Trump and Putin, behind the scenes

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President Trump reportedly met late last year with Russian President Vladimir Putin without a translator or aide from his administration present. The Financial Times reported Tuesday that Trump sat with Putin on the sidelines of the Group of 20 (G-20) summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in late November after an evening event. Trump was joined by his wife Melania Trump, but there was no note-taker or translator from the U.S. at the meeting. Putin was reportedly accompanied by a translator, with all four at a table.

Trump, Putin talked at G20 without US translator, note-taker: report | TheHill

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Trump and Manafort, putting things into perspective..

Now we have to ask ourselves, why would Donald Trump’s campaign chairman be passing political polling data to a known Russian intelligence operative during the campaign? Well, the obvious answer is that Donald Trump knew exactly what he was doing when he hired Paul Manafort as his campaign chairman. He knew he was getting a guy who had the political skills to fix the anti-Russian plank in the Republican platform at the convention, and he knew that Manafort had extensive contacts with Ukrainian and Russian intelligence that went back more than a decade, and that Manafort could tap those contacts and pass information back and forth between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.

The other thing to notice when you look back at the service Manafort provided to the Trump campaign is the timing of his involvement. He went to work on the campaign during the time Russian GRU intelligence agents were hacking the servers of the Democratic Party and stealing their emails and political secrets. He met with Russian intelligence operatives in Trump Tower in advance of the Russians releasing those stolen emails, and he was running the campaign when the Russians began leaking the emails via WikiLeaks. He was there throughout the convention when Trump got the nomination for president on the Republican ticket, and he wasn’t ousted until Trump was well on his way as a candidate who was on the stump day after day talking about how much “I love WikiLeaks” and taking advantage of the Russian hacking.

The key figure who apparently tipped off Muller’s prosecutors that Manafort was lying to them during his agreement to cooperate was his former partner, Rick Gates. He was the deputy campaign chairman under Manafort and remained with the campaign after Manafort left. He was in constant contact with Manafort during the campaign and was present for the meeting with Kilimnik at the “Havana Room.” But Gates clearly wasn’t inside the room every time Manafort as campaign chairman met with candidate Trump. That’s the big secret Manafort is keeping for Trump. The only two men who know what transpired between campaign chairman and candidate during the campaign are Manafort and Trump. Manafort was Trump’s cut-out to Putin’s intelligence operatives who were hacking the Democrats’ emails and releasing them through WikiLeaks.

They obviously used the campaign polling data Manafort passed to Kilimnik in determining when to release information damaging to Hillary Clinton and her campaign chairman, John Podesta. Only Manafort knows what instructions Trump gave him when he was dealing with the Russians during the campaign, and so far, he is keeping this very, very big secret. Most pundits think Manafort is counting on a pardon from Trump before he is impeached or leaves office by losing the election of 2020. Trump can certainly do this. He has a real interest in keeping Manafort’s mouth shut because Trump has created the fiction that he beat Hillary Clinton in 2016 fair and square without the help of the Russian government, and he’s not going to easily let this fiction be credibly challenged. It would be too much of a blow to his ego, even after he has left office.

Manafort could blow up Trump’s lies about the 2016 campaign. Trump will do anything to keep him quiet. Dangling a pardon insured Manafort would lie to Mueller even under a plea agreement. A pardon might not be enough to insure Manafort’s loyalty over the long term, but money will. Remember the revelations during his trial about the millions he laundered through banks in Cyprus and how he spent it? Six hundred grand for landscaping his house in Bridgehampton! Five hundred grand for fancy suits from men’s clothing stores! Hundreds of thousands on Persian rugs! He owned houses in the Hamptons, Florida, Brooklyn, and a condo in Trump Tower! Manafort isn’t sitting there in jail in Washington D.C. just waiting on a pardon. He still faces heavy fines for tax evasion. Nearly every asset he ever owned has been seized.

He’s not going to walk out of jail with a pardon and move into a walk-up in Queens. The other party to Trump’s fiction about how he beat Hillary is the Russians, and they don’t want the truth to come out any more than Trump does. Whoever beats Trump in 2020 (if he’s still around to beat) will double or triple sanctions on Russia if the secrets behind Russia’s involvement in Trump’s campaign are ever told. Somebody over there loyal to Putin — Deripaska or Akhmetov or another oligarch — has made promises to Manafort to “make him whole” financially.

