Trump associates may have coordinated with Russians, according to US officials

[jasg]

@jasg

IANAL

Manafort has not been sentenced yet - convicted and pleaded guilty, yes but the recent filings from both sides have been to the judge who will hand down the sentence.

The most recent one seems to be providing more detail from Rick Gates on the sharing of polling data with Kilimnik.

emptywheel Tweeted today on this during the Cohen hearings. I’m sure she will elaborate on her blog soon.

https://twitter.com/emptywheel/status/1100850751184793600?s=21

Marcy has posted her analysis.

[Sage_Rat]

Testimony from Bruce Ohr, about Christopher Steele, under question from only Republicans:

https://dougcollins.house.gov/sites/dougcollins.house.gov/files/Ohr%20Interview%20Transcript%208.28.18.pdf?utm_source=Collins+Judiciary+Press+List&utm_campaign=9b7433685d-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_03_07_11_37&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_ff92df788e-9b7433685d-168921541

Note: After review by DoJ, Ohr was demoted but not fired. One assumes that if they felt that he had actually done something unethical then Sessions would have fired him. Demoting feels to me like a political necessity not an actual result of believing that he had done something wrong. Saying, “What do you expect me to do, not report allegations of criminal activity to the FBI?” Is a pretty solid defense, after all.

I haven’t read the testimony yet, so I’m not sure if it will come across as damning as Doug Collins presumably believes it will.

[JohnT]

@Sage_Rat

I just want to postulate (for later bragging rights) that the non-Russia matter that Flynn helped Mueller with was something to do with Trump cutting deals with the Saudis. E.g., the George Nader / Eric Prince affair.

Mueller picked up Nader (though, apparently he fled the country and got away afterwards) and I don’t believe that there is any connection to Russia on that tangent, so that strongly implies that the Saudis also interfered in the election and that Rosenstein decided that “election meddling” in general should be brought into the SCO’s mandate, not just Russian, probably on the basis that it involves similar legal arguments.

Ding-ding-ding, we have a winner!

Figure linked to Trump transition charged with transporting child pornography

Figure linked to Trump transition charged with transporting child pornography

A key witness in former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation of Russian election interference has been charged with transporting child pornography last year, according to court documents.

George Nader, who had a previous criminal record on such charges, was charged in federal court in Virginia, and is expected to make an initial court appearance in New York.

Nader played an unusual role as a kind of liaison between Trump supporters, Middle East leaders and Russians interested in making contact with the incoming administration in early 2017.

Officials said Nader, 60, was charged by criminal complaint over material he was traveling with when he arrived at Washington-Dulles International Airport on Jan. 17, 2018, from Dubai. At the time, he was carrying a cellphone containing visual depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct, officials said. The charges were unsealed after his arrest Monday morning at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.

So, this is a crime which has State and Federal authorities salivating, with a guy who is in custody for a crime nobody cares to defend other than professionally, a repeat offender looking at spending the rest of his life behind bars, who is one of the key people in the middle of the collusion story.

NYAG: DIBS!
SDNY: DIBS!
Manhattan District Attorney: DIBS! I DON’T KNOW IF I HAVE JURISDICTION, BUT DIBS!

Anyway, props to you, Sage Rat, for paying attention.

[Sherrerd]

A further implication of today’s news about Nader is that the crime was apparently established some time ago, yet charges are just being filed–which may signal a recent failure to cooperate.

Seth Abramson points out:

George Nader was:
a) a secret Trump campaign adviser
b) who was trying to negotiate illegal pre-election collusion for 4 nations
c) who is connected to every major figure in the collusion scandal
d) who is at the center of nearly every major event in the Trump-Russia timeline

Seth Abramson

Abramson is gloomily predicting that the major news outlets will fumble reporting of Nader’s importance. We shall see.

[asahi]

@asahi

Read this and tell me if you don’t notice any…parallels.

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (en-GB) | Putin and the $100…

Think of Zykov as Comey/Mueller.

Don’t think of Trump is Putin; think of Trump as Putin’s…apprentice.

We know where this is investigation is going - nowhere.

Full post from 2017 in the link below:

https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=20678194&postcount=3344

This is where we’re headed: rigged elections in an ongoing attempt to crush investigations into past corruption.

What’s happening now is that the GOP is trying to create what is effectively a parallel political system, a parallel constitution (or interpretation of it), a parallel political reality. The conservatives have their norms, the progressives have theirs.

Democracy depends on both sides respecting norms. Since this is not possible with republican misrule, it is imperative that democrats win every election going forward. Every election that democrats fail to win is one step closer to the end of democracy in America.

And I’ll add this: once you lose a democracy, authoritarians don’t just give us that power back to us democratically.

[Jonathan_Chance]

No. Just no.

Start a new thread.