The maximum public [left-wing] case against Donald Trump by Mike Allen & Jim VandeHei May 12, 2018 and analytical rebuttal

The maximum public [left-wing] case against  Donald Trump 

by Mike Allen & Jim VandeHei   May 12, 2018

 and analytical rebuttal

One thing is true of all major political scandals: What we know in the moment is but a tiny, obscured, partial view of the full story later revealed by investigators.

Why it matters: That’s what makes the Trump-Russia drama all the more remarkable. Forget all we don’t know. The known facts that even Trump’s closest friends don’t deny tell a damning tale that would sink most leaders. These are the words of the left. Most of these “statements” are slanted.

Here's a guide that Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen put together to the known knowns of Russia: [responses are in red]

• We know Paul Manafort, former Trump campaign chair, has been indicted on 32 counts, including conspiracy and money laundering. We know he made millions off shady Russians and changed the Republican platform to the benefit of Russia. The changing of the Republican platform to benefit Russia is a false assertion. Notice how they link the indictment for activities that occurred far earlier than Manafort’s employment in the Trump campaign with allegations that are still unproven.

• We know that the U.S. intelligence community concluded, in a report released in January 2017, that Russian President Vladimir Putin “ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election,” to “denigrate” Hillary Clinton and with “a clear preference for ... Trump.” The report was the product of an ad hoc committee appointed by James Comey and John Brennan. That work was never vetted by the CIA or any other normal intelligence vetting process. The individual who made the assertion that he had a link in the Kremlin has never been identified and cross-examined. Only three agencies, the CIA, the FBI and James Clapper have endorsed this allegation.

• We know that in May 2016, Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos told an Australian diplomat Russia had political dirt on Hillary. "About three weeks earlier," according to the N.Y. Times, "Papadopoulos had been told that Moscow had thousands of emails that would embarrass Mrs. Clinton." This whole account is suspicious and looks like a cover-up for the FBI planting a spy within the Trump campaign. Papadopoulos was a very junior participant in the Trump campaign. Most of the time he was trying to insert himself and most of his suggestions were rejected. Most suspicious is the foreign involvement [Australian diplomat; former British spy; etc.] that was trying to bring the Clinton financed "Russian dossier " into play in the US media.

• We know that in June 2016, Trump’s closest aides and family members met at Trump Tower with a shady group of Russians who claimed to have dirt on Hillary. The meeting was billed as "part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump." We also know that the Russian lawyer had close ties to Fusion GPS. Other information indicates that there was a orchestrated effort to entrap Trump campaign Junior staffers in questionable activities linked to so-called Russian operatives.

