Damn, it's been a busy damn day.
POLITICS
the rich asshole’s Not King, But His Party Is Paying Him Tribute Anyway
The RNC and other Republican committees and candidates have spent nearly $2 million of their donors’ money so far at hotels and resorts that enrich the rich asshole personally.
DORAL, Fla. – The United States has never had kings, dukes or even barons, but President some rich asshole’s most loyal subjects have found a way to pay him millions of dollars in tribute anyway.
New Jersey Republican congressman Tom MacArthur spent $15,221 to hold a fundraiser at the rich asshole’s golf course in Bedminster, according to a HuffPost analysis of Federal Election Commission filings. Mark Meadows, a North Carolina Republican and a close the rich asshole ally in the House, spent $689 for an office Christmas party at the rich asshole’s hotel a few blocks from the White House. The Illinois-based Family PAC paid $3,183 to the rich asshole’s hotel in Chicago to hold a conference there.
And the Republican National Committee this week will likely spend in the neighborhood of a half-million dollars at the rich asshole’s resort in Doral, a few miles west of downtown Miami, for its spring meeting — not counting hundreds or even thousands of dollars RNC members must pay out of their own pockets for airfare, hotel rooms and some meals.
The golf resort boasts plenty of ornate chandeliers and baroque fountains — but lies directly beneath the flight path of Miami International Airport’s takeoffs and landings, and is miles from the closest beach.
RNC members said they like it anyway, even if it means that some of their own money winds up in the president’s pockets.
“Well, we elected a president who’s a businessman,” noted one RNC member on condition of anonymity. “A shrewd businessman.”
Cindy Siddoway, the RNC committeewoman from Idaho, said she didn’t know how the RNC settled on the rich asshole’s golf resort but had no objection. “I don’t have a have a problem with it,” she said. “It’s a lovely hotel.”
In terms of the optics of it? We’re way past that at this point.GOP official
In all, some 70 Republican candidates and parties from Washington state to Washington, D.C., have spent $1.9 million of their donors’ money at the president’s golf courses, hotels and restaurants thus far this election cycle. A portion of every one of these dollars enriches the rich asshole and his family personally.
“If you are a politician who, A, has no principles and, B, wants some rich asshole’s endorsement, then of course you will want to host your fundraising event at a the rich asshole property,” said Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, an open-government advocacy group that has successfully sued the rich asshole for access to White House visitor logs. “There’s no better way to appeal to the transactional president, no better way to make a mark with the no-attention-span president.”
One GOP official, on condition of anonymity, acknowledged the unsavoriness of funneling donor money to the president and his family but said that ― given the rich asshole’s brazenness about profiting from his presidency — the party had essentially given up. “In terms of the optics of it? We’re way past that at this point,” the official said.
Paying The President
For years, the entire system of donors with financial interest in particular legislation and regulations giving campaign contributions to candidates who will then craft those same laws and regulations has been derided as corrupt and tantamount to legalized bribery.
But candidates must abide by strict rules on what they can and cannot do with that money. Using it to personally enrich themselves is illegal.
the rich asshole’s refusal to divest himself of his hotels and golf courses — despite his promises to do so during the campaign — has made it possible for Republican candidates and parties to put money directly into his pocket.
“It’s a scary reality when we’re discussing whether the president is susceptible to the influence of people paying him while president, but it is our current reality,” said Jordan Libowitz of the group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which has sued the rich asshole for violating the constitutional prohibition from taking payments from foreign and domestic government officials.
The biggest source of GOP money flowing to the rich asshole’s properties is the Republican National Committee, which essentially went under the control of the rich asshole since his election in 2016. Through its March filing, it has spent $763,335 at the rich asshole properties since Jan. 1, 2017. That includes $106,646 for a dinner at the rich asshole’s Washington hotel in January, $224,858 for a weekend of meetings and fundraisers at the rich asshole’s Mar-a-Lago resort in March and $237,310 in advance payments to the rich asshole’s Doral golf resort for this week’s spring meeting. In past meetings, the RNC would typically pay half of the total cost of the event beforehand, and the remainder afterward.
The next biggest spender at the rich asshole properties is the president’s re-election campaign, which is wholly under the president’s direct control. Thus far it has funneled $551,643 of its donors’ money to his hotels and golf resorts as well as to the rich asshole Tower in Manhattan, where it rents office space and buys food from the rich asshole’s restaurants there.
Other high-profile spenders include Great America Committee and America First Action, two the rich asshole-supporting political action committees that occasionally host fundraisers at his Washington, D.C., hotel.
But the rich asshole properties also draw smaller committees as well as candidates for House and Senate races, who choose to pay the higher prices that the rich asshole venues often charge compared to nearby competitors.
Illinois’ Adam Kinzinger, Kansas’ Kevin Yoder, New York’s Peter King, California’s David Valadao and Florida’s Ted Yoho are all Republican House members who reported spending at the rich asshole properties.
Both the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee have held events at the rich asshole properties, as did the Morris County, New Jersey, Republican Party — reportedly with dire results.
After paying the rich asshole’s Bedminster golf course $24,487 and a Fox News host $30,000 to serve as keynote speaker, the fundraiser actually wound up losing money, leaving the local party with shaky finances.
Omar Navarro, a Republican who hopes to replace Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters in Los Angeles, reported spending thousands at the rich asshole’s golf resort in Palos Verdes. He conceded that the high costs at the rich asshole resort ate into the total he collected, but said it was the only venue that would agree to host him.
“the rich asshole is the only place where I can hold an event without being shut down,” Navarro said. “They don’t get intimidated by fascist people who keep us from having campaign events.”
He said longtime the rich asshole confidante Roger Stone headlined his first fundraiser and former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio his second. “It’s expensive. It’s not cheap,” he said.
Hoping For A Payoff
CREW’s Libowitz said it is obvious why candidates and incumbent Republican officials alike spend money at the rich asshole properties: in the hopes of winning the rich asshole’s support and endorsement.
“If someone wanted to try to literally buy his favor, they have a direct and legal line to do so. This is why we’ve seen a sudden influx of spending by Republican candidates and committees at the rich asshole properties where they had not previously spent,” Libowitz said. “They have to have their events somewhere, so many may believe that allowing the president to profit off of them will give them a leg up in gaining his support.”
One Republican close to the White House, though, scoffed at the idea that the rich asshole’s political office — known for its dysfunction — had the initiative or discipline to keep track of which candidates were frequenting the rich asshole properties. “No,” he said. “Please.”
Another Republican official close to the rich asshole, who believed that the use of the rich asshole properties by GOP candidates was ethically troubling, agreed that the rich asshole’s political team is not paying any mind to who is spending money at his golf courses and hotels and who is not. “I don’t know that it is noticed by anyone,” the official said. “Maybe it is.”
For Corey Stewart, a U.S. Senate candidate for Virginia, time is running out for somebody in the president’s political world to notice his the rich asshole-brand loyalty.
Stewart jumped into the Senate race not long after losing the primary for the Republican nomination for Virginia governor last year. In October and November of 2017, he spent $1,422 at the rich asshole hotel in Washington on meals as “meeting expenses.”
Stewart said he hosts get-togethers with small groups of “high-dollar donors” there – although at least on one occasion in November, he appeared to be socializing with tourists and other visitors at the bar, not meeting with donors. His FEC report for that period included a bill for $355 for that date.
