Tag: Trump campaign

Trump blasts Schiff as ‘political hack’ over new investigation

President Trump on Wednesday denounced House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) as a “political hack” for opening a sweeping investigation into Trump’s ties to Russia and his personal finances.

“He has no basis to do that. He’s just a political hack who’s trying to build a name for himself,” Trump told reporters at the White House after announcing his pick to lead the World Bank.

“It’s just presidential harassment and it’s unfortunate and it really does hurt our country,” Trump said of the probe.

View the complete February 6 article by Jordan Fabian on The Hill website here.

Mueller probe filings raise prospect of more indictments

Special counsel Robert Mueller’s references to “uncharged individuals” in recent court filings that aim to restrict certain evidence are being read by some as an indication more people could be indicted in his sprawling investigation.

Despite rampant speculation that Mueller is close to finalizing his report, the language used in court documents over the past few months offers clues that suggest his probe might ensnare more individuals.

The latest example came last week, when Mueller said sensitive files in the case involving a Russian troll farm identified “uncharged individuals” suspected of engaging in operations “that interfere with lawful U.S. government functions.” Mueller’s filing sought to keep the evidence restricted from defendants in Russia.

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

Court filing indicates Russian troll farm targeted Mueller himself in 2018

In February 2018, special  ounsel Robert Mueller indicted 13 Russian nationals connected to the Internet Research Agency—a Russian troll farm Mueller suspected of posing as Americans and spreading false information in order to influence the United States’ 2016 presidential election. And a new court filingsubmitted on Wednesday, January 30 alleges that the Internet Research Agency launched a disinformation campaign against Mueller himself in 2018.

Mueller is accusing Concord Management and Consulting, a Russian company, of funding the Internet Research Agency, and the special counsel’s office is alleging that the 2018 disinformation campaign was designed to convince Americans that Mueller’s evidence against the Internet Research Agency was weak and lacked credibility.

After Mueller indicted Concord Management and Consulting and 13 Russian nationals in February 2018, the company hired Reed Smith, an American law firm, for representation in its battle against Mueller’s team. Concord alleged that Mueller was illegally appointed, hoping the case would be thrown out. But Judge Dabney Friedrich, much to the disappointment of Mueller’s critics, has refused to dismiss the case.

View the complete February 3 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet website here.

Belarusian model: I gave info on Trump to Russian tycoon

MOSCOW (AP) — A Belarusian model who claims to have information on ties between Russia and Donald Trump’s election campaign told The Associated Press on Friday that she has turned that material over to Russian billionaire businessman Oleg Deripaska.

Anastasia Vashukevich fueled speculation around possible ties between Trump and the Kremlin last year when she posted a video from a police van, saying she had 16 hours of audio and video proving ties between Russian officials and the Trump campaign that influenced the 2016 U.S. elections.

Deripaska denied the allegations and even went to court to seek to remove the video Vashukevich posted in which he discusses U.S.-Russia ties with a senior Russian government official.

View the complete February 1 article by Nataliya Vasilyeva on the Associated Press website here.  Iuliia Subbotovska contributed to this report.

Trump and His Associates Had More Than 100 Contacts With Russians Before the Inauguration

During the 2016 presidential campaign and transition, Donald J. Trump and at least 17 campaign officials and advisers had contacts with Russian nationals and WikiLeaks, or their intermediaries, a New York Times analysis has found. At least 10 other associates were told about interactions but did not have any themselves.

Knowledge of these interactions is based on New York Times reporting, documents submitted to Congress, and court records and accusations related to the special counsel investigating foreign interference in the election.

Among these contacts are more than 100 in-person meetings, phone calls, text messages, emails and private messages on Twitter. Mr. Trump and his campaign repeatedly denied having such contacts with Russians during the 2016 election.

View the complete January 26 article with interactive graphic  by Karen Yourish and Larry Buchanan on The New York Times website here.

Power Up: Problems pile up at halfway mark of Trump’s presidency

Credit: Mark Wilson, Getty Images file photo

At the White House

WE’RE HALFWAY THERE (‘I ALONE CAN FIX IT’): The longest running government shutdown, a crumbling base, multiple investigations, a slowing economy, leaked outbursts and a dearth of dealmaking. These are the things that define President’s Trump’s halfway mark in the White House, casting a shadow over a nascent presidential campaign and threatening to imperil any semblance of legislative normalcy in the two years ahead.

  • “People saw him as some sort of business wizard. That’s all disintegrating. It’s like McDonald’s not being able to make a hamburger,” Republican strategist Mike Murphy told our Josh Dawsey and Philip Rucker.
  • “The shutdown also has accentuated several fundamental traits of Trump’s presidency: his apparent shortage of empathy, in this case for furloughed workers; his difficulty accepting responsibility, this time for a crisis he had said he would be proud to instigate; his tendency for revenge when it comes to one-upping political foes; and his seeming misunderstanding of Democrats’ motivations,” Rucker and Dawsey report.

View the complete article by Jacqueline Alemany on The Washington Post website here.

