Morning Joe explains why Trump is 'spinning out of control' on Twitter: 'A shoe is about to drop'

[DonViejo]

TRAVIS GETTYS
29 NOV 2017 AT 08:17 ET

MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough mocked President Donald Trump for blowing up a possible deal with Democrats on tax reform with a tweet — and suggested a possible reason he’s “spinning out of control.”

-snip-

“There’s a lot of chatter that something big, a shoe must be about to drop,” he said, “because Donald Trump usually seems to freak out and start spinning out of control like this, attacking CNN, attacking us — oh, by the way, good morning, Donald — attacking everybody in sight right before a shoe is about to drop.”

The “Morning Joe” host said the Drudge Report, which Trump follows, hyped claims that another White House “bombshell” was about to drop, and he asked The Associated Press Washington bureau chief what the president might be worried about.

“The shoe they are waiting to drop is Mike Flynn, that last week over Thanksgiving, there was more fuel added to that fire when it became public that Flynn’s legal team no longer talking to the White House legal team about the Russia investigation,” said the AP’s Julie Pace.

“Ever since (Paul) Manafort and (Rick) Gates and (George) Papadopoulos were indicted,” Pace continued, “this has been the fear in this White House, because Mike Flynn is someone who crosses over the three really crucial periods of time for this president, as relates to the Russia investigation — the campaign, the transition and those early days in the administration. So whether that’s going to happen or not, I don’t know about Flynn, but that is the fear inside the White House right now.”

https://www.rawstory.com/2017/11/morning-joe-explains-why-trump-is-spinning-out-of-control-on-twitter-a-shoe-is-about-to-drop/

[PJMcK]

1. This line is hilarious!

Scarborough said, "...oh, by the way, good morning, Donald..."

First, he knew that Trump would be watching so Scarborough could troll him. Wonderful little dig, there, Joe!

Second, he didn't call Trump "Mr. President." Another great dig!

The insight is pretty good, too. There are more revelations and indictments coming. As long as Bobby 3-sticks is continuing his investigation, Trump knows there's trouble coming down the road.

[NastyRiffraff]

29. He HATES to be called by his first name

Good for Joe for doing that. Hillary made a point of calling him Donald in every debate, knowing how much he hates it.

[mucifer]

2. People have been saying that for the last year. Still the shoes are up there. They haven't dropped.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

4. First shoe was Mueller. Second was Manafort. Flynn likely the third & may drop soon. . . nt

[azureblue]

9. pretty soon, to Trump

It's going to sound like the upstairs neighbor is a centipede with work boots. Bigly.

[Amishman]

6. This, I keep hearing this but nothing is actually happening

Back in January we were convinced he wouldn't make it 90 days.

Fuckhead's popularity isn't even dropping anymore

[leftynyc]

16. Anyone who thought this was going

to be quick is a moron. Watergate took 2 years to shake out and that was a simple break in and coverup. And don't obsess over the polls - Nixon still had a 29% approval (not much worse than donnie's) the day before he resigned.

[GusBob]

11. Lol, legal friends of mine have indicated this Flynn thing is importnat

You would be hard pressed to hear or read about it on DU.

I am way over 50 trashed threads on Franken

[Pepsidog]

26. Patience. All good things come to those who wait.

It is very frustrating sitting and watching what is happening to our country. Patience is difficult but we have to hope that Mueller and his team are methodical and have the evidence and a plan to take down the Dotard. I am confident that ultimately Trump will resign. But what next is what worries me. Pence as pres. can do a lot more harm than Trump who is a divider. If Trump and Pence are implicated then Ryan become Pres. and that will be an even worse disaster. Dems desparetly need to take the House and Senate in 2018 as hard as that may seem. We can then hold on to 2020 and rid ourselves of this pestilence called the Republican Party. We are in for one hell of a time in the coming months and years and our democracy will be put to the test.

[slumcamper]

28. Very interesting comment, Pepsidog.

Especially: " Patience is difficult but we have to hope that Mueller and his team are methodical and have the evidence and a plan to take down the Dotard."

I hadn't really considered it until now, but the mere existence of Mueller's investigation is the only thing that is holding millions of us in check and preventing mass rioting, sabotage, and protracted social confrontation in resistance to what is happening (or HAS happened) to our country.

Let's hope this investigation is real and not a charade. If the latter, all hell will break loose. I for one will certainly be out there with my torch and pitchfork!

[Wounded Bear]

27. Actually, shoes have been dropping, one by one...

I remember a congresscritter being interviewed about that, and he suggested we have a centipede here. There are a LOT of shoes to drop.

[liberalla]

35. Yep, that was John McCain who called it a centipede... I look forward to a barefoot centipede.

[BoneyardDem]

32. all of the shoes are still up there?

we must not be reading the same news sources.

