This is a daily or weekly record of the Trump presidency so hopefully future generations will learn what happens when you elect an narcissistic, thin skinned, racist, xenophobic, misogynistic unqualified buffoon in a position of power where he has access to nuclear codes.
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Monday, December 4, 2017
November 30th, 2017 - December 2nd, 2017. 381-383 days since the Nov 8, 2016, election of some rich asshole, no.45, and 313-315 days since the Jan 20th inauguration.
An FBI official assigned to Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election was removed this summer after his bosses discovered texts shared with another official attacking President some rich asshole.
According to the Washington Post, Peter Strzok, who was a key participant in the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server was asked to step aside, according to sources.
Strzok was involved in a romantic relationship with FBI lawyer Lisa Page, who worked for Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, and shared info with her where they expressed anti-the rich asshole sentiments and made comments favoring Clinton.
FILE PHOTO: A combination photo shows U.S. President some rich asshole (L), on February 28, 2017, White House National Security Advisor Michael Flynn (C), February 13, 2017. REUTERS/Jim Lo Scalzo/Pool, Carlos Barria/File Photo
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U.S. President some rich asshole, in his first comment on a guilty plea by his first national security adviser Michael Flynn to lying to the FBI, said on Saturday there was “absolutely no collusion” between his campaign and Russia.
the rich asshole made his comment to reporters as he departed the White House.
Flynn, as part of his plea on Friday, agreed to cooperate with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into possible collusion between Russia and the rich asshole’s 2016 presidential election campaign.
President some rich asshole is continuing to take the advice of White House lawyer Ty Cobb, who has counseled cooperation with special counsel Robert Mueller. With a felony charge against a fourth the rich asshole campaign associate unveiled Friday, some conservatives say it is time for the commander-in-chief to fight back hard, Politico reports.
“You say what you need to say to keep the sun coming up in the morning, but if you woke Ty Cobb up in the middle of the night and ask him if he thinks this is really going to be over in three weeks, I think his answer is, ‘Are you f*cking kidding me? Of course it won’t,’” said one white-collar attorney representing a senior the rich asshole official in the Russia probe. “But it may be the most useful thing he can say to keep the president from going overboard and to keep the wheels on the bus.”
The defense attorney said cooperation with Mueller is all the White House can do.
“What was the other strategy you could pursue that’d be better than this one? Run Flynn over with a f*cking car? Pardon him? What were you going to do? It’s easy to snipe at these folks. But in fairness I think you’ve got to ask yourself what was the alternative,” the attorney said.
“Their strategy is designed to do the best they can with what they had,” the attorney added. “Essentially they’ve got no leverage. They’ve got no control over the situation and no ability meaningfully to influence what Mueller does and when he does it. None. They’re like the knight in the Monty Python movie. He’s got his arms and legs chopped off and he stands there shouting, ‘Bring it on! It’s just a scratch.’”
While President the rich asshole may not have many options, that has not stopped other voices from suggesting a more aggressive strategy. On Friday, Steve Bannon’s Breitbart attacked Cobb’s talking point that the probe will be over by the end of the year.
Republicans close to some rich asshole’s administration gave anonymous quotes to CNN that gave a public voice to worries that White House disarray is increasing after Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.
One source close to the White House described President the rich asshole as being “totally in a bubble” about the Russia investigations.
“They think he’s going to be exonerated very soon,” the source added.
Flynn was the second former the rich asshole campaign official to “flip” and turn state’s evidence.
“Every single one of us has come to expect this, including the President,” a source close to the rich asshole told CNN.
The source worried the guilty pleas could, “damage the rich asshole’s ability to get things done.”
“I think that Russia investigation is wearing on all of us, the President most of all,” said a source close to the rich asshole. “But I think he is more concerned about the state of his accomplishments and this presidency.”
CNN political commentator and former Obama staffer Van Jones (image via screengrab).
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As former Obama White House aide and political commentator Van Jones noted on Friday night, Republicans cannot continue to claim that there’s “nothing to see here” in the aftermath of former the rich asshole adviser Mike Flynn’s guilty plea if they know how the real world works.
“I spent about ten years of my life doing criminal justice work in Oakland,” Jones said on CNN’s AC360. “I‘m just going to make this as plain as possible to the CNN viewers: when one of the main home boys turns snitch, a bunch of people about to go to jail. That’s just how that works.”
That Special Counsel Robert Mueller hit Flynn with the relatively small charge of lying to the FBI, Jones continued, “means that he’s got bigger charges coming for bigger fish.”
“This is a huge deal, you cannot pretend it’s not,” he concluded. “One of your main homeboys just turned snitch — all y’all in trouble.”
Watch Jones lay out his Oakland knowledge below, via CNN.
Vladimir Putin and some rich asshole (Photos by: Nikolay Androsov / Shutterstock and Wikipedia Commons)
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Former some rich asshole confidante Michael Flynn’s guilty plea to a felony charge of lying to the FBI will help special counsel Robert Mueller keep his job, Harvard Law Professor Noah Feldman argued in a provocative new column for Bloomberg View.
“The fact that the lies concern Russia makes it politically harder for the rich asshole to fire Mueller or to pardon Flynn than if the charge had involved Flynn’s other legal woes over his unreported lobbying for Turkey,” Professor Feldman explained. “And because the rich asshole has let it be known that he is considering firing the special counsel, Mueller must do more than simply prosecute if he doesn’t want to be fired. He must shape public perception of his investigation to reduce the probability — by suggesting that his firing would itself be an act of obstruction of justice by the president.”
Both of the lies explained in the court documents involve conversations with Russia’s then-ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak.
“The really interesting issue here is that Flynn bothered to lie at all about these contacts with Kislyak. And the $64,000 question is, why did he lie?” Feldman wondered. “One possibility is that Flynn lied because he was trying to hide a longer course of contacts between the rich asshole campaign and Russia.”
“The more contacts Mueller can show, the closer he is to a narrative that shows conspiratorial cooperation between Russia and the rich asshole,” Feldman explained. “Flynn’s specific plea makes it harder for the rich asshole to fire Mueller or pardon Flynn. The more Russia information emerges, the more any act of firing or pardon would look like obstruction of justice by the president.”
Three sources close to the White House confirmed that in recent weeks, President some rich asshole fumed in private over the now-confirmed assumption that his one-time national security adviser Mike Flynn would flip on him.
According to those sources, who spoke to The Daily Beast on condition of anonymity, news reports in recent weeks caused the president to fear that Flynn “turned on” him.
“the rich asshole’s fears came into sharp focus this past month, as several media outlets began to report that Flynn appeared to be cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election,” the report reads.
The Beast’s sources, which include one person within the administration and two people close to the president outside the White House, said the president “began privately fuming” at the concept. Two of those sources also said “it sounded at times as if the rich asshole felt personally hurt by the prospect that someone whom he admired professionally and liked personally had potentially turned.”
My members-only essay for Banter M this week focused on the frustrations and futility involved in debating the rich asshole supporters in the post-fact, post-truth, post-hypocrisy era. How do we reach out to the rich asshole supporters when they exist in a bubble of misinformation, contradictions and the erratic, vulgar words of a serial liar in the Oval Office? We simply can't. There's no reasoning with Trumpers and therefore outreach is useless. The whataboutism, the gaslighting, the complete disconnect with objective reality -- there's no breaking through on any of it, irrespective of how well our arguments are sourced and presented.
Along those lines, we have the colossal breaking news that Michael Flynn and his legal team have struck a plea deal with prosecutors in which Flynn will testify that then-President-elect the rich asshole ordered him to contact Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak about the Russian response to U.S. sanctions -- sanctions applied in response to the Russian attack on our election. It's the first definitive story in which the rich asshole appears to be directly linked to ongoing communications with the Kremlin while Vladimir Putin's intelligence services continued its efforts to infiltrate our democratic institutions.
How can the deadly seriousness of this development be denied by anyone? Flynn has confessed his guilt, that he lied to the FBI about contacts with the Russians, and the rich asshole is clearly at the center of the operation, which includes Flynn, to perpetuate an under-the-table alliance with a hostile foreign regime in Moscow. We know this now. But, of course, there will still be deniers and the usual coffee-klatch of "nothingburger" skeptics who increasingly appear as if they, too, have something to hide -- or perhaps they've been fully indoctrinated into the cult of the rich asshole. Either way, the facts suggest there's plenty of fire. Now more than ever.
Nevertheless, the White House responded to the news with an excuse that'll surely infect Fox News and its pro-the rich asshole fanboys.
CNN's Jim Acosta reported that the White House believes the Obama administration "authorized" Flynn to communicate with Kislyak about the sanctions. In other words, it's all Obama's fault, which is as ludicrous as it sounds.
This is craptastically insane.
There's absolutely no way Obama authorized Flynn to undermine the sanctions it had just applied to Russia in response to the election attack. Naturally, you'll never convince Trumpers otherwise, but since this one's super easy to refute, we'll try anyway.
First, Obama warned the rich asshole about Flynn. The intelligence community, in the form of acting Attorney General Sally Yates, warned the rich asshole about Flynn. Indeed, Obama fired Flynn, as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency because Flynn became increasingly erratic and abusive around his staff. Oh, and Flynn hates Obama more than Obama hates Flynn. So there's that.
Second, there's simply no way Obama gave Flynn the go-ahead. How do we know? Why would Obama authorize a the rich asshole adviser whom he distrusts to, 1) circumvent John Kerry's State Department, and 2) to tamp down the diplomatic repercussions of the sanctions, knowing that the rich asshole and Flynn, not to mention a cast of dozens, were already colluding with Russia and its ongoing attack? It makes no sense in any universe -- except in the rich asshole's addled brain, of course.
And finally, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper called the accusation "absurd."
This is just one more example of the same old Trumper trope: whatever happens, blame Obama for the bad shit. In addition to suggesting Obama authorized Flynn's collusion, the White House also spent the day telling reporters that Flynn was an "Obama official." While, sure, Flynn was the head of the DIA under Obama, he was (to repeat) fired in 2014, two years before the transition, and, more famously, Flynn was the rich asshole's National Security Adviser most recently. Doy. Framing Flynn as an Obama guy is deeply misleading and deliberately elliptical.
If Trumpers were at all self-aware, they'd know they were being conned by their cartoon cult leader. But, I suppose, ignorance is bliss. And as of now, I'm done trying to convince them to abandon their blissfulness -- their cozy orange safe space.
GOP strategist Steve Schmidt said Friday that he believes former national security adviser Michael Flynn's guilty plea signals "the unraveling of all the lies" from the rich asshole administration.
