Stormy’s Lawyer Just Revealed That Russians Reimbursed Michael Cohen For Hush Money Payment
On Tuesday, Stormy Daniels’s attorney Michael Avenatti took to Twitter to reveal that some rich asshole’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen received $500,000 in the months after the 2016 presidential election from a company run by a Russian oligarch with ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. According to Avenatti, the money may have been used to reimburse the $130,000 payment Cohen made to Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, to stay quiet about her alleged affair with the rich asshole.
The Executive Summary from our first Preliminary Report on Findings may be accessed via the link below. Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen have a lot of explaining to do.dropbox.com/s/pskgpwr15r48…
Avenatti left a link to a report which states that the bank account Cohen used to make the payment to Stormy Daniels was made in the name of the company Cohen created to transfer the money to the adult film actress: Essential Consultants, LLC.
According to Avenatti, Cohen’s account received around $500,000 in payments from Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg and that happened between January to August 2017. That’s after the rich asshole was sworn in, by the way.
“Mr. Cohen inexplicably accepted these payments while he was the personal attorney to the President and holding himself out at times as employed by the rich asshole Organization (with few other clients),” the report states.
“This was occurring at the same time significant questions were being raised relating to (a) the involvement of Russia and Vladimir Putin in the 2016 Presidential Election and (b) the extent of the relationship between Mr. Putin and some rich asshole.”
The Russian oligarch, Viktor Vekselberg, was recently questioned by special counsel Robert Mueller. Why is the personal attorney for the ‘president’ of the U.S. taking vast sums of money from a Russian oligarch? This looks really bad.
Update:
Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigators have questioned the Russian oligarch about the $500,000 in payments his company’s US affiliate made to Michael Cohen. Also, CNN reports that investigators also asked Vekselberg about donations the head of his US affiliate made to some rich asshole’s inaugural fund and campaign funds.
Why AT&T’s $200,000 payment to Michael Cohen is a bombshell
$200,000 to a fake company.
On Tuesday, AT&T acknowledged that it paid $200,000 to Essential Consultants, a shell company set up by some rich asshole longtime attorney, Michael Cohen.
The payments were first revealed in a document released by Michael Avenatti, the attorney for Stormy Daniels. In the weeks leading up to the 2016 election, Essential Consultants was also used to pay $130,000 in hush money to Daniels, who claims to have had an affair with the rich asshole in 2006.
Shortly after Avenatti released his document, AT&T confirmed the payments.
Essential Consulting was one of several firms we engaged in early 2017 to provide insights into understanding the new administration. They did no legal or lobbying work for us, and the contract ended in December 2017
In addition, Avenatti’s document revealed that Essential Consultants received payments from Columbus Nova — a company linked to a Russian oligarch named Viktor Vekselberg — as well as Novartis, a large pharmaceutical company based in Switzerland.
But AT&T’s payment is a stunning development that is likely to create a thicket of legal problems for Cohen and the rich asshole himself.
Essential Consultants is not a real company
AT&T tries to justify the payments as a legitimate consulting expense, saying that the firm provided “insights.” But Essential Consultants is not a real company. It was set up on October 17, 2016. According to financial records, the company exists as a “real estate consulting company that collects fees for investment consulting work.”
But Cohen immediately used it to make the hush money payment to Stormy Daniels. The funding for that payment, Cohen had claimed, came from a mortgage on his house.
The shell company has no website, no known employees, and no public facing presence of any kind. It raises the question of how AT&T could have even possibly known about Essential Consultants.
Essential Consultants was used for the benefit of some rich asshole
We know that the impetus for the creation of Essential Consultants was the Stormy Daniels payment. That means a publicly traded company paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to a shell corporation that is known to make expenditures on behalf of some rich asshole. Rudy Giuliani, who is now one of the rich asshole’s attorneys, allowed for the possibility that Cohen paid off other women on the rich asshole’s behalf.
AT&T made the payment while it was seeking approval for a merger
The $200,000 payment to Cohen was made while AT&T was seeking approval from the rich asshole’s Justice Department to merge with Time-Warner. AT&T claims that Cohen did no lobbying or legal work for the company. But it provides little information about what services Cohen did provide for his large fee. It leaves the impression of a clandestine effort to influence the thinking of administration on the merger, which the rich asshole administration ended up opposing.
AT&T also had an interest in repealing net neutrality regulations, which the rich asshole administration did around the time their contract with Essential Consulting concluded.
The payment raises questions about how Cohen was reimbursed by the rich asshole
Last week, Rudy Giuliani revealed for the first time that the rich asshole had repaid Cohen for the Stormy Daniels payment. He initially said that the rich asshole had paid Cohen a retainer throughout 2017 to cover the Daniels payment and other expenses. Then, on Friday, he released a statement essentially retracting his previous statements.
Giuliani’s current position is that he has no knowledge of how Cohen was reimbursed and that these reimbursements are not relevant. the rich asshole has hitherto not revealed how he reimbursed Cohen. The AT&T payment, and other monies flowing through this shell company, raise the possibility that Cohen was reimbursed by the rich asshole or his associates directing money to Essential Consultants.
Senate GOP warms to the rich asshole's rescissions package
BY JORDAIN CARNEY - 05/08/18 07:51 PM EDT
Senate Republicans are warming to President the rich asshole's proposal to claw back spending after dismissing an earlier plan with widespread skepticism.
the rich asshole is requesting Congress rescind $15.4 billion in spending from previously approved funds, the largest single such request from a White House and the first in nearly two decades.
"My understanding of the rescission package is that it does not breach the bipartisan agreement we reached in the caps deal. If the House is able to pass the rescissions package, we'll take a look at it," said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
McConnell's comments, while not a ringing endorsement, are more positive than his reaction to the White House's floated plan of clawing back money from the omnibus.
The rescissions plan, according to the White House, would largely target unobligated funds, including money leftover in now defunct accounts.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), the No. 2 Senate Republican, said separating a rescissions request from the omnibus "helps quite a bit."
"I would certainly like to see us move on it," he added.
Congress has 45 days to approve the request in a measure that is not subject to a Senate filibuster. That would allow Republicans to pass a rescissions package without help from Democrats, as long as they can keep most of their fragile 51-seat caucus united.
Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), the No. 3 Senate Republican, predicted that a rescissions package "could" pass the Senate at the simple majority threshold.
"I would think it could, yeah. I mean I think if it's reasonable and they're spending issues most Republicans agree with ... it's possible," he said.
Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) noted that he supports the package but thinks "it doesn't go far enough."
"I will be on rescissions like a cat on a fat rat," he added.
But with GOP Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) absent from Washington, Republicans are effectively capped at 50 votes. That would mean they couldn't afford to lose any GOP senator if they weren't able to pull Democrats on board.
No Republican senator has officially come out as a no vote, but several noted on Tuesday that they were still reviewing the details of the bill.
GOP Sen. Susan Collins (Maine), who had previously voiced concern about clawing back money from the omnibus, said she is still reviewing the package.
"I need to look at the specific accounts. For example if money is taken out of the highway trust fund that doesn't make sense to me on the surface because we're in a situation where the highway trust fund is broke every year and we have to borrow from the general fund."
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) also pointed to funding for the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP).
"I've been a big proponent of CHIP," she said. "I have concerns but I haven't looked at the full details."
There's no sign Democrats will come on board, though lawmakers up for reelection in red and purple states are likely to come under pressure from the White House.
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) called the package "outrageous."
"I think doing these types of rescissions in the Senate would sour the ability to get [appropriations] done," he added.
the rich asshole Administration Quietly Rolling Back Child Labor Laws
When the rich asshole says he wants to “make America great again,” apparently he doesn’t mean taking the country back to the 1950’s like many believe but instead pre-1938 when the nation began to realize that child labor was a bad thing.
the rich asshole’s Labor Department announced plans to undo many protections for children working in hazardous conditions. Bloomberg Law reports:
The DOL will propose relaxing current rules—known as Hazardous Occupations Orders (HOs)—that prohibit 16- and 17-year-old apprentices and student learners from receiving extended, supervised training in certain dangerous jobs, said the two sources. That includes roofing work, as well as operating chainsaws, and various other power-driven machines that federal law recognizes as too dangerous for youth younger than 18.The sources’ accounts were corroborated by a summary of a draft regulation obtained by Bloomberg Law.
While it may at first glance appear that the DOL intends to “safely launch more family-sustaining careers by removing current regulatory restrictions on the amount of time that apprentices and student learners may perform HO-governed work” as they say in their summary of the changes, but it’s important to remember that young people are almost always paid less for their work than others. This allows businesses to exploit younger workers, placing them at greater risk for injuries and fatalities, all to save a buck.
Obviously, anyone with a working brain disagrees with the DOL’s claim that this will increase opportunity safely.
“When you find 16-year-olds running a meat slicer or a mini grinder or a trash compactor, we know kids are severely injured in those circumstances,” former Wage and Hour Division senior official Michael Hancock said in response to the upcoming regulation changes “That’s why the laws exist in the first place.”
“Now we’re saying, ‘We’re going to open those hazards up to kids; we hope that the employer is going to follow the law to a T and make sure the kid is being closely supervised,’” Hancock says. “I think that stretches credulity to think that’s how it’s actually going to work.”
“When I started doing this kind of work 20 years ago, we were losing 70 kids a year at work, and now we are losing usually 20 or less,” Reid Maki, coordinator of the Child Labor Coalition, told Bloomberg Law. “We’ve made substantial progress, and I think that the tightened hazardous occupations rules have played a role in the lowered death tolls for teenage workers. So I would not be in favor of relaxing any of these standards; I think it would be a tragic mistake and would lead to the death of teenage workers.”
But none of the safety issues matter to the rich asshole or the DOL under his leadership. After all, cheap labor is cheap labor.
Michael Avenatti to CNN’s Anderson Cooper: ‘Michael Cohen should not have been selling access to the president’
Michael Avenatti appears on ABC (screen grab)
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Stormy Daniels’ lawyer, Michael Avenatti, broke news today when he released information that claimed Michael Cohen accepted payments over an eight month period from a company with strong Russian ties.
In an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Avenatti delved into why this new information is imperative in his case.
Cooper pointed out that Cohen has the “ear of the president” and Avenatti suggested that he could have been “selling access” to President the rich asshole.
CNN reached out to Cohen and have not heard back yet.
“I have yet to hear an explanation from Michael Cohen as to why a personal attorney to the President of the United States who at the time was employed by the rich asshole organization would be accepting payments from a Russian oligarch to a tune of half a million dollars,” Avenatti said.
Avenatti also said that if Cohen turns over his bank statements the situation could clear up quickly, but he is doubtful that would ever happen.
Watch his interview below.
Stormy Daniels’ lawyer alleges Michael Cohen took huge cash payment from Russian oligarch
Cohen is said to have received $500,000 from Viktor Vekselberg, who has close ties to Putin.
President some rich asshole’s personal lawyer and longtime fixer, Michael Cohen, is alleged to have received $500,000 from Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg in the months following the 2016 presidential election.
The explosive claims were made on Tuesday by Michael Avenatti, lawyer for adult film actress Stephanie Clifford, aka Stormy Daniels. Cohen paid Daniels $130,000 in hush money out of his own pocket to stop her from going public about an alleged affair with the rich asshole in 2006 — which the White House has continued to deny.
In a tweet, Avenatti suggested that the oligarch’s cash infusion “may have reimbursed the $130k payment.”
According to the dossier released by Avenatti, and later confirmed by the Daily Beast, Vekselberg routed eight payments to Cohen through a company named Columbus Nova LLC. The payments began in January 2017 and continued until at least August 2017.
In addition, Avenatti’s dossier said Cohen’s LLC, Essential Consulting, received $400,000 from Novartis and $200,000 from AT&T. The telecom giant confirmed the payment later Tuesday.
