Email to Donald Trump Jr. could be a smoking gun, as Russia connections deepen: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...3e8eee9b69b7071abcb06/?utm_term=.5df77d0e4a06 THE BIG IDEA: There is a paper trail. Last night, the New York Times reported: “Before arranging a meeting with a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer he believed would offer him compromising information about Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump Jr. was informed in an email that the material was part of a Russian government effort to aid his father’s candidacy, according to three people with knowledge of the email. The email to the younger Mr. Trump was sent by Rob Goldstone, a publicist and former British tabloid reporter who helped broker the June 2016 meeting... ... In a new statement, Goldstone confirmed what Trump Jr. said Sunday: that he enticed the then-candidate’s son by indicating that (Natalia) Veselnitskaya could provide damaging information about Democrats … “The involvement of the Agalarovs brings the meeting closer to Trump’s past business interests and to the Kremlin... ...LAWYERING UP: Trump Jr., 39, has hired criminal defense lawyer Alan Futerfas to represent him in the Russia probes. His past clients have included alleged organized-crime associates... ...White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders claimed during her off-camera briefing that the president only learned of his son’s meeting with Veselnitskaya “in the last couple of days.” Don Jr. also said in his Sunday statement that his father “knew nothing of the meeting or these events.” This is very hard to believe. Don Jr. pulled in his brother-in-law, Jared Kushner, and campaign chairman Paul Manafort. “This was three people who were closer to him and to the campaign than just about anybody else,” Aaron Blake explains. “This meeting was seen as significant enough for all three of them to make a point to attend, and yet nobody shared details of the meeting with the guy whose campaign they were acting as members of? The president is going to have to address this.”
and now for a brief message from our cousins from across the pond. Would you yanks kindly hurry up and get on with impeachment please? http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-40566786
2018 midterm will show if you are right or wrong. Lots of unusual things lined up for Trump to win. Not likely again.
Right on cue, the media roll out another phony scandal as Trump returns home from a triumphant European trip. Even if you believe every aspect of this, it adds up to what...Trump Jr met with someone who claimed to have damaging material on Hillary? IOW exactly what John McCain did with respect to Trump.
Trump dysfunction follows family from the campaign to the White House: THE BIG IDEA: The Trumps are congenitally unable to take personal responsibility. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...5112ee9b69b7071abcb0e/?utm_term=.db1a29f4dc7e
Justice Department Defies Court Deadline To Release Sessions' Contacts With Russians July 13, 20176:28 AM ET http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-...dline-to-release-sessions-contacts-with-russi In defiance of a court order, the Justice Department is refusing to release part of a security form dealing with Attorney General Jeff Sessions' contacts with the Russian government. On June 12, a judge had ordered the agency to provide the information within 30 days, a deadline which passed on Wednesday. A recently-launched ethics watchdog group called American Oversight filed a Freedom of Information Act request in March for sections of the Standard Form 86 relating to Sessions' contacts "with any official of the Russian government." The group then filed a lawsuit in April after it said the government didn't provide the documents. "Jeff Sessions is our nation's top law enforcement officer, and it is shocking one of his first acts after being named Attorney General was to mislead his own agency about a matter of national security," the group's executive director, Austin Evers, said in a statement. He continued: "The court gave DOJ thirty days to produce Attorney General Sessions's security clearance form, DOJ has already confirmed its contents to the press and Sessions has testified about it to Congress, so there is no good reason to withhold this document from the public." SF86, is a very detailed form required to be filled out for obtaining security clearance for certain government positions. It's the same form presidential adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner has recently had to revise after omitting meetings with Russian officials. Sessions has admitted to speaking with Russia's ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak, at least twice in 2016, which he did not disclose at his confirmation hearing. But in June Sessions testified to senators that the "suggestion that I participated in any collusion" with the Russian government "is an appalling and detestable lie." American Oversight says it's nonpartisan, but its staff have connections to Democrats, according to USA Today. A status conference in the case is scheduled for 10 a.m. Thursday at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
The Daily 202: Trump’s children become bigger liabilities for the White House, complicate damage-control efforts https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...7dc63e9b69b7071abcb2e/?utm_term=.b8da616767b8 THE BIG IDEA: You can’t fire family. A voter asked Hillary Clinton during one of the debates last October to say something positive about Donald Trump. Amid an especially nasty campaign — when her opponent was encouraging chants of “lock her up” during his rallies — she didn’t hesitate. “I respect his children,” the former secretary of state said. “His children are incredibly able and devoted and I think that says a lot about Donald.” Clinton certainly wouldn’t give that answer anymore, especially after what’s transpired this week. -- Trump yesterday defended Donald Jr.’s sit-down with a Russian attorney during last year’s campaign, saying “zero” improprieties occurred and “most people would have taken” the meeting. “My son is a wonderful young man,” the president said during a news conference in Paris. “He's a good boy,” the president added during a gaggle on Air Force One. “He's a good kid.” In fact, Don Jr. is 39. He’s the same age as the president of France, Emmanuel Macron, who was standing next to Trump when he gave that quote. Both kids/boys/young men — whatever he wants to call them — were born in 1977. Don Jr. pulled his brother-in-law Jared Kushner, who is 36, into a meeting with someone he was told had dirt on Clinton from the Russian government. Then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who is 68, also attended. A youthful indiscretion this was not. It’s also a reminder that you don’t have to be young to be stupid. Perhaps most importantly, though, Trump’s spirited defense offered a window into how much more complex dealing with the Russia scandal is for the White House when multiple members of the president’s family are now implicated. -- Trump’s embrace of a kind of nepotism that’s historically been more common in banana republics than the first world continues to backfire on him — creating a myriad of legal and political headaches.And they’re probably only going to get worse. -- Trump has no problem shunting aside staff when he concludes that they’ve outlived their usefulness to him or become more trouble than they’re worth. In addition to Manafort, there’s a cast of characters from Sam Nunberg to Corey Lewandowski, Carter Page and Michael Flynn. Other fall guys have been left in Trump’s wake, especially if you broaden your time horizon to include the casinos he drove into bankruptcy and his many other failures in business... The article continues at length to skewer the Trump Team. Must reading
President Trump contradicts son, indicates he knew about meeting with Russian lawyer: A reversal from what he said hours earlier. https://thinkprogress.org/trump-contradicts-himself-on-russian-lawyer-meeting-a73c7d9420b1