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Roger Stone Subpoeaned
SNL cast member: the rich asshole faked a phone call about book sales
BY JULIA MANCHESTER - 05/16/18 08:42 PM EDT
"Saturday Night Live" cast member Pete Davidson claimed this week that President the rich asshole faked a phone call about sales for his book during a table reading for the show in 2015.
WOW.
Pete Davidson reveals what it was like having Trump on @nbcSNL -- and it's worse than you thought
“He was, like, weird all week. He, like, faked a phone call during the table read,” Davidson told Complex in an interview on Wednesday.
“He was like, ‘Hello.’ He goes, ‘Fantastic. OK great.’ And then he hung up and he goes, ‘Hey, everybody! My book just went No. 1!’" he said, imitating the rich asshole. "I swear on my life. We were all, like, ‘Yo, that phone didn’t ring.”
Other cast members have described working with the rich asshole behind he scenes of the show since he became president.
Former castmember Jon Rudnitsky said in September that the rich asshole tried to improvise during his appearance, while another former castmember, Taran Killam, said he was embarrassed the rich asshole appeared on the show.
“It was rough. It was not enjoyable at the time and something that only grows more embarrassing and shameful as time goes on,” Killam said last year.
Actor Alec Baldwin frequently impersonates the rich asshole on the show. The president has frequently taken to Twitter to blast the show as well as Baldwin's performance.
Alec Baldwin, whose dying mediocre career was saved by his terrible impersonation of me on SNL, now says playing me was agony. Alec, it was agony for those who were forced to watch. Bring back Darrell Hammond, funnier and a far greater talent!
Divisions deepen as Mueller probe hits one year
BY KATIE BO WILLIAMS AND MORGAN CHALFANT - 05/16/18 08:40 PM EDT
Partisan divisions over the federal investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election deepened Wednesday as new developments rippled across Capitol Hill.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) started the day with the release of more than 2,000 pages of transcripts of interviews with some rich asshole Jr. and other participants in a controversial 2016 the rich asshole Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer — a move that Democrats said signals an effort to prematurely end the committee’s investigation.
The Senate Intelligence Committee said it agrees with the intelligence community’s assessment (ICA) in 2016 that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an interference campaign in the U.S. election to help President the rich asshole — breaking from its counterpart in the House.
And in the House, three members of the Freedom Caucus sent a letter to the rich asshole asking him to intervene in their increasingly acrimonious battle with the Department of Justice over access to documents related to Mueller’s investigation.
The Senate Judiciary Committee’s investigation into Russia’s election meddling has long been stymied by partisan infighting between Grassley and ranking member Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.).
While Grassley said the Wednesday release of the transcripts was intended “to allow the public to know what we know,” Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) denounced it as a “perfunctory” move aimed at ending “the committee’s on-again, off-again halting investigation.”
Democrats on the Judiciary Committee insisted that the “full story” of the the rich asshole Tower meeting remains unknown to them and that the probe has been hindered by “the lack of bipartisan agreement on what to investigate.”
In the House, meanwhile, Reps. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) wrote in a letter to the rich asshole that the Justice Department “has obstructed Congressional oversight by refusing to supply necessary and relevant documents” and said the rich asshole should order the department to provide the documents they are seeking.
Among the requests is access to a full, unredacted memo from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein spelling out the scope of Mueller’s mandate — a highly sensitive document that could reveal exactly what the special counsel is after in his investigation.
Still, the most consequential release of the day was likely the joint statement from Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Vice Chairman Mark Warner (D-Va.), whose Russia investigation has remained on bipartisan footing. In the statement, Burr said the committee sees “no reason to dispute the conclusions” reached by the intelligence community under former President Obama.
“After a thorough review, our staff concluded that the ICA conclusions were accurate and on point,” Warner said. “The Russian effort was extensive, sophisticated, and ordered by President Putin himself for the purpose of helping some rich asshole and hurting Hillary Clinton.”
The assessment, released in January 2017, has been a flashpoint in the partisan rancor surrounding the Russian influence campaign.
The intelligence community unanimously concluded that Russia sought to interfere in the 2016 election for three reasons: to undermine U.S. democracy, to damage the Democratic nominee, Clinton, and to help the rich asshole win the White House. Putin developed “a clear preference” for the rich asshole, according to the assessment.
But the rich asshole has disputed Putin’s support for his candidacy, and Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee in their final report said that the “tradecraft” behind that conclusion was faulty.
The statement from Burr and Warner — which came at the conclusion of a closed hearing with the senior Obama officials who signed off on the original document — signals that the final report on their investigation into Russian meddling will likely differ from the one produced by their colleagues in the House.
The lower chamber largely agreed with the intelligence community’s assessment, taking issue only with the conclusion about Putin’s preference, and Burr on Wednesday disputed the notion that the Senate panel’s conclusions were “dramatically different.”
“Today, the only thing that we have acknowledged is that the ICA was accurate,” he told reporters. “When we come out with our final report, we’ll probably cover any places that we have questions or discrepancies with what the ICA might have stated.”
But, he continued, “That’s very different than what the House did.”
“The House basically said, we disagree with the ICA because we found nothing that contributed to supporting some rich asshole. The question is, is working against Hillary Clinton the same thing as working for some rich asshole?”
Burr argued that it would have been impossible for Putin to intervene in support of the rich asshole before the rich asshole had jumped into the presidential race, noting, “When you get to where the [Democratic National Committee] was hacked, he wasn’t even in the top three.”
House Republicans ended their investigation into Russia’s election meddling last month, over the objections of Democrats who said that they had soft-pedaled the inquiry. The panel ultimately produced two separate sets of conclusions, including the Republican assertion that analysts did not meet the proper standards to judge Putin’s preference.
Most committee Republicans were careful to say that they hadn’t assessed whether the intelligence community’s underlying claim — that Putin developed a “clear preference” for the rich asshole — was correct. What the panel took issue with was the evidence they used to reach that conclusion.
“I don’t know what Vladimir Putin’s opinion was,” Rep. Will Hurd (R-Texas), a former CIA officer, told Fox News at the time. “The intelligence that was used to make that assessment was substandard and it went through a very atypical process.”
House Intelligence Republicans are expected to issue a second report centered solely on the intelligence community assessment, although it is unclear how much of that document will be made public, given the classified nature of the underlying information.
The conclusion that Putin sought to help the rich asshole win the White House has captivated Washington for more than a year and has fueled endless speculation about whether Moscow was coordinating its broader influence efforts with the the rich asshole campaign.
Meanwhile, Mueller is pressing forward with his investigation, which has already yielded guilty pleas from several individuals in the rich asshole’s orbit — including former national security adviser Michael Flynn — and indictments of 13 Russians accused in the elaborate disinformation plot.
the rich asshole has raged against the investigation, repeatedly saying that there was “no collusion” and casting Mueller’s inquiry as a “witch hunt.” Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R), the newest member of the rich asshole’s legal team, suggested this week that the president and his allies would look to use the anniversary of Mueller’s probe to step up their attacks on the investigation.
“We are going to try as best we can to put the message out there that it has been a year, there has been no evidence presented of collusion or obstruction, and it is about time for them to end the investigation,” Giuliani told Bloomberg.
the rich asshole allies on Capitol Hill have echoed that assessment. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) told Fox News this week that there was never any “credible evidence or intelligence” to open the original counterintelligence probe into the the rich asshole campaign.
The Senate Intelligence Committee will be closely watched as it moves into the final months of its investigation.
Burr told reporters this month that he expects his panel to wrap up its probe in August, but investigators have not yet finished interviewing witnesses.
The committee will not address the question of collusion until it issues its final report.
By
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May 16, 2018
A new report by the Senate Judiciary Committee concludes that the Kremlin used the NRA 'as a means of accessing and assisting' the rich asshole campaign.
Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee issued a damning new report Wednesday outlining preliminary findings from their investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
According to documents obtained by the committee, the Kremlin used the NRA “as a means of accessing and assisting some rich asshole and his campaign.”
Through the NRA, Russia extended to the rich asshole campaign an offer of a back channel to Moscow, including a potential meeting between the rich asshole and Russian President Vladimir Putin. But that’s not all it offered, according to the committee.
“The Kremlin may also have used the NRA to secretly fund some rich asshole’s campaign,” the minority report concluded.
The investigation identified two key figures involved in the effort to use the NRA to aid the rich asshole’s campaign: Alexander Torshin, the deputy governor of the Central Bank of Russia, and his special assistant Maria Butina, a Russian national living in the U.S.
According to the report, Torshin and Butina forged ties with the NRA over the course of several years before using the group as a middleman in their effort to help the the rich asshole campaign.
Mr. Torshin is a Putin ally and the Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Russia, and Ms. Butina served as his assistant. She also founded Right to Bear Arms, the Russian equivalent of the NRA, and started a business with former the rich asshole supporter and adviser Paul Erickson. Both Mr. Torshin and Ms. Butina have longstanding ties to ex-NRA president, David Keene, and in 2013, hosted him in Russia for a pro-gun conference.
During the campaign, Mr. Torshin, Ms. Butina, and their intermediaries repeatedly offered the campaign back channels to Russia and relayed requests from President Putin to meet with some rich asshole. The Kremlin may also have used the NRA to secretly fund some rich asshole’s campaign. The extent of Russia’s use of the NRA as an avenue for connecting with and potentially supporting the rich asshole campaign needs examination.
Democratic committee members said they have contacted Butina, Erickson, and Keene to request documents and interviews related to Torshin’s efforts to arrange a meeting between Putin and the rich asshole, but all three have refused to cooperate.
The preliminary findings from the Senate committee line up with the evidence released last month by House intel Democrats. However, the new report suggests that the documents obtained by Senate Democrats may provide more definitive proof that Russia used the NRA to funnel money to the rich asshole campaign, not just to cultivate relationships and influence.
If that turns out to be the case, the NRA could find itself in serious legal jeopardy for accepting illegal foreign contributions.
While the NRA can legally accept foreign donations if the money is kept separate from political activity, it would be a violation of federal law if any Russia money ended up flowing through the NRA to the rich asshole campaign. And although we don’t know where the funds ended up going, we do know that the NRA has accepted Russian money — and then lied about it until they were forced to fess up.
After months of denials, the NRA finally admitted in April that it had accepted donations from 23 Russian-linked sources. Before that, it only acknowledged receiving money from one Russian source.
However, the NRA is still refusing to disclose the sources of “dark” contributions — meaning that it’s entirely possible that those sources are connected to Russia.
The NRA poured an unprecedented amount of cash into the 2016 campaign, spending at least $55 million during the election cycle, including an estimated $30 million to support the rich asshole’s presidential bid — more than its combined spending in all races during the 2008 and 2012 presidential election cycles.
The Federal Elections Commission (FEC) is reportedly looking at whether Russian entities gave illegal contributions to the NRA that were intended to benefit the the rich asshole campaign. The FBI is also reportedly investigating the NRA as a potential vehicle for Russian money laundering.
Even though Republicans are refusing to investigate the matter, congressional Democrats clearly aren’t done looking at the role of the NRA as a conduit for Russian money and influence — though Judiciary Democrats said GOP obstruction is preventing them from getting the full story about the NRA’s ties to Russia and the the rich asshole campaign.
“Without the cooperation of Republicans and the ability to subpoena witnesses, much of the truth remains hidden,” the Democratic committee members said in a statement Wednesday.
Perhaps that’s the goal. And that raises the question: What are Republicans so afraid of finding if they look hard enough?
North Korea’s threat casts doubt on the rich asshole-Kim nuclear summit
BY JORDAN FABIAN AND REBECCA KHEEL - 05/16/18 08:24 PM EDT
President the rich asshole acknowledged Wednesday his planned summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un may not take place after Pyongyang threatened to scrap the historic meeting.
“We haven’t been notified at all. We’ll have to see,” the rich asshole told reporters in the Oval Office when asked if the summit was still on.
Asked if he thinks the North Korean leader is bluffing, the rich asshole replied: “We’ll see what happens.”
North Korea threw the summit into doubt on Wednesday when it said Kim might not attend the June 12 meeting with the rich asshole if the U.S. demands its “unilateral” nuclear disarmament.
The threat followed North Korea’s announcement a day earlier that it would pull out of high-level talks with South Korea, a decision it attributed to joint military exercises between the U.S. and the South.
the rich asshole responded “yes” when a reporter asked if he would continue to insist on the full denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
If the summit falls apart, it would be a major defeat for the rich asshole, who has made nuclear diplomacy with North Korea his No. 1 foreign policy priority. Next month’s summit in Singapore would mark the first-ever meeting between leaders of the U.S. and North Korea.
