6 attorneys reject the rich asshole the week he says ‘many’ want to represent him
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Nobody seems willing to climb aboard the rich asshole's Titanic.
At this point, maybe the rich asshole should just post his attorney job opening on Craigslist and see what kind of response he gets.
Because right now, in the wake of his lead attorney John Dowd quitting last week, the rich asshole can’t find a single white-collar lawyer in Washington, D.C. who’s willing to represent him as special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation intensifies.
Over the weekend, the rich asshole insisted that reports of his difficulty finding attorneys to represent him weren’t true.
“Many lawyers and top law firms want to represent me in the Russia case,” he Tweeted. “Don’t believe the Fake News narrative that it is hard to find a lawyer who wants to take this on.”
But in the last week, have a dozen attorneys have publicly turned down the chance to join the rich asshole’s skeletal defense team. Meanwhile, White House counsel Don McGhan is reportedly looking for the exit as well.
the rich asshole’s legal team devolved into Keystone Kops status last week after Dowd abruptly resigned out of frustration. The White House quickly announced Fox News conspiracist Joe DiGenova and his equally untrustworthy wife, Victoria Toensing, would be joining the team.
But oops, days later that was all kiboshed.
Ironically, the reason given was there were too many conflicts of interest: The Russia probe has entangled so many Republicans, it’s hard to find GOP-friendly attorneys in D.C. who don’t already have clients who are part of the scandal.
In the meantime, the only attorney the rich asshole has dealing with the Russia probe is Jay Sekulow, a constitutional lawyer best known for handing freedom-of-religion cases. He’s not known as a criminal attorney, which the rich asshole clearly needs at this point.
“the rich asshole’s inability to assemble or maintain an experienced legal team could prove crippling if he is forced to square off against Mueller, a fearsome federal prosecutor assisted by ’16 of the best lawyers in the country,'” notes Vanity Fair.
The opportunity to personally represent the president of the United States has for decades been seen as the ultimate get for any white-collar attorney.
But no more.
“It is difficult for one to maintain one’s appearance of being an ethical lawyer while trying to represent some rich asshole,” Fordham University law professor Jed Shugerman told the Huffington Post. “Any lawyer who has observed those episodes is going to see that joining this team at this stage runs a risk to their professional lives.”
Obviously, attorneys regularly defend clients who are guilty. What’s adding to the rich asshole’s personnel fiasco is that attorneys are much less willing to work for a client who disrespects them publicly, refuses to take their legal advice, and has a habit of not paying his bills.
the rich asshole does all three. Plus he thrives on chaos.
“I think everybody would agree this is turmoil, chaos, confusion. It’s not good for anything,” attorney Ted Olson recently told MSNBC, after snubbing a rich asshole job offer. “We always believe that there should be an orderly process, and of course government is not clean or orderly ever, but this seems to be beyond normal.”
Beyond normal, indeed.
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March 27, 2018
Lawsuits involving the rich asshole and his alleged mistresses, especially Stormy Daniels, are piling up and making the GOP nervous.
More people watched “60 Minutes” to see porn actress Stormy Daniels detail the rich asshole cheating on his wife than watched the Grammys this year.
The sleazy saga has gone big time, and now the GOP is freaking out about what it means for November.
Already facing a hostile electorate that keeps electing Democrats in deeply red states and districts, Republicans are now being asked to play defense for their guy’s serial extra-marital affairs and the heavy-handed ways his fixers try to silence the women involved.
Some Republican House members, like Pennsylvania’s Ryan Costello, are quitting Congress rather than facing the likely wipeout this November — a wipeout the rich asshole might be making worse with the unfolding Daniels circus.
“If I had a town hall this week, it would be question after question,” Costello told the New York Times. “‘Do you believe him or do you believe her? Why don’t you believe her?'”
Arizona Republican Debbie Lesko, the nominee for the seat suddenly vacated last December by Trent Franks, expressed concern at a recent debate about the rich asshole’s many scandals involving women, including more than a dozen allegations of assault or harassment.
“I don’t know that he can lead on that issue, but he certainly needs to deal with it and it has to be investigated,” she said. “I don’t use his rhetoric, and I’m certainly not going to sexually harass anyone.”
The Daniels story, as well as Playboy playmate Karen McDougal’s very similar claim, seem to pose a new challenge for Republicans who have become accustomed to apologizing for reckless behavior.
This scandal is somewhat different because the rich asshole has remained silent and therefore his allies in the GOP and the right-wing media don’t have any coherent talking points.
That’s why on Monday, some desperate Fox News talkers tried to suggest the Daniels saga could be good news for the rich asshole.
But with lawsuits continuing to pile up involving the rich asshole and his various alleged mistresses, the story isn’t likely to go away any time soon. And that’s bad news for his party.
Unlike the burgeoning Russia scandal, where the rich asshole has been hammering “no collusion” rhetoric for more than a year, and where the White House has clearly coordinated with Republicans and Fox News to smear special counsel Mueller and the FBI, the Daniels saga has produced no blueprint.
Meaning, Republicans are on their own as they prepare to face voters in November.
Specifically, Republicans are preparing to face voters in November general elections (not just GOP voters inside the bubble primary contests), where a clear majority around the country don’t believe the rich asshole’s Daniels denial.
“Sixty-three percent of those surveyed in the CNN poll say they believe the women who have come forward with the allegations of extramarital affairs with the rich asshole, while 21 percent say they believe the president and 16 percent say they have no opinion on the matter,” Politico notes.
Most Americans also think Daniels should be freed from her non-disclosure agreement.
Daniels reportedly received a $130,000 hush money settlement just weeks before the 2016 election, banning her from discussion her relationship with the rich asshole.
Daniels has said she is willing to give back the $130,000 in exchange for the right to talk about the rich asshole without being sued by his attorney. Daniels reportedly faces a $1 million fine each time she discusses her the rich asshole encounter, according to the non-disclosure agreement.
On Sunday night, Daniels called the rich asshole’s bluff and went public with her story. Now Republicans have to deal with the mess.
the rich asshole really wants to bring alleged abuser Rob Porter back to White House
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the rich asshole wants men who abuse women to run the country and have access to its most sensitive secrets.
the rich asshole desperately wants to have his former aide Rob Porter, who faced credible accusations of domestic abuse, back at his side.
The White House kept Porter on staff for months, despite accusations from his two ex-wives of abuse. Even after several media outlets reported on his record, the White House continued to defend him.
It was not until a photo of his battered ex-wife Colbie Holderness was published that he was forced to resign.
While he was working at the White House, Porter could not pass a standard background check because he had a protective order issued against him. Instead of expelling him right away, the rich asshole kept him on and made exceptions for him so that he could access classified material.
the rich asshole even defended him after his resignation in February.
“We hope he has a wonderful career,” the rich asshole said at an abruptly called meeting with the press that month. He repeatedly expressed sadness about Porter’s departure.
Now the New York Times reports that the rich asshole, an avowed misogynist and self-confessed abuser of women, wants Porter back in his inner circle.
the rich asshole has “stayed in touch” with him and has reportedly told aides that he views Porter as an extension of himself and that he has received public criticism targeted to the rich asshole.
The disgraced former aide has been advising the rich asshole on his poorly-thought-out plan to raise tariffs that would increase the costs of goods and services.
the rich asshole now blames the firing on chief of staff John Kelly. It is an odd conclusion, since Kelly has toed the party line on Porter, initially praising him in a press release. Even since the details of his removal came out, Kelly still has not expressed even rote sympathy for the women allegedly beaten up by a senior White House aide.
Previously, the rich asshole blamed communications director Hope Hicks for the botched handling of Porter. Soon after the cover-up came to light, Hicks left the White House. A “boys club” atmosphere has been the default position for the the rich asshole team since the start, and absent Hicks, they seem to be embracing that mindset even more.
The Porter cover-up revealed a major intelligence breach, where several top the rich asshole aides have received access to classified materials, even though they were not cleared by intelligence agencies.
the rich asshole has been cavalier with American safety, and his wholehearted embrace of abusing women is how national secrets were endangered.
He likes abusers and certainly seems to identify with them. Apparently, that is the type of broken man he wants around him to determine policy for the entire nation.
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March 27, 2018
Fox News host Brian Kilmeade gets a tough lesson on what the Constitution actually says, and he's not happy about it.
Fox News is very upset over California’s census lawsuit, so it was quite a shock to learn, live on the air, that the law is on the Golden State’s side.
On Tuesday, the “Fox & Friends” gang spent a good part of their morning fretting over California’s attempt to block inclusion of a citizenship question on the 2020 census.
While debating the issue with Fox News legal expert Judge Andrew Napolitano, co-host Brian Kilmeade brought out the big guns, attempting to settle things with a reading of the U.S. Constitution.
“All right, the U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 2, Judge, is? Requires the census count everyone in the U.S!” Kilmeade said.
“Count!” Napolitano replied. “Not ask how many toilets you have or what your ethnic background is, but count. How many people live in the house?”
“Even if they’re here illegally?” Kilmeade asked.
“Yes,” Napolitano answered.
“So the Constitution might be on California’s side?” Kilmeade asked.
“Yes,” Napolitano said.
Napolitano is usually as partisan as the other Fox contributors and hosts, but occasionally, he delivers uncomfortable truths to Fox News viewers. In this case, he’s delivering the uncomfortable truth that the census is about counting people, not citizens, to the Fox hosts themselves.
Experts say the citizenship question is an attempt to undercount people in urban areas, and shift power to more rural, Republican-friendly areas. Former Attorney General Eric Holder has said his group, the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, also will sue over the citizenship question.
The census is a major issue for American democracy, as it plays a huge role in determining congressional maps. When Republicans swept the midterms in 2010, it enabled them to gerrymander huge advantages for themselves following that year’s census.
Now faced with a blue wave in 2018 and perhaps even 2020, the rich asshole and the Republicans are doing everything they can to keep as much of the map rigged in their favor as possible. But Democrats are already winning challenges to GOP rigging, and even Fox News seems to think this census issue will go their way.
