Even if you subpoena us, we won't turn up on the Trump threads

[PerkingFaintly]

Oh whoops, here we are.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3180160-Trump-talk-HOW-MUCH-for-that-inauguration?pg=1

(poster formally known as saffron)

worth a read lawfareblog.com/constitutional-limits-white-house-interference-specific-enforcement-matters

The president must take care that the law is executed faithfully, in keeping with his Oath of Office to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution.” He may not act for corrupt or self-interested reasons inconsistent with his oath.

It surely will, lion.

Thanks Quantum.

www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/12/tsa-surveillance-laptops-cellphones-domestic-flights

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/russia-spy-attack-rex-tillerson-poisoning-clearly-from-russia-sergei-skripal-latest-a8252816.html

Russia spy attack: US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says nerve agent 'clearly' came from Russia
Mr Tillerson vows the attack will 'trigger consequences'.

5 Feb 2018
Devin Nunes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee:
“As far as we can tell, Papadopoulos never even had met with the president.”
www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/devin-nunes-memo_us_5a788b57e4b01fe513a60603

13 Mar 2018
Mike Conaway, House Intelligence Committee:
"We found no evidence of collusion"
edition.cnn.com/2018/03/12/politics/house-republicans-russia-conclusions/index.html

Mm-hm. I think I'll wait to hear this from people who haven't been refusing to subpoena witnesses, and haven't been letting Bannon witnesses dodge questions when they do turn up, ta all the same.

More from the same CNN report:

House Republicans break with intelligence community on Russia
edition.cnn.com/2018/03/12/politics/house-republicans-russia-conclusions/index.html

Conaway, for instance, said the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between senior campaign officials and a Russian lawyer where dirt on Clinton was promised was "ill-advised." But he said that the committee did not turn up any evidence of collusion, arguing the promoter who organized the meeting had exaggerated what the Russians would provide.
The committee's report will conclude that they agree with 98% of the intelligence community's January 2017 assessment that Russia meddled in the 2016 election, according to a committee aide.
But the panel's Republicans take issue with the key finding that Putin was trying get Trump elected.
"Bottom line: Russians did commit active measures against our elections in '16, and we think they'll do that in the future," Conaway said. "It's clear they sowed discord in our elections. ... But we couldn't establish the same conclusions the CIA did that they specifically wanted to help Trump."
A summary of the committee's initial findings states that the committee found "concurrence with the Intelligence Community Assessment's judgments, except with respect to Putin's supposed preference for candidate Trump."
James Clapper, who was Director of National Intelligence in the Obama administration when the assessment was released, said he disagreed, noting that US intelligence found Putin had deep animus toward Clinton and saw Trump as more friendly toward Russia.

NB It is of course possible that Donald Trump did not personally collude with the Russians. It's also possible that his campaign did not knowingly collude with the Russians – if we discount Donald Jr's attempts to do so.

Possible.

What the hell does Putin have over Trump?

The right question might be what doesn't he have?

Between tapes and loans and money laundering, narcisim and stupidity, take your pick.

Hello, everyone, just popping in from my real world where my student child is mostly occupying her university's Senate House in support of her academic staff's strike against pension changes. Lovely new thread here, thank you, PerkingFaintly.

Anyhow, I'm here, with my usual apologies if this has already been posted, because I've just found this day old Tweet from Amy Siskind and it terrifies me, the thread of responses is utterly demoralising, also.

“In his shrinking inner-circle, Trump has thrown away all collaborative pretenses and is behaving like a full-on dictator: unilaterally deciding policy, becoming even more irreverent and an outward bully to warn others not to criticize him. He is seizing power now.”

This is not unexpected, but still ... I’m gobsmacked at this move.

