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As if there isn’t enough irony during the Era of Illegitimate ‘President Trump’, despite all the faux outrage over Cohen taping his conversations with the faux ‘President’ Cohen Trump himself has been taping conversations for years. As this is his modus operandi, it’s not unreasonable to conjecture he may well have taped the Russia meeting in his own building-down a few feet from his office.

By the way, this is a fascinating book from someone who worked for Trump U-Gilpin was basically the only legitimate real estate instructor there during the time he worked at Trump U. He then tells the story of how after he left Trump’s lawyer deliberately psyched him out into fearing that he could be indicted in the NY State AG’s Trump U probe-though as Gilpin points out he set no policy, he was just a W-2 worker.

After seeing Abramson tweet about it, I purchased it myself on Kindle. So here it is, from The Inside Story of Trump University:

“We were admitted to a conference room covered in soft white marble. It looked like an expensive mausoleum. We sat down at the table. At the center of the table was the usual triangular spaceship-looking conference call unit. Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen came into the room. My heart froze. This was not good.”

Location 2169

At the sight of Michael Cohen-aka The Pitbull, as Cohen was known by the Trump U employees-Gilpin’s heart froze.

“On that day in the summer of 2011, Michael Cohen—Pitbull—stood at the end of the table, glaring at us. I sat there quietly, trying to look cool but respectful. Skipping any pleasantries, Cohen immediately launched into a bitter tirade. “I want to know where the money has been going!” he barked. “Somebody knows what’s going on. Somebody has been stealing from Trump University and from Mr. Trump. You’re going to tell me who.”

This gives you an idea of how Trump treated those who worked for him-falsely accuse them of stealing. In Gilpin’s job there he never touched money.

We were thunderstruck. What the hell? We weren’t the accountants! “What do you mean?” I replied as calmly as I could. “There’s a problem,” he snarled at me. “Money is missing. It’s going somewhere. I intend to find out where. Tell me now.” “Don’t look at me,” I replied. “I have nothing to do with what happens to the money.”

Cohen then made a more personal threat:

“Gilpin, what the fuck do you know? I’ll make sure you never fuck your spouse again! Got it?”

To this bizarre rant I calmly replied, using the same measured voice that my father had used on me, “Mr. Cohen, my spouse passed away a year ago.” It was true. I didn’t share much of my private life with people at work, but my spouse had in fact passed away from cancer the previous year. I added, “I hope I don’t ever fuck my dead spouse.”

At that moment a disembodied voice came from the triangular conference call unit. “Mr. Cohen, please come to my office. Immediately!”

“It was the voice of Donald Trump. One of my associates sitting at the table started laughing uncontrollably. “Pitbull” backed off like a lamb. White as a sheet, Cohen hurriedly left the room. I was astounded. Had Donald Trump been silently listening to our conversation? As soon as the door closed, I burst out laughing too. It was just all so bizarre.”

So we see that all the indignation of Trump and his defenders is all, as usual, simply faux outrage. Indeed, this was typical rather than unusual for Trump.

Then there’s the case of him letting Lou Dobbs listen in on ‘sensitive discussions’ in the Oval Office.

And in June, 2016 the month of the TrumpTower #TreasonMeeting, we learned he was ‘systematically eavesdropping on calls.’

VanityFair:

“Trump allegedly eavesdropped on conversations between staff members and possibly guests at the Palm Beach resort, BuzzFeed News reported Thursday. Citing four anonymous sources, the outlet reveals that club staff members were aware of—and warned that—the real-estate mogul would listen in on calls made using Mar-A-Lago landlines during the mid-2000s. One individual said, “it was acknowledged that when he was at the property there was a likelihood of him listening in on your call,” and another alleged that Trump “could pick up the phone in the bedroom and listen to any conversation that was going on.” The Trump camp has denied the eavesdropping accusations. “This is totally and completely untrue,” spokesperson Hope Hicks told Buzzfeed, whileMar-A-Lago managing director Bernd Lembcke said he had “no knowledge of what you wrote,” in reference to an e-mail inquiry from the outlet.

Well I know I’m reassured if Hope Hicks says it’s totally untrue after all she said the same thing about claims Trump knew about the payments to women and now we see she was telling the truth all along. Oh wait.

“This is not the first time Trump employees have suspected that he might be listening in on their private conversations. Last month, The New York Times reported that campaign staffers thought their offices might be bugged. Even the billionaire himself suffers from eavesdropping paranoia, telling radio host Hugh Hewitt that he assumes people are listening to his phone calls, The Hill reports. We can’t wait to see what he’ll do with the N.S.A.”

Yeah, of course, now the joke’s on us as he is ‘President’ and we know that he and his buddy Erik Prince have  attempted to setup a private spy network. 

But it’s not a surprise to hear that he is paranoid about himself being bugged-like all his accusations, it’s pure projection like when he accused Obama of spying on him.

So with Trump’s clear penchant for listening in, do you really think in a case where his son, son in law, and campaign manager were speaking to Kremlin connected Russians, he wouldn’t care about listening in? Maybe if you’re Sam Nunberg you’d reason that way. Nunberg has stated like Steve Bannon, like anyone with simple deductive logic, that it’s pretty safe to assume Don Jr did tell his father about the meeting with the Russians in his own building beforehand.

Until-Nunberg wants us to believe-Cohen stated he actually witnessed Jr tell his father firsthand. Then suddenly he believed that, no Trump knew nothing about the meeting, nothing at all. Supposedly he was so outraged to hear that Cohen taped his conversations with Trump-though this has been known about for years and as we’ve seen, Trump does the same thing.

It was just last Friday, Nunberg told Natasha Bertrand that Don Jr must have told his illegitimate Daddy. Then on Sunday he tells Chuck Todd he believes Trump and Jr.

Sure that’s believable. Under normal circumstances but not something this earth shattering momentous-and highly unethical if not illegal and treasonous…

And Trump is a total Russophile.

FN: Rick Gates told Mueller that Trump mentioned Clinton Foundation dirt in a regular meeting a few days before the Trump Tower Russia meeting-Chapter A.

Exactly. This goes to a dynamic you see again and again, If you want to defend Trump you have to believe things that are totally illogical and unbelievable. Indeed, as we saw in a previous chapter Darrell Issa took it to the logical conclusion on Sunday and just said it: ok maybe Trump did collude so what?

You know like ‘collusion is not a crime nor should you have any issue with it at all’ or ‘The Trump team lied about the Trump Tower meeting though they did nothing wrong in attending the meeting’ or ‘Don’t believe what you read or what you see.’

UPDATE: The Mueller Report of course documented a great deal of collusion though Mueller stated this same point-collusion isn’t a crime. He actually also documented a good deal of evidence of ‘conspiracy with the Russian government’-though according to him not enough for beyond a reasonable doubt.

Regarding the question of wether or not Trump listened in via speakerphone it’s yet another question to ask Mueller.

 

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October 28, 2016: a Day That Will Live in Infamy Copyright © by . All Rights Reserved.

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