TheShopKeeper:

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017...Trump-Sessions


Trump, Sessions, Manafort, Kushner all directly involved in selling US foreign policy to Russia for 0.5% of Russian oil giant Rosneft.
In a stunning tweetstorm this evening, columnist and reporter Seth Abrahamson (Huffington Post, Dallas Morning News, Seattle Times, Washington Post) laid out all the details on the Russia-Trump connection. And folks, this is impeachment territory, and imprisonment territory, for the highest officials in the United States.
(MEGA-THREAD) The plot to sell America's foreign policy for foreign oil _and_ steal an election in the bargain began at the Mayflower Hotel.pic.twitter.com/XkoFpmMAeJ
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) March 24, 2017

2) The timing was intentional: Manafort, hired in March, was slated to become the campaign's key player as soon as Trump became the nominee.
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) March 24, 2017

4) The speech, arranged by Jared Kushner in mid-March, was to be hosted by the Center for the National Interest, a conservative think tank.pic.twitter.com/yXj3J7DpQJ
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) March 24, 2017

Note that the Center for the National Interest will be abbreviated “CNI” often in this thread.
6) The speech was slated to be at the National Press Club, an august venue with a _long_ history of staging secure events with large crowds.pic.twitter.com/cuq5492nkO
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) March 24, 2017

So Manafort moved the event to the Mayflower Hotel: a smaller, less secure site. The decision confirmed the campaign's excuses were lies.pic.twitter.com/EtgLxhMXYh
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) March 24, 2017

10) The latter was important because Manafort wanted Trump to hold an intimate, 24-person cocktail hour in the Mayflower's VIP Senate Room.
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) March 24, 2017

12) Another VIP at the event was Iran-Contra figure Bud McFarlane, one of America's chief advocates for a bargain with Russia on oil access.pic.twitter.com/hj6TJhLujN
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) March 24, 2017

14) The _biggest oil deal in Russia's history_ occurred in December of 2016. It involved the coordination of entities from three countries.
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) March 24, 2017

16) The #Russiagate scandal involves claims Trump was given 0.5% of Rosneft and aid in getting elected in exchange for lifting US sanctions.pic.twitter.com/epnrPl9ngo
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) March 24, 2017

18) WSJ wrote in April 2016 that Trump met separately with the ambassadors at the Mayflower and was effusive. Quote: https:///ZDUKoGnuJ3
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) March 24, 2017

20) The ambassadors at the Mayflower: RUSSIA! ITALY! SINGAPORE! And the Philippines--which is routinely cited as a Rosneft expansion target.pic.twitter.com/lkziVxMM6l
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) March 24, 2017

22) In his speech Trump called for a Russian detente: "We desire to live peacefully and in friendship with Russia...we are not bound...pic.twitter.com/LY1s6ZdE4k
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) March 24, 2017

24) is possible..[I hope to] make a deal under my administration that’s great for America but also good for Russia." https:///z0OA6pmXbh
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) March 24, 2017

26) The only Kislyak meeting Sessions _never_ disclosed to Congress, _even after accusations of perjury_, was the meeting at the Mayflower.pic.twitter.com/D8mzXi2xNa
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) March 24, 2017

28) Heilbrunn on the VIP event: "At a reception in the Senate Room of the Mayflower, a number of politicians and Trump advisers, such as...
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) March 24, 2017

30) The VIP event _wasn't_ just a receiving line as Trump claimed. It was a "cocktail meet-and-greet"--a full event. https:///qnbY6u56uw
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) March 24, 2017

32) The White House saying it has “no recollection” of any of the VIPs at Trump's _biggest-ever foreign policy event_ is also a red flag.pic.twitter.com/bTQsz5JJ2Z
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) March 24, 2017

34) Kislyak went on to _fail_ to disclose his meeting with Trump at the Mayflower, citing only a meeting at the RNC. https:///4ft7A3WGii
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) March 24, 2017

36) We know Manafort set up the Mayflower event and was available for meetings at it--as was Kushner, who later met secretly with Kislyak.pic.twitter.com/nOnWyPZB4x
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) March 24, 2017

