For two days, convicted felon Donald Trump’s Boeing 757, sometimes referred to as “Trump Force One,” was parked right next to a diplomatic aircraft for the Russian government, and the Trump 2024 campaign has yet to explain why the plane was so close to one from Russia.
“It’s unclear exactly how this happened and it could easily have been a coincidence — this Russian aircraft, an exception to the general ban on Russian planes in U.S. airspace, visits Washington, D.C. every few months to exchange embassy staff — but the sight of these two aircraft parked together triggered a flurry of speculation and jokes, given that the former president famously received support from the Russian government in the 2016 presidential election, and was always close with Russia’s strongman leader Vladimir Putin.”
Then, on Saturday, freelance reporter Andrew Leyden provided updates on what was taking place with the Trump plane and Russian jet, posting his reports on Twitter.
“Saturday Update: Trump’s plane is still at IAD next to the Russian government plane, which appears to be readying to leave soon. A United Arab Emirates Air Force C-17 is also parked nearby today.”
Saturday Update: Trump’s plane is still at IAD next to the Russian government plane, which appears to be readying to leave soon. A United Arab Emirates Air Force C-17 is also parked nearby today. pic.twitter.com/so8uro48KP
Though the proximity of Trump’s plane to the Russian one could be a mere coincidence, it did raise eyebrows on social media, especially since there have long been rumors that Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are chummy with each other, as was seen when the two met on multiple occasions during the Trump administration. Trump has also been reluctant to criticize Putin for committing war crimes as part of his lawless invasion of Ukraine.
I wouldn't be surprised if intelligence is also aware of this. Trump might be trying to pass on information regarding top secret documents he stole from the White House onto Russia and Saudi Arabia. The intelligence community has been on pins and needles with the possibility of…
Wondered why his plane flew to Dulles from Atlanta, when his rally is in Chesapeake and Richmond, Norfolk, and Newport-News all have runways capable of handling his plane. And then you see who he happens to be parked next to. I'm not saying it is what it looks like, but 🤷♂️
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) may be part of a larger conspiracy to spread Russian lies about President Joe Biden as part of a campaign to benefit Donald Trump, according to former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner.
Speaking with MSNBC host Ayman Mohyeldin, Kirschner was asked about the recent arrest of Alexander Smirnov, who was taken into custody after being accused of lying to the FBI.
“Were the Republicans in league or incompetent?” Kirschner asked. “It’s one or the other. And here’s the thing. There’s a lot to dislike, sort of every link of the chain here. First of all, the FBI writes down lots of things that human informants and confidential informants say. That doesn’t mean it is necessarily true. Yes, they record it in a form, 1023, but they write it down. It doesn’t mean it’s verified, it doesn’t mean it’s accurate, it doesn’t mean it’s reliable. Once they receive it, they have to go about the hard work of corroborating it, or debunking it. And it sounds like the FBI never corroborated, and indeed, ultimately debunked this disinformation.”
Kirschner added:
“So why this debunked Russian disinformation would then be handed off to Republican members of Congress to be used as the basis to impeach an American president is mystifying, Ayman. And look, let’s use Jim Jordan as an example. You played a clip of him appearing to double down, even though he now knows it’s Russian disinformation, and Smirnov has been indicted for lying to the FBI about the Bidens. Jim Jordan is a serial abuser of his position and his authority. This is the guy who refused to comply with a lawfully issued congressional subpoena because had he complied and testified he might have incriminated Donald Trump.”
Everywhere you look, the GOP has ties to Russia and Russian propaganda which they have tried to use to destroy President Joe Biden and boost Donald Trump. Is it really so hard to believe the Kremlin owns and controls them?
In a blatant move meant to blunt criticism of his ongoing attacks on Ukraine, indicted war criminal Vladimir Putin agreed to sit down for an extensive interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who was dumped by the network in part for his lies about the 2020 election.
The interview, which lasts two hours, is little more than Putin trying to explain history to Carlson from the perspective of a Russian dictator who thinks he’s entitled to attack any country he wants and then claim self-defense.
One portion of the Putin-Carlson conversation has drawn the most interest because in it the Russian dictator clearly mocks Carlson, according to HuffPost.
In the conversation that dropped on X, formerly Twitter, Thursday, Putin had already blathered on about Russia and Ukraine’s history when he brought up the 2014 ouster of Kremlin-backed Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych after mass protests.
“With the backing of whom?” Carlson asked.
“With the backing of CIA, of course, the organization you wanted to join back in the day, as I understand,” Putin responded. “We should thank God they didn’t let you in.”
“Although it is a serious organization, I understand,” he added.
46 minutes into his history lesson, Putin stops to mock Tucker for applying to the CIA when he was younger and getting rejected. pic.twitter.com/oyoADwytpI
Be sure and check out the look on Carlson’s face when Putin reminds him that he was rejected by the CIA. Some have described it as one of constipation.
