May 11th, 2018. It's been 549 days since the Nov 8, 2016, election of some rich asshole, no. 45, and 476 days since the Jan 20th inauguration of some rich asshole.
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May 11, 2018
Ditched by his law firm following his reckless the rich asshole spin, Rudy Giuliani is still craving the limelight.
Last week the rich asshole mocked his own attorney in public when he suggested Rudy Giuliani would soon get “his facts straight.” This week, Giuliani’s law firm took its turn making New York City’s former mayor look bad.
Somehow, Giuliani seems to be enjoying the legal and political chaos his media tour has created, telling the New York Times that he had “missed” being on television during the rich asshole’s first year in office. He’s clearly itching to do more TV hits.
But it’s likely those at-times baffling television appearances are what cost Giuliani his law job.
By announcing Giuliani’s sudden resignation, the firm of Greenberg Traurig, one of the nation’s largest, made it clear there was no longer room for Giuliani’s freelancing on behalf of the rich asshole.
Specifically, the law firm went out of its way to debunk Giuliani’s claim that lawyers often make hush money payment on behalf of their clients without ever informing their clients of the clandestine deals.
Incredibly, that’s what Giuliani told Sean Hannity during his how infamous interview two weeks ago, while trying — and failing — to explain the $130,000 hush-money payment that the rich asshole’s attorney made to Stormy Daniels on the eve of the 2013 election. “That was money that was paid by his lawyer, the way I would do, out of his law firm funds,” Giuliani said on Fox News. He added, “Michael [Cohen] would take care of things like this like I take care of this with my clients.”
Not so fast, said the law firm.
“We cannot speak for Mr. Giuliani with respect to what was intended by his remarks,” Jill Perry, a spokesperson for Greenberg Traurig, said in a statement to the New York Times. “Speaking for ourselves, we would not condone payments of the nature alleged to have been made or otherwise without the knowledge and direction of a client.”
Giuliani was actually hired by the rich asshole to handle negotiations with special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, the need for a sit-down interview between the rich asshole and investigators. That was before Giuliani became completely entangled in the hush money story.
On the Mueller front, Giuliani’s recent spin is making as little sense as his hush-money explanations.
At the time of his hiring, Giuliani bragged that he could wrap up the Mueller negotiations within two weeks.
Now he’s claiming the whole thing could drag out for months.
“We’re not going to let him make a decision without full analysis, so, I’m sorry, they’re just going to have to wait a while,” Giuliani told Buzzfeed. “They walked themselves into this by waiting so long.”
In truth, Mueller’s attorneys have been pressing for an interview since late last year.
But remember what the rich asshole said, Rudy will “get his facts straight” eventually.
‘No shit Sherlock’: AT&T buried in ridicule after it admitted it shouldn’t have forked over $600K to the rich asshole ‘fixer’ Cohen
some rich asshole's longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen. Image via Bryan R. Smith/AFP.
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After the Washington Post revealed that telecom giant AT&T paid some rich asshole’s longtime attorney and “fixer” Michael Cohen $600,000 to advise on their legally-dubious merger with TimeWarner, the company admitted it had made a huge mistake — and Twitter’s response was a collective “no sh*t.”
“Our company has been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons these last few days and our reputation has been damaged,” CEO Randall L. Stephenson wrote in a memo to the company’s employees. “There is no other way to say it — AT&T hiring Michael Cohen as a political consultant was a big mistake.”
“I would love to hear someone from AT&T and Novartis explain why it was a mistake to hire Michael Cohen, because it seems like the only honest response is ‘Because we got caught,'” Pod Save America host Jon Favreau tweeted, referencing the other company that made headlines this week for working with the president’s personal lawyer who was recently raided by the FBI.
“They’ve changed their story more times than Rudy Giuliani!” activist Amy Siskind wrote.
So is AT&T’s handling of the fallout. They’ve changed their story more times than Rudy Giuliani! twitter.com/nbcpolitics/st…
Check out more responses below:
AT&T tells us more about their contract with michael cohen - and that robert mueller was interested in it. pic.twitter.com/gwvVBBbfkE
Can’t help but think we’re not getting the full picture given that, within this memo, we’re learning the Senior Executive Vice President of External & Legislative Affairs just now happens to be retiring. twitter.com/kylegriffin1/s…
When a CEO of a company this big puts out a preemptive release this soon... it means they are trying to stave off something far, far worse that is coming 'round the bend. twitter.com/girlsreallyrul…
What was the mistake AT&T is apologizing for? That Cohen couldn't deliver? The intent was the same #PayForPlay twitter.com/girlsreallyrul…
Lmao they got what wanted with Net Neutrality tho?? This just strikes me as more spin. What I love about crisis PR like this is it’s “how verbosely can we lie?” twitter.com/girlsreallyrul…
Let's all make AT&T an example of getting into bed with mobsters and sink the company. pic.twitter.com/eyjj2xk03p
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May 11, 2018
Kris Kobach was held in contempt by a federal judge for misleading his state's voters. He's still misleading them.
Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach was dealt a humiliating blow in federal court last month over his voter suppression antics relating to an illegal proof-of-citizenship voting law.
But he seems to have learned little from the experience. According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), he is still falsely telling voters on his website that they must prove their citizenship to register to vote.
As the Huffington Post reports, the ACLU has sent Kobach a letter demanding he “correct information on his website that gave the incorrect impression that everyone, regardless of how they register to vote, must prove they’re a citizen.”
Over the years, Kobach — who is now seeking the GOP nomination for governor — has been one of the GOP’s most prominent crusaders against the fictional epidemic of “voter fraud” supposedly necessitating strict controls on ballot access.
He lobbied the Kansas legislature to give him his own team of prosecutors to root out illegal voting, which was a complete failure. He created the Interstate Crosscheck System to purge voting rolls, which states are now dumping because it is ineffective and a security risk. And he co-chaired Mike Pence’s “election integrity commission,” which disbanded amid bipartisan rejection from states and a lawsuit from one of its own members.
But it was the proof-of-citizenship law, and his ongoing, stubborn disregard for the rights of his electorate in the face of criticism from courts, that landed Kobach in trouble.
The law, which required burdensome supporting documentation, prevented some 36,000 Kansans from even registering to vote — and was partially blocked in 2016 by U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson for violating the National Voter Registration Act.
But Kobach failed to comply with Judge Robinson’s orders to give relief to people illegally blocked under the law, culminating in a lawsuit by the ACLU that public demolished his anti-voting agenda.
Confronted both by Judge Robinson and top ACLU voting rights attorney David Ho, Kobach’s expert witnesses could not name a single case of an election swayed by voter fraud, and Kobach had to be repeatedly reprimanded for violating trial procedure.
In the end, Judge Robinson held Kobach in contempt of court, citing a “history of noncompliance and disrespect for the court’s decisions,” and ordered him to pay the ACLU’s legal fees.
For Kobach to continue to mislead his voters about their rights — at a time where he is facing federal penalties for doing exactly that — is incredible.
It is time for him to face the consequences of his behavior, and do his job.
