From my Facebook feed ~ I confess I had trouble following Al Franken at the beginning of his questioning ~ he was coming across like an absent-minded professor ~ but then the absent-minded professor morphed into the keen-minded senator, and I got it ~ Al Franken is proving just how valuable he is in the US Senate ~ Sooz

Al Franken Just Revealed The Real Reason Trump Lied About Mike Flynn
By Benjamin Locke / Published on May 8, 2017

Richard Nixon’s tenure as President unraveled in 1974 in part because of an 18-minute gap he couldn’t explain. That was the time a portion of the Watergate tapes recorded in the Oval Office was erased – for reasons Nixon would never explain.

Now Trump has to explain the 18-day gap. That is the number of days from when Acting Attorney General Sally Yates informed the Trump Administration that National Security Advisor, General Michael Flynn, had lied about his ties to Russia and may have placed himself and the nation in jeopardy by giving the Russians leverage, until the President finally fired him.

At an informative hearing in Washington, D.C. today where Yates testified before a Senate Committee investigating the Russian connection to the 2016 Presidential campaign alongside former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, Senator Al Franken (D-MIN) zeroed in on exactly why there was an 18-day gap.


The one-time comedian has a great sense of absurdity, and it clearly seemed absurd to him Trump would risk his administration and reputation without a reason.


If there is “a credible allegation that raises concern about someone’s fitness to access classified information,” noted Franken, “that person’s clearance should be suspended pending investigation.”

But that didn’t happen with Flynn, so Franken used his time to ask questions to figure out what was so important to Trump that he would take such a huge risk?

Trump had been informed by Yates, and possibly others, so he was aware Flynn had lied to Vice President Mike Pence, and still, said Franken, “he lets him be in all these classified meetings.”

Franken’s take is that Trump didn’t fire Flynn immediately because the President knew his National Security Advisor was only one of many people in and around his administration with dubious ties to Russia.


Franken was referring to Trump campaign and administration officials linked to Russia or known to have had contact with high-level Russians, including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, his son-in-law and advisor Jared Kushner, his former campaign manager Paul Manafort and his campaign aide Carter Page, among others.


After he had finished sharing his theory, Franken asked Yates if she would “care to comment?”

She replied: “I don’t think I’m going to touch that, Senator.”

However, what Franken was saying made sense.

So now we have to wonder if, in the same way the 18-minute gap marked the beginning of the end of the Nixon presidency, will the 18-day gap lead to questions that will terminate the Trump presidency?

It is too early to tell but at a hearing where most Republican Senators seemed more interested in trying to defend Trump than getting to the truth, Franken deserves credit for making an important point.

It is a question that Trump at some time may well have to answer. When he does, Franken may well be proved right.

In this case, an 18-day gap may be as big an issue for our 45th president as an 18-minute gap was 45 years ago. It all makes sense.

Thanks, Senator Franken, for showing us the path that this investigation needs to take.

http://occupydemocrats.com/2017/05/08/al-franken-just-revealed-real-reason-trump-lied-mike-flynn/

What's "interesting" to me is that each of the DiC's emotional/instinctual reactions is 180* from how most [if not all] innocent people would/do react ~ ~ there are "live links" to more/corroborating information in the original ~ Sooz

Donald Trump’s fear of the Russia scandal becomes more obvious
05/09/17 12:57 PM—Updated 05/09/17 01:16 PM
By Steve Benen

Ahead of yesterday’s Senate hearing on the Russia scandal, Donald Trump’s tweets suggested he was feeling anxious. In the morning, he tried to argue via Twitter that the mess surrounding Michael Flynn was the Obama administration’s fault, and soon after, the president suggested without evidence that Sally Yates may have illegally leaked classified information.

After the hearing, Trump’s anxiety was just as obvious, with a series of tweets trying to downplay the damaging revelations, change the subject, and dismiss the seriousness of the entire ongoing investigation. The president added that in his mind, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testified that there’s “no evidence” of “collusion” between Russia Team Trump.

Evidently, Trump really liked that tweet.


Take a moment to imagine the conversation between the president and the poor White House aide who was ordered to change the Twitter banner to Trump’s misguided specifications.

Broadly speaking, there are two angles to this that are worth keeping in mind. The first is the focus on the facts, which the president continues to struggle with, and the second is the acute fear Trump appears to be feeling about the seriousness of the scandal.

