Trump Lies

The Hill reports: Democrats introduced legislation Friday that would block federal funding for next year’s Group of Seven (G-7) summit at Trump National Doral Miami. Democratic Reps. Lois Frankel (Fla.), Bennie Thompson (Miss.) and Steve Cohen (Tenn.) introduced the Trump’s Heist Undermines the G-7 (THUG) Act after acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney told reporters Thursday that the …

CNN reports: Career diplomat George Kent told congressional investigators in his closed-door testimony this week that Rudy Giuliani asked the State Department and the White House to grant a visa to the former Ukrainian official who Joe Biden had pushed to have removed when he was vice president, according to four people familiar with Kent’s testimony. Kent, the deputy assistant …

Politico reports: Energy Secretary Rick Perry is refusing to comply with a congressional subpoena seeking a host of records related to his actions in Ukraine at the heart of Congress’ ongoing impeachment inquiry. Perry becomes the latest official in President Donald Trump’s administration to refuse to turn over documents, heightening the stakes for the Energy chief who announced his intention …

CNN’s ever intrepid Daniel Dale reports: President Donald Trump made at least 26 false claims in his 87-minute rally speech in Dallas on Thursday, including an inaccurate declaration that Texas had somehow profited from one of the costliest hurricanes in American history. Touting the “billions and billions of dollars” in relief money he authorized for Texas in the wake of …

From the right wing Washington Examiner: Outraged by secretly-taped anti-Trump comments attributed to CNN President Jeff Zucker and others at the cable network, President Trump’s campaign is vowing to sue the company for “a substantial payment of damages.” In a four-page letter to CNN, Zucker, and Executive Vice President David Vigilante, Trump attorney Charles J. Harder cited years of anti-Trump …

The Washington Post reports: Sen. Mitt Romney delivered perhaps the most thorough Republican rebuke of President Trump’s Syria withdrawal Thursday, calling Trump’s abandonment of the Kurds there “a bloodstain on the annals of American history.” But while that line will get a lot of play, there’s something else Romney said that shouldn’t escape notice. He also floated a theory about …

The Hill reports: White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said Thursday that the flow of security assistance to Ukraine was not conditioned on Kiev investigating a conspiracy related to 2016 election interference, walking back statements he made earlier in the day. Mulvaney issued a statement Thursday afternoon accusing the media of “misconstruing” his earlier remarks to the press at …

Talking Points Memo reports: Two out of four defendants in the Rudy Giuliani-linked alleged campaign finance scheme were arraigned in Manhattan federal court on Thursday. David Correia and Andrey Kukushkin pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy before District Judge J. Paul Oetken for the Southern District of New York. Kukushkin was arrested last week. Correia surrendered to U.S. authorities …

The New York Times reports: Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, told reporters that the release of military aid to Ukraine this summer was linked in part to White House demands that Ukraine’s government investigate what he called corruption by Democrats in the 2016 American presidential campaign. It was the first time a White House official has …

NPR reports: Next year’s G-7 gathering of the leaders of the world’s biggest economies will take place at a President Trump’s Doral golf resort outside of Miami, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney announced on Thursday. “We used a lot of the same criteria used by past administrations,” Mulvaney said. He later said it was almost as though …

ABC News reports: The U.S. ambassador to the European Union will tell Congress that President Donald Trump directed him and others to work with his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani to push Ukraine to announce investigations, but that he was in the dark on the extent of Giuliani’s efforts and the political motive behind it, according to his opening statement obtained …

Fox News reports: Energy Secretary Rick Perry, whose name has been mentioned in connection with President Trump’s Ukraine dealings, said in an interview published late Wednesday that the president told him to seek out Rudy Giuliani earlier this year to look into possible Ukrainian corruption. The Wall Street Journal sat down with Perry for an extensive interview and reported that …

The Hill reports: Senate Republicans are cautioning Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) against the prospect of bringing former Vice President Joe Biden before the Senate Judiciary Committee to testify about Ukrainian corruption, saying such a move could backfire. Graham initially ruled out the possibility of having Biden or his son Hunter testify before the Judiciary panel about their actions related to …

ABC News reports: When two Rudy Giuliani associates were arrested last week and charged with funneling foreign money into political campaigns, two big questions lingered: Which foreigners were they working for, and what was their ultimate goal? There are growing indications that a Ukrainian-backed oligarch who is fighting extradition to the United States figures in the answers. The evidence is …

Agence France-Presse reports: President Donald Trump says members of the Islamic State group who were being held in prisons by Kurdish fighters in Syria have been deliberately released in an effort to make him look bad. But senior U.S. officials are casting doubt on those claims. Those officials say some Syrian Kurdish forces have moved north to fight Turkish troops …

The Washington Post reports: In late May, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney organized a meeting that stripped control of the country’s relationship with Ukraine from those who had the most expertise at the National Security Council and the State Department. Instead, Mulvaney put an unlikely trio in charge of managing the U.S.-Ukraine account amid worrisome signs of …

Pro Publica reports: Documents obtained by ProPublica show stark differences in how Donald Trump’s businesses reported some expenses, profits and occupancy figures for two Manhattan buildings, giving a lender different figures than they provided to New York City tax authorities. The discrepancies made the buildings appear more profitable to the lender — and less profitable to the officials who set …

The New York Times reports: A former top White House foreign policy adviser told House impeachment investigators this week that she viewed Gordon D. Sondland, the United States ambassador to the European Union, as a potential national security risk because he was so unprepared for his job, according to two people familiar with her private testimony. The adviser, Fiona Hill, …

The Associated Press reports: A Florida man wanted in a campaign finance case involving associates of Rudy Giuliani is in federal custody after flying Wednesday to Kennedy Airport in New York City to turn himself in, federal authorities said. David Correia, 44, was named in an indictment with two Giuliani associates and another man arrested last week on charges they …

Mediaite reports: The hosts of Fox & Friends applauded first-son Eric Trump for lying about the Trump Organization supposedly ceasing all business overseas after his father, President Donald Trump, entered the White House. During a Wednesday morning segment, Fox News aired a clip of the Trump Organization executive vice president comparing his experience as the son of the president to …