Lazy Saturday Reads: A Brief Respite From Bad News
Posted: May 19, 2018 Filed under: Afternoon Reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: Ben E. King, Donald Trump, Kingdom Choir, Michael Curry, royal wedding, Sam Cooke, Stand By Me 49 Comments
Good Afternoon!!
I slept too late to see any of the royal wedding live, but it sounds like it was wonderful. I don’t follow the royals, but it’s difficult not to be inspired by this wedding of a prince and a mixed-race American woman. Maybe Sam Cooke was right:
There have been times that I thought I couldn’t last for long
But now I think I’m able to carry on
It’s been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change is gonna come, oh yes it will
And it’s so satisfying to me that so many A-list Americans were invited to the ceremony, and the Trumps were excluded. The royal couple decided not to include any political leaders on the guest list, but I wonder if that decision was mostly about keeping Trump away.
This morning the BBC trolled Trump with a comparison photo.
The sermon at the wedding was an African American minister Michael Curry. The Guardian:
The US minister chosen by Prince Harry and Meghan Markle who told royals and celebrities that “love is the way” at their wedding on Saturday has previously spoken out on racial justice, LGBT equality and sexual harassment and exploitation.
In a powerful and entertaining address that left some members of the royal family looking bemused even as others laughed and nodded, Bishop Michael Curry told the service: “There’s power in love. Love can help and heal when nothing else can. There’s power in love to lift up and liberate when nothing else will.”
Curry, the most senior figure in the American Episcopal church, part of the global Anglican communion, was one of three clergyman at the wedding. The archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, took the couple through their marriage vows and the dean of Windsor, David Conner, conducted the service.
Curry is the first African-American to serve as presiding bishop of the predominantly white US Episcopal church, and has recounted his family history as slaves and sharecroppers in North Carolina and Alabama in his autobiography Songs My Grandma Sang.
He told the New York Times in 2016 that when he was training for the priesthood, “the expectation at the time was that if you were a black priest or seminarian, you were going to be serving in black churches. There was a black church world and a white church world. That was the given-ness of racism, not that anybody said anything.”
A gospel choir performed Ben E. King’s iconic tune “Stand By Me.”
Performed by Karen Gibson and The Kingdom Choir, 20 singers stood Saturday at the west end of Windsor Castle, wearing different shades of pale pink….
The lyrics to “Stand by Me” read:
“When the night has come/And the land is dark/And the moon is the only light we see/No, I won’t be afraid,” the song begins. “Oh, I won’t be afraid/Just as long as you stand, stand by me/So darling, darling, stand by me/Oh, stand by me/Oh stand, stand by me. Stand by me.”
It’s not the first time The Kingdom Choir has performed for British royalty. In fact, they were tapped to perform at the Golden Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II, celebrating her 50 years on the throne, in 2002.
The multi-denominational choir originates from the South East area of England, according to the group’s Facebook page.
Previously, they’ve performed for other notables, including former President Bill Clinton, Bishop Desmond Tutu and the late Nelson Mandela. They’ve also performed alongside American Gospel artists such as Fred Hammond and Donnie McClurkin along with British acts, including Elton John and The Spice Girls.
The spectacle of the royal wedding was for many Americans a welcome respite from the horrors happening here at home.
The New York Times: In Texas School Shooting, 10 Dead, 10 Hurt and Many Unsurprised.
SANTA FE, Tex. — A nation plagued by a wrenching loop of mass school shootings watched the latest horror play out in this small Southeast Texas town Friday morning, as a young man armed with a shotgun and a .38 revolver smuggled under his coat opened fire on his high school campus, killing 10 people, many of them his fellow students, and wounding 10 more, the authorities said….
It was the worst school shooting since the February assault on Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., where a young man with an AR-15 rifle left 17 people dead and prompted a wave of nationwide, student-led protests calling on lawmakers to tighten gun laws.
It was barely after 7:30 a.m. at Santa Fe High School, about 35 miles southeast of Houston, when gunfire first resounded through the halls, the opening volley of yet another massacre at an American high school that would leave students, teachers and staff members shocked, and in some cases bloodied. But they were not necessarily surprised.
A video interview with one student, Paige Curry, spread across social media, an artifact of a moment when children have come to expect violence in their schools.
“Was there a part of you that was like, ‘This isn’t real, this is — this would not happen in my school?’” the reporter asked.
The young girl shook her head: “No, there wasn’t.”
“Why so?” the reporter asked.
“It’s been happening everywhere,” she said. “I felt — I’ve always kind of felt like eventually it was going to happen here, too.”
Buried way down in the story was something that should have been in the lead:
Kole Dixon, 16, a sophomore, said he was standing outside history class when the fire alarm suddenly went off. He sprinted out a side door, and heard gunshots in rapid succession over the sound of the fire alarm.
When the shooting stopped, Mr. Dixon said that friends told him that the gunman first entered an art classroom, said “Surprise!” and started shooting. The suspect’s ex-girlfriend was among the people shot in that classroom, he said.
Dakinikat predicted this, and she was right.
The Washington Post: 2018 has been deadlier for schoolchildren than service members.
The school shooting near Houston on Friday bolstered a stunning statistic: More people have been killed at schools this year than have been killed while serving in the military.
Initial estimates put the number killed at Santa Fe High School at eight. (The death toll has since risen to 10.) We can compare that to figures for the military compiled from Defense Department news releases, including both combat and noncombat deaths. Even excluding non-students who died in school shootings (for example, teachers) the total still exceeds military casualties.
The article notes that the military statistics are complex.
The figures for 2018 do not suggest schools are more dangerous than combat zones. After all, there are more than 50 million students in public elementary and high schools and only about 1.3 million members of the armed forces. So far in 2018, a member of the military has been about 40 times as likely to be killed as someone is to die in a school shooting, including Keller’s revised figures.
That said, it is still the case that 2018 is shaping up to be unusually deadly at schools. Comparing the number of deaths and the number of shooting incidents this year directly with those through May 18 of 2017, that difference is stark.
The number of deaths and school shooting incidents through May 18 are each higher this year than at any point since 2000. There have been three times as many deaths in school shootings so far this year than in the second-most deadly year through May 18, 2005.
