-
White House aides are reporting that Trump is now feeling "distracted." Yeah, I guess he is, considering he doesn't know how much incriminating evidence Michael Cohen has revealed in 70 (so far) hours of interviews with Mueller's team investigating Trump-Russia connections. We're just starting to find out some of the details:
The Trump Organization planned to give Vladimir Putin the $50 million penthouse In Trump Tower Moscow
During the presidential campaign, Michael Cohen discussed the matter with a representative of Putin's press secretary, according to two US sources.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article...imir-putin-the
Trump Tower Moscow and Michael Cohen’s lies about it, explained
Everything you need to know about Trump’s efforts to do business in Russia.
https://www.vox.com/world/2018/11/29...moscow-mueller
-
Keep in mind that this is only one man's opinion -- and most of us know the old saying about "opinions." If you don't know, well, I won't repeat it here. But Toobin's prediction could turn out to be correct.
CNN's Jeffrey Toobin believes Trump might not make it to 2020
Raw Story, Nov 29 2018 9:17 PM ET
CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin said today he thinks Donald Trump may not make it to 2020. "Today is the first day I thought Donald Trump might not finish his term in office," Toobin said in response to the shocking news dropped earlier in the day regarding the guilty plea of Trump's former attorney Michael Cohen.
"Really?" an incredulous Anderson Cooper asked the analyst. It's "enormous," Toobin said, that Cohen was reportedly in talks with representatives for Russian President Vladimir Putin to give the head of state the penthouse in the proposed Trump Tower Moscow — a bombshell broken by BuzzFeed earlier in the day.
The analyst said it's "preposterous" that Trump and those in his corner claimed Cohen never discussed the negotiations for Trump Tower Moscow for six months. Toobin said it is equally unbelievable that Trump never spoke to his confidant Roger Stone about WikiLeaks even though the two were "obsessed" with the leak organization and spoke regularly to each other, as both have claimed.
All the scandals surrounding the president are equally "preposterous," Toobin said, and it leads him to wonder when Republicans will begin turning on Trump.
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/11/cnn...not-make-2020/
-
If Donald gets arrested, I'm pretty sure his BFF Vladimir will gladly make bail for him -- and if not Vladimir, then Crown Prince bin Salman.
'Individual 1': Trump emerges as a central subject of Mueller probe
The Washington Post, Nov 29 2018
In two major developments this week, President Trump has been labeled in the parlance of criminal investigations as a major subject of interest, complete with an opaque legal code name: "Individual 1."
New evidence from two separate fronts of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation casts fresh doubts on Trump's version of key events involving Russia, signaling potential political and legal peril for the President. Investigators have now publicly cast Trump as a central figure of their probe into whether Trump's campaign conspired with the Russian government during the 2016 campaign.
Together, the documents show investigators have evidence that Trump was in close contact with his lieutenants as they made outreach to both Russia and WikiLeaks — and that they tried to conceal the extent of their activities.
Today, Trump's longtime personal lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to Congress when he insisted that Trump was not pursuing plans to build a Trump Tower in Moscow after January 2016, casting Trump's repeated claims that he had no business interests in Russia in a new light. A draft special counsel document revealed Tuesday also indicates that prosecutors are closely scrutinizing Trump's interactions with longtime adviser Roger Stone, as Stone was allegedly seeking information about WikiLeaks' plans to release hacked Democratic emails.
Legal experts said it's still unclear how much peril the President might face as a result of the new evidence Mueller has gathered about the Moscow project and WikiLeaks, but his prominence in the prosecutors' papers puts the President in an awkward starring role.
"It's deeply troubling. It's not a place that anybody wants to be, or where you would want your friends or family to be," former federal prosecutor Glen Kopp said. "And it's certainly not a place that you would want your President to be."
Trump, identified as "Individual 1" in Cohen's guilty plea, was said to have received direct updates from Cohen as he pursued a Moscow Trump Tower project with the Kremlin, up until June 14, 2016. The President also appears in the draft charging document for Trump ally Jerome Corsi, who allegedly told Stone about WikiLeaks' plans to release damaging Democratic emails in October of that year because he knew Stone was in "regular contact" with Trump. Trump spoke with Stone the day after he got the alert from Corsi.
In the draft documents, prosecutors sought to have Corsi plead guilty to lying when he said he didn't know about WikiLeaks' plans and urging others to visit WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to obtain emails damaging to Democrats.
Trump has given slightly differing accounts of his Moscow business ties over time. In July 2016, he tweeted: "For the record, I have ZERO investments in Russia." A day later he claimed, "I have nothing to do with Russia." In January 2017, he told a reporter: "I have no deals that could happen in Russia because we've stayed away."
