The Commentariat -- Nov. 30, 2018
Afternoon Update:
Peter Baker of the New York Times: "President Trump and his Mexican and Canadian counterparts ... signed a new agreement governing hundreds of billions of dollars in trade among the neighbors that underpins their economies. Meeting for the first time since the revised North American Free Trade Agreement was sealed, Mr. Trump, President Enrique Peña Nieto ... and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau hailed the results as a boon for workers, businesses and the environment, even as they alluded to the harsh talks that had preceded this day. 'We worked hard on this agreement,' Mr. Trump said.... 'It's been long and hard. We've taken a lot of barbs and a little abuse, and we got there. It's great for all of our countries.' Mr. Trump did not say that he was the one who had dished out most of the barbs and much of the abuse, but he insisted that he had come out of the process with a stronger relationship with the two leaders.... [The agreement] still requires the approval of Congress."
Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Special counsel Robert Mueller's office is considering retrying former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort on a slew of federal charges that resulted in a hung jury over the summer. At a hearing in federal court Friday morning, prosecutors said they are also weighing leveling new criminal charges for Manafort, contending that he obstructed justice and committed additional federal crimes since entering a plea agreement with the special counsel in September.... Prosecutors will file a more detailed explanation of what they believe Manafort lied about to investigators on Dec. 7. Manafort's defense team will then have until January to reply, leading to a likely late January hearing on the matter."
Philip Ewing of NPR: "Donald Trump Jr.'s testimony to Congress about his family's real estate negotiations with powerful Russians does not comport with the new version laid out by Donald Trump's ex-attorney Michael Cohen, official transcripts show. Trump Jr. told the Senate Judiciary Committee in September 2017 that although there had been negotiations surrounding a prospective Trump Tower in Moscow, they concluded without result 'at the end' of 2014. 'But not in 2015 or 2016?' Trump Jr. was asked. 'Certainly not '16,' he said. 'There was never a definitive end to it. It just died of deal fatigue.' Trump's account contrasts with the new version of events given by Cohen on Thursday in a guilty plea in federal court. In that new version, Cohen says the discussions with at least one Russian government official and others in Moscow continued through June 2016, well into Trump's presidential campaign.... Cohen said in his guilty plea that he had briefed Trump's family members about his talks, although the court documents don't specify which ones."
Jonathan Chait: "During the 2016 campaign, and for years after, Donald Trump insisted that he had no dealings with Russia whatsoever. He also assured the public that we could take his word on this, and there was no need to look at his tax returns. But yesterday's confession in open court by Michael Cohen shows that Trump was attempting to do business in Russia during the campaign, with high-level officials from the same government that was interceding on Trump's behalf. The new Trump line is that this is all okay and that we knew about it the whole time: 'Oh, I get it! I am a very good developer, happily living my life, when I see our Country going in the wrong direction (to put it mildly). Against all odds, I decide to run for President & continue to run my business-very legal & very cool, talked about it on the campaign trail...' [Donald Trump, in a tweet early this morning]
Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Akhilleus has suggested in today's Comments that we're coming up on schadenfreude time. After extensive research, I've discovered the schadenfreude dance and the appropriate outfits to wear when dancing it. (When Conan asks the name of the dance, sounds like the dancer in the segment mispronounces "schadenfreude," but the guy is German so what does he know.) The schadenfreude looks hard to learn, so here's a lesson to get you started. I'm wriggling into my bondage pants right now:
Carol Leonnig, et al., of the Washington Post: "Months after joining the advisory board of a Miami-based patent company in 2014, Matthew G. Whitaker began fielding angry complaints from customers that they were being defrauded, including from a client who showed up at his Iowa office to appeal to him personally for help, records show. Yet Whitaker, now the acting attorney general, remained an active champion of World Patent Marketing for three years -- even expressing willingness to star in national television ads promoting the firm, the records show. Internal Federal Trade Commission documents released Friday in response to a public records request reveal the extent of Whitaker's support for World Patent Marketing, even amid a barrage of warnings about the company's behavior.... Whitaker, a former U.S. attorney, did little to assist the [FTC] investigation [of the company]. He never answered a subpoena, even after he was working in the DOJ, & as the Bloomberg reporters note in the story linked below, he did not return FTC phone calls. And bad news for Whitaker: Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) is on the case. ...
... Greg Farrell, et al., of Bloomberg: "New documents released by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission suggest that acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker misled the agency's investigators as he was stepping into his role last year as Justice Department chief of staff.... Whitaker ... asserted that he 'never emailed or wrote to consumers' in his consulting role. That statement to James Evans of the FTC appears to be inaccurate. Whitaker had written a letter in 2015 to a disgruntled customer who planned to report the company, World Patent Marketing, to the Better Business Bureau.... Whitaker threatened the customer, writing: 'I am assuming you understand there could be serious civil and criminal consequences for you if that is in fact what you and your "group" are doing.'... At the time, the agency was investigating complaints about World Patent Marketing, which it described as an 'invention promotion scheme' that it accused of 'bilking millions of dollars from consumers.' The emails also convey FTC investigators's shock in October 2017 when -- in the latter stages of their investigation -- Whitaker was suddenly named chief of staff to Attorney General Jeff Sessions."
Because of Course It Did. Darryl Fears of the Washington Post: "The Trump administration is preparing to take an important step toward future oil and natural gas drilling off the Atlantic shore, approving five requests from companies to conduct deafening seismic tests that could kill tens of thousands of dolphins, whales and other marine animals. The planned Friday announcement by the National Marine Fisheries Service, a division of the Commerce Department, to issue 'incidental take' permits allowing companies to harm wildlife is likely to further antagonize a dozen governors in states along the Eastern Seaboard who strongly oppose the administration's proposal to expand federal oil and gas leases to the Atlantic. Federal leases could lead to exploratory drilling for the first time in more than a half-century."
Election 2018, Ctd.
Georgia. Richard Fausset of the New York Times: Democrats see "... the runoff election next week for Georgia secretary of state [as] a crucial battle over minority voting rights.... Brian Kemp, the Republican who ran for governor while still serving as secretary of state, oversaw voting roll purges, registration suspensions, and an Election Day rife with problems -- all of which, critics said, were meant to suppress minority voting.... Many Democrats around the country ... believe that those tactics worked, and essentially cheated [Democrat Stacey] Abrams out of victory in an excruciatingly close race.... In TV ads, [the Democratic candidate John] Barrow leans on a fence in front of a bucolic Georgia landscape and declares, 'Yeah, I'm a Democrat, but I won't bite you.'... His Republican opponent, Brad Raffensperger, a State House member and a civil engineer, also lacks a certain bite: Even allies describe him as long on intelligence and short on charisma."