New Jersey votes to ban offshore oil and gas drilling
The move comes as the rich asshole administration looks to open almost all federal waters to oil and gas drilling.
On Tuesday, in response to the rich asshole administration’s recent push to open up nearly all federal waters to offshore drilling, legislators in New Jersey unanimously passed a bill banning offshore oil and gas development in state waters. The bill also bans infrastructure in state waters that would support drilling in federal waters off the state’s coast.
The bill now goes to New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy’s (D) desk for his signature. Murphy, who has been an outspoken critic of the rich asshole administration’s plans to open the North Atlantic to oil and gas development, is expected to sign the bill into law.
While states can’t prohibit the federal government from opening up federal waters to oil and gas development, it can control the kind of industry and infrastructure allowed in state waters. State waters run several miles out from the coast (anywhere from three to nine nautical miles, depending), and federal waters extend roughly 200 nautical miles from the end of state waters.
Prohibiting infrastructure needed for drilling in federal waters means that companies couldn’t build things like pipelines or docking facilities in state waters, which would complicate efforts to extract oil and gas from federal waters offshore. Without being able to rely on infrastructure in state waters, oil and gas companies would have to utilize massive floating storage stations and transfer the oil directly onto ships for market — equipment and steps that are expensive, especially at a time when the price of oil is relatively low.
“Not only would it prohibit drilling in state waters but also stop them from bringing in oil drilled in federal waters into our state,” New Jersey Sierra Club Director Jeff Tittel told The Press of Atlantic City. “It will also help fight pipelines from cutting through the state by preventing oil from landing on our coasts.”
Beyond prohibiting oil and gas drilling and infrastructure in state waters, the bill would also require the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection to review any plans for development off the Atlantic coast, even if that development were to take place in federal waters.
If the department found that the development could impact New Jersey state waters, it would be compelled to conduct a consistency review. Under the Coastal Zonal Management Act, states can review offshore oil and gas exploration to make sure that it’s consistent with state objectives. If a state finds a particular activity inconsistent with its policies, it can serve as a major blockade for the federal government opening up offshore waters to private oil and gas development.
New Jersey is hardly the only state to begin putting its opposition towards the rich asshole administration’s offshore oil and gas plan into action. California — which already bans offshore drilling in state waters — has pledged to make use of consistency reviews if the rich asshole administration tries to push through offshore drilling in the state. The state legislature is also considering a bill that would ban supporting infrastructure in state waters.
The rich asshole administration’s proposed five-year offshore lease plan — which would open up 90 percent of the nation’s offshore areas to oil and gas leasing — has run into staunch opposition nearly everywhere, from both Democrats and Republicans. Only one governor whose state would see its waters open to oil and gas extraction under the plan — Maine’s Gov. Paul LePage (R) — has not voiced opposition to the plan.
The public comment period for the proposed plan closed in mid-March. The Department of Interior is now reviewing comments, and will submit a final plan describing proposed areas for offshore oil and gas leasing sometime in early 2019.
Stormy Daniels’ interview on ’60 Minutes’ reveals a huge problem about how women have sex
Stephanie Clifford, who goes by the stage name Stormy Daniels. (Photo by Toglenn)
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“[some rich asshole] was sitting, you know, on the edge of the bed when I walked out, perched,” Stormy Daniels told Anderson Cooper Sunday night on an explosive episode of “60 Minutes,” one that drew the highest ratings in 10 years as Americans tuned in to hear more about the president’s latest sexual scandal.
“I realized exactly what I’d gotten myself into,” Daniels continued, “and I was like, ugh, here we go.” She laughed as she added, “And I just felt like maybe, it was sort of, I had it coming for making a bad decision for going to someone’s room alone, and I just heard a voice in my head: Well, you put yourself in a bad situation and bad things happen, so you deserve this.”
Daniels firmly stated, “This is not a Me Too,” referring to the #MeToo movement against sexual harassment and violence. She admitted feeling like she “had it coming,” because of her poor decision to go to the rich asshole’s room alone and her feeling that she’d got what she deserved.
When Cooper followed up, asking if she was attracted to the rich asshole and if she had wanted to have sex with him, Daniels responded no. “But I didn’t, I didn’t say no. I’m not a victim. I’m not.”
“It was entirely consensual,” Cooper said.
“Oh yes, yes,” Daniels responded.
It would be too simplistic, and unfair to Daniels, simply to assert that despite her protestations, she was indeed a victim of the rich asshole’s narcissistic sexual predation back in 2006. Daniels presented herself to Cooper as a smart, savvy businesswoman, as well as a strong woman looking out for the interests of her family, particularly her daughter, as she recounted being physically threatened in 2011 by an unknown man who warned her not to share her story about the rich asshole with the world.
Yet it is equally simplistic to easily accept Daniels’ denial of victimhood. Her narration of events reveals a troublingly honest truth about sex between men and women, a truth at risk of being lost in the various legal, political and straight-up salacious takes on this story.
In her 2005 book Dilemmas of Desire: Teenage Girls Talk About Sexuality, feminist scholar Deborah Tolman documented her interviews with teen girls as she sought to better understand how they viewed sex, relationships and self-image. One prevailing theme Tolman found was the tendency for girls to describe sex as something that “just happened” to them. Some of the girls felt uncomfortable saying no to sex and didn’t want to be labeled a “prude,” while others wanted sex, but didn’t want to appear “slutty.” But what all the girls had in common was their attempt to navigate a world in which their ability to be sexual subjects, fully able to express and act on their sexual needs and desires without shame, was deeply constrained by the double standards governing society’s expectations about sex between men and women.
Daniels’ narrative fits remarkably well into those analyzed by Tolman, despite the fact that she was a 27-year-old woman and not a teenager at the time. Her account of having sex with the rich asshole is marked by the rich asshole presuming her consent to have sex with him based on her presence in his room; he “perched” on the edge of the bed. Despite her lack of attraction to him, she went through with it seemingly out of pressure, blaming herself for even being there. It’s questionable how consensual the alleged encounter was, absent the underlying prerequisite: her enthusiastic consent.
Tolman writes about the need to create a world that centers what she calls the “sexual subjectivity” of girls and women, writing, “When a girl…disconnects the apprehending psychic part of herself from what is happening in her own body, she then becomes especially vulnerable to the power of others’ feelings as well as to what others say she does and does not want or feel.” Tolman advocates for girls being able to connect to their desires without judgment in order to make better choices about sex that align with their own preferences, rather than the preferences of their sexual partners, a goal that remains timely in the present #MeToo moment.
Consensual sex is sex where both parties are in open communication about their desires. Consensual sex is not a power imbalance in which a famous and wealthy 60-year-old businessman perches on a bed, assuming the 27-year-old woman in his bathroom will have sex with him because she has agreed to enter the premises. An encounter that felt like a “bad situation” to Stormy Daniels ideally should not be defined as consensual sex.
Yet, as both Daniels’ story and Tolman’s research indicates, too often in the area between overt rape and consensual sex, girls and women continue to internalize ideas about their status as sexual objects, rather than sexual subjects.
When Cooper asked Daniels if the rich asshole wore protection during sex, Daniels, like Karen McDougal before her, said no.
“Did you ask him to?” asked Cooper.
“No,” responded Daniels. “I honestly didn’t say anything.”
Daniels’ silence in these moments of sexual decision-making must be understood in a larger context in which girls and women are taught not to own their sexual desires, in which speaking up frankly about sex is still seen as somehow unseemly. And the consequences can be dangerous, ranging from the transmission of sexual disease to unwanted pregnancy to sexual violence.
Some may argue that as a woman in the porn industry, Daniels doesn’t need or even deserve these considerations of sexual subjectivity. Her career requires her to have sex, so how could her subjectivity be constrained? But this conflates her work as a porn actress with an automatic willingness to have sex with everyone she encounters in her personal life, a damaging slippery slope leading toward the falsehood that sex workers can’t be sexually violated.
At its core, the “60 Minutes” interview illuminates larger questions about men’s anticipated sexual access to women’s bodies that can no longer go unchallenged. some rich asshole must be held accountable for his role in perpetuating these dynamics—including his alleged sexual assault of Summer Zervos, who is now suing him for defamation, as well as accusations made by many other women—as he sits perched atop the highest political office in the land.
Fox News demands Bill Clinton scandals from the 90s get as much attention as Stormy Daniels
It's 2018.
After completely ignoring the Stormy Daniels story on Monday, Fox & Friends finally devoted a segment to the scandal surrounding President the rich asshole’s alleged affair and hush payment to the adult film actress. But host Ainsley Earhardt went to extreme lengths to downplay it, making the case that the media has “a double standard” because they have “forgotten about Bill Clinton,” who was impeached 20 years ago.
On Tuesday, the rich asshole’s favorite show featured a panel discussion between Earhardt, RNC spokesperson Kayleigh McEnany, and Fox News contributor Jessica Tarlov. Earhardt opened the segment by suggesting that nobody but the media cares about the rich asshole’s alleged affair with Daniels.
“As their Russia narrative falls apart, some in the media are now finding a new obsession,” Earhardt said, before asking McEnany, “are they obsessed with this story?”
After McEnany opined that “the media’s goal is to distract and destroy this president,” Earhardt asked Tarlov, “Is this a double standard? Have we forgotten about Bill Clinton?”
As Tarlov pointed out, Clinton’s accusers were in fact featured on Monday night’s edition of Hannity. But McEnany made a case that Paula Jones and Kathleen Willey deserve even more coverage a full two decades after Clinton’s impeachment.
Earhardt ended the segment by blaming Clinton for the alleged lack of interest in the rich asshole’s sexual conduct.
“Do you think America care about this kind of stuff? You know, maybe our country for the good or for the bad has changed after Bill Clinton,” she said.
