Jared Kushner’s Got Too Many Secrets to Keep Ours
Nicholas Kristof - JULY 22, 2017 - New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/22/opinion/sunday/jared-kushner-ivanka-russia-investigation.html
... Increasingly, the national security world fears that there is something substantive to the suspicions about the president and Russia.
Otherwise, nothing makes sense.Why has Trump persistently stood with Vladimir Putin rather than with allies like Germany or Britain? Why did Trump make a beeline for Putin at the G-20 dinner, without an aide, as opposed to chat with Angela Merkel or Theresa May?
Why do so many Trump team members have ties to Russia?
Why did Trump choose a campaign chairman, Paul Manafort,
who had been as much as $17 million in debt to pro-Russian interests and was vulnerable to Moscow pressure?
Why the unending pattern of secrecy and duplicity about Russia contacts?
Trump’s defensiveness on Russian ties is creepy.
Why did he take the political risk of firing Jim Comey?
Why is he so furious at Jeff Sessions for recusing himself?
Why does he apparently contemplate the extreme step of firing Bob Mueller during his investigation into the Russia ties?
If the Trump team is innocent and expects exoneration,
why would it work so hard on a secret effort aimed at discrediting Mueller, as The Times reported?
Why would Trump be exploring pardons for aides, family members and himself, as The Washington Post reported?
Though the article was about Kushner ...
Here’s the bottom line: Kushner attended a meeting in June 2016
whose stated purpose was to advance a Kremlin initiative to interfere in the U.S. election;
he failed to disclose the meeting on government forms (a felony if intentional);
he was apparently complicit in a cover-up in which the Trump team denied at least 20 times that there had been any contacts with Russians to influence the election;
and he also sought to set up a secret communications channel with the Kremlin during the presidential transition.
Until the situation is clarified, such a person simply should not work in the White House and have access to America’s most important secrets. ...
There’s no good way to manage a president who is a potential security risk (other than the standard protocol that he not meet Russians without another U.S. official present, and Trump escaped that constraint in Hamburg, Germany). But at least we can keep his son-in-law, while under investigation for possible felonies and collusion with Russia, from serving as a top White House official
As they say, f'n unbelievable what our complacency has allowed.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Here's another fascinating closer look at this Kushner
Jared Kushner, the Prince of Having It Both Ways
Frank Bruni - JULY 22, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/22/opinion/sunday/jared-kushner-the-prince-of-having-it-both-ways.html
Some good quotes there too, but enough for tonight.
See ya.
I’m no fan of Trump, or even close, but…
There is a rational reason to try to come to some agreements with Putin. He’s the only person on Earth who can erase the United States in just a few minutes. It seems this obvious logic is getting lost in all the partisan hysteria.
Trump got elected because of his understanding that a sizable number of Americans value the stimulation of melodrama above all else. He played that fiddle like a true expert, and won the White House as a result. You’re doing just what Trump wants you to do, talk about him all day long every day.
You're doing just what Trump wants you to do, talk about him all day long every day.
Oh that's precious.
We did make the idiot our President the most powerful and impact rich person in the world.
Believe me, I would love to ignore the slob, but our future is already going to be a hideous enough shit show, without all his added crap.
I doubt enough Americans are going to wake up and impose their will to get this train wreck back on track.
But, hope is a survival strategy in hopeless times.
------------
Oh and there is no justification for our President to sneak off to consult with Russian's dictator in private! Even if Trump loves dictators more that the elected leaders of the "free" world. That is too weird for an American president.
But then Trump is a Russian Obligate so it's in character for that traitor.
We did make the idiot our President the most powerful and impact rich person in the world.
Yes, we did. Because the "idiot" did a much better job of totally dominating our attention than all the political pros from all the political parties. He outwitted every last one of them, all the political "experts", all his competitors, the media, all his critics, and you and me as well. Trump promised that he is a winner, and he was right.
He is President. And everybody else who wanted the job is not.
A really poor choice by voters? Yes.
An idiot? No.
Screw Jared Kushner, this was done in Trump’s name for Trump. So let’s look at what Trump has done.
