Yes, the "Pee Tape" is back in the news

Yes, that IS interesting.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Paid to keep quiet?

I've often wondered what became of Trump's bodyguard.  You know - the one who was at that Moscow hotel and said he turned back those prostitutes outside Trump's room, but then left his guard post a short while later.  The one who hand-delivered Comey his letter of termination. And, according to Trump's once personal doctor Harold Bornstein, raided the doctor's office and took Trump's medical records.  Turns out he's on the RNC payroll, but it's not clear what he's doing to earn his $15,000 a month.

A company owned by Keith Schiller, President Donald Trump's former longtime bodyguard, has received $225,000 from the Republican National Committee for security consulting since he left his job as White House director of Oval Office operations in September 2017, according to interviews and newly released campaign filings.

Schiller was originally hired by the RNC to help select a site for the 2020 convention. But once the city of Charlotte, North Carolina, was announced in July, Schiller's firm was kept on to "work on other security needs for the committee," a party official told CNBC, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

The official declined to go into detail about what the committee's security needs might be but confirmed that the work is ongoing.

  CNBC

High priced coffee boy

The official also took pains to emphasize that Schiller's $15,000 a month fee was not coming out of the same funds the party was using to help elect Republicans to office in the 2018 midterms. Instead, the official said, Schiller's firm was being paid out of a special fund set aside for convention expenses.

It is unclear whether Schiller has any other clients besides the RNC, and if so, what type of work he does for them. Likewise, details about KS Global Group are not readily available.

According to state records, KS Global Group was created in 2015 by an anonymous Delaware corporate agent, and it does not appear to have a website or any publicly available contact information.

So, you can't hire Schiller unless you know somebody who knows somebody.

As of 2017, the firm was registered at a virtual office address in Boca Raton, Florida, where Schiller lives. A filing with the Florida secretary of State's office lists Schiller as the principal of the company.

Attempts to reach Schiller were unsuccessful.

[...]

But the unique position that Schiller occupies in Trump's orbit could be seen in the RNC's careful effort last year to compartmentalize Schiller's relationship to the committee, even as it hired him just days after he left the White House, and paid him nearly a quarter of a million dollars in consulting fees over 15 months.

Pretty good pay for locating a convention site.

According to RNC records, Schiller's contract is all that remains of three unusual expenses the committee abruptly began paying in the fall of 2017, during a time in which it sought to help the Trump campaign defray the costs of the president's legal bills in special counsel Robert Mueller's probe.

[...]

The White House declined to comment on whether Trump still talks to his longtime bodyguard, or how often. But the president is known to spend hours in the White House residence calling friends and associates, often seeking their opinions on political and policy matters.

In late summer 2017, after eight months at the White House with Trump, Schiller was ready to move to Florida, make more money and get outside the Beltway, according to former White House aides. Inside the West Wing, Schiller also reportedly chafed under the newly imposed, top-down leadership style of then-chief of staff Gen. John Kelly.

At the same time, on Capitol Hill, the Republican National Committee was coming under pressure from Trump allies who wanted it to use its specially designated legal fund [originally created to pay for things like vote recounts] to help pay personal attorney fees for the president and his eldest son, Donald Jr., who were caught up in the early stages of the special counsel's Russia probe.

[...]

The RNC agreed to tap the fund. In August and September 2017, it spent more than $427,000 on lawyers for both men. But an uproar ensued when the RNC later reported the payments on its mandatory monthly campaign filings.

[...]

The last legal bill the committee paid for the Trumps was on Sept. 18, 2017, for Don Jr. Yet within days, the RNC quietly started paying three other Trump-related expenses, according to committee filings with the Federal Election Commission.

The first was a salary for John Pence, nephew of Vice President Mike Pence, who was earning around $12,000 a month from Trump's re-election campaign.

How very interesting.

Next came $37,500 a month in rent payable to the Trump Organization for office space in Trump Tower, which was used by the president's re-election campaign.

Pretty steep office rent. Could they maybe find a less expensive space?

On October 4, 2017, one week after the Trump Tower rent payments started, the RNC cut its first check for $15,000 to Schiller's KS Global Group for what it called "security services."

The expense was disclosed by the committee on its next campaign filing in October, as required by law. But it went unnoticed by reporters for another three months.

[...]

The RNC wasn't the only pro-Trump group helping Schiller to make ends meet, however. Also not yet reported at the time was the fact that Schiller's lawyers were being paid, at least in part, by the Trump campaign. Between January and April 2018, the campaign paid more than $94,500 to Schiller's attorney's law firm, according to campaign finance reports.

His lawyers. He did sit for an interview with the House Intelligence Committee under Nunes. I wonder if maybe the Nadler-headed Committee wil recall him.

As for the other two expenses, Pence's salary and the Trump Tower rent, which had been explicitly taken over from the campaign, they were both stopped within weeks of CNBC's first identifying them and questioning the committee about them in February. By mid-March 2018, the Trump campaign was back to paying its own rent and paying Pence's [nephew's] salary.

