oooooooooo 2 grand juries!

I am starting to think someone a rung or 2 under Trump is going to be the fall person.. Presumably someone or multiple people Trump has already fired or will fire in the coming days. Keep an eye on who gets fired next or "resigns."

I don't think Trump is stupid enough to be directly involved in any dealings with Russia. He would have a middle man in his administration that allows him a way out because that person would be the scapegoat when shit hits the ceiling.

But if Trump IS directly involved then he is the dumbest son of a bitch the world has known. Conspiracy 101: do not be directly involved yourself if you want your own conspiracy to succeed.

Finally, a reason to update!

Big Bailiff Bob finally charged someone. Trump's former campaign manager. There's nothing surprising about that. People knew Manafort was paid off years ago. The documents just show that he was in way deeper shit (60 million!?!?!?!!) with a Russian oligarch than was previously thought. And he was way better at laundering money than given credit for, 18 million is a nice chunk of change. No real mention of Trump here, so largely blah stuff that we already knew anyway but it's a start.

Anyway that shit's boring. That's just the potatoes.

The steak is this other guy:
Papadopoulos

Charged with lying to the FBI, admitted it, and is talking with Big Bailiff Bob about it as we speak. He's a trump foreign policy advisor from the campaign days. He struck a plea deal so he's presumably ratting out other shit in the campaign right now. This is significantly more interesting for a variety of reasons. First, what he did. Admitting he lied about that means he's willing to squeal about other stuff. But the bigger and more meaningful thing is that Mueller didn't have to reveal this. This guy was charged the first week of the month and he unsealed him today. Mueller is tipping his hand for two reasons: One to show that the focus is still on the Trump campaign and he's not done there. And two he's willing to talk to and work with anyone willing to talk. That's pretty big because he's by all accounts been trying to flip Manafort (Or Flynn) for months. If this guy gets him somewhere that's great but if he can lead to a bigger fish that's even better.



Trump's reaction. He's meeting with Sessions right now. 
Paul Ryan: This is gonna derail what we're doing in Congress right now. No tax cuts for the rich  
Marco Rubio is nowhere to be seen. 


538 is killing coverage more than normal
fivethirtyeight.com/live-blog/manafort-indictment-trump-russia/    (live blog)
fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-reactions-to-the-manafort-indictment-that-really-matter/ I'd argue a couple more than that but this is probably the ones that matter most. 

www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-campaign-adviser-pleaded-guilty-to-lying-about-russian-contacts/2017/10/30/d525e712-bd7d-11e7-97d9-bdab5a0ab381_story.html?tid=ss_tw&utm_term=.a5a57c328c07

I love it when a man unknowningly tweets about his wrongdoings

Trump's going down for obstruction of justice, the questions are when? And will the Republicans impeach for it? I mean he committed the textbook definition of it, did the same thing that Nixon did, and he even admitted he obstructed in the Lester Holt interview.

Thinking of meeting is not the same as meeting though.

On the other hand, I am sure some lowly member from Trump campaign met with the Russians. Trump will distance himself from whoever it is, if he hasn't already. Mueller will have to figure out who that someone is.

And that's how our democracy dies. Everything happening today and in the near future concerning Trump is of relevance. Everything that happened today is that there's proof that people in his campaign colluded, wanted to collude, and surrounded themselves with people who wanted to collude and could keep quiet. It's up to the right wing media, and members of the GOP to end the partisanship and do something about it. It's clear now that Russia wanted to and did aid Trump whether he knew it or not. If the WashingtonPost tape from months ago is to be believed the leadership knew about it, and did nothing. If they still do nothing, our democracy dies. 

Whether or not Mueller brings it forth today, tomorrow, or next year he did it. He admitted to it, and there's no reason not to bring the charge, the question is like you said what charges go with it? 

There's 10 Senators that never supported Trump and were vocal critics (Sasse, Collins, Murkowski, McCain, Flake, etc the usual names). Add that to the 48 caucus members of the Democrats and you're up 58 assuming they'd all vote to take him out. And in Corker's vote and you're at 59. You just need 8 more to take him out in the Senate. The House is a clusterfuck so there's no point in doing the math there. But after 2018 you can get the simple majority in the House pretty easy for Democrats. Even though Flake and Corker are gone you're still at 57 and need 10 assuming you hold the court in your seats(and democrats should especially since Flake and Heller's seats are going blue so they can lose a couple like Heitkamp and Donnelley). I think you can peel off 10 who would be worried about their jobs in 2020/have morals/believe in the Constitution/etc etc.

4 more coming soon, baby 

Big day and for relatively unnoticed reasons but we'll talk about the big news first because that sets up this juicy juicy steak. This is so spicy, I'm not a typical white boy anymore.

So the big news is that Mueller indicted 13 Russians who were working with the campaign to change people's minds and sow division in the country. Rosenstein was careful to note two very important things.

1. That there's no proof that this influenced the election (can argue either way but since we'll never really know barring something massive it's gonna be a subjective thing).
and more importantly:
2. That no Americans were being arrested and charged today because they were "unwitting" participants in the campaign. The keyword is unwitting, that means they weren't fully aware of what was happening, and how deep/serious it really was. Put a pin in this because we're coming back to it in just a couple short paragraphs.

Mueller then announced later the arrest of a California man, Pinedo, who pleaded guilty already. So right away Mueller just took the second part of Rosenstein's statement and turned it away because of what Pinedo did. According to the statement he was stealing American identities and giving them to Russians. Bank account info, SS, name, address, etc.That's fraud, identity theft, and a few other charges. (put a pin in this too). He pleaded guilty and is working with Mueller, and the big part is that he didn't disclose everything he knows about it, and that the deal seems to indicate he committed other crimes but this was enough to get him a decent bargain deal, and to continue building a case about what Russia was doing with the campaign.

circumstantial stuff that may have no real bearing on anything but just might:

A certain someone changed his financial info in January to include additional assets. And then there's this from last month, Kushner lenders and investors subpoena'd by US Tax Authorities. Related? Maybe, maybe not we'll see. But given Pinedo's money laundering, Kushner's assets changing and this all coming out in the same week it looks suspicious.

But what we do know is this: 




and


Which if you don't read between the lines is funny, but given his email history with the Russians he probably was more witting than unwitting. 

Hot diggity dam

I love drama