Steve Bannon Called Russian 'Adoption' Meeting "Treasonous"

[Nickdfresh]

Bannon: 2016 Trump Tower meeting was 'treasonous'

By Maegan Vazquez, CNN

Updated 10:40 AM ET, Wed January 3, 2018

(CNN)Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon called the 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Trump campaign officials and a Russian lawyer purportedly offering damaging information about Hillary Clinton "treasonous," according to a new book obtained by The Guardian.
The book, "Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House" by Michael Wolff, is based on hundreds of interviews, including ones with President Donald Trump and his inner circle. According to the Guardian, Bannon addressed the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Donald Trump Jr., then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort, Jared Kushner and Russian operatives that was arranged when Trump Jr. agreed to meet a "Russian government attorney" after receiving an email offering him "very high level and sensitive information" that would "incriminate" Clinton.

"The three senior guys in the campaign thought it was a good idea to meet with a foreign government inside Trump Tower in the conference room on the 25th floor -- with no lawyers. They didn't have any lawyers," Bannon continued, according to the Guardian. "Even if you thought that this was not treasonous, or unpatriotic, or bad s***, and I happen to think it's all of that, you should have called the FBI immediately."

Bannon also reportedly told Wolff: "They're going to crack Don Junior like an egg on national TV."
The White House declined to comment Wednesday about Bannon's reported assertions.
Bannon also reportedly told Wolff that special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into the Trump campaign's potential ties to Russia is centered on money laundering, saying that the White House is "sitting on a beach trying to stop a Category Five" hurricane.

"You realize where this is going ... This is all about money laundering. Mueller chose (senior prosecutor Andrew) Weissmann first and he is a money-laundering guy," Bannon reportedly said. "Their path to f***ing Trump goes right through Paul Manafort, Don Jr., and Jared Kushner ... It's as plain as a hair on your face."
Bannon said he believes Kushner, the White House senior adviser and the President's son-in-law, could be convinced to cooperate if Mueller probes his financial records.
"They're going to go right through that. They're going to roll those two guys up and say play me or trade me," Bannon is reported as saying, apparently referring to Trump Jr. and Kushner.
The Trump Tower meeting has been of intense interest to the congressional Russia investigators as well as Mueller.
Trump Jr. testified before House investigators last month but would not say what he and his father discussed after reports surfaced about the meeting, citing attorney-client privilege.

CNN

[Seshmeister]

I knew all this already but I'm surprised Bannon is saying it.

[Nickdfresh]

I guess he really, really hates all of Trump's kids, especially Kuschner, the "Jew" son-in-law neck deep in kleptocracy...

[Terry]

Who knows what Mueller has managed to dig up so far? Trump's lawyers have been putting out stories for the last several months about how Mueller's investigation will be concluding "in the next few weeks" and the investigation will show no collusion between Trump, his campaign and the Russkies. It is clear, though, that Trump has concerns about Mueller investigating anything outside of the campaign, hence Trump drawing "red lines in the sand" regarding Mueller investigating Trump's finances and business activities.

I have no doubt Trump would throw anybody under the bus if it suited his purposes, but I tend to doubt (although I can't say with 100% certainty) that Trump would throw either his kid or his daughter's husband to the wolves to save his hide.

It may well come down to Trump having to fire Mueller, because while Trump obviously has the authority to order Rosenstein to instruct Mueller to cease investigating certain areas - or to simply fire Mueller - that doesn't mean Rosenstein will actually do so if ordered. And Rosenstein would still have to provide a rationale for either action to Congress...a rationale that goes beyond "Trump told me to." And neither of those actions would necessarily preclude the investigation from being resumed by another person who was appointed Special Counsel.

In reality, the best time to fire Mueller was early in the investigation. Going forward, it would certainly be advisable to fire Mueller in advance of the next Congress being seated in early 2019 should the Democrats win a majority in the House (and possibly the Senate as well) in the fall of this year.