Read the rest at the WaPo.
Republicans can never again claim to be patriots after they outed a confidential intelligence source in an effort to protect Trump from the Russia investigation.
The Washington Post Editorial Board: The GOP’s campaign against the FBI makes the nation less safe.
IN THEIR paranoid partisan war on the Justice Department’s Russia probe, President Trump’s allies have been pushing for the dangerous disclosure of national security information, including information about a top-secret FBI and CIA informant. If Mr. Trump took his responsibility to protect the nation seriously, he would tell his allies to be quiet. Instead, he joined them Thursday. “Word seems to be coming out that the Obama FBI ‘SPIED ON THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN WITH AN EMBEDDED INFORMANT,’ ” Mr. Trump tweeted, in an apparent reference to the confidential source. “If so, this is bigger than Watergate!”
Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s lawyer and a former Justice Department official who should know better than to spread such slander, told The Post that the president thinks that there is a law-enforcement conspiracy against him. “The prior government did it, but the present government, for some reason I can’t figure out, is covering it up,” he said. He also said: “I don’t know why the current attorney general and the current director of the FBI want to protect a bunch of renegades that might amount to 20 people at most within the FBI.” Yet Mr. Giuliani admitted Friday that the president does not really know whether the FBI planted anyone in his campaign. CNN also reportedFriday that U.S. officials insist that no informant was embedded.
The GOP’s escalating campaign against the FBI is extremely dangerous. Protecting the country is not just about having the biggest weapons. Trust is a key national security asset. Vast networks of informants relay information to the U.S. government daily. Sometimes their tips prove faulty. Sometimes they prevent terrorist attacks or provide the key piece of information necessary to bring down major criminals. If confidential informants conclude that they cannot rely on the assurances of the U.S. government, they will think twice about sending in tips, wearing wires or approaching malicious actors. That is why intelligence and law enforcement agencies spend vast amounts of time and money protecting the identity of sources and informants.
Click on the link to read the rest.
Politico: Warner: Identifying FBI source to undermine Russia probe could be a crime.
The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee warned Friday that his colleagues could be committing a crime if they obtain the identity of a secret FBI source and use it to undermine the ongoing investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) raised the alarm in a Friday evening statement, as Republican allies of President Donald Trump have pressed the Justice Department for details about a source believed to have aided the FBI and Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Trump campaign contacts with Russians.
“It would be at best irresponsible, and at worst potentially illegal, for members of Congress to use their positions to learn the identity of an FBI source for the purpose of undermining the ongoing investigation into Russian interference in our election,” Warner said. “Anyone who is entrusted with our nation’s highest secrets should act with the gravity and seriousness of purpose that knowledge deserves.”
Actually, the source was outed by right-wing media sources several days ago, as I learned by Googling his name.
Asha Rangappa at The Washington Post: The FBI didn’t use an informant to go after Trump. They used one to protect him.
President Trump and his allies are outraged at reports that the FBI used an “informant” to spy on Trump’s 2016 campaign. “Really bad stuff!” the president tweeted early Friday. Supporters of the White House claim the FBI’s reported tactics were illegal. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) has even subpoenaed the Justice Department for information on who the informant might have been; department and FBI officials say public disclosures of this kind could put sources in danger.
But Trump and his backers are wrong about what it means that the FBI reportedly was using a confidential source to gather information early in its investigation of possible campaign ties to Russia. The investigation started out as a counterintelligence probe, not a criminal one. And relying on a covert source rather than a more intrusive method of gathering information suggests that the FBI may have been acting cautiously — perhaps too cautiously — to protect the campaign, not undermine it.
As a former FBI counterintelligence agent, I know what Trump apparently does not: Counterintelligence investigations have a different purpose than their criminal counterparts. Rather than trying to find evidence of a crime, the FBI’s counterintelligence goal is to identify, monitor and neutralize foreign intelligence activity in the United States. In short, this entails identifying foreign intelligence officers and their network of agents; uncovering their motives and methods; and ultimately rendering their operations ineffective — either by clandestinely thwarting them (say, by feeding back misinformation or “flipping” their sources into double agents) or by exposing them.
The Intelligence community didn’t understand at first that Trump himself was a Russian asset who welcomed interference from a hostile foreign government.
That’s where we are today, and we can only hope that somehow our constitutional form of government will survive.
I’ve barely scratched the surface of the news. What stories are you following today?
Tuesday Reads: Trump Has Put American Foreign Policy Up For Sale.
Posted: May 15, 2018 Filed under: Afternoon Reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: Ahmed Al-Rumaihi, Ayman Sabi, China, Donald Trump, Ice Cube, Jed Shugarman, Jeff Kwatinetz, Michael Avenatti, Michael Cohen, Michael Flynn, Qatari Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, Quatar, Robert Mueller, Rosneft deal, Steele Dossier, Trump Russia investigation, Xi Jinping, ZTE 33 Comments
Good Morning!!
The corruption is right out in the open now. American foreign policy is for sale to highest bidder. On Sunday Trump posted a startling tweet:
EuroNews: Trump tells Commerce Department to help Chinese telecom ZTE.
President Donald Trump said Sunday he has instructed his Commerce Department to help get a Chinese telecommunications company “back into business” after the U.S. government cut off access to its American suppliers.
At issue is that department’s move last month to block the ZTE Corp., a major supplier of telecoms networks and smartphones based in southern China, from importing American components for seven years. The U.S. accused ZTE of misleading American regulators after it settled charges of violating sanctions against North Korea and Iran….
ZTE has asked the department to suspend the seven-year ban on doing business with U.S. technology exporters. By cutting off access to U.S. suppliers of essential components such as microchips, the ban threatens ZTE’s existence, the company has said.
Trump with Chinese president Xi Jinping during China trip
During recent trade meetings in Beijing, Chinese officials said they raised their objections to ZTE’s punishment with the American delegation, which they said agreed to report them to Trump.
The U.S. imposed the penalty after discovering that Shenzhen-based ZTE, which had paid a $1.2 billion fine in the case, had failed to discipline employees involved and paid them bonuses instead.