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump 5hrs
More
THE HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE HAS, AFTER A 14 MONTH LONG IN-DEPTH INVESTIGATION, FOUND NO EVIDENCE OF COLLUSION OR COORDINATION BETWEEN THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN AND RUSSIA TO INFLUENCE THE 2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

Adam Schiff @RepAdamSchiff
7h7 hours ago
More
BREAKING: GOP just shut down House Intel investigation, leaving questions unanswered, leads unexplored, countless witnesses uncalled, subpoenas unissued.

If Russians have leverage over the President, GOP has decided that it would rather not know. The minority's work continues:

Seems fitting

Good God. So The GOP has more expertise than the whole intelligence community? How convenient.

Natasha Bertrand
@NatashaBertrand
Rep. Chris Stewart just told @andersoncooper that the intelligence community “misinterpreted key intelligence” when it concluded that Putin had a clear preference for Trump. He did not elaborate but said more would be disclosed in full GOP report.

And

Manu Raju
@mkraju
Rooney, speaking on @OutFrontCNN , seems uncertain about finding in report says: The GOP agrees with the "Intelligence Community Assessment’s judgments, except with respect to Putin’s supposed preference for candidate Trump."

Tom Rooney added that he "absolutely" thinks Russians tried to help Trump and hurt Clinton, adds it's just a draft report

Pressed further, Rooney says Russians tried to help and hurt Trump. He said their goal is “chaos.... I certainly think they didn’t like Hillary.”

Also

a thread on how Russia's playbook (note how Nunes' seems to take a page out of their book)

Paula Chertok 🗽
@PaulaChertok
Russian Embassy tweets on spy poisoning is a perfect window into how Russian officials lie, obfuscate, gaslight and troll to deflect Kremlin responsibility. Let's review some Embassy tweets on the poisoning of ex spy #Skripal & daughter in the UK with a chemical weapon last wk 1/

[don't want to copy the whole thread but it can be found here: twitter.com/PaulaChertok/status/973214492443082753 ]

And

Kaivan Shroff
@KaivanShroff
REMINDER: The same House Intelligence Committee Republicans willing to ignore the FBI and CIA in prematurely ending the #RussiaInvestigation demanded SEVEN BENGHAZI INVESTIGATIONS.

BTW, it was not the finding of the House Intel Committee that there was “no collusion”, as POTUS shrieks. It was the finding there was plenty of meddling by Russia before and during the election, and both for and against both sides. As it currently stands, before the investigation was summarily dismissed, collusion is not yet the finding. However, it is a tangled web. The minority committee is still working on it (as is Mueller, apparently).

TheBeat w/Ari Melber
@TheBeatWithAri
FBI asked @NunbergSam about possible Trump payments to women:

Natasha Bertrand
@NatashaBertrand
More Natasha Bertrand Retweeted TheBeat w/Ari Melber
Nunberg: “You have this $130,000 payment after the election from campaign to Trump Org...it seems a little suspect.”
From campaign to Trump Org? After the election?

And

Papadopoulos says that Trump personally encouraged him to arrange meeting with Putin, new book reports [the new book is Michael Isikoff and David Corn's new book - Russian Roulette. Incidentally, both of them appeared on Maddow last night and was portrayed as being very credible]

www.yahoo.com/news/papadopoulos-says-trump-personally-encouraged-arrange-meeting-putin-new-book-reports-010056370.html

And

And

Jasmin Mujanović
@JasminMuj
Please don't take Tillerson naming Russia as responsible for the UK assassination as anything more spin. If he or the admin were serious about curbing malign Kremlin influence they would implement the sanctions Congress passed months ago. They haven't. And that's the story.

Meant to include this too:

Kyle Griffin
@kylegriffin1
These stories all came out TODAY:
—Ivanka still connected to Trump Org. bit.ly/2IlkLSe
—Don Jr. has biz ties to Trump donor who's pitched to the gov't bit.ly/2FLffde
—Qataris believe they have evidence of illicit influence by UAE on Jared

Also re: Qataris

Natasha Bertrand
@NatashaBertrand
This can also be read as Qatar potentially having a huge amount of leverage over the White House.

