2016 Elections

[Vrede too]

Tell the Senate Judiciary Committee:

"Conduct a full investigation into the allegations that the NRA helped funnel Russian money into the 2016 U.S. elections."

[Leo Lyons]

I knew there had to be something somewhere that identified with Banni's countdown!

Days in: 547 Days left: 914
(keep your hopes up, Banni, it may be 2374 days left!)

[Vrede too]

I knew there had to be something somewhere that identified with Banni's countdown!

Days in: 547 Days left: 914
(keep your hopes up, Banni, it may be 2374 days left!)

Nope, banni was correct.


It's a new DoJ. Trumpettes have to worry not just about 2020 accountability, but also their 2016 crimes.

Pro-Trump Twitter figure arrested for spreading vote-by-text disinformation in 2016

... Federal prosecutors allege that Douglass Mackey, who used the name "Ricky Vaughn" on Twitter, encouraged people to cast their ballot via text or on social media, effectively tricking others into throwing away those votes.

According to the Justice Department, 4,900 unique phone numbers texted a phone number Mackey promoted in order to "vote by text." BuzzFeed reported the vote-by-text scam at the time, noting that many of the images were photoshopped to look like official graphics from Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.

It's a new Twitter, too.

Some of those images appeared to specifically target Black and Spanish-speaking Clinton supporters, a motive that tracks with the account's track record of white supremacist and anti-Semitic content. The account was suspended in November 2016.

At the time, the mysterious account quickly gained traction in the political disinformation ecosystem. HuffPost revealed that the account was run by Mackey, the son of a lobbyist, two years later.

"... His talent for blending far-right propaganda with conservative messages on Twitter made him a key disseminator of extremist views to Republican voters and a central figure in the alt-right' white supremacist movement that attached itself to Trump’s coattails," HuffPost's Luke O'Brien reported.

Mackey, a West Palm Beach resident, was taken into custody Wednesday in Florida.

"There is no place in public discourse for lies and misinformation to defraud citizens of their right to vote," Acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Seth D. DuCharme said.

"With Mackey’s arrest, we serve notice that those who would subvert the democratic process in this manner cannot rely on the cloak of Internet anonymity to evade responsibility for their crimes."

... If convicted of the conspiracy against rights-focused charge, Mackey faces as much as 10 years behind bars.

[Vrede too]

Trump inauguration donor sentenced to 12 years for illegal contribution, obstruction

I'm surprised that he wasn't pardoned.

[Vrede too]

Court voids Trump campaign's non-disclosure agreement

A federal judge ruled Tuesday that a broad non-disclosure agreement that Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign required employees to sign is unenforceable.

U.S. District Court Judge Paul Gardephe’s ruling generally steered clear of the constitutional issues presented by such agreements in the context of political campaigns. Instead, the judge — an appointee of President George W. Bush — said the sweeping, boilerplate language the campaign compelled employees to sign was so vague that the agreement was invalid under New York contract law.

Paul G. Gardephe was appointed by George W. Bush and, like Dolt .45, got a Masters from Penn, hah!

This case is specifically about sex discrimination, but it opens the door for a variety of whistleblowers and, depending on the statutes of limitation, could even contribute to campaign finance convictions.

[Vrede too]

FEC drops Trump hush-money investigation

Hopefully, there's a US Attorney, probably in NY, that won't be so partisan, anti-democratic and cowardly.

[Vrede too]

He cheated to win, gets a pass:

FEC spares Trump but fines tabloid publisher for hush-money payment to ex-Playboy model who claimed affair with him

The Federal Election Commission has fined the National Enquirer's parent company $187,500 for "knowingly and willfully" violating election law by making a payment in 2016 to Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model who said she had an affair with former president Donald Trump years before he was elected.

The decision came in response to a complaint made more than three years ago by the nonprofit government watchdog group Common Cause, which was notified of the FEC's findings Tuesday.

The group had alleged that the company's $150,000 payment to McDougal months before the 2016 election was effectively an illegal in-kind corporate contribution to Trump's presidential campaign....

But the six-member commission - which often deadlocks along partisan lines - did not have sufficient votes to find that Trump and his campaign also broke the law.

Paul Ryan, the group's vice president for policy and litigation, hailed the news as "a win for democracy." But he argued that the FEC's "failure to hold former-President Trump and his campaign accountable for this violation lays bare the dysfunction at the FEC."

He noted that the decision comes on the heels of a similar decision by the agency to drop an inquiry into whether Trump violated campaign finance laws when Cohen paid adult-film actress Stormy Daniels $130,000 in the days leading up to the 2016 election.

"The agency has again shown itself incapable of fully enforcing the campaign finance laws passed by Congress," Ryan said....

Ryan noted that Cohen served time in prison for lying to Congress, breaking campaign finance laws and tax evasion, but Trump has not faced any consequences.

"The Department of Justice has until August to prosecute Trump for orchestrating this illegal campaign finance scheme," he said.

[Vrede too]

"Perfect storm" of problems blocked Trump-era campaign finance investigations

Dammit. If the FEC was hobbled, why didn't state or federal prosecutors step up?

[GoCubsGo]

"Perfect storm" of problems blocked Trump-era campaign finance investigations

Dammit. If the FEC was hobbled, why didn't state or federal prosecutors step up?

The FEC is toothless.

[Vrede too]

The FEC is toothless.

It's not been a secret. All the more reason for state or federal prosecutors to have acted before it was too late.

[Ulysses]

"Perfect storm" of problems blocked Trump-era campaign finance investigations

Dammit. If the FEC was hobbled, why didn't state or federal prosecutors step up?

