45th President of the United States, Donald Trump. (Vol 6)

[anonymous-user]

Pupp said:

End game approaching; surely?

This has become a compelling thread... absolutely head-shaking stuff daily for months...

TBH I am not sure I understand it properly as there are so many single things that in my opinion are a scandal that it's difficult to see the wood for the trees.

There is a chap on another thread that is adamant there is nothing that implicates Trump in respect of Russia - yet it seems to be everywhere in his top team.

[paulguitar]

Pupp said:

absolutely head-shaking stuff daily for months...

It’s been mind-bending from day one, when an apoplectic Sean Spicer tried to defend the blatant lies about the inauguration crowd size. I remember thinking that day that this bunch of clowns wouldn’t even last six weeks!

The one thing that the trump supporters on here can still brag about, is that trump is still there and still POTUS.

Of course, they can’t tell us because nearly all of them have been banned.

[silentbrown]

Byker28i said:

EXHIBIT 438 blacks out the name of a Congressman. Whats the betting that is Dana Rohrabacher

I had to do a "who he?"

No idea of the veracity of this piece, but its a top google hit and its "interesting"...

https://ukrainianweek.com/World/210132

[hidetheelephants]

Byker28i said:

Oh good grief

Robert Lighthizer had to explain a memo of understanding to Trump in front of Chinese Vice Premier Liu He.

Trump: "They don't mean anything." RL: "It's a legal term. It's a contract."
Trump: "By the way I disagree."

The Vice Premier laughed out loud
https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2019-0...

Trump, like a stopped clock, occasionally says something true; an MOU is not a contract and is not binding, it's a piece of paper that allows self-important people issue press releases stating "Look! We signed a thing!".

[minimoog]

hidetheelephants said:

Trump, like a stopped clock, occasionally says something true; an MOU is not a contract and is not binding, it's a piece of paper that allows self-important people issue press releases stating "Look! We signed a thing!".

Seth Abramson said:

This is 100% about the Letters of Intent Trump signed with two Russian oligarchs in 2013 and 2015. His objection to an MoU being in any way seen as a contract or as anything abiding is connected to his fear that his LoIs will be seen as meaning anything or lasting some duration.

.

[Byker28i]

desolate said:

There is a chap on another thread that is adamant there is nothing that implicates Trump in respect of Russia - yet it seems to be everywhere in his top team.

I think trump knew exactlywhat he was doing from 2012 when he decided to run after being encouraged by the russians at Moscow Miss world. I also think they had advice on how to minimise the risk. The number of team trump that have been caught using burner phones, secure messaging apps, then trump is distancing himself deliberately from things.

This is a man who has to be center of attention, yet in all the collusion proven so far, we do't know yet the links to him, yet he has continuously tried to obstruct all investigations, threaten witnesses, firing those investigating him, Yates, Bavara, Comey, McCabe, wanting Mueller fired. It looks like he deliberately get himself involved through intermediaries, yet distanced.
His downfall will be those intermediaries, people may have met with russians but they went straight off to tell trump, or one of his sons/kushner. He listened in on speakerphone to the trump tower meeting etc. They haven't the money to defend themselves, trump wont pardon, so they'll flip to avoid/minimise jail time as soon as they realise trump only cares about trump.

So depending on who flips and how much, will depend on if trump gets charged with collusion, but it's almost certain the majority of his team and family will be. Trump is nailed down on obstruction, but his more serious charges will come from the money investigations. He runs his campaign and inauguration funds as a personal piggy bank, with foreign money donations.

His Foundation was shut down after it was used as his personal piggy bank. His organisation is under investigation, as is his tax affairs, his money laundering and these are state investigations that he can't stop.

His family won't flip, they are too deep in and so will be targets. However when they are all indicted then maybe, just maybe, they can use that as pressure to resign, or more likely don't run in 2020. Trump walks having been president for 4 years. Thats probably an acceptable compromise for the GOP senators still supporting him, but he's already starting to become toxic to them, just slightly.

So collusion, I think he's probably been clever and distanced himself using his family as a buffer as he knows they won't flip. Obstruction is nailed on, but then his favourable judges he's put in place, Barr as favourable attorney general, GOP senate support, will mean that will be damaging but not fatal, because they will do their best to hide/limit any of the bad news, because they all want to be in power and think trump put them there/keeps them there. I can't see this changing, too many of the senior GOP management are implicated.

