Trump Corruption

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 …

Out today from the ethics watchdog group CREW: There is compelling evidence that President Trump may have personally committed up to eight criminal campaign finance and related offenses while running for president and during his first year in office, according to a report released today by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). In a new report, A Campaign …

The Wall Street Journal reports: In the weeks before his inauguration, top officials on President Trump’s inaugural committee repeatedly sounded alarms about the budgets submitted by several vendors, according to correspondence, committee records and draft budgets reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Some of the materials, which haven’t previously been reported, have been shared with federal prosecutors in New York. …

ABC News reports: House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff said that his committee would subpoena special counsel Robert Mueller’s final report and even call him to testify before the committee if the report was not made public, and that he was “absolutely” prepared to sue the Trump administration, if necessary. “We will obviously subpoena the report. We will bring Bob …

Mediaite reports: Former White House staffer Omarosa Manigault Newman said Saturday that former Trump attorney Michael Cohen would cross a “big red line” for the president if he discusses President Trump’s children during congressional testimony next week. Manigault Newman told MSNBC host Alex Witt that she would be interested in “how much [Cohen] shares about the role of Trump’s children …

The Washington Post reports: Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort “repeatedly and brazenly violated the law” and shows a “hardened adherence to committing crimes,” prosecutors told a Washington federal judge. They recommended no specific punishment for those crimes, saying that is the practice of the special counsel. Prosecutors noted that federal guidelines call for a sentence of 17 to 22 …

The New York Times reports: Michael D. Cohen, President Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, met last month with federal prosecutors in Manhattan, offering new information about possible irregularities within the president’s family business and about a donor to the inaugural committee, according to people familiar with the matter. Mr. Cohen, who worked at the Trump Organization for a decade, spoke …

CNBC reports: Special counsel Robert Mueller will not deliver a report to the attorney general next week, as was previously reported by multiple outlets, a senior Department of Justice official told NBC News on Friday. Attorney General William Barr was preparing to announce the completion of Mueller’s investigation into any links between President Donald Trump and Russia as soon as …

The Wall Street Journal reports: Kushner Cos., the family real-estate company of President Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner, said it has acquired a portfolio of rental apartments for $1.1 billion in the firm’s largest transaction in more than a decade. The purchase comes less than a year after the company unloaded a Manhattan office tower at 666 Fifth …

Bloomberg reports: New York state prosecutors have put together a criminal case against Paul Manafort that they could file quickly if the former chairman of Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign receives a presidential pardon. New York County District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. is ready to file an array of tax and other charges against Manafort, according to two people familiar with …

Tweets at the bottom are from reporters in the courtroom. CBS News reports: Longtime Donald Trump confidant Roger Stone told Judge Amy Berman Jackson he is “heartfully sorry” for an Instagram post on his account depicting the judge and a symbol that resembled crosshairs of a gun. Stone was ordered to court to explain the post and make his case …

CNBC reports: Paul Manafort, the former chairman of President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, will be sentenced for multiple crimes in Virginia federal court on March 8 — just five days before he is due to be sentenced in a related case in Washington, D.C., a judge ordered Thursday. Manafort, 69, potentially faces decades in prison after he is sentenced in …

CNN reports: Attorney General Bill Barr is preparing to announce as early as next week the completion of Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, with plans for Barr to submit to Congress soon after a summary of Mueller’s confidential report, according to people familiar with the plans. The preparations are the clearest indication yet that Mueller is nearly done with his almost …

Salon reports: A new report issued by House Democrats this week claims that key Trump administration appointees overrode the objections of top national security officials and attorneys to promote the sale of nuclear power plants to Saudi Arabia — and these sales could have directly benefited Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner. “The Cummings report notes that one of the power plant …

Mediaite reports: Fox News’ Judge Andrew Napolitano said today if the latest New York Times report on President Donald Trump‘s call with former Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker is true, it’s evidence of “corrupt intent” and “clearly an attempt to obstruct justice” from the president. To recap: the Times reported that Trump spoke to Whitaker a few months ago about …

The New York Times reports: President Trump has publicly criticized dozens of people and groups related to federal inquiries into contacts between his campaign and Russia, according to a New York Times analysis of nearly every public statement or attack on Twitter that he has made while in office. The attacks, which number nearly 1,200, are part of a strategy …

The Associated Press reports: The FBI developed a backup plan to protect evidence in its Russia investigation soon after the firing of FBI Director James Comey in the event that other senior officials were dismissed as well, according to a person with knowledge of the discussions. The plan was crafted in the chaotic days after Comey was fired, when the …

The Hill reports: Former Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe on Tuesday confirmed that he has been interviewed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. “The information I have, including the memos that I wrote, I’ve given all that to the special counsel team,” he said in an interview on “The View.” He declined to say whether the information he gave would help …