Paul Manafort is keeping one big secret — and that’s a ticket out of jail for both him and Donald Trump – Alternet.org

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And the other guy was also lying, Roger Stone..

In documents submitted to the U.S. district court, the special counsel’s office detailed some of the evidence against Roger Stone, acknowledging for the first time they possess direct communications between Stone and Russian operatives known collectively as Guccifer 2.0, as well as WikiLeaks. The communications were gathered in connection to an indictment that Robert Mueller brought against 12 Russian intelligence operatives last year. Those individuals, who were all members of Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate, or GRU, operated under aliases including DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0.

Stone’s communication with WikiLeaks, also disclosed in Friday’s court filing, was less of a surprise. He previously acknowledged being in contact with the propaganda outfit, though once the special counsel’s office began zeroing in on him, Stone tried to downplay any knowledge of WikiLeaks’ role in disseminating hacked emails from the DNC and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. Last year, The Atlantic revealed that Stone and the official WikiLeaks Twitter account exchanged direct messages with one another shortly before the election. The latest disclosure by prosecutors further tightens the noose around Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign.

Trump campaign adviser Roger Stone directly colluded with Russian operatives behind DNC email hack – ThinkProgress

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It was apparently the very night that then-candidate Donald Trump called on Russia to find his opponent Hillary Clinton's "missing" emails in July 2016 that Russian operatives "attempted after hours to spearfish for the first time email accounts at a domain hosted by a third-party provider and used by Clinton's personal office," Special Counsel Robert Mueller's latest indictment says. T

he Justice Department's discovery — that "on or about July 27, 2016" Russian intelligence agents apparently heeded Trump's call — casts uncertainty over the White House's claim that Trump was just "joking" when he asked for Russia to hack Clinton.

Earlier on July 27, 2016, Trump had said, "Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing." Just days later, WikiLeaks began publishing hacked Democratic National Committee emails, NBC News reports. On Friday, the DOJ indicted 12 Russian intelligence officials over that hacking, with the intention of interfering in the outcome of the election..

Trump publicly asked Russia to 'find' Hillary Clinton's missing emails. Kremlin agents apparently tried that evening.

A precision is warranted, it wasn't the first time Russian hackers tried to hack the Clinton campaign. The Mueller indictment says that July 27 was "the first time" the hackers targeted a third-party domain used by Clinton's personal office. It does say that around the same time they targeted 76 emails at the Clinton campaign domain, but the attempts to hack the campaign had begun months earlier.

But still, either a curious coincidence or cause and effect?

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Former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe said that President Trump dismissed intelligence on North Korea given to him by U.S. officials, telling them, "I don't care, I believe Putin." Trump told officials in a meeting that he did not believe North Korean missiles could strike the U.S. mainland because Russian President Vladimir Putin told him those missiles did not exist, according to McCabe. "Intelligence officials in the briefing responded that that was not consistent with any of the intelligence our government possesses to which the president replied, "I don't care. I believe Putin,"" McCabe told host Scott Pelley in an interview with 60 Minutes released Sunday. McCabe said it was "astounding" that Trump would lean on Putin's information on an issue intelligence was briefing him on.

McCabe: Trump said 'I don't care, I believe Putin' when confronted with US intel on North Korea | TheHill

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But it’s more likely that President Trump’s effort to hinder the Russia investigation simply worked—specifically, his implicit promise to pardon allies in exchange for their silence. The case of Paul Manafort is illustrative. Mueller scored a major victory in September when the former Trump campaign chairman agreed to cooperate with the investigation. I noted at the time that Manafort was one of the few Americans who could give a comprehensive account of the Trump campaign’s interactions with Russia. His extensive ties to Moscow made him the most likely conduit for an explicit quid pro quo arrangement with the Kremlin if one took place. Manafort was also the only American participant in the infamous Trump Tower meeting in June 2016 who was not related to the president by blood or marriage.

Former federal prosecutors noted how Mueller’s approach seemed to mirror traditional white-collar and organized-crime cases: Strike bargains with low-level members of a conspiracy, get testimony against higher-level members of it, and work your way in. The collapse of Manafort’s plea deal may have short-circuited that strategy, perhaps fatally. In November, Mueller told a federal judge that he believed Manafort had breached his plea agreement by lying to federal prosecutors multiple times. The judge largely agreed with that assessment earlier this month.