On the former, Trump may believe Clapper cleared Team Trump of colluding with Russia during its espionage operation to elect him, but that moment did not happen, and the president is pointing to a quote that was not uttered during yesterday’s testimony. Mother Jones’ David Corn had a good report on this:


And he certainly shouldn’t hide behind a Clapper statement that doesn’t exist.

What about Yates’ testimony on possible collusion? On this point, we didn’t learn much. Asked about possible evidence that the Trump campaign colluded with Russian officials, the former acting attorney general said, “Senator, my answer to that question would require me to reveal classified information. And so, I can’t answer that.”

If the president perceives all of this as an exoneration, he’s imagining things.

But looking past these details, one starts to get the impression that Trump is more than a little nervous about the entire controversy. Confident leaders, certain that allegations will be discredited as baseless, don’t lash out at witnesses before their testimony, don’t make up quotes, and don’t overcompensate with strange protestations.

Or put another way, those who expect to be proven right don’t generally act the way Trump is acting.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/donald-trumps-fear-the-russia-scandal-becomes-more-obvious#break

The pussy grabber is now requesting his legal team write a letter stating he has no business ties in Russia. That's probably because Putin doesn't wear cheap ties.

Twitter responded promptly:





And many more

http://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.co ... tsmovement

Meanwhile ...

Eric Trump: It's 'Fake News' That I Said 'We Have All the Funding We Need Out of Russia' to Build Golf Courses
Like Father, Like Son

Like father, like son.

Both Donald and Eric Trump Monday morning bright and early were tweeting about "fake news." The President's shot was at the "fake news" media that (he says) doesn't like to mention that the Obama administration gave General Mike Flynn his security clearance. (It wasn't the Obama administration, it was career security professionals during the Obama administration – and important distinction.)

But Eric Trump was on an entirely different mission.

Here's the background.

Three years ago, according to award-winning sports writer James Dodson, one of Trump's PR people urged him to attend the opening of the company's newest course, the Trump National Golf Club in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Dodson told WBUR when he first met Donald Trump, "I asked him how he was — you know, this is the journalist in me — I said, 'What are you using to pay for these courses?' And he just sort of tossed off that he had access to $100 million."

"So when I got in the cart with Eric," Dodson said in his interview, "as we were setting off, I said, 'Eric, who’s funding? I know no banks — because of the recession, the Great Recession — have touched a golf course. You know, no one’s funding any kind of golf construction. It’s dead in the water the last four or five years.' And this is what he said. He said, 'Well, we don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia.' I said, 'Really?' And he said, 'Oh, yeah. We’ve got some guys that really, really love golf, and they’re really invested in our programs. We just go there all the time.' Now that was three years ago, so it was pretty interesting."

Apparently, Eric Trump is furious, and taking a page out of his father's book, has now decided that a sports writer whose main focus is golf, is now a card-carrying member of the "fake news' media.

Re-tweeting The Hill's pickup of the story, Eric Trump says it "is completely fabricated and just another example of why there is such a deep distrust of the media in our country." Of course, that was followed by the hashtag, "#FakeNews."



The Trump has funding from Russia isn't fake news, per Donald Trump, Jr. who in 2008, according to TIME, talked about Russian funding:

“Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets,” Donald Trump Jr. told a Manhattan real estate conference in 2008, according to an account posted on the website of trade publication eTurboNews. “We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.”

In February, President Trump made clear what constitutes "fake news": "Any negative polls are fake news," he said, weeks after being sworn in.

Like father, like son.

http://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.co ... tsmovement

===================================
It's worth repeating these two paragraphs ... note the links in particular

MSN BREAKING NEWS: Flynn subpoenaed ~ it's getting REAL, folks ~ fingers and various other body parts are crossed for luck ~ ~ Sooz

Senate panel subpoenas Flynn for Russia-related documents
Associated Press / 7 mins ago

The Senate intelligence committee has subpoenaed former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn for documents related to the panel's investigation into Russia's election meddling.

Sen. Richard Burr, the Republican chairman, and Sen. Mark Warner, the committee's Democratic vice chairman, say the panel had first requested the documents from Flynn on April 28. They say Flynn's lawyer declined to cooperate with the request.

