Scandal Watch V

Reposted from Scandal Watch IV:

Would Trump take the country to war (Syria, North Korea) to save his own sorry hide?

L'état, c'est moi. (Louis XIV)

The investigation amounts to "an attack on our country in a true sense." (Trump)
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/09/us/politics/trump-cohen-mueller-full-transcri...

ETA
John Kelly was ‘horrified’ when Trump said Cohen’s FBI raid was an ‘attack on our country’: report
Noor Al-Sibai | 11 Apr 2018
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/04/john-kelly-horrified-trump-said-cohens-fbi-raid...

____________________________________________________________

How the Cohen Raids and Trump’s Reactions Edge Us Toward Confrontation
Benjamin Wittes | Tuesday, April 10, 2018

...There is no way that the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York would have sought or executed a search warrant against the president’s lawyer without overpowering evidence to support the action. The legal standard for such a search requires only probable cause that criminal activity is taking place. Under normal circumstances, which these are not, the prudential and policy factors counseling against such an action would be powerful.

...seeking any warrant against this particular lawyer...makes clear that a ring is closing around the president.

...this search warrant is apparently not about L’Affaire Russe. The FBI raided the office of the president’s personal lawyer on a matter related to L’Affaire Stormy. That means that prosecutors were able to show probable cause of criminal activity connected to Cohen’s representation of the president on matters far removed from Russian interference in the 2016 campaign, obstruction of justice or any of the other matters within Mueller’s purview.

...This bureaucratic distribution of the investigation is actually a good thing. It will have the effect of diffusing responsibility for the investigations as they develop away from Mueller....taking some of the heat of the president’s wrath off of Mueller...danger of making Rosenstein himself so central to the investigations that he becomes a target of the president’s ire.

...will (Trump) use the powers of his office to frustrate Mueller investigation).

...the confrontation is brewing against a backdrop of increasing policy instability...in the past 24 hours the White House has not merely taken a few steps closer to a major confrontation with the Justice Department and the special counsel but has also made sure that the government is badly positioned to handle security crises that may erupt in tandem with that confrontation.

...the country has moved closer to confrontation...

https://lawfareblog.com/how-cohen-raids-and-trumps-reactions-edge-us-toward-conf...

Mueller interviewed Russian oligarchs and go-betweens before searching Cohen office.

If Putin isn't getting the return he expected from Trump, might he throw him under the bus?
By doing so, he would disrupt US, demonstrate potency to Russians, discourage others from crossing him.

Not (just?) info on the Playboy Bunny and Ms Daniels,

FBI sought Trump 'Access Hollywood' tape info in Cohen raid: report
Jacqueline Thomsen | 04/11/18
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/382703-fbi-sought-trump-access-hollyw...

ETA___________________________________________________--

The National Enquirer, a Trump Rumor, and Another Secret Payment to Buy Silence
How the media organization protected the Presidential candidate early in his campaign.
Ronan Farrow | April 12, 2018

Late in 2015, a former Trump Tower doorman named Dino Sajudin met with a reporter from American Media, Inc., the publisher of the National Enquirer, at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania. A few weeks earlier, Sajudin had signed a contract with A.M.I., agreeing to become a source and to accept thirty thousand dollars for exclusive rights to information he had been told: that Donald Trump, who had launched his Presidential campaign five months earlier, may have fathered a child with a former employee in the late nineteen-eighties.

...Shortly after the company paid Sajudin, the chairman and C.E.O. of A.M.I., David Pecker, who has spoken publicly about his friendship with Trump, ordered the A.M.I. reporters to stop investigating...

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-national-enquirer-a-donald-trump-ru...

Benjamin Wittes @benjaminwittes 4/12/2018
If Rod Rosenstein is fired and there are protests in the streets of Washington DC, I will in attendance. Here's why:

The Principle of Professional Law Enforcement Is Now on the Line
Benjamin Wittes | April 12, 2018

If the president can, with impunity, remove the deputy attorney general, the very notion that law enforcement has a higher function than serving power becomes a lie...

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/04/rosenstein-firing-coming/55...

ETA__________________________________________________________________

Seven Takeaways From Trump’s Threats Against Rod Rosenstein
Susan Hennessey, Matthew Kahn, Benjamin Wittes | Thursday, April 12, 2018

...seven observations about the possible firing of Rosenstein:

First, firing Rosenstein is not the same as firing Mueller, but it would be borne of the same corrupt purpose...

Second, there is no non-corrupt reason to fire Rosenstein...

Third, it would be no better for Trump to force Rosenstein’s recusal than to remove him from office entirely...

Fourth, congressional pushback against the president if he fires Rosenstein is not a certainty...

Fifth, the courts are a non-option...

(Sixth?)

Finally, seventh, this is really all about political power. The only meaningful remedy to a Rosenstein firing is political. The clearest expression of political reaction, assuming Congress does not get meaningfully involved, will come in the midterm elections in November. If the president fires Rosenstein for openly corrupt reasons and his party does not pay a devastating electoral price, it will mean that in the American political system, at this moment in time, it is OK for the president to fire a law enforcement officer for openly corrupt reasons.

But the midterms are months away and the president’s action—if it takes place—would precipitate interim political measures too, measures of either acceptance or rejection. It will matter to the perceived legitimacy of the action how the democratic polity reacts. One of the most powerful statements in the Trump era has been citizens repeatedly taking to the streets to express their views on a diverse array of matters. In some ways, the most important reaction to a Rosenstein firing might come from the populace itself. And that raises a critical question: If the president fires the deputy attorney general, will people care?

https://lawfareblog.com/seven-takeaways-trumps-threats-against-rod-rosenstein

A signal to Mueller witnesses?

President Trump poised to pardon Scooter Libby, Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, sources say
Jonathan Karl, Katherine Faulders, JOHN SANTUCCI | Apr 13, 2018

... Libby was convicted in 2007 of lying to the FBI and obstruction of justice in the investigation into the leak of the identity of Valerie Plame, a former covert CIA operative. Then-President George Bush commuted Libby's 30-month sentence, sparing him prison time, but didn't pardon him.

...Since the conviction, Libby has since had his law license restored and former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell restored his voting rights in 2013...

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/president-trump-poised-pardon-scooter-libby-dick-...

ETA____________________________________________________________________________________

Coincidence? Scooter Libby case involved James Comey, ‘witch hunt’ claims and a vilified special prosecutor.
Kyle Swenson | April 13, 2018

...On July 14, syndicated columnist Robert Novak penned a column outing Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, as a CIA “operative.” The CIA requested a Department of Justice investigation into the naming of Plame as an agent — a breach of classified information. An FBI investigation started into whether Plame’s identity was leaked to reporters as political payback for her husband’s public challenge to the administration.

“My name and identity were carelessly and recklessly abused by senior government officials in both the White House and the State Department,” Plame would later say before Congress.

By the end of 2003, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft recused himself from the case.

That left the decision on how to proceed to the deputy attorney general — a man named James B. Comey.

The future-FBI director appointed Patrick J. Fitzgerald, a U.S. attorney from Chicago, as special counsel...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/04/13/coincidence-scoote...

What I Learned From Briefing Robert Mueller
David Priess | Thursday, April 12, 2018

...For more than a year, while serving as a CIA officer (GW Bush Administration), I was (Mueller's) daily intelligence briefer in his role as director of the FBI. Five, often six, days a week I delivered to him the president’s daily brief (PDB) as well as voluminous other pieces of intelligence information and analytic assessments, primarily on terrorism...

What stood out to me most upon my starting the job, just months after 9/11, were Mueller’s attention to detail and his desire to understand how the CIA analysts arrived at their assessments...

The president and his allies began arguing early in the special counsel’s investigation that ego and attention-seeking are driving Mueller in this probe. The man I got to know displayed the opposite characteristics. Our sessions—like the vast majority of top-tier intelligence briefings, both in my direct experience and across the history of the PDB—provided plenty of fodder for self-promotion if he had wanted to take them. He never did...

So, what does this all suggest to me about Mueller’s approach to L’Affaire Russe and its related matters?

First, if anyone can manage this wide-ranging investigation, he can. It would strain credulity to believe that Mueller’s attention to detail and concern for logic and argumentation vanished when he left his long stint as FBI director.

Second, he won’t give up or back down. Then as now, his persistence in seeking information that he assesses he needs has opened new doors that he won’t shut prematurely.

Third, his clear disdain for unnecessary publicity or other extraneous noise serves him well. It hasn’t surprised me a bit that the spokesman for the special counsel’s office has remained the quietest voice in Washington.

My experience with Mueller suggests he will continue—and, ultimately, conclude—this investigation thoroughly, without distraction, and with integrity.

https://www.lawfareblog.com/what-i-learned-briefing-robert-mueller

Trump’s allies worry that federal investigators may have seized recordings made by his attorney
Ashley Parker, Carol D. Leonnig, Josh Dawsey and Tom Hamburger April 12 at 7:29 PM Email the author

President Trump’s personal attorney Michael D. Cohen...who served for a decade as a lawyer at the Trump Organization and is a close confidant of Trump, was known to store the conversations using digital files and then replay them for colleagues...

...Trump knew...standard practice...Cohen wanted his business calls on tape so he could use them later as leverage...Cohen frequently noted that under New York law, only one party had to consent to the taping of a conversation...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-allies-worry-that-federal-investi...

Obstruction of justice: Senate hearing on CIA Director Mike Pompeo's nomination as Secretary of State

CIA director can’t remember if Trump asked him to obstruct Russia probe
Caroline Orr - April 12, 2018

...Pompeo’s answers seem to flatly contradict one other. If he can’t remember what was asked of him, how can he remember that nothing improper was asked of him?

As CNN’s Jim Sciutto noted, “The statements ‘I don’t recall what the president asked me’ and ‘The president never asked me to do anything remotely improper’ are by definition inconsistent.”

Notably, Pompeo didn’t deny that Trump asked him to intervene in Comey’s investigation into Flynn — he only denied that Trump asked him to do anything improper. That leaves open the possibility that Trump did ask him to intervene, but that Pompeo didn’t feel it was improper to do so.

That Pompeo can’t outright deny that Trump asked him to obstruct a federal investigation is concerning, to say the least...

https://shareblue.com/mike-pompeo-bob-menendez-confirmation-hearing/

____________________________________________________________

Mike Pompeo: I spoke with Mueller
https://news.google.com/news/video/vwRjTVBB2HU/d2-9keUvkW72vzMbuYo6IjzQUyPsM?hl=...

BOOM.

Sources: Mueller has evidence Cohen was in Prague in 2016, confirming part of dossier
Peter Stone And Greg Gordon | April 13, 2018 06:08 PM

...Justice Department special counsel has evidence that Donald Trump’s personal lawyer and confidant, Michael Cohen, secretly made a late-summer trip to Prague during the 2016 presidential campaign

...Cohen has vehemently denied for months that he ever has been in Prague or colluded with Russia during the campaign.

...The (Steele) dossier alleges that Cohen, two Russians and several Eastern European hackers met at the Prague office of a Russian government-backed social and cultural organization, Rossotrudnichestvo. The location was selected to provide an alternative explanation in case the rendezvous was exposed, according to Steele’s Kremlin sources, cultivated during 20 years of spying on Russia. It said that Oleg Solodukhin, the deputy chief of Rossotrudnichestvo’s operation in the Czech Republic, attended the meeting, too.

Further, it alleges that Cohen, Kosachev and other attendees discussed “how deniable cash payments were to be made to hackers in Europe who had worked under Kremlin direction against the Clinton campaign.”

...Citing information from an unnamed “Kremlin insider,” Steele’s dossier says the Prague meeting agenda also included discussion “in cryptic language for security reasons,” of ways to “sweep it all under the carpet and make sure no connection could be fully established or proven.” Romanians were among the hackers present, it says, and the discussion touched on using Bulgaria as a location where they could “lie low.”

It is a felony for anyone to hack email accounts. Other laws forbid foreigners from contributing cash or in-kind services to U.S. political campaigns...

...A millionaire with his own New York real estate holdings, Cohen has long had family and business ties to Ukraine. His wife is Ukrainian, and he has had ties to Ukrainian ethanol company. He also once ran a thriving taxi business.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/white-house/article208870264...
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David Frum @davidfrum

The lives of Americans and the peace of the world are in hands you wouldn't trust with your beer money.
6:10 PM - 13 Apr 2018

Suppose you favor a Syria intervention - but were told that US aircraft were inoperable or US warships unseaworthy. Wouldn't you say, "Postpone until we are ready?" The planes & ships are fine - but the political leadership of the US is broken. No new wars under this president.
6:59 PM - 13 Apr 2018

I'd personally like more certainty whether the president and his team have massively lied about their obligations to a hostile foreign power before accepting their leadership of a major military action
5:40 PM - 13 Apr 2018

ETA
@maddow is sadly right. An inevitable cost of having a president like Trump is that, even when the deadly dogs of war are wisely deployed, they’ll be suspected of being wagged to distract from trouble In Trumplandia and not to achieve strategic national goals.
7:55 PM - 13 Apr 2018

ETA
Even if he's offering to take you to church, you don't get in a car with a drunken driver. Exercise that same caution when President Trump appears to act in ways you believe you approve.
5:46 AM - 14 Apr 2018

5 contd. Pardons for obstruction of justice a signal to DOJ targets

Laurence Tribe (Harvard Law School) @tribelaw 4:06 AM - 14 Apr 2018

What Trump’s pardons of Joe Arpaio & Scooter Libby had in common: Both were pardoned for crimes that obstructed justice. So both pardons were signals to DOJ targets from Mike Flynn to Michael Cohen that they needn’t comply with lawful demands that embroil Trump.

9 contd. (McClatchy story on Cohen in Prague in August/Sept 2016)

Remembering CNN and Rachel Maddow MSNBC story on being baited with fake news, Trumpski trolls not above such tactics:

Benjamin Wittes @benjaminwittes 6:37 AM - 14 Apr 2018
https://twitter.com/benjaminwittes/status/985150023703912448

I've thought about this story overnight—and frankly, count me cautious about it until some other news organizations confirm it and fill in some details. A few reasons:

(1) The sourcing is relatively thin. It is sourced to two sources familiar with the matter, who are presumably not Mueller shop folks. It's not clear to me what the universe of people who would know this sort of thing from a distance looks like.

(2) The story does not, actually, say that Michael Cohen was, in fact, in Prague at the relevant time. It says that Mueller's investigation has developed some evidence that he was in Prague. It gives no sense of how much evidence or what type of evidence—or how credible it is.

Note how the story here hedges on this point, describing the confirmation of Cohen's presence in Prague only in hypothetical terms. The reporters are being careful not to say that Cohen was actually in Prague—merely that Mueller has developed some reason to doubt his denial.

(3) It's a little too good. The Prague meeting is part of the heart and soul of the Steele Dossier. Good intel analysts need to be skeptical of intel that perfectly supports their premises, particularly when it's a bit thin. Let's show that discipline here.

(4) It would be absolutely nuts for Cohen to have gone on a campaign predicated on his non-presence in Prague if he had, in fact, been in Prague in the fashion anything like what the Steele Dossier reports. Remember, he even sued Buzzfeed and Fusion GPS over the matter.

See complaint, p. 7, para 24. It is certainly possible that Cohen is a big enough idiot to sue a media organization—and thereby invite discovery—over his presence in Prague when he, had in fact, been there, but...

So look, I'm not saying the story isn't true. And I'm not saying it won't be matched/validated by other reporting. But I'm personally going to wait until it is corroborated and fleshed out a bit before I make judgments about it.

If true, amazing that Cohen proposes to determine whether a document is responsive to the search warrant!

The Govt's Opposition to Cohen Motion for a Temporary Restraining Order (April 13, 2018, 23 p)

...although Cohen’s claims are founded on his expressed concern that attorney-client privilege will be undermined, he nevertheless asks for far broader relief: He asks to also be the first to make the determination of whether a document is responsive to the search warrant. That request for relief, which bears no relation to the claimed justification, belies the true intent of his motion: To delay the case and deprive the USAO-SDNY of evidence to which it is entitled.

...Although Cohen is an attorney, he also has several other business interests and sources of income. The searches are the result of a months-long investigation into Cohen, and seek evidence of crimes, many of which have nothing to do with his work as an attorney, but rather relate to Cohen’s own business dealings. As set forth below, unlike a search of a traditional law office, the information gathered thus far in the investigation suggests that the overwhelming majority of evidence seized during the searches will not be privileged material, but rather will relate to Cohen’s business dealings.

...the Filter Team will review them to determine whether the material is: (1) not privileged, (2) potentially privileged, (3) requires redaction, and/
or (4) potentially meets an applicable exception (for example, the crime-fraud exception).

...Cohen proposes (as his primary argument) not that a neutral third party conduct the initial review of the seized materials, but that Cohen’s own counsel
conduct the initial review, including for responsiveness. Such a procedure would stymie the USAO-SDNY’s investigation and block lawful evidence gathering
in accordance with the Government’s judicially-approved Rule 41 search authority. Moreover, under such a procedure, Cohen’s claims of privilege would likely be “generous.” Already in his brief to this Court, Cohen’s makes overbroad privilege claims. For example, as described below, Cohen makes claims about his purported privileged communications involving a law firm (with which he had a “strategic relationship”), which are inconsistent with the facts we know about
his actual relationship with that firm.... (etc.)

https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/4437270/Cohen-v-US-Govt-Opposition-to...

