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Trump rages over post-presidential books he did interviews for - POLITICO
Trump rages over post-presidential books he did interviews for
The avalanche of coming books has caused recriminations. And there is anxiety about what’s to come.
He knew it was coming. But former President Donald Trump still was not pleased.
He had read a new book excerpt—one of many about his presidency in the last few weeks—that described him telling his former chief of staff John Kelly that Hitler, for all his horrors, “did a lot of good things.”
The account came from Michael Bender’s work, “Frankly, We Did Win This Election: The Inside Story of How Trump Lost.” And for weeks, the former president had anxiously anticipated it surfacing. When Bender first approached him about it in the spring, Trump, through a spokesperson, told the Wall Street Journal reporter the anecdote was “defamatory.” Bender said he interpreted it as a legal threat; but like many such threats from Trump, nothing came of it.
Now it was in print. Reading the line for the first time, Trump denied it before engaging in speculation about the story’s origins. “But that doesn’t mean John Kelly didn’t tell Mike Bender that,” he said, according to an adviser. “That doesn’t mean other people didn’t say it.”
The guessing game that Bender’s book sparked added to the schisms and points of tensions that have erupted in Trump’s orbit in recent weeks. As the deluge of Trump-related books has hit the shelves, the already tenuous alliances that bind aides and associates of the former president have been strained further. Ex-aides have publicly attacked one-time allies while others have sought distance from a presidency they once dutifully served.
Fear is mounting, too, about the tea-spilling to come. In particular, Trump officials are anxiously awaiting the books set to be published by actual colleagues, chief among them counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway and Jared Kushner, who plan to write their own accounts of the Trump presidency.
“I think it’s fraught right now as to who is telling the truth,” said a Trump adviser. “They’re all trying to go back in time and curate their own images.”
Privately, former administration officials and top campaign aides have shared concerns about Conway’s upcoming tell-all in particular. The ex-president’s loyal former counselor is expected to give a hold-no-punches account of her time in the White House and those she worked alongside. Conway herself sat down with Trump for her book at Mar-a-Lago.
Every end to a presidency leads to a sprint by the reporters who covered it to tell the definitive history in the form of a retrospective book. But the rush of work related to Trump seems like an avalanche compared to past administrations. In the past four years, there have been more than a thousand unique titles about Trump, according to an analysis shared with The New York Times by NPD BookScan in August 2020. But the most high-profile White House reporters are expected to release their own offerings in the coming year. Already, books about Trump released this week have soared to the top of bestseller lists.
The sheer saturation has forced the authors to release a steady stream of scooplets from their books in advance of publication. And though the Trump White House was known, in real time, for its leaks, the post-mortems have exposed infighting that was previously unknown.
“I know that there are still a lot of major excerpts that will come out in the future,” said a former senior administration official who participated in multiple book interviews. “The most interesting thing to me is how much the big scoops actually hold until publication.”
Eager to put his own positive spin on the books, Trump agreed to sit down with a parade of reporters at Mar-a-Lago. That included interviews with Bender, author Michael Wolff, ABC News’ Jonathan Karl, Pulitzer Prize winning Washington Post journalists Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker, The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman, and Jeremy Peters, among others.
According to an adviser, Trump, who is sensitive to how history will remember him, “said that I think if you can improve the book 3, 5, 10 percent [by participating], that matters.” But the publications have, instead, further muddied his reemergence on the political scene. After months of keeping a relatively low profile, the former president has hit the trail and done news interviews with friendly outlets in which he not only continued to falsely claim the election was stolen from him, but praised the insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol at his encouragement on Jan. 6.
Those who know Trump suspect that he is content to be at the center of conversation, no matter how unflattering the conversation may be, under the mantra that all press is good press.
“He thinks that, ‘Oh, they’re talking about me, me, me,’” said an adviser.
And yet, if Trump is happy with the new books about him, he hasn’t always shown it. In a statement released last week, the former president said sitting down with the authors was a “total waste of time” and insisted that “so many” of the stories were “pure fiction.”
He’s not the only one who has been displeased with the final product. Wolff’s book, “Landslide: The Final Days of the Trump Presidency,” set off fireworks after it revealed that Republican National Committee chief counsel Justin Riemer said Rudy Giuliani and Trump’s former campaign attorney Jenna Ellis election fraud arguments were a “joke.”
Since then, Ellis has demanded that RNC chair Ronna McDaniel resign and declared she is quitting the Republican Party for not doing enough to support Trump’s attempts to overturn the election results.
“It’s not surprising that some Republicans are too spineless to stand for the truth,” Ellis told POLITICO. “I don’t care what they think. Anyone siding with Ronna is simply outing themselves as the self-serving politicians that have continued to undermine Trump and America for years.”
...
Trump rages over post-presidential books he did interviews for
The avalanche of coming books has caused recriminations. And there is anxiety about what’s to come.
He knew it was coming. But former President Donald Trump still was not pleased.
He had read a new book excerpt—one of many about his presidency in the last few weeks—that described him telling his former chief of staff John Kelly that Hitler, for all his horrors, “did a lot of good things.”
The account came from Michael Bender’s work, “Frankly, We Did Win This Election: The Inside Story of How Trump Lost.” And for weeks, the former president had anxiously anticipated it surfacing. When Bender first approached him about it in the spring, Trump, through a spokesperson, told the Wall Street Journal reporter the anecdote was “defamatory.” Bender said he interpreted it as a legal threat; but like many such threats from Trump, nothing came of it.
Now it was in print. Reading the line for the first time, Trump denied it before engaging in speculation about the story’s origins. “But that doesn’t mean John Kelly didn’t tell Mike Bender that,” he said, according to an adviser. “That doesn’t mean other people didn’t say it.”
The guessing game that Bender’s book sparked added to the schisms and points of tensions that have erupted in Trump’s orbit in recent weeks. As the deluge of Trump-related books has hit the shelves, the already tenuous alliances that bind aides and associates of the former president have been strained further. Ex-aides have publicly attacked one-time allies while others have sought distance from a presidency they once dutifully served.
