Trump and Russia; Spasiba, Harasho!

[L'Emmerdeur]

I suppose that even now, at least one member of this site remains unconvinced that it was Russian intelligence agencies who illegally obtained emails from the DNC and Podesta. They may still prefer to put forward the alternate theory, in which the emails were supposedly leaked. However, two of the most vociferous proponents of that theory never believed it themselves.

'Roger Stone and Jerome Corsi Pushed Seth Rich Lie After Privately Admitting Hackers Stole DNC Emails'

Russian hackers weren’t the ones behind the theft of Democratic emails that upended the 2016 presidential race, conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi told his InfoWars fans last year. Instead, Corsi said, Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich had stolen the emails and was murdered in revenge for the heist.

But Corsi was lying. In an email to Trump confidante Roger Stone in 2016, Corsi acknowledged that in fact hackers were behind the email theft, according to newly released messages.

Despite that admission, both Corsi and Stone played key roles promoting the conspiracy theory about Rich. Stone became one of the first major figures in Trump’s orbit to suggest Rich was murdered over the emails, tweeting on August 10, 2016 that Rich had “ties to DNC heist.”

In 2017, after Rich’s parents begged right-wing media personalities to stop pushing conspiracy theories about their son, Corsi put the blame for the email theft on Rich in a three-part InfoWars series.

[L'Emmerdeur]

Speaking of Corsi, I recall happy goobers harping about Hillary Clinton's health, beginning in August of 2016.

'Jerome Corsi Told Roger Stone Wikileaks Had Dirt on Hillary’s Health. Then the Attacks Started.'

Weeks before Wikileaks released emails in 2016 implying Hillary Clinton’s health was failing, conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi emailed Trump associate Roger Stone about the forthcoming leak.

In an August 2, 2016 email to Stone, Corsi suggested they should start spreading rumors about Clinton’s health, as the topic was likely to feature in the forthcoming Wikileaks dump. Two days after Corsi’s email, Stone’s Infowars associate Paul Joseph Watson released a video accusing Clinton having a host of ailments, including brain damage.

The video set off a series of right-wing rumors about Clinton’s health. Those rumors worked their way from fringe websites, to Fox News, to Trump himself, who suggested Clinton was too ill to be president. Weeks later, Wikileaks released the emails Corsi appeared to reference in his email to Stone. For Trump fans, those leaks were confirmation of the health rumors that had taken off with Watson’s video.

[Brian Peacock]

The 'lying for Trump' project seems to be unravelling...

Michael Cohen pleads guilty to lying to Congress over Trump project in Russia

One of Donald Trump’s closest advisers spoke with a Kremlin official about securing Russian government support for a planned Trump Tower in Moscow during the 2016 presidential election campaign, he said on Thursday.

Michael Cohen, who served as Trump’s legal fixer for more than a decade, said in an explosive testimony that Trump continued trying to develop a tower in Russia’s capital months into his campaign for the presidency – contradicting Trump’s account.

The development signalled legal peril for Trump, whose presidency has been besieged by special counsel Robert Mueller’s inquiry into whether his campaign team colluded with Russia’s interference in the 2016 US election.

Cohen made his disclosure as he pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about the Moscow project. He said he made false statements to hinder the Trump-Russia investigation and to protect Trump, who was identified in court as “Individual 1”.

“I made these statements to be consistent with Individual 1’s political messaging and out of loyalty with Individual 1,” Cohen told the federal court in Manhattan on Thursday morning, after signing a plea agreement with Mueller. He did not say if Trump directed him to lie...

I for one congratulate Cohen for pleading guilty, even if he did so reluctantly, but if the closest of Trump's representatives are prepared to blatantly lie to Congress, and by extension to the American public, it does rather lead one to wonder what other lies have and are being passed off as truths by presidential advisers, spokespersons, and administration officials. Everybody lies, apparently, and I'm sure that the motivation of the President's bulldog to lie is no doubt being considered by the Republican media machine as I type. We should have a plausible, if somewhat long, convoluted, and equivatory explanation as to why Cohen's lies aren't really that bad, and how they're absolutely nothing to do with Trump, by about midday tomorrow. I look forward to reading them.

[pErvinalia]

It's not illegal to lie to Congress on behalf of Trump. Oh wait, it is.

[L'Emmerdeur]

To do business on any scale in Russia, one must kiss Putin's ass and pony up his cut. So what's reported below makes sense.

'The Trump Organization Planned To Give Vladimir Putin The $50 Million Penthouse In Trump Tower Moscow'

President Donald Trump’s company planned to give a $50 million penthouse at Trump Tower Moscow to Russian President Vladimir Putin as the company negotiated the luxury real estate development during the 2016 campaign, according to four people, one of them the originator of the plan.

Two US law enforcement officials told BuzzFeed News that Michael Cohen, Trump’s personal lawyer at the time, discussed the idea with a representative of Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s press secretary.

The Trump Tower Moscow plan is at the heart of a new plea agreement by Cohen, who led the negotiations to bring a gleaming, 100-story building to the Russian capital. Cohen acknowledged in court that he lied to Congress about the plan in order to protect Trump and his presidential campaign.

