7:23 AM 12/14/2018 - Trump increasingly isolated as aides leave, friends flip and investigations advance - Los Angeles Times
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| "organized crime and intelligence" - Google News: Trump increasingly isolated as aides leave, friends flip and investigations advance - Los Angeles Times | ||
Trump increasingly isolated as aides leave, friends flip and investigations advance Los Angeles Times
It was almost noon Thursday when a Marine suddenly appeared outside the West Wing doors, a sign that President Trump had belatedly reported to the Oval ...
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| Donald Trump | The Guardian: 'The saddest image': courtroom sketch captures Michael Cohen's bad day | ||
Artist known for images of Tom Brady and Harvey Weinstein portrays moment of former Trump fixer’s downfall
Michael Cohen did not have a good day yesterday. But no headline captured the discontent of Trump’s former personal lawyer, sentenced to three years in prison for financial crimes and lying to Congress, quite as well as this courtroom sketch.
His despairing eyes and deep frown lines caught the attention of Stephen Colbert, who called it the “saddest” of all the images we’ve seen of Cohen’s “slow descent into finding out what the law is”.
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| "Donald Trump" - Google News: Is the net closing in on Donald Trump? – podcast - The Guardian | ||
Is the net closing in on Donald Trump? – podcast The Guardian
The investigation into Donald Trump's election campaign has resulted in guilty pleas from some of the president's former inner circle. The Guardian's Jon Swaine ...
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| "crime and terror" - Google News: Analysis: Strasbourg attack fits previous model of criminal-terror nexus in Europe - The Jerusalem Post - Israel News | ||
Analysis: Strasbourg attack fits previous model of criminal-terror nexus in Europe The Jerusalem Post - Israel News
The problem appears to be the gap between surveillance of members of the criminal-terrorist extremist nexus, and prosecuting perpetrators for crimes such as ...
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| Donald Trump: Twitter Users Troll Jared Kushner Over Chief Of Staff Report | ||
"Jared Kushner is more Chief of Stiff than Chief of Staff."  | ||
| Donald Trump: The slow ordeal of the American president | ||
Main threat to Donald Trump is a gradual erosion of his authority | ||
| Politics: Power Up: For Trump, mounting legal investigations may pose direct problem | ||
And there are also political implications.    | ||
| "Trump" - Google News: Trump inaugural committee under criminal investigation, source says - CNN | ||
Trump inaugural committee under criminal investigation, source says CNN
President Donald Trump's 2017 inaugural committee is currently being investigated by federal prosecutors in New York for possible financial abuses related to ...
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| "Elections 2016 Investigation" - Google News: As protectors abandon Trump, investigation draws closer - Sumter Item | ||
As protectors abandon Trump, investigation draws closer Sumter Item
NEW YORK - President Donald Trump has now been abandoned by two of his most powerful protectors - his longtime lawyer and the company that owns the ...
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| "FBI is the bureau of "we don't know yet"" - Google News: Analysis | Power Up: For Trump, mounting legal investigations may pose direct problem - The Washington Post | ||
Analysis | Power Up: For Trump, mounting legal investigations may pose direct problem The Washington Post
Issa Friday. We made it. Again. Outside of our usual request for tips, recipes, and comments, we have another ask of you: as we approach the year's end, we ...
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| Mueller’s treatment of cooperating witnesses suggests end of Russia investigation may be near | ||
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| Russian agent’s guilty plea intensifies spotlight on relationship with NRA | ||
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| Maria Butina Pleads Guilty to Role in a Russian Effort to Influence Conservatives | ||
WASHINGTON — To the conservative Americans she courted, Maria Butina was the right kind of Russian.
She loved guns and the church and networking with top officials in the National Rifle Association. She schmoozed with Republican presidential candidates, and became a supporter of Donald J. Trump. She spent Thanksgiving at a congressman’s country house, took a Trump campaign aide to see the rock band Styx and helped a Rockefeller heir organize “friendship dinners” with influential Washingtonians.
On Thursday, Ms. Butina, 30, pleaded guilty to a single charge of conspiring to act as a foreign agent in a deal with federal prosecutors. In doing so, she acknowledged that her activities were motivated by more than mere personal conviction.
As part of the deal, Ms. Butina admitted to being involved in an organized effort, backed by Russian officials, to open up unofficial lines of communication with influential Americans in the N.R.A. and in the Republican Party, and to win them over to the idea of Russia as a friend, not a foe.
