Feds seized as many as 16 cell phones from Donald Trump's lawyer, who once bragged that he was part of the Russian mob.

Courtesy of The New York Post:  

Manhattan federal prosecutors seized as many as 16 cell phones when the FBI raided the home, office and hotel room of President Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen. 

Prosecutor Thomas McKay made the ​astonishing revelation wh​ile telling a judge ​Thursday ​that the feds are on track to hand over seized​ ​materials to Cohen’s lawyers by May 11. 

In explaining the process, McKay said the feds have already turned over the contents of four phones and one iPad. 

McKay said the feds will turn over the “remainder of the phones seized” on Friday — before adding that they have “about a dozen” left. 

Among the devices seized are two BlackBerrys, suggesting Cohen has been holding on to his electronics for many, many years. 

The startling revelation promptly attracted the attention of porn star Stormy Daniels’ lawyer, who called Cohen’s phone hoarding “BIGLY bad.”

"Bigly bad" indeed. Because you KNOW that stored on those phones is information which will incriminate Donald Trump. Bigly!

Can you even imagine needing that many phones?

What could be the possible reason?

Wait, this next story might clear that up.

Courtesy of Business Insider:  

Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's embattled personal lawyer, once bragged that he was part of the Russian mob, The Wall Street Journal reported.

According to The Journal, Cohen once told someone at a former friend's wedding that he belonged to the Russian mob.

Now the Business Insider article also contains a quote from a friend of Cohen's who doubts the veracity of this story, which brings me to this Rolling Stone's article:  

Cohen joined the Trump Organization in 2006, and eventually became Trump's personal lawyer, a role once occupied by Roy Cohn, Senator Joseph McCarthy's heavy-lidded hatchet man during the Red Scare who advised Trump in the 1980s. Michael Cohen's bare-knuckled tactics earned him the nickname of "Tom," a reference to Tom Hagen, the consigliore to Mafia Don Vito Corleone in The Godfather. He grew up on Long Island, the son of a physician who survived the Holocaust in Poland, and like Tom Hagen spent a childhood around organized crime, specifically the Russian Mafiya. Cohen's uncle, Morton Levine, was a wealthy Brooklyn doctor who owned the El Caribe Country Club, a Brooklyn catering hall and event space that was a well-known hangout for Russian gangsters. Cohen and his siblings all had ownership stakes in the club, which rented for years to the first Mafiya boss of Brighton Beach, Evsei Agron, along with his successors, Marat Balagula and Boris Nayfeld. (Cohen's uncle said his nephew gave up his stake in the club after Trump's election.)

So to be clear, the Feds found more than a dozen phones in Cohen's possession, who clearly has ties to the Russian mob, and whose only real client is Donald Trump. a man who is under investigation for Russian collusion during the election. 

Does anybody else see pieces falling onto place here?

Somehow I don't think Ronny Jackson is going to be the next head of the VA. Update!

Courtesy of Business Insider:  

New details about the alleged conduct of White House physician Ronny Jackson emerged on Tuesday night, nearly 24 hours after the first public allegations against him came to light. including a claim that he banged on the hotel-room door of a female employee while intoxicated. 

According to four people familiar with a 2015 incident involving Jackson, the doctor allegedly caused a ruckus by banging on the door of one employee's hotel room during an overseas trip, CNN reported. Jackson reportedly caused so much of a scene that the Secret Service intervened out of concern that he would wake then-President Barack Obama.

 A former staffer said that the "middle-of-the-night" incident made the employee uncomfortable and that it was "definitely inappropriate," CNN reported. 

The incident adds to a series of other allegations against Jackson, who was scheduled to go before the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs on Wednesday. The hearing was postponed on Monday, amid multiple allegations stemming from his time as the White House physician.

Some of those allegations include claims of excessive drinking at work, creating a hostile work environment, and improperly dispensing medication, according to a CBS News report published Monday night.

Substance abuse,  inappropriate contact with a female subordinates, you might think this would make Jackson a perfect fit for the Trump White House swamp, but that is likely not how the Senate is going to respond to them.

And if Jackson was hoping that Trump had his back, he may not want to rely to heavily on that.

lol. Bye, Ronny pic.twitter.com/y1QDxhLVWt

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) April 24, 2018

Yeah, Ronny Jackson meet the undercarriage of the Trump bus.

By the way this excessive drinking totally explains how Jackson was able to examine Donald Trump and think that he was healthy enough to live to two hundred years old.

Update: Oh this doesn't look good.

From Veterans Affairs Committee summary on Ronny Jackson, which says it is based on interviews with 23 current and former Jackson colleagues.

These quotes are apparently from those colleagues: pic.twitter.com/TiBAnX8k4C

— Rachel Maddow MSNBC (@maddow) April 25, 2018

Hard to see him coming back from this.

Rather than softening Donald Trump's rhetoric on Twitter, Hope Hicks added her own brand of venom.

Courtesy of Business Insider:  

Hope Hicks, the former White House communications director and President Donald Trump's longtime aide and confidante, was known among reporters for softening her boss's sharp edges and relaying his strongly-worded messages in more pleasant terms. 

But according to a New York Times report, Hicks, who exited her White House position on March 29, regularly conceived of some of the sharpest personal attacks in Trump's Twitter feed. 

Hicks, along with White House director of social media Dan Scavino, helped the then-presidential candidate craft many of his infamous tweets from the campaign trail, The Times reported in a new profile of Scavino. And Hicks would supply some of the most devastating attacks. 

"She'd have absolute daggers," a former campaign official told The Times of Hicks.

No wonder Trump liked Hicks so much, and felt so lost without her.

She was the nasty ass Yin to his nasty ass Yang.

Of course it is not as if her leaving has softened any of Trump's tweets, though they certainly somewhat less articulate.

Remember, it's always the quiet ones that you never want to turn your back on.

There is another Devin Nunes' memo coming, and this one attacks the State Department.