All presidential candidates were briefed months before the Nov. 2016 election that the Russians were actively trying to hack the election, what did Trump do?
He openly encouraged the Russian government to directly influence the election in his favour by telling them to release the material that Russian hackers had stolen from the DNC servers. Which is exactly what happened.
Donald J. Trump said on Wednesday that he hoped Russian intelligence services had successfully hacked Hillary Clinton’s email, and encouraged them to publish whatever they may have stolen, essentially urging a foreign adversary to conduct cyberespionage against a former secretary of state.
“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing," Mr. Trump said during a news conference here in an apparent reference to Mrs. Clinton’s deleted emails. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press."
What has Trump done in office?
He immediately tried to remove sanctions against Russia that were placed there because the Russian government did illegally intervene in a US election and other hostile acts. Unlike in 1972 where Nixon used US intelligence assets to attack the DNC, this time it was Russian intelligence for the benefit of Putin.
And according to former FBI director James Comey, "president" Trump asked him to stop the investigation into any connections between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. We now know that those connections are extensive and include, Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort, Jeff Sessions, Erik Prince and Mike Flynn. And probably more...
When Comey refused to be obstructed from doing his legally mandated duty he was summarily fired by Trump who originally lied about why Comey was fired at first citing a report by Rod Rosenstein but then admitted that he fired Comey for his own reasons. He reportedly told the Russian foreign minister and ambassador the next day it was take the heat off of him over the Russian investigation. That's obstruction of justice in defense of treason.
He's passed highly sensitive material to the Russian government, had nothing but praise for one of the most dangerous leaders in the world then recently has stated we have to effectively join with Russia to combat cyber-crime. Russia is the capital of cyber-crime directed at the west, they just hacked the last entire US election.
Smoking gun, there's a huge crater in Washington where the White House used to be and people are still pretending that all is normal.
We did make the idiot our President the most powerful and impact rich person in the world.
Yes, we did. Because the "idiot" did a much better job of totally dominating our attention (It was a substance-less PR blitz of a narcissist and an indicate of the general suspension of critical thinking skills amongst the scared disaffected Jane and John Q Publics who willingly and most naively believed a man who'd say anything you wanted to hear with zero concern for reality or feasibility. "Trust me I'll fix everything!" Okay where do I sign??) then all the political pros from all the political parties. He outwitted every last one of them, all the political "experts", all his competitors, the media, all his critics, and you and me as well. Trump promised that he is a winner, and he was right.
He is President. And everybody else who wanted the job is not.
A really poor choice by voters? Yes.
An idiot? No.
Well he (and incredibly powerful uber-rich ruthless ideologies did all that by telling silly scared people who are already afraid to face reality, whatever they wanted to hear.
His campaign was built on one lie after another, Breitbart/Bannon style.
The Democrats continued their decades long complacency and bellybutton gazing and missed every opportunity to expose him for the lying narcissistic fool he was, is and apparently always will be.
Why not call him an idiot?
Trump's "intelligence" as you call it is little more that an innate predatory instinct, not any intellectual collection of organized knowledge and understanding.
And sure as shit, lookie, he's been nothing but a failure and disaster for this country.
Trump was the successful puppet they were looking for, he's the end result of this: http://www.npr.org/2017/07/05/535626109/the-end-of-loyalty-and-the-decline-of-good-jobs-in-america -
Trump Is Showing The World What A Weak American Presidency Looks Like
More than just the health care collapse, Donald Trump has so far failed to bring the “Art of the Deal" to the White House.
Posted on July 18, 2017, at 5:36 p.m.
By Tarini Parti (BuzzFeed News Reporter) Adrian Carrasquillo (BuzzFeed News Reporter) John Hudson (BuzzFeed News Reporter)
https://www.buzzfeed.com/tariniparti/trump-is-showing-the-world-what-a-weak-american-presidency?
Trump spent much of this past weekend watching the US Women’s Golf Open at his family-owned golf club, a kind of metaphor for a presidency disconnected from actual power. But the health care failure — in which Trump allowed himself to lose control of his own agenda, and then lose the fight for that agenda — was the most humiliating in a sweep of presidential defeats.