Flynn was fired by Trump after less than a month on the job. The White House said he misled Vice President Mike Pence and other top officials about his communications with Russia's ambassador to the United States.

Flynn's Russia ties are also being scrutinized by the FBI as it investigates whether Trump's campaign was involved in Russia's election interference.

This is a breaking news alert. Check back later for more.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/senate-panel-subpoenas-flynn-for-russia-related-documents/ar-BBAZtgu

As I've posted before, I trust Josh Marshall's political acumen ~ and I'm very familiar how lawyers focus on positive/neutral findings and don't focus on negative findings ~ also don't forget: Morgan Lewis was named the "Russia Law Firm of the Year" in 2016 ~ coincidence? ~ ~ emphasis/bolding below is mine ~ Sooz

TPM EDITOR'S BLOG
The Trump Tax Return/Russia Letter Is Full of Holes
By Josh Marshall Published May 12, 2017 5:50 pm

President Trump’s personal tax lawyers have now provided a letter, released by the White House today, which in essence says President Trump has no financial ties with Russia. There have been reports in recent days that the President’s tax lawyers were preparing such a letter, in part for Sen. Lindsey Graham. The letter is dated March 8, more than two months ago. How that comports with its release today and what we’d been led to believe about its recent preparation, I have no idea. But I wanted to share a few thoughts on what the letter does or doesn’t mean.

First, for the sake of discussion, I am going to assume that the facts asserted in the letter by Sheri A. Dillon and William F. Nelson are at least narrowly accurate. These are the same lawyers that put together the President’s ethics plan and withdrawal from active management of his businesses. So I’m not sure they have a huge amount of credibility. But if we just assume they’re lying, there’s no point in reading the fine print. Also, I am not a lawyer. So I’ll wait for lawyers and particularly tax lawyers to offer their analysis of the fine print. But there is some factual information I think I can offer based on my own reporting – and a careful review of the reporting of other journalists – about this letter and whether it really covers all the bases we’d like to see covered.

In short, I’d say not close. Here’s the text of the letter. After the letter, I look at where the holes are.


First, some minor points.

1: The upshot of the second paragraph is that since Trump runs all his operations as a private company, with the various entities working as pass-throughs, his personal taxes serve as an effective proxy for what his businesses are doing. That isn’t quite as tight as they’re suggesting.

2: The lawyers say they’re basing their analysis on the last 10 years of income taxes. That should cover a lot of ground. But why just 10 years? That leaves quite a number of years unaccounted for.

3: Here’s one point that is unclear to me. The text of the letter appears to assert these facts on the basis of Trump’s tax returns alone. The third paragraph reads “With few exceptions – as detailed below – your tax returns do not reflect …” and then lists three categories of financial dealings which are not shown. But lots of information of this sort would never appear in a tax return. Indeed, Trump and his surrogates have frequently made the same point. Seeing the tax returns wouldn’t even settle a lot of these questions. If I’m reading the letter correctly, the lawyers may know of information that is not reflected in Trump’s personal tax returns for the last decade and simply not mention those facts. Again, the letter specifically says “your tax returns do not reflect” not “you do not have.” This is, needless to say, a massive loophole in the assertions in the letter.

4: Why just Russia? Many of the questions people are looking at are tied to Kazakhstan, Ukraine and other post-Soviet states. Not just Russia.

Now here are some more major problems.

1: No one thinks Trump has big investments in Russia. The issue is big Russian investments in him or loans to him. On this it’s exclusion #3 in the letter which is key. That states “any equity investments by Russian persons or entities in entities controlled by you or TTO [the Trump Organization] …” I’ve highlighted the word ‘controlled’ because that seems key. All the instances that I know of where Russian or former Soviet Union investment played a big role weren’t actually Trump companies. Indeed, most of Trump’s major building projects in the last two decades actually weren’t owned or funded by Trump. In many or most cases he wasn’t even a significant investor. In most of these cases, there’s a group of investors. Trump gets a significant upside of the project without the need to invest a significant amount of capital or risk losing it. And finally, and significantly, there’s a deal for the Trump Organization to manage the property. This isn’t some notional scenario I’ve contrived to evade the parameters of the exclusion. It’s actually Trump’s primary business model going back two decades. Licensing his name to major projects, contracting for on-going management of the facility and risking very little exposure or venturing much capital. I think it’s fair to say that most of the projects that people are most interested in wouldn’t be counted under this standard. Whatever the percentage of equity ownership, Trump quite clearly did not “control” these entities in most or perhaps even all cases.

