Leaked report of Russian blackmail of Trump

[Sage_Rat]

@Euphonious_Polemic

How many Trump cronies were getting all cozy with the Russians? I have lost track.

And what about what happened at the GOP convention, when there was a motion to censure Russia for it’s invasion of the Crimea, but Trump’s lads softened it up. That was just a coincidence though, right?

I was just watching a Russia Today speech given by Carter Page and did a bit more research into him, and I think it would be fair to say that he’s an idiot. Possibly a highly educated idiot, but an idiot nevertheless.

And realistically, if we think about it, there’s the old adage that you should never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

If we accept that Trump is stupid (not a far reach) and honestly fears a WWIII breaking out between the US and Russia, such that he would be willing to go pro-Russia/anti-Ukraine, then it’s reasonable that he would make this part of his policy. Democrats fear the end of the world from Climate Change, Donald Trump fears the end of the world from nuclear exchange.

Where did he come to this belief? Well we could say that he was paid to hold it, but we do know that he has spent a significant amount of time in Russia and knows many Russians. It’s not unreasonable to think that he would fall to some propaganda that he encountered that way, selling American policy as being precipitously destabilizing.

So he has that political position, fair enough. But frankly, the number of people who are pro-Russia in any strong way are, simply put, nutballs. So if you’re looking for people who will support your platform, you’re going to get a bunch of pro-Russia people who are, sort of by definition, not terribly bright and not terribly reliable.

Carter Page could reasonably be said to be trying to spin his “fame” into a bigger gig in Russia. It would make sense for him to try and get over there the first thing he could, after being signed on with Trump, and try to make better connections.

If we assume that Trump picked up a dozen or so morons, all trying to faithfully follow Trump’s lead on Russia, then we’re going to have a dozen or so people trying to get into contact with people in Russia, and the Russians just as happy to go along with it. Their ambassador was probably quite wiling to use the fact that Trump was pro-Russia to get an invitation with all of Trump’s people, to make Russia’s big pitch to them.

If we accept that Trump himself is an idiot, and anti-American conspiracy theorist, it is reasonable to think that he would assume that stories about the Russian hacking were lies, and so he would make a joke about how the Russians should hack Hillary and release her papers. He’s just repeating, mockingly, what the newspapers were writing already.

If we’re honest, the idea that Trump is an idiot and a conspiracy theorist is a lot more realistic than the idea that Trump was directly working with Russia to win the election.

The things that make me doubt that theory though are the firing of Paul Manafort; Trump’s strange turn around in just a day or two from promising to protect the Ukraine to deriding the US and stating, “We’re not so innocent either”, in defense of Russia; and his switch to being pro-NATO/anti-Russia after the Flynn firing.

There does seem to be sufficient evidence that Page was never any real part of Trump’s organization - he was just a name put on a list - and so no real reason not to dump him when the news started to focus on him. And, if Flynn really did mislead the Vice President, then it’s again reasonable to ask him to leave. But Paul Manafort seems to have been a real part of the campaign and never did anything wrong within it. Trump was still pro-Russia at that point in the campaign. There was no reason for him to not insist that Manafort was alright and just being maligned by Lefties.

Potentially, we could say that Manafort was tossed by Ivanka or Kushner or someone wiser than Trump, because he drew too much attention to Trump’s unpopular policy position on Russia.

But stupidity doesn’t explain his turnaround back to Russia after meeting the Ukrainians. Being pulled back into proper facing by his handlers still makes the most sense.

And stupidity doesn’t explain his turnaround after Flynn. It’s better explained by a fear of further investigation. And I do suspect that such an investigation will reveal something that ends Trump, one way or the other.

But even if stupidity did explain everything, that’s not really a better answer. If an act of stupidity leads to Trump’s team becoming so deeply implicated in collusion with the Russian government - even though that isn’t what happened - I would still say that, that is a sufficiently impeachable offense. Just, instead of “offense” in the legal sense, I mean in more in the nose holding sense.

