Russia

Donny and Vlad’s first date did not go well — for America

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Our always insecure egomaniacal Twitter-troll-in-chief started his day in Hamburg, Germany at the G20 Summit by tweeting this absurd claim that John Podesta and the DNC emails were the talk of the G20 leaders.

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John Podesta interrupted a cross-country trip to tweet a response giving the idea as much credence as it deserves:

Pulled in for a pit stop in E. Fairmont W. VA. to see that our whack job POTUS @realDonaldTrump is tweeting about me at the G20.

Get a grip man, the Russians committed a crime when they stole my emails to help get you elected President.

Maybe you might try to find a way to mention that to President Putin

BTW, I had nothing to do with the DNC

God only knows what you’ll be raving about on twitter by the time we get to Utah.

Dude, get your head in the game. You’re representing the US at the G20.

Podesta followed up his tweet with an op-ed at the Washington Post. Why is Trump tweeting about me when he should be doing his job?

This bit of insanity was followed by Trump’s long-anticipated first date with his man-crush Vladimir Putin and, well, let’s just say that his first date did not go well — for America.

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Trump undermines democratic institutions while in Poland

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President Donald Trump gave a speech in Poland yesterday that contained all the white nationalist talking points of his alt-right advisers Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller. Trump cast the world as being in a clash of civilizations between Muslim terrorists and the West. Transcript:

This continent no longer confronts the specter of communism. But today, we’re in the West, and we have to say, there are dire threats to our security and to our way of life.

You see what’s happening out there. They are threats. We will confront them. We will win. But they are threats.

We are confronted by another oppressive ideology, one that seeks to export terrorism and extremism all around the globe.

America and others have suffered one terror attack after another. We’re going to get it to stop.

During a historic gathering in Saudi Arabia, I called on the leaders of more than 50 Muslim nations to join together to drive out this menace which threatens all of humanity. We must stand united against these shared enemies to strip them of their territory and their funding and their networks and any form of ideological support that they may have.

While we will always welcome new citizens who share our values and love our people, our borders will always be closed to terrorism and extremism of any kind.

We are fighting hard against radical Islamic terrorism. And we will prevail.

We cannot accept those who reject our values and who use hatred to justify violence against the innocent.

Today, the West is also confronted by the powers that seek to test our will, undermine our confidence and challenge our interests.

Then oddly, Trump identifies “government “bureaucracy” as enemies:

Finally, on both sides of the Atlantic, our citizens are confronted by yet another danger, one firmly within our control. This danger is invisible to some but familiar to the Poles: the steady creep of government bureaucracy that drains the vitality and wealth of the people.

The West became great, not because of paperwork and regulations, but because people were allowed to chase their dreams and pursue their destinies.

Americans, Poles and nations of Europe value freedom and sovereignty. We must work together to confront forces, whether they come inside or out, from the south or the east, that threaten over time to undermine these values and to erase the bonds of culture, faith and tradition that make us who we are.

If left unchecked, these forces will undermine our courage, sap our spirit and weaken our will to defend ourselves and our societies.

This is Doctor Stragelove‘s General Jack Ripper: “I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.”

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Update: The ‘Flynn factor’ to Trump-Putin campaign collusion

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The Wall Street Journal followed up its reporting on Friday night with another installment. GOP Activist Who Sought Clinton Emails Cited Trump Campaign Officials (sorry, pay wall article).

Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo provides the details and some further analysis from a source for the story. This Is Big:

As you may have heard, this evening The Wall Street Journal published a major follow-up to its story from Thursday which described the work of a GOP money man and oppo research guy, the late Peter W. Smith, who was trying to get hacked emails from Russia and held himself out to be in contact with disgraced Trump advisor Michael Flynn. On its face, the big new break in this follow-up story is a new document from Smith. The document is from what is described as a package of recruiting materials Smith was using to enlist cybersecurity talent in his operation. The document listed key officials in the Trump campaign. These were apparently people Smith claimed he was in touch with or working with, though precisely how or why they were mentioned is not entirely clear.

Here’s the key passage from the Journal article …

Officials identified in the document include Steve Bannon, now chief strategist for President Donald Trump; Kellyanne Conway, former campaign manager and now White House counselor; Sam Clovis, a policy adviser to the Trump campaign and now a senior adviser at the Agriculture Department; and retired Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn, who was a campaign adviser and briefly was national security adviser in the Trump administration.

