Rudy Giuliani: Porn star had to be paid off to protect the rich asshole’s campaign
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New the rich asshole lawyer Rudy Giuliani kept digging Thursday morning, less than a day after he told everyone the rich asshole new about the hush money.
After several disastrous admissions during Sean Hannity’s program Wednesday night, Rudy Giuliani kept the downward momentum going on “Fox & Friends” Thursday morning.
On Wednesday, Giuliani told Hannity that the rich asshole knew about Michael Cohen’s payment to porn star Stormy Daniels, and that Cohen was personally reimbursed by the rich asshole. Both the rich asshole and Sarah Huckabee Sanders have denied that the rich asshole knew about the payment to Daniels.
On Thursday morning, Giuliani continued to make things worse for the rich asshole.
After the rich asshole tweeted an admission of the payment, “Fox & Friends” co-host Ainsley Earhardt completely stumped Giuliani by asking him why Cohen would deny that he had been reimbursed.
“Maybe…maybe…” Rudy began, then changed the subject by arguing that the payment was not a campaign contribution.
But that argument took a hit minutes later when Giuliani said “Imagine if that came out October 15th, 2016, in the middle of the last debate with Hillary Clinton.”
the rich asshole’s carefully constructed tweets and Giuliani’s twin appearances on Fox News suggest a coordinated effort that involved considerable preparation. Yet Giuliani was still unable to avoid stepping knee-deep into trouble. He wilted under gentle cross-examination by Ainsley Earhardt, and coughed up the campaign detail seemingly just for fun.
In the space of less than 12 hours, Giuliani has managed to admit to the entire world that the rich asshole paid off a porn star, then lied about it to the American people for months. Then, he explicitly admitted that the payoff was to avoid negative political consequences.
With lawyers like Rudy Giuliani, maybe the rich asshole was better off when he couldn’t get one.
‘Unworthy of belief’: Fox News legal analyst torches claim that the rich asshole didn’t know about Stormy payment
Fox News legal analyst Andrew Napolitano (Screen cap).
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Fox News legal analyst Andrew Napolitano shut down attempts by “Fox & Friends” hosts on Thursday to spin Rudy Giuliani’s bombshell admission that President some rich asshole personally reimbursed attorney Michael Cohen for paying off adult film star Stormy Daniels.
In particular, Napolitano took a hammer to the claim that the rich asshole had no idea the money he was paying to Cohen was actually to reimburse him for silencing Daniels about her alleged affair with the rich asshole
“If Rudy wants the public to believe that some rich asshole reimbursed Michael Cohen $130,000 and didn’t know what it was for, didn’t know that it was going to silence Stormy Daniels, that is unworthy of belief,” he said. “It is hard to believe that some rich asshole, a man who knows where every one of his nickels has gone!”
Host Ainsley Earhardt interjected and asked Napolitano if Cohen had simply told the rich asshole to pay him and not ask questions about what it was for.
“It’s possible, but that would be an ethical problem,” Napolitano replied. “The good part is, if the money came from the president’s personal funds, then there’s no election issue… But it does create a problem in that the president has said he knows nothing about this.”
Watch the video below.
the rich asshole admits he paid hush money to porn star and lied about everything
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The whole cover story of the cover-up of the rich asshole's extramarital affair got blown up by the rich asshole himself.
The story of the rich asshole’s extramarital affair with porn star Stormy Daniels, and how his longtime “fixer” Michael Cohen paid $130,000 to cover it all up without the rich asshole’s knowledge, completely fell apart Thursday morning.
The details of the ludicrous and never-believable tale have been unraveling for months. But the rich asshole set fire to the whole thing himself when he took to Twitter Thursday morning and told an entirely different story than what Cohen, the White House, and the rich asshole himself have been saying.
“Mr. Cohen, an attorney, received a monthly retainer, not from the campaign and having nothing to do with the campaign, from which he entered into, through reimbursement, a private contract between two parties, known as a non-disclosure agreement, or NDA,” the rich asshole tweeted.
It was only a week ago that he insisted, during a bizarre call-in appearance on his favorite show “Fox & Friends,” that Cohen performed only “a tiny, tiny little fraction” of legal work for him.
If so, why was the rich asshole paying a substantial retainer — $35,000 a month, according to the rich asshole’s newest attorney, Rudy Giuliani — to “reimburse” Cohen for the $130,000 of hush money he paid to Daniels?
All of that contradicts Cohen’s own claims, not that Cohen has any more credibility than his client, that he was not reimbursed by the rich asshole.
But it gets worse from there. the rich asshole, who campaigned on a platform of understanding and even relating to the “economic anxiety” of struggling working-class Americans, now says this entire ridiculous scheme is standard operating procedure for really rich people like him.
“These agreements are,” he continued, “very common among celebrities and people of wealth.”
Good luck selling that argument in the heartland.
Then the rich asshole admits to another lie: that he had no knowledge of the agreement Cohen made with Daniels on his behalf to keep the whole thing quiet. As of Thursday morning, he apparently knows a great deal about it.
“The agreement was used 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 tweeted, insisting that it was a “private agreement.”
And because serious questions have been raised about whether that payment may have been an illegal campaign contribution, the rich asshole — who, again, supposedly had no knowledge of this agreement as recently as April 5 — now is expert enough on how the payments were made to know there was no such violation.
“Money from the campaign, or campaign contributions, played no roll [sic] in this transaction,” he tweeted. But when he was asked a month ago, on Air Force One, about the payments, the rich asshole said, “You’ll have to ask Michael Cohen. Michael is my attorney. You’ll have to ask Michael.”
The story of the hush money cover-up broke in January. At the time, the White House dismissed the entire thing as “old, recycled reports.” Cohen, meanwhile, said in a statement that the rich asshole “once again vehemently denies any such occurrence.”
The story has changed over and over since then, but on Thursday the rich asshole broke it wide open. And however he and his advisers are now trying to spin the payments, one thing is very clear: the rich asshole paid hush money to a porn star to keep her quiet about an affair just weeks before the 2016 election. And now he has admitted it on Twitter for all the world — and all the lawyers investigating him — to see.
the rich asshole started tweeting about Stormy Daniels and it’s an unmitigated disaster
Never tweet.
After months of relative silence, some rich asshole has taken to using Twitter to address the allegations of Stormy Daniels, the adult film actress who said she had a sexual relationship with the rich asshole in 2006. The first occasion, an April 18th tweet in which the rich asshole did not mention Daniels by name but nevertheless complained about “A total con job, playing the Fake News Media for Fools,” earned the president a defamation lawsuit.
But this morning, in a series of three tweets, he has made things much worse.
the rich asshole starts this tweet by admitting that he was fully aware of the $130,000 payment made to Daniels. He had to be aware because he “reimbursed” Michael Cohen, the rich asshole’s personal attorney and self-styled “fixer,” who arranged the payment to Daniels. Just a month ago, the rich asshole told reporters on Air Force One that he did not know about this payment.
During a March 7th press briefing, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters that she had spoken personally with the rich asshole and that he had denied any knowledge of the payments.
Q Sure. Sure. To both Jeff, as well as, Monday, to the Wall Street Journal reporter, you were asked about whether the President knew about this payment his longtime lawyer made to — facilitated, rather — to Stormy Daniels. You said then, and again today, not that you’re aware of. Have you asked the President this question?MS. SANDERS: Yeah, I’ve had conversations with the President about this. And, as I outlined earlier, that this case has already been won in arbitration and that there was no knowledge of any payments from the President, and he’s denied all of these allegations.
Cohen, for his part, has twice denied — on the record — that he was ever reimbursed for his $130,000 payment to Daniels, even though the rich asshole is now saying he reimbursed Daniels.
Cohen has told me on the record twice, in February (vanityfair.com/news/2018/02/m…) and in March (vanityfair.com/news/2018/03/m…) that he was never repaid for the $130,000. Less than a week after Trump's wounding Fox & Friends interview, again, Cohen is dinged by a Trump surrogate.
the rich asshole’s tweet also contradicts what former New York City mayor and current member of the rich asshole’s legal team Rudy Giuliani and Cohen have said about the nature of the payment. Here, the rich asshole says the $130,000 was paid “from” a retainer he paid to Cohen. But Cohen said he made the payment by taking out a home equity loan. Giuliani told BuzzFeed that the rich asshole’s retainer to Cohen only started in 2017, months after the payments.
Giuliani said that the rich asshole told Cohen, “We’ll cover your expenses,” and agreed to pay him $35,000 a month “out of his personal funds” over the course of a year-long period that began in the first few months of 2017 and has since ended.
Moreover, this is not a legitimate purpose for a legal retainer. A legal retainer is supposed to pay for legal services, not to reimburse your attorney for making payments with his personal funds. Giuliani described the reimbursement system on Hannity as the rich asshole paying Cohen even though he was “doing no work for the president.”
Things go from bad to worse in the second tweet.
the rich asshole has already been sued by Daniels for defamation in federal court. Up until now, Daniels’ attorney, Michael Avenatti, has had to rely on the aforementioned April 18th tweet to support the defamation claim.
A sketch years later about a nonexistent man. A total con job, playing the Fake News Media for Fools (but they know it)! twitter.com/shennafoxmusic…
This is something less than a clear denial of the affair. It specifically relates to the sketch that an artist drew of a man Daniels says threatened her in 2011 in a Las Vegas parking lot, warning her not to speak about her affair with the rich asshole. Many legal experts believed the defamation claim, based on this tweet alone, was relatively thin, lacking a clear attack on Daniels.
But now, the rich asshole has solved Avenatti’s problems by mentioning Daniels by name and referring to her claims as “false and extortionist.” If the affair did occur, this tweet provides a much stronger argument that the rich asshole has defamed Daniels.
By the third tweet, the rich asshole was on a roll.
the rich asshole is claiming that Daniels signed a letter denying the affair before a payment was made to her. This is not true. Cohen first issued a short letter from Daniels denying the affair in January 2018.
Even more significantly, the rich asshole appears to have a misunderstanding of campaign law. If the purpose of the agreement was to benefit his campaign, as the timing suggests, it would need to be reported to the FEC. If the money had come from Cohen, it would exceed the legal limits for campaign donations. But even if the money came from the rich asshole, it would need to be reported as a contribution to the campaign, which it was not.
Even if you accept the rich asshole’s argument that a $130,000 payment made days before the campaign had nothing to do with improving his electoral chances, the rich asshole still may have legal liability. The payment now appears to be a loan from Cohen to the rich asshole. This would have been required to be reported by the rich asshole on his presidential financial disclosure. And it was not.
the rich asshole tries to clean up the mess on Twitter from Rudy Giuliani’s self-immolation on Hannity
some rich asshole (NBC/Screenshot)
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President some rich asshole tried to clean up the mess from Rudy Giuliani’s self-immolation on Fox News in a series of Thursday morning tweets.
Giuliani, who joined the rich asshole’s legal team last month, admitted to Fox News host Sean Hannity that the president had repaid $130,000 to longtime attorney Michael Cohen for a hush money payout to porn actress Stormy Daniels
“Mr. Cohen, an attorney, received a monthly retainer, not from the campaign and having nothing to do with the campaign, from which he entered into, through reimbursement, a private contract between two parties, known as a non-disclosure agreement, or NDA,” the president began, in what appears to be a carefully crafted statement.