Why is Trump suddenly so concerned about Chinese jobs? It’s not about U.S. national security; it’s about Trump’s business. HuffPost: Trump Orders Help For Chinese Phone-Maker After China Approves Money For Trump Project.
A mere 72 hours after the Chinese government agreed to put a half-billion dollars into an Indonesian project that will personally enrich Donald Trump, the president ordered a bailout for a Chinese-government-owned cellphone maker….
…on Thursday, the developer of a theme park resort outside of Jakarta had signed a deal to receive as much as $500 million in Chinese government loans, as well as another $500 million from Chinese banks. Trump’s family business, the Trump Organization, has a deal to license the Trump name to the resort, which includes a golf course and hotels.
Trump and family with Indonesian business partners
Trump, despite his promises to do so during the campaign, has not divested himself of his businesses, and continues to profit from them.
“You do a good deal for him, he does a good deal for you. Quid pro quo,” said Richard Painter, the White House ethics lawyer for former President George W. Bush and now a Democratic candidate for Senate in Minnesota.
It sure does look like a quid pro quo, doesn’t it? Or is it just that Trump is a bad deal-maker? We can’t be sure because Trump chose to maintain control of his businesses and refuses to release his tax returns. Read more about Trump’s Indonesia project at the South China Morning Post: Trump Indonesia project is latest stop on China’s Belt and Road.
Gordon Chang at the Daily Beast: Trump Cuts a Great Deal—For China.
The White House looks like it is prepared to give relief to ZTE Corp., the embattled Chinese telecom-equipment maker, in exchange for Beijing lifting tariffs on, and easing non-tariff barriers against, U.S. agricultural products. Moreover, China’s Commerce Department will restart its long-stalled review of Qualcomm’s proposed acquisition of NXP Semiconductors, the Dutch firm.
In addition, The Daily Beast has learned there will be either no penalties or only light ones imposed on China for stealing U.S. intellectual property.
This is a great deal—for China. China gets relief for ZTE for doing nothing more than what it should have been doing all along. And its massive theft of U.S. technology and intellectual property—undoubtedly in the hundreds of billions of dollars a year—goes mostly unpunished.
If the reports of the outlines of the impending agreement are correct, the Trump administration, which prides itself on deal-making, will have accepted one of the worst trade arrangements this century.
Josh Rogin at The Washington Post: China gave Trump a list of crazy demands, and he caved to one of them.
After top Trump officials went to Beijing last month, the Chinese government wrote up a document with a list of economic and trade demands that ranged from the reasonable to the ridiculous. On Sunday, President Trump caved to one of those demands before the next round of negotiations even starts, undermining his own objectives for no visible gain.
The Chinese proposal is entitled, “Framework Arrangement on Promoting Balanced Development on Bilateral Trade,” and I obtained an English version of the document, which is the Chinese government’s negotiating position heading into the next round of talks. That round begins this week when Xi Jinping’s special economic envoy Liu He returns to town.
Bullet point 5 is entitled, “Appropriately handing the ZTE case to secure global supply chain.”
So Trump agreed to reverse US policy, but was it really about rewarding China for funding the Trump project in Indonesia? I’d say that’s pretty likely, wouldn’t you?
Trump took a big step in that direction Sunday when he tweeted that he had instructed the Commerce Department to help get ZTE “back into business, fast,” only weeks after the Commerce Department cut off its supply of American components because it violated U.S. sanctions on sales to North Korea and Iran. Trump’s tweet set off a panic both inside and outside the administration among those who worry that Trump is backing down from his key campaign promise to stand up to China’s unfair trade practices and economic aggression.
As Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) pointed out Monday, the problems with ZTE go well beyond sanctions-busting. The Federal Communications Commission has proposed cutting ZTE and other Chinese “national champion” companies off from U.S. infrastructure development funds because the U.S. intelligence community views their technology as a national security risk.
Guess what folks? Trump doesn’t give a shit about U.S. national security. He cares about money for himself. Period.
Michael Avenatti has had a busy past few days, and I’ve been following the revelations pretty closely. On Sunday Avenatti posted some stills from a C-Span video of Trump Tower during the transition.
Later, he revealed that a Quatari official apparently met with Michael Cohen and Michael Flynn on Dec. 12, 2016.
Mother Jones: Qatari Investor Accused in Bribery Plot Appears With Michael Cohen in Picture Posted by Stormy Daniels’ Lawyer.
Members of the Trump transition team appear to have met on December 12, 2016, with a group from Qatar that included Ahmed Al-Rumaihi, the former Qatari diplomat and current head of a division of Qatar’s massive sovereign wealth fund, who is accused in a recent lawsuit of scheming to bribe Trump administration officials.
Ahmed Al-Rumaihi
On the lawsuit:
Ice Cube, the rapper and actor, and his business partner, Jeff Kwatinetz, recently filed a $1.2 billion lawsuit that includes an allegation that Al-Rumaihi and other Qatari officials who invested in the men’s BIG3 basketball league indicated interest in gaining access to people connected to Trump. “Mr Al-Rumaihi requested I set up a meeting between him, the Qatari government, and Stephen Bannon, and to tell Steve Bannon that Qatar would underwrite all of his political efforts in return for his support,” Kwatinetz said in the court filing. Kwatinetz says he rejected the offer, which he viewed as a bribe.
In response, Kwatinetz claims, “Al-Rumaihi laughed and then stated to me Buthat I shouldn’t be naive, that so many Washington politicians take our money, and stated ‘do you think Flynn turned down our money?’” That’s a reference to Michael Flynn, who was fired as Trump’s national security adviser after lying about his contacts with then Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
But it appears that other Quatari officials were also in the Dec. 12, 2016 meeting, according to knowledgeable people on Twitter.
Here’s the Wikipedia article on Quatari the foreign minister.
And a third person from Quatar who is also involved in the lawsuit filed by Ice Cube and Kwatinetz was also present.
https://twitter.com/ACoupleOkooks/status/995864743918391296
What the hell is going on? A couple of useful reads:
The founder of a three-on-three basketball league who claims he was offered a bribe by a one-time Qatari diplomat to arrange access to Steve Bannon said on Monday that the former diplomat is the same person photographed with Michael Cohen at Trump Tower in December 2016.
