Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

Part 160, some of Russian meddling, and related, material from F6 big ones. These from Thursday, 03/08/18,
headed, Inside the U.S. Military Recruitment Program That Trained Nikolas Cruz to be “A Very Good Shot”
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=139120723

The twenty third

DOJ Lawyer who wrote Special Counsel rules: Mueller can ask to indict Trump

The Beat with Ari Melber
2/21/18
Legal experts have debated whether special counsel can indict a sitting president from the time of Nixon’s presidency. The man who wrote the
rules on how a Special Counsel should operate Neal Katyal, explains Mueller’s indictment power and limitations within the Justice Department.
©2018 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/the-beat-with-ari-melber/watch/doj-lawyer-who-wrote-special-counsel-rules-mueller-can-ask-to-indict-trump-1166974531817 , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04sVcamCqQU ]with comments]

Leave four to

Mueller files new charges against Manafort and Gates
All In with Chris Hayes
2/21/18
Another day, another set of charges in the Russia investigation - and Special Counsel Robert Mueller shows no sign of slowing down.
©2018 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/mueller-files-new-charges-against-manafort-and-gates-1167053379818

Skip one to this one

The problem with Jared Kushner
All In with Chris Hayes
2/21/18
The problem with Trump senior advisor Jared Kushner is not just that he is still operating on an interim security
clearance, but that he has been given a mammoth portfolio of responsibilities that he is unqualified for.
©2018 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/the-problem-with-jared-kushner-1167060547903

Leave four to these four

Sealed document in Manafort Gates case sparks eager speculation
The Rachel Maddow Show
2/21/18
Rachel Maddow describes a new sealed document in the case of Paul Manafort and Rick Gates and what new development it could portend.
©2018 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/sealed-document-in-manafort-gates-case-sparks-eager-speculation-1167147075578

*

US official: Russia's GRU chief did not visit United States
The Rachel Maddow Show
2/21/18
Rachel Maddow updates an ongoing story about the reported visit to the United States by Russia's top spy chiefs,
including two sanctioned officials, one of whom, the head of the GRU, no one admits meeting while he was in the US.
©2018 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/us-official-russia-s-gru-chief-did-not-visit-united-states-1167193155849

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New right-wing Mike Flynn legal theory grasping at straws
The Rachel Maddow Show
2/21/18
Chuck Rosenberg, former U.S. attorney, talks with Rachel Maddow about new developments in Robert
Mueller's Trump Russia investigation and a new right-wing hobby horse about Mike Flynn's guilty plea.
©2018 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/new-right-wing-mike-flynn-legal-theory-grasping-at-straws-1167140419926

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Hope for answers in Alfa-Bank chief's son-in-law's guilty plea
The Rachel Maddow Show
2/22/18
Rachel Maddow looks at some of the questions surrounding Alfa-Banks interactions with Donald Trump and his
campaign and notes that Alex Van der Zwaan, who pled guilty in a case brought by Robert Mueller is the son-in-law
of a co-founder of Alfa-Bank, lending hope to the idea that his testimony could answer some long-standing questions.
©2018 NBCNews.com
[originally aired February 21, 2018]
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/hope-for-answers-in-alfa-bank-chief-s-son-in-law-s-guilty-plea-1167191619761

Leave one, about arming teachers being a "fantasy game", to this one

Jared Kushner's security clearance is a problem for John Kelly

The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell
2/21/18
Jared Kushner is reportedly resisting giving up his access to classified information after John Kelly issued a memo that would strip
White House officials using temporary clearances but is there a "Jared Loophole?" Ned Price and Max Boot join Lawrence O'Donnell.
©2018 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/watch/jared-kushner-s-security-clearance-is-a-problem-for-john-kelly-1167124547995 , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xsa0JDNrWRs [with comments]

Into the second half now, this one

Trump attacks Jeff Sessions (again) over Russia
The 11th Hour with Brian Williams
2/22/18
As news breaks that Mueller is probing a whether Paul Manafort promised a banker a White House job in exchange
for loans, Trump attacks his own attorney general again over the Russia investigation. Our panel reacts
©2018 NBCNews.com
[originally aired February 21, 2018]
http://www.msnbc.com/brian-williams/watch/trump-attacks-jeff-sessions-again-over-russia-116718701181


To "stashed February 21, 2018:"

