Trump Jr./Russian lawyer meeting: Jr. knew info was part of Russian Gov effort

[The_Doctor]

Is there ANYONE not associated with the Putin government they didn't meet? The janitor maybe?

[The_Doctor]

Is there ANYONE not associated with the Putin government they didn't meet? The janitor maybe?

John Podesta?

And somehow you tied this to Hillary Clinton. Solid work, mate.

[The_Doctor]

So fun fact: the lawyer in question has an almost totally public Facebook profile. Some highlights:

May 19th, 2016 - Posts "A new Snowden will come from the clouds."
May 26th, 2016 - Post tagged with location "Moscow, Russia"
May 30th, 2016 - "Before big US weekend, [Magnitsky case client] Browder and Associates send out fake story on [Russian businessman at the center of the case] Denis Katsyv.

Bit of context: Denis Katsyv also runs a company called Perezov. Peresov is represented by a law firm in the US, a subsidiary of which is Fusion GPS, the company which allegedly hired Christopher Steele to compile the infamous "Trump Dossier."

June 6th, 2016: Posts video of NY AG calling Trump University a "straight up fraud case."
[June 9th, 2016] - Alleged meeting with Trump associates
June 10th, 2016: Various pictures around New York City
June 14th, 2016: Posts tagged with location "Washington, DC"
June 30th, 2016: Post criticizing US Congress for sanctions against Russia
July 1st, 2016: "Liberalism is a f***ing mental disorder." - Story on Democrats' views on Obama
January 21st, 2017: Posts against the womens' march
January 25th, 2017: Praises US State Department for freezing money Obama apparently gave to Palestine (got to admit, never heard of this story)
January 31st, 2017: Calls on Sally Yates to resign (fired later in the day)
April 7th, 2017: Praises Gorsuch appointment

Bob Mueller's going to have a field day with this. That profile might end up being scrubbed but I assume screen shots were already obtained.

[The_Doctor]

I await McCain and this forum's Trumpists expressing concern and sorrow and indignation but not actually doing anything.

[The_Doctor]

so, more interesting stuff. I see we can get Don Jr for attempted collusion.

[The_Doctor]

Is apathetic austrian updating us or do I have to read twitter?

[The_Doctor]

Nuclear Elmo plz?

[The_Doctor]

Junior tweeted out the correspondence. And implicated his brother in law and the campaign manager. With the Russian government being a clear ask for providing negative information. Someone - have i died and gone to heaven? Is this what the Great Beyond feels like? I'm about to see the One and Eternal king right?

[The_Doctor]

This has the feel of an impending statement that goes, “I, Michael Richard Pence, do solemnly swear I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States…”

[The_Doctor]

This has the feel of an impending statement that goes, “I, Michael Richard Pence, do solemnly swear I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States…”

You and I both know Trump isn't going to go down willingly.

That's what's gonna make this all the more fun.

[The_Doctor]

As far as this goes, this is the smoking gun or close to it. There's no way Trump Senior didn't know of this meeting and we now have two instances where GOP operatives and the trump campaign attempted to get information from Russian operatives.

This does not even get into the business side of Trump dealings and let's be honest we've barely scratched the surface of all the criminal activities. Basically, this is the average day in Trump land if you take all their activities between 2008 and 2016 as a whole.

I suspect Mueller is sitting on far worse on than this.

In short, get ready for Pence if he's innocent; if he's complicit, get ready for Ryan.

[The_Doctor]

One major reason GOP operatives will not let Trump stay in power past 2019: they don't want the 2020 election being litigated over Trump's activities with Russia and any other nefarious activity. Every GOP operative knows that the 2020 election cannot be about Russian collusion and the failure of the trump administration to do anything meaningful.

Basically, Pence is going to need to be the one salvaging this sinking Titanic. The whole "return to normalcy" thing.

[The_Doctor]

This has the feel of an impending statement that goes, “I, Michael Richard Pence, do solemnly swear I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States…”

You and I both know Trump isn't going to go down willingly.

In addition, there's a sizable percentage of the country who just doesn't care. Remember that poll saying that 43% of Americans trust Trump more than CNN/the media? That's going to come into play here.

Not enough to win a Presidential election. Pence will be President. The gop knows the math.

[The_Doctor]

One major reason GOP operatives will not let Trump stay in power past 2019: they don't want the 2020 election being litigated over Trump's activities with Russia and any other nefarious activity. Every GOP operative knows that the 2020 election cannot be about Russian collusion and the failure of the trump administration to do anything meaningful.

Basically, Pence is going to need to be the one salvaging this sinking Titanic. The whole "return to normalcy" thing.

