A couple days ago, before yesterday’s grand jury revelations, I got an email from TPM Reader RV flagging a story on Paul Manafort in a Kentucky alt-weekly by Kurt X. Metzmeier, a law librarian at the University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law. The article is builds off Metzmeier’s earlier life as a graduate student and researcher interested in the late 20th century superpower confrontation in Africa and some of the unlovelier dimensions of US foreign policy. Read More
You probably saw the news this week that the Trump Justice Department is launching a highly dubious new project targeting discrimination against white students in university admissions policies. A pretty straight-up attack on affirmative action in admissions. But what you may not have seen was the troubling way DOJ was going about staffing the project, which is sounding the alarm bells for a new round of politicization of the Civil Rights Division, a disturbing echo of the department’s low point in the George W. Bush years. Allegra Kirkland has the story.
Mueller impanels a federal grand jury in DC and reportedly issues subpoenas about the June 16 meeting among Kushner, Manafort and Trump Jr., and that Russian lawyer. At the same time, Mueller probe is reportedly pushing deeper into President Trump’s business dealings.
The Senate is done for the summer, but as GOP senators we’re racing to get out of town they saved a few parting shots for Donald Trump for lashing out at them over the Russia sanctions bill. Too early to call this a sea change in how congressional Republicans are treating Trump, but these quotes are pretty damn entertaining.
I guess we can say that the lesson of the day is that when private conversations are released willy nilly to the public it can be damaging to the parties involved. Read More
With the big news this evening that Gen. H.R. McMaster was finally allowed to fire Flynn protege Ezra Cohen-Watnick, let me refer you back to what I explained back in April: Cohen-Watnick likely had dirty hands in the Russia cover-up. Specifically, his ‘review’ of intelligence which led to the ‘un-masking’ charade was likely an effort to monitor and perhaps interfere with the on-going Russia probe. Read More
Over almost twelve months in which “Trump/Russia” has been a catchword for a confusing and troubling series of relationships between the now President and the Russian government, President Donald Trump has repeatedly insisted he has ‘no business’ in Russia. We know this is demonstrably not true if we are talking about business deals with individual Russians or citizens of the successor states of the former Soviet Union. We also know it is not true if we mean investments of Russian nationals in various Trump owned or branded real estate properties. It is with major cash investments to build new properties (as opposed to selling units of buildings) and potential building projects in Russia where the picture becomes murkier and more opaque. Read More
Despite all the denials, during the early months of his run for President, Donald Trump had Felix Sater still working on putting together a deal to build Trump Tower Moscow.
I had a really unexpected and gratifying response to my weekend post about Leslie Nielsen. I even heard from some people who knew him well before he died in 2010. But I was particularly taken by this email from TPM Reader JB. Read through to after the JB’s note and see the bonus 1955 wedding photo of a yarmulke-clad Nielsen at the wedding of the president of his fan club …
I logged on this morning into TPM, even though it seems like TPM often chills on the weekend.
I was floored to see a long essay on Leslie Nielsen..
Please indulge this Prime member for a moment, as I would like to tell you some backstory you might find interesting from the Forbidden Planet to the Airplane! era.
Back in the early 50s, my mom was a young New York born, Irvington New Jersey woman infatuated with Hollywood.. even writing a hollywood gossip column in her Irvington High School paper.
Trump apparently lied about receiving a congratulatory phone call from the Boy Scouts after his anti-Obama speech.