“I might have been just hanging out there,” he said, adding that the hotel has become a “clubhouse for conservatives” in the area. “We like to host events there because there are a lot of MAGA folks who like to meet there,” he said.
Notwithstanding his frequent visits there, Stewart said he does not expect the rich asshole to endorse him prior to the June 12 Virginia primary, in which he faces two opponents.
Navarro, of Los Angeles, similarly does not expect a rich asshole endorsement, but said he would continue to use the rich asshole properties. “I’d rather do business in a place where someone has my values,” he said.
And — notwithstanding his own website that calls for “an end to accepting bribes” and ridding “corruption/greed” in government ― he rejects the idea that the rich asshole is doing anything wrong by profiting from his businesses while in office.
“If he’s not breaking the law, he’s not breaking the law,” Navarro said.
CNN strategist has one key reason Sarah Huckabee Sanders doesn’t want to answer anymore the rich asshole legal questions
CNN's Jake Tapper, Kaitlan Collins, Robby Mook and Bill Kristol (Photo: Screen capture)
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White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders has been caught in several lies about Stormy Daniels, President some rich asshole’s legal problems and the changing reasons former FBI director James Comey was fired. But Robby Mook, former spokesperson for Hillary Clinton’s campaign, proposed a reason the tone has changed in the briefing.
“I think what’s new today is that you are starting to see the president’s own team have to back off a little bit,” Mook told CNN’s Jake Tapper Thursday. “This press conference was fascinating because you could see Sarah Huckabee Sanders is probably now worried personally if she is aiding and abetting the lying actively and knows she is lying it is potentially obstruction of justice. I’m not a lawyer but you could almost see it in her demeanor.”
He noted that something today changed.
“I probably used to think, naively, that the Republicans will have to come to terms with this in the House and Senate and I wonder if where the dam starts is with the president’s own staff. They will be in their own legal jeopardy if they continue to kind of play the game that they have been trying to play and actively participate in the lying the way that they have.”
Watch Mook go through his full explanation below:
POLITICS
This Week Was A Great Reminder That the rich asshole Is A Huge Liar
It’s not even Friday.
It’s been another cataclysm of a news cycle in which President some rich asshole was caught in a series of lies too obvious to be explained away as misstatements or ignorance.
Weeks after the rich asshole insisted he didn’t know about the hush money used to keep his alleged affair with Stormy Daniels quiet, he on Thursday admitted to the entire arrangement.
Denying that the funds were campaign expenses, the president tweeted that his longtime lawyer Michael Cohen “received a monthly retainer” which he used to arrange a nondisclosure agreement with Daniels. His comments came hours after former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who recently joined the rich asshole’s legal team, told Fox News that the payment was “funneled through a law firm, and then the president repaid it.”
the rich asshole’s lies ― much like the mere notion that he had sex with a porn star in the first place ― are both jarring and also completely predictable.
He offered another flagrant falsehood later on Thursday when he claimed that “the past Administration has long been asking for three hostages to be released from a North Korean Labor camp, but to no avail.” Two of the three hostages were detained after the rich asshole took office.
This week’s untruths got even weirder on Tuesday when the rich asshole’s longtime doctor, Harold Bornstein, said that he didn’t actually write the glowing bill of health released during the campaign.
the rich asshole “dictated that whole letter. I didn’t write that letter,” Bornstein told CNN this week. “I just made it up as I went along.”
“His physical strength and stamina are extraordinary,” Bornstein’s December 2015 letter read. “If elected, some rich asshole, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.”
These frequent contradictions make it hard to take any of the rich asshole’s claims seriously, including his outrage this week that a list of questions special counsel Robert Mueller plans to ask him were leaked to the press.
Multiple sources told The Washington Post that it was the rich asshole’s personal lawyer, Jay Sekulow, who compiled the questions after talking with Mueller’s team.
Mueller’s team is also not known for leaking. The same can’t be said for the White House.
NBC corrects Cohen story, removes details on wiretapping
BY BRETT SAMUELS - 05/03/18 05:53 PM EDT
NBC News on Thursday corrected its report that federal agents had placed a wiretap on phone lines associated with President the rich asshole’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen.
The news outlet updated its initial report to reflect that Cohen’s phones were subject to a "pen register," which allows investigators to create a log of phone calls associated with Cohen’s number.
Its original story, which reported the wiretap, cited two separate sources with knowledge of the proceedings. However, three senior U.S. officials later disputed the report, prompting the correction.
"Correction: Earlier today NBC News, and this reporter, said that Michael Cohen's phone lines were wiretapped. 3 Senior U.S. Officials now dispute that, saying the monitoring was limited to a log of calls (pen register) not a wiretap of Cohen's lines. We will continue to report," one of the story's reporters, Tom Winter, tweeted following the correction.
Correction: Earlier today NBC News, and this reporter, said that Michael Cohen's phone lines were wiretapped. 3 Senior U.S. Officials now dispute that, saying the monitoring was limited to a log of calls (pen register) not a wiretap of Cohen's lines. We will continue to report.
The distinction is significant. The use of a pen register allows investigators to track incoming and outgoing calls from a number, whereas a wiretap allows investigators to actually listen in on calls.
Josh Blackman, a constitutional law professor at the South Texas College of Law in Houston, said it’s far easier to obtain a pen register than a wiretap.
“While the latter records phone calls and captures private information, the former only tracks phone numbers dialed,” he said. “The Supreme Court has recognized that by dialing a phone number, a person voluntarily shares that information with the phone company, so there is a reduced expectation of privacy."
Glen Kopp, a partner at Mayer Brown and former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, added that pen registers are fairly common in investigations.
“A judge has to approve the use of a pen register, but the hurdles for obtaining approval are way less than for a wiretap of someone’s telephone,” he said.
NBC originally said that at least one phone call between the White House and a line associated with Cohen was monitored. It has since updated its story to note that one call was logged.
The initial report sparked outrage from Rudy Giuliani, who represents President the rich asshole in the Russia investigation.
"I am waiting for the attorney general to step in, in his role as defender of justice, and put these people under investigation,” Giuliani told The Hill.
The former New York City Mayor added that wiretapping Cohen's phone would amount to “gross misconduct” by the government.
The White House did not have any comment on the story when it was brought up at Thursday afternoon's press briefing.
Lydia Wheeler contributed.
POLITICS
NBC, ABC Say the rich asshole Lawyer Michael Cohen Was Not Wiretapped, Issue Corrections
U.S. officials told NBC News that Cohen was actually being monitored via pen register.
NBC News and ABC News are walking back earlier reports that claimed federal investigators had wiretapped President some rich asshole’s longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen.
NBC first reported on Thursday that feds in New York City had conducted surveillance on Cohen’s phone lines via wiretapping “in the weeks leading up to the search warrant that occurred several weeks ago,” referring to federal authorities raiding his home, hotel room and office in April.
Hours later, NBC News issued a correction on air, saying Cohen was not wiretapped, citing three senior U.S. officials. ABC News issued a correction as well.
Federal officials were reportedly actually monitoring Cohen using a device known as a pen register. A pen register is a device that logs phone numbers or Internet addresses that have been contacted.
Cohen has been embroiled in a legal battle stemming from a $130,000 “hush money” payment he made to silence Stormy Daniels, the adult film star who allegedly had an affair with the rich asshole.
NBC had reported that one of the phone calls intercepted was “between the White House and one of the phone lines associated with Michael Cohen.”
