Donald Trump has been asking witnesses what they told Robert Mueller. Oh, that's a no no.

Courtesy of the New York Times:  

The special counsel in the Russia investigation has learned of two conversations in recent months in which President Trump asked key witnesses about matters they discussed with investigators, according to three people familiar with the encounters. 

In one episode, the president told an aide that the White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, should issue a statement denying a New York Times article in January. The article said Mr. McGahn told investigators that the president once asked him to fire the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III. Mr. McGahn never released a statement and later had to remind the president that he had indeed asked Mr. McGahn to see that Mr. Mueller was dismissed, the people said. 

In the other episode, Mr. Trump asked his former chief of staff, Reince Priebus, how his interview had gone with the special counsel’s investigators and whether they had been “nice,” according to two people familiar with the discussion. 

The episodes demonstrate that even as the special counsel investigation appears to be intensifying, the president has ignored his lawyers’ advice to avoid doing anything publicly or privately that could create the appearance of interfering with it.

Yeah, because he is TERRIFIED of what they might find.

And as it turns out he should be terrified.

Courtesy of WaPo: 

Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III has gathered evidence that a secret meeting in Seychelles just before the inauguration of Donald Trump was an effort to establish a back channel between the incoming administration and the Kremlin — apparently contradicting statements made to lawmakers by one of its participants, according to people familiar with the matter. 

In January 2017, Erik Prince, the founder of the private security company Blackwater, met with a Russian official close to Russian President Vladi­mir Putin and later described the meeting to congressional investigators as a chance encounter that was not a planned discussion of U.S.-Russia relations. 

A witness cooperating with Mueller has told investigators the meeting was set up in advance so that a representative of the Trump transition could meet with an emissary from Moscow to discuss future relations between the countries, according to the people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. 

George Nader, a Lebanese American businessman who helped organize and attended the Seychelles meeting, has testified on the matter before a grand jury gathering evidence about discussions between the Trump transition team and emissaries of the Kremlin, as part of Mueller’s investigation into Russian efforts to interfere with the 2016 election.

So, yet another former Trump campaign operative has lied to the Special Counsel. 

And this one lied about trying to set up a secret communication pipeline between Trump's White House and the Kremlin.

Gee, that seems a tad suspicious.

Keep in mind that Prince is the brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos whose husband's medical facility was repeatedly communicating with a computer in the Trump Organization during the campaign. (By the way the only other group contacting that computer over and over again was the Russian Alfa Bank.)

Now if you do not think these two things are connected in some way I have a bridge in hurricane devastated Puerto Rico to sell you. 

Erik Prince, brother of Trump's Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, is scheduled to testify before the House Intelligence Committee.

Courtesy of US News:  

Erik Prince, the businessman who is said to have represented the Trump campaign during a meeting with a Russian representative in the Seychelles islands in January, is scheduled to testify before the House intelligence committee this week. 


The founder of Blackwater – a private military firm later known as Xe Services and now known as Academi – Prince is set to appear Thursday before the committee behind closed doors. The appearance was described by the committee as "open in a closed space," indicating that a transcript will likely be released after the interview.

The Seychelles meeting, which was revealed by The Washington Post in April, was apparently brokered by the United Arab Emirates in an attempt to revamp Russia's relationship with Iran, possibly in exchange for concessions from the U.S. on sanctions against Moscow. Though Price had no official role in the Trump campaign or on the transition team, he was seen at the Trump transition offices in December, is a staunch supporter of President Donald Trump and large donor to his campaign. His sister, Betsy DeVos, currently serves as Trump's secretary of education, and campaign insiders told the Washington Post that Prince's "name surfaced so frequently in internal discussions that he seemed to function as an outside adviser whose opinions were valued on a range of issues, including plans for overhauling the U.S. intelligence community."

As I have mentioned before I have little confidence in the Russian investigation being conducted by Congress.

They have already demonstrated that they are hoping to vindicate Donald Trump by finding no signs of any real collusion. And Democrats on the committee have stated that there is evidence they are trying to thwart the investigations.

Which is why I was hoping that Prince had already testified to the Mueller team, as its seems he likely has much to share.

However as of last month it did not yet appear that Mueller had seen fit to question the founder of Blackwater.