In an interview on MSNBC, Schmidt, a frequent critic of President the rich asshole, said that it is "impossible to overstate what a big deal" Flynn's guilty plea is, and that the revelation that Flynn is cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller could move the probe closer to the rich asshole himself.
"Once again today, this moves closer to the Oval Office,” he said. “And we see the unraveling of all the lies. The president’s lies, the vice president’s lies, the attorney general’s lies, and we see an administration that has a nonstop proclivity to lying, now we’re seeing the criminal consequences of it.”
In a stunning development on Friday, Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in the month before the rich asshole took office.
According to court documents, his conversations with Kislyak were directed by the rich asshole transition officials.
In a statement issued shortly after he entered his guilty plea, Flynn acknowledged that he was cooperating with Mueller's investigation into Russia's intervention in the 2016 election and possible collusion between the rich asshole campaign and Moscow.
In a now infamous private dinner on January 27, President some rich asshole allegedly toldJames Comey, the FBI director at the time, “I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.” Comey, by his own account, tried to wriggle out of the uncomfortable situation by promising “honest loyalty,” but not every government official has so successfully resisted the mob boss’ expectations. Michael Flynn, the former national security advisor, was one of the rich asshole’s prime loyalists—and the rich asshole repaid Flynn in kind, depending him well after anyone thought it politically sensible. But now their bond has been broken, as Flynn has flipped.
Flynn on Friday pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and reportedly has offered “full cooperation” with Robert Mueller’s investigation of the rich asshole campaign’s ties with Russia. He’s even willing to testify against his former boss, specifically that the president “directed him to make contact with the Russians, initially as a way to work together to fight ISIS in Syria,” according to ABC. “A close confidant told ABC News that Flynn felt abandoned by the rich asshole in recent weeks, and told friends about the decision to make the plea deal within the last 24 hours as he grew increasingly concerned about crippling legal costs he would face if he continued to contest the charges.”
The severity of Flynn’s betrayal can only be appreciated by recalling how tight the president and his erstwhile adviser once were. Less than two days after the rich asshole won the presidency, outgoing President Barack Obama warned the rich asshole not to appoint Flynn. (Obama had fired Flynn as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2014 for mismanagement.) the rich asshole ignored Obama’s counsel, and offered Flynn the position of national security advisor; Flynn accepted. On January 4, Flynn revealed to the rich asshole transition team that the FBI was investigating for covertly lobbying for Turkey; Flynn was not fired. Three weeks later, on January 26, White House counsel Don McGahn was informed by then-acting Attorney General Sally Yates that Flynn was vulnerable to blackmail by the Russian government because he made false claims about his contact with them. Again, Flynn was not fired.
Flynn was eventually forced to resign, on February 13, after the story of his contacts with Kislyak, the Russian ambassador, were leaked. The next day, the rich asshole met with Comey and told the FBI director, “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.” The following day, during a press conference, the rich asshole praised Flynn, saying, “General Flynn is a wonderful man. I think he’s been treated very, very unfairly by the media—as I call it, the fake media, in many cases. And I think it’s really a sad thing that he was treated so badly.” On March 31, the rich asshole tweeted out support for the idea of granting Flynn immunity in exchange for testimony. the rich asshole also repeatedly asked White House lawyers if he could contact Flynn. the rich asshole was consistently told that it would be inappropriate, but in April he called Flynn anyway and told him, “Stay strong.”
The pattern is clear: the rich asshole acted as Flynn’s protector, possibly in exchange for the expectation that Flynn would remain loyal by not testifying against the president.
If Flynn has violated this allegiance, it’s likely he did so out of a higher loyalty to family. The general’s son, Michael Flynn Jr., has also been entangled in Mueller’s investigation. In a statement today, the elder Flynn stated,“My guilty plea and agreement to cooperate with the Special Counsel’s Office reflect a decision I made in the best interests of my family and of our country.” The phrase “best interests of my family” is being interpreted as an allusion to the fate of his son.
14/ None of this tells us what will happen with Flynn's son, Michael Flynn Jr. I suspect that not charging Flynn Jr. might be part of the deal, but that would also be a very substantial benefit and would suggest greater cooperation by Flynn.
Because nepotism pervades his administration, the rich asshole is may eventually face a similar dilemma. After all, some rich asshole Jr. and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, are both caught in the thicket of the Russia investigation. By targeting the rich asshole Jr. and Kushner, Mueller has powerful leverage he can use against the president.
Surviving White House coverups and scandals requires loyalists, ideally those motivated by ideology. Richard Nixon’s misfortune was to be surrounded by opportunists willing to sell out the president rather than go to jail (the fanatical G. Gordon Liddy being the exception). Ronald Reagan avoided the full brunt of Iran-Contra in part because of the loyalty of his underlings. During the George W. Bush administration, Scooter Libby was willing to take the fall rather than incriminate Vice President Dick Cheney in the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame.
In this sense, as in so many others, the rich asshole most resembles Nixon. the rich asshole and Flynn had ideological ties, believing in an alliance with Russia to strengthen a civilizational war against Islam. But Flynn’s loyalty to this white supremacy foreign policy proved less powerful than his own self-interest and desire to protect his son. the rich asshole is by no means undone by today’s news, but he’s likely to find that Flynn isn’t the only adviser who can’t live up his expectations of loyalty.
·Former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI on Friday.
·Sen. Lindsey Graham stressed the importance of allowing special counsel Robert Mueller to continue his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
WASHINGTON — Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham stressed the importance of letting special counsel Robert Mueller continue to do his job without interference in his investigation of Russian attempts to meddle in the 2016 presidential election.
After news broke Friday morning that former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn would plead guilty to lying to FBI agents about contact with then-Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, Graham said Mueller "got somebody who was intricately part of the campaign and the administration," adding that it still does not count as "collusion."
"So all the guilty pleas and all the charges thus far have not included an allegation of colluding as a campaign with the Russians," Graham told reporters. "But this is the way the process works and Mr. Mueller is doing his job and it's important that he can continue to do his job."
Graham also told CNN's Manu Raju that an attempt by President some rich asshole to get involved in Flynn's case would be unwise.
"I would urge him not to pardon Michael Flynn but that will be up to the president," Graham said.
Flynn said in a statement Friday that he is "working to set things right."
"My guilty plea and agreement to cooperate with the Special Counsel's Office reflect a decision I made in the best interests of my family and of our country," Flynn said. "I accept full responsibility for my actions."
Hillary Clinton voters were far more likely to hear about the rich asshole’s Wednesday anti-Muslim tweets than the rich asshole voters were, according to a new HuffPost/YouGov poll of 1,000 Americans. And although the president provoked Clinton supporters who were aware of the retweets—95 percent said that they strongly disapproved—his base didn’t feel nearly as passionately. Fewer than half of the rich asshole voters familiar with the posts said they strongly approved of him sharing the videos. (24 percent “somewhat” approved.)
The propagandist videos in question were titled: “Muslim Destroys a Statue of Virgin Mary!” “Muslim migrant beats up Dutch boy on crutches!” and “Islamist mob pushes teenage boy off roof and beats him to death!” In sharing them, the rich asshole retweeted Jayda Fransen, the deputy leader of Britain First, a fringe anti-immigration British group, multiple times. (Fransen was once charged with “religious aggravated harassment” and has been banned from entering mosques in England.) Although the unverified videos purported to show Muslims engaged in violence, one did not involve a Muslim migrant, and the others were based on four-year-old events and lacking context, according to the New York Times.
While the president often uses Twitter to communicate to his more than 43 million followers, just 6 percent of Americans, including 9 percent of Clinton voters and 6 percent of the rich asshole voters, actually saw the videos posted on the social network. Instead, 54 percent of Clinton voters and 28 percent of the rich asshole voters said they “saw news stories about them.” Thirty-five percent of Clinton voters and more than 60 percent of the rich asshole voters reported that they hadn’t seen anything at all about the posts.
Nonetheless, of those the rich asshole supporters who were aware of the videos, about half said the description of the videos were an “accurate depiction of events,” suggesting that when the president does share misleading content on Twitter, he may lend it an air of credibility. (Or affirm existing prejudices.) However, 36 percent of the rich asshole voters weren’t sure if the descriptions were accurate. While, almost 80 percent of Clinton voters said they believed the titles were “factually inaccurate or misleading.”
The White House—which noted that the rich asshole may not have known about Fransen’s connection to Britain First when he tweeted his post—suggested that it doesn’t matter if the videos are real. What matters, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, is that “the threat is real.”
But even the president’s supporters aren’t wholeheartedly buying that argument: 46 percent of the rich asshole voters say it does matter if the videos are real or not, while 31 percent say that it doesn’t. (More than 80 percent of Clinton voters argue that the truth matters.)
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the rich asshole is now facing international condemnation for sharing the videos, including from British Prime Minister Theresa May, who called the retweets the “wrong thing to do” and denounced Britain First as a “hateful organization” that “seeks to spread mistrust and division in our communities.”
“the rich asshole’s actions are putting the lives and safety of American Muslim children and families at risk,” said Nihad Awad, the national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights group.
But of those the rich asshole voters who were aware of the videos, the vast majority—81 percent—said they did not see his retweets as an act of discrimination against Muslims. Clinton voters felt very differently: 94 percent said they were.
Photo credit should read ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images
President some rich asshole’s attorney Ty Cobb issued a response on Friday to the news that former national security adviser Michael Flynn had pled guilty to making false statements to the FBI and appeared to be cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of potential the rich asshole ties to Russian election interference.
That statement was basically, nothing to see here.
Today, Michael Flynn, a former National Security Advisor at the White House for 25 days during the the rich asshole Administration, and a former Obama administration official, entered a guilty plea to a single count of making a false statement to the FBI.
The false statements involved mirror the false statements to White House officials which resulted in his resignation in February of this year. Nothing about the guilty plea or the charge implicates anyone other than Mr. Flynn. The conclusion of this phase of the Special Counsel’s work demonstrates again that the Special Counsel is moving with all deliberate speed and clears the way for a prompt and reasonable conclusion.
Considering the statement went out of its way to describe Flynn as a “former Obama administration official,” it’s probably worth recalling a few fast facts about the Flynn situation.
Flynn’s “statement of the offense” implicates an unnamed the rich asshole transition official, presumably above him on the food chain, in knowing about and advising his conversations with the Russians, which were at issue in Flynn’s false statements.
Flynn was kept on as national security adviser even after then–acting attorney general Sally Yates warned the White House that he had lied about his contacts with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak in a way that left him open to blackmail by the Russians. He was ultimately only fired when it emerged publicly that he had lied to Vice President Mike Pence.