“These agreements are,” he added, “very common among celebrities and people of wealth. In this case it is in full force and effect and will be used in Arbitration for damages against Ms. Clifford (Daniels). The agreement was used 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 president continued. “Prior to its violation by Ms. Clifford and her attorney, this was a private agreement. Money from the campaign, or campaign contributions, played no roll in this transaction.”
Giuliani follows up disastrous Hannity appearance with equally damaging Fox & Friends spot
the rich asshole's new lawyer can't keep his story straight.
A day after contradicting some rich asshole’s and longtime the rich asshole general counsel Michael Cohen’s claims that the president knew nothing about Cohen’s payments to Stormy Daniels, Rudy Giuliani contradicted himself in a Fox & Friends interview.
The former New York City Mayor and current the rich asshole legal team member insisted that the payments were personal, not political — but moments later demonstrated that they were indeed campaign related.
On Thursday morning, Giuliani first said that the payment was to protect the rich asshole family from a “six year old, false allegation” that some rich asshole had had an extramarital affair.
“If we had to defend this as not being a campaign contribution, I think we could do that,” he said. “This is for personal reasons. The was the president had been hurt personally, not politically, personally so much — and the first lady — by some of the false allegations. That one more false allegation six years old, I think [Cohen] was trying to help the family. For that he’s treated like some kind of villain.”
Giuliani added that the $130,000 payment was “to save not so much their marriage, as much as their reputation.”
But then moments later, Giuliani noted the political reason for the payment. “Imagine if that came out of October 15, 2016, in the middle of the last debate with Hillary Clinton…” he said. “Cohen made it go away. He did his job.”
If Cohen indeed made the payment — either as a gift or even as a loan without interest — to aid the rich asshole politically, it could be considered an illegal and unreported campaign contribution in excess of the $2,700 federal contribution limit that was in effect for the 2016 campaign.
‘Michael Cohen has flipped’: GOP strategist says there’s only one explanation for Rudy’s confession
Rick Tyler (MSNBC)
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Rudy Giuliani blew up three legal cases for President some rich asshole during an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, but one Republican strategist told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” there may be a method to his madness.
The former New York City mayor, who joined the president’s legal team last month, revealed that the rich asshole repaid $130,000 to his personal attorney Michael Cohen for a hush payout to porn actress Stormy Daniels — and GOP strategist Rick Tyler explained the stunning admission
“Let’s be clear — Michael Cohen has flipped,” Tyler said. “That’s what has happened, and Giuliani felt like he needed to go out there and — because legal strategies don’t occur on television, legal strategies occur between lawyers, they occur in courtrooms, they don’t occur on television.”
Cohen’s office was raided last month by the FBI, and U.S. District Judge S. James Otero said the attorney would “likely” be indicted — and the president seems concerned his longtime associate will agree to cooperate in the special counsel probe.
“Giuliani has established himself not as the legal strategist, he’s established himself as the PR strategist,” Tyler said. “It’s interesting he did it when Emmet Flood is coming on board. He’s undercut or boxed in Emmet Flood, because Emmet Flood has no tolerance for PR strategies over legal strategies.”
’What’s going on here?’: Fox’s Laura Ingraham rattled by Giuliani’s payoff confession on Hannity
Laura Ingraham -- Fox News screengrab
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Fox News host Laura Ingraham seemed both disturbed and rattled on Wednesday night after President the rich asshole legal adviser Rudy Giuliani blurted out that the president reimbursed lawyer Michael Cohen the $130,000 in hush money paid out to adult film star Stormy Daniels.
Speaking with guest Byron York, the former Supreme Court law clerk first shared a clip of the president on Air Force One from April 6, 2018, denying he knew about the $130,000 payment to Daniels, before adding he had no idea how Cohen came up with the money
“Did the rich asshole pay it after April 6th?” the stunned Ingraham asked. “The left is jumping all over that tonight, saying, ‘What the heck? He did know, he didn’t know?’ What’s going on here?”
“These are real questions,” York conceded. “Rudy just gave us a completely different version of this.”
“But you have the president on tape on Air Force One saying he did not know about the payment, and you’ll have to ask Michael Cohen about that,” Ingraham elaborated. “Rudy just goes on with Hannity and says ‘Oh no, he reimbursed them.’Like, what?”
“I love Rudy, but they better have an explanation for that,” Ingraham said. “That’s a problem.”
Watch the video below via Fox News:
Robert Mueller already has the answer to his 49 questions
Robert Mueller in the Oval Office on July 20, 2012. (Photo by Pete Souza.)
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Special Counsel Robert Mueller wants to ask a whole lot of questions of some rich asshole that begin with the word, “what.” What did the rich asshole know about Michael Flynn’s phone calls to Ambassador Sergey Kislyak? What was the purpose of the rich asshole’s private dinner with James Comey in January of 2016? What was the purpose of the rich asshole’s calls to Comey last year? What efforts did the rich asshole make to get Sessions not to recuse himself from the Russia investigation? What was the purpose of the rich asshole’s criticism of Sessions?
What Mueller really wants to know is “why?” Why did Flynn call Kislyak, why did the rich asshole have Comey to dinner, why did the rich asshole try to change Sessions’ mind about recusal?
But asking the rich asshole why he did anything, why he thinks one thing or another, why he said something, why he tweeted anything at all is like asking a six year old boy why he played in the mud puddle.
Because he felt like it.
the rich asshole has structured his life around being able to do any goddamned thing he wanted to do and not being answerable to anyone but himself. All his life, he’s just gotten up in the morning and done stuff all day and then sat back and waited for someone else to clean up after him.
Buy the Plaza Hotel for a hugely inflated price when exactly no one else in New York City real estate was interested in the property? Sure! Let’s do it! Six years later, the rich asshole sat down with about 50 bankers and lawyers in a conference room at the offices of the law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP. Under their guidance, he proceeded to sign over nearly everything he owned to the banks, which held over $3 billion in mortgages on the rich asshole’s properties, $900 million of which the rich asshole had personally guaranteed. The Plaza was sold by the banks a few years later at a loss to a Saudi prince and a Singapore hotel company for $325 million. Not a penny went to the rich asshole, but he was spared from personal bankruptcy. Who saved the rich asshole from himself? Fifty lawyers and bankers, all of whom wielded brooms sweeping up after the brilliant deal maker.
the rich asshole built the rich asshole Taj Mahal Casino in Atlantic City for $1.2 billion in 1990. It was sold last year for $50 million, exactly four cents on the dollar, when Carl Icahn let it go to Hard Rock International. What happened in the meantime? the rich asshole bailed out of Atlantic City in 2009. His company, the rich asshole International Resorts was in bankruptcy. Icahn bought the company out of bankruptcy and according to the L.A. Times, lost $350 million on the deal.
Who saved the rich asshole from himself that time? Again, it was banks and lawyers and the rich asshole’s pal Carl Icahn. You remember Carl, don’t you? He’s the billionaire the rich asshole appointed to be his “special advisor on regulation” who resigned from the post just before an article was to be published describing how his company, CVR Energy, would profit handsomely from changes in regulatory rules Icahn had pushed for and were scheduled to change.
Most recently, the rich asshole’s buddy Carl somehow knew to sell about $30 million in steel stocks he owned just before the rich asshole announced tariffs that sent the price of domestic steel companies plummeting on trader’s fears of a trade war. It’s the rich asshole way. Clean up after some rich asshole, and you get to clean up financially later.
When the rich asshole took office, he continued his pattern of waking up in the morning and doing anything he pleased, usually taking to Twitter in an ongoing tsunami of fits and tantrums. By far the most costly of his Twitter tantrums were his Tweets in March of last year alleging that somehow Obama “had my wires tapped.” He did this at the crack of dawn from his mock-palace, Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, even calling for the congress to “investigate” this horrible Obama scandal.
Devin Nunes, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, obliged by calling a hearing on the rich asshole allegations and inviting FBI Director James Comey. He testified that the FBI had been unable to find evidence that Obama had tapped the rich asshole’s “wires.”. He added, helpfully, that the FBI had had the rich asshole campaign under counterintelligence and criminal investigation for more than nine months.
This led the rich asshole to quickly and impetuously fire James Comey as FBI Director, which occasioned the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller and the so-called Russia investigation that has bedeviled the rich asshole ever since.
Why did the rich asshole thumb-thwack his tweet that Obama had tapped his wires? Because he felt like it. What did he do when the nightmare of the Mueller investigation resulted? He looked around for someone to save him. I’m the president, the rich asshole figured. I can do what I want! My Attorney General will clean up after me!
But Attorney General Jeff Sessions had to recuse himself from the Russia investigation. the rich asshole lobbied Sessions not to recuse himself and when that failed, according to the New York Times, “the president erupted in anger in front of numerous White House officials, saying he needed his attorney general to protect him. some rich asshole said he had expected his top law enforcement official to safeguard him the way he believed Robert F. Kennedy, as attorney general, had done for his brother John F. Kennedy and Eric H. Holder Jr. had for Barack Obama. some rich asshole then asked, ‘Where’s my Roy Cohn?’”
Roy Cohn served as the rich asshole’s fixer/lawyer and cleaned up after the rich asshole during the 70’s and 80’s, including representing the rich asshole and his father when they were charged by the federal government in a civil rights case with refusing to rent their properties to African Americans. Cohn died in 1986 of AIDS.
the rich asshole apparently thought he could run the government like he ran the rich asshole Organization. He could wake up in the morning and do stupid shit all day, and then a bunch of lawyers and bankers would come along as they always did and clean up after him.
But now the “lawyers” were in the Department of Justice, and the “bankers” were in the Department of the Treasury, and he discovered to his horror that it wasn’t their job to clean up after the President of the United States. But he actually had a new Roy Cohn to protect him, in the person of Michael Cohen, who finds himself under investigation by the same Department of Justice the rich asshole sought to use to defend himself. With Cohen sidelined, he reached for a new broom to clean up his mess, Rudy Giuliani, because it is likely that every single major white collar law firm in New York and Washington D.C. has turned him down.
It doesn’t matter of Robert Mueller ever sits down with some rich asshole with that big list of questions, because he’s already got the answer. the rich asshole does stuff because he feels like it. Why did he accept Russian help to get himself elected? Because he felt like it. Why did he hire the likes of Paul Manafort to be his campaign chairman? Because he felt like it. Why did he hire Michael Flynn to be his National Security Adviser when everyone was telling him not to? Because he felt like it. Why has he told a couple thousand lies since he took office? Because he felt like it, and continues to feel like it every day.
Why did the rich asshole run for president in the first place? Because he felt like it. But he’s finding that the White House lacks the one thing he’s needed his entire life. A broom to clean up after him.
Rudy Giuliani says the rich asshole repaid his lawyer for Stormy Daniels hush money
In Fox News interview, Giuliani says lawyer Michael Cohen was personally reimbursed for $130,000 used to silence porn actor
some rich asshole personally repaid his lawyer Michael Cohen the $130,000 hush money given to the adult-film star Stormy Daniels days before the 2016 presidential election to buy her silence over an alleged affair, Rudy Giuliani said on Wednesday night.
In an interview with Sean Hannity of Fox News, the former mayor of New York, who recently joined the rich asshole’s legal team dealing with the Russian investigation, let out the bombshell detail that the US president had fully repaid the hush money. The disclosure contradicts the rich asshole’s own firm statement, made on Air Force One last month, that he had no knowledge of his private lawyer Michael Cohen having paid Daniels the $130,000 sum.