BREAKING: @ATT confirms payments to Cohen LLC >>
Full Stmt: “Essential Consulting was one of several firms we engaged in early 2017 to provide insights into understanding the new administration. They did no legal or lobbying work for us, and the contract ended in December 2017”
“Mr. Cohen inexplicably accepted these payments while he was the personal attorney to the President and holding himself out at times as employed by the rich asshole administration,” Avenatti’s report read. “This was occurring at the same time significant questions were being raised relating to a) the involvement of Russia and Vladimir Putin in the 2016 Presidential Election and b) the extent of the relationship between Putin and some rich asshole.”
Vekselberg is a oil and metal magnate who has close ties to the Kremlin. Last month, he was placed on a list of sanctioned Russians by the rich asshole administration. The full extent of his involvement with the Russian collusion probe is not known, but earlier this year he was questioned by federal agents working with Special Counsel Robert Mueller when he was at a New York-area airport. CNN reported Tuesday that Vekselberg was questioned about the $500,000 payment made to Cohen.
In 2015, Vekselberg was also pictured at a dinner with Michael T. Flynn, the former national security adviser who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI last December, and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
This latest revelation follows a stunning week of developments in the Cohen case. In an interview last Thursday with Sean Hannity (also a Cohen client), the rich asshole adviser Rudy Giuliani said that the rich asshole repaid Cohen $130,000 for the Stormy Daniels payoff — directly contradicting the White House line that the rich asshole knew nothing about Cohen’s payments to Daniels.
The next day Giuliani doubled down on his statement in an interview with Fox & Friends, saying that the payments were personal, not political — before completely contradicting himself.
“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.”
In a statement by Columbus Nova’s attorney, the company categorically denied any wrong doing.
“After the inauguration, the firm hired Michael Cohen as a business consultant regarding potential sources of capital and potential investments in real estate and other ventures,” the company said. “The claim that Viktor Vekselberg was involved or provided any funding for Columbus Nova’s engagement of Michael Cohen is patently untrue. Neither Viktor Vekselberg nor anyone else other than Columbus Nova’s owners, were involved in the decision to hire Cohen or provided funding for his engagement.”
This post has been updated with Columbus Nova’s statement.
AT&T confirms it paid Michael Cohen for 'insights' on the rich asshole admin
BY ALI BRELAND - 05/08/18 07:31 PM EDT
AT&T confirmed Tuesday that it paid President the rich asshole’s lawyer Michael Cohen for “insights” on the rich asshole administration.
AT&T said in a statement obtained by The Hill that Cohen's company "was one of several firms we engaged in early 2017 to provide insights into understanding the new administration."
"They did no legal or lobbying work for us, and the contract ended in December 2017," AT&T added in its statement, which was first reported by CNBC.
The payment was first revealed on Tuesday in a document published by Michael Avenatti, a lawyer for adult-film star Stormy Daniels, who is suing the president and Cohen.
Avenatti had claimed that AT&T, drug company Novartis and a Russian oligarch had all made payments to Cohen's shell company, Essential Consultants.
The document claimed that AT&T paid Cohen’s company four separate installments of $50,000, totaling $200,000, in late 2017 and early 2018.
The telecom giant did not say in its statement how much it paid Essential Consultants.
Cohen used the shell company to pay $130,000 to Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, shortly before the 2016 election to keep quiet about her alleged 2006 affair with the rich asshole.
At around the time AT&T said the payments to Cohen's company ended, it was pursuing a merger with Time Warner. The Department of Justice’s (DOJ) decision on it was still pending at the time. The DOJ has since sued to block the $85 billion deal.
The report released by Avenatti on Tuesday also said that Cohen's account received roughly $500,000 in payments from Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg, who was one of several Russian nationals and entities hit by U.S. sanctions in April in response to what the rich asshole administration said were broad, destabilizing activities by Moscow.
Vekselberg was stopped at a New York-area airport earlier this year and interviewed by investigators on special counsel Robert Mueller’s team, which is investigating possible collusion between members of the rich asshole campaign and Russia.
– Max Greenwood contributed
‘How the f*ck did Avenatti find out?’: New York Times, NBC News back up Stormy Daniels’ lawyer on Cohen claim
President some rich asshole's longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen (Screen capture)
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The news that some rich asshole’s attorney Michael Cohen received $500,000 from Russia oligarch Viktor Vekselberg after the 2016 presidential election did not come from the New York Times, NBC News, or any traditional news outlet—though most major publications were able to corroborate that report.
Instead, the source of the day’s bombshell came from Michael Avenatti, Stormy Daniels’ lawyer, who tweeted out an “executive summary” Tuesday afternoon—a fact that reportedly stunned sources.
“After significant investigation, we have discovered that some rich asshole’s atty Mr. Cohen received approximately $500,000 in the mos. after the election from a company controlled by a Russian Oligarch with close ties to Mr. Putin,” Avenatti tweeted. “These monies may have reimbursed the $130k payment.”
The Executive Summary from our first Preliminary Report on Findings may be accessed via the link below. Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen have a lot of explaining to do.dropbox.com/s/pskgpwr15r48…
“How the fuck did Avenatti find out?” one source asked The Daily Beast when pressed on Cohen’s payment from Vekselberg.
In documents released via Twitter, Avenatti also alleged “[Cohen’s company] Essential received $200,000 in four separate payments of $50,000 in late 2017 and early 2018 from AT&T.” Shortly after Avenatti’s tweet, AT&T admitted it retained Cohen for “insight” into the rich asshole administration.
The New York Times on Tuesday referenced Avenatti’s document release in an article on Vekselberg’s payments to Cohen:
“References to the transactions first appeared in a document posted to Twitter on Tuesday by Michael Avenatti, the lawyer for Stephanie Clifford, the pornographic film star who was paid $130,000 by Essential Consultants to keep quiet about her alleged affair with some rich asshole. The lawyer’s six-page document, titled ‘Preliminary Report of Findings,’ does not explain the source of his information but describes in detail dates, dollar amounts and parties involved in various dealings by Mr. Cohen and his company.The Times’s review of financial records confirmed much of what was in Mr. Avenatti’s report. In addition, a review of emails and interviews shed additional light on Mr. Cohen’s dealings with the company connected to Mr. Vekselberg, who was stopped and questioned at an airport earlier this year by investigators for Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel examining Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.”
Though originally noting Avenatti “provided no documentation for his claims,” NBC News was also able to “review financial documents that appear to support” the attorney.
the rich asshole administration sued after it changes rules about housing segregation
"HUD's reasoning for removing it does not hold water.”
Housing advocates are suing the rich asshole administration over its decision to delay an Obama-era rule intended to combat housing segregation. The rule would force cities to abide by the 1968 Fair Housing Act by forcing them to submit a comprehensive plan to combat segregation in their own neighborhoods in order to receive federal funds.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development, under Secretary Ben Carson, decided to suspend the rule in January, giving no notice or comment period as required by law. Its reasoning for doing so was inadequate, a coalition of fair housing advocates claim in a lawsuit filed at U.S. District Court in Washington D.C. on Tuesday. And by suspending the rule, the lawsuit asserts, HUD is not taking care of its legal obligation to take meaningful steps to address housing segregation.
By suspending the rule, HUD would allow cities and towns seeking federal funds to ignore segregation in their neighborhoods, and those cities and towns would not be forced to take any steps to reduce segregation without proper oversight by HUD.
“Segregation within our country is so deeply embedded and has been for decades. We need a systematic and meaningful assessment to address it and move forward,” said Megan Haberle, deputy director of the Poverty & Race Research Action Council. “We think the rule has been very effective, which is why HUD’s reasoning for removing it does not hold water.”
The Fair Housing Act of 1968 intended to address racial segregation and housing discrimination, and it was a key victory in the civil rights movement. It has been poorly enforced since its passage, and Secretary Ben Carson has characterized the Fair Housing Act and other government initiatives to desegregate neighborhoods, including the Obama-era rule, as a failed “social experiment.”
In 2010, the Government Accountability Office found that many communities failed to make even a minimal effort to comply with reporting requirements, and HUD’s enforcement failures were exposed in a False Claims Act case against Westchester County, New York around that same time. The county was found lying to HUD, claiming it had been complying with the Fair Housing Act. In reality, it had been concentrating affordable housing to a small number of cities with high minority populations, while distributing community block grant funds to overwhelming white neighborhoods that refused affordable housing development. HUD had been neglecting to check whether that reported data was correct, providing no oversight.
The Obama administration passed the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule in 2015, that allowed HUD to force communities to provide accurate data or concrete steps to address segregation, and created more clear, structured, and robust guidance for communities to create their analysis.
The Obama administration passed the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule in 2015, that allowed HUD to force communities to provide accurate data or concrete steps to address segregation, and created more clear, structured, and robust guidance for communities to create their analysis.
The rule has been rolled out on a staggered basis since October 2016, with a number of communities seeking grants having completed the new analysis, including New Orleans and the Philadelphia Housing Authority. A number of communities had its analysis due in April but due to HUD’s suspension of the rule, those cities will not be required to complete them until sometime between 2020 and 2024.
“Although HUD is couching this as a somewhat short-term suspension, most communities will not have to do anything until 2024,” said Sasha Samberg-Champion, an attorney with Relman, Dane and Colfax, one of the firms involved in the lawsuit.
HUD spokesperson Brian Sullivan in January said the agency delayed the rule because people who responded to a public comment period indicated it was “excessively burdensome or unclear” and the Assessment of Fair Housing tool for local governments “wasn’t working well.” He claimed more than a third of the early submitters failed to produce an acceptable assessment and the extension of the deadline will allow HUD to invest resources towards improving the tool.
That comment period Sullivan referred to was part of a broader public comment period that allowed people to weigh-in on any regulation they wanted — it was not focused on the AFFH rule, according to Samberg-Champion. Instead, HUD changed the rule without holding a public comment period and responding to concerns about AFFH, in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act.
“That is something that is not going to stand up in court,” Samberg-Champion said. “This is just another way in which this action is totally lawless and will not stand up to judicial scrutiny.”
Also, since the Fair Housing Act forces HUD to distribute federal dollars to communities that are taking steps to solve racial segregation, taking away a mechanism that is designed to solve the agency’s proven inability to do just that is against the law, the lawsuit alleges.
The lawsuit also claims HUD did not give sound reasons for delaying the rule. The errors by the first wave of submitters outlined by HUD as a reason for the delay, were expected by the agency when they first created the rule, Samberg-Champion said. It was not unexpected that the agency would have to provide additional resources to implement it and that there would be a learning curve.
“It is certainly not a reason to suspend the rule,” he said.
CNN’s Preet Bharara rips ‘inconsiderate, incompetent’ Giuliani: ‘I wouldn’t retain that lawyer much longer’
The former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Preet Bharara on AC360.
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Former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Preet Bharara, joined President the rich asshole in criticizing Rudy Giuliani’s latest performance.
In an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, Bharara called Giuliani “incompetent.”
“In this case, the president has the right to be irritated,” Bharara said. “I think Rudy Giuliani’s inconsiderate, incompetent statements about not knowing the facts, focusing only on the law, being halfway familiar with some of the facts in the case, not being able to answer basic questions– I wouldn’t retain that lawyer very much longer.”
Bharara went on to say that if President the rich asshole decided to fire Giuliani that it wouldn’t be shocking.
“I’ve said many times before, on Monday the rich asshole loves you, on Friday he fires you.”
Blitzer then briefly hinted that Bharara might replace former New York Attorney General, Eric Schneiderman, who recently resigned after claims of sexual abuse surfaced.
Watch his full rant about Giuliani below.
