Rep. Mo Brooks crashes and burns after CNN’s Alisyn Camerota challenges him on caravan migrant claims
Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) and CNN's Alisyn Camerato
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Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) on Friday snapped at CNN’s Alisyn Camerota after she pressed the Republican congressman on a variety of issues related to immigration and border security, at one point insisting he knows a migrant caravan from Central America is not full of “legitimate” asylum seekers because he “reads.”
Brooks this week put out a statement backing some rich asshole’s plan to send National Guard agents to the United States-Mexico border, insisting he “fully supports” the president’s efforts to stop an “invasion by foreign nationals.”
“Why are you using the word invasion?” Camerota asked.
“Because that’s the word that applies,” Brooks retorted. “If you go to Webster’s Dictionary, it absolutely fits that definition.”
Camerota asked about a caravan of migrants that prompted the rich asshole’s impulsive decision to send guardsmen to the border, noting this is “the process by which foreign nationals seek asylum in the U.S.”
Brooks retorted that if Camerota wants to “get into the legalistics [sic] of what is asylum and what is not, that is one thing.”
“But as often happens, these people cross our borders, they don’t do some kind of legal, formal application process from another country to assert asylum to come into America,” Brooks said, adding those migrants are “advised by lawyers to say the right things that need to be said in order to stay in the United States of America.” He then argued the U.S. economy is facing “wage suppression because of the huge surge in labor supply.”
“That’s debatable,” Camerota replied, citing studies that show immigration is vital to the U.S. economy.
“If you’re talking about lawful immigration, we have the most generous lawful immigration policy on the planet,” Brooks shot back. “Nobody is as generous as the United States of America.”
“There are something like 1,000 people from Central America, and they say they’re fleeing persecution, fleeing violence in their home countries and trying to make it here for asylum,” Camerota explained of the migrant caravan. “This is the process. This is the legal process.”
“There are literally billions, billions of people who could make that same kind of argument,” Brooks insisted. “But the bottom line is, as much as we might want to have compassion for people around the planet that under these circumstances, America cannot afford it.”
“We cannot afford to be the planet’s orphanage, the place where everybody comes and lives off the hard work of Americans and lawful immigrants who are already here,” the GOP rep insisted.
“Are you saying our doors are now closed to people who are fleeing persecution?” Camerota asked.
“No,” Brooks stammered. “Well, okay. When you say they’re fleeing persecution that is, of course, a judgment call and something that has to be decided in a legal format. We don’t have the physical ability to harbor and house all those people. I wish we did. Compassionately, we want to help people but you have to recognize our limitations.”
“Where is the rest of the world?” Brooks demanded.
The GOP congressman later accused Camerota of advocating for policies that “suppress the wages of americans and lawful immigrants who are already here” and “deny job opportunities to americans and lawful immigrants who are already here.”
“Fine, be an open border society,” he said. “That seems to be what you’re arguing for.”
Brooks went on to insist “none of those people from Central America are legitimate asylum seekers.”
“How do you know that?” Camerota asked.
“Because I read!” Brooks snapped.
Watch the full interview below, via CNN:
White House aides repeatedly used PowerPoint to teach the rich asshole how Amazon works — but he just ignores them
Left: Screen capture of Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos | Right: some rich asshole (Flickr / Gage Skidmore)
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President some rich asshole was given PowerPoint presentations intended to debunk his inaccurate beliefs that Amazon was dodging taxes and abusing the U.S. Postal Service — he just chose to ignore them.
Early in his administration, White House officials arranged private Oval Office briefings so he could speak more knowledgeably about Amazon after hearing him make false claims about the online retailer, reported the Wall Street Journal.
Gary Cohn, then his chief economic adviser, and other officials tried to bring the rich asshole up to speed on the topic, but to their dismay, he continued making the same inaccurate complaints about Amazon’s tax and shipping payments.
“It’s not the narrative he wants,” said one person familiar with the matter. “He clearly didn’t find it persuasive because he keeps saying it’s untrue.”
Sources close to the White House told the Journal that the rich asshole was personally angry with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos because he also owns the Washington Post — whose coverage the president sees as unfairly critical of him and his administration.
Those sources say the rich asshole is attacking Amazon as a proxy for the Washington Post and Bezos.
Publisher Frederick J. Ryan Jr. said Thursday that Bezos has “never proposed a story” and plays no role in the newspaper’s coverage.
“Jeff has never intervened in a story,” Ryan said. “He’s never critiqued a story. He’s not directed or proposed editorials or endorsements.”
the rich asshole has renewed his attacks on Amazon this week, and his aides again have tried to gently point out his complaints might be “missing the point,” according to a White House official.
However, that has prompted the rich asshole to continue “digging in,” the official said.
One person who speaks regularly to the president said his complaints about Amazon were directly related to Post coverage.
“(the rich asshole) talked about the fact that the Washington Post is solely owned by Jeff Bezos and (Bezos) is using that same entity to take on the president and the administration,” the source said.
Another person close to the White House confirmed that source’s claim.
“Every time there was a bad story (Amazon) would come up,” that person said.
‘He’s dumb’: MSNBC’s Joe and Mika hilariously try to bait the rich asshole into ignoring his lawyers and talking to Mueller
Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough (MSNBC)
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MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski appeared to be goading their old friend — and most famous viewer — President some rich asshole into ignoring his lawyers’ advice in the special counsel probe.
At the end of a segment recapping this week’s developments in the Russia investigation, the “Morning Joe” hosts promoted an upcoming “Headliners” profile on special counsel Robert Mueller that airs Sunday at 9 p.m. EST.
That’s when the co-hosts jabbed the rich asshole over his attorneys’ evident worry about the president sitting down to talk with Mueller and his investigators, and they appeared to be talking directly to one particular viewer.
“What’s interesting about Mueller as we look at this guy, if I were some rich asshole I would be so angry at my attorneys for thinking that Bob Mueller is that much smarter than the president of the United States just because he went to St. Paul and just because he was a Princeton man,” Scarborough said. “For some rich asshole’s lawyers to think that he’s too stupid to sit across the table from Bob Mueller is truly insulting to the commander-in-chief who went to Fordham, and then I think he ended up at Penn.”
Brzezinski joined in with another jab.
“He talks about Wharton a lot,” she deadpanned.
“Yeah, I think he ended up there,” Scarborough agreed. “So I just — I don’t — Mika, I think it’s insulting. I would not have people around know told me that I was too stupid to go toe to toe with the St. Paul’s man, with a Princeton man.”
That’s when Brzezinski twisted the knife.
