(THREAD) BREAKING: The NYT has published a bombshell report on George Papadopoulos—the biggest Trump-Russia news since Flynn's plea. This thread dissects the new revelations—as well as some major implications for the Trump-Russia collusion narrative. I hope you'll read and share. pic.twitter.com/vHDvlxkqsF— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) December 30, 2017
1/ First, here's the article. The NYT foregrounds the story's significance as a rebuttal of Trump's claims the Russia investigation began with the Steele Dossier. But in fact, anyone who knows criminal investigations knew long ago Trump's claim was untrue. https://t.co/ZFdHyHkNFg— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) December 31, 2017
2/ As has been discussed by @AshaRangappa_, the Steele Dossier alone would never have been enough to earn the FBI the July 2016 FISA warrant it was granted to monitor Carter Page. So attorneys and those in intelligence long ago knew the Dossier didn't launch the probe by itself.— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) December 31, 2017
3/ The NYT story gives us—it appears—an additional piece of the warrant application the FBI filed to get a FISA warrant in July '16. But again, this is merely a piece—as was the Dossier. We know multiple intelligence agencies, not just Australia's, provided the FBI with evidence.— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) December 31, 2017
4/ So Trump's claim that the FBI grabbed a dossier of raw intelligence it hadn't yet confirmed and ran to the FISA court to secure a warrant to wiretap Americans connected to the Trump campaign has been laughably false from Day 1. And media has not done enough to underscore that.— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) December 31, 2017
5/ What we learn from the NYT (though again it's not—contrary to what the NYT seems to believe from its headline—what makes today's breaking news significant) is that the Australians informed U.S. law enforcement in July 2016 that Papadopoulos had made covert contact with Russia.— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) December 31, 2017
6/ In fact, while today's NYT story is indeed this month's second-biggest Trump-Russia revelation—after the December 1 guilty plea by Mike Flynn—what makes it significant isn't that it rebuts Trump's false claims but that it may have *sealed the Trump-Russia collusion narrative*.— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) December 31, 2017
7/ If the NYT understood this, it would've led with it. But one must know the *prior* reporting on Papadopoulos to understand why today's news constitutes one of the biggest revelations in the 18-monthy history of the Trump-Russia probe. So I'll *briefly* summarize what we know.— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) December 31, 2017
8/ On September 22—40 days before we learned Papadopoulos was cooperating with the Mueller probe—I said that he had directly identified himself to Trump as a Kremlin agent in March 2016. This led to major-media coverage of the now-infamous "TIHDC meeting." https://t.co/SP0zDTX7Rh— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) December 31, 2017
9/ It hadn't previously been discussed that Papadopoulos was at the first meeting of Trump's national security (NatSec) team at the Trump International Hotel in DC (TIHDC) on March 31, 2016. But he was there—a *week* after revealing himself as a Kremlin agent to the NatSec team.— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) December 31, 2017
This thread goes on to include about 30 tweets, so I am not going to post them all.10/ So when (per the NYT) Papadopoulos revealed in May '16 to an Australian diplomat that he knew Russia had committed major federal crimes against the U.S.—via computer theft and fraud—it was two months after he told Trump's NatSec team *and Trump* he was in contact with Russia.— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) December 31, 2017
However if you have read this far you are likely very intrigued and I suggest you click the top tweet and read the entire thread.
I think that Abramson makes some very astute points, and if his assertions are correct Mueller is going to be dropping the mother of all bombs on the Trump Administration sometime this year.
2018 may see this country's first popcorn shortage.
The second and third string of liars and cons will be entertaining to watch go down. People such as guilani, gordy, nunes, tea bags in congress, county supervisors, governors, certain rogue military and law enforcement, celebraties, ceo's, corporations, and so many moore. Yep, their involvement will expose them for who and what they are.
