Trump Corruption

The Los Angeles Times reports: President Trump, in one of a long string of Saturday morning tweets venting various frustrations, confirmed that he is pondering presidential pardons related to the probe into his campaign’s potential collusion with Russia. In the tweet, Trump said a president “has complete power to pardon,” suggesting he believes he can pardon himself, or is at …

The Washington Post reports: Russia’s ambassador to Washington told his superiors in Moscow that he discussed campaign-related matters, including policy issues important to Moscow, with Jeff Sessions during the 2016 presidential race, contrary to public assertions by the embattled attorney general, according to current and former U.S. officials. Ambassador Sergey Kislyak’s accounts of two conversations with Sessions — then a …

The Associated Press reports: Embattled former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn has opened a new consulting firm called Resilient Patriot, LLC that is advising private equity firms, according to one of his brothers, who says Flynn is “moving on with his life.” Joe Flynn said his family also is in the early stages of starting a fund to pay for …

Hoo boy. The Washington Post reports: Some of President Trump’s lawyers are exploring ways to limit or undercut special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s Russia investigation, building a case against what they allege are his conflicts of interest and discussing the president’s authority to grant pardons, according to people familiar with the effort. Trump has asked his advisers about his …

Raw Story reports: Deutsche Bank has agreed to hand over records of its financial dealings with President Donald Trump after months of stalling and insistence that the records are confidential and privileged information. Vanity Fair‘s Bess Levin wrote on Thursday that the German company was one of the last banks on Wall Street willing to do business with Trump after …

Bloomberg reports: The U.S. special counsel investigating possible ties between the Donald Trump campaign and Russia in last year’s election is examining a broad range of transactions involving Trump’s businesses as well as those of his associates, according to a person familiar with the probe. The president told the New York Times on Wednesday that any digging into matters beyond …

The Hill reports: Donald Trump Jr. and former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort are slated to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee in a public hearing next Wednesday, the committee announced. President Trump’s eldest son, who is not part of the administration, has been under fierce scrutiny for attending a 2016 meeting with a woman presented as a Russian government …

This morning a group of 24 House Democrats introduced a resolution of “no confidence” in Donald Trump. The primary sponsor of the measure is Tennessee Rep. Steve Cohen. Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) said, “This is not the behavior of a leader of the free world, the commander in chief.” Cohen pointed to Trump’s daily lies and said that this is …

The Hill reports: Donald Trump Jr. is reportedly “miserable” and can’t wait for the next four years to end. A friend of President Trump’s sons told People that Trump Jr. and Eric Trump “never wanted this.” “Don can’t do any deals, because he’ll be overly scrutinized. He just goes to work every day and is miserable,” a source in their …

The Washington Post reports: Trump lashed out at the media for reporting on his undisclosed meeting with Putin, saying the “fake news” was “sick” and “dishonest.” But the president distorted what news outlets, including The Washington Post, had reported, saying the story was about a “secret dinner” when in fact it was reported as an undisclosed meeting with Putin at …

NBC News reports: President Donald Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin a second time during the G-20 summit earlier this month, a White House official confirmed to NBC News Tuesday. Trump spoke to Putin at the end of a couples-only social dinner at the summit in Hamburg, Germany, the official said, reiterating it was a social dinner. Pull-asides are …

CNN reports: The eighth person who attended the June 2016 meeting with Donald Trump Jr. at Trump Tower is a senior vice president at the company founded by the Russian oligarch who initiated the meeting, CNN has learned. Ike Kaveladze’s identity was confirmed by his attorney, Scott Balber. Kaveladze is a senior vice president at Crocus Group, the real estate …

Kyle Mantyla reports at Right Wing Watch: As Robertson explained it, the entire meeting was probably set up by Democratic operatives working with the consulting firm Fusion GPS who “wanted to get caught” in order to highlight their ability to “disrupt America” and President Trump’s agenda. Robertson cited the fact that Fusion GPS was responsible for a dossier alleging that …

Fox News reports: Judge Andrew Napolitano said today that political campaigns cannot accept “something of value” from a foreign person or government. The Fox News senior judicial analyst said on “America’s Newsroom” that the Trump campaign’s lawyer – if consulted – would have likely advised Donald Trump Jr. and others not to attend a meeting last spring with a Russian …

USA Today reports: About 4-in-10 Americans currently support impeaching President Donald Trump six months into his term — significantly higher than the number who called for Richard Nixon’s impeachment in 1973, a Monmouth University poll has found. This is the first time adults nationwide were asked about impeachment of Trump with the same question used by the Gallup Poll during …

Reuters reports: The U.S. Secret Service on Sunday denied a suggestion from President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer that it had vetted a meeting between the president’s son and Russian nationals during the 2016 campaign. “Well, I wonder why the Secret Service, if this was nefarious, why the Secret Service allowed these people in. The president had Secret Service protection at …

ABC News reports: Americans give President Donald Trump the lowest six-month approval rating of any president in polls dating back 70 years, punctuated by questions about his competence on the world stage, his effectiveness, the GOP health care plan and Russia’s role in the 2016 election. Just 36 percent of Americans polled in a new ABC News/Washington Post poll approve …

The Washington Post reports: President Trump defended his son Donald Trump Jr., contrasting his Russia meeting with Hillary Clinton’s deleted emails and accused the news media of “DISTORTING DEMOCRACY” in a series of angry statements issued early Sunday. Tweeting from his private golf club in Bedminster, N.J., where he is spending the weekend, Trump lashed out at the media for …

ABC News reports: The White House announced Saturday that it has hired attorney Ty Cobb who, as a White House official confirmed earlier to ABC News, will serve as part of an internal legal team to manage matters related to the ongoing investigations into Russian election interference and possible collusion with the Trump campaign. Cobb — a partner at the …

Mediaite reports: Rinat Akhmetshin has been the man of hour since revelations emerged that he attended the infamous Trump Jr meeting. But it get’s better. In addition to that, it now appears that he worked as a lobbyist along alongside Fusion GPS, the company which put together the infamous Trump dossier. Akhmetshin is a former Soviet Intelligence Officer who came …