Russiagate Update: Calm before the hammer drops?
Welcome to Monday. Brace for more Mueller time!
- The Hill is not the only publication that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of ties between Russian actors and Trump’s campaign and administration is about to unleash something game-changing. That being said, the GOP-leaning Capitol Hill daily, which of late has taken an editorial bent none too friendly to one Donald J. Trump, put it best in a somewhat lengthy but consistently juicy article.
Mueller’s sprawling investigation has spawned a new guessing game in Washington centered on retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, President Trump’s former national security adviser. … The question for many is whether — or when — Flynn will be indicted by Mueller. Others speculate that he might already be cooperating with the special counsel’s investigation. - Remember that “Russian professor” and alleged Kremlin apparatchik that Trump campaign advisor George Papadopoulos liaised with? The ol’ prof has surfaced in a 2016 photograph with London mayor Boris Johnson posted to Twitter. How terribly inconvenient for Team Brexit!
- There has been a mound of chatter about Donald Trump’s obsequious comments about Vladimir Putin (and Xi Jinping, for that matter). Heck, Trump won’t even argue with Putin over evidence of election interference! (A “clarification” cane off as clumsy and inept.) He even dissed former US intelligence leaders as “political hacks.” Naturally, Deep State Nation calls attention to Trump not wanting you to remember, let alone believe, all those things about Putin that everyone heard him say!
- The CIA pushed back at Trump’s comments, reaffirming Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
The Atlantic‘s David Frum looks at Trump’s recent and past comments about Putin and Russia, along with his refusal to secure the nation’s voting system, and argues that Trump’s actions are not those “of an innocent man, however vain, stubborn, or uniformed.” It’s a short, terse, and worthy read.- Vanity Fair has a dishy article on Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump you may have missed (you’ll love the title) that includes this delicious morsel:
During the weekend before Mueller’s first indictments were unsealed, three sources who spoke to Kushner or were familiar with his conversations told me that he worked the phones asking about whether they thought the investigation would amount to anything. “They’re in a world of shit,” one of the people close to the family told me. “He may seem cool, but he’s sweating, and she’s like her father. She’ll never acknowledge it and [will] blame the media. But she’s been working on her reputation forever, and now it’s going to suffer horrifically. And for what?”
-
The delegate to the 2016 Republican National Convention who introduced the pro-Ukraine plank to the party platform has now hired a DC defense lawyer. https://t.co/OLAjvoaW33
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) November 12, 2017
Also worth a look:
- Sally Yates: Trump is ‘shamelessly unpatriotic’ for Russian election meddling comments
- Frank Rich: Trump’s defense of Putin lends “credence to theory that dementia is in the mix”
— compiled with Dave “Doctor Gonzo” and Gene Gaudette
