Tag: Trump campaign

Roger Stone’s lawyers tell judge: We didn’t try to hide anything

Lawyers for longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone told a federal judge Monday that they were not trying to hide anything from the court at a gag-order-related hearing last month where they failed to mention that Stone was in the midst of releasing a book trashing special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.

In a submission ordered by U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson, Stone attorney Bruce Rogow said it did not occur to him until after the Feb. 21 hearing that the newly crafted introduction for a paperback edition of Stone’s book on the 2016 campaign might land him in hot water.

“Reading for the first time the New Introduction, while waiting for a plane back to Fort Lauderdale, brought the issue home and led to the Motion to Clarify,” wrote Rogow and other lawyers defending Stone against false-statement and witness-tampering charge.

View the complete March 11 article by Josh Gerstein on the Politico website here.

2020 Trump budget reflects 2020 Trump re-election themes

White House hopeful Bernie Sanders blasts plan for ‘cruelty’ and ‘broken promises’

The budget plan President Donald Trump sent to Congress on Monday reflects the messaging themes that are the early pillars of his re-election campaign.

The $4.7 trillion spending proposal includes increases for things the president uses to fire up his supporters, including a sizable military budget boost and $8.6 billion for his U.S.-Mexico border barrier that could trigger a new government shutdown fight in late September. It also calls for $2.8 trillion in cuts to non-Pentagon programs.

Line by line and department by department, the budget blueprint’s most high-profile sections offer red meat for Trump’s base and conjure red faces from congressional Democrats. Both sides are sure to turn its contents into early 2020 campaign-trail themes.

View the complete March 11 article by John T. Bennett on The Roll Call website here.

Manafort sentenced to nearly 4 years in prison

A federal judge on Thursday sentenced former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort to 47 months in prison, well below the amount recommended by the sentencing guidelines.

The sentence imposed by Judge T.S. Ellis III, a Reagan appointee, was significantly less than the 19 1/2 to 24 years Manafort could have received under the advisory recommendations.

In remarks from the bench, Ellis described Manafort’s crimes as “very serious” but said the guideline range was “not at all appropriate.” He pointed to significantly more-lenient sentences handed down in similar cases.

View the complete March 7 article by Lydia Wheeler, Morgan Chalfant and Tal Axelrod on The Hill website here.

Judge warns Roger Stone of ‘costs and consequences’ for his new book release amid gag order

Roger Stone as he left federal court in Washington on Feb. 1. Credit: Pablo Martinez Monsivais, AP

Attorneys for Roger Stone withheld and misrepresented plans for his new book criticizing special counsel Robert S. Mueller III in violation of a gag order in his case, a federal judge found Tuesday, warning that any “costs or consequences” that result are solely his responsibility.

The new order by U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson of Washington does not spell out consequences but bodes ill for the longtime friend of President Trump and Republican operative, who asked the court for leeway late Friday regarding the “imminent release” of a new version of his book about Trump’s 2016 campaign, retitled “The Myth of Russian Collusion.”

Jackson found that, in fact, Stone deliberately waited until after publication to disclose plans that had been underway for weeks, suggesting his defense was using her docket to gin up publicity for the book.

View the complete March 5 article by Spencer S. Hsu on The Washington Post website here.

Trump signals White House won’t comply with Democratic probes

President Trump on Tuesday signaled the White House will not comply with a barrage of congressional investigations, accusing Democrats in the House of launching the probes to hurt his chances of winning reelection in 2020.

“It’s a disgrace to our country. I’m not surprised that it’s happening. Basically, they’ve started the campaign. So the campaign begins,” Trump told reporters at the White House after signing an executive order on veterans’ suicide prevention.

“Instead of doing infrastructure, instead of doing health care, instead of doing so many things that they should be doing, they want to play games,” he continued.

View the complete March 5 article by Jordan Fabian on The Hill website here.

Dems unleash sprawling probe of Trump family, administration

Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee unleashed a sprawling probe of President Trump‘s family, campaign, business and administration on Monday that includes more than 80 requests for documents.

The investigation under Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) will focus on three key areas: obstruction of justice, public corruption and abuses of power. Nadler rolled out the expansive investigation less than a week after the president’s former attorney Michael Cohen delivered explosive public testimony against him on Capitol Hill.