Rudy Giuliani, the rich asshole’s new lawyer overseeing matters in the Russia investigation, was reportedly “furious” about the initial report, according to The Washington Post’s Robert Costa.
Giuliani told The Daily Beast on Thursday that he and the other lawyers on the rich asshole’s legal team didn’t believe Cohen was wiretapped.
“We think it’s going to turn out to be untrue because it would be totally illegal,” Giuliani said. “You can’t wiretap a lawyer, you certainly can’t wiretap his client who’s not involved in the investigation. No one has suggested that the rich asshole was involved in that investigation. So they’re going to wiretap the lawyer, his client, and his client, the president of the United States? I don’t think so, not if they want to stay out of jail.”
Daniels’ attorney, Michael Avenatti, said the report of wiretapping indicated the rich asshole and his team “have every reason to be concerned at this point.”
“I find it very ironic that now that [Giuliani is] serving as the right-hand lawyer for the president, he doesn’t believe in wiretaps,” Avenatti said on MSNBC. “Of course he got angry on the phone. The reason is because he understands he has an undisciplined client in some rich asshole and there’s any number of things that may be found on those wiretaps or those recordings between some rich asshole and Mr. Cohen. So they have every reason to be concerned at this point.”
Giuliani said Wednesday that the rich asshole paid back the $130,000 to Cohen, contradicting the president’s prior attempts to distance himself from Cohen and his claim that he didn’t know about the payment.
This article has been updated throughout to reflect story developments throughout Wednesday, including NBC’s on-air correction stating Cohen’s phone was not being wiretapped.
CNN’s Phil Mudd rips Giuliani: ‘The most deadly thing in America is getting between him and a microphone’
Phil Mudd (Photo: Screen capture)
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CNN’s Phil Mudd on Thursday suggested some rich asshole’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani should have his mouth washed out with soap, arguing “the most deadly thing in America is getting between him and a microphone.”
Mudd was discussing Giuliani’s interview with the Hill Thursday, during which the top the rich asshole lawyer said he’s waiting for Attorney General Jeff Sessions to “step in”and end the probe of Michael Cohen.
"When I was 7 years old, I called my sister stupid and my mom took out a new bar of ivory soap, took me in the garage and washed my mouth out with soap,” Mudd said. “Rudy Giuliani needs the same treatment.”
“He is suggesting there is some sort of criminal enterprise, run by—by the way—some rich asshole nominees at the Department of Justice and the FBI,” Mudd continued.
The former CIA analysts also went off on Giuliani for suggesting attorney-client privilege should protect Cohen’s $130,000 hush agreement with adult film star Stormy Daniels—and the rich asshole’s subsequent repayment.
“Giuliani said something else that’s outrageous,” Mudd said. “He suggested attorney-client privilege should protect this. Let me get this straight, if there’s evidence that Mr. Cohen committed a crime, does that mean as an American citizen he’s outside the law? He shouldn’t be investigated? If there’s evidence of a crime, I don’t care if you’re the president’s lawyer. You get the same treatment I do.”
“I’ve had it with Mr. Giuliani,” Mudd continued. “The most deadly thing in America is getting between him and a microphone. He’s wrong.
White House struggles with fallout over $130,000 payment
BY JORDAN FABIAN - 05/03/18 06:18 PM EDT
The White House on Thursday struggled to contain the fallout from a string of damaging revelations about the criminal investigations plaguing some rich asshole’s presidency.
Washington awoke in a state of shock after the rich asshole’s new attorney, Rudy Giuliani, disclosed that the president reimbursed his longtime personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, for a $130,000 payment to porn actress Stormy Daniels in exchange for her silence about an alleged sexual encounter.
The statement was designed to reduce the rich asshole’s legal exposure to possible campaign-finance charges. But it also contradicted the president's previous claim he had no knowledge of the payment, renewing questions about the White House’s commitment to honesty.
The developments took many in the West Wing by surprise.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said she first learned that the rich asshole reimbursed Cohen at the same time the public did: when Giuliani told Fox News’ Sean Hannity in a freewheeling interview on live television.
“The first awareness I had was during the interview last night,” she said at her daily press briefing.
Asked about the payment in March, the spokesperson said that “there was no knowledge of any payments from the president.”
Sanders faced a barrage of questions from reporters who asked about the stream of false or misleading information coming from the White House on everything from legal investigations, to policy and personnel decisions.
“We give the very best information that we have at the time,” she responded. “I do that every single day and will continue to do that every day I'm in this position.”
the rich asshole himself sought to quell the furor over the Giuliani interview early Thursday morning, arguing in a series of tweets that the reimbursement cleared him of any campaign-finance violation.
“Money from the campaign, or campaign contributions, played no roll [sic] in this transaction,” he wrote.
Even as he contradicted his previous denials, the rich asshole said such payments are “very common among celebrities and people of wealth” and was intended to “stop the false and extortionist accusations made by [Daniels] about an affair.”
When asked by a reporter in early April if he knew about the payment. the rich asshole flatly replied “no.”
Sanders sought to explain the discrepancy by saying that there “was information the president didn’t know at the time, but eventually learned.”
She referred further questions to Giuliani.
The explosive chain of events deepened the sense of chaos surrounding the White House, which has seldom seen a week go by without a major controversy or crisis.
the rich asshole has worked to break free of the guardrails put in place by White House chief of staff John Kelly, yearning for the more unconstrained environment of his businesses and campaign. But that has led to an increasing number of unforced errors made by the president and those around him.
Giuliani, 73, was brought onto the rich asshole’s legal team last month to help bring a swift end to the Russia investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller. Instead, his public statements caused more problems for the White House on Thursday.
The former New York City mayor appeared to undercut his own argument that the reimbursement was not campaign-related by saying that the rich asshole’s electoral chances may have played a factor in paying Daniels to keep quiet about the 10-year-old incident.
“Imagine if that came out of October 15, 2016, in the middle of the last debate with Hillary Clinton?” Giuliani said during a Thursday morning appearance on “Fox and Friends,” one of the rich asshole’s favorite shows. “Cohen made it go away. He did his job.”
The payment is the subject of a wide-ranging criminal investigation into the business activities of Cohen, who has served as a lawyer and fixer for the rich asshole for more than a decade.
Hours later, NBC News appeared to deliver an even greater blow for the rich asshole’s team when it reported Cohen was wiretapped by federal investigators conducting the criminal probe, and that a call between the lawyer and the White House was picked up.
But the network later corrected the report to say investigators had monitored the calls, but did not record them.
In an interview with The Hill, Giuliani argued that a wiretap on Cohen would represent a flagrant abuse of attorney-client privilege.
When he tells the rich asshole of the report, Giuliani said, “He is going to say to me, ‘Isn’t there an attorney-client privilege?’ And I am going to tell him, ‘No, the Department of Justice seems to want to trample all over the Constitution of the United States.’”
But in a separate interview, the former mayor said a wiretap may not have occurred at all — an assessment that turned out to be correct.
“Us lawyers have talked about it, we don’t believe it’s true,” Giuliani told The Daily Beast.
Giuliani, however, incorrectly reasoned that the wiretap did not occur because doing it to a lawyer “would be totally illegal.”
The disarray has overshadowed the administration’s policy goals, such as the upcoming North Korea summit, the Iran nuclear deal and a confirmation battle over the rich asshole’s nominee for CIA director.
Giuliani even caused more headaches for the administration there, claiming on “Fox and Friends” that three Americans held in North Korean prisons would be released today. The White House was forced to walk back his comments.
