Donald Trump is driving young Republicans away from the GOP.

Courtesy of McClatchy: 

As the Trump presidency hits the one-year mark, the Republican Party confronts a yawning generational gap that has been exacerbated in recent months by Trump’s incendiary comments on race-related issues and the party’s official support for an accused child molester in Alabama’s Senate race. 

Now, as few as a quarter of voters under the age of 30 approve of Trump’s job performance. And among young Republicans, Trump’s approval rating has plummeted 12 percentage points since the spring, according to Harvard’s Institute of Politics poll released last month, down to 66 percent. That’s certainly robust, but well below Trump’s overall GOP approval rating that hovers around 80 percent. 

“In a sentence, they are certainly not doing well,” said John Della Volpe, the polling director at the Institute of Politics. “That would be an understatement.”

Gee, funny that a vulgar, racist, habitual sexual abuser would not connect with today's more enlightened youth now isn't it? 

Robert Mueller is now looking at suspicious Russian monetary transactions with American companies, including the possibility that they funneled money through the NRA into Trump's campaign.

Courtesy of Buzzfeed: 

Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team, charged with investigating Russian election interference and possible collusion by the Trump campaign, is examining these transactions and others by Russian diplomatic personnel, according to a US official with knowledge of the inquiry. The special counsel has broad authority to investigate “any matters” that “may arise” from his investigation, and the official said Mueller’s probe is following leads on suspicious Russian financial activity that may range far beyond the election. 

The transactions reveal: 

One of the people at the center of the investigation, the former Russian ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak, received $120,000 ten days after the election of Donald Trump. Bankers flagged it to the US government as suspicious in part because the transaction, marked payroll, didn’t fit prior pay patterns. 

Five days after Trump’s inauguration, someone attempted to withdraw $150,000 cash from the embassy’s account — but the embassy’s bank blocked it. Bank employees reported the attempted transaction to the US government because it was abnormal activity for that account. 

From March 8 to April 7, 2014, bankers flagged nearly 30 checks for a total of about $370,000 to embassy employees, who cashed the checks as soon as they received them, making it virtually impossible to trace where the money went. Bank officials noted that the employees had not received similar payments in the past, and that the transactions surrounded the date of a critical referendum on whether parts of Crimea should secede from Ukraine and join Russia — one of Vladimir Putin’s top foreign policy concerns and a flash point with the West. 

Over five years, the Russian Cultural Centre — an arm of the government that sponsors classes and performances and is based in Washington, DC — sent $325,000 in checks that banking officials flagged as suspicious. The amounts were not consistent with normal payroll checks and some transactions fell below the $10,000 threshold that triggers a notice to the US government. 

The Russian Embassy in Washington, DC, sent more than $2.4 million to small home-improvement companies controlled by a Russian immigrant living not far from there. Between 2013 and March 2017, that contractor’s various companies received about 600 such payments, earmarked for construction jobs at Russian diplomatic compounds. Bankers told the Treasury they did not think those transactions were related to the election but red-flagged them because the businesses seemed too small to have carried out major work on the embassy and because the money was cashed quickly or wired to other accounts. 

Each of these transactions sparked a “suspicious activity report” sent to the US Treasury’s financial crimes unit by Citibank, which handles accounts of the Russian Embassy. 

Along with this suspicious activity Mueller also discovered a connection between the Kremlin and the NRA.

Courtesy of McClatchy:  

The FBI is investigating whether a top Russian banker with ties to the Kremlin illegally funneled money to the National Rifle Association to help Donald Trump win the presidency, two sources familiar with the matter have told McClatchy. 

FBI counterintelligence investigators have focused on the activities of Alexander Torshin, the deputy governor of Russia’s central bank who is known for his close relationships with both Russian President Vladimir Putin and the NRA, the sources said. 

It is illegal to use foreign money to influence federal elections. 

It’s unclear how long the Torshin inquiry has been ongoing, but the news comes as Justice Department Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s sweeping investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election, including whether the Kremlin colluded with Trump’s campaign, has been heating up. 

