"This is all a hall of mirrors. Its impossible to tell with any real reliability who is doing what
to whom"
Josh Marshall - The Vipers and the Derp
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-vipers-and-the-derp
By JOSH MARSHALL Published JULY 12, 2017 2:27 AM
There are two noteworthy articles out tonight, one from the Times and another from the Post. They are both of the ‘President is enraged about X and turning on Y’ genre which has become a staple of over the last six months. On that front, the kicker for me is a point noted in both articles but with more detail from the Post: with the White House figuratively burning to the ground around them, Ivanka, Jared and Melania Trump are pushing the President to solve the problem by firing Reince. Clearly, Reince Priebus is the problem. But the three specific, factual points I want to reference come from the article in the Times.
First we learn that the initial response from Donald Trump Jr to the Saturday (first) Times article was crafted by the a group of the President’s advisors on Air Force One on the return from Europe. The President signed off on the final version. The President’s son is purportedly set apart from the daily affairs of the White House running the President’s business empire. Why is the President’s White House team answering press stories on his behalf? That seems like a pretty good question. More practically though, if nothing else, this appears to implicate the President in the false claims made to the Times for the first story. Let’s set it aside for the moment. It’s hardly the weirdest thing in the article.
Second, we get more details on the origins of Trump Jr conflagration.
The emails were discovered in recent weeks by Mr. Kushner’s legal team as it reviewed documents, and the team amended his clearance forms to disclose it, according to people briefed on the developments, who like others declined to be identified because of the sensitive political and legal issues involved.
Similarly, Mr. Manafort recently mentioned the meeting to congressional investigators looking into possible collusion, according to the people briefed on the matter.
Clearly it was out of Kushner’s legal process that the story emerged, though hints of it came up in parallel through Manafort’s discussions with congressional investigators. (A separate Times piece notes that it was Kushner’s initial failure to note two critical meetings – one with the Russian Ambassador and another with that Russian state banker – which led to the more searching scrutiny which uncovered this meeting.)
snip - more to read at the above link