The Meeting

This blog has pretty much stayed away from the Russian hacking and the Trump group collusion story because it still has so very far to go before any conclusion becomes reality. There will be thousands of pundit opinions and more thousands of uncorroborated allegations, before this story comes to a head in maybe, a year. But every so often some part of the story stands out for comment and last week’s NY Times revelations of the absolute stupidity of Donald Trump Jr. was more than we could ignore.

In June of 2016 the idiot son got involved in a meeting with a Russian woman who claimed to have information detrimental to Hillary Clinton. He called in Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner because it was going to be so important. Then in March of 2017 he stated firmly that he never met with any Russians on campaign issues. Then this Saturday he stated that the meeting was about adoption issues and on Sunday he did a complete 180 and stated that the meeting was because the woman involved told him that she had damaging information on Clinton.

We all know that Trumps lie. It’s a family tradition and Uday and Qusay have taken this inheritance from their father and run like the wind with it, but there is also a factor of stupidity that must be considered. Why would this moron bother to lie? Why wouldn’t he, the first time the topic came up, say sure, they met with this woman because she said that she had something on Clinton and why not see if they could find out if it was real? This is the kind of thing that, according to his father, is done all the time in politics so why bother to lie?

Well, it turns out that there is a very good reason for the lie. It turns out that we have a law against getting election information from foreign governments or nationals. It turns out that the lawyer Trump Jr., Kushner and Manafort met with is a Russian national with Kremlin contacts so if the meeting was about unearthing negative information on Clinton it was criminal conspiracy and strictly illegal. Hence the Russian adoption fantasy.

But the real reason for all the lying was because they were willing to give something to the Russians in return for information. Maybe they have already given the Russians something to get it and that, especially if the reward was the lowering of sanctions, was an act of treason; the kind of thing you get hung for. Or is it possible that Donald Jr. is really as dumb as he seems and that he didn’t know what was going on any of the time?

But there’s more. At this point there are now six major participants in the Trump administration who have said that they had no meetings with Russians and later have proven to be liars; VP Mike Pence, Presidential Security Advisor Mike Flynn, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Presidential advisor Jared Kushner, Donald Trump Jr. and Carter Page. It’s beginning to look very much like Halderman, Erlichman and the rest of the crooks that surrounded Nixon.

But wait. The list of those at the meeting has now grown as well, from four to six and possibly more. A Russian with ties to intelligence and a translator have been added to the burgeoning total. What’s next, the Giants offensive line? And again, why lie about how many people were there unless it’s because they knew that no one would believe that it was about adoptions if they knew so many participants were involved. Trump talks about his son being transparent. Yeah, like the brick wall he wants to build along our southern border.

The big question right now is why does everybody keep lying? Easy, because there is something to hide! If you aren’t hiding something you have no need to lie. But what could these upright citizens possibly be hiding? How about, Trump himself is involved?

But there’s also the problem of Jared Kushner, the top Presidential son-in-law/advisor who holds the highest of security classifications but who has proved by his false answers to questions on the FBI’s SF86 security classification form that he is entitled to no security clearance because he is the greatest of security dangers. Let’s take a look at Kushner’s history of applying for clearance. In January of 2017 he filled out form SF86 and sent it in to the FBI. On it, he listed no foreign contacts. Then in April the NY Times reported that he had omitted all foreign contacts from his application. So he filed a new application listing some foreign contacts. The FBI then interviewed him in May and in June he refiled his application. By this time he was listing over 100 foreign contacts. That means that between January and June, Kushner recalled over 100 meetings with foreign contacts, which he claims he didn’t remember initially. Not one!

 

That time frame is 150 days, which means that Kushner had an average of one meeting every day and a half. And he forgot all of them? Come on!!! Is there anyone, anywhere in the world, stupid enough to believe that?

 

In all, Kushner revised his list three times. Is it even possible this omission was accidental? Could anyone but the son-in-law of the President get away with that? Lying on the security form is a federal crime. Would anyone but Trump’s son-in-law not have been arrested by now? This kid is a lying slime and he belongs in jail, not in the White House.

