Sex, Lies and Videotape

All That Jazz:  Okay, there’s been no videotape so far but there’s sex, a madam and plenty of lies and, after Trump’s sniveling Helsinki performance, who amongst us doubts that Putin has at least one videotape of something very salacious.  As far as the sex goes, we’ve known for awhile that the FBI seized a number of “tapes” when they raided lawyer/fixer Michael Cohen’s homes and office, now we know that on at least one of those tapes Cohen and Trump discussed payments made by AMI, the company that owns the National Enquirer, to Karen McDougal, the Playmate who says that she had a ten month affair with Trump shortly after youngest son Barron was born, a relationship that Trump still denies.  At no time during the 90 second snippet does Cohen or Trump actually admit to reimbursing AMI but they do discuss the possibility of buying McDougal’s story to further quash it, even discussing the best payment method.  It’s not entirely clear who released the tape, some think it was another warning shot from Michael Cohen but most believe it was someone from the Trump team with few if anyone thinking it came from the FBI or the Justice Department.  Regardless of how it was released, Rudy Giuliani says that the tape exonerates Trump because he doesn’t disclose actually making any payment.  Giuliani goes on to say that at least with regard to this tape, Trump is waiving any privilege, allowing it to be released into the hands of federal prosecutors.  In any case, if you believe adult film star Stormy Daniels’ lawyer Michael Avenatti, there are many other tapes out there and he wants them all released.  Avenatti may be a press seeking showboat but so far he hasn’t been wrong about much so there probably are many other tapes and we probably will get to hear quite a few of them at some point.  For his part Trump again tweet attacked the illegal raid, which was not illegal, of Cohen’s facilities and then went on to attack Cohen’s illegal taping of their conversation, again not illegal although probably unethical but then again who’s to say what’s ethical when your client is Donald Trump?  It’s not entirely clear what the Giuliani/Trump legal team strategy is with regard to Cohen and his tapes or whether or not there really is a strategy but strategy or not, the Trump team does seem to be concerned about what else Cohen has and Cohen, who met with Trump nemesis Al Sharpton late last week, seems on the verge of spilling his guts.  While the tape ado was playing out in the press we learned that Kristen Davis, known to the public as the  Manhattan Madam from her involvement in former NY Governor Eliot Spitzer’s prostitution debacle, has been subpoenaed by Special Counsel Mueller.  The Mueller team is interested in learning more about what Davis knows about Trump’s long term associate Roger Stone and don’t appear to be focusing on her prior profession.  Davis is a long-time confidante of Stone’s, he advised her on her campaign when she ran for NY Governor on the Anti-Prohibition Party ticket and he is the godfather to her son and no, I am not making any of this up, so it’s not farfetched to think that she knows some interesting things about Stone and his interaction with Guccifer 2.0 and/or WikiLeaks.  As to Trump and Putin, much if not all of what the two of them discussed during their two hour plus private meeting is not known, or at least, isn’t known to any of Trump’s advisors or the US military but the Kremlin continues to leak out their version of the meeting.  In addition to walking back the suggestion that he’d agreed to send over a few government officials, anti-Putin financier Bill Browder and former Ambassador McCaul, the White House has now also said that Trump did not agree to supporting a Ukraine referendum on the annexation of Crimea, a referendum that no doubt would have been manipulated by Putin, who has already proven his skills at election “meddling.”  Much to the surprise of US military officials the Kremlin has also revealed that the two leaders discussed and that Trump possibly agreed to coordinate military activities more closely in Syria, that’s another thing that may get walked back in the next few days, assuming that Trump ever gets around to telling our military exactly what was discussed and what, if anything and it probably was something, that he agreed to.

Walking Back and Lashing Out:  Trump is back to tweeting that the whole investigation into Russia’s election interference is just a witch hunt, negating last week’s scripted statement that he did believe his intelligence agencies and their conclusions.  Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats is trying to atone for the frank and off the cuff remarks he made during his unauthorized interview with NBC’s Andrea Mitchell last week.  He says that his “awkward response” to being told that Trump has invited Putin for another meeting, this one in Washington in the fall right before the midterm elections, wasn’t meant to be critical or disrespectful, he was just a little bit surprised.  Coats is probably skating on thin ice, it’s not clear that Trump would actually fire him but he probably has been sidelined, a problem for Coats and anyone else who thinks that Trump should be getting his intelligence information updates from US officials with actual expertise, but not much of a problem for Trump who prefers to get his daily intelligence briefing from one or members of the Fox television network.  It also looks like Ambassador Jon Huntsman doesn’t plan to leave Moscow anytime soon.  In response to a call by the Salt Lake Tribune, a paper owned by his brother, that he should resign his ambassadorship in protest to Trump’s Helsinki performance, Huntsman, a former governor of Utah, says that he plans to stick it out.  In a letter to the paper he said that he is “charged with representing our country’s interests, which in the case of Russia are complex and often little understood.  Representatives of our foreign service, civil service, military and intelligence services have neither the time nor inclination to obsess over politics, though the issues of the day are felt by all.”  Significantly, he didn’t mention Trump directly in his letter but did leave the distinct impression that he was sticking it out in order to prevent further damage to the extent that’s possible.  For his part Secretary of State Pompeo is all in Putin coming to Washington.  He says that another meeting between Trump and Putin would be  “all to the good.”  Pompeo will be requested to further explain his position and relay just what was discussed in Helsinki, to the extent that he knows, this week when he is scheduled to appear before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.  He will have much to discuss.  Despite Trump’s public assertions that all is going well with the denuclearization of North Korea, things aren’t working out as planned but are working out the way most experts anticipated and Axios reports that his inner circle says that he is well aware that North Korea hasn’t lived up to his expectations and is very frustrated about that.  Another topic that is likely to be on the table when Pompeo testifies is Iran. On Sunday, Pompeo delivered a “scathing” speech on Iran, accusing Tehran's ruling ayatollahs of spreading violence across the Middle East and lining their own pockets with ill-gotten gains at the expense of ordinary Iranians.  He alleged that Iran’s Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, maintains a personal off-the-books hedge fund worth $95 billion, that is untaxed and used as a "slush fund" by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Crops. Trump followed up late last night in an all caps tweet directed at Iranian President Rouhani: NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE. WE ARE NO LONGER A COUNTRY THAT WILL STAND FOR YOUR DEMENTED WORDS OF VIOLENCE & DEATH. BE CAUTIOUS!  Though Trumps tweet was thought to be in response to a Sunday warning from Rouhani that any conflict with Iran would be the “mother of all wars,” it may also reflect a calculated decision by Trump and his team to shift attention from his failed outreach to North Korea and criticism and bad polling about his bromance with Putin.  Warmongering with Iran.  What could go wrong?