North Carolina. Amy Gardner & Kirk Ross of the Washington Post: "Mounting evidence of fraud in North Carolina's 9th Congressional District could indefinitely delay the certification of a winner, as state election officials investigate whether hundreds of absentee ballots were illegally cast or destroyed. The North Carolina State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement has no plans to certify Republican Mark Harris's 905-vote victory over Democrat Dan McCready, according to an agenda of a board meeting scheduled for Friday morning. The board is collecting sworn statements from voters in rural Bladen and Robeson counties, near the South Carolina border, who described people coming to their doors and urging them to hand over their absentee ballots, sometimes without filling them out. Others described receiving absentee ballots by mail that they had not requested.... Investigators are also scrutinizing unusually high numbers of absentee ballots cast in Bladen County, in both the general election and the May 8 primary, in which Harris defeated incumbent Rep. Robert Pittenger (R) by 828 votes. In the primary, Harris won 96 percent of all absentee ballots in Bladen, a far higher percentage than his win in the county overall -- a statistic that this week is prompting fresh accusations of fraud." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: So there is rampant voter fraud, after all. But it looks as if the fraudsters are Republicans.
Once Again, New Mexico Gets No Respect. AP: "A District of Columbia clerk and a supervisor refused to accept a New Mexico man's state driver's license as he sought a marriage license because she and her supervisor believed New Mexico was a foreign country. Gavin Clarkson told the Las Cruces Sun-News it happened Nov. 20 at the District of Columbia Courts Marriage Bureau as he tried to apply for a marriage license.... [Clarkson said,] 'All the couples behind us waiting in line were laughing.'"
For those of you who are not Latin scholars, Colbert explains the meaning of "pro bono":
*****
This Russia Thing, Etc., Ctd.
** Quid. Pro. Quo. Anthony Cormier & Jason Leopold of BuzzFeed News: "... Donald Trump's company planned to give a $50 million penthouse at Trump Tower Moscow to Russian President Vladimir Putin as the company negotiated the luxury real estate development during the 2016 campaign, according to four people, one of them the originator of the plan. Two US law enforcement officials told BuzzFeed News that Michael Cohen, Trump's personal lawyer at the time, discussed the idea with a representative of Dmitry Peskov, Putin's press secretary. The Trump Tower Moscow plan is at the heart of a new plea agreement by Cohen, who led the negotiations to bring a gleaming, 100-story building to the Russian capital.... The revelation that representatives of the Trump Organization planned to forge direct financial links with the leader of a hostile nation at the height of the campaign raises fresh questions about President Trump's relationship with the Kremlin.... Two FBI agents with direct knowledge of the Trump Tower Moscow negotiations told BuzzFeed News earlier this year that Cohen was in frequent contact with foreign individuals about the real estate venture -- and that some of these individuals had knowledge of or played a role in 2016 election meddling." ...
... digby: "There's a reason that the trump campaign was crawling with Russians from every direction. That's not normal. Trump's been lying about all of this. And Vladimir Putin knew all about it. In fact, they were clearly using the same talking points. You want kompromat? You don't need the pee tape. This is more than enough. This is one of the most stunning moments in American history and we now can see exactly why he was an obsequious toady toward his handler[.]" ...
... OR, as Rachel Maddow characterized the quid pro quo: Trump to Putin: "You give me America; I give you nice apartment." ...
... Emma Loop of BuzzFeed News: "A plan by Donald Trump's company to give Russian President Vladimir Putin a $50 million penthouse will be in the crosshairs of the House Intelligence Committee when Democrats take control of it in the new year, several members said.... Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro, a Democratic member of the committee, told BuzzFeed News on Thursday ... he believed the plan could have violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. 'If this was an attempt to speed up the project or secure the project and make sure it got done, it could amount to bribery for an official of a foreign government and anyone who was part of that could be in violation of this federal statute,' he said. ...
... ** Benjamin Weiser, et al., of the New York Times: "Michael D. Cohen, President Trump's former lawyer, who pleaded guilty in August to breaking campaign finance laws, made a surprise appearance in a Manhattan courtroom on Thursday morning and pleaded guilty to a new criminal charge.... At the court hearing, Mr. Cohen admitted to making false statements to Congress about his efforts to build a Trump Tower deal in Moscow during the 2016 presidential campaign. That real estate deal has been a focus of the special counsel investigation into whether the Trump campaign conspired with Russian operatives. In written testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mr. Cohen played down the extent of his contact with the Kremlin about the potential project and made other false statements about the negotiations.... The new guilty plea in Federal District Court marks the first time the office of the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, has charged Mr. Cohen." (Also linked yesterday.) The story has been updated & expanded, with Mark Mazzetti now the lead reporter. ...
... George Stephanopoulos, et al., of ABC News: "Special counsel Robert Mueller has reached a tentative deal with Michael Cohen.... Cohen appeared in federal court in Manhattan Thursday where he entered a guilty plea for misstatements to Congress...." (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Here's a reproduction of the "Criminal Information" filed in the Cohen case today, courtesy of Lawfare. (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Marcy Wheeler of emptywheel deciphers Cohen's guilty plea: "... what [Cohen] testified to will implicate Trump and Don Jr directly. Here's what the information says Cohen lied to cover up: Cohen continued to pursue a Trump Tower Moscow deal for far longer than he testified he did, and briefed 'family' on it, which presumably includes Don Jr (who therefore lied to Congress about it)[.]... The plans continued after the campaign got information about emails and were specifically structured around Trump getting the nomination; they ended when the DNC hack was reported[.]... Cohen was in direct communication with Putin's press secretary] Dmitry Peskov's office; and Putin's office contacted Felix Sater [a former mobster &, um, business associate of Donald Trump].... And all this is just what Mueller wants us to know." (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: As in the past, Trump's self-defense jumps from "It never happened" to "It's no big deal." Here "I have nothing to do with Russia" suddenly becomes, "It was a project everybody knew about":
... Jeff Toobin in the New Yorker: "Trump said that his Moscow deal was widely known when he was running for President (it wasn't), and that, as a private developer, he was entitled to make such deals.... It's true that Trump had the right to do business in Russia during the time when he was a candidate, but the public also had a right to know where his true financial interests lay. It would have been highly relevant to the public to learn that Trump was negotiating a business deal with Russia at the same time that he was proposing to change American policy toward that country.... Cohen's guilty plea indicates that voters were actively misled about Trump's interests. That is what is so important about Thursday morning's news -- it says that while Trump was running for President, he was doing his private business, not the public's business. Trump may believe that his interest is the national interest, but it wasn't true then, and it's not true now." ...
