Tag: 2016 Trump campaign

Trump and Cohen discussed Trump Tower Moscow right up until 2016 election

Rudy Giuliani told Chuck Todd on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that President Trump “can remember having conversations” with Michael Cohen about Trump Tower Moscow right up until the election — as late as November 2016.

One big quote: “No. It’s our understanding that it, that [talks] went on throughout 2016, not a lot of them, … but the president can remember having conversations with [Cohen] about it. … Probably up to, could be up to as far as October, November.”

Between the lines: Giuliani’s rounds on Sunday morning TV related to the BuzzFeed report over the weekend that Trump directed Cohen to lie to Congress about a deal to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.

View the complete January 20 article on the Axios website here.

It Sure Looks Like Trump Obstructed Justice, Huh

A new report indicates that Trump obstructed justice to cover up interactions between his inner circle and Russia that occurred during the 2016 campaign. This report was based on accounts from multiple witnesses and documents, not on Cohen’s testimony. These are very serious charges and this report must be thoroughly investigated.

OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE: Trump reportedly directed his fixer Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about negotiations to build a Trump Tower in Moscow during the 2016 presidential campaign.

BuzzFeed: “President Donald Trump directed his longtime attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about negotiations to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, according to two federal law enforcement officials involved in an investigation of the matter.”

TRUMP RECEIVED PERSONAL UPDATES: Trump received at least ten personal updates from Cohen on the progress of negotiations for a Trump Tower in Moscow and knew Cohen had talked to the Russian government.

BuzzFeed: “On the campaign trail, Trump vehemently denied having any business interests in Russia. But behind the scenes, he was pushing the Moscow project, which he hoped could bring his company profits in excess of $300 million. The two law enforcement sources said he had at least 10 face-to-face meetings with Cohen about the deal during the campaign. … Trump was even made aware that Cohen was speaking to Russian government officials about the deal.”

NOT A CASE OF HE SAID-HE SAID: The special counsel’s office is reportedly relying on multiple witnesses, emails, text messages, and other documents, not just on Cohen’s testimony.

BuzzFeed: “The special counsel’s office learned about Trump’s directive for Cohen to lie to Congress through interviews with multiple witnesses from the Trump Organization and internal company emails, text messages, and a cache of other documents. Cohen then acknowledged those instructions during his interviews with that office.”

MUST BE INVESTIGATED: Like any other interactions Trump has had with witnesses in the Russia investigation, this report must be thoroughly investigated. The special counsel’s office is doing just that, and House Democrats will too.

Washington Post: “Democrats in Congress vowed Friday to aggressively investigate a new report that President Trump personally directed his former attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about the president’s push for a Moscow real estate project ahead of the 2016 election.”

RUSSIA REVELATIONS: Trump A Potential Russian Agent & National Security Threat

Here are the latest revelations from this past weekend:

ACTING AS A RUSSIAN AGENT: After President Trump fired FBI Director Jim Comey, the FBI felt it necessary to open a counterintelligence investigation to determine whether Trump was acting as an agent of the Russian government.

New York Times: “In the days after President Trump fired James B. Comey as F.B.I. director, law enforcement officials became so concerned by the president’s behavior that they began investigating whether he had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests, according to former law enforcement officials and others familiar with the investigation.”

NEWLY RELEASED TRANSCRIPTS: Transcripts released today reveal that then-FBI general counsel James Baker said the FBI was contemplating whether Trump was “acting at the behest of” Russia.

CNN: “James Baker, then-FBI general counsel, said the FBI officials were contemplating with regard to Russia whether Trump was ‘acting at the behest of and somehow following directions, somehow executing their will.’” Continue reading “RUSSIA REVELATIONS: Trump A Potential Russian Agent & National Security Threat”

Manafort filing accidentally reveals damning evidence of collusion

Paul Manafort’s attorneys accidentally revealed that their client is accused of sharing polling data from the 2016 election with a Russian operative.

Lawyers for former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort have accidentally revealed information about their client that could provide the strongest evidence yet of direct coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Due to an apparent filing error, Manafort’s lawyers let slip that special counsel Robert Mueller’s team has accused Manafort of sharing polling data from the 2016 presidential election with a Russian operative — while Manafort was working with the Trump campaign — and later lying to Mueller about it.

Manafort’s attorneys submitted a new court filing Monday in response to special counsel Robert Mueller’s allegation that Manafort broke his September 2018 plea agreement by lying to federal investigators.

View the complete January 8 article by Carolin Orr on the ShareBlue.com website here.

Supreme Court rules against mystery corporation from ‘Country A’ fighting subpoena in Mueller investigation

Credit:  Carlos Barria, Reuters

The Supreme Court on Tuesday left in place a lower-court order requiring an unnamed foreign-owned corporation to comply with a subpoena said to be part of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The court dissolved a temporary stay that had been put in place by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. In a short order, it did not give a reason for the decision or note any dissents.