Bernie Sanders blames Hillary for allowing Russian interference - fucking idiot
The senator and his top political adviser also denied Mueller's assertion that Russian actors backed his campaign.
Bernie Sanders on Wednesday blamed Hillary Clinton for not doing more to stop the Russian attack on the last presidential election. Then his 2016 campaign manager, in an interview with POLITICO, said he’s seen no evidence to support special counsel Robert Mueller's assertion in an indictment last week that the Russian operation had backed Sanders' campaign.
The remarks showed Sanders, running for a third term and currently considered a front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, deeply defensive in response to questions posed to him about what was laid out in the indictment. He attempted to thread a response that blasts Donald Trump for refusing to acknowledge that Russians helped his campaign — but then holds himself harmless for a nearly identical denial.
In doing so, Sanders and his former campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, presented a series of self-serving statements that were not accurate, and that track with efforts by Trump and his supporters to undermine the credibility of the Mueller probe.
“The real question to be asked is what was the Clinton campaign [doing about Russian interference]? They had more information about this than we did,” Sanders said in the interview with Vermont Public Radio.
After being contacted by POLITICO about the interview, Sanders issued a lengthy statement calling the Russian involvement a “direct assault on the free democratic systems that stand in contrast to the autocratic, nationalistic kleptocracy of Vladimir Putin and his backers in the Russian oligarchy” which “deserves unconditional condemnation.”
He said that goes for “any candidate or active opposition to any candidate,” and listed most other candidates and campaigns whose support by Russians was detailed in the indictment — including "my own."
Sanders said that his campaign had shared information with the Clinton campaign about suspected Russian anti-Clinton trolls on a campaign Facebook page. But Weaver later acknowledged that the Vermont senator had no firsthand knowledge that this had happened. Weaver said Sanders based his remark on an article published by NBC’s San Diego affiliate over the weekend about a campaign volunteer who claimed to have conducted his own investigation and brought the findings to the Clinton campaign in September — an assertion flatly denied by a former Clinton campaign aide.
"A guy who was on my staff … checked it out and he went to the Clinton campaign, and he said, ‘You know what? I think these guys are Russians,’” Sanders said. Weaver said Sanders had not verified the information in the article himself before stating it as fact.
The Sanders statement issued late Wednesday attributed to “an aide to Sen. Sanders” added “he was using the word ‘campaign’ expansively to include not only the formal, institutional campaign, but also the broader network of volunteers and supporters of Bernie 2016 across the country.”
Sanders went on to indicate that he was at least vaguely aware of the operation that Mueller detailed in his indictment of 13 Russian nationals last week: “What Mueller reported, he had more specificity than we’d seen before. Not exactly new.”
A former Clinton campaign staffer said it was nonsense that Sanders' campaign had reached out to Clinton's about potential Russian interference. "No one from the Sanders campaign ever contacted us about this”—not in September, and not in “April and May.” Sanders said in the radio interview that he noticed "lots of strange things" during those months in 2016.
“They were supporting my campaign? No. They were attacking Hillary Clinton’s campaign and using my supporters against Hillary Clinton,” Sanders said in the radio interview.
Asked why Sanders would blame Clinton for not intervening, Weaver said, “Uh, I don’t know. They [Clinton's campaign] did have more information.”
As for Sanders’ claims of having gone to Clinton’s campaign about possible Russian meddling, Weaver said Sanders was “speaking broadly."
“What he knows is all from published news reports,” Weaver said.
The Vermont senator was adamant that he did not benefit from Russian bots urging voters to support him. “I did not know that Russian bots were promoting my campaign. Russian bots were not promoting my campaign,” he said.
Sanders has repeatedly condemned President Donald Trump for not acknowledging the Russian attack on the 2016 election alleged in the Mueller indictment and being investigated by congressional committees. But he has refused to say that his campaign benefited from the activities.
Mueller’s indictment states that the 13 Russians indicted “engaged in operations primarily intended to communicate derogatory information about Hillary Clinton, to denigrate candidates such as Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, and to support Bernie Sanders and then-candidate Donald Trump.”
Among the evidence the indictment cites is a message from the day after Sanders and Trump won their New Hampshire primaries. "Specialists were instructed to post content that focused on ‘politics in the USA’ and to ‘use any opportunity to criticize Hillary and the rest (except Sanders and Trump—we support them.),” the document read.
Weaver, who is one of the senator’s closest aides, said repeatedly he wasn’t sure if he should believe the charges himself.
“The factual underpinning of that in the indictment is what? Zero,” Weaver said. “I have not seen any evidence of support for Bernie Sanders.”
Kenneth Pennington, the campaign’s digital director, said in an MSNBC appearance after the Mueller indictments were issued that he knew nothing of Russian support for the campaign, and Weaver said in the interview he didn’t either.
“Two dudes sitting in a hole somewhere support Bernie Sanders—tell me what they did to support Bernie Sanders,” Weaver added later.
Sanders’ and Weaver's argument mirrors the defense that Trump, who has argued in a days-long series of tweets that the Russians were not supporting him. The president has blamed his nemesis, Barack Obama, for not doing enough to stop Russian disruption in the campaign.
“If all of the Russian meddling took place during the Obama Administration, right up to January 20th, why aren’t they the subject of the investigation?” Trump tweeted Wednesday morning. He earlier said that "some 400-pound genius sitting in bed and playing with his computer" could have been responsible for the activities attributed to Russians.
Sanders repeatedly refused to say why he didn’t call out Russian involvement during the campaign. Clinton's campaign regularly raised suspicions of Kremlin-backed activity during the home stretch of the race.
Sanders said the key point was that he was campaigning hard for Clinton after losing the nomination to her, and “at this point we were working with them.”
Sanders has faced questions since Friday about why he has not more strongly condemned the Russian actions that benefited his campaign. On Wednesday, liberal writer Joan Walsh of The Nation tweeted in response to Sanders’ comments about Clinton: “Seriously, this could be the end of Sanders 2020. Someone who cares about him ought to tell him how badly he stepped in it today.”
In the interview, Sanders repeatedly said that the attention should be on Trump’s denials of Russian activity — an assertion he's made repeatedly since Friday's indictment.
But in doing so, he floated his own conspiracy theory.
“You have a president of the United States not saying that [Russians meddled in the election]. What exactly is going on? And you have speculation: ‘Do the Russians really own him?’” Sanders said. When pressed by the host if he believed that the Russians do have something compromising on the president, Sanders said, “I don’t know. But something [is] very weird.”
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/21/bernie-sanders-trump-russia-interference-420528