2: A major source of suspected money to the Trump organization comes from wealthy people or oligarchs from post-Soviet successor states. This is beyond suspicion. This is actually fairly well documented. The question is just the scale of these in-flows and how directed they may be. As I read item #3 in the “exceptions” section of paragraph #3 apartment or condominium unit sales would be included in “it is likely that TTO or third-party entities engaged in ordinary course sales of goods or services to Russians or Russian entities, such as sales / rentals / fees for condominiums, hotel rooms, rounds of golf, books or Trump-licensed products (e.g., ties, mattresses, win, etc.” This kind of broad exclusion makes sense if some Russian guy bought a Trump tie. It makes a lot less sense if it applies to sales of apartments, which I think it does. Notably, this paragraph concludes by saying the amounts involved are “immaterial.” That’s not “de minimis” as in too little matter. That means it just doesn’t matter. It’s just the lawyers’ conclusion. It says nothing about the scale of the money involved.

3: Finally, we know that Trump makes aggressive use of shell companies. We know that the Russian and Russian organized crime figures Trump is associated with do, too. (To be clear, shell companies are pervasively used for innocent and not-innocent purposes.) What’s not at all clear in this letter is whether the lawyers made any effort to look beyond what must be numerous shell companies involved here. If they made no effort to look behind the shells, the conclusions are nearly meaningless. And there’s nothing clear in the letter that suggests they did.

Again, I’m no lawyer. But I know a bit about Trump’s history of business with Russians and I can read language closely. On this basis, the letter seems to leave quite a lot of room for most or all of the ‘Russia connections’ that people talk about, even if every word is narrowly accurate.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-trump-tax-returnrussia-letter-is-full-of-holes

The video below is getting rave reviews for its solid "follow the money" investigation ~ full disclosure: I have not yet watched the video, but the text below is definitely damning ~ ~ Sooz

Donald Trump's Financial Ties to Russian Oligarchs and Mobsters Detailed In Explosive New Documentary from the Netherlands
Dutch TV did what no American TV network dares, suggesting Trump's past includes illegal racketeering.
By Steven Rosenfeld / AlterNet / May 12, 2017

Donald Trump's business partners have included Russian oligarchs and convicted mobsters, which could make the president guilty of criminal racketeering charges.

That's one of the eyebrow-raising takeaways from a 45-minute Dutch documentary that aired last week, titled The Dubious Friends of Donald Trump, Part 1: The Russians. The first installment of the investigative reporting series, produced by Zembla, does what no American TV network has yet dared to do—take a deep look at the organized crime links and corrupt international business strategies used by Trump and his partners in his properties.

It starts with Trump's luxury tower in the lower Manhattan neighborhood of Soho, where his partner in building that highrise was Bayrock LLC, whose primary investor was a Russian mining oligarch and another major investor was a convicted Russian mobster named Felix Sater.

"Why did 60 Minutes pass on the Bayrock story in 2016? Why did ABC News' Brian Ross pass on the Trump Soho [Tower] story in 2015? Why has no major network done any kind of documentary on what the Dutch just did?" asks James Henry, a corporate lawyer-turned-financial investigative reporter who writes for DCReport.org. Henry is one of several investigative reporters whose work on Trump's shady business empire is profiled in the film.

The documentary shows how Trump not only helped hide the identity of his mobster business partner, prompting an ongoing lawsuit accusing Trump of criminal racketeering, but also how Trump used that internal company crisis to demand more money. It goes on to show how Russian oligarchs saw Trump's properties as a way to get their money out of Russia, and describes the international financial networks that are akin to a pyramid scheme for money laundering. It also notes how the law firm of Trump's political adviser, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, helped set up a money-laundering account in the Netherlands used by Bayrock.

The exposed financial trail raises questions about whether Trump fired FBI director James Comey because the FBI investigation of his campaign's collusion with Russia was encroaching into Trump's world of dark money and dubious business partners.