Those who viewed the video on Twitter/X delighted in the burn Putin inflicted on Carlson.
A file containing classified information about Russia and Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election disappeared in the last days of the Trump administration and has yet to be found, according to a terrifying report from CNN.
The binder contained raw intelligence the US and its NATO allies collected on Russians and Russian agents, including sources and methods that informed the US government’s assessment that Russian President Vladimir Putin sought to help Trump win the 2016 election, sources tell CNN.
The intelligence was so sensitive that lawmakers and congressional aides with top secret security clearances were able to review the material only at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, where their work scrutinizing it was itself kept in a locked safe.
The file was last seen at the White House when Trump sought to declassify it for public release. The disgraced former president has long been obsessed with news reports suggesting that the Kremlin actively worked to get him elected instead of then-Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
Additionally, the Russia binder wasn’t among the classified documents found when the FBI searched Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in August of last year, raising new questions about what might have become of the dossier.
New information suggests that the file was taken by former chief of staff Mark Meadows, CNN notes.
Cassidy Hutchinson, one of Meadows’ top aides, testified to Congress and wrote in her memoir that she believes Meadows took home an unredacted version of the binder. She said it had been kept in Meadows’ safe and that she saw him leave with it from the White House.
“I am almost positive it went home with Mr. Meadows,” Hutchinson told the January 6 committee in closed-door testimony, according to transcripts released last year.
George Terwilliger, an attorney for Meadows, denied his client is in possession of the file, remarking, “Anyone and any entity suggesting that he is responsible for anything missing does not have facts and should exercise great care before making false allegations.”
If the information is now in the hands of the Kremlin, has U.S. national security been compromised? And if so, what long-term ramifications could that pose for the overall security of the United States?
Perhaps members of the Trump administration, including the ex-president, need to be brought before a Senate committee and forced to testify under oath. After all, if they have nothing to hide, they should be eager to cooperate.
As he continues to investigate the matter of classified documents former president Donald Trump illegally removed from the White House and took with him to Mar-a-Lago when he left office, Special Counsel Jack Smith is focusing in on Russia as the motive for why the failed ex-president took thousands of secret files and stored them at his Palm Beach golf resort.
In what may wind up being the greatest irony of all, according to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Murray Waas, Special Counsel Smith and a grand jury he impaneled believe Trump’s obsession with Russia led him to steal the information.
As he left office, Waas has learned, Trump desperately tried to declassify thousands of pages of secret documents that detailed Russia’s efforts to help defeat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election.
But Trump was stymied in his efforts to make the records public, leading the outgoing president to rage to aides that the documents would never see the light of day.
Now, sources close to Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation tell me that prosecutors have questioned at least three people about whether Trump’s frustrations may have been a motive in Trump taking thousands of pages of classified papers from the White House to Mar-A-Largo, in potential violation of federal law. One of those people was compelled to testify before a federal grand jury, the sources say.
The sources say that prosecutors appear to believe the episode may be central to determining Trump’s intent for his unauthorized removal from the White House of the papers. Insight into the president’s frame of mind—his intent and motivation, are likely to be the foundational building blocks of any case that the special counsel considers seeking against Trump.
That has led Smith to take a close look at conversations between the White House counsel, the Justice Department, and then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows in the last frantic hours of the Trump administration.
The sources familiar with some aspects of the special counsel’s investigation further disclosed to me that prosecutors sought information regarding the following issues: the witnesses were asked about any conversations they personally had with then-president Trump or any of their White House colleagues about the Russia papers; they were asked about conversations between senior Justice Department officials and attorneys with the White House counsel’s office, including two former senior lawyers in the office, John Eisenberg and Pat Philbin, regarding Trump’s presidential order to declassify the Russia papers; and they also were asked about the circumstances surrounding a memo written by Trump’s then Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, the day following Trump’s declassification order, in which Meadows appeared to reverse courseand related that the papers would not be released before the concerns of other agencies regarding the Privacy Act were fully assuaged.
“It was very clear from what they asked that their emphasis was on Trump and Meadows,” one personsaid.
Another former aide to Trump, Kash Patel, has publicly stated that he saw all of the records the disgraced ex-president wanted declassified, telling Breitbart:
“It’s information that Trump felt spoke to matters regarding everything from Russiagate to the Ukraine impeachment fiasco to major national security matters of great public importance—anything the president felt [the public] had a right to know is in there and more.”
So it was Russia that allegedly helped elect Trump, Russia that led to his impeachment, and Russia that may wind up sending him to prison for the rest of his life if Smith’s investigation proves Russiagate was what Trump clung to even after he left the White House.
Right about now, Donald Trump is probably wishing he had never heard of Russia or his BFF, Vladimir Putin.