Which could indicate that either he sees no value in that testimony, or that he is first building a case so that when Prince does testify any lies will be easily identified.

I'm thinking more of the latter.

The biggest story to break last night, Jared Kushner attempted to establish a "back channel" to secretly communicate with the Russians.

Courtesy of WaPo: 

Jared Kushner and Russia’s ambassador to Washington discussed the possibility of setting up a secret and secure communications channel between Trump’s transition team and the Kremlin, using Russian diplomatic facilities in an apparent move to shield their pre-inauguration discussions from monitoring, according to U.S. officials briefed on intelligence reports. 

Ambassador Sergey Kislyak reported to his superiors in Moscow that Kushner, son-in-law and confidant to then-President-elect Trump, made the proposal during a meeting on Dec. 1 or 2 at Trump Tower, according to intercepts of Russian communications that were reviewed by U.S. officials. Kislyak said Kushner suggested using Russian diplomatic facilities in the United States for the communications. 

The meeting also was attended by Michael Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser. 

The White House disclosed the meeting only in March, playing down its significance. But people familiar with the matter say the FBI now considers the encounter, as well as another meeting Kushner had with a Russian banker, to be of investigative interest.

Gee, ya think?

When I first heard this news my first thought was, wait didn't we already hear this?

That's when I remembered a story from last month about Erik Prince, Betsy DeVos' brother, working to establish the same kind of back channel: 

The United Arab Emirates arranged a secret meeting in January between Blackwater founder Erik Prince and a Russian close to President Vladi­mir Putin as part of an apparent effort to establish a back-channel line of communication between Moscow and President-elect Donald Trump, according to U.S., European and Arab officials. 

According to the article the Prince meeting happened about a month or so after Kushner's meeting, which essentially proves that this was something that the Trump team really wanted to set up, and not some spur of the moment suggestion.

Now the question to ask yourself is why in the hell would a presidential transition team want so badly to set up a communication network, controlled by the Russians mind you, that would bypass our own intelligence gathering agencies?

Go ahead, try to think of a reason that does not make this group seem to be the Keystone Kops of Russian spies.

While you are contemplating that I should also inform you that a Russian oligarch with ties to Trump's former campaign manager is now seeking immunity from Congress:   

Oleg V. Deripaska, a Russian oligarch once close to President Trump’s former campaign manager, has offered to cooperate with congressional committees investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election, but lawmakers are unwilling to accept his conditions, according to congressional officials. 

Mr. Deripaska’s offer comes amid increased attention to his ties to Paul Manafort, who is one of several Trump associates under F.B.I. scrutiny for possible collusion with Russia during the presidential campaign. The two men did business together in the mid-2000s, when Mr. Manafort, a Republican operative, was also providing campaign advice to Kremlin-backed politicians in Ukraine. Their relationship subsequently soured and devolved into a lawsuit.

Like I said in an email to my friend yesterday, what we are seeing right now is no longer just smoke. This is clearly fire. 

And perhaps that is why the Senate Intelligence Committee is now requesting  ALL campaign documents that relate to Russia.

Brother of Donald Trump's Secretary of Education met with Putin ally to establish a communication back channel for the future president.

Courtesy of WaPo: 

The United Arab Emirates arranged a secret meeting in January between Blackwater founder Erik Prince and a Russian close to President Vladi­mir Putin as part of an apparent effort to establish a back-channel line of communication between Moscow and President-elect Donald Trump, according to U.S., European and Arab officials. 

The meeting took place around Jan. 11 — nine days before Trump’s inauguration — in the Seychelles islands in the Indian Ocean, officials said. Though the full agenda remains unclear, the UAE agreed to broker the meeting in part to explore whether Russia could be persuaded to curtail its relationship with Iran, including in Syria, a Trump administration objective that would be likely to require major concessions to Moscow on U.S. sanctions. 

Though Prince had no formal role with the Trump campaign or transition team, he presented himself as an unofficial envoy for Trump to high-ranking Emiratis involved in setting up his meeting with the Putin confidant, according to the officials, who did not identify the Russian.

Wait, what?

The article goes on to point out that Erik Prince is the brother of Secretary of Education Betsy Devos and that he donated a quarter of a million dollars to Trump's campaign.