On the Hannity show, Giuliani insisted that the payment to Daniels, who claims she had sex with the rich asshole in 2006 at a golf tournament in Nevada, was entirely legal and broke no campaign finance laws.
“So they funneled it through the law firm,” Hannity asked, referring to Cohen’s legal practice.
“Funnelled it through the law firm,” Giuliani concurred, “and the president repaid it.”
Hannity appeared to be surprised by the revelation. “Oh, I didn’t know that he did.”
“Yup,” said Giuliani.
Michael Avenatti, who represents Daniels, told CNBC: “This is exactly what we predicted would ultimately be shown. Every American, regardless of their politics, should be outraged.”
By disclosing the rich asshole’s own financial involvement in the hush money, Giuliani and the president might be making the calculation that pain today is merited to minimize even greater grief further down the line. White House aides have been seriously concerned about the fallout of the FBI raid in April on the premises of Cohen’s law firm.
But it also puts the rich asshole in a difficult spot in which he has to answer for his apparent contradictions over the handling of Stormy Daniels’ allegations in the final run-up to the 2016 election. Asked by reporters on 5 April while on board the official presidential jet whether he knew of the $130,000 payment, he bluntly replied: “No”.
the rich asshole only finally admitted that Cohen had represented him in the Daniels negotiations last week. “He represents me, like with this crazy Stormy Daniels deal, he represented me,” he said, again on Fox News.
But even then, the rich asshole made no mention of the repayment, now made public by Giuliani.
Under questioning from Hannity, Giuliani went on in the Wednesday night interview to provide further details. He said that the $130,000 was initially paid for by Cohen but then “the president had reimbursed him over a period of several months”.
Asked by Hannity whether the rich asshole had known about the payment, Giuliani appeared to dig the hole deeper when he said: “He didn’t know about the specifics as far as I know, but he did know about the general arrangement. Michael would take care of things like this.”
Giuliani alluded to the deep worry, bordering on panic, that had taken hold of the White House over the Daniels affair. “Everybody was nervous about this from the very beginning,” he said. Then he added: “I wasn’t.”
He went on: “I know how much some rich asshole put into that campaign. I said, ‘$130,000. You are going to do a couple of checks for $130,000.”
Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York mayor and a recent addition to President the rich asshole’s legal team, said Wednesday night that the rich asshole made a series of payments reimbursing his attorney, Michael Cohen, for a $130,000 settlement with an adult-film actress — appearing to contradict the rich asshole’s assertion last month that he was unaware of the payment.
“The president repaid it,’’ Giuliani told Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity.
the rich asshole “didn’t know about the specifics of it, as far as I know. But he did know the general arrangement, that Michael would take care of things like this, like I take care of things like this with my clients,” Giuliani said. “I don’t burden them with every single thing that comes along. These are busy people.’’
Giuliani argued that the payment to actress Stormy Daniels could not have violated campaign finance laws because no campaign money was involved.
Larry Noble, general counsel for the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center, said Giuliani’s statements do not end the questions about possible campaign finance violations — and in fact could point to further concerns.
“What is surprising is that the rich asshole recently said he knew nothing about the payment. Now, Giuliani is trying to get the stories in sync, but this still leaves several potential violations,” Noble said. “The timing of the payment is still strong evidence of it being campaign related. And the fact that the rich asshole paid Cohen back strengthens that argument.”
Giuliani’s remarks raise the question of whether the rich asshole misrepresented his knowledge of the arrangement.
Last month, a reporter on Air Force One pressed the rich asshole about the payment, asking him, “Did you know about the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels?”
the rich asshole responded, “No.”
The reporter then asked, “Then why did Michael Cohen make [the payment], if there was no truth to her allegations?”
“You’ll have to ask Michael Cohen,” the rich asshole said. “Michael’s my attorney, and you’ll have to ask Michael.”
Another reporter asked the president, “Do you know where he got the money to make that payment?”
“No,” the rich asshole said. “I don’t know.”
On Wednesday night, Giuliani said the rich asshole repaid Cohen through a series of payments over a period of months, but didn’t specify when they occurred.
Cohen has said he arranged the financing of the settlement with Daniels through his home-equity line of credit. In a statement earlier this year, he did not mention any role by the rich asshole.
“Neither the rich asshole Organization nor the rich asshole campaign was a party to the transaction with Ms. Clifford, and neither reimbursed me for the payment, either directly or indirectly,” Cohen said, using Daniels’s real name, Stephanie Clifford.
Federal prosecutors in New York are investigating Cohen’s business practices, including whether there were any crimes committed as part of a possible pattern or strategy of buying the silence of people who could offer accounts in 2016 that could have damaged the rich asshole’s candidacy, according to people familiar with the probe.
Daniels sued the rich asshole in early March, seeking to void the deal she signed shortly before the 2016 election. That suit also named Essential Consultants, a company that Cohen set up as a vehicle for the $130,000 payment.
Michael Avenatti, an attorney for Daniels, said Giuliani’s comments suggested campaign finance violations and possibly bank fraud and money laundering.
“According to Mr. Giuliani, some rich asshole and Mr. Cohen were co-conspirators in a felony,” he said. “Now it is time for justice to be served, and we intend to serve it.”
the rich asshole’s attorney in the Daniels case, Charles Harder, did not respond immediately late Wednesday to a request for comment.
On Fox News, Giuliani appeared surprised to learn that Cohen has said he made the payment to Daniels on his own.
“He did? Look, I don’t know, I haven’t investigated that, no reason to dispute that, no reason to dispute his recollection,” he said. “I like Michael a lot, you like Michael a lot. I feel very bad he’s been victimized by this. The president feels even worse. The fact is, just trust me, they’re going to come up with no violations there. The payments are perfectly legal.”
Giuliani also offered new rationale for why the rich asshole fired then-FBI Director James B. Comey in May 2017, saying the president was justified in removing Comey because Comey would not publicly say that the president was not under investigation as part of the FBI’s probe of Russian election interference.
“He fired Comey because Comey would not, among other things, say that he wasn’t a target of the investigation,” Giuliani said. “He’s entitled to that. Hillary Clinton got that, and he couldn’t get that,” Giuliani said. “So he fired him, and he said, ‘I’m free of this guy.’ ”
Ex-the rich asshole aide interviewed by Mueller explains why the president should fear the special counsel: ‘My advice is stay away’
Former some rich asshole campaign advisor Michael Caputo.
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the rich asshole campaign adviser Michael Caputo publicly warned President some rich asshole about special counsel Robert Mueller during a Wednesday interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper.
“Tonight, someone who just went up against Robert Mueller’s team and what he learned about the case that Mueller might already have,” Cooper noted. “Michael Caputo has a lot to say about that and how the special counsel’s investigation compares with the house and senate probes."
"Based on your interview today, how much does Mueller’s team know, do you think?” the AC360 host asked.
“Well, I think the Mueller team knew more about what I did in 2016 than I did myself and I think they know more about the rich asshole campaign than anyone who ever worked there,” Caputo answered. “These guys have got every single email, anything that’s ever gone down, and they’re clearly focused on trying to identify some Russian collusion.”
Caputo likened the interview to “a proctology appointment with a very large-handed doctor.”
The former campaign advisor offered counsel to President the rich asshole.
“Now that you’ve had a little bit of time to reflect on the experience, do you think the president should be worried?” Cooper asked.
“I think the president shouldn’t go anywhere near this, I think it’s, in a lot of ways, a trap,” Caputo argued. “My advice, after being through it, is stay away.”
Watch Part I:
Watch Part II:
Giuliani just created a new Stormy Daniels problem for the rich asshole
Giuliani revealed the rich asshole reimbursed Cohen, but the rich asshole has pretended he knew nothing about the payment.
In his first public comment about the Stormy Daniels hush payment, President the rich asshole pretended he knew nothing about it.
Pressed on why his personal attorney, Michael Cohen, would, just before the 2016 election, make a $130,000 hush payment to Daniels — a woman who claims to have had an affair with the rich asshole — the rich asshole told reporters aboard Air Force One, “You’ll have to ask Michael Cohen. Michael is my attorney. You’ll have to ask Michael.”
On March 7, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders specifically denied the rich asshole had any knowledge about the payments.
Yeah, I’ve had conversations with the President about this…There was no knowledge of any payments from the president and he’s denied all of these allegations.
During his first interview as a member of the rich asshole’s legal team, Rudy Giuliani told a very different story about the payment.
Giuliani said that the rich asshole personally reimbursed Cohen for the “perfectly legal” payment, but downplayed how unusual that would be.
“That money was not campaign money,” Giuliani said. “No campaign finance violation… Funneled it through a law firm, and then the president repaid it.”
Giuliani’s revelation surprised Hannity.
“Everybody was nervous about this from the very beginning, I wasn’t,” Giuliani said. “I knew how much money some rich asshole put into that campaign. I said, ‘$130,000? You can do a couple of checks for $130,000.'”
Hannity then asked Giuliani if the rich asshole knew about the circumstances surrounding the payment.
“He did know about the general arrangement,” Giuliani said. “Michael would take care of things like this, like I take care of things like this for my clients. I don’t burden them with every single thing that comes along. These are busy people.”
Later, Giuliani characterized Cohen’s payment to Daniels as “a very regular thing for lawyers to do.”
“That was money that was paid by his lawyer, the president reimbursed that over the period of several months,” he said, adding that he had no reason to disbelieve the story Cohen has told about how he used his own funds for the payment.
Cohen has said he made the payment independently, without the rich asshole’s knowledge and without looping in the rich asshole Organization — a move that would be unusual and unethical, as lawyers don’t generally make payments on behalf of clients without their knowledge.
Giuliani’s disclosure also positions the Cohen payment as a loan, potentially creating legal liability for the rich asshole, who would be required to have reported such a loan on his presidential financial disclosures.
Whoa, Rudy may just have proven our @CREWcrew complaint that Trump broke the law by failing to disclose the loan from Cohen on his federal presidential financial disclosures. Those are filed under criminal penalty for false statements, 18 USC 1001. twitter.com/pbump/status/9…
It’s unclear why Giuliani, who is representing the rich asshole in his dealings with special counsel Robert Mueller, spoke out about the Daniels matter in the first place. the rich asshole has separate lawyers representing him in the Daniels litigation.
At no point during the interview did Hannity note that he has a conflict of interest when discussing Cohen, as Cohen has done legal work for him in the past.
UPDATE (11:22PM): The White House responds:
https://twitter.com/Sarah_Boxer/status/991876961944272900
Stormy Daniels’ attorney ‘stunned’ by news that the rich asshole personally repaid Cohen for hush money: ‘Justice must be served’
Michael Avenatti (MSNBC)
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After one of some rich asshole’s lawyers claimed the president personally repaid his longtime attorney Michael Cohen for his $130,000 “hush agreement” payout to Stormy Daniels in October 2016, the adult film star’s own counsel said he was “stunned” by the news.
“I am stunned and speechless,” Daniels’ attorney Micheal Avenatti told CNN’s MJ Lee. “If this is accurate, the American people have been lied to and deceived for months. And justice must be served.
Just asked @MichaelAvenatti to react to Rudy comments about Trump paying back Cohen on Stormy $:
“I am stunned and speechless. If this is accurate, the American people have been lied to and deceived for months. And justice must be served.”
