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| Porn Users Forum » WHY DOESN'T POTUS ARREST BILL CLINTON, HILARY CLINTON, AND OBAMA? |
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| 05-02-18 07:09am - 2386 days | #551 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User  Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Cohen represented clients who allegedly staged car accidents for insurance money: report By Brooke Seipel - 05/02/18 08:23 AM EDT Before he was President Trump's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen worked as a personal injury lawyer reportedly covering clients who allegedly staged car accidents in order to sue for large sums of money. Rolling Stone found in a new investigation that while working as a personal injury lawyer, Cohen covered clients affiliated with insurance fraud rings where people allegedly rented vehicles, purchased insurance and then crashed those vehicles into friends cars in order to receive a large payout. Cohen never faced any charges of wrongdoing related to the cases and Rolling Stone reports there is no evidence that he knowingly filed false claims. One example reported by Rolling Stone is a case brought by State Farm, in which Cohen was listed as the defense attorney for four people charged of staging at least 10 accidents from 2000 to 2001 as part of a fraud ring. The case was granted a default judgment after Cohen's clients chose not to contest charges. The report comes as Cohen is under investigation for bank and tax fraud. FBI agents reportedly seized emails, tax documents and records related to his payment to adult-film star Stormy Daniels during a raid Cohen's home and his Manhattan office last month. It is unclear if they may have seized any information relating to his past work as a personal injury lawyer, according to Rolling Stone. | |
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| 05-02-18 07:35am - 2386 days | #552 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Fake news: West Virginia Republican Senate candidate Don Blankenship says the father-in-law of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is a Chinaperson. During Tuesday night’s debate, Blankenship repeated his claim that McConnell had “conflicts of interest with China.” The candidate has made attacking the Senate majority leader a centerpiece of his GOP Senate primary campaign. Blankenship called McConnell “Cocaine Mitch” in a campaign ad earlier this week, alluding to a 2014 drug bust on a shipping vessel owned by the company founded by Chao’s father. However, Blankenship himself is not lily-white. Blankenship is a former coal CEO who served a year in prison for involvement in the deadly 2010 Upper Big Branch mine explosion. Donald L. Blankenship, whose leadership of the Massey Energy Company catapulted him from a working-class West Virginia childhood into a life as one of the wealthiest and most influential men in Appalachia, was sentenced on Wednesday to a year in prison for conspiring to violate federal mine safety standards. The prison term, the maximum allowed by law, came in Federal District Court here six years and one day after an explosion ripped through Massey’s Upper Big Branch mine, killing 29 men. Although Mr. Blankenship was not accused of direct responsibility for the accident, the deadliest in American coal mining in about 40 years, the disaster prompted the inquiry that ultimately led to his conviction. Federal officials have said that last autumn’s guilty verdict was the first time such a high-ranking executive had been convicted of a workplace safety violation. That is the Republican way: maximize profits, let a few poor working-men die because profits are more important than safe working conditions. Also, When debate moderator Bret Baier asked how Blankenship would work with McConnell if elected, given his penchant for “slinging insults,” he insisted it would not be a problem. “I’m not going to D.C. to get along,” Blankenship said. Shades of Donald Trump, Glorious Leader For Life of Trump-America. ------- ------- GOP Senate Candidate: 'Chinaperson' Isn't Racist HuffPost Marina Fang,HuffPost 1 hour 48 minutes ago West Virginia Republican Senate candidate Don Blankenship on Tuesday said he West Virginia Republican Senate candidate Don Blankenship on Tuesday said he saw nothing wrong with his use of a racial slur to describe the father-in-law of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). “This idea that calling somebody a ‘Chinaperson,’ I mean, I’m an American person. I don’t see this insinuation by the press that there’s something racist about saying a ‘Chinaperson,’” Blankenship said during a primary debate hosted by Fox News. “Some people are Korean persons, and some of them are African persons. That’s not any slander there.” Blankenship, a former coal CEO who served a year in prison for involvement in the deadly 2010 Upper Big Branch mine explosion, attacked McConnell’s ties to China last week by targeting the family of McConnell’s wife, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao. “I have an issue when the father-in-law is a wealthy Chinaperson and there’s a lot of connections to some of the brass, if you will, in China,” Blankenship said on a radio show. During Tuesday night’s debate, Blankenship repeated his claim that McConnell had “conflicts of interest with China.” The candidate has made attacking the Senate majority leader a centerpiece of his GOP Senate primary campaign. Blankenship called McConnell “Cocaine Mitch” in a campaign ad earlier this week, alluding to a 2014 drug bust on a shipping vessel owned by the company founded by Chao’s father. When debate moderator Bret Baier asked how Blankenship would work with McConnell if elected, given his penchant for “slinging insults,” he insisted it would not be a problem. “I’m not going to D.C. to get along,” Blankenship said. Blankenship is in a close race with other top GOP contenders to challenge Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) in November. Other Republicans in the May 8 primary include state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey and Rep. Evan Jenkins. This article originally appeared on HuffPost. | |
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| 05-02-18 04:58pm - 2386 days | #553 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Fake news: Sheriff's deputies shoot and kill a black teenager. The deputies say the black teen had a gun, but no gun is found by the body. The dead teen's family say the teen was unarmed. Who you gonna believe: the police, who stand for law and order? Or a bunch of black civilians, who might be lying through their teeth? The sheriff's department is refusing to release tapes of the incident, the names of the deputies involved, and the coroner's report, saying the incident is under investigation. We must have faith in the sheriff's department, since they are legally sworn to protect the public. Maybe the black teen was an undocumented immigrant, or some rapist, or other type of criminal. Anyway, the deputies fired in self-defense, since the deputies thought the teen had a gun. That gun somehow disappeared before the deputies could prove their innocence of any potential criminal action (such as shooting an unarmed black teen--except that shooting unarmed black men is safer than shooting an armed black, who might shoot back). ------- ------- LA Times Family of 16-year-old fatally shot by L.A. County sheriff's deputies says in lawsuit that boy was unarmed Nicole Santa Cruz By Nicole Santa Cruz May 02, 2018 | 4:00 PM Family of 16-year-old fatally shot by L.A. County sheriff's deputies says in lawsuit that boy was unarmed John Weber, the father of 16-year-old shooting victim Anthony Weber, reaches out to touch his son's photo during a news conference outside the federal courthouse in downtown Los Angeles on Wednesday. Anthony was killed by Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies in February. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times) The family of a teenager fatally shot by Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies in February has filed a civil rights lawsuit claiming that deputies used excessive force and then accused the dead teen of having a weapon to justify the shooting. In the three months since the shooting, attorneys for the parents and 1-year-old daughter of Anthony Weber said the L.A. County Sheriff's Department has not released additional information about the incident, including the 911 tapes, dispatch recordings or the identities of the deputies. Sheriff's officials have placed the results of an autopsy on hold, blocking the coroner's office from releasing information. "The aim of this lawsuit is to uncover and expose the code of silence in this case and reveal the true facts of what happened," Gregory Yates, an attorney for the family, said at a news conference Wednesday. Yates said attorneys filed the lawsuit to gain more information about the shooting. "The family doesn't know. They want to know." After the shooting, the department said that Anthony, 16, had a gun that may have been removed from the crime scene. His family denies that the teenager had a weapon. "Anthony was a beloved son, grandson, father and brother," Yates said. "No gun was found at the scene and that's because Anthony did not have a gun at the time he was shot." In the lawsuit filed against the county Tuesday, attorneys said that the teenager's hands were "visibly empty" at the time of the shooting, and that the department did not provide proper medical aid to Anthony, who was "bleeding profusely." Sheriff's officials declined to address specific claims in the lawsuit or release additional details. In a statement, the department said: "It is frustrating for our Department to see that there is a growing body of evidence in this case that is undeniable, and yet, to protect the integrity of the investigation, to continue to maintain open channels of communication for more potential witnesses to come forward, we must stay silent." The incident began on Feb. 4 about 8 p.m., when two deputies responded to a report of a young man in blue jeans and a black shirt pointing a handgun at a driver in the 1200 block of West 107th Street, according to the department. The driver, according to partial audio of the dispatch call, said he feared for his life. While on foot, deputies encountered a 16-year-old boy who matched the description. They spotted a handgun tucked in his pants, according to statements by the Sheriff's Department. When they ordered him not to move, the teen ignored the deputies' commands and took off running into an apartment complex known as a gang hangout, sheriff's Capt. Christopher Bergner has said previously. After entering a courtyard, the young man turned toward the deputies and one of them fired about 10 shots. The teenager was struck "several times" in the upper body, the department said in a statement. After the shooting, the department said, neighbors immediately flooded the courtyard and the two deputies called for help to control the crowd as it swelled to 30 or 40 people. Deputies believe the gun went missing during the commotion, Bergner has said. A meeting meant to quell tensions in the community days later had to be cut short, after a comment made by a sheriff's official prompted outrage. Community activists called on California's attorney general to independently investigate the shooting and residents marched in the neighborhood to demand justice. The teenager's mother, Demetra Johnson, said that her son, who went by "A.J.," was a loving person who managed to form a bond with each member of his large family. Johnson said that his daughter, Violet, was the "greatest love of his life." "It brought me so much joy to watch how affectionate and protective he was as a young father," she said. "He demonstrated the maturity and lovingness that most grown men didn't show as a dad." Johnson said her son had "dreams for the future," and wanted to see his daughter grow up. "I just never got to say goodbye," she said. Anthony's father, John Weber, stood by holding his son's gray baseball mit. He said that his son helped him build the seven-bedroom home he shared with his family. "Every time I walk down the halls, I think about the boards he helped me nail together," he said. nicole.santacruz@latimes.com | |
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| 05-02-18 08:33pm - 2386 days | #554 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Fake news: Who are you going to believe? Donald Trump, who said he did not know about the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels. Donald Trump, who denies he had a sexual relationship with Stormy Daniels. Michael Cohen, who said he paid the $130,000 to Stormy Daniels with his own money, and was never re-paid by Donald Trump. Donald Trump, who now says he re-paid the $130,000 to his lawyer, Michael Cohen, Rudy Guliani, who says that Trump paid the $130,000 to Cohen without knowing what the money was for (Trump is such a trusting man, that he pays his lawyer $130,000 without asking what the money is for). Trump, who denies that he had sex with Stormy Daniels, but authorized a payment of $130,000 to Stormy Daniels for what reason? Why pay a woman $130,000 for no reason: except that Trump is such a generous guy? Lies, lies, lies, more lies. And do any of these powerful men think the public will believe them? Or that the courts will believe them? After denying all the details, and then saying, "oh, wait a minute, now I recall that I did do this after all..." I don't think the lies and denials are going to be covered under the freedom of political speed argument. ---------- ---------- Giuliani: Trump repaid Cohen $130K for payment to porn star Associated Press Catherine Lucey and Jill Colvin, Associated Press,Associated Press 25 minutes ago WASHINGTON (AP) -- In a startling revelation, President Donald Trump's new lawyer said Wednesday that Trump repaid his personal attorney $130,000 in a deal made just before the 2016 election to keep porn star Stormy Daniels quiet about her tryst with the president, directly contradicting Trump's past statements about the hush money. During an appearance on Fox News Channel's "Hannity," Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani said the money to repay Michael Cohen had been "funneled ... through the law firm and the president repaid it." Asked if Trump knew about the arrangement, Giuliani said: "He didn't know about the specifics of it, as far as I know. But he did know about the general arrangement, that Michael would take care of things like this, like I take care of things like this for my clients. I don't burden them with every single thing that comes along. These are busy people." Trump told reporters several weeks ago that he didn't know about the payment to Daniels as part of a non-disclosure agreement she signed days before the 2016 presidential election. Asked aboard Air Force One whether he knew about the payment, Trump said flatly: "No." Trump also said he didn't know why Cohen had made the payment or where he got the money. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday. Giuliani, who joined Trump's legal team last month, said the president had repaid Cohen over several months, indicating the payments continued through at least the presidential transition, if not into his presidency. He also said the payment "is going to turn out to be perfectly legal" because "that money was not campaign money." Daniels' lawyer, Michael Avenatti, called the comment "a stunning revelation." "Mr. Trump evidently has participated in a felony and there must be serious consequences for his conduct and his lies and deception to the American people," he said. Giuliani made the statements to Fox host Sean Hannity, who has his own connection to the case. It was recently revealed in court that Hannity is one of Cohen's clients. Hannity has described his personal dealings with Cohen as centered on real estate advice and said that it "never rose to any level that I needed to tell anyone that I was asking him questions." Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, says she had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006 and was paid to keep quiet as part of a nondisclosure agreement she is now seeking to invalidate. She has also filed a defamation suit against Trump after he questioned a composite sketch she released of a man she says threatened her to stay quiet about the encounter with Trump. The White House has said Trump denies having a relationship with Daniels. Cohen's payment to the president's accuser in the weeks leading up to the presidential election could be cast as an illegal contribution but not if he were acting on the president's behest and with his money. The revelation from Giuliani came as Cohen is under escalating legal pressure. He is facing a criminal investigation in New York and FBI agents raided his home and office several weeks ago. The FBI was seeking records about the nondisclosure agreement. Daniels' lawsuit over the hush deal has been delayed, with the judge citing the criminal investigation underway. | |
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| 05-02-18 09:36pm - 2386 days | #555 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Fake news: Trump and Giuliani make a swell team. Both seem to be at ease with telling contradictory stories about the same event. The problem with this approach is that some people want a consistent story of what the facts are. But their approach works best with people with short-term memory: they will not notice the contradictions in the stories Trump and Guiliana tell. ------ ------ In first TV appearance as Trump’s new lawyer, Giuliani makes serious legal error Rudy is off to a bad start. Judd Legum May 2, 2018, 10:11 pm On Wednesday night, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani sat for an interview with Sean Hannity in his first major TV appearance as President Trump’s lawyer. It did not go well. Giuliani offered a new — and contradictory — explanation for why Trump fired Comey. This is problematic when the goal of Trump’s lawyers is to provide Mueller with a consistent, and legal, explanation for the firing. Early in the interview, Giuliani said that Trump fired James Comey as FBI director because “Comey would not — among other things — say that he wasn’t a target of the investigation.” Giuliani said Trump was “entitled to that.” Giuliani’s statement not only confirms that Comey was fired because he refused to publicly clear Trump in the Russia investigation, but also directly contradicts two other explanations for Comey’s firing offered by Trump. According to Giuliani, Trump told NBC’s Lester Holt in an interview shortly after Comey’s firing that “I did it because I felt I had to explain to the American people that their president was not the target of the investigation.” That is not, however, what Trump told Holt. Trump told Holt that he fired Comey because of his frustration with the existence of the entire Russia investigation, which he believed was an excuse concocted by Democrats who lost the election. (Comey was a Republican appointed as FBI director by George W. Bush.) And in fact when I decided to just do it I said to myself, I said, “You know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story, it’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should’ve won.” In the interview with Holt, Trump did not mention Comey’s refusal to state publicly that he was not a target of the investigation. Trump’s answer in the Holt interview, in turn, contradicted the official explanation for Comey’s firing. Officially, Trump fired Comey for the reasons laid out in a memo written by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. The memo criticizes Comey’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation. Specifically, Rosenstein said Comey was too harsh to Clinton and should not have criticized her publicly when he announced that charges would not be filed. On Hannity, Giuliani made the exact opposite argument. “Hillary, I know you’re very disappointed you didn’t win. But you’re a criminal. Equal justice would mean you should go to jail,” Giuliani said. It’s a well-received talking point on Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News. But Giuliani’s failure to tell a consistent story, particularly about Comey’s firing, could create much bigger problems for Trump down the road. | |
