Even as Trump was campaigned in '16 to 'drain the swamp,' he chose as campaign mgr Paul Manafort, who'd made millions as a global swamp creature for pro-Russia oligarchs, doing the work of Putin.
Details are in the Senate Intel Committee's newest report: intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/…
"ProRussian Ukrainian oligarchs with deep economic ties to Russia also paid Manafort tens of
millions of dollars and formed strong ties with Manafort...
Manafort hired and worked increasingly closely with a Russian national, Konstantin
Kilimnik...a Russian intelligence officer."
Kilimnik, the Russian intel agent, & Manafort "formed a close and
lasting relationship that endured to the 2016 US elections & beyond...throughout his
time on the [Trump] Campaign, Manafort directly & indirectly communicated with Kilimnik, Deripaska,
& the pro-Russian oligarchs..
The bipartisan Senate Intel Committee said it "was unable to reliably determine why Manafort shared sensitive internal polling data or [Trump] Campaign strategy with Kilimnik or with whom Kilimnik further shared that information."
Who would a pro-Putin intel officer share with?
Speaking of the GRU, successor to the Soviets' KGB, the Senate report said: "The Committee obtained some information suggesting Kilimnik may have been connected to the GRU's hack and leak operation targeting the 2016 U.S. election."
That's no hoax.
And the money quote:
"...Manafort's high level access and willingness to share information with individuals closely affiliated with the
Russian intelligence services, particularly Kilimnik and associates of Oleg Deripaska,
represented a grave counterintelligence threat" to the US
No hoax: "The Committee found that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the Russian
effort to hack computer networks & accounts affiliated with the Democratic Party and leak
information damaging to Hillary Clinton and her campaign for president...[&] help the
Trump Campaign"
As Trump campaigned ("Drain the swamp") fixer Michael Cohen updated him on negotiations in Russia for a Trump Tower. "Trump made positive public comments about Putin in connection with his
presidential campaign" & Cohen & another aide tried "to leverage" those to seal the deal.
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For those suggesting Democrats should try to save House Republicans from this speaker morass, my column says not "no,"
but "hell, no" -- and I'm something of an institutionalist, partial to compromise.
Why should Dems have voted to keep Kevin McCarthy, the devil they knew, as speaker?
Not only did he not offer them anything, he gave them more than ample reason to oppose him. Toadying to Trump. Reneging on debt deal. Blaming Dems for near-shutdown. Moving to impeach Bideny. 2/
Tradition argues for the Rs resolving this mess. For 2 centuries, the majority House party has elected 1 of its own as speaker, typically without help from the minority. Dumping McCarthy was unprecedented. So is the GOP's inability to unite behind a replacement. 3/
Amid reports Jordan is close to becoming House speaker, re-upping my column on why that would be a travesty. While McCarthy played along as Trump spun up his MAGA militia to attack on Jan. 6, Jordan plotted along with the insurrectionist in chief./1 latimes.com/opinion/story/…
Jordan’s name appears 44x in the Jan. 6 committee's report: re WH meetings & repeated calls w/Trump, incl'g amid the attack, & his contacts before & after with Trump lackeys. The panel said DOJ should investigate him & House Ethics should sanction him for ignoring subpoenas./2
In short, Jordan--would-be House leader--refused to tell one of its committees what he knew about its desecration on Jan. 6, scorned its subpoena & trumpeted his defiance in a fundraising campaign. He still declines to come clean on his role in seeking to overturn an election./3
Column: "No sooner had Donald Trump finally been fingerprinted and booked than we Americans were reminded of that other V.I.P. scofflaw who, by his repeat offenses, has long mocked our national conceit that no person is above the law."
Clarence Thomas. latimes.com/opinion/story/…
2/Perversely, because Thomas sits on the highest court, he’s all but unaccountable. Trump, once the most powerful person on the planet, has lost the protection of a DOJ policy against indicting a sitting president. But the 9 justices have jobs for life--judging, but not judged.
3/ Thomas doesn't suffer shame, because he has none. Trust in SCOTUS is the lowest since polling on it began, yet C.T. isn’t nearly selfless or self-aware enough to help restore trust by doing what ethics-challenged Abe Fortas did in 1969: resign. latimes.com/opinion/story/…
French newspaper Le Monde: "If there is any American exceptionalism, it is to tolerate the fact that schools in the United States are regularly transformed into bloody shooting ranges...Indeed, America is killing itself & the Republican Party is looking the other way..."
Former GOP House Maj Ldr Eric Cantor on @CNN blames "both sides" for extremism & singles out Obama for pursuing a 1-party '09 stimulus pkg.
FACT: On Obama's inauguration night, Cantor was at the dinner of Congress' GOP leaders where they decided to oppose everything he did.
@CNN FACT 2: Partly to attract GOP support, Obama held down the cost of the stimulus bill--now widely seen as too small for the Great Recession--and included about 40% tax cuts, not spending.
But GOP leaders had decided at that dinner to oppose everything.
@CNN Per @DraperRobert book in '09, the GOP leaders agreed at that dinner, hours after Obama inauguration, that they would challenge him & Cong'al Dems "on every single bill," acc'g to Cantor's fellow House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy--incl'g a stimulus bill in the depths of recession.
Trump's White House fetes for new SCOTUS justices, with partisan invitees, are NOT normal.
Past presidents typically avoided them, in a nod to judiciary branch's independence. Justices' were sworn in at the Court.
The late Justice John Paul Stevens wrote about this:
Stevens:
"The ceremony should take place at the Supreme Ct whenever possible. The 3 branches of our govt are separate & equal. The president & the Senate play critical roles in the nomination & confirmation process. After that... the ‘separate but equal’ regime takes over.”
Two years ago, Trump began the WH celebration for the new Justice Kavanaugh by apologizing “on behalf of our nation” (more than half of which opposed Kavanaugh, polls showed) for the allegations of sexual assault he'd faced-- or “lies and deception,” as Trump put it.