Democrats will be looking at those involved in the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Trump campaign officials and a Russian lawyer linked to the Kremlin, the Trump Organization’s plans to build a Trump property in Moscow and a scheme to pay off two women who alleged they had affairs with Trump before the 2016 election.

View the complete March 4 article by Olivia Beavers and Morgan Chalfant on The Hill website here.

Judge orders Roger Stone to explain imminent release of book that may violate gag order

Roger Stone, a former campaign adviser for President Trump, leaves federal court in Washington on Feb. 1. Credit: Pablo Martinez Monsivais, AP

Republican operative and longtime Trump friend Roger Stone faced fresh legal trouble Friday after a federal judge ordered his attorneys to explain why they failed to tell her before now about the imminent publication of a book that could violate his gag order by potentially criticizing the judge or prosecutors with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.

The order by U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the District of Columbia late Friday came barely eight days after Jackson barred Stone from speaking publicly about his case, prompted by a photo posted on Stone’s Instagram account that placed a crosshairs next to a photo of Jackson’s head.

Stone apologized for abusing the court’s trust, asking for a second chance. Jackson said in imposing the gag order Feb. 21 that it would be “foolhardy” to wait for him to transgress again, that she had “serious doubts whether you’ve learned any lesson at all,” and warned she would order him to jail for future violations.

View the complete March 3 article by Spencer S. Hsu and Manuel Roig-Franzia on The Washington Post website here.

The Memo: Trump World faces sea of troubles

Trump loyalists are worried after his former attorney Michael Cohen’s testimony to Congress led Democrats to threaten more hearings and his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ended without an agreement.

None of those developments is ruinous in isolation. But Cohen’s hearing in particular dramatized the power Democrats now hold as the majority party in the House of Representatives — power that they can use to block the president’s domestic legislation and pressure his inner circle to testify.

At best, Trump loyalists say, intense partisan firefights lie ahead.

View the complete March 1 article by Niall Stanage on The Hill website here.

Two days in July: As Republicans convened in Cleveland, did Trump receive a heads-up about WikiLeak

Donald Trump arrives by helicopter in Cleveland on July 20, 2016, for the Republican National Convention. Credit: Jeff J Mitchell, Getty Images

At 1:25 p.m. on July 17, 2016, an Alitalia jet carrying Donald Trump’s longtime fixer and attorney Michael Cohen landed in New York, bringing him home after eight days celebrating his 50th birthday in Capri and Rome.

About 2 p.m. on July 20, a helicopter carrying Trump thumped down in a field in downtown Cleveland, delivering the presidential candidate in dramatic style to the Republican National Convention, already underway.

Between those two days — while Trump was in New York and the political world’s attention was trained on Cleveland — Cohen alleges that Trump received an important phone call from his decades-long confidant Roger Stone, alerting him that WikiLeaks was planning within days to release a cache of emails that would damage Hillary Clinton.

View the complete March 1 article by Rosalind S. Helderman and Manuel Roig-Franzia on The Washington Post website here.

Videos of Mark Meadows saying ‘send Obama home to Kenya’ resurface hours after he’s accused of racist stunt

After being accused of a “racist act” on Feb. 27, three instances emerged of Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) making birther comments about President Barack Obama. (Video: JM Rieger/Photo: Matt McClain/The Washington Post)

(This post has been updated with a third video unearthed by the Fix’s JM Rieger.)

The most emotionally fraught moment during the Michael Cohen hearing had nothing directly to do with President Trump’s former lawyer but was a tense exchange after one lawmaker accused another of engaging in a racist act by bringing a black woman to the hearing “as a prop.”

Though the issue was mostly resolved during the hearing, the aftershocks of it continued Thursday with the resurfacing of three videos from 2012 of Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) making birther comments about President Barack Obama and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) going on CNN to reiterate her belief that Meadows’s actions were insensitive to people of color.

Tlaib, one of the first two Muslim women elected to Congress, was the last to speak at the end of the marathon Oversight Committee hearing on Wednesday. She used her time to criticize Meadows — not by name — for bringing Lynne Patton, a black woman who has worked for the Trump family and now for the White House, to vouch for Trump not being racist.

View the complete February 28 article by Colby Itkowitz on The Washington Post website here.