38) We know the White House lied about Mayflower. We know Sessions has. We know Kislyak has. And we know the Rosneft players were present.pic.twitter.com/9BIKLipInj
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) March 24, 2017

40) So other than the RNC and suspicious Trump Tower meetings in December, the Mayflower Speech should get the _most_ attention in Congress.pic.twitter.com/8mPUhCC4bp
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) March 24, 2017

Abrahamson doesn’t reveal much about his sources, but let’s just be aware that the intelligence community has long been rumored to have the goods on Trump. So yeah. Somebody’s leaking.
Daily Kos readers may also recall that according to the famous British spy dossier on the Russia connection, Carter Page was offered 19% of Rosneft if he could get US sanctions on Russia lifted. And apparently Trump himself wanted a piece of that action, to the tune of 0.5%; and whaddya know? Rosneft sold exactly 19.5% of its stock to person or persons unknown.

https://twitter.com/SethAbramson?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

Buddy, Russiagate is loading. It's gonna get worse from here. Manafort is going to spit like we say in Chicago . Americans don't take a fall for no one not even an egocentric and incompetent President .

ValerianSteel:
Goodluck with that. The new CBO report is less damning but all still worrying. Trumpcare is a disaster.

I know it's gonna be disaster because the people in charge care more for the insurance companies than they do for Americans. Plus CBO say 24 million people will lose their coverage. The Republicons are conning America big time and people like me can't wait till November 2018 to take our pound of flesh from the worthless conmen in charge of a beautiful country.

You are probably an employee, or self-employed at best. You probably have never had to move selfish, wicked and greedy folks to get shit done.

In business and politics you don't deal with "your children", you largely deal whit hostile and mean opponents who are driven by self-interest.

LordReed:


If you have to pull out a gun or weapon then it's no longer a negotiation. When you threaten someone with a capacity you have the ability to carry out you are not expecting the person to still attempt to get a deal for themselves, you are issuing a fait. Do this or else! This is no longer a negotiation. If you tell your child do this or I cane you, are expecting anything less than compliance?

Dude that link is FAKE. It's not even online as we speak.

Lucasbalo:
Buddy, Russiagate is loading. It's gonna get worse from here. Manafort is going to spit like we say in Chicago . Americans don't take a fall for no one not even an egocentric and incompetent President .

Thought as much.

LordReed:


Yes I did. Really interesting answers.

paschu:
Dude that link is FAKE. It's not even online as we speak.

What kind of Juice or toxic Kool Aid tramp is giving to you to be so sheepish about him ?. You don't even know the way things work here and you are giving yourself unnecessary blood pressure about a guy who doesn't even think of people where you live. If I as an American by birth knows trump doesn't give a damn about me, do you think he give a damn about you trillions of miles away ?. Who told you about any link . What Manafort told journalists is that he's ready to meet with FBI investigators about the Russian debacle. What's your problem with that ?.

Trumpcare just failed a gop dominated house, they withdraw the craps to save face from monumental shame. Same way travel ban failed too, so much for the art of deal bullllshit.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/obamacare-repeal-votes-congress-236459


So much for the art of the deal. Not to worry some people will still be fooled all of the time about the business acumen and negotiating skills of trump

schwarzkopf:
Trumpcare just failed a gop dominated house, they withdraw the craps to save face from monumental shame. Same way travel ban failed too, so much for the art of deal bullllshit.

You shouldn't be surprised. Trumpcare is as junky as the man it is named after. You can't make a chicken sandwich out of a chicken doodle. They castigated ACA for 7 years and they came up with nothing when it counts. The Republisores are sucking up on their losses and so are their brainless lapdogs here on nairaland. It's a good day for Americans.

oyb:
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/obamacare-repeal-votes-congress-236459


So much for the art of the deal. Not to worry some people will still be fooled all of the time about the business acumen and negotiating skills of trump

Those are the fools that are overwhelmed by his inherited wealth. The truly wealthy in my opinion are the ones that toiled from nothing to something not a man that inherited an empire when Fred his father passed on. Some village clowns are going through mourning period now.

