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Re: F6 post# 271122

Saturday, 08/05/2017 8:42:04 PM

Saturday, August 05, 2017 8:42:04 PM

President Trump's Six Months of America First

Published on Jul 20, 2017 by The White House

Read more: https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/07/20/president-donald-j-trumps-six-months-america-first

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nosLkQe4dH4 [with comments]

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"Trump and the Russian Money Trail": Trump's Ties to Oligarchs Go Back Decades

Published on Jul 20, 2017 by Democracy Now!

President Trump on Wednesday said he never would have nominated Jeff Sessions to be attorney general had he known Sessions was going to recuse himself from a Justice Department investigation into alleged ties between Russia and Trump associates. One Russia expert says the smoking gun indicating a quid pro quo between Russian money and Trump may lie with a little-known case that was abruptly settled involving a holding company linked to the Russian elite. Prevezon’s lawyer is Natalia Veselnitskaya—the same Russian woman who initiated the now-infamous meeting with Donald Trump Jr. last June. We speak with author and Russia expert Seva Gunitsky, associate professor of political science at the University of Toronto.
https://www.democracynow.org/2017/7/20/trump_and_the_russian_money_trail [with embedded video, snd transcript]

Trump and the Russian Money Trail
2017-07-14
http://duckofminerva.com/2017/07/trump-and-the-russian-money-trail.html [with comments]

“Set aside Putin and follow the money”: a Russia expert’s theory of the Trump scandal
Why the collusion story begins with money, not politics.

MAY 10, 2017: Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, US President Donald Trump, and Russia's Ambassador to the United States Sergei Kislyak (L-R) during a meeting in the Oval Office at the White House.
Jul 18, 2017 Updated Jul 18, 2017
https://www.vox.com/2017/7/18/15983910/donald-trump-russia-putin-natalia-veselnitskaya-collusion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ao1x8rG0FbA [with comments]

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Married to the Mob: Investigative Journalist Craig Unger on What Trump Owes the Russian Mafia

Published on Jul 20, 2017 by Democracy Now!

A new exposé and cover story in the September issue of the New Republic, titled "Married to the Mob: What Trump Owes the Russian Mafia [ https://newrepublic.com/article/143586/trumps-russian-laundromat-trump-tower-luxury-high-rises-dirty-money-international-crime-syndicate , included in full, under its actual title "Trump’s Russian Laundromat", at/see (linked in) http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=133075600 and preceding and following (earlier this string)]," examines how the Russian mafia has used the president’s properties to launder money and hide assets. We speak with the author, investigative journalist Craig Unger.
https://www.democracynow.org/2017/7/20/married_to_the_mob_investigative_journalist [with embedded video, snd transcript]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkE3z8DYEhI [with comments]

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Exxon Fined $2 Million for Violating Russia Sanctions While Tillerson Was CEO
The Treasury Department says the company “demonstrated reckless disregard” for sanctions requirements.
Jul. 20, 2017
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/07/exxon-fined-2-million-for-violating-russia-sanctions-while-tillerson-was-ceo/ [with embedded document, and comments]

Exxon to Challenge Treasury Finding It Violated Russia Sanctions
Treasury says violations occurred when Tillerson was CEO
Actions in 2014 called ‘egregious’ by Treasury Department
July 20, 2017 Updated July 20, 2017
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-20/exxon-fined-for-russia-sanctions-violations-under-tillerson [with embedded video]

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Mueller Expands Probe to Trump Business Transactions

Trump, Ross and Kushner attend a meeting at the White House on Feb. 2, 2017.
Photographer: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Special counsel examines dealings of Kushner, Manafort, Trump

Trump lawyer says this goes beyond Mueller’s mandate

By Greg Farrell and Christian Berthelsen
July 20, 2017 9:31 AM Updated on July 20, 2017 12:16 PM

The U.S. special counsel investigating possible ties between the Donald Trump [ https://www.bloomberg.com/billionaires/id/1252249 ] campaign and Russia in last year’s election is examining a broad range of transactions involving Trump’s businesses as well as those of his associates, according to a person familiar with the probe.

FBI investigators and others are looking at Russian purchases of apartments in Trump buildings, Trump’s involvement in a controversial SoHo development in New York with Russian associates, the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow and Trump’s sale of a Florida mansion to a Russian oligarch in 2008, the person said.

The investigation also has absorbed a money-laundering probe begun by federal prosecutors in New York into Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

John Dowd, one of Trump’s lawyers, said on Thursday that he was unaware of the inquiry into Trump’s businesses by the two-months-old investigation and considered it beyond the scope of what Special Counsel Robert Mueller should be examining.

“Those transactions are in my view well beyond the mandate of the Special counsel; are unrelated to the election of 2016 or any alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia and most importantly, are well beyond any Statute of Limitation imposed by the United States Code,” he wrote in an email.

Markets Fall

Major U.S. stock indices, which had been trading higher in the morning, fell [ https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-19/asia-stocks-point-higher-before-boj-ecb-decisions-markets-wrap ] as traders worried that the probe could derail Trump’s growth agenda. The dollar fell against the euro and U.S. government bonds rose.

The president told the New York Times on Wednesday that any digging into matters beyond Russia would be out of bounds. Trump’s businesses have involved Russians for years, however, making the boundaries fuzzy.

The Justice Department’s May 17 order [ https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/967231/download ] to Mueller instructs him to investigate “any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign” as well as “any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation,” suggesting a relatively broad mandate.

Agents are interested in dealings with the Bank of Cyprus [ https://www.bloomberg.com/quote/BOCH:LN ], where Wilbur Ross [ https://www.bloomberg.com/billionaires/id/1414869 ] served as vice chairman before he became commerce secretary. In addition, they are examining the efforts of Jared Kushner, the President’s son-in-law and senior aide, to secure financing for some of his family’s real-estate properties. The information about the investigation was provided by someone familiar with the developing inquiry but not authorized to speak publicly.

The roots of Mueller’s follow-the-money investigation lie partly in a wide-ranging money-laundering probe launched by then-Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara last year, according to the person.

FBI agents already had been gathering information about Manafort, according to two people with knowledge of that probe. Prosecutors hadn’t yet begun presenting evidence to a grand jury. Trump fired Bharara in March.

The Manafort inquiry initially focused on actions involving a real-estate company he launched with money from Ukraine in 2008. By the time Bharara was fired, his office’s investigation of possible money laundering extended well beyond that, according to the person briefed on the Mueller probe.

The Bharara investigation was consolidated into Mueller’s inquiry, showing that the special counsel is taking an overarching approach. The various financial examinations constitute one thread of Mueller’s inquiry, which encompasses computer hacking and the dissemination of stolen campaign and voter information as well as the actions of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.

Joshua Stueve, Mueller’s spokesman, declined to comment, as did a Manafort spokesman and Abbe Lowell, a lawyer for Kushner.

Spokesmen for the White House, Trump Organization [ https://www.bloomberg.com/quote/3603126Z:US ] and Ross didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Evade Taxes

Mueller’s team is looking at the Trump SoHo hotel condominium development, which was a licensing deal with Bayrock Capital LLC. In 2010, the former finance director of Bayrock filed a lawsuit claiming the firm structured transactions in fraudulent ways to evade taxes. Bayrock was a key source of capital for Trump projects, including Trump SoHo.

The 2013 Miss Universe pageant is of interest because a prominent Moscow developer, Aras Agalarov, paid $20 million to bring the beauty spectacle there. About a third of that sum went to Trump in the form of a licensing fee, according to Forbes magazine. At the event, Trump met Herman Gref, chief executive of Russia’s biggest bank, Sberbank PJSC. Agalarov’s son, Emin, helped broker a meeting last year between Donald Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer who was said to have damaging information about Hillary Clinton and her campaign.

