Page 6 - Florida Sentinel 7-3-18

White House and Political News
Report: Collusion Or Witch Hunt? Probe Being Accelerated To End By Fall
The Jacket:
Spat Between Husband And Wife Or Flat Out Disrespect?
According to Bloomberg, it is being reported that Special Counsel, Robert Mueller plans to be “producing conclu- sions” about the central, most politically explosive question that he’s investigating— whether the Trump 2016 campaign knowingly accepted support from or collaborated with representatives of the Russian government—by this fall.
According to sources, Mr. Mueller is preparing to accel- erate his probe.
Mr. Mueller and his team of prosecutors and investiga- tors have an eye toward pro- ducing conclusions – and possible indictments – related to collusion, said the person. He’ll be able to turn his full at- tention to the issue as he re- solves other questions, including deciding soon whether to find that Trump sought to obstruct justice.
Suspicious contacts between at least 13 people associated with Trump’s presidential campaign and Russians have fueled the debate over collu- sion.
On three occasions, Russians offered people associated with Trump’s campaign dirt on Democrat Clinton -- all be- fore it was publicly known that Russians had hacked the Dem- ocratic National Committee and Clinton’s campaign chairman.
Trump, for his part, has re- peatedly denied any such plot- ting, tweeting on June 15, “WITCH HUNT! There was no Russian Collusion.”
Here are the 13 players and their known interactions:
Michael Cohen Trump’s
Trump campaign in March 2016, Papadopoulos met with a London professor he be- lieved had connections to the Russian government.
Jared Kushner
The presi- dent’s son-in- law met briefly with Russian Am- bassador Sergey Kislyak at an event at
the Mayflower Hotel in Wash- ington in April 2016 in what he has described as an exchange of pleasantries. In December, after the election, Kushner met again with Kislyak and Russian banker Sergey Gorkov, who’s close to Putin.
Michael Caputo
The Republican political strategist -- who lived for a time in Moscow and worked for the campaign of the late President Boris Yeltsin -- worked briefly as an adviser to the Trump campaign.
Roger Stone
The long- time Trump political ad- viser con- firmed for the first time this month that hemetata Florida cafe in May 2016 with Green- berg, who claimed to have in- formation that would be “beneficial” to the Trump campaign but demanded $2
million in exchange.
Paul Manafort
While serv- ing as Pres. Trump’s campaign chairman, Manafort was in con- tact with Konstantin
Kilimnik, who the FBI has described as having ties to Russian intelligence. In July 2016, Manafort offered to give a campaign briefing to an- other business associate, Oleg Deripaska, who’s closely aligned with the Kremlin. Donald Trump Jr.
The presi- dent’s son helped arrange the meeting at Trump Tower in June 2016 with Russian lawyer Na-
talia Veselnitskaya and Rinat Akhmetshin, a Russ- ian-American lobbyist. Kush- ner and Manafort also were there.
Carter Page
After being named a for- eign policy adviser to the campaign in March 2016, Page traveled to Moscow that July for a
speech and meetings. Page said he met briefly with Arkady Dvorkovich, then the deputy prime minister of Russia.
Jeff Sessions
The attor- ney general, who took an early role in Trump’s campaign while serving in the Senate, had conver-
sations with Ambassador Kislyak at the Republican convention and in September in his Senate office. The Wash- ington Post reported that U. S. intelligence intercepted Russ- ian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak telling Russian offi- cials that they discussed cam- paign-related issues.
J.D. Gordon
As a campaign foreign pol- icy adviser, Gordon met briefly with Russian Ambas- sador Sergey Kislyak at the Republicanconvention.
Rick Gates
In September and October, Gates communicated directly with Kilimnik, according to court filings. Gates was a right-hand man to Manafort and worked as a campaign aide until he was fired by Trump in August.
Erik Prince
The foun- der of Black- water, a provider of private secu- rity forces in trouble spots such as Iraq, served as an
informal adviser to Trump’s transition team. His sister, Betsy DeVos, is now educa- tion secretary. After Trump’s election but before the inaugu- ration, Prince met Kirill Dmitriev, the head of a Russ- ian-government controlled wealth fund who’s close to Putin, during a visit to the Seychelles islands.
Folks are still talking about the jacket that First Lady, Melania Trump wore as she boarded a White House plane to visit immigrant children in a detention camp. However, the reasons she wore it are now being revealed.
Her husband, apparently felt it was her being defiant.
Days after the trip, the now infamous jacket emblazoned with the words “I Really Don’t Care, Do U,” was reportedly aimed at the Donald, and he is taking the words as a per- sonal insult.
The report claimed that Donald was humiliated and took to Twitter to lie, claiming that her jacket was a dig at the “Fake News” media, to save face. His tweet came just hours after Melania’s spokes- woman had claimed there was no hidden meaning to the jacket.
Donald was furious over Melania’s jacket, but then, that’s why she wore it, to piss him off and to cause him max- imum embarrassment,” a source said. “Donald was left scrambling for an excuse as to why Melania would wear such a thing, especially in such a delicate situation, and the best he could come up with
First Lady Melania Trump wearing the infamous jacket.
was blaming the ‘fake news.’” However, according to a former White House aide who worked with top officials in both the Obama and Clinton administrations noted that the fact that cameras captured Mrs. Trump boarding the plane at all was unusual. Mrs. Trump’s declaration was, perhaps, more intentional. When the first lady travels alone from Washington, her tarmac arrival is traditionally closed to the media, so the de- cision to allow Mrs. Trump to be photographed seemed
deliberate.
2015.
Russian President Vladimir Putin.
George Papadopoulos
Shortly after being named a foreign policy adviser to the
Also, a federal judge ruled Tuesday that Paul Man- afort’s prosecution for finan- cial crimes should continue, rejecting his defense team’s ar- gument that the charges should be dismissed because the special counsel over- stepped its authority in bring- ing them.
Judge Ellis ultimately con- cluded that the special counsel was within its rights to bring the charges, which include hid- ing income derived from his lobbying work for a pro-Russ- ian Ukrainian political party. Manafort’s trial in Virginia is set to begin July 25.
The decision comes after U. S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson rejected a similar motion to dismiss charges of failing to register as a foreign lobbyist, which are currently pending against Manafort in Washington, D.C.
Berman ruled earlier this month that Manafort violated the terms of his parole by at- tempting to interact with the prosecution’s witnesses in his case. As a result, she revoked his house arrest and ordered him to be held in jail pending his September trial in the Dis- trict.
personal lawyer and fixer started working on a proposed Trump Tower in Moscow in September
Judge Denies Paul Manafort’s Defense Team’s Argument For Dismissal
Pres. Trump’s former campaign chair, Paul Manafort did not get a favorable ruling. He is still in jail.
Michael Flynn
The retired Army lieu- tenant gen- eral attended a December 2015 dinner in Russia where he sat at a table with
PAGE 6 FLORIDA SENTINEL BULLETIN PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND FRIDAY TUESDAY, JULY 3, 2018