The money trail will be what takes trump and his family down. That's their biggest risk of jail time.

[Byker28i]

Asked about criticism of Labor Sec’y Acosta for his handling as US Attorney of Jeffrey Epstein’s sex abuse of underage girls, trump said “I really don’t know too much about it. I know he’s done a great job as labor secretary and that seems like a long time ago,”

Adam Schiff said:
With the number of scandals in the Trump Administration, it can be hard to keep up with events in the swamp.
But a federal judge has ruled that Secretary Acosta broke the law to give a sweetheart deal to a billionaire pedophile.
Absolutely jaw dropping that he hasn’t resigned.


Alan Dershowitz tweeted:
‏The judge did not find that the non-prosecution agreement or plea bargain broke any rules. That is all I was involved with as Epstein’s defense lawyer.
11:47 AM - 22 Feb 2019

Ah interesting. Alan Dershowitz is the person Fox News always get on to defend trump from a legal position

[Byker28i]

minimoog said:

hidetheelephants said:

Trump, like a stopped clock, occasionally says something true; an MOU is not a contract and is not binding, it's a piece of paper that allows self-important people issue press releases stating "Look! We signed a thing!".

Seth Abramson said:

This is 100% about the Letters of Intent Trump signed with two Russian oligarchs in 2013 and 2015. His objection to an MoU being in any way seen as a contract or as anything abiding is connected to his fear that his LoIs will be seen as meaning anything or lasting some duration.

.

His U.S. Trade Representative told him the correct information and he should know. trump didn't like being corected

[Byker28i]

Interesting that Mueller hasn't added anything in Manaforts sentencing memorandum on russian collusion, when we know he was the one handing polling data over.

He's keeping that powder dry

[ScotHill]

Byker28i said:

His U.S. Trade Representative told him the correct information and he should know. trump didn't like being corected

The article makes it clear that the MOUs aren't binding, hence not a contract.

--
"Derek Scissors, a China expert at the American Enterprise Institute, said that Lighthizer is in a bind because he wants China to treat a deal with the U.S. as binding even though it’s not.

The Trump administration originally chose MOUs because no truly binding agreement can be made on the exchange rate or large future purchases of corn, much less technology coercion China denies has ever happened,” he said. “If the administration switches to calling it a binding trade agreement, members of Congress will want to vote on it."

"From now on we’re not using the word memorandum of understanding anymore. We’re going to use the term trade agreement,” Lighthizer told reporters. “We’ll have the same document. It’s going to be called a trade agreement.”

[Byker28i]

ScotHill said:

Byker28i said:

His U.S. Trade Representative told him the correct information and he should know. trump didn't like being corected

The article makes it clear that the MOUs aren't binding, hence not a contract.

--
"Derek Scissors, a China expert at the American Enterprise Institute, said that Lighthizer is in a bind because he wants China to treat a deal with the U.S. as binding even though it’s not.

The Trump administration originally chose MOUs because no truly binding agreement can be made on the exchange rate or large future purchases of corn, much less technology coercion China denies has ever happened,” he said. “If the administration switches to calling it a binding trade agreement, members of Congress will want to vote on it."

"From now on we’re not using the word memorandum of understanding anymore. We’re going to use the term trade agreement,” Lighthizer told reporters. “We’ll have the same document. It’s going to be called a trade agreement.”

Interesting cheers
Source:
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/431283...

[Byker28i]

silentbrown said:

Byker28i said:

EXHIBIT 438 blacks out the name of a Congressman. Whats the betting that is Dana Rohrabacher

I had to do a "who he?"

No idea of the veracity of this piece, but its a top google hit and its "interesting"...

https://ukrainianweek.com/World/210132

The filing says Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, which was Ed Royce from Jan 2013, but that names too short. Dana Rohrabacher fits exactly, is mentioned elsewhere, he was the Chairman of one of its subcommittees of the Foreign affairs, it's widely reported his extensive ties to the Kremlin are being investigated.
Whilst we can play guess the name, it's getting to look like GOP members still back trump as they may have had some criminal connection to the primary Trump-Russia players.

Remember that last year there was a filing that said an unnamed 2016 candidate for Congress sought a copy of the emails that Russian hackers stole from the DNC and gave to WikiLeaks.

the GRU reached out to "a person who was in regular contact with senior members of the presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump."

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/0...