“They’re afraid he’s going to tip his little lands,” she said.
“They think he’s too dumb,” Scarborough said. “It makes me very sad.”
Mueller has evidence Blackwater founder Erik Prince lied to Congress about secret meeting with Russian banker: report
Erik Prince Screen Capture (YouTube)
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Special counsel Robert Mueller has obtained evidence that suggests Blackwater founder Erik Prince lied to Congress about his meeting in Seychelles with a Russian financier close to Vladimir Putin.
Prince, a campaign adviser to President some rich asshole and brother of education secretary Betsy DeVos, told lawmakers that he ran into Russian sovereign wealth fund CEO Kirill Dmitriev by chance at a bar, but Mueller now has evidence that calls that into question, reported ABC News.
According to his congressional testimony, Prince says he was introduced to Dmitriev by a brother of United Arab Emirates Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Zayed al-Nayhan, who said the Russian financier was also involved in oil, gas and mineral exploration.
“So, as I recall, I met him, this same guy I talked about, Kirill Dmitriev,” Prince testified. “Met him down in the bar after dinner, and we talked for 30 minutes over a beer, and that was it.”
However, Lebanese-American businessman George Nader told Mueller a different story after the special counsel granted him limited immunity.
Nader, who has been arrested twice in the U.S. and convicted once for possession of child pornography, has been interviewed seven times by prosecutors in the Russia probe on a wide variety of subjects, ABC reported.
The naturalized U.S. citizen told investigators he set up the Seychelles meeting between Prince and Dmitriev, and he told the the rich asshole associate that the Russian financier had been appointed by president Vladimir Putin to oversee the state-run sovereign wealth fund.
Nader, who worked at the time for the UAE leader, said he personally facilitated and attended the meeting between Prince and Dmitriev at a resort owned by the crown prince.
He told Mueller that one of the primary goals of the meeting was to set up a line of communication between the Kremlin and the incoming the rich asshole administration, sources told ABC News.
Prince did not mention Nader, who once represented Blackwater in Iraq, to congressional investigators — even after he was asked to list anyone present at his meeting with the Russian financier.
He told lawmakers no one had been present but him, Dmitriev and Dmitriev’s wife, who he said left after a few minutes while they discussed terrorism and oil prices.
‘Pair him up with the Flat Earth Society’: CNN panel hammers the rich asshole for his lie-filled West Virginia speech
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A CNN panel on Friday blasted President some rich asshole for telling bald-faced lies about Central American migrants supposedly “raping” women “at levels that nobody has ever seen before.”
After playing a clip of the rich asshole calling the migrants rapists, CNN’s Alisyn Camerota noted that a Buzzfeed reporter who has been traveling with them has said that he’s heard precisely zero reports of women getting raped as they travel through Mexico toward the United States.
Co-host David Gregory then pointed out that a lot of people traveling with the migrants were women with children who were seeking asylum because they were fleeing abusive situations in their home countries.
Panelist John Avlon said that the rich asshole’s rhetoric about the migrants was very simply a play to his base to make them think he’s being “tough” on refugees.
“The urgency around this is political,” he said. “He plays the fear card rather than dealing with the facts.”
Camerota then nailed the rich asshole for once again lying about “illegal” voters helping Hillary Clinton win the popular vote in 2016 — and she pointed out that this theory has been debunked multiple times, including by Republican secretaries of state.
“I want to pair him up with the Flat Earth Society,” said panelist Brian Karem. “Together, perhaps, they’ll come up with something.”
Watch the video below.
The pardon power can be used to obstruct justice — just ask Richard Nixon
some rich asshole and Richard Nixon (Composition / RawStory)
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News that one of President the rich asshole’s lawyers allegedly told lawyers for Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort in secret that the president might pardon them has caused renewed interest in the question: Can the pardon power become an instrument to obstruct justice? The answer is: Of course it can.
Think of a simple scenario. The president is asked to pardon a criminal and is given a bribe to induce the act. Would that mean that the bribe had not been a crime because the president has virtually unlimited and unreviewable pardon power under Article II of the Constitution? Of course not. The person pardoned may remain pardoned, but the president in that scenario took a bribe—and that was a criminal act (remember that VP Spiro Agnew resigned in disgrace for taking bribes—the office doesn’t inoculate criminals.)
There is no question that the framers intended the pardon power to be one of the most sweeping granted the president. Alexander Hamilton explained the rationale in Federalist No. 74 this way: “Humanity and good policy conspire to dictate, that the benign prerogative of pardoning should be as little as possible fettered or embarrassed,” he wrote. “The criminal code of every country partakes so much of necessary severity, that without an easy access to exceptions in favor of unfortunate guilt, justice would wear a countenance too sanguinary and cruel.”
So no court can review a pardon; Congress cannot undo a pardon. The power is “unfettered and unembarrassed.” However, that does not mean that it can be used in the commission of a crime by the chief executive.
Take the Watergate example. In that case, the offer of a pardon was dangled in front of defendants to assure their silence in a criminal proceeding. This act, as part of a cover-up, was widely considered to be an obstruction of justice.
Consider Article 9 of the Articles of Impeachment adopted by the House Judiciary Committee in 1974, which spelled out various “high crimes and misdemeanors” of President Nixon, including the following: “endeavoring to cause prospective defendants, and individuals duly tried and convicted, to expect favored treatment and consideration in return for their silence or false testimony, or rewarding individuals for their silence or false testimony.”
The reference is, in part, to activity of Richard Nixon with his adviser Charles Colson in January 1973. Colson’s friend and fellow Brown University alum, E. Howard Hunt, was in deep trouble. Hunt was one of the leaders of the burglars who had broken into the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate complex.
Hunt left a mountain of incriminating evidence in his hotel room at the Watergate and had been arrested and indicted. He faced trial starting in the second week of January 1973 before a federal judge known for his severe sentencing, John J. Sirica (Hamilton would have labeled him “Sanguinary John.”).
Howard Hunt’s troubles were compounded by the sudden and tragic death of his wife in a plane crash in Chicago in December 1972. She had been the pay-mistress for the hush money delivered to the arrested burglars to keep them from testifying in their criminal case. She had $10,000 in cash in her purse when her plane went down short of the runway at Chicago Midway Airport, crashing into a nearby neighborhood.
Hunt still had young children. He worried that if he went to trial and Judge Sirica threw the book at him, his children would be effectively orphaned. In his despair, he asked his lawyer, William Bittman, to meet with Colson to ask for the promise of a pardon so he could plead guilty and avoid the trial.
