Russiagate Relief

Not a lot this Sunday morning. I'm sure things will heat up again this week

Via Insty:

Since 11/10/2016 the intent has been to reverse outcome of an election by any means necessary. Impeachment is inevitable if Dems take the House. Any charges will be pretextual. https://t.co/ojDPVEHdzD

— Randy Barnett (@RandyEBarnett) August 25, 2018

Althouse finds the quote from Ken White's essay: "America’s criminal justice system routinely coerces defendants to cooperate and incentivizes them to lie to please prosecutors."

Da Tech Guy: Washington Insiders Better Beware Trump’s Jacksonian Response to Manafort and Cohen

What happens when a Billionaire with decades of knowledge what’s been going on (remember Trump has dealt with big city Democrats all his life) in DC and elsewhere decides to pay back the Democrats and the Deep State in the same coin going after protected operatives with the full force of the law untill they sing?

Does anyone seriously believe he wouldn’t?  Does anyone think that Trump the ultimate Jacksonian who was willing to go toe to toe with China, Europe, Nato, Germany, the only GOP leader who has been willing to fearlessly take on the media (without censoring them btw) would be afraid of striking back when the time is right and do so very loudly and very publicly?

If I was a Manafort or a Cohen of the left in DC I’d be really scared right now.

Monica Crowley, Da Spectator: The Teflon Don: Why Trump survives - Voters knew they weren’t electing a saint. No, they elected someone who fought.

NY Post editorial: Trump needs to quit the pardon talk, yesterday. I disagree. But talk might be better than actually pardoning Manafort. Pardon Flynn, though. And maybe Papadop. I want to hear what the Mysterious Mr. Mifsud was up to.

CNN, The Most Trusted Name in #FakeNews. Karen Townsend, Hot Air: No, Cohen Didn’t Flip On Trump In Congressional Testimony

It turns out that Michael Cohen did NOT tell members of the Senate Intelligence Committee that President Trump knew about the infamous Trump Tower meeting with Russians after all. Let’s just call this story vindication for President Trump’s labeling of CNN as fake news, shall we? The cable news channel promoted a narrative that Cohen testified to two congressional committees that Trump knew about the meeting at the time, though the president denies knowing about it.

CNN got the story wrong, yet there has been no correction issued. In fact, their story is still up on their website. Their reporting told the tale that the president lied, Don, Jr. lied, their lawyers lied, and other White House members lied when they all denied that President Trump knew of the meeting at the time, back in June 2016. The CNN news report said that Cohen testified that Trump knew all along. CNN admitted that Cohen said he had no proof of the claim (no tape recording) and Cohen’s lawyer wouldn’t verify the story for CNN but they ran with it anyway.

Then, this week the story took a turn. Largely overshadowed by the more sensational stories coming forth over the last few days, it turns out Cohen specifically testified to Congress that Trump didn’t know about the meeting. Axios reports that three sources confirmed that pesky fact. Cohen still says Trump didn’t know. Cohen never said he’d be willing to tell Robert Meuller that Trump knew of the meeting.

 and it turns out to be their problem was believing Lanny Davis:

Lanny Davis admits he anonymously confirmed CNN's reporting on Cohen/Trump Tower when he didn't actually know if was right. Yikes. https://t.co/GIhWB3xYvk

— Betsy Woodruff (@woodruffbets) August 24, 2018

How Mueller made millions for lyin' Jim Comey: Seamus Bruner: ‘Contracts Flowed from Robert Mueller’s FBI to James Comey’ at Lockheed Martin

Bruner noted the growth of Comey’s net worth between 2003 and 2009, after Comey left the Department of Justice to join Lockheed Martin as senior vice president and lead counsel.

“It doesn’t really make much sense why [Lockheed Martin] would pay [James Comey] upwards of six million dollars in a single year,” assessed Bruner. “But one reason — aside from his security clearance — is that his buddy Robert Mueller is running the FBI. They begin passing 100-million-dollar-plus contracts to Lockheed Martin.”

Bruner continued, “One of these contracts was actually worth a billion dollars, and it was protested formally by the other bidder: IBM. … The contracts flowed from Robert Mueller’s FBI to James Comey’s private sector employer, Lockheed Martin, and James Comey made many millions over a short period of time.”

Bruner described Comey as “one of the prime examples of this kind of cashing in on government contacts.”

“We followed the money and realized that James Comey made well over ten million dollars from when he left the public sector in 2005 and by the time he returned to serve as FBI director [in 2009],” said Bruner. “He even made over six million dollars in a single year at the top government contracting corporation, Lockheed Martin; they get over $50 billion a year in government contracts.”

But no conflict of interest on Mueller's part.

Kathleen Parker sends a paean out to the pro-Trump juror who convicted Manafort: The juror who could save America

But for one holdout juror, Manafort would have been convicted of 10 other counts, Duncan said. The 12th juror couldn’t get beyond a reasonable doubt on the other counts, according to Duncan, which contributed to four days of tense, emotional deliberations.

In other revelations during various media stops, Duncan was scornful of prosecuting attorneys, who, she said, seemed bored and appeared to catnap during the trial. She was disgusted by the prosecution’s star witness, Rick Gates, Manafort’s former business partner, who entered a plea deal in which he agreed to testify against Manafort. She echoed Trump’s opinion about turncoats, saying that Gates “deserves a special place in hell.” Trump himself recently said that flipping “almost ought to be illegal.”

Duncan said she and the other jurors ignored Gates’s testimony as not credible and focused instead on the paperwork, reading boxes of documents. Pause here for a round of applause for jurors for their hard work and commitment to an unbiased verdict.

However.

Even an ideal juror can be blind to facts beyond the courtroom. In what seemed a reflexive nod to Trumpism, Duncan couldn’t end her media tour without tipping her hand and taking a jab at special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. “Certainly Mr. Manafort got caught breaking the law, but he wouldn’t have gotten caught if they weren’t after President Trump,” she said.

Translation: This is all Mueller’s fault.