Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2

[Rick Plant]

Michael Cohen says missing tapes could prove Trump lied about siccing security on protesters

The former fixer and personal lawyer for Donald Trump gave a deposition this Monday, testifying that the former president lied under oath and ordered his security guards to get “rid of” protesters they later beat up, The Daily Beast reports.

Michael Cohen also testified that evidence of Trump's alleged lie was likely destroyed. Cohen was called as a surprise witness in a lawsuit over the way Trump Organization security personnel attacked demonstrators, saying he was in the room when Trump made the order -- a claim the Trump Organization disputes.

"According to court paperwork listing the evidence at the upcoming trial, the demonstrators who sued only got one building surveillance tape, which purportedly shows corporate security chief Keith Schiller making his way through the lobby to fight demonstrators outside the building on New York City’s Fifth Avenue," reports The Daily Beast.

"But the building regularly took security video on the 26th floor outside Trump’s office and in the elevator, which would easily prove if what Cohen claims is true—that he was in the room when Trump allegedly gave the order and walked alongside Schiller out the suite and down the lift."

Trump testified under oath last year regarding the 2015 incident. "The president was exactly how you would expect him to be, he answered questions the way you would expect Mr. Trump to answer questions, and conducted himself in a manner that you would expect Mr. Trump to conduct himself," lawyer Benjamin Dictor told Reuters.

Read more here: https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trumps-former-fixer-michael-cohen-says-missing-tapes-would-prove-trump-lied

[Rick Plant]

Donnie is a Russian stooge. Look how happy he is to be amongst his Russian "partners".   

Five years ago, Trump secretly celebrated firing FBI director and gave Russians classified intel inside the Oval Office



Exactly five years ago tomorrow then-President Donald Trump gave top Russian officials code word classified top secret intelligence, putting Israeli spies at risk, and celebrated his firing of FBI Director Jim Comey, all during a meeting inside the Oval Office. No American journalists were allowed to be present, but a photographer from Russian state media was.

NBC News Presidential Historian Michael Beschloss noted the upcoming anniversary, and that today is the anniversary of Trump firing his FBI Director:

Michael Beschloss @BeschlossDC

Trump fired Comey five years ago today.

Day after Trump fired Comey five years ago today, then-President had his jovial secret meeting with Lavrov and Kislyak:




Five years ago tomorrow, this charming image of Lavrov and Trump behind the Resolute Desk used by American Presidents for more than a century.



https://twitter.com/BeschlossDC/status/1523669020804845568

Included in the secret, "jovial," Oval Office meeting were Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Just two months before Trump welcomed the officials into the Oval, CNN reported: "Current and former US intelligence officials have described Kislyak as a top spy and recruiter of spies."

One day after the secret meeting, the Russian Embassy posted this photo of Donald Trump excitedly shaking Kislyak's hand in a near-embrace:



Ten days after firing Coney the world would learn that inside that secret Oval Office meeting Trump told the Russians: “I just fired the head of the F.B.I. He was crazy, a real nut job,” as The New York Times reported.

“I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.”

https://twitter.com/BeschlossDC/status/1523669020804845568

[Rick Plant]

Mark Esper: Trump was 'biggest leaker' in his own administration and it was 'bad for the country'



Donald Trump has a long history of both complaining about and being the source of "leaks" within his own administration.

In a new excerpt from his forthcoming book, former Defense Secretary Mark Esper says that "leaks were a chronic problem" in the Trump administration and asserts that the former was the "biggest leaker of all."

As reported by Business Insider, Esper writes in "A Sacred Oath: Memoirs of a Secretary of Defense During Extraordinary Times", "The individual motivations for the leaks ranged from advancing a preferred policy outcome to enhancing the leaker's own role or credentials to currying favor with the president. It was a noxious behavior learned from the top. The president was the biggest leaker of all. It turned colleague against colleague, department against department, and it was generally bad for the administration and the country."