Fear is mounting, too, about the tea-spilling to come. In particular, Trump officials are anxiously awaiting the books set to be published by actual colleagues, chief among them counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway and Jared Kushner, who plan to write their own accounts of the Trump presidency.
“I think it’s fraught right now as to who is telling the truth,” said a Trump adviser. “They’re all trying to go back in time and curate their own images.”
Privately, former administration officials and top campaign aides have shared concerns about Conway’s upcoming tell-all in particular. The ex-president’s loyal former counselor is expected to give a hold-no-punches account of her time in the White House and those she worked alongside. Conway herself sat down with Trump for her book at Mar-a-Lago.
Every end to a presidency leads to a sprint by the reporters who covered it to tell the definitive history in the form of a retrospective book. But the rush of work related to Trump seems like an avalanche compared to past administrations. In the past four years, there have been more than a thousand unique titles about Trump, according to an analysis shared with The New York Times by NPD BookScan in August 2020. But the most high-profile White House reporters are expected to release their own offerings in the coming year. Already, books about Trump released this week have soared to the top of bestseller lists.
The sheer saturation has forced the authors to release a steady stream of scooplets from their books in advance of publication. And though the Trump White House was known, in real time, for its leaks, the post-mortems have exposed infighting that was previously unknown.
“I know that there are still a lot of major excerpts that will come out in the future,” said a former senior administration official who participated in multiple book interviews. “The most interesting thing to me is how much the big scoops actually hold until publication.”
Eager to put his own positive spin on the books, Trump agreed to sit down with a parade of reporters at Mar-a-Lago. That included interviews with Bender, author Michael Wolff, ABC News’ Jonathan Karl, Pulitzer Prize winning Washington Post journalists Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker, The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman, and Jeremy Peters, among others.
According to an adviser, Trump, who is sensitive to how history will remember him, “said that I think if you can improve the book 3, 5, 10 percent [by participating], that matters.” But the publications have, instead, further muddied his reemergence on the political scene. After months of keeping a relatively low profile, the former president has hit the trail and done news interviews with friendly outlets in which he not only continued to falsely claim the election was stolen from him, but praised the insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol at his encouragement on Jan. 6.
Those who know Trump suspect that he is content to be at the center of conversation, no matter how unflattering the conversation may be, under the mantra that all press is good press.
“He thinks that, ‘Oh, they’re talking about me, me, me,’” said an adviser.
And yet, if Trump is happy with the new books about him, he hasn’t always shown it. In a statement released last week, the former president said sitting down with the authors was a “total waste of time” and insisted that “so many” of the stories were “pure fiction.”
He’s not the only one who has been displeased with the final product. Wolff’s book, “Landslide: The Final Days of the Trump Presidency,” set off fireworks after it revealed that Republican National Committee chief counsel Justin Riemer said Rudy Giuliani and Trump’s former campaign attorney Jenna Ellis election fraud arguments were a “joke.”
Since then, Ellis has demanded that RNC chair Ronna McDaniel resign and declared she is quitting the Republican Party for not doing enough to support Trump’s attempts to overturn the election results.
“It’s not surprising that some Republicans are too spineless to stand for the truth,” Ellis told POLITICO. “I don’t care what they think. Anyone siding with Ronna is simply outing themselves as the self-serving politicians that have continued to undermine Trump and America for years.”
...
DIY-HP-LED
Well-Known Member
Whodunit? Trump. New Books Dig Into the Crimes We All Saw Him Commit. (thedailybeast.com)
Whodunit? Trump. New Books Dig Into the Crimes We All Saw Him Commit.
YEAR FOR THE BOOKS
As if living through 2020 wasn't enough, now we have to read about it. Seriously, though, some of these books about Trump and the pandemic are actually worth the pain.
The thing about these yuge Trump books dropping now is that, unlike the ones that appeared in 2017, they’re not only re-telling a story we just lived through, but one that was widely understood as it happened as a chronicle of an inept and overwhelmed administration. In Trump’s final year, there were fewer and fewer alleged “adults in the room” to watch over a crew of climbers and toadies more or less making it up as they went along in service of an emotionally mercurial, morally crass, and intellectually limited president—who, despite all that, lost narrowly enough, in his mind at least, to deny that reality and could easily have not lost at all if events had played out a little differently.
These accounts will be valuable to historians, but tearing through these books right now feels an awful lot like binge-watching a show that you’d just finished binge watching.
And a show is certainly how Trump saw it. At the end of Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker’s thorough and well-framed new book, I Alone Can Fix It, which The Daily Beast obtained ahead of its release next week, Trump sits down with the authors for an exit interview of sorts while holding court at Mar-a-Lago—which, as it happens, is the same way that Michael Wolff closes his sometimes overlapping (presumably in part because their sources overlap) and much thinner account of the same events, Landslide.
In his I Alone exit interview, the 45th president goes from trashing Doctors Anthony Fauci (“a highly overrated person”) and Deborah Birx (“A real diva with the scarves and shit”) to boasting that “You have people that have never been stars before and all of a sudden The Washington Post is calling, New York Times is calling. CNN would love to have lunch with you. You are a regular person” who wouldn’t be getting these calls in the Carter or Bush administration, he continues, but “With Trump, everybody becomes a star. I’m the greatest star-maker in history.”
...
Whodunit? Trump. New Books Dig Into the Crimes We All Saw Him Commit.
YEAR FOR THE BOOKS
As if living through 2020 wasn't enough, now we have to read about it. Seriously, though, some of these books about Trump and the pandemic are actually worth the pain.
The thing about these yuge Trump books dropping now is that, unlike the ones that appeared in 2017, they’re not only re-telling a story we just lived through, but one that was widely understood as it happened as a chronicle of an inept and overwhelmed administration. In Trump’s final year, there were fewer and fewer alleged “adults in the room” to watch over a crew of climbers and toadies more or less making it up as they went along in service of an emotionally mercurial, morally crass, and intellectually limited president—who, despite all that, lost narrowly enough, in his mind at least, to deny that reality and could easily have not lost at all if events had played out a little differently.
