Why a special counsel will help Trump for now – but could still be dangerous

Fox News ^ | May 19, 2017 | Howard Kurtz

[monkapotamus]

President Trump doesn’t think much of the naming of a special counsel to take over the Russia probe, even as the choice of Robert Mueller is garnering widespread praise.

Trump’s tweet--“the greatest single witch hunt of a politician in American history”—encapsulates his view quite succinctly. He expanded on that in a news conference: “I respect the move, but the entire thing has been a witch hunt. There was no collusion between myself and my campaign..and the Russians, zero. I think it divides the country.”

But in the short term, the hiring of the former FBI director to run the investigation is actually a boon to the White House.

In the longer term, well, it’s a crapshoot...

One final caveat: For all the media hyperventilation, there may not be much as the center of this Russia investigation, or perhaps not much more than activities involving Michael Flynn. And Mueller has the reputation to make the political world accept that outcome as well.

[wardamneagle]

Unmasking comes out.
Expose Obama.

[Liz]

Chuckie Schumer started all this Russian crap. He needs a dose of his on medicine.

Prior to his taking the US Senate seat, Sen Schumer represented:

<><> the Ninth Congressional District in Brooklyn and Queens for eighteen years.

<><> earlier Schumer represented the Forty-Fifth Assembly District in Brooklyn for six years.

=========================================================

SEN SCHUMER MUST HAVE SPRUNG INTO ACTION TO DEFEND TAXPAYERS BEING RIPPED OFF BY HIS RUSSIAN CONSTITUENTS. RIGHT?

REFERENCE---A Medicaid Fraud Ring and the Brooklyn-based “Russian Mind-Set" (Sen Scuhumer's constituents)
By Julia Ioffe, NY Magazine, published March 2, 2012

In March 2012, thirty-six Russians---Soviet immigrants----were arrested in Brooklyn, New York for plotting to bilk US health-insurance companies out of a quarter of a billion tax dollars.

The plot, according to the NY Times, involved ten doctors, nine clinics, and a hundred and five corporations: “The ring falsified official US govt documennts demanding tax dollars----reimbursements for a mountain of excessive and unnecessary medical treatments that were never done.

The Russian fraudsters were so brazen that they already had in-place three separate billing-processing companies just to handle the paperwork.....to get the tax dollars into their greedy hands faster.

SOURCE: MEDICAID FRAUD IN BRIGHTON BEACH, BROOKLYN

https://www.bing.com/search?q=russian%20medicaid%20fraud%20in%20Brighton%20beach&qs=n&form=QBRE&sp=-1&pq=russian%20medicaid%20fraud%20in%20brighton%20beach&sc=0-39&sk=&cvid=32789ED4D3D84A92BD6C37981C7C292F

=====================================================

NOTES---What’s remarkable here is just how unremarkable the story is, coming, as it does, out of Sen Schumer's district-----the Russia-centric Brighton Beach, Brooklyn.

Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, is famous for its Russian delicacies, entertainment, a population of highly-inflected Russian dialects, but mostly for its concentration of insurance fraud.

The NY Times reports, “Brighton Beach has one of the highest rates of health care fraud in the nation, according to federal statistics.

An analysis from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (agency regulates those two programs), shows that more health care providers in the Brighton Beach ZIP code are currently barred from the programs for malfeasance than in almost any other ZIP code in the United States.

CONT

[Hang'emAll]

Yes and colluding with the Russians about Hillary emails to Wikileaks. All those emails from Podesta and classified sources get another review.

[Liz]

CONT

BACKSTORY--Senator Schumer said his caucus has not yet decided on whether to withhold their votes on Pres Trump's FBI nominee. Sen Schumer wants to make sure there is a thorough investigation of alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election.

====================================================

QUESTIONS: Have there been any investigations of Russian interference in Sen Schumer's races?

Sen Schumer's Congressional District and his Assembly district saw great waves of Russian citizens move into the area.....and are represented by Sen Schumer and then Cong/Assemblyman Schume.

===================================================

LITTLE ODESSA---THE BROOKLYN NEIGHBORHOOD THAT'S A MINITURE VERSION OF "LITTLE RUSSIA."

Russians in New York get a taste of the Motherland in Little Odessa (named after the Ukrainian city that was once part of Imperial Russia), an insular neighborhood just blocks from Brooklyn's Brighton Beach boardwalk A place that's a perfect microcosm of the former Soviet Union.

Once a summer getaway for wealthy New Yorkers, Brighton Beach saw an influx of Jewish immigrants escaping fascism and Nazism in Europe around the time of World War II. The 1970s brought a second wave of Ukrainian Jews from the time the Soviet Union relaxed its immigration policies, through its dissolution.

The neighborhood was filled with young families once again, and it became known as "Little Odessa," after the port city on the Black Sea.

Today, the culture thrives in its odd shops, food emporiums serving traditional delicacies, and colorful, Russian-speaking characters.

http://www.businessinsider.com/tour-new-york-little-russia-brighton-beach-2014-1

(HAT TIP WIKI) The collapse of the Soviet Union and the subsequent significant changes there led many Russian citizens to immigrate to the United States.

Many of the Soviet immigrants of the late 1980s and the 1990s primarily speak Russian......they live in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, NY.

So many Russian citizens immigrated to Brighton Beach that the area became known as "Little Odessa."

In the early 2000s," Oceana," a high-income ocean-front condominium complex, was constructed. Oceana has become the destination of wealthy businessmen, entertainers, and senior govt officials from the former Soviet Union.

A Russian-speaking theater near the waterfront,features performances by actors from Russia, and other countries.