Joseph Yun, the State Department’s former point man on North Korea under the rich asshole, said Giuliani and others should not discuss the release until it is completed.
“Any kind of speculation sends the wrong signal and could jeopardize them,” he said on CNN.
the rich asshole spent most of Thursday in private, making his only public appearance at a National Day of Prayer event in the Rose Garden.
Niall Stanage contributed.
Sarah Sanders waves the white flag on Stormy Daniels
"I'm not going to get into those details."
On April 5, President the rich asshole specifically said he had no knowledge of the $130,000 payment Michael Cohen made to Stormy Daniels, and referred all questions back to Cohen. Last night, Rudy Giuliani admitted that the rich asshole had reimbursed Cohen for the $130,000 in a series of payments that completed in 2017.
During Thursday’s White House press briefing, Sarah Sanders was presented with a very difficult task are explaining how these two things are consistent.
She barely tried.
Sanders initially said that “this was information the president didn’t know at the time but eventually learned.”
But how could the rich asshole not know about the $130,000 payment by Cohen if he had already reimbursed Cohen?
That’s precisely what Sanders was asked next by ABC’s Jonathan Karl. “How could he not have known, he was paying him back?”
“I’m not going to get into those details,” Sanders replied.
This isn’t an answer but an acknowledgement that there is no answer.
CNN’s Jim Acosta gave it another shot. “How can you only be aware of something 10 days to two weeks ago but at the same time be in the process of paying monthly retainers that apparently covered this reimbursement?”
“I can’t get into the details of the ongoing litigation. I would refer you to the President’s outside counsel,” Sanders replied.
Another issue, raised by Acosta and others, was Sanders own statement on March 7, in which she told reporters that she had spoken to the president and he had no knowledge of the payments made to Daniels.
Acosta asked if she was “lying” or if she was “in the dark.”
Sanders said she gave “the best information I had.”
She later acknowledged that the first time she learned that the rich asshole had reimbursed Cohen for the Stormy Daniels payment was when she watched the Rudy Giuliani interview on Hannity last night.
Watch: Fox News discusses fact that Michael Cohen now faces serious prison time and could flip
Axios editor Nicholas Johnston and Fox News Shep Smith/Screenshot
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Rudy Giuliani’s big Wednesday night reveal of the fact that the rich asshole knew about the hush-money payoff to Stormy Daniels and reimbursed his attorney has analysts scrambling to figure out why.
Did Giuliani get confused and make a mistake, or is this him ripping the band-aid off on something he knows is going to come out?
Axios editor Nicholas Johnston and Fox News’ Shep Smith discussed that on Thursday afternoon, adding the fact that they believe NBC News reporting on Cohen’s phones having been tapped.
“If NBC New’s reporting is to be believed—it’s not been denied by anyone, that there was a wiretap—they clearly had to have had probable cause for the wiretap. Then then needed to have an enormous amount of probable cause to go raid Michael Cohen in all those ways,” Smith said. “And now Michael Cohen faces either a lot of prison time or he could flip. There’s a lot of suggestion today that he’s flipped.”
“There is no way that the Justice Department undertook a raid of Michael Cohen’s offices or a wiretap of his phone lightly,” Johnston said.
Watch below.
Sarah Sanders responds to Giuliani’s serious legal error with verbal equivalent of a shrug emoji
She doesn't think it matters. She's also not Robert Mueller.
During his train wreck of an interview on Hannity on Wednesday night, new the rich asshole attorney Rudy Giuliani explained that the president fired then-FBI director James Comey because Comey refused to publicly announce that the rich asshole “wasn’t a target” of the FBI’s investigation of his campaign.
There’s just one problem. Giuliani’s explanation for Comey’s firing differs from two previous ones that have already been offered by the White House — the official line, which was that Comey mishandled the Hillary Clinton email investigation; and the one the rich asshole offered NBC’s Lester Holt, which was that he fired Comey because he was frustrated with the Russia investigation.
On Thursday, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked to reconcile team the rich asshole’s shifting rationales for Comey’s firing. She responded with the verbal equivalent of the shrug emoji.
“There were a number of reasons that James Comey was fired. The president has named several of them,” Sanders said. “But the bottom line is, the president doesn’t have to justify his decision. The president has the authority to fire and hire, and I think every single day we’ve seen that he made the right decision in firing James Comey.”
Despite what Sanders would have you believe, the White House’s changing story could cause problems for the rich asshole. Part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation pertains to whether the rich asshole obstructed justice when he fired Comey amid an active FBI investigation into his campaign. The answer hinges on the rich asshole’s motivations.
the rich asshole himself has said contradictory things about why he fired Comey. Though he initially admitted he fired him because of the Russia investigation, the rich asshole recently tried to walk that back in a tweet proclaiming that “the worst FBI Director in history, was not fired because of the phony Russia investigation where, by the way, there was NO COLLUSION (except by the Dems)!”
In that tweet, the rich asshole did not cite a reason for Comey’s firing. The implication, however, is that Comey’s poor character justified his termination. Giuliani furthered that effort during his interview with Hannity, at one point calling Comey “a very perverted man.”
EXCLUSIVE: Giuliani calls for Sessions to 'step in' on Cohen investigation
BY NIALL STANAGE - 05/03/18 03:09 PM EDT
Rudy Giuliani called for Attorney General Jeff Sessions to intervene in the Michael Cohen case and put the people behind the probe “under investigation” in a phone call with The Hill on Thursday.
“I am waiting for the Attorney General to step in, in his role as defender of justice, and put these people under investigation,” Giuliani said, reacting to an NBC News report that phones belonging to Cohen, President the rich asshole’s longtime personal attorney, had been tapped by investigators.
The former New York City mayor argued that the reported wiretapping of Cohen, if true, was a blatant transgression of attorney-client privilege.
Giuliani, who joined President the rich asshole’s personal legal team about two weeks ago, predicted that the rich asshole would share his anger at the reported wiretapping, though he said he had not yet spoken to the president about it.
When he does so, Giuliani predicted, “He is going to say to me, ‘Isn’t there an attorney-client privilege?’ And I am going to tell him, ‘No, the Department of Justice seems to want to trample all over the Constitution of the United States.’ ”
Giuliani’s explosive comments further heighten the stakes in the legal battles in which the rich asshole is enmeshed.
It is extraordinary, by any measure, for a member of the president’s personal legal team to suggest that the attorney general should intervene in an investigation that affects the president.
But Giuliani said that a wiretapping of Cohen would amount to “gross misconduct” by the government. He further alleged that “this case has been surrounded by numerous acts” that fit that description.
Giuliani added sarcastically, “And they don’t even notify us? I mean, he’s only the president of the United States.”
The NBC News report stated that it was "not clear how long the wiretap has been authorized” on Cohen but that it was “in place in the weeks leading up to the raids on Cohen's offices, hotel room, and home in early April.”
NBC cited “one person with direct knowledge” of the matter.
Sessions's deputy at the Justice Department, Rod Rosenstein, reportedly signed off on the Cohen raid after prosecutors in New York received a criminal referral from special counsel Robert Mueller.
The NBC report also stated that “at least one phone call between a phone line associated with Cohen and the White House was intercepted” by law enforcement.
