Trump Corruption

Here’s what today’s rant is apparently about: Three months before the 2016 election, a small group gathered at Trump Tower to meet with Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son. One was an Israeli specialist in social media manipulation. Another was an emissary for two wealthy Arab princes. The third was a Republican donor with a controversial past in the …

Trump is contradicting his own lawyer again: Rudy Giuliani, who is representing President Donald Trump in the Russia investigation, said Friday he doesn’t know for sure if the FBI had an informant in the Trump campaign. “Here’s the issue that I really feel strongly about with this informant, if there is one. First of all, I don’t know for sure, …

CNN reports: Rudy Giuliani said Friday that special counsel Robert Mueller has agreed to narrow the scope of a potential interview with President Donald Trump from five topics to two. The former New York City mayor told CNN’s Chris Cuomo on “New Day” that Mueller is not considering asking the President about his former personal attorney Michael Cohen, who’s under …

Reuters reports: The former son-in-law of Paul Manafort, the one-time chairman of President Donald Trump’s campaign, has cut a plea deal with the Justice Department that requires him to cooperate with other criminal probes, two people with knowledge of the matter said. The guilty plea agreement, which is under seal and has not been previously reported, could add to the …

The New York Times reports: The company controlled by the family of the White House adviser Jared Kushner is close to receiving a bailout of its financially troubled flagship building by a company with ties to the government of Qatar, according to executives briefed on the deal. Charles Kushner, head of the Kushner Companies, is in advanced talks with Brookfield …

Patch reports: White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders will hold a press briefing on Thursday, May 17. Likely topics include the possibility of the upcoming summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un being cancelled and the president’s official acknowledgement that he reimbursed Michael Cohen. The event begins at 1 p.m. Also likely to be brought up is Giuliani’s …

Glorious Leader is binge-tweeting again today: President Trump on Thursday argued his administration has accomplished more than any other in its first 17 months, even as the cloud of a federal probe has hung over the White House for a year. Trump often speaks of his administration in superlatives. He has on multiple occasions claimed his administration has accomplished more …

USA Today reports: The president’s income from his company’s hotel in Washington, D.C. topped $40 million last year, according to a copy of his annual financial disclosure report released on Wednesday, making the property a clear winner among a portfolio which showed mixed results. The Trump International Hotel, located less than one mile from the White House, has emerged a …

CNN reports: Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team has informed President Donald Trump’s attorneys that they have concluded that they cannot indict a sitting president, according to the President’s lawyer. “All they get to do is write a report,” Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani told CNN. “They can’t indict. At least they acknowledged that to us after some battling, they acknowledged that …

The Washington Post reports: Michael Cohen, President Trump’s personal attorney, solicited a payment of at least $1 million from the government of Qatar in late 2016, in exchange for access to and advice about the then-incoming administration, according to several people with knowledge of the episode. The offer, which Qatar declined, came on the margins of a Dec. 12 meeting …

Ronan Farrow reports at The New Yorker: Last week, several news outlets obtained financial records showing that Michael Cohen, President Trump’s personal attorney, had used a shell company to receive payments from various firms with business before the Trump Administration. In the days since, there has been much speculation about who leaked the confidential documents, and the Treasury Department’s inspector …

The New York Times reports: Within hours of opening an investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia in the summer of 2016, the F.B.I. dispatched a pair of agents to London on a mission so secretive that all but a handful of officials were kept in the dark. Their assignment, which has not been previously reported, was to meet …

The New York Times reports: President Trump’s financial disclosure, released on Wednesday, revealed for the first time that he paid more than $100,000 to his personal attorney, Michael D. Cohen, as reimbursement for payment to a third-party. The disclosure, released by the Office of Government Ethics, did not specify the purpose of the payment. However, Mr. Cohen has paid $130,000 …

The Hill reports: The Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday morning released the transcripts from a slate of interviews with participants of the now-infamous Trump Tower meeting in June of 2016. Among the transcripts is the panel’s interview of President Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., who accepted the meeting with a woman described as a Russian government lawyer offering political …

CNN Money reports: The top lawyer at Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis stepped down on Wednesday following revelations that the company made payments to President Donald Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen. Novartis (NVS) said its general counsel, Felix Ehrat, had decided to retire from his position in the “context of discussions” surrounding the payments to Cohen. Cohen’s company Essential Consultants had …

CNN reports: Federal Judge Amy Berman Jackson on Tuesday rejected former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s attempt to invalidate the criminal case against him in Washington. Manafort had claimed special counsel Robert Mueller’s appointment order was too broad, and thus his investigation had overstepped its legal authority. But Berman Jackson concluded for several reasons that Mueller’s investigation and prosecution of …

Media Matters reports: In anticipation of its annual gala, the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony List (SBA List) has been promoting official room blocks for the event at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., and running a contest in which the prize includes a free stay at the property during the gala. On May 14, during the White House …

Politico reports: President Donald Trump celebrated rising poll numbers Tuesday as a repudiation of two familiar annoyances: the press and special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. Though Trump’s approval rating has remained underwater for nearly his entire presidency, his numbers have been ticking upward lately. The White House has oscillated in recent days between slamming stories in the media for …

New York Magazine reports: About 72 hours before Trump developed a friendlier attitude toward Beijing, the Chinese government agreed to pump $500 million into an Indonesian theme park that will benefit the Trump Organization — and thus the president himself, since he refused to divest from his company when he took office. The Chinese government just extended a loan to …

Politico reports: A Ukrainian politician who communicated with Trump associates about a controversial plan to resolve Ukraine’s conflict with Kremlin-backed rebels said Monday that he has been called to testify before a grand jury connected to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. Andrii Artemenko said he could not provide details of his upcoming appearance before the grand jury, which he said …