RUSSIA/РОССИЯ THREAD—ASSANGE CHRGD W/ SPYING—DJT IMPEACHED TWICE-US TREASURY SANCTS KILIMNIK AS RUSSIAN AGNT
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MIKE SPLEAN
Superstar
Today's the day brehs
Put your account up
This.
I dont trust the rest of us lazy fukks to do that man's full time job which was delivering us up to the second breaking news that major outlets weren't up on yet
LHilla
Pro
Or eating a balanced breakfast. But he's stressed. He was better off releasing nekkid pics of Melania.Sally probably still sleeping and this dude Trump already tweeting about her
This clown
EDIT: Like clockwork
Axios said:
Check and check
What time Sally testifying?
Sally Yates Doesn’t Care Who You Are
One last testament to the integrity of the attorney general who defied the president.
When President Donald Trump abruptly fired Acting Attorney General Sally Yates on Monday night, it was not the first time Yates faced the wrath of a government chief executive enraged by the refusal of a female subordinate to play along with a directive she considered improper.
It was almost 20 years ago, in 1998. Yates was an assistant U.S. attorney in Atlanta, whose gentle Southern accent (of the old families of Atlanta) belied her already fierce reputation. Earlier that decade she’d led a federal prosecution into a massive corruption scheme tied to the city’s airport. I was then a ponytailed investigative reporter at the Atlanta Constitution, burrowing into City Hall criminality and covering the trials in which Yates sent seven men—including two powerful former city council members—to prison. Notably, it was an equal-opportunity prosecution. By the time the cases ended, the new convicts included black and white elected officials and businessmen. Rich or poor, Jew or Gentile, liberal or conservative—if Sally Yates had you on tape taking bribes, you went to jail.
In 1998, the general manager of the airport complained to the Federal Aviation Administration about pressure she thought she was getting from then-Mayor Bill Campbell related to a $100 million contract for 20 million cubic yards of rock and soil needed to build a new runway. The mayor, a Democratic former city councilman who had been accused but never indicted in the earlier corruption scandal, was pushing for a bidding process that looked favorable to one of his big campaign donors. I wrote a story for the Wall Street Journal about what looked like the most expensive pile of dirt in history. The mayor denied any wrongdoing but was outraged that his airport manager had defied his plans. Within a few months, she was out of her job.
But it turned out that Yates’ public corruption prosecution had never really wrapped up. She and local FBI agents were doing their own spade work into the mayor’s high-flying life, girlfriends, extravagant travel, $250,000 in alleged bribes, and suggestions of illegal campaign contributions from the dirt contractor. It dragged on for years—during which time Mayor Campbell and his allies waged an increasingly harsh public relations campaign against Yates.
Despite the diversity of the first truckload of racketeers she sent to prison, rumors were spread that Yates was out to get black officials. Allies of the mayor said she was investigating him after he didn’t endorse Yates’ husband in an unsuccessful congressional bid. She became a near-pariah at City Hall. There was even a moment of public tension between Yates and another Atlanta figure who also would eventually be the subject of President Trump’s wrath: Georgia Rep. John Lewis. Through it all, Yates quietly kept digging, indicting, and usually convicting.
In 2004, it was finally Mayor Campbell’s turn in the dock. He was indicted, and after a long and sordid trial, found guilty of tax evasion (though he was acquitted on the most egregious corruption charges). He was sentenced to 30 months in prison.
Then on Monday, Yates ordered all Department of Justice attorneys not to defend President Trump’s order barring entry to the U.S. for Syrian refugees and thousands of other visitors from certain Muslim countries. She said the legality of the order was questionable.
President Trump fired her within a few hours. The White House issued a statement saying Yates’ legal objections were spurious and then the incredible charge that she had “betrayed” the Department of Justice. It sounded a lot like the claims of outrage and innocence those corrupt politicians in Atlanta had always made. Interestingly enough, almost every one of them I ever spoke to also seemed to genuinely believe that they couldn’t possibly have done anything wrong, and that the public adored them so much that they would always be forgiven for any slip-up. It didn’t work out that way.
Most remarkably to me, a text message arrived on my phone two days after Yates was axed this week: A city councilman in Atlanta—one who hadn’t been there during the corruption eruption—had seen remarks I posted on Facebook about Yates. He said members of the council, the very institution that had been hollowed out by Yates’ anti-corruption crusade of the 1990s, wanted to issue a resolution in support of her defiance of the Trump immigration order. Other Democrats in Georgia were organizing to draft her to run for governor. What a difference two decades make.
It’s not unreasonable to debate whether Sally Yates should simply have resigned rather than defy the president of the United States. Her public explanation was that as acting attorney general, she was bound by law not to defend potentially illegal actions by our government. Several federal judges have agreed so far. Various other legal scholars have lined up on each side.
All of that can be reasonably argued.
But one thing is certain: Sally Yates is as sterling and devoted a servant of the public as any American. And just as in 1998 and during all those other cases in Atlanta, she wasn’t afraid to stand up to an elected executive or any other official incensed by her devotion to the rule of law. Just like that long-disgraced mayor of Atlanta, who was certain he could never be wrong and never be caught, President Trump would have been wise to listen to Sally Yates.
