Chris Christie has no position in his crony Trump's regime because just over a decade ago he put Charles Kushner, another Trump crony, in prison. Trump's now in-law was sentenced to two years in the pen-- though he only served served 14 months-- at Federal Prison Camp, Montgomery in Alabama (a minimum-security Club Fed on the grounds of the Maxwell Air Force Base). Charles was released from prison on August 25, 2006 and was the first big donor to Trump's presidential campaign. Other notables who have spent time there include former Nixon Attorney General John Mitchell, Enron ex-CEO Jeff Skilling, former Louisiana Congressman Richard Tonry, former Chicago Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr., former Louisiana insurance commissioner Sherman Bernard, former Federal Judge Robert Collins, IndyCar driver John Paul, Jr., Nixon Special Counsel Charles Colson, and football player Reche Caldwell. Will their next celebrity guest be Charles Kushner's son-- and Trumpanzee son-in-law-- Jared Kushner?Kushner-in-law was the intermediary between Trump and Michael Flynn-- yes, that same Michael Flynn who was Trump's top security advisor-- who pled guilty to a wrist slap charge in return for cooperation in the ongoing Putin-Gate investigation. Eli Lake reported that Kushner will be the next domino to fall. Lake reported wrote that though the development "is alarming news for Donald Trump... the first person it's likely to jeopardize will be the president's son-in-law, Jared Kushner."
Two former officials with the Trump transition team who worked closely with Flynn say that during the last days of the Obama administration, the retired general was instructed to contact foreign ambassadors and foreign ministers of countries on the U.N. Security Council, ahead of a vote condemning Israeli settlements. Flynn was told to try to get them to delay that vote until after Barack Obama had left office, or oppose the resolution altogether.That is relevant now because one of Flynn’s lies to the FBI was when he said that he never asked Russia's ambassador to Washington, Sergey Kislyak, to delay the vote for the U.N. Security Council resolution. The indictment released today from the office of special prosecutor Robert Mueller describes this lie: "On or about December 22, 2016, Flynn did not ask the Russian Ambassador to delay the vote on or defeat a pending United Nations Security Council resolution."At the time, the U.N. Security Council resolution on Israeli settlements was a big deal. Even though the Obama administration had less than a month left in office, the president instructed his ambassador to the United Nations to abstain from a resolution, breaking a precedent that went back to 1980 when it came to one-sided anti-Israel resolutions at the U.N.This was the context of Kushner's instruction to Flynn last December. One transition official at the time said Kushner called Flynn to tell him he needed to get every foreign minister or ambassador from a country on the U.N. Security Council to delay or vote against the resolution. Much of this appeared to be coordinated also with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose envoys shared their own intelligence about the Obama administration's lobbying efforts to get member stats to support the resolution with the Trump transition team.For now it's unclear what to make of all of this. Lying to the FBI is a felony and always a serious matter. We also know from Flynn's "statement of the offense" that he lied to FBI agents as the bureau was investigating Russia's meddling in the 2016 election and any links between Russia and the Trump campaign in this period. Nonetheless, nothing in the Flynn plea sheds any light on whether the Trump campaign actually colluded with Russia to influence the election.ABC News reported Friday that Flynn is prepared to tell Mueller's team that Trump had instructed him to make contact with Russia during the campaign itself. If those contacts involved the emails the U.S. intelligence community charges Russia stole from leading Democrats, then Mueller will have uncovered evidence of actual collusion between the president and a foreign adversary during the election. Impeachment could then be in the cards.
Business Insider reported yesterday that William Yeomans, a former deputy assistant attorney general who spent 26 years at the Justice Department, told them that this spells big trouble for others in the Trump Regime and that "This development thoroughly undermines Trump's unrealistic predictions that the investigation will end soon ... It appears likely that many more shoes will drop before Mueller is done. And it is particularly ominous for others that Flynn appears to have gotten a generous deal and appears still to be cooperating." All of this, of course, comes just hours after widespread reports that Trump had been aggressively pressuring Senate Republicans-- including Intelligence Committee chair Richard Burr (R-NC) as well as Roy Blunt (R-MO), Bob Corker (R-TN) and Mitch McConnell (R-KY)-- to shut down the Putin-Gate investigations, a clear case of obstruction of justice. And on the House side, no one doubts that Trump did persuade Intelligence chair Devin Nunes to undermine his own committee's investigation. I suspect that Nunes is going to wind up in a cell next to Kushner over this mess.Maybe Jared & Devin can share Jared's dad's old cell in Alabama
