Trump IMPEACHED by the US House; US Senate Trial Allows No New Witnesses & Acquits Trump
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Loose Ends as the Stone Trial Moves to Closing Arguments | emptywheel
But I wanted to capture a number of loose threads from the trial (and this is based off live tweeting, so it’s more vague than I would wish):
- Prosecutors made sure to get Steve Bannon to explain the relationship between Ted Malloch and Erik Prince and the campaign, yet Prince did not testify and Malloch’s testimony wasn’t entered. So why include that detail?
- The government tried to enter Bannon’s grand jury testimony, unsuccessfully, after he had to be held to his prior testimony. Was there a discrepancy or a different articulation prosecutors were trying to hold him to?
- Footnote 989 of Volume I of the Mueller Report seems to suggest that Bannon’s testimony came in under a proffer agreement (and his first interview clearly stretched the truth). But that proffer did not get introduced into evidence. Why not?
- The defense did not raise the most obvious challenge to Gates’ testimony, that his claim Stone knew of hacked emails in April 2016 might represent a confusion with Hillary’s FOIAed emails. Since they could only make this argument with Gates’ testimony, I’m curious why they didn’t raise it.
- The defense spent a lot of time talking to Gates about Stone’s role in compiling voter rolls. Why?
- Prosecutors named a bunch of Stone’s flunkies as witnesses, and subpoenaed and flew in Andrew Miller. They seem to have first informed Miller he’d be testifying at what would be the end of a full week trial (what they initially said they expected), then held him through Stone’s defense, suggesting they might use him as a rebuttal witness. But he never testified. Why not?
- The government never presented something they had planned to as 404b information — that Stone also lied about whether the campaign knew of his campaign finance shenanigans. They didn’t do so. Why not? (This may related to the Miller question.)
- Prosecutors made a point of having Gates describe Stone asking for Jared Kushner’s contact so he could brief him on stolen emails. But that point was dropped. That loose end is particularly interesting given that they had Bannon testify about the July 18 email Stone sent him, which probably pertains to an investigation that was ongoing in March.
Sean Patrick Maloney KILLED THAT! 
Hood Critic
The Power Circle
Good job Mr. Maloney.
gangreen
Top Notch
To push conspiracy theories while talking fast to make it look like for entrenched Trump supporters that Trump is being victimized by the deep state as well as the media and not by his own actions.
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Hood Critic
The Power Circle
The Persistence of Jared in the WikiLeaks Operation | emptywheel
The Persistence of Jared in the WikiLeaks Operation
November 19, 2019/1 Comment/in 2016 Presidential Election, Mueller Probe /by emptywheel
As I noted repeatedly (one, two), there were a number of provocative loose threads left in Roger Stone’s trial. I want to look at one more: Roger Stone’s effort to involve Kushner in WikiLeaks related stuff.
Rick Gates testified that in the weeks before WikiLeaks dropped the DNC emails in July 2016, a group including Stephen Miller, Jason Miller, Paul Manafort, and him brainstormed how they would respond to emails that — according to Roger Stone (as well as other public reporting) — would soon be released.
Jared Kushner was pointedly not named as participating in that group.
That’s interesting because, just before 10PM on June 14, 2016 — the day that the DNC first announced it had been hacked — Stone had two phone calls with Trump on his home line, lasting a total of 4:18 minutes. The government admits they don’t know what happened on that call, but for some reason they seem to be certain it had to do with the DNC emails. Late afternoon the next day, after Guccifer 2.0 first released documents billed as DNC documents, Stone wrote Gates asking first for his contact info, then his email. There were also a number of texts that day (the trial exhibit doesn’t clarify whether these are ET or UTC, so it’s unclear whether they happen around 4 and 12 PM, which is most likely, or 8PM and 4AM the next day).
Stone: Call me. Important
Gates: On con call but will call right after. Thanks.
Stone: Please
Stone: Awake ?
Gates: Yep.
Stone: Call me?
Gates: On con call but will call right after. Thanks.
Stone: Please
Stone: Awake ?
Gates: Yep.
Stone: Call me?
Gates said that Stone wanted Jared’s contact info to debrief him on the hacked materials. Which is one reason it’s weird that Kushner was not named in the group that prepared for new emails to drop.
Especially since, late in the campaign, Kushner is the one Paul Manafort advised on who to capitalize on WikiLeaks’ releases. On October 21, for example, Manafort told him to use WikiLeaks to demonstrate Hillary’s alleged corruption.
For example, on October 21, 2016, Manafort sent Kushner an email and attached a strategy memorandum proposing that the Campaign make the case against Clinton “as the failed and corrupt champion of the establishment” and that “Wikileaks provides the Trump campaign the ability to make the case in a very credible way – by using the words of Clinton, its campaign officials and DNC members.”936
When, on November 5, Manafort sent Kushner an email warning that Hillary would blame any win on hacked voting machines, Steve Bannon responded by linking Manafort, Russia, and the WikiLeaks releases. (PDF 258)
We need to avoid this guy like the plague
They are going to try and say the Russian worked with wiki leaks to give this victory to us
Paul is nice guy but can’t let word out he is advising us
They are going to try and say the Russian worked with wiki leaks to give this victory to us
Paul is nice guy but can’t let word out he is advising us
That suggests that Bannon was a lot warier of continuing to accept Manafort’s counsel than Kushner was — and Bannon was wary because it linked a campaign win to Russia’s help.
When Bannon was asked about this in an early, not entirely truthful, interview, he in turn linked Manafort to someone else who, given the name length and redaction purpose, is likely Stone.
Candidate Trump never said to Bannon that he was in contact with [5 letter name redacted for ongoing proceeding] or Manafort. Bannon knew they were going to win, and in this email he wanted to avoid Manafort because Bannon believed that if people could link them to Manafort, they could then try to link them to Russia.
Now go back to something else introduced in the trial. On August 18, the day after Bannon was first hired onto the campaign (but the day before Manafort would resign), Stone emailed him and explained, “I do know how to win this but it ain’t pretty.”
That appears to be the “other investigation” that Paul Manafort was supposed to, but reneged, on helping DOJ investigate last year, one where Manafort first implicated (to get his plea deal), then tried to exonerate (after he got it) someone with a seven-letter name. Even at the time, a different part of DOJ was investigating it.
Finally, consider one other detail. Back in March 2018, when Sean Hannity was grilling Paul Manafort about whether he might flip, Manafort explained that he would be expected to give up Kushner.
These are just data points.
But they are consistent with there being two strands of WikiLeaks discussions on the campaign. One — involving Gates, Stephen Miller, and Jason Miller — doing little more than optimizing the releases. And another — involving Manafort and Kushner, one that Bannon didn’t want any tie to — involving something more.
Because their power lies within the a$$hole vote.Why are Republicans a bunch of fukking a$$holes?
If there’s anything clear is that humanity, and nature itself is based on being an a$$hole for your “tribe“ however large or small that might be.
The unique thing about humans is that we have the capacity to look outside our tribe, and being an a$$hole, for the greater good of humanity itself(some of us call that “morals”)
Republicans have thrown all their chips in on the a$$hole sector of Americans, so their only political play is to pander to the a$$hole vote.
I love how they cry about needing more time and then they yield back their time. Devin didn’t even have the energy to give a thought out closing statement.
Dude got dragged into impeachment but he's been on point like a mfer.
He’s not engaging in the fukkery his gop colleagues are doing..I have no clue what Will Hurds purpose to any of his questions be
He’s good. I wonder if he has higher aspirations. He’s impressed me every time he’s up there.