Colson, against the advice of others in the White House, met with Bittman and in a kind of Mafioso way assured Bittman that “Christmas comes once a year,” meaning Hunt, like Jimmy Hoffa a year earlier, could expect a pardon after spending some time in prison. Bittman understood the allusion. He had been one of the prosecutors who put Hoffa in jail; Nixon pardoned Hoffa on December 23, 1971.
Colson’s subsequent meeting with Nixon in the Executive Office Building was captured on tape, with Nixon clearly agreeing to the pardon.
Hunt then pled guilty and the four “Cuban” burglars took it as a sign that they, too, would be pardoned, so they followed suit, pleading guilty, and remaining silent. The trial progressed against Gordon Liddy and James McCord, the wireman burglar and former CIA operative. Both were found guilty by a jury.
As the time approached for Judge Sirica to sentence all the defendants, young John Dean, Nixon’s White House Counsel, met in private with Richard Nixon to warn him that there was a “cancer growing on his presidency.” The tape of the conversation (Tape 886-8) is instructive on the use of pardons in a cover-up.
After some preliminaries, Dean told Nixon that he, Dean, has been obstructing justice by being a conduit for the hush money—“taking care of people out there who are guilty of crimes.” He then advised the president that he had an obstruction problem with the offer of clemency to Hunt.
Dean called the president’s position on the pardon “untenable.” He illustrated his point: “You know, the Watergate hearings [before the Senate] just over,” Dean said, “Hunt now demanding clemency or he’s going to blow. And politically, it’d be impossible for you to do it.”
Nixon agreed: “That’s right.”
“I’m not sure that you’ll ever be able to deliver on clemency,” Dean continued. “It may be just too hot.”
“You can’t do it until after the [1974] elections, that’s for sure,” Nixon ventured. “But even then… your point is that even then you couldn’t do it.”
“That’s right,” Dean responded. “It may further involve you in a way you shouldn’t be involved in this.”
“No,” Nixon replied, “it’s wrong. That’s for sure.”
The point is simple; even a scheming Nixon recognized it. If some rich asshole offers clemency to keep someone from testifying or providing evidence to authorities, it is an obstruction of justice. The key is the intent. If it is done with “corrupt” intent, as the obstruction statute labels it, then it is a crime and can be the basis for an article of impeachment.
James D. Robenalt, author, January 1973, Watergate, Roe v. Wade, Vietnam, and the Month That Changed America Forever. He lecturesnationally with John Dean on Watergate. His new book, Ballots and Bullets, Black Power Politics and Urban Guerrilla Warfare in 1968 Cleveland, will be published July 1.
‘He’s lying’: Morning Joe calls out media for sugarcoating the rich asshole’s conspiracy theories
Joe Scarborough and some rich asshole (MSNBC)
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MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough called out reporters for their reluctance to characterize President some rich asshole’s wild claims for what they are — lies.
The “Morning Joe” host said the president had reverted to his habits on the campaign trail, when he would toss away his prepared script and ramble about whatever topics that came to mind, whether they were based on reality or not.
“This week we’ve been talking a lot about the lies that some rich asshole has been telling, and when I say lies there’s no opinion about that,” Scarborough said. “He says things that are objectively proven (untrue), and it continues whether it was the post office or Amazon or the Washington Post, or you can go down the list.”
Scarborough said journalists should stop tiptoeing around these demonstrably untrue statements and accurately inform their readers and viewers that the rich asshole is lying.
“He continues this lying streak and we can call it a lie — it’s not being biased, it’s being a reporter,” Scarborough said. “He lies about, once again, millions of illegal voters when there is no data, there is no evidence.”
The president claimed women were being raped by immigrants traveling north in a caravan through Mexico, and he suggested the media was trying to cover up his unsupported claims.
“They don’t want to mention it because it’s a lie,” Scarborough said. “Like so many things that the president has said, he’s lying over and over again.”
Mueller seized Manafort’s bank accounts and issued new taps on 5 phones
Special counsel Robert Mueller on CNN (screen capture)
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Special Counsel Robert Mueller moved to seized bank accounts one day prior to the indictment of Paul Manafort and sought phone taps on five new phones, Politico reported late Thursday.
The news was discovered in recent warrants prosecutors submitted in federal court. The move came after Manafort’s defense attorneys criticized the government for withholding too many details about how warrants were obtained.
The five phone numbers were all on AT&T, according to prosecutors. Thought they would not give details about who.
Muller and his team have been moving forward with their investigations, despite the indictment for Manafort, documents reveal.
Information about the searches have been withheld from Manafort and his legal team because it reveals identities of informants, prosecutors told Politico. It can also relate “to ongoing investigations that are not the subject of either of the current prosecutions involving Manafort.”
The story is developing…
Stormy Daniels lawyer: the rich asshole ‘finally cracked,’ threw his attorney under the bus
BY JULIA MANCHESTER - 04/05/18 06:52 PM EDT
Stormy Daniels's attorney said on Thursday that President the rich asshole threw his personal lawyer under the bus when he said he was unaware of the $130,000 payment his attorney made to the porn star days prior the 2016 election.
"He's effectively thrown, Michael Cohen now under the bus," Michael Avenatti said on MSNBC.
Avenatti said they he would file a petition to depose the president on Monday.
"My understanding is that he denied a couple subsequent questions as to whether he has set up a fund from which this payment would be made or reimbursed. I find that quite interesting. And I find that certainly a topic that we're going to explore in connection with his deposition, which we're going to be making a petition for on Monday," he said.
the rich asshole for the first time publicly acknowledged the scandal regarding Daniels's claim that the two had an extramarital affair on Thursday, telling reporters on Air Force One that he did not know where his attorney Michael Cohen obtained the funds to pay Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford.
The money was part of an agreement to stop her from publicly discussing her affair with the rich asshole and was made in the days before the 2016 presidential election.
"You’ll have to ask Michael Cohen. Michael is my attorney. You’ll have to ask Michael," the rich asshole said.
Ana Navarro hilariously mocks Scott Pruitt’s Fox News interview: ‘He made Betsy DeVos look like Einstein’
Van Jones, Ana Navarro and Scott Jenkins (Photo: Screen capture)
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Republican commentator Ana Navarro blasted conservative commentator Scott Jenkins’ attempt at claiming EPA administrator Scott Pruitt is under attack because he’s been so successful.
“I think Scott Pruitt is under attack largely because he’s been the most effective member of some rich asshole’s cabinet,” Jenkins claimed. Pruitt’s efforts have been halted at every turn with legal challenges.