Trump’s Hush Money Payments Were Likely a Criminal Offense

President Donald Trump walks on the South Lawn of the White House on December 21, 2017, in Washington, D.C. Credit: Brendan Smialowski, Getty, AFP

This column contains a correction.

There is now strong, public evidence that the president of the United States committed a felony.

In June 2016, former Playboy model Karen McDougal began attempting to sell the rights to a story about an alleged affair with then-presidential candidate Donald Trump. Her attorney reached out to American Media Inc. (AMI)—the parent company of the National Enquirer—which in turn contacted Michael Cohen, Trump’s personal lawyer. The CEO of AMI had a previous relationship with Trump and Cohen, having met with them in 2015,* and offered to help purchase and kill negative stories. In August 2016, during the height of the presidential campaign, Cohen convinced AMI to pay $150,000 for McDougal’s story, promising that he would later reimburse the payment. According to federal prosecutors, “The agreement’s principal purpose was to suppress [McDougal’s] story so as to prevent the story from influencing the election.”

Two months later, in October 2016, adult film actress Stormy Daniels informed the editor of the National Enquirer that she intended to go public with allegations of an affair with Trump. The editor again contacted Cohen, who negotiated an agreement with Daniels’ attorney to purchase her silence for $130,000. Cohen made the payment through a shell company, presumably to help mask his involvement, and was later reimbursed by Trump’s real estate company—which paid him an additional $290,000 in monthly installments.

View the complete December 19 article by Alex Tausanovitch on the Center for American Progress website here.

Russian agent’s guilty plea intensifies spotlight on relationship with NRA

Russian gun rights activist Maria Butina developed bonds with conservative leaders during the 2016 campaign – culminating in outreach to then-candidate Trump. (Bastien Inzaurralde, Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

The guilty plea Thursday of a woman accused of infiltrating the National Rifle Association on behalf of the Russian government has thrust the powerful conservative group into an uncomfortable spotlight as the organization appears to be facing declining donations and signs its fearsome political influence may be waning.

Russian gun rights activist Maria Butina pleaded guilty in federal court in Washington to conspiring to act as an unregistered agent of Russia, admitting that she worked for more than two years to forge relationships with conservative activists and leading Republicans in the United States.

One of Butina’s main targets was the NRA — a group she identified in a 2015 memo as an organization that “had influence over” the Republican Party, according to court filings. Her relationships with the group, she wrote, could be used as the groundwork for an unofficial channel of communication to the next presidential administration.

View the complete December 13 article by Rosalind S. Helderman, Tom Hamburger and Mchelle Ye Hee Lee on The Washington Post website here.

Julian Assange has been charged, prosecutors reveal inadvertently in court filing

Prosecutors inadvertently revealed that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been charged under seal, according to a recently unsealed court filing. (Drea Cornejo /The Washington Post)

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been charged under seal, prosecutors inadvertently revealed in a recently unsealed court filing — a development that could significantly advance the probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election and have major implications for those who publish government secrets.

The disclosure came in a filing in a case unrelated to Assange. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kellen S. Dwyer, urging a judge to keep the matter sealed, wrote that “due to the sophistication of the defendant and the publicity surrounding the case, no other procedure is likely to keep confidential the fact that Assange has been charged.” Later, Dwyer wrote the charges would “need to remain sealed until Assange is arrested.”

Dwyer is also assigned to the WikiLeaks case. People familiar with the matter said what Dwyer was disclosing was true, but unintentional.

View the complete November 15 article by Matt Zapotosky and Devlin Barret on The Washington Post website here.

Feds Now Have Evidence Trump Broke the Law to Become President. Will Whitaker Bury It?

Credit: The Daily Beast

Prosecutors won’t likely charge a sitting president, yet have implicated him in a criminal scheme to pay off Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal. What to do then? Go to Congress.

Friday’s in-depth Wall Street Journal report suggests the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of New York and the FBI appear to possess evidence of Donald Trump’s involvement in a criminal scheme that helped get him elected president. This raises serious questions about what comes next, particularly in light of Trump’s appointment of Matthew Whitaker, a political loyalist, as acting attorney general.

Trump played a central role in hush-money payments made to Karen McDougal and Stephanie Clifford during the 2016 presidential campaign, the Journal reports, adding more detail to the case of Michael Cohen, Trump’s former fixer-lawyer who pled guilty to federal campaign finance violations in the Southern District in August.

Recall that when Cohen pleaded guilty in federal court, he stated under oath that he had made the payments “in coordination and at the direction of a candidate for federal office”—many assumed that that candidate was Trump, of course. We now know from the Journal that the person who directed Cohen in this criminal scheme was, indeed, Donald Trump. The charging document to which Cohen pled guilty states that he “coordinated with one or more members of the campaign, including through meetings and phone calls, about the fact, nature, and timing of the payments.” The Journal reports that “[t]he unnamed campaign member or members referred to Mr. Trump, according to people familiar with the document.”

View the complete November 10 article by Mimi Rocah and Elie Honig on TheDailyBeast.com website here.