According to Esper, the leaks "damaged trust" and made people "far more reluctant to speak up and share their views."

"Nobody wanted to see their name in the morning news, especially when the words were so often twisted, misinterpreted, and taken out of context," he added. "In the Trump administration, this could get you blacklisted or fired."

Trump often complained about leakers during his administration and vowed to expose and punish them. In a May 2018 tweet he wrote, "Leakers are traitors and cowards, and we will find out who they are!"

Esper's identification of Trump as a leaker backs up that same assertion by former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in his memoir. Last year Christie revealed that Trump told him he leaked to Axios that he was offering Christie the White House chief of staff job in late 2018.

"I did it myself," Trump said when Christie asked him if he knew who leaked the story, according to the book. "It was a great story, right? It was good for you and good for me. It was good," Trump said. Christie says he withdrew himself from consideration to avoid embarrassing Trump by publicly rejecting the offer.

During his presidential campaign Trump initially denied reports that for years he had used the fake names John Barron or John Miller when calling reporters to promote his business interests. He eventually admitted his subterfuge to late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel.

https://www.businessinsider.com/mark-esper-trump-was-biggest-leaker-of-all-in-his-administration-2022-5

[Rick Plant]

Mark Esper: 'We were all dumbstruck' when Trump wanted to send in the military to crush DC protesters



On Monday's edition of CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360," former President Donald Trump's Defense Secretary, Mark Esper, discussed his horror over how his former boss handled Black Lives Matter protests in Washington, D.C.

"When you were sitting across the from the president and he is suggesting something like shoot the Black Lives Matter protestors in the legs, what do do — what does your face look like?" asked Cooper.

"I was just dumbstruck by it," said Esper. "And he was speaking to General Mark Milley when he asked that, can't you just shoot 'em in the legs or something? I was shocked by it. To hear this from the president of the United States, saying shoot our fellow Americans in the streets of the nation's capital."

"And not only talking police, he is talking U.S. military," added Cooper. "Deploying the U.S. military. Ten — he wanted 10,000 U.S. military forces outside the White House because of protestors."

"That's right," said Esper. "Look. There was violence. I believe in law and order. There was violence. People were getting hurt. People who were protesting peacefully were not being allowed to do so. But the answer is not a heavy hand, and certainly not lethal force. And so, I think we were all dumbstruck. I think between Bill Barr and myself and with General Milley's support, we started putting ideas out there that law enforcement should lead this and the military should back up only as necessary and even then, it should only be the National Guard and upon kind of walking him back off of this notion of sending in active-duty military."

Esper's upcoming memoir has shocked experts, as he tears into Trump's handling of the presidency and recounts radical ideas from Trump including firing missiles into Mexico.

[Rick Plant]

The grifter keeps on gritting and Americans are still paying for his expenses.

You’re still paying for Trump’s visits to his N.J. golf club. Here’s the cost to taxpayers.



Donald Trump’s months-long stay at his Bedminster golf club last year cost U.S. taxpayers $653,836, according to U.S. Secret Service records obtained by NJ Advance Media.

More than half of the sum, $368,037, went for hotel rooms in the area to house the agents, according to the records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. Under the Former Presidents Protection Act of 2012, former presidents receive Secret Service protection for the rest of their lives. The funds also went for travel expenses, including rental cars.

At the same time, more than $1 of every $10 spent by taxpayers when Trump was at Bedminster — $74,147 — went directly to the golf club for lodging and a command post.

“It is profoundly concerning that Trump is continuing to profit off of his presidency,” said Norman Eisen, former special counsel and special assistant for ethics and government reform under Democratic President Barack Obama and author of Overcoming Trumpery.

“We’ve never had a president who found so many ways to monetize the office and it hasn’t stopped,” he said.

Richard Painter, a University of Minnesota law professor who served as Republican George W. Bush’s chief ethics lawyer, said Trump should be donating the rooms to the government.

