Trump Lies

The Associated Press reports: Seeking to discredit Robert Mueller — and make some campaign money from the effort — President Donald Trump falsely claimed exoneration Wednesday even as the former special counsel was testifying to Congress about his investigation. TRUMP to his critics, in a fundraising letter from his 2020 campaign: “How many times do I have to be exonerated …

Vox reports: During Robert Mueller’s testimony in front of the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) asked Mueller if he could indict the president on obstruction charges. The former special counsel’s answer was simple: “Yes.” It was a rare striking moment in a hearing that has, so far, been largely unenlightening. Mueller’s position is that he didn’t …

Just when you think you’re through with her lies for awhile: Former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders claimed Wednesday that Robert Mueller’s testimony vindicated President Trump, even as the former special counsel testified that his investigation did not exonerate the president. Sanders tweeted a clip in which Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Ga.) asked Mueller if he could think of …

The Hill reports: Former special counsel Robert Mueller on Wednesday doubled down on his assertion that his report did not exonerate President Trump, conflicting with the president’s repeated claims that he was “totally” cleared by Mueller’s investigation. “The finding indicates that the president was not exculpated for the acts that he allegedly committed,” Mueller told lawmakers, after being pressed on …

The New York Times reports: The House sued the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service on Tuesday, demanding access to President Trump’s tax returns and escalating a fight with an administration that has repeatedly dismissed as illegitimate its attempt to obtain the financial records. The lawsuit moves the dispute into the federal courts after months of sniping between the …

Roll Call reports: Democrats on the House Foreign Affairs Committee spoke with India’s ambassador to the U.S., Harsh Shringla, on Monday to apologize for President Donald Trump’s claim that he was asked by the Indian prime minister to mediate the Kashmir territorial conflict between his country and Pakistan. “Everyone who knows anything about foreign policy in South Asia knows that …

Beltway Breakfast reports: National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow on Tuesday denied that President Donald Trump had lied about being asked to mediate the long-running dispute between India and Pakistan over the Kashmir border region. “The President doesn’t make things up,” Kudlow said when asked whether Trump had fabricated the claim. He added that in his opinion, the query was …

The Associated Press reports: President Trump on Monday lashed out at the media, targeting The Washington Post in particular, as he remained fixated on coverage of his ongoing attacks on four progressive congresswomen. In a series of tweets, the president claimed the “Mainstream Media” has “gone bonkers,” and accused the media of pushing “Radical Left Democrat views.” Trump took issue …

CNN reports: President Donald Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee have paid more than $600,000 in legal fees to the law firm that represents Hope Hicks, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission. In the last 15 months, the campaign and RNC have paid Trout Cacheris & Solomon PLLC a grand total of $640,050.10. Based on the …

Roll Call reports: President Trump insisted Friday that he won’t watch special counsel Robert Mueller’s testimony before Congress next week. Trump, who was asked directly if he would be watching the marathon testimony, also told reporters that Democrats need to “stop playing games,” and called the recent effort by Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) to force a vote on impeachment a …

The Hill reports: President Trump on Friday dug in on his strategy of attacking four progressive minority congresswomen despite some backlash from within his own party, saying he doesn’t care how it affects him politically. “I don’t know if it’s good or bad politically. I don’t care,” Trump told reporters of his attack against the group of Democratic lawmakers, known …

The New York Times reports: President Trump said today that he was looking “very seriously” at intervening in the hard-fought commercial battle for a $10 billion Pentagon cloud computing contract for which Amazon, a company he has frequently attacked, is seen as the leading contender. For the president to weigh in on the award of a major government contract would …

Vox reports: Former Trump campaign and White House aide Hope Hicks may be out of the woods when it comes to the Southern District of New York’s now-concluded investigation of the illegal hush payments former Trump fixer Michael Cohen made to women who say they had affairs with Donald Trump. But House Judiciary Chair Jerry Nadler (D-NY) still has some …

Mediaite reports: The president’s daughter-in-law and Trump 2020 campaign advisor Lara Trump attempted to distance Donald Trump from the chorus of “send her back” shouted by his supporters at a rally this week, while also falsely claiming that only “a couple” of attendees contributed to the racist chants. “He wasn’t the one that was chanting it,” Lara Trump said during …

The Guardian reports: On 25 July, the conservative Heartland Institute is slated to host a one-day meeting at the Trump International Hotel, just a few blocks from the White House. It will feature leading climate science deniers who will discuss issues like “the benefits of ending the Democrats’ war on fossil fuels”, according to the institute. Last month, as Donald …

Talking Points Memo reports: A former Trump voter fraud commissioner will apologize to citizens he wrongly described as noncitizens in reports claiming mass voter fraud in Virginia, according to a tentative settlement agreement reached this week in a lawsuit brought against the commissioner. J. Christian Adams and his group the Public Interest Legal Foundation were sued last year over the …

CNBC reports: Court documents related to hush money payments arranged by President Donald Trump’s former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen were filed unsealed Thursday. The documents include a description of an Oct. 8, 2016, phone call Cohen received from Trump’s campaign communications chief Hope Hicks, during which “Trump joined the call,” which federal investigators believed was related to an effort …

NPR reports: Some of Puerto Rico’s biggest stars rallied a crowd of many thousands in San Juan on Wednesday, calling on the island’s governor, Ricardo Rosselló, to resign. It was the fifth day in a row of protests in the U.S. territory, following a leak of hundreds of pages of misogynistic and homophobic texts between the governor and his main …

NBC News reports: A federal judge on Wednesday ordered prosecutors to release the unredacted search warrants and other documents related to Michael Cohen’s campaign finance case now that the investigation has concluded. Cohen, President Donald Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, is serving a three-year prison sentence for a slew of crimes, including breaking campaign finance laws by hiding payments to …

Talking Points Memo reports: The ACLU has won its legal war with the Trump administration over a census citizenship question, but it’s not backing down from its demand that certain administration officials be sanctioned for allegedly false testimony in the case. In a court filing Tuesday evening, the ACLU alleged that top Trump administration officials in the Justice Department and …