Trump Corruption

NBC News reports: Jury selection in the trial of Roger Stone, the longtime confidant and adviser to President Donald Trump, got off to a bizarre start on Tuesday as Stone left the proceedings due to what he said was food poisoning shortly after an observer was taken out of the courtroom on a stretcher after appearing to have a seizure. …

Law & Crime reports: Before federal authorities arrested Rudy Giuliani’s business partners Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman at Dulles Airport with one-way tickets out of the country, the two Floridian-Ukrainian businessmen received President Donald Trump’s blessing on the hiring of attorney John Dowd. Dowd formerly represented the president during the Mueller investigation. In the wake of their arrest for allegedly …

Just in from Monmouth University: More than 60 percent of respondents who support President Trump say they support him no matter what, according to a new survey. The Monmouth University poll released Tuesday found that 62 percent of Trump supporters said they could not think of “anything that Trump could do, or fail to do, in his term as president …

USA Today reports: House Democrats have requested that acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney give a deposition in the impeachment probe, according to a letter released Tuesday. In the letter, the three chairmen of the House committees conducting the probe wrote, “Based on evidence gathered in the impeachment inquiry and public reporting, we believe that you possess substantial …

The New York Times reports: A critical witness in the impeachment inquiry offered Congress substantial new testimony this week, revealing that he told a top Ukrainian official that the country likely would not receive American military aid unless it publicly committed to investigations President Trump wanted. The disclosure from Gordon D. Sondland, the United States ambassador to the European Union, …

“This is kangaroo court stuff, this is Soviet-era tactics And it’s being pushed out there by the quote unquote ‘party of tolerance,’ they’re not so tolerant when you don’t agree with them, they’re far from it, frankly, there’s nothing less tolerant than a leftist who’s preaching tolerance. And we’ve seen all of that, so the whole thing is crazy and …

Reuters reports: Lev Parnas, an indicted Ukrainian-American businessman who has ties to President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, is now prepared to comply with requests for records and testimony from congressional impeachment investigators, his lawyer told Reuters on Monday. Parnas, who helped Giuliani look for dirt on Trump’s political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, is a key figure …

Politico reports: In 2006, Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump traveled to Ukraine to meet with government officials about building a multimillion dollar hotel and golf course in the country. Two years later, Trump Jr. was back to meet with developers. The Trumps were looking to erect luxury resorts across the former Soviet republics, and Ukraine seemed like a promising …

The Daily Beast reports: Facing a concerted campaign from Rudy Giuliani and his allies to oust her, former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovich struggled in vain to get cover from U.S. diplomats, including her boss: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. At one point, according to a transcript of her Oct. 11 deposition in front of congressional impeachment investigators, she …

CNN reports: Former US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch told House lawmakers last month that the State Department leaders did not speak up for her because they had concerns that President Donald Trump would undermine it, possibly using Twitter. “What I was told is that there was concern that the rug would be pulled out from underneath the State Department …

CBS News reports: The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel has concluded that high-level presidential advisers have “absolute immunity” from congressional subpoenas for their testimony, according to a letter sent Sunday. In the letter to White House counsel Pat Cipollone, Assistant Attorney General Steven Engel said John Eisenberg, a White House attorney who was scheduled to be deposed Monday morning, …

Politico reports: The final year of President Donald Trump’s first term will be loaded with legal landmines — and it’s not just the impeachment cases. Trump could face court rulings that say he is illegally profiting from foreign governments, that he must hand over his tax returns and that lawmakers should see more of Robert Mueller’s Russia probe evidence. He …

Popular Information reports: The Trump campaign has held at least 15 contests since 2018 offering the chance to win breakfast, lunch, or dinner with President Trump. Supporters are enticed to donate to Trump’s campaign with promises of free travel, accommodations, and an “epic” meal with Trump at various locations across the country. An investigation by Popular Information, however, did not …

The New York Times reports: Paul Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign chairman, spread a conspiracy theory now at the center of the impeachment investigation — that Ukraine, not Russia, hacked the Democratic National Committee — as early as five months before the 2016 election, according to newly released documents from the special counsel’s investigation. Mr. Manafort told his deputy on …

Talking Points Memo reports: President Donald Trump’s obsession with the whistleblower’s identity is intensifying, as he prodded White House reporters to investigate and release the person’s identity Sunday. “As you know, certain of the media released information about a man that they said was the whistleblower; I don’t know if that’s true or not,” he said. “But what they said …

USA Today reports: The impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump moves forward Monday even as the full House of Representatives is on a week-long break. Four White House officials scheduled to appear before the House Oversight, Intelligence and Foreign Affairs committees, are not expected to show up. Two of the officials — John Eisenberg, the National Security Council’s lawyer, and …

Mediaite reports: President Donald Trump baselessly claimed transcripts from his impeachment inquiry will be altered in some way by “freak” Rep. Adam Schiff, demanding the GOP release their own versions. “If Shifty Adam Schiff, who is a corrupt politician who fraudulently made up what I said on the “call,” is allowed to release transcripts of the Never Trumpers & others …

The Hill reports: President Trump said early Monday that there is “no reason” to call witnesses in the impeachment inquiry. “What I said on the phone call with the Ukrainian President is ‘perfectly’ stated. There is no reason to call witnesses to analyze my words and meaning,” he tweeted. The president’s early morning posts, which included multiple retweets of Fox …

The Huffington Post reports: President Donald Trump on Sunday dismissed polls from several major media outlets showing that nearly half of Americans support his impeachment and removal from office. “I have the real polls,” he told reporters gathered outside the White House. “The CNN polls are fake. The Fox polls have always been lousy; I tell them they ought to …

“All of foreign relations is a quid pro quo. You know, we do things for them, they do things for us. There’s good quid pro quo and there’s bad quid pro quo. I would argue a really bad quid pro quo was the deal with Iran that President Obama put forward. “This quid pro quo, if it actually was completed …