Before the furor over the wiretap erupted Thursday, Giuliani dropped a bombshell by telling Sean Hannity of Fox News Channel on Wednesday evening that the president reimbursed Cohen for the $130,000 that the attorney paid to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels a short time before the 2016 presidential election.
the rich asshole told reporters aboard Air Force One last month that he was not aware of the payments to Daniels and that he did not know where Cohen had gotten the money.
the rich asshole is battling on several legal fronts, including the Cohen matter, the ongoing Russia investigation led by Mueller and accusations of sexual misconduct from women.
Giuliani reiterated in his phone call with The Hill that the rich asshole was aware in general terms that the former New York City mayor was going to put out the version of events he presented on “Hannity” — though not exactly when he would do so.
As if to push back against those who suggested that he had committed a gaffe, Giuliani said he had spoken to the president “several times” since his Wednesday evening Fox News appearance.
Asked if the rich asshole was content with his performance, Giuliani responded: “Yep.”
Giuliani also hit back at criticism — including from fired FBI Director James Comey — about his use of the term “stormtroopers” in relation to the FBI raids last month on Cohen’s home, office and hotel room.
On Twitter, Comey wrote: “I know the New York FBI. There are no 'stormtroopers' there; just a group of people devoted to the rule of law and the truth. Our country would be better off if our leaders tried to be like them, rather than comparing them to Nazis.”
Giuliani countered that he had not made a Nazi comparison, arguing, “there are stormtroopers all over.”
But, he added, “If you don’t like it, don’t act that way.”
This is the real reason Giuliani and the rich asshole are finally admitting to paying off Stormy Daniels
some rich asshole -- shown here with new attorney Rudy Giuliani -- had previously denied all knowledge of the payment to Stormy Daniels, before admitting last week that his personal lawyer Michael Cohen struck a "deal" with the porn star on his behalf. (AFP / Don EMMERT)
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The professional election law world is aghast that President the rich asshole’s latest attorney, Rudy Giuliani, told Fox News that the rich asshole reimbursed his legal fixer, Michael Cohen, for the $130,000 payment that Cohen made to silence Stormy Daniels about their alleged affair just before the 2016 election.
Giuliani’s admission, which was confirmed by the rich asshole in a tweet, has prompted media outlets like the New York Times to report that the rich asshole was caught in another lie, and that the president and Cohen could be fined by the Federal Election Commission for breaking laws intended to inform voters about their candidates for high office.
“the rich asshole’s admission that he later repaid Cohen for the hush money destroys any argument Cohen could have made that the payment was out of his own money as an independent expenditure,” Trevor Potter, president of the Washington-based Campaign Legal Center, a former Republican FEC member and Stephen Colbert’s favorite go-to guy for explaining election laws, said Thursday.
“This is a reminder of why disclosure and reporting laws are on the books in the first place: if these transactions were properly reported by the rich asshole campaign in October 2016, it would have triggered public attention to the issue, and would have given voters relevant information that could be factored into their decision-making,” Potter continued. “It is important for the FEC to take this matter seriously and open an investigation.”
But urging the FEC to act is akin to using a water pistol to put out a forest fire. The body has been hobbled by partisan gridlock, unfilled appointments and has had little impact of the rough and tumble of campaigns in recent years. You can bet that Giuliani knows this and what is really going on is a deliberate attempt to divert attention from the escalating Mueller probe of the rich asshole campaign’s collusion with Russia to the yawn-inducing world of campaign finance oversight.
Potter, of course, is completely correct that campaign finance laws are intended to help the public understand who they are voting for and to prevent political corruption. He said on Thursday that the rich asshole, via Giuliani, has now put himself squarely in the sights of federal campaign regulators who will likely end up fining him
“With this latest explanation, President the rich asshole finds himself between something of a rock and a hard place,” Potter explained. “If this payment was a $460,000 loan from Michael Cohen, as Rudy Giuliani claimed, the rich asshole was required to disclose it in the financial disclosure report that he filed in June 2017 with the Office of Government Ethics. The law required him to disclose any loan that was greater than $10,000 at any time during 2016 or the first half of 2017. He didn’t disclose it and, if the omission was intentional, he could be subject to civil or criminal penalties.”
So why are Giuliani and the rich asshole positioning themselves for a FEC investigation and fine? Apart from diverting the news away from the Mueller investigation, the rich asshole can tweet a big ‘so what,’ because, as it turns out, other campaigns—including Barrack Obama’s 2008 effort—violated FEC rules and faced big six-figure fines.
“President Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign has been fined $375,000 by the Federal Election Commission, one of the largest fines levied against a presidential campaign,” USA Todayreported in January 2013. “The fines are related to missing reports for nearly 1,300 last-minute donations, totaling nearly $1.9 million. In the 20-day period before an election, candidates are required to file notices within 48 hours of receiving contributions of $1,000 or more.”
It’s not exactly news that the president is a serial liar, serial adulter and is willing to pay to settle legal disputes. Regarding Giuliani’s admission about reimbursing his fixer Cohen and the rich asshole’s tweet affirming it, take note of why it’s a shrewd move for president’s legal team.
Not only can the rich asshole say that Obama did something bad, muddying the waters he’s in by raising false equivalencies. But as important, it took the FEC more than four years to fine Obama—issuing that historic fine after the next presidential election was over. (In case anyone needs reminding, Obama was re-elected in 2012.)
Someone at the White House called Cohen’s phone before he was raided by FBI
It's not clear who spoke with Cohen or what the call was about.
Federal investigators wiretapped the phone lines of longtime the rich asshole lawyer Michael Cohen and intercepted at least one phone call between a phone line belonging to Cohen and someone at the White House, NBC News reported on Thursday.
Cohen is currently under federal investigation for a $130,000 payment he made on behalf of the rich asshole to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, weeks ahead of the 2016 presidential election, to keep Daniels quiet about an affair she claims to have had with the rich asshole in 2006.
Sources with “knowledge of the legal proceedings” against Cohen told NBC News that the wiretap was in place “in the weeks leading up to” a series of FBI raids on Cohen’s home, office, and the hotel room in which he had been staying at the time, on April 9. The sources claimed they did not know how long the phone lines had been tapped.
It’s unclear who was on either end of the call between Cohen’s phone and the White House, or what was discussed. However, it’s unlikely the call was made in recent weeks, as NBC noted the president’s legal team advised him not to communicate with Cohen, immediately following the raids.
ABC News previously reported that the rich asshole and Cohen did speak once, following the FBI raids on April 9.
Sources told ABC News following the April 9 raids that agents seized “recordings” in addition to documents on the Daniels payment and related matters, although it’s not clear yet whether the newly revealed White House phone call was part of those recordings. According to The New York Times, prosecutors were searching specifically for recordings Cohen had made of phone calls between himself and other lawyers. Cohen claims he did not record any conversations with the rich asshole.
A phone call between the rich asshole and Cohen — who has acted as the rich asshole’s personal attorney for several years — is in itself unsurprising, but the potential timing of the phone call and the requirements necessary to obtain a federal wiretap raise suspicions. If the president was indeed on the other end of the line during the recently revealed wiretapped call, it would suggest that he was aware investigators may have been closing in on important information, prior to the raid, and felt the need to speak with Cohen about it.
Additionally, in order to obtain a federal wiretap, NBC analyst Chuck Rosenberg notes, affidavits must be “highly detailed and carefully vetted by experienced lawyers.”
“In all cases the wiretap must be approved by a federal judge,” he said. Typically, wiretaps are only employed during investigations of ongoing crimes and not for past crimes, he added.