All of the sources spoke on condition of anonymity because Mueller’s investigation is confidential and mostly involves classified information. 

It should be noted that the NRA donated 30 million to the Trump campaign, which is three times the amount they donated to Mitt Romney's 2012 campaign. 

Damn that Robert Mueller is a thorough son of a bitch isn't he? 

I cannot tell you how much I hope the NRA is outed for illegal campaign contributions.

Seeing them taken down along with Donald Trump, would just be the cherry on top of the delicious justice sundae for me.

Jailed Russian cyber criminal claims that he was the one who hacked the DNC on orders from the Kremlin, and that he can prove it.

Courtesy of McClatchy:

A jailed Russian who says he hacked into the Democratic National Committee computers on the Kremlin’s orders to steal emails released during the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign now claims he left behind a data signature to prove his assertion. 

In an interview with Russia’s RAIN television channel made public Wednesday, Konstantin Kozlovsky provided further details about what he said was a hacking operation led by the Russian intelligence agency known by its initials FSB. Among them, Kozlovsky said he worked with the FSB to develop computer viruses that were first tested on large, unsuspecting Russian companies, such as the oil giant Rosneft, later turning them loose on multinational corporations.

In written answers from jail made public Wednesday by RAIN TV, a Moscow-based independent TV station that has repeatedly run afoul of the Kremlin, Kozlovsky said he feared his minders might turn on him and planted a “poison pill” during the DNC hack. He placed a string of numbers that are his Russian passport number and the number of his visa to visit the Caribbean island of St. Martin in a hidden .dat file, which is a generic data file. 

That allegation is difficult to prove, partly because of the limited universe of people who have seen the details of the hack. The DNC initially did not share information with the FBI, instead hiring a tech firm called CrowdStrike, run by a former FBI cyber leader. That company has said it discovered the Russian hand in the hacking, but had no immediate comment on the claim by Kozlovsky that he planted an identifier. 

The newest allegations are potentially significant. If the FSB did in fact direct Kozlovsky, then it debunks Russian President Vladimir Putin’s assertion that his government had nothing to do with hacking that all major U.S. intelligence agencies put at his feet. It also calls into question the view of a hack that was conducted as a closely held, organized FSB campaign directed from central offices. Kozlovsky says he worked largely from home, with limited knowledge of others and that the political hack was just part of larger relationship with the FSB’s top cyber officials on viruses directed at other countries and the private sector. 

“Based on my experience and understanding of professional intelligence operations, the blending of criminal activity with sanctioned intelligence operations is an old page out of the Russian intelligence-services playbook,” said Leo Taddeo, chief information security officer for Cyxtera Technologies and a former head of cyber operations in the FBI’s New York office. “What the defendant (in Russia) is describing would not be inconsistent with past Russian intelligence operations.”

I would guess that certain intelligence agencies here in America could confirm this "data signature," and once that was accomplished this individual might prove to be a valuable asset for investigators.

It has already been well established that the FSB ordered this attack. But finding out how they did it, and who specially oversaw the operation could help to prevent the next one.

Assuming of course that the now Trump led American law enforcement and intelligence services are interested in preventing the next one.

US Intelligence agencies overheard Russian officials discussing Donald Trump and his associates way back in 2015.

Donald Trump sitting with a number of people mentioned in Junior's collusion email in 2013.

Courtesy of the Wall Street Journal: 

Investigators are re-examining conversations detected by U.S. intelligence agencies in spring 2015 that captured Russian government officials discussing associates of Donald Trump, according to current and former U.S. officials, a move prompted by revelations that the president’s eldest son met with a Russian lawyer last year. 

In some cases, the Russians in the overheard conversations talked about meetings held outside the U.S. involving Russian government officials and Trump business associates or advisers, these people said.

The 2015 conversations were detected several months before Mr. Trump declared his candidacy for the White House. The conversations have been in investigators’ possession for some time, but officials said the Donald Trump Jr. news this week prompted them to look at them again.