Michael Cohen's mystery third client is ... wait for it ... Sean Hannity

•In a court filing earlier on Monday, lawyers for Cohen refused to identify Hannity, saying it was "likely to be embarrassing or detrimental to the client."

Hannity, on Air, Says Cohen Never Represented Him

This is getting more entertaining by the minute.

The New York Magazine today:

Fox News: We Don’t Care About Sean Hannity’s Undisclosed Ties to Michael Cohen

“Hannity journalism ethics problem” is a category error. Fox News viewers should probably assume that every talking head on the network has deep, undisclosed conflicts of interest.

Russian reporter* who died after falling from his fifth-floor balcony had been investigating allegations about Deripaska** and Manafort made by Belarusian escort Nastya Rybka*** (and exposed by @navalny****)

--Natasha Bertrand @NatashaBertrand (Staff writer @TheAtlantic covering national security & the intel community. @NBCNews/@MSNBC contributor)
11:27 AM - 17 Apr 2018

* Maxim Borodin
** Oleg Deripaska, Russian tycoon
*** Nastya Rybka, Kremlin call girl detained in Thailand offers info for U.S. rescue
**** Alexey Navalny. Основатель Фонда борьбы с коррупцией, председатель Партии Прогресса. Moscow • navalny.com

There you have it (CAPs mine):

Pastor Andrew Brunson, a fine gentleman and Christian leader in the United States, is on trial and being persecuted in Turkey for no reason. They call him a Spy, but I AM MORE A SPY THAN HE IS. Hopefully he will be allowed to come home to his beautiful family where he belongs!

Donald J. Trump Verified account @realDonaldTrump
7:32 PM - 17 Apr 2018

What does Pittsburgh know?

Pittsburgh Police Prepare For Possible Riots In Event Trump Fires Mueller

An opinion piece from the Kansas Star -

Will Missouri and Kansas senators protect Robert Mueller from President Trump?

and The Hill -

The rule-of-law party must unite around Mueller

A.G. SCHNEIDERMAN SENDS LETTER URGING STATE LAWMAKERS TO CLOSE NEW YORK'S DOUBLE JEOPARDY LOOPHOLE TO PREVENT THOSE PARDONED BY THE PRESIDENT FROM EVADING POTENTIAL STATE PROSECUTION

News from Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE | April 18, 2018
Attorney General’s Press Office / 212-416-8060

Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman sent a letter to state lawmakers today urging them to close a loophole in New York’s double jeopardy law. Closing the loophole would ensure that individuals who broke New York law could not evade accountability for any state crimes as a result of a strategically-timed pardon by the president.

The letter is available here. (https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/letter_from_ag.pdf)

“Long ago, the Supreme Court made clear that presidents cannot pardon for state crimes—now it’s time for New York law to do the same,” said Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman. “By closing New York’s double jeopardy loophole, lawmakers can ensure that no one accused of breaking New York’s laws will escape accountability merely because of a strategically-timed presidential pardon. We are disturbed by reports that the President is considering pardons of individuals who may have committed serious federal financial, tax, and other crimes—acts that may also violate New York law. We must ensure that if the President, or any president, issues such pardons, we can use the full force of New York’s laws to bring such individuals to justice.”

https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/ag-schneiderman-sends-letter-urging-state-lawmak...

On the Hannity question, I haven't seen any of the talking heads address why Michael Cohen felt he needed to list Sean Hannity as a legal client to the court. If their lawyer-client relationship amounted to verbal discussions and an exchange of cash (as Hannity portrays it), there would be no trail of evidence; no documents that need privilege protection.

Trump’s Lawyer Forgets to Pretend He’s Innocent, Also Compares Him to Mobster

Asked today by Katy Tur if “there’s any chance Michael Cohen would end up cooperating, flipping,” Anthony Scaramucci said no, because Cohen ‘is a very loyal person.”

You meant because Trump is innocent, right? Cohen is not going to testify against Trump because Trump did nothing wrong?
...
In an interview with the Journal, (Trump's lawyer, Jay) Goldberg elucidated his concerns about Cohen’s loyalty and the devastating impact it would have if he cooperated with the government. “The mob was broken by Sammy ‘The Bull’ Gravano caving in out of the prospect of a jail sentence,” Goldberg explained.

Again, this makes a lot of sense as a legal defense strategy for a businessman who has probably done a lot of illegal stuff. But as a public-relations strategy, isn’t Trump’s lawyer supposed to say he believes Cohen is innocent, and would be shocked to learn if he did something wrong, because of course Trump has never engaged in any illegal behavior and would never tolerate it among his employees?

>20 2wonderY: I'm wondering why Cohen felt he had to disclose that Hannity was a client if indeed Hannity is correct in that he wasn't. I would think a lawyer would have a pretty good idea of who he or she is representing. There's more to this story than we're seeing. It'll all come out over time, but in the meantime the media is just speculating.

>20 2wonderY: I wonder if Cohen listed Hannity as a client to up his legitimacy as an attorney, thinking that Hannity would go along--not thinking of hit to Hannity credibility as journalist? Or maybe Hannity the journalist discussed Trump the mobster with Cohen, and Cohen needed to protect those conversations? Truly a swamp!

Meanwhile:
Mitch McConnell blocks bill protecting Mueller, and Harvard Law's Laurence Tribe @tribelaw (4/19/2018) worries

that Trump’s allies in Congress will trump up a contempt citation against Rosenstein (recall Holder!), or even a bill of impeachment against him, to give Trump an excuse to fire him:

Trump allies press Rosenstein in private meeting in latest sign of tensions
Robert Costa and Ellen Nakashima | April 18, 2018

...Rosenstein’s meeting at his office Monday with Reps. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) came days after Meadows, an influential Trump confidant, warned Rosenstein that he could soon face impeachment proceedings or an effort to hold him in contempt of Congress if he did not satisfy GOP demands for documents.

...Meadows and other Republicans close to Trump, such as House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), have long clashed with Rosenstein over documents related to the origin of the Russia investigation. Last week, in a move widely seen as an attempt to calm that rancor, the Justice Department gave Nunes access to a redacted document detailing the beginning of the probe — a day after Nunes suggested that he may try to impeach high-ranking FBI or Justice Department officials over their failure to produce what he wanted.

A Justice official said last week that the department had provided Nunes, ranking Democratic member Adam B. Schiff (Calif.) and all committee members access to the document with redactions “narrowly tailored to protect the name of a foreign country and the name of a foreign agent.”...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-allies-press-rosenstein-in-private...

Cohen drops libel suits against BuzzFeed, Fusion GPS
JOSH GERSTEIN | 04/19/2018

Embattled attorney Michael Cohen has dropped a pair of much-touted libel suits against BuzzFeed and the private investigation firm Fusion GPS over publication of the so-called dossier detailing alleged ties between President Donald Trump and Russia.

...The dossier claims that Cohen met with Russian operatives somewhere in Europe, including Prague, to attend a meeting to “clean up the mess” created by public disclosures of other Trump associates’ reported ties to Russia.

...Cohen denied the Prague meeting occurred...

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/04/19/michael-cohen-drops-buzzfeed-fusion-la...

>22 pmackey: and >23 margd: I'm guessing Cohen has recorded conversations with Hannity without Hannity knowing. And Cohen would still like to keep that fact hidden.

>25 2wonderY: That makes sense.

Democratic Party files lawsuit alleging Russia, the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks conspired to disrupt the 2016 campaign
Tom Hamburger, Rosalind S. Helderman and Ellen Nakashima | April 20, 2018

The Democratic National Committee filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit Friday against the Russian government, the Trump campaign and the WikiLeaks organization alleging a far-reaching conspiracy to disrupt the 2016 campaign and tilt the election to Donald Trump.

The complaint, filed in federal district court in Manhattan, alleges that top Trump campaign officials conspired with the Russian government and its military spy agency to hurt Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and help Trump by hacking the computer networks of the Democratic Party and disseminating stolen material found there.

...The case asserts that the Russian hacking campaign — combined with Trump associates’ contacts with Russia and the campaign’s public cheerleading of the hacks — amounted to an illegal conspiracy to interfere in the election that caused serious damage to the Democratic Party.

...The lawsuit argues that Russia is not entitled to sovereign immunity in this case because “the DNC claims arise out of Russia’s trespass on to the DNC’s private servers . . . in order to steal trade secrets and commit economic espionage.”

The suit ...targets various Trump aides who met with people believed to be affiliated with Russia during the campaign, including the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., his son-in-law Jared Kushner, his campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Manafort’s deputy, Rick Gates...the Russian military intelligence service, the GRU, which has been accused by the U.S. government of orchestrating the hacks, as well as WikiLeaks, which published the DNC’s stolen emails, and the group’s founder Julian Assange...Roger Stone, the longtime Trump confidante who claimed during the campaign that he was in contact with Assange...Papadopoulos and (Josef Mifsud, a London-based professor, that the Russians were in possession of thousands of emails that could be damaging to Clinton), as well as Aras and Emin Agalarov, the wealthy Russian father and son who hosted the Miss Universe Pageant in Moscow in 2013...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/democratic-party-files-lawsuit-alleging-...

66 p lawsuit posted at https://lawfareblog.com/document-dnc-sues-russia-trump-campaign-and-wikileaks-el...

The Don(ald):

Comey is exactly right about Trump being like a mob boss
David Love | April 13, 2018

...In his new book, "A Higher Loyalty," former FBI Director James Comey characterized President Donald Trump as a Mafia kingpin who has a warped notion of loyalty and utter disdain for the rule of law, and views the FBI as his personal investigative service.

"The boss in complete control. The loyalty oaths. The us-versus-them worldview. The lying about all things, large and small, in service to some code of loyalty that put the organization above morality and above the truth," Comey wrote....

https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/13/opinions/comey-right-about-trump-opinion-love/ind...
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Trump defends Cohen after NYT report
Matt Korade | April 21, 2018

...In a series of tweets peppered with insults against the Times' White House correspondent, Maggie Haberman, and her sourcing, Trump wrote that she and the newspaper "are going out of their way to destroy Michael Cohen and his relationship with me in the hope that he will 'flip.' ...Most people will flip if the Government lets them out of trouble, even if........it means lying or making up stories..."

https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/21/politics/trump-cohen-new-york-times/index.html
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The Sopranos - Johnny Sack Flips (4:54)
Gnocchist | Jun 25, 2011
Johhny Sack makes a deal with the government.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHxn8_98cHg
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Michael Cohen and the End Stage of the Trump Presidency
Adam Davidson | April 14, 2018

...Of course Trump is raging and furious and terrified. Prosecutors are now looking at his core. Cohen was the key intermediary between the Trump family and its partners around the world; he was chief consigliere and dealmaker throughout its period of expansion into global partnerships with sketchy oligarchs. He wasn’t a slick politico who showed up for a few months. He knows everything, he recorded much of it, and now prosecutors will know it, too. It seems inevitable that much will be made public. We don’t know when. We don’t know the precise path the next few months will take. There will be resistance and denial and counterattacks. But it seems likely that, when we look back on this week, we will see it as a turning point. We are now in the end stages of the Trump Presidency.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/michael-cohen-and-the-end-stage-of-the-...

Trump’s false claims to Comey about Moscow stay could aid Mueller
BEN SCHRECKINGER | 04/23/2018

James Comey says the president told him that he never spent the night in Moscow in 2013, but flight records, social media and his bodyguard's testimony show otherwise.

...A conscious effort by Trump to mislead the FBI director (Comey) could lend weight to the allegation—contained in a largely unverified private research dossier compiled by a former British spy in 2016—that Trump engaged in compromising activity during the trip that exposed him to Russian government blackmail.

It has also likely caught the eye of special counsel Robert Mueller, legal analysts say. False statements to Comey about the trip could demonstrate that Trump has “consciousness of guilt”

...That could bolster a legal case against Trump...Trump's assertions could factor into any written report from Mueller that might draw conclusions about whether Trump sought to obstruct justice or colluded with the Kremlin, and which could be transmitted by the Justice Department to Congress.

Prosecutors “would argue that it shows he’s afraid of the truth,” (Pete Zeidenberg, a former federal prosecutor who worked for special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald’s investigation of national security-related leaks during the George W. Bush administration) said.

...He suggested that investigators could also probe whether Trump had in fact conferred with , as he apparently told Comey he did.

“It’s very likely there would be no corroboration for (Trump telling Comey that others “reminded” him he did not stay the night in Russia), which makes the whole thing look like a big fat lie,” Zeidenberg said...

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/04/23/trump-moscow-overnight-stay-mueller-co...

Trump: "The mob takes the Fifth Amendment. If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?”

(video clip at https://twitter.com/JesseFFerguson/status/989273371639799809)

______________________________________________

Trump’s past comments about pleading the Fifth look pretty ominous now
Aaron Blake | April 25, 2018

...Trump's longtime personal lawyer/fixer Michael Cohen has now indicated that he intends to plead the Fifth Amendment in the civil case involving his hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels, citing the fast-materializing criminal case stemming from that same payment.

And 2016 Trump would suggest that makes Cohen guilty.

“The mob takes the Fifth,” Trump said after Hillary Clinton aides invoked their right against self-incrimination. “If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?”

He added at his first debate with Clinton that pleading the Fifth is “disgraceful.”

“When you have your staff taking the Fifth Amendment, taking the Fifth so they’re not prosecuted, when you have the man that set up the illegal server taking the Fifth, I think it’s disgraceful,” he said.

Trump in June 2016 even speculated that a Clinton aide who took the Fifth might be informing on her — another comment with particularly eerie parallels for Trump today, since some have speculated Cohen could cut a deal with prosecutors and work against Trump (though Cohen has assured he'd never do such a thing).

“Did you see her IT specialist? He's taken the Fifth,” Trump said. “The word is he's ratting her out like you wouldn't believe it.”...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2018/04/25/trumps-past-comments-a...

ETA_______________________________________

Cohen says he can’t answer any questions in the Stormy Daniels case without incriminating himself. That means any files regarding his clients in that matter, including Trump, are likely not protected by the attorney-client privilege because of the crime fraud exception.

Joyce Alene @JoyceWhiteVance (University of Alabama Law Professor)
7:44 PM - 25 Apr 2018

Bill To Protect Mueller Investigation Approved By Senate Judiciary Committee

"Given President Trump's statement just this morning that he may interfere with the special counsel's investigation, it's become even more of an imperative that Leader McConnell put this bill on the Senate floor for a vote immediately. Rather than waiting for a constitutional crisis, the full Senate should act now," said Schumer.

Interesting picture of Russian members of the NRA:

NRA gathers documents amid scrutiny over ties to Kremlin-linked banker
Sara Murray | April 27, 2018
https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/27/politics/nra-documents-russian-banker/index.html

Updates on Trump Tower meeting:

...Natalia V. Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer who met in the (Trump) building in June 2016 with Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner on the promise of delivering dirt on Hillary Clinton. But now Veselnitskaya has recanted her earlier insistence that she approached the Trump campaign as a private citizen and had no Russian government ties. “I am an informant,” she told NBC News, working with the Russian prosecutor general. An email trail indicates that Veselnitskaya was working in coordination with Kremlin interests...

...a finding in the (House Intelligence Committee Republican)... Aras Agalarov—the oligarch behind the 2016 Trump Tower meeting promising Clinton dirt—sent an expensive painting” to Trump for his birthday one day after the meeting.

“There are few things better than receiving a sensational gift from someone you admire— and that’s what I’ve received from you,” Trump wrote back to Agalarov...

JACK SHAFER | April 28, 2018
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/04/28/trump-michael-cohen-aide-dist...

ETA_________________________________________

Important point made today by @sam_vinograd: Kremlin agent Natalia Veselnitskaya would not have gone on American television admitting to being tied to Putin, something obvious to those of us not brainwashed, if Putin had not approved her to do that.
Adam Parkhomenko @AdamParkhomenko
28 Apr 2018

Bingo! Putin is showing a little leg. He’s reminding Donald how easily he could bring @POTUS down and is thereby adding to the evidence that our president is dangerously beholden to our major foreign adversary.
Laurence Tribe @tribelaw
28 Apr 2018

Might not usually be prosecuted, but again demonstrates Trump Jr willingness to use election-pertinent info regardless of source--this time WikiLeaks provided password to anti-Trump website. Nunes report maybe doing more damage than good for Trump campaign?

Did Donald Trump Jr. Admit to Violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act?
Orin Kerr | April 29, 2018

The recently-released Minority report of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) discloses a copy of an e-mail sent by Donald J. Trump Jr., on September 21, 2016, to a group of top Trump campaign officials. The e-mail is interesting because Trump may have confessed in it to committing a federal crime, specifically 18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(2). It's just a misdemeanor based on the facts we know. But depending on the circumstances, the violation could also be a felony.

...First, Trump Jr. admits to "intentionally accessing a computer."

...Second, Trump Jr. also appears to admit to his access being "intentionally . . . without authorization."

...Third, Trump implies that he "obtained information."

...Fourth, the server that hosted the website was plainly a "protected computer."