Of the three expenses the committee had begun paying during those last two weeks of September 2017, only Schiller remained on the books.

But now that the original task of selecting a convention site is complete, and Schiller is still on the payroll, the issue of what Trump's former bodyguard is being paid to do is not clear. When CNBC pressed the RNC official for details this week, the official would say only that Schiller was "working on other security needs for the committee."

[...]

CNBC asked the RNC on Monday whether Schiller is still being paid with convention funds, and the official did not respond.

[...]

Schiller is one of several former White House aides who left their government jobs and were quickly hired by Trump-allied political groups. In March 2018, Trump's personal aide Johnny McEntee was fired from the White House for online gaming. Trump's reelection campaign announced that it had hired McEntee as a senior adviser the very next day.

Is he getting $15,000 a month, too? Why, yes. Yes he is. At least he was as of August last year.

A number of former Trump aides – including two who served in sensitive positions in the White House – have been paid roughly $15,000 per month by either the Trump campaign, the Republican National Committee or America First PAC, a political action committee dedicated to Trump’s re-election for various services described only briefly in filings.

[...]

Campaign finance records show several former aides to President Donald Trump have received payments of roughly $15,000 per month from campaign or party accounts, bolstering part of former aide Omarosa Manigault Newman’s claim that she was offered the same amount to keep quiet about her time in the White House.

The Apprentice contestant turned White House aide Manigault Newman has alleged that multiple former Trump Administration aides have been taking money for their silence since leaving their posts, a hush money payment under the guise of a no-show job that she says she turned down.

"They were not offering me a real job," Manigault Newman told NBC on Sunday. “They didn't really care if I showed up. In fact, there are several former employees from the White House who actually signed this agreement, who are all being paid $15,000 for their silence.”

[...]

Campaign or party coffers made monthly payments to former director of Oval Office operations Keith Schiller for “security services,” former personal assistant to the president John McEntee for “payroll,” former digital media director of the Trump campaign Brad Parscale for “digital consulting [and] management consulting” and former director of advertising for the Trump campaign Gary Coby for “media services [and] consulting.”

  ABC

RNC must have a shitload of income. NRA? Russia? The Mercers? Sheldon Adelson? Corporations and billionaires? I wonder what Republican candidates for various positions think of where that money's going.

As an interesting bit of background on Schiller, who worked as Trump's bodyguard for almost twenty years, is before that, he worked for the NYPD as an undercover officer in the drug enforcement division and the Street Narcotics Enforcement Unit.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Wow. What to make of this...

This is the new video by Trump's pal/associate/Russian performer Emin Agalarov (Rob Goldstone is his publicist):

No collusion; no hookers

“He brought up what he called the ‘golden showers thing’ … adding that it bothered him if there was ‘even a one percent chance’ his wife, Melania, thought it was true,” Comey writes in “A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership,” a copy of which was obtained by The Post.

“He just rolled on, unprompted, explaining why it couldn’t possibly be true, ending by saying he was thinking of asking me to investigate the allegation to prove it was a lie.

  Market Watch

Good point, Susan

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Fun with Trump

This is the first of two excerpts adapted from Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin’s War on America and the Election of Donald Trump (Twelve Books), by Michael Isikoff, Chief Investigative Correspondent for Yahoo News, and David Corn, Washington bureau chief of Mother Jones. It will be released on March 13.

[...]

While in the Russian capital [Nov. 9, 2013], Trump was also scouting for new and grand business opportunities, having spent decades trying — but failing — to develop high-end projects in Moscow. Miss Universe staffers considered it an open secret that Trump’s true agenda in Moscow was not the show but his desire to do business there.

[...]

Once in Moscow, Trump received a private message from the Kremlin, delivered by Aras Agalarov, an oligarch close to Putin and Trump’s partner in hosting the Miss Universe event there: “Mr. Putin would like to meet Mr. Trump.” That excited Trump. The American developer thought there was a strong chance the Russian leader would attend the pageant. But as his time in Russia wore on, Trump heard nothing else. He became uneasy.

“Is Putin coming?” he kept asking.

[...]

Trump’s trip to Moscow for the Miss Universe contest was a pivotal moment. He had for years longed to develop a glittering Trump Tower in Moscow. With this visit, he would come near — so near — to striking that deal. He would be close to branding the Moscow skyline with his world-famous name and enhancing his own status as a sort of global oligarch.

During his time in Russia, Trump would demonstrate his affinity for the nation’s authoritarian leader with flattering and fawning tweets and remarks that were part of a long stretch of comments suggesting an admiration for Putin.

[...]

