The Republican front runner for president of the United States

And so much more.

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

Thief in Chief

It's not just US national secrets documents he's captured...

The artifacts include ancient ceramic candles, which were sent from Israel to the US for a Hanukkah event at the White House attended by Trump, who was then president, Haaretz said.

The candles were meant to be displayed briefly in Washington, DC, but failed to be exhibited due to an unspecified bureaucratic issue, the newspaper reported.

  MSN

That being they were being shipped to Mar-a-Lago?

Israel Hasson, who was the director of the Israeli Antiquities Authority, said they wanted one of their employees to go and pick up the items because they were too delicate to be sent by a regular courier.

"Then COVID broke out, and everything got stuck," he said, per Haaretz.

Officials then asked Saul Fox, a major Jewish-American donor to the Israeli Antiquities Authority, to keep hold of them for a short period until they could be returned to Israel, the newspaper said.

But somehow the antiquities ended up at Mar-a-Lago, where they remain to this day, according to Haaretz.

"Somehow."

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

UPDATE 07/26/2023:

[The artifacts] have been at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s home and private club in Palm Beach, Fla., since December 2021. That’s when Saul Fox, a wealthy donor to both Israel and the Republican Party, gave the items to him during a Hanukkah celebration, calling them an expression of Israel’s gratitude to Mr. Trump.

Mr. Fox, who runs a private equity firm, did not return repeated requests for comment. He told The Wall Street Journal that he had hoped to present the items to Mr. Trump at a White House Hanukkah party in 2019, and was given the approval to do so by Israel Hasson, the head of the Israeli Antiquities Authority at the time, but the State Department insisted on inspecting them first. Th

e delay forced Mr. Fox to send a courier to retrieve the ancient items, and then the pandemic set back his hopes of giving them to Mr. Trump, he told The Journal. So he kept them at his California home.

He finally got the lamps and coins to Mr. Trump at the Hanukkah party at Mar-a-Lago in 2021. Ahead of that visit, Mr. Fox wrote in an email reviewed by The Times that Mr. Hasson said that the new director of the antiquities authority, Eli Eskosido, had “whole-heartedly approved” giving the lamps to Mr. Trump for “permanent exhibition.”

[...]

In a statement, Steven Cheung, a Trump spokesman, said the artifacts had been “on loan for permanent exhibition” at the behest of the Israel Antiquities Authority “to honor and celebrate American-Jewish heritage” and Mr. Trump’s close friendship with Israel.

“As the items were displayed as originally intended, the office will be expediting their return to the organization’s representative,” Mr. Cheung said.

The antiquities authority, for its part, said in a statement that it had “no claims against Mr. Donald Trump” and that Israeli and American officials were “working together to return the objects to their proper home.”

  NYT

Any bets on whether they actually get returned?

The other "Panama Papers"

Representatives of the hotel owners’ association formally sought to fire Trump’s management team Thursday by hand-delivering termination notices to them at the Trump International Hotel and Tower, according to a Panamanian legal complaint filed by Orestes Fintiklis, who controls 202 of the property’s 369 hotel units. Trump’s managers retreated behind the glass walls of an office where they were seen carrying files to an area where the sounds of a shredding machine could be heard, according to two witnesses aligned with the owners. The legal complaint also accused Trump’s team of improperly destroying documents.

The witnesses spoke on condition of anonymity over concerns they would be drawn into an expensive and protracted legal fight.

  AP

Practically guaranteed. It's the Trump way.

On Thursday, Fintiklis arrived at the property with management staff and lawyers intending to take over the hotel immediately. The Trump management team again refused to yield control of the property, and according to the legal complaint filed by Ithaca’s lawyers, refused to allow Fintiklis to check into any of his company’s 202 hotel rooms.

[...]

Elsewhere in the building, the hotel owners’ team and its allies were barred by Trump Hotel staff from entering the room containing the building’s closed-circuit TV system as well as key computer servers for the hotel and apartments that share the property. In response, they shut off power to the room — temporarily bringing down phone lines and internet connections within the building.

