Trump claims that the court filings against Cohen “clear” him. They do not.
In response to the two court filingsmade by federal prosecutors against Michael Cohen on Friday, President Donald Trump took to the internet.
And this time, unlike his early morning outburst in which the president seemed to be on the verge of panic, Trump confidently proclaimed that the new filings mean he is proven innocent and home free.
Trump and his White House repeatedly denied that there were any contacts between members of the Trump campaign and Russia. They were lying — now we know Russians interacted with at least 16 Trump associates during the campaign and transition.
Trump denied any campaign contact with Russia, “with a firm ‘no.’”
Jim Acosta: “Fortunately ABC’s Cecilia Vega asked my question about whether any Trump associates contacted Russians. Trump said no.”
Cecilia Vega: “?? @DavidGroff you must have missed the part of my reporting that said trump came back and answered my first question with a firm ‘no.’”
Data is merely a weapon to be used to make a rhetorical point, rather than information that might inform policy-making. (Meg Kelly/The Washington Post)
For most of his first year in office, President Trump bragged about how much apprehensions had fallen on the southern border. Using cherry-picked numbers, he claimed a drop of 40 percent, then 61 percent, and then 78 percent. “Under past administrations, the border didn’t go down — it went up,” he falsely claimed.
The president stuck to the 78 percent statistic for months, even when his own fuzzy accounting was out of date. Then he was silent for months as apprehensions began climbing until he rolled out a new claim: “We have set records on arrests at the borders.”
Both claims are from the same data maintained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. It’s just that Trump flipped the script, twisting the data to present the rosiest picture possible. Whereas a drop in arrests previously was cause for celebration, now a surge in arrests is even better.
President Donald Trump and China’s President Xi Jinping arrive at a state dinner at the Great Hall of the People on November 9, 2017, in Beijing. Credit: Thomas Peter, Pool, Getty Images
He confuses tariffs and interest rates, and invents phantom new steel plants.
At one point during his latest interview with the Wall Street Journal, President Trump mixes up tariffs (a kind of sales tax imposed on imported goods) with interest rates, which are the extra money you owe when you take out a loan. Bob Davis, the journalist conducting the interview, corrects the president. It’s the kind of verbal slip that could happen to anyone. Except that Trump, after acknowledging the error, flips back around and makes it again later in the interview.
And it’s not just some random issue where he can’t keep the words straight. Trade policy is, along with immigration, one of his signature issues where he personally has really made a mark and is governing in a way that other Republicans probably wouldn’t. During the 2016 campaign, it was routine to warn that Trump’s blundering ignorance on trade matters would end up tanking the global economy. That hasn’t happened, and in reality, the continuation of the steady recovery that began midway through Obama’s first term has been the clear bright spot of Trump-era America.
Donald Trump defends himself from possible conflicts of interest with foreign governments. (The Washington Post)
“Well I told you, General Flynn obviously was dealing [with Russia]. So that’s one person. But he was dealing, as he should have been. . . . Russia is a ruse. I have nothing to do with Russia. Haven’t made a phone call to Russia in years. Don’t speak to people from Russia. I have nothing to do with Russia. To the best of my knowledge, no person that I deal with does.”
President Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about his efforts to secure a real estate deal in Moscow for the Trump Organization in 2015 and 2016, while his boss was campaigning for president.
For three decades, Trump had angled to strike a real estate deal in Moscow, but he could never cinch it, even after his Miss Universe pageant was held in Moscow in 2013. In a recent court filing, prosecutors laid out extensive contact on a possible deal through 2016 between Cohen, then an executive vice president of the Trump Organization, Felix Sater, a Russian-born businessman with a checkered past, and numerous Russian nationals, including the press secretary for the president of Russia.