These accounts will be valuable to historians, but tearing through these books right now feels an awful lot like binge-watching a show that you’d just finished binge watching.
And a show is certainly how Trump saw it. At the end of Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker’s thorough and well-framed new book, I Alone Can Fix It, which The Daily Beast obtained ahead of its release next week, Trump sits down with the authors for an exit interview of sorts while holding court at Mar-a-Lago—which, as it happens, is the same way that Michael Wolff closes his sometimes overlapping (presumably in part because their sources overlap) and much thinner account of the same events, Landslide.
In his I Alone exit interview, the 45th president goes from trashing Doctors Anthony Fauci (“a highly overrated person”) and Deborah Birx (“A real diva with the scarves and shit”) to boasting that “You have people that have never been stars before and all of a sudden The Washington Post is calling, New York Times is calling. CNN would love to have lunch with you. You are a regular person” who wouldn’t be getting these calls in the Carter or Bush administration, he continues, but “With Trump, everybody becomes a star. I’m the greatest star-maker in history.”
...
DIY-HP-LED
Well-Known Member
Kremlin Leak Appears to Confirm Existence of Trump ‘Kompromat’ (thedailybeast.com)
Kremlin Leak Appears to Confirm Existence of Trump ‘Kompromat’
‘CERTAIN EVENTS’
A document believed to be from the Kremlin cryptically refers to “certain events” that happened during Trump’s “non-official visits to Russian Federation territory.”
For years, there have been whispers that the Russian government holds compromising materials on Donald Trump. Now, an alleged leak from the heart of the Kremlin appears to show them boasting about kompromat.
The supposed leak obtained by The Guardian reportedly states that President Vladimir Putin personally approved a nefarious plan to throw Russia’s support behind Trump’s 2016 campaign. The document states that Putin, his spy chiefs, and top ministers agreed that a victory for a “mentally unstable” Trump would permanently weaken the United States.
The document also reportedly states that the Kremlin has so-called kompromat on Trump. It cryptically refers to “certain events” that happened during “non-official visits to Russian Federation territory.” The purported leak doesn’t explain what those events involved—only referring to an appendix that wasn’t attached the obtained document.
Trump is known to have visited Moscow on multiple occasions in the decades before he was elected as president. One memorable section of the Steele dossier threw up some extraordinary but unsubstantiated claims about the former president and some Russian prostitutes in a Moscow hotel room when he jetted into Russia for the 2013 Miss Universe pageant.
The document allegedly offers more detail on what Kremlin leaders thought of Trump before he became president and why they wanted him to win. It reportedly describes the future president as an “impulsive, mentally unstable and unbalanced individual who suffers from an inferiority complex,” and, therefore, the “most promising candidate.”
The Guardian reports that the papers—which appear to be signed off on by Putin himself—state that a Kremlin plan to back Trump was agreed at a meeting of the national security council on Jan. 22, 2016. It reportedly recommends that the Kremlin uses “all possible force” to push Trump to victory and help him sow “social turmoil” in the United States.
The document reportedly predicts that a Trump win “will definitely lead to the destabilization of the U.S.’s sociopolitical system,” and a “social explosion.” The papers threaten to insert “media viruses” into American systems to help exacerbate the chaos of a Trump presidency.
Months after the January 2016 meeting, Russian hackers broke into the servers of the Democratic National Committee and released thousands of private emails in an attempt to damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign. According to The Guardian, Clinton isn’t mentioned in the Kremlin papers.
When contacted by The Guardian, Putin’s spokesman Dmitri Peskov described the supposed leaked papers as “a great pulp fiction.”
Kremlin Leak Appears to Confirm Existence of Trump ‘Kompromat’
‘CERTAIN EVENTS’
A document believed to be from the Kremlin cryptically refers to “certain events” that happened during Trump’s “non-official visits to Russian Federation territory.”
For years, there have been whispers that the Russian government holds compromising materials on Donald Trump. Now, an alleged leak from the heart of the Kremlin appears to show them boasting about kompromat.
The supposed leak obtained by The Guardian reportedly states that President Vladimir Putin personally approved a nefarious plan to throw Russia’s support behind Trump’s 2016 campaign. The document states that Putin, his spy chiefs, and top ministers agreed that a victory for a “mentally unstable” Trump would permanently weaken the United States.
The document also reportedly states that the Kremlin has so-called kompromat on Trump. It cryptically refers to “certain events” that happened during “non-official visits to Russian Federation territory.” The purported leak doesn’t explain what those events involved—only referring to an appendix that wasn’t attached the obtained document.
Trump is known to have visited Moscow on multiple occasions in the decades before he was elected as president. One memorable section of the Steele dossier threw up some extraordinary but unsubstantiated claims about the former president and some Russian prostitutes in a Moscow hotel room when he jetted into Russia for the 2013 Miss Universe pageant.
The document allegedly offers more detail on what Kremlin leaders thought of Trump before he became president and why they wanted him to win. It reportedly describes the future president as an “impulsive, mentally unstable and unbalanced individual who suffers from an inferiority complex,” and, therefore, the “most promising candidate.”
The Guardian reports that the papers—which appear to be signed off on by Putin himself—state that a Kremlin plan to back Trump was agreed at a meeting of the national security council on Jan. 22, 2016. It reportedly recommends that the Kremlin uses “all possible force” to push Trump to victory and help him sow “social turmoil” in the United States.
The document reportedly predicts that a Trump win “will definitely lead to the destabilization of the U.S.’s sociopolitical system,” and a “social explosion.” The papers threaten to insert “media viruses” into American systems to help exacerbate the chaos of a Trump presidency.
Months after the January 2016 meeting, Russian hackers broke into the servers of the Democratic National Committee and released thousands of private emails in an attempt to damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign. According to The Guardian, Clinton isn’t mentioned in the Kremlin papers.
When contacted by The Guardian, Putin’s spokesman Dmitri Peskov described the supposed leaked papers as “a great pulp fiction.”
