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Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, and a business associate, Rick Gates, on Monday pleaded not guilty
to an indictment for money laundering, tax evasion, failure to register
as agents for foreign interests and conspiracy to defraud the US
government.
Documents unsealed on Monday also revealed
that George Papadopoulos, a former foreign policy adviser to the Trump
campaign, pleaded guilty on 5 October to lying to FBI agents over
contact with people he believed to be senior Russian government
officials. He has since acted as a “proactive cooperator” with the
inquiry.
The indictments were the first issued by special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible collusion by members of the Trump campaign.
Donald Trump tweeted furiously after news broke of the indictments against Manafort and Gates:
Sorry, but this is years ago, before Paul Manafort was part of the Trump campaign. But why aren’t Crooked Hillary & the Dems the focus????? … Also, there is NO COLLUSION!
The president has not tweeted since the announcement of Papadopoulos’ guilty plea.
Manafort and Gates spent Monday night under house arrest, with bail set at $10m and $5m respectively.
White House chief of staff John Kelly kept to the official
administration line that the offences in the indictments relate to a
period before the men were connected to the Trump campaign (this fact check rates that claim as “mostly false”), but admitted in an interview with Fox News:
It is very distracting to the president, as it would be to any
citizen, to be investigated for something, while at the same time trying
to carry the weight of what being president of the United States means
on his shoulder.
What did Monday’s revelations tell us about possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia?
Papadopoulus joined Trump’s campaign early in March 2016. Days later
he spoke to an unnamed Trump “supervisor” who spelled out the campaign’s
principal foreign policy objective: “an improved US relationship with
Russia”. A week later Papadopoulous flew to Rome where he bumped into a
London-based “professor of diplomacy” from a “Mediterranean country”.
The professor – identified by the Washington Post as Joseph Mifsud – claimed to have “substantial connections with Russian government officials”. Papadopoulus, it appeared, saw an opportunity to impress his campaign
bosses. According to the FBI, the professor was initially
“uninterested” in developing ties, until Papadopoulos revealed his Trump
connection. After that he became very keen indeed. On 24 March there was a follow-up meeting in London. The professor
brought a “Russian female national” along with him, who Papadopoulos
described in an email afterwards as “Putin’s niece”. (Putin does not
have any surviving siblings.) Papadopoulos told the FBI that his exchanges with this woman were
pleasantly innocuous, and amounted to little more than “Hi, how are
you?” But this was another fib: in the meantime, he had emailed the
Trump campaign supervisor to say he was working on setting up a
high-level meeting between “us” and the “Russian leadership”. The “campaign supervisor” replied: “Great work.” Then on 31 March, Papadopoulos took part in a meeting
in Washington with Trump, the Republican frontrunner, and his national
security team. He was pictured seated three chairs away from the
candidate. Papadopoulos made an interesting pitch, according to the FBI:
he told those seated around the table he could broker a ground-breaking
meeting between Putin and Trump.
White House chief of staff John Kelly waded into the debate over
Confederate statues late Monday, stating in an interview that the civil
war was prompted by an inability to compromise, while suggesting both
sides acted in “good faith”. Speaking with Fox News in a rare interview, Kelly described
Confederate general Robert E Lee as “an honorable man” while discussing
the recent push to remove monuments and symbols memorializing the
pro-slavery Confederacy. “There are certain things in history that were good, and other things
that were not so good,” Kelly told Fox News host Laura Ingraham. Kelly went on to say that Lee, the general of the Confederate army
during the American civil war, “was a man that gave up his country to
fight for his state”. “It was always loyalty to state first back in those days,” said Kelly, while adding:
But the lack of an ability to compromise led to the civil war. And
men and women of good faith on both sides made their stand where their
conscience had to make their stand.”
Kelly’s comments echoed those made by Donald Trump
in the aftermath of the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia in
August, when a white supremacist drove his car into counter protesters,
leaving one woman dead and several others injured. The president sparked controversy in the days that followed by
blaming violence “on both sides”, appearing to put neo-Nazis and white
supremacists on equal footing with those demonstrating against them.
John Kelly on the Civil War:
“Men and women of good faith on both sides made their stand where their
conscience had them make their stand.” https://t.co/yUx21OF3M3
Kelly: 'distracting for president to be investigated'
Kelly tells Fox News:
It is very distracting to the president, as it would be to any
citizen, to be investigated for something, while at the same time trying
to carry the weight of what being president of the United States means
on his shoulder.
The official White House line is, of course, that Trump is not himself under investigation.
White House chief of staff John Kelly, interviewed for Fox News by Laura Ingraham, insists the administration is unperturbed:
All of the activities, as I understand it, that they were indicted for was long before they ever met Donald Trump or had any association with the campaign. But I think the reaction of the administration is, let the legal
justice system work. Everyone’s innocent till – or presumed innocent –
and we’ll see where it goes.
Despite some tweets after the announcement of indictments against Manafort and Gates – “Sorry, but this is years ago, before Paul Manafort
was part of the Trump campaign. But why aren’t Crooked Hillary &
the Dems the focus????? ....Also, there is NO COLLUSION!” – Trump has
been quiet (on social media at least) since the news broke of
Papadopoulos’s guilty plea. During the campaign, in April 2016, however, Trump’s account tweeted
this picture of his national security meeting. Papadopoulos is third
from the left, on the far side of the table, and four seats away from
the now president.