If he's going to do it eventually, he may as well do it now: every day the investigation continues, it's another day of potentially unearthing who knows what in terms of Trump's business dealings over the last 20 years (when he had to turn to shady foreign sources of capital following his Atlantic City debacle). I don't even think Trump himself knows exactly everything that has transpired under the Trump Inc. name in the last 2 decades. You gotta figure, though, if the man is scared to release his tax returns there could potentially be a lot of financial puss under the scab of Trump Inc.

[Terry]

I could easily see Trump Jr. and Kushner flipping IF there was enough leverage and they were pressed hard enough: they both come off like a couple of simpering scions who have flown too high on inherited wings for too long, to the point where they both think something other than their last names (like, say, their intrinsic brilliance) got them to where they are today. Hubris to the umpteenth degree. Doubtless Daddy Trump will pardon them. Will probably pardon Flynn and the rest, too. What other choice does he have?

[Terry]

Bannon has always held his own abilities in much too high a regard. He was, what, like the 3rd campaign manager? And he came onboard 3 months before the campaign ended? And his candidate won by a squeaker in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan. I mean, a win is a win, but it wasn't like Bannon was near the mastermind the media made him out to be, with most of that media ballyhoo propagated by Bannon himself.

Bannon just bought into his own mythed-up hype. He figured he could do anything, including getting a man like Roy Moore elected to the Senate. To be fair, Bannon got close, but no cigar.

The idea that Bannon is going to be some kingmaker in 2018 in terms of the Congressional elections...I mean, I suppose he could dredge up a slate of gun-toting, homophobic, xenophobic pederast candidates and disperse them around the country. If he couldn't pull it off in Alabama, one wonders how he'd manage to do it in less extreme states.

Bannon is just licking his wounds out of a sense of embarrassment because, just like everybody else who enters Trump's orbit, Trump used Bannon then discarded him when he was no longer useful. Bannon hitched a ride on Trump's coattails and used Trump to get inside the White House. Now, Trump remains the President, and Bannon is the alt-right neo-Nazi who blew what should have been an easy race in Alabama. Bannon, had he done his due diligence on Trump, should have known Trump's dismissive treatment of him was inevitable.

[Nickdfresh]

Watergate fame reporter Carl Bernstein says Trump's lawyers are lying to him in order to prevent him from going on a tirade and firing Mueller - which they're terrified of long term...

[Terry]

Watergate fame reporter Carl Bernstein says Trump's lawyers are lying to him in order to prevent him from going on a tirade and firing Mueller - which they're terrified of long term...

Yeah, well, I'm sure Trump wishes the investigation had never been started in the first place. Unfortunately, Trump put all the wheels in motion himself by firing Comey under the flimsiest of pretexts and by allowing Sessions to remain in the AG slot after [Sessions] recused himself.

Apparently, nobody on Trump's staff thought beyond the firing of Comey re: what that could lead to in terms of a Special Counsel being appointed as a result. That's what happens when you surround yourself by 3rd and 4th raters like Miller, Bannon, Kushner and the like: not enough experience in government, thus lacking the mindset in terms of foresight.

Far as Mueller goes now, if Trump removes him without good cause before the investigation has concluded and the findings are presented, it looks like Trump is trying to obstruct. In that instance, Trump would have difficulty making the case that Mueller's investigation used unlawful methods or went outside of its purview, because how would Trump even KNOW if Mueller's investigation was going too far afield or being conducted in bad faith? Instructing Rosenstein to terminate Mueller before the investigation concludes and the findings are presented paints a big GUILTY sing on Trump's forehead.

Again, it won't be surprising if Trump does get rid of Mueller. If and when that happens, you'll get a real sense of how desperate Trump is.

[FORD]

[Nickdfresh]

Author Wolff Says Trump's Associates Question His Fitness
By Alex Wayne
and Arit John
January 5, 2018, 8:57 AM EST

Bloomberg’s Kevin Cirilli discusses the new book about President Trump from Michael Wolff.

The author of a new book about Donald Trump’s White House said Friday that “100 percent of the people around” the president question his intelligence and fitness for office.

“They all say he is like a child,” Michael Wolff said on NBC. “What they mean by that is he has a need for immediate gratification. It’s all about him.”

“This man does not read, does not listen. He’s like a pinball, just shooting off the sides,” Wolff added. “They say he’s a moron, an idiot.”