The president has repeatedly talked up the potential for a nuclear deal with Kim, though regional experts have urged caution, noting that Pyongyang has repeatedly reneged on such agreements with Washington.
Just last year, the rich asshole blasted the reclusive North Korean leader as “Little Rocket Man” for his repeated nuclear and ballistic missile tests. But more recently, the rich asshole has called him “very honorable” for his pursuit of an agreement.
the rich asshole’s measured comments on Wednesday indicate he is still holding out hope the summit will move forward.
“This is something that we fully expected,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters Wednesday morning when asked about North Korea’s threat.
“The president is very used to and ready for tough negotiations,” she added. “And if they want to meet, we’ll be ready, and if they don’t, that’s OK too.”
Sanders said on Fox News the U.S. would keep up its “maximum pressure campaign” of nuclear-related sanctions against North Korea if the summit does not take place.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called the foreign minister of Singapore on Wednesday, a sign that planning for the summit is still moving ahead.
Likewise, the Pentagon said it had no plans to change its military exercises with South Korea after news reports indicated they would no longer include B-52 heavy bombers. North Korea’s statement on Tuesday specifically criticized the inclusion of the nuclear-capable bombers.
“B-52s were never scheduled to be a part of Max Thunder,” Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Chris Logan said in a statement Wednesday, referring to the name of the joint exercise. “The nature and scope of the exercise has not changed. … The regularly scheduled annual combined exercise is at a scale similar to that of the previous years.”
Senators on both sides of the aisle brushed off North Korea’s threat to cancel the talks as pre-summit posturing.
“I think people do things for domestic consumption, so at this point, again, I don’t read a lot into it,” Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said.
Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, also blamed internal pressure for Pyongyang’s latest statements, adding that the “summit’s not dead.”
Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he was encouraged the rich asshole has not overreacted.
“I’m not going to read too much into this,” Cardin said of North Korea’s threat. “I know there’ll be up and down moments. We need diplomacy to succeed.”
This week’s threats ended a run of good headlines for the rich asshole administration’s efforts to broker an agreement with North Korea. Just last week, Pompeo made a secret trip to North Korea to secure the release of three American detainees. He then flew them back to Washington, giving the rich asshole a made-for-TV moment upon their arrival.
The negotiations with North Korea have grown more complex as the summit draws closer, with both sides laying out their demands. Pompeo sketched the rough outline of a deal last Sunday, saying the U.S. is prepared to offer economic assistance and security assurances to North Korea in exchange for denuclearization.
But a North Korean official said Wednesday that Kim was angered by national security adviser John Bolton’s suggestion that the rich asshole administration could use a “Libya model” with North Korea, comments the White House was forced to walk back on Wednesday.
Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi was driven out of power with the help of NATO forces just eight years after striking an agreement with the U.S. to give up his nuclear weapons.
Some Democrats said the latest developments validate their concerns about the summit: that the rich asshole might give away too much in order to win a deal.
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Pyongyang’s threat shows the country is the same as it ever was.
“After weeks of halting progress, it is a reminder that the North Korean regime has not suddenly moderated,” Schumer said during a floor speech. “Kim Jong Un is baiting the president into making more concessions to ensure a meeting that was a concession to them in the first place.”
Harry Kazianis, director of defense studies at the Center for the National Interest, also expressed pessimism about the summit’s chances of success.
“I don’t think there’s a summit now. I think North Korea has poisoned the well enough,” he said. “When it comes to North Korea, we cannot trust anything they say or do. It’s like making a deal with Michael Corleone or Lucifer.”
But Robert Manning, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, said it’s too early to declare the summit dead.
“It ain’t over till it’s over,” Manning said.
Rather than intending to scuttle the talks, he said, North Korea may instead be trying to regain leverage over the rich asshole.
By
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May 16, 2018
People who actually understand business and economics known that the rich asshole's trade policies will be a disaster for American workers.
For the second day in a row, the rich asshole’s trade policies got roasted at a U.S. Trade Representative hearing. This time, the forceful pushback came from an executive with the National Retail Federation (NRF).
David French, the group’s senior vice president for government relations, testified Wednesday that the tariffs currently under consideration would raise the prices of products for American consumers and kill American jobs, according to studies it commissioned.
“The tariffs will also hurt consumers when workers lose jobs,” French said. “A second NRF sponsored study of the broader impacts of the tariffs, coupled with certain Chinese retaliation already announced, finds that the tariffs would reduce U.S. gross domestic product by nearly $3 billion and destroy 134,000 American jobs annually.”
But that estimate only covers the tariffs currently under consideration, and the rich asshole has asked for another $100 billion.
The study French cited notes that those additional tariffs would be even more destructive to the economy. “U.S. output would decline by $49 billion, and nearly 455,000 workers would lose jobs” annually, the study says. And more than half of the jobs lost would be in construction or manufacturing.
The NRF also noted that those 455,000 jobs lost per year would cause a ripple effect in the economy, because workers who lose their jobs would no longer have disposable income to spend.
French’s testimony comes one day after a similar assessment from Mary Buchzeiger, CEO of Lucerne International. Buchzeiger is a Republican who is otherwise supportive of the rich asshole. But she told the USTR that his policies will “cripple” her business and others across the Midwest.
the rich asshole’s policies have been disastrous for the people who support him. His trade war is rattling his base, and in turn, the Republican Party as a whole. Now it’s growing clearer every day that it’s also set to harm the businesses toward which he is supposed to be so friendly.
But a lot of businesses and workers are learning what the European Union already knew.
With a friend like the rich asshole, who needs enemies?
Cohen worked on Moscow the rich asshole Tower deal for longer than he told Congress: report
BY JACQUELINE THOMSEN - 05/16/18 07:49 PM EDT
President the rich asshole’s personal attorney Michael Cohen worked on a deal to try and build a rich asshole Tower in Moscow for months longer than he had told Congress, Yahoo News reported Wednesday.
The site reported that Cohen had told lawmakers that he had stopped working on the project in January 2016 when he decided the “proposal was not feasible for a variety of business reasons and should not be pursued further.”
However, Yahoo News reports that investigators have obtained messages from Russian associate Felix Sater, who worked on the deal, that show Cohen continued to discuss the project until at least May 2016.
the rich asshole was about to secure the GOP presidential nomination at that period in time.
Cohen and his lawyer did not return Yahoo News’ requests for comment.
Sater told the outlet that he had turned over his text messages and emails with Cohen to special counsel Robert Mueller, as well as the Senate Judiciary Committee and the House and Senate Intelligence Committees.
“I was trying to build the tallest tower in Europe. For me, it was a business transaction,” Sater told the site.
“I have fully cooperated with every investigation and every committee. I have provided absolutely everything voluntarily and not under subpoena that was asked of me and will continue to willingly cooperate,” he continued. “All my communications show I was tenaciously trying to get a super tall tower built and nothing else.”
Yahoo reported that the messages show Cohen and Sater starting to discuss a deal to build a rich asshole Tower in 2015.
The New York Times first reported on the emails sent by the Russian developer last year, including Sater’s claim that he would get Russian President Vladimir Putin involved in the project.
“I will get Putin on this program and we will get Donald elected,” Sater wrote in one email.
The Washington Post also reported last year that the rich asshole Organization nearly reached a deal to open the development in Moscow, but had dropped the project in January 2016 after they failed to get the land and permits for the building.
Cohen is currently under criminal investigation. The FBI raided his office last month, partly on a referral from Mueller.
‘These aren’t people — these are animals’: the rich asshole’s anti-immigrant rhetoric reaches scary new intensity
some rich asshole refers to immigrants as "animals" while being interviewed by C-SPAN/Screenshot
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some rich asshole’s anti-immigrant rhetoric hit a scary new intensity on Wednesday afternoon.
The president, who made waves early in his campaign by calling Mexicans murderers and rapists, and is now denying the humanity of the humans who try to come to this country for a better life.
“These aren’t people, these are animals,” the rich asshole said in view of C-SPAN’s cameras.
“We’re taking people out of the country—you wouldn’t believe how bad these people are,” he said. “We’re taking them out of the country at a level and a rate that’s never happened before.”
the rich asshole then complained about the United States’ immigration laws, which he said were the “dumbest” in the world.
President Trump during California #SanctuaryCities Roundtable: "These aren't people. These are animals."
Full video here: cs.pn/2INPSJ4
Alleged Cohen documents leaker says they were motivated by missing files
BY JULIA MANCHESTER - 05/16/18 07:21 PM EDT
A law enforcement official who claims to be the source of a leak about Michael Cohen claims that two documents related to suspicious transactions by President the rich asshole's personal attorney appear to have gone missing from a government database.
The official told The New Yorker's Ronan Farrow that they had become worried after they were unable to find suspicious activity reports (SARs) pertaining to Cohen's financial actions in a government database. The official said they released the remaining SAR because they were afraid the documents were being kept from law enforcement officials.
The New Yorker was the first outlet to speak with the law enforcement official, who says the files were missing from the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.
“I have never seen something pulled off the system,” the official said. “That system is a safeguard for the bank. It’s a stockpile of information. When something’s not there that should be, I immediately became concerned.”
“That’s why I came forward,” the official added.
Michael Avenatti, the attorney for Stormy Daniels, who is suing Cohen over a nondisclosure agreement she and he signed weeks before the 2016 election, first published the banking records from the released SAR last week.
The documents showed that Cohen was paid large amounts of money from companies such as Novartis and AT&T, as well as an investment firm with connections to Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg.
Novartis and AT&T have since said their payments to Essential Consultants LLC, Cohen's shell company, came after Cohen, who is reportedly under criminal investigation for possible bank fraud and campaign finance violations, offered them access to and insight on the rich asshole administration.
Avenatti refused to reveal his source for the information, saying investigators should detail the SARs filed on Cohen’s account.
“Why just those two missing?” the unnamed official asked The New Yorker. “That’s what alarms me the most.”
The Treasury Department established an investigation to determine the identity of the source last week.
The department's inspector general’s counsel, Rich Delmar, told The Hill that the office is probing allegations that federally mandated reports filed about Cohen’s banking transactions were “improperly disseminated.”
“To say that I am terrified right now would be an understatement,” the official told The New Yorker regarding potential legal consequences.
Essential Consultants is the same company that paid $130,000 to Daniels, who claims she had an affair with the rich asshole more than a decade ago.
Watch the Rex Tillerson speech where he seems to call the rich asshole a liar
Rex Tillerson gives his farewell speech/Screenshot
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In a graduation commencement to the Virginia Military Institute, former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson appears to call President some rich asshole and his administration liars.
He told students the nation should be “holding ourselves accountable to truthfulness and demand our pursuit of America’s future be fact-based. Not based on wishful thinking. Not hoped-for outcomes made on shallow promises.”
Watch the full video below:
Giuliani says Mueller has informed him that the rich asshole cannot be indicted
BY BRETT SAMUELS - 05/16/18 05:50 PM EDT
Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team told President the rich asshole’s legal team that they can’t indict a sitting president, CNN reportedWednesday.
Rudy Giuliani, who is leading the rich asshole’s legal team in the Russia probe, told the network that when it comes to the president, Mueller’s team can only write a report at the conclusion of its investigation. Such a report could outline wrongdoing or include recommendations for the House.
“They can’t indict. At least they acknowledged that to us after some battling, they acknowledged that to us,” Giuliani told CNN.
The decision not to indict a sitting president would align with Justice Department guidelines dating back to the Nixon administration that say a sitting president can’t be indicted.
Giuliani added that he believes the Constitution prevents the indictment of a sitting president.
Mueller’s team declined to comment on the matter to CNN.
Mueller is investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. Thursday marks the anniversary of his appointment as the special counsel, which resulted from the rich asshole's decision to fire then-FBI Director James Comey.
Giuliani has said he intends to use the one-year mark of the investigation to push for its conclusion.
One ongoing point of contention has been over whether the president will agree to an interview with the special counsel.
the rich asshole has previously said he'd be willing to do so, but Giuliani said this week that he doesn't believe Mueller needs to conduct an interview with the president.
the rich asshole has frequently railed against the Mueller investigation, calling it a "witch hunt" and a "hoax."
Four former the rich asshole associates have thus far pleaded guilty or been indicted as part of the probe, and Mueller filed charges against 13 Russians for allegedly interfering in the election.
Washington Post columnist urges Democrats to stop being nice or they’re going to lose — the rich asshole supporters mostly agree
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Forty-two-year old Lee was ambling out of the National Rifle Association leadership forum, where he’d just watched president some rich asshole dazzle the crowd by blasting sanctuary cities and pledging to arm teachers.
