joan1984 · 282283
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While lawyers generally operate behind the scenes and try to keep their public comments limited and calculated, Trump's lawyers have routinely done things outside the norm. They've gotten into spats with reporters and trolls, talked about internal deliberations and their odds of success and, most recently, discussed the Russia investigation within earshot of a New York Times reporter.That last one is the most recent development in the increasingly strange saga of Trump's legal team. The New York Times reported Sunday that they had overheard a conversation between Trump lawyers Ty Cobb and John Dowd last week at Washington's popular BLT Steak restaurant, which is both near the White House and very close to the Times's Washington bureau. Oops.
And understandably so. Whatever Cobb and Dowd were discussing, the fact that they were doing it in public would seem to be a pretty serious breach not just of good sense, but possibly of attorney-client privilege. Imagine if this conversation wound up being consequential in the scheme of the Russia investigation. The fact that it even happened — New York Times reporter or no New York Times reporter — is astounding.
A quick recap:Cobb asked a Business Insider reporter if she was “on drugs.”He later called the same reporter “insane” and mused about using a drone on her while unwittingly emailing with a prankster posing as a White House official.Cobb described himself and Kelly as the “adults in the room” at the White House in emails with a Washington restaurateur. “I walked away from $4 million annually to do this, had to sell my entire retirement account for major capital losses and lost a s‑‑‑load to try to protect the third pillar of democracy,” Cobb told Jeff Jetton.When he took the job, Cobb told Law.com that he had “rocks in my head and steel balls.” He added that he took the job because it was “an impossible task with a deadline.” (Side note: So defending Trump from the Russia investigation is an “impossible task,” you say?)Now-former Trump lawyer Marc Kasowitz threatened a random stranger in an email exchange, telling her, “Watch your back, b‑‑‑‑.”Dowd rather strangely confirmed to The Post last week that the legal team had discussed whether Jared Kushner should exit the White House.Jay Sekulow denied twice that Trump was involved in Donald Trump Jr.'s initial response to that Russia meeting, only to be directly contradicted by the White House itself.Trump's colorful longtime personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, responded to his contradictory denials about being involved with Russians with plenty of bluster. “I feel great,” he told HuffPost. “Which picture did The Wall Street Journal use of me? Was it good?” Cohen added: “I am in many respects just like the president. Nothing seems to rattle me, no matter how bad the hate.”Cohen regularly engages with critics and mixes it up on social media. Asked by Vanity Fair what that says, he responded: “It means I’m relevant.”
WASHINGTON — Trump administration officials, under pressure from the White House to provide a rationale for reducing the number of refugees allowed into the United States next year, rejected a study by the Department of Health and Human Services that found that refugees brought in $63 billion more in government revenues over the past decade than they cost.
The internal study, which was completed in late July but never publicly released, found that refugees “contributed an estimated $269.1 billion in revenues to all levels of government” between 2005 and 2014 through the payment of federal, state and local taxes. “Overall, this report estimated that the net fiscal impact of refugees was positive over the 10-year period, at $63 billion.”
The list of categories from Mueller reads like a greatest hits of the Trump team's missteps. Even if you believe many of their actions were in the service of covering something up — or some other purpose — several things the White House has done to draw Mueller's attention have no logical explanation, other than sloppiness.Among the things Mueller is looking into that Leonnig and Helderman listed:The January FBI interview of then-National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who assumed that post despite his lobbying work being under Justice Department investigation and despite having discussed sanctions with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.Meetings between Trump and then-FBI Director James B. Comey, at which Comey says Trump pressured him to pledge loyalty.Then-White House press secretary Sean Spicer's explanation of Comey's firing. (Trump would thoroughly contradict Spicer's statements just two days later.)The Oval Office meeting with Kislyak and another top Russian official in which Trump said firing Comey had taken “great pressure” off him.The White House's responses to the publication of Donald Trump Jr.'s June 2016 meeting with a Russian lawyer, which shifted several times and was later revealed, contrary to denials from Trump attorney Jay Sekulow, to have included the president crafting his son's response.
The trouble Paul Manafort is in is still coming into focus. The latest development: emails he sent to a Ukraine-based employee of his consulting business talking about setting up a briefing with a Russian oligarch close to Vladimir Putin.The Washington Post's Tom Hamburger, Rosalind S. Helderman, Carol D. Leonnig and Adam Entous just broke that big story, and it comes on the heels of a New York Times report this week that investigators have told Manafort they plan to indict him — apparently in hopes of getting him to flip on President Trump.For me, though, the most intriguing email in The Post's report is this one:In one April exchange days after Trump named Manafort as a campaign strategist, Manafort referred to his positive press and growing reputation and asked, “How do we use to get whole?”Manafort spokesman Jason Maloni said Wednesday that the email exchanges reflected an “innocuous” effort to collect past debts.“It’s no secret Mr. Manafort was owed money by past clients,” Maloni said.We can argue over what's innocuous and what's not, but that seems to be an acknowledgment from his own spokesman that Manafort was discussing how he could leverage his status as a leading strategist on an American presidential campaign to chase down debts he was owed — i.e. to enrich himself financially.The Post's team writes that this is, in fact, the angle investigators are taking -- suspecting that this email reflects a desire by Manafort to profit from his position. In his emails to his Kiev-based employee, Konstantin Kilimnik, Manafort repeatedly brings up the money he thinks he is owed by clients he had worked for in Eastern Europe. The questions from there are what Manafort might have done to get that money and whether it was legal.The other part of The Post's report — Manafort's offer of a briefing with Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska — is perhaps a little bit easier to explain away; after all, the 2008 GOP presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), met with Deripaska (albeit controversially) at an economic conference in Switzerland. That meeting was organized by top McCain aide Rick Davis, who was one of Manafort's business partners. (Deripaska was described on U.S. diplomatic cables from 2006 as “among the 2-3 oligarchs [Vladimir] Putin turns to on a regular basis.”)But the question with Manafort, at this point, seems to be less about whether he might have facilitated some kind of collusion with Russia and more about whether special counsel Robert S. Mueller III has enough evidence to pin charges on him, thereby forcing Manafort to confront a decision about whether he wants to cut a deal. We don't know a ton about exactly what the government's case against Manafort is built on, but, according to the Times, investigators are confident enough to flat-out threaten Manafort with an indictment. Their decision to raid his Alexandria home with a no-knock warrant was also seen as evidence of how serious the Manafort investigation had grown. Pursuing that type of warrant means you believe the subject might destroy evidence.This is now about leverage, and all indications are that this leverage is increasing.
Trump praises health care of Nambia, a nonexistent African country(CNN)President Donald Trump lavished praise on the health care system of Nambia during a speech at the United Nations. But there's one little problem -- there's no such country."In Guinea and Nigeria, you fought a horrifying Ebola outbreak," Trump told African leaders gathered Wednesday. "Nambia's health system is increasingly self-sufficient."Trump mentioned Nambia twice during the session attended by leaders of several nations, including Ghana, Namibia and Uganda. The gaffe lit up social media, with many speculating whether he meant Namibia, Zambia or Gambia, all of which have names that sound similar...
White billionaires all look alike. I can never tell them apart.
Long live President Dennis Trump..!Trump praises health care of Nambia, a nonexistent African country
Price traveled by private plane at least 24 times#Resist