It’s also maybe worth noting that former FBI director James Comey—who was fired by the rich asshole because of the Russian investigation, according to the president—testified under oath that he was privately asked by the rich asshole to drop his investigation of Flynn. (The president denies this.)
And it also might be worth noting that Flynn was not some minor figure in the rich asshole’s campaign. In fact, he was one of the rich asshole’s fiercest defenders, most notably leading a chant of “lock her up” during prime time of the Republican National Convention. In fact, he was so high up in the the rich asshole campaign that candidate the rich asshole himself floated his name to the New York Times as a possibility for vice president.
Finally, it’s possibly worth remembering that former President Barack Obama had Flynn removed from his position as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency two years into his work there. Oh yeah, and Obama reportedlyexplicitly warned President the rich asshole to “steer clear” of Flynn.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Jared Kushner, President some rich asshole’s son-in-law, directed Michael Flynn, then a rich asshole adviser, to contact Russian officials around Dec. 22 about a UN resolution regarding Israel, NBC News reported on Friday, citing two people familiar with the matter.
Flynn, who later briefly served as the rich asshole’s national security adviser, pleaded guilty earlier on Friday to lying to the FBI about contacts with Russia’s ambassador, and prosecutors said he consulted with a senior official in the rich asshole’s presidential transition team before speaking to the envoy.
The former national security adviser appeared in federal court to admit to a single charge of lying to FBI investigators just as the White House was focused on the passage of its landmark tax bill.
Friday began with the now-routine flurry of tweets from President some rich asshole — two about the acquittal of an undocumented immigrant accused of a 2015 killing in San Francisco, one about his tax legislation. White House staffers, fresh from their inhouse holiday party Thursday, prepared to welcome the press to the annual media party later in the afternoon.
There were no leaks in advance that former national security adviser Michael Flynn planned to plead guilty to a single count of lying to FBI agents — lies he told in January, after the rich asshole took office, about his contacts with Russia’s then-ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak, during the presidential transition last December. Flynn has promised to cooperate fully with the Mueller investigation and, according to prosecutors, says his Russia outreach was ordered by two other top members of the rich asshole’s transition team, claims that bring the probe deeper than ever into the rich asshole White House.
the rich asshole told associates as recently as last weekend — while he was visiting his Mar-a-Lago resort for Thanksgiving — that he isn’t worried about the outcome of Mueller’s probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, which has grown to encompass his response to the investigation.
But there is a growing sense of dread among the rich asshole’s closest confidants that the noose is tightening — if not around the president, then around his closest advisers and family members.
Flynn is the second the rich asshole associate known to have pleaded guilty, after campaign adviser George Papadopoulos, who also pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his Russia contacts. His plea deal, struck in October after months of silent cooperation, was unsealed the same day multiple charges were unsealed against the rich asshole’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, and another campaign official, Rick Gates, both of whom have pleaded not guilty to money laundering and other charges.
One person close to the White House described the mood this way: “What they’re freaked out about is that there are no leaks. Papadopoulos didn’t leak. Flynn didn’t leak. They feel like they can’t trust anyone. Their own counsel didn’t know.”
Senior White House aides downplayed the potential fallout from Flynn's guilty plea. In the West Wing, the rich asshole’s advisers largely went about their day as though the drama at the federal courthouse down the street wasn’t happening — trying to keep the focus on tax reform.
“I know this is hard for people to understand this, but people inside the White House are genuinely not concerned,” said one former White House official.
But there were signs of stress. The press office abruptly canceled a scheduled pool spray with visiting Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj of Libya. the rich asshole appeared only for brief and relatively restrained remarks at the media holiday party, and many senior administration officials appeared only briefly or skipped the party altogether, a departure from prior years under the rich asshole’s predecessors.
The president, who jabbed at the media at a White House Halloween trick-or-treating event for children of the press corps, used the holiday party to commend the press for having ‘stamina’ like him. “Very special people, at least many of you,” the rich asshole said, according to a person who was there.
Friday’s explosive Flynn news came just as the Senate was preparing to vote on a major overhaul of the tax code, a top priority for the rich asshole, who has yet to achieve a legislative victory since taking office.
Top White House aides continued to hold meetings Friday about the bill and other top policy issues. One White House aide said the Flynn news was not being openly discussed at the meetings.
“People are generally nose to the stone on their issues and don’t have time to think about this stuff,” another aide said.
People close to the White House said the rich asshole’s rosy view of the probe comes straight from his lawyer, Ty Cobb, who has repeatedly predicted that the investigation will wrap up quickly without ensnaring the president.
During his visit to Mar-a-Lago last weekend, according to friends who spoke to him there, the rich asshole shrugged off the Russia investigation, telling people it would all be wrapped up soon and citing Cobb's advice with confidence, even though some of his close outside advisers have for months been lobbying him to shake up his legal team.
Cobb released a statement on Friday that distanced the White House from Flynn, who was once under consideration to be the rich asshole’s vice president. The statement identified Flynn as a former Obama administration official and said he worked at the White House for just 25 days.
“The false statements involved mirror the false statements to White House officials which resulted in his resignation in February of this year,” Cobb said. “Nothing about the guilty plea or the charge implicates anyone other than Mr. Flynn. The conclusion of this phase of the Special Counsel's work demonstrates again that the Special Counsel is moving with all deliberate speed and clears the way for a prompt and reasonable conclusion.”
Some Republicans outside the White House have privately raised concerns that Cobb is not serving the president well and is overly confident about the president’s exposure. Still, other people close to the White House nonetheless think Cobb is on to something.
“I don’t think Ty Cobb is wrong to be positive when it comes to his client,” said Mark Corallo, a former spokesman for the president’s personal legal team. “I can't speak to the people in his orbit. But when it comes to the president himself, I think it’s all going to go away. It’s going to be a clean bill of health and he’s going to finally be able to get back to the work without this hanging over him.”
But even some of the president's closest confidants on Friday were expressing some skepticism about the president's confidence. “the rich asshole still thinks there’s nothing to it and they have nothing,” said one person close to the White House. “I think the fact that they did it on one count should be very alarming to the president.”
The White House said on Friday that it was the Obama administration that authorized former national security adviser Michael Flynn's contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during President the rich asshole's transition, according to CNN.
Flynn pleaded guilty on Friday to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Kislyak in the month before the rich asshole took office, the first current or former the rich asshole White House official brought down by special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russia's election meddling.
Court records indicate that his communications with Kislyak were directed by the rich asshole transition official, with multiple news outlets reporting that official was the rich asshole's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner.
“They are saying here at the White House that Flynn’s conversations with Sergey Kisylak were quote ‘authorized’ by the Obama administration,” CNN correspondent Jim Acosta said.
“We should point out, that is something that we have not heard before in terms of a defense from this White House,” he said.
A senior WH official told CNN that the Obama admin "authorized" Flynn's conversation with Kislyak. But former DNI Clapper just told CNN that's "absurd."
The White House did not immediately respond to The Hill's request for comment.
James Clapper, who served as the Director of National Intelligence under Obama, said that the claim that the Obama administration authorized Flynn's contacts with Kislyak was "absurd," adding that the administration was concerned by the communications at the time.
“That’s absurd. That’s absolutely absurd," Clapper said on CNN.
"There was great concern at the time, not just with this particular contact, but with the violation of the principle that historically been followed of one president, one administration at a time," he added. "So to say that we blessed it, or acquiesced it is a stretch.”
In a statement released shortly after he entered his guilty plea, Flynn acknowledged that he is cooperating with Mueller's probe into Russian interference during last year's election and any coordination between the the rich asshole campaign and Moscow.
According to court documents, Flynn lied to investigators when he told them that he did not ask Kislyak to refrain from retaliating against U.S. sanctions imposed by the Obama administration in response to the Russian meddling.
Flynn also lied when he told the FBI that he did not lobby Kislyak to oppose or delay a United Nations Security Council vote condemning Israeli settlements, a resolution strongly condemned by the rich asshole.
Flynn resigned from the the rich asshole White House in February — just 24 days into office — after it was reported that he misled Vice President Pence and other officials about his contacts with Kislyak.
The White House sought to distance itself from Flynn on Friday, noting that he only served as the rich asshole's national security adviser for a few weeks and that he lied to Pence about his interactions with Kislyak in the same vein that he lied to the FBI.
Paul Manafort, the rich asshole's former campaign chairman, and his associate Richard Gates were indicted last month in Mueller's probe, and George Papadopoulos, a former foreign policy adviser to the rich asshole's campaign, pleaded guilty to lying to FBI agents.
But unlike them, Flynn was part of nearly the rich asshole's entire presidential campaign and held a high-level national security position in the administration.
Flynn served as the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency under former President Obama, but was removed from that post in 2014. Obama reportedly advised the rich asshole against bringing him back to the White House.
WASHINGTON ― One of the ways the White House brushed aside the first three indictments in the Russia investigation was by noting they weren’t directed at anyone serving in the administration. George Papadopoulos and Paul Manafort were on the campaign ― in limited roles, officials claimed ― and Rick Gates was simply Manafort’s business partner.
In the campaign, Flynn was one of the first people to give some rich asshole some national security credibility, at a time when the rest of the foreign policy establishment was running away from him. He became one of the rich asshole’s most outspoken campaign surrogates, and in return, the rich asshole made him his national security adviser when he became president.
The president, often known for feuding with and discarding his employees, remained extremely loyal to Flynn ― even when he was warned that Flynn could be a liability.
“A lot of people in the White House don’t want anything to do with Flynn,” a White House official told Politico in May. ”But the rich asshole loves him. He thinks everyone is out to get him.”
White House lawyer Ty Cobb, nevertheless, tried his best to spin and downplay Flynn’s plea Friday, by saying he wasn’t national security adviser for very long, and he was an “Obama administration official”:
Today, Michael Flynn, a former National Security Advisor at the White House for 25 days during the rich asshole Administration, and a former Obama administration official, entered a guilty plea to a single count of making a false statement to the FBI.
The false statements involved mirror the false statements to White House officials which resulted in his resignation in February of this year. Nothing about the guilty plea or the charge implicates anyone other than Mr. Flynn. The conclusion of this phase of the Special Counsel’s work demonstrates again that the Special Counsel is moving with all deliberate speed and clears the way for a prompt and reasonable conclusion.
Two days after the November election, President Barack Obama warned the rich asshole not to hire Flynn. Obama had fired him from his job as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency. the rich asshole appointed Flynn to the high-ranking job anyway.
