Trump again circulates distorted and false claims to divert from Trump-Russia inquiry


Developments on Day 283 of the Trump Administration:

Trump: “DO SOMETHING!”

With criminal charges against at least one of his associates to be announced on Monday in the Trump-Russia investigation, Donald Trump spends Sunday railing against Hillary Clinton.

Perhaps in anticipation of the indictments, approved by a Washington grand jury on Friday, Trump and his supporters have spent the past week pushing exaggerated and false claims against Clinton. They have included the unsupported allegation that the former Secretary of State and the Clinton Foundation profited from the Obama Administration’s approval of the sale of a small US uranium mining company to Russian interests, and the distorted assertion that Clinton and the Democratic National Committee produced disinformation with their funding of a 2016 dossier setting out links between the Trump campaign and Russian officials.

See Podcast: Trump and the American Crisis
TrumpWatch, Day 282: Trump Shouts “Clinton!” as 1st Criminal Charges Loom

Trump put out a series of four tweets on Sunday morning:

He cited the “Uranium to Russia deal” and Clinton’s deleted e-mails from her private server, and made a vague reference to James Comey, the FBI Director he fired in May in a vain attempt to stunt the Trump-Russian inquiry, with “the Comey fix”. He repeated his claim of a “witch hunt” and concluded: “There is so much GUILT by Democrats/Clinton, and now the facts are pouring out. DO SOMETHING!”

Analysts speculated that Trump might bring matters to a head, possibly sparking a Constitutional crisis, by firing Special Counsel Robert Mueller. While there is no specific evidence pointing to this, Trump’s media supporters — notably Fox TV and the hard-right attack site Breitbart — continued their assault on Mueller, FBI director from 2001 to 2013, on Sunday.

White House lawyer Ty Cobb distanced himself from Trump and any possible firing of Mueller: “His tweets today are not, as some have asked, a reaction to anything involving the Special Counsel with whom the White House continues to cooperate.”

Sources have said that at least one indictment will be revealed on Monday. Possible names include former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, who has long-time financial links with Russian and pro-Russian Ukrainian interests, and former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, who was also paid by Kremlin-linked outlets for consultancy in 2015-16 and who resigned in February over his conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak.

Brian Klaas, a leading analyst of the Trump Administration, summarized the Sunday efforts of Trump and supporters:

“Clinton colluded with Russia to create a fake dossier she didn’t use, get hacked by Russia, and then (ingeniously!) lose the race. Nope.

Bob Mueller, a Republican, appointed by a Republican, respected by all Republicans until recently, is now a Democratic stooge. Nope.

The FBI investigation into collusion, which began in July 2016, was invented as an “excuse” for losing the November 2016 election. Nope.

Clinton, who didn’t sit on a 9 member board that approved the Uranium One deal, is now solely responsible for it & should be jailed. Nope.

Mueller, who is qualified to lead the investigation precisely because of his experience in the FBI, should now resign because of it. Nope.”

Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post also takes apart the Trumpian claims in a Fact Checker for The Washington Post:

Any suggestion that Russian money was directed to influence Clinton’s decisions would be explosive. But the fatal flaw in this allegation is Hillary Clinton, by all accounts, did not participate in any discussions regarding the Uranium One sale which does not actually result in the removal of uranium from the United States.


Puerto Rico Cancels Power Contract with Whitefish

Puerto Rico is cancelling a $300 million contract with Whitefish Energy Holdings, the small company from the hometown of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, once it finishes current work on recovery efforts in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.

The head of the Puerto Rican power company, Ricardo Ramos, said Sunday that he is bowing to a demand by Governor Ricardo Rosselló, even though the cancellation will delay work by 10 to 12 weeks.

Whitefish, which has only two employees and is relying on subcontractors in Puerto Rico, won the contract with an agreement which has raise questions over clauses and a deceptive statement that it had been approved by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The company’s previous largest contract from the federal government was $1.5 million.

About 70% of the island remains without power after Hurricane Maria struck on September 20.

“There cannot be any kind of distraction that alters the commitment to restore electrical power as soon as possible in Puerto Rico,” Governor Rosselló said on Sunday, adding that nearly $8 million has been paid to Whitefish so far.

He said he has requested that crews from New York and Florida come help restore power in Puerto Rico, while criticizing the US Army Corps of Engineers for not meeting its goals.

Audits of the Whitefish contract at a local and federal level are ongoing. Rosselló announced the appointment of an outside coordinator to oversee the power company’s purchase and contracting division: “If something illegal was done, once again, the officials involved in that process will feel the full weight of the law, and I will take administrative actions.”


Kushner’s Unannounced Trip to Saudi Arabia

Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner returned on Saturday from an unannounced visit to Saudi Arabia, his third trip to the country this year.

Kushner left Washington on Wednesday for the trip, traveling separately from Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who led a delegation to Riyadh on efforts against terrorist financing.

Kushner was accompanied by Deputy National Security Adviser Dina Powell and Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt, who continued from Saudi Arabia to Jordan, Egypt, the Palestinian West Bank, and Jerusalem.

A White House official would not say whom Kushner met in Saudi Arabia. The White House advisor has built a relationship with the rising power in the Kingdowm, Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman.


Essential Reading: 18 Months with Kushner the Newspaper Owner

Kyle Pope of the Columbia Journalism Review writes about 18 months as editor of the New York Observer, when it was run by the 28-year-old son-in-law of Donald Trump, Jared Kushner: “While Kushner didn’t remotely care about the content of the paper, he cared desperately that it be seen as a financial success.”

Pope writes of Kushner’s lack of respect for journalists, his lack of reading (and that of his father-in-law), and his demands for attack articles on those whom he disliked:

“‘You can’t say “hit job” in here.’

I was six months into my tenure as the editor of the New York Observer, and I was schooling my publisher, Jared Kushner, on why ordering up a slam of someone who had crossed his family in business didn’t pass the journalistic smell test.

Kushner, in an earlier meeting, had asked for a hit piece on an official at Bank of America, and was now in my office to check on how the story was coming together. I had spent the previous weeks trying to avoid the subject with him, knowing full well that the Observer was never going to pursue a story about an anonymous banker whose only sin was running afoul of the Kushner family.

But he was pressing the issue. Finally, in that office meeting in the spring of 2010, I told him the piece was not going to happen, that talk of a “hit job” was a textbook definition of malice, and that I considered the issue closed.

Kushner, then a 28-year-old journalism novice who had so far been deferential to my news judgment, pursed his lips, paused a beat, and ended the conversation.

Thus began the unraveling of my relationship with the man who would become one of the most important advisers to one of the most press-hostile presidents in American history.”