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| 05-03-18 12:15am - 2385 days | #556 | |
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biker (0)
Active User  Posts: 632 Registered: May 03, '08 Location: milwaukee, wi |
I just watched this fool Guiliani on Sean Hannity. He thinks he has helped Trump's case. We have a special investigator with all the resources anyone could imagine and it is going to be a porn star that takes Trump down. People will read this in history books and think it is fiction. Warning Will Robinson | |
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| 05-03-18 01:48am - 2385 days | #557 | |
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Jade1 (0)
Active User Posts: 103 Registered: Mar 28, '18 |
Guiliani a fool? I think not. | |
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| 05-03-18 02:36am - 2385 days | #558 | |
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biker (0)
Active User Posts: 632 Registered: May 03, '08 Location: milwaukee, wi |
Did you watch his interview. He said Trump reimbursed the $130,000 after Trump said he knew nothing about it. Guiliani just called Trump a liar. What lawyer tells the world their client is a liar? The answer; Guiliani. Warning Will Robinson | |
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| 05-03-18 02:57am - 2385 days | #559 | |
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Jade1 (0)
Active User Posts: 103 Registered: Mar 28, '18 |
You're right. I'm sure he has no clue what he's doing. He has no experience what so ever  Please. | |
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| 05-03-18 04:20am - 2385 days | #560 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Fake news: Stormy Daniels' attorney, Michaeil Avenatti, pleased with Rudy Giuliani admissions. Believes it helps his case against Trump and Cohen. Believes it could lead to criminal charges against Trump and/or Cohen. Politics Michael Avenatti Stunned By Rudy Interview: 'No Way, No How' Trump Finishes His Term Now HuffPost Ed Mazza,HuffPost 4 hours ago Michael Avenatti, attorney for porn star Stormy Daniels, said Rudy Giuliani’s stunning Wednesday night interview on Fox News will doom the presidency of Donald Trump. Giuliani told Sean Hannity that Trump repaid his personal attorney, Michael Cohen, for the $130,000 sent to Daniels as part of a nondisclosure agreement, something the president has previously denied. Daniels claims the agreement kept her from discussing her alleged affair with Trump. In response, Avenatti told “CNN Tonight” that Trump could face “potential criminal liability” related to money laundering, campaign finance and fraud violations. “I said it weeks ago, I’m going to say it again: Mr. Trump will not serve out his term,” Avenatti said. “No way. No how. He will be forced to ultimately resign. This is a bombshell.” Earlier on Wednesday, Avenatti taped an appearance on Stephen Colbert’s “Late Show” where he implied there were more women with similar NDAs involving Trump. Avenatti also produced the receipt for Cohen’s payment to Daniels’ attorneys at the time: The receipt showed involvement with a bank in California, which Avenatti said would be of interest to Xavier Becerra, the state’s attorney general. “This document may, in fact, give him jurisdiction over certain criminal acts associated with this payment,” Avenatti said. “And, in fact, if the attorney general of the state of California were to bring charges, President Trump could not pardon Michael Cohen for those charges.” He did not specify what the “certain criminal acts” could be. This article originally appeared on HuffPost. -------- -------- The Wrap Stormy Daniels’ Lawyer Shows Colbert Receipt for $130K Wire Payment From Michael Cohen The Wrap Debbie Emery,The Wrap 5 hours ago Stormy Daniels’ Lawyer Shows Colbert Receipt for $130K Wire Payment From Michael Cohen Stormy Daniels’ lawyer Michael Avenatti didn’t arrive at “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” empty-handed on Wednesday night. Avenatti brought what he said was a receipt for a $130,000 wire payment made by attorney Michael Cohen. “This is a copy of the incoming wire receipt from Ms. Daniels’ prior counsel showing the origin of the $130,000,” he told Colbert. He said the payment came from the San Francisco branch of a company Cohen created, meaning that if California Attorney General Xavier Becerra were to bring charges against Cohen, Trump would not be able to pardon him. “That could take away his get-out-of-jail-free card right there,” Colbert said. “Absolutely,” Avenatti replied. Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, is suing Trump to vacate the nondisclosure agreement she signed in 2016 for $130,000 paid by Cohen. She is also suing Trump for defamation after he called some of her statements “fraud” on Twitter. A California judge set a July hearing date for the first lawsuit. When Colbert asked why he didn’t believe that Cohen simply cut the $130,000 check for Trump, Avenatti replied: “It’s absurd to suggest that an attorney would advance $130,000 for somebody from a personal home equity loan, never tell him about it — not just anyone, but a billionaire running for president — never seek reimbursement, never tell him about it. It’s just absurd, it’s ridiculous, nobody believes that.” “What if they’re a terrible attorney?” Colbert responded. “What if he’s just really bad it his job?” | |
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| 05-03-18 04:34am - 2385 days | #561 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Giuliani comments on Stormy payment raise legal questions Associated Press JILL COLVIN and CHAD DAY,Associated Press 3 hours ago WASHINGTON (AP) — Rudy Giuliani's revelation that President Donald Trump reimbursed his personal attorney for a $130,000 payment to a porn star to keep her quiet about an alleged affair is raising new legal questions, including whether the president and his campaign violated campaign finance laws. The former New York City mayor insisted on Fox News Channel Wednesday night that the payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels was "going to turn out to be perfectly legal." "That money was not campaign money. Sorry, I'm giving you a fact now that you don't know. It's not campaign money, no campaign finance violation," he said. Some legal experts disagree. A look at some of the issues at play: TIMING Giuliani's insistence the money had nothing to do with the campaign is complicated by the fact that Daniels' silence was secured just days before the 2016 presidential election, and as Trump was dealing with the fallout from the "Access Hollywood" tape in which he bragged about sexually assaulting women. If the payment were wholly personal, said Richard L. Hasen, an expert in election law at the University of California, Irvine, there would be no campaign finance violations. But Giuliani's argument that the payment was unrelated to the campaign appears to be "pretty far-fetched" given the timing, said Andrew Herman, an attorney specializing in campaign finance law at Miller & Chevalier. "Certainly, the argument that the government will make is that the $130,000 payment from Michael Cohen to Daniels was a loan to the Trump campaign to keep these allegations secret obviously and then Trump paying Cohen back would be a campaign expenditure" — a loan and expenditure that should have been disclosed to the Federal Election Commission, he said. DISCLOSURE: All campaign expenses, including payments and loans, are supposed to be disclosed to the FEC. Hasen said the question before Wednesday had been whether Cohen had made an unreported contribution to the Trump campaign exceeding legal limits. "If this is true, then it looks like Cohen may have made an unreported loan to the campaign rather than a contribution," he said. That could be good news for Cohen, because it would have been up to the president or his campaign to report the loan, not up to Cohen. "The greatest significance is that it implicates the president, directly," he said. "If it's done with Trump's knowledge ... then now we're talking about something that is related to the campaign and is more serious." Norm Eisen, who served as an ethics lawyer in the Obama White House and now chairs the left-leaning Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, which has repeatedly challenged Trump, also said Trump should have disclosed the loan on his federal financial disclosure. "There's probably a sufficient basis for DOJ to open another investigation about whether the president was candid on his personal financial disclosure," he said. WHY GO THERE? It wasn't immediately clear what Giuliani sought to gain with the admission. Eisen suggested it might have something to do with the fact that Cohen is under criminal investigation in New York. FBI agents also raided his home and office several weeks ago seeking records about the nondisclosure agreement. "I think the other intention here apparently was to tear the Band-Aid off and to get out in public whatever Cohen might offer should he choose to cooperate," speculated Eisen. Sol Wisenberg, a defense attorney who was a deputy independent counsel during the Starr special counsel investigation into President Bill Clinton, said the comment "obviously increases the president's exposure to potential campaign finance violations, but it also makes him look terrible." "I don't understand the Giuliani strategy," he added. "Maybe it's been too long since he's been in the criminal justice field." ___ Associated Press writer Zeke Miller contributed to this report. Comment Guidelines | |
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| 05-03-18 04:39am - 2385 days | #562 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Giuliani: Trump repaid Cohen $130K for payment to porn star Associated Press CATHERINE LUCEY and JILL COLVIN,Associated Press 6 hours ago WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump reimbursed his personal lawyer for $130,000 in hush money paid to a porn actress days before the 2016 presidential election, Rudy Giuliani, one of Trump's attorneys, said Wednesday, appearing to contradict the president's past claims that he didn't know the source of the money. During an appearance on Fox News Channel's "Hannity," Giuliani said the money to repay Michael Cohen had been "funneled ... through the law firm and the president repaid it." Asked if Trump knew about the arrangement, Giuliani said: "He didn't know about the specifics of it, as far as I know. But he did know about the general arrangement, that Michael would take care of things like this, like I take care of things like this for my clients. I don't burden them with every single thing that comes along. These are busy people." The comments appeared to contradict statements made by Trump several weeks ago, when he said he didn't know about the payment to porn actress Stormy Daniels as part of a nondisclosure agreement she signed days before the presidential election. Giuliani later suggested to The Wall Street Journal that while Trump had repaid the $130,000, Cohen had settled the payment to Daniels without Trump's knowledge at the time. Guiliani's revelation seemed aimed at reducing the president's legal exposure. But outside experts said it raised a number of questions, including whether the money represented repayment of an undisclosed loan or could be seen as reimbursement for a campaign expenditure. Asked aboard Air Force One last month whether he knew about the payment, Trump said flatly: "No." Trump also said he didn't know why Cohen had made the payment or where he got the money. In a phone interview with "Fox and Friends" last week, however, Trump appeared to muddy the waters, saying that Cohen represented him in the "crazy Stormy Daniels deal." The White House referred questions to the president's personal legal team. Giuliani, a former New York City mayor and ex-U.S. attorney who joined Trump's legal team last month, said the president had repaid Cohen over several months, indicating the payments continued through at least the presidential transition, if not into his presidency. He also said the payment "is going to turn out to be perfectly legal" because "that money was not campaign money." No debt to Cohen is listed on Trump's personal financial disclosure form, which was certified on June 16, 2017. Giuliani also described the payment to Daniels as "a very regular thing for lawyers to do." Daniels' lawyer, Michael Avenatti, called the comment "a stunning revelation." "Mr. Trump evidently has participated in a felony and there must be serious consequences for his conduct and his lies and deception to the American people," he said. Giuliani made the statements to Fox host Sean Hannity, who has his own connection to the case. It was recently revealed in court that Hannity is one of Cohen's clients. Hannity has described his personal dealings with Cohen as centered on real estate advice and said that it "never rose to any level that I needed to tell anyone that I was asking him questions." Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, says she had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006, months after his third wife gave birth to his youngest child, and was paid to keep quiet as part of a nondisclosure agreement she is now seeking to invalidate. She has also filed a defamation suit against Trump after he questioned a composite sketch she released of a man she says threatened her to stay quiet. The White House has said Trump denies having a relationship with Daniels. Cohen had said previously: "Neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign was a party to the transaction with Ms. Clifford, and neither reimbursed me for the payment, either directly or indirectly." He notably did not include the president personally. Asked about Cohen's denial, Giuliani said that he didn't know whether Cohen had made the payment without asking Trump but that he had "no reason to dispute that." The revelation from Giuliani came as Cohen was under escalating legal pressure. He is facing a criminal investigation in New York, and FBI agents raided his home and office several weeks ago seeking records about the nondisclosure agreement. Daniels' lawsuit over the hush deal has been delayed, with the judge citing the criminal investigation. The payment to Daniels has raised numerous legal questions, including whether it was an illegal campaign contribution and, now, loan. "If this is true then it looks like Cohen may have made an unreported loan to the campaign rather than a contribution," said Richard L. Hasen, an expert in election law at the University of California, Irvine. He said that might be better for Cohen, but not for Trump, because it undermines the argument that Cohen was acting independently. "The greatest significance is that it implicates the president directly," he said. Law firms advance expenses for clients as a matter of course, and so there's nothing inherently improper about a lawyer covering a particular payment and then being reimbursed for it. In this case, though, the client who apparently reimbursed the expense was running for president and the money was paid just days before the election, raising questions about whether Cohen's law practice was functioning as a vendor for the campaign and whether the expense was therefore an unreported campaign expenditure. If so, that could be legally problematic. Andrew Herman, an attorney specializing in campaign finance law at Miller & Chevalier, said Giuliani's argument that this was a private payment unrelated to the campaign appears to be "pretty far-fetched" given the timing — weeks before the election while Trump was under fire for his behavior with women and for an "Access Hollywood" tape in which he spoke of groping women without their consent. But if Cohen or Trump could establish that discussions with Daniels over the payment long predated his run for office, that could help them with the argument that the money was a personal rather than political expense. "It obviously increases the president's exposure to potential campaign finance violations, but it also makes him look terrible," said Sol Wisenberg, a defense attorney who was a deputy independent counsel during the Starr special counsel investigation into President Bill Clinton. "I don't understand the Giuliani strategy," he added. "Maybe it's been too long since he's been in the criminal justice field." ___ Associated Press writers Zeke Miller, Jonathan Lemire and Eric Tucker contributed to this report. Major piece of evidence in Stormy Daniels case revealed on 'The Late Show' George Back 4 hours ago | |
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| 05-03-18 04:40am - 2385 days | #563 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Stormy Daniels‘ attorney, Michael Avenatti, visited The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and revealed a major piece of evidence in his client’s claim against President Trump. Avenatti has been on television quite a bit lately, but this is his biggest reveal yet. The attorney brought a copy of the receipt for the nondisclosure agreement with Trump’s attorney, Michael Cohen. “This is the $130,000 receipt, coming from the entity, Essential Consultants, which is the entity that Michael Cohen created and fabricated for the purposes of this payment,” Avenatti said. He also pointed out that the check was sent from a First Republic Bank branch in San Francisco. That matters, as the bank is under the oversight of California Attorney General Xavier Becerra — who is not a Trump fan. “This document may in fact give [Becerra] jurisdiction over certain criminal acts associated with this payment,” Avenatti said. In fact, if the attorney general of the state of California were to bring charges, President Trump could not pardon Michael Cohen for those charges.” And if it doesn’t seem normal for a lawyer to reveal a key piece of evidence on a late night talk show, it isn’t. “This is not your normal case, and it’s not your normal defendant,” Avenatti said. “You’re dealing with a defendant that’s very undisciplined, can be easily baited into making mistakes, and I think we’ve been very, very successful in doing just that. And we’re going to keep doing what we’re doing.” The Late Show with Stephen Colbert airs weeknights at 11:35 on CBS. | |
