Octopus Overlords

LawBeefaroni wrote: ↑Wed Nov 28, 2018 12:36 pm Of all the potential hoists, via his own petard would be the most satisfying.

Thank goodness Trump doesn't actually have the "best people".

GreenGoo wrote: ↑Wed Nov 28, 2018 1:35 pm Sure, but "laws" and "decency" are what will sink Drumpf and friends eventually. Ignoring those is not not having 1 hand tied behind your back. If they cared about laws and decency they would be untouchable, and that's what should scare people about drumpf's norms destroying. The next power hungry monster in the white house won't be a moron.

El Guapo wrote: ↑Wed Nov 28, 2018 1:39 pm Oh, I totally agree. I'm not saying that they should disregard laws and decency and all that - that would be catastrophic. I'm just saying that not caring about honesty and being shameless are advantages in a fight, and that those (along with the raw power of the office of the Presidency) are assets that the Trump administration has in a fight in the short term.

hepcat wrote: ↑Wed Nov 28, 2018 1:45 pm If Mueller really did play Manafort in an effort to get Trump to screw himself

GreenGoo wrote: ↑Wed Nov 28, 2018 1:47 pmIf drumpf never stepped outside of the rule of law, well, let's just say that his climate change gibberish doesn't seem to be hurting him too much. That and other gibberish is what got him elected in the first place (i.e. won the war for public opinion).

Outgoing GOP Senator Jeff Flake voted against advancing a controversial Trump judicial nominee, as previously promised, after Senate Republicans again blocked a bipartisan measure to protect special counsel Robert Mueller from being fired.

The procedural vote for Thomas Farr, which passed by a vote of 51-50 after Vice President Mike Pence broke the tie, will allow the Senate later this week to officially vote on whether or not to confirm the nominee for the Eastern District of North Carolina. Farr has been vehemently opposed by Democrats for his past work helping North Carolina Republicans institute voter suppression measures.

Flake’s vote against advancing Farr came after GOP Senator Mike Lee blocked an attempt by Flake and Democratic Senators Chris Coons and Cory Booker to force a vote on a Mueller protection bill. GOP Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has refused to hold such a vote since the bill passed the Judiciary Committee in April. The bill received the support of both Democrats and Republicans on the committee.

hepcat wrote: ↑Wed Nov 28, 2018 1:45 pm If Mueller really did play Manafort in an effort to get Trump to screw himself, I will refer to Mueller as Keyser Soze from this point forward.

...I will still refer to Trump as El Doofus McIdiot though.

Carpet_pissr wrote: ↑Wed Nov 28, 2018 4:20 pm So Mannie let's his mole role play out, offers false info to the Feds, then divulges info to Trump's legal team, THEN decides to back out of the agreement. Why would Manny do that to himself, you ask? P-A-R-D-O-N.

Carpet_pissr wrote: ↑Wed Nov 28, 2018 4:20 pm

hepcat wrote: ↑Wed Nov 28, 2018 1:45 pm If Mueller really did play Manafort in an effort to get Trump to screw himself, I will refer to Mueller as Keyser Soze from this point forward.

...I will still refer to Trump as El Doofus McIdiot though.

Whaaaa....wait a minute.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the theory du jour is that Manafort sacrificed himself to be a mole in the investigation for Trump. That actually makes a little sense, because of the normal trash talking that spews out of Trump's mouth when someone flips on him, or is even perceived to be "unfriendly" (journos asking tough questions, etc). We saw no trashing of Manafort by Trump, and vice versa. I thought it was a bit odd at the time, considering what Manafort was supposedly doing.

So Mannie let's his mole role play out, offers false info to the Feds, then divulges info to Trump's legal team, THEN decides to back out of the agreement. Why would Manny do that to himself, you ask? P-A-R-D-O-N.

Are you saying that Mueller KNEW about the molemanship, let it happen, to COUNTERspy on Trump, i.e. using Manny as an unwitting mole for the investigation?!

If so,
1. BRILLIANT!
and
2. my God, this book, then movie, then Netflix original series, is going to be amazing when it's all out.

That really is too much to hope for, so I am going to pretend it's not the case until something patently obvious comes out that it is.

gilraen wrote: ↑Wed Nov 28, 2018 4:28 pm

Carpet_pissr wrote: ↑Wed Nov 28, 2018 4:20 pm So Mannie let's his mole role play out, offers false info to the Feds, then divulges info to Trump's legal team, THEN decides to back out of the agreement. Why would Manny do that to himself, you ask? P-A-R-D-O-N.