Why would Manafort implode a deal that would secure him a shorter prison sentence? Trump’s implicit offer of pardons appears to have played a role. The Russia investigation always operated under this sword of Damocles. Presidential pardons don’t affect state prosecutions, however, making the latter a fail-safe of sorts in case the president started to shut down Mueller’s inquiry. The special counsel’s office reportedly began working with the New York attorney general’s office in the summer of 2017 on the financial-crimes portion of Manafort’s case. Manhattan district attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr. is also reportedly preparing to file charges against Manafort soon.

Trump has been signaling his views on the pardon power for years. In August 2017, he pardoned former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was convicted of contempt of court for racially profiling Hispanic motorists despite a judge’s order to desist. Last summer, Trump also wiped away conservative filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza’s conviction for campaign finance violations. Both men staunchly support the president and blamed politicized investigations for their downfall. While Trump isn’t the first president to misuse the power of mercy, the two pardons made it unusually clear that he would wield pardons for purely partisan gain.

After a Virginia jury convicted Manafort on multiple charges last August, Trump became even less subtle. The president publicly lauded his former campaign chairman for refusing to “make up stories in order to get a ‘deal’” while harshly criticizing Michael Cohen, his former personal attorney, for cooperating with investigators. Hours later, Rudy Giuliani told reporters that the president wouldn’t be issuing any pardons until the investigation had wrapped up. Taken together, the two messages suggested pardons would be on the table if their potential recipients kept quiet. The New York Times reported earlier this month that Trump’s lawyers made similar assurances in private as well.

These efforts haven’t gone unnoticed by the special counsel’s office. In a sealed hearing earlier this month, Mueller’s team offered two motives for why Manafort lied to them about part of the investigation. One of those motives is obscured by a thicket of partial redactions in the official transcript; the other is that telling the truth could have “negative consequences in terms of the other motive that Mr. Manafort could have, which is to at least augment his chances of a pardon.”

Did Trump Win His War on the Russia Investigation? | The New Republic

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Since Donald Trump was sworn in as president he has met his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, five times. The details of their conversations remain unknown to the public, and in most cases even to senior administration officials. Democrats in Congress are now demanding more details of communications between the two leaders. Secrecy around such meetings, they say, raises fresh questions about the nature of Trump’s relationship with Putin at a time when his ties to Russia are the subject of several investigations...

Trump’s posture towards Russia has been a focus of his time in the White House, confounding national security officials and exposing rifts between the president and prominent members of his administration.

• In his first year in office, after Congress forced his hand by building a veto-proof majority, Trump begrudgingly signed sanctions that were passed in part to punish Moscow for its interference in the 2016 presidential election. 
  
• But he resisted attempts to impose additional sanctions, including over Kremlin support for chemical weapons attacks carried out by the Assad regime in Syria.
  
• The president has publicly disagreed with warnings from his own intelligence chiefs that the Russians are still seeking to influence in US elections. National Security Agency chief Adm Mike Rogers testified before Congress last year that the administration was not doing enough to disrupt Russian cyberattacks at source, in part because the president had not authorized such an effort.
  
• Trump has continued to express admiration for Putin, famously accepting his denials of Russian involvement in the 2016 election at their summit in Finland. That put the president squarely at odds with the US intelligence community and invited an avalanche of criticism.
  
• Democrats now say Trump’s reportedly forceful attempts to conceal his communications with Putin raise questions about his motivations in pursuing closer relations with a regime largely regarded as a primary adversary.
  

Trump’s private talks with Putin may contain clues to his Russia romance | US news | The Guardian

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Mueller couldn't prove any collusion, but there is still a host of curious contacts between the campaign and the Russians, all of which were denied and lied about:

let’s not forget that Russia still got a staggering amount of access to the Trump campaign — even without collusion. Here’s just a taste. First, Russia stole emails from Democrats and disseminated them strategically through WikiLeaks at critical moments during the 2016 campaign. Trump and his campaign, at the time, believed these emails were a big deal and cited them frequently. “WikiLeaks, I love WikiLeaks,” Trump said on several occasions on the campaign trail. He even explicitly called on the Russian government to hack and release Hillary Clinton’s emails. 