[DigitalC]

Manafort was just coasting through the election assuming a guaranteed Trump loss. He got fired for doing a shitty job, not for anything Russia related.

[JohnT]

Manafort resigned because of the leak that he illegally recieved $12 million in off-book funds. He wasn’t fired for doing a shitty job. Hell, he wasn’t fired at all.

Paul Manafort

[Defensive_Indifference]

The Washington Post has an articlethat tries to summarize and lay out all the connections between Trump’s circle and Putin, Kislyak, and Russian business. The Post says it’s a “work in progress” and will be updated as they get more information. It has a helpful graphic with connection lines drawn between the various parties.

Kislyak looks like they called down to Central Casting for a “Russian bureaucrat type”. A stereotypical Russian ambassador; a Southern politician named Jefferson Beauregard; a mentally unstable US Army General; billionaires running the government for personal gain; and all topped off by a venal, dimwitted President. We are living in the worst spy movie ever.

[1iLeft]

@ZebraShaSha

Reporters suggest Rybolovlev has never set foot on the property since the sale. Also, both he and Trump have both claimed, many times, that they never met, and only worked through intermediaries. This was the largest price paid for a single American house, ever, during the financial meltdown, and they never met, once, to discuss the details?

Seems as though they may have met by now, or, they’re stalking each other.

Russian’s travel examined for ties to Trump:
David Cay Johnston, founder of DCReport.org, talks with Rachel Maddow about journalistic investigations into the coinciding travels of Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev and the Donald Trump campaign during the 2016 election.

I tried to go to DCReport.org to link to a related article but kept getting this message “www.dcreport.org refused to connect”.

Anyway, here’s a related article.

[QUOTE=www.palmerreport.com]
Over the past weeks, Palmer Report has been reporting on the mysterious round-the-world gallivanting of Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev, who spends most of his time at his home in Monaco but has a habit of flying into whatever city Donald Trump happens to be visiting at the time. And thanks to an exposed multibillion dollar money laundering scheme on the part of a bank that’s closely tied financially to both Rybolovlev and Trump, we think we know why.
[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=www.palmerreport.com]
Earlier this month we brought you the story of Deutsche Bank in Germany getting busted for laundering more than ten billion dollars out of Russia and into places like New York. This stood out because Deutsche has also loaned more than a billion dollars to Donald Trump, who just happens to be based out of New York, even at a time when the bank was struggling and Trump was viewed as a poor loan risk by every other bank out there.

It turns out Deutsche was funneling that money through Bank of Cyprus. Guess who owns a 9.9% share in Bank of Cyprus? Dmitry Rybolovlev. So we can now draw a direct line of more than a billion dollars flowing from Russia, through Rybolovlev, to Donald Trump.
[/QUOTE]

[Belowjob2.0]

@ZebraShaSha

Not that you’ll care, but, among dots being connected as we speak…

In January Deutsche Bank was fined “$630m (£506m) for failing to prevent $10bn of Russian money laundering and exposing the UK financial system to the risk of financial crime.” This involved Deutsche Bank offices in New York, Moscow, and… Cyprus. Involved in this scheme were close relatives and longtime friends of Putins. [1]

When the Deutsche Bank CEO during this scandal, Josef Ackermann, was forced out, he landed as the new chairman of the Bank of Cyprus. Among the major investors in the Bank of Cyprus are “Viktor Vekselberg, a longtime ally of the Russian president, and Vladimir Strzhalkovsky, the former vice-chairman of Bank of Cyprus who is also a former KGB agent with a close relationship to Putin.” [2]

(It should be noted that Cyprus is considered the Cayman Islands of Russian oligarchs.)

Another of the major shareholders in the bank is Dmitry Rybolovlev, aka “The King of Fertilizer,” one of the richest men in Russia and known world wide for having maybe the most expensive divorce in modern history. During the divorce he was accused by his wife of “secreting and transferring assets in order to avoid his obligations.” Basically, he bought a bunch of stuff – real estate, mostly – but in ways that his wife couldn’t claim them in the divorce. One of these properties was the most expensive condos in New York, an $88m 10 room apartment overlooking Central Park, which he bought under his daughters name, who was a college student at the time.

