5591

One source whose actions during the 2016 election are being examined by the special counsel’s office and who is reluctant to talk publicly tells CBS News, “It’s every man for himself.”

That remark suggests that some of the former campaign officials and associates in legal jeopardy may be rushing to offer their cooperation in an effort to get a better deal from prosecutors. The source maintains that he is innocent and is frustrated that he has so far failed to clear his name in the ongoing probe. Over the last few months the source seems to have evolved in his thinking about Russian involvement in the presidential election.

Earlier this year this individual dismissed any suggestion that there was any coordination between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives.

Now, days after former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his deputy Rick Gates were indicted, the source acknowledged to CBS News something he’d been reluctant to admit in the past: “I do believe the Russians interfered or tried to interfere,” he said. But he pointed to others associated with the campaign, “I don’t know what they were doing” and “whatever those people did, that’s on them.”

5592

Reporting the facts is hard. Reporting on the controversy is easier.

5593

Commentary on Ken White’s Carter Page meltdown on Twitter:

Page is letting everyone know he has no attorneys, just advisers because adviser-moron privilege is definitely a thing

5594

Some good meat here, no time to pull quotes.

5595

WASHINGTON — Carter Page, a foreign policy adviser to the Trump presidential campaign, met Russian government officials during a July 2016 trip he took to Moscow, according to testimony he gave on Thursday to the House Intelligence Committee.

Shortly after the trip, Mr. Page sent an email to at least one Trump campaign aide describing insights he had after conversations with government officials, legislators and business executives during his time in Moscow, according to one person familiar with the contents of the message. The email was read aloud during the closed-door testimony.

The new details of the trip present a different picture than the account Mr. Page has given during numerous appearances in the news media in recent months and are yet another example of a Trump adviser meeting with Russians officials during the 2016 campaign. In multiple interviews with The New York Times, he had either denied meeting with any Russian government officials during the July 2016 visit or sidestepped the question, saying he met with “mostly scholars.”

Mr. Page confirmed the meetings in an interview on Friday evening, but played down their significance.

“I had a very brief hello to a couple of people. That was it,” he said. He said one of the people he met was a “senior person,” but would not confirm the person’s identity.

Recalling this bit in UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. GEORGE PAPADOPOULOS (PDF):

On or about May 21, 2016, defendant PAPADOPOULOS emailed another highranking Campaign official, with the subject line “Request from Russia to meet Mr. Trump.” The email included the May 4 MFA Email and added: “Russia has been eager to meet Mr. Trump for quite sometime and have been reaching out to me to discuss.”

The government notes that the official forwarded defendant PAPADOPOULOS’s email to another Campaign official (without including defendant PAPADOPOULOS) and stated: “Let[’]s discuss. We need someone to communicate that DT is not doing these trips. It should be someone low level in the campaign so as not to send any signal.”

5596

@Strollen just watched this.

Putun won, and he’s not finished.

5597

What exactly did Putin win? Russia is still an underdeveloped (in many areas lawless) shit hole. No major allies, no political influence, no cultural influence, no ambitious long term projects (smaller motorway network than Mexico), half of their foreign investments come from Cyprus, Bahamas, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands (fiscal paradises used by Russian oligarchs so they are foreign investments in name only), life expectancy for males is 65 (right up there with Senegal, Botswana etc.).

The US will go forward after the Trump era while Russia will stay in the gutter.

5598

You’re talking like Russia matters to Putin. It doesn’t, he’s just looting it for him and his cronies.

5599

trump is a symptom of a much larger issue. The ease with which his ‘base’ gravitates to hate and are willing to fervently believe any conspiracy theory spread by the right wing media ecosystem will be with us long after trump is gone. Putin was able to exert his cyber war without much opposition from us and we have one major political party who refuse to believe the intelligence agencies because it might have cost them power. (Go watch the Frontline piece, it’s not anything we don’t know but when the whole picture is viewed it’s really quite chilling.)