Courtesy of Business Insider:  

As Democrats and Republicans continue brawling over the Russia probe, House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes is gearing up to release a second memo as part of his investigation into perceived bias within the FBI and Department of Justice. 

Nunes's much-hyped first memo, which was declassified last week, purports to show the FBI and DOJ abusing their surveillance authority by omitting "material and relevant" facts when submitting an application for a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant against Carter Page, a former adviser to President Donald Trump's campaign. 

Much of the Republican document also questioned the FBI's decision to use the Steele dossier — an explosive collection of memos by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele alleging collusion between Trump and Russia — as a "roadmap" in the Russia investigation. 

Nunes's next memo, meanwhile, will focus on alleged abuses at the Department of State and a second Trump-Russia dossier compiled by Cody Shearer, a controversial political activist with close ties to the Clinton family, according to a Republican familiar with the details. 

Apparently Trump, and his attack poodle Nunes, will not be happy until they have undermined every government law enforcement or intelligence agency in the country.

The first memo by Nunes landed with a thud, and it is likely that this one will be just as pathetic.

Of course that doesn't mean Sean Hannity will not treat it like a smoking gun, and that Right Wing media will not go apoplectic over it. Because they will.

Already one of Nunes' newest allegations has failed the smell test.

Here is a Nunes' quote courtesy of WaPo: 

“The truth is that they [Democrats] are covering up that Hillary Clinton colluded with the Russians to get dirt on Trump to feed it to the FBI to open up an investigation into the other campaign.” —Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, in an interview on the Hugh Hewitt Show, Feb. 7, 2018

The Post's fact checkers went to town on that statement, and this is what they ultimately came away with:   

Was the dossier used to gin up media attention to Russia-Trump ties and bolster an existing FBI investigation? Perhaps. That’s certainly a question worth exploring. 

But the media needed little prodding to investigate when candidate Trump appeared unexpectedly solicitous of Russian President Vladimir Putin as Russian-linked entities leaked emails stolen by Russian hackers in the middle of a campaign. Meanwhile, the initial FBI counterintelligence probe was prompted not by Steele’s reporting but by the loose lips of a Trump campaign staffer. 

Finally, there is no evidence that Clinton was involved in Steele’s reports or worked with Russian entities to feed information to Steele. That’s where Nunes’s claim goes off the rails — and why he earns Four Pinocchios.

But those are facts, and facts have no impact on the Republican bubble, so this next memo is almost certainly going to cause yet another Right Wing freakout that will dominate conservative news outlets for several days. 

And all of this is clearly designed to undermine and ultimately foil the Robert Mueller investigation.

Right before election adult film star was paid $130,000 to stay quiet about her affair with Donald Trump.

Courtesy of CNN: 

President Donald Trump's longtime attorney denied that Trump had a sexual encounter with a porn star after a report by The Wall Street Journal on Friday alleged the lawyer helped facilitate a six-figure payment to the actress in October 2016 in exchange for her silence. 

Michael Cohen, Trump's personal attorney, said the President "vehemently denies" the encounter, but did not address the alleged payment in a statement to CNN. 

The story, which cites people familiar with the matter, says Cohen arranged a $130,000 payment to Stephanie Clifford -- whose stage name is "Stormy Daniels" -- a month ahead of the election. Cohen denies the sexual encounter took place.

"These rumors have circulated time and again since 2011," Cohen said in a statement to CNN. "President Trump once again vehemently denies any such occurrence as has Ms. Daniels." Cohen, once one of Trump's most trusted aides, is no longer in regular contact with Trump -- a distance forced by the Russia investigations, in which Cohen has been entangled. 

A White House official said in a statement: "These are old, recycled reports, which were published and strongly denied prior to the election."

I am kind of irritated with myself because I actually typed up more than half of a post on this story yesterday, but then thought that I had already written one about it right before the election, so I deleted it.

However I actually got this story confused with the story about the former Playboy model Karen McDougal, which I really did write about in October 2016.

In that post McDougal was paid by the National Enquirer to write a story about her affair, that apparently they then killed in order to protect Trump.

You can understand my confusion.

However this Stormy Daniels story is a new one, and according to author Michael Wolff, probably just another one of many.

Courtesy of Business Insider:  

Steve Bannon, President Donald Trump's former top strategist, alleged in journalist Michael Wolff's tell-all book about the Trump White House that the president's longtime attorney, Marc Kasowitz, "took care" of 100 women during the presidential campaign. 

"Look, Kasowitz has known [Trump] for twenty-five years. Kasowitz has gotten him out of all kinds of jams," Bannon reportedly said. "Kasowitz on the campaign — what did we have, a hundred women? Kasowitz took care of all of them." 

This apparently off-hand remark may take on new significance after The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that another lawyer for the president, Michael Cohen, sent $130,000 to a porn star just weeks before the 2016 presidential election to keep her silent about an alleged 2006 sexual encounter with Trump.

So apparently not only has Trump cheated on his wife Melania, but he has done so constantly.

Some of Trump's supporters have questioned the legitimacy of the Wall Street Journal's reporting, but according to the Daily Beast they have three sources that confirm the account, including one porn star who was invited to a threesome with Trump and Stormy: 

According to fellow porn star Alana Evans—who was not only Daniels’ neighbor and close friend at the time, but also happened to be staying in the area—Daniels confided in her that she and Trump were more than just friends. 

“It was the second day of our trip, we were in a hotel with a tattoo parlor, and the hotel had huge windows so you could see people outside. When I saw Stormy, I was like WTF? I opened the door, called out to her, and she joined me while [my colleague] got a tattoo,” recalls Evans. “Stormy said she met Donald Trump and then tells me about the golf tournament and how she’s supposed to hang out with him later that night, and she invited me. Stormy said Donald knew exactly who she was and wanted to meet her.” 

