‘Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown’ - as it should be! Trump thread continued.

[TheClaws]

From Shakespeake’s Henry IV, Act 3 Scene 1.

Old thread: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3094156-All-we-want-for-Christmas-is-an-IMPEACHMENT-Trump-cont

Silence Breakers for Time PoTY was guessed at on my FB, a few weeks ago.

I wonder how much a magazine like Time sells in Alabama, though.

Perhaps the pushback to the pushback against women's rights will be what saves us

Kyle Griffin1‏
@kylegriffin1
Democrat Jen Jordan won a special election runoff in Georgia's 6th Senate district last night, flipping the seat.

Jordan’s win breaks the Republican supermajority in Georgia’s state senate.

twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/938400259931365376

A Yank in OZ‏
@dennissheehy
look what @RT_com tweeted out several hours ago, before @TIME announced the winner... strange.

As Yemen burns, Time readers vote Saudi Crown Prince person of the year [I won't include the link]

but remember that person of the year can be the very best or the very worst

I thought that 45 would be a shoo-in for Person of the Year. I was wrong - and glad to be wrong.

That is one heck of a Time article. Some statement and some tactic.

Im sure he will just print up his own front copy (again)

I wish I'd been a fly on the wall in the Time editorial room.

Im sure he will just print up his own front copy (again)

I imagine the person responsible for bringing him his daily good news is busy photo shopping one as we type

Gates and Manafort are different to Papadopulous and Flynn because they're fighting the charges. Interesting to see how Mueller tackles them

More charges could be coming against former Trump aide in Russia probe

edition.cnn.com/2017/12/05/politics/rick-gates-indictments/index.html

(CNN)Robert Mueller may not be through with Rick Gates, a deputy Trump campaign aide and one of the four people who have been charged as part of the special counsel probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

In a court appearance Monday in Manhattan, Gates' attorney Walter Mack said that federal prosecutors have told him that more charges, called superseding indictments, may be coming.

"We don't know what the government is going to do," Mack said in court, referring to both Gates' case and a white-collar case in New York involving one of Gates' business partners. "I mean, in both cases we've been told that there may be a superseder. We don't know what's happening."

Mueller charged President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his deputy, Gates, on October 30 with 12 alleged crimes related to money laundering and foreign lobbying violations. Both have pleaded not guilty. The charges against Manafort and Gates are unrelated to the Trump campaign, though it's possible Mueller could add additional federal charges.

Mack represents both Gates in DC and his business partner in New York. Neither is a witness or co-defendant in the other's case, federal prosecutors say, but attorneys from Mueller's special counsel investigation have raised the possibility that a conflict of interest could arise between the two men and their attorney.

The indictments came almost six months after Mueller assumed the federal investigation into Russian collusion, yet so far the charges have not directly related to Manafort and Gates' work for the Trump campaign or to Russian foreign policy.

This week, lawyers working for Mueller revealed that Manafort was ghostwriting an op-ed about Ukraine with a Russian as recently as last Thursday. It's unclear how the investigators found this new information, as the op-ed was never published. The prosecutors have
submitted it to the court under seal.

The ghostwriting revelation puts a proposed bail deal for Manafort in question. He and Gates are both currently under house arrest and GPS monitoring and subject to $10 million and $5 million unsecured bond, respectively. The federal prosecutors argue they're both flight risks.

Manafort's lawyers are expected to respond to the op-ed accusation by Thursday, and both Manafort and Gates are scheduled to appear in court December 11.

It's not unusual for federal prosecutors to charge defendants in white-collar cases once part of their investigation is complete, then bring additional charges later on. Typically, a second round of charges can come if the prosecutors had more work to do in certain aspects of the investigation or if they're attempting to persuade a defendant toward a plea agreement or cooperation in a broader investigation.

Two targets in Mueller's investigation, Michael Flynn and George Papadopoulos, have already pleaded guilty to charges of lying to investigators.

The other case that Gates' lawyer is working on involves three defendants who allegedly took part in a scheme to defraud feature film and documentary movie investors. Mack's client, Steven Brown, has pleaded not guilty and is scheduled for a trial in March.
Gates was a partner in one of the companies caught up in those charges. Gates is not accused of wrongdoing in the New York case.

The New York judge verified in a hearing Monday that Brown understood the possibility of a conflict of interest and chose to keep Mack as his attorney.

Mack declined to comment, as did a spokesperson with the special counsel's office.