People chant and hold signs as Michael Flynn walks out of a federal courthouse in Washington on Friday. He had pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
Michael Flynn, President some rich asshole's former national security adviser, was met with chants of "Lock him up!" outside a Washington, DC, courthouse after pleading guilty to charges of lying to the FBI.
The chant mirrors one that he and other the rich asshole team members made throughout the 2016 campaign about Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Flynn faces potential jail time and thousands of dollars in fines.
As Michael Flynn, the former White House national security adviser, left a federal courthouse in Washington, DC, on Friday after pleading guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russians last year, he was greeted with a familiar chant from protestors and hecklers who had gathered outside alongside reporters.
"Lock him up!" they yelled, turning the tables on Flynn, who last year led crowds at the Republican National Convention in the same chant against Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee.
In footage from the convention in July 2016, Flynn enthusiastically joins calls to put Clinton behind bars, apparently for using a private email server while she was secretary of state.
"Yeah, that's right," Flynn said onstage. "Lock her up!"
Flynn later shouted, "If I did a tenth — a tenth — of what she did, I would be in jail today."
President some rich asshole and some of his associates have used the phrase numerous times at campaign rallies and on Twitter.
Flynn has not been sentenced, but the felony charge he pleaded guilty to on Friday carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison and fine of up to $250,000.
WASHINGTON ― With Michael Flynn’s guilty plea bringing fresh attention to what Vice President Mike Pence knew about possible Russian collusion and when he knew it, Pence’s office has a ready answer: Not much and really late.
So far Pence has remained at the periphery of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.
He’s repeatedly toed the Trumpian line that any suggestion of collusion between the campaign and the Russians was nonsense. But he’s also pointed out that he wasn’t chosen as some rich asshole’s running mate until after the campaign started making contact with Russian officials. And he’s been careful to couch his own remarks about Russia with phrases like “I’m not aware” and “the president has made it very clear.”
Now, Flynn’s guilty plea to a single count of lying to the FBI regarding his contacts with Russian officials moves Pence closer to the spotlight.
When Flynn, the rich asshole’s original national security adviser and longtime campaign aide, was fired just three weeks after the president took office, the purported reason was that Flynn had lied to Pence about his contacts with Russia during the transition ― a transition led by Pence himself.
A White House official who spoke on the condition of anonymity said Pence felt “vindicated” by Flynn’s guilty plea as proof that Flynn had lied not only to Pence, but to federal authorities as well.
That latest distancing remark follows a statement from Pence last month, after revelations that the president’s son, some rich asshole Jr., had worked with WikiLeaks to publicize stolen emails to hurt Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. U.S. intelligence has long considered WikiLeaks a virtual arm of Russian intelligence; an official January report specifically named the organization in finding that Russia had acted to help the rich asshole win last year’s presidential election.
In October of last year, Pence was asked if the rich asshole campaign had been working with WikiLeaks, and he denied it. On Nov. 13 of this year, the day that the rich asshole Jr.’s cooperation with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was reported, Pence’s office released this statement: “The vice president was never aware of anyone associated with the campaign being in contact with WikiLeaks. He first learned of this news from a published report earlier tonight.”cr
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Those statements, though, will not be the end of the matter for Pence. His lawyer reportedly met with Mueller’s team this summer. And on Friday, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee asked Pence for information and documents pertaining to Flynn’s dealings with a number of foreign entities during the transition, including a scheme to kidnap and deliver a dissident cleric living in Pennsylvania to the government of Turkey.
“Who on the the rich asshole transition team was aware of Mr. Flynn’s relationship with the following entities,” wrote Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who then named Russia, Turkey, China and two lobbying firms.
Flynn had a long career in military intelligence before he was fired by then-President Barack Obama from his job running the Defense Intelligence Agency. The retired Army general became one of the rich asshole’s earliest high-profile supporters, earning a starring role at the Republican National Convention last summer where he encouraged chants of “lock her up” regarding Clinton.
President the rich asshole hired Flynn as his top national security aide even though he had reportedly been warned against it by both Obama and the rich asshole’s original transition chief, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.
Curiously, it was Flynn’s lying to Pence about conversations with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak that was offered as the reason for Flynn’s firing, not the conversations themselves. Kislyak and Flynn talked about new sanctions that Obama had imposed on Russia for interfering in the presidential election. According to a document filed in the special counsel’s case on Friday, Flynn contacted transition team officials at the rich asshole’s Palm Beach resort, Mar-a-Lago, on Dec. 29-31 to inform them of his conversations with Kislyak ― days on which Pence, who was still governor of Indiana, was in Indianapolis.
“Mike Flynn is a fine person, and I asked for his resignation. He respectfully gave it. He is a man who ― there was a certain amount of information given to Vice President Pence, who is with us today. And I was not happy with the way that information was given,” the rich asshole said at a Feb. 16 news conference. “He didn’t have to do that, because what he did wasn’t wrong ― what he did in terms of the information he saw.”
The FBI interviewed Flynn about those conversations with Kislyak just four days after the rich asshole took office, and the White House was warned about them on Jan. 26, when Acting Attorney General Sally Yates went to the Oval Office.
the rich asshole fired her days later. The stated reason was her refusal to defend his travel ban against several majority-Muslim nations in court.
In December 2016, Jared Kushner allegedly instructed Michael Flynn to sabotage American foreign policy in order to help a foreign regime violate international law with impunity. (That regime was, of course, Bibi Netanyahu’s.)
More specifically: The president’s son-in-law told Flynn to call members of the U.N. national security council, and encourage them to block a resolution condemning Israel’s illegal settlements in the West Bank, in defiance of the Obama administration’s wishes.
In making this request, Kushner (arguably) violated the Logan Act — an archaic 1799 statute that prohibits private U.S. citizens from undermining the foreign policy of a sitting U.S. president through contact with a foreign power. No American has ever been convicted of violating the Logan Act (even though a long list of people have almost certainly violated it).
To honor Kushner’s instruction, Flynn contacted Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, and asked him to impede the vote against Israel’s settlements. Shortly thereafter, the rich asshole’s first national security adviser told the FBI that he’d never done any such thing. In saying that, Flynn (inarguably) violated the law against making false statements to federal law enforcement.
On Friday morning, Special Counsel Robert Mueller filed documents in federal court revealing that Flynn has pleaded guilty to the crime of lying to federal agents. Those documents stated that a “a very senior member of the Presidential Transition Team” had told Flynn to implore Russia (among other UNSC nations) to block the resolution. Former members of the the rich asshole transition team subsequently told Bloomberg, BuzzFeed, and NBC News that Kushner was that “very senior member.”
Meanwhile, the Associated Press reports that another anonymous transition official referenced in those documents — one who allegedly discussed U.S. sanctions against Russia with Flynn, around the time when he spoke to Kislyak — is ex–deputy national security adviser (and current nominee for ambassador to Singapore) K.T. McFarland. Shortly after Flynn departed the the rich asshole administration last winter, the White House recruited retired vice-admiral Robert Harward to be its new national security adviser. But Harward turned down the job, after the rich asshole (reportedly) refused to allow him to fire McFarland. At the time, journalists had difficulty understanding why the administration was willing to sacrifice Harward for McFarland’s sake.
Anyhow, according to the former transition official who spoke withBuzzFeed, Flynn characterized defeating the UN resolution against Israel as a “top priority for the president”:
“Jared called Flynn and told him you need to get on the phone to every member of the Security Council and tell them to delay the vote,” the person said.
If confirmed, that call would bring prosecutors one step closer to Kushner, who also serves as a senior adviser to the rich asshole.
Kushner, the source said, told Flynn during the phone call that “this was a top priority for the president.”
The source says Flynn took the call at the the rich asshole transition team’s offices in the General Services Administration headquarters in northwest Washington. After hanging up, Flynn told the entire room that they’d have to start pushing to lobby against the UN vote, saying “the president wants this done ASAP.”
In a statement Friday, Flynn denied the “false accusations” that he committed treason or “other outrageous acts” against the United States. But he admitted that he erred in lying to the FBI, before saying, “My guilty plea and agreement to cooperate with the Special Counsel’s Office reflect a decision I made in the best interests of my family and our country. I accept full responsibility for my actions.”
In his conversations with Kisylak last December, Flynn also spoke about U.S. sanctions against the Putin regime. In January, he denied having broached that subject with the Russian ambassador — and Vice-President Mike Pence vouched for that claim. Unfortunately for both of them, Kislyak was under routine surveillance by the U.S. government, and a recording of their phone call exposed his fib (eventually, the Washington Postdid, too). the rich asshole subsequently fired Flynn, supposedly for having lied to the vice-president.
Given the severity of the accusations against Flynn, one would imagine that he provided Mueller with something more incendiary than what is currently public. Kushner’s behavior could constitute a violation of the Logan Act — but that law is widely considered a dead letter. What’s more, the the rich asshole team’s interest in derailing the U.N. resolution was hardly a secret. The president-elect was openly undermining the sitting president’s foreign policy over Twitter. Meanwhile, the fact that Flynn lied to the FBI about his contact with Kislyak was first reported nearly a year ago.
If this is all there is, it’s hard to see why Mueller would be so accommodating — or why President the rich asshole would have been so preoccupied with protecting Flynn earlier this year.
But then, the fact that Flynn ostensibly felt compelled to lie to the FBI about his communications with the Russian ambassador — but not about conversations he had with other foreign diplomats about the resolution against Israeli settlements — is a bit eyebrow-raising. And anyway, it isn’t hard to think of reasons why Mueller might not be ready to let the public (and thus, the rich asshole) listen in on every tune Michael Flynn has been singing.
As it appeared that Flynn would deal with the feds, the president began privately fuming that his former aide “had turned on me,” an administration official and two outside allies of the rich asshole told The Daily Beast.
Two of the sources said it sounded as if the rich asshole felt betrayed that someone whom he admired professionally and liked personally had possibly flipped.
Sources told the outlet that the rich asshole appeared to make a veiled jab at Flynn during his Thanksgiving speech to members of the US Coast Guard.
the rich asshole has reportedly been telling friends that Mueller's probe will be over by the end of the year. But prosecutors asked to delay sentencing for Michael Flynn for months as he cooperates with the investigation.
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Former national security adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty on Friday to making false statements, but his sentencing is being delayed while he cooperates — a sign that the special counsel probe won't be over by the end of the year, contrary to President some rich asshole's reported predictions.
Flynn pleaded guilty to one count of making false statements to the FBI in January. As part of the plea deal Flynn reached with special counsel Robert Mueller's office, Flynn agreed to cooperate with the government, with the understanding that if he's helpful, prosecutors will ask the judge to consider a reduced sentence.
