Thread by @davidjoachim

Bannon "recalled having first met Trump in 2010. Conservative activist David Bossie, president of Citizens United, was also present, and said that Trump was thinking of running for POTUS in 2012. According to the recap, Bannon asked, 'For what country?'"

bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

"Gates recalled a time on the campaign aircraft when candidate Trump said, "get the [Clinton] emails." Flynn said he could use his intelligence sources to obtain the emails. Flynn was adamant the Russians did not carry out the hack"

documentcloud.org/documents/6537…

"Manafort was generally skeptical of any offers of info coming to the campaign's attn. For example, Gates said there was a group of realtors from Kyrgyzstan claiming to have info that may be of use to the campaign. The info pertained to foreign contribs to the Clinton campaign"

Manafort and others were happy about the disclosure of Clinton emails, Gates said, "because it offered a mode of deflection for the campaign after a sink in polling numbers following Trump's comments about Ted Cruz's father at the end of the Republican National Convention"

" ** Gates was shown an email...containing the subject line 'Trump adviser: Wikileaks plotting email dump to derail Hillary. ** '

Gates didn't recall receiving the aforementioned email."

"Trump's July [27], 2016 statement was untrue. In July, Cohen spoke to Trump abt the statement. Trump told Cohen they have no deals in Russia. Cohen thought Trump justified saying this b/c Trump Tower Moscow was not a deal yet. Trump said, 'Why mention it if it is not a deal?'"

Re: Trump Tower Moscow:

"...was part of the script Trump, Hicks, and Kellyanne Conway came up with months before...

"...Cohen previously talked about this script with Trump. Cohen did not tell Trump he thought the script was untrue because Trump already knew it was untrue."

"It was not Cohen's idea to write letter to congress abt T Tower Moscow. Statement was put out to piggyback off Kushner putting out statement before. Release was to shape narrative and let other people who might be witnesses to know what Cohen was saying to keep same message"

"Cohen learned the msg to have the Russia investigation end early from discussions w/ Trump, Sekulow....The discussions occurred shortly after...the appointment of the Special Counsel...The discussion was to not worry, that investigation would not last and would be over by Aug."

"In adv of testifying, there was a specific conversation abt keeping Trump out of UNGA narrative. Cohen was trying to be loyal. Investigation was not supposed to have taken us to where we are today. Cohen was told if he stayed on msg, POTUS had his back, POTUS loves you"

"After Sessions recused, Trump screamed at McGahn about how weak Sessions was....Trump was as mad as Bannon had ever seen him...Trump wanted a lawyer like Roy Cohn. He wanted an attorney general like Bobby Kennedy"

"Bannon knew Kushner was on vacation off the coast of Croatia w/ a Russian billionaire when Bannon took over the campaign. Kushner was w/ Wendy Deng, the Russian billionaire, & the Russian's gf....Bannon called Kushner & told him to come back from vacation...& fire Paul Manafort"

"When Bannon arrived, Manafort showed him something abt a NYT story abt 'Black Ledger' & $15M from Ukraine. Bannon asked when story was coming out. Manafort replied he had known abt story for approx 2 months....Bannon subsequently told Trump to keep Manafort, to not fire him"

"Trump had asked Bannon about 'what was this thing with Manafort out of the Ukraine'...Trump was never linked with other Russian news stories at time, and he believed Manafort was a promoter....Bannon believed that Trump talked with Manafort about the story"

Trump's campaign was "mainly trying to play defense....and they were trying to get Trump to not say something 'insane.' Flynn might have brought up the idea of partnering with Russia on fighting ISIS....Trump's stance was more or less that Russia did not have to be an enemy"

Erik Prince "would often have ideas on how he could help them with the debates.... A couple of times Prince would email his ideas to Bannon. Bannon might have asked for Prince's ideas on a certain issues [sic]...Prince was a known entity in the campaign"

Bannon remembered "seeing Prince in the 'war room' w/ [redacted]....Prince would not officially schedule meetings...Flynn, Kellogg, Bossie, and Conway had known Prince before then. Prince would come in and sit down and talk about foreign policy"

Prince would suggest "people to include in the administration. Bannon would bounce ideas off of Prince and talk about such people as Mike Pompeo. The things Prince said were not too crazy & people respected him...Bannon and Flynn had talked about Prince saying he was a good guy"

"MBZ came over as a way to get to know the incoming administration. It was obvious to Bannon that Kushner was told of the meeting prior and had helped set it up. They met with approx 25 of the UAE attendees in the lobby, including UAE Ambassador to the U.S. Yousef Al Otaiba"

"Bannon saw a guy who looked like Sean Connery & realized it was MBZ...It was apparent to Bannon that Kushner knew Otaiba & it wasn't the 1st time they had met...During the mtg w/ MBZ they discussed the ISIS threat to the area. Bannon did not remember if they discussed Russia"

In 2010, Michael Cohen "came down to the 1st mtg Bannon had w/ Trump...Bannon did not want Cohen wandering around Trump campaign org. Bannon thought it could get them in trouble since Cohen goes off 'halfcocked' a lot. Cohen kept trying to get involved in the Trump campaign."

"Bannon never asked Trump abt any Russian biz deals. In regard to emails [sic] ref to Felix Sater, Bannon stated this went back to House Intel Cmte, that they signed term sheet in Dec 2015 on T Tower Moscow. This was a big deal to Bannon, & Bannon described it as a 'big reveal'"

"Bannon described Cohen as the kind of guy who thought it would be a good idea to send $130K to Stormy Daniels...When asked to speculate about the payment Bannon thought it might be David Pecker, since he did not think anyone around 'Trump.org' would be dumb enough"

George Papadopoulos "never told Bannon about the Russians having dirt on Clinton...Bannon had all the dirt he needed from Clinton Cash and Uranium One...Bannon didn't need any more dirt from 'clowns' like Papadolous"

"After Bannon came onto campaign, it got into Trump's 'head' that the 33K emails might be imp. Trump was focused on 'crooked Hillary' & Uranium One, & thought emails might unlock it. They never discussed that Russians might have them. Bannon thought hackers in Bulgaria might"

Bannon was shown an email "from Trump Jr to Bannon, Conway, Kushner, Bossie, & [redacted] subject 'Wikileaks.' Bannon did not remember receiving msg, but it was during the campaign timeframe. Bannon did not remember anyone else in contact w/ WikiLeaks or trying to get in contact"

Bannon was shown email "from Bannon to Kushner & Bossie, subject "Re; Securing the Victory." Bannon stated that Manafort had zero involvement in the campaign after he left. Bannon thought if they responded to this email from Manafort, Manafort would be telling that to everyone"

"Trump never said to Bannon that he was in contact with [redacted] or Manafort. Bannon knew they were going to win, and in this email he wanted to avoid Manafort because Bannon believed that if people could link them to Manafort, they could then try to link them to Russia"

"Bannon had 3 cell phones. He did not use the campaign issued phone or 'secure phone'...Bannon was not aware his cell phone was set up to not archive text msgs, & someone else had set up his phone for him. It was a surprise to Bannon that his text msgs were not archived" /FIN