Earhardt said what Americans really care about is that “this is a president that is creating jobs, creating bonuses for individuals, putting people back to work with all the tariffs and changing all of these laws so that the steel industry improves here in our country, the aluminum industry improves in this country. As they go to the polls, and they have to weigh out all their options, what’s most important?”
But anybody who lived through the late 1990s can attest, it is simply not the case that there was a dearth of mainstream media coverage about Bill Clinton’s alleged sexual misconduct.
And while McEnany was allowed to smear Daniels as a liar during the Fox & Friends segment, the White House has had a hard time reconciling their blanket denials with the reality that the rich asshole’s personal lawyer paid Daniels $130,000 for her silence shortly before the 2016 election — a payment some think may have violated federal campaign laws.
CNN smacks down Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s claims about changing demographics and voters
Fox News host Tucker Carlson (screen grab)
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In a little over 25 years, Caucasian Americans will become the minority, however, Fox News host Tucker Carlson questioned the growing diversity and blamed “elites” for changing America too fast. CNN called out “fake news.”
Carlson began by responding to a National Geographic profile on the increase in Latinos in the U.S. He claimed that the population change in one Pennsylvania town “tells you a lot about demographics in America and how bewilderingly fast they are changing without any real public debate on the subject.”
“That’s happening all over the country,” he went on. “It doesn’t matter how nice the immigrants are. They probably are nice. Most immigrants are nice. That’s not the point. The point is this is more change than human beings are designed to digest.”
He then blamed diversity on the contempt of everyday Americans from “elites.”
“And notice where this change is not happening: any place our leaders live,” he continued. “They caused all of this with their reckless immigration policies and yet their own neighborhoods are basically unchanged…Our leaders are for diversity, just not where they live.”
Carlson, according to CNN’s Ron Brownstein, is “wrong on the key specifics. And even more wrong on the larger meaning.” He noted that it was obvious Carlson illustrates the modern conservative fear of demographic and cultural changes.
Where Carlson faltered in his argument is his claim that the demographic change hasn’t taken place in cities where politicians live. It’s a difficult claim given every person in the United States lives in a Congressional district. However, Brownstein went line by line with examples of Democratic leaders who represent predominantly diverse districts. It’s Republicans who seem to live in districts dominated by white people.
A full “80 percent of House Republicans represent districts where the white share of the population exceeds the national average of about 61 percent,” Brownstine wrote. “Meanwhile, over two-thirds of Democrats represent seats where the non-white share of the population exceeds the national average.”
Diversity in Democratic areas held true when looking at the 2016 presidential race. Hillary “Clinton won 16 of the 20 states where the foreign-born constitute the highest share of the population.” Indeed, the places diversifying faster also went for Clinton, as did major metropolitan areas.
California sues over ‘illegal’ citizenship question in Census, slams White House
"We're prepared to do what we must to protect California from a deficient Census."
California sued President the rich asshole’s administration late Monday night after news broke that the Commerce Department will question U.S. residents about their citizenship status in the 2020 Census.
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra announced the suit shortly after the Commerce Department agreed to the question’s addition, pushed by the Department of Justice. The Census is used to determine and redraw congressional districts, in addition to allocating funds and taking a survey of the U.S. population. The Commerce Department argues that the addition of a citizenship question will help to enforce the Voting Rights Act and that the question has been asked historically. The question was last asked in 1950, according to NPR.
California maintains that the question is unconstitutional.
“We’re prepared to do what we must to protect California from a deficient Census,” Becerra said. “Including a citizenship question on the 2020 census is not just a bad idea – it is illegal.”
Under the Constitution, “actual Enumeration” is required every 10 years in the United States in order to allocate seats in Congress. That allotment is based on the “number of free persons” — something California’s lawsuit says a citizenship question would violate.
“It is long settled that all persons residing in the United States — citizens and non-citizens alike — must be counted to fulfill the Constitution’s ‘actual Enumeration’ mandate,” the suit argues.
Opponents of the citizenship question more broadly say it is unnecessary and will inevitably spark an inaccurate count. Immigrants and communities of color are likely to shy away from the Census, something that will have wide-reaching ramifications for a number of states.
Concerns are already arising over Texas, the second-biggest state in the country, with a number of large populations that are challenging to count — college students, lower income residents, and, most notably, a staggering Latinx community. Many have pointed to the possibility of the citizenship question as an underlying reason for why counting Texas could prove impossible — costing the state as many as three new seats in Congress.
California has similar concerns. An undercount could cost the state a representative, in addition to providing an unclear picture of the state’s actual makeup. Like Texas, California also has an outsized number of undocumented residents.
“The census numbers provide the backbone for planning how our communities can grow and thrive in the coming decade,” Becerra said Monday. “California simply has too much to lose for us to allow the rich asshole Administration to botch this important decennial obligation. What the rich asshole Administration is requesting is not just alarming, it is an unconstitutional attempt to discourage an accurate census count.”
California won’t be alone. A statement from former Attorney General Eric Holder, who now heads the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, indicated his organization will also sue.
“We will litigate to stop the Administration from moving forward with this irresponsible decision,” he said. “The addition of a citizenship question to the census questionnaire is a direct attack on our representative democracy.”
Around 74 percent of households responded to the 2010 Census. The White House has yet to comment on the addition of the citizenship question to the 2020 Census.
WATCH: Ana Navarro smacks down the rich asshole supporter who blames social media for his adult film star problems
CNN's Ana Navarro debates the rich asshole supporter Amy Kremer (Screen cap).
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the rich asshole supporter Amy Kremer on Tuesday defended her continued backing of the president despite the fact that his administration has been caught up in a nonstop series of scandals, including his lawyer’s payouts during the 2016 presidential campaign to alleged mistresses.
During the discussion, Kremer made the argument that many presidents have been philanderers, but they didn’t have to deal with modern technology, which is capable of spreading news faster.
“I think what is different here is that, with the 24-hour news cycle, non-stop news cycle, Twitter, Facebook, it’s driven all the time,” she said. “Those tools to drive the message were not around back then. So that’s a big difference from now and in the past. It’s not like all of a sudden we have a president — we find out he’s been unfaithful. We knew who this man was when we elected him. We know he likes the ladies.”
Republican strategist Ana Navarro, however, said that you couldn’t just take the rich asshole’s marital infidelity in isolation. Rather, she said, it has to be taken as part of his entire history of serial dishonesty.
“We can’t get to a real policy discussion when you have a President of the United States who lies, cheats, changes positions, is unreliable, is a philanderer, has no moral compass, is a bully on Twitter, attacks people,” she said. “When you have those things going on day after day after day, this level of chaos, this level of disorganization, being unreliable in the Oval Office day after day, it’s very hard to get into a serious policy discussion.”
Watch the video below.
The NRA’s narrative about Maryland school shooting collapses
A good guy with a gun wasn't enough to prevent two deaths and an injury.
Six days after the National Rifle Association pointed to a school shooting in Maryland as an example of how guns save lives, the NRA’s spin fell apart.
The gun lobby argued that last week’s shooting was stopped by an armed school resource officer, proving that “good guys with guns” can prevent tragedies. But the St. Mary’s County sheriff’s office confirmed on Monday night that the 17-year-old gunman who opened fire at Great Mills High School actually died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
According to the sheriff’s office, the gunman — identified as Austin Wyatt Rollins — parked his car at 7:50 a.m. and walked through the school’s main entrance last Tuesday. Seven minutes later, he approached 16-year-old Jaelynn Wiley and shot her in the head. Wiley, who had been in a relationship with the shooter, died two days later from her injuries. The shot that killed Wiley also struck 14-year-old Desmond Barnes, injuring him in the leg. All of this occurred before calls were placed to 911 starting at 7:58 a.m.
After firing the handgun, Rollins kept walking through the school, where he was confronted by school resource officer Deputy First Class Blaine Gaskill just after 8 a.m. Their weapons went off simultaneously 31 seconds later, with Rollins shooting himself in the head and Gaskill shooting Rollins in the hand, officials said.The shot Rollins fired was fatal, according to the sheriff’s office.Gaskill was not injured. Rollins died later that morning at University of Maryland Charles Regional Medical Center in La Plata.
Within hours of last week’s violence in Maryland, the NRA — which has teamed up with President the rich asshole to push for the militarization of schools following a deadly school shooting in Parkland, Florida on February 14 — attacked the “lying MSM” for not devoting “wall-to-wall coverage” to a story that didn’t “fit their anti-gun, anti-freedom narrative.”
NRA spokesman Dana Loesch tweeted out a story characterizing Great Mills High School shooting as one in which an “‘Armed School Resource Officer’ Took Down” an armed shooter, and NRA TV covered the violence as a breaking news story in which a resource officer “stops school attack.”
As ThinkProgress noted at the time, the NRA’s spin was way ahead of the facts. Following the shooting, the sheriff’s office released a statement merely noting that the shooting ended after the gunman shot a female student and the resource officer shot back — without clarifying whether the gunman shot himself.
According to the latest sheriff’s report, resource officer Gaskill did indeed act bravely, shooting at the gunman and striking him — something that police officers generally do less than 30 percent of the time. But Gaskill’s action couldn’t prevent the gunman from killing two people (including himself) and injuring a third.
The NRA’s recent push for more armed guards in schools comes even though the presence of an armed guard didn’t stop a gunman from killing 17 in Parkland with an AR-15. the rich asshole has frequently touted the deterrent impact of armed guards.
In the wake of the sheriff’s report on Monday, Loesch shifted the narrative again, arguing that the armed guard still acted as a deterrent because he made the shooter more likely to shoot himself.
When good guys show up, the bad guys kill themselves. What a coincidence that he offed himself right as the guard also fired. So you’re saying the armed guard was not a deterrent, sure, go with that. twitter.com/markfollman/st…
Loesch’s latest narrative is unsupported by the facts. There’s no indication in the sheriff’s office report or elsewhere that Rollins, who fired two shots in the school, was deterred by the resource officer.