Later that evening after returning to her hotel room, Evans said Daniels kept calling, asking her to come join the party. But Evans wasn’t interested and made up reasons not to go.

“Stormy calls me four or five times, by the last two phone calls she’s with Donald [Trump] and I can hear him, and he’s talking through the phone to me saying, ‘Oh come on Alana, let’s have some fun! Let’s have some fun! Come to the party, we’re waiting for you.’ And I was like, ‘OMG it’s Donald Trump!’ Men like him scare me because they have so much power and this was way before his presidential nomination. So I bailed on them and turned my phone off.”

Boy you can sure see how Trump managed to attract all of that Evangelical support, can't you?

Cyber security firm warns that Russian hackers are laying the groundwork to spy on US Senate.

Courtesy of Business Insider:  

The US Senate was targeted last year by the same hacking group that broke into the Democratic National Committee servers during the 2016 presidential election, according to the cybersecurity firm Trend Micro. 

The research firm found that phishing sites were set up by Pawn Storm, also known as Fancy Bear or APT28, mimicking the Senate's internal email system in an attempt to gain users' login credentials. 

"By looking at the digital fingerprints of these phishing sites and comparing them with a large data set that spans almost five years, we can uniquely relate them to a couple of Pawn Storm incidents in 2016 and 2017," the researchers wrote. 

They added that the phishing emails, while not advanced in nature, are often "the starting point of further attacks that include stealing sensitive data from email inboxes." 

The June 2017 phishing attempts would not have been the first time Russia tried to infiltrate the US Senate. In its extensive analysis of Fancy Bear's targets during the presidential election, the Associated Press found that Senate staffers Robert Zarate, Josh Holmes, and Jason Thielman were targeted between 2015-2016.

And just a reminder that the Trump Administration has done virtually NOTHING to protect the American people against these attacks. 

I'll leave it to you to imagine why that is.

Senator Dianne Feinstein gets fed up with all of the Republican excuses and releases the Fusion GPS transcript onto the internet.

Courtesy of Politico:  

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) on Tuesday unexpectedly released the transcript of congressional investigators' August 2017 interview with Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson, whose firm was behind a controversial dossier alleging ties between President Donald Trump and Russians. 

Feinstein's move represents an escalation of partisan tensions that have long been simmering on the Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley. Simpson had called for the transcript of his appearance to be made public, but Republican leaders so far had not agreed to release it. 

A spokesman for Grassley said Feinstein posted the transcript with "no agreement" from committee Republicans. 

"The American people deserve the opportunity to see what he said and judge for themselves,” Feinstein, the top Democrat on the judiciary committee, said in a statement about her decision to release the Simpson transcript.

“The innuendo and misinformation circulating about the transcript are part of a deeply troubling effort to undermine the investigation into potential collusion and obstruction of justice. The only way to set the record straight is to make the transcript public," she said.

(If you want to read that transcript you can do so here.)

Since the release a number of news outlets have reported on its contents.

For instance Axios reported that at least a portion of the dossier had been confirmed to the FBI by a White House source: 

Fusion GPS head Glenn Simpson told Senate Judiciary Committee staffers in August that the FBI had independently received information from an Trump campaign insider that led them to find some of the allegations in former MI6 agent Christopher Steele's Trump-Russia dossier credible. That revelation comes from a transcript of his testimony to the committee released unilaterally today its ranking member, Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

That source of course turned out to be George Papadopoulos.

Simpson revealed that there was evidence of Russian money laundering:

During his testimony, Simpson detailed ways that money had been stolen from a bank in Kazakhstan, then laundered throughout multiple countries — before possibly being funneled in part to the Trump Soho hotel project. 

At the center of the ordeal appears to be Felix Sater, a Trump-linked Russian-born businessman who in 1998 pleaded guilty to taking part in a mafia-related stock fraud scheme, and who is now cooperating with an international investigation into an alleged money laundering network.

Business Insider reports that Christopher Steele had initially reached out to the FBI, but then became concerned that they were being manipulated by Trump and cut ties with them: 

Simpson said Steele "stopped dealing" with the FBI after the New York Times reported in October 2016 that the FBI had found no clear links between Trump and Russia. Steele was also irked by the letter that then-FBI Director James Comey sent to Congress on October 28, effectively re-opening the Hillary Clinton email investigation. 

"That episode, you know, obviously created some concern that the FBI was intervening in a political campaign in contravention of long-standing Justice Department regulation," Simpson said. "So it made a lot of people, including us, concerned about what the heck was going on at the FBI." 

Simpson called the New York Times piece, published on October 31, "a real Halloween special." 

"Sometime thereafter the FBI -- I understand Chris severed his relationship with the FBI out of concern that he didn't know what was happening inside the FBI and there was a concern that the FBI was being manipulated for political ends by the Trump people and that we didn't really understand what was going on," Simpson said. "So he stopped dealing with them."

We also learned that according to Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson's lawyer that at least one person has been killed due to the release of the dossier.

!!!

Glenn Simpson's lawyer said someone has been killed as a result of the Steele dossier being published. pic.twitter.com/TMjbi7oPU7

— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) January 9, 2018

I have been busy today so I have only started to read through the 312 page transcript, but I have already concluded that the Republicans did not want this released for some very scurrilous reasons.

This is how Scott Dworkin responded to what he read.

After reading the Fusion GPS transcript it’s clear Republicans have been completely ignoring all of the credible allegations of money laundering, conspiracy with Russia against the US & other crimes committed by Donald Trump & his pals. It’s proof Republicans are traitors—Period.

— Scott Dworkin (@funder) January 9, 2018

Yeah, essentially that.

Top ethics watchdog files suit against DOJ concerning those FBI texts that were made public.

Courtesy of Business Insider: 

A top ethics watchdog said Wednesday it is suing the Justice Department for all communications concerning the DOJ's decision to share with the press text messages exchanged between two FBI employees, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, during the 2016 election. 