"Although still in its early days, Donald Trump’s presidency is coming under fire. The Russians are alleged to be in possession of sensitive information about Trump. And that exposes Trump to blackmail. Fake news, tweets Trump: 'I have nothing to do with Russia—no deals, no loans, no nothing!' Trump swears he has no ties with the Russians. But is that actually the case?" the filmmakers describe the first installment of the series.

They go on to show that while Trump denies his ties with Russia, many Russians have deep financial ties to him.

"For months, the FBI has been investigating Russian interference in the American presidential elections," the fimmakers continue. "Zembla is investigating another explosive dossier concerning Trump’s involvement with the Russians: Trump’s business and personal ties to oligarchs from the former Soviet Union. Powerful billionaires suspected of money laundering and fraud, and of having contacts in Moscow and with the mafia. What do these relationships say about Trump and why does he deny them? How compromising are these dubious business relationships for the 45th president of the United States? And are there connections with the Netherlands? Zembla meets with one of Trump’s controversial cronies and speaks with a former CIA agent, fraud investigators, attorneys, and an American senator, among others."

The documentary's YouTube description barely does justice to the film's investigative reporting. While American journalists are following Trump's tweets and tantrums, they followed the money into a world where the lines between outright profiteering and organized crime are blurred. What they found on a fact-based money trail reveals much about who the real Trump is and how he operates.

http://www.alternet.org/video/donald-trumps-financial-ties-russian-oligarchs-and-mobsters-detailed-new-documentary

Why is the US MSM still tip-toeing around Trump should be the real question being asked.

Inexperience in dealing with a dictator and fear...

Sally Yates was a rock star during her recent Senate testimony ~ I'm sorry I missed watching this Anderson Cooper/Sally Yates interview last night ... but, if anything, this interview pushes her up a few more notches on my list of heroes ~ Sooz

One word about Yates: INTEGRITY

Just announced ~ I'm sure there will be more info ~ Sooz

TPM LIVEWIRE
Reports: DOJ Names Ex-FBI Chief Robert Mueller Special Counsel In Russia Probe
By Allegra Kirkland Published May 17, 2017 6:06 pm

The Justice Department has named former FBI Director Robert Mueller as special prosecutor in the investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and possible collusion between Trump campaign associates and Russian operatives, NBC and CNN reported Wednesday.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/robert-mueller-named-special-counsel-russia-trump-investigation

Getting verrrrry interesting ~ I read somewhere yesterday [and I'll try to find it again] that this is Rod Rosenstein "getting even" with the DiC for making Rosenstein the public reason he fired Comey ~ there could be credence to that since Rosenstein quickly moved from "no need for ..." to appointing Bob Mueller ~ ~ Sooz

Appointment of special counsel raises stakes in Trump’s Russia scandal
05/18/17 08:00 AM—Updated 05/18/17 08:12 AM
By Steve Benen

When it comes to the Justice Department’s handling of the investigation into Donald Trump’s Russia scandal, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has already recused himself, leaving Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in charge. And as recently as Friday, Rosenstein said he saw no need to appoint a special prosecutor.


A lot can happen in five days.


OK, let’s dig in.

Is Mueller the right person for the job?

Almost certainly, yes. Finding someone who has bipartisan credibility, prosecutorial expertise, and experience with the FBI is exceedingly difficult, but Mueller fits the bill.

Is his appointment good news or bad news for those who take the scandal seriously?

That’s a matter of perspective, of course, but there can be no doubt that the White House and its allies just got a lot more nervous. Donald Trump’s Russia scandal was already heating up, but yesterday’s announcement raised the temperature by several degrees.

Isn’t it a little ironic that Trump’s firing of James Comey led to Mueller’s appointment?

Yep, pretty much.

What is the White House saying about this?

Officially, not a whole lot. The White House wasn’t involved in the process of choosing Mueller – for obvious reasons – and after the Justice Department made the announcement, the president said in a written statement that the investigation “will confirm what we already know – there was no collusion between my campaign and any foreign entity.”

In reality, however, we don’t know “already know” that at all – the matter is still the subject of several investigations – and the scope of FBI counter-espionage probe is broader than this.

How much broader?

Mueller and his team will explore “any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump.” The Justice Department has also given Mueller the authority to pursue “any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation. That would presumably include accusations of the president obstructing justice, evidence of which already exists.