Host Don Lemon asked who was attacking him. Jenkins listed off everyone from “disgruntled employees” to “a lot of people right now because he’s been effective.”
Former White House staffer Van Jones noted he didn’t think Pruitt was under attack as much as he’s “doing things that are despicable.” He went on to tell Jenkins that he was shocked to hear a conservative cast aside such irresponsible spending on useless things.
Navarro, who kept accidentally calling Steve Mnuchin Steve Munchkin,” noted that Pruitt’s problem is that his flubs aren’t happening in a vacuum, other cabinet secretaries are doing the same.
“There is one more chapter in this telenovela,” she said. “In the sense that we’ve heard about excesses by Ben Carson, by Munchkin-Mnuchin-whatever. It is $130,000 doors or $130,000 lunch tables or jetting around to see an eclipse. This is one more instance of what we’re seeing after some rich asshole promised to be different, and the Republican Party again and again looks the other way. Whether it’s Stormy Daniels or tariffs or deficits or overspending. They look the other way. If this were a Democratic administration, people would be brought in to testify and there would be investigations.”
She argued that the GOP-led Congress has essentially given the White House a pass on everything that they once held as an essential tenant of their party.
“I will say to you, the problem with that [Scott Pruitt] interview is — I mean first of all, it was so bad it made Betsy DeVos look like Albert Einstein,” she continued. “But more than that, he went around the White House to give his buddies and cronies a huge pay raise despite the White House was saying not to do it. That should really bother us, as republicans, as Americans, as taxpayers. That is our money that he is misspending and it should bother all of us despite partisanship.”
Watch the full debate below:
POLITICS
some rich asshole Says He Didn’t Know About Stormy Daniels Payment
the rich asshole’s lawyer Michael Cohen paid the former adult film star $130,000 in 2016.
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Thursday, President some rich asshole said he was not aware of a $130,000 payment his lawyer made to a former adult film star in 2016, marking the first time he has commented publicly on the matter.
the rich asshole told a reporter, according to a pool report, “You’ll have to ask Michael Cohen” why Cohen made the payment to Stephanie Clifford, who goes by the stage name Stormy Daniels.
Asked whether he knew where the money came from, the president responded, “No, I don’t know.”
Clifford’s lawyer, Michael Avenatti, tweeted on Thursday that he looked forward to “testing the truthfulness of some rich asshole’s feigned lack of knowledge” about the payment.
Avenatti in March requested that a federal judge compel the rich asshole to testify in court in a deposition regarding the $130,000 payment.
“As history teaches us, it is one thing to deceive the press and quite another to do so under oath,” Avenatti said Thursday.
Cohen, who acknowledged in February that he made the payment to Clifford, has maintained that the rich asshole was unaware of the arrangement.
“Neither the rich asshole Organization nor the rich asshole campaign was a party to the transaction with Ms. Clifford, and neither reimbursed me for the payment, either directly or indirectly,” Cohen told The New York Times in February. “The payment to Ms. Clifford was lawful, and was not a campaign contribution or a campaign expenditure by anyone.”
The payment came to light in January, when The Wall Street Journal published an article reporting that Clifford had an affair with the rich asshole in 2006. The alleged affair would have taken place the year after the rich asshole married Melania Knauss and a few months after the birth of their son, Barron.
Cohen reportedly paid Clifford $130,000 just before the 2016 election to sign a nondisclosure agreement and to refrain from speaking publicly about the matter.
The attorney has not offered an explanation for the payment, and insists that he paid Clifford out of his own pocket. The White House has denied that an affair between the rich asshole and Clifford ever happened.
In January, In Touch Weekly printed a previously unpublished 2011 interview with Clifford in which she spoke at length about the alleged affair.
She delved further into her story in a “60 Minutes” interview in March, claiming she met the rich asshole at a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe in July 2006. Clifford said she had unprotected sex with the rich asshole and saw him regularly for roughly a year after their first encounter.
Clifford has said she is willing to give back the $130,000, and is currently suing the president over the validity of the nondisclosure agreement.
the rich asshole orders officials to look at $100 billion in new Chinese tariffs
BY JORDAN FABIAN AND JULIA MANCHESTER - 04/05/18 06:59 PM EDT
President the rich asshole on Thursday ordered the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) to consider slapping $100 billion in additional tariffs on China, escalating a heated trade dispute between Washington and Beijing.
The move comes one day after China proposed $50 billion in tariffs on a variety of U.S. goods in response to the rich asshole’s own tariff threat.
"In light of China’s unfair retaliation, I have instructed the USTR to consider whether $100 billion of additional tariffs would be appropriate," the rich asshole said in a statement issued by the White House.
the rich asshole also ordered Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue to ready a plan to protect farming interests from possible Chinese trade actions.
the rich asshole’s decision could undercut ongoing efforts by U.S. and Chinese officials to calm tensions and prevent a full-blown trade war between the world’s two largest economies.
Just hours before the announcement, new the rich asshole economic adviser Larry Kudlow tried to downplay fears that the conflict could hurt the U.S. economy.
"Technically, both countries have just proposed tariffs. Nothing’s been enacted,” he told reporters at the White House. “I think that's an important point. Nothing around the corner. There's going to be a big discussion about it."
Futures for major U.S. stock indexes dropped after the president’s statement, a sign it could further inflame the upheaval on Wall Street over his trade moves.
But the rich asshole doubled down on his call to impose $50 billion in tariffs on Chinese goods, saying that the country has “repeatedly engaged in practices to unfairly obtain America’s intellectual property.”
“Rather than remedy its misconduct, China has chosen to harm our farmers and manufacturers,” he said.
The White House on Tuesday released a list of Chinese imports that could be subject to a 25 percent tariff, including electronics, shoes and furniture.
the rich asshole is using his presidential powers to crack down on Chinese policies that he says have gutted U.S. industries, delivering on a promise he made during the 2016 campaign.
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer conducted a Section 301 investigation that determined Beijing has unfairly forced American firms to turn over intellectual property and technology in order to do business in China.
Those concerns are widely shared among Washington politicians. But Republicans, and some Democrats, fear that imposing tariffs could spark a trade war that could stymie economic growth.
“Hopefully the president is just blowing off steam again but, if he’s even half-serious, this is nuts,” said Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), whose state exports billions of dollars in agricultural products to China. “He's threatening to light American agriculture on fire.”
Conservatives also worry the trade dispute could undercut their message to voters ahead of the November midterm elections that the GOP tax cuts have helped the economy.