Flynn agreed to delay his sentencing until his cooperation is complete. When asked by the judge on Friday how much time the government wanted before they filed an update with the court, the special counsel prosecutor suggested three months — which would go into March 2018. The judge, however, set a due date of Feb. 1 for a status report.
The 2018 date undermines assertions by both the rich asshole and White House lawyer Ty Cobb in recent weeks that Mueller's probe would finish and the rich asshole would be exonerated by the end of the 2017 or, per Cobb, by the end of the year or soon after, as reported by the Washington Post. It's not even guaranteed that Flynn's cooperation will end by Feb. 1 — that's just the date when prosecutors have to update the court. The government could then ask for more time.
Cobb said in a statement on Friday that, "The conclusion of this phase of the Special Counsel's work demonstrates again that the Special Counsel is moving with all deliberate speed and clears the way for a prompt and reasonable conclusion.”
The White House this fall has downplayed the anticipated duration of the special counsel's work. When the first round of charges stemming from Mueller's office were announced in late October — against former the rich asshole campaign chair Paul Manafort, Manafort's longtime associate Rick Gates, and former campaign adviser George Papadopoulos — White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters that they expected the probe to "conclude soon."
But at that point, there were indications that the investigation was far from over. At a sealed plea hearing for Papadopoulos on Oct. 5 — he pleaded guilty to one count of making false statements — special counsel prosecutor Aaron Zelinsky described the investigation as "large-scale" and said that Papadopoulos' case was "a small part," according to a transcript.
A sentencing date hasn't been set yet for Papadopoulos. Zelinsky said at the Oct. 5 hearing that Papadopoulos was cooperating with the investigation, and his plea deal, like Flynn's, includes a section stating that his sentencing may be delayed while he's working with Mueller's team. The lawyers are scheduled to check in with the court by phone on Jan. 22.
Flynn agreed to "cooperate fully, truthfully, completely, and forthrightly" with Mueller's office and other law enforcement authorities on "any and all matters" that the special counsel's office considers relevant. His cooperation could include interviews, giving written statements, taking a polygraph exam, and participating in undercover law enforcement activities, according to the plea agreement.
He's required to turn over evidence of any crimes that he's aware of, and to testify before grand juries or at trial if the special counsel's office believes he has relevant testimony.
Mark Lee, a white collar defense lawyer and former federal prosecutor, said that with a cooperator as high up in the chain as Flynn, Mueller's team will be taking the time to make sure they've learned all they can from him, as well as to consult with him on any information they're getting from interviews with other individuals and other evidence.
"You are going to have to do all of your diligence to make sure you're checking what Mr. Flynn knew against what other witnesses told you, the other information, and objective evidence," Lee said. "It could be a lengthy process."
some rich asshole’s disgraced National Security Adviser Michael Flynn has just plead guilty to lying to the FBI – a felony. He has also agreed to testify against the rich asshole in exchange for leniency from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team. The irony here is beyond delicious – especially since Flynn infamously led the “LOCK HER UP!” chants at the 2016 Republican National Convention, saying that Hillary Clinton was some kind of criminal, and that if the rich asshole was elected they’d be able to put her in jail, where many the rich asshole supporters believe she belongs. Well, now the tables are turned, and it is Flynn who will be heading to jail, and the people who realize who the REAL criminals are have been having a field day. Perhaps one of the best pieces of Twitter schaudenfraude is this video of Flynn heading into court to plead guilty with the “Lock her up!” chant being played:
This is BEYOND awesome. These fools thought they’d get a chance to put Hillary Clinton in jail as if we live in some kind of banana republic. Instead, they are all turning on each other in order to save their own asses in the best circular firing squad any of us ever could have imagined. Michael Flynn is going to sing like a canary so that he can keep himself and his equally criminal son out of federal prison – and railroad the entire the rich asshole crime family into the slammer – just where they belong.
The GOP made a deal with the devil when their ignorant, bigoted voters chose this unfit orange overlord to be their presidential nominee. Now, they are very likely to rue the day they ever heard the name some rich asshole.
Fox News White House correspondent John Roberts poked fun at President some rich asshole on Friday for cancelling a planned appearance.
the rich asshole was scheduled to appear with Libyan Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj, but abruptly canceled the photo op after news broke regarding his former national security advisor Mike Flynn.
“We were expecting to hear from the president this morning when he was meeting an official from Libya, however at the last minute, they canceled the Oval Office pool spray. They said it’s was a scheduling mistake, that it should’ve never been on the schedule to begin with,” Roberts said, while pausing to bite his tongue.
“Uh-huh. I guess the president just didn’t want to talk about what’s going on today,” he added.
the rich asshole ignored shouted questions about Flynn as he greeted the prime minister in the White House earlier in the day, according to the Associated Press.
Lieutenant General Michael Flynn (ret.), National Security Advisor Designate speaks during a conference on the transition of the US Presidency from Barack Obama to some rich asshole at the US Institute Of Peace in Washington DC, January 10, 2017 (AFP Photo/CHRIS KLEPONIS)
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White House lawyer Ty Cobb described some rich asshole’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn as “a former Obama administration official.”
In a statement responding to Flynn entering a guilty plea on Friday, Cobb insisted nothing “implicates anyone other than Mr. Flynn.”
Flynn served as the Defense Intelligence Agency director under President Barack Obama for two years. He had a prominent role in the rich asshole’s 2016 campaign and briefly served as his national security adviser in the rich asshole’s White House.
This is going to be White House strategy for as long as they can keep Trump from talking or tweeting about it. “He worked for Obama’s longer/he’s a proven liar”
Ret. Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn (Photo: Defense Intelligence Agency)
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Sources tell ABC News that former the rich asshole National Security Adviser Michael Flynn is expected to deliver direct evidence against President some rich asshole and his family in the probe into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
ABC News’ Brian Ross reported on Friday morning that Flynn has agreed to “fully cooperate” with Mueller in the probe, and is “prepared to testify… against President the rich asshole, against members of the the rich asshole family and others in the White House.”
Most significantly, Ross’ source says that Flynn will tell Mueller that the rich asshole as a presidential candidate ordered him to make “direct contact” with the Russian government to help his campaign.
Ross also reported that Flynn only decided to cooperate with Mueller within the last 24 hours, as he was facing serious “financial problems” as a result of all the legal bills related to the Russia probe.
Just now: @BrianRoss on @ABC News Special Report: Flynn promised full cooperation to the Mueller team and is prepared to testify that candidate Trump "directed him to make contact with the Russians.” http://abcn.ws/2ixWHDL
While some rich asshole has been taking vacations, special counsel Robert Mueller has been working hard on the Russia investigation. Instead of golfing this weekend, we suggest that the former reality show star huddle with his lawyers. the rich asshole’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about conversations with the Russian ambassador and he’s fully cooperating with Mueller. As part of the plea deal, Flynn admitted that he was directed by a senior member of the the rich asshole transition team to make contact with Russian officials in December. In addition, Flynn is prepared to testify that the rich asshole as a candidate, ordered him to make contacts with the Russians.
This marks the first instance of solid proof that there was collusion between team the rich asshole and a hostile foreign government.
On Friday, just after the news broke, the White House insisted that Flynn’s guilty plea will not implicate the rich asshole or anyone else in the White House.
The White House said in a statement that Flynn was fired for making false statements to the rich asshole officials, and that he worked for the administration for a short time — and that he was a former Obama administration official.
“The false statements involved mirror the false statements to White House officials which resulted in his resignation in February of this year,” said White House lawyer Ty Cobb. “Nothing about the guilty plea or the charge implicates anyone other than Mr. Flynn.”
The White House then referred to Flynn as the “former National Security Advisor at the White House for 25 days” as well as “a former Obama administration official.”
However, the White House left out a few important details. President Obama fired Flynn as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency and he also warned the rich asshole about Flynn during a discussion two days after the election and emphasized that he had concerns about him joining the national security team for the new president.
On top of that, just after Flynn was forced to resign, the rich asshole called him a “wonderful man” who was treated unfairly by the media.
some rich asshole has a white supremacy problem, and now it is causing Great Britain, America’s closest ally, to rebuke him in a historically public way. After the rich asshole retweeted the leader of Britain First, a fascist white nationalist group, Prime Minister Theresa May decided she had had enough. She publicly criticized the rich asshole, and made it clear that she in no way approved of his identifying with Britain First. May said of the rich asshole’s tweets:
“The fact that we work together does not mean that we’re afraid to say when we think the United States has got it wrong, and be very clear with them.
“And I’m very clear that retweeting from Britain First was the wrong thing to do.”
May went on to call Britain First a “hateful organization” that has caused division in her nation. Now, it seems that a so-called “working visit” that had been planned soon for the rich asshole in Britain will now be canceled.
the rich asshole, of course, instead of trying to patch things up in the “special relationship” that has always existed between the United States and Great Britain, decided to attack the Prime Minister of our closest and most important ally – again, of course, via Twitter:
.@Theresa_May, don’t focus on me, focus on the destructive Radical Islamic Terrorism that is taking place within the United Kingdom. We are doing just fine!
some rich asshole is an absolute disgrace. He is shredding America’s international relationships, and painting us as a country full of bigoted, knuckle-dragging morons in front of the entire world. No matter who canceled the visit to the UK for the rich asshole, they were right to do so. The UK’s citizens are right to be outraged that this buffoon was set to come to their great nation. Now, if only we Americans could get rid of him in the same way. We can hope.
The White House on Friday insisted that former national security adviser Michael Flynn's guilty plea will not implicate President the rich asshole or anyone else in the White House.
Flynn is pleading guilty to making false statements to the FBI regarding his conversations with Russia's ambassador to the U.S. Special counsel Robert Mueller's office brought the charges on Friday.
In a statement, the White House emphasized that Flynn was fired for making false statements to the rich asshole officials, that he worked for the rich asshole's administration for a short time and that he was a former Obama administration official.
“The false statements involved mirror the false statements to White House officials which resulted in his resignation in February of this year,” said White House lawyer Ty Cobb. “Nothing about the guilty plea or the charge implicates anyone other than Mr. Flynn.”
The White House sought to distance itself from Flynn, referring to him as the “former National Security Advisor at the White House for 25 days” as well as “a former Obama administration official.”
Flynn was a close adviser to the rich asshole during the campaign who gave a speech at the Republican National Convention in July 2016.
President Obama fired Flynn as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency and reportedly warned the rich asshole about Flynn during a discussion two days after the election, saying he had concerns about the official joining the national security team for the new president.