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| 05-03-18 08:50am - 2385 days | #564 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Politics Samantha Bee agrees with Michelle Wolf that Sarah Sanders is a liar Stephen Proctor 7 hours ago On Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, Bee came to the defense of comedian Michelle Wolf, who has been catching flak for, among other things, essentially calling White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders a liar at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner. Bee agrees with Wolf that Sanders is indeed a liar, but it seemed as if Bee is equally impressed with Sanders’s lying prowess. “She is smart. She’s savvy. And she has the eerie ability to make towering falsehoods unwatchably dull,” Bee said. “Sarah Huckabee Sanders is like a public relations Dementor, sucking the energy out of the White House press until they can’t really fight back, turning them into tragic journalistic husks called Maggie Habermans” — Maggie Haberman being a New York Times White House correspondent who has gone after Wolf for her performance. Bee took issue with the press for its negative reporting of Wolf’s performance and defense of Sanders, as Sanders calls the press liars or fake news on a seemingly daily basis. And Bee had video of several examples proving her point that Sanders deserved the insult. Full Frontal with Samantha Bee airs Wednesdays at 10:30 p.m. on TBS. After a controversial performance by comedian Michelle Wolf at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, newspaper The Hill will no longer participate in the event without “major reforms.” The dinner is an annual event that benefits the WHCA and a number of journalism students who receive WHCA scholarships. It typically includes a comedian who skewers journalists and the presidential administration. Wolf, a former member of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, received criticism for what was perceived as harsh jokes, especially toward White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Even WHCA President Margaret Talev said that some of the jokes made her “uncomfortable.” In a letter Tuesday to WHCA Chairman Steven Thomma, James Finkelstein, The Hill’s chairman, called the routine “out of line.” “The Hill, which has participated in the White House Correspondents' Association dinner for many years, does not plan at this time to participate in the event moving forward,” wrote Finkelstein. “The kind of jokes told by this year’s headliner, Michelle Wolf, were out of line for an event that’s supposed to be fun—and fair. Based on what Americans witnessed on national television at Saturday night’s dinner, a once-fine evening celebrating the strong, free press the WHCA speaks of has turned into an angry display and ad-hominem attacks.” Finkelstein said The Hill would continue to donate to WHCA scholarships for future journalists and hoped the dinner would return to highlighting the importance of journalism. “A solid majority of journalists from the left and right have condemned this year's comedian and rightly so. The association made apologies, albeit not to the press secretary, only after the pressure compelled it to happen,” wrote Finkelstein. “We hope the dinner can get back to talking about the importance of the Fourth Estate without the kind of ugly sideshow that completely overshadowed the event this year.” The Hill was the first major publication to officially quit in protest over Wolf’s performance. The president typically attends the dinner, but Donald Trump has declined to come for the past two years. Past presidents have offered their own set of jokes at the dinner prior to a comedian’s performance. Wolf stood by the material. “I wouldn’t change a single word that I said. I’m very happy with what I said, and I’m glad I stuck to my guns,” said Wolf in an interview with NPR. The WHCA did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Newsweek does not participate in the dinner, nor does it donate to the WHCA. This article was first written by Newsweek | |
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| 05-03-18 09:10am - 2385 days | #565 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
President Trump admits he lied to the public. Trump denied to reporters that he knew about the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels. Now, Trump admits that he knew about the payment. Also, Michael Cohen, Trump's lawyer, said that Michael Cohen himself made the payment, without telling the President about the payment. Formerly, Michael Cohen said that he made the payment with his own funds, and that he was never re-paid by Trump or Trump's business interests. But now Giuliani states that Trump re-imbursed Cohen for the $130,000 payment. And Trump admits that Trump paid Cohen for the payment--which Trump had previously denied. So Trump is revealed as the King of Liars (not the Prince of Liars, since he was already known as a serial liar). ----------- ----------- Trump admits he reimbursed Cohen for Stormy Daniels 'hush money' payment Dylan Stableford 2 hours 58 minutes ago President Trump released a carefully-worded three-tweet statement confirming the bombshell disclosure by former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani — a new member of the president’s legal team — that Trump reimbursed his personal attorney Michael Cohen for a $130,000 “hush money” payment to actress Stephanie Clifford, whose stage name is Stormy Daniels. The statement appeared to flatly contradict Trump’s previous assertion that he was unaware of the payment. “Mr. Cohen, an attorney, received a monthly retainer, not from the campaign and having nothing to do with the campaign, from which he entered into, through reimbursement, a private contract between two parties, known as a non-disclosure agreement, or NDA,” Trump tweeted. “These agreements are very common among celebrities and people of wealth. In this case it is in full force and effect and will be used in Arbitration for damages against Ms. Clifford (Daniels).” The president added: “The agreement was used to stop the false and extortionist accusations made by her about an affair, despite already having signed a detailed letter admitting that there was no affair. Prior to its violation by Ms. Clifford and her attorney, this was a private agreement. Money from the campaign, or campaign contributions, played no roll [sic] in this transaction.” In an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Wednesday night, Giuliani said Trump repaid Cohen for his October 2016 payment to Daniels, who has said she had a sexual relationship with Trump in 2006. Giuliani mentioned a figure of $135,000; until now, other reports have specified the amount was $130,000. “Funneled through a law firm and then the president repaid it,” Giuliani said. “He didn’t know about the specifics of it, as far as I know. But he did know the general arrangement — that Michael would take care of things like this, like I take care of things like this with my clients. I don’t burden them with every single thing that comes along. These are busy people.” From left: Rudy Giuliani, Michael Cohen, Donald Trump, Stormy Daniels and Michael Avenatti. (Photo illustration: Carolyn Kaster/AP, Seth Wenig/AP, Yahoo News; photos: Drew Angerer/Getty Images, Seth Wenig/AP, Joe Raedle/Getty Images, Hector Retamal/AFP/Getty Images) Appearing on MSNBC Wednesday night, Daniels’s attorney, Michael Avenatti, said Giuliani’s comments rendered him “speechless.” “This is an outrage, what has gone on here,” Avenatti said. “The American people have been lied to — about this agreement, about the $130,000, about the reimbursement — and this is consistent with what we have been saying now for months. That ultimately it is going to be proven and ultimately was going to come out. We just didn’t know that Rudy Giuliani was going to go on the ‘Sean Hannity Show’ and admit it on national television.” Asked aboard Air Force One last month whether he knew about the payment, Trump replied, “No.” When asked why Cohen made the payment, Trump told reporters that they would have to ask Cohen. “Do you know where he got the money to make that payment?” another reporter asked Trump. “No,” Trump replied. “I don’t know.” But in a wide-ranging interview with “Fox & Friends” last week, Trump suggested he knew about Cohen’s involvement in arranging the nondisclosure agreement with the porn star. “He represents me, like, with this crazy Stormy Daniels deal,” Trump said, marking the first time he had ever spoken the adult film actress’s name publicly. In a statement to the New York Times in February, Cohen stated that he used his “own personal funds to facilitate a payment of $130,000 to Ms. Stephanie Clifford.” Cohen added: “Neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign was a party to the transaction with Ms. Clifford, and neither reimbursed me for the payment, either directly or indirectly.” Last month, the FBI raided Cohen’s office and hotel and reportedly seized information related to the hush-money payment. The raids were carried out on a referral from special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russia. And they enraged the president. “Attorney-client privilege is dead!” Trump declared in one tweet, echoing Cohen’s own pushback against the record seizures. Trump also returned to his oft-used phrase to describe Mueller’s probe. On Wednesday night, Giuliani referred to the FBI agents who raided Cohen’s home and office as “stormtroopers.” Appearing on “Fox & Friends” on Thursday morning, Giuliani suggested that Trump didn’t know the full details of the payments until his lawyers told him “10 days ago.” “Remember when this happened — October 2016,” said Giuliani, who served as an adviser to the Trump campaign. “I was with him day in and day out then. I can’t remember the details of what happened. I know $135,000 — I don’t want to demean anyone — $135,000 seems like a lot of money. It’s not when you’re putting $100 million into your campaign. It isn’t pocket change, but it’s pretty close to it.” “Imagine if that came out on Oct. 15, 2016, in the middle of the, you know, last debate with Hillary Clinton,” Giuliani added. “Cohen made it go away. He did his job.” Back in March, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Trump was unaware of Cohen’s payment. “I’ve had conversations with the president about this,” Sanders told reporters during a March 7 press briefing at the White House. “There was no knowledge of any payments from the president and he’s denied all allegations.” But when asked about the latest revelations on “Fox & Friends” Thursday morning, Sanders declined to answer, pointing to Giuliani’s comments about the case. | |
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| 05-03-18 09:17am - 2385 days | #566 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Trump still wants to sue Stormy Daniels for violating the NDA (Non Disclosure Agreement). Will Trump be able to hire lawyers for this cash-grab against a porn star, after Trump is impeached or forced to resign from office? Or maybe Cohen will be able to help in the suit, from his prison cell after he is convicted of perjury, obstruction of justice, or whatever crimes he is convicted of. | |
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| 05-03-18 09:34am - 2385 days | #567 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
News Flash: I just had a message sent directly to me from God Himself. God has seen how I have struggled to understand how Satan's emissary, Donald Trump, was elected and is now doing Satan's work in the White House. God revealed to me that Trump is an agent of Russia, working undercover. Trump says he will make America great again. His true mission is the destroy the moral roots of America, and let the Nazis, Rednecks, and Slimeballs run rampant over God-fearing Americans. And that Trump has many allies in Congress, who work to make Trump President-For-Life of Trump-America. ------------ ------------ Politics George Conway Appears To Shut Down Rudy Giuliani's Claim About Stormy Daniels Payment HuffPost Hayley Miller,HuffPost 1 hour 43 minutes ago George Conway, a high-profile attorney and the husband of White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, on Thursday appeared to once again question claims made by President Donald Trump’s legal team. Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor who recently joined Trump’s ever-evolving roster of attorneys, revealed Wednesday that Trump had reimbursed his personal lawyer Michael Cohen for the $130,000 payment to Stephanie Clifford, the adult film star who goes by her stage name Stormy Daniels. Legal experts have argued that Cohen’s hefty payment to Daniels to silence her about her alleged affair with Trump may have violated campaign finance laws since it was meant to quash negative media coverage about Trump in the days leading up to the 2016 election. Giuliani said Wednesday such a violation never occurred because Trump used his own money to reimburse Cohen. But Conway seemed to suggest otherwise. Conway’s tweet links to a page on the Federal Election Commission’s website that explains how and when personal gifts and loans to candidates violate campaign finance laws. According to the passage highlighted in Conway’s tweet: If any person, including a relative or friend of the candidate, gives or loans the candidate money “for the purpose of influencing any election for federal office,” the funds are not considered personal funds of the candidate even if they are given to the candidate directly. Instead, the gift or loan is considered a contribution from the donor to the campaign, subject to the per-election limit and reportable by the campaign. This is true even if the candidate uses the funds for personal living expenses while campaigning. Since Cohen loaned Trump the money when he paid Daniels ― even if Trump reimbursed him over time ― campaign finance laws may still have been violated. Conway also retweeted several posts mocking Giuliani’s admission about the alleged reimbursement, including tweets from Politico’s Emily Stephenson and The Washington Post’s Philip Rucker. Conway has repeatedly shared tweets critical of Trump to the bewilderment of many political and media pundits. Kellyanne Conway tore into CNN’s Dana Bash last month after the TV host asked about her husband’s Trump-trolling tweets. “It’s fascinating to me that CNN would go there,” the White House counselor said. “But it’s very good for the whole world to just witness that it’s now fair game how people’s spouses and significant others may differ with them.” “You just brought him into this,” she continued. “We’re now going to talk about other people’s spouses and significant others just because they either work at the White House or CNN? ... CNN just went there.” This article originally appeared on HuffPost. | |
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| 05-03-18 10:30am - 2385 days | #568 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Trump needs cash. That is why he plans to sue Stormy Daniels for cash over the NDA agreement. But if, as Trump still maintains, that he never had sex with Stormy Daniels, how can he sue Stormy Daniels for talking about sex between Daniels and Trump that never happened, that was supposedly covered by a NDA. Guiliani says the payment for $130,000 was perfectly legal. Trump has denied that he knew about the payment. But now he is stating that he knew about the payment (which seems to be admitting a previous lie), and, since Guiliana stated that the $130,000 payment from Cohen was repaid to Cohen--even though Cohen previously said he made the payment with his own funds, and did not tell Trump about the payment, and that the payment from Cohen to Daniels was Cohen's money, that was never repaid by Trump. Does the American public have the right to know the truth? Can we get Trump and Cohen to admit the truth under oath? Or will they take the 5h amendment and refuse to answer under oath because of self-incrimination. Politics Trump defends 130K reimbursement for Stormy Daniels payment as 'very common among celebrities' Good Morning America LUCIEN BRUGGEMAN and JOHN SANTUCCI,Good Morning America 2 hours 2 minutes ago In a series of morning tweets, President Donald Trump reacted to the revelation that he had reimbursed personal attorney Michael Cohen for a $130,000 payment to adult porn actress Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 election, calling the arrangement "very common among celebrities and people of wealth." The president's morning tweets are his first response to Wednesday night's bombshell announcement, made by Trump's newest legal adviser, Rudy Giuliani, on Fox News. PHOTO: In this April 16, 2018, photo, Michael Cohen, center, leaves federal court in New York. (Mary Altaffer/AP Photo) Giuliani told host Sean Hannity that the president reimbursed Cohen for the $130,000 payment, appearing to contradict repeated denials from the White House and Trump's legal team that the president was even aware of the payment to Daniels. "Mr. Cohen, an attorney, received a monthly retainer, not from the campaign and having nothing to do with the campaign, from which he entered into, through reimbursement, a private contract between two parties, known as a non-disclosure agreement, or NDA," Trump tweeted, reiterating Giuiliani's characterization of Trump's reimbursement to Cohen. Trump goes on to deny the affair for the first time publicly, though a slew of spokespeople has made the claim on his behalf. "The agreement was used to stop the false and extortionist accusations made by her about an affair, despite already having signed a detailed letter admitting that there was no affair. Prior to its violation by Ms. Clifford and her attorney, this was a private agreement." PHOTO: Adult-film actress Stephanie Clifford, also known as Stormy Daniels, arrives at ABC studios to appear on The View talk show in New York City, April 17, 2018. (Mike Segar/Reuters) The president does not indicate when he learned of the payment to Daniels, though a source told ABC News that Trump's reimbursement payments to Cohen began shortly after the president took office and Cohen left the Trump Organization for private practice. The payments were mostly for the reimbursement, the source said, but included payments for some other legal matters Cohen was working on for the president. It’s unclear what those matters were. PHOTO: President Donald Trump denied knowledge about the payment by his personal lawyer Michael Cohen to porn film actress Stephanie Clifford, also known as Stormy Daniels, while speaking with reporters aboard Air Force One on