đź‘‹ Away Message: Hi there, Matt's currently away from the computer this week, but in the spirit of experimentation, the daily WTFJHT post will be powered by Current Status and lightly edited by a human for clarity.
It never ends…
Donald Trump has charged his own reelection campaign $1.3 million for rent, food, lodging and other expenses since taking office, according to a Forbes analysis of the latest campaign filings. And although outsiders have contributed more than $50 million to the campaign, the billionaire president hasn’t handed over any of his own cash. The net effect: $1.3 million of donor money has turned into $1.3 million of Trump money.
Sounds like a top Trump advisor may have conspired with a foreign government to interfere with our elections. I’m getting déjà vu. I could have sworn this happened before.
Bloomberg
May 13, 2019
By Daryna Krasnolutska and Stephanie Baker
A Ukrainian lawmaker accused his country’s top prosecutor of manufacturing a “conspiracy” about U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, adding to a political intrigue playing out from Kiev to Washington.
The lawmaker, Serhiy Leshchenko, said he had been given parts of a letter written by the prosecutor with the intent of currying favor with the Trump administration. The letter was sent by the prosecutor through unofficial channels to President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, the lawmaker told journalists on Monday in Kiev as he distributed copies of two pages.
Serhiy Leshchenko
The letter, purportedly written by Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko, said that Biden, while U.S. vice president, personally received income from a Ukrainian natural gas company in exchange for “lobbying activities and political support.”
The lawmaker said those allegations were false.
As Leshchenko explained it, the prosecutor was trying to hold onto his job in a new administration. The incoming Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, campaigned on a vow to fight corruption and has said he would name a new prosecutor general.
“I can assume that Lutsenko’s plan is simple” – that is, to build intrigue around Biden to show U.S. authorities that the prosecutor can be a useful partner, Leshchenko told reporters. …
Here comes Investigating the Investigator, per AG Barr who just assigned John Durham to investigate the origin of the investigation. And as you read below, the third such investigation taking place to investigate what the R’s like to call the DEEP STATE.
Oh my…I hope it backfires on them, but they will spin the story the way they like it.
WASHINGTON — Attorney General William P. Barr has assigned the top federal prosecutor in Connecticut to examine the origins of the Russia investigation, according to two people familiar with the matter, a move that President Trump has long called for but that could anger law enforcement officials who insist that scrutiny of the Trump campaign was lawful.
John H. Durham, the United States attorney in Connecticut, has a history of serving as a special prosecutor investigating potential wrongdoing among national security officials, including the F.B.I.’s ties to a crime boss in Boston and accusations of C.I.A. abuses of detainees.
His inquiry is the third known investigation focused on the opening of an F.B.I. counterintelligence investigation during the 2016 presidential campaign into possible ties between Russia’s election interference and Trump associates.
The department’s inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, is separately examining investigators’ use of wiretap applications and informants and whether any political bias against Mr. Trump influenced investigative decisions. And John W. Huber, the United States attorney in Utah, has been reviewing aspects of the Russia investigation. His findings have not been announced.
This is just an ugly old fight but Rosenstein stands by the Mueller appointment, calling it “justified”, despite his “disfavor” of special counsels.
Rosenstein also responded directly to a barb from the former FBI director, who said at a CNN town hall last week that Rosenstein’s character wasn’t strong and that his soul had been “eaten” by his time in the Trump administration.
“Now the former director seems to be acting as a partisan pundit, selling books and earning speaking fees while speculating about the strength of my character and the fate of my immortal soul. I kid you not. That is disappointing,” Rosenstein said.
[…]
He also said that in 2017 he viewed the opening of the investigation into Russian election interference as “justified,” but took credit for spurring an internal probe by the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General that has been looking into surveillance techniques used by the FBI in the Russia probe’s early days.
“As acting attorney general though it was my responsibility to make sure that the Department of Justice would conduct an investigation that was independent both in fact and in perception, complete it expeditiously, hold perpetrators accountable if warranted by the facts and the law, and work with partner agencies to counter foreign agents and deter crime,” Rosenstein said. “We achieved those goals.”
Still, he expressed his displeasure with the process, noting “I disfavor special counsels.”
“I am glad that I only needed to appoint one in 25 months,” Rosenstein said.
Here’s what pundits are saying is being leaked from within the Defense Dept in hopes of curtailing the saber rattling…120K troops readying to go to Iran. We are on Bolton’s war footing and NYT saying it IS reminiscent of Iraq with the false front (that we are in danger of being attacked.)
WASHINGTON — At a meeting of President Trump’s top national security aides last Thursday, Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan presented an updated military plan that envisions sending as many as 120,000 troops to the Middle East should Iran attack American forces or accelerate work on nuclear weapons, administration officials said.
The revisions were ordered by hard-liners led by John R. Bolton, Mr. Trump’s national security adviser. They do not call for a land invasion of Iran, which would require vastly more troops, officials said.
The development reflects the influence of Mr. Bolton, one of the administration’s most virulent Iran hawks, whose push for confrontation with Tehran was ignored more than a decade ago by President George W. Bush.
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This got some notice from me. Some say that Alfa Bank/ Trump Tower server story is a hoax. I’m not so convinced. Steele Dossier was raw data and was treated as much. The Mueller report does not say how much of it they could substantiate. It’s also not the origins of the investigation, the report gives that honor to George Popadopolus.
Click tweet to read full thread 
What Christopher Steele says in these interviews is incredible, no wonder he went to the FBI. If this is the word on the street… wow.
Read the full docs here
Takeaway: Take this story with a grain of salt. Fascinating, yes, because it’s more of the story but it’s not substantiated.
Yes eye-popping…Thx! 
And I realize one needs to take it with a grain of salt as you say, because some of it may have been misinformation fed to Steele, certainly the Pee tape might have happened and T’s salacious habits etc would fit the bill. BUT the other scary information -
1- perhaps there was a signed agreement with T to work with Russians/for no sanctions.
2- Removal of Russian Hackers from within the US (when Obama wanted to rid ourselves of the Russian Embassy residents and summer MD spot - the Feds made sure they closed that sucker down)
3 - mole within DNC…Podesta or Debbie Wasserstein might have figured some of that out, who might have done this…
4 - Manafort/T connection starting way sooner than around 2016 and perhaps in 2013 and that he owed way more money $100m
5- The Alfa servers…hmmm there WAS a lot of activity on them at certain points in time. Was it a dead end?
6 - And what Bruce Ohr’s role…he’s an expert in this area, and they put the kabosh on him as if his wife Nellie was a mole as well.
7 - Paige meeting with Rosneft people and changing the Republican Platform papers.
OH my…so many questions…