Ms. Butina’s guilty plea now casts a spotlight on the Americans she worked with, including prominent members of the N.R.A. and her boyfriend, Paul Erickson, 56, a longtime Republican operative who ran Patrick J. Buchanan’s 1992 presidential campaign and who now faces accusations of fraud in three states. Officials have said federal investigators are examining what Mr. Erickson and others who helped Ms. Butina knew about her links to the Russian government.
Ms. Butina agreed to cooperate with the investigators as part of her deal. In exchange, she will most likely get a short prison term, or possibly be released after having already spent five months in jail. She will probably then be deported, according to court papers laying out the agreement.
At the hearing to change her plea on Thursday, the judge said Ms. Butina would remain in custody while she was cooperating with federal investigators. A hearing to consider when she should be sentenced was set for Feb. 12.
Yet even as prosecutors secured Ms. Butina’s conviction and cooperation, they faced questions about their initial portrayal of Ms. Butina as something like a character out of “Red Sparrow,” the spy thriller about a Russian femme fatale.
Prosecutors had already been forced to back off the most salacious accusations against Ms. Butina — that she used sex as spycraft — and acknowledged in court filings this week that she genuinely wanted a graduate degree, and was not simply posing as a student to live in the United States. They also dropped accusations of her being in contact with Russian intelligence agencies, and that she was only using Mr. Erickson to gain access to other influential Americans.
Ms. Butina’s lawyers had strenuously objected to the earlier portrayal of their client, and the plea deal was likely to provide her defenders with new fodder to argue that her activities look sinister only to those who see the world through the outdated lens of the Cold War. For all of the headline-grabbing talk of a flame-haired Russian spy seducing unwitting Americans that followed her arrest, they say, Ms. Butina hardly lived her life in the shadows.
She openly advocated Russia-friendly policies and closer connections between her homeland and the United States in speeches and during her time at American University in Washington, where she earned a master’s degree. Her cellphone case featured a picture of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia riding a horse shirtless. She frequented Russia House, an upscale Washington bar where Russian hockey stars like Alexander Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals enjoy vodka and caviar.
Ms. Butina similarly made little effort to hide her knack for getting close to powerful older men. She posed for pictures with prominent Republicans, including Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin and other former presidential candidates. She even managed to get a photo with Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son, whom she met at a 2016 dinner hosted by the N.R.A. in Louisville, Ky.
She also made no secret of her desire to help broker a secret meeting with Donald J. Trump, then a candidate, and Mr. Putin during the 2016 election.
Ms. Butina’s arrest in July stemmed from what officials described as a broader counterintelligence investigation by the Justice Department and the F.B.I. that predated the 2016 election and is separate from the work being done by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III.
The investigation has focused on Aleksandr P. Torshin, a Russian government official who worked closely with Ms. Butina for years. Mr. Torshin is close to Christian conservatives in Russia and has been attending N.R.A. conventions in the United States since 2011.
Beginning in 2015, prosecutors said in the plea deal, Ms. Butina “agreed and conspired” with Mr. Torshin and Mr. Erickson — identified in court papers as the “Russian Official” and “U.S. Person 1” — to infiltrate the Republican Party and the N.R.A. and to promote Russia-friendly policies on behalf of the Kremlin. Mr. Torshin directed Ms. Butina’s work, they said, and Mr. Erickson helped her with what she called her “Diplomacy Project.”
They helped her organize trips to Moscow for prominent N.R.A. members, and helped her set up meetings for a Russian delegation to the National Prayer Breakfast in 2017.
“Throughout the conspiracy, Butina wrote notes to Russian Official about her efforts and her assessment of the political landscape in the United States in advance of the 2016 election,” the prosecutors wrote.
“Butina also sought Russian Official’s advice on whether to take meetings with certain people,” they added. “She asked him for direction on whether the Russian ‘government’ was ready to meet with some of those people.”
The plea deal also makes reference to George O’Neill Jr., a Rockefeller relative and conservative writer who helped pay Ms. Butina’s bills in the United States. Mr. O’Neill, who is not accused of wrongdoing, is described in the court papers as “a wealthy and well-connected U.S. person” who hosted large “friendship dinners” that were focused on improving relations between Russia and the United States.
The dinners, prosecutors said, afforded Ms. Butina chances “to meet individuals with political capital, learn their thoughts and inclinations toward Russia, gauge their responses to her and adjust her pitch accordingly.”