April 5, 2018. (Doug Mills/The New York Times via Redux Pictures) Trump's final tweet described the arrangement as “having nothing to do with the campaign” and threatened that the non-disclosure agreement between Cohen and Daniels “will be used in Arbitration for damages against Ms. Clifford.” Comment Guidelines The Cut Trump Reportedly Repaid Michael Cohen $130,000 for Stormy Daniels Payout The Cut Amanda Arnold,The Cut 13 hours ago In Wednesday evening segment on Fox News, Rudy Giuliani told Sean Hannity that Donald Trump repaid his lawyer, Michael Cohen, the $130,000 he paid to adult-film star, Stormy Daniels. Before this admission, the Trump team’s story was that Cohen himself had arranged a $130,000 payment to Daniels, with whom the president had an alleged affair, just days before the 2016 election. Just last month, Trump again denied having had any knowledge of the hush payment. But tonight, Giuliani contradicted that story. “I’m giving you a fact that you don’t know,” said Giuliani, who is a new member of Trump’s legal team. “It’s not campaign money. No campaign finance violation. They funneled through a law firm and the president repaid it.” Giuliani went on to claim that Trump “didn’t know about the specifics about it, as far as I know. But he did know about the general arrangements.” HuffPost Trump Backs Rudy Giuliani's Claim That No Campaign Money Went To Stormy Daniels HuffPost Willa Frej,HuffPost 5 hours ago President Donald Trump on Thursday tried to explain Rudy Giuliani’s startling claim that Trump reimbursed personal lawyer Michael Cohen for a $130,000 settlement to silence adult film star Stormy Daniels, who alleges she had an affair with the president. Trump said in a tweet that Cohen was paid a monthly retainer “not from the campaign and having nothing to do with the campaign, from which he entered into, through reimbursement, a private contract ... known as a non-disclosure agreement.” He added that the agreement was to “stop the false and extortionist accusations made by her about an affair.” The president’s tweets appeared to ratify a central claim of Giuliani’s startling statements Wednesday night on Fox News. “It’s going to turn out to be perfectly legal; that money was not campaign money,” Giuliani, who joined Trump’s legal team last month to handle issues related to special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, told Fox News’ Sean Hannity Wednesday night in an attempt to argue that the payment wasn’t a campaign finance violation. The payment was “funneled through a law firm, and then the president repaid it.” “Sorry, I’m giving you a fact now that you don’t know,” Giuliani told Hannity. He said the president was unaware of the “specifics” of the payments, “but he did know about the general arrangement that Michael would take care of things like this.” Giuliani told The New York Times after his appearance on Hannity’s show that a monthly $35,000 reimbursement scheme was set up, coming out of a personal Trump family account. Trump ended up paying Cohen $460,000 to $470,000 in total, including funds for “incidental expenses,” he said. Thursday morning, on “Fox & Friends,” Giuliani seemed to backpedal on his statement that Trump knew about the payments to Cohen. “He didn’t know the details of this until we knew the details of it, which is a couple weeks ago ― maybe not even a couple weeks, maybe 10 days ago,” Giuliani said of Trump. “Remember when this came up ― October 2016 ... I don’t want to demean anyone, but $135,000 seems like a lot of money. It’s not when you’re putting $100 million into your campaign. It isn’t pocket change, but it’s pretty close to it.” Giuliani also came to the defense of Cohen, who Trump has held at arm’s length since FBI raids last month seized records from the lawyer. “I think he was trying to help the family,” Giuliani said of Cohen. “And for that, the man is being treated like some kind of villain. And I think he was just being a good lawyer and a good man.” Giuliani told the Times that he had discussed what he planned to say on Fox News Wednesday night with Trump before and after the interview. His interview contradicted the statements of Trump and Cohen. Cohen said in March that he’d paid Daniels out of his own pocket. Trump said he had no knowledge that Cohen had paid Daniels, when asked last month aboard Air Force One. “You’ll have to ask Michael Cohen,” he said when reporters pressed him. “Michael is my attorney. You’ll have to ask Michael.” Michael Avenatti, Daniels’ attorney, called Giuliani’s admission a “bombshell” that will undoubtedly bring the president down. Trump, he said in an interview with CNN, could face “potential criminal liability” related to money laundering, campaign finance and fraud violations. “I said it weeks ago, I’m going to say it again: Mr. Trump will not serve out his term,” Avenatti said. This article has been updated to include Giuliani’s comments Thursday on “Fox & Friends.” This article originally appeared on HuffPost. | |
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| 05-03-18 12:14pm - 2385 days | #569 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Federal investigators are not giving Trump lawyer Michael Cohen a fair chance. They have wiretapped his phone. How can Michael Cohen do crimes if the Feds are snooping into his private business? Shame on Mueller for using federal money to spy on a private citizen. (US government spends billions to spy of private citizens, and President Trump is fine with that: it's only when the government spies on Trump allies that it becomes a shameful act that should never be done). ----- ----- Federal Investigators Put Wiretap On Trump Lawyer Michael Cohen: NBC Report HuffPost Marina Fang,HuffPost 1 hour 39 minutes ago Scroll back up to restore default view. Federal investigators in New York City have conducted surveillance on the phone lines of President Donald Trump ’s longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen, sources told NBC News, the outlet reported Thursday . Cohen has been embroiled in a legal battle stemming from a $130,000 “hush money” payment he made to silence Stormy Daniels, the porn star who allegedly had an affair with Trump. It’s unclear how long ago the wiretapping was authorized, according to NBC News, but one source told the outlet that it has been in place since at least last month, when federal authorities raided Cohen’s home, hotel room and office. This is a developing story. Check back for updates. This article originally appeared on HuffPost. | |
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| 05-03-18 12:48pm - 2385 days | #570 | |
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biker (0)
Active User Posts: 632 Registered: May 03, '08 Location: milwaukee, wi |
Hello lk2fireone: As already been said. Mueller knows the answer before he asks. No judge would give a warrant without something significant backing it up. Mueller is going to have to buy Stormy a steak dinner when this is over. It's been so long since I've heard the term wiretap, I forgot about it. Of course they wiretapped. Cohen new it, but I guess Trump called him anyway. This investigation is picking up steam. A lot to sift through and Mueller doesn't want to make any mistakes. Hard-drives, cellphones, and I'm sure much more needs to examined. A very careful man. Warning Will Robinson Edited on May 03, 2018, 12:53pm | |
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| 05-03-18 01:07pm - 2385 days | #571 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Mueller needs to get a subpoena on Cohen and on Trump, force them to testify under oath. They will almost certainly take the 5th, to avoid incriminating themselves. Except Trump is so arrogant he might start spouting off like he does in his tweets. Then Cohen can be put in jail. And Trump can be impeached or resign. Or--the impeachment process can be dragged out, because Trump is a fighter who will go down proclaiming his innocence, no matter what "true facts" are revealed. So Pence, the President in waiting, will issue a pardon to Trump. Except there are legal ways to prosecute Trump and Cohen on the state level, which can block the pardon from civil and criminal actions against Trump and Cohen. New York and California are probably looking into bringing charges against Trump and Cohen already. (A pardon by the President only applies to federal crimes. Not to state crimes.) | |
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| 05-03-18 01:32pm - 2385 days | #572 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
I think I'm a little closer to understanding how some people think. Here is a story of a 15-year-old girl who lives in Beverly Hills. The girl's mother is a single mother, who works. The girl spends over $8,000 per month. But the mother recently reduced the girl's allowance to $1,000 per month. The teenager calls herself a princess, who is now forced to live like a peasant. She appeared on the Dr. Phil show with her mother, to complain about the "low", $1,000 per month allowance. The teen might not be a registered Donald Trump supporter, but I believe the girl illustrates how people can be so entitled that whatever they do is normal and wonderful, just like our hero, Donald Trump, and many of Trump's supporters. However, the article shows that the teenager can be helped. By being treated in a consistent way. The same way we need to treat Trump in a consistent way. If Trump has committed any crimes, we need to show Trump tough love: punish Trump for any lies and/or crimes he may have committed. Then Trump can be a better person, and help the world as he truly embraces God's ways. --------- --------- 15-year-old says her $1,000 monthly allowance makes her 'feel like a peasant' — and the internet's upset Elise Solé 8 hours ago A Beverly Hills teen who calls herself “a princess” is furious at her mother for slashing her monthly $5K allowance. Fifteen-year-old Nicolette, who appeared on the Dr. Phil show Tuesday, has lived a lavish California childhood — a closet full of Chanel, Gucci, and Céline, personal drivers, exercise trainers, and her own credit card with zero limit. “Some months, her credit card bills would be $10K,” her mother, Nina, told Dr. Phil. “I just paid the bill.” She added, “In the past year, I’ve probably have given her $100,000, I don’t even keep track anymore.” Nina had initially given her daughter a $5,000 monthly allowance “to cover her expenses” but recently reduced it to $1,000, an amount Nicolette says makes her “feel like a peasant.” Nicolette brought her mom onto Dr. Phil to compromise at a monthly stipend of $2,500, and their appearance made people angry on Twitter. Really angry. However, Nina admits she spoils her daughter due to guilt over being a single working mom who is rarely home. And Nicolette, who attends online high school, is angry at their lack of quality time. “Other people would have their moms drive them places, buy them food, make them food,” she says. “But I have to do everything myself. And I need the funds for that.” Nicolette added, “You created me … you raised me. You should have done better. … I was never loved as a child. I feel like I never was. She just gave me money. … I feel like she ruined my whole childhood.” It’s understandable to label Nicolette a brat and Nina a deadbeat, but according to Sharon Silver, creator of the Proactive Parenting website, the teen deserves empathy. “She has been trained to value material things,” she tells Yahoo Lifestyle, “So it’s unsurprising that she’s raging at losing what she learned meant love.” What the mother needs to do, says Silver, is prioritize unbreakable quality time to establish an emotional connection and stop indulging her daughter. “I’d also advise removing any over-the-top possessions and have the girl earn them back with good behavior.” Most importantly, Nina owes it to her daughter to be direct about her upbringing. “This teen is old enough for that conversation,” says Silver. “Withholding love and connection is a form of emotional abuse and the mom needs to be honest with herself and her daughter about how she parents.” Dr. Deborah Gilboa, a parenting and youth development expert, also has hope for the mother-daughter pair. “This mom has decided to course correct her teen — at age 16, when other parents may have given up — and she should continue trusting her instincts,” she tells Yahoo Lifestyle, adding, “There will be pushback, but it is not too late.” “The most important parenting value right now is consistency,” she says. “If this mom can do that, her daughter will respect her so much more.” | |
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| 05-03-18 02:11pm - 2385 days | #573 | |
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biker (0)
Active User Posts: 632 Registered: May 03, '08 Location: milwaukee, wi |
Community work. Work in a soap kitchen. I remember the first experience I had serving food to people of all kinds. From homeless to whole families. We were encouraged to make a meal for ourselves and join the others while they ate. You get humbled very fast. Warning Will Robinson | |
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| 05-03-18 04:29pm - 2385 days | #574 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
I have re-thought my position on White House press secretary Sarah Sanders. I was blind or thoughtless when I said she was a liar. I think she is doing an excellent job in a very difficult position. She probably has coaches for her interviews with the press. But she is calm under pressure, and speaks with authority defending her boss, Donald Trump. Even when many of her statements turn out to be false, she continues on. That takes guts. Or something. I personally would fold under the pressure she endures day after day after day. I admire her stamina and strength. But I do have to wonder how she balances in her own mind the facts she knows, against the statements she has made, and the statements she continues to make, to the press. Or is she somehow able to ignore any facts she has learned, in the service of her boss? | |
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| 05-03-18 05:10pm - 2385 days | #575 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Fake news: New Jersey superintendent defecated on high school football field 'on a daily basis,' cops say After he was arrested, the superintendent took a paid leave of absence. Thankfully, his leave of absence is paid. The man makes $147,504 a year as superintendent. He also has a part-time job as a lecturer at Rutgers Graduate School of Education. No reason was given why the man did not use a public restroom. No reason why I am posting this on a Donald Trump thread, except that Trump is a tricky character, and I am posting this article about another tricky character: my hope is that this superintendent will give a convincing explanation why he defecates on a high school football field: did he dislike sports when he was in high school? Or something else easily understood: the school was not paying him enough money for the work he put in? Whatever works for him. ------ ------ Fox News CRIME 9 hours ago New Jersey superintendent defecated on high school football field 'on a daily basis,' cops say By Katherine Lam | Fox News Thomas Tramaglini, 42, was arrested and charged with lewdness, littering and defecating in public, police said. A New Jersey schools superintendent was arrested Monday when officials discovered he had been defecating on a high school football field “on a daily basis,” police said. Thomas Tramaglini, 42, was charged with lewdness, littering and defecating in public, police said Thursday. The Kenilworth schools superintendent was arrested after surveillance video caught him in the act on Holmdel High School’s football field. Authorities began hunting for the "mystery pooper" after Holmdel High School staff and coaches for football and track reported finding human feces on or near the field nearly every day. Tramaglini was arrested while running on the athletic fields’ track just before 6 a.m. Monday, NJ.com reported. Turns out, the alleged "pooper-intendent" lived in Aberdeen, about three miles away from the high school. Tramaglini took a paid leave of absence after his arrest. "We learned of municipal court charges facing our current superintendent of schools in Holmdel, NJ. Given the nature of those charges, he asked for and was granted a paid leave of absence," according to a Wednesday message posted on the Facebook page for Kenilworth Public Schools. The district said unpaid leave would only occur "in the face of indictments or tenure charges." The superintendent makes $147,504 a year. He was named superintendent of Kenilworth schools after his predecessor Scott Taylor resigned in August 2015. Tramaglini also has a part-time job as a lecturer at Rutgers Graduate School of Education, NJ.com reported. His employment status post-arrest at the graduate school wasn't immediately clear. Katherine Lam is a breaking and trending news digital producer for Fox News. Follow her on Twitter at @bykatherinelam | |