... Adam Davidson of the New Yorker: "Had the [Moscow Tower] project died in January, 2016, as Cohen originally claimed, it might have been a small story.... But we now know that it continued during the crucial months when Trump's Presidential campaign shifted from a long-shot joke to a serious effort. We now see that the leadership of the Trump Organization -- including Trump himself -- were aware of Cohen's efforts to make contact with Putin, and that the Kremlin shifted from indifference to enthusiasm as Trump's political fortunes grew. This increasing activity suddenly stopped -- for no clear reason -- just when Donald Trump, Jr., may have developed a far more direct relationship to the Kremlin in the Trump Tower meeting. At that point, it appears that Cohen was removed from his intermediary role and cancelled a planned trip to Moscow. Several current and former Trump Organization staffers have told me that Donald, Jr., and Ivanka did not especially like or trust Cohen." ...
The "No Collusion" Defense Is Dead. David Corn of Mother Jones: "More lying and more evidence of a significant Trump-Russia connection — that's the story behind Michael Cohen's latest guilty plea. And it shows that Donald Trump's company in 2016 was trying to collude with Russian President Vladimir Putin in order to develop a Trump business project in Moscow.... During this stretch, Trump the candidate often spoke positively about Putin and refused to criticize him -- and never publicly disclosed that he was attempting to negotiate a big deal in Russia that could not proceed if Putin's government opposed it. This meant that Trump hid from voters one of the most significant conflicts of interest in the modern history of US political campaigns.... The first memo in the infamous Steele dossier, which was written in June 2016, claimed that the Kremlin had attempted to cultivate and co-opt Trump in part by 'offering him various lucrative real estate development business deals in Russia.'... With this deal, Trump sent the message to Moscow -- at the same time its hackers were penetrating Democratic targets -- that he wanted to do business with Putin and Russia. Imagine how all this looked to Putin...." ...
... Maggie Haberman, et al., of the New York Times: "... Mr. Trump's lawyers ... said Mr. Cohen's new account of the Trump Organization's abortive hotel project in Moscow essentially matches what Mr. Trump himself stated in written answers delivered to prosecutors just nine days ago. Mr. Cohen might have lied to the authorities about aspects of the deal, as the complaint charges, they said, but the president did not. 'The president said there was a proposal, it was discussed with Cohen, there was a nonbinding letter of intent and it didn't go beyond that,' said Rudolph W. Giuliani, one of Mr. Trump's lawyers, who with others negotiated the president's responses to Mr. Mueller's questions for nearly a year. He said prosecutors did not raise certain details that Mr. Cohen now says he misled Congress about -- including how long the hotel project stayed alive -- and that the president did not volunteer those details.... Mr. Giuliani refused to disclose Mr. Mueller's precise questions to Mr. Trump about the deal or exactly how the president responded. He said only that Mr. Trump and the Trump Organization, his company, provided the prosecutors 'with every document about this from the beginning,' adding, 'That's the only reason they know about it.'" ...
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Someday we'll find out if Giuliani's assertion is true. It certainly is possible that Trump's response was vague enough to "essentially match" Cohen's assertions revealed in the "Criminal Information." But, as we know, Giuliani says stuff. ...
... Emily Fox of Vanity Fair: Michael Cohen's "guilty plea ... came together only in the last two weeks, according to people familiar with the matter. It was during that time frame that Trump submitted his written answers to questions from Mueller's team -- including, according to a previous New York Times report, an explicit question about the president's communication with Cohen about the Russian real-estate deal. Various outlets have reported that Cohen's admission sent panic through Trumpworld, but Rudy Giuliani ... insisted that the president's answers were collinear with the statements. (Giuliani, of course, has a history of staving off uncomfortable narratives.)... The special counsel's office has thousands of documents, e-mails, text messages, and electronic devices, along with dozens of hours of testimony and written statements from Cohen, Trump, and others involved. They knew enough to produce a guilty plea from Cohen." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Whether or not Mueller timed the "reveal" to coincide with Trump's previously-scheduled meeting with Putin, Fox's reporting suggests that what instigated the Cohen plea deal was Mueller's receipt of Trump's written responses to Mueller's queries. Did Trump's answer re: Trump Tower Moscow "essentially match" Cohen's plea, as Giuliani claims? The timing of the special counsel's negotiations with Cohen suggests to me the answer is "essentially, no."
... Josh Gerstein of Politico: "While Trump was not directly accused of any wrongdoing, the charge [against Michael Cohen] brings the president closer to an effort to obstruct probes into alleged contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia.... In the new criminal charge unveiled Thursday, Cohen admitted that while he told the House and Senate Intelligence Committees last year that consideration of the proposed Moscow 'Trump Tower' project ceased by January 2016 -- around the time of the Iowa caucuses in the presidential race -- the business proposal remained under discussion through 'as late as approximately June 2016.' If the Moscow project in fact remained live through June 2016, it could have been a significant factor in the decision by various Trump aides and family members to attend [the infamous] June 7, 2016 'Trump Tower' meeting.... Speaking on the White House lawn on Thursday, Trump dismissed Cohen's latest admissions as fabrications. 'He's lying, very simply, to get a reduced sentence,' the president said, repeatedly calling Cohen 'weak.' However, Trump also defended the Moscow-focused real estate development drive as legitimate.... 'It was during the early part of '16 and I guess even before that. It lasted a short period of time. I didn't do the project. I decided not to do the project,' the president said. 'So, we're not talking about doing a project. We're talking about not doing a project.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Got that? He's not doing the project. Anyhow, Gerstein reports that Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) plans to bring Cohen back to testify before the House Intelligence Committee. "'It means that when the president was representing during the campaign that he had no business interest in Russia, that that wasn't true,' Schiff said of the deal." ...