But why are they all lying? The only reasonable answer is that they are protecting Donald Trump and the final answer will come down to whether or not it can be proven that Trump knew about all this and was in fact manipulating the entire process. That’s the bottom line because unless they are all so unbelievably incompetent that they are simply blundering through a try at fixing the election; they are all guilty of various crimes.

Here are just a couple of facts that go hand in hand with the meeting. It now has come to the fore that another person, Rinat Akhmetshin accompanied Ms Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer to the meeting and he had definite ties to Russian intelligence. Oh yeah, there was also an interpreter. Trump Jr. and Kushner have now both lied about the meeting; fist about their participation in it and then about the subject matter and finally who attended. The day the meeting happened in Trump Towers, Donald Sr. was also in attendance in his office and in fact had lunch with Manafort after the meeting.

Does the administration and its lawyers really expect anyone to believe that Manafort took this meeting and then didn’t refer to it at lunch with Trump or that Kushner of Don Jr. never spoke to the boss about what happened? If you believe this I have a bridge you’re going to love.

*****

Two things that stand out when listening to Trump apologists are that the President didn’t know about any meetings between his team and any Russian contacts and second that such a meting wouldn’t be a violation of any law. Of course, neither of these positions holds any water but these allegations are set off by Trump himself going on the tube and blabbering about how his son is a good little boy, how anyone would have taken that meting and how the Fake Press is at fault for everything including scabies.

The chief source of disbelief about the meetings, the person who puts the lie to Trump is Donald Jr. himself. He has lied with every word he has uttered from the very beginning. First he said that the meeting didn’t take place, then he said it was about adoption, then he said it was about getting information on Clinton but they didn’t get any and then he lied about who was in the meeting. Finally he came out and said that he had told the world all there was to tell and the next day we find out the were more attendees at that meeting than at the last Met’s game. So his word is worth nothing.

Then you go to Trump himself, who before the meeting, but after Don Jr. had been contacted by Ms. Veselnitskaya, announced publicly that he was going to come out with some big revelations about Clinton. It’s clear that said revelations were expected to have come from the information that Don Jr. and Kushner expected to get from the Russians but when said information was not forthcoming Trump was mute and the subject, like many promises that Donald makes, just faded into the mist.

Trump and his lawyers keep telling us that the President isn’t under investigation but with all the dirt, all the smoke and all the lying going on in the White House it’s not hard to believe that if he isn’t now, he will be shortly. It’s just Trump’s way of doing business. The meeting and the reasons for it are a clear indication that something in the realm of collusion was going on and we all know the fish stinks from the head.

It doesn’t make Trump look any more innocent to realize that the White House has been quietly maneuvering, behind the scenes, to see if they can reduce the same sanctions that the Senate is voting 97 to 3 to increase.

Again, when Donald Trump excuses his idiot son’s actions in meeting with Russians to get dirt on Hillary Clinton he says that anyone would do it and that he wasn’t doing anything illegal. Is Trump really that ignorant of our laws or is he just lying again? And why did Trump want so much to be President if he hasn’t been willing to bother to find out what that stands for? During the election process Trump spoke again and again about ne election being rigged. It seems that he knew what he was talking about. It’s just that what he was saying wasn’t what his toadies thought they heard.

Trump campaigned on draining he swamp. He was going to get rid of all the cheap crooks and con men clogging up government and have said government work for the people. His voters obviously believed him. They elected a cheap crook and con man to get rid of the others of his ilk. Well he drained the swamp all right. All those cheap crooks and con men are now locked in government buildings on the capital grounds. The prime example of that is the cabinet and White House staff, the most disingenuous collection of degenerate liars, swindle riggers and cheap crooks ever assembled in one place.

The fact that in an entire government under complete Republican control, there appears to be no ability to force the President to toe any line of truth, honesty or morality is a blanket condemnation of our entire system of government. In his first six months in office, Trump has accomplished nothing other than making personal money from his brand. He has trampled all conventions and traditions that have until now, withstood the tests of time and adversity. If left to his own inclinations he will, quite probably, destroy what until now, has been the greatest example, ever instituted, of man’s ability to self-rule.