Week of October 23, 2017 Summary
I can’t believe the bad timing of my vacation. To make up for my absence, before I go, I want to leave you all with an UPDATED summary of what’s happened just this week in Trumplandia. Also, while I’m away, when I have internet access, I’ll try to keep tweeting, though I hope the next few weeks are not as dramatic as this week’s events. I’ll also try to share great articles I come across, but remember this is my long-planned vacation so that may not happen.
For now, here are some of the events of the week of Oct. 23, 2017 (and a reminder of some of the past evidence publicly known about collusion and obstruction):
1. NEW: First indictment(s) against unknown defendant(s) on as yet revealed crime(s) returned by Grand Jury are under seal and expected to be unsealed on Monday, Oct. 30. I hope to appear on Andrea Mitchell’s show from overseas to comment on these developments.
2. Evidence mounts that Veselnitskaya coordinated with Russia’s prosecutor general Chaika in connection with the memo she brought for her Trump Tower meeting with Don Jr. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/27/us/politics/trump-tower-veselnitskaya-russia.html?_r=0
3. Trump campaign contacted Wikileaks’ Assange to get dirt on Hillary, showing their collusion with the Russian hacking that threatens our electoral system.
4. Trump and team continue to try to divert us from the facts of the Steele Russian dossier by focusing on who paid for the research. Remember we need to know if the info is correct, not who paid for it. If it’s true, the funder (originally Republican and later DNC and HRC Campaign) does not matter. Though it does matter if Hillary and Podesta knew about the funding when they said they didn’t, not because it impacts the truth of the info, but because it would be wrong to not be honest about it.
5. We learned that the original funder of what became the Steele dossier was a neo-con website, The Washington Free Beacon.
6. Another diversionary tactic: Blame Hillary for everything. Claim, without any facts to support the assertion that it’s her who colluded with Russia in connection with an old uranium deal and because her campaign funded the Steele dossier. Saying that investigating Trump’s Russia connections through a former British spy is the same as colluding with them in the hacking of the DNC is so ridiculous it needs no further explanation.
7. The circumstantial evidence and the direct evidence of team Trump’s collusion and lies about dealings with Russia (not to mention his lies about so many other things too numerous to mention here – saving my 4 Pinnochio pins for the right moment) continues to grow, as does the evidence of obstruction of justice. I believe it is already sufficient to indict or impeach Trump.
a. Jared meeting with Russian banker
b. Trump public plea for Russia to find Hillary’s emails
c. Trump Jr meeting with Russian agent who promised dirt on Hillary
d. Trump telling Lester Holt that he fired Comey because of Russia
e. Trump saying that he fired “nut job” Comey to take the pressure off about Russia in the Oval Office to Russian officials
f. Trump telling Comey to leave Flynn alone
g. Trump firing Comey when he didn’t drop case against Flynn
h. Trump telling Sessions to leave Arpaio alone
i. Trump pardoning Arpaio when Sessions didn’t do as asked. That pardon sent a clear message to all Trump’s subordinates that they don’t have to cooperate with Mueller because he’ll pardon them too, even if they obstruct justice and ignore court order.
j. Trump paying for his subordinates’ lawyers, which looks the same as Nixon’s paying hush money, including funds for the burglars legal fees in exchange for their silence
k. Trump saying he had no deals in Russia while his lawyer was negotiating for Trump Tower Moscow and seeking Russian government support for it
8. GAO is finally going to investigate the Voter Fraud Commission, which I think is a Voter Suppression Commission, but they aren’t starting for 5 months on the pretense that it will take them that long to hire appropriate staff.
9. Senators Corker and Flake speak out about Trump’s incapacity to govern
10. Other members of Congress are not publicly saying the same, but in secret reports are that they are worried about Trump’s rambling and inarticulate conversations as indicative of Alzheimer’s.
11. Republicans are threatening to cut off Mueller funding, and while I don’t think they will succeed, it is a dangerous effort.
12. Russian sanctions voted by Congress to start on Oct. 1 still not implemented despite White House promises. Delay is another indicator of “special relation” between Trump and Russia.
13. After 25 years to prepare for the release of the JFK documents, they were not released as the law provided.
14. Carter Page before Congress for 5 hours.
15. Polls show
a. Trump at lowest approval rating yet
b. 60 % of Independent votes disapprove of Trump
c. Fox viewers are unaware of sexual assault charges against Trump and much else that are real facts. (see 18 below)
d. 68% of Republicans think millions of illegals voted for Hillary
e. 70% of Republicans believe there is voter fraud despite total lack of evidence of any significant voter fraud
f. Over 50% of Republicans would agree to postpone 2020 election if Trump asked them to in order to insure only American citizens voted.
16. Sarah Huckabee Sanders says all the women who allege Trump assaulted them are “liars.”
17. Ex-CIA Director Jim Woolsey and his wife spoke to Mueller investigators about Flynn, secretly representing the Turkish government, asking the CIA to illegally kidnap a Turkish cleric (Gulen?) and send him to Turkey.
18. A two-person company in Whitefish, MT got a $300M contract to restore electricity in Puerto Rico and White House and Whitefish native, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, deny they had anything to do with it. http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/10/27/560422492/heres-what-s-in-that-300-million-whitefish-contract, https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/27/white-house-distances-itself-from-whitefish-contract-with-puerto-rico.html
19. Sexual assault, harassment and discrimination got a new look—and perpetrators start to see consequences — as Mark Halperin and Bill O’Reilly joined Weinstein and Trump as perpetrators and #MeToo got a real start. But, see 15 c above.
20. Line crossed by Trump in relation to independence of DOJ. Trump interviewed USAtty candidates in NY and DC, likely because they are the ones with jurisdiction to investigate his crimes. This is another example of his interference with DOJ independence. See 7 f, g, h and i above and remember Nixon and his aide John Ehrlichman violated their ethics as lawyers and attempted to obstruct justice when they told DAG Kleindienst to drop the government’s case against International Telephoe & Telegraph. That led to Kleindienst pleading guilty for failing to testify fully to the Senate during his confirmation hearings about that interference.