Many of the texts were overtly critical of President Donald Trump, and Strzok and Page mocked him at various points throughout the campaign, calling him an "idiot." 

Strzok and Page also disparaged other political leaders, like the Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders and former Attorney General Eric Holder. The texts concerning Trump, however, were quickly weaponized by the most vehement critics of special counsel Robert Mueller following the DOJ's decision to release them to Congress and the press. That release came just one day before Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein testified before the House Judiciary Committee on December 13. 

The department has failed to answer a significant lingering question stemming from that release: how it chose which texts, of the more than 10,000 the department obtained over the summer, to unveil publicly. Nor has it released additional messages that could provide context to the ones that were shared with lawmakers and reporters. DOJ has also not disclosed who authorized the release. 

The lawsuit, filed by the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington asked the " DOJ’s senior leadership offices for all communications concerning the decision" to give the texts to a small group of reporters the day before Rosenstein's testimony. CREW filed the expedited request Wednesday after the DOJ failed to respond to their initial inquiry within 20 working days. 

Yeah I would like to see these questions answered as well.

Since when do private communications between lovers become the business of the DOJ unless one or more of the participants are under criminal investigation?

British journalist, who wrote a book called "Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win," explains that the Steele dossier is not "fake news."

Courtesy of Business Insider:  

Luke Harding: Well I mean, saying the dossier is fake news doesn't make it fake news. It's just an assertion. 

My name is Luke Harding. I'm a journalist and a writer. And my new book is called "Collusion" and it's about Donald Trump and Russia. 

According to people I've talked to, who are kind of close to "Steele", believe that the dossier is not flawless. One or two things may be wrong. He acknowledges that there's raw intelligence but broadly he thinks it's right. And he says it's between 70-90% correct. That's his kind of assessment. Which for an intelligence report is pretty good. 

As we learn more about the Trump team and engagements with Russia, we were told to begin with, "nothing to see here." I think the dossier kind of is standing up pretty well. 

The thing about intelligence is it's kind of not black and white. It's sort of grey. Some sources are better than others. But my understanding is that even though Steele hasn't revealed who his sources are we don't need to know who they are. They're sources that have kind of proven themselves in other areas. 

For example, Steele read a whole lot of reports about the war in Ukraine in 2014, using these same sources that were behind the Trump dossier. And they were well received by US intelligence, who were actually sent up to John Kerry in the State Department and they were accurate.

Harding also responded to the allegation that the dossier was tainted since some of the research was funded by the Democrats, but his response was that it really did not matter WHO paid for it, only whether it was true or not.

And he believes that the majority of it is in fact true.

It is enough to worry the Kremlin, a fact that is supported by the fact that their news agencies have gone out of their way to attack Harding and discredit his new book.

Keep in mind that Trump himself has also ramped up attacks on the dossier which makes me think that portions of it are about to be proven accurate.

WOW, @foxandfrlends “Dossier is bogus. Clinton Campaign, DNC funded Dossier. FBI CANNOT (after all of this time) VERIFY CLAIMS IN DOSSIER OF RUSSIA/TRUMP COLLUSION. FBI TAINTED.” And they used this Crooked Hillary pile of garbage as the basis for going after the Trump Campaign!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 26, 2017

Democrat on Senate Judiciary Committee says that they have shifted focus off Russia probe to "peripheral issues." Yes, it's about Hillary Clinton.

Who is this Republican Senator "nudged" by the White House? Is this why full Judiciary hearings have veered in this direction instead of Russia/obstruction? pic.twitter.com/q7gcr49Pvo

— Sheldon Whitehouse (@SenWhitehouse) December 1, 2017

Courtesy of Business Insider:  

Senate Judiciary Committee Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse told the committee's chairman, Sen. Chuck Grassley, in a letter Friday that he does not think the panel is "presently on a path" to help defend against potential Russian interference in the 2018 midterm elections — and beyond. 

That is because the committee is elevating "peripheral issues," Whitehouse said, such as Hillary Clinton's relationship with the opposition research firm Fusion GPS. Fusion hired a former British spy during the campaign to investigate President Donald Trump's ties to Russia.

Though Senator Grassley was not names in the article pointed out by Whitehouse, he IS one of the Senators currently calling for a second Special Counsel to investigate Hillary's connection to Fusion GPS and relationship with Russia.

Grassley also called the insinuation by Whitehouse that a Senator had been "nudged" by the White House to be "baseless."

Which is exactly how you would expect somebody who was nudged by the White House to respond.

And of course the House Intelligence Committee, supposedly also investigating the Russian interference, has also wandered way off target:  

The House Intelligence Committee has only issued one subpoena to a financial institution in the 11 months since it opened its investigation into Russia's election interference and potential collusion between President Donald Trump's campaign team and Moscow. 

The subpoena wasn't to Deutsche Bank — which was fined last year over its involvement in a major Russian money-laundering scheme and has been the Trump family's bank of choice for decades. Rather, the subpoena was delivered to the primary bank for the Washington, DC-based opposition research firm Fusion GPS. 

Republican Rep. Devin Nunes, the committee's chairman, stepped aside from the Russia probe in April amid an ethics investigation into whether he'd disclosed classified information in a press conference. But he was cleared earlier this month, and has spearheaded a months-long investigation into who paid Fusion for its work during the 2016 election. 

Sounds like the Republicans in Washington are about to go all Benghazi again. 

Rep. Adam Schiff expresses concern that the Republicans will soon shut down the House Intelligence investigation as a precursor to firing Robert Mueller.

I’m increasingly worried Republicans will shut down the House Intelligence Committee investigation at the end of the month.

Here’s why:

— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) December 15, 2017

Courtesy of Mother Jones: 

Republicans on the House intelligence committee appear intent on shutting down the panel’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election as soon as next Friday, according to the committee’s top Democrat. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) warned in a series of tweets that the move could presage an all-out GOP attack on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of possible Trump campaign coordination with Russia. Schiff said House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) could be pressuring the panel to prematurely wrap up its work and would have “responsibility” for any effort to curtail the probe. 