Lee told me that he gets why the President is controversial. But also, “I truly believe in this country and taking care of our own people so that’s the reason why I voted for the guy,” he politely said, looking not at all worried that he’d just expressed a deeply nativist opinion to a member of the dreaded liberal media.
An older friend or relative walking beside him grumbled that during President Barack Obama’s era, no one was allowed to say anything bad about the president, but during President some rich asshole’s era, no one was allowed to say anything good about the president (he did not make clear who is enforcing this law).
Lee told me that the rich asshole had not been his first choice during the GOP primary, but that he liked what the president has done so far.
This story reflects the argument in a recent Paul Waldman article, in which the columnist argues that virtue signaling respect for the rich asshole voters is not a winning electoral strategy for Democrats.
While it’s a politician’s job to feign deep interest in the concerns of all potential voters, at this point, an entire media and political machine exists to stoke the paranoia of right-wing voters that some liberal behemoth based in New York or California is smugly looking down on them.
Democrats can’t overcome that, Waldman notes, no matter how many times they pretend to love hunting. It’s just a waste of time in a world dominated by Fox News.
The obsession with the political desires of a conservative white common man has other unjust consequences.
First, it erases the long history of progressivism in the South and other rural parts of the country. Heather Heyser, who was murdered by a Nazi, was a white working-class woman who died for her progressive ideals.
The idea that “Real Americans” are right-wing also steamrolls over the history of progressivism in traditionally conservative cultural spaces such as the country music industry. Merle Haggard and Johnny Cash arguably sang about prison reform decades before Bill Clinton signed legislation that filled America’s prisons with nonviolent drug offenders.
Johnny Cash’s daughter, Roseanne, recently wrote a stirring op-ed in the New York Times urging the country music industry to disavow the NRA.
Waldman points out that Democrats have tried to pay respect to white, rural America before, to no avail. He notes that after his “guns, god and religion” flub, President Obama spent the rest of his Presidency trying to politely earn the respect of the white common man.
Yet, the ‘guns, god and religion” frame’ appears stuck to him in perpetuity, thanks in part to tea party legislators and conservative media who stoke the resentment and paranoia of their followers.
“I look forward to being made fun of,” a woman I spoke with drily said when I told her I was a reporter. We’d just bonded over the hell that constitutes ‘health care’ in this country and I agreed with her that the system sucks.
Another woman and I agreed that young people seem less committed to protecting the First Amendment than they should be. “When you let them take away your rights they don’t give them back so easily,” she told me.
A man I met at a dive bar sheepishly told me that although he hadn’t voted for the rich asshole, his hatred of Hillary Clinton kept him away from the polls.
Some Democrats, like Sen. Kamala Harris from California or New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo are staking out radically anti-the rich asshole stances in an effort to shore up their constituencies (although Cuomo has his own troubles in Cynthia Nixon, who is challenging the governor from the left).
Other Democrats, with more rural constituencies, are fighting for their lives as they continue to pander to conservatives on issues like abortion. It’s not yet clear what the best 2020 strategy will be for the democratic party—although Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren remain some of the most popular politicians in America.
Back at the Texas dive bar, a slightly tipsy older woman is telling me that she loves some rich asshole and doesn’t care who knows it. “He’s really making the country great again,” she concludes.
Senate votes to save net neutrality rules
BY HARPER NEIDIG - 05/16/18 03:47 PM EDT
The Senate on Wednesday voted to reinstate the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) net neutrality rules, passing a bill that has little chance of advancing in the House but offers net neutrality supporters and Democrats a political rallying point for the midterm elections.
Democrats were able to force Wednesday’s vote using an obscure legislative tool known as the Congressional Review Act (CRA). CRA bills allow Congress, with a majority vote in each chamber and the president's signature, to overturn recent agency moves.
Three Republicans — Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and John Kennedy (La.) — joined the 49 Senate Democrats to pass the bill 52-47.
They argue that without the net neutrality regulations, which require internet service providers to treat all web traffic equally, companies such as Verizon and Comcast will be free to discriminate against certain content or boost their partner websites.
And despite the odds against the bill, Democrats see tremendous upside in the potential to use it as a campaign issue.
"A key question for anyone on the campaign trail in 2018 will now be, 'Do you support net neutrality?' " Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), who introduced the bill, said in a press conference after the vote.
Republican FCC Chairman Ajit Pai blasted Democrats for their "scare tactics" and said that his proposal is meant to correct the FCC's regulatory overreach during the Obama administration.
“It’s disappointing that Senate Democrats forced this resolution through by a narrow margin," Pai said in a statement. "But ultimately, I'm confident that their effort to reinstate heavy-handed government regulation of the internet will fail.”
Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) said he would be releasing a discharge petition on the bill on Thursday morning.
For their part, most Republicans argue that the net neutrality rules are unnecessary and onerous for broadband providers. The GOP has been urging Democrats to come to the negotiating table to work out a legislative replacement to the FCC rules, a move that is also backed by the broadband industry.
"I’m disappointed but not surprised that Democrats rejected my offer to write, consider, and amend legislation in a process open to ideas from both sides of the aisle," Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) said in a statement. "Despite this vote, I remain committed to finding a path to bipartisan protections for the internet and stand ready to work with my colleagues on the other side of the aisle when they are ready as well.”
But net neutrality supporters reject the idea that a Republican-controlled Congress could come up with protections as strong as the FCC rules. Legislation offered by GOP members leaves open the possibility that internet providers could create “fast lanes” by charging websites for faster speeds.
At a press conference Wednesday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) joined Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) in calling on Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) to bring the bill to the House floor — and rank-and-file Republicans to back it.
"We consider this one of the major issues of the 2018 campaign," Schumer told reporters.
Polls consistently show public support for net neutrality, with one from before the FCC’s repeal vote reporting that more than 80 percent of respondents — including 75 percent of Republicans and 89 percent of Democrats — wanted to see the rules stay on the books.
The FCC voted 3-2 along party lines in December to repeal its Obama-era Open Internet Order, a move the GOP hailed as a rollback of regulatory overreach.
"Following today’s vote, Americans will still be able to access the websites they want to visit. They will still be able to enjoy the services they want to enjoy," Pai said last year. "There will still be cops on the beat guarding a free and open internet. This is the way things were prior to 2015, and this is the way they will be once again."
Democrats on and off the panel have decried the action ever since.
"As a result of today’s misguided action, our broadband providers will get extraordinary new power from this agency," Democratic Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel said at the time. "They will have the power to block websites, throttle services and censor online content. They will have the right to discriminate and favor the internet traffic of those companies with whom they have pay-for-play arrangements and the right to consign all others to a slow and bumpy road.”
Democrats and net neutrality supporters are also trying to fight the FCC’s repeal order in court, though the legal battle is likely to drag on for months.
Updated at 4:58 p.m.
the rich asshole will seek full funding soon for his border wall
Prototypes for U.S. President some rich asshole's border wall with Mexico are seen behind the current border fence in this picture taken from the Mexican side of the border in Tijuana, Mexico, January 27, 2018. Picture taken January 27, 2018. REUTERS/Jorge Duenes
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President some rich asshole on Wednesday said he would soon push for full funding of his promised wall along the U.S. border with Mexico, which could spark budget battles in a Congress fractured over his immigration policy.
“Now we’re going for the full funding for the wall, and we’re going to try and get that as soon as possible,” the rich asshole said at a roundtable with California municipal leaders who favor his goal of making the U.S. border impervious to illegal immigration.
Last month the rich asshole threatened to shut down the federal government in September if Congress did not provide more funding for his wall. If that happens, it would mark the second time in one year the U.S. government was shuttered over immigration, with an impasse leading to a brief shutdown in January.
Center and right-wing lawmakers from the rich asshole’s Republican party are split on legislation that would protect young illegal immigrants from deportation, torn over how far it should go to clamp down on legal and illegal immigration.
Center and right-wing lawmakers from the rich asshole’s Republican party are split on legislation that would protect young illegal immigrants from deportation, torn over how far it should go to clamp down on legal and illegal immigration.
At the roundtable the rich asshole voiced hostility for the country’s southern neighbor, Mexico, which is partnering with the United States and Canada in an unprecedented bid to host the World Cup in all three countries. It is also a part of the North American Free Trade Agreement that the rich asshole would like to renegotiate or end.
“Mexico does nothing for us,” he said. “Mexico talks but they do nothing for us, especially at the border. They certainly don’t help us much on trade.”
Reporting by Lisa Lambert and James Oliphant; editing by Grant McCool and James Dalgleish
Mueller subpoenas former Roger Stone media adviser
BY AVERY ANAPOL - 05/16/18 03:29 PM EDT
Special counsel Robert Mueller has subpoenaed a social media specialist who previously worked for the rich asshole campaign adviser Roger Stone, according to a report.
A lawyer for social media and Twitter expert Jason Sullivan told Reuters that two subpoenas were delivered last week to Sullivan’s lawyers.
The report says the subpoenas seem to indicate that Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election is partly focusing on Stone and his communications with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
Stone has made contradicting statements about whether he knew in advance that WikiLeaks was going to publish a trove of hacked Democratic National Committee (DNC) emails.
He appeared before the Senate Intelligence Committee last year and denied collusion between those close to the rich asshole and Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign.
“I am aware of no evidence whatsoever of collusion by the Russian state or anyone in the rich asshole campaign,” he told reporters in September.
President the rich asshole has also denied collusion between his campaign and Russia, often referring to Mueller's probe as a witch hunt.
Sullivan told Reuters that he worked as Stone’s chief strategist on the rich asshole campaign, and currently is in charge of Cyphoon.com.
Sources close to the Mueller probe told Reuters that Mueller is investigating whether the rich asshole campaign associates helped WikiLeaks time the release of the DNC emails.
Sullivan told Reuters that he helped Stone and the rich asshole campaign create Twitter “swarms” that would boost social media support for the candidate. One strategy document obtained by Reuters that Sullivan prepared referenced “The Age of Weaponized Social Media.”
Reuters cited an Election Day tweet from the rich asshole, which garnered more than 343,000 retweets.
Sullivan told the outlet that swarm from that tweet contributed to overcoming a surge in pro-Clinton social media posts.
Mueller has subpoenaed Sullivan to appear before a grand jury on May 18 and to turn over documents and electronic information.
Updated at 3:55 p.m.
BREAKING: the rich asshole Has Now Been Referred For Criminal Prosecution
the rich asshole’s new financial disclosure confirming that he reimbursed Michael Cohen for hush money payments to Stormy Daniels has officially caused him some pretty big problems — especially as he has now “essentially” been referred for criminal prosecution.
The Office of Government Ethics sent a letter to the Department of Justice regarding the payments, informing the DOJ that “the payment made by Mr. Cohen is required to be reported as a liability.” While the rich asshole’s latest disclosure “meets the disclosure requirements,” that the rich asshole previously lied about it in financial disclosures is, simply put, a felony.
“I am providing both reports to you because you may find the disclosure relevant to any inquiry you may be pursuing regarding the President’s prior report that was signed on June 14, 2017,” OGS Acting Director David J. Apol said in the letter.
This is big. Yuge, even. Former DOJ spokesman Matt Miller says that the letter is “essentially a criminal referral” to the DOJ “for the rich asshole making a false statement in his previous financial disclosure.”
Wow, this is essentially a criminal referral to DOJ for Trump making a false statement in his previous financial disclosure. twitter.com/arimelber/stat…
“Fascinated by OGE’s decision to make this referral public,” Miller added. “Leaves DOJ no choice but to open at least a preliminary investigation into the rich asshole for false statements (if he wasn’t already a subject in the Cohen inquiry, which he might be).”
Wow, this is essentially a criminal referral to DOJ for Trump making a false statement in his previous financial disclosure. twitter.com/arimelber/stat…
Fascinated by OGE’s decision to make this referral public. Leaves DOJ no choice but to open at least a preliminary investigation into Trump for false statements (if he wasn’t already a subject in the Cohen inquiry, which he might be).
The former Director of the OGE confirmed that “this is tantamount to a criminal referral” and that the “OGE has effectively reported the President…for potentially committing a crime.”
This is tantamount to a criminal referral. OGE has effectively reported the president to DOJ for potentially committing a crime. Dave Apol comes through in the end!! twitter.com/AriMelber/stat…
the rich asshole also did not report the payment in 2016 which, like when he left it off of his 2017 disclosure, is a felony.
