Democrats
en Deshabille
“Swiss Billionaire Quietly Becomes Influential Force Among Democrats” [New York Times]. ‘He is not as well known as wealthy liberal patrons like George Soros or Tom Steyer. His political activism is channeled through a daisy chain of opaque organizations that mask the ultimate recipients of his money. But the Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss has quietly become one of the most important donors to left-leaning advocacy groups and an increasingly influential force among Democrats. Newly obtained tax filings show that two of Mr. Wyss’s organizations, a foundation and a nonprofit fund, donated $208 million from 2016 through early last year to three other nonprofit funds that doled out money to a wide array of groups that backed progressive causes and helped Democrats in their efforts to win the White House and control of Congress last year. Mr. Wyss’s representatives say his organizations’ money is not being spent on political campaigning. But docume
between the steele dossier and the performance of nunberg today, and it s this there are a lot of people in the trump orbit with very questionable judgment. and you have reported on the trump business empire in precisely those kind of terms that, like, if story coming together here is an orbit full of people with questionable judgment and an adversary in russia who wants to try to get to them, you start to look like i can see how those two things can go together. and the president who rather famously spends hours every day talking to all sorts of friends and who will do whatever the last friend told him to do. so what jane reported was at least the rumor or the report was not that trump putin called up trump. right. that somehow they influenced the decision. was he talking to one of his cronies who had a big business deal? i have personally spoken to several people in the trump orbit who described ideas they
before we get to that story about the steele dossier and the way in which the mueller investigation is taking shape, i m just curious your reaction watching a former associate of the president s doing doh what sam nunberg do what he has done all day on national television. your mouth just hangs open. you can t believe these were the people who were in approximate positions to the president of the united states. it s just extraordinary. and this new yorker story today just in the depth of its reporting is extraordinary. certainly the notion that the russians vetoed mitt romney as the secretary of state, and the story implies would have a veto whoever the president nominated in that. if that s true. and it s an f. if that s true, certainly. those are the grounds necessary to remove this president from office beyond any discussion, beyond any doubt. and then i think the other thing that the story lays clear is who
i was going to say there are points in that interview with katy tur in which he sounded so incriminating to president trump. it s very hard to follow. this is a guy who has more shifting stories than stormy daniels which is hard to do, but he has managed to do it. i don t know exactly, and i think we all don t know exactly what information he is referring to when he says mueller s got the goods on trump. he suspects that there is something there. but, you know, it s one marker in i think a long story that s going to unfold. the other thing about this is there is a lot of pressure being brought to bear on a lot of people right now. and you re seeing how people behave under that pressure in painful detail. nick akerman, neil, thanks for your time tonight. there is a second steele dossier describing, get this, new claims of russian intervention alleging kremlin influence over trump s cabinet selection. that story in two minutes. mattress is dangerously comfortable. when i get in, i
this is a career intelligence officer who spent his entire career in the service of her majesty s government, working very closely with britain s most important ally, the united states. where he had the respect and the admiration of the fbi, of the cia, of the american intelligence community. and christopher steele is a patriot. a patriot for his country and a friend of america. and the smears launched against him, lindsey graham s lowest moment in the united states senate, his unconscionable referral that he should be investigated criminally along with grassley, just terrible. and that s so laid bare in this new yorker story. there seems to be a synthesis between the steele dossier and the performance of nunberg