Now that she’s gone from the Trump Department of Justice, the president and his emphatically confident advisers should find and listen to other voices that—like Yates—have proven over decades that they are truly above politics and committed to justice, unintimidated by bullies, and ready to let the chips fall wherever they may. If a public official is unwilling to hear the counsel of someone like Sally Yates, he is dramatically more likely to one day be prosecuted by someone like Sally Yates.
2:30PM
Tony D'Amato
It's all about the inches
So Trump is really going by the script posted last night, trying to discredit her. If Trump is ever found guilty, all of his coury appointments should 
@Prodigal Syndicate is the slut thst got Nap banned. Ride for the homey brehs
Neg dat hoe
@Prodigal Syndicate is the slut thst got Nap banned. Ride for the homey brehs
Neg dat hoe
Poetical Poltergeist
Precise and cold hearted
This clown
EDIT: Like clockwork
Check and check
Guy sounds so guilty it's pathetic. That's what guilty people do, deflect, make excuses and pass the blame.
So Trump is really going by the script posted last night, trying to discredit her. If Trump is ever found guilty, all of his coury appointments should
@Prodigal Syndicate is the slut thst got Nap banned. Ride for the homey brehs
Receipts?
Tony D'Amato
It's all about the inches
Receipts?
My word is my receipt pleighbwoiReceipts?
WASHINGTON — Sally Q. Yates, the former acting attorney general, is scheduled to testify at 2:30 p.m. Monday before a Senate subcommittee. Here’s what to watch for.
■ Her testimony could raise fresh questions about how President Trump responded to concerns that his first national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, had lied.
■ Ms. Yates can tell a dramatic story — a rarity in congressional hearings — of a brewing crisis in the early days of the Trump administration.
■ Democrats who hope Ms. Yates will reveal new information about the investigation into Mr. Trump’s campaign and Russia are likely to be disappointed. (
)■ James R. Clapper Jr., the former director of national intelligence, is also testifying and is likely to be asked whether he stands by his prior statements on wiretapping. (
)What did the White House do?
Five days into the Trump administration, Ms. Yates alerted the White House to concerns about Mr. Flynn.
Reporters were asking whether Mr. Flynn had discussed sanctions with the Russian ambassador to the United States. The White House assured the public that they had not.
Ms. Yates, a temporary holdover from the administration of President Barack Obama, knew otherwise. That’s because the United States routinely intercepts and transcribes the phone calls of foreign diplomats.
On Jan. 26, she told Donald F. McGahn II, the White House counsel, that the misstatements made Mr. Flynn vulnerable to foreign blackmail, because Russian operatives would know that he had misled his bosses.
Details of that conversation, including Mr. McGahn’s response, remain unknown, and Ms. Yates can shed light on what was said. Officials have said that Ms. Yates told Mr. McGahn how to obtain and read the call transcript himself.
Ms. Yates’s account could put pressure on the White House to more fully explain its response. The president ultimately fired Mr. Flynn, but not because of Ms. Yates’s warnings. Mr. Trump acted two weeks later, only after The Washington Post found out about those warnings.
A storytelling moment
Senate subcommittees are rarely the setting for high drama.
But Ms. Yates has an untold story, and senators — particularly Democrats — have an incentive to dial back the usual long-speech-short-question format and let her tell it.
Ms. Yates would not normally be allowed to testify about her conversations with White House lawyers because such discussions are typically considered privileged. But White House officials have discussed the conversations publicly, which gives Ms. Yates more leeway in what she can say.
Still, telling her story won’t be easy because, even though it is widely known that the United States eavesdrops on foreign officials, the existence of a wiretap on the Russian ambassador remains classified. So Ms. Yates is not likely to be allowed to say what made her concerned about Mr. Flynn’s actions.
Russian meddling
Senators Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, and Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, are leading the hearing into Russian interference in the presidential election.
“On Monday, Senator Graham and I will hear from federal officials who can speak to the hard facts of Russia’s meddling in our election. We will pose a range of questions about the tools Russia used, which we learned about in our first hearing, and help to establish for the American people what happened and how to guard against it moving forward.” — Sheldon Whitehouse
Ms. Yates, who was deputy attorney general during the last year of the Obama administration, can talk about Russian meddling and the government’s public conclusions. But she is expected to sidestep questions about the Justice Department’s investigation into the Trump campaign and possible collusion with Russia.
Wiretapping claims
After Mr. Trump accused Mr. Obama of wiretapping him during the campaign — a universally rejected accusation for which there remains no evidence — Mr. Clapper went on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and made a sweeping denial.
“There was no such wiretap activity mounted against the president, the president-elect at the time, or as a candidate, or against his campaign,” Mr. Clapper said.
Journalists have since revealed a wrinkle in that story. The F.B.I. obtained a court-approved wiretap on Carter Page, a foreign policy adviser to Mr. Trump’s campaign, based on evidence that he was operating as a Russian agent.
Former government officials have said that Mr. Clapper’s statement was true. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court issued the warrant only after Mr. Page was no longer part of the Trump campaign. But senators are likely to press Mr. Clapper on that issue.