“I’m not blaming anybody, but I’m just telling you I think that the Fed is way off base with what they’re doing, number one. Number two, a positive note, we’re doing very well on trade, we’re doing very well — our companies are very strong. Don’t forget, we’re still up from when I came in, 38 percent or something. You know, it’s a tremendous — it’s not like we’re up — and we’re much stronger. And we’re much more liquid. And the banks are now much more liquid during my tenure. And I’m not doing — I’m not playing by the same rules as Obama. Obama had zero interest to worry about; we’re paying interest, a lot of interest. He wasn’t paying down — we’re talking about $50 billion lots of different times, paying down and knocking out liquidity. Well, Obama didn’t do that. And just so you understand, I’m playing a normalization economy, whereas he’s playing a free economy. It’s easy to make money when you’re paying no interest. It’s easy to make money when you’re not doing any pay-downs, so you can’t — and despite that, the numbers we have are phenomenal numbers.”
This long section of President Trump’s Nov. 27 interview with The Washington Post caused a fair amount of puzzlement among our readers. It came in the middle of an attack on Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome H. Powell. The White House declined to answer our questions intended to clarify the president’s words, so we consulted with experts in an effort to deconstruct his rhetoric.
We cannot claim complete success, and it’s fairly amazing the White House would not try to offer an explanation. But perhaps aides do not know what he meant, either. Anyway, here’s a tour through his spin, bluster and puzzling claims.
View the complete November 29 article by Glenn Kessler on The Washington Post website here.
It was another bad week for Trump. We now know Trump lied about his Russia ties, and Mueller’s investigation is closing in and has reached Trump’s children. With so much Russia-related news, it’s hard to keep up. Here are the top 6 revelations to know:
TRUMP’S LIES:Timeandagain Trump told the American people that his business had nothing to do with Russia, but discussions on Trump Tower Moscow went on at least until June 2016 — and Trump was briefed on it.
IN TALKS WITH THE KREMLIN:Cohen admitted in court that he was in direct contact with the Kremlin about Trump Tower Moscow during the 2016 presidential campaign. What was the extent of their involvement?
In his interview with The Washington Post’s Philip Rucker and Josh Dawsey on Nov. 27, President Trump made a number of false or misleading claims, including many that we have fact-checked previously. Here’s a quick roundup, with statements listed in the order he made them. Some comments made by the president during the interview are unclear and may be subject to additional fact checks.
“We’re not having a wall because of the Democrats. We need Democrat votes to have a wall.”
Trump needs 60 votes in the Senate, meaning he needs all Republicans and at least nine Democrats, to clear the way for a filibuster-proof bill that funds the border wall.
The Secure and Succeed Act would do just that. Sponsored by Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) and backed by the White House, the bill would provide $25 billion for the wall, among other measures.
President Trump said Nov. 26 that U.S. agents used tear gas on migrants at the U.S. -Mexico border because they were “being rushed by some very tough people.” (The Washington Post)
GULFPORT, MISS. — President Trump on Monday suggested without evidence that some of the migrants who were tear-gassed at the U.S.-Mexico border on Sunday were “grabbers” who took others’ children to protect themselves.
In an exchange with reporters here before heading to Biloxi, Miss., to headline a rally for Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R), Trump also threatened to close the border “for a long time.”
Trump’s remarks came hours after he defended the use of tear gas by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents against a crowd of migrants at the San Ysidro border crossing on Sunday. Trump said that three U.S. agents were “very badly hurt” by rocks and stones thrown by migrants during the unrest.
Administration officials have pointed to “the law” as the reason why undocumented children are being separated from their parents. But there’s no such law. (Meg Kelly/The Washington Post)
“Obama separated . . . . . . . . children from parents, as did Bush etc., because that is the policy and law. I tried to keep them together but the problem is, when you do that, vast numbers of additional people storm the Border. So with Obama seperation is fine, but with Trump it’s not. Fake 60 Minutes!”
— President Trump, in a pair of tweets, Nov. 25, 2018
“Mexico should move the flag waving Migrants, many of whom are stone cold criminals, back to their countries.”
Donald J. Trump