In 2015, intelligence agencies weren’t sure what to make of the surveillance reports, which they viewed as vague and inconclusive, the current and former officials said. But the volume of the mentions of Trump associates by the Russians did have officials asking each other, “What’s going on?” one former official said.

Now, in light of the release of emails Tuesday by the president’s eldest son, describing a 2016 meeting with a Russian lawyer, investigators are going back to those early reports. They are seeking new leads as they probe whether the Trump campaign colluded in what several U.S. intelligence agencies say was a Russian government-sponsored effort to meddle in the election to benefit Mr. Trump.

As the Cheshire Cat would say,  "Curiouser and curiouser."

But wait, there's more.

Courtesy of McClatchy:

Investigators at the House and Senate Intelligence committees and the Justice Department are examining whether the Trump campaign’s digital operation – overseen by Jared Kushner – helped guide Russia’s sophisticated voter targeting and fake news attacks on Hillary Clinton in 2016. 

Congressional and Justice Department investigators are focusing on whether Trump’s campaign pointed Russian cyber operatives to certain voting jurisdictions in key states – areas where Trump’s digital team and Republican operatives were spotting unexpected weakness in voter support for Hillary Clinton, according to several people familiar with the parallel inquiries. 

Also under scrutiny is the question of whether Trump associates or campaign aides had any role in assisting the Russians in publicly releasing thousands of emails, hacked from the accounts of top Democrats, at turning points in the presidential race, mainly through the London-based transparency web site WikiLeaks. 

At this point I think that there is no longer any question that members of the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians to change the outcome of the 2016 election, the only questions remaining are how many of them were involved, and what exactly did they do?

The White House is now at war with itself.

I know it was you Fredo. You broke my heart.

Courtesy of McClatchy: 

Republicans are growing concerned that the staffs of Donald Trump and Mike Pence are starting to feud, the latest trouble to hit a White House that has spent months battling crisis after crisis. 

They worry that any rift could be delaying decisions, distracting aides from their already stalled legislative agenda and could lead to more infighting and leaks, problems that have plagued the White House since Inauguration Day. 

A half-dozen Republicans, including four who advised or worked for Trump’s campaign or transition and are still in contact with their former colleagues, said they think the two sides are talking less, disagreeing more and occasionally bad mouthing each others’ bosses. One said the staffs are “walled off” from each other. Several of the Republicans asked to not speak publicly because of the sensitivity of the situation. 

“There is clearly tension between the two staffs,” a former Trump adviser said. “There’s so much internet chatter. That’s going to fuel the animosity.” 

Republicans say it’s only natural that some of the president’s aides are reconsidering who they can trust as the White House continues to reel from an undisciplined president and multiple inquiries into whether Trump associates joined Russia in meddling in the presidential election. 

“The administration doesn’t know who to trust,” Republican strategist Michael Steel said. “When you’re under attack the circle tightens.” 

At the same time, Republicans say, some of the vice president’s aides say they are frustrated over Trump’s many self-inflicted wounds, some of which the conventional and even-keeled Pence is forced to try to explain away as he looks to smooth over hurt feelings with members of even his own party. 

“Trump does something and Mike Pence has to do cleanup,” Republican strategist Doug Heye said. “That can be very frustrating for staff.”

You know I've been waiting for this, because you knew it had to happen. 

Mike Pence only signed onto this three ring circus because he probably believed that the ringmaster would probably end up imploding and leaving him to run the show.

However though Trump is shooting himself in the foot almost every single day there is no sign that he will leave voluntarily, or that the Republicans in the House and Senate have the will to remove him forcibly.

That leaves Pence careening down the tracks on a runaway train that may never completely lose its grip on the tracks.

So what is Pence to do?

Continue on as the good soldier in the hope that in the end he will be rewarded?

Or does he start to sabotage from within in order to hasten the end of the Trump presidency?

Ooh, ooh, I vote for number two.

And even if Pence is not engaging in those types of behaviors I wonder how Trump will respond if he starts to believe that he is?

By the way, on a completely different topic, who do you think keeps leaking information to the media about what is happening inside the White House?