ReplyDeleteCounty supervisors? huh? Not sure what you're talking about there, but a ocunty level official woudl have very little to do with anythign federal, unless you are referring to a county election board/voter registration. As a rule, county supervisors handle snow plowing, some road maintenenance, minimal zoning regs and water drainage. Maybe a couple of minimal faiclity parks. They really are redundnat in counties with large cities and built-out 'burbs. Some do have jails - largely holding facilities to prisons and for minor offenses (under 30 days sentence.)
ReplyDeleteI think 4:40 listed county supervisors as the source to hire fire and sway votes or elections. Hiring corruption is a problem. Supervisors do have pull.
DeleteThe county I grew up in was so corrupt (GOP-run) that many Civil Service laws were routinely ignored to reward people with cushy jobs. I worked in a county agency and had to have the local Republican committeeman's approval in order to get a voluntary transfer to another facility despite being on the top of the Civil Service list for the position AND being specifically requested by the director of the facility.
DeleteThe current County Executive and his wife are going to trial this month on 13 counts of extortion, bribery, fraud and obstruction.
Supervisors can have a big impact on jobs and the economy of the county they're running and, if they're in the right party, can also have a significant impact on state government.
UN Secretary-General Puts World On ‘Red Alert’ In Somber New Year’s Eve Address
ReplyDeletehttps://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/antonio-guterres-un-new-years-eve-red-alert_us_5a49e3e3e4b0b0e5a7a7a4ee?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009
And all of the reasons he gives relate directly to Dullard Judas Drumpf.
DeleteWhat drives me crazy/amuses me when people report Trump/Russia stuff is that everyone fails to note a key point --
ReplyDeleteRUSSIA DIDN'T HAVE HILLARY'S EMAILS.
The emails that got hacked and were released are not what the Russians said they had. They were lying. And our president is so stupid that he couldn't see that.
Also, what a terrible negotiator. Making all these deals without getting proof that they had what they said they did.
That's crime caper 101.
Exactly. They weren't Hillary's e-mails. They were DNC e-mails. The Russians either couldn't tell the difference or simply lied to the Trump people. Or maybe they thought Hillary "owned" the DNC so their e-mails were her e-mails.
DeleteThe Russians were cultivating "assets" in the Trump campaign. Trump was warned early on to be on the look-out for this. He was told to report anything fishy to the FBI. I've even read somewhere that Mueller is investigating how Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania were won by Trump, if the Russians were involved in manipulating the votes.
DeleteThe Toxic Loyalty of Trump's Hardcore Zealots
ReplyDeleteThey’ve excused his winking at neo-Nazis and his support of an accused child molester. Is there anything—anything—that would make Trump’s die-hards leave his personality cult?
...They practiced that newfound liberty, using racial and homophobic slurs openly and insulting protestors wherever they found them. Men around me huddled in groups and catcalled women as they passed, including a female officer who, after telling them to leave her alone, they called a “Clinton-loving c*nt” while flipping her off. The main event, however, came when Trump took the oath of office on the steps of the Capitol across the street and a group of young men screamed, high-fived, and chanted “USA/USA/USA.”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-toxic-loyalty-of-trumps-hardcore-zealots
This new year, tell Trump: Enough
ReplyDeletehttps://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/this-new-year-tell-trump-enough/2017/12/31/c5ffb092-ecc1-11e7-9f92-10a2203f6c8d_story.html
Trump Donors Funding GOP Rep Who’s Leading Attacks On Mueller and FBI (REPORT)
ReplyDeleteA new report details how one Republican Congressman benefitted from a surge in national donations from a group of 15 of the President’s largest donors over the last eighteen months, before turning into Trump’s very public attack dog, seeking delegitimize the FBI and become a Fox News darling.
Representative Ron DeSantis is a member of the Republican Tea Party’s Freedom Caucus, but his donor list is missing the kinds of Koch Brothers cash one might expect, instead filled with cash from major Trump donors which Politico calls his “billionaire kingmakers.”