Pompeo contradicts Giuliani, says North Korea hasn’t agreed to release U.S. prisoners
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo contradicts Rudy Giuliani, who claimed the three prisoners would be released last Thursday.
Newly confirmed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made no promises this week regarding the release of three U.S. prisoners currently being held in a North Korean labor camp.
“We’ve been asking for the release of these detainees for 17 months,” Pompeo said Tuesday, speaking with reporters en route to the North Korean capital of Pyonyang. “We’ll talk about it again. It’d be a great gesture if they’d agree to do so.”
According to Reuters, Pompeo added that he had received no commitments from North Korean officials, but hoped leaders would “do the right thing.”
Pompeo’s comments directly contradict earlier statements by former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who is currently serving as a member of President the rich asshole’s legal team. On Thursday morning, Giuliani told Fox & Friends that North Korea would be releasing the three prisoners imminently — likely within the day.
“The president of the United States is getting ready to negotiate probably one of our most historic agreements…and we got Kim Jong-un impressed enough to be releasing three prisoners today,” he said, referring to the impending diplomatic summit between the rich asshole and the North Korean leader.
Giuliani’s claims were later rebutted by both the White House and State Department. During a press briefing later on Thursday, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders noted that Giuliani was not in any official capacity to speak to the press on matters of foreign policy; the State Department on Tuesday morning reaffirmed Sanders’ comments, adding that the former New York City mayor should not be considered an official spokesman for the president.
“He speaks for himself and not on behalf of the administration on foreign policy,” said State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert.
The release of the three U.S. prisoners — Kim Hak-song, Kim Sang Duk (Tony Kim), and Kim Dong Chul — have been a sticking point for the rich asshole administration in recent months, as nuclear talks between the two nations ramp up. Kim Hak-song and Tony Kim, who worked at the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST), were detained in early 2017; Kim Dong Chul, a pastor, was detained earlier, in 2015. The administration, for its part, has not said whether their release would be a necessary condition of any nuclear agreement with North Korea, though the president has been vocal about attempts to bring the three men home.
“We are negotiating now. We are doing our very best,” the rich asshole said during a press conference last month. “I think there’s a good chance of doing it. We’re having very good dialogue. We will keep you informed. But we are in there and we are working very hard on that.”
In a tweet on May 2, the president also singled out the Obama administration, claiming it had not done enough to negotiate the prisoners’ release. “As everybody is aware, the past Administration has long been asking for three hostages to be released from a North Korean Labor camp, but to no avail,” he wrote. “Stay tuned!”
the rich asshole previously blamed his predecessor for not successfully negotiating the release of American college student Otto Warmbier, who was released from a North Korean prison on June 13 2017 and died six days later, after being in a coma for 17 months. Warmbier had been sentenced to 15 years hard labor in 2016 for trying to steal a propaganda poster from a hotel, as a prank.
“Frankly, if he were brought home sooner, I think the results would have been a lot different,” the rich asshole told reporters following Warmbier’s death. “He should have been brought home a long time ago.”
The White House so far has been relatively quiet on the subject of Kim Hak-song, Tony Kim, and Kim Dong Chul, hedging any statements about the three prisoners with cautious language about North Korea’s history of using U.S. citizens and other international travelers as diplomatic hostages.
“[Their release] would be an incredible step and certainly a sign of goodwill moving into the summit,” Press Secretary Sanders said, speaking to Fox & Friends on Thursday. “We again are cautiously optimistic about where this will go. As the president has said, we’ll see what happens.”
AT&T confirms part of Avenatti’s claim — says it paid the rich asshole lawyer Michael Cohen for ‘insight’ into the rich asshole administration
Michael Avenatti on CNN and Michael Cohen on the street with his cigar-smoking buddies/Screenshot
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AT&T on Tuesday admitted it paid Essential Consultants LLC, Michael Cohen’s private company, for “insight into understanding” some rich asshole’s administration.
BREAKING: @ATT confirms payments to Cohen LLC >>
Full Stmt: “Essential Consulting was one of several firms we engaged in early 2017 to provide insights into understanding the new administration. They did no legal or lobbying work for us, and the contract ended in December 2017”
Essential Consultants LLC, founded by Cohen in October 2016, is the same company used to pay adult film star Stormy Daniels $130,000 in a hush payment prior to the election.
So the porn star hush money fund that Michael Cohen set up was paid by Fortune 500 companies who wanted to get in the new administration's good graces.
The AT&T statement follows a release by Daniel’s lawyer, Michael Avenatti, alleging a $500,000 payment to Cohen from Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg. In that release, Avenatti also flagged other suspicious transactions involving Cohen, including AT&T’s.
Tuesday, CNN reported that special counsel Robert Mueller has questioned Vekselberg about payments to Cohen.
Five takeaways from the rich asshole’s Iran announcement
BY NIALL STANAGE - 05/08/18 06:54 PM EDT
President the rich asshole announced on Tuesday that the United States will pull out of the Iran nuclear deal.
the rich asshole had long expressed dismay at the terms of the agreement, negotiated during former President Obama’s second term in office and signed in 2015.
Beyond the decision to abandon what he called a “horrible, one-sided deal,” what were the main takeaways from his announcement?
A sharp break from Europe
The United Kingdom, France, Germany are all signatories to the Iran deal — and had all urged the rich asshole to stay in it, in some shape or form.
Recent visits to Washington by French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson were focused on trying to find some way to keep the rich asshole on board.
His decision to exit the deal is a rebuke to them all.
Soon after the announcement, Macron, Merkel and British Prime Minister Theresa May released a joint statement expressing “regret and concern” over the decision.
They also encouraged Iran to “show restraint” in response to the rich asshole’s announcement and — predictably but crucially — said that they remain committed to the deal.
To the rich asshole critics, the European response suggests that the U.S. has dealt itself a self-inflicted wound.
Former Vice President Joe Biden asserted that the withdrawal “will isolate the United States from nearly every major world power. It will weaken our credibility and global leadership.”
One European diplomat, in the hours before the announcement, warned the decision “will have various consequences that I think we have yet fully to understand.”
the rich asshole supporters, of course, do not see it that way at all.
But, at a minimum, the fact that traditional U.S. allies in Europe are in such stark disagreement with the rich asshole complicates the administration’s argument that the deal deserves to be trashed.
One more ‘America First’ moment
the rich asshole makes no secret of his distaste for multilateralism in many areas, from trade to security.
Figures within his administration who had once sought to restrain his go-it-alone impulses, including former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and former national security adviser H.R. McMaster, have departed.
In their place are more hawkish figures — Mike Pompeo and John Bolton, respectively.
the rich asshole’s basic argument on the Iran deal is that it does not look after American interests first, nor provide for American security.
“America will not be held hostage to nuclear blackmail. We will not allow American cities to be threatened with destruction. And we will not allow a regime that chants ‘Death to America’ to gain access to the most deadly weapons on Earth,” he said in his remarks in the Diplomatic Room of the White House.
While the rich asshole’s unilateral tendencies cause consternation among much of the Washington foreign policy establishment, his unabashed nationalism is clearly a draw for his supporters.
So too is his willingness to argue that he is following through on his campaign promises.
“The United States no longer makes empty threats. When I make promises, I keep them,” the rich asshole said on Tuesday.
A major Obama legacy, undone
Beyond the winding down of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Iran deal was perhaps Obama’s biggest foreign policy achievement.
the rich asshole had essentially erased it, at least so far as U.S. involvement is concerned.
Obama hit back in a lengthy statement in which he praised the deal as a “model for what diplomacy can accomplish.” In its absence, he warned, “the United States could eventually be left with a losing choice between a nuclear-armed Iran or another war in the Middle East.”
Other Democrats attacked the rich asshole for, in their view, being guided more by a reflexive anti-Obama impulse than by a fair appraisal of the agreement’s strengths and weaknesses.
“Everything President Obama has done, this president wants to undo,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) tweeted. “An agreement that prevents Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon is one thing that should never be undone just to satisfy a campaign promise.”
John Kerry, the key U.S. negotiator of the deal during his time as Obama’s Secretary of State, released a statement accusing the rich asshole of “throwing away” measures aimed at preventing nuclear proliferation.
Kerry had made a last ditch — and controversial — push to keep the deal alive. That in itself underlined how important it is to Obama and those who served him.
Iran: Now what?
Now that the rich asshole has made his high-stakes move, all eyes are on Iran.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani sent mixed signals in the immediate aftermath of the rich asshole’s announcement.
He gave some grounds for hope to those who want to see the deal survive when he suggested it would remain in place so long as its goals could be reached with the other signatories.
But he also warned that if those arrangements were unsatisfactory, Iran would once again begin uranium enrichment.
the rich asshole pleases Netanyahu, again
Even as the rich asshole’s move was met with disapproval in several capitals, he could take succor from the acclaim of one ally.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu enthused that his government “fully supports President the rich asshole’s bold decision today to reject the disastrous nuclear deal.”
the rich asshole’s decision was a big victory for the Israeli prime minister, who claimed last week to have evidence that Iran had been “brazenly lying” when its leaders had insisted they were not pursuing nuclear weapons prior to the deal.
Netanyahu had previously praised the rich asshole’s decision to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv.
Roger Stone’s media tour is going very badly
For the second straight day, Stone has no credible explanation for his conduct.
Roger Stone, a longtime adviser to some rich asshole who finds himself at the center of the Russia investigation, has embarked on a series of interviews to promote a new book about how to win at life. Things are not going well.
On Tuesday afternoon, Stone went on MSNBC and was asked to explain two October 2016 tweets that strongly suggest he had foreknowledge WikiLeaks was about to publish emails stolen from Hillary Clinton campaign director John Podesta.
“You said on two occasions in October — the 3rd and the 5th — that WikiLeaks was going to go after Podesta. Then, two days later, the Podesta email is dumped,” host Andrea Mitchell said. “What did you know about that at the time?”
While Mitchell spoke, the two Stone tweets in question were displayed.
But instead of answering the question, Stone abruptly changed the topic to a tweet he posted in August about “Podesta’s time in the barrel,” and made a weak case that the tweet proves he wasn’t conspiring with Russian agents or WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
Stone argued it’s a mere coincidence that he was tweeting about “Podesta’s time in the barrel” weeks before WikiLeaks published Podesta’s stolen emails.
“I was referring to the Podesta brothers,” Stone said. “Their shady Russian business dealings hadn’t been fully reported… That is what I was predicting… so ‘time in the barrel’ refers specifically to public scrutiny.”
Watch:
But even if Stone’s dubious explanation of the August 21 tweet is accepted, that doesn’t answer the question Mitchell asked about the ones he posted in October. And the two tweets Mitchell cited weren’t even the only ones from that period of time indicating Stone had foreknowledge that WikiLeaks was about to publish the Podesta emails — which, if true, suggests some coordination between the rich asshole camp and a website that the rich asshole’s own intelligence officials have accused of serving as a cutout for Russian intelligence.
Less than a week before WikiLeaks published the first tranche of Podesta emails on October 7, 2016 — just hours after The Washington Post published a hot mic recording of the rich asshole bragging about sexually assaulting women — Stone tweeted that “Wednesday@HillaryClinton is done. #Wikileaks.”
It’s hard to see how that tweet could be interpreted as being about the Podesta brothers’ business practices, or why Stone would tweet something like that if he didn’t have foreknowledge that WikiLeaks was in possession of stolen emails that the U.S. intelligence community has concluded were part of Russia’s pro-the rich asshole propaganda campaign.
Stone’s claim about his tweets wasn’t the only head-scratcher he offered during the MSNBC interview. At another point, he claimed that he was not in touch during the campaign with any Russian agents — with one significant exception.