Trump on Twitter on Thursday called the book “phony” and “full of lies, misrepresentations and sources that don’t exist.”

“It’s absolutely outrageous to make these types of allegations” about Trump’s mental fitness, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said on Fox News on Friday.

They’re “desperate attempts” to attack Trump, she said. “What’s I think is really mentally unstable” is people not seeing the progress Trump is making.

Wolff said he stands by everything in his book and has notes and recordings to back it up.

While Trump said he never spoke to Wolff for the book, the author said he spoke to Trump both during the campaign and after the inauguration.

“Whether he realized it was an interview or not,” the conversations weren’t off the record, Wolff said.

‘He’s Lost It’

Wolff said that his sources told him Trump repeats stories over an increasingly short time period, and that he sometimes doesn’t recognize longtime friends.

NBC interviewer Savannah Guthrie asked Wolff what he was getting at. Wolff quoted former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, who’s undergone a dramatic public split with the president as the book has become public: “He’s lost it.”

Sanders also said Wolff never interviewed Trump about the book and has “made up a lot of stories” to try to sell books.

Asked whether Bannon was the main person leaking information to Wolff, Sanders said Bannon “spent a lot more time with reporters than he ever did with the president.”

Physical Exam

Trump’s campaign released a letter from his doctor in September 2016 saying he was in “excellent physical health.” Trump plans to undergo a physical exam by a government doctor on Jan. 12 that will be followed by a public statement by the doctor, the White House has said.

Past presidents have also undergone periodic exams by government physicians who released statements afterward.

— With assistance by Laura Curtis

Bloomberg LINK

[FORD]

[FORD]

I have seen it written elsewhere that Cheeto's grasp of reality now is about as bad as Reagan's was by his second term.

I say it's much worse than that. At least the BCE - the people controlling Reagan - knew what they were doing. Granted, most of what they were doing was bad, but at least they knew how to do it.

The fools pulling Cheeto's strings are amateurs who are only slightly more competent than the orange bastard himself.

[Terry]

I have seen it written elsewhere that Cheeto's grasp of reality now is about as bad as Reagan's was by his second term.

I say it's much worse than that. At least the BCE - the people controlling Reagan - knew what they were doing. Granted, most of what they were doing was bad, but at least they knew how to do it.

The fools pulling Cheeto's strings are amateurs who are only slightly more competent than the orange bastard himself.

And that's the thing, isn't it?

Whatever one thought about Reagan's policies or Reagan's level of attentiveness, at least in his first term he WAS surrounded by staff who had an idea about how government worked.

Trump is surrounded by too many 2nd and 3rd rate ham bones with virtually no experience in government: their various successes in the private sector aren't translating into Oval Office success.

However, it's not as if Trump is someone who has proven easy to control, because his lack of an ideological core, his lack of an ability to learn new things (or think things through before acting) and his lack of self-restraint make it virtually impossible for even his own staff to know with any degree of certainty what he will say or do next. No discipline at the top. It's all stimulus, response. Stimulus, response.

[Nickdfresh]

Here's a "greatest hits" of Wolff's Fire and Fury

[Nickdfresh]

...

Trump is surrounded by too many 2nd and 3rd rate ham bones with virtually no experience in government: their various successes in the private sector aren't translating into Oval Office success.
....

He is. But I think there are some there that are only still with Trump because they feel that they are all that stands between him and the abyss...

[FORD]

[FORD]

[Terry]

He is. But I think there are some there that are only still with Trump because they feel that they are all that stands between him and the abyss...

Kelly is such a person.

Not perhaps in terms of his general philosophy - he has plenty of hard right political views on a variety of subjects I disagree with - but regarding enforcing a sense of discipline within the White House among the staff, so you don't have the Scaramuccis, Bannons and Omarosas running riot.

ANY president (perhaps this applies more to Trump than most other presidents, although Nixon also comes to mind) needs to avail himself of the best minds he can, and not rely too heavily on personal loyalty during the campaign in terms of staffing: your personal loyalists aren't necessarily the ones who are going to tell you things you don't want to hear yet might need to in terms of making well-informed decisions.