Ryan Care just collapsed, all going to plan; this places Trump at a vantage position to be the ultimate deal breaker for the next important step.

obixcel:
Ryan Care just collapsed, all going to plan; this places Trump at a vantage position to be the ultimate deal breaker for the next important step.

Villager, you are a joke.

paschu:
You are probably an employee, or self-employed at best. You probably have never had to move selfish, wicked and greedy folks to get shit done.

In business and politics you don't deal with "your children", you largely deal whit hostile and mean opponents who are driven by self-interest.

If I need to threaten anyone to get shit done then we are not negotiating, you need to see that. If at my building site I threaten workers to work, it's not a negotiation.

obixcel:
Ryan Care just collapsed, all going to plan; this places Trump at a vantage position to be the ultimate deal breaker for the next important step.

Hahaha, oyb see this, I called it! Trump supporters are spinning this very predictably. LoLz

obixcel:
Ryan Care just collapsed, all going to plan; this places Trump at a vantage position to be the ultimate deal breaker for the next important step.

Just go hand your brain to your city mayor as souvenir, cos that piece of lumped fats in your cranium is of no use to you or anyone.

Lucasbalo:
Those are the fools that are overwhelmed by his inherited wealth. The truly wealthy in my opinion are the ones that toiled from nothing to something not a man that inherited an empire when Fred his father passed on. Some village clowns are going through mourning period now.

More like act of the preek.

LordReed:


Hahaha, oyb see this, I called it! Trump supporters are spinning this very predictably. LoLz

Like I said Trump can fool some of the people all the time.

And the jokers are already spitting alternative reality

Amazing!

Alex Jones apologies for Pizzagate.

http://www.newsweek.com/alex-jones-apologize-pizzagate-fake-news-574025

schwarzkopf:
Trumpcare just failed a gop dominated house, they withdraw the craps to save face from monumental shame. Same way travel ban failed too, so much for the art of deal bullllshit.

I told you people trump is a conman and even the congressmen in his party are not falling for his scam. The funny thing is that republicans have 44 seats advantage in the House and yet they fail to do away with obamacare after 7 years of their opposition against it. Losers they are. Their next target is cutting taxes for billionaires and millionaires while leaving the middle class to hold the bags. Watch and see his losers in life on nairaland try to defend that while majority of them are barely surviving in their caves. Bunch of losers.

schwarzkopf:


Just go hand your brain to your city mayor as souvenir, cos that piece of lumped fats in your cranium is of no use to you or anyone.

The cave dweller named obixcel doesn't have a mayor where he lives.

Lucasbalo:
You shouldn't be surprised. Trumpcare is as junky as the man it is named after. You can't make a chicken sandwich out of a chicken doodle. They castigated ACA for 7 years and they came up with nothing when it counts. The Republisores are sucking up on their losses and so are their brainless lapdogs here on nairaland. It's a good day for Americans.

But seriously, after all the mouth making of Trump about Obamacare I thought he was gonna come up with a viable alternative, but alas it seems critics are the worst performers. It's a big shame that his own replacement health care bill could not pass through a Congress dominated by his own party. That's pathetic

And now Trump is saying he didn't say he'd repeal and replace immediately. Is this the kind of President the US needs? A person who will not take responsibility?

LordReed:
And now Trump is saying he didn't say he'd repeal and replace immediately. Is this the kind of President the US needs? A person who will not take responsibility?

only his base is still swallowing the kool aid

the revenge of the lying press. let the humble pie pile on

https://secure.politico.com/story/2017/03/trump-obamacare-future-236490

Trump gets tamed by Washington

The businessman president finds after the defeat of health care reform that legislating isn't as easy as making real estate deals.

By Shane Goldmacher and Josh Dawsey



President Donald Trump's failure to advance legislation through a single chamber of Congress casts doubt on his much-bragged-about dealmaking skills.

Donald Trump crowed for months he would strike a "terrific" deal on health care. His ambitions ended in a brief phone call Friday afternoon, in which Speaker Paul Ryan told him the truth: He was nowhere close.