“I don’t buy into the premise that Guccifer [2.0] is indeed a Russian agent, I think that is unproved [sic],” Stone said.
Host Andrea Mitchell interjected to point out to Stone that Guccifer 2.0 has been identified as a Russian agent by the rich asshole’s hand-picked CIA director-turned-secretary of state, Mike Pompeo.
“Our intelligence agencies has been politicized,” Stone said, adding that “there’s vigorous debate on it on the internet.”
Stone says is is mere "coincidence" that he tweeted about Podesta's "time in the barrel" two days before WikiLeaks dumppic.twitter.com/3CUsUTd3ka
STONE: I was not in touch with any Russian agents during the campaign, but I also don't believe that Guccifer 2.0 is really a Russian agent. There's no evidence.
ANDREA MITCHELL: Actually, Mike Pompeo is my source on that.
STONE: The intelligence agencies have been politicized! pic.twitter.com/ivMzELPyY4
On August, 17, 2016 — just four days before his “time in the barrel” tweet — Guccifer 2.0 and Stone exchanged Twitter direct messages, with Guccifer 2.0 telling Stone, “please tell me if i can help u anyhow. it would be a great pleasure to me.”
Stone’s MSNBC interview came a day after he went on CNN and brazenly lied about the contents of his August 21, 2016 tweet about “Podesta’s time in the barrel.”
Stone insisted that the tweet didn’t include an apostrophe — the implication being that he was talking about the Podesta brothers rather than John specifically. He kept up his gaslighting effort until host Chris Cuomo displaying an image of the tweet, demonstrating that Stone was lying.
Stone has made contradictory statements about his communications with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Though Stone has claimed on CNN that he “is not involved in any collusion, coordination, or conspiracy with the Russians, or anyone else, and there’s no evidence to the contrary,” he claimed to be in direct contact with Assange during the campaign. He refused to answer questions about his contacts with WikiLeaks during his testimony before the House Intelligence Committee last fall.
Stormy Daniels's lawyer: Cohen was paid $500K by Putin-tied company after election
BY JACQUELINE THOMSEN - 05/08/18 05:23 PM EDT
Stormy Daniels’s attorney Michael Avenatti said Tuesday that President the rich asshole’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen received $500,000 in the months after the 2016 election from a company run by a Russian oligarch with ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Avenatti said the funding may have been used to reimburse the $130,000 payment Cohen made to Daniels to stay quiet about her alleged affair with the rich asshole.
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani revealed last week that the rich asshole had reimbursed Cohen $130,000, which was given to Daniels just days before the 2016 election. Cohen had earlier claimed that the nondisclosure payment came from his own funds, and the rich asshole had told reporters he was unaware it had been made.
Giuliani, who recently joined the rich asshole’s personal legal team, has said that the rich asshole only recently learned of the payment to Daniels, and he has not ruled out the possibility that Cohen made payments to other women on the rich asshole's behalf.
After significant investigation, we have discovered that Mr. Trump’s atty Mr. Cohen received approximately $500,000 in the mos. after the election from a company controlled by a Russian Oligarc with close ties to Mr. Putin. These monies may have reimbursed the $130k payment.
The Executive Summary from our first Preliminary Report on Findings may be accessed via the link below. Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen have a lot of explaining to do.dropbox.com/s/pskgpwr15r48…
Avenatti released a report with preliminary findings about the bank account he says Cohen used to make the payment to Daniels. That account was made in the name of the company Cohen created to transfer the money to Daniels, Essential Consultants LLC.
“Mr. Cohen inexplicably accepted these payments while he was the personal attorney to the President anholding himselflf out at times as employed by the rich asshole Organization (with few other clients),” the report reads.
“This was occurring at the same time significant questions were being raised relating to (a) the involvement of Russia and Vladimir Putin in the 2016 Presidential Election and (b) the extent of the relationship between Mr. Putin and some rich asshole."
CNN reported Tuesday evening that special counsel Robert Mueller's team has questioned Vekselberg about the payments to Cohen, as well as donations the head of his U.S. affiliate made to the rich asshole's campaign and inauguration fund.
Vekselberg, who is one of the subjects of recent U.S. sanctions, is one of two Russian oligarchs stopped by FBI agents earlier this year after their planes landed in New York.
The report released by Avenatti also claims that the bank account received payments totaling nearly $400,000 from global pharmaceutical company Novartis, and noted that the rich asshole reportedly had a dinner meeting in Switzerland with the Novartis CEO shortly after the transactions were made.
The Hill has reached out to Cohen's attorney Stephen Ryan for comment.
Daniels, an adult-film star whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, says she had an affair with the rich asshole more than a decade ago. She is suing to negate the nondisclosure agreement she signed with Cohen, as well as suing both Cohen and the rich asshole for defamation after they accused her of lying.
Watergate prosecutor: Cohen money ‘could prove conspiracy’ with Russia
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Former Watergate prosecutor Nick Ackerman says the alleged payment from a Russian oligarch to the rich asshole's fixer Michael Cohen could be the key to proving criminal conspiracy between the rich asshole campaign and Russia.
The bombshell report released by Stormy Daniels’ attorney Michael Avenatti on Tuesday afternoon could “prove the conspiracy between the [the rich asshole] campaign and the Russians,” according to former Watergate prosecutor Nick Ackerman.
Ackerman made the remarks during an appearance on MSNBC’s “The Beat,” just after Avenatti released the report alleging that the rich asshole’s fixer Michael Cohen was reimbursed by a Putin-linked Russian oligarch for the hush money he paid to Daniels ahead of the 2016 election.
“Do you see any potential criminal liability?” asked host Ari Melber.
Ackerman noted that the information in Avenatti’s report looked like it came straight from a bank record — and based on that information, “The crimes involved here are numerous.”
“This could prove the conspiracy between the campaign and the Russians,” he said, adding that the bank records could provide evidence of conspiracy at multiple points during the campaign, including involving the hacked emails and the use of social media to suppress Democratic voters.
In other words, according to Ackerman, Cohen’s financial records could be the key that opens the vault and reveals the secrets that the rich asshole campaign has tried so hard to keep hidden.
The report released by Avenatti alleges that Cohen received approximately $500,000 in the months after the 2016 presidential election from Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg, who was recently questioned by special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigators, and his cousin Andrew Intrater.
While the most immediate implication is that it appears Cohen may have been repaid for the hush money by a sanctioned Putin ally, the bank records “really open up all the different avenues that the special counsel might be pursuing in the Russia investigation,” Ackerman noted.
As the rich asshole’s fixer, Cohen was supposed to be the keeper of secrets. But with his financial history on display for all to see, the deepest, darkest secrets in the rich asshole’s closet may be about to see daylight.
Mueller questioned Russian oligarch close to Putin about payments to Michael Cohen: report
the rich asshole lawyer Michael Cohen (IowaPolitics.com/Flickr)
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Special counsel Robert Mueller has questioned Russia oligarch Viktor Vekselberg about a payment his company allegedly made to some rich asshole’s personal attorney Michael Cohen, CNN reports.
According to a “source familiar with the matter,” the payment totaled hundreds of thousands of dollars and was made via a U.S. affiliate of Vekselberg’s Russian conglomerate Renova Group.the election.
In May, it was reported that Vekselberg was questioned by Mueller’s team “as he exited his private plane on the tarmac in a New York City airport.”
Vekselberg owns part of the Bank of Cyprus, the financial institution that last year turned over former some rich asshole campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s records to Mueller, according to Bloomberg.
On Tuesday, Michael Avenatti—the lawyer representing adult film star Stormy Daniels—released an “executive summary” about the payments allegedly made to Cohen.
Bush’s EPA chief: Pruitt’s ‘ethical tone-deafness’ is ‘unbelievable’
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Former EPA administrator Christine Todd Whitman is a loyal Republican — and she still can't believe Scott Pruitt has a job.
As White House aides push for the rich asshole to dump scandal-plagued EPA chief Scott Pruitt, a prominent Republican and past Bush administration EPA administrator says Pruitt’s ethical troubles defy belief.
On Tuesday morning, MSNBC’s Hallie Jackson interviewed former EPA head Christine Todd Whitman, and asked her, “When you were EPA administrator, would you have expected to keep your job if you did what Scott Pruitt did?”
“No, not past the first minute,” Whitman said. “The ethical tone-deafness of this man is just unbelievable, and it’s costing us taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars. And people have got to start getting upset about it.”
Whitman took heavy criticism as EPA administrator for falsely telling the public that the air in lower Manhattan was safe to breathe following the 9/11 attacks. She eventually apologized, but continued to insist she had given the best information available at the time. An inspector general’s report found that the Bush White House influenced EPA reports that the air was safe. Whitman was described as a loyal team player to the end when she resigned her post after 28 months.
But loyalty to party isn’t stopping Whitman from going after Pruitt, and with good reason. Pruitt is now the subject of at least 11 federal investigations, and the scandals just get more embarrassing. Most recently, he was found out to have reportedly dropped $1,200 in taxpayer money on a luxury dinner in Rome with two aides last year.
And last week, a top Pruitt aide was busted trying to shop negative stories about Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke in order to take some of the heat off Pruitt.
Pruitt has managed to hold onto his job through months of scandal, often benefitting from larger distractions like the Ronny Jackson debacle, or Rudy Giuliani’s current media firestorm.
But eventually, the smoke will clear, and Pruitt will be left holding a bag full of scandals that even the rich asshole’s White House can’t abide.
Guiliani wants parameters of Mueller interview with the rich asshole set by May 17
BY JULIA MANCHESTER - 05/08/18 11:20 AM EDT
President the rich asshole's attorney Rudy Giuliani said on Tuesday that he wants the parameters of an interview between the president and special counsel Robert Mueller to be set by May 17, which is the one-year mark for when Mueller was appointed to probe possible ties between the rich asshole campaign and Russia's efforts to influence in the presidential election.
"You need a sort of action-forcing event. I think that's a good one for us, is the special counsel," Giuliani told NBC's Kristen Welker.
He added that the deadline is tentative and an actual interview would not happen by that date.
"I can't walk into it and say 'absolutely.' I don't speak for them. I don't know if it can get complicated by another, you know, another situation where they – we find that they've engaged in misconduct," he continued.
"That would really kind of put the whole thing back. That's what happened here before. If this goes normally, around that time would be a good time to get at least the parameters of the interview agreed on. Certainly not the interview, because of all the foreign policy, national security things that are going on right now," he said.
Giuliani went on to detail what he said he believed the parameters should be, including written questions and questions narrowly focused on the investigation.
"We would like written questions like President Reagan got. We would like ... we would like to have him, you know, work out the answers, so that they can be careful answers that are as fruitful as memory allows, and we would, we would want a narrowing of the questions, so that they’re focused on what this investigation is about, and not how it’s sprung into all different irrelevant directions," he said.
the rich asshole said last week that he would "love" to speak with Mueller but only if he would be "treated fairly."
The former New York City mayor joined the rich asshole's legal team last month.
Giuliani told The Hill last week that the president's legal team was "several weeks away" from determining whether the rich asshole would agree with an interview with Mueller.
“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.
Giuliani made headlines last week after he told Fox News that the rich asshole reimbursed his personal attorney, Michael Cohen, for his $130,000 payment to adult-film star Stormy Daniels as part of a nondisclosure agreement to keep Daniels silent about the affair she says she had with the rich asshole in 2006. The comments appeared to contradict the rich asshole's previous denial that he knew about the payment.
Giuliani said on Sunday that Cohen would have paid other women in addition to Daniels if deemed necessary.
Stormy Daniels’ lawyer: Putin crony repaid Michael Cohen for hush money
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May 8, 2018
In an explosive new report, Michael Avenatti claims that a sanctioned Russian oligarch may have reimbursed the rich asshole's fixer, Michael Cohen, for the hush money paid to Stormy Daniels.