[klook]

3. Drudge said so! It's gotta be true!1

Yeesh.

[Faux pas]

5. May the donald's

pants be filled each day because of the fear that he's going down. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

[LiberalFighter]

18. I wonder how often he has to change his underwear?

[Faux pas]

21. LOL

I wonder if he does it himself?

~
Thanks for the early morning laugh.

[sadiegirl]

7. This 'dropping shoe" is likely to be a diversion from the BOOT that is ready to fall.

There is much more to this than just Flynn, i think.

[leftynyc]

17. The reason to watch Flynn

is because Mueller has no reason to give him a deal that saves him and his spawn unless he can toss someone higher in the food chain to the wolves. The only ones higher (it appears) are jarad, junior and donnie himself.

[Calista241]

8. If Trump wanted to distract everyone, hed drop another bomb on someone

Or withdraw American dependents from South Korea. The tweet storm isn’t that effective a distraction anymore

[azureblue]

12. what Trump is too arrogant to see

is that, no matter what, Mueller will continue his investigation. And Mueller has a track record of presenting airtight cases to the court. He is three steps ahead of Trump all the time. M knows that T will try to stop the investigation somehow, so he is making moves to prevent that, too.

Trump has a huge problem with NY - where he committed fraud, money laundering and collusion. T can't stop that investigation, and he can be tried and convicted in NY of crime she committed before he was President. And the State attorney can seize all of his assets, under illegally obtained laws, too.

T thinks he can dodge, misdirect, lie, cover up, distract, and waltz his way out of the looming tsunami. Nope. Mueller has T by the short and curlies. T is freaking out because he does not want his financial ties to the Russian mob exposed, for that will, in turn, expose a massive real estate money laundering scheme that will take down his rotten kids and a lot of GOPers... And a lot of people will be ruined or jailed.

[LiberalFighter]

20. I would love to see his assets as well as the kids seized.

[dchill]

24. If they seize his kids...

Will they be placed in foster towers? Inquiring minds want to know...

[Calista241]

34. Mueller has less than 40 people on his staff, most of them lawyers

Those people do not have man-hours or bandwidth to unwind and understand Trump’s and the Trump Organization’s taxes and financial positions, much less to find evidence of criminal wrongdoing.

Mueller may be doing a lot of things, and investigating a lot of people, but he’s not going after Donald Trump for evidence of money laundering or tax evasion.

[AntiFascist]

36. I would disagree...

if the money was being laundered as a quid pro quo arrangement for Trump to help out the Russians then I would think it to be very important to investigate. Also, the tax returns (which Trump is keeping hidden from the public) might further indicate how much leverage the Russians have over Trump, especially if he is deep in debt to them.

[Calista241]

40. Mueller doesn't have enough people on his staff to figure that out.

The Trump Organization has hotels, properties and licensing agreements around the world. They would have to unwind _all_ of those transactions in order to come up with a fraud or laundering case against the Trump Organization. They can't just pluck a payment out of thin air for "services" and label that fraud or money laundering unless they can prove there wasn't some other reason for the payment. They would need to know everything about everything in the Trump Organizations books in order to do so.

The biggest reason we know this is not happening, is that no employees from the Trump Organization has said anything about 100 new IRS and FBI accountants moving into their 6th floor office building for a 9 month audit. That's not something management could hide or keep quiet, and we would absolutely know about it.

And even if they could do all of that, Trump is going to have 4 or 5 levels of insulation between him and that transaction. He's going to have business executives, some number of corporate and compliance lawyers, and a bunch of accountants who have all signed off on any deals. And it's not like they can go back to 1980 and dig up any information on this. The Trump Organization (and other companies out there) only have to retain records for 6 years.

I want Trump gone as much as the next person. But everyone needs to know he's not going away for money laundering or financial fraud.

[AntiFascist]

41. Trump has already been under audit...

by none other than one of the highest level groups of the IRS known as the Global High Wealth Industry Group, or "Wealth Squad". Mueller should be able to gain access to their reports.

...
The Wealth Squad is designed to allow the IRS to better understand the sophisticated financial, business and investment arrangements of the taxpayer by engaging a team of specialists to take a unified, holistic look at the entire web of inter-related entities controlled by a high wealth individual to discover the entire economic picture of the enterprise and to assess the tax compliance of that overall enterprise.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/irswatch/2016/02/28/no-ordinary-audit-donald-trump-is-facing-the-irs-wealth-squad/#39e970b24d71

Also, while there may not be evidence of direct involvement with the Trump Organization, the Prevezon money laundering case has already been under thorough investigation:

Federal prosecutors in New York launched their investigation into the Prevezon case in early 2013, sending evidence requests to countries including Switzerland, Latvia and Cyprus, according to court records filed this spring as part of an evidentiary dispute in the civil lawsuit.

