had been eagerly anticipating Tuesday’s memo, hoping to learn what exactly Flynn has told Mueller. But the document doesn’t really say—citing “ongoing investigations,” Mueller redacted much of the document in the public filing. The document states that Flynn sat for nineteen interviews with the special counsel’s office (S.C.O.) or other attorneys from the Justice Department, that he coöperated in at least one criminal investigation separate from the special counsel’s investigation, that he turned over documents and communications, and that he spoke to Mueller’s team about interactions between Trump’s transition team and the Russian government. 

But whole paragraphs are blocked out. Names, dates, and other details remain unknown. There is one other interesting part of the document, though. In a section titled “History and Characteristics of the Defendant,” the memo states, “The defendant’s record of military and public service distinguish him from every other person who has been charged as part of the SCO’s investigation”—a nod toward Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, George Papadopoulos, et al. “However,” the document goes on, “senior government leaders should be held to the highest standards.” 

Whom might this second sentence be nodding toward?

Immgiration was once a beacon of hope - Republicans snuffed the luster

America's future has lost its shining luster ~ echo opinion from The Baltimore Sun

What happened to the shining emotions and the optimism about being an American? We're now the "ugly American" we thought had been re-invented decades ago, but the Trumpists have re-created a selfish and tarnished image of our national pride.

Will America remain a beacon of freedom and opportunity in the world?

Statue of Liberty 

Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door! The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation, Inc.

With the Congress in disarray under an erratic and chaotic president who deeply divides the country, and with its two major parties at loggerheads over immigration law, American politics may have hit a new low of pessimism, bitterness and despair.
Should upwards of a million "Dreamers" be deported because they were brought to this country as children by their undocumented immigrant parents? And at the same time, should that wall across our southern border be built at a cost of $18 billion to keep out millions more illegal Mexicans and others from Central America?

What about the melting-pot that supposedly made America great before Donald Trump got the (plagiaristic)  idea of making it greater? 

Moreover, Lady Liberty stands at the symbolic gate in New York Harbor still raising her torch as American politicians fight over continuing her relevance.

Trump managed to sum up the argument with his gutter slander of Haiti and others in Africa as "shithole countries" whose minions still hope to come here. 

Frankly, Trump's words enraged not only American racial and ethnic minorities, but also millions abroad. This nation's admired reputation as a welcoming haven to all seeking a better and more peaceful life was soiled by Mr. Trump's ugly and thoughtless slur.

In another of his self-aggrandizing boasts, he continues to insist not only that the border wall will be built to keep "raping" Mexicans out, but he will "make them pay for it," though perhaps not directly. His White House chief of staff, John F. Kelly, suggested to members of Congress the other day that Mexico will somehow be obliged to ante up, one way or another.

What the president accomplished with his demeaning identification of unwanted immigrants was to make clear that the basis of his rejection was racial, refuting his own preposterous contention to reporters that he is "the least racist person you've ever interviewed."

This is a country whose citizens pride themselves in being part of an open society of immigrants enriching itself through its racial and ethnic diversity. Mr. Trump's latest remarks suggest he simply does not understand or realize what in America's origins made her great, and has kept her so since the first Europeans arrived here more than five centuries ago.

As Trump embarks on his second year in the Oval Office, he boasts of his solitary legislative achievement, the highly controversial tax reform bill. But it and other words and actions have stirred deep apprehension over the quality of his leadership, and indeed over his fitness to hold the office at all.

He made repeated efforts to persuade his countrymen and women that there has not been, and is not, any "collusion" between himself, his family or his presidential campaign or presidency and the Russians. Yet the investigation of Special Counsel Robert Mueller into possible involvement in the meddling in the 2016 election goes on.

Despite hopeful expectations within the Trump political circle that the inquiry will soon be completed, it continues methodically as more Trump campaign and administration figures are summoned to testify, either voluntarily or under subpoena with possible penalty of perjury for lying.

Not only the Mueller investigation but also similar inquiries of House and Senate Intelligence Committees are continuing to cast shadows of suspicion over the president, his 2016 campaign and his administration. Each group is generally seen as looking for evidence of obstruction of justice or lesser behavior that could imperil Mr. Trump's presidency in the year or years ahead.

It could well be his firing of FBI Director James Comey for declining to let former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn off the hook in prosecution for lying about his involvement with the Russians, about which Mr. Flynn has already pleaded guilty.

More recently, speculation has grown over alleged money laundering in the campaign or for personal gain by former campaign manager Paul Manafort and a chief aide, to which they have pleaded not guilty.

Of greater importance, however, may be the damage inflicted by the whole matter on America's image and reputation as a beacon to the rest of the world and as a place for those seeking refuge, regardless of race or religious creed.