• We know the Russian lawyer who helped set it up concealed her close ties to Putin government. Actually, the reverse is true. The Russian lawyer, pretended to have close links with the Kremlin and therefore would be in a position to have top-secret information concerning Hillary Clinton that would be detrimental to Hillary Clinton’s campaign
• We know that in July 2016, Trump said: "“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 [Hillary] emails that are missing,” and urged their publication. That remark emphasized the  US intelligence belief that Hillary Clinton's use of a personal server was hacked by the Russians, by the Chinese, by the Iranian's and others and that her use of a personal server jeopardized US national security.
• We know that on Air Force One a year later, Trump helped his son, Don Jr., prepare a misleading statement about the meeting. We know top aides freaked out about this. This is still an unproven allegation. Further, to be intentionally misleading would require that Donald Trump had intimate knowledge of the meeting The press release was  a public relations spin, common in the political world. ["If you want to keep your doctor you will be able to keep your doctor."]
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• We know Trump revealed highly classified information to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador in a White House meeting. Actually the source of the information released was Jordan. The accusation was made that the president's statement jeopardized Israel's intelligence sources. This accusation was made by the media.It has never been made by anyone in Israel except the left-wing opposition to Prime Minister Netanyahu.
• We know Michael Flynn, former national security adviser and close campaign aide, lied to Vice President Pence and FBI about his Russia-related chats. We know he’s now cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller. We know Trump initially tried to protect Flynn with loyalty and fervency rarely shown by Trump to others. We know that Gen. Flynn knew that his conversations with the Russian ambassador were being recorded. We know that the FBI agents who questioned Gen. Flynn both believed that he was telling the truth. Flynn relayed to the Russian ambassador exactly the message that the incoming administration told him to transmit. We know that Robert Mueller threatened to go after Flynn’s son ,bankrupted Gen. Flynn and according to a federal judge exceeded his authority and also withheld information from Gen. Flynn as to evidence that would help establish Flynn’s  innocence. What we know here is extremely damaging to Robert Muller and to  the Mueller investigation.
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• We know that during the transition, Jared Kushner spoke with the Russian ambassador "about establishing a secret communications between the Trump transition team and Moscow." We know Kushner omitted previous contacts with Russians on his disclosure forms. We know that Barack Obama did exactly the same thing when he was the President-elect. We know that Jared Kushner amended his original forms to include additional contacts as he, the campaign staff, and Jared Kushner’s personal staff reviewed Jared Kushner’s meeting logs, emails, telephone logs, etc.
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• We know Trump initially lied about why he fired James Comey, later admitting he was canned because of the “Russia thing.” This point is ridiculous. The record is now clear that James Comey should have been fired by whoever was elected US president. The memos prepared by the Atty. Gen. and the deputy assistant attorney general are clear. The president’s feeling toward James Comey is immaterial. The evidence supporting the firing and the  president’s authority to do so is all that counts. We should put Robert Mueller under oath and ask him if he was aware that James Comey leaked government memos to the New York Times with  the explicit intention to trigger the appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel and also was Mueller aware of the bias against Donald Trump that was held by some of Mueller’s key  staff members.[ New revelations shed light on Comey, Trump, and that 'loyalty' demand, Byron York   April 20, 2018 ]
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• We know Michael Cohen was a close adviser and lawyer, the fixer and secret-keeper. We know Trump seethed when the FBI raided Cohen's office. This is correct. Since Michael Cohen was targeted in  an attempt to "get dirt" on Donald Trump and  since according to  Michael Avenatti ,Stormy Daniels’ lawyer, Michael Avenatti had a long back channel relationship with Judge Kimba Wood, we can safely assume that Donald Trump every other client of Michael Cohen, and any guardian of civil liberties such as Alan Dershowitz, would seethe.
• We know that in January 2016, just before Republicans began voting, Michael Cohen tried to restart a Trump Tower project in Moscow.  AND FAILED!!
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• We know Mueller questioned a Russian oligarch tied to a firm that made payments to Cohen, who paid off a porn star who allegedly had an affair with Trump. We also know that the same Russian oligarch made much larger payments to John Podesta and to the Clintons.[Russian Oligarch Who Allegedly Paid Michael Cohen Is Linked To Clinton Foundation And John Podesta]

• We know that oligarch was a bad enough dude that the Trump administration sanctioned him.  YES!
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Be smart: The undisputed known knowns about Trump, Russia and his associates are damning and possibly actionable. Possibly. However the undisputed known knowns about Hillary Clinton, John Podesta, Susan Rice, Ben Rhodes, John Kerry, etc. as well as information on James Comey, Rod Rosenstein, John Brennan, James Clapper, etc. are more troubling and more likely to be criminal. For example, Why does Lisa H Barsoomian  merit any mention?…..BECAUSE…..Lisa H Barsoomian is Assistant Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s  wife.

See: PATTERN OF  CORRUPTION    ["COINCIDENCES”???] http://ltgjcmilopsg3.blogspot.com/2018/04/pattern-of-corruption-coincidences-key.html

Key players (recurring roles) :  Hillary Clinton; Bill Clinton; Robert Mueller; James Comey;Rod Rosenstein;. Lois Lerner

From 2001 to 2005 

There was an ongoing investigation into the Clinton Foundation.

A Grand Jury had been empaneled.

Governments from around the world had donated to the “Charity”.

Yet, from 2001 to 2003 none of those “Donations” to the Clinton Foundation were declared.

Hmmm, now you would think that an honest investigator would be able to figure this out.

Guess who took over this investigation in 2002? No other than James Comey.

Guess who was transferred in to the Internal Revenue Service to run the Tax Exemption Branch of the IRS? Your friend and mine, Lois Lerner.

Guess who ran the Tax Division inside the Department of Injustice from 2001 to 2005?
No other than the Assistant Attorney General of the United States, Rod Rosenstein.

Guess who was the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation during this timeframe???  Robert Mueller.

What do all four casting characters have in common? They all were briefed and/or were front line investigators into the Clinton Foundation Investigation.
.

Fast forward to 2009.

