In the first week since Mueller’s indictments of Paul Manafort, Rick Gates and the guilty plea by Trump aid George Papadopoulos we’ve had quite a few new revelations.
The main new one is from a Bloomberg interview with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya where she essentially lays out that during her meeting with Don Jr. he had essentially agreed to look into peeling back the sanctions linked to the Magnitski Act.
“Looking ahead, if we come to power, we can return to this issue and think what to do about it,’’ Trump Jr. said of the 2012 law, she recalled. “I understand our side may have messed up, but it’ll take a long time to get to the bottom of it,” he added, according to her.
And that after this he circled back to the proof of wrong doing by the Clinton campaign, asking her if she had financial documents proving that they had received illegal donations from Russian investors and that when she said she didn’t have the documents abruptly ended the meeting, which basically gives the impression that his offer to take a look at Magnitski was entirely dependent on getting something valuable for it. This shows that the initial claim that the meeting was about “Russian adoptions” was an deliberate lie to prevent the revelation that they tried to setup of conspiracy that would have been illegal on the basis of the Logan Act, and the theft of Honest Services which is a Federal Felony punishable by up to five years in prison and/or a $250,000 fine.
That’s real bad for Don Jr., particularly since Mueller seems to be looking deeper into actions of Jared Kushner regarding his involvement with this meeting, as well as the false statement that was crafted on Air Force One about it by Trump himself when Kushner was the only attendant from the meeting on board and also the fact that Kushner was aware of the changing rationale for firing James Comey, starting with the original letter written by Trump and Stephen Miller, only to have that found “problematic” by the WH Counsel then Sessions and Rosenstein are used to concoct of “cover story” for it which is approved as a ‘political win” by Kushner since Dems were so upset with him for his treatment of Hillary Clinton.
But what’s really most interesting is the fact that there are at least four more sealed indictments on the Federal docket that were filed between Papadopoulos and Manafort’s, which means that the Grand Jury may have already approved charges against four sets of targets and just who could those be?
This could really be something...
Eagle-eyed court watchers on Twitter noticed, late Monday, that there are four sealed cases listed on the U.S. District Court's docket in Washington, D.C., located on the docket between George Papadopoulos's sealed plea bargain (#182) and Paul Manafort's sealed indictment (#201).
Legal experts immediately concluded that the four sealed cases could mean Special Counsel Robert Mueller isn't done issuing secret subpoenas and grand jury indictments.
Now it’s of course possible these are unrelated cases that have nothing to do with Mueller and the numbering is merely a coincidence, but if it’s not the most likely target here would be Gen. Michael Flynn and his son who have been in deep trouble for quite some time, including his failures to disclose foreign payments, his failure to register as a foreign agent — which match the charges already filed against Manafort and Gates — as well as lying to the FBI about his communications with Ambassador Kiskyak which is what got him fired in the first place and also matches the charges filed against Papadopoulos, and lastly trying to setup a secret Nuclear Power plant deal for Saudi Arabia using state Russian agencies Rosatom — which is the same company that bought Uranium One — are all highly problematic. The question is if Mueller has the foreign payments and false statements case against Manafort and Gates ready, why would he be holding back on the same kind of case against Flynn?Unless it’s because Flynn, who had previously asked for immunity to testify before Congress — has been cooperating with Mueller for months now.
There’s every reason to believe Flynn continues to be a key figure—and perhaps the key figure—in Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russia’s election meddling, the Trump campaign’s potential collusion in such, and other crimes that may have stemmed from those affairs. On Monday, two members of the Senate Judiciary Committee posited that Flynn was already cooperating with Mueller, potentially offering testimony that could incriminate Trump.
“If you draw conclusions as a prosecutor about what we can see from the Flynn investigation, all the signals are suggesting that he’s already cooperating with the FBI and may have been for some time,” Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. Later in the evening, Sen. Richard Blumenthal agreed with that assessment. “The likelihood of his cooperation is very high,” the Connecticut Democrat told MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell. “Whether he will be truthful in cooperating, whether in fact he knows enough to justify some kind of agreement with the prosecutors, I think will be told by time.”