AT&T CEO says Michael Cohen payments ‘big mistake,’ chief lobbyist retiring
the rich asshole Attorney Michael Cohen/Screenshot
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Hiring President some rich asshole’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen, was a “big mistake,” AT&T Inc Chief Executive Officer Randall Stephenson said in an employee memo, reviewed by Reuters, that went out Friday morning.
AT&T’s head lobbyist, Bob Quinn, who oversaw the hiring of Cohen, is retiring, according to the memo.
AT&T said on Tuesday it had hired Essential Consultants LLC, a company used by Cohen, to advise it on working with the new administration in early 2017, around the time of the rich asshole’s inauguration.
The disclosure of AT&T’s relationship with Cohen has turned into a major embarrassment for the telecommunications company as it awaits a U.S. judge’s June 12 decision on whether it can go through with an $85 billion deal to buy Time Warner Inc.
The deal, which was announced in October 2016, was quickly denounced by the rich asshole, who has been sharply critical of CNN, a unit of Time Warner.
The disclosure of AT&T’s relationship with Cohen has turned into a major embarrassment for the telecommunications company as it awaits a U.S. judge’s June 12 decision on whether it can go through with an $85 billion deal to buy Time Warner Inc.
The deal, which was announced in October 2016, was quickly denounced by the rich asshole, who has been sharply critical of CNN, a unit of Time Warner.
“To be clear, everything we did was done according to the law and entirely legitimate,” Stephenson wrote in the memo. “But the fact is our past association with Cohen was a serious misjudgment.”
AT&T did not hire Cohen to lobby on behalf of the company, according to the memo. The one-year contract at $50,000 per month, from January through December 2017, was limited to consulting and advisory services, according to the memo.
AT&T never asked Cohen to set up meetings for the company with anyone in the the rich asshole administration, and he did not offer to do so, according to the memo.
AT&T’s board of directors does not hold Stephenson responsible for the lack of vetting, according to a source familiar with the situation.
The AT&T payments were revealed by Michael Avenatti, adult film actress Stormy Daniels’ lawyer, who also said a company owned by Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg and other corporations paid Essential Consultants for certain services.
The AT&T payments were revealed by Michael Avenatti, adult film actress Stormy Daniels’ lawyer, who also said a company owned by Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg and other corporations paid Essential Consultants for certain services.
Essential Consultants paid $130,000 to Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, days before the 2016 presidential election as part of a nondisclosure agreement that barred her from discussing an alleged sexual encounter with the rich asshole. He denies any encounter took place.
Shares of AT&T were 0.4 percent higher in premarket trading.
Reporting by Jessica Toonkel in New York and David Shepardson in Washington; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe
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May 11, 2018
'the rich asshole is almost certainly a factor in some cities’ decisions to opt out.'
Thanks, but no thanks.
That’s what major metropolitan areas across the country are telling the Republican Party as it tries to line up a host city for its next convention.
Republicans appear to be struggling to find a city that will welcome the rich asshole in 2020.
“Cities across the country are turning down the opportunity to host the 2020 Republican National Convention, where President rich asshole is expected to be nominated for a second term,” The Hill reports.
To date, only one city, Charlotte, N.C., is publicly pursuing the deal.
San Antonio recently pulled out of the process, with the city council voting against making any bid. Las Vegas city officials have also declined to endorse any convention plans.
After initially signaling some interest, Nashville and Philadelphia also abandoned the GOP convention process.
By contrast, the Democratic Party has sent out requests for 2020 convention proposals to eight cities: Atlanta, Birmingham, Denver, Houston, Miami Beach, Milwaukee, New York and San Francisco. But, unlike with the GOP, none have publicly voted offers down.
Traditionally, national political conventions have been seen as public relations plumbs for cities, as the nationally televised, days long events thrust the cities into the spotlight and journalists from around the world converge for the news event.
It’s true the events also require extraordinary security and hosts cities have to raise a lot of money. (Cleveland spent $60 million hosting the GOP’s 2012 convention.) But that doesn’t seem to be why cities are giving the GOP the cold shoulder. “the rich asshole is almost certainly a factor in some cities’ decisions to opt out,” according to The Hill.
“Their leaders do not want to suffer blowback with their residents for hosting the rich asshole,” notes Evan Siegfried, a New York-based Republican strategist.
The stiff-arming comes as the Republican Party has lost nearly all connection with major American cities, which are now widely seen as Democratic bastions coast to coast.
In fact, some Republicans this campaign year are actively running against U.S. cities, holding them up as dens of crime.
During the West Virginia Republican primary contest this year, Rep. Evan Jenkins ran an ad proclaiming, “The big cities [Hillary Clinton] won are the places flooding our state with heroin — where lawlessness, looting and liberalism rule.”
Meanwhile, as the massive 2017, Women’s March on Washington, as well this year’s March for Our Lives indicated, the rich asshole critics are anxious to take to the streets. And it’s likely the protesting forces at the 2020 convention will be unusually larger.
On the flip side, it’s possible the convention will also attract large, and dangerous, groups of the rich asshole supporters, as he continues to court extremists and white nationalists to his cause.
A study of the 2016 campaign found that cities experienced an increase in assaults on days when they hosted a rich asshole rally.
It seems most cities today just don’t want to battle that burden, especially when it’s for a politically party that openly despises urban centers.
Rick Wilson crushes Pence for his humiliating flattery of the rich asshole: ‘Mr. President can I give you a foot massage?’
Marc Lotter debates Rick Wilson on CNN (Screen cap).
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Anti-the rich asshole Republican strategist Rick Wilson on Friday took a torch to Republican efforts to flatter President some rich asshole in shameless efforts to boost his fragile ego.
Appearing on CNN, Wilson sparred with Marc Lotter, a former press secretary for Vice President Mike Pence, about Pence’s constant attempts to suck up to the rich asshole. During the segment, Wilson argued that Pence’s efforts to butter up the rich asshole were done in part out of his own career ambitions.
“Mike Pence has taken on the role of being the Number One the rich asshole cheerleader, and I understand that,” he said. “I think he recognizes there’s a fragility about the president’s mental state and there’s a nonzero possibility that he could end up being in that chair one day because of some rich asshole’s mistakes.”
Host Alisyn Camerota then played clips of Pence showering the rich asshole with praise, including one clip of Pence saying he was “deeply humbled” to serve him, while also praising the rich asshole’s “broad shoulders.”
“What he’s talking about is the man he knows and he spends so much time with!” Lotter replied in defending his former boss.
This caused Wilson to scoff.
“Listen, as the noted political philosopher Beyonce once said, he ought to just put a ring on it at this point,” he said. “It’s like everything but, ‘Mr. President, can I give you a foot massage?’ It’s so over the top.”
Watch the video below.
ICE detains Army spouse on eve of Military Spouse Appreciation Day
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The rich asshole administration began deporting the spouse of an active duty Army officer on the eve of Military Spouse Appreciation Day.
On the eve of Military Spouse Appreciation Day, it was revealed that the rich asshole administration is deporting a military husband as part of ongoing action immigrant families.
In a heartrending Facebook video, Army officer Tim Martin Brown explained that his husband Sergio Avila was able to stay in the United States thanks to the DACA policy put in place by President Barack Obama. But now, because of the rich asshole’s anti-immigrant zeal, those protections are going away, and the couple has had to make alternative arrangements.