China hit back against the U.S. on Wednesday, proposing 25 percent tariffs on imports of U.S. soybeans, corn, airplanes and automobiles — many of which are produced in states the rich asshole won in 2016.
the rich asshole took to Twitter on Wednesday to assert that the U.S. is "not in a trade war with China."
“We are not in a trade war with China, that war was lost many years ago by the foolish, or incompetent, people who represented the U.S. Now we have a Trade Deficit of $500 Billion a year, with Intellectual Property Theft of another $300 Billion. We cannot let this continue!” he wrote.
The U.S. had a trade deficit of $375 billion — not $500 billion — with China in 2017, according to the Commerce Department.
Updated at 8:17 p.m.
Ex-White House advisor compares the rich asshole to authoritarian leader: ‘It could lead to the death of democracy’
David Gergen, Anderson Cooper and David Axelrod (Photo: Screen capture)
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Former White House advisor David Gergen warned of the end of democracy if President some rich asshole continues to lie while whipping his power all over America’s laws.
“He’s as dismissive of truth as he is ethics,” said the advisor to multiple presidents. “We could go on and on with this. One thing was striking this week was a story in yesterday’s front page this the New York Times about the leader of Turkey who is giving speeches like this every day, two or three on national television. He pays no attention to facts. He maintains about 40 percent approval rating. Guess who else has about 40 percent: some rich asshole. It’s a device that works up to a point. I’m sad to say it can lead to the diminishment of democracy if not its death.”
Host Anderson Cooper followed up asking if Gergen “really believes” it could lead to the end.
“Yes, I do,” he said simply.
“This book that’s out now called How Democracies Die is worth reading. It’s short and makes compelling points about how many countries have democracies have become authoritarian countries and it’s happened again and again. In the last 20 years or so it’s happened again and again when extremists come to office and carry their countries in that direction. When you don’t have the kind of restraint that a democracy needs you can erode it badly. I think it’s becoming a threat. We’re not there by any means but it is a threat. If we had this president and a couple more like him, I think we would be very close.”
Former advisor to Barack Obama, David Axelrod, noted that he too is “deeply concerned about democracy,” not merely because of the rich asshole’s behavior but the ways in which he is degrading democratic institutions.
Watch the full commentary below:
Conservatives fear trade war could cripple tax cuts message
BY NAOMI JAGODA AND NIV ELIS - 04/05/18 05:36 PM EDT
Conservatives are worried a trade war with China could wipe out the positive economic benefits of the tax-cut law and cost Republicans their majorities in Congress.
“What Republicans and President the rich asshole did in December was create this enormous, pro-growth tailwind going into this November's elections, and I think that they’ve needlessly created this headwind that could erase all of those gains,” said Andy Roth, vice president of government affairs at the conservative Club for Growth.
“This is a huge unforced error,” he added.
The tax law has been at the center of the GOP’s midterm messaging, with the rich asshole and Republican lawmakers touting its boost to paychecks and the economy.
In an appearance Thursday in West Virginia, the rich asshole highlighted Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-W.Va.) vote against the tax bill in a state where Republicans think they could win a Senate seat this fall.
“The Democrats have a problem. I mean if you look at your senator, he voted against [the tax bill],” the rich asshole said.
But conservatives warn that message could be undercut if the rich asshole’s actions on trade counteract the tax cuts’ benefits.
Stocks have already fallen, with traders pointing their fingers to the tariffs as an explanation.
When the final tax-reform package passed the House in December, the S&P 500 index was at 2,697. On Thursday, it closed at virtually the same level of 2,662. While that figure is up some 15 percent since the rich asshole’s inauguration last year, it’s also a 9 percent drop from the market’s January peak.
the rich asshole’s new chief economic adviser Larry Kudlow told reporters at the White House on Tuesday that the market was simply undergoing a “mild” and “overdue” correction, and floated the possibility that the U.S. and China would reach a trade deal before the most recent round of tariffs went into effect, according to CNBC.
The potential of a trade war has made headlines from coast to coast.
“Talk of Tariffs Leaves Local Ag, Steel business 'in limbo,’ ” read the splash headline in the Fargo, N.D., paper The Forum on Thursday.
“Tariffs grab Ohio's attention,” proclaimed the lead story in Ohio's Columbus Dispatch.
In Peoria, Ill., the Journal Star led with a story about Chinese trade practices harming American recycling firms, and followed with a story below the fold on how tariffs could hurt the local farmers and economy.
The latest trade tensions erupted this week when the rich asshole administration unveiled a list of potential tariffs on $50 billion worth of Chinese imports, including metals, machine parts and electronic components. China responded with a list of its own tariffs on $50 billion worth of American goods, including airplane parts and key agricultural products such as soybeans.
Unlike a previous round of American import taxes on steel and aluminum and Chinese countermeasures on 128 U.S. goods such as fruit, nuts and pork, the latest round of multibillion-dollar tariffs has not yet gone into effect.
Moody’s economist Mark Zandi estimated that implementing the announced tariffs would shave about 0.14 percentage points off the nation's real GDP over the next year.
Using data from the Joint Committee on Taxation, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimated that the final GOP tax bill would increase U.S. economic growth by an average of about 0.1 percentage points per year in the initial years of the law.
Republicans already faced challenges in selling their tax bill.
Recent surveys have found that many people aren’t noticing increases in their take-home pay, despite the fact that the IRS has issued updated tax withholding tables.
Republicans also view tariffs as something that could diminish the tax law’s impact and the economy.
“I don’t think we’re headed in the right place on trade policy,” Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) told reporters in his home state Wednesday.
Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) said in a statement to The Hill that “the best outcome would be to combine regulatory relief, the tax cuts and expanded trade — to keep the economy going and growing.”
“We need free and fair trade, and the key is to ensure that we do have fair trade with China but that we do not have retaliatory tariffs on ag products,” he added.
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Texas) on Thursday announced that the panel will hold a hearing next week on the effects of tariff increases on the economy.
“As we continue to work with the Administration to build off the success of President the rich asshole’s tax cuts and regulatory reform, I am committed to listening to U.S. job creators every step of the way to make sure we make all appropriate adjustments to avoid unintended negative consequences to the U.S. economy,” Brady said.
Tim Phillips, president of the conservative Americans for Prosperity network that has spent millions on advertisements in support of the tax law, said that tariffs could be troublesome for Republicans in the midterms, since they have made the economy a key part of their messaging.
“We know with certainty that protectionist policies like these tariffs ultimately hurt consumers and job creators and that is never a winning political strategy, especially if one of your top accomplishments is tax reform and the economic growth it is producing,” he said.