Whoa. Harder for law enforcement to get a wiretap authorized than a normal warrant. This means an independent federal judge reviewed the evidence & concluded there was "probable cause" that Michael Cohen "is committing, has committed, or is about to commit" one or more felonies. twitter.com/JesseRodriguez…
“[It’s] harder for law enforcement to get a wiretap authorized than a normal warrant,” Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA), who sits on the House Judiciary Committee, tweeted on Thursday. “This means an independent federal judge reviewed the evidence & concluded there was ‘probable cause’ that Michael Cohen ‘is committing, has committed, or is about to commit’ one or more felonies.”
Cohen has previously carried out a variety of tasks for the rich asshole, including acting as a surrogate for the president both during the election and afterward. In a 2011 CNN interview, he described himself as the rich asshole’s guardian, claiming, “I protect some rich asshole. If there’s an issue that relates to some rich asshole, that is of concern to him it’s of course of concern to me and I will use my legal skills to protect some rich asshole to the best of my ability.”
That loyalty became particularly useful to the rich asshole in the months leading up to the 2016 election: in addition to his $130,000 payment to Daniels, Cohen was also tied to an alleged $150,000 hush payment from American Media Inc. — the National Enquirer’s parent company — to former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who also claims to have had an affair with the rich asshole in 2006. While AMI claims the money was for a series of fitness columns and magazine covers, McDougal claims the money barred her from taking her story public, and that the outlet only purchased the rights to her account to shelve the story before it could be published.
Although Cohen claims he had no part in the negotiation process between McDougal and AMI, he was kept in the loop throughout by McDougal’s then-lawyer, Keith Davidson, who also previously represented Daniels.
Federal prosecutors are currently investigating Cohen’s ties to McDougal.
For his part, Cohen initially claimed that he tapped into his home equity line to make the $130,000 payment to Daniels, and that he did so to spare the rich asshole from suffering a blow to his reputation prior to the election, despite the fact that any allegations of an affair are false. He claimed the rich asshole did not repay him for the favor.
On Wednesday, however, former New York City Mayor and current the rich asshole legal team member Rudy Giuliani stated that the rich asshole had, in fact, repaid Cohen the $130,000 in hush money, and that the payment had been “perfectly legal,” despite being made during the 2016 election cycle.
“That money was not campaign money, sorry,” Giuliani told Fox News host Sean Hannity. “I’m giving you a fact now that you don’t know. It’s not campaign money. No campaign finance violation. [They] funneled it through the law firm, and the president repaid him.”
Giuliani’s comments contradicted the rich asshole’s earlier statements to reporters, in which he claimed he had no knowledge of the $130,000 payment to Daniels and referred reporters to his lawyer, Cohen. The White House has also stated that the rich asshole had “no knowledge of any payments.”
the rich asshole’s own divorce lawyer has suggested that Cohen’s loyalty, while ironclad thus far, may only go so far. In a comment to CNN in mid-April, attorney Jay Goldberg claimed that Cohen would likely flip on the president and work with federal prosecutors to avoid jail time.
“He’s of a type that I have recognized in the past as one not suited to stand up to the rigors of jail life,” Goldberg said.
Sanders: I found out about the rich asshole reimbursement from Giuliani's interview
BY JACQUELINE THOMSEN - 05/03/18 03:08 PM EDT
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Thursday that she didn't know that President the rich asshole had reimbursed attorney Michael Cohen for the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels until Rudy Giuliani made the revelation on Fox News the night before.
"The first awareness I had was during the interview last night,” Sanders said during the press briefing when asked when she learned that the rich asshole had reimbursed Cohen for the payment related to a nondisclosure agreement, despite previously claiming he was unaware of it.
The Washington Post reported earlier Thursday that Sanders was among the White House staffers who were unaware that Giuliani, who recently joined the rich asshole's legal team, would make the revelation.
CNN’s Jim Acosta also pressed Sanders over information she had given reporters earlier about the rich asshole not being aware of the payment, asking if she was “lying to us at the time or were you in the dark.”
“I've given the best information that I had at the time,” Sanders said.
Giuliani, a former mayor New York City, made the explosive revelation that the rich asshole had reimbursed Cohen for the payment to Daniels, an adult-film star who alleges she had an affair with the rich asshole in 2006, during an interview with Fox News's Sean Hannity on Wednesday night.
the rich asshole addressed the payment in a series of tweets early Thursday, saying that Cohen was paid through a monthly retainer.
He added that the arrangement was made "to stop the false and extortionist accusations made by her about an affair."
Cohen had previously said the payment, which was made weeks before the 2016 presidential election, was done with his own funds and that he was not paid back.
Reporter gets Sarah Sanders to admit the rich asshole lied about porn star payment
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Even Sarah Huckabee Sanders couldn't cover for the rich asshole today.
The Stormy Daniels case continued to rock the rich asshole’s White House Thursday, as Sarah Huckabee Sanders was forced to admit that the rich asshole lied to her about the hush money payment.
In March, Sanders told reporters that she’d “had conversations with the President about” the hush money payment, and that “there was no knowledge of any payments from the President” to Michael Cohen.
But at Thursday’s briefing, CNN’s Jim Acosta confronted Sanders with the rich asshole attorney Rudy Giuliani’s claim that the rich asshole reimbursed Cohen for the payment personally, asking her, “Were you lying to us at the time, or were you in the dark?”
“The president has denied, and continues to deny, the underlying claim,” Sanders said. “Again, I’ve given the best information I had at the time, and I would refer you back to the comments that you yourself just mentioned a few minutes ago about the timeline of Mayor Giuliani.”
“But that statement was in reference to the reimbursement, the payment,” Acosta said.
“Again, I gave you the best information that I had, and —” Sanders repeated.
“You didn’t know at the time,” Acosta said. “You were kept in the dark.”
The “best information that I had at the time” is apparently pretty unreliable under the rich asshole’s White House.
Sanders refused to answer reporters earlier in the day, and after a lengthy delay for the briefing, appears to have decided it was better to subtly pin the blame back on the rich asshole than cover for him as she usually does.
Giuliani’s publicity push has been a rolling disaster, beginning with his admission Wednesday night that the rich asshole reimbursed Cohen for the hush money payment, and followed by his declaration Thursday morning that the payment was made for political purposes.
Now, the rich asshole has to worry about a press secretary who can’t quite take responsibility for his lies, at least for one day.
The legal process required for a wiretap shows how Michael Cohen is in deep trouble: ex-federal prosecutor
President some rich asshole's longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen (Screen capture)
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Former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti on Thursday explained how news that some rich asshole’s longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen was wiretappedprior to his FBI raid implies the government thinks he’s guilty of a crime.
“What does news that Michael Cohen was wiretapped tell us about the investigation of him?” the former prosector mused. “Short answer: A lot.”
THREAD: What does news that Michael Cohen was wiretapped tell us about the investigation of him? (Short answer: A lot.)
1/ Today @NBCNews reported that federal law enforcement wiretapped Michael Cohen’s phones in the weeks leading up to the search of his office, home, and hotel room. nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna8…
Mariotti explained in layman’s terms that the federal government obtains wiretaps when investigating “ongoing criminal activity.” To obtain one, he wrote, “investigators had to convince a judge that Cohen would use the phone to communicate” about any criminal activity he planned on partaking in within the 30-day window of the wiretap.