Second, there were extensive communications between people in Trump’s orbit and Russian government figures and others who had, or purported to have, close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Some of this communication — including former Trump lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen’s January 2016 email to a top Putin aide and Ivanka Trump’s October 2015 exchange with a Russian Olympic weightlifter — was ostensibly about efforts to construct a Trump-branded building in Moscow. We now know that efforts by people in and connected to the Trump Organization to make that project happen continued well into Trump’s presidential campaign.

But some of the communications, including the various escapades of former Trump campaign advisers George Papadopoulos and Carter Page, involved relatively peripheral players who didn’t have strong pre-campaign ties to Trump or play significant post-campaign roles in the administration.

Third, Donald Trump Jr. took a meeting with the deputy governor of Russia’s central bankwhile attending the National Rifle Association’s annual convention in Kentucky in May 2016. A US conservative activist named Paul Erickson, the one-time boyfriend of confessed Russian foreign agent Maria Butina, arranged the meeting. That might have served as a step toward creating back-channel communications between Russia and the Trump campaign. Plus, Butina’s question to Trump during a 2015 conference prompted him for the first time to mention he might consider removing sanctions on Russia (though we should note that as president, he’s actually added sanctions on Russia).

And finally, Donald Trump Jr., along with Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and his campaign chair Paul Manafort, attended the now-infamous Trump Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer — a meeting those Trump associates were explicitly told was part of the Russian government’s effort to support Trump’s candidacy. There’s more, but you get the idea..

Mueller report: Russia still threatens US elections without collusion - Vox

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The Mueller investigation has been an unmitigated success in exposing political corruption. In the case of Paul Manafort, the corruption was criminal. In the case of Trump, the corruption doesn’t seem to have transgressed any laws. As Michael Kinsley famously quipped, “The scandal isn’t what’s illegal; the scandal is what’s legal.” Lying to the electorate, adjusting foreign policy for the sake of personal lucre, and undermining an investigation seem to me pretty sound impeachable offenses—they might also happen to be technically legal.

Through his investigation, Mueller has also provided a plausible answer to the question that first bothered me. Trump’s motive for praising Putin appears to have been, in large part, commercial. With his relentless pursuit of Trump Tower Moscow, the Republican nominee for president had active commercial interests in Russia that he failed to disclose to the American people. In fact, he explicitly and shamelessly lied about them. 

This is the very definition of corruption, and it provides the plot line that runs through the entirety of Trump’s political life. The president never chooses to distinguish—and indeed, may be temperamentally incapable of distinguishing—his personal interests from the national interest. Why has he failed so consistently to acknowledge Russian interference in the election? Because that interference was designed to benefit him. Why did he fire James Comey and, let’s use the word, obstruct the investigation into election interference? Because he wanted to protect himself from any investigation that might turn up material that reflected badly on him and his circle. (And whatever Mueller’s ultimate conclusion about collusion, his investigation has proved to be an unending source of damning revelations about the president and the men who constituted his closest advisers. )

Robert Mueller's Probe Was an Unmitigated Success - The Atlantic

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[b]Good news, America. Russia helped install your president. But although he owes his job in large part to that help, the president did not conspire or collude with his helpers. He was the beneficiary of a foreign intelligence operation, but not an active participant in that operation. He received the stolen goods, but he did not conspire with the thieves in advance.

This is what Donald Trump’s administration and its enablers in Congress and the media are already calling exoneration. But it offers no reassurance to Americans who cherish the independence and integrity of their political process. The question unanswered by the attorney general’s summary of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report is: Why? Russian President Vladimir Putin took an extreme risk by interfering in the 2016 election as he did. Had Hillary Clinton won the presidency—the most likely outcome—Russia would have been exposed to fierce retaliation by a powerful adversary. The prize of a Trump presidency must have glittered alluringly, indeed, to Putin and his associates. Why?

[/b]Did they admire Trump’s anti-NATO, anti–European Union, anti-ally, pro–Bashar al-Assad, pro-Putin ideology?

Were they attracted by his contempt for the rule of law and dislike of democracy?

Did they hold compromising information about him, financial or otherwise?

Were there business dealings in the past, present, or future?

Or were they simply attracted by Trump’s general ignorance and incompetence, seeing him as a kind of wrecking ball to be smashed into the U.S. government and U.S. foreign policy?

The Mueller Report Leaves One Key Question Unanswered - The Atlantic