President Trump, via White House

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

President Trump’s tweet that suggestion he recorded conversations with then-FBI Director James Comey appeared to be a desperate act of intimidation.

Trump’s tweet more than a month ago prompted speculation that the president secretly recorded Comey.

James Comey better hope that there are no “tapes” of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 12, 2017

“James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!” he tweeted.

Then on Thursday, Trump acknowledged he has no recordings of their conversations.

…whether there are “tapes” or recordings of my conversations with James Comey, but I did not make, and do not have, any such recordings.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 22, 2017

According to a timeline provided by Politifact, Comey’s decision to speak out about the conversations with Trump were inspired by the mention of recordings.

“I woke up in the middle of the night on Monday night, because it didn’t dawn on me originally that there might be corroboration for our conversation. There might be a tape,” Comey said. “And my judgment was, I needed to get that out into the public square. And so I asked a friend of mine to share the content of the memo with a reporter … because I thought that might prompt the appointment of a special counsel.”

Then on June 8, Comey testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee and said the existence of recordings would be a relief.

I’ve seen the tweet about tapes. Lordy, I hope there are tapes,” he said.

“I hope there are, and I’ll consent to the release of them.”

The next day, congressional investigators ordered the disclosure of any recordings of conversations between Trump and Comey.

Trump responded that he would discuss the existence of tapes “over a ver short period of time. You are going to be very disappointed when you hear the answer.”

A day before Trump was ordered to turn over the recordings, Trump denied having recordings.

“With all of the recently reported electronic surveillance, intercepts, unmasking and illegal leaking of information, I have no idea whether there are “tapes” or recordings of my conversations with James Comey, but I did not make, and do not have, any such recordings,” he tweeted.

But the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee Adam Schiff, D-Calif., isn’t satisfied.

“Did he seek to mislead the public?” Schiff said in a statement. “Was he trying to intimidate or silence James Comey? And if so, did he take other steps to discourage potential witnesses from speaking out?”

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

Fake news. Bitter Democrats. Witch hunt.

Those are President Trump’s go-to ways of trying to undermine accusations that he obstructed justice when he allegedly told then-FBI Director James to stop investigating former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

Now Trump is zeroing in on special counsel Robert Mueller, who was appointed by the Justice Department to investigate Russia’s meddling in the presidential election.

Suggesting that Mueller is “very, very good friends” with fired FBI Director James Comey, Trump told Fox News that it’s “bothersome” for Mueller to be involved.

Without a shred of evidence, Trump also suggested that Mueller’s team of lawyers are “all Hillary Clinton supporters.”

Mueller, by the way, is a register Republican and is known for his fierce independence when it comes to investigating politicians. 

Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort.

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

Financial transactions by Paul Manafort and his son-in-law are the subjects of a federal inquiry following allegations that investors were defrauded.

The New York Times reported this morning that Manafort’s son-in-law Jeffrey Yohai made a series of real estate deals with millions of dollars from Manafort, President Trump’s disgraced campaign chairman who resigned last August following reports that’s consulting work with the Ukraine netted him millions of dollars in off-the-book payments. 

The Times reported:

The transactions involve the financing of apartments and luxury homes in New York and California using money from Mr. Manafort, as well as from other investors solicited by the son-in-law, Jeffrey Yohai, including the actor Dustin Hoffman and his son. F.B.I. agents have reviewed financial records related to Mr. Yohai, who has been accused in a lawsuit of defrauding investors, the sources said.

It was not clear if the F.B.I.’s interest was part of the broader investigation that has ensnared Mr. Manafort, who was President Trump’s campaign chairman until he resigned last August amid reports that he had received millions of dollars in off-the-book payments for his consulting work in Ukraine. Mr. Manafort has been the focus of several inquiries looking into his business activities, failure to file foreign lobbying disclosures and possible collusion between Trump campaign associates and Russia.

Mr. Manafort has emerged as a key figure in the F.B.I.’s Russia investigation, which has focused on interactions between Trump associates and Russians during and after last November’s presidential election. In addition to his work for Ukraine’s former president, an ally of the Russian leader Vladimir V. Putin, Mr. Manafort’s long lobbying and consulting career has included numerous financial dealings with Russian oligarchs. One of his former employees has been investigated in Ukraine on suspicion of having ties to Russian intelligence.

The revelation about investigators’ interest in Mr. Yohai’s activities comes amid indications that the scrutiny of Mr. Manafort has intensified. Besides the F.B.I. and congressional inquiries, the New York State attorney general’s office has opened a preliminary inquiry “focused on certain real estate dealings” involving Mr. Manafort, according to a third person with direct knowledge of the matter.

Former Homeland Security Director Jeh Johnson testifies before the House Intelligence Committee.

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

In what has become typical fashion, President Trump blamed the Obama administration for failing to “stop”  Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

“By the way, if Russia was working so hard on the 2016 Election, it all took place during Obama Admin. Why didn’t they stop them?” Trump tweeted at 9:22 a.m. Thursday.

Truth is, the FBI and other intelligence agencies were trying to stop Russia and had found evidence in August that Kremlin-backed hackers targeted electoral systems in 21 states, officials confirmed Wednesday.

Testifying before the House Intelligence Committee on Wednesday, former Homeland Security Director Jeh Johnson said the Obama administration didn’t immediately reveal Russia’s interference to avoid an appearance of partisanship.

“We were very concerned that we would not be perceived as taking sides in the election, injecting ourselves into a very heated campaign,” Johnson told the committee.

