Indictment-O-Rama Megathread: Mueller indicts 13 Russians

[Crumpets]

I am starting to get a little bit of a "jumping the gun" feeling on this. Why does CNN know when an announcement is coming but not any details? Why would anyone leak this anyway? Also note that articles say "as soon as Monday" which doesn't tell us much of anything at all.

I assume CNN does know who the subject of the indictment is, but is delaying reporting it lest it interfere with the investigation. I doubt Manafort whoever it is plans on fleeing, or anything, but there's a lot of reasons you don't want someone to know if they're going to be indicted until it actually happens, and I'm guessing CNN knows that letting the investigation run its course is going to be more of a ratings grabber than breaking the name tonight, only to have the investigation go sideways as a result.

[Crumpets]

Theoretically, how could it "hurt" tax reform? Senators and reps will be voting based on the content of the bill.

"I support the tax plan, but will vote against it because Paul Manafort is a scumbag"

doesn't make sense.

Maybe the person being indicted is Mitch McConnell?

[Crumpets]

Uh oh https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/11/03/us/politics/trump-campaign-page-russian.html?referer=https://t.co/tAVcCQdx1d?amp=1

"It may have come up a few times."

[Crumpets]

This is huge!

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Source

BOOM!

https://youtu.be/RYonSOkZ5ZE

[Crumpets]

Hopefully President Trump will disband the military and hand our nukes over to Russia before the neocons get back in. God knows they aren't finished with the Middle East yet.

What on earth is your boner for Russia about? You should move there if you think it’s so awesome

(Spoiler: it’s basically a cold Mexico)

Ok... for the record, Mexican cuisine is 1000x better than Russian.

Fake news. It’s 1000000x better. When I want to treat myself I go get authentic Mexican.

One thing I’m jealous of Texas for is all their outstanding Mexican cuisine

It's easier to get authentic Mexican food in the US than authentic Russian food, but the real deal of both is fantastic. If anyone here wants to become an entrepreneur, start a Mexican-Russian fusion restaurant and I will drop my life savings on your pirozhkiritos and churrniki.

[Crumpets]

Oh by the way ....
Where is EnglishPete ?
I want him to remind us, how this whole "Russian Scandal" was just one big witch hunt and all just Fake News.

I'm guessing his take on this is either:

1. Flynn is being blackmailed by Mueller into signing a false confession
2. Flynn was never loyal to begin with and has been part of the grand conspiracy to destroy Trump since the beginning (he did work for Obama after all)
3. Yeah, what Flynn did was illegal, but it shouldn't be.
or 4. That wasn't really Mike Flynn but an elaborate lookalike! The real Flynn is being held against his will by hostile FBI agents! How do we even know that confession is real? Confessions can be coerced! This is exactly what Stalin did during the purges!

[Crumpets]

Holy cow...NYT has transition team emails that show that they not only knew Flynn was in communication with the Russians, but has this doozy of a quote:

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NO COLLUSION! YOU'RE THE PUPPET!

[Crumpets]

ABC has suspended the reporter responsible for the false story.

[Crumpets]

I agree that "USA election" is weird wording, but one reason it might have been used is that there had been legislative elections in Russia just a month and a half before our election, so depending on the wording of the sentence, some clarification might have been needed.

[Crumpets]

Can someone summarize this thing for me, and why anyone is paying attention to it:

All I've heard is that there was somebody fired from the investigation a while back because of texts that were critical of Trump, and whose expertise was counter-espionage.

[Crumpets]

Probably bullshít but we'll see:

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Major developments in the story will stop some attacks on Mueller?! Buuuulllllshiiiii...

[Crumpets]

Great. So we get to listen to Lawrence O'Donnell try to build up this story for half an hour before we actually hear it. Remember when Maddow got Trump's old tax returns and played it up for like 20 minutes before actually telling us how little there was in them? Now eliminate Maddow's professionalism and non-hackishness and double the time frame.

[Crumpets]

Great. So we get to listen to Lawrence O'Donnell try to build up this story for half an hour before we actually hear it. Remember when Maddow got Trump's old tax returns and played it up for like 20 minutes before actually telling us how little there was in them? Now eliminate Maddow's professionalism and non-hackishness and double the time frame.

If it's worth anything....O Donnell canceled his winter vacation to report this. Maybe at long last we finally get the piss tape

It would/will be pretty hilarious, if the pee pee tape ever does surface, to watch how network news try to show it, and show that it is indeed Trump, within the confines of what you can put on basic cable.

[Crumpets]

So, what's the bombshell?