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| 05-03-18 06:11pm - 2385 days | #576 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Politics This Week Was A Great Reminder That Trump Is A Huge Liar HuffPost Alana Horowitz Satlin,HuffPost 6 hours ago It’s been another cataclysm of a news cycle in which President Donald Trump was caught in a series of lies too obvious to be explained away as misstatements or ignorance. Weeks after Trump insisted he didn’t know about the hush money used to keep his alleged affair with Stormy Daniels quiet, he on Thursday admitted to the entire arrangement. Denying that the funds were campaign expenses, the president tweeted that his longtime lawyer Michael Cohen “received a monthly retainer” which he used to arrange a nondisclosure agreement with Daniels. His comments came hours after former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who recently joined Trump’s legal team, told Fox News that the payment was “funneled through a law firm, and then the president repaid it.” Trump’s lies ― much like the mere notion that he had sex with a porn star in the first place ― are both jarring and also completely predictable. He offered another flagrant falsehood later on Thursday when he claimed that “the past Administration has long been asking for three hostages to be released from a North Korean Labor camp, but to no avail.” Two of the three hostages were detained after Trump took office. This week’s untruths got even weirder on Tuesday when Trump’s longtime doctor, Harold Bornstein, said that he didn’t actually write the glowing bill of health released during the campaign. Trump “dictated that whole letter. I didn’t write that letter,” Bornstein told CNN this week. “I just made it up as I went along.” “His physical strength and stamina are extraordinary,” Bornstein’s December 2015 letter read. “If elected, Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.” These frequent contradictions make it hard to take any of Trump’s claims seriously, including his outrage this week that a list of questions special counsel Robert Mueller plans to ask him were leaked to the press. Multiple sources told The Washington Post that it was Trump’s personal lawyer, Jay Sekulow, who compiled the questions after talking with Mueller’s team. Mueller’s team is also not known for leaking. The same can’t be said for the White House. This article originally appeared on HuffPost. ----------- ----------- Vogue Donald Trump Lied About Stormy Daniels. Why Should We Believe He Isn’t Still Lying? Vogue Michelle Ruiz,Vogue 6 hours ago The president admitted on Twitter today that he, and not his attorney and fixer Michael Cohen, funded the much-talked-about $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels. Why should we believe he didn’t violate campaign finance laws in the process? So, President Trump lied. Again. Some are saying he “reversed his position” or “changed his story” but, if we’re being perfectly honest, those are just euphemisms. For months, Trump flatly denied to the American public that he was behind his attorney and all-around fixer Michael Cohen’s $130,000 payment to silence Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election. But today, after his new lawyer Rudy Giuliani opened the floodgates last night on Fox News, Trump finally admitted on Twitter that he was, in fact, the source of that payment; that he himself reimbursed Cohen, and with his own—not his campaign’s—money. Trump’s tweets directly contradict his—and his team’s—past statements about the so-called “hush money” paid to Daniels to stop her from going public with allegations of an affair with Trump (which Trump still denies). Most notably, this past April, when asked by a reporter if he knew about the payment to Daniels, Trump said “no” and referred further questions to Cohen. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders had earlier supported that story when she said, “There was no knowledge of any payments from the president.” Maybe the president wasn’t being honest with her, either. Or maybe she was complicit in furthering his lie. That’s between Sanders and whatever’s left of her conscience. But whether Michelle Wolf was truly mocking Sanders’s appearance or not, let the record show that Wolf had a point: Sanders is indeed fast and loose with the facts. Parsing all of the lies peddled by the Trump administration is like playing whack-a-mole. There are so many popping up all the time, it’s hard to knock them all down. But the latest about Stormy Daniels isn’t a garden-variety fib. It’s very likely that the reason Trump used formal legalese in his tweets today—and, perhaps, why he attempted to call not it and blame Cohen for the payment to begin with—is that writing a $130,000 check to Daniels on October 27, 2016, just days before the election, could be a violation of campaign finance law, and, oops, that could be a felony. Trump is especially quick to note today that the money was “not from the campaign and having nothing to do with the campaign” and that “money from the campaign, or campaign contributions, played no roll in this transaction.” But this line of defense doesn’t necessarily get Trump off the hook. Even if he paid Daniels with his own money and not the campaign’s war chest, it could still be argued that a payment to silence Daniels about her alleged affair with the Republican candidate, a matter of great interest to the Trump campaign, just days before Election Day, was very much campaign-related. Once upon a time, John Edwards was indicted for payments to a girlfriend during his 2008 campaign. The legal question at hand, then and now, is this: What was the intention behind the payment? Was it, fundamentally, made to protect Trump as a presidential candidate, or perhaps, for a personal reason, such as making the affair go away and saving his marriage? (No comment there.) Even before Trump’s admission today, Common Cause, a government watchdog group, had filed complaints with the Department of Justice and the Federal Election Commission over the $130,000 payment to Daniels, according to The New York Times; Trump’s confirmation that he was the one who paid Daniels after all could be used as evidence that he was “knowing and willful” about campaign finance violations. We may find out soon. According to multiple reports, federal investigators tapped Cohen’s phone lines, and according to NBC News, intercepted at least one call with the White House. Trump denies wrongdoing—of course he does. But given his track record, why would we start believing him now? ------------- ------------- President Donald Trump repaid his lawyer Michael Cohen for a $130,000 hush payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels during the 2016 campaign, Rudy Giuliani said, contradicting previous statements by the president. "Funneled it through the law firm, and then the president repaid it,’’ Giuliani, who serves on Trump’s legal team, said Wednesday during an interview with Sean Hannity of Fox News. Cohen, Trump’s personal attorney, is in the midst of a legal firestorm over the payment to Daniels, which was made during the 2016 presidential campaign in exchange for Daniels’ silence about an alleged affair with Trump. Cohen and Trump have said the payment was made without Trump’s knowledge. “When I heard Cohen’s retainer of $35,000, when he was doing no work for the president, I said ‘That’s how he’s repaying, with a little profit and a little margin for paying taxes for Michael’,’’ Giuliani said. Asked last month whether he knew about the payment, Trump said “No.’’ Asked if he knew where Cohen got the money for the payment, Trump said he didn’t know. “No, I don’t know,’’ Trump told reporters. Giuliani said Trump was aware of the payment arrangement and that it did not constitute a campaign finance violation. “He didn’t know about the specifics of it, as far as I know,’’ he said. “But he did know about the general arrangement, that Michael would take care of things like this.’’ “That money was not campaign money, sorry," Giuliani added. | |
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| 05-03-18 06:24pm - 2385 days | #577 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
A sign of the times. Bill Cosby and Roman Polanski have been expelled from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. This is the same movement (roughly speaking) that will bring down Donald Trump's Presidency. Harvey Weinstein was expelled from the Academy last year. ---------- ---------- May 3, 2018 11:19AM PT Film Academy Expels Bill Cosby and Roman Polanski From Membership By Kristopher Tapley and Gene Maddaus The Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has voted to expel actor Bill Cosby and director Roman Polanski from its membership ranks. The decision to remove Cosby and Polanski from the membership was made Tuesday, May 1 at a scheduled board meeting. The move comes a week after Cosby was convicted of three counts of aggravated indecent assault brought against him by Andrea Constand. Cosby has been accused of sexual assault by as many as 60 women, a few of which testified at the emotional hearing. Polanski has been on the lam for 40 years, ever since fleeing the country while awaiting sentencing for statutory rape in 1978. The case has undergone a number of bizarre twists over the decades, as the L.A. County District Attorney’s office has tried unsuccessfully to extradite him, and Polanski has tried unsuccessfully to resolve the case from afar. Polanski’s attorney, Harland Braun, told Variety that the director was not afforded an opportunity to defend himself to the Academy, which he says is at odds with the process outlined Academy’s new code of conduct. However, there is a provision allowing the board to act whether that process is followed or not. “It sets a very poor example,” Braun said. “It seems to be wrong to just expel someone and make a decision without knowing all the facts.” The Academy’s code, adopted in January, states that the Membership and Administration Committee may receive complaints and ask for a response from the accused member. The member then has 10 days to provide a written response, after which the committee may make a recommendation on discipline to the full board. The member is also provided 10 days to appeal the board’s decision. The code also includes a provision whereby the board retains the ability to impose discipline without following the new process. “He accepted responsibility,” Braun said. “He apologized to the woman. She has accepted his apology. It’s a very ignorant thing to do.” Harvey Weinstein was expelled from the Academy last year after exposés in the New Yorker and New York Times detailed years of sexual harassment allegations against the now-disgraced mogul. The full AMPAS statement: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Board of Governors met on Tuesday night (May 1) and has voted to expel actor Bill Cosby and director Roman Polanski from its membership in accordance with the organization’s Standards of Conduct. The Board continues to encourage ethical standards that require members to uphold the Academy’s values of respect for human dignity. | |
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| 05-03-18 06:47pm - 2385 days | #578 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
When it comes to telling the truth, President Trump has a problem. In the past week alone, Trump has contradicted his own claims that he did not know where his lawyer Michael Cohen received $130,000 in hush money paid to porn actress Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election. His former personal physician, Harold Bornstein, disclosed that Trump himself had dictated the glowing assessment of the candidate’s health that was released during the campaign. The president falsely portrayed the status of three U.S. hostages in North Korea, tweeting, “As everybody is aware, the past Administration has long been asking for three hostages to be released from a North Korean Labor camp, but to no avail. Stay tuned!” In fact, two of the three hostages were taken captive during Trump’s term, not Barack Obama’s presidency. During Thursday’s briefing, reporters peppered White House press secretary Sarah Sanders with questions about Trump’s casual relationship with the truth. “Could you explain why the president, when he answered questions by reporters a few weeks ago about the $130,000 payment from Michael Cohen to Stormy Daniels, why the president was not truthful with the American people and with the people in this room?” the Associated Press’s Zeke Miller asked. “As Mayor Giuliani stated, and I’ll refer you back to his comments, this was information that the president didn’t know at the time but eventually learned,” Sanders replied. In a follow-up, ABC News’ Jonathan Karl piled on. “When the president so often says things that turn out not to be true, when the president and the White House show what appears to be a blatant disregard for the truth, how are the American people to trust or believe what is said here or what is said by the president?” Sanders’s answer — that she offers “the very best information” she has at the time — was telling, and did little to dispel a growing skepticism that the information she provides can be taken at face value. By the Washington Post’s tally, Trump has made 3,001 false or misleading claims since he was sworn into office — an average of 6.5 untruths per day. A cottage industry of Trump fact checkers struggles to keep pace with the president’s pronouncements. So frequent are his erroneous statements, in fact, that the debate has shifted from whether he makes them to whether they matter. Former CIA and NSA director Michael Hayden took note of this shift in an excerpt from his upcoming book, “The Assault on Intelligence: American National Security in an Age of Lies.” “It was no accident that the Oxford Dictionaries’ word of the year in 2016 was ‘post-truth,’ a condition where facts are less influential in shaping opinion than emotion and personal belief,” Hayden wrote in the New York Times. “To adopt post-truth thinking is to depart from Enlightenment ideas, dominant in the West since the 17th century, that value experience and expertise, the centrality of fact, humility in the face of complexity, the need for study and a respect for ideas.” Other conservatives have also been troubled by Trump’s casual relationship with the truth. “What does public life look like without the constraining internal force of character — without the firm ethical commitments often (though not exclusively) rooted in faith?” Michael Gerson wrote in the Washington Post last year. “It looks like a presidential campaign unable to determine right from wrong and loyalty from disloyalty. It looks like an administration engaged in a daily assault on truth and convinced that might makes right. It looks like the residual scum left from retreating political principle — the worship of money, power, and self-promoted fame. The Trumpian trinity.” While those philosophical concerns abound in the nation’s capital, there are signs that the president’s truthfulness may be having a wider effect. An NBC/Survey Monkey poll released Wednesday found that 61 percent of Americans think Trump only tells the truth “some of the time or less.” On the bright side for Trump, 76 percent of Republicans still believe that he speaks the truth “all or most of the time.” In an op-ed published last week in the New York Times, Daniel Effron, an associate professor of organizational behavior at London Business School, posited an explanation of why the president’s supporters seem unbothered by Trump’s lies. “Wittingly or not, Mr. Trump’s representatives have used a subtle psychological strategy to defend his falsehoods: They encourage people to reflect on how the falsehoods could have been true,” Effron wrote. It’s through that lens that one might understand the statements made by Sanders, who — like her predecessors — is tasked with spinning the president’s tweeted and off-the-cuff remarks into the realm of reason. Last month, for example, she was asked by a reporter to justify Trump’s resurfaced claim that millions of Americans had participated in voter fraud in the 2016 election. “The president still strongly feels that there was a large amount of voter fraud, and attempted to do a thorough review of it, but a lot of states didn’t want to cooperate or participate,” Sanders said from her White House podium. “We certainly know that there were a large number of instances reported, but we can’t be sure how much because we weren’t able to conduct a full review that the president wanted.” So could Trump have convinced himself he wasn’t involved in Cohen’s payment to Stormy Daniels, or that he wasn’t the author of the medical report issued under Bornstein’s name, or that two of the three U.S. hostages in North Korea weren’t captured during his own term in office? Anything is possible, and no one can know for sure what’s in his mind. But there’s a simpler explanation, and it doesn’t reflect well on him. | |
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| 05-03-18 06:52pm - 2385 days | #579 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Reuters U.S. investigators wiretapped phone lines of Trump lawyer: NBC Reuters By Roberta Rampton and Jan Wolfe,Reuters 4 hours ago WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Federal investigators wiretapped the phone lines of U.S. President Donald Trump's longtime lawyer Michael Cohen before the FBI seized records and documents in a raid last month on his offices, hotel room and home, NBC News reported on Thursday. NBC, citing sources familiar with legal proceedings involving Cohen, said it was unclear how long the wiretap had been authorized, but it was in place in the weeks before the April 9 raids in New York targeting the lawyer. At least one call between a phone line associated with Cohen and the White House was intercepted, NBC quoted one source as saying. White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told a news briefing she could not verify the NBC report and said she had not talked to Trump about the wiretap issue. The raids were part of a federal criminal investigation of Cohen in New York in part over a $130,000 payment he made to adult film star Stormy Daniels a month before the 2016 U.S. presidential election to keep her quiet about a sexual encounter she said she had with Trump in 2006. Earlier on Tuesday, Trump said on Twitter that Cohen was reimbursed for that payment through a monthly retainer, not campaign funds, to stop "false and extortionist accusations" Daniels has made about a sexual relationship with the president. The wiretapping of Cohen, if confirmed, would represent the latest ominous development for Trump, who faces legal difficulties on several fronts. The investigation of Cohen is an offshoot of the ongoing probe by U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller into potential collusion between Trump's 2016 campaign and Russia and whether Trump has unlawfully sought to obstruct the investigation. Russia and Trump deny any collusion. Daniels also has filed two lawsuits against Trump. Like a search warrant, a wiretap can be authorized when a judge determines there is probable cause to believe a person has committed a crime. But there is an added burden of showing the criminal behavior is ongoing and that there is no other way to reasonably obtain the information. Authorities must re-apply for the wiretap every 30 days. It was not immediately clear when the warrant for surveillance was obtained or what evidence the Federal Bureau of Investigation had to support its request. 'A MOCKERY' Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor who is a member of Trump's legal team, told the Washington Post that, if true, the wiretaps would be "not appropriate," according to a Twitter post by a Post reporter. "You mean, I call up my lawyer and the government is wiretapping him?" Giuliani asked in comments to the Post. "... They've already eviscerated the attorney-client privilege. This would make a mockery of it." Attorney-client privilege generally shields communications between a lawyer and a client. Giuliani did not immediately return a call for comment from Reuters. A spokesman for the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's office, which is handling the Cohen investigation, declined to comment. Cohen and a lawyer for him did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Because Cohen is a lawyer, prosecutors likely took multiple steps to address concerns that a wiretap would violate attorney-client privilege, said Chris Slobogin, a professor of criminal law at Vanderbilt University Law School. At the time of their wiretap application, prosecutors likely would have needed to convince a judge that Cohen was not acting as lawyer or was engaging in criminal conduct, both exceptions to attorney-client privilege, Slobogin said. The agents who conducted the wiretap would also have been instructed to turn off eavesdropping equipment off if they determined at the start of a conversation that it might be protected by attorney-client privilege, Slobogin added. In an April 13 court filing, federal prosecutor Robert Khuzami said the government had previously obtained covert search warrants on several of Cohen's email accounts and had used a "filter team" to examine the materials gathered in the raid. Their review found Cohen was performing little to no legal work, Khuzami said. | |
