Trump Corruption

And the hits just keep coming. From the Washington Post: We got a call Friday from a reader named Paul Redmond that The Post had accidentally published Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis’s private cell phone number. A story about President Trump’s bodyguard Keith Schiller, Redmond said, was accompanied by a photograph of the two of them walking on White House …

The Washington Post reports: President Trump revealed highly classified information to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador in a White House meeting last week, according to current and former U.S. officials, who said that Trump’s disclosures jeopardized a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State. The information Trump relayed had been provided by a U.S. partner through an intelligence-sharing …

The Daily Beast reports: White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer refused to comment on the existence of taped conversations between President Donald Trump and former FBI director James Comey. During a Monday press briefing, Spicer repeatedly stated that Trump had “nothing further” to say about alleged taped recordings, which Trump first referenced in a Friday tweet. During the Monday press …

Via press release: The American Civil Liberties Union today filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the Justice Department and FBI asking for all records related to President Trump’s dismissal of FBI Director James Comey. “White House interference with any FBI investigation is incompatible with democratic safeguards, and that’s especially the case when the investigation involves the president or …

An op-ed in today’s Roll Call supports Trump’s threat to end these briefings. An excerpt: President Donald Trump tweeted Friday that, because his aides can’t speak with “perfect accuracy,” it might be best “to cancel all future ‘press briefings’ and hand out written responses for the sake of accuracy.” I agree. Trump has identified an obvious truth in his administration: …

Yesterday afternoon Harvard law professor Lawrence Tribe published a Washington Post op-ed in which he forcefully calls for Trump to be impeached. His essay begins: The time has come for Congress to launch an impeachment investigation of President Trump for obstruction of justice. The remedy of impeachment was designed to create a last-resort mechanism for preserving our constitutional system. It …

The Associated Press reports: Several people close to the president say his reliance on a small cadre of advisers as he mulled firing Comey reflects his broader distrust of many of his own staffers. He leans heavily on daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner, as well as Hope Hicks, his trusted campaign spokeswoman and Keith Schiller, his longtime bodyguard. …

And of course, Hannity agrees. The Hill reports: Former Speaker Newt Gingrich is urging President Trump to follow through on his threat to cancel daily White House press briefings, accusing news media of being “dishonest opponents” of the president. “What they ought to do is get out of all this junk, they ought to focus on the big goals, they …

Last this afternoon Fox News anchor Chris Wallace went off on Sean Spicer’s handling of Trump’s blackmail threat against James Comey. Wallace: “When I heard that exchange today between Jeff Mason, White House reporter, and Sean Spicer speaking from the podium in the briefing room for the President of the United States, it took my breath away. That was what …

The Independent reports: Donald Trump’s firing of FBI director James Comey has seen the odds on his impeachment slashed to their shortest ever price. Bookmaker Paddy Power said its odds reflected a 60 per cent chance of the billionaire being impeached during his first term in office. Mr Comey’s sacking reverberated around Washington on Tuesday night and throughout Wednesday. He …

The Associated Press reports: President Donald Trump’s lawyers say a review of his last 10 years of tax returns do not reflect “any income of any type from Russian sources,” with some exceptions. The lawyers did not release copies of Trump’s tax returns so The Associated Press cannot independently verify their conclusions. The letter says there is no equity investment …

Ben Shapiro writes at the Daily Signal: First, it’s not smart to blackmail a fellow who is scheduled to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee next week. Comey obviously had few limits on what he was willing to say publicly before Trump blackmailed him; now he’ll be even more loose with his tongue. Second, revealing that there may be “tapes” …

The New York Times reports: Only seven days after Donald J. Trump was sworn in as president, James B. Comey has told associates, the F.B.I. director was summoned to the White House for a one-on-one dinner with the new commander in chief. The conversation that night in January, Mr. Comey now believes, was a harbinger of his downfall this week …

After yesterday’s bumbling and lie-filled press briefing by Sarah Huckabee Sanders, snippets of which were dissected and replayed throughout yesterday afternoon, this morning Hair Furor made excuses for the lies because, after all, he’s a VERY BUSY president. Trump followed up with an open threat to end press briefings entirely. Which is totally normal. Everything is fine. Again, the story …

NBC News reports: Despite what President Donald Trump said earlier in the day, James Comey did not seek a dinner with the president to retain his job, one current and one former FBI official close to Comey told NBC News Thursday evening. The January dinner meeting between the two men, the sources said, was requested by the White House. And …

Let’s see if she’s getting any better at lying. Via Patch: The White House continues to face questions about the firing of FBI Director James Comey on Tuesday night. The events that led up to Comey’s termination are unclear, and many press reports tell a very different story than the one the administration has laid out. Some recent reports have …

NBC News reports: President Donald Trump, in an exclusive interview Thursday with NBC News’ Lester Holt, called ousted FBI chief James Comey a “showboat” and revealed he asked Comey whether he was under investigation for alleged ties to Russia. “I actually asked him” if I was under investigation, Trump said, noting that he spoke with Comey once over dinner and …

Consumerist reports: In response to an unfair competition lawsuit filed against President Trump by a D.C. restaurant claiming that it’s lost business to a Trump-operated building within walking distance to the White House, the President’s legal team says that not only are the claims without merit, but that Trump is immune from this sort of legal action. The owners of …

The New York Times reports: The unfolding story over Mr. Trump’s abrupt firing of Mr. Comey hung over the hearing, infusing political theater into annual testimony by the nation’s top security officials about the biggest threats facing the United States. Mr. McCabe rejected the White House’s assertion that Mr. Comey had lost the backing of rank-and-file F.B.I. agents, a pointed …

Raw Story reports: Donald Trump Jr. on Thursday defended his father’s decision to fire former FBI Director James Comey by retweeting a conspiracy theory about Vince Foster, the former deputy White House counsel in the Clinton administration who took his own life in 1993. President Bill Clinton fired former FBI Director William Sessions in 1993 amid charges of corruption, including …