If there is one, O'Donnell is about to talk about it after the break. Can't imagine it's much of anything if they shove it into the last five minutes of the program.

It's not even O'Donnell presenting tonight, but Ari Melber. If O'Donnell is breaking a story, it's not breaking tonight.

[Crumpets]

Is the story maybe that Trump told the NYT that he believes Mueller will treat him fairly? That seems to at least meet the standard of "will silence some Mueller critics," even though in all likelihood it won't.

[Crumpets]

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https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/949080061877063682

Lmao!

No, Jeff! Don't do it... nooooo... don't... Jeff!



Cucked.

[Crumpets]

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Finally showing some balls here.

I'm speed reading this, but one thing that stands out is that there are a number of redactions about seemingly innocuous stuff. For example, when talking about the staff at Fusion GPS, there is a line: "Another one of our managers is xxxxxxxxx, and he is a xxxxxxxxxl." Maybe they're just being polite and not trying to unmask name people in the deposition whom they haven't talked to, or don't want to thrust into the spotlight for no reason?

[Crumpets]

Just some notes as I'm reading along:

- Steele was hired by Fusion GPS in May-June 2016. Simpson states there was no reason for his hiring beyond his Russian expertise, and the desire of the investigation to learn why certain business dealings between the Trump organization and Russia had never come to pass despite Trump expressing his interest in Russia, and travelling there several times. They also hired similar investigators for Latin America, Scotland, and possibly other locations.

- Steele worked at a company in London called Orbis and Associates, and appears to have brought some people along with him from there to help him work on the dossier.

- Someone named Ed Baumgartner was working on researching Paul Manafort separately from Steele's investigation into Trump, and I think I'm missing some background here, but it appears that he was the member of the team who had previous connections to Natalia Veselnitskaya.

- It sounds like what Buzzfeed published of the Steele dossier was pretty much word-for-word what Simpson had seen of it beforehand. If there's a credibility issue with the dossier, it comes from Steele and Fusion GPS, not Buzzfeed.

- Simpson testified that neither he nor anyone at Fusion GPS gave the dossier to Buzzfeed, but it is strongly implied that he does know who sent it, but that he declined to answer.

Also: WTF

Kyle Cheney‏ @kyledcheney
!!!

Glenn Simpson's lawyer said someone has been killed as a result of the Steele dossier being published.

https://twitter.com/kyledcheney/status/950804971632635904

This was actually reported a while back, although it wasn't (and really still isn't) known whether his connections to the dossier were what got him killed: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/01/27/mystery-death-ex-kgb-chief-linked-mi6-spys-dossier-donald-trump/

[Crumpets]

He could be found in contempt unless he pleads the Fifth and yes, he would be imprisoned.

Not all "contempts" are equal, though, right? IIRC, Eric Holder was declared to be in contempt of Congress by the House, but faced no penalty. Do both Houses have to find you in contempt before anything actually happens?

[Crumpets]

It definitely sounds like this investigation sees obstruction of justice as the lowest-hanging fruit. What I wonder is what would happen if Mueller indicts Trump for obstruction without making a definitive statement one way or the other on conspiring with Russia to influence the election, à la Comey's "extremely careless" statement.

[Crumpets]

Gates many be talking to Mueller per CNN

What's the significance of this....I forget who Gates is in this whole thing

Manafort's partner

He was also a key figure on Trump's inaugural committee, which if the reports of Russian higher-ups at the inauguration are true, might come into play.

[Crumpets]

Presumably this testimony will be behind closed doors. I can easily see Trump just using "I didn't say that" as his defense if Mueller brings perjury charges against him and "That isn't me talking/fake tapes/recordings were made illegally" when confronted with evidence.

[Crumpets]

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/01/25/politics/donald-trump-robert-mueller/index.html

Breaking, Trump denies attempting to fire Mueller.

Can't wait to see how this compares to the testimony of White House officials...

Even though Fox News itself confirmed the NYT's report.

As soon as Fox and Friends decides that firing Mueller would have been a genius move by Trump, he'll not only admit to it, he'll probably fire Mueller on the spot.

[Crumpets]

"Putin's chef" is one of the indicted

Interesting. He was involved in one of the PMCs that had loads of people killed in Syria a few days ago by US-backed forces. I wonder if that's related at all.

[Crumpets]

They will get Trump on money laundering, hear me now quote me later.

A sound prediction.

If that is indeed the case, I can pretty much guarantee his reaction will be something to the effect of "Total vindication from Mueller investigation - no collusion!"