If that's the case, then either Manafort is an idiot or his lawyers are. In both the DC and Virginia trials, Manafort has admitted to all the facts in each case. So even if Manafort is pardoned at the federal level, he will be immediately indicted at the state level for the exact same tax fraud, money laundering, etc. charges that he has ALREADY admitted to as part of the plea agreement.

President Donald Trump left open the possibility of pardoning his former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, in an interview with The New York Post on Wednesday, telling the publication that the option is "not off the table."

"It was never discussed, but I wouldn't take it off the table," Trump told The Post. "Why would I take it off the table?"

"If you told the truth, you go to jail," Trump said, adding that he does not know Corsi.

"You know, this flipping stuff is terrible," Trump said. "You flip and you lie and you get — the prosecutors will tell you 99 percent of the time they can get people to flip. It's rare that they can't."

Captain Caveman wrote: ↑Thu Nov 29, 2018 10:52 am Guess Mueller had evidence that his earlier testimony was a lie. Wonder too if there's more explosive content on the tapes Cohen recorded of Trump.

I wonder, too, about the timing. This all comes shortly after Trump submitted his answers. Perhaps he denied business dealings with Russia.

Octavious wrote: ↑Thu Nov 29, 2018 11:27 amI think he will panic and just start firing people left and right.

One hundred seventy officers searched the headquarters of Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt and five other sites in the area early Thursday as part of a money-laundering investigation involving hundreds of millions of euros, prosecutors in Frankfurt said.

Two employees, who were not publicly identified but whose ages were given as 50 and 46, and other “unidentified people in positions of authority” are suspected of failing to report possible money laundering for transactions worth 311 million euros, or more than $350 million.

The money flowed to organizations in the British Virgin Islands before spring 2016, prosecutors said in an emailed statement.

In April 2016, news organizations in cooperation with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists released the Panama Papers, which revealed how some of the world’s wealthiest individuals, including more than 900 customers of Deutsche Bank, dodged taxes in their home countries by transferring money to offshore accounts.

Prosecutors said the documents indicated “that Deutsche Bank helped customers found offshore organizations in tax havens by transferring illegally acquired money without alerting authorities to suspected money laundering.”

malchior wrote: ↑Thu Nov 29, 2018 11:48 am Press reports are saying that Trump *surprised everyone* and went off on Cohen on his way out of the WH today calling him a liar several times and weak.

Paingod wrote: ↑Thu Nov 29, 2018 11:32 am

Octavious wrote: ↑Thu Nov 29, 2018 11:27 amI think he will panic and just start firing people left and right.

Hasn't he been doing that for two years?

malchior wrote: ↑Thu Nov 29, 2018 11:55 am Finally a tweet to source the President's comments! Lying to reduce your sentence by admitting you got caught lying!?! Lie-ception at its best.

YellowKing wrote: ↑Thu Nov 29, 2018 12:14 pm Except we already know which is which and Trump doesn't understand that we've already solved the riddle.

The Associate Press reports that on Thursday morning, former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty in the Southern District of New York to making false statements to Congress related to his involvement in real estate deals in Russia on behalf of Donald Trump. At the hearing, Cohen's lawyer told the judge that his client was entering a plea agreement with Special Counsel Robert Mueller. The criminal information describing Cohen's conduct and the plea agreement he reached with prosecutors are below. Lawfare will post any additional documents as they become available.

Holman wrote: ↑Thu Nov 29, 2018 11:18 am It also comes just before Trump is set to meet Putin at the G20. (I seem to recall that Rosenstein announced indictments of Russian intelligence officers just before Helsinki.)

Incidentally, Moscow has authoritatively stated that Trump and Putin will have a two-hour private meeting at the conference. There has been no mention of this from the WH, but who wants to bet against it happening?

Holman wrote: ↑Thu Nov 29, 2018 12:58 pm

Holman wrote: ↑Thu Nov 29, 2018 11:18 am It also comes just before Trump is set to meet Putin at the G20. (I seem to recall that Rosenstein announced indictments of Russian intelligence officers just before Helsinki.)

Incidentally, Moscow has authoritatively stated that Trump and Putin will have a two-hour private meeting at the conference. There has been no mention of this from the WH, but who wants to bet against it happening?

And now Trump has canceled the meeting... about an hour after stating publicly that it was "a very good time to have a meeting."

GreenGoo wrote: ↑Thu Nov 29, 2018 10:56 am And the thumb screws tighten (on everyone involved).