DIY-HP-LED
Well-Known Member
Kremlin papers appear to show Putin’s plot to put Trump in White House | Vladimir Putin | The Guardian
Kremlin papers appear to show Putin’s plot to put Trump in White House
Exclusive: Documents suggest Russia launched secret multi-agency effort to interfere in US democracy
Vladimir Putin personally authorised a secret spy agency operation to support a “mentally unstable” Donald Trump in the 2016 US presidential election during a closed session of Russia’s national security council, according to what are assessed to be leaked Kremlin documents.
The key meeting took place on 22 January 2016, the papers suggest, with the Russian president, his spy chiefs and senior ministers all present.
They agreed a Trump White House would help secure Moscow’s strategic objectives, among them “social turmoil” in the US and a weakening of the American president’s negotiating position.
Russia’s three spy agencies were ordered to find practical ways to support Trump, in a decree appearing to bear Putin’s signature.
By this point Trump was the frontrunner in the Republican party’s nomination race. A report prepared by Putin’s expert department recommended Moscow use “all possible force” to ensure a Trump victory.
Western intelligence agencies are understood to have been aware of the documents for some months and to have carefully examined them. The papers, seen by the Guardian, seem to represent a serious and highly unusual leak from within the Kremlin.
The Guardian has shown the documents to independent experts who say they appear to be genuine. Incidental details come across as accurate. The overall tone and thrust is said to be consistent with Kremlin security thinking.
The Kremlin responded dismissively. Putin’s spokesman Dmitri Peskov said the idea that Russian leaders had met and agreed to support Trump in at the meeting in early 2016 was “a great pulp fiction” when contacted by the Guardian on Thursday morning.
The report – “No 32-04 \ vd” – is classified as secret. It says Trump is the “most promising candidate” from the Kremlin’s point of view. The word in Russian is perspektivny.
There is a brief psychological assessment of Trump, who is described as an “impulsive, mentally unstable and unbalanced individual who suffers from an inferiority complex”.
There is also apparent confirmation that the Kremlin possesses kompromat, or potentially compromising material, on the future president, collected – the document says – from Trump’s earlier “non-official visits to Russian Federation territory”.
The paper refers to “certain events” that happened during Trump’s trips to Moscow. Security council members are invited to find details in appendix five, at paragraph five, the document states. It is unclear what the appendix contains.
“It is acutely necessary to use all possible force to facilitate his [Trump’s] election to the post of US president,” the paper says.
This would help bring about Russia’s favoured “theoretical political scenario”. A Trump win “will definitely lead to the destabilisation of the US’s sociopolitical system” and see hidden discontent burst into the open, it predicts.
The Kremlin summit
There is no doubt that the meeting in January 2016 took place – and that it was convened inside the Kremlin.
Also present were Sergei Shoigu, the defence minister in charge of the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency; Mikhail Fradkov, the then chief of Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service; and Alexander Bortnikov, the boss of the FSB spy agency.Nikolai Patrushev, the FSB’s former director, attended too as security council secretary.
According to a press release, the discussion covered the economy and Moldova.
The document seen by the Guardian suggests the security council’s real, covert purpose was to discuss the confidential proposals drawn up by the president’s analytical service in response to US sanctions against Moscow.
The author appears to be Vladimir Symonenko, the senior official in charge of the Kremlin’s expert department – which provides Putin with analytical material and reports, some of them based on foreign intelligence.
The papers indicate that on 14 January 2016 Symonenko circulated a three-page executive summary of his team’s conclusions and recommendations.
In a signed order two days later, Putin instructed the then chief of his foreign policy directorate, Alexander Manzhosin, to convene a closed briefing of the national security council.
Its purpose was to further study the document, the order says. Manzhosin was given a deadline of five days to make arrangements.
What was said inside the second-floor Kremlin senate building room is unknown. But the president and his intelligence officials appear to have signed off on a multi-agency plan to interfere in US democracy, framed in terms of justified self-defence.
Various measures are cited that the Kremlin might adopt in response to what it sees as hostile acts from Washington. The paper lays out several American weaknesses. These include a “deepening political gulf between left and right”, the US’s “media-information” space, and an anti-establishment mood under President Barack Obama.
more...
Kremlin papers appear to show Putin’s plot to put Trump in White House
Exclusive: Documents suggest Russia launched secret multi-agency effort to interfere in US democracy
Vladimir Putin personally authorised a secret spy agency operation to support a “mentally unstable” Donald Trump in the 2016 US presidential election during a closed session of Russia’s national security council, according to what are assessed to be leaked Kremlin documents.
The key meeting took place on 22 January 2016, the papers suggest, with the Russian president, his spy chiefs and senior ministers all present.
They agreed a Trump White House would help secure Moscow’s strategic objectives, among them “social turmoil” in the US and a weakening of the American president’s negotiating position.
Russia’s three spy agencies were ordered to find practical ways to support Trump, in a decree appearing to bear Putin’s signature.
By this point Trump was the frontrunner in the Republican party’s nomination race. A report prepared by Putin’s expert department recommended Moscow use “all possible force” to ensure a Trump victory.
Western intelligence agencies are understood to have been aware of the documents for some months and to have carefully examined them. The papers, seen by the Guardian, seem to represent a serious and highly unusual leak from within the Kremlin.
The Guardian has shown the documents to independent experts who say they appear to be genuine. Incidental details come across as accurate. The overall tone and thrust is said to be consistent with Kremlin security thinking.
The Kremlin responded dismissively. Putin’s spokesman Dmitri Peskov said the idea that Russian leaders had met and agreed to support Trump in at the meeting in early 2016 was “a great pulp fiction” when contacted by the Guardian on Thursday morning.
The report – “No 32-04 \ vd” – is classified as secret. It says Trump is the “most promising candidate” from the Kremlin’s point of view. The word in Russian is perspektivny.
There is a brief psychological assessment of Trump, who is described as an “impulsive, mentally unstable and unbalanced individual who suffers from an inferiority complex”.
There is also apparent confirmation that the Kremlin possesses kompromat, or potentially compromising material, on the future president, collected – the document says – from Trump’s earlier “non-official visits to Russian Federation territory”.
The paper refers to “certain events” that happened during Trump’s trips to Moscow. Security council members are invited to find details in appendix five, at paragraph five, the document states. It is unclear what the appendix contains.