Unless Pence knew.

Then we move down to Paulie boy. If we have to move beyond Paulie, then the entire party should just make Hillary PPT and be done with it because if we are looking at Orrin Hatch as our national salvation, the GOP is doomed.

but I think Pence was kept 'clean' just in case. The strange thing to remember about Pence, Manafort picked Pence. So ... we might have to actively start looking at Ryan.

[The_Doctor]

Basically, the game is now about "Can Trump reach 51%"? and better yet, can "House Republicans reach 45%" of the popular vote in 2018? If McConnell believes this will doom his bid to gain a supermajority or Ryan now believes that the GOP is so endangered in 2018 that cutting Trump loose is better than riding into the midterms with him, the leadership will make the calculation that Pence is acceptable enough to the base.

The cold calculations is going to be about if Trumpy can get them to 219 seats in the seats. if it looks like this might hand Pelosi the gavel on the issue alone, Ryan will turn on trump.

The party strategists will also be doing numbers for 2020 and if they believe this staggering amount of negative news is going to hurt their ability to consolidate the 2016 Trumpers + the GOP never trumpers + other people open to Trump, which is what they need for '20, they will be go basically "eff trump, time for pence."

[The_Doctor]

One major reason GOP operatives will not let Trump stay in power past 2019...

But what can they do about it? Unless Trump's base abandons him, impeachment will be a bloodbath where Trump fights them every step of the way, and he isn't stepping down on his own from the most powerful position in the country.

something tells me Trump does not want this to be a bitter junta like fight. The GOP leadership has ways to signal to the base this is over and start turning on trump and indicating this is no longer a viable situation.

also, new question - are we really sure the base wants to die on this hill? My suspicion, if Ryan starts validating the NYT, if McConnell, and a bunch of GOP high profile people start validating, the base starts wavering, and starts wondering who to listen to, the man in the White House or the other validators? Remember, the GOP united front si essential to telling the base what to think ...

Trump will go if there is a way for him to go peacefully without his family being indicted and tried for crimes. He won't care if Manafort and Flynn go to jail. He will care if it's Jared and Don Jr. I think ironically now would be the best time to issue a pardon and resign. The crimes are still "light' enough.

But it's really getting to the point where the implications and the crimes are really getting to the point where even Pence doesn't have the power to pardon without severe blowback. I don't think at this point with Don Jr's revelations that there is no longer a debate on whether collusion was attempted or not. Collusion most definitely was attempted.

Functionally, politically, it's the working definition of treason.

[The_Doctor]

It's actually, now that I think of it, better for Trump to go before the indictments are handed down by Mueller and his team. That would honestly be enough for the GOP to argue that Trump paid, there was only attempted collusion.

Because, honestly, the business side I think is much, much worse than the Russian stuff. I think Trump has done shady, maybe even outright illegal things on the business side and nobody went after him because he was this apprentice type guy. This is maybe the reason he's never released his taxes.

[The_Doctor]

This has the feel of an impending statement that goes, “I, Michael Richard Pence, do solemnly swear I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States…”

You and I both know Trump isn't going to go down willingly.

In addition, there's a sizable percentage of the country who just doesn't care. Remember that poll saying that 43% of Americans trust Trump more than CNN/the media? That's going to come into play here.

Not enough to win a Presidential election. Pence will be President. The gop knows the math.

It isn't enough to win, but it's enough to make the risk arguably greater than the reward unless bigger shoes drop (which, to be fair, I do expect).

Why would the GOP leadership assume shoes aren't dropping?

[The_Doctor]

ted, the Republican leadership may lack foresight and may focus on 2018 as their job is to do that but at some point, the ship is sinking and the 55-39% approvals are going to ... well, possibly crater more as time goes by.

you get the idea. We'll see how this plays out.

[The_Doctor]

Wait manafort and Kushner were CC"d on this? are you serious?

*starts cackling like a maniac*

[The_Doctor]

At this point I'm going to present a unified theory that probably explains why we're witness to all this crap today. If you ever read my post - this isn't a sh*tpost, so just read it, and see if it works out logically.

Trump had never run intending to win. He intended to make a celebrity mark and then leave the race even going so far to tell Christie he would endorse him when the time came. (In which case we'd be holding impeachment hearings for Bridgegate and being too wide to fit on a beach, not this).

Evidence he never intended to be President on a serious basis? He never intended to release his tax returns under the assumption he'd never be President. He assumed that once he lost, people would ignore it and it would go away. Yes, he contemplated NY governor. Yes, he was thinking about this in 2013. But he never made the real decisions that would have made him a serious Presidential candidate. Up to two weeks before he ran he considered backing out. He had a skeletal staff at the beginning, basically Lewandowski, and a couple of people.  

