Trump Corruption

Politico reports: Counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway said Friday that “the goal posts have been moved” when it comes to proving cooperation between the campaign of President Donald Trump and the Russian government. Former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, Conway said, is among a handful of people still clinging to theories of collusion. “I mean, we were promised systemic, …

NBC News reports: The Russian lawyer who met with the Trump team after a promise of compromising material on Hillary Clinton was accompanied by a Russian-American lobbyist — a former Soviet counter intelligence officer who is suspected by some U.S. officials of having ongoing ties to Russian intelligence, NBC News has learned. NBC News is not naming the lobbyist, who …

That’s one of the worries expressed by Sen. Mark Warner: The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee doesn’t buy the Trump administration’s spin about the Donald Trump Jr. email scandal. He finds it odd that senior Trump aides keep forgetting they spoke to Russian envoys and officials. And he worries the president might pardon anyone convicted of colluding with …

USA Today reports: President Trump on Thursday defended his son’s meeting with a Russian lawyer whom he believed had political dirt on Hillary Clinton – calling it a normal practice during a U.S. presidential campaign. “It’s called opposition research, or even research into your opponent,” Trump said at a joint news conference with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris. “Politics …

The HuffPost reports: House Republicans voted Thursday to block an effort aimed at revoking the security clearance of White House senior adviser Jared Kushner. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), who chaired the Democratic National Committee during much of last year’s campaign cycle, proposed an amendment targeting Kushner during a House Appropriations Committee markup session Thursday. It was voted down, 22-30, …

The Hill reports: President Trump on Thursday appeared to blame the Obama administration for allowing a Russian lawyer who met with his eldest son to enter the United States. The president appeared to cite a report in The Hill that former Attorney General Loretta Lynch allowed Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya to travel into the country early last year. “She was …

The Hill reports: Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is inviting Donald Trump Jr. to publicly testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee about his meeting with a Russian lawyer offering compromising information on Hillary Clinton. Grassley will send Trump Jr. a letter on Thursday asking him to appear before the committee, according to CNN. A spokesman for the Judiciary Committee chairman did …

Kellyanne Conway appeared on Sean Hannity’s show last night where she used visual aids to mock the media’s coverage of the ever-unfolding Russian collusion scandal. Mediaite reports: She held up a paper that read “Conclusion?” on top and “Collusion” crossed off at the bottom. “What’s the conclusion?” she asked. “Collusion? No. We don’t have that yet.” She then held up …

Mother Jones reports: Another Trump has landed the cover of Time, but don’t expect dad to be thrilled with this one. The cover image features Donald Trump Jr., along with the contents of his bombshell emails revealing that in June 2016, he had met with a Kremlin-linked lawyer who offered incriminating information on Hillary Clinton. The New York Times first …

“The only frustration is that this Russia story is a hoax made up by the Democrats as an excuse for losing an election that they should have won because it’s almost impossible for a Republican to win the Electoral College. There was zero coordination. It’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. There’s no coordination, this was a hoax, this was …

Raw Story reports: At an audio-only press briefing on Wednesday, White House Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders did exactly as MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow predicted on Tuesday night and attempted float a manufactured scandal to deflect attention away from the White House. When asked about President Donald Trump’s eldest son and evidence that has surfaced tying him to Russia’s attempts …

The Hill reports: President Trump on Wednesday pushed back on reports depicting a White House wracked by chaos over the bombshell revelations surrounding his eldest son’s election-year meeting with a Russian lawyer. Multiple media reports said the president is fuming at the negative coverage of Donald Trump Jr.’s decision to meet with the lawyer last year in order to obtain …

McClatchy DC reports: Investigators at the House and Senate Intelligence committees and the Justice Department are examining whether the Trump campaign’s digital operation – overseen by Jared Kushner – helped guide Russia’s sophisticated voter targeting and fake news attacks on Hillary Clinton in 2016. Congressional and Justice Department investigators are focusing on whether Trump’s campaign pointed Russian cyber operatives to …

Mediaite reports: On Fox & Friends, Wednesday, the couch regulars assembled to pick apart the most recent bombshell revelation: that Donald Trump Jr. had actively sought to collude with the Russian government to undermine Hillary Clinton in the 2016 campaign. Joining them was former campaign chief and Trump stalwart Corey Lewandowski to throw cold water on the whole story. “This …

The Washington Post reports: A handful of Republican operatives close to the White House are scrambling to Trump Jr.’s defense and have begun what could be an extensive campaign to try to discredit some of the journalists who have been reporting on the matter. Their plan, as one member of the team described it, is to research the reporters’ previous …

From today’s editorial in the New York Post: We see one truly solid takeaway from the story of the day: Donald Trump Jr. is an idiot. In the heat of your father’s presidential campaign, a bozo British publicist e-mails you to set up a sitdown with a “Russian government attorney” promising “documents and information” to “incriminate Hillary” courtesy of the …

The Hill reports: President Trump on Wednesday blasted the news media for its use of anonymous sources. His tweet come as his son, Donald Trump Jr., faces scrutiny for a meeting he had last year during the presidential campaign with a Russian lawyer. Trump Jr. said late Tuesday that he would be willing to testify under oath about his election-year …

CNN reports: Donald Trump Jr. has offered a series of explanations over the past 72 hours for why he met with a Russian lawyer who purported to have information about Hillary Clinton’s campaign. He tried out his latest one with Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Tuesday night. “I didn’t know if there was any credibility, I didn’t know if there …

Mediaite reports: During a segment this afternoon on the blockbuster news, Fox News anchor Shepard Smith had on Associated Press reporter Julie Bykowicz to discuss these recent developments. Smith used this opportunity to poke holes in the White House’s narrative that this was Trump Jr. being transparent. “His transparency came minutes before he had been made aware that The New …

Julian Assange is claiming that earlier today he contacted Donald Trump Jr. to urge him to release those emails anonymously via Wikileaks because otherwise Trump’s enemies would just “milk isolated phrases for weeks or months” without providing context. You may recall that the elder Trump regularly declared his love for Wikileaks. Contacted Trump Jr this morning on why he should …