Another significant financial transaction involved a Palm Beach, Florida, estate Trump purchased in 2004 for $41 million, after its previous owner lost it in bankruptcy. In March of 2008, after the real-estate bubble had begun losing air, Russian fertilizer magnate Dmitry Rybolovlev [ https://www.bloomberg.com/billionaires/id/6957015 ] bought the property for $95 million.

As part of their investigation, Mueller’s team has issued subpoenas to banks and filed requests for bank records to foreign lenders under mutual legal-assistance treaties, according to two of the people familiar with the matter.

For more on the Trump-Russia investigations, see this Q&A:
https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-05-09/unwinding-the-twists-turns-in-trump-russia-probe-quicktake-q-a

Trump’s Dollar Mess: Losses Pile Up as Political Drama Mounts
Currencies are proxy for politics as QE distorts stocks, bonds
In 2017, dollar is a big loser against all 16 major currencies
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-30/trump-s-dollar-mess-losses-pile-up-as-political-drama-mounts

©2017 Bloomberg L.P.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-20/mueller-is-said-to-expand-probe-to-trump-business-transactions [with embedded videos]

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How Russia Mercilessly Played Trump for a Fool

He and his coterie of idiots, nihilists, and opportunists were the perfect prey for Putin’s spell.
July 20, 2017
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/07/how-russia-played-trump-for-a-fool [with embedded videos]

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Exclusive: Former Justice Department official joins Mueller team
August 1, 2017
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-lawyer-exclusive-idUSKBN1AH5F9

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Special Counsel Robert Mueller Impanels Washington Grand Jury in Russia Probe

Special Counsel Robert Mueller is seen after meeting with members of the Senate Judiciary Committee at the Capitol in Washington on June 21, 2017.
Photo: J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press
[ http://www.wbur.org/npr/535813901/special-counsel-mueller-lets-his-actions-do-the-talking-15-hires-more-to-come ]

Expansion beyond Flynn grand jury is a sign the investigation in election meddling is ramping up

By Del Quentin Wilber and Byron Tau
Aug. 3, 2017 Updated Aug. 3, 2017 3:38 p.m. ET

Special Counsel Robert Mueller has impaneled a grand jury in Washington to investigate Russia’s interference in the 2016 elections, a sign that his inquiry is growing in intensity and entering a new phase, according to people familiar with the matter.

The grand jury, which began its work in recent weeks, signals that Mr. Mueller’s inquiry [ https://www.wsj.com/articles/senators-move-to-block-trump-from-ousting-attorney-general-jeff-sessions-1501197597 ] will likely continue for months. Mr. Mueller is investigating Russia’s efforts [ https://www.wsj.com/articles/attorney-says-trump-legal-team-not-working-to-discredit-russia-probe-1500656955 ] to influence the 2016 election and whether President Donald Trump’s campaign or associates colluded with the Kremlin as part of that effort.

A spokesman for Mr. Mueller, Joshua Stueve, declined to comment. Moscow has denied seeking to influence the election, and Mr. Trump has vigorously disputed [ https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-again-criticizes-sessions-this-time-over-fbi-leadership-1501084563 ] allegations of collusion. The president has called Mr. Mueller’s inquiry a “witch hunt.”

Ty Cobb, special counsel to the president, said he wasn’t aware that Mr. Mueller had started using a new grand jury. “Grand jury matters are typically secret,” Mr. Cobb said. “The White House favors anything that accelerates the conclusion of his work fairly.…The White House is committed to fully cooperating with Mr. Mueller.”

Before Mr. Mueller was tapped in May to be special counsel [ https://www.wsj.com/articles/former-fbi-director-robert-mueller-named-special-counsel-for-russia-probe-1495058494 ], federal prosecutors had been using at least one other grand jury, located in Alexandria, Va., to assist in their criminal investigation of Michael Flynn, a former national security adviser. That probe, which has been taken over by Mr. Mueller’s team, focuses on Mr. Flynn’s work in the private sector on behalf of foreign interests.

Grand juries are powerful investigative tools that allow prosecutors to subpoena documents, put witnesses under oath and seek indictments, if there is evidence of a crime. Legal experts said that the decision by Mr. Mueller to impanel a grand jury suggests he believes he will need to subpoena records and take testimony from witnesses.

A grand jury in Washington is also more convenient for Mr. Mueller and his 16 attorneys—they work just a few blocks from the U.S. federal courthouse where grand juries meet—than one that is 10 traffic-clogged miles away in Virginia.

“This is yet a further sign that there is a long-term, large-scale series of prosecutions being contemplated and being pursued by the special counsel,” said Stephen I. Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas. “If there was already a grand jury in Alexandria looking at Flynn, there would be no need to reinvent the wheel for the same guy. This suggests that the investigation is bigger and wider than Flynn, perhaps substantially so.”

Thomas Zeno, a federal prosecutor for 29 years before becoming a lawyer at the Squire Patton Boggs law firm, said the grand jury is “confirmation that this is a very vigorous investigation going on.”

“This doesn’t mean he is going to bring charges,” Mr. Zeno cautioned. “But it shows he is very serious. He wouldn’t do this if it were winding down.”

Another sign the investigation is ramping up: Greg Andres, a top partner in a powerhouse New York law firm, Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP, has joined Mr. Mueller’s team.

Mr. Andres, a former top Justice Department official who also oversaw the criminal division of the U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn, wouldn’t leave his private-sector job for a low-level investigation, Mr. Zeno said.

“People like Greg Andres don’t leave private practice willy-nilly,” Mr. Zeno said. “The fact he is being added after couple of months shows how serious this is and that it could last a long time.”

Mr. Andres couldn't be reached for comment.

The developments unfolded amid a new sign of concern by Congress that Mr. Mueller’s independence needs to be protected. Sens. Thom Tillis (R., N.C.) and Chris Coons (D., Del.) introduced legislation Thursday making it harder for Mr. Trump to fire Mr. Mueller. Under the legislation, a special counsel could challenge his or her removal, with a three-judge panel ruling within 14 days on whether the firing was justified.

If the panel found no good cause for the firing, the special counsel would immediately be reinstated. The legislation follows a similar effort [ https://www.wsj.com/articles/top-republican-says-hes-writing-bill-to-protect-special-counsel-probe-1501174871 ] from Sens. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) and Cory Booker (D., N.J.)

“The introduction of two bills with two different bipartisan pairs strengthens the message that there is broad concern about this,” said Mr. Coons, who said that Mr. Tillis approached him on the Senate floor about teaming up on legislation.

According to a January report from the U.S. intelligence community [ https://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trump-continues-attacks-on-intelligence-agencies-ahead-of-classified-briefing-on-russia-1483728966 ], the highest levels of the Russian government were involved in directing the electoral interference. Its tactics included hacking state election systems; infiltrating and leaking information from party committees and political strategists; and disseminating through social media and other outlets negative stories about Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and positive ones about Mr. Trump, the report said.

It is unclear how long Mr. Mueller’s investigation will last, and there is no deadline for its completion. The probe is complicated by the classified nature of much of the information Mr. Mueller’s team is reviewing. Evidence of its sensitivity came in June when Mr. Mueller moved from his temporary offices to a nearby secure facility that his representatives have declined to identify.

While working closely with Federal Bureau of Investigation agents, Mr. Mueller has assembled a team of accomplished prosecutors and lawyers specializing in criminal and national security law. Twelve attorneys are on temporary assignment to the special counsel’s office from the Justice Department or FBI, and three came from Mr. Mueller’s firm of WilmerHale. Mr. Andres is the most recent addition.

Mr. Trump has questioned the neutrality of Mr. Mueller’s office, telling Fox News he is concerned that Mr. Mueller’s prosecutors are “Hillary Clinton supporters” and that Messrs. Mueller and former FBI Director James Comey are friends. Mr. Comey was a top Justice official in the George W. Bush administration when Mr. Mueller was the FBI director; both were appointed by Republicans. Mr. Trump fired Mr. Comey from the FBI position in May.

Those who know both men said they aren’t social friends, though they respect each other and had a solid relationship in government.

