Trump Corruption

The Hill reports: Former GOP Sen. Rick Santorum (Pa.) said Wednesday that President Trump’s claims about the Russia investigation shouldn’t be alarming because the president “doesn’t tell the truth about a lot of things fairly consistently.” “The president doesn’t tell the truth about a lot of things fairly consistently,” Santorum, a CNN commentator, said during a panel discussion on”Anderson Cooper …

“He paints a potentially grave picture for the president. If the conversation he says he overheard with Roger Stone is true, then the president lied under oath, because the president swore to the accuracy of his answers to the written questions from Bob Mueller, one of which was: ‘Did you speak to Roger Stone about Julian Assange?’ Answer: No. If …

The New York Times reports: The attorney general for the District of Columbia has subpoenaed documents from President Trump’s inaugural committee, the third governmental body to delve into how the fund raised $107 million and spent it to celebrate Mr. Trump’s swearing in. The latest subpoena follows similar demands for documents by federal prosecutors in Manhattan and by New Jersey’s …

Vice News reports: Michael Cohen told the House Oversight Committee Wednesday that Donald Trump was given advance warning about the release of hacked Democratic emails during the 2016 campaign. “Mr. Trump knew from Roger Stone in advance about the WikiLeaks drop of emails,” Cohen told the committee. “Mr. Cohen’s testimony is entirely untrue,” Stone wrote Wednesday in an emailed response …

This will be the end of the public testimony. Cohen will testify privately tomorrow before the House Intelligence Committee. The Cut reports: Representative Jackie Speier, a Democrat from California, asked Cohen how many times Trump had asked him to threaten an individual or entity on his behalf. What followed was a back and forth between the lawmaker and Cohen, where …

USA Today reports: Michael Cohen’s dramatic congressional testimony against President Donald Trump on Wednesday came loaded with lurid details, signed checks and partisan sniping – offering a level of spectacle that was unusual, even for Washington. But both Democrats and Republicans signaled that Cohen’s remarks before the House Oversight Committee – his first extensive public remarks about his role as …

The Week reports: Michael Cohen’s testimony before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday included an allegation that, during his presidential campaign, President Trump directed his former lawyer to write letters to Trump’s high school, colleges, and the College Board demanding that they not release his grades or SAT scores to anyone requesting them. Below is a letter to Fordham University, …

“Donald Trump is a man who ran for office to make his brand great, not to make our country great. He had no desire or intention to lead this nation, only to market himself and to build his wealth and power. Mr. Trump would often say this campaign was going to be the greatest infomercial in political history. He never …

The Guardian reports: Michael Cohen is due before the House committee at 10am. He shared his testimony with reporters last night and it is… unflinching. As well as those assertions of Trump being a “racist”, a “conman” and a “cheat”, Cohen will tell members of Congress that the president implicitly directed him to lie to Congress. Cohen will also provide …

Politico reports: Michael Cohen on Wednesday will testify that President Trump directed his charitable organization to repay a fake bidder for a portrait of himself, according to a copy of his prepared remarks. “Mr. Trump directed me to find a straw bidder to purchase a portrait of him that was being auctioned at an Art Hamptons Event,” Cohen plans to …

The Hill reports: President Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen will testify Wednesday that Trump dodged military service in Vietnam with false claims about a medical condition. In his opening statement before the House Oversight and Reform Committee, Cohen will say that Trump told him there “was no surgery” for bone spurs and instructed him not to answer reporters’ specific questions …

Vox reports: Michael Cohen’s prepared opening statement for his testimony before the House Oversight Committee Wednesday is out — and wow, is it a doozy. The New York Times obtained Cohen’s statement, and posted it online early Wednesday morning. Perhaps Cohen’s most explosive claim is that he heard Roger Stone tell Trump about WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s plans to release …

The Washington Examiner reports: Michael Cohen is eagerly awaiting the chance to tell the American people his side of the story before reporting to prison for, among other charges, lying to Congress. Cohen, President Trump’s longtime personal lawyer, made the brief comment Tuesday after a marathon, closed-door interview with the Senate Intelligence Committee. “At this point in time, I really …

Bloomberg reports: President Donald Trump’s former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen is no longer a recognized attorney after he was disbarred in New York after pleading guilty to lying to Congress about a plan for a Trump Tower project in Moscow. An appeals court in Manhattan granted a request from a disciplinary panel to remove Cohen’s name from the roll …

Newsweek reports: “Disgraced felon Michael Cohen is going to prison for lying to Congress and making other false statements,” Sanders said in a statement sent to Newsweek on Tuesday. “Sadly, he will go before Congress this week and we can expect more of the same,” the White House press secretary said. “It’s laughable that anyone would take a convicted liar …

The Associated Press reports: A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld Robert Mueller’s appointment as special counsel after his authority had been challenged by a witness who refused to appear before a grand jury related to the Russia investigation. The case was brought by Andrew Miller, an aide to longtime Trump campaign adviser and confidant Roger Stone. Prosecutors wanted him …

The Hill reports: Defense attorneys for Paul Manafort say President Trump’s former campaign chairman should receive a prison sentence that’s significantly less than the maximum 10 years allowed under the law for the two crimes he pled guilty to in D.C. In a sentencing memo to the federal judge presiding over his criminal case, attorneys say Manafort, 69, has already …

The Wall Street Journal reports: Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former lawyer, will for the first time publicly accuse the president of criminal conduct while in office related to a hush-money payment to a porn star, a person familiar with his planned testimony before Congress said. Appearing on Wednesday before the House Oversight Committee, Mr. Cohen also will make public some …

Politico reports: The Interior Department has given offshore oil drillers nearly 1,700 exemptions to Obama-era safety rules put in place after BP’s 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil disaster, effectively gutting parts of the regulation before the Trump administration officially rolls them back. Those waivers were awarded in the first 20 months after the Well Control Rule took effect, according to …

“I’ve been hearing this for two years — everyone is going to jail. Meanwhile, they haven’t actually found anything that relates to this. What they did was put incredible pressure on regular guys that couldn’t afford a million dollars in legal fees, and got them to slip up, say something incorrectly. They pretended they were their friends. There are no …