Does it feel like every time you wake up up there are a dozen new scandal involve the Trump regime ? Well , last nighttime was no different . Here ’s a crack-up of all the crazy shit that happen last nighttime and early this morning time .
The Trump regime had at least 18 contacts with the Russians that went undisclosed
According to a newfangled theme this morning from Reuters , there were at least 18 disjoined contacts between Trump ’s team and Russian officials in the seven months leading up to Election Day on November 8 , 2016 . The various contacts consisted of both electronic mail and phone calls .
Former national security advisor Michael Flynn was one of the hoi polloi who made liaison with Russian official , and previous reports have bespeak that Jared Kushner shroud his own contacts with the Russiansfrom the FBI , but the new report strongly suggest that there may have been other Trump campaign name involved .
Russia ’s embassador to the US , Sergey Kislyak , was one of the Russian functionary that the Trump team was regularly communicating with . Kislyak was in the Oval Officelast hebdomad , though the White House did n’t publicise this fact .
FromReuters :
Six of the previously undisclosed contacts described to Reuters were phone song between Kislyak and Trump consultant , including Flynn , Trump ’s first national security adviser , three current and former officials said .
conversation between Flynn and Kislyak accelerated after the Nov. 8 suffrage as the two discuss found a back channel for communication between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin that could get around the U.S. national security department bureaucracy , which both sides considered unfriendly to improved relations , four current U.S. functionary said .
In January , the Trump White House ab initio deny any contacts with Russian officials during the 2016 campaign . The White House and advisers to the movement have since reassert four meetings between Kislyak and Trump advisers during that time .
The Reuters report stress that there ’s no concrete evidence of collusion between the Trump regime and the Russians , but this still does n’t attend just for them .
[ Reuters ]
Kushner urged Trump to ‘counterattack’ after learning that Robert Mueller had been appointed as special counsel
Last night former FBI Director Robert Mueller was appointed special guidance to investigate the Trump regime ’s potential collusion with foreign government in the lead up to the 2016 election . Mueller will also be presumptively look at any possibility of charges against Trump for impediment of justice for firing Sally Yates , Preet Bharara , and James Comey .
President Trump did n’t take about Mueller ’s designation until just 30 minutes before it was announced publicly . And in the New York Times minute - by - minute account of how Trump learned about it , Jared Kushner was the lone voice inside the Oval Office root on Trump to goon the offensive :
Most of those assemble commend that the president adopt a flexible stance , and release a statement accept Mr. Rosenstein ’s decision and embracing a fleet investigation that would pull in the swarm of suspicion hovering over the West Wing .
Mr. Kushner — who had urged Mr. Trump to fire James B. Comey , the F.B.I. music director — was one of the few take issue voices , urge on the president to counterstrike , according to two senior administration official . After a abbreviated discussion , however , calmer heads prevailed , and Mr. Trump ’s staff huddled over a computer just outside the Oval Office to draft the argument that was at long last released , swan the prexy ’s whiteness and conclusion to move on .
By the end of the mental process , Mr. Trump was calm , grimly determined to soldier on and uncharacteristically noncombative , according to people closemouthed to the United States President .
Trump has been unusually hushed on social mass medium in the retiring 24 hours . We ’ll see if this “ uncharacteristically noncombative ” keeps up , or whether the real Trump comes radiate through on Twitter . It seems like only a affair of prison term before the latter .
Update , 7:52am : It reckon like Trump start up tweeting this morning just as I was hitting publish on this post :
https://twitter.com/embed/status/865169927644340224
This is the single gravid crone hunt of a politician in American history !
— Donald J. Trump ( @realDonaldTrump)May 18 , 2017
[ New York Times ]
The Trump team knew about FBI investigations into Flynn weeks before Inauguration Day
Michael Flynn told the Trump team that he was under Union investigation on January 4th , weeks before President Trump was sworn in on January 20 , 2017 . This directly contradicts everything that the Trump White House has said about how they learned about Flynn ’s possible acts of treason .
From theNew York Times :
Mr. Flynn ’s revelation , on Jan. 4 , was first made to the transition squad ’s chief attorney , Donald F. McGahn II , who is now the White House counselling . That conversation , and another one two days later on between Mr. Flynn ’s attorney and transition attorney , shows that the Trump team knew about the probe of Mr. Flynn far earlier than has been antecedently reported .
Perhaps the most damning scene of this story is that it has the potential to entail Vice President Mike Pence as make noesis of Flynn ’s actions .