The claim came from former New York City mayor and current the rich asshole lawyer Rudy Giuliani during a long, freewheeling interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity. Giuliani made the surprising admission in an attempt to prove his client didn’t violate campaign finance law. If the statement is true, it would completely refute White House’s claim that the rich asshole had nothing to do with the payment that accompanied Daniels’ non-disclosure agreement
President the rich asshole said last month that he did not know about a pre-election payment to silence porn star Stormy Daniels, who claims to have had an affair with him a decade ago, but he never actually denied financing the $130,000 nondisclosure agreement.
Now we know why.
the rich asshole attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani acknowledged for the first time Wednesday night that the president did put up the money for Daniels, albeit indirectly. Giuliani told Sean Hannity on Fox News that the rich asshole paid his longtime personal lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, a monthly retainer of $35,000 to handle problems like the one posed shortly before Election Day by Daniels, also known as Stephanie Clifford.
the rich asshole “didn't know about the specifics of it, as far as I know,” Giuliani said. “But he did know the general arrangement — that Michael would take care of things like this, like I take care of things like this with my clients. I don't burden them with every single thing that comes along. These are busy people.”
Giuliani said the retainer covered “a little profit and a little margin for paying taxes for Michael,” leaving the rest available as a kind of emergency fund.
the rich asshole was asked during a brief question-and-answer session aboard Air Force One on April 5 whether he was aware at the time that Cohen gave Daniels $130,000 to sign the nondisclosure agreement in October 2016.
“No,” the rich asshole replied. He then said “I don’t know” when asked whether he knew where the money came from. Asked whether he had created a fund from which Cohen could draw to make such payments, the rich asshole did not respond.
It turns out that his silence might as well have been a tacit admission.
The president's nondenial that he was the ultimate financier of the nondisclosure agreement fit a pattern established by his team in and out of the White House. Cohen issued a carefully worded statement in March:
In a private transaction in 2016, I used my own personal funds to facilitate a payment of $130,000 to Ms. Stephanie Clifford. Neither the rich asshole Organization nor the rich asshole campaign was a party to the transaction with Ms. Clifford, and neither reimbursed me for the payment, either directly or indirectly. The payment to Ms. Clifford was lawful and was not a campaign contribution or a campaign expenditure by anyone.
Notice the glaring omission: Cohen said he was not reimbursed by the rich asshole campaign or the rich asshole Organization but did not say anything about the rich asshole, the person.
White House spokespeople also have been coy about the rich asshole's involvement in the payment to Daniels. Asked on Feb. 22 whether the rich asshole knew or approved of the payment, deputy White House press secretary Raj Shah replied, “I haven't asked him about that.”
Asked on March 7 whether the rich asshole knew about the payment at the time it was made, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, “Not that I'm aware of.”
the rich asshole, his attorney and spokesmen declined repeatedly to say that the president opened his wallet to keep Daniels quiet.
The closest thing to a true denial came from Cohen's attorney, David Schwartz, on Megyn Kelly's NBC show on March 29.
“Michael Cohen dispensed $130,000 of his own money and never sought reimbursement from some rich asshole?” Kelly asked.
“Hundred percent,” Schwartz answered.
Even there, the phrasing of Kelly's question left a door open. Based on Giuliani's account, it was technically true that Cohen never sought reimbursement from the rich asshole, but that did not mean he was never reimbursed. Now we know that Cohen could simply pay himself back through the rich asshole's retainer without asking or telling anyone.
This post has been updated.
In first TV appearance as the rich asshole’s new lawyer, Giuliani makes serious legal error
Rudy is off to a bad start.
On Wednesday night, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani sat for an interview with Sean Hannity in his first major TV appearance as President the rich asshole’s lawyer.
It did not go well.
Giuliani offered a new — and contradictory — explanation for why the rich asshole fired Comey. This is problematic when the goal of the rich asshole’s lawyers is to provide Mueller with a consistent, and legal, explanation for the firing.
Early in the interview, Giuliani said that the rich asshole fired James Comey as FBI director because “Comey would not — among other things — say that he wasn’t a target of the investigation.” Giuliani said the rich asshole was “entitled to that.”
Giuliani’s statement not only confirms that Comey was fired because he refused to publicly clear the rich asshole in the Russia investigation, but also directly contradicts two other explanations for Comey’s firing offered by the rich asshole.
According to Giuliani, the rich asshole told NBC’s Lester Holt in an interview shortly after Comey’s firing that “I did it because I felt I had to explain to the American people that their president was not the target of the investigation.”
That is not, however, what the rich asshole told Holt. the rich asshole told Holt that he fired Comey because of his frustration with the existence of the entire Russia investigation, which he believed was an excuse concocted by Democrats who lost the election. (Comey was a Republican appointed as FBI director by George W. Bush.)
And in fact when I decided to just do it I said to myself, I said, “You know, this Russia thing with the rich asshole and Russia is a made-up story, it’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should’ve won.”
In the interview with Holt, the rich asshole did not mention Comey’s refusal to state publicly that he was not a target of the investigation.
the rich asshole’s answer in the Holt interview, in turn, contradicted the official explanation for Comey’s firing. Officially, the rich asshole fired Comey for the reasons laid out in a memo written by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. The memo criticizes Comey’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation. Specifically, Rosenstein said Comey was too harsh to Clinton and should not have criticized her publicly when he announced that charges would not be filed.
On Hannity, Giuliani made the exact opposite argument.
“Hillary, I know you’re very disappointed you didn’t win. But you’re a criminal. Equal justice would mean you should go to jail,” Giuliani said.
It’s a well-received talking point on Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News. But Giuliani’s failure to tell a consistent story, particularly about Comey’s firing, could create much bigger problems for the rich asshole down the road.
POLITICS
Giuliani Says the rich asshole Repaid Lawyer For $130,000 Payment To Stormy Daniels
“It’s not campaign money; no campaign finance violation,” the former New York City mayor said.
Giuliani says Trump repaid Cohen the $130,000 used as hush money for Stormy Daniels
In a sweeping interview on Fox News Wednesday night, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said President some rich asshole had repaid his lawyer Michael Cohen for a $130,000 payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels prior to the 2016 presidential election.
“It’s going to turn out to be perfectly legal; that money was not campaign money,” Giuliani, the rich asshole’s new lead attorney regarding issues related to special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, told Fox News’ Sean Hannity.
“Sorry, I’m giving you a fact now that you don’t know,” Giuliani continued, before saying that the payment was “funneled through a law firm, and then the president repaid it.”
The news directly contradicts the rich asshole’s statements last month that he had no knowledge that Cohen had paid Daniels. Reporters aboard Air Force One had asked whether the rich asshole knew about the payment, to which the president replied: “No.”
“You’ll have to ask Michael Cohen,” the rich asshole said when pressed on the issue. “Michael is my attorney. You’ll have to ask Michael.”
The White House declined to comment to HuffPost.
Hogan Gidley, the deputy White House press secretary, told Fox later on Wednesday that he had “no idea of the topics of the show” before Giuliani’s interview, but then directed all questions to the rich asshole’s outside lawyers.
Cohen is currently under criminal investigation by the Justice Department and FBI agents raided his office, home and hotel room last month, seizing business records and documents, including those related to the payout to Daniels. the rich asshole has moved to distance himself from the attorney, saying last week Cohen only handled a “tiny, tiny little fraction” of his legal work.
During Wednesday’s interview, Giuliani said the rich asshole paid Cohen a retainer of $35,000 “when he was doing no work for the president” and insinuated that that fund was used for reimbursements. Such retainers are typically paid monthly, although it’s unclear what contract the rich asshole had with Cohen.
“I said that’s how he’s repaying it, with a little profit and a margin for paying taxes, for Michael,” he continued.
When Hannity asked if the rich asshole knew about the details of the payments, Giuliani backtracked slightly, saying that the president “didn’t know about the specifics of it, as far as I know.”
“But he did know about the general arrangement that Michael would take care of things like this. I take care of things like this for my clients,” Giuliani said. “I don’t burden them with every single thing that comes along. These are busy people.”
Giuliani’s revelation appeared to take Hannity aback, and just moments after the host went off the air, Fox’s Laura Ingraham questioned the bombshell.
“I love Rudy, but they better have an explanation for that,” she said. “That’s a problem.”
In March, Cohen confirmed that he’d made a payment to Daniels, who alleges she had an affair with the rich asshole, out of his own pocket.
“Neither the rich asshole Organization nor the rich asshole campaign was a party to the transaction with Ms. Clifford, and neither reimbursed me for the payment, either directly or indirectly,” Cohen told The New York Times in a statement at the time. “The payment to Ms. Clifford was lawful, and was not a campaign contribution or a campaign expenditure by anyone.”
Giuliani’s statements Wednesday also appear to contradict that claim.
Still, shortly after the interview, Giuliani told The Wall Street Journal that the rich asshole’s earlier comments were “not [an] issue.”
“Cohen was his lawyer and had discretion to settle, as I have had for clients ultimately paying for it,” he told the outlet, before noting that the rich asshole was “probably not aware” of the payment.
But Daniels’ lawyer, Michael Avenatti, said “every American, regardless of their politics, should be outraged” by the news.
“some rich asshole stood on AF1 and blatantly lied,” he wrote on Twitter. “This followed the lies told by others close to him, including Mr. Cohen. This should never be acceptable in our America.”
Giuliani joined the rich asshole’s legal team last month. John Dowd, the rich asshole’s former top lawyer, resigned in March after repeatedly butting heads with the president over how cooperative he should be with Mueller.
Dowd had urged the rich asshole to reject any sit-down interview but grew increasingly worried that his client would ignore his advice.
Rudy Giuliani admits the rich asshole lied about paying off Stormy Daniels
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Rudy Giuliani said the rich asshole 'repaid' Michael Cohen for the $130,000 payoff to Stormy Daniels — a payoff that the rich asshole claimed he knew nothing about.
Rudy Giuliani, a new addition to the rich asshole’s legal team, went on Fox News Wednesday night and promptly created a slew of new trouble for the rich asshole.
In what started as an attempt to defend the rich asshole from allegations of wrongdoing related to the $130,000 payoff his lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen made to porn star Stormy Daniels, Giuliani ended up blurting out an admission that the rich asshole not only knew about the payment — he actually reimbursed Cohen for it.
Giuliani told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that the rich asshole “knew the general arrangement” but not the “specifics,” a statement that flatly contradicts the rich asshole’s own denials about the matter.
But that wasn’t even the worst part. As he tried to make the case that the hush money was not a campaign finance violation, Giuliani admitted: “They funneled it through a law firm, and the president repaid it.”
Hannity’s reaction tells the story.
Instead of clearing the rich asshole of wrongdoing, Giuliani opened the floodgates, revealing that the rich asshole paid off a porn star to keep her from talking in the weeks leading up to the election — and then blatantly lied about it to the American people.
This comes just a week after the rich asshole went on Fox News and blurted out that Cohen had “represented” him in the case — an admission that blew up his previous statements denying that he was even aware of it.
Now, Giuliani has provided even more evidence that the rich asshole lied about the payoff. And since he did it while appearing on Fox News, the rich asshole was almost surely watching as his own lawyer gave up the goods.
WATCH: Rudy Giuliani tells Fox News’ Hannity that the rich asshole personally repaid Cohen for Stormy Daniels payment
Former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani grasping Fox News host Sean Hannity's hand. Image via screengrab.
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In an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity, former New York City mayor and current some rich asshole attorney Rudy Giuliani unveiled a new anti-Justice Department conspiracy theory, predicted the president is going to win the Nobel Peace Prize, defended Ivanka the rich asshole’s honor and offered a bombshell about the Stormy Daniels payout.