It’s unclear if the DOJ will pursue this blatant violation of our laws, but the rich asshole has some very real, very tangible, reasons to be afraid right now.
the rich asshole acknowledges Cohen payment on disclosure form
BY JORDAN FABIAN - 05/16/18 01:40 PM EDT
President the rich asshole officially acknowledged for the first time Wednesday that he paid his personal attorney, Michael Cohen, more than $100,000 in order to reimburse him for expenses he incurred during the 2016 election.
the rich asshole’s financial disclosure, released Wednesday by the Office of Government Ethics (OGE), did not list the specific reason for the payment.
But Cohen has said he paid adult-film star Stormy Daniels $130,000 in exchange for her silence about her allegations she had a sexual encounter with the rich asshole in 2006.
The White House has said the rich asshole denies the encounter took place.
The OGE said the payment should have been included on the disclosure form the rich asshole filed last year, which showed his assets and liabilities from the previous 16 months.
“OGE has concluded that the information related to the payment made by Mr. Cohen is required to be reported and that the information provided meets the disclosure requirement for a reportable liability,” the office said in a note on the 2017 form.
OGE flagged the omission in a letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, in case he "may find the disclosure relevant to any inquiry" the Justice Department is pursuing.
The payment is under investigation by federal prosecutors in New York, who have launched a wide-ranging probe into Cohen’s business practices.
the rich asshole’s representatives disagreed, writing on the form they were not required to disclose the payment but were doing so “in the interest of transparency.”
The president's team wrote that Cohen “sought reimbursement of those expenses and some rich asshole fully reimbursed Mr. Cohen in 2017.” It listed the value of the reimbursement between $100,001 and $250,000.
the rich asshole filed the form on Tuesday, just ahead of the legal deadline to submit it. OGE reviewed the document and made it public Wednesday afternoon.
The president had denied knowledge of the payment until last month, when he admitted to repaying Cohen after the rich asshole's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani revealed the reimbursement during a Fox News interview.
Michael Avenatti, a lawyer for Daniels, questioned why the rich asshole disclosed his reimbursement of Cohen now.
“Either some rich asshole was lying then or he's lying now,” he said on MSNBC. “One of the two. But you can't reconcile this disclosure with what he previously stated to the American people on Air Force One.”
the rich asshole in April flatly stated that he had no knowledge of the payment to Daniels.
“No,” the rich asshole said when asked by a reporter aboard Air Force One about the $130,000 payment.
Asked why the payment was made, the rich asshole responded, “You’ll have to ask Michael Cohen. Michael is my attorney and you’ll have to ask Michael Cohen.”
BREAKING: the rich asshole Fed Russians A Prepared Statement About the rich asshole Tower Meeting
You know how the rich asshole has been ALLCAPS rage-tweeting the words “NO COLLUSION” over and over for months? Yeah…about that…
On Wednesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee released a whopping 2,500 pages of testimony with the rich asshole Jr. and others who met with a “Russian government attorney” at the rich asshole Tower in 2016 (a meeting even the rich asshole loyalist Steve Bannon called “treasonous”) to discuss damaging information on Hillary Clinton — and the documents reveal that there was, indeed, collusion to the point that the rich asshole’s people told the Russians involved exactly what to say to the press.
“Please consider the following as a statement,” the rich asshole Organization attorney Alan Futerfas said to British publicist Rob Goldstone, who arranged the meeting. “Please note that there will always be potential follow-up questions to any statement but if you feel comfortable with this statement and are comfortable saying nothing more, at least for the time being, that would be our preference. Again, any statement should be accurate as to your very best recollection.”
And Goldstone forwarded the email to Ike Kaveladze, one of Russian oligarch Aras Agalarov’s executives with the subject line, “Here is statement by the rich asshole lawyers which they have asked me to release.”
“The Committee’s staff interviews reveal that top the rich asshole campaign officials were frustrated and angry that the meeting did not produce enough damaging information on their opponent,” Democratic senators on the judiciary committee said in a statement after the documents were released. “Their efforts to conceal the meeting and its true purpose are consistent with a larger pattern of false statements about the rich asshole campaign’s relationship with Russia.”
In addition, the documents reveal that the rich asshole Jr. “couldn’t remember” more than 104 very important things no sane person would forget — like with whom at a blocked number he spoke directly after the meeting (his father has a blocked number and tweeted about Hillary’s emails directly following the meeting).
Seriously, his memory is absolutely terrible when it’s convenient for him:
Q: Did anyone on the Trump campaign ever communicate with Wikileaks?
DON JR: Just when I'd asked them to hurry up and give me more hacked emails that we could use to harm my dad's opponent in the campaign, no biggie. pic.twitter.com/ewbBu6iUdG
Q: Do you know anything about Trump people meeting Russia people?
DON JR: No not at all!
Q: But it's been all over the news for months
DON JR: Okay yeah gimme a redo on that question. I read about it after the fact.
DON JR: And oh yeah I also knew they were happening at the time. pic.twitter.com/2GdEMF4S0A
He did seemingly admit that his father had a hand in drafting the statement lying to Americans about the meeting though:
As we wait for more information, one thing is for certain: the rich asshole is shaking in his boots right now.
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May 16, 2018
the rich asshole lashed out at immigrants as 'animals,' in the latest hollow justification of his cruel policy designed to break families apart.
the rich asshole’s bigoted crusade against immigrants took another repugnant step on Wednesday, when he labeled people who have attempted to seek refuge in the United States as “animals.”
Speaking at a White House event attacking California for being welcoming to immigrants — a notion so ingrained in American tradition it is inscribed on the Statue of Liberty — the rich asshole lashed out in typically hateful fashion.
“We’re taking people out of the country. You wouldn’t believe how bad these people are,” he insisted.
In fact, in the rich asshole’s mind, they people coming here, desperate for a better life, are not even human.
“These aren’t people, they’re animals,” he sneered.
The rich asshole administration has ramped up the deportation of undocumented immigrants, following through on the anti-immigrant message the rich asshole used throughout the presidential campaign. He infamously launched his campaign by calling Mexicans rapists and calling for an unworkable wall to be built on the southern U.S. border.
In December 2017, he went after the immigration lottery system. “They give us their worst people,” he said of other countries, “the worst of the worst.” He was rebuked for that callous statement by Father James Martin, as well as former CIA Director and retired four-star General Michael Hayden.
But he has only gotten worse.
the rich asshole recently implemented a harsh new policy through Attorney General Jeff Sessions that would rip families apart at the border. His administration is considering using military bases to hold the increased number of children the government will be tearing away from their parents.
Now, he’s made his hatred for immigrants even more clear.
But the people who are facing deportation are human beings, not “animals.”
They are families like Alexander Parker and Krisha Schmick of Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, who had their wedding day ruined after ICE agents came for Alexander. His sin was that he was born in Guatemala and adopted and brought to the United States at eight months old.
He was fingerprinted, and agents threatened to take him to an immigration detention center. While he was eventually able to prove his residency, an immigration judge had the ability to cause complete disruption in his life.
The rich asshole administration has pushed for these judges to have near absolute power in their rulings, even for immigrant children.
Apparently, the rich asshole also believes people like Jorge Garcia are also “animals.” Garcia was brought to America at 10 years old. Now 39, Garcia was separated from his wife and two teenage children and deported to Mexico.
His wife Cindy told ABC News the event left her “very sad, very depressed, emotional” ever since.
“It’s like a nightmare,” she added.
Another “animal” must have been Sergio Avila, the husband of Army officer Tim Martin Brown. Avila was detained by ICE and put through the process of being deported to Honduras, a country he had not seen since he was eight years old.
Brown pointed out that his husband was not only being separated from his family but being sent completely unprepared to a community “hostile to the LGBTQ community.”
In New Jersey, Vitor Pukri was sent back to Albania by ICE. He has lived in the United States for 17 years, married and fathered three children. His wife, Neta, has also been taken into ICE custody.
These are the so-called “animals” the rich asshole has declared war on. Their families are the casualties of his indifference and bigotry.
Under the guise of keeping America safe, the rich asshole himself has replaced traditional American values with ugly, animalistic impulses.
Pastor who prayed over the rich asshole in the Oval Office thinks it’d be ‘just great’ if politicians were executed for treason
From left: pastors Ronnie Floyd, Rodney Howard-Browne, Adonica Howard-Browne and Johnnie Moore stand behind President some rich asshole (front center) in the Oval Office. Image via Twitter.
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When promoting his new book on a Christian TV network, a conspiracy theorist pastor that once laid hands on President some rich asshole in the Oval Office said high-ranking government officials guilty of treason should be taken out by firing squad.
Right Wing Watch reported Wednesday that Pastor Rodney Howard-Browne made the comment about the executions of government officials and Supreme Court members on the Christian Television Network while discussing “The Killing of Uncle Sam: The Demise of the United States of America,” a book he’d co-written.
“Personally, I think a firing squad would just be great,” Howard-Browne said. “Stick ’em up against a wall and take them out.”
The right-wing pastor who also appeared on Infowars to promote his book later claimed that Hollywood is against the rich asshole because his election meant they would not be subsidized by the government.
“They had put a law on the books in America that if Hillary [Clinton] had got in, the whole of Hollywood would be funded by the Fed, out of our supply, and the taxpayers would have had to pay for that,” Howard-Browne said. “the rich asshole nixed that the moment he got into office. That’s why they hate him.”
You can watch the entire interview below, via Right Wing Watch:
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May 16, 2018
Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee are on the side of the U.S. intelligence community. And they are notably splitting from their counterparts in the House — and from the White House.
By announcing a clear, bipartisan conclusion that Russian operatives aggressively tried to help elect the rich asshole in 2016, the Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday dramatically undercut White House claims that the ongoing investigation represents a “witch hunt.”
The Senate account also demolishes the findings of the Republican House Intelligence report, released last month.
Widely seen as a partisan whitewashing designed to protect the rich asshole, rather than a serious investigation into the facts, the House GOP report refused to endorse the findings of the U.S. intelligence community.
In 2017, intel officials confirmed that Russian leader Vladimir Putin had ordered an “influence campaign” intended “to undermine public faith in the US democratic process.” It added that the Russians eventually developed “a clear preference” for the rich asshole, and in time “aspired to help President-elect the rich asshole’s election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him,” the Washington Post reported.
the rich asshole supporters in the House, who have been waging a ceaseless war against the FBI and the intelligence community in hopes of protecting the White House, refused to concede that Russians were trying to elect the rich asshole.
But the unequivocal Senate report findings may very well finally change that.
“It’s the Republicans on the House panel who find themselves isolated in their position in what has become an increasingly antagonistic relationship with the FBI and Justice Department,” Politico reports. “The Senate panel’s findings now puts a significant seal of approval on the intelligence agencies’ work at a time when the FBI has been besieged by the rich asshole allies who say bias inside the agencies marred their work on the Russia investigation.”
The Senate Intelligence Committee will release a full report after a declassification review by the intelligence community.
As for the all-important question of the rich asshole-Russia collusion, the Committee hasn’t yet released its findings. But the collusion evidence has been hiding in plain sight for the last year.
We’ve known since last summer that the rich asshole campaign officials eagerly accepted an invitation from Kremlin-connected attorney who promised to deliver dirt on Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign.
In fact, on Wednesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee released thousands of pages of transcripts detailing the rich asshole Tower meeting. The documents highlight just how anxious the rich asshole team was to meet with a representative from a foreign adversary hoping to influence an American election.
Meanwhile, the bipartisan Senate conclusion creates more headaches for the rich asshole’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who has been awkwardly trying to drum up support for the claim that the whole Russia inquiry represents a waste of time.
Specifically, Giuliani is pointing to this week’s one-year anniversary of Mueller’s appointment as proof that the probe has gone on too long.
Unfortunately for Giuliani, Senate Republicans only provided Mueller with more political cover.
READ: some rich asshole Jr.'s testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee
BY THE HILL STAFF - 05/16/18 09:48 AM EDT
The Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday morning released the transcripts from a slate of interviews with participants of the now-infamous the rich asshole Tower meeting in June of 2016.
Among the transcripts is the panel's interview of President the rich asshole's eldest son, some rich asshole Jr., who accepted the meeting with a woman described as a Russian government lawyer offering political dirt on then-Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
Read the rich asshole Jr.'s full transcript below:
the rich asshole Jr. Transcript by M Mali on Scribd
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May 16, 2018
Many the rich asshole supporters have a decidedly negative opinion of special counsel Robert Mueller. But even they don't want him fired.
the rich asshole has continued his attacks against special counsel Robert Mueller as the one-year anniversary of his appointment approaches. But a lot of the rich asshole’s voters, including some who hate Mueller, are telling him to leave Mueller alone.
the rich asshole’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani plans to use the anniversary to suggest Mueller “whitewash” his investigation into the rich asshole. And he said the rich asshole team is ready to respond if Mueller disregards that suggestion.