Jules Witcover is a syndicated columnist and former long-time writer for The Baltimore Sun. His latest book is "The American Vice Presidency: From Irrelevance to Power" (Smithsonian Books). His email is juleswitcover@comcast.net.

In my opinion ~ Maine Writer:  Republicans are snuffing out the brilliant beacon of the American Dream because they prefer to focus on selfishness, bigotry and greed.  

Russian spies and the Trump administration

Donald Trump continues to project blame for his irresonsible administration's contacts with Russia.  But, evidence mounts that Russia and President Putin have infiltrated the Trump administration.

In a sheer abdication of responsibility, Donald Trump deflects, rather than admits, blame. Yet, the preponderance of the evidence continues to build, all the while Donald Trump responds by demanding apologies from the sources of the incrminating evidence. Incredibly, Donald Trump blames the mainstream media for uncovering factual evidence about  treasonous Russian communications between him and his circle of outrageous advisors. Now, he's demanding an apology from The New York Times for breaking more Russian intelligence information.

There's just too much evidence to ignore, including the proven fact that Russian hackers influenced the outcome of the 2016 election in what amounted to an invasion of American political communications. So the question is, how much evidence is needed before Republicans acknowledge the Donald Trump circle could be the root of treasonous behavior for the purpose of advancing their political ambition? It's the epitomy of selling their souls.  

Here's another report in the growing litany of evidence:

1.  Kellyanne Conway: Special adviser to Donald Trump and one of his litany of campaign managers. In fact, her husband is the man who defended Russians against criminal prosecution. Kellyanne Conway’s husband represented firm accused of Russia bribe. 

In fact, Trump's adviser Kellyanne Conway’s husband George recently represented a corporation accused of bribing Russian officials, it has been reported. Scott Dworkin, from the anti-Trump group Democratic Coalition, tweeted images of documents revealing the link. The document appears to show that in 2015 lawyer George Conway represented Hewlett-Packard Co and Hewlett-Packard Mexico in the US District Court in Northern California, San Jose division in a case brought by Petroleos Mexicanos and Pemex Exploracion y Produccion.

It read: “Pemex pleads that HP Russia used a German agent to bribe Russian officials to secure a contract with the prosecutor general of Russia.”

It comes after a series of claims regarding Donald Trump’s former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and his campaign team and their links to Russia.

The President and his team have strongly denied all the reports, calling them “nonsense," - but the evidence mounts in spite of projecting blame.

In an interview with NBC’s Matt Lauer, Ms Conway claimed the revelation that Gen Flynn had lied to Vice President Mike Pence — who then went on television and insisted he had not discussed sanctions with the Russian ambassador — was the key factor in his resignation.

“I think misleading the vice president really was the key here,” Ms Conway said.

“But wait a second,” Mr Lauer replied. “You’re saying that was the straw that broke the camel’s back, but the White House knew about that last month when the Justice Department warned the White House that Flynn had not been completely honest in characterising that conversation with the Russian ambassador. And they even went further to say that as a result of that dishonesty, he was at risk for blackmailing by the Russians.”

“Well, that’s one characterisation, but the fact is that Gen Flynn continued in that position, and was in the presidential daily briefings, was part of the leader calls as recently as yesterday,” Ms Conway said. “As time wore on, obviously the situation had become unsustainable ...”

“Kellyanne that makes no sense,” Mr Lauer interjected. “Last month, the Justice Department warned the White House that Gen Flynn had misled them, and as a result he was vulnerable to blackmail. And at that moment, he still had the complete trust of the president?” (OMG- this is enough evidence to have put any one who is reading this under surveillance for sedition.)

“Matt, I’m telling you what the president has said, which is that he’s accepted Gen Flynn’s resignation and he wishes him well, and that we’re moving on,” Ms Conway answered.

Later, Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters Mr Trump’s trust in Gen Flynn had “eroded” over the weeks between the Justice Department’s warning and his decision to step down.

Probably, it's not irony to note that prior to Kellyanne Conway being hired to manage the Donald Trump political campaign, Paul Manafort was let go in a rather weird circumstance when it was revealed how he was too cozy with Russia. 
Business Insider reported the FBI was looking into Donald Trump's former campaign manager's alleged ties to Russia- Paul Manafort indeed had worked in the Ukraine, obviously had contact with Russia.

How much evidence do Repulbicans need before they move forward to censure Donald Trump and his corrupt administration? After experiencing the wasteful money spent on bogus Congressional investigations, about the tragedy in Benghazi, Libya, it seems like the incriminating evidence about "Russia - gate" will come back to haunt all who ignore the evidence; especially when treasonous communications are suspected of influencing the highest levels of the American government. 

Russia huggger Donald Trump has too many Putin connections

Americans who support Donald Trump can't ignore the candidate's many nefarious ties to Russia coupled with his praise for the US antogonist and serial assassin Vladimir Putin.  Any American who supports Donald Trump must ask how they can vote for a candidate with so many ties to Russia?