I think Michael Cohen's guilty plea also underscores the importance of something else. That is we believe other witnesses were untruthful before our committee. -- Rep. Adam Schiff, to reporters Thursday
... Tierney Sneed of TPM: "Michael Cohen's guilty plea Thursday in a Manhattan courthouse ... undercut what President Trump himself has claimed about his business dealings with Russia, particularly during the campaign.... 'COHEN discussed the status and progress of the Moscow Project with Individual 1 on more than the three occasions COHEN claimed to the Committee, and he briefed family members of Individual 1 within the Company about the project,' the [court] documents said, with 'Individual 1' being a reference to Trump. This contradicts what Trump has said publicly about his business dealings with Russia, which he claimed during the campaign were nonexistent. 'For the record, I have ZERO investments in Russia.' -- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 26, 2016. He also said at a press conference the next day, 'I have nothing to do with Russia.'" ...
... Andrew Prokop of Vox: "Cohen's plea reveals Trump's business tried to work with the Russian government on a major real estate deal while Trump was running for president -- and Trump himself was well aware of it, while concealing it from the public. Specifically, Cohen now admits that the project was still active late into the presidential campaign and that he briefed Trump and Trump family members about it often. And for the first time, Cohen admits he had a detailed phone conversation with an assistant for ... Vladimir Putin's press secretary, in which he asked for the Russian government's help moving the project forward. He tried to conceal all of this from Congress." Prokov goes on to outline six takeaways from the court docs. ...
... Ken White in the Atlantic: "Michael Cohen's decision to plead guilty to lying to Congress on Thursday was remarkable for three reasons. The first was that Cohen walked into a Manhattan federal courtroom unannounced. He did it by surprise.... The second remarkable thing was that the plea happened at all.... Normally, federal prosecutors don't waste time with this sort of rubble-bouncing.... [But in case acting AG Matt Whitaker stymies and/or conceals Mueller's report,] Cohen's case lets Mueller ... tell a story, make a report.... The third remarkable thing about Cohen's plea was its substance. The president of the United States' personal lawyer admitted to lying to Congress about the president's business activities with a hostile foreign power, in order to support the president's story. In any rational era, that would be earthshaking.... Over the past two years, we've become accustomed to headlines like 'President's Campaign Manager Convicted of Fraud' and 'President's Personal Lawyer Paid for Adult Actress's Silence.' We're numb to it all. But these are the sorts of developments that would, under normal circumstances, end a presidency." ...
... Brett Samuels of the Hill: "... Rudy Giuliani on Thursday slammed Michael Cohen and special counsel Robert Mueller in the wake of a new plea agreement between the two parties, saying the timing of the announcement was meant to harm President Trump.... Giuliani ... said that Mueller timed Cohen's guilty plea to coincide with Trump's departure for the Group of 20 (G20) Summit in Argentina. He likened Thursday's announcement to when Mueller announced charges against a dozen Russian military officers days before the president met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Russia." (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Matt Ford of the New Republic agrees in part with Giuliani: "The most surprising -- and perhaps most significant -- aspect of Cohen's plea deal may be its timing. It's the second time, for example, that the special counsel's office has made a major public move in the days ahead of a scheduled meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. In July, the Justice Department indicted twelve Russian intelligence operatives for election cyberattacks against the Democratic Party. Three days later, Trump stood next to Putin at a press conference in Helsinki and said he believed the Russian president's denials over the conclusions of U.S. intelligence agencies." See also stories about Trump's "abruptly" cancelling the Putin meeting, linked below. ...
... Matt Zapotosky of the Washington Post: "Acting attorney general Matthew G. Whitaker was notified in advance that [Michael Cohen] would plead guilty Thursday to lying to Congress about a Moscow real estate project that Trump and his company pursued while he was running for president.... As acting attorney general, Whitaker is the nominal supervisor of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.... Justice Department policies and special-counsel regulations call for Whitaker to be notified of significant events.... Importantly, though, the regulations do not require the attorney general to approve such steps. The attorney general can request that the special counsel explain a step that is being taken and can conclude that an action is so unwarranted under established Departmental practices that it should not be pursued.' The attorney general is supposed to give 'great weight' to the special counsel's views, and at the end of the case Congress is supposed to be notified of any proposed action that was vetoed." ...
... Mike McIntire, et al., of the New York Times attempt a narrative account of Trump's long history of trying to nail down a real estate deal in Moscow: the story's headline: "How a Trump Lawyer, a Felon and a Russian General Chased a Moscow Deal." ...
... Hunter Walker of Yahoo! News: "... Robert Mueller's investigation into President Trump's efforts to build a skyscraper in Moscow has led him to ask questions about the role two of the president's children played in attempting to secure a Russian real estate deal, sources tell Yahoo News.... Multiple sources have confirmed to Yahoo News that the president's elder daughter, Ivanka, who is now a top White House adviser, and his eldest son, Don Jr., were also working to make Trump Tower Moscow a reality." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Several legal experts, commenting on MSNBC throughout Thursday evening, have noted that Trump's lies to the public, besides misleading the American voter during a presidential campaign, made Trump extremely vulnerable to Russian blackmail. As digby points out, the Russians had some serious kompromat on Trump: they could have exploded his candidacy, and later his presidency. Instead, Robert Mueller's team appears to be ferreting out the explosive evidence from Cohen & other sources. ...
... Update: Michelle Goldberg on blackmail vulnerability: "That's also why evidence of Trump's business involvement with Russia would be significant, as Trump himself acknowledged shortly before his inauguration, when he tweeted, 'Russia has never tried to use leverage over me. I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH RUSSIA -- NO DEALS, NO LOANS, NO NOTHING!' We still don't know for certain if Russia has used leverage over Trump. But there should no longer be any doubt that Russia has leverage over him.... In a Jan. 11, 2017, news conference, Trump said that the 'closest I came to Russia' was in selling a Palm Beach mansion to a Russian oligarch in 2008. While we're just learning precisely how dishonest this was, Putin has known it all along.... Every day of the Trump presidency is a national security emergency. The question now is whether Senate Republicans, who could actually do something about it, will ever be moved to care." ...
