What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[Solmyr]

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/397701-white-house-trump-open-to-russia-questioning-us-citizens

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Wednesday that President Trump is open to letting Russian investigators come to the United States to question U.S. citizens, including a former American ambassador to Russia.

Sanders said during a White House press briefing Wednesday that Trump is "gonna meet with his team" and discuss the possibility of allowing Russian officials to question U.S. citizens like Michael McFaul, who was ambassador to Russia from January 2012 to February 2014.

You've reached the point where the President is handing over your own people to the KGB.

[mongers]

So Trump had an interpreter at the closed door session with Putin, if this guy's American and/or within US jurisdiction, then no amount of NDA legalise will protect him from being question by US authorities. Unless translators have some sort of legal privileged position that I've not heard about?

[crazy canuck]

The Russians have got to wonder whether they went to far with their puppet this time

[The Brain]

So Trump had an interpreter at the closed door session with Putin, if this guy's American and/or within US jurisdiction, then no amount of NDA legalise will protect him from being question by US authorities. Unless translators have some sort of legal privileged position that I've not heard about?

Do US authorities have a right to know everything the POTUS says or is said to him?

[Jacob]

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/397701-white-house-trump-open-to-russia-questioning-us-citizens

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Wednesday that President Trump is open to letting Russian investigators come to the United States to question U.S. citizens, including a former American ambassador to Russia.

Sanders said during a White House press briefing Wednesday that Trump is "gonna meet with his team" and discuss the possibility of allowing Russian officials to question U.S. citizens like Michael McFaul, who was ambassador to Russia from January 2012 to February 2014.

You've reached the point where the President is handing over your own people to the KGB.

I'm honestly at a loss for words.

[mongers]

So Trump had an interpreter at the closed door session with Putin, if this guy's American and/or within US jurisdiction, then no amount of NDA legalise will protect him from being question by US authorities. Unless translators have some sort of legal privileged position that I've not heard about?

Do US authorities have a right to know everything the POTUS says or is said to him?

I don't know, but this interpreter could have been witness/party to a  criminal conspiracy.

[The Brain]

So Trump had an interpreter at the closed door session with Putin, if this guy's American and/or within US jurisdiction, then no amount of NDA legalise will protect him from being question by US authorities. Unless translators have some sort of legal privileged position that I've not heard about?

Do US authorities have a right to know everything the POTUS says or is said to him?

I don't know, but this interpreter could have been witness/party to a  criminal conspiracy.

I don't know anything about these things, but it would seem a bit weird to me to have a situation where they can make the interpreter talk but not the president. And I don't think anyone wants the POTUS to go completely solo into these things in the future.

[Jacob]

... and apparently now non-profit organizations - such as the NRA - no longer has to disclose the source of their donations?

The government is making it easier for "dark money" donors to go unnamed
The IRS will no longer ask the NRA and other nonprofit groups to disclose donors.

The United States government is making it easier for "dark money" donors to keep their contributions, well, in the dark. The Treasury Department on Monday said it planned to end requirements that certain tax-exempt organizations identify their financial contributors on their tax returns.

The decision means groups such as the National Rifle Association, Planned Parenthood, and the AARP will no longer have to tell the IRS who's giving them money.

The decision landed the same day as the Justice Department announced the arrest of Maria Butina, a Russian national with NRA ties who is accused of trying to influence US politics. Ethics experts say Treasury's maneuver will make identifying activities like those Butina has been accused of even harder to track.

Labor unions, volunteer fire departments, issue advocacy groups, local chambers of commerce, veterans groups, community service clubs, and other so-called social welfare 501(c)(4) groups or those that don't generally get tax-deductible contributions will be freed of requirements that they list the names or addresses of their donors on their annual returns with the IRS.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/7/17/17581384/irs-dark-money-nra-maria-butina-donors

[Zanza]

Drain the swamp!

[jimmy olsen]

It could be something other than fine, it could be many things. No one knows really. 

[frunk]

Maybe . . . I'm not totally sold on the Butina indictment.  Will wait and see what evidence is presented.

The indictment portrays her as an agent under the direction and control of a prominent Russian politician, who she had interned for. That may be but unlike with Manafort the specifics in the indictment itself are thin.

I have some concern with aggressive use of foreign agent registration laws. Other regimes - including Russia - abuse such laws to intimidate NGOs that have support and backing from non-citizen members.  Of course, registration should be enforced when someone is really acting as an agent of a foreign state.  But it is perfectly OK for a private foreigner to participate in and give enthusiastic support for US NGOs.

Yeah, it seems there may be an innocent explanation that she wished to set up a similar organization in Russia.

@Jacob, this indictment is unrelated to the work Mueller is doing.

I dunno, the stuff I've heard makes it sound like they have quite a lot of evidence on her acting as a foreign agent.

[Valmy]

... and apparently now non-profit organizations - such as the NRA - no longer has to disclose the source of their donations?

Yeah...how is this fighting corruption and draining the swamp? How is this combating some sort of corrupt 'deep state' whatever the fuck that is? They do realize this will also be used by their left wing enemies as well right?

I don't get it. If you really believed corrupt elites are controlling the world with their evil money than this is playing right into their hands.

[Syt]

Trump getting briefed on Russian cyber attacks:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3yED7w1uu8

[Syt]

So what are the odds that Putin knew he could manipulate Trump to make a complete ass of himself at their joint press conference, knowing that DJT would face backlash at home and struggle to backpedal with the GOP falling over themselves to rationalize/excuse the POTUS's behavior, all in an effort to further make a mockery of U.S. politics and create drama/instability?

[garbon]

Doesn't really seem to me that he needed to manipulate anything. He just had to agree to meet with Trump.