But another property he bought? A mansion in Florida, “The House of Friendship,” from our President Donald Trump in 2008.

This mansion was built in 2001 by a crazy billionaire, who went bankrupt in 2004. Trump bought it at auction for $40 million in 2006. It sat empty for two years, rotting. Nobody wanted it, it wasn’t desirable, etc.

In 2008, Rybolovlev, during his divorce, needing somewhere to park his money so his wife couldn’t get access to it, bought this mansion from Trump for $100 million. In cash. That’s two and a half times what Trump bought it for, with no improvements to the structure.

Reporters suggest Rybolovlev has never set foot on the property since the sale. Also, both he and Trump have both claimed, many times, that they never met, and only worked through intermediaries. This was the largest price paid for a single American house, ever, during the financial meltdown, and they never met, once, to discuss the details?

How did they meet? Why did the “King of Fertilizer” basically give Trump $60 million? Who were the intermediaries?

Remember the Bank of Cyprus, where Rybolovlev is a major shareholder? The vice-chairman of this bank, who otherwise has almost no background in international finance, is none other than longtime friend of Donald Trump AND our new Commerce Secretary, Wilbur Ross.

So Donald Trump makes almost $60 million, for doing almost nothing, by selling to a Russian shareholder of a bank run by friends of Putin’s and stuffed with the ill-gotten fortunes of Russian oligarchs, where his longtime friend happens to be a vice-chairman.

And that vice-chairman is now our Commerce Secretary.

Oh, also, Deutsche Bank – the one that just paid a $630 million fine for laundering Russian money – is, somehow, the largest creditor to the Trump organization.

This is so far beyond smoke that if you can’t see it, you aren’t getting enough oxygen to your brain. When this shit blows up – and it will – it has the makings of the largest scandal in American political history.

I’m no longer outraged. Now I’m just amazed. Holy fuck!

[VinylTurnip]

I really need to sit on a park bench somewhere and have Donald Sutherland explain all of this shit to me.

And dammit, I went to college for six years to get my four-year degree! How the hell is Joe Lunchbox possibly going to keep up?

[JohnT]

Another dead Russian with ties to Trump, Cohen, and the rest:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/new-development-on-the-michael-cohen-peace-plan-meeting

[DWMarch]

Trump’s chickens are really coming home to roost, aren’t they?

A long time ago I joined the Mormon church (I have since gotten better). Inside of their unique belief system was a concept of avoiding the “appearance of evil”. In other words, we know Mormons don’t drink but part of the reason we know that is because we never see them coming out of bars or liquor stores. That sort of thing. The idea that if you say you are clean, act clean because someone is always watching.

Trump is not acting clean. As many have pointed out, it is not the scandal that is dogging him right now, it is the ham-handed attempt at a coverup. So the Democrats will say “we think you met with the Russians for nefarious purposes” and Trump and co reply “that’s ridiculous! We never met with any Russians ever for any reason!” Then evidence starts popping up of various meetings by various people and Trump’s team makes poor and lazy excuses at which point the Democrats appear to be correct when they call NEFARIOUS PURPOSES! And the media will never stop digging and if they dig deep enough they will eventually find something even if it isn’t what they went after in the first place.

Now what was it Trump and company were saying not so long ago about 30,000 missing emails? Hillary didn’t do anything wrong but because of the appearance of evil we could never be certain. So dig and dig and dig and eventually something will come up. And Benghazi. If that is investigated enough times over eventually someone will agree that Hillary was somehow responsible. Again, appearance of evil. And these “scandals” and various others were enough to turn a chunk of public opinion against Hillary. We don’t think she’s evil but we can’t trust her…

So Trump already knows the appearance of evil is an effective weapon to use against a politician because he’s already used it! Now here he is surprised and dismayed that it is being used against him. And instead of laughing it off (I recall Obama making birther jokes) he gets upset and telegraphs his weaknesses. He is not reacting in the manner of someone who is innocent regardless of whether or not he is. So in the end it will not be the scandal(s) that bring him down, it will be the cover-up(s).