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| 05-03-18 11:38pm - 2384 days | #580 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Giuliani is full of shit. And it's coming out of his mouth whenever he speaks. End of story. ------- ------- Giuliani offers new explanation of why Trump fired Comey Associated Press ERIC TUCKER,Associated Press 8 hours ago WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's explanation for why he fired FBI Director James Comey has shifted again. Rudy Giuliani, Trump's new attorney, said in an interview on Fox News that Trump fired Comey last year because Comey would not state "that he wasn't a target" of the special counsel's Russia investigation. He said Trump felt that he was treated worse than Hillary Clinton, who was publicly cleared of criminal wrongdoing at an unusual FBI headquarters news conference in July 2016. "He fired Comey because Comey would not, among other things, say that he wasn't a target of the investigation," Giuliani said. "He's entitled to that. Hillary Clinton got that. Actually, he couldn't get that." Comey told The Associated Press in an interview this week that he saw telling Trump privately — at a January 2017 Trump Tower meeting — that he wasn't under investigation as a way to lower the "temperature" of an otherwise tense encounter before the president took office. Giuliani's explanation foreshadows a likely defense to the May 2017 dismissal, but it was just the latest in a series of rationales offered by Trump and his advisers. It also comes as the president's legal team is debating whether to allow Trump to be interviewed by special counsel Robert Mueller's team, which in addition to investigating potential coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign, is examining whether the president's firing of Comey and other actions constitute obstruction of justice. "The president, frankly, doesn't have to have a justification," White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters Thursday. "He can hire and fire whoever he wants and he made the decision to fire James Comey and that's certainly a decision he stands by and one that he feels very justified in since." In announcing the firing, the White House initially cited the FBI director's handling of the investigation into Clinton's emails. Trump later told NBC's Lester Holt that he was thinking of "this Russia thing" when he made the move. On Fox News Wednesday night, Giuliani said Trump did the Lester Holt interview "to explain to the American people the president was not the target of the investigation." Comey has acknowledged that he told Trump on multiple occasions that he was not personally under investigation. Yet when asked that same question by Congress at a public hearing last year, he declined to provide that same reassurance. "I'm not gonna answer that," Comey said a at March 2017 House intelligence committee hearing in response to the question of whether Trump himself was being investigated. "We have briefed him in great detail on the subjects of the investigation and what we're doing, but I'm not gonna answer about anybody in this forum." After that hearing, Comey has said, Trump called him at the FBI and declared the Russia investigation a "cloud" that needed to be lifted. During that conversation, Comey told Trump again that he was not personally under investigation and said he had already shared that fact with congressional leaders. But Trump was not satisfied, Comey has said, and repeatedly told him, "We need to get that fact out" more widely. In the AP interview Tuesday, Comey acknowledged that it was possible he could have handled the January 2017 Trump Tower meeting differently. His general counsel had expressed concern about providing that reassurance to Trump, but Comey said he thought it was probably necessary as a way to preserve their relationship. During that same meeting, Comey alerted Trump to the existence of salacious allegations concerning Russia prostitutes contained in a dossier compiled by a former British spy that had been circulating around Washington. Comey said Trump strongly denied the allegations, but appeared to calm down after being told he wasn't under investigation. "If I was still going to be in the position of having to brief him privately, had I not said that, what would have happened thereafter?" Comey said in the interview. "That is, what would have happened to the temperature of that meeting if I didn't have some way to take it down in the moment at Trump Tower?" He added, "I can imagine some things that I would do differently but then I'd have to figure out, so what would I do then with the alternative lives that would spin out from that and would they be better or worse?" ___ Associated Press writer Chad Day contributed to this report. | |
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| 05-03-18 11:50pm - 2384 days | #581 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Since Rudy Giuliani knows so much about Trump's business before he became Trump's attorney, why not simplify the issues: Subpoena Guiliani, Trump, Cohen and everyone associated with Trump, get their depositions under oath, and throw them into prison, where they belong, for perjury, slander, and any other disgraceful acts they have committed. Guiliani knew about the payment to Stormy Daniels long before Trump admitted Trump knew about it. Cohen stated repeatedly that he paid his own money for the payment, and was never re-imbursed. Trump stated he never knew about the payment. (So how could Trump have re-paid Cohen for the money, if he never knew about the payment?) A bunch of liars. Forget the embarrassment. Put all the liars in jail or prison, to clear the swamp in Washington. Is Trump a legal President? Not according to the standards that Trump and his team go by. | |
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| 05-04-18 12:53am - 2384 days | #582 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Watchdog group, ex-ethics chief charge Trump's Cohen reimbursement is a financial disclosure violation By Eli Watkins, CNN Updated 6:45 PM ET, Thu May 3, 2018 Giuliani: Trump repaid Cohen for Stormy payment Washington (CNN)A government watchdog group and a frequent critic of President Donald Trump are charging that Trump's acknowledgment that he reimbursed Michael Cohen for Stormy Daniels' nondisclosure agreement payment shows that he filed a false financial disclosure. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington on Thursday filed an amendment to the group's complaint in March that argues the payment Cohen facilitated constituted a loan to Trump, and because this potential liability was not included in Trump's financial disclosure form, it amounts to a legal violation. CREW's March letter to both Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and acting ethics chief David Apol requested that the Justice Department and the Office of Government Ethics look into the matter for potential violations. On Thursday, the group amended its complaint to include the statement from Rudy Giuliani Wednesday night that Trump had reimbursed Cohen for the $130,000 payment to Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford. In a statement accompanying the amended complaint, CREW Executive Director Noah Bookbinder said, "It's not often that the president's lawyer goes on television and appears to confirm one of our complaints." Walter Shaub, the former head of the Office of Government Ethics and a CNN contributor, charged in a Twitter post on Thursday that by "trying to talk his way out of a campaign finance violation, Trump has admitted to filing a false financial disclosure in 2017." "I normally assume omissions are inadvertent," Shaub said in a follow-up tweet. "However, given all of the deception about the Stormy Daniels payment, it is pretty hard to believe this was not intentional." After news of the payment to Daniels prompted campaign finance complaints earlier this year, Cohen admitted to facilitating the payment. Trump said later that he had been unaware of the payment, but on Wednesday night, Giuliani said Trump knew of the arrangement, and Trump took to Twitter on Thursday morning to acknowledge that he repaid Cohen through a monthly retainer. Trump denied on Thursday that any campaign money had been used to reimburse Cohen and said he was paid via retainer. "Mr. Cohen, an attorney, received a monthly retainer, not from the campaign and having nothing to do with the campaign, from which he entered into, through reimbursement, a private contract between two parties, known as a non-disclosure agreement, or NDA," Trump wrote Thursday morning on Twitter. "These agreements are very common among celebrities and people of wealth," Trump continued. "In this case it is in full force and effect and will be used in Arbitration for damages against Ms. Clifford (Daniels). The agreement was used to stop the false and extortionist accusations made by her about an affair despite already having signed a detailed letter admitting that there was no affair. " He added, "Prior to its violation by Ms. Clifford and her attorney, this was a private agreement. Money from the campaign, or campaign contributions, played no roll in this transaction." CREW charges that because Trump's financial disclosure form last year admitted no such liability, it was likely a violation of federal law. When asked on Thursday if the form was fraudulent, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders referred the matter to Trump's lawyers. "I don't know," Sanders said. "You would have to talk to the President's outside counsel." CNN's Kevin Liptak contributed to this report. | |
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| 05-04-18 01:36am - 2384 days | #583 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Politics: Giuliani follows Trump style of insulting and demeaning his opponents with barefaced lies. Will this work to defend Trump, or will the Trump administration be brought down for their lies, corruption, and criminal acts? Easiest way to handle things: Let the FBI act like Guiliani's accusations of Nazi Storm Troopers. Line up the Trump adminstation, including Guiliani, and execute them all. Then there might be a factual basis to Guiliani's extremist lies and slanders. Trump is the biggest liar of them all. But even though Guiliani has just joined the Trump team, it appears that Guiliani had secret knowledge of the Trump's affairs before then, and long before the public did. Can Guiliani be charged with obstruction of justice, knowing details of possible criminal acts committed by the President? That's why Guiliani should be lined up and shot like the Nazis would have done, since he states that the FBI is tainted by Nazi Storm Troopers. Take a bullet, Guiliani, for shooting off your mouth in such a disrespectful manner to the FBI. Guiliani is a disgrace, and should be charged with formenting treason, and shame: and Trump must take notice, and fire Guiliani and put the criminal in prison, where Guiliani belongs. ---------- ---------- Politics Giuliani Calls Comey A 'Baby' For Defending FBI Agents Against 'Storm Trooper' Insult HuffPost Mary Papenfuss,HuffPost 8 hours ago Rudy Giuliani lashed former FBI Director James Comey as a “sensitive little baby” Thursday after Comey defended the bureau’s agents after Giuliani called them “storm troopers,” The Washington Post reported. Among a number of stunning comments by Giuliani in his Fox News interview Wednesday night, he compared FBI agents to Nazi storm troopers for raiding the office of President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen last month and collecting documents and computers. Agents, provided with court-issued warrants, were legally authorized to do so. Cohen is being investigated for bank fraud and possible campaign finance violations. Comey tweeted Thursday that there are no “stormtroopers” in the FBI — “just a group of people devoted to the rule of law and the truth.” Comey said the country would be better off if “our leaders” tried to emulate them instead of “comparing them to Nazis.” Giuliani, who just joined Trump’s legal team, responded to the tweet in an interview with The Washington Post, calling Comey a “sensitive little baby.” He added, without offering details: “He should be sensitive, because he’s been caught lying over and over again.” Bolstering his growing reputation as Trump’s new insult man, Giuliani on Fox also called Comey a “disgraceful liar” and “very perverted man” — again, without explaining what he was referring to. In defending Trump on Fox, Giuliani appeared to support suspicions that the president fired Comey a year ago to short-circuit an investigation into possible collusion between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign to swing the election in Trump’s favor. Giuliani said the president “fired Comey because Comey would not — among other things — say that he wasn’t a target of the investigation.” So “he fired him and he said, ‘I’m free of this guy.’” Giuliani has traditionally enjoyed strong ties with the FBI, both as a U.S. attorney and as New York City mayor. After Comey reopened the investigation into Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s emails just before the election, Giuliani indicated he learned that members of the bureau weren’t happy with the initial conclusion to not pursue her use of a private email server from both former and “active” agents. Giuliani’s former law firm, then called Bracewell & Giuliani, was also general counsel to the FBI Agents Association, which represents 13,000 current and former agents. Giuliani left the firm in early 2016. This article originally appeared on HuffPost. | |
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| 05-04-18 02:07am - 2384 days | #584 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Fox's Cavuto on pattern of false statements: 'Mr. President, that’s your swamp' By Jacqueline Thomsen - 05/03/18 09:24 PM EDT Trump defends payment to Stormy Daniels after Giuliani revelation TheHill.com Fox News host Neil Cavuto on Thursday scolded President Trump for making contradictory statements about a payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels, calling the president’s habit of making inaccurate statements his “swamp.” “Let me be clear, Mr. President. How can you drain the swamp if you’re the one that keeps muddying the waters? You didn’t know about the $130,000 payment to a porn star until you did,” Cavuto said. “You said you knew nothing about your lawyer Michael Cohen handling this, until acknowledging today you were the guy behind the retainer payment that took care of this,” he continued. “You insist that money from the campaign or campaign contributions played no role in this transaction. Of that you’re sure. The thing is, not 24 hours ago, sir, you couldn’t recall any of this. And you seemed very sure.” “I’m not saying you’re a liar,” Cavuto added. “You’re a president, you’re busy. I’m having a devil of a time figuring out which news is fake. Let’s just say that your own words on lots of stuff gave me lots of pause." Cavuto then ran through a long list of claims that Trump has made that have later been proven to be false or were inaccurate or unsubstantiated in the first place. Among the items were Trump’s claims that Russians didn’t interfere in the 2016 election, that the new GOP tax law would cost him a “fortune” and that he had signed more bills at that point of his presidency than any of his predecessors. “None of this makes what you say fake. Just calling out the press for being so, a bit of a stretch,” Cavuto said. “But more oftentimes they’re using your own words to bash you. Your base probably might not care. But you should,” he continued. “I guess you’re too busy draining the swamp to ever stop and smell the stink you’re creating. That’s your doing. That’s your stink, Mr. President, that’s your swamp.” Cavuto’s commentary came one day after Rudy Giuliani, a member of Trump's personal legal team, revealed on Fox News that Trump had reimbursed his longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen for a payment to Daniels despite Trump previously denying knowing about the payment. Trump offered his explanation for the payment in a series of tweets early Thursday, saying that Cohen was reimbursed for the payment through a retainer. | |
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| 05-04-18 09:22am - 2384 days | #585 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Ex-CIA director's advice: Do not serve this president Dylan Stableford 2 hours 48 minutes ago Former CIA Director Michael Hayden has some surprising advice for onetime colleagues who ask whether they should take a job working for President Trump: Don’t do it. You will only endanger your own future and reputation. In a new interview featured on the Yahoo News podcast Skullduggery, Hayden said it’s been hard to watch top Trump administration officials — including former National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, former Homeland Security Advisor Tom Bossert and others — defend an often indefensible president. “The longer they were in the administration, the more their personal credentials were being threatened,” Hayden said. “At what point do you stop being a guard rail and become an enabler and a legitimizer?” Hayden lays out his views in his new book, “The Assault on Intelligence: American National Security in an Age of Lies,” which serves as a searing indictment of a president who Hayden depicts as a congenital liar and a “useful idiot” of Vladimir Putin. The former CIA chief is quick to acknowledge that Trump is not the first modern president to have an attenuated relationship to the truth. Hayden himself served as CIA chief under a president (George W. Bush) who took the country to war based on false claims about the threat posed by the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein. “We’ve had presidents who lie, who have argued with us, who have disagreed with our version of objective reality,” said Hayden, without naming which ones he had in mind. But Trump, he said, is in a category all to himself. “The difference here is, this seems to be a president who bases a fair number of decisions on something other than a view of objective reality,” he said. Hayden clicks off multiple examples of Trump’s falsehoods, from his insistence that President Obama had him wiretapped at Trump Tower to the president’s claim — belied by all the scientific evidence — that global warming is a hoax. Just as troubling as Trump’s propensity to misrepresent reality, according to Hayden, is the president’s constant demand for extreme fealty from his subordinates—an extreme threat to vital American institutions. “What we have is the president inarguably demanding of both the institutions and their leadership that their first priority is personal loyalty to him rather than to the norms that have governed their behavior for a couple of centuries,” Hayden said. As jarring as it is to hear a retired four-star Air Force general and former director of the National Security Agency — tell former colleagues not to enlist in government service under Trump, Hayden’s advice comes with several caveats: He mainly recommends that more seasoned former officials sit out the Trump administration. Those who are younger should still take the opportunity to serve in government. But when they do, Hayden advises they should “take notes” — a practice former FBI Director James Comey adopted on his own. “Remember your own moral thresholds,” Hayden said, adding: “You may want to keep a draft letter [of resignation} in your desk drawer.” | |