Sen. Bernie Sanders On Gun Control, Russian Meddling And Congressional Dysfunction
http://digital.vpr.net/post/sen-bernie-sanders-gun-control-russian-meddling-and-congressional-dysfunction

New sealed filing in Manafort and Gates case
https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/21/politics/manafort-gates-filing/index.html

Mueller Files Sealed New Charges in Manafort, Gates Case
Brief court document doesn’t explain nature of accusations
Former Trump campaign aides already face corruption counts
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-21/mueller-files-sealed-new-charges-in-manafort-gates-case

Mueller makes new filing under seal in Manafort-Gates case
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/374898-mueller-files-new-sealed-criminal-charges-in-manafort-gates-case

Paul Manafort got $16 million in loans after the election. Mueller finds that very interesting.
The loans came from a Trump adviser’s bank that specialized in affordable mortgages for military veterans.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/21/17036634/paul-manafort-sealed-charges

more: https://www.google.com/search?q=mueller+manafort

Trump Again Presses Jeff Sessions Over Russia Probe
The president suggests the special counsel is looking at the wrong administration
President Donald Trump on Wednesday renewed his public pressure on Attorney General Jeff Sessions, suggesting the Justice Department should be looking at the Obama administration as it probes possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.
In a tweet Wednesday, Mr. Trump wrote: “If all of the Russian meddling took place during the Obama administration, right up to January 20th, why aren’t they the subject of the investigation? Why didn’t Obama do something about the meddling? Why aren’t Dem crimes under investigation? Ask Jeff Sessions!”
Mr. Sessions, who advised Mr. Trump during the 2016 campaign, has repeatedly come under fire from the president after having recused himself from overseeing the Russia investigation last year. That decision led to the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller, after Mr. Trump fired James Comey as Federal Bureau of Investigation director last May. That special counsel’s probe, which is examining Russian interference in the 2016 election and any links to the Trump campaign, has ensnared several top Trump campaign associates.
In his tweet Wednesday, it wasn’t clear what “Dem crimes” Mr. Trump was alleging, but he has previously criticized the Justice Department for not pursuing a prosecution of his 2016 Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, over her alleged mishandling of classified emails.
It also wasn’t clear what Mr. Trump was suggesting the Obama administration didn’t do about Russian election meddling. Less than a month before he left office, then-President Barack Obama imposed sanctions on Russia related to its work in 2016. The State Department expelled what it described as 35 intelligence operatives from the U.S., and the administration imposed asset freezes and travel bans on Russian officials.
As that was happening, members of the incoming Trump administration were working to undermine the impact of those sanctions, according to court documents.
Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser, Mike Flynn, pleaded guilty in December to lying to the FBI about a series of calls he made with Russia’s then-ambassador to the U.S., including discussion of sanctions. Mr. Flynn is now cooperating with Mr. Mueller’s probe.
Then, last year, Congress voted to further punish Russia for its meddling, by memorializing in law the Obama administration’s sanctions and requiring the Trump administration to list oligarchs close to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government. At the end of January, the Treasury Department published a list, but in a break from what Congress required, it didn’t impose sanctions on individuals doing business with Russian military or intelligence bodies.
Asked Tuesday about this approach, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, “there’s a process that has to take place, and we’re going through that process.”
A spokeswoman for the Justice Department declined to comment.