Donald Trump continues to praise Vladimir Putin.

Donald Trump has delusional ideation about how he and Putin can solve the myriad of problems in the Syrian civil war and refugee tragedies.  

Putin hugger "Trump loves Putin" poster: Americans can't elect a leader who is engaged in a love fest with serial assassin and Russian President Vladimir Putin

Donald Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort, was clearly tied to supporting Russian interests in the Ukraine. In fact, a secret ledger in the Ukraine listed cash for Donald Trump’s Campaign Chief. When Donald Trump’s presidential campaign parted ways with campaign chairman Paul Manafort, there was no real mystery surrounding the shake-up. Manafort’s connections to pro-Putin forces made his position untenable.

September 26, 2016- and on the day of the first 2016 presidential debate there is yet another questionable Russian tie to Donald Trump's campaign.

The Hill reports:
Trump aide departs amid scrutiny of Russia ties

A foreign policy adviser to Donald Trump says he is leaving the Republican nominee's presidential campaign amid reports that U.S. intelligence officials are examining his ties to Russia.

Carter Page is an investment banker who previously worked at Merrill Lynch’s Moscow branch and now has extensive business ties with Russia.

Carter Page is leaving the Trump campaign- ties to Russia

"Where there's smoke, there's fire", says Maine Writer

The foreign policy adviser at the center of the storm over accusations that the Donald Trump campaign has secret ties to the Russian government has decided to publicly fight back. He denies meeting with sanctioned Russian officials during a recent trip to Moscow. In a long interview, Carter Page also told me he is taking a leave of absence from his work with the Trump campaign due to the controversy. “All of these accusations are just complete garbage,” Page said about attacks on him by top officials in the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and unnamed intelligence officials, who have suggested that on a July trip to Moscow, Page met with “highly-sanctioned individuals” and perhaps even discussed an unholy alliance between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.

Last month, Reid wrote to FBI Director James B. Comey asking him to initiate an investigation into Page’s Moscow visit, where Page gave a speech at the graduation ceremony of the New Economic School. 

Without naming Page, Reid said the FBI should investigate his meetings as part of the larger look into whether the Trump campaign was conspiring with the Russian government to tamper with the U.S. presidential election.

Citing “a well-placed Western intelligence source,” Yahoo news last week reported that the U.S. government had received intelligence reports that Page met with Igor Sechin, a friend of Vladimir Putin who runs Russian oil giant Rosneft, and Igor Diveykin, a high–ranking Russian intelligence official. The article floated accusations that Page had conducted “talks about the possible lifting of economic sanctions if the Republican nominee becomes president.” Various other reports have alleged Page met with Sergei Ivanov, who until recently was the chief of Putin’s presidential administration.

“All the ones that are mentioned in the various articles, I didn’t meet with any of those guys,” Page told me in his first public comments on the accusations. “It’s completely false and inconceivable that someone would even accuse me of that.”

Page said that as part of the school’s graduation program, he did briefly meet and shake hands with Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich, who was also a speaker at the graduation event. That meeting was an exchange of pleasantries, he said.

In his speech and in his personal interactions, Page said he made clear that he was acting in his personal capacity and not as a member of the Trump campaign. He also said he made that clear to senior Trump campaign staff at the time, who he said approved his trip in advance with the understanding no campaign issues would be discussed. (Well, ....no campaign issues discussed at formal meetings! But what about what's said in private?)

Donald Trump has too many ties to Russia. 

Americans can't trust him and we can't elect a "Putin hugger" to be the the leader of the free world.

As the Trump turns - daily GOP drama

"Manafort is leaving on good terms with the campaign, and will remain an ally and outside confidant of the campaign, according to a close associate of his who spoke on the condition of anonymity Friday to The Washington Post."  Does anybody on Donald Trump's campaign know that any "outside confidant help" must be reported as an "in kind" campaign contribution? 

 

A presidential political campaign is not suitable for soap opera drama! Wake up America! Dump Trump!

Still absent ideas, vision and his income taxes as secret as a national security briefing, Donald Trump continues to create political news like he's acting for reality TV.  

But, wake up Donald !! You're trying to convince us to vote for you?  Your family are paper doll cut outs without personality, your political campaign is falling apart (twice!) and your message is driven by bigotry. This isn't reality TV! Your appeal to voters is as full of inconsistencies as Ryan Lochte's robbery story, concocted in Rio di Janeiro.

Every day seems like causes more useless drama!

June 20th headlines: The Daily Trail: Donald Trump's day started out bad. It got worse.  "As we've long noted, Donald Trump has said he wants to run a different campaign than the one Mitt Romney did in 2012. On that front, he is succeeding handsomely," wrote Rebecca Sinderbrand in The Washington Post.