According to the legal complaint, Trump’s chief of security and six security guards “pushed and shouted at” Fintiklis when he came to deliver the termination notices. The complaint said the hotel employees then called the police.

[...]

The AP reported that the Trump management team ran off a group of Marriott executives who had been invited to tour the property amid a search for a replacement hotel operator.

[...]

The showdown is the newest low in a months-long fight over control of the property. Last August, Fintiklis’ Miami-based Ithaca Capital Partners bought the 202 units in a fire sale from the property’s struggling developer. As part of the deal, Trump Hotels sought and received some assurances that Ithaca would not seek to act against its interests as hotel manager.

Relations quickly soured amid abysmal hotel occupancy numbers and allegations by Ithaca and other hotel unit owners of financial mismanagement or misconduct.

Not the Trump organization! Who's gonna believe that?

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

Trump sales haven't even slowed down

They're getting in all the money laundering dollars they can before Mueller puts a stop to it.

President Trump’s companies sold more than $35 million in real estate in 2017, mostly to secretive shell companies that obscure buyers’ identities

[...]

In Las Vegas alone, Trump sold 41 luxury condo units in 2017, a majority of which used limited liability companies – corporate entities that allow people to purchase property without revealing all of the owners’ names.

The trend toward Trump's real estate buyers obscuring their identities began around the time he won the Republican nomination, midway through 2016, according to USA TODAY's analysis of every domestic real estate sale by one of his companies.

  USA Today

Seriously? What about Trump Soho and other properties he sold to Russian mobsters decades ago?

In the two years before the nomination, 4% of Trump buyers utilized the tactic. In the year after, the rate skyrocketed to about 70%. USA TODAY's tracking of sales shows the trend held firm through Trump's first year in office.

Okay, we're only talking about three years.

Profits from sales of those properties flow through a trust run by Trump’s sons. The president is the sole beneficiary of the trust and he can withdraw cash at any time.

[...]

At least one of the 2017 sales was to a German couple. His company determined that transaction does not qualify as a “foreign deal,” which the president and his lawyers vowed to avoid while he is in office.

I think it's great how these asshats just decide what things mean to suit whatever they do. What's my property worth? Oh, whatever I feel it's worth. Who's a foreigner? Oh, whoever I think is one.

A single condo in Trump’s Vegas development sold in October for $1.6 million. That stretched the price per square foot to around $1,000, pushing the limits of the market, said Nicole Tomlinson, a high-rise sales specialist at Shapiro & Sher Group in Las Vegas.

Nothing to suggest money laundering there. Move along.

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

The end is near

Over the course of 2017, both in Congress and in the executive branch, we have watched the task of government devolve into the full-scale looting of America.

Politicians are making decisions to enrich their donors — and at times themselves personally — with a reckless disregard for any kind of objective policy analysis or consideration of public opinion.

[...]

Members of Congress who under other circumstances might be constrained by shame, custom, or the will of their constituents have learned from Trump’s election that you can get away with more than we used to think.

[...]

The sheer quantity of bad acts makes it impossible for anyone to hold anyone accountable.

[...]

Trump and Ryan have completely dissolved the norm against dishonesty to the point where there are no longer any whistleblowers in the Republican caucus or the world of conservative media. You just say whatever you want, and dole out favors to your friends — moving at such a rapid pace that the country’s ability to process what’s happening gets overwhelmed.

[...]

While Americans are fascinated by major legislative drama, endless sexual abuse scandals, endless Trump-Russia scandals, and countless inappropriate presidential Twitter outbursts, key regulators — almost uniformly drawn from the ranks of corporate America — are doling out favors at a pace that boggles the mind.

[...]

The swamp is running wild.

[...]

Moral and political responsibility for the looting ultimately rests on the shoulders of the GOP members of Congress who decided that the appropriate reaction to Trump’s inauguration was to start smashing and grabbing as much as possible for themselves and their donors rather than uphold their constitutional obligations.

  Vox

Greed is rampant in America. And the people at the top of the list know that there is another devastating financial crash on the way. They've been looting since before the 2008 crash. They're causing the crash. And they're looting everything they can before the final blow that takes the country down for the count.

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

But the point is...

