Mueller Exposes Putin's Hold Over Trump

[UpInArms]

Just over a week ago, on Friday December 7, the Special Counsel’s Office headed by Robert Mueller for the first time outlined in a court filing the grand narrative of the Russia Probe. The court filing revealed what many had long suspected, that Trump and his family had used, or tried to use, his presidential candidacy, and then his presidency, to enhance their own wealth.

We also learned finally what hold Russian President Vladimir Putin has over Trump. It’s not as some suspected, a money laundering episode from more than a decade ago. It was something that happened in real time during the presidential election itself. Thus, Trump himself repeatedly stated since entering the presidential race in June 2015 that he had no business in Russia and no interactions with representatives of Russia. It now turns out that Putin knew what the American people didn’t, namely that Donald Trump was throughout the 2016 presidential primary campaign secretly negotiating to build a huge and lucrative hotel in Moscow, which required the personal support of Vladimir Putin. The fact that Putin knew about Trump’s secret dealings, while the American people didn’t, meant that if Trump didn’t do what Russia wanted, Russia could expose Trump’s lies and so bring him down.

The filing revealed that Mueller’s Office is now investigating the hypothesis that Donald Trump, his campaign, his organization and his associates participated in a massive election fraud, through five interlocking conspiracies—arguably the worst set of crimes against the United States in its history.

For some time, it’s been obvious that Donald Trump has been acting in a weird way towards America’s adversary, Russia. Until recently, the miscellaneous bits and pieces of the Trump-Russia jigsaw puzzle didn’t fit together in any coherent way.

https://thumbor.forbes.com/thumbor/670x375/

https://thumbor.forbes.com/thumbor/670x502/

More at https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2018/12/16/mueller-exposes-putins-hold-over-trump/amp/

[SWBTATTReg]

1. Worst set of crimes indeed! NT

[Eyeball_Kid]

2. It would seem that Russia...

no longer has THIS issue as kompromat since we’re reading about it and Mueller is giving it some of his time. There must be other secrets that Putin has.

[Haggis for Breakfast]

8. Remember that his interactions with Russia go back decades.

God only knows what Putin has on him. But I'd be willing to bet that whatever it is, he KNOWS his rabid base of red-meat knuckle draggers would desert him over it. They may not understand high finance, but you know they'd understand the debauchery of a sex tape, especially if it involved deviant behavior, hence the Pee Tape is real.

[Liberty Belle]

12. They didn't desert him for screwing a porn star while his wife is pregnant, so

I don't think the pee pee tape is what he's worried about, or that his base would desert him over that.

But if he was selling out U.S. national interest to Russia, in ways that would put us in danger, such as say, nuclear disarmament, or giving Russia top-secret information that could be used to cause us harm, that might finally be what would get his base to abandone him. Republicans respond to fear. Fear that Russia means to harm us and Trump is enabling them to do so, willingly or because he is being blackmailed, could finally be what would frighten them enough to get them to want him impeached.

[dewsgirl]

3. Where do Manafort, Sessions and Carter Page fit in, I wonder?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. This is an excellent explanation of the big picture - and it's in Forbes,

not exactly a lefty publication.

I have also been wondering whether, as part of Trump's need to curry favor with Putin, he has been giving Putin classified national defense information - which would be espionage, prosecutable under the Espionage Act. Will Trump end up in the pokey, doing LWOP with Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen?

[Mr.Bill]

5. And remember, both candidates

started getting security briefings months before the election, I believe. So he would have had classified info even before he was elected.

[empedocles]

6. Would not surprise at all.

'TREASON'S GREETINGS'

[RVN VET71]

7. Can a president be a spy?

I know it sounds like a silly question, but I read somewhere that presidents can de-classify pretty much at-will. If that's the case, Trump could pretty much give away the farm without facing charges for it.

Even if that is the case, it would be a very valuable piece of information if Mueller or anyone else could come forward with hard proof that Individual-1 actually did give Putin sensitive national defense info. Valuable for loyal American citizens, I mean. Not for the deplorables, whose claim to American citizenship has morphed into a cultic loyalty and affection for Trump, instead of the American constitution, its laws, traditions, or love of individual freedom.

[UpInArms]

10. White House furious after being trolled with Russia Oval Office photos

https://www.cnn.com/2017/05/11/politics/oval-office-photos-donald-trump-russians/index.html

Washington (CNN)The White House did not anticipate that the Russian government would allow its state news agency to post photographs of an Oval Office meeting between President Donald Trump, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russia's ambassador to the US, a White House official said.

Photos of Wednesday's meeting, taken by a Russian state news media photographer one day after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey amid questions about possible Trump campaign collusion with Moscow, were ultimately posted by Russia's news agency, TASS.
The White House did not post photos of the meeting until Thursday. The State Department did post photos of Lavrov's meeting with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, but that was open to the press.

"They tricked us," an angry White House official said.

"That's the problem with the Russians -- they lie," the official added.

The Russians used the photos to troll the White House in its social media posts Wednesday. The Russian Foreign Ministry posted a photo of a smiling US President shaking hands with Lavrov on Twitter, adding strange and ironic optics to the questions already swirling around the White House over Comey's firing.

.... the meeting was closed to the US Press ...

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

11. A president can declassify information, and presidents do share sensitive info

with other governments when it's necessary to do so in the national interest. However, what if a president shares sensitive national defense information with a hostile foreign power for only for his own personal interests and not for the benefit of the country? What if sharing that information is actually detrimental to the United States? That's where it could get really messy, I think.

Say, for example, Putin tells Trump that it would really be nice to know exactly what our military assets are in a certain area (maybe because he's planning some kind of military action somewhere), and of course in return for that information he would be sure not to mention that thing about the Trump Hotel project during the 2016 election campaign. So Trump gives him that information, and Putin keeps mum - for now, at least until next time he wants something. Is that espionage?

[czarjak]

9. ''Tis the reason for the treason...

[Botany]

13. the worst set of crimes against the United States in its history.

" ... that Donald Trump, his campaign, his organization and his associates participated in a massive election fraud ..."

[Achilleaze]

14. republicans have betrayed America

deplorable republican traitors deserve justice: indict, try, convict, lock them up.

[kentuck]

15. Forbes?

This is shocking!