The White House has lost control of its foreign policy to the military and to allies who couldn't work with a globally loathed American leader even if they wanted to. Trump has lost control of his domestic policy to Congress, which has been unable to give him a signature win despite Republicans controlling both chambers. He has lost control of his own aides to leaks and investigations, of his old television cronies to spiteful personal feuds, and most of all, of the narrative of an “America First" presidency with a coherent vision or promise.
“The premise of the value proposition that voters bought into was: This guy knew about the art of the deal and that he could break through ‘Washington,’ break through political norms, and get things done," a conservative Republican congressman said of Trump. “Things aren't getting done, and that shows weakness."
one for SN
His success is a combination of his charismatic chutzpah running frontman for a few ruthlessly determined oligarchs that we children of the enlightenment keep laying down for, since deep down no one wants to end this party we lucky ones are privy to.
Jared Kushner sealed real estate deal with oligarch's firm cited in money-laundering case
by Wendy Dent and Ed Pilkington in New York and Shaun Walker in Moscow
July 24, 2017
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/24/jared-kushner-new-york-russia-money-laundering
Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of Donald Trump, who acts as his senior White House adviser,
secured a multimillion-dollar Manhattan real estate deal with a Soviet-born oligarch
whose company was cited in a major New York money laundering case now being probed by members of Congress.
A Guardian investigation has established a series of overlapping ties and relationships involving alleged Russian money laundering,
New York real estate deals and members of Trump’s inner circle. They include a 2015 sale of part of the old New York Times building in Manhattan
involving Kushner and a billionaire real estate tycoon and diamond mogul, Lev Leviev. ...
... Leviev, a global tycoon known as the “king of diamonds", was a business partner of the Russian-owned company Prevezon Holdings that was
at the center of a multimillion-dollar lawsuit launched in New York. Under the leadership of US attorney Preet Bharara, who was fired by Trump in March,
prosecutors pursued Prevezon for allegedly attempting to use Manhattan real estate deals to launder money stolen from the Russian treasury.
The scam had been uncovered by Sergei Magnitsky, an accountant who died in 2009 in a Moscow jail in suspicious circumstances.
US sanctions against Russia imposed after Magnitsky’s death were a central topic of conversation at the notorious Trump Tower meeting
last June between Kushner, Donald Trump Jr, Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin.
You're doing just what Trump wants you to do, talk about him all day long every day.
Oh that's precious.
We did make the idiot our President the most powerful and impact rich person in the world.
Believe me, I would love to ignore the slob, but our future is already going to be a hideous enough shit show, without all his added crap.
I doubt enough Americans are going to wake up and impose their will to get this train wreck back on track.
But, hope is a survival strategy in hopeless times.
------------
Oh and there is no justification for our President to sneak off to consult with Russian's dictator in private! Even if Trump loves dictators more that the elected leaders of the "free" world. That is too weird for an American president.
But then Trump is a Russian Obligate so it's in character for that traitor.
I was one of millions who did not vote for Trump and I resent being lumped in with those who did. I did not elect him. I had no part in the fiasco.
We did make the idiot our President the most powerful and impact rich person in the world.
Yes, we did. Because the "idiot" did a much better job of totally dominating our attention than all the political pros from all the political parties. He outwitted every last one of them, all the political "experts", all his competitors, the media, all his critics, and you and me as well. Trump promised that he is a winner, and he was right.
He is President. And everybody else who wanted the job is not.
A really poor choice by voters? Yes.
An idiot? No.
An idiot, yes. A big honkin' idiot who is on his way to bringing the country down.
Lois
We did make the idiot our President the most powerful and impact rich person in the world.
Yes, we did. Because the "idiot" did a much better job of totally dominating our attention than all the political pros from all the political parties. He outwitted every last one of them, all the political "experts", all his competitors, the media, all his critics, and you and me as well. Trump promised that he is a winner, and he was right.
He is President. And everybody else who wanted the job is not.
A really poor choice by voters? Yes.
An idiot? No.
An idiot, yes! He only knows one thing--how to screw people to make profits. This is the jackass we have in the White House. Unfortunately, he has too many fellow jackasses to support him who think he's going to make everyone rich.