The businessman president, who sold himself to tens of millions of disillusioned voters last year as the only outsider who could tame a broken capital, ended his first confrontation with lawmakers overmatched, outmaneuvered and ultimately empty-handed.

“We learned a lot about some very arcane rules,” Trump said in the Oval Office soon after the defeat of his effort to undo President Obama’s health care law.

It was actually the most basic fact of Congress that set Trump back: the majority rules. And despite a 22-seat margin for error in the House, Trump had proved unable to corral support for a plan to repeal the law, one of Trump’s key campaign pledges.

His failure to advance legislation through a single chamber of Congress controlled by members of his own party — despite it being a cornerstone of the Republican agenda for more than half-decade — casts doubt both on Trump’s much-bragged-about dealmaking skills and the GOP’s path forward.

“It's a black eye for the speaker and the president,” said Scott Reed, the top strategist of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which supported the measure.

The setback, described in interviews with multiple senior administration and congressional officials, was especially humiliating because Trump was sunk not by Democrats but by his inability to ride herd over the same rebellious element of the Republican conference that previously bucked Speaker Paul Ryan’s predecessor John Boehner out of his job. Most House Republicans have never served in the majority under a Republican president and it’s unclear how in the future they will cobble together a governing coalition.

“The Republican Party is still operating as an opposition party,” said Josh Holmes, a former chief of staff to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who added, “If they can't break the fever…it says an enormous amount about the prospects of tax reform, infrastructure and some sort of immigration proposal.”

Trump himself seemed almost relieved to move on from the health care fight, even as other White House officials were fretting about the long-term implications of what one senior White House official called a "clear embarrassment for us."


The president himself wasn’t nearly as upset about the health care defeat as he was about the size of his inauguration crowds, Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ decision to recuse himself from the investigation into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election or the repeated legal setbacks on his travel-ban executive order, which has been blocked by multiple courts. “No bullshit, I think he's actually pretty comfortable with the outcome. He wants to move ahead and do taxes,” another senior White House official said.

But tax reform — which no president or Congress has been able to tackle successfully for more than three decades — is no easy task, especially as Republicans had banked on deficit-cutting from any health package to give them a financial cushion in that endeavor. “Yes,” Ryan conceded Friday, “this does make tax reform more difficult.”

For weeks Trump had seemed disinterested and disengaged from the specifics of the health care fight, both behind closed doors with his aides and at public rallies. Trump “just wanted to get something he could sign,” said one adviser who talks to him frequently. “He was over it.” He would often interrupt conversations on the law to talk about other issues, advisers and aides said.
House Speaker Paul Ryan is pictured. | Getty

Finance & Tax
Tax reform next? Maybe not.

By Aaron Lorenzo

In one phone call with Ryan earlier this month, Trump told the House speaker that he had a problem with the bill. It wasn’t over Medicaid expansion, maternity coverage, deductibles or insurance premiums. Rather, it was that he didn’t like the word “buckets”—which Ryan had been using to describe the parts of their plan.

“I don't like that word buckets. You throw trash in buckets. I don't like that word,” Trump said, according to two people familiar with the call. Trump preferred “phases.” Ryan agreed and adopted the term.

It was the kind of messaging detail Trump focused on during the campaign, when he described his plan as “repeal and replace — with something terrific.” But by February, Trump confided to a group of the nation’s governors visiting Washington D.C. that undoing Obamacare would be more involved. “Nobody knew healthcare could be so complicated,” he said.

In the closing days of negotiations, Trump found himself stuck in the middle of an ideological tug-of-war between the two factions at the extremes of a deeply fissured House Republican conference — with every concession offered to the hardline House Freedom Caucus driving away votes from the moderate Tuesday Group, and vice versa.

The arguments for the legislation from the White House were political. “This is your chance,” press secretary Sean Spicer urged lawmakers on Friday hours before the bill died. The arguments against it were based in policy, where Trump was less comfortable.

