August 23, 2018: Current state of the Union

It doesn't matter what crackpot theories the Right has about the investigation. It doesn't matter if some FBI agent's wife's cousin worked for the Clinton campaign. It doesn't matter if the Right likes the Steele Dossier or not, it exists and nothing in it has been proven incorrect. Mostly, it has proven to be accurate. Further, despite the claims of the Right, that isn't the sole reason there's been an investigation of Trump and the election.

Here are the undisputed facts:

Several people in Trump's campaign, and his lawyer, have turned state's evidence and told the Feds everything they know.

The Senate Intelligence Committee, which is majority Republican and chaired by a Republican, agrees that Russia attacked our election. Our security services (FBI, etc) are also unanimous on this point.

One or more Russians have given evidence of this, and one (Maria Butina) is in a jail somewhere.

The head of the National Enquirer has turned state's evidence because he doesn't want to do prison time for his role in throwing the election. This is related to the Cohen/payments to women story. There are now multiple women with the same story. I don't care about the extramarital affairs, and neither does the government. The crime is paying the women off to keep them from talking during the election.

Trump confessed on Fox News (broadcast this morning) to making at least one of these payoffs. This is a felony that he just confessed to. On national TV. And of course, Cohen, during his plea deal, specifically said "the candidate ordered me to make these payoffs". This is not some Democrat who worked on the Clinton campaign -- this is Cohen, Trump's "fixer". Trumps confession on live TV agrees with Cohen's statement before the judge.

So they're all going to jail. All of Trump's family (except Barron), and many other people who contributed to the stealing of the election.

Remember, there is real evidence. Testimony of multiple people (Cohen, National Enquirer guy, Michael Flynn, George Papadapolous, Maria Butina, etc. etc.), emails, and even videos (of Trump and Rudy confessing to various crimes on TV). Just because some of the people in the FBI are Democrats doesn't mean they're just creating this evidence out of thin air. The evidence is real, and there's an overwhelming amount of it.

Oh, and the Russians are everywhere in this. They're tied to the NRA, they're hacking the DNC's computers, they're hacking state election systems, they're having meetings with the Trump campaign before the election to get promises that the sanctions will be lifted, and they're "loaning" money to the Trump organization at a furious rate. The meeting at Trump Tower, where the Russians offered the hacked DNC emails, will be another source of felonies. I'm not even going to get into the constantly changing story on that meeting ("didn't happen" → "it was about adoption" → "Trump didn't know about it" → "Trump knew but it wasn't a crime").

Addendum: August 24 2018

To quote the Palmer Report, because they say it so succintly: Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg was granted immunity by federal prosecutors in exchange for his testimony before the Michael Cohen grand jury. . . .Weisselberg will have to . . . give up all of Donald Trump's . . . financial secrets.

Bill Dudley
New Jersey

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