Trump Corruption

The New York Daily News reports: President Trump did not speak with Michael Cohen before he testified falsely before Congress about plans to develop a skyscraper in Moscow during the 2016 campaign, Rudy Giuliani said Monday, backing off previous assertions that such talks may have taken place. The former New York mayor, who serves as Trump’s top lawyer in Robert …

Talking Points Memo reports: President Donald Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani said Sunday that conversations about a potential Trump Tower deal in Moscow — conversations involving then-candidate Trump — occurred “as far as October, November” of 2016. Giuliani’s timeline extends beyond what Cohen acknowledged in pleading guilty to lying to Congress about the deal: In that timeline, discussions about the …

ABC News reports: The Senate Intelligence Committee has subpoenaed conservative conspiracy theorist and special counsel witness Jerome Corsi, his attorney said on Friday. The committee is seeking both an interview and documents from Corsi, an associate of longtime GOP operative and Trump ally Roger Stone, Corsi’s lawyer Larry Klayman said. Klayman declined to provide details on the subpoena, which he …

“Any suggestion — from any source — that the President counseled Michael Cohen to lie is categorically false. Michael Cohen is a convicted criminal and a liar. To quote the prosecutors, he has traded ‘on a pattern of lies and dishonesty over an extended period of time’ and for that ‘he is going to pay a very, very serious price.’ …

Mediaite reports: Kellyanne Conway gave an interview to Fox Business on Friday, during which, she did not deny the report that President Donald Trump told Michael Cohen to lie before Congress about the timeline for his plans to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. “[Fox News reporter] Kevin Corke was characterizing Michael Cohen’s past testimony and also talking about some …

CNBC reports: President Donald Trump on Friday accused his former lawyer Michael Cohen of “lying to reduce his jail time” in the wake of a bombshell report from BuzzFeed News that said the president himself directed Cohen to lie to Congress. Trump did not directly address the BuzzFeed article in his tweet, which added, “Watch” Cohen’s “father-in-law!” The source material …

Newsweek reports: The president and his two of his children, Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr., also received regular updates about the development which could have netted $300 million in profits, the BuzzFeed report states. But Trump’s current attorney, Giuliani, was dismissive of the claims made by the news outlet. After BuzzFeed claimed that Giuliani’s phone was switched off to avoid …

Reuters reports: Democrats now in control of the U.S. House of Representatives are working out which House panels will take the lead in investigating President Donald Trump’s business ties to Deutsche Bank, lawmakers and aides familiar with the plans told Reuters. As the new Democratic House of Representatives majority launches a range of investigations into the Republican president and his …

Maggie Haberman reports at the New York Times: President Trump’s personal attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani backtracked on Thursday from a surprising assertion he made a night earlier that left open the possibility that Trump campaign aides might have coordinated with Russia’s election interference in 2016. “There was no collusion by President Trump in any way, shape or form,” Mr. Giuliani …

Kyle Mantyla reports at Right Wing Watch: Last week, ardent right-wing conspiracy theorist and prominent birther Jerome Corsi appeared on “The Eric Metaxas Show,” where he compared his interrogation at the hands of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s legal team to Jesus Christ’s interrogation by Pontius Pilate. Despite the fact that Corsi has long been an unapologetic conspiracy theorist who once …

NBC News reports: President Donald Trump’s former “fixer” Michael Cohen paid the head of a small technology company thousands in 2015 to rig online polls and elevate Cohen’s character to benefit Trump’s presidential campaign, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. In a statement to CNN Thursday, Cohen said his actions were “at the direction of and for the sole benefit …

Just out from The Atlantic: On January 20, 2017, Donald Trump stood on the steps of the Capitol, raised his right hand, and solemnly swore to faithfully execute the office of president of the United States and, to the best of his ability, to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. He has not kept that promise. …

The Wall Street Journal reports: In early 2015, a man who runs a small technology company showed up at Trump Tower to collect $50,000 for having helped Michael Cohen, then Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, try to rig online polls in his boss’s favor before the presidential campaign. In his Trump Organization office, Mr. Cohen surprised the man, John Gauger, by …

The Washington Post reports: Rudolph W. Giuliani claimed Wednesday night that he “never said there was no collusion” between President Trump’s campaign and Russia leading up to the 2016 presidential election. In a remarkable, at times contentious, interview with CNN’s Chris Cuomo, the president’s lawyer appeared to contradict his own past statements about collusion as well as what Trump and …

Politico reports: Lawyers for the General Services Administration chose to “ignore” the U.S. Constitution and other legal precedents when they allowed the Trump International Hotel to maintain its lease on the Old Post Office building even after Donald Trump became president, the GSA’s internal watchdog said on Wednesday. In a 47-page report, the GSA’s inspector general said government lawyers were …

Gabriel Sherman reports at Vanity Fair: The shutdown and related chaos has pushed Donald Trump’s approval rating to new lows, with even Rasmussen, his polling happy place, pegging him at 43 percent. But the White House believes this is only the beginning of his troubles. In recent days, according to a source briefed on the conversation, Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani …

The Daily Beast reports: Rick Gates, the former campaign aide to Donald Trump, is cooperating with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into whether individuals from the Middle East worked with the Trump campaign to influence the election, according to two individuals with first-hand knowledge of the investigation. Gates has answered questions specifically about Psy Group, an Israeli firm that ex-employees …

ABC News reports: Special counsel Robert Mueller has filed a heavily-redacted court document Tuesday afternoon outlining the underlying evidence to support its claims that Paul Manafort, the president’s onetime campaign chairman, lied to federal investigators. At a hearing in December, the federal judge overseeing that case asked the government to provide some “underlying evidence” to support the scant details they’ve …

The Washington Post reports: The stepson of conservative writer Jerome Corsi has been summoned by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III to testify before a grand jury, according to Corsi, a sign that Mueller’s team remains focused on the writer and his interactions with Roger Stone, a close associate of President Trump. Corsi said in a Fox Business Network interview …

The Daily Mail reports: Kellyanne Conway, a senior adviser to Donald Trump, says the president shielded a conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2017, because his administration was ‘suffering from a great number’ of leaks at that time. Conway told reporters at the White House on Monday that the White House that she had not talked with the president …