Michael Avenatti, lawyer for adult film star Stormy Daniels, released an explosive report Tuesday afternoon alleging that the $130,000 hush money payment to his client made by Michael Cohen may have been reimbursed by a Putin-linked Russian oligarch.
The preliminary report released by Avenatti summarizes the findings of an investigation into Cohen’s business and financial dealings over the past several years.
According to the report, Cohen received approximately $500,000 in the months after the 2016 presidential election from Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg, who was recently questioned by special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigators, and his cousin Andrew Intrater.
Those funds, the report says, might have been used to repay Cohen for the hush money he paid to keep Daniels from talking about her affair with the rich asshole prior to the election:
Mr. Cohen has previously claimed that the source of funds from the $130,000 payment was a home equity line of credit advance conducted on October 26, 2016. This has yet to be confirmed. However, as detailed below, within approximately 75 days of the payment to Ms. Clifford, Mr. Viktor Vekselberg, a Russian Oligarch with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, caused substantial funds to be deposited into the bank account from which Mr. Cohen made the payment. It appears that these funds may have replenished the account following the payment to Ms. Clifford.
Cohen had earlier claimed that the payment came from his own funds, and the rich asshole had said he was unaware it had been made. Then last week, Rudy Giuliani said that the rich asshole had reimbursed Cohen $130,000, which was given to Daniels just weeks before the 2016 election.
The new report includes specific details about the bank account Avenatti says Cohen used to make the payment to Daniels. That account was made in the name of the company Cohen created to transfer the money to Daniels, Essential Consultants, LLC.
According to Avenatti, Vekselberg and Intrater routed eight payments totaling $500,000 to Cohen through a company named Columbus Nova LLC, beginning in January 2017 and continuing until at least August 2017.
Mr. Cohen inexplicably accepted these payments while he was the personal attorney to the President and holding himself out at times as employed by the the rich asshole Organization (with few other clients).
This was occurring at the same time significant questions were being raised relating to (a) the involvement of Russia and Vladimir Putin in the 2016 Presidential Election and (b) the extent of the relationship between Mr. Putin and some rich asshole.
The New York Times reported on Friday that special counsel Mueller’s team questioned Vekselberg as part of the probe into Russian election interference. Vekselberg, who attended the rich asshole’s inauguration, was reportedly stopped at a New York-area airport this year and served with a search warrant.
It was not immediately clear what Vekselberg was questioned about, but CNN reported on Tuesday that Mueller asked him about the money paid to Cohen.
Vekselberg has many business and financial ties to the U.S., and was among those who attended a dinner in Russia in December 2015 along with former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
Vekselberg was also one of seven Russia-linked oligarchs recently hit with sanctions by the Treasury Department.
Mueller’s focus on Russian oligarchs centers on whether wealthy Russians illegally funneled money, either directly or indirectly, into the rich asshole’s campaign or inauguration. Prosecutors are also said to be interested in whether wealthy Russians used American donors — like Intrater — or U.S. companies with political action committees to illegally pour money into the election.
The Washington Post reported that two of Vekselberg’s U.S. associates donated a combined total of $1.25 million to the rich asshole’s inaugural committee.
Moreover, Mother Jones reported last year that Renova Group formed a partnership with the rich asshole’s Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to take over the Bank of Cyprus. Congressional Democrats sent Ross a list of questions during his confirmation hearings in February 2017 about his relationship with Vekselberg, but he has failed to answer them.
If this latest report proves to be true, it will be clearest evidence of collusion yet — and the man who was supposed to fix the rich asshole’s problems will be the one who brought them all crashing down.
Michael Avenatti releases ‘executive summary’ claiming Michael Cohen received $500k from Russia oligarch close to Putin
Michael Avenatti, the attorney for Stephanie Clifford, AKA Stormy Daniels on MSNBC's "Hardball"
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Stormy Daniels’ lawyer, Michael Avenatti, released an executive summary on Twitter claiming that Michael Cohen received approximately $500,000 from a company connected to Russia.
The Executive Summary from our first Preliminary Report on Findings may be accessed via the link below. Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen have a lot of explaining to do.dropbox.com/s/pskgpwr15r48…
However, when asked about the claims, Michael Cohen’s attorney, Steve Ryan said:
“I understand the shorthand you’re using, but it wasn’t a payment.”
the rich asshole administration uses fake numbers to rip kids from their families
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Attorney General Jeff Sessions implemented a harsh new policy that tears immigrant families apart — and he's using phony numbers to do it.
The rich asshole administration is using a made up number to justify ripping immigrant families apart.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that separating children from their families would be a key component of how the government intends to police people crossing the southern border.
And he was very clear about the cruelty in store for anyone crossing the border with a child. “We will prosecute you and that child will be separated from you as required by law,” he declared.
Everyone crossing the border — including those seeking asylum from persecution — will be referred to the Department of Justice to be prosecuted for illegal entry.
Internal documents being used by the Department of Homeland Security to justify the policy refer to a pilot project used at the El Paso sector of the border. Those documents claim that border crossings dropped by 64 percent after the harsher policy was put in place. The memo alleges “this decrease was attributed to the prosecution of adults . . . for illegal entry.”
But that is a lie.
When the policy was in place in El Paso, the number of families crossing the border actually increased.
In July 2017, 231 family-unit members crossed the border. As the policy was implemented, the count for crossings in November 2017 show 379 family-unit members making the journey.
As Vox notes in its reporting, the data shows an increase in apprehensions, “the opposite of what the administration’s statistic suggested.”
Families will now be split up and cruelty imposed on already vulnerable people. And the numbers do not justify the harsh penalty.
But the behavior is in line with the rich asshole administration’s hostile and racist attitudes. Since the rich asshole assumed office, he and Sessions have pushed for any and all methods at their disposal to attack immigrants.
the rich asshole infamously launched his presidential campaign calling Mexicans rapists — something he stands by even now. And he continues to advocate for a completely useless and expensive wall on the southern border.
Using a fake number to justify a policy that doesn’t work the way they claim it does fits right in with the rich asshole approach: deceptive, ineffective, and bigoted.
the rich asshole was asked the most basic question about his Iran deal decision. He had no answer.
He had nothing.
After publicly signing a memorandum to violate the Iran nuclear deal by reinstating the “highest levels” of U.S. sanctions against the country, President the rich asshole was asked a very basic question by a reporter who was in attendance at the White House for the ceremony.
“Mr. President, how does this America safer?” she said. “How does this make American safer?”
the rich asshole gathered his thoughts for a moment, then just restated the question in the form of an assertion.
“This will make America much safer,” he said, before getting up for the table on which he signed the memorandum.
Watch:
The president’s inability to answer the most basic question about his decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear agreement is indicative of why many experts question the wisdom of doing so in the first place. Under the Joint Cooperation Plan of Action (JCPOA), the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog agency could regularly inspect Iran’s nuclear program to make sure that it is for peaceful purposes. By all accounts, that process was working. But now that the rich asshole has pulled the U.S. out, it’s unclear what will come next.
During a speech that preceded the memorandum signing, the rich asshole struck a threatening tone, at one point vowing that “if the regime continues its nuclear aspirations, it will have bigger problems than it has ever had before.”
the rich asshole did not outline an alternative plan for overseeing Iran’s nuclear program, nor did he detail any specific reasons why he feels compelled to pull out at this time. The United Nations’ nuclear watchdog agency has found Iran to be in compliance on 11 occasions since the JCPOA was adopted under the Obama administration in 2015.
Standing nearby the rich asshole while he delivered his speech was new national security adviser John Bolton, who spoke out on behalf of bombing Iran as recently as 2015.
Former CIA director on the rich asshole: ‘Not just foolish — this is dangerous’
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Former CIA Director John Brennan blasted the rich asshole's decision to walk away from the Iran nuclear deal as 'fundamentally wrong' and a 'dangerous, dangerous act.'
the rich asshole’s decision to throw out the Iran deal endangers the United States and the rest of the world, says former CIA Director John Brennan.
Brennan has served in high level national security positions for both Democratic and Republican administrations. He warned that scrapping the deal “puts at risk our national security as well as the security and stability of the Middle East.”
As part of his obsession with undoing President Barack Obama’s legacy, the rich asshole announced that America would walk away from the deal. But he was unable to prove that Iran had violated the agreement that repealed sanctions in exchange for a halt to its nuclear development.
On MSNBC hours after the rich asshole’s announcement, host Nicolle Wallace asked Brennan, “Is there a consistent policy on the pursuit of nuclear weapons from countries that threaten this country?”
“There is consistent incoherence in the policy which certainly unnerves our allies and partners,” Brennan replied. “I really don’t understand it.”
He took note of the international leaders and diplomats that have come to Washington to convince the rich asshole to keep the deal in place and cited that as evidence that the agreement has widely been seen as a way to stabilize the world.
Scuttling the deal “is not just foolish, this is dangerous,” Brennan noted.
He slammed the rich asshole for having “repeatedly misrepresented the facts” about the deal. And he noted that the rich asshole “has basically lied to the American people and lied to the world about what that deal entailed.”
Brennan cited the statement released by President Barack Obama slamming the decision to walk away from the deal as a true accounting of the structure of the agreement, in contrast to the rich asshole’s repeated lies.
“With the wave of a hand, some rich asshole, he has basically sent a very bad signal to Iran, to North Korea, to our allies, as well as to Russia and China. In terms of can they count on something that Washington agrees to when administrations change,” Brennan said.
The decision already throws upcoming negotiations with North Korea, which has its own nuclear ambitions, into question.
“This is fundamentally wrong from the standpoint of the United States being able to fulfill its responsibilities,” Brennan charged. “I don’t know when people, those in the Republican Party who continue to apologize and make excuses for some rich asshole — when are they going to come to their senses?”
He concluded he remarks in no uncertain terms.
“This is a dangerous, dangerous act. It’s not just his statements or his tweets. This is an action that puts at risk our national security as well as the security and stability of the Middle East.”
John Brennan has seen America’s secrets and knows its vulnerabilities. He is raising the alarm, pointing out that the rich asshole has made the nation less secure and less trustworthy.
It’s an action that may threaten American lives — and the rest of the world.
GOP Senate intel chair burns House intel the rich asshole-Russia findings: They didn’t ‘substantiate every conclusion with facts’
Devin Nunes (Photo: Gage Skidmore/Flickr)
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Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC), who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, ripped his colleagues on the House Intelligence Committee, arguing members of that panel did not “substantiate every conclusion with facts.”
Burr made the remark on Tuesday in response to a question about whether the Senate intel committee agrees with the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) conclusion that Russian President Vladimir Putin interfered in the 2016 presidential election with the purpose of helping some rich asshole defeat Hillary Clinton.
In their conclusion, GOP House intel members disagreed with the ICA’s position.
Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), who chairs the House intel committee, has led a pro-the rich asshole insurgency among the panel, wielding his power to: provide the president with cover for his bogus claim that Barack Obama “wire tapped” the rich asshole Towerduring the 2016 presidential election; force the release of a 4-page memo (drafted by his own staffer) that used selective intelligence to accuse the FBI of illegally surveilling associates of the rich asshole campaign; and generally inventing a series of distractions aimed at discrediting special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.
Burr has previously criticized the House intel committee, and particularly Nunes. Last year, the Senate intel chairman said Nunes “created” the narrative that members of the Obama administration improperly “unmasked” members of the rich asshole team.
“The unmasking thing was all created by Devin Nunes, and I’ll wait to go through our full evaluation to see if there was anything improper that happened,” Burr told CNN at the time.
the rich asshole tells North Korea to trust US promises as he breaks a huge one
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This moment perfectly illustrated the absurdity of the rich asshole's decision to violate the Iran nuclear deal.