Big 3 basketball league co-founder Jeff Kwatinetz told Slate that he recognized Ahmed Al-Rumaihi in photos with Cohen that were tweeted Sunday by attorney Michael Avenatti.
“Yes, 100 percent,” Kwatinetz said when asked if he thought the videos and photos were of Ahmed Al-Rumaihi. Last week, Kwatinetz, who is a co-founder of Big 3 with Ice Cube, accused Al-Rumaihi in a sworn court declaration of making an attempted bribe and of suggestively boasting that Flynn had not refused “our money.” [….]
[Michael] Avenatti tweeted the images that appeared to show Al-Rumaihi entering an elevator in Trump Tower on Dec. 12, 2016, five days after news broke of the multibillion-dollar sale of 19.5 percent of the Russian fossil fuel giant Rosneft to Swiss trading firm Glencore and Qatar’s sovereign investment fund. (Glencore and Qatar sold off a major stake of Rosneft to China last year, but earlier this month Qatar bought back in to the Russian company for a total stake of 19 percent.)
The Rosneft deal features prominently in an investigative dossier compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele. A central claim of the Steele dossier was that Trump foreign policy adviser Carter Page, during an alleged meeting with Rosneft officials in summer 2016, promised that a Trump administration would undo sanctions against Russia, in part, in exchange for brokerage of the Rosneft deal. In May 2016, Al-Rumaihi reportedly took over as head of a major division of the wealth fund ultimately involved in the Rosneft deal.
The allegations in the Steele dossier, made in October 2016, suggested a future quid-pro-quo deal between Russia and the Trump campaign. Trump has been conspicuously resistant to Russian sanctions despite widespread congressional support from both parties. As Jed Shugerman has noted in Slate, during congressional testimony Page acknowledged meeting with Andrey Baranov, the head of investor relations at Rosneft, during his July 2016 trip to Russia and acknowledged “briefly” discussing the sale of Rosneft as well as there being “some general reference” to sanctions. As Business Insider’s Natasha Bertrand has reported, Page also acknowledged meeting with top Rosneft managers in Moscow on Dec. 8—four days before the apparent Cohen–Al-Rumaihi meeting and one day after the completion of the Rosneft deal.
Jed Shugarman has posted a detailed Russia/Qatar/Trump Timeline in a Google doc that will be updated with new information. On his blog, Shugarman posted this introduction to the timeline:
I have produced a Google Doc timeline, based on publicly available reports and documents, of the alleged bribery scheme between Russia and Trump associates, possibly through Qatar’s purchase of Rosneft….
Russia’s sale of Rosneft Gas is the key event in the Steele Dossier’s quid pro quo allegation. On June 2016, Russians allegedly offer Trump associates a massive payout derived from the commissions on Russia’s sale of 19.5% of state energy giant Rosneft ($11 billion), in return for lifting sanctions. Weeks after the election, Flynn and Kushner are in contact with Russian officials. Then Russia sells a 19.5% stake in Rosneft in a concealed deal, eventually revealed to be with Qatar. Immediately after the deal, a Qatari diplomat allegedly met with Cohen and Flynn at Trump Tower.
In January 2017, payments from Russian oligarch to Michael Cohen begin, and Flynn reportedly texts associates that Trump will lift Russian sanctions, opening up huge personal profits. But around this time, the Dossier is published. Kushner sought money directly from Qatar, because it is possible that Qatar was backing off of the deal, wary of its exposure. In April 2017, Kushner reportedly escalated a Gulf state crisis between Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Qatar with a risk of regional war. A few months later, the Qatar-backed Apollo Group delivers $184 million to Kushner, who has been in financial crisis over a disastrous purchase of 666 5th Ave.
Remember, Robert Mueller and his investigators have likely known all this for a long time and they probably know many more details. Michael Flynn has been cooperating for months, and indictments involving Michael Cohen are very likely in the works.
What stories are you following today?
Lazy Saturday Reads: Will Michael Avenatti Take Down Trump?
Posted: May 12, 2018 Filed under: Afternoon Reads, U.S. Politics 22 Comments
Sunrise in Boston, Saturday, May 12, 2018
Good Afternoon!!
Will Michael Avenatti bring down the Trump crime family? He’s everywhere nowadays. Yesterday he post this tweet and sent amateur and then media investigators on a new path.
A search of state public records shows that Demeter Direct, Inc. is a California-based entity operated by a person named Mark S. Ko. Documents for the company describe it as a Korean food retailer. but an archive of the company’s website shows it as a business strategy, consulting, and investment firm. The website was no longer live as of this writing.
The official address listed for Demeter Direct, Inc., 3810 Wilshire Boulevard., Suite 412, Los Angeles, CA 90010, is actually an apartment, located inside a high-rise condo building near downtown Los Angeles. Another company name, PK2 Entertainment, is also linked to the Los Angeles address, and to Ko….
Demeter Direct’s website archive shows Verizon, Sony, FedEx, and Union Bank of California as some of its clients.
The precise nature of the services for which Avenatti said Cohen paid “large sums of money” to Demeter Direct was not immediately clear, but Avenatti has hinted repeatedly that there are other revelations yet to come about Cohen’s business dealings, which are already the subject of a criminal investigation in the Southern District of New York.
CNN communicated with Mark Ko: Head of Demeter Direct tells CNN he worked for Cohen in Korea Aerospace deal.
Mark Ko, the head of a company called Demeter Direct, told CNN on Friday that he served as a middle person between Trump aide Michael Cohen and Korea Aerospace Industries.
“With regards to your inquiry on my involvement with Michael Cohen, I was brought in as business consultant and translator between Michael Cohen and Korea Aerospace Industries,” Ko told CNN in an email. “The relationship officially ended on November 2017.”
It was reported this week that Korea Aerospace Industries paid Cohen $150,000 in consulting fees.
Public filings for Demeter Direct in California list Ko as the company’s CEO and say the company deals with Korean food.