Some GOP strategists note that several of the industries that China has targeted for retaliation are prominent in areas in the Midwest and South that supported the rich asshole in 2016. If GOP voters are nervous about a trade war or begin to see the impacts in their communities, it could impact turnout in the midterms.
Democrats, who have argued that the tax law mostly benefits the rich, also see a trade war as weakening the already limited benefits of the tax cuts.
“Whatever benefit Americans were supposed to have gained from the GOP tax plan, will be wiped away after the trade wars with China,” said Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.). “China will likely increase prices on every product produced and sold in the U.S. and Americans will feel it in their wallets.”
Business groups that championed the GOP’s tax-overhaul efforts have also been warning that tariffs could undo the benefits of the tax cuts.
They worry the tariffs could lead to higher prices on manufacturing equipment, which could make it more costly for businesses to make new investments that the tax law was designed to spur.
The business community has been touting the benefits of the tax law, and bonuses that companies have announced following the law’s passage have helped to increase public support for the measure. But the imposition of tariffs could cause businesses to talk less about the tax cuts, making that message less prominent ahead of the midterms.
The Association of Equipment Manufacturers has run a television ad during programs the rich asshole is known to watch in an effort to convince the president not to impose steel tariffs.
“Our members are going to have much less to say about the positive impact of tax reform if we’re now putting new taxes in place,” said Kip Eideberg, the group’s vice president of public affairs and advocacy.
the rich asshole finally spoke about Stormy Daniels — and he made things much worse
Ignorance is not always bliss.
After months of silence about Stormy Daniels, the adult film actress who claims she had an affair with the rich asshole in 2006, the rich asshole finally spoke.
It did not go well.
Ever since Daniels burst upon the scene, the rich asshole has made a habit of ignoring the shouted questions of reporters as well as avoiding the topic on Twitter. But on Thursday, the rich asshole broke with this tradition and briefly answered a couple of questions about the affair while en route from West Virginia to DC on Air Force One.
REPORTER: Did you know about the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels?RICH ASSHOLE: No.REPORTER: Then why did Michael Cohen make it, if there was no truth to her allegations?”RICH ASSHOLE: You’ll have to ask Michael Cohen. Michael’s my attorney, and you’ll have to ask MichaelREPORTER: Do you know where he got the money to make that payment?RICH ASSHOLE: No. I don’t know.REPORTER: Did you ever set up a fund of money that he could pull from?
the rich asshole ignored the last last question, and sought out another reporter in an effort to change the subject. But the damage was done.
Professing ignorance about the agreement with Daniels helped the rich asshole deflect the question in the moment. But it put Cohen, his longtime attorney, in legal jeopardy. It also undermines the validity of the contract the rich asshole is current seeking to use to silence Daniels.
The contract itself made promises to Daniels that only the rich asshole could provide. There is an explicit provision entitled “Representations & Warranties and Agreements By DD.” (“DD” is the pseudonym for some rich asshole is the agreement. Daniels is referred to as “PP.”)
If the rich asshole was not even aware of the agreement or Cohen’s payment to Daniels, Cohen could not have legitimately made these “Representations & Warranties” to Daniels. It gives Daniels a strong argument that Cohen committed fraud.
This could both create a legal problem for Cohen, potentially putting his law license in jeopardy, and also serve as a basis for Daniels to void the agreement. These representations by the rich asshole are described as a “material inducement” for Daniels to enter into the agreement. If the rich asshole was not aware of the agreement — and therefore not making these representations — Daniels can argue she was fraudulently induced to sign the agreement.
the rich asshole, while claiming no knowledge of the agreement, is currently trying to enforce the agreement in federal court in California. Cohen has pledged to collect $20 million in damages from Daniels under the agreement. the rich asshole’s comments today make all of that much harder.
Stormy Daniels attorney, Michael Avenatti, celebrated the rich asshole’s comments on Twitter.
Good (actually GREAT) things come to those who wait!!! The strength of our case just went up exponentially. You can't have an agreement when one party claims to know nothing about it. #nodiscipline #thanksforplaying #basta
But what is the importance of voiding the contract if Daniels has already told her story? First, it strengthens Daniels efforts to allow her lawsuit to proceed in federal court, which could ultimately require the rich asshole to answer the same questions under oath.
Second, the contract prohibits Daniels from releasing any photos or videos that would constitute evidence of an affair with the rich asshole. Avenatti has hinted, although not confirmed, that Daniels has such materials. If the contract was voided, she could release the materials without fear of legal liability.
the rich asshole denies knowledge of Stormy Daniels payment
BY JORDAN FABIAN - 04/05/18 04:58 PM EDT
President the rich asshole on Thursday broke his silence on Stormy Daniels, saying he had no knowledge of a $130,000 payment his personal attorney made to the porn star days before the 2016 election.
The president said he did not know where his attorney Michael Cohen got the money to pay Daniels, which was part of an agreement to block her from publicly alleging she had an affair with the rich asshole.
“No,” the rich asshole told a reporter aboard Air Force One who asked if he knew about the payment.
The president spoke aboard the presidential aircraft while traveling back to Washington from an event in West Virginia.
Never shy about sharing his opinions, the rich asshole had remained conspicuously silent about Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, during weeks of press coverage.
Asked why his lawyer made the payment to Daniels, the rich asshole responded “you’ll have to ask Michael Cohen. Michael is my attorney. You’ll have to ask Michael.”
The president said he does not know where Cohen got the money.
“No, I don’t know,” he said.
Cohen has previously said he made the payment personally using money from a home equity line of credit.
The adult film actress said in an interview that aired last month that she was threatened after she tried to go public with her story about sleeping with the rich asshole at a golf outing in 2006.
The alleged incident took place shortly after the rich asshole’s wife, Melania the rich asshole, gave birth to their son, Barron.
The White House has said that the rich asshole denies the allegations, but the president has never personally addressed them.
Daniels’s attorney, Michael Avenatti, said the rich asshole’s comments strengthen the actress’s case to compel the rich asshole’s testimony in a lawsuit seeking to negate their legal settlement.
“We very much look forward to testing the truthfulness of some rich asshole's feigned lack of knowledge concerning the $130k payment as stated on Air Force One,” Avenatti tweeted Thursday. “As history teaches us, it is one thing to deceive the press and quite another to do so under oath. #searchforthetruth #basta.”
A California judge last week denied Avenatti’s motion to depose the rich asshole and Cohen, calling the request premature.