Former national security adviser Michael Flynn is expected to testify that President the rich asshole instructed him to contact Russian officials during the 2016 campaign, ABC News reports.
the rich asshole "directed him to make contact with the Russians," ABC's Brian Ross said Friday, just moments after Flynn entered a guilty plea for lying about his contact with Russians during the presidential transition period.
Just now: @BrianRoss on @ABC News Special Report: Flynn promised full cooperation to the Mueller team and is prepared to testify that candidate Trump "directed him to make contact with the Russians.” http://abcn.ws/2ixWHDL
Flynn pled guilty to lying to the FBI on Friday, after being charged with one felony count in special counsel Robert Mueller's probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
According to ABC News, Flynn is also prepared to testify against the rich asshole, members of the rich asshole's family and White House officials.
The former adviser has reportedly also "promised full cooperation to the Mueller team" within the last 24 hours.
Flynn is the first official to hold a formal office in the rich asshole administration to be brought down by the Mueller probe, which is examining potential ties between the campaign and Moscow during the 2016 election.
Flynn's misrepresentation of his conversations with Kislyak — which took place in December, before the rich asshole took office — were the justification for his ouster from the White House after just 24 days
the rich asshole speaks by phone with Putin in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
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Former national security adviser Mike Flynn will plead guilty Friday to a single count of lying to FBI agents — and he could provide damaging information against a number of White House officials.
Flynn had reportedly reached a deal with special counsel Robert Mueller to cooperate in the investigation of the rich asshole campaign ties to Russia, and his guilty plea suggests he gave up useful information against top officials with the campaign or within the White House.
The charging document shows Flynn lied to FBI agents Jan. 24 about two specific conversations with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak a month before, which were recorded during routine monitoring of foreign agents and show the pair discussed U.S. sanctions.
Two days after Flynn lied to the FBI, acting attorney general Sally Yates warned White House counsel Don McGahn those false statements made the national security adviser vulnerable to blackmail by Russia.
The following day, Jan. 27, George Papadopoulos, a foreign policy adviser to the campaign, also lied to the FBI about his own repeated contacts with Russian agents — and he pleaded guilty to the same charge as Flynn in exchange for his cooperation with Mueller’s probe.
President some rich asshole summoned then-FBI director James Comey to the White House later that evening for a private dinner, where the president asked for his loyalty.
The FBI director promised the rich asshole his honesty, but the president pressed him to assure his “honest loyalty” — which Comey refused to grant.
On Jan. 28, one week and one day into the administration, the rich asshole and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, spoke by phone.
Flynn was present in the Oval Office during that call, and he and the rich asshole were joined by Vice President Mike Pence, White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer and White House chief strategist Steve Bannon.
Of that group, only the rich asshole and Pence remain the White House.
The Kremlin produced a detailed, 10-paragraph readout of the call, but the White House released only a vague, one-paragraph summary that showed the rich asshole received a “congratulatory call from Russian President Vladimir Putin.”
The White House routinely records such calls, but Ilan Berman, vice president of the conservative American Foreign Policy Council think tank, suggested no such recording existed of the rich asshole-Putin call.
The day after the Oval Office call to Putin, on Jan. 29, the rich asshole signed an executive order elevating Bannon to the National Security Council and downgrading the roles of chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the director of national intelligence — a move that most observers considered baffling.
The White House fired Yates the next day, Jan. 30, and Flynn was eventually forced out Feb. 13 after the Washington Post reported Yates’ warning to the White House counsel.
Later that week, Priebus pressed Comey and then-deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe about what the FBI had uncovered about the rich asshole campaign’s ties to Russia, and Spicer personally connected CIA Director Mike Pompeo and Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) with reporters to discredit a report linking campaign officials to the Kremlin.
Flynn apologized for what he said were misleading statements to Pence — who oversaw the presidential transition — and Spicer about his contacts with the Russian ambassador.
But Pence was warned in November by Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) about Flynn’s paid work for Turkey during the campaign and his contacts with Russia, and the lawmaker suggested he should not be given access to classified information.
the rich asshole fired Comey on May 8, after asking the FBI director to drop the investigation of Flynn’s activities — a move that prompted the Justice Department to appoint Mueller as special counsel.
Jordan Sekulow appeared on Fox News on Friday to discuss new details about a meeting between former President Bill Clinton and then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch in 2016. But he ended up being forced to talk about charges facing Mike Flynn, a former top adviser to President some rich asshole.
Jordan is the son of Jay Sekulow, a personal attorney for the rich asshole. He was on Fox News with host Bill Hemmer when news broke that Flynn was expected to plead guilty for lying to authorities about his contacts with Russian operatives.
“The charge is about making false statements,” Hemmer explained. “So that could be what he is going to address at 10:30 a.m. eastern time — the charge of lying.”
“Yeah,” Sekulow replied. “And I think that that could still work with the plea deal itself, it depends on who is taking him to court, whether it is the special counsel or another matter. But if it is the special counsel — it should be under that jurisdiction — then those false statements, it could be that he is being with them, that could then lead to, if it is correct, and we don’t know if he actually does have a plea deal or not, but if it’s correct that could be the catalyst against the actual plea deal.”
Former the rich asshole National Security Adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty on Friday to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russian government officials.
The United States District Court for the District of Columbia scheduled a plea hearing for Flynn at 10:30 a.m. ET. In the hearing, Flynn pleaded guilty to making “materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent” statements to FBI agents this past January.
Specifically, Flynn falsely told the FBI that he did not tell the Russian ambassador to the United States that the country should “refrain” from escalating tensions between the two countries in the wake of new sanctions leveled against it by the outgoing Obama administration.
The Russian government did not retaliate against the Obama administration’s new sanctions late last year, and President the rich asshole himself praised this decision as “very smart” on Twitter.
The rich asshole tweet was subsequently promoted by the Russian embassy of the United States’ official Twitter account.
Speculation about Flynn cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe spiked in late October when the special counsel hit former the rich asshole campaign chairman Paul Manafort with an indictment that included money laundering allegations.
Flynn resigned as national security adviser this past February, less than a month into the rich asshole’s first term, when it was revealed that he had lied about conversations he’d had with Russian officials about potential sanctions relief.
President some rich asshole late last year sent out a tweet praising Russian president Vladimir Putin for not retaliating against the United States for leveling sanctions on the Russian government — just one day after former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn advised former Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak to not retaliate.
According to the plea filed with the United States District Court for the District of Columbia by the special counsel’s office on Friday, Flynn talked with Kislyak on December 29 last year about sanctions that were leveled against Russia by the outgoing Obama administration.
Specifically, Flynn asked Kislyak to “refrain from escalating” tensions between the countries in the wake of the new sanctions. According to the special counsel’s office, Kislyak replied that Russia had “chosen to moderate its response to those sanctions as a result of his request.”
The next day, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that his government would not immediately retaliate against the United States, despite his condemnation of the sanctions.
the rich asshole subsequently praised Putin for his intelligence.
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s expected exit from the rich asshole administration is one of many staff changes likely as President some rich asshole nears the end of his first year in office, with sources saying top economic adviser Gary Cohn and son-in-law Jared Kushner could be among those who depart.
Cohn, whose relationship with the rich asshole became tense earlier this year, has considered leaving once the Republican effort to overhaul the U.S. tax system is completed in Congress, according to the sources with ties to the White House who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Kushner, who has seen his influence in the White House shrink, may receive a “face-saving” exit as he deals with legal challenges related to a special counsel’s investigation of the rich asshole’s 2016 presidential campaign’s potential ties to Russia, one of the sources said.
“This is pure speculation,” said White House spokesman Raj Shah in an emailed statement about potential staff moves.
More junior-level advisers could also use the completion of the rich asshole’s first year and tax legislation as a pivot point to move on, leading to another period of uncertainty that has at times overshadowed the rich asshole’s tenure, which began on Jan. 20.
Things change quickly at the rich asshole White House. Advisers and Cabinet members who fall out of favor with the president can re-enter his good graces, making it hard to predict staff moves. But shifts in personnel are watched around the world for indications of how the rich asshole will tackle issues ranging from North Korea to regulatory policy.
“It may be February, it may be March, it may be April, but I think once you get to that time period, people are going to feel as though they’ve kind of put their time in,” said one person with close ties to the White House.
“You’re definitely going to see some people leave after tax cuts get done,” said a separate the rich asshole adviser, who requested anonymity to speak freely about the administration.
PLAN FOR TILLERSON
the rich asshole is considering a plan to oust Tillerson, whose relationship has been strained by the top U.S. diplomat’s softer line on North Korea and other differences, senior administration officials said. A State Department spokeswoman said Tillerson’s chief of staff had been told by the White House that the reports of Tillerson being replaced were not true.
Cohn’s future in the White House has come into question since his public criticism of the rich asshole’s response to the violence at a white supremacist rally in Virginia in August. Their once-tense relationship has since improved, however, and one source close to the White House said he could stay longer to help spearhead legislation to improve U.S. infrastructure.
“I’d go a little bit against conventional wisdom here and say he’s got one more project to get under his belt before he leaves,” the source said, referring to infrastructure.
The White House noted Cohn’s interview with CNBC earlier this month in which said he did not plan to leave after tax reform was finished. “It’s my plan to stay and work as long as I can help the president drive his economic agenda,” Cohn said.
Two of the sources with ties to the White House said they assumed the White House chief of staff, General John Kelly, wanted at least to outlast his predecessor Reince Priebus’ six-month tenure in the position. The White House spokesman’s statement said discussion of changes was speculation.
One of the sources said Kushner, who is married to the rich asshole’s daughter Ivanka the rich asshole, could go if a scenario, such as giving him an outside adviser role, were found that appealed to the president.
“Once someone comes up with a solution that sounds right, then I think he’s going to latch on,” the source said.
Kushner told the Washington Post this month that he and his wife, a fellow White House adviser, were “here to stay.”
Though a lot of speculation about departures has focused on high-profile names, the possibility of mid-level staffers leaving could have a big impact on the rhythms of the White House.
“The difference in this administration is that you don’t have replacements already on staff” or people clamoring to get on board, said one of the sources with ties to the White House.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Thursday that President the rich asshole did not know that Jayda Fransen was a leader of the ultranationalist group Britain First when he shared her anti-Muslim videos on Twitter.
the rich asshole has been under fire for sharing the unverified videos that purport to show Muslims engaged in acts of violence, which were shared by Fransen, the deputy leader of Britain First who faces charges of incitement in her homeland.
On Thursday, Sanders was asked if the rich asshole knew who Fransen was before he shared the controversial videos.