The revelation that representatives of the Trump Organization planned to forge direct financial links with the leader of a hostile nation at the height of the campaign raises fresh questions about President Trump's relationship with the Kremlin. The plan never went anywhere because the tower deal ultimately fizzled, and it is not clear whether Trump knew of the intention to give away the penthouse. But Cohen said in court documents that he regularly briefed Trump and his family on the Moscow negotiations.

[Tero]

Another point in favor of theory No. 2: As of September, the fiscal cost of the Mueller investigation was roughly $0.00. By that point, the probe had spent roughly $26 million. But, by striking a plea agreement with Paul Manafort for his myriad white-collar crimes — an agreement that required Trump’s former campaign manager to forfeit five multi-million-dollar properties, a life-insurance policy, and the contents of multiple bank accounts — Mueller’s investigation had acquired somewhere between $26 million and $42 million worth of revenue for the federal treasury.

Note to Trump: The Mueller Probe Costs Roughly $0.00 – Not $40 Million
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/11/ ... afort.html

[Tero]

WP
In two major developments this week, President Trump has been labeled in the parlance of criminal investigations as a major subject of interest, complete with an opaque legal code name: “Individual 1.”

New evidence from two separate fronts of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation casts fresh doubts on Trump’s version of key events involving Russia, signaling potential political and legal peril for the president. Investigators have now publicly cast Trump as a central figure of their probe into whether Trump’s campaign conspired with the Russian government during the 2016 campaign.

Together, the documents show investigators have evidence that Trump was in close contact with his lieutenants as they made outreach to both Russia and WikiLeaks — and that they tried to conceal the extent of their activities.

On Thursday, Trump’s longtime personal lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to Congress when he insisted that Trump was not pursuing plans to build a Trump Tower in Moscow after January 2016, casting Trump’s repeated claims that he had no business interests in Russia in a new light. A draft special counsel document revealed Tuesday also indicates that prosecutors are closely scrutinizing Trump’s interactions with a longtime adviser, Roger Stone, as Stone was allegedly seeking information about WikiLeaks’ plans to release hacked Democratic emails.

Legal experts said it’s still unclear how much peril the president might face as a result of the new evidence Mueller has gathered about the Moscow project and WikiLeaks, but his prominence in the prosecutors’ papers puts the president in an awkward starring role.

[Tero]

Of course he lied to Congress!There was no crime!Hacking election in exchange for Trump Tower Moscow is just business!

“It's no surprise that Cohen lied to Congress. He's a proven liar who is doing everything he can to get out of a long-term prison sentence for serious crimes of bank and tax fraud that had nothing to do with the Trump Organization,” Giuliani said in a statement. “It is important to understand that documents that the Special Counsel's Office is using to show that Cohen lied to Congress were voluntarily disclosed by the Trump Organization because there was nothing to hide.”

Giuliani said Trump had been “open and transparent” about his efforts to build a Trump Tower Moscow. In fact, Trump had long sought a deal to build in Russia but as his campaign gained traction, he downplayed his business relationships there and repeatedly insisted he had nothing to do with Russia, a denial he underscored repeatedly after the discovery of Russia efforts to interfere in the election.

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/12/ ... ss-1037036

[Tero]

Trump Jr likely to have to testify again
https://twitter.com/SenatorLeahy/status ... 4924494848

[Scot Dutchy]

Cohen is spilling:

Michael Cohen’s lawyers dropped a slew of intriguing bombshells about Trump in a new court filing

Michael Cohen’s lawyers revealed intriguing new details about President Donald Trump in a new court filing this week.

Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to Congress and is cooperating with the special counsel Robert Mueller.

Cohen’s lawyers say he was “in close and regular contact” with Trump’s lawyers and White House staffers in the weeks before he lied to lawmakers.

They also revealed that Cohen is cooperating with a mysterious “separate open inquiry” conducted by the New York attorney general’s office.

When he was breaking campaign-finance laws at Trump’s directions, Cohen’s lawyers say he kept Trump “contemporaneously informed” of his actions.

[Brian Peacock]

In a sentencing memo regarding Micheal Flynn's guilty verdicts Mueller recommends he not be incarcerated, citing the valuable assistance Flynn gave with accounts about "interactions between individuals in the presidential transition team and Russia".

[pErvinalia]

[JimC]

A bunker in Berlin Washington, a vial of poison, and farewell cruel world...

[Scot Dutchy]

Nah. I will slip away to Saudi Arabia. Just like another despot: Idi Amin.

[Brian Peacock]

Former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen sentenced to three years prison

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Michael Cohen, U.S. President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, was sentenced to a total of three years in prison on Wednesday for his role in making illegal hush-money payments to women to help Trump’s 2016 election campaign and lying to Congress about a proposed Trump Tower project in Russia.

U.S. District Judge William Pauley in Manhattan sentenced Cohen to three years for the payments, which violated campaign finance law, and to two months for the false statements to Congress. The two terms will run concurrently.

Cohen pleaded guilty to the campaign finance charge in August and to making false statements in November. ...

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa- ... SKBN1OB2AR