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‘People actually laughed at a president’: At U.N. speech, Trump suffers the fate he always feared
The Debrief: An occasional series offering a reporter’s insights
By David Nakamura
September 25, 2018 at 5:14 PM
President Trump elicited laughter at the start of his address to world leaders Sept. 25 at the U.N. General Assembly in New York. (Reuters)
UNITED NATIONS —President Trump has long argued that the United States has been taken advantage of by other nations — a “laughing stock to the entire World,” he said on Twitter in 2014 — and his political rise was based on the premise that he had the strength and resolve to change that.
But at the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, Trump got a comeuppance on the world’s biggest stage. Delivering a speech that aimed to establish U.S. “sovereignty” over the whims and needs of other nations, the president’s triumphant moment was marred in the first minute when he was met by laughter — at his expense.
The embarrassing exchange came when Trump boasted that his administration had accomplished more over two years than “almost any administration” in American history, eliciting audible guffaws in the cavernous chamber hall.
The president appeared startled. “Didn’t expect that reaction,” he said, “but that’s okay.”
Members of the audience chuckled again — perhaps this time in sympathy.
President Trump prepares to address the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly on September 25, 2018 in New York City. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)
Trump continued his address, which lasted an additional 34 minutes, but the moment marked a pointed rejoinder from the international community to a president who has delighted in poking traditional U.S. allies and partners in the eye on trade, security alliances and general diplomatic bonhomie.
“He has always been obsessed that people are laughing at the president. From the mid-’80s, he’s said: ‘The world is laughing at us. They think we’re fools,’ ” said Thomas Wright, a Europe analyst at the Brookings Institution. “It’s never been true, but he’s said it about every president. It’s the first time I’m aware of that people actually laughed at a president. I think it is going to drive him absolutely crazy. It will play to every insecurity he has.”
For Trump, the moment wasn’t just embarrassing. It also punctured one of the core fabulist assertions of a president who has, according to Washington Post fact-checkers, made more than 5,000 false or misleading statements since taking office.
As the midterm elections approach, Trump has begun boasting of a long list of accomplishments for his administration, at one point reciting them at a recent campaign rally from two pieces of paper that he pulled from his suit jacket.
In doing so, the president typically has claimed sweeping success and placed himself favorably in historical comparison to the nation’s greatest leaders. At a rally in Springfield, Mo., last week, Trump was wrapping up an hour-long address to supporters with some flowery teleprompter prose about the courage of America’s founders when he strayed from the script to assert that his election in 2016 was “the greatest movement in the history of our country.”
At the United Nations, Trump’s claim to have done more in less than two years than most of the 44 previous administrations defied any bounds of reality — or hubris. The difference was that he was not talking to a room full of excited, red-hat-wearing “MAGA” supporters who cheer him on.
“On one hand, you feel, ‘Oh, God, how awful that the American president is being laughed at on the world stage,’ ” said Julie Smith, who served as deputy national security adviser to Vice President Joe Biden.
Germany’s delegation at the U.N. General Assembly appeared to laugh during President Trump’s speech when he suggested that Germany is becoming “totally dependent” upon Russian energy. (Reuters)
“But on the other hand, you kind of feel good that Trump was finally escaping the bubble of political rallies that continually gives him the impression that everyone agrees with the false claims he is making,” said Smith, who watched Trump’s speech from Berlin, where she is spending a year as a fellow at the Bosch Academy. “There was a moment I thought to myself, ‘This is good that the president is being exposed to how the rest of the world sees him.’ ”
Though the world leaders’ laughter at the United Nations was spontaneous, there might have been a bit of extra feeling behind it among some of the delegates in the room. TV cameras caught German diplomats chuckling — perhaps a form of release after relations between Trump and Chancellor Angela Merkel got off to a bad start and have continued to devolve.
Last year, Germans attending a conference at the Economic Council of the Christian Democratic Union in Berlin laughed and applauded after Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross’s microphone was cut off in mid-sentence after he spoke past his allotted time via video feed. Merkel then rebutted parts of his remarks in her own speech.
On social media, Trump’s critics quickly mocked him on Tuesday.
“American Presidents used to set the global agenda at the UNGA. Now Trump gets laughed at,” tweeted Ben Rhodes, who as a top national security aide to President Barack Obama helped craft U.N. speeches.
“The world just laughed @realDonaldTrump,” comedian Wanda Sykes tweeted. Referring to the famed theater in Harlem in which the audience boos and heckles bad performers offstage, she added, “Stay tuned, they might go full ‘Showtime at the Apollo’ on him.”