“We don’t want to signal our action if this doesn’t work — we are going to hope they listen to us — but obviously we have a Plan B and C,” Giuliani said in an interview with Bloomberg.
But the rich asshole voters in a Milwaukee focus group Tuesday night said the rich asshole should not fire Mueller, if only for self-serving reasons:
“People would be suspicious,” said Betsy Novak, 55, a greenhouse worker who voted for the rich asshole.
“It [would be] hiding something,” said Curt Hetzel, 48, a shipping and receiving manager who also voted for the rich asshole.
“Politically, it would be a terrible idea,” said yet another the rich asshole backer, Sam Goldner, 25, a warehouse manager.
In fact, not firing Mueller was the only thing the group was able to agree on, according to Peter Hart, who conducted it.
And those the rich asshole supporters certainly had no love for Mueller. They described him as “unethical,” “desperate,” “partisan,” and “a liar.”
Yet the group’s stance on firing Mueller largely reflects recent polling of Republican voters on the issue. An April Quinnipiac poll found only 22 percent of Republicans thought the rich asshole should fire Mueller.
And earlier this month, an Economist/YouGov poll found that even among the rich asshole voters, only 38 percent think the rich asshole should fire the special counsel. Sixty-two percent responded either “no” or “unsure.” Among all voters, only 19 percent said “yes.”
the rich asshole has continued to make threats, and has already tried to fire Mueller on at least two separate occasions. Last month, four Republican senators joined Democrats to pass a bill to protect Mueller out of the Judiciary Committee. But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has promised to block a vote on the measure.
If the rich asshole ever does get around to Giuliani’s “plan C,” it’ll take more than just four Republicans to stop him.
the rich asshole calls for Oakland mayor to be investigated by the DOJ for obstruction of justice
Photo: some rich asshole gives an interview (Photo: Screenshot)
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During a televised White House meeting that included the attorney general, President some rich asshole called on the Justice Department to investigate Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf for “obstruction of justice” after she alerted residents to impending ICE raids earlier this year.
“That whole operation that took a long time to put together — I mean you talk about obstruction of justice, I would recommend that you look into obstruction of justice for the mayor of Oakland, California,” the president said, directing his comments at Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
You can watch the president make his comments below, via Fox News:
With AG Jeff Sessions in the room, Trump accuses the mayor of Oakland of "obstruction of justice," asks the DOJ to investigate
Top EU official slams the rich asshole: 'With friends like that who needs enemies'
BY JOSH DELK - 05/16/18 09:39 AM EDT
A top European Union official slammed President the rich asshole on Wednesday for his recent dealings with Europe, suggesting that Europe can no longer rely on keeping diplomatic solidarity with the U.S.
"With friends like that who needs enemies," tweeted Donald Tusk, the president of the EU's European Council.
"Looking at latest decisions of @realDonaldTrump someone could even think: with friends like that who needs enemies. But frankly, EU should be grateful. Thanks to him we got rid of all illusions," Tusk said. "We realise that if you need a helping hand, you will find one at the end of your arm."
Looking at latest decisions of @realDonaldTrump someone could even think: with friends like that who needs enemies. But frankly, EU should be grateful. Thanks to him we got rid of all illusions. We realise that if you need a helping hand, you will find one at the end of your arm.
the rich asshole broke with Europe by pulling the United States out of the Iran nuclear agreement last week despite the urgings of Germany, France and Great Britain. Leaders of the three countries, all parties to the agreement, pressed the rich asshole to reconsider his decision.
the rich asshole has also hit EU members this year by imposing tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum. And he has regularly lambasted European partners in NATO for not spending enough on defense.
Cruel comment on McCain shows White House rots from head down
BY MARIA CARDONA, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR — 05/16/18 10:45 AM EDT
some rich asshole believes he can do no wrong. He never apologizes. Unless, of course, he is forced to do so after being caught on tape right before a presidential election, bragging about committing sexual assault whenever he wants to.
It is the only recent known public apology from the rich asshole, and it was as inauthentic as it was rare. As disgusting a trait as this is, it has now become the mantra of the White House, whether set by tone, example or mandate. America should be ashamed.
You would be forgiven if you didn’t know exactly what I was referring to since the rich asshole has crossed the line many times before and refused to apologize:
- founding the "birther movement" against President Obama
- calling Rosie O’Donnell ugly,
- calling his Republican primary opponent Carly Fiorina ugly,
- accusing Ted Cruz’s father of having been involved in the Kennedy assassination,
- calling Ted Cruz’s wife ugly by way of tweeting out an unflattering photo,
- saying we don’t want immigrants from "s-hole" countries,
- calling Mexicans rapists and criminals, and
- insulting Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) by belittling his service to our country.
The latest incident involves Sen. McCain. Again. This time, it was not the rich asshole directly, but one of his communications staffers.
According to reports, during a meeting in the White House where staff was talking about Senate support for the rich asshole’s CIA nominee, it was brought up that Sen. McCain was not a yes vote. Kelly Sadler, of the White House communications team, said it did not matter because “he's dying anyway.”
The comment got leaked to the media, and all hell broke loose. As it should. This was a mean, crass, disrespectful and uncivil thing to say about a sitting senior senator who is in the fight of his life, battling late-stage brain cancer.
It doesn’t matter that it was said in private. It got out that is was said, and Sadler was right to apologize to Sen. McCain’s daughter, Meghan McCain.
The White House and the rich asshole himself are focusing on the misguided issue of White House leaks to distract from the horrid nature of the comments themselves. The “leak” issue is always the go-to issue for a White House that cannot apologize because it is not in the DNA of its boss.
But the leaks speak volumes: about either the lack of respect White House staffers have for each other and the president or the confidence they have in the rich asshole as commander in chief, which is terrifyingly deficient.
The swampier the swamp gets, the leakier it becomes.
This continues to be a lighting-rod issue because Sadler has apparently not lived up to what she committed to Meghan McCain. She promised McCain's daughter she would offer up a public apology, which is the appropriate thing to do when your inappropriate and offensive remarks are made public.
It seems that after it was reported that Sadler apologized privately to McCain’s daughter, the White House did not allow her to apologize publicly for fear that it would show some sort of weakness, or a “giving in” to someone who has been a strident opponent of President the rich asshole.
If this is the case, we see yet again how the fish rots from the head. And if this is the case, we all should be ashamed. I know I am. I know the majority of Americans are as well.
That shame is reflected in the continued high percentage of disapproval for the rich asshole — a whopping 52 percent.
That shame is also reflected in the growing number of Republicans who are calling on the White House to apologize. Though, as always, there are not nearly enough Republicans doing so. Where is House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.)?
Where are Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) or any of the other senators who are either not running for re-election and have nothing to lose or have spoken out before against the rich asshole without fear?
Would they allow their children to get away with insulting a classmate, teacher, one of their elders, a Church member, or a local elected official?
I guarantee you they would not. Unless for these silent Republicans, respect, honesty, civility, decency and humanity are no longer virtues they deem important to teach their children.
America is rightly ashamed.
Maria Cardona is a principal at the Dewey Square Group, a Democratic strategist and a CNN/CNN Español political commentator. Follow her on Twitter @MariaTCardona.
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May 16, 2018
Rudy loves his foot in his mouth.
Busy stepping on more rakes as he tries to defend the rich asshole against special counsel Robert Mueller’s sprawling investigation, Rudy Giuliani now insists Mueller should be more like James Comey, the former FBI director who oversaw an investigation into Hillary’s Clinton’s use of a private email server.
By Giuliani’s thinking, Comey should serve as Mueller’s role model, Politico reports.
But the logic doesn’t add up.
“When Comey closed [the Clinton case] in July — although I think it was a complete whitewash — I’d like to have them do that for us,” the former New York mayor said.
Wait, what? Giuliani thinks Comey’s investigation into Clinton “was a complete whitewash,” but Giuliani wants Mueller to do the same thing with his Russia investigation?
Sounds like the rich asshole’s attorney just accidentally told the truth: the rich asshole doesn’t care about Mueller uncovering the facts, he just wants the whole thing shut down.
The miscue is just the latest Giuliani public relations debacle, as he reportedly tries to gin up right-wing outrage on the one-year anniversary of Mueller’s special counsel appointment.
Mueller was named on May 17, 2017, eight days after the rich asshole fired Comey as the FBI chief.
“Come on! They’ve had a whole year,” the rich asshole lawyer whined during an interview. “We’re going to raise the pressure to try to get this thing over with. It’s gone on long enough,” he added.
Of course, Giuliani is getting help from Fox News in his latest public relations push. Last night, Sean Hannity once again berated the Russia investigation, claiming, “Mueller has no business ever questioning the president of the United States.”
To date, the Russia investigation has produced more than two dozen indictments, while two separate trials featuring the rich asshole’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, are expected to begin this year.
In terms of context for lengthy political investigations, Ken Starr’s Whitewater investigation of Bill and Hillary Clinton went on for six years. And Congressional investigations into the Benghazi terror attack under President Barack Obama stretched on for more than three years.
Republicans certainly didn’t complain about those extended inquiries.
Meanwhile, “The 21 major special counsel probes in the post-Watergate era lasted an average of three-and-a-half years from the appointment of an independent counsel to its conclusion,” Politico notes.
Giuliani remains powerless to protect the rich asshole from Mueller, whether he gets his “whitewash” or not.
the rich asshole Jr.: I don't know if the rich asshole had role in statement about the rich asshole Tower meeting
BY OLIVIA BEAVERS - 05/16/18 10:10 AM EDT
some rich asshole Jr. told lawmakers he does not know whether his father, President the rich asshole, had a role in drafting his initial, misleading statement about a June 2016 meeting at the rich asshole Tower, according to transcripts released Wednesday by the Senate Judiciary Committee.the rich asshole Jr. met with a Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, during the summer of 2016 after being offered dirt on Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee for president. The meeting has been investigated by lawmakers and by special counsel Robert Mueller.
The Washington Post reported last July that the rich asshole was personally involved in drafting a statement that the rich asshole Jr. issued on June 8. The president, while flying aboard Air Force One, reportedly dictated that the statement say that his son and Veselnitskaya had “primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children.”
The Washington Post reported last July that the rich asshole was personally involved in drafting a statement that the rich asshole Jr. issued on June 8. The president, while flying aboard Air Force One, reportedly dictated that the statement say that his son and Veselnitskaya had “primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children.”
"I don't know. I never spoke to my father about it," the rich asshole Jr. replied when asked about this during his September Senate interview about his father's reported involvement in the statement.
Staff on the committee also asked the rich asshole Jr., “To the best of your knowledge, did the President provide any edits to the statement or other input?”
“He may have commented through Hope Hicks,” the rich asshole Jr. replied, referring to the former White House communications aide.
the rich asshole Jr. added that he believes some of his comments, given through Hicks, were incorporated into his statement — a process in which a handful of people were involved.
He also maintained that he did not talk to his father “because I didn’t want to bring him into some thing that he had nothing to do with."
Additionally, when asked why his statements were inconsistent, the rich asshole Jr. pushed back, saying they were "all very consistent with each other."
"The initial statement was discussing exactly what the meeting was about. It ended up being about that," the president's eldest son said in part.
"It did not talk about what got them into the door and I didn't expand on it because I didn't think it was relevant to discuss what the meeting was not actually about even if that's what the email was. As more questions were asked and more information was requested we released more information and went into greater detail," he continued.
The White House and the rich asshole Jr. have defended the meeting as appropriate, emphasizing that Veselnitskaya sought it out under false pretenses to press the case for repealing a U.S. sanctions law that had led the Kremlin to ban Americans from adopting from Russia. the rich asshole Jr. has said the meeting was a waste of time.
Following the release of the records, the rich asshole Jr. said the transcripts show he cooperated with the committee's investigation, which he did voluntarily.
"I appreciate the opportunity to have assisted the Judiciary committee in its inquiry. The public can now see that for over five hours I answered every question asked an was candid and forthright with the committee," the rich asshole Jr. said.
The committee also interviewed Rob Goldstone, the music producer who set up the meeting with Veselnitskaya.
Jonathan Easley contributed. Updated at 10:21 a.m.
the rich asshole Jr. added that he believes some of his comments, given through Hicks, were incorporated into his statement — a process in which a handful of people were involved.
He also maintained that he did not talk to his father “because I didn’t want to bring him into some thing that he had nothing to do with."
Additionally, when asked why his statements were inconsistent, the rich asshole Jr. pushed back, saying they were "all very consistent with each other."