Trump’s brief trip to Moscow held clues to this mystery. His two days there would later become much discussed because of allegations that he engaged in weird sexual antics while in Russia — claims that were not confirmed. But this visit was significant because it revealed what motivated Trump the most: the opportunity to build more monuments to himself and to make more money. Trump realized that he could attain none of his dreams in Moscow without forging a bond with the former KGB lieutenant colonel who was now the president of Russia.

  Yahoo

Rewind to June 15, Los Angeles. Aras Agalarov and his pop star son Emin planned a big dinner at a restaurant in the Palazzo hotel and casino.

Much to their surprise, they received a call from Keith Schiller, Trump’s longtime security chief and confidant, informing them that his boss wanted to join their party. Sure, they said, please come.

[...]

After the dinner, part of the group headed to an after-party at a raunchy nightclub in the Palazzo mall called the Act. Shortly after midnight, the entourage arrived at the club. The group included Trump, Emin, [Rob] Goldstone, [the reigning Miss Universe, Olivia] Culpo, and Nana Meriwether, the outgoing Miss USA.

[...]

The Act was no ordinary nightclub. Since March, it had been the target of undercover surveillance by the Nevada Gaming Con­trol Board and investigators for the club’s landlord — the Palazzo, which was owned by GOP megadonor Sheldon Adelson — after complaints about its performances. The club featured seminude women performing simulated sex acts of bestiality and grotesque sadomasochism — skits that a few months later would prompt a Nevada state judge to issue an injunction barring any more of its “lewd” and “offensive” performances. Among the club’s regular acts cited by the judge was one called “Hot for Teacher,” in which naked college girls simulate urinating on a professor. In another act, two women disrobe and then “one female stands over the other female and simulates urinating while the other female catches the urine in two wine glasses.”

Hmmmm. Maybe that's where Old Lard Ass got hooked on the idea of golden showers.

(The Act shut down after the judge’s ruling. There is no public record of which skits were performed the night Trump was present.)

Oh, OK. But there is a list of people who might be able to tell us. Goldstone likes to talk.

Back to November when Trump flew to Moscow for the big Miss Universe event.

Trump was soon whisked to a gala lunch at one of the two Moscow branches of Nobu, the famous sushi restaurant. [...] An assortment of Russian businessmen was there, including Herman Gref, the chief executive of Sberbank, a Russian state-owned bank and one of the co-sponsors of the Miss Universe pageant.

Trump was treated with much reverence. He gave a brief wel­coming talk. “Ask me a question,” he told the crowd. The first query was about the European debt crisis and the impact that the financial woes of Greece would have on it. “Interesting,” Trump replied. “Have any of you ever seen ‘The Apprentice’?” Trump spoke at length about his hit television show, repeatedly noting what a tre­mendous success it was.

[...]

Trump next went to the theater in Crocus City Hall. It was the day before the show. This was Trump’s chance to review the con­testants and exercise an option he always retained under the rules of his pageants: to overrule the selection of judges and pick the con­testants he wanted among the finalists. In short, no woman was a finalist until Trump said so.

I'm surprised in this day and age we still have beauty contests, but I would have assumed there was some sort of fix on them. Still, that Trump himself got to make the finalist decisions - why would any contestant waste time doing the beauty pageant routine? Why not just get a date with Old Lard Ass?

At each pageant, Miss Universe staffers would set up a special room for Trump backstage. It had to conform to his precise require­ments. He needed his favorite snacks: Nutter Butters and white Tic Tacs. And Diet Coke. There could be no distracting pictures on the wall. The room had to be immaculate. He required unscented soap and hand towels — rolled, not folded.

In this room would be videos of the finalists who had been selected days earlier in a preliminary competition and the other contestants, particularly footage of the women in gowns and swim­ suits. Here, a day or two before the final telecast, Trump would review the judges’ decisions.

[...]

“If there were too many of women of color, he would make changes,” a Miss Universe staffer later noted. Another Miss Universe staffer recalled, “He often thought a woman was too ethnic or too dark-skinned. He had a particular type of woman he thought was a winner. Others were too ethnic. He liked a type. There was Olivia Culpo, Dayanara Torres [the 1993 winner], and, no surprise, East European women.” On occasion, according to this staffer, Trump would reject a woman “who had snubbed his advances.”

[...]

“If he didn’t like a woman because she looked too ethnic, you could sometimes persuade him by telling him she was a princess and married to a football player,” a staffer later explained.

Jesus Christ.

After the event, there was a rowdy after-party with lots of vodka and loud music. A 26-year-old aspiring actress, Edita Shaumyan, made her way into the VIP section, entering the roped-off area at the same time as a famous Russian rap singer named Timati. Shaumyan caught Trump’s eye. He approached her, gestured to Timati, and asked, “Wait, is this your boyfriend? You’re not free?” She said no, she wasn’t there with Timati. “You’re beautiful,” Trump told her. “Wow, your eyes, your eyes.” According to Shaumyan, “He said, ‘Let’s go to America. Come with me to America.’ And I said, ‘No, no, no. I’m an Armenian. We’re very strict. You need to meet my mother first.’”