This is how a spokesman for Prince responded to this story:

“Erik had no role on the transition team. This is a complete fabrication. The meeting had nothing to do with President Trump. Why is the so-called under-resourced intelligence community messing around with surveillance of American citizens when they should be hunting terrorists?”

Actually you know this seems to be potentially a hell of a lot more concerning than a simple terrorist plot. So I am good with the intelligence community pursuing this.

Here is a little something else to keep in mind from a report early last month: 

An alleged computer server connection between the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank, an influential financial institution in Russia with connections to both the Russian and Ukrainian elite, is still being investigated by the FBI, according to a new report by CNN. 

The FBI’s counterintelligence team, which is also looking into Russia’s suspected hacking of Democratic National Committee servers and the email account of her campaign chairman, is investigating why a computer server owned by Alfa Bank repeatedly looked up a computer server owned by the Trump Organization in Lititz, Pennsylvania. Eighty percent of the attempts to look up that Trump computer server were performed by Alfa Bank — 2,820 in total — with almost all of the rest being conducted by Spectrum Health, a medical facility chain for which Dick DeVos, the husband of Trump’s education secretary, Betsy DeVos, serves as chairman of the board.

Paul Vixie, who designed the DNS system used by the modern internet, previously told Slate that the most likely explanation for the interactivity between the Alfa Bank and Trump Organization servers is that they “were communicating in a secretive fashion.” 

The explanation offered by Alfa Bank is that this was all probably due to spam, but it was discounted because it was only happening between these entities and was not widespread.

And just to add a little more fuel to the fire here, yesterday we also learned that two years ago Trump's former campaign adviser, Carter Page, had been recruited by Russian spies:

Two years before joining the Trump campaign as a foreign policy adviser, New York business consultant Carter Page was targeted for recruitment as an intelligence source by Russian spies promising favors for business opportunities in Russia, according to a sealed FBI complaint. 

Page confirmed to ABC News that he is the individual identified as "Male-1" in a 2015 court document submitted in a case involving the Russian spies. 

Page told ABC News he cooperated in the case, and felt the Feds "unmasked" him by describing him in January 2015 in a manner that would be known to energy insiders. 

"I didn't want to be a spy," he said in an interview early Monday afternoon. "I'm not a spy."

Okay can we just go ahead and state for the record that Donald Trump, and his team, were colluding with the Russians?

Or are we still not sure?

Joe Biden: Government not prepared to see Blackwater go unpunished.

Vice President Joe Biden has announced that American authorities will appeal against a court ruling dismissing manslaughter charges against five security guards from the Blackwater company accused of killing Iraqi civilians.

The charges stemmed from an incident in Baghdad in 2007 when the guards opened fire in a crowded square, killing 17 Iraqis.

The case was quashed because the judge ruled that testimony had been wrongly used by the prosecution.

After talks with President Talabani, Mr Biden said the Obama administration regretted the decision by a federal judge at the end of December to throw out the case against Blackwater.

Speaking in Baghdad, Mr Biden said his government was not prepared to see Blackwater go unpunished.

I hope Joe Biden is not just talking out of his ass. I was very frustrated to see the judge throw that Blackwater case out.

I heard rumors that Erik Prince was using threats of blackmail, concerning his associations with the CIA, to pressure the government to let him off. When he DID get off I assumed those rumors were probably correct.

But if Biden is right, that means the little shit may finally have to face justice for at least SOME of his criminal activities in Iraq.

Erik Prince "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe." And he sent his mercenaries to Iraq and Afghanistan to do just that:

Mr. Prince operated his companies in a manner that encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life. For example, Mr. Prince's executives would openly speak about going over to Iraq to "lay Hajiis out on cardboard." Going to Iraq to shoot and kill Iraqis was viewed as a sport or game. Mr. Prince's employees openly and consistently used racist and derogatory terms for Iraqis and other Arabs, such as "ragheads" or "hajiis."

I am going to be paying attention and I certainly hope that the Vice President is correct about this. Now that "W" is out of office we need desperately to earn our reputation back. And putting this hateful murdering piece of shit behind bars would be a very good start.

(I apologize if my language seemed a little raw, but I really dislike this son of a bitch.)