During the long-winded interview, Giuliani told Hannity that the rich asshole personally repaid his longtime attorney Michael Cohen for the $130,000 “hush agreement” payment to Stormy Daniels — and that therefore he couldn’t have violated campaign finance laws
Earlier in the interview, he also revealed seemingly new information about special counsel Robert Mueller.
“You have an investigation in which Mueller is selected the day after he’s turned down for FBI director by [Deputy Attorney General Rod] Rosenstein, who was there when he was turned down,” the former NYC mayor said. “There are thousands of people that could have been selected for that job. Also, a friend of [fired FBI director] James Comey.”
At one point, Giuliani interjected with a comment about his admiration for his employer.
“This is our best president in my memory,” he told Hannity. “Even my hero, Ronald Reagan — he straightened the economy out the way President the rich asshole did. But he didn’t get this far ahead on foreign policy as fast as President the rich asshole has.”
“Look at what is going on with North Korea,” he continued. “I told the president, you’re going to get the Nobel Peace Prize and my proudest moment is when you tell them to shove it.”
The former mayor apologized for his language, but Hannity assured him he’d said nothing inappropriate.
“This is cable,” he said. “You’re good here.”
Later still, the president’s attorney joked that he would defend the honor of Ivanka the rich asshole with a “lance” in response to a “political report” suggesting Mueller may investigate the president’s daughter.
Watch below, via Fox News:
Part 1:
the rich asshole Lawyer Won’t Allow Low-Energy Client To Be Questioned As Long As Hillary Clinton Was
Hillary Clinton faced 11 hours of questioning before the House Select Committee on Benghazi in 2015 and she didn’t break a sweat. And now, some rich asshole is to face questions from special counsel Robert Mueller who is investigating Russia’s interference in our 2016 presidential election. The former reality show star’s attorney, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who joined the rich asshole’s legal team last month, said that his low-energy client would only sit down with Mueller to answer questions for a two-to-three hour period.
“Some people have talked about a possible 12-hour interview. If it happens, that’s not going to happen, I’ll tell you that,” Giuliani said, according to Reuters. “It’d be, max, two to three hours around a narrow set of questions.”
the rich asshole’s legal team said they “would be inclined” to allow Mueller to interview the rich asshole. “We would be inclined to do it,” Giuliani said, according to Bloomberg. “But if we came to conclusion they have already made up their mind and Comey is telling the truth — that is a joke, Comey hasn’t told the truth in years — then we would just be leading him into the lion’s den.”
Sure, because the rich asshole always tells the truth. Except for those 3,000 times he lied. That’s an average of 6.5 lies per day, for the record.
Ty Cobb, the White House lawyer overseeing its response to Mueller’s investigation into Russia interference, is resigning, and he will possibly be replaced by Emmet T. Flood, the Washington lawyer who represented former President Bill Clinton during his impeachment battle.
Cobb, who has urged the rich asshole to have a more cooperative tone with Mueller, said he’s sure the special counsel didn’t leak his questions: “It’s very difficult to see who if anybody benefits from the leak of that other than people who have been trying to sabotage the possibility of an interview.”
Sounds like Cobb is sure someone on team the rich asshole leaked the questions.
the rich asshole biographer says president’s cruelty is causing ‘fear and anxiety’ across the country
Tony Schwartz co-wrote the 1987 book 'The Art of the Deal' with some rich asshole
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Tony Schwartz, the author who co-wrote the rich asshole: The Art of the Deal told MSNBC’s Chris Hayes on Wednesday how President some rich asshole is debasing the country.
“The issue today is that the rich asshole’s dirty approach is being rewarded and even mimicked,” Melber noted. “Schwartz argues this is actually testing our values as a nation as we reckon with a barrage of cruelty."
“When the rich asshole is pressed on these comments he will often default to claiming these are jokes. Many people don’t consider them funny and they point out each if it is a joke, he has power, and this is very cruel,” Hayes continued. “The deeper point you are reaching, which is when cruelty is rewarded, what do we as a society do about it?”
“Two of the values we hold most dear, I think, or the most universal are honesty and compassion. and those two are — neither is represented in the rich asshole,” Schwartz argued. “And I think that the problem is that he’s dragged the dialogue and the focus on those two core values to a level that drags all of us with him.”
“What he does though, if I may, is he bastardizes the concept of honesty and says that he is actually just being more honest than others by saying, quote, unquote, the cruel things that other people really feel,” Melber noted.
“Civilization doesn’t hold together any more easily or naturally than democracy does, so when you begin to debase the most core values that every contemplative of tradition has valued, we are in — we are at a point where we sit faced with chaos and certainly at a minimum with a sense of fear and anxiety about what is going to happen next,” Schwartz concluded.
Watch:
‘He was elected on fraud!’ CNN’s Keith Boykin details why the rich asshole’s doctor scandals prove he misled the American people
Keith Boykin on CNN -- screengrab
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Political Commentator Keith Boykin said that the rich asshole’s presidential foundation is weak.
In light of President the rich asshole’s doctor saying he lied about the rich asshole’s glowing health review– Boykin said people voted for the rich asshole off of an inaccurate description of his health
In an interview with CNN, Boykin said: “the rich asshole was elected on fraud. This was a fraud that was committed by the doctor and the rich asshole to mislead the American people.”
He went on to say that the rich asshole lied about his health to divert attention off of himself and onto Hillary Clinton.
“Everything the rich asshole was saying was misdirecting our attention, so we would focus on Hillary and not him,” Boykin said.
Watch his full interview below.
the rich asshole lashing out at Mueller’s ‘total bullsh*t’ investigation and wishes Roy Cohn was alive to save him: report
New York World-Telegram and the Sun staff photographer: Hiller, Herman, photographer. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
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President some rich asshole is longing for a lawyer like Roy Cohn, the notorious chief counsel for Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-WI) during the second Red Scare of the 1950s, The Washington Post reported Wednesday.
the rich asshole reportedly decried Mueller’s investigations as “total bullsh*t” in private conversations
President the rich asshole “has occasionally invoked his late attorney Roy Cohn, a hard-charging figure who taught him to punch back at enemies” The Times reported.
“It’s the theory of law — that if someone pushes on you, you push back three or four times harder,” an advisor said.
In August, Vanity Fair published an expose titled, “How some rich asshole and Roy Cohn’s Ruthless Symbiosis Changed America.”
“You knew when you were in Cohn’s presence you were in the presence of pure evil,” lawyer Victor A. Kovner, who knew Cohn for years, told Vanity Fair.
“Tell them to go to hell and fight the thing in court and let them prove you discriminated,” Cohn advised the rich asshole about a federal lawsuit on the night they first met in a Manhatttan nightspot.
Watch the 2016 CNN report on what the rich asshole learned from Cohn:
Stormy Daniels’ manager gave FBI documents related to 2016 hush money deal: report
Stormy Daniels tells her Shark Week story on 60 Minutes/Screenshot
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CNN’s National Correspondent Sara Sidner said that adult film star Stormy Daniels’ lawyer is cooperating with the FBI.
“We have learned through a source that Gina Rodriguez, who was the former manager of Stormy Daniels was around when the deal was broken,” Sidner said. “Not only the 2016 deal, but the 2011 deal with In Touch magazine where she told her story to In Touch magazine. She is cooperating with the FBI. She was subpoenaed and that she cooperated by handing over documents to the FBI."
Former Assistant US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Harry Sandick, said that this new information is extremely telling.
“It’s significant for a couple of reasons. First, it shows that the prosecutors and agents working in the southern district are not just going to wait for the search warrant documents to come in,” Sandick said. “They’re going to look for information from any source and if documents reside with Daniels’ former manager that’s where they’re going to go.”
Watch the full interview below.
CNN’s Erin Burnett corners informal the rich asshole legal adviser as she spews nonsense about Mueller’s focus on Russia collusion
CNN's Erin Burnett (left) and informal the rich asshole legal advisor Victoria Toensing (right). Image via screengrab.
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Immediately after a former the rich asshole campaign aide revealed the laser-sharp focus of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian collusion, a lawyer that was once announced as a member of some rich asshole’s Russia legal team dismissed that revelation — only to be slammed by CNN host Erin Burnett in response.
After blowing past former the rich asshole aide Michael Caputo’s bombshell debrief of his interview with Mueller, onetime Sean Hannity lawyer Victoria Toensing made a long-winded and non-verified claim about the FBI surveilling people who go to Russia “for any reason,” including someone who went “on [sic] a humanitarian reason."
"I tell you, I have a different look than what was just reported,” the attorney told Burnett, implying that Mueller’s investigation is off-base or even phony, as evidenced by her use of air quotes when speaking the words “Russia collusion.”
Burnett responded to Toensing by quoting Caputo’s interview in which he said Mueller and his team “know more about the rich asshole campaign than anyone who ever worked there” — but had to do so three times before the attorney would actually respond to the news.
“I don’t know that he knows what he’s talking about,” Toensing said. When Burnett asked her about it once more, she cryptically said “there’s a time to sew and there’s a time to harvest.”
Watch below, via CNN:
Washington Post reporter thanks the rich asshole for citing their ‘accurate reporting’ despite attacking the paper for ‘fake news’
some rich asshole during CNN debate (Photo: Screen capture via video)
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President some rich asshole cited a report from The Washington Post on Wednesday tweet lashing out at the investigations by special counsel Robert Mueller.
The quote came from White House attorney John Dowd, in a Washington Post story about Mueller considering a subpoena if President the rich asshole refuses to be interviewed by FBI investigators
One of the journalists who wrote the story thanked the commander-in-chief.
Thank you Mr. President for pointing out some accurate reporting from the @washingtonpost , me & @costareports twitter.com/realDonaldTrum…
President the rich asshole has repeatedly lashed out at The Washington Post.
During the month of April, the rich asshole slammed The Washington Post as “Fake & Disgusting News,” said the newspaper “is far more fiction than fact” and slammed “The Fake News Washington Post.”
POLITICS
Reminder: GOP Target Rod Rosenstein Is A Lifelong Republican the rich asshole Appointed
In 1984, a Republican celebrity president was under attack by the media elite, and the future deputy attorney general wasn’t going to stand for it.
WASHINGTON ― If Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein is a closet liberal bent on taking down a Republican president, he’s been playing a long game.
A few days before the presidential election of 1984, the future deputy attorney general was upset over an editorial in The Daily Pennsylvanian that expressed dismay that then-President Ronald Reagan was polling better at Penn than the nation’s other premier universities. Rosenstein, in a letter to the editor, called the piece “disgraceful” and wrote that it was “illogical and immoral” to suggest the poll results reflected poorly on the university.
“Perhaps if you took a step back from the Ivy Tower in which you and perhaps students at the more ‘elite’ schools appear to be, you would recognize and respect the appeal Reagan has to the average American,” Rosenstein wrote. “I am proud to know that the opinions of students at our University are most representative of the nation as a whole.”
Rosenstein ― the man President some rich asshole nominated to become the No. 2 official at the Justice Department ― is a Republican. He’s been honored by Harvard Law School’s Federalist Society. As a member of Kenneth Starr’s Whitewater team, he investigated the Clintons (and even sat in on an interview with Hillary Clinton). Former President George W. Bush tried to make him a federal appeals court judge.