In order to obtain his cooperation Flynn’s indictment (#3 of the 6) may have issued under seal just as Papadopoulos was however it hasn’t been revealed yet until they get what it is they need from him. Apparently they accomplished that with Papadopoulos who probably gave them lots of internal information on his communications with other Trump officials, several of which are mentioned within the document of his guilty plea but none of which are named explicitly. That may have been done because it links to other indictments that are planned down the road.
Two of those officials who are mentioned in Papadopoulos indictment but not specifically named are Manafort and Gates, while the other two are Corey Lowendowski and Sam Clovis — who may be the most likely targets of indictment #4 which may also include Manafort, Gates and Papadoplous for charges of being accessories to espionage after the fact, conspiracy, and aiding and abetting computer fraud since they were all informed that “Russia has thousand of Hillary’s emails” nearly a month before it was publicly reported and confirmed by the Wapo.
The only way that was possible was via cyber espionage and computer fraud by Russian operatives, and explains why Trump always went so far out of his way to deny and defend Russia on this point. Knowing that this crime had potentially been committed and a) Not immediately going to the FBI about it right then is Misprision of a Felony and b) Trying to take advantage of it — while seeking to give Russia “goodies” so they keep pumping it out — as the Trump campaign did repeatedly is exactly at the center of this entire situation, that’s Conspiracy and Aiding, Abetting and Procuring a Felony after the fact.
None of the Trumpeters had to give them the emails, they just had to show they were open to receiving the emails — or having them released through a cut-out like Wikileaks — in exchange for changing U.S. policy, such as the Magnitski Act and dropping sanctions over Crimea. We’ve just recently seen exactly that with Don Jr and Veselnitskaya, and it seems to have been a consistent theme within the Trump campaign, possibly under the direction of Trump himself — which remains to be proven. Mueller may have many of these pieces already, but IMO he won’t unseal these remaining indictments until he has the final piece proving Trump himself was personally involved.
That leaves two more sealed indictments and the most likely target for #5 of those is Jared Kushner for his families funky financial dealings with Deutsche Bank who have repeated run-ins with Russian money-laundering, and attempting to sell EB-5 Visas to China investors because U.S. Banks won’t loan to him while his property at 666 Fifth Ave seems to be crashing and burning, his funky secret meeting Kislyak along with Flynn to setup a “back channel” with Russia, his being willing to provide the “fake” explanation for Comey’s firing when it was really retaliation for his not going along with Trump’s attempted obstruction as well as the strange similarity between the voter targeting that Kushner and Cambridge-Analytica did which happens to eerily match what the Russia bots and trolls were doing.
The last indictment (#6) is IMO likely against Michael Cohen and Felix Sater who again were involved in trying to setup a “peace deal” between Ukraine and Russia that would have just so coincidently given Russia everything they wanted and dropped all their sanctions and could be considered a “pay off” for their earlier cyber crimes. Both of them were also involved in attempting to build Trump Tower Moscow right during the early portion of the campaign using a sanctioned Russia bank which is violation of the Trading With the Enemy Act, and where Sater stated in an email to Cohen: “I will get Putin on this program and we will get Donald elected... I know how to play it and how to get this done. Buddy, our boy can become president of the USA and we can engineer it... I will get all of Putin’s team to buy in on this, I will manage this process.”
So that’s all really really bad and chances are Mueller’s investigation of much of this is already complete, he’s getting more details for some additional charges by using what he knows to squeeze people for cooperation as he did firstly with Papadopoulos and next with Manafort and Gates slowly moving up the chain through Flynn, to Kushner, Don Jr, Lowendowski, Clovis, Michael Cohen and Sater — right to Trump’s front door step.
So in summary we have the following list of known and potential indictments filed:
- George Papadopoulos for Lying to the FBI.
- (Sealed) Michael Flynn and his Son for Lying to the FBI, violating the Logan Act, taking payments while being and unregistered Foreign Agent, money -laundering, False Statements on his SF86 Forms, trading with the enemy by dealing with sanctioned Russian companies.
- (Sealed) Corey Lowendowski & Sam Clovis (possibly also Papadopoulos, Manafort, Page & Gates) for conspiracy, and aiding and abetting espionage, computer fraud, and Misprision of a Felony for being informed of the Russian email hack then approving Papadoplous and Carter Page to continue getting info and help from the Russians. (This is the deal IMO intended to make them all flip!)