...How serious is such a crime? The base offense that I have described is only a misdemeanor. See 18 U.S.C. § 1030(c)(2)(A). However, under 18 U.S.C. § 1030(c)(2)(B), there are a few circumstances in which the basic unauthorized access misdemeanor becomes a more serious felony:

(i) the offense was committed for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain;

(ii) the offense was committed in furtherance of any criminal or tortious act in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States or of any State; or

(iii) the value of the information obtained exceeds $5,000.

...I'm not saying that this is the biggest offense in the world. I don't think it is. And it's important to flag the separate question of whether such an offense would normally be prosecuted. As then-FBI Director James Comey noted in his statement about Hillary Clinton's use of a personal server, prosecutors exercise discretion in deciding what crimes to prosecute. Not every crime leads to prosecution...

https://lawfareblog.com/did-donald-trump-jr-admit-violating-computer-fraud-and-a...

!
ETA: Rosenstein comments on CSPAN: https://twitter.com/cspan/status/991393309766582272 .

Republicans’ highly political articles of impeachment against Rod Rosenstein, annotated
Amber Phillips | May 1, 2018

A group of Trump allies in the House are preparing for the possibility of impeaching the person who set up the special counsel investigation into Russia, Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein. They drafted eight reasons why he should be impeached that are based on what legal experts say is highly politicized information. That's because their impeachment cases rests on what the FBI says is cherry-picked information about how it got multiple warrants to spy on former Trump campaign official Carter Page...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2018/05/01/republicans-highly-pol...

More Russians! Cohen sounds like a guy who would flip on Trump, unless Russian organized crime / Putin say no?

Better Call Cohen: The Shady Cases of a Trump Lawyer's Personal Injury Practice
Seth Hettena | May 1, 2018

The president's personal attorney represented multiple clients in New York who allegedly staged car crashes to cheat insurance companies

...(Before he worked for Trump) Cohen represented numerous clients who were involved in deliberate, planned car crashes as part of an attempt to cheat insurance companies...Cohen also did legal work for a medical clinic whose principal was a doctor later convicted of insurance fraud for filing phony medical claims on purported "accident" victims. Taken together, a picture emerges that the personal attorney to the president of the United States was connected to a shadowy underworld of New York insurance fraud, a pervasive problem dominated by Russian organized crime that was costing the state's drivers an estimated $1 billion a year...

https://www.rollingstone.com/shady-cases-michael-cohen-personal-injury-practice-...

The genesis of the 49 questions that Trump's lawyers believed Mueller would ask--and a possible motive for their being leaked by the WH:

Mueller raised possibility of presidential subpoena in meeting with Trump’s legal team
Carol D. Leonnig and Robert Costa | May 1, 2018

...In a tense meeting...March (5) with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, President Trump’s lawyers insisted he had no obligation to talk with federal investigators probing Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential campaign.

...Mueller responded that he had another option if Trump declined: He could issue a subpoena for the president to appear before a grand jury, according to four people familiar with the encounter.

...In the wake of the testy March 5 meeting, Mueller’s team agreed to provide the president’s lawyers with more specific information about the subjects that prosecutors wished to discuss with the president. With those details in hand, Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow compiled a list of 49 questions that the team believed the president would be asked

...For his part, Trump fumed when he saw the breadth of the questions that emerged out of the talks with Mueller’s team, according to two White House officials.

The president and several advisers now plan to point to the list as evidence that Mueller has strayed beyond his mandate and is overreaching...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mueller-raised-possibility-of-presidenti...

ETA________________________________________________________

US v. Nixon (1974) held the president must comply with a grand jury subpoena for his Oval Office tapes. There is no basis for treating a grand jury subpoena for the president’s live testimony any differently. It even leaves the witness with a more focused chance to take the 5th.

Laurence Tribe @tribelaw
6:48 AM - 2 May 2018

ETA_________________________________________________________

The Game Theory of a Trump Subpoena
Benjamin Wittes | May 2, 2018

...the possibility of an Trump interview:

First, the logic of the situation favors a negotiated outcome...

Second, if Mueller really needs the interview, he’s going to get it...

Third, conversely, if Mueller does not really need the interview, he may well blink and let Trump get away with not sitting for one...

Fourth, in any negotiated interview, the more accommodations Mueller is prepared to make to Trump, the less crucial we can assume the interview is to his investigation...

Finally, if a subpoena issues, that is not the endpoint of the game but an escalation of it—a sign that neither side has blinked yet. The essential logic of the situation persists until there is an actual court order changing the negotiating status quo or a negotiated interview to avert the litigation. An accommodation is possible even after litigation has begun.

https://lawfareblog.com/game-theory-trump-subpoena

Another move to obstruct justice, misusing government authority?

Did Trump Bribe Ukraine to Stop Cooperating With Mueller?
Jonathan Chait | May 2, 2018

...In December, the administration allowed the sale of anti-tank missiles to Ukraine. Supporters of the administration held up the sale as evidence that Trump could not have colluded with Russia — here he was, arming Russia’s enemy...

...Ukraine’s government had previously cooperated eagerly to expose the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia — providing, among other importance evidence, ledgers detailing payments to Paul Manafort by the Russian-backed Ukrainian party he had advised.

Now Ukraine is withholding cooperation from Mueller, and Ukrainian officials are not even hiding the fact that they’re doing so because of the missile sale. “In every possible way, we will avoid irritating the top American officials,” one Ukrainian lawmaker says. “We shouldn’t spoil relations with the administration.”

It is of course possible that Ukraine reached this decision on its own, completely independent of any suggestion from Washington. It is far more likely that somebody in the administration proposed a quid pro quo...

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/05/trump-bornstein-mueller-questions-l...

Yet another campaign advisor with Russian connections, Michael Caputo, says:

Michael Caputo says 'it's clear' Mueller investigators focused on Russia collusion
Manu Raju | May 2, 2018

..."It's clear they are still really focused on Russia collusion," Caputo said, adding, "They know more about the Trump campaign than anyone who ever worked there. The Senate and the House are net fishing. The special counsel is spearfishing. They know what they are aiming at and are deadly accurate."

...Michael Caputo, who advised the Trump campaign on communications in 2016...lived and worked in Russia in the 1990s and later did business with Russian companies, including Gazprom, the Kremlin-controlled energy giant. As a Republican consultant, Caputo worked with Trump adviser Roger Stone and Paul Manafort, the former campaign chairman. He denies any wrongdoing regarding Russia. Caputo is a longtime ally of Stone's, a close associate of Trump who has come under scrutiny in the Russian investigation because of Stone's contacts with WikiLeaks during the campaign...

https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/02/politics/michael-caputo-mueller-investigator/inde...

Why Guiliani revealed Trump reimbursement Cohen Stormy Daniels hush money:

Transcript: Giuliani interview with The Washington Post
Robert Costa | May 3, 2018

...Costa: Part of the reason you said this tonight (Trump made a series of payments reimbursing his attorney, Michael Cohen, for a $130,000 settlement with adult-film actress Stormy Daniels) is to avoid legal jeopardy over possible campaign finance violations?

Giuliani: I want them to know, ‘Don’t chase.’ We spend so much time chasing windmills here. This is chasing windmills. I also think, personally, neither one of them saw it as a campaign thing, they thought of it as a personal thing. Personal reputation, family, wife, harassment charge. She doesn’t want a lot of money? Pay her. Let her go away. Follow me?

...Costa: So the president is not angry with what you said tonight? He was well aware you’d bring it up?

Giuliani: Oh, yeah, yeah. Sure, sure. He was well aware that at some point when I saw the opportunity, I was going to get this over with.

Costa: Is that what you had talked about with him in recent days?

Giuliani: Probably four or five days ago.

Costa: So you don’t think you will be fired for saying this?

Giuliani: No! no! no! I’m not going to get fired (laughs)...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/transcript-giuliani-interview-with-the-w...

As tweeted by George Conway, Kellyanne's husband(!), a wealthy New York lawyer who was involved in Paula Jones’ lawsuit against Bill Clinton and belongs to conservative legal society, Federalist Society:

Federal Elections Commission
Personal loans from the candidate
Personal funds

When candidates use their personal funds for campaign purposes, they are making contributions to their campaigns...

https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-committees/handling-loans-debts-and-adva...

ETA_________________________________________________________________________________________

Giuliani outs Trump: Did the president just admit to a campaign violation?
Jennifer Rubin | May 3, 2018

...it is likely that Trump and Giuliani believe the raid of Cohen’s office, home and hotel room turned up evidence of the repayment (Daniels hush money). They therefore decided to get out “ahead” of the disastrous news, even if it revealed the president had lied about knowledge of the payment.

... Trump has rotten legal help that has not explained to him...(that he) essentially confessed to a campaign violation...Trump and his lawyers have extreme difficulty keeping their stories straight; that’s a killer when the issue for Trump could turn on obstruction and...the risk of lying either under oath before the grand jury or to the FBI in an interview setting...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2018/05/03/guess-whos-lying-t...

ETA_________________________________________________________________________________________

White House leaps into Giuliani damage control
LOUIS NELSON and JOSH GERSTEIN | 05/03/2018

...Giuliani, meanwhile, did another round of interviews — but may have caused even more trouble.

The core argument of Giuliani’s media appearances was that there was no campaign money involved in the payment to Daniels and therefore there would be no campaign violation.

But during a Thursday morning interview with “Fox & Friends,” Giuliani alluded to the idea that campaign considerations played into the October 2016 payment to Daniels.

“Imagine if that came out on October 15th, 2016, in the middle of the, you know, last debate with Hillary Clinton,” Giuliani said. “Cohen didn't even ask. Cohen made it go away. He did his job.”...

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/05/03/white-house-trump-giuliani-damage-cont...

Feds tapped Trump lawyer Michael Cohen's phones
Tom Winter and Julia Ainsley / May.03.2018

At least one phone call between a phone line associated with Cohen and the White House was intercepted, a source said.

...Former U.S. Attorney Chuck Rosenberg, now an NBC News analyst, says there's a high bar for having a wiretap approved.

"The affidavits are typically highly detailed and carefully vetted by experienced lawyers," he said. "In all cases the wiretap must be approved by a federal judge."

Rosenberg said that wiretaps are usually approved for an investigation into a current crime and not solely for possible crimes that have been committed in the past.

"This is an exacting process where the government must demonstrate to a federal judge that there is an ongoing crime."

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/feds-tapped-trump-lawyer-michael-c...

An analysis of the Giuliani revelations:

Too Bad Rudy Doesn’t Lie as Well as Trump

What the writer doesn't take into account is that Trump/Giuliani might have already known that Cohen's phones had been wiretapped. My guess is the truth lies there.

NBC corrected their report on federal monitoring of Michael Cohen’s phones. They were not wiretapping, listening to conversations - they were logging numbers called and received.

What a background Cohen has!

A Brief History of Michael Cohen's Criminal Ties
From the Russian mob to money launderers, Trump's personal attorney has long been a subject of interest to federal investigators
Seth Hettena | April 10, 2018

...He grew up on Long Island, the son of a physician who survived the Holocaust in Poland, and like Tom Hagen (consigliore in Godfather movie) spent a childhood around organized crime, specifically the Russian Mafiya. Cohen's uncle, Morton Levine, was a wealthy Brooklyn doctor who owned the El Caribe Country Club, a Brooklyn catering hall and event space that was a well-known hangout for Russian gangsters. Cohen and his siblings all had ownership stakes in the club, which rented for years to the first Mafiya boss of Brighton Beach, Evsei Agron, along with his successors, Marat Balagula and Boris Nayfeld. (Cohen's uncle said his nephew gave up his stake in the club after Trump's election.)

I spoke to two former federal investigators who told me Cohen was introduced to Donald Trump by his father-in-law, Fima Shusterman, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Ukraine who arrived in the U.S. in 1975...

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/michael-cohens-ties-to-russia-crime-a...

>43 2wonderY: My mom used to quote the old proverb, "Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive..." Seems to be a common pitfall for politicians and lawyers.... Clinton: "I did not have sex with that woman...." Giuliani: "Trump didn't know/he did know/he didn't know...." Telling the truth is painful and hard upfront. Telling lies is hard all the time. In a way, this reminds me of pharmaceutical commercials: "Do not use lies if you are allergic to lies. Talk to your lawyer about all the lies you are telling. Use of lies may result in disappointment, embarrassment, and additional attorney fees. Your results may vary."

🚨 BREAKING:
@MichaelAvenatti (Stormy Daniels' lawyer) tells @Lawrence (MSNBC)
there were ("extensive") communications
(between Cohen and Daniels' lawyer at the time, Keith Davidson, in October 2016 that)
the payment to Stormy Daniels had to be made in advance of the 2016 election.

The Last Word @TheLastWord- 3 May 2018
https://twitter.com/TheLastWord

NRA, Russia, Trump campaign...(!) Sessions?

GOP caught ignoring evidence Russia used NRA to help Trump
Caroline Orr | April 27, 2018

...According to the 98-page Minority report, Republicans failed to pursue key lines of evidence, refused to issue requests for critical documents and witness testimony, and turned a blind eye to some of the most pressing unanswered questions about the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia.

Among the most glaring issues ignored by Republican lawmakers is the role of the NRA as a conduit between the Kremlin and Trump campaign officials.

Citing evidence from emails and other communications, financial documents, intelligence assessments, and public records, the report describes how Russia tried to cultivate relationships with Trump associates, including an effort to establish a “first contact” with the Trump campaign through an intermediary at the NRA named Rick Erickson.

In an email included in the report, Erickson reached out to Rick Dearborn, a longtime senior advisor to Jeff Sessions and a senior Trump campaign official, to inform him of the Kremlin’s interest in establishing a relationship with the campaign. Erickson even used the word “back-channel” to describe the type of communication he sought to initiate between the Trump campaign and Russia.

...The email also included details about Russia’s plan to use the NRA’s annual convention to make “first contact” with the Trump campaign.

The NRA’s outreach made its way “to the highest levels of the Trump campaign,” the Minority report says. Emails reviewed by the committee show that the effort to establish a back-channel between Russia and the Trump campaign reached key officials including Jared Kushner, Donald Trump Jr., campaign manager Paul Manafort, deputy campaign manager Rick Gates, and then-foreign policy adviser Jeff Sessions.

While not all of their efforts were successful...

...after initially denying that it received foreign contributions, the NRA admitted earlier this month that it had accepted money from at least 23 Russian sources, though it claims none of the cash was funneled to the Trump campaign.

...Republican committee members “refused to investigate whether Russian-linked intermediaries used the NRA to illegally funnel money to the Trump Campaign,” the Minority report says...

https://shareblue.com/house-intelligence-committee-russia-report-nra-trump-campa...

May be more there than Daniels hush money in Cohen investigation:

Cohen took out lines of credit for as much as $774K during campaign: report
Morgan Gstalter | 05/04/18

...the FBI is probing whether Cohen committed bank fraud by making false statements regarding his assets as part of an effort to secure loans. Authorities are also reportedly looking into whether Cohen ever misstated the intended purposes of the loans...

http://thehill.com/homenews/news/386334-cohen-took-out-lines-of-credit-for-as-mu...

#41 George Conway, praise for...

Many people joke about @gtconway3d. I just want to tip my hat to him. Speaking the truth in public is proving too hard for many people who have no meaningful constraints on the ability to do so. This man had done more than nearly all members of Congress of his party. Big #Respect

Benjamin Wittes @benjaminwittes (Lawfare, Brookings Institute)
7:25 AM - 5 May 2018

"...evidence Russia used NRA to help Trump . . ." (48)

You imply that NRA wasnʻt ALREADY helping Trump, without any Russian urging?
Iʻm surprised.

>51 rolandperkins: Oh I'm sure that NRA would have supported Trump without Russia urging, but illegal I think to use foreign money for that purpose.

With $30 million, the Russian members, the Erikson-Dearborn correspondence, LaPierre's NRA compensation jumping to $5 million in 2015, investigators are / will be looking into Russian connxns, I'm sure. It will be interesting to see how good NRA is at scrubbing money and correspondence, or is arrogance such that they never expected the feds to come a'knocking?

"NRA would have supported Trump without Russia urging...
but illegal . . . . ." (51-52)

I agree. Thanks.

Judge rejects Mueller's request for delay in Russian troll farm case
JOSH GERSTEIN | 05/04/2018

A federal judge has rejected special counsel Robert Mueller’s request to delay the first court hearing in a criminal case charging three Russian companies and 13 Russian citizens with using social media and other means to foment strife among Americans in advance of the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

...The 13 people charged in the high-profile indictment in February are considered unlikely to ever appear in a U.S. court. The three businesses accused of facilitating the alleged Russian troll farm operation — the Internet Research Agency, Concord Management, and Concord Catering — were also expected to simply ignore the American criminal proceedings.

Last month, however, a pair of Washington-area lawyers suddenly surfaced in the case, notifying the court that they represent Concord Management. POLITICO reported at the time that the move appeared to be a bid to force Mueller’s team to turn over relevant evidence to the Russian firm and perhaps even to bait prosecutors into an embarrassing dismissal in order to avoid disclosing sensitive information...

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/05/04/mueller-russia-interference-election-c...

And that's how it's done, folks!

