Caesar, when he crossed the Rubicon.
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If they didnāt collude, it was because the Russians wouldnāt play.
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No traitor for president.
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You know, when I read this:
adviser George Papadopoulos
I was thinking, WTF Trump has a Greek fascist military dictator on his staff. I had to go check, and of course that guy is long dead, but hey, that gives you an indication of how bad the Trump regime is, it seemed obvious that this fascist and actual Nazi collaborator was on his campaign staff. I donāt even know how I remembered that guy.
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How many acts of treason are needed before someone is considered a traitor? How many votes have to be rigged before an election is illegitimate?
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Personally, Iām holding out for 2381.
18 U.S. Code Ā§ 2381, that is.
Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death,
.
.
.
Oh, all right:
or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.
Heās got that last part bang to rights already.
Democrats seem to be having a ārelatingā problem as well.
and silly me, I just thought of the dad from Webster
He Started hanging with the Russians when American banks wouldnāt give him any more money after all his monumental business failures! He started offering his services to launder Russian mob money through his gaudy Real estate āempireā. There is an interesting and lengthy article in the New Yorker about trumps antics with the Russians and Georgians and Kazakhs etc.
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So much treason so little time!
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Mehā¦the Russian thing. Such a ānothingburgerā.
(Hehā¦.a whopper of a nothingburger, it seems.)
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Upside down, Mussolini-style.
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We see the daily drip drip. Who else but Mueller has the big picture?
Impeachment is not just a power of the House. Itās a duty of the House.
Guess Iām naive. Iām so struck by the absence of any responsible and knowledgable adult in the campaign. So despite several widespread attempts by the guy Papadopalous to entice others to bite, there was NO ONE who responded in writing to say āStop it. This is possibly illegal and the campaign will not be a party to thatā. Even if just for credible deniability there was no one who knew the difference between legal and illegal.
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Seth Abramson (@sethabramson) has written a great 100 post twitter thread explaining the significance of these emails and where they fit in the timeline. This is a bigger than you might think story. Iād suggest you read it. Here are a few brief takeaways:
The subject of the article concerns George Papadopoulos, a young Trump foreign policy advisor, put on the team by Sessions. He was one of 6 people Trump was able to name from memory when pressed by WAPO in a 3/2016 interview to name his foreign policy committee team. Papadopoulus had no experience. He joined about the same time as Manafort. After being named to the team, Papadopoulus started emailing various Russian contacts to set up meetings. He ccād key top campaign officials on most if not all of those emails. Those officials included Manafort, Kushner, Sessions and Sam Clovis (the fat Iowan right wing birther who brought Carter Page to the campaign).
The email contacts were not low level people, but people who could arrange meetings with top Russian officials or leadership themselves. Where did he get the contact list from? The subject line of the first meeting read: Meeting with Russian Leadership - Including Putin". How more obvious do we want to get. Between this and Juniorās meetings, we clearly have intent to collude. We also have reciprocal assistance from Russians which constitute a āthing of valueā under the law.
Itās after this series of emails that the Mayflower hotel meeting/speech takes place. The venue was moved to accommodate a private pre-meet between Trump team and Kislyak/Russian officials. Trump promised a good deal for Russia. Getting a share of the Rosneft sale was thrown in as a benefit for Trump. Campaign support also developed post-meet and likely referenced pre-meet.
WAPO article suggests that many questions were raised about these meetings, but that no one ever stopped the contacts, and they seemed to find ways to rationalize having someone maintain contact with the Russians while shielding Trump with some plausible deniability. Thatās where we get āadoptionsā meetings, and Carter Page being approved to go to Russia under the guise of a ālectureā.
These emails appear to be a sort of āpingā to a system to signal to each side a desire to meet or communicate. They donāt communicate details like Juniorās emails (apart from the incriminating subject line). Itās from these pings that other meetings and convos get set up and executed.
Another thing that comes from Sethās analysis - how much Manafort, Sessions and others are repeatedly lying about the Mayflower meeting and other Russian contacts.
A final observation - the Trump crew seems to have a very unsophisticated understanding of the criminal law of conspiracy. They think plausible deniability loopholes are sufficient to escape. Theyāre not.
Stay tuned. I plan to re-read that article and Sethās piece again. Thereās a lot there, but the short of it is that the Trump campaign quickly established a pattern to maintain regular contact with the Russians beginning in March 2016 and regular meetings and interactions seemed to occur throughout that steady period of recurring and regular communications.
That seems to fit some of the baseline elements of a conspiracy.
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March 2016?
Incredible.