CNN had reached out to Ko earlier this week to ask whether Demeter Direct had helped arrange Cohen’s business consulting deal with Korea Aerospace Industries. Ko responded to the inquiries Friday evening.
So this guy is operating out of an apartment. Is he some pal of Cohen’s who helped him launder money he got from shaking down big corporations? No doubt Robert Mueller has already looked into this.
Avenatti appeared on AM Joy this morning and issued a warning.
Last week, I heard Avennati say on some cable show–he’s everywhere–that when he took over Stormy Daniels’ case from Keith Davidson, he received the entire field, including emails between Davidson and Michael Cohen. He has been releasing things bit by bit.
Judd Legum at Think Progress: How Michael Avenatti got Michael Cohen’s emails. And why that’s a big problem for Cohen.
Over the past few days, Michael Avenatti, the attorney for Stormy Daniels, has been steadily releasing what appear to be private communications between Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s longtime attorney, and Keith Davidson, who represented Daniels when she inked a $130,000 hush-money agreement that was facilitated through a shell company set up by Cohen.
Keith Davidson
These emails are evidence of questionable, if not unethical, collusion between Cohen and Davidson, who are ostensibly representing opposing sides of the dispute….
As a matter of practice, lawyers maintain case files for the benefit of their clients. If the client decides to seek new representation, the information in the case file is generally deemed to belong to the client, and it’s then forwarded to the new attorney. In this case, it appears that Davidson turned over these communications to Avenatti as part of Daniels’ case file….
The nature of Cohen’s relationship with Davidson is key. They were supposed to be on opposite sides of a number of disputes. But the emails are evidence that the relationship between the two was more collaborative.
Davidson’s representation of Stormy Daniels began when Cohen heard that Daniels was shopping her story around to various media outlets. It was at this point that Cohen asked Davidson to reach out to her, Davidson revealed in an interview with CNN.
Cohen has admitted to referring at least one other client to Davidson.
Were they each sincerely representing the interests of their clients? Or were they working in tandem to purchase their silence of women at a reduced rate and under favorable terms?
If I ever needed a lawyer, I hope I could find one as good as Michael Avennati!
According to The Daily Beast: Trump Has No Plan to Counterpunch Michael Avenatti.
For weeks, Avenatti has been a thorn in the president’s side. In seemingly endless and continuous string of cable news hits, he has called into question the veracity of Trump’s insistence that there was no affair with Daniels. He has pursued legal challenges to a nondisclosure agreement between Daniels and the president’s top fixer, Michael Cohen. He has vexed the president’s own legal team, getting them to haphazardly admit that Trump knew about hush money payments. And he has exposed a secretive network of finances that allowed Cohen to both pay off Daniels (and, potentially, other women) as well as recruit business for a shadow-lobbying operation during the Trump administration.
Avenatti has done it all with little, if any, coordinated pushback from the president or his allies.
Inside the White House, aides say that anything related to the Stormy Daniels-Michael Cohen saga is purview of outside counsel. At the Republican National Committee, sources say, there is no rapid-response-like operation designed to counter-balance Avenatti’s numerous media appearances. Conservative outlets allied with the president have covered the drama but they have largely avoided doing the type of oppositional digging that they have undertaken on other real and perceived Trump foes. And Republican strategists seem unclear as to whether anyone is gearing up an operation any time soon.
There have been questions about whether political enemies of the Trump are paying Avennati. He says absolutely not.
Maybe Avennati isn’t dirty. Maybe he’s just a really good lawyer. This morning he’s questioning why a top law firm, Squire Patton Boggs, was paying Michael Cohen right up until the FBI raid.
I wonder what the Twitter detectives and the press will dig up on that question?
In other news, The New York Times has a deep dive into the antics of Trump’s biggest fan, Rep. Devin Nunes: Suspicions, Demands and Threats: Devin Nunes vs. the Justice Dept.
Representative Devin Nunes of California, has issued increasingly bold demands for access to some of the Justice Department’s most sensitive case files. He has courted a series of escalating confrontations over access to materials that are usually off limits to Congress under department policy. And when those efforts failed, he threatened top law enforcement officials — mostly Republicans appointed by Mr. Trump.
In the latest episode, splashed across cable news this past week, Mr. Nunes demanded more documents and related materials for his investigation into allegations of surveillance abuse by federal law enforcement officials. His claim pitted him against not just the Justice Department, but also officials in the F.B.I., the intelligence community and the White House, who warned that disclosure could endanger a longtime source who is aiding the special counsel’s investigation….
But increasingly, top officials at the Justice Department have privately expressed concern that the lawmakers are simply mining government secrets for information they can weaponize against those investigating the president, including the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III.
Mr. Nunes was unconvinced by the warnings about the intelligence and law enforcement source, first issuing a subpoena ordering that the Justice Department comply with his latest records request and then a pointed threat to hold Attorney General Jeff Sessions — who is not involved in the case — in contempt of Congress.
Click on the link to read the rest.
Everyone is still talking about the White House’s treatment of Senator John McCain, who is dying of brain cancer.
Aaron Blake at The Washington Post: The Trump White House crossed a new threshold for political debasement this week.
The White House probably thinks it cannot punish Kelly Sadler for her awful comment about John McCain because President Trump has also said nasty things about McCain. It may worry that showing her the door would set a troubling precedent for a president who may one day cross a very similar line.
Kelly Sadler
Welcome to the ongoing degradation of our political discourse. Destination: No end in sight.
One mainstay of the Trump era is reporters are constantly wary of overselling the salience of the political moment. We have seen Trump cross so many established lines of acceptable political behavior and rhetoric, and the outrage cycle can feel futile and even perfunctory. Whether it is Trump’s goal to bulldoze our political norms or not, it is happening with an almost unflinching steadiness.
It is worth recording just where we are when key thresholds are crossed. What happened this week is worse than most anything we have seen — worse even, I would argue, than Trump questioning McCain’s war hero status. What’s more, the White House is trying to simply brush it under the rug, which means the bulldozer is pressing forward.
