More than 2,500 pages of congressional testimony and exhibits that were released by the Senate Judiciary Committee this morning, all relating to the now-infamous “Trump Tower Meeting” in June 2016. As you may recall, Rob Goldstone, a music promoter, promised Donald Trump Jr. over email that a Russian lawyer (Natalia Veselnitskaya) would provide dirt about Hillary Clinton. Goldstone told the committee … Read More
How Pay-To-Play Works In Trump World
Sunday tweet from Trump: President Xi of China, and I, are working together to give massive Chinese phone company, ZTE, a way to get back into business, fast. Too many jobs in China lost. Commerce Department has been instructed to get it done! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 13, 2018 ZTE was being sanctioned by the United States for … Read More
It’s Financial Disclosure Day!
Trump has a choice to make, and today we find out that choice. Normally, a politician completing a financial disclosure form is not worthy of news. But today, this year, with Trump — it is. Today is the deadline for President Trump to file his financial disclosure form for 2017. That fact may seem trivially bureaucratic, but lurking at its core is … Read More
White House Insiders Know How The TeeVee Affects Trump
These guys understood that, even though Trump has the world as his resource, he doesn’t believe anything until it is on TV. Fox influences Trump: Senior staffers worried about this pattern of behavior: By the time his day was formally under way with the daily intelligence briefing in the Oval Office — scheduled as late as 11 a.m. — the whole … Read More
Michael Cohen’s Influence Peddling
Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s controversial “fixer,” is in an unfortunate spot. Last week, new details came into sharper focus showing that the New York attorney received undisclosed lobbying payments – through a shell company used to pay hush money to a porn star – from corporate giants hoping to influence his client in the Oval Office. The Wall Street Journal took a deeper … Read More
Trump Keeps Campaign Promise; Dozens Killed
… and the United States loses its status as an honest broker of Mideast Peace. That’s what happens when the US Embassy got moved to Jerusalem, a political move that is more symbolic (in its support for Israel) than practical: ZEITOUN, Gaza Strip — Israeli soldiers on Monday killed 41 Palestinians demonstrating along the border fence between Israel and the Gaza Strip … Read More
Leaving The Deal
Beinart writes: Read some of the most prominent critics of the Iran nuclear deal and you’ll notice something: They seem to be preparing their alibis in case Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from it proves a catastrophic mistake. Trump, wrote Bret Stephens on Tuesday in The New York Times, “was absolutely right” to leave the agreement, “assuming, that is, serious thought has been … Read More
Trump Trips On His Victory Lap By Opening His Mouth
Undeniably, the release of the three Americans being held hostage by North Korea is good news. And as they landed in the US at 3 am, Trump was there on the tarmac to greet them. It was a made-for-TV moment – even after 3:00 am ET. But then Trump opened his mouth: “We want to thank Kim Jong-un, who really … Read More
More News Trickles In On The Trump Fixers’ Money Fund
How Novartis came to give 1.2 million to Michael Cohen: The curious relationship between one of the world’s biggest drug makers and President Trump’s personal lawyer began early last year when Michael Cohen, a longtime fixer for the president, reached out to Novartis’s then-chief executive officer Joe Jimenez, promising help gaining access to Trump and influential officials in the new administration, according to … Read More
Nunes Is Not Interested In Oversight; He Is Interested In Leaking
Rep. Devin Nunes has lately taken to demanding that the Justice Department turn over records of the Mueller investigation. For obvious reasons, records of active investigations are normally confidential since the FBI doesn’t want to (a) hurt innocent people who may get caught in their net and (b) doesn’t want to alert the guilty to what they’re doing. Nunes, of … Read More
Trump Upset He’s Not Getting Praise He Thinks He Deserves
What an ego. This is what happens when you live in an echo chamber. You say stuff like “if I end the Iran deal, it will make America safer” and you don’t need to support it because, in the echo chamber, all you hear back is “if Trump ends the Iran deal, it will make America safer”. So you go … Read More
Michael Cohen’s LLC Got Secret Corporate Payments – WHY?
Thanks to Stormy Daniels’s attorney, Michael Avenatti, we learned last night that Michael Cohen’s shell company, Essential Consultants LLC, whose existence came to light as the vehicle for the hush money payments to Daniels, also had considerable income from Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg as well as corporations including AT&T and Novartis. Billionaire Viktor Vekselberg chairs a company called the Renova Group, and a US-based subsidiary of that company sent hundreds of thousands of dollars … Read More
Is Trump Pulling Out Of The Iran Deal? [Update: Yup]
I will be announcing my decision on the Iran Deal tomorrow from the White House at 2:00pm. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 7, 2018 The overwhelming consensus is that Trump will pull out of it. According to the New York Times, Trump has told French President Macron that he is pulling out. Trump has criticized the deal in rallies … Read More
Cohen Isn’t A Fixer So Much As A Bagman
From an anonymous person “steeped in anti-corruption enforcement (both domestic and foreign) on the prosecution and defense side”: As we already know, Michael Cohen is the prototypical fixer or bagman…. The bagman’s job is to get bribe money to people while insulating and giving deniability to the ultimate payor of the bribe. Having a dirty lawyer as a bagman provides a … Read More
Like Nixon And Dean, Trump And Cohen Are Not On The Same Page
Let’s start with yesterday afternoon, when Giuliani did a little clean-up on aisle five. Trump’s most visible attorney was back on the air on Wednesday to “clarify” what he said the previous two days by throwing over them a blanket claim of ignorance. President Donald Trump only recently found out that he reimbursed his personal attorney, Michael Cohen, for a $130,000 nondisclosure agreement … Read More