- (Sealed) Don Jr for “Theft of Honest Services” and Violating the Logan Act and FEC rules due to his Veselnitskaya meeting and Jared Kushner for his participation in that meeting, plus false statements on Kushner’s SF86 Form, Conspiracy, Misprision of a Felony, Money-Laundering, and aiding and abetting Espionage and Computer Fraud after the fact.
- (Sealed) Michael Cohen and Felix Sater for conspiracy, violating the Logan act, the Trading with the Enemy Act, and Procuring a Felony after the Fact by attempting to have Russian sanctions dropped.
- Paul Manafort and Rick Gates for money-laundering, conspiracy, failing to register as foreign agents.
Trump and Pence could both be named unindicted co-conspirators on any of the sealed case if there’s sufficient evidence they were aware and complicit in these actions — and they seem to have been since Pence was in the room for many of the crucial decisions — plus obviously Obstruction of Justice for trying to get Comey to drop the case against Flynn and then firing him for not doing it, then concocting a plan to cover it up. Also Sessions might be on the hook for Perjury, while Don Jr. Cohen and Sater may be hit with FEC violations.
Here are the other daily updates this week from Master Timeline Vol #4:
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October 30th —
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Mueller’s indictment are unsealed, they charge Paul Manafort and his associate Rick Gates for 12 counts of conspiracy, false statements, failure to register as a foreign agent and money laundering over $75 Million from the Ukraine and Russia which was funneled through offshore accounts largely in Cyprus. — Manafort and Gates are arranged and plead “Not Guilty”. Bail is set for $10 Million for Manafort and $5 Million for Gates, both are placed under house arrest.
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Mueller also indicts former Trump National Security Advisor George Papadopoulos pleads guilty and reaches a plea deal regarding his lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russians, including, the Russian Ambassador to Britain, a Professor in London who told him in March that Russia had “thousands of emails” detailing dirt on Hillary Clinton — which he states even before the GRU breached the DNC email system or Podesta’s emails, but after the FSB intrusion and before either was publicly known — as well as meeting with Putin’s “Neice” and a contact with links to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs about setting up a meeting between Trump and Putin. This was communicated both to Lewandowski, Manafort and Gates who apparently discussed going forward with meetings in Russia but only with low level staffers instead of Trump to not send the “wrong signal.” These communications go on until days before Manafort leaves that campaign due to the first inklings of his Ukrainian money scandal coming forward. Apparently Papadopoulos was arrested and began cooperating back in June, just one day after the no-knock Warrant was served on Manafort’s house.
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Coincidentally Papdapoulos interviews with the FBI was just a few days after Flynn also lied to the FBI, and happened on the same day that Trump attempted to get Comey to drop the case against Flynn.
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Trump attorney Jay Sekolow claims that Papadopoulos was only convicted of lying and claims it has nothing to do with the campaign, except that he was lying about what he was doing with Russians on behalf of the campaign.
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Huckabee-Sanders claims that Papadopoulos “only attended one meeting” [although he announced at that meeting that he was working on establishing contacts and meetings Russians with links to the Kremlin] that none of his suggested meetings were approved [although they were fully supported and encouraged by high-level campaign staff including both Lewandowski & Manafort] and that’s he was essentially a nobody. She claims that all of the charges against Manafort & Gates relate to their actions before they were in the campaign, but that is untrue as his financial entanglements were with both Yanakovich and also Russian Oligarch Oleg Deripaska who paid him nearly $30 Million to represent Putin’s interests between 2009-2011, and whom Manafort tried to “pay back” by providing him a “personal briefing” on the Trump campaign just before the Republican Convention. There's also the potential issue that Manafort reportedly tried to ask the Russians for “help in their campaign against Hillary” even after the June meeting with Veselnitskaya which Huckabee-Sanders still says resulted in “no action” — which is a bit like saying it’s not a crime to try to rob a bank if you don’t get out the door with the money.
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JIm Acosta blasts Huckabee-Sanders diversions on Papadopoulos who clearly communicated with multiple Russians and was cleared to do so and meet with them asking “How is that not collusion?” [It is exactly collusion.]
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Federal court blocks enforcement of Trump’s transgender military ban.