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| 05-04-18 10:01am - 2384 days | #586 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Trump's lawyers have advised Trump not to speak to Robert Mueller. In spite of this, Trump wants to speak to Mueller about the Russia probe. You should listen to your lawyers, and then make up your own mind. So the best solution would be for Robert Mueller to subpoena Trump, Michael Cohen, Rudy Guiliana, and force them to testify under oath. If they want to take the 5th, fine. Then prosecute them to the full extent of the law, for any crimes they may have committed. Put these powerful men in jail or prison, which is where they belong. ------- ------- Trump says lawyers have advised him against Mueller talks Reuters 1 hour 28 minutes ago WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday his lawyers had advised him against talking to U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller, even though he would like to speak with him as part of the Russia probe. "I would love to speak. I would love to. Nobody wants to speak more than me ... because we've done nothing wrong," Trump told reporters at the White House. "But I have to find a way to be treated fairly." "If I thought it was fair, I would override my lawyer," he added. (Reporting by Roberta Rampton; Writing by Susan Heavey; Editing by Bernadette Baum) | |
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| 05-04-18 10:48am - 2384 days | #587 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Judges are supposed to be impartial. They are also supposed to try a case or guide a case on the merits of the law. But here, a judge is criticizing the prosecutor for using the case to damage President Trump. Can the judge be censored or removed from a trial, for allowing his political beliefs to influence his behavior during a trial? My understanding of the law is that it's common for prosecutors to use the law however they please. Al Capone was put in prison for tax evasion, a new crime at the time it was used. The law was used to harm or destroy Al Capone. Also, it is common criminal procedure to use crimes against a person to force him to testify against others. It's done all the time, for well over 80 years, that I know of. The Joseph McCarthy hearings forced witnesses to name suspected communists or face jail terms. So this judge should either be censored, or removed from the trial. He is showing a bias in favor of the defense. Even if what the judge says is true, he is not supposed to speak on such matters, as a judge involved in the trial. --------- --------- Judge in Manafort case says Mueller's aim is to hurt Trump Anchor Muted Background Jessica Schneider Profile By Katelyn Polantz and Jessica Schneider, CNN Updated 12:27 PM ET, Fri May 4, 2018 (CNN)A federal judge expressed deep skepticism Friday in the bank fraud case brought by special counsel Robert Mueller's office against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, at one point saying he believes that Mueller's motivation is to oust President Donald Trump from office. Although Mueller's authority has been tested in court before, Friday's hearing was notable for District Judge T.S. Ellis' decision to wade into the divisive political debate around the investigation. "You don't really care about Mr. Manafort's bank fraud," Ellis said to prosecutor Michael Dreeben, at times losing his temper. Ellis said prosecutors were interested in Manafort because of his potential to provide material that would lead to Trump's "prosecution or impeachment," Ellis said. "That's what you're really interested in," said Ellis, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan. Ellis repeated his suspicion several times in the hour-long court hearing. He said he'll make a decision at a later date about whether Manafort's case can go forward. "We don't want anyone in this country with unfettered power. It's unlikely you're going to persuade me the special prosecutor has power to do anything he or she wants," Ellis told Dreeben. "The American people feel pretty strongly that no one has unfettered power." When Dreeben answered Ellis' question about how the investigation and its charges date back to before the Trump campaign formed, the judge shot back, "None of that information has to do with information related to Russian government coordination and the campaign of Donald Trump." At one point, Ellis posed a hypothetical question, speaking as if he were the prosecutor, about why Mueller's office referred a criminal investigation about Trump's personal attorney Michael Cohen to New York authorities and kept the Manafort case in Virginia. They weren't interested in it because it didn't "further our core effort to get Trump," Ellis said, mimicking a prosecutor in the case. Prosecutors to turn over Rosenstein memo Mueller's prosecutors will have to turn over a full, unredacted version of the August 2 memo that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein used to describe the criminal allegations Mueller's team could investigate, Ellis ordered. The judge said he would like to see the full memo, which prosecutors submitted to the court in Virginia and in Washington, DC, for another case against Manafort with more than a page of redactions. The visible part of the memo says Mueller should investigate allegations about Manafort's financial relationship with former Ukrainian politicians, and that he may have assisted Russia with attempts to interfere in the presidential election. The redacted portion appears to outline several other legs of the ongoing Russia probe. CNN Politics app Download the new CNN Politics app for daily insights, latest news, polls and podcasts. Ellis said prosecutors may present the full classified memo to him under seal -- without showing Manafort its additional details -- in two weeks. Mueller's prosecutors have argued this memo gives them the authority to bring cases against Manafort related to his work in Ukraine reaching back more than a decade before he joined the Trump campaign. Manafort lost civil suit on similar complaint Manafort is charged in Virginia with financial violations related to his lobbying work in Ukraine prior to joining Trump's 2016 campaign. Dreeben said they had to "follow the money" and find Manafort's contacts with Russians through the Ukrainian work and his financial dealings as part of their investigation. He lost a civil suit making similar complaints about the special counsel's investigation last week. Manafort had filed a lawsuit in Washington claiming Rosenstein and Mueller exceeded their authority in charging him with alleged crimes he said had nothing to do with the 2016 campaign. DC District Judge Amy Berman Jackson dismissed that lawsuit, saying a civil case was "not the appropriate vehicle" for objecting to either past or future actions by a prosecutor. Manafort faces five charges in the case brought by Mueller's prosecutors in DC federal court, including money laundering and foreign lobbying violations. | |
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| 05-04-18 01:26pm - 2384 days | #588 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Some people are doing or planning bad things to make money off of Donald Trump. Now that Trump has been revealed to be generous to his ex-girlfriends (or gals he had sex with), other people want some of Donald Trump's money. Stephen Colbert, for one. That is not right. Trump worked hard to get him money: he lied, cheated, conned his way into millions of dollars. Maybe even billions of dollars. (This is all allegedly.) Now Stephen Colbert wants some of Trump's money. I believe Stephen Colbert is married. What will his wife say when she hears that Stephen Colbert had sex with Donald Trump? Will she file for divorce? Will she stay married to a man who slept with Trump for money (I assume it was for money, and not for sexual attraction). Enquiring minds want to know. ----- ----- Politics Stephen Colbert Has A Plan To Get A Stormy Daniels' Pay-Off: 'I Had Sex With Donald Trump' Newsweek James Tennent,Newsweek 7 hours ago Stephen Colbert Has A Plan To Get A Stormy Daniels' Pay-Off;I Had Sex With Donald Trump; As the twisting saga of President Donald Trump and Stephanie Clifford, better known as adult actress Stormy Daniels, took another surprise turn with the revelatory interviews of former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani (now a part of Trump's legal team), Stephen Colbert saw an opportunity. “Trump is claiming that he paid [his lawyer, Michael] Cohen a monthly fee to hush-up all the affairs he wasn’t having,” the Late Show host said during his Thursday night monologue. “So that means anyone can just say they had an affair with Donald Trump and leave with $130,000. In that case, I had sex with Donald Trump.” After the cheers of his crowd, Colbert reassured the audience that the claim was not true but joked that with everything else the president is dealing with, it would be a “terrible time for it to come out.” During an appearance on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show, Giuliani, a member of President Trump’s legal team, suggested that Trump had known about a payment made by his attorney, Michael Cohen, to the porn star, Stormy Daniels. Trump had previously said he did not know about the payment. He later took to Twitter to claim that non-disclosure agreements such as the one entered into by Cohen and Daniels are “very common among celebrities and people of wealth.” Appearing on Colbert’s show, Daniels’ lawyer, Michael Avenatti, produced a new piece of evidence—a receipt. Avenatti showed a copy of the wire transfer from Cohen to Daniels for the $130,000 payment. According to Avenatti, the receipt is significant as it shows the payment coming from a San Francisco bank—something which could give California Attorney General Xavier Becerra “jurisdiction over certain criminal acts associated with this payment,” Avenatti said. This article was first written by Newsweek | |
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| 05-04-18 01:29pm - 2384 days | #589 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Would Trump Use an NDA to Silence Stormy Daniels If Her Allegations Were False? Legal Experts Are Skeptical 'Were You Lying?' Sarah Sanders Confronted about Giuliani's Stormy Daniels Comments in Tense Press Briefing. | |
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| 05-04-18 01:36pm - 2384 days | #590 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
President Trump and Michael Cohen want to rewrite history. They want you to forget whatever they said in the past. They are coming up with newer versions of what happened. So, start with a clean slate. Do it the legal way. Ignore whatever you heard or saw or thought: These men are innocent (Remember, innocent until proven guilty). So, let them tell the story in their own words: Starting anew, with each day. ------ ------ The Wrap Trump Says Giuliani ‘Wasn’t Totally Familiar With Everything’ When He ‘Made Certain Statements’ The Wrap Jon Levine,The Wrap 4 hours ago Trump Says Giuliani ‘Wasn’t Totally Familiar With Everything’ When He ‘Made Certain Statements’ President Donald Trump appeared to distance himself from Rudy Giuliani’s curious interview with Sean Hannity earlier this week, telling reporters at Andrews Air Force Base on Friday that the former New York City mayor was “new” to his legal team and was still learning the ropes. “When Rudy made the statements — Rudy’s great — but Rudy had just started and wasn’t totally familiar with everything,” said Trump. “We love Rudy, he’s a special guy,” the president quickly clarified. “What he really understands is, this is a witch-hunt. He understands that probably better than anybody … but when he made certain statements, he just started yesterday.” During his interview with Hannity on Wednesday, Giuliani said that the president repaid attorney Michael Cohen for his $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels. Hannity seemed stunned when Giuliani told him that Trump had “funneled” money through a law firm to repay Cohen. The news contradicted the president’s previous position that he had no knowledge of the payment and the money was offered by Cohen alone. During an appearance on “Fox & Friends” Thursday morning, Giuliani suggested that everything was on track, and that the purpose of the disclosure was to show that the payment had been a personal matter and not a campaign finance violation. The money, said Giuliani, had nothing to do with the presidential campaign and was intended to spare Trump’s wife and save his image, “to save not so much their marriage, as much as their reputation.” The president is embroiled in a legal fight with porn star Stormy Daniels, who is suing him to be released from a nondisclosure agreement she signed with Cohen in October 2016. Daniels is also suing the president for defamation. The adult film actress says she had an affair with Trump back in 2006 and wants to be able to speak about it publicly. Trump has consistently denied that there was ever a sexual relationship between the two. | |
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| 05-04-18 07:22pm - 2384 days | #591 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Trump, Cohen, Guiliani are allowed to revise and "clarify" their statements. But Comey and other people are not allowed, because if they do revise or clarify, they are liars. Double standard, anyone? Also, the FBI are Nazi stormtroopers for raiding the properties of Michael Cohen. However, the FBI had search warrants. So how are they Nazi stormtroopers? Because the FBI might be looking for evidence of crimes by Michael Cohen. And Trump tells everyone that Michael Cohen is a "good" guy. And should not be investigated by the FBI. The FBI is being run by a bunch of crooks, who are on a witch hunt to hurt and smear the President. We need to have the FBI do its job: throw Trump, Cohen, and Guiliani in jail. And release the evidence they have built up, to show what hypocrites and crooks they are. And Trump's statements and tweets are already proof that he is a liar. (Unless you believe that he did not know about the payment to Stormy Daniels, at the same time he was re-imbursing Cohen for the payment--which seems kind of difficult to believe.) -------- -------- CBS News May 4, 2018, 2:35 PM Rudy Giuliani releases statement "to clarify" his remarks on Trump Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor now working for President Trump's legal team, released a statement Friday "to clarify the views" he has expressed in recent days. The statement said "there is no campaign violation," an apparent reference to Giuliani's remarks on Wednesday that Mr. Trump had reimbursed his lawyer Michael Cohen for a $130,000 payment he maid to adult film star Stormy Daniels. Mr. Trump claimed to reporters last month that he was unaware of Cohen's financial arrangement with Daniels, but on Thursday said that Cohen had used his monthly retainer to pay her. "The payment was made to resolve a personal and false allegation in order to protect the President's family," Giuliani's statement continued. "It would have been done in any event, whether he was a candidate or not." The distinction matters because if the payment was made to help Trump's candidacy, it could be considered a violation of campaign finance laws. Giuliani's statement then adds that his "references to timing were not describing my understanding of the President's knowledge, but instead, my understanding of these matters." It goes on to address the firing of FBI Director James Comey, saying that it "is undisputed that the President's dismissal of former Director Comey – an inferior executive officer – was clearly within his Article II power. Recent revelations about former Director Comey further confirm the wisdom of the President's decision, which was plainly in the best interests of our nation." Giuliani's press tour this week raised eyebrows among political observers. Over the past few days, Giuliani has claimed that Mr. Trump fired Comey because "among other things" he refused to say that the president was not a target in the Russia probe. Giuliani also called Comey a "very perverted man," warned that he would "get on my charger and go right into their offices with a lance" if investigators targeted Ivanka Trump, and repeatedly accused the special counsel's office of acting like "stormtroopers."  2018 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. | |
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| 05-04-18 07:40pm - 2384 days | #592 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Politics Trump Throws Rudy Giuliani Under The Bus: 'He'll Get His Facts Straight' HuffPost Ryan Grenoble,HuffPost 9 hours ago Rudy Giuliani put it all out on the table this week. And now, after days of confusion and speculation that he may have exposed President Donald Trump to new legal jeopardy, he’s gathering it all back in. In remarks to the media Friday, Trump contradicted statements the former New York City mayor made earlier in the week regarding a $130,000 payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 election. “He just started yesterday,” Trump said of Giuliani, who started as the lead attorney regarding issues related to special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation in late April. “He’ll get his facts straight.” On Wednesday, Giuliani made waves when he told Fox News the president had in fact repaid his personal attorney, Michael Cohen, for the funds. Trump had previously denied all knowledge of the payment. Trump seemed to initially confirm Giuliani’s statements in a series of tweets on Thursday morning. As of Friday, though, Trump’s explanation is apparently that Giuliani didn’t know what he was talking about. “When Rudy made the statements ― he’s great ― but Rudy had just started and he wasn’t totally familiar with everything,” Trump said. “And Rudy ― we love Rudy ― he’s a special guy. What he really understands is this is a witch hunt.” “But when he made certain statements, he just started yesterday,” the president went on. “So that’s it.” “It’s actually very simple,“ Trump added. “I say, you know what, learn before you speak. It’s a lot easier.” In a statement released Friday afternoon, Giuliani capitulated to the President’s version of the Daniels payment. “First: There is no campaign violation,” he said. “The payment was made to resolve a personal and false allegation in order to protect the President’s family. It would have been done in any event, whether he was a candidate or not. “Second: My references to timing were not describing my understanding of the President’s knowledge, but instead, my understanding of these matters.” Watch excerpts from the president’s remarks below: This story has been updated with Giuliani’s statement. This article originally appeared on HuffPost. | |