"The initial statement was discussing exactly what the meeting was about. It ended up being about that," the president's eldest son said in part.
"It did not talk about what got them into the door and I didn't expand on it because I didn't think it was relevant to discuss what the meeting was not actually about even if that's what the email was. As more questions were asked and more information was requested we released more information and went into greater detail," he continued.
The White House and the rich asshole Jr. have defended the meeting as appropriate, emphasizing that Veselnitskaya sought it out under false pretenses to press the case for repealing a U.S. sanctions law that had led the Kremlin to ban Americans from adopting from Russia. the rich asshole Jr. has said the meeting was a waste of time.
Following the release of the records, the rich asshole Jr. said the transcripts show he cooperated with the committee's investigation, which he did voluntarily.
"I appreciate the opportunity to have assisted the Judiciary committee in its inquiry. The public can now see that for over five hours I answered every question asked an was candid and forthright with the committee," the rich asshole Jr. said.
The committee also interviewed Rob Goldstone, the music producer who set up the meeting with Veselnitskaya.
Jonathan Easley contributed. Updated at 10:21 a.m.
Robert Mueller issues grand jury subpoenas to the rich asshole adviser’s social media consultant
Roger Stone (Photo: screen capture)
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U.S. Justice Department Special Counsel Robert Mueller has issued two subpoenas to a social media expert who worked for longtime some rich asshole adviser Roger Stone during the 2016 presidential election campaign.
The subpoenas were delivered late last week to lawyers representing Jason Sullivan, a social media and Twitter specialist Stone hired to work for an independent political action committee he set up to support the rich asshole, Knut Johnson, a lawyer for Sullivan, told Reuters on Tuesday.
The subpoenas suggest that Mueller, who is probing Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, is focusing in part on Stone and whether he might have had advance knowledge of material allegedly hacked by Russian intelligence and sent to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who published it.
Stone appeared before the U.S. House of Representatives Intelligence Committee last September and denied allegations of collusion between the president’s associates and Russia during the election. “I am aware of no evidence whatsoever of collusion by the Russian state or anyone in the rich asshole campaign,” Stone told reporters at the time.
According to sources familiar with the ongoing investigation, Mueller also has been probing whether anyone associated with the rich asshole campaign may have helped Assange or the Russians time or target the release of hacked emails and other social media promoting the rich asshole or critical of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
A spokesman for Mueller declined to comment. Russia has denied interfering in the election. President the rich asshole has repeatedly denied his campaign colluded with Russia.
Sullivan told Reuters that he heads Cyphoon.com, a social media firm, and “worked on the rich asshole campaign serving as Chief Strategist directly to Roger J. Stone Jr.”
“Welcome To The Age of Weaponized Social Media,” said a strategy document Sullivan prepared for Stone and seen by Reuters. He described a “system” he devised for creating Twitter “swarms” as “an army of sophisticated, hyper-targeted direct tweet automation systems driven by outcomes-based strategies derived from REAL-TIME actionable insights.”
For example, at 6:43 a.m. local time on Election Day in 2016, the rich asshole tweeted, “TODAY WE MAKE AMERICAN GREAT AGAIN”. the rich asshole’s message soon was retweeted more than 343,000 times, and in an interview last year, Sullivan told Reuters that the swarm helped overcome a surge in pro-Clinton social media postings and boost voter turnout for the rich asshole.
Stone on Tuesday repeated his public denials that he had an inside track to WikiLeaks or others who hacked or published Democratic Party and Clinton-related emails and said no one from Mueller’s team has tried to contact him.
One of the two subpoenas delivered last week requests that Sullivan appear before a grand jury on May 18 at the Federal Courthouse in Washington, D.C. The other orders Sullivan to bring documents, objects and electronically stored information.
Reporting by Mark Hosenball; Editing by John Walcott and James Dalgleish
Reporting by Mark Hosenball; Editing by John Walcott and James Dalgleish
GOP sen: Possible deal with ZTE ‘a bargaining chip for the rich asshole’
BY JOHN BOWDEN - 05/16/18 09:26 AM EDT
GOP Sen. John Kennedy (La.) said Wednesday that President the rich asshole's plans to possibly save Chinese company ZTE from economic sanctions is a "bargaining chip" that can be used to bring China back to the table on a trade deal.
In an interview with CNN's "New Day," Kennedy said that the rich asshole is working on a "larger trade deal with China" and that his announcement on ZTE plays into that strategy.
Sen. John Kennedy says he thinks a potential deal with Chinese tech company ZTE is "a bargaining chip" for the Trump administration cnnmon.ie/2rNYxkp
"I think we really hurt ZTE [with the tariffs]," Kennedy continued. "My guess is [Chinese President] Xi Jinping has asked for a little relief and the president's doing a little negotiating, trying to get us a better trade deal."
The president tweeted on Sunday that he was looking for a way to get ZTE "back into business, fast," after the company was hurt by a U.S. decision to disallow companies from doing business with the Chinese telecom giant.
The Commerce Department blocked U.S. companies last month from doing business with ZTE, which it accused of violating a deal to pay a $1.2 billion fine for evading sanctions, CNN reports.
The U.S. and China have gone back and forth with dueling tariff announcements, causing experts to worry about the possibility of a global trade war.
the rich asshole himself has promised that a trade war with China would be "easy" to win and "good" for the country.
“When a country (USA) is losing many billions of dollars on trade with virtually every country it does business with, trade wars are good, and easy to win,” the rich asshole tweeted in March.
Watch: Fox News host claims Hillary Clinton was behind the rich asshole Tower meeting between Don Jr and Russian spy
Katie Pavlich (Fox News/screen grab)
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Was some rich asshole Jr. the victim of the meeting he held with an admitted Russian spy?
Katie Pavlich believes he was. The Fox News contributor, who also writes a column for conservative political news site The Hill, went on Fox News’ Outnumbered this morning and claimed that Hillary and her campaign were behind the meeting.
Her evidence was that one of the people from Fusion GPS, the firm behind the explosive Steele Dossier, met with Russian attorney and spy Natalia Veselnitskaya.
“This wasn’t about giving Don Jr. dirt, this was about [Veselnitskaya] going into the rich asshole tower and trying to get dirt on the rich asshole campaign,” she said.
Watch below.
Pavlich doubled-down on blaming Clinton—even as she was challenged by one of the show’s co-hosts.
“This was probably one of many attempts to infiltrate the campaign,” said Melissa Francis.
“On behalf of Hillary Clinton and the DNC!” yelped Pavlich.
“Well, or, or … on behalf of the Russians,” Francis said.
Watch that clip below.
Fox News' takeaways from the Trump Tower hearing docs are really something else: Don't focus on Don, he's the victim!
Katie Pavlich: "This wasn't about giving Don Jr. dirt, this was about [Veselnitskya] going into Trump tower and trying to get dirt on the Trump campaign." pic.twitter.com/v0qO2BRAuw
When you think your co-host is backing you up, but they go in a v different direction:
Francis: "This was probably one of many attempts to infiltrate the campaign"
Pavlich: "On behalf of Hillary Clinton and the DNC!"
Francis: "Well, or, or ... on behalf of the Russians." pic.twitter.com/O7YRBTt4mg
POLITICS
the rich asshole Refers To Immigrants As ‘Animals.’ Again.
The president also asked the attorney general to charge the mayor of Oakland with obstruction of justice for warning residents about planned immigration arrests.
WASHINGTON ― President some rich asshole called on the Department of Justice to prosecute a political opponent and called immigrants “animals” during a roundtable with California leaders on Wednesday.
“We’re taking people out of the country. You wouldn’t believe how bad these people are,” he said. “These aren’t people. These are animals.”
The livestreamed roundtable at the White House centered on so-called sanctuary policies, which limit local law enforcement cooperation with federal deportation efforts. His dehumanizing comments about immigrants weren’t new, nor was his attack on a Democratic politician. The most remarkable thing about both of them was that in the the rich asshole era, reducing a group of people to subhuman and threatening to incarcerate another politician were scarcely notable.
the rich asshole singled out Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, a Democrat who was not among the officials in attendance. She made national headlines in February when she warned residents on television before a targeted operation that she heard there would be arrests in the area by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
ICE acting Director Thomas Homan, who previously called for the government to prosecute local officials over sanctuary policies, said she had helped as many as 800 people get away. (The San Francisco ICE spokesman resigned afterward, criticizing the agency for making what he called a misleading claim, since no operation nets all its targets.) The White House said at the time that the Department of Justice was reviewing her actions, but nothing has come of it.
the rich asshole said Wednesday that he still wants the Department of Justice to prosecute Schaaf.
Addressing Attorney General Jeff Sessions and alluding to speculation about obstruction of justice charges against himself, the rich asshole said, “You talk about obstruction of justice, I would recommend that you look into obstruction of justice for the mayor of Oakland, California, Jeff.”
Sessions did not react, according to a report from the room.
the rich asshole is leading a crackdown on unauthorized immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border that will refer adults apprehended after illegal entry for criminal prosecution, even if that means splitting up families and jailing asylum seekers. He is seeking legal changes that would make it easier to turn away or indefinitely detain asylum seekers and children.
You talk about obstruction of justice, I would recommend that you look into obstruction of justice for the mayor of Oakland, California.President some rich asshole
Meanwhile, he is continuing to push for more deportations from the country, including through increased local law enforcement involvement with ICE, even though local officials say that would be counterproductive to other policing efforts.
the rich asshole framed the deportation issue around criminals, as he often does, although ICE arrests increasingly affect people who have not been convicted of crimes.
For him to call immigrants animals is nothing new. In 2015, he used the word twice in an interview with The Washington Post, referring to an undocumented immigrant who had been arrested for fatally shooting a woman in San Francisco. (The man’s attorneys said the shooting was unintentional, and he was acquitted.)
Last July in Ohio, the rich asshole said “criminal aliens” were “animals” and then made a gruesome claim that they are murdering “young, beautiful” girls. Later that month, he said in New York that MS-13 “thugs” had “transformed peaceful parks and beautiful quiet neighborhoods into bloodstained killing fields” and “they are animals.”
He referred to a New York City terrorism suspect, a legal permanent resident who came to the U.S. on a diversity visa, as an “animal” in November.
In February, the rich asshole referred to certain immigrants as “animals” who want people to suffer, and he accused Democrats of wanting to protect murderers. “I can’t get the Democrats ― and nobody has been able to for years ― to approve common-sense measures that, when we catch these animal killers, we can lock them up and throw away the keys.”
Referring to subgroups as animals has been used to justify violence, including by Nazis during the Holocaust and by Hutu perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide. Black people have been compared to animals throughout history and were treated like them through slavery and violence. Animal metaphors have similarly been used by conquerors and colonialists to dehumanize indigenous populations.
the rich asshole blames Democrats for his needlessly cruel policy of splitting up immigrant families
"Those are the bad laws the Democrats gave us."
On Wednesday afternoon, President some rich asshole held a roundtable discussion with California leaders, public officials, and others the White House says are directly affected by the state’s “dangerous sanctuary city laws.”
After Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen’s described the administration’s fight against undocumented immigrants as not just a fight, but a “war,” the rich asshole blamed Democrats for his administration’s policy of breaking up immigrant families.
“Those are the bad laws the Democrats gave us. We have to break up families. Democrats gave us that law. It’s a horrible thing we have to break up families. They don’t want to do anything about it,” said the rich asshole, ignoring that sanctuary cities tend to be safer than others.
Democrats, however, never had a policy this explicitly targeted towards splitting up undocumented families when they were in power.
As of early May, separating families who cross into the United States from Mexico illegally is now government policy. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Thomas Homan announced last week that the rich asshole administration would adopt a zero-tolerance policy toward anyone caught crossing into the US by Border Patrol. Anyone who cross the border illegally would be referred to the Department of Justice, and subsequently prosecuted for the misdemeanor of illegal entry.
The entire premise of this harmful policy is based off of a faulty statistic, according to Vox. From July to November 2017, the rich asshole administration tested out a zero tolerance policy for parents in the El Paso sector of the border. The administration has used the El Paso pilot program as an example of the effectiveness of zero tolerance policies. The Department of Homeland Security claims illegal crossings of family members in El Paso dropped by 64 percent, when in reality the policy resulted in a 64 percent increase in apprehensions.
the rich asshole’s comments appear to reflect those of his chief of staff, John Kelly, who in an interview with NPR, maintained his position of “laws are the laws” when it comes to potentially splitting up families. Kelly described the threat of separating undocumented families as a potential “deterrent” for others considering immigrating to the United States.