When Trump trekked to Capitol Hill to make his case in person on Tuesday, lawmakers were mostly nonplussed. “Not a whole lot about health care, except to vote for it,” Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., said afterward. He remained opposed.

Other lawmakers said Trump wasn’t at all conversant in the specifics and mainly wanted to talk about his popularity in their districts – or how voting against the proposed bill could hurt them politically. But the proposed law ended up polling below 20 percent – and the president's approval rating dropped below 40 percent.
Paul Ryan

Congress
Republicans yank Obamacare repeal bill

By Kyle Cheney, John Bresnahan and Rachael Bade

Short the votes, Trump trotted out one of his favorite deal-making tactics late Thursday to seal the deal: the ultimatum. All House Republicans were told by Trump’s top lieutenants that the bill was take-it-or-leave-it proposition, and their only chance to get rid of Obamacare.

In the days and hours leading up to a vote that looked bleak, the White House did little to tamp down expectations. “He is the closer,” Spicer labeled Trump.

Trump pushed hard for a floor vote up until the final minute. Senior administration officials maintained deep into Friday afternoon that they wanted the roll call "to make them vote against the president on live TV,” in the words of a third senior White House official.

“We are voting,” this person said, 45 minutes before it was called off.

It was straight out of Trump’s The Art of the Deal playbook, where he wrote simultaneously about boldness and maintaining a willingness to retreat. “I never get too attached to one deal or one approach,” Trump wrote. “For starters, I keep a lot of balls in the air because most deals fall out.”

That might work in the real estate business, where there’s always another property to develop, or another contractor to hire. But it backfired in Congress, where time and political capital are not unlimited, where the last deal impacts the next and where there is no alternative set of lawmakers to whom Trump can pitch his next demands.

The setback could also shake up the internal dynamics of a White House, where infighting among rival factions has become the norm. Some pointedly noted that Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, spent the run-up to the vote in Aspen. Some pinned blame on chief of staff Reince Priebus, who is close to Ryan and had been expected to help Trump navigate the complexities of Capitol Hill. Others faulted chief strategist Steve Bannon for failing to mobilize his former company, Breitbart News, on behalf of the bill, or to corral hardliners on the Hill.

By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Indeed, the blame game began even before the vote was called off. “This is 100 percent a Ryan failure,” said the third White House official. While Trump wasn’t upset with Ryan, multiple senior officials said, a number of his advisers and aides were trashing the speaker before the vote – and Ryan told others he expected to get the brunt of the blame.

By midday Friday, the health care bill was hemorrhaging support, as the powerful chairman of the House Appropriations Committee came out against the bill. Ryan came to the White House to brief Trump on the bleak outlook.

But even as Trump and his top advisers wanted to forge ahead, they were showing sign of worry. Spicer no longer embraced the term “the closer.” GOP leadership pushed to drop what was now seen as a kamikaze mission. And a little after 3 p.m., Trump talked to Ryan again — the two had a 45-minute conversation late Thursday night about the law.

“He talked to Paul Ryan for a few minutes, who said he was at least 10 and 15 votes short,” one of the senior White House officials said. Ryan said he planned to pull the vote unless Trump objected, and Trump said he was OK with that.

Ryan explained soon after what it meant to a national television audience: “We’re going to be living with Obamacare for the foreseeable future.”

Trump got off the phone, scribbled down some notes and dialed up reporters to give his side before the full White House staff was even briefed. The president was most focused on the news coverage and how it reflected on him, as he had been throughout, telling advisers how much the criticism of the law on TV bothered him.

In the Capitol basement after the vote was cancelled, Republican lawmakers were gathered to hear what came next. The Rolling Stones refrain Trump often played at his rallies was playing in the background: “You can’t always get what you want.”

Tara Palmeri and Jake Sherman contributed reporting.

It was straight out of Trump’s The Art of the Deal playbook, where he wrote simultaneously about boldness and maintaining a willingness to retreat. “I never get too attached to one deal or one approach,” Trump wrote. “For starters, I keep a lot of balls in the air because most deals fall out.”