While announcing his decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, the rich asshole claimed he was demonstrating the trustworthiness of the United States.
During his speech at the White House Tuesday afternoon, the rich asshole also announced that his administration was imposing sanctions on Iran that had been waived as part of the agreement.
“Today’s action sends a critical message: The United States no longer makes empty threats,” he said after detailing those actions.
“When I make promises, I keep them,” he continued. “In fact, at this very moment, Secretary [of State Mike] Pompeo is on his way to North Korea in preparation for my upcoming meeting with Kim Jong Un. Plans are being made, relationships are building.”
He added that “with the help of China, South Korea, and Japan, a future of great prosperity and security can be achieved for everyone.”
But those declarations ring hollow coming on the heels of the withdrawal announcement.
the rich asshole’s violation of the Iran deal threatens the ability of the United States to be trustedwhen it seeks agreements from other countries.
As President Obama, who brokered the historic deal, noted immediately following the rich asshole’s speech, “The consistent flouting of agreements that our country is a party to risks eroding America’s credibility.”
Yet while the rich asshole was in the middle of breaking a multilateral nuclear agreement that the other parties were all complying with, he promised to bring “prosperity and security” to North and South Korea with a multilateral nuclear deal.
And the possibility of the U.S. pulling out of any potential North Korea deal must already be on Kim Jong Un’s mind. Newly appointed national security adviser John Bolton was instrumental in doing just that during the George W. Bush administration.
And the rich asshole’s own North Korea policy was a reckless mess before all of this, thanks to his various Twitter threats.
But it was particularly strange for the rich asshole to stake his claim to trustworthiness on the fact that he is violating exactly the sort of deal he expects North Korea to enter into.
the rich asshole violates Iran nuclear deal
Iran has already indicated it will not renegotiate a new agreement.
President some rich asshole on Tuesday declined to extend sanctions waivers on Iran, a move that signals the end of U.S. participation in the 2015 nuclear deal that saw Iran limiting it’s nuclear enrichment in exchange for sanctions relief and access to global markets.
In announcing his administration’s largest foreign policy decision to date, the president announced that the U.S. and its allies are “unified in our understanding of the threat and in our conviction that Iran must never acquire a nuclear weapon. After these consultations, it is clear to me that we cannot prevent an Iranian nuclear bomb under the decaying and rotten structure of the current agreement.”
While he accused Iran of being a “regime of great terror” having ties to a number of terrorist groups and being on “the verge of a nuclear breakout,” President the rich asshole did not articulate an alternative plan for watching Iran’s nuclear program.
The Joint Cooperation Plan of Action (JCPOA) was signed between Iran, the United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia, China, and Germany and subjected Iran to regular, rigorous inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency.
James McKeon, policy analyst at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, told ThinkProgress that the path forward in the next few months is far from clear.
“The next step after that is that we don’t know, as analysts, what’s going to happen, and neither does the White House,” said McKeon.
The United States is violating the deal by refusing to extend sanctions waivers in the absence of any transgression on Iran’s part (the IAEA has repeatedly affirmed Iran’s compliance with the JCPOA). Iran, which maintains its nuclear program is a peaceful one, will thus have grounds to complain to the Joint Commission set up to adjudicate issues with the deal.
What happens next, said Mckeon, could take days or weeks to figure out, but it’s unlikely that the deal would survive without the U.S. being a party to it. He added that the administration’s understanding of the agreement is “flawed” and that the idea that it’s actually giving Iran a pathway to a nuclear weapon is “just fundamentally false.”
Possibly laying the groundwork for this, Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif posted a video on Twitter on Thursday — subtitled in several languages — noting that “On 11 occasions since [the JCPOA was adopted by the U.N. Security Council] the U.N. nuclear watchdog has confirmed that Iran has implemented all its obligations. In contrast, the U.S. has consistently violated the agreement, especially by bullying other from doing business with Iran.”
Blowing up the deal like a “supernova” is a huge mistake, said McKeon, because “The truth is that JCPOA is, by any objective standard, the most robust, verifiable agreement in the history of nuclear arms control.”
Nuclear talks with North Korea are expected in June, and it’s hard to imagine how North Korea could in good faith negotiate with the rich asshole administration on shutting down its nuclear weapons program.
“That’s the biggest strategic blunder that’s happening right now, ” said McKeon.
“There’s a huge trust issue here that the North Koreans could simply exploit. They could say, ‘Oh yeah, why would we do an agreement with you when you can’t even hold on to the one you just negotiated three years ago?
A win for Iran’s hardliners
In tearing up the deal, President the rich asshole will not only give his base what he promised them — to undo one of former president Barack Obama’s key accomplishments — but also play directly into the hands of Iranian hardliners who were skeptical of the deal to start with.
But the multilateral JCPOA isn’t just Obama’s achievement: Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani, now in his second term, had a lot of support among Iranians for getting the deal done. Fed up with decades of sanctions, Iranians were optimistic that they might finally be able to enter the world’s economy and attract vital foreign investment.
However, hardliners, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, were never fully convinced that dealing with the U.S. would survive America’s next president, and has been predicting its demise for quite some time.
In a speech in November 2016, Khamenei said, “The U.S. presidential elections will take place in a few months – in seven, eight months – and in nine months, the current American administration will completely change and there will be no guarantee that the future administration will honor the few promises that the current administration has made.”
The current Iranian administration has made it clear that it will neither renegotiate the deal nor will it remain in the JCPOA with other partners if the U.S. leaves and snaps back sanctions.
Regional ramifications
Israel is the rich asshole administration’s greatest ally in its campaign against Iran, so much so that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s presentation last week on Iran’s nuclear program (wherein he alleged that old information on the country’s program was new) was delivered in Israel before a domestic audience but was done in English, speaking directly to President the rich asshole and his base in the U.S
Israel, meanwhile, is a signatory to neither the JCPOA nor the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) — while Iran is — and is known to have the only nuclear weapons program in the Middle East.
Although former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert slipped up and admitted that his country has nuclear weapons, the country has maintained a policy of opacity on its program, refusing to speak about it, and signing the NPT would mean that it would have to allow for inspections of its nuclear facilities.
But Israel might not be the only nuclear power in the region for long.
“Ironically, as this whole process is playing out with the Iran deal, the Saudi Arabians are attempting to increase, massively, their energy program and they’re trying to get an agreement with the United States to get help on that with a civilian nuclear cooperation agreement called a 123 Agreement,” said McKeon.
A “gold standard 123 agreement,” said McKeon, such as the one signed with the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.), prevents it from ever taking what they’re doing with their nuclear energy programs and using it to create a nuclear weapon.
“But the talks right now between the rich asshole administration and Saudi Arabia are not going down the road we took with the U.A.E. — it’s going down a much different path, and that path is essentially allowing them to do certain things like potentially enriching nuclear materials in the future,” said McKeon.
He notes that the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has already said that Saudi Arabia would seek nuclear weapons if Iran ever did, adding, “at the same time, we’re having talks — and again, they’re just talks — about a potential agreement where we might not invoke the gold standard as we did with the United Arab Emirates.”
The rich asshole administration, said McKeon, should condemn any talk of Saudi Arabia acquiring nuclear weapons while negotiating the toughest agreement possible — one that doesn’t allow Saudi to enrich any nuclear materials or reprocess any nuclear materials.
Europe, Iran pledge to uphold pact without United States
French President Emmanuel Macron speaks to congress/Screenshot
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Both Washington’s European allies and Tehran pledged on Tuesday to uphold the 2015 Iran nuclear deal despite President some rich asshole’s decision to pull the United States out and reimpose sanctions.
European leaders decried the rich asshole’s decision to withdraw from the deal, which had lifted sanctions against Iran in return for curbs on its nuclear program. They called on Washington not to take steps that would prevent other countries from upholding it.
Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani said Tehran aimed to continue to comply with the deal’s terms, and would swiftly reach out to the its other signatories – Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China – to keep it in place.
“Together, we emphasize our continuing commitment to the JCPoA,” the leaders of Britain, France and Germany said in a joint statement, referring to the deal by an acronym. “This agreement remains important for our shared security.”
“We urge the U.S. to ensure that the structures of the JCPoA can remain intact, and to avoid taking action which obstructs its full implementation by all other parties to the deal,” said the statement, provided by British Prime Minister Theresa May’s office after she spoke by phone to France’s President Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Macron said he regretted the rich asshole’s decision. Germany’s Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said: “We will try to keep alive this important agreement, which ensures the Middle East and the world as a whole are safer.”
Moscow said it too would focus its efforts on maintaining the accord. It called the rich asshole’s decision “deeply disappointing”.
“There are no – and can be no – grounds for breaking” the deal, the Russian Foreign Ministry said, adding the pact had shown its “full efficiency”. “The United States is undermining international trust in the International Atomic Energy Agency.”
EU leaders are concerned that Washington could use its influence over the world’s financial system to prevent businesses in other countries that have not reimposed sanctions on Iran from doing business there.
As if to hammer home that concern, the rich asshole’s new ambassador to Germany, who presented his credentials in Berlin earlier on Tuesday, tweeted that German businesses should halt their activities in Iran immediately.
DECISION COULD HELP IRAN HARDLINERS
In Tehran, Rouhani, a relative moderate who faced down hardliners at home to reach the agreement with world powers as part of a policy to open up the country and its economy to the outside world, decried the rich asshole’s decision, but said Iran would stick to the deal for now, provided it still works.
In Tehran, Rouhani, a relative moderate who faced down hardliners at home to reach the agreement with world powers as part of a policy to open up the country and its economy to the outside world, decried the rich asshole’s decision, but said Iran would stick to the deal for now, provided it still works.
“If we achieve the deal’s goals in cooperation with other members of the deal, it will remain in place,” Rouhani said in a televised speech. “I have ordered the foreign ministry to negotiate with the European countries, China and Russia in coming weeks. If at the end of this short period we conclude that we can fully benefit from the JCPoA with the cooperation of all countries, the deal would remain.”
Iranian officials told Reuters that the rich asshole’s decision would set the stage for a resurgence of political infighting within Iran’s complex power structure.
The U.S. exit from the deal, so closely associated in Iran with Rouhani, could tip the balance of power in favor of his hardline opponents, some Iran experts said.
“They will blame Rouhani … They will continue their shenanigans at home and abroad. And they will have the U.S. to blame for the failure of the economy,” said Abbas Milani, director of the Iranian Studies program at Stanford University.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has been in power since 1989 and outranks the elected president, had said Iran would “shred” the deal if the United States pulled out.
While most U.S. allies decried the rich asshole administration’s decision to unravel the principal foreign policy achievement of his predecessor Barack Obama, the decision was hailed by Washington’s two main Middle East allies, Israel and Saudi Arabia, both of which long opposed the deal.
The deal was “a recipe for disaster, a disaster for our region, a disaster for the peace of the world,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in praising the rich asshole’s decision.
Saudi Arabia, a Sunni Muslim power that considers Shi’ite Iran to be its main regional foe, also hailed the rich asshole’s move.
“Iran used economic gains from the lifting of sanctions to continue its activities to destabilize the region, particularly by developing ballistic missiles and supporting terrorist groups in the region,” said a Saudi Foreign Ministry statement.
But for major European allies, also at odds with the rich asshole over a host of other issues from trade to efforts to tackle global warming, the decision represents a decisive setback.
Britain, France and Germany had lobbied the rich asshole administration hard in recent weeks to keep the deal in place, arguing that it had succeeded in preventing Iran from getting nuclear weapons and that to renege on it would damage the credibility of Western countries in future negotiations.