Senate and House Democratic leaders on Wednesday sent a letter to House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell requesting their support in increasing the FBI’s budget by $300 million to combat foreign influence in elections. That came days after Mr. Mueller indicted 13 Russians and three companies for alleged crimes tied to the use of a “troll” factory to sow political discord on social media, an effort that also sought to help Mr. Trump and hinder Mrs. Clinton.
“We have Russian operatives flooding our social media platforms with misinformation,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) in a conference call about the request. It is “not clear” what the Trump administration is doing about it, he said.
A spokeswoman for Mr. Ryan, AshLee Strong, made no commitments on whether he would support the expenditure.
“The bipartisan House Intel Committee has conducted a year-long review into Russia meddling in the 2016 elections,” she said. “This review, along with the Senate Intel and FBI investigations, will inform lawmakers on ways to protect the 2018 election.”
Some former federal prosecutors said Mr. Trump is wrong to pressure Mr. Sessions on investigations.
Jimmy Gurulé, a University of Notre Dame law professor and former assistant attorney general in Republican President George H.W. Bush’s administration, said in an interview that the president shouldn’t look to determine who gets prosecuted.
“When the president sends out tweets like this—why aren’t the Democrats being prosecuted?—that sounds to me like a president from an authoritarian country, where the prosecutor is an arm and extension of the president and people are being politically persecuted.”
Robert Ray, who served as independent counsel in the investigation into the Bill Clinton-era Whitewater land deal, said he didn’t believe Mr. Trump’s actions in this instance are improper. As president, Mr. Trump establishes policy for the entire executive branch, with no exception carved out for the Justice Department, Mr. Ray said.
In an email, Mr. Ray wrote that if Mr. Trump “wants to steer DOJ towards investigation of Russian meddling’ involving a prior administration, why not? That may have adverse political consequences, but in my judgment is not improper.”
Mr. Trump has said his campaign didn’t work with Russia in 2016, although several people in Mr. Trump’s orbit have admitted to having had contact with Russians during the campaign. The Mueller team has indicted two other Trump campaign officials, including former campaign manager Paul Manafort, for alleged financial misdeeds in work that predated the campaign. They have pleaded not guilty.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-again-presses-jeff-sessions-over-russia-probe-1519246156

FACT CHECK: Why didn't Obama stop Russia's election interference in 2016?

( https://youtu.be/UaVWRetR4jg )
https://www.scpr.org/news/2018/02/21/80995/fact-check-why-didn-t-obama-stop-russia-s-election/

What Obama did, didn’t do and couldn’t do in response to Russian interference
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/02/21/what-obama-did-didnt-do-and-couldnt-do-in-response-to-russian-interference/

more: https://news.google.com/news/story/dwvi02fIbQprGoM77DvtGDpKUNJrM?ned=us&gl=US&hl=en

Flynn urged by supporters to withdraw guilty plea, as judge's actions raise eyebrows
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/02/21/flynn-urged-by-supporters-to-withdraw-guilty-plea-as-judges-actions-raise-eyebrows.html

Judge Nap: Order From New Judge in Michael Flynn Case Is 'Unheard-Of' - Andrew Napolitano
http://insider.foxnews.com/2018/02/20/judge-nap-michael-flynn-case-mueller-indictment-13-russians

Did Mueller withhold evidence in striking the Michael Flynn deal?
By Raging Idiot Jonathan Turley
http://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/374738-evidence-withheld-in-flynn-case-brady-motion-makes-one-wonder

New Right-Wing Nutball Theory: Michael Flynn About to Go Free!
https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/02/new-right-wing-conspiracy-theory-michael-flynn-about-to-go-free/

more: https://www.google.com/search?q=michael+flynn

Mueller asking if Manafort promised banker White House job in return for loans
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/mueller-asking-if-manafort-promised-banker-white-house-job-return-n849916