... MEANWHILE. Carol Lee, et al., of NBC News: "Senate committees investigating Russia's interference in the 2016 election are combing through witness testimony for possible misleading or untruthful statements, according to three people familiar with the effort. The review of testimony to Senate intelligence and judiciary committees comes as ... Michael Cohen pleaded guilty Thursday to a charge ... that he lied to Congress to cover up efforts during the presidential campaign to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, said Thursday that the committee had made multiple criminal referrals to Mueller, but added 'we're not going to talk about any individuals.'... The committee's chairman, Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., had a stern warning Thursday for witnesses appearing before Congress. 'This is a reason people shouldn't lie when they're in front of a congressional investigation,' Burr said."
David Graham of the Atlantic: "Until recently, the connection between those Russian efforts [to undermine Hillary Clinton's campaign] and Trump allies has remained somewhat obscure and speculative But recent developments have started to flesh out the picture. Russia used WikiLeaks as a conduit -- witting or unwitting -- and WikiLeaks, in turn, appears to have been in touch with Trump allies. The key remaining questions are what WikiLeaks knew and what Trump himself knew.... While Russia's authoritarianism and suppression of free expression are at odds with WikiLeaks's stated principles, Raffi Khatchadourian noted in a 2017 New Yorker profile that [Julian] Assange has tended to view Russia as an important counterweight to American empire, and has perhaps thus tended to overlook its flaws.... Trump continues to deny that there were any connections between his campaign and Russia. By now, there's enough evidence to treat this as seriously as much of what he says -- which is to say, with the presumption it's hogwash. There is not at this point any public information that connects the president directly to Russian interference in the election, but the emerging evidence strongly suggests that Trump confidants were given forewarning about Russian moves designed to hurt Clinton and boost Trump -- and that WikiLeaks was the middle man that made all of it possible." (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... And Another Thing. Mrs. McCrabbie: It is no coincidence that the people who initiated the infamous June 2016 Trump Tower NYC meeting had worked with Trump to try to get Trump Tower Moscow off the ground. As Hunter Walker reiterates in his post linked above, Mike Isikoff & David Corn of Yahoo! News, in their book Russian Roulette, "detailed a 2013 effort [to build a skyscraper in Moscow] that involved the Russian oligarch Aras Agalarov and his son Emin. According to the book, Don Jr. was 'in charge' of that project and Ivanka 'flew to Russia and scouted sites with Emin.' The Agalarovs ... helped arrange the infamous June 2016 Trump Tower meeting. The Trump Organization registered the web address TrumpTowerMoscow.com in December 2012. A source familiar with the deal said this was in conjunction with the work being done with Agalarovs. Trump tweeted at Aras Agalarov about the deal on Nov. 11, 2013..., 'I had a great weekend with you and your family... You have done a FANTASTIC job. TRUMP TOWER-MOSCOW is next.'"
... Gabriel Sherman of Vanity Fair: “'Trump was totally caught off guard by the Cohen plea,' [a former White House staffer] said. Indeed, Trump's erratic responses suggest he was surprised by the news. At first, his lawyer Rudy Giuliani released a blistering statement saying Cohen is 'a proven liar who is doing everything he can to get out of a long-term prison sentence for serious crimes of bank and tax fraud.' In comments he made to reporters before departing for the G20 summit in Argentina, Trump called Cohen 'weak' and accused him of 'making up a story.' But hours later, Giuliani changed tacks, telling The New York Times that Trump's sworn answers to Mueller matched Cohen's version of events. 'Why would the president come out and say Cohen lied?' the former staffer said.... Mueller now appears to be driving the West Wing agenda, with the principals in a reactive crouch...." ...
... AND here's a headline to rattle Trump: "Trump Emerges as a Central Subject of Mueller Probe." Carol Leonnig & Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "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 S. Mueller III'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.... The president also appears in the draft charging document for Trump ally Jerome Corsi, who allegedly told [Roger] Stone about WikiLeaks' plans to release damaging Democratic emails ... because he knew Stone was in 'regular contact' with Trump. The Washington Post reported this week that Trump spoke with Stone the day after he got the alert from Corsi."
Jon Swaine of the Guardian: "Ted Malloch, a London-based [American] academic close to [Nigel] Farage, was allegedly passed a request from a longtime Trump adviser [Roger Stone] to get advance copies of emails stolen from Trump's opponents by Russian hackers and later published by WikiLeaks. The allegation emerged in a draft legal document drawn up by Robert Mueller, the special prosecutor investigating Russia's interference in the 2016election and any collusion with Trump's campaign team.... [Malloch] was stopped and questioned by the FBI in March upon his arrival at a US airport and said his mobile phone was inspected by investigators. Mueller later subpoenaed him to appear before a grand jury considering the inquiry's findings.... Last year Glenn Simpson, a Washington-based investigator whose firm prepared the explosive Trump-Russia dossier in 2016, told congressional investigators: 'I think Ted Malloch is an important person in this whole picture.' Simpson urged authorities to examine the activities of Malloch and Farage, who has denied any involvement." --s (Also linked yesterday.)
... Mrs. McCrabbie: It's worth remembering that long after U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that Russia was behind the hacking of the DNC & John Podesta's e-mails, Donald Trump was insisting that the identities & backers of the hackers were was unknowable: a 400-pound man in his basement, China, etc. Yet throughout the period Trump was casting doubt on the conclusion of his own intelligence agencies, he had insider information -- via Roger Stone & perhaps others -- that the Russian government sponsored the hacking & distribution of the Democrats' correspondence.
Harry Litman in a Washington Post op-ed: "... when [Paul] Manafort entered into the cooperation agreement with the government, he ceased to have a common interest with other defendants, including the president, as a matter of law. As former U.S. attorney Chuck Rosenberg put it, having signed with the Yankees, he couldn't give scouting reports to the Red Sox.... The open pipeline between cooperator Manafort and suspect Trump may have been not only extraordinary but also criminal. On Manafort and [his lawyer Kevin] Downing’s end, there is a circumstantial case for obstruction of justice. What purpose other than an attempt to 'influence, obstruct, or impede' the investigation of the president can be discerned from Manafort’s service as a double agent? And on the Trump side, the communications emit a strong scent of illegal witness tampering (and possibly obstruction as well). Proving those charges would require a fight." (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Giuliani: Bob Mueller Is So Mean. Chris Sommerfeldt of the New York Daily News: "Paul Manafort's lawyers shared confidential information about Robert Mueller's investigation with President Trump's legal team, Rudy Giuliani said Thursday -- a move experts say could be criminal.... A former federal prosecutor known for putting mobsters behind bars, Giuliani said he would 'love' to battle anyone in court over the matter.... 'They should be ashamed of themselves,' Giuliani said of Mueller's investigators. 'God damn it, the only reason this is happening is that there's different rules if you are Donald Trump.'"
