Moscow-based pop star Emin Agalarov has a history of ties to the Trump empire, including the president himself

Music publicist set up Trump Jr.-Russia meeting on behalf of pop star with Trump ties – CBS News

Russian pop star.. Could the Trumps get anymore trashy if they tried?

The whole family is a study in the fact that no amount of money can fix white trash.

Host George Stephanopoulos repeatedly pressed Conway as to why Trump’s team continually misled the public about previous contacts with Russian operatives. In fact, Conway was confronted with a television denial she gave back in December when asked about possible contacts between Trump and the Russians.

“Absolutely not,” she said at the time, “and I discussed that with the president-elect just last night. Those conversations never happened.”

STEPHANOPOULOS: The information was sought from the campaign and those denials were allowed to stand for many months. That’s the bottom line. 

George Stephanopoulos destroys Kellyanne Conway’s lies about Don Jr.’s intent to collude – Shareblue

Speaking of rotting in hell and deserving of being burned at the stake in a public square… Liar, liar, pants of fire. It is going to be so much fun watching the scarecrow be called to the carpet for her culpability.

Is collusion with Russia a crime? Trump allies latch onto talking point – Business Insider

Trump “agreed to sideline” the issue of Russian intervention in Ukraine during his campaign after Russia promised to feed the emails it stole from prominent Democrats’ inboxes to WikiLeaks.

Explosive memos suggest that a Trump-Russia tit-for-tat was at the heart of the GOP’s dramatic shift on Ukraine – Business Insider Nordic

Literally trading the countries best interest away for favors from a hostile foreign government.

Before he burns in hell it might be nice to watch him burned alive at the stake on the WH lawn.

I mean, at this rate, ending up like Gaddafi doesn’t seem too far outside the bounds of possibility.

Ten years ago, Paul Manafort “secretly worked for a Russian oligarch who wanted him to promote Russian interests,” the AP’s Chad Day tells NPR.

Former Trump Campaign Head Manafort Was Paid Millions By A Putin Ally, AP Says : The Two-Way : NPR

hmmm

In one March 2015 exchange that appears to be between the two sisters, Andrea Manafort seems to suggest that their father bore some responsibility for the deaths of protesters at the hands of police loyal to Yanukovych during a monthslong uprising that started in late 2013.

“Don’t fool yourself,” Andrea Manafort wrote. “That money we have is blood money.”

In another hacked exchange a few months later with someone else, Andrea Manafort wrote that her father’s “work and payment in Ukraine is legally questionable.”

…Andrea Manafort indicated in a text to an associate that her father was reluctant to communicate sensitive information from his mobile devices because “Russians literally hack his phones.”

Asked if he was considering going to the authorities about the hacks, or about messages — one of which was revealed in the hack — that appeared to contain a blackmail threat, Paul Manafort, 67, said “I am preserving all my options on the hacks and blackmail and will be following my lawyer’s recommendations.”

…Manafort’s work for the Party of Regions and his alleged role in setting up a purported 2012 meeting between Trump and a Yanukovych ally.

…Leshchenko even floated the possibility that Manafort himself may have been behind the purported blackmail note to discredit documents he’s disputed that were released by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine that appeared to show $12.7 million in cash payments earmarked for Manafort from Yanukovych’s party.

…The New York Times published an August 2016 exposé revealing that the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine had obtained the documents showing $12.7 million in cash earmarked for Manafort.

The Ukrainian parliamentarian Leshchenko, who had played a role in exposing the documents, seized on the documents to pressure Ukrainian and American law enforcement to aggressively investigate Manafort.

…While Paul Manafort disputed the authenticity of the documents and denied receiving any off-books cash from Yanukovych’s party, the controversy forced him to step down from Trump’s campaign only days after the Times story.

Manafort’s Ukrainian ‘blood money’ caused qualms, hack suggests – POLITICO

 

Tangled webs, indeed!

Courts will now review the cases of 1,400 Iraqi nationals before proceeding.

Federal judge halts Trump administration’s deportation of 1,400 Iraqis

hmmmm

Congressional and Justice Department investigators are now probing whether the digital campaign operation run by Trump son-in-law and top adviser Jared Kushner helped Russia target U.S. voters with fake news stories about Hillary Clinton, according to a new report.

…material from the Russian government that “would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to [his] father,” Trump Jr. replied, “‘If it’s what you say, I love it especially later in the summer.”

Schiff observed, “He’s already talking about timing. So if there was any kind of coordination on the timing of the pushing of either negative stories or false stories by Russian social media trolls then that’s something that we need to know.”

…Russia’s apparent ability “to target states and levels of voters that the Democrats weren’t even aware (of) really raises some questions. How did they know to go to that level of detail in those kinds of jurisdictions?”

…Warner found it noteworthy that the Russians were able to target women and African Americans in Wisconsin and Michigan, while Democrats were “too brain-dead to realize those states were even in play.” Clinton ended up losing Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. 

Report: Investigators probing Trump digital campaign operation run by Kushner – CBS News

hmmmm

“You cannot benefit from a foreign adversary in this kind of scenario.”Other legal minds agree. “It’s a shocking admission of a criminal conspiracy,” said Jens David Ohlin, associate dean of Cornell Law School, in a statement shared with The Post. “The conversation will now turn to whether President Trump was personally involved or not. But the question of the campaign’s involvement appears settled now. The answer is yes.”

…The fact that Trump Jr. took this meeting while being told what the Russians were up to is as clear as intent can get, legal experts say.

“If he received an email in advance saying, ‘This is coming from the Russian government,’ he’s certainly knowledgeable about where the information is coming from,” Jacobovitz said. “And he attempts to attend a meeting with the hope and intent to obtain inside dirt on Hillary Clinton. That would go a long way in trying to determine whether it’s conspiracy. … It’s not as if he walks into the meeting and he’s surprised by what he’s hearing.”

…Jacobovitz said conspiracy to commit election fraud is the big legal fish Mueller and his team may be trying to fry. But they’re probably also looking at a whole host of laws that could have been broken under this scenario: quid pro quo with the Russians, bribery, potential perjury related to what members of the Trump campaign said under oath to Congress and failing to disclose these contacts in official security forms.

“This goes further than collusion,” he said. Especially now that Trump Jr. appeared to provide proof to all of this.

Donald Trump Jr. may have crossed the legal line on collusion – The Washington Post

hmmm

Trump Jr. didn’t attend the Veselnitskaya meeting alone. He brought along his brother-in-law and then–Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort.
And when Trump Jr. forfeited his ability to claim ignorance of that meeting’s true nature Tuesday, he forfeited Kushner’s as well: The emails he posted show that he forwarded his entire email chain with Goldstone to the now-senior White House adviser.

One of the president’s most powerful advisers — a man who has played such an active role in shaping the administration’s foreign policy, he’s been called the “second secretary of State” — knowingly met with an agent of the Kremlin in hopes of securing opposition research on Hillary Clinton.

Shortly after Trump’s election, Kushner spoke with the Russian ambassador about setting up a secret communications channel with Moscow — one safe from the prying eyes of American intelligence agencies. Days later, Kushner met with the head of the Russian state-owned bank Vnesheconombank — an encounter that he described as diplomatic, but that the Russian banker insisted was strictly business.

Later, when asked to list any meetings he’d taken with foreign government officials on his application for a top-secret security clearance, all of these incidents slipped Kushner’s mind.

The Least the GOP Can Do Now Is Demand the Firing of Kushner

hmmmm

The days of other countries looking to the United States for leadership are coming to an end.

Donald Trump Has Made America a Back-Row Kid | Foreign Policy

hmmmm