The judge in Gates' case in DC has ordered the lawyers involved not to make comments that could influence public perception of Gates and Manafort, and not to share documents outside of the official court proceedings. Mack mentioned those restrictions in his court appearance in New York Monday, calling them and the prosecutors' ability to bring up new information about Gates, such as his connection to Brown, "unfair."

Surprise surprise (although actually, there was some talk about how he might not at one point but on the whole I think this was expected)

The Associated Press
@AP

BREAKING: Vladimir Putin declares his intention to seek re-election as Russian president.

Yeah not exactly a surprise there Pain Would be a surprise if he doesn't win though (well "win")

Tokyo Sand‏
@DHStokyo
9m9 minutes ago
More
Look closely at the cover. One of the accusers only has her arm in the picture. She stands for those with #metoo stories who haven’t or can’t be completely public.

what the hell is trump doing meddling in Israel?

Fools rush in ...

www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2017/12/06/donald-trump-jr-faces-a-grilling-today-here-are-some-big-questions/?utm_term=.ed636bb672e7

Donald J. Trump‏Verified account
@realDonaldTrump
24m24 minutes ago
More
MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

Is that it? Did he fall asleep mid SHOUTY TWEET?

His shouting MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN is usually when he's riled. He knows Donnie Jr is being questioned and the net is tightening (hopefully)

'DONNY'S GETTING ANGRY!!!!'

House Russia investigators to interview colleagues Rohrabacher, Wasserman Schultz

edition.cnn.com/2017/12/04/politics/house-russia-investigators-interview-rohrabacher-wasserman-schultz/index.html

This is scary weird.

www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/06/us-embassy-attack-cuba-brain-abnormalities-victims

I read about that. Weird indeed.

Don't forget that it's alleged to have happened else where too - though the State department refute it - and guess who the prime suspects are?

Alleged Sonic Attack at U.S.-Uzbek Embassy Raises Suspicions of Russian Involvement in Cuba Attacks

www.thedailybeast.com/reported-sonic-siege-at-us-uzbek-embassy-raises-suspicions-of-russian-involvement-in-cuba-attacks

Did Sean Spicer Violate a Court Order Barring Republicans From Suppressing Votes?

The expiration of a key court settlement could open the door to new GOP voter suppression efforts.

www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/12/did-sean-spicer-violate-a-court-order-barring-republicans-from-suppressing-votes/#

An excerpt:

In 1981, during a campaign for governor in New Jersey, the Republican National Committee launched a “Ballot Security Task Force” that sent sample ballots to voters in predominantly African American and Hispanic precincts. When 45,000 letters were returned as undeliverable, the RNC tried to remove the voters from the rolls. To challenge those voters if they showed up to cast a ballot, it hired off-duty cops to patrol polling sites in black and Hispanic neighborhoods in Newark and Trenton. The officers carried firearms and wore armbands reading “National Ballot Security Task Force,” and the RNC posted large signs at the polling places saying, “Warning: This area is being patrolled by the National Ballot Security Task Force. It is a crime to falsify a ballot or to violate election laws.”

Republican Tom Kean Sr. defeated Democrat Jim Florio by 1,797 votes in the closest governor’s race in New Jersey history. (One of Kean’s top advisors, Roger Stone, later advised Donald Trump.) “There was no doubt in my mind enough people were intimidated not to show up at the polls,” Florio told WNYC.

After the election, the Democratic National Committee won a court settlement ordering the RNC to “refrain from undertaking any ballot security activities” anywhere in the country. That 35-year-old consent decree expired last Friday, potentially allowing the Republican Party to undertake new voter suppression efforts, such as purging voting rolls and challenging voters at the polls, under the guise of combatting voter fraud.

But there is a still a chance that a federal court could extend the consent decree because of the actions of former Trump press secretary Sean Spicer. On Wednesday afternoon, lawyers for the DNC will depose Spicer to see whether he violated the court order.

In an interview with GQ published in November, Spicer said he visited the fifth floor of Trump Tower on Election Day, when he was communications director for the RNC. The fifth floor was where the Trump campaign ran poll-monitoring operations. Campaign workers were instructed to contact officials there if they witnessed any “voter fraud” across the country. There were clear signs on the doors instructing RNC staff to stay away from that floor in order to avoid violating the consent decree. “It was a sign you can’t miss,” one person present that night told Politico. “It was pretty glaring.”

“The Trump campaign made it abundantly clear prior to the election that it would be conducting ballot-security efforts,” DNC lawyer Angelo Genova wrote to the court. “And Exhibit A shows that a senior RNC official was at the nerve center of those efforts on Election Day.”

Thanks, Pain.