Tag: Trump White House

Trump lawyers reviewed Mueller report for 10 hours before it was made public

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump’s personal lawyers spent at least 10 hours reviewing Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian meddling in the 2016 election before it was made public, two of the lawyers told Reuters on Friday.

Rudy Giuliani, Jay Sekulow and two other Trump lawyers went to the U.S. Justice Department on Tuesday and Wednesday for an early look at the 448-page report into whether Trump’s team colluded with Russia and whether Trump obstructed the investigation, which was released to the public on Thursday.

Attorney General William Barr, who has drawn criticism from Democratic lawmakers over his handling of the Mueller probe, said on Thursday that both White House counsel and Trump’s personal lawyers had been allowed to review the redacted report.

View the complete April 19 article by Karen Freifeld on the Reuters website here.

Sarah Sanders decides to double down on the lie she admitted to Mueller

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders is peddling a new explanation for a lie she told the American people. In at least three different interviews since the release of the redacted Mueller report Thursday, Sanders has attempted to stand by a claim that she had told the investigation — under oath — was utterly bogus.

The lie in question is Sanders’ claim that in May 2017, the White House had heard from “countless” members of the FBI who had lost confidence in James Comey, then-director of the agency. At the time, she claimed the loss of confidence was one of the primary reasons President Donald Trump had fired Comey. Trump himself had written in his letter terminating Comey that morale at the FBI was at an all-time low. But the Mueller investigation found no evidence to support any of those claims, and according to the report, “Sanders acknowledged to investigators that her comments were not founded on anything.”

But in new interviews with Fox News’ Sean Hannity, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, and CBS This Morning, Sanders stood by the lie she had previously told. Using almost the exact same, clearly rehearsed language in each interview, Sanders insisted the original claim was true.

View the complete April 19 article by Zack Ford on the ThinkProgress website here.

Trump frustrated with aides who talked to Mueller

President Trump is venting frustration with associates who cooperated with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation after their notes and first-hand observations were used to paint a negative and damaging picture of his presidency.

Even as the White House reveled in what it saw as a generally positive news cycle in the hours following the release of the Mueller report, Trump made his dissatisfaction clear.

“Watch out for people that take so-called ‘notes,’ when the notes never existed until needed,” Trump tweeted Friday morning, less than 24 hours after the report’s release.

View the complete April 19 article by Jordan Fabian and Brett Samuels on The Hill website here.

Trump: Some statements about him in Mueller report are ‘total bulls—‘

President Trump on Friday lashed out over special counsel Robert Mueller‘s redacted report a day after declaring the report cleared him of collusion and obstruction, claiming some statements about him in the document “are total bullshit.”

In a string of tweets, Trump derided the more than 400-page document as the “Crazy Mueller Report.”

The president took a jab at former aides who supplied notes and other information to investigators and claimed certain statements about him are “fabricated & totally untrue.”

View the complete April 19 article by Brett Samuels on The Hill website here.

A Portrait of the White House and Its Culture of Dishonesty

WASHINGTON — As President Trump met with advisers in the Oval Office in May 2017 to discuss replacements for the F.B.I. director he had just fired, Attorney General Jeff Sessions slipped out of the room to take a call.

When he came back, he gave Mr. Trump bad news: Robert S. Mueller III had just been appointed as a special counsel to take over the investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election and any actions by the president to impede it.

Mr. Trump slumped in his chair. “Oh, my God,” he said. “This is terrible. This is the end of my presidency. I’m fucked.”

View the complete April 18 article by Peter Baker and Maggie Haberman on The New York Times website here.

Sarah Sanders told investigators she lies to the press: Here’s how 6 key players in Trump’s orbit made out in the Mueller report

Attorney General William Barr has publicly released a redacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller’s final report for the Russia investigation. Despite the redactions, a wealth of information is in the report—and many of President Donald Trump’s past and present associates are discussed extensively.