At least eight members of Mr. Mueller’s team have given to Democratic candidates, including the presidential campaigns of Barack Obama and Mrs. Clinton, according to Federal Election Commission records. At least one—James Quarles, a member of the Watergate Special Prosecution Force—has donated to politicians in both parties.

Mr. Andres in March supported a Democratic lawmaker, donating $2,700 to Kirsten Gillibrand, a U.S. senator representing New York, according federal campaign disclosure records.

Mr. Mueller made two contributions in 1996 to Republican William Weld, then a candidate for a U.S. senate seat in Massachusetts, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks money in politics.

Siobhan Hughes and Rebecca Ballhaus contributed to this article.

Copyright ©2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/special-counsel-mueller-impanels-washington-grand-jury-in-russia-probe-1501788287 [with embedded videos, and (over 5,000) comments]

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One year into the FBI's Russia investigation, Mueller is on the Trump money trail
Sources described an investigation that has widened to focus on possible financial crimes
The increased financial focus hasn't gone unnoticed by President Donald Trump
August 3, 2017 Updated August 3, 2017
http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/03/politics/mueller-investigation-russia-trump-one-year-financial-ties/ [with embedded video]

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Exclusive: top FBI officials could testify against Trump

The acting head of the bureau told top officials to prepare.
Aug 3, 2017 Updated Aug 3, 2017
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/8/3/16084246/mueller-obstruction-case-stronger-trump-surrogates

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A Top Rohrabacher Aide Is Ousted After Russia Revelations

California Representative Dana Rohrabacher.

Paul Behrends, a controversial staffer associated with the California congressman’s pro-Russia stances, was pushed out of his role on a subcommittee after questions were raised about a recent trip to Moscow.

By Rosie Gray
Jul 20, 2017

Paul Behrends, a top aide to Representative Dana Rohrabacher, has been ousted from his role as staff director for the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee that Rohrabacher chairs, after stories appeared in the press highlighting his relationships with pro-Russia lobbyists.

“Paul Behrends no longer works at the committee,” a House Foreign Affairs Committee spokesperson said on Wednesday evening.

Behrends accompanied Rohrabacher on a 2016 trip to Moscow in which Rohrabacher said he received anti-Magnitsky Act materials from prosecutors. The Magnitsky Act is a 2012 bill that imposes sanctions on Russian officials associated with the 2009 death in prison of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who had been investigating tax fraud. Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian attorney and lobbyist who met with Donald Trump Jr. at Trump Tower last year, reportedly brought up the Magintsky Act during the meeting.

Rohrabacher’s meeting in Moscow was an object of concern [ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/07/russian-anti-sanctions-campaign-turned-to-california-congressman/534102/ ] for embassy officials, who had warned the delegation about FSB presence in Moscow—warnings Rohrabacher brushed off.

“Paul Behrends has done a terrific job for me and the committee,” Rohrabacher said in a statement on Wednesday. “I have not heard anything to the contrary. I am looking forward to discussing this with the committee leadership. I am sure we will work this out."

Behrends is a controversial figure on the Hill, where he is seen by some who have worked with or around him as egging on Rohrabacher’s pro-Russia instincts.

Behrends worked for Rohrabacher in the 1990s before becoming a lobbyist. He rejoined Rohrabacher’s office in 2014.

One of the sources with knowledge of the events suggested that Behrends was fired from the committee under pressure from House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Ed Royce.

There has been tension between Royce and Rohrabacher over Rohrabacher’s activities, and Royce scuttled Rohrabacher’s plan last year to screen an anti-Magnitsky film in Congress. Royce also nixed Rohrabacher’s plan to visit Moscow again earlier this year.

Another Hill source said there was talk of a “shakeup” on the subcommittee chaired by Rohrabacher.

Behrends did not return requests for comment. Rohrabacher answered his cell phone but referred me to his press secretary, and then hung up.

Copyright (c) 2017 by The Atlantic Monthly Group

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/07/top-rohrabacher-aide-fired-after-russia-revelations/534288/ [with comments]

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Full Show - Attacks On Trump Get Desperate As The Old Guards Of Globalism Collapse - 07/20/2017

Published on Jul 20, 2017 by The Alex Jones Channel

Thursday, July 20th 2017[, with Anthony Cumia hosting the fourth hour]: Trump Blasts Sessions - President Trump lashed out at Attorney General Jeff Sessions, saying he would have picked somebody else for A.G. if he had known Sessions was going to recuse himself from the Russia investigation. Michael Snyder and Jon Rappoport join the broadcast to discuss the Trump/Russia investigation and more. Also, Ezra Levant of Rebel Media joins the broadcast to explain how Christians in the Middle East are being ethnically cleansed.

When Syria Came to Fresno: Refugees Test Limits of Outstretched Hand

An apartment complex in the San Ramon neighborhood of Fresno, Calif., where many Syrian refugees with large families live in cramped two-bedroom apartments.
JULY 20, 2017
FRESNO, Calif. — The police responded to a call about a loud party on East San Ramon Avenue, but it wasn’t just any party: A sheep was reportedly being slaughtered in a backyard.
“Muslim refugees were unaware that slaughtering sheep is not allowed in the city,” the police wrote afterward in their report, which also stated that those involved “were advised to clean up the blood and mess” and warned that in the future “they could be cited.”
The animal, actually a goat, was killed by a Syrian refugee who later skinned, roasted and shared it with his Syrian neighbors in the apartment complex where they all live.
Refugees are typically placed in towns and cities such as Buffalo, N.Y.; Boise, Idaho [ https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/02/us/idaho-city-of-immigrants-debates-taking-in-middle-eastern-refugees.html ]; and Fayetteville, Ark. [ https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/13/us/trump-refugee-ban.html ], where resettlement agencies ease their transition to life in a new country. But they are free to move about the country like anybody else, and they sometimes land in places like Fresno that are not exactly prepared for their arrival.
Since late 2016, more than 200 Syrian refugees originally settled elsewhere in the United States have made a fresh start in Fresno, the largest city in California’s agricultural belt. They have been drawn there mainly by cheap housing.
[...]
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/20/us/fresno-syrian-refugees.html [with comments]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHPRBmfHdBE [with comments] [also at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JfqrXD_8Xs (additional text adapted from; with comments)]

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Sarah Sanders Press Briefing on Trump Slamming Sessions in New York Times 7/20/17

Published on Jul 20, 2017 by Based Patriot

Sarah Huckabee Sanders answers questions off-camera on Trump's explosive New York Times interview & Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Press Gaggle by Principal Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Sanders and OMB Director Mick Mulvaney, 7/20/2017
James S. Brady Press Briefing Room
July 20, 2017
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/07/20/press-gaggle-principal-deputy-press-secretary-sarah-sanders-and-omb [official transcript]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yc50GSHbYUY [Sanders Q&A portion only (opening remarks and Mulvaney Q&A portion included in the official transcript); with comments]

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WATCH LIVE: President Trump announcement on a pharmaceutical glass packaging initiative

Streamed live on Jul 20, 2017 by PBS NewsHour

President Donald Trump makes an announcement regarding a pharmaceutical glass packaging initiative

Remarks by President Trump at Pharmaceutical Glass Packaging Initiative Announcement
Roosevelt Room
July 20, 2017
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/07/20/remarks-president-trump-pharmaceutical-glass-packaging-initiative [official transcript]

Trump lifted the cap on H-2B worker visas. Then his businesses asked for 76 of them.

Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida.
Jul 20, 2017 Updated Jul 20, 2017
This week, the Trump administration defied its “America First” rhetoric with a policy change that would make it easier for companies to hire guest workers from foreign countries. The Trump Organization is already poised to benefit from it.
On Monday, the Department of Homeland Security raised the cap on H-2B visas for foreign guest workers from 66,000 visas per year to 81,000.
On Thursday — just three days later — Trump’s properties told the Department of Labor that they wanted approval to hire 76 guest workers using those visas.
The policy change was surprising. Trump has criticized other guest-worker programs for supposedly taking away jobs from Americans. He has resisted calls from the tech industry to expand the H-1B visa program for high-skilled workers. He hasn't increased visas in the H-2A program for seasonal farmworkers, even though the agriculture industry has lobbied for it. He even delayed the launch of a startup visa program that Obama created to help foreign tech entrepreneurs start businesses in the United States.
[...]
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/7/20/16003254/trump-h2b-visa-program

During Trump's 'Made in America' week, Mar-a-Lago Club seeks more foreign workers
July 20, 2017 Updated July 21, 2017
http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/20/politics/mar-a-lago-foreign-visas/index.html [with embedded video]

Exclusive: Jared Kushner's White House connection still being used to lure Chinese investors
July 20, 2017 Updated July 21, 2017
http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/20/politics/draft-kushner-visas/index.html [with embedded video and documents]

U.S. Attorney Subpoenas Kushner Cos. Over Investment-For-Visa Program
Records sought from development firm owned by family of White House adviser Jared Kushner
Aug. 2, 2017 Updated Aug. 2, 2017
https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-attorney-subpoenas-kushner-cos-over-investment-for-visa-program-1501717119 [with comments]

Ivanka Trump received $12.6M since 2016
07/21/17
First daughter Ivanka Trump or her trust made at least $12.6 million from her various business ventures since early 2016 and will make at least $1.5 million per year even as she serves in the White House, according to an ethics disclosure.
The New York Times reported [ https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/21/business/ivanka-trump-jared-kushner-ethics-filing.html ] Friday that the disclosure for President Trump's eldest daughter was released as her husband, Jared Kushner, submitted an updated financial form revealing they benefit from a business empire worth as much as $761 million.
[...]
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/343254-ivanka-trump-has-made-at-least-126-million-since-2016 [with comments]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usxtBvgVNRM [comments disabled] [official White House upload at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoJA4CL2UKU (with comments)]

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The Media Must Fight Back | The Resistance with Keith Olbermann | GQ

Published on Jul 20, 2017 by GQ

The press is playing by its old rules while Trump laughs at those rules.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0biE6wvMHo [with comments]

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Trump: The Disastrous Connie Chung Interview

Published on Jan 23, 2016 by Alphonsus Jr. [ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjXfF7jrjl0_4i87B7CYLNg , https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjXfF7jrjl0_4i87B7CYLNg/videos ]

1990. First Trump, after the fact, talks about the interview. The actual interview then follows.

Before Megyn Kelly, Connie Chung Was the Female Anchor Trump Hated Most

June 17, 2016
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/06/before-trump-feuded-with-kelly-he-trashed-chung.html [with embedded videos (the Connie Chung {including the segment intro, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4hc3XKr9J0 } and the Joan Rivers { https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsbaowKypcw } performances, separately), and comments]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5kA2r2SE7g [comments disabled]

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Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos Speech @ ALEC (7-20-17)

Published on Jul 21, 2017 by American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) [ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqT2O_5CC-qJU2ZzYvNmwNw / https://www.youtube.com/user/AmericanLegislative , https://www.youtube.com/user/AmericanLegislative/videos ]

Betsy DeVos serves as the 11th U.S. Secretary of Education. She has been involved in education policy for nearly three decades as an advocate for children and a voice for parents. In her speech before ALEC in Denver, she addresses school choice, campus free speech, and putting the power back in the hands of the people.

Betsy DeVos claims philosophy of Margaret ‘Iron Lady’ Thatcher as her own

Yes, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos went there — and a few other places, too.
July 20, 2017
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2017/07/20/betsy-devos-claims-philosophy-of-margaret-iron-lady-thatcher-as-her-own/ [includes transcript emarks as prepared); with comments]

A despot in disguise: one man’s mission to rip up democracy
James McGill Buchanan’s vision of totalitarian capitalism has infected public policy in the US. Now it’s being exported.

‘Buchanan has developed a hidden programme for suppressing democracy on behalf of the very rich. It is reshaping politics.’
By George Monbiot
19 July 2017
It’s the missing chapter: a key to understanding the politics of the past half century. To read Nancy MacLean’s new book, Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America [ http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/533763/democracy-in-chains-by-nancy-maclean/9781101980965/ , https://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Chains-History-Radical-Stealth/dp/1101980966 ], is to see what was previously invisible.
The history professor’s work on the subject began by accident. In 2013 she stumbled across a deserted clapboard house on the campus of George Mason University in Virginia. It was stuffed with the unsorted archives of a man who had died that year whose name is probably unfamiliar to you: James McGill Buchanan. She says the first thing she picked up was a stack of confidential letters concerning millions of dollars transferred to the university by the billionaire Charles Koch [ https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/koch-brothers ].
Her discoveries in that house of horrors reveal how Buchanan, in collaboration with business tycoons and the institutes they founded, developed a hidden programme for suppressing democracy on behalf of the very rich. The programme is now reshaping politics, and not just in the US.
Buchanan was strongly influenced by both the neoliberalism of Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises [ https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/15/neoliberalism-ideology-problem-george-monbiot ], and the property supremacism of John C Calhoun, who argued in the first half of the 19th century that freedom consists of the absolute right to use your property (including your slaves) however you may wish; any institution that impinges on this right is an agent of oppression, exploiting men of property on behalf of the undeserving masses.
James Buchanan brought these influences together to create what he called public choice theory [ http://files.libertyfund.org/files/1063/Buchanan_0102-03_EBk_v6.0.pdf ]. He argued that a society could not be considered free unless every citizen has the right to veto its decisions. What he meant by this was that no one should be taxed against their will. But the rich were being exploited by people who use their votes to demand money that others have earned, through involuntary taxes to support public spending and welfare. Allowing workers to form trade unions and imposing graduated income taxes were forms of “differential or discriminatory legislation” against the owners of capital.
Any clash between “freedom” (allowing the rich to do as they wish) and democracy should be resolved in favour of freedom. In his book The Limits of Liberty [ http://www.econlib.org/library/Buchanan/buchCv7c10.html ], he noted that “despotism may be the only organisational alternative to the political structure that we observe.” Despotism in defence of freedom.
His prescription was a “constitutional revolution”: creating irrevocable restraints to limit democratic choice. Sponsored throughout his working life by wealthy foundations, billionaires and corporations, he developed a theoretical account of what this constitutional revolution would look like, and a strategy for implementing it.
He explained how attempts to desegregate schooling in the American south could be frustrated by setting up a network of state-sponsored private schools. It was he who first proposed privatising universities, and imposing full tuition fees on students: his original purpose was to crush student activism. He urged privatisation of social security and many other functions of the state. He sought to break the links between people and government, and demolish trust in public institutions. He aimed, in short, to save capitalism from democracy.
In 1980, he was able to put the programme into action. He was invited to Chile [ https://www.theguardian.com/world/chile ], where he helped the Pinochet dictatorship write a new constitution, which, partly through the clever devices Buchanan proposed, has proved impossible to reverse entirely. Amid the torture and killings, he advised the government to extend programmes of privatisation, austerity, monetary restraint, deregulation and the destruction of trade unions: a package that helped trigger economic collapse in 1982.
None of this troubled the Swedish Academy, which through his devotee at Stockholm University Assar Lindbeck in 1986 awarded James Buchanan the Nobel memorial prize for economics [ http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economic-sciences/laureates/1986/press.html ]. It is one of several decisions that have turned this prize toxic.
But his power really began to be felt when Koch, currently the seventh richest man in the US, decided that Buchanan held the key to the transformation he sought. Koch saw even such ideologues as Milton Friedman and Alan Greenspan as “sellouts”, as they sought to improve the efficiency of government rather than destroy it altogether [ http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/168898.Radicals_for_Capitalism ]. But Buchanan took it all the way.
MacLean says that Charles Koch poured millions into Buchanan’s work at George Mason University, whose law and economics departments look as much like corporate-funded thinktanks as they do academic faculties. He employed the economist to select the revolutionary “cadre” that would implement his programme (Murray Rothbard, at the Cato Institute that Koch founded, had urged the billionaire to study Lenin’s techniques and apply them to the libertarian cause). Between them, they began to develop a programme for changing the rules.
The papers Nancy MacLean discovered show that Buchanan saw stealth as crucial. He told his collaborators that “conspiratorial secrecy is at all times essential”. Instead of revealing their ultimate destination, they would proceed by incremental steps. For example, in seeking to destroy the social security system, they would claim to be saving it, arguing that it would fail without a series of radical “reforms”. (The same argument is used by those attacking the NHS). Gradually they would build a “counter-intelligentsia”, allied to a “vast network of political power” that would become the new establishment.
Through the network of thinktanks [ https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/02/corporate-dark-money-power-atlantic-lobbyists-brexit ] that Koch and other billionaires have sponsored, through their transformation of the Republican party, and the hundreds of millions they have poured into state congressional and judicial races, through the mass colonisation of Trump’s administration by members of this network [ https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/30/donald-trump-george-monbiot-misinformation ] and lethally effective campaigns against everything from public health to action on climate change, it would be fair to say that Buchanan’s vision is maturing in the US.
[...]
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/19/despot-disguise-democracy-james-mcgill-buchanan-totalitarian-capitalism [with comments] [h/t Elroy Jetson, (linked in) http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=133141103 and preceding and following]