“I always thought it was a scam,” he said. “He’s milking the taxpayer. You don’t charge the Secret Service to live in your house. I didn’t like him doing it when he was in office and now he’s still doing it.”

Taylor Budowich, a spokesman for Trump, did not respond to a request for comment.

While president, Trump had been sued on the grounds that he was illegally profiting from his businesses since the Constitution’s domestic emoluments clause prohibits a chief executive from receiving any government payments other than his congressionally approved compensation. The U.S. Supreme Court dismissed the litigation as moot once Trump left office.

A spokesman for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog group that brought one of the lawsuits, said Trump still could be violating the Constitution since he’s continuing to get extra government payments as an ex-president.

“It does appear to us that the founding fathers were concerned with how the president was making money and did not want the president making additional money on the side from the government,” Jordan Libowitz said.

“The domestic emolument clause says the president cannot take money from the government outside of his congressionally set salary. This is a way where he seemed to be doing exactly that.”

Trump decamped to his Mar-a-Lago estate on Jan. 20, 2021, as Joe Biden was inaugurated as the nation’s 46th president. He shifted his operations to Bedminster in May as the temperature rose before returning to Palm Beach, Florida. Records show that he was there through October.

Several prospective 2022 congressional candidates, including five from New Jersey, visited the golf club when the former president was there, some of them able to meet Trump and ask for his support.

In July, Trump made a rare public appearance at Bedminster to announce he would sue tech giants Facebook, Twitter, and Google over alleged censorship. Trump was banned from Twitter and Facebook for falsely claiming that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

During Trump’s presidency, his golf club was paid $521,275 from the U.S. Secret Service for lodging and other space, NJ Advance Media reported last year.

That was part of the $2.4 million the agency spent on travel, rental cars, hotel room, golf carts, portable toilets and other expenses at Bedminster while Trump was president. He used the golf club for weekend getaways during the warmer months, and spent much of August there during his first three years in office.

Unlike other presidents, Trump did not divest himself of his businesses or put them in a blind trust, though he did turn over day-to-day control to his sons. The head of the Office of Government Ethics at the time, Walter M. Shaub Jr., said the arrangement did not “comport with the tradition of our presidents over the past 40 years.”

Trump donated his $400,000 annual pay as president to various federal agencies.

Bedminster took in $14.7 million in revenue in 2020, 26% less than the $19.8 million the club made in 2016 before Trump became president, according to his personal financial disclosure filings. Part of the decline was due to the coronavirus pandemic, as the club temporarily shut its clubhouse, fitness center and restaurants.

Following the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters, the PGA of America moved its 2022 championship tournament to Tulsa, Okla., from Bedminster. The PGA and the Trump Organization in December reached a confidential settlement to end their dispute.

The Saudi-backed Super Golf League, which is being called the LIV Golf Invitational Series, will set up shop at Bedminster July 29-31, according to a league schedule reported by Sports Illustrated.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/you-re-still-paying-for-trump-s-visits-to-his-n-j-golf-club-here-s-the-cost-to-taxpayers/ar-AAX1sRb?cvid=ee55c26074f2434992e842c4dec33e22

[Rick Plant]

Trump has a conspiracy theory about hurricanes that is 'almost too stupid for words': ex-staffer



Donald Trump was not joking when he asked aides whether China had a "hurricane gun" it was using America, according to a new report by Rolling Stone magazine.

"Near the beginning of Donald Trump’s time in office, the then-president had a pressing question for his national-security aides and administration officials: Does China have the secret technology — a weapon, even — to create large, man-made hurricanes and then launch them at the United States? And if so, would this constitute an act of war by a foreign power, and could the U.S. retaliate militarily? Then-President Trump repeatedly asked about this, according to two former senior administration officials and a third person briefed on the matter," the magazine reported.

One former Trump official, described as "intimately familiar with the then-sitting president’s inquiry," has harsh words for their former boss.