How Michael Cohen, Trump’s Fixer, Built a Shadowy Business Empire
William K. Rashbaum, Danny Hakim, Brian M. Rosenthal, Emily Flitter and Jesse Drucker | May 5, 2018

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/05/05/business/michael-cohen-lawyer-trump.html

This may turn out to be the most important piece about Trump in a long time. Where he found hundreds of millions in cash, and why he’d take the risk of committing it in a decade of near-zero interest bank loans, are questions he will not want investigators to explore.

Barton Gellman @bartongellman
5:28 AM - 6 May 2018
______________________________________

As the ‘King of Debt,’ Trump borrowed to build his empire. Then he began spending hundreds of millions in cash.
Jonathan O'Connell, David A. Fahrenthold and Jack Gillum | May 5, 2018

In the nine years before he ran for president, Donald Trump’s company spent more than $400 million in cash on new properties — including 14 transactions paid for in full, without borrowing from banks — during a buying binge that defied real estate industry practices and Trump’s own history as the self-described “King of Debt.”

...Trump had access to far more cash than previously known, despite his string of commercial bankruptcies and the Great Recession’s hammering of the real estate industry...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/as-the-king-of-debt-trump-borrowed-to-bu...

RE May17, 2017 : 214margd

A year on, and the above-linked bullshit is blown apart by information in this report from The Federalist:

The Idea That James Comey’s Leaks Were Non-Criminal Is Falling Apart |
Now that the memos have been perused, the theories of a number of legal commentators have unsurprisingly proved to be full of errors, irrelevancies, and overstatements

| by Robin Ridless

concerning the release of Comey memos.

"When former FBI director James Comey disclosed at a congressional hearing last June that he had disseminated memos to a friend, his defenders scrambled to make excuses for him. The mainstream media launched either fake news or a series of legal justifications to whitewash his violations of a litany of federal rules and laws protecting his private conversations with the president.

"Now that the memos have been perused, the theories of a number of such legal commentators, which were based on sketchy information to begin with, have unsurprisingly proved to be full of errors, irrelevancies, and overstatements. Rather than walk back their defense of Comey’s leaks, however, they have doubled down on heroizing him." ... ...

Judge Asks Mueller: Where's the Evidence? by Julie Kelly, @ American Greatness

There’s a reason this* has not happened since Nixon. It exposes the Trump aides to criminal and civil liability, depending on the nature of the “dirty ops,” see eg 18 USC 242, 50 USC 1809, 42 USC 1983. Team Trump is out of control. Expect an investigation.

Norm Eisen @NormEisen
6:29 PM - 5 May 2018

*Revealed: Trump team hired spy firm for ‘dirty ops’ on Iran arms deal
Mark Townsend and Julian Borger in Washington | 5 May 2018
Israeli agency told to find incriminating material on Obama diplomats who negotiated deal with Tehran
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/may/05/trump-team-hired-spy-firm-dirty-...

There's so much dirt being flung about I'm curious if any of it will stick to the Teflon Don. The last time I remember this much "stuff" being flung about was during Bill Clinton's presidency with Whitewater, etc. None of it stuck to the Clintons so I won't be surprised if none of what's in the news now sticks to Trump. IMO this is because the game is not to get at the truth but to gain political advantage for one's Party. The stakes are high and the players are ruthless. Meanwhile, the American people lose.

One example that gives me hope is Nixon. I was a kid when Nixon was in office, but even then I was an avid supporter of his. So, at the beginning of Watergate, I couldn't believe it. Then I thought he must have not known about the break-in. Finally even the little loyalist I was had to accept Nixon was guilty.

Another hopeful example. I absolutely couldn't believe Bill Cosby would treat women the way he was alleged to have done. As the situation unfolded over the years, there was just so many incidents I had trouble believing he was entirely innocent -- so much smoke there had to be SOME fire.

!!!!!

Israeli Operatives Who Aided Harvey Weinstein Collected Information on Former Obama Administration Officials
Ronan Farrow | May 6, 2018

...The private-intelligence firm Black Cube compiled profiles on (Obama Administration foreign-policy adviser) Colin Kahl and Ben Rhodes (a former foreign-policy adviser to President Obama and a prominent advocate of the Iran nuclear deal)

(contacted their wives)

...firm that was also employed by Harvey Weinstein and that offers its clients access to operatives from “Israel’s élite military and governmental intelligence units,” including the Mossad.

...The Observer reported that officials linked to Trump’s team had made contact with Black Cube days after Trump visited Tel Aviv in May, 2017, during his first foreign tour as President.

...(Ben Rhodes) said that the campaign represented a troubling situation in which public servants were being targeted for their work in government. “This just eviscerates any norm of how governments should operate or treat their predecessors and their families,” he said. “It crosses a dangerous line.”

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/israeli-operatives-that-aided-harvey-we...

>59 pmackey: On ABC's This Week (May 6, 2018), Don Balz recalled several such investigations (incl Clintons) that went on for YEARS and produced NO indictments, but at (14 months?) this one has produced dozens of indictments. (I'll see if I can find the segment--analysis was startling to those of us who may be swayed even unwillingly by Admin protestations of "witch hunt"!)

>61 margd:

LOL! You can't even get Dan Balz's name right. Your posts are a fucking carnival freak-show of error.

>62 proximity1: You're out of line. You jump on a one letter error. One letter. You dismiss her contribution because of one letter and conclude margd's posts are a freak-show. Here's why I like margd's posts: 1) Synopsis of the article/issue, 2) Thoughtful commentary, and 3) Links provided.

>60 margd: Keep up the good work.

Four Women Accuse New York’s Attorney General of Physical Abuse
Jane Mayer and Ronan Farrow | May 7, 2018

Eric Schneiderman has raised his profile as a voice against sexual misconduct. Now, after suing Harvey Weinstein, he faces a #MeToo reckoning of his own.

Update: Three hours after the publication of this story, Schneiderman resigned from his position. “While these allegations are unrelated to my professional conduct or the operations of the office, they will effectively prevent me from leading the office’s work at this critical time,” he said in a statement. “I therefore resign my office, effective at the close of business on May 8, 2018.”

...four women with whom he has had romantic relationships or encounters..;accuse Schneiderman of having subjected them to nonconsensual physical violence.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/four-women-accuse-new-yorks-attorney-ge...

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Bad behavior is bad behavior, and the man has quit, but 'gotcha' makes me wonder if dirty ops not limited to Obama officials who worked on Iran deal?

‘Gotcha,’ tweets Kellyanne Conway as Trump supporters revel in Schneiderman resignation
by Samantha Schmidt May 8 at 5:11 AM Email the author

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman speaks at a news conference in New York in September. (Seth Wenig, AP.)

It took three hours for New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman to step down Monday night after he was accused by four women of physical abuse in a New Yorker article.

Equally swift was the response from allies of President Trump, a longtime nemesis of the attorney general. While the president himself had not weighed in on the news as of early Tuesday morning, numerous Trump supporters from within and outside of the White House reveled in Schneiderman’s resignation...

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I hope @PreetBharara is willing to serve as the new Attorney General of NY, and that the NY Legislature will have the wisdom to choose him.

Laurence Tribe @tribelaw 7 May 2018

ETA___________________________________________________

Timing bumps Stormy Daniels/ Rudy Giuliani from headlines?

What New York AG Eric Schneiderman's Resignation Could Mean for Trump, Weinstein and Manafort
Natasha Bach | 5/7/2018

...New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo quickly called for Schneiderman’s resignation.

...New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand similarly called on Schneiderman to resign

...As recently as last week, Schneiderman announced that he was naming a deputy to investigate the (Harvey Weinstein) case, which means Schneiderman’s resignation should have little impact.

...The federal case against Manafort is still ongoing...It is not clear how far Schneiderman’s reported (NY) investigation into Manafort had gotten, or whether his office was contemplating state money laundering charges, which...would be immune from a presidential pardon.

...Schneiderman is now under investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office.

...(Schneiderman) replacement will be selected by the State Assembly and Senate by a joint ballot.

Schneiderman was up for re-election this year, and no Democrat had announced intentions to challenge him come November. Whoever is chosen to replace him may very well seek election. They will face Manny Alicandro, a corporate lawyer who announced his candidacy on Monday and is running as a Republican.

http://fortune.com/2018/05/08/eric-schneiderman-ny-ag-resigns-abuse/

I'm coming to the realization that we live in a transparent environment where nothing stays hidden for long, especially if it's juicy. I'm all for ruthlessly rooting out people who abuse others or who violate ethics -- no matter what their political party.

This reminds me of the proverb, "People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones...."

>65 pmackey: Glass houses...it does seem sometimes like people who are (over?) eager to prosecute others over social issues have a skeleton or two in their respective closets., e.g., anti-gay soliciting in a men's bathroom, anti-abortion soliciting one for his girlfriend, haranging black men while preying on unconscious women, religious authorities preying on children...

ETA_________________________________________________________

Interesting, I don't see @realDonaldTrump tweeting triumphant yet. He WAS interested in Schneiderman's future after the NY AG sued the future US prez over fraudulent Trump U.... Trumpians DO have history of predicting foes' future. Wonder if Cohen the fixer might have been involved. Guess we'll know soon enough!

President Trump appears to have predicted Eric Schneiderman’s downfall — five years ago, in a tweet about the New York attorney general.
Yaron Steinbuch | May 8, 2018

...Trump compared Schneiderman to two New York Democrats, Rep. Anthony Weiner and Gov. Eliot Spitzer, whose careers exploded amid sex charges.

“Weiner is gone, Spitzer is gone – next will be lightweight A.G. Eric Schneiderman. Is he a crook? Wait and see, worse than Spitzer or Weiner,” Trump tweeted on Sept. 11, 2013.

...Just one month before Trump foreshadowed Schneiderman’s demise, the AG had sued the future US president over his failed Trump University, calling it fraudulent...

“In New York, we have laws against business fraud, we have laws against consumer fraud,” (Schneiderman) said on ABC’s “Good Morning America” when asked about the lawsuit filed against Trump in 2013.

“We have a law against running an illegal unlicensed university. This never was a university … it was really a fraud from beginning to end,” Schneiderman added...

https://nypost.com/2018/05/08/that-time-trump-predicted-eric-schneidermans-downf...

ETA__________________________________________________________

Disgraced New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman to be replaced by State Solicitor Barbara Underwood
Ellen Cranley | 5/8/2018

...Ousted New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman will be replaced by current Solicitor General Barbara Underwood ...

Underwood, who has served as Solicitor General since 2007, was a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and has argued 20 cases before the Supreme Court...

http://www.businessinsider.com/new-york-ag-eric-schneiderman-replaced-by-barbara...

Hmmm. Remember Michael Cohen's second client, Elliott Broidy?

Here's an alternate reality theory:

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/05/theory-playboy-model-had-affair-wit...

Interesting theory.

Article II. Section 4. Impeachment

The President, Vice President and all Civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for and Conviction of, Treason, BRIBERY, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.
________________________________________________________________________

Avenatti & Associates: Project Sunlight (7p)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/2l7qztjakjpqcdl/Executive%20Summary.pdf?dl=0

“Michael Cohen should not be selling access to the President of United States”
Stormy Daniels' lawyer on report that Mueller's team has questioned a Russian oligarch about payments his company's US affiliate made to President Trump's personal attorney https://cnn.it/2wmUktx
--Anderson Cooper 360° @AC360 10h10 hours ago
https://twitter.com/AC360/status/994010087462076416 (4:12)
________________________________________________________________________

May 9, 2018, 3:21 AM
Michael Avenatti claims Michael Cohen received payments from firm controlled by Russian oligarch

Michael Avenatti, the lawyer for adult film actress Stormy Daniels, claims to have evidence of a series of payments made to a bank account in Trump lawyer Michael Cohen's name – including from a company linked to a Russian oligarch and two major corporations, AT&T and Novartis.

...Cohen established a corporation called Essential Consultants LLC in October 2016, just weeks before the presidential election...

Essential Consultants then opened a bank account at First Republic Bank. It was from this account that a $130,000 payment to a representative of Stormy Daniels was made

...a series of alleged payments, including $500,000 from an American investment firm linked to Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg, who was made a target of U.S. sanctions last month.

...Avenatti also listed other payments: $399,920 from Novartis, a Swiss pharmaceutical company; $150,000 from Korea Aerospace Industries; and $187,500 from Elliott Broidy, a former deputy finance chairman of the Republican National Committee.

According to Avenatti, AT&T paid Cohen's company a total of $200,000 over a series of four payments of $50,000, dating from 2017 to early this year, though AT&T did not confirm the figure...

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/michael-avenatti-stormy-daniels-lawyer-claims-cohen...
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Mueller team interviewed Putin-tied oligarch about payments to Cohen: report
By Jacqueline Thomsen - 05/08/18
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/386810-mueller-team-interviewed-putin...

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AT&T confirms it paid Trump lawyer Michael Cohen's company for 'insights' into administration
Rachel Koning Beals | May 8, 2018

AT&T Inc...confirmed...that it made payments to Donald Trump lawyer Michael Cohen's consulting firm in early 2017 after it hired the firm "to provide insights" into the new Trump administration...Stormy Daniels's attorney Michael Avenatti. Avenatti alleged that Essential Consultants, a shell company set up by Cohen before the election to pay Daniels, the porn star who alleges to have had an affair with Trump, received income from several corporations, including AT&T. AT&T was seeking government approval for its acquisition of Time Warner...at the time. The telecom firm said Cohen's consulting firm did no legal or lobbying work for the company. AT&T said its contract with Cohen ended in December 2017. AT&T is also positively impacted by the net neutrality regulatory change brought about under the Trump administration...

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/att-confirms-it-paid-trump-lawyer-michael-cohe...

>68 margd: I'm sure there's a perfectly innocent explanation. Somewhere. I just can't see it. At the very best, this is AT&T making an unfortunate choice in a consultant because it could be construed to be unethical. At worst, it is AT&T being unethical and bribing Trump's lawyer to get access or consideration.

Trump pardon of Scooter Libby, Trump revelation of Israeli intel, Nunes shenanigans.
If WH / Justice Dept. cave to Nunes, we'll be lucky if anyone shares intel with US again...

Secret intelligence source who aided Mueller probe is at center of latest clash between Nunes and Justice Dept.
Robert Costa, Carol D. Leonnig, Devlin Barrett and Shane Harris | May 8, 2018

Last Wednesday, senior FBI and national intelligence officials relayed an urgent message to the White House: Information being sought by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes could endanger a top-secret intelligence source.

Top White House officials, with the assent of President Trump, agreed to back the decision to withhold the information. They were persuaded that turning over Justice Department documents could risk lives by potentially exposing the source, a U.S. citizen who has provided intelligence to the CIA and FBI, according to multiple people familiar with the discussion and the person’s role.

...it is unclear whether Trump was alerted to a key fact — that information developed by the intelligence source had been provided to the Mueller investigation.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/risk-to-intelligence-source-who-aided-ru...

Korean Aerospace Industries, Novartis, AT&T...

Mueller questioned Novartis payment to Trump lawyer Michael Cohen
Michael Kranish and Carolyn Y. Johnson May 9

...Separately, Korean Aerospace Industries confirmed to The Washington Post that it paid $150,000 to Cohen’s company...The company is in contention for a multibillion joint U.S. contract with Lockheed Martin for jet trainers. Lockheed said Wednesday it was not aware of any connection between Korea Aerospace and Cohen.

Novartis said Wednesday that it was contacted last November “by lawyers from the Special Counsel’s office regarding the company’s agreement with Essential Consultants.” The drugmaker said it “cooperated fully ... and provided all the information requested.”...it “believed that Michael Cohen could advise the company as to how the Trump administration might approach certain U.S. healthcare policy matters, including the Affordable Care Act.” The agreement was for $100,000 per month and the first meeting with Cohen occurred in March 2017, she said. According to Avenatti’s report, Novartis paid Essential Consultants through four wire transfers of $99,980 between October 2017 and January 2018, originating from UBS Switzerland. Mirza-Reid said the company decided not to pursue the relationship after its first meeting with Cohen but continued to make the payments until the contract expired. “Following this initial meeting, Novartis determined that Michael Cohen and Essential Consultants would be unable to provide the services that Novartis had anticipated related to US healthcare policy matters and the decision was taken not to engage further....As the contract unfortunately could only be terminated for cause, payments continued to be made until the contract expired by its own terms in February 2018.” Novartis said its current chief executive, Vasant Narasimhan, had no involvement in the agreement with Essential Consultants, which expired the month he assumed his role at the helm of the company. The company said that the agreement was not related to a dinner meeting Narasimhan had at the World Economic Forum in January with Trump and more than a dozen other leaders of European companies.

AT&T also confirmed that it paid $200,000 to Essential Consultants, saying it was one of several firms hired in 2017 “to provide insights into understanding the new administration.” Essential Consultants did “no legal or lobbying work” for AT&T, the company said, and the contract ended in December. AT&T declined to comment Wednesday morning on whether Mueller or federal prosecutors in New York had contacted AT&T regarding the payments to Cohen’s company. AT&T had several major issues before federal officials during the relevant time period, including the company’s proposed merger with Time Warner. That deal was struck in October 2016, and the Justice Department began efforts to block the merger with a lawsuit filed in November 2017....

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mueller-questioned-payment-to-trump-lawy...

If it smells unsavory, feels unsavory and tastes unsavory, it just might be....

An employee at Novartis says the outreach was from Cohen.

