Cont: All things Trump + Russia Part 2

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You know what's interesting? Not all that many posts ago, Darat posted this directive:

Darat said:
Keep to the Russian issues /news etc. in this thread.
Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: Darat
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Now, here we are about 120 posts later, and 85 for of them are being shipped off to AAH. Some of them are collateral damage, I'll admit, but the vast majority of them are simply off topic. Some of them will be carded.

Meanwhile, please, oh please, follow a simple rule: If your post would not be in line with the topic of this thread, do not post it in this thread. Simple stuff, I know, but recent history suggests it may be more difficult a subject for some than one might expect.
Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: jsfisher
 
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So, as I understand it Kushner actually tried to escape from the fateful meeting by emailing his assistant for a rescue call. That doesn't do much for Don Jr., but it does make Kushner look a lot better.
 
Civet said:
So, as I understand it Kushner actually tried to escape from the fateful meeting by emailing his assistant for a rescue call. That doesn't do much for Don Jr., but it does make Kushner look a lot better.
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His testimony fits all the others, if you don't want to construct a scandal out of the fact that Veselnitskaya said he left after seven minutes, while he says he left after ten minutes.

I predict a headline tomorrow in the Washington Compost: Exclusive: Kushner and Putin lawyer caught lying; seven NSA sources reveal to us that meeting lasted 8 minutes and 23 seconds
 
Civet said:
So, as I understand it Kushner actually tried to escape from the fateful meeting by emailing his assistant for a rescue call. That doesn't do much for Don Jr., but it does make Kushner look a lot better.
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Kushner also claims to have been late and after he got there the only discussion was about adoptions.
 
TellyKNeasuss said:
Kushner also claims to have been late and after he got there the only discussion was about adoptions.
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Yeah, that part seemed a lot more suspect to me. The email-your-assistant move is one I associate more with a guy trying to get out of a dodgy situation than a guy just trying to avoid having his time wasted. Either way, it suggests that he wanted no part of whatever was going down in that room.
 
According to Rachel Maddow tonight, Trump may be waiting to fire Sessions until the Senate is in recess so he can install someone without a confirmation hearing. Presumably to then fire Mueller.

And in related news, the new nominee to head the FBI, Chris Wray, has passed committee conformation and now needs a full Senate vote. But some of his closet skeletons are coming out. Turns out he was a Chris Christie lackey lawyer for Bridgegate. And he has his own Russian connections.

Donald Trump's new FBI director pick has Russian ties of his own
On paper, Christopher Wray appears to be an excellent choice to serve as the next FBI director. He has "impeccable" academic credentials (Yale law school) and has had a decades-long distinguished career as a federal prosecutor and high-level official in the Department of Justice. As the criminal defense lawyer for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie during the “Bridgegate” investigation, he did raise some eyebrows when it was learned that one of Christie’s “missing” cellphones mysteriously ended up in Wray’s possession, but this is unlikely to derail Wray’s confirmation.

The most troubling issue that Wray may face is the fact that his law firm — King & Spalding — represents Rosneft and Gazprom, two of Russia’s largest state-controlled oil companies.

Rosneft was prominently mentioned in the now infamous 35-page dossier prepared by former British MI6 agent Christopher Steele. The dossier claims that the CEO of Rosneft, Igor Sechin, offered candidate Donald Trump, through Trump’s campaign advisor Carter Page, a 19% stake in the company in exchange for lifting U.S. sanctions on Russia. The dossier claims that the offer was made in July while Page was in Moscow.

Rosneft is also the company that had a $500 billion oil drilling joint-venture with Exxon in 2012, when Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was Exxon’s CEO. However, the deal was nixed by President Obama in 2014, when he imposed the sanctions that crippled Russia’s ability to do business with U.S. companies. The lifting of sanctions by the Trump administration would enable Exxon to renew its joint venture agreement with Rosneft, and the law firm of King & Spalding could end up in the middle of the contract negotiations between those two companies.
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TRUMP FBI PICK CHRIS WRAY WORKED ON RUSSIA CASE BUT DELETED IT FROM HIS COMPANY BIO Unmentioned connection to Russia, sound familiar?

Are all these guys tied to Exxon, Russian oil, money, the sanctions that are in the way of the oil money?
 
Childlike Empress said:
His testimony fits all the others, if you don't want to construct a scandal out of the fact that Veselnitskaya said he left after seven minutes, while he says he left after ten minutes.

I predict a headline tomorrow in the Washington Compost: Exclusive: Kushner and Putin lawyer caught lying; seven NSA sources reveal to us that meeting lasted 8 minutes and 23 seconds
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Have to say that after reading Kushner's statement it didn't sound like an obvious series of lies to me.
P.S. -- I like Washington Pest better than Washington Compost
 
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Skeptic Ginger said:
According to Rachel Maddow tonight, Trump may be waiting to fire Sessions until the Senate is in recess so he can install someone without a confirmation hearing. Presumably to then fire Mueller.
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Interesting theory. I've gotta start watching Maddow again. Much as I'd like to see Sessions go, I can't imagine anything good coming from something like that.
 
