Not clear if timing has anything to do with recent massacre in holyland while POTUS advisors were on the ground or just coincidence but heat seems to be turned up sharply suddenly today on the anti-swamp leader from multiple fronts.
These are some of the reports making top headlines today:
May 16, 2018The Michael Cohen Bribery Scandal Is Now a Trump Bribery Scandal
By Jonathan Chait@jonathanchait
Last night, the Daily Mail reported a development in the Michael Cohen saga of seismic scale. In a December 2016 meeting in Trump Tower, the British tabloid reports, Cohen asked Ahmed Al-Rumaihi, who runs a $100 billion Qatari investment fund, to send him “millions” which, the story claims, would go “through him to Trump family members.”
We have already learned of multiple cases of Cohen using his access to Trump to jack up multiple corporations for outrageous sums. The Daily Mail report deepens the trouble in two crucial ways. First, it extends Cohen’s scheme from domestic corporations (or, in one case, domestic corporations controlled by foreign entities) to direct overseas fundraising. Second, and more ominously, it alleges that Cohen funneled the money to Trump’s family. It was bad enough that Trump’s lawyer was enriching himself by cashing in on access. Now the story suggests he was enriching them, transforming the Cohen bribery story into a Trump bribery story.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer...y-scandal.html
Trump's unwritten rules for cashing in
- President Donald Trump has a number of unwritten rules for his associates who are looking to profit from their association with him, according to people who know him well.
- Associates must be successful, never create a bad story and never say they influence Trump.
Eamon Javers | @EamonJavers
Published 2 Hours Ago Updated 1 Hour Ago CNBC.com
Trump financial disclosure forms released 1 Hour Ago | 02:48
Amid all the scrutiny this week of Trump confidantes cashing in on their relationships with President Trump, just about everyone in Washington has weighed in: Yes, it's corruption! No, it's just Washington being Washington! Yes, Trump is drowning in the swamp!
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders argues that payments by AT&T to President Trump's personal attorney Michael Cohen really represent "the definition of draining the swamp" because the Trump Administration didn't let the payments stop the Department of Justice from taking steps against the AT&T/Time Warner merger.
But one aspect of all this remains relatively unexplored: How does President Trump himself feels about his former employees cashing in under his name?
Never create a bad story
But all that success comes with a caveat: If the work draws any negative attention – a "bad story" in Trump parlance – the president could cut off access, publicly distance himself, or spread the word that you are out of favor.
This is something of a gray area, because it's never entirely clear to former aides and staffers what the president will have a problem with. In one recent case, a prominent Trump supporter was barred from a presidential fundraiser because Trump's aides decided he had become a political liability.
There's one giant exception that proves this rule: Michael Cohen himself. Disclosures about the president's former lawyer's payouts from companies including AT&T and Novartis have been front and center for a week, creating a quintessential "bad story" for Trump.
The president seems to have little respect for Cohen, routinely mocking him in private. That's why White House aides are flummoxed by the president's ongoing relationship with his New York fixer, who has broken this key rule and yet the president will not break with him.
One way to keep from embarrassing the president is to stay well within the norms of Washington DC's already pliable consulting and lobbying regulations. Cohen didn't do that, even with his big-name corporate clients. "If Novartis entered into a contract for $1.2 million sight unseen, that is unbelievable to me. I have never heard of anything like that," says one long-time Republican operative.
Never say you influence Trump
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/16/trum...ashing-in.html
Trump's financial disclosure gives conflicting accounts of Cohen payment
- President Trump released his financial disclosure filing on Wednesday which says that Trump "fully reimbursed" his lawyer Michael Cohen.
- Cohen is known for paying porn star Stormy Daniels $130,000 in hush money to silence her about an alleged affair with President Trump.
- The filing gives conflicting accounts about the reason for the payment: Was it a liability or an expense?
- The answer could have serious legal ramifications.
John W. Schoen | @Johnwschoen
Published 1 Hour Ago Updated 36 Mins Ago
Following initial denials from Trump that he knew of the payment, Trump's recently hired attorney, former New York city mayor Rudy Giuliani, told Fox News host Sean Hannity earlier this month that Trump had reimbursed Cohen and that the payment was "perfectly legal" and did not violate campaign finance law.
"It's not campaign money. No campaign finance violation. They funneled through a law firm and the president repaid it," Giuliani said.
In a separate interview the next day on Fox & Friends, Giuliani insisted the hush money was paid "for personal reasons."
"The president had been hurt personally, not politically, personally so much — and the first lady — by some of the false allegations," he said. "That one more false allegation six years old, I think [Cohen] was trying to help the family."
But later in the same interview, Giuliani conceded that the payment clearly had a political component.
"Imagine if that came out of October 15, 2016, in the middle of the last debate with Hillary Clinton?" he said. "Cohen made it go away. He did his job."
Trump's annual financial filing, released Wednesday includes conflicting characterizations of the Cohen payments.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/16/trum...n-payment.html
Rex Tillerson just majorly trolled Donald Trump
Analysis by Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large
Wed May 16, 2018
Speaking to soon-to-be graduates of the Virginia Military Institute on Wednesday, Tillerson dropped this truth bomb:
"If our leaders seek to conceal the truth, or we as people become accepting of alternative realities that are no longer grounded in facts, then we as American citizens are on a pathway to relinquishing our freedom."
Woof.
Double woof.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/16/polit...uth/index.html
Trump lawyer blasts Giuliani, asks if Cohen was a “mob" fixer
https://www.msnbc.com/the-beat-with-...-1234639939704
The Senate’s new Russia report just undercut Trump in two big ways
May 16 at 2:02 PM
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...edibility-hit/
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