“It is acutely necessary to use all possible force to facilitate his [Trump’s] election to the post of US president,” the paper says.
This would help bring about Russia’s favoured “theoretical political scenario”. A Trump win “will definitely lead to the destabilisation of the US’s sociopolitical system” and see hidden discontent burst into the open, it predicts.
The Kremlin summit
There is no doubt that the meeting in January 2016 took place – and that it was convened inside the Kremlin.
Also present were Sergei Shoigu, the defence minister in charge of the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency; Mikhail Fradkov, the then chief of Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service; and Alexander Bortnikov, the boss of the FSB spy agency.Nikolai Patrushev, the FSB’s former director, attended too as security council secretary.
According to a press release, the discussion covered the economy and Moldova.
The document seen by the Guardian suggests the security council’s real, covert purpose was to discuss the confidential proposals drawn up by the president’s analytical service in response to US sanctions against Moscow.
The author appears to be Vladimir Symonenko, the senior official in charge of the Kremlin’s expert department – which provides Putin with analytical material and reports, some of them based on foreign intelligence.
The papers indicate that on 14 January 2016 Symonenko circulated a three-page executive summary of his team’s conclusions and recommendations.
In a signed order two days later, Putin instructed the then chief of his foreign policy directorate, Alexander Manzhosin, to convene a closed briefing of the national security council.
Its purpose was to further study the document, the order says. Manzhosin was given a deadline of five days to make arrangements.
What was said inside the second-floor Kremlin senate building room is unknown. But the president and his intelligence officials appear to have signed off on a multi-agency plan to interfere in US democracy, framed in terms of justified self-defence.
Various measures are cited that the Kremlin might adopt in response to what it sees as hostile acts from Washington. The paper lays out several American weaknesses. These include a “deepening political gulf between left and right”, the US’s “media-information” space, and an anti-establishment mood under President Barack Obama.
more...
captainmorgan
Well-Known Member
Putin is putting out false info to muddy the waters, research what you post.
DIY-HP-LED
Well-Known Member
It doesn't make Putin look too good! From the beast and the Guardian, so the sources are OK, it's a fresh story so we'll see who else picks it up.
DIY-HP-LED
Well-Known Member
Not just Americans are fighting this cyber war, your NATO allies are in it too and some of them have awesome capabilities. This could have been leaked by any one of several NATO intelligence agencies, you can bet the NSA and CIA have it and more. I'm pretty sure while Trump was president, he was monitored and bugged by some of your NATO allies, some of his in person or phone conversations with Vlad were recorded by more than the Russians. Most western intelligence professionals think Trump is compromised and is a puppet of Putin.
This story is only an hour old and single sourced so far (The Guardian), but it looks like it has legs, if the documents are legit. If it's credible, other sources will pick it up and embellish it while confirming it.
captainmorgan
Well-Known Member
Just saying don't trust anything that can't be verified from a second source, Putins propaganda will be a mix of truth,half truth and lies me designed to divide and confuse, don't trust leaks out of Russia no matter who is reporting on them.
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printer
Well-Known Member
Trump says Gen. Milley 'last person' he'd want to start a coup with
Former President Trump in a statement Thursday denied that he ever threatened or spoke about taking part in a government coup after his election loss, adding that Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley would be one of the last people he'd ask to take part in a coup if he were to do such a thing.
"I never threatened, or spoke about, to anyone, a coup of our Government," Trump said in a statement emailed to reporters that repeated his claims — disputed by courts and state officials from both parties across the country — that the election was stolen from him.
"So ridiculous! Sorry to inform you, but an Election is my form of 'coup,' and if I was going to do a coup, one of the last people I would want to do it with is General Mark Milley," Trump added.
"They may try, but they're not going to f------ succeed," Milley told his deputies while discussing the possibility of a coup, according to the book. "You can't do this without the military. You can't do this without the CIA and the FBI. We're the guys with the guns."
"He got his job only because the world’s most overrated general, James Mattis, could not stand him, had no respect for him, and would not recommend him," Trump said. "To me the fact that Mattis didn’t like him, just like Obama didn’t like him and actually fired Milley, was a good thing, not a bad thing. I often act counter to people's advice who I don’t respect."
In any event, I lost respect for Milley when we walked together to St. John’s Church (which was still smoldering from a Radical Left fire set the day before), side by side, a walk that has now been proven to be totally appropriate—and the following day Milley choked like a dog in front of the Fake News when they told him they thought he should not have been walking with the President, which turned out to be incorrect," Trump said.
"He apologized profusely, making it a big story, instead of saying I am proud to walk with and protect the President of the United States. Had he said that, it would have all been over, no big deal, but I saw at that moment he had no courage or skill, certainly not the type of person I would be talking “coup” with. I’m not into coups!"
thehill.com
Trump - "I have no respect for someone that does not do my wishes."
"And besides, it is not a coup if you have gotten more votes than any sitting president."
Former President Trump in a statement Thursday denied that he ever threatened or spoke about taking part in a government coup after his election loss, adding that Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley would be one of the last people he'd ask to take part in a coup if he were to do such a thing.
"I never threatened, or spoke about, to anyone, a coup of our Government," Trump said in a statement emailed to reporters that repeated his claims — disputed by courts and state officials from both parties across the country — that the election was stolen from him.
"So ridiculous! Sorry to inform you, but an Election is my form of 'coup,' and if I was going to do a coup, one of the last people I would want to do it with is General Mark Milley," Trump added.
"They may try, but they're not going to f------ succeed," Milley told his deputies while discussing the possibility of a coup, according to the book. "You can't do this without the military. You can't do this without the CIA and the FBI. We're the guys with the guns."
"He got his job only because the world’s most overrated general, James Mattis, could not stand him, had no respect for him, and would not recommend him," Trump said. "To me the fact that Mattis didn’t like him, just like Obama didn’t like him and actually fired Milley, was a good thing, not a bad thing. I often act counter to people's advice who I don’t respect."
