Thread by @SethAbramson

(THREAD) TWENTY TIMES TRUMP COLLUDED WITH THE RUSSIANS

PLEASE RETWEET THIS LIST so that we can stop reading think-pieces in which Trump allies—or journos who don't follow the Trump-Russia story—sagely advise us that America has absolutely *no* evidence of Trump-Russia collusion.

1. Steele Dossier intel says Sergei Lavrov ran a blackmail/money laundering scheme in which Trump got money, blackmail forbearance, and—later—election assistance in exchange for a pro-Russia policy and other perks. Trump then leaked classified intel to Lavrov in the Oval Office.

2. Trump aided his son in covering up a clandestine meeting with Kremlin agents—designed to transmit stolen Clinton material from Russia to Trump—by drafting a false statement and forcing Don to sign it under his own name. Trump knew Don would be called to testify on the meeting.

3. According to both Emin Agalarov and his father Aras, Trump signed a letter-of-intent to build Trump Tower Moscow using Putin's real estate developer, banker, and permits man in November 2013—a deal that was active until February 2017. Trump has lied about this deal from Day 1.

4. Trump held a secret meeting with Putin at an international conference, during which he discussed sanctions with the Russian strongman. His administration had no intention of acknowledging or admitting the meeting until a journalist happened to find out about it accidentally.

5. Trump admitted discussing U.S.-Russia relations with Putin in Moscow in 2013—then, after announcing a run, retracted the claim, saying he "spoke to top officials" but "couldn't say more." His fixer, Cohen, sent a witness to the call to Stormy Daniels' lawyer to kill the story.

6. An eyewitness to the judging process of the 2002 Miss Universe pageant in Puerto Rico has told Special Counsel Bob Mueller that Trump directly and unambiguously attempted to rig the pageant so that Miss Russia would win. Miss Russia was Putin's mistress at the time.

She won.

7. Through clandestine negotiations conducted by Sessions—lied about before Congress, under oath, by Sessions—Trump agreed to unilaterally drop Russia sanctions while he knew from briefings Russia was attacking America. His secret plan was discovered by the DoS post-inauguration.

8. During the presidential campaign, Trump directed his fixer, Cohen, to negotiate a new Trump Tower Moscow deal with the Russians—including direct contact with the Kremlin—and the negotiations went on for months. He lied about this deal (as he did with the 2013 one) from Day 1.

9. Steele's dossier says Trump agreed with the Kremlin in mid-2016—in a meeting with the Kremlin we know Carter Page had, then lied about—to not impose sanctions on Russia.

Despite a 517-5 vote in Congress to impose sanctions, Trump has refused—in violation of the law—to do so.

10. Steele's dossier also says Russian oligarchs systematically overpaid for Trump properties to help develop him as a Russian asset—a claim bolstered by Trump business partner and ex-Russian mobster Felix Sater. Trump lied under oath—Perjury—to hide his relationship with Sater.

11. After George Papadopoulos told Trump—to his face, on March 31, 2016—the Kremlin had authorized him to negotiate a clandestine mid-campaign Trump-Putin meeting, instead of firing him Trump moved him to his Russia policy team and let him edit his first foreign policy speech.

12. During the same meeting Papadopoulos told Trump that he was a Kremlin agent, Trump ordered J.D. Gordon, a top member of his national security team, to change the GOP platform in July to benefit Putin on the Crimea issue. He issued his order after learning about Putin's offer.

13. After learning his Campaign Manager was an unregistered foreign agent who'd colluded illegally with pro-Putin oligarchs, Trump kept using him as a secret advisor for at least 6 months, while publicly claiming Manafort—who lived in Trump Tower—was basically a stranger to him.

14. In a breach of protocol, Trump forbade U.S. persons from entering the Oval while he met the Russian ambassador and the man Steele says ran the Russian interference campaign. In another protocol breach, he forbade U.S. translators from attending his first meeting with Putin.

14 (addendum). These protocol breaches are a pattern: in April '17, Trump invited the Russian ambassador to be a front-row VIP at a speech in which Trump promised Russia "a good deal" on sanctions. The invite was a protocol breach; the Trump-Kislyak VIP event beforehand was also.

15. After learning that Russia was committing cyberwarfare against the United States, and after saying that Putin watches carefully what he—Trump—says on television, Trump invited Russian hackers to continue committing crimes against the U.S. and said they'd be "richly rewarded."

16. Our intel community agrees Russia interfered with our election to a) sow chaos, and b) do so without getting caught. Despite being told in an August 2016 briefing Russia was attacking us, Trump has denied Russia did so, sows chaos on the issue, and refuses to criticize Putin.