I grew up on food stamps. I'll never forget the sneering looks.
A cashier berated my mom for buying cake mix for my brother’s fourth birthday. But people eager to judge ignored the reasons for our plight.
12 July 2017
Poor people are reviled in America. I learned this lesson very early on as a child on food stamps in the grocery store. Other shoppers would search for a wedding ring on my mom’s hand and mutter “trailer trash” as we walked by when they didn’t find one. People behind us in the cashier line would swing their buggies around to another line, loudly complaining because my mom didn’t hand over her vouchers quickly enough.
Junk food aroused particular ire, even though the US Department of Agriculture found no food consumption differences between food-stamp shoppers and non-food-stamp grocery shoppers.
A cashier once berated my mom for buying a box of cake mix for my brother’s fourth birthday as my worried brother looked up at them. Adults sneered at my sister and me if they spotted the large bag of potato chips and five two-liter bottles of off-brand soda in our cart. But we bought non-perishables in bulk like that because our neighbor only gave us a ride to the store once a month, when new food stamps arrived.
On our weekly long walk home with milk and eggs, people in passing cars threw hard candy and fast food wrappers at my family. And when we arrived back at the trailer, my mom used the leftover coupon ads for toilet paper. People who live in poverty are very good at using what little they have to survive.
[...]
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/12/food-stamps-poverty-america-shame [with comments]

After Six Months, A Detailed Look at 'Giant Bait and Switch' Trump Presidency
New report reveals how billionaire president has 'abandoned populism in favor of giveaways to industry'

In his six months as president, Donald Trump has not lived up to his populist campaign promises, and has instead filled the White House with former lobbyists and opted for policies that favor special interests. "Giant corporations are now designing and carrying out policy to an extent unequaled in American history."
July 19, 2017
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/07/19/after-six-months-detailed-look-giant-bait-and-switch-trump-presidency [with comments]

Trump’s Corporate Con Job
Six Months Into Term, Trump Has Fully Abandoned Populism In Favor of Giveaways to Industry
July 19, 2017
https://www.citizen.org/system/files/case_documents/trump-six-month-review-report.pdf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2ghDQVZApY [no comments yet] [and see also in particular (linked in) http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=53531674 and preceding and following, http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=74399989 and preceding and following, http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=77957743 and preceding (and any future following), http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=103880377 and preceding and following, http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=120074878 and preceding and following, http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=132492785 and preceding and following]

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Inspiring Little Fear in Senators, Trump Struggles to Sell Health Bill

Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, has resisted President Trump’s efforts to pressure him into supporting the Senate health care bill. He is still angry at his party’s establishment for abandoning his long-shot re-election bid.
JULY 20, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/20/us/trump-republicans-obamacare.html [with comments]

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Infowars Nightly News LIVE - Liberals Fully Triggered Over Trump's Voter Integrity Commission

Published on Jul 20, 2017 by Ron Gibson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmOrDYBURI4 [with comments] [no official (livestream or other) upload (yet) at https://www.youtube.com/user/TheAlexJonesChannel/videos ; title adapted from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGhXXT7fT_U (with comments)]

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Trump Aides, Seeking Leverage, Investigate Mueller’s Investigators

Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel leading the Russia investigation, in Washington in June.
Doug Mills/The New York Times

By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT, MAGGIE HABERMAN and MATT APUZZO
JULY 20, 2017

WASHINGTON — President Trump [ https://www.nytimes.com/news-event/donald-trump-white-house ]’s lawyers and aides are scouring the professional and political backgrounds of investigators hired by the special counsel Robert S. Mueller III [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/robert_s_iii_mueller/index.html ], looking for conflicts of interest they could use to discredit the investigation — or even build a case to fire Mr. Mueller or get some members of his team recused, according to three people with knowledge of the research effort.

The search for potential conflicts is wide-ranging. It includes scrutinizing donations to Democratic candidates, investigators’ past clients and Mr. Mueller’s relationship with James B. Comey, whose firing as F.B.I. director is part of the special counsel’s investigation.

The effort to investigate the investigators is another sign of a looming showdown between Mr. Trump and Mr. Mueller, who has assembled a team of high-powered prosecutors and agents to examine whether any of Mr. Trump’s advisers aided Russia’s campaign to disrupt last year’s presidential election.

Some of the investigators have vast experience prosecuting financial malfeasance, and the prospect that Mr. Mueller’s inquiry could evolve into an expansive examination of Mr. Trump’s financial history has stoked fears among the president’s aides. Both Mr. Trump and his aides have said publicly they are watching closely to ensure Mr. Mueller’s investigation remains narrowly focused on last year’s election.

During an interview with The New York Times [ https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/19/us/politics/trump-interview-sessions-russia.html (in full above)] on Wednesday, Mr. Trump said he was aware that members of Mr. Mueller’s team had potential conflicts of interest and would make the information available “at some point.”

John Dowd in 2011. Mr. Dowd, a veteran Washington defense lawyer, will now take the lead representing President Trump.
Brendan McDermid/Reuters

Mr. Trump also said Mr. Mueller would be going outside his mandate if he begins investigating matters unrelated to Russia, like the president’s personal finances. Mr. Trump repeatedly declined to say what he might do if Mr. Mueller appeared to exceed that mandate. But his comments to The Times represented a clear message to Mr. Mueller.

“The president’s making clear that the special counsel should not move outside the scope of the investigation,” Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a White House spokeswoman, said during a news briefing on Thursday.

Joshua Stueve, a spokesman for the special counsel, declined to comment.

For weeks, Republicans have publicly identified what they see as potential conflicts among Mr. Mueller’s team of more than a dozen investigators. In particular, they have cited thousands of dollars of political donations to Democrats, including former President Barack Obama, made by Andrew Weissmann, a former senior Justice Department official who has expertise in fraud and other financial crimes. News reports have revealed similar donations by other members of Mr. Mueller’s team [ https://www.axios.com/members-of-muellers-investigation-team-donated-to-republicans-democrat-2447091192.html ], which Mr. Trump’s allies have cited as evidence of political bias. Another lawyer Mr. Mueller has hired, Jeannie Rhee [ https://www.wilmerhale.com/pages/publicationsandnewsdetail.aspx?NewsPubId=101082 ], represented the Clinton Foundation.

To seek a recusal, Mr. Trump’s lawyers can argue their case to Mr. Mueller or his boss, Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein. The Justice Department has explicit rules [ https://www.justice.gov/jmd/government-ethics-outline ] about what constitutes a conflict of interest. Prosecutors may not participate in investigations if they have “a personal or political relationship” with the subject of the case. Making campaign donations is not included on the list of things that would create a “political relationship.”