By the afternoon, Trump was projecting an air of nonchalance, telling reporters that his boast in the speech “was meant to get some laughter.” But most observers weren’t buying it from a president who seldom laughs at himself and whose default expression is an unsparing glare.
“It’s got to hurt,” said Wright, the Brookings Institution analyst. “It was on camera and it was spontaneous. It was on one of the biggest stages in the world.”
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David Nakamura covers the White House. He has previously covered sports, education and city government and reported from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Japan.
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A former spy explains why Manafort is crucial to Mueller’s Russia investigation
Manafort’s guilty plea goes to the heart of Russia’s 2016 election interference plot.
By Alex Finley and Center for Public Integrity on September 26, 2018 6:00 am
Six years before Paul Manafort became Donald Trump’s campaign chairman, he advised another divisive politician: Ukraine’s Viktor Yanukovych. Javier Zarracina/Vox; Mark Wilson, Sasha Mordovets/Getty Images
Viktor Yanukovych, a Ukrainian politician, ran a divisive and ultimately successful presidential campaign in 2010.
Over the course of several months, he portrayed his political opponent, Yulia Tymoshenko, as corrupt and threatened to jail her. He warned that the election might be rigged and called on supporters to march in protest if he lost. He yelled about the corruption of the political elite and attacked his Western allies, calling instead for closer ties with Russia, with whom he had cultivated deep — and hidden — business ties.
Any of this sound familiar?
During his 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump had the same strategic adviser as Yanukovych did six years earlier: Paul Manafort.
Coincidentally or not, Manafort proceeded to implement a nearly identical political playbook to launch Trump into the most powerful office in the world.
On September 14, Manafort pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy — counts that include money laundering, failing to register as a foreign agent, and witness tampering — and agreed to cooperate with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia during the presidential election.
The plea agreement came after Manafort was found guilty on charges of tax fraud, bank fraud, and hiding foreign bank accounts in a separate trial last month. The charges Manafort pleaded guilty to concern his influence-peddling on behalf of Yanukovych and his pro-Russian political party, the Party of Regions, in Washington and elsewhere — all of which occurred years before Manafort joined the Trump campaign.
The day the plea agreement was announced, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders issued a statement emphasizing that fact — that Manafort’s crimes happened long before he ever worked for the campaign — saying that the plea deal “had absolutely nothing to do with the president or his victorious 2016 presidential campaign. It is totally unrelated.”
But while she’s right that the crimes Manafort pleaded guilty to predate his work with the Trump campaign, his decision to plead guilty brings us closer to resolving questions surrounding possible cooperation between the Trump campaign and Russian interests.
For Mueller, Manafort is a way to gain detailed insight into the campaign’s most controversial inner machinations, including the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting billed in advance by Russians as a way to collect damaging information on Hillary Clinton, and the decision to weaken the Republican Party’s support for Ukraine (which Russia had invaded) in its official platform.
Manafort may also provide new details about who knew what and when about WikiLeaks’ dissemination of Hillary Clinton’s stolen emails at a key moment during the election.
As a former spy, I know that Manafort was a vulnerable target
Manafort’s guilty plea makes it clear that his actions on behalf of Ukraine’s pro-Russian leader were in lockstep with the larger interests of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who sought to undermine democracy not only in Eastern Europe but in America as well.
So why did this convergence of interests occur? My experience as an intelligence officer tells me that Manafort’s unmitigated greed and his business practices — including money laundering and his frequent use of offshore accounts — highlight vulnerabilities that Russian intelligence officers could have exploited to their advantage, including while he was working for Trump.
At the CIA, where I worked in the Directorate of Operations, we assessed a potential asset’s vulnerabilities using the acronym MICE: money, ideology, coercion, and ego. Any good intelligence officer finds a way to use those vulnerabilities to leverage the asset to work on her or his behalf.
Manafort, it was clear, had multiple vulnerabilities. He liked money, and he hid a lot of it. Prosecutors at his first trial highlighted Manafort’s extravagant lifestyle, trotting out exhibits showing he spent a million dollars on clothing at a single store, bought a $21,000 watch, spent a million dollars on Oriental rugs, used millions to buy and renovate real estate, and shelled out $15,000 on an ostrich leather jacket.
Yanukovych, the Ukrainian president, lived an opulent lifestyle as well — particularly for a lifelong public servant.
After he was forced out of office in February 2014, Ukrainians stormed his residence and discovered luxury cars, an 18-hole golf course, a presidential sauna, and a private exotic zoo, which included several ostriches (no word yet on how Yanukovych, or his ostriches, felt about Manafort’s jacket). Elsewhere, investigators for the new government found a ledger outlining $12 million in unofficial payments to Manafort.