In any event, I lost respect for Milley when we walked together to St. John’s Church (which was still smoldering from a Radical Left fire set the day before), side by side, a walk that has now been proven to be totally appropriate—and the following day Milley choked like a dog in front of the Fake News when they told him they thought he should not have been walking with the President, which turned out to be incorrect," Trump said.
"He apologized profusely, making it a big story, instead of saying I am proud to walk with and protect the President of the United States. Had he said that, it would have all been over, no big deal, but I saw at that moment he had no courage or skill, certainly not the type of person I would be talking “coup” with. I’m not into coups!"
Trump says Gen. Milley ‘last person’ he’d want to start a coup with
Former President Trump in a statement Thursday denied that he ever threatened or spoke about taking part in a government coup after his election loss, adding that Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. …
thehill.com
Trump - "I have no respect for someone that does not do my wishes."
"And besides, it is not a coup if you have gotten more votes than any sitting president."
DIY-HP-LED
Well-Known Member
Ivanka spent hours trying to persuade Trump to call off rioters, new book claims
Explosive revelations in an upcoming book obtained by CNN detail the final days of former President Donald Trump's term. According to excerpts of "I Alone Can Fix It," Ivanka Trump spent hours attempting to convince her father to call off the rioters behind the January 6 Capitol insurrection. CNN’s Victor Blackwell, Alisyn Camerota and Jamie Gangel discuss.
Explosive revelations in an upcoming book obtained by CNN detail the final days of former President Donald Trump's term. According to excerpts of "I Alone Can Fix It," Ivanka Trump spent hours attempting to convince her father to call off the rioters behind the January 6 Capitol insurrection. CNN’s Victor Blackwell, Alisyn Camerota and Jamie Gangel discuss.
DIY-HP-LED
Well-Known Member
Explosive Interview Directly Implicates Trump in Tax Scheme (yahoo.com)
Explosive Interview Directly Implicates Trump in Tax Scheme
A witness in the New York investigation against the Trump Organization has told prosecutors that Donald Trump personally guaranteed he would cover school costs for the family members of two employees in lieu of a raise—directly implicating the former president in an ongoing criminal tax fraud case.
The explosive claims come from Jennifer Weisselberg, the ex-wife of a longtime company employee, during a teleconference call with investigators on Friday, June 25, according to two sources who agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity.
On that afternoon's Zoom call, those sources said, investigators with the Manhattan district attorney and New York state attorney general asked Jennifer Weisselberg whether Trump himself was involved in the company’s alleged tax-dodging scheme of making corporate gifts instead of increasing salary that would be taxed.
He was, she answered.
Weisselberg then provided key details for investigators. In January 2012, inside Trump’s office at Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue, Jennifer Weisselberg watched as Trump discussed compensation with her husband and her father-in-law, both company employees. Her husband wouldn’t be getting a raise, but their children would get their tuition paid for at a top-rated private academy instead.
The Family Secrets Fueling the Trump Organization Indictment
Weisselberg allegedly relayed to prosecutors that Trump turned to her and said: "Don’t worry, I’ve got it covered.”
Prosecutors were astonished, according to one source.
The Daily Beast received descriptions of the call from two people familiar with the details of the call.
According to two sources, among the prosecutors on the call were Carey Dunne, the Manhattan DA’s general counsel; Mark F. Pomerantz, a white collar crime specialist brought on for this investigation; and Gary Fishman, an assistant attorney general deputized to work on this joint investigation.
If true, Jennifer Weisselberg’s claims would directly tie Trump to what a New York criminal indictment described as a corporate scheme to pay executives “in a matter that was ‘off the books.’”
“The scheme allowed the Trump Organization to evade the payment of payroll taxes that [it] was required to pay,” an indictment for the Trump Organization claims. On the flip side, it also alleges that executives avoided having to pay income taxes on a huge chunk of their pay.
This Case Against Trump’s Money Man Is a Slam Dunk
Neither the Manhattan DA nor the state AG would comment on this story. Jennifer Weisselberg declined as well.
The indictment, filed the very next week on June 30, does not criminally charge Trump as an individual, but it does describe how he signed checks that paid for the Weisselberg children to attend an expensive private school in Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
While longtime chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg could be crucial to a criminal case against Trump, it’s Jennifer Weisselberg—his former daughter-in-law—who’s thus far been more helpful.
...
Explosive Interview Directly Implicates Trump in Tax Scheme
A witness in the New York investigation against the Trump Organization has told prosecutors that Donald Trump personally guaranteed he would cover school costs for the family members of two employees in lieu of a raise—directly implicating the former president in an ongoing criminal tax fraud case.
The explosive claims come from Jennifer Weisselberg, the ex-wife of a longtime company employee, during a teleconference call with investigators on Friday, June 25, according to two sources who agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity.
On that afternoon's Zoom call, those sources said, investigators with the Manhattan district attorney and New York state attorney general asked Jennifer Weisselberg whether Trump himself was involved in the company’s alleged tax-dodging scheme of making corporate gifts instead of increasing salary that would be taxed.
He was, she answered.
Weisselberg then provided key details for investigators. In January 2012, inside Trump’s office at Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue, Jennifer Weisselberg watched as Trump discussed compensation with her husband and her father-in-law, both company employees. Her husband wouldn’t be getting a raise, but their children would get their tuition paid for at a top-rated private academy instead.
The Family Secrets Fueling the Trump Organization Indictment
Weisselberg allegedly relayed to prosecutors that Trump turned to her and said: "Don’t worry, I’ve got it covered.”
Prosecutors were astonished, according to one source.
The Daily Beast received descriptions of the call from two people familiar with the details of the call.
According to two sources, among the prosecutors on the call were Carey Dunne, the Manhattan DA’s general counsel; Mark F. Pomerantz, a white collar crime specialist brought on for this investigation; and Gary Fishman, an assistant attorney general deputized to work on this joint investigation.
If true, Jennifer Weisselberg’s claims would directly tie Trump to what a New York criminal indictment described as a corporate scheme to pay executives “in a matter that was ‘off the books.’”
