Donald Trump Presidency discussion thread III

kilns

Trump is so desperate for mainstream love he is resorting to retweeting the one guy who worse than him Kanye West

derb12

Very interesting item on Rachel maddow a few days ago (podcast is fantastic if anyone's interested - easier than watching the show and no ads!!) .. About the whitehouse office that has responsibility for vetting. It sounds more like a college frat-house than a branch of government.
The best people.
Here's a recent article:
https://www.denverpost.com/2018/03/30/presidential-personnel-office-chaos/

mcmoustache

As predicted by Avenatti, Cohen is pleading the fifth.

In his filing he said.

Based on the advice of counsel, I will assert my 5th amendment rights in connection with all proceeding in this case due to the ongoing criminal investigation by the FBI and U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York

This Stormy case is a civil case and pleading the fifth can be interpreted in the way that a normal person might. This isn't a criminal trial but the SDNY is so he's basically giving up the civil one to avoid incriminating himself in the criminal one.

This doesn't mean much but it provides a nice bit of entertainment to watch this "lawyer" get out done by a charismatic and intelligent actual lawyer who seems to be several steps ahead of him.

everlast75

The Don will be on Fox for an interview tomorrow morning at 8am: announced via Twitter of course.

Seriously - what is this guy like?

Christy42

Macron has backed off his friendly approach with another speech committing himself to the Iran deal.

Again showing flattery is simply a negotiating technique foreign leaders use with Trump.

However it also looks like he failed to get Trump not to increase tensions in the middle east. Equally however Trump is still alone politically in the world as everyone can see what a bad idea this is for stability in the region. Trump is still struggling to make deals.

Water John

I presume Macron had a couple of speeches ready for the Senate. He then gave this one, based on not making progress with Trump, on Iran deal.

amandstu

https://nypost.com/2018/04/25/judge-bars-are-allowed-to-throw-out-trump-supporters/

a lot of fun. I can't see other overt acts of political flag waving ** in places like a bar being subject to freedom of expression (especially if they claim it is a religion).

Every one can get in on that act. What about political supporters of intimate relations with underage children? (they exist) Could they go into a bar with their beliefs on their lapels and sue if shown the door?

Mind you Rosa Parks might be an argument against (she was actually "breaking the law" perhaps)

**also reminds me of our own dear old marching in disputed areas

Mumha

Trump has just done a phone in interview with Fox & Friends, and has just admitted

Cohen represented him in the "Crazy Stormy Daniels deal"

and

He now admits he DID stay at least one night in Moscow, in 2013.

Michael Avenatti happens to be on Morning Joe and can't get the beaming smile off his face !

Hurrache

He also claimed that he's turned Macron's opinions on Iran, rated his presidency as A+ and claimed that anyone he follows or retweets on Twitter, i.e. Kanye West, get a lot more popular.

Mumha wrote: »

Michael Avenatti happens to be on Morning Joe and can't get the beaming smile off his face !

https://twitter.com/MichaelAvenatti/status/989487281793839104

amandstu

Mumha wrote: »

Trump has just done a phone in interview with Fox & Friends, and has just admitted

Cohen represented him in the "Crazy Stormy Daniels deal"

What are the ramifications?Why is he calling it "crazy"? To put distance between it and him? His lawyer misunderstood his instructions?

everlast75

amandstu wrote: »

What are the ramifications?Why is he calling it "crazy"? To put distance between it and him? His lawyer misunderstood his instructions?

He can't help himself with superlatives.... its reflex. Every thing has to be "the biggest", "the worst", "the best" or "crazy"

Zubeneschamali

Giuliani, in Meeting With Mueller’s Office, Is Said to Be Negotiating Trump Interview - NYT

This will be hilarious, Trump cannot tell the truth for three sentences in a row and lying to Mueller is a crime.

Penn

amandstu wrote: »

What are the ramifications?Why is he calling it "crazy"? To put distance between it and him? His lawyer misunderstood his instructions?

I think he was calling her "Crazy Stormy Daniels" the same way he gives everyone a nickname... like a normal President would do.

The ramifications are that if he used campaign funds to pay her off, they may have broken campaign finance laws.

Here's some snippets from an NPR conversation discussing it:

If it's for the purpose of influencing the election, the federal campaign finance laws come into play. So that's where you have the violation of the contribution limits by whoever paid for this - and that you also have the campaign's failure to report this. Everything a campaign does for the election is supposed to be reported and is subject to limits. And that includes even things like this, even though they are things that may be salacious, that people don't want to know about. They are supposed to be reported if they're for the purpose of the campaign.

What he did as a private citizen is not relevant to the campaign finance laws. What he did as a candidate and what the campaign did in terms of paying somebody not to talk about what he did may be relevant to the campaign finance laws. And that's the question here.