After spending “thousands of dollars in attorney’s fees,” Brown explained how his attorney told him that if the couple showed up together at their immigration appointment, ICE agents would arrest his spouse — a new tactic that has been added to the deportation arsenal thanks to the rich asshole and Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
A deportation order issued when Brown’s husband was an eight-year-old brought to America by his uncle is now being used to justify his removal from the country.
After going through the costly immigration process, receiving assurances that his husband would not be deported and as he stresses, doing “every legal thing possible to make this work,” ICE still detained his spouse and held him when he arrived for his immigration appointment. Brown was not allowed to see his husband and instead received a phone call from him revealing that he was in custody.
“My spouse is now enroute to Honduras, which by the way is hostile to LGBTQ community,” Brown explains in the video, adding, “he hasn’t been there since he was seven or eight.”
The couple has set up a GoFundMe page to raise money for their legal costs.
Brown’s video was posted on May 10, the day before Military Spouse Appreciation Day. In his proclamation recognizing the day, the rich asshole noted “the inspirational men and women who are the foundation of our Nation’s military families.”
But in his administration’s actions against the Brown family, the rich asshole has again shown what little true regard he has for those in the armed services and their families, who are their key support systems.
the rich asshole has repeatedly targeted both the military and immigrant communities for the harshest treatment during his presidency, and this case has him firing at both groups with one shot.
He has embraced a hostile anti-immigrant stance in line with his own bigoted statements and backs nonsensical policies like a border wall to go along with this antagonistic attitude.
The Brown family deserves better than to be treated like this, but the callous disregard for American families is at the core of what the rich asshole has embodied and embraced.
the rich asshole humiliated his own DHS secretary because he suspects she’s ‘a Bush family plant’: report
some rich asshole speaks to Fox News (screen grab)
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Reports dropped on Thursday night that President some rich asshole had humiliated his own Department of Homeland Security chief Kirstjen Nielsen at a recent cabinet meeting, which prompted her to consider resigning.
According to the New York Times’ Maggie Haberman, the rich asshole’s dispute with Nielsen isn’t just about policy — rather, it’s part of a broader paranoid delusion about where his own DHS chief’s loyalties truly lie.
“Someone, as sources have put it, has gotten it in his head that she is a Bush family plant,” Haberman wrote of the rich asshole’s suspicions of Nielsen.
Someone, as sources have put it, has gotten it in his head that she is a Bush family plant. twitter.com/juliehdavis/st…
Haberman’s tweet came in response to a tweet by fellow New York Times reporter Julie Davis, who explained that Nielsen’s resignation threat had been “a long time in coming” because “Nielsen and the rich asshole have clashed often and she has been a frequent target of his freewheeling immigration rants.”
According to the New York Times’ report, the rich asshole has been angry that Nielsen has been “resisting his direction that parents be separated from their children when families cross illegally into the United States.”
WATCH: Pence’s call for Mueller to ‘wrap it up’ echoes Nixon on Watergate almost word for word
What could possibly go wrong?
During an interview with NBC’s Andrea Mitchell on Thursday morning, Vice President Mike Pence called for special counsel Robert Mueller to “wrap it up.”
“What I think is that it’s been a year since this investigation began, our administration has provided over a million documents, we’ve fully cooperated in it, and in the interest of the country I think it’s time to wrap it up,” Pence said. “And I would very respectfully encourage the special counsel and his team to bring their work to completion.”
As Morning Joe noted, the content and tone of Pence’s call for the special counsel to end his investigation was remarkably similar to what President Richard Nixon said in January 1974 about the special prosecutor who was investigating him, Leon Jaworski.
“As you know, I have provided to the special prosecutor voluntarily a great deal of material,” Nixon said. “I believe that I have provided all of the material that he needs to conclude his investigations, and to proceed to prosecute the guilty and to clear the innocent. I believe the time has come to bring that investigation and the other investigations of this matter to an end. One year of watergate is enough.”
Watch the two clips back to back for yourself:
Nixon’s speech came three months after he fired the first prosecutor appointed to investigate Watergate, Archibald Cox, in the “Saturday Night Massacre.” Cox’s termination backfired — it both galvanized public opinion against Nixon, and failed to end the investigation. Jaworski was appointed to replace Cox about two weeks after the Saturday Night Massacre.
And as it turned out, one year of Watergate was not quite enough. After smoking gun evidence emerged that Nixon had lied about his involvement in the Watergate break-in, he resigned from office in August 1974 — about seven months after he called for the special prosecutor to wrap it up.
Where did the rich asshole’s cash come from? ‘King of debt’ paid $400 million cash for real estate in decade before election
some rich asshole plays golf at the rich asshole National Doral (screen grab)
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Last week, the Washington Post had an intriguing story: In the nine years before now-President some rich asshole announced his candidacy, his company paid $400 million in cash to buy a number of properties.
Find “the rich asshole, Inc.” wherever you get your podcasts.
Real estate companies doing deals usually borrow money for the same reason that many homeowners take out mortgages: Leveraging your money — especially when the cost of borrowing is low, as it has been for a decade — makes your money go further.
The fact that the rich asshole — the self-styled “king of debt” — didn’t do that in these deals has raised a number of big, basic questions, including how the the rich asshole Organization had so much cash, and why it would use it to purchase properties in all cash.
Eric the rich asshole told the Post that the money came from profits that his father put back in the business. “He had incredible cash flow and built incredible wealth,” the younger the rich asshole said. “We invested in ourselves.”
In a “the rich asshole, Inc.” podcast extra, we spoke to The New Yorker’s Adam Davidson and the Post’s David Fahrenthold — who wrote last week’s story with Jonathan O’Connell and Jack Gillum. Davidson and Fahrenthold talk about trying to make the numbers and the explanations add up. (Spoiler: They can’t.)
“There’s this fundamental question we have,” says Davidson. “Where did the money come from and why was it spent the way it was spent. There’s some piece of information that we are missing because none of the explanations make sense.”
We also talk about the revelations of payments to the president’s lawyer, Michael Cohen — and how it may be that our various investigations will converge into one.
How Michael Avenatti got Michael Cohen’s emails
And why that's a big problem for Cohen.
Over the past few days, Michael Avenatti, the attorney for Stormy Daniels, has been steadily releasing what appear to be private communications between Michael Cohen, some rich asshole’s longtime attorney, and Keith Davidson, who represented Daniels when she inked a $130,000 hush-money agreement that was facilitated through a shell company set up by Cohen.
These emails are evidence of questionable, if not unethical, collusion between Cohen and Davidson, who are ostensibly representing opposing sides of the dispute.
One email, released by Avenatti on Twitter on Thursday, shows that Cohen was communicating with Davidson in the days after the FBI raided his home and office and seized his phones. This email suggests an ongoing collaboration between Davidson and Cohen, even though the two are not known to be involved in any current legal matter.