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Politico Reports that Jared Kushner made a secret trip to Saudi Arabia last week allegedly to push forward the $110 Million arms deal Trump announced earlier this year during his own trip to the region, but there may be more to it...
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Conway says Trump is not focused on the Russia investigation, meanwhile he generates six tweets complaining about it and asking why they aren't investigating Hillary Clinton and Fusion GPS. [Because they don’t need too, nitwit.]
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John Podesta’s brother Tony steps down from his lobbying firm amid allegations he's being looked at by Mueller because he had worked with Manafort on some deals.
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Manafort’s attorney Kevin Downey complains that FARA has only been charged 6 times and only obtained one conviction and he claims the charges of holding his money offshore to avoid paying U.S. taxes as “ridiculous” then storms off.
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October 31st —
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An Uzbekistan immigrant Sayfullo Saipov drives a Home Depot truck down the bike path in NYC killing 8 people and injures 11 more. He’s shot and captured by police, his social media indicates connections to ISIS.
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Trump blames Chuck Schumer for the New York Truck attack claiming that he entered the nation 7 years ago due to a Schumer supported Diversity Visa program, however that was a bipartisan bill that was signed in 1990 by George H.W. Bush and since then Schumer had supported ending that program in 2013 as part of comprehensive immigration reform which was blocked by Republicans. He also considers sending Saipov to Gitmo.
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Google, Facebook and Twiiter execs appear before Senate Judiciary to explain why they didn’t recognize that political ads were being paid for in rubles, it doesn't go well. Not at all.
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John Kelly tells Laura Ingraham that he’ll never apologize to Rep. Frederica Wilson, that “Robert E. Lee was an honorable man who chose his State over his country” and that the Civil war could have been avoided if they had been “more willing to compromise”. He also calls for a Special Counsel to investigate Democrats, Uranium One and the Steele Dossier. [Yep, he’s Trump’s “Boy” alright.]
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WaPo reports that Papadopoulos attempted to broker a meeting between Trump campaign member Boris Ephsteyn and Sergei Millian who was apparently Christopher Steele’s source for the “golden showers” story.
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Robert E. Lee’s descendants blast Kelly’s statements and asks him to stop Trump from “enacting Racist policies.” Actor Wendell Pierce responds to Kelly “They raped my grandmother, lynched my uncle… you racist pr*ck’ Ta-nahisi Coates blasts Trump pointing out that allowing slavery to exist in certain states at all — with the Missouri Compromise, the three-fifths compromise, and the Fugitives Slave Act compromise since several northern states wouldn’t implement the Fugitive Slave clause requiring them to recover runaways save — were themselves a series of compromises that were made and the South STILL wasn’t satisfied, and that Lincoln wasn’t an abolitionist at all, he instead had offered to pay slave owners reparations to send Blacks back to Africa and they still wouldn’t do it.
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Huckabee-Sanders defends Kelly’s statements on the Civil War and Robert E. Lee claiming “all our leaders have flaws” and berates reporters for turning his clearly bigoted and ignorant comments into “something they aren’t” — which was bigoted and ignorant— and claims it's “disgusting and absurd to suggest anyone in the WH would support Slavery” which apparently Kelly thinks defending was “honorable”
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Twitter trolls dupe Don Jr. into promoting another conspiracy theory that’s nearly as bad as Pizza-gate.
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Lowendowski whines that the FBI should have warned Trump not to hire Manafort — yeah, but Obama directly warned him not to hire Flynn in the first place and we all know how that turned out, right?
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North Koren tunnels used in their nuclear tests collapses killing 200 people.
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November 1st -—
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November 2nd —
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November 3rd —
- Judge denies Veselnitskaya request to re-enter the U.S.
- Trial date for Manafort and Gates is set for May 7th.
- Online Bots stoke racism in midst of Virginia Governors race in support of GOPer Ed Gillespie
- The Daily Stormer decides to make Papa John’s the official pizza of the Alt-Right.
- Don Lemon smashes a Trumpsters attempt to divert attention away from the Mueller Russia investigation onto the Hillary/Uranium One deal with a few sentences.
- AP reports that Guccifer 2.0 altered some of Podesta’s emails before releasing them including adding the word “Confidential” falsely in order to get reporters to notice them more.