“Trump and DeSantis rely on the same people to fill their campaign coffers. We know what they want from Trump — the full-scale turnover of America to corporate interests,” says Dworkin who uncovered the relationship between the Florida Republican and Trump’s donors, “But what do these billionaires want from Rep. DeSantis?”
State and Federal donor records in the new report reveal the real “billionaire kingmakers” — a select group is from Trump’s donor list — began grooming Rep. Desantis in August 2016, long before the backbench lawmaker became a Fox News regular or gubernatorial aspirant.
https://thesternfacts.com/trump-donors-funding-gop-rep-whos-leading-attacks-on-mueller-and-fbi-report-22f4aa595719
Congressman DeSantis Funded by Trump's Largest Donors
ReplyDeleteFOLLOW THE MONEY, PART 1:
https://www.scribd.com/document/368093256/Congressman-DeSantis-Funded-by-Trump-s-Largest-Donors
How many nations gave evidence of Trump-Russia contacts to U.S. intelligence BEFORE the FBI ever saw the Steele Dossier?
ReplyDeleteWe knew this in APRIL.
https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/947621744281640973
Remember, much of what Trump does can be undone
ReplyDeletehttp://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-lemieux-trump-endurance-20180101-story.html
If only.
DeleteCongress revoked a lot of regulations using their "no backsies" rule so they can't be put back in place.
Smearing Mueller shows the depths of Republican fear
ReplyDeleteThe campaign to discredit Special Counsel Robert Mueller has reached a shrill and desperate phase, as some believe it is more important to protect Donald Trump's interests than to establish how and why an adversarial government influenced a presidential election.
The goal is to dismiss any findings damaging to the president as political bias; to invent corruption in the highest echelons of law enforcement, notably in the FBI; and to preempt any discovery of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia with distractions.
Much of it is a whingeing chorus of victimhood, slithering from a Twitter account, which invariably overlooks pertinent facts.
So as 2018 begins and the second year of Mueller's investigation unfolds, we need to acknowledge a baseline of immutable truths, and review what we have learned from the man Republicans recently considered the most scrupulous public servant in government.
http://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2018/01/smearing_mueller_shows_the_depths_of_republican_fe.html
In 2017 @SpeakerRyan & his Republican Congress ignored & refused to investigate the 20 sexual assault claims against Trump. Let’s not let them ignore Trump’s victims again in 2018. They must be heard. RT if you agree there should be a #TrumpSexProbe #MeToo
ReplyDeletehttps://twitter.com/funder/status/947801791080607744
Thank you Gryphen for this post. It gives me hope at a time when Trump and his allies are beating the drum against Mueller's investigation and the FBI to discredit them. I fear that something is going to happen and that Trump will get away scot-free as he did his whole life and it's comforting to know the amount of information and evidence that Mueller already has. I read the whole twitter thread through the link and I found that Seth Abramson did an amazing job putting together all of the available pieces of the puzzle in a timeline so that the whole picture comes to light.
ReplyDeleteI'm looking forward to the day when Mueller presents his findings because that could be ground for impeachment (never a certain thing with a GOP led Congress) but I'm even more looking forward to the day when Schneiderman has enough evidence into Trump's suspected money-laundering schemes to nail him and his sons. I want to see them in handcuffs doing the perp walk. That would be an appropriate comeuppance after a lifetime of shenanigans.
Papadopoulos is a small fish who gained sudden notoriety by being part of the orange julius's campaign. Before getting sot drunk on booze that evening, he already was drunk on the status he "achieved".
ReplyDeleteThat's a really bad combination....when drunk he became a braggadocio and spilled beans to a diplomat that could truly hurt the campaign.
The orange julius has surrounded himself with these small-time, incompetent fools and it is now becoming his undoing (i.e. as jared's recommendation that he fire Comes initiated the Mueller investigation).
Idiots...one and all! May they all rot in jail (or at least be permanently stained as felons if they plea bargain)!!