Mumha

amandstu wrote: »

What are the ramifications?Why is he calling it "crazy"? To put distance between it and him? His lawyer misunderstood his instructions?

I'd agree what Everlast said in his last post, it's what he does. The fact is that a few weeks ago on Airforce One, Trump said he knew nothing about the Stormy Daniels deal, and now he says Cohen represented him in the Stormy Daniels deal. It can't be both.

He also said that anything that Cohen is in trouble for, is down to Cohen's own business deals, nothing to do with Trump !!!

mcmoustache

amandstu wrote: »

What are the ramifications?Why is he calling it "crazy"? To put distance between it and him? His lawyer misunderstood his instructions?

The line up until now was that Cohen was acting on his own behalf and that Trump had nothing to do with the Stormy Daniels story. Trump hadn't mentioned her before which suggests that there was a reason for Trump distancing himself from all this. I'm not entirely sure what this means for him now though.

Another point that Trump made in the interview was that Cohen barely represented him at all (almost coffee boy) and that Cohen was a businessman mostly. This has implications for the amount of documents that he can claim attorney-client privilege over.

Blowfish

amandstu wrote: »

What are the ramifications?Why is he calling it "crazy"? To put distance between it and him? His lawyer misunderstood his instructions?

As far as I understand it, if the payment had absolutely nothing to do with him, then Cohen was in trouble for stating that he was acting on Trumps behalf when he wasn't and more than likely would be facing disbarment.

Given that he admitted Cohen was acting on his behalf, that means that the payoff would be considered as a campaign contribution, which, given that it wasn't reported, puts Trump in trouble for illegal contributions to his campaign.

His only way out of that would be to show the trail of payment from himself to Cohen, which would effectively provide pretty strong evidence that Stormy Daniels story is true.

Mumha

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

Giuliani, in Meeting With Mueller’s Office, Is Said to Be Negotiating Trump Interview - NYT

This will be hilarious, Trump cannot tell the truth for three sentences in a row and lying to Mueller is a crime.

Trump must be relieved that Guiliani assures him this will ALL be over in two weeks....good man, Rudy !

Professor Moriarty

Mumha wrote: »

I'd agree what Everlast said in his last post, it's what he does. The fact is that a few weeks ago on Airforce One, Trump said he knew nothing about the Stormy Daniels deal, and now he says Cohen represented him in the Stormy Daniels deal. It can't be both.

He also said that anything that Cohen is in trouble for, is down to Cohen's own business deals, nothing to do with Trump !!!

I dunno. It's not like the Donald would throw any of his friends or associates under the bus.

If he now says he knew about Stormy, then what exactly did he know? I'd say Giuliani is writing his resignation letter right about now.

Mumha

Penn wrote: »

I think he was calling her "Crazy Stormy Daniels" the same way he gives everyone a nickname... like a normal President would do.

The ramifications are that if he used campaign funds to pay her off, they may have broken campaign finance laws.

Here's some snippets from an NPR conversation discussing it:

I presume Mueller knows the financial trail by now. Avenatti has been proven right that Cohen would have to take the 5th, and he is also adamant Cohen will have to flip or spend 20-25 years in prison, so get the popcorn for that one.

The other trailer Avenatti put out this morning on Morning Joe, and this had been lost of everyone (including myself), and it's this question :

Cohen's lawyers named three parties to the judge, that he had represented in the 3 years, who were they ?

Answer :

1. Trump
2. Hannity
3. Emmett Briody ...... no, not him, The Trump Organisation.

Briody was actually put out by the Cohen side, that Cohen paid $1.5m to Playboy model on Briody's behalf. She was pregnant, and went on to have an abortion.

The implication that I took was that Briody was taking one for the team, and that it was Trump who got her pregnant.

Mumha

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

I dunno. It's not like the Donald would throw any of his friends or associates under the bus.

If he now says he knew about Stormy, then what exactly did he know? I'd say Giuliani is writing his resignation letter right about now.

Donnie knows best !

Mumha

And to add to Trump's woes, remember we discussed Geoffrey Berman, the new DA for SDNY ? He had recused himself, in consultation with the DOJ, from the Cohen investigation, and we also discovered that he was only the interim DA. Well, it looks like he is no longer the interim DA, he's now permanent .... unless Trump fires him like he fired Berman's predecessor, Preet Bharrara.

recused SDNY US Attorney, Geoffrey Berman,
has only an interim appointment that was set to expire on May 4.

The recused Berman had been a DT pick. Berman replaced Preet Bharara after an interview with DT. Then Berman betrayed DT by recusing himself from the Cohen prosecution, so another prosecutor was put into place who authorized the Cohen raids.