That might work in the real estate business, where there’s always another property to develop, or another contractor to hire. But it backfired in Congress, where time and political capital are not unlimited, where the last deal impacts the next and where there is no alternative set of lawmakers to whom Trump can pitch his next demands.

LordReed:
And now Trump is saying he didn't say he'd repeal and replace immediately. Is this the kind of President the US needs? A person who will not take responsibility?

Oponu yankee like we have oponu daura hehehe

bejeria101:


Oponu yankee like we have oponu daura hehehe

LoL. Trump is bad and boujee.

Now it appears Mike Flynn is going to be the Sacrificial Lamb. Maddow pointed out that National Enquirer (were Trump got the Ted Cruz father story from) has said Mike Flynn is the Russian spy and that Donald Trump has found out.

Let's see if this comes out from the White House in some shape or form.

LordReed:
Now it appears Mike Flynn is going to be the Sacrificial Lamb. Maddow pointed out that National Enquirer (were Trump got the Ted Cruz father story from) has said Mike Flynn is the Russian spy and that Donald Trump has found out.

Let's see if this comes out from the White House in some shape or form.

Gen. Mike Flynn, Manafort, Stone, Gage and the other guys will snitch on the POTUS if they are faced with the choice of going to jail. That's the same thing that happened during Watergate when Nixon close aides starts snitching on him to the press. No one wants to take a fall for anyone especially a man that's not worth it.

LordReed:
Now it appears Mike Flynn is going to be the Sacrificial Lamb. Maddow pointed out that National Enquirer (were Trump got the Ted Cruz father story from) has said Mike Flynn is the Russian spy and that Donald Trump has found out.

Let's see if this comes out from the White House in some shape or form.

they dont make them generals like they used to

Lucasbalo:
Gen. Mike Flynn, Manafort, Stone, Gage and the other guys will snitch on the POTUS if they are faced with the choice of going to jail. That's the same thing that happened during Watergate when Nixon close aides starts stitching on him to the press. No one wants to take a fall for anyone especially a man that's not worth it.

Trump's next focus according to him is the tax reform and that one is going to be a failure too. He wants to cut taxes for Billionaires and Multi Millionaires at the expense of Middle class Americans. Republicons are good with trickle down economy which is not good for the country. Waiting for Trump's lapdogs to defend that too.

Lucasbalo:
Trump's next focus according to him is the tax reform and that one is going to be a failure too. He wants to cut taxes for Billionaires and Multi Millionaires at the expense of Middle class Americans. Republicons are good with trickle down economy which is not good for the country. Waiting for Trump's lapdogs to defend that too.

I disagree with you.

I believe his tax-cut plan will easily be passed by Congress because it will be an extremely right wing bill fully supported by the Koch Brothers.

The failure of the AHCA was primarily down to fierce opposition from the Kochs

CFCman:


I disagree with you.

I believe his tax-cut plan will easily be passed by Congress because it will be an extremely right wing bill fully supported by the Koch Brothers.

The failure of the AHCA was primarily down to fierce opposition from the Kochs

When majority of Americans who are in the middle see their taxes up or going up, there will be the tremendous amount of opposition to the plan. Even if it passes the House, I doubt if it will pass the Senate because a lot of republican senators in the purple and blue states running for reelection don't want to jeopardize their reelection chances. Americans are realizing they have been scammed by the two bit hustler in the Oval Office. By the way, if the Koch brothers are so powerful, how come the last Tax reform was 1986 and how come trump won the republican primary and presidency when Koch brothers hated his guts ?.

Lucasbalo:
When majority of Americans who are in the middle see their taxes up or going up, their will be the tremendous amount of opposition to the plan. Even if it passes the House, I doubt if it will pass the Senate because a lot of republican senators in the purple and blue states running for reelection don't want to jeopardize their reelection chances. Americans are realizing they have been scammed by the two bit hustler in the Oval Office.

The bolded is a valid concern. But you can never under estimate the conservative media echo chamber and their messaging skills. They could spin the tax bill as one that would benefit everyone. Besides, some moderate (corporatist) Democrat senators could vote for such a bill in order to please their corporate donors.