On April 9, the FBI raided Mr. Cohen’s home, office and hotel room. Within 48 hours, Mr. Cohen sent the below email to Mr. Davidson. Why? They had no ongoing legal matter at the time. Was it part of an attempt by Mr. Cohen to obstruct justice or worse? #basta
On Friday, Avenatti posted another email between Davidson and Cohen, from February, in which Cohen argues that Davidson should not forward part of the hush money agreement to Davidson’s new lawyer. (This didn’t work, as Avenatti obtained the “Side Letter Agreement” and released it as part of Daniels lawsuit against Cohen and the rich asshole, filed in March.)
Knowing what we know now, no wonder Mr. Cohen was doing everything he could to interfere with Ms. Daniels' efforts to get new counsel. He was desperate to avoid the cover-up from surfacing and was afraid that competent counsel would expose him and Mr. Trump. #MoreToCome #Basta
This second email is not actually new and was released to NBC News in March. But it raises the question: How is Avenatti getting these emails?
As a matter of practice, lawyers maintain case files for the benefit of their clients. If the client decides to seek new representation, the information in the case file is generally deemed to belong to the client, and it’s then forwarded to the new attorney. In this case, it appears that Davidson turned over these communications to Avenatti as part of Daniels’ case file.
Avenatti hinted as much during a hearing in New York in late April in which he sought to intervene in a dispute about how the materials seized in the raid of Michael Cohen’s office would be handled. Avenatti argued that Davidson and Cohen were continuing to discuss his client’s case and that those communications were part of her case file, which belongs to her.
Of course, those communications, whether they be by email, text messages, or otherwise, would technically belong to my client because it would be part of her attorney-client file.
In other words, Avenatti is concerned there are more materials that belong to his client that were among those seized in the raid. The judge has not yet ruled on his request.
Either way, Avenatti’s stockpile of emails potentially presents big problems for Cohen, Davidson — and possibly President some rich asshole.
The nature of Cohen’s relationship with Davidson is key. They were supposed to be on opposite sides of a number of disputes. But the emails are evidence that the relationship between the two was more collaborative.
Davidson’s representation of Stormy Daniels began when Cohen heard that Daniels was shopping her story around to various media outlets. It was at this point that Cohen asked Davidson to reach out to her, Davidson revealed in an interview with CNN.
Cohen has admitted to referring at least one other client to Davidson.
Were they each sincerely representing the interests of their clients? Or were they working in tandem to purchase their silence of women at a reduced rate and under favorable terms?
Avenatti also says the emails contain evidence that Cohen was seeking to use his relationship with Davidson to interfere with Daniels obtaining new counsel. The purpose, according to Avenatti, was to cover up the other activities of Essential Consultants, the shell company used to pay Daniels, which also received millions from corporations seeking access to the rich asshole.
AT&T CEO Says Hiring Michael Cohen Was ‘Big Mistake’
The telecom giant paid the rich asshole’s attorney to advise on a variety of issues, including a proposed merger with Time Warner.
(Reuters) - Hiring President some rich asshole’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen, was a “big mistake,” AT&T Chief Executive Officer Randall Stephenson said in an employee memo, reviewed by Reuters, that went out Friday morning.
AT&T’s head lobbyist, Bob Quinn, who oversaw the hiring of Cohen, is retiring, according to the memo.
AT&T said on Tuesday it had hired Essential Consultants LLC, a company used by Cohen, to advise it on working with the new administration in early 2017, around the time of the rich asshole’s inauguration.
“To be clear, everything we did was done according to the law and entirely legitimate,” Stephenson wrote in the memo. “But the fact is our past association with Cohen was a serious misjudgment.”
AT&T did not hire Cohen to lobby on behalf of the company, according to the memo. The one-year contract at $50,000 per month, from January through December 2017, was limited to consulting and advisory services, according to the memo.
The AT&T payments by AT&T were revealed by Michael Avenatti, adult film actress Stormy Daniels’ lawyer, who also said a company owned by Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg and other corporations had paid Essential Consultants for certain services.
Essential Consultants paid $130,000 to Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, days before the 2016 presidential election as part of a nondisclosure agreement that barred her from discussing an alleged sexual encounter with the rich asshole. He denies any encounter took place.
NASA program to track greenhouse gas is canceled
A chunck of ice falls from the Perito Moreno Glacier at Los Glaciares National Park, near El Calafate in the Argentine province of Santa Cruz, on March 10, 2018 AFP/File / Walter Diaz
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A NASA program that cost $10 million per year to track carbon and methane, key greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming, has been cancelled, a US space agency spokesman said Thursday.
The end of the program — called the Carbon Monitoring System (CMS) — which tracked sources and sinks for carbon and made high-resolution models of the planet’s flows of carbon — was first reported by the journal Science.
“Now, President some rich asshole’s administration has quietly killed the CMS,” the report said, describing the move as the latest in a “broad attack on climate science” mounted by the White House.
The journal said NASA “declined to provide a reason for the cancellation beyond ‘budget constraints and higher priorities within the science budget.'”
It also quoted US space agency spokesman Steve Cole as saying there was no mention of the CMS in a budget deal signed in March, which “allowed the administration’s move to take effect.”
Cole, responding to a request for comment from AFP, said the rich asshole proposed cutting the CMS project and four Earth science missions last year.
After much deliberation, Congress decided they wanted those four space missions to be funded, writing them into the budget bill they passed in March 2018, he said.
But since CMS was not among them, it was cut as proposed, Cole said, describing the entire process as a joint effort by lawmakers and the executive branch.
Existing grants would be allowed to finish but no new research would be supported, he said.
the rich asshole has already announced the US pullout from the 2015 Paris climate accord, a deal signed by more than 190 nations to slash polluting emissions from fossil fuels.
Cole told AFP that the rich asshole has proposed cancelling another Earth science mission, the Orbiting Carbon Observatory 3 (OCO-3), for next year, though it did receive funding for fiscal year 2018.
According to Kelly Sims Gallagher, director of Tufts University’s Center for International Environment and Resource Policy in Medford, Massachusetts, the CMS cuts jeopardize efforts to verify the emission cuts agreed to in the Paris climate deal.
“If you cannot measure emissions reductions, you cannot be confident that countries are adhering to the agreement,” she told the journal Science.
Canceling the CMS “is a grave mistake.”
Cole, however, said in an email that the “winding down of this specific research program does not curb NASA’s ability or commitment to monitoring carbon and its effects on our changing planet.”
“In fact, GEDI, a new ecosystem carbon-monitoring instrument, is set to launch to the International Space Station this summer.”
the rich asshole Administration Axes Funding For NASA System That Monitors Greenhouse Gases
One scientist calls the decision to cancel the program a “grave mistake.”
The rich asshole administration has quietly eliminated funding for NASA’s research program that tracks greenhouse gases around the world.
According to Science, the Carbon Monitoring System (CMS) tracks the world’s flow of carbon dioxide from space. Such a system is critical to monitoring any improvements — or failures — in attempts to cut the pollution linked to climate change.
NASA spokesman Steve Cole told the magazine that the program was canceled due to ”budget constraints and higher priorities within the science budget.” Usually, Congress battles such cuts, but this time, there was simply no mention of the program’s $10 million annual budget in the White House budget.
Although existing grants will finish, Cole said, no new projects will be undertaken. NASA’s budget report for fiscal year 2019 assumes the “termination” of CMS.