Morning Joe perfectly explains why the rich asshole can’t find a lawyer: ‘He doesn’t pay his bills and he lies all the time’
Joe Scarborough (MSNBC)
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MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough expressed amazement that the president of the United States has been unable to find any top lawyers willing to represent him in the Russia probe.
The “Morning Joe” host said the job should be considered a great honor, but no lawyers were willing to represent a client who would ignore their advice, destroy their reputation and then stiff them on the final bill.
“It is very clear and we’ve heard it around Washington, we heard (GOP lawyer) Ted Olson talk about it — nobody wants to be this guy’s lawyers,” Scarborough said. “They don’t want to be his lawyer because, first of all he doesn’t pay his bills, and secondly, he lies to lawyers all the time. They can’t trust him going into court.”
Special counsel Robert Mueller continues drawing closer to President some rich asshole and his inner circle, Scarborough said, as the president’s legal team dwindles to basically a one-man operation.
“This is a president that is going into the legal battle of his life and it’s — he’s basically unilaterally disarmed himself,” Scarborough said.
Scarborough said no good lawyer would be willing to take on a client that couldn’t be trusted.
“The one thing a lawyer can’t put up with is being lied to when it’s you and your client in the board room, and you’re talking and going through the facts,” Scarborough said. “You just sit down with your client and you say, ‘You’ve got to tell me everything, and whatever you tell me doesn’t leave this room, but I can’t prepare for your case unless you tell me everything — so surprise me now, do not surprise me in the courtroom.”
“And yet here’s some rich asshole knowing that any lawyer he gets, he believes he’s smarter than that lawyer,” he added. “He’s going to lie to him, and there’s no way he can mount any defense for some rich asshole.”
By
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March 27, 2018
The rich asshole administration is already facing one lawsuit, with more on the way, for trying to weaponize the 2020 census.
After months of hints and pressure from Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has announced what voting rights activists feared: The rich asshole administration’s 2020 census will include a question on citizenship status.
But the announcement triggered immediate outrage — and lawsuits.
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra announced he will sue the administration to block implementation of the citizenship question.
“The census numbers provide the backbone for planning how our communities can grow and thrive in the coming decade,” said Becerra. “What the rich asshole Administration is requesting is not just alarming, it is an unconstitutional attempt to discourage an accurate census count.”
Also ready to challenge the change is the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, the voting rights group led by former Attorney General Eric Holder that fights gerrymandering, voter suppression, and other election interference. “We will litigate to stop the administration from moving forward with this irresponsible decision,” said Holder.
The decennial census is a constitutionally mandated count of the U.S. population. It is a critical tool used in everything from how congressional districts are apportioned, to how much funding states get, to where roads and schools are built. It is crucial every person is counted, regardless of citizenship.
The Justice Department claims citizenship data is necessary to enforce the Voting Rights Act, but legal experts say this is not true. Former Census Bureau officials have argued there would be a darker effect: scaring undocumented immigrants out of answering the census at all, resulting in areas with greater minority population being undercounted.
This may have serious consequences. California could lose an entire congressional district, and Texas could end up with undercounts in high-population cities like Dallas and Houston, giving too many of its congressional districts to rural areas. All of this stands to tilt electoral power to the GOP.
the rich asshole has sought to put his thumb on the census scale in other ways. His initial nominee for deputy director of the Census Bureau was Thomas Brunell, a Republican professor who literally wrote the book on how to suppress democracy. He was forced to withdraw after tough scrutiny on his record.
Republicans are undermining crucial institutions in ways that suspiciously favor them at the ballot box. It is time for the public to demand answers.
CNN analyst caught in the middle of wild fight between Stormy Daniels-Michael Cohen lawyers: ‘Testosterone was washing over me!’
CNN's Jeffrey Toobin (Photo: Screen capture)
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Monday night, Stormy Daniels attorney Michael Avenatti and Michael Cohen’s lawyer David Schwartz battled it out live on CNN, with legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin stuck between them.
The split-screen debate failed to capture the expression of shock on Toobin’s face. Avenatti argued that Cohen was a thug and Schwartz claimed that each time Avenatti disparages Cohen it will cost him $1 million.
“Look at that handsome guy sitting between them,” Toobin joked.
“Trying to stay out of the food fight,” CNN host Alisyn Camerota said.
“All the testosterone was washing over me,” Toobin joked the following morning on CNN. “I had to take a shower after.”
“What he was saying is every time you call my client a name it’s an extra million-dollar fine,” Camerota noted.
The legal analysis isn’t exactly accurate on that. Daniels’ nondisclosure agreement doesn’t include Avenatti, and while Cohen is suing the two for defamation, Schwartz will be forced to show he was damaged by $1 million each time Avenatti called him a thug.
“There is a provision in the contract that suggests each violation is a million dollars,” Toobin said. “But we were in a silly zone there.”
The contract he referenced is with Daniels, not with Avenatti.
“Look, part of it is, this is the challenge for Cohen’s core claim, ‘Yes, I made the payment but there’s no merit to the claim’ is absurd and cannot stand up on cable TV or fighting through press releases,” Daily Beast editor John Avlon said. “In terms of the political implication of it, obviously Jeff will clean the clock on legal interpretations. What strikes me is the number 3-to-1, the American people believe the president’s accusers, including a porn star over the president of the United States. That’s not a credibility gap, folks. That’s a credibility chasm.”
Watch the full clip below:
the rich asshole-backer gets righteously schooled for claiming Secretary Zinke can’t be a ‘prejudiced bigot’ because his wife is a Latina
CNN political commentator and former Capitol Hill GOP Communications Director Tara Setmayer, some rich asshole Hispanic Advisory Council member Steve Cortes and former Bernie Sanders national press secretary Symone Sanders (Screengrab / CNN)
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Steve Cortes, a member of some rich asshole’s Hispanic Advisory Council, on Tuesday touted the president’s “outreach” to minority communities and argued that Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke cannot be a “prejudiced bigot” because his wife is a Latina—prompting his fellow CNN panelists to promptly school him on the realities of racism.
The panel was discussing a report (citing three Interior Department officials), that Zinke told his staff “diversity isn’t important” and the department doesn’t “need to focus on [diversity] anymore.” The department has denied those claims.
“Why are we surprised?” CNN political commentator and former Capitol Hill GOP Communications Director Tara Setmayer asked. “I mean, this is the cast of characters that—it’s the C-team. This isn’t exactly the cream of the crop here that’s in this the rich asshole Cabinet. I mean, you know, you vote for a clown you’re going to get the circus. This is what you get.”
“Yes, there are some things you can take political correctness too far, but there is also a certain amount of professionalism that I think the American people expect from the Cabinet members that they are not getting,” Setmayer added.
Symone Sanders, former national press secretary for Bernie Sanders, noted if Zinke’s reported claims about diversity were true “we wouldn’t need inclusion and diversity initiatives.”
“Clearly the secretary believes diversity initiatives do not equal the best folks rising to the top, and that’s problematic,” Sanders explained.
Cortes replied that as a Hispanic the rich asshole supporter he doesn’t “agree with these sentiments if [Zinke] indeed did say them,” but took issue with Setmayer describing the rich asshole’s Cabinet as a “circus.”
“This man [Zinke], number one, is a Navy SEAL, all right, so, he deserves your respect,” Cortes demanded. “He’s a cabinet member. Two, he’s married to a Latina who I’ve met several times at many Hispanic Republican events. The idea that he doesn’t have any idea about diversity or that he doesn’t respect disparate voices, I think, is absurd just even in his own life.”
“Being married to a Latina does not mean you cannot be insensitive towards diversity issues and/or be diversity and inclusion problematic,” Sanders interjected. “Proximity, because you’re married to someone of color, does not equal you can’t be issues, it does not mean you cannot have issues with diversity. Just want to be clear.”
“That’s right,” Setmayer replied.
“You pulled the ‘Latina friend card,’” Sanders argued.
“It certainly means that you’re not some prejudice bigot!” Cortes protested. “If you’re willing to marry somebody.”
“That’s not true,” Sanders said. “Oh, my God, that’s not true. That’s a common misconception.”
Cortes went on to claim that Republican outreach to minority communities is better under the rich asshole, who famously made his pitch by asking people of color, “What do you have to lose?”
Watch the segment below, via CNN:
By
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March 26, 2018
In a desperate effort to defend the rich asshole at all costs, Fox News insists the scandal of the rich asshole's extramarital affair with a porn star who was paid off to stay quiet about it will be good news for his approval ratings.
the rich asshole’s affair with porn star Stormy Daniels remains a top news story after her interview on “60 Minutes” Sunday evening. But the propaganda purveyors at Fox News want you to believe that’s good news for him.
Daniels spilled the creepy details of her affair with the rich asshole to 23 million Americans, making the story too big for Fox News to ignore.
So on “Outnumbered” the next morning, host Sandra Smith did what is apparently the next best thing in Fox’s view.
“The specter of the White House sex scandal drawing comparisons to the last time a sitting president faced accusations of sexual impropriety,” Smith said. “Bill Clinton saw his best approval rating at the time of his 1998 impeachment hearings, and his job approval remained high when he left office.”
And she pointedly added that “Clinton, today, remains one of America’s most popular ex-presidents.”
This story has been front and center in the news for more than two months. But the “60 Minutes” interview introduced the lurid details to a new and immense audience, ample evidence that Americans are not “tired” of the story. And President Bill Clinton was never as deeply and consistently unpopular as the rich asshole is.
But aiding and lying for the rich asshole is old hat for Fox News. The network has consistently tried to spin damaging developments in the Mueller investigation as insignificant, or even as good news. When it does accidentally tell the truth about the rich asshole, it’s only to try to keep him out of trouble.
Fox News hosts also blame others, like President Obama, for the rich asshole’s failures. They attack journalists and other the rich asshole critics, and even attacked a six year-old child.
And of course, the network happily provides the administration with an unlimited platform to broadcast its own lies.