[Alessan]

@Bayard

Kislyak looks like they called down to Central Casting for a “Russian bureaucrat type”. A stereotypical Russian ambassador; a Southern politician named Jefferson Beauregard; a mentally unstable US Army General; billionaires running the government for personal gain; and all topped off by a venal, dimwitted President. We are living in the worst spy movie ever.

It’s more like an Elmore Leonard novel.

[Fiveyearlurker]

The White House is requesting that Congress investigate the Obamas, conveniently adding that “Neither the White House nor the President will comment further until such oversight is conducted.”

Sounds like they huddled up and found a way to avoid talking about his latest nonsense.

[Sage_Rat]

@Fiveyearlurker

The White House is requesting that Congress investigate the Obamas, conveniently adding that “Neither the White House nor the President will comment further until such oversight is conducted.”

Sounds like they huddled up and found a way to avoid talking about his latest nonsense.

If his lawyer didn’t already slap him and take away his phone, I’m relatively sure that the day is coming up quick.

[Ibn_Warraq]

@BigT

Tu quoque arguments are usually pointless, but even more so when the thing you are citing is something you thought was absolutely horrible at the time.

If you think the Clinton stuff was bad, then you should think this Russia stuff is bad. If not, then we know it’s just political bias.

Also, Bill Clinton never lied under oath about meeting with AG Lynch.

For this to be an appropriate comparison Bill Clinton would have had to deny ever meeting with Lynch and then after making this claim it surfacectheyd had the meeting.

[Ibn_Warraq]

@galen_ubal

Small point of interest, there’s no indication that Kisylak attended the Democratic National Convention - just the Republican one.

I remember the 80s it was the Democrats who were accused of being “soft on communism” while Reagan talked about how finally the US had a President willing to say “Nyet”!

Now we seem to have a President who say nothing but “Da”.

[drad_dog]

@Ibn_Warraq

Also, Bill Clinton never lied under oath about meeting with AG Lynch.

For this to be an appropriate comparison Bill Clinton would have had to deny ever meeting with Lynch and then after making this claim it surfacectheyd had the meeting.

For this to be an apt comparison Bill Clinton would have to be a drooling certifiable batshit lunatic.

[Defensive_Indifference]

@Ibn_Warraq

Now we seem to have a President who say nothing but “Da”.

And an occasional “Duh”.

[garygnu]

@Ibn_Warraq

I remember the 80s it was the Democrats who were accused of being “soft on communism” while Reagan talked about how finally the US had a President willing to say “Nyet”!

Now we seem to have a President who say nothing but “Da”.

As a toddler circa 1980, I earned the nickname “the little Russian” because I would say nothing but “Da.”

[doorhinge]

@drad_dog

For this to be an apt comparison Bill Clinton would have to be a drooling certifiable batshit lunatic.

A drooling certifiable batshit lunatic who likes balloons?

- YouTube

[doorhinge]

@VinylTurnip

I really need to sit on a park bench somewhere and have Donald Sutherland explain all of this shit to me.

And dammit, I went to college for six years to get my four-year degree! How the hell is Joe Lunchbox possibly going to keep up?

The assumption by the Democrat collective seems to be that Joe Lunchbox is just waiting for some six-years-to-get-a-four-year-degree Kollage grad-you-ate to properly explain Democrat Party Groupthink to them. Someone trustworthy. Which explains the delay.

[Airbeck]

@doorhinge

the Democrat collective

Cite that this actually exists? If you cannot cite that this is actually a thing then maybe you should stop using the phrase so much. Unless, of course, you don’t really want to be taken seriously.