Actually, his failure to speak to the loss of life aside, that was a brand new installation, not an old, crumbling one.  And the mayor had warned about its lack of safety before it was ever used.

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

Another investigation into Trump corruption

Controversy over the lease arrangement between the General Services Administration and the Trump International Hotel in Washington continues, with GSA’s inspector general office confirming Wednesday that it has opened an examination of the agency’s handling of the lease.

[...]

In 2013, The Trump Organization won a 60-year lease to create a luxury hotel on the historically protected Old Post Office property. The lease came under challenge after November’s election by groups who said it presented an unprecedented conflict of interest.

In March, Kevin Terry, senior realty contracting officer for the National Capital Region of GSA’s Public Buildings Service, declared the Trump Organization “in full compliance with the lease.”

  Government Executive

Wonder what he got in return.

Several nonprofit legal groups filed lawsuits accusing Trump of violating the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause by continuing to own a hotel at which many political groups and foreign officials stay with ostensible hopes of currying favor with the White House.

In a Tuesday response to the IG’s confirmation, Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., said, “As soon as the president was sworn in, the Trump Organization was in violation of its lease. The language in the lease makes absolutely clear that no elected official can benefit from the contract. GSA’s determination otherwise is confounding and taints this administration. This review by the inspector general is important and must be free of any interference.”

But can they drag it out until after Trump leaves office? That might be the question.

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

Add another name to the Russia-Trump mess: Erik Prince

You remember Erik. Head of Iraq mercenary force Blackwater, now called Xe (update: it's called Academi now, after a third name change, and he also has a company in Hong Kong working for China - Frontier Resource), I believe. It seems he's in the news again for proposing with Oliver North (of Iran-Contra infamy) and the Trump cabal to provide a secret spy service to get around the CIA (a la Dick Cheney's playbook), because Trump doesn't trust the CIA.  (You may recall that Sarah Fuckabee Sanders gave a non-denial denial about it recently.)

Attorney Seth Abramson spent all day today posting a marathon 141-tweet thread on his Twitter account about Prince's involvement with the Trump cabal. Start here if you want to read it.

Erik Prince has gotten away with a whole lot of nefarious shit.  I imagine he thinks he's bulletproof.  And maybe he is.

After 141 tweets taking apart Prince's testimony, Abramson concludes with this:

Also, Abramson wrote an article for the Huffington Post on January 17 about an alleged conspiracy with Prince, Rudi Guilliani and Trump to force James Comey's hand in what became the Hillary Clinton - Anthony Weiner email scandal that many say cost her the election. That's here (and it's short). It begins:

Information presently public and available confirms that Erik Prince, Rudy Giuliani, and Donald Trump conspired to intimidate FBI Director James Comey into interfering in, and thus directly affecting, the 2016 presidential election.

  HuffPo

It's interesting and backs up what Comey said about why he did what he did.

Jeremy Scahill discusses the Prince-North secret spy service deal on his most recent podcast, if you want to listen to that.  (The whole podcast is a good listen; he also talks to Barret Brown.)  That's here:

Things are getting crazier and crazier all the time.

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

UPDATE:  Here's a link to the story of the Seychelles meeting Abramson constantly refers to in the Erik Prince testimony transcript.

The sleaze never stops

One of President Trump’s golf courses paid back more than $158,000 to Trump’s charitable foundation this year, reimbursing the charity for money that had been used to settle a lawsuit against the club, according to a new tax filing.

  WaPo

"This year."

The March 2017 payment came after New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, a Democrat, launched an investigation into how the Donald J. Trump Foundation collects and disburses funds. The inquiry is ongoing.

The Trump Foundation charity: self-dealing at its finest.

He tried to dissolve the foundation when word got out about all the things the "charity" was using the money for, but he's not allowed to now that there's an investigation.  Sad!

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

Another Trump fraud & failure

President Donald Trump's charitable foundation, which last year admitted violating federal rules on "self-dealing," is in the process of dissolving, according to newly filed documents reviewed by NBC News.

[...]