I doubt if Mama Shaumyan would approve of a man on his third marriage and fifth child.

Trump later had somebody give Shaumyan his business card with his phone number on it. She never called.

Sad!

And shortly after the Miss Universe event, Agalarov’s daughter showed up at the Miss Universe office in New York City bearing a gift for Trump from Putin. It was a black lacquered box. Inside was a sealed letter from the Russian autocrat. What the letter said has never been revealed.

Let me guess. There was no gift from Putin, nor any letter from him. More hype.

[In 2014] the Obama administration and the European Union imposed tough sanctions on Russia in response to Putin’s annexation of Crimea and his military intervention in Ukraine. It would be a kick to Russia’s already faltering economy, struggling because of the plummeting price of oil. And one round of sanctions imposed by the EU targeted Russian banks in which the Russian government held a majority interest — that included Sberbank, which had agreed to finance the Trump deal. Its access to capital was now hindered.

In this environment, the plans for the Trump Tower in Moscow crumbled.

Another, very big, reason for Trump to hate Obama.

According to the Trump Organization, Ivanka Trump, after touring Moscow with Emin, killed the deal for business reasons. But Rob Goldstone suspected that the demise of Trump’s project with the Agalarovs influenced Trump’s view of sanctions: “They had interrupted a business deal that Trump was keenly interested in.”

The Pee Tape never goes away

Who is Alex Van der Zwaan?


And who is Alex Van der Zwaan's father-in-law, aside from a guy with the great name German Khan?

The plaintiffs are among the backers of Alfa Bank, a financial institution that the dossier accuses of involvement in Russian efforts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

[...]

Mikhail Fridman, Petr Aven and German Khan filed suit Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Washington, claiming that their reputations were unfairly tattered by the so-called dossier.

[...]

In May, the same three Russian oligarchs filed a separate libel suit in a New York state court against BuzzFeed over its publication of the dossier.

  Politico

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Nunes House UnAmerican probe: State Dept. - Part 2

Unlike Steele, Shearer does not have a background in espionage, and his memo was initially viewed with scepticism, not least because he had shared it with select media organisations before the election.

However, the Guardian has been told the FBI investigation is still assessing details in the “Shearer memo” and is pursuing intriguing leads.

[...]

The Shearer memo was provided to the FBI in October 2016.

It was handed to them by Steele – who had been given it by an American contact – after the FBI requested the former MI6 agent provide any documents or evidence that could be useful in its investigation, according to multiple sources.

The Guardian was told Steele warned the FBI he could not vouch for the veracity of the Shearer memo, but that he was providing a copy because it corresponded with what he had separately heard from his own independent sources.

  Guardian

Well, there you have it. One of my questions answered. Exactly as I assumed. Steele wouldn't have handed over such a memo without an explanation.

Among other things, both documents allege Donald Trump was compromised during a 2013 trip to Moscow that involved lewd acts in a five-star hotel.

The pee tape never dies.

[T]here is no evidence that his memo was ever sought by Clinton campaign officials.

Sources say that while he lacks the precision and polish of a seasoned former spy like Steele, Shearer has also been described as having a large network of sources around the world and the independent financial means to pursue leads.

Honestly, it becomes more and more evident that Trump and his backers are becoming more and more desperate, from fear.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

McCabe testimony (from the memo)

I think this is what we're going to need to see the minority report's rebuttal to (if they have one):

Note: he doesn't say there were no other documents or facts that were in support of a warrant, just that the FBI wouldn't have even sought a warrant without the dossier.  I don't know if that's true or if that's his opinion.  He was, after all deputy director.  He should know.

So this strikes me as damaging to Mueller's investigation.  I'm not concerned that Mueller doesn't have an explanation that's perfectly legitimate, but we won't get to see it until Mueller is finished.  That's not good for proponents of stringing Trump up by his tiny thumbs.

Maybe somebody could get hold of that pee tape and release it.

I don't see how this would have any bearing on the obstruction of justice case, though.  Nor the money laundering one.  Other than to muddy the whole thing in people's minds.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:  For clarity (I hope), I should say that what I think is the bare bones of this crap is that a) the FBI was interested in and began investigating Carter Page back in July - or maybe as early as 2013 when they discovered Russian attempts to recruit him - and, b) Nunes and the Trump cabal are objecting to a FISA warrant in October allowing them to investigate the Trump campaign through Page.

Exactly when during the summer of 2016 the surveillance of Page began is unclear. Importantly, however, an unidentified government official told the New York Times that the FBI and DOJ waited until Page was no longer part of the Trump campaign before seeking the warrant — investigators being leery of crossing the line of direct spying on a political campaign member. The Trump team distanced itself from Page in early August, so it was presumably around this time when monitoring began.