So we know that Manafort had extensive ties to important people, some of whom were in their own compromising situations. Any intelligence officer would recognize the opportunity. Manafort was, quite simply, a ripe target to be exploited.
But what does lobbying for Ukraine have to do with Russia?
Yanukovych and his political party, who were both Manafort’s clients, had a political agenda aligned with Russia and influenced by a flow of Russian money.
The most glaring example of this occurred in November 2013, when Yanukovych decided not to sign an agreement with the European Union — despite popular support in Ukraine for it — and to push, instead, for closer ties with Russia.
The move set off a series of protests in Ukraine that nearly led to a civil war and ended with Yanukovych’s ouster in February 2014. He fled the country and remains in exile, notably, in Russia.
What’s notable as well is that Manafort and his partners pushed that same pro-Russia political agenda with US policymakers and the American press.
Manafort tried to clean up Yanukovych’s image in the West, convincing policymakers that his jailing of Tymoshenko was not politically motivated, for example, and that Yanukovych was the best leader to forge Ukraine’s relationship with Europe — exactly as Putin wanted.
Manafort also did other things to promote Putin’s agenda. According to the Associated Press, Manafort signed a contract in 2006 with Russian oligarch and Putin friend Oleg Deripaska. Deripaska agreed to pay Manafort $10 million a year to develop and execute an influence plan that Manafort promised would “greatly benefit the Putin Government.”
The Wall Street Journal has reported that Manafort carried out similar pro-Russian influence operations in Georgia and Montenegro, two other countries Putin has been keen to keep on a tight leash due to their geographic proximity and historic ties to Russia.
This type of lobbying shares many similarities with espionage.
Both focus on gathering information, and influencing and manipulating people to do one’s bidding. The only real difference is deniability: Intelligence agencies like to hide the fact that they are behind the influence.
Lobbyists often don’t — but Manafort did.
In fact, Manafort’s correspondence, included as evidence in court filings, is littered with spy lingo depicting his efforts at deniability. In a June 2012 email to his associates Rick Gates and Konstantin Kilimnik outlining plans to put together a high-level group of former European leaders to push Ukraine’s agenda, for example, Manafort notes “some informal and covert interaction is possible.”
He also pushed news stories denigrating Yanukovych’s political opponent in the American press. Those, too, needed to be “push[ed]” “[w]ith no fingerprints,” according to court filings.
As the charging documents state, Manafort hid that he and the government of Ukraine were behind efforts “to influence both American leaders and the American public.” He viewed “secrecy for himself and for the actions of his lobbyists as integral to the effectiveness of the lobbying offensive.”
Manafort and his partners even used other companies and individuals as cutouts, allowing them to influence policymakers “without any visible relationship with the Government of Ukraine,” according to the statement of offenses.
This all brings us to the question of collusion
Why did Manafort, a man who loved money, agree to work for Trump for free?
Was someone else paying him secretly? Were the loans he received from Deripaska or others connected to pro-Russian interests, whether business executives or organizations, really meant to be paid back? Or was Manafort in debt to these people, and thus vulnerable to coercion?
Manafort’s lawyers have denied he colluded with the Russian government. But his relationship with Deripaska, the Russian oligarch, included financial debt — which Deripaska wound up pursuing in the courts, and Manafort has denied.
This raises the question of what exactly Manafort owed to people close to Putin.
Of particular note is an email exchange — published by the Washington Post and the Atlantic — in which Manafort offered to brief Deripaska on developments in the Trump campaign.
This was an intriguing offer considering Deripaska’s relationship with Putin, and the fact that Manafort had received millions of dollars from Deripaska to do something. (They have each said the funds were for consulting or business deals that fell apart.)
Mueller may soon learn the answers to some of these questions, and perhaps the American public will learn the answer to the most important question of all: When Manafort worked on the Trump campaign, whose interests was he serving?
And here is an article which shows how badly murked the underbelly of the what is happening in the investigation
POLITICO
Mueller cooperator fears retribution from Russia
By JOSH GERSTEIN 09/27/2018 12:05 AM EDT
Robert Mueller
n a bid for leniency, defense attorney Jeremy Lessem argued that Richard Pinedo has experienced harassment and death threats over his walk-on role in special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe. | Mark Wilson/Getty Images
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A California man who admitted to unwittingly facilitating Russian interference in the 2016 election and later cooperated with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the subject now fears for his safety, the man’s attorney said in a court filing Wednesday,
Richard Pinedo, 28, is set to be sentenced next month for selling bank account numbers to Russian internet trolls who used the numbers to buy web ads aimed at advancing President Donald Trump’s campaign and fomenting strife among Americans during the contentious election.
