Trump and Russia; Spasiba, Harasho!

[JimC]

If you hate the US you couldn't have hoped for a better president than Trump, even if you could have personally selected another.

I like all the merkins I have met, but I can't resist giving you running dog imperialist swine a good serve every now and then...

[L'Emmerdeur]

It looks like the pretense that the Russian lawyer who "offered dirt" on Clinton has very little to do with the Russian government is unravelling.

'Emails: Lawyer who met Trump Jr. tied to Russian officials'

The Moscow lawyer said to have promised Donald Trump’s presidential campaign dirt on his Democratic opponent worked more closely with senior Russian government officials than she previously let on, according to documents reviewed by The Associated Press.

Scores of emails, transcripts and legal documents paint a portrait of Natalia Veselnitskaya as a well-connected attorney who served as a ghostwriter for top Russian government lawyers and received assistance from senior Interior Ministry personnel in a case involving a key client.

The data was obtained through Russian opposition figure Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s London-based investigative unit, the Dossier Center, that is compiling profiles of Russians it accuses of benefiting from corruption.

...

For example, the emails show that Veselnitskaya was mixed up in the Russian government’s attempt to extract financial information from the former law firm of Bill Browder, the American-born British businessman who was a longtime critic of the Kremlin.

An Oct. 31, 2017, email shows Veselnitskaya’s office preparing a draft version of Russian Deputy General Prosecutor Mikhail Alexandrov’s affidavit to Cypriot authorities. “This is needed by tomorrow,” she wrote a subordinate.

Two weeks later, a finalized version of the same document was sent by a Russian diplomatic staffer to a Cypriot counterpart, the Dossier Center’s files show.

Browder, who has often clashed with Veselnitskaya in and out of court, said this reinforced the idea that she was enmeshed with Russian officialdom.

“If her office is drafting replies for Russian-Cyprus law enforcement cooperation, in my opinion that effectively shows that she’s an agent of the Russian government and not an independent lawyer as she claims,” he said in a telephone interview.

In a written statement, the Russian Embassy in Cyprus called the AP’s question a “provocation” and said it had “no idea who is Nataliya Veselnitskaya and what she sends or doesn’t send to the Cypriot Officials.”

[L'Emmerdeur]

Uh-oh!

Cohen claims Trump knew in advance of 2016 Trump Tower meeting
https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/26/politics ... index.html

Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's former personal attorney, claims that then-candidate Trump knew in advance about the June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower in which Russians were expected to offer his campaign dirt on Hillary Clinton, sources with knowledge tell CNN. Cohen is willing to make that assertion to special counsel Robert Mueller, the sources said.

Cohen's claim would contradict repeated denials by Trump, Donald Trump Jr., their lawyers and other administration officials who have said that the President knew nothing about the Trump Tower meeting until he was approached about it by The New York Times in July 2017.
Cohen alleges that he was present, along with several others, when Trump was informed of the Russians' offer by Trump Jr. By Cohen's account, Trump approved going ahead with the meeting with the Russians, according to sources.

continued...

Witch hunt! NO COLLUSION! Fake news from failing CNN!

[pErvinalia]

There's nothing wrong with meeting with foreigners about subverting your democracy anyway.

[Tero]

All this and he still did not get the pee pee tape back. They watch it at every KGB Christmas party with Putin.

[L'Emmerdeur]

The Russian government (or somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds) getting busy
'pushing very hard for the Democrats':

'Russian Hackers’ New Target: a Vulnerable Democratic Senator'

The Russian intelligence agency behind the 2016 election cyberattacks targeted Sen. Claire McCaskill as she began her 2018 re-election campaign in earnest, a Daily Beast forensic analysis reveals. That makes the Missouri Democrat the first identified target of the Kremlin’s 2018 election interference.

McCaskill, who has been highly critical of Russia over the years, is widely considered to be among the most vulnerable Senate Democrats facing re-election this year as Republicans hope to hold their slim majority in the Senate. In 2016, President Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton by almost 20 points in the senator’s home state of Missouri.