Then there was a Russian oligarch, Konstantin Y. Nikolayev, who provided money for some of Ms. Butina’s initial travel and work in the United States, prosecutors said. Mr. Nikolayev is a transport magnate whose wife runs a Russian gun company that Ms. Butina visited with an N.R.A. delegation in 2015. He has previously denied providing Ms. Butina with any financial support after 2014.
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In-Depth-Daily Mail-8 hours ago | ||
| Trump Considering Son-In-Law Jared Kushner For Next Chief Of Staff | ||
WASHINGTON ― Having run through his first choices for his chief of staff vacancy without any luck, President Donald Trump is considering his own son-in-law for the job.
Jared Kushner, the husband of Trump’s daughter Ivanka and already an official White House adviser, met with Trump Wednesday about the job, a top Republican close to the White House told HuffPost. He and two others close to Trump or the White House who confirmed Kushner’s interest in the position did so on condition of anonymity to discuss the president’s staffing considerations freely.
Kushner has been pushing his own candidacy with Trump, citing his work on a criminal justice reform package and a claimed ability to work with Democrats, one person said. “I don’t know why he thinks that, when the Democrats are mainly going to be coming after Trump,” the source said.
The White House did not respond to HuffPost’s queries about Kushner’s prospects for the job.
Trump told reporters Thursday that he is down to five finalists. “We are interviewing people now for chief of staff,” he said at a photo opportunity with newly elected governors who were visiting the White House.
Trump announced on Saturday that current chief of staff John Kelly would leave “toward the end of the year.” Nick Ayers, the current chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, was thought to be the likely favorite to succeed Kelly. But Ayers announced on Twitter on Sunday that he was withdrawing from consideration.
“Thank you @realDonaldTrump, @VP, and my great colleagues for the honor to serve our Nation at The White House. I will be departing at the end of the year but will work with the #MAGA team to advance the cause,” he wrote.
Chip Somodevilla via Getty Images
One source said Ayers, the father of young triplets, wanted to take the job on a short-term basis to see whether he could manage it, but then grew less interested the more time he spent with Trump.
The president ― who came into office after starring in a reality television show and running a closely held family business using wealth largely inherited from his father ― is known for temper tantrums and making demands that are illegal or impossible to carry out.
“So often, the president would say here’s what I want to do and here’s how I want to do it and I would have to say to him, ‘Mr. President I understand what you want to do but you can’t do it that way. It violates the law,’” former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said at a fundraising event for the MD Anderson Cancer Center last week.
Kelly, a retired Marine general, was expected to bring order and discipline to the West Wing when he took the job in mid-2017. Despite this, the unscripted chaos that marked Trump’s first six months under his initial chief of staff, Reince Priebus, largely continued unchanged.
It is unclear who the five finalists Trump claimed he was looking at are. Former deputy campaign manager David Bossie is scheduled to have lunch with Trump Friday at the White House. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is also thought to be under consideration, while Trump is soliciting names from the legal community in New York City, where he lived his entire life before winning the presidency in 2016.
After Ayers turned the job down, Trump tried to recruit Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, United States Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, top economic adviser Larry Kudlow and North Carolina Republican Congressman Mark Meadows, all of whom declined, one source said.
Kushner and his wife Ivanka ― known derisively by White House critics as “Javanka” ― face considerable opposition from both inside and outside the West Wing because of concerns about nepotism as well as worries about Kushner’s judgment. He has had to repeatedly file addendums to his financial disclosure forms since joining the White House. More recently, he has become a strong advocate for the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman ― who U.S. intelligence agencies believe ordered the murder of U.S. resident and journalist Jamal Khashoggi after luring him to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October.
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| Obama-era FBI leadership team hollowed out, after latest retirement | ||
Another top FBI official who helped oversee the Trump-Russia and Clinton email investigations is retiring, as the last traces of the bureau's embattled leadership team that once stood under Barack Obama's presidency disappear.
The official, Bill Priestap, will retire from his post as assistant director of the FBI’s counterintelligence division by the end of the year.
“Assistant Director Bill Priestap became eligible to retire and has chosen to do so after 20 years of service,” an FBI spokesperson told Fox News on Wednesday.
Priestap, who participated in the bureau’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server and the FBI’s initial probe into Russian meddling and potential collusion with Trump campaign associates during the 2016 presidential election, has testified before Congress on multiple occasions regarding the bureau’s handling of both investigations.
In this July 26, 2017 photo, Bill Priestap, assistant director of the FBI's Counterintelligence Division, testifies during a Judiciary Committee hearing into alleged collusion between Russian and the Trump campaign. (Reuters)
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