And here's another day in the life of "As the Trump Turns":

The Fix: The craziest 24 hours of Donald Trump’s campaign so far...by Amber Phillips (But wait! There's more!.....it got worse!) "Donald Trump knows how to put on a solid media spectacle. But as my colleague Dan Balz so astutely points out, these past 24 to 48 hours of vice-presidential drama suggests a campaign out of control with its messaging. The Veep drama, which ended after after Trump tweeted Friday morning he'd chosen Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R), went something like this: Donald Trump said he had a name. Then he had five, maybe 10. Then one guy in mind. Then two. Maybe it was this guy, he told aides. Yes, definitely this guy. Actually, it might not be this guy; his family and advisers want other guys. Then, publicly: "I haven't made up my mind," Trump said Thursday night, following reports he had indeed made up his mind. Oh wait, he actually has made up his mind — and just in the nick of time." wrote Phillips.

Honestly, the litany of "As the Trump Turns" negative campaign articles reads like a political report written by the grim reaper.

Today, Friday, will drive the weekend soap opera with this new development:  Trump campaign chairman and chief strategist Paul Manafort on Friday resigned, following a staff shake-up this week that reduced his role in the campaign.  GOP nominee Donald Trump confirmed the resignation in a statement Friday morning: “This morning Paul Manafort offered, and I accepted, his resignation from the campaign. I am very appreciative for his great work in helping to get us where we are today,

and in particular his work guiding us through the delegate and convention process. Paul is a true professional and I wish him the greatest success.”  (Ohhhhpaleeeeze!)

Manafort's resignation comes as the campaign seeks to correct course after weeks of damaging controversies and self-inflicted wounds, effectively evaporating Trump’s steady footing against Clinton in the polls and his (now evaporated) post-convention bump. Trump is now trailing Clinton in every major poll.

Manafort repeatedly signaled to members of the Republican establishment that he and Trump were working together to rebrand the candidate in a more presidential light. But hopes of a so-called “pivot” vanished as the summer wore on and Trump appeared intent on settling scores with former rivals within his own party and critics. Perhaps most damaging was Trump's attack on a Gold Star family – who lost their son, Army Capt. Humayun Khan, while he served in Iraq – for speaking out against him at the Democratic National Convention. He later refused to apologize or express regret. (As an act of retribution this is a signal of how Donald Trump would govern?  He's definitely modeling his political ambitions after Vladimir Putin!)

But aside from Trump’s own missteps, Republican strategists also became increasingly concerned that the campaign, under the direction of Manafort, failed to build a robust infrastructure in key battleground states. Though the campaign is relying heavily on the Republican National Committee (RNC- that would be Reince Priebus? )

for its ground game, lackluster efforts by the main campaign have left Trump under prepared for the competitive general election on the ground.

Manafort’s personal business dealings have also come under intense scrutiny in recent weeks, amid damaging questions over his ties to foreign governments and indications that he might have received $12 million in undisclosed cash payments. The alleged payments, which Manafort denied, were noted in a ledger kept by former Ukraine president Viktor Yanukovych's political party. Since then, more evidence has surfaced that raised concerns about his ties to the Kremlin.

Manafort formally joined Trump's campaign in late March to oversee preparations for the Republican convention, which at that point was poised to turn into a battle for delegates. He immediately clashed with Corey Lewandowski, Trump's long-serving campaign manager who had never worked on a presidential campaign. 

For months, the two scuffled for power and access to Trump.

On May 19, after Trump collected the necessary number of delegates to lock-up the nomination, Trump promoted Manafort to the position of campaign chairman, a clear slight to Lewandowski. One month after that, Trump fired Lewandowski on June 20, clearing Manafort to run the campaign.

The firing followed Trump's controversial comments about the heritage of a judge assigned to a civil case involving Trump University, which many strategists blamed Lewandowski for failing to rein in.

Manafort took a much different approach to running the campaign than Lewandowski had. While Lewandowski and his small band of aides with limited or no presidential campaign experience operated under a motto of "Let Trump Be Trump," Manafort quickly seemed to implement some limits on Trump. Prior to Manafort's arrival, Trump was frequently a guest on the influential Sunday morning news shows that often set the tone for the week, sometimes calling into or appearing on numerous shows the same day. Starting this spring, Trump's appearances became rarer -- and Manafort often appeared in his place.  (Perhaps, thankfully for Democrats, this tactic was a "huge" mistake, as Trump might coin the phrase.)

So, if it's true that future performance is usually predicted by the past and "you can't teach a 70 year old new tricks", then this continuous drama is a clear indication about how unqualified Donald Trump is to be a political leader. It's urgent! Trump needs to resign very soon, because his leadership is just too terrible a risk for the GOP to take if they want to remain a viable political party.