Russian Government Hasn't STFU About Trump's Associates Since 2015
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The Wall Street Journal has a storytime blog post about Donald Trump and his many Russian connections that will knock your socks off, or maybe at this point it won't shock you at all, and you'll just go back to crafting with your cat or whatever it is that you people do. It seems American spies have been eavesdropping on dirty Russians talkin' dirty about Donald Trump and his people for YEARS:
Investigators are re-examining conversations detected by U.S. intelligence agencies in spring 2015 that captured Russian government officials discussing associates of Donald Trump, according to current and former U.S. officials, a move prompted by revelations that the president’s eldest son met with a Russian lawyer last year.
In some cases, the Russians in the overheard conversations talked about meetings held outside the U.S. involving Russian government officials and Trump business associates or advisers, these people said.
The WSJ is careful to note that American intelligence agencies weren't doing WIRE TAPPS to Donald Trump or his people, so Barack Obama and Susan Rice could UNMASK THEM ILLEGALLY to RIG THE ELECTION for Hillary Clinton. In fact, WSJ doesn't even say which Trump associates Russian bad guys were talking about in this surveillance. (Though, just going by Trumpers' history with Russia, we are going to guess they gossiped about Michael Flynn sometimes, Paul Manafort other times, and when they weren't doing that, we bet they were talking about how they should all invite Trump idiot thug baby lawyer Michael Cohen over to Moscow, so he could say "SAYS WHO?" at them. LOL, SERGEI AND ANATOLY FIND THAT FUNNY! And they might have talked about how Donald Trump Jr. would be an easy dumbfuck mark for doing Russian conspiracies. Which other Trumpers were these Russians probably gossiping about? ALL OF THEM EKATERINA!)
The point of what the WSJ is reporting is that U.S. intelligence has had this stuff for a long time, but back when it was collected in 2015, it wasn't all that interesting. Now that investigators are starting to peel back the layers of the Vidalia onion that probably is the Trump-Russia conspiracy, we bet it's a lot more interesting listening! They did notice something in 2015 though:
... [T]he volume of the mentions of Trump associates by the Russians did have officials asking each other, “What’s going on?” one former official said.
The sheer VOLUME. Like if you were going to compare the volume of the Russian chatter about their boy Trump's associates to buckets of Russian hooker pee, it would be like SEVEN BUCKETS. Speaking of Russian Hooker Pee (reminder: the threat level for a Trump pee video is elevated right now, so take proper precautions), remember how the raw intelligence Steele Dossier alleges that Russians have been cultivating Donald Trump for up to FIVE YEARS? We are just saying.
Here's another weird tidbit:
In the spring of 2016, U.S. intelligence officials’ suspicions about Russian meddling in the election grew after their counterparts in Europe warned that Russian money might be flowing into the presidential election, according to officials with knowledge of the warning. It remains unknown if or whether those funds were funneled to a particular campaign or to others to spend it on behalf of candidates.
Hmmmmm! In April of 2016, Donald Trump gave his first foreign policy speech at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington DC. That was the little gathering attended by Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, Jeff Sessions, Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort and others. As Rachel Maddow points out (video below!), Time magazine reports that in May of 2016, a Russian official "bragged to a colleague" that the GRU, the Russian intelligence agency, was fixin' to get ready to fuck Hillary Clinton up in the American election.
June 9, 2016, was the meeting at Trump Tower where Junior Baby Trump got sexually aroused like a yappy dachschund because he thought he was going to get sexxxy dirt on Hillary Clinton from a Russian lady lawyer. June 15, 2016, was the date of the meeting of Congressional Republicans where House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy was caught on tape saying "swear to God" he thinks the Russians are paying Trump and Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Moscow). ALSO, as the WSJ points out, June 2016 was when the world learned that the Democratic National Committee had been hacked.
We're just throwing some dates at your face, to give some context about what was going on in those few months.
Meanwhile, Europe was saying " ACHTUNG ! There's Russian money all up in yr election!"
Want to watch a Rachel Maddow segment about all this? FINE BE THAT WAY:
This just gets more and more interesting, doesn't it? And the news is coming faster and faster these days. Well, as a common Rachel Maddow would say, WATCH THIS SPACE.
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