Before digging into the latest news of Trump's alleged-but-nowhere-near-proven collusion with Russia, consider this:
Wall Street Journal:
Skepticism toward the media is most often associated with conservatives in Middle America, some of whom eat something other than artisanal sandwiches. But this week brings more evidence that investors worldwide have become very reluctant to buy what many established news organizations are selling. How else to explain the collective shrug of the shoulders in financial markets to the latest breathless media reports about alleged collusion between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia?It is the boy who cried wolf, writ large. What worries me about this story is this: What happens if the media actually manages to prove the Russian collusion story? By then, nobody will believe them.
Such reports have dominated this week’s news as much of the professional commentariat has pondered out loud whether treason has been committed in the President’s inner circle. Yet after an ever-so-slight hiccup on Tuesday following Donald Trump Jr.’s release of emails regarding a meeting he took last June with a Russian lawyer, stocks drifted higher. Since then, investors have spent much of their time parsing the remarks of Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen. Reassured by her questionable suggestion that interest rates won’t have to rise very fast or very far in the years ahead, they continue to keep market indexes near record levels.
Investors in the aggregate obviously don’t believe that the republic is coming to an end, nor do they seem to expect a wrenching change in U.S. leadership. There have been similar episodes over the last several months of sharp divergence between the collective analytical judgment of journalists and that of investors. This era of reported turmoil has been marked by a striking lack of volatility in the financial markets. Stocks aren’t cheap by historical standards and corrections do happen.
Yet the world’s investors still like U.S. equities, despite constant media reports that U.S. constitutional governance is hanging in the balance. Now let’s look at the general population in the U.S. A new report from the Pew Research Center also suggests that the news media’s credibility problem reaches well beyond the hard-core MAGA crowd. A full 85% of Republicans and those who lean Republican have a negative view of the national news media. And even among Democrats and those who lean Democratic, the press corps is underwater, with 46% holding a negative view compared to 44% holding a positive one.
Speaking of the Russian collusion story...
The Hill:
Seventeen Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee sent a letter on Wednesday to the Justice Department demanding answers as to why the agency abruptly dismissed a money laundering case earlier this year involving the Kremlin-linked attorney who met with Donald Trump Jr. during last year's campaign.
In May, the Department of Justice (DOJ) settled United States v. Prevezon Holdings Ltd., a $230 million fraud and money laundering case that accused Prevezon Holdings executives of fraudulently obtaining a tax refund from the Russian treasury.
In the case, Prevezon was represented by Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian attorney who met with Trump Jr. during the campaign after promising incriminating information on Hillary Clinton.
The Justice Department settled the case two days before trial for just $6 million. The letter, which was posted on Twitter Wednesday afternoon, demands to know whether the two events are connected.
"Two days before this trial was set to begin, the Department agreed to settle this $230 million case for less than $6 million and no admission of wrongdoing," it reads.According to the letter from the Democrats, the case was settled on May 12, 2017, clearly under the Trump administration.
"Ms. Veselnitskaya told one Russian news outlet that the penalty was so light 'it seemed almost an apology from the government.'"
While this story is curious, it is hardly conclusive. And even if there was actual collusion, I doubt anyone would admit to it. The Russians involved wouldn't admit it, since they were likely involved in illegal activity and got away with it. The Trumps won't admit it because they are already in too much hot water with Russia stories. Don't expect anything useful to ever come from this story.
Also, don't read too much into Ms. Veselnitskaya bragging. Regardless of whether the settlement was good or bad, any settlement has to be painted positively by the lawyers involved. If it wasn't a good settlement, why would they agree to it?
Speaking of Ms. Veselnitskaya...
The Hill:
The Russian lawyer who penetrated Donald Trump’s inner circle was initially cleared into the United States by the Justice Department under “extraordinary circumstances” before she embarked on a lobbying campaign last year that ensnared the president’s eldest son, members of Congress, journalists and State Department officials, according to court and Justice Department documents and interviews.
This revelation means it was the Obama Justice Department that enabled the newest and most intriguing figure in the Russia-Trump investigation to enter the country without a visa.
Just five days after meeting in June 2016 at Trump Tower with Donald Trump Jr., presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner and then Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, Moscow attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya showed up in Washington in the front row of a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Russia policy, video footage of the hearing shows.
She also engaged in a pro-Russia lobbying campaign and attended an event at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. where Russian supporters showed a movie that challenged the underpinnings of the U.S. human rights law known as the Magnitysky Act, which Russian leader Vladimir Putin has reviled and tried to reverse.
The Magnitsky Act imposed financial and other sanctions on Russia for alleged human rights violations connected to the death of a Russian lawyer who claimed to uncover fraud during Putin's reign. Russia retaliated after the law was passed in 2012 by suspending Americans' ability to adopt Russian children.
At least five congressional staffers and State Department officials attended that movie showing, according to a Foreign Agent Registration Act complaint filed with the Justice Department about Veselnitskaya’s efforts.
Before casting aspersions at Obama's Justice Department, remember Veselnitskaya was working with defense attorneys on the Prevezon case. The fact she was doing lobbying while in the U.S. doesn't necessarily reflect on the Obama administration, unless they knew in advance what she was up to, and there is no indication of that.
Finally, in other news...
Breitbart:
In this editorial written by Republican Senator Rand Paul, he pulls no punches about Trumpcare:
I miss the old days, when Republicans stood for repealing Obamacare. Republicans across the country and every member of my caucus campaigned on repeal – often declaring they would tear out Obamacare “root and branch!”
What happened?
Now too many Republicans are falling all over themselves to stuff hundreds of billions of taxpayers’ dollars into a bill that doesn’t repeal Obamacare and feeds Big Insurance a huge bailout.
Obamacare regulations? Still here. Taxes? Many still in place, totaling hundreds of billions of dollars.
Insurance company bailouts? Those, too. Remember when Republicans complained about Obamacare’s risk corridors? Remember when we called the corridors nothing more than insurance company bailouts? I remember when one prominent GOP candidate during a presidential debate explicitly called out the Obamacare risk corridors as a bailout to insurance companies. Does anyone else?