1/4 — McGahn was told about Flynn / Turkey , per NYT
3/9 — Pence ( who ran the transition ) ; mark what he tell 2xpic.twitter.com/jUEOOQAB18
— Rogelio Garcia , Lawyer ( @LawyerRogelio)May 18 , 2017
American intelligence officials are very concerned about the future of Russian hacking
Time ’s late cover chronicle is about not only the ways in which Russian cyber operations may have helped Trump win the presidency , but the ways in which US intelligence service functionary are upset that Russia might try toinfluence the futurity .
Current and former officials at the FBI , at the CIA and in Congress now believe the 2016 Russian operation was just the most visible battle in an on-going information war against ball-shaped commonwealth . And they ’ve become more vocal about their business organization . “ If there has ever been a clarion call for watchfulness and natural action against a threat to the very foundation of our popular political system , this episode is it , ” former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper show before Congress on May 8 .
If that vocalise alarming , it help to empathise the battlescape of this new entropy war . As they tweet and like and upvote their way through social medium , Americans generate a immense treasure trove of data on what they suppose and how they respond to ideas and arguments – literally thousands of expressions of feeling every second on Twitter , Facebook , Reddit and Google . All of those digitized convictions are accumulate and stored , and much of that data is available commercially to anyone with sufficient computing mightiness to take vantage of it .
It ’s a entrancing report that really require to be readin full .
[ Time ]
Michael Flynn was paid $500,000 by Turkey while advising Trump about actions that impacted the country
It has become progressively clear that not only did the Trump government know Michael Flynn was under probe , but that Flynn was influencing American foreign insurance while accept money from foreign governments .
One of the Trump presidency ’s first decisions about the fight against the Islamic State was made by Michael Flynn calendar week before he was terminate – and it conformed to the indirect request of Turkey , whose involvement , unbeknown to anyone in Washington , he ’d been paid more than $ 500,000 to represent .
An American official act in the interests of a extraneous government ( and getting devote to do it , no less ) is in reality the definition of treason .
[ McClatchy ]
The investigation is going ‘well beyond Flynn’
NBC News reported last nighttime that it was n’t just Flynn who was under a microscoperight now .
The FBI , with the help of the Treasury Department , the CIA and other agencies , is examining evidence of possible contact , money transfers and concern relationships between a variety of Trump associates and Russian officials , the sources say . The investigating goes well beyond Flynn , Manafort and a potential American connection , to include how Russian intelligence service services carried out the campaign of imitation news and leaking hacked emails that intelligence agency officials say was meant to hurt Hillary Clinton and do good Donald Trump .
In retrospect , if Trump thought that give notice FBI Director James Comey would make this whole affair go away , he was unhappily misguided .
[ NBC News ]
House Majority Leader caught on tape saying that he believes Putin pays Trump
Last Nox the Washington Post broke the story that House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy told fellow Republicans in a group meeting on June 15 , 2016 that he believed Trump was gettingpaid by Vladimir Putin .
“ There ’s two people I think Putin pay : Rohrabacher and Trump , ” the California Republican said .
House Speaker Paul D. Ryan ( R - Wis. ) immediately interjected , stopping the conversation from further exploring McCarthy ’s asseveration , and swore the Republicans present to secrecy .
At first , McCarthy denied that such a conversation ever carry piazza . But then the Washington Post told them it had audio transcription of the conversation . McCarthy then turn back and enounce he was just joke .
https://gizmodo.com/top-gop-lawmakers-were-secretly-recorded-saying-they-th-1795316539
[ Washington Post ]
Republicans are ready to make Mike Pence president
Politico published a small-arm at 6:50pm Eastern last dark that may as well have been from a calendar month ago now . entitle , “ conservative begin to whisper : President Pence , ” the piece argues that Republicans are pin their hope on aPence presidency .
Erick Erickson , a conservative pundit who was a hard Never Trumper but then pledged to give the president a chance , wroteon Wednesday that Republicans should desert the president because they “ have no pauperism for him with Mike Pence in the wings . ”
And materialistic New York Times op - erectile dysfunction writer Ross Douthat , argued that desolate Trump now should be easier because someone competent is waitress in the wings . “ Hillary Clinton will not be retroactively elect if Trump is take away , nor will Neil Gorsuch be unseated , ” Douthatwrotein Wednesday ’s Times .
As we noted above , Mike Pence is almost for sure implicate in the Trump transition squad ’s noesis of Flynn work as a foreign factor . Why ? Pence was the head of the changeover team . Best of fate making Pence your President of the United States , Republicans .
[ Politico ]
Fox News continues to tell viewers that there’s nothing to see
Fox News is still inanother universe entirely . On his show last nighttime , Sean Hannity insists that the mass going after Trump are pitch conspiracy theories . It will be interesting to see just howdisconnected from realityFox News continues to be as the country descends into political chaos .
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