EU countries believe it was their decision to stand with the Obama administration and impose firm sanctions against Iran’s oil and gas industry in 2011 that pushed Tehran to the negotiating table in the first place.
“The European Union is determined to preserve it,” EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said of the agreement with Tehran, which she helped negotiate as coordinator for the Western countries. “Together with the rest of the international community, we will preserve this nuclear deal.”
Since the deal was signed, the EU has effectively lifted all sanctions on Iran, but Washington has kept some in place over Iran’s missile program, which was not covered by the deal. That has slowed down a promised boon for the Iranian economy, scaring off foreign investors and making it difficult for Iranian banks to forge links with the outside world.
White House covered up Melania taking credit for Obama’s booklet. Here are the receipts.
"Be Best," indeed.
The White House tried to cover up the fact that First Lady Melania the rich asshole took credit for a booklet she lifted from the Obama administration as part of her “Be Best” campaign, according to records from the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.
When Melania introduced her campaign during a public event on Monday, the White House’s webpage about the initiative directed people to “read ‘Talking with Kids About Being Online,’ a booklet by First Lady Melania the rich asshole and the Federal Trade Commission.”
Here’s a screengrab of the website with that language:
But shortly after the event ended, observers noticed that “Talking with Kids About Being Online” looks almost identical to a booklet released by the Obama administration entitled “Net Cetera: Chatting with Kids about Being Online.” For the second time in less than two years, Melania was exposed for lifting material from the Obamas during a major public appearance.
By Tuesday morning, the White House’s “Be Best” webpage had been quietly changed. No longer was the booklet described as being “by First Lady Melania the rich asshole” — now, it is merely “promoted by First Lady Melania the rich asshole.”
Here’s a screenshot of the website as it appeared Tuesday afternoon:
Later on Tuesday, Melania’s communications director, Stephanie Grisham, released a statement addressing the First Lady’s latest plagiarism controversy. But instead of apologizing or even acknowledging that the campaign’s website had been changed, Grisham attacked the media for being interested in the story in the first place.
“After giving a strong speech that was met with a standing ovation and positive feedback, the focus from opposition media has been on an educational booklet,” it says. “Our office will continue to focus of helping children and I encourage members of the media to attempt to Be Best in their own professions, and focus on some of the children and programs Mrs. the rich asshole highlighted in her remarks yesterday.”
The defiant note was reminiscent of how team the rich asshole responded to Melania’s first plagiarism controversy in 2016, when part of her RNC speech turned out to be lifted nearly word-for-word from one delivered by Michelle Obama.
Instead of apologizing, then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort went on TV and blamed Hillary Clinton.
“This is once again an example of when a woman threatens Hillary Clinton, she seeks out to demean her and take her down,” Manafort said on CNN.
Manafort also flatly denied that plagiarism occurred.
“She was speaking in front of 35 million people last night, she knew that,” he said. “To think that she would be cribbing Michelle Obama’s words is crazy.”
Shep Smith scolds Fox guest for saying the rich asshole ‘pulled out’ of Iran deal: No, ‘we are going to violate’ it
Shep Smith talks about Ronny Jackson/Screenshot
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Fox News anchor, Shep Smith, wants to ensure there is clarity around the Iran Deal breaking news.
President the rich asshole announced Tuesday morning that the U.S. will no longer participate in the Iran Deal.
Statement on the Iran Nuclear Deal: pscp.tv/w/bcHoFDFvTlFs…
However, when sources used the term “pulled out” Smith was quick to scold and correct them.
While interviewing, Jon Alterman, a former statement department staff member, he said that President the rich asshole did not “pull out” of the deal but simply “violated” its terms.
“The deal didn’t have a provision for withdrawal, we are willfully violating,” Alterman clarified.
the rich asshole tries to fix deficit caused by tax cuts by cutting billions from children’s health care
This is the rich asshole's response to a deficit he exploded with massive corporate tax cuts.
The rich asshole administration is set to ask Congress to claw back $15 billion in federal spending. If passed, it would be the largest “rescission” package passed in American history.
Nearly half of the cuts — roughly $7 billion — would come from the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), a program many low-income families depend on for coverage. The White House claims the cuts will not have an impact on the program, which currently has an enrollment of about 9 million.
The administration, however, doesn’t appear to believe their own talking point. Notably absent from White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ explainer on the rescission package is any mention of the CHIP cuts.
President Trump wants to trim $15 billion in government spending. His plan includes cutting ~$7 billion from the popular Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP). @PressSec does NOT mention the CHIP cuts in her explainer...
Once the White House requests the cuts, Congress will have 45 days to act before it expires. During that time, the funding is automatically frozen. The package only requires a simple majority to pass.
Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney appeared on Fox & Friends Tuesday morning to offer his full-throated defense of the cuts, including those targeting children’s health.
“The CHIP program is not allowed to spend that money, it would be illegal. I am not making that up,” Mulvaney said. “Spending is not authorized. It would be illegal for them to write that check.”
While Mulvaney is correct that the authorization has expired, the money previously has been repurposed, on a bipartisan basis, to programs that benefit children.
According to Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families, the rescission package cuts funds for two CHIP accounts: $5.1 billion authorized in 2015 to bolster reimbursements to states for children’s health care costs, and another $1.9 billion from a contingency fund created in order to prevent states from running out of money.
“Congress is aware of this, and over the last several years, they have come to bipartisan agreements about how to reallocate this budget authority to allow for investments in other programs that serve children,” Georgetown CCF writes. “Rescinding these funds is unlikely to impact states’ CHIP programs immediately, but it violates that bipartisan agreement in Congress to manage these funds in ways that continue to help low income children and families.”
The rich asshole administration sees the rescission package as a way to show they are tough on government spending by targeting some unspent funds that haven’t been spent, like $800 million from the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation program, $107 million from funding for Hurricane Sandy relief, money that was allocated for the Ebola outbreak, and a number of grants.
The package is also a way to quell conservative fears of a ballooning deficit, which has only been exacerbated by the $1.3 trillion dollar spending bill President some rich asshole signed last month.
Some experts have called the package a “PR stunt.” That’s because the $15 billion in rescission cuts only represent 0.9 percent of the $1.6 billion dollars in spending the rich asshole has approved since November alone. The rescissions package doesn’t even address the $1.3 billion dollar omnibus spending bill the rich asshole was so reluctant to sign. Instead, funding for domestic programs appropriated years ago will be targeted. Because of this, the deficit likely won’t be impacted.
“It’s not a large spending cut, and it’s not going to offset the damage done earlier this year,” Marc Goldwein, senior policy director for the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, told the Washington Post.
The GOP tax bill has also played a significant role in getting the deficit to its current state. It is estimated to have added at least $1.3 trillion to the deficit over 10 years and largely benefits major corporations.
Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer addressed the tax bill on Twitter writing, “Let’s be honest about this: @POTUS & the GOP are looking to tear apart CHIP, hurting middle-class families & low-income children, to appease the most conservative special interests & feel better about blowing up the deficit to give the wealthy & biggest corps huge tax break.”
Let’s be honest about this: @POTUS & the GOP are looking to tear apart CHIP, hurting middle-class families & low-income children, to appease the most conservative special interests & feel better about blowing up the deficit to give the wealthy & biggest corps huge tax breaks.
Shortly after the GOP tax bill was passed in December, many Democrats and experts on the economy warned that Republicans would blow up the deficit with corporate tax cuts, later using it as an excuse to slash social safety net programs.
POLITICS
Top House Republican Threatens To Subpoena the rich asshole DOJ Official Over Census Citizenship Request
“He’s coming to talk, at some point or another, whether he wants to or not,” said Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.).
A top House Republican said he was willing to subpoena one of President some rich asshole’s Justice Department appointees to appear before Congress and answer questions about the department’s controversial request to add a question about citizenship to the 2020 census.
Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, made the comments Tuesday after John Gore, the acting attorney general for civil rights, failed to appear at a committee hearing on preparations for the 2020 census. Gowdy said he was “disappointed, to say the least,” that Gore failed to appear before the committee. He then indicated he was willing to issue a subpoena.
Gore’s testimony is significant because ProPublica reported he was behind the Department of Justice’s request to the Census Bureau to add a citizenship question. In a December letter to the Bureau, the Justice Department requested that the 2020 census add a citizenship question so that the department could better enforce the Voting Rights Act. The Commerce Department, which oversees the Census Bureau, announced in March that it would accept the Justice Department’s request and add the question.
“He’s coming to talk, at some point or another, whether he wants to or not,” Gowdy said of Gore. “I’m happy to issue a subpoena.” He said the panel would convene on May 18 to hear from Gore “whether voluntarily or otherwise.”
Gowdy’s willingness to send a subpoena seemed to surprise Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), who said she was “pleasantly surprised” that he was willing to do so.
Devin O’Malley, a Justice Department spokesman, declined to comment. Amanda Gonzalez, a spokeswoman for the committee, said, “The Committee communicated to DOJ that we fully expected Gore to testify today.”
Critics say adding a citizenship question to the census is extremely risky and likely to depress the census response rate, particularly among minorities worried what the federal government will do with information about their citizenship status (Federal law says census data must remain confidential and prohibits the census bureau from transferring the information from the census to law enforcement or another government agency.)
The rich asshole administration is already facing a handful of lawsuits challenging the decision to add the question, which has not appeared on the decennial survey since 1950. The legal challenges argue that adding a citizenship question jeopardizes a mandate in the U.S. Constitution to count “all persons.” An inaccurate count would also have severe consequences for representation since electoral districts are based on census data, as well as the distribution of federal funds.
Many Democrats during the hearing expressed skepticism that the Justice Department was interested in better enforcing the Voting Rights Act and expressed skepticism that it would need more citizenship data even if it were interested in doing so. Former Justice Department officials have said the department already has good enough citizenship data to enforce the law, noting the census hasn’t asked about a citizenship question on the decennial survey since 15 years before the landmark voting law was passed in 1965. The census has asked about citizenship on other surveys that have gone out to a smaller portion of the population since then.
Gowdy also clarified during the hearing that while he could compel Gore to appear, he could not make him explain anything.
“My sending someone a subpoena, should not be confused with someone talking. I can’t make someone talk. I can make them sit at that table and listen to our questions,” he said.
White House finally finds an assault allegation that it doesn’t want to ignore
Someone should tell Kellyanne Conway about her boss.
In the immediate aftermath of the New Yorker publishing a bombshell report about physical abuse allegations against New York Attorney General and longtime the rich asshole foe Eric Schneiderman, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway fired off a tweet claiming the “Allegations are harrowing… Drunk with power,” and then another mocking Schneiderman for once saying that “No one is above the law, and I’ll continue to remind President the rich asshole and his administration of that fact everyday.”
Allegations are harrowing.
Violence against women.
Drunk with power.
It’s so tough to read you must.
newyorker.com/news/news-desk…
Gotcha. twitter.com/schneiderman/s…
Conway also retweeted a Daily Caller story that gives President the rich asshole credit for purportedly predicting the fall of Schneiderman.
Before the night was through, Schneiderman announced he would resign from his office at the close of business on Tuesday.
The White House’s attempt to score quick points on the Schneiderman allegations stands in contrast to its response to sexual abuse allegations made against the rich asshole-supporting Republican governor of Missouri, Eric Greitens.
Greitens is accused of tying up a woman he was having an affair with, ripping off her clothes, blindfolding her, taking photos of her without her consent, and then threatening to make the photos public if the woman spoke about the incident. He was indicted and arrested on felony invasion of privacy charges related to the 2015 incident in February, and is set to go on trial next week.
In April, three Republican state senators from Missouri wrote the president and asked him to ask Greitens to resign in his capacity as commander in chief. During a news briefing that took place shortly afterward, Press Secretary Sarah Sanders was asked about the letter, but stopped well short of calling for Greitens to resign.