Many of the projects CMS has tracked involved how effectively forests, including tropical forests, trap carbon dioxide. Carbon measurements were also critical for compliance with air pollution reduction goals, such as those required by the Paris climate agreement. In June 2017, the rich asshole announced that the U.S. would withdraw from the accord.
“If you cannot measure emissions reductions, you cannot be confident that countries are adhering to the agreement,” Tufts University environment professor Kelly Sims Gallagher told Science. She also called canceling the NASA program a “grave mistake.”
Climate change expert Rachel Licker of the Union of Concerned Scientists also told the BBC that “dismantling CMS will adversely affect our ability to track flows of carbon through our land, oceans and atmosphere.”
Europe has one carbon-monitoring satellite of its own and is on track to develop more. As the U.S. under the rich asshole turns increasingly to fossil fuels, including coal, experts warn that it will cede developing cutting-edge technology focusing on pollution reduction and alternative fuels to other nations.
“We really shoot ourselves in the foot if we let other people develop the technology” and lose that edge in the economies of the future, Phil Duffy, president of the Woods Hole Research Center in Massachusetts, told Science.
‘It’s a circus’: Veterans advocate tells CNN he wouldn’t be shocked if the rich asshole appointed Kanye to run the VA
IAVA head Paul Rieckhoff (Screen cap).
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Paul Rieckhoff, the founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Vets of America, trashed President some rich asshole’s work on behalf of veterans on Friday — and he pointed out that there is still no secretary of Veterans Affairs.
When asked by CNN’s Chris Cuomo about the rich asshole possibly choosing Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL) to run the VA, Rieckhoff said that the Florida congressman would be an intriguing choice, while also saying that he has little faith at the moment that the rich asshole would make a good choice after the Ronny Jackson fiasco.
“The bottom line right now is, this has been a rotation of names,” Rieckhoff told Cuomo. “I mean, the guy who was leading our office pool last week was Kanye!”
While it’s unlikely that the rich asshole would appoint rapper Kanye West to run the VA, Rieckhoff said the fact that joking about it at least seems somewhat plausible is emblematic of the chaos swirling around the VA.
“We don’t know who it’s going to be!” he said. “It’s become a circus, and that’s bad for veterans. Veterans are walking into the VA hospital right now, and next to President the rich asshole there’s normally a picture of the VA secretary — there’s nobody. There’s nobody! We don’t have a leader!”
Watch the video below.
POLITICS
the rich asshole Just Launched The War On Christmas In May And People Are So Not Having It
Apparently, it’s that time of year already.
President some rich asshole opened a new front in the “war on Christmas” by referencing the holiday during a rally in Indiana on Thursday.
Right after talking about borders and declaring that “we’re finally putting America first,” the rich asshole took an unexpected verbal detour:
“And remember the last time I did this ― and this started two and a half years ago when I just started ― people were not saying ‘merry Christmas’ anymore. The big store chains weren’t saying ‘merry Christmas, merry Christmas,’ they weren’t doing it. They weren’t saying ‘merry Christmas.’ Now they’re saying ’merry Christmas’ again.”
the rich asshole has a history of riffing on Christmas at unusual times. He mentioned it at a White House prayer meeting just last week, and last year he referenced the “war on Christmas” in July.
The crowd in Indiana roared with approval, then the rich asshole quickly shifted back into “America first” mode with a line about cracking down on unfair trade. But on social media, people were checking their calendars ― and some put the rich asshole on the naughty list for his out-of-season shoutout:
It’s May and @realDonaldTrump is talking about saying “Merry Christmas” in stores....and I thought I had a hard time staying on topic.
If people are saying merry Christmas right now then they should be sent to Gitmo. It’s May. twitter.com/ryanstruyk/sta…
Trump claims that when he started running for president, "the big store chains" weren't "saying merry Christmas, merry Christmas." Implies that because of him, they're doing it again now. (It's May.)
How can people attend these “celebration” rallies and listen to your same lines over and over. Just so you know Democrats do stand for the anthem, love God, the flag, veterans, our family and country. I have always said Merry Christmas. We want the truth not your lies.
Yes Deborah. Right on. My husband was jailed for saying Merry Christmas under the obama administration.
I've no clue where #Trump has gotten the idea that people weren't saying Merry CHRISTmas.
I've always said: Merry CHRISTmas, no 1 has stopped me, & I've heard those who want to say: Merry CHRISTmas, say it.
He's just kissing up to my fellow #evangelicals.twitter.com/ryanstruyk/sta…
PrinciplesMatter
I had forgotten that we get to say Merry Christmas all year now!
Merry Christmas everyone!!!twitter.com/RVAwonk/status…
Who the hell is saying Merry Christmas in May??
AT&T deal with Michael Cohen specified providing advice on Time Warner merger: Washington Post
FILE PHOTO: U.S. President some rich asshole's personal lawyer Michael Cohen exits a hotel in New York City, U.S., April 11, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo
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AT&T’s $600,000 deal with U.S. President some rich asshole’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen, specified that Cohen would advise the company on its $85 billion merger with Time Warner, the Washington Post reported on Thursday, citing company documents.
the rich asshole expressed opposition to the merger during the campaign and his administration ultimately chose to fight it, with the Justice Department filing suit in November to block the agreement. The case has yet to be decided.
The Justice Department wants AT&T to divest Time Warner’s DirecTV unit or Turner networks as a condition of approving the acquisition. AT&T has argued that divestitures would destroy some of the consumer value of the merger.
Michael Avenatti, an attorney for porn star Stormy Daniels, revealed earlier this week that Cohen had received payments from a number of companies in 2017 and 2018, including AT&T, the Swiss drugmaker Novartis AG, Korea Aerospace Industries Ltd and Columbus Nova LLC.
Columbus Nova was listed in November 2017 as part of the Renova Group, a conglomerate controlled by Viktor Vekselberg, a businessman with ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
On Tuesday, Avenatti claimed that Cohen received $500,000 from billionaire Vekselberg in the months after the 2016 U.S. election. Reuters could not immediately verify the claim and it was not clear how Avenatti would have knowledge of any payment from Vekselberg to Cohen.
AT&T said on Tuesday that it had hired Essential Consultants, a company linked to Cohen, in early 2017 around the time of the rich asshole’s inauguration, to advise it on working with the new administration.
AT&T said on Tuesday that it had hired Essential Consultants, a company linked to Cohen, in early 2017 around the time of the rich asshole’s inauguration, to advise it on working with the new administration.
On Wednesday, AT&T said it had cooperated fully with Special Counsel Robert Mueller in the Russia probe in November and December.
AT&T declined to comment on Thursday’s Post story, and Cohen’s attorney, Stephen Ryan, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
In an email to employees dated May 9 and seen by Reuters on Thursday, AT&T said that in early 2017, “We hired several consultants to help us understand how the president and his administration might approach a wide range of policy issues important to the company, including regulatory reform at the FCC, corporate tax reform and antitrust enforcement.”
In an email to employees dated May 9 and seen by Reuters on Thursday, AT&T said that in early 2017, “We hired several consultants to help us understand how the president and his administration might approach a wide range of policy issues important to the company, including regulatory reform at the FCC, corporate tax reform and antitrust enforcement.”