[Seshmeister]

.....

[Nickdfresh]

Kelly is such a person.

Not perhaps in terms of his general philosophy - he has plenty of hard right political views on a variety of subjects I disagree with - but regarding enforcing a sense of discipline within the White House among the staff, so you don't have the Scaramuccis, Bannons and Omarosas running riot.

ANY president (perhaps this applies more to Trump than most other presidents, although Nixon also comes to mind) needs to avail himself of the best minds he can, and not rely too heavily on personal loyalty during the campaign in terms of staffing: your personal loyalists aren't necessarily the ones who are going to tell you things you don't want to hear yet might need to in terms of making well-informed decisions.

I agree on Kelly, and now Trump apparently knows that Kelly is there to 'save the country' and out of duty, and no particular love for Drumpf...

[Kristy]

Oh, PLU-EEEEEEZE Alex Jone$ is nothing more than a mutant carnival barker and his theatrics are really getting old.


Scroll all the fuck the way up to the 1:35:23 mark where Dan Friesen hits the nail on the god damn head when it comes to a asswipe like Jone$

[FORD]

[Nitro Express]

Bannon: 2016 Trump Tower meeting was 'treasonous'

By Maegan Vazquez, CNN

Updated 10:40 AM ET, Wed January 3, 2018

(CNN)Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon called the 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Trump campaign officials and a Russian lawyer purportedly offering damaging information about Hillary Clinton "treasonous," according to a new book obtained by The Guardian.
The book, "Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House" by Michael Wolff, is based on hundreds of interviews, including ones with President Donald Trump and his inner circle. According to the Guardian, Bannon addressed the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Donald Trump Jr., then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort, Jared Kushner and Russian operatives that was arranged when Trump Jr. agreed to meet a "Russian government attorney" after receiving an email offering him "very high level and sensitive information" that would "incriminate" Clinton.

"The three senior guys in the campaign thought it was a good idea to meet with a foreign government inside Trump Tower in the conference room on the 25th floor -- with no lawyers. They didn't have any lawyers," Bannon continued, according to the Guardian. "Even if you thought that this was not treasonous, or unpatriotic, or bad s***, and I happen to think it's all of that, you should have called the FBI immediately."

Bannon also reportedly told Wolff: "They're going to crack Don Junior like an egg on national TV."
The White House declined to comment Wednesday about Bannon's reported assertions.
Bannon also reportedly told Wolff that special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into the Trump campaign's potential ties to Russia is centered on money laundering, saying that the White House is "sitting on a beach trying to stop a Category Five" hurricane.

"You realize where this is going ... This is all about money laundering. Mueller chose (senior prosecutor Andrew) Weissmann first and he is a money-laundering guy," Bannon reportedly said. "Their path to f***ing Trump goes right through Paul Manafort, Don Jr., and Jared Kushner ... It's as plain as a hair on your face."
Bannon said he believes Kushner, the White House senior adviser and the President's son-in-law, could be convinced to cooperate if Mueller probes his financial records.
"They're going to go right through that. They're going to roll those two guys up and say play me or trade me," Bannon is reported as saying, apparently referring to Trump Jr. and Kushner.
The Trump Tower meeting has been of intense interest to the congressional Russia investigators as well as Mueller.
Trump Jr. testified before House investigators last month but would not say what he and his father discussed after reports surfaced about the meeting, citing attorney-client privilege.

CNN

Haha! It's been fun watching the left self-destruct.

[Terry]

Haha! It's been fun watching the left self-destruct.

Well, the left, at least in terms of elected Democratic congresspeoples, still has as yet to define an agenda other than "we're not Trump."

That may be enough for them to unseat the Republicans in 2018 and 2020, but it also allows the Republicans to control what is defined as success or failure.

Suppose the Russia investigations turn out to be not consequential in terms of removing Trump from office. What will the Democrats do then?

[Nickdfresh]

Haha! It's been fun watching the left self-destruct.

If you mean taking over most of congress and the fact in the next few years the Republicans will become the permanent minority party (because millennials seem to detest them), no matter how fucking retarded the Democratic leadership often is. Then you're in for a hoot...