Enjoy President Trump, Courtesy of The Kremlin

[Brian Peacock]

Trump held secret hour-long meeting with Putin at G20 with only Russian translator present
Meeting described as a breach of national security protocol

Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin held a second, previously undisclosed meeting at the G20 summit earlier this month in Germany, a White House official has confirmed.

The meeting followed the two leaders’ formal two-hour meeting on 7 July in which Mr Trump said Mr Putin denied allegations that he directed efforts to meddle in the 2016 US presidential election.

The second meeting, which took place some hours later, was only attended by Mr Putin, Mr Trump and Mr Putin’s translator. It had not previously been disclosed by the White House.

The White House official did not say how long the second meeting took place or what was discussed.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 48061.html

I presume the translator was there to make sure Trump's words were translated into the excellent English that Putin has.

[Tero]

What crime? This:

"Mr. Trump Jr., we have some dirt on Hillary. We can release it now and have your dad become president. Or we can release it after the election to ruin her presidency. If we give it to you now, we expect payment later. Putin sends his regards."

[Animavore]

Trump held secret hour-long meeting with Putin at G20 with only Russian translator present
Meeting described as a breach of national security protocol

Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin held a second, previously undisclosed meeting at the G20 summit earlier this month in Germany, a White House official has confirmed.

The meeting followed the two leaders’ formal two-hour meeting on 7 July in which Mr Trump said Mr Putin denied allegations that he directed efforts to meddle in the 2016 US presidential election.

The second meeting, which took place some hours later, was only attended by Mr Putin, Mr Trump and Mr Putin’s translator. It had not previously been disclosed by the White House.

The White House official did not say how long the second meeting took place or what was discussed.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 48061.html

I presume the translator was there to make sure Trump's words were translated into the excellent English that Putin has.

Or to translate Putin's accent to Trump. We're talking about a country which put subtitles on Mad Max and Trainspotting

[pErvinalia]

I watched the second trainspotting the other day. There was one character that I barely understood the whole movie.

[Scot Dutchy]

It is good Edinburgh.

[Forty Two]

What crime? This:

"Mr. Trump Jr., we have some dirt on Hillary. We can release it now and have your dad become president. Or we can release it after the election to ruin her presidency. If we give it to you now, we expect payment later. Putin sends his regards."

Which, of course, didn't happen, since the lawyer wasn't representing the government, but was referred to as a "government lawyer" nobody is alleging that anything like that was said. Also, if a Russian government official said that, it would not be a crime. It's what Mr. Trump Jr. does that counts. Did he say "sure, give me the info and we'll pay you?"

However, if it's someone not representing the Russian government asking for payment for dirt, and being paid for dirt, is not a crime.

[pErvinalia]

She wasn't the only Russian at the meeting.

[Forty Two]

Trump held secret hour-long meeting with Putin at G20 with only Russian translator present
Meeting described as a breach of national security protocol

Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin held a second, previously undisclosed meeting at the G20 summit earlier this month in Germany, a White House official has confirmed.

The meeting followed the two leaders’ formal two-hour meeting on 7 July in which Mr Trump said Mr Putin denied allegations that he directed efforts to meddle in the 2016 US presidential election.

The second meeting, which took place some hours later, was only attended by Mr Putin, Mr Trump and Mr Putin’s translator. It had not previously been disclosed by the White House.

The White House official did not say how long the second meeting took place or what was discussed.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 48061.html

I presume the translator was there to make sure Trump's words were translated into the excellent English that Putin has.

Now, the President is not allowed to meet alone with another world leader?

The two presidents huddled in a second floor conference room at United Nations headquarters for roughly 90 minutes, squaring off on the contentious issues of Ukraine and Syria and seeking to discern each others' strategies after a two-year freeze in face-to-face encounters.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/28/politics/ ... index.html

Breach of national security protocol, lol. So, there is a protocol somewhere that sets out a rule that binds the President of the United States to not meeting with the President of another country alone? What protocol?

S.S.D.D.
P.H.D.

[Svartalf]

It is good Edinburgh.

Meaning I had to have subtitles, even though my first English teacher was from Aberdeenshire... but they pounded the Scots outta me in Skool and in the books I read, even have trouble understanding Walter Scott without footnotes these days.