In case you missed it:
Sadler reportedly said of McCain’s opposition to Gina Haspel’s nomination to be CIA director, “It doesn’t matter; he’s dying anyway.” The White House’s response Friday was not to distance itself from the comment about the brain cancer-stricken Arizona senator, but to no-comment. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Sadler is still employed but declined to go any further. “I’m not going to validate a leak one way or another out of an internal staff meeting,” she said.
Read the rest at the WaPo. Here’s some background on Kelly Sadler at Heavy.com: Kelly Sadler: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know.
That’s all I have for you today. What stories are you following?
Thursday Reads: An Attitude of Gratitude
Posted: May 10, 2018 Filed under: Afternoon Reads, morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Michael Avenatti, Rick Wilson, Rudy Giuliani, Rules for Radicals, Saul Alinsky 56 Comments
Good Afternoon!!
I woke up this morning and suddenly realized that today is my anniversary. It has been 36 years since I got sober on May 10, 1982. It has been a long, strange trip. I have a lot to be grateful for today. Everything is crazy in our world today, but I’d rather be dealing with this than dead.
And I have something else to be grateful for too: Michael Avenatti is on the case, and he has blown it wide open. I wonder where he learned how to get so much public attention?
Jack Schaeffer at Politico: Michael Avenatti’s Rules for Radicals. Where Stormy Daniels’ lawyer got his tricks.
Go ahead and joke about TV’s bright lights sunburning his bald head all the way to skin cancer. Avenatti won’t mind. All the world is his court and all the men and women in it merely jurors. Appearing on Anderson Cooper 360° on Tuesday night, where he was as poised as a fat cat taking a limousine to the airport, he explained his method.
“There’s been some criticism about our media strategy and how often I’ve been on CNN and how often I’ve been on your show and other networks,” Avenatti said. “Here’s the bottom line, Anderson. It’s working. OK? It’s working in spades. And one of the reasons, and one of the ways that it’s working, is because we’re so out front on this, people send us information. People want to help our cause. People contact us with information.”
They sure do, as we’ve learned over the past couple of days of wall-to-wall media coverage of Avenatti’s revelations about Michael Cohen selling access to Donald Trump. So what’s Avenatti’s secret?
Although Avenatti grew up in St. Louis and attended college and law school in Washington, D.C., his media politics owe much to the famous teachings of Chicago political organizer Saul Alinsky (1909-1972), who formulated a set of 13 “rules for radicals” that have gained devotees on both the left and right for several generations, including Barack Obama and Rahm Emanuel, for whom Avenatti worked while in college.
Appearing on TV, Avenatti wears down his opponents by deploying Alinsky’s Rule No. 5, one that Trump has long observed in his own battles: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.” Avenatti routinely mocks Cohen as a “thug,” “beyond stupid,” legally “radioactive” and “not that bright.” and goes after Cohen’s attorney with an ack-ack of insults and slights. Wherever possible, Avenatti makes personal everything that is legal, perhaps because he figures that a temperamental opponent like Cohen will grow unsettled and erratic in the face of ridicule, unable to muster any real defense.
“Keep the pressure on. Never let up,” Alinsky’s Rule No. 8, has guided Avenatti’s nonstop, inventive TV campaign. Yesterday, for example, he broadened his attack on Cohen by releasing leaked financial documents that documented suspicious cash transfers from corporations to Cohen. What, if anything this new, damning information has to do with liberating Stormy Daniels from her NDA, isn’t readily apparent. But it fills the ditch that Cohen occupies with fast-drying concrete. “Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have,” Alinsky’s Rule No. 1, has piloted Avenatti’s moves from the beginning: He teased his Twitter audience by posting a picture of a DVD, implying that it contains smutty pictures of Trump and constantly hints that new, detrimental evidence against Cohen is about to emerge, such as his prediction that new hush payments will be revealed or that the Russians might have covered the $130,000 silence payment to his client. Overstatement is one of his favorite games. Staging media events that please the gallery is another area in which the Avenatti and Alinsky worlds intersect (Rule No. 6: “A good tactic is one your people enjoy.”).
Head over to Politico to read the whole thing. I wonder if Barack Obama is following all this?
At New York Magazine, Frank Rich compares Avenatti to Woodward and Bernstein: Following the Money in Trumpland Leads Ugly Places.
With Michael Avenatti’s revelation that the shell company Michael Cohen used for the Stormy Daniels payoff also received money tied to Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg (as well as payments from other companies with government business), it looks like the two main threads of Donald Trump’s legal troubles may be part of the same story. Has Avenatti found the “collusion” that Trump has spent so much energy denying?
Avenatti, whose revelations have since been verified by the Times and others, is doing exactly what Woodward and Bernstein did in Watergate — following the money. By doing so he has unveiled an example of collusion so flagrant that it made Trump and Rudy Giuliani suddenly go mute: a Putin crony’s cash turns out to be an essential component of the racketeering scheme used to silence Stormy Daniels and thus clear Trump’s path to the White House in the final stretch of the 2016 election. Like the Nixon campaign slush fund that Woodward and Bernstein uncovered, this money trail also implicates corporate players hoping to curry favor with a corrupt president. Back then it was the telecommunications giant ITT, then fending off antitrust suits from the government, that got caught red-handed; this time it’s AT&T. Both the Nixon and Trump slush funds were initially set up to illegally manipulate an American presidential election, hush money included. But the Watergate burglars’ dirty tricks, criminal as they were, were homegrown. Even Nixon would have drawn the line at colluding with Russians — or, in those days, the Soviets — to sabotage the Democrats.
I know some accuse Avenatti of being a media whore, but he’s the one media whore I can’t get enough of. He knows what he’s doing, he has the goods, and he is playing high-stakes poker, shrewdly, with what appears to be a winning hand.
I can’t wait to see what Avenatti will do next.
I can’t find any news reports on this yet, but last night Giuliani told USA Today that the Michael Cohen revelations have nothing to do with Donald Trump.
President Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani said Wednesday that his client is not affected by investigations into payments to longtime Trump lawyer Michael Cohen from several American companies and a firm tied to a Russian oligarch.
“I don’t see it,” Giuliani told USA TODAY. “This has nothing to do with us.”