Even though the affair allegedly took place more than a decade ago, it has generated new troubles for the rich asshole.
Government ethics watchdogs have filed campaign finance complaints, alleging that the payout amounted to an in-kind contribution to the rich asshole’s presidential campaign. Democrats on Capitol Hill have also grilled Cohen about the payment.
Cohen has insisted the rich asshole had nothing to do with the settlement agreement. But he used his the rich asshole Organization email address in negotiations with the actress, according to NBC News.
Stormy Daniels’ attorney on the rich asshole’s denial: ‘Christmas has arrived’
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April 5, 2018
the rich asshole just made the case against himself a whole lot stronger.
the rich asshole broke his silence on Stormy Daniels Thursday evening, denying any knowledge of the $130,000 payment his personal attorney made to the porn star in exchange for her silence just days before the 2016 presidential election.
the rich asshole’s denial was nothing less than a gift for Michael Avenatti, the lawyer representing Daniels in a lawsuit seeking to void a non-disclosure agreement blocking her from publicly speaking about her sexual encounter with the rich asshole.
In the suit, Daniels and her lawyer claim that the agreement is unenforceable because the rich asshole didn’t sign it — a claim that appears to have gotten a lot stronger now that the rich asshole has denied even being aware of it.
“It’s a very merry Christmas here in our camp,” Avenatti told MSNBC’s Ari Melber Thursday evening, shortly after news broke about the rich asshole’s comments.
As Avenatti explained in a tweet just before his TV appearance, “The strength of our case just went up exponentially. You can’t have an agreement when one party claims to know nothing about it.”
“This is what happens when you have an undisciplined client,” he told Melber, speaking about the rich asshole’s denial. “We waited for it and lo and behold, Christmas has arrived!”
This is the first time the rich asshole has publicly addressed the controversy. Asked why his lawyer made the payment to Daniels, the rich asshole responded “you’ll have to ask Michael Cohen. Michael is my attorney. You’ll have to ask Michael.”
As Avenatti pointed out, the rich asshole appears to have thrown Cohen “under the bus” with the statement.
According to legal experts, if Cohen made the payment from his own funds and without the rich asshole’s knowledge, it could be considered an illegal campaign contribution. Furthermore, ethical rules prohibit attorneys from settling a claim without the client’s knowledge or using their personal funds to pay for a settlement.
“The statements that some rich asshole made on Air Force One are serious for some rich asshole and serious for Cohen,” Avenatti said. “These guys are making it as they go along and our case just got a whole lot better.”
“If the president didn’t know anything about the payment, then he didn’t know anything about the agreement, and in that case you can’t have an agreement,” he added.
And unfortunately for the rich asshole, his attorney can’t save him from his own mouth.
Mick Mulvaney’s agency suffers while his recruits get massive pay raises
The staffers are being paid more than members of Congress and cabinet secretaries.
Acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Mick Mulvaney, has dealt out huge pay raises to the political appointees he hired to help run the agency, according to a report by the Associated Press.
Mulvaney has hired at least eight political appointees since late November, when took over a bureau he once called a “sad, sick joke.” Four appointees are making $259,500 a year and one is making $239,595. According to the AP, the salaries are higher than those for members of Congress, cabinet secretaries, and nearly all federal judges (excluding those on the Supreme Court).
Mulvaney has a reputation in Washington of being a deficit hawk staunchly opposed to any wasteful spending, yet he personally gave raises to two of his appointees before their first paycheck even arrived, according to records obtained by The New York Times Thursday.
While he may not extend his fiscally conservative policies to his appointees, Mulvaney is certainly making sure the CFPB doesn’t get a penny more than it requires.
When it was time for the agency to submit the agency’s quarterly budget request in January, Mulvaney asked for $0 from the Federal Reserve, the bank that funds the agency, in order to be “responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars.” The White House proposed cutting the CFPB budget by about $150 million, roughly a quarter of its budget.
Mike Calhoun, president of the Center for Responsible Lending, told NPR the cuts will result in “massive layoffs and disruptions” that would “make it hard for it to do its job — a job that it’s been doing incredibly well.” The CFPB is in charge of protecting consumers from predatory practices by financial institutions like mortgage lenders or credit card companies.
Mulvaney, however, seems intent on cutting positions he doesn’t agree with.
“I found out yesterday that I’m paying people — it’s amazing what you learn in these places — I’m paying people at the CFPB to do economics research on climate change,” Mulvaney said last month at a meeting of state attorneys general. “Not sure how that happened, but we’re going to see if we can’t figure out a way to change that.”
In a statement addressing salaries, a CFPB spokesperson blamed former director Richard Cordoray, an Obama appointee, for the high salaries Mulvaney’s appointees are making, saying “non-career staff are being paid on par with the career staff who directly report to them.”
According to the Times report, the spokesperson also said it is Congress’ resposibility to change the CFPB’s compensation practices.
Mulvaney isn’t the only member of the the rich asshole administration to raise eyebrows for giving massive pay raises to his appointees. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt also was accused of using an obscure loophole to give two of his staffers significant pay raises. When asked about the salaries by Fox News on Wednesday, Pruitt denied he approved the salary increases.
Christian nationalists are betting on Pence — as Mueller closes in on the rich asshole
Mike Pence, the Christian nationalist who may be the root of the rich asshole's support among Evangelicals/Screenshot
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Political scientists—and law enforcement agents—have spent the last 18 months parsing information to determine some rich asshole’s surprising win in the 2016 election.
Among the things they’ve looked at include working-class white people’s economic stress, racism and fear of immigrants.
But new research from the journal Sociology of Religion points out that when socioeconomic, demographic and racism are controlled for, one of the strongest predictors of support for the rich asshole is Christian nationalist attitudes. That is, these are people who believe that America is a “Christian nation” and want to see politicians push policies that encourage the government to implement their own agenda. Symbolic defense of the United States’ perceived Christian heritage is their biggest motivator.
“Christian nationalism operates as a unique and independent ideology that can influence political actions by calling forth a defense of mythological narratives about America’s distinctively Christian heritage and future,” the paper reads.
Speaking to Salon, Andrew Whitehead, one of the authors of the piece, implied that these Christian nationalists may see the rich asshole as a figurehead and see Vice President Mike Pence, a committed Christian nationalist, as the puppet-master. These Christian nationalists therefore see this as their chance to have “a soft coup in America.”
“Christian nationalist support for the rich asshole is in some ways transactional,” Whitehead said. “Their desire to protect the perceived Christian identity of the country has nothing to do with the religious bona fides of the person or people who help them achieve it. the rich asshole is seen as a tool used by the Christian God to make America Christian again. He can be dispensed with when he is no longer useful.”