The entity that is the subject of the cloaked legal battle — known in court papers simply as a “Corporation” from “Country A” — is a foreign financial institution that was issued a subpoena by a grand jury hearing evidence in the special counsel investigation, according to two people familiar with the case.

View the complete January 8 article by Robert Barnes, Devlin Barrett and Carol D. Leonnig on The Washington Post website here.

Manafort suspected of sharing polling data with associate linked to Russian intelligence

A major court filing error led to secret details of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s criminal case leaking out into the public sphere on Tuesday.

Defense attorneys filed a response contesting special counsel Robert Mueller’s allegations that Manafort lied to federal investigators on a variety of subjects, in breach of his plea agreement. But while portions of the filing were supposed to be redacted and shielded from the public, court watchers were able to view the filing in its entirety by copying and pasting the redacted sections.

The error resulted in Manafort’s attorneys disclosing that Mueller has accused Manafort of sharing polling data during the 2016 presidential campaign with Konstantin Kilimnik, a business associate who is suspected of ties to Russia’s military intelligence unit, the GRU.

‘Knock it off!’: Judge tears into Mueller-charged firm with a fiery exchange in open court

Judge Dabney Friedrich sparked a tense back-and-forth with the American lawyer for a firm charged in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation during a status conference on Monday.

Defense attorney Eric Dubelier, representing the firm Concord Management & Consulting, which is charged for it involvement in Russia’s troll farm activities aimed at influencing the 2016 election, had filed a harshly critical attack on Mueller as a part of his work for the client. Friedrich was not impressed.

“Judge slams defense lawyers for Russian firm charged by Mueller as ‘unprofessional, inappropriate & ineffective. ‘Knock it off!’ she added,” reported Politico’s Josh Gerstein, in an account matched by several other reporters in attendance.

View the complete January 7 article by Cody Fenwick on the AlterNet.org website here.

Five things to know about the Trump Tower Moscow proposal

Discussions within the Trump Organization during the 2016 presidential campaign about a proposal to build a real estate development in Moscow are a key component of the events being investigated by special counsel Robert Mueller.

The Washington Post first reported on the business proposal, which ultimately fell through, back in August 2017, but more has since come to light as a result of the special counsel’s investigation.

Michael Cohen admitted in November that the talks lasted until June 2016 — six months longer than he had previously claimed — at which point Trump was the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

View the complete January 6 article by Morgan Chalfant on The Hill website here.

The Steele Dossier: A Retrospective

President Trump meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin prior to the 2018 Helsinki Summit. Credit: kremlin.ru

The dossier compiled by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele remains a subject of fascination—or, depending on your perspective, scorn. Indeed, it was much discussed during former FBI Director Jim Comey’s testimony in front of the House Judiciary Committee on Dec. 7. Published almost two years ago by BuzzFeed News in January 2017, the document received significant public attention, first for its lurid details regarding Donald Trump’s pre-presidential alleged sexual escapades in Russia and later for its role in forming part of the basis for the government’s application for a FISA warrant to surveil Carter Page.

Our interest in revisiting the compilation that has come to be called the “Steele Dossier” concerns neither of those topics, at least not directly. Rather, we returned to the document because we wondered whether information made public as a result of the Mueller investigation—and the passage of two years—has tended to buttress or diminish the crux of Steele’s original reporting.

The dossier is actually a series of reports—16 in all—that total 35 pages. Written in 2016, the dossier is a collection of raw intelligence. Steele neither evaluated nor synthesized the intelligence. He neither made nor rendered bottom-line judgments. The dossier is, quite simply and by design, raw reporting, not a finished intelligence product.

View the complete December 14 article by Sarah Grant and Chuck Rosenberg on the Lawfareblog.com website here.

It took about 20 minutes for a judge to destroy the right’s conspiratorial defense of Michael Flynn

Credit: Chip Somodevilla, Getty Images

Conservatives were giddy about Tuesday’s sentencing hearing … until it started.

Early Tuesday afternoon, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan agreed to delay the sentencing of Donald Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn until March.

In some ways, Flynn’s sentencing will bring closure to one chapter of the ever-expanding investigation by Robert Mueller into the Trump campaign’s efforts to collude with Russia to steal a presidential election. Flynn was the first and most senior Trump administration official to plead guilty to federal charges, in this case lying to the FBI.

But while the hearing was, in some ways, expected to be a formality — federal prosecutors recommended Flynn receive no prison time on account of his extensive cooperation with Mueller’s investigation — Judge Sullivan used his opportunity to meticulously and methodically twist the knife in one of the far-right’s favorite talking points.

View the complete December 18 article by Adam Peck on the ThinkProgress.org website here.