** Frank Rich: "The whole point of the incessant lying by Donald Trump and Manafort -- and the apparent lying of Stone and Corsi as well -- is ... to muddy as many waters as possible so any Mueller report will be drowned out by what Kellyanne Conway once labeled 'alternative facts.' Right now we only know bits and pieces of Mueller's findings.... But the thing about stories built on actual facts, as Mueller's will be, is that they tend to be powerful ... because they add up. People like solid crime stories. And so ... at least one such story is emerging loud and clear: the bridge that connects the Trump campaign to the trove of Democratic emails stolen by the Russians and publicized by WikiLeaks to sabotage the Clinton campaign. Two of the biggest sources for this story are Stone and Corsi themselves. The more they try to portray their WikiLeaks ties as innocent ... the more they poke holes in their own flimsy cover stories and incriminate the president. Not for nothing did Trump promote WikiLeaks' email cache at least 164 times in the last month of the 2016 campaign, in the calculation of the journalist Judd Legum. Everything adds up." Must read: Rich's commentary on two other topics: the racist Republican party & the Miami Herald's deep investigative report on now-Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta, and his sweetheart plea deal with serial child sex predator & pimp Jeffrey Epstein, a story which safari linked yesterday (and is re-linked below).
Jordan Fabian of the Hill: "President Trump on Thursday announced he would not meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin as planned at the G-20 summit over tensions with Ukraine. The announcement, which came on Twitter, came roughly an hour after Trump told reporters the meeting would 'probably' go ahead as planned. 'Based on the fact that the ships and sailors have not been returned to Ukraine from Russia, I have decided it would be best for all parties concerned to cancel my previously scheduled meeting in Argentina with President Vladimir Putin,' Trump wrote ... en route to the Group of 20 summit." (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: A couple of hours after Trump tweeted he was cancelling the meeting with Putin, CNN reported that the White House had not notified the Kremlin about the cancellation. ...
... New York Times reporters link Trump's cancellation of the meeting to Michael Cohen's new plea: "The proceedings in Lower Manhattan appeared to have global repercussions. After Mr. Cohen's appearance in court, Mr. Trump abruptly canceled a planned meeting with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia while both leaders are in Argentina. The president said he called off the meeting because of Russia's recent hostilities with Ukraine." This story also is linked above. ...
... Joshua Keating of Slate: "The Kremlin responded snippily to Thursday's announcement, saying that Putin would now have more time for 'useful meetings.'... The AP reported that Trump would also be calling off sit-down meetings with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and President Moon Jae-in of South Korea. His talks with those leaders have been reduced to informal 'pull-asides' on the sidelines of the summit.... The additional cancellations of meetings with the leaders of Turkey and South Korea seems like an attempt to downplay the significance of the Russia announcement. It will also allow Trump to avoid what would be awkward conversations about his staunch backing of Saudi Arabia and the uneasy state of nuclear diplomacy with North Korea. Trump has also made a habit of skipping events and taking off early on previous foreign trips...." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Truth is, this is a very "low-energy," easily-distracted president* who has almost no interest in doing his job.
Maxime Schlee of Politico: French President "Emmanuel Macron told Argentine newspaper La Nacion that while the alliance between France and the U.S. is 'historic,' some of ... Donald Trump's recent decisions 'have been done to the detriment of his allies.'... Speaking from Buenos Aires, where he arrived Wednesday for the G20 summit, Macron warned against the risk of a 'tête-à-tête between China and the United States and a trade war that is destructive for everyone.'” (Also linked yesterday.)
"To Get Back at G.M., Trump Threatens to Punish Any American Who Buys an Electric Car." Bess Levin of Vanity Fair: "... the move [GM made to close five North American plants & lay off 15 percent of its salaried work force] was a logical decision that you might expect someone like Donald Trump, a self-described businessman who claims to know 'more about' money, taxes, trading, banking, and the economy than anyone, to understand. But, of course, Trump is only a businessman in so much as he played one on TV -- his real-life accomplishments are more along the lines of bankrupting a casino and receiving a lifetime allowance from his father, who had to bail him out on numerous occasions. Which is why ... Trump told a reporter that G.M. 'better damn well open a new plant there very quickly,' that the company is 'playing around with the wrong person,' and that [GM CEO Mary] Barra will have 'a problem' if she doesn't immediately open a new facility. And then on Tuesday, still foaming at the mouth, he came out with this: ['We are now looking at cutting all @GM subsidies, including for electric cars.']... Subsidies for G.M.-specific electric vehicles do not exist. Rather, there are industry-wide federal tax credits of up to $7,500 available for purchasers of U.S. electric cars.... In other words, getting rid of the subsidy in its current form would hurt both American consumers and other auto manufacturers."
** "All the Best People", Ctd. Julie Brown of The Miami Herald has a long investigative piece on how Trump's current Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta covered up the sex crimes of Jeffrey Epstein and all his pervert friends: "The eccentric hedge fund manager [Epstein], whose friends included former President Bill Clinton, Donald Trump and Prince Andrew, was also suspected of trafficking minor girls, often from overseas, for sex parties at his other homes in Manhattan, New Mexico and the Caribbean, FBI and court records show. Facing a 53-page federal indictment, Epstein could have ended up in federal prison for the rest of his life..., [but] a deal was struck -- an extraordinary plea agreement that would conceal the full extent of Epstein's crimes and the number of people involved. Not only would Epstein serve just 13 months in the county jail, but the deal -- called a non-prosecution agreement -- essentially shut down an ongoing FBI probe into whether there were more victims and other powerful people who took part in Epstein's sex crimes.... This is the story of how Epstein ... was able to manipulate the criminal justice system, and how his accusers, still traumatized by their pasts, believe they were betrayed by the very prosecutors who pledged to protect them." --s (Also linked yesterday.)
