Ah how time flies, and lo it’s that time again.
Here is the latest insanity and nonsense in the ongoing Trump-Russia-Corruption-General Asshatery Timeline. You can also view previous updates on June 14th, June 12th, June 9th, June 6th, June 2nd, and May 30th.
The daily drip of reports related to Jared Kushner seem to have slowed down, but the fight over whether Trump is, or isn’t, being currently investigated for obstruction of justice has heated up with Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow going on multiple Sunday Shows both claiming he isn’t under investigation based on statements by James Comey — while at the same time Comey is a “low down dirty liar’ — and he also is under investigation for firing Comey because he took the recommendation to fire him from the guy who’s now investigating him.
That’s just one big ball of cat yarn wrong.
No, he’s not under investigation for firing Comey. If he were Rosenstein would have to recuse himself already placing Assistant Deputy AG Rachel Brand in charge since he would be a witness in that case. He’s under investigation for obstructing justice by trying to get Comey to pledge his “Loyalty” , “Lift the Cloud” and “Let Flynn Go” which happened before he was fired, and after he didn’t comply with those request.
Keep it straight willya?
Today we had this big bowl of — “Who’s on First? I Don’t know. Third Base!” explode on all our desktops and tablets.
Jay Sekulow, a conservative activist and attorney for President Donald Trump, insisted on Sunday that the president was not under investigation for obstruction of justice even though Trump has said otherwise on Twitter.
During an interview with Fox News host Chris Wallace, Sekulow defended Trump’s decision to fire FBI Director James Comey.
“He takes the action that [the Attorney General’s office] recommended and now he’s being investigated by the Department of Justice,” Sekulow complained. “He’s being investigated for taking the action that the attorney general and deputy attorney general recommended him to take by the agency who recommended the terminations!”
“You’ve now said he is being investigated after saying [he isn’t],” Wallace observed.
“No, he’s not being investigated!” Sekulow shot back.
“You just said he’s being investigated,” Wallace noted.
Oh wow man, just wow — why do I feel like I’m having a flashback to Woodstock, and i wasn’t even at Woodstock?
Rabbit holes. Spiraling down. No end in sight.
Anyway, there ‘s also all this….
- June 15th —
- Putin offers Comey political asylum if he gets “persecuted” by Trump, although considering Trump is the one under criminal investigation, he’s the one that might ultimately need asylum.
- Guardian reports that Richard Burt a lobbyist for Russian oil pipeline firm Gazprom says that he sat in two dinner meetings during 2016 with Jeff Sessions which conflicts with his testimony. (WHOOPSIE!)
- Dallas News reports that Russian hackers attempted, but failed, to break into their voter registration files during the Presidential Election.
- Gingrich starts tweet conspiracy theory that Mueller is intent on “crippling if not destroying” Trump’s presidency. Scarborough goes “How Dare He, that’s grotesque?”, Pelosi responds “So what? Who cares what he says?”
- WSJ reports a memo was written by recently departed Deputy NSA Director Rick Ledgett documenting interactions between Rogers and Trump where he expressed doubt in the Russia investigation and pushed Rogers to get Comey to express there was “no collusion” and to “remove the cloud” [hm, what a familiar phrase?] over his administration. Mueller is reportedly scheduled to interview Coats, Rogers and Ledgett in his obstruction investigation.
- Sen Feinsteins says Judiciary committee want’s they own crack at Comey and Sessions and will subpoena them if needed.
- Australian Prime Minister Turnbull mocks Trump’s speaking style and jokes he has a “Russian Guy” that will help him fix online polls.
- Trump tweets echoing the RNC talking points that the Russia collusion investigation is a phony “Witch Hunt”, later he says they found “zero evidence” so they created an obstruction investigation because of his apparently failure to realize that you don’t have to prove the charge of the underlying investigation in order to be charged for obstructing that investigation. He continues in a tweet storm all day long railing about Obama and Clinton obstruction which basically didn’t happen.
- Not surprisingly Breitbart reports on Trumps tweets without perspective or context
- Sputnik News trashes the Wapo report about the obstruction investigation calling it anonymously sourced “Fake News”.
- Trump supporters begin call for Mueller to be fired.
- Huckabee-Sanders says she can’t talk about Trump’s tweets because she’s not Trump.
