• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Trump assoc. Sater attempts quid pro quo arrangement with RU for Trump Tower Moscow

S

Shoeless

Member
antonz said:
I can already hear Hannity. "The only crime they committed was not using bleachbit on their emails like lying Hillary"
Click to expand...

At some point I fully expect Hannity and other Republicans to invoke a quote I never, ever forgot from a Canadian anime-ish film called "Rock & Rule."

"Evil spelled backwards is 'live.' And we all want to live, don't we?"
 
I

ICO_SotC

Member
Growing list of people connected to this Russia investigation who were rewarded by Trump with positions in his administration.(or head of the campaign where Manafort was concerned)

Flynn, Flynn Jr, Manafort, Cohen, Kushner, Sessions, Dearborn, Papadopoulos.
 
M

Muppet of a Man

Member
TheGreatMightyPoo said:
time-magazines-latest-cover-illustrates-trumps-white-house-transforming-into-a-kremlin-like-building.jpg
Click to expand...

The best cover illustration in decades. Will definitely be referenced in history books.
 
F

Fenderputty

Banned
Beer Monkey said:
Fire Mueller and somebody else will inherit it, but the pressure on Trump will only mount the more he obstructs. All evidence will be preserved.
Click to expand...

If the senate/house doesn't bring Mueller on themselves, the NY AG will.

http://www.oregonlive.com/today/index.ssf/2017/07/donald_trump_might_fire_robert.html

"If it's hard to get checks on the presidency from Congress, we're going to try to fill that space," Schneiderman told New York magazine in May. "I'm willing to bet on the rule of law. I think at the end of the day, it's what people want."

He added that his role is "to make sure that the system survives." So he appears to be taking this pretty seriously.

Trump critics are particularly enthusiastic about Schneiderman's efforts not only because Trump can't fire him but because presidential pardons would not protect the president, his family or his aides from state prosecution. Fordham University law professor Jed Handelsman Shugerman wrote last week that if Trump does fire the special counsel, Schneiderman "could hire Mueller and his team of lawyers. They'd have subpoena power under state criminal law."

Schneiderman has already shown a willingness to do such strategic, and politically controversial, hiring. In the spring he brought on a top prosecutor from the office of Preet Bharara, the New York U.S. attorney who was reportedly investigating alleged misdeeds by the Trump Organization -- until Trump fired him in March. New York City is the country's financial center, which gives the state's attorney general wide latitude to investigate financial crimes. This apparently includes money laundering by former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who's also a central figure in Mueller's investigation.
Click to expand...
 
A

avaya

Member
Byakuya769 said:
You know how I know this is something? I haven't seen any "this is nothing" posts yet!
Click to expand...

We are long past that point. The only question is when Trump's approval rating is low enough that the white supremacist party will start paying attention.
 
Z

Zolo

Member
avaya said:
We are long past that point. The only question is when Trump's approval rating is low enough that the white supremacist party will start paying attention.
Click to expand...

Yeah. At this point, it's a matter of 'Can we reach the point where enough people will impeach him?'
 
F

Fenderputty

Banned
Zolo said:
Yeah. At this point, it's a matter of 'Can we reach the point where enough people will impeach him?'
Click to expand...

Lets see how he handles the debt ceiling, tax reform and the budget. Lets see how many congressional heads he attacks while these occur. He could easily fuck all this up. If his numbers tank and he's actively attacking them while hurting their agenda ... that's when shit gets real.
 
Pilgrimzero

Pilgrimzero

Member
avaya said:
We are long past that point. The only question is when Trump's approval rating is low enough that the white supremacist party will start paying attention.
Click to expand...


They won't. The Repubs while in control will never impeach him. Their only hope is to ride this out for as long as they can and hope backing the racist asshole in the US will keep them thier jobs.
 
A

avaya

Member
Pilgrimzero said:
They won't. The Repubs while in control will never impeach him. Their only hope is to ride this out for as long as they can and hope backing the racist asshole in the US will keep them thier jobs.
Click to expand...

I am of this view but we just have to see the scale of what Mueller brings and what NY follows up with if nothing happens.
 
S

Sephzilla

Member
I honestly do feel like we're on the brink of shit getting real regarding Republicans dumping Trump. Trump is starting to attack the GOP and is starting to fire what were considered the GOP connections. Trump being adversarial to Republicans is basically biting the hand that feeds at this point since they could go to the bullpen and get "their guy" in office.

Plus whatever bombshells Mueller is cooking up are probably going to do a lot to sway them especially if it endangers their 2018 seats.
 
Z

Zolo

Member
Sephzilla said:
I honestly do feel like we're on the brink of shit getting real regarding Republicans dumping Trump. Trump is starting to attack the GOP and is starting to fire what were considered the GOP connections. Trump being adversarial to Republicans is basically biting the hand that feeds at this point since they could go to the bullpen and get "their guy" in office.

Plus whatever bombshells Mueller is cooking up are probably going to do a lot to sway them especially if it endangers their 2018 seats.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't be surprised if there's a decent # of Republicans waiting for Mueller's investigation to finish just to have a patriotic excuse of removing him.
 