"This is part of the fact pattern that gets to the heart of whether there was collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin during the campaign," said Trump biographer Tim O'Brien. "I think the unforgiving grinding force of the US justice system, which he has tried to undermine since he became President, is encircling him. I don't think we know where he will land but he is certainly mired in something that he is ill-equipped, legally and personally, to handle."
The prosecutors' filings show they have corroborated and buttressed Cohen's account with contemporaneous emails and people familiar with the probe say they have also obtained corroborating testimony from other witnesses.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...h9iZ?ocid=AMZN
-
This Washington Post analysis of Cohen's admission that both he and Trump lied about their dealings with Russia concludes that Trump tried to cover up Russia-related matters and Russia tried to cover up Trump-related matters. Does Putin have potentially damaging information about Trump? Is that why Trump refuses to say anything negative about Putin?
4 key takeaways from Michael Cohen's new plea deal
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...gsto?ocid=AMZN
-
Trump continues to attack the Mueller investigation, calling it a "disgrace" and a "rigged witch hunt" and an "illegal Joseph McCarthy style witch hunt." Today he came up with a new attack: "illegal hoax." He also continues to say Mueller should investigate "the other side," meaning Hillary and the Democrats. No President has ever attacked the United States justice system as vehemently and as continuously as Trump does. He is a disgrace to the office.
Trump after Cohen plea deal: Mueller's 'illegal hoax' should be stopped 'immediately'
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...hqHg?ocid=AMZN
-
CNN's Don Lemon played several clips of Donald Trump lying about having no business interests in Russia and lying about the 2015-16 proposal for Trump Tower Moscow. Trump said the proposal was "very open" and "everybody knew about it" but actually almost nobody knew about it until the New York Times reported it -- on February 17, 2017. Trump had never publicly spoken about it. Here is the video:
Don Lemon: Trump seems rattled by Cohen's reveal
https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/...gation-vpx.cnn
-
Russians, directed by Vladimir Putin, created thousands of phony accounts on Facebook and other social media sites and spread thousands of phony stories aimed at getting Clinton defeated and Trump elected in 2016. Russians also created phony accounts on Twitter and sent out an estimated 1,400,000 automated election-related tweets. Twenty-six Russians (so far) have been indicted by Robert Mueller for meddling in our Presidential election. So does White House puppet Sarah Sanders denounce Putin and the Russians? Nope, she attacks Robert Mueller by parroting the words of the orange-skinned puppeteer:
Sarah Huckabee Sanders issues wild statement claiming 'Russian witch hunt hoax' is undermining US-Russia relations
https://www.businessinsider.com/sara...t-hoax-2018-11
-
Erin Burnett took issue with Donald Trump blaming the Mueller investigation, and not Russian election meddling. for undermining US-Russia relations. Here is the video:
Burnett: 'Hoax' says you're siding with Russia
CNN's Erin Burnett points out how frequently President Donald Trump calls the Robert Mueller investigation a "witch hunt" or a "hoax" and what that really means.
https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/...e-ebof-vpx.cnn
-
Santa Claus has his helpers -- and Robert Mueller has his helpers:
Warner says Senate Intelligence Committee has made 'a number of referrals' to Mueller
CBS News, Dec 2 2018 1:18 PM
Virginia Senator Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said his committee has made "a number of referrals" to special counsel Robert Mueller's office for prosecution and vowed to do the same for anyone who lies to Congressional investigators probing Russian interference in the 2016 election. "If you lie to Congress, we're going to go after you. We're going to make sure that gets referred," Warner said today on Face The Nation.
On Thursday, Michael Cohen, President Trump's former personal lawyer, pleaded guilty to lying to the Senate and House intelligence committees about his involvement in an effort to build a Trump Tower in Moscow and the extent to which then-candidate Trump and his family were involved. Warner said Cohen's plea contradicts Trump's multiple denials during the campaign in which he said he did not have any business links to Russia.
Warner did not specify who else has been the subject of criminal referrals but said the committee has an "ongoing relationship" with Mueller's office and is still probing the question of whether members of the Trump campaign colluded with Russia, which Trump has repeatedly denied. Warner said, "That is something both Chairman Burr and I are reserving judgment on until we see all of the witnesses and we've got more folks to see."
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mark-wa...ls-to-mueller/
-
"I plead the Fifth." -- Donald Trump -- 97 times! -- during his 1990 divorce proceedings when questioned about his fidelity.
"The Mob takes the fifth. If you're innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?" -- Donald Trump, September 28, 2016, referring to three former Hillary Clinton staff members who refused to testify about setting up her email server.
And now we come to December 4, 2018. Roger Stone is not innocent. Donald Trump is not innocent. If they were, they would not be "taking the Fifth Amendment," right, Donald?
Trump associate Roger Stone to plead the Fifth Amendment in Senate Russia probe
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/tru...e-russia-probe