[Scot Dutchy]

It is good Edinburgh.

Meaning I had to have subtitles, even though my first English teacher was from Aberdeenshire... but they pounded the Scots outta me in Skool and in the books I read, even have trouble understanding Walter Scott without footnotes these days.

It is very local though. The film was set in Graigmiller. A prime example of post war corporation estates. More arso you cannot get. It was bottom on the Edinburgh social scale. The other end is the way Andy Murray and Blair talk. Snobby git end.

[Tero]

What crime? This:

"Mr. Trump Jr., we have some dirt on Hillary. We can release it now and have your dad become president. Or we can release it after the election to ruin her presidency. If we give it to you now, we expect payment later. Putin sends his regards."

Which, of course, didn't happen, since the lawyer wasn't representing the government, but was referred to as a "government lawyer" nobody is alleging that anything like that was said. Also, if a Russian government official said that, it would not be a crime. It's what Mr. Trump Jr. does that counts. Did he say "sure, give me the info and we'll pay you?"

However, if it's someone not representing the Russian government asking for payment for dirt, and being paid for dirt, is not a crime.

I already explained the deal. It's like the drug dealer in the alley and the second guy that hands you the drugs/dirt.

[Tero]

Hackers everywhere, trying to cause chaos at polls.
http://time.com/4865982/secret-plan-sto ... tion-plot/

[Tero]

Crime

Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said Thursday that the Russians who met with Donald Trump Jr. in June 2016 to discuss information they said came from the Russian government employed "classic, textbook Soviet and now Russian tradecraft."

Clapper, who served as the director of national intelligence in the Obama administration, said in an interview on MSNBC's "Hardball" that the Russians had a "soft approach" in meeting with President Trump's eldest son.

"They had two objectives here," he told Matthews. "One was to determine whether those close to then-candidate Trump would be interested in talking with them and receiving dirt on Hillary Clinton."
"And point two was plausible deniability," Clapper added.

The meeting between Trump Jr., Trump son-in-law, Jared Kushner, then-Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and a Russian lawyer came after Trump Jr. was told in an email that the meeting would include information from the Russian government meant to support his father's presidential campaign.

[Brian Peacock]

Trump condemns Sessions: 'I wouldn't have hired him' – audio

Jeff Sessions recusing himself from the Russia-Trump investigations is "extremely unfair to the President", says the President.

[L'Emmerdeur]

If he doesn't get what he wants, Trump is all too ready to shit on his loyal aides.

"The Inadvisable President"

Maybe it should come as little surprise that a man who, until summer of 2015, was most famous for firing people, is not a good boss. Yet President Trump’s comments Wednesday about Attorney General Jeff Sessions, delivered in an interview with The New York Times, still take one’s breath away.

...

“Jeff Sessions, Jeff Sessions gave some bad answers,” Trump said of the attorney general’s confirmation hearings in the Senate. “He gave some answers that were simple questions and should have been simple answers, but they weren’t.”

Trump is right. Sessions erred badly in not disclosing meetings with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak to the Senate, which was what forced him to recuse himself from Russia-related matters. But Trump refuses to acknowledge the necessity of Sessions’s recusal. The attorney general was pinched in two ways: First, he was caught in an obvious conflict of interest, having met with Russian officials and not disclosed them; second, he did so while a campaign surrogate, implicating himself in the investigation; and third, he risked setting off a fight with the Senate, having misled them.

But for Trump, there is only one loyalty: to the president himself. When his aides and staffers make the mistake of following any other principle—rule of law, standard ethics policies, U.S. alliances—that might conflict with the principle of loyalty to Trump, the president becomes enraged.

...

After that meeting with Russian officials, in which Trump disclosed classified information obtained from an ally to them, horrifying many American officials, McMaster gamely defended Trump, doing damage to his own reputation. For his pains, McMaster was subjected to leaks claiming the president was upset with him and wished to bring back Flynn, who was fired for lying to the vice president.

This demonstrates another reason why Trump is an impossible boss: He expects absolute personal loyalty from his aides, but aides cannot expect that the president will return the favor. Perhaps no humiliation is as great as Sessions—the long-time backer thrown to the wolves in an interview with the press—but Trump has repeatedly undercut other top aides.