Schiff noted that Republicans have scheduled no witness interviews after Friday, December 22. That’s despite “dozens of outstanding witnesses on key aspects of our investigation that they refuse to contact” and unexecuted document requests. Committee Republicans did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Friday.

Rep. Schiff is by no means alone in his concern, and many Washington Democrats, journalists, and  every day people on Twitter are also putting two and two together and recognizing that the groundwork is being laid out for the removal of Robert Mueller.

And in fact we have talked about it here several times.

The attacks on the credulity of Mueller's investigation seem to be coming from a variety of directions, and from a variety of conservative politicians.

Courtesy of Business Insider:

Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy, who sits on the House Judiciary Committee, suggested in a Friday interview that FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe will be forced out at the top law enforcement agency as soon as next week. 

Gowdy argued that newly released FBI records reveal political bias against President Donald Trump — and in favor of Hillary Clinton — at the highest levels of the FBI. Gowdy said that McCabe will likely be pushed out of the agency as a result of the perceived bias. 

"I'll be a little bit surprised if he's still an employee of the FBI this time next week," Gowdy told Fox News of McCabe, adding that he would be "shocked" if McCabe testifies before the House next week. 

Apparently this McCabe guy was supposed to have been breaking into the phones of his agents and spying on what they were texting to their girlfriends.

There was also this from the sitting Florida Attorney General.

On Fox's 'Hannity,' @AGPamBondi calls Robert Mueller 'corrupt' probe 'worse than Watergate' https://t.co/7ZJBzIn235 via @MitchEPerry #FlaPol pic.twitter.com/sCncWBfBqy

— Peter Schorsch (@PeterSchorschFL) December 14, 2017

Can you believe that shit?

And there is certainly reason for the Trump White House and the Republicans to be very worried.

Courtesy of The Independent: 

The investigation into links between Trump campaign officials and Russia has requested documents from a data firm which worked on both the 2016 presidential election and Brexit, said US media. 

Robert Mueller, who is leading the federal probe, asked Cambridge Analytica to hand over the emails of any employee who worked to support Donald Trump’s 2016 election win, the Wall Street Journal reports. 

The special counsel’s request, which the firm reportedly voluntarily complied with in the autumn, suggests the investigation is now probing the Trump campaign’s data operations.

You know that has some sphincters in the White House puckering up. 

The threat of Mueller being fired has now become such a concern that the former director of the US Office of Government Ethics issued this directive:

“Make a plan folks. Be ready to take to the streets. This is an attack on our Republic.”

This weekend I’m stocking up on portable phone chargers, warm clothes, & gear needed for when we take the streets. I’m concerned the assault on the rule of law is coming over the holidays when we’re distracted. It‘ll be a defining moment for the Republic. https://t.co/Ewn5tdx8e6

— Walter Shaub (@waltshaub) December 15, 2017

This is typically the point where I say something like "The shit just got real."

Well actually I think this shit has been real for sometime, and it may now be about time for all of us to start shoveling. 

Those texts messages between the two FBI agents were not authorized for release by the DOJ, and in fact may have been the fault of Rep. Devin Nunes.

Courtesy of NBC News:  

The Department of Justice released 90 pages of text messages late Tuesday night, many harshly critical of candidate Donald Trump, that were exchanged between an FBI lawyer and an agent who was later assigned to Robert Mueller's special counsel team. 

e-mails were exchanged between Peter Strzok, one of the top FBI agents assigned to the Mueller investigation, and Lisa Page, an FBI lawyer. The two were romantically involved. 

When Mueller learned of the e-mails last summer, he removed Strzok from the team.

One message sent by Page to Strzok on March 4, 2016, reads, "God trump is a loathsome human," according to a transcript obtained by NBC News.

Later that year, in August, shortly after Trump secured the Republican nomination, Page sent Strzok an article on Trump's fumbling to understand Russia's annexation of Crimea, adding: "Jesus. You should read this. And Trump should go f himself." 

Strzok responded that he liked the article "And F Trump." 

Strzok told Page on July 14, "It's clear he's capturing all the white, poor voters who the mainstream Republicans abandoned in all but name in the quest for the almighty $$$$." 

In other messages, the couple shared pro-Clinton views. Strzok told Page in March, "God Hillary should win 100,000,000-0." 

Strzok then praised Clinton's nomination in July: "Congrats on a woman nominated for President in a major party! About damn time!"

So that was the story a few days ago.

Now keep in mind that these are not emails sent back and forth on the FBI's official accounts, these  are private  texts between two people in a relationship.

Also keep in mind when Mueller learned of them he had this agent removed immediately.

But if you think that is going to placate the Right Wing, well then you have simply not been watching enough Fox News.

Courtesy of Politico: 

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley demanded answers Thursday about when top Department of Justice officials became aware of anti-Donald Trump text messages sent in 2015 and 2016 by top FBI officials, including one senior agent involved in the investigation of any Trump campaign connections to Russia. 

"The limited release of 375 text messages between Mr. Peter Strzok and Ms. Lisa Page indicate a highly politicized FBI environment during both the Clinton and Russia investigations," Grassley wrote in a letter to deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who appointed special counsel Robert Mueller to lead a criminal probe of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Right on cue.

Now Democrats have been wondering why we are seeing these texts in the first place, as they are private and should probably have remained an internal FBI matter.

Courtesy of Politico: 

Democrats pressed the Justice Department on Thursday to explain why it released salacious, anti-Donald Trump text messages exchanged between two FBI employees who are still under investigation for their work on the Russia special counsel investigation.

As it turns out the DOJ was not really behind the early  release of the texts. At least not officially:

The Department of Justice acknowledged in a statement on Thursday night that copies of private text messages exchanged between two former special-counsel investigators were disclosed to certain members of the media before they were given to Congress, even though those disclosures "were not authorized." 