  National Review

The National Review is in error about when Page was out of the campaign - that was late September, according to this timeline and this Washington Post article.  That's still within the parameters of waiting until he's not in the campaign to secretly monitor him.  He's still in contact with members of the Trump campaign, though, and makes a trip to Moscow.

This is the most confusing bunch of investigations since Watergate.  But maybe that's because I wasn't buried up to my nose in the reporting on Watergate.  I was actually living a life.

UPDATE:  Hugely important:

That, I think was the only thing that made the memo actually of any import.  If that's gone, the memo is pure shit.

The Pee Tape on Hannity?

Why are they bringing this up now?  Hmm?  Is it getting close?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The Pee Tape that wouldn't stay buried

With the release of the transcript of Glenn Simpson's testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, the infamous Pee Tape has come back into the conversation. Here's something from a British reporter [Paul Wood] back in January last year that I didn't see at the time, as people weren't willing to believe such an outlandish claim from the Steele dossier, so American news pretty much dismissed it, defended Trump, and moved on.

Back in August, a retired spy told me he had been informed of its existence by “the head of an East European intelligence agency”. Later, I used an intermediary to pass some questions to active duty CIA officers dealing with the case file – they would not speak to me directly. I got a message back that there was “more than one tape”, “audio and video”, on “more than one date”, in “more than one place” – in the Ritz Carlton in Moscow and also in Saint Petersburg — and that the material was “of a sexual nature”. The claims of Russian kompromat on Trump were “credible,” the CIA believed. That is why these claims ended up on President Obama’s desk last week, a briefing document also given to Congressional leaders and to Trump himself.

[...]

A former CIA officer told me he had spoken by phone to a serving FSB officer who talked about the tapes. He concluded: “It’s hoakey as hell.” Mr Trump and his supporters are right to point out that these are unsubstantiated allegations.

  The Spectator

But in August, Wood had a slightly different story.

At a news conference this week at his New Jersey golf club, the President bizarrely asserted that the Steele dossier had been paid for by Russia in order to damage him. This is the latest twist in Trump’s response to the dossier, which began with flat denials in January that he had been filmed by Russian intelligence with prostitutes in a Moscow hotel room.

That remains unproven. Nevertheless, Steele is not the only source. I heard of Russian kompromat — compromising material — on Trump from two sources months before the Steele dossier came to light. That might be evidence for Trump’s statement that Russian intelligence, as well as the US agencies, are out to get him. There are, though, reports of witnesses in the hotel who corroborate Steele’s reporting. These include an American who’s said to have seen a row with hotel security over whether the (alleged) hookers would be allowed up to Trump’s suite. The dossier’s account of hookers in a Moscow hotel room was the subject of gossip among a select group of journalists, politicians, and intelligence people for months before it was published. Now, claims are circulating of more tapes showing even more extreme behaviour. Expect these allegations to emerge in due course.

  Conservative Circle

We'll be waiting.  While those aren't crimes, they're fuel and they bolster the idea that, as blackmail material, Trump is beholden to the Kremlin.

Oh, and there was also this little tidbit about one of Trump's Russian mob pals:

For several weeks there have been rumours that Sater is ready to rat again, agreeing to help Mueller. ‘He has told family and friends he knows he and POTUS are going to prison,’ someone talking to Mueller’s investigators informed me.

We hope so.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

And, of course, the Pee Tapes can't be far away

I haven't read the Simpson transcript myself, so I'm not absolutely certain that Abramson's statement "that includes the salacious stuff" was actually said by Simpson, or whether Abramson is adding that himself.  I would hope it's the former.  At any rate, here's a link he provides to Trump 'compromising' claims from the BBC.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

On with the book saga

Donald Trump’s lawyers threatened legal action on Wednesday night against his former right-hand man Steve Bannon, marking a fresh escalation after a day of turmoil that left the White House reeling.

A cease and desist letter accuses Bannon of violating a non-disclosure agreement by speaking about his time on Trump’s election campaign to Michael Wolff, whose new book has caused shockwaves in Washington.

  Guardian

I'm not at all surprised by a threat to sue. This is standard Trump. The "cease and desist" part is meant to stop publication of the book.  And, of course, apologize to the president.  Apparently, they sent a cease and desist to both the publisher and Bannon individually for violating prior agreements.

Charles Harder, the president’s lawyer, told ABC News that Bannon’s communications with Wolff “give rise to numerous legal claims including defamation by libel and slander, and breach of his written confidentiality and non-disparagement agreement with our clients. Legal action is imminent.”

[...]

Bannon hosted Breitbart News Tonight on Sirius XM radio as usual on Wednesday night, CNN reported, and made little reference to the acrimony. But when a caller brought up the issue, Bannon replied: “The president of the United States is a great man. You know I support him day in and day out.”

[...]

Now executive chairman of the conservative Breitbart News website, Bannon is known to be planning to throw his weight behind several candidates that share his hardline nationalist agenda.

