Treason's Greetings

A catalogue of rogues.

And a tantalizing pile of clues.

The rogues’ gallery exposed in Robert Mueller’s court filings last week make the Watergate burglars look like school children.

Even veteran lawyers involved in the investigations of Richard Nixon say they’ve never seen this level of misconduct.

Most importantly, last week’s events showed that Special Counsel Mueller is getting closer to exposing the scope and depth of Trump's Treason. His most recent filings make clear that a preponderance of the evidence touches Trump himself.

The disclosures from Michael Cohen, the former Trump fixer who is now a cooperating witness, pounded another nail in the President's coffin. Cohen revealed, and Trump confirmed, that the Trump Organization was pursuing a luxury skyscraper deal in Moscow while Donald Trump, identified as “Individual 1” in the latest court filings, was sewing up the Republican party presidential nomination.

As a candidate, Trump repeatedly reassured voters that he had no business dealings in Russia. But as he uttered those lies, Cohen was selling Russian oligarchs $25m units in Trump Tower Moscow by luring Putin into the project with a free $50m penthouse. This was unfolding as emails from the DNC, hacked by the Russians, upset the Democratic convention and the Republican party was making a party platform much kinder to Russia.

Trump tried to dismiss this Moscow real estate deal, saying it was fine for him to pursue his business affairs while running for president, because if he lost, he expected to return to the Trump Organization.

Cohen had previously connected Trump to payoffs made to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, in violation of election law. But the additional guilty plea last week goes to the heart of Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling and links to Donald Trump.

In a draft court filing related to a collapsed plea deal with Corsi, 72, Mueller also revealed that in email exchanges, Stone told Corsi to get hold of hacked emails from WikiLeaks. Stone and Corsi have ties to Alex Jones’s ultra-right conspiracy site, Infowars, and Corsi was the man behind the false birther campaign against Barack Obama and Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a rightwing group that undermined John Kerry’s military record in his 2004 bid to become president. Stone has a Nixon tattoo on his back. Stone and Corsi have both denied contacts with WikiLeaks.

These men hold some keys to Mueller’s investigation. And we have yet to hear from Michael Flynn, the Trump foreign policy adviser and short-lived national security adviser, who has also pleaded guilty in the Mueller investigation and whose role is soon to be revealed in court.

A picture says a thousand words...

Trump joined living ex-U.S. presidents today to commemorate the life of former President George H. W. Bush.

Warmth between the current occupant and former occupants of the White House was absent.

Trump, the one-time New York "businessman," and his third wife Melania, joined the group that included former President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn.

The president did not attend a service for Republican Senator John McCain, who died earlier this year, and had to be talked into keeping the American flag at half-staff over the White House.

For Bush, Trump declared a day of mourning.

Bad feeling between Trump and his predecessors appeared hard to set aside.

Trump’s behavior contrasted with that of his presidential counterparts.

The Clintons chatted amiably with the Obamas before the current president arrived.

George W. Bush shook hands with the full front row of presidents and their spouses.

The 43rd president, in his eulogy, hailed his father’s friendship with Bill Clinton, who vanquished the elder Bush in the 1992 election.

That kind of friendship is unlikely to materialize with Trump.