June 1, 2019

Dem Rep. Dingell: I Don't Want to 'Play Into Russia's Hands' by Dividing the US More...

Dem Rep. Dingell: I Don’t Want to ‘Play Into Russia’s Hands’ by Dividing the US More With a ‘Partisan Impeachment’

By Josh FeldmanMay 31st, 2019, 5:46 pm

More Democrats are coming out in favor of impeachment, but Michigan Congresswoman Debbie Dingell is supporting Speaker Nancy Pelosi‘s approach and saying she doesn’t want the country torn apart.

On MSNBC this afternoon, Dingell spoke with Chuck Todd about President Donald Trump‘s tariff threat and what Robert Mueller‘s message to Congress was.

She said she wants to see Mueller testify and emphasized that she’s concerned about what his report revealed about Russia’s goals:



At one point Todd noted the big Democratic divide over impeachment and said, “The last time I feel like your party had this divide was over the Iraq War issue where a lot of people were thinking politically and what was good politics in the moment turned out to be bad politics five years later.”

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https://www.mediaite.com/trump/dem-rep-dingell-i-dont-want-to-play-into-russias-hands-by-dividing-the-us-more-with-a-partisan-impeachment/

June 1, 2019

Prosecutors refute Roger Stone's claim that Russia didn't hack DNC

By KYLE CHENEY 05/31/2019 06:14 PM EDT

Federal prosecutors directly refuted for the first time Friday out-of-the-mainstream arguments lodged by Roger Stone, a longtime confidant of President Donald Trump, that Russia may not have been responsible for the 2016 hack of the Democratic National Committee.

Stone, fighting charges that he obstructed the House's Russia probe, argued in a filing earlier this month that FBI investigators relied on a private firm — CrowdStrike — to assess that Russia was behind the hacks and failed to properly preserve DNC servers, an argument that Trump has regularly echoed on Twitter and in public statements.

To support his argument, Stone submitted affidavits from two former intelligence officials who agreed that Russia was an unlikely source for the files, citing metadata, time stamps and even time zone data as evidence that the removal of DNC files may have originated in the United States. Stone argued that if the evidence Russia was behind the hacks was faulty, the search warrants used to ultimately indict him.

But prosecutors, who revealed they obtained 18 search warrants on Stone to support their charges against him, rebutted the arguments forcefully Friday, taking aim at the two former intelligence officials he cited.

"Even if those claims were correct and well supported (which they are not), they would not come close to suggesting that any statements about Russia conducting the hacks were false," wrote prosecutors in the office of Washington’s U.S. Attorney Jessie Liu, who assumed oversight of the case after special counsel Robert Mueller began winding down his work.

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https://www.politico.com/story/2019/05/31/roger-stone-russia-hack-dnc-1349432

June 1, 2019

Nunes demands public release of Mueller's 'backup and source documentation'

Source: Politico


By KYLE CHENEY 05/31/2019 10:57 PM EDT


Rep. Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, called Friday for the public release of all of special counsel Robert Mueller's "backup and source documentation," a call that goes even further than most Democrats' demands for more transparency around Mueller's report.

Though most Republicans in Congress have lambasted Democrats for continuing to demand access to Mueller's underlying files, Nunes (R-Calif.) argued that accessing those documents — and making them public — would expose Mueller's effort as a "fraud." Democrats say they want the same materials because they'll aid investigations into Mueller's evidence that President Donald Trump repeatedly attempted to obstruct his investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Nunes' argument followed the release by prosecutors of a voicemail left by one of Trump's attorneys in 2017 with a lawyer for Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser who became a crucial cooperator for Mueller. The voicemail from Dowd came on the eve of Flynn's decision to abandon a joint defense agreement with Trump and begin working with Mueller. In his report's volume on obstruction of justice, Mueller highlighted excerpts of the voicemail noting that Trump's lawyer, John Dowd, asked for a heads up on any information that "implicates the president" and mentioned Trump's "feelings toward Flynn."

On Friday, Mueller's team released a full transcript of the voicemail on the order of a federal judge. In the fuller transcript, Dowd had indicated he wanted a heads up "not only for the president but for the country."

Read more: https://www.politico.com/story/2019/05/31/nunes-mueller-backup-source-documentation-1349437

June 1, 2019

'The Kraken unleashed': how Trump's shock troops attack US democracy

An army of supporters amplify the president’s wildest claims, encouraging his conspiracy-minded tendencies

David Smith in Washington
@smithinamerica

Sat 1 Jun 2019 01.00 EDT Last modified on Sat 1 Jun 2019 01.19 EDT

Donald Trump once declared: “I alone can fix it.” He never made the claim: “I alone can break it.” When it comes to softening up institutions, eroding norms and chipping away at the foundations of democracy, it takes a village.

While the president has led the way in stirring outrage, he is aided and abetted by an entire ecosystem of activists, officials, politicians, pundits and social media stars. Far from being a lone voice screaming into the void, Trump can be confident that every baseless conspiracy theory he generates will be echoed, endorsed and enlarged – whatever the cost to the rule of law.

“There’s no idea too lunatic or extreme that Trump cannot find someone to amplify them for him,” said Charlie Sykes, a conservative broadcaster and journalist. “This is the new political normal. It’s no wonder that Trump is not deterred from saying crazy things, because he knows there will always be someone willing to go out there and repeat them.”

A case in point is the fallout from the special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Trump has spent two years throwing out words like “coup”, “deep state”, “hoax”, “treason” and “witch-hunt” with unnerving insouciance. When Mueller’s report emerged last month, Trump falsely claimed it totally cleared him of collusion and obstructing justice. There duly came a chorus of support, from Republicans in Congress to the extreme fringes of the web.

Emboldened, Trump is going further. He alleges without evidence that the FBI committed treason, spied on his election campaign and tried to rob him of victory. Last week, he gave the attorney general, William Barr, authority to declassify information about the origins of the investigation. Again, there is enthusiastic backing from cheerleaders who holler “investigate the investigators” and suggest that Barack Obama, not Trump, should be on trial.

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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/01/donald-trump-gorka-lewandowski-hannity-fbi-treason-mueller-russia