17. While acting under color of authority from his father-in-law, Kushner smuggled Russia's ambassador into Trump's house (Trump Tower) through a back door in December 2016 to discuss establishing a secret Trump-Putin channel using a secure Russian facility—which plan is illegal.

18. Russia's main interest, now—in the matter of its cyber-crimes—is that Congress not find out what it did, with whom, or when. Trump illegally—without asserting executive privilege—directed key Congressional witnesses to refuse to answer Congressional inquiries on the subject.

19. Don Jr. told his dad about his contacts with Kremlin client WikiLeaks, and indeed as soon as WikiLeaks contacted Don saying it supported Trump's campaign, Trump began inserting praise of WikiLeaks into every stump speech in a transparent attempt to reward and encourage leaks.

19 (addendum). Trump's first effusive, out-of-nowhere praise of WikiLeaks as a noble organization that should be widely supported, and which would be releasing great campaign information, came just 15 minutes—that's not a typo—after WikiLeaks contacted his son for the first time.

20. Bannon says it was accepted in the White House that Don also told his dad of his meeting with Kremlin agents at Trump Tower and *on the day it happened*—a day Trump was meeting with all U.S. participants in the meeting on the *very same subject* as the meeting (Clinton dirt).

BONUS. (Surely you knew there were more than 20?) After Russia's stateside crimewave, it had no ability to stop *investigation* of its crimes—but Trump did. Trump brought in Sessions—he says—to kill the probe, then fired Comey to try to kill it, then used Nunes to try to kill it.

BONUS. After Russia committed what intelligence experts refer to—in the context of U.S. history—as a "cyber Pearl Harbor," Trump publicly proposed, as a serious policy proposal, that the U.S. intelligence community cooperate with the Kremlin on an important topic: cyber-security.

BONUS. After learning Flynn was secretly and illegally negotiating U.S.-Russia policy in 2016, Trump first did nothing, then fired him for another reason, then tried to rehire him, then fired the man prosecuting him, then told him to "stay strong," then said he did nothing wrong.

BONUS. Trump awarded the 2013 Miss Universe pageant to Russia—over 19 other nations—within hours of Russia offering him $20 million and the opportunity to meet Putin (which he immediately tweeted excitedly about). The other 19 nations were given no chance to match Russia's offer.

BONUS. After learning the Agalarovs were Kremlin agents—recipients of an award from Putin; authorized to act as Putin's messengers; no-bid developers for the Kremlin—Trump and his son Don developed a close friendship with Aras and Emin and stayed in touch throughout the campaign.

BONUS. Though he knew of Manafort's ties to the Kremlin via pro-Putin oligarchs, and though Manafort offered—in-context, a huge red flag for criminal intent—to work for free, Trump hired him and his equally conflicted partner Gates as Campaign Manager and Deputy Campaign Manager.

BONUS. Papadopoulos told Greek media he met Trump *after* meeting Kremlin agent Mifsud but *before* Trump named him to the NatSec team. Trump denies it. If true, Trump knew Papadopoulos had met Russians when he chose him to be the one NatSec team member he personally vouched for.

BONUS (addendum). Papadopoulos' claim is bolstered by his accuracy in describing his campaign role—versus Trump's deceit on the same topic—and that eyewitnesses say that when Papadopoulos told Trump he was aiding the Kremlin on March 31, 2016, Trump didn't react or shut him down.

BONUS. If you've been reading this feed a long time, you know how much evidence there is—including Trump's own words—bolstering the claim the Kremlin is blackmailing him over conduct at the Ritz Moscow. Trump's lies on this topic constitute collusion with the Kremlin's narrative.

CONCLUSION. I'm at 28—and could go on—but I'll stop here to try to keep this thread a reasonable length. Note: everything I've written is taken from the public record—and is only a *fraction* of what Bob Mueller knows. So let's stop reading or sharing "no collusion" think-pieces.

NOTE. There are attendant facts augmenting *all* these points (e.g., Trump's effort to gut election security/sanctions administration units in his government; his refusal to authorize NSA to counter Russian cyber-attacks; his ongoing war on those investigating Russia; and so on.)

NOTE2. Because Trump and the think-pieces are about "collusion," I'm meeting them head-on—as *all* the acts I've cited here are "collusion" (a non-legal term). *Many* of them then *also* map to "coordination," which denotes "Conspiracy," a legal term and federal criminal offense.

NOTE3. Readers of this feed know I've listed before—ad nauseam, even—the criminal statutes many of these acts of collusion connect to, including direct (or conspiracy) campaign-finance, bribery, fraud, computer-crime, money laundering, obstruction, and witness tampering statutes.

NOTE4. Below is the opinion piece that prompted this thread.

It prompted this thread because every single sentence in it, and I mean every single sentence, is factually incorrect (and, as applicable, legally, also). And I suspect its author well knows it: thehill.com/opinion/judici…