A few caveats are in order.

From the Journal reporting at least it is not totally clear what Smith intended by listing these people. It’s also possible that Smith was freelancing. There are lots of people in the orbit of major campaigns puffing up their connections to top players. The Journal article has Bannon denying any knowledge of Smith. Conway says she knew Smith from GOP politics over the years but was never in contact with him about this.

That’s the story as presented in the Journal.

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Donald Trump’s policy of appeasement towards Russia, a dereliction of his basic duty to defend the country

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Earlier this week there was little reported but important testimony by former U.S. Ambassador to NATO Nicholas Burns to the Senate intelligence committee in regard to Russia’s hacking of European elections.

Here is a good highlights summary from the  American Bridge PAC. Trump’s Unwillingness To Act On Russia Is A “Dereliction Of The Basic Duty To Defend The Country”:

Here are six must-see moments from today’s hearing:

WATCH: No doubt Russia attacked our election

AMBASSADOR NICHOLAS BURNS: There is no doubt about Russia’s systematic campaign to undermine our 2016 presidential election, the Montenegrin, Dutch, French and German elections this year. And Russia’s seeking to diminish the confidence that the citizens of all these countries have in their democracies.

WATCH: It would be a mistake for Trump to weaken or veto sanctions on Russia

AMBASSADOR NICHOLAS BURNS: I hope the House of Representatives will back, and not dilute, in this sense the very strong Senate sanctions bill against Moscow that you passed by a 97-2 margin two weeks ago. In my view, it would be a great mistake for President Trump to veto such a bill. And with our long national two-century debate about the separation of powers in mind, I do think that Congress, it’s time for the Congress, and not the President, to lead the American response to Russia’s cyberattack on the United States. The President has shown that he’s unwilling to act against Russia. And that is why the Congressional Review provision in your Senate bill makes eminent sense so that the administration cannot ease or lift the sanctions on Russia until Putin’s attacks on our democratic elections have ceased, and until he’s met the provisions of the two Minsk agreements on Ukraine and Crimea.

WATCH: If Trump continues to refuse to hold Russia accountable it will be a dereliction of his duty to defend this country

AMBASSADOR NICHOLAS BURNS: It is his duty, President Trump’s, to be skeptical of Russia. It is his duty to investigate and defend our country against cyber-offensives, because Russia’s our most dangerous adversary in the world today. And if he continues to refuse to act, it’s a dereliction of the basic duty to defend the country.

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The ‘Flynn factor’ to Trump-Putin campaign collusion

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Michael Flynn is at the center of the Trump-Putin campaign investigations by the FBI, the Special Counsel, and congressional committees.

Earlier this year his lawyer publicly asked for an immunity deal for Flynn to “tell his story,” and there has been widespread speculation that Michael Flynn has turned on Donald Trump and is now cooperating with the FBI on Russia investigation. This has not yet been confirmed.

Keep this possibility in mind, however, with the Wall Street Journal’s breaking news story on the first direct evidence of collusion between Russian hackers and Michael Flynn, a senior advisor to the Trump campaign, through a GOP intermediary. GOP Operative Sought Clinton Emails From Hackers, Implied a Connection to Flynn (sorry, pay wall article).

Steve Benen provides the details from the WSJ report. Collusion questions grow louder in Trump, Russia scandal:

As Donald Trump’s Russia scandal has evolved, one of the key questions is whether the Republican presidential campaign cooperated in some way with our adversary’s attack on the American election. It is, of course, a matter of ongoing investigation . . . this line of inquiry took an important turn with this Wall Street Journal article.

Before the 2016 presidential election, a longtime Republican opposition researcher mounted an independent campaign to obtain emails he believed were stolen from Hillary Clinton’s private server, likely by Russian hackers.

In conversations with members of his circle and with others he tried to recruit to help him, the GOP operative, Peter W. Smith, implied he was working with retired Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn, at the time a senior adviser to then-candidate Donald Trump.

So, what we have here is a Republican operative, Peter Smith, who assembled a team in the hopes of obtaining Hillary Clinton’s emails. Smith and his team reached out to people they believed to be Russian hackers, affiliated with Russia’s government, because Smith and his cohorts thought these hackers may have stolen the materials.

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