“It was almost too stupid for words,” they said. “I did not get the sense he was joking at all.”

Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort was threatened by Hurricane Irma in 2017 and Hurricane Dorian in 2019.

"The sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations, tell Rolling Stone that Trump began interrogating national-security officials and other staffers about the alleged weapon during the first year of his presidency, and his question would pop up sporadically until at least 2018," the magazine reported. "This patently boneheaded line of inquiry from Trump, which has not been previously reported, was merely one instance in an administration overflowing with Trump’s rampantly absurd, conspiracy-theory-powered ideas and policy proposals, many of which were ignored or shot down, thus avoiding additional atrocities."

In 2019, it was reported Trump wondered about detonating nuclear weapons to stop a hurricane. That was the same hurricane season of the infamous SharpieGate scandal.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-hurricane-gun-china-world-war-1350638/

[Rick Plant]

How will Trump's deadly sabotage of America end?



Trump unleashed what has become a million US Covid deaths, a war in Ukraine, and an attempted coup against the United States, all while coarsening our politics and ratcheting up hate. And now racist, rightwing politicians who disdain democracy are imitating him all across the nation.

What is the impact of all this on America and Americans, and when will he be held to account?

Five years ago today, Donald Trump broke the law and outed an Israeli spy who’d embedded himself into ISIS.

Trump gave the code-word-classified-Top-Secret intelligence to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, when he and Russian Ambassador Kislyak had a “private” meeting with Trump in the Oval Office which was not on Trump’s calendar or announced to the US press.

The Israeli spy had spent years burying himself deeply enough into ISIS that he was on the verge of disrupting a plot to attack a city in Russia-controlled Syria: instead he had to flee for his life because Trump burned him.

As ABC News reported at the time:

“The life of a spy placed by Israel inside ISIS is at risk tonight, according to current and former U.S. officials, after President Donald Trump reportedly disclosed classified information in a meeting with Russian officials...”

And Trump wasn’t even embarrassed or ashamed by his outing a top spy providing anti-Russian intel through Israel to the US, as ABC News noted:

“Trump said in a pair of tweets Tuesday he had the ‘absolute right’ to share ‘facts’ with the Russians.”

Can you imagine how Republicans would react if Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama had done the same? Would it be three years of hearings and DOJ prosecutions in front of a grand jury — or four? Would they be in jail today?

But Trump’s first loyalty was never to America: it was always to himself and his billionaire “good friend” Vladimir Putin, whose war against Ukraine Trump still refuses to condemn.

This month will also commemorate over a million Americans having died from Covid, a death rate unsurpassed anywhere else in the developed world. This, too, lies at the feet of Donald Trump.

For the first four months of 2020, Trump’s team was actually trying to do something about Covid, even though he’d stupidly closed the pandemic offices Obama had created within the White House and the NSC after the Ebola scare.

Medical doctors were on TV daily; the media was freaking out about refrigerated trucks carrying bodies away from New York hospitals, and doctors and nurses were our new national heroes.

By the second week of March, US deaths had risen from 4 to only 22, but that was enough to spur federal action. Trump’s official emergency declaration came on March 11th, and most of the country shut down or at least went partway toward that outcome that week.

They even had a plan for the Post Office to distribute 650 million masks — 5 to every American household — to stop the pandemic.

But then came April 7th, just three weeks later, when the New York Times ran a front-page story with the headline: Black Americans Face Alarming Rates of Coronavirus Infection in Some States.

The opening paragraph laid it out:

“The coronavirus is infecting and killing black people in the United States at disproportionately high rates, according to data released by several states and big cities, highlighting what public health researchers say are entrenched inequalities in resources, health and access to care.”

Other media ran similar headlines that day, and it led the news on cable and network television that night.

Most of the non-elderly people dying from Covid, it turned out, were Black or Hispanic, not white people.

White conservatives responded with a collective, “What the hell?!?”