Civet said:
Yeah, that part seemed a lot more suspect to me. The email-your-assistant move is one I associate more with a guy trying to get out of a dodgy situation than a guy just trying to avoid having his time wasted. Either way, it suggests that he wanted no part of whatever was going down in that room.
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That was my thought as well. I imagined him thinking "My brother in law is in way over his head on this one. I want out, and I want a record of me getting out."

Nevertheless, that's speculation, and he seemed to come off fairly clean at least as far as his public statements go.
 
Meadmaker said:
That was my thought as well. I imagined him thinking "My brother in law is in way over his head on this one. I want out, and I want a record of me getting out."

Nevertheless, that's speculation, and he seemed to come off fairly clean at least as far as his public statements go.
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Come on, you're looking at the shiny wrapper but the spoiled contents are still visible.

Lied about Russian meetings (we're up to 4 now).
No one believes the adoption story, that's a croc. All three of those Kremlin connected lawyers were not there for an adoption issue.
Claims he didn't read a couple-lines long email?
Uses lawyerese to discount Russian financial connections, his businesses don't rely on Russian financing. Yeah, but that doesn't say his business don't use or haven't used Russian financing.
 
Civet said:
So, as I understand it Kushner actually tried to escape from the fateful meeting by emailing his assistant for a rescue call. That doesn't do much for Don Jr., but it does make Kushner look a lot better.
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No that makes him a self admitted liar and someone who proves they can not be taken at their word. At the time he was meant to be a tough executive, requiring a lie to exit a meeting demonstrates anything but that.
 
Darat said:
No that makes him a self admitted liar and someone who proves they can not be taken at their word. At the time he was meant to be a tough executive, requiring a lie to exit a meeting demonstrates anything but that.
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I am kind of curious why he thought he needed that cover as an "out". The most benign reason I can think of is that he wanted to avoid some kind of conflict with his brother-in-law. A more upstanding action would have been saying to Junior, "This obviously isn't going anywhere. Let's not waste anymore time on it. I'm leaving, and you probably should, too."

ETA: Hmm. Maybe it was the Russians in the room who he was attempting to deceive.
 
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Cl1mh4224rd said:
I am kind of curious why he thought he needed that cover as an "out". The most benign reason I can think of is that he wanted to avoid some kind of conflict with his brother-in-law. A more upstanding action would have been saying to Junior, "This obviously isn't going anywhere. Let's not waste anymore time on it. I'm leaving, and you probably should, too."
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He might have been afraid. He might have had a reason to be.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
According to Rachel Maddow tonight, Trump may be waiting to fire Sessions until the Senate is in recess so he can install someone without a confirmation hearing. Presumably to then fire Mueller.

And in related news, the new nominee to head the FBI, Chris Wray, has passed committee conformation and now needs a full Senate vote. But some of his closet skeletons are coming out. Turns out he was a Chris Christie lackey lawyer for Bridgegate. And he has his own Russian connections.

Donald Trump's new FBI director pick has Russian ties of his own

TRUMP FBI PICK CHRIS WRAY WORKED ON RUSSIA CASE BUT DELETED IT FROM HIS COMPANY BIO Unmentioned connection to Russia, sound familiar?

Are all these guys tied to Exxon, Russian oil, money, the sanctions that are in the way of the oil money?
Click to expand...


Or, put another way;

Is it really that hard for Trump to find a nominee willing to join his administration who hasn't been in bed with some Russian kleptocrat business?
 
Cl1mh4224rd said:
I am kind of curious why he thought he needed that cover as an "out". The most benign reason I can think of is that he wanted to avoid some kind of conflict with his brother-in-law. A more upstanding action would have been saying to Junior, "This obviously isn't going anywhere. Let's not waste anymore time on it. I'm leaving, and you probably should, too."

ETA: Hmm. Maybe it was the Russians in the room who he was attempting to deceive.
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I also got the feeling, reading his statement yesterday, that he was definitely throwing Don Jr. under the bus.

And I am not wise in the ways of smart phones, but surely you can fake an incoming call on one of them, can't you? i.e. have an app that makes the phone ring and displays a number on it? Such an app would be useful for someone who needs an excuse to get out of a meeting, like Kuschner did. Why depend on your secretary for help?

Unless you wanted it documented that you left the meeting quickly. Reading his statement, I definitely got the feeling that Kuschner knew there was something fishy about that meeting, and not only did he want out, he wanted proof that he wanted out.

Maybe I'm just overly suspicious.

To be fair, nothing in his public statement pointed to any wrongdoing. Everything was perfectly plausible. There was just something a bit odd about his, "This meeting was of no consequence, and I have proof that I didn't stay at it." line.
 
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