“The scheme allowed the Trump Organization to evade the payment of payroll taxes that [it] was required to pay,” an indictment for the Trump Organization claims. On the flip side, it also alleges that executives avoided having to pay income taxes on a huge chunk of their pay.
This Case Against Trump’s Money Man Is a Slam Dunk
Neither the Manhattan DA nor the state AG would comment on this story. Jennifer Weisselberg declined as well.
The indictment, filed the very next week on June 30, does not criminally charge Trump as an individual, but it does describe how he signed checks that paid for the Weisselberg children to attend an expensive private school in Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
While longtime chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg could be crucial to a criminal case against Trump, it’s Jennifer Weisselberg—his former daughter-in-law—who’s thus far been more helpful.
...
hanimmal
Well-Known Member
What are the odds some deans at some prestigious schools are going to be questioned soon.
I bet this kind of trading goes on a lot in those 'high society' circles.
Shit, those guys might end up paying enough money to the government in back taxes and fines to pay for a whole lot of schools in areas that are in desperate need.
Trump is the gift that keeps on giving if it works out and he and everyone else doing these things get exposed by his stupidity (the conmen using the racist/evangelicals/propaganda to fleece their marks), otherwise it's no worse than it was in the 80's. Except this time enough of our citizens are (mostly) aware of what is happening that the Wealthy Melanin-lite Heterosexual Male Only agenda is only going to lose support as people realize they are getting lied to. It is in everyone's best interest to have 100% of our population operating at their fullest potential to do the work we need to do after the last few hundred years of burning everything we can to dominate the planet.
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printer
Well-Known Member
Trump says Milley should be court-martialed 'if he said what was reported'
Trump has been defending himself from an excerpt in the book "I Alone Can Fix It," by Washington Post reporters Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker, that says Milley believed Trump would try to stay in power through a coup in the last days of his presidency.
“The writings within these third-rate books are Fake News, and 'General' Milley (who [former Defense Secretary James] Mattis wanted to send to Europe in order to get rid of him), if he said what was reported, perhaps should be impeached, or court-martialed and tried,” Trump said in a statement on Friday.
“So, there was no talk of a coup, there was no coup, it all never happened, and it’s just a waste of words by fake writers and a General who didn’t have a clue,” Trump added.
“Never once did I have a discussion with him about bringing in the Military, or a 'coup,' which makes sense, because I lost total confidence in him and the way he handled himself on our little walk to the church,” Trump said, apparently referring to Trump's 2020 photo op in Lafayette Square, which Mattis criticized.
thehill.com
Trump has been defending himself from an excerpt in the book "I Alone Can Fix It," by Washington Post reporters Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker, that says Milley believed Trump would try to stay in power through a coup in the last days of his presidency.
“The writings within these third-rate books are Fake News, and 'General' Milley (who [former Defense Secretary James] Mattis wanted to send to Europe in order to get rid of him), if he said what was reported, perhaps should be impeached, or court-martialed and tried,” Trump said in a statement on Friday.
“So, there was no talk of a coup, there was no coup, it all never happened, and it’s just a waste of words by fake writers and a General who didn’t have a clue,” Trump added.
“Never once did I have a discussion with him about bringing in the Military, or a 'coup,' which makes sense, because I lost total confidence in him and the way he handled himself on our little walk to the church,” Trump said, apparently referring to Trump's 2020 photo op in Lafayette Square, which Mattis criticized.
Trump says Milley should be court-martialed ‘if he said what was reported’
Former President Trump said Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley should be court-martialed if it’s true that, as reported, Milley thought Trump would orchestrate a coup…
thehill.com
hanimmal
Well-Known Member
Trump says Milley should be court-martialed 'if he said what was reported'
Trump has been defending himself from an excerpt in the book "I Alone Can Fix It," by Washington Post reporters Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker, that says Milley believed Trump would try to stay in power through a coup in the last days of his presidency.
“The writings within these third-rate books are Fake News, and 'General' Milley (who [former Defense Secretary James] Mattis wanted to send to Europe in order to get rid of him), if he said what was reported, perhaps should be impeached, or court-martialed and tried,” Trump said in a statement on Friday.
“So, there was no talk of a coup, there was no coup, it all never happened, and it’s just a waste of words by fake writers and a General who didn’t have a clue,” Trump added.
“Never once did I have a discussion with him about bringing in the Military, or a 'coup,' which makes sense, because I lost total confidence in him and the way he handled himself on our little walk to the church,” Trump said, apparently referring to Trump's 2020 photo op in Lafayette Square, which Mattis criticized.
Trump says Milley should be court-martialed ‘if he said what was reported’
Former President Trump said Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley should be court-martialed if it’s true that, as reported, Milley thought Trump would orchestrate a coup…
Fogdog
Well-Known Member
"We love you go home in peace"
"It was Antifa"
Trump loves Antifa. He should have said so earlier.
printer
Well-Known Member
Trump administration removes senior defense officials and installs loyalists, triggering alarm at Pentagon
The Trump administration has carried out sweeping changes atop the Defense Department's civilian leadership structure, removing several of its most senior officials and replacing them with perceived loyalists to the President.
The flurry of changes, announced by the Department of Defense in a statement roughly 24 hours after President Donald Trump fired Defense Secretary Mark Esper, has put officials inside the Pentagon on edge and fueled a growing sense of alarm among military and civilian officials, who are concerned about what could come next.
Four senior civilian officials have been fired or have resigned since Monday, including Esper, his chief of staff and the top officials overseeing policy and intelligence. They were replaced by perceived Trump loyalists, including a controversial figure who promoted fringe conspiracy theories and called former President Barack Obama a terrorist.
A senior defense official told CNN late Tuesday that "it appears we are done with the beheadings for now," referring to the wave of ousted civilian leaders, including Esper.
Among those who assumed new roles at the Department of Defense was controversial retired Brig. Gen. Anthony Tata, who moved into the Pentagon's top policy role, taking over the duties of James Anderson, who resigned Tuesday, according to another US defense official.
Tata had been nominated to be under secretary of defense for policy this summer but his nomination was withdrawn because of bipartisan opposition.