Trump’s lawyer pitched himself as a fixer to Novartis and got paid $1.2 million

“He reached out to us,” the Novartis employee said, providing STAT with the company’s version of events as it scrambles to contain the fallout from being entangled in the investigations surrounding Trump and his inner circle, including Cohen. “With a new administration coming in, basically, all the traditional contacts disappeared and they were all new players. We were trying to find an inroad into the administration. Cohen promised access to not just Trump, but also the circle around him. It was almost as if we were hiring him as a lobbyist.”
....
As the contract expiration date neared earlier this year, Cohen then approached Vasant Narasimhan, who by then had succeeded Jimenez as Novartis chief executive, according to the employee. Narasimhan declined to renew the arrangement and the contract lapsed.

Korean Aerospace Industries, AT&T, Novartis, Avenatti
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show

The Rachel Maddow Show 5/9/18
Dubious explanations follow revelation of payments to Cohen

Rachel Maddow reviews the implausible explanations from corporations exposed as having paid Donald Trump confidant Michael Cohen sums totaling millions of dollars, including claims of paying for his expertise in healthcare and accounting. Duration: 22:27

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The Rachel Maddow Show 5/9/18
Avenatti: Cohen selling access to the highest office in the land

Michael Avenatti, attorney for Stormy Daniels, talks with Rachel Maddow about the revelations in a document he published to the web about money paid to Michael Cohen, arguing that the most charitable explanation of what that money was for was selling access to the president. Duration: 7:43

Access peddling?

Cohen’s $600,000 deal with AT&T specified he would advise on Time Warner merger, internal company records show
Rosalind S. Helderman, Brian Fung and Tom Hamburger | May 10, 2018

...(AT&T) documents detail the full scope of Cohen’s $600,000 deal with AT&T and how his contract specified that he would provide advice on the $85 billion (Time Warner) merger, which required the approval of federal antitrust regulators.

Trump had voiced opposition to the merger during the presidential campaign, and his administration ultimately opposed the AT&T effort. The Justice Department filed suit in November to block the deal, and that case is pending.

...A “scope of work” describing Cohen’s contract in an internal AT&T document shows that he was hired to “focus on specific long-term planning initiatives as well as the immediate issue of corporate tax reform and the acquisition of Time Warner.”

He was also directed to “creatively address political and communications issues” facing the company and advise the company on matters before the Federal Communications Commission.

...Cohen was supposed to spend half his time on “legislative policy development” and the other half on “regulatory policy development.” Payments to Cohen were approved by two executives in AT&T’s public affairs office in Washington.

...Cohen, who was not a registered lobbyist, was to spend none of his time engaged in lobbying. They described his work as advising the company, not contacting federal officials.

...On Jan. 12, 2017, Cohen and AT&T’s chief executive, Randall Stephenson, were both seen visiting Trump Tower in New York, days before the contract with Essential Consultants was signed.

But although the two men arrived within minutes of each other, they did not meet that day and have never met, AT&T said this week...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/cohens-600000-deal-with-atandt-specified...

After FBI visit, Trump calls Michael Cohen and pardons Scooter Libby. Then unleashes the National Enquirer on his suddenly inconvenient attorney/fixer?

Michael Cohen is learning the brutal truth about Trump
Jill Filipovic | May 2, 2018

Trump lawyer / fixer / organizer of Playboy model (alleged) mistress payoffs Michael Cohen graces the cover of the National Enquirer this week, pictured looking hangdog and droopy under the headline "PAYOFFS & THREATS EXPOSED: TRUMP FIXER'S SECRETS & LIES!"

...given that the Enquirer is owned by a close Trump pal, David Pecker, who rarely publishes anything negative about Trump and his cohort, and engages in egregious "catch and kill" practices -- that is shielding the President by paying for exclusive rights to troublesome stories the paper never runs.

...The Enquirer cover sends a signal that Cohen, whose office and home were recently raided by federal investigators, is out of the President's good graces...

https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/01/opinions/cohen-national-enquirer-jill-filipovic/i...

#66 contd. "Interesting, I don't see @realDonaldTrump tweeting triumphant yet. He WAS interested in Schneiderman's future after the NY AG sued the future US prez over fraudulent Trump U.... Trumpians DO have history of predicting foes' future. Wonder if Cohen the fixer might have been involved. Guess we'll know soon enough!"

Trump was alerted to Eric Schneiderman's alleged abuse of women years ago, court filing suggests
Fredreka Schouten | May 11, 2018

...In a letter to the federal judge overseeing the handling of evidence from Trump attorney Michael Cohen, lawyer Peter Gleason said two women approached Gleason a year apart, saying they were "sexually victimized" by Schneiderman.

After talking with the one of the women in 2013, Gleason said he discussed the matter with retired tabloid newspaper and TV journalist Stephen Dunleavy who "offered to discuss the matter with Donald Trump," then a New York businessman.

"Mr. Dunleavy did indeed discuss this very matter with Mr. Trump, as evidenced by a phone call I received from attorney Michael Cohen," Gleason said in his letter to U.S. District Court Judge Kimba Wood.

Gleason said he then shared with Cohen "certain details of Schneiderman's vile attacks on these two women."

Schneiderman, who has battled repeatedly with Trump, resigned his post this week, after The New Yorker reported that four women accused him of physical abuse...

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/05/11/trump-told-ny-attorney-g...

ETA_________________________________________________________________

Nope. None of our leads came via Trump people, and we had no knowledge of Gleason. No surprise there were other investigations—legit ones and political smears—as allegations were so widespread. But ours didn’t flow from any of that. Women in the story were all Dems, incidentally.

Ronan Farrow @RonanFarrow
9:13 AM - 11 May 2018
https://twitter.com/RonanFarrow/status/994973782635933696

Jus' following the money:

Trump Inaugural Big Donors
Uploaded by Christina Wilkie

Description: A tally of the people and organizations who donated $100,000 or more to the 58th Presidential Inaugural Committee for President Donald Trump's 2017 inauguration festivities.

https://www.scribd.com/document/378938546/Trump-Inaugural-Big-Donors

>78 margd:

And who'd have donated to the 58th Presidential Inaugural Committee for President Hillary Clinton's 2017 inauguration festivities?

Mueller Is Looking Into Ford’s Rejection of Michael Cohen’s Consulting Services
Daniel Politi | May 12, 2018

...An executive with the auto giant rejected an eyebrow-raising offer of consulting services from Cohen, President Donald Trump’s longtime personal attorney, in January 2017. Special Counsel Robert Mueller found out about the offer and now wants more details, reports the Wall Street Journal. Mueller has requested numerous documents from Ford, including emails, that detail what exactly Cohen’s offer entailed.

Mueller has already interviewed Ford’s head of government affairs, Ziad Ojakli, who didn’t give many details beyond saying that he declined Cohen’s offer. The Detroit Free Press confirmed that Cohen offered Ford his consulting services. Michael Avenatti, attorney for Stormy Daniels, also confirmed the news.

“I can confirm that Mr. Cohen solicited Ford Motor Company,” Avenatti said. “It was in late 2016 into ’17. On multiple occasions. There was no policy. He was trying to sell access to the president. My understanding is that it was by phone and electronic communication.” ...

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/05/ford-rejected-michael-cohens-consult...

Michael Avenatti tweeted another plot twist tease yesterday. Mother Jones reports:

Qatari Investor Accused in Bribery Plot Appears With Michael Cohen in Picture Posted by Stormy Daniels’ Lawyer

Members of the Trump transition team appear to have met on December 12, 2016 with a group from Qatar that included Ahmed Al-Rumaihi, the former Qatari diplomat and current head of a division of Qatar’s massive sovereign wealth fund who is accused in a recent lawsuit of scheming to bribe Trump administration officials.

Unrelated, ThinkProgress also reports:

Qatar recently bought a $6.5 million apartment in Trump World Tower in New York City.

I wondered what prompted sudden generosity to ZTE--North Korea negotiations, maybe, but not this!
Will Trump get away with this one, too??

____________________________________________

Ethics experts see a clear "quid pro quo" and another violation of the Constitution's "emoluments clause." https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-china-zte_us_5af9f701e4b0200bcab7fa66... … # via @HuffPostPol
- Laurence Tribe @tribelaw May 14, 2018

Trump Orders Help For Chinese Phone-Maker After China Approves Money For Trump Project
S.V. Date | 05/14/2018

Trump will profit from Indonesian resort project that will get $500 million in Chinese loans in a deal sealed days before before his tweet ordering help for ZTE.
headshot

A mere 72 hours after the Chinese government agreed to put a half-billion dollars into an Indonesian project that will personally enrich Donald Trump, the president ordered a bailout for a Chinese-government-owned cellphone maker.

“President Xi of China, and I, are working together to give massive Chinese phone company, ZTE, a way to get back into business, fast,” Trump announced on Twitter Sunday morning. “Too many jobs in China lost. Commerce Department has been instructed to get it done!”

Trump did not mention in that tweet or its follow-ups that on Thursday, the developer of a theme park resort outside of Jakarta had signed a deal to receive as much as $500 million in Chinese government loans, as well as another $500 million from Chinese banks. Trump’s family business, the Trump Organization, has a deal to license the Trump name to the resort, which includes a golf course and hotels.

Trump, despite his promises to do so during the campaign, has not divested himself of his businesses, and continues to profit from them...

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-china-zte_us_5af9f701e4b0200bcab7fa66...

ETA___________________________________________

Is China Straight-Up Bribing Donald Trump?
Bess Levin | May 15, 2018

The president suddenly softens on a Chinese business after Beijing bankrolls a Trump Organization project.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/05/is-china-straight-up-bribing-donald-trum...

The Untold Story of Robert Mueller's Time in Combat
Garrett M. Graff | May 15, 2018

Robert Mueller’s job is to make sense of how Russia hacked the 2016 election. But to make sense of Mueller, you have to revisit some of the bloodiest battles of Vietnam.

...his former Marine comrade Maranto says that after spending six months in combat with Mueller, he has watched the coverage of the special counsel investigation unfold and laughed at the news reports. He says he knows Mueller isn’t sweating the pressure. “I watch people on the news talking about the distractions getting to him,” he says. “I don’t think so.”

https://www.wired.com/story/robert-mueller-vietnam/

A taxi driver's take on Cohen's money deals:

http://www.berkshireeagle.com/stories/francis-moriarty-muellers-cohen-probe-on-t...

Taxis as washing machines

When viewed from inside a car with a taxi license, it looks like money might not have been laundered for the sole aim of funding a political campaign. Rather, the campaign itself could have offered an ideal vehicle for the laundering of money. This is an opportunity that someone like Michael Cohen, who reportedly possesses some 200 taxi medallions and has Russian links, would not miss.

Donald Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen is facing accusations he asked a Qatari official for millions to give to the Trump family in December 2016.

Strong Evidence of Trump Bribery Keeps Emerging

-Chinese phone bailout
-Qatari Mr. Al-Rumaihi bragged about bribing administration officiaL (Flynn)
-Carter Page/Rosneft deal

Michael Cohen’s Meetings With Michael Flynn and a Qatari Diplomat Might Be the Key to Unlocking the Steele Dossier

>82 margd: YES a total of 1 Billion to subsidize a project that Trump has a VERY significant financial interest in! The only reason that has not gotten more attention is that the graft has to compete with the other sleazo antics in the media!

BUT WAIT !!! Maybe Trump is trying to undermine the Chinese People's Party by introducing capitalistic graft??

5 USC App. 4 §§101(a), (f)(1), 102(a)(4) & 104(a)(2)(B) make it a federal crime for the president to knowingly and willfully file a financial disclosure that fails to report a liability of more than $10,000 owed to a creditor.
A Crime a Day @CrimeADay | 16 May 2018
______________________________________

In new financial disclosure, Trump reports apparent payment through his personal attorney to adult-film star
David A. Fahrenthold and Jonathan O'Connell | May 16, 2018

...Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, filed a complaint alleging that Trump should also have reported this same debt on his 2017 financial disclosure forms. The 2017 forms covered the entire year of 2016, and the first four months of 2017.

...The Office of Government Ethics responded to that complaint on Wednesday by sending a letter to the Department of Justice. Under the law, the Department of Justice may sue — or even prosecute — federal officials who “knowingly and willfully” fail to report information on their financial disclosures.

...it told the Justice Department “you may find the disclosure relevant to any inquiry you may be pursuing regarding the President’s prior report” from 2017.

...“I think this is very significant,” said Larry Noble, a Washington ethics lawyer who once served as general counsel to the Federal Election Commission. “I am not aware of any other time when the Office of Government Ethics has referred a sitting president to the Justice Department for review of a possible filing of a false ethics report.”...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/in-new-financial-disclosure-trump-report...
_____________________________________

Trump's 2018 financial disclosure:
https://oge.app.box.com/v/Trump2018Annual278

Cohen files missing from Treasury Dept's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network...

Missing financial files on Michael Cohen motivated leaks: report
Mike Murphy | May 16, 2018

The whistleblower who leaked documents last week showing Trump lawyer Michael Cohen received multiple payments to a shell company he set up, was a law enforcement official who was concerned by suspiciously missing records...alarmed that important documents detailing Cohen's finances were missing, and worried that they were being intentionally withheld from authorities. The suspicious activity reports, which flag bank transactions that may indicate criminal activity, were missing from the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. "I have never seen something pulled off the system. That system is a safeguard for the bank. It's a stockpile of information. When something's not there that should be, I immediately became concerned." ...

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/missing-financial-files-on-michael-cohen-motiv...
_____________________________________________________

NEW: Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., today asked Treasury’s Inspector General to probe the alleged disappearance of suspicious activity reports (SARs) on Michael Cohen

Tim Mak @timkmak (NPR) | 5/17/2018

The Definitive Story Of How Trump’s Team Worked The Trump Moscow Deal During The Campaign
Anthony Cormier | May 17, 2018

On the day of the third Republican presidential debate, Trump personally signed the letter of intent...(Cohen, Sater, Ivanka)

...The building, originally called Trump World Tower Moscow, was supposed to be the tallest in Europe at well over 100 stories.

...(Felix) Sater...worked his sources in Russia right through the convention — until July 26, 2016, when Sater, while relaxing in the backyard of his Long Island home, read a tweet by Trump and knew right then that the deal was dead.

For the record, I have ZERO investments in Russia.
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump | 26 Jul 2016 ...

https://www.buzzfeed.com/anthonycormier/trump-moscow-micheal-cohen-felix-sater-c...

ETA_________________________________________

This is, assuming it’s true, a holy shit story: While Trump was preparing for the Republican convention in spring 2016, Michael Cohen was still negotiating Trump Tower Moscow and was working on a Trump-Putin meeting to take place after the convention to finalize the deal.

In addition, the Trump Organization was negotiating on the project with a Russian spy.

...NO COLLUSION!!! WITCH HUNT!!! (sarcasm font)

Benjamin Wittes @benjaminwittes | May 17, 2018

Manafort's former son-in-law cuts plea deal, to cooperate with government

Yohai’s agreement, which was concluded early this year, included him pleading guilty to misusing construction loan funds and to a count related to a bank account overdraft.

Kushners accept Qatari bailout after claiming they wouldn’t take money due to conflicts of interest
Jared Kushner's Qatari miracle.
Judd Legum | May 17, 2018

...Jared Kushner himself attempted to strike a deal with a Chinese company, Anbang, in the days following the 2016 election. But it evaporated upon further scrutiny of the terms of the deal, which were extremely favorable to the Kushners, and of Anbang’s murky connections to the Chinese government.

...Three months after the inauguration and shortly after the Anbang deal fell through, Charles Kushner, Jared’s father, reportedly “made a direct pitch to Qatar’s minister of finance,” Ali Sharif Al Emadi, to provide new financing for 666 5th Avenue.

...said he would never take money from the Qataris, presumably because it would present a conflict of interest due to Jared Kushner’s position in the White House.

...Now,...the Kushners are “close to receiving a bailout of its financially troubled flagship building by a company with ties to the government of Qatar.” The deal is being struck with Brookfield Properties, “a publicly traded company, headquartered in Canada, one of whose major investors is the Qatar Investment Authority,” according to the (NY) Times....“is likely to raise further concerns about Jared Kushner’s dual role as a White House point person on the Middle East and a continuing stake holder in the family’s company”

...Ahmed al-Rumaihi, a former Qatari diplomat who now heads up their investment fund...alleged (to have) bragged about his ability to influence former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn with cash. Al-Rumaihi denies the allegation in the lawsuit.

Al-Rumaihi does claim that, around the same time, Michael Cohen demanded $1 million for his help influencing the Trump administration.

Whatever happened, the deal to save 666 5th Avenue comes at a time when Qatar is extremely interested in influencing the policy of the Trump administration. Trump is supporting a blockade of Qatar, imposed by Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt, claiming the nation was supporting terrorists.

More recently, Trump has softened his rhetoric regarding Qatar. The Kushners’ deal is not yet finalized.

https://thinkprogress.org/jared-kushners-qatari-miracle-e814f1dc40a4/

#88 "missing" Treasury files on Cohen

Sources Say Cohen Financial Records Not Missing, Just Restricted
Jason Leopold | May 18, 2018

Three sources told BuzzFeed News that Treasury Department officials have taken the highly unusual step of restricting access to suspicious activity reports.

...limiting access is rare and must have come from the top of the Treasury Department.