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In a bid for leniency, defense attorney Jeremy Lessem argued that Pinedo has experienced harassment and death threats over his walk-on role in the Mueller probe. Lessem also suggested that Pinedo has curtailed his activities because fears he could be the victim of attack by Russia, Russian sympathizers, or their opponents.
“The mere act of providing publicly incriminating evidence against Russian nationals accused of undermining an American presidential election is not an undertaking one embarks on lightly, no matter what potential benefits may result,” Lessem wrote in a sentencing filing Wednesday. “Indeed, in a time when those critical of Russia are being murdered, and those who defend Russia in the United States are threatened with violence, Mr. Pinedo’s cooperation with the investigation was an act that directly undermined his, and his family’s, safety.”
The defense submission says Pinedo, who lives in rural Santa Paula, California, had never been out of the state before being contacted by investigators. But Lessem said Pinedo now won’t consider traveling abroad.
“Due to safety concerns related to this case, Mr. Pinedo wouldn’t even consider traveling outside the country, and often suffers severe anxiety simply driving through his own neighborhood,” the defense attorney said.
Lessem is asking that Pinedo get no prison time for the felony identity theft offense he admitted to in February. Prosecutors say sentencing guidelines call for him to receive from 12 months to 18 months, although part of that time could be served in home confinement. Mueller’s team is not recommending any specific sentence.
Pinedo’s conduct “recklessly enabled other criminal activity that may have otherwise been prevented,” prosecutors wrote. However, they gave him credit for owning up to his actions and they say he “saved the government significant time and resources in the investigation.”
U.S. District Court Judge Dabney Friedrich, a Trump appointee, is scheduled to sentence Pinedo in Washington on Oct. 10. He faces a maximum of 15 years in prison, but is likely to get a much shorter sentence in accord with federal sentencing guidelines.
Pinedo is set to become the third person sentenced in the Mueller probe.
In April, Dutch attorney Alex Van Der Zwaan was sentenced to 30 days in federal prison after admitting he lied to investigators about his activities while working for law firm Skadden Arps on matters related to Ukraine. He served his sentence and was deported in June.
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Earlier this month, former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos received a 14-day sentence after conceding he lied to the FBI about his interactions with pro-Russian figures during the 2016 campaign.
Papadopoulos is free pending an order to surrender.
POLITICO
Democrats prepare to force vote on Mueller protection bill
By KYLE CHENEY 09/27/2018 12:19 PM EDT
Jim McGovern
Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) with the backing of Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee, intends to introduce a proposal that would force Republicans to decide whether to consider the Mueller-protection proposal or sideline it. | Alex Edelman/AFP/Getty Images
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House Democrats are preparing to force a vote Thursday on a plan to protect special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe from interference or unilateral removal by President Donald Trump.
Massachusetts Rep. Jim McGovern, with the backing of Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee, intend to introduce the proposal as an amendment ahead of expected consideration of three tax-related bills. The proposal would force Republicans to decide whether to consider the Mueller-protection proposal or sideline it.
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For Democrats, the effort is a chance to force Republicans on the record on an issue that has generated some bipartisan support in the House and Senate. It’s a matter Democrats have described with increasing urgency as Trump has ratcheted up his attacks on Mueller and the investigation of his campaign’s contacts with Russia.
Republicans, though, have shown little urgency to support the measure, even as most have expressed support for Mueller being allowed to complete his work. They’ve argued that they don’t believe Trump will try to remove Mueller, despite his rhetoric describing the investigation as illegitimate and a “witch hunt”
The measure, which has the backing of six House Republicans in addition to more than 120 House Democrats, would prohibit a special counsel from being removed without “good cause,” such as a violation of Justice Department policy. The proposal would also prohibit removal by anyone other than the attorney general or the most highly ranked Justice Department official who oversees the special counsel.
In addition, the measure must provide written notice of any removal decision, including a detailed explanation, and provide the special counsel an opportunity to appeal to a three-judge panel. The court would also decide whether the special counsel would remain active while any appeal is pending – and would guarantee that all documents, resources and materials are preserved.
Two Republican senators, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, backed an identical measure in the Senate.
McGovern intends to introduce an amendment to a House rule to govern debate on three tax bills. The amendment would require Republicans to add the special counsel legislation to the list of bills to be considered.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, has long sought the committee’s consideration of the legislation but has been stymied along partisan lines.
And yet, Trump’s popularity among Republicans remain high.
This political schism, one commentator noted, is unprecedented in the recent history of the United States. In substance, its beginning to resemble the rationalism of the Civil War.