Surely they don't want him to cease and desist from that.

“Aides thought they had more time to prepare for the book’s formal release,” the Washington Post reported on Wednesday night. “Trump spent much of the day raging about the book to top aides, officials and advisers said … As he fumed, some aides were still frantically searching for a copy of the book, and even senior aides like [Hope] Hicks had not seen it by the afternoon, officials said.”

[...]

Wolff said in an author’s note that the book was based on more than 200 interviews, including multiple conversations with the president and senior staff. But [spokeswoman Sarah] Sanders claimed that Wolff “never actually sat down with the president” and had spoken with him just once, briefly, since Trump had taken office. She dismissed the book as “trashy tabloid fiction”.

Which liar are we supposed to believe?  Reportedly, Wolff has tapes.  Darn those tapes.  Always getting Old Lard Ass in trouble.

The furious controversy consumed time and energy in the west wing just as Trump prepared for a weekend retreat at Camp David with Paul Ryan, the House speaker, and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell to discuss Republicans’ plans for 2018. The stakes could not be higher with the president’s approval rating at rock bottom and mid-term elections looming in November.

Think they'll tell him they don't need his services any more?

The Trump administration is also going to start barring White House employees and guests from using their personal cellphones at work, press secretary Sarah Sanders said early Thursday.

Sanders said in a statement that the "security and integrity of the technology systems at the White House is a top priority for the Trump administration."

  The Hill

I bet that's right.

It won't stop the leaking.

And here's that Hollywood Reporter article promised yesterday ( THR's Matt Belloni is going on CNN in a few minutes to talk about it.  You know who will be watching.  We'll be watching for the ensuing tweets.)

Excerpts:

Since the new White House was often uncertain about what the president meant or did not mean in any given utterance, his non-disapproval became a kind of passport for me to hang around — checking in each week at the Hay-Adams hotel, making appointments with various senior staffers who put my name in the "system," and then wandering across the street to the White House and plunking myself down, day after day, on a West Wing couch.

[...]

The nature of the comedy, it was soon clear, was that here was a group of ambitious men and women who had reached the pinnacle of power, a high-ranking White House appointment — with the punchline that Donald Trump was president. Their estimable accomplishment of getting to the West Wing risked at any moment becoming farce.

[...]

Kellyanne Conway, who would put a finger-gun to her head in private about Trump's public comments, continued to mount an implacable defense on cable television, until she was pulled off the air by others in the White House who, however much the president enjoyed her, found her militancy idiotic. (Even Ivanka and Jared regarded Conway's fulsome defenses as cringeworthy.)

[...]

Steve Bannon tried to gamely suggest that Trump was mere front man and that he, with plan and purpose and intellect, was, more reasonably, running the show — commanding a whiteboard of policies and initiatives that he claimed to have assembled from Trump's off-the-cuff ramblings and utterances. His adoption of the Saturday Night Live sobriquet "President Bannon" was less than entirely humorous.

  Hollywood Reporter

And therein lay his downfall, I have no doubt. One is not allowed to be more important, more famous, smarter, or more admired than The Most Notable Loser.

"How much influence do you think Steve Bannon has over me? Zero! Zero!" Trump muttered and stormed.

[...]

Jared and Ivanka were against Priebus and Bannon, trying to push both men out. Bannon was against Jared and Ivanka and Priebus, practicing what everybody thought were dark arts against them. Priebus, everybody's punching bag, just tried to survive another day.

[...]

How to get along with Trump — who veered between a kind of blissed-out pleasure of being in the Oval Office and a deep, childish frustration that he couldn't have what he wanted? Here was a man singularly focused on his own needs for instant gratification, be that a hamburger, a segment on Fox & Friends or an Oval Office photo opp. "I want a win. I want a win. Where's my win?" he would regularly declaim. He was, in words used by almost every member of the senior staff on repeated occasions, "like a child." A chronic naysayer, Trump himself stoked constant discord with his daily after-dinner phone calls to his billionaire friends about the disloyalty and incompetence around him.

[...]

"It's a littleee, littleee complicated …" [Trump] explained to Priebus about why he needed to give his daughter and son-in-law official jobs.

[...]

By July, Jared and Ivanka, who had, in less than six months, traversed from socialite couple to royal family to the most powerful people in the world, were now engaged in a desperate dance to save themselves, which mostly involved blaming Trump himself. It was all his idea to fire Comey! "The daughter," Bannon declared, "will bring down the father."

"Littleee"? So maybe he really does say "bigly".

[Anthony] Scaramucci, a minor figure in the New York financial world, and quite a ridiculous one, had overnight become Jared and Ivanka's solution to all of the White House's management and messaging problems. After all, explained the couple, he was good on television and he was from New York — he knew their world.

[...]