However, Berman's interim appointment was about to expire, at which point a new US attorney might have been appointed who would not have had to recuse himself.

But a panel of judges has just unanimously extended the appointment of Berman, the recused US attorney, indefinitely. So the SDNY prosecution of Cohen will not be impeded by some new U.S. attorney.
Any new appointee would have to be nominated by DT and confirmed by the Senate -- which buys the prosecution more time.

P.S. The reason Kirsten Gillibrand was threatening to block the appointment was because she'd been afraid Berman would be a Trump stooge. His recusing himself wasn't anticipated.

https://www.amny.com/news/berman-us-attorney-1.18259267

Manhattan federal judges announced Wednesday they have voted to name Geoffrey Berman as permanent U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, extending the interim appointment he got from the Justice Department despite opposition from Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand.

Berman took over the nation’s most prestigious U.S. Attorney’s office on a 120-day interim basis in January, in the wake of controversy that surrounded the firing last year of Preet Bharara, who was followed by his deputy Joon Kim serving as acting U.S. Attorney.

Mumha

Heads up : Scott Pruitt just about to start his appearance before the House Commerce committee, where he's in for some tough few hours.

Mumha

Here's just some of the jaw dropping things Trump said this morning, which surely must have had his lawyers reaching for a bottle, or hiding under the couch, or both !

1. Trump categorically denied that he told James Comey he didn’t overnight in Moscow in November 2013 at the Miss Universe Pageant. Comey recorded Trump saying this twice in his contemporaneous memos. This is a key claim since it is clearly false and it appeared to be a falsehood manufactured to rebut the prostitute allegations. From one perspective it’s one guy’s word against the other. The problem for Trump is that the space-time continuum being what it is, it’s not at all clear how Comey would know to make this up in contemporaneous memos written in early 2017. He would have no way to know it would be significant. It simply makes no sense. There does appear to be at least one witness, Reince Priebus. It will be interesting to see what he says.

https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/989479385983062016

2. The President said Michael Cohen is mainly a businessman and only secondarily a lawyer. That at least undercuts his privilege argument. He says what prosecutors are looking at only has to do with Cohen’s personal business dealings, not with his representation of Donald Trump. He also said that he knows nothing about Cohen’s private business dealings. (“I don’t know his business… They’re looking at something having to do with his business. I have nothing to do with his business.”) That’s almost certainly false.

https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/989489142751952896

3. However, Trump says explicitly for the first time that Cohen does represent him with Stormy Daniels: “He represents me like with this crazy Stormy Daniels deal.” We know that of course. But Cohen and Trump’s lawyers have been trying to hide behind the fiction that Cohen simply represents the LLC which is also a party to the hush deal.

everlast75

This is beautiful.

SDNY has already used this morning's interview against DJT in Court!

https://twitter.com/nycsouthpaw/status/989512203047911425



Fox and Friends invited him to call again next week at 8am. Here's hoping he will!

Itssoeasy

I've just watched the full clip that MSNBC put up of them reacting to Trump doing his best sideshow bob walking into rakes impression. Stormy Daniels lawyer must have thought " I love my job" at that point. Also Michael Cohen better invest in some sturdy headgear if he hasn't already, as Trump has thrown him under the bus again.

Also the statements of him not knowing anything about the the Stormy Daniels case on the plane and now here on Fox, those two statements can't both be true. I mean this stuff will be in legal textbooks in the years to come over the absolute stupidity of it all.

everlast75

A disaster of an interview with the most friendly tv network, coming across as unhinged.

Avoiding the press dinner for the 2nd year in a row.

Jackson withdraws from application as put forward by Trump.

Legal difficulties arising from the interview earlier.

And now Pruitt is getting gutted by the Senate in respect of his nomination, noting that he didn't want or take any assistance preparing for it!

The Bill to protect Mueller passes another stage.

Not what you call a "dragon blood" kind of day!

one armed dwarf

Trump visiting UK July 13th, a Friday no less.

BabyCheeses

one armed dwarf wrote: »

Trump visiting UK July 13th, a Friday no less.

Wonder whats being done to guarantee that warm reception he wanted.

Igotadose

BabyCheeses wrote: »

Wonder whats being done to guarantee that warm reception he wanted.

He'll distract the masses from the Brexit catastrophe. That and the next Royal wedding and new baby pictures of the Prince will keep them entertained.

pixelburp

Well he was all for Brexit when he was asked about it during a visit to Scotland (if I recall?). Full of praise for the plucky Brits striking out on their own; given his inability to keep a consistent point of view, I wonder if he'll still feel the same? Probably, given how few British politicians understand the ramifications of the decision, I doubt a US President who demands 1-page summaries of issues would have a more sophisticated viewpoint. No doubt he'll still talk about it being 'tremendous'.