Jag

Jag

Member
Muppet of a Man said:
Good shit. NY doing gods' work.
Click to expand...

NY AG filling his own political pot to further his ambitions. Besides I highly doubt the states have any constitutional power over a sitting President.

I wish it could happen because Schneiderman is a nasty dude, but it's wishful thinking.
 
K

KingV

Member
avaya said:
We are long past that point. The only question is when Trump's approval rating is low enough that the white supremacist party will start paying attention.
Click to expand...

Have any of the most infamous posters that left my-denied "the Russia thing" or the "obstruction of justice thing" ever come out and said they have changed their mind?

That cognitive dissonance was pretty embarassig through like mid July.
 
N

Nafai1123

Banned
Jag said:
NY AG filling his own political pot to further his ambitions. Besides I highly doubt the states have any constitutional power over a sitting President.

I wish it could happen because Schneiderman is a nasty dude, but it's wishful thinking.
Click to expand...

State charges can't be pardoned. Not talking about Trump but those around him. Guess where the Trump Org is based out of?
 
S

Shadybiz

Member
BoogieWoogie said:
http://www.newsweek.com/donald-trum...cans-advisers-white-house-removal-odds-655951
Click to expand...

This bit has to be my favorite part:

But Trump might just be positioning himself apart from the Republican Party ahead of 2018, a form of "triangulation" that could help him gain friendships across party aisles during a moment of presidential crisis, former Trump campaign adviser Barry Bennett explained.
Click to expand...

Barry...you're giving him far more credit than is due. He's just a schmuck, insulting anyone who disagrees with him....he doesn't have any strategy.
 
B

BlastProcessing

Member
Jag said:
NY AG filling his own political pot to further his ambitions. Besides I highly doubt the states have any constitutional power over a sitting President.

I wish it could happen because Schneiderman is a nasty dude, but it's wishful thinking.
Click to expand...

States have massive power over a sitting President. More power than the DOJ because State charges cannot be pardoned by the President.
 
S

skullmuffins

Banned
HeartlessNobody213 said:
The twitter conspiracy theorist have been hyping the NY AG for months now so seeing that isn't a surprise.
Click to expand...

About them...

In news that will shock everyone, The Guardian: Lurid Trump allegations made by Louise Mensch and co-writer came from hoaxer
Explosive allegations about Donald Trump made by online writers with large followings among Trump critics were based on bogus information from a hoaxer who falsely claimed to work in law enforcement.

Claude Taylor posted tweets reporting fake details of criminal inquiries into Trump that were invented by a source whose claim to work for the New York attorney general was not checked, according to emails seen by the Guardian. The allegations were endorsed as authentic and retweeted by his co-writer Louise Mensch.

The source's false tips included an allegation, which has been aggressively circulated by Mensch and Taylor, that Trump's inactive fashion model agency is under investigation by New York authorities for possible sex trafficking.

The hoaxer, who fed the information to Taylor by email, said she acted out of frustration over the ”dissemination of fake news" by Taylor and Mensch. Their false stories about Trump have included a claim that the president was already removed from office in a process kept secret from the American public.

”Taylor asked no questions to verify my identity, did no vetting whatsoever, sought no confirmation from a second source – but instead asked leading questions to support his various theories, asking me to verify them," the source said in an email.
Click to expand...

And I'm sure some people will still defend these grifters by claiming some of their information might have grains of truth in it. Stop. If you have a news source where only 1/20 of the stories are based in reality, you're actually becoming less well-informed by reading it, not more.
 
S

Shadybiz

Member
skullmuffins said:
About them...

In news that will shock everyone, The Guardian: Lurid Trump allegations made by Louise Mensch and co-writer came from hoaxer


And I'm sure some people will still defend these grifters by claiming some of their information might have grains of truth in it. Stop. If you have a news source where only 1/20 of the stories are based in reality, you're actually becoming less well-informed by reading it, not more.
Click to expand...

I'm not familiar with Taylor, but I do know that nobody should be paying any attention to Mensch. There are far more reliable sources than that whacko.
 
S

Stinkles

Clothed, sober, cooperative
Shadybiz said:
I'm not familiar with Taylor, but I do know that nobody should be paying any attention to Mensch. There are far more reliable sources than that whacko.
Click to expand...


Mensch was bonkers before Trump too. I like her YA approach to speculative fiction.
 
B

BrassDragon

Member
Let's look further back than these 2015 Moscow real estate shenanigans:

By 2008, Trump's reputation has a businessman had tanked with financial institutions with only Deutsche Bank willing to invest in his ventures.

Until 2015, Deutsche Bank was involved in a gigantic scheme using 'mirror trading' to launder money stolen from the Russian state and making it available for spending/re-investment in legitimate western properties... like, say, buying a dilapidated Miami mansion for an insane mark-up from Donald J. Trump. Choice quote from Trump about this sale in 2016:

“What do I have to do with Russia?” he replied to reporters’ questions at a press conference in Doral last summer. “You know the closest I came to Russia, I bought a house a number of years ago in Palm Beach … for $40 million, and I sold it to a Russian for $100 million.”
Click to expand...