- Franken slams Sessions ‘He either has a terrible memory or he is deliberately not telling me the truth’. [I’ll take Door #2 johnny.]
- ICE releases Rosa Maria Hernandez a 10 year-old girl with Cerabral Palsey they had be detaining due to an ACLU lawsuit.
- Trump demands the Supreme Court punish lawyers from the ACLU who helped a teen girl in ICE detention complete the abortion she wanted, showing he really doesn’t understand how the legal system works at all, if they acted improperly he should file a complaint with the Bar association.
- Surprising absolutely no one with a brain the Las Vegas/Route 91 shooter was a Trump supporter, as were I would guess, many of the people he shot.
- Nadya from Pussy Riot tells Lawrence O’Donnell how similar Trump is to Putin. “We pay for them to tell us bullshit. Putin likes him because he has no political beliefs, he doesn’t believe in Democracy or Human Rights.”
- After a Judge spares jail time for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl following his guilty plea for desertion in 2009 just before he was captured by the Taliban — Trump calls it a “disgrace”, because of course he does ignoring the fact that his own calls for Bergdahl’s execution helped prompt the final decision because the Judge Col. Jeffery R. Nance of the Army, said during a hearing late last month that Trump’s public comments about the case would be treated as “mitigation evidence.” Trump has also called for the NYC Truck attacker to be sent to Gitmo and executed even though he hasn’t even been tried yet.
- Keith Olbermann battles Meghan McCain on The View over whether Trump is more damaging to the nation than Bin Laden & the Iraq War.
- Trump’s Mar-a-Lago is hiring 70 foreign workers on H-2B visas this winter — a 9 percent boost from last year.
- Steve Bannon’s attempts to influence and communicate with the WH violates ethics laws that prevent former Exec branch employees from talking to people at their former job for at least a year.
- Former Kremlin “political technologist” Gleb Pavlovsky tells PBS Frontline that Putin believes that he was responsible for Trump winning the election. He doesn't say that Putin and Trump worked together for that goal.
- Trump who just last week said he had "one of the great memories of all time” in his dispute with Gold Star widow Myeshia Johnson says he doesn’t remember much about George Papadopoulus bragging that he’d made multiple contacts with Russians and had pitched for Trump to personally meet Putin. He also tweet/demands that the FBI investigate Dems and Clinton’s emails, [which they did already], Podesta’s emails [which they are now because they were stolen by Russian intelligence], Uranium One [which Hillary wasn’t involved in] and the Steele Dossier [which is proving more and more accurate as time passes].
- Newsweek publishes a list of 2,752 now deactivated twitter bots used by Russia’s Internet Research Service/Glavset during the election. Some are obviously Russian, but others claim to be “News” like “@DallasTopNews” or “@MilwaukeeVoice”, various Western individuals like “@MaryRobinson111, some pretend to be activist groups “@NotMyHeritage, @LgbtRally and @BlacktivistsUS” or GOP outlets “@10_gop, @TEN_GOP, @realTEN_GOP and @ELEVEN_GOP.” or Democrats “@NewYorkDem.”
- NYTimes reports that Carter Page has testified before the Mueller Grand Jury.
- November 4th —
- November 5th —
- November 6th —
- Bloomberg reports that Veselnitskaya said during a television interview in Moscow that Don Jr. was open to reversing the Magnitski act: “Looking ahead, if we come to power, we can return to this issue and think what to do about it,” she recalled Trump Jr. telling her at the 2016 meeting. “I understand our side may have messed up, but it’ll take a long time to get to the bottom of it.” which sounds like a Logan Act violation and a “Theft of Honest Services.” And that he asked for it in exchange for evidence that Clinton’s campaign accepted illegal donations connected to tax evasion, which Veselnitskaya didn’t bring. She says the meeting was a failure, but that she’d be willing to testify before the Senate in open session.
- Former Federal Prosecutor Renato Moriotti says Don Jr. could be at serious criminal risk based on Veselnitskaya’s interview, particularly if he asked for the “dirt” on Clinton in exchange for modifying the Magnitski Act.