[Liz]

Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, NY, is considered a hot spot for the "Russian Mafia." In the 1970s, the most notorious leg of the Russian mafia served as a robbery gang for larger Russian crime syndicates in New York City. A crime boss from Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, NY denies having any connection to the Russian-speaking Mafia.

The major Russian criminal element in Brighton Beach was the international Russian mafia group, known as vor v zakone or "vory," and the first vory crime boss in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, was Evsei Agron, who controlled the area's crime during the 70s and 80s until his death in 1985.

After the fall of the Soviet Union in the 90s, many ethnic Russian criminals illegally entered the United States, coming primarily to Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. The infamous vor Vyacheslav Ivankov, who dominated the Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, underworld until his arrest in 1995, arrived during this wave.

[pas]

Just another surrender monkey. This was stupid of Trump. Just like the Lieberman announcement.

[Liz]

In 2003, Schumer welcomed Putin to New York City as the Russian oil company Lukoil opened its first gas station in Manhattan.

In a 2003 New York Post article, Schumer bragged of the new alliance to combat oil prices. “If Lukoil is successful and Russia is successful, then the price of oil will come down,” he said.

UPDATE On September 14, 2012 more than fifty Lukoil gas station owners in New Jersey and Pennsylvania temporarily raised their prices to over $8 a gallon to protest Lukoil's wholesale gas pricing. The owners are typically charged a wholesale price that is 5 to 10 cents a gallon more than their competitors and some are assessed an additional 25 to 30 cents per gallon based on their location.[30] According to the station owners this makes it difficult to be competitive with stations that sell more established brands for lower prices.

============================================

REFERENCE Lukoil (/ˈluːkɔɪl/; Russian: Лукойл; stylized as LUKoil) is one of Russia's largest oil companies. It is also one of the largest global producers of oil.[3] In 2012, the company produced 89.856 million tons of oil (1.813 million barrels) per day.[4] Headquartered in Moscow, Lukoil is one of the largest public companies (next to ExxonMobil) in terms of proven oil and gas reserves. In 2008, "According to the data audited by Miller and Lents"[5] the company had 19.3 billion barrels of oil equivalent per SPE standards. This amounts to some 1.3% of global oil reserves. The company has operations in more than 40 countries around the world.[6][7] (HAT TIP IKI)

Read more: http://thepoliticalinsider.com/flashback-chuck-schumer-putin-met-vl adimir-putin-nyc/#ixzz4hTVTMtMA

LUKOIL'S EB SITE http://lukoilamericas.com/en/

[New Jersey Realist]

If Mueller is honest things will turn on the Clinton’s and everyone knows that. There is blood dripping from her and Bill’s hands. Will the investigation be allowed to expand into ALL collusion assertions? If so this is a good thing. Meanwhile, Trump doubles down and Justice goes after the Clinton Foundation and Obama citizenship.

[Hang'emAll]

I believe that if the dems had been civil from the start of the year that Trump would be so busy fixing the country that all their skeletons would have faded into history.

Now Trump is focused on payback to them. So things are going to be happening that the dems will not like.

[GailA]

[HombreSecreto]

I’m seeing it your way.

Not a lawyer but have the feeling Brer Trump got the Dems and the MSM to throw him in the briar patch.

If the Special Counsel has priority, this means he’s cut out that Dem hack McCabe and the deep state FBI.

Couple that with any level of investigation of the unmasking of US citizens for political purposes, fingering Comey, Rice, Jarrett, Clapper, Brennan, Obama...

and

investigating the murder of Seth Rich.

Then let’s see how fast the Dems and MSM start crying.

[originalbuckeye]

‘If Mueller is honest’

There is a meme (which I haven’t checked out) that it was Mueller that defanged the language, in the terrorist descriptions of the FBI about the crimes of the radical Muslims, at the behest of CAIR and others. IS THERE ANYONE WITH INTEGRITY IN OUR INTELLIGENCE OR LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES??

[t4texas]

Exactly! This inquiry could go in any number of directions and it could very well be some of those directions may prove disastrous for those who have pushing the Russian narrative.

Brings to mind the old adage: Be careful what you ask for . . .

[1Old Pro]

If Trump has nothing to hide, the special investigator is a godsend.

[Hang'emAll]

Don’t forget Eric Braverman CEO CLINTON FOUNDATION who left very quickly. They need to talk to him.

[virgil]

Mueller will be under intense pressure from democrats to arrive at the “correct” findings, and this kind of pressure will be just okie dokie. If they don’t get what they want, they’ll just find some pretext to discredit Mueller or Mueller’s handling of the investigation. This will never end.

[damper99]

All Mueller has to do to be successful is to keep the investigation open throughout the Trump presidency. It doesn’t matter if he comes up with any evidence for the “Russia Probe”. He only has to show that he’s continuing to look everywhere to justify his budget.

[kiryandil]

You’ve been here since 1998. You DO realize why the DC swamp discontinued “special prosecutors”, don’t you?

[FenwickBabbitt]

What the are you talking about? The article is about Trump complaining about Rosenstein appointing a special counsel. You don’t like that? Should he have jumped up and down and applauded? Or were you simply expressing the uninformed opinion that somehow Trump could have stopped the decision of an independent Justice Department official (Rosenstein), who decided to appoint a special counsel? From all I’ve heard Rosenstein did not even inform the White House before his decision, much less get Trump’s permission. If Trump fired Rosenstein to stop him from appointing a special counsel even Republican lawmakers would be calling for his impeachment, as that really would be like Nixon’s “Saturday Night Massacre.” That’s not even an option.

Of course, I’m not surprised to see another anti-Trump whiner attacking him over something he had no control over. “Conservatives” attempting to take down our president are the real “surrender monkeys” for sure and only working to benefit the Democrats.