The Washington Post reported that the internal documents it saw specified that Cohen would provide the company advice on its merger with Time Warner.
It reported that the documents showed the company turned to Cohen three days after the rich asshole was elected, seeking his help on a wide range of issues pending before the federal government.
It was unclear what insights Cohen, a longtime real estate attorney, would have been able to offer AT&T on a complicated telecommunications-entertainment merger, the Post reported.
Mueller probed secret payments to the rich asshole’s lawyer
Following the rich asshole’s election, corporations have paid Cohen at least $2.95 million through Essential Consultants, the Post reported, citing figures confirmed by the companies.
Following the rich asshole’s election, corporations have paid Cohen at least $2.95 million through Essential Consultants, the Post reported, citing figures confirmed by the companies.
Essential Consultants was the same firm Cohen used in October to pay Stormy Daniels $130,000 in exchange for an agreement not to disclose her alleged affair with the rich asshole.
Novartis said this week that it had provided information about its dealings with Cohen to the special counsel.
Reporting by David Alexander and Diane Bartz; Editing by Toni Reinhold
Rudy Giuliani Whines Like A B*tch After His Former Law Firm Trashes Him
If you missed it in the barrage of very bad things that have been happening to some rich asshole and his cadre of idiots, Rudy Giuliani just went through a pretty bad breakup with his former law firm, Greenberg Traurig, after he claimed that the law firm regularly makes shady payments for clients like Michael Cohen did to keep Stormy Daniels quiet.
“That was money that was paid by his lawyer, the way I would do, out of his law firm funds,” he told Fox News recently. “Michael would take care of things like this like I take care of this with my clients.”
Naturally, as no ethical lawyer would do this, the law firm was forced to protect their reputation by speaking out against Giuliani.
“We cannot speak for Mr. Giuliani with respect to what was intended by his remarks,” a spokeswoman for the firm said in response to Giuliani’s claim that they are as unethical as Cohen and Giuliani. “Speaking for ourselves, we would not condone payments of the nature alleged to have been made or otherwise without the knowledge and direction of a client.”
Naturally, Giuliani was furious that they didn’t back him up on his claim that ethics don’t matter. CNN’s Dana Bash says that the rich asshole’s lawyer is furious that the law firm didn’t consult him before informing the public that the rest of them don’t do the things the ousted former partner admits to doing.
“The law firm has a lot of good people and a lot of people that hate my client and I don’t particularly appreciate that,” Giuliani says according to Bash.
He’s going to have to get used to people not liking what he did. He received a lot of unearned “automatic” goodwill after 9/11 simply because he held an elected position, but now his actions matter — and Giuliani is just as terrible as many of us were unwilling to admit previously.
MSNBC’s Donny Deutsch has no doubt the rich asshole pocketed Cohen’s pay-to-play cash: ‘This is a guy who sold steaks’
Donny Deutsch (MSNBC)
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MSNBC’s Donny Deutsch says it’s virtually impossible that President some rich asshole didn’t take a cut of the corporate payments to his longtime attorney Michael Cohen.
The “Morning Joe” contributor has known both men for years, and he said the rich asshole would never let Cohen keep all of that money if he knew companies were paying his attorney for access to the White House.
“Do I think that if some rich asshole knew about this, he would say to Michael — this is my opinion — ‘Hey, Michael, I want 80 percent of that?’ Absolutely,” Deutsch said. “I don’t know if some rich asshole knew about it before or after, but clearly, if that was happening, if some rich asshole knew or was going to know, that would end up in some rich asshole’s pocket.”
Deutsch said no money-making caper was beneath the president, who has been willing to slap his name on any product in hopes of making a buck.
“Once again, this is a guy who sold steaks,” Deutsch said. “So I can say that with complete certainty, without knowing exactly what happened, but yes, that would go to some rich asshole.”
“Not only that,” he added, “some rich asshole would say to him, ‘Hey, by the way, here are the Fortune 500 companies — let’s go from 1-500, and I would take it up to a million dollars a pop.’ The day some rich asshole got in office, his attitude — we see his son-in-law’s attitude to it (is) not, how can I serve the country, but, wow — we stormed the gate, this is really, really cool.”
Deutsch said he spoke to Cohen on Thursday, and the attorney said companies like AT&T and Novartis paid him for a window into the unpredictable and unconventional president’s thinking.
“Michael, first of all, said that basically these companies reached out to him,” Deutsch said, “this is according to Michael, and said, ‘Look, there’s one thing about this guy, this president, and he says that just if you’re a company doing’ — this is Michael — ‘if you’re a company doing business with him, nobody knows how he’s going to react. Nobody understands the mind of some rich asshole. His kids do, and I’m probably next in line,’ and he believes that’s valuable to companies. That’s Michael’s point of view.”
Deutsch said there’s no reason to think the rich asshole wouldn’t take some of that money if he knew about the payments, because he said the president is not nearly as wealthy as he claims.
“Whether that money was going to the rich asshole, all I can say is this, and clearly I have no knowledge of that, is that every time I think why would this guy who is worth $1 billion, he says $10 (billion), be getting involved in the rich asshole University to get an extra $100 in his pocket?” Deutsch said. “Could this president possibly say, ‘Wow, maybe I can make an extra few hundred grand by getting these’ — you go, ‘That’s not possible,’ but then you go, ‘Of course, it’s possible.'”
Deutsch reminded viewers that Columbus Nova, a investment fund whose biggest client is a fund controlled by Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg, paid at least $500,000 to Cohen’s LLC.
“Clearly none of us know the answer to that,” Deutsch added. “Michael, as I said, he, when I spoke to him yesterday, he said, ‘I’m still in a fighting mood,’ he said Corey Lewandoski got $2 million. Whether or not we think it’s sleazy, the big questions are, did any of it go back to the rich asshole? And let us not get head-faked away from Russia, because we’ll still always come back to the Russian money. I think it’s a bit of a sidebar.”
Fox News goes all-in trying to character assassinate Michael Avenatti
the rich asshole's favorite network keeps raising questions about Stormy Daniels' lawyer that could be answered with seconds of research.
On Thursday night, Laura Ingraham devoted an entire segment of her show to raising an ominous-sounding question: Who is paying Michael Avenatti?
Avenatti, the lawyer for Stormy Daniels, has played a key role in breaking open the scandal surrounding Michael Cohen, President the rich asshole’s personal lawyer.
Speculation about the source of his funding was the topic of a lengthy conversation. Watch:
That wasn’t the first time a Fox News host raised questions about Avenatti’s funding on Thursday evening. In a segment just before the rich asshole’s speech in Indiana, host Bill Hemmer also raised questions about Avenatti’s funding, citing the same Hill op-ed as Ingraham.
This question, however, can be answered with about 30 seconds of investigation. Avenatti’s pinned tweet, posted well before either Hemmer or Ingraham went on the air, answers questions about how he is being paid.
The tweet links to a statement that says “ALL fees and expenses of this case of either been funded by our client, Ms. Stephanie Clifford [aka, Stormy Daniels], or by donations from our crowdjustice.com page.”
