Trump Corruption

Politico reports: Lawyers representing about 200 Democratic members of Congress urged a federal judge on Thursday to allow them to press ahead with a lawsuit seeking to block President Donald Trump from taking payments and other benefits from foreign governments doing business with his corporate empire. Nearly a year after the suit was filed, Judge Emmet Sullivan of U.S. District …

David Corn reports at Mother Jones: On Thursday afternoon, Rep. Adam Schiff (Calif.), the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, made a dramatic request: He essentially asked special counsel Robert Mueller to consider whether perjury charges should be brought against witnesses who testified to the committee during its Trump-Russia investigation. Schiff did not convey this request directly to Mueller. …

The Hill reports: President Trump on Thursday assailed special counsel Robert Mueller’s team for bias, calling for the group’s “many conflicts of interest” to be publicized. The president has recently taken to labeling special counsel Robert Mueller’s team as a a collection of “13 angry Democrats,” despite the fact that Mueller himself is a Republican. Trump has recently spread the …

“When I first learned of the Steele dossier, it just rang true to me, because that’s how the Russians do things. And before he became a candidate or president, Donald Trump was the perfect target for Russian intelligence. Here is someone who has no self-control, a sense of sexual entitlement and intermittent financial crisis. I mean, that’s made-to-order for seduction …

The Hill reports: Former U.S. attorney Harry Litman said he expects President Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, to be sent to federal prison by the end of the week. “Prosecutors hate this, judges hate this and he’s going to have to bring his toothbrush to court on Friday because the statute says, if they find this happened, there’s a …

He doesn’t respect lesbian porn actress Melania either? Rudy Giuliani told an audience in Israel that he does not think first lady Melania Trump believes that President Donald Trump had an affair with Stormy Daniels. “She believes her husband, and she doesn’t think it’s true,” Giuliani said at the “Globes” Capital Market conference in Tel Aviv. The former GOP mayor …

NBC News reports: Stormy Daniels says in a new lawsuit that her former attorney betrayed her and became a “puppet” for President Donald Trump and his personal lawyer while still representing her. The filing in Los Angeles Superior Court on Wednesday alleges that Beverly Hills lawyer Keith Davidson “hatched a plan” and “colluded” with Trump attorney Michael Cohen to get …

Vice News reports: Tech pro tip to Paul Manafort: Encrypting messages doesn’t mean much if your iCloud is backing them up. President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager may now be going to jail for witness tampering, after Robert Mueller’s team accessed his iCloud account and found evidence he was trying to shape the testimony of two witnesses in his bank …

The Washington Post reports: Three months after Scott Pruitt was sworn in as head of the Environmental Protection Agency, his executive scheduler emailed Dan Cathy, chairman and president of the fast food company Chick-fil-A, with an unusual request: Would Cathy meet with Pruitt to discuss “a potential business opportunity”? A call was arranged, then canceled, and Pruitt eventually spoke with …

Fox News reports: President Trump blamed Attorney General Jeff Sessions Tuesday for the ongoing “Russian Witch Hunt Hoax,” noting that he “would have quickly picked someone else” as the nation’s chief law officer if he knew of Sessions’ decision to “recuse himself.” The president suggested that Sessions, who was involved in the Trump campaign, “knew better than most that there …

Reuters reports: President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, who has been indicted by U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller, attempted to tamper with potential witnesses, Mueller said in a court filing on Monday. Mueller, who is investigating possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, asked the judge overseeing the case in U.S. District Court for the District of …

The New York Daily News reports: Michael Cohen’s privileges are limited. The retired judge reviewing the trove of materials seized by the FBI from the law office and residences of President Trump’s personal attorney found less than 1% of the hundreds of thousands of items she’s reviewed so far are protected by attorney-client privilege. The judge, Barbara Jones, is acting …

Talking Points Memo reports: Among a slew of odd and unprofessional personal requests that Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt asked his top aide Millan Hupp to undertake for him, Democratic lawmakers revealed in a letter on Monday that Pruitt asked Hupp to secure a “used mattress” from the Trump International Hotel for him. According to a letter Reps. Elijah …

The panicking continues: President Trump on Monday asserted his right to provide himself with a pardon, but insisted he won’t need to do so because he has not done anything that would warrant one. New talk emerged over the weekend as to whether or not Trump could or would give himself a pardon after The New York Times obtained and …

Under repeated direct questioning from CNN’s Dana Bash, GOP House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy dodged, weaved, and diverted but ultimately refused to comment on the revelation that Trump dictated Junior’s lying letter about the Trump Tower meeting with Russians. McCarthy’s flailing came after Bash rolled clips of multiple Trump officials denying that Glorious Leader had dictated the letter. More from …

It feels like Glorious Leader is really panicking: President Trump on Sunday blasted the FBI and Department of Justice for not telling him that agents were “secretly investigating” his former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, during the 2016 election. He added that Manafort “came into the campaign very late and was with us for a short period of time,” but said …

The Hill reports: Rudy Giuliani said early Sunday that President Trump “probably” has the power to pardon himself, but has no plans to do so. “He’s not, but he probably does,” Giuliani, who recently joined Trump’s legal team, said on ABC’s “This Week.” “He has no intention of pardoning himself,” Giuliani said. “That’s another really interesting constitutional question: Can the …

CNN reports: In a confidential letter to special counsel Robert Mueller in January, President Donald Trump’s legal team acknowledged for the first time that Trump “dictated” the first misleading statement put out about his son’s controversial 2016 meeting with Russians at Trump Tower. “You have received all of the notes, communications and testimony indicating that the President dictated a short …

The New York Times reports: President Trump’s lawyers have for months quietly waged a campaign to keep the special counsel from trying to force him to answer questions in the investigation into whether he obstructed justice, asserting that he cannot be compelled to testify and arguing in a confidential letter that he could not possibly have committed obstruction because he …

The Hill reports: President Trump on Saturday continued his attacks on the special counsel investigation into possible Russian links to his campaign, questioning in a tweet whether officials from Robert Mueller’s office or the Justice Department had released letters from Trump’s attorneys to the media. It was unclear what exactly prompted Trump’s accusation, though Trump’s attorneys have reportedly been in …