In its previous tax filing in 2015, the foundation acknowledged violating a legal prohibition against a "self-dealing" that bars nonprofit leaders from funneling their charity's money to themselves, their businesses or their families.

[...]

The move fulfills a promise Trump made last December, when he said he would wind down the Donald J. Trump Foundation to avoid conflicts of interest.

[...]

"The Foundation has done enormous good works over the years in contributing millions of dollars to countless worthy groups, including supporting veterans, law enforcement officers and children," Trump said in a statement in December. "However, to avoid even the appearance of any conflict with my role as President I have decided to continue to pursue my strong interest in philanthropy in other ways."

The statement did not clarify the means in which he planned to continue his charitable interests.

  NBC

Hahaha. He didn't worry about conflicts of interest on his hotels and golf courses. And he didn't "wind down" the Foundation for that reason. He did it so people wouldn't be able to dig up any more stories about the fraudulent enterprise it was.

New York's attorney general ordered the foundation to stop soliciting contributions in October 2016.

And because it wasn't allowed to collect any more money!

"The Foundation looks forward to distributing its remaining assets at the earliest possible time to aid numerous worthy charitable organizations."

Maybe some legal bills.

The attorney general's press secretary, Amy Spitalnick, said the foundation can't close just yet, however. "As the foundation is still under investigation by this office, it cannot legally dissolve until that investigation is complete," said Spitalnick.

Why he ran for office

Taxpayers are footing the legal bill for at least 10 Justice Department lawyers and paralegals to work on lawsuits related to President Trump's private businesses.

Neither the White House nor the Justice Department will say how much it is costing taxpayers, but federal payroll records show the salaries of the government lawyers assigned to the cases range from about $133,000 to $185,000.

[...]

The government lawyers and Trump's private attorneys are making the same arguments — that the Constitution's ban on a president taking gifts from foreign interests in exchange for official actions does not apply to foreign government customers buying things from Trump's companies.

  USA Today

He's making oodles of money from his businesses AND getting his dirty dealings lawsuits paid for. Whatever comes next for The Most Notable Loser, he's currently making out very well.

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

Jesus, this family!

Grifters.

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

Meanwhile, the Trump Cabal Is Still Under Investigation

Criminals and frauds. Every last one.

New York prosecutors had investigated Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump, Jr. for allegedly giving false information to prospective buyers of condo units in their troubled Trump SoHo development, according to a joint investigation out Wednesday from ProPublica, WNYC and The New Yorker.

While the report found prosecutors gathered significant evidence for a criminal case, no indictment ever came down against the siblings. As the report revealed, Mark Kasowitz, one of Trump’s longtime personal attorneys who had donated thousands of dollars to the reelection campaign of Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, asked Vance to drop the investigation. The district attorney ultimately did so, overruling his own prosecutors.

[...]

Kasowitz donated $25,000 to Vance’s reelection campaign in January 2012, and Vance returned that money so as not to accept funds from a donor with a case before his office, according to the report. Shortly after Vance returned his donation, Kasowitz met with the district attorney in May to repeat the defense’s arguments that there’d been no wrongdoing; Vance dropped the case three months afterward, and Kasowitz subsequently donated and helped raise an additional $50,000 for Vance’s campaign.

Both men denied to the reporters that there was anything improper about how the case played out.

[...]

The evidence accumulated by Vance’s team included emails in which the Trump siblings discussed how to coordinate misleading information they would provide to people interested in their condo units, according to the report. Trump Jr. told a broker in one message that no one would ever find out about those false statements because the deception was kept strictly within the Trump Organization, according to a person who saw the email.

  TPM

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

UPDATE:  Vance returned $32,000 to Kasowitz - five years late - now that the story is out.  (Not sure why the NY Times needed to note that Vance is a Democrat in this story.)

FURTHER UPDATE 11/22/17:  The company that actually owns the Soho is paying the Trump organization to end their contract.  Apparently the Trump name has become an albatross.

Making a Profit Off Misery

That's from the Trump National Doral in Miami, which has a nice little history. This is where the 6-foot portrait of Trump that he bought with Foundation money hangs on the wall of the Bar & Grill. And, according to Wikipedia,

On May 20, 2016, a Miami-Dade County Circuit Court judge ordered Trump National Doral Miami to be foreclosed and sold on June 28 unless the Trump Organization paid $32,800 [owed] to a Miami paint supply company.