James Comey leaves the Justice Department to go and cash-in at Lockheed Martin.

Hillary Clinton is running the State Department, on her own personal email server by the way.

The Uranium One “issue” comes to the attention of the Hillary.

Like all good public servants do, you know looking out for America’s best interest, she decides to support the decision and approve the sale of 20% of US Uranium to no other than, the Russians.

Now you would think that this is a fairly straight up deal, except it wasn’t, the People got absolutely nothing out of it.

However, prior to the sales approval, no other than Bill Clinton goes to Moscow, gets paid 500K for a one hour speech then meets with Vladimir Putin at his home for a few hours.

Well, not so fast, the FBI had a mole inside the money laundering and bribery scheme.

Guess who was the FBI Director during this timeframe? Yep, Robert Mueller.
He even delivered a Uranium Sample to Moscow in 2009.

Guess who was handling that case within the Justice Department out of the US Attorney’s Office in Maryland. No other than, Rod Rosenstein.

Guess what happened to the informant? The Department of Justice placed a GAG order on him and threatened to lock him up if he spoke out about it.

How does 20% of the most strategic asset of the United States of America end up in Russian hands when the FBI has an informant, a mole providing inside information to the FBI on the criminal enterprise?

Guess what happened soon after the sale was approved?

~145 million dollars in “donations” made their way into the Clinton Foundation from entities directly connected to the Uranium One deal.

Guess who was still at the Internal Revenue Service working the Charitable Division? No other than, Lois  Lerner.

Fast forward to 2015.

Due to a series of tragic events in Benghazi and after the 9 “investigations” the House, Senate and at State Department, Trey Gowdy who was running the 10th investigation as Chairman of the Select Committee on Benghazi discovers that the Hillary ran the State Department on an unclassified, unauthorized, outlaw personal email server.

He also discovered that none of those emails had been turned over when she departed her “Public Service” as Secretary of State which was required by law.

He also discovered that there was Top Secret information contained within her personally archived email.

Sparing you the State Departments cover up, the nostrums they floated, the delay tactics that were employed and the outright lies that were spewed forth from the necks of the Kerry State Department, we shall leave it with this…… they did everything humanly possible to cover for Hillary.

Now this is amazing, guess who became FBI Director in 2013?

Guess who secured 17 no bid contracts for his employer (Lockheed Martin) with the State Department and was rewarded with a six million dollar thank you present when he departed his employer.

No other than James Comey.

Amazing how all those no-bids just went right through at State, huh?

Now he is the FBI Director in charge of the “Clinton Email Investigation” after of course his FBI Investigates the Lois Lerner “Matter” at the Internal Revenue Service and exonerates her.

Nope couldn’t find any crimes there.

Can you guess what happened next?

In April 2016, James Comey drafts an exoneration letter of Hillary Rodham Clinton, meanwhile the DOJ is handing out immunity deals like candy.

They didn’t even convene a Grand Jury.

Like a lightning bolt of statistical impossibility, like a miracle from God himself, like the true “Gangsta” Homey is, James steps out into the cameras of an awaiting press conference on July the 8th of 2016, and exonerates the Hillary from any wrongdoing.

Can you see the pattern?

It goes on and  on, Rosenstein becomes Asst. Attorney General, Comey gets fired based upon a letter by Rosenstein, Comey leaks government information to the press, Mueller is assigned to the Russian Investigation sham by Rosenstein to provide cover for decades of malfeasance within the FBI and DOJ and the story continues.

FISA Abuse, political espionage..... pick a crime, any crime, chances are...... this group and a few others did it.

All the same players.

All compromised and conflicted.

All working fervently to NOT go to jail themselves.

All connected in one way or another to the Clinton's.


As of this writing, the Clinton Foundation, in its 20+ years of operation of being the largest International Charity Fraud in the history of mankind, has never been audited by the Internal Revenue Service……Let us not forget that Comey's brother works for DLA Piper, the law firm that does the Clinton Foundation's taxes.

Mike Allen, Jim VandeHei :  “But the known unknowns of how much more Robert Mueller knows that is publicly unknown is what spooks Trump allies most.  Remember: No one in the media saw Mueller’s indictments of Russian oligarchs coming until the second they were announced, and no one knew until this week that Mueller’s team questioned AT&T five months ago about its payments to Cohen. Mueller has every incentive to keep the public and Trump himself in suspense.” 