If Trump had some kind of legal exposure, Giuliani said, Russia special counsel Robert Mueller would not have passed on the information to federal prosecutors in New York who are investigating Cohen’s business dealings.
Giuliani also scoffed at a suggestion made by Daniels’ attorney Michael Avenatti that Russian money went to the adult film star to keep her quiet about an alleged affair with Trump.
“I don’t see how that could be the case,” Giuliani said, noting that the entity cited by Avenatti is “not Russian; it’s an American company.”
There’s a lot that Rudy doesn’t see, like how Trump is likely to dump him next. Rick Wilson at The Daily Beast: Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump: This Will End Badly. And Probably Soon.
Like a bloated, portly fake billionaire rolling off a hooker after a hot 45 seconds of passionate sex, Donald Trump’s ardor for Rudy Giuliani seems to have cooled.
If the White House leaks are any barometer, it sounds more and more as if Donald wants Rudy to get his money off the nightstand and the hell out of his room at the No-Tell-Motel. This is what happens when you work for Trump, and Rudy is old enough, crafty enough, and knows Trump well enough to have known better.
Trump’s hiring of my old boss is a triumph of today’s Trump-right media bubble, where nothing matters but the coverage on Fox & Friends, Hannity, Sinclair stations’ nightly Two Minutes of Hate, and on the nut-site constellation that comprises conservative “news” sites. Trump didn’t hire Rudy for his skills as a litigator, or as a warrior in the high-speed low-drag social-media world of today. He was hired to break shit and make loud noises, and he’s damn good at it. Unfortunately for Rudy, that probably won’t be enough to save him from the Trump curse.
Trump has been mostly unable to hire and retain top-flight litigators because he destroys everyone around him. His record of stacking former staffers like cordwood as they are either fired, humiliated, shamed, permanently scarred, forced to cut off a finger by the Yakuza, morally compromised, or moved into the Witness Protection Program will go down in presidential history. It’s no secret that he’s a spectacular liar at all times and on all subjects, leaving his legal team constantly wary they have a client who combines a stubborn streak and a self-destructive nature with an endless capacity to lie to them about his marital, financial, and political lies.
Even though he’s a right-winger, Wilson has a way with words. Read the rest at The Daily Beast.
That’s is for me this morning. I may have a few more links in the comment thread. What stories are you following?
Tuesday Reads: Bookstores and Bad News
Posted: May 8, 2018 Filed under: Afternoon Reads, U.S. Politics 58 Comments
Left Bank Books, St. Louis
Good Afternoon!!
When I first moved to Boston in 1967, I lived in an apartment a block outside Harvard Yard. In those days, Harvard Square was a wonderful bohemian place, with bookstores on every block; and I mean that literally. The Paperback Booksmith (“Dedicated to the fine art of browsing”) on Brattle Street was open until midnight. Lots of stores and restaurants were open that late, and there were always people out doing things at all hours. It was a wonderful place, and I remember those days fondly. Over the years, I spent many happy hours browsing for books in the Square.
But times change. Those days are gone now. There are still bookstores in Harvard Square, but not very many. The Harvard Bookstore is still in the same place on Massachusetts Avenue that it’s been since 1932. It’s an independent bookstore, not connected with Harvard University and it’s still a wonderful place.
What happened to all those great bookstores? Barnes & Noble, along with Borders and Waldenbooks, came along and offered discounts, driving many independent bookstores out of business. Then along came the internet and Amazon, and it’s Barnes & Noble’s turn to struggle. David Leonhardt of the NYT wants to save it.
Sorry, but I’m not going to weep for Barnes & Noble. I can get an endless variety of books on line, and I like being able to do that. I love reading on my Kindle. I hope there will always be bookstores for people to enjoy, and there will be if young people patronize them. At my age, I don’t have the energy to go out to bookstores like I used to, but I’m glad they’re still out there. Maybe if Barnes & Noble goes out of business, other people will take up the slack. And of course Amazon is starting brick and mortar stores now.
Times change. I’m not sorry we have the internet now, and cell phones, and so much more technology that I couldn’t even imagine in 1967. Human creativity will live on, and I’ll bet some creative people will still run independent bookstores.
Writers Block, Las Vegas
The photos in the post are of independent bookstores around the country from the Literary Hub: 11 authors recommend US bookstores worth traveling for.
I guess I’m thinking about bookstores, because they have always been place I went to escape and find some peace and quiet when I felt stressed or depressed. And right now the world is looking increasingly stressful and depressing to me.
I can’t begin to cover every stunning thing that happened yesterday. It’s like that most days now. But here are some suggested reads.
Last night’s shocking scoop came from The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer and Ronan Farrow: Four Women Accuse New York’s Attorney General of Physical Abuse. I’m not easy to shock when it comes to descriptions of abuse. I’ve read too many. But this one shocked me. I’m not going to post excerpts. Read it if you think you can handle it. There was no way Schneiderman could have survived this.
The New York Times: Eric Schneiderman, Accused by 4 Women, Quits as New York Attorney General.
Eric T. Schneiderman, the New York State attorney general who rose to prominence as an antagonist of the Trump administration, abruptly resigned on Monday night hours after The New Yorker reported that four women had accused him of physically assaulting them.
“It’s been my great honor and privilege to serve as attorney general for the people of the State of New York,” Mr. Schneiderman said in a statement. “In the last several hours, serious allegations, which I strongly contest, have been made against me.
“While these allegations are unrelated to my professional conduct or the operations of the office, they will effectively prevent me from leading the office’s work at this critical time. I therefore resign my office, effective at the close of business on May 8, 2018.”
His resignation represented a stunning fall for a politician who had also assumed a prominent role in the #MeToo movement.
Of course Schneiderman at least had the decency to step down immediately, unlike the pussy grabber in the White House and the Republican Governor of Missouri.
Liberty Bay Books in Pouslbo, Washington
Trump is expected to pull the U.S. out of the Iran deal today. The Washington Post: Trump expected to end waiver of sanctions on Iran, endangering nuclear deal.
The decision follows the failure of last-ditch efforts by the three European signatories to the agreement to convince Trump that his concerns about “flaws” in the 2015 accord could be addressed without violating its terms or ending it altogether.