[...]

Trump "has been the target of dozens of liens" from contractors who worked on the renovation project.

[...]

Since Trump purchased the resort in 2012, he has challenged the local property tax assessments every year. In filings with the Federal Election Commission, Trump has consistently claimed high property values for his golf courses; in tax proceedings, however, Trump has generally claimed substantially lower values.

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

If Only Jeff Sessions Had Balls

This could be a way to come out from under that humiliating browbeating Trump gave him.

As reported in the Washington Post, new FOIA-obtained documents show the White House National Security Council (NSC) paid over $1,000 for an unidentified guest to stay two nights at Donald Trump’s luxury resort Mar-a-Lago.

[...]

Three lawsuits have now been filed against President Trump alleging violations of the Foreign Emoluments Clause, and legal scholars and cities across the country are already calling for Trump’s impeachment on grounds including Foreign Emoluments violations. Far less attention has paid to the Domestic Emoluments Clause. The documents just obtained by Property of the People are the first solid evidence uncovered of Trump’s violation of the Domestic Emoluments Clause.

[...]

The released documents show that Mar-A-Lago charged the NSC full price for the rented room instead of offering the NSC a discounted rate covering only the resort’s costs. The NSC receipt lists the rate paid by the National Security Council as the “rack rate,” meaning the standard, non-discounted rate for the room. As such, the NSC’s payment to Mar-A-Lago constitutes a direct, profitable payment from a U.S. government agency to a business personally owned by Donald Trump.

[...]

This payment, made with a U.S. government charge card, constitutes the first documented violation by President Trump of the Constitution’s Domestic Emoluments Clause. President Trump owns 99.99% of Mar-a-Lago, LLC directly, and the company’s profits are held in a revocable trust from which Trump may withdraw funds without restriction.

As the Washington Post writes, Property of the People's work "offers one of the first concrete signs that Trump’s use of Mar-a-Lago as the ‘Winter White House’ has resulted in taxpayer funds flowing directly into the coffers of his private business.”

Today, we are calling upon the Department of Justice to investigate this constitutional violation.

[...]

Trump’s refusal to divest from his business empire has resulted in Trump’s violation of the Constitution’s anti-corruption Domestic Emoluments Clause. This provision prohibits the President from receiving emoluments (profitable payments, benefits, or advantages) paid by federal or state governments, beyond the salary approved by Congress.

[...]

Property of the People also obtained invoices showing payments by the United States Embassy to Trump’s hotel in Panama, and documentation of payments by unidentified federal employees to Trump’s Washington, D.C. and Las Vegas hotels. These payments were all made on official U.S. government charge cards.

[...]

The documents were obtained in response to a FOIA request submitted by Property of the People to the United States Coast Guard. Property of the People is also pursuing the release of charge card records from other federal agencies to which the organization has submitted similar requests. These agencies include the United States Secret Service, the Department of State, the Department of Commerce, Customs and Border Patrol, the General Services Administration, and the Department of Defense.

  Operation 45

You  might think Trump would be a little nicer to old Jefferson Beauregard.

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

UPDATE:

That's from the Trump National Doral in Miami, which has a nice little history. This is where the 6-foot portrait of Trump that he bought with Foundation money hangs on the wall of the Bar & Grill. And, according to Wikipedia,

On May 20, 2016, a Miami-Dade County Circuit Court judge ordered Trump National Doral Miami to be foreclosed and sold on June 28 unless the Trump Organization paid $32,800 [owed] to a Miami paint supply company.

[...]

Trump "has been the target of dozens of liens" from contractors who worked on the renovation project.

[...]

Since Trump purchased the resort in 2012, he has challenged the local property tax assessments every year. In filings with the Federal Election Commission, Trump has consistently claimed high property values for his golf courses; in tax proceedings, however, Trump has generally claimed substantially lower values.

Trump Is a Disgusting Pig and a Liar. So What Else Is New?