So, switch over to Vladimir Putin. Putin, for his side, knew Trump had an enduring business interest in Russia. He saw Trump switching his position on Russia and had Russia contemplate a plan where he would disrupt the election via Wikileaks, weakening Hillary Clinton. Basically, the plan is to use a failed loser to sow dissent and disrupt the election and the American government. So, use Wikileaks to damage Hillary. Offer Trump damaging campaign info (because in Putin's world, this is how things go down. He's recommended House of Cards to his generals. Literally).

So, when this all went down, Trump was way behind in the polls. The GOP leadership didn't back him. He basically was repeatedly shooting himself in the foot. So, Russia reaches out, offers information, and starts working with Flynn, and other GOP operatives. Trump takes this all happily enough assuming that Putin will help him build Trump Tower in Moscow. Putin does it because he wants to weaken Hillary ahead of the Clinton White House. If Clinton went after Trump for all this, Trump would just allege "THE CLINTON DOJ IS GOING AFTER ME! PARTISAN! WITCHHUNT!"

The problem: Trump won. He flat out won when the GOP saw him at 235 electoral votes on Election Day. He told his daughter that very night that he expected bad news. It was a stunning shock when Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania returned Republican, handing him the White House.

But right after that, things began unraveling. First Flynn, then the Comey bombshells, then everything else.

And here we are.

[The_Doctor]

At this point I'm going to present a unified theory that probably explains why we're witness to all this crap today. If you ever read my post - this isn't a sh*tpost, so just read it, and see if it works out logically.

Trump had never run intending to win. He intended to make a celebrity mark and then leave the race even going so far to tell Christie he would endorse him when the time came. (In which case we'd be holding impeachment hearings for Bridgegate and being too wide to fit on a beach, not this).

Evidence he never intended to be President on a serious basis? He never intended to release his tax returns under the assumption he'd never be President. He assumed that once he lost, people would ignore it and it would go away. Yes, he contemplated NY governor. Yes, he was thinking about this in 2013. But he never made the real decisions that would have made him a serious Presidential candidate. Up to two weeks before he ran he considered backing out. He had a skeletal staff at the beginning, basically Lewandowski, and a couple of people.  

So, switch over to Vladimir Putin. Putin, for his side, knew Trump had an enduring business interest in Russia. He saw Trump switching his position on Russia and had Russia contemplate a plan where he would disrupt the election via Wikileaks, weakening Hillary Clinton. Basically, the plan is to use a failed loser to sow dissent and disrupt the election and the American government. So, use Wikileaks to damage Hillary. Offer Trump damaging campaign info (because in Putin's world, this is how things go down. He's recommended House of Cards to his generals. Literally).

So, when this all went down, Trump was way behind in the polls. The GOP leadership didn't back him. He basically was repeatedly shooting himself in the foot. So, Russia reaches out, offers information, and starts working with Flynn, and other GOP operatives. Trump takes this all happily enough assuming that Putin will help him build Trump Tower in Moscow. Putin does it because he wants to weaken Hillary ahead of the Clinton White House. If Clinton went after Trump for all this, Trump would just allege "THE CLINTON DOJ IS GOING AFTER ME! PARTISAN! WITCHHUNT!"

The problem: Trump won. He flat out won when the GOP saw him at 235 electoral votes on Election Day. He told his daughter that very night that he expected bad news. It was a stunning shock when Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania returned Republican, handing him the White House.

But right after that, things began unraveling. First Flynn, then the Comey bombshells, then everything else.

And here we are.

That's all internally logical. Its flat out fiction from start to finish but its internally consistent fiction at least.

This is as close to an admission from you I'll get so I'll take it.

Have a St Dick Nixon gif.

 

(I think his lovely wife Pat is in there).

[The_Doctor]

Adam Goldman of the NYT:

Update 2: I am still reporting.

[The_Doctor]

Tapper connected the dots on one thing.  Podesta's emails began coming out later in the summer.

Tapper on Twitter:

Trump Jr response to Kremlin offer of negative info on Clinton isn't just "I love it" -- it's "I love it especially later in the summer."

This honestly might be a bigger smoking gun than imagined.

For the record Mueller now can use this to flip Kushner or Manafort or Don Jr against Senior.

[The_Doctor]

85% of Republicans support trump or something according to gallup's daily tracker. But think of it as pressure building up against a dam. There's only so much collective bs they can take before the dam bursts. Bush went through the same thing.

The "good times" are rolling. Wait for the recession.