Wiretapping is different from a search warrant, the legal analyst continued, based on the time frame investigators are looking into: search warrants deal with past crimes, while wiretaps are obtained to get information on crimes a subject plans on committing in the future
2/ As a starting point, a wiretap means federal law enforcement was investigating *ongoing* criminal activity. In order to obtain a wiretap, investigators had to convince a judge that Cohen would use the phone to communicate regarding criminal activity during the 30-day period.
3/ That is different from a search warrant, which often seeks evidence of *past* crimes. To get the search warrant, the prosecutors had to convince the judge that evidence would be found in a location. That evidence (documents, etc.) could be about crimes from months ago.
4/ In contrast, the wiretap seeks the ability to intercept calls in the future. So the prosecutors had to convince the judge that there was good reason to believe that Cohen would have conversations that would be evidence of a crime within the next 30 days.
Mariotti went on to explain that when prosecutors don’t acquire wiretaps, they instead use “cooperators” to get information about a crime the subject is planning to commit. The knowledge that Cohen was wiretapped means investigators proved to a judge that Cohen was likely speaking to others involved in the criminal activity.
5/ Typically the way prosecutors do this is by recording a call between the person using the phone and a cooperator during which criminal activity is discussed. There are other ways to prove a phone is being used to discuss crime, but the evidence on that point must be solid.
6/ That isn’t enough, though, because wiretaps require prosecutors to convince the judge that the wiretap is *necessary.* If prosecutors can only prove that Cohen is talking with their cooperator, they don’t need a wiretap because they can just record calls with the cooperator.
7/ So prosecutors also have to show the judge that Cohen used the phone to communicate with others who are part of the criminal activity. This is typically done by looking at phone records and providing evidence that others in contact with the phone are committing crime.
“Wiretaps are difficult to get,” the former prosecutor continued. “A normal wiretap has to be approved by a supervisor at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, then by special attorneys at the Justice Department, then by a Deputy Assistant Attorney General, and then by a judge. This one certainly got additional scrutiny.”
Mariotti went on to elaborate on the uniqueness of the Cohen wiretap, noting that “it is highly unusual to wiretap an attorney’s phone because so many of the conversations could be privileged.”
8/ Wiretaps are difficult to get. A normal wiretap has to be approved by a supervisor at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, then by special attorneys at the Justice Department, then by a Deputy Assistant Attorney General, and then by a judge. This one certainly got additional scrutiny.
9/ Once a judge signs a warrant, calls are screened by monitors at the FBI. Each monitor listens and determines early in the call if it is (1) not related to criminal activity or (2) privileged. If they determine the call is unrelated to crime or privileged, they stop listening.
10/ (Sometimes they “spot check” calls that are very long to see if the previously unrelated to crime has taken a turn and is now about criminal activity.)
11/ It is highly unusual to wiretap an attorney’s phone because so many of the conversations could be privileged. A wiretap like this would receive extra scrutiny from the Justice Department and the judge even if Cohen didn’t represent the president.
Noting that wiretaps are typically at the “covert” or non-publicized stage of an investigation, Mariotti wrote that news of the wiretap makes the early April FBI raid of Cohen’s hotel room, home and office all the more interesting.
“Prosecutors had to know that if they executed the search warrants, Cohen would be much less likely to talk on the phone about crime going forward,” he wrote. “So why ruin their wiretap? Either they already had enough evidence to make their case, or they thought he would destroy evidence.”
12/ When a phone is wiretapped, typically the investigation is “covert.” In other words, the person doesn’t know they’re being investigated. If the investigation isn’t covert, the person is unlikely to use the phone to discuss crime.
13/ For that reason, prosecutors who have a wiretap typically keep the investigation under wraps even if the person is in the process of committing a crime, unless serious crimes are being committed that could harm others, evidence is being destroyed, or they have what they need.
14/ For that reason, the search warrants executed at Cohen’s home, office, and hotel room are now much more interesting. Executing a search warrant means that the investigation is no longer hidden, and in the most “in your face” way possible.
15/ Prosecutors had to know that if they executed the search warrants, Cohen would be much less likely to talk on the phone about crime going forward. So why ruin their wiretap? Either they already had enough evidence to make their case, or they thought he would destroy evidence.
Whatever the government’s plan was, the former prosecutor wrote, “is very bad news for Cohen.”
“So who told NBC News about the existence of the wiretap?” he mused. “My guess is either Cohen’s camp or the rich asshole’s camp. The existence of the wiretap may have been revealed to them by prosecutors, and they could have reason to leak.”
16/ Either reason is very bad news for Cohen. So who told NBC News about the existence of the wiretap? My guess is either Cohen’s camp or Trump’s camp. The existence of the wiretap may have been revealed to them by prosecutors, and they could have reason to leak. /end
Sarah Sanders: ‘We can’t confirm the validity’ of Giuliani’s statements
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Rudy Giuliani might be the rich asshole's favorite new personal attorney, but Sarah Huckabee Sanders is already trying to distance the White House from him.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders worked hard Thursday to distance the White House from extraordinary claims made by the rich asshole’s new personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, during his recent whirlwind TV tour.
“We got Kim Jong Un impressed enough to be releasing three prisoners today,” Giuliani claimed on “Fox & Friends.”
But when Reuters reporter Jeff Mason asked Sanders about that claim, she made it clear Giuliani was not to be listened to.
“We cannot confirm the validity of any of the reports currently out about their release,” she replied.
Mason followed up and asked, “In addition to being an attorney for the president does Mr. Giuliani — Mayor Giuliani have the wider remit to talk about things like foreign policy?”
Sanders answered, “Not that I’m aware of.”
CNN reported that “officials were still working to verify reports the three Americans had been moved from labor camps to a hotel in Pyongyang.” The outlet noted that the families of the prisoners have not received any new information about them.
When Giuliani appears on TV, he does so as the hand-selected lawyer for the sitting president, presumably speaking on the rich asshole’s behalf. His statements have the weight of the presidency behind them, thanks to the rich asshole. And they are seen around the world — including in North Korea, even as diplomats from multiple countries work to secure agreements on vital nuclear issues.
Yet according to the White House press secretary, Giuliani was simply freelancing. And she admitted she could not verify “the validity” of Giuliani’s claim.
Thursday’s press briefing suggested there are two competing camps: Giuliani and the rich asshole working together on one hand, and the White House and related agencies on the other.
It is a recipe for massive dysfunction, played out in front of the entire world.
Giuliani revealed sensitive State Department intel in disastrous Fox News interview
Giuliani claimed North Korea would release three U.S. prisoners — before the administration formally announced anything.
An interview meant to address President some rich asshole’s participation in the ongoing investigation into possible Russian interference went south quickly on Thursday, after former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani suddenly announced that North Korea would release three U.S. nationals from prison that same day.
Giuliani is currently serving as a member of the rich asshole’s personal legal team. He is not a member of the rich asshole administration, has no official capacity in the State Department, and does not have the proper security clearance to discuss sensitive diplomatic issues.
“The president of the United States is getting ready to negotiate probably one of our most historic agreements… and we got Kim Jong-un impressed enough to be releasing three prisoners today,” Giuliani said during an interview on Fox & Friends Thursday morning, citing an upcoming diplomatic summit between the rich asshole and the North Korean leader.
Giuliani claimed that the ongoing Russia investigation — which is being run by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and focuses on possible collusion between the rich asshole campaign and Russia during the 2016 election — was detracting from the real issues at hand, such as the rich asshole’s supposed diplomatic progress with North Korea.