...In a public statement, FinCEN did not acknowledge Cohen specifically, but did say that FinCEN “will limit access to certain SARs when requested by law enforcement authorities in connection with an ongoing investigation.”

Special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election and the Southern District of New York is investigating Cohen.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/jasonaleopold/cohen-sars?

>92 margd:. Counting on it being DOJ and not Mnuchin restricting access, eh?

>93 2wonderY: FinCEN “will limit access to certain SARs when requested by law enforcement authorities in connection with an ongoing investigation.”
If DOJ didn't request that access be limited, Treasury might be obstructing justice by yanking files?

Trump Jr. and Other Aides Met With Gulf Emissary Offering Help to Win Election
nyti.ms/2IV6EpU
________________________________________________

NYT: Donald Trump Jr. met with Gulf emissary at Trump Tower ahead of 2016 election
Clare Forant | May 19, 2018

Three months before the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump Jr. met with a small group of people at Trump Tower in New York, including an emissary for two Arab princes and an Israeli social media specialist, who offered assistance to the Trump campaign, The New York Times reported on Saturday, citing several people with knowledge of the encounters.

...emissary George Nader, a Lebanese-American businessman, and reported that he informed Trump Jr., President Donald Trump's son, "that the crown princes who led Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were eager to help his father win election as president."

...the social media expert and Israeli, Joel Zamel, talked about how his company could help a political campaign gain an advantage...had by then put together "a multimillion-dollar proposal for a social media manipulation effort to help elect Mr. Trump."

...organized the meeting,...(Erik) Prince is the former CEO of the controversial private security firm Blackwater, which was later renamed and sold and now operates as Academi, and is the brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

...CNN has previously reported that Nader was stopped and questioned by FBI agents at Washington Dulles International Airport in January and is cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller's probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election and any links between Trump campaign associates and the Russian government

...Nader attended a December 2016 meeting in New York between Emirati officials and members of Trump's inner circle, and another in January 2017 in the Seychelles islands between the Emiratis and Prince. Nader was also in the Seychelles when Prince met with a Russian banker, the sources familiar with the matter told CNN...

https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/19/politics/donald-trump-jr-trump-tower-meeting-gulf...

ETA_________________________________________________________________________________

Remember this head scratcher from almost a year ago?

Trump takes sides in Arab rift, suggests support for isolation of Qatar
Roberta Rampton | June 6, 2017

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump took sides in a deep rift in the Arab world on Tuesday, praising Middle East countries’ actions against American ally Qatar over Islamist militants even though the tiny Gulf state hosts the largest U.S. air base in the region...

...U.S. officials were blindsided by Saudi Arabia’s decision to sever diplomatic ties with Qatar in a coordinated move with Egypt, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), current and former officials in Washington told Reuters. The United States was not informed of the decision until just before it was announced, the State Department said.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-gulf-qatar/qatar-says-ready-for-mediation-to-...

Donald Trump is raging over the Mueller investigation on Twitter
Emily Stewart | May 20, 2018

A New York Times story about Donald Trump Jr. meeting with an emissary for the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia during the 2016 campaign set off the president’s wrath.

...“Republicans and real Americans should start getting tough on this Scam,” Trump wrote.

... I hereby demand, and will do so officially tomorrow, that the Department of Justice look into whether or not the FBI/DOJ infiltrated or surveilled the Trump Campaign for Political Purposes - and if any such demands or requests were made by people within the Obama Administration!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 20, 2018 ...

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/5/20/17373682/donald-trump-russia-i...

ETA_____________________________________________

Cambridge professor outed as FBI informant inside Trump campaign
Mary Kay Linge | May 19, 2018

...Multiple media outlets have named Stefan Halper, 73, as the secret informant who met with Trump campaign advisers Carter Page and George Papadopoulos starting in the summer of 2016. The American-born academic previously served in the Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations.

...The Department of Defense’s Office of Net Assessment — a shadowy think tank that reports directly to the secretary of defense — paid Halper $282,000 in 2016 and $129,000 in 2017.

Halper has close personal and professional ties to the CIA reaching back decades. He is the son-in-law of a former deputy director of the agency and worked on the 1980 presidential campaign of George H.W. Bush, who had served as CIA director.

When Bush became Ronald Reagan’s running mate, Halper was implicated in a spying scandal in which CIA officials gave inside information on the Carter administration to the GOP campaign...

https://nypost.com/2018/05/19/cambridge-professor-outed-as-fbi-informant-inside-...

ETA_____________________________________________

Telling DOJ what to investigate as though it was WH staff — especially when the directive is clearly aimed at outing a top secret national security asset to conceal evidence of presidential wrongdoing — may well be part of an impeachable pattern

--Laurence Tribe @tribelaw 11:56 AM - 20 May 2018

ETA______________________________________________

Benjamin Wittes @benjaminwittes 2h2 hours ago (2 pm, 5/20/2018)

I normally ignore presidential tweets. This one requires attention, because it could genuinely produce a crisis with the Justice Department and the FBI. Here’s an explanatory thread that may (or may not) be useful. /1/

The President in this tweet announces that he will tomorrow formally demand of the Justice Department a specific investigation—to wit, one about whether the DOJ and FBI spied on the Trump campaign and if the Obama administration demanded such action of them. /2/

There is no doubt that he has the constitutional authority to make this demand. /3/

There is also no doubt in my mind that neither the attorney general (who is recused anyway) nor the deputy attorney general nor the FBI director can in good conscience comply with such an order. And I don’t believe they will. /4/

This is a nakedly corrupt attempt on the part of the President to derail an investigation of himself at the expense of a human source to whose protection the FBI and DOJ are committed.

See @qjurecic and my piece on this from yesterday. https://www.lawfareblog.com/day-we-cant-protect-human-sources-president-and-hous... /5/

So if the President really gives Rod Rosenstein or Chris Wray an order (as opposed to Twitter bluster) demanding a particular investigation not properly predicated under FBI/DOJ guidelines for this overtly political purpose, I believe both men will resign rather than comply. /6/

In other words, this tweet is different from other Trump craziness tweets. It’s one that promises a specific action on a specific date (tomorrow) with respect to a specific agency that will, if it takes place, precipitate a showdown. /7/

Trump is a wuss, so he may well back down. He was going to fire Rosenstein, and he wussed out. He was going to fire Mueller and he wussed out. So I don’t want to overstate this. There’s lots of ways this could peter out. But this tweet is no joke. /8/

As Quinta and I wrote yesterday, “Don’t underestimate this episode. It will have a long tail and big consequences—all of them terrible.” Those consequences, if you believe the President, may start tomorrow. /9/

Eyes open people. /10/

>96 margd: Giant bed: all bedfellows welcome? https://theintercept.com/2018/05/19/the-fbi-informant-who-monitored-the-trump-ca...

>96 margd: Thanks! Need popcorn--tomorrow should be interesting! (Hope sideshow doesn't derail the main story...)

"...the CIA operative and FBI informant used to gather information on the Trump campaign in the 2016 campaign has, for weeks, been falsely depicted as a sensitive intelligence asset rather than what he actually is: a long-time CIA operative with extensive links to the Bush family who was responsible for a dirty and likely illegal spying operation (against candidate Jimmy Carter!) in the 1980 presidential election..."

DOJ responds:

Trump Demands Review Of Russia Investigation Surveillance Tactics
Miles Parks | May 20, 2018

...The Department of Justice responded (to Trump's Sunday May 20 tweet demanding that DoJ look into whether or not the FBI/DOJ infiltrated or surveilled the Trump Campaign for Political Purposes - and if any such demands or requests were made by people within the Obama Administration) by integrating the president's request into an investigation that's already underway within the department, but it's unclear whether that will satisfy the president.

The Justice Department's inspector general, Michael Horowitz, is investigating the surveillance practices by the FBI and DOJ related to the Russia investigation. That probe began after Republican lawmakers alleged that former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page was improperly targeted for surveillance in the early days of the Russia investigation.

After Trump's tweets on Sunday, the Justice Department formally asked the inspector general to expand its review to include tactics used against Trump campaign aides and advisers.

"If anyone did infiltrate or surveil participants in a presidential campaign for inappropriate purposes, we need to know about it and take appropriate action," said Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein...

https://www.npr.org/2018/05/20/612857201/trump-demands-review-of-russia-investig...

I think I might have just figured out Trump's strategy behind dropping out of trade agreements between the USA and other trade groups. His "better deal" seems to consist of going through him for approval of individual trade deals between sectors or companies and in the process his companies are benefited or those of his contributors {the billion dollars from China to his Malaysian hotel/development deal in exchange for pulling a Chinese phone company out of the fire cause by tariffs}. Instead of an "even plane" playing field provided by an international trade agreement you get many individualized agreements put through an approval filter that benefit Trump financially or politically.

By Demanding an Investigation, Trump Challenged a Constraint on His Power
CHARLIE SAVAGE | 5/22/2018

...(Trump) established a significant new precedent by directly demanding that the department scrutinize specific actions.

“Yesterday made explicit what before was implicit, which is that Trump is crossing every line that protects the independence of the Justice Department,” said Neal Katyal, who drafted the department’s special counsel regulation in 1999 for the Clinton administration and served as acting solicitor general in the first term of the Obama administration.

Mr. Trump’s suggestion that Obama-era officials may have abused their investigative authority to spy on his campaign for their own political purposes complicates his demand for the Justice Department to investigate itself now. Still, senior law enforcement officials appointed by Mr. Trump already knew what steps the department took in 2016 and had not previously deemed those facts a sufficient basis to open an investigation, noted Bruce Green, a Fordham University law professor who wrote the article with Ms. Roiphe.

Legally, it is ambiguous and contested whether a president has the lawful power to order the attorney general to open or close a case — especially one involving his personal interests.

...after the Watergate scandal, the norm of Justice Department independence became more entrenched. Senators have since routinely asked attorney general nominees at confirmation hearings questions eliciting promises to resist any effort by a president to intrude upon matters of prosecutorial discretion.

...A few weeks before leaving office last year, President Barack Obama published a piece in the Harvard Law Review* about the president’s role in advancing a criminal justice overhaul. In it, he nodded to the importance of constraints on presidential intrusion into specific Justice Department case decisions, citing the need “to avoid even the appearance of politicization” when it comes to administration of criminal law.

“For good reason, particular criminal matters are not directed by the president personally but are handled by career prosecutors and law enforcement officials who are dedicated to serving the public and promoting public safety,” Mr. Obama wrote. “The president does not and should not decide who or what to investigate or prosecute or when an investigation or prosecution should happen.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/by-demanding-an-investigation-trump-chal...

____________________________________________________________________________________________

*Barack Obama. 2017. The President’s Role in Advancing Criminal Justice Reform (Commentary). Jan 5, 2017. 130 Harv. L. Rev. 811. https://harvardlawreview.org/2017/01/the-presidents-role-in-advancing-criminal-j...

...Part II shows how the President can drive significant reform at the federal level.

"...within the executive branch, the President’s direct influence is subject to constraints designed to safeguard the fair enforcement of the law.

Nowhere are these limits more important than in the administration of the criminal law. For good reason, particular criminal matters are not directed by the President personally but are handled by career prosecutors and law enforcement officials who are dedicated to serving the public and promoting public safety.

The President does not and should not decide who or what to investigate or prosecute or when an investigation or prosecution should happen. To avoid even the appearance of politicization, a series of internal White House rules and prudential practices sharply restrict contact with the Department of Justice and other enforcement agencies on specific matters.

These practices make things difficult when the public looks to the President to opine on a particular case, but they are critical to ensuring the rule of law as well as the integrity and independence of the justice system..."

ETA________________________________________________

Our last president wrote a commentary for Harvard Law Review that touched on Presidential constraints re decisions on who or what to investigate or prosecute or when an investigation or prosecution should happen...
President Trump OTOH managed no typos in tweet demanding investigation touching his campaign, though his use of capitalization was off standard:

I hereby demand, and will do so officially tomorrow, that the Department of Justice look into whether or not the FBI/DOJ infiltrated or surveilled the Trump Campaign for Political Purposes - and if any such demands or requests were made by people within the Obama Administration!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 20, 2018

Giuliani ‘Made Up’ Mueller’s Trump-Russia Probe September 1 Deadline, Report Says
Greg Price | 5/21/18

...an unnamed source familiar with the probe told Reuters that Giuliani’s claim was “entirely made-up” and “another apparent effort to pressure the special counsel to hasten the end of his work.”

The source also defended Mueller’s work, adding: “He’ll wrap it up when he thinks he’s turned over every rock, and when that is will depend on how cooperative witnesses, persons of interest and maybe even some targets are, if any of those emerge, and on what new evidence he finds, not on some arbitrary, first-of-the-month deadline one of the president’s attorneys cooks up.”

http://www.newsweek.com/giuliani-mueller-trump-september-russia-936984

>102 margd:

In other words, another boondoggle: " 'Son of "Ken Starr" '--the fishing expedition that went on forever"

LOL!

To keep his job going, Robert Mueller will help re-elect Donald Trump in 2020!

More tales from the swamp:

The princes, the president and the fortune seekers
DESMOND BUTLER and TOM LoBIANCO | May 22, 2018

...Broidy, it turned out, was also a Cohen client. He’d had an affair with Playboy Playmate Shera Bechard, who got pregnant and later had an abortion. Broidy agreed to pay her $1.6 million to help her out, so long as she never spoke about it.

“I acknowledge I had a consensual relationship with a Playboy Playmate,” Broidy said in a statement the day the news broke. He apologized to his wife and resigned from the RNC. There is no indication Broidy is under investigation by Mueller’s team.

In the end, Nader and Broidy’s anti-Qatar operation lost its momentum. There has been no traction on the effort to get the base in Qatar moved to the UAE. In late April, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called for an end to the bickering among Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar during a trip to the Gulf.

Last week, Saudi Arabia distanced itself from Nader and Broidy. A senior official said Crown Prince bin Salman ordered an end to “engagement with these people.”

But Broidy’s huge contract with the UAE?

It’s good to go.

https://apnews.com/a3521859cf8d4c199cb9a8567abd2b71

___________________________________________________________________________

Hey, Look: More Evidence That Broidy May Have Been Covering for Trump in That Playmate Affair
Paul Campos | May 22, 2018

...The first payment from Broidy came two days before the meeting that apparently helped him ink a nine-figure deal with a foreign country — a deal based in no small part on his access to, and influence on, Trump. If it’s difficult to imagine Broidy being willing to take the fall for Trump’s affair with Bechard and then paying her a seven-figure sum, it’s much simpler to imagine it simply as a perfectly timed and fantastically profitable bribe...

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/05/more-evidence-that-broidy-was-cover...

Touches on using post office to get at Amazon owner: "attempting to punish a specific individual by damaging that person’s business"

The Number of Trump’s Impeachable Offenses Keeps Growing
Elizabeth Drew | May 22, 2018

In his attacks on Amazon and the Justice Department, the president is inviting a reckoning.

...already a sitting duck for a charge of obstruction of justice, which as an impeachable offense doesn’t require the standard of proof—intent—that a criminal charge does.

...already vulnerable to a charge of accepting foreign emoluments—at the least for the profits his hotel just down Pennsylvania Avenue has been raking in from foreign governments, but also for some questionable business dealings by his sons in foreign countries and for flagrant ethics violations stemming from his refusal to detach himself from his private business interests.

...two more reasons to impeach him (or some kind of reckoning):
abusing his office by ordering an investigation of the FBI’s investigation into whether his 2016 campaign conspired with Russia, and
attempting to punish a specific individual by damaging that person’s business.

...impeachment isn’t the important point. What matters is whether Trump—or any president—is held to account for alleged transgressions in gaining office, and then, once in it, abuse of its powers. If Trump gets away with these things unscathed, dangerous precedents will have been set.

https://newrepublic.com/article/148499/number-trumps-impeachable-offenses-keeps-...

Trump lawyer 'paid by Ukraine' to arrange White House talks
Paul Wood | 5/23/2018

Donald Trump's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, received a secret payment of at least $400,000 (£300,000) to fix talks between the Ukrainian president and President Trump, according to sources in Kiev close to those involved.

The payment was arranged by intermediaries acting for Ukraine's leader, Petro Poroshenko, the sources said, though Mr Cohen was not registered as a representative of Ukraine as required by US law.

The meeting at the White House was last June.

Shortly after the Ukrainian president returned home, his country's anti-corruption agency stopped its investigation into Trump's former campaign manager, Paul Manafort...

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44215656

Kushner's security clearance restored, met with Mueller team a second time
Evan Perez, Gloria Borger and Pamela Brown | May 23, 2018

...The Kushner team believes he is now finished with all ongoing inquiries, which also include the investigations by congressional committees, according to a person close to Kushner.

A spokesman for Mueller declined to comment...

https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/23/politics/jared-kushner-security-clearance/index.h...

Russia ‘turned’ election for Trump, Clapper believes
May 23, 2018

...“To me, it just exceeds logic and credulity that (the Russians) didn’t affect the election, and it’s my belief they actually turned it,” (James Clapper, who served as the director of national intelligence in the Obama administration) told the PBS NewsHour anchor Judy Woodruff on Wednesday...

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/russia-turned-election-for-trump-clapper-belie...