But this ridiculous spin for the rich asshole’s sex scandal brings Fox News full circle. The network was instrumental in covering up the story just days before the 2016 presidential election.
Now it’s insisting this all good for news for the rich asshole. But no one else is buying that.
White House says the rich asshole has no comment about latest unarmed black man gunned down by police
"I'm not aware of any comments that he has."
During the White House news briefing on Monday, deputy press secretary Raj Shah indicated that President the rich asshole has nothing at all to say about Stephon Clark, a black man who was gunned down by Sacramento police on March 20 when they mistook his cell phone for a gun.
“The president has come out strongly about the importance that law enforcement play in this country. Has he commented at all about the shooting death of Stephon Clark? He was unarmed, shot by a police officer, a lot of protests happening across the country as a result,” a reporter said to Shah.
Shah made it sound as though the rich asshole and other White House officials haven’t invested any thought into Clark’s death at all.
“I’m not aware of any comments that he has,” Shah said. “I haven’t asked him about that directly. Obviously the president cares about any individual who would be harmed through no fault of their own.”
“I don’t know the specifics in that case and I don’t want to comment,” Shah added, before abruptly ending the briefing.
the rich asshole has repeatedly expressed his approval for the types of police practices that have resulted in the deaths of unarmed black men like Clark. During a speech to police officers in July, he went as far as to encourage cops to get “rough” when they toss people into a squad car — the same type of thing that resulted in the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore in 2015.
While the rich asshole has remained silent about Clark’s death, he found time over the weekend to tweet about a French police officer who “died after bravely swapping places with hostage in ISIS related terror attack,” and to even tweet out an endorsement of a book about his 2016 president campaign.
Lawyers for Daniels, Cohen trade barbs over 'goon' she says threatened her
Washington (CNN)Attorneys central to the drama surrounding an alleged affair between porn star Stormy Daniels and President some rich asshole argued at length Monday evening over the suggestion that the President's lawyer was tied to an alleged threat Daniels received in 2011.
Daniels alleged Sunday in a CBS interview that weeks after she agreed to sell her story to a magazine in 2011, a man walked up to her in a parking lot and threatened her and her infant daughter, saying, "Leave the rich asshole alone. Forget the story."
Speaking on CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360," Daniels' attorney, Michael Avenatti said he was "not yet" accusing the rich asshole's attorney, Michael Cohen, or the rich asshole Organization of having sent someone to threaten Daniels, but asserted that "there's only three groups of people that individual could have been sent by."
"... We know it's not my client that sent the goon," Avenatti told Cooper. "We know it's not the magazine that sent the goon. There's only one logical place left as to who would have sent the goon. It's common sense."
Cohen's attorney David Schwartz -- who said he is not representing Cohen in this case -- said Daniels' claim that she was threatened is false, and that the implication that Cohen was involved is "a complete lie."
"It's an utter fiction," Schwartz said. "And that in and of itself is defamatory to say that was Michael Cohen or someone sent by Michael Cohen. ... It's a figment of her imagination. That person doesn't exist."
As their argument unfolded, Avenatti asserted that Cohen is a "thug" and said repeated the word "thug" several times, as Schwartz interjected.
Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, outlined the alleged threat during an interview that aired Sunday evening on "60 Minutes." Avenatti on Monday amended Daniels' lawsuit over a nondisclosure agreement allegedly tied to a six-figure hush money payment for an affair with President some rich asshole. The lawsuit as filed Monday specifically names Cohen and accuses him of defamation against Daniels.
There are many, many similarities in Stormy Daniels' and Karen McDougal's stories about some rich asshole
Washington (CNN)Give some rich asshole points for consistency.
He has yet to weigh in on the specific details of the allegations of extramarital affairs, but there's no denying that the allegations from Stephanie Clifford, aka porn star Stormy Daniels, and Karen McDougal, the former Playboy Playmate, bear striking similarities.
Daniels told her story to Anderson Cooper in an interview that aired on "60 Minutes" Sunday and McDougal told her story to Cooper on his CNN show AC360 last week. What's below, which makes it very hard to believe either woman is just making this stuff up, is taken from their Cooper interviews and also the details that emerged previously -- in the New Yorker, which published parts of McDougal's journal in February, and In Touch magazine, which published Daniels' 2011 interview in January.
Both women sold (or tried to sell) their stories
Daniels: First in 2011, Daniels tried to sell details of her affair to a sister publication of In Touch magazine for $15,000, although she told CBS she was never paid the money. CBS reported employees of In Touch told them that the rich asshole's personal lawyer Michael Cohen threatened to sue the magazine to stop publication. Daniels says she was threatened in a parking lot to keep quiet. The interview didn't publish until January, one year after the rich asshole became President. Years after she tried to sell the story but just before Election Day 2016, Daniels entered into a $130,000 agreement with the rich asshole's lawyer Michael Cohen to keep quiet. She's now trying to get out of that agreement and tempted a $1 million penalty by talking to 60 Minutes.
McDougal: Leading up to Election Day in 2016, sold her story for $150,000 to the parent company of the National Enquirer, which promptly killed it. Friends later shared it with the New Yorker and McDougal broke her silence in an interview March 22 with Cooper on CNN's AC360.
A corporate spokesman for American Media Inc. provided a statement to CNN after McDougal filed her lawsuit saying she "has been free to respond to press inquiries about her relationship with President the rich asshole since 2016" and that the company had not "silenced" her. McDougal says in the suit, however, she has been threatened with "financial ruin."
(We have also included some allegations of Summer Zervos, who has accused the rich asshole of sexual harassment and sued him for defamation. She outlined them at a pre-election press conference. We've included them here because they happened within a year of the alleged affairs and the specifics of what Zervos alleges bear similarities to some of what Daniels and McDougal have said.)
The affairs happened at roughly the same time
McDougal carried on with the rich asshole and was with him dozens of times, she said, between meeting him at the Playboy mansion in June of 2006 and ending things in April of 2007.
Daniels described her one tryst with the rich asshole in Lake Tahoe in July of 2006 and her subsequent encounter at the Beverly Hills Hotel was the last time she said she saw the rich asshole.
(The harassment allegation by Summer Zervos was alleged to have occurred in 2007.)
They were both with the rich asshole in Lake Tahoe in 2006
Daniels told 60 Minutes she was introduced to the rich asshole at the July 2006 golf tournament and she went to his hotel suite there. That's when she said they had sex, after she spanked him with a magazine featuring his face on the cover.
McDougal said she was with the rich asshole at the same event and doesn't know how he could also have been with Daniels there, although she said he mentioned porn stars to her at the time.
McDougal to Cooper on AC360: "My first thought is how could she have been with him when I was with him? The only time we weren't together on that particular trip was when I -- he was on the golf course golfing. I didn't go, clearly, but I went to every event, every after thing, parties, daytime things, I was there. That's why I can't understand.
"Now, I do remember him saying, he came in one day and said, oh, there are a bunch of porn stars out there. They were wanting pictures of me. And I'm like, oh, that's funny, you know, that's cute, whatever. I do remember him saying that, but I can't imagine when he found the time except for maybe the day I left."
They both reminded the rich asshole of his daughter
Daniels to Cooper on 60 Minutes: "Yeah. He was like, 'Wow, you-- you are special. You remind me of my daughter.' You know-- he was like, 'You're smart and beautiful, and a woman to be reckoned with, and I like you. I like you.'"
McDougal to Cooper on AC360: "You know, he, he's very proud of Ivanka, as he should be. I mean, she's a brilliant woman. She's beautiful. She's -- you know, that's his daughter, and he should be proud of her. He said I was beautiful like her and, you know, 'you're a smart girl.' And there wasn't a lot of comparing, but there was some, yes. I heard a lot about her. Yes."
They said similar things about the rich asshole and Melania
McDougal to Cooper on AC360:
COOPER: What did he say? Did he reference Melania at that point?
MCDOUGAL: He did. We passed a room, and he said it's Melania's room. She likes to have her alone time or to get her way to read or something like that. I'm like, oh, OK. That's when I kind of thought, maybe they're having issues.
Daniels to Cooper on 60 Minutes:
COOPER: Melania the rich asshole had recently given birth to-- to a son, just a few months before. Did that -- did he mention his wife or child at all in this?
DANIELS: I asked. And he brushed it aside, said, 'Oh yeah, yeah, you know, don't worry about that. We don't even-- we have separate rooms and stuff.'
They both posed for photos with the rich asshole
Daniels appears next to the rich asshole alone during the Lake Tahoe tournament weekend. McDougal appears in a Playboy Bunny costume nearby the rich asshole, his wife and daughter in a photo she said was taken at the Playboy Mansion.
Karen McDougal is on the far right.
A photo of some rich asshole and Stormy Daniels.
They both spent time with the rich asshole at a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel
McDougal to the rich asshole on AC360:
MCDOUGAL: Our first date, I was told we were going to go to the Beverly Hills Hotel for dinner. So, he had told me that Keith, his bodyguard, was going to pick me up at a certain time and he did. And then we were driving over to the Beverly Hills Hotel. And Keith drove around to the back and he said, we have to get out here, because we don't want to walk to the hotel. And at that minute, I'm like thinking to myself, are we going to a room because I thought we were having dinner at the Beverly Hills Hotel.
COOPER: In the actual restaurant?
MCDOUGAL: Right. Well, we did have dinner at the Beverly Hills Hotel but in his bungalow instead. We had dinner there for a few hours. We talked for a few hours. We had a great time, we're getting to know each other. We're talking about his birthday, and then as the night ended, we were intimate.
Daniels to In Touch magazine in 2011:
DANIELS: Then the next time I saw him was the end of July and he called me and asked if I could come meet him at the Beverly Hills Hotel. And I went. My boyfriend drove me. Keith came out and met me at my truck and walked me in. He had a private bungalow out back, which is cool because I'd never been there and I haven't been there since. They have these, like, individual cottages there. Cool. They're pretty nice.