The FEC is toothless.

[GoCubsGo]

Really?

[Vrede too]

Really?

I sometimes almost forget how nice it is to be rid of Useless.


Steele dossier source acquitted, in loss for special counsel Durham

Yes, Durham has been a massive waste of effort and taxpayer money, but it's worth it to see crybaby Trumpette hopes repeatedly dashed.

[GoCubsGo]

Really?

I sometimes almost forget how nice it is to be rid of Useless.


Steele dossier source acquitted, in loss for special counsel Durham

Yes, Durham has been a massive waste of effort and taxpayer money, but it's worth it to see crybaby Trumpette hopes repeatedly dashed.

Shhhhh, don't tell CPF.

[Vrede too]

Steele dossier source acquitted, in loss for special counsel Durham

Yes, Durham has been a massive waste of effort and taxpayer money, but it's worth it to see crybaby Trumpette hopes repeatedly dashed.

Shhhhh, don't tell CPF.

Nothing ever stops LAW, Lie and Whine as neoplacebo calls it.

Trump Reups Old Lie To Rewrite History Of Getting Russian Help To Win 2016 Election
Defending dictator Vladimir Putin, again, Trump renews his false claim that Russia did not help him become president. It did.

... In fact, both special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation and the Senate Intelligence Committee found that Putin made extensive efforts to help Trump win in 2016, most notably by having his spies steal emails from Democrat Hillary Clinton’s aides and then release them during the final month of the campaign through Russian ally WikiLeaks.

What’s more, Trump was informed by the FBI in August of that year that the emails had been stolen by Russia — just weeks after Trump had publicly asked Russia to obtain them. Despite knowing of their provenance, Trump enthusiastically cited the stolen material in campaign rallies and interviews every single day, starting on Oct. 10, 2016, through Election Day.

HuffPost repeatedly asked Trump’s 2016 campaign and first-term White House staff why Trump had knowingly accepted Putin’s help to win and received no answer until 2018, when Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani responded that Trump took the assistance because he could.

“It isn’t illegal... It was sort of like a gift,” he said. “And you’re not involved in the illegality of getting it.”

In 2017, Trump began calling the accurate description of Russia’s work to elect him a “hoax” and eventually sent Giuliani to Ukraine to dig up evidence to support a conspiracy theory being pitched by Russian intelligence that it was actually Ukraine that had tried to help Clinton.

Giuliani’s eagerness to accept information being fed to him by Putin’s spies eventually led to Trump attempting to extort then-newly elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy into announcing an investigation into the Democrat he feared most in 2020, Joe Biden. Trump was impeached for that action, but the Republican-led Senate declined to remove him from office.

Trump’s animosity toward Zelenskyy appears to have endured in the years since. When Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Trump called it “genius” and “savvy.” He very quickly began complaining that the United States under Biden was sending too much aid to Ukraine, and then began lying about the total the U.S. sent and how it compared to what Western European countries were sending....

What a lying, whining, Putin-worshiping piece of shit!

[neoplacebo]

Steele dossier source acquitted, in loss for special counsel Durham

Yes, Durham has been a massive waste of effort and taxpayer money, but it's worth it to see crybaby Trumpette hopes repeatedly dashed.

Shhhhh, don't tell CPF.

Nothing ever stops LAW, Lie and Whine as neoplacebo calls it.

Trump Reups Old Lie To Rewrite History Of Getting Russian Help To Win 2016 Election
Defending dictator Vladimir Putin, again, Trump renews his false claim that Russia did not help him become president. It did.

... In fact, both special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation and the Senate Intelligence Committee found that Putin made extensive efforts to help Trump win in 2016, most notably by having his spies steal emails from Democrat Hillary Clinton’s aides and then release them during the final month of the campaign through Russian ally WikiLeaks.

What’s more, Trump was informed by the FBI in August of that year that the emails had been stolen by Russia — just weeks after Trump had publicly asked Russia to obtain them. Despite knowing of their provenance, Trump enthusiastically cited the stolen material in campaign rallies and interviews every single day, starting on Oct. 10, 2016, through Election Day.

HuffPost repeatedly asked Trump’s 2016 campaign and first-term White House staff why Trump had knowingly accepted Putin’s help to win and received no answer until 2018, when Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani responded that Trump took the assistance because he could.

“It isn’t illegal... It was sort of like a gift,” he said. “And you’re not involved in the illegality of getting it.”

In 2017, Trump began calling the accurate description of Russia’s work to elect him a “hoax” and eventually sent Giuliani to Ukraine to dig up evidence to support a conspiracy theory being pitched by Russian intelligence that it was actually Ukraine that had tried to help Clinton.

Giuliani’s eagerness to accept information being fed to him by Putin’s spies eventually led to Trump attempting to extort then-newly elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy into announcing an investigation into the Democrat he feared most in 2020, Joe Biden. Trump was impeached for that action, but the Republican-led Senate declined to remove him from office.

Trump’s animosity toward Zelenskyy appears to have endured in the years since. When Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Trump called it “genius” and “savvy.” He very quickly began complaining that the United States under Biden was sending too much aid to Ukraine, and then began lying about the total the U.S. sent and how it compared to what Western European countries were sending....

What a lying, whining, Putin-worshiping piece of shit!

Yep. there can be no doubt....there is trump LAW all over the goddamn place. Incessant lying and whining with no end in sight. I should maybe think about registering my "lie and whine" phrase as it relates to how trump and his cult operate. But I probably won't. Instead I'll probably just whine about how I didn't do it. But I won't lie. trump does enough of that for the fucking universe.

[GoCubsGo]

<sigh>