Sarah Isgur Flores, a DOJ spokeswoman, told Politico that the text messages exchanged between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page were given to key members of the House Judiciary Committee the night before Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein's public testimony on Wednesday. 

The DOJ's Public Affairs division shared the same messages with a group of reporters after they were shared with the lawmakers, Flores said. But some members of the media "had already received copies." 

"As we understand now, some members of the media had already received copies of the texts before that — but those disclosures were not authorized by the department," she said.

So why did these private texts even get released in the first place?

Courtesy of Business Insider: 

Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz on Friday said the Justice Department was "forced" to release private text messages exchanged between former special counsel investigators Peter Strzok and Lisa Page because House Intelligence Chair Devin Nunes "was about to subpoena them." 

During an interview, CNN anchor Chris Cuomo had asked Gaetz, a Republican member of the House Judiciary Committee who has introduced a resolution to remove special counsel Robert Mueller from his post, what he knows about the ongoing investigation that has led him to believe it has been tainted. 

"What do you know that Rod Rosenstein does not?" Cuomo asked, referring to the deputy attorney general. 

"Well, Chris, all the American people can see the text messages that were forced to be released 'cause Devin Nunes was about to subpoena them," Gaetz said.

Nunes, and a number of the House Republicans, have been desperately searching for a way to derail Robert Mueller and his investigation,  and they are willing even to subpoena private texts between a man and his girlfriend to do it. 

Is it a smoking gun.

No, especially since this Strzok guy also made nasty remarks about Bernie Sanders and former Attorney General Eric Holder.

But the Republicans don't necessarily need a smoking gun,  they just need enough to create doubt in the minds of some Americans so that Mueller can be canned and they will believe it was completely  justified.

And they are already starting to put those wheels in motion.

Russian hacker admitted in court that his team hacked the DNC under direction from the Kremlin.

Courtesy of Business Insider: 

A Russian hacker believed to be a member of a hacking collective called Lurk said in court over the summer that he was ordered by Russia's security services, known as the FSB, to hack the Democratic National Committee. 

The hacker, Konstantin Kozlovsky, told a Moscow court in August of this year that his nine-member hacking group — which has been accused of stealing over $17 million from Russia's largest financial institutions since 2013 — has been cooperating with the FSB for several years, according to the independent Russian news outlet The Bell. Part of that cooperation included hacking the DNC, he said. 

Kozlovsky said during a hearing on August 15 that he "performed various tasks under the supervision of FSB officers," including a DNC hack and cyberattacks on "very serious military enterprises of the United States and other organizations." Minutes from the hearing, as well as an audio recording, were posted on Kozlovsky's Facebook page. 

The Bell said it confirmed their authenticity with two sources, including a person who was present at the hearing. Kozlovsky also posted a letter that he wrote on November 1, 2016. The letter outlined what he said was his work for the FSB, which he said had spanned nearly a decade and, most recently, involved attacking the DNC servers.

Well so much for this story about Russians hacking our election being "fake news."

On that last point Politifact has now determined the denial that Russia interfered in our election to be the "Lie of the Year."

Well isn't that adorable, now Donald Trump and Sarah Palin have yet another thing in common.

Robert Mueller abruptly reverses decision to support bail for Paul Manafort after learning of planned op-ed co-written with man who has ties to Russian intelligence.

Courtesy of Business Insider:

Special counsel Robert Mueller has abruptly reversed course on a bail agreement his office struck with Paul Manafort's legal team last week that would have allowed him to be released from GPS monitoring. 

Manafort evidently failed to tell the government that he was ghost-writing a draft op-ed about his work in Ukraine as late as November 30. He was working on it with his longtime protege Konstantin Kilimnik, who is believed to have ties to Russian intelligence, according to the special counsel's court filing. 

The government said that the court had initially "admonished" Manafort's lawyer for making public statements to the press about the case and on November 8 had barred both "the parties and counsel from making statements that could interfere with" a fair trial. 

"Even if the ghostwritten op-ed were entirely accurate, fair, and balanced, it would be a violation of this Court’s November 8 Order if it had been publish," the government argued. "The editorial clearly was undertaken to influence the public's opinion of defendant Manafort, or else there would be no reason to seek its publication." 

The filing continued: "Because Manafort has now taken actions that reflect an intention to violate or circumvent the court's existing orders ... the government submits that the proposed bail package is insufficiently reasonable to assure his appearance as required. The government's prior general consent to the bail package presupposed that Manafort was complying with the Court's existing orders."

It has been clear to me for months now that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is not fucking around here. 

Apparently Manafort did not get that memo and did not understand that Mueller would drop the hammer on him if he even pushed a pinky over the line.

One thing I can say with some confidence is that this is definitely going to send a chill down the spine of everybody already targeted by the Mueller team, as well as those who believe their number will come up at any time.

If I were Jarred Kushner, Donald Trump Jr., or even Trump himself, I would probably have to sleep with the night light on tonight.

Now Trump seems to be admitting that he knew Michael Flynn lied to the FBI and THAT was why he fired him. Update!

I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI. He has pled guilty to those lies. It is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. There was nothing to hide!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 2, 2017

So wait, he fired Flynn for lying to the FBI and then fired James Comey for continuing to investigate Flynn?

You know the problem with habitual liars is that when their lies are exposed they just keep right on digging that hole.


As reporter Natasha Bertrand pointed out this tweet might also have just handed Robert Mueller his Christmas bonus.

"Just unreal": Trump's latest tweet about Flynn indicates he's either "utterly clueless about his own jeopardy" or "truly believes he is beyond accountability," experts say https://t.co/hDcwke2e5m

— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) December 2, 2017

Courtesy of Business Insider: 

Trump told reporters at the time that he had been forced to fire Flynn because he had misled Vice President Mike Pence about those conversations. But the White House gave no indication at the time that it knew Flynn had lied to the FBI in a January interview about those conversations — a federal crime that Flynn pleaded guilty to on Friday. 