“Further, no political party or PAC is funding this effort,” it adds. “No left wing conspiracy group is behind this. And no big fat cat political donors are leading the charge. Get over it.”
Donations aside, Avenatti is not hurting for cash. Last year, he secured a $454 million fraud verdict in a Los Angeles federal court in a case against Kimberly-Clark Corp involving defective surgical gowns.
While Ingraham and Hemmer tried to raise questions about Avenatti’s funding on Thursday, Tucker Carlson opted for insults, describing Avenatti as “a creepy porn lawyer whose eyes are too close together.”
On his show last night, @TuckerCarlson smeared @MichaelAvenatti as "a creepy porn lawyer whose eyes are too close together." #StayClassy
Fox News’ attempt to discredit Avenatti came two days after he first revealed that following an investigation, his team determined that Cohen “received approximately $500,000 in the mos. after the election from a company controlled by a Russian [oligarch] with close ties to Mr. Putin.” Most of Avenatti’s findings were quickly confirmed by major media outlets.
Avenatti added that “[t]hese monies may have reimbursed the $130k payment” Cohen made to Avenatti’s client, Stormy Daniels, a woman who claims to have had an affair with the rich asshole and was paid just before the election for her silence about it.
Avenatti also revealed that Cohen received payments from companies like AT&T and Korea Aerospace Companies LLC and did little to no work for them in exchange. But the topic of team the rich asshole’s corruption and connections with Russian oligarchs is obviously an uncomfortable one for the president’s favorite network, and on Wednesday night Fox News’ top-rated primetime programs completely ignored them.
EPA chief Scott Pruitt’s ethics issues have raised concerns: White House
EPA AdministratorScott Pruitt of Oklahoma speaking at the 2015 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland. (Gage Skidmore/Flickr)
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U.S. President some rich asshole is pleased with Scott Pruitt’s performance as head of the Environmental Protection Agency but allegations of ethical missteps “have raised some concerns,” a White House spokesman said on Thursday.
The White House is hopeful Pruitt will be able to answer those concerns, spokesman Raj Shah told reporters aboard Air Force One en route to Elkhart, Indiana.
Pruitt has been under fire for potential ethics lapses, including flying first class, excessive spending on security, and the rental of a room in a Washington condominium owned by the wife of an energy lobbyist.
“The president is pleased with the job that he’s doing as the administrator. However, the issues that have been raised that I think you guys are all familiar with – they have raised some concerns,” Shah said.
“We’re hopeful and expecting that Administrator Pruitt will be able to answer those,” he said.
“The president is pleased with the job that he’s doing as the administrator. However, the issues that have been raised that I think you guys are all familiar with – they have raised some concerns,” Shah said.
“We’re hopeful and expecting that Administrator Pruitt will be able to answer those,” he said.
The EPA has defended Pruitt’s spending on travel and security, saying it has been crucial to protecting him from public threats and ensuring he can conduct confidential work, and have also pointed out that Pruitt’s lease for the room in Washington, of about $50 a night he was there, was around market rate.
Pruitt has drawn praise from conservatives during his EPA tenure for rolling back Democratic former President Barack Obama’s policy to curb greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and other environmental regulations opposed by industry.
Although the rich asshole has expressed support for Pruitt for his work on scaling back environmental regulations, White House sources have told Reuters officials are worried about the flow of charges against him.
Although the rich asshole has expressed support for Pruitt for his work on scaling back environmental regulations, White House sources have told Reuters officials are worried about the flow of charges against him.
There are nearly a dozen pending investigations into Pruitt with the EPA inspector general, the Government Accountability Office and the White House Office of Management and Budget, as well as the U.S. House of Representatives oversight committee.
Reporting by James Oliphant; Writing by Eric Beech; Editing by David Alexander
MEDIA
Michael Avenatti Warns Michael Cohen: I Still Have More Documents To Release
“We’ve got emails, we’ve got text messages, we’ve got other financial information.”
Michael Avenatti has a warning for Michael Cohen, the embattled personal attorney to President some rich asshole: There’s more.
“We haven’t even scratched the surface with this email today and the information that we released earlier in the week,” Avenatti said on CNN on Thursday. “We’ve got emails, we’ve got text messages, we’ve got other financial information, and people better be very careful in the representations that they make.”
Avenatti earlier this week released a trove of documents linking Cohen’s consulting firm to numerous payments, including $500,000 from a company tied to a Russian oligarch.
Cohen used that same consulting firm to pay $130,000 to Avenatti’s client Stormy Daniels as part of a nondisclosure agreement just before the 2016 presidential election.
Daniels, a porn actress whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, is suing to get out of the deal so she can talk about an alleged 2006 affair with the rich asshole.
“I’m speaking to you, Michael Cohen,” Avenatti warned on Thursday. “You’d better be really careful in the representations you make in court filings and to the American people because we’re going to prove you wrong if the need be, period.”
the rich asshole humiliated his own DHS secretary because he suspects she’s ‘a Bush family plant’: report
some rich asshole speaks to Fox News (screen grab)
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Reports dropped on Thursday night that President some rich asshole had humiliated his own Department of Homeland Security chief Kirstjen Nielsen at a recent cabinet meeting, which prompted her to consider resigning.
According to the New York Times’ Maggie Haberman, the rich asshole’s dispute with Nielsen isn’t just about policy — rather, it’s part of a broader paranoid delusion about where his own DHS chief’s loyalties truly lie.
“Someone, as sources have put it, has gotten it in his head that she is a Bush family plant,” Haberman wrote of the rich asshole’s suspicions of Nielsen.
Someone, as sources have put it, has gotten it in his head that she is a Bush family plant. twitter.com/juliehdavis/st…
Haberman’s tweet came in response to a tweet by fellow New York Times reporter Julie Davis, who explained that Nielsen’s resignation threat had been “a long time in coming” because “Nielsen and the rich asshole have clashed often and she has been a frequent target of his freewheeling immigration rants.”
According to the New York Times’ report, the rich asshole has been angry that Nielsen has been “resisting his direction that parents be separated from their children when families cross illegally into the United States.”
WATCH: Pence’s call for Mueller to ‘wrap it up’ echoes Nixon on Watergate almost word for word
What could possibly go wrong?
During an interview with NBC’s Andrea Mitchell on Thursday morning, Vice President Mike Pence called for special counsel Robert Mueller to “wrap it up.”
“What I think is that it’s been a year since this investigation began, our administration has provided over a million documents, we’ve fully cooperated in it, and in the interest of the country I think it’s time to wrap it up,” Pence said. “And I would very respectfully encourage the special counsel and his team to bring their work to completion.”
As Morning Joe noted, the content and tone of Pence’s call for the special counsel to end his investigation was remarkably similar to what President Richard Nixon said in January 1974 about the special prosecutor who was investigating him, Leon Jaworski.
“As you know, I have provided to the special prosecutor voluntarily a great deal of material,” Nixon said. “I believe that I have provided all of the material that he needs to conclude his investigations, and to proceed to prosecute the guilty and to clear the innocent. I believe the time has come to bring that investigation and the other investigations of this matter to an end. One year of watergate is enough.”