But that’d be tough to know if you watched Fox News most nights, or scrolled through the president’s Twitter feed. A group of Republicans in the House of Representatives have even drafted articles of impeachment against Rosenstein. the rich asshole, who previously implied Rosenstein was a Democrat, tweeted Wednesday that he might “have no choice but to use the powers granted to the Presidency and get involved!” ― implying that he could fire Rosenstein and perhaps shut down the special counsel investigation he oversees that has already taken down a number of the rich asshole associates.
For those who have known Rosenstein well, the notion that the longtime Republican law enforcement official is a closet liberal bent on taking down the president is tough to digest.
“He’s not some sneaky Democrat,” says Megan Brown, a former official in the Justice Department during the George W. Bush administration who worked closely with Rosenstein. “We’re in sort of a silly season on this, but he’s not some sort of Democrat in Republican’s clothes with some agenda.”
He’s not some sneaky Democrat. We’re in sort of a silly season on this, but he’s not some sort of Democrat in Republican’s clothes with some agenda.Megan Brown, former Justice Department official
The president’s favorite cable news channel’s continuous attacks on Rosenstein ― including the suggestion that Rosenstein committed crimes and should be jailed ― have made things pretty awkward for DOJ’s second-in-command. Until this week, his public comments were pretty much limited to making jokes about how much he hates D.C. or how he thought being deputy attorney general would be a relatively low-profile gig.
That changed after a group of House Republicans drafted potential articles of impeachment against Rosenstein. At an event on Tuesday, he suggested it was cowardly for the lawmakers not to put their names on a document they leaked, and said it illustrated the differences between how politicians and the Justice Department operate.
“I can tell you that there are people who have been making threats privately and publicly against me for quite some time, and I think they should understand by now that the Department of Justice is not going to be extorted,” Rosenstein said. “We’re going to do what’s required by the rule of law, and any kind of threats that anybody makes are not going to affect the way we do our job. We have a responsibility. We take an oath.”
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein on @freedomcaucus members considering his impeachment: "They can't even resist leaking their own drafts." He also says, "The Department of Justice is not going to be extorted.”
Question from @lauraajarrett.
Rosenstein said that disputes with Congress over Justice Department documents ― the ostensible reason some Republicans are targeting Rosenstein ― needed to be worked out on a “case-by-case” basis. Republicans have requested sensitive documents, and DOJ said it would not provide one that laid out the scope of Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation.
“Everybody always thinks that the current moment is an unprecedented moment, but it really isn’t. These incidents do flare up from time to time, and ultimately, they’re resolved,” Rosenstein said.
“If we were to just open our doors to allow Congress to come and rummage through the files, that would be a serious infringement on the separation of powers,” he added.
Although Rosenstein’s also come under direct criticism from the rich asshole, he has had nothing but positive things to say about the rich asshole administration’s agenda. On Tuesday, he said that the rich asshole had appointed a leadership team at the Department of Justice that “respects the rule of law” and praised him for signing a staff-written Law Day proclamation that noted the importance of the separation of powers and the rule of law.
By Wednesday morning, the rich asshole was promoting a book by Fox News commentator Gregg Jarrett, who has called the FBI “America’s secret police” and the special counsel “illegitimate and corrupt.”
the rich asshole praised Jarrett ― who has also made repeated assertions that Rosenstein violated the law and threatened members of Congress ― as “brilliant.” The president also declared Jarrett’s forthcoming book, titled The Russia Hoax - The Illicit Scheme to Clear Hillary Clinton and Frame some rich asshole, a “MUST READ.”
‘The question is Russian collusion’: the rich asshole aide interviewed by Mueller warns he ‘knows more about the campaign than anyone’
Former the rich asshole campaign aide Michael Caputo. Image via screengrab.
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A former communications adviser to the rich asshole campaign met with special counsel Robert Mueller on Wednesday — and told CNN the investigation into Russian collusion is going full force.
Mueller’s investigators “know more about the rich asshole campaign than anyone who ever worked there,” former the rich asshole aide Michael Caputo told CNN over the phone after his interview with the special counsel’s team
CNN’s Manu Raju noted that Caputo also derided the Senate and House investigations into Russia and said they were “net fishing” in comparison to the special counsel’s more accurate “spearfishing” tactics.
“[Mueller’s team] know what they are aiming at and are deadly accurate,” the former the rich asshole aide said.
Michael Caputo, just interviewed by Bob Mueller’s team, told me: “It’s clear they are still really focused on Russia collusion. ... They know more about the Trump campaign than anyone who ever worked there.” He didn’t want to discuss specifics
GOP senator’s defense of Tester counters the rich asshole attacks
BY JORDAIN CARNEY - 05/02/18 06:35 PM EDT
Democratic Sen. Jon Tester (Mont.) is getting an unusual ally as he takes fire from President the rich asshole months before a midterm election: A Republican senator.
Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) is breaking with the rich asshole and his scathing criticism of Tester, who the president has blamed for sinking Ronny Jackson’s nomination to be secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Isakson offered his latest defense of Tester — who faces reelection this fall in a state the rich asshole won in 2016 — at an event in Georgia. He noted that reporting this week appeared to verify some of the allegations against Jackson.
Isakson, the chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, pointed to a CNN story that detailed concerns Vice President Pence’s physician had about Jackson, saying it made the rich asshole’s assertion that the allegations against Jackson were off base a “false statement.”
“Part of the allegations made in one of the affidavits was verified by [CNN],” he said. “I did my job and every senator has the responsibility if they’re presented with accusations to try and seek the truth. And that exonerates everybody who seeks the truth.”
CNN reported that Pence’s physician privately raised his concerns with the White House about Jackson last year. The vice president’s doctor questioned whether Jackson had violated privacy protections for Pence’s wife.
Isakson’s comments comes as the rich asshole and his allies have unleashed a rhetorical firestorm against Tester, warning that his decision to go public with the accusations against Jackson make him newly vulnerable going into his November election.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) went up with a statewide digital ad on Wednesday, highlighting the rich asshole’s frustration with Tester and accusing the Democratic senator of leading a “reckless crusade” to block the president’s nominee.
“These disgraceful tactics are low even by Washington’s standards, and have made clear that Senator Tester has fully embraced life in the swamp. It's time for him to go,” said Calvin Moore, a spokesman for the GOP Senate campaign arm.
America First Action, a pro-the rich asshole super PAC, also went after Tester in an ad saying he helped “spread false information” about Jackson, who subsequently withdrew his nomination.
During a rally in Michigan over the weekend, the rich asshole called Tester’s actions a “disgrace” and suggested that he knew information that could ruin Tester’s political career.
“Tester started throwing out things that he’s heard. Well I know things about Tester that I could say too,” the rich asshole said. “And if I said them, he’d never be elected again.”
National Republicans are trying to seize on Tester’s decision to speak publicly about the Jackson allegations, arguing it underscores that he’s out of touch with the red state where the rich asshole won by more than 20 points.
Though Tester is one of several red-and-purple-state Democrats up for reelection, he’s largely been able to fly under the radar amid other high-profile Senate battles.
He’s been helped by a bitter, four-way fight in the GOP primary between Montana Auditor Matt Rosendale, businessman Troy Downing, former Judge Russell Fagg and state Sen. Al Olszewski.
Marc Short, the White House director of legislative affairs, warned that the rich asshole could take the fight to Tester’s home turf, telling a Montana radio station that staff was trying to find time for him to make a trip.
But any doubling down by the White House could be undercut on Capitol Hill, where senators and staffers note that Isakson and Tester have worked to keep the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee bipartisan.
GOP Sen. Jerry Moran (Kansas) told reporters that while he wished Jackson had gotten a hearing, he had “no complaints” about Tester’s actions.
“My impression is that Chairman Isakson and Senator Tester were having regular and constant communications. ... I’m not second-guessing Senator Tester. He apparently believed they were accurate, truthful and needed to be said,” he told reporters late last week.
The Daily Beast reported on Tuesday that the White House is frustrated with Isakson, accusing the senior GOP lawmaker of not doing enough to warn them about the accusations against Jackson.
But a spokesperson for Isakson pushed back saying that Isakon’s “first call” after learning about the accusations on April 20 — days before they appeared in the press — was to White House chief of staff John Kelly.
“Senator Isakson informed General Kelly of the new information brought to the committee and asked for guidance from the White House. He was told that day to proceed with the nomination,” the spokesperson said.
Isakson’s staff was also made aware of the accusations, sat in on the interviews of some of the witnesses and was kept in the loop throughout the process. Tester and Isakson, underscoring their coordination, sent a joint letter to the White House asking for more information on Jackson.
Isakson, who has defended the committee’s handling of Jackson’s nomination, said on Monday that he is “not in the critiquing business” and “every senator has the right to exercise their options.”
Tester raised eyebrows after he did a round of interviews giving the first detailed public accounts of the allegations against Jackson, which included improper dispensing of prescription drugs and creating a toxic work environment. Jackson has denied the charges.
The spokesperson for Isakson added they received a “heads up” from Tester’s office before he gave the interview and were broadly aware that he was going to discuss the allegations. They also received a copy of the memo before Tester’s office released it publicly.
A Senate Democratic campaign aide pointed to Isakson’s comments as a sign that the White House’s strategy to try to politicize the fight over Jackson’s failed nomination is “backfiring.”
“The fact that the Republican chairman on the committee is endorsing Senator Tester’s approach speaks for itself,” the aide said. “And [it] is just further confirmation of Senator Tester's long and well-documented record of fighting for veterans.”
Nathaniel Weixel contributed to this story.
‘It’s crunch time’: Ex-CIA director says the rich asshole ‘can change lawyers every day’ — but can’t avoid sitting down with Mueller
Robert Mueller, some rich asshole -- screenshots
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Amid news that Donald the rich asshole has once again traded an old lawyer for a new one, former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said that no matter what, he’s headed for an interview with special counsel Robert Mueller.
“It clearly is crunch time with regards to the Mueller investigation,” the onetime White House chief of staff told CNN’s Wolf Blitzter on Wednesday. “I think they’ve reached a point where, very frankly, they’re not going to be able to conclude this investigation without the testimony of the president of the United States."
Amid a week full of Russia investigation bombshells that includes the revelation of Mueller’s the rich asshole interview question wish list and news the special counsel at least once threatened to subpoena the president, Panetta said the revolving door of lawyers won’t stop the face-to-face meeting that’s sure to come.
“If the president wants this investigation to come to an end, it’s only going to come to an end when the president testifies to the special prosecutor,” he said. “That’s the reality, and he can change lawyer every other day, but that reality remains the same.”
Watch below, via CNN:
the rich asshole’s trade agenda comes to a head in May
BY VICKI NEEDHAM AND NIV ELIS - 05/02/18 05:40 PM EDT
President the rich asshole’s trade agenda is at a crossroads, with the White House facing a series of key decisions this month that could determine whether he can successfully map out a new course on one of his signature issues.
On at least three different fronts, the rich asshole is likely to have big decisions to make in May.
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer is scheduled to meet his counterparts in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on Monday, with the administration hoping to complete talks on a revised NAFTA this month.
High-level talks will take place in China on Thursday and Friday between Washington and Beijing.
The talks, where the U.S. delegation includes Lighthizer, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow, are centered on the escalating fight over intellectual property disputes and tit-for-tat tariffs between the world’s largest two economies.
A fight also is brewing with Europe and other U.S. allies over the rich asshole's proposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.
The administration extended an exemption for the European Union and several other allies on Monday with a final decision set for June 1.