ANOTHER VIEW: Collusion, anyone? Michael Barone  Washington Examiner  April 18, 2018 

Whenever special counsel Robert Mueller finishes his investigation, it seems unlikely his work will fulfill the daydreams so many liberals have of making President Trump go the way of Richard Nixon.

As the likelihood of the charges of Trump campaign “collusion” with Russia seems headed toward zero, the likelihood of proof of a different form of “collusion” seems headed upward toward certainty.

The Russia collusion charge had some initial credibility because of businessman Trump’s dealings in Russia and candidate Trump’s off-putting praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin. It was fueled by breathless media coverage of such trivial events as Jeff Sessions’ exchange of pleasantries with the Russian ambassador at a Washington reception.

And, of course, by the appointment of former FBI Director Robert Mueller as special counsel. But Mueller’s prosecutions of Trump campaign operatives were for misdeeds long before the campaign, and his indictment of 13 Russians specified that no American was a “knowing participant” in their work.

Now, there’s talk that Mueller is winding up his investigation. Whenever he finishes, it seems unlikely his work will fulfill the daydreams so many liberals have of making Trump go the way of Richard Nixon.

Meanwhile, the evidence builds of collusion by the Obama administration's law enforcement and intelligence personnel in trying to elect Hillary Clinton and defeat and delegitimize Donald Trump in and after the 2016 presidential election.

The investigation of Hillary Clinton’s illegal email system was conducted with kid gloves. One glaring example of impropriety came when FBI Director James Comey was given (and accepted) Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s order to call it a “matter” rather than an “investigation.” Clinton aides were allowed to keep her emails and destroy 30,000 of them, plus cellphones. They were not subject to grand jury subpoenas, and a potential co-defendant was allowed to claim attorney-client privilege.

On June 27, 2016, Lynch clandestinely met with Bill Clinton on his plane at the Phoenix airport — a meeting that became known only thanks to an alert local TV reporter. Lynch supposedly left the decision on prosecution to Comey, who on July 5 announced publicly that Clinton was “extremely careless” but lacked intent to violate the law, even though the statute punishes violations intentional or not.

Contrast that with the collusion of Obama officials with the Clinton campaign-financed Christopher Steele/Fusion GPS memorandum alleging Trump ties with Russians. Comey and the Justice Department used it, without divulging who paid for it, to get a FISA warrant to surveil former Trump campaign operative Carter Page’s future and past communications — the “wiretap” Trump was derided for mentioning.

Similarly, when Comey informed Trump in January 2017 of the contents of the then-unpublished Steele memorandum, he didn’t reveal that the Clinton campaign paid for it. Asked on his book tour why not, he blandly said he didn’t know. Maybe he doesn’t actually realize he was employing tactics reminiscent of J. Edgar Hoover in a bid to keep his job. Maybe.

In any case, after he was fired, he immediately sent four of his internal memos, at least one of them classified, to a law professor friend to leak them to the press, with the intent of getting a special counsel appointed — who turned out to be his longtime friend and ally, Robert Mueller. Collusion, anyone?

Collusion can get complicated and sometimes fail to produce the intended results. Comey’s deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe reportedly kept to himself for weeks the discovery that Clinton emails were transmitted over the home computer of her aide Huma Abedin’s then-husband, the disgraced ex-Congressman Anthony Weiner. It was after Comey learned of this that he made his Oct. 28 announcement that the Clinton email investigation was being reopened.

Comey and McCabe have produced contradictory accounts of events, and Comey’s public praise of McCabe contrasts with his referral of McCabe to Justice’s inspector general, who found him guilty of “lack of candor” — a fireable offense for which he was indeed fired. Partners in collusion sometimes fall out.

Longtime Clinton friend Lanny Davis charges that Comey’s statement was responsible for Clinton’s defeat, and Comey on his book tour admitted that he may have made it only because he assumed Clinton would win.

Davis may be right, though no one can prove it. But one can also say that the Democratic Party lost the presidency because it nominated a candidate under investigation for committing a felony. And it seems as certain as these things can be that, if Hillary Clinton had followed the law and regulations, there would be today no President Trump, no Attorney General Jeff Sessions, no EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, no Justice Neil Gorsuch.

The blame ultimately belongs to Barack Obama, who knew of her private email system and who could have ordered her to follow the law. But that’s one bit of collusion that didn’t occur.