Watch the two clips back to back for yourself:
Nixon’s speech came three months after he fired the first prosecutor appointed to investigate Watergate, Archibald Cox, in the “Saturday Night Massacre.” Cox’s termination backfired — it both galvanized public opinion against Nixon, and failed to end the investigation. Jaworski was appointed to replace Cox about two weeks after the Saturday Night Massacre.
And as it turned out, one year of Watergate was not quite enough. After smoking gun evidence emerged that Nixon had lied about his involvement in the Watergate break-in, he resigned from office in August 1974 — about seven months after he called for the special prosecutor to wrap it up.
Where did the rich asshole’s cash come from? ‘King of debt’ paid $400 million cash for real estate in decade before election
some rich asshole plays golf at the rich asshole National Doral (screen grab)
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Last week, the Washington Post had an intriguing story: In the nine years before now-President some rich asshole announced his candidacy, his company paid $400 million in cash to buy a number of properties.
Find “the rich asshole, Inc.” wherever you get your podcasts.
Real estate companies doing deals usually borrow money for the same reason that many homeowners take out mortgages: Leveraging your money — especially when the cost of borrowing is low, as it has been for a decade — makes your money go further.
The fact that the rich asshole — the self-styled “king of debt” — didn’t do that in these deals has raised a number of big, basic questions, including how the the rich asshole Organization had so much cash, and why it would use it to purchase properties in all cash.
Eric the rich asshole told the Post that the money came from profits that his father put back in the business. “He had incredible cash flow and built incredible wealth,” the younger the rich asshole said. “We invested in ourselves.”
In a “the rich asshole, Inc.” podcast extra, we spoke to The New Yorker’s Adam Davidson and the Post’s David Fahrenthold — who wrote last week’s story with Jonathan O’Connell and Jack Gillum. Davidson and Fahrenthold talk about trying to make the numbers and the explanations add up. (Spoiler: They can’t.)
“There’s this fundamental question we have,” says Davidson. “Where did the money come from and why was it spent the way it was spent. There’s some piece of information that we are missing because none of the explanations make sense.”
We also talk about the revelations of payments to the president’s lawyer, Michael Cohen — and how it may be that our various investigations will converge into one.
How Michael Avenatti got Michael Cohen’s emails
And why that's a big problem for Cohen.
Over the past few days, Michael Avenatti, the attorney for Stormy Daniels, has been steadily releasing what appear to be private communications between Michael Cohen, some rich asshole’s longtime attorney, and Keith Davidson, who represented Daniels when she inked a $130,000 hush-money agreement that was facilitated through a shell company set up by Cohen.
These emails are evidence of questionable, if not unethical, collusion between Cohen and Davidson, who are ostensibly representing opposing sides of the dispute.
One email, released by Avenatti on Twitter on Thursday, shows that Cohen was communicating with Davidson in the days after the FBI raided his home and office and seized his phones. This email suggests an ongoing collaboration between Davidson and Cohen, even though the two are not known to be involved in any current legal matter.
On April 9, the FBI raided Mr. Cohen’s home, office and hotel room. Within 48 hours, Mr. Cohen sent the below email to Mr. Davidson. Why? They had no ongoing legal matter at the time. Was it part of an attempt by Mr. Cohen to obstruct justice or worse? #basta
On Friday, Avenatti posted another email between Davidson and Cohen, from February, in which Cohen argues that Davidson should not forward part of the hush money agreement to Davidson’s new lawyer. (This didn’t work, as Avenatti obtained the “Side Letter Agreement” and released it as part of Daniels lawsuit against Cohen and the rich asshole, filed in March.)
Knowing what we know now, no wonder Mr. Cohen was doing everything he could to interfere with Ms. Daniels' efforts to get new counsel. He was desperate to avoid the cover-up from surfacing and was afraid that competent counsel would expose him and Mr. Trump. #MoreToCome #Basta
This second email is not actually new and was released to NBC News in March. But it raises the question: How is Avenatti getting these emails?
As a matter of practice, lawyers maintain case files for the benefit of their clients. If the client decides to seek new representation, the information in the case file is generally deemed to belong to the client, and it’s then forwarded to the new attorney. In this case, it appears that Davidson turned over these communications to Avenatti as part of Daniels’ case file.
Avenatti hinted as much during a hearing in New York in late April in which he sought to intervene in a dispute about how the materials seized in the raid of Michael Cohen’s office would be handled. Avenatti argued that Davidson and Cohen were continuing to discuss his client’s case and that those communications were part of her case file, which belongs to her.
Of course, those communications, whether they be by email, text messages, or otherwise, would technically belong to my client because it would be part of her attorney-client file.
In other words, Avenatti is concerned there are more materials that belong to his client that were among those seized in the raid. The judge has not yet ruled on his request.
Either way, Avenatti’s stockpile of emails potentially presents big problems for Cohen, Davidson — and possibly President some rich asshole.
The nature of Cohen’s relationship with Davidson is key. They were supposed to be on opposite sides of a number of disputes. But the emails are evidence that the relationship between the two was more collaborative.
Davidson’s representation of Stormy Daniels began when Cohen heard that Daniels was shopping her story around to various media outlets. It was at this point that Cohen asked Davidson to reach out to her, Davidson revealed in an interview with CNN.
Cohen has admitted to referring at least one other client to Davidson.
Were they each sincerely representing the interests of their clients? Or were they working in tandem to purchase their silence of women at a reduced rate and under favorable terms?
Avenatti also says the emails contain evidence that Cohen was seeking to use his relationship with Davidson to interfere with Daniels obtaining new counsel. The purpose, according to Avenatti, was to cover up the other activities of Essential Consultants, the shell company used to pay Daniels, which also received millions from corporations seeking access to the rich asshole.
‘This is part of a pattern’: Russian company tied to the rich asshole registering white supremacy domain names is troubling say analysts
Analysts Matt Lewis and Steve Hall on CNN/Screenshot
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A Russia-linked company that gave big bucks to some rich asshole’s personal attorney Michael Cohen also took an interest in the early white supremacy, reports both CNN and NBC.
The company, Columbus Nova, registered at least eight white supremacy website domain names, such as lt-right.co, Alternate-right.com, Alternate-rt.com and Alt-rite.com. The company has financial ties to Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg, a close ally of president Vladimir Putin.
On CNN, analysts Matt Lewis and Steve Hall debated the strength of this connection Thursday night.
“It’s interesting that the domains were purchased a couple days after her speech,” he said. “There’s this maybe naive, but also maybe plausible, theory that this guy is watching TV, he sees Hillary Clinton mention white supremacy and he’s a squatter, he’s just going to buy domains and try to sell them later. Maybe this white supremacy thing becomes a big deal. It’s possible, it’s plausible.”
But in the context of Russia trying to sow discord—well, Lewis said “it’s very curious” and “part of a pattern.”
Steve Hall pointed out that it’s the American tendency to give everyone a fair shake and not assume ill-intent. But, he says, it has the finger prints of Russia’s mob-style oligarch system.
“But when you strip all that away, and think about it like the Russians would think about it—first of all, there is a direct line between Vekselberg and Cohen,” he said.
Watch the discussion below.
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