Here’s what the Mueller report says about the roles of some key players and Trump associates.

1. Hope Hicks

On Page 101 of Mueller’s report, former Trump White House staffer Hope Hicks  is quoted as saying that e-mails in which Donald Trump, Jr. said, in 2016, that he would “love it” if Russia would leak some dirt on Hillary Clinton looked “really bad” for the president’s son. Mueller’s report states, “the President was insistent that he did not want to talk about it and said he did not want details.”

View the complete April 18 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet website here.

Mueller report shows Trump aides routinely ignored his orders on crucial matters

Special counsel highlights chaotic West Wing where staff tried to save president from himself

Presidential orders given but often ignored. Ample cursing. Aides working behind the scenes to protect Donald Trump from his own anger and impulsiveness. And an effort to prevent the president from firing special counsel Robert S. Mueller III despite his determination to do so.

Mueller’s long-anticipated report reveals a chaotic West Wing driven by paranoia and frequent outbursts from a green president who wanted to remove the special counsel and demanded that his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, be more like predecessors Robert F. Kennedy and Eric H. Holder Jr., whom he felt “protected” the respective presidents they served, John F. Kennedy and Barack Obama.

It also reveals that his current press secretary misled reporters on multiple occasions, and that he circumvented the White House counsel’s office by having a domestic policy adviser, Stephen Miller, research whether he could oust an FBI director without cause. And it shows the president’s penchant for cursing under stress, including when he declared “I’m f—ed” after Mueller was appointed.

View the complete April 18 article by John T. Bennett on The Roll Call website here.

Rick Perry Planning His Exit as Trump’s Energy Secretary, Sources Say

Energy Secretary Rick Perry is planning to leave the Trump administration and is finalizing the terms and timing of his departure, according to two people familiar with his plans.

While Perry’s exit isn’t imminent and one person familiar with the matter said the former Texas governor still hasn’t fully made up his mind, three people said he has been seriously considering his departure for weeks. All of the people spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations.

An Energy Department spokeswoman, Shaylyn Hynes, rejected the idea that Perry would be leaving the administration any time soon. “He is happy where he is serving President Trump and leading the Department of Energy,” she said in a statement.

View the complete April 17 article by Jennifer Jacobs, Jennifer A. Dlouhy and Ari Natter on the Bloomberg News website here.

White House and Justice Dept. Officials Discussed Mueller Report Before Release Attorney General William P. Barr plans a news conference on Thursday to discuss the release of the Mueller report. Credit Erin Schaff/The New York Times Image

WASHINGTON — Not all of Robert S. Mueller III’s findings will be news to President Trump when they are released Thursday.

Justice Department officials have had numerous conversations with White House lawyers about the conclusions made by Mr. Mueller, the special counsel, in recent days, according to people with knowledge of the discussions. The talks have aided the president’s legal team as it prepares a rebuttal to the report and strategizes for the coming public war over its findings.

A sense of paranoia was taking hold among some of Mr. Trump’s aides, some of whom fear his backlash more than the findings themselves, the people said. The report might make clear which of Mr. Trump’s current and former advisers spoke to the special counsel, how much they said and how much damage they did to the president — providing a kind of road map for retaliation.

View the complete April 17 article by Mark Mazzetti, Maggie Haberman, Nicholas Fandos and Katie Benner on The New York Times website here.

Jared Kushner is illegally running the RNC and Trump’s re-election campaign from the White House

Presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner is running the Republican National Committee (RNC) and President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign from his perch as a White House senior advisor, Vanity Fair correspondent Gabriel Sherman reported Tuesday.

“While Trump relishes the prospect of going after his opponents, his family is acting emboldened in the post-Mueller environment,” Vanity Fair reported. “Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, in particular, are taking a more aggressive approach to internal politics, sources said.”

“He’s running the RNC. He’s running the campaign,” a former West Wing official explained.

View the complete April 16 article by Bob Brigham on the Raw Story website here.