[Voldemort]

<aside>

Top definition of 'agreement':

a negotiated and typically legally binding arrangement between parties as to a course of action.

</aside>

[Byker28i]

Looks like Stone asn't the only one trying to be clever

The NRA published an article in their magazine entitled “Target Practice” accompanied by a picture of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and former lawmaker Gabby Giffords who is a victim of gun violence.
https://www.rawstory.com/2019/02/nra-ripped-target...

[Byker28i]

A little digging around why Cohen is expected to tell the house about trump insurance fraud. That hasn't been mentioned before, everything else has.

It appears that trump claimed $17m from insurance for damage to Mar-a-Lago during Huricane Wilma in 2004.
Two years after a series of storms, the real estate tycoon said he didn’t know how much had been spent on repairs, but acknowledged he pocketed some of the money. He transferred funds into his personal accounts, saying that under the terms of his policy “you didn’t have to reinvest it.”

The AP report lists trumps butler saying it wasn't damaged much, in fact they hosted 370 guests at Mar-a-Lago for Donald Jnr's wedding

https://apnews.com/f4df8c9beb17404484ee539dd4a8f08...

[Mousem40]

Byker28i said:

A little digging around why Cohen is expected to tell the house about trump insurance fraud. That hasn't been mentioned before, everything else has.

It appears that trump claimed $17m from insurance for damage to Mar-a-Lago during Huricane Wilma in 2004.
Two years after a series of storms, the real estate tycoon said he didn’t know how much had been spent on repairs, but acknowledged he pocketed some of the money. He transferred funds into his personal accounts, saying that under the terms of his policy “you didn’t have to reinvest it.”

The AP report lists trumps butler saying it wasn't damaged much, in fact they hosted 370 guests at Mar-a-Lago for Donald Jnr's wedding

https://apnews.com/f4df8c9beb17404484ee539dd4a8f08...

Isn't that Hank Stein (the loss adjuster's) problem not Trump's? If the loss adjuster agreed the claim, and Trump is right in that he didn't have to spend the money on making good, then where's the issue? Seems like Hank Stein was getting backhanders if anything

[anonymous-user]

Mousem40 said:

Isn't that Hank Stein (the loss adjuster's) problem not Trump's? If the loss adjuster agreed the claim, and Trump is right in that he didn't have to spend the money on making good, then where's the issue? Seems like Hank Stein was getting backhanders if anything

Depends who was giving him the back handers.

There will be enough distance between trump and the claim for him to be able to deny.

[Byker28i]

desolate said:

Mousem40 said:

Isn't that Hank Stein (the loss adjuster's) problem not Trump's? If the loss adjuster agreed the claim, and Trump is right in that he didn't have to spend the money on making good, then where's the issue? Seems like Hank Stein was getting backhanders if anything

Depends who was giving him the back handers.

There will be enough distance between trump and the claim for him to be able to deny.

Not sure but Cohen mentioned insurance claim and that was the obvious one

[Byker28i]

Byker28i said:

ScotHill said:

Byker28i said:

His U.S. Trade Representative told him the correct information and he should know. trump didn't like being corected

The article makes it clear that the MOUs aren't binding, hence not a contract.

--
"Derek Scissors, a China expert at the American Enterprise Institute, said that Lighthizer is in a bind because he wants China to treat a deal with the U.S. as binding even though it’s not.

The Trump administration originally chose MOUs because no truly binding agreement can be made on the exchange rate or large future purchases of corn, much less technology coercion China denies has ever happened,” he said. “If the administration switches to calling it a binding trade agreement, members of Congress will want to vote on it."

"From now on we’re not using the word memorandum of understanding anymore. We’re going to use the term trade agreement,” Lighthizer told reporters. “We’ll have the same document. It’s going to be called a trade agreement.”

Interesting cheers
Source:
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/431283...

Interesting thought. trump signed letters of intent in 2013 and 2015 with the russians.
Is this why his objection to an MoU being in any way seen as a contract or as anything abiding is connected to his fear that his LoI will be seen as meaning anything or lasting some duration?

[Byker28i]

someones just told trump about the 4th July?


Donald J. Trump
‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump

HOLD THE DATE! We will be having one of the biggest gatherings in the history of Washington, D.C., on July 4th. It will be called “A Salute To America” and will be held at the Lincoln Memorial. Major fireworks display, entertainment and an address by your favorite President, me!
4:43 AM - 24 Feb 2019