"informed opinion"
https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2018/05/23/james-clapper-donald-trump-russia...

>108 margd:

Of course he "believes" that! He has to. His psychic balance would crumble otherwise.

You do understand, don't you?--even you must see at least this!--how very much Clapper has riding on this fable?

He's staked virtually everything on it: his past (his record, now in a shameful shambles), his present: he could be--and, indeed, he ought to be--investigated, and, the evidence respected, indicted for some very serious criminal acts, his future: if that were to go ahead, his future would be essentially a heap of smoking wreckage.

He'd deserve that.

So, everything, virtually and almost literally, everything, is riding on this claim to which he's clinging.

You resemble this desperate man in so many ways.

I can assure you that, since the election of Trump, everyone involved in the outrageous attempt to defraud the American public' of its right to a free and fair election--everyone, from Obama, and all his disgusting minions, Valerie Jarrett, Susan Rice, Loretta Lynch and, before her, Eric Holder, to highly-placed former F.B.I. officials--Comey, Andrew McCabe, Robert Mueller himself-- to Hillary Clinton and her creepy co-dependent staff, John Podesta, and on and on--are all just shitting bricks as they follow this mess they made, watching as it unravels right before their eyes and the eyes of a watching public which no longer gives them the benefit of any doubt as to their credibility.

_______________________________

For readers: self-defense against "margd" 's posts:

Sharyl Attkisson TED Talk : Astroturf and manipulation of media messages | Sharyl Attkisson | TEDxUniversityofNevada

Sounds like in addition to Don Jr, NRA should be concerned:

'Trump's son should be concerned': FBI obtained wiretaps of Putin ally who met with Trump Jr.
Michael Isikoff•May 25, 2018

...The FBI has obtained secret wiretaps collected by Spanish police of conversations involving Alexander Torshin, a deputy governor of Russia’s Central Bank who has forged close ties with U.S. lawmakers and the National Rifle Association, that led to a meeting with Donald Trump Jr. during the gun lobby’s annual convention in Louisville, Ky., in May 2016, a top Spanish prosecutor said Friday.

...wiretapped conversations between Torshin and Alexander Romanov, a convicted Russian money launderer. On the wiretaps, Romanov refers to Torshin as “El Padrino,” the godfather.

...Asked if he was concerned about Torshin’s meetings with Donald Trump Jr. and other American political figures, (José Grinda, who has spearheaded investigations into Spanish organized crime) replied: “Mr. Trump’s son should be concerned.”

...Torshin — a close political ally of Vladimir Putin — had multiple contacts with conservative activists in the United States during the election, seeking to set up a summit between the Russian president and then candidate Trump. Although the summit never transpired, Torshin did meet briefly with the president’s son at a private dinner in Louisville during the May 2016 annual convention of the NRA. A member of the NRA since 2012, Torshin has been a regular attendee of the group’s conventions in recent years and hosted senior members of the group in Moscow.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trumps-son-concerned-wiretaps-show-trump-jr-met-putin...

President Trump’s fog of ‘scandals’ and outrages about the Mueller investigation
Glenn Kessler and Meg Kelly | May 2, 2018

...“worse than Watergate,” “McCarthyism”...“witch hunt...“spygate”

...March 4, 2017: ‘Obama had my wires tapped at the Trump Tower’

...June 1: ‘The big story is the unmasking’ (and surveillance" of people that took place during the Obama Administration.)

...Aug. 10: ‘The Democrats colluded with Russia’

...Feb. 3: ‘The FBI was politically biased against me’

...March 18, 2018: ‘The investigators are hardened Democrats’

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2018/05/25/president-trumps-...

ETA____________________________________________________

Can’t let Trump’s branding prevail. This isn’t anything but #LiarGate. Please repeat after me: #LiarGate.
.
.
.
Lots of people seem to prefer #LIEGATE, which is shorter and rhymes with spygate and is already out there. I welcome reactions!

Laurence Tribe @tribelaw
28 May 2018

China approves 13 new Ivanka Trump trademarks in 3 months
ASSOCIATED PRESS | 05/28/2018

...On Sunday, China granted the first daughter’s company final approval for its 13th trademark in the past three months, trademark office records show. Over the same period, the Chinese government has granted Ivanka Trump’s company provisional approval for another eight trademarks, which can be finalized if no objections are raised during a three-month comment period.

Taken together, the trademarks could allow her brand to market a lifetime’s worth of products in China, from baby blankets to coffins, and a host of things in between, including perfume, make-up, bowls, mirrors, furniture, books, coffee, chocolate and honey. Ivanka Trump stepped back from management of her brand and placed its assets in a family-run trust, but she continues to profit from the business...

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/05/28/china-ivanka-trump-trademarks-610029

ETA_______________________________________________________________

...The five approvals, for applications made in 2017, came through on 7 May. On 13 May, Trump made the surprise announcement that he had instructed the Department of Commerce to help get ZTE “back into business”.

...According to the New York Times, Ivanka Trump now holds 34 trademarks in the world’s second-largest economy. While she does not have a large business in China, most of her US imports are shipped from there. Clothing has been exempted from tariffs threatened by her father as part of his aggressive trade policy...

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/may/28/ivanka-trump-won-china-trademark...

Gowdy says FBI 'did exactly what my fellow citizens would want them to do' in Russia investigation
Clare Foran | May 29, 2018

...Gowdy's comments come as President Trump continues to attack the department and the bureau over the handling of the Russia investigation.

"I am even more convinced that the FBI did exactly what my fellow citizens would want them to do when they got the information they got, and that it has nothing to do with Donald Trump," the South Carolina Republican (House Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy) said in an interview on Fox News...

https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/29/politics/trey-gowdy-fbi-confidential-source-trump...

Obstruction-of-justice file:

Andrew McCabe turned over his memo on Comey's firing to Robert Mueller
Laura Jarrett | May 30, 2018

...In the meeting, (Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein) said President Donald Trump had initially asked him to reference the Russia investigation. Rosenstein ultimately authored a controversial memo outlining the ways Comey had flouted Justice Department protocols leading up to the 2016 election but did not mention the Russia probe.

The source confirmed to CNN that McCabe's memo recounting this meeting with Rosenstein, as well as an early draft of Trump's letter firing Comey, has been turned over to special counsel Robert Mueller...

https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/30/politics/andrew-mccabe-rod-rosenstein-memo/index....

#113 contd. Spy/Liegate etc. losing traction?

Giuliani on getting booed at Yankees game: 'They boo you when they love you'
John Bowden - 05/30/18

...At Monday's baseball game between the Yankees and the Houston Astros, Giuliani was loudly booed when an announcer informed the crowd that the former mayor was in attendance and celebrating his 74th birthday...

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/389952-giuliani-on-boos-at-yank...

Trumpian Morse Code to co-conspirators and potential witnesses against him:

Trump will pardon conservative pundit Dinesh D'Souza, who was convicted of campaign finance violation
Kevin Breuninger & Tucker Higgins| May 31, 2018

President Donald Trump says he plans to issue a pardon to conservative pundit Dinesh D'Souza.

D'Souza pleaded guilty in 2014 to reimbursing two of his associates after directing them to contribute $10,000 each to the 2012 Senate campaign of Wendy Long.

Then-U.S. attorney Preet Bharara announced D'Souza's conviction at the time.

...The right-wing firebrand was heavily criticized in February for mocking the students who survived the mass shooting at a Parkland, Florida, high school that left 17 students and adults dead a week earlier. ("Worst news since their parents told them to get summer jobs ")...

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/31/trump-will-pardon-conservative-pundit-dinesh-dso...

_________________________________________________________

Comey prosecuted (Martha) Stewart & Comey’s counsel Fitzgerald prosecuted (Rob) Blagojevich. Both were convicted of obstructing justice and perjury. Using pardons & commutations to send signals to co-conspirators as part of a coverup may well be impeachable.
--Laurence Tribe @tribelaw | May 31,2018

Trump floats Martha Stewart pardon, Rod Blagojevich commutation
Jeremy Diamond | May 31, 2018
https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/31/politics/martha-stewart-rod-blagojevich-trump-par...

Both associated with Celebrity Apprentice.

ETA______________________________________________________

The Executive Branch's Extraordinarily Broad View of the Presidential Pardon Power
Maddie McMahon, Jack Goldsmith | May 31, 2018, 10:17 AM

...Article II gives the president the “Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.” ...

The pardon power is among the broadest of presidential powers. As the Supreme Court noted in 1866 in Ex Parte Garland, “If granted before conviction, a pardon prevents any of the penalties and disabilities consequent upon conviction from attaching; if granted after conviction, it removes the penalties and disabilities, and restores him to all his civil rights.” The court added that the pardon power “is not subject to legislative control. Congress can neither limit the effect of his pardon, nor exclude from its exercise any class of offenders. The benign prerogative of mercy reposed in him cannot be fettered by any legislative restrictions.” More recently, the court in its 1974 decision in Schick v. Reed stated that the president’s pardon power “flows from the Constitution alone, not any legislative enactments,” and “cannot be modified, abridged, or diminished by the Congress.” ...

https://lawfareblog.com/executive-branchs-extraordinarily-broad-view-presidentia...

116 contd ...The right-wing firebrand was heavily criticized in February for mocking the students who survived the mass shooting at a Parkland, Florida, high school that left 17 students and adults dead a week earlier. ("Worst news since their parents told them to get summer jobs ")

Dinesh D’Souza--truly a lifelong slimeball worthy of Trump:

Remember How Dinesh D’Souza Outed Gay Classmates—and Thought It Was Awesome?
David Corn | Jan. 24, 2014 6:48 PM
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/01/dinesh-dsouza-indictment-dartmouth-...

Ah, D'Souza pardon furthers Trump's partisan "witch hunt" /"spygate" defense--"selective prosecution".
Presidential pardon power is broad, but surely this one takes Trump further into high crimes & misdemeanor territory??

D'Souza enters guilty plea
JOSH GERSTEIN | 05/20/2014

...D’Souza moved unsuccessfully to challenge the charges on the basis of selective prosecution, but U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement Tuesday that the case was handled without any political bias...

https://www.politico.com/story/2014/05/dinesh-dsouza-pleads-guilty-illegal-campa...

Read annotated Dowd letter to Mueller (Jan 29, 2018) letter here: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/06/02/us/politics/trump-legal-documents...

Trump’s Lawyers, in Confidential Memo, Argue to Head Off a Historic Subpoena
Michael S. Schmidt, Maggie Haberman, Charlie Savage and Matt Apuzzo | June 2, 2018

...the 20-page letter — sent to the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III... — contends that the president cannot illegally obstruct any aspect of the investigation into Russia’s election meddling because the Constitution empowers him to, “if he wished, terminate the inquiry, or even exercise his power to pardon.”

...Hand-delivered to the special counsel’s office in January and written by two of the president’s lawyers at the time, John M. Dowd and Jay A. Sekulow

...Mr. Mueller had raised the prospect of subpoenaing Mr. Trump to Mr. Dowd in March. Emmet T. Flood, the White House lawyer for the special counsel investigation, is preparing for that possibility...

The attempt to dissuade Mr. Mueller from seeking a grand jury subpoena is one of two fronts on which Mr. Trump’s lawyers are fighting. In recent weeks, they have also begun a public-relations campaign to discredit the investigation and in part to pre-empt a potentially damaging special counsel report that could prompt impeachment proceedings.

Mr. Trump and his lawyers have also attacked the credibility of a key witness in the inquiry, the fired F.B.I. director James B. Comey; complained about what they see as investigative failures; and contested the interpretation of significant facts...

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/02/us/politics/trump-lawyers-memo-mueller-subpoe...

ETA_________________________________________________

In the Jan 29 letter

Trump lawyers say he 'dictated' statement on Trump Tower meeting, contradicting past denials
Marshall Cohen | June 2, 2018
https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/02/politics/trump-lawyers-statement-trump-tower-russ...

Norm Eisen @NormEisen | June2, 2018 -- six most startling words in this shocking Trump legal memo: "or even exercise his power to pardon." Folks, they are intimating he can pardon himself! @tribelaw @RWPUSA & I explained why that ain't so @washingtonpost :

No, Trump can’t pardon himself. The Constitution tells us so.
Laurence H. Tribe, Richard Painter and Norman Eisen | July 21, 2017

...Four days before Richard Nixon resigned, his own Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel opined no, citing “the fundamental rule that no one may be a judge in his own case.”...

...no one can be both the judge and the defendant in the same matter, and...no one is above the law.

The Constitution specifically bars the president from using the pardon power to prevent his own impeachment and removal. It adds that any official removed through impeachment remains fully subject to criminal prosecution. That provision would make no sense if the president could pardon himself...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/no-trump-cant-pardon-himself-the-constit...

Timeline of
IMPROPER WHITE HOUSE INVOLVEMENT IN DOJ MATTERS
UNDERMINING DOJ INTEGRITY AND IMPARTIALITY

https://protectdemocracy.org/independent-law-enforcement/tracker/

Just sayin'

Trump has spent more visiting Mar-a-Lago than Mueller has on Russia probe
John Bowden - 06/02/18

President Trump has spent more in taxpayer dollars on frequent trips to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida than special counsel Robert Mueller's office has spent on the Russia investigation so far.

...the special counsel's office had spent roughly $16.7 million on expenses in just over a year of investigation.

...But that number is dwarfed by the amount required to pay for the president's numerous trips to the "Winter White House," which Washington Post and Politico analyses have estimated to cost taxpayers on average between $1 million and $3 million per trip.

As of Dec. 26, Trump had spent 39 days at Mar-a-Lago in 2017. Trump took his 17th trip to the property in April, according to Town and Country magazine...

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/390422-trump-has-spent-more-visiting-...

>119 margd: Note that WH is not howling after person who leaked Jan 29 Dowd letter to Mueller...

ETA____________________________________________________________________

Secret memo to Mueller actually reveals weakness of Trump’s position
Greg Sargent | June 4, 2018

...memo('s) striking concession by Trump’s lawyers that he did, in fact, dictate that initial statement for his son Donald Trump Jr., which falsified the real rationale for the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Russians. As the memo puts it, “the president dictated a short but accurate response to the New York Times.”

...The most plausible explanation for the concession actually indicates the weakness of Trump’s position. Remember the backstory here: The Times also reported that Mark Corallo, the former spokesman for Trump’s legal team, resigned over Trump’s role in this statement. Corallo was preparing to tell Mueller that in a private conference call with Trump himself, his communications director Hope Hicks had said Donald Trump Jr.’s emails “will never get out,” leaving him concerned that Donald Trump’s team was engaged in a coverup. Corallo has certainly talked to Mueller about this episode, as have others involved in it.

Jed Shugerman, a professor at the Fordham University School of Law, told me that this concession by Trump’s lawyers likely meant they had no choice — Mueller has established exactly what happened. They are conceding this point as part of an effort to justify not sitting for an interview — they’re claiming Trump already admits he dictated this statement, so Mueller doesn’t need to ask about it.

...But as former White House counsel Bob Bauer added to me, their concession of Trump’s role in dictating the statement actually strengthens the rationale for insisting on further questioning. “This raises all sorts of questions as to why he did it,” Bauer told me. “What did you know at the time you wrote it? Who did you know it from? And why did you write something we now know wasn’t true? The moment that they concede that they lied about Trump’s role, the argument for the interview is strengthened, not weakened.”

A big unknown

One big unknown is whether Trump knew about the Trump Tower meeting before it happened. Just before that meeting, Donald Trump Jr. was in touch with someone at a blocked number. It’s hard to know exactly what happened — see (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/05/18/did-trump-jr-call-the-blocked-number-or-vice-versa/?utm_term=.6a3faa561b73) — but we do know Trump himself had a blocked number.

Bauer points out that Mueller will certainly ask about all this, and Trump’s dictating of the false statement indicates a broader desire to prevent this full set of facts from coming out. “The dictating of the false statement is part of an ongoing effort to cover up something,” Bauer said. Given that Trump was “active in writing the cover up,” Bauer continued, further questioning of him will center on “what Trump knew and when he knew it.”...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2018/06/04/secret-memo-to-muel...

Mueller's Team Accuses Manafort Of Witness Tampering
Scott Neuman | June 5, 20183:15 AM ET

...following an indictment against Manafort in February of this year, he and an associate – referred to in court documents as Person A — "repeatedly" contacted two witnesses, identified as Person D1 and Person D2 "in an effort to secure materially false testimony" concerning the nature of Manafort's lobbying and public relations activities on behalf of Ukraine during the tenure of its pro-Moscow former president, Viktor Yanukovych.

The motion says that after the indictment was made public, Manafort called Person D1 on a cell phone, but that the potential witness "sought to avoid Manafort" and "ended the call."

The documents say Manafort then used a text-message encryption application to contact the witness, writing "This is Paul" and "We should talk." The witnesses preserved the texts and turned them over to the government.

Further, the unnamed associate (Person A), also using a text-message encryption application, contacted the other witness (Person D2) to let them know that "My friend P is trying to reach Person D1 to brief him on what's going on."

"Basically P wants to give him a quick summary that he says to everybody (which is true) that our friends never lobbied in the US, and the purpose of the program was European Union," Person A said.

In previous filings, Person A has been used to designate Konstantin Kilimnik, a Manafort associate who prosecutors believe has ties to Russian intelligence — something Kilimnik has denied.