While acknowledging the act may seem cruel, Kelly maintained that the children will be fine.
“The children will be taken care of — put into foster care or whatever,” Kelly said. “But the big point is they elected to come illegally into the United States and this is a technique that no one hopes will be used extensively or for very long.”
On Tuesday it was revealed what the potential “or whatever” Kelly was referring to may be. The Washington Post reported the rich asshole administration is preparing to hold migrant children on military bases. The bases would house minors under the age of 18 who either cross the border alone or had their parents separated from them by government officials.
During another part of Thursday’s event, the rich asshole characterized undocumented immigrants as subhuman, saying of some who cross the border illegally, “You wouldn’t believe how bad these people are. These aren’t people. These are animals.”
Rex Tillerson Warns Grads Of Living In ‘Alternative Realities’
Gee, wonder who he’s talking about.
Rex Tillerson came precipitously close to criticizing his former boss Wednesday.
In a commencement speech at Virginia Military Institute, the camera-shy former secretary of state gave his most public remarks since President some rich asshole ousted him from the White House in March.
“As I reflect upon the state of American democracy,” he told the Class of 2018, “I observe a growing crisis in ethics and integrity.”
Tillerson’s emphasis on integrity echoed his parting words to colleagues at the State Department in March. Then he went even further:
“If our leaders seek to conceal the truth, or we as people become accepting of alternative realities that are no longer grounded in facts, then we as American citizens are on a pathway to relinquishing our freedom.”
Tillerson’s time in the rich asshole administration was marked by tension. He reportedly called the president a “moron” eight months before he was fired and replaced by then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo.
But the oil industry veteran has yet to directly criticize the rich asshole. His speech, which began with a discussion on the globalized economy and stressed “the value of friends and allies,” is the closest he has come to attacking the rich asshole’s rhetoric and “America First” policy.
Tillerson’s hands are hardly clean on the subject of “friends and allies.” He earned a fortune as CEO of Exxon, the oil behemoth that made common cause with despots (and helped push the climate toward catastrophe). He spent his tenure as secretary of state gutting America’s diplomatic corps.
His remarks on truth and fact appeared to be a comment on the rich asshole’s frequent use of lies, half-truths or exaggerations.
A commitment to facts “binds us to other like-minded democratic nations,” he said, distinguishing America from “nondemocratic” countries such as Russia.
Tillerson said it’s the responsibility of all Americans to recognize “what truth is and is not,” and “what a fact is and is not.” Citizens must also demand the country’s future be “fact-based, not based on wishful thinking, not hoped-for outcomes made in shallow promises, but with a clear-eyed view of the facts as they are and guided by the truth that will set us free to seek solutions to our most daunting challenges,” he said.
“When we as people, a free people, go wobbly on the truth ― even on what seem the most trivial of matters ― we go wobbly on America.”
Ending on a dark note, he said that departing from the truth could mean “American democracy as we know it is entering its twilight years.”
Watch Tillerson’s full speech below.
Senate Judiciary releases transcripts from the rich asshole Tower meeting interviews
BY KATIE BO WILLIAMS - 05/16/18 09:18 AM EDT
The Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday morning released the transcripts from a slate of interviews with participants of the now-infamous the rich asshole Tower meeting in June of 2016.
Among the transcripts is the panel's interview of President the rich asshole's eldest son, some rich asshole Jr., who accepted the meeting with a woman described as a Russian government lawyer offering political dirt on Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
The meeting has become a flashpoint in the roiling speculation surrounding the rich asshole and Moscow.
The White House and the rich asshole Jr. staunchly defended the June 2016 meeting as appropriate but offered evolving explanations of its purpose. the rich asshole Jr. later said the meeting revolved around a lobbying push by the Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, to urge the repeal of a U.S. sanctions law that had led Russia to ban Americans from adopting from the country.
"I appreciate the opportunity to have assisted the Judiciary committee in its inquiry," the rich asshole Jr. said in a statement released Wednesday that thanked panel Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and ranking Democrat Dianne Feinstein (Calif.).
"The public can now see that for over five hours I answered every question asked and was candid and forthright with the committee. I once again thank Chairman Grassley and Ranking Member Feinstein, as well as other members of the committee and their staff for their courtesy and professionalism."
The committee also interviewed Rob Goldstone, a music producer who set up the meeting; a translator for Veselnitskaya; and a Russian-American lobbyist who was lobbying on behalf of Veselnitskaya’s organization to overturn the Magnitsky sanctions. Ike Kaveladze, a U.S.-based employee of a Russian businessman whose son Goldstone represents, was also interviewed.
Here’s a quick recap of who these players are and why they were there:
some rich asshole Jr.: Agreed to meet with a woman characterized as a Russian government lawyer offering political dirt on Clinton. “If it’s what you say, I love it!”
Rob Goldstone: A music promoter who represented the son of the developer who hosted the rich asshole-owned Miss Universe pageant in 2013, Aras Agalarov. (Emin Agalarov, the son, is a Russian pop singer.) Goldstone set up the meeting with the Russian lawyer.
Anatoli Samochornov: A former State employee who acted as translator for the Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya. Participants have said the meeting quickly turned into Veselnitskaya lobbying for the repeal of a U.S. sanctions law called the Magnitsky Act.
Rinat Akhmetshin: A Russian-American lobbyist and reportedly a former Soviet military counterintelligence officer who was lobbying on behalf of Veselnitskaya’s organization to overturn the Magnitsky sanctions.
Ike Kaveladze: A U.S.-based employee of Aras and Emin Agalarov. He attended the meeting as their representative. Kaveladze’s lawyer has said Kaveladze believed he would act as a translator but discovered when he arrived that Veselnitskaya had brought Samochornov.
Known to be present but not interviewed by the committee: White House senior advisor Jared Kusher and then-the rich asshole campaign chairman Paul Manafort. Veselnitskaya provided written answers to committee Qs. Manafort provided his notes from the June meeting. Kushner gave a prepared statement.
POLITICS
Jared Kushner Was ‘Agitated, Infuriated’ At Meeting With Russians Focused On Adoptions
Thousands of pages of transcripts detail the meeting at the rich asshole Tower with Russians.
Jared Kushner was apparently not pleased when he attended a 2016 the rich asshole Tower meeting that he expected would provide dirt on then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, according to recently released interviews with the man who arranged the meeting.
Members of some rich asshole Sr.’s presidential campaign at the June 2016 meeting in New York City ― including some rich asshole Jr. and Kushner, Ivanka the rich asshole’s husband and now a senior White House official ― expected damning evidence from Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya against Clinton, according to thousands of pages of interview transcripts released by the Senate judiciary committee on Wednesday.
Rob Goldstone, a British music publicist who arranged the meeting, told the committee he was expecting a “smoking gun” from Veselnitskaya on Clinton. When he emailed the rich asshole Jr. about the possibility, he replied, “if it’s what you say I love it.”
But when that did not materialize, it left the members of the rich asshole team upset, particularly Kushner. Veselnitskaya ― who has said she is a Kremlin “informant” ― started instead talking about U.S. sanctions against her country and a retaliatory ban on U.S. adoptions of Russian children.
“Jared Kushner, who is sitting next to me, appeared somewhat agitated by this and said, ‘I really have no idea what you’re talking about, could you please focus a bit more and maybe just start again?’” Goldstone told the committee members.
“And I recall that she began the presentation exactly where she had begun it last time, almost word for word, which seemed, by his body language, to infuriate him even more,” Goldstone said of Kushner’s reaction.
Kushner previously said the meeting was a waste of his time.
“I had no idea why that topic was being raised and quickly determined that my time was not well-spent at this meeting,” Kushner said in a July 2017 statement to congressional committees.
As The Washington Post points out, it has become increasingly difficult to believe that Kushner ― or anyone else in the rich asshole Sr.’s inner circle ― would have attended the meeting without the assumption that negative information about Clinton would be provided.
Further complicating Kushner’s narrative is his assertion that he did not stay for the entire meeting. While the rich asshole Jr. and three other attendees have stuck by Kushner’s claim, Goldstone and Veselnitskaya told committee members that Kushner stayed for all of the meeting.
“To be the best of my knowledge, he was [there the entire time],” Goldstone said in an interview. “He may have entered a minute or so after we all entered, but I believe he was. And the reason for that is because of the seating. They worked out who should sit where, and I sat next to Mr. Kushner. There was only he and I sat at this side of the table.”
Senator mocks Pruitt’s excuse for flying first class: ‘Oh, come on’
By
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EPA chief Scott Pruitt says he has to travel first class to avoid security 'threats' — an excuse no one is buying.
On Wednesday morning, Sen. Pat Leahy (D-VT) cut Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt down to size over his use of first-class travel and full-time security detail.
At a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing, Leahy delivered scathing remarks that covered a multitude of Pruitt’s scandals, including Pruitt’s travel habits.
“The mission of the EPA is simple,” Leahy said. “It’s to protect human health and the environment. Not to protect industry friends, or to give friends from Oklahoma tens of thousands of dollars in pay raises in defiance of the White House, not to put polluters first, or to travel first class around the world.”
Leahy then mocked Pruitt’s supposed excuses for needing to travel first class, on the taxpayers’ dime.
“Incidentally, a Vermonter said, ‘What a silly reason you had to fly first class,’ because of a danger to you, unless you flew first class,” Leahy told Pruitt. “He said, ‘Nobody even knows who you are, and you go in there, oh, somebody might criticize you.’ You’ve got security people that we’ve never seen before, but you have to fly first class? Oh, come on.”
Pruitt’s first-class travel is probably his most embarrassing scandal, and it keeps getting worse. The agency tried to justify the expense of the added security by citing “threats” like someone yelling at Pruitt at an airport, or drawing a mustache on a picture of Pruitt and taping it to an elevator door.
But on Monday, the EPA inspector general revealed that Pruitt demanded, and was given, 24/7 security his first day on the job — before these so-called “threats” occurred.
The travel scandal is just the tip of the only iceberg in the world that isn’t losing mass. His agency has just been caught covering up a visit Pruitt had in Rome with a priest who is facing charges of child sex abuse. It was also revealed this week that he and the White House suppressed a report about toxic chemicals in drinking water.
Pruitt is the subject of at least 11 federal investigations.
As Leahy noted, the mission of the EPA is simple, yet vitally important. The only first-class ticket Pruitt deserves is into the dustbin of history, one-way.
Sanders: White House 'leakers' should be fired
BY JORDAN FABIAN - 05/16/18 09:13 AM EDT
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Wednesday said that "so-called leakers” in the West Wing should be fired.
During an interview on Fox News, Sanders called it “disgusting” and “disloyal” to reveal internal discussions to the news media and said the White House is “focused intensely” on putting a stop to the practice.
“We fired people over leaking before — I’ve personally fired people over leaking before — and we certainly would be very willing to do so again,” Sanders told the hosts of “Fox & Friends,” one of President the rich asshole’s favorite television shows.
The White House has come under intense scrutiny for its handling of comments made by special assistant Kelly Sadler, who said it does not matter if Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) supports the rich asshole’s CIA nominee because “he’s dying anyway.”
Sadler’s derisive remarks, which were first reported by The Hill, came last Thursday during a closed-door meeting of the White House communications staff.
the rich asshole and his staff are facing calls from members of Congress to publicly apologize for Sadler’s comments, but Sanders and others have indicated there will be no such apology.
The White House has placed much greater emphasis on how Sadler’s comments became public rather than the content of her remarks.
the rich asshole took to Twitter on Monday to label people who disclose information as “traitors and cowards” and suggested there is an investigation underway into who in the White House is sharing private conversations with the press.
Sanders’s comments echo those made by White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, who said Monday she expects staff changes as a result of last week’s report.
The White House has said on multiple occasions, however, that Sadler remains in her job while "so-called leakers,” as the rich asshole referred to them in a tweet, are being hunted down.
POLITICS
Former the rich asshole Pick For Top Census Role Says Citizenship Question Was ‘Political’
“They have made a political decision. And they have every right to do that because they won the election,” Thomas Brunell said.
A political science professor who the the rich asshole administration wanted for a top job at the Census Bureau said that the decision to add a question about citizenship to the 2020 census was a political one.
Thomas Brunell, a professor at the University of Texas at Dallas, told Science Magazine that the the rich asshole administration was justified in adding the question, even if the motivations were political. Last year, the White House tapped Brunell to be deputy director of the Census Bureau, but his appointment drew controversy, and in February the Commerce Department, which oversees the bureau, said he was no longer under consideration.
“I’m agnostic on whether [the citizenship question] is needed,” Brunell told Science Magazine in an interview published Wednesday. “I think the critical point is that the administration wants to put it on there. They have made a political decision. And they have every right to do that because they won the election.”