It’s not just Republicans with Christian ideology who supported the rich asshole, the study found. Democrats were far more likely to defect if they were Christian nationalists and independents were likely to break for the rich asshole if they had the ideology.
“In fact, once Christian nationalism was taken into account, other religious measures had no direct effect on how likely someone was to vote for the rich asshole. These measures of religion mattered only if they made someone more likely to see the United States as a Christian nation,” the paper’s authors wrote in a Washington Post article.
Those who’ve said that these extremists are hypocrites who have changed their tune to accommodate the rich asshole are not mistaken: In 2011, during Obama’s presidency, only 30% of them said that an elected official who commits an immoral act in their personal life could act ethically and carry out their duties in office. Today, under a president who makes nondisclosure deals to silence porn stars he’s had sex with while his wife was caring for their infant child, 72% of evangelicals say an elected official can act ethically and carry out the duties of their office
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April 5, 2018
House intel Republicans sided with Corey Lewandowski after he cursed at congressional investigators and refused to cooperate with the Russia probe.
Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee came to the defense of a witness who refused to cooperate with their own investigation, a new report reveals.
According to CNN, former the rich asshole campaign manager Corey Lewandowski yelled and cursed at Democratic lawmakers during an interview with the House Intelligence Committee last month, at one point shouting, “I’m not answering your f—ing question!”
Lewandowski did not deny the account in a subsequent interview with CNN this week.
The outburst came as congressional investigators were conducting their final interview with Lewandowski as part of their yearlong probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election and potential coordination with the rich asshole campaign.
Democratic lawmakers including California Rep. Jackie Speier reportedly pushed back, but Lewandowski “repeatedly” cursed at them and refused to answer further questions.
According to CNN, Lewandowski refused to discuss issues including “the firing of FBI Director James Comey, the White House response to revelations that some rich asshole Jr. met with Russians in the rich asshole Tower in June 2016, and his conversations with the President, among other topics.”
Instead of insisting on his cooperation, Republicans “sided with Lewandowski” and allowed him to leave without answering critical questions that could be pertinent to the investigation.
The revelation sheds new light on the dysfunctional leadership of Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee, which abruptly and prematurely ended its investigation last month, without ever interviewing key witnesses including all four the rich asshole campaign associates who have been charged by special counsel Robert Mueller.
Since Republicans hold the majority in the House, that means they have the power to issue subpoenas and compel testimony when witnesses do not offer it voluntarily. But the GOP lawmakers chose not to use the power, instead allowing Lewandowski to walk away and leaving key questions unanswered.
A short time later, Republicans announced that they were bringing the investigation to an end. The report they issued on their investigation was so embarrassingly devoid of substance that some Republicans publicly broke with their party and admitted that the committee had “lost all credibility.”
Democrats say the breakdown started with Devin Nunes (R-CA), who used his position as the head of the committee to shield the rich asshole from scrutiny. Despite recusing himself, Nunes continued to participate in the committee’s activities. In doing so, turned the investigation into a sideshow — and turned himself into a joke.
According to CNN, Democrats on the committee also pointed to Nunes’ staff, saying they egged on Rep. Mike Conaway — who took over the Russia probe after Nunes stepped down — while other Republican committee members “willingly went along with an effort to rush the probe to conclude there was no collusion.”
And based on this latest reporting, it appears that Republicans also willingly went along with efforts by key witnesses to obstruct the investigation they were supposed to be leading.
Since Republicans don’t want to perform their duties, perhaps voters should do them a favor and alleviate them of that responsibility — by voting them out of office.
Mueller subpoenaed the rich asshole business associates — and asked them about Michael Cohen
President some rich asshole's longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen (Screen capture)
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Special counsel Robert Mueller this week interviewed the rich asshole Organization business associates and asked them questions about the president’s longtime personal lawyer Michael Cohen.
McClatchy reported Thursday night that Mueller appeared unannounced at the home of a the rich asshole associate who reportedly worked with the president’s deals abroad. The special counsel’s investigators were armed with “subpoenas compelling electronic records and sworn testimony,” and sources close to the proceedings said they were “particularly interested in interactions” involving Cohen.
This story is developing …
the rich asshole breaks his silence on Stormy Daniels: ‘You have to ask Michael Cohen’ why the payment was made
some rich asshole during CNN debate (Photo: Screen capture via video)
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some rich asshole on Thursday directly addressed reports his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, paid adult film star Stormy Daniels $130,000 from his home equity line of credit, denying that he knew about the payment and insisting—despite a deluge of news reports—that he didn’t know where the money came from.
“You have to ask Michael Cohen,” the rich asshole said. “Michael Cohen is my attorney you’ll have to ask him.”
the rich asshole was speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One when he made the remarks.
The president also denied reports he was considering replacing Attorney General Jeff Sessions with Scott Pruitt, despite recent allegations of ethics violations levied against the Environmental Protection Agency head.
BREAKING: Trump hasn’t come back to our press cabin on Air Force One for a long time, but he did today to praise Scott Pruitt.
“He’s been very courageous hasn’t been easy,” Trump said per @jeneps. “I can tell you at EPA he’s done a fantastic job.”
the rich asshole smears migrant ‘caravan’ with sexual assault claim: ‘Women are raped at levels never seen before’
President some rich asshole (Screen cap).
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During a speech that was supposed to be about taxes, President some rich asshole appeared to claim women in Central America are raped at higher rates than women elsewhere.
“It’s amazing what other countries put into the [immigration] system,” the president said. “They don’t put their good ones. Remember my opening remarks at the rich asshole Tower when I opened. Everybody said, oh, he was so tough. I used the word rape.”
Justifying his remarks, the rich asshole then pivoted to an apparent reference to the so-called Central American migrant “caravan” headed for the US border. The caravan, multiple news outlets have revealed, are activists partaking in an annual publicity stunt aimed at raising awareness about the issues faced by refugees and migrant workers who have no intention of trying to enter America en masse.
“Yesterday, it came out where this journey coming up, women are raped at levels that nobody has every seen before,” the president claimed. “They don’t want to mention that.”
On Tuesday, when the rich asshole opined about how “sad” the supposed caravan makes him and announced that he plans on sending the National Guard to the American-Mexican border to stop it, speculation arose as to whether the president learned about the large migrant demonstration from a fearmongering Fox News segment aired over the weekend. On Wednesday, a reporter asked Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen about the connection, and she did not answer the question directly.
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