According to flight records uncovered by Bloomberg when Trump told James Comey that he “didn’t even spend the night” in Moscow as part of his counter-argument against the Russian Hookers allegation — He. Was. Lying.
President Donald Trump twice gave James Comey an alibi for why a salacious report about the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow couldn’t be true: He never even spent the night in Russia during that trip, Trump told the former FBI director, according to Comey’s memos about the conversations.
Yet the broad timeline of Trump’s stay, stretching from Friday, Nov. 8, 2013, through the following Sunday morning, has been widely
reported. And it’s substantiated by social media posts that show he slept in Moscow the night before the Miss Universe contest.
Now, flight records obtained by Bloomberg provide fresh details. Combined with existing accounts and Trump’s own social-media posts, they capture two days that, nearly five years later, loom large in the controversy engulfing the White House and at the heart of the Comey memos, which the Justice Department turned over last week to Congress.
Bloomberg lays out the details of the timeline showing that Trump landed in Moscow on Fri Nov 8th just a mile from the Ritz Carlton, he took a tour of Moscow the next day after staying over night then attended the Miss Universe Pageant and an after party that lasted until 1 am, ultimately leaving by plane at 3 am that morning and arriving back in Newark about 4.a.m local time.
But that’s not the part that disturbs me, it’s the fact that when by lying to Comey about the trip in this way Trump may have violated the exact same law that Michael Flynn, George Papadopoulos and Alex Van der Zwaan have all pleaded guilty to and Andrew McCabe has been accused of — lying to a Federal Officer.
Under 18 U.S. Code § 1001 — Lying to a Law Enforcement Officer is a crime, even if you aren’t under oath.
(a)Except as otherwise provided in this section, whoever, in any matter within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of the Government of the United States, knowingly and willfully—
(1) falsifies, conceals, or covers up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact;
(2) makes any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent
statement or representation; or
(3) makes or uses any false writing or document knowing the same to contain any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent
statement or entry;
shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 5 years or, if the
offense involves international or domestic terrorism (as defined in
section 2331), imprisoned not more than 8 years, or both. If the matter relates to an offense under chapter 109A, 109B, 110, or 117, or section 1591, then the term of imprisonment imposed under this section shall be not more than 8 years.
This is actually part of the protocols of why, except for briefings, communications between the White Houae and the DOJ are supposed to be handled between the White House Counsel and Attorney General or their Deputies, not between the FBI Director and the President or his Chief of Staff.
Even though Comey explained this protocol to Priebus in detail after he had asked whether there was a FISA Warrant on Micheal Flynn, he then immediately took Comey into yet another face-to-face meeting with Trump.
It’s also been established in Comey’s memos — which are admissible as evidence even without any further testimony by Comey himself — that on at least two occasions Trump claimed that “he never stayed the night” in Moscow.
According to Comey’s accounts of his 2017 meetings with the president, Trump said the Moscow trip was so quick that his head never hit a pillow -- even for one night. Trump fired Comey on May 9, 2017.
The first denial came over dinner at the White House in late January 2017. “He said he arrived in the morning, did events, then showered and dressed for the pageant at the hotel," and then left for the event, Comey wrote. “Afterwards, he returned only to get his things because they departed for New York by plane that same night."
That story has now been proven to be a lie, and is corroborated by the testimony of Trump’s own personal body guard Keith Schiller who also stated that Trump stayed the night.
Testifying before Congress last November, Schiller said that a Russian man he didn’t know offered to send five women to Trump’s hotel room. According to an NBC News report about the testimony, Schiller said that although he interpreted the offer as a joke, he discussed it with Trump as they walked back to his hotel room before each of them turned in for the night.
Others such as Sam Nunberg have stated that Schiller told them that Russian man who had offered the hookers was Emin Agalarov.
Based on his own Facebook posts, the flight records and the sworn testimony of Schiller — Trump lied to a Federal Officer.
But wait that’s not the only crime of Trump’s that’s been exposed today. CNN has reported that Trump has been using his own personal cell phone to reach out to friends and supporters in order to avoid the filtering of his input by Chief of Staff John Kelly.
(CNN)President Donald Trump is increasingly relying on his personal cell phone to contact outside advisers, multiple sources inside and outside the White House told CNN, as Trumpreturns to the free-wheeling mode of operation that characterized the earliest days of his administration.
"He uses it a lot more often more recently," a senior White House official said of the President's cell phone.
Sources cited Trump's stepped-up cell phone use as an example of chief of staff John Kelly's waning influence over who gets access to the President. During the early days of Kelly's tenure, multiple sources said, Trump made many of his calls from the White House switchboard -- a tactic that allowed the chief of staff to receive a printed list of who Trump had phoned. Kelly has less insight into who Trump calls on his personal cell phone.
Ducking John Kelly is a personnel issue, but what could be a criminal issue is violating the Presidential Records Act by not using official communications channels and methods.
(1) The term "documentary material" means all books, correspondence, memoranda, documents, papers, pamphlets, works of art, models, pictures, photographs, plats, maps, films, and motion pictures, including, but not limited to, audio and visual records, or other electronic or mechanical recordations, whether in analog, digital, or any other form.
(2) The term "Presidential records" means documentary materials, or any reasonably segregable portion thereof, created or received by the President, the President’s immediate staff, or a unit or individual of the Executive Office of the President whose function is to advise or assist the President, in the course of conducting activities which relate to or have an effect upon the carrying out of the constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties of the President.
…
(a) In General- The President, the Vice President, or a covered employee may not create or send a Presidential or Vice Presidential record using a non-official electronic message account unless the President, Vice President, or covered employee--
(1) copies an official electronic messaging account of the President, Vice President, or covered employee in the original creation or transmission of the Presidential record or Vice Presidential record; or
(2) forwards a complete copy of the Presidential or Vice Presidential record to an official electronic messaging account of the President, Vice President, or covered employee not later than 20 days after the original creation or transmission of the Presidential or Vice Presidential record.
There’s also the fact that he doing this on his personal phone when he supposedly does have a secure Secret Service phone, but again since he’s trying to avoid John Kelly knowing who he’s talking and that phone would clearly have all it’s incoming and outgoing call tracked and recorded — under the PRA — but he is far more likely to still be using the same five year old unsecured Samsung Galaxy S3 that he’s been using to tweet with for years.
And here’s the thing, if I KNOW that he’s using an old Galaxy S3, you can bet that the security and spy services a many nations around the world know it too meaning that phone is clearly open to being potentially hacked or surveilled by enemy agents.
In fact if the FBI for example wanted to surveil Trump’s phone they could remotely turn it into an open air microphone.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the FBI employs a number of high-tech hacker tactics in its efforts to round up information on suspects, including the ability to remotely activate microphones on Android devices and notebook computers, according to one of its sources who is described as a “former U.S. official.” These and other tools are brought to bear in cases related to organized crime, counterterrorism or child pornography, according to the WSJ report.
The tools it uses are both internally and externally sourced, with some coming from the private sector. Hacking at the FBI under court order has gradually increased, as law enforcement officials try to find ways to circumvent new communication tech that’s more resistant to traditional surveillance methods like wiretapping. The specifics of its methods are not generally brought to light in public, but a warrant from earlier this year revealed that one request involved using a computer’s built-in camera to take photos of a suspect without their knowledge. The request in that case was denied.
That report was from 2013 and if the FBI knows how to do this you can absolutely bet that the FSB and the GRU know how to do it too.
And we were supposedly all upset about Hillary private email server because why again?