TPM - Marshall's take - "Taking Stock of the Times Blockbuster"

[NRaleighLiberal]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/taking-stock-of-the-times-blockbuster

By JOSH MARSHALL Published JULY 9, 2017 6:56 PM

I want to share a few initial thoughts on this afternoon’s Times blockbuster. If you have not seen it yet, yesterday the Times reported that Donald Trump Jr., along with Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort, met last year with a Russian lawyer with close ties to the Kremlin, Natalia Veselnitskaya, about something called the Magnitsky Act. Magnitsky is a sort of mini-sanctions law passed in 2012 which Russia has wanted overturned ever since. (The details of Magnitsky are important but we’ll discuss them later.) That in itself was a major story. This afternoon they followed up with additional details that made it a genuine blockbuster: according to the Times, Trump took the meeting because he was promised that he would receive damaging information about Hillary Clinton.

This is a very big story in that it gets quite close to the first evidence of collusion between the Russian government and the Trump campaign during the 2016 campaign. At a minimum, Trump Jr was open to receiving damaging information about Clinton from Russian nationals who a simple Google search would identify as being closely allied with the Kremlin.

Let me share a few thoughts.

1. What I suspect is the most important detail in this story is the sources. The Times reports that they got the information from “three advisers to the White House briefed on the meeting and two others with knowledge of it.” They apparently talked after the release of the first story. This is highly, highly significant. Needless to say, advisors to the White House are not in the business of taking highly damaging stories and volunteering new information which makes them catastrophically damaging. The only reason a President’s allies ever do something like that is either to get ahead of something much more damaging or get a first crack at shaping the public understanding of something much more damaging. There’s really no other explanation. We don’t know yet what drove them to volunteer such highly damaging information. Five of them did it. It wasn’t a matter of one person going rogue.

snip - more to read at the link

[Ligyron]

1. Another possibility is they're looking to burn someone ala Dan Rather.

Maybe not in this instance but we just know they'd love to pull off a rat fucking using the Russia connection sometime soon.

Due diligence

[Bernardo de La Paz]

4. But mini-tRump admitted he agreed to meeting because anti-Clinton info was offered by a Russian.

So there is no burn.

Or rather (pun intended), the only one burning just now is mini-tRump on the carpet in front of "big hands" Republican Pres tRump.

[madaboutharry]

2. Three things are clear:

1. Very soon this will reach the President himself and Donald J. Trump will have
nowhere to hide.

2. There are multiple people working in The White House who have concluded that
they are not willing to go to prison for Trump.

3 The heat will become so intense that Republicans in Washington will have no
choice but to turn on Trump, even if that means angering and losing vast portions
of the republican base. They will be shamed into putting country before party.

[janx]

3. My first question was the same: Who were these sources in the WH and why did they spill the beans?

Have they been interviewed by Mueller's team?

[regnaD kciN]

5. I fear all this will fall into a Catch-22...

1) Lots of news about a possible treasonous Trump-Russia connection. "Yeah, but it's just speculation --there's no proof."

2) Eventually, proof emerges. "Oh, that? Everybody knew about it months ago. It's old news -- time to move on."

[tblue37]

6. One other reason: those 3 advisors could have decided to help get the Trumps out of

power, either because they really don't like them, or even because they finally figured out that the Trumps would do more damage to the US than even the advisors could stomach.

[MiddleClass]

7. Maybe those subpoenas were issued for White House staff, and were trying to get out front of it

The Mueller investigations.

Or trying to set the hounds on big bad Wolf Cubs.