She told both In Touch in 2011 and 60 Minutes that the rich asshole tried to initiate sex with her in the bungalow, but she wouldn't do it. She had gone to the hotel to discuss a possible appearance on the rich asshole's TV show.
That's the same thing Summer Zervos, a former Apprentice contestant says in her allegation of sexual misconduct against the rich asshole -- that she met him at the Beverly Hills Hotel to talk about job prospects. The difference is that Zervos characterizes the rich asshole's advances at the hotel as sexual harassment. He's denied her accusation. She's suing him for defamation.
Zervos describing 2007 encounter at October 2016 press conference:
ZERVOS: He then called again, days later, to let me know he was coming to Los Angeles. He again called me after he had just landed in Los Angeles. He asked me to meet him that evening at the Beverly Hills Hotel and asked me where I would like to have dinner. When I arrived, his security guard greeted me at the hotel. He walked with me to greet some rich asshole. I assumed we were going to a restaurant in the hotel. Instead, I was taken to a bungalow. The security guard opened the door, and I went in.
They both had the same attorney, who they both said pressured them
It was the attorney Keith Davidson who brokered with the National Enquirer parent company for McDougal and with the rich asshole attorney Michael Cohen for Daniels. Both have since parted ways with Davidson and a suit McDougal filed in March alleges he may have been working with AMI.
Davidson has said, separately, that allegations by both women that they were pressured to sign the agreements are misleading.
Davidson to CNN on Daniels' 60 Minutes appearance: "I do not believe that the assertions in Ms. Daniels' 60 Minutes interview represent a fair and accurate description of the situation."
Davidson's letter (as printed in The Washington Post) to McDougal's current attorney about her lawsuit: "...the complaint and various media appearances portray an incomplete and misleading depiction of the facts, circumstances and communications related to my prior representation of Karen."
The six-figure payoffs happened within months of each other
Daniels was paid $130,000 by the rich asshole's personal attorney Michael Cohen to keep quiet (despite that 2011 interview with In Touch that hadn't yet run), on October 26, 2016, according to emails from that day confirming the transfer that CNN published.
McDougal entered into her agreement with AMI, the National Enquirer parent company, in early August of 2016, according to The Wall Street Journal, which reported on its existence just before Election Day 2016. The New Yorker reported McDougal was promised a lifestyle column as part of the agreement, but that never came to pass.
Both women have now defied their agreements by talking to the media. Daniels' attorney says her agreement was violated by Cohen and never fully enacted because the rich asshole didn't sign it.
Another similarity is that the White House has denied the rich asshole's involvement with either woman and the rich asshole, similarly, has remained silent on them.
Post: the rich asshole tells aides that Stormy Daniels isn't his type
BY LUIS SANCHEZ - 03/26/18 09:18 PM EDT
President the rich asshole has privately told several people that Stormy Daniels’s allegations of an affair with him are a “hoax” and that Daniels isn’t the type of woman he finds attractive, The Washington Post reportedon Monday.
The president has publicly been silent about the Stormy Daniels controversy, but after she appeared on “60 Minutes” on Sunday night and shared the details of her alleged affair, the rich asshole privately attacked her and her media tour among administration staffers.
He also asked people close to him if the whole issue is affecting his poll numbers, sources told the Post.
At the White House, the rich asshole reportedly asked staff members if they had seen Daniels on “60 Minutes” and requested their thoughts.
The president did not think Daniels appeared credible, according to a source who spoke with the Post.
Over the weekend at his Florida resort Mar-a-Lago, the rich asshole also questioned friends and guests about their thoughts on the Daniels controversy.
His friends and advisers reportedly warned him that he had little to gain from engaging with Daniels.
the rich asshole has reportedly come to the conclusion that the details of the alleged affair will not significantly damage his political support and that the issue will eventually pass.
During her interview on “60 Minutes,” Daniels told Anderson Cooper that she had been threatened not to speak out about the alleged affair she had with the rich asshole in 2006.
Just a few weeks before the 2016 election, Daniels accepted at $130,000 payment from the rich asshole's personal attorney, Michael Cohen, and signed a nondisclosure agreement. The incident occurred shortly after the release of the rich asshole's infamous "Access Hollywood" tape, in which he bragged about kissing and fondling women without their consent.
In recent days, however, she has sued the rich asshole to void the agreement, arguing that his failure to sign it made it invalid.
Cohen has said Daniels is liable for $20 million in damages for breaking her agreement.
Daniels has responded by expanding her lawsuit against the rich asshole to include Cohen. She is alleging that Cohen has defamed her by suggesting she is lying about the alleged affair.
Following the release of the "Access Hollywood" hot-mic recording, the rich asshole was accused of sexual misconduct by more than a dozen women, with some of the allegations stretching back decades. the rich asshole implied at the time that several of his accusers were not attractive enough to warrant his attention.
"Believe me, she would not be my first choice,” the rich asshole said of one in October 2016. “That I can tell you. You don't know. That would not be my first choice." "
5 new details from Stormy Daniels about her alleged affair with some rich asshole
(CNN)Stormy Daniels broke her silence about her alleged affair with some rich asshole and what she says were threats to keep her quiet, in an interview with Anderson Cooper that aired Sunday night on CBS' "60 Minutes."
Some of the details became known before the interview, but there were at least five revelations that had not previously been made public.
"He knows I'm telling the truth," Daniels told Cooper, referring to the President. The White House has denied the affair happened.
The last time Daniels talked about her 2006 relationship with the rich asshole was in 2011, to the parent company of Life & Style and In Touch magazine.
Daniels was never paid by the media for her the rich asshole affair story
Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, told Cooper she was never paid the $15,000 the publication offered her to publish the story.
While the interview was done in 2011, the story was not published until this January. The magazine also released the full transcript of Daniels' conversation with reporter Jordi Lippe-McGraw.
More details on the alleged threat
Daniels' attorney has repeatedly said she was threatened, but the details of the alleged threat have never been made public until now.
Daniels said the rich asshole's personal attorney Michael Cohen threatened to sue shortly after the interview she did with the magazine. A few weeks later, she says, a man approached her in Las Vegas.
"I was in a parking lot, going to a fitness class with my infant daughter," Daniels said. "And a guy walked up on me and said to me, 'Leave the rich asshole alone. Forget the story.' And then he leaned around and looked at my daughter and said, 'That's a beautiful little girl. It'd be a shame if something happened to her mom,' and then he was gone," she said.
Daniels said she was shaken by the experience but never told police out of fear.
On CNN's "New Day" on Monday, her attorney, Michael Avenatti, said there's no doubt that Cohen or someone from the rich asshole organization was behind the alleged threat.
"That's the only place it could have come from," he said.
Cohen's attorney denies his client was in any way involved.
"Mr. Cohen had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with any such person or incident," Brent Blakely said.
Gossip website sparked new interest in alleged affair
Before In Touch published its story, a gossip website got wind of Daniels' alleged tryst and published a few details. Four years later, when the rich asshole ran for president, Daniels said she was contacted by various media outlets to tell her story.
"Suddenly, people are reaching out to me again, offering me money. Large amounts of money. Was I tempted? Yes -- I struggle with it. And then I get the call: 'I think I have the best deal for you,'" she recalled her attorney at the time saying.
The deal was an offer not to tell her story. The person making the offer, she said, was Cohen.
Eventually, she signed the deal, as did Cohen, and he paid her $130,000 in hush money.
"I think some people... are going to doubt that you entered into this negotiation because you feared for your safety," Cooper said. "They're going to think that you saw an opportunity."
"I think the fact that I didn't even negotiate, I just quickly said 'yes' to this very strict contract," Daniels said. "And what most people will agree with me (it's an) extremely low number. It's all the proof I need."
Cohen has admitted to paying Daniels, but maintains it was independent of the rich asshole campaign.
She didn't want to have sex that night
In 2018, In Touch magazine finally published the transcript of what Daniels had said about her alleged affair with some rich asshole. She says she had unprotected sex with him but she told Cooper she didn't want to have sex at all that night. She had asked to use the restroom in the rich asshole's hotel room, she said, and when she came out he was perched on the bed.
"And I was like, 'Ugh, here we go,'" she said. "And I just felt like maybe -- it was sort of -- I had it coming for making a bad decision for going to someone's room alone and I just heard the voice in my head, 'Well, you put yourself in a bad situation and bad things happen, so you deserve this.'"
"But I didn't say no. I'm not a victim," Daniels said, adding that it was consensual sex.
She says she was pressured to deny the affair
In 2018, her story was out and Daniels was being pursued by the media. She did two interviews without revealing anything about her alleged affair with the rich asshole.
Cohen put out a statement showing Daniels' signature on a piece of paper saying she never had an affair with the rich asshole.
Then, just before her scheduled interview with Jimmy Kimmel, her former manager Gina Rodriguez sent out a similar statement denying the affair, also signed by Daniels.
Daniels told Cooper her former manager and former attorney pressured her to sign it.
"If it was untruthful, why did you sign it?" Cooper asked.
"Because they made it sound like I had no choice," Daniels said. "As a matter of fact, the exact sentence used was, 'They can make your life hell in many different ways.'"
When asked who "they" were, Daniels said she believed it was Cohen.
Cohen has denied he made any threats to Daniels, and following the airing of the "60 Minutes" interview, an attorney for Cohen said in a letter that Daniels had defamed his client.
In the letter, obtained by CNN, Cohen attorney Blakely told Daniels' attorney Avenatti that his client had nothing to do with the alleged threat in the parking lot.
Blakely demanded that Daniels cease and desist from making further "false and defamatory" statements about Cohen, and asked for a retraction and apology for the comments she made in Sunday's interview.
When asked about Daniels' charge that she was pressured into signing a false statement, her former attorney, Keith Davidson, responded in a statement to CNN: "I do not believe that the assertions in Ms. Daniels' 60 Minutes interview represent a fair and accurate description of the situation."