He finally did announce who gets the money.  The Washington Post says he gave it, but I doubt it.   In fact, the story goes back and forth between "gave" or "went to" and "would give" or "would get", and in the end admitted: 

It was not immediately clear, from the White House's statement whether the charities had received the donations or whether the checks would arrive in the coming days.

I wouldn't hold my breath.  If nobody follows up, they're likely to get stiffed.  (And even if they get a check, it could be from the Trump Foundation, which is money other people have donated.) So in light of Trump's pledge, this is worth repeating:

In the fall of 1996, a charity called the Association to Benefit Children held a ribbon-cutting in Manhattan for a new nursery school serving children with AIDS [with major donors seated on the dais]. And there was a seat saved for Steven Fisher, a developer who had given generously to build the nursery.

[...]

“Nobody knew he was coming,” said Abigail Disney, another donor sitting on the dais. “There’s this kind of ruckus at the door, and I don’t know what was going on, and in comes Donald Trump. [He] just gets up on the podium and sits down.”

[...]

Trump was not a major donor. He was not a donor, period. He’d never given a dollar to the nursery or the Association to Benefit Children, according to Gretchen Buchenholz, the charity’s executive director then and now.

[...]

“Frank Gifford turned to me and said, ‘Why is he here?’ ” Buchenholz recalled recently. By then, the ceremony had begun. There was nothing to do.

  WaPo

Oh, yes there was. Tell him to take a seat in the audience. He's gotten away with shit all his life because people let him.

Afterward, Disney and Buchenholz recalled, Trump left without offering an explanation. Or a donation. Fisher was stuck in the audience. The charity spent months trying to repair its relationship with him.

[...]

For as long as he has been rich and famous, Donald Trump has also wanted people to believe he is generous. He spent years constructing an image as a philanthropist.

The best way to do that is to actually be one.

A months-long investigation by The Washington Post has not been able to verify many of Trump’s boasts about his philanthropy.

Instead, throughout his life in the spotlight, whether as a businessman, television star or presidential candidate, The Post found that Trump had sought credit for charity he had not given — or had claimed other people’s giving as his own.

[...]

In all, The Post was able to identify $7.8 million in charitable giving from Trump’s own pocket since the early 1980s.

In public appearances, Trump often made it appear that he gave far more.

[...]

Instead, The Post found that his personal giving has almost disappeared entirely in recent years.

Another indication that he's broke.

“If your worldview is only you — if all you’re seeing is a mirror — then there’s nobody to give money to,” Schwartz said. “Except yourself.”

Continue reading.

It seems that, after that story, he actually followed up on some promises, but not in the millions.  Apparently, one of those fulfilled promises has been the one to donate his presidential salary ($78,333 quarterly).  But there have been only two pay periods so far.  Without the income from charities holding events at Mar-A-Lago enriching him, he may choose to keep that salary.

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

Trump's "Personal Donation"

On Thursday, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters that President Trump would donate $1 million of his “personal money” to Hurricane Harvey victims. But on Friday, she wasn’t so sure.

[...]

During Trump’s Apprentice days, donations he claimed would be coming out of his own pocket were in fact made by his foundation.

[...]

Asked by a reporter if she knew whether Trump’s donation would be “coming from his own money or from the Trump Foundation,” Sanders dodged.

“I haven’t had a chance to do that,” she said, suggesting she hadn’t yet had a chance to ask the president where the money would be coming from.

[...]

And even if Trump does donate $1 million of personal wealth, his contribution represents a pittance in relation to the drastic cuts he’s proposing in environmental and disaster relief programs.

Those cuts, which will be considered this month as Congress tries to set a budget, include an $876 million cut in the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s disaster relief account, a $200 million cut to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration programs that help coastal states brace for future storms, and a $2.6 billion cut to the Environmental Protection Agency, among others.

  Think Progress

If he's not mercilessly hounded about it, he won't donate his own money.

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

"Pledging"

Does Trump have any property or businesses in Houston?

Don't hold your breath until he actually ponies up. It's probably coming out of the Trump Foundation, which is other people's money. That's how he usually does it.