“[Now] I’ve got to go and prepare [the president] for this silly deposition about a case in which he supposedly colluded with the Russians, but there’s no evidence of that,” he lamented.
Giuliani’s North Korea comments came as something of a surprise, considering the State Department has not yet made any announcements on the matter and declined to give any sort of timeline for the prisoner’s release when reached for comment. Both the National Security Council and the White House have also been silent on the issue so far, as CNN White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins notedThursday.
The three Americans in question — Kim Hak-song, Kim Sang Duk (Tony Kim), and Kim Dong Chul — have been detained in a North Korean prison since early 2017 and late 2015, in the latter man’s case. Two of the three men, Kim Kak-song and Tony Kim, worked at the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST); Kim Dong Chul is a pastor.
On Wednesday night, sources with knowledge of the negotiation process told CNN that a prisoner release was “imminent,” but did not say when the three men would be handed over to U.S. officials. According to the sources, North Korean officials made the decision to release the men two months ago.
Around the same time CNN published its report, the rich asshole addressed the matter himself, tweeting, “As everybody is aware, the past Administration has long been asking for three hostages to be released from a North Korean Labor camp, but to no avail. Stay tuned!”
During a separate interview with Fox & Friends on Thursday morning, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked about the possibility the three men might be released within the week. The spokeswoman replied that such a move “would be an incredible step and certainly a sign of goodwill moving into the summit,” but declined to comment further.
“We again are cautiously optimistic about where this will go,” Sanders said. “As the president has said, we’ll see what happens.”
The potential prisoner release follows a historic summit between North Korean leader Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in last week, during which the two leaders discussed an array of issues, including denuclearization and bringing the decades-long Korean conflict to an end. The summit concluded with Kim and Moon signing a new peace agreement, the Panmunjeom Declaration, which promises to reunite families, address humanitarian issues, and end all “hostile acts” between the two countries.
Experts remain skeptical that the agreement will work, citing similar agreements in 2000 and 2007 by previous North and South Korean leaders, which failed to prevent the Kim regime from carrying out nuclear tests in later years.
the rich asshole’s upcoming summit with Kim is expected to center on the issue of nuclear disarmament as well. The meeting will reportedly be held in the demilitarized zone dividing North and South Korea, which some experts worry could appear conciliatory to Kim.
Already, the president’s supporters have suggested the rich asshole receive the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in the Korean Peninsula, with a group of GOP lawmakers officially nominating the president in a letter to the Norwegian Nobel Committee on Wednesday.
The letter, signed by 18 Republican members of Congress, including Steve King (R-IA), Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Diane Black (R-TN), and Mark Meadows (R-NC), cites a mistranslated quote from President Moon, who appeared to suggest that the rich asshole receive the honor for his work with North Korea. However, later reports, confirmed with the South Korean Blue House — or presidential office — revealed Moon had simply been declining the offer himself, saying that South Koreans “only need peace,” rather than awards.
UPDATE, 3:05 p.m. Eastern Time: Speaking with reporters on Thursday afternoon, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders reaffirmed that Giuliani, a member of the rich asshole’s legal team, had no authority to speak about sensitive state issues, including the topic of an expected North Korean prisoner release.
“In addition to being an attorney for the president, does Mr. Giuliani…have a wider remit to talk about things like foreign policy?” one reporter asked during a press briefing.
“Not that I’m aware of,” Sanders stated.
White House insists the rich asshole only learned of Cohen payment recently
BY JORDAN FABIAN - 05/03/18 02:50 PM EDT
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Thursday sought to explain why President the rich asshole claimed he didn't know about a hush money payment to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels.
"This was information the president didn’t know at the time, but eventually learned," Sanders told reporters at her daily press briefing.
"We give the very best information we have at the time," Sanders replied.
Sanders faced a barrage of questions about the rich asshole's admission that he reimbursed his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, for the $130,000 payment to Daniels, who says she had a sexual encounter with the rich asshole more than a decade ago.
the rich asshole told reporters last month he had no knowledge of the payment and did not know the source of the money.
The president's new attorney for the Russia investigation, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R), revealed during a Wednesday night interview on Fox News that the rich asshole paid Cohen back.
The admission caught White House staffers off guard; Sanders said she first heard the rich asshole learned of the reimbursement during Giuliani's interview.
"The White House press office wouldn’t coordinate with the president’s outside legal team on legal strategy," Sanders said Thursday when a reporter suggested she was "blindsided" by Giuliani's comments.
Pressed on why she told reporters in March that the rich asshole had no knowledge of any payments, Sanders again responded that she provided "the best information I had at the time."
"The underlying allegations the president has denied and continues to deny," Sanders said.
the rich asshole defended the payment in a series of tweets Thursday morning, claiming it had “nothing to do with the campaign.”
Instead, the rich asshole wrote, Cohen received a monthly retainer to cover the cost of the "hush money" payment.
His explanation came after Giuliani said the rich asshole reimbursed Cohen and that the money was “funneled through a law firm and the president repaid it."
The $130,000 was paid just days before the 2016 presidential election.
Cohen is reportedly under investigation for alleged bank fraud and campaign finance law violations. the rich asshole has attempted to distance himself from Cohen amid his lawyer’s legal troubles, claiming last week that Cohen represents him in the “crazy Stormy Daniels deal” and little else.
Updated at 3:14 p.m.
Even the rich asshole’s Fox News defenders don’t believe his porn star denials
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Scrambling for new talking points, some Republicans are just admitting the rich asshole had an affair and trying to claim it doesn't matter.
the rich asshole and his new attorney Rudy Giuliani may still be clinging to the idea that Stormy Daniels is lying about her affair, but even some of the rich asshole’s staunchest defenders have thrown in the towel.
Conceding that the rich asshole was, of course, unfaithful to his wife while she was pregnant, former Bush White House press secretary and ardent the rich asshole defender Ari Fleischer told Fox News on Thursday that the rich asshole’s affair simply don’t matter.
According to Fleischer, societal norms don’t apply to the rich asshole and he shouldn’t be judged in any way.
“What I fail to understand in all of this, in this strange new work we’re in, with some rich asshole being the president who was elected with people not being surprised that he’d have an affair with a porn star or a playboy bunny,” he stressed. “I don’t really understand the core issue here — so what?”
Fleischer’s spin is bizarre in so many obvious ways.
The fact that the conservative movement in America, which spent years trying to drive Bill Clinton from office because they argued he wasn’t morally fit for the job, has suddenly embraced a no-judgment policy for a Republican married man who slept with a porn actresses and a Playboy model is jaw-dropping in terms of its rank hypocrisy.
Worse, the story burst into public view Wednesday night when Giuliani conceded that the rich asshole covered the costs of the $130,000 hush-money payment to Stormy Daniels. the rich asshole and the White House had been emphatically denying that ever happened.
Apparently, previously lies about the rich asshole’s affairs are no big deal either.
And this might be the strangest part: Despite Fleischer’s dismissive “so what” rhetoric, the rich asshole himself actually still denies the Daniels claim.
In a Thursday tweet, he accused Daniels of making “false and extortionist accusations.”
And Rudy Giuliani on Fox News discussed how the payments were needed to take care of a “false allegation.”
But nobody believes it. Nobody. To the point where even the rich asshole’s most loyal defenders are going on Fox News and skipping to phase 2 of the spin: It just doesn’t matter that the rich asshole’s a thoroughly immoral man.
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