We now know he was fresh off the OP's Moscow Trump Tower venture when he said that.

Deutsche Bank AG was fined almost 70 billion USD worldwide for their unethical practices, with the American investigation led by SDNY attorney Preet Bharara (who was unceremoniously fired by Trump shortly before a lenient settlement with the bank.)

Also, from 2008 onward, Russian nationals bought almost 100 million USD worth of Trump real estate in Florida ('Moscow on the Beach'). All these buyers are conveniently two steps removed from the Putin regime so not touched by sanctions, but we know from the Bill Browder senate testimony that Putin uses 'oligarch trustees' as proxies to re-invest his liquid assets in western holdings.

There is so much smoke around Trump's business empire that it's almost impossible to ignore the possibility that he was a key component of the Russian 'laundromat'. It may be hard for Mueller to prove an actual conspiracy to steal the presidency... but criminal business dealings with a ruthless and sanctioned enemy of the USA should be easier to substantiate.
 
S

SatelliteOfLove

Member
Fenderputty said:
Lets see how he handles the debt ceiling, tax reform and the budget. Lets see how many congressional heads he attacks while these occur. He could easily fuck all this up. If his numbers tank and he's actively attacking them while hurting their agenda ... that's when shit gets real.
Click to expand...

It's like working with the Candy Corn Mugabe and getting thrown under the bus: it's not "if", it's "when" for this.

Lets see how Ol' Ryan likes having his tax fixation blow up in his face by a poo-flinging hissy fit, then get blamed for it by said poo-flinger.

BrassDragon said:
For those who don't know...

It's not just the money, the whole system Putin set up to stay in power relies on his trusted oligarchs and state cronies being able to operate their businesses with impunity, sucking money out of the Russian economy and into foreign assets.

If he can't guarantee their financial freedom and immunity from persecution, his hold on the country crumbles which is why the Magnistky Act and similar measures in other countries hurt him so badly. Bill Browder testified to this recently before the US Senate.



If Mueller makes a compelling case that Trump is effectively a Russian agent placed in the highest office by clandestine interference, that by itself is an act of warfare. There are no good outcomes here.
Click to expand...

Yup, read that link anyone who hasn't, and the above post.
 
C

Crimson_Gold

Member
Chaos seems to be there answer, but I don't think they'll get it. Having Russia come out and say it's all true robs some of the narrative that this Russia stuff is all made up. Ultimately the net gain is that it proves there's a demographic that will support ideas that are counterintuitive to what the majority of the country believes. Alas, Mueller...
 
B

BrassDragon

Member
BronsonLee said:
Russia wants sanctions and that Magnistky Act gone

Since they can't get that, they'll settle for this
Click to expand...

Putin's prime minister Medvedev, been quite clear on their Trump strategy shortly after Congress tied POTUS' hands on the sanctions:

In a Facebook post specifically referencing Trump, the Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev (No. 2 only to Putin), warned that Congress sees Trump as "an incompetent player" who must be "liquidated".

While Medvedev is suggesting that Congress will liquidate Trump for opposing their efforts to sanction Russia, this also reeks of a Russian warning to Trump specifically. The rest of Medvedev's post was equally aggressive. He suggested that Trump has shown "complete impotence, in the most humiliating manner, transferring executive powers to Congress" and that this is the "beginning of full-fledged trade war" and "the end of our hopes of improving relations with the new administration."
Click to expand...

They're going to disavow an unreliable asset as more information comes out.
 
G

Graphics Horse

Member
I might have missed a detail but hadn't Cohen already admitted this email to Congress?
It's easy for the Kremlin to back up Cohen's story that they never replied, which it sounds like they just have.
 
K

KernelPanic

Member
Their goal was always chaos, they never really thought Trump would win. When he did they thought they could sanctions lifted and other stuff but now that's off the table they are back to chaos.

You still have shit like Rohrbacher setting up a meeting with Assange and trying to set up a meeting with Trump.

One Russian asset working in Congress meeting another Russian asset trapped in an embassy relaying new instructions from their boss. They're not even hiding it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Bobby Kotick, former CEO of Activision, Interested in Buying Tik-Tok
2 3
143
11K
Gameplay Gods Bless replied
Phil Spencer interview - Says that their intent is for all Xbox games, including Call of Duty, to be available on Xbox Game Pass Day One
2 3
102
10K
Kenneth Haight replied
Bloomberg: Behind ‘Suicide Squad,’ the Year’s Biggest Video-Game Flop
2 3
143
9K
MALpractice311 replied
[WSJ] Company Documents Show Meta’s Flagship Metaverse Falling Short
News Business
38
3K
StreetsofBeige replied
Interview with Shuji Utsumi (SEGA Co-COO) by Japanese media outlet Seizo-Trend
Business Game Dev
1
2K
Unknown? replied
Top Bottom