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Donald Trump’s Russian Mob Money Connections

January 13, 2017 by AZ BlueMeanie

I picked a bad week to get sick again. Lots of crazy stuff coming out of Washington this week.

I don’t have time to get into the unconfirmed “Donald Trump dossier” and his allegedly being compromised by the Russians which blew up his press conference earlier this week. How Russian ‘kompromat’ destroys political opponents, no facts required:

Short for “compromising material” in Russian, kompromat is all about the intersection of news and blackmail. It’s the ability to sully the reputations of political opponents through hints, images, videos, promises of disclosures, perhaps even some high-quality faked documentation. Sex or pornography often figures prominently. The beauty of kompromat is that it has to create only a sense of doubt, not prove its case conclusively. This sounds a bit like “fake news,” but in a classic kompromat operation, real Russian state media organizations work in tandem with the Kremlin to find appealing and effective ways to discredit the target. Often, that means in the most visceral and personal ways possible.

Now kompromat may have come to the United States.

Arizona’s angry old man, Senator John McCain, managed to get himself entangled in this “Donald Trump dossier” scandal as well, so bonus! John McCain intrigue grows in Donald Trump dossier affair:

McCain this week confirmed he received the “sensitive information,” which originally was compiled as anti-Trump opposition research during the 2016 GOP primaries and general election, and gave the explosive file to the FBI.

“I did what any citizen should do: I received sensitive information, and then I handed it over to the proper agency of government and had nothing else to do with the issue,” McCain told reporters Wednesday.

The FBI apparently was already aware of the memos, or at least most of them. The memos became news this week when CNN reported that intelligence officials had given Trump a summary of the allegations. The website BuzzFeed subsequently published the memos.

Putin pal Donald Trump promises a big reveal on Russian hacking

January 2, 2017 by AZ BlueMeanie

After the U.S. intelligence agencies issued a public report on Thursday detailing the ways that Russia acted to influence the American election through cyber espionage, and President Obama announced sanctions against Russia, Putin pal Donald Trump praised Putin’s response to sanctions, calls Russian leader ‘very smart!’:

Late Friday, Trump again took to his Twitter account to critique how the media has been covering the issue.

Trump’s comments and his handling of the Russian hacking allegations could embolden foreign hackers and undermine the U.S. government’s ability to respond to them, analysts say. Trump’s doubts about cybersecurity alarm experts.

Trump’s praise for Putin was followed on Saturday with this bizarre claim: Trump Promises a Revelation on Hacking:

President-elect Donald J. Trump, expressing lingering skepticism about intelligence assessments of Russian interference in the election, said on Saturday evening that he knew “things that other people don’t know” about the hacking, and that the information would be revealed “on Tuesday or Wednesday.”

He added: “And I know a lot about hacking. And hacking is a very hard thing to prove. So it could be somebody else. And I also know things that other people don’t know, and so they cannot be sure of the situation.”

When asked what he knew that others did not, Mr. Trump demurred, saying only, “You’ll find out on Tuesday or Wednesday.”

The Kremlin’s candidate, Putin pal Donald Trump, has a pro-Putin inner circle

December 29, 2016December 29, 2016 by AZ BlueMeanie

Dana Milbank of the Washington Post writes, As Trump prepares his kissy face for Putin, a glimpse into the dictator’s soul:

“Spare us the kissy-face.”

It was June 2001 and I was covering President George W. Bush’s trip to Slovenia, where he had just met Vladimir Putin for the first time. I and others were struck by Bush’s praise for the Russian leader as “trustworthy.” Said Bush: “I was able to get a sense of his soul.”

* * *

In retrospect, that moment in Slovenia defined the Russia relationship for years to come. Putin had seduced Bush, who only slowly came to understand he had misjudged this adversary’s soul. Putin opposed Bush in Iraq and was unhelpful with Iran. He shut down independent television, sent business leaders who criticized him into exile and prison, ousted democratic parties from government, canceled the election of governors and invaded Georgia.

* * *

Now it’s Donald Trump’s turn for kissy-face, and the president-elect is practically groping the Russian dictator. After Putin gloated Friday that Democrats need to learn “to lose with dignity,” Trump tweeted Putin a sloppy kiss: “So true!” he said of Putin’s comments.

Trump also celebrated a letter he received from Putin calling for more collaboration between the two countries. “His thoughts are so correct,” Trump said.

Trump’s blush-inducing embrace of the strongman has included repeated praise of Putin’s leadership, deflected questions about Putin’s political killings, and disparagement of U.S. intelligence for accusing Russia of election meddling. (See, Trump, Dismissive of Hacking, Says Americans Should ‘Get on With Our Lives’).

A troika of catastrophic cabinet picks

November 22, 2016November 22, 2016 by AZ BlueMeanie

I have to agree with Martin Longman’s analysis at the Political Animal blog on Trump’s initial cabinet picks. Trump Makes Three Catastrophic Picks:

[Donald Trump] announced Mike Flynn as his National Security Advisor, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III as his Attorney General and Rep. Mike Pompeo of Kansas as his director of Central Intelligence. All three are mind-bogglingly disastrous choices, so how can you give all of them the attention they deserve?

Let me just give the briefest sketch of my problems with these three appointments.

To put it bluntly, I think Mike Flynn’s relationship to Vladimir Putin needs to be examined very, very closely. But what makes me sick to my stomach is that the position of National Security Advisor does not require Senate confirmation. To begin to understand my concerns about Flynn, you should start by reading a Politico Magazine article by Michael Crowley from their May/June 2016 issue. The short version is that Flynn was fired as the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency and then wound up eighteen months later sitting two seats from Putin at the 10-year anniversary gala for RT, the Russian’s state-propaganda news network. He then began making (presumably paid) appearances on the network where he took a line that was very pleasing to Putin.

Debunked conspiracy theory about ransom to Iran, still debunked

August 23, 2016 by AZ BlueMeanie

The conservative media entertainment complex thrives on conspiracy theories. Since facts do not matter in the right-wing noise machine, literally everything is spun into a conspiracy theory in support of right-wing propaganda.

I covered this story last week in McCain attack ad relies on debunked conspiracy theory about ransom to Iran. After the post, there was some additional reporting about the “timing” of the exchange of prisoners held by Iran for the money that was already owed to Iran by the United States.

The right-wing noise machine spun this tick-tock “timing” story into an assertion that it supports its conspiracy theory that the Obama administration paid “ransom” for the prisoners held by Iran. (They are confusing President Obama with their sainted President Reagan, who actually did pay ransom for hostages held by Iran). Still not. Money paid to Iran was ‘leverage’ not ransom, State Department says:

The State Department acknowledged Thursday that it delayed releasing a $400 million cash payment to Iran in January until it was assured that a plane carrying three released American prisoners had left Tehran.

State Department spokesman John Kirby told reporters that negotiators had “deliberately leveraged” Iran’s desire to get its money from a decades-old arms deal to make sure the authorities there would not renege on freeing three Americans. They were flown out Jan. 16, the same day the nuclear agreement between Iran and six world powers was implemented.

“We felt it would be imprudent not to consider that some leverage in trying to make sure our Americans got out,” Kirby said, noting the deep mistrust between the countries.