The examination of Mr. Mueller’s investigators reflects deep concerns among the president’s aides that Mr. Mueller will mount a wide-ranging investigation in the mold of the inquiry conducted by the independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr during the 1990s. Mr. Starr’s investigation into President Bill Clinton began by reviewing an Arkansas land deal and concluded several years later with the president’s impeachment over a lie about a sexual affair.

By building files on Mr. Mueller’s team, the Trump administration is following in the footsteps of the Clinton White House, which openly challenged Mr. Starr and criticized what Mr. Clinton’s aides saw as a political witch hunt.

Mr. Trump’s advisers are split on how far to go in challenging the independence of Mr. Mueller, a retired F.B.I. director and one of the most respected figures in law enforcement [ https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/15/us/politics/robert-mueller-special-counsel.html ]. Some advisers have warned that dismissing Mr. Mueller would create a legal and political mess.

Nevertheless, Mr. Trump has kept up the attacks on him. In his interview with The Times, which caught members of his legal team by surprise, he focused on the fact that Mr. Mueller had interviewed to replace Mr. Comey as the F.B.I. director just a day before Mr. Mueller was appointed special prosecutor, saying that the interview could create a conflict.

“He was sitting in that chair,” Mr. Trump said during the Oval Office interview. “He was up here, and he wanted the job.” Mr. Trump did not explain how the interview created a conflict of interest.

In addition to investigating possible collusion between Russia and Mr. Trump’s advisers, the special counsel is examining whether the president obstructed justice [ https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/14/us/politics/mueller-trump-special-counsel-investigation.html ] by firing Mr. Comey. Some of Mr. Trump’s supporters have portrayed Mr. Mueller and Mr. Comey as close friends. While they worked closely together in the Justice Department under President George W. Bush and are known to respect each other, associates of both men say the two are not particularly close.

Mr. Mueller’s team has begun examining financial records, and has requested documents from the Internal Revenue Service related to Mr. Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul J. Manafort, according to a senior American official. The records are from a criminal tax investigation that had been opened long before Mr. Trump’s campaign began. Mr. Manafort was never charged in that case.

Federal investigators have also contacted Deutsche Bank about Mr. Trump’s accounts [ https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/19/business/big-german-bank-key-to-trumps-finances-faces-new-scrutiny.html (in full above)], and the bank is expecting to provide information to Mr. Mueller.

A lawyer for Mr. Trump, Jay Sekulow, declined to address the potential conflicts he and the other lawyers for Mr. Trump have uncovered about Mr. Mueller’s team. He said, however, that “any good lawyer would raise, at the appropriate time and in the appropriate venue, conflict-of-interest issues.”

Mr. Sekulow is one part of a legal team in the midst of being reorganized, according to three people with knowledge of the matter. The role of Marc E. Kasowitz [ https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/11/us/politics/trump-lawyer-marc-kasowitz.html ], the president’s longtime New York lawyer, will be significantly reduced. Mr. Trump liked Mr. Kasowitz’s blunt, aggressive style, but he was not a natural fit in the delicate, politically charged criminal investigation. The veteran Washington defense lawyer John Dowd will take the lead in representing Mr. Trump for the Russia inquiry.

Mr. Sekulow, a firebrand lawyer with deep conservative credentials, will serve as Mr. Dowd’s deputy. Two people briefed on the new structure said it was created because the investigation is much more focused in Washington, where Mr. Dowd has a long history of dealing with the Justice Department.

Mark Corallo is no longer working as a spokesman for the legal team. A former Justice Department spokesman, Mr. Corallo was one of several people cautioning against publicly criticizing Mr. Mueller.

The shake-up comes weeks after Mr. Dowd and Mr. Kasowitz had a face-to-face meeting with Mr. Mueller. The lawyers said they hoped Mr. Mueller would conduct a thorough investigation but asked that he wrap it up in a timely manner because of the cloud it had cast over the presidency, according to a senior American official and two others briefed on details of the meeting. Mr. Dowd said Mr. Trump would fully cooperate with Mr. Mueller, one of the people said.

It is not unusual for lawyers to meet with prosecutors to establish a line of communication, or to encourage them to move quickly. Mr. Trump’s situation is unique, though, because of his team’s public threats that they could fire Mr. Mueller at any time.

Jo Becker contributed reporting from New York, and Rebecca R. Ruiz and Adam Goldman from Washington.

Related Coverage:

President Trump’s Contempt for the Rule of Law
Editorial
JULY 20, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/20/opinion/donald-trump-sessions-interview-law.html

Everything You Need to Understand About Trump and Russia
JULY 20, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/20/opinion/trump-sessions-russia-investigation.html

Citing Recusal, Trump Says He Wouldn’t Have Hired Sessions
JULY 19, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/19/us/politics/trump-interview-sessions-russia.html

Excerpts From The Times’s Interview With Trump
JULY 19, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/19/us/politics/trump-interview-transcript.html

Friend Says Trump Is Considering Firing Mueller as Special Counsel
JUNE 12, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/12/us/politics/robert-mueller-trump.html

Robert Mueller, Former F.B.I. Director, Is Named Special Counsel for Russia Investigation
MAY 17, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/17/us/politics/robert-mueller-special-counsel-russia-investigation.html

© 2017 The New York Times Company

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/20/us/politics/donald-trump-robert-mueller-russia-investigation.html [with (approaching 3,000) comments]

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Trump team seeks to control, block Mueller’s Russia investigation

By Carol D. Leonnig, Ashley Parker, Rosalind S. Helderman and Tom Hamburger
July 20, 2017 Updated July 21, 2017

Some of President Trump’s lawyers are exploring ways to limit or undercut special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s Russia investigation, building a case against what they allege are his conflicts of interest and discussing the president’s authority to grant pardons, according to people familiar with the effort.

Trump has asked his advisers about his power to pardon aides, family members and even himself in connection with the probe, according to one of those people. A second person said Trump’s lawyers have been discussing the president’s pardoning powers among themselves.

One adviser said the president has simply expressed a curiosity in understanding the reach of his pardoning authority, as well as the limits of Mueller’s investigation.

“This is not in the context of, ‘I can’t wait to pardon myself,’" a close adviser said.

With the Russia investigation continuing to widen, Trump’s lawyers are working to corral the probe and question the propriety of the special counsel’s work. They are actively compiling a list of Mueller’s alleged potential conflicts of interest, which they say could serve as a way to stymie his work, according to several of Trump’s legal advisers.

A conflict of interest is one of the possible grounds that can be cited by an attorney general to remove a special counsel from office under Justice Department regulations that set rules for the job.

Responding to this story on Friday after it was published late Thursday, one of Trump’s attorneys, John Dowd, said it was “not true” and “nonsense.”

“The president’s lawyers are cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller on behalf of the president,” he said.

Other advisers said the president is also irritated by the notion that Mueller’s probe could reach into his and his family’s finances.

Trump has been fuming about the probe in recent weeks as he has been informed about the legal questions that he and his family could face. His primary frustration centers on why allegations that his campaign coordinated with Russia should spread into scrutinizing many years of Trump dealmaking. He has told aides he was especially disturbed after learning Mueller would be able to access several years of his tax returns.

Trump has repeatedly refused to make his tax returns public after first claiming he could not do so because he was under audit or after promising to release them after an IRS audit was completed. All presidents since Jimmy Carter have released their tax returns.

“If you’re looking at Russian collusion, the president’s tax returns would be outside that investigation,” said a close adviser to the president.

Further adding to the challenges facing Trump’s outside lawyers, the team’s spokesman, Mark Corallo, resigned on Thursday. Corallo confirmed Friday that he has resigned but declined to comment further.

