1/ We've had a lot of great Trump-Russia pieces in the few days. Let's begin with this account from @DavidCornDC and @Isikoff on how Trump and Putin's strange relationship began: motherjones.com/politics/2018/…
2/ A key meeting happened at a Moscow club, owned by Sheldon Adelson, which featured live acts of bestiality, S&M, and, yes, golden showers: 
3/ The backdrop was the Miss Universe pageant, which Trump ran, and at which he'd put the finger on the scale to bounce contestants he thought were "too ethnic" or who had "snubbed his advances"
4/ Trump was supposedly offered to have women come up to his room. His bodyguard says he demurred. However...
5/ Kinda puts the whole let Billy Graham lie in honor in the Capitol Rotunda in a bit of context:
6/ Read the rest here, and another excerpt coming tomorrow. But meanwhile....motherjones.com/politics/2018/…
7/ We plowed through hundreds of social media posts and other documents to put together a timeline of how Russian gun activists and the NRA tried to build influence in Trumpland: motherjones.com/politics/2018/…
8/ Once for the assault weapons ban, Trump came around to be the biggest defender of the NRA, which spent $30 million to help him win.
9/ In any other administration, we'd still be talking about this moment:
10/ Ok, on to our scoop that shows that Russian-related entities secretly meddled in the United States in order to meddle in an election in Albania—with the help of Trump campaign officials.
12/ This story is front-page news in Albania: (pictured are MoJo reporters @H_Lev @DavidCornDC @dfriedman33; don't ask me to translate )
13/ Correction to item #2: It was a Vegas not Moscow club. #neededitfeature
14/ Anyway the upshot of the Albania story is that it looks like Russian meddling in elections, and Trump ties to such meddling, could be way more far flung than we realize:
15/ More tomorrow!
16/ Meantime, buy David and Mike's book amazon.com/Russian-Roulet…
17/ New scoop from @DavidCornDC and @Isikoff: How the Obama administration got boxed in by Putin motherjones.com/politics/2018/…
18/ Another instance of "reasonable" Obama being snowed? (See also Max Baucus)
19/ Now, to learn the whole story of Mitch McConnell's role of why the Obama administration didn't call out Putin and warn the US public, you'll have to buy the book. Do so today, and you'll have by Tuesday, when it comes out:
amazon.com/gp/product/B07…
amazon.com/gp/product/B07…
20/ One of many things, but maybe the most important thing, that would have changed pre-election if Obama admin/polls/journos hadn't been convinced Hillary would win.
21/ Obama not warning public (thanks to Mitch) is why this 10/31/2016 story where @DavidCornDC told the public about the Steele dossier didn't get front page news: motherjones.com/politics/2016/…
22/ The other reason is that THAT SAME DAY, you know what was on the front page of the @nytimes? This story, which the paper has never really come clean with an explanation of who played them, how, and why: nytimes.com/2016/11/01/us/…
23/ The timing of these two stories is, imho, one of the great untold tales of the 2016 election. Yo media reporters, it's been a year and a half. Get to it.