Mueller will also have the powers a federal prosecutor has, including the ability to issue subpoenas and convene grand juries.

Is Mueller a special counsel or a special prosecutor?

Technically, he’s a special counsel, but it seems much of the political world is using the two terms interchangeably.

What’s to stop Trump from simply firing Mueller in the hopes of derailing the investigation?

This gets a little tricky, but he can’t, at least not directly. Mueller will work under the umbrella of Trump’s Justice Department, but the president can’t unilaterally dismiss the special counsel. That said, Mueller’s boss, for all intents and purposes, is Rod Rosenstein, and Trump could fire him. (If Trump ordered Rosenstein to get rid of Mueller, we’d have a new Watergate parallel.)

What about the congressional investigations into the scandal?

By all appearances, those slow-moving probes will move forward, independent of Mueller’s investigation, though there are some new concerns about the sharing of information between the Justice Department and Capitol Hill.

Does this mean there won’t be an independent commission?

One does not necessarily preclude the other, but the likelihood of Congress creating an independent commission is now diminished. There was some growing bipartisan support for the idea as of yesterday, but with Mueller’s appointment, lawmakers will probably back off and see what the special counsel finds.

When will know what Mueller uncovers?

No one knows, but expect a long, thorough investigation. When Comey was ousted, his probe was picking up steam, and I imagine Mueller will try to pick up where Comey left off, but the timeframe is nevertheless open-ended.

Anything else?

Don’t be too surprised if top White House officials start hiring defense attorneys right about now.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/appointment-special-counsel-raises-stakes-trumps-russia-scandal

Finally!

I love this line!

You know what I think?

The rest of the GOP has been very quiet publicly. When asked, they all say they've been "waiting for more information." I think the information they were waiting for was whether or not the special prosecutor was going to be hired. I think grabem and maybe the justice department were read the riot act behind the scenes--either clean this up in a legitimate way, or we separate from you publicly and start calling for a special prosecutor from our side of the isle. After all, they've got a mid term to win in a year or so. I think he was told to stay off twitter fro a while, too--he even managed it for 24 hours.

But he can't help himself, and managed to wiggle his phone back from his handlers this morning--he was on twitter calling this a witch hunt. I think he's losing his political backing in washington, and the gop is quietly throwing him under the bus to save their collective skins.

. . . and the fickle American electorate will probably let them get away with it too.

REPORT: Trump Thinks After FBI Investigation Mike Flynn Can Return to White House Position
Trump 'Feels Really, Really, Really, Bad About Firing Him'

President Donald Trump believes that once the FBI concludes its investigation into Russia's intervention in the U.S. election, the man he fired as National Security Adviser can return to a White House position. The Daily Beast reports President Trump feels bad about firing Flynn, and reveals the retired general did not even want the job.

Mike Flynn is under federal investigation, and was even before Trump offered him the job as NSA. On Wednesday news broke that the Trump transition team knew Flynn was under investigation but allowed him to have the role of National Security Adviser with access to top secret and classified information, despite the ongoing investigation.

“Trump feels really, really, really, bad about firing him, and he genuinely thinks if the investigation is over Flynn can come back,” a White House official said, the Daily Beast reports.

Trump also didn't feel Flynn should have been under investigation at all.

"President Donald Trump pressured a 'reluctant' Michael Flynn into accepting a job as the White House’s top national security official even after Flynn warned the president that he was under investigation over undisclosed lobbying on behalf of a foreign government," The Daily Beast adds.

“He did not want to be National Security Adviser,” Michael Ledeen, a friend of the retired Army general, told The Daily Beast on Thursday. “He didn’t want to be in the government. He wanted to go back to private life.”

“But Trump insisted on it,” said historian Ledeen, co-author of Flynn’s 2016 book The Field of Fight, their manifesto for defeating Islamic militancy. “He likes him, he trusted him, he was comfortable with him,” he said.

Citing a different source, the Daily Beast's report states Flynn would have preferred to have been nominated as Director of National Intelligence or Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

That of course would have been impossible, requiring Senate confirmation.

Earlier today we learned that Trump reached out to Flynn three weeks ago, telling him to "stay strong."

As for Flynn returning to the White House? Given all we know now, that seems impossible.