Corallo’s departure is part of a larger restructuring of Trump’s team undertaken in recent days. Marc Kasowitz, Trump’s New York-based personal attorney who had been leading the effort, will take a reduced role, people familiar with the team said. Meanwhile, veteran Washington lawyer Dowd, hired last month, will take the lead in responding to the special counsel and congressional inquiries. Jay Sekulow, a lawyer who has been a familiar face in conservative media in recent years, will serve as the group’s public face, appearing frequently on television.

Sekulow said in an interview Thursday that the president and his legal team are intent on making sure Mueller stays within the boundaries of his assignment as special counsel. He said they will complain directly to Mueller if necessary.

“The fact is that the president is concerned about conflicts that exist within the special counsel’s office and any changes in the scope of the investigation,” Sekulow said. “The scope is going to have to stay within his mandate. If there’s drifting, we’re going to object.”

Sekulow cited Bloomberg News reports that Mueller is scrutinizing some of Trump’s business dealings, including with a Russian oligarch who purchased a Palm Beach mansion from Trump for $95 million in 2008.

“They’re talking about real estate transactions in Palm Beach several years ago,” Sekulow said. “In our view, this is far outside the scope of a legitimate investigation.”

The president has long called the FBI investigation into his campaign’s possible coordination with the Russians a “witch hunt.” But now, Trump is coming face-to-face with a powerful investigative team that is able to study evidence of any crime it encounters in the probe — including tax fraud, lying to federal agents and interference in the investigation.

“This is Ken Starr times 1,000,” said one lawyer involved in the case, referring to the independent counsel who oversaw an investigation that eventually led to House impeachment proceedings against President Bill Clinton. “Of course, it’s going to go into his finances.”

Following Trump’s decision to fire FBI Director James B. Comey — in part because of his displeasure with the FBI’s Russia investigation — Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein appointed Mueller as special counsel in a written order. That order gave Mueller broad authority to investigate links between the Russian government and the Trump campaign, as well as “any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation” and any crimes committed in response to the investigation, such as perjury or obstruction of justice.

Mueller’s probe has already expanded to include an examination of whether Trump obstructed justice in his dealings with Comey, as well as the business activities of Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law.

Trump’s team could potentially challenge whether a broad probe of Trump’s finances prior to his candidacy could be considered a matter that arose “directly” from an inquiry into possible collusion with a foreign government.

The president’s legal representatives have also identified what they allege are several conflicts of interest facing Mueller, such as donations to Democrats by some of his prosecutors.

Another potential conflict claim is an allegation that Mueller and Trump National Golf Club in Northern Virginia had a dispute over membership fees when Mueller resigned as a member in 2011, two White House advisers said. A spokesman for Mueller said there was no dispute when Mueller, who was FBI director at the time, left the club.

Trump also took public aim on Wednesday at Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Rosenstein, whose actions led to Mueller’s appointment. In an interview with the New York Times Wednesday, the president said he never would have nominated Sessions if he knew he was going to recuse himself from the case.

Some Republicans in frequent touch with the White House said they viewed the president’s decision to publicly air his disappointment with Sessions as a warning sign that the attorney general’s days were numbered. Several senior aides were described as “stunned” when Sessions announced Thursday morning he would stay on at the Justice Department.

Another Republican in touch with the administration described the public steps as part of a broader effort aimed at “laying the groundwork to fire” Mueller.

“Who attacks their entire Justice Department?” this person said. “It’s insane.”

Law enforcement officials described Sessions as increasingly distant from the White House and the FBI because of the strains of the Russia investigation.

Traditionally, Justice Department leaders have sought to maintain a certain degree of autonomy from the White House as a means of ensuring prosecutorial independence.

But Sessions’s situation is more unusual, law enforcement officials said, because he has angered the president for apparently being too independent while also angering many at the FBI for his role in the president’s firing of Comey.

As a result, there is far less communication among those three key parts of the government than in years past, several officials said.

Currently, the discussions of pardoning authority by Trump’s legal team are purely theoretical, according to two people familiar with the ongoing conversations. But if Trump pardoned himself in the face of the ongoing Mueller investigation, it would set off a legal and political firestorm, first around the question of whether a president can use the constitutional pardon power in that way.

“This is a fiercely debated but unresolved legal question,” said Brian C. Kalt, a constitutional law expert at Michigan State University who has written extensively on the question.

The power to pardon is granted to the president in Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution, which gives the commander in chief the power to “grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.” That means pardon authority extends to federal criminal prosecution but not to state level or impeachment inquiries.

No president has sought to pardon himself, so no courts have reviewed it. Although Kalt says the weight of the law argues against a president pardoning himself, he says the question is open and predicts such an action would move through the courts all the way to the Supreme Court.

“There is no predicting what would happen,” said Kalt, author of the book, “Constitutional Cliffhangers: A Legal Guide for Presidents and Their Enemies.” It includes chapters on the ongoing debate over whether presidents can be prosecuted while in office and on whether a president can issue a pardon to himself.

Other White House advisers have tried to temper Trump, urging him to simply cooperate with the probe and stay silent on his feelings about the investigation.

On Monday, lawyer Ty Cobb, newly brought into the White House to handle responses to the Russian probe, convened a meeting with the president and his team of lawyers, according to two people briefed on the meeting. Cobb, who is not yet on the White House payroll, was described as attempting to instill some discipline in how the White House handles queries about the case. But Trump surprised many of his aides by speaking at length about the probe to the New York Times two days later. Cobb, who officially joins the White House team at the end of the month, declined to comment for this article.

Some note that the Constitution does not explicitly prohibit a president from pardoning himself. On the other side, experts say that by definition a pardon is something you can only give to someone else. There is also a common-law canon that prohibits individuals from serving as a judge in their own case. “For example, we would not allow a judge to preside over his or her own trial,” Kalt said.

A president can pardon an individual at any point, including before the person is charged with a crime, and the scope of a presidential pardon can be very broad. President Gerald Ford pardoned former president Richard M. Nixon preemptively for offenses he “committed or may have committed” while in office.

Devlin Barrett and Sari Horwitz contributed to this report.

Read more:

Analysis: Asking about a pardon for himself is a quintessentially Trumpian move
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2017/07/21/daily-202-asking-about-a-pardon-for-himself-is-a-quintessentially-trumpian-move/59714fcd30fb0436795431ec/

Sessions learns loyalty can be a one-way street with Trump
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/sessions-learns-loyalty-can-be-a-one-way-street-with-trump/2017/07/20/4cafacc8-6d97-11e7-b9e2-2056e768a7e5_story.html

© 2017 The Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-lawyers-seek-to-undercut-muellers-russia-investigation/2017/07/20/232ebf2c-6d71-11e7-b9e2-2056e768a7e5_story.html [with embedded videos, and (over 14,000) comments]

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No, Trump can’t pardon himself. The Constitution tells us so.

President Trump looks at the press during a demonstration of a pharmaceutical glass packaging initiative on July, 20, 2017 in Washington, DC.
By Laurence H. Tribe, Richard Painter and Norman Eisen
July 21, 2017
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/no-trump-cant-pardon-himself-the-constitution-tells-us-so/2017/07/21/f3445d74-6e49-11e7-b9e2-2056e768a7e5_story.html [with embedded video, and comments]

Trump's Pardoning Himself Would Trash Constitution
A king might be above the law, but the president is not. This isn't even worth debating.