Slide in authoritarianism:

From lion - the illegal surveillance of laptops and phones

And

US sets new record for censoring, withholding gov’t files

apnews.com/714791d91d7944e49a284a51fab65b85/US-sets-new-record-for-censoring,-withholding-gov't-files

And

'Fake news' smear takes hold among politicians at all levels

“Trump's campaign to discredit the news media has spread to officials at all levels of government, who are echoing his use of the term ‘fake news’ as a weapon against unflattering stories.”
www.apnews.com/amp/4fd6d212e9a3432d9af05574774f7206

There's also lots about complicity of the media:

This is a very good thread that I would recommend reading about balance

David Roberts
@drvox

1. All right, this controversy over conservative columnists in @nytopinion is bugging me. Everyone is dancing around the central point! (The same central point everyone dances around in numerous contemporary controversies.) So I'ma lay it out.

[rest of the thread is here: twitter.com/drvox/status/972915124032888832 ]

And re: continual coverage of Trump's rallies

Greg Sargent
@ThePlumLineGS
Why are smart people pretending not to grasp difference between

1. "covering" a presidential rally, which media should of course do

and

2. giving unfiltered, endless airtime to Trump's nonstop attacks, including on them?

Defend latter if you want, but why conflate the two?

And

Maggie Haberman
@maggieNYT
Trump's challenge for 2020 (if he runs) of claiming that he's had historic accomplishments/improved things while highlighting the bad things he says still go on is on display at this rally.

Soledad O'Brien
@soledadobrien
More Soledad O'Brien Retweeted Maggie Haberman
Won't matter if media continues to give him inordinate amounts of airtime, cover all his rallies non stop (live shot of empty podiums) and give white supremacists lots of airtime.

Maggie Haberman
@maggieNYT
More Maggie Haberman Retweeted Soledad O'Brien
"inordinate amount of airtime" was a legit criticism for a candidate. He's the president now. The ongoing notion that media shouldn't cover the president endures, though

Alexandra Erin
@alexandraerin
More Alexandra Erin Retweeted Maggie Haberman
When President Obama was in office, networks declined to carry major policy speeches he made.

Also

Chris Cillizza
@CillizzaCNN
Donald Trump is the president of the United States. When he speaks, we cover it. As we should.

Norman Ornstein
@NormOrnstein
More Norman Ornstein Retweeted Chris Cillizza
Sorry, Chris. Give me one example of a political rally for a House election with Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama that you covered in its entirety. One! You should not be an apologist for shameful behavior not justified by calling it “news.” It is wrong. An excerpt? Fine. Not this

One can only hope that Trump doesn’t decide to go all out and kill the Senate investigation as well. His thinking may well be, “Why do we need that? I forced the GOP to say it was fine - and no-one stopped me - so I’ll do here too.”

thehill.com/policy/national-security/378035-rosenstein-defends-mueller-probe-no-reason-to-end-special-counsel

The Chertok thread is fascinating (as are the responses to it).

This seems like an appropriate response:

‘I wouldn’t wipe my ass with it’: Ex-CIA analyst rips House GOP intel committee’s ‘no collusion’ report.

www.rawstory.com/2018/03/wouldnt-wipe-ass-cnns-phil-mudd-rips-house-gop-intel-committees-no-collusion-report/

The timing of the report and haste involved has led to some speculation about what is coming next in relation to Mueller.

CNN Tonight
‏
Verified account

@CNNTonight
5h5 hours ago
More
Democrat Rep. Adam Schiff says he found out about Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee ending the Russia probe by reading the newspaper. "The Republicans leaked it to the press before informing us," he said.

It does seem highly suspect.

This has also added to the speculation:

"The special counsel is not an unguided missile," Rosenstein told the newspaper. "I don't believe there is any justification at this point for terminating the special counsel."

edition.cnn.com/2018/03/12/politics/rod-rosenstein-interview-mueller/index.html?sr=twCNN031218rod-rosenstein-interview-mueller0751PMStory