There’s no evidence to suggest that this attempt to lure McCaskill staffers was successful. The precise purpose of the approach was also unclear. Asked about the hack attempt by Russia’s GRU intelligence agency, McCaskill told The Daily Beast on Thursday that she wasn’t yet prepared to discuss it.

“I’m not going to speak of it right now,” she said. “I think we’ll have something on it next week. I’m not going to speak about it right now. I can’t confirm or do anything about it right now.”

The senator later released a statement asserting that the cyberattack was unsuccessful.

[Tero]

”Oh Trump you are getting tiresome. Our affair must end.”

The Kremlin, she continued, is “growing very frustrated because there's so many controls that are being placed on” Trump by Congress, starting with Russian sanctions, upgrades to the U.S. nuclear arsenal and beefed-up military aid to Ukraine, which is under assault by Moscow-backed forces in its eastern Donbas region. And then there are the ongoing investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 elections by special counsel Robert Mueller and the Senate Intelligence Committee, independent actions that would be unthinkable in Putin’s Russia.

https://www.newsweek.com/vladimir-putin ... 5772?amp=1

[Hermit]

If you hate the US you couldn't have hoped for a better president than Trump, even if you could have personally selected another.

Don't worry. We had Tony Abbott, and unlike Trump he got in with a huge majority of the popular vote, 5,882,818 to 4,311,365, or 53.49% after the distribution of preferences. He was so mad that his own party sacked him less than two years after the election. And we almost got Mark Latham (6,179,130 for Howard, 5,536,002 for Latham in 2004), an utter psycho, and even more deranged than the Mad Monk.

[pErvinalia]

Well Latham wasn't deranged at the time. Not noticeably, at least. He must have suffered a head knock after that, though. He's a fucking nutter now.

[Hermit]

Well Latham wasn't deranged at the time. Not noticeably, at least.

I noticed. There's that story about Latham having broken a taxi driver's arm because he thought said driver had taken the long way around to his destination in 2001. In 2002 he described himself thus: "I'm a hater." Around the same time he came out with harebrained ideas like "a ladder of opportunity" that would bring prosperity to all Australians". His out of control temper had become legendary among his Labor colleagues, who were well aware, and some of whom had become victims of his aggressive, bullying and intimidating personality before he became leader of the opposition in 2003. He always was a psycho. Many people just were not paying attention until his personality caused him to gravitate toward the fringes of Australian politics where most of the other lunatics congregate.

[pErvinalia]

I just figured he was an angry man, not a nutter. I still wish he had of head butted John Howard with that famous handshake. I think I was one of the few who actually loved that moment. Everyone else thought it damaged his image. Smashing Howard out could only be good for one's image, I would have thought...

[Tero]

This could save Trump: all the people around him were crooks, like him. All the acts were approved by Trump. But there is no witness who isn’t a crook. Only his two dumb sons, who were not approved to act, only to report to daddy.

[Tero]

Dozens of columnists are cranking out ”no collusion” and ”collusion so what?” columns:
https://www.salon.com/amp/trump-defende ... on-so-what

[Seabass]

[Brian Peacock]

Well Latham wasn't deranged at the time. Not noticeably, at least.

I noticed. There's that story about Latham having broken a taxi driver's arm because he thought said driver had taken the long way around to his destination in 2001. In 2002 he described himself thus: "I'm a hater." Around the same time he came out with harebrained ideas like "a ladder of opportunity" that would bring prosperity to all Australians". His out of control temper had become legendary among his Labor colleagues, who were well aware, and some of whom had become victims of his aggressive, bullying and intimidating personality before he became leader of the opposition in 2003. He always was a psycho. Many people just were not paying attention until his personality caused him to gravitate toward the fringes of Australian politics where most of the other lunatics congregate.

How much coke do you think he was doing at the time?