“I don’t have an official response at this time, but it’s certainly something that is very concerning and something that we’re taking very seriously. And I’ll keep you updated as we have something,” Sanders said. Her comments remain the White House’s most recent public comment about Greitens.
Conway wasn’t alone in trying to score cheap points on the Schneiderman allegations. As he did in the case of Harvey Weinstein, some rich asshole Jr. gleefully tweeted about the Schneiderman story on Monday evening and Tuesday morning, at one point pointing out the hypocrisy of Schneiderman portraying himself as a champion for women while he was allegedly abusing them.
the rich asshole Jr., however, never tweeted about the assault allegations against Greitens or former Republican National Committee finance chair Steve Wynn.
The idea that the rich asshole White House takes abuse allegations seriously is also belied by how administration officials handled accusations against Roy Moore and Rob Porter.
Moore, a failed U.S. Senate candidate from Alabama, received the rich asshole’s full-throated endorsement despite being credibly accused of child molestation. Porter, a former top White House aide, was defended by the president even after two ex-wives came forward to accuse him of domestic abuse, with one of the women presenting photographic evidence to back up her claim.
In a February tweet that was indirectly about Porter, the president decried that “Peoples lives are being shattered and destroyed by a mere allegation.”
Supporters of the president are in a precarious place when it comes to scoring points on sexual assault allegations, given that the rich asshole has been accused of assault by 14 women. The administration’s official position is that all of those women are lying.
By
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May 8, 2018
The rich asshole administration launched a bizarre threat against one of our closest allies immediately after the rich asshole announced the withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal.
The rich asshole administration issued a public threat against the German government minutes after announcing that the United States would withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal.
Recently sworn in U.S. ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell made the threat in a tweet posted after the rich asshole’s announcement.
“As @realDonaldTrump said, US sanctions will target critical sectors of Iran’s economy. German companies doing business in Iran should wind down operations immediately,” Grenell wrote.
Germany is, of course, a sovereign nation and has its own policies for contending with Iran. It is also one of our nation’s closest allies.
And this isn’t the first time the rich asshole has attacked Germany. In May 2017, he labeled the Germany people “very evil” over trade policies. And during a meeting with Chancellor Angela Merkel two months earlier, he wouldn’t even shake her hand.
U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May, French President Emmanuel Macron, and Merkel addressed the issue of Iranian sanctions in a joint statement.
“Iran should continue to receive the sanctions relief it is entitled to whilst it remains in compliance with the terms of the deal,” the leaders wrote.
The decision to withdraw from the deal while Iran has been certified to be in compliance is already isolating America.
And the rich asshole is helping to ensure that by openly ordering the German government around.
The attitude the rich asshole has embraced tells the world that America is not a rational or serious working partner on global issues. And as long as the rich asshole is directing U.S. foreign policy, the decisions will be erratic and lack logic.
Once again during his presidency, America has separated itself from its most loyal and trustworthy allies. America under the rich asshole is pushing for conditions that will likely lead to more war and international conflict.
The postwar alliance that won the Cold War is under full assault from the rich asshole administration. And Germany has received one of the first blows.
Giuliani admits he doesn’t know what he’s talking about
The striking admission comes after a series of disastrous interviews.
After a series of disastrous interviews with Sean Hannity, Fox & Friends, the Washington Post, the New York Times, Jeanine Pirro, and ABC News, among others, Rudy Giuliani — President the rich asshole’s new lead attorney — has acknowledged he has no idea what he’s talking about.
The admission comes after Giuliani repeatedly discussed the Mueller investigation and the legal issues surrounding the Stormy Daniels case in detail on national television, revealing new information and providing comments that legal expertsviewed as damaging.
In a new interview with CBS News, Giuliani says it will take him quite a while to get up to speed on the legal case:
Giuliani told CBS News it will take up to three weeks for him to get fully up to speed on the facts of the investigation and be prepared to engage in formal negotiations with the special counsel about the terms of a possible interview with some rich asshole.Giuliani told Reid that he and the president’s legal team continue to be in communication with the special counsel, but that he wants to have a better sense of the facts before engaging in formal negotiations about a possible interview.
Giuliani’s admission mirrors the rich asshole’s public comments last Friday. “He started yesterday. He will get his facts straight,” the rich asshole told reporters. “Virtually everything that’s been said has been said incorrectly.”
Giuliani subsequently issued a statement that tried to walk back much of what he had said in the previous 48 hours. But the rich asshole’s public rebuke did not end Giuliani’s media tour, which continued through the weekend.
Now there are reports that the rich asshole is growing increasingly frustrated with Giuliani’s bumbling performances and is considering sidelining him from media interviews. Still, Giuliani is not likely to be fired and continues to play a critical role in the rich asshole’s legal strategy. According to CNN, the rich asshole and Giuliani will still ultimately decide if the rich asshole agrees to be interviewed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
Seth Meyers Says Michael Cohen Tried To Get Him To Apologize On-Air To the rich asshole
The effort stemmed from Meyers’ 2011 roasting of the rich asshole at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
Meyers told Politico in a story posting on Tuesday that after he roasted some rich asshole ― among others ― at the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, he reached out a few years later to invite the soon-to-be-presidential candidate to appear on his “Late Night” talk show.
But the rich asshole set one non-negotiable condition for his appearance ― that Meyers apologize on air for his 2011 remarks. And the would-be world leader had his personal attorney Cohen relay the terms. That’s where the conversation ended, according to Meyers.
In an interview for a Politico podcast, Meyers said he “would have never” issued such an apology.
And to think that Meyers and the rich asshole appeared together as father and son in a skit on “Saturday Night Live” in 2004.
“some rich asshole has been saying he will run for president as a Republican, which is surprising, since I just assumed he was running as a joke.”
the rich asshole sat expressionless as Meyers riffed on him. And the rich asshole associates have since speculated that the gibes played a role in his eventual decision to seek the presidency.
Meyers and the rich asshole having a sit-down could be a magical talk-show moment. Asked during the podcast whether it still might happen, Meyers replied, “It’s never going to happen.”
He said there’s a theory in the world of comedic talk shows that there’s a good interview with the rich asshole waiting to happen. “I don’t think there is,” Meyers said, adding that an attempt to capture that would be like “trying to tackle a shadow.”
Still, he conceded that if the rich asshole “called and said he wanted to be on the show, I’d have to say yes.”
Neither Cohen nor the White House immediately responded to HuffPost requests for comment.
the rich asshole’s Iran deal announcement has experts fearing the worst for the Middle East
There is no sound case for forced regime change in Iran.
President some rich asshole is expected to make an announcement on the Iran nuclear deal on Tuesday — following two weeks of heated anti-Iran rhetoric, including talk of regime change.
A lot has happened in recent days, so here’s a quick summary: Last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed he had new information on Iran’s secret nuclear program — and went on to give a dramatic presentation on information that was neither new nor proved anything other than the necessity of keeping the nuclear deal. Just hours later, the White House released a statement claiming that Iran “has a robust, clandestine nuclear weapons program,” which it then changed to the past tense and blamed on a typo.
On Saturday, The Observer reported that President the rich asshole’s team had hired an Israeli spy agency to dig up dirt on Obama administration officials connected to the 2015 nuclear deal, which sees Iran limiting its enrichment activities and submitting to rigorous inspections in exchange for sanctions relief and access to the global market.
That same day, at a convention hosted by the Organization of Iranian American Communities — a known front for the Mojahedin-e Khalq, or MEK, an opposition group of Iranian expats who some compare to a cult — former New York mayor and now the rich asshole lawyer Rudy Giuliani spoke about both tearing up the nuclear deal and about regime change in Iran.
“With Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on his right side, and National Security Adviser John Bolton on his left side, what do you think is going to happen to that agreement?” said Guiliani, miming tearing up a piece of paper — presumably the nuclear deal.
Giuliani then vowed that President the rich asshole is “as committed to regime change as we are.”
Guiliani has a long history of being paid to speak by the MEK — he was recently in Washington, D.C. doing the same at the National Press Club, heaping praise on MEK leader Maryam Rajavi. In fact, the two met in Albania in March — and that wasn’t their first meeting.
And he’s not the only one. The MEK’s connections to the rich asshole administration are powerful. Although Guiliani is not a government official, National Security Advisor John Bolton certainly is, and he too, is on the MVP (paid) roster of the MEK’s speakers.
It’s not clear what the rich asshole’s announcement on the nuclear deal on Tuesday will be, but one thing is certain: regime change in Iran is a really bad idea.
No good examples
What would a forced regime change, one shaped by the United States (presumably with cooperation from Israel and Saudi Arabia, Iran’s chief rival in the region) even look like, and how would it be received in Iran?
Reza Marashi, research director at the National Iranian-American Council (NIAC), said that the rich asshole administration has been pushing for regime change in Iran from the start.
“People like Pompeo, [former Secretary of State Rex] Tillerson, Bolton, the rich asshole himself, [Vice President Mike] Pence, you name it, all of these guys have alluded to or directly called for regime change since the rich asshole came into office,” said Marashi.
“There’s no support for any foreign-imposed regime change in Iran,” he said, even though many Iranians are unhappy with government policies, social and economic, within the country. “You can be all of those things, have those same views, while simultaneously opposing foreign powers, particularly the United States, Israel, and Saudi Arabia, trying to do to your country what they’ve done to all the countries that surround you.”
Indeed, Iranians have a history of railing against foreign meddling in their affairs.
“It’s almost impossible to conceive how a change that looked even remotely like it was inspired from outside would be acceptable to most Iranians,” Malcolm Byrne, deputy director of the National Security Archive at George Washington University, told ThinkProgress over email.
“The history going back to the 1950s is so pockmarked with negative experiences that even Iranians who oppose the current regime would find it hard to overcome their ingrained aversion to the idea,” he said.
“Nationalism and the desire for sovereignty have been extremely powerful unifying forces in Iran for decades,” added Byrne, referring to the U.S.- and U.K.-orchestrated 1953 coup that subverted the course of Iranian democracy and re-installed the king, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, back in power.
This was one of the events that ultimately triggered the Islamic Revolution of 1979.
When asked how Iranians might respond to any move that would install either an MEK government or even the son of the deceased king, the exiled Reza Pahalvi, as Iran’s leadership, Byrne replied, “[Iran’s first Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah] Khomeini reportedly once said: ‘There is no difference between America and Russia. Each is worse than the other.’ That’s probably how most Iranians feel about the MEK and the Pahlavis.”
‘Death, destruction, instability’
The rich asshole administration has neither a policy nor a strategy on Iran, said Marashi, who in a piece published on Monday described it as “dancing in the dark.”
“Let’s throw everything we got at Iran, short of an actual invasion, Iraq-style, 2003… with the goal to weaken, destabilize, and, over time, overthrow, without having to do what we did in Iraq,” said Marashi.
If the United States and its allies were to somehow pull this off, Marashi said there’s “no metric” to figure out what kind of instability it would trigger within Iran or in the region other than what has happened since 9/11.
“Every single country that the United States, together with friends, be it the Europeans or anyone else, has pursued regime change polices in, from Iraq to Afghanistan to Libya to Syria, it has caused death, destruction, instability, and you’d really be hard-pressed to say how it has advanced American interests or American values,” he added.
Looking back even further, Byrne also feels there are no positive examples of forced regime change to call upon.
“It’s hard to think of a case of U.S.-sponsored regime change anywhere in recent decades that has ended up a ‘success,'” he said. “Even in the small handful of examples around the world — not just the Middle East — where the immediate objective of a new regime may have been obtained (Iran, Guatemala, e.g.), the longer-term results have almost always eventually gone against U.S. interests, or contributed to huge damage locally.”
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