All of the talks come amid growing angst over whether the various trade fights will slow the U.S. and broader global economy.
In Congress, the rich asshole's actions have unnerved GOP lawmakers in an election year — particularly in farm states that might find themselves a target of retaliation.
It's possible that by the end of May, the rich asshole will have imposed steep tariffs on longstanding allies, withdrawn from NAFTA and escalated a trade war with China.
There are more favorable possibilities, too.
By the end of May, the rich asshole’s trade team may have a negotiated a new NAFTA, worked out deals on the steel and aluminum tariffs and launched a new era of U.S.-China trade.
Some trade observers say the rich asshole administration is more likely to punt on trade and delay making any key decisions this month.
“It’s hard to know because the rich asshole is so unpredictable, but I would expect that we would, at the end of the day, see big threats and very small results,” said Rob Scott, director of trade and manufacturing research at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.
He said the rich asshole administration has “a tendency to kick things down the road.”
“I think they’re just going to keep kicking the can down the road, settle for some small victories, issue a press release and move on,” Scott said.
the rich asshole has defended his saber-rattling, arguing that trade wars are good and “easy to win.”
Some trade watchers express skepticism that the rich asshole’s team will more clearly lay out its trade agenda and intended goals.
“What we haven’t seen so far is real strategic thinking from this administration,” said Derek Scissors, a trade expert at the American Enterprise Institute. “Are they primarily strategic thinkers, or are they just protectionists? In that sense, this is a very important month.”
The most pressing topic is NAFTA, which faces a narrow window to reach an agreement if Congress is to consider it this year.
Lighthizer is scheduled to meet with Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland and Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo on Monday.
“If we can get a good agreement, I’d like to get it done a week or two after that. If not, then you start having a problem,” Lighthizer told the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday.
May is pivotal because the administration must adhere to the timeline set out by Congress under trade promotion authority, which has specific schedules for the House and Senate to consider trade agreements.
The trade rules require the rich asshole and his trade team to clear several procedural hurdles, which includes the U.S. International Trade Commission getting up to 105 days to produce a report on the economic effects of a final deal.
Once the agreement reaches Congress it could take months to go through committees and attract enough votes to win approval.
the rich asshole has threatened to cancel NAFTA altogether if a deal that benefits the United States can’t be reached.
“If you don’t finish NAFTA this month for whatever reason, you’re probably not going to be able to do anything with NAFTA for the rest of the president’s term, and really beyond,” Scissors said.
In this week’s talks in China, the administration has yet to say what they will ask of Beijing’s leaders.
“We haven’t seen what they want and China is a little concerned they don’t know,” said Chad Bown, a trade expert with Peterson Institute of International Economics.
Most of the issues, especially around intellectual property, will require a long-term commitment for any change to occur because China’s practices such as forcing companies to hand over technology can’t simply be stopped overnight, Bown said.
the rich asshole wants to force China into reduce the $375 billion trade deficit between the two nations by $100 billion.
If the two sides follow through on their threats, consumers and businesses could be hurt by rising prices.
the rich asshole has threatened to impose tariffs on $150 billion worth of Chinese imports and China is poised to retaliate.
In the fight over steel and aluminum imports, the rich asshole has leverage since his trading partners are negotiating under the threat of U.S. tariffs.
the rich asshole also has tremendous discretion to add or subtract countries and products to the penalties imposed by the United States under the statute he is using to justify the tariffs.
European allies including French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel lobbied the rich asshole to ditch the tariffs during their visits to Washington last week.
The EU has threatened its own set of retaliatory measures and has made clear it won’t negotiate under the threat of tariffs.
Separately Lighthizer had tied the steel and aluminum tariff negotiations to the NAFTA talks, saying they “will go hand-in-hand.”
Canada and Mexico have rejected linking the completion of the trade deal with the tariffs, arguing they should be exempt from tariffs and quotas outside of any NAFTA deal.
Bryan Riley, the free trade director at the National Taxpayers Union, said that it’s impossible to tell how the various talks will play out, a dynamic that lends uncertainty to markets.
“If you’re a U.S. farmer and you decide what kind of crops you’re going to be planting, or a U.S. manufacturer deciding where you’re going to get the metal for your goods, you can’t sit around and wait,” Riley said.
“The instability being injected into the U.S. economy is self-destructive,” he said.
the rich asshole has all but decided to withdraw from Iran nuclear deal: sources
President of the United States some rich asshole speaking at the 2018 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland. (Gage Skidmore/Flickr)
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U.S. President some rich asshole has all but decided to withdraw from the 2015 Iran nuclear accord by May 12 but exactly how he will do so remains unclear, two White House officials and a source familiar with the administration’s internal debate said on Wednesday.
There is a chance the rich asshole might choose to keep the United States in the international pact under which Iran agreed to curb its nuclear program in return for sanctions relief, in part because of “alliance maintenance” with France and to save face for French President Emmanuel Macron, who met the rich asshole last week and urged him to stay in, the source said
A decision by the rich asshole to end U.S. sanctions relief would all but sink the agreement and could trigger a backlash by Iran, which could resume its nuclear arms program or “punish” U.S. allies in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon, diplomats said.
Technically, the rich asshole must decide by May 12 whether to renew “waivers” suspending some of the U.S. sanctions on Iran. One of the White House officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said it was possible the rich asshole will end up with a decision that “is not a full pullout” but was unable to describe what that might look like.
A presentation by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday about what he said was documentary evidence of Tehran’s past nuclear arms program could give the rich asshole a fresh argument to withdraw, even though U.N. inspectors say Iran has complied with the terms of the deal.
Iran has denied ever seeking nuclear weapons and accuses its arch-foe Israel of stirring up world suspicions against it.
The pact between Iran and six major powers – Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States – was among former U.S. President Barack Obama’s signature foreign policies but has been described by the rich asshole as “one of the worst deals I have ever witnessed.”
The White House official said the rich asshole was “most of the way there toward pulling out of the deal but he hasn’t made the decision” and that he “seems poised to do it but until a decision is made by this president it is not final.”
The White House official said the rich asshole was “most of the way there toward pulling out of the deal but he hasn’t made the decision” and that he “seems poised to do it but until a decision is made by this president it is not final.”
Top aides are not seeking aggressively to talk the rich asshole out of withdrawal because he seems intent on it, a second White House official said.
EUROPEANS LOSING HOPE
the rich asshole gave Britain, France and Germany a May 12 deadline to fix what he views as the deal’s flaws – its failure to address Iran’s ballistic missile program, the terms by which inspectors visit suspect Iranian sites, and “sunset” clauses under which some of its terms expire – or he will reimpose U.S. sanctions.
the rich asshole gave Britain, France and Germany a May 12 deadline to fix what he views as the deal’s flaws – its failure to address Iran’s ballistic missile program, the terms by which inspectors visit suspect Iranian sites, and “sunset” clauses under which some of its terms expire – or he will reimpose U.S. sanctions.
While European officials continue to work toward such a “fix,” they believe the odds are against reaching one.
One of the main sticking points has to do with the “sunsets,” where the United States in effect wishes to find a way to extend some of the limits on Iran’s nuclear program beyond their expiration dates under the agreement.
The source familiar with the debate said U.S. negotiators are hamstrung by the fact that they do not really know where the rich asshole’s “red line” is and so they cannot tell the Europeans what would secure the rich asshole’s blessing.
the rich asshole could refuse to renew the waivers but give new U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo time to negotiate more with the Europeans, exploiting the deal’s dispute resolution mechanism or the time before the most draconian sanctions take effect.
Several sources familiar with the negotiations said that if the rich asshole pulls out, a question for the Europeans will be whether this would be the start of a much harder U.S. line toward Iran, including military confrontation.
“The Europeans are not keen to be dragged into a regional conflict by the U.S.,” said one source familiar with the talks.
Two U.S. intelligence officials said they were particularly concerned about Iranian retaliation in harder-to-trace actions such as cyber attacks on the United States or its allies and attacks on soft targets by people without obvious ties to Tehran.
Two U.S. intelligence officials said they were particularly concerned about Iranian retaliation in harder-to-trace actions such as cyber attacks on the United States or its allies and attacks on soft targets by people without obvious ties to Tehran.
Such attacks are considered more likely than actions that might trigger a U.S. military response against Iranian nuclear and military targets.
Reporting by Steve Holland and Arshad Mohammed; additional reporting by John Walcott, Jonathan Landay and Lesley Wroughton; editing by Yara Bayoumy and Grant McCool
18 Republicans ‘nominated’ the rich asshole for the Nobel Peace Prize — there’s just one major problem with their submission
some rich asshole (NBC/Screenshot)
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President the rich asshole was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. Republican Congressman Luke Messer and 17 of his colleagues submitted the rich asshole for the esteemed award on Wednesday.
JUST IN: @RepLukeMesser released his and several other members of Congress's nomination of President @realDonaldTrump to the #Nobel committee for the Nobel Peace Prize. fxn.ws/2JNjGT7
There was just one slight problem. Twitter quickly called out that the deadline for a submission is long gone.
Today, 17 of my House colleagues joined me in nominating @realDonaldTrump for the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize. pic.twitter.com/TJpJKW9JGH
Just FYI, nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize closed in February. pic.twitter.com/zbaepEhVpj
According to the Noble Peace Prize website, the deadline to nominate individuals for the award was February 1st.
Maybe the rich asshole and his supporters can try again next year.
Exclusive: Giuliani says decision on the rich asshole-Mueller interview 'several weeks away'
BY NIALL STANAGE - 05/02/18 04:15 PM EDT
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani told The Hill on Wednesday that President the rich asshole’s legal team was still “several weeks away” from determining whether the president would consent to an interview with special counsel Robert Mueller.
Giuliani, who joined the president’s legal team roughly two weeks ago, said the decision would be determined in large part by how “objective” he and his colleagues perceive Mueller to be.
“The more objective [Mueller] is, the more likely we would be willing to cooperate. The less objective, then we would be foolish to do that,” he said.
Since joining the president’s team, Giuliani has suggested that the rich asshole would be more likely to sit for an interview if he were persuaded that Mueller and his team had not already concluded that former FBI Director James Comey is telling the truth about his interactions with the rich asshole, which are detailed in contemporaneous memos he wrote.
Comey’s version of events is deeply critical of the president, who fired him. the rich asshole, in turn, says Comey is lying.
Skeptics argue that the president’s lawyers are seeking simply to lay a predicate for refusing an interview.
Giuliani and others in and around the president’s legal team insist they are negotiating in good faith, however.
The former New York City mayor spoke to The Hill only hours after it emerged that Ty Cobb would leave his role as the primary White House counsel on the Russia investigation.
Cobb is seen as having favored a more conciliatory approach toward Mueller, believing that this represented the best strategy for bringing the probe to an expeditious conclusion.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders confirmed that Cobb would leave at the end of the month, to be replaced by Emmet Flood. Flood represented President Clinton during his impeachment proceedings.
Cobb had been marginalized of late, with his view perceived to have fallen out of favor.
The president responded with fiery tweets to raids on premises belonging to his longtime attorney Michael Cohen, becoming even more antagonistic to Mueller. the rich asshole allies including erstwhile chief strategist Stephen Bannon were publicly critical of Cobb’s approach. And a number of personnel moves also showed the tide moving against Cobb.
Veteran lawyer John Dowd, who had been leading the president’s outside legal team, departed in March.
