Another week, another bombshell on President Donald Trump’s decades of financial malfeasance. This time, a months-long investigation by ProPublica and WNYC documents how Trump and the Trump Organization allegedly defrauded their investors while doing everything they could to artificially limit liability.
In a new report, the Center for American Progress examines the origins of Russia’s political assault on the United States and shows that it was part of a much broader and more coordinated effort than has previously been understood. Based a review of publicly available documents, the report finds that there were five lines of effort to influence the election and that all five began or accelerated in 2014.
Devin Nunes, the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, is set to release transcripts of testimony from key witnesses in their Russia probe. Here’s a reminder that the investigation he ran was nothing more than an elaborate cover-up on Trump’s behalf.
President Donald Trump has been desperate to fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and squeeze the Mueller investigation. (Trump’s accomplices in congress even tried to impeach him.) Now, it looks like somebody in the administration or in Congress is leaking stories mischaracterizing a sarcastic comment, originally suggested by someone else, to give Trump a convenient pretext to fire him. Rosenstein’s removal would be a major blow against the Mueller investigation.
President Trump’s defenders responded to the news of Paul Manafort’s plea deal on Friday with the usual refrain: His case has nothing to do with the Trump campaign or allegations that it colluded with Russia in 2016. They’re wrong. Why? Because they’re overlooking the blackmail factor.
President Donald Trump’s campaign chairman Paul Manafort pleaded guilty to conspiracy against the United States and conspiracy to obstruct justice—all on top of what he’s already been convicted of in his Virginia trial. He’s also now cooperating with the Mueller investigation. There’s only one person that was above him on the campaign.
It might be inherent in our Constitutional design that a Supreme Court nominee would reflect the values of his or her appointing president. But when that nominee is the mirror image of a deeply corrupt president, whose authoritarian impulse to put himself above the law flashes through in 140-character outbursts, it’s not a family resemblance we can afford to ignore. Brett Kavanaugh has shown throughout his nomination process that he has a distinct leaning toward holding the president immune from a criminal investigation, even as President Trump seems ever closer to drowning in one. Even more disturbing, however, is a comparison of President Trump’s most erratic and lawless statements with the more erudite and crafted positions of Judge Kavanaugh.