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

UPDATE:

UPDATE 9/2:

Huckabee Sanders says she "hasn't had a chance" to ask Dolt 45 where the money's coming from.

Who's Leaking and Why?

Federal investigators working for Special Counsel Robert Mueller are keenly focused on President Donald Trump's role in crafting a response to a published article about a meeting between Russians and his son Donald Jr., three sources familiar with the matter told NBC News.

The sources told NBC News that prosecutors want to know what Trump knew about the meeting and whether he sought to conceal its purpose.

  NBC

That seems to be quite obvious since he drafted the response when the story broke saying it was only for purposes of adoptions, for which they were busted the very next day.

At the time, the White House confirmed that Trump had "weighed in" as the response to the Times report was drafted aboard Air Force One on July 8 as the president returned to the U.S. from Germany. The Washington Post reported that Trump had "dictated" the response.

The initial response by Donald Trump Jr. that was drafted aboard Air Force One described the 2016 meeting as "a short introductory meeting. I asked Jared and Paul to stop by. We primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children that was active and popular with American families years ago and was since ended by the Russian government, but it was not a campaign issue at the time and there was no follow up."

But who's leaking this information about what Mueller wants - obvious though it may be, I don't imagine Mueller's team would be leaking unless they meant to as a part of their plan.

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

Pardoning Joe

Richard Painter, former White House ethics lawyer for president George W Bush, told the Guardian: “It was not done in the normal way where you have pardons done by the Department of Justice and then recommendations made to the president.

“It was done for political reasons and it is no coincidence that it was done on the same day as the firing of Sebastian Gorka. The problem is the ‘alt-right’, who are obsessed with ethnic supremacy and need something else to distract them, so they threw the pardon for Sheriff Joe into the mix. It certainly wasn’t appropriate.”

Painter added: “I don’t think the pardon will be challenged but we have potentially serious constitutional issues with President Trump. If he tries to use pardons with the Russia investigation, potentially pardoning members of his own family, there will be a ruckus.”

[...]

Bradley Moss, a national security attorney, argued: “By demonstrating his willingness to issue pardons without bothering with the trouble of bureaucratic due diligence or concerns about political backlash, President Trump has sent out a subtle and implicit message to [Michael] Flynn and [Paul] Manafort: hang tight, I have your back.

“He undoubtedly is attempting to forestall either of the two men (or their subordinates) from cooperating with Mueller beyond what’s legally required, with the unspoken reassurance hanging over the investigation that the president can wipe their criminal slates clean if Mueller gets too close.”

  The Guardian

Maybe. I'm not sure Trump thinks that far ahead. Scoring political points with his base at a time when he's painting himself into a corner is explanation enough.

The Phoenix New Times, meanwhile, published a searing Twitter thread that included the following posts, some of which linked to past articles about Arpaio: “He ran a jail that he described as a “concentration camp”… Prisoners there died at an alarming rate, often without explanation … One of his jailers nearly broke the neck of a paraplegic guy who had the temerity to ask for a catheter.

“One time, as a publicity stunt, he marched Latino prisoners into a segregated area with electric fencing … He ran an ongoing ‘mugshot of the day’ contest on the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office website … He arrested New Times reporters for covering him. We won a $3.75m settlement for that one … “Under him, the MCSO [Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office] failed to investigate hundreds of sex abuse cases, many of which involved children … But he somehow found time and money to send a deputy to Hawaii to look for Barack Obama’s birth certificate … Oh, and one time he staged an assassination attempt against himself? That was weird.”

[...]

Arpaio, 85, was sheriff of Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, and came to personify the administration’s divisive crackdown on illegal immigration. He was an aggressive supporter of Trump’s election campaign and appeared alongside him at rallies. His extraordinary pardon was condemned by Arizona senators John McCain and Jeff Flake, both Republicans.

[...]

On Friday night, he told Fox News host Sean Hannity: “I’m going to do a news conference early next week and get to the bottom of this and show the abuse of the judicial system and politics.

“I’m not going down without trying to defend myself.”

Doesn't have sense enough to take the pardon, shut his mouth and consider himself lucky.

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