In addition to Giuliani’s hiring, the president moved at one point to hire Joe diGenova and Victoria Toensing, a pugnacious husband-and-wife team. Although conflicts stymied that move, it was seen as representative of a shift toward a more confrontational stance.
At the same time as Giuliani was recruited, another husband-and-wife team, Martin Raskin and Jane Serene Raskin, was also brought on board.
Despite the reported tensions, Giuliani paid tribute to Cobb. The existing team of lawyers “have all worked with him longer than me … they feel that he has done a superb job,” he told The Hill.
Giuliani did not endorse the idea that Cobb’s departure and the arrival of Flood and himself marked a shift in strategy. He insisted it was instead a matter of “putting fresh eyes on this to see what can be done to work it out.”
A Washington Post report on Tuesday evening revealed that Mueller had threatened back in March to subpoena the rich asshole if the president did not agree to a voluntary interview. The specter of a subpoena was one that Cobb, in particular, was seen as very eager to avoid.
In a brief phone interview, diGenova — who is understood to provide informal advice to the president though he has no official role in Russia-related matters — insisted that Cobb had “been wanting to leave for a considerable period of time.”
Regarding a possible Mueller-the rich asshole interview, diGenova added, “It all boils down to what Rudy and Mueller are talking about. They are the only ones who know.”
“We certainly know what the president thinks,” diGenova added wryly.
Three times since Monday, the rich asshole has used the phrase “witch hunt” on Twitter to describe the investigation.
MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace rips the rich asshole: He ‘goes through lawyers faster than he goes through wives’
MSNBC's 'Deadline: White House' anchor Nicolle Wallace.
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MSNBC anchor Nicolle Wallace slammed President some rich asshole’s inability to maintain legal representation following reports that White House attorney Ty Cobb is retiring
“No one wants to stay on the job and he doesn’t want them to stay on the job,” Washington Post opinion writer and MSNBC contributor Jonathan Capehart replied. “There is chaos in the White House and there’s always been chaos in the White House.”
In the end, Capehart predicted the rich asshole was “just going to be like a Real Housewife and like up-end the table — just for the shock of it.”
“The addiction is to the upheaval,” Wallace concluded.
Watch:
Sessions sends judges, attorneys to border to deal with ‘caravan’
BY RAFAEL BERNAL - 05/02/18 03:52 PM EDT
Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced Wednesday he will send 35 additional U.S. state attorneys and 18 immigration judges to the southern border, as immigrants from the so-called “caravan” seek asylum in the United States.
Sessions said the additional judges will represent “about a 50 percent increase” in the local capacity to handle immigration claims.
“We are not going to let this country be overwhelmed,” said Sessions. “People are not going to caravan or otherwise stampede our border. People should wait their turn.”
The caravan began in southern Mexico in early April with more than 1,100 Central American migrants banding together for safety and to make a political statement.
About 150 migrants, most of whom are seeking legal asylum in the United States, made it to the U.S.-Mexico border.
The migrants are currently camped on the Mexican side of the San Ysidro port of entry, between San Diego and Tijuana. U.S. authorities processed the claims of eight migrants Tuesday.
The Department of Justice filed charges against 11 other migrants, allegedly members of the caravan, for entering the country outside designated ports of entry.
“If you don't want to have to go through this process, don't come unlawfully,” said Sessions. “It's not my fault, it's not the Border Patrol’s fault when people enter unlawfully.”
Fox News’ Shep Smith nails Giuliani for demanding Mueller follow his the rich asshole interview terms: ‘That’s not how this works!’
Fox News host Shep Smith (screen grab)
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Federal and white collar criminal defense attorney, Caroline Polisi, sat down with Fox New’s Shep Smith about the Mueller investigation on Wednesday.
Rudy Giuliani, who now sits on President some rich asshole’s legal team, has put up several boundaries in the rich asshole’s potential interview with the special counsel
Giuliani said that he would put time restrictions around the interview. Smith said that Giuliani must think he is in charge now.
“It sounds like Rudy Giuliani is in charge now, like he is going to set the rules of the special counsel.”
“Yeah, that’s not how this works,” Polisi said.
Watch her full interview below.
the rich asshole’s shady data firm may be about to pull its biggest stunt yet
By
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Cambridge Analytica says it's closing its doors — but that's only half of the sordid tale.
Cambridge Analytica, the shady data firm hired by the rich asshole campaign, legal fees and a dwindling number of clients willing to associate themselves with the scandal-plagued company.
However, as is often the case with Cambridge Analytica — a firm that specializes in disinformation and psychological warfare — there appears to be more going on here than meets the eye.
The company, as we know it today, may be closing down. But that doesn’t mean it’s going anywhere. In fact, the rebranding of Cambridge Analytica looks to be well underway already.
In August, the shady crew behind Cambridge Analytica and its parent company SCL Group set up a new company called Emerdata. While the company remains shrouded in secrecy, corporate filings from the U.K. describe the nature of its business as “data processing, hosting, and related activities.”
In an interview with British television station Channel 4, an official from Cambridge Analytica’s parent company said Emerdata was established to acquire all of SCL and Cambridge Analytica, so they could be combined into one entity. British government filings show that Emerdata also shares an address with Cambridge Analytica’s parent company in London’s Canary Wharf neighborhood.
But an address isn’t the only thing Emerdata shares with Cambridge Analytica.
Ousted Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix was listed as a director of Emerdata in February, but was terminated on March 28, just a week after Cambridge Analytica cut ties with him. The same day, Cambridge Analytica’s former chief data officer Alexander Tayler replaced Nix as Emerdata’s new director.
Meanwhile, SCL chairman Julian Wheatland, who was reportedly tapped to replace Nix as Cambridge Analytica’s CEO before it announced its closure, is listed as Emerdata’s CEO.
And it doesn’t end there.
On March 16, Rebekah and Jennifer Mercer — daughters of Robert Mercer, the Republican megadonor who bankrolled Cambridge Analytica — were appointed to serve as directors of Emerdata. On Emerdata’s corporate filings, Rebekah listed her correspondence address as 597 Fifth Avenue in New York City. That also happens to be the same address as Cambridge Analytica’s New York office.
Also listed as a director of Emerdata is Johnson Chun Shun Ko, who was appointed in April 2014 as deputy chairman of the board at Frontier Services Group — a Chinese security firm chaired by Erik Prince. Besides being the founder of notorious private military contractor Blackwater (and the brother-in-law of Betsy Devos), Prince is also a prominent the rich asshole supporter with ties to the super PAC that paid for Cambridge Analytica’s work on behalf of the rich asshole campaign.
In September 2016, Prince was the second-largest donor to Make America Number 1 — a super PAC founded by the Mercer family and run by former the rich asshole campaign CEO and White House chief strategist Steve Bannon along with Kellyanne Conway.
The super PAC paid Cambridge Analytica more than $1.5 million in 2015 and 2016, and reportedly funded the “Defeat Crooked Hillary” attacks ads created by Cambridge Analytica.
Taken together, these filings show that the major players behind Cambridge Analytica and its parent company have already established a new company under the name Emerdata, which is staffed and run by Cambridge Analytica executives — along with multiple members of the Mercer family.
Emerdata shares an address with Cambridge Analytica’s London office, and the correspondence address listed for director Rebekah Mercer just happens to be the same address as Cambridge Analytica’s New York office.
This doesn’t give the appearance of a company that is closing its doors — it gives the appearance of a company that is trying to shed its toxic brand and reinvent itself.
On Wednesday, former employees of Cambridge Analytica confirmed that it’s likely the data firm will try to rebrand itself and come back under a different name — one that is not associated with an international scandal but that still engages in the same scandalous (and potentially illegal) tactics.
“Cambridge Analytica as a brand is absolutely toxic,” one former employee told Financial Timesafter the news broke Wednesday. “Although, guaranteed, that company SCL will emerge in some other incarnation or guise.”
Meanwhile, as the rich asshole and his inner circle try to distance themselves from the shady data firm they once celebrated, the rich asshole’s top donors appear to be working to help Cambridge Analytica make a comeback.
By all appearances, Cambridge Analytica — a company known for its dirty tricks — may now be well on its way to pulling its biggest stunt yet. But this time, it will be doing so under the watchful eye of special counsel Robert Mueller.
Russia-connected the rich asshole campaign adviser Michael Caputo rages after being forced to sell house to pay legal fees
Michael Caputo a former Russian PR agent who later advised the rich asshole/SCreenshot
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the rich asshole campaign adviser Michael Caputo lived in Russia for two decades and worked for Putin before helping the rich asshole get elected.
That, naturally, has put him on the radar of Senate intelligence investigators who are looking into Russian interference in the 2016 election
But while the Roger Stone protégé says he did nothing wrong, Caputo has lawyered up to the cost of $120,000.
Today, he raged against the panel and claimed that his involvement has destroyed his finances
“Today, I can’t possibly pay the attendant legal costs and live near my aging father, raising my kids where I grew up,” Caputo said. “Your investigation and others into the allegations of the rich asshole campaign collusion with Russia are costing my family a great deal of money—more than $125,000—and making a visceral impact on my children.”
Caputo worked in public relations in Russia in the late 90s and early 00s and one of his projects was reportedly to raise and improve Vladimir Putin’s public profile. Having helped install the despot, and having already been busted for not paying his taxes, Caputo been a target of the probe.
He’s also given public comment, pushing back aggressively and suggesting that the Russian investigation is “politics as usual” and that the investigators should be investigated.
Pro-the rich asshole Senate candidate defends his racist slur with more racism
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Convicted criminal and GOP Senate candidate Don Blankenship insisted that his blatantly racist slur against Asians was definitely not racist.
Don Blankenship, the convicted criminal and Republican Senate candidate in West Virginia, used a repugnant slur to describe Senate Leader Mitch McConnell’s father-in-law.
During a recent radio interview, Blakenship called shipping magnate James Chao, father of Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, a “wealthy Chinaperson.” And he made it quite clear during a Fox News primary debate on Tuesday that he doesn’t think his remark was racist at all.
“This idea that calling someone a ‘Chinaperson’ — I mean, I’m an American-person — I don’t see this insinuation by the press that there is something racist about saying a ‘Chinaperson.’ Some people are Korean-persons, some people are African-persons — it’s not any slander there,” he said.
Blankenship is indeed invoking a 19th-century racial epithet for Chinese people. The term “Chinaman” has a long and ugly history in stereotypical depictions of Chinese people as liars and thieves. Blankenship making his slur gender neutral does not make it any less inflammatory.
For weeks, Blankenship has been locked in a feud with McConnell, who has made clear he wants someone else to win the primary. Blakenship called McConnell a “swamp captain” and compared his party leadership to Russian election interference.
He has also continued to go after McConnell’s connections to the Chao family. His “Cocaine Mitch” comment in a recent Facebook attack ad was a reference to allegations in 2014 that cocaine was found on a Chao-operated vessel.
And Blankenship’s unrepentant escalation into racial slurs against McConnell’s family, while shocking, is not out of the blue.
At one recent debate, Blankenship boasted that he is “Trumpier than the rich asshole.” And the rich asshole has perpetuated the use of epithets in the political discourse — from nicknaming a U.S. senator “Pocahontas” to calling African and Caribbean nations “shithole countries.”
Thus it’s not surprising that a candidate who plays up his the rich asshole credentials would hurl racial insults with the same casual ease. And Blakenship cannot make this controversy disappear by simply insisting that it doesn’t exist.
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