Although the witnesses are unnamed, prosecutors have said they "were principals in a public relations firm that worked with Manafort in organizing a group of former European officials, known as the Hapsburg group, who promoted Ukrainian interests in Europe as well as the U.S.," according to The Associated Press.

"Prosecutors say Manafort directed the group's work and secretly funneled about $2 million to it to take positions favorable to Ukraine including by lobbying in the U.S.," the news agency says.

In the latest filing, Mueller's team says Manafort obstructed justice and attempted to "suborn perjury" by contacting the witnesses. It asked a judge to immediately determine whether there was probable cause that Manafort committed a crime while on bail and, if so, to place him in detention.

This is the second time that prosecutors have accused Manafort of violating the terms of his pre-trial release. We reported last year that Manafort was accused of trying to sway public opinion by getting a Russian compatriot to ghostwrite a newspaper opinion piece. Prosecutors say that violated a gag order on Manafort...

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/06/05/617009469/muellers-team-accus...

Ivanka Trump Was In Contact With A Russian Who Offered A Trump-Putin Meeting
Her contact, a Russian Olympic weightlifter, said a meeting between Trump and Putin could expedite a Trump tower in Moscow.
Anthony Cormier | June 6, 2018, at 12:20 p.m.

Amid intense scrutiny of contacts between Donald Trump's inner circle and representatives of Vladimir Putin, Ivanka Trump's name has barely come up. But during the campaign, she connected her father’s personal lawyer with a Russian athlete who offered to introduce Donald Trump to Putin to facilitate a 100-story Trump tower in Moscow

There is no evidence that Ivanka Trump’s contact with the athlete — the former Olympic weightlifter Dmitry Klokov — was illegal or that it had anything to do with the election. Nor is it clear that Klokov could even have introduced Trump to the Russian president. But congressional investigators have reviewed emails and questioned witnesses about the interaction...and so has special counsel Robert Mueller’s team...

...even as her father was campaigning to become president of the United States, Ivanka Trump connected Michael Cohen with a Russian who offered to arrange a meeting with one of America’s adversaries — in order to help close a business deal that could have made the Trump family millions.

These interactions also shed new light on Cohen, the president’s former personal lawyer and fixer, who is under criminal investigation and who played a key role in many of Donald Trump’s biggest deals — including the audacious effort to build Europe’s tallest tower in the Russian capital...

https://www.buzzfeed.com/anthonycormier/ivanka-trump-putin-moscow-meeting-michae...

Cambridge Analytica Wikileaks connections

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jun/06/cambridge-analytica-brittany-kai...

What a spiderweb of players and interaction Mueller will have to diagram!

>124 margd: Confirmed: person A is Konstantin Kilimnik.

Manafort ignored advice to stop talking with Russian-linked associate after indictment: report
Morgan Gstalter | 06/08/18

...The special counsel accused Manafort and (Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian Army-trained linguist, Manafort’s right-hand man for more than a decade, ran the Kiev office of Manafort’s political consulting company, Davis Manafort Partners International) this week of trying to the conspire together in February to persuade former associates to lie about their project, according to court documents.

Mueller filed a superseding indictment on Friday in a D.C. court, bringing charges against Manafort and Kilimnik for obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice.

The two new counts are in addition to five previously issued charges.

http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/391464-manafort-refused-to-stop-talking-w...

If Trump pardons himself, he’s admitting he’s guilty of impeachable crimes
Ken Gormley (president of Duquesne University in Pittsburgh) | June 8, 2018

President Trump’s firebrand attorney, Rudolph W. Giuliani, would be wise to warn his client to avoid, at all costs, flirting with the idea of pardoning himself. A little-known U.S. Supreme Court case from a century ago, Burdick v. United States, makes clear that acceptance of a pardon is a legal admission of guilt.

If Trump went down the self-pardon path out of contempt for special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation, he could paint himself into a dangerous corner: He’d admit being guilty of serious crimes that match the classic definition of an impeachable offense...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/if-trump-pardons-himself-hes-admitting-h...

That would truly be an interesting twist for this circus... Soap opera...?

George Conway is married to Trump advisor Kellyanne:

The Terrible Arguments Against the Constitutionality of the Mueller Investigation
George Conway | June 11, 2018

...A final observation: It isn’t very surprising to see the president tweet a meritless legal position, because, as a non-lawyer, he wouldn’t know the difference between a good one and a bad one. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with lawyers making inventive and novel arguments on behalf of their clients, or on behalf of causes or people they support, if the arguments are well-grounded in law and fact, even if the arguments ultimately turn out to be wrong. But the “constitutional” arguments made against the special counsel do not meet that standard and had little more rigor than the tweet that promoted them. Such a lack of rigor, sadly, has been a disturbing trend in much of the politically charged public discourse about the law lately, and one that lawyers—regardless of their politics—owe a duty to abjure.

https://lawfareblog.com/terrible-arguments-against-constitutionality-mueller-inv...

from McClatchy:

Web of elite Russians met with NRA execs during 2016 campaign

Of the $30 million the NRA reported spending to support Trump, more than $21 million was spent by its lobbying arm, whose donors are not publicly reported.

Two NRA insiders say that overall, the group spent at least $70 million, including resources devoted to field operations and online advertising, which are not required to be publicly reported.
...
Months earlier, in December 2015, Torshin and Butina’s gun rights group hosted an NRA delegation led by NRA board member and former President David Keene for a week of lavish wining and dining in Moscow.

During their visit, the NRA group met with Rogozin, who served as the deputy prime minister overseeing Russia’s military industrial complex for seven years and previously was Russia’s ambassador to NATO.
...
Another Russia expert, Atlantic Council fellow Anders Aslund, was flabbergasted that the NRA delegation met with Rogozin.

"I can't understand the NRA meeting with Rogozin since he was sanctioned in 2014,” he said. “ It's so embarrassing.”

All the news sources are breathlessly reporting that "Cohen is likely to cooperate with federal prosecutors."

They may be jumping to conclusions. What seems more firmly established is that Cohen's legal team is withdrawing soon.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/trump-lawyer-michael-cohen-cooperate-attorneys-leave-c...

Document: New York Attorney General Sues Trump Foundation for Campaign Coordination and Self-Dealing
Matthew Kahn | June 14, 2018,

On Thursday, New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood sued the Trump Foundation and its board of directors in state court for “extensive unlawful political coordination with the Trump presidential campaign, repeated and willful self-dealing transactions to benefit Mr. Trump’s personal and business interests, and violations of basic legal obligations for non-profit foundations.” Read the attorney general’s press release and her petition to the court, which is below...

https://www.lawfareblog.com/document-new-york-attorney-general-sues-trump-founda...

Document: Justice Department Inspector General Final Report on Clinton Email Investigation
Matthew Kahn | June 14, 2018, 2:35 PM

On Thursday, the Justice Department’s inspector general released its final report on conduct by FBI and Justice Department leadership during the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server. The full report is below... (Executive Summary recommendations are on p 15.)

https://www.lawfareblog.com/document-justice-department-inspector-general-final-...

Cohen signals openness to cooperating with federal investigators
Kara Scannell | June 15, 2018

President Donald Trump's personal attorney Michael Cohen has indicated to family and friends he is willing to cooperate with federal investigators to alleviate the pressure on himself and his family, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Cohen has expressed anger with the treatment he has gotten from the President, who has minimized his relationship with Cohen, and comments from the President's lawyer Rudy Giuliani, the source said. The treatment has left him feeling isolated and more open to cooperating, the source said.

...CBS News reported Thursday that Cohen believes Trump and his allies are turning against him...

https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/15/politics/michael-cohen-cooperation-federal-invest...
__________________________________________________________

Manafort ordered to jail after witness-tampering charges
Spencer S. Hsu and Ellen Nakashima | June 15, 2018

...The order to imprison President Trump’s former campaign manager came Friday in a federal court hearing after (Paul) Manafort (69) had been asking to post a $10 million bond and end seven months of home detention.

It was not immediately clear when Manafort would be imprisoned or where. Proceedings before U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the District of Columbia were ongoing...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/manafort-ordered-to-jail-afte...

Does Rudy's latest also count as witness tampering? How much weirder can this get??

Rudy Giuliani says Mueller probe 'might get cleaned up' with 'presidential pardons' in light of Paul Manafort going to jail
Chris Sommerfeldt | Jun 15, 2018

...Rudy Giuliani on Friday claimed the Russia investigation could get “cleaned up” with pardons from President Trump in light (of) Paul Manafort being sent to jail.

“When the whole thing is over, things might get cleaned up with some presidential pardons,” the former New York mayor told the Daily News.

Giuliani’s stunning remark came hours after a Washington, D.C., judge revoked Manafort’s bail and ordered him to remain behind bars while awaiting his September trial...after Robert Mueller’s investigators alleged Manafort had attempted to tamper with witnesses in the Russia investigation...

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/ny-news-rudy-muller-pardons-trump-manaf...

Former IRS attorney says IRS 'should go after' Trump
Jun 16th 2018

A former Internal Revenue Service attorney on Friday suggested in a New York Times op-ed that the IRS “should go after” President Trump.

“The New York State attorney general yesterday filed a lawsuit against the Donald J. Trump Foundation and its directors, accusing the charity and the Trump family of violating campaign finance laws, self-dealing and illegal coordination with the presidential campaign,” Philip T. Hackney wrote.

“I believe Mr. Trump is also criminally liable for his actions,” Hackney added. “If I were still at the I.R.S., based on the lawsuit, I would make a criminal referral, on charges of tax evasion or false statements on a tax return, or both.”...

https://www.aol.com/article/news/2018/06/16/former-irs-attorney-says-irs-should-...

Wilbur Ross Never Sold Stakes in Companies Co-Owned by China, Report Says
June 18, 2018

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross failed to keep his promise to divest from his company holdings upon entering government, a Forbes investigation has found. Ross reportedly kept his stakes in companies co-owned by the Chinese government, a firm linked to Vladimir Putin’s inner circle, and a Cyprus bank caught up in the Robert Mueller investigation. Forbes reports that Ross’s family continued to have an interest in these holdings while he dealt with China and Russia in his official role, even while knowing that his family’s fortunes were linked to the countries. Although the arrangements appear to be legal, Forbes says Ross may have broken the law by submitting a sworn statement to officials in November saying he divested of everything he promised he would. His spokesperson insisted: “The secretary did not lie,” adding that Ross has filed amended paperwork that is under review by the Office of Government Ethics.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/wilbur-ross-never-sold-stakes-in-companies-co-owne...

Illegal campaign contribution by National Enquirer?

National Enquirer let Trump's lawyer sign off on stories before publication, sources say
Sarah Ellison | June 21, 2018

...The Enquirer's alleged sharing of material pre-publication with Trump's attorney during the campaign highlights the support the tabloid news outlet offered Trump as he ran for president. It also intersects with a subject that federal prosecutors have been investigating since earlier this year: Cohen's efforts to quash negative stories about Trump during the campaign. As part of that, prosecutors are also looking into whether Cohen broke campaign finance laws, according to people familiar with the investigation....

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/ct-national-enquirer-tru...

Special counsel obtains Trump ally Erik Prince's phones, computer
James Gordon Meek | Jun 25, 2018

Blackwater founder Erik Prince...America’s most famous private military contractor, acknowledged last week that he “cooperated” with Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election after falling under scrutiny amid questions about an alleged effort to establish a backchannel between the Trump administration and the Kremlin, something Prince has vehemently denied.

ABC News has since learned that Mueller is also reviewing Prince’s communications, a sign that Mueller could try to squeeze Prince, as he has others, probing potential inconsistencies in his sworn testimony in an attempt to pressure him to turn into a witness against other targets of the investigation. In response to questions from ABC News, a spokesperson for Prince released a statement noting that Prince has provided Mueller with “total access to his phone and computer.”

...(WaPo:) Prince...had traveled to the Seychelles in January (2017) following Trump’s election for a secret meeting with a Russian official with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin...

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/special-counsel-obtains-trump-ally-erik-princes-...

When I witness what is happening in America during the Trump
era, I picture the elevator scene in the movie SPEED. Trump's cult
followers expect him and his minions to lie to the public. They are
enjoying the "show" the Trump crowd is producing. And, Putin must
have a mile-wide smile on his face 24/7.

Ex-Trump campaign chief Manafort loses bid to dismiss Virginia charges
Sarah N. Lynch | June 26, 2018

...Judge T.S. Ellis in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia ruled that Special Counsel Robert Mueller was properly appointed by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in May 2017 and has the authority to prosecute Manafort.

...Tuesday’s ruling was the second time a judge has upheld Mueller’s prosecutorial power, which could have wide ranging implications as he investigates whether Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia.

...Manafort has been held in a Virginia jail since the federal judge overseeing the Washington case revoked his bond on June 15 after prosecutors told a court hearing that they had evidence Manafort tried to influence witnesses’ testimony while he was under house arrest...

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-manafort/ex-trump-campaign-h...

ETA_______________________________________________________

Audio (5:58)
http://hwcdn.libsyn.com/p/2/f/4/2f435124e65eb42e/Notes_From_Under_Trump_4.mp3

If the popular vote had determined the outcome of the 2016 election,
we would not have kids in cages or this horrible SCOTUS decision.
The Electoral College has turned out to be a time bomb that allowed
80,000 voters to screw with America's future.

We’ve Found $16.1 Million in Political and Taxpayer Spending at Trump Properties
Derek Kravitz, Alex Mierjeski and Gabriel Sandoval | June 27, 2018

Most came from political entities such as the Trump campaign, but government agencies chipped in, too. “I could offer clarity,” one federal employee explained, “but I choose not to.”

https://www.propublica.org/article/political-and-taxpayer-spending-at-trump-prop...

Mueller investigating Russian billionaires invited to Trump inauguration festivities

One oligarch was reportedly even inside the Capitol for the Inauguration Day luncheon with the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, according to a source familiar with the congressional investigations.

ABC noted that that event is so exclusive that it is sometimes difficult for even members of Congress to get an invitation.

Several Russian oligarchs received tickets to a “Candlelight Dinner” in D.C.’s Union Station the night before the inauguration — open only to those who contributed at least $1 million to the inauguration.

Vekselberg sat at a table next to Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen and his family, a source told ABC News.

The PRO and CON group appears to be mostly a men-only club.
Women posters are either ignored or insulted.

Well, yes, but some times there's a bit of alpha male scuffling, also. :D

(Block the boors, at least for a while. (I do.) And don't let the crass ones derail the useful & good exchanges :-)

>147 Molly3028: I don't think the lack of women posters is intentional. The rudeness you've received is common from certain posters to anyone with whom they disagree. A thick skin is helpful to all of us.

Manafort's assistant gave FBI access to evidence in storage locker: report
John Bowden | June 29, 2018

FBI special agent Jeff Pfeiffer said during a federal court hearing on Friday that Manafort's assistant, Alex Trusko, told him he had moved numerous documents to the locker at Manafort's request...Those documents are reportedly related to numerous charges against Manafort for financial crimes...

http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/394885-manafort-assistant-gave-fbi-a...

The Inconvenient Legal Troubles That Lie Ahead for the Trump Foundation
Adam Davidson | June 27, 2018

Barring an unexpected change, the Donald J. Trump Foundation will be defending itself in a New York courtroom shortly before this fall’s midterm elections. The proceedings seem unlikely to go well for the institution and its leadership; President Trump and his elder children, Ivanka, Donald, Jr., and Eric, are being sued by New York’s attorney general, Barbara Underwood, for using the charity to enrich and benefit the Trump family. On Tuesday, the judge in the case, Saliann Scarpulla, made a series of comments and rulings from the bench that hinted—well, all but screamed—that she believes the Trump family has done some very bad things.

The judge seemed frustrated, even confused, that the Trumps were fighting the case at all. At one point, she told a lawyer for the Trump children that they should just settle out of court and voluntarily agree to one of the sanctions: a demand by the Attorney General that they not serve on the boards of any nonprofits for one year. (The case will be tried in civil court, and the Trumps aren’t facing any criminal charges.) That’s far from the worst sort of punishment, but to accede to it would be a public embarrassment and an acknowledgement that the family did, indeed, use the foundation as something of a private slush fund to enrich themselves and reward their cronies...

https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-inconvenient-legal-troubles-th...

Cohen says his loyalty is first to family and country, not Trump
Maegan Vazquez | July 2, 2018

..."My wife, my daughter and my son have my first loyalty and always will," Cohen told ABC News' George Stephanopoulos in an interview published Monday morning. "I put family and country first."

...Discussing the ABC interview on CNN's "New Day," CNN Chief Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin said Cohen's interview "clearly implies that he will make a deal with the government if there are charges against him and testify, cooperate, rather than sort of hold the line for Donald Trump.

"It leaves, of course, many questions unanswered. Will charges be filed? It certainly looks that way given the context of how this unfolded," Toobin said.

Toobin added that if Cohen cooperates with authorities, that could affect the Russia investigation as well, which is separate from the federal probe into his business dealings.

"If you are a cooperating witness with the federal government, you cooperate with all of the federal government," Toobin said. "There is no way he could cut a deal with the Southern District that would not involve also cooperating with Mueller. Law enforcement doesn't work that way."...

https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/02/politics/michael-cohen-loyalty-donald-trump/index...