He added that he cannot discuss the matter because of attorney-client privilege.
"The current legal requirements prohibit me from doing so until such a time that Ms. Daniels, in writing, waives attorney client privilege and authorizes me to speak publicly on the matter," Davidson said.
Marc Harris, the lawyer for Daniels' former manager, Gina Rodriguez, told CNN, "Ms. Clifford did not say during the interview that Ms. Rodriguez pressured her in any way to sign the January 2018 statement."
Though she technically is not shown saying it during the interview, Anderson Cooper's voiceover made clear that is what Daniels said.
Two more attorneys turn down offer to represent the rich asshole
BY BRETT SAMUELS - 03/26/18 08:20 PM EDT
Two more leading attorneys have rejected an offer to represent President the rich asshole, The Daily Beast reported Monday.
Tom Buchanan and Dan Webb, who are partners at Winston & Strawn, told the news outlet that the president reached out to them to see if they would join his busy legal team. They turned down the offer, citing business conflicts.
“However they consider the opportunity to represent the President to be the highest honor and they sincerely regret that they cannot do so,” Buchanan and Webb said in a statement.
Buchanan served for four years as an assistant U.S. attorney in the 1980s and has since focused on commercial and white-collar litigation.
The two men turned down the president a day after the rich asshole claimed that many lawyers want to represent him in the special counsel's Russia investigation.
Many lawyers and top law firms want to represent me in the Russia case...don’t believe the Fake News narrative that it is hard to find a lawyer who wants to take this on. Fame & fortune will NEVER be turned down by a lawyer, though some are conflicted. Problem is that a new......
....lawyer or law firm will take months to get up to speed (if for no other reason than they can bill more), which is unfair to our great country - and I am very happy with my existing team. Besides, there was NO COLLUSION with Russia, except by Crooked Hillary and the Dems!
However, multiple attorneys have turned down the opportunity to work for the rich asshole in recent days.
Former U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson and Washington, D.C.-based lawyer Joseph diGenova both rejected reported job offers to join the rich asshole's legal team.
DiGenova had been hired, but ultimately turned down the offer, citing "conflicts."
Another of the rich asshole's attorneys, John Dowd, abruptly resigned last week.
The changes come as the president seeks to shake up his legal team amid frustrations within the White House over special counsel Robert Mueller's probe, which has cast a cloud over the administration for more than a year now.
Stormy Daniels sues the rich asshole lawyer Michael Cohen for defamation
Washington (CNN)Porn star Stormy Daniels filed a lawsuit for defamation on Monday against President some rich asshole's personal attorney Michael Cohen.
The suit, filed by her lawyer Michael Avenatti in California, came a day after CBS aired a tell-all interview with Daniels regarding an affair she alleges she had with the rich asshole more than a decade ago, and which the White House continues to deny.
Monday's legal maneuver is an additional move in an ongoing suit by Daniels against Cohen, the rich asshole and the limited liability company Cohen has said he established to facilitate a payment to Daniels ahead of the presidential election.
Cohen has denied Daniels' claims but admitted to making the payment. The additional claim that Daniels filed Monday states that Cohen's denial is a defamatory statement.
"It was reasonably understood Mr. Cohen meant to convey that Ms. (Stephanie) Clifford is a liar," the complaint reads, referencing Daniels' real name.
Avenatti added, "Mr. Cohen made the statement knowing it was false or had serious doubts about the truth of the statements."
Reacting to the latest development, CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin said it is another attempt to compel Cohen, or perhaps even the President, into a deposition under oath.
Toobin said key questions would include whether Cohen actually used his own money to pay Daniels and whether the rich asshole knew about it.
"Those are, I think, the key political issues here, and filing this lawsuit gives Avenatti another opportunity perhaps to get Cohen and perhaps the rich asshole under oath," he said.
Daniels' story came to light in a Wall Street Journal article earlier this year, and the ensuing attention has prompted legal complaints and a whirlwind of questions for Daniels, a porn star who alleges she had sex with the rich asshole and signed a nondisclosure agreement in exchange for the payment from Cohen.
Lawyers for Cohen and the rich asshole have fought back against Daniels and Avenatti in turn, and Cohen in an article published last week quipped about taking "an extended vacation" with the money he anticipates getting from Daniels in court over what he says are violations of the nondisclosure agreement.
In the interview that aired Sunday, Daniels said she was threatened in 2011 to keep quiet about the alleged affair, and in a letter obtained by CNN, the law firm representing Cohen alleged its client had been defamed during Daniels' interview.
New details in amended suit
Monday's filing included several new claims about why Avenatti is arguing the nondisclosure agreement should be considered invalid.
Avenatti writes the agreement should be ruled "invalid, unenforceable and/or void under the doctrine of unconscionability," referring to the $1 million punishment per violation of the NDA. Avenatti argues that figure is a random number and is only "intended to inflict a penalty designed to intimidate and financially cripple" his client.
Cohen violated the NDA when he disclosed details of the agreement to The Wall Street Journal, and it should therefore be considered invalid, Avenatti alleges.
He also asserts that the payment was a violation of campaign finance law because it was designed to suppress speech "on a matter of public concern about a candidate for President."
Avenatti demanded a trial by jury in this case, which is typical of a lawsuit, but was not included in the initial complaint. The suit added several reasons why the arbitration clause of the original agreement is void and argued a court should rule arbitration is not valid.
Stormy Daniels sues the rich asshole lawyer for defamation
BY AVERY ANAPOL - 03/26/18 04:29 PM EDT
Adult-film star Stormy Daniels on Monday accused Michael Cohen, President the rich asshole's personal attorney, of defamation, amending her lawsuit against the rich asshole.
Daniels had been locked in a legal battle with the rich asshole, seeking to dissolve a nondisclosure agreement she and Cohen signed more than a decade ago. She says the deal is not valid because the rich asshole never signed it himself.
The lawsuit now alleges that Cohen defamed Daniels by suggesting that she is lying about her alleged 2006 affair with the rich asshole. The suit specifically points to a statement Cohen made last month: "Just because something isn't true doesn't mean that it can't cause you harm or damage," he said.
A hearing for the lawsuit Daniels filed against the rich asshole and Cohen's company to dissolve the nondisclosure agreement has been set for July 12 in Los Angeles County Superior Court.
The change to the lawsuit comes just one day after Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, defied her nondisclosure agreement and spoke publicly about the alleged affair in an interview for "60 Minutes."
Daniels revealed various details of her relationship with the rich asshole in the interview, including an incident in 2006 when she allegedly asked the rich asshole to pull down his pants so she could spank him with a magazine bearing his face on the cover, to which the rich asshole agreed.
She also said she was threatened to stay silent about the affair in 2011 when an unidentified man came up to her in a Las Vegas parking lot after she had agreed to discuss her version of the alleged affair to a magazine.
“Leave the rich asshole alone. Forget the story," Daniels said the man told her.
Daniels also claims the man looked at her young daughter and said, “It’d be a shame if something happened to her mom.”
Cohen's attorney Brent Blakely demanded that Daniels apologize for making defamatory statements immediately after the show aired on Sunday.
Blakely said Cohen “had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with any such person or incident, and does not even believe that any such person exists, or that such incident ever occurred.”
The White House has denied the rich asshole's involvement with Daniels.
"The president strongly, clearly and consistently has denied these underlying claims. The only one who has been inconsistent is the one making the claims," White House deputy press secretary Raj Shah said on Monday. "The president doesn't believe that any of the claims Ms. Daniels made in the interview are accurate."
"False charges are settled out of court all the time. You'd have to ask Michael Cohen about the specifics," Shah said when asked why the president was involved in the payment days before the election.
By
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March 26, 2018
Mick Mulvaney, the head of the rich asshole's Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, wants to reward payday lenders at the expense of veterans and low-income Americans.
The rich asshole administration talks a lot about helping veterans. But when it comes down to it, they’ll always take the opportunity to reward their cronies instead. And Mick Mulvaney is providing the latest appalling example.
Mulvaney, the rich asshole’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) director, is also the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). The CFPB is supposed to protect consumers from the bad acts of banks and payday lenders. But that’s no longer happening.
And one of the groups that will suffer disproportionately from this lax enforcement is service members and veterans.
First, the rich asshole administration signaled that it didn’t want to adopt an Obama-era CFPB rule that would have required payday lenders to consider potential borrowers’ monthly expenses and ability to repay. Then Mulvaney killed an investigation into World Acceptance Corporation (WAC), even though it charged interest rates up to 237 percent. WAC also, not coincidentally, donated to Mulvaney’s congressional campaigns.
Now, Mulvaney quietly decided not to sue another payday lender, National Credit Adjusters (NCA), that wrongly collected around $50 million. With the investigation tanked, consumers won’t get a dime of those ill-gotten gains back. He’s also considering scrapping investigations into three more payday lenders, all of which use aggressive high-pressure collections techniques and outright lie to consumers.
Payday lenders love to target the troops. They market to service members at twice the rate they pitch their wares to civilian families. They use clever, sleazy ways to create new types of loan packages to avoid constrictions of the Military Lending Act. That law is supposed to keep troops relatively safe from payday lenders.
And they set up storefronts near military bases to entice severely underpaid service members with the promise of a short-term loan to tide them over.
But those loans get rolled over again and again until service members are in a debt trap that they can’t get out of. They rack up hundreds, sometimes thousands, of dollars of interest and rollover payments on loans of around $300.
It’s almost as if, after giving service members a minimal pay raise, the administration just couldn’t help itself. It needed to find another way to take money out of their pockets.
“Anyone who has served knows that despite our best efforts, payday lenders continue to target our troops, and take advantage of them,” Will Fischer, Iraq War veteran and director of government relations for VoteVets, said in a statement to Shareblue Media. “It certainly looks like [Mulvaney and the rich asshole] are out to help payday lenders and their tawdry money-making scheme.”