There was, after the abrupt Scaramucci meltdown, hardly any effort inside the West Wing to disguise the sense of ludicrousness and anger felt by every member of the senior staff toward Trump's family and Trump himself. It became almost a kind of competition to demystify Trump. For Rex Tillerson, he was a moron. For Gary Cohn, he was dumb as shit. For H.R. McMaster, he was a hopeless idiot. For Steve Bannon, he had lost his mind.

Aha! Now I see where Trump came out yesterday with the "Steve Bannon has lost his mind" bit.

There was more: Everybody was painfully aware of the increasing pace of his repetitions. It used to be inside of 30 minutes he'd repeat, word-for-word and expression-for-expression, the same three stories — now it was within 10 minutes. Indeed, many of his tweets were the product of his repetitions — he just couldn't stop saying something.

Can we add OCD to his list of mental issues?

By summer's end, in something of a historic sweep [...] almost the entire senior staff, save Trump's family, had been washed out: Michael Flynn, Katie Walsh, Sean Spicer, Reince Priebus, Steve Bannon. Even Trump's loyal, longtime body guard Keith Schiller — for reasons darkly whispered about in the West Wing — was out. Gary Cohn, Dina Powell, Rick Dearborn, all on their way out. The president, on the spur of the moment, appointed John Kelly, a former Marine Corps general and head of homeland security, chief of staff — without Kelly having been informed of his own appointment beforehand.

Okay. I have to stop here a moment. Earlier, I wondered if George Papadopoulos was the person Fusion GPS refers to when they say the Steele dossier merely confirmed things the FBI already knew from intel and "someone inside the Trump camp." Then, I wondered if it could be Bannon. Now I have a third possibility: Keith Schiller. Recall that when he left the White House it was reported that he had testified regarding the Moscow hotel room (Pee Tape) claims. Could he have been"flipped" by Mueller's team early on? He would indeed be someone who knew lots of intimate things about Trump. ??

Insiders believed that the only thing saving Mueller from being fired, and the government of the United States from unfathomable implosion, is Trump's inability to grasp how much Mueller had on him and his family.

[...]

Donald Trump's small staff of factotums, advisors and family [...] came to believe he was incapable of functioning in his job.

At Mar-a-Lago, just before the new year, a heavily made-up Trump failed to recognize a succession of old friends.

And there, Wolff ends the article. Somebody look into that, ok? That's a major problem.

The Pee Tape keeps on giving

On February 6, in one of his seething, self-pitying, and unsolicited phone calls to a casual acquaintance, Trump detailed his bent-out-of-shape feelings about the relentless contempt of the media and the disloyalty of his staff. The initial subject of his ire was the New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, whom he called “a nut job.” Gail Collins, who had written a Times column unfavorably comparing Trump to Vice-President Mike Pence, was “a moron.” Then, continuing under the rubric of media he hated, he veered to CNN and the deep disloyalty of its chief, Jeff Zucker.

Zucker, who as the head of entertainment at NBC had commissioned The Apprentice, had been “made by Trump,” Trump said of himself in the third person. He had “personally” gotten Zucker his job at CNN. “Yes, yes, I did,” said the president, launching into a favorite story about how he had once talked Zucker up at a dinner with a high-ranking executive from CNN’s parent company. “I probably shouldn’t have, because Zucker is not that smart,” Trump lamented, “but I like to show I can do that sort of thing.” Then Zucker had returned the favor by airing the “unbelievably disgusting” story about the Russian “dossier” and the “golden shower” — the practice CNN had accused him of being party to in a Moscow hotel suite with assorted prostitutes.

Having dispensed with Zucker, the president of the United States went on to speculate on what was involved with a golden shower.

  NY Magazine

Speculate? Or relive?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Was this the same night as the pee party?

How did we miss this story? Perhaps it was the date of it: January 14, 2017. We were preoccupied.

Former Miss Hungary Kata Sarka, 30, told a reality show host last May that she was attending a [2013 Miss Universe] pageant after-party when a man surrounded by bodyguards approached her.

[...]

"We were in Russia, at the final for the Miss Universe and then a man approached me and grabbed my hand, drew me to himself, and asked 'Who are you?'" Sarka told Kasza Tibor, the host of a Hungarian show.

[...]

"And then he said 'and why are you here?'" Sarka continued, giggling. "And he gave me his business card with his private number and told me in which hotel and which room he is staying in. And his name is Donald Trump."

[...]

After Trump's election, Sarka told the Hungarian tabloid Blikk that she saved the President-elect's golden-hued business card, and allowed a photographer for the paper to take a picture of it.

Sarka told Blikk that she never took Trump up on his offer to join him in his hotel room. When asked why, she responded, "He's not my type."

  NY Daily News

Good taste.

Put this in the "wait and see" column

I'm not sure what to make of this. But I'm going to post it here for possible future reference because it's made it as far as Laura Rozen's Twitter account. Two new (at least to me) Russian names in the mix:  Artem Klyushin and Konstantin Rykov.