Here's a clip of Flynn during the campaign:



Live links at site

http://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.co ... e_position

Meanwhile Flynn has apparently said he will not comply with the subpeona

http://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.co ... h_subpoena

"Contempt of Congress" sounds vaguely familiar. I'm thinking Stephen Harper, "Contempt of Parliament" - and nothing happened to him. Except that he went up in the polls, called a snap election and won a bigger mandate.

If Flynn doesn't comply with the subpoena - Congress would do well to order his immediate arrest. Anything less and he'll just walk away from this.

The DiC is probably the best example of why honesty is sooooo important in our lives ~ once others KNOW you lie, everything you spew is tainted ~ he really IS his own worst enemy ~ ~ Sooz

In Russia scandal, Trump looks out for Number One: himself
05/19/17 08:00 AM
By Steve Benen

Midway through Donald Trump’s White House press conference yesterday with Colombia’s Juan Manuel Santos, there was an exchange on the Russian scandal that offered an interesting peek into the American president’s thinking.


The president’s mastery of English often falls short, and this was a rather dramatic example of Trump saying what he didn’t mean. I’m pretty sure he intended to say was that there was “no collusion between” him and Russia, but he can only “speak for” himself.

There was a similar exchange last week when the president sat down with NBC News’ Lester Holt and declared, “I know that I’m not under investigation. Me. Personally. I’m not talking about campaigns; I’m not talking about anything else; I’m not under investigation.” For emphasis, he repeated the phrase a half-dozen times.


What’s more, there’s the latest New York Times reporting, which Rachel highlighted on the show last night, which noted that Trump personally called then-FBI Director James Comey, soon after taking office, to ask “when federal authorities were going to put out word that Mr. Trump was not personally under investigation.”

A not-so-subtle picture is starting to emerge. The president seems to realize that people around him – officials at the highest levels of his political operation during the campaign – may be brought down by the Russia scandal, but Trump is prepared to throw them under the bus and keep driving, as quickly as possible, to protect himself. He likely assumes that so long as there’s no evidence of him personally chatting with Vladimir Putin, helping coordinate Russia’s attack on the U.S. election, then Trump is personally in the clear.

If leading figures from Trump World aren’t as fortunate, in the president’s mind, that’s their problem. He can only “speak for” himself.

This is not a sound plan.

First, whether he likes it or not, the buck stops with Trump. If the Trump campaign cooperated with Russia during Russia’s espionage scheme, the legitimacy of Trump’s presidency will be called further into question, regardless of his personal interactions with Moscow (or lack thereof). If members of Team Trump are indicted for actions they took in his name, the firewall between the president and his aides will, as a political matter, start to crumble.

Second, Trump’s plan to separate himself from those around him who’ve allegedly crossed legal lines has limits. It was, after all, the president who personally fired an FBI director because of his dissatisfaction with the investigation into the Russia scandal. It’s tough for a president to pin the blame on everyone around him when he’s accused of taking direct steps, all on his own, to obstruct justice.

Finally, think about the message Trump’s comments yesterday sent to White House staffers and those who worked on the campaign. The president made it clear that he’s looking out for Number One – himself – and he’s not overly concerned with what happens to anyone else. If members of Team Trump start thinking along similar lines, he may be alarmed by the consequences.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/russia-scandal-trump-looks-out-number-one-himself

Russia probe reaches current White House official, people familiar with the case say

The law enforcement investigation into possible coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign has identified a current White House official as a significant person of interest, showing that the probe is reaching into the highest levels of government, according to people familiar with the matter.

The senior White House adviser under scrutiny by investigators is someone close to the president, according to these people, who would not further identify the official.

The revelation comes as the investigation also appears to be entering a more overtly active phase, with investigators shifting from work that has remained largely hidden from the public to conducting interviews and using a grand jury to issue subpoenas. The intensity of the probe is expected to accelerate in the coming weeks, the people said.

The sources emphasized that investigators remain keenly interested in people who previously wielded influence in the Trump campaign and administration but are no longer part of it, including former national security adviser Michael Flynn and former campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

Flynn resigned in February after disclosures that he had lied to administration officials about his contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Current administration officials who have acknowledged contacts with Russian officials include President Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, as well as Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

People familiar with the investigation said the intensifying effort does not mean criminal charges are near, or that any such charges will result. Earlier this week, Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein appointed former FBI director Robert S. Mueller III to serve as special counsel and lead the investigation into Russian meddling.