Brunell’s comments are notable because officials at the Commerce Department and the Census Bureau have publicly insisted that the decision was not political. In a March memo justifying the decision, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said that the department would add a citizenship question after the Department of Justice requested better data to enforce the voting rights. Adding the citizenship question, Ross said, was the best way to get the Justice Department the citizenship data it said it needed.
Brunell did not respond to a request for comment.
The the rich asshole administration is facing a handful of lawsuits challenging the decision to add a citizenship question. In some of those challenges, the plaintiffs ― several different states ― argue that one of the reasons for the decision is illegal is because it is unnecessary and “arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of discretion” under federal law.
ProPublica reported that John Gore, a political appointee who is the acting head of the Justice Department’s civil rights division, was behind the citizenship question request.
The the rich asshole campaign had also appealed for donations based on the addition of a citizenship question. During a preliminary hearing in one of the lawsuits last week, government lawyers distanced themselves from those fundraising emails, saying that adding the citizenship question was Ross’ decision, not the rich asshole’s.
Critics say the Department of Justice already has adequate citizenship data to enforce the Voting Rights Act. They say adding a citizenship question will make it less likely that immigrants and other skeptical of government will respond to the census out of fear of what the government will do with their data (even though it is a crime for the Census Bureau to share any of the data it collects). An inaccurate count would have significant consequences since census data is used as the basis to draw electoral districts and allocate billions in federal funding.
“The Census is supposed to apolitical and count every person living in this country. A citizenship question totally undermines those requirements,” Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) said in a statement.
Brunell told Science that concerns over adding a citizenship question were overblown, saying that he thinks adding any question could be viewed as problematic.
“Asking people their favorite color will decrease response rates,” he said. Still, he added, following up and counting people who don’t mail back their census forms may be more costly.
the rich asshole just filed updated paperwork on Stormy Daniels payoff — and could now face a felony
Michael Cohen on the street in Manhattan/Screenshot
DON'T MISS STORIES. FOLLOW RAW STORY!
Tuesday was the deadline for some rich asshole to file a required ethics form called the “Executive Branch Personnel Public Financial Disclosure Report,” which includes a list of all personal liabilities in excess of $10,000.
That presented a problem: the rich asshole’s previous filing had not included the $130,000 he repaid Michael Cohen for the Stormy Daniels hush money payoff.
That left him with the choice of either filing a second form that broke the law or admitting that he had broken the law the first time by omitting the debt. The form has now been released, and it shows that the rich asshole followed the advice of ethics experts, and admitted the previous wrongdoing.
Norm Eisen, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute and a CNN commentator, explained how the rich asshole admitted the truth of a complaint his organization filed.
In the form, the rich asshole acknowledges that a government agency told him he had to disclose the money: “[Office of Government Ethics] has concluded that the information related to the payment made by Mr. Cohen is required to be reported and that the information provided meets the disclosure requirement for a reportable liability.”
But elsewhere in the form, the rich asshole team argues against that conclusion.
“[W]hile not required to be disclosed as ‘reportable liabilities’ on Part 8, in 2016 expenses were incurred by one of some rich asshole’s attorneys, Michael Cohen. Mr. Cohen sought reimbursement of those expenses and some rich asshole fully reimbursed Mr. Cohen in 2017.”
Interesting about this range -- Giuliani told @maggieNYT earlier this month that Trump paid Cohen for far more than the $130,000 Stormy payment -- somewhere between $460-470k. If that's true, this could be an underreporting.
Also note disagreeing views on disclosing Cohen reimbursement: OGE says it was required to be reported; Trump says they disagree but doing so anyway "in the interest of transparency."
As a result, the rich asshole could be facing a felony.
Watch Eisen explain the situation on CNN below.
Art of the Deal co-author on McCain drama: the rich asshole views apologizing as weakness
BY JOSH DELK - 05/16/18 09:09 AM EDT
The co-author of President the rich asshole's famous business book "The Art of the Deal" says the president believes apologizing for a White House aide's insult against Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) would show weakness.
"He either directly or indirectly made it clear that he didn't want Sadler to apologize because it would reflect on him," Tony Schwartz told CNN of White House aide Kelly Sadler, whose leaked comments about McCain from an internal meeting have created a controversy for the White house.
Co-author of “The Art of the Deal:” President Trump views apologizing as a weakness. “If you apologize you are wrong” cnn.it/2wJumAy
Sadler said in the meeting that McCain's opposition to the rich asshole's nominee for CIA director "doesn't matter" because he's "dying anyway," according to comments first leaked to The Hill.
The president and the White House have yet to give an official apology for the remarks against the veteran senator, who is battling brain cancer. the rich asshole has previously mocked McCain for being captured in Vietnam.
Schwartz, who spent months of one-on-one time with the rich asshole while writing their 1987 bestseller, says that in the rich asshole's mind, "if you apologize you are wrong."
"I don't even think it's a calculation or an analysis or an opinion, I think it's an impulse and an instinct," Schwartz said. "Emotionally, psychologically, he's incapable of it because it's shattering to him to feel that he's wrong."
POLITICS
the rich asshole Paid More Than $100,000 To Cohen, Financial Disclosure Confirms
A reason for the payment was not specified in the financial disclosure, which has caused concern over its timing.
President some rich asshole reported having paid his personal attorney Michael Cohen more than $100,000 as a reimbursement for a payment made to a third party, documents released on Wednesday confirmed.
A reason for the payment to Cohen was not specified in the federally required financial disclosure that the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) released, The New York Times reported.
The disclosure notes that though Cohen made the payment in 2016, the rich asshole didn’t fully reimburse him for it until 2017.
Cohen has admitted to having paid $130,000 in 2016 to adult film actress Stephanie Clifford, also known as Stormy Daniels, who has gone public about a 2006 affair that she claims to have had with the rich asshole. The Wall Street Journal broke the news of the payment in January.
Details over that alleged affair and payments to Clifford have been far from clear.
the rich asshole’s attorney, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, earlier this month told Fox News that the rich asshole reimbursed Cohen $130,000 for the payment to Clifford before the 2016 presidential election. Giuliani’s statement contradicted the rich asshole earlier having said that he had no knowledge about any payment made to Clifford through Cohen.
the rich asshole, one day after Giuliani’s statements, then acknowledged the payment to Cohen but said that it involved a nondisclosure agreement that was meant to “stop the false and extortionist accusations made by her about an affair ... despite already having signed a detailed letter admitting that there was no affair.”
the rich asshole’s financial disclosure on Wednesday, which only covers the 2017 calendar year, immediately raised concern among government watchdog groups over its timing.
David J. Apol, the acting director of the OGE, sent a letter to U.S. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein on Wednesday. In the letter, he noted that the rich asshole’s payment to Cohen “should have been reported as a liability on his public financial disclosure report” for the 2016 calendar year, which the president signed in June 2017.
The letter cites a previously requested investigation by the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) into whether “the failure to report it was knowing and willful.”
“OGE has determined that the information provided in that note meets the disclosure requirements for a reportable liability under the Ethics in Government Act,” Apol stated.
In a statement responding to the rich asshole’s financial disclosure, Noah Bookbinder, CREW’s executive director, questioned how many other “similar payments” the rich asshole has not disclosed.
“It is good that in the face of overwhelming evidence and public pressure, the president came clean about this liability on this year’s form, but we now have to wonder how many other liabilities for similar payments he has that he still has not disclosed because he has not been publicly called out on them,” Bookbinder said.
The exact figure specified in the financial disclosure is said to be between $100,000 and $250,000.
This story has been updated to include Bookbinder’s response.
Scott Pruitt veers off EPA’s traditional path by putting his industry friends ahead of all else
EPA chief veered off course with trip to Morocco to promote U.S. natural gas.
A top official at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) repeated several times at a House hearing on Wednesday that it’s important for the agency to “stay in its lane.”
On questions about electric grid reliability, William Wehrum, assistant administrator of the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, told lawmakers: “I’m not a grid guy. I’m an air guy.”
Wehrum previously served as an attorney and lobbyist for companies regulated by the EPA before joining the rich asshole administration. “It’s really important for me to stay in my lane,” he told the lawmakers. “And I think part of the problem in the past with EPA is that it’s tried to assume responsibility for things it’s not responsible for.”
At the hearing, none of the members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Environment asked Wehrum whether he believes the EPA has crossed into other lanes since his boss, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, took control of the agency.
One prominent example, however, is the expensive trip Pruitt and a large team of staffers and body guards took to Morocco where the EPA administrator, among other things, promoted the export of U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG).
After Pruitt’s visit to the North African nation last December, the EPA’s press office trumpeted the fact that the administrator attended meetings with Moroccan officials where he discussed the potential benefits of U.S. LNG on Morocco’s economy.
The unusual nature of the trip came up last month at a House hearing when Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-ME) asked Pruitt why he spent part of his time in Morocco promoting the benefits of importing LNG from the United States.
“I can’t, for the life of me, imagine why an EPA administrator would be over there promoting energy sales,” Pingree said. “We have a Department of Energy. You should be thinking much more about some of the challenges with [liquefied natural gas], and why you would be on the other side.”
In another highly unusual move for an EPA official, one of Pruitt’s advisers promised coal industry officials that the agency is working for them. “I’m here to talk to you to make sure what we’re doing in D.C. is beneficial for you,” EPA senior policy advisor Mandy Gunasekara said last year at a coal industry conference. “If it’s not working, I want to hear about it so that we can work it out.”
Another example of Pruitt seemingly crossing an ethical line occurred when he appeared in a video, published on the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association website last August, in which he shared inaccurate information about the Waters of the United States Rule, parroting industry talking-points like the idea that the rule would have regulated a “puddle, a dry creek bed, and ephemeral drainage ditches across the country.”
The video asked farmers and ranchers to provide comment on the repeal of the rule and directs viewers to the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association’s website, which urged users to “Take Action Now – Tell EPA to Kill WOTUS Today!”
Federal law prohibits taxpayer dollars from being used, directly or indirectly, for “publicity or propaganda purposes within the United States.” Pruitt’s appearance in the video has also raised red-flags with ethics experts, who noted that his behavior gave the appearance of an industry that favors one sector over another.
Pruitt also took a sharp turn away from the traditional duties of an EPA administrator when he publicly floated the idea of having televised climate science debates. Around the same time, on a trip to Rome in June 2017, Pruitt met with a senior Roman Catholic leader, who once in a speech called “hysteric and extreme claims about global warming … a symptom of pagan emptiness.”
During his dinner with Cardinal George Pell — who was facing sexual abuse allegations at the time — they reportedly discussed an April 2017 Wall Street Journal op-ed by New York University professor Steven Koonin. The op-ed promoted a red team-blue team idea that caught Pruitt’s attention and inspired him to look into the possibility of televising them as a debate.
Pruitt also has spoken to numerous industry groups while ignoring other interest groups during his tenure as EPA administrator, a questionable practice for the nation’s top environmental regulator. A ThinkProgress analysis found that during his first 10 months as administrator, Pruitt gave more than 30 speeches to industry groups and companies regulated by the EPA. Over the same period of time, Pruitt gave no speeches to environmental or public health groups.
Furthermore, the frequency with which Pruitt has visited think tanks is more than double that of his two most recent predecessors.
Despite the comment about “staying in his lane” on grid reliability, Wehrum ended up offering his opinion on the issue to the House committee.
“Grid reliability is enormously important — and there’s a real live debate going on right now about all the coal plant retirements, which are resilient,” Wehrum told Rep. David McKinely (R-WV), who strongly favors federal intervention in saving coal plants. “They have fuel on site. They can operate for days and sometimes weeks without additional fuel delivery.”
Wehrum has spent his career — whether at the EPA under George W. Bush or as an industry lobbyist — working to roll back the EPA’s clean air protections. During the George W. Bush administration, he served as acting administrator of the Office of Air and Radiation from 2005 until 2007. And only months before he was confirmed to his current post, Wehrum was lobbying the EPA to loosen air pollution rules, according to emails recently made public by the Sierra Club through a Freedom of Information Act request.
Wehrum’s criticism of previous administrations assuming too much authority was likely a reference to the Clean Power Plan, a rule devised by President Obama’s EPA to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants. Pruitt has cited the Clean Power Plan as an example of the agency taking action that goes beyond its legal authority.
Despite Pruitt’s efforts to repeal the Clean Power Plan, most environmental law experts believe the EPA has clear authority to regulate carbon emissions from existing power plants. Even some opponents of the plan have conceded the agency has authority regulate such emissions.
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