"No, I don't believe so but I think he knew what the issues are," Sanders said. "That is that we have a real threat of extreme violence and terrorism, not just in this country but across the globe, particularly in Europe. That was the point he was making. I don't have much to add beyond that."
Sanders also said she was uncertain of how the president had come across the material.
"I'm not sure every single video the president has viewed," she said.
the rich asshole's tweets sparked fury across the Atlantic, with British Prime Minister Theresa May condemning the president and the mayor of London saying he should not be allowed an official visit next year.
the rich asshole fired back, telling May to stay focused on the threat of terror in her own country.
The White House has defended the tweets, saying that even if the content is fake, the point is to draw attention to the underlying issue of radical Islamic extremism.
"The president feels that bringing up important issues of our time like extreme violence and terrorism are important things to do," Sanders said. "That is what he did in that process and he will continue to do that in a number of venues, whether it's through speeches or Twitter or other social media platforms."
Sanders said the rich asshole had "elevated" the conversation around terrorism.
"The president feels strongly about talking about and bringing up as an issue every day," Sanders said. "We're looking the best ways to protect Americans."
CNN will skip the White House's yearly holiday party for the media, a move that not only confirmed there will be no Christmas truce between the outlet and president but also made it official: Donald Trump has ruined Christmas.
Honestly, America, you should have seen it coming. Over the past year, Trump has repeatedly turned even the most innocuous occasions into major controversies. Just look at what happened on Monday when he hosted Navajo war heroes—and used the opportunity to mock Senator Elizabeth Warren by calling her "Pocahontas." He's like the human version of that bus that pulled in front of the Weather Channel camera filming the demolition of the Georgia Dome.
Here's a quick rundown of other things Trump, intentionally or accidentally, has forever ruined for our nation, its people and its cherished (and, admittedly, not-so-cherished) institutions: The White House Correspondents' Association dinner
Trump announced in April that he was not going to attend the annual media mixer, making him the first president to do so in nearly four decades, according to ABC News. He didn't give a reason, but he has called the media "the enemy of the American people," so it might have something to do with that. Hurricane relief visits
After Hurricane Maria, Trump helped the devastated people of Puerto Rico by... tossing rolls of paper towels into a crowd gathered at a chapel. He shot them into the air like basketballs. As CNN pointed out, some even fell on the floor.
BuzzFeed reported in August that Trump's lengthy working vacation in New Jersey—accompanied by a no-fly zone—forced camp organizers to call off a spectacle at which skydivers were supposed to surprise about 250 kids. The Secret Service wouldn't budge.
Retweets
The president has proven he can't be trusted with retweets. Exhibit A: In September, he shared a GIF of himself hitting a golf ball and hitting his enemy Hillary Clinton. Exhibit B: On Wednesday, he shared a series of fake Muslim attack videos posted by a far-right British politician.
Twitter in general
On second thought, we're just going to expand the scope to encompass all of Twitter. Trump has made the social media site nearly unbearable with his inflammatory posts, army of #MAGA trolls and the constant breaking news updates. That's perfectly summed up in his reaction to accidentally tweeting the typo covfefe. Instead of copping to his mistake like a normal person, Trump turned it into a mystery: "Who can figure out the true meaning of 'covfefe' ??? Enjoy!"
Remember August 21, that glorious day when the world stopped to watch the total solar eclipse? Remember how the news didn't seem that bad because we were all united by a cool celestial event? Remember how Trump ignored the advice of literally everyone and looked at the sun without glasses on? Yep. (Mitigating factor: Trump wasn't the only official to ruin the eclipse; Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin used a questionable official trip to Kentucky as a pretext for flying with his wife Louise Linton to see the lunar phenomenon.)
Serving in government
Working in the White House may seem like a solid gig, but with Trump at the helm, nobody is safe. Departures over the past year include press secretary Sean Spicer, communications director Anthony Scaramucci, chief strategist Steve Bannon, chief of staff Reince Priebus, ethics director Walter Shaub and national security adviser Michael Flynn. Let's not forget the time Trump more or less forced Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to apologize on national TV after calling him a moron. Or when Trump chose to tweet that "beleaguered" attorney general Jeff Sessions had a "VERY weak position on Hillary Clinton crime" rather than, say, calling a meeting with him. Even his Republican allies outside the White House aren't spared—just ask "Liddle Bob Corker" or "Jeff Flake(y)" or all the others that Trump is sending to the exits.
The Boy Scout Jamboree
When Trump spoke at the annual event in July, he turned his speech political, touching on the Electoral College, the economy and the so-called war on Christmas, among other subjects. He even told a long story about a fellow New York real estate developer, hinting that his "interesting life" included adults-only content. Afterward, Chief Scout Executive Michael Surbaugh wrote in a statement that he wanted to extend "sincere apologies to those in our scouting family who were offended by the political rhetoric that was inserted into the jamboree ... that was never our intent."
Pork chops
This one's from 2015, but the pictures of Trump biting down on a pork chop on a stick at the Iowa State Fair keep surfacing in the media because they are just so, um, what's the word, fittingly gross.
President the rich asshole early Friday praised Republican senators' work to pass tax reform and accused Democrats of attempting to block the legislation "because it is too good."
"Republicans Senators are working hard to pass the biggest Tax Cuts in the history of our Country. The Bill is getting better and better. This is a once in a generation chance. Obstructionist Dems trying to block because they think it is too good and will not be given the credit!" the rich asshole tweeted.
Republicans Senators are working hard to pass the biggest Tax Cuts in the history of our Country. The Bill is getting better and better. This is a once in a generation chance. Obstructionist Dems trying to block because they think it is too good and will not be given the credit!
Senate Republicans are scrambling to pass tax reform before the year's end, in what would be their first major legislative victory under the rich asshole. Hopes to start a floor marathon, known as a vote-a-rama, on Thursday were dashed when senators still couldn't reach a deal on the deficit.
Democratic senators voted against starting the debate on the bill, and are expected to vote against the legislation. Republicans control 52 seats and can afford only two defections on the legislation. Vice President Mike Pence would break a 50-50 tie.
If the Senate can approve its legislation this week, Congress would have the month of December to work out differences between the Senate and House bills.
The White House, in all its Christmas cheer, decided not to invite Chris Johnson to their annual holiday party which is, the reporter said, “just kind of consistent with the policy of the administration to exclude LGBTQ people."
Chris Johnson is the chief political and White House reporter for the nation’s oldest LGBT paper the Washington Blade. He attends the White House briefings, reports on the president, and has attended every annual holiday party for the last seven years, he told the Independent. So when he didn’t get an invite, he emailed the White House to ask why.
“I assumed it was an oversight, because I’m at the White House every day and contribute to the pool reports,” Johnson told Politico.
But he sent the email over the Thanksgiving holiday, and hasn’t received a response to the email, or an explanation.
“I could interpret this as playing favorites,” Johnson said. “The lack of invite is very consistent with me being ignored by White House press secretary Sarah Sanders during the press briefings.”
And Johnson isn’t the only long-time White House correspondent not invited to the Christmas party — April Ryan, one of a few black journalists in the White House Press Corps was also not invited to the party for the first time in years. And like Johnson, Ryan doesn’t think it was a simple mistake.
“I don’t think I was overlooked,” Ryan told The Washington Post. “I think they don’t like me. For whatever reason, they have disdain for me.”
Bill Palmer Updated: 12:28 am EST Thu Nov 30, 2017
some rich asshole’s former campaign adviser and longtime friend Roger Stone has long portrayed himself as a bully in the public square. Stone sells conspiratorial political books for a living, and loves to play the part. In fact he’s been such a misbehaving bully, he’s been permanently banned from CNN and Twitter. But now that he finds himself firmly in the crosshairs of the rich asshole-Russia scandals, he’s revealing himself to be very much a coward.
Rather than face contempt of Congress or worse, Roger Stone has coughed up the name of the WikiLeaks go-between he was using during the election: his friend Randy Credico. In so doing he’s sold out Credico, who has just been subpoenaed by the House Intelligence Committee as a result (link). As it turns out, that’s just the beginning of the story, because now Stone is admitting he’s been lying the entire time, and he’s apologizing for it.
Ryan Lizza, who writes for the New Yorker and appears on CNN, tweeted this after the news broke: “I asked Roger Stone in March if Randy Credico was his Wikileaks contact and he lied to me and said no. He just texted me, ‘A misguided effort to protect Credico who I felt had helped me on an off the record basis. Sorry.'” So now, not only is Stone giving up his friend to try to save himself, he’s also confessing to his lies and apologizing to the media. Has he turned over a new leaf? Probably not. He may be more worried about obstruction of justice charges.
Lying to a journalist is not a crime in and of itself. But if it can be demonstrated that Roger Stone lied to the media (and thus the public) for the purpose of trying to throw off investigators, that can meet the legal definition of obstruction of justice. Now that Stone is panicking and caving, he may be caving all the way.
"So far as one can tell, he knows absolutely nothing about the intelligence community."
Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton
(AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
According to the New York Times, some rich asshole has an insane plan to shake up the national security side of his administration, in which he fires Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, replaces him with Director of National Intelligence Mike Pompeo, and then replaces him with Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton.
This plot has many national security officials shaken, and no part of it more so than Cotton taking over the CIA.
Per Raw Story, former intelligence officials are furious. CIA veteran Ned Price called Cotton a “political ideologue.” Paul Pillar, a 28-year veteran of the CIA, condemned the GOP senator as “an awful appointment … who is not well suited to lead an agency part of whose core mission is objective analysis.”
Robert Deitz, former senior counsel at the CIA, said that Cotton “knows absolutely nothing about the intelligence community,” while former CIA operations officer Glenn Carle blasted Cotton as “wholly unfit to be CIA director.”
Cotton may know nothing about the intelligence community, but he sure has some strong opinions on it.
Cotton is best known for authoring a letter to the Iranian mullahs behind President Barack Obama’s back — signed by 46 other Republican senators — in an attempt to undercut the Iran nuclear deal. At the time, the act was blasted by 22 newspaper editorial boards, and one Army general called it “mutinous.” He also compared Obama’s diplomatic talks with Iran and the P5+1 (the UN Security Council’s member countries) to the appeasement of Nazi Germany.
Cotton has called the detainees in Guantanamo Bay “savages” and said that his only criticism of the facility is that “there are too many empty beds.” He also claimed that waterboarding is not torture, contrary to all psychological evidence.
Worse still, he has an incredibly dim view of press freedom. While serving in the Army, Cotton wrote a letter callingfor New York Times reporters Eric Lichtblau and James Risen to be prosecuted for espionage, in response to their investigation on how the government tracks money laundering by terrorists.