- Repub Senator John Thune argues that Mueller’s investigations are not “Witch Hunts.”
- Senate votes 97-2 to pass additional sanctions on Russia with only Rand Paul and Mike Lee voting “No.” Putin denounces Senate sanctions bill.
- Wapo reports Meuller investigation is looking into Kushner financial links to Russia.
- Colorado Republican State House leaders attempts to fundraise off the shooting of Rep. Steve Scalise.
- Long time birther Steve “Cantaloupe Calves” King blames Obama — shocker— for divisive politics that led to Alexandria shooting.
- Rep. Mark Sanford says Trump is “partially to blame for the Demons being unleashed” creating the current divisive political climate.
- Rep. Lou Barletta says Republicans should “definitely” cut down on their town hall availability after Baseball practice shooting.
- Mattis signs $12 Billion deal to sell F-15s to Qatar, whom Trump blamed for sponsoring Terror. Sputnik News takes note repeating the terrorism charges against Qatar which originated with a falsified memo planted by Russian intel.
- Pence hires outside lawyer Richard Cullen for Russia investigations.
- Congress Plays Baseball, CNN interviews Ryan, Pelosi, Schumer and McConnell who all continue the call to moderate the rhetoric and a greater focus on bi-partisanship.
- June 16th —
- 2nd Anniversary of Escalator Ride/Mexicans are Rapists Day.
- Trump turns on Rosenstein “I’m being investigated for firing FBI Director, by the guy who told me to fire FBI Director. Witch Hunt” — yeah, whom you were going to fire “regardless” of what he recommended. Besides it’s not the firing, it’s all the BS from before that, then firing in retaliation when Comey didn’t do your bidding. [Man, he really doesn’t get the “You have a right to remain silent, everything you say can and will be used against you” thing.]
- Trump supporters plead incompetence : “He’s not trying to intimidate investigators, he just lacks message discipline.” Uh huh, sure man, go with that.
- Trump Transition team warned not to destroy information related to Flynn, Manafort, Stone, Page, any foreign travel and Russia.
- ‘He’s not in charge’: US ally’s defense minister says Mattis and Tillerson ignore Trump — and make their own policy
- Rosenstein issues memo warning Americans not to take stories with anonymous sources to heart. Reports surface that he may recuse himself if Mueller begins to investigate Comey’s firing, indicating that his work currently doesn’t include that “matter.”
- Mueller’s potential list of witnesses against Trump continues to grow.
- Psychiatrists uses Army Field Manual to show how Trump is unfit to lead.
- Wedding planner who ran Eric Trump’s now under investigation Charity tapped for Housing Dept.
- Kellyanne Conway whines “If I was shot and killed tomorrow, half of twitter would applaud.” — Prolly not wrong, but it’s not like they wouldn’t have good reason for the shadenfraude Mrs. #Alt-Facts. She also blames the “hateful rhetoric” of Democrats for the baseball practice shooting, even though the shooter after briefly supporting Bernie Sanders — who is technically an Independent — ultimately supported the Green Party’s Jill Stein in the election and hated Hillary as much as Trump supporters do. Arguably, people like this guy helped Trump win as much as Ralph Nader supporters helped elect Bush in 2000.
- Ted Nugget finally realizes Liberals have guns too : “We have got to be civil.” Whatta Thinker he is, ain’t he?
- Trump hires second attorney John Dowd, because apparently somebody needs to proofread Kasowitz's memos [like I need] and get him some decaf.
- WH Aide fumes that Trump won't shut the frack up : “Has anyone ever read him his Miranda Rights?”
- Trump Lawyer Michael Cohen, Lawyers up for Russia probe.
- House Intel wants to talk to Trump’s Digital Director Brad Parscale about micro-targeting voters/Twitter bots and Facebook cybers trolls pulling on one of the most tangled threads in this Russia mess.
- Ethics office releases Trump’s 2017 Financial disclosure. It reveals he owes at least $315 Million [which could be as high as $500 Million] to 10 entities including Deutsche Bank which has been lobbying the Government over Dodd-Frank reform, $110 Million to Ladder Capital and another $25 Million to UBS. Other reports are that Trump’s DC Hotel and places he frequently visits such as Mar-A-Lago have become much more profitable since his election.
- June 17th —
- June 18th —
Happy Father’s Day!
And speaking of “Witch Hunts”….