When asked what took the Obama administration so long to disclose the allegations of Russian interference, Johnson cited the need to protect intelligence sources and methods.

Testifying before the House Intelligence Committee on Wednesday, former Homeland Security Director Jeh Johnson said the Obama administration didn’t immediately reveal Russia’s interference to avoid an appearance of partisanship. The public disclosure finally came Oct. 7, when Johnson and James R. Clapper the then-director of national intelligence, said in a joint statement that Russia was involved in cyber “threats and disclosures … intended to interfere with the U.S. Election process.” They also said a Russian company attempted to break in to state voter registration databases, The L.A. Times reported. 

Johnson said the Oct. 7 statement “did not get the attention it deserved” because it was morphed in media coverage later that day by the leak of Trump making crude comments about women on a 2005 “Access Hollywood” tape.

Felix Sater, via Twitter

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

The special investigation into alleged ties between Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia may now include serious criminal allegations about a dormant real-estate development firm accused of running a criminal operation while it was partnering with the future president and the Kremlin.

The Russian-connected Bayrock Group, which operated two floors below Trump’s office in the Trump Tower in New York, is accused in a lawsuit of serving as a front for money laundering while the company was partnering with Trump on a number of real estate projects. 

One of the influential partners was Felix Sater, a Russia-born career criminal with ties to the Kremlin and American organized crime groups, Bloomberg reports. 

The president has repeatedly claimed he barely knows Sater, but former Bayrock employees said Sater met frequently with Trump at his organization’s headquarters in New York and escorted Trump’s children around Moscow.

Sater also teamed up with Trump’s personal attorney to in a failed attempt to lobby National Security Adviser Michael Flynn on a Ukrainian peace proposal.

While testifying about Russian interference before the House Intelligence Committee in March, FBI Director James Comey declined to answer a question about Trump’s relationship with Sater, who was born in the Soviet Union in 1966 before emigrating with his parents to Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, a heavily Russian enclave.

Sater had worked as a mob informant for the FBI before he fled to Russia to escape criminal charges.

Other Stories of Interest

• Anti-Tax Group Contacted FBI in Baseball Shooting Investigation
• Debbie Wassermann Schultz: FBI Never Contacted Me about DNC Hack
• Time: Will Robert Mueller Separate Fact from Fiction?
• Here Are the Lawyers Helping Robert Mueller in Russia Investigation
• Intriguing Link Between Mueller Probe, Trump And Alleged Money Laundering

Sebastian Gorka, right, via Facebook.

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

Just months before Sebastian Gorka joined the White House as a special adviser to President Trump, he was fired by the FBI for his seething Islamophobic rhetoric, the Daily Beast reveals.

The inflammatory pundit was working for the FBI to lecture agents on counterterrorism issues while serving as a paid consultant for Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

While instructing the Joint Terrorism Operations Course on the fundamentals of counterterrorism in August 2016, the FBI was disturbed that he was using anti-Muslim rhetoric and suggesting that all Muslims adhered to Sharia law and were prone to radicalization.

A month later, the FBI fired Gorka, who now serves as deputy assistant to the president after working as national security editor for Breitbart under Steve Bannon, the controversial White House strategist.

In a February 2012 speech to the Westminster Institute think tank, Gorka compared Osama bin Laden to “the Martin Luther of Islam.”

As the FBI distanced itself from Gorka, whom the bureau paid $103,000 for training materials between 2012-16, Trump made him a leading supporter of the presidential campaign and continued to embrace him after the real estate mogul was elected.

Acting FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

The acting head of the FBI told Congressional members that the bureau is providing special counsel Robert Mueller with a substantial number of personnel to investigate alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, who replaced James Comey when President Trump fired him under suspicious circumstances on May 9, told the House Appropriations Subcommittee that Mueller will have plenty of resources to conduct the investigation, which includes possible ties between Russia and Trump’s campaign, Politico reports. 

“We have a great number of folks that have already been detailed to that team and I have assured Director Mueller that we will do everything necessary to deliver the resources and meet the needs that he has to do that work,” McCabe said.

Last week, Mueller’s office announced that it had added 13 lawyers to the team investigating Russian influence.

McCabe also said he never felt comfortable talking to Trump

Former National Security Adviser Michael T. Flynn

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser for Donald Trump, could help make or break a case against the president during the special counsel’s investigation.

Three Democratic senators said they believe Flynn is cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller and may be providing testimony that could incriminate the president.

Flynn found himself in the crosshairs of the investigation after he lied to Vice President Mike Pence and FBI investigators about a meeting with Russians, which lead to his resignation from the Trump administration.

Trump is accused of obstructing justice by trying to get then-FBI Director James Comey to stop investigating Flynn, who briefly asked for immunity during a congressional investigation.

“If you draw conclusions as a prosecutor about what we can see from the Flynn investigation, all the signals are suggesting that he’s already cooperating with the FBI and may have been for some time,” Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.

Later in the evening, Sen. Richard Blumenthal agreed, saying, “The likelihood of his cooperation is very high,” the Connecticut Democrat told MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell. “Whether he will be truthful in cooperating, whether in fact he knows enough to justify some kind of agreement with the prosecutors, I think will be told by time.”

Sen. Mark Warner told CNN on Tuesday that Flynn wants immunity.

“Clearly he’s been looking for immunity for some time. He said he would come in and talk to us at the intel committee but only with immunity,” Warner told CNN. “I would have a lot of questions for General Flynn, not only his unreported trips and unreported finances he received from Turkey, from Russia. I’d like to know what kind of conversations he had with Russian officials while he was directly involved in the campaign.”