- The Paradise Papers are released which documented millions of financial transactions and loans. At least 13 allies, major donors and Cabinet members of U.S. President Donald Trump appear in the docs, including Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross’s interests in a shipping company that makes millions from an energy firm whose owners include Russian President Vladimir Putin’s son-in-law and a sanctioned Russian tycoon,"
- During his semi-sane rambling 8-hour House testimony Carter Page:
- Confirms that the blocking of the RNC platform plank was implemented by JD Gordon from the team by providing an email from himself to Gordon.
- He had bragged about “some incredible insights and outreach” he received from “a few Russian legislators and senior members of the Presidential administration here”, but that appears to have resulted mostly from watching Russian TV, not personal contacts.
- He met the deputy Prime Minister Arkadiy Dvorkovich, a fact which he had never previously disclosed — but seems to nearly confirm one of the memos from the Steele Dossier. According to Steele Page met Divyekin who had told him the Kremlin had damaging information on Hillary Clinton they wanted to give the Trump campaign (which is the 3rd time this has been reported it happened with Papadopoulous and Don Jr.).
- Page also confirmed that he “possibly” had contacted Andrey Baranov, the head of investor relations at the Russian oil company Rosneft in advance of his July 2016 visit — which also sounds much like the Steele claim that he met Rosneft head, Igor Sechin, which has been confirmed by U.S. Intelligence sources.
- Page states that Baranov “may have briefly mentioned” the sale of a significant portion of Rosneft stock — a sale which was again predicted in the Steele Dossier, and took place one day before the election, exactly one year ago, and was revealed publicly on Dec 7th.
- He sent an email on May 16, 2016 suggesting Trump visit Russia — just like Papadopoulos — “to raise the temperature a little bit.”
- The Magistrate Judge in the Manafort/Gates cases expresses skepticism that they should forego GPS monitoring for them as flight risks.
- Woman cyclist who had flipped Trump’s motorcade the bird is fired from her government contractor job.
- Trump says the Texas Shooting isn’t a “Gun Situation” claiming it has to do with “mental health” even though there are no reports yet that the shooter wasn’t diagnosed with emotional problems, and that the solution to mass shootings is having more people with Guns — which he says while he’s in Japan which doesn’t allow open gun ownership and doesn’t have any mass shootings.
- Texas Shooter Devin Patrick Kelley appears to have been attempting to attack his ex-wife and in laws who had attended Sutherland Springs Church but they weren’t present at the time of his attack, he had purchased 4 guns in the last few years even though the FBI should have been notified that he had been convicted in a military court martial of spousal and child violence and been incarcerated for 12 months. After being released he had a Bad Conduct discharge from the Air Force which denied him all benefits, including mental health coverage and anger management counseling. 26 people died from his assault, including the pastors 14 year-old girl and a 17 month old baby.
- The Texas shooter had been driven off by a neighbor with his own AR-15 who ran out barefoot when he heard the shots, he managed to hit him in the side between his body armor, then twice more in the as he fled in a car. He pursed him with the help of a passing driver for 11 miles until he finally stopped and was found him dead from a self-inflicted wound.
- Anthony Weiner begins his 21-month prison sentence.
- Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman — who has already visited Trump in the WH house and met privately with Jared Kushner — stages a round-up off all challengers to his ascension to King, Trump says he “knows what he’s doing.”
- Kevin Spacey is fired from House of Cards as a result of the many allegations of sexual harassment hurled against him, in addition to complaints from Anthony Rapp and Richard Dreyfuss’ son, Harry.
- Papa John’s tells Nazi’s “Dont eat out pizza” and I’m just sure they’re gonna listen.
- Lara Trump sends out a Tweet that attempts to yet again link Hillary and Obama to a socialist scheme attributed to Saul Alinski that he never actually wrote.
- The Air Force admits that they didn’t add Kelley’s domestic violence conviction and prison sentence into the NCIC which would have prevented his weapons purchases.
- November 7th—
[There are also previous incremental updates to the timeline which highlight and focus specific events at about one week intervals for Oct 30th, Oct 25th, Oct 11th, Oct 4th, Sept 27, Sept 22, Sept. 17, Sept. 11th, Sept 4th, August 24th, August 17th, August 4th, July 28th, July 14th, July 10th, July 9th, July 4th, June 21st, June 18th, June 14th, June 12th, June 9th, June 6th, and June 2nd.]