Put that pen down.
by Noah Feldman
July 21, 2017
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-07-21/trump-s-pardoning-himself-would-trash-constitution [with comments]

--

Trump to Muller: My personal finances are a ‘red line’

All In with Chris Hayes
7/20/17

The president doesn't want Robert Mueller to cross a 'red line' and look at his finances. Good luck with that. Duration: 6:14

©2017 NBCNews.com

http://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/trump-to-muller-my-personal-finances-are-a-red-line-1005078083762

*

Mar-a-lago hires foreign workers during Made in America Week

All In with Chris Hayes
7/20/17

Thing 1/Thing 2: In the middle of the White House’s “Made in America Week,” Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club applied to hire 70 foreign workers for the upcoming fall season. Duration: 2:11

©2017 NBCNews.com

http://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/mar-a-lago-hires-foreign-workers-during-made-in-america-week-1005079619600

*

6 months in, Trump no longer thinks governing is so easy

All In with Chris Hayes
7/20/17

Donald Trump often spoke on the campaign trail about how easy governing would be. These days, his tune is changing. Duration: 6:32

©2017 NBCNews.com

http://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/6-months-in-trump-no-longer-thinks-governing-is-so-easy-1005080643671

--

If Trump wants to fire Mueller, he'll have to fire Sessions first

The Rachel Maddow Show
7/20/17

Rachel Maddow looks at some of the background of former Donald Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort that is being looked at in the Trump Russia investigation and notes that if Trump is afraid the investigation is getting to close, he'll have to fire Jeff Sessions before he can fire Robert Mueller. Duration: 23:13

©2017 NBCNews.com

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/if-trump-wants-to-fire-mueller-he-ll-have-to-fire-sessions-first-1005157955822

*

WaPo: Trump seeks advice on pardoning himself, family members

The Rachel Maddow Show
7/20/17

Ashley Parker, reporter for The Washington Post, talks with Rachel Maddow about new reporting that Donald Trump is trying to undercut Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation and is asking advisers about pardoning himself, aides and family members. Duration: 10:30

©2017 NBCNews.com

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/wapo-trump-seeks-advice-on-pardoning-himself-family-members-1005099587908 , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Hc7TORErvI [with comments]

*

Donald Trump threatens to turn back clock on FBI ethics

The Rachel Maddow Show
7/20/17

Michael Beschloss, NBC News presidential historian, talks with Rachel Maddow about the unprecedented nature of Donald Trump's queries about pardon power and his "blood-chilling" intentions toward the FBI that would undo decades of ethical standards and independence. Duration: 7:09

©2017 NBCNews.com

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/donald-trump-threatens-to-turn-back-clock-on-fbi-ethics-1005180483819

*

Trump business, finances part of Mueller Russia investigation

The Rachel Maddow Show
7/20/17

Greg Farrell, investigative reporter for Bloomberg News, talks with Rachel Maddow about Special Counsel Robert Mueller including Donald Trump's personal business and finances as part of the Trump Russia investigation. Duration: 5:43

©2017 NBCNews.com

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/trump-business-finances-part-of-mueller-russia-investigation-1005162563991

--

Trump asks about pardons, actively tries to undercut Russia probe

The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell
7/20/17

The Washington Post reports Donald Trump is asking about his ability to pardon aides, family members, and himself, and that his lawyers are looking for ways to limit Special Counsel Mueller's investigation. Post reporter Rosalind Helderman joins Lawrence O'Donnell. Duration: 7:52

©2017 NBCNews.com

http://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/watch/trump-asks-about-pardons-actively-tries-to-undercut-russia-probe-1005172803650 , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKaVdv8Cd4s [with comments]

*

Is the Republican party totally beholden to Donald Trump?

The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell
7/20/17

Conservative columnist George F. Will talks to Lawrence O'Donnell about whether Republicans are ready to choose institutional loyalty over loyalty to Donald Trump in the wake of the bombshell... Duration: 7:51

©2017 NBCNews.com

http://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/watch/is-the-republican-party-totally-beholden-to-donald-trump-1005187651606

--

President Trump Raises Questions of Pardons

The 11th Hour with Brian Williams
7/20/17

Amid breaking news from the Washington Post and New York Times, the 11th Hour panel weighs in on the Trump White House plan to undercut special counsel Robert Mueller. Duration: 12:53

©2017 NBCNews.com

http://www.msnbc.com/brian-williams/watch/president-trump-raises-questions-of-pardons-1005213763999

*

It’s been 48 years since the moon landing, will there be another?

The 11th Hour with Brian Williams
7/20/17

The 48th Year Anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing on the moon begs the question: when will another human set foot on the brightest object in the night sky? Duration: 1:46

©2017 NBCNews.com

http://www.msnbc.com/brian-williams/watch/it-s-been-48-years-since-the-moon-landing-will-there-be-another-1005212739804

--

Exclusive - Little Donny’s Toy Collection: The Daily Show

Published on Jul 20, 2017 by The Daily Show with Trevor Noah

President Trump spends "Made in America" week soaking in all the attention he can get.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AUYWv5DF7A [with comments]

*

President Trump Casually Makes Another Damning Admission: The Daily Show

Published on Jul 20, 2017 by The Daily Show with Trevor Noah

In a New York Times interview, President Trump claims he wouldn't have picked Jeff Sessions as attorney general if he knew he would've recused himself from the Russia probe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hjec21YF6JM [with comments]

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Between the Scenes - Donald Trump, the First Black President? : The Daily Show - Uncensored

Published on Jul 20, 2017 by The Daily Show with Trevor Noah

Trevor breaks down how Donald Trump's behavior embodies the jokes people made about a hypothetical black president.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uACDL22q_mM [with comments]

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Made in America - The President Show - Comedy Central

Published on Jul 20, 2017 by Comedy Central [ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUsN5ZwHx2kILm84-jPDeXw / https://www.youtube.com/user/comedycentral , https://www.youtube.com/user/comedycentral/videos , https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLD7nPL1U-R5o-p0I_6RGUR2MZus6O8cpX ]

The president celebrates America's hardest workers and explains why Congress can't repeal Obamacare.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2jrAVjO5ow [with comments]

*

The Don - The President Show - Comedy Central

Published on Jul 21, 2017 by Comedy Central

The president sits down with former mobsters to get in touch with his gangster side.

[originally aired July 20, 2017]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPi-xZCvP2A [with comments]

*

The President Smashes Everything - The President Show | Comedy Central

Published on Jul 21, 2017 by Comedy Central UK [ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsv4YOF2RBYh0NQ1vuHQ-hg / https://www.youtube.com/user/ComedyCentralUK , https://www.youtube.com/user/ComedyCentralUK/videos , https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLHHcQWkLnprae1qqhBpoGTKruZkmixuY ]

[originally aired (U.S.) July 20, 2017]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkTmtPW-rro [with comments]

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Stephen Broke Some Rules In 'The Russian White House'

Published on Jul 21, 2017 by The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

Telling Stephen Colbert 'nyet' to do something makes him want to do it more.

[originally aired July 20, 2017]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAiwF5lb-oc [with comments]

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Donald Trump Had No Filter In His New York Times Interview

Published on Jul 21, 2017 by The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

Trump's off-the-wall interview with the 'failing' New York Times didn't 'fail' to disappoint Stephen.

[originally aired July 20, 2017]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Outf5grkOUc [with comments]

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Trump Wants An Attorney General Who Can Time Travel

Published on Jul 21, 2017 by The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

The President wishes Attorney General Jeff Sessions would have revealed ahead of time his intentions to recuse himself from the Russian probe... even though it hadn't happened yet.

[originally aired July 20, 2017]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYTw_R3UxZk [with comments]

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Stephen Rents The 'Trump Pee Pee Tape' Hotel Room For A Night

Published on Jul 21, 2017 by The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

The impetus of Stephen's quest to Russia was the infamous Room 1101, the presidential suite in which Donald Trump was allegedly recorded, let's say, making history.

[originally aired July 20, 2017]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lk1uBMZOaXc [with (approaching 4,000) comments]

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Trump Turns on Sessions Amid Russia Probe: A Closer Look

Published on Jul 20, 2017 by Late Night with Seth Meyers

Seth takes a closer look at President Trump's New York Times interview, in which he lashes out at his own attorney general and threatens the special counsel investigating him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXByTyrO-b4 [with comments]

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"Day 182" Trump's Russian Laundromat, Did the Mob Help Build his Golden Empire ?

Greensburg, KS - 5/4/07

"Eternal vigilance is the price of Liberty."
from John Philpot Curran, Speech
upon the Right of Election, 1790

F6

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