It is unclear exactly how Mueller’s leadership will affect the direction of the probe, and he is already bringing in new people to work on the team. Those familiar with the case said its significance had increased before Mueller’s appointment.





Although the case began quietly last July as an effort to determine whether any Trump associates coordinated with Russian operatives to meddle in the presidential election campaign, the investigative work now being done by the FBI also includes determining whether any financial crimes were committed by people close to the president. The people familiar with the matter said the probe has sharpened into something more fraught for the White House, the FBI and the Justice Department — particularly because of the public steps investigators know they now need to take, the people said.

When subpoenas are issued or interviews are requested, it is possible the people being asked to talk or provide documents will reveal publicly what they were asked about.

A small group of lawmakers known as the Gang of Eight was notified of the change in tempo and focus in the investigation at a classified briefing Wednesday evening, the people familiar with the matter said. Then-FBI Director James B. Comey publicly confirmed the existence of the investigation in March.

Justice Department spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores said, “I can’t confirm or deny the existence or nonexistence of investigations or targets of investigations.” An FBI spokesman declined to comment.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer said, “As the president has stated before, a thorough investigation will confirm that there was no collusion between the campaign and any foreign entity.’’

While there has been a loud public debate in recent days over the question of whether the president might have attempted to obstruct justice in his private dealings with Comey, whom Trump fired last week, people familiar with the matter said investigators on the case are more focused on Russian influence operations and possible financial crimes.

The FBI’s investigation seeks to determine whether and to what extent Trump associates were in contact with Kremlin operatives, what business dealings they might have had in Russia, and whether they in any way facilitated the hacking and publishing of emails from the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, during the presidential campaign. Several congressional committees are also investigating, though their probes could not produce criminal charges.

A grand jury in Alexandria, Va., recently issued a subpoena for records related to Flynn’s business, the Flynn Intel Group, which was paid more than $500,000 by a company owned by a Turkish American businessman close to top Turkish officials, according to people familiar with the matter.

The Flynn Intel Group was paid for research on Fethullah Gulen, a cleric who Turkey’s current president believes was responsible for a coup attempt last summer. Flynn retroactively registered with the Justice Department in March as a paid foreign agent for Turkish interests.

Separately from the probe now run by Mueller, Flynn is being investigated by the Pentagon’s top watchdog for his foreign payments. Flynn also received $45,000 to appear in 2015 with Russian President Vladimir Putin at a dinner for RT, a Kremlin-controlled media organization.

Flynn discussed U.S. sanctions against Russia with Russia’s ambassador to the United States during the month before Trump took office, and he withheld that fact from the vice president. That prompted then-acting attorney general Sally Yates to warn the White House’s top lawyer that Flynn might be susceptible to blackmail. Flynn stepped down after The Washington Post reported on the contents of the call.

The president has nonetheless seemed to defend his former adviser. A memo by Comey alleged that Trump asked that the probe into Flynn be shut down.

The White House also has acknowledged that Kushner met with Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the United States, in late November. Kushner also has acknowledged that he met with the head of a Russian development bank, Vnesheconombank, which has been under U.S. sanctions since July 2014. The president’s son-in-law initially omitted contacts with foreign leaders from a national security questionnaire, though his lawyer has said publicly he submitted the form prematurely and informed the FBI soon after that he would provide an update.

Vnesheconombank handles development for the state, and in early 2015, a man purporting to be one of its New York-based employees was arrested and accused of being an unregistered spy.

That man — Evgeny Buryakov — ultimately pleaded guilty and was eventually deported. He had been in contact with former Trump adviser Carter Page, though Page has said he shared only “basic immaterial information and publicly available research documents” with the Russian. Page was the subject of a secret warrant last year issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, based on suspicions he might have been acting as an agent of the Russian government, according to people familiar with the matter. Page has denied any wrongdoing, and accused the government of violating his civil rights.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/na ... 8186b4e3a7

There's a lot of speculation about who that is - and guess whose name appears to be on the short list?

My guess is Jared Kushner ~ he's as dirty a player as his own father AND his father-in-law ~

Sooz