Ha! Lone Black Senator Trips up Party of Racists. Catie Edmondson of the New York Times: "Tim Scott of South Carolina, the lone black Republican senator, said on Thursday that he would oppose the judicial nomination of Thomas A. Farr, a lawyer who defended a North Carolina voter identification law and a partisan gerrymander that a federal court said was drafted to suppress black votes 'with surgical precision.' Mr. Scott will join Senator Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona, who has vowed to oppose every White House nominee unless the Senate votes on legislation to protect the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III. With Democrats united against Mr. Farr, his nomination to a United States District Court appears doomed. Mr. Scott's decision marks the second time he has brought down a White House judicial nominee who was seen as insensitive or hostile to African-Americans. He had previously helped to sink the nomination of Ryan W. Bounds over his writings in college, which upbraided 'race-focused groups' on campus and 'race-think.' The Republican Party, Mr. Scott told reporters, is 'not doing a very good job of avoiding the obvious potholes on race in America.'" ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: To prove Scott's assessment, "His fellow Senate Republicans, meanwhile, had shrugged off criticisms against Mr. Farr, with Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah and a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, calling them 'utterly false character assassination nonsense.'"
Mark Stern of Slate: "Welcome to the topsy-turvy world of civil asset forfeiture, also known as legalized theft. Every year, the federal and state governments obtain billions of dollars thanks to the work of prosecutors who expropriate property with some tenuous connection to a crime. Most states use the money to fund law enforcement, called policing for profit. Indiana also lets private attorneys file forfeiture claims against defendants, earning contingency fees and a share of the profit. That's what happened to [Tyson] Timbs -- so he sued, insisting that extreme forfeiture violates the Constitution. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court signaled that it agreed, with an unusual coalition of justices assailing the practice. A decision for Timbs could curb law enforcement abuses across the country, limiting one of the most scandalous components of our criminal justice system." Read on; the Constitutional arguments are interesting. (Also linked yesterday.)
Feliciz Sonmez of the Washington Post: "The head of a U.S. government agency has apologized to George Soros and his Open Society Foundations for the airing of a program that espoused conspiracy theories about Soros and called him a 'multimillionaire Jew.' In letters sent earlier this month, John F. Lansing, chief executive and director of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, voiced his personal apologies to Soros and OSF president Patrick Gaspard for the program, which he said had 'made several false and negative assertions' about the billionaire philanthropist and had furthered 'age-old tropes against the Jewish community.'... The 15-minute, Spanish-language segment was aired in May by Radio and Television Martí, which is overseen by the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) and its Office of Cuba Broadcasting. The Miami-based network broadcasts news and other programs promoting U.S. interests to audiences in Cuba. The program, which has since been taken offline, called Soros a 'nonpracticing Jew of flexible morals,' claimed that he was involved in 'clandestine operations that led to the dismantling of the Soviet Union' and described him as 'the architect of the financial collapse of 2008.'" There's more to the story. ...
... Capitalism Is Cutthroat. Nicholas Confessore & Matthew Rosenberg of the New York Times: "Sheryl Sandberg asked Facebook's communications staff to research George Soros's financial interests in the wake of his high-profile attacks on tech companies, according to three people with knowledge of her request, indicating that Facebook's second in command was directly involved in the social network's response to the liberal billionaire.... Ms. Sandberg ... requested an examination into why Mr. Soros had criticized the tech companies and whether he stood to gain financially from the attacks. Facebook later commissioned a campaign-style opposition research effort by Definers Public Affairs, a Republican-linked firm, which gathered and circulated to reporters public information about Mr. Soros's funding of American advocacy groups critical of Facebook. Those efforts, revealed this month in a New York Times investigation, set off a public relations debacle for Ms. Sandberg and for Facebook, which was accused of trafficking in anti-Semitic attacks against the billionaire. Facebook quickly fired Definers.... The revelation [that Sandberg asked for oppo research on Soros] complicates Ms. Sandberg's shifting explanations of her role in Facebook's decisions to hire Definers and go on the offensive against the social network's growing legion of critics." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: I was getting ready to defend Sandberg on this. After all, if someone attacked you or your business, wouldn't you try to find out why? Wouldn't you try to find out if the person had a corrupt interest in attacking you? But then I read Soros' remarks about Facebook & Google -- the remarks that inspired Sandberg's request to investigate him. A transcript is here. Instead of going after Soros, Sandberg should have taken to heart his concerns. Sandberg responded to Soros' warnings about the dangers her company posed to the free market of ideas by commanding oppo research against him rather than by working with him to address the concerns he raised. This is not responsible stewardship of a monopoly; it's a creepy reaction to reasoned criticism.
#MeToo. James Stewart, et al., of the New York Times: "A trove of text messages details a plan by [Les] Moonves and a faded Hollywood manager [Marv Dauer] to bury a sexual assault allegation. Instead, the scheme helped sink the CBS chief, and may cost him $120 million." This is a long but easy read and a window into Moonves' seamy, creepy machinations. Don't think the story is a unique aberration; as Frank Rich writes in the post linked above, "... you will be sickened all over again by the quantity of sexual assault that not only took place in the highest echelons of American society but that was then successfully covered up by corporations, lawyers, and supposed law-enforcement authorities."
Way Beyond the Beltway
Luke Harding of the Guardian: "Police in Germany have raided the offices of Deutsche Bank in connection with the Panama Papers revelations and as part of an investigation into alleged money laundering. About 170 police officers, prosecutors and tax inspectors searched six Deutsche Bank officers in and around Frankfurt, the public prosecutor's office said." --s (Also linked yesterday.)
News Lede
NBC News: "A 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit Alaska on Friday, the United States Geological Survey said, prompting authorities to declare a tsunami warning, which was later canceled. The quake hit about eight miles north of Anchorage. Videos posted to social media showed students taking shelter under desks and grocery store items knocked off shelves. Gov. Bill Walker said he issued a major declaration of disaster after the "major earthquake" and is in communication with the White House. 'There is major infrastructure damage across Anchorage,' according to a statement from the Anchorage Police Department. 'Many homes and buildings are damaged. Many roads and bridges are closed. Stay off the roads if you don't need to drive. Seek a safe shelter. Check on your surroundings and loved ones.'"