Fischer added that “it shows a real lack of commitment by this administration to improve the financial well-being of those who serve, for them to let these payday lenders off the hook.”
Payday lenders actively harm members of the military. Any administration that considers themselves a friend of the troops could take easy steps to protect them.
But the rich asshole and Mulvaney didn’t before and they won’t now — and they probably never will.
By
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March 26, 2018
So much for supporting the troops — Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported Miguel Perez, who served two tours of duty in Afghanistan.
The rich asshole administration reached a new low on Monday when agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deported Miguel Perez to Mexico.
Perez has been in the United States since he was eight years old. He did two tours of duty in Afghanistan, and is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder related to his service.
Perez, who has been held in a federal facility in Wisconsin for over a week, believed that by joining the Army in 2001, being wounded in the line of duty, and putting his life on the line for America, he would become a citizen.
Instead, the rich asshole administration’s overly aggressive immigration forces sent him away.
Perez was denied citizenship because of a conviction for a nonviolent drug offense in 2008. He’s been in prison ever since. But as he explained to the judge, he’d turned to drugs as a result of his untreated PTSD.
Moreover, he had been getting an education in prison and was eager to get his life back together. And he had family and friends in Chicago who were desperate to be reunited with him. In Mexico, his family says, he will be “homeless and penniless.”
Perez’s story is not unique. Under the rich asshole, ICE has ripped up the Obama-era standard of prioritizing violent criminals. Instead, they are apparently going after every undocumented immigrant they can find.
ICE agents have targeted a Sacramento church during a Mother’s Day service. They staked out a hypothermia shelter in Alexandria. Agents went to family courts to arrest a battered woman at her protective hearing in El Paso. And they even worked with Motel 6 managers to seize guests from their rooms outside Phoenix.
the rich asshole has claimed that he understands the plight of people like Perez. “Does anybody really want to throw out good, educated and accomplished young people who have jobs, some serving in the military? Really!” he tweeted in September.
But the rich asshole unilaterally ended multiple programs to protect immigrants. And he has rejected every good-faith proposal from Congress to give legal status to people who have lived here since childhood.
the rich asshole’s actions are not those of someone who feels the slightest sympathy for people like Perez. So even though Perez gave his all for this country, the rich asshole administration is kicking him out.
CNN segment goes off-the-rails after Stormy Daniels’ attorney calls Michael Cohen ‘a thug’ to his lawyer’s face
Michael Avenatti and David Schwartz
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A segment between the lawyer for adult film star Stormy Daniels and Michael Cohen’s personal attorney on Monday derailed after Michael Avenatti called Cohen “a thug.”
Avenatti encouraged Cohen’s attorney David Schwartz to “file a lawsuit” if he believes Daniels’ allegations against Cohen—who’s some rich asshole’s personal lawyer—are defamatory, explaining that while Cohen has yet to speak with reporters, Daniels on Sunday sat for two hours to “answer questions by a world-renowned interviewer who asked tough questions.”
“Why hasn’t Michael Cohen sat down … and answered questions?” Avenatti asked.
Later in the segment, Avenatti suggested Schwartz shared shady similarities with the rich asshole’s personal lawyer, insisting, “that’s why you and Michael Cohen are friends I guess.”
“He’s a thug!” Avenatti declared. “Your friend is a thug.”
“That’s a million dollars!” Schwartz replied as Avenatti repeated the word “thug” at least eight times.
CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin later asked Schwartz about Cohen’s $130,000 payout to Daniels, which was paid via his home equity line of credit.
Schwartz insisted “there’s nothing illegal” about Cohen’s payment to Daniels.
“I never said there was something illegal about it,” Toobin replied.
Schwartz later accused Daniels of “legal extortion” of Cohen while Avenatti pushed back at his allegations.
Watch the truly out of control segment below, via CNN:
Part One —
Former CIA analyst connects the dots between Stormy Daniels allegations and the rich asshole-Russia Dossier
some rich asshole giving a speech in 2016 (via Wikimedia Commons).
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Former CIA counterterrorism analyst Phil Mudd explained on CNN the connection between the Stormy Daniels allegations against President some rich asshole and the Russia investigation being led by special counsel Robert Mueller.
“Is there potentially a national security issue at stake here?” anchor Wolf Blitzer asked.
“I don’t think there is on the U.S. side,” Mudd replied. “Look, we knew the president was sleazy when we elected him.”
However, Mudd reminded that it could suggest areas of compromise that could have national security implications.
“Did the president ever do anything overseas, and particularly in Russia, that would be embarrassing and that he’d like to hide,” the CNN counterterrorism analyst wondered. “That takes you back to the infamous Steele Dossier, Wolf, that information collected by a former British intelligence officer about some of the allegations about the president’s activities in Moscow with women there.”
“If that turns out to be true — and I think we have information that suggests the FBI has corroborated some of that — I could see a national security implication,” Mudd concluded. “But for Stormy Daniels, that one’s out in the open, I don’t see how you can blackmail someone for something that’s public knowledge.”
the rich asshole privately calls Stormy Daniels’ allegations a ‘hoax’ and says she’s ‘not the type of woman he finds attractive’
Porn star Stormy Daniels claims she had an "intimate relationship" with some rich asshole in 2006 and 2007 GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File / MANDEL NGAN, Ethan Miller
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Despite his public silence on the unfolding scandal involving adult film star Stormy Daniels, some rich asshole is privately calling her allegations a “hoax”and arguing she “is not the type of woman he finds attractive,” the Washington Postreports.
the rich asshole is also concerned with whether Daniels’ allegations and media appearances are hurting his poll numbers, according to the Post, and asked his White House staff if they watched Daniels’ appearance Sunday night on CBS “60 Minutes.”
“The president said that he personally did not think Daniels appeared credible,” a person who spoke with the rich asshole told the Post.
The private grumblings are occurring in tandem with the rich asshole’s uncharacteristic silence on Daniels’ allegations. According to the adult film star, the rich asshole’s attorney Michael Cohen paid her $130,000 in exchange for her silence on her decade-old affair with the president.
Cohen has acknowledged the payment to Daniels, but said her allegations against the president were nevertheless untrue. Monday, Daniels added in Cohen as the defendant in a lawsuit against the rich asshole, accusing the lawyer of defamation.
She had previously filed suit against the rich asshole, arguing the hush agreement she and the president signed is invalid because it does not contain the rich asshole’s signature.
As the Post’s Julie Pace notes, despite insisting Daniels’ allegations are false, the president has told one person the film star owes him $21 million dollars for speaking out.
Trump has been silent publicly on Stormy Daniels, but the matter was on his mind at Mar a Lago. He told one person who spent time with him that Daniels owes him $21M for speaking out. @colvinj apnews.com/6e2613c48d294d…
Ted Olson: the rich asshole turmoil 'beyond normal'
BY AVERY ANAPOL - 03/26/18 03:42 PM EDT
Veteran Washington, D.C., attorney Ted Olson, who decided against joining President the rich asshole's legal team last week, said Monday that “turmoil” and “chaos” in the rich asshole White House is "beyond normal."
Olson, who served as U.S. solicitor general under President George W. Bush, told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell that the high number of personnel changes in the rich asshole administration are “not good for anything.”
“I think everybody would agree this is turmoil, it's chaos, it's confusion, it's not good for anything,” Olson said. “We always believe that there should be an orderly process, and of course, government is not clean or orderly ever. But this seems to be beyond normal.”
the rich asshole in recent weeks has fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and national security adviser H.R. McMaster, economic adviser Gary Cohn and communications director Hope Hicks have all either resigned from the White House or announced their intention to do so. Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin is reportedly on thin ice.
A key member of the rich asshole's legal team, John Dowd, also stepped down last week.
the rich asshole offered a position last week to Olson, who turned him down. Olson had previously turned down an offer to join the administration.
the rich asshole claimed on Sunday that “many lawyers” want to represent him and called reports that it has been difficult for him to find attorneys to join his legal team "fake news."
Many lawyers and top law firms want to represent me in the Russia case...don’t believe the Fake News narrative that it is hard to find a lawyer who wants to take this on. Fame & fortune will NEVER be turned down by a lawyer, though some are conflicted. Problem is that a new......
....lawyer or law firm will take months to get up to speed (if for no other reason than they can bill more), which is unfair to our great country - and I am very happy with my existing team. Besides, there was NO COLLUSION with Russia, except by Crooked Hillary and the Dems!
White House says the rich asshole continues to deny Stormy Daniels affair
Washington (CNN)President some rich asshole continues to deny he had an affair with porn actress Stormy Daniels, White House deputy press secretary Raj Shah said Monday.
"The President strongly clearly and consistently has denied these underlying claims. The only one who has been inconsistent is the one making the claims," Shah said.
Pressed further, Shah said: "The President doesn't believe that any of the claims Ms. Daniels made in the interview are accurate."
Shah pointed to Daniels' past signed statements denying the affair to back up his argument that she has been "inconsistent" about her claims.
"My understanding is that she signed the statements that conflict with what she said last night," Shah said.
Daniels' told "60 Minutes" on Sunday that she felt she had "no choice" but to sign the statements because of the nondisclosure agreement she had signed.
Shah declined to say whether the rich asshole watched Daniels' "60 Minutes" interview with Anderson Cooper which aired Sunday night.
The Daniels interview came despite a $130,000 hush agreement struck days before the 2016 presidential election between Daniels and the rich asshole's personal attorney Michael Cohen. Daniels said she was violating her non-disclosure agreement and risking a $1 million fine "because it was very important to me to be able to defend myself."
Shah was pressed Monday why the rich asshole was allegedly involved in a $130,000 settlement payment to Daniels just days before the election if he denies the allegations of an affair.
Shah noted that "false charges are settled out of court all the time" and said such a payment would be "nothing outside the ordinary," but directed all questions about the payment to Cohen.
"False charges are settled out of court all the time. You'd have to ask Michael Cohen about the specifics," Shah said.
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