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| 05-04-18 07:54pm - 2384 days | #593 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Politics Giuliani believes Ivanka Trump off limits in Mueller probe NBC News Thu, May 3 4:52 PM NEW YORK (AP) -- Rudy Giuliani, once known as "America's Mayor" and hailed for helping unite a wounded city after Sept. 11, has become the aggressive face of President Donald Trump's forceful new legal team. Giuliani, who is bonded with the president by a particular brand of New York bravado, has escalated Trump's attacks on the Department of Justice, pushed for strict limits on special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe and upended White House legal strategy. Giuliani and Trump cut out senior West Wing aides this week as they hashed out plans to combat what they see as an existential threat to his presidency. But on Friday, Trump suggested that Giuliani may have stepped out of line — at least in one area. The president told reporters that the former New York City mayor still needed to "get his facts straight" on one of the legal fronts facing Trump, the $130,000 payment that his personal attorney Michael Cohen made to porn actress Stormy Daniels in 2016 to buy her silence about a sexual tryst with Trump. Trump said Giuliani was "a great guy but he just started a day ago" and that he was still "learning the subject matter." It remained to see what impact Trump's brushback would have on Giuliani, who had quickly become the dominant figure on the president's reshuffled legal team as his political inner circle is stocked with familiar, TV-ready faces. Giuliani has warned Trump that he fears that Cohen may "flip" on him. He has urged Trump to cut off communications with Cohen, according to a person close to Giuliani but not authorized to discuss the talks publicly. After an FBI raid on Cohen's office and home, Giuliani also indicated that he wanted to change the discussion surrounding the $130,000 payment that Cohen made to Daniels to buy her silence about a sexual tryst with Trump. Giuliani did so with a jaw-dropping interview with Sean Hannity on Wednesday. Giuliani's remarks — that Trump knew about the payment and had repaid Cohen for it — seemed to contradict Trump's past statements appeared to draw his ire on Friday. But he argued that it removed legal peril over a possible campaign finance violation, a claim some legal experts have questioned. Giuliani's bold offensive — on display in a series of cable news appearances in which he unleashed broadsides on the very law enforcement officers with whom he once worked — underscored the thoroughness of his transformation from moderate Republican mayor of a liberal city to fiery conservative hero. Trump and Giuliani have had several private conversations in recent days in which former mayor fanned the president's anger with Mueller's probe, according to two people familiar with their conversations who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to publicly discuss them. Giuliani has warned Trump against sitting down for an interview with Mueller and has suggested that, at a minimum, the president place limits on his level of cooperation. "Russian collusion is total fake news," Giuliani, a former U.S. attorney, told Fox News. "Unfortunately, it has become the basis of the investigation. And Mueller owes us a report saying that Russia collusion means nothing, it didn't happen. That means the whole investigation was totally unnecessary." Over a pair of Fox News interviews, Giuliani also unleashed a series of provocative broadsides. He said Trump had fired James Comey last year because the FBI director wouldn't publicly clear the president of wrongdoing in the Russia probe, a different explanation than the White House offered. He said he would defend the president's daughter Ivanka Trump but suggested that her husband, Jared Kushner, was "disposable." And he derided the agents who raided Cohen's office as "stormtroopers," a charge that attracted particular attention because it appeared to evoke Nazi soldiers in the context of the Manhattan U.S. attorney's office, which had approved the raids and which Giuliani had once led. "It's a different Rudy. He's always been tough, but he changed when he started to have national ambitions," said George Arzt, former press secretary to Democrat Ed Koch, one of Giuliani's predecessors as New York City mayor. "And after he wedded himself to Trump, his popularity in his hometown disappeared completely." Giuliani was elected mayor in 1993 on a pledge to slash the city's sky-high crime rate. That year, 1,946 people were killed in the city. By 2001, Giuliani's final year in office, the number had shrunk to 649. Giuliani was largely praised for the drop in crime but remained a polarizing figure. His no-holds-barred defense of the New York Police Department, often at the expense of minority communities, drew sharp criticism. A possible Senate run was abandoned after a cancer diagnosis. And after years of public battles and a very messy public separation from his second wife — which resulted in his moving out of Gracie Mansion, the mayor's official residence — his poll numbers sank and many New Yorkers were eager for a change at City Hall. But then, one clear September day just a few months before he was to leave office, two planes flew into the World Trade Center. In the hours after the attacks, Giuliani became the face of the nation's grief. His leadership — both inspiring and compassionate — over the following weeks earned him the nickname of "America's Mayor." But his relationship with the city would soon change again. Giuliani played a key role in the 2004 Republican National Convention that re-nominated President George W. Bush, a deeply unpopular figure in New York. And Giuliani shifted right on a number of issues — including gun control and public funding of abortions — during his failed presidential run four years later. Although his future electoral prospects vanished, Giuliani remained a conservative darling, a frequent guest on Fox News and a sought-after member of the political speaking circuit. He has known Trump for decades — his bomb-throwing rhetorical style can at times mirror that of the president — and he became an aggressive surrogate for the celebrity businessman from the early days of his insurgent presidential campaign. Giuliani had been widely expected to join Trump's administration but was passed over for secretary of state, the position he badly wanted, and eventually was left without a Cabinet post. But the president kept in touch with Giuliani, sometimes calling to ask for advice, and frequently asked for the ex-mayor's take on developments in the special counsel's probe, according to three people familiar with the conversations but not authorized to publicly discuss private talks. In the weeks before he hired Giuliani last month, Trump had grown increasingly frustrated with the cable news chatter that he couldn't hire a big-name attorney for his legal team. But, according to one person familiar with his conversations, he later boasted to a confidant that he had struck a deal that he believed would silence those critics: He was hiring "America's F---ing Mayor." | |
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| 05-04-18 10:41pm - 2383 days | #594 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Trump states the DOJ has been investigating him for too long. And they have come up with nothing. However, the Republican party is still investigating Hilary Clinton, and they want the investigation to continue for as long as it takes. Why the difference? Trump is a Republican. Stop investigating Republicans. That is immoral, and shameful, and a waste of money. Clinton is a Democrat. Spend whatever is needed to put her in jail. Expose her shameful past. Above all, focus on Clinton, who lost the election, instead of the crimes of the President, who is now in power. ----- ----- Law 15 hours ago DOJ inspector general's testimony postponed, amid new leads in Clinton case review Catherine Herridge By Catherine Herridge | Fox News Hillary Clinton blames another group for her election loss Democratic presidential nominee says declaring herself a capitalist during 2016 primaries 'probably' hurt her with voters; reaction and analysis on 'The Five.' Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s widely anticipated testimony next week before the House Oversight Committee has been postponed, as the Justice Department IG has pursued new leads in his review of the Hillary Clinton email investigation, according to a congressional letter and sources familiar with the matter. “It is of the utmost importance that your review be as fulsome, complete and unimpeded as possible,” Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., the chairman of the committee, wrote in a recent letter to Horowitz obtained by Fox News. Horowitz was scheduled to appear before the committee on May 8. But Gowdy told Horowitz he wants to reschedule his testimony “as close to the day the report is finalized as is practicable.” Gowdy said the decision to postpone is based on “the representations” in an April 23 letter from Horowitz. Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz testifies during a Judiciary Committee hearing into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., July 26, 2017. REUTERS/Aaron P. Bernstein - RC15A41CCB80 DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s widely anticipated testimony has been postponed. The developments suggest Horowitz is still working to complete his review of the FBI and DOJ's handling of the Clinton case. Sources familiar with the review have told Fox News that Horowitz has continued to pursue new leads and witnesses in recent weeks. During a speech Friday, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said he expects Horowitz’s review will be finalized soon. “Within the next few weeks, I anticipate that our inspector general will complete a comprehensive, fair and nonpartisan report that answers many questions about how the Department of Justice handled a high-profile investigation during the last presidential campaign,” Rosenstein said. “We will learn from it, and our Department will do better in the future.” Elements of a related review already have been made public. In April, a Horowitz review faulted former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe for his role in a media leak about the Clinton Foundation. In that report, Horowitz said McCabe lied four times -- three times under oath -- and referred the matter to the U.S. Attorney’s office for possible criminal prosecution. Former U.S. attorney Bud Cummins on NBC backtracking on reports the feds wiretapped attorney Michael Cohen and concerns about the leadership at the FBI and Department of Justice. McCabe has vowed to fight the allegations, saying then-FBI Director James Comey knew of his media engagement with the Wall Street Journal, but wanted to distance himself from disclosures. Horowitz’s forthcoming report is also expected to examine actions taken at the bureau by Comey. The former director confirmed in an interview with Fox News last week that he had spoken with Horowitz’s team about his handling of memos documenting his conversations with President Trump. Gowdy did not set a new date for the testimony, but, considering the short congressional calendar in May, it’s possible Horowitz’s testimony could be put off until June. Fox News’ Jake Gibson contributed to this report. Catherine Herridge is an award-winning Chief Intelligence correspondent for FOX News Channel (FNC) based in Washington, D.C. She covers intelligence, the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security. Herridge joined FNC in 1996 as a London-based correspondent. | |
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| 05-04-18 11:23pm - 2383 days | #595 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Donald Trump needs to speak with this Muslim woman and teach her how to respect her elders. Trump is an expert on Muslims, and wants to build a wall around the United States to keep them out. Since she is covered in black robes, she could have claimed the court has the wrong person. But: "Defense lawyers had initially cast doubt over whether Elzahed was the woman under the black robes who refused to stand. But they later said her identity would not be contested." Maybe Trump could consider this woman if his current wife leaves (after he teaches her the correct respect, of course). ------- ------- Australian court convicts Muslim woman for failing to stand Updated 10:43 am, Friday, May 4, 2018 SYDNEY (AP) — The wife of an Islamic State group recruiter gave the militants' single-finger salute outside a Sydney court on Friday after becoming the first person convicted under a new state law criminalizing the refusal to stand for a judge. Moutia Elzahed, 50, defiantly remained seated with her arms folded in the Downing Centre Local Court dressed in a black niqab, gown and gloves after magistrate Carolyn Huntsman delivered the landmark decision. She was found guilty of nine charges of disrespectful behavior during previous court hearings she was involved in. She will be sentenced on June 15. New South Wales, Australia's most populous state, introduced the law in 2016 after several Muslim defendants refused to stand for judges on religious grounds. The magistrate found Elzahed had repeatedly and intentionally flouted the established court convention in 2016 when she failed to rise for District Court Judge Audrey Balla. Elzahed said she only stood for Allah, but Huntsman found no evidence she had acted on a genuine religious belief. "No evidence was presented that the teachings of Islam compel this conduct," the magistrate said. In 2016, Elzahed had been trying to sue the state and federal governments on claims of police violence and wrongful imprisonment over a raid on her Sydney home two years earlier. She was ultimately unsuccessful. Closed circuit TV showed Elzahed failed to rise in court nine times, with each offense carrying a maximum jail term of 14 days and a 1,100 Australian dollar ($82  fine.Defense lawyers had initially cast doubt over whether Elzahed was the woman under the black robes who refused to stand. But they later said her identity would not be contested. Elzahed is married to Sydney resident Hamdi Alqudsi, who was sentenced in 2016 to eight years in prison for helping young Australians reach Syria to fight for extremists. | |
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| 05-05-18 10:19am - 2383 days | #596 | |
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biker (0)
Active User Posts: 632 Registered: May 03, '08 Location: milwaukee, wi |
According to Trump, Rudy Giuliani did not know all the facts when disclosing $130,000 payment and reimbursement to Hannity and Fox and Friends. So a lawyer discusses a case without knowing all the facts. This could help Trump's case. He could claim he was not properly represented. It begs the question; who sent Rudy Giuliani to speak about the case in a public forum and without disclosing the whole truth to your lawyer. So who is the bigger fool? Is it Trump or Rudy Giuliani or both are equally foolish?  Warning Will Robinson | |
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| 05-05-18 10:52am - 2383 days | #597 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Trump and Giuliani are about the same. Trump has more money, more power (he's the president), and that's what Guiliano wants: more money, more power. Guiliani's position has shifted dramatically over the years. He's now a rabid conservative, who backs Trump 100%. Which is a shame. Guiliani has lost all credibility he had from years ago. He's now serving as an attack dog for Trump. | |
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| 05-05-18 10:54pm - 2382 days | #598 | |
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biker (0)
Active User Posts: 632 Registered: May 03, '08 Location: milwaukee, wi |
I just watched Guiliani giving a speech. Guiliani beats the drum against Iran while actually bringing up Hillary and Benghazi again. Trump's followers gobble it up. If we back out of our agreement with Iran and impose sanctions, I don't feel the other nations involved will follow us. We will be alone. Does any U.S. citizen believe if we scream, "Weapons of Mass Destruction", again that anyone will follow us? We will be alone. Trump's leadership has lost all credibility; both here in the U.S. and the world. We will be alone. Warning Will Robinson | |
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| 05-07-18 05:02am - 2381 days | #599 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
John McCain Doesn’t Want Donald Trump At His Funeral The Cut Amanda Arnold,The Cut 14 hours ago If Donald Trump thought his decision to skip Barbara Bush’s memorial service would be the last funeral drama in which he’d find himself embroiled, oh, was he wrong. According to the New York Times, 81-year-old Senator John McCain is currently compiling his dream guest list for his funeral — smart, given the nature of death! — and Trump is not on it. In mid-2017, McCain announced that he was battling an aggressive form of brain cancer, and in the Times report, Biden describes McCain as “ailing.” Therefore, in the comforts of his Arizona ranch, the senator is reportedly receiving old friends and considering his life’s biggest regrets (cough, Sarah Palin). He’s also thinking about his funeral plans: His intimates have informed the White House that their current plan for his funeral is for Vice President Mike Pence to attend the service to be held in Washington’s National Cathedral but not President Trump, with whom Mr. McCain has had a rocky relationship. | |
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| 05-07-18 10:03am - 2381 days | #600 | |
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biker (0)
Active User Posts: 632 Registered: May 03, '08 Location: milwaukee, wi |
My understanding is most funerals for First Ladies are not attended by presidents. That being said, seeing the past presidents of both parties showed solidarity. This something lacking in our polarized politics we have today. I also noted that Trump was out playing golf. So he wasn't so busy with any work not to attend. I don't blame McCain. Trump has not had kind words for him and why would McCain desire him to attend his funeral. Trump only has himself to blame for this. He takes everything personally and did personal attacks against McCain. McCain disagreed with the health care bill and voted against it. Like that has never happened in the history of our nation. Warning Will Robinson | |
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