This is the worst possible person you could put in charge of a government agency with a massive surveillance apparatus — especially since he is a strong supporter of warrantless surveillance of American citizens.
In choosing Cotton, the rich asshole will place the CIA under the leadership of a far-right ideologue who sees no moral or legal limit to the government’s power to target threats or use military force. His decision will endanger us all.
If the rich asshole appoints Cotton, said one CIA veteran, “let’s burn it all down.”
some rich asshole decided to celebrate being able to say "Merry Christmas," while his critics had fun poking fun at the event.
One side note that #some rich asshole was happy to talk about during the election [VIDEO]was his promise to put an end to the so-called "War on Christmas." After attending the 95th annual National #Christmas treeLighting and giving a speech to a small crowd, the president decided to say a few words on#Twitter, but didn't get the best response
the rich asshole on Christmas
For years during the holiday season, conservatives and the right-wing media have brought up the alleged "War on Christmas," which they believe is an attempt by liberals to minimize the holiday by broadening the season to include other holidays, such as Hanukkah, New Years, and Kwanaza.
During the 2016 presidential election, some rich asshole vowed that he would make sure to say "Merry Christmas" at the White House, accusing then President Barack Obama for dropping the phrase in favor of the more inclusive "Happy Holidays." While Obama did use the term "Happy Holidays" on occasion, he often repeated "Merry Christmas" on a routine basis as the holiday came near. Fast forward to present day and the former host of "The Apprentice" was happy to attend the lighting of a Christmas tree in Washington, D.C. before adding his thoughts during a pair of tweets on November 30.
After attending the lighting of the National Christmas Tree on Thursday night, some rich asshole took to Twitter to repeat similar sediments.
"Today is a day that I’ve been looking very much forward to ALL YEAR LONG. It is one that you have heard me speak about many times before," the rich asshole said, and later tweeted. "It is my tremendous honor to finally wish America and the world, a very MERRY CHRISTMAS!" he added.
Not stopping there, some rich asshole went on to praise the religious aspect of Christmas. "Whatever our beliefs, we know that the birth of Jesus Christ and the story of his life," he said. In response, journalists and social media couldn't help but point out the low turn out to watch the president speak.
Today is a day that I’ve been looking very much forward to ALL YEAR LONG. It is one that you have heard me speak about many times before.
Now, as President of the United States, it is my tremendous honor to finally wish America and the world, a very MERRY CHRISTMAS! pic.twitter.com/cTvdlUkfHV
You should be wishing people happy holidays, Merry Christmas and whatever else they celebrate. This is America. We are free to believe what we choose!.
Today is a day that I’ve been looking very much forward to ALL YEAR LONG. It is one that you have heard me speak about many times before.
Now, as President of the United States, it is my tremendous honor to finally wish America and the world, a very MERRY CHRISTMAS! pic.twitter.com/cTvdlUkfHV
"The Grinch had a better showing in Whoville," another tweet stated. "The majority of Americans know you don't give a cr*p...stop. Looks like the biggest tree lighting crowd ever," one Twitter user wrote with humor.
Today is a day that I’ve been looking very much forward to ALL YEAR LONG. It is one that you have heard me speak about many times before.
Now, as President of the United States, it is my tremendous honor to finally wish America and the world, a very MERRY CHRISTMAS! pic.twitter.com/cTvdlUkfHV
Today is a day that I’ve been looking very much forward to ALL YEAR LONG. It is one that you have heard me speak about many times before.
Now, as President of the United States, it is my tremendous honor to finally wish America and the world, a very MERRY CHRISTMAS! pic.twitter.com/cTvdlUkfHV
And just what in tarnation is this idiotic tweet supposed to mean? Do you think you invented Christmas or something? lmaooooo bro this really isn’t that deep, you’re acting like you solved police brutality. btw you realize Obama said “Merry Christmas” literally every single year?
Today is a day that I’ve been looking very much forward to ALL YEAR LONG. It is one that you have heard me speak about many times before.
Now, as President of the United States, it is my tremendous honor to finally wish America and the world, a very MERRY CHRISTMAS! pic.twitter.com/cTvdlUkfHV
The majority of Americans know you don't give a crap...stop. Looks like the biggest tree lighting crowd ever..LMFAO. BTW, many of us are also anticipating that shoe that's abt to drop. You're obviously very
nervous.
"Perhaps you'll get a Lego set so you can build your wall," yet another tweet added. "Annnnnnnd the tax bill is falling apart. Just like your presidency," an additional post read. The humorous backlash to some rich asshole's Christmas posts continued as the opposition to his presidency proved to be alive and well.
President some rich asshole reportedly believes that a government shutdown could be politically beneficial for him.
the rich asshole said he would blame Democrats if a partial government shutdown was triggered.
President some rich asshole reportedly believes that a government shutdown could be politically beneficial for him and could score points with his supporters, according to sources cited in a Washington Post report Thursday.
the rich asshole reportedly asked friends how the looming partial government shutdown, which triggers if the rich asshole is not able to sign a funding bill by December 8, will affect him politically, and told people he would blame the Democrats if it occurred.
the rich asshole recently echoed his heated rhetoric on immigration during the 2016 presidential campaign, in order to sway supporters who have grown uneasy with him extending an olive branch to Democrats in September, according to The Post. the rich asshole reportedly told advisers that taking a hardline approach to immigration and securing funding for his proposed US-Mexico border wall was an important issue.
the rich asshole made similar statements Tuesday, after he was ghosted by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who declined to attend a meeting with Republican leaders to discuss federal budget.
"Nothing to them is important except for raising taxes," the rich asshole said Tuesday, adding that he "would absolutely blame the Democrats."
the rich asshole's supposed stance on the partial government shutdown has conflicted with Republican lawmakers, who are desperate for Democratic support to gain votes.
"When you run for office and you get elected and you are given the opportunity to govern, it strikes me as a bad idea to shut the government down," Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas said in The Post. "That seems like an abdication of responsibility."
Senate Republicans scrambled to rewrite their tax legislation on Thursday before a final vote is expected at the end of the week.
President the rich asshole reportedly pressed multiple Senate Republicans to end the Senate Intelligence Committee’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, according to a new report.
Multiple lawmakers and aides told The New York Times that the rich asshole asked several top Republicans, including committee chairman Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) to end the investigation quickly.
the rich asshole’s requests came over the summer as special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian election interference ramped up.
A White House spokesman told the Times that the rich asshole has “at no point…attempted to apply undue influence on committee members.”
The U.S. intelligence community concluded in a report made public in January that the Kremlin sought to disrupt the 2016 election and sway the race in the rich asshole's favor, prompting a number of investigations by House and Senate committees and special counsel Robert Mueller.
the rich asshole has repeatedly denied allegations of collusion between his campaign and Russia and has accused Democrats of using the investigation as an excuse for losing the 2016 election.
The Senate Intelligence Committee's Russia investigation has, in recent months, turned increasingly to allegations of coordination between members of the rich asshole's presidential campaign and Moscow, as well as the president's abrupt decision to fire FBI Director James Comey, who was previously in charge of the bureau's own Russia probe.
the rich asshole’s campaign and several of its associates have reportedly begun handing over documents to the Senate Judiciary Committee for its probe into Russia’s election interference.
The New York Times report comes months after Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee that the rich asshole asked him to "let go" of the investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS ON THURSDAY REFUSED TO SAY WHETHER PRESIDENT THE RICH ASSHOLE HAS CONFIDENCE IN SECRETARY OF STATE REX TILLERSON.
SANDERS WAS ASKED MULTIPLE TIMES IF TILLERSON STILL ENJOYS THE RICH ASSHOLE’S BACKING IN RESPONSE TO REPORTS THE WHITE HOUSE HAS HATCHED A PLAN TO FORCE HIM OUT.
“WHEN THE PRESIDENT LOSES CONFIDENCE IN SOMEONE, THEY WILL NO LONGER SERVE IN THE CAPACITY THAT THEY'RE IN,” SANDERS REPLIED.
The spokeswoman said the rich asshole and Tillerson are “continuing to work together to close out what we’ve seen to be an incredible year.”
“I THINK HIS FUTURE RIGHT NOW IS TO CONTINUE WORKING HARD AS THE SECRETARY OF STATE, CONTINUE WORKING WITH THE PRESIDENT, TO CARRY OUT HIS AGENDA,” SANDERS ADDED.
THE COMMENTS ARE UNLIKELY TO QUIET MOUNTING SPECULATION THAT TILLERSON’S TENURE AT THE STATE DEPARTMENT COULD BE NEARING ITS END.
Multiple news outlets reported Thursday the White House has hatched a plan to replace Tillerson with CIA Director Mike Pompeo.
State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert also sought to shoot down the story, saying White House chief of staff John Kelly had called Tillerson to tell him the story was false.
But the denials have done little to quiet speculation that Tillerson is on the way out.
The president and secretary of State have long had a tense relationship, and Pompeo is seen as a loyal member of the rich asshole administration.
the rich asshole ducked questions about the supposed plan earlier on Thursday.
President the rich asshole has reportedly told advisers and confidants that a shutdown of the federal government could benefit him politically, according to a new report.
The Washington Post reports that the rich asshole has spoken with multiple advisers about the impact of a potential government shutdown. the rich asshole reportedly believes a shutdown would be good for him and has told friends he would blame Democrats if the government did shut down, according to the Post.
Two people who have spoken with the rich asshole also told the Post that the rich asshole wants to appear tough on immigration issues and securing funding for his wall on the U.S-Mexico border in the upcoming government funding fight.
On Tuesday, the rich asshole tweeted that he didn’t believe a deal could be reached with Democrats to fund the government.
"Meeting with 'Chuck and Nancy' today about keeping government open and working," the rich asshole tweeted.
"Problem is they want illegal immigrants flooding into our Country unchecked, are weak on Crime and want to substantially RAISE Taxes. I don’t see a deal!"
Democratic leaders later pulled out of the proposed meeting with the rich asshole, instead opting to meet with Republican leadership in Congress to discuss a deal to avoid a shutdown.
The current funding bill, brokered in a surprise deal between the rich asshole and Democrats in September that caught Republicans off-guard, expires on Dec. 8.
Democrats have demanded that a new funding bill includes protections for young undocumented immigrants known as “Dreamers.” The White House and other Republicans have countered, demanding more money for border enforcement.
In May, the rich asshole called for a “good shutdown” of the federal government ahead of the September funding fight to fix the “mess” in Washington.
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