Anderson had been serving as the acting under secretary of defense for policy since John Rood was fired by the Trump administration in February due to disagreements on a range of policy issues.
"It is hard to overstate just how dangerous high-level turnover at the Department of Defense is during a period of presidential transition. The top policy professional in the Department resigning the day after the Secretary of Defense was fired could mark the beginning of a process of gutting the DoD -- something that should alarm all Americans," House Armed Services Chairman Adam Smith, a Democrat from Washington state, said in a statement Tuesday.
Retired Navy Vice Adm. Joseph Kernan, the under secretary of defense for intelligence, also left his position, according to another defense official. It was not immediately clear if Kernan had resigned or was fired, but his departure has been accelerated.
Kash Patel will be the chief of staff to Miller, according to an administration official and a US defense official. Patel, who most recently served as senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council, is a controversial figure who previously worked under Republican Rep. Devin Nunes of California on the House Intelligence Committee.
Ezra Cohen-Watnick was also named to a new post and will be the acting under secretary of defense for intelligence and security, according to the Pentagon, replacing Kernan.
Cohen-Watnick gained notoriety in March 2017 for his alleged involvement in providing intelligence materials to then-House Intelligence Chairman Nunes, who went on to claim that US intelligence officials improperly surveilled Trump associates.
Multiple civilian and military officials working inside the Pentagon are raising the question of whether the departure of Esper and other officials will now clear the way for Trump in his final weeks in office to potentially again call for initiatives he wants to pursue that the Pentagon opposes.
One would be again raising the specter of using active duty forces under the Insurrection Act against any future protests.
www.cnn.com
Yeah, "Nothing to see here. Our men being put in key places before the Biden administration is to take over is nothing. Move along."
The Trump administration has carried out sweeping changes atop the Defense Department's civilian leadership structure, removing several of its most senior officials and replacing them with perceived loyalists to the President.
The flurry of changes, announced by the Department of Defense in a statement roughly 24 hours after President Donald Trump fired Defense Secretary Mark Esper, has put officials inside the Pentagon on edge and fueled a growing sense of alarm among military and civilian officials, who are concerned about what could come next.
Four senior civilian officials have been fired or have resigned since Monday, including Esper, his chief of staff and the top officials overseeing policy and intelligence. They were replaced by perceived Trump loyalists, including a controversial figure who promoted fringe conspiracy theories and called former President Barack Obama a terrorist.
A senior defense official told CNN late Tuesday that "it appears we are done with the beheadings for now," referring to the wave of ousted civilian leaders, including Esper.
Among those who assumed new roles at the Department of Defense was controversial retired Brig. Gen. Anthony Tata, who moved into the Pentagon's top policy role, taking over the duties of James Anderson, who resigned Tuesday, according to another US defense official.
Tata had been nominated to be under secretary of defense for policy this summer but his nomination was withdrawn because of bipartisan opposition.
Anderson had been serving as the acting under secretary of defense for policy since John Rood was fired by the Trump administration in February due to disagreements on a range of policy issues.
"It is hard to overstate just how dangerous high-level turnover at the Department of Defense is during a period of presidential transition. The top policy professional in the Department resigning the day after the Secretary of Defense was fired could mark the beginning of a process of gutting the DoD -- something that should alarm all Americans," House Armed Services Chairman Adam Smith, a Democrat from Washington state, said in a statement Tuesday.
Retired Navy Vice Adm. Joseph Kernan, the under secretary of defense for intelligence, also left his position, according to another defense official. It was not immediately clear if Kernan had resigned or was fired, but his departure has been accelerated.
Kash Patel will be the chief of staff to Miller, according to an administration official and a US defense official. Patel, who most recently served as senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council, is a controversial figure who previously worked under Republican Rep. Devin Nunes of California on the House Intelligence Committee.
Ezra Cohen-Watnick was also named to a new post and will be the acting under secretary of defense for intelligence and security, according to the Pentagon, replacing Kernan.
Cohen-Watnick gained notoriety in March 2017 for his alleged involvement in providing intelligence materials to then-House Intelligence Chairman Nunes, who went on to claim that US intelligence officials improperly surveilled Trump associates.
Multiple civilian and military officials working inside the Pentagon are raising the question of whether the departure of Esper and other officials will now clear the way for Trump in his final weeks in office to potentially again call for initiatives he wants to pursue that the Pentagon opposes.
One would be again raising the specter of using active duty forces under the Insurrection Act against any future protests.
Trump administration removes senior defense officials and installs loyalists, triggering alarm at Pentagon
The Trump administration has carried out sweeping changes atop the Defense Department's civilian leadership structure, removing several of its most senior officials and replacing them with perceived loyalists to the President.
www.cnn.com
Yeah, "Nothing to see here. Our men being put in key places before the Biden administration is to take over is nothing. Move along."
DIY-HP-LED
Well-Known Member
Donald Trump Issues a Statement Saying "if I was going to do a coup" it Wouldn't be with Gen. Milley
The American people may have lost the capacity to be surprised by the absurd things that come out of Donald Trump's mouth. Yet, when a former president of the United States writes, "if I was going to do a coup, one of the last people I would want to do it with is General Mark Milley", it is shocking. This video discusses the implications of Trump's statement and how it helps frame our understanding of his continued pushing of The Big Lie.
The American people may have lost the capacity to be surprised by the absurd things that come out of Donald Trump's mouth. Yet, when a former president of the United States writes, "if I was going to do a coup, one of the last people I would want to do it with is General Mark Milley", it is shocking. This video discusses the implications of Trump's statement and how it helps frame our understanding of his continued pushing of The Big Lie.
topcat
Well-Known Member
He simply knows his audience and what they want to hear, capitalizing on hate and fear. Hell, his followers only wait for the end of a sentence to cheer, not even listening. He recently told them outright how he fools them by ripping off Joseph Goebbles' "repeat a lie" quote. Even Moscow Mitch tells his constituents "You all will be getting a lot more money. I didn't vote for it and nobody in my party voted for it, but you will all be getting a lot more money." The silence was deafening. I can picture them scratching their punkin' haids. "Did he say wut ah heard?"