"I fired him because of what he said to Mike Pence," Trump said during a press conference on February 16. 

He continued: "Very simple. Mike was doing his job. He was calling countries and his counterparts. So, it certainly would have been OK with me if he did it. I would have directed him to do it if I thought he wasn’t doing it. I didn’t direct him, but I would have directed him because that’s his job." 

Trump's tweet on Saturday appears to indicate that Trump was aware Flynn had lied to the FBI when he departed the administration in February. 

It also seems out of line with what a person close to White House counsel Don McGahn told the New York Times on Friday, which is that when former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates warned him about Flynn in January, she did not mention that Flynn had committed a federal crime. 

If Trump knew that Flynn was in the FBI's crosshairs when he asked former FBI Director James Comey, whom he later fired, to consider "letting Flynn go" the day after Flynn resigned, that could dramatically bolster the obstruction case federal prosecutors are building against him. 

I swear at this rate there will not be any surprises left to be revealed by the time Christmas morning arrives.

 Here is your "Holy shit!" update:

Maybe don't put this in writing, KT McFarland... pic.twitter.com/cqWnVDAApg

— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) December 2, 2017

K.T McFarland wrote in an email to a colleague that sanctions announced hours before by the Obama Administration in retaliation for Russian election meddling were aimed at discrediting Mr. Trump's victory. The sanctions could also make it much harder for Mr. Trump to ease tensions with Russia, "which has thrown the U.S.A election to him."

Altogether now, "Holy shit!"

Former CIA Director, and central figure in James Mueller's Russian investigation, has "lengthy conversation" with Donald Trump over dinner.

Courtesy of Business Insider:

Former CIA Director James Woolsey dined with President Donald Trump last weekend at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida — where, a report said, they had a "lengthy conversation" at the main dining table surrounded by several of Trump's friends, associates, and political allies. 

A tipster told Politico's Playbook about the conversation, which raised eyebrows given Woolsey's centrality to the special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser. 

Woolsey, who served on the board of Flynn's lobbying firm, Flynn Intel Group, was at a meeting on September 19, 2016, with Flynn and Turkish government ministers in which they discussed removing the controversial Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen from US soil, Woolsey has said. 

Woolsey apparently notified Vice President Joe Biden through a mutual friend about the meeting, which he thought could have been an illegal discussion, Woolsey's spokesman, Jonathan Franks, said earlier this year. 

Franks confirmed late last month that Mueller's team had interviewed Woolsey about the meeting. He said Woolsey and his wife had been in touch with the FBI since before Mueller began overseeing the bureau's Russia investigation in May.

I think there can be no doubt that Trump is attempting to either glean information about the investigation, or find a way to undermine it. 

And that is something that a former CIA Director would surely see coming.

So why would be go?

Hmm, I wonder if Trump had him searched for a wire? 

Carter Page's testimony before the House Intelligence Committee is....enlightening.

Courtesy of NBC News: 

Former Trump campaign volunteer Carter Page, who has come under scrutiny in the investigation of Russian election interference, told a House committee that he sought permission for a July 2016 trip to Moscow from senior Trump campaign officials, and reported to other Trump officials about the trip when he returned. 

It’s long been known that Page traveled to Moscow in July 2016, but he has said it was in his private capacity, unrelated to his role with the Trump campaign. 

Page, whose sworn testimony was released Monday night, told the House Intelligence Committee last week that he sought permission to make the trip from campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, and also notified Hope Hicks, who is now the White House communications director. 

Lewandowski told Page he was clear to go on the trip as long as the travel was not associated with his work on the campaign, Page told the committee.

However as it turns out Page was kind of representing the campaign to some degree on the trip, and he DEFINITELY talked with Russian government officials about the campaign.  So that sort makes it feel that it WAS associated with his work on the campaign.

Reporter Natasha Bertrand also points out that some of Page's testimony reinforces the documentation in the Christopher Steele Russian dossier.

Steele dossier panning out: Page met w/ both the head of investor relations for Rosneft AND members of Russia’s PA while in Moscow last July pic.twitter.com/k2mCTLIGUP

— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) November 7, 2017

Courtesy of Business Insider: 

Page revealed during his testimony that he met with both members of Russia's presidential administration and with the head of investor relations at the state-owned Russian oil giant Rosneft during his trip to Moscow last July. 

He also congratulated members of the Trump campaign's foreign policy team on July 14 for their "excellent work" on the "Ukraine amendment" — a reference to the Trump campaign's decision to "intervene" to water down a proposed amendment to the GOP's Ukraine platform. 

The original amendment proposed that the GOP commit to sending "lethal weapons" to the Ukrainian army to fend off Russian aggression. But it was ultimately altered to say "provide appropriate assistance" before it was included in the party's official platform. The dossier alleges that the campaign "agreed to sideline" the issue of Russia's invasion of Crimea and interference in eastern Ukraine in exchange for dirt on Hillary Clinton. 

Apparently Page was a confounding witness who attempted to plead with Fifth in response to some questions and then became quite chatty in response to others. 

Adam Schiff Asking Carter Page Whether He's Invoking The Fifth Amendment Is Something Else. pic.twitter.com/aNchV7MnTG

— Chris Geidner (@chrisgeidner) November 7, 2017

He also provided testimony which often seemed to contradict itself, and he probably perjured himself on several occasions.

Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff confronted Page with an email he wrote on July 8 from Moscow to Trump campaign adviser J.D. Gordon saying that he had received "incredible insights and outreach from a few Russian legislators and senior members of the presidential administration here." 