Prosecutors also issued grand jury subpoenas to banks including Citigroup, Deutsche Bank AG, UBS AG and TD Bank. Several banks produced records in response, according to court records filed by Prevezon’s lawyer.

...
Several Democratic lawmakers looked at the Prevezon settlement in a new light two months later, when news emerged about the Veselnitskaya meeting in Trump Tower. In a letter, they asked whether the Russian lawyer, or members of the Trump team, may have put pressure on prosecutors in the matter. They also pointed out that Bharara, whose office opened the case, had been summarily fired by Trump as the case neared trial.

What wasn’t publicly known at the time was that federal prosecutors in Bharara’s old office were continuing a criminal probe into the laundering allegations.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-15/russia-laundering-probe-puts-trump-tower-meeting-in-new-light

Sean Illing
Do we have any evidence that Trump was involved in any way with Prevezon?

Seva Gunitsky
We don't know that Trump was involved in any way with that. Obviously, it's kind of his wheelhouse, New York City real estate, so I am sure he at least heard about it. But we don't know if he has any direct connections.

But it's not even necessary for him to have any direct connections here. They're only asking for some relief in this case, in return for certain compromising documents. So the interesting thing for me is, was there pressure placed on the U.S. Attorney's Office by the administration, by the Department of Justice? What we know is that Preet Bharara, the attorney in charge of the case, was fired in early March, and shortly thereafter the Prevezon case was dropped.

...

Seva Gunitsky
Veselnitskaya was ecstatic about the Prevezon case on her social media. She said it was "settled on Russian terms"; that's a direct quote. She said it was the beginning of the end of the Cold War, and she said there'd be more to come. Again, like so much of the evidence here, this doesn’t prove anything definitively. But there’s an unbelievable amount of smoke, and a massive web of overlapping interests.

https://www.vox.com/2017/7/18/15983910/donald-trump-russia-putin-natalia-veselnitskaya-collusion

My point is that there is a tremendous amount of investigation that has already taken place and Mueller has assembled a highly qualified team including money laundering experts to sift through it.

[Progressive dog]

37. The FBI still collects the facts

That's why Mueller's staff are mostly lawyers.

[Honeycombe8]

10. I bet Trump now wishes he'd taken Obama's advice and not hired Flynn.

Bwahahahaha. Trump, intent on doing the opposite of what Obama would do, immediately hired Flynn, after Obama warned him of Flynn's unethical and possibly illegal situations. And now...... hen comes home to roost.

[azureblue]

13. I sometimes wonder

If Obama pulled a case of Brer' rabbit and the briar patch, with Trump.

[Honeycombe8]

15. I don't know what that means...

but if you mean did Obama foresee this, and bank on Trump doing the opposite of what Obama recommended, knowing the trouble it would cause, I doubt it. He may have known that Trump wouldn't follow his advice, but he felt compelled to give it, anyway. But I doubt Obama could foresee the problems it would cause. At that time, no one knew that Trump's team was THAT infiltrated with Russians and working with the Russians to that degree...and didn't even know all that we now know about Flynn.

[Hekate]

30. Bre'r Rabbit (Brother Rabbit) is an African-American Trickster tale-cycle...

As with all Tricksters, he gets himself into and out of trouble regularly, with his would-be nemesis Brother Fox. During one epic scene he has gotten covered with the abundant sticky tar of the region due to his curiosity (remember there's a state nickname of "Tarheels" ) and Fox is gloating. Rabbit pleads over and over not to be thrown into the briar patch. Fox, naturally, tosses Rabbit into the thorns. Rabbit goes to cover, laughing like hell, crowing that he had been born and bred in a briar patch.

Hekate, Mythologist

[Honeycombe8]

31. Thanks. nt

[dalton99a]

14. As soon as Trump heard it:

Link to tweet

[lindysalsagal]

39. Ouchie!!! Scarface has really been poking the bear, forgetting that he's got his own skeletons in th

the closet........


ooooopsies!!!!

[IronLionZion]

19. I'm still hoping this is the last year of his presidency

This shoe better be good

[FSogol]

22. Journalism by clickbait! Something's gonna happen, just keep watching this space!

[inwiththenew]

23. He's just a sh*tposter nothing more

He gets on twitter and spews out all kinds of non-sense because that's what he's done and it's what he'll continue to do. I don't think there is any sort of master plan or sleight of hand going on.

[Cosmocat]

25. Right - there is no master plan

only to the extent that he knows that keeping the country at large in a lather and the GOP base separated from reality work to this benefit.

Not three dimensional chess, just haphazzardly bouncing from one ridiculous tweet/statement to the next knowing the reaction it will get.

[Gothmog]

33. Trump is losing it

[oberliner]

38. They are friends

This is all part of the game.