Hot on the heels of news
that Russian-backed content reached as many as 126 million Americans on
Facebook during and after the 2016 election, Twitter has suspended
2,752 accounts linked to Russian operatives, Reuters reports:
Twitter Inc separately has found 2,752 accounts linked to Russian
operatives, a source familiar with the company’s written testimony said.
That estimate is up from a tally of 201 accounts that Twitter reported
in September. Executives from Facebook, Twitter and Alphabet Inc’s Google are
scheduled to appear before three congressional committees this week on
alleged Russian attempts to spread misinformation in the months before
and after the 2016 election. Twitter has suspended all 2,752 accounts that it tracked to Russia’s
Internet Research Agency, and it has given US congressional
investigators the account names, the source familiar with the company’s
written testimony said. “State-sanctioned manipulation of elections by sophisticated foreign
actors is a new challenge for us – and one that we are determined to
meet,” Twitter said in written testimony, according to the source.
Carter Page, a former foreign policy adviser to Donald Trump’s
campaign, said Russia was the subject of emails from “from time to time”
that were exchanged with George Papadopoulos, who has pleaded guilty to
lying to investigators over his contacts with Moscow. “It may have come up from time to time … there’s nothing major,” Page told MSNBC host Chris Hayes in an interview late Monday. “There’s a lot of emails all over the place when you’re in the campaign,” he added. Page didn’t say what specifically was discussed pertaining to Russia,
but his comments come on the same day it was revealed that
Papadopoulos, also a former foreign policy adviser to Trump’s campaign, pleaded guilty lying to the FBI about communications with Russians linked to the Kremlin. Page told Hayes he “heard nothing” about Hillary Clinton’s emails or their hacking at the hands of Russians. His decision to sit down for media interviews has confounded many,
given the legal trouble he could find himself in based on his
statements. In his interview, Page said Papadopoulos had been
cooperating with federal investigators since July and said his own
cooperation with the FBI began in March. Page is poised to testify behind closed doors before the House
intelligence committee on Thursday. The panel, which is investigating
Russian meddling in the US election, said it would release a transcript
of its interview three days later. Page was separately issued a subpoena by the Senate intelligence
committee, which is overseeing its own inquiry into Russia, earlier this
month after he declined to turn over documents requested by the panel.
All In w/Chris Hayes (@allinwithchris)
"It may have come up from time
to time" - Carter Page on whether he was on any email chains about
Russia with George Papadopoulos #innerspic.twitter.com/JtchkNZ1uK
Russian-backed Facebook content reached 126m Americans during and after the 2016 presidential campaign, Olivia Solon reports:
According to the company’s prepared testimony submitted to the Senate
Judiciary Committee ahead of hearings this week, 120 fake
Russian-backed pages created 80,000 posts that were received by 29
million Americans directly but then amplified to a much bigger potential
audience by users sharing, liking and following the posts. The company plans to disclose these numbers to the Senate judiciary
committee on Tuesday, according to a person familiar with the testimony.
The person declined to be named because the committee has not
officially released the testimony. Facebook, Twitter and Google will
testify at three hearings in Washington on Tuesday and Wednesday. Colin Stretch, a lawyer for Facebook, will explain on Tuesday that
Russia’s Internet Research Agency posted the material between 2015 and
2017. The posts spread widely, although many of those 126 million people
may not have actually seen the material. Although 126 million people is about half of Americans eligible to
vote, Facebook plans to downplay the significance at the congressional
hearings. “Our best estimate is that approximately 126 million people may have
been served one of their stories at some point during the two-year
period. This equals about four-thousandths of one percent (0.004%) of
content in News Feed, or approximately 1 out of 23,000 pieces of
content,” Stretch says in his written testimony, obtained by several
news outlets.
Monstrous goings-on at the White House as Donald and Melania Trump doled out candy at the annual (pre-) Halloween festivities. But multiple reports now say the president’s day had been less of a treat, with CNN citing
a Republican source saying Trump was “seething” at news of the
indictments, and the Washington Post claiming several sources describing
how he reacted to the news “with exasperation and disgust”. According to Associated Press:
In the hours after the indictment, the president angrily told one
confidant that Manafort had been a campaign “part-timer” who had only
helped steer the convention and got too much credit for Trump’s ability
to hold onto the nomination, according to a person familiar with the
private discussion.
Betty MacDonald Fan Club, founded by Wolfgang Hampel, has members in 40 countries.
Wolfgang Hampel, author of Betty MacDonald biography interviewed Betty MacDonald's family and friends. His Interviews have been published on CD and DVD by Betty MacDonald Fan Club. If you are interested in the Betty MacDonald Biography or the Betty MacDonald Interviews send us a mail, please.
Several original Interviews with Betty MacDonald are available.
We are also organizing international Betty MacDonald Fan Club Events for example, Betty MacDonald Fan Club Eurovision Song Contest Meetings in Oslo and Düsseldorf, Royal Wedding Betty MacDonald Fan Club Event in Stockholm and Betty MacDonald Fan Club Fifa Worldcup Conferences in South Africa and Germany.
Betty MacDonald Fan Club Honour Members are Monica Sone, author of Nisei Daughter and described as Kimi in Betty MacDonald's The Plague and I, Betty MacDonald's nephew, artist and writer Darsie Beck, Betty MacDonald fans and beloved authors and artists Gwen Grant, Letizia Mancino, Perry Woodfin, Traci Tyne Hilton, Tatjana Geßler, music producer Bernd Kunze, musician Thomas Bödigheimer, translater Mary Holmes and Mr. Tigerli.