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Reader Comments (13)
I think Dr. Maddow has it wrong. DiJiT didn't want to swap the U.S. for an apartment for Putin. DiJiT just wanted Putin's "blat" (Russki for "pull") to grease the way for his big project in Moskva. And then he would be Putin's friend, too. More opportunities for grift.
DiJiT was willing to help smear HRC with the wiki and other stuff, because that's what he does. He probably figured it would also endear him to Putin. No downside.
But DiJiT never expected to be president. Winning screwed up all of his plans and he has been winging it ever since. So he would never have wanted Putin to hand him the job ... he didn't really want it. The job comes with a nice plane, but the rest of it is bupkus.
Current headline on NYTimes.com:
How a Trump Lawyer, a Felon and a Russian General Chased a Moscow Deal
To quote someone who has been in the news recently, that's "Weak!"
The real headline ought to be:
KOMPROMAT!
I think it would be delicious if trump were to learn he is no longer president a la Comey: While away from Washington, in a TV announcement. I also hope they make him swim back from Argentina.
Sounds to me that the was of Trumpico are starting to crumble. Time for the wrecking ball.
Damn auto correct, walls not was!
I wonder if Gorsuch and Kavanaugh are feeling the weight of the asterisks on their shoulders.
John Oliver has a Supreme Court with dogs representing the justices. At this point, I think it would be fair to represent Gorsuch and Kavanaugh with Russian bears.
Tamara Keith of NPR provides a nice timeline of the Trump-Russia-Collusion thing.
Unwashed,
I was wondering if the Was of Trumpico is where they make covfefe.
When Rep. Jim Hines (D-CT) told Rachel last night that given what just went down with Cohen the congressional hearings they held with many others is suspect of them not telling the truth and added that "they" were all consistent. Rachel jumped on that and asked did that mean they were "all lying?" Hines just smiled and said, "well, you certainly could come to that conclusion." And if true thems that lied could be hog tied and charged with perjury, I would think.
So with all this gob smacking news I run across this gem: CNN fires Marc Lamont Hill for saying Palestinians deserve equal rights. I am shocked and furious and cannot fathom what on earth CNN is thinking here. They are notorious for having the worst kind of kooks on those panel discussions and they kick off someone as fine as Hill?
But good news––REALY good news is that Tim Scott stepped up to the plate and voted NO to the appointment of Thomas Farr who veered so far to the right he had trouble holding on to his seat of racist ramblings.
Slept really well last night–-tick tock~~~~~~~~~
This morning I'm thinking the Pretender is is what a country gets when it works as hard as we have over the centuries to purify and refine our darker impulses and glorify the art of the sham.
Once the Republican Party came out from under Franklin Roosevelt's large shadow and cobbled together its coalition of evangelically-inspired white envy and resentment with powerful corporatists and the greedy monied elite, the Pretender or someone like him was inevitable.
The corruption was already visible during the Nixon years and even during the squeaky clean Carter years never went entirely away. Big Money took center stage with Reagan, and Clinton's relationship with Wall St. always emitted a dstinctly fetid odor. Bush II, who had already exhibited his own sleazy nature, chose a VP who who could never see any difference between his personal and the nation's interests. A war for oil (and sweet private contracts worth many millions handed to his former company and business associates), hundreds of thousands of deaths, and millions of people displaced were the awful results.
That was the Veep we know as Darth Vader, the man who finally killed and buried that oh-so-annoying "public" in "public service." Darth, though, didn't always wear his sleaze on his sleeve for all to see. He pretended he cared about the country that had made him very rich.
Now we know what it's like to have a dumb Darth, a Pretender who is nothing but self-serving pretense, and who can't even do that very well.
The Obstruction of Justice Family
I know there are plenty of people out there who are demanding that Fatty be impeached, toot sweet. I'm not one of them because of the half-pence. If he ever slimed his holy roller ass into the Oval Office, he'd immediately appoint James Dobson to the Supreme Court and declare all non-fundamentalist Christian Americans personae non gratae.
But in case anyone was wondering about impeachment, there's no question now that the Orange Monster has guaranteed himself a serious look-see.
Earlier this week, the little dictator dangled a pardon in front of Paul Manafort's beady eyes in hopes that he would keep his trap shut about all of Trump's dirty dealings.
Impeachable?
Yes. If he were not roasting in hell, you could ask Tricky Dick.
"Take the Watergate example. In that case, the offer of a pardon was dangled in front of defendants to assure their silence in a criminal proceeding. This act, as part of a cover-up, was widely considered to be an obstruction of justice.
Consider Article 9 of the Articles of Impeachment adopted by the House Judiciary Committee in 1974, which spelled out various 'high crimes and misdemeanors' of President Nixon, including the following: 'endeavoring to cause prospective defendants, and individuals duly tried and convicted, to expect favored treatment and consideration in return for their silence or false testimony, or rewarding individuals for their silence or false testimony.'"
That endeavoring to cause prospective (or actual) defendants to expect favorable treatment part has already happened, and it was one of the things that forced Nixon to resign, with certain impeachment hanging over his sweaty head. It's not even required that pardons be handed down, all that's needed for impeachment is that the promise of a pardon, with the intent of obstructing an investigation, be held out.
Obstruction of justice has become Fatty's middle name and is the motto emblazoned on the Trump family's purloined coat of arms (these fucking people would steal bread from a soup kitchen). That coat of arms, by the way, originally had "integritas" on the lower banner. It now says "Trump" which, by an amazing coincidence, is the exact antonym of integrity.
Wonder if they'll insist it be sewn onto their jump suits?
PD,
A friend recently sent me this excellent image. Thought you might like it.
That big ol' schadenfreude express is coming fast. Get ready, bitches.
Marie,
That Conan clip is hysterical. I'm going to write Mueller and see if he can make it part of Trump's plea agreement that he do this dance on the steps of the Supreme Court while Gorsuch and Kavanaugh play the accordion and beat on his head with spoons.
THEN, there must be the "brother on brother ass play" as Conan puts it, featuring Uday and Qusay, wearing lederhosen and little Bavarian hats and slapping each other in the ass.
I'd knock ten years off their sentences to see that. Well okay, not ten. How 'bout five days?
Let the schadenfreude begin!
@Ak: Love the sign––the mister had a big laugh over it and said I should send it on to our grandson (almost 16 and is already political) and I said, oh, no, I couldn't send him THAT–-the mister then said--"He'll love it!"
I did, and he did. Thanks.