The former chief of staff for VP Mike Pence goes on national TV and just casually says “The only Russia collusion was with the Clintons.” Fox News et al are more effective than Pravda. A sitting US President calls for the prosecution of political opponents and there’s a collective shrug from the MSM because OMG CLINTON STOLE THE PRIMARY. A few months ago 41% of trump voters believed Russia wanted Clinton to win. That’s now at 56%. Etc et al.

What happens if/when Russia starts hacking elections? Or even if they don’t and Democrats start winning? The legitimacy of American Democracy is the next crisis point. This isn’t over. Putin wants to spread illiberal regimes, and he’s getting that in Eastern Europe and now here.

As for national statistics, how long before the US starts that slide? Texas is the canary:

5600

Putin is often considered to be the richest person in the world. He just took state assets.

5601

I disagree, I think Putin is deeply patriotic. I think he genuinely wants to see a Russia return to its glory days as a great power. He simply has no use and no belief for the West ideas of democracy much less an egalitarian society. Strong men like Putin and the chosen few take what they can. It is their right to do so, and in fact, that’s how we know they are strong leaders.

His genius is rather than trying to keep western ideas from his people like past Soviet leaders and North Korea does, and like China tries to. He is attempted to discredit Western idea, so that Russia people, say

"we tried Democracy at it led to chaos, and lowered standard of living and made our country the laughing stock of the world. Democracy has given the US, the idiot Donald Trump, the Philippines the stupid murdering Duarte, I’ll take Putin as my leader any day of the week. " Who can blame the Russians?

5602

I don’t think Putin is motivated by personal greed. He’s following the same arc that a lot of dictators do. His country is in chaos so he seizes power to bring some stability. His enemies plot to overthrow him and turn the country back to chaos for their own selfish reasons, so he feels justified in using dirty tricks to suppress them. But once he’s got the country on the right track, he doesn’t let go of power. He’s still convinced that everything will fall apart if he’s not in power. And since he’s wiped out everyone else who could be a viable leader, he’s probably right about that.

5603

Mueller’s team responded to the court Friday with a brief note saying they would need three weeks to present their case, side stepping what will be an intense round of legal jockeying and attempts to undermine the way the special counsel has conducted its investigation.

“’Distort, detract, deny’ is a common playbook for defense lawyers,” said Julie Myers Wood, a former Whitewater prosecutor. “And if the allegations are serious here, I wouldn’t expect the lawyers to sit back or withhold any tool in a quest to undermine the perception of Mueller’s legitimacy.”
[…]
Trump himself told the New York Times in July that he would consider it “a violation” if Mueller’s investigators looked into his personal finances. And the president’s personal attorney, Jay Sekulow, told POLITICO on Thursday he is primed to lodge formal objections with either Mueller or Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein if the Russia investigation took a wide or unexpected detour into issues like an old Trump real-estate deal.

“We’d view that as outside the scope of legitimate inquiry,” Sekulow said. “We’d raise it.”

5604

I believe the key word here is power. He is one of the most powerful people in the world. If you doubt that, look at what we have for a president. Sure he wants wealth. But that is a poor second to power.

5605

[One offshore web leads to] private equity tycoon Wilbur Ross, who has a stake in a shipping company that has received more than $68 million in revenue since 2014 from a Russian energy company co-owned by the son-in-law of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In all, the offshore ties of more than a dozen Trump advisers, Cabinet members and major donors appear in the leaked data.

5606

Bits and pieces from the Paradise Papers leak.

5607

Ross in the spotlight

5608

Oh man, PLEASE let this be the doorway into Mueller actually looking at Trump’s actual finances. It’s bypassed the argument that there is nothing being hidden.

5609

What’s the deal with tax returns, anyway? They’re private, but the IRS has them all and can look at them freely, just can’t release them without the citizen’s permission or a court order?

5610

I’m pretty sure Mueller already has all that stuff.