Former British spy Christopher Steele wrote in the dossier that an "official close to Presidential Administration Head, S. IVANOV, confided in a compatriot that a senior colleague in the Internal Political Department of the PA, DIVYEKIN (nfd) also had met secretly with PAGE on his recent visit." 

According to that official in the dossier, Diveykin told Page that the Kremlin had a dossier of kompromat on Hillary Clinton that they wanted to give to the Trump campaign. 

In his congressional testimony, Page denied meeting with Diveykin and said the "senior members of the presidential administration" that he had referred to in his email was actually just "a brief, less-than-10-second chat with [deputy Prime Minister] Arkadiy Dvorkovich." 

He said his mention of "legislators" was a reference to "a few people who were shaking hands" with him in passing. 

Like I said, "enlightening." 

Instagram joins the growing list of social media platforms that the Russians used to manipulate the American people.

Courtesy of Business Insider:

It's been a couple months since Facebook confirmed that fake accounts likely originating in Russia bought ads on the platform to sow discord during the 2016 presidential campaign. 

On Friday, the company revealed that its subsidiary Instagram was also used in an attempt to influence the election. And on Wednesday, as officials from Facebook, Google, and Twitter testified before Congress, House Democrats released examples of the Instagram posts in question.

The ads are similar in many ways to those posted on Facebook and Twitter, which also targeted things like Sharia law, Black Lives Matter, and gay rights.

They're similar in another fundamental way: They succeeded in reaching millions of Americans. Colin Stretch, general counsel for Facebook, said Tuesday before Congress that malicious Russian actors managed to produce 120,000 relevant Instagram posts, which reached 16 million people from October through the election. 

The data before October is murkier, according to Stretch, though the company estimates that another 4 million people likely saw content from Russian accounts.

At this point I think we can safely assume that every social media platform was infected with Russian propaganda designed to alter our political points of view and make us hate each other even more. 

And no, staying completely off of social media yourself does nothing to solve this problem.

The US is now preparing to put nuclear bombers on 24 hour alert. This has not been done since the cold war.

Courtesy of Defense One:

The U.S. Air Force is preparing to put nuclear-armed bombers back on 24-hour ready alert, a status not seen since the Cold War ended in 1991. 

That means the long-dormant concrete pads at the ends of this base’s 11,000-foot runway — dubbed the “Christmas tree” for their angular markings — could once again find several B-52s parked on them, laden with nuclear weapons and set to take off at a moment’s notice. 

“This is yet one more step in ensuring that we’re prepared,” Gen. David Goldfein, Air Force chief of staff, said in an interview during his six-day tour of Barksdale and other U.S. Air Force bases that support the nuclear mission. “I look at it more as not planning for any specific event, but more for the reality of the global situation we find ourselves in and how we ensure we’re prepared going forward.”

Yes the global situation exacerbated by our dear leader's back and forth chest pounding with a certain North Korean dictator.

And perhaps this is really no reason to become overly concerned, but then you add this to the mix.

Courtesy of Business Insider:

President Donald Trump amended an executive order on Friday to allow the Defense Department to recall up to 1,000 retired pilots in order to address the Air Force's shortage of qualified fliers. 

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis reportedly requested the move, and he now has "additional authorities to recall retired aviation officers," Pentagon spokesman Navy Cmdr. Gary Ross said in a statement.

Now once again this is being described as no big deal, and apparently we are simply lacking the number of qualified pilots that we are supposed to have on hand.

But then there is also this:  

Executive order 13223 declared a temporary state of emergency after the September 11 attacks and allowed the president to call up the National Guard, hire and fire officers, and delay retirements. It has been renewed by every president since, including Trump, but under the previous version only 25 retired officers could to be called back to active duty. Trump's amendment expands that authority.

Yes, expands it from 25 to 1,000, that does not seem to be a simple over correction.

Okay, I think now would be the appropriate time to become concerned. 

The Attorney General Jeff Sessions had a rather contentious Senate hearing today.

In case you missed Senator Al Franken rip apart Jeff Sessions lies, here's the clip. pic.twitter.com/jopVVIb6rx

— Red T Raccoon (@RedTRaccoon) October 18, 2017

Courtesy of the Business Insider:  

Attorney General Jeff Sessions engaged in a lengthy, heated exchange with Democratic Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota during a Senate hearing on Wednesday. The battle focused on what Sessions told the Judiciary Committee during his confirmation hearing in January about his communications with Russian officials during the 2016 presidential campaign. 

During a line of questioning from Franken in that January hearing, Sessions was asked what he would do as attorney general if he found evidence that "anyone affiliated with the Russian government" communicated with the Trump campaign through the election. Sessions said he was unaware of any such activities and insisted he "did not have communications with the Russians." 

It was later reported that Sessions had a handful of conversations during the campaign with the Russian ambassador to the US at the time, Sergey Kislyak. As a result, Sessions recused himself from all matters related to the Trump campaign and insisted he did not attempt to mislead the committee. 

"This allegation that a surrogate — and I had been called a surrogate for Donald Trump — had been meeting continuously with Russian officials, and that's what I — it struck me very hard, and that's what I focused my answer on," Session said on Wednesday in response to a question from Franken. "And in retrospect, I should have slowed down and said, 'But I did meet one Russian official a couple of times, and that would be the ambassador.'" 

......

Franken said that once Sessions was confronted with the reports, he began to change his answer about whether he communicated with Russians. 

"So again, the goalpost has been moved," Franken said. "First, it was 'I did not have communications with Russians,' which was not true. Then it was 'I never met with any Russians to discuss any political campaign,' which may or may not be true. Now it's 'I did not discuss interference in the campaign,' which further narrows your initial blanket denial about meeting with the Russians. 

"Since you have qualified your denial to say that you did not 'discuss issues of the campaign with Russians,' what in your view constitutes issues of the campaign?" he said.

Sessions of course denied that "he had any improper discussions with the Russians at any time about the campaign."

This was by no means the only adversarial back and forth that Sessions had today.