While the deal itself contains no provisions for withdrawal, Iran has threatened to reactivate its nuclear program if the United States reneges on any of its obligations under the pact’s terms.
France and Germany, whose leaders visited Washington in recent weeks to appeal to Trump, have warned that nullification of the agreement could lead to all-out war in the Middle East. British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, in Washington on Monday, said that as far as he knows, the administration has no clear “Plan B” for what to do next.
Trump tweeted Monday that he would announce his decision at 2 p.m. Tuesday. He is free to reimpose all U.S. sanctions, and even announce new ones. But he is expected to stop short of reneging on the deal altogether. Instead, he will address a portion of the wide range of sanctions that were waived when the deal was first implemented, while leaving in limbo other waivers that are due in July.
The affected sanctions, imposed by Congress in 2012, require other countries to reduce Iranian oil imports or risk U.S. sanctions on their banks and their ability to conduct Iran-
related financial transactions. Waivers on those sanctions must be signed every 120 days, and the next deadline is Saturday.
Brookline Booksmith, Brookline, Massachusetts
The New York Times has a piece up about the efforts by and Israeli company (the story was first broken by The Guardian Observer) to dig up dirt on Obama administration officials who worked on the Iran deal:
For years, opponents of the nuclear deal with Iran have accused Benjamin J. Rhodes, a top national security aide to President Barack Obama, of scheming to sell the diplomatic agreement on false pretenses to the American people.
Now, just as President Trump appears likely to announce his decision to withdraw from the deal, evidence has surfaced that the agreement’s opponents engaged in a sophisticated effort to dig up dirt on Mr. Rhodes and his family that continued well after the Obama administration left office.
A detailed report about Mr. Rhodes, compiled by Black Cube, a private investigations firm established by former intelligence analysts from the Israel Defense Forces, contains pictures of his apartment in Washington, telephone numbers and email addresses of members of his family, as well as unsubstantiated allegations of personal and ethical transgressions….
It is unclear who hired Black Cube to prepare the report on Mr. Rhodes and a similar report on Colin Kahl, the national security adviser to Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., which were obtained by The New York Times from a source with knowledge of their provenance.
The Guardian, which first published the existence of the reports on Mr. Rhodes and Mr. Kahl, said aides to Mr. Trump hired the firm, but there is no evidence in the documents that indicate any connection to anyone in Mr. Trump’s administration. A spokesman for the company vehemently denied any connection to the president.
Word Books, Greenpoint, Brooklyn
The latest from The Guardian on another person targeted by the Black Cube operation: Iran deal: prominent backer says he was warned of Trump bid to discredit him.
A prominent Iranian-American supporter of the Iran nuclear deal says he was warned by US intelligence during the presidential transition that his communications would be targeted by the Trump camp in a bid to discredit him….
Trita Parsi, the president of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), was also the target more recently of an Israeli private security company, Black Cube, aimed at gathering personal information about the deal’s advocates among senior figures from the Obama administration.
The Guardian has obtained the transcript of an interview with Parsi conducted last summer by an operative working for Black Cube posing as a journalist, probing him for any ways Ben Rhodes and Colin Kahl – top foreign advisers to Barack Obama and his vice-president, Joe Biden – might have benefited from the 2015 agreement, in which Iran received sanctions relief in return for accepting strict curbs on its nuclear programme.
“I thought it was strange that he was pushing this financial angle, which I hadn’t heard before,” Parsi recalled.
According to the transcript of the interview, conducted in the early summer last year, he told the interviewer that, far from reaping rewards, US companies on the whole were frustrated that they were getting nothing from the 2015 deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Despite the unusual line of questioning, Parsi thought no more about the interview until the transcript was read to him over the weekend.
Read the rest at the link. I have a feeling we are going to keep learning more about this story and I predict it will be connected to Trump.
Coral Gables Books and Books, Miami
I have the feeling we’re going to hear more about Trump’s payoffs of women too. Take a look at this interesting piece at New York Magazine: Here’s a Theory About That $1.6 Million Payout From a GOP Official to a Playboy Model.
On May 2, Rudy Giuliani revealed that the Trump administration has been lying for months about the fact that Donald Trump reimbursed his personal attorney Michael Cohen for the $130,000 he fronted to buy porn star Stormy Daniels’s silence about her affair with Trump. Until then, Trump had been claiming that he didn’t know about any settlement, and that he hadn’t had a sexual liaison with Daniels. (The official White House line continues to be that Daniels is lying about having sex with Trump, but almost no one believes this.) Giuliani has claimed that Trump gave him the okay last week to contradict several months’ worth of denials, by revealing Trump’s payments to Cohen.
In journalism this is known as getting out in front of a story. After federal law-enforcement officials raided Cohen’s office on April 9, they surely had documentary evidence of these financial transactions, which meant it was inevitable the truth would eventually come out.
We should consider the strong possibility that the same tactic — i.e., shameless, baldfaced lying — may have played a role in the exposure of yet another Trump-related sex scandal. The Wall Street Journal published a story on April 13 revealing the existence of another nondisclosure agreement involving an affair between an adult entertainer and a client of Cohen’s. The NDA employed the pseudonyms David Dennison and Peggy Peterson — the same names used in the Stormy Daniels NDA — and was otherwise very similar to the Trump-Daniels agreement.
According to this newly revealed NDA, Dennison agreed to pay Peterson $1.6 million, in exchange for Peterson’s promise not to reveal the affair or her claim that Dennison had impregnated her. This NDA, like the Trump-Daniels document, was negotiated by attorneys Keith Davidson, on behalf of Peterson, and Michael Cohen, on behalf of Dennison. Payments were also delivered through Essential Consultants LLC, the same LLC created by Cohen to facilitate payments in the Stormy Daniels deal.
But supposedly Cohen took care of this problem for GOP fundraiser Elliott Broidy. Could it be that Broidy took the fall for Trump for some reason? I’ve certainly suspected as much. Read on at the New York link.
Now, what stories are you following today?
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
dakinikat
ecocatwoman
mablue2
Mama Lopez
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
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