And some seemingly damning evidence of Trump conspiring with Russia to get control of the White House.  (Or at least of the Russians conspiring to make Trump the US president with a credulous and naive Trump unwitting target.)  Or maybe just Russian wanna-be important people bragging about influence they never actually had?  I don't know.

So now I guess I have to follow Seth Abramson's Twitter account.

Sheeeeeesh.  I spend too much time on this infernal wormhole as it is.  Newsweek published an article Friday discussing Abramson's analysis of the recently revealed Mike Flynn information, which I have not yet read.  Knock yourself out.

 ...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

The Pee Tape

I'm guessing there's something else that's either on that, or other, tapes that frightens Trump.  He's brushed off all sorts of sex scandals.  Those won't hurt him.  Unless, perhaps, there are sex tapes with boys.  Otherwise, he would have just claimed that it was something akin to locker room talk and Trump supporters would have simply shrugged and wished they could have been the one in that room partying with paid women.

It could be that denying the existence of the pee tape is simply a way to cast doubt on everything in the Steel dossier.  Or, there could be something else that hasn't yet been discovered/told.  At any rate, the tape as it has been described doesn't hurt him at all.

The Russians have plenty of kompromat on The Most Notable Loser via his money laundering dealings. They don't need a pee tape, but where's the harm in having it? It could be useful in some other way or at some other time.

The pee tape just got that much more believable

September 20

[Longtime Trump aide Keith] Schiller, a former security chief to Trump who is close to the president, had been telling confidants for weeks that he was close to leaving, according to numerous reports. Schiller was said to be unhappy about having his access to the president reduced by new White House chief of staff John Kelly

The former Trump aide has also reportedly been unhappy with the reduced paycheck he was forced to take upon joining the administration. CNN reports his White House salary at $165,000, a significant drop from his former earnings in the Trump Organization, where he earned $294,000 a year.

Schiller has worked for Trump in New York since at least 1999 and began serving as Trump’s director of security in 2004. Until Wednesday, he served in the White House as director of Oval Office operations.

[...]

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters earlier this month that rumors of Schiller's departure were "not true" and that Schiller planned to stay in the administration.

  The Hill

She lies every time she opens her mouth.

But...that's not the point here.

November 10

[President Donald Trump's long-time confidant Keith] Schiller privately testified that he rejected a Russian offer to send five women to then private-citizen Trump's hotel room during their 2013 trip to Moscow for the Miss Universe pageant.

[...]

Schiller was asked about the Daily Caller article, and he confirmed a Russian made the offer to send the women to Trump's room which was raised around lunch-time, sources said. He was asked who made the offer, but he could not recall the identity of the individual, sources said.

[...]

Multiple sources said the offer to send women to Trump's room came from a Russian who was accompanying Emin Agalarov, a pop star whose father is a billionaire oligarch close to Russian President Vladimir Putin and who worked with Trump to bring the pageant to Moscow. But Schiller said the offer did not come from Agalarov himself, the sources said, disputing the Daily Caller report on that matter.

[...]

On their way up to Trump's hotel room that night, Schiller told the billionaire businessman about the offer and Trump laughed it off, Schiller told the House intelligence committee earlier this week.

After several minutes outside of Trump's door, which was Schiller's practice as Trump's security chief, he said he left.

  CNN

Really? Who was guarding Trump's very large body after that?  And, who went in?

Schiller denied knowing about the salacious allegations contained in the dossier. He was also asked about a wide-range of issues, including meetings between Trump associates and Russians, and he denied having knowledge of many of those interactions, sources said.

[...]

Moreover, he denied knowing about the deliberations around the firing of FBI Director James Comey, saying he was only called into (sic) deliver a letter with the news to the FBI.

I know nothing. I.e., there's a lot to know.

I offer the following with the caveat that I haven't tried to verify the claims.

Okay on the first part, but I don't see how that ensures Congress won't look for any other guard.

While it may protect Kremlin agents (or at least be intended to do so), I don't see how this limits potential witnesses.  On the contrary, I would think it would encourage Mueller to seek out other witnesses for verification of Schiller's tesitmony.

Here's that thread.  Read it for yourself.  It does indeed sound like Putin was setting Trump up to be compromised, something I understand is SOP for high profile Americans in Russia.  Especially if they're as easily stroked as Trump.

Here's a bit that I hadn't heard before and have not corroborated...

And, purportedly peed on the bed the Obamas slept in at Trump's direction.  Stupid stuff, but compromising nonetheless if on tape.  Well, it might have been at election time.  Although, for the life of me, if he'd already gotten away with the pussy grabbing tape, why would he worry about this one?  There's even more to the story, I think.

Schiller is hoping to stay out of the deal.

But he's not compromised by women peeing on a bed.  He's compromised by dealing with Russian mobsters and money laundering.  It's the business aspects of whatever it was he did in Moscow.

 ...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.