From Tucker Carlson to Brit Hume to Rush Limbaugh and beyond, the entire rightwing movement turned on a dime that week.

The new official message was that it was now time to put Covid, lockdowns, and masks behind us and get the economy back to work in preparation for Trump’s re-election in the fall.

That April 7th, 2020 front page story — that Covid was mostly killing Black people — echoed across the white supremacist rightwing landscape like a Fourth of July fireworks display.

Trump decided it was time to let more Americans die, because the economy was sagging and that could hurt his reelection chances.

On April 12th, Trump retweeted a call to fire Dr. Anthony Fauci and declared, in another tweet, that he had the sole authority to open the US back up, and that he’d be announcing a specific plan to do just that “shortly.”

If most of the deaths — outside of the elderly and infirm — were Black, well, to hell with doing anything about it. It’s easier, after all, than trying to purge African Americans from the voting rolls.

That was the end of the Trump administration doing anything meaningful to try to protect Americans from a deadly virus for the rest of Trump’s last year in office. He cancelled the planned mask distribution by the Post Office and instead promoted quack cures on TV.

Trump put race and politics above lives, and now a million Americans are dead.

And like with the Israeli spy, Trump has never been held to account for setting up so many gullible Americans to die an agonizing, strangling death.

But wait! There’s more!!

Trump conspired with armed white supremacist terrorists to block the peaceful transfer of power on January 6th and 20th, sending a murderous mob against our Capitol by lying to them that the election he’d lost by 7 million votes was “stolen” from him.

Now we’re learning from NSC security expert for Russia and Ukraine Fiona Hill that Trump’s buddy Putin was rooting for him to succeed with the coup plan for January 6th so Putin could get on with taking out Ukraine right after the first of the year.

Trump wouldn’t have done a thing about a Russian massacre of Ukraine; after all, he’d already tried to extort Zelensky by withholding anti-tank missiles and was impeached (but not convicted) for it.

He made no secret that he generally hated all things Ukraine. As well as doing pretty much everything Putin told him to do, including trying to damage both NATO and the European Union. Lacking a friendly president but pleased that Trump had weakened Ukraine for him, Putin decided to go ahead with his invasion anyway on February 24th, and the rest is history.

This short article just scratches the surface of the criminality of Donald Trump. In addition:

*He squeezed over a billion dollars out of the government and into his own pockets while in office, oversaw a corrupt PPP program where his buddies made off with billions, and again is threatening to end democracy in the United States.

*He conspired to steal an election and, when that didn’t work, launched a mob to murder Vice President Pence and stop Congress, resulting in multiple deaths, including several police officers.

*He stole top-secret documents, taking them to Florida where they could be seen by any old spy who wanted to drop by. (And Republicans wanted to lock up Hillary because her personal email wasn’t secure?!?)

*Significant questions linger about whether he blackmailed Anthony Kennedy to leave the Supreme Court; how much additional intelligence he handed over to Putin; and why he shut down the White House cybersecurity office, leaving the Russians to set up house in the computers of multiple federal agencies for over a year before Biden came into office.

*When he lost the election, he called the Secretary of State for Georgia and demanded that Raffensperger find an additional 11,000+ votes to reverse his loss, committing multiple explicit felonies.

*And while it’s not something he could go to jail for, he should also be held to account in some way for encouraging an explosion of racial, religious, and gender-based hatred and violence that echoes to this day.

Trump’s actions during his four years in the presidency, his year of campaigning before that, and his behavior since have corrupted American politics, sown deep distrust in our electoral system, and pitted Americans against each other.

And because he has not been held to account, Trumpism has spread across the American landscape like a metastasizing cancer, with Republican politicians who aspire to corrupt strongman status emulating him in every state.

It’s been an absolute sabotage of our nation and our national interests, crippling us in multiple ways — much to the delight of Putin and dictators around the world.

All of which begs the question: What’s it going to take for the Biden Department of Justice to prosecute this criminal?

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-sabotaging-america/